THE WOMAN WITH A SORE THOUGHT
The turning of a key; the opening of a door, are commonplace sounds to
most of us; but to a prisoner, weary of his cell, they are sounds of
unspeakable rapture. The dripping of a tap, may have in it the element
of annoyance--if we have to get up and shut it off before we can get
to sleep, but a thirsty traveller on the burning sands of the desert,
would be wild with joy to hear it. All which is another way of saying
that everything in life is relative.
On the day that Pearl spoke in the school-house, there sat in one of
the seats listening to her, a sombre-faced woman, who rarely came to
any of the neighborhood gatherings. The women of the neighborhood,
having only the primary hypothesis of human conduct, said she was
"proud." She did not join heartily in their conversations when they
met her, and had an aloofness about her which could only be explained
that way. She had a certain daintiness about her, too, in her way of
dressing--even in the way she did her hair--and in her walk, which
made the women say with certain resentment, that Mrs. Paine would like
to be "dressy."
But if Mrs. Paine had any such ambitions, they were not likely to be
achieved, for although she and her husband had lived for years in this
favored district, and had had good crops, Sylvester Paine was known
all over the country as a hard man. The women would have liked Mrs.
Paine much better if she had talked more, and complained about
him--she was too close-mouthed they said. They freely told each other,
and told her, of their hopes, fears, trials and triumphs--but Mrs.
Paine's communications were yea and nay when the conversation was on
personal matters, and she had a way of closing her lips which somehow
prevented questions.
But on the day when Pearl spoke in the school Mrs. Paine's face
underwent a change which would have interested a student of human
nature. Something which had been long dead, came to life again that
day; fluttering, trembling, shrinking. In her eyes there came again
the dead hopes of the years, and it made her face almost pitiful in
its trembling eagerness. There was a dull red rage in her eyes too
that day, that was not good to see, and she was determined that it
should not be seen, and for that reason, she slipped away when Pearl
was through, leaving some excuse about having the chores to do. She
could not bear to speak to the women and have them read her face; she
knew it would tell too much. But she must talk to Pearl. There were
things that Pearl could tell her.
That night she called Pearl on the phone. The other receivers came
down quickly, and various homely household sounds mingled in her
ears--a sewing-machine's soft purring in one house--a child's cry in
another--the musical whine of a cream separator in a third. She knew
they were all listening, but she did not care. Even if she could not
control her face, she could control her voice.
When Pearl came to the phone, Mrs. Paine invited her to come over for
supper the next night, to which Pearl gave ready acceptance--and that
was all. The interested listeners were disappointed with the brevity
of the conversation, and spoke guardedly and in cipher to each other
after Pearl and Mrs. Paine had gone: "Somebody is away, see! That's
why! Gee! some life--never any one asked over only at such times--Gee!
How'd you like to be bossed around like that?"
"She did not begin right--too mealy-mouthed. Did you hear what he's
going to buy? No! I'll tell you when I see you--we've too big an
audience right now. Don't it beat all, the time some people have to
listen in--"
"O well, I don't care! Anything I say I'm ready to back up. I don't
pretend I forget or try to twist out of things."
One receiver went up here, and the sound of the sewing-machine went
with it.
Then the conversation drifted pleasantly to a new and quicker way of
making bread that had just come out in the "Western Home Monthly."
The next evening Pearl walked over the Plover Slough to see Mrs.
Paine. She noticed the quantity of machinery which stood in the yard,
some under cover of the big shingled shed, and some of it sitting out
in the snow, gray and weather-beaten. The yard was littered, untidy,
prodigal, wasteful--every sort of machine had evidently been bought
and used for a while, then discarded. But within doors there was a
bareness that struck Pearl's heart with pity. The entrance at the
front of the house was banked high with snow, and evidently had not
been used all winter, and indeed there seemed no good reason for its
ever being used, for the front part of the house, consisting of hall,
front room opening into a bed-room, were unfurnished and unheated.
Mrs. Paine was genuinely, eagerly glad to see Pearl, and there was a
tense look in her eyes, an underglow of excitement, a trembling of her
hands, as she set the table, that did not escape Pearl.
But nothing was said until the children had gone to bed, and then Mrs.
Paine departed from her life-long habit of silence, and revealed to
Pearl the burdens that were crushing her.
She was a thin woman, with a transparency about her that gave her the
appearance of being brittle. Her auburn hair curled over her white
forehead, and snakily twisted around her ivory white ears. Her eyes
were amber-brown, with queer yellow lights that rose and fell as
she talked, and in some strange way reminded Pearl of a piece of
bird's-eye maple. She was dressed in the style of twenty years before,
with her linen collar inside the high collar of her dress, which was
fastened with a bar pin, straight and plain like herself. In the
centre of the pin was a cairn-gorm, which reflected the slumbering
yellow light in her eyes. The color of her face was creamy white, like
fine stationery.
