From her upstairs window Mrs. Wheeler could see Claude moving
back and forth in the west field, drilling wheat. She felt lonely
for him. He didn't come home as often as he might. She had begun
to wonder whether he was one of those people who are always
discontented; but whatever his disappointments were, he kept them
locked in his own breast. One had to learn the lessons of life.
Nevertheless, it made her a little sad to see him so settled and
indifferent at twenty-three.
After watching from the window for a few moments, she turned to
the telephone and called up Claude's house, asking Enid whether
she would mind if he came there for dinner. "Mahailey and I get
lonesome with Mr. Wheeler away so much," she added.
"Why, no, Mother Wheeler, of course not." Enid spoke cheerfully,
as she always did. "Have you any one there you can send over to
tell him?"
"I thought I would walk over myself, Enid. It's not far, if I
take my time."
Mrs. Wheeler left the house a little before noon and stopped at
the creek to rest before she climbed the long hill. At the edge
of the field she sat down against a grassy bank and waited until
the horses came tramping up the long rows. Claude saw her and
pulled them in.
"Anything wrong, Mother?" he called.
"Oh, no! I'm going to take you home for dinner with me, that's
all. I telephoned Enid." He unhooked his team, and he and his
mother started down the hill together, walking behind the horses.
Though they had not been alone like this for a long while, she
felt it best to talk about impersonal things.
"Don't let me forget to give you an article about the execution
of that English nurse."
"Edith Cavell? I've read about it," he answered listlessly. "It's
nothing to be surprised at. If they could sink the Lusitania,
they could shoot an English nurse, certainly."
"Someway I feel as if this were different," his mother murmured.
"It's like the hanging of John Brown. I wonder they could find
soldiers to execute the sentence."
"Oh, I guess they have plenty of such soldiers!"
Mrs. Wheeler looked up at him. "I don't see how we can stay out
of it much longer, do you? I suppose our army wouldn't be a drop
in the bucket, even if we could get it over. They tell us we can
be more useful in our agriculture and manufactories than we could
by going into the war. I only hope it isn't campaign talk. I do
distrust the Democrats."
Claude laughed. "Why, Mother, I guess there's no party politics
in this."
She shook her head. "I've never yet found a public question in
which there wasn't party politics. Well, we can only do our duty
as it comes to us, and have faith. This field finishes your fall
work?"
"Yes. I'll have time to do some things about the place, now. I'm
going to make a good ice-house and put up my own ice this
winter."
"Were you thinking of going up to Lincoln, for a little?"
"I guess not."
Mrs. Wheeler sighed. His tone meant that he had turned his back
on old pleasures and old friends.
"Have you and Enid taken tickets for the lecture course in
Frankfort?"
"I think so, Mother," he answered a little impatiently. "I told
her she could attend to it when she was in town some day."
"Of course," his mother persevered, "some of the programs are not
very good, but we ought to patronize them and make the best of
what we have."
He knew, and his mother knew, that he was not very good at that.
His horses stopped at the water tank. "Don't wait for me. I'll be
along in a minute." Seeing her crestfallen face, he smiled.
"Never mind, Mother, I can always catch you when you try to give
me a pill in a raisin. One of us has to be pretty smart to fool
the other."
She blinked up at him with that smile in which her eyes almost
disappeared. "I thought I was smart that time!"
It was a comfort, she reflected, as she hurried up the hill, to
get hold of him again, to get his attention, even.
While Claude was washing for dinner, Mahailey came to him with a
page of newspaper cartoons, illustrating German brutality. To her
they were all photographs,--she knew no other way of making a
picture.
"Mr. Claude," she asked, "how comes it all them Germans is such
ugly lookin' people? The Yoeders and the German folks round here
ain't ugly lookin'."
Claude put her off indulgently. "Maybe it's the ugly ones that
are doing the fighting, and the ones at home are nice, like our
neighbours."
"Then why don't they make their soldiers stay home, an' not go
breakin' other people's things, an' turnin' 'em out of their
houses," she muttered indignantly. "They say little babies was
born out in the snow last winter, an' no fires for their mudders
nor nothin'. 'Deed, Mr. Claude, it wasn't like that in our war;
the soldiers didn't do nothin' to the women an' chillun. Many a
time our house was full of Northern soldiers, an' they never so
much as broke a piece of my mudder's chiney."
