before, the case is in your hands. Good afternoon!" And with another
courtly bow he was gone.
David Maynor hurried back up-stairs to his wife's bedside. "Sarah," he
said, bending over her and smoothing her hair clumsily, "the doctor says
there's not a thing the matter with you, except you've got something on
your mind that's worrying you. He says he can't do much for you, and
that I've got to find out what the trouble is and remove it, if I can."
Sarah Maynor turned her head restlessly on the pillow. "I must say he's
got more sense than I thought he had," she said, with a nervous laugh.
"I was afraid he'd go to dosing me with bitters and pills. He's exactly
right: no doctor can cure me." Her voice broke, and she buried her face
in the pillow.
A deep anxiety settled on David's rugged features. "Why, Sarah," he
said, with tender reproach in his voice, "when did you get to hiding
your troubles from me? Is there anything you want? Anything I can do for
you? You know you can have everything now that money can buy."
Sarah turned her face toward her husband. Her gray eyes were filled with
tears, and her hands were clenched in an effort to control her feelings.
"That's just the trouble!" she cried, her voice rising into a wail.
"You've given me everything that money buys, and I don't want anything
except the things that love buys. I want to go back to Millville! I want
to live in our own little cottage! I'm sick of this sort of life! I
never was made to be a rich man's wife, and it's killing me! It's
killing me! Oh! I know I'm ungrateful, Dave, but I can't help it!" Her
voice broke in a storm of sobs. She covered her face with the
bedclothes and shrank away from her husband's hand.
A look of profound relief lighted David Maynor's face. "Is that all?" he
exclaimed. "And here I've been putting up with everything because I
thought you were pleased! My gracious, Sarah! You don't hate this life
any more than I do."
Sarah lifted her head from the pillow and searched his face with her
tear-reddened eyes. "Dave Maynor," she said solemnly, "are you just
saying that to please me, or is it the truth?"
"I'd go back to Millville to-morrow, if I could," said David, with an
emphasis that swept away all doubt of his sincerity.
Sarah fell back on her pillows with a long, sobbing breath of relief.
Her tears flowed again, but they were tears of happiness, and an
ecstatic smile shone through them.
"Oh! Then it's all right, Dave! It's all right!" She reached for David's
hand and laid it against her wet cheek. "You see, it was just the
thought that you and I didn't think alike--that was what I couldn't
stand. But if you feel as I do, why, I can stand anything. You know what
I mean, don't you, Dave?"
"Of course I know what you mean, honey," said David soothingly, as if he
were talking to a child in distress. "I've felt exactly the same way,
ever since we left our little Millville home and come to this two-story
brick house. I thought you liked it,--women always like fine houses and
fine furniture,--and I wanted to please you, but I hated it from the
start; and we'd always thought the same about everything, and to have
this big pile of brick and mortar comin' between us at our time of
life--"
At this point words failed him. He was not in the habit of analyzing and
describing his own feelings, but Sarah's eyes met his, and a look of
perfect understanding passed between husband and wife. They had been
living a divided life, but now they were one.
"It was my fault," said Sarah. "I ought to have stopped you in the
beginning; but I knew you were trying to please me, and I didn't want to
seem ungrateful--"
"Yes, honey, yes," interrupted David, "I know just how it was, and it
was my fault, not yours. I ought to have asked you what you wanted,
instead of takin' things for granted. Yes, if it's anybody's fault,
it's mine. But what's the use in blamin' anybody? My doctrine is that
when a thing _has_ happened, instead of blamin' ourselves or anybody
else, we just ought to conclude that it _had_ to happen, and then make
the best of it. This house is built; it's ours; we're in it; we don't
like it; and now what are we going to do about it?"
Sarah's face clouded at once. She and David were of one mind, but things
were not "all right", for still the burden of unaccustomed wealth and
luxury weighed upon her, and David's question brought her face to face
with the old troubles.
"Oh! I don't know," she said wearily. "If we just hadn't left our little
cottage!"
"It was that architect fellow's fault, my buildin' this house," said
David ruefully. "He was a young man just startin' out in the world, and
I thought I'd give him a helpin' hand. And then it didn't look right for
people with the income we've got to live in a four-room cottage in
Millville."
