IV The Night-Shirt With the Feather-Stitching of Blue
He unlocked the door by the fireplace, presently, and lighted two new candles. Then he got from the bottom drawer the night-shirt with the blue feather-stitching about the collar, and put it on. His trousers lay on the floor.
“Now,” he laughed defiantly, “what will Mrs. Schwalm say? Let her say it!”
For you must know that such things as this adorned night-shirt had been banished to the bottom drawer, since his commandeering, as far too frivolous for his years. You will also observe that old Liebereich expected Mrs. Schwalm to see him in this garment and to rebuke him. But it was about this that he was so very reckless. For at the moment of its discovery his wife would have arrived, and then, in his own words, they might all go to grass!
But this obliges me to speak of old Liebereich’s cunning plan, or, which perhaps is better, to let him tell it for you as he now told it to himself in the kitchen of the house he and Emmy had built.
“They’ll bring her in that door by the fireplace, all dressed for Christmas. And they’ll all be crowding in behind her to see what I’ll do. Well, they’ll see! Oh, they’ll see! I wish it would be early morning and the sun come through the door. I expect I kin wait that much longer. And mebby the bells’ll ring. They’ll sneak her right up to my bed, and then they’ll holler, ‘Merry Christmas, Liebereich! Wake up!’
“But I’ll fool ’em. I’ll hug Emmy right afore ’em all, and let ’em know that I’ve fooled ’em! And I’ll laugh at Mrs. Schwalm. So will Emmy. And after that—” Now what could there be after that? “After that we’ll just be happy. That’s all.”
Meanwhile he tidied the room as it had never been tidied before, and then fixed his thick white hair about his face in the fashion which Emmy liked.
At last he held up both candles and looked at himself in the mirror, and there were pink spots on his cheek-bones, and the bit of blue about his neck went very well with his faded eyes. Old Liebereich wagged his head with the satisfaction of a dandy at what he saw.
Suddenly he started away from the mirror, then back to it. Then he laughed.
“I thought it was you, Emmy. And you looked like that first day when you saw your face in it. Sixteen. I wouldn’t like you to come back looking sixteen, and me eighty-four. No, I ain’t quite ready for you yit, Emmy; I must get clean sheets. But we ain’t far apart now no more!”
He went close to the mirror to whisper this. He still was not sure that he did not see her there.
And I hope that you and I have “seen things” in the mirror, though perhaps we are not eighty-four and have no Emmy.
Then he went on getting ready for her till he was very tired—more tired, he thought, than he had ever been.
Outside Mrs. Schwalm was whispering to Mrs. Krantz:
“No, they ain’t far apart! He’s mighty funny to-night. He is seeing things.”
At last he was ready to hang up their stockings on the brass nails which had been put into the mantel for this purpose when the house was built.
And, for something to surprise her, he took from behind that loose brick a gold coin. It had the date of 1825 on it. There was a hole in it, and through the hole a narrow blue ribbon.
But now he stopped and his heart heaved.
“It was to cut the baby’s teeth on.”
After a while:
“We was going to call him Billy if he was a boy—Emmy if she was a girl.”
Again:
“But there never was no baby.”
And then, at last:
“But there never was no baby.”
He put the coin in the toe of Emmy’s stocking and went to bed and closed his eyes—to watch. And his last words were:
“Tired—tired—tired—Emmy!”
He dozed and made himself wake so often, and nothing had happened, that he grew afraid and much more tired. And the red went out of his cheeks, and he could feel his face becoming very cold.
He dozed a long time, at last without waking.
Then they outside, seeing this, came in—all those neighbors—stealthily, whispering and going toward his bed. Some one brought a candle and held it so close to his eyes that it scorched and tortured him. He woke; he was tremendously terrified by their stealth, but he did not understand at all—he who had never had such thoughts as theirs.
They did not know that he was awake.
“He is better off,” said one of them.
“He died easy,” said another.
Then, suddenly, old Liebereich understood. He did not quiver. But his heart was bursting.
“I don’t know about that,” said a wary one.
Some one took Liebereich’s hand from under the covers.
“’Sh! He’s only asleep,” the voice whispered.
Another sighed a disappointment.
“Touch his feet,” said one.
This was done, and the same verdict reached. He was not yet dead.
“He still thinks she’ll come!”
There was a laugh somewhere.
“Look at the night-shirt!”
“How long is she dead now?”
They left him then, and he could breathe a moment. They put into his stocking some things they had brought—simple things—at the last a spiral of pink-and-white candy.
But there was no laughter—only silence. Once more they were doing their duty. And once more—for only the second sad time in his long life—old Liebereich understood.
“It ain’t much,” said a pitying one.
“It’s enough,” said another, crossly.
The last one said—to comfort both:
“He’ll never know no better.”
Then they came and looked at him again.
“Yes—only asleep.”
Another voice said:
“In the morning, I expect. Often they sleep away.”
A doubting young woman said:
“Mebby it just happened now and he ain’t cold yet.”
But her elders, who had seen death often, only frowned.
Then they went out.
Old Liebereich lay very still. He was icy cold. The feet and hands they had touched would not get warm. He felt yet their cold touch. Two tears stole down his cheeks. His heart was still filled to bursting. Yet he lay quite still. Presently something like content came and stayed, and smoothed the sorrow from his face, and made it beautiful.