"You'll have to tell me about it again sometime, Mahailey. I must
have my dinner and get back to work. If we don't get our wheat
in, those people over there won't have anything to eat, you
know."
The picture papers meant a great deal to Mahailey, because she
could faintly remember the Civil War. While she pored over
photographs of camps and battlefields and devastated villages,
things came back to her; the companies of dusty Union infantry
that used to stop to drink at her mother's cold mountain spring.
She had seen them take off their boots and wash their bleeding
feet in the run. Her mother had given one louse-bitten boy a
clean shirt, and she had never forgotten the sight of his back,
"as raw as beef where he'd scratched it." Five of her brothers
were in the Confederate army. When one was wounded in the second
battle of Bull Run, her mother had borrowed a wagon and horses,
gone a three days' journey to the field hospital, and brought the
boy home to the mountain. Mahailey could remember how her older
sisters took turns pouring cold spring water on his gangrenous
leg all day and all night. There were no doctors left in the
neighbourhood, and as nobody could amputate the boy's leg, he
died by inches. Mahailey was the only person in the Wheeler
household who had ever seen war with her own eyes, and she felt
that this fact gave her a definite superiority.
V
Claude had been married a year and a half. One December morning
he got a telephone message from his father-in-law, asking him to
come in to Frankfort at once. He found Mr. Royce sunk in his
desk-chair, smoking as usual, with several foreign-looking
letters on the table before him. As he took these out of their
envelopes and sorted the pages, Claude noticed how unsteady his
hands had become.
One letter, from the chief of the medical staff in the mission
school where Caroline Royce taught, informed Mr. Royce that his
daughter was seriously ill in the mission hospital. She would
have to be sent to a more salubrious part of the country for rest
and treatment, and would not be strong enough to return to her
duties for a year or more. If some member of her family could
come out to take care of her, it would relieve the school
authorities of great anxiety. There was also a letter from a
fellow teacher, and a rather incoherent one from Caroline
herself. After Claude finished reading them, Mr. Royce pushed a
box of cigars toward him and began to talk despondently about
missionaries.
"I could go to her," he complained, "but what good would that do?
I'm not in sympathy with her ideas, and it would only fret her.
You can see she's made her mind up not to come home. I don't
believe in one people trying to force their ways or their
religion on another. I'm not that kind of man." He sat looking at
his cigar. After a long pause he broke out suddenly, "China has
been drummed into my ears. It seems like a long way to go to
hunt for trouble, don't it? A man hasn't got much control over
his own life, Claude. If it ain't poverty or disease that
torments him, it's a name on the map. I could have made out
pretty well, if it hadn't been for China, and some other things....
If Carrie'd had to teach for her clothes and help pay off
my notes, like old man Harrison's daughters, like enough she'd
have stayed at home. There's always something. I don't know what
to say about showing these letters to Enid."
"Oh, she will have to know about it, Mr. Royce. If she feels that
she ought to go to Carrie, it wouldn't be right for me to
interfere."
Mr. Royce shook his head. "I don't know. It don't seem fair that
China should hang over you, too."
When Claude got home he remarked as he handed Enid the letters,
"Your father has been a good deal upset by this. I never saw him
look so old as he did today."
Enid studied their contents, sitting at her orderly little desk,
while Claude pretended to read the paper.
"It seems clear that I am the one to go," she said when she had
finished.
"You think it's necessary for some one to go? I don't see it."
"It would look very strange if none of us went," Enid replied
with spirit.
"How, look strange?"
"Why, it would look to her associates as if her family had no
feeling."
"Oh, if that's all!" Claude smiled perversely and took up his
paper again. "I wonder how it will look to people here if you go
off and leave your husband?"
"What a mean thing to say, Claude!" She rose sharply, then
hesitated, perplexed. "People here know me better than that. It
isn't as if you couldn't be perfectly comfortable at your
mother's." As he did not glance up from his paper, she went into
the kitchen.
