When Nannie went out into the garden she saw old Hayseed leaning over
the fence contemplating some of the ruins of Steve's vegetables. Glad
of any diversion, she opened a conversation on the subject of Mr.
Seymour, of whose death she had heard that day. In far-away times, old
Hayseed had known Mr. Seymour's father.
"I didn't think he could die," said Nannie. "He was always trying to,
but I didn't think he was really sick enough."
"He hed ter die ter vindercate hisself," said Hayseed. "Some folks,
yer know, hez ter live ter set 'emselves right, but this one 'bleeged
ter die. He was allers goin' on erbout his bein' out o' health, an'
nobody believed him, so he was 'bleeged ter die. Mrs. Seymour's young
woman was tellin' me she tho't he died to spite folks that wouldn't
'low he was sick. She said he was mean enough to do anything."
"He was; mean as he could be!" exclaimed Nannie. "He was so little and
so narrow-minded, and he had no excuse for it either, for he had a
good education and he'd been all over the world."
"Well, now, once in awhile ye see a prune that won't swell. Ye put 'em
all in water alike, an' most on 'em gits fat an' smooth, but this one
stays small an' shriveled up. There's no accountin' fer ther
difference."
Nannie turned and walked toward the house. She was restless and felt
at a loss to know what to do with herself. Since her caper in the
garden Steve had left her absolutely to her own way, and she had
found, as folks will soon or late, that nothing could be more dreary.
She finally started over to see her cousins, the Misfits, but on her
way thither she had occasion to pass the house of some plain folk by
the name of Meader, and she suddenly decided to go in there. It was
the same house from which Steve had heard that anguished wail, and
when Nannie entered, shortly after Steve had passed on, she found Mrs.
Meader weeping bitterly. The woman was so far gone in misery that she
did not resent Nannie's entrance or her question.
"What is the matter?"
"Oh, I can't stand it no longer. He don't give me nothin' to git
anything with, an' we can't live on nothin'. Whenever he gits mad he
plagues me by keepin' everything out o' my han's, an' he won't answer
when I ask him fer anything. I'd like to know if a woman an' five
children kin live without money! Before I was married I used to earn
some. I had enough to live on, but now, what with the cookin', an'
washin' an' nussin' all these babies, I ain't no time ter earn a
livin'!"
"I should say you _were_ earning it! You earn more than he does!"
exclaimed Nannie hotly.
"He don't look at it that way," sobbed the woman. "He's ferever makin'
me feel so beholten ter him fer every penny an' ter-day when I needed
some money awful fer tea an' I went ter his pocket an' got it, he went
on so afore ther children it seems like I can't never look them in
ther face agin. He said--he said"--she stammered amid her sobs--"thet
I was a thief--a low-down common thief--that's what he said, and the
children heard him."
Nannie rose from her chair with clinched hands and a flaming face.
"Where is he?" she asked under her breath.
"He's gone ter ther grocery. He ain't working ter-day. He said he'd
'tend ter the spendin' of the money. I couldn't be trusted with it. He
said thet, he did, afore the children."
And she broke down again.
Just then the man himself came walking in.
"What's up now?" he asked when he saw Nannie's face.
"You are!" she blazed, "and you're a contemptible brute!"
His face flushed. He looked both ashamed and angry, but a man in his
position is at a loss to know what to do when attacked by a woman
outside his family. He had enough pride to shrink from this invasion
of his affairs, but he did not know just how to resent it.
"It ain't no matter fer discussion," he said, "but she's been into my
pockets, an' thet's what I can't stand."
"What do you steal her money for, then?" demanded Nannie.
He stared at her in stupid astonishment.
"It's you who steal!" continued Nannie in ringing tones. "There she
is, earning more than you do, and----"
"I don't know how you make that out," said the man in a sulky tone.
"Try to hire some one to take her place, and you'll learn. She could
hire your work done fast enough, but there never has been and there
never will be money enough in all your horrid pockets put together to
hire what she does for you and the children; and then you are so
nasty, and mean, and dishonest as to clutch the money and pretend you
have the right to dole out what belongs to her. I wonder you aren't
ashamed to be alive!"
