It was the day before Christmas—an Oregon Christmas. It had rained
mistily at dawn; but at ten o’clock the clouds had parted and moved away
reluctantly. There was a blue and dazzling sky overhead. The rain-drops
still sparkled on the windows and on the green grass, and the last roses
and chrysanthemums hung their beautiful heads heavily beneath them; but
there was to be no more rain. Oregon City’s mighty barometer—the Falls of
the Willamette—was declaring to her people by her softened roar that the
morrow was to be fair.
Mrs. Orville Palmer was in the large kitchen making preparations for the
Christmas dinner. She was a picture of dainty loveliness in a lavender
gingham dress, made with a full skirt and a shirred waist and big
leg-o’-mutton sleeves. A white apron was tied neatly around her waist.
Her husband came in, and paused to put his arm around her and kiss her.
She was stirring something on the stove, holding her dress aside with one
hand.
“It’s goin’ to be a fine Christmas, Emarine,” he said, and sighed
unconsciously. There was a wistful and careworn look on his face.
“Beautiful!” said Emarine, vivaciously. “Goin’ down-town, Orville?”
“Yes. Want anything?”
“Why, the cranberries ain’t come yet. I’m so uneasy about ’em. They’d
ought to ’a’ b’en stooed long ago. I like ’em cooked down an’ strained to
a jell. I don’t see what ails them groc’rymen! Sh’u’d think they c’u’d
get around some time before doomsday! Then, I want—here, you’d best set
it down.” She took a pencil and a slip of paper from a shelf over the
table and gave them to him. “Now, let me see.” She commenced stirring
again, with two little wrinkles between her brows. “A ha’f a pound o’
citron; a ha’f a pound o’ candied peel; two pounds o’ cur’nts; two
pounds o’ raisins—git ’em stunned, Orville; a pound o’ sooet—make ’em
give you some that ain’t all strings! A box o’ Norther’ Spy apples; a
ha’f a dozen lemons; four-bits’ worth o’ walnuts or a’monds, whichever’s
freshest; a pint o’ Puget Sound oysters fer the dressin’, an’ a bunch o’
cel’ry. You stop by an’ see about the turkey, Orville; an’ I wish you’d
run in ’s you go by mother’s an’ tell her to come up as soon as she can.
She’d ought to be here now.”
Her husband smiled as he finished the list. “You’re a wonderful
housekeeper, Emarine,” he said.
Then his face grew grave. “Got a present fer your mother yet, Emarine?”
“Oh, yes, long ago. I got ’er a black shawl down t’ Charman’s. She’s b’en
wantin’ one.”
He shuffled his feet about a little. “Unh-hunh. Yuh—that is—I reckon yuh
ain’t picked out any present fer—fer my mother, have yuh, Emarine?”
“No,” she replied, with cold distinctness. “I ain’t.”
There was a silence. Emarine stirred briskly. The lines grew deeper
between her brows. Two red spots came into her cheeks. “I hope the rain
ain’t spoilt the chrysyanthums,” she said then, with an air of ridding
herself of a disagreeable subject.
Orville made no answer. He moved his feet again uneasily. Presently he
said: “I expect my mother needs a black shawl, too. Seemed to me her’n
looked kind o’ rusty at church Sunday. Notice it, Emarine?”
“No,” said Emarine.
“Seemed to me she was gittin’ to look offul old. Emarine”—his voice
broke; he came a step nearer—“it’ll be the first Christmas dinner I ever
eat without my mother.”
She drew back and looked at him. He knew the look that flashed into her
eyes, and shrank from it.
“You don’t have to eat this ’n’ without ’er, Orville Parmer! You go an’
eat your dinner with your mother, ’f you want! I can get along alone. Are
you goin’ to order them things? If you ain’t, just say so, an’ I’ll go
an’ do ’t myself!”
He put on his hat and went without a word.
Mrs. Palmer took the saucepan from the stove and set it on the hearth.
Then she sat down and leaned her cheek in the palm of her hand, and
looked steadily out of the window. Her eyelids trembled closer together.
Her eyes held a far-sighted look. She saw a picture; but it was not the
picture of the blue reaches of sky, and the green valley cleft by its
silver-blue river. She saw a kitchen, shabby, compared to her own,
scantily furnished, and in it an old, white-haired woman sitting down to
eat her Christmas dinner alone.
After a while she arose with an impatient sigh. “Well, I can’t help it!”
she exclaimed. “If I knuckled-down to her this time, I’d have to do ’t
ag’in. She might just as well get ust to ’t, first as last. I wish she
hadn’t got to lookin’ so old an’ pitiful, though, a-settin’ there in
front o’ us in church Sunday after Sunday. The cords stand out in her
neck like well-rope, an’ her chin keeps a-quiv’rin’ so I can see Orville
a-watchin’ her——”
The door opened suddenly and her mother entered. She was bristling with
curiosity. “Say, Emarine!” She lowered her voice, although there was no
one to hear. “Where d’ you s’pose the undertaker’s a-goin’ up by here?
Have you hear of anybody——”
“No,” said Emarine. “Did Orville stop by an’ tell you to hurry up?”
“Yes. What’s the matter of him? Is he sick?”
“Not as I know of. Why?”
“He looks so. Oh, I wonder if it’s one o’ the Peterson childern where the
undertaker’s a-goin’! They’ve all got the quinsy sore throat.”
“How does he look? I don’t see ’s he looks so turrable.”
“Why, Emarine Parmer! Ev’rybody in town says he looks _so_! I only hope
they don’t know what ails him!”
“What _does_ ail him?” cried out Emarine, fiercely. “What are you hintin’
at?”
“Well, if you don’t know what ails him, you’d ort to; so I’ll tell you.
He’s dyin’ by inches ever sence you turned his mother out o’ doors.”
Emarine turned white. Sheet lightning played in her eyes.
“Oh, you’d ought to talk about my turnin’ her out!” she burst out,
furiously. “After you a-settin’ here a-quar’l’n’ with her in this very
kitchen, an’ eggin’ me on! Wa’n’t she goin’ to turn you out o’ your own
daughter’s home? Wa’n’t that what I turned her out fer? I didn’t turn her
out, anyhow! I only told Orville this house wa’n’t big enough fer his
mother an’ me, an’ that neither o’ us ’u’d knuckle-down, so he’d best
take his choice. You’d ought to talk!”
“Well, if I egged you on, I’m sorry fer ’t,” said Mrs. Endey, solemnly.
“Ever sence that fit o’ sickness I had a month ago, I’ve feel kind o’ old
an’ no account myself, as if I’d like to let all holts go, an’ just rest.
I don’t spunk up like I ust to. No, he didn’t go to Peterson’s—he’s gawn
right on. My land! I wonder ’f it ain’t old gran’ma Eliot; she had a bad
spell—no, he didn’t turn that corner. I can’t think where he’s goin’ to!”
She sat down with a sigh of defeat.
A smile glimmered palely across Emarine’s face and was gone. “Maybe if
you’d go up in the antic you could see better,” she suggested, dryly.
“Oh, Emarine, here comes old gran’ma Eliot herself! Run an’ open the door
fer ’er. She’s limpin’ worse ’n usual.”
Emarine flew to the door. Grandma Eliot was one of the few people she
loved. She was large and motherly. She wore a black dress and shawl and a
funny bonnet, with a frill of white lace around her brow.
Emarine’s face softened when she kissed her. “I’m so glad to see you,”
she said, and her voice was tender.
Even Mrs. Endey’s face underwent a change. Usually it wore a look of
doubt, if not of positive suspicion, but now it fairly beamed. She shook
hands cordially with the guest and led her to a comfortable chair.
“I know your rheumatiz is worse,” she said, cheerfully, “because you’re
limpin’ so. Oh, did you see the undertaker go up by here? We can’t think
where he’s goin’ to. D’ you happen to know?”
“No, I don’t; an’ I don’t want to, neither.” Mrs. Eliot laughed
comfortably. “Mis’ Endey, you don’t ketch me foolin’ with undertakers
till I have to.” She sat down and removed her black cotton gloves. “I’m
gettin’ to that age when I don’t care much where undertakers go to so
long ’s they let _me_ alone. Fixin’ fer Christmas dinner, Emarine dear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Emarine in her very gentlest tone. Her mother had
never said “dear” to her, and the sound of it on this old lady’s lips was
sweet. “Won’t you come an’ take dinner with us?”
The old lady laughed merrily. “Oh, dearie me, dearie me! You don’t guess
my son’s folks could spare me now, do you? I spend ev’ry Christmas there.
They most carry me on two chips. My son’s wife, Sidonie, she nearly runs
her feet off waitin’ on me. She can’t do enough fer me. My, Mrs. Endey,
you don’t know what a comfort a daughter-in-law is when you get old an’
feeble!”
Emarine’s face turned red. She went to the table and stood with her back
to the older woman; but her mother’s sharp eyes observed that her ears
grew scarlet.
“An’ I never will,” said Mrs. Endey, grimly.
“You’ve got a son-in-law, though, who’s worth a whole townful of most
son-in-laws. He was such a good son, too; jest worshipped his mother;
couldn’t bear her out o’ his sight. He humored her high an’ low. That’s
jest the way Sidonie does with me. I’m gettin’ cranky ’s I get older, an’
sometimes I’m reel cross an’ sassy to her; but she jest laffs at me, an’
then comes an’ kisses me, an’ I’m all right ag’in. It’s a blessin’ right
from God to have a daughter-in-law like that.”
