moved her chair out of sight of the young gardener, who was doing
more gazing than weeding, "but what would they say at home in
Greenford if I married a farmer in a one-horse village? I wonder if
he'd be able to keep a hired girl for me. If I had to cook three
meals a day and wash dishes the rest of the time, I might as well
teach school, though goodness knows that's a dog's life!--I'd like to
put these compositions in the stove and set a match to them! Even
after they are corrected, I've got to study three pages of geometry
to keep ahead of Jim Thompson. The good scholars are a sight more
trouble than the stupid ones, after all."
She could bear her work no longer, and opening the desk to fling in
the offending papers, she closed it with a bang, shook the dust of
toil from her white dress, put on her broad-brimmed hat and white
silk gloves, took a green parasol from the closet, locked the school
door behind her thankfully, and strolled away on her homeward walk to
Mrs. Wilkins's boarding-house.
She had to pass the Millikens' cottage. There was no other way to
go; the most determined gossip would allow that. And everybody knew
that Matthew had always worked in the flower garden just before
supper-time. She supposed he had other duties, but at all events,
between nine and four he was always in his garden, on his front
steps, sitting in his open barn door, or washing the top buggy which
to her was one of his greatest attractions.
As she drew nearer now, she could see him wipe his forehead, pull
down his vest, and brush the dirt from his hands. Then he came
toward the gate and leaned over it with a pink cabbage rose in his
hand.
"How'll that do to put in your belt?" he asked genially. "Looks to
me as if it had growed a-purpose for that partic'ler spot." There
was open, almost violent admiration in his eyes.
"Thank you, Mr. Milliken, it's lovely; and I must thank you, too, for
the sweet peas you sent me by Tommy this morning. They look so nice
on my desk. I've had rather a hard day."
"I bet you have!" Matt responded fervently. "Landsakes! I'd rather
lay bricks for a livin' than ram book-learnin' into that set o' kids.
I'd learn 'em with a switch if I was the teacher!"
"Oh! I don't need any switch to keep order," said Undine sweetly.
"I'm supposed to be rather good at discipline."
"I bet you be! Some o' the teachers suits the parents, and others
suits the children. You 'pear to have 'em both under control. The
little ones like to look at you same as they would a picture-book,
an' the big boys would lay right down an' let you tread on 'em."
"I'm glad if it seems that way." This was said with touching
modesty. "Of course I couldn't manage those great, strong boys by
force."
"You bet you couldn't! We had a husky young college feller teachin'
here last year, and the boys fit him the whole time--lockin' him out
o' the schoolhouse, hidin' his hat, havin' coughin' spells in study
hour, stuffin' the stove pipe with hay, and the land knows what!
He's given up teachin' now an' is trainin' for nurse in a lunatic
asylum. Says he knows what he's up against and likes the work
better."
"I shouldn't care to have anything to do with crazy folks," remarked
Undine sententiously.
Matt laughed, showing his handsome teeth. "You may have to, first
thing you know, for everybody round here is crazy about you, though
they ain't gone to asylums yet!"
Undine could do no less than smile and blush at such a neat
compliment. "It's a real nice place, Riverboro; the people are so
pleasant."
"You like it, do you?" asked Matt with obvious eagerness.
Undine cooled suddenly. "Oh, yes! But I'm real quick at making
myself at home wherever I am. I have to be, to get any variety out
of life. Of course I can't afford to teach in such a small place as
this very long."
Matt's face suddenly clouded. "I didn't think of that," he said,
taking off his hat. "It is a small place for such as you, and I
suppose Greenford is a real gay town--sociables, dances, and all that
sort of thing?"
"Yes, Greenford is considered very lively, and there's a great deal
of wealth there--the cotton mills, you know. Then I often go to
Portland and Brunswick."
Mrs. Milliken suddenly appeared at the screen door. "Good-afternoon,
Miss Berry. I'm baking a little something for supper and can't leave
my oven. The kitchen's so hot I won't ask you inside, but if you an'
Matthew'll set down under the big ellum, I'll bring you both out a
try-cake in a minute."
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Milliken, but I'm afraid I ought to be going.
I'll be late to supper, as it is."
"You just set right down," called Mrs. Milliken, "an' I'll show you a
one-egg cake that'll deceive you into thinkin' it's made with four,
if it's et hot. Then Matt'll walk down as fur as the store with you
and bring me back a can of baking-powder."
