"ENNOBLED BY THE REFLECTED STORY OF
ANOTHER'S GOODNESS AND LOVE"
It was on a Saturday, three weeks after Mrs. Hunter's return, that
Elizabeth asked to make her first visit with the baby.
"Aunt Susan was here so much while I was sick, John, that I feel that we
must go to see them to-morrow."
"Oh, my goodness!" John replied, stepping to the cupboard to put away the
pile of plates in his hands. "I'm tired enough to stay at home."
They had just finished washing the supper dishes together, and Elizabeth
considered as she emptied the dishpan and put it away. She had been
refused so often that she rather expected it, and yet she had thought by
the cordiality with which John had always treated Aunt Susan that he would
be reasonable about this visit now that she was able, and the baby old
enough to go out.
Elizabeth was never clear about a difficulty, nor had her defences well in
hand upon the first occasion. With those she loved, and with John in
particular, any offence had to be repeated over and over again before she
could protect herself. She felt her way slowly and tried to preserve her
ideals; she tried to be fair. She could not tell quickly what to do about
a situation; she took a long time to get at her own attitudes and
understand them, and it took her still longer to get at the real
intentions of others. As she brought out her cold-boiled potatoes and
began to peel them for breakfast, she reflected that Aunt Susan had come
as regularly to see them as if she had always been well treated, until
Mrs. Hunter's coming. At that point the visits had dropped off.
"Baby is nearly three months old, and I promised Aunt Susan that I'd take
him to see her the first place I took him. We owe it to her, and I'm not
going to neglect her any more. We can leave a dinner of cold chicken and
pies for the men, and I'll get a hot supper for them when I come home. I'd
like to start about ten o'clock."
It sounded so much as if it were all settled that the girl felt that it
really was.
"That leaves mother here alone all day, and I'm not going to do it," John
returned with equal assurance.
"Mother can go with us. I should want her to do that, and I'm sure Aunt
Susan would."
Mrs. Hunter was passing through the room with the broom and dustpan and
paused long enough to say pleasantly:
"Don't count on me, children. I'll take care of myself and get the men a
hot dinner besides. I'd just as soon."
"We'd like to have you go, mother, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would want us
to bring you," Elizabeth replied with a little catch in her breath. If
Mrs. Hunter refused to go, John would not take her if she begged on her
knees.
"No, I don't want to go. I'll get the dinner though, and you needn't hurry
back." She went on upstairs contentedly and with the feeling that she had
arranged the matter to everybody's liking.
"Let her get the dinner then," Elizabeth said, exasperated. "I'll leave
everything ready for it."
"I shall not go and leave her alone all day. She has a hard enough time
out on this farm without getting the feeling that we care as little as
that for her comfort. Besides that, the buggy is not mended yet."
"We can go in the lumber wagon. We didn't have a buggy till long after we
were engaged," Elizabeth said, not going into the matter of leaving his
mother at home, which she knew would be useless.
"I should think you'd want to rest when you did get a chance. You talk all
the time about having too much to do," John replied evasively.
"I wouldn't get any rest," Elizabeth replied quickly. "I'd get a
dinner--that's what I'd have to do if I stayed at home. I'd be on my feet
three solid hours and then have to nurse the baby. That's the rest I'd
have."
"The devil!" was the answer she got as John went out.
The weeks flew past, and still Elizabeth served hot dinners and mourned in
secret over Susan Hornby's neglected kindness. Aunt Susan had been
cheerful as well as discreet during those weeks when she had helped them.
She had been so happy over the evident friendliness of John Hunter that
she had felt sure that the old cordiality was to be resumed.
After what seemed to Elizabeth endless weeks, a curious circumstance aided
her in getting to Aunt Susan's in the end. Mrs. Hunter, who was not
greatly concerned about her disappointment, heard constant reference to
Mrs. Hornby's assistance at the time of the baby's coming, and knowing
that there would be discussion of their neglect to her in the
neighbourhood, joined authoritatively in Elizabeth's entreaty the next
time it was mentioned, thereby accomplishing through fear of gossip a
thing which no amount of coaxing on Elizabeth's part could ever have done,
and at last the trip was to be made.
