David laughed joyously. "I feel just as I did the day I got my patent, Sarah: I've got a little business to see to after dinner, but about four o'clock I'll come around with the buggy, and we'll take a long ride. I've been workin' hard for the last few weeks, and I reckon I'm entitled to a little holiday."
That horse and phaeton had been the occasion of much comment on the part of the general public. People often smiled to see the rich inventor and his wife in their modest turnout, while men of lesser worth whizzed by in costly machines; only Sarah knew that the shining little phaeton and the gentle mare were the realization of a childish dream.
"I reckon I ought to have bought a car," said David apologetically, as he helped Sarah into the phaetonfor their first ride together; "but when I was a little shaver I wanted a pony; every boy does. Nobody but God will ever know how much I wanted that pony I never got. And when I grew older, I wanted a horse just as bad as I wanted a pony, and now the time's come when I can have what I want. Some day we can get one of these big machines, but right now this little buggy and this little mare just suit me." And Sarah had acquiesced fully in these views.
"You can't love a big machine, but you can love a horse," she said. And thereafter the horse and phaeton were the only mitigating circumstances of her new life, for they enabled her to get away, for a few happy, care-free hours, from the two-story brick and the two hateful servants. She ate her dinner with a better appetite because of the promised ride. Long before the hour appointed she was dressed and waiting with the impatience of a child, and before they had gone a mile, she had caught David's spirit of happiness, and was looking up into her husband's face with a look her face used to wear before the curse of wealth came upon her.
"Are we going to Millville?" she asked apprehensively.
"No," said David. "We're going in that direction, but we'll stop before we get there." He understood why Sarah would not want to drive through the village; it would seem like flaunting her new wealth in the faces of her old neighbors. David's eyes sparkled, and his mouth kept curving into a smile even though there was no occasion for smiling. Sarah felt that she was on the verge of a pleasant surprise, and her eyes roved here and there searching for the possible stopping-place. There were pretty cottages at intervals along the road, and each one reminded her of her lost home. On they went, around a sharp turn in the road, and suddenly David drew rein in the shade of a huge tulip tree just in front of a little country place. A new paling fence painted gray enclosed the lot; the house was not a new one, but its coat of gray matched the fence, and a fresh green roof crowned its walls. Sarah leaned forward, her eyes alight with wonder.
"Why, Dave, it looks like our old cottage. It's exactly like it, only it's had a new coat of paint. What are we stopping here for? Does anybody live here?"
David was helping her out of the phaeton. His eyes were smiling, and the corners of his mouth twitched.
"It does look considerably like our cottage," he said gravely. "That's why I brought you out here. I thought you might enjoy lookin' at it." He opened the gate, and they walked up the path, Sarah glancing from side to side at the newly planted shrubs and trees.
"Why, Dave, it looks just like our front yard, only everything's new. There's that little maple tree at the corner of the house, just like our maple tree at home, and all the shrubs I used to have, and planted in exactly the same places. It's right curious how much it's like our old place."
They were on the front porch now. David knocked loudly on the door. That door! Sarah's eyes were scanning it as if it were a written page from which she hoped to learn good tidings. It glistened bravely in its thick coat of white paint, but when one has opened and shut the same door for twenty years, the brush of the painter cannot wholly conceal its familiar features. Surely that was her front door!
"The folks don't seem to be at home," said David, and as he spoke, he took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and flung it wide open. David was no playwright, but he understood how to produce a dramatic situation and bring a scene to a successfulclimax. The opening of the door disclosed a narrow entry. The floor was covered with an oilcloth somewhat worn, and in front of the door lay a rug of braided rags. Against the wall stood a very ugly hatrack, and over the door leading into the room on the left was a Bible text worked in faded yarns and framed in dingy gilt. For a moment Sarah stood gazing bewildered at the familiar interior, then she grasped her husband's hand and stepped across the threshold, uttering an inarticulate expression of rapture, while David laughed aloud in pure delight.
"Oh, David! David!" she cried, "it's my own home, my own little home! What does it mean, David? Am I crazy or dreaming or what?" She was clinging to David's arm, trembling and tearful. David patted her kindly on the hand.
"You're not crazy, honey, and you're wide-awake, too. It means that you've got your old home again, and you needn't ever go back to the two-story brick house in town unless you want to."
"But I thought the house was torn down," insisted Sarah, incredulous of the happy reality.
"So it was," explained David, "but I bought the lumber and had it all put together again. Everything'sjust like it used to be except the wall paper and paint. They're new."
Oh! the miracle of it! And it was David's love that had wrought the miracle. Sarah tried to speak, tried to tell David all her happiness and gratitude, but the words were so incoherent, broken, and mixed with tears that no one but David could have understood their meaning.
"Kind?" he said, patting her shoulder. "No, there's no particular kindness about this. I've just got Doctor Bourland's prescription filled, that's all. You know he said I had to find out what the trouble was and remove it, and that's what I've tried to do."
Sarah's tears flowed afresh at this proof of David's thoughtfulness. "Oh, David!" she cried remorsefully. "I thought you didn't care for the things—ourthings! And it hurt me so!"
"Cheer up, old woman," said David. "Dry your eyes and see if I've got everything here I ought to have. You'll find some clothes in the bureau drawers, enough to last for a few days, anyhow. We're goin' to stay here awhile, till that head of yours quits achin' and your nerves get quieted down."
