CHAPTER XII“PORE LITTLE WOMAN”
Silas Chamberlain answered to a loud knock on his door at the midnight hour. It was the first week of August.
“From Hunter’s, you say?”
There was a mumbled conversation at the door.
“Why, yes, of course. Come right in—glad t’ have you. When was you called—an hour an’ a half ago? Now you come right upstairs, an’ we’ll have you in bed in two shakes. There now—them covers’ll be too heavy, I ’spect, but you kin throw ’em off if you don’t want ’em. Jest keep that light. I’ll git another downstairs. Good-night. Oh, yes! Jake’s gone for th’ doctor, you say? Started an hour an’ a half ago? Guess ’e ain’t there yet—seven mile you know. Well, good-night!”
Silas stumbled down the steep stairs.
“Liza Ann, it’s come! Pore little woman!”
He got back into bed and lay so still that his wife thought him asleep. “Pore child!” she heard him say just as she was drifting off to dreamland. An hour passed. An hour and a half. There was the sound of wheels.
“That’s th’ doctor, Liza Ann.” There was no reply.
The old man fidgeted for fifteen minutes more; he hadgrown nervous. He slid out of the bed quietly and went to the barn.
“Thought I heard a noise,” he told himself by way of excuse for his action. “Wonder if Old Queen’s loose?” He felt his way along the manger carefully. Unaccustomed to midnight visitors, Queen snorted and shrank from his hand when he touched her.
“Whoa, there! You needn’t be so blamed ’fraid—nothin’s goin’ t’ hurt you. You ain’t a woman.”
Silas found a nail-keg and sat down on it across from the nibbling horses, and thought and waited.
“He’s there by this time,” he murmured presently. “Wisht they’d ’a’ sent for Liza Ann. No, I guess it’s better not. She wouldn’t know what t’ do, havin’ no experience.”
He debated with himself as to whether he should go back to bed or not.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he concluded. “Lord! how long the nights is when a feller’s awake!”
The horses ate on uninterruptedly and the soft breeze stole through the old barn, while everything in nature was indicative of peace except the old man, whose mind worked relentlessly on the situation of the young wife whose certain suffering racked him almost as much as if he had stood in its presence.
“Gosh-a-livin’s!” he exclaimed as a new thought struck him. “I wonder which one of ’em Jake got. Now that young Doc Stubbins ain’t got no more sense ’n a louse. I ought t’ ’a’ told John an’ I forgot.Lord! Lord! th’ chances th’ poor critters have t’ take!”
Mrs. Chamberlain was awakened in the gray light of morning as her husband crept shivering into bed.
“Where you been?” she asked.
“Out t’ th’ barn. Heard a noise an’ thought I’d better look into it,” was Silas’s reply.
As the sun rose the new life was ushered in. Doctor Morgan did not start home till after nine o’clock.
“Who is to have charge of your wife, Mr. Hunter?” he asked as he paused in the door and looked back at his patient anxiously. Seven miles was a long distance—and she might need him suddenly.
“Why, I thought Hepsie and I could care for her,” John replied. Trained nurses were unheard of in those days.
“It simply cannot be,” answered the old man. (Doctor Stubbins had not been engaged.) “Another attack like this last one would—well, youmusthave some one of experience here. It’s a matter of life or death—at least it might be,” he added under his breath. “Couldn’t you stay?” he asked Susan Hornby, who sat with the baby on her knee. “The girl’s liable to slip away from us before I could get here.”
It was arranged that Aunt Susan should stay with the young mother, who was too weak to turn her head on the pillow it lay upon, for as the old doctor had said she was a desperately sick girl. They had but just kept her withthem. The presence of Aunt Susan was almost as delightful to Elizabeth Hunter as the head of the child on her arm. Weak and exhausted, she was permitted such rest as she had not known in all the days of her married life. The darkened room and the quiet of the next three days were such a mercy to her tired nerves that she would have been glad to lie there for ages. Doctor Morgan let Susan Hornby return to her home and husband at the end of the week, confident that with care, Hepsie could perform the little offices required, but he was to learn that country people have little judgment in serious cases of illness, and that the young mother’s room would be filled with company when he came out the next day.
Mr. and Mrs. Crane were the first to arrive on Sunday morning, and when John announced that they were driving up to the hitching post, Elizabeth begged weakly for him to say that she was too ill to see any one that day. John would have been glad to deliver that message, remembering the wedding day, but Sadie was with her mother, and John had found Luther a convenient neighbour of late.
“We can’t offend them,” he said.
“But I can’t have them. Please, John—with my head aching already.”
“Don’t speak so loud,” John said warningly.
Mrs. Farnshaw came and had to have her team tied to the barnyard fence. She walked to the house with the rest of the company, and even in their presence could notrestrain her complaints because she had not been notified of her daughter’s serious illness and the arrival of the child. Elizabeth’s protest that they had been absorbed by that illness, and too busy to think of anything but the most urgent and immediate duties, did not quiet the objections, for Mrs. Farnshaw had the habit of weak insistence. Her mother’s whine was never so hard to bear.
“Where’s Mr. Farnshaw?” Mr. Crane asked. “He’s grandpa now.”
Elizabeth shrank into her pillows, and Mrs. Farnshaw bridled angrily.
“He’s busy,” was her tart reply.
“I should think he’d want t’ see his grandson. Lizzie, you haven’t showed me that boy,” Mr. Crane insisted.
And Elizabeth, weak and worn, had to draw the sleeping child from under the quilts at her side and show him off as if he had been a roll of butter at a country fair, while constant reference was made to one phase or another of the unpleasant things in her experience. Her colour deepened and her head thumped more and more violently, and by noon when they trooped out to the dining room, where Hepsie had a good dinner waiting, the girl-wife was worn out. She could not eat the food brought to her, but drank constantly, and was unable to get a snatch of sleep before the visitors assembled about her bed again.
At four o’clock Doctor Morgan arrived and Luther Hansen came for Sadie. Sadie saw him drive in, and laughed unpleasantly.
“Luther wasn’t a bit for comin’, but I told him I’dcome over with ma, an’ he could come after me. He’s always chicken-hearted, an’ said since Lizzie was so sick we oughtn’t t’ come. I don’t see as you’re s’ sick, Lizzie; you’ve got lots of good colour in your face, an’ th’ way you pull that baby around don’t look much like you was goin’ t’ kick the bucket just yet.”
Elizabeth made no reply, but watched John help Doctor Morgan tie his team.
“How’s Mrs. Hunter?” Doctor Morgan asked John as he came around to the gate after the horses were fastened.
“All right, I guess. She’s had a good deal of company to-day. I didn’t want them, but you can’t offend people.”
“We usually have a good deal of company at a funeral,” the old doctor said dryly, as he viewed the extra horses and wagons about the fence.
When he entered the sickroom his face hardened.