Susan Hornby's home was so unchanged in the year that Elizabeth had been
gone that, but for the baby in her arms, she could hardly have realized
that she had been away. Aunt Susan sent her to the bedroom with the wraps
when they were taken off. It was the same little room the girl had
occupied for half that year, the same rag carpet, the same mended rocking
chair which had come to grief in the cyclone, and the knitted tidy which
the girl herself had made. With the hot tears running down her cheeks the
girl-mother threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in the baby's
wraps to stifle the cry she was afraid would escape her. In the sanctuary
of her girlhood's highest hopes, Elizabeth sobbed out her disappointments
and acknowledged to herself that life had tricked her into a sorry network
of doubts and unsettled mysteries. For the first time she sunk her pride
and let Susan think what she would of her prolonged absence, and went
openly to the kitchen to bathe her face in Nathan's familiar tin basin. A
sudden suspicion of John's reception at Nathan's hands made it possible to
go back to Aunt Susan with a smile on her lips.
Indeed, Elizabeth's suspicions were so far true that they were a
certainty. Nathan, by Luther's marriage to a woman the old man suspected
of every evil, had cut himself off from every friend. Nathan had been
thrown in upon himself and had pondered and nursed his suspicions of all
men, and of John Hunter in particular. He finished the milking without
offering to go into the house; and John, who had insisted upon coming at
night instead of on a Sunday, was obliged to stand around the cow stable
and wait, or go to the house alone. He chose the former course and was
made happy by the arrival of Jake, who had not known where his employer
was going when his team was hitched to the wagon.
"I've just been over to Luther's, Mrs. Hornby," Jake said when they
finally stood around Aunt Susan's fire. "Did you know Sadie was sick?
Luther's awful good to 'er, but I know she'd be glad t' see a woman body
about once in a while."
"Wisht she'd die an' get out of th' way," Nathan Hornby said bitterly. "A
body could see Luther once in a while then 'thout havin' 'is words cut up
an' pasted together some new way for passin' round."
No one spoke, and Nathan felt called upon to defend his words.
"I don't care! It's a God's pity t' have a woman like that carry off th'
best man this country's ever had, an' then fix up every word 'is friends
says t' him so's t' make trouble."
Nathan's whole bitter longing for companionship was laid bare. Elizabeth's
eyes filled with tears; Elizabeth was lonely also.
The call was a short one. John moved early to go home and there was
nothing to do but give way. It was not till the next day that Elizabeth
suspected that Nathan's remarks had offended John Hunter, and then in
spite of her eagerness to keep the peace between the two men, she laughed
aloud. She was also somewhat amused at the insistence on a call upon Sadie
which John wanted that she should make. The perfect frankness of his
announcement that Luther was a convenient neighbour, and that they must
pay neighbourly attention to illness, when he had never encouraged her to
go for any other reason, was a new viewpoint from which the young wife
could observe the workings of his mind. Something about it subtracted from
her faith in him, and in life.
While she was still washing the dinner dishes John came in to discuss the
visit. Elizabeth was athrob with the weariness of a half day spent at the
ironing table, and to avoid dressing the baby had asked Mrs. Hunter to
take care of him.
With no other visible reason but his customary obstinacy, John insisted
upon the child being taken.
"I've got to get back early and get the coloured clothes folded down.
Every one of the boys had a white shirt and two or three collars this
week, so I asked mother to keep him for me," Elizabeth said.
"Now see here," John argued. "Mother 'll fold those clothes and you can
just as well take him along and make a decent visit. They're the nicest
people in the country, according to some of the neighbours."
Elizabeth's laugh nettled her husband. When he appeared with the wagon,
she was ready, with the baby in her arms.
The wind was keen and cold, the laprobes flew and fluttered in derisive
refusal to be tucked in.
