Between the Past and Future
Human nature, in common with Mother Nature, has its immutable laws.
The people who existed before the flood were, in their primal motives,
like those of today. The conventionality of highly civilized society
does not change the heart, but it puts so much restraint upon it that
not a few appear heartless. They march through life and fight its
battles like uniformed men, trained in a certain school of tactics.
The monotony of character and action is superficial, in most cases,
rather than real, and he who fathoms the eyes of others, who catches
the subtle quality of tones and interprets the flexible mouth that
utters them, will discover that the whole gamut of human nature exists
in those that appear only like certain musical instruments, made by
machinery to play a few well-known tunes. Conventional restraint
often, no doubt, produces dwarfed and defective human nature. I
suppose that if souls could be put under a microscope, the undeveloped
rudiments of almost everything would be discovered. It is more
satisfactory to study the things themselves than their suggestions;
this we are usually better able to do among people of simple and
untrammeled modes of life, who are not practiced in disguises. Their
peculiar traits and their general and dominant laws and impulses are
exhibited with less reserve than by those who have learned to be always
on their guard. Of course there are commonplace yeomen as truly as
commonplace aristocrats, and simple life abounds in simpletons.
When a man in Holcroft's position has decided traits, they are apt to
have a somewhat full expression; his rugged nature beside a tamer one
outlines itself more vividly, just as a mountain peak is silhouetted
against the horizon better than a rounded hill. It probably has been
observed that his character possessed much simplicity and directness.
He had neither the force nor the ambition to raise him above his
circumstances; he was merely decided within the lines of his
environment. Perhaps the current of his life was all the stronger for
being narrow. His motives were neither complex nor vacillating. He had
married to keep his home and to continue in the conditions of life dear
from association and the strongest preference, and his heart overflowed
with good will and kindness toward Alida because she promised to solve
the hard problem of the future satisfactorily. Apart from the sympathy
which her misfortune had evoked, he probably could have felt much the
same toward any other good, sensible woman, had she rendered him a
similar service. It is true, now that Alida was in his home, that she
was manifesting agreeable traits which gave him pleasant little
surprises. He had not expected that he would have had half so much to
say to her, yet felt it his duty to be sociable in order to cheer up
and mark the line between even a business marriage and the employment
of a domestic. Both his interest and his duty required that he should
establish the bonds of strong friendly regard on the basis of perfect
equality, and he would have made efforts, similar to those he put
forth, in behalf of any woman, if she had consented to marry him with
Alida's understanding. Now, however, that his suddenly adopted project
of securing a housekeeper and helper had been consummated, he would
find that he was not dealing with a business partner in the abstract,
but a definite woman, who had already begun to exert over him her
natural influence. He had expected more or less constraint and that
some time must elapse before his wife would cease to be in a sense
company whom he, with conscious and deliberate effort, must entertain.
On the contrary she entertained and interested him, although she said
so little, and by some subtle power she unloosed his tongue and made it
easy for him to talk to her. In the most quiet and unobtrusive way,
she was not only making herself at home, but him also; she was very
subservient to his wishes, but not servilely so; she did not assert,
but only revealed her superiority, and after even so brief an
acquaintance he was ready to indorse Tom Watterly's view, "She's out of
the common run."
While all this was true, the farmer's heart was as untouched as that of
a child who simply and instinctively likes a person. He was still
quietly and unhesitatingly loyal to his former wife. Apart from his
involuntary favor, his shrewd, practical reason was definite enough in
its grounds of approval. Reason assured him that she promised to do and
to be just what he had married her for, but this might have been true
of a capable, yet disagreeable woman whom he could not like, to save
himself.
Both in regard to himself and Alida, Holcroft accepted the actual facts
with the gladness and much of the unquestioning simplicity of a child.
This rather risky experiment was turning out well, and for a time he
daily became more and more absorbed in his farm and its interests.
Alida quietly performed her household tasks and proved that she would
not need very much instruction to become a good butter maker. The
short spring of the North required that he should be busy early and
late to keep pace with the quickly passing seedtime. His hopefulness,
his freedom from household worries, prompted him to sow and plant
increased areas of land. In brief, he entered on just the
business-like honeymoon he had hoped for.
Alida was more than content with the conditions of her life. She saw
that Holcroft was not only satisfied, but also pleased with her, and
that was all she had expected and indeed all that thus far she had
wished or hoped. She had many sad hours; wounds like hers cannot heal
readily in a true, sensitive woman's heart. While she gained in
cheerfulness and confidence, the terrible and unexpected disaster which
had overtaken her rendered impossible the serenity of those with whom
all has gone well. Dread of something, she knew not what, haunted her
painfully, and memory at times seemed malignantly perverse in recalling
one whom she prayed to forget.