"He might as well see all there is to see in her, and know all there
is to know, which is mighty little, or I miss my guess!" said the old
lady to herself as she took a straw out of the broom to try the cake.
"Mebbe then he'll get her out of his system; though them pink and
white paper-doll girls do have a way of keepin' holt of men-folks."
Ten minutes later Matthew and Undine were walking down the hill while
Mrs. Milliken watched them from behind the parlor curtains.
Undine Berry was a beauty, there was no denying that! Her hair was
spun gold, breaking into bewitching little waves and curls round her
temples, her ears, and the nape of her neck. Her skin was perfect,
her hands and feet small, her figure lovely. A person (female)
intent upon finding flaws would have said her features were rather
immature and meaningless and that her eyes, though of heaven's own
blue in color, were a little cold and calculating, but Matthew
Milliken saw no flaws. He thought of her as something so exquisite
that he would have liked to put her under a glass case on his parlor
melodeon. If only he could get far enough in friendship to fathom
her likes and dislikes, her desires, her ambitions, so that he might
guess whether there was any chance for a clumsy creature like himself
to win her love! But he scarcely knew how to set about such a task.
Every time he advanced, she seemed to retreat a little to fastnesses
of thought where he was not at home.
"Some folks don't seem to hold up their heads before the public nor
care how their buildings look," Undine commented severely, as they
passed a poor little house, forlorn, unpainted, lacking clapboards
and shingles.
"Well, a man has got to have a little money saved up, have good
health, and work night and day to keep up his farm nowadays," said
Matthew. "If my father hadn't left me an awful good piece of land,
forty acres of it, with fifteen in woodland, as well as something to
go on with till I was big enough to take hold for myself, I don't
know how I'd 'a' come out--and my place isn't rightly kep' up,
either; I know it. I intend to begin improvin' it this summer. I've
got a man comin' to work through hayin' time, I'll get skilled help
inside, and you'll see a reg'lar palace when you come back,
Undine--_There!_"--and he checked himself and grew red in the face,
as he added: "Your front name slipped out before I thought. I
suppose you wouldn't let me call you 'Undine,' would you, Miss Berry?"
"Well, I don't think it would sound quite proper, Mr. Milliken--at
any rate, in public. You see, people might talk, and other young men
would be asking the same privilege. I always think it makes a girl
appear sort of common, corresponding with gentlemen, giving away her
photographs, and being called by her first name on a few weeks'
acquaintance."
"Would you feel the same about calling me 'Matthew,' if there wasn't
anybody 'round?" he stammered.
"To tell the truth, I don't feel as if we'd been friends long enough
for me to call you 'Matthew'--yet--Mr. Milliken. I am so unlike
other girls. Sometimes I wish I wasn't. I am so reserved, so
unsuited to the life I'm living. Mother says she must have guessed
what I was going to be like when she named me Undine."
They were leaning over the bridge-rail now, looking into the foamy
rapids of the Saco, as thousands of other young couples had leaned
and looked in all the years since the river began to run.
"Most everybody round here is named out of the Bible," said Matthew.
"Look at our neighborhood. There's Mark Hobson, Luke Dunn, John
Briggs, and me to represent the apostles; there's a Samuel, a Josiah,
a David, an Elijah, and a Jeremiah, an' by George! there's a Sarah, a
Naomi, an' a Rachel! I looked through the Old Testament last evening
to find your name, but I couldn't!"
"Oh, no!" said Undine, in a tone conveying her idea that the Bible
was a rather second-class source for names. "I was called Undine out
of a fairy story that everybody was reading when mother was a girl.
Undine was not a real woman, she was a water-sprite, and a knight
named Lord Huldbrand found her standing in a brook in the forest and
fell in love with her. She had been found on the river bank and
brought up by a fisherman and his wife. She loved the knight and
married him, and after a long time she turned from a water-sprite
into a woman, for love had given her a soul!"
Here the narrator's blue eyes tried to convey mysterious things to
the bridge-rail, over which they were thoughtfully bent. "It is a
beautiful story. I'll lend it to you if you like."
"I ain't much of a reader, but I want that book as quick as I can get
it. Can I come over to-morrow? I can't hardly take it in at first
hearin', but I want to understand everything you do, and think, and
feel, Undine. I want--"
There would have been an offer of marriage on the bridge at that
moment, had not Jim Thompson approached swiftly and hung over the
rail beside them in friendly fashion, confident--being young and
artless--of a hearty welcome.
