TO DO OVER, AND TO DO BETTER,
WAS THE OPPORTUNITY OFFERED
Elizabeth Hunter and her son were still breathing hard from rapid riding
when they drew up in front of the post-office. Elizabeth dropped from the
saddle, tossing her rein to Jack to hold till her return, and went inside.
She was to remember this day and the dingy little window through which
mail was passed. The postmaster was a new man and tossed the letters out
carelessly; therefore he did not see the sudden start the girl gave as she
began to gather them up.
John Hunter's familiar handwriting stared at her from the top envelope.
Elizabeth thought of many things while she waited for the man to run
through the newspapers and magazines. Half an hour ago she had registered
a vow beside Hugh Noland's grave. She was to be tested promptly. When all
was handed out to her, she took the pile--Elizabeth's magazines supplied
the entire community with reading material, and were handed from house to
house till as ragged as the tumble weeds of her native Kansas--and put
them all in the canvas bag at Jack's saddle horn. The letter was unopened.
Something made her wait. Something said that John was asking to return--to
do over, and to do better, was the opportunity offered to her. Her vow
rose up before her; without the fulfillment of that vow there could be no
_better_, that she recognized--and yet----
[Illustration: "JOHN HUNTER'S FAMILIAR HANDWRITING STARED AT
HER FROM THE TOP ENVELOPE"]
All through the long ride home she pondered upon the past and upon the
possibilities of the future. Not till after Jack was safely tucked away in
his bed, not till Hepsie had her supper work done and had gone upstairs
and all the various members of her household had retired for the night,
and she was certain of hours for uninterrupted thinking, did Elizabeth
Hunter bring out the unopened letter and lay it on the table before her.
Even then she renewed her vow before she broke the seal. Was he the old
John, who would fly out impulsively and cover them all with disgrace if
she told him? she asked herself many times. In a cold sweat of terror, she
asked herself also if it were possible to build right in this new
endeavour without telling John of the love which she had shown to Hugh;
the temptation was terrible, but she was compelled to shake her head. The
habit of openness and fair dealing would not hold her excused; there was
no other way, she must tell it out. Carefully she went over all the things
that would be lost if this story should be bruited abroad. Jack would be
disgraced, she would be stripped of her influence in the neighbourhood,
slain in the sight of her friends who had fought her battles for her
because they believed in her, stripped of everything which had gone to
make life worth the living, and she would place herself in the power of a
man whose only attitude toward the story might be one of self-righteous
justification. Was it worth the price? Her own words rose up before her,
"Without honesty no other virtue is a virtue at all." Elizabeth pondered a
long time, and again her own words rose up to confront her, "It does not
matter _who_ is wrong, the thing that matters is _what_ is wrong," and for
Elizabeth there was no escape. This had been the philosophy of her life;
she was called upon to stand or fall on that ground. With her head bowed
in acknowledgment, she drew the missive out of its envelope and began to
read:
Dear Elizabeth: This letter will no doubt surprise you, but I
couldn't wait any longer. I might begin by saying that I was homesick
for Jack--which is true--but I'm going to confess that I'm homesick
for you too. Is there still hope? I would have written you long ago,
but I went into things too heavy and lost the money I got for the
cattle--and then I couldn't. It would have looked like asking to come
back to the land. As you know, I mortgaged the home eighty--it hurt
some to do that, knowing you'd have to sign it--and began slower. I
got along very well, but it was terribly tedious, and at last, after
three years of steady work, and no debts, I couldn't wait any longer,
and put half of what I had on the Board of Trade proceedings. _I
won!_ Last Saturday I sold all I had, and now while I can come to you
right, I want to ask if you will take me? Take me quick, if you are
going to, before I do some reckless thing and lose it again. I hear
you have prospered; that was why I had to wait so long. I often think
of dear old Hugh, and his interest in some of the things about the
neighbourhood, and I have been given to see while living in this
rotten hole of a city how much I underestimated the people about us
in Kansas. I would be glad to come back and live among them. Will you
let me? A telegram will bring me to you on the next train.
With love to both you and Jack, who will be seven years old this
week,
Affectionately,
John.
The tension was broken. Elizabeth laid the letter back with a smile. How
like John to suggest a telegram! John never could wait. How well she knew
his little weaknesses; the written characters of the missive had the
flowing curves of haste in their running letters. He had written on the
impulse of the moment, no matter how long the desire had been in his
heart. The very spontaneity of the confession was unpremeditated and
worked in John Hunter's favour. He had remembered Jack's birthday too!
That day seven years ago rose up in Elizabeth's memory to plead for Jack's
father. She earnestly desired John's presence, and yet--could it be done?
Far into the night Elizabeth Hunter sat with the letter before her,
reading and rereading it, pondering upon the possibilities of the future,
seeing them in the light of the past she had spent with him, wondering
what sort of man her husband had become in the five years since she had
seen him. The letter sounded as if those years might have been profitable
ones. There was both the openness of real honesty and the reserve of real
strength in the confession about his financial affairs. The most hopeful
thing she found in the letter was the sentence about Hugh's estimate of
the neighbours among whom they had lived and the implied comparison
regarding the city in which he now did business. Dear old John! Had
Chicago business men tried the methods on him that he had thought it fair
to apply to his dealings with her? In the midst of that question rose the
one--would John Hunter feel the same toward Hugh Noland's estimates when
he was told the truth about his wife's affection for Hugh, and of the
weakness of both in the demonstrations of that affection? Well, it had to
be told. Scandal would be hard to face with no denial possible. Doctor
Morgan had known it all and still trusted her; likewise Luther; but
Hepsie, and Jake, and Sadie? Besides, Jack would have to know, and would
suffer for things of which he was innocent! The girl wrestled with the
subject till midnight, and long after. At last, to put it where she could
not deceive herself, she wrote a simple statement of the whole thing and
sealed it up with John's address upon the envelope, and then raising her
hand solemnly promised herself that this letter which contained the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth should be mailed as she had
written it without being opened to change a word. She would answer John's
letter in one apart from this and send it by the same mail, but this
letter she would send as it stood.
As she got up to go to bed, she picked up the bag in which they brought
the mail and felt in it to see if anything were left. A small narrow book
that opened endwise and had the name of the Bank of Colebyville on it was
all. It was a fitting end to her considerations. She had never owned a
checkbook till recent years. Because of its presence, she might yet be
able to answer John Hunter as he wished. She thought long on her
situation. There was no sleep in her. The larger, the universal, aspects
of the question began to crowd in upon her mind.
"There is no other way," she said. "A woman, to be free, must have money
of her own. She must not be supported by a man."
She stepped out on the porch and stood looking toward the east. The
refreshing breeze which had sprung up cooled and invigorated her.
"The wind before the dawn! The beginning of a new day!" she said aloud.
Turning toward the kitchen, she began to pack a box which stood waiting on
the end of the kitchen table. Doughnuts, cookies and pies had been left
there to cool the evening before. Mrs. Farnshaw was to have threshers to
cook for to-day, and Elizabeth had grown thoughtful of the mother, who was
aging visibly. In such ways as she could, she spared her mother's strength
and gave her the comfort of frequent visits and companionship. In order to
get the long eight-mile drive over before it became hot, it was necessary
to get an early start, and Elizabeth, with Jack at her side, was on the
road before the sun was fairly above the horizon.
About eight o'clock Mrs. Farnshaw turned at the sound of their feet on her
doorstep. She set her cob basket on the floor, put the stove lid over the
roaring fire, and turned to Jack with grandmotherly delight.
"You're a real comfort, Lizzie," she said, straightening up with Jack in
her arms. "I never used t' think you would be, but you are. I'm that tired
that I'm ready t' drop."
"Anything more than usual?" Elizabeth asked, noting the fagged and heavy
face, and the gathering tears.
"Oh, nothin' more 'n 'as happened many a time; only 'e grows crosser,
seems to me, as 'e grows older. He was particular bad last night, and I
didn't sleep none. It's awful hot weather t' lay awake."
When Elizabeth did not reply, the mother said testily:
"Now I s'pose You'll be thinkin' that you don't have t' care for what a
man says."
Elizabeth laughed, but not in her usual merry way.
"Perhaps," she said slowly. "I was thinking farther than that--I was
wondering----" She paused to think and then broke out suddenly. "John's
written to ask if he can come back, and I was just wondering----"
Mrs. Farnshaw was all animation at once, her own troubles forgotten.
"You don't say?" she exclaimed. "Now look here, Lizzie, you're goin' t'
let him come?"
Elizabeth had told her mother on the impulse of the moment after
withholding the news from Nathan and even from Jack. The child had been
wriggling out of his grandmother's arms and had not heard what his mother
said. Elizabeth waited till he was out of hearing. She half regretted
having mentioned it. She was going to have to argue out her decision with
her mother, and she had made no decision.
The mother's accidental remark had produced the impulse to tell. Well, it
was all right. It might be that she could decide better after discussing
it with some one. Elizabeth looked at her mother doubtfully.
"I don't know, ma. I may. It's all owing to whether we can agree on the
terms of starting over."
"You ain't goin' t' lay down rules t' him?" the mother cried in
amazement.
"Now's my time to find out what rules he's going to lay down to me at
least," Elizabeth said dryly.
"But I never heard of such a thing! Say, don't you love 'im any more,
Lizzie?"
"I--I think I do, ma," Elizabeth said slowly. "But there's the very
trouble with women. They think they ought to love a man enough to take him
without a definite understanding, and then they find that a woman's love
means mostly obedience to a man. Yes, I think I love him. But I'm going to
know what he expects, and I'm going to tell him what I expect, and make no
mistakes this time. We'll know before we begin."
"But he may not take you," Mrs. Farnshaw said in a frightened whisper.
"I rather think I'm taking him," Elizabeth said, beginning to unload the
box of provisions she had brought. "You forget that I'm making my own
living."
"That _does_ make a difference," Mrs. Farnshaw admitted.
"That makes _all_ the difference," Elizabeth replied positively. "The
longer I look at it the more convinced I am that the whole thing hinges
right on that point. If we live together again I'll know that it isn't
because he feels that having married me he must keep me in food and
clothes, and he'll know that it's because I want to and not because I've
got a child to be supported. I believe I love him; but if I didn't know I
could leave him in a minute if he made me do things that I wasn't able to
do I wouldn't dare to say yes. Knowing that I don't have to live with him
if he begins to order me around, I think I'll try it."
"You're a queer girl, Lizzie," the mother said, puzzled and uncertain what
to think of the philosophy she propounded. "You don't seem to be afraid of
men at all."
"I don't have to be, ma, because no man will ever again pay for my food
and clothes. You are not to tell anybody, even the boys. I may not do it
yet. I didn't intend to tell you for a while, but you insisted on telling
me what I was thinking about, and it popped right out at you."
Elizabeth gave her mother a tender look and added: "I told you first when
he asked me before," which was a thing her mother could understand and
appreciate. Elizabeth was considerate of the little mother whose life was
hard, and who was afraid of a man.
At that point Elizabeth fell into a brown study. She argued for her own
rights, knowing that only on that path could peace come to either herself
or John, but she did not feel herself wholly worthy, and John wholly
unworthy; she knew her weaknesses, and she knew she had wronged John
Hunter as well as he had wronged her; she was willing to take him if he
would be as willing to correct his faults and confess them as she was
willing to do. She did not ask of John Hunter that he be always right in
his actions toward her, but that he discuss their grievances and let them
look together for better ways of settling what was right for each. She was
so deep in her own thoughts that she did not hear Jack, who called to her
from the door:
"Mamma, let's go! Come on! They're going right now, mamma!"
Elizabeth did not hear the child till he tugged at her skirts and
exclaimed:
"Come on, mamma! Grandma won't care. Come on!"
His mother looked down at the boy with a smile. How well she remembered
the delights of threshing-day herself. She looked about the kitchen to see
what had yet to be done.
"Wait a little, Jack. I've got to help get the table set and the dinner on
to cook. You wouldn't have me leave grandma to do all the work alone,
would you?" she asked suggestively.
As Jack hesitated between his great desire to see the marvel of the
stackyard and his desire to show as much manliness as his mother evidently
expected of him, there was a noise on the doorstep and Hepsie came
smilingly in.
"I followed you all on th' pony," she said. "I fixed it up with th' boys
yesterday t' take a cold dinner to-day an' let me come an' help here.
We're lookin' out that you don't hurt yourself to-day, Mis Farnshaw," she
added, addressing the older woman.
"Now you can go to the threshing machine too, grandma!" Jack cried with
delight. "Come on, let's go right now!"
"Not now, Jack," Elizabeth said. "Hepsie didn't come to get the dinner
alone."
"Oh, yes, she did! She likes to," Jack replied so confidently that they
all laughed, and Hepsie fell on the child and hugged him.
"Of course I did, Jack. Grandma will show me what to do, and then she and
mamma can take you out to see the machine go round and round like a big
coffee mill, and maybe Jack can ride one of the horses."
"Oh, Hepsie! Don't put that into the child's head," Elizabeth interposed
hastily. "I wouldn't have him on one of those horses for anything."
"Mamma says I spoil you, Jack. Run along now, and let me look after this
dinner."
As soon as the tables were set and the dinner on to cook, Elizabeth and
her mother took the excited child and started to the barnyard. Mrs.
Farnshaw was pulled along by the impatient grandson, and Elizabeth came at
some distance behind, having stopped to glance in the chicken house as she
went. The marvellous ant-hill called a stackyard would not permit Jack to
wait for his mother.