But Sarah was in the kitchen now, opening drawers, doors, and boxes like a true daughter of Pandora. "Sugar—meal—soda—bacon—salt. How on earth did you manage to think of everything, David?"
"Come out in the garden," urged David. "Pretty outlook, ain't it?" he said, with a gesture toward the west where green meadows and blue hills slumbered in the late afternoon sunshine. "See the new stable and the chicken yard. I'll put up some martin boxes next week, and we'll have pigeons, too. Here's the asparagus bed, and over against the stable we'll have a little hotbed and raise early lettuce. It's too late to do much now, but I've got the walks laid off, and this time next year we'll be sittin' under our own 'vine and fig-tree.'"
Hand in hand, like two children, they wandered over their acre of ground, planning for the flower garden, the vegetable garden, and the tiny orchard and the grape arbor that were to be, till the level rays of the sun warned them of approaching evening. David took out his watch.
"Pretty near supper time," he said. "The fire's laid in the kitchen stove. I wonder if you've forgotten how to cook a meal, Mrs. Maynor?"
Sarah answered with a laugh; and as she walked to the house and entered her kitchen, she looked as Eve might have looked, if, with her womanly tears and sighs, she had bribed the Angel of the Flaming Sword to let her pass through the gate and stroll for an hour along the paths of her lost Eden. But Sarah's Paradise Regained was the paradise of the worker. She rolled up her sleeves, tied a gingham apron around her waist, and set about getting supper with the zeal of those who count themselves blest in having to earn the bread they eat.
She set the little square table near a western window, and the sunset light fell on the cheap cloth, the ill-matched pieces of cheap china, and the plain food of the working man. It was all she could do to keep back the tears of joy when she called David in to supper. David's eyes filled, too, when he seated himself at the table. He bowed his head to say grace, but his voice failed, and their grace was a silent thanksgiving, not for food, but for the restoration of the old home and the old life.
In the midst of the meal Sarah laid down her knife and fork with an expression of dismay. "Oh, David!" she exclaimed, "what will we do about the house intown? We can't leave it in charge of those no-account servants."
"Don't worry," said David placidly. "Ann Bryan's in charge of that house, and she'll stay as long as we're here. Ann knows how to manage servants. She used to be the housekeeper at Northcliffe Manor, you remember. I told her about the trouble you'd had, and I think you'll find Nelly and Bertha well broken in when you get back."
Sarah drew a sigh of relief. It was good to know that those hateful servants were in stronger hands than hers, and better still, that she and David could eat their meals in the privacy of the kitchen with no spying eyes upon them.
"Do the people at Millville know about this house, David?" she asked later, as they sat on the porch in the stillness and coolness of the night. David blew a puff of smoke into the darkness before he answered.
"They all know, Sarah, and I think it'll make things a good deal easier for you. Annie McGowan came by one day, when I was havin' the cottage torn down and the lumber hauled out here; she stopped to ask questions, and I told her how you pined for your old home and what I intended to do, and I guess she told allthe other women, for I notice a change in everybody's face."
"What did Annie say?" urged Sarah eagerly.
"She said she always knew your heart was in the right place."
The old home and the old friends, too! All her loved and lost possessions were found, and if David's wealth were suddenly snatched away, she would still be a rich woman. She slept soundly and woke with a thrill of rapture at the thought of the day's work before her. How many things there were to be done and how willingly she would do them, for she was back in her own place, living her own life, and finding health and happiness in daily toil. She went from task to task, rejoicing that her hand had not lost its cunning for sweeping, dusting, sewing, cooking, and all the rest of the blessed work that goes to the making of a home; "and the evening and the morning were the first day." The second day was like unto the first, and on the third day Mary Matthews and Annie McGowan came, and a broken friendship was cemented, never to be broken again.
At the end of the week David came home with a grave face. "I'm sorry, Sarah," he said, as they satdown to their supper, "but I'm afraid we'll have to break camp and go back to town to-morrow morning. I had a letter from Bates and Hammond, that big firm I told you about, and I have to go to St. Louis to-morrow morning. I can't leave you out here alone, so I reckon you'll have to go back to the two-story brick for awhile."
He expected an outburst of tears from Sarah, but to his great relief she went calmly on, pouring his coffee and helping him to the corn bread and bacon.
"That's all right, David," she said pleasantly. "I was just wonderin' to-day how things were in town, and I'd just as soon go back as not."
David drew a breath of relief. "I think you'll find everything in good order," he said. "Ann Bryan has got Nelly and Bertha well in hand. She says they're good servants, and all they need is a tight rein to hold them to their work. She says you must look them straight in the eye when you give an order, and never let a bad piece of work pass. She says that's the secret of managin' servants."
Sarah said nothing, but there was a look on her face that Ann Bryan would have approved.
"We have to make an early start to-morrow," continued David, "for I leave on the nine o'clock train. Ann may leave the house before we get to town. Her brother's wife is sick, and she's needed at home, and that's another reason why we ought to go back to town for awhile."
"Of course it is," agreed Sarah, "and I don't mind it at all."
David watched his wife closely, as they made preparations for leaving the next morning, but there was nothing in her manner or her words to indicate the slightest annoyance over the return to town. She seemed alert, cheerful, and more than willing to make the change, and when they came in sight of the two-story brick, David thought she looked rather pleased.
"Maybe you'd better have some one to stay with you while I'm gone," he suggested, as he kissed her good-by.
