UNDER this rigid regime Martin's prosperity increased. Although he
would not have admitted it, Rose's good cooking and the sweet, fresh
cleanliness with which he was surrounded had their effect, giving him a
new sense of physical well-being, making his mind more alert. Always, he
had been a hard worker, but now he began for the first time to take an
interest in the scientific aspects of farming. He subscribed for farm
journals and put real thought into all he did, with results that were
gratifying. He grew the finest crop of wheat for miles around; in the
season which brought others a yield of fifteen or twenty bushels to the
acre, Martin averaged thirty-three, without buying a ton of commercial
fertilizer. His corn was higher than anybody's else; the ears longer,
the stalks juicier, because of his careful, intelligent cultivating. In
the driest season, it resisted the hot winds; this, he explained,
was the result of his knowing how to prepare his seed bed and when
to plant--moisture could be retained if the soil was handled
scientifically. He bought the spoiled acreage of his neighbors, which he
cut up for the silo--as yet the only one in the county--adding water
to help fermentation. His imported hogs seemed to justify the prices
he paid for them, growing faster and rounder and fatter than any in
the surrounding county. The chinch bugs might bother everyone else, but
Martin seemed to be able to guard against them with fair success. He
took correspondence courses in soils and fertilizers, animal husbandry
and every related subject; kept a steady stream of letters flowing to
and from both Washington and the State Agricultural College.
Now and then it crossed his mind that with the farm developing into such
an institution it would be more than desirable to pass it on to one of
his own blood, and secretly he was pleased when Rose told him a baby
was coming. A child, a son, might bring with him a little of what was
missing in his marriage with her. She irritated him more and more, not
by what she did but by what she was. Her whole temperament, in so much
as he permitted himself to be aware of it, her whole nature, jarred on
his.
“When is it due?”
“October.”
“It's lucky harvest will be over; silo filling, too,” was his only
comment.
In spite of Rose's three long years with Martin his lack of enthusiasm
was like a sharp stab. What had she expected, she asked herself sternly.
To be taken in his arms and rejoiced over as others were at such a
moment? What did he care so long as he wouldn't have to hire extra help
for her in the busy season! It was incredible--his hardness.
Why couldn't she hate him? He was mean enough to her, surely. “I'm as
foolish as old Rover,” she thought bitterly. The faithful dog lived for
his master and yet Rose could not remember ever having seen Martin give
him a pat. “When I once hold my own little baby in my arms, I won't
care like this. I'll have someone else to fill my heart,” she consoled
herself, thrilling anew with the conviction that then she would be more
than recompensed for everything. The love she had missed, the house that
had been stolen from her--what were they in comparison to this growing
bit of life? Meanwhile, she longed as never before to feel near to
Martin. She could not help recalling how gallantly her father had
watched over her mother when she carried her last child and how eagerly
they all had waited upon her. At times, the contrast was scarcely to be
borne.
Rose was troubled with nausea, but Martin pooh-poohed, as childish, the
notion of dropping some of her responsibilities. Didn't his mares work
almost to the day of foaling? It was good for them, keeping them in
shape. And the cows--didn't they go about placidly until within a few
hours of bringing their calves? Even the sows--did they droop as they
neared farrowing? Why should a woman be so different? Her child would be
healthier and she able to bring it into the world with less discomfort
to herself if she went about her ordinary duties in her usual way. Thus
Martin, impersonally, logically.
“That would be true,” Rose agreed, “if the work weren't so heavy and if
I were younger.”
“It's the work you're used to doing all the time, isn't it? Because you
aren't young is all the more reason you need the exercise. You're not
going to hire extra help, so you might just as well get any to-do out of
your mind,” he retorted, the dreaded note in his voice.
She considered leaving him. If she had earned her living before, she
could again. More than once she had thought of doing this, but always
the hope of a child had shone like a tiny bright star through the
midnight of her trials. Since she had endured so much, why not endure a
little longer and reap a dear reward? Then, too, she could never quite
bring herself to face the pictures her imagination conjured of Martin,
struggling along uncared for. Now, as her heart hardened against him, an
inner voice whispered that everyone had a right to a father as well as
a mother, and Martin might be greatly softened by daily contact with a
little son or daughter. In fairness, she must wait.
