FACING CONSEQUENCES
The next Sunday John was thrown in upon Elizabeth for entertainment. He
had been a little more tender with her since the funeral, reflecting that
women were easily upset by death and that this death had been particularly
tragic in its sadness and disturbing features. He missed Hugh, and an
intangible something about the will made him uncomfortable; but they would
be rich in time and he could simply oversee the business, and life would
be more satisfactory. If he thought of Luther and Nathan as witnesses, the
thought was made partially acceptable since they could see that Hugh had
placed the property in his, John Hunter's, hands. When the uncomfortable
things wormed their way forward and would be considered, he tried to
reason them out. Some features of it could be accounted for; for instance,
he, John Hunter, had probably not been consulted by Hugh for legal
reasons, since the money was to come to them. Hugh must have considered
that. But Elizabeth had known! He had forgotten that. Right there John
went into a brown study. Had she known before Hugh's death? It was queer,
but she never mentioned Hugh these days, nor the will, nor--no, she did
not speak of the letter, much less offer to show it to him. Still, the
money was theirs. That was the solid rock under John Hunter's feet.
Whatever else happened, the money was theirs. Now he could open out and
farm on a scale befitting a man of his parts. They would make something
yet. This farming venture had not turned out so badly after all.
A slight rain was falling, the first in two months, two of the most
important months in the year; but it was only a drizzle and not enough to
benefit the corn, which--even the last planting--was ruined. The heat and
drought had forced a premature ripening, and the stubby ears, fully
formed, were empty of developing grains, except near the butts. It was
discouraging to lose the corn, and John, to take the place of the
shortened crop, had had a field plowed and sewed to millet. A promise of
rain meant a probable crop of that substitute for the heavier grain, but
it must be rain, not a mere shower. Disappointed at the stingy display of
water, John wandered about the house, disturbed by Jack's noise, and
irritably uncomfortable.
"Come on in and sit down," he urged when he saw that Elizabeth intended to
help Hepsie with the dishes.
"All right. Let the work go, Hepsie, and I'll do it later," Elizabeth said
quietly. She dreaded an hour with John when he was in that mood, but there
seemed to be no help for it.
The two women cleared the dinner table and righted the dining room before
they stopped, then Elizabeth closed the kitchen door and left the
dishwashing till she could get away from the conference requested. Hepsie
had hurried to get started early for her home and Elizabeth had entered
into her plans and offered assistance.
"Why don't you let Hepsie finish them alone?" John said petulantly.
Elizabeth made no reply, but took Jack on her lap and rocked him to keep
herself occupied. There was less opportunity for disagreement if the child
were still while his father talked.
"If this rain'd only get busy we'd have a crop of millet yet," John began.
"Corn's going to be mighty high and scarce this fall."
Elizabeth did not reply; something in the air warned her to let John do
the talking. She had ceased to enter into conversation with him unless
something vital made it necessary to speak. The vital thing was not long
in forthcoming. The whimsical weather made him depressed and kept his mind
on the gloomy crop outlook.
"Confound this beastly drizzle! If it'd only get down to business and rain
we'd pull out yet. There'll be corn to buy for the cattle and the very
devil to pay everywhere. I've got to lengthen out the sheds over those
feeders--it hurried the cattle to get around them last winter--and here's
all these extra expenses lately. There's no way out of it--we've got to
put a mortgage on that west eighty. I'll take up the horse note in that
case, and Johnson's offering that quarter section so cheap that I think
I'll just make the loan big enough to cover the first payment and take it
in. We'll never get it as cheap again."
Elizabeth's eyes were wide open now, but she considered a moment before
she began to speak.
"We can't do that," she said slowly at last. "We're out of debt, except
your personal note for the five hundred and the one for the team. It won't
do to mortgage again."
"But we'll have to mortgage, with the crop short, and all those cattle!"
he exclaimed.
"Sell a part of them as grass cattle, and use the money to buy corn for
the rest," she advised.
"Grass cattle are soft and don't weigh down like corn-fed steers. It would
be sheer waste," John insisted.
Elizabeth understood that right now they were to test their strength. She
thought it over carefully, not speaking till she had decided what to say.
