PART I

FROM THE LAND OF THE SNOW-PEARLS

[Illustration]

FROM THE LAND OF

THE SNOW-PEARLS

TALES FROM PUGET SOUND

By ELLA HIGGINSON.

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1902

Copyright, 1896, by

THE CALVERT COMPANY

Copyright, 1897, by

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

TO RUSSELL CARDEN HIGGINSON

Some of the stories in this book appeared originally in _McClure’s_,

_Lippincott’s_, _Leslie’s Weekly_, _Short Stories_, _The Black Cat_ and

_The New Peterson_. I am indebted to the publishers of those periodicals

for the kind permission to reprint them.

E. H.

This book was first published under the title of “The Flower that Grew in

the Sand.” To the present edition, two stories have been added.

_The Publishers._

Puget Sound lies in its emerald setting like a great blue sapphire, which

at sunset, draws to its breast all the marvelous and splendid coloring

of the fire-opal. Around it, shining through their rose-colored mists

like pearls upon the soft blue or green of the sky, are linked the great

snow-mountains, so beautiful and so dear, that those who love this land

with a proud and passionate love, have come to think of it, fondly and

poetically, as “the land of the snow-pearls.”

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE FLOWER THAT GREW IN THE SAND 1

ESTHER’S “FOURTH” 21

THE BLOW-OUT AT JENKINS’S GROCERY 31

THE TAKIN’ IN OF OLD MIS’ LANE 41

THE MANEUVERING OF MRS. SYBERT 67

A POINT OF KNUCKLING-DOWN 79

THE CUTTIN’-OUT OF BART WINN 141

ZARELDA 183

IN THE BITTER ROOT MOUNTAINS 207

PATIENCE APPLEBY’S CONFESSING-UP 217

THE MOTHER OF “PILLS” 243

MRS. RISLEY’S CHRISTMAS DINNER 263

THE FLOWER THAT GREW IN THE SAND

THE FLOWER THAT GREW IN THE SAND

Demaris opened the gate and walked up the narrow path. There was a low

hedge of pink and purple candytuft on each side. Inside the hedges were

little beds of homely flowers in the shapes of hearts, diamonds and

Maltese crosses.

Mrs. Eaton was stooping over a rosebush, but she arose when she heard the

click of the gate. She stood looking at Demaris, with her arms hanging

stiffly at her sides.

“Oh,” she said, with a grim smile; “you, is it?”

“Yes,” said the girl, blushing and looking embarrassed. “Ain’t it a nice

evenin’?”

“It is that; awful nice. I’m tyin’ up my rosebushes. Won’t you come in

an’ set down a while?”

“Oh, my, no!” said Demaris. Her eyes went wistfully to the pink rosebush.

“I can’t stay.”

“Come fer kindlin’ wood?”

“No.” She laughed a little at the worn-out joke. “I come to see ’f you

had two or three pink roses to spare.”

“Why, to be sure, a dozen if you want. Just come an’ help yourself. My

hands ain’t fit to tech ’em after diggin’ so.”

She stood watching the girl while she carefully selected some half-open

roses. There was a look of good-natured curiosity on her face.

“Anything goin’ on at the church to-night?”

“No; at least not that I know of.”

“It must be a party then.”

“No—not a party, either.” She laughed merrily. Her face was hidden as she

bent over the roses, but her ears were pink under the heavy brown hair

that fell, curling, over them.

“Well, then, somebody’s comin’ to see you.”

“No; I’ll have to tell you.” She lifted a glad, shy face. “I’m goin’ on

the moonlight excursion.”

“Oh, now! Sure? Well, I’m reel glad.”

“So’m I. I never wanted to go anywheres so much in my life. I’ve been

’most holdin’ my breath for fear ma’d get sick.”

“How is your ma?”

“Well, she ain’t very well; she never is, you know.”

“What ails her?”

“I do’ know,” said Demaris, slowly. “We’ll get home by midnight. So ’f

she has a spell come on, pa can set up with her till I get home, and

then I can till mornin’.”

“Should think you’d be all wore out a-settin’ up two or three nights a

week that way.”

Demaris sighed. The radiance had gone out of her face and a look of care

was upon it.

“Well,” she said, after a moment, “I’ll have a good time to-night,

anyhow. We’re goin’ to have the band along. They’re gettin’ so’s they

play reel well. They play ‘Annie Laurie’ an’ ‘Rocked ’n the Cradle o’ the

Deep,’ now.”

The gate clicked. A child came running up the path.

“Oh, sister, sister! Come home quick!”

“What for?” said Demaris. There was a look of dread on her face.

“Ma’s goin’ right into a spell. She wants you quick. She thinks she’s

took worse ’n usual.”

There was a second’s hesitation. The girl’s face whitened. Her lips

trembled.

“I guess I won’t want the roses after gettin’ ’em,” she said. “I’m just

as much obliged, though, Mis’ Eaton.”

She followed the child to the gate.

“Well, if that don’t beat all!” ejaculated Mrs. Eaton, looking after her

with genuine sympathy. “It just seems as if she had a spell to order

ev’ry time that girl wants to go anywheres. It’s nothin’ but hysterics,

anyway. I’d like to doctor her for a while. I’d souze a bucket o’ cold

water over her! I reckon that ’u’d fetch her to ’n a hurry.”

She laughed with a kind of stern mirth and resumed her work.

Demaris hurried home. The child ran at her side. Once she took her hand

and gave her an upward look of sympathy.

She passed through the kitchen, laying her roses on the table. Then she

went into her mother’s room.

Mrs. Ferguson lay on a couch. A white cloth was banded around her head,

coming well down over one eye. She was moaning bitterly.

Demaris looked at her without speaking.

“Where on earth you been?” She gave the girl a look of fierce reproach.

“A body might die, fer all the help you’d be to ’em. Here I’ve been

a-feelin’ a spell a-comin’ on all day, an’ yet you go a-gaddin’ ’round to

the neighbors, leavin’ me to get along the best way I know how. I believe

this is my last spell. I’ve got that awful pain over my right eye ag’in,

till I’m nearly crazy. My liver’s all out o’ order.”

Demaris was silent. When one has heard the cry of “wolf” a hundred times,

one is inclined to be incredulous. Her apathetic look angered her mother.

“What makes you stand there a-starin’ like a dunce? Can’t you help a

body? Get the camfire bottle an’ the tincture lobelia an’ the box o’

goose grease! You know’s well’s me what I need when I git a spell. I’m so

nervous I feel’s if I c’u’d fly. I got a horrible feelin’ that this’ll be

my last spell—an’ yet you stand there a-starin’ ’s if you didn’t care a

particle!”

Demaris moved about the room stiffly, as if every muscle in her body were

in rebellion. She took from a closet filled with drugs the big camphor

bottle with its cutglass stopper, the little bottle labeled “tinc.

lobelia,” and the box of goose grease.

She placed a chair at the side of the couch to hold the bottle. “Oh, take

that old split-bottom cheer away!” exclaimed her mother. “Everything

upsets on it so! Get one from the kitchen—the one that’s got cherries

painted on the back of it. What makes you ac’ so? You know what cheer I

want. You’d tantalize the soul out of a saint!”

The chair was brought. The bottles were placed upon it. Demaris stood

waiting.

“Now rub my head with the camfire, or I’ll go ravin’ crazy. I can’t think

where ’t comes from!”

The child stood twitching her thin fingers around a chair. She watched

her mother in a matter-of-course way. Demaris leaned over the couch in an

uncomfortable position and commenced the slow, gentle massage that must

continue all night. She did not lift her eyes. They were full of tears.

For a long time there was silence in the room. Mrs. Ferguson lay with

closed eyes. Her face wore a look of mingled injury and reproach.

“Nellie,” said Demaris, after a while, “could you make a fire in the

kitchen stove? Or would you rather try to do this while I build it?”

“Hunh-unh,” said the child, shaking her head with emphasis. “I’d ruther

build fires any time.”

“All right. Put two dippers o’ water ’n the tea-kettle. Be sure you get

your dampers right. An’ I guess you might wash some potatoes an’ put ’em

in to bake. They’ll be done by time pa comes, an’ he can stay with ma

while I warm up the rest o’ the things. Ma, what could you eat?”

“Oh, I do’ know”—in a slightly mollified tone. “A piece o’ toast,

mebbe—’f you don’t get it too all-fired hard.”

“Well, I’ll try not.”

Nellie went out, and there was silence in the room. The wind came in

through the open window, shaking little ripples of perfume into the room.

The sun was setting and a broad band of reddish gold sunk down the wall.

Demaris watched it sinking lower, and thought how slowly the sun was

settling behind the straight pines on the crests of the blue mountains.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Ferguson, “what a wretched creature I am! Just

a-sufferin’ day an’ night, year in an’ year out, an’ a burden on them

that I’ve slaved fer all my life. Many’s the night I’ve walked with you

’n my arms till mornin’, Demaris, an’ never knowed what it was to git

sleepy or tired. An’ now you git mad the minute I go into a spell.”

Demaris stood upright with a tortured look.

“Oh, ma,” she exclaimed. Her voice was harsh with pain. “I ain’t mad.

Don’t think I’m mad. I can’t cry out o’ pity ev’ry time you have a spell,

or I’d be cryin’ all the time. An’ besides, to-night I’m so—disappointed.”

“What you disappointed about?”

“Why, you know.” Her lips trembled. “The excursion.”

Mrs. Ferguson opened her eyes.

“Oh, I’d clean fergot that.”

She looked as if she were thinking she would really have postponed the

spell, if she had remembered. “That’s too bad, Demaris. That’s always

the way.” She began to cry helplessly. “I’m always in the way. Always

mis’rable myself, an’ always makin’ somebody else mis’rable. I don’t see

what I was born fer.”

“Never you mind.” Demaris leaned over suddenly and put her arms around

her mother. “Don’t you think I’m mad. I’m just disappointed. Now don’t

cry. You’ll go and make yourself worse. An’ there comes pa; I hear him

cleanin’ his boots on the scraper.”

Mr. Ferguson stumbled as he came up the steps to the kitchen. He was very

tired. He was not more than fifty, but his thin frame had a pitiable

stoop. The look of one who has struggled long and failed was on his brown

and wrinkled face. His hair and beard were prematurely gray. His dim blue

eyes had a hopeless expression that was almost hidden by a deeper one of

patience. He wore a coarse flannel shirt, moist with perspiration, and

faded blue overalls. His boots were wrinkled and hard; the soil of the

fields clung to them. “Sick ag’in, ma?” he said.

“Sick ag’in! Mis’rable creature that I am! I’ve got that awful pain over

my right eye ag’in. I can’t think where it comes from. I’m nearly crazy

with it.”

“Well, I guess you’ll feel a little better after you git some tea. I’ll

go an’ wash, an’ then rub your head, while Demaris gits a bite to eat.

I’ve plowed ever since sun-up, an’ I’m tired an’ hungry.”

He returned in a few minutes, and took Demaris’s place. He sighed deeply,

but silently, as he sat down.

Demaris set the table and spread upon it the simple meal which she had

prepared. “I’ll stay with ma while you an’ pa eat,” said Nellie, with a

sudden burst of unselfishness.

“Well,” said Demaris, wearily.

Mr. Ferguson sat down at the table and leaned his head on his hand. “I’m

too tired to eat,” he said; “hungry’s I am.” He looked at the untempting

meal of cold boiled meat, baked potatoes and apple sauce.

Demaris did not lift her eyes as she sat down. She felt that she ought

to say something cheerful, but her heart was too full of her own

disappointment. She despised her selfishness even while yielding to it.

“It does beat all about your ma,” said her father. “I can’t see where she

gits that pain from. It ain’t nothin’ danger’s or it ’u’d a-killed her

long ago. It almost seems ’s if she jests gits tired o’ bein’ well, an’

begins to git scared fer fear that pain’s a-comin’ on—an’ then it comes

right on. I’ve heard her say lots o’ times that she’d been well a whole

week now, but that she w’u’dn’t brag or that pain ’u’d come on—an’ inside

of an hour it ’ud up an’ come on. It’s awful discouragin’.”

“I wish I was dead!” said Demaris.

Her father did not speak. His silence reproached her more than any words

could have done.

When she went into the bedroom again she found her mother crying

childishly.

“Demaris, did I hear you say you wished you was dead?”

“I guess so. I said it.”

“Well, God Almighty knows I wish I was! You don’t stop to think what

’u’d become o’ me ’f it wa’n’t fer you. Your pa c’u’dn’t hire anybody,

an’ he’s gittin’ too old to set up o’ nights after workin’ hard all day.

You’d like to see ’t all come on your little sister, I reckon.”

Demaris thought of those slim, weak wrists, and shivered. Her mother

commenced to sob—and that aggravated the pain.

Demaris stooped and put her arms around her and kissed her.

“I’m sorry I said it,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just tired

an’ cross. You know I didn’t mean it.”

Her father came in heavily.

“Demaris,” he said, “Frank Vickers is comin’ ’round to the front door.

I’ll take keer o’ your ma while you go in an’ see him.”

