looked forth from the eyes of each. Mrs. Martin shook her head. "I'm not
likely to change my mind," she said with gentle dignity. "I love my son
as well as you love your daughter."
These simple words seemed to both the conclusion of the whole matter,
and they turned away from each other, forgetting the accustomed
farewells.
Slowly and thoughtfully Mrs. Williams walked homeward. Her mission had
been highly successful, but, instead of the elation of the victor, she
felt only the strange depression that comes after we take our fate in
our own hands, and make a decided move on the checkerboard of life. On
her way to Mrs. Martin's she had felt sure that she was doing "the right
thing"; but before she reached home, doubt and uncertainty possessed her
mind. At her own gate she stopped, and resting her elbows on the top of
one of the posts, she gazed at the place whose surrender meant happiness
for her child. It was just a plain little cottage somewhat in need of a
coat of paint, but the look in Margaret Williams' eyes was the look of a
worshipper who stands before some long-sought shrine. She looked upward
at the swaying branches of the elms and drew a quick breath as she
thought of a day in early March--how long ago?--when _his_ strong arms
had wielded the pick and spade, and she, a girl like Anna Belle, stood
by, holding the young trees and smiling at the thought of sitting under
their shade when he and she were old. Youth was a reality then, and age
a dream, but now it was the other way. Her eyes wandered over the little
yard set thick with flowering shrubs and vines. Every one of them had
its roots in her heart and in her memory, and a mist dimmed her eyes as
she looked again at the house she had first entered when life and love
were new.
"He built it for me," she murmured, and then gave a guilty start as a
clear young voice called out: "Why don't you come in, Mother?"
She passed her hand over her eyes and came smiling into the little hall
where Anna Belle sat, turning down the hems of some coarse kitchen
towels.
"Put up those towels," she said with motherly severity; "that's no work
for a young girl. Where's that nightgown you're embroiderin'? If you
must work, work on that."
The girl glanced up, and in her eyes was the look that for weeks had
been like a dagger-thrust in Margaret Williams' heart.
"There's no hurry about getting that nightgown done," she said quietly.
"No hurry about the towels either," rejoined her mother. "However, it's
so near mealtime there's no use beginnin' anything now. You can set the
table, and I'll get a pick-up dinner for us. I stayed so long at Mrs.
Martin's I can't cook much."
At the mention of Henry's mother Anna Belle colored again. A question
trembled on her lips, but she said nothing, and went about setting the
table in a listless, absent-minded way.
Her mother was watching her furtively, and a pang went through her heart
as she noticed how thin the girl's hands were, and how she trifled with
the food on her plate.
"Pinin' away right before my eyes," she thought. "I'm glad I went to see
Mrs. Martin. I've done all I could, anyway."
After the meal was over, Anna Belle, at her mother's second bidding, got
out the embroidered gown and bent over the tracery of leaves and
flowers. Mrs. Williams went up-stairs, presently returning with a long,
narrow box of some dark wood.
"You've heard me speak of your Aunt Matilda," she said, seating herself
and folding her hands over the box. "Well, this box and the things in it
belonged to her, and when she died, she willed it to you, because she
hadn't any children of her own, and you were the only girl in the
family. I've been intendin' for some time to give it to you, and there's
no time like to-day." She opened the box, took out a roll of shining
silken tissue such as comes from the looms of the Orient, and threw its
soft folds across her daughter's lap. Then from the scented darkness of
the treasure box she drew out a bertha and sleeves of filmy lace and
laid them on the silk.
"That lace cost a small fortune," she observed. "Your Uncle Harvey was a
merchant, and whenever he went to the East to buy his goods, he'd bring
your Aunt Matilda a fine present. This lace was the last thing he ever
brought her, and--poor thing!--she didn't live to wear it."
Anna Belle had dropped her work on the floor and was fingering the lace
and silk in a rapture of admiration.
"O Mother," she breathed, "I never saw anything so beautiful! Is it
really mine?"
She shook out the folds of silk, gathered them in her hands, and held
them off to note their graceful fall. She laid the bertha across her
shoulders and ran to a mirror, laughing at the effect of the costly lace
over the striped gingham; she pushed the sleeves of her dress up to her
elbows and slipped the lace sleeves over her bare, slender arms. Her
eyes gleamed with excitement, her lips were parted in a smile of happy
girlhood, and the mother, watching with quiet satisfaction, read the
thought in the girl's heart.