"No," said Sarah, very decidedly, "I've got some work to do, and I'd rather be alone. Take care of yourself, David, and come home as soon as you can."
She stood on the porch till David was out of sight and then walked back to the kitchen where the twoservants were dawdling and gossiping over their breakfast.
"Nelly," she said, pointing to the kitchen clock and looking the maid squarely in the face, "it's nearly nine o'clock and no cleaning done yet. Go up-stairs and open the windows so the house'll have a good airing, and then get the parlor in order first before company comes." While the astonished Nelly obeyed orders, she turned to Bertha and gave directions for the next meal. "You've got your kitchen in good order," she said approvingly, "and from now on you must keep it just this way."
"She's learnin' fast," said Nelly to Bertha an hour later, when they came together for a whispered conference in the kitchen pantry.
"Believe me!" returned Bertha, "it won't be long before I'll be cookin' six o'clock dinner instead of supper."
Sarah had ample time to work and think, for David was gone a week instead of three days. Every morning she arose with certain plans in her mind, and every night she lay down to sleep, calmly satisfied because she had carried these plans to a successful completion. The forenoons were spent in a careful superintendence of household affairs, and Nelly and Bertha were madeto feel the authority of a mistress whose ideas of cleanliness and order were beyond any they had ever known. In the afternoon she put on her brown suit and went out to walk, or to call on the friendly people whose cards lay in the silver tray on her center table. Her air at such times was one of grave determination, and even David never knew with what fear and trembling and heart-sinking these first social duties were performed. She was a pleasant-faced, wholesome-looking woman; her dark, abundant hair was somewhat coarse, but it waved naturally, and she arranged it well; her skin was not fine, but it had a clear, healthy color, and her form was erect, in spite of years of drudgery. Each day a careful observer might have found some slight improvement in her dress and manner. Hitherto the putting on of clothes had been to Sarah merely a part of her day's work, something to be done with the utmost speed; but now she was learning to make a toilette, varying the arrangement of her hair and observing the fit of her garments and the effect of different colors. Her taste in clothes happened to be good, and the fine simplicity of her suit and hat offset the plainness of her manner and her evident embarrassment over the difficult function of making calls.
"I like her," said Mrs. Emerson, the minister's wife, to Mrs. Morris, the banker's wife. "She is what you call a plain woman, and they're unmistakably 'new rich', but the newspaper paragrapher will never have anything on her. She's absolutely without pretense, and she has a world of common sense. I'm glad she's consented to join our club, for we need just such a woman in this legislative work we're undertaking."
When David wrote her the date of his home-coming, she made it a festal occasion. The house had an extra cleaning; the grocer's boy left the choicest meat, fruits, and vegetables on Nelly's kitchen table, and Bertha was ordered to make the table look as attractive as possible. Notwithstanding her longing for the old life, Sarah had always taken a timid, tremulous sort of pleasure in the fine damask, the cut glass, silver, and china that David had bought when they moved into the "two-story brick", and after she had dressed to meet David, she stole down to the dining-room to feast her eyes on the costly things that had replaced the plated spoons, steel knives, ten-cent dishes, and cotton napkins of other days. Closing the door lest Bertha should intrude on her, she gazed fondly at her possessions. She was just beginning to feel they were really hers.She touched the lace of the centerpiece and a daring thought came into her mind. Was there time to do it before David came? She rushed up-stairs, put on her hat and coat, seized her purse, and walked swiftly to a near-by greenhouse.
"Roses?" said the florist, "certainly, madam, what kind?"
What kind? Alas! the only roses she knew by name were roses like the old-fashioned ones that grew in the gardens of the Millville people. These stately queens clad in white, pink, and crimson satin and cloth of gold, were strangers to her. She looked hesitatingly from the Bridesmaid to the Bride, from the Bride to the Jacqueminot, and the florist, seeing her perplexity, suggested La France as a desirable choice and called her attention to the perfume. Yes, she wanted a dozen,—she almost turned pale at the thought of her own extravagance,—and when the florist laid the big, soft bundle of roses and ferns on her arm, she hurried home with a fearful joy in her heart. She was used to placing flowers on her table, gay nasturtiums, delicate sweet peas, and gorgeous zinnias from her own little back-yard garden. But to buy flowers for the table had always seemed to her the acme of luxury.Often she had gazed admiringly at the treasures of the florist's window, with never a thought that such splendors of color and perfume would one day be within her reach. She had really never accepted the change from poverty to wealth, and not once had she put her fingers into the purse that the hand of fortune held out to her. It was David who bought the house and its furnishings, David who bought even her clothes, while she, fettered by the frugal habits of a lifetime, stood aghast at what seemed to her a reckless, sinful extravagance. But now the rich fragrance of the roses was like an enchantment. Her hands trembled, a flush rose to her cheek, and as she placed the blossoms in a cut-glass vase, unconsciously she stepped across the boundary line between the old life and the new. Those hothouse flowers and ferns were the signs of wealth, David's wealth. She was David's wife, and she had a right to every costly and beautiful thing that her husband's money could purchase. She drew back from the table to observe the effect of the flowers drooping over the heavy damask cloth set with sparkling glass and silver and delicate china; then, moved by a sudden impulse that she could not have explained, she drew one of the roses from the vase and hurried upto her room, glancing furtively back to see whether she was observed by either of the servants. Standing before the mirror, she broke off the long stem and pinned the flower at her belt, then gazed anxiously into the glass. Clearly the flower looked out of place. She unpinned it, noticing how rough and coarse her hands were when they touched the satiny rose petals. But she had seen other women wearing great clusters of such flowers, and she too must learn to wear them. She heard David's step on the pavement below; the front door opened. She replaced the rose, and turning from the mirror with an air of firm resolve, she went bravely down to meet her husband.