It was a radiant-faced young fellow that walked into Demaris’s little

parlor. He took her hand with a tenderness that brought the color beating

into her cheeks.

“What?” he said. “An’ you ain’t ready? Why, the boat leaves in an hour,

an’ it’s a good, long walk to the wharf. You’ll have to hurry up,

Demaris.”

“I can’t go.”

“You can’t go? Why can’t you?”

She lifted her eyes bravely. Then tears swelled into them very slowly

until they were full. Not one fell. She looked at him through them. He

felt her hand trembling against the palm of his own.

“Why can’t you, Demaris?”

“My mother’s sick—just hear her moanin’ clear in here.”

Young Vickers’s face was a study.

“Why, she was sick last time I wanted to take you som’ers—to a dance,

wasn’t it?”

“Yes—I know.”

“An’ time before that, when I wanted you to go to a church sociable up’n

String Town.”

“Yes.”

“Why, she must be sick near onto all the time, accordin’ to that.”

“She is—pretty near.” She withdrew her hand. There was a stiff-looking

lounge in one corner of the room. It was covered with Brussels carpet,

and had an uncomfortable back, but it was dear to Demaris’s heart. She

had gathered and sold strawberries two whole summers to pay for it. She

sat down on it now and laid her hands together on her knees.

The young man followed and sat down beside her.

“Why, my dear,” he said, very quietly, “you can’t stand this sort of

thing—it’s wearin’ you out. You never did look light an’ happy like other

girls o’ your age; an’ lately you’re gettin’ a real pinched look. I feel

as if ’t was time for me to interfere.” He took her hand again.

It was dim twilight in the room now. Demaris turned her head aside. The

tears brimmed over and fell fast and silently.

“Interferin’ won’t do no good,” she said, resolutely. “There’s just two

things about it. My mother’s sick all the time, an’ I have to wait on

her. There’s nobody else to do it.”

“Well, as long ’s you stay at home it’ll all come on you. You ain’t able

to carry sech a load.”

“I’ll have to.”

“Demaris, you’ll just have to leave.”

“What!” said the girl. She turned to look at him in a startled way.

“Leave home? I couldn’t think of doin’ that.”

He leaned toward her and put his arm around her, trembling strongly. “Not

even to come to my home, Demaris? I want you, dear; an’ I won’t let you

kill yourself workin’, either. I ain’t rich, but I’m well enough off to

give you a comfortable home an’ some one to do your work for you.”

There was a deep silence. Each felt the full beating of the other’s

heart. There was a rosebush under the window, an old-fashioned one. Its

blooms were not beautiful, but they were very sweet. It had flung a slim,

white spray of them into the room. Demaris never smelled their fragrance

afterward without a keen, exquisite thrill of passion, as brief as it was

delicious.

“I can’t, Frank.” Her tone was low and uncertain. “I can’t leave my

mother. She’s sick an’ gettin’ old. I can’t.”

“Oh, Demaris! That’s rank foolishness!”

“Well, I guess it’s the right kind of foolishness.” She drew away and sat

looking at him. Her hands were pressed together in her lap.

“Why, it ain’t expected that a girl ’ad ought to stay an’ take care o’

her mother forever, is it? It ain’t expected that she ought to turn

herself into a hospital nurse, is it?”

Her face grew stern.

“Don’t talk that way, Frank. That ain’t respectful to my mother. She’s

had a hard life an’ so’s my father. You know I want to come, but I can’t.

It’s my place to stay an’ take care o’ her. I’m goin’ to do it—hard ’s

it is. My leavin’ ’em ’u’d just take the heart out of both of ’em. An’

there’s Nellie, too.”

“Demaris—” he spoke slowly; his face was pale—“I’m goin’ to say somethin’

to you I never thought I’d say to any girl alive. But the fact is, I

didn’t know till right now how much I think o’ you. You marry me, an’

we’ll all live together?”

Her face softened. She leaned a little toward him with uncontrollable

tenderness. But as he made a quick movement, she drew back.

“No, Frank. I can’t—I can’t! It won’t do. Such things is what breaks

women’s hearts!”

“What things, dear?”

“Folks livin’ together that way. There’s no good ever comes of it. I’d

have to set up with mother just the same, an’ you’d be worryin’ all the

time for fear it ’u’d make me sick, an’ you’d be wantin’ to set up with

’er yourself.”

“Of course,” he said, stoutly. “I’d expect to. That’s what I mean. I’d

take some o’ your load off o’ you.”

Demaris smiled mournfully. “You don’t know what it is, Frank. It’s all

very well to talk about it, but when it comes to doin’ it you’d be tired

out ’n a month. You’d wish you hadn’t married me—an’ that ’u’d kill me!”

“I wouldn’t. Oh, Demaris, just you try me. I’ll be good to all your

folks—just as good’s can be, dear. I swear it.”

She leaned toward him again with a sob. He took her in his arms. He felt

the delicious warmth of her body. Their lips trembled together.

After a while she drew away slowly and looked at him earnestly in the

faint light.

“If I thought you wouldn’t change,” she faltered. “I know you mean it

now, but oh—”

“Sister,” called a thin, troubled voice from the hall; “can’t you come

here just a minute?”

Demaris went at once, closing the door behind her.

The child threw her slim arms around her sister’s waist, sobbing.

“Oh, sister, I forgot to get the kindlin’ wood, an’ now it’s so dark down

cellar. I’m afraid. Can’t you come with me?”

“Wait a few minutes, dear, an’ I will. Frank won’t stay long to-night.”

“Oh, won’t he? I’m so glad.” Her voice sunk to a whisper. “I hate to

have him here, sister. He takes you away from us so much, an’ ev’rything

goes wrong when you ain’t here. Ma’s offul bad to-night, an’ pa looks so

tired! Don’t let him stay long, sister. He don’t need you as bad ’s we

do.”

She tiptoed into the kitchen. Demaris stood still in the hall. The moon

was coming, large and silver, over the hill. Its soft light brought her

slender figure out of the dark, and set a halo above her head bending on

its fair neck, like a flower on its stem. Her lips moved, but the prayer

remained voiceless in her heart.

A moan came from her mother’s room.

“Oh, paw, you hurt my head! Your hand’s terrable rough! Is that girl

goin’ to stay in there forever?”

Demaris lifted her head and walked steadily into the poor little parlor.

“I’ll have to ask you to go now, Frank; my mother needs me.”

“Well, dear.” He reached his strong young arms to her. She stood back,

moving her head from side to side.

“No, Frank. I can’t marry you, now or ever. My mother comes first.”

“But you ain’t taken time to make up your mind, Demaris. I’ll wait fer ’n

answer.”

“It’s no use. I made up my mind out ’n the hall. You might as well go.

When I make up my mind it’s no use in tryin’ to get me to change it. I

hadn’t made it up before.”

He went to her and took her hands.

“Demaris,” he said, and all his heart-break was in his voice, “do you

mean it? Oh, my dear, I’ll go if you send me; but I’ll never come back

again; never.”

She hesitated but a second. Then she said very gently, without

emotion—“Yes, go. You’ve been good to me; but it’s all over. Good-bye.”

He dropped her hands without a word, and went.

She did not look after him, or listen to his footsteps. She went to the

cellar with Nellie, to get the kindling wood, which she arranged in the

stove, ready for the match in the morning.

Then she went into her mother’s room. She looked pale in the flickering

light of the candle.

“I’ll take care of ma, now, pa,” she said. “You get to bed an’ rest. I

know you’re all tired out—plowin’ ever since sun-up! An’ don’t you get up

till I call you. I ain’t a bit sleepy. I couldn’t sleep if I went to bed.”

She moistened her fingers with camphor and commenced bathing her mother’s

brow.

ESTHER’S “FOURTH”

ESTHER’S “FOURTH”

It was the fourth day of July, and the fourth hour of the day. Long,

beryl ribbons of color were streaming through the lovely Grand Ronde

valley when the little girl awoke—so suddenly and so completely that it

seemed as if she had not been asleep at all.

“Sister!” she cried in a thin, eager voice. “Ain’t it time to get up?

It’s just struck four.”

“Not yet,” said the older girl drowsily. “There’s lots o’ time, Pet.”

She put one arm under the child affectionately and fell asleep again.

The little girl lay motionless, waiting. There was a large cherry tree

outside, close to the tiny window above her bed, and she could hear the

soft turning of the leaves, one against the other, and the fluttering of

the robins that were already stealing the cherries. Innocent thieves that

they were, they continually betrayed themselves by their shrill cries of

triumph.

Not far from the tiny log-cabin the river went singing by on its way

through the green valley; hearing it, Esther thought of the soft glooms

under the noble balm trees, where the grouse drummed and butterflies

drifted in long level flight. Esther always breathed softly while she

watched the butterflies—she had a kind of reverence for them—and she

thought there could be nothing sweeter, even in heaven, than the scents

that the wind shook out of the balms.

She lay patiently waiting with wide eyes until the round clock in the

kitchen told her that another hour had gone by. “Sister,” she said then,

“oh, it must be time to get up! I just _can’t_ wait any longer.”

The older girl, with a sleepy but sympathetic smile, slipped out of

bed and commenced dressing. The child sprang after her. “Sister,” she

cried, running to the splint-bottomed chair on which lay the cheap but

exquisitely white undergarments. “I can’t hardly wait. Ain’t it good of

Mr. Hoover to take me to town? Oh, I feel as if I had hearts all over me,

an’ every one of ’em beating so!”

“Don’t be so excited, Pet.” The older sister smiled gently at the child.

“Things never are quite as nice as you expect them to be,” she added,

with that wisdom that comes so soon to starved country hearts.

“Well, this can’t help bein’ nice,” said the child, with a beautiful

faith. She sat on the strip of rag carpeting that partially covered the

rough floor, and drew on her stockings and her copper-toed shoes. “Oh,

sister, my fingers shake so I can’t get the strings through the eyelets!

Do you think Mr. Hoover might oversleep hisself? It can’t help bein’

nice—nicer’n I expect. Of course,” she added, with a momentary regret, “I

wish I had some other dress besides that buff calico, but I ain’t, an’

so—it’s reel pretty, anyways, sister, ain’t it?”

“Yes, Pet,” said the girl gently. There was a bitter pity for the child

in her heart.

“To think o’ ridin’ in the Libraty Car!” continued Esther, struggling

with the shoe strings. “Course they’ll let me, Paw knows the

store-keeper, and Mr. Hoover kin tell ’em who I am. An’ the horses, an’

the ribbons, an’ the music—an’ all the little girls my age! Sister, it’s

awful never to have any little girls to play with! I guess maw don’t know

how I’ve wanted ’em, or she’d of took me to town sometimes. I ain’t never

been anywheres—except to Mis’ Bunnels’s fun’ral, when the minister prayed

so long,” she added, with a pious after-thought.

It was a happy child that was lifted to the back of the most trustworthy

of the plow-horses to be escorted to the celebration by “Mr. Hoover,” the

hired man. The face under the cheap straw hat, with its wreath of pink

and green artificial flowers, was almost pathetically radiant. To that

poor little heart so hungry for pleasure, there could be no bliss so

supreme as a ride in the village “Libraty Car”—to be one of the states,

preferably “Oregon!” To hear the music and hold a flag, and sit close to

little girls of her own age who would smile kindly at her and, perhaps,

even ask her name shyly, and take her home with them to see their dolls.

“Oh,” she cried, grasping the reins in her thin hands, “I’m all of a

tremble! Just like maw on wash days! Only I ain’t tired—I’m just glad.”

There were shifting groups of children in front of the school house.

Everything—even the white houses with their green blinds and neat

door-yards—seemed strange and over-powering to Esther. The buoyancy with

which she had surveyed the world from the back of a tall horse gave way

to sudden timidity and self-consciousness.

Mr. Hoover put her down in the midst of the children. “There, now,” he

said cheerfully, “play around with the little girls like a nice body

while I put up the horses.”

A terrible loneliness came upon Esther as she watched him leading away

the horses. All those merry children chattering and shouting, and not one

speaking to her or taking the slightest notice of her. She realized with

a suddenness that dazed her and blurred everything before her country

eyes that she was very, very different from them—why, every one of the

little girls was dressed in pure, soft white, with a beautiful sash and

bows; all wore pretty slippers. There was not one copper-toed shoe among

them!

Her heart came up into her thin, little throat and beat and beat there.

She wished that she might sit down and hide her shoes, but then the dress

was just as bad. _That_ couldn’t be hidden. So she stood awkwardly in

their midst, stiff and motionless, with a look in her eyes that ought to

have touched somebody’s heart.

Then the “Liberty Car” came, drawn by six noble white horses decorated

with flags, ribbons and rosettes, and stepping out oh, so proudly in

perfect time with the village band. Esther forgot her buff calico dress

and her copper-toed shoes in the exquisite delight of that moment.

The little girls were placed in the car. Each carried a banner on which

was painted the name of a state. What graceful, dancing little bodies

they were, and how their feet twinkled and could not be quiet! When

“Oregon” went proudly by, Esther’s heart sank. She wondered which state

they would give to her.

