"And in winter the winds sweep the snows across it."
Thenight was in windy November, and the blast, threatening rain, roared around the poor little shanty of Uncle Ripley, set like a chicken-trap on the vast Iowa prairie. Uncle Ethan was mending his old violin, with many York State "dums!" and "I gol darns!" totally oblivious of his tireless old wife, who, having "finished the supper-dishes," sat knitting a stocking, evidently for the little grandson who lay before the stove like a cat.
Neither of the old people wore glasses, and their light was a tallow candle; they couldn't afford "none o' them new-fangled lamps." The room was small, the chairs were wooden, and the walls bare—a home where poverty was a never-absent guest. The old lady looked pathetically little, weazened, and hopeless in her ill-fitting garments (whose original color had long since vanished), intent as she was on the stocking in her knotted, stiffened fingers, and there was a peculiar sparkle in her little black eyes, and an unusual resolution in the straight line of her withered and shapeless lips.
Suddenly she paused, stuck a needle in the spare knob of her hair at the back of her head, and looking at Ripley, said decisively: "Ethan Ripley, you'll haffto do your own cooking from now on to New Year's. I'm goin' back to Yaark State."
The old man's leather-brown face stiffened into a look of quizzical surprise for a moment; then he cackled, incredulously: "Ho! Ho! har! Sho! be y', now? I want to know if y' be."
"Well, you'll find out."
"Goin' to start to-morrow, mother?"
"No, sir, I ain't; but I am on Thursday. I want to get to Sally's by Sunday, sure, an' to Silas's on Thanksgivin'."
There was a note in the old woman's voice that brought genuine stupefaction into the face of Uncle Ripley. Of course in this case, as in all others, the money consideration was uppermost.
"Howgy 'xpect to get the money, mother? Anybody died an' left yeh a pile?"
"Never you mind where I get the money so 's 'tyoudon't haff to bear it. The land knows if I'd 'a' waited foryouto pay my way—"
"You needn't twit me of bein' poor, old woman," said Ripley, flaming up after the manner of many old people. "I've donemypart t' get along. I've worked day in and day out—"
"Oh!Iain't done no work, have I?" snapped she, laying down the stocking and levelling a needle at him, and putting a frightful emphasis on "I."
"I didn't say you hadn't done no work."
"Yes, you did!"
"I didn't neither. I said—
"Iknowwhat you said."
"I said I'd donemy part!" roared the husband, dominating her as usual by superior lung power. "I didn'tsayyou hadn't done your part," he added with an unfortunate touch of emphasis.
"I know y' didn'tsayit, but y' meant it. I don't know what y' call doin' my part, Ethan Ripley; but if cookin' for a drove of harvest hands and thrashin' hands, takin' care o' the eggs and butter, 'n' diggin' 'taters an' milkin' ain'tmypart, I don't never expect to do my part, 'n' you might as well know it fust 's last."
"I'm sixty years old," she went on, with a little break in her harsh voice, dominating him now by woman's logic, "an' I've never had a day to myself, not even Fourth o' July. If I've went a-visitin' 'r to a picnic, I've had to come home an' milk 'n' get supper for you men-folks. I ain't been away t' stay overnight for thirteen years in this house, 'n' it was just so in Davis County for ten more. For twenty-three years, Ethan Ripley, I've stuck right to the stove an' churn without a day or a night off."
Her voice choked again, but she rallied, and continued impressively, "And now I'm a-goin' back to Yaark State."
Ethan was vanquished. He stared at her in speechless surprise, his jaw hanging. It was incredible.
"For twenty-three years," she went on, musingly, "I've just about promised myself every year I'd go back an' see my folks." She was distinctly talking to herself now, and her voice had a touching, wistfulcadence. "I've wanted to go back an' see the old folks, an' the hills where we played, an' eat apples off the old tree down by the well. I've had them trees an' hills in my mind days and days—nights, too—an' the girls I used to know, an' my own folks—"
She fell into a silent muse, which lasted so long that the ticking of the clock grew loud as the gong in the man's ears, and the wind outside seemed to sound drearier than usual. He returned to the money problem; kindly, though.
"But how y' goin' t' raise the money? I ain't got no extra cash this time. Agin Roach is paid, an' the interest paid, we ain't got no hundred dollars to spare, Jane, not by a jugful."
"Wal, don't you lay awake nights studyin' on where I'm a-goin' to get the money," said the old woman, taking delight in mystifying him. She had him now, and he couldn't escape. He strove to show his indifference, however, by playing a tune or two on the violin.
"Come, Tukey, you better climb the wooden hill," Mrs. Ripley said, a half-hour later, to the little chap on the floor, who was beginning to get drowsy under the influence of his grandpa's fiddling. "Pa, you had orta 'a' put that string in the clock to-day—on the 'larm side the string is broke," she said, upon returning from the boy's bedroom. "I orta git up early to-morrow, to git some sewin' done. Land knows, I can't fix up much, but they is a little I c'n do. I want to look decent."
They were alone now, and they both sat expectantly.
"You 'pear to think, mother, that I'm agin yer goin'."
"Wal, it would kinder seem as if y' hadn't hustled yerself any t' help me git off."
