A fortnight later, the dress-maker was called in haste to Barly Farm,
to sew coarse and fine linen, and a dress for Anna to be married in.
But it all had to be done within the week, towels, sheets,
pillow-cases, table-cloths, and aprons. "More than a body could sew in
a month," she declared. For Anna was going to have a baby. "Do what
you can," said Mrs. Barly, "and we'll have to get along with that."
And so we find Miss Beal at the farm by eight each morning, wishing the
day were longer, to enable her tongue to catch up to her fingers; for
she thought that she knew a thing or two, and could see what was
directly in front of her nose. "I'm nobody's fool," she said, as she
guided the cloth, snapped the thread, and rocked the treadle of the
sewing machine; and she sang to herself from morning to evening. As
the only songs she knew were from the hymnal, she sang, with a heart
overflowing with praise:
Ah how shall fallen man
Be just before his God?
If He contend in righteousness,
We sink beneath His rod. Amen.
or again:
Who place on Sion's God their trust
Like Sion's rock shall stand,
Like her immovable be fixed
By His almighty hand. Amen.
She was happy; it seemed to her that God, to whom she lifted up her
prayers, was wise and active, watching every sparrow. She was
satisfied that young folks were no better off than in her own day, but
might expect to find themselves, if they fell from grace, as wretched
as in the past. When Sara Barly had made the dress-maker comfortable
in the spare room, she went down to the kitchen in search of Anna. But
Anna was in the barn with Tabitha, the cat, whose new-born kittens
filled her with glee. Mrs. Barly stood in the middle of the kitchen,
as idle as her pots, and looked out through the window at the brown and
yellow fields. When she had tied her apron on, she felt dull and
tired; it seemed to her as if she were no longer virtuous, yet had not
received anything in return for what she had given. And because she
felt as if she had been cheated, she, also, lifted up her voice to God.
"Oh, God," she said, "all my life I never did anything like that."
By way of answer, she heard the low hum of the sewing machine, and the
alleluias of the dressmaker, singing as though she were in church.
Farmer Barly was down in the south pasture, with the schoolmaster's
friend, Mr. Tomkins; he wanted to put up a swinging gate between the
south field and the road. But all at once he felt like saying: "I
don't want a gate at all; I want a fence to shut people out." For when
he thought of Anna, in the gay autumn weather, he felt old and moldy.
"A bad year," said Mr. Tomkins; "still, I guess you're not worrying. I
understand you put a silo in your barn. But I suppose you have your
own reasons for doing it. A good year for cows, what with the grass.
I hear you're thinking of buying Crabbe's Jersey bull. A fine animal;
I'd like him myself."
"You're welcome to him," said Mr. Barly.
"Ah," said Mr. Tomkins, "he's beyond me, Mr. Barly, beyond my means.
I'm not a rich man. But I have my health."
"What are riches?" asked Mr. Barly. "They're a source of trouble, Mr.
Tomkins. They teach a young girl to waste her time."
"Well, trouble," said Mr. Tomkins.
"But what's trouble? Between you and me, a bit of trouble is good for
us all. Then we're liable to know better."
Mr. Barly shook his head wearily. "I don't know," he said; "folks are
queer crotchets."
"Why, then," said Mr. Tomkins, "so they are; and so would I be, as
crotchety as you like, if I owned anything beyond the | little I have."
"Small good it would do you," said Mr. Barly. "Life is a heavy cross,
having or not having, what with other people doing as they please."
And taking leave of Mr. Tomkins, he went home, thinking that in a world
where people robbed their neighbors, it were better not to possess
anything.
As he passed the potato patch, he heard Abner singing, without much
tune to his voice, a song he had learned in the army. "Ay," muttered
Mr. Barly, "go on--sing. You've learned that much, anyway. I may as
well sing, myself, for all the good I've ever had attending to my
business. I'll sing a good one; then I'll be right along with
everybody, and let come what may."
Anna, too, heard Abner singing, as she knelt in front of the basket
where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see,
Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in
the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh,
Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now look at me.
