By RUTH McENERY STUART
Ezra Slimm was a widower of nearly a year, and, as a consequence, was in a state of mind not unusual in like circumstances.
True, the said state of mind had not in his case manifested itself in the toilet bloomings, friskiness of demeanor, and protestations of youth renewed which had characterized the first signs of the same in the usual run of Simpkinsville widowers up to date. If he had for several months been mentally casting about for another wife, he had betrayed it by no outward and visible sign. The fact is Ezra’s case was somewhat exceptional, as we shall presently see.
Although he was quite diminutive in size, there was in his bearing, as with hands clasped behind him he paced up and down before his lonely fireside, a distinct dignity that was not only essentially manly—it was gentlemanly.
The refinement of feeling underlying this no doubt aggravated the dilemma in which he found himself, and which we cannot sooner comprehend than by attending to his soliloquy as he reviewed his trials in the following somewhat rambling fashion:
“No, ‘twouldn’t never do in the world—never, never. ‘Twouldn’t never do to marry any o’ these girls round here thet knows all my ups an’ downs with—with pore Jinny. ‘Twouldn’t never do. Any girl thet knew thet her husband had been chastised by his first wife the way I’ve been would think thet ef she got fretted she was lettin’ ‘im off easy on a tongue-lashin’. An’ I s’pose they is times when any woman gits sort o’ wrought up, livin’ day in an’ day out with a man. No, ‘twouldn’t never do,” he repeated, as, thrusting both hands in his pockets, he stopped before the fire, and steadying the top of his head against the mantel, studied the logs for a moment.
“An’ so the day pore Jinny took it upon herself to lay me acrost her lap an’ punish me in the presence of sech ill-mannered persons ez has seen fit to make a joke of it—though I don’t see where the fun comes in—well, that day she settled the hash for number two so fur ez this town goes.
“No, ‘twouldn’t never do in the world! Even ef she never throwed it up to me, I’d be suspicious. She couldn’t even to say clap her hands together to kill a mosquito less’n I’d think she was insinuatin’. An’ jest ez quick ez any man suspicions thet his wife is a-naggin’ him intentional, it’s good-by happiness.
“Ef ‘twasn’t for that, of co’se they’s more’n one young woman roun’ this county thet any man might go further an’ do worse than git.
“Not thet I hold it agin Jinny, now she’s gone, but—”
He had resumed his promenade, extending it through a second room as he proceeded:
“—but it does seem strange how a woman gifted in prayer ez she was, an’ with all her instinc’s religious the way hers was, should o’ been allowed to take sech satisfaction in naggin’ the very one she agonized most over in prayer, which I know she done over me, for I’ve heerd ‘er. An’ ef she had o’ once-t mentioned me to the Lord confidential ez a person fitten to commingle with the cherubim an’ seraphim, ‘stid of a pore lost sinner not fitten to bresh up their wing-feathers for ‘em, I b’lieve I might o’ give in. I don’t wonder I ‘ain’t never had a call to enter the Kingdom on her ricommendation. ‘Twouldn’t o’ been fair to the innocent angels thet would ‘a’ been called on to associate with me. That’s the way I look at it.
“An’ yit Jinny ‘lowed herself thet my out’ard ac’s was good, but bein’ ez they didn’t spring from a converted heart, they was jest nachel hypocercy, an’ thet ef I’d o’ lied an’ stole, or even answered her back, she’d o’ had more hope for me, because, sez she, a ‘consistent sinner is ap’ to make a consistent Christian.’
“She even tol’ me one day—pore Jinny! I can see her face light up now when she said it—sez she, ‘I’m ac-chilly most afeerd to see you converted, less’n you’ll break out in some devilment you hadn’t never thought about before-you’re that inconsistent.’
“Sometimes I feel mean to think I don’t miss ‘er more’n what I do—an’ she so lively, too. Tell the truth, I miss them little devils she used to print on the butter pads she set at my plate ez a warnin’ to me—seem to me I miss them jest about ez much ez I miss her.
“The nearest I ever did come to answerin’ her back—’cept, of co’se, the time she chastised me—was the way I used regular to heat my knife-blade good an’ hot ‘twix’ two batter-cakes an’ flatten that devil out delib’rate. But he’d be back nex’ day, pitchfork an’ all.
“But with it all Jinny loved me—in her own way, of co’se. Doubt if I’ll ever git another to love me ez well; ‘n’ don’t know ez I crave it, less’n she was different dispositioned.