He certainly did look ashamed now. He had probably never before viewed
matters from this point.
"Well, I don't suppose I done just the right thing. I'm not going ter
deny it, but money comes hard, anyhow."
"And her life is hard enough, anyhow, without your making it harder by
tyrannizing over her."
Here one of the five little ones began to cry, and the mother started
forward to take it, but Nannie intercepted her.
"You go and get your dinner," she said. "I'll look after the
children."
And taking the two youngest in her arms she coaxed the others along,
and they all went out into the warm, pleasant sunlight, and there
Nannie sang to them, told them stories, washed their dirty little
faces, and mothered them generally until their own poor mother could
recover herself and their father had time to see the error of his way
and repent.
The sun was setting when Nannie wended her way homeward. She dreaded
to see Steve, but found relief in the thought that he would probably
appear as usual. When she learned that he had not returned she felt
surprised, but decided not to wait dinner, and so ate alone.
She spent the evening at her cousin's house. She did not quite dare to
go to Constance's, for she instinctively felt that Constance would
heartily disapprove of her leaving home in that way at a time when her
husband was likely to be alone.
Returning, she found the house dark. Steve had probably retired, and
she remembered she had given Bridget permission to go to the city for
the night to look after a sick cousin. Something impelled her to do an
unusual thing--open Steve's door a crack and peep in. He was not
there.
The shock of this discovery was so great that for a moment Nannie was
almost too bewildered to know what she did, and was half frightened
when she found herself at the front door calling "Steve! Steve!"
The leaves rustling on the trees in the soft night wind was her only
answer, and she closed the door with a feeling of desolate misery new
to her experience.
At no time was she afraid. The fact of her being alone in the house
merely served to emphasize her realization of her loss, for she had no
doubt that Steve had left her. There was no resentment in her attitude
now; she felt that she deserved her fate. None the less she also felt
that she could not endure it--could not live without Steve. And yet
she had told him that very day that she had neither love nor respect
for him. How could he stay with her after that?
The night passed somehow, and morning found Nannie with a white face,
save where the shadows rested 'neath her large eyes.
Bridget had not yet come home, and she could not endure to stay alone
any longer, so she wrapped a little parcel and started over to
Constance's. The parcel was one of a set of articles she was learning
to make. Some weeks before this she had appeared at Constance's one
day, and unrolling a large bundle she carried, had spread upon the
latter's bed a quantity of tiny clothing, cut and made in most
original fashion.
"Why, Nannie!" exclaimed Constance, who had no other idea than that
they were meant for little baby Chance. "How lovely of you! Thank you
ever so much!"
"They're not for you," said Nannie in her crude way. "They're mine."
The chagrin and embarrassment Constance might have felt over her
mistake was swallowed up now in her amazement and delight.
"Yours! Oh, Nannie, I'm so glad."
"I haven't any use for them," said Nannie, bluntly, "but"--and here
there was a hardly perceptible quiver of her lips--"I just wanted them
around."
"I declare, that's really pathetic," said Randolph afterward when
Constance told him. "Why don't you teach her, sweetheart--teach her to
make the pretty little things?"
And Constance did, and as a result of all the ripping and cutting
over Nannie had made some exquisite little garments, two of which she
presented to Constance, and the rest kept in a little chiffonier in
her room, to gaze at and kiss many times a day.
Returning from her sewing lesson rather earlier than usual, for she
longed and dreaded to go back to her house, she found Steve awaiting
her.
He was sitting in the little parlor, and his face was flushed and his
eyes strangely bright.
Nannie stood stock-still on the threshold when she saw him.
"Steve," she asked at length, "have you come back to live with me?"
"Yes," he said, and then something impelled him to hold out his arms
to her.
She hesitated, wavered for a moment like some beautiful wild bird that
had strayed from the forest; then she ran to him in headlong fashion.
"Steve!" she fairly cried, "I can't make the words, but you know! you
know!"
Steve folded her in his arms and--the dream came true. In the rapture
of that moment he knew indeed--knew that this strange, untutored child
was the one woman in all the world to satisfy him.