Mrs. Randall was piecing a quilt. She had various triangular bits of
calico, in assorted colors, strung on threads, and distributed in piles
on her lap. She had put on her best dress in honor of the minister's
visit, which was just ended. It was a purple, seeded silk, adorned with
lapels that hung in wrinkles across her flat chest, and she had spread a
gingham apron carefully over her knees, to protect their iridescent
splendor.
She was a russet-haired woman, thin, with that blonde thinness which
inclines to transparent redness at the tip of the nose and chin, and the
hand that hovered over the quilt patches, in careful selection of colors
for a "star and chain" pattern, was of a glistening red, and coarsely
knotted at the knuckles, in somewhat striking contrast to her delicate
face.
Her husband sat at a table in one corner of the spotless kitchen, eating
a belated lunch. He was a tall man, and stooped so that his sunburned
beard almost touched the plate.
"Mr. Turnbull was here," said Mrs. Randall, with an air of introducing a
subject rather than of giving information.
The man held a knife-load of smear-case in front of his mouth, and
grunted. It was not an interrogative grunt, but his wife went on.
"He said he could 'a' put off coming if he'd known you had to go to
mill."
Mr. Randall swallowed the smear-case. His bushy eyebrows met across his
face, and he scowled so that the hairs stood out horizontally.
"Did you tell him I could 'a' put off going to mill till I knowed he was
coming?"
His thick, obscure voice seemed to tangle itself in the hay-colored
mustache that hid his mouth. His tone was tantalizingly free from anger.
"I wish you wouldn't, Elick," said his wife reproachfully; "not before
the children, anyway."
The children, a girl of seven and a boy of four, sat on the doorstep in
a sort of dazed inertia, occasioned by the shock of the household's
sudden and somewhat perplexing return to its week-day atmosphere just as
they had adjusted themselves to the low Sabbatic temperature engendered
by the minister's presence.
The girl had two tightly braided wisps of hair in varying hues of
corn-silk, curving together at the ends like the mandibles of a beetle.
She turned when her father spoke, and looked from him to her mother with
a round, blue-eyed stare from under her bulging forehead. The boy's
stolid head was thrown back a little, so that his fat neck showed two
sunburned wrinkles below his red curls. His gingham apron parted at the
topmost button, disclosing a soft, pathetic little back, and his small
trousers were hitched up under his arms, the two bone buttons which
supported them staring into the room reproachfully, as if conscious of
the ignominy of belonging to masculine garb under the feminine eclipse
of an apron.
Mrs. Randall bent a troubled gaze upon her offspring, as if expecting
to see them wilt visibly under their father's irreverence.
"Mary Frances," she said anxiously, "run away and show little brother
the colts."
The girl got up and took her brother's hand.
"Come on, Wattie," she said in a small, superior way, very much as if
she had added: "These grown people have weaknesses which it is better
for us to pretend not to know. They are going to talk about them."
Mrs. Randall waited until the two little figures idled across the
dooryard before she spoke.
"I don't think you ought to act the way you do, Elick, just because you
don't like Mr. Turnbull; it ain't right."
The man dropped his chin doggedly, and fed himself without lifting his
elbows from the table.
"I can't always manage to be at home when folks come a-visiting," he
said in his gruff, tangled voice.
"You was at church on Sabbath when Mr. Turnbull gave out the pastoral
visitations: he knew that as well as I did. I couldn't say a word
to-day. I just had to set here and take it."
"No, you didn't, Matilda: you didn't have to stay any more than I did."
"Elick!"
The woman's voice had a sharp reproof in it. He had touched the
Calvinistic quick. She might not reverence the man, but the minister was
sacred.
"Well, I can't help it," persisted her husband obstinately. "You can
take what you please off him. I don't want him to say anything to me."
"Oh, he didn't _say_ anything, Elick. What was there to say?"
"He doesn't gener'ly keep still because he has nothin' to say."
The man gave a muffled, explosive laugh, and pushed back his chair. Mrs.
Randall's eyelids reddened. She laid down her work and got up.
"I guess I'll take off this dress before I clear up the things," she
said, in a voice of temporary defeat.
Her husband picked up the empty water-pail as he left the kitchen, and
filled it at the well. When he brought it back there was no one
visible.
"Need any wood, Tildy?" he called toward the bedroom where she was
dressing.
"No, I guess not." The voice was indistinct, but she might have had her
skirt over her head. Alex made a half-conciliatory pause. He preferred
to know that she was not crying.
"How you been feelin' to-day?"
"Middlin'."
She was not crying. The man gave his trousers a hitch of relief, and
went back to his work.
There had been a scandal in Alex Randall's early married life. The
scattered country community had stood aghast before the certainty of his
guilt, and there had been a little lull in the gossip while they waited
to see what his wife would do.
