A Charivari
The eastern horizon was aglow with rosy tints the following morning
when Holcroft awoke; the stars were but just fading from the sky and
the birds were still silent. He knew by these signs that it was very
early and that he could carry out his plan of a timely start to town.
Dressing very quietly, he stole downstairs, shoes in hand, lest his
tread should awaken Alida. The kitchen door leading into the hall was
closed. Lifting the latch carefully, he found the lamp burning, the
breakfast table set, and the kettle humming over a good fire. "This is
her work, but where is she?" he queried in much surprise.
The outer door was ajar; he noiselessly crossed the room, and looking
out, he saw her. She had been to the well for a pail of water, but had
set it down and was watching the swiftly brightening east. She was so
still and her face so white in the faint radiance that he had an odd,
uncanny impression. No woman that he had ever known would stop that
way to look at the dawn. He could see nothing so peculiar in it as to
attract such fixed attention. "Alida," he asked, "what do you see?"
She started slightly and turned to take up the pail; but he had already
sprung down the steps and relieved her of the burden.
"Could anything be more lovely than those changing tints? It seems to
me I could have stood there an hour," she said quietly.
"You are not walking or doing all this in your sleep, are you?" he
asked, laughing, yet regarding her curiously. "You looked as you stood
there like what people call a--what's that big word?"
"I'm not a somnambulist and never was, to my knowledge. You'll find
I'm wide enough awake to have a good breakfast soon."
"But I didn't expect you to get up so early. I didn't wish it."
"It's too late now," she said pleasantly, "so I hope you won't find
fault with me for doing what I wanted to do."
"Did you mean to be up and have breakfast when I told you last night?"
"Yes. Of course I didn't let you know for you would have said I
mustn't, and then I couldn't. It isn't good for people to get up so
early and do as much as you had on your mind without eating. Now you
won't be any the worse for it."
"I certainly ought to be the better for so much kindly consideration;
but it will cure me of such unearthly hours if you feel that you must
conform to them. You look pale this morning, Alida; you're not strong
enough to do such things, and there's no need of it when I'm so used to
waiting on myself."
"I shall have to remind you," she replied with a bright look at him
over her shoulder, "that you said I could do things my own way."
"Well, it seems odd after a year when everyone who came here appeared
to grudge doing a thing for a man's comfort."
"I should hope I was different from them."
"Well, you are. I thought you were different from anyone I ever knew
as I saw you there looking at the east. You seem wonderfully fond of
pretty things."
"I'll own to that. But if you don't hurry you won't do as much as you
hoped by getting up early."
The morning was very mild, and she left the outer door open as she went
quickly to and fro with elasticity of spirit as well as step. It was
pleasant to have her efforts appreciated and almost as grateful to hear
the swelling harmony of song from the awakening birds. The slight
cloud that had fallen on her thoughts the evening before had lifted.
She felt that she understood Holcroft better, and saw that his feeling
was only that of honest friendliness and satisfaction. She had merely
to recognize and respond to so much only and all would be well.
Meantime, she desired nothing more, and he should be thoroughly
convinced of this fact. She grew positively light-hearted over the
fuller assurance of the truth that although a wife, she was not
expected to love--only to be faithful to all his interests. This, and
this only, she believed to be within her power.
Holcroft departed in the serenity characteristic of one's mood when the
present is so agreeable that neither memories of the past nor
misgivings as to the future are obtrusive. He met Watterly in town,
and remarked, "This is another piece of good luck. I hadn't time to go
out to your place, although I meant to take time."
"A piece of good luck indeed!" Tom mentally echoed, for he would have
been greatly embarrassed if Holcroft had called. Mrs. Watterly felt
that she had been scandalized by the marriage which had taken place in
her absence, and was all the more resentful for the reason that she had
spoken to a cousin of uncertain age and still more uncertain temper in
behalf of the farmer. In Mrs. Watterly's estimate of action, it was
either right, that is, in accordance with her views, or else it was
intolerably wrong and without excuse. Poor Tom had been made to feel
that he had not only committed an almost unpardonable sin against his
wife and her cousin, but also against all the proprieties of life. "The
idea of such a wedding taking place in my rooms and with my husband's
sanction!" she had said with concentrated bitterness. Then had followed
what he was accustomed to characterize as a spell of "zero weather."
He discreetly said nothing. "It didn't seem such a bad idea to me," he
thought, "but then I suppose women folks know best about such things."
He was too frank in his nature to conceal from Holcroft his misgivings
or his wife's scornful and indignant disapproval. "Sorry Angy feels so
bad about it, Jim," he said ruefully, "but she says I mustn't buy
anything more of you."
"Or have anything more to do with me, I suppose?"
"Oh, come now! You know a man's got to let his women-folks have their
say about household matters, but that don't make any difference in my
feelings toward you."
