Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1883 — PROVIDENTIAL PIGS. [ARTICLE]

PROVIDENTIAL PIGS.

“Oh, missus, missus! Somefin’s done happened. ” Blank horror and dismay were depicted upon the face of my small African, as she stood upon my threshold with upraised hands and eyeballs that seemed starting from their sockets. Her pause was one of preparation, for with the innate consideration of her race she sought to break the news gently to me, but the burden of it was too great for her, and with the next breath she exclaimed: “Dem pigs done chawed up Miss Lyddy’s weddin’ gown!” “Glory,” I exclaimed (she had been Eiously christened Gloriana), “Glory, ow did it happen?” “Dunno!” said Glory. “Pears to me dem pigs has got Satan in ’em. Guess dey’ci ’scended from de ole lot what run down a steep place into the sea. I’ll go an’ fetch ye a piece’” She sped out and instantly returned with a tattered shred of India mull that had once been white, and still bore some resemblance to a gown. Poor Miss Lyddy! This was all that remained of her dream of wedding' splendors. It was too pitiful! I felt at once that the bonds of good neighborhood had been irretrievably broken, and that Maj. Hawthorne must be made aware of this last and worst depredation of his unseemly pigs. But who would break the news to Miss Lyddy? “Glory,” said I; “where is she?” “Gone over to de buryin’ place ob her ancestors, ” answered Glory. Poor, faithful soul; even in those last days of her maidenhood, with the vague terrors of matrimony and the still more appalling responsibility of unsaved heathen souls hanging over her, she did not forget the ancestors. Long lines of Ludkinses lay buried in little sunken hillocks in the family bury-ing-place which lay just in sight of her sitting-room window. She herself was the last her race, and until within three weeks it had seemed that the only fate which her was to live out her little space under the ancestral rooftree, and then take her place in the silent ranks of those who had gone before. But a change had come. It came in the person of a returned missionary from the Micronesian Islands, who had buried the first and second partners of his joys and sorrows somewhere under the palm trees of those tropical lands and had come back to the scenes of his youth to recruit his health, serve his cause, and look up partner No. 3. He met Miss Lyddy at a woman’s missionary meeting. He called the next afternoon and was invited to stay to tea. He accepted the invitation, and next morning Miss Lyddy came into my room—lor I, too, domiciled under the LudJfcins roof-tree,for a consideration —and, with much hesitation and many faint and delicate blushes, informed me that >she had promised to share the future lot of the Rev. Nehemiah Applebloom, ito take care of his six children, and to support him in his arduous labors among the heathen of the Micronesian Islands. I was struck dumb with amazement. “Miss Lyddy,” I said at length, “have you duly considered this project?” Her thin figure quivered, and her white face, that had yet a delicate remembrance of youth in it, grew tender with feeling. “Yes,” she said; “I think I have. I "have always had a presentiment that I should marry a minister or a missionary. ” Admirable and prophetic faith! “And Mr. Applebloom says he knew the moment he set eyes upon me that I was ordained to be his wife; so you see it is not the surprise to either of us that it is likely to be to our friends.” I knew that her mind was fully made up. I demurred no longer, but lent myself at once to discussion of the wedding', which I plainly saw was what Miss Lyddy desired of me. “You will be married in church, I suppose ?” “Oh, no,” said Miss Lyddy, with gentle decision. “I am the last of the Ludkinses. All the Ludkinses have been married at home. I will go out from under my own roof-tree. If I must seem to forsake the ancestors,” she paused to regulate a little choking in her throat, “I will at least not forsake their traditions. I shall leave a little money with the Parish Clerk, that he may see that the graves of my dead are kept in proper order, as I always have loved to keep them; but I shall at least go as a Ludkins should. It is my desire to be married in my grandmother’s wedding gown. ” Miss Lyddy’s voice trembled, and there was a humidity in her eyes, at which I did not wonder, for it was much like a funeral, after all. * “I thought, perhaps,” went on Miss Lyddy, “if I brought the venerated relic to you, you would tell me if anything were necessary to be done to fit it to me. I don’t care for the fashions, you know, and my grandmother, as I remember her, was about my height, but still, you know —something—some changes might be advisable. ”