Yet, she knew these were not her real reasons. They lay far deeper, in
the very warp and woof of her nature. She did not leave Martin because
she could not. She was incapable of making drastic changes, of tearing
herself from anyone to whom she was tied by habit and affection--no
matter how bitterly the mood of the moment might demand it. Always she
would be bound by circumstances. True, however hard and adverse they
might prove, she could adapt herself to them with rare patience and
dignity, but never would she be able to compel them to her will, rise
superbly above them, toss them aside. Her life had been, and would be,
shaped largely by others. Her mother's death, the particular enterprise
in which her father's little capital had been invested, Martin's
peculiar temperament--these had moulded and were moulding Rose Wade. At
the time she came to Martin's shack, she was potentially any one of a
half dozen women. It was inevitable that the particular one into which
she would evolve should be determined by the type of man she might
happen to marry, inevitable that she would become, to a large degree,
what he wished and expected, that her thoughts would take on the
complexion of his. Lacking in strength of character? In power of
resistance, certainly. Time out of mind, such malleability has been the
cross of the Magdalenes. Yet in what else lies the secret of the harmony
achieved by successful wives?
And as, her nausea passing, Rose began to feel a glorious sensation
of vigor, she decided that perhaps, after all, Martin had been right.
Child-bearing was a natural function. People probably made far too much
fuss about it. Nellie came to help her cook for the threshers and, for
the rest, she managed very well, even milking her usual eight cows and
carrying her share of the foaming buckets.
All might have gone smoothly if only she had not overslept one morning
in late September. When she reached the barn, Martin was irritable. She
did not answer him but sat down quietly by her first cow, a fine-blooded
animal which soon showed signs of restlessness under her tense hands.
“There! There! So Bossy,” soothed Rose gently.
“You never will learn how to manage good stock,” Martin criticized
bitingly.
“Nor you how to treat a wife.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Don't talk to me that way.”
As she started to rise, a kick from the cow caught her square on the
stomach with such force that it sent her staggering backward, still
clutching the handle of the pail from which a snowy stream cascaded.
“Now what have you done?” demanded Martin sternly. “Haven't I warned
you time and again that milk cows are sensitive, nervous? Fidgety people
drive them crazy. Why can't you behave simply and directly with them!
Why is it I always get more milk from mine! It's your own fault this
happened--fussing around, taking out your ill temper at me on her.
Shouting at me. What could you expect?”
For the first time in their life together, Rose was frankly unnerved. It
seemed to her that she would go mad. “You devil!” she burst out, wildly.
“That's what you are, Martin Wade! You're not human. Your child may be
lost and you talk about cows letting down more milk. Oh God! I didn't
know there was any one living who could be so cruel, so cold, so
diabolical. You'll be punished for this some day--you will--you will.
You don't love me--never did, oh, don't I know it. But some time you
will love some one. Then you'll understand what it is to be treated
like this when your whole soul is in need of tenderness. You'll see then
what--”
“Oh, shut up,” growled Martin, somewhat abashed by the violence of her
broken words and gasping sobs. “You're hysterical. You're doing yourself
as much harm right now as that kick did you.”
“Oh, Martin, please be kind,” pleaded Rose more quietly. “Please! It's
your baby as much as mine. Be just half as kind as you are to these
cows.”
“They have more sense,” he retorted angrily. And when Rose woke him, the
following night, to go for the doctor, his quick exclamation was: “So
now you've done it, have you?”