“I’ve done paid her all the respec’s I know—put up a fine Bible-texted tombstone for her, an’ had her daguerre’type enlarged to a po’tr’it. I don’t know’s I’m obligated to do any more, ‘cep’n, of co’se, to wait till the year’s out, which, not havin’ no young children in need of a mother, I couldn’t hardly do less than do.”
It was about a week after this that Ezra sat beside his fire reading his paper, when his eye happened to fall upon the following paragraph among the “personals”:
“The Claybank Academy continues to thrive under the able management of Miss Myrtle Musgrove. That accomplished and popular young lady has abolished the use of the rod, and by substituting the law of kindness she has built up the most flourishing academy in the State.”
Ezra read the notice three times. Then he laid the paper down, and clapping his hand upon it, exclaimed: “Well, I’ll be doggoned ef that ain’t the woman for me! Any girl thet could teach a county school an’ abolish whuppin’—not only a chance to do it, but a crowd o’ young rascals needin’ it all around ‘er, an’ her not doin’ it! An’ yit some other persons has been known to strain a p’int to whup a person they ‘ain’t rightly got no business to whup.” He read the notice again. “Purty name that, too, Myrtle Musgrove. Sounds like a girl to go out walkin’ with under the myrtle-trees in the grove moonlight nights, Myrtle Musgrove does.
“I declare, I ain’t to say religious, but I b’lieve that notice was sent to me providential.
“Of co’se, maybe she wouldn’t look at me ef I ast her; but one thing shore, she can’t if I don’t.
“Claybank is a good hund’ed miles from here ‘n’ I couldn’t leave the farm now, noways; besides, the day I start a-makin’ trips from home, talk’ll start, an’ I’ll be watched close-ter’n what I’m watched now—ef that’s possible. But th’ ain’t nothin’ to hender me writin’—ez I can see.”
This idea, once in his mind, lent a new impulse to Ezra’s life, a fresh spring to his gait, so evident to solicitous eyes that during the next week even his dog noticed it and had a way of running up and sniffing about him, as if asking what had happened.
An era of hope had dawned for the hitherto downcast man simply because Miss Myrtle Musgrove, a woman he had never seen, had abolished whipping in a distant school.
Two weeks passed before Ezra saw his way clearly to write the proposed letter, but he did, nevertheless, in the interval, walk up and down his butter-bean arbor on moonlight nights, imagining Miss Myrtle beside him—Miss Myrtle, named for his favorite flower. He had preferred the violet, but he had changed his mind. Rose-colored crêpe-myrtles were blooming in his garden at the time. Maybe this was why he began to think of her as a pink-faced laughing girl, typified by the blushing flower. Everything was so absolutely real in her setting that the ideal girl walked, a definite embodiment of his fancy, night after night by his side, and whether it was from his life habit or an intuitive fancy, he looked upward into her face. He had always liked tall women.
And all this time he was trying to frame a suitable letter to the real “popular and accomplished Miss Musgrove,” of Claybank Academy.
Finally, however, the ambitious and flowery document was finished.
It would be unfair to him whose postscript read, “For Your Eyes alone,” to quote in full, for the vulgar gratification of prying eyes, the pathetic missive that told again the old story of a lonely home, the needed woman. But when it was sent, Ezra found the circuit of the butter-bean arbor too circumscribed a promenade, and began taking the imaginary Miss Myrtle with him down through his orchard and potato-patch.
It was during these moonlight communings that he seemed to discover that she listened while he talked—a new experience to Ezra—and that even when he expressed his awful doubts as to the existence of a personal devil she only smiled, and thought he might be right.
Oh, the joy of such companionship! But, oh, the slowness of the mails!
A month passed, and Ezra was beginning to give up all hope of ever having an answer to his letter, when one day it came, a dainty envelope with the Claybank postmark.
Miss Musgrove thanked him for his letter. She would see him. It would not be convenient now, but would he not come down to the academy’s closing exercises in June—a month later? Until then she was very respectfully his friend, Myrtle Musgrove.
The next month was the longest in Ezra’s life. Still, the Lord’s calendar is faithful, and the sun not a waiter upon the moods of men.
In twenty-nine days exactly a timid little man stood with throbbing heart at the door of Claybank Academy, and in a moment more he had slipped into a back seat of the crowded room, where a young orator was ringing Poe’s “Bells” through all the varying cadences of his changing voice to a rapt audience of relations and friends. Here unobserved Ezra hoped to recover his self-possession, remove the beads of perspiration one by one from his brow with a corner of his neatly folded handkerchief, and perhaps from this vantage-ground even enjoy the delight of recognizing Miss Myrtle without an introduction.