"I don't care how it looked," said Sarah fretfully, "we were in our
right place there, and we're out of place here. When we lived in
Millville, I'd get up in the morning, and I knew just exactly what I'd
have to do, and I knew I could do whatever I had to do. But now--" She
made a gesture of unutterable despair--"Why, I hate to open my eyes, I
hate to get up, I hate to think there's another day before me, for I'm
certain there'll be things to do that I never did before, and don't know
how to do and don't want to do, even if I knew how. People come to see
me and they talk about things I never heard of, and ask me to do things
I can't do, and I feel just exactly as if I was caught in some kind of a
cage and couldn't get out. There was that Mrs. Emerson--she wanted me to
join a club she belongs to. She said it used to be a literary club, but
that they'd changed their plans, and, instead of writin' papers, they'd
decided to do civic work."
She paused in her passionate confession and turned abruptly to David
with a look of self-scorn that was tragic in its intensity. "Do you know
what 'civic work' is, David?" David did not answer at once.
"Why, no, Sarah, I can't say I do," he said cautiously. "It seems to me
I've seen that word somewhere, and maybe I could think up what it means,
if you'd give me time to--"
Sarah cut him short. "You don't know what that word means, David, and
neither do I," she said with studied calmness.
David was genuinely puzzled by Sarah's evident distress over so
unimportant a circumstance as the meaning of a word. "Honey," he said
tenderly, "I'll go right down town and buy you a dictionary, so you can
find out what that word means. But what difference does it make,
anyhow?"
Once more his wife turned on him a face that was like a mask of tragedy.
"What difference does it make?" she wailed. "Oh, David! Can't you see?
Can't you understand? There I sat--in my own house--like a fool--not
knowin' what answer to give her, just because I didn't know what that
word meant! And every day something like this happens, something that
makes me feel that I'm out of place, something that makes me hate
myself! Can't you understand?"
Yes, David understood as well as a man could be expected to understand a
woman. Many times since Fortune had smiled on him, he had been thrown
with men of superior education and social position and had known
momentarily the feeling of being out of place. And if Sarah's
passionate words failed to convey all she felt and suffered, the despair
in her eyes and the nervous twitching of her fingers brought
comprehension to her husband's mind.
"There! There!" he soothed, taking her hands in his. "You mustn't carry
on this way, Sarah, or I'll have to send for the doctor again. Just give
me time to think; there must be a way out of this trouble. My goodness!"
He shook his head in helpless wonderment over the strange situation. "I
thought we'd be through with troubles when we got rich, but it looks as
if this money's the most trouble we ever had."
"It wouldn't be a trouble if we were used to it," explained Sarah. "We
were born poor, and we've lived poor all our lives, and we don't know
how to get happiness out of money."
David sighed. "We can't go back to Millville to live," he said
thoughtfully. "At least we can't get back our old place." Sarah's face
was already clouded, but at these words a deeper shadow passed over it.
She had known, when she left the Millville house, that the owner of the
property intended tearing down the cottage and building a tenement house
for the mill-workers, and every time she thought of her house in ruins,
she had a dull heartache. "I never hankered after riches," mused David,
his mind still occupied with the mysterious ways of the Providence that
had made him rich. "I never even tried to invent that machine. It just
seemed to come to me, without any thinkin' or tryin' on my part; and
when I patented the thing, I never supposed it would do any more than
make us fairly comfortable in our old age. But here's the money comin'
in all the time; it's ours, and it's honest money, and we've got to take
it and make the best of it. But," tenderly, "I'm not goin' to let it
worry you to death if I can help it. What is it that bothers you most,
honey?"
Sarah moved her head restlessly on the pillow and sighed heavily. "Oh!
everything; but I believe the servants are the worst aggravation of
all."
"What's the matter with 'em?" asked David; "don't they do their work
right?"
"No, they don't," said Sarah despairingly. "I never saw such cleanin' as
that Bertha does--dust behind the doors and on the window sills; and she
never takes up a rug, and the windows look like Jacob's cattle, all
ringed and striped and streaked. And Nelly's just as bad. The dish
towels are a sight, and the kitchen closet's in such a mess I can't
sleep for thinkin' of it. I never could stand dust, especially in my
kitchen; you know that, David. And here we are payin' these
good-for-nothin' creatures every week almost as much money as you used
to earn in a month! It's enough to drive me crazy." It was the
lamentation of a housekeeper, a cry as old as civilization, that Sarah
was uttering, and David heard it sympathetically, for his wife's
troubles were his own.