Undine was distinctly grateful for the interruption, for she was not
in the least ready to say yes or no to the question of all questions,
so she bade Matthew good-night with a smile that almost overthrew his
reason, and hastened home to supper.
Meantime Matthew, forgetting the baking-powder, hurried back to his
mother, went to the pasture for the cows, milked them, set the milk
in the dairy, and then stalking into the kitchen where Mrs. Milliken
was scalding the pails and pans, called out,
"Say! Where's the dictionary, mother?"
"On the top shelf of the china closet in the dining-room, where it
was when your father died. I guess nobody ever has took it down
since."
Matthew found the book, brought it back to a chair under the light,
and began to turn the pages. "Gosh!" he ejaculated. "I guess I
ain't looked in it sence I left school."
"What word is it you want, Matthew?"
"Water-sprite. Will it be under 'water' or 'sprite,' do you think?"
"Well, you know how to spell and define water fast enough. Why don't
you look under '_s_' for sprite?"
"How do you spell it? I can't find it. Mebbe the dictionary's too
old."
"It's Webster, Matthew. Webster don't age, at least any to hurt. I
suppose it's s-p-r-i-g-h-t, ain't it, like light and sight and might
and fight?"
"Don't seem to be here," said Matthew. "What is a water-sprite,
mother, anyhow?"
"I don't know, my son, but I should surmise it's a kind of bug that
breeds in the water."
"Well, you guess wrong, for Undine Berry's mother named her out of a
fairy story, and Undine was a water-sprite and no bug! Here it is,
now. It ain't spelled like 'fight,' it is 's-p-r-i-t-e,' and it
means a 'spirit.'"
"Why didn't they call it so, then?" asked Mrs. Milliken. "Everybody
knows 'spirit' an' nobody ever heard o' 'sprite'!"
"Well, we've learned something new, anyway, mother. I tell you a
dictionary is a great book, and I'm going to keep it on the parlor
table from now on."
"Not on the marble-top, Matt, for the table is dreadful weak in the
legs. You don't seem to get time to do chores in the house this
summer. The tall clock don't strike right, the west window in the
parlor won't open good, and there's a pane o' glass broken."
"I've been too busy with the garden and my barn work, and I ain't
felt so lively as common," apologized Matt, "but I'm goin' to turn
over a new leaf and start right in improvin' this place. We've got
money in the bank and plenty of timber big enough to sell, with a lot
o' young growth comin' on besides, and there ain't any reason why we
shouldn't put on a little mite o' style. I'd like some fresh paint
inside and out, new-fashioned wall-paper, and water brought into the
kitchen from the well--that much for a start, and more as I get goin'
and can see how I can improve."
"I think that's a good plan, Matthew," said his mother, who was
knitting quietly in her rocker. "And while the house is all upside
down and workmen in it, why couldn't I go and make Lorenzo and Lulu a
little visit in Vermont? Could you spare me all right?"
"Sure I could! Maria Snow would come in and clear me up once a week
and cook me a batch of victuals, and I could go to Mrs. Wilkins's and
get a meal now and then; she's taking transients. I've got Bill
Benson comin' Monday to help with milkin' and hayin', you know, but
he can board himself. I'll sleep in the shed-chamber while you're
gone, so the workmen can have a free hand. Jiminy, mother, we'll
give a jamboree after harvestin'! I declare I'm all het up over the
idea of our improvements."
"Well, I only hope they'll turn out to be improvements," his mother
answered serenely. "Anyhow you're a young man and likely to live in
the house the rest of your life. You'd ought to have it to suit you,
Matthew, and make it nice for a wife and children in comin' years."
Matthew blushed to the roots of his hair, and as he took his candle
and started for the back stairs, he turned and said, like a shy
schoolboy: "I was kind o' thinkin' o' them myself, mother, that's the
truth. Though," he added with a laugh, "I don't know exactly who
they be, nor what they'll look like."
Mrs. Milliken locked the shed door, turned out the lamp, then lighted
her own candle preparatory to going to her little bedroom opening out
of the kitchen.
"I guess the man that wrote, 'They also serve who only stand and
wait,' knew something about mothers!" she said to herself.
Matthew, young, strong, big-hearted, simple-minded, was asleep as
soon as his head touched the pillow. His waking hours were filled
with certain confusions and perplexities, but these vanished in
sleep, and his dreams were rose-colored, for he was utterly in love,
and with an angel.
