Luella Miller by Mary Wilkins Freeman

" You kill everybody that is fool enough to care anythin’ about you... "

What is our obligation to love they neighbor? In this short story by Mary Wilkins Freeman (best known for Pembroke), readers are invited to question their own ideas of when help becomes hinderance. Rae Wilson shares her observations on Freeman's words and invites you to question your own selflessness.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Echoes in the Dark, a podcast dedicated to the oral tradition of storytelling. If you're looking to enjoy more classic literature, struggle to find the time to read, hate reading, or just love listening to stories, then this podcast is for you. At the end of each story, I'll share my analysis on the story's deeper meaning. Luella Miller by Mary Wilkins Freeman is a short story that was originally published in 1902 in Everybody's Magazine. It's told in first-person narration, but what's really unique about this story is that the narrator has someone else tell the main events. So if you've ever listened to or read any Sherlock Holmes, then you're familiar that though Holmes is the main character, everything is told by Watson. If you want to follow along, you can get a copy of this story on my website BetterEssayWriting.com. Luella Miller by Mary Wilkins Freeman. Close to the village street stood the one -story house in which Luella Miller, who had an evil name in the village, had dwelt. She had been dead for years, yet there were those in the village who, in spite of the clearer light which comes on a vantage point from a long past danger, have believed in the tale which they heard from their childhood. In their hearts, although they scarcely would have owned it, was a survival of the wild horror and frenzied fear of the ancestors who had dwelt in the same age with Luella Miller. Young people would stare with a shudder at the old house as they passed, and children never played around it as was their want around an untenanted building. Not a window in the old Miller house was broken. The panes reflected the morning sunlight in the patches of emerald and blue, and the latch of the sagging front door was never lifted, although no bolt secured it. Since Luella Miller had been carried out of it, the house had had no tenant except one friendless old soul who had no choice between that and the far-off shelter of the open sky. This old woman who had survived her kindred and friends lived in the house one week. Then one morning, no smoke came out of the chimney, and a body of neighbors, a score strong, entered and found her dead in her bed. There were dark whispers as to the cause of her death, and there were those who testified to an expression of fear so exalted that it showed forth the state of the departing soul upon the dead face. The old woman had been hale and hearty when she entered the house, and in seven days she was dead. It seemed that she had fallen a victim to some uncanny power. The minister talked in the pulpit with covert severity against the sin of superstition. Still, the belief prevailed. Not a soul in the village but would have chosen the almost house rather than dwelling. No vagrant, if he had heard the tale, would seek shelter beneath that old roof, unhallowed by nearly half a century of superstitious fear. There was only one person in the village who had actually known Luella Miller. That person was a woman well over eighty, but a marvel of vitality, an unextinct youth, straight as an arrow with the spring of one recently let loose from the bow of life. She moved about the streets, and she always went to church, rain or shine. She had never married and had lived alone for years in a house across the road from Luella Miller's. This woman who had now the garrulousness of age, but never in all her life had she ever held her tongue for any will save her own, and she never spared the truth when she essayed to present it. She it was who bore testimony to the life, evil though possibly, wittingly, or designly so, of Luella Miller, and to her personal appearance. When this old woman spoke, and she had the gift of description, although her thoughts were clothed in rude vernacular of her native village, one could seem to see Luella Miller as she had really looked. According to this woman, Lydia Anderson by name, Luella Miller had been a beauty of a type rather unusual in New England. She had been a slight, pliant sort of creature, as ready with a strong yelding to fate and as breakable as a willow. She'd had glimmering length of straight, fair hair, which she wore softly looped round a long, lovely face. She had blue eyes full of soft pleading, little slender, clinging hands, and a wonderful grace of motion and attitude. Luella Miller used to sit in a way nobody else could if they sat up and studied a week of Sundays, said Lydia Anderson, and it was a sight to see her walk. If one of them willows over there on the edge of the brook could start up and get its roots free of the ground and move off, it would go just the way Luella Miller used to. She had a green shot silk she used to wear too, and a hat with green ribbon streamers, and a lace veil blowing across her face and out sideways, and a green ribbon flying from her waist. That was what she came out bride in when she married Erestis Miller. Her name before she was married was Hill. There was always a sight of L's in her name, married or single. Erestis Miller was good-looking too, better looking than Luella. Sometimes I used to think that Luella wasn't so handsome after all. Erestis just about worshipped her. I used to know him pretty well. He lived next door to me, and we went to school together. Folks used to say he was waiting on me, but he wasn't. I never thought he was, except once or twice when he said things that some girls might have suspected meant something. That was before Luella came here to teach the district school. It was funny how she came to get it, for folks said she hadn't any education, and that one of the big girls, Lottie Henderson, used to do all the teaching for her while she sat back and did embroidery work on a Cambric pocket handkerchief. Lottie Henderson was a real smart girl, a splendid scholar, and she just set her eyes by Luella as all the girls did. Lottie would have made a real smart woman, but she died when Luella had been here about a year. Just faded away and died. Nobody knew what ailed her. She dragged herself to that schoolhouse and helped Luella teach till the very last minute. The committee all knew how Luella didn't do much of the work herself, but they winked at it. It wasn't long after Lottie died that Erestis married her. I always thought he heard it up because she wasn't fit to teach. One of the big boys used to help her after Lottie died, but he had much government and the school didn't do very well, and Luella might have had to give it up, for the committee couldn't have shut their eyes to things much longer. The boy that helped her was a real honest, innocent sort of fella, and he was a good scholar too. Folks said he overstudied, and that was the reason he took crazy the year after Luella married, but I don't know. And I don't know what made Erestis Miller go into consumption of the blood the year after he was married. Consumption wasn't in his family. He just grew weaker and weaker and went almost bent double when he tried to wait on Luella. And he spoke feeble, like an old man. He worked terrible hard till the last, trying to save up a little to leave Luella. I seen him out in the worst storms on a wood sled. He used to cut and sell wood, and he was hunched up on top looking more dead than alive. Once, I couldn't stand it, I went over and helped him pitch some wood on the cart. I was always strong in my arms. I wouldn't stop for all he had told me to, and I guess he was glad enough for the help. That was only a week before he died. Fell on the kitchen floor while he was getting breakfast. He always got the breakfast and let Luella lay a bed. He did all the sweeping, and the washing, and the ironing, and most of the cooking. He couldn't bear to have Luella lift her finger, and she let him do for her. She lived like a queen for all the work she did. She didn't even do her sewing. She said it made a shoulder ache to sew, and poor Orestes's sister Lily used to do all her sewing. She wasn't able to either. She was never strong in her back, but she did it beautifully. She had to, to suit Luella. She was so dreadful particular. I never saw anything like the faggoting and hemstitching that Lily Miller did for Luella. She made all Luella's Luella outfit in that green silk dress after Maria Babbitt cut it. Maria she cut it for nothing, and she did a lot more cutting and fitting for nothing for Luella too. Lily Miller went to live with Luella after Orestes died. She gave up her home, though she was real attached to it, and wasn't afraid to stay alone. She rented it, and she went to live with Luella right away after the funeral. Then this old woman, Lydia Anderson, who remembered Luella Miller, would go on to relate the story of Lily Miller. It seemed that on the removal of Lily Miller to the house of her dead brother to live with his widow, the village people first began to talk. This Lily Miller had been hardly past her first youth, and a most robust and blooming woman, rosy-cheeked, with curls of strong black hair overshadowing her round, candid temples, and bright dark eyes. It was not six months after she had taken up her residence with her sister-in -law that her rosy color faded, and her pretty curves became wan hollows. White shadows began to show in the black rings of her hair, and the light died out of her eyes. Her features sharpened, and there were pathetic lines at her mouth, which yet were always an expression of utter sweetness and even happiness. She was devoted to her sister. There was no doubt that she loved her with her whole heart, and was perfectly content in her service. It was her sole anxiety, at least she should die and leave her alone. The way Lily Miller used to talk about Luella was enough to make you mad and enough to make you cry, said Lydia Anderson. I've been in there sometimes toward the last, when she was too feeble to cook, and carried her some blanc mange or custard, something I thought she might relish, and she thanked me, and when I asked her how she was, say she felt better than she did yesterday, and asked me if I didn't think she looked better. Dreadful, pitiful, and say poor Luella had an awful time caring for her and doing the work. She wasn't strong enough to do anything, when all the time Luella wasn't lifting her finger, and poor Lily didn't get any care, except for what the neighbors gave her, and Luella ate up everything that was carried in for Lily. I had it real straight that she did. Luella to just sit, cry, and do nothing. She did act real fond of Lily, and she pined away considerable too. There was those that thought she'd go into a decline herself, but after Lily died, her Aunt Abby Mixter came, and then Luella picked up and grew as fat and rosy as ever, but poor Aunt Abby began to droop just the way Lily had, and I guess somebody wrote to her married daughter, Mrs. Sam Abbott, who lived in Barra, for she wrote her mother that she must leave right away and come and make her a visit, but Aunt Abby wouldn't go. I can see her now. She was a real good-looking woman, tall and large, with a big square face and a high forehead that looked of itself kind of benevolent and good. She just tended out on Luella as if she had been a baby, and when her married daughter sent for her, she wouldn't stir one inch. She'd always thought a lot of her daughter too, but she said Luella needed her, and her married daughter didn't. Her daughter kept rotting and rotting, but it didn't do no good. Finally, she came, and when she saw how bad her mother looked, she broke down and cried all but went on her knees to have her come away. She spoke her mind out to Luella too. She told her that she killed her husband and everybody that had anything to do with her, and she thanked her to leave her mother alone. Luella went into hysterics, and Aunt Abby so frightened that she called me after her daughter went. Mrs. Sam Abbott, she went away, fairly crying out loud in the buggy. Neighbors heard her, and well, she might, but she never saw her mother again alive. I went in that night when Aunt Abby called for me, standing in the door with her little green checkered shawl over her head. I could see her now. Do come over here, Miss Anderson, she sung out, kind of gasping for breath. I didn't stop for anything. I put over as fast as I could, and when I got there, there was Luella laughing and crying all together, and Aunt Abby trying to hush her, and all the time she herself was white as a sheet and shaking so she could hardly stand. For the land sakes, Miss Mixter, says I. You look worse than she does. You ain't fit to be up out of your bed. Oh, there ain't anything the matter with me, she says. Then she went on talking to Luella. There, there, don't, don't, poor lamb, she says. Aunt Abby's here. She ain't gonna go away and leave you. Don't, poor lamb. Do leave her with me, Miss Mixter, and you get back to bed, says I. For Aunt Abby had been laying down considerable lately, though somehow she contrived to do the work. I'm well enough, says she. Don't you think she had better have a doctor, Miss Anderson? The doctor, says I. I think you had better have the doctor. I think you need him much worse than some folks I could mention, and I looked right straight at Luella Miller, laughing and crying and going on as if she was a sinner of all creation. All the time she was acting so, seemed as if she was too sick to sense anything. She was keeping a sharp lookout to see how we took it all out of the corner of her eye. I see her. You can never cheat me about Luella Miller. Finally, I got real mad and I run home and I got a bottle of valerian I had and I poured some boiling hot water on a handful of catnip and I mixed that catnip tea and most half a wine glass of valerian and I went with it over to Luella's. I marched right up to Luella, holding out the cup, all smoking. Now, says I, Luella Miller, you swallow this. What is? What is it? Oh, what is it? She sort