“Certainly,” I said, “do bring it to me. I should so like to see it" “It is sprigged India (she called it Ingy) mull. My grandfather, Capt. Himon Ludkins, brought it home from over the seas. I’ll bring it. ” Like some pale and gentle ghost she rose then and went to the bureau drawer and unrolled from rolls of linen that smelt of lavender, the frail relic of Mrs. Capt. Simon Ludkins’ wedding state. It was fine embroidered mull, the undoubted product of Indian looms. “It’s lovely,” I said, “and so well kept that it will be just the thing for you. Will you try it on? , We can tell then just what it needs. ” Miss Liddy proceeded to disrobe herself and put on the spider-net gown. As she did so the changes in fashion’s mandates became only too evident. It had no waist to speak of, and just a little lace-trimmed puff for sleeves. Miss Liddy was evidently surprised. She had not thought of this. I knew well what the troubled took upon her face meant, and I pitied her maiden sensibilities. Could it be possible that her grandmother, Mrs. Capt. Simon Ludkins, had ever worn such a gown as this ? She said not a word that could indicate the depth of her mortification, but her face was a study for an artist, “There must be sleeves,” she murmured, after a few moments of silent and embarrassed contemplation. “Yes,” I replied, cheerfully as my constrained gravity would allow. “And you might have a fichu and a flounce on the bottom. ” She looked down. She had not before realized that the skirt of the venerated relic lacked a full quarter of a yard of touching the floor. “However could they!” she ejaculated in an undertone. But she quickly recovered herself, and looked up to me cheerfully over her spectacles. “How ingenious you are!” she said, with an air of sweet relief. “I knew you would help me out,” We went out together and bought the requisite mull that day, but when we came to put it beside the “venerated relic” of Mrs. Captain Ludkins it was evident that time had so enriched the color of the latter that the two were most unfortunately unlike. “We can lay it out on the grass,” I said; “these June days are just the thing for it, and as it will be evening, nobody wiß in the least notice.” Again Miss Lyddy smiled gratefully, and declared that my suggestion should be carried out.

The Rev. Nehemiah Applebloom—“A lovely name, don’t you think so?” said Miss Lyddy, and she blushed and smiled like a school-girl in her teens—had but a short furlough, and the marriage was to transpire next week, so the relic was put out to bleach forthwith. It had already been put upon the grass three days and nights, and had been religiously watered by Miss Lyddy at morn and noon and dewy eve, and the next day it was to be taken up early and put into the dressmaker’s hands for the necessary alterations, when the dreadful event occurred with which this narrative opens. “Glory,” I said, “do you keep watch for Miss Lyddy when she returns. Say nothing about what has happened unless she misses the gown from the grass. In that case tell her that I thought it was bleached enough and took it up to dry, and you don’t know where I have put* it. I am going out now, but if she asks where, tell her you don’t know. ” Glory was faithful, and had beside the natural craft of her race, and I knew that she could be trusted. As for me, 1 swiftly donned my bonnet and set out to find Maj. Hawthorne. It was a bright June evening, and my walk through the meadow and the grove that skirted Hawthornedean would have been a more delightful one if I had borne a mind more at ease. The Major was a gentleman by birth, but he lived out his fifty bachelor years in a gay and careless way that had seemed to set the gentler part of his creation at defiance in the lifetime of his parents. Hawthornedean had been a beautiful estate. It still retained many marks of wealthy and cultivated ownership, but it was sadly run down, as the home of a bachelor is apt to be. The grove, which had once been the pride of the place, was grown up with brush now, and the sere leaves of many summer’s growth rustled under my feet as I walked through it. At one point, coming suddenly around a thick clump of undergrowth, I heard a chorus of tiny snorts and the scampering of numberless hoofs, and I knew that I had invaded a haunt of the Major’s last agricultural freak, the very brood of Berkshire pigs that were the source of all my borrowed woes. Away they scampered, their snouts well raised in the air, and each with a curl in his tail that seemed too ornamental to be wholly the product of nature and to justify the village rumor that the Major’s own man put those tails in curlpapers every night. They had the air of spoiled children, every one, and were evidently the Major’s pets. But that didn’t matter; they had ruined Miss Lyddy’s wedding-gown, to say nothing of other aggravating exploits which do not belong to this story, and I was determined to have satisfaction out of their owner. I found the Major sitting on his piazza, with an after-dinner look upon his handsome, good-humored face. He rose to greet me with an air of oldschool politeness, dashed with a faint wonder that I, a woman, should have had the hardihood to approach a place so little frequented by women. “Good evening, Miss Grace. lam happy to see you. In what can I have the honor to serve you?” He had read my face, and knew that I had qome on a mission. “Maj. Hawthorne,” I said, paying no attention to his offer of a chair, “I have come on a very painful errand.” “Sit down, madam,” said the Major, politely. “I cannot possibly permit a lady to stand on my piazza. I ought, perhaps, to ask you to walk in, but it is rather stuffy inside this evening.” “No/ I said, “I will sit here, if you please.” To tell the truth, indoors, as seen through the windows, had not the most inviting look, and I was glad to compromise. “You have, no doubt, heard”—

