"EGBERT AND EDYTHE"
When Tom Motherwell called at the Millford post office one day he got
the surprise of his life.
The Englishman had asked him to get his mail, and, of course, there was
the Northwest Farmer to get, and there might be catalogues; but the
possibilities of a letter addressed to Mr. Thos. Motherwell did not
occur to him.
But it was there!
A square gray envelope with his own name written on it. He had never
before got a real letter. Once he had a machinery catalogue sent to
him, with a typewritten letter inside beginning "Dear Sir," but his
mother had told him that it was just money they were after, but what
would she say if she saw this?
He did not trust himself to open it in the plain gaze of the people in
the office. The girl behind the wicket noticed his excitement.
"Ye needn't glue yer eye on me," Tom thought indignantly. "I'll not
open it here for you to watch me. They're awful pryin' in this office.
What do you bet she hasn't opened it?" He moved aside as others pressed
up to the wicket, feeling that every eye was upon him.
In a corner outside the door, Tom opened his letter, and laboriously
made out its contents. It was written neatly with carefully shaded
capitals:
Dear Tom: We are going to have a party to-morrow night,
because George and Fred are going back to college next
week. We want you to come and bring your Englishman.
We all hope you will come.
Ever your friend,
NELLIE SLATER.
Tom read it again with burning cheeks. A party at Slater's and him
invited!
He walked down the street feeling just the same as when his colt got
the prize at the "Fair." He felt he was a marked man--eagerly sought
after--invited to parties--girls writing to him! That's what it was to
have the cash!--you bet pa and ma were right!--money talks every time!
When he came in sight of home his elation vanished. His father and
mother would not let him go, he knew that very well. They were afraid
that Nellie Slater wanted to marry him. And Nellie Slater was not
eligible for the position of daughter-in-law. Nellie Slater had never
patched a quilt nor even made a tie-down. She always used baking powder
instead of cream of tartar and soda, and was known to have a leaning
toward canned goods. Mrs. Motherwell considered her just the girl to
spend a man's honest earnings and bring him to seedy ruin. Moreover,
she idled away her time, teaching cats to jump, and her eighteen years
old, if she was a day!
Tom knew that if he went to the party it must be by stealth. When he
drove up to the kitchen door his mother looked up from her ironing and
asked:
"What kept you, Tom?"
Tom had not been detained at all, but Mrs. Motherwell always used this
form of salutation to be sure.
Tom grumbled a reply, and handing out the mail began to unhitch.
Mrs. Motherwell read the addresses on the Englishman's letters:
Mr. Arthur Wemyss,
c/o Mr. S. Motherwell,
Millford P.O.,
Manitoba, Canada,
Township 8, range 16, sec't. 20. North America.
"Now I wonder who's writing to him?" she said, laying the two letters
down reluctantly.
There was one other letter addressed to Mr. Motherwell, which she took
to be a twine bill. It was post-marked Brandon. She put it up in the
pudding dish on the sideboard.
As Tom led the horse to the stable he met Pearl coming in with the eggs.
"See here, kid," he said carelessly, handing her the letter.
Tom knew Pearl was to be trusted. She had a good head, Pearl had, for a
girl.
"Oh, good shot!" Pearl cried delightedly, as she read the note. "Won't
that be great? Are your clothes ready, though?" It was the eldest of
the family who spoke.
"Clothes," Tom said contemptuously. "They are a blamed sight readier
than I am."
"I'll blacken your boots," Pearl said, "and press out a tie. Say, how
about a collar?"
"Oh, the clothes are all right, but pa and ma won't let me go near
Nellie Slater."
"Is she tooberkler?" Pearl asked quickly.
"Not so very," Tom answered guardedly. "Ma is afraid I might marry her."
"Is she awful pretty?" Pearl asked, glowing with pleasure. Here was a
rapturous romance.
"You bet," Tom declared with pride. "She's the swellest girl in these
parts"--this with the air of a man who had weighed many feminine charms
and found them wanting.
"Has she eyes like stars, lips like cherries, neck like a swan, and a
laugh like a ripple of music?" Pearl asked eagerly.
"Them's it," Tom replied modestly.
"Then I'd go, you bet!" was Pearl's emphatic reply. "There's your
mother calling."
"Yes'm, I'm comin'. I'll help you, Tom. Keep a stout heart and all will
be well."
Pearl knew all about frustrated love. Ma had read a story once, called
"Wedded and Parted, and Wedded Again." Cruel and designing parents had
parted young Edythe (pronounced Ed'-ith-ee) and Egbert, and Egbert just
pined and pined and pined. How would Mrs. Motherwell like it if poor
Tom began to pine and turn from his victuals. The only thing that saved
Egbert from the silent tomb where partings come no more, was the old
doctor who used to say, "Keep a stout heart, Egbert, all will be well."
That's why she said it to Tom.
Edythe had eyes like stars, mouth like cherries, neck like a swan, and
a laugh like a ripple of music, and wasn't it strange, Nellie Slater
had, too? Pearl knew now why Tom chewed Old Chum tobacco so much. Men
often plunge into dissipation when they are crossed in love, and maybe
Tom would go and be a robber or a pirate or something; and then he
might kill a man and be led to the scaffold, and he would turn his
haggard face to the howling mob, and say, "All that I am my mother made
me." Say, wouldn't that make her feel cheap! Wouldn't that make a woman
feel like thirty cents if anything would. Here Pearl's gloomy
reflections overcame her and she sobbed aloud.
