I
“Well, for my part, I could never, never forgive a man who did such a
thing!”
It was late in the afternoon of a clear, cold day in December when
Charity Holmes, sitting in the midst of a spicy mound of evergreen on
Farmer Ralston’s kitchen floor, and looking up from her work with a
bright flush on her pretty cheeks, made this severe remark. Of the
three other women in the room, two, the farmer’s daughters, young
girls like herself, were quite of her opinion; but the fourth, a
white-haired old lady with lavender bows on her cap and sunshine in
her motherly face, patted the nearest indignant girl’s shoulder
reprovingly, and remarked:
“There, there, dears; don’t be so hard. We’re all of us human, and
drink’s a terrible thing. Sometimes it don’t seem any more a man’s
fault than tumbling into a hole in the road.”
“But if he has dug the hole himself, grandmother”--
Any further argument was interrupted at this point by the appearance
of an immense bundle of evergreen at one of the windows, entirely
blocking up its small, frosty panes. Presently an honest and merry
face showed itself down at one corner.
“It’s Tom, with more green!” cried the two Ralston girls, jumping up
and running to the porch door to let in the big brother.
Charity stayed behind with grandmother, but Tom’s eyes found her in a
twinkling. How demurely she sat there, tying away with all her might,
while the awkward fellow made a great to-do piling up his load beside
her, and managed to get hold of somebody’s hand down among the
princess-pines, and--then something happened behind grandmother’s back
that made somebody’s fresh young cheeks pinker than ever.
“Tom, Tom!” cried Charity, shaking her head as soberly as if she
hadn’t been the cause of his mischief.
“Yes, ma’am,” answered innocent Tom. “Want some more?”
“Now, Tom, if you’re really going to stay you must work in good
earnest. Just pick out some good long strings of ‘creeping Jenny’ and
lay them right beside me--so!”
Thereupon Tom, great, breezy, good-natured Tom, doubled himself up on
the floor, boots and all, and pretended to immerse himself, body and
mind, in the complicated task assigned him, meanwhile blundering in
the most absurd manner, and continually mistaking that bewildering
little hand for the delicate vines, and at the same time winking at
grandmother, thereby confusing her and making her feel that she was an
accomplice; and in fact conducting himself altogether so outrageously
that the girls ended by pelting him with evergreens until he escaped
to the woodshed, where the ringing blows of his axe soon gave notice
that he was making ready for the blaze in the great fireplace that was
to brighten the long winter evening before them.
Charity was the daughter of a neighbor. She and Tom Ralston had played
together since they were babies; then, leaving the district school,
and entering upon the heavier duties of life, they had grown bashful,
and kept away from each other just long enough to find out that they
could not possibly do so any longer. So they were engaged, to the
quiet satisfaction of both families. The marriage was to be on New
Year’s and the young folks were working hard on their evergreen
trimming, which Tom had promised to take up to the city, a dozen miles
away, and sell for them, the day before Christmas. Charity was to go
with him, as she had a few little purchases to make; and besides, she
had never seen the city at this “holiday season,” when it is at its
merriest.
Swiftly the full, busy days flew by. The evening before they were to
start, Tom was walking home with Charity. As they reached the little
plot of ground before her house they looked up into the starlit,
moonlit sky. At least Charity did. I am afraid Tom was finding moon
and stars and no end of things more precious to him in the grave brown
eyes so near his own.
“No, Tom,” said she, answering his look, “I’m just thinking about--up
there! and all we can be to each other and the rest of the world.”
“My darling! I wish I were a good man, I wish I were stronger! If it
were not for you!”--
He checked himself, and she could feel the brace of his muscles under
the coatsleeve where her hand rested, as if he were even then fighting
with some invisible foe. A light cloud came over the moon’s face, and
the road and fields, covered with new-fallen snow, looked colder than
before. She shivered, and drew more closely to his side. He was quick
to read her thoughts, this big, clumsy fellow, and he spoke instantly.
“I know, Rita,” he said, softly, stroking her hand and using the pet
name that he had made for her when they were children; “I know you’ll
stand by me through everything. And, whatever evil things I have in
me, with you at my side, I’ll try to put down. Heaven help me!”
He took off his cap, and Charity thought she never saw him look so
noble and humble and manly as he did then. The moon, too, was out
again, and its light rested like a benediction on his broad forehead,
whose veins stood out strangely to-night.
A moment later and he was gone. Charity watched him striding away
across the field until he was out of sight. As she turned to her own
home she noticed his tracks and the dark blotches they made on the
pure, white surface of the snow before her door. Somehow they troubled
her, and, without thinking, she made a little futile brush at the
nearest footprint with the corner of her shawl, thus only enlarging
and making it more unsightly than before. Then, with a nervous laugh
at her own foolish fancies, she entered the house.