V Hiliary Loved Both and Both Loved Him
“In 1757,” the frail one began, “everything was different from what it is now—you can’t imagine how different. There was no money like our national bank-notes. The money of the United States was gold and silver coin. There was state money—‘shinplasters,’ they were called—and such things. But most of the money was the private notes of bankers, and no one ever knew whether they were good or bad. So they were always uncertain, and people who wanted money to keep would get it in gold or silver pieces. Sis and I had a little money from our mother’s estate—two thousand dollars each—and the teapot. They gave it to us in twenty-dollar gold pieces, mine of 1837, and sis’s of 1836—the dates of our birth. I think one could get them stamped at the Mint that way in those days. Anyhow, these came from the Philadelphia Mint.”
See how badly my old lady tells a story! She jumps straight from the coins to Hiliary.
“Sis and I never knew which of us Hiliary loved. He came to see us both—and, in fact, the whole family. And everybody liked him, and he liked everybody. But it seemed pretty certain that he would ask one of us to marry him. So sis and I (we were living here alone then—father having died the year before) laughingly considered that we would probably not need more than one trousseau (for Hiliary was the only beau we both had), and that we would put into the teapot all that we could spare for that purpose and not count it until Hiliary had asked one or the other of us—then she was to have it all. Whenever we had a levy or a fi’-penny-bit to spare, we would drop it into the teapot. Sis put in twice to my once, I am sure, because I had what they called a sweet tooth in my head, and brother Ben said that syrup water, which you could get at the groceries then, was the only thing that was good for it.”
The blind one stopped the story to explain something she thought was not plain to me:
“We thought we could only afford to have one wedding between us, you know.”
“Why, weren’t there plenty of suitors?” asked I.
“I guess there was only one for both of us—and his name was Hiliary,” smiled the frail one.
Then she went on:
“One night Hiliary was here, and sis and I were sitting in these two chairs, close together, as if we were afraid of him (we always sat that way when he was here). I remember that I had on my blue-flowered delaine, and sis had on her black Swiss with the green sprigs in it, just as we are in that first daguerreotype at the left-hand corner of the parlor mantel. Hiliary had just shown sis one of the new coins of 1857.
“‘Well,’ he laughed, ‘I want to marry one of you girls, but hanged if I know which one to ask. You are both mighty lovely. I believe I’ll turn Mormon.’
“But I thought he shied off toward sis there as he said it, and I never felt so lonely in my life as I did for a second or two then.
“‘Now, you are taller than sis, here, but she is plumper—and I like both. Your eyes are the same—there is no choice there. But sis’s hair is a bit redder—and I like that. It shows a spirit. And I don’t want to be the whole thing when I marry. But you are extravagant,’ he said to me, ‘and I don’t like that, because I’m poor, and a wife must help her husband to get along.’
“I thought again that he moved a bit more toward sis, there—who was hiding the coin.
“Just then sis cried: ‘Heads for me, tails for sis. Which is it? Hurry! hurry!’
“‘All right,’ said Hiliary, laughing.
“Sis turned up the coin—and it was—me!
“She jumped up and ran away laughing, then, and Hiliary sat still quite a while, as if he weren’t exactly sure. I was hanging my head ashamed and afraid. But then he laughed and put his arms around me and kissed me. He was a little bashful.
“‘I guess God put that into sis’s head,’ he said.
“That is another thing people believed then—that God commanded things in that way, and that one would be disobeying Him not to do them.
“My, but I was happy! I didn’t know till that instant that I cared so much for him. I must have fainted for a few minutes. When I came to, sis was there again with something damp on my face. At first I couldn’t see. I heard Hiliary say, ‘But what if it had been you?’
“‘I wouldn’t have had you,’ said sis.
“‘You would have broken your word?’
“‘Certainly—rather than marry you!’
“‘Oh!’
“‘I’m looking for some one better than you—better in every way!’
“‘But you would have been going against God, maybe?’
“‘Not even then. I want some one—better!’
“But poor sis never found her better one—though I suppose there was one for her somewhere—as she deserved. For she couldn’t look for him nor see whether he was better or worse than Hiliary if he had come. She lost her sight. But I’m a little ahead of my story.
“That night I heard sis saying strange things in her sleep and sobbing. She told me the next morning that it was for me—because we had to part—”
“And you said,” the blind one interrupted, “that we should never part.”
“And you insisted that it was impossible to live together after I was married, that three was a crowd, and that you should go and keep house for brother Ben.”
“I only said I should go mad.”
“Yes, only think! What could you have meant?”
The knowledge of that would have to wait, too, until the heavens are rolled together as a scroll.
“Anyhow, sis said—it was early in the morning and we were not dressed yet—that we had better go down and see how much was in the teapot, and we did.
“There was not a cent in it!
“We never knew when it had been stolen. Perhaps long before. But it was all gone!”