"Be careful, Anna Belle," she warned, "you'll wrinkle the goods. Here,
fold it this way and lay it smooth in your trunk. You may not need it
now, but some day it will come in handy."
Anna Belle held the silk and lace on her outstretched hands and carried
it up-stairs as tenderly as she would have carried a newborn babe. She
lingered in her room a long time and came down silent and dreamy-eyed.
All the afternoon she embroidered leaf and flower on the linen gown,
while in imagination she was fashioning a wedding robe of silk and lace
and beholding herself a bride. When the clock struck five, Mrs. Williams
rose hurriedly from her chair and gathered up the lapful of mending.
"Go up-stairs, Anna Belle," she commanded, "and put on your blue
muslin."
Anna Belle looked surprised. "Is any company coming?" she asked.
"What if there isn't?" replied her mother. "Don't you suppose I like to
see you lookin' nice?" She walked out to the kitchen and began preparing
the evening meal. All the afternoon a strange nervousness had been
growing on her. She was beginning to understand the momentousness of her
morning interview with Mrs. Martin, and she saw herself as one who has
risked all on a single throw. She had laid bare to Henry's mother the
sacred desires of her own mother-heart and the yet more sacred desires
of her daughter's maiden-heart. What if this humiliation should be to no
purpose? Or, worse still, suppose she had misinterpreted the fragments
of conversation that she had overheard. Suppose Henry's visits were
after all only friendly ones? Her hands trembled, and her whole body was
in a hot flush of fear and apprehension. She glanced at the kitchen
clock.
"It won't be long till I know," she murmured. "If Henry's mother falls
in with my plans, Henry'll come to see Anna Belle to-night."
She tried to reassure herself by recalling all that gentle Mrs. Martin
had said, but as the moments passed, her apprehension grew, and when she
tried to eat, the food almost choked her.
As soon as the dishes were washed, Anna Belle stole out to the front
porch. She did not expect her lover to-night, but at least she could sit
in the gathering dusk, thinking of Henry and of that wonderful wedding
gown. Meanwhile Mrs. Williams was up-stairs, leaning from her bedroom
window, listening for Henry's step and peering anxiously in the
direction from which Henry must come. How slow the minutes were! The
kitchen clock struck seven. Half-past seven was Henry's usual hour, but
surely to-night he would come earlier. Ten minutes passed. She heard
footsteps up the street, and her heart began to beat like a girl's.
Nearer the footsteps sounded. Could that quick, firm tread be Henry's?
Henry was usually rather slow of speech and movement. A hand was on the
latch of the gate. She heard Anna Belle's exclamation of surprise and
pleasure, then Henry's laugh and Henry's voice.
In the love affairs of her daughter, every mother finds a resurrection
of her own youthful romance, no matter how long it may have been buried;
and as the young man's tones, low, earnest and charged with a lover's
joy, rose on the summer air, Anna Belle's mother turned away from the
window, and covering her face with her hands, tried to beat back a tide
of emotions that have no place in the heart of middle age. The moments
passed uncounted now, and twilight had faded into night before she heard
Anna Belle's voice calling from below:
"Mother! Where are you, Mother? Come right down. Henry wants to see
you;" and like one who walks in her sleep she obeyed the summons.
They stood before her, hand in hand, smiling, breathless, encircled by
the aura of love's young dream; but there was a far-away look in
Margaret Williams' eyes, as she looked at their radiant faces. How many
years was it since she and Anna Belle's father had stood before her
mother! And now that mother's name was carved on a graveyard stone, and
she was in her mother's place with a mother's blessing in her hands for
young lovers.
Anna Belle was looking up at Henry, waiting for him to put into words
the gratitude and happiness that filled their hearts. But the gift of
the ready tongue was not Henry's. How could a man find words to thank a
mother for giving him her daughter? How poor and mean were all the
customary phrases of appreciation to be offered for such a gift! But
while he hesitated, his eyes met the eyes of Anna Belle's mother, and
with a quick impulse of the heart, his tongue was loosed to the
utterance of one word that made all other words superfluous.
"Mother!" he said; and as their hands met, Anna Belle's arms were around
her neck, and Anna Belle's voice was whispering in her ear: "You are
the very best mother in all the world." Yet in that moment of supreme
happiness for the lovers, Margaret Williams realized what she was giving
up, and tasted the bitterness and the sweetness of the cup of
self-abnegation that her own hands had prepared. The hot tears of
anguish smarted in her eyes. But the tears did not fall, and the emotion
passed as swiftly as it had come. She straightened herself in her chair
and pushed Anna Belle gently away.
