Holcroft's View of Matrimony
Holcroft was indeed very lonely as he drove through the bare March
fields and leafless woods on his way to town. The sky had clouded
again, like his prospects, and he had the dreary sense of desolation
which overwhelms a quiet, domestic man who feels that his home and all
to which he clings are slipping from him. His lot was hard enough at
best, and he had a bitter sense of being imposed upon and wronged by
Lemuel Weeks. It was now evident enough that the widow and her
daughter had been an intolerable burden to his neighbor, who had taken
advantage of his need and induced him to assume the burden through
false representation. To a man of Holcroft's simple, straightforward
nature, any phase of trickery was intensely repugnant, and the fact
that he had been overreached in a matter relating to his dearest hopes
galled him to the quick. He possessed the strong common sense of his
class; his wife had been like him in this respect, and her influence
had intensified the trait. Queer people with abnormal manners excited
his intense aversion. The most charitable view that he could take of
Mrs. Mumpson was that her mind--such as she had--was unbalanced, that
it was an impossibility for her to see any subject or duty in a
sensible light or its right proportions.
Her course, so prejudicial to her own interests, and her incessant and
stilted talk, were proof to his mind of a certain degree of insanity,
and he had heard that people in this condition often united to their
unnatural ways a wonderful degree of cunning. Her child was almost as
uncanny as herself and gave him a shivering sense of discomfort
whenever he caught her small, greenish eyes fixed upon him.
"Yet, she'll be the only one who'll earn her salt. I don't see how I'm
going to stand 'em--I don't, indeed, but suppose I'll have to for three
months, or else sell out and clear out."
By the time he reached town a cold rain had set in. He went at once to
the intelligence office, but could obtain no girl for Mrs. Mumpson to
"superintend," nor any certain promise of one. He did not much care,
for he felt that the new plan was not going to work. Having bartered
all his eggs for groceries, he sold the old stove and bought a new one,
then drew from the bank a little ready money. Since his butter was so
inferior, he took it to his friend Tom Watterly, the keeper of the
poorhouse.
Prosperous Tom slapped his old friend on the back and said, "You look
awfully glum and chopfallen, Jim. Come now, don't look at the world as
if it was made of tar, pitch, and turpentine. I know your luck's been
hard, but you make it a sight harder by being so set in all your ways.
You think there's no place to live on God's earth but that old
up-and-down-hill farm of yours that I wouldn't take as a gift. Why,
man alive, there's a dozen things you can turn your hand to; but if you
will stay there, do as other men do. Pick out a smart, handy woman
that can make butter yaller as gold, that'll bring gold, and not such
limpsy-slimsy, ghostly-looking stuff as you've brought me. Bein' it's
you, I'll take it and give as much for it as I'd pay for better, but
you can't run your old ranch in this fashion."
"I know it, Tom," replied Holcroft ruefully. "I'm all at sea; but, as
you say, I'm set in my ways, and I'd rather live on bread and milk and
keep my farm than make money anywhere else. I guess I'll have to give
it all up, though, and pull out, but it's like rooting up one of the
old oaks in the meadow lot. The fact is, Tom, I've been fooled into one
of the worst scrapes I've got into yet."
"I see how it is," said Tom heartily and complacently, "you want a
practical, foresighted man to talk straight at you for an hour or two
and clear up the fog you're in. You study and brood over little things
out there alone until they seem mountains which you can't get over
nohow, when, if you'd take one good jump out, they'd be behind you.
Now, you've got to stay and take a bite with me, and then we'll light
our pipes and untangle this snarl. No backing out! I can do you more
good than all the preachin' you ever heard. Hey, there, Bill!"
shouting to one of the paupers who was detailed for such work, "take
this team to the barn and feed 'em. Come in, come in, old feller!
You'll find that Tom Watterly allus has a snack and a good word for an
old crony."
Holcroft was easily persuaded, for he felt the need of cheer, and he
looked up to Tom as a very sagacious, practical man. So he said,
"Perhaps you can see farther into a millstone than I can, and if you
can show me a way out of my difficulties you'll be a friend sure
enough."