Ah, the joy of reunion! All her perplexities fell away from her as she and David clasped hands and smiled at each other after the manner of long married lovers.
"Thank God for home!" ejaculated David, sinking into an easy chair. He looked around the room, looked again at his wife, and was conscious of a subtle change in the atmosphere of the house. The exquisite order and cleanliness reminded him of the housekeeping he had been accustomed to, when he and Sarah lived in the little Millville cottage; and on Sarah's face therewas an expression that her husband had never before seen there, the look of a soul that is girding itself for new responsibilities and new duties. David did not understand the look, but he observed that Sarah no longer crept about the house like an awkward, frightened guest; her step and bearing were that of the mistress, and he had a thrill of exultant pride a few moments later, when he heard her address Nelly in a tone of calm command. He also saw and approved the rose at her belt, but he did not know that the flower was a symbol of all the changes that had been wrought during his absence.
There was no self-consciousness in the manner of either when they sat down at the flower-decked table. David had seen persons of importance and transacted business of importance; he was the sort of husband who makes his wife a silent partner in all his business affairs, and the two talked at ease, forgetting the hated presence of a servant. David looked across the roses at his wife's face, serene and happy as it used to be in the old days, and again he silently blessed the doctor and his magic prescription.
"How do you feel now, Sarah?" he asked, as they seated themselves in the parlor, and Sarahtook up her basket of crocheting. "You know the doctor said I must let him know how you got along."
"I am perfectly well," said Sarah emphatically, "and what's more, I intend to stay well."
David laughed aloud with pleasure. "I'll tell the doctor how well his prescription worked. That cottage is the best investment I ever made."
"Even if we never went back to it," said Sarah thoughtfully, "it would make me happy just to know it's there and it's ours."
"That reminds me," said David, with a sudden change of manner. "Hale and Davis say they can sell this house for me any day."
"Hale and Davis?" inquired Sarah with a look of surprise.
"Real estate men," explained David.
"What right have they to sell my house?" asked Sarah almost angrily.
David looked embarrassed. "Why, Sarah, I told them you were dissatisfied; you know you said—"
"Yes, I know I did," owned Sarah hastily. Her face crimsoned with an embarrassment greater than David's. During his absence she had been bornagain, born from poverty to riches. This sudden change of heart and mind that had made her a new creature was a mystery to herself; how, then, could she explain it satisfactorily to her husband? "I know you'll think I'm notionate and changeable, but—I don't want to sell this house. I feel just as much at home here now as I do in the little cottage. I've got used to the servants and everything, and I want to stay, and if I did not want to, I'd stay anyhow. It's cowardly to run away or turn back when you've set out to do a certain thing, and I'm not a coward. Oh! I know I can't make you understand how I feel about it and how I came to change so, but—I want to stay in this house." She paused and looked pleadingly at David. For a few seconds he was dumb with astonishment, then:
"Good for you, Sarah," ejaculated David: "That's exactly the way I feel about it." Pride and exultation shone in his eyes. Sarah had risen to the situation, and if Sarah could, so could he.
"But can we afford to keep this house and the cottage, too?" asked Sarah anxiously.
David laughed as one laughs at the questioning of a child.
"Wait a minute, Sarah; I've got something to show you." He rose and left the room, returning presently with a drawing-board covered with sheets of drafting paper. He drew his chair near to Sarah's, rested the board on her knees, and began an enthusiastic description of the mechanism pictured in his rough drawings. Sarah could not comprehend the complexities of wheels, pulleys, flanges, and weights that David pointed out to her, but David's mechanical genius was the glory of her life, and she looked at the drawings with the rapt admiration a painter's wife might bestow on a canvas fresh from her husband's touch.
"I've been hammering at this idea a good while," concluded David, "and I believe I've got it in working shape at last. I'll have some better drawings made this week and get them off to Washington, and if all goes well, we'll have more money than we know what to do with."
"No, we won't," said Sarah. Her lips closed to a thin line, and she spoke with defiant emphasis. "That's another thing I've learned while you were away. I know what to do with money, and I don't care how rich we are."
David stared at his wife in unveiled amazement. Was this his wife, who a few short weeks ago was weeping over unwelcome riches and longing for a life of poverty? Sarah's face crimsoned with the confusion of the woman who is suddenly called upon to explain a change of mind, and she began her explanation, speaking slowly and hesitatingly.
"You remember I told you about that Mrs. Emerson who came to see me and ask me to join her club,—the Fortnightly, I believe they call it. Well, the day after you left, I dressed myself in my best and went to see her. And I told her that if the place was still open, I believed I'd join. She was real pleasant about it, and said she was so glad I'd changed my mind, and that they'd all be glad to have me for a member. And I said to her: 'Now, Mrs. Emerson, I'm not an educated woman, but I've got sense enough to know what I can do and what I can't do. I can't write papers and make speeches, but maybe there's some kind of work for me to do, if I join the club;' and she laughed and said that if I have sense enough to know what I could do and what I couldn't do, I'd make a fine club woman. And she said they had been studyin'The Ring and the Book, whatever that is, but now they'veconcluded to change their plan of work, and they were lookin' into the conditions of workin' people, especially workin' women, and she was sure I could help in that sort of work. And I said: 'That's very likely, for I've been a workin' woman myself, and lived with workin' women all my life.' And she said that was something to be proud of, and that every woman ought to be a workin' woman, and it was just for that reason they wanted me in the club."