He had barely deposited his hat beneath his chair when there burst upon his delighted vision a radiant, dark-eyed, red-haired creature in pink, sitting head and shoulders above her companions on a bench set at right angles with the audience seats, in front of the house. There were a number of women in the row, and they were without bonnets. Evidently these were the teachers, and of course the pink goddess was Miss Myrtle Musgrove.
Ezra never knew whether the programme was long or short. The bells had tintinabulated and musically welled into “Casabianca” which, in turn, had merged into “The Queen o’ the May,” and presently before he realized it Freedom was ringing in the closing notes of “America,” and everybody was standing up, pupils filing out, guests shaking hands, babel reigning, and he had seen only a single, towering, handsome woman in all the assembly.
Indeed, it had never occurred to him to doubt his own intuition, until suddenly he heard his own name quite near, and turning quickly, he saw a stout matronly woman of forty years or thereabouts standing beside him, extending her hand.
Every unmarried woman is a “young lady” by courtesy south of Mason and Dixon’s line.
“I knew you as soon as I saw you, Mr. Slimm,” she was saying. “I am Miss Musgrove. But you didn’t know me,” she added, archly, while Ezra made his bravest effort at cordiality, seizing her hand in an agony which it is better not to attempt to describe.
Miss Musgrove’s face was wholesome, and so kindly that not even a cross-eye had power to spoil it. But Ezra saw only the plain middle-aged woman—the contrast to the blooming divinity whose image yet filled his soul. And he was committed to her who held his hand, unequivocally committed in writing. If he sent heavenward an agonized prayer for deliverance from a trying crisis, his petition was soon answered. And the merciful instrument was even she of the cross-eye. Before he had found need of a word of his own, she had drawn him aside, and was saying:
“You see, Mr. Slimm, the only trouble with me is that I am already married.”
“Married!” gasped Ezra, trying in vain to keep the joy out of his voice. “Married, you—you don’t mean—”
“Yes, married to my profession—the only husband I shall ever take. But your letter attracted me. I am a Normal School psychology student—a hard name for a well-meaning woman—and it seemed to me you were worth investigating. So I investigated. Then I knew you ought to be helped. And so I sent for you, and I am going to introduce you to three of the sweetest girls in Dixie; and if you can’t find a wife among them, then you are not so clever as I think you—that’s all about it. And here comes one of them now. Kitty, step here a minute, please. Miss Deems, my friend, Mr. Slimm.”
And Miss Myrtle Musgrove was off across the room before Ezra’s gasp had fully expanded into the smile with which he greeted Miss Kitty Deems, a buxom lass with freckles and dimples enough to hold her own anywhere.
Two other delightful young women were presented at intervals during the afternoon in about the same fashion, and but for a certain pink Juno who flitted about ever in sight, Ezra would have confessed only an embarrassment of riches.
“And how do you get on with my girls?” was Miss Musgrove’s greeting when, late in the evening, she sought Ezra for a moment’s tête-à-tête.
He rubbed his hands together and hesitated.
“’Bout ez fine a set o’ young ladies ez I ever see,” he said, with real enthusiasm; “but, tell the truth, I—but you’ve a’ready been so kind—but—There she is now! That tall, light-complected one in pink—”
“Why, certainly, Mr. Slimm. If you say so, I’ll introduce her. A fine, thorough-going girl, that. You know we have abolished whipping in the academy, and that girl thought one of her boys needed it, and she followed him home, and gave it to him there, and his father interfered, and—well, she whipped him too. Fine girl. Not afraid of anything on earth. Certainly I’ll introduce you, if you say so.”
She stopped and looked at Ezra kindly. And he saw that she knew all.
“Well, I ain’t particular. Some other time,” he began to say; then blushing scarlet, he seized her hand, and pressing it, said, fervently, “God bless you!”
The second Mrs. Slimm is a wholesome little body, with dimples and freckles, whom Ezra declares “God A’mighty couldn’t o’ made without thinkin’ of Ezra Slimm an’ his precize necessities.”
No one but himself and Miss Musgrove ever knew the whole story of his wooing, nor why, when in due season a tiny dimpled Miss Slimm came into the family circle, it was by Ezra’s request that she was called Myrtle.