"Take the buggy in and have it mended the next time you go to town," she
said, with her teeth chattering, as they drew near to Luther's home. "I
want to go up to see ma before long and it's almost impossible to keep a
baby covered on this high seat." She thought a while and then added, "I
haven't been home since I was married."
"I shouldn't think you'd ever want to go," John replied ungraciously.
Tears of anger as well as mortification filled her eyes, and her throat
would not work. It was to stop gossip as much as to see her mother that
the girl desired to make the visit. The world was right: John was not
proud of her.
The sight of the "shanty" as they turned the corner near Luther's place
brought a new train of thought. Dear, kindly, sweet-souled Luther! The
world disapproved of his marriage too. He was coming toward them now, his
ragged overcoat blowing about him as he jumped over the ridges made by the
plow in turning out the late potatoes he had been digging.
"You carry the baby in for Lizzie, an' I'll tie these horses," he said,
beaming with cordiality. "Got caught with Sadie's sickness an' let half
th' potatoes freeze 's hard 's brickbats."
It was so cold that Elizabeth did not stand to ask about Sadie, but turned
to the house to escape the blast.
"I'll come for you at five if I can get back. I'm going over to see about
some calves at Warren's," John said as they went up the path.
"Is that why you insisted that I bring the baby? You needn't have been
afraid to tell me; you do as you please anyhow."
"H-s-sh! Here comes Hansen," John Hunter said warningly, and turned back
to the wagon, giving the child into Luther's arms at the door.
Luther Hansen cuddled the child warmly to him and without waiting to go in
the house raised the white shawl from its sleeping face for a peep at it.
"We lost ours," he said simply.
The house sheltered them from the wind, and Elizabeth stopped and looked
up at him in astonishment.
"You don't mean it? I--I didn't know you were expecting a child, Luther.
I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known."
The expression of sympathy escaped her unconsciously. Elizabeth would
always want to know of Luther's joys and sorrows.
A glad little light softened the pain in his face, and he looked at her
with a steady gaze, discerning the feeling of sound friendship behind the
words.
"I believe you are," he said, expressing the confirmation of a thing he
had never doubted. "I ain't askin' you any questions, Lizzie, I just
know--that's all."
With something like a glow about his heart, he opened the door of his
simple dwelling. He had never doubted her, nor believed the nonsense he
had heard about her, but he had just had his faith refreshed. He carried
the baby to the one little bedroom of his house, scuffing a wooden rocking
chair behind him across the rough floor. He established Elizabeth in it
beside Sadie, and then placing the sleeping child in its mother's arms
went back to the potato field, hurrying his work to finish before dark. He
understood in a measure why this was Elizabeth's first visit to them, and
he did not resent it. Luther never resented. He lived his own kindly,
industrious life. If people did not like Sadie he accepted it as a fact,
but not as a thing to be aggrieved about. He could wait for Sadie to grow,
and others must wait also. In the meantime, Luther watched Elizabeth and
desired growth for her; her smallest movement was of interest to him.
Elizabeth as a mother was a new feature. He remembered the deft way she
had nestled the baby to her as he had relinquished it a few moments
before, and thought with a sigh, of the cowhide-covered trunk filled with
little garments under the bed by which she sat. Not even Sadie knew what
the loss of that first child meant to Luther. A new love for women's ways
with babies grew up in him as he thought of Elizabeth's cuddling.
In the house, Elizabeth was getting into touch with the young mother who
was childless. Sadie, in spite of a determination not to do so, was
warming to that touch reluctantly. After all, it was pleasant to be
telling Elizabeth about it, and to have her asking as if she wanted to
know.
"Yes--I took bad about a week ago," she was saying. "I'd been kind of
miserable for several days. I got a fall that last rain we had, an' I
didn't seem t' get over it."
"I'd have come sooner if I'd known it," Elizabeth said, thinking of
Luther's acceptance of a similar statement. "Jake didn't even tell us last
night what was the matter."
"I guess he didn't know. Would you 'a' come if you'd 'a' known, Lizzie?"
