Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — MISS RUMY'S VACATION. [ARTICLE]

MISS RUMY'S VACATION.

BY SOPHIE SWETT.

A square of sunshine lay unheeded on Miss Ruhamah Battle’s new sitting room carpet, and two flies buzzed unmolested about her green paper curtains. Miss Ruhamah sat darning stockings inher old-fashioned rocking-chair and rocked uneasily as she darned. An odor of burning from the kitchen grew very pungent before it reached her usually vigilant nostrils. When at last she dropped the stocking she was darning and hurried to the stove, her nearest neighbor, Mrs. Priscilla Peet, met her at the kitchen door, “Good land, Rumy! I says to M’ria, ‘lt can’t be,’ says I. ‘l’ve lived near neighbor to Rumy Battles for most thirty years, and I never smelled anything burnin’ in her kitchen.’ You must have something more’n common on your mind.” “If I hadn’t I shouldn't never have baked that pie,” said Miss Rumy as in a kind of patient dismay, she drew a blackened mass from her stove oven. “I don’t set much by pastry. It comes so odd to do for one that I don’t know what to do. Miss Rumy was a large woman and slow of motion. Mrs. Peet, who was angular and wiry, watched her as she moved heavily about, taking thrifty care of all that remained of her pie. “It must be a real relief to have nobody but yourself to do for,” she said. “I tell you what it is, Rumy, you’re all wore out. If I was you I’d go off somewheres and take a good long vacation. It’s time you had a chance to be like other folks.” * The Jwo women had moved into the sitting room by this time; and Mrs. Peet, in neighborly fashion, took up the stocking Miss Rumy had dropped, and went energetically to work upon it. Miss Rumy looked about for it vaguely, and then folded her hands in her large lap with a helpless gesture, and the heavy folds of her chin quivered. “Why, Rumy, you fteall wore out!” said Mrs. Peet, sympathetically. “You ain’t had anything new to upset you?” “ Nothin’ but what you was talkin’ about. I’ve got to have a vacation! The doctor he’s been sayin’ so ever since I had the influenzy in the spring and Nahum’s folks they’re set upon it; but I’m sure I don’t see how I can manage it. It’s a dreadful upsettin’ idea.” “Land sakes, Rumy Battles, you can go jest as well as not! I should like to know what’s to bender you, with no men folks, nor hayin’ nor anything on your mind, now Nahum’s got the farm; and you’ve earnt a vacation if ever anybody did.” “Josiah’s folks up to Hebron have always been wantin’ me to come,” said Miss Rumy; “but seems as if ’twas a good ways, and my second crop of peas is cornin’ on, and the fastenin’ is broke on the buttery window, and my hens ” “Now, Rumy, if you begin to reckon up hindrances like that, you’ll never go. I know jest how ’tis . with some folks; and some can go off and leave everything at sixes and sevens, and never think anything about it. There was Emerette Smalledge, that kept school here when we was young. Do you remember how she went off to England in a sailin’ vessel that some of her relations was captain of, and never waited to close her school?”

“Emerette never did seem to have a realizin’ sense,” said Miss Rumy. “Why, I never thought, Rumy, that she was the one”— “I don’ know as it makes any dif’runce that she was the one that Anther Merpidew married,” said Miss Rumy, with a faint glow upon her soft and seamy old cheeks. “Rumy Battles, Lizy Ann and I was talkin’ yesterday, and we both of us Said we never see anybody that had done so much and give up so much for other folks as you have!” Mrs. Peet spoke impulsively, and held her needle suspended above her stocking in an impressive pause. “Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Rumy, smoothing out imaginary folds in her purple calico lap. “ ’Tisn’t that I think it’s such great things to get married, goodness knows 1 But when a girl has a good chance, and has been keepin’ comp’ny for a long time, it does seem hard to give it up for the sake of takin’ care of the old folks. And then your sister M’randy gettin’ bedrid. I ain’t sayin’ she could help it; but we all know that some gets bedrid’ easier’n others; and your havin’ to bring up her children, and then their oiearin’ right out and lookin’ out for nobody but themselves when times was the hardest with you.” “They’re all real Well provided for, and that’s a comfort,” said Miss '•Some folks always is,” said Mrs. Peet, crisply. “M’randy, she was one

of that kind. Now, Rumy, amongst neighbors, I be goin’ to say—that, up or abed, M’randy was a real trial.” “I’m dretful lost without her,” said Miss Rumy, wiping a moisture from the wrinkled corner of her eye. “And then Nahum bringin’ his folks right on to you when he got all run out and had a slack wife and, then gettin’ the farm away from you, Lizy Ann says when we was talkin’ yesterday, says she, ‘we’ve all fit and struggled, but there ain’t none of us that’s been such a slave to other folks as Rumy Battles; and it does seem real good that she’s got to a breathin’ place at last, with nobody to do for but herself, and enough to live on with what little preservin’ and buttonhole makin’ she likes to do.’ And says Lizy Ann, says she, ‘I shouldn’t wonder a mite if she was better off now than she would ’a’ been if she’d got married; for Luther Merridew was one of them that flares out.’ (I know it don’t hurt your feelin’s to have me say it, Rumy, now that we’re all of us along in years, and have got a realizin’ sense of what men folks are.) Of course Luther wa’n’t to blame for havin’ a sunstroke, so’st he had to give up studyin’ to be a minister, nor for havin’ school keepin’ disagree with him, nor for gettin’ burnt out when he tried to keep store; but that kind of men that can’t seem to bring anything to pass am dretful wearin’ to their women folks. If he’d had a real smart wife like you, Rumy, things might have been diff’runt—beats all how queer things turns out! Well, if Emerette Smalledge hain’t wished her cake was dough before this time, I’ll miss my guess! You never heard anything of ’em after they moved out West, did you, Rumy?” “No,” said Miss Rumy, “except a year or two after they went I heard they were kind of movin’ 'round.” “Well, now, Rumy, you’d ought to feel how well off you be at last. And if I was you I’d go right off and take my vacation. I’d lock up and not come home till I was a mind to, Seems queer that you should feel as if you couldn’t, now that your hands ain’t full for the first time in your life.”

"I wish I was real reckless like some,” said Miss Rumy. “Seems as if I must be here to look after things; and there’s dreadful things happenin' on railroads, all the time, and thefre’s nothin' like your own victuals and your own bed, come night. But I ain’t one to flinch when duty calls. The doctor says I’d ought to go, and I’m goin’. I ain’t been through so many tryin' things to give out now.” “Beats all how you feel about it,” said Mrs. Peet. “Now if I had your chance! And I’m one that’s real care-takin’, too.” “We ain’t all got the same gifts, Priscilla,’’ said M[ss Rumy, with a little touch of dignity. Mrs. Peet hastened to make neighborly offers of care of the second crop of peas, the hens, the canary bird, and to give practical advice about the buttery window. “I haven’t written to Josiah's folks. I thought I’d like to take ’em by surprise, and, besides, you can’t never tell what may happen. I calc’late to start next Monday. Seems as if ’twas a good time, because you can get all ready Saturday and have the Sabbath to kind of compose your mind.” But Monday came and poor Miss Rumy had not composed her mind. She was in such a state of perturbation that she packed and unpacked her great, old fashioned carpetbag a dozen times—not even her grim determination and sense of duty could fortify Miss Rumy to the extent of taking a trunk, and three times after everything was settled she went over to Priscilla Peet’s to give her more minute instructions about the care of the hens, and the vigilance necessary to guard them from marauding skunks.

And, after all, she was ready, with her castle well defended, an hour before stage time. It seemed to Miss Rumy that in all her anxious, toilsome life she had never known so long an hour as that. The stage left her at the Carmel Station. It was a hundred miles to Hebron, and there were two changes upon the way. For a while the perils of the journey absorbed - all Miss Rnmy’s thoughts; but by the time she reached Cherryfield Junction, where the first change of cars was to be made, her anxious mind had returned to the dangers that had threatened her deserted dwelling, and she longed wearily for a cup of her own tea. There was another woman waiting in the station at Cherryfield Junction. She was “ very much of a lady,” Miss Rumy said to herself, regarding with a little doubt her own attire, which had been chosen for durability and made after a fashion that would last. In the sewing circle at home she had been earnestly advised not to make acquaintances on her journey; but she was nevertheless very glad when the lady spoke to her, beginning with a comment upon the weather and the unpleasantness of traveling alone, and she was sorry to hear that they were not to travel in the same direction. Miss Rumy’s overcharged heart was longing for sympathy. There vras an hour and a half to wait, and Miss Rumy invited her companion to share the substantial lunch which, with much thought and advice from her friends, she had provided. Under the influence of the luncheon, and of some tea which they procured from the station restaurant, the stranger, who had been somewhat reserved, grew confidential. She had not been in this part of the country for years; she was going to Corinna to visit relatives, and she hoped they would remember her. “Land sakes! Why Corinna joins Carmel where Hive,” exclaimed Miss Rumy, conscious of a pleasing bond. “Then perhaps you know Cap’n Bijah Lord’s folks?” There was a quiver of anxiety in the woman's voice; and as she suddenly threw up her little dotted and frilled veil her eyes looked, as Miss Rumy afterward said, like “a hunted cretur’s.” “Land, I guess I did. But Cap’n Bijah, he died a consid’able spell ago, and his wife, she was took blind and went off to Vermont to live With her nephew. The boys, they followed the sea, and Laban settled way

off in New Zealand, and nobody ever knew what become of Timothy.” “They’re all gone?” faltered the woman. “I’d ought to have found out before I come clear on here.” Now that her veil was raised, Miss Rumy could gee that her face was wrinkled and worn, and its bloom, which had impressed Miss Rumy as very beautiful, was too evidently artificial to deceive even her guileless eyes. Her black silk was worn almost threadbare, and all her little careful fripperies of lace and jewelry were cheap. “Ambrose Richey’s folks, they ain’t all gone? Ambrose is my cousin, and I expect they think hard of it that I ain’t been to see ’em before.” There was keen anxiety in the stranger’s voice, although she tried to speak easily. “Well Ambrose, he kind of took te drink,” said Miss Rumy, trying to express herself delicately, in the matter of her new friend’s relatives. “And Mary Olive has had a terrible hard time to keep her seven children off from the town; and this summer her mother’s there a-dyin’ with a cancer. They ain’t what you could call in real good trim for company.” The woman’s face changed color so that the pink and white powder looked like a mask upon it. “I guess they’ll be glad to see me —or somebody will,” she said, rallying with a forced laugh. “I used to visit in Corinna considerable when I was a girl, and I kept school in the North Carmel district.” “You don’t say!” exclaimed Miss Rumy, in a flutter of excitement. “I’ve been a-thinkin’ all along that you kind of favored somebody—you ain’t she that was Emerette Smalledge?” “Why yes, I am! But you’ve got the advantage of me. You see I’ve been about considerable, and seen a good many people,” returned the other, reassuming the fine lady air which had been gradually slipping from her. “I’m Rumy Battles,” said Miss Rumy, flushing all over her gentle old face. “Well, it seems queer that I didn’t remember you—you look so natural now,” exclaimed her friend. “Luther, he always spoke of you.” She raised her lace-trimmed handkerchief to her eyes. ‘ ‘He passed away seven years ago. Luther wasn’t so highspirited as I am; but he always made a real good appearance. I've been livin’ with my son; but he married beneath him, and his wife ain’t one that I can get along with. I ain’t been well since last winter; this cough hangs on to me”—a rasping cough interrupted her at intervals —“and I felt as if Maud was wearin’ on me, so I’d better go a-vis-itin’ for a spell. There was—was considerable many mouths to feed, too;” she looked piteously into Miss Rumy’s face; “and Luther didn’t leave me real well off.”

“I Wifib’t 'Was So I wa’n’t goin’ on a vacation,” said Miss Rumy. “I should be real pleased to have you come and make me a good long visit.” “I was ’lottin’ on makin’ you a visit,” said her friend. “Seems real unfortunate that I’ve come so far; and I don’t know as I’ve got money enough—with me ” “It’s what I’d ought to do to take you right home with me!” cried Miss Rumy, joyfully; and there arose before her eyes a serene and lovely vision of her own cup of tea and her own bed. “Now, don’t you feel a mite bad about my losin’ my vacation, because I don’t. Come to think of it, I couldn’t go on, anyhow, because I’ve forgot the pleurisy pills that I made for Josiah; nobody can make ’em but me; and Josiah’s wife wrote that he was needin’ ’em. I can send ’em right along. There’s more’n an hour now before the train goes back”— consulting the time table on the wall —“and we’ll take a walk over to the cemetery there”—pointing across the railroad track and a stubbly field to where some white stones gleamed through the trees. “Lyman Peter’s folks that used to live at Carmel moved over here, and I shouldn’t wonder if some of ’em was buried there. Anyway, it’s always real pleasant to walk in the graveyard.” They spent an hour delightfully, finding the graves of Lyman Peters and his first wife, and speculating upon the probable fortunes of his second wife, and in reminiscences of other mutual acquaintances of their youth. As they settled themselves in the train Miss Rumy said that she “had had a beautiful vacation.” She repeated that sentiment to Priscilla Peet when that good woman’s astonishment had sufficiently subsided to allow her to listen. Miss Rumy had established her visitor in her cool and dainty spare chamber, where she was speedily resuming all the airs and graces which had struck Miss Rumy on their first meeting. “You do beat all, Rumy Battles!” was Mr. Peet’s breathless exclamation. ‘She’s got old-fashioned con--sumption, and you’ve got her to do for as long as she lives! You’ll toil and slave for her jest as you did for all the rest!” “Well, I don’ know,” said Miss Rumy, vaguely. But as she bustled about her cheerful house her face was full of serene joy.—[The Independent.