“I’m not as much afraid of your neighbours as you are, Mr. Hunter,” he said, and went to the middle door and beckoned Luther to come with him into the yard. A few words was all that was needed with Luther Hansen, and the doctor returned to his patient.
Sadie was more sarcastic than usual as they drove home.
“I wouldn’t ’a’ come if I’d a known I wasn’t wanted,” she remarked sulkily.
“But, Sadie, Doc Morgan says she’s worse! I’d turn ’em out quick enough if it was you.”
Poor little Sadie Hansen caught the spirit of the remark. Nothing like it had ever before been offered her in allher bitter, sensitive experience. She looked up at her husband mollified, and let even Elizabeth have a season of rest as she considered this astonishing thing which marriage had brought to her.
Susan Hornby, who had thought her darling resting on this quiet Sabbath day, was reëstablished at the bedside, and it was not till the morning of the tenth day that she again left the house. At the end of that time she was dismissed reluctantly by the good old doctor himself. It had been such a good excuse to be with Elizabeth that Aunt Susan had persuaded the long-suffering Nathan that her presence beside her was a thing not to be denied, and Nathan, glad to see Sue so happy, ate many a cold meal that haying season and did not complain. It was a great event in Susan Hornby’s life. Gentle and cordial to all, Susan Hornby lived much alone—alone most of all when surrounded with her neighbours. Elizabeth was her only real tie.
“Oh, child! I’m so glad you’ve got him,” she said one day as she laid the beautiful brown head on Elizabeth’s arm.
Elizabeth patted the hand that was drawing the little white shawl over the baby’s head. Master John Hunter—the babe had been named for its father—had had his daily bath, and robed in fresh garments, and being well fed and housed in the snuggest of all quarters, the little triangle made by a mother’s arm, settled himself for his daily nap, while the two women watched him with the eyes of affection. Never again do we so nearly attainperfect peace in this turbulent life as during those first few weeks when the untroubled serenity of human existence is infringed upon by nothing but a desire for nourishment, which is conveniently present, to be had at the first asking, and which there is such a heaven of delight in obtaining. We are told that we can only enter the Kingdom of Heaven by becoming as little children: no other Kingdom of Heaven is adequate after that.
The life in this little room had taken Susan Hornby back to her own youth, and as often as otherwise when Master John was being put through his daily ablutions it was the little Katie of long ago that she bathed and robed fresh and clean for the morning nap. At other times Elizabeth was her Katie grown older. It was the flowering time of Susan Hornby’s life. The fact that Elizabeth had never crossed her threshold since her marriage to John Hunter had faded out of Aunt Susan’s mind. Elizabeth’s every word and look spoke the affection she felt for her. Other people might sneer and doubt, but Susan Hornby accepted what her instincts told her was genuine.
Elizabeth got about the house slowly. The days in bed had been made tolerable by the presence of those she loved, but she was far from strong, and she looked forward with reluctance to the time when Aunt Susan would not be with her. John complained of Hepsie’s work only when with his wife alone, for Aunt Susan had been so constant in her praises that he would not start a discussion which he had found he brought out by such criticism.
Susan Hornby looked on, and was as much puzzled as ever about the relations of the young couple. Elizabeth was evidently anxious about John’s opinions, but she never by so much as a word indicated that they differed from hers. She spoke of him with all the glow of her early love; she pointed out his helpfulness as if he were the only man in the world who looked after the kitchen affairs with such exactitude; she would have the baby named for no one else, and all her life and thought centred around him in so evident a manner that Aunt Susan could not but feel that she was the happiest of wives. She talked of her ideals of harmony, of her thankfulness for the example of the older woman’s life with her husband, of her desire to pattern after that example, of everything that was good and hopeful in her life, with so much enthusiasm as to completely convince her friend that she had found a fitting abiding place. And, indeed, Elizabeth believed all that she said. Each mistake of their married life together had been put away as a mistake. Each day she began in firm faith in the possibility of bringing about necessary changes. If she failed, she was certain in her own mind that the failure had been due to some weakness of her own. Never did man have a more patient, trusting wife than John Hunter. There had been much company about the house of late, and there had been no difficulties. Elizabeth was not yet analytical enough to reason out that because of the presence of that company far less demand had been made upon her by her husband. She thought that they were really getting on better than they had done, and toldherself happily that it must be because she was more rested than she had been and was therefore not so annoyed by small things. It was ever Elizabeth’s way to look for blame in herself. The baby was a great source of pleasure also. He was a good child and slept in the most healthy fashion, though beginning now when awake to look about him a little and try to associate himself with his surroundings. Elizabeth had begun to look forward to Silas’s first visit with the child. Silas had quaint ways with the young, and it was with very real pleasure that she dragged herself to the door and admitted him the first week she was out of bed. Elizabeth led the old man to the lounge on tiptoe.
“I want you to see him, Mr. Chamberlain; you and he are to be great friends,” she said as she went down on her knees and drew the white shawl reverently from the sleeping face. “Isn’t he a fine, big fellow?” she asked, looking up at the old man.
“’E ought t’ be, havin’ you for his mother,” Silas said with an attempt at being witty, and looking at the baby shyly.
The baby roused a little, and stretched and grunted, baby fashion.
“Lordie! what good sleep they do have!” Silas said, holding out his finger to the little red hand extended toward him, and then withdrawing it suddenly. “Now, Liza Ann sleeps just like that t’ this day.” He spoke hesitatingly, as if searching for a topic of conversation. “She does ’er work regular like, an’ she sleeps as regular asshe works. I often think what a satisfyin’ sort of life she leads, anyhow. She tends t’ ’er own business an’ she don’t tend t’ nobody else’s, an’—an’—she ain’t got no more on ’er mind ’n that there baby.”
Elizabeth gathered the child into her arms and seated herself in a rocking chair, while the old man sat stiffly down on the edge of the lounge and continued:
“Now I ain’t that way, you know. I have a most uncomfortable way of gettin’ mixed up in th’ affairs of others.”
“But it’s always a friendly interest,” Elizabeth interposed, mystified by his curious manner and rambling conversation.
Silas crossed his knees and, clasping his hands about the uppermost one, rocked back and forth on the edge of the lounge.
“Most allus,” he admitted, “but not quite. Now I’m fair ready t’ fight that new Mis Hansen. I’ve been right fond of Luther, for th’ short time I’ve knowed ’im, but what he see in that there Sadie Crane’s beyond me.He’ssquare. He looks you in th’ face ’s open ’s day when he talks t’ you, an’ you know th’ ain’t no lawyer’s tricks in th’ wordin’ of it. But she’s different. They was over t’ our house Sunday ’fore last an’ I never knowed Liza Ann t’ be’s near explodin’ ’s she was ’fore they left. It done me right smart good t’ see ’er brace up an’ defend ’erself. I tell you Mis Hansen see she’d riled a hornet ’fore she got away. Liza Ann ’ll take an’ take, till you hit ’er just right, an’ then—oh, my!”
Silas ended with a chuckle.