Next to her faith and Holcroft's kindness her work was her best solace,
and she thanked God for the strength to keep busy.
On the first Sunday morning after their marriage the farmer overslept,
and breakfast had been ready some time when he came down. He looked
with a little dismay at the clock over the kitchen mantel and asked,
"Aren't you going to scold a little?"
She shook her head, nor did she look the chiding which often might as
well be spoken.
"How long have I kept breakfast waiting, or you rather?"
"What difference does it make? You needed the rest. The breakfast may
not be so nice," was her smiling answer.
"No matter. You are nice to let a man off in that way." Observing the
book in her lap, he continued, "So you were reading the old family
Bible to learn lessons of patience and forbearance?"
Again she shook her head. She often oddly reminded him of Jane in her
employment of signs instead of speech, but in her case there was a
grace, a suggestiveness, and even a piquancy about them which made them
like a new language. He understood and interpreted her frankly. "I
know, Alida," he said kindly; "you are a good woman. You believe in
the Bible and love to read it."
"I was taught to read and love it," she replied simply. Then her eyes
dropped and she faltered, "I've reproached myself bitterly that I
rushed away so hastily that I forgot the Bible my mother gave me."
"No, no," he said heartily, "don't reproach yourself for that. It was
the Bible in your heart that made you act as you did."
She shot him a swift, grateful glance through her tears, but made no
other response.
Having returned the Bible to the parlor, she put the breakfast on the
table and said quietly, "It looks as if we would have a rainy day."
"Well," said he, laughing, "I'm as bad as the old woman--it seems that
women can run farms alone if men can't. Well, this old dame had a big
farm and employed several men, and she was always wishing it would rain
nights and Sundays. I'm inclined to chuckle over the good this rain
will do my oats, instead of being sorry to think how many sinners it'll
keep from church. Except in protracted-meeting times, most people of
this town would a great deal rather risk their souls than be caught in
the rain on Sunday. We don't mind it much week days, but Sunday rain
is very dangerous to health."
"I'm afraid I'm as bad as the rest," she said, smiling. "Mother and I
usually stayed home when it rained hard."
"Oh, we don't need a hard storm in the country. People say, 'It looks
threatening,' and that settles it; but we often drive to town rainy
days to save time."
"Do you usually go to church at the meeting house I see off in the
valley?" she asked.
"I don't go anywhere," and he watched keenly to see how she would take
this blunt statement of his practical heathenism.
She only looked at him kindly and accepted the fact.
"Why don't you pitch into me?" he asked.
"That wouldn't do any good."
"You'd like to go, I suppose?"
"No, not under the circumstances, unless you wished to. I'm cowardly
enough to dread being stared at."
He gave a deep sign of relief. "This thing has been troubling me," he
said. "I feared you would want to go, and if you did, I should feel
that you ought to go."
"I fear I'm very weak about it, but I shrink so from meeting strangers.
I do thank God for his goodness many times a day and ask for help. I'm
not brave enough to do any more, yet."
His rugged features became very somber as he said, "I wish I had as
much courage as you have."
"You don't understand me--" she began gently.
"No, I suppose not. It's all become a muddle to me. I mean this
church and religious business."
She looked at him wistfully, as if she wished to say something, but did
not venture to do so. He promptly gave a different turn to the
conversation by quoting Mrs. Mumpson's tirade on churchgoing the first
Sunday after her arrival. Alida laughed, but not in a wholly mirthful
and satisfied way. "There!" he concluded, "I'm touching on things a
little too sacred for you. I respect your feelings and beliefs, for
they are honest and I wish I shared in 'em." Then he suddenly laughed
again as he added, "Mrs. Mumpson said there was too much milking done
on Sunday, and it's time I was breaking the Fourth Commandment, after
her notion."
Alida now laughed outright, without reservation.
"'By jocks!' as Watterly says, what a difference there is in women!" he
soliloquized on his way to the barn. "Well, the church question is
settled for the present, but if Alida should ask me to go, after her
manner this morning, I'd face the whole creation with her."
When at last he came in and threw off his waterproof coat, the kitchen
was in order and his wife was sitting by the parlor fire with Thomson's
"Land and the Book" in her hand.
"Are you fond of reading?" he asked.
"Yes, very."
"Well, I am, too, sort of; but I've let the years slip by without doing
half as much as I ought."
"Light your pipe and I'll read to you, if you wish me to."
"Oh, come now! I at least believe in Sunday as a day of rest, and you
need it. Reading aloud is about as hard work as I can do."
"But I'm used to it. I read aloud to mother a great deal," and then
there passed over her face an expression of deep pain.
"What is it, Alida? Don't you feel well?"
"Yes, oh, yes!" she replied hastily, and her pale face became crimson.
It was another stab of memory recalling the many Sundays she had read
to the man who had deceived her. "Shall I read?" she asked.
"Alida," he said very kindly, "it wasn't the thought of your mother
that brought that look of pain into your face."
She shook her head sadly, with downcast eyes. After a moment or two,
she raised them appealingly to him as she said simply, "There is so
much that I wish I could forget."
"Poor child! Yes, I think I know. Be patient with yourself, and
remember that you were never to blame."
Again came that quick, grateful glance by which some women express more
than others can ever put in words. Her thought was, "I didn't think
that even he was capable of that. What a way of assuring me that he'll
be patient with me!" Then she quietly read for an hour descriptions of
the Holy Land that were not too religious for Holcroft's mind and which
satisfied her conscience better than much she had read in former days
to satisfy a taste more alien to hers than that of her husband.
Holcroft listened to her correct pronunciation and sweet, natural tones
with a sort of pleased wonder. At last he said, "You must stop now."
"Are you tired?" she asked.
"No, but you are, or ought to be. Why, Alida, I didn't know you were
so well educated. I'm quite a barbarous old fellow compared with you."
"I hadn't thought of that before," she said with a laugh.
"What a fool I was, then, to put it into your head!"
"You must be more careful. I'd never have such thoughts if you didn't
suggest them."
"How did you come to get such a good education?"
"I wish I had a better one. Well, I did have good advantages up to the
time I was seventeen. After I was old enough I went to school quite
steadily, but it seems to me that I learned a little of everything and
not much of anything. When father died and we lost our property, we had
to take to our needles. I suppose I might have obtained work in a
store, or some such place, but I couldn't bear to leave mother alone
and I disliked being in public. I certainly didn't know enough to
teach, and besides, I was afraid to try."
"Well, well! You've stumbled into a quiet enough place at last."
"That's what I like most about it, but I don't think I stumbled into
it. I think I've been led and helped. That's what I meant when I said
you didn't understand me," she added hesitatingly. "It doesn't take
courage for me to go to God. I get courage by believing that he cares
for me like a father, as the bible says. How could I ever have found
so kind a friend and good a home myself?"
"I've been half inclined to believe there's a Providence in it
myself--more and more so as I get acquainted with you. Your troubles
have made you better, Alida; mine made me worse. I used to be a
Christian; I aint any more."
She looked at him smilingly as she asked, "How do you know?"
"Oh! I know well enough," he replied gloomily. "Don't let's talk about
it any more," and then he led her on to speak simply and naturally
about her childhood home and her father and mother.
"Well," he said heartily, "I wish your mother was living for nothing
would please me better than to have such a good old lady in the house."
She averted her face as she said huskily, "I think it was better she
died before--" But she did not finish the sentence.
By the time dinner was over the sun was shining brightly, and he asked
her if she would not like to go up the lane to his woodland to see the
view. Her pleased look was sufficient answer. "But are you sure you
are strong enough?" he persisted.
"Yes, it will do me good to go out, and I may find some wild flowers."
"I guess you can, a million or two."
By the time he was through at the barn she was ready and they started
up the lane, now green with late April grass and enlivened with
dandelions in which bumblebees were wallowing. The sun had dried the
moisture sufficiently for them to pass on dry-shod, but everything had
the fresh, vernal aspect that follows a warm rain. Spring had advanced
with a great bound since the day before. The glazed and glutinous
cherry buds had expanded with aromatic odors and the white of the
blossoms was beginning to show.
"By tomorrow," said Holcroft, "the trees will look as if covered with
snow. Let me help you," and he put his hand under her arm, supporting
and aiding her steps up the steep places.
Her lips were parted, the pleased look was in her eyes as they rested
on trees and shrubs which lined the half ruinous stone walls on either
side. "Everything seems so alive and glad this afternoon," she remarked.
"Yes," replied the matter-of-fact farmer. "A rain such as we had this
morning is like turning the water on a big mill-wheel. It starts all
the machinery right up. Now the sun's out, and that's the greatest
motor power of all. Sun and moisture make the farm go."
"Mustn't the ground be enriched, too?"
"Yes, yes indeed; I suppose that's where we all fail. But it's no easy
matter to keep a farm in good heart. That's another reason why I'm so
glad I won't have to sell my stock. A farm run without stock is sure
to grow poor, and if the farm grows poor, the owner does as a matter of
course. But what put enriching the ground into your head? Do you know
anything about farming?"
"No, but I want to learn. When I was a girl, father had a garden. He
used to take papers about it, and I often read them aloud to him
evenings. Now I remember there used to be much in them about enriching
the ground. Do you take any such paper?"
"No, I haven't much faith in book-farming."
"I don't know," she ventured. "Seems to me you might get some good
ideas out of papers, and your experience would teach you whether they
were useful ideas or not. If you'll take one, I'll read it to you."
"I will, then, for the pleasure of hearing you read, if nothing else.
That's something I hadn't bargained for," he added, laughing.
She answered in the same spirit by saying, "I'll throw that in and not
call it square yet."
"I think I've got the best of you," he chuckled; "and you know nothing
makes a Yankee farmer happier than to get the best of a bargain."
"I hope you'll continue to think so. Can I sit down a few moments?"
"Why, certainly! How forgetful I am! Your talk is too interesting for
me to think of anything else," and he placed her on a flat rock by the
side of the lane while he leaned against the wall.
Bees and other insects were humming around them; a butterfly fluttered
over the fence and alighted on a dandelion almost at her feet; meadow
larks were whistling their limpid notes in the adjoining fields, while
from the trees about the house beneath them came the songs of many
birds, blending with the babble of the brook which ran not far away.
"Oh, how beautiful, how strangely beautiful it all is!"
"Yes, when you come to think of it, it is real pretty," he replied.
"It's a pity we get so used to such things that we don't notice 'em
much. I should feel miserable enough, though, if I couldn't live in
just such a place. I shouldn't wonder if I was a good deal like that
robin yonder. I like to be free and enjoy the spring weather, but I
suppose neither he nor I think or know how fine it all is."
"Well, both you and the robin seem a part of it," she said, laughing.
"Oh, no, no!" he replied with a guffaw which sent the robin off in
alarm. "I aint beautiful and never was."
She joined his laugh, but said with a positive little nod, "I'm right,
though. The robin isn't a pretty bird, yet everybody likes him."
"Except in cherry time. Then he has an appetite equal to mine. But
everybody don't like me. In fact, I think I'm generally disliked in
this town."
"If you went among them more they wouldn't dislike you."
"I don't want to go among them."
"They know it, and that's the reason they dislike you."
"Would you like to go out to tea-drinkings, and all that?"
"No, indeed; and I don't suppose I'd be received," she added sadly.
"So much the worse for them, then, blast 'em!" said Holcroft wrathfully.
"Oh no! I don't feel that way and you shouldn't. When they can,
people ought to be sociable and kind."
"Of course I'd do any of my neighbors, except Lemuel Weeks, a good turn
if it came in my way, but the less I have to do with them the better
I'm satisfied."
"I'm rested enough to go on now," said Alida quietly.
They were not long in reaching the edge of the woodland, from which
there was an extended prospect. For some little time they looked at
the wide landscape in silence. Alida gave to it only partial attention
for her mind was very busy with thoughts suggested by her husband's
alienation from his neighbors. It would make it easier for her, but the
troubled query would arise, "Is it right or best for him? His marrying
me will separate him still more."
Holcroft's face grew sad rather than troubled as he looked at the old
meeting house and not at the landscape. He was sitting near the spot
where he spent that long forenoon a few Sundays before, and the train
of thought came back again. In his deep abstraction, he almost forgot
the woman near him in memories of the past.
His old love and lost faith were inseparable from that little white
spire in the distance.
Alida stole a glance at him and thought, "He's thinking of her," and
she quietly strolled away to look for wild flowers.
"Yes," muttered Holcroft, at last. "I hope Bessie knows. She'd be the
first one to say it was right and best for me, and she'd be glad to
know that in securing my own home and comfort I had given a home to the
homeless and sorrowful--a quiet, good woman, who worships God as she
did."
He rose and joined his wife, who held toward him a handful of trailing
arbutus, rue anemones, bloodroot, and dicentras. "I didn't know they
were so pretty before," he said with a smile.
His smile reassured her for it seemed kinder than any she had yet
received, and his tone was very gentle. "His dead wife will never be my
enemy," she murmured. "He has made it right with her in his own
thoughts."