"Why, of course I can. Your difficulties are all here and here,"
touching his bullet head and the region of his heart. "There aint no
great difficulties in fact, but, after you've brooded out there a week
or two alone, you think you're caught as fast as if you were in a bear
trap. Here, Angy," addressing his wife, "I've coaxed Holcroft to take
supper with us. You can hurry it up a little, can't you?"
Mrs. Watterly gave their guest a cold, limp hand and a rather frigid
welcome. But this did not disconcert him. "It's only her way," he had
always thought. "She looks after her husband's interests as mine did
for me, and she don't talk him to death."
This thought, in the main, summed up Mrs. Watterly's best traits.
She was a commonplace, narrow, selfish woman, whose character is not
worth sketching. Tom stood a little in fear of her, and was usually
careful not to impose extra tasks, but since she helped him to save and
get ahead, he regarded her as a model wife.
Holcroft shared in his opinion and sighed deeply as he sat down to
supper. "Ah, Tom!" he said, "you're a lucky man. You've got a wife
that keeps everything indoors up to the mark, and gives you a chance to
attend to your own proper business. That's the way it was with mine.
I never knew what a lopsided, helpless creature a man was until I was
left alone. You and I were lucky in getting the women we did, but when
my partner left me, she took all the luck with her. That aint the
worst. She took what's more than luck and money and everything. I
seemed to lose with her my grit and interest in most things. It'll
seem foolishness to you, but I can't take comfort in anything much
except working that old farm that I've worked and played on ever since
I can remember anything. You're not one of those fools, Tom, that have
to learn from their own experience. Take a bit from mine, and be good
to your wife while you can. I'd give all I'm worth--I know that aint
much--if I could say some things to my wife and do some things for her
that I didn't do."
Holcroft spoke in the simplicity of a full and remorseful heart, but he
unconsciously propitiated Mrs. Watterly in no small degree. Indeed,
she felt that he had quite repaid her for his entertainment, and the
usually taciturn woman seconded his remarks with much emphasis.
"Well now, Angy," said Tom, "if you averaged up husbands in these parts
I guess you'd find you were faring rather better than most women folks.
I let you take the bit in your teeth and go your own jog mostly. Now,
own up, don't I?"
"That wasn't my meaning, exactly, Tom," resumed Holcroft. "You and I
could well afford to let our wives take their own jog, for they always
jogged steady and faithful and didn't need any urging and guiding. But
even a dumb critter likes a good word now and then and a little patting
on the back. It doesn't cost us anything and does them a sight of
good. But we kind of let the chances slip by and forget about it until
like enough it's too late."
"Well," replied Tom, with a deprecatory look at his wife, "Angy don't
take to pettin' very much. She thinks it's a kind of foolishness for
such middle-aged people as we're getting to be."
"A husband can show his consideration without blarneying," remarked
Mrs. Watterly coldly. "When a man takes on in that way, you may be sure
he wants something extra to pay for it."
After a little thought Holcroft said, "I guess it's a good way to pay
for it between husband and wife."
"Look here, Jim, since you're so well up on the matrimonial question,
why in thunder don't you marry again? That would settle all your
difficulties," and Tom looked at his friend with a sort of wonder that
he should hesitate to take this practical, sensible course.
"It's very easy for you to say, 'Why don't you marry again?' If you
were in my place you'd see that there are things in the way of marrying
for the sake of having a good butter maker and all that kind of thing."
"Mr. Watterly wouldn't be long in comforting himself," remarked his
wife.--"His advice to you makes the course he'd take mighty clear."
"Now, Angy!" said Tom reproachfully. "Well," he added with a grin,
"you're forewarned. So you've only to take care of yourself and not
give me a chance."