"Well, well, Tom! If it did, I should be slow to quarrel with a man
who had done me as good a turn as you have. Thank the Lord! I've got
a wife that'll let me have some say about household and all other
matters. You, too, are inclined to think that I'm in an awful scrape.
I feel less like getting out of it every day. My wife is as
respectable as I am and a good sight better than I am. If I'm no
longer respectable for having married her, I certainly am better
contented than I ever expected to be again. I want it understood,
though, that the man who says anything against my wife may have to get
me arrested for assault and battery."
"When it comes to that, Jim," replied Watterly, who was meek only in
the presence of his wife, "I'd just as lief speak against her as wink
if there was anything to say. But I say now, as I said to you at
first, she aint one of the common sort. I thought well of her at
first, and I think better of her now since she's doing so well by you.
But I suppose marrying a woman situated as she was isn't according to
regulation. We men are apt to act like the boys we used to be and go
for what we want without thinking of the consequences."
"It's the consequences that please me most. If you had been dependent
on Mumpson, Malonys, and Wigginses for your home comfort you wouldn't
worry about the talk of people who'd never raise a finger for you.
Well, goodbye, I'm in a hurry. Your heart's in the right place, Tom,
and some day you'll come out and take dinner with me. One dinner, such
as she'll give you, will bring you round. One of our steady dishes is
a bunch of flowers and I enjoy 'em, too. What do you think of that for
a hard-headed old fellow like me?"
Some men are chilled by public disapproval and waver under it, but
Holcroft was thereby only the more strongly confirmed in his course.
Alida had won his esteem as well as his good will, and it was the
instinct of his manhood to protect and champion her. He bought twice
as many flowers and seeds as she had asked for, and also selected two
simple flower vases; then started on his return with the feeling that
he had a home.
Alida entered upon her duties to the poultry with almost the pleasure
of a child. She first fed them, then explored every accessible nook
and hiding place in the barn and outbuildings. It was evident that
many of the biddies had stolen their nests, and some were brooding upon
them with no disposition to be disturbed. Out of the hundred or more
fowls on the place, a good many were clucking their maternal instincts,
and their new keeper resolved to put eggs under all except the flighty
ones that left their nests within two or three days' trial. As the
result of her search, the empty egg basket was in a fair way to be full
again very soon. She gloated over her spoils as she smilingly assured
herself, "I shall take him at his word. I shall spend nearly all I
make this year in fixing up the old house within and without, so he'll
scarcely know it."
It was eleven o'clock before Holcroft drove to the door with the
flowers, and he was amply repaid by her pleasure in receiving them.
"Why, I only expected geraniums," she said, "and you've bought half a
dozen other kinds."
"And I expected to get my own coffee this morning and a good breakfast
was given me instead, so we are quits."
"You're probably ready for your dinner now, if it is an hour earlier
than usual. It will be ready in ten minutes."
"Famous! That will give me a good long afternoon. I say, Alida, when
do you want the flower beds made?"
"No hurry about them. I shall keep the plants in the window for a week
or two. It isn't safe to put them outdoors before the last of May.
I'll have some slips ready by that time."
"Yes, I know. You'll soon have enough to set out an acre."
The days of another week passed quietly and rapidly away, Alida
becoming almost as much absorbed in her interests as he in his. Every
hour added to the beauty of the season without. The unplowed fields
were taking on a vivid green, and Holcroft said that on the following
Monday the cows should go out to pasture. Wholesome, agreeable
occupation enabled Alida to put away sad thoughts and memories. Nature
and pleasant work are two potent healers, and she was rallying fast
under their ministry. Holcroft would have been blind indeed had he not
observed changes for the better. Her thin cheeks were becoming fuller,
and her exertions, with the increasing warmth of the season, often
flushed her face with a charming color. The old sad and troubled
expression was passing away from her blue eyes. Every day it seemed
easier for her to laugh, and her step grew more elastic. It was all so
gradual that he never questioned it, but his eyes followed her with
increasing pleasure and he listened, when she spoke, with deepening
interest. Sundays had been long and rather dreary days, but now he
positively welcomed their coming and looked forward to the hours when,
instead of brooding over the past, he should listen to her pleasant
voice reading his few and neglected books. There was a new atmosphere
in his home--a new influence, under which his mind was awakening in
spite of his weariness and absorption in the interests of the farm.
Alida was always ready to talk about these, and her questions would
soon enable her to talk understandingly. She displayed ignorance
enough, and this amused him, but her queries evinced no stupidity. In
reading to her father and in the cultivation of flowers, she had
obtained hints of vital horticultural principles, and Holcroft said to
her laughingly one evening at supper, "You'll soon learn all I know and
begin to teach me."
