Short Fiction Herman Melville (best books to read fiction .TXT) 📖

the green panes of glass were clouded with the long thaw. On some little errand the dame passed into an adjoining chamber, leaving the door partly open. The floor of that room was carpetless, as the kitchen’s was. Nothing but bare necessaries were about me; and those not of the best sort. Not a print on the wall but an old volume of Doddridge lay on the smoked chimney-shelf.

“You must have walked a long way, sir; you sigh so with weariness.”

“No, I am not nigh so weary as yourself, I dare say.”

“Oh, but I am accustomed to that; you are not, I should think,” and her soft, sad blue eye ran over my dress. “But I must sweep these shavings away; husband made him a new ax-helve this morning before sunrise, and I have been so busy washing, that I have had no time to clear up. But now they are just the thing I want for the fire. They’d be much better though, were they not so green.”

Now if Blandmour were here, thought I to myself, he would call those green shavings “Poor Man’s Matches,” or “Poor Man’s Tinder,” or some pleasant name of that sort.

“I do not know,” said the good woman, turning round to me again⁠—as she stirred among her pots on the smoky fire⁠—“I do not know how you will like our pudding. It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together.”

“Ah, what they call ‘Poor Man’s Pudding,’ I suppose you mean?”

A quick flush, half resentful, passed over her face.

“We do not call it so, sir,” she said, and was silent.

Upbraiding myself for my inadvertence, I could not but again think to myself what Blandmour would have said, had he heard those words and seen that flush.

At last a slow, heavy footfall was heard; then a scraping at the door, and another voice said, “Come, wife; come, come⁠—I must be back again in a jif⁠—if you say I must take all my meals at home, you must be speedy; because the Squire⁠—Good day, sir,” he exclaimed, now first catching sight of me as he entered the room. He turned toward his wife, inquiringly, and stood stock-still, while the moisture oozed from his patched boots to the floor.

“This gentleman stops here awhile to rest and refresh: he will take dinner with us, too. All will be ready now in a trice: so sit down on the bench, husband, and be patient, I pray. You see, sir,” she continued, turning to me, “William there wants, of mornings, to carry a cold meal into the woods with him, to save the long one-o’clock walk across the fields to and fro. But I won’t let him. A warm dinner is more than pay for the long walk.”

“I don’t know about that,” said William, shaking his head. “I have often debated in my mind whether it really paid. There’s not much odds, either way, between a wet walk after hard work, and a wet dinner before it. But I like to oblige a good wife like Martha. And you know, sir, that women will have their whimseys.”

“I wish they all had as kind whimseys as your wife has,” said I.

“Well, I’ve heard that some women ain’t all maple-sugar; but, content with dear Martha, I don’t know much about others.”

“You find rare wisdom in the woods,” mused I.

“Now, husband, if you ain’t too tired, just lend a hand to draw the table out.”

“Nay,” said I; “let him rest, and let me help.”

“No,” said William, rising.

“Sit still,” said his wife to me.

The table set, in due time we all found ourselves with plates before us.

“You see what we have,” said Coulter⁠—“salt pork, rye-bread, and pudding. Let me help you. I got this pork of the Squire; some of his last year’s pork, which he let me have on account. It isn’t quite as sweet as this year’s would be; but I find it hearty enough to work on, and that’s all I eat for. Only let the rheumatiz and other sicknesses keep clear of me, and I ask no flavors or favors from any. But you don’t eat of the pork!”

“I see,” said the wife, gently and gravely, “that the gentleman knows the difference between this year’s and last year’s pork. But perhaps he will like the pudding.”

I summoned up all my self-control, and smilingly assented to the proposition of the pudding, without by my looks casting any reflections upon the pork. But, to tell the truth, it was quite impossible for me (not being ravenous, but only a little hungry at that time) to eat of the latter. It had a yellowish crust all round it, and was rather rankish, I thought, to the taste. I observed, too, that the dame did not eat of it, though she suffered some to be put on her plate, and pretended to be busy with it when Coulter looked that way. But she ate of the rye-bread, and so did I.

“Now, then, for the pudding,” said Coulter. “Quick, wife; the Squire sits in his sitting-room window, looking far out across the fields. His timepiece is true.”

“He don’t play the spy on you, does he?” said I.

“Oh, no!⁠—I don’t say that. He’s a good enough man. He gives me work. But he’s particular. Wife, help the gentleman. You see, sir, if I lose the Squire’s work, what will become of⁠—” and, with a look for which I honored humanity, with sly significance, he glanced toward his wife; then, a little changing his voice, instantly continued⁠—“that fine horse I am going to buy?”

“I guess,” said the dame, with a strange, subdued sort of inefficient pleasantry⁠—“I guess that fine horse you sometimes so merrily dream of will long stay in the Squire’s stall. But sometimes his man gives me a Sunday ride.”

“A Sunday ride!” said I.

“You see,” resumed Coulter, “wife loves to go to church; but the nighest is four miles off, over yon snowy hills. So she can’t walk it; and I can’t carry her in my