“After they left, she just told me I could exchange works with somebody else; she wasn’t goin’ t’ have that woman comin’ t’ our house no more.”
“Sadie is awfully provoking,” Elizabeth admitted, “but—but—Luther likes her, and Luther is a good judge of people, I always thought.”
“Yep,” Silas admitted in return, “an’ I don’t understand it. Anyhow, I never knew Liza Ann come s’ near forgettin’ ’erself. It was worth a day’s travel t’ see.”
They talked of other things, the baby dropped asleep in its mother’s arms, and Silas took his departure.
“How unlike him,” Elizabeth said to herself as she watched him go to his wagon.
Silas rode away in an ill-humour with himself.
“Now there I’ve been an’ talked like a lunatic asylum,” he meditated. “I allus was that crazy about babies! Here I’ve gone an’ talked spiteful about th’ neighbours, an’ told things that hadn’t ought t’ be told. If I’d a talked about that baby, I’d ’a’ let ’er see I was plum foolish about it—an’ I couldn’t think of a blessed thing but th’ Hansens.”
He rode for a while with a dissatisfied air which gave way to a look of yearning.
“My! How proud a man ought t’ be! How little folks knows what they’ve got t’ be thankful for! Now I’ll bet ’e just takes it as a matter of course, an’ never stops t’ think whether other folks is as lucky or not. She don’t. She’s in such a heaven of delight, she don’t care if she haslost ’er purty colour, or jumped into a life that’ll make an ol’ woman of ’er ’fore she’s hardly begun t’ be a girl, nor nothin’. She’s just livin’ in that little un, an’ don’t even know that can’t last long.”
There was a long pause, and then he broke out again.
“Think of a man havin’ all that, an’ not knowin’ th’ worth of it! Lord! If I’d ’a’ had—but there now, Liza Ann wouldn’t want me t’ mourn over it—not bein’ ’er fault exactly. Guess I ought t’ be patient; but I would ’a’ liked a little feller.”
When John came home that night Elizabeth told him of Silas’s visit.
“He hardly looked at baby at all,” she said disappointedly, “and I’d counted on his cunning ways with it more than anybody’s. I thought he’d be real pleased with it, and instead of that, he didn’t seem interested in it at all, and sat and stared at me and talked about Sadie. I thought sure he’d want to hold it—he’s got such cute ways.”
“How could you expect an old fellow like him to care for babies?” John said, smiling at the thought of it. “A man has to experience such things to know what they mean.”
He took the child from her arms and sat down to rock it while he waited for the supper to be put on the table.
“Say,” he began, “I saw Hepsie setting the sponge for to-morrow’s bread as I came through the kitchen. I’ll take care of baby, and you go and see about it. Thebread hasn’t been up to standard since you’ve been sick. You’ll have to look after things a little closer now that you are up again.”
Elizabeth, whose back was not strong, had been sitting on the lounge, and now dropped into a reclining position as she replied:
“The bread has not been bad, John. Aunt Susan was always marvelling at how good it was compared to the usual hired girl’s bread.”
“It was pretty badly burned last time,” John observed dryly.
“That didn’t happen in the sponge, dear, and anybody burns the bread sometimes,” she returned; “besides that, it makes my back ache to stir things these days.”
John Hunter did not reply, but every line of him showed his displeasure. It was not possible to go on talking about anything else while he was annoyed, and the girl began to feel she was not only lazy but easily irritated about a very small thing. Reflecting that her back would quit hurting if she rested afterward, she arose from the lounge and dragged herself to the kitchen, where she stirred the heavy sponge batter as she was bidden.
Mrs. Hunter was expected to return in a little over a week, and the first days when Elizabeth was able to begin to do small things about the house were spent in getting the house cleaning done and the entire place in order for her coming. It happened that a light frost fell upon Kansas that year weeks before they were accustomed to look for it; and the tomato vines were bitten. It wasnecessary to can quickly such as could be saved. In those days all the fruit and vegetables used on Kansas farms were “put up” at home, and Elizabeth, with two, and sometimes more, hired men to cook for, was obliged to have her pantry shelves well stocked. The heat of the great range and the hurry of the extra work flushed the pale face and made deep circles below her eyes, but Elizabeth’s pride in her table kept her at her post till the canning was done. By Saturday night the tomatoes were all “up,” and the carpets upstairs had been beaten and retacked. Mrs. Hunter’s room had been given the most exact care and was immaculate with tidies and pillow-shams, ironed by Elizabeth’s own hands, and the chickens to be served on the occasion of her arrival were “cut up” and ready for the frying pan.
Sunday there was a repast fit for a king when John and his mother came from town. Every nerve in Elizabeth’s body had been stretched to the limit in the production of that meal. Too tired to eat herself, the young wife sat with her baby in her arms and watched the hungry family devour the faultless repast. She might be tired, but the dinner was a success. The next morning, when the usual rising hour of half-past four o’clock came, it seemed to the weary girl that she could not drag herself up to superintend the getting of the breakfast.
“Mother’ll help you with the morning work and you can lie down afterward,” John assured her when she expressed a half determination not to rise.
But after breakfast Mrs. Hunter suggested that theyscour the tinware, and the three women put in the spare time of the entire morning polishing and rubbing pans and lids. As they worked, Mrs. Hunter discussed tinware, till not even the shininess of the pans upon which they worked could cover the disappointment of the girl that her mother-in-law should have discovered it in such a neglected condition.
“Really, child, it isn’t fit to put milk in again till it’s in better condition. How did you happen to let it get so dull and rusty?”
“Now, mother, it isn’t rusty at all. It is pretty dull, but that’s not Hepsie’s fault. It was as bright as a pin when I got up, but we’ve had the tomatoes to put up and the housecleaning to do and it couldn’t be helped,” Elizabeth replied, covering up any share the girl might have had in the matter. She knew the extra work which had fallen on Hepsie’s shoulders in those last weeks, and particularly since she herself had been out of bed, for the girl loved Elizabeth and had shielded her by extra steps many times when her own limbs must have ached with weariness.
“You don’t mean to say you used the tin pans for any thing as corroding as tomatoes!” Mrs. Hunter exclaimed in astonishment.
“We used everything in sight I think—and then didn’t have enough,” Elizabeth said with a laugh.
“But you should never use your milk pans for anything but milk, dear,” the older woman remonstrated. “You know milk takes up everything that comes its way,and typhoid comes from milk oftener than any other source.”
“There are no typhoids in tomatoes fresh from the vine,” Elizabeth replied testily, and Mrs. Hunter dropped the subject.
But though she dropped the subject she did not let the pans drop till the last one shone like a mirror. With the large number of cows they were milking many receptacles were needed and John had got those pans because they were lighter to handle than the heavy stone crocks used by most farmers’ wives. Elizabeth was more appreciative, of those pans than any purchase which had been made for her benefit in all the months she had served as John’s housekeeper, but by the time she was through scouring she was ready to throw them at any one who was foolish enough to address her upon housekeeping; besides, she plainly discerned the marks of discontent upon Hepsie’s face. Hepsie was a faithful servitor, but she had learned by several years of service to stop before her energies were exhausted. It was the first sign of dissatisfaction she had ever shown, and Elizabeth was concerned.
