CHAPTER IVTHE NEW LIFE
The next morning Posey was awakened by the voice of Mrs. Hagood at her door, “Come, Posey; time to get up, and be spry about it, too.”
The clock was just striking six as she came out of her room, but the kitchen was already warm and Mrs. Hagood in a loose calico wrapper was busy about the breakfast.
“I don’t want you to dawdle in bed,” was her salutation. “I’m stirring myself mornings and I want folks about me to stir, too. Hurry and wash you, then take this dish and go down cellar for some cucumber pickles. They are in that row on the left hand side, the third jar. Now mind and remember, for I don’t want to keep telling things over to you.”
As she returned with the pickles Mr. Hagood came in with a pail of foaming milk, and Posey, who in her household experience hadbeen accustomed to see milk measured by the pint, or more often the half-pint, gave a little cry of wonder and delight.
“I want ter know?” and Mr. Hagood’s thin, kindly face wrinkled from mouth to eyes in a smile. “Never saw so much milk as this at once before. Why I get this pail full every night and morning, and I calc’late Brindle’ll do still better when she gets out to grass.” As he spoke he had strained out a cupful of the fresh, warm milk and handed it to Posey, saying, “Drink that now, an’ see if it don’t taste good.”
“What are you doing, Elnathan?” demanded Mrs. Hagood, who was skillfully turning some eggs she was frying.
“Wal, now, Almiry, I’m just givin’ the child what she never had before in her life, a drink o’ fresh, warm milk. I thought, Almiry,” with an accent of mild reproof, “you’d like her to have what milk she wanted to drink.”
“You know as well as anybody,” was her tart retort, “that I never scrimped anybody or anything around me yet of victuals; Posey can have all the milk she wants to drink withher breakfast, but there’s no use for her to be stoppin’ her work and spendin’ time to drink it now, or you to be lettin’ the cream rise on the milk before it’s strained, to watch her.”
Breakfast out of the way Mrs. Hagood said, “Now, Posey, you may go out and feed the chickens. You will find a bag of shelled corn on the granary floor; give them the basin that stands on a barrel beside it twice full.”
It was a command that Posey gladly obeyed, but she wondered that the flock of eager fluttering chickens, who crowded around her, and flew up into the granary door, seemed so indifferent to the breakfast she scattered for them. “Go and eat,” she vainly urged, “go!”
Posey had on occasion seen city hens, poor, dirty, bedraggled fowls, but these were so different, plump and snowy, bright of eye, and sleek of plumage, that it was a pleasure to linger among them. But Mrs. Hagood’s voice soon sounded from the door, “Posey, is it going to take you all the forenoon to feed those hens?”
A little later as Posey was washing thebreakfast dishes, taking great pains to follow all of Mrs. Hagood’s many directions, for she truly wished to please, she heard that lady calling her, and dropping the wiping-towel ran out into the yard to see what was wanted.
“How came all those beans here on the ground?” Mrs. Hagood demanded sharply, pointing as she spoke to the white kernels scattered around.
“Why,” replied Posey in surprise, “that is what I fed the chickens as you told me.”
“‘As I told you!’ A likely story that I would tell you to feed the hens beans. Don’t you know enough to know beans from corn?”
“No, I don’t,” retorted Posey hotly. “And why should I? I never was in the country before in my life, and I don’t know anything about corn, except green corn, or beans, either.”
“Shut right up,” exclaimed Mrs. Hagood sternly. “I won’t put up with any impudence, and I want you to make up your mind to that. Now look here,” holding up a handful of yellow kernels, “thisis corn; remember it, and if you make such a blunderagain I’ll help you to remember with a whip.”
Posey turned slowly and with a swelling heart re-entered the house. She had meant no harm, the two bags had sat side by side, the mistake had been wholly accidental, and under other circumstances she would have been sorry enough, but now with the sense of injustice burning at her heart she said to herself, “Cross old thing, I don’t care if I did spill her old beans, not one bit.”
So Posey’s life with Mrs. Hagood began, and had the latter been an agreeable person to live with it might have been a pleasant life; she was comfortably clothed, she had an abundance of wholesome food, and the work expected of her was in no way beyond her strength. But Mrs. Hagood always so managed that when one task was ended another was ready to take its place. With her it was one continuous grind from morning till night; that the child required a share of pleasure and recreation was an idea she would have scouted.Sheworked all the time, she would have said, why was it any worse for Posey? Besides, this was a poor child who would alwayshave to earn her living and the sooner she realized it the better.
So the stocking was set up, and Posey inducted into the mysteries of knitting. For other spare moments there were towels to hem and sheets to turn, and when everything else failed to fill all the available time there was always on hand a huge basket of carpet rags to be cut, sewed, and wound.
With it all she was one of those women who never dream of bestowing praise: if the work were ever so well done, and Posey was at times fired with the ambition to see how well she could do, never a word of commendation followed; if on the contrary, there was any failure, and Mrs. Hagood’s eyes were always alert for faults, there was always the word of sharp reproof. Then Posey would solace herself with the reflection that she couldn’t suit her if she tried, and she wasn’t going to try any more, and she hoped she wouldn’t be suited, “so there!”
Often and often as Posey sat in the open doorway in the long summer afternoons, the distant woods beyond the village beckoning with their green shade and the basket of endlesscarpet rags at her side, did she wish herself back within the pent-up walls of the Refuge; for there when her appointed task was done she could enjoy some free time, while here was no escape from the atmosphere of repression, fault-finding, and petty irritation, to say nothing of the absence of all love and sympathy, or even interest.
Mrs. Hagood would have said that all she was doing was for Posey’s interest, but it is exceedingly doubtful if Almira Hagood ever viewed anything or any one in a light separate from her own interest. With a sublime self-confidence in her own ideas and opinions, she would unhesitatingly have crushed a stronger opposition to her will; how much the more anything so insignificant as the wishes and feelings of a little charity girl! One, too, whom she had taken solely that she might have her work, and whose highest good therefore was to be useful, as her highest aim and desire ought to be to do the work she assigned her quickly and well; while, unfortunately for both, Posey’s mind was often filled with a host of other and widely differing wishes and desires.
Had kindly Mr. Hagood been an active factor in the domestic economy, her life would have been very different; but he was only a passive factor, so passive, in fact, as to be seldom considered, and least of all by his wife. From the first Posey had regarded Mr. Hagood in the light of a fellow sufferer, with the present advantage of his little shop to escape to, where with his work as a plea he managed to spend not only most of his days but many of his evenings, and where he could enjoy the pleasure of his pipe and dog, both forbidden the house, and a frequent chance visitor. For Mrs. Hagood so frowned upon his making one of the nightly group at the village store and post-office that, social as he was by nature, he seldom ventured on the enjoyment.
Still if this was his present advantage, he would always, so Posey reflected, have to live with Mrs. Hagood, while some glad day she would be old enough to leave, and then never need see her again unless she chose, which she didn’t much think would ever happen.
An amiable, easy-going man, Elnathan Hagood, it was said, at the time of his marriagehad inclined to ways slightly convivial. But his wife speedily changed all that, and by the sheer force of her superior will had set and kept his feet in a straight path. By nature “handy” with tools the shop had been her idea, where she started him as surgeon to the various disabled vehicles of Horsham; while she, in the meantime, having taken charge of his modest patrimony, proceeded to put it out to usury, in a literal as well as figurative sense.
In all the country round no one knew how to drive a sharp bargain, and for that matter a hard one, better than Almira Hagood; and woe to the luckless debtor who expected mercy at her hands. With these qualities but few really liked Mrs. Hagood; she was too dominant, positive, selfish, and avaricious to win many friends, or to care much for friendship. At the same time, and for all that her methods were now and then a shade questionable, there were many who admired her thrift, energy, business shrewdness, and practical ability, and took a certain pride in her success as in some sort reflecting credit on her home village.
It is almost needless to say that in the twenty years or more she had managed the property it had greatly increased in value, and at this time included outlying farms, village property, bank stock, mortgages, and sundry other investments. In regard to this she never thought of consulting her husband, and if he ever ventured on a suggestion as a rule passed it over without the slightest regard. The word “we” was one seldom heard from her lips. It was always “my horse,” “my cow”; she referred to the time when “I built my barn,” or “when I bought my farm,” with a complete ignoring of any partner in the firm matrimonial. Indeed, whatever the light in which she regarded Elnathan Hagood personally, for his ability and opinions she did not disguise her contempt, and any attempt to assert himself was quickly and vigorously suppressed; and the common opinion as to his condition was voiced by an old companion, “I tell you, she keeps his nose clus to the grindstun.”
It was then not strange that for the most part he went about with the subdued and apologetic air of one aware of his own insignificance.Sometimes, for his kindly nature held an especially tender place for children, he attempted to expostulate in Posey’s behalf; but his mild, “Now, Almiry, I wouldn’t,” or “Almiry, you know children will be children,” made matters no better for Posey, and only brought a storm about his own head.
Weakness held no part in Mrs. Hagood; “capable” was the term that truly fitted her; at the same time there was no more tenderness in her nature than in her well-polished cook-stove. A timid, sensitive child would have wilted, pined, and perhaps have died in her atmosphere; but Posey was not more sensitive than the average healthy, hungry child, and was even more than usually high-spirited and fearless. Her affections—meagerly as they had been fed—were warm, her impulses generous, and her nature one to whom love and kindness might have proved controlling forces where threats and violence failed. Such being the case, her life with Mrs. Hagood could hardly fail to intensify all her faults of temperament; the more so as the almost daily outraging of her sense of justiceled to a feeling of resentment that from its frequency became well-nigh constant.
There were also occasions when this rose to an especial high-water mark. One such was the event of a Sunday School picnic to a little lake distant some half-hour’s ride on the cars. An event that all the younger members of the school had looked forward to with eager anticipations, and Posey perhaps most of all, for a picnic was something she had never known. But when the time came Mrs. Hagood flatly refused her permission to attend.
“I’mnot going to throw away forty cents to go, and if I wouldn’t for myself I don’t know why I should for you,” she had said. “Crystal Lake! I want to know! Nobody ever thought of calling it anything but Wilson’s Pond when I was a girl, or of its being any great sight. But now it’s Crystal Lake folks must all run to see it, and I don’t suppose it’s anything more than it was before.”
“Almiry,” ventured Mr. Hagood in his most persuasive tone, with a glance at Posey’s drooping head, “ef you’ll let her go I’ll pay the fare.”
“Really, Elnathan Hagood,” turning on him with withering sarcasm, “seems to me you have grown suddenly rich. If you have more money than you know what to do with you may go over to the store and get me ten pounds of sugar, and a couple of pounds of raisins. I want them right away. As for Posey, I’ve said once she couldn’t go andthatsettles it. I don’t believe in picnics, anyway; they’re just an excuse for people to spend time and money; Posey hasn’t been good for anything since they began to talk of this one, and if she was to go she’d wear out her shoes, and tear her dress, and come home so used up she wouldn’t be good for anything for a week to come. It’s all nonsense, and she’s enough sight better off right here.”
So with a swelling heart Posey saw the others gathering for the start. “Why, Posey, aren’t you ready?” called one of her classmates over the fence as she was sweeping off the walk.
“No, I can’t go,” she answered with the curtness of despair.
“Won’t Mrs. Hagood let you?”
Posey shook her head; it was an occasion where words were insignificant.
“Well, I just think she’s a horrid, mean old thing,” cried the indignant and friendly sympathizer.
“Who’s that is a ‘mean old thing’?” demanded Mrs. Hagood, who at that moment suddenly appeared around the corner of the house.
“No-nobody,” stammered the little girl, all the more frightened because of her guilty consciousness.
“Oh,” blandly remarked that lady, “it was my mistake then; I thought I heard you saying that somebody was,” and with a grim smile she turned away, adding as she did so, “Posey, you have swept that walk long enough, come in now and wash the dishes.”
It is to be feared that Mrs. Hagood found Posey anything but efficient help that day, for the bitter rebellion in her heart found outward expression in careless, sullen indifference. She slopped water on the floor, jammed the wood into the stove, and slammed the dishes with a violence that threatened their destruction. And when Mrs. Hagood sharplydemanded what she was thinking of, she muttered a reply in a tone that brought her a shake, with the admonition to be careful, if she knew what was good for herself.
After the morning’s work was finished Posey was sent out to pick currants for jelly; and a little later Mr. Hagood might have been seen slipping, with all the caution of a criminal, along behind the screening grapevine trellis towards the end of the garden where were the currant bushes, and half hidden among them Posey shedding hot and bitter tears over her task.
“I’m real sorry you couldn’t go, Posey,” he said in a voice lowered as if fearful it might reach the keen ears of his wife, “for I know how you’d been a-lottin’ on it; but Mrs. Hagood knows what’s best fer you.”
Loyalty was a strong element in Elnathan Hagood’s nature. Whatever his private thought might be, not a complaining word of her had he ever been heard to utter. And child though she was, Posey instinctively recognized and respected this feeling, but now carried away by her disappointment and grief she exclaimed passionately, “I don’t knowwhether she does or not! At any rate I don’t believe she ever was a little girl in her life.”
“Well, you know the real trouble is,” explained Mr. Hagood, “that she never had any little girl of her own.” For it was one of his favorite theories that a child, especially a little daughter, would have softened all the asperity of that somewhat flinty nature, rendering it at once sweet and tender.
“Besides,” he continued, “a picnic isn’t anything really so wonderful. I wouldn’t give a single cent to go to one myself; though to be sure I’m gettin’ oldish and a bit stiff for swingin’, and rowin’ on the lake, and racin’ through the woods, an’ all that sort of thing I used to enjoy so when I was your age.”
He checked himself with the sudden realization that this was hardly the way to impress upon her what undesirable affairs picnics were, and busied himself in extracting a paper parcel from his coat pocket. “Now don’t cry any more,” he urged; “see here, I’ve brought you some nuts and candy.”
“Oh, Mr. Hagood,” cried Posey impulsively jumping up and throwing her arms aroundhis neck, to his great astonishment, and hardly less confusion, “you are the very best man in all the world!”
“Well, now, Honey,” his wrinkled face flushing with pleasure at the caress, to him something so unwonted and unexpected, and giving her hand an awkward stroke by way of return, “you be a good girl and mebby you and I will go somewhere and have a picnic by ourselves some day. I’ll see if I can’t fix it.”
Then Mr. Hagood, in the same stealthy manner with which he had come, returned to his shop. And Posey behind the currant bushes forgot to breathe out threatenings and slaughter against Mrs. Hagood, as she munched her candy, so much the sweeter for the sympathy that had accompanied it, and found herself more cheered than an hour before she would have believed it possible she ever could be again.