When Toyner had left Fentown to go and rescue Markham, Ann had stood a
good way off upon the dark shore just to satisfy herself that he had got
into the boat and rowed down the river. This was not an indication that
she doubted him. She followed him unseen because she felt that night
that there were elements in his conduct which she did not in the least
understand. When he was gone, she went back to fulfil her part of the
contract, and she had a strength of purpose in fulfilling it which did
not belong mainly to the obligation of her promise. Something in his
look when he had come in this evening, in his glance as he bade her
farewell, made her eager to fulfil it.
All night, asleep or awake, she was more or less haunted with this new
feeling for Toyner--a feeling which did not in her mind resemble love or
liking, which would have been perhaps best translated by the word
"reverence," but that was not a word in Ann's vocabulary, not even an
idea in her mental horizon.
Our greatest gains begin to be a fact in the soul before we have any
mental conception of them!
The next day Ann was up early. She took her beer (it was home-brewed and
not of great value) and deliberately poured it out, bottle after bottle,
into a large puddle in the front road. The men who were passing early
saw her action, and she told them that she had "turned temp'rance." She
washed the bottles, and set them upside down before the house to dry
where all the world might see them. The sign by which she had
advertised her beer and its price had been nothing but a sheet of brown
paper with letters painted in irregular brush strokes. Ann had plenty of
paper. This morning she laid a sheet upon her table, and rapidly painted
thereon with her brush such advertisements as these:
_Tea and Coffee, 3 Cents a Cup.
Ginger Bread, Baked Beans,
Lemonade.
Cooking done to order at any hour
and in any style._
By the time this placard was up, Christa had sauntered out to smell the
morning air, and she looked at it with what was for Christa quite an
exertion of surprise.
She went in to where Ann was scrubbing the tables. Christa never
scrubbed except when it was necessary from Ann's point of view that she
should, but she never interfered either. Now she only said:
"Ann!"
"I'm here; I suppose you can see me."
"Yes; but, Ann----"
It was so unusual for Christa to feel even a strong emotion of surprise
that she did not know in the least how to express it.
Ann stopped scrubbing. She had never supposed that Christa would yield
easily to all the terms of the condition; she had not sufficient
confidence in her to explain the truth concerning the secret compact.
"Look here, Christa, do you know that Walker died last night? Now I'll
tell you what it is; you needn't think that the people who are
respectable but not religious will have anything more to do with us,
even in the off-hand way that they've had to do with us before now.
Father's settled all that for us. Now the only thing we've got to do is
to turn religious. We're going to be temp'rance, and never touch a game
of cards. You're going to wear plain black clothes and not dance any
more. It wouldn't be respectable any way, seeing they may catch father
any day, and the least we can do is sort of to go into mourning."
Christa stood bright and beautiful as a child of the morning, and heard
the sentence of this long night passed upon her; but instead of looking
plaintive, a curiously hard look of necessary acquiescence came about
the lines of her cherry lips. Ann was startled by it; she had expected
Christa to bemoan herself, and in this look she recognised that the
younger sister had an element of character like her own, was perhaps
growing to be what she had become. The quality that she honestly
admired in herself appeared disgusting to her in pretty Christa, yet she
went on to persuade and explain; it was necessary.
"We can't dance, Christa, for no one would dance with us; we can't wear
flowers in our hats, for no one would admire them. I suppose you have
the sense to see that? The men that come here are a pretty easy-going
rough lot, but they draw a line somewhere. Now I've kept you like a lady
so far, and I'll go on doing that to the end" (This was Ann's paraphrase
for respectability); "so if you don't want to sit at home and mope,
we've got to go in for being religious and go to church and meetings.
The minister will come to see us, and all that sort will take to
speaking to us, and I'll get you into Sunday school. There are several
very good-looking fellows that go there, and there's a class of real
big girls taught by a Young-Men's-Christian-Association chap. He'd come
to see you, you know, if you were in his class."
Christa was perfectly consoled, perfectly satisfied; she even showed her
sister some of the animation which had hitherto come to her only when
she was flirting with men.
"Ann," she said earnestly, "you are very splendid. I got up thinking
there weren't no good in living at all."
Ann eyed her sharply. Was one set of actions the same to Christa as
another? and was she content to forget all their own shame and all her
father's wretched plight if she could only have a few pleasures for
herself? It was exactly the passive state that she had desired to evoke
in Christa; but there are many spectres that come to our call and then
appal us with their presence!
Ann went on with her work. She was not in the habit of indulging
herself in moods or reveries; still, within her grew a silent
disapproval of Christa. She felt herself superior to her. After a while
another thought came upon her with unexpected force. Christa's motive
for taking to the religious life was only self-interest; her own motive
was the same; and was not that the motive which she really supposed
hitherto to actuate all religious people? Had she not, for instance,
been fully convinced that self-interest was the sum and substance of
Bart Toyner's religion? Now between Bart Toyner and Christa and herself
she felt that a great gulf was fixed.
Well, she did not know; she did not understand; she was not at all sure
that she wanted to understand anything more about Bart Toyner and all
the complex considerations about life which the thought of him seemed to
arouse in her. She felt that the best way of ridding herself of
uncomfortable thoughts about him was to be busy in performing all that
he could reasonably require at her hands. It is just in the same way
that many people rid themselves of thoughts about God.
All that long day, while the sunlight fell pink through the haze, Ann
worked at renovating her own life and Christa's. She took Christa and
went to some girls of their acquaintance, and presented them with all
the feathers, furbelows, and artificials which she and Christa
possessed. She cooked some of the viands which she had advertised for
sale, and prepared all her small stock of kitchen utensils for the new
avocation. It was a long hard day's work, and before it was over the
village was ringing with the news of all this change. The minister had
already called on Ann and Christa, saying suitable things concerning
their father's terrible crime and their own sad position. When he was
gone Christa laughed.