I may as well avow myself in the beginning of my story as that anomalous
creature--a woman who loves her own sex, and naturally inclines to the
study of their individual peculiarities and histories, in order to get
at their collective qualities. If I were to lay before the reader all
the good and bad I know about them by actual discovery, and all the
mean, and heroic, attributes this habit I have of studying people has
revealed to me, I should meet with incredulity, perhaps with opprobrium.
However that may be, I have derived great enjoyment from having been
made the recipient of the confidences of many women, and by learning
therefrom to respect the moral greatness that is so often coupled with
delicate physical structure, and almost perfect social helplessness.
Pioneer life brings to light striking characteristics in a remarkable
manner; because, in the absence of conventionalities and in the presence
of absolute and imminent necessities, all real qualities come to the
surface as they never would have done under different circumstances. In
the early life of the Greeks, Homer found his Penelope; in the pioneer
days of the Pacific Coast, I discovered mine.
My wanderings, up and down among the majestic mountains and the sunny
valleys of California and Oregon, had made me acquainted with many
persons, some of whom were to me, from the interest they inspired me
with, like the friends of my girlhood. Among this select number was Mrs.
Anna Greyfield, at whose home among the foot-hills of the Sierras in
Northern California, I had spent one of the most delightful summers of
my life. Intellectual and intelligent without being learned or
particularly bookish; quick in her perceptions and nearly faultless in
her judgment of others; broadly charitable, not through any laxity of
principle on her own part, but through knowledge of the stumbling-blocks
of which the world is full for the unwary, she was a constant surprise
and pleasure to me. For, among the vices of women I had long counted
uncharitableness; and among their disadvantages want of actual knowledge
of things--the latter accounting for the former.
I had several times heard it mentioned that Mrs. Greyfield had been
twice married; and as her son Benton was also called Greyfield, I
presumed that he was the son of the second marriage. How I found out
differently I am about to relate.
One rainy winter evening, on the occasion of my second visit to this
friend, we were sitting alone before a bright wood fire in an open
fireplace, when we chanced to refer to the subject of her son's personal
qualities; he then being gone on a visit to San Francisco, and of course
very constantly in his mother's thoughts, as only sons are sure to be.
"Benton is just like his father," she said. "He is self-possessed and
full of expedients, but he says very little. I have often wished he
conversed more readily, for I admire a good talker."
"And yet did not marry one:--the common lot!"
Mrs. Greyfield smiled, and gazed into the fire, whose pleasant radiance
filled the room, bringing out the soft warm colors in the carpet, and
making fantastic shadows of our easy-chairs and ourselves upon the wall.
"Mr. Greyfield was your second husband?" I said, in an inquiring tone,
but without expecting to be contradicted.
"Mr. Greyfield was my first, last, and only husband," she replied, with
a touch of asperity, yet not as if she meant it for me.
"I beg your pardon," I hastened to explain: "but I had been told--"
"Yes, I can guess what you have been told. Very few people know the
truth: but I never had a second husband, though I was twice married;"
and my hostess regarded me with a smile half assumed and half
embarrassed.
For my own part, I was very much embarrassed, because I had certainly
been informed that she had lived for a number of years with a second
husband who had not used her well, and from whom she was finally
divorced. Doubt her word I could not; neither could I reconcile her
statement with facts apparently well known. She saw my dilemma, and,
after a brief silence, mentally decided to help me out of it. I could
see that, in the gradual relaxing of certain muscles of her face, which
had contracted at the first reference to this--as I could not
doubt--painful subject. Straightening her fine form as if ease of
position was not compatible with what was in her mind, she grasped the
arms of her chair with either hand, and looking with a retrospective
gaze into the fire, began:
"You see it was this way: the man I married the second time had another
wife."
While she drew a deep breath, and made a momentary pause, I seemed to
take it all in, for I had heard so many stories of deserted Eastern
homes, and subsequent illegal marriages in California, that I was
prepared not to be at all surprised at what I should learn from her.
Directly she went on:
"I found out about it the very day of the marriage. We were married in
the morning, and in the afternoon a man came over from Vancouver who
told me that Mr. Seabrook had a wife, and family of children, in a
certain town in Ohio." Another pause followed, while she seemed to be
recalling the very emotions of that time.
"Vancouver?" I said: "that is on the Columbia River."
"Yes; I was living in Portland at that time."
In reply to my glance of surprise, she changed the scene of her story to
an earlier date.
"Mr. Greyfield had always wanted to come to California, after the gold
discoveries; but when he married me he agreed not to think of it any
more. I was very young and timid, and very much attached to my
childhood's home, and my parents; and I could not bear the thought of
going so long a distance away from them. It was not then, as it is now,
an easy journey of one week; but a long six months' pilgrimage through a
wilderness country infested by Indians. To reach what? another
wilderness infested by white barbarians!"
"But I have always heard," I said, "that women were idealized and
idolized in those days."
"That is a very pretty fiction. If you had seen what I have seen on this
coast, you would not think we had been much idealized. Women have a
certain value among men, when they can be useful to them. In the old
States, where every man has a home, women have a fixed position and
value in society, because they are necessary to make homes. But on this
coast, in early times, and more or less even now, men found they could
dispense with homes; they had been converted into nomads, to whom earth
and sky, a blanket and a frying-pan, were sufficient for their needs.
Unless we came to them armed with endurance to battle with primeval
nature, we became burdensome. Strong and coarse women who could wash
shirts in any kind of a tub out of doors under a tree, and iron them
kneeling on the ground, to support themselves and half a dozen little,
hungry young ones, were welcome enough--before the Chinamen displaced
them. We had some value as cooks, before men, with large means, turned
their attention to supplying their brothers with prepared food for a
consideration below what we could do with our limited means. And then
the ladies, the educated, refined women, who followed their husbands to
this country, or who came here hoping to share, perchance, in the golden
spoils of the mines! Where are they to-day, and what is their condition?
Look for them in the sunless back rooms of San Francisco
boarding-houses, and you will find them doing a little fine sewing for
the shops; or working on their own garments, which they must make out of
school hours, because the niggardly pay of teachers in the lower grades
will not allow of their getting them done. Idealized indeed! Men talk
about our getting out of our places where we clamor for paying work of
some kind, for something to do that will enable us to live in half
comfort by working more hours than they do to earn lordly livings."
How much soever I might have liked to talk this labor question over with
my intelligent hostess at any other time, my curiosity concerning her
own history having been so strongly aroused, the topic seemed less
interesting than usual, and I seized the opportunity given by an
emphasized pause to bring her back to the original subject.
"Did you come first to California?" I asked.
"No. I had been married little over a year when Benton was born. 'Now,'
I thought, 'my husband will be contented to stay at home.' He had been
fretting about having promised not to take me to California; but I hoped
the baby would divert his thoughts. We were doing well, and had a
pleasant house, with everything in and about it that a young couple
ought to desire. I deceived myself in expecting Mr. Greyfield to give up
anything he had strongly desired; and seeing how much he brooded over
it, I finally told him to be comforted; that I would go with him to
California if he would wait until the baby was a year old before
starting; and to this he agreed."
"How old were you at that time?"
"Only about nineteen. I was twenty the spring we started; and celebrated
my anniversary by making a general gathering of all my relatives and
friends at our house, before we broke up and sold off our house-keeping
goods--all but such as could be carried in our wagons across the
plains."
"You were not starting by yourselves?"
"O no. There was a large company gathering together on the Missouri
river, to make the start in May; and we, with some of our neighbors,
made ready to join them. I shall never forget my feelings as I stood in
my own house for the last time, taking a life-long leave of every
familiar object! But you do not want to hear about that."
"I want to hear what you choose to tell me; but most of all about your
second marriage, and what led to it."
"It is not easy to go back so many years and take up one thread in the
skein of life, and follow that alone. I will disentangle it as rapidly
as I can; but first let us have a fresh fire."
Suiting the action to the word, my hostess touched a bell and ordered a
good supply of wood, which I took as an intimation that we were to have
one of our late sittings. In confirmation of this suspicion a second
order was given to have certain refreshments, including hot lemonade,
made ready to await our pleasure. When we were once more alone I begged
her to go on with her story.
"We left the rendezvous in May, and traveled without any unusual
incidents all through the summer."
"I beg pardon for interrupting you; but I do want to know how you
endured that sort of life. Was it not terrible?"
"It was monotonous, it was disagreeable, but it was not _terrible_ while
everybody was well. There were compensations in it, as in almost any
kind of life. My husband was strong and cheerful, now that he was having
his own way; the baby throve on fresh air and good milk--for we had
milch cows with us--and the summer months on the grassy plains are
delightful, except for rather frequent thunder storms. The grass was
good, and our cattle in fine order. Everything went well until the
cholera broke out among us."
"And then?"
"And then my husband died."
"Ah, what have not pioneer women endured!"
"Mr. Greyfield had from the first been regarded as a sort of leader.
Without saying much, but by being always in the right place at the right
time, he had gained an ascendancy over the less courageous, strong and
decided men. When the cholera came he was continually called upon to
nurse the sick, to bury the dead and comfort the living."
"And so became the easier victim?"
My remark was unheeded, while my hostess lived over again in
recollection the fearful scenes of the cholera season on the plains. I
wanted to divert her, and called her attention to the roaring of the
wind and beating of the rain without.
"Yes," she said; "it stormed just in that way the night before he died.
We all were drenched to the skin, and he was not in a condition to bear
the exposure. I was myself half sick with fever, and when the shock came
I became delirious. When I came to myself we were a hundred and fifty
miles away from the place where he died."
"How dreadful!" I could not help exclaiming. "Not even to know how and
where he was buried."
"Nor if he were buried at all. So frightened were the people in our
train that they could not be prevailed upon to take proper care of the
sick and dying, nor pay proper respect to the dead. After my reason
returned, the one subject that I could not bear to have mentioned was
that of my husband's death. Some of the men belonging to the train had
taken charge of my affairs and furnished a driver for the wagon I was
in. The women took care of Benton; and I lived, who would much rather
have died. Probably I should have died, but for the need I felt, when I
could think, of somebody to care for, support and educate my child. My
constitution was good; and that, with the anxiety about Benton, made it
possible for me to live."
"My dear friend," I exclaimed; "what a dreadful experience! I wonder
that you are alive and sit there talking to me, this moment."
"You will wonder more before I have done," she returned, with what might
be termed a superior sort of smile at my inexperience.
"But how did you get to Oregon?" I asked, interrupting her again.
"Our train was about at the place where the Oregon and California
emigrants parted company, when I recovered my reason and strength enough
to have any concern about where I was going. Some of those who had
started for Oregon had determined to go to California; and the most
particular friend Mr. Greyfield had in the train had decided to go to
Oregon instead of to California, as he first intended. Now, when my
husband was hopeless of his own recovery, he had given me in charge of
this man, with instructions to be governed by him in all my business
affairs; and I had no thought of resisting his will, though that bequest
was the cause of the worst sorrows of my life, by compelling me to go to
Oregon."
"Why cannot people be contented with ruling while living, without
subjecting others to the domination of an irrevocable will, when they
are no longer able to mold or govern circumstances. I beg your pardon.
Pray go on. But first let me inquire whether the person to whom you were
commanded to trust your affairs proved trustworthy?"
"As trustworthy as nearly absolute power on one side, and timid
inexperience on the other, is likely to make any one. When we arrived
finally in Portland, he took my wagons and cattle off my hands, and
returned me next to nothing for them. Yet, he was about like the average
administrator; it did not make much difference, I suppose, whether this
one man got my property, or a probate court."
"Poor child! I can see just how you were situated. Alone in a new
country, with a baby on your hands, and without means to make a home for
yourself. What _did_ you do? did you never think of going back to your
parents?"
"How could I get back? The tide of travel was not in that direction.
Besides, I had neither money nor a sufficient outfit. There was no
communication by mail in those days oftener than once in three months.
You might perish a thousand times before you could get assistance from
the East. O, no! there was nothing to be done, except to make the best
of the situation."
"Certainly, you had some friends among your fellow-immigrants who
interested themselves in your behalf to find you a home? Somebody
besides your guardian already mentioned."
"The most of them were as badly off as myself. Many had lost near
friends. I was not the only widow; but some women had lost their
husbands who had several young children. They looked upon me as
comparatively fortunate. Men had lost wives, and these were the most
wretched of all; for a woman can contrive some way to take care of her
children, where a man is perfectly helpless. Families, finding no houses
to go into by themselves, were huddled together in any shelter that
could be procured. The lines of partition in houses were often as
imaginary as the parallels of latitude on the earth; or were defined by
a window, or a particular board in the wall. O, I couldn't live in that
way. My object was to get a real home somewhere. As soon as I could, I
rented a room in a house with a good family, for the sake of the
protection they would be to me, and went to work to earn a living. Of
course, people were forward enough with their suggestions."
"Of what, for instance?"
"Most persons--in fact everybody that I talked with--said I should have
to marry. But I could not think of it; the mention of it always made me
sick that first winter. I was recovering strength, and was young; so I
thought I need not despair."
"Such a woman could not but have plenty of offers, in a new country
especially; but I understand how you must have felt. You could not marry
so soon after your husband's death, and it revolted you to be approached
on the subject. A wife's love is not so easily transferred."
"You speak as any one might think, not having been in my circumstances.
But there was something more than that in the feeling I had. I could not
realize the fact of Mr. Greyfield's death. It was as if he had only
fallen behind the train, and might come up with us any day. I _waited_
for him all that winter."
"How distressing!" I could not help saying. Mrs. Greyfield sat silent
for some minutes, while the storm raged furiously without. She rested
her cheek on her hand and gazed into the glowing embers, as if the past
were all pictured there in living colors. For me to say, as I did, "how
distressing," no doubt seemed to her the merest platitude. There are no
conventional forms for the expression of the utmost grief or sympathy.
Silence is most eloquent, but I could not keep silence. At last I asked,
"What did she do to earn a living?"
"I learned to make men's clothes. There was a clothing store in the
place that gave me employment. First I made vests, and then pants; and
finally I got to be quite expert, and could earn several dollars a day.
But a dollar did not buy much in those times; and oh, the crying spells
that I had over my work, before I had mastered it sufficiently to have
confidence in myself. Sancho Panza blessed the man that invented
sleep--I say, blessed be the woman that invented crying-fits, for they
save thousands and thousands of women from madness, annually!"
This was a return to that sprightly manner of speech that was one of
Mrs. Greyfield's peculiar attractions; and which often cropped out in
the least expected places. But though she smiled, it was easy to see
that tears would not be far to seek. "And yet," I said, "it is a bad
habit to cultivate--the habit of weeping. It wastes the blood at a
fearful rate."
"Don't I know it? But it is safer than frenzy. Why I used--but I'll not
tell you about that yet. I set out to explain to you my marriage with
Mr. Seabrook. As I told you, everybody said I must marry; and the
reasons they gave were, that I must have somebody to support me; that it
was not safe for me to live alone; that my son would need a man's
restraining hand when he came to be a few years older; and that I,
myself, was too young to live without love!--therefore the only correct
thing to do was to take a husband--a good one, if you could get him--a
husband, anyway. As spring came round, and my mind regained something of
its natural elasticity, and my personal appearance probably improved
with returned health, the air seemed full of husbands. Everybody that
had any business with me, if he happened not to have a wife, immediately
proposed to take me in that relation. All the married men of my
acquaintance jested with me on the subject, and their wives followed in
the same silly iteration. I actually felt myself of some consequence,
whether by nature or by accident, until it became irksome."
"How did all your suitors contrive to get time for courtship?" I
laughingly inquired.
"O, time was the least of their requirements. You know, perhaps, that
there was an Oregon law, or, rather, a United States law, giving a mile
square of land to a man and his wife: to each, half. Now some of the
Oregonians made this "Donation Act" an excuse for going from door to
door to beg a wife, as they pretended, in order to be able to take up a
whole section, though when not one of them ever cultivated a quarter
section, or ever meant to."
"And they come to _you_ in this way? What did they say? how did they
act?"
"Why, they rode a spotted cayuse up to the door with a great show of
hurry, jangling their Mexican spurs, and making as much noise as
possible. As there were no sidewalks in Portland, then, they could sit
on their horses and open a door, or knock at one, if they had so much
politeness. In either case, as soon as they saw a woman they asked if
she were married; and if not, would she marry? there was no more
ceremony about it."
"Did they ever really get wives in that way, or was it done in
recklessness and sport? It seems incredible that any woman could accept
such an offer as that."
"There were some matches made in that way; though, as you might
conjecture, they were not of the kind made in heaven, and most of them
were afterwards dissolved by legislative action or decree of the
courts."
"Truly you were right, when you said women are not idealized in
primitive conditions of society," I said, after the first mirthful
impulse created by so comical a recital had passed. "But how was it,
that with so much to disgust you with the very name of marriage, you
finally did consent to take a husband? He, certainly, was not one of the
kind that came riding up to doors, proposing on the instant?"
"No, he was not: but he might as well have been for any difference it
made to me," said Mrs. Greyfield, with that bitterness in her tone that
always came into it when she spoke of Seabrook. "You ask 'how was it
that I at last consented to take a husband?' Do you not know that such
influences as constantly surrounded me, are demoralizing as I said? You
hear a thing talked of until you become accustomed to it. It is as Pope
says: You 'first endure, then pity, then embrace.' I endured, felt
contempt, and finally yielded to the pressure.
"Why, you have no idea, from what I have told you, of the reality. My
house as I have already mentioned, was one room in a tenement. It opened
directly upon the street. In one corner was a bed. Opposite the door
was a stove for cooking and warming the house. A table and two chairs
besides my little sewing-chair completed the furnishing of the
apartment. The floor was bare, except where I had put down an old
coverlet for a rug before the bed. Here in this crowded place I cooked,
ate, slept, worked, and received company and offers!
"Just as an example of the way in which some of my suitors broached
the subject I will describe a scene. Fancy me kneeling on the floor,
stanching the blood from quite a serious cut on Benton's hand. The door
opens behind me, and a man I never have seen before, thrusts his head
and half his body in at the opening. His salutation is 'Howdy!'--his
first remark, 'I heern thar was a mighty purty widder livin' here; and
I reckon my infurmation was correct. If you would like to marry, I'm
agreeable.'"
"How did you receive this candidate? You have not told me what you
replied on these occasions," I said, amused at this picture of pioneer
life.
"I turned my head around far enough to get one look at his face, and
asking him rather crossly 'if there were any more fools where he came
from,' went on bandaging Benton's hand."
The recollection of this absurd incident caused the narrator to laugh as
she had not often laughed in my hearing.
"This may have been a second Werther," I remarked, "and surely no
Charlotte could have been more unfeeling than you showed yourself. It
could not be that a man coming in that way expected to get any other
answer than the one you gave him?"
"I do not know, and I did not then care. One day a man, to whose
motherless children I had been kind when opportunity offered, slouched
into my room without the ceremony of knocking and dropping into a chair
as if his knees failed him, began twirling his battered old hat in an
embarrassed manner, and doing as so many of his predecessors had
done--proposing off-hand. He had a face like a terra-cotta image, a long
lank figure, faded old clothes, and a whining voice."
"He told me that he had no 'woman,' and that I had no 'man,' a condition
that he evidently considered deplorable. He assured me that I suited him
'fustrate;' that his children 'sot gret store by me,' and 'liked my
victuals;' and that he thought a 'heap' of my little boy. He also
impressed upon me that he had been 'considerin' the 'rangement of jinin'
firms for some time. To close the business at once, he proposed that I
should accept of him for my husband then and there."
"And pray, what did you say to _him_!"
"I told him that I did not know what use I had for him, unless I should
put him behind the stove, and break bark over his head."
This reply tickled my fancy so much that I laughed until I cried. I
insisted on knowing what put it into her mind to say that.
"You see, we burned fir wood, the bark of which is better to make heat
than the woody portion of the tree; but is never sawed or split, and has
to be broken. I used to take up a big piece, and bring it down with a
blow over any sharp corner to knock it into smaller fragments, and
something in the man's appearance, I suppose, suggested that he might be
good for that, if for nothing else. I did not stop to frame my replies
on any forms laid down in young ladies' manuals; but they seemed to be
conclusive as a general thing."
"I should think so. Yet, there must have been some, more nearly your
equals, attracted by your youth and beauty, loving you, or capable of
loving you, to whom you could not give such answers, by whom such
answers would not be taken."
"As I look back upon it now, I cannot think of any one I might have
taken and did not, that I regret. There were men of all classes nearly;
but they were not desirable, as I saw it then, or as I see it now. It is
true that I was young, and pretty, perhaps, and that women were in a
minority. But then, too, the men who were floating about on the surface
of pioneer society were not likely to be the kind of men that make true
lovers and good husbands. Some of them have settled down into
steady-going benedicts, and have money and position. The worst effect of
all this talk about marrying was, that it prepared me to be persuaded
against my inner consciousness into doing that which I ought not to have
done. My truer judgment had become confused, my perceptions clouded,
from being so often assailed by the united majority who could not bear
to see poor, little minority go unappropriated. But come, let us have
our cakes and lemonade. You need something to sustain you while I
complete the recital of my conquests."
I felt that she needed a brief interval in which to collect her thoughts
and calm a growing nervousness that in spite of her efforts at
pleasantry would assert itself in various little ways, evident enough to
my observation. A saucepan of water was set upon the hot coals on the
hearth, the lemons cut and squeezed into two elegant goblets, upon
square lumps of sugar that eagerly took up the keen acid, and grew
yellow and spongy in consequence. A sociable little round table was
rolled out of its seclusion in a corner, and made to support a tray
between us, whereon were such dainty cakes and confections as my hostess
delighted in.
There was an air of substantial comfort in all the arrangements of my
friend's house that made it a peculiarly pleasant one to visit. It
lacked nothing to make it home-like, restful, attractive. The house
itself was large and airy, with charming views; the furniture
sufficiently elegant without being too fine for use; flowers, birds, and
all manner of _curios_ abounded, yet were never in the way, as they so
often are in the houses of people who are fond of pretty and curious
things, but have no really refined taste to arrange them. Our little
ten-o'clock lunch was perfect in its appointments--a "thing of beauty,"
as it was of palatableness and refreshment. So strongly was I impressed
at the moment with this talent of Mrs. Greyfield's, that I could not
refrain from speaking of it, as we sat sipping hot and spicy lemonade
from those exquisite cut-glass goblets of her choosing, and tasting
dainties served on the loveliest china: "Yes, I suppose it is a gift of
God, the same as a taste for the high arts is an endowment from the same
source. Did it never strike you as being absurd, that men should expect,
and as far as they can, require all women to be good housekeepers? They
might as well expect every mechanic to carve in wood or chisel marble
into forms of life. But it is my one available talent, and has stood me
in good stead, though I have no doubt it was one chief cause of my
trouble, by attracting Mr. Seabrook."
"You must know," I said, "that I am tortured with curiosity to hear
about that person. Will you not now begin?"
"Let me see--where did I leave off? I was telling you that although I
had so many suitors, of so many classes, and none of them desirable, to
my way of thinking, I was really gradually being influenced to marry.
You must know that a woman so young and so alone in the world, and who
had to labor for her bread, and her child's bread, could not escape the
solicitations of men who did not care to marry; and it was this class
who gave me more uneasiness than all the presuming ignorant ones, who
would honor me by making me a wife. I know it is constantly asserted,
by men themselves, that no woman is approached in that way who does
not give some encouragement. But no statement could be more utterly
false--unless they determine to construe ordinary politeness and
friendliness into a covert advance. The cunning of the "father of lies"
is brought to bear to entrap artless and inexperienced women into
situations whence they are assured there is no escape without disgrace.
"During my first year of widowhood my feelings were several times
outraged in this way; and at first I was so humiliated, and had such a
sense of guilt, that it made me sick and unfit for my work. The guilty
feeling came, I now know, from the consciousness I had of the popular
opinion I have referred to, that there must be something wrong in my
deportment. But by calling to mind all the circumstances connected with
these incidents, and studying my own behavior and the feelings that
impelled me, I taught myself at last not to care so very much about it,
after the first emotions of anger had passed away. Still I thought I
could perceive that I was not quite the same person: you
understand?--the 'bloom' was being brushed away."
"What an outrage! What a shame, that a woman in your situation could not
be left to be herself, with her own pure thoughts and tender sorrows!
Was there no one to whom you could go for advice and sympathy?--none
among all those who came to the country with you who could have helped
you?"
"The people who came out with me were mostly scattered through the
farming country; and would have been of very little use to me if they
had not been. In fact, they would, probably, have been first to condemn
me, being chiefly of an uneducated class, and governed more by
traditions than by the wisdom of experience. There were two or three
families whose acquaintance I had made after arriving in Portland, who
were kindly disposed towards me, and treated me with great
neighborliness; especially the family that was in the same tenement with
me. To them I sometimes mentioned my troubles; but while they were
willing to do anything for me in the way of a common friendly service,
like the loaning of an article of household convenience, or sitting with
me when Benton was sick--as he very often was--they could not understand
other needs, or minister to the sickness of the mind. If I received any
counsel, it was to the effect that a woman was in every way better off
to be married. I used to wonder why God had not made us married--why he
had given us our individual natures, since there was forever this
necessity of being paired!"
"Yet you had loved your husband?"
"I had never ceased to love him!--and that was just what these people
could not understand. Death cut _them_ loose from everything, and they
were left with only strong desires, and no sentiment to sanctify them.
That I should love a dead husband, and turn with disgust from a living
one, was inexplicable to them."
"My dear, I think I see the rock on which you wrecked your happiness."
For the moment I had forgotten what she had told me in the beginning,
that Seabrook had married her illegally; and was imagining her married
to a living husband, and loving only the memory of one dead. She saw my
error, and informed me by a look. Pushing away the intervening table
with its diminished contents, and renewing the fire, Mrs. Greyfield
proceeded:
"It would take too long to go over the feelings of those times, and
assign their causes. You are a woman that can put yourself in my place,
to a great extent, though not wholly; for there are some things that
cannot be imagined, and only come by experience."
"Benton was two years and a half old; a very delicate child, suffering
nearly all the time with chills and fever. I had occasional attacks of
illness from the malaria, always to be met with on the clearing up of
low-lands near a river. Still I was able to sew enough to keep a shelter
over our heads, and bread in our mouths, until I had been a year in
Portland. But I could not get ahead in the least, and was often very low
spirited. About this time I made the acquaintance of Mr. Seabrook. He
was introduced to me by a mutual acquaintance, and having a little
knowledge of medicine, gave me both advice and remedies for Benton. He
used to come in quite often, and look after the child, and praise my
housekeeping, which probably was somewhat better than that of the
average pioneer of those days. He never paid me any silly compliments,
or disturbed my tranquillity with love-making of any sort. Just for that
reason I began to like him. He was twelve or fifteen years older than
myself; and more than ordinarily fine-looking and intelligent. You have
no idea, because you have never been so placed, what a comfort it was to
me to have such a friend."
"Yes, I think I know."
"One day he said to me, 'Mrs. Greyfield, this sitting and sewing all day
is bad for your health. Now, I should think, being so good a housekeeper,
you might do very well by taking a few boarders; and I believe you could
stand that kind of labor better than sewing.' We had a little talk about
it, and he proposed trying to find me a house suited to the purpose; to
which I very readily consented; for, though I was wholly inexperienced
in any business, I thought it better to venture the experiment than to
keep on as I was doing."
"How did you expect to get furniture? Pardon me; but you see I want to
learn all about the details of so strange a life."
"I don't think I expected anything, or thought of all the difficulties
at once."
"Which was fortunate, because they would have discouraged you."
"It is hard to say what has or has not been for the best. But for that
boarding-house scheme, I do not believe I should have married the man I
did.
"As I was saying, Mr. Seabrook never annoyed me with attentions. He came
and talked to me in a friendly manner, and with a superior air that
disarmed apprehension on that score. Mrs. ----, my neighbor in the next
room, once hinted to me that his visits were indicative of his
intentions, and thereby caused me a sleepless night. But as _he_ never
referred to the subject, and as I was now full of my new business
project, the alarm subsided. A house was finally secured, or a part of a
house, consisting of a kitchen, dining-room and bed-room, on the first
floor; and the same number of rooms above. I had a comfortable supply of
bedding and table linen; the trouble was about cabinet furniture. But as
most of my boarders were bachelors, who quartered themselves where they
could, I got along very well."
"You made a success of it, then?"
"I made a success. I threw all my energies into it, and had all the
boarders I could cook for."
"Mr. Seabrook boarded with you?--I conjecture that."
"Yes; and he took a room at my house. At first I liked it well enough; I
had so much confidence in him. But in a short time I thought I could
perceive that my other boarders were disposed to think that we looked
toward a nearer relationship in the future. Perhaps they were justified
in thinking so, as they could only judge from appearances; and I had
asked Mr. Seabrook to take the foot of the table, and carve, because I
had so much else to do that it was impossible for me to do that also.
Gradually he assumed more the air of proprietor than of boarder; but as
he was so much older and wiser, and had been of so much service to me, I
readily pardoned what I looked upon as a matter of no great consequence.
"It proved to be, however, a matter of very great consequence. I had
been established in the new house and business four or five weeks, when
one evening, Benton being unusually ill, I asked Mr. Seabrook's advice
about him. My bed-room was up stairs, against the partition which
separated my apartments from those occupied by a family of Germans. I
chose that room for myself because it seemed less lonely, and safer for
me, to be where I could hear the voice of the little German woman, and
she could hear mine. In the same manner my kitchen joined on to hers,
and we could hear each other at our work. Benton being too ill to be
dressed, was lying on the bed in my room, and I asked Mr. Seabrook to go
up and look at him. He examined him and told me what to do, in his usual
decided and assured manner, and went back to the dining-room, which was
also my sitting-room. As soon as Benton was quieted, so that I could
leave him, I also returned to the lower part of the house to finish my
evening tasks.
"There is such a feeling of hatred arises in my heart when I recall that
part of my history that it makes me fear my own wickedness! Do you think
we can hate so much as to curse and blight our own natures?"
"Undoubtedly; but that would be a sort of frenzy, and would finally end
in madness. _You_ do not feel in that way. It is the over-mastering
sense of wrong suffered, for which there can be no redress. Terrible as
the feeling is, it must be free from the wickedness you impute to
yourself. Your nature is sound and sweet at the core--I feel sure of
that."
"Thank you. I have had many grave doubts about myself. But to go on.
Contrary to his usual habit, Mr. Seabrook remained at the house that
evening, and in the dining-room instead of his own room. I was so busy
with my work and anxious about Benton, that I did not give more than a
passing thought to him. He, also, seemed much pre-occupied.
"At last my work was done, and I took a light to go to my room, telling
Mr. Seabrook to put out the lights below stairs, as I should not be down
again. 'Stop a moment,' said he, 'I have something to tell you that you
ought to know.' He very politely placed a chair for me, which I took.
His manners were faultless in the matter of etiquette--and how very far
a fine manner goes, in our estimate of people! I had not the shadow of a
suspicion of what was coming. 'Mrs. Greyfield,' he said, with great
gravity, 'I fear I have unintentionally compromised you very seriously.
In advising you to take this house, and open it for boarders, I was
governed entirely by what I conceived to be your best interests; but it
seems that I erred in my judgment. You are very young--only
twenty-three, I believe, and--I beg your pardon--too beautiful to pass
unnoticed in a community like this. Your boarders, so far, are all
gentlemen. Further, it has been noticed and commented upon that--really,
I do not know how to express it--that _I_ have seemed to take the place
in your household that--pray, forgive me, Mrs. Greyfield--only a
husband, in fact or in expectancy, could be expected or permitted to
occupy. Do you see what I mean?'
"I sat stunned and speechless while he went on. 'I presume your good
sense will direct you in this matter, and that you will grasp the right
horn of the dilemma. If you would allow me to help you out of it, you
would really promote my happiness. Dear Mrs. Greyfield, permit me to
offer you the love and protection of a husband, and stop these gossips'
mouths.'"
"You do not think he had premeditated this?" I asked.
"I did not take it in then, but afterwards I saw it plainly enough. He
pressed me for an answer, all the time plausibly protesting that
although he had hoped some time to win my love, he had not anticipated
the necessity for urging his suit as a matter of expediency. In vain I
argued that if his presence in the house was an injury to me, he could
leave it. It was too late, he said. I indignantly declared that it was
not my fault that my boarders were all men. I was working for my living,
and would just as willingly have boarded any other creature if I could
have got my money for it; a monkey or a sheep; it was all the same to
me. He smiled superiorly on my fretfulness; and when I at last burst
into a passion of tears, bade me good night with such an air of being
extremely forbearing and judicious that I could not help regarding
myself as a foolish and undisciplined child.
"That night I scarcely slept at all. Benton was feverish, and I half
wild. All sorts of plans ran through my head; but turn the matter over
any way I would, it amounted to the same thing. The money I must earn,
must come from men. Whether I sewed or cooked, or whatever I did, they
were the paymasters to whom I looked for my wages. How, then, was it
possible to escape contact with them, or avoid being misunderstood. In
one breath I resented, with all the ardor of my soul, the impertinence
of the world's judgment, and in the next I declared to myself that I did
not care; that conscious innocence should sustain me, and that I had a
right to do the best I could for myself and child.
"But that was only sham courage. I was morally a coward, and could not
possibly face the evil spirit of detraction. Therefore, the morning
found me feverish in body and faint in spirit. I kept out of sight of my
boarders, except Mr. Seabrook, who looked into the kitchen with a
sympathizing face, and inquired very kindly after Bennie, as he
pet-named Benton. When my dinner was over that day, I asked the little
German woman to keep the child until I could go on an errand, and went
over to Mrs. ----, my old house-mate, to get advice.
"Do you know how much advice is worth? If you like it, you haven't needed
it; and if you do not like it, you will not take it. Mrs. ---- told me
that if she were in my place, as if she _could be_ in my place! she would
get rid of all her troubles by getting some man to take charge of her and
her affairs. When I asked, with transparent duplicity, where I was to
find a man for this service, she laughed in my face. People _did_ talk
so then, and what Mr. Seabrook said was the unexaggerated truth. It did
not occur to me to examine into the authorship of the rumors; I was too
shrinking and sensitive for that.
"When I reached home I found Mr. Seabrook at the house. A sudden feeling
of anger flashed into my mind, and must have illuminated my eyes; for he
gave me one deprecating glance, and immediately went out. This made me
fear I was unjust to him. That evening he did not come to tea, but sent
me a note saying he had business at Vancouver and would not return for
two or three days; but that when he did return it would be better to
have my mind made up to dismiss him entirely out of the country, or to
have our engagement made known.
"That threw the whole responsibility upon me; and it was, as he knew it
would be, too heavy for my twenty-three years to carry. To lose the most
helpful and agreeable friend I had in the country, to banish him for no
fault but being too kind to me, or to take him in place of one whose
image would always stand between us: that was the alternative.
"The next day an incident occurred that decided my destiny. I had to go
out to make some purchases for the house. At the store where I usually
bought provisions I chanced to meet a woman who had crossed the
continent in my company; and she turned her back upon me without
speaking. She was an ignorant, bigoted sort of woman, of an uncertain
temper, and at another time I might not have cared for the slight; but
coming at a time when I was in a state of nervous alarm, it cut me to
the quick. With great difficulty I restrained my tears, and left the
store. While hurrying home with a basket on my arm, almost choked with
grief, I passed a kind old gentleman who had always before had a
pleasant word for me, and an inquiry about my child. He, too, passed me
with only the slightest sign of recognition. I thought my heart would
burst in my breast, so terrible was the sense of outrage and shame--"
"Which was, after all, probably imaginary," I interrupted. "The insult
of the ignorant, ill-tempered woman was purely an accidental display of
those qualities, and the slight recognition of your old friend the
consequence of the other, for your face certainly expressed the state of
your feelings, and your friend was surprised into silence by seeing you
in such distress."
"That, very likely, is the true explanation. But it did not so impress
me then. You cannot, in the state of mind I was in, go after people, and
ask them to tell you whether or not they really mean to insult you,
because you are only too certain that they do. I was sick with pain and
mortification. How I got through my day's work I do not remember; but
you can understand that my demoralization was complete by this time, and
that when Mr. Seabrook returned I was like wax in his hands. All that I
stipulated for was a little more time; he had my permission to announce
our engagement.
"My boarders and every one who spoke to me about it congratulated me.
When I look back upon it now, it seems strange that no one ever
suggested to me the importance of knowing the antecedents of the man I
was going to marry; but they did not. It seemed to be tacitly understood
that antecedents were not to be dragged to light in this new world, and
that "by-gones should be by-gones." As to myself, it never occurred to
my inexperience to suspect that a man might be dishonorable, even
criminal, though he had the outside bearing of a gentleman."
"Did he propose to relieve you of the necessity of keeping boarders?"
"No. The business was a good one; and, as I have said, I was a success
in this line. My constitution was good; my energy immense, in labor; my
training in household economy good; and, besides, I had a real talent
for pleasing my boarders. I was to be provided with a servant; and the
care of the marketing would devolve upon Mr. Seabrook. With this
amelioration of my labors, the burden could be easily borne for the sake
of the profits."
"What business was Mr. Seabrook in?"
"I never thought of the subject at that time. He was always well
dressed; associated with men of business; seemed to have money; and I
never doubted that such a man was able to do anything he proposed.
Women, you know, unconsciously attribute at least an earthly omnipotence
to men. Afterwards, of course, I was disillusioned. But I must hasten,
for it is growing late; and either the storm or these old memories shake
my nerves.
"I had asked for a month's time to prepare my mind for my coming
marriage. At the end of a week, however, Mr. Seabrook came to me and
told me that imperative business called him away for an absence of
several weeks, and that, in his judgment, the marriage ceremony should
take place before he left. He should be away over the month I had
stipulated for; and, in case of accident, I would have the protection of
his name. My objections were soon overruled, and on the morning of his
departure we were married--as I believed, legally and firmly bound--in
the presence of my family of boarders, and two or three women, including
Mrs. ----. He went away immediately, and I was left to my tumultuous
thoughts."
"May I be permitted to know whether you loved him at all, at that time?
It seems to me that you must have sometimes yearned for the ownership of
some heart, and the strong tenderness of man's firmer nature."
Mrs. Greyfield looked at me with a curiously mixed expression, half of
sarcastic pity, half of amused contempt. But the thought, whatever it
was, went unspoken. She reflected a moment silently before she answered.
"I have told you that my heart remained unweaned from the memory of my
dead husband. I told Mr. Seabrook the same. But I admired, respected and
believed in him; he was agreeable to me, and had my confidence. There
can be no doubt, but if he had been all that he seemed, I should have
ended by loving him in a quiet and constant way. As it was, the shock I
felt at the discovery of his perfidy was terrible.
"My ears were yet tingling with my new name, when, everybody having
gone, I sat down with Benton on my lap to have the pleasure of the few
natural tears that women are bound to shed over their relinquished
freedom. I was very soon aroused by a knock at the door, which opened to
admit an old acquaintance, then residing in Vancouver, and a former
suitor of mine. Almost the first thing he said was, 'I hear you have
been getting married?' 'Yes,' I said, trying to laugh off my
embarrassment, 'I had to marry a man at last to get rid of them!'
"'You made a poor selection, then,' he returned, rather angrily.
"His anger roused mine, for his tone was, as I thought, insolent, 'Do
you think I should have done better to have taken you?' I asked,
scornfully.
"'You would at least have got a man that the law could give you,' he
retorted, 'and not another woman's husband.'
"The charge seemed so enormous that I laughed in his face, attributing
his conduct to jealous annoyance at my marriage. But something in his
manner, in spite of our mutual excitement, unsettled my confidence. He
was not inventing this story; he evidently believed it himself. 'For
God's sake,' I entreated, 'if you have any proof of what you say, give
it me at once!' And then he went on to tell me that on the occasion of
Mr. Seabrook's late visit to Vancouver, he had been recognized by an
emigrant out from Ohio, who met and talked with him at the Hudson's Bay
store. That man had told him, my informant, that he was well acquainted
with the family of Mr. Seabrook, and that his wife and several children
were living when he left Ohio.
"'Can you bring this man to me?' I asked, trembling with horrible
apprehensions.
"'I don't know as I could,' said he; 'for he went, I think, over to the
Sound to look up a place. But I can give you the name of the town he
came from, if that would be of any use.' I had him write the address for
me, as I was powerless to do it for myself.
"'I am sorry for you,' he said, as he handed me the slip of paper; 'that
is, if you care anything for the rascal.'
"'Thank you,' I returned, 'but this thing is not proven yet. If you
really mean well by me, keep what you have told me to yourself.'
"'You mean to live with him?' he asked.
"'I don't know what I shall do; I must have time to think.'
"'Very well; it is no affair of mine. I don't want a bullet through my
head for interfering; but I thought it was no more than fair to let you
know.'
"'I am very grateful, of course;--I mean I am if there is any occasion;
but this story is so strange, and has come upon me so suddenly that I
cannot take it all in at once, with all its consequences.'
"'I know what you think,' he said finally: 'You suspect me of making up
this thing to be revenged on you for preferring Seabrook to me. I'd be a
damned mean cuss, to do such a turn by any woman, wouldn't I? As to
consequences, if the story is true, and I believe it is, why your
marriage amounts to nothing, and you are just as free as you were
before!'
"I fancied his face brightened up with the idea of my freedom, and a
doubt of his veracity intruded upon my growing conviction. Distracted,
excited, pressed down with cares and fears, I still had to attend to my
daily tasks. I begged him to go away, and not to say a word to any other
mortal about what he had told me; and he gave me the promise I desired.
That was a fatal error, and fearfully was I punished."
"How an error? It seems to me quite remarkable prudence for one in your
situation."
"So I thought then; but the event proved differently."
"Pray do tell me how you bore up under all this excitement, and the care
and labor of a boarding-house? The more I know of your life, the more
surprised I am at your endurance."
"It was the care and labor that saved me, perhaps. At all events, here I
am, alive and well, to-night. I sometimes liken myself to a tree that I
know of. It was a small fir tree in a friend's garden. For some reason,
it began to pine and dwindle and turn red. My friend's husband insisted
on cutting it down, as unsightly; but this she objected to, until all
the leaves were dry and faded, and the tree apparently dead. Still she
asked for it to be spared for another season; and, taking a stick, she
beat the tree all over until not a leaf was left on a single bough; and
there it stood, a mere frame of dry branches, until everybody wished it
out of the way. But behold! at last it was covered with little green
dots of leaves, that rapidly grew to the usual size, and now that tree
is the thriftiest in my friend's garden, and a living evidence of the
uses of adversity. But for the beating it got, it would now be a dead
tree! I had my child to live and work for; and really, but for this last
trouble, I should have thought myself doing well. I had found out how I
could make and lay up money, and was gaining that sense of independence
such knowledge gives. Besides, I was young, and in good physical health
most of the time before this last and worst stroke of fortune. _That_
broke down my powers of resistance in some directions, I had so much to
resist in others."
"Do you see what o'clock it is?" I asked.
"Yes; but if you do not mind the sitting up, let's make a night of it. I
feel as if I could not sleep--as if something were going to happen."
Very cheerfully I consented to the proposed vigil. I wanted to hear the
rest of the story; and I knew she had a sort of prophetic consciousness
of coming events. If she said "something was going to happen," something
surely did happen. So the fire was renewed, and we settled ourselves
again for "a night of it.
"What did you do? and why do you say that you committed a fatal error by
keeping silence?"
"By suffering the matter to rest, I unfortunately fixed myself in the
situation I would have avoided. My object was what yours would have
been, or any woman's--to save all scandal, until the facts were known to
a certainty. I was so sensitive about being talked over; and besides
felt that I had no right to expose Mr. Seabrook to a slanderous
accusation. It was not possible for me to have foreseen what actually
happened.
"I took one night to think the matter over. It was a longer night than
this one will seem to you. My decision was to write to the postmaster of
the town from which Mr. Seabrook was said to come. _Now_ that would be a
simple affair enough; the telegraph would procure us the information
wanted in a day. _Then_ a letter was five or six months going and
coming. In the meantime I had resolved not to live with Mr. Seabrook as
his wife; but you will see how I would, under the circumstances, be
compelled to seem to do so. I did not think of that at first, however.
You know how you mentally go over impending scenes beforehand? I meant
to surprise him into a confession, if he were guilty; and believed I
should be able to judge of his innocence, if he should be wrongly
accused. I wrote and dispatched my letter at once, and under an assumed
name, to prevent its being stolen. When that was done I tried to rest
unconcerned; but, of course, that was impossible. My mind ran on this
subject day and night.
"The difficulties of my position could never be imagined; you would have
to be in the same place to see them. Everybody now called me Mrs.
Seabrook, and I could not repudiate the name without sufficient cause. I
was forced to appear to have confidence in the man I had married of my
own free will. Besides, I really did not know, of a verity, that he was
not worthy of confidence. It seemed quite as credible that another man
should invent a lie, as that Mr. Seabrook should be guilty of an
enormous crime.
"Naturally I had a buoyant temper; was inclined to see the amusing side
of things; enjoyed frolicsome conversation; and in a general way was
well fitted to bear up under worries, and recover quickly from depressed
conditions. The gentlemen who boarded with me were a cheerful and
intelligent set, whose conversation entertained me, as they met three
times a day at table. They were all friends of Mr. Seabrook, which gave
them the privilege of saying playful things to me about him daily. To
these remarks I must make equally playful replies, or seem ungracious to
them. You will see how every such circumstance complicated my
difficulties afterwards.
"You know, too, how pliable we all are at twenty-three--how often our
opinions waver and our emotions change. I was particularly mercurial in
my temperament before the events I am relating hardened me. I often laid
in a half-waking state almost all night, my imagination full of horrible
images; and when breakfast-time came, and I listened to an hour of
entertaining talk, with frequent respectful allusions to Mr. Seabrook,
and kindly compliments to myself, these ugly visions took flight, while
I persuaded myself that everything would come out right in the end.
"A little while ago you asked me if I did not love Mr. Seabrook at
all?--did not long for tenderness from him? The question roused
something of the wickedness in me that I confessed to you before; but I
will answer the inquiry now, by asking _you_ if you think any woman in
her twenties is quite reconciled to live unloved? I had not wished to
marry again; yet undoubtedly there was a great blank in my life, which
my peculiarly friendless condition made me very sensible of; and there
_was_ a yearning desire in my heart to be petted and cared for, as in my
brief married life I had been. But the coarseness and intrusiveness I
had experienced in my widowhood had made me as irritable as the 'fretful
porcupine' towards that class of men. The thought of Mr. Seabrook loving
me had never taken root in my mind. Even when he proposed marriage, it
had seemed much more a matter of expediency than of love. But when,
after I had accepted him as an avowed lover, his conduct had continued
to be unintrusive, and delicately flattering to my womanly pride, it was
most natural that I should begin to congratulate myself on the prospect
before me of life-long protection from such wounds as I had received,
with the great satisfaction of increased dignity in point of social
position; for then, much more than now, and in a new country more than
in an old one, a woman's position depended on her relationship to men;
the wife of the most worthless man being the superior of an unmarried
woman. Accordingly I felt my promised importance, and began to exult in
it."
"In short, you were preparing to become much more subject to the second
love than the first; a not infrequent experience," I interrupted. "You
certainly must have loved a handsome, agreeable, courteous, and manly
man, who would have interposed between you and the rude shocks of the
world; and you had begun to realize that you could, in spite of your
first love?"
"And to have a feeling of disappointment when the possibility presented
itself that after all these blessings might be wrested from me; of
horror when I reflected that in that case my last estate would be
inexpressibly worse than the first."
"There was a terrible temptation there!"
"No; that was the one thing I was perfectly clear about. Not to be
dragged into crime or deserved disgrace, I was determined upon. How I
should avoid it was where I was in doubt."
"I am very anxious to know how you met him on his return."
"There was no one in the house except myself, and Benton, who was now
quite well again for the time. I was standing by the dining-room window,
arranging some ferns in a hanging basket, and Benton was amusing himself
with toys the boarders were always giving him. I heard a footstep, and
turned my head slightly to see who it was. Mr. Seabrook stood in the
door, regarding us with a pleased smile.
"'How is my wife and boy?' he said, cheerily, advancing towards me, and
proffering a kiss of greeting.
"I put up my hand to ward him off, and my heart stood motionless. I
seemed to be struck with a chill. My teeth chattered together, while the
ends of my fingers turned cold at once.
"Naturally, he was surprised; but thinking perhaps that the suddenness
of his return, under the circumstances, had overcome me, he quickly
recovered his tenderness of manner.
"'Have I frightened you, my darling?' he asked, putting out his arms to
fold me to his breast. Not being able to speak, I whirled round rapidly,
and hastened to place the table between us. Of course, he could not
comprehend such conduct, but thought it some nervous freak, probably.
"Turning to Benton, he took him up in his arms and kissed him, asking
him some questions about himself and toys. 'Could you tell me what is
the matter with your mamma, Bennie?' he asked, seeing that my manner
remained inexplicable.
"'I tink see has a till,' answered Benton, who by this time knew the
meaning of the word 'chill' by experience.
"'She has given _me_ one, I know,' said Mr. Seabrook, regarding me
curiously. I began to feel faint, and sat down, leaning my head on my
hand, my elbow on the table.
"'Anna,' said he, addressing me by my Christian name for the first time,
and giving me a little shock in consequence--for I had almost forgotten
I had ever been called 'Anna'--'if I am so disagreeable to you, I will
go away again; though I certainly had reason to expect a different
reception.'
"'No,' I said, suddenly rousing up; 'you must not go until I have told
you something; unless you go to stay--which would perhaps be best.'
"'To stay! go to stay? There seems great need of explanation here. Will
you be good enough to tell me why I am to go away to stay?'
"'The reason is, Mr. Seabrook,' I answered, 'that your true wife, and
your own children expect you at home, in Ohio.'