GETTING HOME
Olney was a thriving, busy little town, numbering five hundred
inhabitants or thereabouts. It had its groceries, its dry goods stores,
and its two houses for public worship--the Methodist and
Presbyterian--while every other Sunday a little band of Episcopalians
met for their own service in what was called the Village Hall, where,
during week days, a small, select school was frequently taught by some
Yankee schoolmistress. It had its post office, too; and there was also
talk of a bank after the railroad came that way, and roused the people
to a state of still greater activity. On the whole, it was a pretty
town, though different from Chicopee, where the houses slept so
aristocratically under the shadow of the old elms, which had been
growing there since the day when our national independence was declared.
At home Ethelyn's pride had all been centered in Boston, and she had
sometimes thought a little contemptuously of Chicopee and its
surroundings; but the farther she traveled west the higher Chicopee rose
in her estimation, until she found herself comparing every prairie
village with that rural town among the hills, which seemed to give it
dignity, and made it so greatly superior to the dead levels of which she
was getting so weary. She had admired the rolling prairies at first,
but, tired and jaded with her long journey, nothing looked well to her
now--nothing was like Chicopee--certainly not Olney, where the dwellings
looked so new and the streets were minus sidewalks.
Ethelyn had a good view of it as the train approached it and even caught
a passing glimpse of the white house in the distance which Richard
pointed out as home, his face lighting up with all the pleasure of a
schoolboy as he saw the old familiar waymarks and felt that he was
home at last.
Dropping her veil over her face Ethelyn arose to follow her husband, who
in his eagerness to grasp the hand of the tall, burly young man he had
seen from the window, forgot to carry her shawl and her satchel, which
last being upon the car-rack, she tugged at it with all her strength,
and was about crying with vexation at Richard's thoughtlessness, when
Tim Jones, who while rolling his quid of tobacco in his great mouth, had
watched her furtively, wondering how she and Melind would get along,
gallantly came to her aid, and taking the satchel down kept it upon
his arm.
"Take care of that air step. Better let me help you out. Dick is so
tickled to see Jim that he even forgets his wife, I swan!" Tim said,
offering to assist her from the train; but with a feeling of disgust too
deep to be expressed, Ethelyn declined the offer and turned away from
him to meet the curious gaze of the young man whom Richard presented as
brother James.
He was younger than his brother by half a dozen years, but he looked
quite as old, if not older. His face and hands were sunburnt and brown,
his clothes were coarse, his pants were tucked into his tall, muddy
boots, and he held in his hands the whip with which he had driven the
shining bays, pricking up their ears behind the depot and eyeing askance
the train just beginning to move away. The Markhams were all
good-looking, and James was not an exception. The Olney girls called him
very handsome, when on Sunday he came to church in his best clothes and
led the Methodist choir; but Ethelyn only thought him rough, and coarse,
and vulgar, and when he bent down to kiss her she drew back haughtily.
"Ethelyn!" Richard said, in the low, peculiar tone, which she had almost
unconsciously learned to fear, just as she did the dark expression which
his hazel eyes assumed as he said the single word "Ethelyn!"
She was afraid of Richard when he looked and spoke that way, and putting
up her lip, she permitted the kiss which the warm-hearted James gave to
her. He was naturally more demonstrative than his brother, and more
susceptible, too; a pretty face would always set his heart to beating
and call out all the gallantry of his nature. Wholly unsophisticated, he
never dreamed of the gulf there was between him and the new sister, whom
he thought so beautiful--loving her at once, because she was so pretty,
and because she was the wife of Dick, their household idol. He was more
of a ladies' man than Richard, and when on their way to the
democratic-wagon they came to a patch of mud, through which Ethelyn's
skirts were trailing, he playfully lifted her in his strong arms, and
set her down upon the wagon-box, saying, as he adjusted her skirts: "We
can't have that pretty dress spoiled, the very first day, with
Iowa mud."
All this time Tim Jones had been dutifully holding the satchel, which he
now deposited at Ethelyn's feet, and then, at James' invitation, he
sprang into the hinder part of the wagon-box, and sitting down, let his
long limbs dangle over the backboard, while James sat partly in
Richard's lap and partly in Ethelyn's. It had been decided that the
democrat must come down again for the baggage; and so, three on a seat,
with Tim Jones holding on behind, Ethelyn was driven through the town,
while face after face looked at her from the windows of the different
dwellings, and comment after comment was made upon her pretty little
round hat, with its jaunty feather, which style had not then penetrated
so far west as Olney. Rumors there were of the Eastern ladies wearing
hats which made them look at least ten years younger than their actual
age; but Ethelyn was the first to carry the fashion to Olney, and she
was pronounced very stylish, and very girlish, too, by those who watched
her curiously from behind their curtains and blinds.
It was the close of a chill October day, and a bank of angry clouds hung
darkly in the western sky, while the autumn wind blew across the
prairie; but colder, blacker, chillier far than prairie winds, or
threatening clouds, or autumnal day was the shadow resting on Ethelyn's
heart, and making her almost cry out with loneliness and homesickness,
as they drew near the house where the blue paper curtains were hanging
before the windows and Eunice Plympton's face was pressed against the
pane. The daisies and violets and summer grass were withered and dead,
and the naked branches of the lilac bush brushed against the house with
a mournful, rasping sound, which reminded her of the tall sign-post in
Chicopee, which used to creak so in the winter wind, and keep her Aunt
Barbara awake. To the right of the house, and a little in the rear, were
several large, square corn-cribs, and behind these an inclosure in which
numerous cattle, and horses, and pigs were industriously feeding, while
the cobs, stripped, and soiled, and muddy, were scattered everywhere.
Ethelyn took it all in at a glance, exclaiming, in a smothered voice, as
the wagon turned into the lane which led to the side door, "Not here,
Richard; surely, not here!"
But Richard, if he heard her, did not heed her. He could not comprehend
her utter desolation and crushing disappointment. Her imaginings of his
home had never been anything like this reality, and for a moment she
felt as if in a kind of horrible nightmare, from which she struggled
to awake.
"Oh! if it were only a dream," she thought; but it was no dream, though
as Richard himself lifted her carefully from the wagon, and deposited
her upon the side stoop, there came a mist before her eyes, and for an
instant sense and feeling forsook her; but only for an instant, for the
hall door was thrown open, and Richard's mother came out to greet her
son and welcome her new daughter.
But alas for Ethelyn's visions of heavy silk and costly lace! How they
vanished before this woman in purple calico, with ruffles of the same
standing up about the throat, and the cotton lace coiffure upon her
head! She was very glad to see her boy and wound both her arms around
his neck, but she was afraid of Ethelyn. She, too, had had her ideal,
but it was not like this proud-looking beauty, dressed so stylishly,
and, as it seemed to her so extravagantly, with her long, full skirt of
handsome poplin trailing so far behind her, and her basque fitting her
graceful figure so admirably. Neither did the hat, rolled so jauntily on
the sides, and giving her a coquettish appearance, escape her notice,
nor the fact that the dotted veil was not removed from the white face,
even after Richard had put the little, plump hand in hers, and said:
"This, mother, is Ethie, my wife. I hope you will love each other for my
sake."
In her joy at seeing her pet boy again, Mrs. Markham would have done a
great deal for his sake, but she could not "kiss a veil," as she
afterwards said to Melinda Jones, when she reached the point where she
talked straight out about her daughter-in-law. No, she could not kiss a
veil, and so she only held and pressed Ethelyn's hand, and leading her
into the house, told her she was very welcome, and bade her come to the
fire and take off her things, and asked if she was not tired, and cold
and hungry.
And Ethelyn tried to answer, but the great lumps were swelling in her
throat, and so keen a pain was tugging at her heart that when at last,
astonished at her silence, Richard said, "What is the matter, Ethie--why
don't you answer mother?" she burst out in a pitiful cry:
"Oh, Richard, I can't, I can't; please take me back to Aunt Barbara."
This was the crisis, the concentration of all she had been suffering for
the last hour, and it touched Mrs. Markham's heart, for she remembered
just how wretched she had been when she first landed at the rude log
cabin which was so long her Western home, and turning to Richard, she
said, in an aside:
"She is homesick, poor child, as it's natural she should be at first.
She'll be better by and by, so don't think strange of it. She seems
very young."
In referring to her youth, Mrs. Markham meant nothing derogatory to her
daughter-in-law, though Ethelyn did strike her as very young, in her
pretty hat with her heavy hair low in her neck. She was finding an
excuse for her crying, and did not mean that Ethelyn should hear. But
she did hear, and the hot tears were dashed aside at once. She was too
proud to be petted or patronized by Mrs. Markham, or apologized for by
her, so she dried her eyes, and lifting her head, said proudly:
"I am tired to-night, and my head is aching so hard that I lost my
self-control. I beg you will excuse me. Richard knows me too well to
need an excuse."
A born duchess could not have assumed a loftier air, and in some
perplexity Mrs. Markham glanced from her to Richard, as if asking what
to do next. Fortunately for all parties, Andy just then came in with his
brother John, who approached his new sister with some little hesitation.
He had heard Tim Jones' verdict, "Stuck up as the old Nick," while even
cautious James had admitted his fears that Dick had made a mistake, and
taken a wife who would never fit their ways. And this was why John had
been so late with his welcome. He had crept up the back stairs, and
donned his best necktie, and changed his heavy boots for a pair of
shoes, which left exposed to view a portion of his blue yarn socks. He
had before changed his coat and vest, and tied on a handkerchief, but it
was not his best; not the satin cravat, with the pretty bow Melinda
Jones had made, and in which was stuck a rather fanciful pin he wore on
great occasions. He was all right now, and he shook hands with his new
sister, and asked if she were pretty well, and told her she was welcome,
and then stepped back for Andy, who had been making his toilet when the
bride arrived, and so was late with his congratulations.