The band stopped playing. All the girls were seated; somehow there seemed

to be no place left for another. Esther went forward bravely and set one

copper-toed shoe on the step of the car. The ladies in charge looked at

her; then, at each other.

“Hello, Country!” cried a boy’s shrill voice behind her suddenly. “My

stars! She thinks she’s goin’ in the car. What a jay!”

Esther stood as if petrified with her foot still on the step. She felt

that they were all looking at her. What terrible things human eyes can

be! A kind of terror took hold of her. She trembled. There seemed to be a

great stillness about her.

“Can’t I go?” she said to one of the ladies. Her heart was beating so

hard and so fast in her throat that her voice sounded far away to her.

“My paw knows Mr. Mallory, the store-keeper. We live down by the river

on the Nesley place. We’re poor, but my paw alwus pays his debts. I come

with Mr. Hoover; he’s gone to put up the horses.”

It was spoken—the poor little speech, at once passionate and despairing

as any prayer to God. Then it was that Esther learned that there are

silences which are harder to bear than the wildest tumult.

But presently one of the ladies said, very kindly—“Why, I am so sorry,

little girl, but you see—er—all the little girls who ride in the car

must—er—be dressed in white.”

Esther removed her foot heavily from the step and stood back.

“Oh, look!” cried “Oregon”, leaning from the car. “She wanted to ride

_in here_! In a yellow calico dress and copper-toed shoes!”

Then the band played, the horses pranced and tossed their heads, the

flags and banners floated on the breeze, and the beautiful car moved away.

Esther stood looking after it until she heard Mr. Hoover’s voice at her

side. “W’y, what a funny little girl! There the car’s gone, an’ she

didn’t go an’ git in it, after all! Did anybody ever see sech a funny

little girl? After gittin’ up so airly, an’ hurryin’ everybody so for

fear she’d be late, an’ a-talkin’ about ridin’ in the Libraty Car for

months—an’ then to go an’ not git in it after all!”

Esther turned with a bursting heart. She threw herself passionately into

his arms and hid her face on his breast.

“I want to go home,” she sobbed. “Oh, I want to go home!”

THE BLOW-OUT AT JENKINS’S GROCERY

THE BLOW-OUT AT JENKINS’S GROCERY

The hands of the big, round clock in Mr. Jenkins’s grocery store pointed

to eleven. Mr. Jenkins was tying a string around a paper bag containing a

dollar’s worth of sugar. He held one end of the string between his teeth.

His three clerks were going around the store with little stiff prances

of deference to the customers they were serving. It was the night before

Christmas. They were all so worn out that their attempts at smiles were

only painful contortions.

Mr. Jenkins looked at the clock. Then his eyes went in a hurried glance

of pity to a woman sitting on a high stool close to the window. Her feet

were drawn up on the top rung, and her thin shoulders stooped over her

chest. She had sunken cheeks and hollow eyes; her cheek-bones stood out

sharply.

For two hours she had sat there almost motionless. Three times she had

lifted her head and fixed a strained gaze upon Mr. Jenkins and asked,

“D’yuh want to shet up?” Each time, receiving an answer in the negative,

she had sunk back into the same attitude of brute-like waiting.

It was a wild night. The rain drove its long, slanting lances down the

window-panes. The wind howled around corners, banged loose shutters,

creaked swinging sign-boards to and fro, and vexed the telephone wires

to shrill, continuous screaming. Fierce gusts swept in when the door was

opened.

Christmas shoppers came and went. The woman saw nothing inside the store.

Her eyes were set on the doors of a brightly lighted saloon across the

street.

It was a small, new “boom” town on Puget Sound. There was a saloon on

every corner, and a brass band in every saloon. The “establishment”

opposite was having its “opening” that night. “At home” cards in square

envelopes had been sent out to desirable patrons during the previous

week. That day, during an hour’s sunshine, a yellow chariot, drawn by six

cream-colored horses with snow-white manes and tails, had gone slowly

through the streets, bearing the members of the band clad in white and

gold. It was followed by three open carriages, gay with the actresses who

were to dance and sing that night on the stage in the rear of the saloon.

All had yellow hair and were dressed in yellow with white silk sashes,

and white ostrich plumes falling to their shoulders. It was a gorgeous

procession, and it “drew.”

The woman lived out in the Grand View addition. The addition consisted

mainly of cabins built of “shakes” and charred stumps. The grand view was

to come some ten or twenty years later on, when the forests surrounding

the addition had taken their departure. It was a full mile from the store.

She had walked in with her husband through the rain and slush after

putting six small children to bed. They were very poor. Her husband was

shiftless. It was whispered of them by their neighbors that they couldn’t

get credit for “two bits” except at the saloons.

A relative had sent the woman ten dollars for a Christmas gift. She had

gone wild with joy. Ten dollars! It was wealth. For once the children

should have a real Christmas—a good dinner, toys, candy! Of all things,

there should be a wax doll for the little girl who had cried for one

every Christmas, and never even had one in her arms. Just for this one

time they should be happy—like other children; and she should be happy in

their happiness—like other mothers. What did it matter that she had only

two calico dresses and one pair of shoes, half-soled at that, and capped

across the toes?

Her husband had entered into her childish joy. He was kind and

affectionate—when he was sober. That was why she had never had the heart

to leave him. He was one of those men who are always needing, pleading

for—and, alas receiving—forgiveness; one of those men whom their women

love passionately and cling to forever.

He promised her solemnly that he would not drink a drop that Christmas—so

solemnly that she believed him. He had helped her to wash the dishes and

put the children to bed. And he had kissed her.

Her face had been radiant when they came into Mr. Jenkins’s store. That

poor, gray face with its sunken cheeks and eyes! They bought a turkey—and

with what anxious care she had selected it, testing its tenderness,

balancing it on her bony hands, examining the scales with keen, narrowed

eyes when it was weighed; and a quart of cranberries, a can of mince meat

and a can of plum pudding, a head of celery, a pint of Olympia oysters,

candy, nuts—and then the toys! She trembled with eagerness. Her husband

stood watching her, smiling good-humoredly, his hands in his pockets. Mr.

Jenkins indulged in some serious speculation as to where the money was

coming from to pay for all this “blow-out”. He set his lips together and

resolved that the “blow-out” should not leave the store, under any amount

of promises, until the cash paying for it was in his cash-drawer.

Suddenly the band began to play across the street. The man threw up his

head like an old war-horse at the sound of a bugle note. A fire came

into his eyes; into his face a flush of excitement. He walked down to

the window and stood looking out, jingling some keys in his pocket. He

breathed quickly.

After a few moments he went back to his wife. Mr. Jenkins had stepped

away to speak to another customer.

“Say, Molly, old girl,” he said affectionately, without looking at her,

“yuh can spare me enough out o’ that tenner to git a plug o’ tobaccer for

Christmas, can’t yuh?”

“W’y—I guess so,” said she slowly. The first cloud fell on her happy face.

“Well, jest let me have it, an’ I’ll run out an’ be back before yuh’re

ready to pay for these here things. I’ll only git two bits’ worth.”

She turned very pale.

“Can’t yuh git it here, Mart?”

“No,” he said in a whisper; “his’n ain’t fit to chew. I’ll be right back,

Molly—honest.”

She stood motionless, her eyes cast down, thinking. If she refused, he

would be angry and remain away from home all the next day to pay her

for the insult. If she gave it to him—well, she would have to take the

chances. But oh, her hand shook as she drew the small gold piece from her

shabby purse and reached it to him. His big, warm hand closed over it.

She looked up at him. Her eyes spoke the passionate prayer that her lips

could not utter.

“Don’t stay long, Mart,” she whispered, not daring to say more.

“I won’t, Molly,” he whispered back. “I’ll hurry up. Git anything yuh

want.”

She finished her poor shopping. Mr. Jenkins wrapped everything up neatly.

Then he rubbed his hands together and looked at her, and said: “Well,

there now, Mis’ Dupen.”

“I—jest lay ’em all together there on the counter,” she said

hesitatingly. “I’ll have to wait till Mart comes back before I can pay

yuh.”

“I see him go into the saloon over there,” piped out the errand boy

shrilly.

At the end of half an hour she climbed upon the high stool and fixed her

eyes upon the saloon opposite and sat there.

She saw nothing but the glare of those windows and the light streaming

out when the doors opened. She heard nothing but the torturing blare of

the music. After awhile something commenced beating painfully in her

throat and temples. Her limbs grew stiff—she was scarcely conscious that

they ached. Once she shuddered strongly, as dogs do when they lie in the

cold, waiting.

At twelve o’clock Mr. Jenkins touched her kindly on the arm. She looked

up with a start. Her face was gray and old; her eyes were almost wild in

their strained despair.

“I guess I’ll have to shet up now, Mis’ Dupen,” he said apologetically.

“I’m sorry—”

She got down from the stool at once. “I can’t take them things,” she

said, almost whispering. “I hate to of put yuh to all that trouble of

doin’ ’em up. I thought—but I can’t take ’em. I hope yuh won’t mind—very

much.” Her bony fingers twisted together under her thin shawl.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Mr. Jenkins in an embarrassed way. She moved

stiffly to the door. He put out the lights and followed her. He felt

mean, somehow. For one second he hesitated, then he locked the door, and

gave it a shake to make sure that it was all right.

“Well,” he said, “good night. I wish you a mer—”

“Good night,” said the woman. She was turning away when the doors of the

saloon opened for two or three men to enter. The music, which had ceased

for a few minutes, struck up another air—a familiar air.

She burst suddenly into wild and terrible laughter. “Oh, my Lord,” she

cried out, “they’re a-playin’ ‘Home, Sweet Home!’ _In there!_ Oh, my

Lord! _Wouldn’t that kill yuh!_”

THE TAKIN’ IN OF OLD MIS’ LANE

THE TAKIN’ IN OF OLD MIS’ LANE

“Huhy! Huhy! Pleg take that muley cow! Huhy!”

“What she doin’, maw?”

“Why, she’s just a-holdin’ her head over the bars, an’ a-bawlin’! Tryin’

to get into the little correll where her ca’f is! I wish paw ’d of done

as I told him an’ put her into the up meadow. If there’s anything on

earth I abominate it’s to hear a cow bawl.”

Mrs. Bridges gathered up several sticks of wood from the box in the

corner by the stove, and going out into the yard, threw them with

powerful movements of her bare arm in the direction of the bars. The

cow lowered her hornless head and shook it defiantly at her, but held

her ground. Isaphene stood in the open door, laughing. She was making a

cake. She beat the mixture with a long-handled tin spoon while watching

the fruitless attack. She had reddish brown hair that swept away from

her brow and temples in waves so deep you could have lost your finger in

any one of them; and good, honest gray eyes, and a mouth that was worth

kissing. She wore a blue cotton gown that looked as if it had just left

the ironing-table. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows.

“It don’t do any good, maw,” she said, as her mother returned with a

defeated air. “She just bawls an’ shakes her head right in your face.

Look at her!”

“Oh, I don’t want to look at her. It seems to me your paw might of drove

her to the up meadow, seein’s he was goin’ right up by there. It ain’t

like as if he’d of had to go out o’ his way. It aggravates me offul.”

She threw the last stick of wood into the box, and brushed the tiny

splinters off her arm and sleeves.

“Well, I guess I might as well string them beans for dinner before I

clean up.”

She took a large milkpan, filled with beans, from the table and sat down

near the window.

“Isaphene,” she said, presently, “what do you say to an organ, an’ a

horse an’ buggy? A horse with some style about him, that you could ride

or drive, an’ that ’u’d always be up when you wanted to go to town!”

“What do I say?” The girl turned and looked at her mother as if she

feared one of them had lost her senses; then she returned to her

cake-beating with an air of good-natured disdain.

“Oh, you can smile an’ turn your head on one side, but you’ll whistle

another tune before long—or I’ll miss my guess. Isaphene, I’ve been

savin’ up chicken an’ butter money ever since we come to Puget Sound;

then I’ve always got the money for the strawberry crop, an’ for the geese

an’ turkeys, an’ the calves, an’ so on. Your paw’s been real good about

such things.”

“I don’t call it bein’ good,” said Isaphene. “Why shouldn’t he let you

have the money? You planted, an’ weeded, an’ picked the strawberries; an’

you fed an’ set the chickens, an’ gethered the eggs; an’ you’ve had all

the tendin’ of the geese an’ turkeys an’ calves—to say nothin’ of the

cows bawlin’ over the bars,” she added, with a sly laugh. “I’d say you

only had your rights when you get the money for such things.”

“Oh, yes, that’s fine talk.” Mrs. Bridges nodded her head with an air of

experience. “But it ain’t all men-folks that gives you your rights; so

when one does, I say he deserves credit.”

“Well, I wouldn’t claim anybody’d been good to me just because he give me

what I’d worked for an’ earned. Now, if he’d give you all the money from

the potato patch every year, or the hay meadow, or anything he’d done

all the workin’ with himself—I’d call that good in him. He never done

anything like that, did he?”

“No, he never,” replied Mrs. Bridges, testily. “An’ what’s more, he ain’t

likely to—nor any other man I know of! If you get a man that gives you

all you work for an’ earn, you’ll be lucky—with all your airs!”