Her manner of deprecating such remarks was to exaggerate them and she
replied, "Yes, next week you will sell my eggs and I shall subscribe
for the agricultural paper my father used to take. Then will begin all
the improvements of book-farming. I shall advise you to sow oats in
June, plant corn in March, and show you generally that all your
experience counts for nothing."
This kind of badinage was new to the farmer, and it amused him
immensely. He did not grow sleepy so early in the evening, and as he
was driving his work prosperously he shortened his hours of labor
slightly. She also found time to read the county paper and gossip a
little about the news, thus making a beginning in putting him and
herself en rapport with other interests than those which centered in
the farm. In brief, she had an active, intelligent mind and a
companionable nature. Her boundless gratitude for her home, which
daily grew more homelike, led her to employ all her tact in adding to
his enjoyment. Yet so fine was her tact that her manner was a simple
embodiment of good will, and he was made to feel that it was nothing
more.
While all was passing so genially and satisfactorily to Holcroft, it
may well be supposed that his conduct was not at all to the mind of his
neighbors. News, especially during the busy spring season, permeates a
country neighborhood slowly. The fact of his marriage had soon become
known, and eventually, through Justice Harkins, the circumstances
relating to it and something of Alida's previous history, in a garbled
form, came to be discussed at rural firesides. The majority of the men
laughed and shrugged their shoulders, implying it was none of their
business, but not a few, among whom was Lemuel Weeks, held up their
hands and spoke of the event in terms of the severest reprehension.
Many of the farmers' wives and their maiden sisters were quite as much
scandalized as Mrs. Watterly had been that an unknown woman, of whom
strange stories were told, should have been brought into the community
from the poorhouse, "and after such a heathenish marriage, too," they
said. It was irregular, unprecedented, and therefore utterly wrong and
subversive of the morals of the town.
They longed to ostracize poor Alida, yet saw no chance of doing so.
They could only talk, and talk they did, in a way that would have made
her ears tingle had she heard.
The young men and older boys, however, believed that they could do more
than talk. Timothy Weeks had said to a group of his familiars, "Let's
give old Holcroft and his poorhouse bride a skimelton that will let 'em
know what folks think of 'em."
The scheme found favor at once, and Tim Weeks was soon recognized as
organizer and leader of the peculiar style of serenade contemplated.
After his day's work was over, he rode here and there summoning
congenial spirits. The project soon became pretty well known in
several families, but the elder members remained discreetly blind and
deaf, proposing to wink at what was going on, yet take no compromising
part themselves. Lemuel Weeks winked very knowingly and suggestively.
He kept within such bounds, however, as would enable him to swear that
he knew nothing and had said nothing, but his son had never felt more
assured of his father's sympathy. When at last the motley gathering
rendezvoused at Tim's house, Weeks, senior, was conveniently making a
call on a near neighbor.
It was Saturday evening, and the young May moon would furnish
sufficient light without revealing identity too clearly. About a score
of young fellows and hired farm-hands of the ruder sort came riding and
trudging to Weeks' barn, where there was a barrel of cider on tap.
Here they blackened their faces with charcoal and stimulated their
courage, for it was well known that Holcroft was anything but lamblike
when angered.
"He'll be like a bull in a china shop," remarked Tim, "but then there's
enough of us to handle him if he gets too obstrep'rous."
Armed with tin pans and horns which were to furnish the accompaniment
to their discordant voices, they started about eight in the evening.
As they moved up the road there was a good deal of coarse jesting and
bravado, but when they approached the farmhouse silence was enjoined.
After passing up the lane they looked rather nervously at the quiet
dwelling softly outlined in the moonlight. A lamp illumined the
kitchen window, and Tim Weeks whispered excitedly, "He's there. Let's
first peek in the window and then give 'em a scorcher."
Knowing that they should have the coming day in which to rest, Holcroft
and Alida had busied themselves with outdoor matters until late. She
had been planning her flower beds, cutting out the dead wood from some
neglected rosebushes and shrubbery, and had also helped her husband by
sowing seed in the kitchen garden back of the house. Then, weary, yet
pleased with the labor accomplished, they made a very leisurely supper,
talking over garden matters and farm prospects in general. Alida had
all her flower seeds on the table beside her, and she gloated over them
and expatiated on the kind of blossoms they would produce with so much
zest that Holcroft laughingly remarked, "I never thought that flowers
would be one of the most important crops on the place."
"You will think so some day. I can see, from the expression of your
eyes, that the cherry blossoms and now the apple blows which I put on
the table please you almost as much as the fruit would."
"Well, it's because I notice 'em. I never seemed to notice 'em much
before."
"Oh, no! It's more than that," she replied, shaking her head. "Some
people would notice them, yet never see how pretty they were."
"Then they'd be blind as moles."
"The worst kind of blindness is that of the mind."