The knife in Emarine’s hand slipped, and she uttered a little cry.
“Hurt you?” demanded her mother, sternly.
Emarine was silent, and did not turn.
“Cut you, Emarine? Why don’t you answer me? Aigh?”
“A little,” said Emarine. She went into the pantry, and presently
returned with a narrow strip of muslin which she wound around her finger.
“Well, I never see! You never will learn any gumption! Why don’t you look
what you’re about? Now, go around Christmas with your finger all tied up!”
“Oh, that’ll be all right by to-morrow,” said Mrs. Eliot, cheerfully.
“Won’t it, Emarine? Never cry over spilt milk, Mrs. Endey; it makes a
body get wrinkles too fast. O’ course Orville’s mother’s comin’ to take
dinner’ with you, Emarine.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Emarine, in a sudden flutter. “I don’t see why them
cranberries don’t come! I told Orville to hurry ’em up. I’d best make
the floatin’ island while I wait.”
“I stopped at Orville’s mother’s as I came along.”
“How?” Emarine turned in a startled way from the table.
“I say, I stopped at Orville’s mother’s as I come along, Emarine.”
“Oh!”
“She well?” asked Mrs. Endey.
“No, she ain’t; shakin’ like she had the Saint Vitus dance. She’s failed
harrable lately. She’d b’en cryin’; her eyes was all swelled up.”
There was quite a silence. Then Mrs. Endey said—“What she b’en cryin’
about?”
“Why, when I asked her she jest laffed kind o’ pitiful, an’ said: ‘Oh,
only my tomfoolishness, o’ course.’ Said she always got to thinkin’ about
other Christmases. But I cheered her up. I told her what a good time I
always had at my son’s, and how Sidonie jest couldn’t do enough fer me.
An’ I told her to think what a nice time she’d have here ’t Emarine’s
to-morrow.”
Mrs. Endey smiled. “What she say to that?”
“She didn’t say much. I could see she was thankful, though, she had a
son’s to go to. She said she pitied all poor wretches that had to set
out their Christmas alone. Poor old lady! she ain’t got much spunk left.
She’s all broke down. But I cheered her up some. Sech a _wishful_ look
took holt o’ her when I pictchered her dinner over here at Emarine’s. I
can’t seem to forget it. Goodness! I must go. I’m on my way to Sidonie’s,
an’ she’ll be comin’ after me if I ain’t on time.”
When Mrs. Eliot had gone limping down the path, Mrs. Endey said: “You got
your front room red up, Emarine?”
“No; I ain’t had time to red up anything.”
“Well, I’ll do it. Where’s your duster at?”
“Behind the org’n. You can get out the wax cross again. Mis’ Dillon was
here with all her childern, an’ I had to hide up ev’rything. I never see
childern like her’n. She lets ’em handle things so!”
Mrs. Endey went into the “front room” and began to dust the organ.
She was something of a diplomat, and she wished to be alone for a few
minutes. “You have to manage Emarine by contrairies,” she reflected. It
did not occur to her that this was a family trait. “I’m offul sorry I
ever egged her on to turnin’ Orville’s mother out o’ doors, but who’d
’a’ thought it ’u’d break her down so? She ain’t told a soul either. I
reckoned she’d talk somethin’ offul about us, but she ain’t told a soul.
She’s kep’ a stiff upper lip an’ told folks she al’ays expected to live
alone when Orville got married. Emarine’s all worked up. I believe the
Lord hisself must ’a’ sent gran’ma Eliot here to talk like an angel
unawares. I bet she’d go an’ ask Mis’ Parmer over here to dinner if she
wa’n’t afraid I’d laff at her fer knucklin’-down. I’ll have to aggravate
her.”
She finished dusting, and returned to the kitchen. “I wonder what gran’ma
Eliot ’u’d say if she knew you’d turned Orville’s mother out, Emarine?”
There was no reply. Emarine was at the table mixing the plum pudding. Her
back was to her mother.
“I didn’t mean what I said about bein’ sorry I egged you on, Emarine. I’m
glad you turned her out. She’d _ort_ to be turned out.”
Emarine put a handful of floured raisins into the mixture and stirred it
all together briskly.
“Gran’ma Eliot can go talkin’ about her daughter-in-law Sidonie all she
wants, Emarine. You keep a stiff upper lip.”
“I can ’tend to my own affairs,” said Emarine, fiercely.
“Well, don’t flare up so. Here comes Orville. Land, but he does look
peakid!”
* * * * *
After supper, when her mother had gone home for the night, Emarine put on
her hat and shawl.
Her husband was sitting by the fireplace, looking thoughtfully at the bed
of coals.
“I’m goin’ out,” she said, briefly. “You keep the fire up.”
“Why, Emarine, its dark. Don’t choo want I sh’u’d go along?”
“No; you keep the fire up.”
He looked at her anxiously, but he knew from the way she set her heels
down that remonstrance would be useless.
“Don’t stay long,” he said, in a tone of habitual tenderness. He loved
her passionately, in spite of the lasting hurt she had given him when she
parted him from his mother. It was a hurt that had sunk deeper than even
he realized. It lay heavy on his heart day and night. It took the blue
out of the sky, and the green out of the grass, and the gold out of the
sunlight; it took the exaltation and the rapture out of his tenderest
moments of love.
He never reproached her, he never really blamed her; certainly he never
pitied himself. But he carried a heavy heart around with him, and his few
smiles were joyless things.
For the trouble he blamed only himself. He had promised Emarine solemnly
before he married her that if there were any “knuckling-down” to be
done, his mother should be the one to do it. He had made the promise
deliberately, and he could no more have broken it than he could have
changed the color of his eyes. When bitter feeling arises between two
relatives by marriage, it is the one who stands between them—the one who
is bound by the tenderest ties to both—who has the real suffering to
bear, who is torn and tortured until life holds nothing worth the having.
Orville Palmer was the one who stood between. He had built his own cross,
and he took it up and bore it without a word.
Emarine hurried through the early winter dark until she came to the
small and poor house where her husband’s mother lived. It was off the
main-traveled street.
There was a dim light in the kitchen; the curtain had not been drawn.
Emarine paused and looked in. The sash was lifted six inches, for the
night was warm, and the sound of voices came to her at once. Mrs. Palmer
had company.
“It’s Miss Presly,” said Emarine, resentfully, under her breath. “Old
gossip!”
“—goin’ to have a fine dinner, I hear,” Miss Presly was saying. “Turkey
with oyster dressin’, an’ cranberries, an’ mince an’ pun’kin pie, an’
reel plum puddin’ with brandy poured over ’t an’ set afire, an’ wine dip,
an’ nuts, an’ raisins, an’ wine itself to wind up on. Emarine’s a fine
cook. She knows how to get up a dinner that makes your mouth water to
think about. You goin’ to have a spread, Mis’ Parmer?”
“Not much of a one,” said Orville’s mother. “I expected to, but I
c’u’dn’t get them fall patatas sold off. I’ll have to keep ’em till
spring to git any kind o’ price. I don’t care much about Christmas,
though”—her chin was trembling, but she lifted it high. “It’s silly for
anybody but childern to build so much on Christmas.”
Emarine opened the door and walked in. Mrs. Palmer arose slowly, grasping
the back of her chair. “Orville’s dead?” she said, solemnly.
Emarine laughed, but there was the tenderness of near tears in her voice.
“Oh, my, no!” she said, sitting down. “I run over to ask you to come to
Christmas dinner. I was too busy all day to come sooner. I’m goin’ to
have a great dinner, an’ I’ve cooked ev’ry single thing of it myself! I
want to show you what a fine Christmas dinner your daughter-’n-law can
get up. Dinner’s at two, an’ I want you to come at eleven. Will you?”
Mrs. Palmer had sat down, weakly. Trembling was not the word to describe
the feeling that had taken possession of her. She was shivering. She
wanted to fall down on her knees and put her arms around her son’s wife,
and sob out all her loneliness and heartache. But life is a stage; and
Miss Presly was an audience not to be ignored. So Mrs. Palmer said:
“Well, I’ll be reel glad to come, Emarine. It’s offul kind o’ yuh to
think of ’t. It ’u’d ’a’ be’n lonesome eatin’ here all by myself, I
expect.”
Emarine stood up. Her heart was like a thistle-down. Her eyes were
shining. “All right,” she said; “an’ I want that you sh’u’d come just at
eleven. I must run right back now. Good-night.”
“Well, I declare!” said Miss Presly. “That girl gits prettier ev’ry day
o’ her life. Why, she just looked full o’ _glame_ to-night!”
* * * * *
Orville was not at home when his mother arrived in her rusty best dress
and shawl. Mrs. Endey saw her coming. She gasped out, “Why, good grieve!
Here’s Mis’ Parmer, Emarine!”
“Yes, I know,” said Emarine, calmly. “I ast her to dinner.”
She opened the door, and shook hands with her mother-in-law, giving her
mother a look of defiance that almost upset that lady’s gravity.
“You set right down, Mother Parmer, an’ let me take your things. Orville
don’t know you’re comin’, an’ I just want to see his face when he comes
in. Here’s a new black shawl fer your Christmas. I got mother one just
like it. See what nice long fringe it’s got. Oh, my, don’t go to cryin’!
Here comes Orville.”
She stepped aside quickly. When her husband entered his eyes fell
instantly on his mother, weeping childishly over the new shawl. She was
in the old splint rocking-chair with the high back. “_Mother!_” he cried;
then he gave a frightened, tortured glance at his wife. Emarine smiled at
him, but it was through tears.