The old path of mortgages and interest meant the old agony of dread of
pay-day and the heart eaten out of every day of their existence, and yet
she was careful not to rush into discussion. Her voice became more quiet
as she felt her way in the debate.
"You are right as far as you go, grass cattle do not sell for as much,
but, on the other hand, a loan means interest, and there is always a
chance of the loss of a steer or two and then the profit is gone and you
have your mortgage left. Luther said yesterday that they had black-leg
over north of home, and you know how contagious it is."
"Oh, Luther! Of course Luther knows all there is to know about anything,"
sneered her husband, to whom Luther was a sore point just now.
Elizabeth realized her mistake in mentioning Luther's name to John almost
before it was out of her mouth. John's instincts made him bluster and get
off the subject of business and on to that of personalities at once. She
did not reply to the taunt, but went quietly back to the point of
business.
"The price of corn," she said with perfect control, "will go way up after
this dry weather, but the price of beef doesn't always rise in proportion.
Besides that, this is a bad year to get tied up in the money market."
"We're going to have to do it all the same," John replied, spurred on by
the mention of Luther's name to compel her consent.
"But, we can't do it. Hugh especially directed in his letter that we must
not go into debt."
"I have not had the honour of seeing Hugh's letter to you, and therefore I
do not know," John returned. That was another sore point.
"So you didn't! Doctor Morgan read it to all the rest."
Elizabeth had forgotten that John had not heard the letter read, and rose
promptly and went for it. She laid it on the table at his elbow when she
returned saying:
"I had forgotten--you didn't hear it when the doctor read it that day."
John Hunter brushed it aside with his arm.
"I don't wish to see it, thank you."
The letter fell on the floor. Elizabeth stooped quickly and picked it up.
"You may do as you wish about that; I shall not consent to the mortgage
just the same," she said, her temper getting the better of her at last.
She turned to the bedroom to put the letter away.
"Now look here, Elizabeth!" John called after her.
Seeing the ineffectiveness of carrying on the conversation when they were
not face to face, John waited till she returned. When she was seated again
and had begun to rock the restless child once more, he began:
"We may as well understand each other right now as any time. If you're
going to run this place, I want to know it, and I'll step down and out."
John looked belligerent and waited for her to do her womanly duty and give
in. Elizabeth made no reply. John waited. He continued to wait for some
seconds.
"I shall not consent to a mortgage," was the quiet answer.
John Hunter flung himself out of the house.
It was a bad afternoon for John. The drizzle had hardly been enough to lay
the dust, but had made it impossible to walk through the grass or over the
fields; his pride made it impossible for him to go back to the house, and
so there was no place open to him except the hayloft, where he turned his
own gloomy thoughts over and reasoned out this new development. A day's
pouting, he was certain, would win his point; it would probably be all
right when he went back at supper time, but he saw difficulties ahead with
Elizabeth feeling that she had a right to an opinion regarding the
property.
"I shall let her see that I mean business all the same. I'm not going to
have her interfering in my work. Let her attend to her own, as a woman
ought to do," he concluded.
He did wish, however, that he had read the letter. Doctor Morgan had
referred to the letter also as being authority. He had an uncomfortable
feeling that if he ever saw that letter that he would have to ask again;
Elizabeth was a little less easy of late to manage than she had been that
first year; she could put a thing aside and not discuss it almost as well
as he could.
At that point John's mind flamed up against Luther Hansen. Elizabeth was
always quoting Luther. He was glad he had let her see just now that she
need not quote that common Swede to him any more. He didn't know a necktie
from a shoelace! Hugh might have asked him to witness the will, but Hugh
had seen fit to leave the money to them, all the same. Whatever else hurt,
the money was his, and he'd turn everything into cattle, and get rich, and
get out of this damned hole.