Before Elizabeth could reply, she continued, "Ma used t' think it'd be
kind o' nice for me t' live close t' you, but I knew you wouldn't never
come t' see me. I used t' be kind o' jealous cause Luther liked you s'
much. I said everything mean I could think of about you, t' him--but law!
Luther ain't got no pride. He don't care. He defends you from everybody,
whether you come t' see us 'r not."
It was a curious little confession and one Sadie had not intended to make.
Something big and sweet in Elizabeth had forced it from her. It
embarrassed Elizabeth Hunter, and it held things which could not be
discussed, and she turned the subject without answering.
"When did you lose the baby?"
"Oh, it only lived a couple of hours. You see it was too soon an'--an' it
wasn't right. Th' doctor didn't expect it t' live as long as it did, but
Luther would have it that it could, an' kept 'em a tryin' everything that
could be thought of."
Sadie's voice died away gradually and she lay looking out of the window
retrospectively: the last two weeks had brought food for much thinking.
"I didn't know, Lizzie, that a man could be as good as Luther. I'd always
kind o' hated men, an' I thought I'd have t' fight my way through, like
th' rest of th' women, an'--an'--he's that good an' thoughtful of me, an'
of everybody else, that I'm clean ashamed of myself half th' time. He
nearly had a fit when' he found out that I'd slipped with that wood. 'Twas
ironing day, an' th' box got empty--an' then, when th' baby died, it just
seemed as if he couldn't stand it."
She looked up at Elizabeth earnestly: "I never heard any one but th'
preacher pray out loud, Lizzie, an'--an'--somehow--well," she stumbled,
"Luther prayed so sweet, when he see it was gone--I--I ain't thought of
much else since. It--it seemed like th' baby'd done something good t' both
of us."
The spiteful, pettish face was for the moment ennobled by the reflected
glory of another's goodness and love. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a
condition which makes heaven here upon earth. There was the harmony here
in the "shanty" such as she coveted and strove in vain to establish in her
own home. Of course there would be harmony where Luther Hansen was
concerned: Luther _was_ harmony. Ignoring his part in the little drama,
she was wise enough to touch the other side of the story in her reply.
"These little ones bring blessings all their own, Sadie," she said, giving
the hand on the patchwork quilt a little squeeze.
There was that in the impulsive little touch which was to be a lasting
reminder to Sadie Hansen that Elizabeth Hunter responded to the things
which were making of her life a different story. They had found common
ground, where neither scoffed at the other.
"Did your baby make you feel that way?" she asked earnestly.
* * * * *
When Luther came at five o'clock to say that John was waiting he found
them, at peace, with the baby between them.
Luther tucked Elizabeth and her child into the unprotected wagon seat with
concern.
"This wind's a tartar. Pull th' covers down tight over its face, Lizzie.
What's become of th' buggy, Hunter?"
Luther saw Elizabeth's face harden in a sudden contraction of pain, and
glanced across at John, but whatever there was about it that hurt belonged
to Elizabeth alone, for John Hunter pulled at the flapping laprobes
without seeming to have heard clearly and evidently thinking that the
remark was addressed to his wife. Dusk was falling, and Luther watched
them drive away with a premonition of trouble as the night seemed to close
in about them. He turned his back to the wind and stood humped over,
peering through the evening at their disappearing forms. He saw Elizabeth
snatch at the corner of the robe as they turned into the main road, and
dug his own hands deeper into his pockets with his attention turned from
Elizabeth and her possible trouble to that of the child.
"Hope th' little feller don't ketch cold." He turned to the house filled
with his vision of a baby being cuddled close in a mother's arms, and with
a new understanding of the comfort of such cuddling. His breath flew
before him in a frosty stream when he entered the kitchen, and he hastened
to build a fire and set the teakettle on to heat. He lighted a lamp and
set it on a chair, and also stirred the fire in the little stove in
Sadie's room before he went to milk.
"Wisht Lizzie'd come oftener. Wonder why she don't. She don't seem near as
stuck-up as she used to. Say, Luther, Lizzie told me th' queerest thing:
she says th' way a mother feels before a baby's born makes a difference.
