I
April 12, 1900.
Dearest, dearest Judy-pudy: “Begin at the beginning,” like many other
rules, seems very simple. It is not. How is one to know where the
beginning is?
I have decided that, probably, the beginning of this very long letter,
which I am planning to write to you this afternoon and evening, should
be that Irene does not like Q 2 Ranch. She does not wish to live here,
or to have Christopher live here.
When they came last month, they came only for a visit. But when Chris
found that we had been sending him all the ready money we could get,
and had been forced to practise rigid economy, he refused to take
Irene back to New York. Father agrees with Chris that he and Irene
should stay here for the present.
Chris says certainly, that nothing else is to be considered. He says
if he had had the least notion of how things were with us here at
home, he would have come home two years ago when he returned from the
Continent. He said that, of course, by staying in New York and
attempting to get his play produced, he felt that he was doing his
share. Because, if _Gold_ had been successful, we never would have had
another money worry again. He says effort must weigh, as well as
accomplishment.
Irene said that Booful had worked very hard and lived most frugally in
New York. Chris said that he had not lived half as frugally as he
would have had he known that his living was literally coming out of
our pantry and off our backs.
Irene and Father both said “Nonsense” to that, but they said it
differently. Just the same, Judy, in spite of Father’s “Nonsense,” can
you ever remember a time when about all the ready money we had did not
have to be sent off to Cousin Christopher?
Chris said that he had had his chance, and that you had not had yours
(he meant about your not going to a university), but that now we must
all pull together to see that Neal and I had ours.
Father agreed with him. He rather overagreed with him. He said that
Chris had had a bit more than his chance, he thought. That he had two
degrees, and two years of European travel. He said that Chris was a
sophomore at Princeton when he was Neal’s age.
Neal began to say, as he always says, that he did not care for a
classical education; that all he needed was a few years at a good
agricultural college. Father spoke almost abruptly to him. Neal walked
right away out of the room.
When Neal was gone, that left Grandfather, Father, Chris, Irene, and
me in the sitting room. I was reading in the window nook. I think that
the others did not know I was there. I was not eavesdropping because,
if any of them had turned around and looked at me, I was plainly there
to be seen.
Irene said that if an agricultural college was all Neal cared about,
why couldn’t he be sent to the Oregon one, which she had heard was
fairly possible.
Darling Father has been having that stomach trouble again. You know
how quiet and patient it makes him. He just sat there, white, and did
not answer Irene at all.
Grandfather told her that, just now, even the state agricultural
college was a bit more than we could manage.
Irene said, “Couldn’t you mortgage some more of Chris’s land?”
Grandfather explained to her that the ranch was over-mortgaged now. He
went on and told her about how bad ranching conditions had been, and
how in 1895 cows were selling for from five to seven dollars, and
calves for two, and horses about the same. He told how it had been
necessary to disperse most of the herds because we could not afford to
keep them. And then he told how timber and teams had kept us going.
And how, after that, the mortgages had been necessary to buy new
herds, and to pay debts contracted when we couldn’t even mortgage. He
finished by telling her how, if we could devote the coming two or
three years to keeping up our interest, and our herds, and so on, we
were bound to win through with flying colours.
I don’t know why that should have made Irene angry. It did. It made
her so angry that her voice trembled as she asked Grandfather whether
he actually meant that the place was so deeply in debt that no more
money could be raised on it.
Grandfather told her that he doubted whether another hundred dollars
could be borrowed on the place. He said that now it need not be
borrowed. He said she had spoken of raising money. We were now, he
told her, engaged in raising money—cattle and horses.
She has a queer way, I think I may have mentioned it before, of
seeming to hear only a part, the first part of whatever one says to
her. She has another odd mannerism. She interrupts. She interrupted
Grandfather then, and said that, in other words, the place was
worthless.
Grandfather said to Christopher, “Sir, can you explain to me how your
wife happens to be labouring under such a misconception?”
Usually, when anybody asks Christopher a question, Irene answers it.
“I know,” she said, “that when a farm of this size is mortgaged up to
the hilt, so that not even a hundred dollars can be raised on it, that
it is a failure. I don’t believe in throwing good money after bad. It
seems to me that the only thing to do is to sell the place, if
possible, and invest the money more wisely.”
Judy, did you ever consider how much worse things words can say than
people can ever do? I think that must be because actions can be met
with actions, but some words have no words for answers.
For quite a long time no one said anything. I felt my heart drop into
my stomach, and then—I actually could feel this—my stomach closed
around it somewhat as a sea anemone closes—and stuck to it. It was
painful.
“Uncle Thaddeus, Dick,” Christopher managed to say, “Irene doesn’t
understand.”
Grandfather stood up. He looked majestic. “That, Christopher,” he
said, “is, I think, your fault and not your wife’s. You should have
explained to her that men do not sell their inheritance. That it is
not theirs to sell.”
Grandfather and Father went out of the room together.
Christopher said to Irene, “Uncle Thaddeus is right, sweetheart. It is
my fault. I should have explained——”
“Explain!” she burst out. “If there is anything in the world that you
haven’t explained to me concerning Quilter precedents and traditions,
I hope I may never have to hear it. You go about, every one of you,
buttered with precedent, greased with traditions. Like the pig at the
circus. One tries to get hold of you, and traditions slip you through
one’s hands. What I need to have explained now is why a farm,
admittedly worthless, should be kept as a home for the aged and
infirm. We could better afford to put them all into institutions for
indigent old age. As for the younger generation, your cousins are
strong and capable—let them earn their livings elsewhere. Why should
we keep them with our lives? Them, and their children, and——”
I made a dreadful sound. It was like the first part of an enormous
hiccup. It was drawing my breath in after smothering for so long.
