"Perhaps that is because they feel a responsibility about the future
that I don't," I returned. "I don't think I can alter what is to come
after death, and I don't see what possible good I can do by fretting
about it. Father brought me up, you know, to feel that I had all I could
attend to in making the best I can of this life, without wasting my
strength in speculating about another. In any case I can't see why I
should be any more afraid of death than I am of sleep. I understand one
as well as I do the other."
He looked at the rug thoughtfully a moment, and then, as if he declined
to be drawn into an argument, he came back to the original subject of
our talk.
"Would Tom Webbe want to have anything to do with the child?" he asked.
"I think he would rather forget she is in the world," I told him. "By
and by he may be fond of her, but now he tries not to think of her at
all. I want to make her so attractive and lovely he can't help caring
for her."
"But then she will care for him," the Deacon commented.
"Why, of course she will. That is what I hope. Then she might influence
him, and help him."
"You are willing to share her with her father even if you do adopt her?"
he asked.
I did not understand his manner, but I told him I did not think I had
any right to deprive her of her father's affection or him of hers if I
adopted her a dozen times over.
The Deacon made no answer. His face was graver, and for some time we sat
without further word.
"Tom Webbe isn't as bad as he seems, Miss Ruth," Deacon Daniel said at
length. "If you had to live with his mother, I guess you'd be ready to
excuse him for 'most anything. His father never had the spunk to say
boo to a goose, and Mrs. Webbe has bullied him from the time we were
boys. He's as good as a man can be, but it's a pity he don't carry out
Paul's idea of being ruler in his own house."
"Paul was a bachelor like you, Deacon Daniel," I answered, rather
saucily; "and neither of you knows anything about it."
He grinned, but only added that Tom had been nagged into most of his
wildness.
"I'm not excusing him," he went on, apparently afraid that he should
seem to be condoning iniquity; "but there's a good deal to be said for
him. Aunt Naomi says he ought to be driven out of decent society, but
Tom Webbe never did a mean thing in his life."
I was rather surprised to hear this defense from Deacon Richards, but I
certainly agreed with him. Tom's sin makes me cringe; but I realize that
I'm not capable of judging him, and he certainly has a good deal of
excuse for whatever evil he has fallen into.
June 2. One thing more which Deacon Richards said has made me think a
good deal. He asked me what Tom had meant to do about the child if its
mother lived. I told him Julia had been willing for me to have baby in
any case. He thought in silence a moment.
"I don't believe," he said, "Tom ever meant to live with that woman. He
must have married her to clear his conscience."
"He married her so the child should not be disgraced," I answered.
Deacon Daniel looked at me with those great keen eyes glowing beneath
his shaggy white brows.
"Then he went pretty far toward clearing his record," was his comment.
"There are not many men would have tied themselves to such a wife for
the sake of a child."
This was not very orthodox, perhaps, but a good heart will get the
better of orthodoxy now and then. It has set me to thinking about Tom
and his wife in a way which had not occurred to me. I wonder if it is
true that he did not mean to live with her. I remember now that he said
he would never see Julia again, but at the time this meant nothing to
me. If he had thought of making a home, he would naturally expect to
have his child, but after all I doubt if at that time he considered
anything except the good of baby. He did not love her; he had not even
looked at her; but he tried to do her right as far as he could. He could
give her an honest name in the eyes of the world, but he must have known
that he could not make a home with Julia where the surroundings would be
good for a child. This must have been what he considered for the moment.
Yet Tom is one who thinks out things, and he may have thought out the
future of the mother too.
When I look back I wonder how it was I consented so quickly to take
Tomine. I wanted to help Tom, and I wanted him to be able to decide
without being forced by any consideration of baby. I do not know whether
he ought to have married Julia for her own sake. If she had lived, I am
afraid I should have been tempted to think he had better not have bound
himself to her; and yet I realize that I should have been disappointed
in him if he had decided not to do it. I doubt if I could have got rid
entirely of the feeling that somehow he would have been cowardly. I
wonder if he had any notion of my feeling? He came out of the trial
nobly, at least, and I honor him with all my heart for that.
June 5. Aunt Naomi has now a theme exactly to her taste in the growing
extravagance of George's wife. Mrs. Weston has certainly elaborated her
style of dress a good deal, a thing which is the more noticeable from
the fact that in Tuskamuck we are on the whole so little given to
gorgeous raiment. I remember that when I called I thought her rather
overdressed. To-day Aunt Naomi talked for half an hour with the greatest
apparent enjoyment about the fine gowns and expensive jewelry with which
the bride is astonishing the town. I am afraid it does not take much to
set us talking. I tried half a dozen times to-day to change the subject,
but my efforts were wasted. Aunt Naomi was not to be diverted from a
theme so congenial. I reminded her that any bride was expected to
display her finery--this is part of the established formality with which
marriage is attended.
"That's all very well," she retorted with a sniff; "folks want to see
the wedding outfit. This is finery George Weston has had to pay for
himself."
"I don't see how anybody can know that," I told her; and I added that it
did not seem to me to be the town's business if it were true.
"She tells everybody he gave her the jewelry," Aunt Naomi responded;
"and the dresses she's had made since she was married. She hadn't
anything herself. The Watsons say she was real poor."
"The marriage was so sudden," I said, "that very likely she hadn't time
to get her wedding outfit. At any rate, Aunt Naomi, I don't see what
you and I have to do with her clothes."
The dear old gossip went on wagging her foot and smiling with evident
delight.
"It's the business of the neighbors that she's sure to ruin her husband
if she keeps on with her extravagance, isn't it? Besides, she wears her
clothes to have them talked about. She talks about them herself."
"A few dresses won't ruin her husband," I protested.
"She has one hired girl now, and she's talking of a second," Aunt Naomi
went on, unshaken. "Did you ever hear of such foolishness?"