“Emarine ast me, Orville—she ast me to dinner o’ herself! An’ she give me
this shawl. I’m—cryin’—fer—joy——”
“I ast her to dinner,” said Emarine, “but she ain’t ever goin’ back
again. She’s goin’ to _stay_. I expect we’ve both had enough of a lesson
to do us.”
Orville did not speak. He fell on his knees and laid his head, like a
boy, in his mother’s lap, and reached one strong but trembling arm up to
his wife’s waist, drawing her down to him.
Mrs. Endey got up and went to rattling things around on the table
vigorously. “Well, I never see sech a pack o’ loonatics!” she exclaimed.
“Go an’ burn all your Christmas dinner up, if I don’t look after
it! Turncoats! I expect they’ll both be fallin’ over theirselves to
knuckle-down to each other from now on! I never see!”
But there was something in her eyes, too, that made them beautiful.
THE CUTTIN’-OUT OF BART WINN
THE CUTTIN’-OUT OF BART WINN
“Lavin-ee!”
“Well?”
Mrs. Vaiden came to the foot of the stairs.
“You up there?” she said.
“Yes, maw. What you want?”
“Somebody’s comin’,” said Mrs. Vaiden, lowering her voice to a tone of
important mystery.
“I guess not here,” said Lavinia, lightly. She sat down on the top step
and smiled at her mother.
“Yes, it is here, too,” retorted Mrs. Vaiden, with some irritation. “If
you couldn’t conterdict a body ’t wouldn’t be you! You’re just like your
paw!” She paused, and then added: “It’s a man a-foot. He’s comin’ up the
path slow, a-stoppin’ to look at the flowers.”
“Maybe it’s the minister,” said the girl, still regarding her mother with
a good-natured, teasing smile.
“No, it ain’t the minister, either. As if I didn’t know the minister when
I see him! You do aggravate me so! It’s a young fello’, an’ he’s all
dressed up. You’ll have to go to the door.”
“Oh, maw!” cried Lavinia, reproachfully. “I just can’t! In this short
dress?”
She stood up, with a look of dismay, and began pulling nervously at her
fresh gingham skirt. It was short, showing very prettily-arched insteps
and delicate ankles.
“Well, you just can, an’ haf to,” said Mrs. Vaiden, shortly. “I’ve told
you often enough to put a ruffle on the bottom o’ that dress, an’ I’m
glad you’re caught. Mebbe you’ll do’s I tell you after this—”
She started guiltily as a loud rap sounded upon the door behind her,
and began to tiptoe heavily down the hall toward the kitchen. The girl
looked after her in mingled amusement and chagrin. Then she leaned
forward slightly, drawing the skirt back closely on both sides, and
looked at her feet, with her head turned on one side like a bird. When
the cessation of her mother’s labored breathing announced silently that
she had reached the kitchen in safety, Lavinia shrugged her beautiful
shoulders—which no gown could conceal—and opened the door. A young man in
a light traveling-suit stood before her. In his hand was a bunch of her
own sweet-peas.
At sight of her he whisked off his hat in a way that brought a lovely
color to her face and throat. For a little while it seemed as if he were
not going to say or do anything but just look at her. She was well worth
looking at. She had the rare beauty of velvet eyes of a reddish-brown
color, hair wavy and brown, with red glints in it, and a clear
complexion, unfreckled and of exquisite coloring.
Lavinia’s eyes went to the sweet-peas, and then, with a deeper blush
under them, to his face.
“Won’t you come in?” she said.
“Why, yes, if you’ll let me.” The young man smiled, and Lavinia found
her lips and eyes responding, in all the lightness of youth and a clear
conscience.
“I couldn’t help taking some of your sweet-peas,” he said, following
her into the parlor. It was a large, solemn-looking room. The blinds
were lowered over the windows, but the girl raised one slightly, letting
a splash of pale autumnal sunshine flicker across the hit-and-miss
rag carpet. There was an organ in one corner and a hair-cloth sofa in
another. Eight slender-legged hair-cloth chairs were placed at severely
equal distances around the room, their backs resting firmly against the
walls. All tipped forward slightly, their front legs being somewhat
shorter than the others. On the back of each was a small, square
crocheted tidy. There were some family portraits on the walls, in oval
gilt frames; and there was a large picture of George Washington and
family, on their stateliest behavior; another, named in large letters
“The Journey of Life,” of an uncommonly roomy row-boat containing at
least a dozen persons, who were supposed to represent all ages from the
cradle to the grave; in the wide, white margin beneath this picture were
two verses of beautiful, descriptive poetry, and in one corner appeared,
with apparent irrelevancy, the name of an illustrated newspaper. There
was also a chromo of a scantily-attired woman clinging to a cross which
was set in the midst of dashing sea-waves; and there was a cheerful
photograph, in a black cloth frame, of flowers—made into harps, crosses,
anchors and hearts—which had been sent at some time of bereavement by
sympathetic but misguided friends. A marble-topped centre-table held a
large plush album, a scrap book, a book of autographs, a lamp with a
pale-green shade, and a glass case containing a feather-wreath.
“Oh, we’ve got lots of sweet-peas,” said Lavinia, adjusting the blind
carefully. Then she looked at him.
“May I see Mrs. Vaiden?” he asked, easily.
“She’s—busy,” said Lavinia, with a look of embarrassment. “But I’ll see—”
“Oh, don’t,” interrupted the young man lightly. “They told me at the
postoffice she took boarders sometimes, and I came to see if there was a
chance for me.” He handed a card to the girl with an air of not knowing
that he was doing it. Her very eyelids seemed to blush as she looked at
it and read the name—Mr. C. Daun Diller. “I am writing up the Puget Sound
country for a New York paper, and I should like to make my headquarters
here at Whatcom, but I can’t stand the hotels in your new towns. It’s the
most amazing thing!” he went on, smiling at her as she stood twisting
the card in her fingers, not knowing exactly what to do with it. “You
go to sleep at night in a Puget Sound village with the fronts of the
stores painted green, blue and red, spasmodic patches of sidewalk here
and there, dust ankle deep, and no street-lights—and you wake in the
morning in a _city_! A city with fine stone blocks and residences, stone
pavements, electric lights and railways, gas, splendid water-works,”—he
was checking off now, excitedly, on his fingers,—“sewerage, big mills,
factories, canneries, public schools that would make the East stare,
churches, libraries”—he stopped abruptly, and, dropping his arms limply
to his sides, added—“and not a hotel! Not a comfortable bed or a good
meal to be had for love or money!”
“Yes, that’s so,” said Lavinia, reluctantly. “But you can’t expect us
to get everything all at onct. Why, Whatcom’s boom only started in six
months ago.”
Mr. C. Daun Diller looked amused. “Oh, if it were this town only,” he
said, sitting down on one of the hair-cloth chairs and feeling himself
slide gently forward, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. But the truth is,
there are only three decent hotels in the whole Puget Sound country. But
I know”—here he smiled at her again—“that it’s not safe to breathe a word
against Puget Sound to a Puget-Sounder.”
“No, it ain’t,” said the girl, responding to the smile and the
respectfully bantering tone. Then she moved to the door. “Well, I’ll see
what maw says to it,” she said, and vanished.
Mr. C. Daun Diller stood up and pushed his hands down into his pockets,
whistling softly. He walked over to the organ and looked at the music.
There were three large books: “The Home Circle,” “The Golden Chord,” and
“The Family Treasure;” a “simplified” copy of “The Maiden’s Prayer,” and
a book of “Gospel Songs.”
The young man smiled.
“All the same,” he said, as if in answer to a disparaging remark made by
some one else, “she’s about the handsomest girl I ever saw. I’m getting
right down anxious to see myself what ‘maw’ will ‘say to it.’”
After a long while Mrs. Vaiden appeared in a crisply-starched gingham
dress and a company manner—both of which had been freshly put on for the
occasion. Mr. Diller found her rather painfully polite, and he began to
wonder, after paying his first week’s board, whether he could endure two
or three months of her; but he was quite, quite sure that he could endure
a full year of the daughter.
A couple of evenings later he was sitting by the window in his quaint but
exquisitely neat room, writing, when a light rap came upon his door. Upon
opening it he found Lavinia standing, bashfully, a few steps away. There
was a picturesque, broad-brimmed hat set coquettishly on her splendid
hair.
“Maw wanted I sh’u’d ask you if you’d like to see an Indian canoe-race,”
she said.
“_Would_ I?” he ejaculated, getting into a great excitement at once.
“Well, I should say so! Awfully good of your mother to think—but where is
it—when is it? How can I see it?”
“It’s down by the viaduck—right now,” said Lavinia. Then she added,
shyly, pretending to be deeply engrossed with her glove: “I’m just goin’.”
“Oh, are you?” said Diller, seizing his hat and stick and coming eagerly
out to her. “And may I go with you? Will you take me in hand? I haven’t
the ghost of an idea where the viaduct is.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll show you,” she said, with a glad little laugh, and they
went swiftly down the stairs and out into the sweet evening.
“You know,” she said, as he opened the gate for her with a deference to
which she was not accustomed, and which gave her a thrill of innocent
exultation, “the Alaska Indians are just comin’ back from hop-pickin’
down around Puyallup an’ Yakima an’ Seattle, an’ they alwus stop here an’
have races with the Lummies an’ the Nooksacks.”
Mr. Diller drew a deep breath.
