The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1885-05-02
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| She had to carry in the squashes one at
| a time. She was a little woman, and al
though she had been used to hard work all
her life, it had not been of kind to
| strengthen her muscles: she had been q
dressmaker. So she stepped patiently into
her kitchen with a squash, and out without
one; then in again with one. She piled
them up in heap on the floor in corner.
"They'I hev to go up on that shelf over
| the mantel," said she, "to-morrow. l can't
git 'em up thar tonight an go to meetin'
nohow."
She had double shelf of implanted pine
rugged over the ordinary one for her
squashes.
After the squashes were all in, Ann took
| off her shawl and hung it on a nail behind
| the kitchen door. Then she set her bowl
of smoking hot tomato stew on little table
between the windows, and sat down con-
| tentedly.
There was white cloth on the table, and
some bread and butter and pie beside the
stew. Ann looked at it solemnly. "Id
orter be Thankful" said she. That was her
way of saying grace. Then she fell to eat
| ing with a relish. This solemn, spiritual
| looking old woman loved her food, and had
| keen lookout for it. Perhaps she got a
| spiritual enjoyment out of 1t, too, besides
| the lower material one. Perhaps hot
L
| ter and pepper and salt, on a frosty No
vember night, had for her subtle flavor of
| home comfort and shelter and coZiness, APP
] pealing to her Imagination, besides the COM
| moner one appealing to her palate.
I Before anything else, though = before
seating herself-she had given her cat his
saucer of warm milk in a snug corner by
| the stove. He was a beautiful little ami
NAL, with handsome dark striped coat on
his back and white paws and face.
When he had finished tapping his milk,
he came and stood beside his mistress
chair while she ate, and purred-he rarely
mewed-and she gave him bits of bread
from her plate now and then. She talked
/ to him, too. "Nice Willy" said she, mice
cat. Got up on the window to see me
bring in the squashes, didn't he? There's a
| beautiful lot of 'em, an he shall hev some
stewed for his dinner Tomorrow, so he
SHALL"
And the cat would purr, and rub his soft
coat against her, and look as if he knew
| just what she meant.
There was prayer-meeting in the church
vestry that evening, and Ann Millet went.
| She never missed one. The minister, when
he entered, always found her sitting there
at the head of the third seat from the
front in the right-hand row-always in the
| same place, a meek, erect little figure, in a
poor tidy black bonnet and an obsolete
voluminous back. That had been the style
of outside garments when Miss Millet had
| laid aside dressmaking, and she had never
gone a step further in fashions. She had
stopped just where she was, and treated
her old patterns as conservatively as she
did her Bible.
She had had pretty voice, people said,
when she was young, and she sang now in
a thin, sweet quaver, the hymns which the
| minister gave out. She listened in solemn
enjoyment to the stereotyped prayers and
| the speakers remarks. He was dull,
middle-aged preacher, in a dull, country
| town.
| After meeting, Ann went up and told
him how much she had enjoyed his remarks,
and inquired after his wife and children.
She always did. To her a minister was an
unpublished apostle, and his wife and
family set apart on the earth. No matter
how dull parson labored here, he would
always have one disciple in this old
| woman.
When Ann had walked home through the
frosty starlight she lit her lamp first, and
then she called her cat. She had expected
to find him waiting to be let in, but he was
not. She stood out on her little piazza
which ran along the rear corner of her
house by her kitchen door, and called
"Willy! Willy Willy!"
She thought every minute she would see
him come bounding around the corner, but
she did not. She called over and over and
over, in her shrill, anxious pipe: "Willy
Willy! Willy! Kitty! Kitty! Kittyp
Finally she went into the house and
waited awhile, crouching, shivering with
cold and nervousness, over the kitchen
stove. Then she went outside and called
again: "Willy! Willy! Willyw over and
over, waiting between the calls, trembling
her dull old ears alert, her dim old eyes
strained. She ran out to the road, and
looked and called, and down to the dreary
garden patch behind the house, among the
withered corn stalks and the Wondering
squash vines all white with frost. Once
her heart leaped; she thought she saw
| Willy coming; but it was only black cal
| which belonged to one of the neighbors
Then she went into the house and waited O
little while; then out again, calling shrilly
willy! Willy! Willyl"
There were northern lights streaking the
| sky; the stars shone steadily through the
| rosy glow; it was very still and lonesome
and cold. The little thin shivering old wo.
| man standing outdoors, all alone in the
rude, chilly night air, under these splendid
stars and streaming lights, called over and
over and over the poor little creature which
was verything earthly she had to keer
her company in the great universe in which
she herself was so small.
"Willy! Willy! Willyw called Ann
80, where is that cat? o, dear! Willy
Willyw
She spent the night that way. Mrs
Stones daughter Ruth, who was up with a
sick child, heard her.
Miss Millet must have lost her cat, she
told her mother in the morning; 81 heard
her calling him all night long,"
Pretty soon, indeed, Ann came over, her
small old face wild and wan. "Hev you
seen anything of Willy?" she asked. ''He's
been out all night, an Pm afraid some.
thin's happened to him. / never knowed
him to stay out so BEFORE"
When they told her they had not, she
went on to the next neighbours to inquire
But no one had seen anything of the cat
All that day and night, at intervals, people
heard her plaintive, inquiring call: "Wilfy
Willy! Willy! Willyw
The next Sunday Ann was not out to
church. 1t was beautiful day, too.
"I'm goin' to run over an see eff Ann
Millet's SICK" Mrs. Stone told her daugh-
ter, when she returned from church. "She
want out to meetin' to-day, and Pm afraid
sometimes the matter. / never knew her
to miss goin."
So she went over. Miss Millet was sitting
T. - l. L