Sarah paused here and bent over to straighten out a tangle in her worsteds. David was holding a paper open before him, but his wife's social adventures were of more interest to him than any page of theInventor's Journal, and he waited patiently for Sarah to resume her story.
"The next day was Wednesday, and the club met at Mrs. Morton's—she's the president."
"What Morton? Alexander Morton's wife?" interrupted David.
Sarah nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Alexander Morton. They live in the big white stone house over on First Avenue."
"He's president of the bank and about everything else in this place." David stated this fact in an un-emotionalway, but his eyes gleamed with triumph. His wife and Alexander Morton's wife members of the same club!
"When Mrs. Emerson said the club met at Mrs. Morton's, I declare, Dave, my heart stood still at the thought of goin' by myself to that club. But Mrs. Emerson said she'd come by in her carriage and take me there, and she did."
David laid down his paper and straightened himself in his chair. "How did they treat you?" he asked eagerly.
"Just as nice as they possibly could," said Sarah. "I won't mind goin' by myself next time."
David's face expressed a satisfaction and pride too deep for words. "What did they do?" he asked with the curiosity of the masculine mind that seeks to penetrate the mysteries of a purely feminine affair.
"Well, they talked mostly, and at first I couldn't see what they were drivin' at, but I kept on listenin', and at last I began to understand what they intend to do. They're lookin' into the conditions of workin' women and girls and children, and they're tryin' to get laws passed that will make things easier for people that work in mills and factories. They askedme about the hours of work at the mills, and the wages and how the mill people lived, and, David, they said when the Legislature meets this winter, they'll have to go up to the capital to get some bills passed, and they want me to go with them."
It was impossible for Sarah to stifle the note of triumph in her voice. There was a red spot on each cheek, her eyes shone with enthusiasm, and though she might not be able yet to define the word "civic", evidently she had caught the spirit of civic work. As for David, he was speechless with astonishment and delight. If long residence in Millville had qualified Sarah for membership in the Fortnightly Club, then, after all, the world of the rich and the world of the poor were not very far apart.
"I told them about Agnes Thompson, how she lost her thumb and finger in the mill this spring, and what the Company offered her for damages, and how hard it is for mothers with little children to leave home and work; and they want to build a day nursery where the babies and children can be looked after, and that's why I said I'd learned what to do with money." She paused and looked at David, who nodded sympathetically. "One thing that helped me to see things right,"she continued, "was a sermon I heard the Sunday you were away. You know that little church just three blocks down the street back of us? Well, Sunday morning I dressed and started out, and I said to myself: 'I'll go to the first church I come to;' and it happened to be that little church down the street with the cross on the steeple and over the door 'Church of the Eternal Hope.' That's a pretty name for a church, ain't it? Church of Eternal Hope. I went in while they were singin' the first hymn, and when the preacher read his text and begun to preach, it seemed to me that something must have led me there, for that sermon, every word of it, was just meant for me. The text was: 'I know both how to abound and to suffer need,' and he said life was a school, and every change that life brought to us was a lesson, and instead of complaining about it, we ought to go to work and learn that lesson, and get ready for a new one. He said if poverty came to us, it was because we needed the lesson of poverty; and if riches came, it was because we needed another lesson; and he said the lesson of poverty was easier to learn than the lesson of wealth. Oh, David!"—Sarah's face was glowing with repressed emotion and her voice trembled,—"I wish you could have heardhim, I can't remember it all, but it seemed as if he was preaching just to me, and I sat and listened, and all my troubles and worries just seemed to leave me, because I began to see the meaning of them; and when you know what trouble means, it's not a trouble any longer. And he said that there was a purpose in every life, and it was our duty to find out what the purpose was and do our best to carry it out. Now, I believe, David, that I see why all this money's been put into our hands. We were happy without it, and it made us pretty miserable at first, but it was given to us for a purpose, and we must carry out the purpose. Both of us were born poor, and we've lived with poor people all our lives, and I can see the purpose in that. We know how poor people live, we know what they need, and now we've got money"—she stopped abruptly. "Don't you see the purpose, David?"
David was silent, but Sarah knew that the silence did not mean dissent. His wife's narrative had started a train of thoughts and emotions that would be henceforth the mainspring of all his acts. Of late the sleeping ambition that lies in the heart of every man had begun to stir, and he had dared to think timidlyand doubtfully of a time when he should be, to use his own words, "something and somebody" in the world. As he listened to the story of Sarah's social adventures, his heart swelled proudly. His wife had found her place among her fellow women; he would find his among his fellow men. Before him were the doors of opportunity all "barred with gold", but he held in his hand the "golden keys" that would unlock them, and the finger of Divinity was pointing out the way he should go. Could it be that the Infinite Power had planned his life for a certain end? That he had come into the world for something more than daily toil, daily wages, and, at last, old age and death? Were his mortal days a part of some great, immortal plan? A thrill of awe shook the man as he caught a momentary vision of the majesty in a human life that expresses a divine purpose. He had no words for thoughts like these, and the silence lasted a long time. When he spoke, it was of practical affairs.