“Do you know,” he said, “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything—not
for anything I can think of. And yet I should if it hadn’t been for”—he
hesitated, and then added—“your mother.” They looked into each other’s
eyes and laughed, very foolishly and happily.
The sun was setting—moving slowly, scarlet and of dazzling brilliancy,
down the western sky, which shaded rapidly from pale blue to salmon, and
from salmon to palest pea-green. Beneath, superbly motionless, at full
tide, the sound stretched mile on mile away to Lummi peninsula, whose
hills the sun now touched—every fir-tree on those noble crests standing
out against that burnished background. A broad, unbroken path of gold
stretched from shore to shore. Some sea-gulls were circling in endless,
silvery rings through the amethystine haze between sea and sky. The
old, rotten pier running a mile out to sea shone like a strip of gold
above the deep blue water. It was crowded with people, indifferent to
danger in their eagerness to see the races. Indeed, there seemed to be
people everywhere; on the high banks, the piers, and the mills scattered
over the tide-flats, and out in row boats. Two brass bands were playing
stirring strains alternately. There was much excitement—much shouting,
hurrying, running. The crowd kept swaying from the viaduct over to the
pier, and from the pier back to the viaduct. Nobody seemed to be quite
sure where the start would be; even the three judges, when asked, yelled
back, as they clambered down to their row-boat: “We don’t know. Wait and
see!”
“What accommodating persons,” said Mr. Diller, cheerfully. “Shall we go
over to the pier? The tide seems to be running that way.”
“Oh, the tide’s not running now,” said Lavinia. “It’s full.”
Diller looked amused. “I meant the people,” he said.
The girl laughed and looked around on the pushing crowd. “I guess we’d
best stop right here on the viaduck; here’s just where they started last
year an’ the year before. Oh, see, here’s the Alaskas camped pretty near
under us!”
As she lifted her voice a little Diller saw a young man standing near
start and turn toward her with a glad look of recognition; but at once
his glance rested on Diller, and his expression changed to a kind of
puzzled bewilderment. The girl was leaning over the railing and did not
see him, but he never took his eyes away from her and Diller.
There was a long wait, but the crowd did not lose its patience or its
good humor. There was considerable betting going on, and there was the
same exciting uncertainty about the start. The sun went down and a bank
of apricot-colored clouds piled low over the snow crest of Mount Baker
in the East. The pier darkened and the path of gold faded, but splashes
of scarlet still lingered on the blue water. A chill, sweet wind started
up suddenly, and some of the girl’s bronze curls got loose about her
white temples. Diller put her wrap around her carefully, and she smiled
up at him deliciously. Then she cried out, “Oh, they’re gettin’ into the
boat! They’re goin’ to start. Oh, I’m so glad!” and struck her two hands
together gleefully, like a child.
The long, narrow, richly-painted and carven canoe slid down gracefully
into the water. Eleven tall, supple Alaskan Indians, bare to the waist,
leaped lightly to their places. They sat erect, close to the sides of
the boat, holding their short paddles perpendicularly. At a signal the
paddles shot straight down into the water, and, with a swift, magnificent
straining and swelling of muscles in the powerful bronze arms and
bodies, were pushed backward and withdrawn in lightning strokes. The
canoe flashed under the viaduct and appeared on the other side, and
a great shout belched from thousands of throats. From camping-places
farther up the shore the other boats darted out into the water and headed
for the viaduct.
“Oh, good! good!” cried Lavinia in a very ecstasy of excitement. “They’re
goin’ to start right under us. We’re just in _the_ place!”
“Twenty dollars on the Nooksacks!” yelled a blear-eyed man in a carriage.
“Twenty! Twenty ag’inst ten on the Nooksacks!”
The band burst into “Hail, Columbia!” with beautiful irrelevancy. The
crowd came surging back from the pier. Diller was excited, too. His face
was flushed and he was breathing heavily. “Who’ll you bet on?” he asked,
laughing, and thinking, even at that moment, how ravishingly lovely she
was with that glow on her face and the loose curls blowing about her face
and throat.
“Oh, the _Alaskas_!” cried the girl, striking little blows of impatience
on the railing with her soft fists. “They’re so tall an’ fine-lookin’!
They’re so strong an’ grand! Look at their muscles—just like ropes! Oh,
I’ll bet on the Alaskas! I _love_ tall men!”
“Do you?” said Diller. “I’m tall.”
They looked into each other’s eyes again and laughed. Then a voice spoke
over their shoulders—a kind, patient voice. “Oh, Laviny,” it said; “I
wouldn’t bet if I was you.”
Lavinia gave a little scream. Both turned instantly. The young man who
had been watching them stood close to them. He wore working-clothes—a
flannel shirt and cheap-faded trousers and coat. He had a good, strong,
honest face, and there was a tenderness in the look he bent on the girl
that struck Diller as being almost pathetic.
The glow in Lavinia’s face turned to the scarlet of the sunset.
“_Oh!_” she said, embarrassedly. “That you, Bart? I didn’t know you was
back.”
“I just got back,” he replied, briefly. “I got to go back again in the
mornin’. I was just on my way up to your house. I guess I’ll go on. I’m
tired, an’ I’ve seen lots o’ c’noe races.” He looked at her wistfully.
“Well,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “You go on up, then. Maw
an’ paw’s at home, an’ I’ll come as soon ’s the race ’s over.”
“All right,” he said, with a little drop in his voice, and walked away.
“Oh, _dear_!” cried Lavinia. “We’re missin’ the start, ain’t we?”
The canoes were lying side by side, waiting for the signal. Every Indian
was bent forward, holding his paddle suspended above the water in both
hands. There was what might be termed a rigid suppleness in the attitude.
The dark outlines of the paddles showed clearly in the water, which had
turned yellow as brass. Suddenly the band ceased playing and the signal
rang across the sunset. Thirty-three paddles shot into the water, working
with the swift regularity of piston-rods in powerful engines. The crowds
cheered and yelled. The canoes did not flash or glide now, but literally
plowed and plunged through the water, which boiled and seethed behind
them in white, bubbled foam that at times completely hid the bronze
figures from sight. There was no shouting now, but tense, breathless
excitement. People clung motionless, in dangerous places and stared with
straining eyes, under bent brows, after the leaping canoes. The betting
had been high. The fierce, rhythmic strokes of the paddles made a noise
that was like the rapid pumping of a great ram. To Diller, who stood,
pale, with compressed lips, it sounded like the frantic heart-beat of a
nation in passionate riot. Mingled with it was a noise that, once heard,
cannot be forgotten—a weird, guttural chanting on one tone, that yet
seemed to hold a windy, musical note; a sound, regular, and rhythmic as
the paddle-strokes, that came from deep in the breasts of the rigidly
swaying Indians and found utterance through locked teeth.
A mile out a railroad crossed the tide-lands, and this was the turning
point. The Nooksacks made it first, closely followed by the Alaskans, and
then, amid wild cheering, the three canoes headed for the viaduct. Faster
and faster worked those powerful arms; the paddles whizzed more fiercely
through the air; the water spurted in white sheets behind; the canoes
bounded, length on length, out of the water; and louder and faster the
guttural chant beat time. The Alaskans and the Nooksacks were coming in
together, carven prow to carven prow, and the excitement was terrific.
Nearer and nearer, neither gaining, they came. Then, suddenly, there
burst a mad yell of triumph, and the Alaskan boat arose from the water
and leaped almost its full length ahead of the Nooksack’s; and amidst
waving hats and handkerchiefs, and almost frantic cheering—the race was
won.
“By the eternal!” said Diller, beginning to breathe again and wiping the
perspiration from his brow. “If that isn’t worth crossing the plains
to see, I don’t know what is!” But his companion did not hear. She was
alternately waving her kerchief to the victors and pounding her small
fists on the railing in an ecstasy of triumph.
“Lavin-_ee_!”
“Well?”
“You come right down hyeer an’ help me em’ty this renchin’-water. I’d
like to know what’s got into you! A-stayin’ upstairs half your time, an’
just a-mopin’ around when you are down. You ain’t b’en worth your salt
lately!”
The girl came into the kitchen slowly. “What you jawin’ about now, maw?”
she said, smiling.
“I’ll show you what I’m a-jawin’ about, as you call it. Take holt o’ this
tub an’ help me em’ty this renchin’-water.”
“Well, don’t holler so; Mr. Diller’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care ’f he _does_ hear me. I can give him his come-up’ans if he
goes to foolin’ around, listenin’. I don’t care ’f he does write for a
paper in New York! You’ve got to take holt o’ the work more’n you’ve b’en
lately. A-traipsin’ around all over the country with him, a-showin’ him
things to write about an’ make fun of! I sh’u’d think Bart Winn had just
about got enough of it.”
“I wish you’d keep still about Bart Winn,” said Lavinia, impatiently.
“Well, I ain’t a-goin’ to keep still about him.” Mrs. Vaiden poured the
dish-water into the sink and passed the dish-cloth round and round the
pan, inside and outside with mechanical care, before she opened the
back door and hung it out on the side of the house. “I guess I don’t haf
to ask _you_ when I want to talk. There you was—gone all day yeste’day
a-huntin’ star-fish, an’ that renchin’-water a-settin’ there a-ruinin’
that tub because I couldn’t em’ty it all myself. Just as if he never saw
star-fish where he come from. An’ then to-day—b’en gone all the mornin’
a-ketchin’ crabs! How many crabs ’d you ketch, I’d like to know!”
“We didn’t ketch many,” said Lavinia, with a soft, aggravating laugh.
“The water wa’n’t clear enough to see ’em.”
“No, I guess the water _wa’n’t_ clear enough to see ’em!” The
rinsing-water had been emptied, and Mrs. Vaiden was industriously wiping
the tub. “I’ve got all the star-fishin’ an’ the crab-ketchin’ I want, an’
I’m a-goin’ to tell that young man that he can go some’ers else for his
board. He’s b’en here a month, an’ he’s just about made a fool o’ you.
Pret’ soon you’ll be a-thinkin’ you’re too good for Bart Winn.”
“Oh, no,” said Bart Winn’s honest voice in the doorway; “I guess Laviny
won’t never be a-thinkin’ that.”
“Mercy!” cried Mrs. Vaiden, starting and coloring guiltily. “That you?
How you scairt me! I’m all of a-trimble.”
Bart advanced to Lavinia and kissed her with much tenderness; but
instead of blushing, she paled.
“When ’d you come?” she asked, briefly, drawing away, while her mother,
muttering something about the sour cream and the spring-house, went out
discreetly.
“This mornin’,” said Bart. “I’m a-goin’ to stay home now.”
The girl sat down, taking a pan of potatoes on her lap. “I wonder where
the case-knife is,” she said, helplessly.
“I’ll get it,” said Bart, running into the pantry and returning with the
knife. “I love to wait on you, Laviny,” he added, with shining eyes. “I
guess I’ll get to wait on you a sight, now. I see your paw ’s I come up
an’ he said as how I could board hyeer. I’ll do the shores for you—an’
glad to. An’, oh, Laviny! I ’most forgot. I spoke for a buggy ’s I come
up, so’s I can take you a-ridin’ to-night.”
“I guess I can’t go,” said Lavinia, holding her head down and paring
potatoes as if her life depended upon getting the skins off.
“You can’t? Why can’t you?”
“I—why, I’m goin’ a salmon-spearin’ up at Squalicum Creek, I guess.
Salmon’s a-runnin’ like everything now. ’Most half the town goes there
soon ’s it gets dark.”
“That a fact?” said Bart, shifting from one foot to the other and
looking interested. “I want to know! Well”—his face brightened—“I’ll
go down an’ tell ’em I’ll take the rig to-morro’ night, an’ I’ll go
a-spearin’ with you. Right down in front o’ Eldridge’s?”
“Yes.” A pulse began thumping violently in the girl’s throat. Her eyelids
got so heavy she could not lift them. “I guess—that is, I—why, you see,
Bart, I got comp’ny.”
“Well, I guess the girls won’t object to my goin’ along o’ you.”
“It ain’t girls,” said Lavinia, desperately. “It’s—a—it’s Mr. Diller; the
gentleman that boards here.”
“Oh,” said Bart, slowly. Then there was a most trying silence, during
which the ticking of the clock and the beating of her own heart were the
only sounds Lavinia heard. At last she said, feebly: “You see he writes
for a New York newspaper—one o’ the big ones. He’s a-writin’ up the
whole Puget Sound country. An’ he don’t know just what he’d ort to see,
nor just how to see it, unless somebody shows him about—an’ I’ve b’en
a-showin’ him.”
“Oh!” said Bart again, but quite in another tone, quite cheerfully.
“That’s it, is ’t, Laviny? Well, that’s all right. But I’ll be
hanged if you didn’t take my breath away for a minute. I thought you
meant—Laviny!”—a sudden seriousness came into his tone and look—“I guess
you don’t know how much I think o’ you. My heart’s just _set_ on you,
my girl—my whole life’s wrapped up in you.” He paused, but Lavinia did
not speak or look at him, and he added, very slowly and thoughtfully—“I
reckon it ’u’d just about kill me, ’f anything happened to you.”
“I guess nothin’ ’s a-goin’ to happen.” She dropped one potato into a pan
of cold water and took up another.
“No, I guess not.” He took on a lighter tone. “But I’ll tell you what,
Laviny! If that’s all, he ain’t comp’ny at all; so you can just tell him
I’m a-goin’, too.” He came closer and laid a large but very gentle hand
on her shoulder. “You might even tell him I’ve got a right to go, Laviny.”
The girl shrank, and glanced nervously at the door.
“I wouldn’t like to do that, Bart. After his arrangin’ to go, an’
a-hirin’ the skiff hisself. _I_ don’t know but what he’s got somebody
else to go along of us.”
“Why, does he ever?”
“Well, I don’t recollect that he ever has; but then he might of, this
time, I say, for all I know.”
There was another silence. Then the big hand patted the girl’s shoulder
affectionately and the honest eyes bent on her the look of patient
tenderness that Diller had considered pathetic.
“All right, Laviny; you go along of him, just by yourself, an’ I’ll stop
home with your paw an’ your maw. I want you to know, my girl, that I
trust you, an’ believe every word you say to me. I ain’t even thought
o’ much else besides you ever sence I saw you first time at the liberry
sociable, an’ I won’t ever think o’ much else, I don’t care what happens.
Bein’ afraid to trust a body ’s a poor way to show how much you think
about ’em, is my religion; so you go an’ have a good time, an’ don’t
you worry about me.” He tucked one of her runaway curls behind her ear
awkwardly. “I’ll slip down to the liv’ry stable now, an’ tell ’em about
the rig.”
“All right,” said Lavinia.
Her mother came in one door, after a precautionary scraping of her feet
and an alarming paroxysm of coughing, and looked rather disappointed to
see Bart going out at the other, and to realize that her modest warnings
had been thrown away. “Well, ’f I _ever_!” she exclaimed. “Laviny Vaiden,
whatever makes you _look_ so? You look just ’s if you’d seen a spook!
You’re a kind o’ yellow-gray—just like you had the ja’ndice! What _ails_
you?”
“I got a headache,” said the girl; and then, somehow, the pan slid down
off her lap, and the potatoes and the parings went rolling and sprawling
all over the floor; Lavinia’s head went down suddenly on the table, and
she was sobbing bitterly.
Her mother looked at her keenly, without speaking, for a moment; then she
said dryly, “Why, I guess you must have an awful headache. Come on kind
o’ sudden like, didn’t it? I guess you’d best go up and lay down, an’
I’ll bring a mustard plaster up an’ put on your head. Ain’t nothin’ like
a plaster for a headache—’specially that kind of a headache.”
Bart Winn walked into the livery stable with an air of indifference put
on so stiffly that it deceived no one. It was not that he did not feel
perfectly satisfied with Lavinia’s explanation, but he was a trifle
uneasy lest others should not see the thing with his eyes.
“I guess I won’t want that rig to-night, Billy,” he said, pulling a head
of timothy out of a bale of hay that stood near. “I’ll take it to-morro’
night.”
“All right,” said the young fellow, with a smile that Bart did not like.
“Girl sick, aigh?”
“No,” said Bart, softly stripping the fuzz off the timothy.
“Well, I guess I understan’,” said Billy, winking one eye, cheerfully.
“I’ve b’en there myself. Girls is as much alike ’s peas—_sweet_-peas”—he
interjected with a hearty laugh—“in a pod, the world over. It ain’t
never safe for a fellow to come home, after bein’ away a good spell, an’
engage a buggy before findin’ out if the girl ain’t engaged to some other
fello’—it ain’t noways _safe_. I smiled in my sleeve when you walked in
so big an’ ordered your’n.”
Bart Winn was slow to anger, but now a dull red came upon his face and
neck, and settled there as if burnt into the flesh. His eyes looked
dangerous, but he spoke quietly. “I guess you don’t know what you’re
talkin’ about, Billy. I guess you hadn’t best go any furder.”
Billy came slowly toward him, nettled by his tone—by its very
calm, in fact. “D’ you mean to say that Laviny Vaiden ain’t goin’
a-salmon-spearin’ to-night with that dandy from New York?”
Bart swallowed once or twice.
“I don’t mean to say anything that’s none o’ your business,” he said.
“Well, she’s been a-spearin’ with him ev’ry night sence the salmon’s b’en
a-runnin’, anyway.”
The strong, powerful trembling of a man who is trying to control himself
now seized Bart Winn.
“If you’re goin’ to put on airs with me,” continued Billy, obtusely,
“I’ll just tell you a few _fax_! They don’t burn any torch in their boat,
an’ they don’t spear any salmon! That’s just a blind. They go off by
theirselves—clear away from the spearers, an’ they don’t come back till
they see the torches a-goin’ out an’ know that we all’s a-goin’ home.
It’s the town talk. Not that they say anything wrong, for we’ve all
knowed Laviny sence she was a baby; but it’s as plain as the nose on a
man’s face that you ain’t in it there since that dood come.”
A panorama of colors flamed over Bart’s face; his hands clenched till the
nails cut into the flesh and the blood spurted; who has seen the look in
the eyes of the lion that cowers and obeys under the terrible lash of the
trainer will know the look that was in the man’s eyes while the lash of
his own will conquered him; his broad chest swelled and sunk. At last he
spoke, in a deep, shaking voice. “Billy,” he said, “you’re a liar—a liar!
_Damn you!_” He struggled a moment longer with himself, and then turned
and hurried away as if possessed of the devil.
But Billy followed him to the door and called after him—“Oh, damn me,
aigh? Now, I don’t want I sh’u’d have a fight with you, Bart. I was
tryin’ to do you a favor. If you think I’m a liar, it’s a mighty easy
thing for you to go down there to-night an’ see for yourself. That’s all
_I_ ask.”
