ANDY TRIES TO FIND THE ROOT OF THE MATTER
Ethelyn was very sick with a nervous headache, and so Andy did not go in
with his kindlings that night, but put the basket near the door, where
Eunice would find it in the morning. It was a part of Richard's bargain
with Eunice that Ethie should always have a bright, warm fire to dress
by, and the first thing Ethelyn heard as she unclosed her eyes was the
sound of Eunice blowing the coals and kindlings into a blaze as she
knelt upon the hearth, with her cheeks and eyes extended to their utmost
capacity. It was a very dreary awakening, and Ethelyn sighed as she
looked from her window out upon the far-stretching prairie, where the
first snows of the season were falling. There were but few objects to
break up the monotonous level, and the mottled November sky frowned
gloomily and coldly down upon her. Down in the back-yard James and John
were feeding the cattle; the bleating of the sheep and the lowing of the
cows came to her ear as she turned with a shiver from the window. How
could she stay there all that long, dreary winter--there where there
was not an individual who had a thought or taste in common with her own?
She could not stay, she decided, and then as the question arose, "Where
will you go?" the utter hopelessness and helplessness of her position
rushed over her with so much force that she sank down upon the lounge
which Eunice had drawn to the fire, and when the latter came up with
breakfast she found her young mistress crying in a heart-broken,
despairing kind of way, which touched her heart at once.
Eunice knew but little of the trouble with regard to Washington. Mrs.
Markham had been discreet enough to keep that from her; and so she
naturally ascribed Ethie's tears to grief at parting with her husband,
and tried in her homely way to comfort her. Three months were not very
long; and they would pass 'most before you thought, she said, adding
that she heard Jim say the night before that as soon as he got his gray
colts broken he was going to take his sister all over the country and
cheer her up a little.
Ethie's heart was too full to permit her to reply, and Eunice soon left
her alone, reporting downstairs how white and sick she was looking. To
Mrs. Markham's credit we record that with a view to please her
daughter-in-law, a fire was that afternoon made in the parlor, and
Ethelyn solicited to come down, Mrs. Markham, who carried the
invitation, urging that a change would do her good, as it was not always
good to stay in one place. But Ethelyn preferred the solitude of her own
chamber, and though she thanked her mother-in-law for her
thoughtfulness, she declined going down, and Mrs. Markham had made her
fire for nothing. Not even Melinda came to enjoy it, for she was in
Camden, visiting a schoolmate; and so the day passed drearily enough
with all, and the autumnal night shut down again darker, gloomier than
ever, as it seemed to Ethelyn. She had seen no one but Mrs. Markham and
Eunice since Richard went away, and she was wondering what had become of
Andy, when she heard his shuffling tread upon the stairs, and a moment
after, his round shining face appeared, asking if he might come in.
Andy wore his best clothes on this occasion, for an idea had somehow
been lodged in his brain that Ethelyn liked a person well dressed, and
he was much pleased with himself in his short coat and shorter pants,
and the buff and white cotton cravat tied in a hard knot around his
sharp, standing collar, which almost cut the bottom of his ears.
"I wished to see you," he said, taking a chair directly in front of
Ethelyn and tipping back against the wall. "I wanted to come before, but
was afraid you didn't care to have me. I've got something for you now,
though--somethin' good for sore eyes. Guess what 'tis?"
And Andy began fumbling in his pocket for the something which was to
cheer Ethelyn, as he hoped.
"Look a-here. A letter from old Dick, writ the very first day. That's
what I call real courtin' like," and Andy gave to Ethelyn the letter
which John had brought from the office and which the detention of a
train at Stafford for four hours had afforded Richard an opportunity
to write.
It was only a few lines, meant for her alone, but Ethelyn's cheek didn't
redden as she read them, or her eyes brighten one whit. Richard was
well, she said, explaining to Andy the reason for his writing, and then
she put the letter away, while Andy sat looking at her, wondering what
he should say next. He had come up to comfort her, but found it hard to
begin. Ethie was looking very pale, and there were dark rings around her
eyes, showing that she suffered, even if Mrs. Markham did assert there
was nothing ailed her but spleen.
At last Andy blurted out: "I am sorry for you, Ethelyn, for I know it
must be bad to have your man go off and leave you all alone, when you
wanted to go with him. Jim and John and me talked it up to-day when we
was out to work, and we think you orto have gone with Dick. It must be
lonesome staying here, and you only six months married. I wish, and the
boys wishes, we could do something to chirk you up."