The next morning Elizabeth’s head was one solid, throbbing globe of roar and pain. Mrs. Hunter brought her a dainty breakfast which it was impossible for her to eat, and said with genuine affection:
“We have let you do too much, my dear, and I mean to take some of this burden off of your shoulders. You’re not yourself yet. John tells me you were sicker thanpeople usually are at such times. I ought to have helped the girl with that tinware yesterday and sent you to bed.”
Elizabeth listened with some alarm to the proposition of Mrs. Hunter taking the house into her own hands, but she was touched by the real sympathy and concern evident.
“It’s good of you, mother. You’ll have to be careful about Hepsie, though. You must not call her ‘the girl’ where she hears you. You see she is one of our old neighbours, and—and—well, they hate to be called that—and they aren’t exactly servants.”
“Well, I’ll get the dinner for her—it’s wash day. Don’t try to get up,” Mrs. Hunter said, taking the breakfast away with her.
“Be careful about Hepsie, mother,” Elizabeth called after her in an undertone. “She’s a good girl, if you understand her and—and they leave you at the drop of a hat.”
Hepsie’s going came sooner than even Elizabeth had feared. She brought a cup of coffee to her at noon, but avoided conversation and went out at once.
Elizabeth called her mother-in-law to her after dinner was over and cautioned her afresh.
“But I haven’t had a word with her that was ill-natured or cross,” Mrs. Hunter protested indignantly.
“I don’t suppose you have, mother,” the miserable girl replied, puzzled as to how she was to make the older woman understand. “It’s—it’s a way you have. I saw that she was hurt about that tinware. She’s been very satisfactory, really. She takes every step off of methat she can. She’s the best in the country—and—and they hang together too. If we lost her, we’d have a hard time getting another.”
“Well, it makes me cross to have to work with them as if they were rotten eggs and we were afraid of breaking one, but if I have it to do I suppose I can. I only looked after the clothes to see that she got the streaks out of them. I knew she was mad about something, but I rinsed them myself; I always do that.”
After Mrs. Hunter was gone Elizabeth thought the matter over seriously. Neither Hepsie nor any other girl they could get in that country was going to have her work inspected as if she were a slave. They were free-born American women, ignorant of many things regarding the finer kinds of housekeeping in most instances, but independent from birth and surroundings. In fact, there was a peculiar swagger of independence which bordered upon insolence in most of the homes from which Kansas help must be drawn. Elizabeth knew that their dignity once insulted they could not be held to any contract.
Mrs. Hunter went back to the kitchen and tried to redeem the mistakes she had made, but Hepsie would not be cajoled and the unpleasantness grew. Saturday night the girl came to Elizabeth and said, without looking her in the face at all:
“Jake says, if he can have th’ team, he’ll take me home. I—I think I won’t stay any longer.”
“Do you have to go, Hepsie?” Elizabeth said, her face troubled.
Hepsie avoided her glance because she knew the trouble was there. Hepsie had been very happy in this house and had been proud of a chance to keep its well supplied shelves in satisfactory condition. Gossip hovered over whatever went on in the Hunter home, and there was a distinction in being associated with it; also Hepsie had come to love Elizabeth more than she usually did her country mistresses. She saw that all the unkind things which were being said about Elizabeth’s stuck-up propensities were untrue, and that Elizabeth Hunter was as sensible and kindly as could be wished when people understood her.
“I’ll be up and around hereafter,” Elizabeth continued. “You don’t understand mother. She’s all right, only she isn’t used to the farm.”
“I guess I understand ’er all right,” Hepsie said sullenly; “’t wouldn’t make no difference, you bein’ up. She’d be a-tellin’ me what t’ do just th’ same, an’ I’m tired enough, washdays, without havin’ somebody t’ aggravate me about every piece that goes through th’ rench.”
She stood waiting for Elizabeth to speak, and when she did not, added resentfully:
“You an’ me always got along. We had a clean house, too, if Mr. Hunter didn’t think I knew much.”
Elizabeth’s surprise was complete. She had not supposed the girl knew John’s estimate of her work. John was usually so clever about keeping out of sight when he insisted upon anything unpleasant that it had never occurred to Elizabeth that Hepsie was aware that Johninsisted upon having her do things which he felt that Hepsie could not be trusted to do unwatched. There was nothing more to be said. She reckoned the girl’s wages, and told her that Jake could have the team.
Before Hepsie went that night, she came back to the bedroom and cuddled the baby tenderly.
“I’m—I’m sorry t’ go an’ leave you with th’ baby so little, Lizzie. ’Taint hardly fair, but—but if you worked out a while you’d learn t’ quit ’fore you was wore out.” She stood thinking a moment, and then cautioned Elizabeth sincerely: “I’m goin’ t’ say one thing ’fore I leave: you’d better ship that old woman ’fore you try t’ get another girl around these parts. I’ll be asked why I left an’—an’ I’ll have t’ tell, or git folks t’ thinkin’ I’m lazy an’ you won’t have me.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. She would not plead for the girl to keep still. It would have been of no use; besides, her own sense of fairness told her that there was room for all that had been hinted at.
Monday John spent the day looking for a girl to take Hepsie’s place. Tired and discouraged, he came home about four o’clock in the afternoon.
“Could you get me a bite to eat?” he asked Elizabeth as he came in. “I haven’t had a bite since breakfast.”
Elizabeth laid the baby on the bed, and turned patiently toward the kitchen. An hour was consumed in getting the extra meal and doing the dishes afterward, and then it was time to begin the regular supper for the rest of thefamily. When John found that she had thrown herself down on the bed to nurse the baby instead of coming to the table for her supper, he insisted that she at least come and pour the tea, and when she sat unresistant through the meal, but could not eat, he sent her to bed and helped his mother wash the supper dishes without complaint. The next morning, however, he hailed her forth to assist with the half-past four o’clock breakfast relentlessly, unaware that she had spent a weary and sleepless night.
“Are you going to look for a girl to-day?” she asked as he was leaving the house after the breakfast was eaten.
“Oh! I suppose so, but I haven’t much hopes of getting one,” he answered impatiently. Then seeing the tears in her eyes at the thought of the washing waiting to be done, he kissed her tenderly. “I’ll do the best I can, dear; I know you’re tired.”
“Well, the next one I get I hope mother ’ll let me manage her. If Hepsie wouldn’t stand her ways of talking about things none of the rest will.” After a moment’s reflection she added: “I cannot do all this work myself. I’m so tired I’m ready to die.”
John slipped his arm about her and said earnestly:
“I’ll do all I can to help you with the dinner dishes, but you are not to say one word to mother about this.”
