SHOWS THE WEAKNESS IN STRENGTH
When Abel had gone, Sarah folded her grey woollen shawl over her bosom,
and ordered the boy with the wheelbarrow to return to the barnyard. Left
alone her eyes followed her son's figure as it divided the broomsedge in
the meadow, but from the indifference of her look she might have gazed
on the pine tree toward which he was moving. A little later, when her
glance passed to the roof of the mill there was no perceptible change in
her expression; and she observed dispassionately that the shingles which
caught the drippings from the sycamore were beginning to rot. While she
stood there she was in the throes of one of the bitterest sorrows of
her life; yet there was no hint of it either in her quiet face or in the
rigid spareness of her figure. Her sons had resisted her at times, but
until to-day not one of them had rebelled openly against her authority
in the matter of marriage. Years ago, in the period of Abner's reaction
from a blighted romance, she had chosen, without compunction, a
mild-mannered, tame-spirited maiden for his wife. Without compunction,
when the wedding was over, she had proceeded, from the best possible
motives, to torment the tame-spirited maiden into her grave.
"He's layin' up misery for himself and for all concerned," she said
aloud, after a moment, "a girl like that with no name and precious
little religion--an idle, vain, silly hussy, with a cropped head!"
A small coloured servant, in a girl's pinafore and a boy's breeches,
came to the door, and whispered that the old people were demanding a
snack of bread and molasses.
"Tell 'em it ain't the day for sweets an' they ain't goin' to have meat
an' molasses the same day," she remarked as she entered the kitchen.
"If I didn't watch you every minute, you'd make yo'selves sick with
overeatin'."
"I reckon you're right, Sary," piped grandfather in angry tones, "but
I ain't so sure I wouldn't rather have the sickness than the watchin'.
It's hard on a man of my years an' experience that he shouldn't be
allowed to project with his own stomach."
"You'd have been dead long ago but for me, an' you ought to be ashamed
of yo'self for talkin' such foolishness. As if I hadn't wo' myself out
with waitin' on you, an' no blood relation."
"No blood relation!" chimed in grandmother maliciously, "no blood
relation!"
"Well, you hurry up an' get ready for dinner, for I'm goin' out
afterwards."
"Whar on earth are you goin', Sary? It ain't Sunday."
"It don't matter to you whar I'm goin'--you jest set right up an' eat
yo' soup."
When she had poured the contents of the pot into the two earthenware
bowls, she crumbled a piece of bread into each, and gave the dinner into
the trembling hands which were stretched out eagerly to receive it. Then
taking the red-and-white cloth from the cupboard, she set the table for
five, and brought the dish of turnips and boiled beef from the stove.
Every detail was carefully attended to as if her thoughts were not
on the hillside with Abel, but she herself could not eat so much as a
mouthful. A hard lump rose in her throat and prevented her swallowing.
The men did not appear, so leaving their dinner in the stove, she went
upstairs and put on the black poke bonnet and the alpaca mantle trimmed
with bugles which she wore on Sundays and on the occasional visits
to her neighbours. As it was her custom never to call without bearing
tribute in the form of fruit or preserves, she placed a jar of red
currant jelly into a little basket, and started for her walk, holding it
tightly in her black worsted gloves. She knew that if Molly divined her
purpose she would hardly accept the gift, but the force of habit was
too strong for her, and she felt that she could not start out to make a
visit with empty hands.
Her chief anxiety was to be gone before Abel should return, and for
this reason she left the house by the back door, and chose the small,
descending path that led through the willows to Jordan's Journey. As
she neared the brook a bow of blue ribbon hanging on a branch caught
her eye, and she recognized a bit of the trimming from Blossom's Sunday
dress. Releasing it she put it into her pocket, with the resolve that
she would reprove her granddaughter for wearing her best clothes in such
unsuitable places. Then her thoughts returned to the immediate object
of her visit, and she told herself sternly that she would let Molly
Merryweather know her opinion of her while there was yet time for the
girl to withdraw from the marriage. That she was wronging her son by
exerting such despotic authority was the last thought that would have
occurred to her. A higher morality than that of ordinary mortals had
guided her in the past, and she followed it now.
When she reached the rail fence, she found some difficulty in climbing
it, since her legs had grown rheumatic with the cold weather; but by
letting the basket down first on a forked stick, she managed to ease
herself gently over to the opposite side. Here she rested, while she
carefully brushed away the dried pollen from the golden-rod, which was
staining her dress. Then regaining her strength after a minute, she
pushed on under the oak trees, where the moist, dead leaves made a soft,
velvety sound, to the apple orchard and the sunken flagged walk that led
to the overseer's cottage.
In the sunshine on the porch Reuben Merryweather was sitting; and at
sight of his visitor, he rose, with a look of humble surprise, and
invited her into the house. His manner toward her was but a smaller
expression of his mental attitude to the universe. That he possessed
any natural rights as an individual had never occurred to him; and the
humility with which he existed gave place only to the mild astonishment
which filled him at any recognition of that existence by man or
Providence.
"Walk in an' sit down, ma'am," he said hospitably leading the way into
the little sitting-room, where the old hound dozed on the rug. "Molly's
jest gone down to the spring-house, but she'll be back in a minute."
"Reuben Merryweather--" began Sarah, and then she stopped, "you ain't
lookin' over sprightly," she said after a pause.
"I've got a weak chest, an' the cold settles on it."
"Did you ever try mutton suet laid over it on a piece of red flannel?
'Tis the best cure I know of."
"Molly makes me a plaster for it at night." The feeling that he had
engrossed the conversation for his selfish ends led him to remark after
a minute, "You have changed but little, Sarah, a brave woman you are."
"Not so brave, Reuben, but I'm a believer an' that helps me. I'd have
broken down under the burden often enough if my faith hadn't supported
me. You've had yo' troubles, too, Reuben, an' worse ones."
"It's true, it's true," said the old man, coughing behind his hand, "to
see my po' gal suffer so was worst--but however bad things seemed to us
on top, I've al'ays believed thar was a hidden meanin' in em' that our
eyes couldn't see."
"Ah, you were al'ays a soft natured man, Reuben, too soft natured for
yo' own good, I used to think."
"'Twas that that stood against me with you, Sarah, when we were young.
Do you remember the time you refused to drive back with me from that
picnic at Falling Creek because I wouldn't give Jacob Bumpass a hiding
about something? That was a bitter pill to me, an' I've never forgot
it."
Sarah had flushed a little, and her stern face appeared to have
grown ten years younger. "To think that you ain't forgot all that old
foolishness, Reuben!"
"Well, thar's been time enough an' trouble enough, no doubt," he
answered, "but seein' you lookin' so like yo' old self put me in mind of
it."
"Lord, Reuben, I ain't thought of all that for forty years!"
"No mo' have I, Sarah except when I see you on Sundays sittin' across
the church from me. You were a beauty in yo' day, though some folks use
to think that that little fair thing, Mary Hilliard, was better lookin'.
To me 'twas like settin' a dairy maid beside a queen."
"Even my husband thought Mary Hilliard, was prettier," said Sarah, and
her tone showed that this tribute to her youthful vanity had touched her
heart.
"Well, I never did. You were al'ays too good for me an' I never
begrudged you to Abner. He was a better man."
For an instant she looked at him steadily, while living honesty
struggled in her bosom against loyalty to the dead.
"No, Reuben, Abner was not a better man," she said presently, as if the
words were thrust out of her by a chastening conscience. "My pride kept
me up after I had married him; but he was born shiftless an' he died
shiftless. He never did a day's work in his life that I didn't drive him
to. His children have never known how it was, for I've al'ays made 'em
think he was a hard worker an' painstakin' to keep back his laziness
from croppin' out in 'em, if I could."
"You've brought 'em up well. That's a fine son of yours that comes
courtin' my gal, Sarah. I've hoped she'd fancy him for the sake of old
times."
"I never thought of yo' recollectin' that feelin', Reuben. It makes me
feel almost young again, an' I that old an' wo' out. I've had a hard
life--thar's no disputin' it, marriage is mostly puttin' up with things,
I reckon, when it ain't makin' believe."
"Thar's mighty few that gits the one that's meant for 'em," said Reuben,
"that's sure enough. If we did we'd stop movin' forward, I suppose, an'
begin to balk. I haven't much life now, except in Molly, an' it's the
things that pleases or hurt her that I feel the most. She's got a warm
heart an' a hot temper like you used to have, Sarah, an' the world ain't
easy generally to yo' sort."
For a time Sarah was silent, her hands in their black woolen gloves
gripping the handle of the basket.
"Well, I must be goin', Reuben," she said presently, rising from her
chair. "I'm sorry about yo' chest, an' I jest stepped over to bring you
this glass of currant jelly I made last summer. It goes well with meat
when yo' appetite ain't hearty."
She held out her hand, shook his with a hurried and awkward movement,
and went out of the front door and down the flagged walk as Molly's
steps were heard in the kitchen at the back.
"Sarah Revercomb has been here, honey," said Reuben. "She brought me
over this glass of currant jelly, and said she was sorry to miss you."
"Why, what could she have meant?" asked Molly. "She hates me and she
knows I've never liked her."
"Like most folks it ain't Sarah but the way you take her that matters.
We've all got the split somewhar in our shell if you jest know how to
find it. I reckon she's given in about Abel an' came over to show it."
"I'm glad she brought you the jelly, and perhaps she is getting softer
with age," rejoined Molly, still puzzled.
"Don't worry, honey, she's a good woman at bottom, but mortal slow of
larnin', and thar's a lot of Sarah in that boy of hers."
"I suppose there is, grandfather, for all their fierce quarrelling. They
have the kind of love that will die for you and yet will not so much as
suffer you to live. That's the way Mrs. Revercomb loves, and it's the
way Abel is loving me now."
"Let him larn, pretty, let him larn. He'll be worth twice as much at
fifty as he is to-day, an' so will you for that matter. They're fools
that say love is for the young, Molly, don't you believe 'em."
Sarah, meanwhile, passed slowly down the flagged walk under the gnarled
old apple trees in the orchard. A few heavy-winged insects, awaking from
the frost of the night, droned over the piles of crushed winesaps, and
she heard the sound as though it came to her across a distance of
forty years. They were not easy years; she was worn by their hardness,
crippled by their poverty, embittered by their sorrows. "I've had a hard
life," she thought. "I've had a hard life, an' it warn't fair." For the
first time it occurred to her that the Providence she had served had
not used her honourably in return. "Even Abner al'ays thought that Mary
Hilliard was the prettiest," she added, after a minute.
As she crossed the lawn at Jordan's Journey, Uncle Abednego, the butler,
appeared at the back door, and detained her with an excited wave of the
hand.
"Lawd A'mighty, dar's bad times yer, Miss Sary!" he cried, "Miss Angela
she's been mos' dead fur goin' on two hours, en we all's done sont
Cephus on de bay horse arter Marse Jonathan!"