Claude sat still, listening to Enid's quick movements as she
opened up the range to get supper. The light in the room grew
greyer. Outside the fields melted into one another as evening
came on. The young trees in the yard bent and whipped about under
a bitter north wind. He had often thought with pride that winter
died at his front doorstep; within, no draughty halls, no chilly
corners. This was their second year here. When he was driving
home, the thought that he might be free of this house for a long
while had stirred a pleasant excitement in him; but now, he
didn't want to leave it. Something grew soft in him. He wondered
whether they couldn't try again, and make things go better. Enid
was singing in the kitchen in a subdued, rather lonely voice. He
rose and went out for his milking coat and pail. As he passed his
wife by the window, he stopped and put his arm about her
questioningly.
She looked up. "That's right. You're feeling better about it,
aren't you? I thought you would. Gracious, what a smelly coat,
Claude! I must find another for you."
Claude knew that tone. Enid never questioned the rightness of her
own decisions. When she made up her mind, there was no turning
her. He went down the path to the barn with his hands stuffed in
his trousers pockets, his bright pail hanging on his arm. Try
again--what was there to try? Platitudes, littleness, falseness....
His life was choking him, and he hadn't the courage to
break with it. Let her go! Let her go when she would!... What
a hideous world to be born into! Or was it hideous only for him?
Everything he touched went wrong under his hand--always had.
When they sat down at the supper table in the back parlour an
hour later, Enid looked worn, as if this time her decision had
cost her something. "I should think you might have a restful
winter at your mother's," she began cheerfully. "You won't have
nearly so much to look after as you do here. We needn't disturb
things in this house. I will take the silver down to Mother, and
we can leave everything else just as it is. Would there be room
for my car in your father's garage? You might find it a
convenience."
"Oh, no! I won't need it. I'll put it up at the mill house," he
answered with an effort at carelessness.
All the familiar objects that stood about them in the lamplight
seemed stiller and more solemn than usual, as if they were
holding their breath.
"I suppose you had better take the chickens over to your
mother's," Enid continued evenly. "But I shouldn't like them to
get mixed with her Plymouth Rocks; there's not a dark feather
among them now. Do ask Mother Wheeler to use all the eggs, and
not to let my hens set in the spring."
"In the spring?" Claude looked up from his plate.
"Of course, Claude. I could hardly get back before next fall, if
I'm to be of any help to poor Carrie. I might try to be home for
harvest, if that would make it more convenient for you." She rose
to bring in the dessert.
"Oh, don't hurry on my account!" he muttered, staring after her
disappearing figure.
Enid came back with the hot pudding and the after-dinner coffee
things. "This has come on us so suddenly that we must make our
plans at once," she explained. "I should think your mother would
be glad to keep Rose for us; she is such a good cow. And then you
can have all the cream you want."
He took the little gold-rimmed cup she held out to him. "If you
are going to be gone until next fall, I shall sell Rose," he
announced gruffly.
"But why? You might look a long time before you found another
like her."
"I shall sell her, anyhow. The horses, of course, are Father's;
he paid for them. If you clear out, he may want to rent this
place. You may find a tenant in here when you get back from
China." Claude swallowed his coffee, put down the cup, and went
into the front parlour, where he lit a cigar. He walked up and
down, keeping his eyes fixed upon his wife, who still sat at the
table in the circle of light from the hanging lamp. Her head,
bent forward a little, showed the neat part of her brown hair.
When she was perplexed, her face always looked sharper, her chin
longer.
"If you've no feeling for the place," said Claude from the other
room, "you can hardly expect me to hang around and take care of
it. All the time you were campaigning, I played housekeeper
here."
Enid's eyes narrowed, but she did not flush. Claude had never
seen a wave of colour come over his wife's pale, smooth cheeks.
"Don't be childish. You know I care for this place; it's our
home. But no feeling would be right that kept me from doing my
duty. You are well, and you have your mother's house to go to.
Carrie is ill and among strangers."
She began to gather up the dishes. Claude stepped quickly out
into the light and confronted her. "It's not only your going. You
know what's the matter with me. It's because you want to go. You
are glad of a chance to get away among all those preachers, with
their smooth talk and make-believe."