It was gently put, but authoritative.
“Then you needn’t look for one at all,” she said sharply.
John’s arm fell from about her and he looked at her in cold astonishment.
“I don’t care,” she insisted. “I can’t keep a girl and have mother looking over every piece of washing that is hung on the line.”
“Mother kept girls a long time in her own house,” he answered, taking offence at once.
“I don’t care; she dealt with a different kind of girls.” Then with a sudden illumination, she added: “She didn’t have such quantities of work to do, either. If we go on this way we’ll have to have help and keep it or we’ll have to cut down the farm work.” She brightened with the thought. “Let’s cut the work down anyhow, dear. I’d have so much an easier time and—and you wouldn’t have all those wages to raise every month, and we could live so much more comfortably.”
She leaned forward eagerly.
“I don’t see but we’re living as comfortably as folks usually do,” John replied evasively.
“I know, dear, but we have to have the men at meals all the time and—and——”
“Now see here, Elizabeth, don’t go and get foolish. A man has to make a living,” John said fretfully.
The girl had worked uncomplainingly until her last remnant of strength was gone, and they were neither willing to do the thing which made it possible to keep help, nor to let her do the work as she was able to do it. With it all, however, she tried patiently to explain and arrange. Something had to be done.
“I know you have to make a living, John, and I often think that I must let you do it in your own way, but thereare so many things that are getting into a snarl while we try it this way. We don’t have much home with strangers at our table every day in the year. We never have a meal alone. I wouldn’t mind that, but it makes more work than I am able to do, it is getting you into debt deeper every month to pay their wages, and you don’t know how hard it is going to be to pay those debts a few years from now. But that isn’t the worst of it as far as I am concerned. I work all the time and you—you aren’t satisfied with what I do when I do everything my strength will let me do. I can’t do any more than I’m doing either.”
“Iamsatisfied with what you do,” he said with evident annoyance at having his actions and words remarked upon. “Besides, you have mother to help you.” He had ignored her remarks upon the question of debts, determined to fasten the attention elsewhere.
The little ruse succeeded, for Elizabeth’s attention was instantly riveted upon her own hopeless situation.
“It isn’t much help to run the girl out and then make it so hard to get another one,” she said bitterly.
Instantly she wished she had not said it. It was true, but she wished she could have held it back. John did not realize as she did how hard it was going to be to get another girl. She had not told him of Hepsie’s remarks nor of her advice. Elizabeth was not a woman to tattle, and the “old woman” Hepsie had referred to was his mother.
“Don’t think I’m hard on her, John. If we could only get another girl I wouldn’t care.”
She waited for him to speak, and, when he did not do so, asked hopelessly:
“Don’t you think we can get another girl pretty soon if we go a good ways off from this neighbourhood?”
“I don’t know anything about it, and I don’t want to hear anything more about it either,” was the ungracious reply.
“I am in the wrong. You will hear no more on either subject.”
The tone was earnest. Elizabeth meant what she said. John went from the house without the customary good-bye kiss. We live and learn, and we learn most when we get ourselves thoroughly in the wrong.
CHAPTER XIII“ENNOBLED BY THE REFLECTED STORY OF ANOTHER’S GOODNESS AND LOVE”
It was on a Saturday, three weeks after Mrs. Hunter’s return, that Elizabeth asked to make her first visit with the baby.
“Aunt Susan was here so much while I was sick, John, that I feel that we must go to see them to-morrow.”
“Oh, my goodness!” John replied, stepping to the cupboard to put away the pile of plates in his hands. “I’m tired enough to stay at home.”
They had just finished washing the supper dishes together, and Elizabeth considered as she emptied the dishpan and put it away. She had been refused so often that she rather expected it, and yet she had thought by the cordiality with which John had always treated Aunt Susan that he would be reasonable about this visit now that she was able, and the baby old enough to go out.
Elizabeth was never clear about a difficulty, nor had her defences well in hand upon the first occasion. With those she loved, and with John in particular, any offence had to be repeated over and over again before she could protect herself. She felt her way slowly and tried to preserve her ideals; she tried to be fair. She could not tell quicklywhat to do about a situation; she took a long time to get at her own attitudes and understand them, and it took her still longer to get at the real intentions of others. As she brought out her cold-boiled potatoes and began to peel them for breakfast, she reflected that Aunt Susan had come as regularly to see them as if she had always been well treated, until Mrs. Hunter’s coming. At that point the visits had dropped off.
“Baby is nearly three months old, and I promised Aunt Susan that I’d take him to see her the first place I took him. We owe it to her, and I’m not going to neglect her any more. We can leave a dinner of cold chicken and pies for the men, and I’ll get a hot supper for them when I come home. I’d like to start about ten o’clock.”
It sounded so much as if it were all settled that the girl felt that it really was.
“That leaves mother here alone all day, and I’m not going to do it,” John returned with equal assurance.
“Mother can go with us. I should want her to do that, and I’m sure Aunt Susan would.”
Mrs. Hunter was passing through the room with the broom and dustpan and paused long enough to say pleasantly:
“Don’t count on me, children. I’ll take care of myself and get the men a hot dinner besides. I’d just as soon.”
“We’d like to have you go, mother, and I’m sure Aunt Susan would want us to bring you,” Elizabeth replied with a little catch in her breath. If Mrs. Hunter refused to go, John would not take her if she begged on her knees.
“No, I don’t want to go. I’ll get the dinner though, and you needn’t hurry back.” She went on upstairs contentedly and with the feeling that she had arranged the matter to everybody’s liking.
“Let her get the dinner then,” Elizabeth said, exasperated. “I’ll leave everything ready for it.”
“I shall not go and leave her alone all day. She has a hard enough time out on this farm without getting the feeling that we care as little as that for her comfort. Besides that, the buggy is not mended yet.”
“We can go in the lumber wagon. We didn’t have a buggy till long after we were engaged,” Elizabeth said, not going into the matter of leaving his mother at home, which she knew would be useless.
“I should think you’d want to rest when you did get a chance. You talk all the time about having too much to do,” John replied evasively.
“I wouldn’t get any rest,” Elizabeth replied quickly. “I’d get a dinner—that’s what I’d have to do if I stayed at home. I’d be on my feet three solid hours and then have to nurse the baby. That’s the rest I’d have.”
“The devil!” was the answer she got as John went out.
The weeks flew past, and still Elizabeth served hot dinners and mourned in secret over Susan Hornby’s neglected kindness. Aunt Susan had been cheerful as well as discreet during those weeks when she had helped them. She had been so happy over the evident friendliness of John Hunter that she had felt sure that the old cordiality was to be resumed.