plunging in medias res—“that Miss Lydia Ludkins is about to be married?” “Married! Miss Lydia! No! Hadn’t heard a word of it,” said the Major, in genuine amazement. “Who is the fortunate man, pray?” “The Rev. Nehemiah Applebloom, a missionary to the Micronesian Islands, who has come home to recruit his health and find a wife.” “I know him/ said the Major. “Saw him down at the station—a long, lean, lank individual —just fit for his vocation ; no temptation whatever to cannibals ! But what the deuce is he going to do with Miss Lydia? What will Balaam’s Corners do without her ?” “Balaam’s Corners must do the best it can, ” I said—l fear a little sharply — for my mind was still in a most aggressive state toward the Major. “They are to be married next week, and—” “What will become of the ‘ancestors ?’ ” interpolated the Major, in whom surprise seemed to have gotten the better of habitual politeness. “Oh, she has ’made arrangements with Mr. Crow about that.” “Just like her. Dear, faithful girL” The Major had all his life loved all the sex*—not one —and I was not to be beguiled by this show of feeling. “She had set her heart upon being married in her grandmother’s weddinggown.” “Old Mrs. Capt. Simon? I remember her well. A mighty fine woman. She never would have gone to the ends of the earth with a missionary. It's the craziest scheme I ever heard of. ” I began to fear I should never get to my errand. “It was put out on the grass to bleach, being a little yellow with age. It was a lovely embroidered India muslin that the old Captain brought home from India himself. ” “How well I remember him in my boyhood! A jolly old soul! A granddaughter of his go off to the Cannibal Islands to be eaten up by savages. I won’t have it!” “Her heart is set upon going,” I continued. “The wedding-gown was put out to bleach, and this very afternoon those little Berkshire pigs of yours—they are a nuisance to the whole neighborhood, Major—trampled and rooted it to pieces, so that it is utterly ruined.” “Little black rascals!” said the Major, with a chuckle behind his neckcloth.