Elizabeth, in the house, was doing her own thinking. The conversation just
finished had indications. She saw that her husband had a definite policy
in regard to the management of the property, that he did not mean to let
her have any more to do with it than when it was all his own. A creeping
suspicion came to her that if she refused to consent to further mortgages
her husband might leave her. There had been a violence in his tones as
well as in his manner beyond any he had ever assumed toward her. Elizabeth
shrank in a heartsick way from the contest. If he would mortgage the one
eighty and then stop she would far rather have given away that much land
than to have the quarrel, but that she knew he would not do. She could not
for a moment think of giving up if she expected to have a roof over her
head that was unencumbered when she was old. Though half the property was
now hers by actual right, she would not interfere with anything he wished
to do with it except to place a loan against it. If he insisted upon
mortgages, though their disagreement became a scandal, she resolved that
she would not consent.
* * * * *
John ate his supper without speaking to any one, and waited from then till
bedtime for his answer, but Elizabeth gave no sign. The next day he
waited, and the next, with increasing uneasiness and alarm. He decided at
last to force her consent.
The third day he put one of the new horses in the single buggy and left
the place without saying where he was going, and not even when he returned
in the evening did he mention what his errand had been.
The following morning a team was driven into the side lane and Elizabeth
saw John meet the driver and help him tie his horses. There was the air of
a prearranged thing between them, and as they came toward the house it
flashed through her mind what had been done. Her whole form straightened
instinctively and she grasped her broom rigidly as she left the dining
room and went to her own bedroom to get control of herself before she
should have to meet the stranger. She realized that the man was the
Johnson John had spoken of as having the quarter section of land for sale.
She was to be called upon to act. The thing she must do she knew was
right; could she make the manner of the doing of it right also? She would
not humiliate him if she could help it; she stayed in her room, hoping
that he would come to call her himself and then she could warn him when he
was alone, but John would not meet her except in the presence of the
stranger, and sent Hepsie to call her. There was no help for it, and
Elizabeth went as she was bidden--went quietly, and was introduced to the
neighbour whom she had never seen.
"Mr. Johnson has accepted my proposition, Elizabeth, to give him
twenty-five dollars an acre for the quarter next to ours," John said after
all were seated.
The girl waited quietly. She noticed that John did not mention the terms
of payment, and waited for him to commit himself on that point.
"Do you know where those blank deeds are? We can make one out while we
conclude the details, and then go in to Colebyville to-morrow and have a
notary take our signatures," John concluded easily.
Elizabeth hesitated visibly, and John had a startled moment, but she went
for the blanks at last, as he directed. The two men sat with their heads
together, and wrote carefully in the numbers and legal description of the
land.
"And the party of the first part further agrees that the sum of----" John
was reading as he wrote it in. His voice ran on to the close. When the
writing was finished the man Johnson rose, and, picking up his straw hat,
said:
"I guess I'll be hurrying on toward home now. I'll stop in on the way
to-morrow morning. You'd just as well ride with me."
"Oh, I'll have to take Mrs. Hunter in with me," John replied, "and I can
just as well hitch up to my own rig."
"What are you taking me in with you for, John?" Elizabeth asked, perfectly
quiet on the outside, but aquiver with humiliation and dread because of
the thing she was being compelled to do.
"To fix up the papers on the west eighty; you know It'll be necessary for
you to sign them too." Addressing Mr. Johnson, he added easily: "My wife
objects to going into debt, Mr. Johnson, but I felt this too good an
opportunity to let pass, and since we can arrange it so that I won't have
to raise but a thousand dollars just now, I'm sure She'll see the
advisability of the move."
Elizabeth considered a second before she began to speak, and then said
slowly:
"Mr. Hunter does not understand the nature of my objection, I see. Of
course if he can arrange it with you so that all the indebtedness falls on
the land he is buying, I should have no objections whatever, but we cannot
mortgage our home. The provisions of the will forbid it, and I shall live
up to those provisions absolutely."
The silence which followed was vocal with astonishment. The man looked
from husband to wife for signs of quarrelling, but Elizabeth returned his
gaze quietly, and without signs of anger, and John also gave no indication
of anything but surprise. After a gasping instant, during which his
instincts warned him to keep on the side of decency, John accepted the
situation with seeming calm.
"Well, Mr. Johnson, if Mrs. Hunter feels that way about it, there's
nothing to do. I'm sorry to have brought you over on a fool's errand," he
said suavely, "but it can't be helped now. We'll take the land later,
however," and ushered his guest out of the house and helped him untie his
team without any sign of the tempest within.
John went back to the house with no concealment and no cajolery.
"We may as well know where we are and what we mean to do right here and
now, Elizabeth," he began. "If you're going to do this kind of thing, I
want to know it."
Elizabeth was ready for the storm, and met it without flurry. She looked
at her husband quietly, steadily, sorrowfully.
"I shall sign no mortgages, if that is what you are in doubt about," she
said. "I had not intended to ask for a legal division of the property, but
since you demand the right to make loans, I shall not cripple your plans
with what is your own. I will have my part set aside; you can farm it in
any way you choose, but you can only mortgage what is yours. I would have
told you so if you had played fair and discussed this thing with me
instead of leaving the house or blustering. You can tell me what you mean
to do where I am concerned--you would if I were a man--or you can take
just what you did to-day. You try to put me where I can't help myself
before strangers when you want me to do a thing you know I don't think I
ought to do; and you can't handle me that way any longer."
John Hunter had been working himself into a passion as he listened and
burst out:
"And You'll work for the best interests of this farm, that's what You'll
do! Every time I ask you to sign a paper you make a little more fuss.
Because I got in pretty deep before is no sign I'm going to do it again,
and when I tell you to sign anything You'll do it."
His feet were very wide apart, and he thrust his face forward at her, his
eyes glaring into hers with every trick which instinct prompted him to use
in compelling her obedience.
Elizabeth barely glanced at him, and then looked down at the floor,
quietly considering in what way she should reply to such an attack.
John was disconcerted; his little stage play had fallen flat.
After a moment's pause, Elizabeth began very quietly:
"I will not interfere with anything you do about the land which has been
left to me, except that I will not have one cent of mortgage on it. If you
will keep out of debt, you can manage it any way you choose, but I will
have every step of the business explained to me which involves the safety
of my home, and it will be explained to me beforehand--or the same thing
will happen that has just happened. I will not be deceived, even in little
things."
The girl looked him squarely and kindly in the face, but her look was as
firm as if he had not blustered.
"I have not deceived you. I brought this man here and explained the whole
thing before your face, besides telling you the other day that I intended
to have that land."
"You are shuffling with the truth, and you know it," she said sternly.
"You did not tell me you had made any arrangements with him, nor that you
intended to do so, only in a general way. You thought you'd catch me
before him when it came to signing the papers, and then you thought I
couldn't help myself."
"I have not tried to deceive you! I brought him here and explained every
detail," he said with such a righteous appearance of innocence that
Elizabeth was tempted to laugh. "We've fallen to a pretty state of affairs
when my own wife hints at my having lied to her," John insisted.
Elizabeth spoke slowly, measuring her words, realizing that the crisis of
their lives was upon them.
"I will not accuse you any more, but I will explain the plan on which I
will do business with you."
"You needn't bother," John interrupted sarcastically. "I will let you run
it."
"I will not go into debt," Elizabeth continued as calmly as if he had not
interrupted. "That is the absolute decision I have come to. You will not
explain to me _after_ you have decided to do a thing and in the presence
of other people, where my property and my freedom are concerned. On the
other hand, if you are determined to go into debt and branch out into a
larger business, I feel that I cannot deny you the right to do as you wish
with what is your own, and if you choose to do so will divide the property
and leave you as free to mortgage and sell as if you were not married to
me. I will leave you as free as I ask to be myself."
"Free! Free to be made a fool of. No, ma'am; you don't run any such gag as
that on me. The people in this community are only too anxious to talk
about me; they'd roll it under their tongues like a sweet morsel, that as
soon as you got hold of the money you put the screws on me. You gave
Johnson just such a handle this afternoon as that. You'll behave yourself,
and look after your house and child as a woman ought to do, and I'll take
charge of the work out of doors as a man ought to do."
Elizabeth interrupted him eagerly:
"Now right there, John, you have struck the very heart of the thing which
first made me feel that I must take care of myself in my own way. You have
never allowed me to bake a pie or a loaf of bread, nor churn, nor anything
without you told me how to do it; and then you feel that you have the
right to mortgage the home right over my head and think I have no rights
in the matter."
It was John's turn to interrupt eagerly.
"Who put that home over your head?" he asked, for the first time
addressing himself to the real issue of the home.
Elizabeth looked at him steadily. She was surprised to find herself
talking thus quietly, she who had been so prone to emotional hindrances.
"Since I have been in your house I have had my food and clothes. I don't
have to tell you that my mere work is worth far more than that. I have
borne you a child. Motherhood entitles me to a share in the estate, since
I have the child on my hands; besides, I could have been teaching school
these years and not only earned my living but have been free to go and
come as I have never been free here."
"That has nothing to do with it. You are married and your duty lies here
as well as your work. It's a wife I want. If you're going to be a wife, be
one; if you're going to be a boss, I want to know it, and I'll get out."
"Two things I will have my say about: I will not mortgage the half of the
land which is mine, and I will not be interfered with when I have to
correct Jack," Elizabeth said slowly. "Also when I see fit to go anywhere
I shall go hereafter. I was never allowed to go to see Aunt Susan, and she
went down to her death thinking I didn't want to come. Of course that's
different now: I do go when I want to these days, but I got my first
warning right there that I must take care of myself. You don't intend to
tell me anything about what you mean to do with me, ever, if you can help
it."
"You'll go into Colebyville and sign the papers on that land all the
same," John said doggedly.
"I will sign no papers till there is a legal division of the property,
John. I mean what I say. I'll let people talk if you crowd me before
them," the girl said decisively.
John glared at her in desperation.
"Damn it! no wonder folks talked the week we were married! I've been
humiliated ever since I brought you into this house," the man cried,
breaking into a passion again. "A pretty figure You'll cut, with this last
thing added to your reputation. Everybody knows you couldn't get along
with your father. I let you down easy with Johnson just now, in spite of
the humiliating place you put me in, but if you think I'm going to be
driven at your beck and call you're mistaken."
John stopped to give effect to his words. He was just beginning to realize
that Elizabeth was not giving up, and that it was a fight to the finish.
The feature John disliked was that it was a fight in the open. Well, let
her fight in the open, she should see that he would not be beaten.
Elizabeth, to be less conscious of the eyes glaring at her, picked up her
sewing, which had been tossed on the lounge an hour ago, and began to ply
her needle.
John broke out anew, really losing control of himself this time.
"It's the most outrageous thing I ever heard of--a woman humiliating her
husband by refusing to sign papers when he has brought the man right into
the house to fix them up! A pretty reputation I'll get out of it! It's
sickening, disgusting. What do you expect me to do? Tell me that. If I
want to buy a load of hay or a boar pig, am I to say to a man, 'Wait till
I ask my wife if I can?'"
He stood leering at her, hot with passion, determined to make her speak.
The vulgarity of his discussion nauseated her, but since she must discuss,
she was resolved to do it quietly and on decent ground as far as she was
concerned. Without fear she replied slowly:
"You know perfectly well what I have asked of you, John. You won't gain
anything by blustering. I mean to be consulted on all important matters
like loans, deeds, and mortgages, exactly as you'd consult with a man, and
I intend to be consulted _before_ the thing is done, and not have you take
advantage of me in the presence of strangers. You needn't shuffle matters.
You understand what I mean, and you can't fool me. Be sensible and do the
right thing by me, and give me the chance to do the right thing by you."
"I've done the right thing by you already, and I'll go about my own
affairs as a man should, and You'll attend to your own affairs as a woman
should if you live with me, and leave me free to act like a man. Do you
understand that?" he demanded.
"I'm sorry, John," she said, falling back to the needle, which she had let
rest again for a moment. There was a little choke in her voice, but she
was firm.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, suspicious that she was not giving
up as he intended that she should do.
"I mean just what I said a minute ago: I will let you mortgage your half
of this farm after it is divided, but I will not sign any such papers on
the other half. I will not be taken advantage of before strangers; I will
let them talk first, and I will take care of my house as I see fit. Also,
I will not speak when you manage Jack, and you will not interfere when I
have to do it--that is, we will not interfere with each other _before the
child_."
John Hunter's face turned scarlet, his cheeks stung as if he had been
slapped; she was not giving in at all! He stood before her incensed beyond
words for a moment, breathing hard and almost bursting with what he
considered the insult of it; then the blood which had mounted to his head
receded and left him deadly white.
"I don't exactly understand you," he said in level tones, "but you shall
understand me. I will never be made a fool of by you again; if you're
going to run things, say it out, and I'll let you have it and run it
alone."
It was hopeless; she did not reply, but stitched in and out on Jack's
little frock, sick at heart with the shame of such a quarrel, since it was
to accomplish nothing.
"Answer me!" he thundered.
Elizabeth laid her sewing on the lounge beside her, and rose to her feet.
She looked him squarely in the face and answered as he demanded.
"I will sign no papers of which I do not approve, and certainly none which
I have been deceived about in any way. Aside from that you are free to run
the farm as you wish."
"Then take the whole damned thing, and I'll go back to mother and make a
home for her. She was never allowed to have a home in this house after you
came into it," he flung out. "I'll take the Mitchell County land, and you
can have what's here. That's what you and Hornby and Hansen planned from
the first, I should judge. That's why you got Noland to do it."
Thrusting his hat down to his very ears, he strode from the house,
swinging the screen door behind him so hard that it broke and the split
corner fell out and hung dangling by the net, which kept the splintered
frame from falling to the ground.
Elizabeth closed the panelled door to keep out the flies, and turned
quietly to the bedroom for her bonnet. She spoke to Hepsie, who had heard
the entire argument, as she passed through the kitchen, asking her to keep
Jack for her, and walked through the barnyard, through the wet pasture,
and on to her haunt in the willows, where she could think undisturbed.
John was still standing in the harness room of the barn when he heard the
door close behind Elizabeth, and saw her coming that way.
Elizabeth was coming to the barn! He gave a start of surprise. Even while
he had not given up all thought of her coming to his terms, he wondered at
her giving in so promptly. John drew back so that she should not see that
he was watching her. When she did not immediately appear he thought with a
smile of satisfaction that she had stopped, not finding it easy to
approach after the haughty manner in which she had just dismissed his
demands. He waited a moment, considering terms of capitulation, and then
walked unconcernedly out.
The truth broke upon him. She had passed the barn, she was on her way to
the willows, not to him. Something in John Hunter sickened.
Up to the moment when John had seen his wife coming toward him he had been
fully prepared to stand by the terms of dissolution which he had made. But
in that moment when he watched her recede from him in the direction of the
willows, the tide of his feelings turned; he wished he had not issued his
ultimatum; he wished he had not put it to the test.
The triumph of receiving her submission had been his first thought when he
had seen her come from the house, and it had been a sweet morsel while it
had lasted, but when he had seen her going from him toward the willows, he
suddenly realized that triumph had slipped from his grasp. Suddenly he
desired to possess her. Not since the first six weeks of their
acquaintance had Elizabeth looked so fair to him. He had put her away! A
great sob rose up in him. He had said that he would go back to his mother,
and his fate was sealed. He had gone to the barn to saddle his horse and
start on the instant for Mitchell County and the cattle he had chosen as
his portion, but all at once the glamour of his going died away and he saw
the choice he had made. To crown his cheerless flight, Jack was at Nathan
Hornby's, and pride would not let him follow the child up even when he was
going away forever. Nate Hornby had had something to do with this business
of Elizabeth getting the money, and he had also had something to do with
her determination to take the money out of his, her husband's, hands, and
he, John Hunter, would not humble himself before him. Long before
Elizabeth's return from the willows her husband was away.
Great was Elizabeth Hunter's surprise when John did not appear at supper.
She had not taken him seriously; he had always blustered, and while she
had realized that he was angry enough to make his word good, she had
supposed that he would make a division of the property if he intended to
leave her, and make arrangements for the child. She did not believe that
he was gone, and answered the observations and questions of the hired men
by saying that he had probably gone for the baby. In fact, having once
said it, it sounded plausible to her, and she waited till far into the
night for the sound of his horse's footsteps.
The suspicion which at midnight was yet a suspicion was by morning a
certainty, but Elizabeth kept her own counsel, and when Nathan brought
Jack at noon she did not speak of her husband's absence. The second day
the hired men began to make mention of it, and the evening of the third
day Luther Hansen appeared at the sitting-room door.
"Lizzie, what's this I hear about Hunter?" he asked, looking searchingly
into her face.
Elizabeth told him all that she knew, except the unjust thing he had said
about Luther.
"I don't know anything about his plans," she concluded, "except that he
said he meant to go to his mother after he had marketed the cattle. You'll
hear from the neighbours that Hugh's money has set me up and made a fool
of me, and various other things," she added; and she saw in his face that
it had already been said.
The girl sat and looked into the night through the open door for a moment
and then went on:
"I shall go to Colebyville to-morrow, and see Doctor Morgan and look after
business matters. I'll tell you what we decide upon when I get home.
There'll have to be a real division of the property now. I don't know what
to do about living here alone. I suppose there'll be every kind of
gossip?"
The last part of the sentence was a question, and one Luther was not the
man to evade.
"You'll have a lot of talk that hain't got no truth in it to meet," he
said reluctantly. "You'll have t' have some one with you here. You
couldn't git Hornby, could you?" Luther knew the nature of the gossip the
neighbours would wreak upon her.
A light fell upon Elizabeth.
"The very idea!" she exclaimed. "Just what I need to do and at the same
time just what I would love to do."
Luther was delighted that that important feature of the matter could be so
easily arranged. He could not bear to have her mixed up with any sort of
scandal, when her neighbours so little understood the real situation, and
would be so ready to strike her wherever they could.
"Then you go an' see Hornby to-night, Lizzie. Have Jake hitch up for you,
an' take Hepsie along." Luther paused a moment and then proceeded on
another phase of her troubles.
"Lizzie, how do you feel about it? Do you--would you like t' have 'im
back? 'Cause if you would, I'll go to Mitchell County for you. You ain't
goin' t' have no easy time of it here. Folks--specially th' women's--goin'
t' have it in for you quite a bit."
"No," Elizabeth answered promptly. "I'll take whatever comes from my
neighbours. I can shut my doors and keep them outside, but, Luther, I
can't go on as things have been on the inside of my own house. I don't
want to talk about it at all, even to you, but I shall let him go. It's
better than some other things. We'd simply come to the place where we had
to understand each other. I'd a great deal rather have him back than to
have him gone, but he wouldn't understand at all if I sent for him."
Luther looked at her approvingly and yet something in him held back. He
longed to spare her all the low tittle-tattle of her neighbours, the
coarse jests of the hired men among themselves, and the eternal suspicions
of the women.
"I know all you would say, Luther," she said, understanding his reluctance
to give up. "I know what these women who think I haven't wanted to visit
them will say, and I don't blame them, but I will not send for him now or
ever. I have wronged him in ways he has known nothing of--maybe the
scandal I haven't deserved at his hands will square that deal a
little--but that is not the present difficulty. We'll have to have an
agreement about our plan of life together. If he ever comes back I shall
never deceive him again, but I will never be deceived by him again,
either."
"Well, you know best, Lizzie. I'll talk to Jake for you. You'd best try t'
keep him an' Hepsie. They're good friends an' you're goin' t' need
friends."
* * * * *
Luther saw that the buggy was got ready for Elizabeth and Hepsie, and
after they had gone talked to the men, telling them that Elizabeth had
asked him to do so. He told them her offer was for them to stay on at the
usual wage, or go now so that she could fill their places. After they had
signified their willingness to remain in her employment, he took Jake
aside and had a long talk with him.
Jake Ransom filled with anger when the two were alone.
"I didn't say anything when you was a talkin' t' them men," he said
confidentially, "but I ain't lived in this house for close on three year
now without learnin' somethin'. Damned fool! never done nothin' she's
wanted 'im to since I've been here. She got 'er eye-teeth cut when Mis
Hornby died, but it most killed 'er. I've watched 'er a gittin' hold of
'erself gradual-like, an' I knew there'd be an end of his bossin' some
day. Gosh! I'm glad she got th' money! Noland was some fond of her."