She says if a woman's mean before a child comes It'll make th' young one
mean too. She told a lot of things that showed it's true, about folks we
know? I wonder how she learns everything? Ain't she smart! I wisht she'd
come oftener. Say, if I ever get that way again----" The sentence was
unfinished.
"Wisht ours 'd 'a' lived," Luther said longingly.
"Did Lizzie's baby make you feel that way too?"
Luther went to milk with a song in his heart. The little word "too" told
more than all the discussions they had ever had. Sadie had not been
pleased about the coming of the child they had lost.
"If I could get 'em together more," he said wistfully. "It was a good
thing t' have 'er see Lizzie an' 'er baby together. I hope th' little Tad
don't ketch cold. That laprobe didn't stay tucked in very well."
As he rose from milking the last cow, his mind went back to his visitors.
"Somethin' hurt Lizzie about th' buggy 'r somethin'--she's too peaked for
her, too."
Luther's premonitions about the Hunter baby were only too well founded.
The cold was not serious, but there was a frightened skirmish for hot
water and lubricants before morning. The hoarse little cough gave way
under the treatment, but the first baby's first cold is always a thing of
grave importance to inexperienced parents, and Elizabeth knew that her
chances of getting to go home, or any other place, that winter, were
lessened. Her growing fear of neighbourhood criticism outgrew her fear of
refusal, however, and at the end of the next week she reminded her husband
that she had planned to take the child to see her mother.
"You may be willing to take that child out again; I'm not," he replied
severely.
* * * * *
A bright idea struck Elizabeth's imagination after she had gone to bed
that night. Why not ask her own family, the Chamberlains, Aunt Susan's,
and Luther Hansen's to a Thanksgiving dinner? She was so elated by the
idea that she could hardly get to sleep at all, and before she could
settle herself to rest she had killed in her imagination the half dozen or
more turkeys she had raised that season. A big dinner given to those who
could act as mouthpieces would silence a lot of talk; also, it would take
away a certain questioning look the girl feared in Luther's and Aunt
Susan's eyes. The latter was the sorest point of her married life, and the
conviction that they were thinking much worse things than were true did
not make her any more comfortable. All Sunday she planned, and Sunday
night went to bed with the first secret thought she had ever harboured
from her husband's knowledge.
Mrs. Hunter entered into the plan with zest when on Monday afternoon it
became necessary to tell her. She had begun to love her son's wife in
spite of her family history. Had Elizabeth known how to manage it she
could have made of John's mother a comfortable ally, but Elizabeth, with
characteristic straightforwardness, sought no alliance except the natural
one with her husband. The two women planned the articles to be served in
the dinner, and then turned to the discussion of other preparations about
the house. Elizabeth was proud of the home of which she was a part, but
her strength was limited since baby's coming, and after looking about her
critically decided that there would be no necessity for any more cleaning
than the regular weekly amount.
"We'll have to get the cleaning done on Wednesday instead of Friday, but I
think that will be all that will be needed. The carpets were put down
fresh the week before you came home, and I don't intend to take them up
again till spring."
"I think so," Mrs. Hunter agreed, "but You'll have to have the curtains in
the dining room washed, and the tidies and pillow-shams done up fresh."
"Now, mother!" Elizabeth exclaimed, "don't begin to lay out work I can't
get done. The tidies are not hard, and I could do the shams, but those
curtains are not to be thought of. I'd be so tired if I had to go to work
and wash all that, after the washing I put on the line to-day, that I just
wouldn't be able to get the dinner on the table Thursday. Talking about
the dinner, I think we'd better have two turkeys. I can roast two by
putting them in the one big pan."
Mrs. Hunter was willing that the younger woman should prove her talent as
a cook, but she planned to take some of the necessary things upon her own
shoulders, and to take her son into her schemes for brightening things up
a bit. Accordingly, the next morning she asked John to help her take the
curtains down.
