After that the most Jabez asked of Eddie was to write "Please remit" or
"Past due" on the mossier bills. Eddie preferred an exquisite poem he
had copied from a city creditor: "This account has no doubt escaped your
notice. As we have several large obligations to meet, we should greatly
appreciate a check by return mail."
Eddie loved that. There was a fine chivalry and democracy about it, as
one should say: "We're all debtors and creditors in this world, and we
big fellows and you little fellows must all work together."
Life had a regularity now that would have maddened a man more ambitious
than Eddie or a woman more restless than Ellaphine. Their world
was like the petunia-garden--the flowers were not orchids or
telegraph-pole-stemmed roses; but the flower faces were joyous, their
frocks neat, and their perfume savory.
Eddie knew just how much money was coming in and there was no temptation
to hope for an increase. They knew just how much time they had, and one
day was like another except that along about the first of every month
Eddie went to the office a little earlier and went back at night to get
out the bills and adjust his balances.
On these evenings Ellaphine was apt to go along and sit with him,
knitting thick woolen socks for the winter, making him shirts or
nightgowns, or fashioning something for herself or the house. Her
loftiest reach of splendor was a crazy quilt; and her rag carpets were
highly esteemed.
On Sundays they went to church in the morning and again in the evening.
Prayer-meeting night saw them always on their way to the place where the
church bell called: "Come! Come!"
Sometimes irregular people, who forgot it was prayer-meeting night,
would be reminded of it by seeing Eddie and Ellar go by. They went so
early that there was time for the careless to make haste with their
bonnets and arrive in time.
It was a saying that housewives set their kitchen clocks by Eddie's
transits to and from the factory. At any rate, there was no end to the
occasions when shiftless gossips, dawdling on their porches, were
surprised to see Eddie toddle homeward, and scurried away, cackling:
"My gracious! There goes Eddie Pouch, and my biscuits not cut out!"
X
The whole year was tranquil now for the Pouches, and the halcyon brooded
unalarmed in the waveless cove of their life. There were no debtors to
be harassed, no creditors to harass them. They paid cash for
everything--at least, Ellaphine did; for Eddie turned his entire
forty-five dollars over to her. She was his banker and his steward.
She could not persuade him to smoke, or to buy new clothes before the
old ones grew too shabby for so nice a man as a bookkeeper is apt to be.
He did not drink or play cards or billiards; he did not belong to any
lodge or political organization.
The outgo of money was as regular as the income--so much for the
contribution-basket on Sundays; so much for the butcher; so much for the
grocer; so much for the coal-oil lamps. The baker got none of their
money and the druggist little.
A few dollars went now and then to the dry-goods store for dress goods,
which Pheeny made up; and Eddie left an occasional sum at the
Pantatorium for a fresh alpaca coat, or for a new pair of trousers when
the seat of the old ones grew too refulgent or perilously extenuate. As
Eddie stood up at his tall desk most of the time, however, it was rather
his shoes than his pantaloons that felt the wear and tear of attrition.
And yet, in spite of all the tender miserhood of Ellaphine and the
asceticism of Eddie, few of the forty-five dollars survived the thirty
days' demands. Still, there was always something for the savings-bank,
and the blessing on its increment was that it grew by exactions from
themselves--not from their neighbors.
The inspiration of the fund was the children that were to be. The fund
had ample time for accretion, since the children were as late as Never
is.
Such things are not discussed, of course, in Carthage. And nobody knew
how fiercely they yearned. Nobody knew of the high hopes that flared and
faded.
After the first few months of marriage Eddie had begun to call Pheeny
"Mother"--just for fun, you know. And it teased her so that he kept it
up, for he liked a joke as well as the next fellow. Before people, of
course, she was "Pheeny," and, on very grand occasions, "the wife."
"Mrs. Pouch" was beyond him. But once, at a sociable, he called across
the room, "Say, mother!"
He was going to ask her whether she wanted him to bring her a piece of
the "chalklut" cake or a hunk of the "cokernut," but he got no farther.
Nobody noticed it; but Eddie and Pheeny were consumed with shame and
slunk home scarlet. Nobody noticed that they had gone.
Time went on and on, and the fund grew and grew--a little coral reef of
pennies and nickels and dimes. The amusements of the couple were
petty--an occasional church sociable was society; a revival period was
drama. They never went to the shows that came to the Carthage Opera
House. They did not miss much.
Eddie wasted no time on reading any fiction except that in the news
columns of the evening paper, which a boy threw on the porch in a
twisted boomerang every afternoon, and which Eddie untwisted and read
after he had wiped the dishes that Pheeny washed.
Ellaphine spent no money on such vanities as novels or short stories,
but she read the edifying romances in the Sunday-school paper and an
occasional book from the Sunday-school library, mainly about children
whose angelic qualities gave her a picture of child life that would have
contrasted strongly with what their children would have been if they had
had any.
Their great source of literature, however, was the Bible. Soon after
their factory passed out of their control and their evenings ceased to
be devoted to riddles in finance, they had resolved to read the Bible
through, "from kiver to kiver." And Eddie and Ellaphine found that a
chapter read aloud before going to bed was an excellent sedative.
They had not invaded Genesis quite three weeks before the evening when
it came Eddie's turn to read aloud the astonishing romance of Abram, who
became Abraham, and of Sarai, who became Sarah. It was very exciting
when the child was promised to Sarah, though she was "well stricken in
age." Eddie smiled as he read, "Sarah laughed within herself." But
Pheeny blushed.
Ellaphine was far from the ninety years of Sarah, but she felt that the
promise of a son was no laughing matter. These poignant hopes and awful
denials and perilous adventures are not permitted to be written about or
printed for respectable eyes. If they are discussed it must be with
laughing ribaldry.
Even in their solitude Eddie and Pheeny used modest paraphrases and
breathed hard and looked askance, and made sure that no one overheard.
They whispered as parents do when their children are abed up-stairs.
The neighbors gave them hardly thought enough to imagine the lofty
trepidation of these thrilling hours. The neighbors never knew of the
merciless joke Fate played on them when, in their ignorance, they
believed the Lord had sent them a sign. They dwelt in a fools' paradise
for a long time, hoarding their glorious expectations.
At length Pheeny grew brazen enough to consult the old and peevish
Doctor Noxon; and he laughed her hopes away and informed her that she
need never trouble herself to hope again.
That was a smashing blow; and they cowered together under the shadow of
this great denial, each telling the other that it did not matter, since
children were a nuisance and a danger anyway.
They pretended to take solace in two current village tragedies--the
death of the mayor's wife in childbed and the death of the minister's
son in disgrace; but, though they lied to each other lovingly, they were
neither convincing nor convinced.