The Wooing of Calvin Parks

CHAPTER II

BROTHERLY WAYS

"You'll stay to dinner, Cal?" said Mr. Sim.

"Calvin, you'll eat dinner with us?" cried Mr. Sam.

Calvin Parks looked at Miss Sands, and saw hospitality beaming in her face.

"Thank ye, Sim;" he said, "I'm obliged to you, Sam; I'll stay with pleasure, Miss Hands!"

It was a singular meal. Mary Sands sat at the head of the table, with all the dishes before her, and helped the three men largely to the excellent boiled dinner. Calvin Parks faced her at the foot, and the twins sat on either side. They talked cheerfully with their visitor and Miss Sands, but did not address each other directly.

Calvin remarked upon the excellence of the beef. "Fancy brisket, ain't it?" he asked.

"Yes!" replied Mr. Sim. "It's the best cut on the critter for cornin'."

Mr. Sam looked at his cousin. "Tell him I don't agree with him!" he said.

"Cousin Sim, Cousin Sam don't agree with you!" said Mary Sands placidly.

"Tell him the aitch bone is better!" continued Mr. Sam with some heat.

"He says the aitch bone is better!" repeated Mary Sands.

"Tell him it ain't!" said Mr. Sim.

"Cousin Sim says it ain't, Cousin Sam," said Mary, "and that's enough on the subject."

She spoke with calm and cheerful authority; the twins glowered at the corned beef in silence.

"Speakin' of critters," said Calvin Parks hastily, "how many head are you carryin' now, boys?"

There was no reply. Looking at Miss Sands, her eyes directed his glance to Mr. Sam.

"How many head are you carryin', Sam?" he repeated.

"Twenty!" replied Mr. Sam.

"That's a nice herd," said Calvin. "Hereford, be they?"

"Holstein!" said Sam. "They're the best milkers, and the best beef critters too."

Mr. Sim looked at Mary Sands with kindling eyes. "Tell him it ain't so!" he said. "Tell him he knows better!"

"Cousin Sim says it ain't so, and you know better, Cousin Sam," said Mary Sands.

"Tell him he knows wuss!" grunted Mr. Sam.

"Cousin Sam says you know wuss, Cousin Sim, and that will do!" said Mary Sands quietly.

It was the same at dessert. Calvin praised the admirable quality of the pie.

"Now this," he said, "is my idee of a squash pie. It isn't slickin' up and tryin' to look like custard, nor yet it don't make believe it's pumpkin; it just says, 'I am a squash pie, and if there's a better article you may let me know.'"

"I'm real pleased you like it," said Mary Sands modestly; "it's Cousin Lucindy's recipe. She must have been a master hand at pies."

"She certinly was!" said Mr. Sam. "Squash and pumpkin and cranberry, Ma was fust-rate in all; but mince was her best holt."

"Tell him it warn't," said Mr. Sim, fixing his cousin with a burning eye. "Tell him her apple bet it holler."

"Cousin Sim says it warn't, Cousin Sam, and her apple bet it holler," repeated Mary Sands cheerfully.

"Tell him he's a turnip-head!" said Mr. Sam.

"I don't repeat no calling names," said Mary Sands. "Mr. Parks, will you have some more of the pie? Cousin Sam, another piece? Cousin Sim? well, then, the meal is finished, Cousins!"

Each twin, as he rose from the table, cast a glance of invitation at Calvin Parks; but he hastily seized a dish. "I'm going to help Miss Hands clear off," he said; and he followed Mary Sands into the kitchen.

"Oh! Mr. Parks," said Mary, "you no need to do that! I'm well used to washing dishes!"

"I should suppose you was," responded Calvin Parks gallantly, "but if you'll let me help, Miss Hands, it would be an accommodation, now it would. Fact is," he continued, "I expect I shall bust if I don't find out what this all means, and I want you to tell me. How long have the boys been actin' this way?"

"How long?" repeated Mary Sands. "Ever since I come. Haven't they always been so?"