“Well, I guess I’ll manage to get my rights, somehow,” said Isaphene,

beginning to butter the cake-pan.

“Somebody’s comin’!” exclaimed her mother, lowering her voice to a

mysterious whisper.

“Who is it?” Isaphene stood up straight, with that little quick beating

of mingled pleasure and dismay that the cry of company brings to country

hearts.

“I can’t see. I don’t want to be caught peepin’. I can see it’s a woman,

though; she’s just passin’ the row of hollyhocks. Can’t you stoop down

an’ peep? She won’t see you ’way over there by the table.”

Isaphene stooped and peered cautiously through the wild cucumber vines

that rioted over the kitchen window.

“Oh, it’s Mis’ Hanna!”

“My goodness! An’ the way this house looks! You’ll have to bring her out

here ’n the kitchen, too. I s’pose she’s come to spend the day—she’s got

her bag with her, ain’t she?”

“Yes. What’ll we have for dinner? I ain’t goin’ to cut this cake for her.

I want this for Sund’y.”

“Why, we’ve got corn beef to boil, an’ a head o’ cabbage; an’ these here

beans; an’, of course, potatoes; an’ watermelon perserves. An’ you can

make a custerd pie. I guess that’s a good enough dinner for her. There!

She’s knockin’. Open the door, can’t you? Well, if I ever! Look at that

grease-spot on the floor!”

“Well, I didn’t spill it.”

“Who did, then, missy?”

“Well, _I_ never.”

Isaphene went to the front door, returning presently with a tall, thin

lady.

“Here’s Mis’ Hanna, maw,” she said, with the air of having made a

pleasant discovery. Mrs. Bridges got up, greatly surprised, and shook

hands with her visitor with exaggerated delight.

“Well, I’ll declare! It’s really you, is it? At last! Well, set right

down an’ take off your things. Isaphene, take Mis’ Hanna’s things. My!

ain’t it warm, walkin’?”

“It is so.” The visitor gave her bonnet to Isaphene, dropping her black

mitts into it after rolling them carefully together. “But it’s always

nice an’ cool in your kitchen.” Her eyes wandered about with a look of

unabashed curiosity that took in everything. “I brought my crochet with

me.”

“I’m glad you did. You’ll have to excuse the looks o’ things. Any news?”

“None perticular.” Mrs. Hanna began to crochet, holding the work close

to her face. “Ain’t it too bad about poor, old Mis’ Lane?”

“What about her?” Mrs. Bridges snapped a bean-pod into three pieces, and

looked at her visitor with a kind of pleased expectancy—as if almost any

news, however dreadful, would be welcome as a relief to the monotony of

existence. “Is she dead?”

“No, she ain’t dead; but the poor, old creature ’d better be. She’s got

to go to the poor-farm, after all.”

There was silence in the big kitchen, save for the rasp of the crochet

needle through the wool and the snapping of the beans. A soft wind came

in the window and drummed with the lightest of touches on Mrs. Bridges’s

temples. It brought all the sweets of the old-fashioned flower-garden

with it—the mingled breaths of mignonette, stock, sweet lavender, sweet

peas and clove pinks. The whole kitchen was filled with the fragrance.

And what a big, cheerful kitchen it was! Mrs. Bridges contrasted it

unconsciously with the poor-farm kitchen, and almost shivered, warm

though the day was.

“What’s her childern about?” she asked, sharply.

“Oh, her childern!” replied Mrs. Hanna, with a contemptuous air. “What

does her childern amount to, I’d like to know.”

“Her son’s got a good, comf’table house an’ farm.”

“Well, what if he has? He got it with his wife, didn’t he? An’ M’lissy

won’t let his poor, old mother set foot inside the house! I don’t say she

is a pleasant body to have about—she’s cross an’ sick most all the time,

an’ childish. But that ain’t sayin’ her childern oughtn’t to put up with

her disagreeableness.”

“She’s got a married daughter, ain’t she?”

“Yes, she’s got a married daughter.” Mrs. Hanna closed her lips tightly

together and looked as if she might say something, if she chose, that

would create a sensation.

“Well, ain’t she got a good enough home to keep her mother in?”

“Yes, she has. But she got _her_ home along with her husband, an’ he

won’t have the old soul any more ’n M’lissy would.”

There was another silence. Isaphene had put the cake in the oven. She

knelt on the floor and opened the door very softly now and then, to see

that it was not browning too fast. The heat of the oven had crimsoned her

face and arms.

“Guess you’d best put a piece o’ paper on top o’ that cake,” said her

mother. “It smells kind o’ burny like.”

“It’s all right, maw.”

Mrs. Bridges looked out the window.

“Ain’t my flowers doin’ well, though, Mis’ Hanna?”

“They are that. When I come up the walk I couldn’t help thinkin’ of poor,

old Mis’ Lane.”

“What’s that got to do with her?” Resentment bristled in Mrs. Bridges’s

tone and look.

Mrs. Hanna stopped crocheting, but held her hands stationary, almost

level with her eyes, and looked over them in surprise at her questioner.

“Why, she ust to live here, you know.”

“She did! In this house?”

“Why, yes. Didn’t you know that? Oh, they ust to be right well off in

her husband’s time. I visited here consid’rable. My! the good things she

always had to eat. I can taste ’em yet.”

“Hunh! I’m sorry I can’t give you as good as she did,” said Mrs. Bridges,

stiffly.

“Well, as if you didn’t! You set a beautiful table, Mis’ Bridges, an’,

what’s more, that’s your reputation all over. Everybody says that about

you.”

Mrs. Bridges smiled deprecatingly, with a slight blush of pleasure.

“They do, Mis’ Bridges. I just told you about Mis’ Lane because you’d

never think it now of the poor, old creature. An’ such flowers as she

ust to have on both sides that walk! Lark-spurs, an’ sweet-williams, an’

bach’lor’s-buttons, an’ mournin’-widows, an’ pumgranates, an’ all kinds.

Guess you didn’t know she set out that pink cabbage-rose at the north end

o’ the front porch, did you? An’ that hop-vine that you’ve got trained

over your parlor window—set that out, too. An’ that row o’ young alders

between here an’ the barn—she set ’em all out with her own hands; dug the

holes herself, an’ all. It’s funny she never told you she lived here.”

“Yes, it is,” said Mrs. Bridges, slowly and thoughtfully.

“It’s a wonder to me she never broke down an’ cried when she was visitin’

here. She can’t so much as mention the place without cryin’.”

A dull red came into Mrs. Bridges’s face.

“She never visited here.”

“Never visited here!” Mrs. Hanna laid her crochet and her hands in her

lap, and stared. “Why, she visited ev’rywhere. That’s how she managed

to keep out o’ the poor-house so long. Ev’rybody was reel consid’rate

about invitin’ her. But I expect she didn’t like to come here because she

thought so much o’ the place.”

Isaphene looked over her shoulder at her mother, but the look was not

returned. The beans were sputtering nervously into the pan.

“Ain’t you got about enough, maw?” she said. “That pan seems to be

gettin’ hefty.”

“Yes, I guess.” She got up, brushing the strings off her apron, and set

the pan on the table. “I’ll watch the cake now, Isaphene. You put the

beans on in the pot to boil. Put a piece o’ that salt pork in with ’em.

Better get ’em on right away. It’s pretty near eleven. Ain’t this oven

too hot with the door shet?”

Then the pleasant preparations for dinner went on. The beans soon

commenced to boil, and an appetizing odor floated through the kitchen.

The potatoes were pared—big, white fellows, smooth and long—with a sharp,

thin knife, round and round and round, each without a break until the

whole paring had curled itself about Isaphene’s pretty arm almost to the

elbow. The cabbage was chopped finely for the cold-slaw, and the vinegar

and butter set on the stove in a saucepan to heat. Then Mrs. Bridges

“set” the table, covering it first with a red cloth having a white border

and fringe. In the middle of the table she placed an uncommonly large,

six-bottled caster.

“I guess you’ll excuse a red tablecloth, Mis’ Hanna. The men-folks get

their shirt-sleeves so dirty out in the fields that you can’t keep a

white one clean no time.”

“I use red ones myself most of the time,” replied Mrs. Hanna, crocheting

industriously. “It saves washin’. I guess poor Mis’ Lane’ll have to see

the old place after all these years, whether she wants or not. They’ll

take her right past here to the poor-farm.”

Mrs. Bridges set on the table a white plate holding a big square of

yellow butter, and stood looking through the open door, down the path

with its tall hollyhocks and scarlet poppies on both sides. Between the

house and the barn some wild mustard had grown, thick and tall, and was

now drifting, like a golden cloud, against the pale blue sky. Butterflies

were throbbing through the air, and grasshoppers were crackling

everywhere. It was all very pleasant and peaceful; while the comfortable

house and barns, the wide fields stretching away to the forest, and

the cattle feeding on the hillside added an appearance of prosperity.

Mrs. Bridges wondered how she herself would feel—after having loved the

place—riding by to the poor-farm. Then she pulled herself together and

said, sharply:

“I’m afraid you feel a draught, Mis’ Hanna, a-settin’ so clost to the

door.”

“Oh, my, no; I like it. I like lots o’ fresh air. Can’t get it any too

fresh for me. If I didn’t have six childern an’ my own mother to keep,

I’d take her myself.”

“Take who?” Mrs. Bridges’s voice rasped as she asked the question.

Isaphene paused on her way to the pantry, and looked at Mrs. Hanna with

deeply thoughtful eyes.

“Why, Mis’ Lane—who else?—before I’d let her go to the poor-farm.”

“Well, I think her childern ought to be _made_ to take care of her!” Mrs.

Bridges went on setting the table with brisk, angry movements. “That’s

what I think about it. The law ought to take holt of it.”

“Well, you see the law _has_ took holt of it,” said Mrs. Hanna, with

a grim smile. “It seems a shame that there ain’t somebody in the

neighborhood that ’u’d take her in. She ain’t much expense, but a good

deal o’ trouble. She’s sick, in an’ out o’ bed, nigh onto all the time.

My opinion is she’s been soured by all her troubles; an’ that if somebody

’u’d only take her in an’ be kind to her, her temper’ment ’u’d emprove

up wonderful. She’s always mighty grateful for ev’ry little chore you do

her. It just makes my heart ache to think o’ her a-havin’ to go to the

poor-house!”

Mrs. Bridges lifted her head; all the softness and irresolution went out

of her face.

“Well, I’m sorry for her,” she said, with an air of dismissing a

disagreeable subject; “but the world’s full o’ troubles, an’ if you

cried over all o’ them you’d be a-cryin’ all the time. Isaphene, you

go out an’ blow that dinner-horn. I see the men-folks ’av’ got the

horses about foddered. What did you do?” she cried out, sharply. “Drop a

smoothin’-iron on your hand? Well, my goodness! Why don’t you keep your

eyes about you? You’ll go an’ get a cancer yet!”

“I’m thinkin’ about buyin’ a horse an’ buggy,” she announced, with stern

triumph, when the girl had gone out. “An’ an organ. Isaphene’s been

wantin’ one most offul. I’ve give up her paw’s ever gettin’ her one.

First a new harrow, an’ then a paten’ rake, an’ then a seed-drill—an’

then my mercy”—imitating a masculine voice—“he ain’t got any money left

for silliness! But I’ve got some laid by. I’d like to see his eyes when

he comes home an’ finds a bran new buggy with a top an’ all, an’ a horse

that he can’t hetch to a plow, no matter how bad he wants to! I ain’t

sure but I’ll get a phaeton.”

“They ain’t so strong, but they’re handy to get in an’ out of—’specially

for old, trembly knees.”

“I ain’t so old that I’m trembly!”

“Oh, my—no,” said Mrs. Hanna, with a little start. “I was just thinkin’

mebbe sometimes you’d go out to the poor-farm an’ take poor, old Mis’

Lane for a little ride. It ain’t more’n five miles from here, is it? She

ust to have a horse an’ buggy o’ her own. Somehow, I can’t get her off

o’ my mind at all to-day. I just heard about her as I was a-startin’ for

your house.”

The men came to the house. They paused on the back porch to clean their

boots on the scraper and wash their hands and faces with water dipped

from the rain-barrel. Their faces shone like brown marble when they came

in.

* * * * *

It was five o’clock when Mrs. Hanna, with a sigh, began rolling the lace

she had crocheted around the spool, preparatory to taking her departure.

“Well,” she said, “I must go. I had no idy it was so late. How the

time does go, a-talkin’. I’ve had a right nice time. Just see how well

I’ve done—crocheted full a yard since dinner-time! My! how pretty that

hop-vine looks. It makes awful nice shade, too. I guess when Mis’ Lane

planted it she thought she’d be settin’ under it herself to-day—she took

such pleasure in it.”

The ladies were sitting on the front porch. It was cool and fragrant

out there. The shadow of the house reached almost to the gate now. The

bees had been drinking too many sweets—greedy fellows!—and were lying in

the red poppies, droning stupidly. A soft wind was blowing from Puget

Sound and turning over the clover leaves, making here a billow of dark

green and there one of light green; it was setting loose the perfume of

the blossoms, too, and sifting silken thistle-needles through the air.