Tommy Mixter, aged twelve, at this moment the life and soul of a
clump of small boys on the loafers' bench at the Riverboro end of the
bridge, knew Undine Berry better than Matthew Milliken did, but Tommy
was too young to be smitten by feminine beauty, and he was a keen
judge of character. His ears had been snapped by Miss Berry's thumb
and finger more than once, and he particularly disliked the way her
lips were set when she called him up to ferrule him in the face of
the whole school.
"For nothin' at all, neither," he was wont to say. "O' course she
ain't got strength enough to hurt a skeeter, an' her dress is so
tight she don't dass put on any steam for fear she'll bust it, but
she'd lam you good if she knew how! Matt Milliken will be toein' the
mark himself by fall, an' I won't have to lug any more o' his flowers
to the next teacher, that's one good thing!"
Undine prepared herself for bed that night with a trifle more care
than usual, punctuating each move in the operation by long studies of
her charming self in the looking-glass, which was of poor quality and
never did her entire justice. Her hair was the first subject of
admiration, as she brushed the golden mop and held it up to glow in
the full light of her kerosene lamp.
"It might land me 'most anywheres, my hair," she thought, "even in
the moving pictures. They say a star can get along without any
talent if she has the right kind of hair and wears her clothes well.
I never had a chance to try on handsome dresses, but I guess my shape
is as good as any of the stars I've seen. And my face wouldn't need
any smoothing out nor touching up, for it's worrying that makes
wrinkles, and I never was a worrier. Let other folks do the
worrying, is my motto."
Undine, as she looked admiringly at her hair and skin and figure with
the aid of a hand mirror, never once discovered that her nose was
just the least little bit inclined to be flat. Her lips were red,
but the line of her mouth had no lovable, generous curves. Her eyes
were so blue that they rivaled sapphires, but they never suffused
with tears, nor danced with merry sparkles of fun, nor looked deep,
deep into other eyes, revealing all sorts of true, tender,
unspeakable things. No, her eyes were a magnificent color and would
last her to a good old age, but she would never see visions with them.
Nevertheless there was something in Matthew Milliken's personality
that threatened the heretofore dominating influence of life, as it
was lived in moving pictures. His youthful strength and manly
presence stirred her heart just a trifle, and also his obvious
passion for her had its effect.
There had been a moment that afternoon when she, who was ordinarily
so self-centered, could not help noticing how the dog nestled his
nose softly into Matt's hand; how the cat kept creeping round his
legs, hunching its back and rubbing its ears till it got the stroke
under the chin that it was wishing for; how the Jerseys came up to
the bars to greet him. She had once seen him at milking time and
noted how still the cows stood in the stalls, giving their milk
tranquilly at the touch of his steady, kind hands. Yes, he would be
good to live with, but he didn't dress well and looked worse on
Sundays than he did in his working clothes. She liked the things he
said, and the way he looked at her and complimented her, but there
were sad lapses in his grammar. And how would he appear in company,
if she succeeded in dragging him away from this one-horse village and
establishing him where her beauty would have a larger audience?
She didn't know; she could not be sure. Why was it that a really
"stylish" man from a large city never came across her path? If one
ever did arrive, she felt sure that her heart, which had never in its
life beat faster than normal, might carry her to a swift, sure
decision. Meantime she was twenty and would soon be "walking down
the western slopes of life," Mrs. Wilkins's metaphor for unmarried
ladies over five and twenty.
"Sometimes I fear I shan't be able to stave Matt off till the end of
the term," thought Undine. "That's what I'd rather do, for I'm
certain to spend part of my vacation in Portland, where I always meet
good society, and one can never tell what will happen. I don't want
to see too much of him for fear I'll get to liking him and won't be
able to settle matters for my best good. I wonder if his mother
supposes I don't see through her and her 'try-cakes'? She hates me
like poison, that woman does, because she knows I wouldn't fetch and
carry for Matt the way she does!"
These reflections concluded, Undine went to bed and slept peacefully.
June was a trying month that year. The weather was unusually warm,
and an outbreak of measles among the children interfered with
Undine's preparations for the last day of school. She had several
drives and moonlight walks with Matthew Milliken, and she had nearly
succeeded in keeping him within bounds.
