David Macy's house stood on the spur of a breezy upland at the end of a
road. The faraway neighbors, who lived on the main highway and could
see the passin', often thanked their stars that they had been called to
no such isolation; you might, said they, as well be set down in the
middle of pastur'. They wondered how David's Letty could stand it. She
had been married 'most a year, and before that she was forever on the
go. But there! if David Macy had told her the sun rose in the west,
she'd ha' looked out for it there every identical mornin'.
The last proposition had some color in it; for Letty was very much in
love. To an impartial view, David was a stalwart fellow with clear gray
eyes and square shoulders, a prosperous yeoman of the fibre to which
America owes her being. But according to Letty he was something
superhuman in poise and charm. David had no conception of his heroic
responsibilities; nothing could have puzzled him more than to guess how
the ideal of him grew and strengthened in her maiden mind, and how her
after-worship exalted it into something thrilling and passionate, not
to be described even by a tongue more facile than hers. Letty had a
vivid nature, capable of responding to those delicate influences which
move to spiritual issues. There were throes of love within her, of
aspiration, of an ineffable delight in being. She never tried to
understand them, nor did she talk about them; but then, she never tried
to paint the sky or copy the robin's song. Life was very mysterious;
but one thing was quite as mysterious as another. She did sometimes
brood for a moment over the troubled sense that, in some fashion, she
spoke in another key from "other folks," who did not appear to know
that joy is not altogether joy, but three-quarters pain, and who had
never learned how it brings its own aching sense of incompleteness; but
that only seemed to her a part of the general wonder of things. There
had been one strange May morning in her life when she went with her
husband into the woods, to hunt up a wild steer. She knew every foot of
the place, and yet one turn of the path brought them into the heart of
a picture thrillingly new with the unfamiliarity of pure and living
beauty. The evergreens enfolded them in a palpable dusk; but
entrancingly near, shimmering under a sunny gleam, stood a company of
birches in their first spring wear. They were trembling, not so much
under the breeze as from the hurrying rhythm of the year. Their green
was vivid enough to lave the vision in light; and Letty looked beyond
it to a brighter vista still. There, in an opening, lay a bank of
violets, springing in the sun. Their blue was a challenge to the skyey
blue above; it pierced the sight, awaking new longings and strange
memories. It seemed to Letty as if some invisible finger touched her on
the heart and made her pause. Then David turned, smiling kindly upon
her, and she ran to him with a little cry, and put her arms about his
neck.
"What is it?" he asked, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "What is
it, little child?"
"Oh, it's nothin'!'" said Letty chokingly. "It's only--I like you so!"
The halting thought had no purple wherein to clothe itself; but it
meant as much as if she had read the poets until great words had become
familiar, and she could say "love." He was the spring day, the sun, the
blue of the sky, the quiver of leaves; and she felt it, and had a pain
at her heart.
Now, on an autumn morning, David was standing within the great space in
front of the barn, greasing the wheels preliminary to a drive to
market; and Letty stood beside him, bareheaded, her breakfast dishes
forgotten. She was a round thing, with quick movements not ordinarily
belonging to one so plump; her black hair was short, and curled
roughly, and there were freckles on her little snub nose. David looked
up at her red cheeks and the merry shine of her eyes, and smiled upon
her.
"You look pretty nice this mornin'," he remarked.
Letty gave a little dancing step and laughed. The sun was bright; there
was a purple haze over the hills, and the nearer woods were yellow. The
world was a jewel newly set for her.
"I _am_ nice!" said she. "David, do you know our anniversary's comin'
on? It's 'most a year since we were married,--a year the fifteenth."
David loosened the last wheel, and rose to look at her.
"Sho!" said he, with great interest "Is that so? Well, 't was a good
bargain. Best trade I ever made in _my_ life!"
"And we've got to celebrate," said Letty masterfully. "I'll tell you
how. I've had it all planned for a month. We'll get up at four, have
our breakfast, ride over to Star Pond, and picnic all day long. We'll
take a boat and go out rowin', and we'll eat our dinner on the water!"
David smiled back at her, and then, with a sudden recollection, pursed
his lips.
"I'm awful sorry, Letty," he said honestly, "but I've got to go over to
Long Pastur' an' do that fencin', or I can't put the cattle in there
before we turn 'em into the shack. You know that fence was all done up
in the spring, but that cussed breachy cow o' Tolman's hooked it down;
an' if I wait for him to do it--well, you know what he is!"
"Oh, you can put off your fencin'!" cried Letty. "Only one day! Oh, you
can!"
"I could 'most any other time," said David, with reason, "but here it
is 'most Saturday, an' next week the thrashin'-machine's comin'. I'm
awful sorry, Letty. I am, honest!"
Letty turned half round like a troubled child, and began grinding one
heel into the turf. She was conscious of an odd mortification. It was
not, said her heart, that the thing itself was so dear to her; it was
only that David ought to want immeasurably to do it. She always put
great stress upon the visible signs of an invisible bond, and she would
be long in getting over her demand for the unreason of love.
David threw down the monkey-wrench, and put an arm about her waist.
"Come, now, you don't care, do you?" he asked lovingly. "One day's the
same as another, now ain't it?"
"Is it?" said Letty, a smile running over her face and into her wet
eyes. "Well, then, le's have Fourth o' July fireworks next Sunday
mornin'!"
David looked a little hurt; but that was only because he was puzzled.
His sense of humor wore a different complexion from Letty's. He liked a
joke, and he could tell a good story, but they must lie within the
logic of fun. Letty could put her own interpretation on her griefs, and
twist them into shapes calculated to send her into hysterical mirth.
"You see," said David soothingly, "we're goin' to be together as long
as we live. It ain't as if we'd got to rake an' scrape an' plan to git
a minute alone, as it used to be, now is it? An' after the fencin' 's
done, an' the thrashin', an' we've got nothin' on our minds, we'll take
both horses an' go to Star Pond. Come, now! Be a good girl!"
The world seemed very quiet because Letty was holding silence, and he
looked anxiously down at the top of her head. Then she relented a
little and turned her face up to his--her rebellious eyes and unsteady
mouth. But meeting the loving honesty of his look, her heart gave a
great bound of allegiance, and she laughed aloud.
"There!" she said. "Have it so. I won't say another word. _I_ don't
care!"
These were David's unconscious victories, born, not of his strength or
tyranny, but out of the woman's maternal comprehension, her lavish
concession of all the small things of life to the one great code. She
had taken him for granted, and thenceforth judged him by the intention
and not the act.
David was bending to kiss her, but he stopped midway, and his arm fell.
"There's Debby Low," said he. "By jinks! I ain't more 'n half a man
when she's round, she makes me feel so sheepish. I guess it's that eye
o' her'n. It goes through ye like a needle."
Letty laughed light-heartedly, and looked down the path across the lot.
Debby, a little, bent old woman, was toiling slowly along, a large
carpet-bag swinging from one hand. Letty drew a long breath and tried
to feel resigned.
"She's got on her black alpaca," said she. "She's comin' to spend the
day!"
David answered her look with one of commiseration, and, gathering up
his wrench and oil, "put for" the barn.
"I'd stay, if I could do any good," he said hastily, "but I can't. I
might as well stan' from under."
Debby threw her empty carpet-bag over the stone wall, and followed it,
clambering slowly and painfully. Her large feet were clad in congress
boots; and when she had alighted, she regarded them with deep
affection, and slowly wiped them upon either ankle, a stork-like
process at which David, safe in the barn, could afford to smile.
"If it don't rain soon," she called fretfully, "I guess you'll find
yourselves alone an' forsaken, like pelicans in the wilderness. Anybody
must want to see ye to traipse up through that lot as I've been doin',
an' git their best clo'es all over dirt."
"You could ha' come in the road," said Letty, smiling. Letty had a very
sweet temper, and she had early learned that it takes all sorts o'
folks to make a world. It was a part of her leisurely and generous
scheme of life to live and let live.
"Ain't the road dustier 'n the path?" inquired Debby contradictorily.
"My stars! I guess 't is. Well, now, what do you s'pose brought me up
here this mornin'?"
Letty's eyes involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped
hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. "I don't
know."
"I guess ye don't. No, I ain't comin' in. I'm goin' over to Mis'
Tolman's, to spend the day. I'm in hopes she's got b'iled dish. You
look here!" She opened the bag, and searched portentously, the while
Letty, in some unworthy interest, regarded the smooth, thick hair under
her large poke-bonnet. Debby had an original fashion of coloring it;
and this no one had suspected until her little grandson innocently
revealed the secret. She rubbed it with a candle, in unconscious
imitation of an actor's make-up, and then powdered it with soot from
the kettle. "I believe to my soul she does!" said Letty to herself.
But Debby, breathing hard, had taken something from the bag, and was
holding it out on the end of a knotted finger.
"There!" she said, "ain't that your'n? Vianna said 't was your
engagement ring."
Letty flushed scarlet, and snatched the ring tremblingly. She gave an
involuntary look at the barn, where David was whistling a merry stave.
"Oh, my!" she breathed. "Where'd you find it?"
"Well, that's the question!" returned Debby triumphantly, "Where'd ye
lose it?"
But Letty had no mind to tell. She slipped the ring on her finger, and
looked obstinate.
"Can't I get you somethin' to put in your bag?" she asked cannily.
Debby was diverted, though only for the moment.
"I should like a mite o' pork," she answered, lowering her voice and
giving a glance, in her turn, at the barn. "I s'pose ye don't want
_him_ to know of it?"
"I should like to be told why!" flamed Letty, in an indignation
disproportioned to its cause. Debby had unconsciously hit the raw. "Do
you s'pose I'd do anything David can't hear?"
"Law, I didn't know," said Debby, as if the matter were of very little
consequence. "Mis' Peleg Chase, she gi'n me a beef-bone, t'other day,
an' she says, 'Don't ye tell _him_!' An' Mis' Squire Hill gi'n me a
pail o' lard; but she hid it underneath the fence, an' made me come for
't after dark. I dunno how you're goin' to git along with men-folks, if
ye offer 'em the whip-hand. They'll take it, anyways. Well, don't you
want to know where I come on this ring?"
Letty had taken a few hasty steps toward the house. "Yes, I do," owned
she, turning about. "Where was it?"
"Well, Sammy was in swimmin', an' he dove into the Old Hole, to see 'f
't had any bottom to 't. Vianna made him vow he wouldn't go in whilst
he had that rash; but he come home with his shirt wrong side out, an'
she made him own up. But he'd ha' told anyway, he was so possessed to
show that ring. He see suthin' gleamin' on a willer root nigh the bank,
an' he dove, an' there 't was. I told Sammy mebbe you'd give him
suthin' for 't, an' he said there wa'n't nothin' in the world he wanted
but a mite o' David's solder, out in the shed-chamber."
"He shall have it," said Letty hastily. "I'll get it now. Don't you say
anything!" And then she knew she had used the formula she detested, and
that she was no better than Mrs. Peleg Chase, or the wife of Squire
Hill.
She ran frowning into the house, and down and up from kitchen to
cellar. Presently she reappeared, panting, with a great tin pan borne
before her like a laden salver. She set it down at Debby's feet, and
began packing its contents into the yawning bag.
"There!" she said, working with haste. "There's the solder, all of it.
And here's some of our sweet corn. We planted late."
Debby took an ear from the pan, and, tearing open the husk, tried a
kernel with a critical thumb.
"Tough, ain't it?" she remarked, disparagingly. "Likely to be, this
time o' year. Is that the pork?"
It was a generous cube, swathed in a fresh white cloth.
"Yes, it is," said Letty breathlessly, thrusting it in and shutting the
bag. "There!"
"Streak o' fat an' streak o' lean?" inquired Debby remorselessly.
"It's the best we've got; that's all I can say. Now I've got to speak
to David before he harnesses. Good-by!"
In a fever of impatience, she fled away to the barn.
"Well, if ever!" ejaculated Debby, lifting the bag and turning slowly
about, to take her homeward path. "Great doin's _I_ say!" And she made
no reply when Letty, prompted by a tardy conscience, stopped in the
barn doorway and called to her, "Tell Sammy I'm much obliged. Tell him
I shall make turnovers to-morrow." Debby was thinking of the pork, and
the likelihood of its being properly diversified.
Letty swept into the barn like a hurrying wind. The horses backed, and
laid their ears flat, and David, grooming one of them, gentled him and
inquired of him confidentially what was the matter.
"Oh, David, come out here! please come out!" called Letty breathlessly.
"I've got to see you."
David appeared, with some wonderment on his face, and Letty
precipitated herself upon him, mindless of curry-comb and horse-hairs
and the fact that she was presently to do butter. "David," she cried,
"I can't stand it. I've got to tell you. You know this ring?"
David looked at it, interested and yet perplexed.
"Seems if I'd seen you wear it," said he.
Letty gave way, and laughed hysterically.
"Seems if you had!" she repeated. "I've wore it over a year. There
ain't a girl in town but knows it. I showed it to 'em all. I told 'em
'twas my engagement ring."
David looked at it, and then at her. She seemed to him a little mad. He
could quiet the horses, but not a woman, in so vague an exigency.
"What made you tell 'em that?" he asked, at a venture.
"Don't you see? There wasn't one of 'em that was engaged but had a
ring--and presents, David--and they knew I never had anything, or I'd
have showed 'em."
David was not a dull man; he had very sound views on the tariff, and,
though social questions might thrive outside his world, the town
blessed him for an able citizen. But he felt troubled; he was
condemned, and it was the world's voice which had condemned him.
"I don't know's I ever did give you anything, Letty," he said, with a
new pain stirring in his face. "I don't b'lieve I ever thought of it.
It wasn't that I begrudged anything."
"Oh, my soul, no!" cried Letty, in an agony of her own. "I knew how 't
was. It wa'n't your way, but they didn't know that. And I couldn't have
'em thinkin' what they did think, now could I? So I bought me--David, I
bought me that high comb I used to wear, and--and a blue
handkerchief--and a thimble--and--and--this ring. And I said you give
'em to me. And I trusted to chance for your never findin' it out. But I
always hated the things; and as soon as we were married, I broke the
comb, and burnt up the handkerchief, and hammered the thimble into a
little wad, and buried it. But I didn't dare to stop wearin' the ring,
for fear folks would notice. Then t'other day I felt so about it I
knew the time had come, and I went down to the Old Hole and threw it
in. And now that hateful Sammy's found it and brought it back, and I've
sent him your solder, and Debby's promised me she wouldn't tell you
about the pork, and I--I'm no better than the rest of 'em that lie and
lie and don't let their men-folks know!" Letty was sobbing bitterly,
and David drew her into his arms and laid his cheek down on her hair.
His heart was aching too. They had all the passionate sorrow of
children over some grief not understood.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked at length.
"When?" said Letty chokingly.
"Then--when folks expected things--before we were married."
"Oh, David, I couldn't!"
"No," said David sadly, "I s'pose you couldn't."
Letty had been holding one hand very tightly clenched. It was a plump
hand, with deep dimples and firm, short fingers. She unclasped it, and
stretched out toward him a wet, pink palm.
"There!" she said despairingly. "There's the ring."
Again David felt his inadequacy to the situation. "Don't you want to
wear it?" he hesitated. "It's real pretty. What's that red stone?"
"I hate it!" cried Letty viciously. "It's a garnet. Oh, David, don't
you ever let me set eyes on it again!"
David took it slowly from her hand. He drew out his pocket-book, opened
it, and dropped the ring inside. "There!" he said, "I guess't won't do
me no hurt to come acrost it once in a while." Then they kissed each
other again, like two children; Letty's tears wet his face, and he felt
them bitterer than if they had been his own.
But for Letty the air had cleared. Now, she felt, there was no trouble
in her path. She had all the irresponsible joy of one who has had a
secret, and feels the burden roll away. She was like Christian without
his pack. She put her hands on David's shoulders, and looked at him
radiantly.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried. "I'm just as wicked as I was before; but
it don't seem to make any difference, now you know it!"
Though David also smiled, he was regarding her with a troubled wonder.
He never expected to follow these varying moods. They were like
swallow-flights, and he was content to see the sun upon their wings. So
he drove thoughtfully off, and Letty went back to her work with a
singing heart. She was not quite sure that it was right to be happy
again, all at once, but she could not still her blood. To be forgiven,
to find herself free from the haunting consciousness that she could
deceive the creature to whom she held such passionate allegiance--this
was enough to shape a new heaven and a new earth. Her simple household
duties took on the significance of noble ceremonies. She sang as she
went about them, and the words were those of a joyous hymn. She seemed
to be serving in a temple, making it clean and fragrant in the name of
love.
Saturday was a day born of heavenly intentions. Letty ran out behind
the house, where the ground rose abruptly, and looked off, entranced,
into the blue distance. It was the stillest day of all the fall. Not a
breath stirred about her; but in the maple grove at the side of the
house, where the trees had turned early under the chill of an
unseasonable night, yellow leaves were sifting down without a sound.
Goldenrod was growing dull, clematis had ripened into feathery spray,
and she knew how the closed gentians were painting great purple dashes
by the side of the road. "Oh!" she cried aloud, in rapture. It was her
wedding day; a year ago the sun had shone as warmly and benignantly as
he was shining now, and the same haze had risen, like an exhalation,
from the hills. She saw a special omen in it, and felt herself the
child of happy fortune, to be so mothered by the great blue sky. Then
she ran in to give David his breakfast, and tell him, as they sat down,
that it was their wedding morning. As she went, she tore a spray of
blood-red woodbine from the wall, and bound it round her waist.
But David was not ready for breakfast; he was talking with a man at the
barn, and half an hour later came hurrying in to his retarded meal.
"I've got to eat an' run," said he; "Job Fisher kep' me. It's about
that ma'sh. But the time wa'n't wasted. He'll sell ten acres for twenty
dollars less'n he said last week. Too bad to keep you waitin'! You'd
ought to eat yours while't was hot."
Letty, with a little smile all to herself, sat demurely down and poured
coffee; this was no time to talk of anniversaries. David ate in haste,
and said good-by.
"I'm goin' down the lot to get my withes," said he. "Whilst I'm gone,
you put me up a mite o' luncheon, I sha'n't lay off to come home till
night."
"Oh, David!" said Letty, with a little cry. Then the same knowing smile
crept over her face. "No, I sha'n't," added she willfully. "I'm goin'
to bring it to you."
"Fetch me my dinner? Why, it's a mile and a half 'cross lots! I guess
you won't!"
"You go right along, David," said Letty decisively. "I don't want to
hear another word. I ain't seen the Long Pastur' this summer, and I'm
comin'. Good-by!" She disappeared down the cellar stairs with the
butter-plate poised on a pyramid of dishes, and David, having no time
to argue, went off to his work.
About ten o'clock Letty took her way down to the Long Pasture; she was
a very happy woman, and she could hold her happiness before her face,
regarding it frankly and with a full delight. The material joys of life
might seem to escape her; but she could have them, after all. The great
universe, warm with sun and warm with love, was on her side. Even the
day seemed something tangible in gracious being; and as Letty trudged
along, her basket on her arm, she reasoned upon her own riches and
owned she had enough. David was not like anybody else; but he was
better than anybody else, and he was hers. Even his faults were dearer
than other men's virtues. She heard the sound of his axe upon the
stakes, breaking the lovely stillness with a significance lovelier
still.
"David!" she called, long before reaching the little brook that runs
beneath the bank, and he leaped the fence and came to meet her.
"David!" she repeated, and looked up in his face with eyes so solemn
and so full of light that he held her still a moment to look at her.
"Letty," he said, "you're real pretty!" And then they both laughed, and
walked on together through the shade.
The day knit up its sweet, long minutes full of the serious beauty of
the woods. David worked hard, and for a time Letty lingered near him;
then she strayed away, and came back to him, from moment to moment,
with wonderful treasures. Now it was cress from the spring, now a
palm-full of partridge berries, or a cluster of checkerberry leaves for
a "cud," or a bit of wood-sorrel. By and by the fall stillness gave out
a breath of heat, and the sun stood high overhead. Letty spread out her
dinner, and David made her a fire among the rocks. The smoke rose in a
blue efflorescence; and with the sweet tang of burning wood yet in the
air, they sat down side by side, drinking from one cup, and smiling
over the foolish nothings of familiar talk. At the end of the meal,
Letty took a parcel from the basket, something wrapped in a very fine
white napkin. She flushed a little, unrolling it, and her eyes
deepened.
"What's all this?" asked David, sniffing the air. "Fruit-cake?"
Letty nodded without looking at him; there was a telltale quivering in
her face. She divided the cake carefully, and gave her husband half.
David had lain back on a piny bank; and as he ate, his eyes followed
the treetops, swaying a little now in a rhythmic wind. But Letty ate
her piece as if it were sacramental bread. She put out her hand to him,
and he stroked the short, faithful fingers, and then held them close.
He smiled at her; and for a moment he mused again over that starry
light in her eyes. Then his lids fell, and he had a little nap, while
Letty sat and dreamed back over the hours, a year and more ago, when
her mother's house smelled of spices, and this cake was baked for her
wedding day.
When they went home again, side by side, the fencing was all done, and
David had an after-consciousness of happy playtime. He carried the
basket, with his axe, and Letty, like an untired little dog, took brief
excursions of discovery here and there, and came back to his side with
her weedy treasures. Once--was it something in the air?--he called to
her:--
"Say, Letty, wa'n't it about this kind o' weather the day we were
married?"
But Letty gave a little cry, and pointed out a frail white butterfly on
a mullein leaf. "See there, David! how cold he looks! I'd like to take
him along. He'll freeze to-night." David forgot his question, and she
was glad. Some inner voice was at her heart, warning her to leave the
day unspoiled. Her joy lay in remembering; it seemed a small thing to
her that he should forget.
"We've had a real good time," he said, as he gave her the basket at the
kitchen door. "Now, as soon as thrashin' 's done, we'll go to Star
Pond."
After supper they covered up the squashes, for fear of a frost; and
then they stood for a moment in the field, and looked at the harvest
moon, risen in a great effrontery of splendor.
"Letty," asked David suddenly, "shouldn't you like to put on your
little ring? It's right here in my pocket."
"No! no!" said Letty hastily. "I never want to set eyes on it again."
"I guess I'll get you another one 't you could wear. I looked t'other
day when I went to market; but there was so many I didn't das't to make
a choice unless you was with me."
Letty clung to him passionately. "Oh, David," she cried, with a break
in her voice, "I don't want any rings. I want just you."
David put out one hand and softly touched the little blue kerchief
about her head. "Anyway," he said, "we won't have any more secrets from
one another, will we?"
Letty gave a little start, and she caught her breath before
answering:--
"No, we won't--not unless they're nice ones!"