"Well, I think many country people are as stupid and blind as oxen, and
I was one of 'em. I've seen more cherry and apple blossoms this year
than in all my life before, and I haven't thought only of cherries and
apples either."
"The habit of seeing what is pretty grows on one," she resumed. "It
seems to me that flowers and such things feed mind and heart. So if one
HAS mind and heart, flowers become one of the most useful crops. Isn't
that practical common sense?"
"Not very common in Oakville. I'm glad you think I'm in a hopeful
frame of mind, as they used to say down at the meeting house. Anyhow,
since you wish it, we will have a flower crop as well as a potato crop."
Thus they continued chatting while Alida cleared up the table, and
Holcroft, having lighted his pipe, busied himself with peeling a long,
slim hickory sapling intended for a whipstock.
Having finished her tasks, Alida was finally drying her hands on a
towel that hung near a window. Suddenly, she caught sight of a dark
face peering in. Her startled cry brought Holcroft hastily to his feet.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"I saw--" Then she hesitated from a fear that he would rush into some
unknown danger.
The rough crew without perceived that their presence was known, and Tim
Weeks cried, "Now, all together!"
A frightful overture began at once, the hooting and yelling almost
drowning the instrumental part and sending to Alida's heart that awful
chill of fear produced by human voices in any mob-like assemblage.
Holcroft understood the affair at once, for he was familiar with the
custom, but she did not. He threw open the door with the purpose of
sternly expostulating with the disturbers of the peace and of
threatening them with the law unless they retired. With an instinct to
share his danger she stepped to his side, and this brought a yell of
derision. Lurid thoughts swept through her mind. She had brought this
danger. Her story had become known. What might they not do to
Holcroft? Under the impulse of vague terror and complete
self-sacrifice, she stepped forward and cried, "I only am to blame. I
will go away forever if you will spare--" But again the scornful clamor
rose and drowned her voice.
Her action and words had been so swift that Holcroft could not
interfere, but in an instant he was at her side, his arm around her,
his square jaw set, and his eyes blazing with his kindling anger. He
was not one of those men who fume early under provocation and in words
chiefly. His manner and gesture were so impressive that his tormentors
paused to listen.
"I know," he said quietly, "all about this old, rude custom--that it's
often little more than a rough lark. Well, now that you've had it,
leave at once. I'm in no mood for such attention from my neighbors.
This is my wife, and I'll break any man's head who says a word to hurt
her feelings--"
"Oh yes! Take care of her feelings, now it's your turn. They must 'a'
been hurt before," piped up Tim Weeks.
"Good for you, old man, for showin' us your poorhouse bride," said
another.
"We don't fancy such grass-widders, and much married, half-married
women in Oakville," yelled a third.
"Why didn't yer jump over a broomstick for a weddin' ceremony?" someone
else bawled.
These insults were fired almost in a volley. Alida felt Holcroft's arm
grow rigid for a second. "Go in, quick!" he said.
Then she saw him seize the hickory sapling he had leaned against the
house, and burst upon the group like a thunderbolt. Cries of pain,
yells, and oaths of rage rose above the rain of blows. The older
members of the crew sought to close upon him, but he sprung back, and
the tough sapling swept about him like a circle of light. It was a
terrific weapon in the hands of a strong man, now possessed of almost
giant strength in his rage. More than one fellow went down under its
stinging cut, and heads and faces were bleeding. The younger portion
of the crowd speedily took to their heels, and soon even the most
stubborn fled; the farmer vigorously assisting their ignominious
retreat with tremendous downward blows on any within reach. Tim Weeks
had managed to keep out of the way till they entered the lane; then,
taking a small stone from the fence, he hurled it at their pursuer and
attempted to jump over the wall. This was old, and gave way under him
in such a way that he fell on the other side. Holcroft leaped the
fence with a bound, but Tim, lying on his back, shrieked and held up
his hands, "You won't hit a feller when he's down!"
"No," said Holcroft, arresting his hickory. "I'll send you to jail, Tim
Weeks. That stone you fired cut my head. Was your father in that
crowd?"
"No-o-o!" blubbered Tim.
"If he was, I'd follow him home and whip him in his own house. Now,
clear out, and tell the rest of your rowdy crew that I'll shoot the
first one of you that disturbs me again. I'll send the constable for
you, and maybe for some of the others."
Dire was the dismay, and dreadful the groaning in Oakville that night.
Never before had salves and poultices been in such demand. Not a few
would be disfigured for weeks, and wherever Holcroft's blows had fallen
welts arose like whipcords. In Lemuel Weeks' dwelling the
consternation reached its climax. Tim, bruised from his fall, limped
in and told his portentous story. In his spite, he added, "I don't
care, I hit him hard. His face was all bloody."
"All bloody!" groaned his father. "Lord 'a mercy! He can send you to
jail, sure enough!"
Then Mrs. Weeks sat down and wailed aloud.