Mr. Farnshaw saw them coming. He would gladly have avoided his wife and
daughter, but Jack took things for granted and always insisted upon
dragging his mother into his grandfather's presence and mixing them up in
the conversation. Elizabeth had dropped behind purposely, knowing her
father's feelings toward her, and did not hear Jack say persuasively:
"Grandpa, let Jack drive and make the horses go round."
"No, no, Jack," Mrs. Farnshaw said quickly. "Mamma said you could not go
on the horsepower."
Mr. Farnshaw gave his wife a look of disdain and, stooping, picked the
child up. Mrs. Farnshaw gave a little cry. When his own team came around,
Mr. Farnshaw walked in front of it and started toward the platform on
which Albert stood swinging a long whip.
The "near horse" of the Farnshaw team was a stolid and reliable mare,
mother of many colts. She was so placed because it had been decided to put
a young stallion of uncertain temper beside her.
The restive, irritable beast sustained his reputation by nipping angrily
at Mr. Farnshaw as he dodged under the straps with which the horses were
tied to the reach ahead. To have passed in front of this team unencumbered
and alone when the power was in motion would have been foolhardy; but with
Jack in his arms it was an act of mock-heroics typical of the whole
bull-headed character of Josiah Farnshaw. He stumbled slightly in
springing out of the horse's way, and with Jack, who was a load, in his
arms, was barely able to keep his feet.
A shout went up from every man who saw the occurrence, and Albert shut off
the power in the endeavour to stop the machine.
Mr. Farnshaw sprang toward the inner corner of the triangular space
occupied by the team, and as the machine slowly came to a full stop set
Jack on the boards at Albert's feet and turned toward the horses. The
stallion threw a challenge at the man who had escaped its teeth, reared
angrily, shook its black mane, and, with teeth exposed and ears laid back,
prepared for another lunge. Not only Mrs. Farnshaw but every man on the
ground called to Josiah Farnshaw to get out of the way of the infuriated
beast. Instead of heeding the frantic warnings, Mr. Farnshaw, determined
to let his onlooking neighbours see that he was not afraid, sprang forward
and struck the squealing animal a stinging blow on the nose with his fist.
Taken by surprise, the horse set back so suddenly that he broke the straps
with which he and his mate were fastened to the reach, falling against the
mare, who was thoroughly frightened by her master's menacing blow. The
team behind them reared and snorted as the stallion sprang to its feet
again.
Then a strange and terrible thing happened. The horse stopped and made
ready for the plunge he had in mind. There were warning cries from every
man in the stackyard, but there was no chance to escape. With a scream
which struck terror to the hearts of the onlookers the brute sprang upon
the man and sunk its teeth through flesh and bone alike as it grabbed the
arm which was aiming a puny blow, and shook him as if he were a rag,
flinging him against the ground under its feet, and shaking him as a dog
shakes a rat it has captured. The men could not rush in, because the other
horse was on the outside of the team and was kicking and struggling to
free itself from the shrieking stallion. Every team attached to the
machine was tearing at its moorings, and horrified as the men were they
were obliged to attempt to control the other horses. The team immediately
in front of the stallion broke away altogether, carrying away with it the
reach to which it was fastened. Seeing his opportunity, Joe Farnshaw
rushed into the space left open by the disappearance of the other team,
and with a well-directed blow from an iron bar he had snatched up, he
staggered the horse so that it dropped the nerveless thing it had been
shaking, and stood stunned and trembling, sight, sound, and all other
matters of sense gone. The body was snatched away from in front of the
tottering horse in time to save it from the heavy weight of the falling
animal, which began to tremble, and then, losing control of its legs
altogether, fell heavily toward the platform, dragging its mate to her
knees as it went.
Elizabeth quieted her shrieking mother as best she could while she hugged
her rescued child to her bosom, and the sons of Josiah Farnshaw helped the
men to lay the broken body of their father upon an improvised stretcher to
be removed to the house. Kind hands performed the little duties necessary
on such occasions, and then the horrified men stayed on, gathered in
little groups about the dead stallion in the stackyard.
When all was done and the family were reduced to that terrorizing state of
idleness which comes to those who stand about their dead, Elizabeth took
Jack and wandered out of the house to where she could see Joe standing
near the well. Together they glanced across to the men standing around the
torn and dismantled horsepower.
"Pa was like that horse, Joe," Elizabeth said with a sudden gleam of
insight. "They were both ruled by unbridled passions. Everything they did
they mixed up with hate. You couldn't touch either of them without having
them lay back their ears."