"Can't you make 'em do their work right?" he asked.
"Make 'em?" Sarah's voice rose in a petulant wail. "No, I can't. I can
make myself work, but I don't know how to make anybody else work."
"Do they ever give you any back talk?" asked David.
"No, they don't," said Sarah, a dull flush crimsoning her face. "They're
polite enough to my face, but, David, I believe they laugh at us both
behind our backs. Two or three times I've turned around right quick, and
I've seen a look on their faces that made me want to turn 'em out of the
house."
David's face hardened. "Why don't you discharge 'em?" he asked grimly.
"Oh! I don't know how," said Sarah fretfully. "It seems to me you ought
to know that, without being told. I never discharged anybody in my life.
I wouldn't know what to say. Don't you have to give servants warning
before you turn 'em off?"
David deliberated a moment. "Either they have to give you warning, or
you have to give them warning, or maybe it's both," he announced. "I
guess it would take a lawyer to settle that question."
"People that don't know how to get rid of a servant have got no business
with servants," said Sarah bitterly. "Here I am, a stout, able-bodied
woman, holdin' my hands all day, when I ought to be doin' my own work
just as I always have."
"You couldn't do your work in this house," argued David. "It would break
you down if you tried it."
"There it is again," cried Sarah. "The house! It's the house that's to
blame for everything. Why, it was just last week I met Molly Matthews on
the street, and she turned her head away and wouldn't speak to me! Molly
Matthews that nursed me when I had the fever and that's been like a
sister to me all these years!"
David's face darkened angrily. "What right has Molly Matthews to fall
out with you, because you've got a better house than she has? That's
just envy."
"No, it's not envy!" cried Sarah in loyal defense of the absent friend.
"I know Molly as well as I know myself. She hasn't changed, but she
thinks I've changed; she thinks I feel above her just because I've got
this two-story brick. And I don't blame her a bit. When we left
Millville and moved into town, it looked just like we had turned our
backs on all our old friends. I'd feel just as Molly does, if I were in
Molly's place. I've wanted to have Molly and Annie and all the rest of
my friends to spend the day with me,--I've only waited because I wanted
to feel at home in my own house, before I had visitors,--but now I can't
do it. We've got a fine house, David, and plenty of money, but we've
lost our old friends; and what is life without friends?"
The god of Mammon had showered his favors on these simple souls, but
they would never be worshippers of the god. David, too, had felt the
barrier of wealth rising, hard and cruel, between him and the friends of
a lifetime, and his heart echoed Sarah's question, "What is life without
friends?"
"Well," he said, with an effort at lightness, "if our old friends
forsake us, we'll have to make new ones."
"But I don't want new friends!" cried Sarah, with the accent of a
fretful child, "Haven't I just told you I couldn't talk to that Mrs.
Emerson?"
A sudden thought seemed to strike David. He took out his watch and
glanced at it. "It's time for you to take another dose of the medicine
the doctor left. I have to go down-town for a few minutes. You lie still
and see if you can't sleep a little."
He handed her the medicine and left the room. Sarah waited till he was
out of the house, and then she rose hastily from the bed and began
making a hurried toilet.
When David reappeared, he found her fully dressed and the marks of tears
gone from her face.
"That medicine's helped you already," he said cheerfully; "and here's a
dictionary, and we'll find out what that word means."
The dictionary was an unfamiliar book to David, but after a patient
search he found the strange word. "Here it is: civic, of or pertaining
to a city, a citizen, or citizenship." He looked hopefully at Sarah. She
shook her head rather sadly.
"I don't know a bit more now than I did before, David, but never mind
that word. I told you awhile ago that I could stand anything, if we only
felt alike about it, and I'm goin' to stand this."
"That's right," said David heartily; "and while you're standing it, I'll
be looking for a way out of it. I didn't build this house for you to
stand, I built it for you to enjoy, and if you don't enjoy it, you don't
have to live in it." At that moment the supper bell rang.
"Come on, honey," said David, holding out his hand to help her from the
chair, "you'll feel better after you've had something to eat."