Matilda Hazlitt had been counted a spirited girl before her marriage,
and there were few of her neighbors who hesitated to assert that she
would take her baby and go back to her father's house. It had been a
nine-days' wonder when she had elected to believe in her husband. The
injured girl had been an adopted member of the elder Randall's
household, half servant, half daughter, and it was whispered that her
love for Alex was older than his marriage. Just how much of the
neighborhood talk had reached Matilda's ears no one knew. The girl had
gone away, and the community had accepted Alex Randall for his wife's
sake, but not unqualifiedly.
Mrs. Randall had never been very strong, and of late she had become
something of an invalid, as invalidism goes in the country, where women
are constantly ailing without any visible neglect of duty. It had "broke
her spirit," the women said. Some of the younger of them blamed her, but
in the main it was esteemed a wifely and Christian course that she
should make this pretense of confidence in her husband's innocence for
the sake of her child. No one wondered that it wore upon her health.
Alex had been grateful, every one acknowledged, and it was this fact of
his dogged consideration for Matilda's comfort that served more than
anything else to reinstate him somewhat in the good opinion of his
neighbors. There had been a good deal of covert sympathy for Mrs.
Randall at first, but as years went by it had died out for lack of
opportunity to display itself. True, the minister had made an effort
once to express to her his approval of her course, but it was not likely
that any one else would undertake it, nor that he would repeat the
attempt. She had looked at him curiously, and when she spoke the iciness
of her tone made his own somewhat frigid utterances seem blushingly warm
and familiar by contrast.
"It would be strange," she said, "if a wife should need encouragement to
stand by her husband when he is in trouble."
Alex had hated the minister ever since, and had made this an excuse for
growing neglect of religious duties.
"It is no wonder he dreads to go to preachin', with that awful sin on
his conscience," the women whispered to one another. They always
whispered when they spoke of sin, as if it were sleeping somewhere near,
and were liable to be aroused. Matilda divined their thoughts, and
fretted under Alex's neglect of public service. She wished him to carry
his head high, with the dignity of innocence. It appalled him at times
to see how perfectly she apprehended her own part as the wife of a man
wrongfully accused. He was not dull, but he had a stupid masculine
candor of soul that stood aghast before her unswerving hypocrisy. She
had never asked him to deny his guilt; she had simply set herself to
establish his innocence.
Small wonder that she was tried and hampered by his failure to "act like
other people," as she would have said if she had ever put her worry into
words. It had been one of many disappointments to her that he should go
to mill that day, instead of putting on his best coat and sitting in
sullen discomfort through the pastor's "catechising." She had felt such
pride in his presence at church on Sabbath; and then had come the
announcement, "Thursday afternoon, God willing, I shall visit the family
of Mr. Alexander Randall." How austerely respectable it had sounded! And
the people had glanced toward the pew and seen Alex sitting there, with
Wattie on his knee. And after all he had gone to mill, and left her to
be pitied as the wife of a man who was afraid to face the preacher in
his own house!
Matilda slipped the rustling splendor of her purple silk over her head,
and went back to the limpness of her week-day calico with a sigh.
When Alex came in for the milk-pail, she was standing by the stove,
turning the long strips of salt pork that curled and sizzled in the
skillet. Her shoulders seemed to droop a trifle more in her
working-dress, but her face was flushed from the heat of the cooking.
"There wasn't any call to get a warm supper for me, Tildy. I ain't
hungry to speak of."
"Well, I guess anyway I'd better make some milk gravy for the children;
I didn't have up a fire at noon, see'n' you was away. It ain't much
trouble."
Her voice was resolutely cheerful, and Alex knew that the discussion was
ended. But after the supper things were cleared away, she said to Mary
Frances, "Can't you go and let your pa see how nice you can say your
psa'm?"
And the child had gone outside where Alex was sitting, and had stood
with her hands behind her, her sharp little shoulders moving in unison
with her sing-song as she repeated the verses.
"'That man hath perfect blessedness
Who walketh not astray
In counsel of ungodly men,
Nor stands in sinners' way,
Nor sitteth in the scorner's chair:
But placeth his delight
Upon God's law, and meditates
On his law day and night.'"
The child caught her breath with a long sigh, and hurried on to the end.
"'In judgment, therefore, shall not stand
Such as ungodly are;
Nor in th' assembly of the just
Shall wicked men appear.
For why? The way of godly men
Unto the Lord is known;
Whereas the way of wicked men
Shall quite be overthrown.'"
Then she stood still, waiting for her father's praise.
He caught her thin little arm and drew her toward him, where she could
not look into his face.
"You say it very nice, Mary Frances,--very nice indeed."
And Mary Frances smiled, a prim little satisfied smile, and nestled her
slim body against him contentedly.