"The club will have to meet with you one of these days, won't it?" he asked.
"It meets with me the last of the month," said Sarah, trying to speak in a matter-of-fact way.
David looked critically around the room. "Thisfurniture's pretty nice," he said, "but I don't know how it compares with other people's."
"The furniture's all right," said Sarah hastily. "Of course, this house doesn't look like Mrs. Emerson's. Her parlor looked as if everything in it had grown there and belonged there; this room looks as if we'd just bought the things and put them here. Maybe after we've lived here a long time, it'll look different, but there's no use tryin' to make my house look like Mrs. Emerson's or Mrs. Morton's."
"Are your clothes as good as the other women's?" inquired David solicitously.
"Suppose they're not," argued Sarah sturdily. "I'm not goin' to try to dress like other women. My clothes suit me, and that's enough."
Sarah's sturdy independence pleased David, but like a good husband, he wanted his wife to look as well as other women. "Oughtn't you to have some jewelry, Sarah? Some rings and chains and—things of that sort?" he added vaguely.
"David! David!" cried his wife half in anger, half in love. "Do you want to make me a laughing stock? My hands are not the kind for rings; and what would Molly and Annie say if they saw me wearin' jewelry?We've got enough things between us and our old friends without jewelry. Instead of rings, you can give me a check for the day nursery."
Sarah was rolling up her work now and smiling softly. "Two weeks ago," she said, "it seemed as if everything was in a tangle just like this worsted gets sometimes. But I've picked and pulled and twisted, you might say, till I've straightened it out. You see, David, there's some things you can't understand till you get 'way off from them. As long as I was in this house, I thought I was out of place, but I hadn't been in the cottage long, till I saw that this house was just as much my home as the little cottage was. I never could have seen it, though, if I hadn't gone back to the old house."
Wise Sarah! It was well for her that the club had changed its plan of work. She would never be able to write an analysis ofThe Ring and the Book, or throw an interpretative flashlight into the obscurity ofRed Cotton Night-Cap Country, but like the knight of the Dark Tower, she had learned that
"One taste of the old time sets all things right."
According to the calendar, it was the last day of March, but for weeks the spirit of April and May had breathed on the face of the earth, and those who had memories of many springs declared that never before had there been such weather in the month of March.
In the annals of the rural weather prophets, the winter had been set down as the coldest ever known—a winter of many snows, of frozen rivers, and skies so heavily clouded that there was little difference between the day and the night. Wild creatures had frozen and starved to death, and man and beast had drawn near to each other in the companionship of common suffering. Then, as if repenting of her harshness to her helpless children, Nature had sent a swift and early spring. It was March, but hardly a March wind had blown. The rain that fell was not the cold, wind-driven rain of March; it was the warm, delicate April shower. The sun had the warmth of May, and all the flowers of field, forest, and garden had felt the summons ofsun and rain and started up from the underworld in such haste that they trod on each other's heels. Flowers that never had met before stood side by side and looked wonderingly at each other. The golden flame of the daffodils was almost burnt out, and the withered blossoms drooped in the grass like extinguished torches; but hyacinths were opening their censers; tulips were budding; the plumes of the lilacs showed color, and honeysuckles and roses looked as if they were trying to bloom with the lilac and the snowball. March had blustered in with the face and voice of February, but she was going out a flower-decked Queen of May.
The fragrant air was like the touch of a warm hand. Fleets of white clouds sailed on the sea of pale blue ether, and the trees, not yet in full leaf, cast delicate shadows on the grass. On a day like this in ancient Rome, young and old clad themselves in garments of joy and went forth to the festival of the goddess of grain and harvests; and under such skies, English poets were wont to sing of skylarks and of golden daffodils. But in the calendar of the Kentucky housewife there is no Floralia or Thesmophoria, and no smile or breath of song was on the lips of the girl whowas climbing the back stairs of an old farmhouse, with a bucket of water in one hand and a cake of soap in the other, to celebrate the Christian festival of spring cleaning. The steps were steep and narrow, and every time she set her foot down they creaked dismally, as if to warn the climber that they might fall at any minute. She toiled painfully up and set the bucket on the floor. Where should she begin her work? She went into the nearest bedroom, opened the door of a closet, and looked disgustedly at the disorder within,—coats, hats, trousers, disabled suspenders, a pair of shoes caked with mud, an old whip-handle, an empty blacking box, a fishing-pole and tangled line, a hammer, and a box of rusty nails. It was not an unfamiliar sight. She had cleaned the boys' closet and the boys' room every spring for—how many years? It made her tired to think of it, and she sat down on the edge of the slovenly bed and stared hopelessly around the low-ceiled, dingy room. The mouldy wall paper was peeling off, the woodwork was an ugly brown, dirty, discolored, and worn off in spots; the furniture was rickety, the bedclothes coarse and soiled; and walls, floors, and furniture reeked with a musty odor as of old age, decay, and death. All housesthat have sheltered many generations acquire this atmosphere; nothing but fire can wholly destroy such uncleanness, and some vague idea of the impossibility of making the old house wholesomely clean crossed the girl's mind as she sat listlessly on the side of the bed and stared out of the window.