As the sound of his horse's hoofs died away, it seemed to her that he
had taken the very heart out of her courage. She thought with anguished
envy of the women whose husbands loved them, for whom the heights and
depths of this ordeal were as real as for their wives. It seemed to her
that even the severest of pain could be wholly bearable if, in the midst
of it, one felt cherished. Well, she would go through it alone as she
had gone through everything else since their marriage. She would try to
forget Martin. She WOULD forget him. She must. She would keep her mind
fixed on the deep joy so soon to be hers. Had she not chosen to suffer
of her own free will, because the little creature that could be won only
through it was worth so much more than anything else the world had to
offer? She imagined the baby already arrived and visualized him as she
hoped her child might be at two years. Suppose he were in a burning
house, would she have the courage to rescue him? What would be the limit
of her endurance in the flames? She laughed to herself at the absurdity
of the question. How well she knew its answer! She wished with
passionate intensity that she could look into the magic depths of some
fairy mirror and see, for just the flash of one instant, exactly how
her boy or girl really would look. How much easier that would make it to
hold fast to the consciousness that she was not merely in pain, but
was laboring to bring forth a warm flesh-and-blood child. There was the
rub--in spite of her eagerness, the little one, so priceless, wasn't as
yet quite definite, real. She recalled the rosy-checked, curly-haired
youngster her fancy had created a moment ago. She would cling to that
picture; yes, even if her pain mounted to agony, it should be of the
body only; she would not let it get into her mind, not into her soul,
not into the welcoming mother-heart of her.
Meanwhile, as she armored her spirit, she built a fire, put on water to
heat, attended capably to innumerable details. Rose was a woman of sound
experience. She had been with others at such times. It held no goblin
terrors for her. Had it not been for Martin's heartlessness, she would
have felt wholly equal to the occasion. As it was, she made little
commotion. Dr. Bradley, gentle and direct, had been the Conroys' family
physician for years. Nellie, who arrived in an hour, had been through
the experience often herself, and was friendly and helpful.
She liked Rose, admired her tremendously and the thought--an odd one for
Nellie--crossed her mind that tonight she was downright beautiful. When
at dawn, Dr. Bradley whispered: “She has been so brave, Mrs. Mall, I
can't bear to tell her the child is not alive. Wouldn't it be better for
you to do so?” She shrank from the task. “I can't; I simply can't,” she
protested, honest tears pouring down her thin face.
“Could you, Mr. Wade?”
Martin strode into Rose's room, all his own disappointment adding
bitterness to his words: “Well, I knew you'd done it and you have. It's
a fine boy, but he came dead.”
Out of the dreariness and the toil, out of the hope, the suffering and
the high courage had come--nothing. As Rose lay, the little still form
clasped against her, she was too broken for tears. Life had played
her another trick. Indignation toward Martin gathered volume with her
returning strength.
“You don't deserve a child,” she told him bitterly. “You might treat him
when he grew up as you treat me.”
“I've never laid hand to you,” said Martin gruffly, certain stinging
words of Nellie's still smarting. When she chose, his sister's tongue
could be waspish. She had tormented him with it all the way to her home.
He had been goaded into flaring back and both had been thoroughly angry
when they separated, yet he was conscious that he came nearer a feeling
of affection for her than for any living person. Well, not affection,
precisely, he corrected. It was rather that he relished, with a
quizzical amusement, the completeness of their mutual comprehension. She
was growing to be more like their mother, too. Decidedly, this was the
type of woman he should have married, not someone soft and eager and
full of silly sentiment like Rose. Why didn't she hold her own as
Nellie did? Have more snap and stamina? It was exasperating--the way she
frequently made him feel as if he actually were trampling on something
defenseless.
He now frankly hated her. There was not dislike merely; there was acute
antipathy. He took a delight in having her work harder and harder. It
used to be “Rose,” but now it was always “say” or “you” or “hey.” Once
she asked cynically if he had ever heard of a “Rose of Sharon” to which
he maliciously replied: “She turned out to be a Rag-weed.”
Yet such a leveller of emotions and an adjuster of disparate
dispositions is Time that when they rounded their fourth year, Martin
viewed his life, with a few reservations, as fairly satisfactory. He
turned the matter over judicially in his mind and concluded that even
though he cared not a jot for Rose, at least he could think of no other
woman who could carry a larger share of the drudgery in their dusty
lives, help save more and, on the whole, bother him less. He, like his
rag-weed, had settled down to an apathetic jog.
Rose was convinced that Martin would make too unkind a father; he had no
wish for another taste of the general confusion and disorganized routine
her confinement had entailed. Besides, it would be inconvenient if she
were to die, as Dr. Bradley quite solemnly had warned him she might only
too probably. Without any exchange of words, it was settled there should
not be another child--settled, he dismissed it. In a way, he had come
to appreciate Rose, but it was absurd to compliment anyone, let alone
a wife whom he saw constantly. Physically, she did not interest him; in
fact, the whole business bored him. It was tiresome and got one nowhere.