Mrs. Motherwell looked up apprehensively
"What are you crying for, Pearl?" she asked not unkindly.
Then, oh, how Pearl wanted to point her finger at Mrs. Motherwell, and
say with piercing clearness, the way a woman did in the book:
"I weep not for myself, but for you and for your children." But, of
course, that would not do, so she said:
"I ain't cryin'--much."
Pearl was grating horse-radish that afternoon, but the tears she shed
were for the parted lovers. She wondered if they ever met in the
moonlight and vowed to be true till the rocks melted in the sun, and
all the seas ran dry. That's what Egbert had said, and then a rift of
cloud passed athwart the moon's face, and Edythe fainted dead away
because it is bad luck to have a cloud go over the moon when people are
busy plighting vows, and wasn't it a good thing that Egbert was there
to break her fall? Pearl could just see poor Nellie Slater standing
dry-eyed and pale at the window wondering if Tom could get away from
his lynx-eyed parents who dogged his every footstep, and Pearl's tears
flowed afresh.
But Nellie Slater was not standing dry-eyed and pale at the window.
"Did you ask Tom Motherwell?" Fred, her brother, asked, looking up from
a list he held in his hand.
"I sent him a note," Nellie answered, turning around from the
baking-board. "We couldn't leave Tom out. Poor boy, he never has any
fun, and I do feel sorry for him."
"His mother won't let him come, anyway," Fred said smiling. "So don't
set your heart on seeing him, Nell."
"How discouraging you are Fred," Nellie replied laughing. "Now, I
believe he will come. Tom would be a smart boy if he had a chance, I
think. But just think what it must be like to live with two people like
the Motherwells. You do not realise it, Fred, because you have had the
superior advantages of living with clever people like your brother
Peter and your sister Eleanor Mary; isn't that so, Peter?"
Peter Slater, the youngest of the family, who had just come in, laid
down the milk-pails before replying.
"We have done our best for them all, Nellie," he said modestly. "I hope
they will repay us. But did I hear you say Tom Motherwell was coming?"
"You heard Nell say so," Fred answered, checking over the names. "Nell
seems to like Tom pretty well."
"I do, indeed," Nellie assented, without turning around.
"You show good taste, Eleanor," Peter said as he washed his hands.
"Who is going to drive into town for Camilla?" Nellie asked that
evening.
"I am," Fred answered promptly.
"No, you're not, I am," Peter declared.
George looked up hastily.
"I am going to bring Miss Rose out," he said firmly.
Then they laughed.
"Father," Nellie said gravely, "just to save trouble among the boys,
will you do it?"
"With the greatest of pleasure," her father said, smiling.
Under Pearl's ready sympathy Tom began to feel the part of the stricken
lover, and to become as eager to meet Nellie as Egbert had been to meet
the beautiful Edythe. He moped around the field that afternoon and let
Arthur do the heavy share of the work.
The next morning before Mrs. Motherwell appeared Pearl and Tom decided
upon the plan of campaign. Pearl was to get his Sunday clothes taken to
the bluff in the pasture field, sometime during the day. Then in the
evening Tom would retire early, watch his chance, slip out the front
door, make his toilet on the bluff, and then, oh bliss! away to Edythe.
Pearl had thought of having him make a rope of the sheets; but she
remembered that this plan of escape was only used when people were
leaving a place for good--such as a prison; but for coming back again,
perhaps after all, it was better to use the front door. Egbert had used
the sheets, though.
Fortune favoured Pearl's plans that afternoon. A book agent called at
the back door with the prospectus of a book entitled, "Woman's
Influence in the Home." While he was busy explaining to Mrs. Motherwell
the great advantages of possessing a copy of this book, and she was
equally busy explaining to him her views on bookselling as an
occupation for an able-bodied man, Pearl secured Tom's suit, ran down
the front stairs, out the front door and away to the bluff.
Coming back to the house she had an uneasy feeling that she was doing
something wrong. Then she remembered Edythe, dry-eyed and pale, and her
fears vanished. Pearl had recited once at a Band of Hope meeting a poem
of her own choosing--this was before the regulations excluding secular
subjects became so rigid. Pearl's recitation dealt with a captive
knight who languished in a mouldy prison. He begged a temporary
respite--his prayer was heard--a year was given him. He went back to
his wife and child and lived the year in peace and happiness. The hour
came to part, friends entreated--wife and child wept--the knight alone
was calm.
He stepped through the casement, a proud flush on his cheek, casting
aside wife, child, friends. "What are wife and child to the word of a
knight?" he said. "And behold the dawn has come!"
Pearl had lived the scene over and over; to her it stood for all that
was brave and heroic. Coming up through the weeds that day, she was
that man. Her step was proud, her head was thrown back, her brown eyes
glowed and burned; there was strength and grace in every motion.
When Tom Motherwell furtively left his father's house, and made his way
to the little grove where his best clothes were secreted, his movements
were followed by two anxious brown eyes that looked out of the little
window in the rear of the house.
The men came in from the barn, and the night hush settled down upon the
household. Mr. and Mrs. Motherwell went to their repose, little
dreaming that their only son had entered society, and, worse still, was
exposed to the baneful charms of the reckless young woman who was known
to have a preference for baking powder and canned goods, and curled her
hair with the curling tongs.