There are two kinds of homesickness. One is a longing for home that seizes the wanderer and draws him across continent and ocean back to the country and the house of his nativity. Men have died of this homesickness on many a foreign soil. The other kind is a sickness of home that draws us away from ordered rooms, from sheltering walls and roofs, to the bare, primitive forest life that was ours ages ago. It was this homesickness that made Miranda sigh and frown as she looked at that room, gray and dingy with the accumulated dirt of the winter, and thought of the task before her. While she sat, scowling and rebellious, a breeze blew in, scattering the sickly odors of the bedroom, and at the same moment she heard two sounds that seem to belong specially to the spring of the year, the bleating of some young lambs in a near meadow and the plaintive lowing of a calf that had been separated from its mother. Yes, spring washere. How she had longed for it all through the long, cold, dark days of winter! And now she must spend its sunny hours in house cleaning! A weariness of all familiar things was upon her; she hated the old house; she wanted to go,—somewhere, anywhere, and her soul, like a caged bird, was beating its wings against the bars of circumstance. She went to the window and leaned out. A branch of a maple tree growing near the house almost touched her cheek, and she noticed the lovely shape and color of the young leaves. Farther on was a giant oak whose orange-green tassels swung gaily in the breeze, and through the trees she had a glimpse of a green meadow bordered by an osage orange hedge that looked like a pale green mist in the morning sunshine. She saw and felt the glory and sweetness of the spring with her physical senses only, for in her heart there was a "winter of discontent." But while she leaned from the window, looking at the trees and sky, came one of those unexplained flashes of consciousness in which the present is obliterated and we are snatched back to a shadowy past. What was the incantation that made her feel that she had lived this same moment ages and ages ago? Was it the voice of the wind and the voice of the bird in the tree-tops?Was it the shimmer of morning mist and the gold-green oak tassels against the blue sky? Or was it a blending of all these sights and sounds? Her gaze wandered farther and farther on till it reached the horizon line where stretched a fragment of the primitive wood, bounded by smooth turnpikes and fenced-in fields and meadows. Serene and majestic these forest remnants stand in every Kentucky landscape, guardians of the Great Silence, homes for the hunted bird and beast, and sanctuaries where the stricken soul of man may find a miracle of healing. A wild, unreasonable longing possessed the homesick girl as she looked at that line of trees, softly green and faintly veiled, and thought of what lay in their secret deeps. All her life had been spent in the country, and yet how many years it had been since she had seen the woods in spring.The woods in spring!The words were like a strain of music, and as she whispered them to herself, something rent the veil between childhood and womanhood, and she saw herself a little girl roaming through the forest, clinging to her father's hand and searching for spring's wild flowers. She saw the blue violets nestling at the foot of mossy stumps, columbines and ferns waving in damp, rocky places, purple hepaticas, yellow celandine,the pinkish lavender bells of the cowslip, Solomon's seal lifting its tiers of leaves by lichened rocks around a dripping spring, and that strange white flower, more like the corpse of a flower than the flower itself, that she had found once—and then no more—growing by a fallen log and half buried under the drift of fallen leaves. Suddenly she started up, hurried from the room, and ran swift-footed down-stairs and into the kitchen, where her mother stood at a table washing the breakfast dishes.
"Mother," she said breathlessly, "I'm going over to the woods awhile. I want to see if the violets are in bloom yet. I'll be back after awhile."
Ellen Crawford paused in her work and looked helplessly at her daughter. The mind of her child had always been a sealed book to her, and she was never without a feeling of apprehension as to what Miranda would do next. "For mercy's sake!" she said weakly. Going to the woods to look for violets in house-cleaning time, when each day's unfinished work overflowed into the brimming hours of the next day! There were no words to fit such folly, and the mother only stood stupefied, looking through the open door at the flying footsteps of her errant daughter.
Miranda ran through the back yard where the house dog lay basking in the sun, and two broods of young chickens were "peeping" around in the wet grass, led by their clucking mothers. The cat came purring and tried to rub herself against Miranda's garments, but she thrust her aside and hurried on. These creatures belonged to the house, and it was the house from which she was fleeing. As she passed through the sagging garden gate, a casual gust of wind stirred the boughs of a water-maple tree near by, and scattered a shower of petals over her hair and shoulders, while a robin in the topmost branch sang a Godspeed to the pilgrim who was hastening to the altars of spring. Down the garden path she sped with never a glance aside at the trim rows of early vegetables bordered by clumps of iris and peonies, with now and then an old-fashioned rose that looked as if it were tired of growing and blooming in the same spot so many years. If one had stopped her and said: "Where are you going?" she could not have told him where. If he had asked: "What do you seek?" again she would have been at a loss for a reply. But she had heard a call more imperative than the voice of father or mother, more authoritative than the voice of conscience;something had passed out of her life with the passing of childhood and first youth; she was going to find the precious lost joy; and the power that guides the bird in its autumnal flight to the south and brings it north again was guiding her feet to the woods in spring.
She pushed aside some loose palings and crept through the opening into the pasture that lay back of the garden. The cows stopped feeding and stared at her in mild surprise as she stood, irresolute and wavering, looking back at the house, where her mother was lifting the burden of the day's toil, and then at the orchard on one side, where the peach trees were faintly flushed with pink. In the middle of the pasture stood a group of elms. When the wind passed over them, their branches swayed with the grace of willows, and against the blue sky their half-grown leaves were delicate as the fronds of the maidenhair fern. The elms seemed to beckon her, and she crossed over and stood for a moment looking up at the sky "in a net",—the net of leafy branches. While she gazed upward, a sudden wind came blowing from the direction of the forest, and on its breath was the mysterious sweetness that is one of the surest tokens of spring. It is as if every tree and plant of the forest had sent forth a premonitionof its blooming, a spirit perfume waiting to be embodied in a flower. Miranda drew a long breath and looked across the meadow to the freshly plowed field whose western boundary line was "all awave with trees", each clad in its own particular tint of verdure, from the silver green of the silver poplar to the black green of the cedars. The dogwood, that white maiden of the forest, was still in hiding; the wild cherry, that soon would stand like a bride in her wedding veil, was now just a shy girl in a dress of virginal green; the purplish pink of the red-bud flower was barely visible on its spreading limbs. The Great Artist had merely outlined and touched here and there with his brush the picture which later on he would fill in with the gorgeous coloring of summer's full leafage and full flowering.
She hurried across the meadow, climbed the old rail fence, and plodded her way over the plowed ground, stepping from ridge to ridge and feeling the earth crumble under her feet at every step. It was a ten-acre field, and she was out of breath by the time she reached the other side. There was no fence between field and forest; the only boundary line was the last furrow made by the plow. On one side of this furrowlay civilization with its ordered life of cares and duties. On the other side was the wild, free life of Nature. She stopped and looked doubtfully into the sunlit aisles of the forest, as we look at old familiar places, revisited after long absence, to see if they measure up to the stately beauty with which our childish imagination clothed them. She stepped timidly through the underbrush at the edge of the wood and looked above and around. So many years had passed, and so many things had passed with the years! Perhaps the remembered enchantment had passed too. She recalled the song of the birds, and how the voice of the wind in the tree-tops had sounded against the fathomless stillness that lies at the heart of the forest. She held her breath and listened. Wind and leaf and bird were making music together as of old; and under the whisper and the song she felt the presence of the eternal, inviolable calm against which earth's clamor vainly beats. She recalled the rustle of the dead leaves under her feet, and the odor that the heat of the sun drew from the moist earth. There were dead leaves to-day in every path, and Nature was distilling the same perfumes and making beauty from ashes by the same wondrous alchemy she had used when the earth wasyoung. Nothing had changed except herself. She looked around for an opening in the underbrush, some trace of a path, and then hastened fearlessly on to find the main path that led through the heart of the woods, and made a "short cut" for the traveler on foot. Besides this central path, there were numerous little by-paths made by the feet of cattle that had pastured here for a few months of the previous summer. Each one of these invited her feet, and each one led past some fairy spot—a bed of flowers, a bower of wild vines, a grapevine swing, a tiny spring from which she drank, using a big, mossy acorn cup for a goblet. She wandered from one side of the main path to the other, and thrice she walked from road to road. All winter she had been snow-bound and ice-bound within the walls of the old farmhouse, and now spring had unlocked the doors of the prison. Lighter grew her footsteps the longer she walked, and in every muscle she felt the joy of motion that the fawn feels when it leaps through the forest, or the bird when it cleaves the sunny air on glistening wing.
Gone was the thought of time, for here were no tasks to be done, no breakfast, dinner, and supper; and the day had but three periods,—sunrise, noontide, andsunset. The house she had left that morning seemed a long way off, almost in another world; and the forest was an enchanted land where there was no ugly toil for one's daily bread. Duty and fear alike were lulled to sleep, and while the sun climbed to its zenith she roamed as care-free as any wild creature of the woods. Suddenly a cloud darkened the sun and melted into a soft, warm mist that the wind caught up and blew like a veil across the face of spring. Miranda paused, lifted her head, and held out her hands to catch the gracious baptism. It was only a momentary shower, past in a burst of sunshine, but it left its chrism on her forehead and hair and made her feel more akin to flower and tree. How many gifts were falling from the hand of spring! To the birds the joy of mating and nesting; to the roots and seeds in the dark, cold earth warmth and moisture and a resurrection morn; and to the ancients of the forest a vesture as fresh as that which clothes the sapling of the spring.
Surely we have severed some tie that once bound us to the Great Mother's heart or this outflow and inflow of life and beauty that we call spring would touch men and women too, and then would come the Golden Age. Nature is kinder to her trees and flowers thanshe is to her sons and daughters. The girl who lifted her forehead to the sacrament of the rain should have received a blessing that would touch her face with the color of the rose and put the strength and grace of the young trees into her limbs. But how sad and strange she looked, flitting through the vernal freshness of the forest! Her faded calico gown hung limp over her thin body, and her hair and cheek were as faded as the gown. She should have been a nymph, but she was only a tired, worn daughter of the soil, and amid all this opulence of giving there was no gift for her except the ecstatic yearning that was welling up in her heart and leading her here and there in search of something she could not name.
How sweet the air was! She breathed deeply as she walked, and at every inspiration a burden seemed to fall from both body and soul. Just to be alive was good—to breathe, to walk through the sun-flecked forest paths, to feel the warmth of the sunshine on her shoulders, and to know that the world of the forest belonged to her as it belonged to the bird and the bee. She had almost reached the other side of the strip of woodland, and through the trees she caught glimpses of a wheat field stretching like a pale green sea from thisstrip of woodland to another that belonged to a neighboring farm. She thought of a hymn her mother often sang when the drudgery of the farm permitted her soul to rise on the wings of song: