A Momentous Decision
It must be admitted that Holcroft enjoyed his triumph over Lemuel Weeks
very much after the fashion of the aboriginal man. Indeed, he was
almost sorry he had not been given a little more provocation, knowing
well that, had this been true, his neighbor would have received a
fuller return for his interested efforts. As he saw his farmhouse in
the shimmering April sunlight, as the old churning dog came forward,
wagging his tail, the farmer said, "This is the only place which can
ever be home to me. Well, well! It's queer about people. Some, when
they go, leave you desolate; others make you happy by their absence. I
never dreamed that silly Mumpson could make me happy, but she has.
Blessed if I don't feel happy! The first time in a year or more!" And
he began to whistle old "Coronation" in the most lively fashion as he
unharnessed his horses.
A little later, he prepared himself a good dinner and ate it in
leisurely enjoyment, sharing a morsel now and then with the old dog.
"You're a plaguey sight better company than she was," he mused. "That
poor little stray cat of a Jane! What will become of her? Well, well!
Soon as she's old enough to cut loose from her mother, I'll try to give
her a chance, if it's a possible thing."
After dinner, he made a rough draught of an auction bill, offering his
cows for sale, muttering as he did so, "Tom Watterly'll help me put it
in better shape." Then he drove a mile away to see old Mr. And Mrs.
Johnson. The former agreed for a small sum to mount guard with his dog
during the farmer's occasional absences, and the latter readily
consented to do the washing and mending.
"What do I want of any more 'peculiar females,' as that daft widow
called 'em?" he chuckled on his return. "Blames if she wasn't the most
peculiar of the lot. Think of me marrying her!" and the hillside
echoed to his derisive laugh. "As I feel today, there's a better chance
of my being struck by lightning than marrying, and I don't think any
woman could do it in spite of me. I'll run the ranch alone."
That evening he smoked his pipe cheerfully beside the kitchen fire, the
dog sleeping at his feet. "I declare," he said smilingly, "I feel quite
at home."
In the morning, after attending to his work, he went for old Jonathan
Johnson and installed him in charge of the premises; then drove to the
almshouse with all the surplus butter and eggs on hand. Tom Watterly
arrived at the door with his fast-trotting horse at the same time, and
cried, "Hello, Jim! Just in time. I'm a sort of grass widower
today--been taking my wife out to see her sister. Come in and take pot
luck with me and keep up my spirits."
"Well, now, Tom," said Holcroft, shaking hands, "I'm glad, not that
your wife's away, although it does make me downhearted to contrast your
lot and mine, but I'm glad you can give me a little time, for I want to
use that practical head of yours--some advice, you know."
"All right. Nothing to do for an hour or two but eat dinner and smoke
my pipe with you. Here, Bill! Take this team and feed 'em."
"Hold on," said Holcroft, "I'm not going to sponge on you. I've got
some favors to ask, and I want you to take in return some butter half
spoiled in the making and this basket of eggs. They're all right."
"Go to thunder, Holcroft! What do you take me for? When you've filled
your pipe after dinner will you pull an egg out of your pocket and say,
'That's for a smoke?' No, no, I don't sell any advice to old friends
like you. I'll buy your butter and eggs at what they're worth and have
done with 'em. Business is one thing, and sitting down and talking
over an old crony's troubles is another. I'm not a saint, Jim, as you
know--a man in politics can't be--but I remember when we were boys
together, and somehow thinking of those old days always fetches me.
Come in, for dinner is a-waiting, I guess."
"Well, Tom, saint or no saint, I'd like to vote for you for gov'nor."
"This aint an electioneering trick, as you know. I can play them off
as well as the next feller when there's need, kiss the babies and all
that."
Dinner was placed on the table immediately, and in a few moments the
friends were left alone. Then Holcroft related in a half comic, half
serious manner his tribulations with the help. Tom sat back in his
chair and roared at the account of the pitched battle between the two
widows and the final smoking out of Mrs. Mumpson, but he reproached his
friend for not having horsewhipped Lemuel Weeks. "Don't you remember,
Jim, he was a sneaking, tricky chap when we were at school together? I
licked him once, and it always does me good to think of it."
"I own it takes considerable to rile me to the point of striking a man,
especially on his own land. His wife was looking out the window, too.
If we'd been out in the road or anywhere else--but what's the use? I'm
glad now it turned out as it has for I've too much on my mind for
lawsuits, and the less one has to do with such cattle as Weeks the
better. Well, you see I'm alone again, and I'm going to go it alone.
I'm going to sell my cows and give up the dairy, and the thing I wanted
help in most is the putting this auction bill in shape; also advice as
to whether I had better try to sell here in town or up at the farm."
Tom shook his head dubiously and scarcely glanced at the paper. "Your
scheme don't look practical to me," he said. "I don't believe you can
run that farm alone without losing money. You'll just keep on going
behind till the first thing you know you'll clap a mortgage on it.
Then you'll soon be done for. What's more, you'll break down if you try
to do both outdoor and indoor work. Busy times will soon come, and you
won't get your meals regularly; you'll be living on coffee and anything
that comes handiest; your house will grow untidy and not fit to live
in. If you should be taken sick, there'd be no one to do for you.
Lumbermen, hunters, and such fellows can rough it alone awhile, but I
never heard of a farm being run by man-power alone. Now as to selling
out your stock, look at it. Grazing is what your farm's good for
mostly. It's a pity you're so bent on staying there. Even if you
didn't get very much for the place, from sale or rent, you'd have
something that was sure. A strong, capable man like you could find
something to turn your hand to. Then you could board in some
respectable family, and not have to live like Robinson Crusoe. I've
thought it over since we talked last, and if I was you I'd sell or
rent."
"It's too late in the season to do either," said Holcroft dejectedly.
"What's more, I don't want to, at least not this year. I've settled
that, Tom. I'm going to have one more summer on the old place, anyway,
if I have to live on bread and milk."
"You can't make bread."
"I'll have it brought from town on the stage."
"Well, it's a pity some good, decent woman--There, how should I come to
forget all about HER till this minute? I don't know whether it would
work. Perhaps it would. There's a woman here out of the common run.
She has quite a story, which I'll tell you in confidence. Then you can
say whether you'd like to employ her or not. If you WILL stay on the
farm, my advice is that you have a woman to do the housework, and me
and Angy must try to find you one, if the one I have in mind won't
answer. The trouble is, Holcroft, to get the right kind of a woman to
live there alone with you, unless you married her. Nice women don't
like to be talked about, and I don't blame 'em. The one that's here,
though, is so friendless and alone in the world that she might be glad
enough to get a home almost anywheres."
"Well, well! Tell me about her," said Holcroft gloomily. "But I'm about
discouraged in the line of women help."
Watterly told Alida's story with a certain rude pathos which touched
the farmer's naturally kind heart, and he quite forgot his own need in
indignation at the poor woman's wrongs. "It's a **** shame!" he said
excitedly, pacing the room. "I say, Tom, all the law in the land
wouldn't keep me from giving that fellow a whipping or worse."
"Well, she won't prosecute; she won't face the public; she just wants
to go to some quiet place and work for her bread. She don't seem to
have any friends, or else she's too ashamed to let them know."
"Why, of course I'd give such a woman a refuge till she could do
better. What man wouldn't?"
"A good many wouldn't. What's more, if she went with you her story
might get out, and you'd both be talked about."
"I don't care that for gossip," with a snap of his fingers. "You know
I'd treat her with respect."
"What I know, and what other people would say, are two very different
things. Neither you nor anyone else can go too strongly against public
opinion. Still, it's nobody's business," added Tom thoughtfully.
"Perhaps it's worth the trial. If she went I think she'd stay and do
the best by you she could. Would you like to see her?"
"Yes."
Alida was summoned and stood with downcast eyes in the door. "Come in
and take a chair," said Tom kindly. "You know I promised to be on the
lookout for a good place for you. Well, my friend here, Mr. Holcroft,
whom I've known ever since I was a boy, wants a woman to do general
housework and take care of the dairy."
She gave the farmer one of those swift, comprehensive glances by which
women take in a personality, and said in a tone of regret, "But I don't
understand dairy work."
"Oh, you'd soon learn. It's just the kind of a place you said you
wanted, a lonely, out-of-the-way farm and no other help kept. What's
more, my friend Holcroft is a kind, honest man. He'd treat you right.
He knows all about your trouble and is sorry for you."
If Holcroft had been an ogre in appearance, he would have received the
grateful glance which she now gave him as she said, "I'd be only too
glad to work for you, sir, if you think I can do, or learn to do, what
is required."
Holcroft, while his friend was speaking, had studied closely Alida's
thin, pale face, and he saw nothing in it not in harmony with the story
he had heard. "I am sorry for you," he said kindly. "I believe you
never meant to do wrong and have tried to do right. I will be
perfectly honest with you. My wife is dead, the help I had has left
me, and I live alone in the house. The truth is, too, that I could not
afford to keep two in help, and there would not be work for them both."
Alida had learned much in her terrible adversity, and had, moreover the
instincts of a class superior to the position she was asked to take.
She bowed low to hide the burning flush that crimsoned her pale cheeks
as she faltered, "It may seem strange to you, sirs, that one situated
as I am should hesitate, but I have never knowingly done anything which
gave people the right to speak against me. I do not fear work, I would
humbly try to do my best, but--" She hesitated and rose as if to retire.
"I understand you," said Holcroft kindly, "and I don't blame you for
doing what you think is right."
"I'm very sorry, sir," she replied, tears coming into her eyes as she
went out of the room.
"There it is, Holcroft," said Tom. "I believe she's just the one for
you, but you can see she isn't of the common kind. She knows as well
as you and me how people would talk, especially if her story came out,
as like enough it will."
"Hang people!" snarled the farmer.
"Yes, a good lot of 'em deserve hanging, but it wouldn't help you any
just now. Perhaps she'd go with you if you got another girl or took an
old woman from the house here to keep her company."
"I'm sick to death of such hags," said the farmer with an impatient
gesture. Then he sat down and looked at his friend as if a plan was
forming in his mind of which he scarcely dare speak.
"Well, out with it!" said Tom.
"Have you ever seen a marriage ceremony performed by a justice of the
peace?" Holcroft asked slowly.
"No, but they do it often enough. What! Are you going to offer her
marriage?"
"You say she is homeless and friendless?'
"Yes."
"And you believe she is just what she seems--just what her story shows
her to be?"
"Yes. I've seen too many frauds to be taken in. She isn't a fraud.
Neither does she belong to that miserable, wishy-washy, downhill class
that sooner or later fetches up in a poorhouse. They say we're all
made of dust, but some seem made of mud. You could see she was out of
the common; and she's here on account of the wrong she received and not
the wrong she did. I say all this in fairness to her; but when it
comes to marrying her, that's another question."
"Tom, as I've told you, I don't want to marry. In fact, I couldn't go
before a minister and promise what I'd have to. But I could do
something like this. I could give this woman an honest name and a home.
It would be marriage before the law. No one could ever say a word
against either of us. I would be true and kind to her and she should
share in my fortunes. That's all. You have often advised me to marry,
and you know if I did it couldn't be anything else but a business
affair. Then it ought to be done in a businesslike way. You say I
can't get along alone, and like enough you're right. I've learned more
from this woman's manner than I have in a year why I can't get and keep
the right kind of help, and I now feel if I could find a good, honest
woman who would make my interest hers, and help me make a living in my
own home, I'd give her my name and all the security which an honest
name conveys. Now, this poor woman is in sore need and she might be
grateful for what I can do, while any other woman would naturally
expect me to promise more than I honestly can. Anyhow, I'd have to go
through the form, and I can't and won't go and say sacred words--just
about what I said when I married my wife--and know all the time I was
lying."
"Well, Holcroft, you're a queer dick and this is a queer plan of yours.
You're beyond my depth now and I can't advise."
"Why is it a queer plan? Things only seem odd because they are not
common. As a matter of fact, you advise a business marriage. When I
try to follow your advice honestly and not dishonestly, you say I'm
queer."
"I suppose if everybody became honest, it would be the queerest world
every known," said Tom laughing. "Well, you might do worse than marry
this woman. I can tell you that marrying is risky business at best.
You know a justice will tie you just as tight as a minister, and while
I've given you my impression about this woman, I KNOW little about her
and you know next to nothing."
"I guess that would be the case, anyhow. If you set out to find a wife
for me, where is there a woman that you actually do know more about?
As for my going here and there, to get acquainted, it's out of the
question. All my feelings rise up against such a course. Now, I feel
sorry for this woman. She has at least my sympathy. If she is as
friendless, poor, and unhappy as she seems, I might do her as great a
kindness as she would do for me if she could take care of my home. I
wouldn't expect very much. It would be a comfort just to have someone
in the house that wouldn't rob or waste, and who, knowing what her
station was, would be content. Of course I'd have to talk it over with
her and make my purpose clear. She might agree with you that it's too
queer to be thought of. If so, that would be the end of it."
"Will, Jim, you always finish by half talking me over to your side of a
question. Now, if my wife was home, I don't believe she'd listen to
any such plan."
"No, I suppose she wouldn't. She'd believe in people marrying and
doing everything in the ordinary way. But neither I nor this woman is
in ordinary circumstances. Do you know of a justice?"
"Yes, and you know him, too; Justice Harkins."
"Why, certainly. He came from our town and I knew him when he was a
boy, although I haven't seen much of him of late years."
"Well, shall I go and say to this woman--Alida Armstrong is her name
now, I suppose--that you wish to see her again?"
"Yes, I shall tell her the truth. Then she can decide."