Bart went on in a passion of contending emotions. “He’s a liar! He’s a
liar!” he kept saying, deep in his throat; but all the time he had the
odd feeling that somebody, or something, was contradicting him. A warm
wind had arisen, and it beat against his temples so persistently that
they felt numb by the time he reached the Vaiden’s. He cleaned his boots
on the neat mat of gunny-sacking laid at the door for that purpose, and
entered the kitchen. “Where’s Laviny?” he asked.
“She’s upstairs with a headache,” replied Mrs. Vaiden, promptly.
“It must ’a’ come on sudden.”
“Yes, I guess it must.” Mrs. Vaiden spoke cautiously. She was sure there
had been a quarrel, and she was afraid her own remark, overheard by Bart,
had brought it on.
“Well, I want to see her.”
“Right away?”
“Yes,” said Bart, after a little hesitation, “right away, I reckon.”
Mrs. Vaiden went upstairs, and returned presently, followed by Lavinia.
The girl looked pale; a white kerchief bound about her brow increased her
pallor; her eyes were red. She sat down weakly in a splint-bottom chair
and crossed her hands in her lap.
At sight of the girl’s suffering, Bart knew instantly that he had been
doubting her without realizing it, because his faith in her came back
with such a strong rush of tenderness.
“Sick, Laviny?” he asked, in a tone that was a caress of itself—it was so
very gentle a thing to come from so powerful a man.
“I got a headache,” said Lavinia, looking at the floor. “It came on right
after you left. It aches awful.”
Bart went to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. It was a strong hand
to be shaking so.
“Laviny, I’m a brute to get you up out o’ bed; but I’m more of a brute
to ’a’ believed”—He stopped, and she lifted her eyes, fearfully, to his
face. “I’ve been listenin’ to things about you.”
“What things?” She looked at the floor again.
“Well, I ain’t goin’ to so much as ask you ’f it’s so; but I’m goin’ to
tell you how _mean_ I’ve b’en to listen to ’t an’ to keep a-wonderin’ if
it c’u’d be so,—an’ then see if you can forgive me. I’ve b’en hearin’
that you don’t light no torch nor ketch no salmon when you go a-spearin’,
but that you an’ him go off by yourselves an’ stay—an’ that he—he”—the
words seemed to stick in his throat—“he’s cut me out.”
After a little Lavinia said—“Is that all?”
“All! Yes. Ain’t that enough?”
“Yes, it’s enough—plenty for you to ’a’ believed about me. I wouldn’t
’a’ believed that much about you.” The humor of this remark seemed to
appeal to her, for she smiled a little. Then she got up. “But it’s all
right, Bart. I ain’t mad. If that’s all, I guess I’ll go back to bed. You
tell maw I couldn’t put them roastin’-ears on—my head feels so.”
He caught her to his breast and kissed her several times, with something
like a prayer in his eyes, and with a strong, but sternly controlled
passion that left him trembling and staggering like a drunken man when
she was gone.
* * * * *
After Lavinia and Diller were gone that night Bart sat out on the kitchen
steps, smoking his pipe. He stooped forward, his elbows resting on his
knees. His right hand held the pipe, and the left supported his right
arm. His eyes looked straight before him into the purple twilight. The
wind had gone down, but now and then a little gust of perfume came around
the corner from the wild clover, still in delicate pink blossom on the
north side of the house. The stars came out, one by one, in the deep blue
spaces above, and shrill mournful outcries came from winged things in the
green depths of the ferns. Already the torches of the salmon-spearers
were beginning to flare out from the shadow of the cliffs across the bay.
Mr. Vaiden was not at home, but Mrs. Vaiden was walking about heavily in
the kitchen, finishing the evening work.
Mrs. Vaiden was not quite easy in her mind. She really liked Bart Winn,
but, to be unnecessarily and disagreeably truthful, she liked even better
his noble donation claim, which he was now selling off in town lots. Time
and time again during the past month she had cautioned Lavinia to not “go
galivantin’ ’round with that Diller so much;” and on numerous occasions
she had affirmed that “she’d _bet_ Laviny would fool along till she let
Bart Winn slip through her fingers, after all.” Still, it had been an
unconfessed satisfaction to her to observe Mr. Diller’s frank admiration
for her daughter—to feel that Lavinia could “have her pick o’ the best
any day.” She knew how this rankled in some of the neighbors’ breasts.
She wished now that she had been more strict. She said to herself, as she
went out to the spring-house: “I wish I’d ’a’ set my foot right down on
his goin’ a step with her. An’ there I started it myself, a-sendin’ her
off to that c’noe race with him, just to tantalize Mis’ Bentley an’ her
troop o’ girls. But land knows I never dreamt o’ its goin’ on this way.
What’s a newspaper fello’ compared to a donation claim, _I’d_ like to
know?”
At nine o’clock she went to the door and said, in that tone of
conciliatory tenderness which comes from a remorseful conscience: “Well,
Bart, I guess I’ll go to bed. I’m tired. You goin’ to set up for Laviny?”
“Yes,” said Bart; “good-night.”
“Well, good-night, Bart.” She stood holding a lighted candle in one hand,
protecting its flame from the night air with the other. “I reckon they’ll
be home by ten.”
“I reckon so.”
At the top of the stairs Mrs. Vaiden remembered that the parlor windows
were open, and she went back to close them. The wind was rising again,
and as she opened the parlor door it puffed through the open windows and
sent the curtains streaming out into the room; then it went whistling on
through the house, banging the doors.
After a while quiet came upon the house. Bart sat smoking silently. The
Vaidens lived on a hill above the town, and usually he liked to watch the
chains of electric lights curving around the bay; but to-night he watched
the torches only. Suddenly he flung his pipe down with a passionate
movement and stood up, reaching inside the door for his hat. But he sat
down again as suddenly, shaking himself like a dog, as if to fling off
something that was upon him. “No; I’m damned if I will!” he said in his
throat. “I _won’t_ watch her! She said it wa’n’t so, an’ I believe her.”
But he did not smoke again, and he breathed more heavily as the moments
ticked by and she did not come. At half-past ten Mrs. Vaiden came down in
a calico wrapper and a worsted shawl.
“Why, ain’t she come _yet_?” she asked, holding the candle high and
peering under it at the back of the silent figure outside.
“No,” said Bart quietly; “she ain’t.”
“Why, it’s half-after ten! She never’s b’en out this a-way before. D’you
think anything c’u’d ’a’ hapened?”
“No,” said Bart, slowly; “I guess they’ll be along.”
“Well, I don’t want that she sh’u’d stay out till this time o’ night with
anybody but you. She’s old enough to know better. It don’t look well.”
“It looks all right, as fur as that goes,” said Bart.
“Oh, if _you_ think so.”
Mrs. Vaiden lowered the candle huffily.
Bart arose and came inside. He was pale but he spoke calmly, and he
looked her straight in the eyes.
“It’s all right as fur as she goes; I’d trust her anywheres. But how
about him? What kind of a man is he?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Vaiden, weakly. “How d’ you expect me
to know what kind of a _man_ he is? He’s a nice-appearin’, polite sort
of a fello’, an’ he writes for a newspaper ’n New York—one o’ them big
ones. But he don’t seem to me to have much backbone or stand-upness about
him. I sh’u’d think he’s one o’ them that never _intends_ to do anything
wrong, but does it just because it’s pleasant for the time bein’, and
then feels sorry for ’t afte’ards.”
Bart’s brows bent together blackly.
“But I must say”—Mrs. Vaiden’s tone gathered firmness—“you might pattern
after him a little in politeness, Bart. I think Laviny likes it. He’s
alwus openin’ gates for her, an’ runnin’ to set chairs for her when
she comes into a room, an’ takin’ off his hat to her, an’ carryin’ her
umberella, an’ fetchin’ her flow’rs; an’ I b’lieve he’d most die before
he’d walk on the inside o’ the sidewalk or go over a crossin’ ahead o’
her. An’ I can see Laviny likes them things.”
She put the candle on the table and huddled down into a chair.
The look of anger on the man’s face gave place to one of keen dismay.
“I didn’t know she liked such things. I never thought about ’em. I wa’n’t
brought up to such foolishness.”
“Well, she likes ’em, anyhow. I guess most women do.” Mrs. Vaiden sighed
unconsciously. “Why, Bart, it’s a quarter of, an’ she ain’t here yet. D’
you want I sh’u’d go after her?”
“No, I don’t want you sh’u’d go after her. I want you sh’u’d let her
alone, an’ show her we got confidence in her. She’s just the same as my
wife, an’ I don’t want her own mother sh’u’d think she’d do anything she
hadn’t ort to.”
Mrs. Vaiden’s feelings were sensitive and easily hurt; and she sat now in
icy silence, looking at the clock. But when it struck eleven she thawed,
being now thoroughly frightened.
“Oh, Bart, I do think we’d best look in her room. She might ’a’ got in
someway without our hearin’ her—an’ us settin’ hyeer like a couple o’
bumps on a lawg.”
“She might ’a’,” said Bart, as if struck by the suggestion. “You get
me a candle an’ I’ll go up and see. You stay here,” he added, over his
shoulder, as he took the candle and started.
“Look out!” she cried, sharply, as the blue flame plowed a gutter down
one side of the candle. “Don’t hold it so crooked! You’ll spill the sperm
onto the stair-carpet!”
It was with a feeling of awe that Bart went into the dainty little room.