Elizabeth had been so full of her own plans that she had forgotten to tell
John's mother that she intended to keep them secret till she had all her
preparations made. The next morning when she heard the thud of some one
stepping down from a chair, and her husband say: "There you are! How do
you happen to be taking the curtains down at this time of the week?" she
realized as she had never done before how much afraid of him she really
was, for her pulses bounded, and her ears boomed like cannon, long before
John had time to appear in the door to inquire who was coming, and why
they were to do so.
With a look very much like guilt, Elizabeth told over the names of her
proposed guests, but with Mrs. Hunter in the next room she could not tell
him why it meant so much to her to ask these people to dine with them.
The customary protest was offered without delay.
"I don't believe I'd do it, dear. Thanksgiving is a day for home folks,
not neighbours, and, besides, see all the work it will make."
"The work is just what we choose to make it. If I'd known mother was going
to clean house I wouldn't have said anything about it," Elizabeth answered
sullenly.
"Sh!" John Hunter said in a low tone and with a look of anger that was
direct and full of meaning.
Elizabeth was ready to cry. She was angry. In every move she made she was
checkmated; not because it was not a good move, but because it was hers.
She could readily have given up any one thing as it came along, but the
true meaning and spirit of these interferences were beginning to dawn upon
her. However, once more she yielded to the unreasonable wishes of her
husband and the dinner was given up. She made no attempt to finish the
mincemeat they had planned to chop after dinner, but after putting the
baby to sleep threw a shawl about her and slipping out of the house ran to
the barn and down the creek in the pasture while John was helping his
mother rehang the freshly ironed curtains.
They were only having two meals a day now that the corn was all picked,
and dinner came so late in the afternoon that there was already a blaze of
sunset colour in the west as she passed around the barn and started down
the bank of the stream. The sun had set, but was still reflected on the
heaps of billowy gray clouds just above the horizon. It made the snow in
front of her a delicate pink. The girl had not got far enough from the
house to see a sunset for months. The freshness and keenness of the air,
the colours in the sky, the grandeur and sublimity of it all chased away
her anger and left her in a mood to reason over her situation. She
followed the cow-path down to the bed of the stream and then threaded her
way along its winding route for a greater distance than she had ever gone
before. A broken willow barred her way after a time, and she climbed up on
its swaying trunk and let her feet dangle over the frozen streamlet below.
The snow made lighter than usual the early evening and extended the time
she could safely stay so far from the house.
The colours faded rapidly from the sky and the bewildered girl returned to
her own affairs, which were puzzling enough. Of late she had found herself
unable to maintain her enthusiasm. She found herself increasingly
irritable--from her standpoint the one thing most to be despised in others
and which she had supposed most impossible in herself. There were so many
unforeseen possibilities within herself that she devoted her entire
attention to her own actions and impulses, and was completely drawn away
from the consideration of the motives of others by her struggle with the
elemental forces in which she found herself engulfed. The temper aroused
by John's objection to her Thanksgiving company had indications in spite
of the fact that she had controlled it. Elizabeth knew that she had but
barely kept her speech within the limits of kindliness and consideration
for Mrs. Hunter, who had not wished to frustrate her plans at all, and she
knew that she would be less likely to do so if the offence were repeated.
She knew that Mrs. Hunter tried with real honesty of purpose to keep on
good terms with her, and yet she also knew that she was increasingly
annoyed with whatever she did. There was an element of unfairness in her
attitude toward the older woman which alarmed her.
"I'm just like pa, after all," she thought as she swung her feet and
looked in a troubled way down at the frozen stream below.
Elizabeth reflected that when Aunt Susan, or Silas, or Luther Hansen came
into the house she became instantly her own buoyant, optimistic self: not
that she intentionally feigned such feelings for the benefit of her
company, but she felt the presence of trust, of faith in herself and her
powers. She did not recognize that such trust was necessary to the
unfoldment of character, nor even that it was her birthright.
The girl watched the gathering twilight and deliberately let the time pass
without attempting to return to the house until compelled to do so by real
darkness, realizing that some beneficial thing was happening in her in
this free out-of-doors place, for she was less annoyed and more analytical
with each breath she drew in it.