“And I have come, without her knowledge, to tell you of it, because I was sure that, under the circumstances, a gentleman of your breeding would feel in honor bound to make some reparation to Miss Lydia.” The Major mused and looked at his boot for a moment in silence. “Miss Grace,” he said, at length, “I thank you for the service you rendered me in this matter. Will you have the goodness to say to Miss Ludkins, with my compliments, that I shall do myself the honor to wait upon her to-morrow at 10 o’clock to adjust this unfortunate matter? I beg, in the meantime, that she will give herself as little solicitude; for, though I cannot restore the ancient and venerated dry goods, I will do the best that is possible under the circumstances to make the. loss good.” . He bowed over my hand, and the audience was evidently concluded. Was I satisfied? No, indeed. What woman would not have felt wronged to be left, at the end of a mission of disinterested benevolence, in such a state of doubt and uncertainty as this? But I was obliged to go home, nevertheless, and wait as patiently as I could for the stroke of 10 next morning. Glory had been in hearing when the message had been delivered to Miss Lyddy, and she, too, was on the watch. At last she scudded in from the hedge, her ivories all a-glisten and her eyes wide open and full of a rather incomprehensible mirth.

“He’s a-comin’,” she said, “and such a sight!” At that minute the gate clicked, and up the walk strode, indeed, a most astonishing figure. The Major had gotten himself up into a continental suit, which he must have fished out of the unknown depths of the ancient .attics of Hawthorndean—black velvet coat, with lace ruffles at the wrist, knee-breeches, white satin waistcoat, slippers with shoe-buckles, powdered wig and cocked hat. He was six feet tall, portly and well formed, and he looked every inch a signer of the Declaration at the very least. He was followed by his colored man, who carried a large brown-paper parcel. “He’s come a-courtin’ missus,” said Gloty; “ye can see it in his face.” I had not the instinct of Glory, and doubted; but what his errand was I was dying to know. But he disappeared into Miss Lydia’s parlor, and I was left outside to temper my impatience as best I could. Presently Glory entered on tiptoe. “Missus, missus,” she whispered, “de do’s swung open jes’ de leas’ crack, an it’s jes’opposite the big mirror; an’ if ye come out here in the hall ye can see it all in the mirror as plain as day, an’ it’s a heap better’n a plav.” It was a temptation, but believe me> dear reader, I resisted it. Only as Glory ran back to her peeping I followed to pull her away, and send her out of doors—that was simply my duty —and there he was, full on his knees before her, and she with that rapt, seraphic look upon her face which no woman ever wears except on the most vitally interesting occasion. But, Glory disposed of, I went back to my sewing, and waited as best I could the conclusion of the momentous interview. The Major came out at length, as smiling as a May morning, leaving the brown paper parcel behind him. It was very still in Miss Lydia’s room for a quarter of an hour, and then she, too, emerged from her retreat Spread over her hands was a gown of cream-colored brocade, embelished with the lovliest roses in full bloom, with blue forget-me-not trailing jtiere and there among them. It had an ample waist, elbow-sleeves, and a train a yard and a half long. “My dear Grace," said she, “the Major has brought, me his mother’s wed-ding-gown to be married in. ” “It is beautiful,” I said; “but who is to be the bridegroom ?” She smiled as angels do, and looked

afar; a delicate flutter of pink hung out in her cheek to deprecate her recre ancy, as she whispered in a tone of gentle but consummate triumph: “The Major himself! Didn’t he look grand in his knee-breeches ?” “And Mr. Applebloom?” “Maj. Hawthorne will ' adjust that matter.” . “That matter, indeed?” She spoke as though it were already as remote from her as the pyramids. “I congratulate you, Miss Lydia,” I said, growing formal, for she had behaved shamefully. “Don’t blame" me,” she murmured. “Maj. Hawthorne declares he has loved me since I was a child, but never thought himself worthy of me, the gay deceiver; and Mr. Applelxxjm, you know, is only the acquaintance of a day." I wanted to ask her how she had disposed of her presentment, but I did not dare. Maj. Hawthorne subscribed SSO to the Micronesian mission, and sent Mr. Appleboom elsewhere to look for a wife, and the verdict of Balaam’s Corners was that he had done the handsome thing. “’Fore goodness!” said Glory, “es dare weren’t a clar relation between dem pigs an’ Providence, den I don’t know nothin’.” Miss Lydia took the same pious view of the matter, and made the Major the most dainty and dignified of wives.