But Sarah only sighed and shook her head languidly. "If I'd only cooked
the supper, I might feel hungry. But I just don't care whether I eat or
not. I'd rather go hungry than to eat with that Nelly starin' at me."
"You stay up here, Sarah," said David with sudden determination. He
wheeled a small table in front of her and hurried from the room. In a
few minutes Nelly appeared with a laden tray that she set on the table.
"Mr. Maynor says if there's anything else you want, to let him know."
Nelly's tone and manner were those of the well-trained servant, and she
looked at her mistress with a gleam of real sympathy in her eyes.
"This is all I want. I'm much obliged," said Sarah Maynor awkwardly.
Nelly withdrew, and Sarah began to eat, more from gratitude to David
than from any sense of hunger. David was so good to her, she must get
used to things for his sake. But the relief of eating without the
espionage of a servant quickened her appetite, and when David rejoined
her, he looked with satisfaction on the empty dishes.
"Don't worry about me, David," said Sarah, with a good attempt at a
careless smile. "I've been actin' like a child, but from now on I'm
goin' to behave myself." David did not answer. He appeared to be in deep
thought about some important matter. He took out a pencil, did some
figuring on the back of an envelope, relapsed again into the thoughtful
mood, and finally went to bed silent and preoccupied.
For the next few weeks, he was away from home the greater part of the
time. Many days he failed to appear at the midday meal, and often it
would be dusk before he came to supper. The vague excuse of "business"
satisfied Sarah, for she had the wifely faith that forbade questioning,
and though David's sympathy helped her to stand the hard conditions of
her daily life, she was still too unhappy to feel any keen curiosity
about her husband's comings and goings. But one day David came home
wearing an expression of such triumphant satisfaction that it could not
be overlooked.
"What's the matter, David?" she asked wistfully. "You look just like you
did the day you got your patent."
David laughed joyously. "I feel just as I did the day I got my patent,
Sarah: I've got a little business to see to after dinner, but about four
o'clock I'll come around with the buggy, and we'll take a long ride.
I've been workin' hard for the last few weeks, and I reckon I'm entitled
to a little holiday."
That horse and phaeton had been the occasion of much comment on the part
of the general public. People often smiled to see the rich inventor and
his wife in their modest turnout, while men of lesser worth whizzed by
in costly machines; only Sarah knew that the shining little phaeton and
the gentle mare were the realization of a childish dream.
"I reckon I ought to have bought a car," said David apologetically, as
he helped Sarah into the phaeton for their first ride together; "but
when I was a little shaver I wanted a pony; every boy does. Nobody but
God will ever know how much I wanted that pony I never got. And when I
grew older, I wanted a horse just as bad as I wanted a pony, and now the
time's come when I can have what I want. Some day we can get one of
these big machines, but right now this little buggy and this little mare
just suit me." And Sarah had acquiesced fully in these views.
"You can't love a big machine, but you can love a horse," she said. And
thereafter the horse and phaeton were the only mitigating circumstances
of her new life, for they enabled her to get away, for a few happy,
care-free hours, from the two-story brick and the two hateful servants.
She ate her dinner with a better appetite because of the promised ride.
Long before the hour appointed she was dressed and waiting with the
impatience of a child, and before they had gone a mile, she had caught
David's spirit of happiness, and was looking up into her husband's face
with a look her face used to wear before the curse of wealth came upon
her.
"Are we going to Millville?" she asked apprehensively.
"No," said David. "We're going in that direction, but we'll stop before
we get there." He understood why Sarah would not want to drive through
the village; it would seem like flaunting her new wealth in the faces of
her old neighbors. David's eyes sparkled, and his mouth kept curving
into a smile even though there was no occasion for smiling. Sarah felt
that she was on the verge of a pleasant surprise, and her eyes roved
here and there searching for the possible stopping-place. There were
pretty cottages at intervals along the road, and each one reminded her
of her lost home. On they went, around a sharp turn in the road, and
suddenly David drew rein in the shade of a huge tulip tree just in front
of a little country place. A new paling fence painted gray enclosed the
lot; the house was not a new one, but its coat of gray matched the
fence, and a fresh green roof crowned its walls. Sarah leaned forward,
her eyes alight with wonder.