After what seemed to Elizabeth endless weeks, a curious circumstance aided her in getting to Aunt Susan’s in the end. Mrs. Hunter, who was not greatly concerned about her disappointment, heard constant reference to Mrs. Hornby’s assistance at the time of the baby’s coming, and knowing that there would be discussion of their neglect to her in the neighbourhood, joined authoritatively in Elizabeth’s entreaty the next time it was mentioned, thereby accomplishing through fear of gossip a thing which no amount of coaxing on Elizabeth’s part could ever have done, and at last the trip was to be made.
Susan Hornby’s home was so unchanged in the year that Elizabeth had been gone that, but for the baby in her arms, she could hardly have realized that she had been away. Aunt Susan sent her to the bedroom with the wraps when they were taken off. It was the same little room the girl had occupied for half that year, the same rag carpet, the same mended rocking chair which had come to grief in the cyclone, and the knitted tidy which the girl herself had made. With the hot tears running down her cheeks the girl-mother threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in the baby’s wraps to stifle the cry she was afraid would escape her. In the sanctuary of her girlhood’s highest hopes, Elizabeth sobbed out her disappointments and acknowledged to herself that life had tricked her into a sorry network of doubts and unsettled mysteries. For the first time she sunk her pride and let Susan think what she would of her prolonged absence, and went openly to the kitchen to bathe her face inNathan’s familiar tin basin. A sudden suspicion of John’s reception at Nathan’s hands made it possible to go back to Aunt Susan with a smile on her lips.
Indeed, Elizabeth’s suspicions were so far true that they were a certainty. Nathan, by Luther’s marriage to a woman the old man suspected of every evil, had cut himself off from every friend. Nathan had been thrown in upon himself and had pondered and nursed his suspicions of all men, and of John Hunter in particular. He finished the milking without offering to go into the house; and John, who had insisted upon coming at night instead of on a Sunday, was obliged to stand around the cow stable and wait, or go to the house alone. He chose the former course and was made happy by the arrival of Jake, who had not known where his employer was going when his team was hitched to the wagon.
“I’ve just been over to Luther’s, Mrs. Hornby,” Jake said when they finally stood around Aunt Susan’s fire. “Did you know Sadie was sick? Luther’s awful good to ’er, but I know she’d be glad t’ see a woman body about once in a while.”
“Wisht she’d die an’ get out of th’ way,” Nathan Hornby said bitterly. “A body could see Luther once in a while then ’thout havin’ ’is words cut up an’ pasted together some new way for passin’ round.”
No one spoke, and Nathan felt called upon to defend his words.
“I don’t care! It’s a God’s pity t’ have a woman like that carry off th’ best man this country’s ever had, an’then fix up every word ’is friends says t’ him so’s t’ make trouble.”
Nathan’s whole bitter longing for companionship was laid bare. Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears; Elizabeth was lonely also.
The call was a short one. John moved early to go home and there was nothing to do but give way. It was not till the next day that Elizabeth suspected that Nathan’s remarks had offended John Hunter, and then in spite of her eagerness to keep the peace between the two men, she laughed aloud. She was also somewhat amused at the insistence on a call upon Sadie which John wanted that she should make. The perfect frankness of his announcement that Luther was a convenient neighbour, and that they must pay neighbourly attention to illness, when he had never encouraged her to go for any other reason, was a new viewpoint from which the young wife could observe the workings of his mind. Something about it subtracted from her faith in him, and in life.
While she was still washing the dinner dishes John came in to discuss the visit. Elizabeth was athrob with the weariness of a half day spent at the ironing table, and to avoid dressing the baby had asked Mrs. Hunter to take care of him.
With no other visible reason but his customary obstinacy, John insisted upon the child being taken.
“I’ve got to get back early and get the coloured clothes folded down. Every one of the boys had a white shirtand two or three collars this week, so I asked mother to keep him for me,” Elizabeth said.
“Now see here,” John argued. “Mother ’ll fold those clothes and you can just as well take him along and make a decent visit. They’re the nicest people in the country, according to some of the neighbours.”
Elizabeth’s laugh nettled her husband. When he appeared with the wagon, she was ready, with the baby in her arms.
The wind was keen and cold, the laprobes flew and fluttered in derisive refusal to be tucked in.
“Take the buggy in and have it mended the next time you go to town,” she said, with her teeth chattering, as they drew near to Luther’s home. “I want to go up to see ma before long and it’s almost impossible to keep a baby covered on this high seat.” She thought a while and then added, “I haven’t been home since I was married.”
“I shouldn’t think you’d ever want to go,” John replied ungraciously.
Tears of anger as well as mortification filled her eyes, and her throat would not work. It was to stop gossip as much as to see her mother that the girl desired to make the visit. The world was right: John was not proud of her.
The sight of the “shanty” as they turned the corner near Luther’s place brought a new train of thought. Dear, kindly, sweet-souled Luther! The world disapproved of his marriage too. He was coming toward them now, his ragged overcoat blowing about him as he jumpedover the ridges made by the plow in turning out the late potatoes he had been digging.
“You carry the baby in for Lizzie, an’ I’ll tie these horses,” he said, beaming with cordiality. “Got caught with Sadie’s sickness an’ let half th’ potatoes freeze ’s hard ’s brickbats.”
It was so cold that Elizabeth did not stand to ask about Sadie, but turned to the house to escape the blast.
“I’ll come for you at five if I can get back. I’m going over to see about some calves at Warren’s,” John said as they went up the path.
“Is that why you insisted that I bring the baby? You needn’t have been afraid to tell me; you do as you please anyhow.”
“H-s-sh! Here comes Hansen,” John Hunter said warningly, and turned back to the wagon, giving the child into Luther’s arms at the door.
Luther Hansen cuddled the child warmly to him and without waiting to go in the house raised the white shawl from its sleeping face for a peep at it.
“We lost ours,” he said simply.
The house sheltered them from the wind, and Elizabeth stopped and looked up at him in astonishment.
“You don’t mean it? I—I didn’t know you were expecting a child, Luther. I’m so sorry. I wish I’d known.”
The expression of sympathy escaped her unconsciously. Elizabeth would always want to know of Luther’s joys and sorrows.
A glad little light softened the pain in his face, and he looked at her with a steady gaze, discerning the feeling of sound friendship behind the words.
“I believe you are,” he said, expressing the confirmation of a thing he had never doubted. “I ain’t askin’ you any questions, Lizzie, I just know—that’s all.”
With something like a glow about his heart, he opened the door of his simple dwelling. He had never doubted her, nor believed the nonsense he had heard about her, but he had just had his faith refreshed. He carried the baby to the one little bedroom of his house, scuffing a wooden rocking chair behind him across the rough floor. He established Elizabeth in it beside Sadie, and then placing the sleeping child in its mother’s arms went back to the potato field, hurrying his work to finish before dark. He understood in a measure why this was Elizabeth’s first visit to them, and he did not resent it. Luther never resented. He lived his own kindly, industrious life. If people did not like Sadie he accepted it as a fact, but not as a thing to be aggrieved about. He could wait for Sadie to grow, and others must wait also. In the meantime, Luther watched Elizabeth and desired growth for her; her smallest movement was of interest to him. Elizabeth as a mother was a new feature. He remembered the deft way she had nestled the baby to her as he had relinquished it a few moments before, and thought with a sigh, of the cowhide-covered trunk filled with little garments under the bed by which she sat. Not even Sadie knew what the loss of that first child meant to Luther. A new love forwomen’s ways with babies grew up in him as he thought of Elizabeth’s cuddling.