"If only I'd take time to do this sort of thing I'd be more as I ought to
be," she meditated when she had at last risen to go home. "I won't be like
pa! I won't! I won't!" she reiterated many times as she walked back, over
the frozen cow-path. "I'll come here every few days. Ma and pa were born
to be happy, only they never took time to be."
And though John was cross because the baby had cried in her absence,
Elizabeth felt that she had been helped by getting away from him. She
accepted her husband's reproaches without reply, and was able to forget
them even while they were still issuing from his mouth. She kept her
temper down all that week, and though the Thanksgiving invitations were
not sent, she cooked the dinner and put as many hours into its concoction
as if she had had all the people she had hoped to have about her board to
eat it, and she was so sunny and natural as she served it that John did
not even guess that she was governing herself consciously. She stayed at
home the next Sunday and the next, and John Hunter was unaware that she
was endeavouring to surrender herself to his will.
"She'll get over wanting to run somewhere all the time," he told his
mother, and Mrs. Hunter, to whom these people were not pleasing, agreed
with him, and thought that it was just as well if it were so, not
realizing that the girl lived alone in their house and that she might have
an attitude toward these people distinctly different from theirs.
This winter, like the preceding one, passed with Elizabeth at home. There
was no peace to be had if she thought of going anywhere for any purpose
whatever. Elizabeth went nowhere and required few clothes. The cold the
child had caught on that first trip to Luther's was sufficient excuse to
prevent any further foolishness on the part of its mother. However, a trip
to town was in waiting for Elizabeth Hunter and was proposed by John
Hunter himself.
There had been a "warm spell" in the month of February and John had asked
Elizabeth to help him with the pump in the barnyard, which had been
working badly for days. It was Saturday evening, and Jake and the other
hired man had been granted time off that day; the pump had refused to work
at all after they were gone, and with a hundred cattle waiting for water
it was necessary to impress any one available with the duty of helping.
Elizabeth was more than willing to help: it meant a couple of hours out of
doors. They had worked industriously and their efforts were about crowned
with success when Mrs. Hunter came out to them with the baby wrapped in a
warm shawl. John tossed aside the extra piece of leather he had cut from
the top of an old boot and fitted the round piece in his hand about the
sucker.
"Now, mother, you shouldn't bring that child out here; You'll have him
sick on our hands again," he said.
"Oh, lots of children go out of doors in winter. I took you out whenever I
wanted to, and you've lived to tell the tale," his mother said easily,
seating herself on the end of the trough.
"Well, I don't want anything to happen to him for a few days, I can tell
you. I want you to keep him and let Elizabeth go in to town with me and
sign the mortgage on this eighty, Monday," John replied, examining the
valve with great attention.
"Why, I thought this eighty was already mortgaged!" Mrs. Hunter
exclaimed.
"Well, it is," John replied uneasily, "but I've got to raise the interest
before I can get that bunch of shoats ready to sell, and I've got to do it
that way."
He did not look at either of the two women, but kept himself very busy
about the rod and sucker he was manipulating.
Mrs. Hunter seldom remarked upon anything that was done about the farm,
but this was surprising news. _A second mortgage_ on part of the land! She
had just opened her mouth to speak, when she happened to glance across at
her daughter-in-law. Elizabeth's face was white. Something in it implored
Mrs. Hunter to go away, to leave them to have the matter out together, and
the older woman took her cue from it and went with a haste which caused
her son to look up from the piston with which he fumbled.
"She's gone to the house; I motioned to her to go," Elizabeth announced.
"She don't know much about mortgages, but she knows this won't do. You
told me last week that the hogs would be ready in time. My soul alive,
John! do you realize what you are doing? This is the home-eighty! What's
happened to the hogs?"
"Say, look here! If I want to mortgage this eighty, I'm going to do it.
Those hogs are just where it pays to feed them. If I sell now, I'll lose
half the profits."