"Why, Dave, it looks like our old cottage. It's exactly like it, only
it's had a new coat of paint. What are we stopping here for? Does
anybody live here?"
David was helping her out of the phaeton. His eyes were smiling, and the
corners of his mouth twitched.
"It does look considerably like our cottage," he said gravely. "That's
why I brought you out here. I thought you might enjoy lookin' at it." He
opened the gate, and they walked up the path, Sarah glancing from side
to side at the newly planted shrubs and trees.
"Why, Dave, it looks just like our front yard, only everything's new.
There's that little maple tree at the corner of the house, just like our
maple tree at home, and all the shrubs I used to have, and planted in
exactly the same places. It's right curious how much it's like our old
place."
They were on the front porch now. David knocked loudly on the door. That
door! Sarah's eyes were scanning it as if it were a written page from
which she hoped to learn good tidings. It glistened bravely in its thick
coat of white paint, but when one has opened and shut the same door for
twenty years, the brush of the painter cannot wholly conceal its
familiar features. Surely that was her front door!
"The folks don't seem to be at home," said David, and as he spoke, he
took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and flung it wide open.
David was no playwright, but he understood how to produce a dramatic
situation and bring a scene to a successful climax. The opening of the
door disclosed a narrow entry. The floor was covered with an oilcloth
somewhat worn, and in front of the door lay a rug of braided rags.
Against the wall stood a very ugly hatrack, and over the door leading
into the room on the left was a Bible text worked in faded yarns and
framed in dingy gilt. For a moment Sarah stood gazing bewildered at the
familiar interior, then she grasped her husband's hand and stepped
across the threshold, uttering an inarticulate expression of rapture,
while David laughed aloud in pure delight.
"Oh, David! David!" she cried, "it's my own home, my own little home!
What does it mean, David? Am I crazy or dreaming or what?" She was
clinging to David's arm, trembling and tearful. David patted her kindly
on the hand.
"You're not crazy, honey, and you're wide-awake, too. It means that
you've got your old home again, and you needn't ever go back to the
two-story brick house in town unless you want to."
"But I thought the house was torn down," insisted Sarah, incredulous of
the happy reality.
"So it was," explained David, "but I bought the lumber and had it all
put together again. Everything's just like it used to be except the
wall paper and paint. They're new."
Oh! the miracle of it! And it was David's love that had wrought the
miracle. Sarah tried to speak, tried to tell David all her happiness and
gratitude, but the words were so incoherent, broken, and mixed with
tears that no one but David could have understood their meaning.
"Kind?" he said, patting her shoulder. "No, there's no particular
kindness about this. I've just got Doctor Bourland's prescription
filled, that's all. You know he said I had to find out what the trouble
was and remove it, and that's what I've tried to do."
Sarah's tears flowed afresh at this proof of David's thoughtfulness.
"Oh, David!" she cried remorsefully. "I thought you didn't care for the
things--_our_ things! And it hurt me so!"
"Cheer up, old woman," said David. "Dry your eyes and see if I've got
everything here I ought to have. You'll find some clothes in the bureau
drawers, enough to last for a few days, anyhow. We're goin' to stay here
awhile, till that head of yours quits achin' and your nerves get quieted
down."
But Sarah was in the kitchen now, opening drawers, doors, and boxes like
a true daughter of Pandora. "Sugar--meal--soda--bacon--salt. How on
earth did you manage to think of everything, David?"
"Come out in the garden," urged David. "Pretty outlook, ain't it?" he
said, with a gesture toward the west where green meadows and blue hills
slumbered in the late afternoon sunshine. "See the new stable and the
chicken yard. I'll put up some martin boxes next week, and we'll have
pigeons, too. Here's the asparagus bed, and over against the stable
we'll have a little hotbed and raise early lettuce. It's too late to do
much now, but I've got the walks laid off, and this time next year we'll
be sittin' under our own 'vine and fig-tree.'"
Hand in hand, like two children, they wandered over their acre of
ground, planning for the flower garden, the vegetable garden, and the
tiny orchard and the grape arbor that were to be, till the level rays of
the sun warned them of approaching evening. David took out his watch.
"Pretty near supper time," he said. "The fire's laid in the kitchen
stove. I wonder if you've forgotten how to cook a meal, Mrs. Maynor?"