"I thought all my hopes were dead, Pearl," she said with dry lips,
"until you spoke, and then I saw myself years ago, when I came out of
school. Life was as rosy and promising, and the future as bright to me
then as it is to you now. But I got married young--we were brought up
to think if we did not get married--we were rather disgraced, and in
our little town in Ontario, men were scarce--they had all come West.
So when I got a chance, I took it."
Pearl could see what a beautiful young girl she must have been, when
the fires of youth burned in her eye--with her brilliant coloring
and her graceful ways. But now her face had something dead about
it, something missing--like a beautifully-tiled fireplace with its
polished brass fittings, on whose grate lie only the embers of a fire
long dead.
Pearl thought of this as she watched her. Mrs. Paine, in her
agitation, pleated her muslin apron into a fan.
The tea-kettle on the stove bubbled drowsily, and there was no sound
in the house but the purring of the big cat that lay on Pearl's knee.
"Life is a funny proposition, Pearl," continued Mrs. Paine, "I often
think it is a conspiracy against women. We are weaker, smaller than
men--we have all the weaknesses and diseases they have--and then some
of our own. Marriage is a form of bondage--long-term slavery--for
women."
Pearl regarded her hostess with astonished eyes. She had always known
that Mrs. Paine did not look happy; but such words as these came as a
shock to her romantic young heart.
"It isn't the hard work--or the pain--it isn't that--it's the
uselessness of it all. Nature is so cruel, and careless. See how many
seeds die--nature does not care--some will grow--the others do not
matter!"
"O you're wrong, Mrs. Paine," Pearl cried eagerly; "it is not true
that even a sparrow can fall to the ground and God not know it."
Mrs. Paine seemed about to speak, but checked her words. Pearl's
bright face, her hopefulness, her youth, her unshaken faith in God and
the world, restrained her. Let the child keep her faith!
"There is something I want to ask you, Pearl," she said, after a long
pause. "You know the laws of this Province are different from what
they are in Ontario."
Her voice fell, and the light in her eyes seemed to burn low, like
night-light, turned down.
"He says," she did not call her husband by name, but Pearl knew who
was meant, "he says that a man can sell all his property here without
his wife's signature, and do what he likes with the money. He wants to
sell the farm and buy the hotel at Millford. I won't consent, but he
tells me he can take the children away from me, and I would have to go
with him then. He says this is a man's country, and men can do as they
like. I wonder if you know what the law is?"
"I'm not sure," said Pearl. "I've heard the women talking about it,
but I will find out. I will write to them. If that is the law it will
be changed--any one could see that it is not fair. Lots of these old
laws get written down and no one bothers about them--and they just
stay there, forgotten--but any one would see that was not fair, 'Men
would not be as unjust as that'!"
"You don't know them", said Mrs. Paine; "I have no faith in men.
They've made the world, and they've made it to suit themselves. My
husband takes his family cares as lightly as a tomcat. The children
annoy him."
She spoke in jerky sentences, often moistening her dry lips, and there
was something in her eyes which made Pearl afraid--the very air of the
room seemed charged with discords. Pearl struggled to free her heart
from the depressing influence.
"All men are not selfish," she said, "and I guess God has done the
best He could to be fair to every one. It's some job to make millions
of people and satisfy them all."
"Well, the Creator should take some responsibility," Mrs. Paine
interrupted, "none of us asked to be born--I'm not God, but I take
responsibility for my children. I did not want them, but now they are
here I'll stand by them. That's why I've stayed as long as this. But
God does not stand by me."
Her voice was colorless and limp like a washed ribbon. It had in it no
anger, just a settled conviction.
"See here, Mrs. Paine," began Pearl, "you've been too long alone in
the house. You begin to imagine things. You work too hard, and never
go out, and that would make an archangel cross. You've just got to mix
up more with the rest of us. Things are not half so black as they look
to you."
"I could stand it all--until he said he could take away my home," the
words seemed to come painfully. "I worked for this," she said, "and
though it's small and mean--it's home. Every bit of furniture in this
house I bought with my butter money. The only trees we have I planted.
I sowed the flowers and dug the place to put them. While he is away
buying cattle and shipping them, and making plenty of money--all for
himself--I stay here and run the farm. I milk, and churn, and cook for
hired men, and manage the whole place, and I've made it pay too, but
he has everything in his own name. Now he says he can sell it and take
the money.... Even a cat will fight and scratch for its hay-loft."