He decided this state of mind must be rather general among married
people, and reasoned his way to the conclusion that marriage was a good
thing in that it drove out passion and placed human animals on a more
practicable foundation. If there had been the likelihood of children, he
undoubtedly would have sought her from time to time, but with that hope
out of their lives the attraction died completely.
When he was through with his work, it was late and he was sleepy. When
he woke early in the morning, he had to hurry to his stock. So that
which always had been less than secondary, now became completely
quiescent, and he was satisfied that it should. It never occurred to him
to consider what Rose might be thinking and feeling. She wondered about
it, and would have liked to ask advice from someone--the older Mrs.
Mall or Dr. Bradley--but habitual reserve held her back. After all, she
decided finally, what did it matter? Meanwhile, financially, things were
going better than ever.
Martin had the most improved farm in the neighborhood; he was looked up
to by everyone as one of the most intelligent men in the county, and
his earnings were swelling, going into better stock and the surplus into
mortgages which he accumulated with surprising rapidity. Occasionally,
he would wonder why he was working so hard, saving so assiduously and
investing so consistently. His growing fortune seemed to mean little now
that his affluence was thoroughly established. For whom was he working?
he would ask himself. For the life of him, he could not answer. Surely
not for his Rag-weed of Sharon. Nellie? She was well enough fixed and he
didn't care a shot for her husband. Then why? Sometimes he pursued this
chain of thought further, “I'll die and probably leave five times as
much as I have now to her and who knows what she'll do with it? I'll
never enjoy any of it myself. I'm not such a fool as to expect it. What
difference can a few thousand dollars more or less make to me from now
on? Then why do I scheme and slave? Pshaw! I've known the answer ever
since I first turned the soil of this farm. The man who thinks about
things knows there's nothing to life. It's all a grinding chase for the
day when someone will pat my cheek with a spade.”
He might have escaped this materialism through the church, but to him
it offered no inducements. He could find nothing spiritual in it. In his
opinion, it was a very carnal institution conducted by very hypocritical
men and women. He smiled at their Hell and despised their Heaven. Their
religion, to him, seemed such a crudely selfish affair. They were always
expecting something from God; always praying for petty favors--begging
and whining for money, or good crops, or better health. Martin would
have none of this nonsense. He was as selfish as they, probably more
so, he conceded, but he hoped he would never reach the point of currying
favor with anyone, even God. With his own good strength he would answer
his own prayers. This farm was the nearest he would ever come to a
paradise and on it he would be his own God. Rose did not share these
feelings. She went to church each Sunday and read her Bible daily with a
simple faith that defied derision. Once, when she was gone, Martin idly
hunted out the Song of Solomon. His lips curled with contempt at the
passionate rhapsody. He knew a thing or two, he allowed, about these
wonderful Roses of Sharon and this Song of Songs. Lies, all lies, every
word of it! Yet, in spite of himself, from time to time, he liked to
reread it. He fancied this was because of the sardonic pleasure its
superlative phrases gave him, but the truth was it held him. He despised
sentiment, tenderness, and, by the strangeness of the human mind, he
went, by way of paradox, to the tenderest, most sublime spot in a book
supreme in tenderness and sublimity.
At forty, he owned and, with the aid of two hired hands, worked an
entire section of land. The law said it was his and he had the might
to back up the law. On these six hundred and forty broad acres he could
have lived without the rest of the world. Here he was King. Other
farms he regarded as foreign countries, their owners with impersonal
suspicion. Yet he trusted them after a fashion, because he had learned
from many and devious dealings with a large assortment of people that
the average human being is honest, which is to say that he does not
steal his neighbor's stock nor fail to pay his just debts if given
plenty of time and the conditions have the explicitness of black and
white. He knew them to be as mercenary as himself, with this only
difference: Where he was frankly so, they pretended otherwise.
They bothered him with their dinky deals, with their scrimping and
scratching, and their sneaky attempts to hide their ugliness by the
observance of one set day of sanctuary. Because they seemed to him so
two-faced, so trifling, so cowardly, he liked to “stick” them every time
he had a fair chance and could do it within the law. It was his favorite
game. They worked so blindly and went on so stupidly, talking so
foolishly, that it afforded him sport to come along and take the bacon
away from them.