Enid took up the tray. "If I am glad, it's because you are not
willing to govern our lives by Christian ideals. There is
something in you that rebels all the time. So many important
questions have come up since our marriage, and you have been
indifferent or sarcastic about every one of them. You want to
lead a purely selfish life."
She walked resolutely out of the room and shut the door behind
her. Later, when she came back, Claude was not there. His hat and
coat were gone from the hat rack; he must have let himself out
quietly by the front door. Enid sat up until eleven and then went
to bed.
In the morning, on coming out from her bedroom, she found Claude
asleep on the lounge, dressed, with his overcoat on. She had a
moment of terror and bent over him, but she could not detect any
smell of spirits. She began preparations for breakfast, moving
quietly.
Having once made up her mind to go out to her sister, Enid lost
no time. She engaged passage and cabled the mission school. She
left Frankfort the week before Christmas. Claude and Ralph took
her as far as Denver and put her on a trans-continental express.
When Claude came home, he moved over to his mother's, and sold
his cow and chickens to Leonard Dawson. Except when he went to
see Mr. Royce, he seldom left the farm now, and he avoided the
neighbours. He felt that they were discussing his domestic
affairs,--as, of course, they were. The Royces and the Wheelers,
they said, couldn't behave like anybody else, and it was no use
their trying. If Claude built the best house in the
neighbourhood, he just naturally wouldn't live in it. And if he
had a wife at all, it was like him to have a wife in China!
One snowy day, when nobody was about, Claude took the big car and
went over to his own place to close the house for the winter and
bring away the canned fruit and vegetables left in the cellar.
Enid had packed her best linen in her cedar chest and had put the
kitchen and china closets in scrupulous order before she went
away. He began covering the upholstered chairs and the mattresses
with sheets, rolled up the rugs, and fastened the windows
securely. As he worked, his hands grew more and more numb and
listless, and his heart was like a lump of ice. All these things
that he had selected with care and in which he had taken such
pride, were no more to him now than the lumber piled in the shop
of any second-hand dealer.
How inherently mournful and ugly such objects were, when the
feeling that had made them precious no longer existed! The debris
of human life was more worthless and ugly than the dead and
decaying things in nature. Rubbish... junk... his mind
could not picture anything that so exposed and condemned all the
dreary, weary, ever-repeated actions by which life is continued
from day to day. Actions without meaning.... As he looked out
and saw the grey landscape through the gently falling snow, he
could not help thinking how much better it would be if people
could go to sleep like the fields; could be blanketed down under
the snow, to wake with their hurts healed and their defeats
forgotten. He wondered how he was to go on through the years
ahead of him, unless he could get rid of this sick feeling in his
soul.
At last he locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and went
over to the timber claim to smoke a cigar and say goodbye to the
place. There he soberly walked about for more than an hour, under
the crooked trees with empty birds' nests in their forks. Every
time he came to a break in the hedge, he could see the little
house, giving itself up so meekly to solitude. He did not believe
that he would ever live there again. Well, at any rate, the money
his father had put into the place would not be lost; he could
always get a better tenant for having a comfortable house there.
Several of the boys in the neighbourhood were planning to be
married within the year. The future of the house was safe. And
he? He stopped short in his walk; his feet had made an uncertain,
purposeless trail all over the white ground. It vexed him to see
his own footsteps. What was it--what WAS the matter with him?
Why, at least, could he not stop feeling things, and hoping? What
was there to hope for now?
He heard a sound of distress, and looking back, saw the barn cat,
that had been left behind to pick up her living. She was standing
inside the hedge, her jet black fur ruffled against the wet
flakes, one paw lifted, mewing miserably. Claude went over and
picked her up.
"What's the matter, Blackie? Mice getting scarce in the barn?
Mahailey will say you are bad luck. Maybe you are, but you can't
help it, can you?" He slipped her into his overcoat pocket.
Later, when he was getting into his car, he tried to dislodge her
and put her in a basket, but she clung to her nest in his pocket
and dug her claws into the lining. He laughed. "Well, if you are
bad luck, I guess you are going to stay right with me!"
She looked up at him with startled yellow eyes and did not even
mew.