He was smarting under the sense of being wronged. "Wal, I'm just as willin' you should go as I am for myself, but if I ain't got no money I don't see how I'm goin' to send—"
"I don't want ye to send; nobody ast ye to, Ethan Ripley. I guess if I had what I've earnt since we came on this farm I'd have enough to go to Jericho with."
"You've got as much out of it as I have," he replied gently. "You talk about your goin' back. Ain't I been wantin' to go back myself? And ain't I kep' still 'cause I see it wa'n't no use? I guess I've worked jest as long and as hard as you, an' in storms an' in mud an' heat, ef it comes t' that."
The woman was staggered, but she wouldn't give up; she must get in one more thrust.
"Wal, if you'd 'a' managed as well as I have, you'd have some money to go with." And she rose and went to mix her bread and set it "raisin'."
He sat by the fire twanging his fiddle softly. He was plainly thrown into gloomy retrospection, something quite unusual for him. But his fingers picking out the bars of a familiar tune set him to smiling, and whipping his bow across the strings, he forgot all about his wife's resolutions and his own hardships. "Trouble always slid off his back like punkins off a haystack, anyway," his wife said.
The old man still sat fiddling softly after his wife disappeared in the hot and stuffy little bedroom off the kitchen. His shaggy head bent lower over his violin. He heard her shoes drop—one, two. Pretty soon she called:
"Come, put up that squeakin' old fiddle, and go to bed. Seems as if you orta have sense enough not to set there keepin' everybody in the house awake."
"You hush up," retorted he. "I'll come when I git ready, and not till. I'll be glad when you're gone—"
"Yes, I warrantthat."
With which amiable good-night they went off to sleep, or at least she did, while he lay awake pondering on "where under the sun she was goin' t' raise that money."
The next day she was up bright and early, working away on her own affairs, ignoring Ripley entirely, the fixed look of resolution still on her little old wrinkled face. She killed a hen and dressed and baked it. She fried up a pan of doughnuts and made a cake. She was engaged in the doughnuts when a neighbor came in, one of these women who take it as a personal affront when any one in the neighborhood does anything without asking their advice. She was fat, and could talk a man blind in three minutes by the watch. Her neighbor said:
"What's this I hear, Mis' Ripley?"
"I dun know. I expect you hear about all they is goin' on in this neighborhood," replied Mrs. Ripley, with crushing bluntness; but the gossip did not flinch.
"Well, Sett Turner toldmethat her husband toldherthat Ripley toldhimthis mornin' that you was goin' back East on a visit."
"Wal, what of it?"
"Well, air yeh?"
"The Lord willin' an' the weather permittin', I expect to be."
"Good land, I want to know! Well, well! I never was so astonished in my life. I said, says I, 'It can't be.' 'Well,' ses 'e, 'tha's whatshetold me,' ses 'e. 'But,' says I, 'she is the last woman in the world to go gallivantin' off East,' ses I. 'An',' ses he, 'but it comes from good authority,' ses he. 'Well, then, it must be so,' ses I. But, land sakes! do tell me all about it. How come you to make up y'r mind? All these years you've been kind a' talkin' it over, an' now y'r actshelly goin'—well, Inever! 'I s'pose Ripley furnishes the money,' ses I to him. 'Well, no,' ses 'e. 'Ripley says he'll be blowed if he sees where the money's comin' from,' ses 'e; and ses I, 'But maybe she's jest jokin',' ses I. 'Not much,' he says. S' 'e: 'Ripley believes she's goin' fast enough. He's jest as anxious to find out as we be—'"
Here Mrs. Doudney paused for breath; she had walked so fast and had rested so little that her interminable flow of "ses I's" and "ses he's" ceased necessarily. She had reached, moreover, the point of most vital interest—the money.
"An' you'll find out jest 'bout as soon as he does," was the dry response from the figure hovering over thestove; and with all her manœuvring that was all she got.
All day Ripley went about his work exceedingly thoughtful for him. It was cold blustering weather. The wind rustled among the corn-stalks with a wild and mournful sound, the geese and ducks went sprawling down the wind, and the horses' coats were ruffled and backs raised.
The old man was husking all alone in the field, his spare form rigged out in two or three ragged coats, his hands inserted in a pair of gloves minus nearly all the fingers, his thumbs done up in "stalls," and his feet thrust into huge coarse boots. The "down ears" wet and chapped his hands, already worn to the quick. Toward night it grew colder and threatened snow. In spite of all these attacks he kept his cheerfulness, and though he was very tired, he was softened in temper.
Having plenty of time to think matters over, he had come to the conclusion that the old woman needed a play-spell. "I ain't likely to be no richer next year than I am this one; if I wait till I'm able to send her she won't never go. I calc'late I c'n git enough out o' them shoats to send her. I'd kind a' lotted on eat'n' them pigs done up in sassengers, but if the ol' woman goes East, Tukey an' me'll kind a' haff to pull through without 'em. We'll have a turkey f'r Thanksgivin', an' a chicken once 'n a while. Lord! but we'll miss the gravy on the flapjacks." (He smacked his lips over the thought of the lost dainty.) "But let 'er rip! We can stand it. Then there is my buffalo overcoat. I'd kind a' calc'latedon havin' a buffalo—but that's gone up the spout along with them sassengers."
These heroic sacrifices having been determined upon, he put them into effect at once.
This he was able to do, for his corn-rows ran alongside the road leading to Cedarville, and his neighbors were passing almost all hours of the day.
It would have softened Jane Ripley's heart could she have seen his bent and stiffened form among the corn-rows, the cold wind piercing to the bone through his threadbare and insufficient clothing. The rising wind sent the snow rattling among the moaning stalks at intervals. The cold made his poor dim eyes water, and he had to stop now and then to swing his arms about his chest to warm them. His voice was hoarse with shouting at the shivering team.
That night as Mrs. Ripley was clearing the dishes away she got to thinking about the departure of the next day, and she began to soften. She gave way to a few tears when little Tewksbury Gilchrist, her grandson, came up and stood beside her.
"Gran'ma, you ain't goin' to stay away always, are yeh?"
"Why, course not, Tukey. What made y' think that?"
"Well, y' ain't told us nawthin' 't all about it. An' yeh kind o' look 's if yeh was mad."
"Well, I ain't mad; I'm jest a-thinkin', Tukey. Y' see, I come away from them hills when I was a little girl a'most; before I married y'r grandad. And Iain't never been back. 'Most all my folks is there, sonny, an' we've been s' poor all these years I couldn't seem t' never git started. Now, when I'm 'most ready t' go, I feel kind a queer—'s if I'd cry."
And cry she did, while little Tewksbury stood patting her trembling hands. Hearing Ripley's step on the porch, she rose hastily and, drying her eyes, plunged at the work again.
Ripley came in with a big armful of wood, which he rolled into the wood-box with a thundering crash. Then he pulled off his mittens, slapped them together to knock off the ice and snow, and laid them side by side under the stove. He then removed cap, coat, blouse, and finally his boots, which he laid upon the wood-box, the soles turned toward the stove-pipe.
As he sat down without speaking, he opened the front doors of the stove, and held the palms of his stiffened hands to the blaze. The light brought out a thoughtful look on his large, uncouth, yet kindly, visage. Life had laid hard lines on his brown skin, but it had not entirely soured a naturally kind and simple nature. It had made him penurious and dull and iron-muscled; had stifled all the slender flowers of his nature; yet there was warm soil somewhere hid in his heart.
"It's snowin' like all p'ssessed," he remarked finally. "I guess we'll have a sleigh-ride to-morrow. I calc'late t' drive y' daown in scrumptious style. If yeh must leave, why, we'll give yeh a whoopin' old send-off—won't we, Tukey?"
Nobody replying, he waited a moment. "I've bena-thinkin' things over kind o' t'-day, mother, an' I've come t' the conclusion that wehavebeen kind o' hard on yeh, without knowin' it, y' see. Y' see I'm kind o' easy-goin', 'an' little Tuke he's only a child, an' we ain't c'nsidered how you felt."
She didn't appear to be listening, but she was, and he didn't appear, on his part, to be talking to her, and he kept his voice as hard and dry as he could.
"An' I was tellin' Tukey t'-day that it was a dum shame our crops hadn't turned out better. An' when I saw ol' Hatfield go by I hailed him, an' asked him what he'd gimme for two o' m' shoats. Wal, the upshot is, I sent t' town for some things I calc'lated you'd need. An' here's a ticket to Georgetown, and ten dollars. Why, ma, what's up?"
Mrs. Ripley broke down, and with her hands all wet with dish-water, as they were, covered her face, and sobbed. She felt like kissing him, but she didn't. Tewksbury began to whimper too; but the old man was astonished. His wife had not wept for years (before him). He rose and walking clumsily up to her timidly touched her hair—
"Why, mother! What's the matter? What've I done now? I was calc'latin' to sell them pigs anyway. Hatfield jest advanced the money on 'em."
She hopped up and dashed into the bedroom, and in a few minutes returned with a yarn mitten, tied around the wrist, which she laid on the table with a thump, saying: "I don't want yer money. There's money enough to take me where I want to go."
"Whee—ew! Thunder and gimpsum root! Where 'd ye get that? Didn't dig it out of a hole?"
"No, I jest saved it—a dime at a time—see!"
Here she turned it out on the table—some bills, but mostly silver dimes and quarters.
"Thunder and scissors! Must be two er three hundred dollars there," he exclaimed.
"They's jest seventy-five dollars and thirty cents; jest about enough to go back on. Tickets is fifty-five dollars, goin' an' comin'. That leaves twenty dollars for other expenses, not countin' what I've already spent, which is six-fifty," said she, recovering her self-possession. "It's plenty."
"But y' ain't calc'lated on no sleepers nor hotel bills."
"I ain't goin' on no sleeper. Mis' Doudney says it's jest scandalous the way things is managed on them cars. I'm goin' on the old-fashioned cars, where they ain't no half-dressed men runnin' around."
"Butyouneedn't be afraid of them, mother; at your age—"
"There! you needn't throw my age an' homeliness into my face, Ethan Ripley. If I hadn't waited an' tended on you so long, I'd look a little more's I did when I married yeh."
Ripley gave it up in despair. He didn't realize fully enough how the proposed trip had unsettled his wife's nerves. She didn't realize it herself.
"As for the hotel bills, they won't be none. I agoin' to pay them pirates as much for a day's board aswe'd charge for a week's, an' have nawthin' to eat but dishes. I'm goin' to take a chicken an' some hard-boiled eggs, an' I'm goin' right through to Georgetown."
"Wal, all right, mother; but here's the ticket I got."
"I don't want yer ticket."
"But you've got to take it."
"Well, I hain't."
"Why, yes, ye have. It's bought, an' they won't take it back."
"Won't they?" She was perplexed again.
"Not much they won't. I ast 'em. A ticket sold is sold."
"Wal, if they won't—"
"You bet they won't."
"I s'pose I'll haff to use it." And that ended it.
They were a familiar sight as they rode down the road toward town next day. As usual, Mrs. Ripley sat up straight and stiff as "a half-drove wedge in a white-oak log." The day was cold and raw. There was some snow on the ground, but not enough to warrant the use of sleighs. It was "neither sleddin' nor wheelin'." The old people sat on a board laid across the box, and had an old quilt or two drawn up over their knees. Tewksbury lay in the back part of the box (which was filled with hay), where he jounced up and down, in company with a queer old trunk and a brand-new imitation-leather hand-bag.
There is no ride quite so desolate and uncomfortable as a ride in a lumber-wagon on a cold day in autumn, whenthe ground is frozen, and the wind is strong and raw with threatening snow. The wagon-wheels grind along in the snow, the cold gets in under the seat at the calves of one's legs, and the ceaseless bumping of the bottom of the box on the feet is almost intolerable.
There was not much talk on the way down, and what little there was related mainly to certain domestic regulations, to be strictly followed, regarding churning, pickles, pancakes, etc. Mrs. Ripley wore a shawl over her head, and carried her queer little black bonnet in her hand. Tewksbury was also wrapped in a shawl. The boy's teeth were pounding together like castanets by the time they reached Cedarville, and every muscle ached with the fatigue of shaking.
After a few purchases they drove down to the station, a frightful little den (common in the West), which was always too hot or too cold. It happened to be hot just now—a fact which rejoiced little Tewksbury.
"Now git my trunkstamped, 'rfixed, 'r whatever they call it," she said to Ripley, in a commanding tone, which gave great delight to the inevitable crowd of loafers beginning to assemble. "Now remember, Tukey, have grandad kill that biggest turkey night before Thanksgiving, an' then you run right over to Mis' Doudney's—she's got a nawful tongue, but she can bake a turkey first-rate—an' she'll fix up some squash-pies for yeh. You can warm up one o' them mince-pies. I wish ye could be with me, but ye can't; so do the best ye can."
Ripley returning now, she said: "Wal, now, I'vefixed things up the best I could. I've baked bread enough to last a week, an' Mis' Doudney has promised to bake for yeh—"
"I don't like her bakin'."
"Wal, you'll haff to stand it till I get back, 'n' you'll find a jar o' sweet pickles an' some crab-apple sauce down suller, 'n' you'd better melt up brown sugar for 'lasses, 'n' for goodness' sake don't eat all them mince-pies up the fust week, 'n' see that Tukey ain't froze goin' to school. An' now you'd better get out for home. Good-by! an' remember them pies."
As they were riding home, Ripley roused up after a long silence.
"Did she—a—kiss you good-by, Tukey?"
"No, sir," piped Tewksbury.
"Thunder! didn't she?" After a silence: "She didn't me, neither. I guess she kind a' sort a' forgot it, bein' so flustrated, y' know."
One cold, windy, intensely bright day, Mrs. Stacey, who lives about two miles from Cedarville, looking out of the window, saw a queer little figure struggling along the road, which was blocked here and there with drifts. It was an old woman laden with a good half-dozen parcels, which the wind seemed determined to wrench from her.
She was dressed in black, with a full skirt, and her cloak being short, the wind had excellent opportunity to inflate her garments and sail her off occasionally into the deep snow outside the track, but she held out bravelytill she reached the gate. As she turned in, Mrs. Stacey cried:
"Why! it's Gran'ma Ripley, just getting back from her trip. Why! how do you do? Come in. Why! you must be nearly frozen. Let me take off your hat and veil."
"No, thank ye kindly, but I can't stop," was the given reply. "I must be gittin' back to Ripley. I expec' that man has jest let ev'rything go six ways f'r Sunday."
"Oh, youmustsit down just a minute and warm."
"Wal, I will; but I've got to git home by sundown sure. I don't s'pose they's a thing in the house to eat," she said solemnly.
"Oh dear! I wish Stacey was here, so he could take you home. An' the boys at school—"
"Don't need any help, if 't wa'nt for these bundles an' things. I guess I'll jest leave some of 'em here, an'—Here! take one of these apples. I brought 'em from Lizy Jane's suller, back to Yaark State."
"Oh! they're delicious! You must have had a lovely time."
"Pretty good. But I kep' thinkin' of Ripley an' Tukey all the time. I s'pose they have had a gay time of it" (she meant the opposite of gay). "Wal, as I told Lizy Jane, I've had my spree, an' now I've got to git back to work. They ain't no rest for such as we are. As I told Lizy Jane, them folks in the big houses have Thanksgivin' dinners every day of their lives, and men an' women in splendid clo's to wait on 'em, so 'tThanksgivin' don't mean anything to 'em; but we poor critters, we make a great to-do if we have a good dinner onct a year. I've saw a pile o' this world, Mrs. Stacey—a pile of it! I didn't think they was so many big houses in the world as I saw b'tween here an' Chicago. Wal, I can't set here gabbin'." She rose resolutely. "I must get home to Ripley. Jest kindo'stow them bags away. I'll take two an' leave them three others. Good-by! I must be gittin' home to Ripley. He'll want his supper on time."
And off up the road the indomitable little figure trudged, head held down to the cutting blast—little snow-fly, a speck on a measureless expanse, crawling along with painful breathing, and slipping, sliding steps—"Gittin' home to Ripley an' the boy."
Ripley was out to the barn when she entered, but Tewksbury was building a fire in the old cook-stove. He sprang up with a cry of joy, and ran to her. She seized him and kissed him, and it did her so much good she hugged him close, and kissed him again and again, crying hysterically.
"Oh, gran'ma, I'm so glad to see you! We've had an awful time since you've been gone."
She released him, and looked around. A lot of dirty dishes were on the table, the table-cloth was a "sight to behold" (as she afterward said), and so was the stove—kettle-marks all over the table-cloth, splotches of pancake batter all over the stove.
"Wal, I sh'd say as much," she dryly assented, untying her bonnet-strings.
When Ripley came in she had her regimentals on, the stove was brushed, the room swept, and she was elbow-deep in the dish-pan. "Hullo, mother! Got back, hev yeh?"
"I sh'd say it was abouttime," she replied curtly, without looking up or ceasing work. "Has ol' 'Crumpy' dried up yit?" This was her greeting.
Her trip was a fact now; no chance could rob her of it. She had looked forward twenty-three years toward it, and now she could look back at it accomplished. She took up her burden again, never more thinking to lay it down.
"Like the Main-Travelled Road of Life, it is traversed by many classes of people."
Uncle Ethanhad a theory that a man's character could be told by the way he sat in a wagon seat.
"A mean man sets right plumb in themiddleo' the seat, as much as to say, 'Walk, gol darn yeh, who cares!' But a man that sets in the corner o' the seat, much as to say, 'Jump in—cheaper t' ride 'n to walk,' you can jest tie to."
Uncle Ripley was prejudiced in favor of the stranger, therefore, before he came opposite the potato patch, where the old man was "bugging his vines." The stranger drove a jaded-looking pair of calico ponies, hitched to a clattering democrat wagon, and he sat on the extreme end of the seat, with the lines in his right hand, while his left rested on his thigh, with his little finger gracefully crooked and his elbows akimbo. He wore a blue shirt, with gay-colored armlets just above the elbows, and his vest hung unbuttoned down his lank ribs. It was plain he was well pleased with himself.
As he pulled up and threw one leg over the end of the seat, Uncle Ethan observed that the left spring was much more worn than the other, which proved that it was not accidental, but that it was the driver's habit to sit on that end of the seat.
"Good afternoon," said the stranger, pleasantly.
"Good afternoon, sir."
"Bugs purty plenty?"
"Plenty enough, I gol! I don't see where they all come fum."
"Early Rose?" inquired the man, as if referring to the bugs.
"No; Peachblows an' Carter Reds. My Early Rose is over near the house. The old woman wants 'em near. See the darned things!" he pursued, rapping savagely on the edge of the pan to rattle the bugs back.
"How do yeh kill 'em—scald 'em?"
"Mostly. Sometimes I—
"Good piece of oats," yawned the stranger, listlessly.
"That's barley."
"So 'tis. Didn't notice."
Uncle Ethan was wondering who the man was. He had some pots of black paint in the wagon, and two or three square boxes.
"What do yeh think o' Cleveland's chances for a second term?" continued the man, as if they had been talking politics all the while.
Uncle Ripley scratched his head. "Waal—I dunno—bein' a Republican—I think—"
"That's so—it's a purty scaly outlook. I don't believe in second terms myself," the man hastened to say.
"Is that your new barn acrosst there?" he asked, pointing with his whip.
"Yes, sir, it is," replied the old man, proudly. Afteryears of planning and hard work he had managed to erect a little wooden barn, costing possibly three hundred dollars. It was plain to be seen he took a childish pride in the fact of its newness.
The stranger mused. "A lovely place for a sign," he said, as his eyes wandered across its shining yellow broadside.
Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling over the edge of his pan. His interest in the pots of paint deepened.
"Couldn't think o' lettin' me paint a sign on that barn?" the stranger continued, putting his locked hands around one knee, and gazing away across the pig-pen at the building.
"What kind of a sign? Gol darn your skins!" Uncle Ethan pounded the pan with his paddle and scraped two or three crawling abominations off his leathery wrist.
It was a beautiful day, and the man in the wagon seemed unusually loath to attend to business. The tired ponies slept in the shade of the lombardies. The plain was draped in a warm mist, and shadowed by vast, vaguely defined masses of clouds—a lazy June day.
"Dodd's Family Bitters," said the man, waking out of his abstraction with a start, and resuming his working manner. "The best bitter in the market." He alluded to it in the singular. "Like to look at it? No trouble to show goods, as the fellah says," he went on hastily, seeing Uncle Ethan's hesitation.
He produced a large bottle of triangular shape, like abottle for pickled onions. It had a red seal on top, and a strenuous caution in red letters on the neck, "None genuine unless 'Dodd's Family Bitters' is blown in the bottom."
"Here's what it cures," pursued the agent, pointing at the side, where, in an inverted pyramid, the names of several hundred diseases were arranged, running from "gout" to "pulmonary complaints," etc.
"I gol! she cuts a wide swath, don't she?" exclaimed Uncle Ethan, profoundly impressed with the list.
"They ain't no better bitter in the world," said the agent, with a conclusive inflection.
"What's its speshy-ality? Most of 'em have some speshy-ality."
"Well—summer complaints—an'—an'—spring an' fall troubles—tones ye up, sort of."
Uncle Ethan's forgotten pan was empty of his gathered bugs. He was deeply interested in this man. There was something he liked about him.
"What does it sell fur?" he asked, after a pause.
"Same price as them cheap medicines—dollar a bottle—big bottles, too. Want one?"
"Wal, mother ain't to home, an' I don't know as she'd like this kind. We ain't been sick f'r years. Still, they's no tellin'," he added, seeing the answer to his objection in the agent's eyes. "Times is purty close too, with us, y' see; we've jest built that stable—"
"Say I'll tell yeh what I'll do," said the stranger, waking up and speaking in a warmly generous tone. "I'll give you ten bottles of the bitter if you'll let mepaint a sign on that barn. It won't hurt the barn a bit, and if you want 'o you can paint it out a year from date. Come, what d'ye say?"
"I guess I hadn't better."
The agent thought that Uncle Ethan was after more pay, but in reality he was thinking of what his little old wife would say.
"It simply puts a family bitter in your home that may save you fifty dollars this comin' fall. You can't tell."
Just what the man said after that Uncle Ethan didn't follow. His voice had a confidential purring sound as he stretched across the wagon-seat and talked on, eyes half shut. He straightened up at last, and concluded in the tone of one who has carried his point:
"So! If you didn't want to use the whole twenty-five bottles y'rself, why! sell it to your neighbors. You can get twenty dollars out of it easy, and still have five bottles of the best family bitter that ever went into a bottle."
It was the thought of this opportunity to get a buffalo-skin coat that consoled Uncle Ethan as he saw the hideous black letters appearing under the agent's lazy brush.
It was the hot side of the barn, and painting was no light work. The agent was forced to mop his forehead with his sleeve.
"Say, hain't got a cooky or anything, and a cup o' milk, handy?" he said at the end of the first enormous word, which ran the whole length of the barn.
Uncle Ethan got him the milk and cooky, which he ate with an exaggeratedly dainty action of his fingers, seated meanwhile on the staging which Uncle Ripley had helped him to build. This lunch infused new energy into him, and in a short time"Dodd's Family Bitters,Best in the Market," disfigured the sweet-smelling pine boards.
Ethan was eating his self-obtained supper of bread and milk when his wife came home.
"Who's been a-paintin' on that barn?" she demanded, her bead-like eyes flashing, her withered little face set in an ominous frown. "Ethan Ripley, what you been doin'?"
"Nawthin'," he replied feebly.
"Who painted that sign on there?"
"A man come along an' he wanted to paint that on there, and I let 'im; and it's my barn anyway. I guess I can do what I'm a min' to with it," he ended, defiantly; but his eyes wavered.
Mrs. Ripley ignored the defiance. "What under the sun p'sessed you to do such a thing as that, Ethan Ripley? I declare I don't see! You git fooler an' fooler ev'ry day you live, Idobelieve."
Uncle Ethan attempted a defence.
"Wal, he paid me twenty-five dollars f'r it, anyway."
"Did 'e?" She was visibly affected by this news.
"Wal, anyhow, it amounts to that; he give me twenty-five bottles—"
Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. "Wal, I swan to Bungay! Ethan Ripley—wal, you beat all Ieversee!" she added, in despair of expression. "I thought you hadsomesense left; but you hain't, not one blessed scimpton. Whereisthe stuff?"
"Down cellar, an' you needn't take on no airs, ol' woman. I've known you to buy things you didn't need time an' time an' agin—tins an' things, an' I guess you wish you had back that ten dollars you paid for that illustrated Bible."
"Go 'long an' bring that stuff up here. I never see such a man in my life. It's a wonder he didn't do it f'r two bottles." She glared out at the sign, which faced directly upon the kitchen window.
Uncle Ethan tugged the two cases up and set them down on the floor of the kitchen. Mrs. Ripley opened a bottle and smelled of it like a cautious cat.
"Ugh! Merciful sakes, what stuff! It ain't fit f'r a hog to take. What'd you think you was goin' to do with it?" she asked in poignant disgust.
"I expected to take it—if I was sick. Whaddy ye s'pose?" He defiantly stood his ground, towering above her like a leaning tower.
"The hull cartload of it?"
"No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an overcoat—"
"Sell it!" she shouted. "Nobuddy'll buy that sick'nin' stuff but an old numskull like you. Take that slop out o' the house this minute! Take it right down to the sink-hole an' smash every bottle on the stones."
Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared, and the old woman addressed her concluding remarks to little Tewksbury, her grandson, who stood timidly on one leg in the doorway, like an intruding pullet.
"Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an' ruin if I didn't keep a watch on that soft-pated old dummy. I thought that lightnin'-rod man had give him a lesson he'd remember; but no, he must go an' make a reg'lar—"
She subsided in a tumult of banging pans, which helped her out in the matter of expression and reduced her to a grim sort of quiet. Uncle Ethan went about the house like a convict on shipboard. Once she caught him looking out of the window.
"I shouldthinkyou'd feel proud o' that."
Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life. He was bent and bruised with never-ending toil, but he had nothing especial the matter with him.
He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs. Ripley commanded, because he had determined to sell it. The next Sunday morning, after his chores were done, he put on his best coat of faded diagonal, and was brushing his hair into a ridge across the centre of his high, narrow head, when Mrs. Ripley came in from feeding the calves.
"Where you goin' now?"
"None o' your business," he replied. "It's darn funny if I can't stir without you wantin' to know all about it. Where's Tukey?"
"Feedin' the chickens. You ain't goin' to takehim off this mornin' now! I don't care where you go."
"Who's a-goin' to take him off? I ain't said nothin' about takin' him off."
"Wal, take y'rself off, an' if y' ain't here f'r dinner, I ain't goin' to get no supper."
Ripley took a water-pail and put four bottles of "the bitter" into it, and trudged away up the road with it in a pleasant glow of hope. All nature seemed to declare the day a time of rest, and invited men to disassociate ideas of toil from the rustling green wheat, shining grass, and tossing blooms. Something of the sweetness and buoyancy of all nature permeated the old man's work-calloused body, and he whistled little snatches of the dance tunes he played on his fiddle.
But he found neighbor Johnson to be supplied with another variety of bitter, which was all he needed for the present. He qualified his refusal to buy with a cordial invitation to go out and see his shoats, in which he took infinite pride. But Uncle Ripley said: "I guess I'll haf t' be goin'; I want 'o git up to Jennings' before dinner."
He couldn't help feeling a little depressed when he found Jennings away. The next house along the pleasant lane was inhabited by a "newcomer." He was sitting on the horse-trough, holding a horse's halter, while his hired man dashed cold water upon the galled spot on the animal's shoulder.
After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine.
"Hell, no! What do I want of such stuff? When they's anything the matter with me, I take a lunkin' ol' swig of popple-bark and bourbon! That fixes me."
Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like whistling now. At the next house he set his pail down in the weeds beside the fence, and went in without it. Doudney came to the door in his bare feet, buttoning his suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He was dressing to go out.
"Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a minute, an' I'll be out."
When he came out, fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him.
"Say, what d' you think o' paytent med—"
"Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gittin'."
"What d' ye think o' Dodd's—"
"Best in the market."
Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went on:
"Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, I've tried it. I don't go much on patent medicines, but when I get a good—"
"Don't want 'o buy a bottle?"
Doudney turned and faced him.
"Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want 'osell." Ripley glanced up at Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's Family Bitters." He was stricken dumb. Doudney saw it all, and roared.
"Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to selleach other bitters. Ho—ho—ho—har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you git?"
"None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan, as he turned and made off, while Doudney screamed with merriment.
On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden. Doudney had canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he practically gave up the struggle. Everybody he met seemed determined to find out what he had been doing, and at last he began lying about it.
"Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?"
"Goose eggs f'r settin'."
He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid his debts, and he would only promise fifty cents "on tick" for the bottle, and yet so desperate was Ripley that this questionable sale cheered him up not a little.
As he came down the road, tired, dusty, and hungry, he climbed over the fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn, and slunk into the house without looking back.
He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a Democratic poster to be pasted there.
The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that sign wriggling across the side of the barn like boa-constrictors hung on rails. He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried it the man seemed to come back with a sheriff, and savagely warned him to let it stay till the year was up. In some mysterious way theagent seemed to know every time he brought out the paint-pot, and he was no longer the pleasant-voiced individual who drove the calico ponies.
As he stepped out into the yard next morning that abominable, sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed his glance—it blotted out the beauty of the morning.
Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat, a wisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the back of her head.
"Lovely, ain't it! An'I've got to see it all day long. I can't look out the winder but that thing's right in my face." It seemed to make her savage. She hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New York. "I hope you feel satisfied with it."
Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean sweet newness was gone. He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be scraped off, but it was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he had taken delight in having his neighbors turn and look at the building, now he kept out of sight whenever he saw a team coming. He hoed corn away in the back of the field, when he should have been bugging potatoes by the roadside.
Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held herself in check for several days. At last she burst forth:
"Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer, and I ain't goin' to, that's all! You've got to go and paint that thing out, or I will. I'm just about crazy with it."
"But, mother, I promised—"
"I don't carewhatyou promised, it's got to be painted out. I've got the nightmare now, seein' it. I'm goin' to send f'r a pail o' red paint, and I'm goin' to paint that out if it takes the last breath I've got to do it."
"I'll tend to it, mother, if you won't hurry me—"
"I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I look out the winder."
Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily off to town, where he tried to find the agent. He lived in some other part of the county, however, and so the old man gave up and bought a pot of red paint, not daring to go back to his desperate wife without it.
"Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant, with friendly interest.
Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's face was grave and kindly.
"Yes, I thought I'd tech it up a little—don't cost much."
"It pays—always," the merchant said emphatically.
"Will it—stick jest as well put on evenings?" inquired Uncle Ethan, hesitatingly.
"Yes—won't make any difference. Why? Ain't goin' to have—"
"Wal,—I kind o' thought I'd do it odd times night an' mornin'—kind o' odd times—"
He seemed oddly confused about it, and the merchant looked after him anxiously as he drove away.
After supper that night he went out to the barn, and Mrs. Ripley heard him sawing and hammering. Then the noise ceased, and he came in and sat down in his usual place.
"What y' ben makin'?" she inquired. Tewksbury had gone to bed. She sat darning a stocking.
"I jest thought I'd git the stagin' ready f'r paintin'," he said, evasively.
"Wal! I'll be glad when it's covered up." When she got ready for bed, he was still seated in his chair, and after she had dozed off two or three times she began to wonder why he didn't come. When the clock struck ten, and she realized that he had not stirred, she began to get impatient. "Come, are y' goin' to sit there all night?" There was no reply. She rose up in bed and looked about the room. The broad moon flooded it with light, so that she could see he was not asleep in his chair, as she had supposed. There was something ominous in his disappearance.
"Ethan! Ethan Ripley, where are yeh!" There was no reply to her sharp call. She rose and distractedly looked about among the furniture, as if he might somehow be a cat and be hiding in a corner somewhere. Then she went upstairs where the boy slept, her hard little heels making a curioustunkingnoise on the bare boards. The moon fell across the sleeping boy like a robe of silver. He was alone.
She began to be alarmed. Her eyes widened in fear. All sorts of vague horrors sprang unbidden into her brain. She still had the mist of sleep in her brain.
She hurried down the stairs and out into the fragrant night. The katydids were singing in infinite peace under the solemn splendor of the moon. The cattle sniffed and sighed, jangling their bells now and then, and the chickens in the coop stirred uneasily as if overheated. The old woman stood there in her bare feet and long nightgown, horror-stricken. The ghastly story of a man who had hung himself in his barn because his wife deserted him came into her mind, and stayed there with frightful persistency. Her throat filled chokingly.
She felt a wild rush of loneliness. She had a sudden realization of how dear that gaunt old figure was, with its grizzled face and ready smile. Her breath came quick and quicker, and she was at the point of bursting into a wild cry to Tewksbury, when she heard a strange noise. It came from the barn, a creaking noise. She looked that way, and saw in the shadowed side a deeper shadow moving to and fro. A revulsion to astonishment and anger took place in her.
"Land o' Bungay! If he ain't paintin' that barn, like a perfect old idiot, in the night."
Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her feet pattering down the path, and was startled by her shrill voice.
"Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin' now?"
He made two or three slapping passes with the brush, and then snapped out, "I'm a-paintin' this barn—whaddy ye s'pose? If ye had eyes y' wouldn't ask."
"Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you mean by actin' so?"
"You go back into the house an' let me be. I know what I'm a-doin'. You've pestered me about this sign jest about enough." He dabbed his brush to and fro as he spoke. His gaunt figure towered above her in shadow. His slapping brush had a vicious sound.
Neither spoke for some time. At length she said more gently, "Ain't you comin' in?"
"No—not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an' tend to y'r own business. Don't stan' there an' ketch cold."
She moved off slowly toward the house. His shout subdued her. Working alone out there had rendered him savage; he was not to be pushed any further. She knew by the tone of his voice that he must now be respected. She slipped on her shoes and a shawl, and came back where he was working, and took a seat on a saw-horse.
"I'm goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan Ripley," she said, in a firm voice, but gentler than usual.
"Wal, you'll set a good while," was his ungracious reply, but each felt a furtive tenderness for the other. He worked on in silence. The boards creaked heavily as he walked to and fro, and the slapping sound of the paint-brush sounded loud in the sweet harmony of the night. The majestic moon swung slowly round the corner of the barn, and fell upon the old man's grizzled head and bent shoulders. The horses inside could be heard stamping the mosquitoes away, and chewing their hay in pleasant chorus.
The little figure seated on the saw-horse drew the shawl closer about her thin shoulders. Her eyes were in shadow, and her hands were wrapped in her shawl. At last she spoke in a curious tone.
"Wal, I don't know as youwasso very much to blame. Ididn'twant that Bible myself—I held out I did, but I didn't."
Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this unprecedented surrender penetrated his head, and then he threw down his brush.
"Wal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I've covered up the most of it, anyhow. Guess we better go in."