Christopher turned and saw me. He was glad, I think, to have me there
to vent his wrath upon. He lowered his voice and became aggressively
polite—you know the way Quilter men do when they are angry. He begged
my pardon for intruding on my privacy, and so on; and, at last, he
said that he was bound to ask for my promise that I would not repeat a
syllable of what I had, surely inadvertently, overheard.
Irene said bother promising anything. She said I might run and tell
every word she’d said, for all she cared. She said she wished I would,
and save her the trouble; because, if I didn’t, she meant to.
Christopher, looking exactly like the man in the Gibson picture,
“Hearts Are Trumps,” said, “No, I think not, Irene.”
“I have already,” she declared, like a dare. “Long ago, I spoke to
your Uncle Phineas about the possibility of selling the farm. I’ve
mentioned it, since, to your Aunt Olympe and your Cousin Gracia.”
Perhaps if Irene knew it was like cracking us on our crazy bones every
time she said “farm,” she might stop it. Perhaps she might not.
“I am sorry to hear that, Irene,” Christopher said, very much in
Grandfather’s manner. “Because such talk succeeds only in making my
family dislike and distrust you, and accomplishes no other end
whatever. Possibility of my selling Q 2 Ranch ranks, in the range of
possibilities, exactly on a par with my selling one of the children,
or committing a murder or a robbery—something of the sort.”
“You are robbing,” Irene declared. “You are robbing us of our chance
for happiness. Not murder, perhaps. But you are condemning yourself
and your wife to a sort of everlasting suicide. You prefer that, I
suppose, to——”
“Infinitely,” Christopher interrupted (he got the habit from Irene, I
think). “But that must be said for you alone, Irene. I love Q 2: I
haven’t been as loyal to it as the others have been; but I love it,
and them. If you would give me a chance, I could be very happy here.”
“Pleasant,” Irene said, “and interesting to hear you, after we have
been married seven weeks, talking about me alone. Dividing us. Leaving
me alone, while you step to the other side with your precious family.”
“If there is a division,” Christopher said—I am sure that they had
both forgotten all about me—“you are making it.”
“No,” she said. “Not yet. But understand this, Christopher, I will not
plan a life here—not even with you.”
At that moment Olympe came into the room. She has been wearing all her
silk petticoats for everyday, since Irene came, so she rustles almost
as crisply as Irene does. She was well into the room, she had come
down the back stairway, before she noticed us near the fireplace. I
was crying. Irene looked as if she were burning, and Christopher
looked like her ashes—gray-white.
Irene flamed out at Olympe: “I was telling Christopher that I will not
stay here in this hole. That, if he plans to live the remainder of his
life here, he will plan to live it without me.”
Think, Judy, what a wonderful opportunity it would have been for
Olympe’s “Quilter men” speech, the one she does like gray velvet, or
even her “God help the Quilter wives” speech. But she remained stone
deaf. She came to me, and put her arm around my shoulders, and said,
“Come with Olympe, sweetheart,” and gave me one of her exquisite
handkerchiefs and led me out of the room.
We met Uncle Phineas and Aunt Gracia. Uncle Phineas, of course, began
to hug and kiss me and quote the Queen: “Consider what o’clock it is!
Consider anything, only don’t cry!” Aunt Gracia tried to get me away
from Uncle Phineas to find out whether I’d been bumped or burned, and
everyone was all excited and concerned as they always are when I cry.
I wish they wouldn’t do that way. I wish I might indulge more often in
the luxury of tears. It should be, I think, one of the recompenses for
the length of time one has to be a child. Neal says they fuss so
because I open my mouth so wide and make such a noise. I can’t help
it. I believe no one can be heartbroken and fastidious at the same
time.
Olympe was very angry. She said a great deal. Among other things she
said that Q 2 was no longer a fit place for a child, and that I had
been forced to witness a disgusting scene, and that Irene was
threatening to leave Christopher.
Uncle Phineas said: “Hoop-la! That’s the best news I’ve heard since
McKinley beat Bryan.”
Olympe said, “Pan!”
After supper Irene apologized to Grandfather before all of us. She
said that she had not understood about Q 2, but that now Christopher
had made things plain to her. Of course, she went on to say, she had
never intended that the entire “farm” be sold. Her idea had been to
sell small sections of it, here and there; just enough to supply us
with what money we needed for the present.
Uncle Phineas told the story about the man who loved his dog so much
that, when he had to cut his tail off, he chopped it in small chunks,
so as not to hurt the poor creature so much. Aunt Gracia suggested
that we go into the back parlour and have some music.
Uncle Phineas played and Irene sang some of the new coon songs she
brought from the East. Then Irene and Christopher did a queer new
dance that is called a “Cake-walk.” They say it is much more effective
when there are several couples. Aunt Gracia sang for the rest of us.
While she was singing Irene sat by me and talked.
She told me about the new moving photography. She says every face is
recognizable, and that every motion is made. I should love to see it;
but, probably, they will never have it in Oregon. She told me, too,
that she and Christopher had seen several of the new horseless
carriages in New York. She says it is positively eerie to see them
gliding along by themselves. No one here, except Grandfather, thinks
that they will ever be more than a fad; but Grandfather predicts that,
in time, they will at least share equal honours with the horse.
I love you, dear, and I love Greg.—Lucy.