Jake stole a sidelong glance at Luther as he said it and waited to see if
he would elicit an answer. When Luther did not reply, he added:
"I'm dog'on glad I've been here. Lots of folks 'll ask me questions, an'
won't I be innocent? You kin help at your end of this thing too. I guess
we kin do it 'tween us."
The understanding was perfect, but Jake took warning by Luther's refusal
to discuss private affairs. Without saying just what was intended, each
knew what course of action the other meant to take, and so Elizabeth was
granted friends at the critical moment of her life and spared much that
was hard in a community where personalities were the only topics of
conversation.
* * * * *
Nathan Hornby was only too glad to live in the house with Jack Hunter. As
he remarked, it would take no more time to drive over to his work than to
cook his own breakfast in the morning.
Hepsie was at this time Elizabeth's principal defender. While listening to
the reading of the will on the day of the funeral, Hepsie, old in the ways
of her little world, had known that some explanation would have to be made
of so unusual a matter as a man leaving his money to another man's wife,
instead of to the man himself, and had begun by giving out the report
which she intended the world to accept, by talking to Sadie Hansen before
she got out of the dooryard. Hepsie knew that first reports went farthest
with country folk, and Luther, who understood better than any one else why
the money had been left to Elizabeth, was inwardly amused at Sadie's
explanations afterward.
"You know, Luther," Sadie had said on the way home that day, "Mr. Noland
told Hepsie he was agoin' t' leave his share of th' land to Lizzie, 'cause
Doc Morgan says She'll never be strong again after overworkin' for all
them men, an' things. An' she says he felt awful bad 'cause he was a
layin' there sick so long an' her a havin' t' do for 'im when she wasn't
able--an' do you know, she thinks that's why he killed hisself? I always
did like 'im. I think it was mighty nice for him t' leave 'er th' stuff.
My! think of a woman havin' a farm all 'er own!"
And Luther Hansen listened to Sadie telling her mother the same thing the
next day, and smiled again, for Mrs. Crane could talk much, and was to
talk to better purpose than she knew.
Also, when Elizabeth went to the little schoolhouse to meeting the first
Sunday of her widowhood, being determined to be a part of the community in
which she lived, Hepsie was on the outskirts of the little crowd after
services were over, to explain in a whisper that Lizzie was "goin' t' go
t' meetin' now like she'd always wanted to do, only Mr. Hunter never 'd
take 'er anywhere 'cause 'e felt hisself too good."
Hepsie was to fight Elizabeth's battles on many occasions and stayed on,
watchful as a hawk of Elizabeth's reputation. A sly joke among the hired
men while discussing their position in the house of "the grass-widder"
drove Hepsie beside herself and made her even more ready than she had been
at first to serve the interests of one who was to have no easy time among
her jealous neighbours. Elizabeth knew that in that hour she could have
had most of these people for her friends had it not been that she was
supposed to be "stuck-up." This also was a price she was to pay for having
let her husband dominate her.
When Doctor Morgan was told of Elizabeth's plan to farm the place herself
he was delighted and approved of it heartily.
"You're a little brick, Mrs. Hunter," he said. "I'll back you in anything
you decide to do. It was devilish mean to run off without settling affairs
up. If any of these yahoos around here say anything about it they'll get a
setting up from me that they won't want again. But I'm mighty glad you've
got Hornby. That'll keep actual slander off of you. How much did you say
you owed now?"
"Five hundred--and some expenses for Mr. Noland--besides the note you hold
for the team. I've got about a hundred in the bank, but I shall need a
pony to ride about the farm, and that will take about half of what I have
ready.
"The pony's a good idea. There's no telling what would be made out of you
wandering around the fields on foot to look after the hired men, but on
horseback you'd be all right. Now don't you worry about that note of
mine--I'm in no hurry," the doctor said encouragingly. Elizabeth saw the
advantage of having Doctor Morgan as an enthusiastic advocate of her
plans.
"What about the land, Doctor?" the girl asked next. "I want a legal
division as soon as possible. Will it have to be appraised and sold?"
Doctor Morgan noted joyfully that Elizabeth Hunter had her business well
in mind, and assured her that it would be only a formality to have the
appraising done, as she could buy it in herself, and further assured her
that he would himself confer with John after all was settled.