All held him a little in awe, for he was of a forbidding bearing, tall,
grave and thoughtful; accurate in his facts and sure of himself; slow to
express an opinion, but positive in his conclusions; seeking no favors,
and giving none; careful not to offend, indifferent whether he pleased.
He would deceive, but never insult. The women were afraid of him,
because he never “jollied.” He had no jokes or bright remarks for them.
They were such useless creatures out of their particular duties. There
was nothing to take up with them. Everyone rendered him much the same
respectful manner that they kept on tap for the leading citizens of the
town, David Robinson, for instance. Indeed, Martin himself was somewhat
of a banker, for he was a stockholder and director of the First State
Bank, where he was looked up to as a shrewd man who was too big even
for the operation of his magnificent farm. He understood values. When it
came to loans, his judgment on land and livestock was never disputed. If
he wanted to make a purchase he did not go to several stores for prices.
He knew, in the first place, what he should pay, and the business
men, especially the hardware and implement dealers, were afraid of his
knowledge, and still more of his influence.
About Rose, too, there was a poise, an atmosphere of background which
inspired respect above her station. When Mrs. Wade said anything, her
statement was apt to settle the matter, for on those subjects which she
discussed at all, she was an authority, and on those which she was not,
her training in Martin's household had taught her to maintain a wise
silence. The stern self-control had stolen something of the tenderness
from her lips. There were other changes. The sunlight had faded from
her hair; the once firm white neck was beginning to lose its resilience.
Deep lines furrowed her cheeks from mouth to jaw, and fine wrinkles had
slipped into her forehead. There were delicate webs of them about her
patient eyes, under which lack of sleep and overwork had left their
brown shadows. Since the birth of her baby she had become much heavier
and though she was still neat, her dresses were always of dark colors
and made up by herself of cheap materials. For, while she bought without
consulting Martin, her privilege of discretion was confined within
strict and narrow limits. He kept a meticulous eye on all her cancelled
checks and knew to a penny what she spent. If he felt a respect for her
thrift it was completely unacknowledged. They worked together with as
little liking, as little hatred, as two oxen pulling a plow.
It had been a wise day for both, thought Fallon, when they had decided
to marry--they were so well mated. What a model and enviable couple they
were! To Rose it seemed the essence of irony that her life with Martin
should be looked upon as a flower of matrimony. Yet, womanlike, she took
an unconfessed comfort in the fact that this was so--that no one, unless
it were Nellie, was sufficiently astute to fathom the truth. To be sure,
the Wades were never spoken of as “happy.” They were invariably alluded
to as “good folks,” “true blue,” “solid people,” “ideal husband and
wife,” or “salt of the earth.”
Each year they gave a round sum to the church, and Martin took caustic
gratification in the fact that, although his attitude toward it and
religion was well known, he too was counted as one of the fold. To
do its leaders justice, he admitted that this might have been partly
through their hesitancy to hurt Rose who was always to be found in the
thick of its sale-dinners, bazaars and sociables. How she was able to
accomplish so much without neglecting her own heavy duties, which now
included cooking, washing, mending and keeping in order the old shack
for the hired men, was a topic upon which other women feasted with
appreciative gusto, especially at missionary meetings when she was not
present. It really was extraordinary how much she managed to put into a
day. Early as Martin was up to feed his stock, she was up still earlier
that she might lend a hand to a neighbor, harrowed by the fear that
gathered fruit might perish. Late as he plowed, in the hot summer
evenings, her sweaty fingers were busy still later with patching,
brought home to boost along some young wife struggling with a teething
baby. She seemed never too rushed to tuck in an extra baking for someone
even more rushed than herself, or to make delicious broths and tasty
dishes for sick folk. In her quiet way, she became a real power, always
in demand, the first to be entrusted with sweet secrets, the first to be
sent for in paralysing emergencies and moments of sorrow. The warmth
of heart which Martin ridiculed and resented, intensified by its very
repression, bubbled out to others in cheery helpfulness, and blessed her
quick tears.
