



Produced by Donald Lainson.  HTML version by Al Haines.









THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH

And Other Stories Of The Supernatural


By

Mary Wilkins




Contents

  The Wind in the Rose-bush
  The Shadows on the Wall
  Luella Miller
  The Southwest Chamber
  The Vacant Lot
  The Lost Ghost




THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH


Ford Village has no railroad station, being on the other side of the
river from Porter's Falls, and accessible only by the ford which gives
it its name, and a ferry line.

The ferry-boat was waiting when Rebecca Flint got off the train with
her bag and lunch basket.  When she and her small trunk were safely
embarked she sat stiff and straight and calm in the ferry-boat as it
shot swiftly and smoothly across stream.  There was a horse attached to
a light country wagon on board, and he pawed the deck uneasily.  His
owner stood near, with a wary eye upon him, although he was chewing,
with as dully reflective an expression as a cow.  Beside Rebecca sat a
woman of about her own age, who kept looking at her with furtive
curiosity; her husband, short and stout and saturnine, stood near her.
Rebecca paid no attention to either of them.  She was tall and spare
and pale, the type of a spinster, yet with rudimentary lines and
expressions of matronhood. She all unconsciously held her shawl, rolled
up in a canvas bag, on her left hip, as if it had been a child.  She
wore a settled frown of dissent at life, but it was the frown of a
mother who regarded life as a froward child, rather than as an
overwhelming fate.

The other woman continued staring at her; she was mildly stupid, except
for an over-developed curiosity which made her at times sharp beyond
belief.  Her eyes glittered, red spots came on her flaccid cheeks; she
kept opening her mouth to speak, making little abortive motions.
Finally she could endure it no longer; she nudged Rebecca boldly.

"A pleasant day," said she.

Rebecca looked at her and nodded coldly.

"Yes, very," she assented.

"Have you come far?"

"I have come from Michigan."

"Oh!" said the woman, with awe.  "It's a long way," she remarked
presently.

"Yes, it is," replied Rebecca, conclusively.

Still the other woman was not daunted; there was something which she
determined to know, possibly roused thereto by a vague sense of
incongruity in the other's appearance.  "It's a long ways to come and
leave a family," she remarked with painful slyness.

"I ain't got any family to leave," returned Rebecca shortly.

"Then you ain't--"

"No, I ain't."

"Oh!" said the woman.

Rebecca looked straight ahead at the race of the river.

It was a long ferry.  Finally Rebecca herself waxed unexpectedly
loquacious.  She turned to the other woman and inquired if she knew
John Dent's widow who lived in Ford Village.  "Her husband died about
three years ago," said she, by way of detail.

The woman started violently.  She turned pale, then she flushed; she
cast a strange glance at her husband, who was regarding both women with
a sort of stolid keenness.

"Yes, I guess I do," faltered the woman finally.

"Well, his first wife was my sister," said Rebecca with the air of one
imparting important intelligence.

"Was she?" responded the other woman feebly.  She glanced at her
husband with an expression of doubt and terror, and he shook his head
forbiddingly.

"I'm going to see her, and take my niece Agnes home with me," said
Rebecca.

Then the woman gave such a violent start that she noticed it.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"Nothin', I guess," replied the woman, with eyes on her husband, who
was slowly shaking his head, like a Chinese toy.

"Is my niece sick?" asked Rebecca with quick suspicion.

"No, she ain't sick," replied the woman with alacrity, then she caught
her breath with a gasp.

"When did you see her?"

"Let me see; I ain't seen her for some little time," replied the woman.
Then she caught her breath again.

"She ought to have grown up real pretty, if she takes after my sister.
She was a real pretty woman," Rebecca said wistfully.

"Yes, I guess she did grow up pretty," replied the woman in a trembling
voice.

"What kind of a woman is the second wife?"

The woman glanced at her husband's warning face.  She continued to gaze
at him while she replied in a choking voice to Rebecca:

"I--guess she's a nice woman," she replied.  "I--don't know, I--guess
so.  I--don't see much of her."

"I felt kind of hurt that John married again so quick," said Rebecca;
"but I suppose he wanted his house kept, and Agnes wanted care.  I
wasn't so situated that I could take her when her mother died.  I had
my own mother to care for, and I was school-teaching. Now mother has
gone