"I went out so grand," she said. "I was going to find all sorts of
things. But what did I find?"
At that moment, John Henry entered the barn, smoking his corncob pipe.
When the smell of smoke reached Anna, she grew weak and ill, and
stumbling back to the house, went upstairs to rest. But even to climb
the stairs made her catch her breath. Now, before breakfast of a
morning, she was deathly sick; afterwards she was tired, and ready to
cry over anything. Poor Anna; she was dumb with shame. "I'm worse
than Mrs. Wicket," she said to herself, over and over again. "I'm
worse than Mrs. Wicket. My life is ruined. I'd be better dead."
And what of honest Thomas? He was pale with fright. It seemed to him
as if the devil had reached up, and caught him by the leg. He was in
for it. But like a fly in a web, he could not believe that it was not
some other fly. "Oh, God," he prayed, "look down . . . say something
to me."
When Mr. Jeminy was told that Thomas Frye and Anna Barly were to be
married, he exclaimed: "What a shame.
"Yes," he continued with energy, "what a shame, Mrs. Grumble. They did
as they were bid. Now they know that love is a trap to catch the
young, and tie them up once and for all, close to the kitchen sink."
"No one bade them do what they'd no right to do," said Mrs. Grumble.
"They did," replied Mr. Jeminy sensibly, "only what they were meant to
do. Youth was not made for the chimney corner, Mrs. Grumble. And love
is not all one piece. We make it so, because we are timid and
indolent. We like to think that one rule fits everything; that
everything is simple and familiar. Even God, Mrs. Grumble, in your
opinion, is an old man, like myself."
"He is not," said Mrs. Grumble.
"Yes," continued Mr. Jeminy, "you believe that God is an old man,
insulted by everything. Now he has been insulted by Anna Barly, who
did as she had a mind to. Well, well . . ."
"No matter," said Mrs. Grumble comfortably, "there's the baby; you
can't get around that."
"Mrs. Grumble," said Mr. Jeminy earnestly, "I am going to Farmer Barly.
I am going to say to him, 'Let me have Anna's baby, and we'll say no
more about it.' Yes, that is what I am going to do."
"Well," gasped Mrs. Grumble, throwing herself back in her chair, "well,
I never . . . so that's it . . . I can tell you this: the day that
baby comes into this house, I go out of it. Why, who ever heard of
such a thing? No, indeed."
"There," she thought to herself, "that's what comes of people like Mrs.
Wicket."
"Mrs. Grumble," said Mr. Jeminy.
"I've no more to say," said Mrs. Grumble.
"Mrs. Grumble," pleaded Mr. Jeminy, "I am an old man. There is nothing
left for me to do in the world any more. I am sure you would be
pleased with Anna's baby. Let us do this much for youth; for the new
world."
"I declare," cried Mrs. Grumble, "you'll drive me clean out of my wits.
The new world . . . you mean Sodom and Gomorrah, more like. The new
world . . . sakes alive."
"Mrs. Grumble," said Mr. Jeminy, "the old world is dead and gone. Let
the young be free to build a new world. It will be happier than ours.
It will be a world of love, and candor. Perhaps it will be also a
world of poverty. That would not do any harm, Mrs. Grumble."
"A fine world," said Mrs. Grumble. "At least, I won't live to see much
of it, I've that to be thankful for."
"Finer than what it is," retorted Mr. Jeminy, losing his temper, "finer
than what it is. Not the same, sad pattern."
"The old pattern is good enough for me," replied Mrs. Grumble.
"You're a fossil," said Mr. Jeminy.
Then Mrs. Grumble raised her voice in prayer. "Lord," she prayed,
"don't let me forget myself. Because if I do . . ."
"Yes, that's it," cried Mr. Jeminy, "stop up your ears . . ." And out
he went in a rage. Mrs. Grumble, left alone, looked after him with
flashing eyes and a heaving bosom. "Oh," she breathed, "if I could
only lay my hands on him."
But when she did, at last, lay hands on him, it was not in the way she
looked for, as she sat rocking up and down, waiting for him to come
home again.