John got up and faced her ready to fight, if fight he must on this
question. He had chosen an opportune time to tell it, but he meant to do
as he wished about those hogs and the land and whatever else they
possessed. He hated to open a discussion, but he did not hate to continue
one after he had made the plunge. He had feasible reasons for all that he
did.
Elizabeth saw that he meant to insist and she resented the deception he
had practised in securing this loan without telling her, but the danger
was so great that she could not afford to let her feelings blind her, nor
to put the thing in a bad light by seeming to wrangle about it. She looked
at him steadily, so steadily, in fact, that John was disconcerted. The
work in hand gave excuse for withdrawing his eyes and Elizabeth watched
him arrange the knot of the rope so that they could lower the pipe back
into the well. The girl did not begin to speak at once: she marshalled her
forces and considered what manner of argument she would put forth. She
knew that every piece of land they possessed except the Mitchell County
pastures was covered with one third of its value in incumbrances. If the
interest was hard to meet now, what would it be three years hence? She had
come to understand that the man she had married was not a farmer. She
helped him lower the long pipe into the well, and watched him try the pump
handle to see if the sucker would work. It was slow in drawing, and she
filled a small pail from the trough and poured it into the pump head.
After a few sputtering strokes the water began to come freely, and then
she had to wait for the pumping to stop before she could make herself
heard above its rumblings.
John Hunter knew perfectly well that Elizabeth was waiting and prolonged
the work till the great trough was full. When it began to overflow and
there was no further need for drawing water, he turned abruptly toward the
gate where the cattle were. Elizabeth had waited in the frosty air till
she was chilled from standing and could not remain for the stock to drink
before she had a chance to go to the house.
"I want to talk to you before those cattle come out here," she said, more
hurt by his avoidance of her now than she had been by the original
deception; he was really ignoring her as a factor in their mutual affairs.
"I have to protest against this mortgage, John. We ought to keep a small
home free at least, and instead of putting more on this eighty we ought to
sell enough of the stuff to pay off on this part. Every farmer in this
country has his nose on the interest grindstone, and my life has been
spoiled with it ever since I can remember. Please, dear, let's not put a
second mortgage on this eighty."
In her anxiety to get John's attention Elizabeth went forward and put her
hand on his arm, forgetting in her earnestness the slight he had just
shown toward her in ignoring her claims to a voice in the matter.
John Hunter shook off the detaining hand impatiently.
"If you're going to run this business you may as well do it without my
help and I'll quit," he said, his body braced away from her with the plain
intimation that he preferred that she should not touch him.
Elizabeth hesitated. Her impulse was to turn and leave him without further
words, but the farm, their future comfort, the whole scheme of family
peace and harmony depended upon obtaining a hearing.
"I don't want to run things--really, I do not. I've never tried to, but
I've lived on a farm, and I know how impossible it is ever to raise a
mortgage if you get it on a place. I--let's sell enough to raise the one
we have on this eighty while we can, instead. I'm willing to live on a
little; but, oh, John, I do so want to have one place that is our own."
"There's money in those cattle," John answered sullenly. "A woman don't
know anything about such things. You'll go and get mother started on it
too, I suppose. I'm going to do as I see fit about it, anyhow. I know
there's money to be made there."
With a great sob in her throat, Elizabeth turned to the house.
"Look here, Elizabeth," John called after her peremptorily.
Elizabeth stopped respectfully to listen, but she did not return to his
side. John waited, thinking she would come to him.
"Cattle ain't like ordinary farming," he argued with a flush of anger. "A
man simply has to take time to let steers grow into money. We haven't been
at it a long enough time. Those big steers will be ready to feed this
fall, and corn's going to be cheap. We'd be cutting off our noses to spite
our own faces to sell now."
"Perhaps," the girl replied bitterly, and went on to the house.
She knew that John had argued with the hope of getting her to admit
herself in the wrong, not to hear her side of the case.
John Hunter gazed after his retreating wife in vexed petulance for a
moment and then, with a sigh of relief, turned toward the waiting cattle.
"She'll be ready when I want to go to town all the same," he reflected.