One year from the time Edith left him, he married Abby Wilson. She had
grown into a voluptuous though coarse maturity, and was dashing in dress
and manner. Her father had recently died, leaving her a fine property.
She had always coveted Ben, and did not delay the nuptials from any
sense of delicacy, but rather hastened the hour which should make him
legally her own.
The old man was highly pleased at the turn affairs had taken. After all
these years Ben was united to the woman he had chosen for him so long
ago, and now surely Ben would settle down, and take the care off his
shoulders--shoulders which were beginning to feel the weight of years of
labor. In truth, the old man was breaking down.
He fell ill of a low fever soon after Ben's second marriage, and when he
rose from his bed he seemed to have grown ten years older. He was more
childish in his fault-finding, and more irritable than ever before, and
this new wife of Ben's had little patience with him. She was not at all
like Edith. She bullied him, and frightened him into silence when he
began to find fault with her extravagances. For she was
extravagant--there was no denying that. She cared only for show and
outward appearance. She neglected her home duties, and often left the
old man to prepare his own food, while she and Ben dashed over the
country, or through the neighboring villages, behind the blooded span
she had insisted upon his purchasing soon after their marriage.
Poor old Anson English! He was nearing his sixtieth year now, and he
looked and seemed much older. Ben was his only earthly tie, and the hope
and stay of his old age. And he was but a reed--a reed. His father saw
that at last. Ben would never develop into a practical business man. He
was unstable, lazy, and selfish. And this new wife seemed to encourage
him in every extravagant folly, instead of restraining him as the old
man had hoped. And someway Ben had never been the same since Edith went
away. He had been none too good or kind to his father before that; but
since then--well, when she went, it seemed to Anson that she took with
her whatever of gentleness or kindness lurked in Ben's nature, and left
only its brutality and selfishness.
And strive as he would to banish the feeling, the old man missed the
child.
Ah, no! he was not happy in this new state of affairs, which he had so
rejoiced over at the first. He grew very old during the next two years.
Like all men who worry the lives of women in the domestic circle, he was
cowardly at heart. And Ben's new wife frightened him into silent
submission by her masculine assumption of authority and her loud voice
and well-defined muscle.
He spoke little at home now, but he still paid frequent visits to his
neighbors, and he remained firm in the Adam-like idea that Elizabeth had
been the root of all evil in his life.
"Yes, Ben's letting the place run down pretty bad," he confessed to a
neighbor who had broached the subject. "Ben's early trainin' wasn't
right. 'Liz'beth, she let him do 'bout as he pleased. Liz'beth never had
no notions of how a boy should be trained. He'd a' come out all right if
I'd a' managed him from the start."
Strange to say, he never was known to speak one disparaging word of
Abby, Ben's second wife. Her harshness and neglect were matters of
common discussion in the neighborhood, but the old man, who had been so
bitter and unjust toward his own wife and Edith, seemed to feel a
curious respect for this Amazon who had subjugated him. Or, perhaps, he
remembered how eager he had been for the marriage, and his pride kept
him silent. Certain it is that he bore her neglect, and later her abuse,
with no word of complaint, and even spoke of her sometimes with praise.
"She's a brave one, Abby is," he would say. "She ain't afraid of nothin'
or nobody. Ef she'd a' been a man, she'd a' made a noise in the world."
Ben drank more and more, and Abby dressed and drove in like ratio. The
farm ran down, and debts accumulated--debts which Abby refused to pay
with her money, and the old man saw the savings of a long life of labor
squandered in folly and vice.
People said it was turning his brain, for he talked constantly of his
poverty, often walking the streets in animated converse with himself.
And at length he fell ill again, and was wildly delirious for weeks. It
was a high fever; and when it left him, he was totally blind, and quite
helpless.
He needed constant care and attention. He could not be left alone even
for an hour; Ben was seldom at home, and Abby rebelled at the
confinement and restraint it imposed upon her. Hired help refused to
take the burden of the care of the troublesome old man without increased
wages, and Ben could not and Abby would not incur this added expense.
Servants gave warning; Ben drank more deeply and prolonged his absences
from home, and Abby finally carried out a resolve which had at first
caused even her hard heart some twinges.
She made an application to the keeper of the County Poor to admit her
husband's father to the department of the incurably insane, which was
adjacent to the Poor House.
"He's crazy," she said, "just as crazy as can be. We can't do anything
with him. He needs a strong man to look after him. Ben's never at home,
and he has everything to look after any way, and can't be broken of his
rest, and the old man talks and cries half the night. I'm not able to
take care of him--I seem to be breaking down myself, with all I have to
endure, and besides it isn't safe to have him in the house. I think he's
getting worse all the time. He'd be better off, and we all would, if he
was in the care of the county."
The authorities looked into the matter, and found that at least a
portion of the lady's statements were true. It was quite evident that
the old man would be better off in the County House than he was in the
home of his only son. So he was taken away, and Abby had her freedom at
last.
"We are going to take you where you will have medical treatment and
care; it is your daughter's request," they told him in answer to his
trembling queries.
"Oh! yes, yes--Abby thinks I'll get my sight back, I suppose, if I'm
doctored up. Well, maybe so, but I'm pooty old--pooty old for the
doctors to patch up. But Abby has a powerful mind to plan things--a
powerful mind. 'Liz'beth never would a' thought of sending me
away--'Liz'beth was so easy like. Abby ought to a' been a man, she had.
She'd a' flung things."
So he babbled on as they carried him to the Poor House.
It was November, and the holidays were close at hand. Thanksgiving,
Christmas, New Year. Abby meant to enjoy them, and invited all her
relatives to a time of general feasting and merrymaking.
"I feel as if a great nightmare were lifted off my heart and brain, now
the old man has gone," she said. "He will be so much better off, and get
so much more skillful treatment, you know, in a place like that. They
are very kind in that institution, and so clean and nice, and he will
have plenty of company to keep him from being lonesome. We have been
all through it, during the last year, or else we never should have sent
him there. It is really an excellent home for him."