of screeches. Then she goes off laughing enough to kill. Poor lamb, poor little lamb, says Aunt Abby, standing over her all contottery and trying to bathe her head with camphor. You swallow this right down, says I, and I didn't waste any ceremony. I just took hold of Luella Miller's chin and I tipped her head back and I caught her mouth open with laughing and I clapped that cup to her lips and I fairly hollowed at her. Swallow, swallow, swallow, and she gulped it right down. She had to and I guess it did her good. Anyhow, she stopped crying and laughing and let me put her to bed and she went to sleep like a baby inside a half an hour. That's more than I can say about poor Aunt Abby. She lay awake all that night and I stayed with her, though she tried not to have me. She said she wasn't sick enough for watchers, but I stayed. I made some good cornmeal gruel and I fed her a teaspoon every little while all night long. Seemed to me as if she was just dying from being all wore out. In the morning, as soon as it was light, I run over to the Bisbee's and sent Johnny Bisbee for the doctor. I told him to tell the doctor to hurry and he come pretty quick. Poor Aunt Abby didn't seem to know much anything when he got there. He couldn't hardly tell she breathed. She was so used up. When the doctor had gone, Luella came into the room looking like a baby in her ruffle nightgown. I can see her now. Her eyes were as blue and her face all pink and white like a blossom and she looked at Aunt Abby in the bed sort of innocent and surprised. Why, says she. Aunt Abby ain't got up yet? No, she ain't, says I pretty short. I thought I didn't smell the coffee, says Luella. Coffee, says I. I guess if you have coffee this morning you'll make it yourself. I never made the coffee in all my life, says she, dreadful and astonished. Arrestus always made the coffee as long as he lived and then Lily, she made it, and then Aunt Abby made it. I don't believe I can make the coffee, Miss Anderson. You can make it or go without, just as you please, says I. Ain't Aunt Abby gonna get up, says she. I guess she won't get up, says I, sick as she is. I was getting madder and madder. There was something about that little pink and white thing standing there and talking about coffee when she had killed so many better folks than she was and had just killed another. That made me feel most as if I wish somebody would up and kill her before she had a chance to do any more harm. Is Aunt Abby sick, says Luella, as if she was sort of aggrieved and injured. Yes, says I, she's sick and she's gonna die and then you'll be left all alone and you'll have to do for yourself and wait on yourself and do without things. I don't know but I was sort of hard but it was the truth and if I was any harder than Luella Miller had been, I'll give up. I ain't never been sorry that I said it. Well, Luella, she up and had hysterics again at that and I just let her have him. All I did was to bundle her into the room on the other side of the entry where Aunt Abby couldn't hear her if she wasn't past it. I don't know but she was and set her down in a chair and told her not to come back into the room and she minded. She had her hysterics in there till she got tired. When she found out that nobody was coming to call her and do for her, she stopped. At least, I suppose she did. I had all I could do with poor Aunt Abby trying to keep the breath of life in her. That doctor had told me that she was dreadful low and give me some very strong medicine to give her and drops real often and told me real particularly about the nourishment. Well, I did as he told me real faithful till she wasn't able to swallow any longer. Then, I had a daughter sent for. I begun to realize that she wouldn't last any time at all. I hadn't realized it before though I spoke to Luella the way I did. The doctor, he came and Mrs. Sam Abbott but when she got there, it was too late. Her mother was dead. Aunt Abby's daughter just get one look at her mother laying there. Then she turns to the shop and suddenly looked at me. Where is she? Says she. And I knew what she meant, Luella. She's out in the kitchen says I. She's too nervous to see folks die. She afraid it'll make her sick. Doctor, he speaks up then. He was a young man. Old Dr. Parker died the year before and this was a young fella just out of college. Mrs. Miller is not strong says he kind of severe and she is quite right and not aggravating herself. You are another young man. She's got a pretty claw on you thinks I but I didn't say anything to him. I just said over to Mrs. Sam Abbott that Luella was in the kitchen and Mrs. Sam Abbott she went over there and I went too and I never heard anything like the way she talked to Luella Miller. I felt pretty hard to Luella