As she had perfect command of herself, and as he was simply dumb with
love--shy, too, and full of fears at putting his fate to the touch
too soon--he had not been able to speak his heart out and ask her
"punctilió"--a favorite word of his mother's--if she would marry him
in the autumn. He had awakened every morning determined to do it,
and he had gone to bed every night without having succeeded. He
assured himself that he had made some little headway on certain
occasions that he recalled with burning cheeks in the solitude of his
own room. He had held her hand for several minutes once when they
were sitting under the pines on the river bank, but his enjoyment had
been sadly incomplete, because he had been terror-stricken every
second for fear she would take it away. He had been obliged to make
the move himself finally because of the arrival of a large picnic
party, the members of which he still regarded with fierce animosity.
Then--oh, never-to-be-forgotten moment of supreme bliss!--with a
courage born of despair he had kissed her on Mrs. Wilkins's steps
after Wednesday evening prayer-meeting. If she had not returned the
caress as fully as he could have wished, at least she had not
withdrawn herself in anger. It was at that moment that, made more
daring by the remembrance that she was leaving the village for her
vacation, he pleaded:
"Undine, haven't I waited long enough for an answer? I can't expect
you to love me as I love you, but just give me a word to live on till
you come back!"
"I don't hardly know what to say," she murmured, reaching up to see
if she had lost her pearl earring. "I like you better than anybody
I've ever seen, but I wish you'd let me think it over these next two
months. I'm not sure I'm fitted to be a farmer's wife. I've never
done any housework, you know, Matthew."
Oh! how fragile, how plaintive, how in need of all a man's strength
she looked in the moonlight!
"Why, Undine, do you s'pose I'd let you spoil your pretty hands with
rough work? I'll always be there to stand between you and the hard
parts, and you shall have a hired girl to wait on you every minute of
the day. Besides, you don't know the improvements I'm going to make
in my premises. The house is going to beat anything there is in
Riverboro or Edgewood. While I'm gettin' ready for you, Undine,
won't you be gettin' ready for me?"
"You domineering man, you!" she whispered, playing with the lapels of
his coat, "teasing me into saying 'yes' against my will! I suppose
you must go ahead with your improvements and let me see them when I
come back. I am sure it'll be all right!"
"Seal your promise with a kiss?" Matthew whispered, and it is
difficult to see how Undine could have evaded the direct issue, even
had she wished, had not Mrs. Wilkins, opening a window, called out,
"The door-key is under the rug, Undine."
Whereupon Matthew, who was concealed by the thick foliage of the
maples, opened the gate softly and sped homeward on the wings of
love. She had said to go ahead, that it would be all right. That
settled it.
He had looked forward to another and a fonder parting when he should
take Undine to the station on Friday, but on Thursday, when he went
rapturously to Biddeford to engage paperers, painters, and plumbers,
the school committee voted to give up the closing exercises on
account of illness in the school, and Undine promptly took the train
for Greenford, leaving a note for Matthew to the effect that she had
been called home suddenly, as her stepfather wanted her to go to
Albany with him on a business trip.
This was in the nature of a blow, but only a slight one, after all, a
disappointment that in no wise affected their relations or their
tacit compact with each other; so Matthew plunged into a series of
fourteen-hour days of work on his improvements. No man, no three
men, could keep up with him. He was omnipresent and untiring, and
the labor progressed so rapidly that the village could not restrain
its curiosity, all the gentlemen of leisure passing their time in the
vicinity of the Milliken house, ready to furnish suggestions or to
act as brakes upon inadvisable changes.
Meantime no letters passed between the lovers save one note from
Undine written in high spirits on the train to Albany. Matt had
intended to go to Greenford every second Sunday during the summer, to
report progress and keep the slightly unsteady flame of her affection
from going out. The Albany visit put a stop to that, of course, and
he felt a little helpless as the weeks ran by. He had not the pen of
a ready writer, and Undine had once said playfully that she was a bad
correspondent and didn't intend to touch either pen or pencil in
vacation. Finally Matt spent two hours of strenuous work with the
dictionary and wrote to his beloved in Greenford with directions to
forward the missive if she were not there. It was a letter that
would have melted a heart of stone, though viewed as a composition
she would have marked it C4.
Then he plunged into the improvements again. His mother wrote
approval of the samples of wall-paper he had sent her, and thanked
him for selecting the little gray trellis pattern with pink roses on
it for her own bedroom, advising him not to work too hard, for Maria
Snow had written he was looking pale.
"I hope he'll look paler still," thought the crafty old lady, "for
that'll mean he can't get that water-sprite to marry him, and he'll
take sick and want me to come home to nurse him!"