In the house, Elizabeth was getting into touch with the young mother who was childless. Sadie, in spite of a determination not to do so, was warming to that touch reluctantly. After all, it was pleasant to be telling Elizabeth about it, and to have her asking as if she wanted to know.
“Yes—I took bad about a week ago,” she was saying. “I’d been kind of miserable for several days. I got a fall that last rain we had, an’ I didn’t seem t’ get over it.”
“I’d have come sooner if I’d known it,” Elizabeth said, thinking of Luther’s acceptance of a similar statement. “Jake didn’t even tell us last night what was the matter.”
“I guess he didn’t know. Would you ’a’ come if you’d ’a’ known, Lizzie?” Before Elizabeth could reply, she continued, “Ma used t’ think it’d be kind o’ nice for me t’ live close t’ you, but I knew you wouldn’t never come t’ see me. I used t’ be kind o’ jealous cause Luther liked you s’ much. I said everything mean I could think of about you, t’ him—but law! Luther ain’t got no pride. He don’t care. He defends you from everybody, whether you come t’ see us ’r not.”
It was a curious little confession and one Sadie had not intended to make. Something big and sweet in Elizabeth had forced it from her. It embarrassed Elizabeth Hunter, and it held things which could not be discussed, and she turned the subject without answering.
“When did you lose the baby?”
“Oh, it only lived a couple of hours. You see it was too soon an’—an’ it wasn’t right. Th’ doctor didn’t expect it t’ live as long as it did, but Luther would have it that it could, an’ kept ’em a tryin’ everything that could be thought of.”
Sadie’s voice died away gradually and she lay looking out of the window retrospectively: the last two weeks had brought food for much thinking.
“I didn’t know, Lizzie, that a man could be as good as Luther. I’d always kind o’ hated men, an’ I thought I’d have t’ fight my way through, like th’ rest of th’ women, an’—an’—he’s that good an’ thoughtful of me, an’ of everybody else, that I’m clean ashamed of myself half th’ time. He nearly had a fit when’ he found out that I’d slipped with that wood. ’Twas ironing day, an’ th’ box got empty—an’ then, when th’ baby died, it just seemed as if he couldn’t stand it.”
She looked up at Elizabeth earnestly: “I never heard any one but th’ preacher pray out loud, Lizzie, an’—an’—somehow—well,” she stumbled, “Luther prayed so sweet, when he see it was gone—I—I ain’t thought of much else since. It—it seemed like th’ baby’d done something good t’ both of us.”
The spiteful, pettish face was for the moment ennobled by the reflected glory of another’s goodness and love. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a condition which makes heaven here upon earth. There was the harmony here in the “shanty” such as she coveted and strove in vain to establish in her own home. Of course there would beharmony where Luther Hansen was concerned: Lutherwasharmony. Ignoring his part in the little drama, she was wise enough to touch the other side of the story in her reply.
“These little ones bring blessings all their own, Sadie,” she said, giving the hand on the patchwork quilt a little squeeze.
There was that in the impulsive little touch which was to be a lasting reminder to Sadie Hansen that Elizabeth Hunter responded to the things which were making of her life a different story. They had found common ground, where neither scoffed at the other.
“Did your baby make you feel that way?” she asked earnestly.
When Luther came at five o’clock to say that John was waiting he found them, at peace, with the baby between them.
Luther tucked Elizabeth and her child into the unprotected wagon seat with concern.
“This wind’s a tartar. Pull th’ covers down tight over its face, Lizzie. What’s become of th’ buggy, Hunter?”
Luther saw Elizabeth’s face harden in a sudden contraction of pain, and glanced across at John, but whatever there was about it that hurt belonged to Elizabeth alone, for John Hunter pulled at the flapping laprobes without seeming to have heard clearly and evidently thinking that the remark was addressed to his wife. Dusk was falling, and Luther watched them drive away with a premonitionof trouble as the night seemed to close in about them. He turned his back to the wind and stood humped over, peering through the evening at their disappearing forms. He saw Elizabeth snatch at the corner of the robe as they turned into the main road, and dug his own hands deeper into his pockets with his attention turned from Elizabeth and her possible trouble to that of the child.
“Hope th’ little feller don’t ketch cold.” He turned to the house filled with his vision of a baby being cuddled close in a mother’s arms, and with a new understanding of the comfort of such cuddling. His breath flew before him in a frosty stream when he entered the kitchen, and he hastened to build a fire and set the teakettle on to heat. He lighted a lamp and set it on a chair, and also stirred the fire in the little stove in Sadie’s room before he went to milk.
“Wisht Lizzie’d come oftener. Wonder why she don’t. She don’t seem near as stuck-up as she used to. Say, Luther, Lizzie told me th’ queerest thing: she says th’ way a mother feels before a baby’s born makes a difference. She says if a woman’s mean before a child comes It’ll make th’ young one mean too. She told a lot of things that showed it’s true, about folks we know? I wonder how she learns everything? Ain’t she smart! I wisht she’d come oftener. Say, if I ever get that way again——” The sentence was unfinished.
“Wisht ours ’d ’a’ lived,” Luther said longingly.
“Did Lizzie’s baby make you feel that way too?”
Luther went to milk with a song in his heart. Thelittle word “too” told more than all the discussions they had ever had. Sadie had not been pleased about the coming of the child they had lost.
“If I could get ’em together more,” he said wistfully. “It was a good thing t’ have ’er see Lizzie an’ ’er baby together. I hope th’ little Tad don’t ketch cold. That laprobe didn’t stay tucked in very well.”
As he rose from milking the last cow, his mind went back to his visitors.
“Somethin’ hurt Lizzie about th’ buggy ’r somethin’—she’s too peaked for her, too.”
Luther’s premonitions about the Hunter baby were only too well founded. The cold was not serious, but there was a frightened skirmish for hot water and lubricants before morning. The hoarse little cough gave way under the treatment, but the first baby’s first cold is always a thing of grave importance to inexperienced parents, and Elizabeth knew that her chances of getting to go home, or any other place, that winter, were lessened. Her growing fear of neighbourhood criticism outgrew her fear of refusal, however, and at the end of the next week she reminded her husband that she had planned to take the child to see her mother.
“You may be willing to take that child out again; I’m not,” he replied severely.
A bright idea struck Elizabeth’s imagination after she had gone to bed that night. Why not ask her own family, the Chamberlains, Aunt Susan’s, and Luther Hansen’s to aThanksgiving dinner? She was so elated by the idea that she could hardly get to sleep at all, and before she could settle herself to rest she had killed in her imagination the half dozen or more turkeys she had raised that season. A big dinner given to those who could act as mouthpieces would silence a lot of talk; also, it would take away a certain questioning look the girl feared in Luther’s and Aunt Susan’s eyes. The latter was the sorest point of her married life, and the conviction that they were thinking much worse things than were true did not make her any more comfortable. All Sunday she planned, and Sunday night went to bed with the first secret thought she had ever harboured from her husband’s knowledge.
Mrs. Hunter entered into the plan with zest when on Monday afternoon it became necessary to tell her. She had begun to love her son’s wife in spite of her family history. Had Elizabeth known how to manage it she could have made of John’s mother a comfortable ally, but Elizabeth, with characteristic straightforwardness, sought no alliance except the natural one with her husband. The two women planned the articles to be served in the dinner, and then turned to the discussion of other preparations about the house. Elizabeth was proud of the home of which she was a part, but her strength was limited since baby’s coming, and after looking about her critically decided that there would be no necessity for any more cleaning than the regular weekly amount.
“We’ll have to get the cleaning done on Wednesday instead of Friday, but I think that will be all that will beneeded. The carpets were put down fresh the week before you came home, and I don’t intend to take them up again till spring.”
“I think so,” Mrs. Hunter agreed, “but You’ll have to have the curtains in the dining room washed, and the tidies and pillow-shams done up fresh.”
“Now, mother!” Elizabeth exclaimed, “don’t begin to lay out work I can’t get done. The tidies are not hard, and I could do the shams, but those curtains are not to be thought of. I’d be so tired if I had to go to work and wash all that, after the washing I put on the line to-day, that I just wouldn’t be able to get the dinner on the table Thursday. Talking about the dinner, I think we’d better have two turkeys. I can roast two by putting them in the one big pan.”
Mrs. Hunter was willing that the younger woman should prove her talent as a cook, but she planned to take some of the necessary things upon her own shoulders, and to take her son into her schemes for brightening things up a bit. Accordingly, the next morning she asked John to help her take the curtains down.
Elizabeth had been so full of her own plans that she had forgotten to tell John’s mother that she intended to keep them secret till she had all her preparations made. The next morning when she heard the thud of some one stepping down from a chair, and her husband say: “There you are! How do you happen to be taking the curtains down at this time of the week?” she realized as she had never done before how much afraid of him shereally was, for her pulses bounded, and her ears boomed like cannon, long before John had time to appear in the door to inquire who was coming, and why they were to do so.
With a look very much like guilt, Elizabeth told over the names of her proposed guests, but with Mrs. Hunter in the next room she could not tell him why it meant so much to her to ask these people to dine with them.
The customary protest was offered without delay.
“I don’t believe I’d do it, dear. Thanksgiving is a day for home folks, not neighbours, and, besides, see all the work it will make.”
“The work is just what we choose to make it. If I’d known mother was going to clean house I wouldn’t have said anything about it,” Elizabeth answered sullenly.
“Sh!” John Hunter said in a low tone and with a look of anger that was direct and full of meaning.
Elizabeth was ready to cry. She was angry. In every move she made she was checkmated; not because it was not a good move, but because it was hers. She could readily have given up any one thing as it came along, but the true meaning and spirit of these interferences were beginning to dawn upon her. However, once more she yielded to the unreasonable wishes of her husband and the dinner was given up. She made no attempt to finish the mincemeat they had planned to chop after dinner, but after putting the baby to sleep threw a shawl about her and slipping out of the house ran to the barn and down the creek in the pasture while John was helping his mother rehang the freshly ironed curtains.
They were only having two meals a day now that the corn was all picked, and dinner came so late in the afternoon that there was already a blaze of sunset colour in the west as she passed around the barn and started down the bank of the stream. The sun had set, but was still reflected on the heaps of billowy gray clouds just above the horizon. It made the snow in front of her a delicate pink. The girl had not got far enough from the house to see a sunset for months. The freshness and keenness of the air, the colours in the sky, the grandeur and sublimity of it all chased away her anger and left her in a mood to reason over her situation. She followed the cow-path down to the bed of the stream and then threaded her way along its winding route for a greater distance than she had ever gone before. A broken willow barred her way after a time, and she climbed up on its swaying trunk and let her feet dangle over the frozen streamlet below. The snow made lighter than usual the early evening and extended the time she could safely stay so far from the house.
The colours faded rapidly from the sky and the bewildered girl returned to her own affairs, which were puzzling enough. Of late she had found herself unable to maintain her enthusiasm. She found herself increasingly irritable—from her standpoint the one thing most to be despised in others and which she had supposed most impossible in herself. There were so many unforeseen possibilities within herself that she devoted her entire attention to her own actions and impulses, and was completely drawnaway from the consideration of the motives of others by her struggle with the elemental forces in which she found herself engulfed. The temper aroused by John’s objection to her Thanksgiving company had indications in spite of the fact that she had controlled it. Elizabeth knew that she had but barely kept her speech within the limits of kindliness and consideration for Mrs. Hunter, who had not wished to frustrate her plans at all, and she knew that she would be less likely to do so if the offence were repeated. She knew that Mrs. Hunter tried with real honesty of purpose to keep on good terms with her, and yet she also knew that she was increasingly annoyed with whatever she did. There was an element of unfairness in her attitude toward the older woman which alarmed her.
“I’m just like pa, after all,” she thought as she swung her feet and looked in a troubled way down at the frozen stream below.
Elizabeth reflected that when Aunt Susan, or Silas, or Luther Hansen came into the house she became instantly her own buoyant, optimistic self: not that she intentionally feigned such feelings for the benefit of her company, but she felt the presence of trust, of faith in herself and her powers. She did not recognize that such trust was necessary to the unfoldment of character, nor even that it was her birthright.
The girl watched the gathering twilight and deliberately let the time pass without attempting to return to the house until compelled to do so by real darkness, realizingthat some beneficial thing was happening in her in this free out-of-doors place, for she was less annoyed and more analytical with each breath she drew in it.
“If only I’d take time to do this sort of thing I’d be more as I ought to be,” she meditated when she had at last risen to go home. “I won’t be like pa! I won’t! I won’t!” she reiterated many times as she walked back, over the frozen cow-path. “I’ll come here every few days. Ma and pa were born to be happy, only they never took time to be.”
And though John was cross because the baby had cried in her absence, Elizabeth felt that she had been helped by getting away from him. She accepted her husband’s reproaches without reply, and was able to forget them even while they were still issuing from his mouth. She kept her temper down all that week, and though the Thanksgiving invitations were not sent, she cooked the dinner and put as many hours into its concoction as if she had had all the people she had hoped to have about her board to eat it, and she was so sunny and natural as she served it that John did not even guess that she was governing herself consciously. She stayed at home the next Sunday and the next, and John Hunter was unaware that she was endeavouring to surrender herself to his will.