"Always been so?" repeated Calvin Parks. "Why, Miss Hands – why – " he looked about him helplessly. "Well, I am blowed!" he said plaintively. "I'll have to ask you to excuse the expression, Miss Hands, but I really am! Perhaps I'd better tell you how things used to be in this house, and then you can see how – how blowed I am at findin' them as they be."

"I should be real pleased if you would!" said Mary Sands. "I've been wonderin' and wonderin', ever since I come, but there's no near neighbors, you know, and I don't know as I should have cared to ask 'em if there had been; but you are a friend of both, I see, and it seems different."

"I'll wash to your wipin'," said Calvin Parks, taking off his coat and rolling up his shirt sleeves, "and we can talk as we go; I'm an old hand at dishes too. Well! Friend of both? well, I should remark! I lived on the next ro'd, not more'n half a mile across lots. You might have seen a burnt cellar hole? – Well, that was our home. First I remember of Sam and Sim was them sittin' together in their chair. 'Twas a queer chair, made o' purpose to hold the two of 'em. There they set, and tell 'tother from which was more than I could do, or anybody else for that matter, except their Ma. They might ha' been nine then, and I s'pose I was four or five. I rec'lect I went up to 'em and says, 'Be you one boy cut in two?' Cur'us things children are, sure enough. They was dressed alike, then and always; fed alike, and reared alike, every human way of it. Doctored alike, too, poor young ones! One time when they was babies the wrong one got the medicine, and after that Ma Sills always dosed 'em both, whichever was sick. 'There's goin' to be no partiality!' she says; 'the Lord made them children off the same last, and they're goin' to stay the same!' Why, Miss Hands, she wouldn't so much as allow they could think different. If they got to scrappin', same as all boys do, y'know, Ma would take 'em by the scruff of their necks and haul 'em up to the looking-glass. 'Look at there!' she'd say. 'Do you see them boys? do you see the way they look? Now I give you to understand that your souls inside is just as much alike as your bodies outside. I ain't sure but it's two halves of the same soul,' she'd say, 'and do you think I'm goin' to let 'em quarrel? You make up and love each other pretty right away, or I'll take the back of the hairbrush to you both!'

"So they'd make up; they had to! There! Ma Sills certinly did rule the roost, and no mistake. She'd been a widder ever since the boys were a year old, so she had to do for herself and them, and she done it. She was a master hand; a master hand!"

He shook his head, and washed the platter vigorously.

"Did it keep on that way after they grew up?" asked Mary Sands.

"Did it?" repeated Calvin. "Yes, it did! Neither one of 'em could stand against their Ma. Folks thought the boys would marry, and that would break it up like, but Ma wouldn't have that. 'When I find two girls as much alike as they is boys,' she'd say, 'we'll talk about gettin' married; till then they're wife enough for each other.'

"That was when Sam was takin' notice of Ivy Bell. She was a girl from Vermont, come visitin' Ammi Bean's folks; her mother was sister to Ammi. She was a pretty, slim little creatur', and I expect Sam thought she was all creation for a spell; but she never could tell him from Sim, and Sim didn't take to her no way, shape or manner. That suited their Ma first rate, and she'd take a day when Sam was off to market, and then she'd send Sim on an errant down to Bean's. I rec'lect I was there one day when he come, – I guess I was some taken with Ivy myself, for she was a pretty piece. When she see him she begun to roll her eyes and simper up the way gals do – I ask your pardon, Miss Hands! I don't mean all gals, nor I shouldn't want you to think it."

"Thank you, Mr. Parks!" said Mary demurely; "I won't!"

"Well, she did," said Calvin; "no two ways about that. 'Good mornin', Mr. Sills,' she says, 'was you wishin' to see anyone?'

"'Yes!' says Sim, 'I want to see Mr. Bean.'

"'He's down in the medder,' says Ivy; and then she kind o' hung down her head and looked up at him sideways. 'I don't suppose there's anyone else would do instead, Mr. Sills?'