Of her deep yearning for love, she never spoke. Just when she would
begin to feel almost self-sufficient it would quicken to a throbbing
ache. Usually, at such times, she buried it determinedly under work. But
one day, yielding to an impulse, she wrote to Norah asking if her little
namesake could come for a month's visit.
“I know she is only seven,” the letter ran, “but I am sure if she were
put in care of the conductor she would come through safely, and I do so
want to see her.” After long hesitation, she enclosed a check to cover
expenses. She was half frightened by her own daring and did not tell
Martin until she had received the reply giving the date for the child's
arrival.
“I earned that, Martin,” she returned determinedly to his emphatic
remonstrance. “And when the check comes in it's going to be honored.”
“A Wade check is always honored,” was his cryptic assertion. “I merely
say,” he added more calmly, “that if we are to board her, and I don't
make any protest over that at all, it seems to me only fair that her
father should have bought the ticket.”
“Maybe you're right--in theory. But then she simply couldn't have come
and I've never seen her. I first knew of her the very day you asked me
to marry you. I've thought of her, often and often. Her mother named her
after me and calls her 'Little Rose of Sharon, Illinois'.”
“Another rag-weed, probably,” said Martin, shortly. Yet, to his own
surprise, he was not altogether sorry she was to come--this house of
his had never had a child in it for more than a few hours. He was rather
curious to find out how it would seem. If only her name were not Rose,
and if only she were not coming from Sharon.
But little Rose, with her dark brown curls, merry expression, roguish
nose and soft radiance swept all his misgivings and prejudices before
her. One might as well hold grudges against a flower, he thought. He
liked the confiding way she had of suddenly slipping her little hand
into his great one. Her prattle amused him, and he was both flattered
and worried by the fearlessness with which she followed him everywhere.
She seemed to bring a veritable shower of song into this home of long
silences. The very chaos made Mrs. Wade's heart beat tumultuously, and
once when Martin came upon the little girl seated solemnly in the
midst of a circle of corncob dolls, his throat contracted with an
extraordinary tightness.
“You really are a rose--a lovely, sweet brown Rose of Sharon,” he had
exclaimed, forgetting his wife's presence and not stopping to think how
strange the words must sound on his lips. “If you'll give me a kiss,
I'll let you ride on old Jettie.”
The child scrambled to her feet and, seated on his broad shoulder,
granted the demand for toll. Her aunt's eyes filled. This was the first
time she had ever heard Martin ask for something as sentimental as a
kiss. She was thoroughly ashamed of herself for it--it was really too
absurd!--but she felt jealousy, an emotion that had never bothered her
since they had been married. And this bit of chattering femininity had
caused it. Mrs. Wade worked faster.
The kiss was like the touch of silk against Martin's cheek. He felt
inexplicably sad as he put the child down again among her playthings.
There was, he realized with a shock, much that he was missing, things
he was letting work supplant. He wished that boy of theirs could have
lived. All might have been different. He had almost forgotten that
disappointment, had never understood until this moment what a misfortune
it had been, and here he was being gripped by a more poignant sense of
loss than he had ever before felt, even when he had lost his mother.
Wonderful as little Rose was, she was not his own. But, he wondered
suddenly, wasn't this aching sense of need perhaps something utterly
different from unsatisfied paternal instinct? He turned his head toward
the kitchen where his Rag-weed was working and asked himself if she were
gone and some other woman were here--such as little Rose might be when
she grew up, one to whom he went out spontaneously, would not his life
be more complete and far more worth while? What a fool he was, to bother
his head with such get-nowhere questions! He dismissed them roughly, but
new processes of thought had been opened, new emotions awakened.
Meanwhile, little Rose's response to his clumsy tenderness taught him
many unsuspected lessons. He never would have believed the pleasure
there could be in simply watching a child's eyes light with glee over a
five-cent bag of candy. It began to be a regular thing for him to bring
one home from Fallon, each trip, and the gay hunts that followed as
she searched for it--sometimes to find the treasure in Martin's hat,
sometimes under the buggy seat, sometimes in a knobby hump under the
table-cloth at her plate--more than once brought his rare smile. For
years afterward, the memory of one evening lingered with him. He was
resting in an old chair tipped back against the house, thinking deeply,
when the little girl, tired from her play, climbed into his lap and,
making a cozy nest for herself in the crook of his arm, fell asleep. He
had finished planning out the work upon which he had been concentrating
and had been about to take her into the house when he suddenly became
aware of the child's loveliness. In the silvery moonlight all the fairy,
flower-like quality of her was enhanced. Martin studied her closely,
reverently. It was his first conscious worship of beauty. Leaning down
to the rosy lips he listened to the almost imperceptible breathing;
he touched the long, sweeping lashes resting on the smooth cheeks and
lifted one of the curls the wind had been ruffling lightly against his
face. With his whole soul, he marvelled at her softness and relaxation.
