CHAPTER IIIREFORMS NOT EASY TO DISCUSS
Elizabeth kept her tears and regrets to herself. She cried them out on her pillow that night, all the disappointments and handicaps of that wonderful year of experience and aspiration, but as she cried she planned the arrangements of her going.
The letter was received on Thursday night; Elizabeth decided that she would go for her books the next day, and say her farewells to desk, recitation room, and the halls that had been dear to her. When Elizabeth was called to the blackboard that afternoon to explain a problem in algebra, the board, the pointer, the very chalk in her fingers cried aloud their unity with her life and thought, and she sat down when it was over with a great throbbing in her throat and ears, and a sense of overwhelming disaster.
As Elizabeth carried her books home under her arm, bulging out one side of her circular like an unevenly inflated pudding-bag, the throbbing continued, and she turned into the less frequented streets with the certainty that she was going to disgrace herself with tears shed publicly. It had been a trying day, and in spite of all efforts her emotions broke loose before she could gain theshelter of home. Hurrying blindly to get the last block covered, she nearly dropped her books as she turned the corner.
“The Unknown” was coming toward her!
Her startled glance of recognition was so unexpectedly open that he thought that he had probably met her. He looked puzzled, but lifted his hat as she hurried past him, wiping the tears from her face with her free hand.
A boy called from across the street an instant later.
“Oh, Hugh, I’m coming over for some help on that chem. ex. to-night.”
“All right,” came the answer from “The Unknown,” and mixed with Elizabeth’s mortifying confusion was a quick thrill at knowing his name.
“Hugh!”
No opportunity had ever come to meet him or to find out what his name might be. Elizabeth was conscious that her life on the farm had made of her an impossible mate for this young man who, even among the young men of the city, was set apart by a peculiar grace and culture. She remembered the hat which had not merely been lifted from the head, but had been carried below the chin as he bowed distantly, and also the well-bred curiosity of his look. The rest of the leave-taking was made easier by having met him, and received his bow, and acquired the glorious, mystical knowledge of his name.
To round out the experiences of the winter, fate decreed that Mr. Farnshaw could not come for her, and the glitter of the inside of a railway coach, with its brass lamps,plush seats, and polished woods, was added to her experimental knowledge. Luther was somehow connected in her mind with the day’s experiences and she wished devoutly that she could talk to him about the disappointment of leaving her school before the end of the term, and of this journey home on the train, and of Hugh. Yes, Elizabeth would have told Luther even of Hugh. Luther Hansen was to Elizabeth Farnshaw unchanged and unchangeable. The transformations of her own life did not call for any such transformations in him. He was Luther. It had been his mental processes which had won and now sustained her attachment for him. Their two minds had worked together as one mind while they had struggled with the innocent problems of their childhood days, and Elizabeth still felt incomplete without him. She had been less conscious of Luther’s absence the first year than at any time since his going away, but in Topeka, and now that she was approaching the scene of their association together, Elizabeth wanted him with a depth of homesickness she had never felt before. It was hard to go back to the old battleground and not find him there. The prospects in store for her at home made her shrink. Elizabeth fell to wondering if any improvement in that home were possible. She had had them quite cheerfully in mind all winter, but now that the distance between her home and herself lessened rapidly a feeling of inadequacy came upon her, and the glitter of the wonderful coach in which she was riding was forgotten. Could she help? The only thing that was very clear to her was that much patiencewould be necessary. At Uncle Nathan’s they had been gentle and loving and tolerant.
“Can I make them see it—and see how?” she asked herself so many times that the wheels beneath her took up the refrain.
“Gentle and loving and tolerant—gentle and loving and tolerant—gentle and loving and tolerant,” they sang for miles as she sat with her young brow puckered into a deep frown.
The realities of life were thrust into the foreground the moment Elizabeth arrived, and for new reasons she missed Luther. Mr. Farnshaw resented the new circular.
“Is that th’ damned fool kind of coat she was talkin’ about?” he inquired as his daughter alighted from the farm wagon at the kitchen door that afternoon. “It ain’t got no warmth,” he added scornfully. “Th’ ain’ nothin’ to it but looks, an’ not much of that. What ’d y’ you do with th’ coat you had?”
The old heartsickening contention had begun.
“I’ve got it.”
“Well, you see that you wear it and don’t go makin’ a fool out of yourself around here. I’d ’a’ kept my money if I’d ’a’ knowed it was goin’ t’ be put into a thing that’d swell up in th’ wind like a balloon.”
Mrs. Farnshaw saw the look that swept over Elizabeth’s face and instinctively ranged herself on the side of the young girl. She saw with a woman’s eyes the style in the garment and its importance in her daughter’s appearance. When Elizabeth took it off her mother took it tothe bedroom to put it away, remarking in a whisper that it made her look quite like a school-teacher ought to look. She was secretly glad that her daughter had it, since it was already paid for and she did not have to make it. It would be the most observed wrap in the schoolhouse the next Sunday if she could only persuade Elizabeth to go to meeting. The metal clasp had virtues all its own.
“I think it’s ever so much more stuck-up than if it had buttons,” she whispered.
The undertone rasped on Elizabeth’s nerves. Aunt Susan never differed with Uncle Nate in undertones.
“Let’s get supper, ma,” she said, to shake herself from threatened despondency.
But though Elizabeth bustled energetically about the getting of that meal, the eating of it was not a very great success. Mr. Farnshaw discoursed upon the senselessness of prevailing styles, with the new cape plainly in mind, and Mrs. Farnshaw nudged her daughter’s knee under the table whenever Elizabeth seemed inclined to defensive retorts.
When Mr. Farnshaw had taken the milk pails on his arm and repaired to the corral, however, Mrs. Farnshaw turned from a belated churning and administered the caution in words:
“Don’t ever say anything back to your pa, Lizzie; he gets worse and worse all th’ time.”
Elizabeth considered the subject for some minutes. The wear and tear of the discords of her mother’s life she knew were far more responsible for her mother’sbroken health than anything she did in the way of hard work. It seemed a good time to begin the reforms upon which her heart was set.
“Ma, I’ve been thinking about you a good deal this winter,” she began slowly. “Something is wrong with us all.” The girl thought again for a moment. Her mother watched her with sharp attention and waited. Reforms were not easy to discuss with her mother; they were very different, Elizabeth and her mother. Elizabeth hardly dared express her longing to reorganize their home. If only she could effect a reformation! Her heart had been set on it all winter. She knew now how peoplecouldlive if only they understood how to do it. Her help here was needed. When she began to speak again it was very slowly, and with a careful consideration of the words she was using.
“We ought all of us to be different. We go along day after day hating our work, scolding and fretting at each other, and never really happy, any of us, and I’ve been wondering why?”
Her mother eyed her closely. Something of the girl’s mood stirred a responsive chord.
“I’ve thought of it too,” she said, “but I can’t never tell why it is though, unless”—she spoke slowly and Elizabeth was encouraged—“unless it’s because we don’t never belong to ourselves. Now your pa wants t’ run th’ house, an’ th’ farm, an’ you children, an’ me, an’ everything, an’ I’m so tired, an’ never have any help, that anybody’d be cross. Nobody ever pities me, though.Here, take this dasher an’ finish this here churnin’ for me.”
Elizabeth took the dasher into her own hand and stood looking down meditatively at the cream gathered about the hole in the churn lid. The first sentence of her mother’s remark struck her attention.
“Why can’t folks belong to themselves?” she asked, letting the dasher rest while she churned mental problems of greater moment.
Mrs. Farnshaw looked up quickly. “Well, if you think you can marry an’ belong t’ yourself, just you try it,” she replied.
“But, ma, if a man loved a woman couldn’t she get him to leave her free? Now—”
Mrs. Farnshaw cut her short. “Love! Men don’t know how to spell th’ word. They get a woman, an’ after she’s got children they know she can’t help herself. She’s got t’ stick to it ’cause she can’t raise ’em alone an’—an’ it don’t make no difference whether he takes care of ’em or not—” Words failed the exasperated woman.
Elizabeth studied her mother with a new interest. She began to apply her mother’s words to her own case. She knew that her mother had wanted her services this spring as much as her father, and remembered the letter calling her home.
“But that don’t cover your case, ma. You love pa more than you do us children; you know you do, and we know that you do too.”
Mrs. Farnshaw usually denied the most obvious thingif her protective instincts prompted her to do so, but her daughter had hit the bull’s-eye so exactly that for the moment she had no defence ready. Elizabeth was encouraged by her mother’s silence. Mrs. Farnshaw talked so much that it was not easy to get her attention. The young girl, glowing with the discoveries made in Aunt Susan’s home, desired to get at the bottom of the causes of inharmony in her own and to reorganize it on a better basis. It looked as if she was to be granted a hearing upon her schemes.
“I don’t care about him running overusso much,” she said diplomatically, “but you let him run over you in the same way. Now isn’t there some way to come at him and get him to see it. When we’re alone you talk about him domineering over you, but when he’s here you let him say anything he wants to and you never try to help yourself. Why don’t you strike out on a new tack and say you won’t do it when he makes unreasonable demands? Why don’t you reason with him good-naturedly, if you think that’s better, without crying, I mean, and then if he won’t listen at all——”
“I don’t know, Lizzie,” the mother interposed slowly. “I sometimes think I will an’ then when he’s here something won’t let me. It ain’t what he says to you; it’s—it’s—something he does to you when he looks at you. I’m as weak as water when he looks at me. I don’t know why. I guess it’s because I’ve always give up—an’—an’—I can’t tell why. A woman does just like a horse—there’s more’n one kind of whippin’ a man can give—an’she gets scared—an’ minds. A man begins right from th’ first t’ tell her what to do an’ she loves ’im and wants t’ please ’im, an’ before long she don’t have her way no more’n a nigger.”
Some of the truth of the statement came within the grasp of the daughter, who was looking across the idle churn with her mind fixed in singleness of purpose upon remedies, and yet she felt that there was some other element in the matter not yet accounted for. The hopeless tone of the older woman, however, goaded her young spirit into forgetting the caution necessary to dealing with the subject. Her blood fired with resentment that one life should be so crushed by another. It was her mother whose shoulders drooped with a burden too heavy for her to throw off.
“If you’re sure of that, why don’t you leave him? We children are old enough to support ourselves and——”
“Lizzie!”
Elizabeth had overshot the mark. Her mother was of another generation.
“But, ma,” the girl protested quickly, “I don’t say leave him if you can find any way of settling matters. Can’t you have a talk with him—and get him to let you alone if you are willing to do the very best you can? That’s the best way. Have you tried it?”
“No I hain’t,” the mother replied shortly; “it wouldn’t do no good. But if my talkin’ t’ you is goin’ t’ make you say such things, I ain’t goin’t’ talk t’ you no more. Whenfolks is married they’re married, an’ I don’t believe in partin’, nor talk of partin’.”
“Well, I think maybe you are right, but if you and pa are going to live together you ought to try and have it out, and be a help to each other instead——” She broke off and thought a moment, “Now Aunt Susan and Uncle Nate——”
“Stop right there!” Mrs. Farnshaw cried, afire with jealousy. “That woman’s brought more trouble into this house a’ready than She’ll ever take out. Your pa’s been rantin’ about her all winter an’—an’ he said you’d be pokin’ her ways into our faces th’ very day you got home. I ’spect she’s th’ one that got it into your head to talk of partin’, most likely.”
“Oh, now, ma, don’t go on like that. You don’t know about Aunt Susan. She’s the last person in the world to ever suggest such a thing. That’s just what I started out to say—they never have a word about anything. It’s the loveliest home to live in, and I was just thinking that they must have found——”
“I said I didn’t want t’ hear nothin’ more about them folks, an’ I don’t,” Mrs. Farnshaw cried, caught on the other horn of the argument and even more deeply offended than before. “She’ll most likely get all your love just like she got all your father’s money last winter. You needn’t mention her here no more. Th’ school directors ’ll be over to see you about fillin’ out that term, to-night,” Mrs. Farnshaw ended shortly, and turned the subject of conversation to other channels.
“Me? To fill out the term?” Elizabeth exclaimed in surprise. “What’s gone wrong with the school here? I don’t want a piece of a term, and I don’t want, ever, to teach in this district where I’ve gone to school.”
“Well, you’re goin’ to,” was the brief reply. “Your pa an’ me told ’em you’d take it.”
“But how does it happen that the school is without a teacher?” Elizabeth asked with curiosity, ignoring the curt disposal of her services. She was accustomed to the peremptory measures of her parents.
“Jake Ransom run him out. He just piked off after he got his money order cashed last Saturday mornin’.”
“And you expect me to take a school that’s all upside down from that kind of handling—and me without any experience?”
“You’ll take it an’ You’ll do your best, an’ we won’t hear no more about it. Here, ma, tie up this finger,” Mr. Farnshaw said. He had just come in from the barn in time to hear his daughter’s objections.
Later in the evening the directors came. Family pressure was strong, and with reluctance Elizabeth accepted the month yet to be taught. It would help with the interest, and that interest clouded the family sky to the horizon on every side now. Elizabeth was divided between a fear of inability to manage a demoralized school and the desire to add twenty-five dollars to the family revenue. In anticipation she saw the unruly boys supported and encouraged in insubordination by such as Sadie Crane, who was jealously ready to resent her—aformer playmate—in the rôle of authority. And to put herself right with the governing board Elizabeth told the new director—Sadie’s own father—her fears on that score.
“They have played with me and we have had the sort of quarrels all children have, Mr. Crane, and I may not be able to manage them.”
Lon Crane was ignorant and uncouth, but big of heart, and the openness of the discussion pleased him.
“You jest take that school, young lady, an’ I’ll see that my end of th’ thing’s kep’ up. I’ll come over there an thrash every mother’s son of ’em if I have t’. I’d kind o’ like t’ lick a few of ’em anyhow, an’ if my young ones give any trouble, you jes’ stop in on your way home an’ I’ll see that it don’t never happen ag’in.”
Half the battle was won; she let him hold her hand a moment at leave-taking while he reinforced his remarks by many repetitions.
“Don’t you worry, Sis,” he repeated as he backed out of the door; “you needn’t be afraid; this here school board’s at your back. We know it’s a bad school, but, by ginger! we’ll see that you’re stood by. You jes’ let me know if that there Jake Ransom tries any more monkeyshines and I’ll tan his hide till It’ll be good for shoe leather.”
It occurred to Elizabeth that every word they were saying would be carried to the boy long before Monday morning and that a bad matter might from the very goodness of the teller’s intentions be made worse.
“How old did you say the Ransom boy was?” she asked with concern.
“Fifteen—and a stinker if there ever was one.”
“Then I think maybe I’ll have a show. I thought he was older than that,” she said diplomatically. “Now may I ask that what we have said be kept quiet? I would rather like to have a fair show with him—and I’ll admit I’d like to be on good terms. Promise me that what we have said may be a secret even from your own family till after Monday.”
Elizabeth went forward and spoke confidentially. The man liked her even better than before.
“I’ll do it, by jing!” he exclaimed. “They’ll be wantin’ t’ know soon’s ever I get home what we done about it, an’ fur once they’ll suck their thumbs. Look out fur that boy, though; he’s a black sheep that lives around in any flock; ain’t got no home. I’ll help if I’m needed.”
Elizabeth listened closely to all that she heard her brothers say about Jake Ransom, trying to form some estimate of his character, and soon came to the conclusion that whatever else the boy might be, he was at least not to be classed as a sneak. In fact, Jake seemed to have rather a surprising faculty for announcing his policies before he began action.
When school opened Monday morning the bully was easily recognizable. Elizabeth had gone through all the stages of fright, of distaste for the job, and lastly of set determination to show this district that she could take that boy and not only conquer him but become friends with him. Instead of being nervous about the coming encounter, however, Elizabeth grew more steady andself-reliant as she felt his eyes upon her, and actually became interested in the small affairs preceding the ringing of the bell, and forgot him altogether till it was time to call the roll.
Jacob Ransom’s name came last on the list. A titter ran around the room when it was called. The tone of reply was louder than the rest and defiant of manner. Elizabeth looked around the room with frank inquiry and the titter died down. She let her gaze wander quietly and naturally down the aisle to the seat of the bully and was surprised to find that she liked the boy.
Closing the roll book and following an instinct rather than a formulated plan, Elizabeth walked slowly down the room to his desk. A faint giggle behind her spoke of the hushed expectations of trouble.
“If I hear any more laughing in this room, I shall inquire into the matter,” she said sternly, facing about beside Jake’s desk.
The instant response to that remark gave her confidence in her own powers. It was the first time she had ever used the tone of authority and she instinctively recognized that the quality of her personality in that position was good. Both she and Jake Ransom were on trial in that room.
“So you are the ‘Jake’ I have heard about?” she said, looking him frankly in the face and letting him see that she was measuring him openly. “Is your name Jake or Jacob?” she asked, as if it were an important matter to get settled.
“Don’t call me Jacob,” the boy snapped.
“I think I like the nickname better myself,” Elizabeth replied easily. Her good fairy beckoned her on. “These children are all laughing because they think we are going to pull each other’s hair presently. We will show them at least that we are a lady and a gentleman, I trust. Let me see your books.” She looked at him with such straightforward sincerity that the boy returned the look in the same spirit.
The books were produced in surprise; this was walking into the middle of the ring and bidding for anopenfight, if fight they must. The boy loved a square deal. Jake Ransom’s sting had been drawn.
“You are in advance of the rest of the school. Are you preparing for the high school?” Elizabeth asked, emphasizing her surprise.
“Lord, no!” the boy blurted out.
Elizabeth looked through the book in her hand slowly before she asked:
“Why don’t you? I was only about as far along as this in arithmetic last year. Some one said you were ready for it.”
“Oh, I kin do ’rithmetic all right, but I ain’t no good in nothin’ else—an’—an’—wouldn’t I look fine teachin’ school?” Jake Ransom exclaimed, but the bully melted out of him by way of the fact that she had heard good reports of him. He would not smoke this level-eyed girl out of the schoolhouse, nor sprinkle the floor with cayenne, as was the usual proceeding of the country bumpkin whofailed to admire his teacher. Jake Ransom was not really a bully; he was a shy boy who had been domineered over by a young popinjay of a teacher who had never taught school before and who had himself many lessons to learn in life’s school. The boy brought out his slate, spit on its grimy surface and wiped it with his sleeve. One of the buttons on his cuff squeaked as he wiped it across, and the children had something tangible to laugh at. Elizabeth was wise enough to take no notice of that laugh.
Some one has said that experience is not as to duration but as to intensity, and it was Elizabeth’s fate to live at great pressure in every important stage of her life. But for the fact that she had made a friend of Jake Ransom that month’s events would have had a different story. Sadie Crane took exceptions to every move made and every mandate issued from the teacher’s desk. The spirit of insubordination to which the entire school had been subjected that winter made good soil for Sadie’s tares. For the most part the dissatisfaction was a subtle thing, an undercurrent of which Elizabeth was aware, but upon which she could lay no finger of rebuke, but at times it was more traceable, and then, to the young teacher’s surprise, Jake Ransom had ways of dealing with the offenders outside of school hours. Sadie’s tongue was sharp and she was accustomed to a wholesome attitude of fear among the scholars, but her first thrusts at Jake had aroused a demon of which she had little dreamed. Jake had no foolish pride and would admit his faults so guilelessly that her satire fell to the ground. He was anentirely new sort to the spiteful child. The terrible advantage the person who will admit his faults cheerfully has over the one who has pride and evades was never more manifest. Jake Ransom pointed out to a credulous following the causes of Sadie’s disaffection, and left the envious child in such a state of futile rage that she was ready to burst with her ill-directed fury. In the end the month’s work had to be granted the tribute of success, and the term closed with a distinct triumph for Elizabeth and the experience of a whole year’s trial crowded into four short weeks.
At home things were not so fortunate. The young girl had come back from Topeka with higher ideals of home life, of personal conduct, and of good manners than she had ever had before. It was so good to have something better, and Elizabeth hungered to pass along the transforming things she had found; but when she tried to give the boys gentle hints about correct ways of eating she was greeted with guffaws and sarcastic chuckles about handling soup with a fork. Mrs. Farnshaw saw nothing but Susan Hornby’s interference, Mr. Farnshaw told her to attend to her own affairs until her help was desired, and when the child was rebuffed and unable to hide her disappointment and retired within herself, both parents resented the evident and growing difference between her and themselves.
It was to escape from a home which was unendurable that Elizabeth flat-footedly, and for the first time, refused to accede to her parents’ authority. When the matter ofa spring term of school came up for discussion she refused to teach the home school again, though Mr. Crane had been so pleased with her work that he had offered it to her. When asked if Jake Ransom was the objection she indignantly asserted to the contrary.
“He was the best pupil I had,” she said, “but I don’t want to teach at home, and I won’t do it,” and that was all she would say. She secured a school ten miles north of her home; ten miles had been the nearest point which she would consider.
The interest was at last paid, but when the summer groceries were paid for there was no money left with which to go back to Topeka, and it was necessary to teach a winter school. Elizabeth went to work anew to collect funds for another year’s schooling. Mr. Farnshaw sold himself short of corn in the fall, however, and the young girl was expected to make up the deficit. In the spring the interest was to be paid again, and so at the end of a year and a half the situation was unchanged. The next year a threshing machine was added to the family assets, and again the cry of “help” went up, again Elizabeth’s plans were sacrificed. The next year the interest was doubled, and for four years Elizabeth Farnshaw worked against insurmountable odds.
CHAPTER IVA CULTURED MAN
When no remonstrance of hers availed to prevent the constant increase of expenses, Elizabeth saw that her assistance, instead of helping the family to get out of debt, was simply the means of providing toys for experimentation, and that she was being quietly but persistenly euchred out of all that her heart cherished. Mr. Farnshaw valued the machinery he was collecting about him, Mrs. Farnshaw valued the money, partly because in one way and another it added to the family possessions, and also because her husband having found out that he could obtain it through her easier than by direct appeal, she could avoid unpleasantness with him by insisting upon her daughter giving it to him; but Elizabeth’s education was valued by no one but Elizabeth, and unless she were to learn her lesson quickly the time for an education to be obtained would have passed.
“It’s of no use for you to talk to me, ma,” Elizabeth said the spring after she was twenty years old, “I shall keep every cent I make this summer. Pa gets into debt and won’t let anybody help him out, and I am going to go to Topeka this fall. I’m years older right now than the rest of the scholars will be—not a single pupil that was there when I went before will be there—and I’m going to go. I don’t ever intend to pay the interest on that old mortgage again—it’s just pouring money into a rat-hole!”
“‘NOW LOOK HERE, LIZZIE, ... YOUR PA EXPECTS IT’”
“‘NOW LOOK HERE, LIZZIE, ... YOUR PA EXPECTS IT’”
It was early morning and they were planting potatoes. Her mother stood with her back turned toward the raw April wind as they talked, her old nubia tied loosely about her head and neck, and her hands red with the cold.
“Now look here, Lizzie”—Mrs. Farnshaw always refused to use the full name—“your pa expects it.”
“Of course he expects it; that’s why he keeps adding to the mortgage; but that don’t make any difference. I’m going to Topeka this fall just the same. I am not going to pay one dollar on the interest in May, and you can tell pa if you like.”
Mrs. Farnshaw was alarmed. Elizabeth had protested and tried to beg off from the yearly stipend before, but never in that manner. The tone her daughter had used frightened her and she quivered with an unacknowledged fear. Her husband’s wrath was the Sheol she fought daily to avoid. What would become of them if the interest were not paid?
Added to Mrs. Farnshaw’s personal desire to command her daughter’s funds there was the solid fear of her husband’s estimate of her failure. She could not look in his eye and tell him that she was unable to obtain their daughter’s consent. To live in the house with him after Lizzie had told him herself was equally unthinkable, for his wrath would be visited upon her own head.
“My child! My child!” she cried, “you don’t have to be told what he will do t’ me.”
There was a long pause while she sobbed. The pause became a compelling one; some one had to speak.
“I can’t help it, ma,” Elizabeth said doggedly after a time.
“Oh, but you don’t know what it means. Come on to th’ house. I can’t work no more, an’ I’ve got t’ talk this thing out with you.”
They picked up the pails and the hoe with which they had been covering the hills and went to the house, carrying a burden that made a potato-planting day a thing of no consequence.
The mother busied herself with the cob fire as she argued, and Elizabeth put away the old mittens with which she had protected her hands from the earth which never failed to leave them chapped, before she picked up the broom and began an onslaught on the red and fluffy dust covering the kitchen floor.
“You see, You’ll go off t’ teach an’ won’t know nothin’ about it, an’—an’—I’ll have it t’ bear an’——” The pause was significant.
Mrs. Farnshaw watched her daughter furtively and strained her ears for signs of giving up. At last Elizabeth said slowly:
“I’m as sorry as I can be, ma, but—I’m twenty years old, and I’vegotto go.”
There was no doubting that her mind was made up, and yet her mother threw herself against that stone wall of determination in frantic despair.
“Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie! I can’t live an’ have you do it. You don’t know, child, what I have to bear.”
“Now look here, ma; you won’t let me have things out openly with pa and come to an understanding with him, and when I told you four years ago that you ought to leave him if you couldn’t live with him peaceably you talked as if I had committed some sort of sin. You and pa are determined to fuss it out and I can’t help it, and I’ve sacrificed four good years to you and the interest is bigger than it ever was. I haven’t helped you one bit. If you want to go on living with him You’ll do it in your own way, but if your life is unbearable, and you want to leave him, I’ll see that you are provided for. The law would give you a share of this——”
The noise of the broom and of their voices had prevented them from hearing any other sounds, but a shadow fell across the middle door and Josiah Farnshaw entered the kitchen a blazing picture of wrath. Before he could speak, however, the dog on the doorstep barked sharply at a stranger who was close upon him, and the irate father was obliged to smooth his manner.
Elizabeth escaped to the bedroom as her father crossed to the kitchen to see what the man wanted, and Mr. Farnshaw went on out to the pens a moment later with the “hog buyer,” as the man proved to be.
“My God! My God! What have you done?” Mrs. Farnshaw cried, following Elizabeth into the bedroom.
“I don’t know, ma,” the girl cried, as white as her mother. “I’m going to get off to hunt up a school whilethat man is here. The sun has come out and it’s only ten o’clock. If you’re afraid, come along,” she advised, as she hurried into a clean calico dress and took down her old black riding skirt from its nail.
“Lizzie!” the mother exclaimed, as much afraid of the advice as she was of her husband.
There was little time left her for argument, for Elizabeth hurriedly tied a thick green veil over her plain straw hat and left the house. The hog pens were on the opposite side of the stable from the house and Elizabeth soon had Patsie, now a mare of five years, saddled and bridled.
The air was softening, and it occurred to her that it was going to rain, as she hurried out of the yard, but she did not wait to get extra wraps nor her umbrella. The best thing to do, she knew, was to get away while that hog buyer was there and trust to luck for the edge of her father’s anger to wear away before she returned.
Fortunately she had worn her old coat, which was heavy and waterproof, and when it did begin to rain half an hour later, instead of turning back she pressed forward, more afraid of the thunderstorm at home than any to be encountered on the way.
Elizabeth rode steadily southward, thinking out her share in this new quarrel in which she had embroiled her parents, unaware that as it drizzled it became warmer and that the day had become spring-like and endurable. She began to question the propriety of having suggested drastic measures to her mother. “Till death do you part” rang in her ears in spite of the certainty that the union of hermother and her father was an unholy thing which was damning them more surely than a separation could possibly do. Of only one thing could Elizabeth be sure: she saw without mistake at last that she must decide upon her own duties hereafter without listening to a mother who could not decide anything for herself.
The director of the district to which Elizabeth first turned her steps was away from home when she arrived and it was necessary to consider where she would go next. After some thought she decided to try the Chamberlain district, which lay between there and her home. It was eight miles from the Farnshaw homestead and far enough away so that she would not have to board with her parents and she determined to try to meet the school board, which met usually on the first Tuesday night in April.
The fact of facing around toward the north again set her to considering what course of action she would pursue when she went back home.
“I’ll go back, I guess, and be patient with whatever he feels like doing with me,” she resolved, reflecting that from her father’s standpoint he had a very real grievance against her. “It was a dreadful thing for him to hear me advising ma to leave him. I guess I owe it to them to try to straighten it up. But I don’t believe it can ever be straightened up,” she ended doubtfully.
Elizabeth was passing a grove of young cottonwood trees and was so absorbed in her thoughts that, becoming only half conscious that Patsie was lagging and that time was passing rapidly, she gave her a slap with the strap inher hand, urging the horse to a faster pace as she rounded the corner of the section without looking up. Patsie broke into a long, easy lope. Suddenly Elizabeth became conscious of the noise of other hoofs splashing toward them. Glancing up, she saw a farm team almost upon them, whose driver was stooped to avoid the rain.
Elizabeth pulled her horse up sharply, and to one side. The trail was an old one, and the sloping, washed-out rut was deep. Patsie lost her footing and, after a slipping plunge or two, fell floundering on her side before her mistress could support her with the rein. Active as a boy, Elizabeth loosened her foot from the stirrup and flung herself to the other side of the road, out of the way of the dangerous hoofs. Elizabeth slipped as her feet struck the ground and she landed on “all-fours” in the grass.
The young man, suddenly awake to what had happened, was out of his high seat and had the mare by the bridle before its rider had fairly scrambled up.
“I beg your pardon! Are you hurt?” he called across the wagon, when Patsie, still nervous from her fall, hung back as far as her rein would permit and not only refused to be led but threatened to break away altogether.
“Not at all! Not a bit! Whoa! Patsie! Whoa! Lady!” Elizabeth cried, coming around to them, and extending a smeary, dripping hand for the taut rein.
The young man let her step in front of him and put her hand on the strap, but kept his own there as well, while they both followed the backing horse with braced steps, the girl talking soothingly to the frightened animal thewhile. The naturally docile filly responded to the voice she had heard from earliest colthood and soon let Elizabeth approach close enough to put her hand on the bit. The seriousness of the affair gave way to the comic when the horse began to snatch bits of grass from the roadside.
The young couple laughed and looked at each other rather sheepishly as they saw that further cooperation was not needed. They untangled their hands where they had slipped tight together in the loop of the bridle rein as they had followed the rearing beast.
“She has broken the girth,” the young man said, lifting his hat ceremoniously and with a manner not born of life on the farm.
He threw the stirrup over the top of the saddle and fished under the now quiet horse for her dangling surcingle. Having secured it, he untied the strap and examined it to see if it were sufficiently long to permit of tying another knot. Deciding that it was, he tied one end in the ring in the saddle and, passing the other through the ring of the girth, drew it up with a strong, steady pull. His side face against the saddle, as he pulled, permitted him to examine curiously the young girl in front of him.
“Are you sure you are not hurt at all?” he asked solicitously.
“Not a bit—only muddy,” she replied, stooping to brush her earth-stained hands through the rain-laden grass at the roadside. He was still working with the straps when her hands were cleaned and watched her openly as she shielded her face behind Patsie’s head whilewaiting. The water dripped from the ends of her braided brown hair and the long dark lashes of her brown eyes were mist-laden also. He examined all the accoutrements of her mount minutely. When at last it occurred to her that he was giving them extra attention for the sake of extending the time Elizabeth’s eyes lighted up with a humorous twinkle. The young man caught and rightly interpreted the expression and was embarrassed.
“I think it’s all right,” he said quickly. “I’m awfully sorry to have been so stupid. I never thought of meeting any one in all this rain.”
Elizabeth took that as a reflection upon her presence out of doors on such a day, and leading her horse down into the deep road sprang into the saddle from the bank before he could offer his assistance.
“Thank you for helping me,” she said, and was off toward the west before he could speak.
She was gone, and he could do nothing but look after her helplessly.
“Your horse has lamed itself,” he called when he was at last able to concern himself with such matters, but either the spattering hoofbeats prevented her hearing his voice or she was determined not to reply; he could not tell which. There was nothing to do but return to his wagon.
“Confound it!” he exclaimed. “Now you’ve made an ass of yourself and let her get away without finding out who she was or where she lived.” He liked her—and he was an ass! He anathematized himself openly.
When well away from the man, Elizabeth saw that his observation regarding the prospects of meeting people on such a day was a perfectly natural one and not aimed at her at all. She laughed at the spectacle she was sure she must have presented, and wished now that she had not been in such a hurry in leaving him. Here was a man worth looking at. The gesture as he had lifted his hat indicated refinement.
“Curious that I haven’t seen him—he lives here some where,” she pondered, and now that she could not find out she rated herself severely for the embarrassment which was apt to assail her at critical moments.
Patsie limped miserably, and Elizabeth brought her down to a walk and let her droop along the old country road, and speculated on this new specimen of masculinity which had dropped from the skies to puzzle and delight her soul.
The rain beat heavily now, and Elizabeth began to take her situation into account after thinking over the stranger a few minutes. There was a perfect deluge of water from the burdened sky, and though no sign of a house could be seen, she knew she could not be far from the Chamberlain homestead; but the ground was becoming more and more soggy, and her garments were not of the heaviest. Patsie’s feet went ploop, ploop, ploop, in the soft, muddy road. Elizabeth urged her to the fastest possible walking speed in spite of her lameness. To trot or gallop was impossible, and the young horse slipped now and then in a manner which would have unseated a less skilful rider.
The sodden Kansas road was aflood with this spring rain. Patsie laboured heavily and Elizabeth gave herself up to her cogitations again. Her mind had reacted to more pleasant subjects than home affairs.
It had been a dreary, disheartening ride, and yet it had had its compensations, for was not the rider young and the earth filled with the freshness of spring? The short and tender grass bordered the road to the very wheel-ruts; the meadow larks sang regardless of the rain, or mayhap in sheer meadow-lark delight because of it. To the south a prairie chicken drummed, and a cow called to her calf, whose reply came from a point still farther in the distance. At the sound of the cow’s lowing Elizabeth Farnshaw peered delightedly through mists.
“I knew it couldn’t be much farther, Patsie,” she said, leaning forward and patting the neck of the dripping horse. Little spurts of water flew spatteringly from under the affectionate palm, and Elizabeth shook her bare hand to free it from the wet hairs which adhered to it, laughing at her rainsoaked condition.
It was indeed a time for seeking shelter.
Presently the rattle of a chain was heard nearby, then the outlines of a straw stable were seen, and from the foreground of mist a man appeared unhitching a team of horses from a large farm wagon. Patsie gave a little nicker of anticipation as she scented the sacks of oats, carefully covered, in the back of the wagon. The old man rose from his stooping position in unfastening the tugs and faced the newcomer.
“Why, it’s Miss Farnshaw! Gee whiz! Be you a duck t’ be out on such a day as this?” he inquired, stepping forward when he saw that she was coming in. Then chuckling at his own humour, he added:
“I guess you be a goslin’—a goslin’ bein’ a young goose, you know.”
Elizabeth Farnshaw laughed. “But my feathers aren’t turning the rain, Mr. Chamberlain.” It was the second time within the hour that she had been reminded that women were not expected to go out of doors in a rainstorm.
“That’s because you’re such a young goose, you know; you ain’t got no feathers yet, it’s only down.”
“Fairly caught!” she replied, backing her horse around so that the rain would come from behind, “Tell me, does the school board meet to-night?”
“Oh, ho!” the farmer replied, “that’s th’ way th’ wind blows, is it? Now look here, young lady, if you be as prompt in lickin’ them youngsters in season an’ out o’ season as you be in lookin’ up schools I guess You’ll do. Yes, sir-ee, th’ school board meets to-night an’ you jes’ come t’ th’ house an’ have a bite t’ eat an’ we’ll see what we can do for you. Why, stars an’ garters!” he exclaimed as he lifted her down from her horse, “Liza Ann ’ll have t’ put you in th’ oven along with th’ rest of th’ goslins.” Then he added: “Now you run along to th’ house, an’ I’ll take this horse in hand. I judge by its nicker you didn’t stop for no dinner to-day.”
Mrs. Chamberlain appeared at the door and her husband called to her,
“Liza Ann! here’s Miss Farnshaw, as wet as that last brood of chickens you found under th’ corn-planter. Give ’er a dry pair of shoes an’ take ’er wet coat off o’ ’er.”
As Elizabeth turned to her hostess, the old man exclaimed, “Why, Gosh all Friday, what’s happened to your horse?”
“I’m awfully worried about Patsie’s foot. She slipped in the muddy road this afternoon. Do you suppose It’ll lay her up? It’s a busy time and pa needs her.”
“I don’t know; it’s in a ticklish place. I’ll rub it good with Mustang liniment; that’s th’ best thing I know of. Now you run on to th’ house; you’re wet enough t’ wake up lame yourself in th’ mornin’,” he admonished, straightening up, with his hands on the small of his back.
Having dismissed Elizabeth, Silas Chamberlain took Patsie’s saddle from her back and laid it across Old Queen’s harness, taking his own team into the barn first. Old Queen was an unsocial animal and it was necessary to tie her in the far stall when a strange horse was brought into the barn, as she had a way of treating intruders badly. She sniffed at the saddle distrustfully as Mr. Chamberlain tied her up.
“Whoa! there!” he said emphatically, giving her a slap on the flank which sent her into the opposite corner of the stall. “You needn’t be s’ all fired touchy you can’t let a strange saddle come into th’ stall. That saddle’s carried th’ pluckiest girl in this end of th’ county t’day. Gosh-a-livin’s! Think of her a comin’ out on a day like this, an’ smilin’ at them wet feathers, as she called ’em,’s if it didn’t make no difference bein’ wet at all. Now if John Hunter gets his eyes on ’er there’ll be an end of ma’s board money; an’ then how’ll I finish payin’ fur that sewin’ machine?”
In the house, after some time spent in trying to be stiffly polite to her guest, the unwilling hostess began the supper. The potatoes were put on to fry, the kettle sang, and Mrs. Chamberlain sat down to grind the coffee in a mill which she grasped firmly between her knees.
“Maybe you ’uns don’t drink coffee?” she remarked anxiously, stopping to look over at the girl, who sat near the fire drying her shoes in the oven.
“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth answered slowly, coming back reluctantly from a consideration of the handsome stranger she had met; “that is,” she added confusedly, “I never drink anything but water, anyhow.”
Mrs. Chamberlain gave a relieved sigh. “I was afraid you’d rather have tea, an’ I ain’t got no tea in th’ house. Bein’ farmin’ season now it seems as if I can’t never get t’ town.”
Just then one adventurous chick which, with the rest of the brood, had been discovered under the corn-planter earlier in the day, jumped out of the box in which it had been kept near the fire. Mrs. Chamberlain set the mill on the table and gave chase to the runaway.
“That’s th’ peertest chicken of th’ lot,” she remarked as she again enveloped him in the old woollen skirt, from the folds of which came much distressed cheeping. “They’re hungry, I think,” she added, reaching for a bowl of yellowcornmeal which she mixed with water. Lifting the skirt off the little brood carefully, and giving it a cautious shake to assure herself that no unwary chick was caught in its folds, she dropped some of the mixture in the middle of the box, tapping lightly with the spoon to call the attention of the chicks to its presence. The chickens pecked hungrily, and there was a satisfied note in the twitterings of the downy little group as Mrs. Chamberlain turned to the preparation of her supper again.
“Yes, he’s th’ peertest chicken of th’ lot; an’ I’d most as soon he’d been more like th’ rest—he’s always gettin’ out of th’ box.”
“Now, Liza Ann, you ain’t thinkin’ nothin’ of th’ kind,” said her husband, who had hurried with his evening chores so as to get a chance to visit with the company and had just come in from the stable. “You know you said yourself, ‘Thank goodness, there’s one on ’em alive,’ when you fished ’em out from under that planter. Th’ same thing’s keeping ’im on th’ go now that kept ’im from givin’ up as quick as th’ rest did then. Chicken’s is like boys, Miss Farnshaw,” Silas continued, addressing Elizabeth; “th’ ones that makes th’ most trouble when thy’re little, you can count on as bein’ th’ most likely when they’re growed up. Now, Liza Ann there counted on that chicken soon’s ever she set eyes on ’im.”
Having washed his face and hands in the tin basin on the bench just outside the kitchen door, Silas Chamberlain combed his curly locks of iron gray before the little looking glass which was so wrinkled that he looked like somefantastic caricature when mirrored on its surface. After a short grace at the opening of the meal, he passed a dish of potatoes, remarking:
“We ain’t much hands t’ wait on th’ table, Miss Farnshaw; You’ll have t’ reach an’ help yourself.”
“Who’s this plate for?” Elizabeth asked at last, designating the vacant place at her side.
“That’s John’s,” said Mrs. Chamberlain.
“John Hunter’s, Miss Farnshaw,” said Silas. “He’s our boarder, an’ th’ likeliest young man in these parts.” Then he added with conviction, “You two be goin’ t’ like each other.”
A girlish blush covered the well-tanned cheeks, and to hide her embarrassment Elizabeth said with a laugh:
“Describe this beau ideal of yours.”
“Now, Si, do let th’ child alone,” Mrs. Chamberlain protested. “He’s always got t’ tease,” she added deprecatingly.
“Sometimes I be an’ sometimes not. Miss Farnshaw made me think of you some way when I see her this afternoon.” Noting his wife’s look of surprise, he explained: “I mean when I see you down to th’ Cherryvale meetin’ house. An’ it didn’t take me long t’ make up my mind after that, neither.”
Mrs. Chamberlain smiled at the mention of girlhood days, but said nothing, and Silas turned to Elizabeth again with his honest face alight with memories of youth.
“You see, Miss Farnshaw, I’d gone out on th’ hunt of a stray calf, an’ an unexpected shower came on—th’ kindthat rains with th’ sun still a shinin’—an’ I dug my heels into old Charlie’s flanks an’ hurried along down th’ road to th’ meeting house, a few rods farther on, when what should I see but a pretty girl on th’ steps of that same place of refuge! Well, I begged ’er pardon, but I stayed on them there steps till that shower cleared off. Most of th’ time I was a prayin’ that another cloud would appear, an’ I didn’t want it no bigger than a man’s hand neither. No, sir-ee, I wouldn’t ’a’ cared if it’d ’a’ been as big as th’ whole Bay of Biscay. An’ what I was thinkin’ jest now was that there was about th’ same fundamental differences ’tween you an’ John Hunter that th’ was ’tween Liza Ann an’ me. He’s light haired an’ blue eyed, an tall an’ slim, an’ he’s openin’ up a new farm, an’ ’ll need a wife. He talks of his mother comin’ out t’ keep house for him, but, law’s sakes! she wasn’t raised on a farm an’ wouldn’t know nothin’ about farm work. Oh, yes, I forgot t’ tell you th’ best part of my story: I got t’ carry Miss Liza Ann Parkins home on old Charlie, ’cause th’ crick rose over th’ banks outen th’ clouds of rain I prayed for!”
“Now, Si Chamberlain, there ain’t a word of truth in that, an’ you know it,” said his wife, passing Elizabeth a hot biscuit. “I walked home by th’ turnpike road, Miss Farnshaw, though we did wait a bit, till it dried up a little.”
Her husband’s laugh rang out; he had trapped Liza Ann into the discussion, in spite of herself, and he had trapped her into an admission as well.
“Well,” he said, “I may be mistaken about th’ details, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for th’ rainy days since that particular time.”
“But you haven’t told me why Mr. Hunter isn’t here to eat his supper,” said Elizabeth, “nor have you told me what he is like.”
“Oh, he’s gone over to Colebyville for his mail, an’ won’t be home till late—in all this mud. As to what he’s like—it ain’t easy t’ tell what John’s like; he’s—he’s a university feller; most folks say he’s a dude, but we like him?”
“What university?” Elizabeth asked with a quick indrawn breath; she knew now whom she had met on the road that afternoon.
“He comes from Illinois. I guess it’s th’ State University—I never asked him. His father died an’ left him this land an’ he’s come out here to farm it. Couldn’t plow a straight furrow t’ save his life when he come a little over a year ago, but he’s picked up right smart,” Silas added, thereby giving the information the young girl wanted.
This young man was to be in this neighbourhood all summer. Still another reason for applying for the Chamberlain school.
As Elizabeth helped Liza Ann with her dishwashing after supper, John Hunter came in. The ground had been too soft for them to hear the wagon when he drove up. Silas introduced them promptly and added with a grin:
“You’ve heard of folks that didn’t know enough t’ come in out of th’ rain? Well, that’s her!”
John Hunter’s eyes twinkled an amused recognition, but he did not mention the accident in which Patsie had come to grief.
“I am very glad to meet you, Miss Farnshaw; we are both wet weather birds.”
Seeing Liza Ann reach for a frying pan, he addressed himself to her:
“Never mind any supper for me, Mrs. Chamberlain. I knew I’d be late, as I had to go around by Warren’s after I got back, and I got an early supper at the new hotel before I left town!”
“The extravagance of that!” exclaimed Mrs. Chamberlain, to whom hotel bills were unknown.
John Hunter went to the door to clean some extra mud off his boot tops, and to hide a wide and fatuous smile at the thought of tricking Silas out of his accustomed joke. He felt nearer the girl, because she too had been silent regarding the afternoon encounter. He liked the mutuality of it and resolved that it should not be the last touch of that sort between them. While not really intellectual, John Hunter had the polish and tastes of the college man, and here he reflected was a girl who seemed near being on his own level. She looked, he thought, as if she could see such small matters as bespattered clothes.
Silas followed him out. “You didn’t bed them horses down did you?” he asked.
“No. I expect we’d better do it now and have it out of the way.”
As they entered the dark stable and felt their way along the back of the little alley, behind the stalls, for the pitchforks, the younger man asked indifferently:
“Who did you say the young lady was?”
“Oh, ho!” shouted Silas; “it didn’t take you long. I knew you’d be courtin’ of me along with your questions. Now look here, John Hunter, you can’t go an’ carry this schoolma’am off till this here term’s finished. I look fur Carter an’ that new director over to-night, for a school meetin’, an’ I’m blamed if I’m goin’ t’ have you cuttin’ into our plans—no, sirr-ee—she’s t’ be left free t’ finish up this school, anyhow, if I help ’er get it.”
“No danger! You get her the school; but how does she come to have that air away out here? Does she come from some town near here?”
“Town nothin’! She was jest raised on these prairies, same as th’ rest of us. Ain’t she a dandy! No, sir—’er father’s a farmer—’bout as common as any of us, an’ she ain’t had no different raisin’. She’s different in ’erself somehow. Curious thing how one body’ll have a thing an’ another won’t, an’ can’t seem t’ get it, even when he wants it an’ tries. Now you couldn’t make nothin’ but jest plain farmer out of me, no matter what you done t’ me.”
“Do you think they’ll give her the school?” John asked.
Silas’s laugh made the young man uncomfortable. Hehad intended to avoid the necessity for it, but had forgotten himself.
“There’s Carter now,” was all the reply the old man gave as he moved toward the door, which he could dimly see now that he had been in the darkness long enough for his eyes to become accustomed to it. The splashing footsteps of a horse and the voice of a man cautioning it came from toward the road.
“That you, Carter?” Silas called.
“Yes. This ground’s fairly greasy to-night,” answered the voice.
“Bring your horse in here; there’s room under cover for it,” was the rejoinder.
They tied it in the darkness, feeling their way from strap to manger. “The Farnshaw girl’s here waitin’ fur th’ school.”
“Glad of that,” replied the newcomer. “I don’t know her very well, but they say she can handle youngsters. She’s had some extry schoolin’ too. Don’t know as that makes any difference in a summer term, but it’s never in th’ way.”
The young man slipped out of the stable, intending to get a word with the new teacher before the others came to the house. The school was assured to her with two members of the board in her favour, he reflected. Liza Ann had gone to the other room, and finding the way clear he asked in a half whisper:
“Did you lame your horse badly?” And when Elizabeth only nodded and looked as if she hoped her hostesshad not heard, John Hunter was filled with joy. The mutuality of the reticence put them on the footing of good fellowship. There was no further opportunity for conversation, as they heard Silas and Carter on the step and a third party hail them from a distance.
There was a moment’s delay and when the door did at last open Elizabeth Farnshaw gave a glad cry:
“Uncle Nate! Where in the world did you come from?”
She caught Nathan Hornby by the lapels of his wet overcoat and stood him off from her, looking at him in such a transport of joy that they were the centre of an admiring and curious group instantly.
While Nathan explained that they had only last month traded their wooded eighty for a hundred and sixty acres of prairie land in this district, and that it had been their plan to surprise her the next Sunday by driving over to see her before she had heard that they were in that part of the state, Elizabeth sat on the edge of the wood-box and still held to his coat as if afraid the vision might vanish from her sight, and asked questions twice as fast as the pleased old man could answer them, and learned that Nathan had been appointed to fill out the unexpired term of the moderator of the Chamberlain school district, with whom he had traded for the land. The business of the evening was curtailed to give the pair a chance to talk, and when the contract was signed, Elizabeth said that she would go home with Nathan, and John Hunter thrust himself into the felicitous arrangement by taking the young girl over in his farm wagon, it being decided thatPatsie’s lameness made it best for her to remain housed in Silas’s barn for the night.
It was a mile and a half along soggy roads to Nathan Hornby’s, and John Hunter made as much of the time fortune had thrown at him as possible. They sat under one umbrella, and found the distance short, and John told her openly that he was glad she was to be in his neighbourhood.