With the exception of what Eunice had said, these were the first words
of sympathy Ethelyn had heard, and her tears flowed at once, while her
slight form shook with such a tempest of sobs that Andy was alarmed,
and getting down on his knees beside her, begged of her to tell him what
was the matter. Had he hurt her feelings? he was such a blunderin'
critter, he never knew the right thing to say, and if she liked he'd go
straight off downstairs.
"No, Anderson," Ethelyn said, "you have not hurt my feelings, and I do
not wish you to go, but, oh, I am so wretched and so disappointed, too!"
"About goin' to Washington, you mean?" Andy asked, resuming his chair,
and his attitude of earnest inquiry, while Ethelyn, forgetting all her
reserve, replied: "Yes, I mean that and everything else. It has been
nothing but disappointment ever since I left Chicopee, and I sometimes
wish I had died before I promised to go away from dear Aunt Barbara's,
where I was so happy."
"What made you promise, then? I suppose, though, it was because you
loved Dick so much," simple-minded Andy said, trying to remember if
there was not a passage somewhere which read, "For this cause shall a
man leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain
shall be one flesh."
Ethelyn would not wound Andy by telling him how little love had had to
do with her unhappy marriage, and she remained silent for a moment,
while Andy continued, "Be you disappointed here--with us, I mean, and
the fixins?"
"Yes, Anderson, terribly disappointed. Nothing is as I supposed. Richard
never told me what I was to expect," Ethelyn replied, without stopping
to consider what she was saying.
For a moment Andy looked intently at her, as if trying to make out her
meaning. Then, as it in part dawned upon him, he said sorrowfully:
"Sister Ethie, if it's me you mean, I was more to blame than Dick, for I
asked him not to tell you I was--a--a--wall, I once heard Miss Captain
Simmons say I was Widder Markham's fool," and Andy's chin quivered as he
went on: "I ain't a fool exactly, for I don't drool or slobber like Tom
Brown the idiot, but I have a soft spot in my head, and I didn't want
you to know it, for fear you wouldn't like me. Daisy did, though, and
Daisy knew what I was and called me 'dear Andy,' and kissed me when
she died."
Andy was crying softly now, and Ethelyn was crying with him. The hard
feeling at her heart was giving way, and she could have put her arms
around this childish man, who after a moment continued: "Dick said he
wouldn't tell you, so you must forgive him for that. You've found me
out, I s'pose. You know I ain't like Jim, nor John, and I can't hold a
candle to old Dick, but sometimes I've hope you liked me a little, even
if you do keep calling me Anderson. I wish you wouldn't; seems as if
folks think more of me when they say 'Andy' to me."
"Oh, Andy, dear Andy," Ethelyn exclaimed: "I do like you so much--like
you best of all. I did not mean you when I said I was disappointed."
"Who, then?" Andy asked, in his straightforward way. "Is it mother? She
is odd, I guess, though I never thought on't till you came here. Yes,
mother is some queer, but she is good; and onct when I had the typhoid
and lay like a log, I heard her pray for 'her poor dear boy Andy';
that's what she called me, as lovin' like as if I wasn't a fool, or
somethin' nigh it."
Ethelyn did not wish to leave upon his mind the impression that his
mother had everything to do with her wretchedness, and so cautiously as
she could she tried to explain to him the difference between the habits
and customs of Chicopee and Olney. Warming up with her theme as she
progressed, she said more than she intended, and succeeded in driving
into Andy's brain a vague idea that his family were not up to her
standard, but were in fact a long way behind the times. Andy was in a
dilemma; he wanted to help Ethelyn and did not know how. Suddenly,
however, his face brightened, and he asked, "Do you belong to
the church?"
"Yes," was Ethelyn's reply.
"You do!" Andy repeated in some surprise, and Ethelyn replied, "Not the
way you mean, perhaps; but when I was a baby I was baptized in the
church and thus became a member."
"So you never had the Bishop's hands upon your head, and done what the
Saviour told us to do to remember him by?"
Ethelyn shook her head, and Andy went on: "Oh, what a pity, when he is
such a good Saviour, and would know just how to help you, now you are so
sorry-like and homesick, and disappointed. If you had him you could tell
him all about it and he would comfort you. He helped me, you don't know
how much, and I was dreadful bad once. I used to get drunk,
Ethie--drunker'n a fool, and come hiccuppin' home with my clothes all
tore and my hat smashed into nothin'."
Andy's face was scarlet as he confessed to his past misdeeds, but
without the least hesitation he went on: "Mr. Townsend found me one day
in the ditch, and helped me up and got me into his room and prayed over
me and talked to me, and never let me off from that time till the
Saviour took me up, and now it's better than three years since I tasted
a drop. I don't taste it even at the sacrament, for fear what the taste
might do, and I used to hold my nose to keep shut of the smell. Mr.
Townsend knows I don't touch it, and God knows, too, and thinks I'm
right, I'm sure, and gives me to drink of his precious blood just the
same, for I feel light as air when I come from the altar. If religion
could make me, a fool and a drunkard, happy, it would do sights for you
who know so much. Try it, Ethie, won't you?"
Andy was getting in earnest now, and Ethelyn could not meet the glance
of his honest, pleading eyes.
"I can't be good, Andy," she replied; "I shouldn't know how to begin or
what to do."
"Seems to me I could tell you a few things," Andy said. "God didn't want
you to go to Washington for some wise purpose or other, and so he put it
into Dick's heart to leave you at home. Now, instead of crying about
that I'd make the best of it and be as happy as I could be here. I know
we ain't starched up folks like them in Boston, but we like you, all of
us--leastwise Jim and John and me do--and I don't mean to come to the
table in my shirt-sleeves any more, if that will suit you, and I won't
blow my tea in my sasser, nor sop my bread in the platter; though if
you are all done and there's a lot of nice gravy left, you won't mind
it, will you, Ethelyn?--for I do love gravy."
Ethelyn had been more particular than she meant to be with her reasons
for her disappointment, and in enumerating the bad habits to which she
said Western people were addicted, she had included the points upon
which Andy had seized so readily. He had never been told before that his
manners were entirely what they ought not to be; he could hardly see it
so now, but if it would please Ethie he would try to refrain, he said,
asking that when she saw him doing anything very outlandish, she would
remind him of it and tell him what was right.
"I think folks is always happier," he continued, "when they forgit to
please themselves and try to suit others, even if they can't see any
sense in it."
Andy did not exactly mean this as a rebuke, but it had the effect of one
and set Ethelyn thinking. Such genuine simplicity and frankness could
not be lost upon her, and long after Andy had left her and gone to his
room, where he sought in his prayer-book for something just suited to
her case, she sat pondering all he had said, and upon the faith which
could make even simple Andy so lovable and good.
"He has improved his one talent far more than I have my five or ten,"
she said, while regrets for her own past misdeeds began to fill her
bosom, with a wish that she might in some degree atone for them.
Perhaps it was the resolution formed that night, and perhaps it was the
answer to Andy's prayer that God would have mercy upon Ethie and incline
her and his mother to pull together better, which sent Ethelyn down to
breakfast the next morning and kept her below stairs a good portion of
the day, and made her accept James' invitation to ride with him in the
afternoon. Then when it was night again, and she saw Eunice carrying
through the hall a smoking firebrand, which she knew was designed for
the parlor fire, she changed her mind about staying alone upstairs with
the books she had commenced to read, but brought instead the white,
fleecy cloud she was knitting, and sat with the family, who had never
seen her more gracious or amiable, and wondered what had happened. Andy
thought he knew; he had prayed for Ethie, not only the previous night,
but that morning before he left his room, and also during the day--once
in the barn upon a rick of hay and once behind the smoke-house.
Andy always looked for direct answers to his prayers, and believing he
had received one his face was radiant with content and satisfaction,
when after supper he brushed and wet his hair and plastered it down upon
his forehead, and changed his boots for a lighter pair of Richard's, and
then sat down before the parlor fire with the yarn sock he was knitting
for himself. Ethelyn had never seen him engaged in this feminine
employment before, and she felt a strong disposition to laugh, but
fearing to wound him, repressed her smiles and seemed not to look at him
as he worked industriously on the heel, turning and shaping it better
than she could have done. It was not often that Ethelyn had favored the
family with music, but she did so that night, playing and singing pieces
which she knew were familiar to them, and only feeling a momentary pang
of resentment when, at the close of "Yankee Doodle," with variations,
quiet John remarked that Melinda herself could not go ahead of that!
Melinda's style of music was evidently preferable to her own, but she
swallowed the insult and sang "Lily Dale," at the request of Andy, who,
thinking the while of dear little Daisy, wiped his eyes with the leg of
his sock, while a tear trickled down his mother's cheek and dropped
into her lap.
"I thought Melinda Jones wanted to practice on the pianner," Eunice
said, after Ethelyn was done playing; "I heard her saying so one day and
wondering if Miss Markham would be willin'."
Ethelyn was in a mood then to assent to most anything, and she expressed
her entire approbation, saying even that she would gladly give Melinda
any assistance in her power. Ethelyn had been hard and cold and proud so
long that she scarcely knew herself in this new phase of character, and
the family did not know her, either. But they appreciated it fully, and
James' eyes were very bright and sparkling when, in imitation of Andy,
he bade his sister good-night, thinking, as she left the room how
beautiful she was and how pleased Melinda would be, and hoping she would
find it convenient to practice there evenings, as that would render an
escort home absolutely necessary, unless "Terrible Tim" came for her.
Ethelyn had not changed her mind when Melinda came home next day, and as
a matter of course called at the Markhams' in the evening. But Ethelyn's
offer had come a little too late--Melinda was going to Washington to
spend the winter! A bachelor brother of her mother's, living among the
mountains of Vermont, had been elected Member of Congress in the place
of the regular member, who had resigned, and as the uncle was wealthy
and generous, and had certain pleasant reminiscences of a visit to Iowa
when a little black-eyed girl had been so agreeable to him, he had
written for her to join him in Washington, promising to defray all
expenses and sending on a draft for two hundred dollars, with which she
was to procure whatever she deemed necessary for her winter's outfit.
Melinda's star was in the ascendant, and Ethelyn felt a pang of
something like envy as she thought how differently Melinda's winter
would pass from her own, while James trembled for the effect Washington
might have upon the girl who walked so slowly with him along the beaten
path between his house and her father's, and whose eyes, as she bade him
good-night, were little less bright than the stars shining down upon
her. Would she come back like Ethelyn? He hoped not, for there would
then be an end to all fond dreams he had been dreaming. She would
despise his homely ways and look for somebody higher than plain Jim
Markham in his cowhide boots. James was sorry to have Melinda go, and
Ethelyn was sorry, too. It seemed as if she was to be left alone, for
two days after Melinda's return, Marcia Fenton and Ella Backus came out
from Camden to call, and communicated the news that they, too, were
going on to Washington, together with Mrs. Judge Miller, whose father
was a United States Senator. It was terrible to be thus left behind,
and Ethelyn's heart grew harder against her husband for dooming her to
such a fate. Every week James, or John, or Andy brought from the post a
letter in Richard's handwriting, directed to Mrs. Richard Markham, and
once in two weeks Andy carried a letter to the post directed in
Ethelyn's handwriting to "Richard Markham, M.C.," but Andy never
suspected that the dainty little envelope, with a Boston mark upon it,
inclosed only a blank sheet of paper! Ethelyn had affirmed so solemnly
that she would not write to her husband that she half feared to break
her vow; and, besides that, she could not forgive him for having left
her behind, while Marcia, Ella, and Melinda were enjoying themselves so
much. She knew she was doing wrong, and not a night of her life did she
go to her lonely bed that there did not creep over her a sensation of
fear as she thought, "What if I should die while I am so bad?"
At home, in Chicopee, she used always to go through with a form of
prayer, but she could not do that now for the something which rose up
between her and Heaven, smothering the words upon her lips, and so in
this dreadful condition she lived on day after day, growing more, and
more desolately and lonely, and wondering sadly if life would always be
as dreary and aimless as it was now. And while she pondered thus, Andy
prayed on and practiced his lessons in good manners, provoking the mirth
of the whole family by his ludicrous attempts to be polite, and feeling
sometimes tempted to give the matter up. Andy was everything to Ethelyn,
and once when her conscience was smiting her more than usual with regard
to the blanks, she said to him abruptly: "if you had made a wicked vow,
which would you do--keep it or break it, and so tell a falsehood?"
Andy was not much of a lawyer, he said, but "he thought he knew some
scripter right to the pint," and taking his well-worn Bible he found and
read the parable of the two sons commanded to work in their
father's vineyard.
"If the Saviour commended the one who said he wouldn't and then went and
did it, I think there can be no harm in your breaking a wicked vow:
leastways I should do it."
This was Andy's advice, and that night, long after the family were in
bed, a light was shining in Ethelyn's chamber, where she sat writing to
her husband, and as if Andy's spirit were pervading hers, she softened,
as she wrote and asked forgiveness for all the past which she had made
so wretched. She was going to do better, she said, and when her husband
came home she would try to make him happy.
"But, oh, Richard," she wrote, "please take me away from here to Camden,
or Olney, or anywhere--so I can begin anew to be the wife I ought to be.
I was never worthy of you, Richard. I deceived you from the first, and
if I could summon the courage I would tell you about it."
This letter which would have done so much good, was never finished, for
when the morning came there were troubled faces at the prairie
farmhouse--Mrs. Markham looking very anxious and Eunice very scared,
James going for the doctor and Andy for Mrs. Jones, while up in Ethie's
room, where the curtains were drawn so closely before the windows, life
and death were struggling for the mastery, and each in a measure coming
off triumphant.