Along the fence was a hedge, eight feet high, of the beautiful ferns

that grow luxuriantly in western Washington. The pasture across the lane

was a tangle of royal color, being massed in with golden-rod, fire-weed,

steeple-bush, yarrow, and large field-daisies; the cotton-woods that

lined the creek at the side of the house were snowing. Here and there the

sweet twin-sister of the steeple-bush lifted her pale and fluffy plumes;

and there was one lovely, lavender company of wild asters.

Mrs. Bridges arose and followed her guest into the spare bedroom.

“When they goin’ to take her to the poor-farm?” she asked, abruptly.

“Day after to-morrow. Ain’t it awful? It just makes me sick. I couldn’t

of eat a bite o’ dinner if I’d stayed at home, just for thinkin’ about

it. They say the poor, old creature ain’t done nothin’ but cry an’ moan

ever since she knowed she’d got to go.”

“Here’s your bag,” said Mrs. Bridges. “Do you want I should tie your

veil?”

“No, thanks; I guess I won’t put it on. If I didn’t have such a big

fam’ly an’ my own mother to keep, I’d take her in myself before I’d see

her go to the poor-house. If I had a small fam’ly an’ plenty o’ room, I

declare my conscience wouldn’t let me sleep nights.”

A deep red glow spread over Mrs. Bridges’s face.

“Well, I guess you needn’t to keep a-hintin’ for me to take her,” she

said, sharply.

“_You!_” Mrs. Hanna uttered the word in a tone that was an unintentional

insult; in fact, Mrs. Bridges affirmed afterward that her look of

astonishment, and, for that matter, her whole air of dazed incredulity

were insulting. “I never once thought o’ _you_,” she said, with an

earnestness that could not be doubted.

“Why not o’ me?” demanded Mrs. Bridges, showing something of her

resentment. “What you been talkin’ an’ harpin’ about her all day for, if

you wasn’t hintin’ for me to take her in?”

“I never thought o’ such a thing,” repeated her visitor, still looking

rather helplessly dazed. “I talked about it because it was on my mind,

heavy, too; an’, I guess, because I wanted to talk my conscience down.”

Mrs. Bridges cooled off a little and folded her hands over the bedpost.

“Well, if you wasn’t hintin’,” she said, in a conciliatory tone, “it’s

all right. You kep’ harpin’ on the same string till I thought you was;

an’ it riles me offul to be hinted at. I’ll take anything right out to

my face, so’s I can answer it, but I won’t be hinted at. But why”—having

rid herself of the grievance she at once swung around to the insult—“why

_didn’t_ you think o’ me?”

Mrs. Hanna cleared her throat and began to unroll her mitts.

“Well, I don’t know just why,” she replied, helplessly. She drew the

mitts on, smoothing them well up over her thin wrists. “I don’t know why,

I’m sure. I’d thought o’ most ev’rybody in the neighborhood—but you never

come into my head _onct_. I was as innocent o’ hintin’ as a babe unborn.”

Mrs. Bridges drew a long breath noiselessly.

“Well,” she said, absent-mindedly, “come again, Mis’ Hanna. An’ be sure

you always fetch your work an’ stay the afternoon.”

“Well, I will. But it’s your turn to come now. Where’s Isaphene?”

“I guess she’s makin’ a fire ’n the cook-stove to get supper by.”

“Well, tell her to come over an’ stay all night with Julia some night.”

“Well—I will.”

Mrs. Bridges went into the kitchen and sat down, rather heavily, in a

chair. Her face wore a puzzled expression.

“Isaphene, did you hear what we was a-sayin’ in the bedroom?”

“Yes, most of it, I guess.”

“Well, what do you s’pose was the reason she never thought o’ me

a-takin’ Mis’ Lane in? Says she’d thought o’ ev’rybody else.”

“Why, you never thought o’ takin’ her in yourself, did you?” said

Isaphene, turning down the damper of the stove with a clatter. “I don’t

see how anybody else ’u’d think of it when you didn’t yourself.”

“Well, don’t you think it was offul impadent in her to say that, anyhow?”

“No, I don’t. She told the truth.”

“Why ought they to think o’ ev’rybody takin’ her exceptin’ me, I’d like

to know.”

“Because ev’rybody else, I s’pose, has thought of it theirselves. The

neighbors have all been chippin’ in to help her for years. You never done

nothin’ for her, did you? You never invited her to visit here, did you?”

“No, I never. But that ain’t no sayin’ I wouldn’t take her as quick ’s

the rest of ’em. They ain’t none of ’em takin’ her in very fast, be they?”

“No, they ain’t,” said Isaphene, facing her mother with a steady look.

“They ain’t a one of ’em but ’s got their hands full—no spare room, an’

lots o’ childern or their folks to take care of.”

“Hunh!” said Mrs. Bridges. She began chopping cold boiled beef for hash.

“I don’t believe I’ll sleep to-night for thinkin’ about it,” she said,

after a while.

“I won’t neither, maw. I wish she wasn’t goin’ right by here.”

“So do I.”

After a long silence Mrs. Bridges said—“I don’t suppose your paw’d hear

to us a-takin’ her in.”

“I guess he’d hear to ’t if we would,” said Isaphene, dryly.

“Well, we can’t do’t; that’s all there is about it,” announced Mrs.

Bridges, with a great air of having made up her mind. Isaphene did not

reply. She was slicing potatoes to fry, and she seemed to agree silently

with her mother’s decision. Presently, however, Mrs. Bridges said, in a

less determined tone—“There’s no place to put her in, exceptin’ the spare

room—an’ we can’t get along without that, noways.”

“No,” said Isaphene, in a non-committal tone.

Mrs. Bridges stopped chopping and looked thoughtfully out of the door.

“There’s this room openin’ out o’ the kitchen,” she said, slowly. “It’s

nice an’ big an’ sunny. It ’u’d be handy ’n winter, bein’ right off o’

the kitchen. But it ain’t furnished up.”

“No,” said Isaphene, “it ain’t.”

“An’ I know your paw’d never furnish it.”

Isaphene laughed. “No, I guess not,” she said.

“Well, there’s no use a-thinkin’ about it, Isaphene; we just can’t take

her. Better get them potatoes on; I see the men-folks comin’ up to the

barn.”

The next morning after breakfast Isaphene said suddenly, as she stood

washing dishes—“Maw, I guess you’d better take the organ money an’

furnish up that room.”

Mrs. Bridges turned so sharply she dropped the turkey-wing with which she

was polishing the stove.

“You don’t never mean it,” she gasped.

“Yes, I do. I know we’d both feel better to take her in than to take in

an organ”—they both laughed rather foolishly at the poor joke. “You can

furnish the room real comf’table with what it ’u’d take to buy an organ;

an’ we can get the horse an’ buggy, too.”

“Oh, Isaphene, I’ve never meant but what you should have an organ. I know

you’d learn fast. You’d soon get so’s you could play ‘Lilly Dale’ an’

‘Hazel Dell;’ an’ you might get so’s you could play ‘General Persifer F.

Smith’s Grand March.’ No, I won’t never spend that money for nothin’ but

an organ—so you can just shet up about it.”

“I want a horse an’ buggy worse, maw,” said Isaphene, after a brief but

fierce struggle with the dearest desire of her heart. “We can get a horse

that I can ride, too. An’ we’ll get a phaeton, so’s we can take Mis’

Lane to church an’ around.” Then she added, with a regular masterpiece of

diplomacy—“We’ll show the neighbors that when we do take people in, we

take ’em in all over!”

“Oh, Isaphene,” said her mother, weakly, “wouldn’t it just astonish ’em!”

* * * * *

It was ten o’clock of the following morning when Isaphene ran in and

announced that she heard wheels coming up the lane. Mrs. Bridges paled a

little and breathed quickly as she put on her bonnet and went out to the

gate.

A red spring-wagon was coming slowly toward her, drawn by a single, bony

horse. The driver was half asleep on the front seat. Behind, in a low

chair, sat old Mrs. Lane; she was stooping over, her elbows on her knees,

her gray head bowed.

Mrs. Bridges held up her hand, and the driver pulled in the unreluctant

horse.

“How d’you do, Mis’ Lane? I want that you should come in an’ visit me a

while.”

The old creature lifted her trembling head and looked at Mrs. Bridges;

then she saw the old house, half hidden by vines and flowers, and her dim

eyes filled with bitter tears.

“We ain’t got time to stop, ma’am,” said the driver, politely. “I’m a

takin’ her to the county,” he added, in a lower tone, but not so low that

the old woman did not hear.

“You’ll have to make time,” said Mrs. Bridges, bluntly. “You get down an’

help her out. You don’t have to wait. When I’m ready for her to go to the

county, I’ll take her myself.”

Not understanding in the least, but realizing, as he said afterwards,

that she “meant business” and wasn’t the kind to be fooled with, the man

obeyed with alacrity.

“Now, you lean all your heft on me,” said Mrs. Bridges, kindly. She put

her arm around the old woman and led her up the hollyhock path, and

through the house into the pleasant kitchen.

“Isaphene, you pull that big chair over here where it’s cool. Now, Mis’

Lane, you set right down an’ rest.”

Mrs. Lane wiped the tears from her face with an old cotton handkerchief.

She tried to speak, but the sobs had to be swallowed down too fast. At

last she said, in a choked voice—“It’s awful good in you—to let me see

the old place—once more. The Lord bless you—for it. But I’m most sorry I

stopped—seems now as if I—just _couldn’t_ go on.”

“Well, you ain’t goin’ on,” said Mrs. Bridges, while Isaphene went to

the door and stood looking toward the hill with drowned eyes. “This is

our little joke—Isaphene’s an’ mine. This’ll be your home as long as

it’s our’n. An’ you’re goin’ to have this nice big room right off o’ the

kitchen, as soon ’s we can furnish it up. An’ we’re goin’ to get a horse

an’ buggy—a _low_ buggy, so’s you can get in an’ out easy like—an’ take

you to church an’ all around.”

* * * * *

That night, after Mrs. Bridges had put Mrs. Lane to bed and said

good-night to her, she went out on the front porch and sat down; but

presently, remembering that she had not put a candle in the room, she

went back, opening the door noiselessly, not to disturb her. Then she

stood perfectly still. The old creature had got out of bed and was

kneeling beside it, her face buried in her hands.

“Oh, Lord God,” she was saying aloud, “bless these kind people—bless ’em,

oh, Lord God! Hear a poor, old mis’rable soul’s prayer, an’ bless ’em!

An’ if they’ve ever done a sinful thing, oh, Lord God, forgive ’em for

it, because they’ve kep’ me out o’ the poor-house—”

Mrs. Bridges closed the door, and stood sobbing as if her heart must

break.

“What’s the matter, maw?” said Isaphene, coming up suddenly.

“Never you mind what’s the matter,” said her mother, sharply, to conceal

her emotion. “You get to bed, an’ don’t bother your head about what’s the

matter of me.”

Then she went down the hall and entered her own room; and Isaphene heard

the key turned in the lock.

THE MANEUVERING OF MRS. SYBERT

THE MANEUVERING OF MRS. SYBERT

“Why, mother, where are you a-goin’, all dressed up so?”

Mr. Sybert stood in the bedroom door and stared at his wife’s ample back.

There was a look of surprise in his blue eyes. Mrs. Sybert stooped before

the bureau, and opened the middle drawer, taking hold of both handles and

watching it carefully as she drew it toward her. Sometimes it came out

crookedly; and every one knows that a drawer that opens crookedly, will,

in time, strain and rub the best bureau ever made. From a red pasteboard

box that had the picture of a pretty actress on the cover, Mrs. Sybert

took a linen handkerchief that had been ironed until it shone like

satin. After smoothing an imaginary wrinkle out of it, she put it into

her pocket, set her bonnet a little further over her forehead, pushing

a stray lock sternly where it belonged, adjusted her bonnet-strings,

which were so wide and so stiff that they pressed her ears away from her

head, giving her a bristling appearance, and buttoned her gloves with a

hair-pin; then, having gained time and decided upon a reply, she said,

cheerfully, “What’s that, father?”

“Well, it took you a right smart spell to answer, didn’t it? I say, where

are you a-goin’, all dressed up so?”

Mrs. Sybert took her black silk bag with round spots brocaded upon it,

and put its ribbons leisurely over her arm. “I’m a-goin’ to see Mis’

Nesley,” she said.

Her husband’s face reddened. “What’s that you say, mother? You’re a-goin’

to do _what_? I reckon I’m a-goin’ a little deef.”

“I’m a-goin’ to see Mis’ Nesley.” Mrs. Sybert spoke calmly. No one would

have suspected that she was reproaching herself for not getting out of

the house ten minutes sooner. “He never’d ’a’ heard a thing about it,”

she was thinking; but she looked straight into his eyes. Her eyelids did

not quiver.