"It seems to me we're makin' a great fuss over a mighty little matter,"
she said carelessly. "I'd have been a poor sort o' mother to stand in
the way of my own child's happiness, and it wouldn't suit me at all to
be a millstone or a stumblin'-block. That's all there is to it. Now, go
out on the front porch, you two, and set your weddin' day."
* * * * *
It was the afternoon of the wedding day, and the two mothers were
sitting on the porch of their joint home, both in festal attire, and
both in the state of pleasurable excitement that follows any great
change, and that precludes an immediate return to the commonplace
routine of daily life.
"I might just as well be sewin' or mendin'," said Mrs. Williams, "but it
seems like Sunday or Christmas day, and I don't feel like settlin' down
to anything."
"There's nothing like a weddin' for makin' you feel unsettled," said
Mrs. Martin, as she smoothed down her black silk dress. "It'll be a long
time before we get over this day."
"It was a pretty weddin', wasn't it?" said Mrs. Williams, "And I never
saw a happier lookin' couple than Anna Belle and Henry. Most brides and
grooms look more like scared rabbits than anything else, but Anna Belle
and Henry were so happy they actually forgot to be scared. I reckon they
think that married life's a smooth, straight road with flowers on both
sides, just like that garden path. You and me have been over it, and we
know better."
"They'll have their trials," smiled Mrs. Martin, "but if they love each
other, they can stand whatever comes."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Williams, "love's like a rubber tire; it softens the
jolts and carries you easy over the rough places in the road."
"Henry was the image of his father," said Mrs. Martin dreamily.
"I couldn't help thinkin' of myself when I looked at Anna Belle," said
Mrs. Williams. "You may not believe it, but I was as slim as Anna Belle,
when I was her age."
"I wish their fathers could have seen them," sighed Mrs. Martin.
Mrs. Williams leaned toward her companion. "Maybe they did," she said in
a half whisper. "I'm no believer in table-walkin' and such as that, but
many a time I've felt the dead just as near me as you are, and I
wouldn't be at all surprised if Henry's father and Anna Belle's father
were at the weddin'."
"Every weddin' makes you think of your own weddin'," said Mrs. Martin
timidly.
"So it does," assured Mrs. Williams, "and I was married just such a day
as this. We'd set the fifteenth of May for our weddin', but Aunt Martha
McDavid said May was an unlucky month, and so we changed it to the first
of June."
"I was married in the fall," said Mrs. Martin placidly. "I remember one
of my dresses was a plaid silk, green and brown and yellow, and the
first time I put it on, Henry's father went out in the yard and pulled
some leaves off the sugar maples, and laid 'em on my lap, and said they
matched the colors of my dress. I pressed the leaves, and they're in my
Bible to this day."
"I had a dark blue silk with a black satin stripe runnin' through it,"
confided Mrs. Williams, "and after I got through wearin' it, I lined a
quilt with it, and it's on Anna Belle's bed now."
The two women were rocking gently to and fro; both were smiling faintly,
and there was a retrospective look in their eyes. Memory, like a
questing dove, was flying between the past and the present, bringing
back now a leaf and now a flower plucked from the shores of old romance,
and they were no longer the middle-aged mothers of married children, but
young brides with life before them; and as they talked, more to
themselves than to each other, with long intervals of silence, the
afternoon waned, the sun was low, and the little garden lay in shadow.
"What a long day this has been!" exclaimed Mrs. Williams, rousing
herself from a reverie. "Why, it seems to me I've lived a hundred years
since I got up this mornin'."
"I'd better see about makin' the fire and gettin' a cup of tea," said
Mrs. Martin. "I can tell by the shadow of that maple tree, that it's
near supper time." Then hesitatingly, as if it were a doubtful point of
etiquette, "It looks like foolishness to have two fires. Mine's already
laid; suppose you eat supper with me to-night."
"I'll be glad to," responded Mrs. Williams heartily, "for I haven't half
got my things in order yet." She followed Mrs. Martin to the kitchen,
and together they set the table and waited for the kettle to boil. Mrs.
Martin was pleased to find that Mrs. Williams preferred black tea to
green, and while she was slicing the bread, Mrs. Williams disappeared
for a moment, returning with something wrapped in a napkin. She unfolded
it, disclosing huge slices of wedding cake, white cake, golden cake, and
spice cake dark and fragrant.