myself but this was more than I ever would have dared to say. Luella, she was too scared to go into hysterics. She just flopped. She seemed to just shrink away to nothing in that kitchen chair with Mrs. Sam Abbott standing over her and talking and telling her the truth. I guess the truth was most too much for her and no mistake because Luella presently actually did faint away and there wasn't any shame about it. The way I always suspected there was about them hysterics. She fainted dead away and we had to lay her flat on the floor and the doctor he came running down and he said something about a weak heart dreadful fish to Mrs. Sam Abbott but she wasn't a mite scared. She faced him just as well as even Luella was laying there looking like death and the doctor filling up her pulse. Weak heart says she. Weak heart? Weak fiddlesticks? There ain't nothing weak about that woman. She got the strength enough to hang on to other folks till she kills them. Weak? It was my poor mother that was weak. This woman killed her as sure as if she had taken a knife to her. But the doctor he didn't pay much attention. He was bending over Luella laying there with her yellow hair all streaming and her pretty pink and white face all pale and her blue eyes like stars gone out and he was holding on to her hand and smoothing her forehead and telling me to get the brandy in Aunt Abby's room and I was sure as I want to be that Luella had got somebody else to hang on to. Now Aunt Abby was gone and I thought of poor Restless Miller and I sort of pitied the poor young doctor led away by a pretty face and I made up my mind I see what I could do. I waited till Aunt Abby had been dead and buried for about a month and the doctor was gonna see Luella steady and folks were beginning to talk. Then one evening when I knew the doctor had been called out of town and wouldn't be around I went over to Luella's. I found her all dressed up in a blue muslin with white polka dots on it and her hair curled just as pretty and there wasn't a young girl in the place could compare with her. There was something about Luella Miller seemed to draw the heart right out of you. But she didn't draw it out of me. She was sitting rocking in the chair by her sitting room window and Maria Brown had gone home. Maria Brown had been in to help her or rather to do the work for Luella wasn't helped when she didn't do anything. Maria Brown was real capable and she didn't have any ties. She wasn't married and lived alone so she offered. I couldn't see why she should do the work of any more than Luella. She wasn't any too strong but she seemed to think she could and Luella seemed to think so too. So she went over and did all the work washed and ironed and baked while Luella sat and rocked. Hmm Maria didn't live long afterward. She began to fade away just the same fashion the others had. Well she was worn but she acted real mad when folks said anything. Said Luella was a poor abused woman too delicate to help herself and they'd ought to be ashamed and if she died helping them that couldn't help themselves she would and she did. I suppose Maria has gone home says I to Luella when I gone in and sat down beside her. Yes Maria went half an hour ago after she had got supper and washed the dishes said Luella in her pretty way. I suppose she has got a lot of work to do in her own house tonight says I kind of bitter but that was all thrown away on Luella Miller. Seemed to her right that other folks that weren't any better able than she was herself. She'll wait on her and she couldn't get it through her head that anybody should think it wasn't right. Yes says Luella real sweet and pretty. Yes she said she had to do her washing tonight. She was let it go for a fortnight along of coming over here. Why don't she stay home and do her washing instead of coming over here and doing your work when you were just as well able and enough sight more so than she is to do it says I. Then Luella she looked at me like a baby who has a rattleshook at it. She sort of laughed as innocent as you please. I can't do the work myself Miss Anderson says she. I never did. Maria has to do it. Then I spoke out. Has to do it says I. Has to do it. She don't have to do it either. Maria Brown has her own home and enough to live on. She ain't beholden to you to come over here and slave for you and kill herself. Luella she just sat and stared at me for all the world like a doll baby that was so abused that it was coming alive. Yes says I. She's killing herself. She gone to die just the way Arrestus did and Lily and your Aunt Abby. You're killing her just as you did them. I don't know what there is about you but you seem to bring a curse says I. You kill everybody that is fool enough to care anything about you and do for you.