The red in Mr. Sybert’s face deepened. He stood in the door, so she could

not pass. Indeed, she did not try. Mrs. Sybert had not studied signs for

nothing during the thirty years she had been a wife. “I reckon you’re

a-foolin’, mother,” he said. “Just up to some o’ your devilment!”

“No, I ain’t up to no devilment, father,” she said, still calmly. “You’d

best let me by, now, so’s I can go; it’s half after two.”

“D’ you mean to say that you’re a-ne’rnest? A-talkin’ about goin’ to see

that _hussy_ of a Mis’ Nesley?”

“Yes, I’m a-ne’rnest,” said Mrs. Sybert, firmly. “She ain’t a hussy, as I

know of. What you got agin ’er, I’d like to know?”

“_I_ ain’t got anything agin ’er. Now, what’s the sense o’ you’re

a-pretendin’ you don’t know the talk about ’er, mother?” Mr. Sybert’s

tone had changed slightly. He did not like the poise of his wife’s body;

it bespoke determination—a fight to the finish if necessary. “You know

she’s be’n the town talk fer five years. Your own tawngue hez run on

about ’er like’s if ’t was split in the middle an’ loose at both en’s.

There wa’n’t a woman in town that spoke to ’er”——

“There was men, though, that did,” said Mrs. Sybert, calmly. “I rec’lect

bein’ in at Mis’ Carney’s one day, an’ seein’ you meet ’er opposite an’

take off your hat to ’er—bowin’ an’ scrapin’ right scrumptious like.”

Mr. Sybert changed his position uneasily, and cleared his throat. “Well,

that’s diff’rent,” he said. “I ust to know ’er before ’er husband died”——

“Well, I ust to know ’er, then, too,” said Mrs. Sybert, quietly.

“Well, you hed to stop speakin’ to ’er after she got to actin’ up so, but

it wa’n’t so easy fer me to stop biddin’ ’er the time o’ day.”

“Why not?” said Mrs. Sybert, stolidly.

“Why not!” repeated her husband, loudly; he was losing his temper.

“What’s the sense o’ your actin’ the fool so, mother? Why, if I’d ’a’ set

myself up as bein’ too virtjus to speak to ’er ev’ry man in town ’u’d ’a’

be’n blagg’ardin’ me about bein’ so mighty good!”

“Why _sh’u’dn’t_ you be so mighty good, father? You expect me to be, I

notice.”

Mr. Sybert choked two or three times. His face was growing purplish.

“Oh, _damn_!” he burst out. Then he looked frightened. “Now, see here,

mother! You’re aggravatin’ me awful. You know as well as me that men

ain’t expected to be as good all their lives as women”——

“Why ain’t they expected to?” Mrs. Sybert’s tone and look were stern.

“I don’t know why they ain’t, mother, but I know they _ain’t_ expected

to—an’ I know they ain’t as _good_, ’ither.” This last was a fine bit of

diplomacy. But it was wasted.

“They ain’t as good, aigh? Well, the reason they ain’t as good is just

because they ain’t expected to be! That’s just the reason. You can’t get

around that, can you, father?”

Evidently he could not.

“An’ now,” continued Mrs. Sybert, “that she’s up an’ married Mr. Nesley

an’ wants to live a right life, I’m a-goin’ to see her.”

“How d’you know she wants to live a right life?”

“I don’t know it, father. I just _reckon_ she does. When you wanted I

sh’u’d marry you, my father shook his head, an’ says—‘Lucindy, I do’ know

what to say. John’s be’n a mighty fast young fello’ to give a good girl

to fer the askin’,’ but I says—‘Well, father, I reckon he wants to start

in an’ live a right life now.’ An’ so I reckon that about Mis’ Nesley.”

“God A’mighty, mother!” exclaimed Mr. Sybert, violently. “That’s

diff’rent. Them things ain’t counted the same in men. Most all men

nowadays sow their wild oats an’ then settle down, an’ ain’t none the

worse for it. It just helps ’em to appreciate good women, an’ to make

good husbands.”

“Well, I reckon Mis’ Nesley knows how to appreciate a good man by this

time,” said Mrs. Sybert, with unintentional irony. “I reckon she’s got

all her wild oats sowed, an’ is ready to settle down an’ make a good

wife. So I’m goin’ to see ’er. Let me by, father. I’ve fooled a ha’f an

hour away now, when I’d ort to ’a’ be’n on the road there.”

“Now, see here, mother. You ain’t goin’ a step. The whole town’s excited

over a nice man like Mr. Nesley a-throwin’ hisself away on a no-account

woman like her, an’ you sha’n’t be seen a-goin’ there an’ upholdin’ her.”

Mrs. Sybert looked long and steadily into her husband’s eyes. It was

her policy to fight until she began to lose ground, and then to quietly

turn her forces to maneuvering. “I reckon,” she was now reflecting; “it’s

about time to begin maneuv’rin’.”

“Well, father,” she said, mildly; “I’ve made up my mind to go an’ see

Mis’ Nesley an’ encourage her same’s I w’u’d any man that wanted to live

better. An’ I’m a-goin’.”

“You _ain’t_ a-goin’!” thundered Mr. Sybert. “I forbid you to budge a

step! You sha’n’t disgrace yourself, Mrs. Sybert, if you do want to,

while you’re my wife!”

Mrs. Sybert untied her bonnet strings, and laid her bag on the foot of

the bed. “All right, father,” she said, “I won’t go till you tell me I

can. I always hev tried to do just as you wanted I sh’u’d.”

She went into another room to take off her best dress. Mr. Sybert stood

staring after her, speechless. He had the dazed look of a cat that

falls from a great height and alights, uninjured, upon its feet. The

maneuvering had commenced.

Mr. Sybert spent the afternoon at the postoffice grocery store. It was

a pleasant place to sit. There was always a cheerful fire in the rusty

box-stove in the back room, and there were barrels and odds and ends

of chairs scattered around, whereon men who had an hour to squander

might sit and talk over the latest scandal. Men, as it is well known,

are above the petty gossip as to servants and best gowns which women

enjoy; but, without scruple or conscience, they will talk away a woman’s

character, even when they see her struggling to live down a misfortune or

sin and begin a new life. There are many characters talked away in the

back rooms of grocery stores.

It was six o’clock when he went home. As he went along the narrow plank

walk, he thought of the good supper that would be awaiting him, and his

heart softened to “mother.”

“I reckon I was too set,” he reflected. “There ain’t many women as good

an’ faithful as mother. I don’t see what got it into her head to go to

see that Mis’ Nesley—an’ to talk up so to me. She never done that afore.”

The door was locked. In surprise he fumbled about in the dark for the

seventh flower-pot in the third row, where mother always hid the key.

Yes, it was there. But his knees shook a little as he entered the house.

He could not remember that he had ever found her absent at supper time

since the children were married. Some of the neighbors must be sick. In

that case she would have left a note; and he lighted the kitchen candle,

and searched for it. It was pinned to a cushion on the bureau in the

bedroom. The house was cold, but he did not wait to kindle a fire. He

sat down by the bureau, and with fingers somewhat clumsier than usual,

adjusted his spectacles over his high, thin nose. Then, leaning close to

the candle, he read the letter, the composition of which must have given

“mother” some anxious hours. It was written with painful precision.

“DEAR FATHER: You will find the coald meat in the safe out on

the back porch in the stun crock covered up with a pie pan. The

apple butter is in the big peory jar down in the seller with

a plate and napkeen tied over it. Put them back on when you

get some out so the ants wont get into. There’s a punkin pie

on the bottom shelf of the pantree to the right side of the

door as you go in, and some coffy in the mill all ground. I’m

offul sorry I hadent time to fix supper. I hev gone to Johns

and Marias to stay tell you come after me and I don’t want that

you shud come tell you change your mind bout Mis Nesley, if it

takes till dumesday to change it. I aint never gone against you

in anythin before, but I haf to this time. Im goin to stay at

Johns and Marias tell you come of yourself and get me. You dont

haf to say nothin before John and Maria except just well mother

Ive come after you. Then I’ll know you meen I can go and see

Mis Nesley.

“Well father I reckon youll be surprised but Ive been thinkin

bout that poor woman and us not givin her a chanse after what

Christ said bout castin the first stun. He didnt make no

difrence between mens and womens sins and I dont perpose to.

There aint a woman alive thats worse than haff the men are when

they conclud to settle down and live right and if you give men

a chanse youve got to give women a chanse too. They both got

soles an I reckon thats what Gods thinkin bout. I married you

and give you a chanse and I reckon youd best do as much fer Mis

Nesley.

“If you dont come fer me Ill live at Johns and Marias and I

want that you shud keep all the things but the hit and miss rag

carpet. I dont think I cud get along without that. Marias are

all wove in stripes and look so comon. And my cloze and one

fether bed and pillow. Well thats all.

“MOTHER.”

“I laid out your clean undercloze on the foot of the bed and

your sox with them.”

One fine afternoon the following week Mrs. Sybert, looking through the

geraniums in Maria’s kitchen window, saw her husband drive up to the

gate. She did not look surprised.

“Here’s father come to get me, Maria,” she said, lifting her voice.

Maria came out of the pantry with flour on her hands and arms and stood

waiting. Mr. Sybert came in, stamping, and holding his head high and

stiffly. He had a lofty and condescending air.

“Well, mother,” he said, “I’ve come after you.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Sybert, “set down till I get on my things. I’ve had

a right nice vis’t, but I’m glad to get home. Did you find the apple

butter?”

On the road home Mrs. Sybert talked cheerfully about John and Maria and

their domestic affairs. Mr. Sybert listened silently. He held his body

erect, looking neither to the right nor to the left. He did not speak

until they approached Mr. Nesley’s gate. Then he said, with firmness and

dignity:

“Mother, I’ve b’en thinkin’ that you’d best go an’ see Mis’ Nesley, after

all. I changed my mind down at the postoffice groc’ry store that same

afternoon an’ went home, meanin’ to tell you I wanted you sh’u’d go an’

see ’er—but you was gone to John’s an’ Maria’s. I reckon you’d best stop

right now an’ have it over.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Sybert.

She descended meekly over the front wheel. There was not the slightest

air of triumph about her until she got inside the gate. Then a smile went

slowly across her face. But her husband did not see it. He was looking

out of the corners of his eyes at the house across the road. Mrs. Deacon,

the druggist’s wife, and all her children had their faces flattened

against the window.

Mr. Sybert’s determination kept his head high, but not his spirit.

“God A’mighty!” he groaned. “The whole town’ll know it to-morrow. I’d

rather die than face that groc’ry store—after the way I’ve went on about

people upholdin’ of her!”

A POINT OF KNUCKLING-DOWN

A POINT OF KNUCKLING-DOWN

IN THREE PARTS

PART I

Emarine went along the narrow hall and passed through the open door.

There was something in her carriage that suggested stubbornness. Her

small body had a natural backward sway, and the decision with which she

set her heels upon the floor had long ago caused the readers of character

in the village to aver that “Emarine Endey was contrairier than any mule.”

She wore a brown dress, a gray shawl folded primly around her shoulders,

and a hat that tried in vain to make her small face plain. There was a

frill of white, cheap lace at her slender throat, fastened in front with

a cherry ribbon. Heavy gold earrings with long, shining pendants reached

almost to her shoulders. They quivered and glittered with every movement.

Emarine was pretty, in spite of many freckles and the tightness with

which she brushed her hair from her face and coiled it in a sleek knot at

the back of her head. “Now, be sure you get it just so slick, Emarine,”

her mother would say, watching her steadily while she combed and brushed

and twisted her long tresses.

As Emarine reached the door her mother followed her down the hall from

the kitchen. The house was old, and two or three loose pieces in the

flooring creaked as she stepped heavily upon them.

“Oh, say, Emarine!”

“Well?”

“You get an’ bring home a dollar’s worth o’ granylated sugar, will you?”

“Well.”

“An’ a box o’ ball bluin’. Mercy, child! Your dress-skirt sags awful in

the back. Why don’t you run a tuck in it?”

Emarine turned her head over her shoulder with a birdlike movement, and

bent backward, trying to see the offensive sag.

“Can’t you pin it up, maw?”

“Yes, I guess. Have you got a pin? Why, Emarine Endey! If ever I see in

all my born days! What are you a-doin’ with a red ribbon on you—an’ your

Uncle Herndon not cold in his grave yet! A fine spectickle you’d make o’

yourself, a-goin’ the length an’ the breadth o’ the town with that thing

a-flarin’ on you. You’ll disgrace this whole fambly yet! I have to keep

watch o’ you like a two-year-old baby. Now, you get an’ take it right

off o’ you; an’ don’t you let me ketch you a-puttin’ it on again till a

respectful time after he’s be’n dead. I never hear tell o’ such a thing.”

“I don’t see what a red ribbon’s got to do with Uncle Herndon’s bein’

dead,” said Emarine.

“Oh, you don’t, aigh? Well, _I_ see. You act as if you didn’t have no

feelin’.”

“Well, goin’ without a red ribbon won’t make me feel any worse, will it,

maw?”

“No, it won’t. Emarine, what does get into you to act so tantalizin’? I

guess it’ll look a little better. I guess the neighbors won’t talk quite

so much. You can see fer yourself how they talk about Mis’ Henspeter

because she wore a rose to church before her husband had be’n dead a

year. All she had to say fer herself was that she liked flowers, an’

didn’t sense it ’u’d be any disrespect to her husband to wear it—seein’s

he’d always liked ’em, too. They all showed her ’n a hurry what they

thought about it. She’s got narrow borders on all her han’kachers, too,

a’ready.”

“Why don’t you stay away from such people?” said Emarine. “Old gossips!

You know I don’t care what the neighbors say—or think, either.”

“Well, _I_ do. The land knows they talk a plenty even without givin’ ’em

anything to talk about. You get an’ take that red ribbon off o’ you.”

“Oh, I’ll take it off if you want I sh’u’d.” She unfastened it

deliberately and laid it on a little table. She had an exasperating air

of being unconvinced and of complying merely for the sake of peace.

She gathered her shawl about her shoulders and crossed the porch.

“Emarine!”

“Well?”

“Who’s that a-comin’ over the hill path? I can’t make out the dress. It

looks some like Mis’ Grandy, don’t it?”

Emarine turned her head. Her eyelids quivered closer together in an

effort to concentrate her vision on the approaching guest.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed her mother, in a subdued but irascible tone.

“There you go—a-lookin’ right square at her, when I didn’t want that she

sh’u’d know we saw her! It does seem to me sometimes, Emarine, that you

ain’t got good sense.”

“I’d just as soon she knew we saw her,” said Emarine, unmoved. “It’s Miss

Presly, maw.”

“Oh, land o’ goodness! That old sticktight? She’ll stay all day if she

stays a minute. Set an’ set! An’ there I’ve just got the washin’ all out

on the line, an’ she’ll tell the whole town we wear underclo’s made out

o’ unbleached muslin! Are you sure it’s her? It don’t look overly like

her shawl.”

“Yes, it’s her.”

“Well, go on an’ stop an’ talk to her, so ’s to give me a chance to red

up some. Don’t ferget the ball bluin’, Emarine.”

Emarine went down the path and met the visitor just between the two tall

lilac trees, whose buds were beginning to swell.

“Good mornin’, Miss Presly.”

“Why, good mornin’, Emarine. Z’ your maw to home?”

“Yes ’m.”

“I thought I’d run down an’ set a spell with her, an’ pass the news.”

Emarine smiled faintly and was silent.

“Ain’t you goin’ up town pretty early fer washday?”

“Yes ’m.”

“I see you hed a beau home from church las’ night.”

Emarine’s face flushed; even her ears grew rosy.

“Well, I guess he’s a reel nice young man, anyways, Emarine. You needn’t

to blush so. Mis’ Grandy was a-sayin’ she thought you’d done offul well

to git him. He owns the house an’ lot they live in, an’ he’s got five

hunderd dollars in the bank. I reckon he’ll have to live with the ol’

lady, though, when he gits married. They do say she’s turrable hard to

suit.”

Emarine lifted her chin. The gold pendants glittered like diamonds.

“It don’t make any difference to me whuther she’s hard to suit or easy,”

she said. “I’ll have to be goin’ on now. Just knock at the front door,

Miss Presly.”

“Oh, I can go right around to the back, just as well, an’ save your maw

the trouble o’ comin’ to the door. If she’s got her washin’ out, I can

stoop right under the clo’s line.”

“Well, we like to have our comp’ny come to the front door,” said Emarine,

dryly.

It was a beautiful morning in early spring. The alders and the maples

along the hill were wrapped in reddish mist. The saps were mounting

through delicate veins. Presently the mist would quicken to a pale

green as the young leaves unfolded, but as yet everything seemed to be

waiting. The brown earth had a fresh, woody smell that caused the heart

to thrill with a vague sense of ecstasy—of some delight deep hidden and

inexplicable. Pale lavender “spring beauties” stood shyly in groups or

alone, in sheltered places along the path. There was even, here and

there, a trillium—or white lily, as the children called it—shivering on

its slender stem. There were old stumps, too, hollowed out by long-spent

flames into rustic urns, now heaped to their ragged rims with velvet

moss. On a fence near a meadow-lark was pouring out its few, but full and

beautiful, notes of passion and desire. Emarine paused to listen. Her

heart vibrated with exquisite pain to the ravishment of regret in those

liquid tones.

“Sounds as if he was sayin’—‘_Sweet—oh—Sweet—my heart is breaking!_’” she

said; and then with a kind of shame of the sentiment in such a fancy, she

went on briskly over the hill. Her heels clicked sharply on the hard road.

Before she reached the long wooden stairs which led from the high plateau

down to the one street of Oregon City, Emarine passed through a beautiful

grove of firs and cedars. Already the firs were taking on their little

plushy tufts of pale green, and exuding a spicy fragrance. Occasionally

a last year’s cone drew itself loose and sunk noiselessly into a bed of

its own brown needles. A little way from the path a woodpecker clung to

a tree, hammering into the tough bark with its long beak. As Emarine

approached, it flew heavily away, the undersides of its wings flashing a

scarlet streak along the air.

As her eyes ceased following its flight, she became aware that some one

was standing in the path, waiting. A deep, self-conscious blush swept

over her face and throat. “Emarine never does anything up by halves,”

her mother was wont to declare. “When she blushes, she _blushes_!”

She stepped slowly toward him with a sudden stiff awkwardness.

“Oh—you, is it, Mr. Parmer?” she said, with an admirable attempt—but an

attempt only—at indifference.

“Yes, it’s me,” said the young fellow, with an embarrassed laugh. With a

clumsy shuffle he took step with her. Both faces were flaming. Emarine

could not lift her eyes from their contemplation of the dead leaves in

her path—yet she passed a whole company of “spring beauties” playing

hide-and-seek around a stump, without seeing them. Her pulses seemed

full of little hammers, beating away mercilessly. Her fingers fumbled

nervously with the fringes on her shawl.

“Don’t choo want I sh’u’d pack your umberell fer yuh?” asked the young

man, solemnly.

“Why—yes, if you want.”

It was a faded thing she held toward him, done up rather baggily, too;

but he received it as reverently as if it had been a twenty-dollar silk

one with a gold handle.

“Does your mother know I kep’ yuh comp’ny home from church last night?”

“Unh-hunh.”

“What ’id she say?”

“She didn’t say much.”

“Well, what?”

“Oh, not much.” Emarine was rapidly recovering her self-possession. “I

went right in an’ up an’ told her.”

“Well, why can’t choo tell me what she said? Emarine, yuh can be the

contrairiest girl when yuh want.”

“Can I?” She flashed a coquettish glance at him. She was quite at her

ease by this time, although the color was still burning deep in her

cheeks. “I sh’u’dn’t think you’d waste so much time on contrairy people,

Mr. Parmer.”

“Oh, Emarine, go on an’ tell me!”

“Well”—Emarine laughed mirthfully—“she put the backs of her hands on

her hips—this way!” She faced him suddenly, setting her arms akimbo,

the shawl’s fringes quivering over her elbows; her eyes fairly danced

into his. “An’ she looked at me a long time; then she says—‘Hunh!

_You—leetle—heifer!_ You think you’re some pun’kins, don’t you? A-havin’

a beau home from meetin’.”

Both laughed hilariously.

“Well, what else ’id she say?”

“I don’t believe you want to know. Do you—sure?”

“I cross my heart.”

“Well—she said it c’u’dn’t happen more’n ev’ry once ’n so often.”

“Pshaw!”

“She did.”

The young man paused abruptly. A narrow, unfrequented path led through

deeper woods to the right.

“Emarine, let’s take this catecornered cut through here.”

“Oh, I’m afraid it’s longer—an’ it’s washday, you know,” said Emarine,

with feeble resistance.

“We’ll walk right fast. Come on. George! But it’s nice and sweet in here,

though!”

They entered the path. It was narrow and the great trees bent over and

touched above them.

There was a kind of soft lavender twilight falling upon them. It was very

still, save for the fluttering of invisible wings and the occasional

shrill scream of a blue-jay.

“It _is_ sweet in here,” said Emarine.

The young man turned quickly, and with a deep, asking look into her

lifted eyes, put his arms about her and drew her to him. “Emarine,” he

said, with passionate tenderness. And then he was silent, and just stood

holding her crushed against him, and looking down on her with his very

soul in his eyes. Oh, but a man who refrains from much speech in such an

hour has wisdom straight from the gods themselves!

After a long silence Emarine lifted her head and smiled trustfully into

his eyes. “It’s washday,” she said, with a flash of humor.

“So it is,” he answered her, heartily. “An’ I promised yuh we’d hurry

up—an’ I alwus keep my promises. But first—Emarine—”

“Well?”

“Yuh must say somethin’ first.”

“Say what, Mr. Parmer?”

“‘_Mr. Parmer!_’” His tone and his look were reproachful. “Can’t choo say

Orville?”

“Oh, I can—if you want I sh’u’d.”

“Well, I do want choo sh’u’d, Emarine. Now, yuh know what else it is I

want choo sh’u’d say before we go on.”

“Why, no, I don’t—hunh-unh.” She shook her head, coquettishly.

“Emarine”—the young fellow’s face took on a sudden seriousness—“I want

choo to say yuh’ll marry me.”

“Oh, my, no!” cried Emarine. She turned her head on one side, like a

bird, and looked at him with lifted brows and surprised eyes. One would

have imagined that such a thought had never entered that pretty head

before.

“What, Emarine! Yuh won’t?” There was consternation in his voice.

“Oh, my, no!” Both glance and movement were full of coquettishness. The

very fringes of the demure gray shawl seemed to have taken on new life

and vivacity.

Orville Palmer’s face turned pale and stern. He drew a long breath

silently, not once removing that searching look from her face.

“Well, then,” he said, calmly, “I want to know what choo mean by up an’

lettin’ me kiss yuh—if yuh don’t mean to marry me.”

This was an instant quietus to the girl’s coquetry. She gave him a

startled glance. A splash of scarlet came into each cheek. For a moment

there was utter silence. Then she made a soft feint of withdrawing from

his arms. To her evident amazement, he made no attempt to detain her.

This placed her in an awkward dilemma, and she stood irresolutely, with

her eyes cast down.

Young Palmer’s arms fell at his sides with a movement of despair.

Sometimes they were ungainly arms, but now absence of self-consciousness

lent them a manly grace.

“Well, Emarine,” he said, kindly, “I’ll go back the way I come. Goodby.”

With a quick, spontaneous burst of passion—against which she had been

struggling, and which was girlish and innocent enough to carry a man’s

soul with it into heaven—Emarine cast herself upon his breast and flung

her shawl-entangled arms about his shoulders. Her eyes were earnest and

pleading, and there were tears of repentance in them. With a modesty

that was enchanting she set her warm, sweet lips tremblingly to his, of

her own free will.

“I didn’t mean it,” she whispered. “I was only a—a-foolin’.”

* * * * *

The year was older by a month when one morning Mrs. Endey went to the

front door and stood with her body swaying backward, and one rough hand

roofing the rich light from her eyes.

“Emarine ’ad ought to ’a’ got to the hill path by this time,” she said,

in a grumbling tone. “It beats me what keeps her so! I reckon she’s

a-standin’ like a bump on a lawg, watchin’ a red ant or a tumble-bug, or

some fool thing! She’d leave her dish-washin’ any time an’ stand at the

door a-ketchin’ cold in her bare arms, with the suds a-drippin’ all over

her apron an’ the floor—a-listenin’ to one o’ them silly meadow-larks

hollerin’ the same noise over ’n over. Her paw’s women-folks are all just

such fools.”

She started guiltily and lowered her eyes to the gate which had clicked

sharply.

“Oh!” she said. “That you, Emarine?” She laughed rather foolishly. “I was

lookin’ right over you—lookin’ _fer_ you, too. Miss Presly’s be’n here,

an’ of all the strings she had to tell! Why, fer pity’s sake! Is that a

dollar’s worth o’ coffee?”

“Yes, it is; an’ I guess it’s full weight, too, from the way my arm

feels! It’s just about broke.”

“Well, give it to me, an’ come on out in the kitching. I’ve got somethin’

to tell you.”

Emarine followed slowly, pinning a spray of lilac bloom in her bosom as

she went.

“Emarine, where’s that spring balance at? I’m goin’ to weigh this coffee.

If it’s one grain short, I’ll send it back a-flyin’. I’ll show ’em they

can’t cheat this old hen!”

She slipped the hook under the string and lifted the coffee cautiously

until the balance was level with her eyes. Then standing well back on her

heels and drawing funny little wrinkles up around her mouth and eyes, she

studied the figures earnestly, counting the pounds and the half-pounds

down from the top. Finally she lowered it with a disappointed air.

“Well,” she said, reluctantly, “it’s just it—just to a ’t.’ They’d ought

to make it a leetle over, though, to allow fer the paper bag. Get the

coffee-canister, Emarine.”

When the coffee had all been jiggled through a tin funnel into the

canister, Mrs. Endey sat down stiffly and began polishing the funnel

with a cloth. From time to time she glanced at Emarine with a kind of

deprecatory mystery. At last she said—“Miss Presly spent the day down’t

Mis’ Parmer’s yesterday.”

“Did she?” said Emarine, coldly; but the color came into her cheeks.

“Shall I go on with the puddin’?”

“Why, you can if you want. She told me some things I don’t like.”

Emarine shattered an egg-shell on the side of a bowl and released the

gold heart within.

“Miss Presly says once Mis’ Parmer had to go out an’ gether the eggs an’

shet up the chickens, so Miss Presly didn’t think there’d be any harm in

just lookin’ into the drawers an’ things to see what she had. She says

she’s awful short on table cloths—only got three to her name! An’ only

six napkeens, an’ them coarse ’s anything! When Mis’ Parmer come back in,

Miss Presly talked around a little, then she says—‘I s’pose you’re one o’

them spic an’ span kind, Mis’ Parmer, that alwus has a lot o’ extry table

cloths put away in lavender.’”

Emarine set the egg-beater into the bowl and began turning it slowly.

“Mis’ Parmer got mighty red all of a sudden; but she says right out—‘No,

I’m a-gettin’ reel short on table cloths an’ things, Miss Presly, but

I ain’t goin’ to replenish. Orville’s thinkin’ o’ gettin’ married this

year, an’ I guess Emarine’ll have a lot o’ extry things.’ An’ then she

ups an’ laughs an’ says—‘I’ll let her stock up the house, seein’s she’s

so anxious to get into it.’”

Emarine had turned pale. The egg-beater fairly flew round and round. A

little of the golden foam slipped over the edge of the bowl and slid down

to the white table.

“Miss Presly thinks a good deal o’ you, Emarine, so that got her spunk

up; an’ she just told Mis’ Parmer she didn’t believe you was dyin’ to go

there an’ stock up her drawers fer her. Says she—‘I don’t think young

people ’ad ought to live with mother-in-laws, any way.’ Said she thought

she’d let Mis’ Parmer put that in her pipe an’ smoke it when she got

time.”

There was a pulse in each side of Emarine’s throat beating hard and full.

Little blue, throbbing cords stood out in her temples. She went on mixing

the pudding mechanically.

“Then Mis’ Parmer just up an’ said with a tantalizin’ laugh that if

you didn’t like the a-commodations at her house, you needn’t to come

there. Said she never did like you, anyways, ner anybody else that set

their heels down the way you set your’n. Said she’d had it all out

with Orville, an’ he’d promised her faithful that if there was any

knucklin’-down to be done, you’d be the one to do it, an’ not her!”

Emarine turned and looked at her mother. Her face was white with

controlled passion. Her eyes burned. But her voice was quiet when she

spoke.

“I guess you’d best move your chair,” she said, “so ’s I can get to the

oven. This puddin’ ’s all ready to go in.”

When she had put the pudding in the oven she moved about briskly,

clearing the things off the table and washing them. She held her chin

high. There was no doubt now about the click of her heels; it was ominous.

“I won’t marry him!” she cried at last, flinging the words out. “He can

have his mother an’ his wore-out table cloths!” Her voice shook. The

muscles around her mouth were twitching.

“My mercy!” cried her mother. She had a frightened look. “Who cares what

his mother says? I w’u’dn’t go to bitin’ off my nose to spite my face, if

I was you!”

“Well, I care what he says. I’ll see myself knucklin’-down to a

mother-in-law!”

“Well, now, don’t go an’ let loose of your temper, or you’ll be sorry fer

it. You’re alwus mighty ready a-tellin’ me not to mind what folks say,

an’ to keep away from the old gossips.”

“Well, you told me yourself, didn’t you? I can’t keep away from my own

mother very well, can I?”

“Well, now, don’t flare up so! You’re worse ’n karosene with a match set

to it.”

“What ’id you tell me for, if you didn’t want I sh’u’d flare up?”

“Why, I thought it ’u’d just put you on your mettle an’ show her she

c’u’dn’t come it over you.” Then she added, diplomatically changing her

tone as well as the subject—“Oh, say, Emarine, I wish you’d go up in the

antic an’ bring down a bunch o’ pennyrile. I’ll watch the puddin’.”

She laughed with dry humor when the girl was gone. “I got into a pickle

that time. Who ever ’d ’a’ thought she’d get stirred up so? I’ll have to

manage to get her cooled down before Orville comes to-night. They ain’t

many matches like him, if his mother _is_ such an old scarecrow. He ain’t

so well off, but he’ll humor Emarine up. He’d lay down an’ let her walk

on him, I guess. There’s Mis’ Grisley b’en a-tryin’ fer months to get

him to go with her Lily—_Lily_, with a complexion like sole-leather!—an’

a-askin’ him up there all the time to dinner, an’ a-flatterin’ him up to

the skies. I’d like to know what they always name dark-complected babies

Lily fer! Oh, did you get the pennyrile, Emarine? I was laughin’ to

myself, a-wond’rin’ what Mis’ Grisley’s Lily’ll say when she hears you’re

goin’ to marry Orville.”

Emarine hung a spotless dish-cloth on two nails behind the stove, but did

not speak.

Mrs. Endey turned her back to the girl and smiled humorously.

“That didn’t work,” she thought. “I’ll have to try somethin’ else.”

“I’ve made up my mind to get you a second-day dress, too, Emarine. You

can have it any color you want—dove-color ’d be awful nice. There’s a

hat down at Mis’ Norton’s milliner’ store that ’u’d go beautiful with

dove-color.”

Emarine took some flat-irons off the stove, wiped them carefully with a

soft cloth and set them evenly on a shelf. Still she did not speak. Mrs.

Endey’s face took on an anxious look.

“There’s some beautiful artaficial orange flowers at Mis’ Norton’s,

Emarine. You can be married in ’em, if you want. They’re so reel they

almost smell sweet.”

She waited a moment, but receiving no reply, she added with a kind of

desperation—“An’ a veil, Emarine—a long, white one a-flowin’ down all

over you to your feet—one that ’u’d just make Mis’ Grisley’s Lily’s mouth

water. What do you say to that? You can have that, too, if you want.”

“Well, I don’t want!” said Emarine, fiercely. “Didn’t I say I wa’n’t

goin’ to marry him? I’ll give him his walking-chalk when he comes

to-night. I don’t need any help about it, either.”

She went out, closing the door as an exclamation point.

Oregon City kept early hours. The curfew ringing at nine o’clock on

summer evenings gathered the tender-aged of both sexes off the street.

It was barely seven o’clock when Orville Palmer came to take Emarine out

for a drive. He had a high top-buggy, rather the worse for wear, and

drove a sad-eyed, sorrel horse.

She was usually ready to come tripping down the path, to save his tying

the horse. To-night she did not come. He waited a while. Then he whistled

and called—“Oh, Emarine!”

He pushed his hat back and leaned one elbow on his knee, flicking his

whip up and down, and looking steadily at the open door. But she did not

come. Finally he got out and, tying his horse, went up the path slowly.

Through the door he could see Emarine sitting quietly sewing. He observed

at once that she was pale.

“Sick, Emarine?” he said, going in.

“No,” she answered, “I ain’t sick.”

“Then why under the sun didn’t choo come when I hollowed?”

“I didn’t want to.” Her tone was icy.

He stared at her a full minute. Then he burst out laughing. “Oh, say,

Emarine, yuh can be the contrariest girl I ever see! Yuh do love to tease

a fellow so. Yuh’ll have to kiss me fer that.”

He went toward her. She pushed her chair back and gave him a look that

made him pause.

“How’s your mother?” she asked.

“My mother?” A cold chill went up and down his spine. “Why—oh, she’s all

right. Why?”

She took a small gold ring set with a circle of garnets from her finger

and held it toward him with a steady hand.

“You can take an’ show her this ring, an’ tell her I ain’t so awful

anxious to stock her up on table cloths an’ napkeens as she thinks I am.

Tell her yuh’ll get some other girl to do her knucklin’-down fer her. I

ain’t that kind.”

The young man’s face grew scarlet and then paled off rapidly. He looked

like a man accused of a crime. “Why, Emarine,” he said, feebly.

He did not receive the ring, and she threw it on the floor at his feet.

A whole month she had slept with that ring against her lips—the bond of

her love and his! Now, it was only the emblem of her “knuckling-down” to

another woman.

“You needn’t to stand there a-pretendin’ you don’t know what I mean.”

“Well, I don’t, Emarine.”

“Yes, you do, too. Didn’t you promise your mother that if there was any

knucklin’-down to be did, I’d be the one to do it, an’ not her?”

“Why—er—Emarine—”

She laughed scornfully.

“Don’t go to tryin’ to get out of it. You know you did. Well, you can

take your ring, an’ your mother, an’ all her old duds. I don’t want any

o’ you.”

“Emarine,” said the young man, looking guilty and honest at the same

time, “the talk I had with my mother didn’t amount to a pinch o’ snuff.

It wa’n’t anything to make yuh act this way. She don’t like yuh just

because I’m goin’ to marry yuh”—

“Oh, but you ain’t,” interrupted Emarine, with an aggravating laugh.

“Yes, I am, too. She kep’ naggin’ at me day an’ night fer fear yuh’d be

sassy to her an’ she’d have to take a back seat.”

“I’ll tell you what’s the matter with her!” interrupted Emarine. “She’s

got the big-head. She thinks ev’ry body wants to rush into her old house,

an’ marry her son, an’ use her old things! She wants to make ev’rybody

toe _her_ mark.”

“Emarine! She’s my mother.”

“I don’t care if she is. I w’u’dn’t tech her with a ten-foot pole.”

“She’ll be all right after we’re married, Emarine, an’ she finds out

how—how nice yuh are.”

His own words appealed to his sense of the ridiculous. He smiled. Emarine

divined the cause of his reluctant amusement and was instantly furious.

Her face turned very white. Her eyes burned out of it like two fires.

“You think I ain’t actin’ very nice now, don’t you? I don’t care what you

think, Orville Parmer, good or bad.”

The young man stood thinking seriously.

“Emarine,” he said, at last, very quietly, “I love yuh an’ yuh know

it. An’ yuh love me. I’ll alwus be good to yuh an’ see that choo ain’t

emposed upon, Emarine. An’ I think the world an’ all of yuh. That’s all

I got to say. I can’t see what ails yuh, Emarine.... When I think o’

that day when I asked yuh to marry me.... An’ that night I give yuh the

ring”—the girl’s eyelids quivered suddenly and fell. “An’ that moonlight

walk we took along by the falls.... Why, it seems as if this can’t be the

same girl.”

There was such a long silence that Mrs. Endey, cramping her back with

one ear pressed to the keyhole of the door, decided that he had won and

smiled dryly.

At last Emarine lifted her head. She looked at him steadily. “Did you, or

didn’t you, tell your mother I’d have to do the knucklin’-down?”

He shuffled his feet about a little.

“Well, I guess I did, Emarine, but I didn’t mean anything. I just did it

to get a little peace.”

The poor fellow had floundered upon an unfortunate excuse.

“Oh!” said the girl, contemptuously. Her lip curled. “An’ so you come an’

tell me the same thing for the same reason—just to get a little peace! A

pretty time you’d have a-gettin’ any peace at all, between the two of us!

You’re chickenish—an’ I hate chickenish people.”

“Emarine!”

“Oh, I wish you’d go.” There was an almost desperate weariness in her

voice.

He picked up the ring with its shining garnet stars, and went.

Mrs. Endey tiptoed into the kitchen.

“My back’s about broke.” She laughed noiselessly. “I swan I’m proud o’

that girl. She’s got more o’ me in her ’n I give her credit fer. The

idee o’ her a-callin’ him chickenish right out to his face! That done me

good. Well, I don’t care such an awful lot if she don’t marry him. A girl

with that much spunk deserves a _gov’nor_! An’ that mother o’ his’n ’s a

case. I guess her an’ me ’d ’a’ fit like cats an’ dogs, anyhow.” Her lips

unclosed with reluctant mirth.

* * * * *

The next morning Emarine arose and went about her work as usual. She had

not slept. But there were no signs of relenting, or of regret, in her

face. After the first surreptitious look at her, Mrs. Endey concluded

that it was all settled unchangeably. Her aspiring mind climbed from a

governor to a United States senator. There was nothing impossible to a

girl who could break her own heart at night and go about the next morning

setting her heels down the way Emarine was setting hers.

Mrs. Endey’s heart swelled with triumph.

Emarine washed the dishes and swept the kitchen. Then she went out

to sweep the porch. Suddenly she paused. A storm of lyric passion

had burst upon her ear; and running through it she heard the

words—“_Sweet—oh—Sweet—my heart is breaking!_”

The girl trembled. Something stung her eyes sharply.

Then she pulled herself together stubbornly. Her face hardened. She went

on sweeping with more determined care than usual.

“Well, I reckon,” she said, with a kind of fierce philosophy, “it ’u’d

’a’ been breaking a good sight worse if I’d ’a’ married him an’ that

mother o’ his’n. That’s some comfort.”

But when she went in she closed the door carefully, shutting out that

impassioned voice.