"There!" she said complacently. "You and me were too flustered to eat
much at the weddin', but maybe we'll enjoy a piece of this cake now."
Silently and abstractedly the two women ate the simple meal. Now and
then Mrs. Martin looked across the table at the vacant place where Henry
had always sat, and as Mrs. Williams ate wedding cake, her thoughts were
with the daughter whose face for twenty years had smiled at her across
the little square leaf-table in the old home; also, she had a queer,
uneasy feeling, as if she had spent the afternoon with her friend and
should have gone home before supper. After the dishes were washed, they
seated themselves again on the cool, shadowy porch. Both were feeling
the depression that follows an emotional strain; besides, it was night,
the time when the heart throws off the smothering cares of the day and
cries aloud for its own. It was Mrs. Williams who finally broke the
silence.
"While I think of it," she said, dropping her voice to a confidential
whisper, "I want to tell you what I heard Job Andrews and Sam Moreman
say when they brought my trunk in this mornin'. They didn't know I could
hear 'em, and they were laughin' and whisperin' as they set the trunk
down on the porch, and Job says: 'Some of these days these two women are
goin' to have a rippet that you can hear from one end of this town to
the other,' and Sam says: 'Yes, they'll be dissolvin' partnership in
less than two months.'"
"Did you ever!" ejaculated Mrs. Martin.
"I thought once I'd go out and say somethin' to 'em," pursued Mrs.
Williams, "but I didn't. I just shut my mouth tight, and I made a
solemn resolution right there that there'd never be any rippet if I
could help it, and if there was any, I'd take care that those men never
heard of it, There's nothin' in the world men enjoy so much as seein'
women fall out and quarrel, and I don't intend to furnish 'em with that
sort o' pleasure."
"Nor I," said Mrs. Martin warmly. "I don't see why two women can't live
in peace under the same roof. For my part, quarrelin' comes hard with
me. It's not Christian, and it's not ladylike."
"Well, if I felt inclined to quarrel," said Mrs. Williams, "the thought
of Sam and Job would be enough to keep me from it, and if that's not
enough, there's the thought of Anna Belle and Henry. They can't be happy
unless we get along well together, and we mustn't do anything to spoil
their happiness."
Mrs. Martin made an assenting murmur, and another silence fell between
them, Both were conscious of the strangeness of their new relation. To
Mrs. Martin it seemed that Mrs. Williams was her guest, and she was
vaguely wondering if it would be polite to suggest that it was time to
go to bed. Mrs. Williams rocked to and fro, and the squeak of the old
chair mingled with the shrill notes of the crickets. Presently she
stopped rocking and heaved a deep sigh.
"It's curious," she said, "how grown folks never get over bein'
children. When I was a little girl I used to go out to the country to
visit my Aunt Mary Meadows. I'd get along all right durin' the day, but
when night come, and the frogs and the katydids begun to holler, I'd
think about home and wish I was there; and when Aunt Mary put me to bed
and carried the light away, I'd bury my face in the pillow and cry
myself to sleep. And just now, when I heard that katydid up yonder in
the old locust tree, I felt just like I used to feel at Aunt Mary's."
Her voice quivered on the last word, but once more she laughed bravely.
A flash of comprehension crossed Mary Martin's brain. She leaned over
and laid her hand on the other woman's arm.
"You're homesick," she said, with a note of deep sympathy in her voice.
"All day I've been thinkin' about it, and I've come to the conclusion
that you've got the hardest part of this matter. Henry and Anna Belle
owe more to you than they do to me. We've both given up a child, but
you've given up your home, too, and that's a hard thing to do at your
time of life." At her time of life! The words were like a spur to a
jaded horse. Mrs. Williams straightened her shoulders, raised her head,
and laughed again.
"Shuh!" she said carelessly, "changin' your house ain't any more than
changin' your dress. I ain't so far gone in years yet that I have to
stick in the same old place to keep from dyin'. But I reckon I'm like
that spring branch that used to run through the field back of Father's
house. It was always overflowin' and ruinin' a part o' the crop, and one
fall Father went to work and turned it out of its course into a rocky
old pasture where it couldn't do any harm. I was just a little child,
but I remember how sorry I felt for that little stream runnin' along
between the new banks, and I used to wonder if it wasn't homesick for
the old course, and if it didn't miss the purple flags and the willers
and cat-tails that used to grow alongside of it; but just let me get a
good night's rest and my things all straightened out, and I'll soon get
used to the new banks and be as much at home as you are."
She rose heavily from her chair. "I believe I'll go to bed now," she
said briskly. "Movin' 's no light work, and we're both tired."
"If you should get sick in the night or need anything," said Mrs.
Martin, following her into the house, "don't fail to call me."
"I'm goin' to sleep the minute my head hits the pillow and sleep till
it's time to get up," replied Mrs. Williams, "and you do the same. Good
night!"
She closed the door and stood for a few seconds in the darkness. Then
she groped her way to the table and lighted her lamp. Its cheerful
radiance flooded every part of the little room, and showed each familiar
piece of furniture in its new surroundings. Yes, there was the high
chest of drawers that Grandfather Means had made from the wood of a
cherry tree on the old home place; there was the colonial sewing-table,
and the splint-bottomed rocker, the old bookcase, and all the rest of
the belongings that she cherished because they belonged to "the family."
But how strange her brass candlesticks looked on that mantel! It was not
_her_ mantel, and the wall-paper was not hers. Her wall-paper was gray
with purple lilacs all over it, and this was pink and green and white!
And the windows and doors were not in their right places. Ah! the hold
of Place and Custom! The memories and associations of a lifetime twined
themselves around her heart closer and closer, and the hand of Change
seemed to be tearing at every root and tendril. Pale and trembling she
sank into a chair, and the same tears she had shed sixty years ago, the
tears of a homesick child, fell over her wrinkled cheeks, while in her
brain one thought repeated itself with a terrifying emphasis: "_I can't
get used to it. I can't get used to it._"
But the sound of her own sobs put a stop to her grief. She brushed the
tears away with the back of her hand and glanced toward the door. The
other woman across the hall must not know her weakness. She rose, walked
forlornly to a side window, and parting the curtains, looked fearfully
out. Why, where was the lilac bush and the Lombardy poplar and the
box-wood hedge? Again the hand tore at her heart; she peered
bewilderedly into the night. Alas! the stream turned from its course
cannot at once forget the old channel and the old banks. Again the tears
came, but as she wiped them away, a fresh wind arose, parting the light
clouds that lay in the western sky and showing a crescent moon and near
it the evening star. Like a message from heaven came a memory that dried
her tears and swept away the homesick longing. Twenty-five years ago she
had looked at the new moon on her wedding night, and this was Anna
Belle's wedding night--her daughter's wedding night! Fairer than moon or
star, the face of the young bride seemed to look into hers; she felt the
girl's clinging arms around her neck and heard the fervent whisper:
"_You are the very best mother in the whole wide world._"
She lifted her eyes once more, not to the moon or the star, but to
Something beyond them.
"O God!" she whispered brokenly, "it's harder than I thought it would
be; but for my child's sake I can stand it, and anyway, I'm glad I'm not
a millstone or a stumblin'-block."
"ONE TASTE OF THE OLD TIME"
"There is no organic disease whatever," said the doctor. "The trouble is
purely mental. No, I don't mean that," he corrected hastily, as he saw
the look of dismay on David Maynor's face. "Your wife is not losing her
mind. Nothing of that sort. Indeed, I take her to be a woman of
unusually sound mentality. But, evidently there is some trouble preying
on her mind and producing these nervous symptoms. The prescription I am
leaving will palliate these, but it remains for you to find out what the
trouble is and remove it, if you can. There are some cases where doctors
are powerless, and this, I think, is one of them." He reached for his
hat and bowing with professional courtesy turned to leave.
"How much do I owe you?" said David Maynor.
The blunt question was like a sentry's challenge, and the doctor paused
with his hand on the knob of the door.
"Ah--never mind about that now. A bill will be sent you at the end of
the month." His tone and manner implied that this was too trivial a
matter to be mentioned.
But David Maynor's hand was in his pocket, and he was drawing forth his
new seal-leather purse.
"I always pay as I go," he said stolidly. The corners of the doctor's
mouth twitched, and a gleam of humor came into his eyes. "Ten dollars,"
he said, and while David Maynor was counting out the bills, the
physician's quick glance was taking note of the expensive furniture and
the utter absence of individuality, that gave the house the air of a
hotel rather than a home. "The new rich," he thought with good-natured
amusement, then aloud: