Mildred Keith

The Lightcaps found their house all dark the family had retired to bed hours ago, but leaving the kitchen door unlocked and a good fire in the stove.

"Good and warm in here," remarked Gotobed, feeling for the candle and matches his mother was sure to have left on the table ready for them.

"Yes; feels comfortable. I shall set down and warm a bit 'fore I crawl up to that there cold bed-room."

"Me too; don't expect to sleep none when I do get to bed," growled Gote, as he succeeded in lighting the candle, after two or three ineffectual attempts, and set it on the table again.

"Kind o' eggzited are ye?"

"Some. I say, what did you make room for that – "

"Don't swear;" she sneered, as he paused for a suitable cognomen to bestow upon Buzzard.

"I wa'n't agoin' to!" he said angrily; "not but what I've sufficient cause in your letting that unclean bird in amongst us decent folks."

"There now; that'll do fur to-night," she snapped. "Tim. Buzzard ain't no more an unclean bird than you are; he's twicet as good lookin' and sings like a nightingale.

"But now see here; don't let's quarrel, but go to work together to bring things round right. You don't want him to cut you out with Mildred Keith, and I don't want her to cut me out with him. So now you just spunk up and pop the question right off. If you don't, one or other o' them fellers'll get ahead o' you; you may just take my word for that."

Gotobed dropped his head into his hands and sighed deeply, then rose and walked the floor.

Rhoda Jane watched him with an eager, half-contemptuous look.

"Well!" he said at length, "I wisht I knowed how!"

"Knowed how! you needn't make many words about it; 'tain't like makin' up a sermon or a president's message."

"It's a heap more important; the happiness of a feller's whole life a dependin' onto it."

Silence for some minutes, Rhoda Jane sitting meditatively before the stove, her feet on its hearth, her hands clasped round her knees, while her brother continued his restless walk.

She was the first to speak. "I'd write it out if I was you."

"I ain't used to writin' much."

"Well, you can get used to it; you can try and try till you've writ somethin' that'll do."

"I couldn't write anything good enough for her to see."

"Then take t'other way."

"I don't never git no chance; and if I did I'd be tongue-tied, sure as the world."

"Then you'll have to write it, and I'll help you!" concluded Rhoda Jane with energy.

She arose as she spoke, picked up the candle, stepped quickly to a corner shelf in the next room, whence she brought an inkstand and a quill pen.

Setting these down on the kitchen table, she went back, and opening a bureau drawer where miscellaneous articles were kept, fished out from its depths a sheet of foolscap, which she spread out beside the inkstand.

"That ain't nice enough," said Gotobed, eyeing it disapprovingly.

"Make it up on that and get better at the store to-morrow to copy it onto," returned his sister. "Now you set down and go at it like a man; or maybe I'd better say like a woman," she added sarcastically.

"If I'd only had an edication!" groaned Gotobed, taking up the pen; "but it's mighty hard on a feller – such things as this is – when he hasn't."

"Well, do the best you kin, and mebbe it'll come out right for all. You're good-lookin' and got a good trade and can make a good livin' for her. Just tell her that; and tell her you think she's as purty as a picter, and good-tempered, and knows a lot; and that you worship the ground she walks on, and won't never let the wind blow rough on her, won't never say no cross words to her, and – and a lot more o' such stuff; that's what girls like."

"Well, I s'pose you'd ought to know, seeing you belong to the sect; but it's a heap easier for you to say it than for me to git it writ down in black and white," he sighed.

"I declare I'm clear beat out with you a'most," said Rhoda Jane, snuffing the candle impatiently; "and I've a great mind to leave you to make it up by yourself."

But she went on coaxing, suggesting and prompting, till between them they had composed an epistle which was satisfactory to her though not to her brother.

"It's nigh onto three o'clock, and I'm awful tired and sleepy," she remarked, as at last they separated and sought their beds.

The next day Gotobed searched the town for letter paper and bought half a quire of the best he could find.

During the next week all his leisure moments were spent in making revised and improved copies of his and Rhoda Jane's joint composition.

He had used his last sheet, and seized with a fit of desperation, he selected the one which seemed to him the least faulty and sent it by his sister.

Mrs. Keith, opening the door in answer to Rhoda Jane's knock, was struck with the peculiar expression of the girl's face – a mixture of pride, condescension and exultation.

"Good evenin' Mis' Keith. Where's Mildred?" she said, stepping in and glancing about the room with an air of importance, "I want to see her pertickler; got somethin' fur her," and a conscious glance at the missive in her hand enlightened the quick-witted lady as to its nature.

"Mildred is not at home," she said; "will not be until bedtime; but anything you choose to leave with me will be given her on her return."

Rhoda Jane considered a moment. She felt a strong desire to deliver the note into Mildred's own hand, and to watch her while reading it; but should she carry it back Gote might change his mind and put off indefinitely this business which she was so desirous to have carried through at once.

She left it, though with evident reluctance.

She presently congratulated herself that she had done so. Gotobed, eagerly awaiting her return, peering anxiously every other minute through the smithy door, hailed her in breathless excitement.

"Well, what – what did she – "

"She wasn't there. She's gone out somewheres and won't be back till bedtime."

"Give it to me then; quick!" and he held out his hand with a peremptory gesture.

"I ain't got it," Rhoda Jane answered with a sardonic grin.

"Where is it? you ain't gone and left it," he cried aghast.

"Yes, I have; I give it to Mis' Keith."

Gotobed groaned. "I'd thought better of it; I'd throw it in the fire this minute if I had it here. She'll think me a fool. I know she will!"

"If she does she's one," returned Rhoda Jane shortly, and left him to his unavailing regrets.