"The trouble is," Holcroft resumed, "I don't see how an honest man is
going to comfort himself unless it all comes about in some natural sort
of way. I suppose there are people who can marry over and over again,
just as easy as they'd roll off a log. It aint for me to judge 'em,
and I don't understand how they do it. You are a very practical man,
Tom, but just you put yourself in my shoes and see what you'd do. In
the first place, I don't know of a woman in the world that I'd think of
marrying. That's saying nothing against the women,--there's lots too
good for me,--but I don't know 'em and I can't go around and hunt 'em
up. Even if I could, with my shy, awkward ways, I wouldn't feel half
so nervous starting out on a bear hunt. Here's difficulty right at the
beginning. Supposing I found a nice, sensible woman, such as I'd be
willing to marry, there isn't one chance in a hundred she'd look at an
old fellow like me. Another difficulty: Supposing she would; suppose
she looked me square in the eyes and said, 'So you truly want a wife?'
what in thunder would I say then?--I don't want a wife, I want a
housekeeper, a butter maker, one that would look after my interests as
if they were her own; and if I could hire a woman that would do what I
wish, I'd never think of marrying. I can't tell a woman that I love
her when I don't. If I went to a minister with a woman I'd be
deceiving him, and deceiving her, and perjuring myself promiscuously.
I married once according to law and gospel and I was married through
and through, and I can't do the thing over again in any way that would
seem to me like marrying at all. The idea of me sitting by the fire
and wishing that the woman who sat on the t'other side of the stove was
my first wife! Yet I couldn't help doing this any more than breathing.
Even if there was any chance of my succeeding I can't see anything
square or honest in my going out and hunting up a wife as a mere matter
of business. I know other people do it and I've thought a good deal
about it myself, but when it comes to the point of acting I find I
can't do it."
The two men now withdrew from the table to the fireside and lighted
their pipes. Mrs. Watterly stepped out for a moment and Tom, looking
over his shoulder to make sure she was out of ear shot, said under his
breath, "But suppose you found a woman that you could love and obey,
and all that?"
"Oh, of course, that would make everything different. I wouldn't begin
with a lie then, and I know enough of my wife to feel sure that she
wouldn't be a sort of dog in the manger after she was dead. She was
one of those good souls that if she could speak her mind this minute
she would say, 'James, what's best and right for you is best and
right.' But it's just because she was such a good wife that I know
there's no use of trying to put anyone in her place. Where on earth
could I find anybody, and how could we get acquainted so that we'd know
anything about each other? No, I must just scratch along for a short
time as things are and be on the lookout to sell or rent."
Tom smoked meditatively for a few moments, and then remarked, "I guess
that's your best way out."
"It aint an easy way, either," said Holcroft. "Finding a purchaser or
tenant for a farm like mine is almost as hard as finding a wife. Then,
as I feel, leaving my place is next to leaving the world."
Tom shook his head ruefully and admitted, "I declare, Jim, when a
feller comes to think it all over, you ARE in a bad fix, especially as
you feel. I thought I could talk you over into practical common sense
in no time. It's easy enough when one don't know all the bearin's of a
case, to think carelessly, 'Oh, he aint as bad off as he thinks he is.
He can do this and that and the t'other thing.' But when you come to
look it all over, you find he can't, except at a big loss. Of course,
you can give away your farm on which you were doing well and getting
ahead, though how you did it, I can't see. You'd have to about give it
away if you forced a sale, and where on earth you'll find a tenant
who'll pay anything worth considering--But there's no use of croaking.
I wish I could help you, old feller. By jocks! I believe I can.
There's an old woman here who's right smart and handy when she can't
get her bottle filled. I believe she'd be glad to go with you, for she
don't like our board and lodging over much."
"Do you think she'd go tonight?"
"Oh, yes! Guess so. A little cold water'll be a good change for her."
Mrs. Wiggins was seen, and feeling that any change would be for the
better, readily agreed to go for very moderate wages. Holcroft looked
dubiously at the woman's heavy form and heavier face, but felt that it
was the best he could do. Squeezing Mrs. Watterly's cold, limp hand in
a way that would have thawed a lump of ice, he said "goodby;" and then
declaring that he would rather do his own harnessing for a night ride,
he went out into the storm. Tom put on his rubber coat and went to the
barn with his friend, toward whom he cherished honest good will.
"By jocks!" he ejaculated sympathetically, "but you have hard lines,
Jim. What in thunder would I do with two such widdy women to look after
my house!"