"Oh well," said Pearl, "I hope you won't have to fight. Fighting is
bad work. It's a last resort when everything else fails. Mr. Paine can
be persuaded out of the hotel business if you go at it right. He does
not understand, that's all. That's what causes all the misery and
trouble in life--it is lack of understanding."
Mrs. Paine smiled grimly: "It's good to be young, Pearl," she said.
After a while she spoke again: "I did not ask you over entirely for
selfish reasons. I wanted to talk to you about yourself; I wanted to
warn you, Pearl."
"What about!" Pearl exclaimed.
"Don't get married," she said; "Oh don't, Pearl, I can't bear to think
of you being tied down with children and hard work. It's too big a
risk, Pearl, don't do it. We need you to help the rest of us. When I
listened to you the other day I came nearer praying than I have for
many years. I said, 'Oh, Lord, save Pearl,' and what I meant was that
He should save you from marriage. You'll have lots of offers."
"None so far," laughed Pearl, "not a sign of one."
"Well, you'll get plenty--but don't do it, Pearl. We need you to talk
for us."
"Well, couldn't I talk if I were married?" asked Pearl, "I have heard
married women talk."
"Not the same; they haven't the heart. People cannot talk if their
own hearts are sore. That's why we want to keep you light-hearted and
carefree. I wish you would promise me, Pearl, that you won't marry."
Pearl hesitated, hardly knowing how to meet this.
"That's asking a lot, Mrs. Paine. Every girl hopes to marry some
time," she said, at last, and if the light had been better Mrs. Paine
would have seen the color rising in Pearl's cheeks; "And you are wrong
in thinking that all men are mean and selfish. My father is not. We've
been poor and all that, but we're happy. My father has never shirked
his share of the work, and he has only one thought now, and that is to
do well for us. There are plenty of happy marriages. I--can't promise
not to but there's no danger yet--I have no notion of it."
"All right, Pearl," said Mrs. Paine, "keep away from it. Some way I
can't bear to think of you tied down with a bunch of kids, and all
your bright ways dulled with hard work and worry. Well, anyway, you'll
talk about it--about the vote I mean."
"All the time," Pearl laughingly responded. "Wherever two or three
gather Pearl Watson will rise and make a few remarks unless some one
forcibly restrains her. I will promise that--that's easy."
When Pearl walked home that night the moon was trying to shine through
a gray rag of a cloud that was wrapped around its face. The snow on
the road caught the muffled rays of light, and she could see her way
quite well after her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. There was
a close, protecting feeling about the gray darkness that suited her
mood. It was a comfortable, companionable night, with a soft air full
of pleasant sounds of dogs barking, and sleigh-bells, and with the
lights in the neighbors' houses for company. Pearl was not conscious
of fear. All her life she had gone about in the night as fearlessly as
by day.
Mrs. Paine's words troubled her. Was it possible life could be as dull
and drab a thing as it seemed to her. Perhaps, though, she had never
been in love! She had married because she did not want to be an old
maid. Only love can redeem life from its common-place monotony. Maybe
that was why things had gone wrong.
She thought about Mrs. Paine's words about being tied down with
children and hard work, and how she had pleaded with her to be warned!
Pearl tried to make the warning real and effective--tried to harden
her heart and fill it with ambitions, in which love and marriage had
no place. She tried to tell herself it was her duty to never marry;
she would be free to work for other women. She tried to think of a
future apart from marriage, apart from the hopes and dreams that had
been so dear and sweet. Could it be that she was being called of God
to be a leader in a new crusade against injustice? Was it her part to
speak for other women? Since the day she spoke in the school there
had been a glowing wonder in her heart which told her she could move
people to higher thinking and nobler action. She had seen it in their
eyes that day. She had seen the high resolve in their faces, seen it,
and been glad and fearful too. Was it possible that God was calling
her to declare a message to the people, and could it be that it was
for this reason her sweet dreams had been so suddenly broken?
Pearl stopped in the road in her agitation of spirit, as the
possibility of this surged over her. Every sound seemed to have died
away, not a dog barked or a tree creaked in the gray darkness which
shrouded the world. Even the lights in the houses seemed to hold a
steady gleam, without as much as winking an eye--waiting for her
answer.
The whole world seemed to be holding its breath expectantly, in a
waiting, quivering silence. It was as if her name had been called; the
curtain had rolled up, and a great audience waited.
A sudden, helpless feeling set her heart beating painfully into her
throat, a smothering sense of fear, quite new to her, who had never
known fear.
"I can't do it!" broke from her, in a cry; "Don't ask me, Lord, I
can't! I can't do it alone--but give me the desire of my heart, oh,
Lord, and I will never tremble or turn back or be afraid. I will
declare the truth before kings!"