A profound, pitying rebellion gripped him at the idea that anything so
sweet, so perfect must pass slowly through the defacing furnaces of time
and pain. “Little Rose of Sharon!” he thought gently, conscious of an
actual tearing at his heart, even a startling stinging in his eyes. With
an abruptness that almost awakened her, he carried her in to his wife.
Mrs. Wade felt an inexplicable hurt at the decidedness of little Rose's
preference for Martin. She could not understand it. She took exquisite
care of her, cooked the things she liked best, let her mess to her
heart's content in the kitchen, made her dolls pretty frocks, cuddled
her, told her stories and stopped her work to play with her on rainy
days--but she could not win the same affection the little girl bestowed
so lavishly on Martin. If left to herself she was always to be found
with the big, silent man.
As the month's visit lengthened into three, it was astonishing what
good times they had together. If he was pitching hay, her slender little
figure, short dress a-flutter, was to be seen standing on the fragrant
wagonload. At threshing time, she darted lightly all over the separator,
Martin's watchful eye constantly upon her, and his protective hand near
her. She went with him to haul the grain to mill and was fascinated
by the big scales. On the way there and back he let her hold the great
lines in her little fists. In the dewy mornings, she hop-skipped and
jumped by his side into the pasture to bring in the cows. She flitted in
and out among them during milking time.
“I think she makes them too nervous, Martin,” Rose had once remarked.
“Better run out, darling, until we finish and then come help auntie in
the dairy.”
“They might as well get used to her,” he had answered tersely. “It'll
hurt her feelings to be sent away.”
Rose could scarcely believe her ears. Memories, bitter, intolerable,
crowded upon her. Had the little girl really changed Martin so
completely? Oh, if only her boy could have lived! Perhaps she had made
a great mistake in being so determined not to have another. Was it too
late now? She looked at her husband. Well as she knew every detail of
his fine, clean cut features, his broad shoulders and rippling muscles,
they gave her a sudden thrill. It was as if she were seeing him again
for the first time in years. If only he could let a shadow of this new
thoughtfulness and kindliness fall on her, they might even yet bring
some joy into each other's lives. They had stepped off on the wrong
foot. Why, they really hadn't been even acquainted. They had been
led into thinking so because of the length of time they had both been
familiar figures in the same community. Beyond a doubt, if they were
being married today, and she understood him as she did now, she could
make a success of their marriage. But, as it was, Martin was so fixed
in the groove of his attitude of utter indifference toward her that she
felt there was little chance of ever jogging him out of it. To Rose,
the very fact that the possibility of happiness seemed so nearly within
reach was what put the cruel edge to their present status.
She did not comprehend that Martin definitely did not want it changed.
Conscious, at last, that he was slowly starving for a woman's love,
beginning to brood because there was no beauty in his life, he was
looking at her with eyes as newly appraising as her own. He remembered
her as she had been that day in the bank, when he had thought her like
a rose. She had been all white and gold then; now, hair, eyes, skin, and
clothes seemed to him to be of one earthy color. Her clean, dull calico
dress belted in by her checked apron revealed the ungraceful lines of
her figure. She looked middle-aged and unshapely, when he wanted youth
and an exquisite loveliness. Well, he told himself, harshly, he was not
likely to get it. There was no sense in harboring such notions. They
must be crushed. He would work harder, much harder, hard enough to
forget them. There was but one thing worth while--his farm. He would
develop it to its limits.
Accordingly, when little Rose returned to Sharon, he and his Rag-weed
soon settled themselves to the old formula of endless toil, investing
the profits in sound farm mortgages that were beginning to tax the
capacity of his huge tin box in the vault of the First State Bank.