Old Henry and his wife Phoebe were as fond of each other as it is possible for two old people to be who have nothing else in this life to be fond of. He was a thin old man, seventy when she died, a queer, crotchety person with coarse gray-black hair and beard, quite straggly and unkempt.
He looked at you out of dull, fishy, watery eyes that had , deep-brown crow`s-feet at the sides. His clothes, like the clothes of ‘ many farmers, were aged and angular and baggy, standing out at the pockets, not fitting about the neck, protuberant and worn at elbow j and knee. Phoebe Ann was thin and shapeless, a very umbrella of a woman, clad in shabby black, and with a black bonnet for her best j wear.
As time had passed, and they had only themselves to look after, their movements had become slower and slower, their activities fewer and fewer. The annual keep of pigs had been reduced from five to one grunting porker, and the single horse which Henry now retained was a sleepy animal, not over-nourished and not very clean. The chickens, of which formerly there was a large flock, had almost disappeared, owing to ferrets, foxes, and the lack of proper care, which produces disease.
Healthy Garden
The former healthy garden was now a straggling memory of itself, and the vines and flower-beds that formerly ornamented the windows and dooryard had now become choking thickets. A will had been made which divided the small tax-eaten property equally among the remaining four, so that it was really of no interest to any of them. Yet these two lived together in peace and sympathy, only that now and then old Henry would become unduly cranky, complaining almost invariably that something had been neglected or mislaid which was of no importance at all.
“Phoebe, where`s my corn-knife? You ain`t never minded to let my things alone no more.”
“Now you hush, Henry,” his wife would caution him in a cracked and squeaky voice. “If you don`t, I`ll leave yuh. I`ll git up and walk out of here someday, and then where would y` be? Y` ain`tgot anybody but me to look after yuh, so yuh just behave yourself. Your corn knife`s on the mantel where it`s alius been unless you`ve gone an` put it summers else.”
Old Henry, who knew his wife would never leave him in any circumstances, used to speculate at times as to what he would do if she were to die. That was the one leaving that he really feared. As he climbed on the chair at night to wind the old, long-pendulumed, double-weighted clock, or went finally to the front and the back door to see that they were safely shut in, it was a comfort to know that Phoebe was there, properly ensconced on her side of the bed, and that if he stirred restlessly in the night, she would be there to ask what he wanted.
“Now, Henry, do lie still! You`re as restless as a chicken.”
“Well, I can`t sleep, Phoebe.”
“Well, yuh needn`t roll so, anyhow. Yuh kin let me sleep.”
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