There were rosebuds on the creamy wall-paper, and the ceiling, slanting
down on one side, was pale, pale blue, spangled with silver stars; the
windows were closed, and thin, soft curtains fell in straight folds over
them; the rag carpet was woven in pink-and-cream stripes; there was a
dressing-table prettily draped in pink. For a moment the man’s love was
stronger than his anxiety; the prayer came back to his eyes as he looked
at the narrow, snowy bed.
Then he went to the dressing-table and saw a folded slip of paper with
his name upon it.
* * * * *
After a while he became conscious that he had read the letter a dozen
times, and still had not grasped its meaning. He stooped closer to the
candle and read it again, his lips moving mechanically:
“DEAR BART:—I’m goin’ away. I’m goin’ with him. I told you what
wa’n’t so this mornin’. I do like him the best. I couldn’t
have you after knowin’ him. I feel awful bad to treat you this
a-way, but I haf to.
“LAVINY.”
“P. S.—I want that you sh’u’d marry somebody else as soon as
you can, an’ be happy.”
A querulous call came from the hall below. He took the candle in one
hand and the letter in the other and went down, stumbling clumsily on
the stairs. A great many noises seemed to be ringing in his head, and
the sober paper with which the walls of the hall were covered to have
suddenly taken on great scarlet spots. He felt helpless and uncertain in
his movements, as if he had no will to guide him. He must have carried
the candle very crookedly, for Mrs. Vaiden, who was watching him from
below, cried out, petulantly: “There, you _are_ spillin’ the sperm! Just
look at you!” But she stopped abruptly when she saw his face.
“Why, whatever on this earth!” she exclaimed, solemnly. “What you got
there? A letter?”
“Yes.” He set the candle on the table and held the letter toward her.
“It’s from Laviny.”
“From Laviny! Why, what on earth did she write to you about?”
He burst into wild, terrible laughter. “She wants I sh’u’d marry somebody
else as soon as I can, an’ be happy.” These words, at least, seemed to
have written themselves on his brain. He groped about blindly for his
hat, and went out into the shrill, whistling night. The last torch had
burnt itself out, and everything was black save the electric lights,
winking in the wind, and one strip of whitening sky above Mount Baker,
where presently the moon would rise, silver and cool.
* * * * *
It was seven o’clock in the morning when he came back. He washed his
hands and face at the sink on the porch, and combed his hair before a
tiny mirror, in which a dozen reflections of himself danced. Mrs. Vaiden
was frying ham. At sight of him she began to cry, weakly and noiselessly.
“Where you been?” she sniffled. “You look forty year old. I set up till
one o’clock, a-waitin’ for you.”
“Mrs. Vaiden,” said Bart, quietly, “I’m in great trouble. I’ve walked
all night, tryin’ to make up my mind to ’t. I’ve done it at last; but I
cu’dn’t ’a’ come back tell I did. I’m sorry you waited up.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that as long as you’re gettin’ reconciled to ’t, Bart.”
Mrs. Vaiden spoke more hopefully. “You set right down an’ have a bite to
eat.”
“I don’t want anything,” he replied; but he sat down and took a cup
of coffee. It must have been very hot, for suddenly great tears came
into his eyes and stood there. Mrs. Vaiden sat down opposite to him and
leaned her elbow on the table and her head on her hand. “Bart,” she said,
solemnly, “I don’t want you sh’u’d think I ever winked at this. It never
entered my head. My heart’s just broke. To see a likely girl, that c’u’d
’a’ had her pick anywheres, up an’ run away with a no-account newspaper
fello’—when she c’u’d ’a’ had you!” The man’s face contracted. “Whatever
on earth the neighbors’ll say I don’t know.”
“Who cares what neighbors say?”
“Oh, that’s all very well for you to say; you ain’t her mother.”
“No,” said Bart, with a look that made her quail; “I ain’t. I wish to God
I was! Mebbe ’twouldn’t _hurt_ so!”
“Well, it ’ad ort to hurt more!” retorted the lady, with spirit. “Just ’s
if you felt any worse ’n I do!” He laid his head on his hand and groaned.
“Oh, I know it’s gone deep, Bart”—her tone softened—“but ’s I say, you
ain’t her mother. You’ll get over it an’ marry again—like Laviny wanted
that you sh’u’d. It was good o’ her to think o’ that. I will say that
much for her.”
“Yes,” said Bart; “it was good of her.” Then there came a little silence,
broken finally by Mrs. Vaiden. Her voice held a note of peevish regret.
“There’s that fine house o’ your’n ’most finished—two story an’ a ell!
An’ that liberry across the front hall from the parlor! When I think how
vain Laviny was o’ that liberry! What’ll you do with the house, now,
Bart?”
“Sell it!” he answered, between his teeth.
“An’ there’s all that fine furnitur’ that Laviny an’ you picked out. She
fairly danced when she told me about it. All covered with satin—robin-egg
green, wa’n’t it?”
“Blue.” The word dropped mechanically from his white lips.
“Well, blue, then. What’ll you do with it?”
“I guess they’ll take it back by my losin’ my first payment,” he
answered, with a kind of ghastly humor.
“Well, there’s your new buggy—all paid for. They won’t take that back.”
“I’ll give that to you,” he said, with a bitter smile.
“Oh, you!” exclaimed Mrs. Vaiden, throwing out her large hand at him in a
gesture of mingled embarrassment and delight. “As if I’d take it, after
Laviny’s actin’ up this a-way!”
He did not reply, and presently she broke out, angrily, with:
“The huzzy! The ungrateful, deceitful jade! To treat a body so. How do we
know whether he’s got anything to keep a wife on? I’ll admit, though, he
was alwus genteel-dressed. I do think, Bart, you might ’a’ took pattern
’n that. ’Twa’n’t like as if you wa’n’t able to wear good clo’es—an’
Laviny liked such things.”
“I wish you’d ’a’ told me a good spell ago what she liked, Mrs. Vaiden.”
“Well, that’s so. There ain’t much use ’n lockin’ the stable door after
the horse ’s gone. Oh, that makes me think about your offerin’ me that
buggy—’s if I w’u’d!”
“I guess you’ll have to. I’m goin’ to leave on the train, an’ I’ll order
it sent to you.”
“Oh, you! Why, where you goin’, Bart?”
“I’m goin’ to follow _him_!” he thundered, bringing his fist down on
the table in a way that made every dish leap out of its place. “I ain’t
goin’ to hurt him—unless talk hurts—but I’m goin’ to say some _things_
to him. I ain’t had a thought for three year that that girl ain’t b’en
in! I ain’t made a plan that she ain’t b’en in. I’ve laid awake night
after night just too happy to sleep. An’ now to have a—a _thing_ like him
take her from me in one month. But that ain’t the worst!” he burst out,
passionately. “We don’t know how he’ll treat her, an’ she’ll be too proud
to complain—”
“I can’t see why you care how he treats her,” said Mrs. Vaiden, “after
the way she’s treated you.”
“No,” he answered, with a look that ought to have crushed her, “I didn’t
s’pose you c’u’d see. I didn’t expect you to see that, or anything else
but your own feelin’s—the way the thing affex you. But that’s what I’m
goin’ to follow him for, Mrs. Vaiden. An’ when I find him—I’m goin’
to tell him”—there was an awful calm in his tone now—“that if he ever
misuses her, now that he’s married her, I’ll kill him. I’ll shoot him
down like a dawg!”
“My Lord!” broke in Mrs. Vaiden, with a new thought. “What if he ain’t
married her! She never said so ’n her letter. Oh, Bart!” beginning to
weep hysterically. “Mebbe you c’u’d get her back.”
He leaped to his feet panting like an animal; his great breast swelled in
and out swiftly, his hands clenched, his eyes burned at her.
“What!” he said. “Do you _dare_? _Her mother!_ Oh, you—you—God! but I
wish you was a man!”
The whistle of a coming train broke across the morning stillness. He
turned, seized his hat and crushed it on his head. Then he came back and
took up the chair in which he had been sitting.
“Mrs. Vaiden,” he said, quietly, “d’ you see this chair? Well, if he
ain’t married her—”
With two or three movements of his powerful wrists he wrenched the chair
into as many pieces and dropped them on the floor.
* * * * *
After a while Mrs. Vaiden emerged from the stupefaction into which his
last words had thrown her, and resumed her breakfast.
“Well,” she said, stirring her coffee until it swam round and round
in a smooth eddy in the cup, “if I ever see his beat! Whoever’d ’a’
thought he’d take his cuttin’-out that a-way? I never ’d ’a’ thought it.
Worryin’ about her, after the way she’s up and used him! A body ’d think
he’d be glad if she was treated shameful, and hatto lead a mis’rable life
a-realizin’ what she’d threw away. But not him. Well, they say still
water runs deep. Mebbe it’s ungrateful to think it after his givin’ me
that fine buggy—(How Mis’ Bentley will stare when I drive roun’ to see
her!” she interjected with a smile of anticipation.) “But after seein’
how he showed up his temper just now I ain’t sure but Laviny’s head was
level when she took the other ’n. ’F _only_ he had a donation claim!”
ZARELDA
ZARELDA
“’Reldy! Say, ’Reldy Za-_rel_-dy!”
The girl was walking rapidly, but she stopped at once and turned. She
wore a cheap woolen dress of a dingy brown color. The sleeves were
soiled at the wrists, but the narrow, inexpensive ruffle at the neck was
white and fresh. Her thick brown hair was well brushed and clean. It was
woven into a heavy, glistening braid which was looped up and tied with a
rose-colored ribbon. Her shoes were worn out of shape and “run down” at
the heels, and there were no gloves on the roughened hands clasped over
the handle of her dinner-bucket.
“Oh, you?” she said, smiling.
“Yes, me,” said the other girl, with a high color, as she joined Zarelda.
They walked along briskly together. “I’ve been tryin’ to ketch up with
you for three blocks. Ain’t you early?”
“No; late. Heard the whistle blow ’fore I left home. Didn’t you hear it?
Now own up, Em Brackett.”
“No, I didn’t—honest,” said the other girl, laughing. “I set the clock
back las’ night an’ forgot to turn it ahead ag’in this mornin’.”
This young woman’s dress and manner differed from her companion’s. Her
dress was cheap, but of flimsy, figured goods that under close inspection
revealed many and large grease spots; the sleeves were fashionably
puffed; and there were ruffles and frills and plaitings all over it. At
the throat was a bit of satin ruffling that had once been pale blue.
Half her hair had been cut off, making what she called her “bangs,” and
this was tightly frizzed over her head as far back as her ears. Her back
hair—coarse and broken from many crimpings—was braided and looped up
like Zarelda’s, and tied with a soiled blue ribbon. She wore much cheap
jewelry, especially amethysts in gaudy settings. She carried herself with
an air and was popularly supposed by the young people of factory society
to be very much of a belle and a coquette.
Zarelda turned and looked at her with sudden interest.
“What in the name o’ mercy did you turn the clock back for?”
Em tossed her head, laughing and blushing.
“Never you mind what for, ’Reldy Winser. It ain’t any o’ your funeral, I
guess, if I did turn it back. I had occasion to—that’s all. You wasn’t at
the dance up at Canemah las’ night, was you?” she added suddenly.
“No, I wasn’t. I didn’t have anybody to go with. You didn’t go, either,
did you?”
“Unh-hunh; I did.”
Em nodded her head, looking up the river to the great Falls, with dreamy,
remembering eyes. “We had a splendid time, an’ the walk home along the
river was just fine.”
“Well, I could of gone with you if I’d of knew you was goin’. Couldn’t I?
Maw was reel well las’ night, too.”
She waited for a reply, but receiving none, repeated rather
wistfully—“Couldn’t I?”
Em took her eyes with some reluctance away from the river and looked
straight before her.
“Why, I guess,” she said, slowly and with slight condescension. “At
least, I wouldn’t of cared if my comp’ny wouldn’t; an’ I guess”—with a
beautiful burst of generosity—“he wouldn’t of minded much.”
“Oh,” said Zarelda, “you had comp’ny, did you?”
“W’y, of course. You didn’t s’pose I went up there all alone of myself,
did you?”
“You an’ me ust to go alone places, without any fellow, I mean,” said
Zarelda. A little color came slowly into her face. She felt vaguely hurt
by the other’s tone. “I thought mebbe you went with some o’ the other
girls.”
“I don’t go around that way any more.” Em lifted her chin an inch higher.
“When I can’t have an—escort”—she uttered the word with some hesitation,
fearing Zarelda might laugh at it—“I’ll stay home.”
Then she added abruptly in a reminiscent tone—“Maw acted up awful over
my goin’ with him. Thought for a spell I wouldn’t get to go. But at last
I flared all up an’ told her if I couldn’t go I’d just up an’ leave for
good. That brought her around to the whipple-trees double quick, I can
tell you. I guess she won’t say much agen my goin’ with him another time.”
“Goin’ with who?” said Zarelda. Em looked at her, smiling.
“For the land o’ love! D’ you mean to say you don’t know? I thought you’d
of guessed. W’y, that’s what made maw so mad—she was just hoppin’, I tell
you. That’s what made her act up so. Said all the neighbors ’u’d say I
was tryin’ to get him away from you.”
In an instant the blood had flamed all over Zarelda’s face and neck.
“Get who away from me, Em Brackett?”
“As if there was so many to get!” said Em, laughing.
“Who are you a-talkin’ about?” said Zarelda, sternly. Her face was paling
now. “What of I got to do with you an’ your comp’ny an’ your maw’s
actin’-ups, I’d like to know. Who _was_ your comp’ny?”
“Jim Sheppard; he”—
“Jim Sheppard!” cried Zarelda, furiously. She turned a white face to her
companion, but her eyes were blazing. “What do I care for Jim Sheppard?
Aigh? What do I care who he takes to dances up at Canemah? Aigh? You
tell your maw, Em Brackett, that she needn’t to trouble to act up on my
account. She can save her actin’-ups for somebody that needs ’em! You
tell her that, will you?”
“Well, I will,” said Em, unmoved. “I’m glad you don’t mind, ’Reldy. I
felt some uneasy myself, seein’ ’s how stiddy he’d been goin’ with you.”
“Well, that don’t hender his goin’ with somebody else, does it? I ain’t
very likely to keep him from pleasin’ hisself, am I?”
“Don’t go to workin’ yourself up so, ’Reldy. If you don’t care, there’s
no use in flarin’ up so. My! Just look at this em’rald ring in at
Shindy’s. Ain’t that a beaut’?”
“I ain’t got time.” Zarelda walked on with her head up. “Don’t you see
we’re late a’ready? The machin’ry’s all a-goin’, long ago.”
The two girls pushed through the swinging gate and ran up the half-dozen
steps to the entrance of the big, brick woolen mills. A young man in a
flannel shirt and brown overalls was passing through the outer hall. He
was twirling a full, crimson rose in his hand.
As the girls hurried in, he paused and stood awkwardly waiting for them,
with a red face.
“Good mornin’,” he said, looking first at Em and then, somewhat
shamefacedly, at Zarelda.
“Good mornin’, Jim,” said Zarelda, coolly. She was still pale, but she
smiled as she pressed on into the weaving-room. The many-tongued roar
of the machinery burst through the open door to greet her. Em lingered
behind a moment; and when she passed Zarelda’s loom there was a crimson
rose in her girdle and two more in her cheeks.
Five hours of monotonous work followed. Zarelda stood patiently by her
loom, unmindful of the toilers around her and the deafening noise; she
did not lift her eyes from her work. She was the youngest weaver in the
factory and one of the most careful and conscientious.
The marking-room was in the basement, and in its quietest corner was
a large stove whereon the factory-girls were permitted to warm their
lunches. When the whistle sounded at noon they ceased work instantly,
seized their lunch baskets, and sped—pushing, laughing, jostling—down the
stairs to the basement. There was a small, rickety elevator at the rear
of the factory, and some of the more reckless ones leaped upon it and let
themselves down with the rope.
Zarelda was timid about the elevator; but that noon she sprang upon
it and giving the rope a jerk went spinning down to the ground. As
she entered the marking-room one of the overseers saw her. “What!” he
exclaimed, “Did you come down that elevator, ’Reldy? I thought you had
more sense ’n some o’ the other girls. Why, it ain’t safe! You’re liable
to get killed on it.”
“I don’t care,” said Zarelda, with a short, contemptuous laugh. “I’d just
as soon go over the falls in an Indian dug-out.”
“You must want to shuffle off mighty bad,” said the overseer. Then he
added kindly, for he and all the other overseers liked her—“What’s got
into you, ’Reldy? Anything ail you?”
“No,” said the girl; “nothin’ ails me.” But his kind tone had brought
sudden, stinging tears to her eyes.
She went on silently to the stove and set her bucket upon it. It
contained thick vegetable soup, which, with soda crackers, constituted
her dinner. She sat down to watch it, stirring it occasionally with a tin
spoon. Twenty other girls were crowding around the stove. Em was among
them. Zarelda saw the big red rose lolling in her girdle. She turned her
eyes resolutely away from it, only to find them going back again and
again.
“Hey! Where ’d you get your rose at, Em Brackett?” cried one of the
girls.
“Jim Sheppard gave it to her,” trebled another, before Em could reply. “I
see him have it pinned onto his flannel shirt before the whistle blew.”
“_Jim Sheppard!_ Oh, my!”
There was a subdued titter behind Zarelda’s back. She stirred the soup
without lifting her eyes. “She went livid, though, an’ then she went
white!” one of the girls who read yellow novels declared afterward,
tragically.
“Well,” said Matt Wilson, sitting down on a bench and commencing to eat a
great slice of bread thinly covered with butter, “who went to the dance
up at Stringtown las’ night?”
All the girls but two flung unclean hands above their heads. There was a
merry outcry of “I did! I did!”
“Well, I didn’t,” said Matt. “My little lame sister coaxed me to wheel
her down town, an’ then it was too late.”
“Why wasn’t you there, Zarelda Winser?” cried Belle Church, opening her
dinner-bucket and examining the contents with the air of an epicurean.
For a second or two Zarelda wished honestly that she had a lame sister or
an invalid mother. Then she said, quite calmly—“I didn’t have any body to
go with. That’s why.” She turned and faced them all as she spoke.
With a fine delicacy which was certainly not acquired by education,
every girl except Matt looked away from Zarelda’s face. Matt, not having
been to the dance, was not in the secret.
But Zarelda did not change countenance. She sat calmly eating her soup
from the bucket with the tin spoon. She took it noisily from the point of
the spoon; it was so thick that it was like eating a vegetable dinner.
“Didn’t have anybody to go with?” repeated Matt, laughing loudly. “I
call that good. A girl that’s had steady comp’ny for a year! Comp’ny
that’s tagged her closer ’n her shadder! An’ I did hear”—she shattered
the shell of a hard-boiled egg by hammering it on the bench, and began
picking off the pieces—“that your maw was makin’ you up a whole trunkful
o’ new underclo’s—all trimmed up with tattin’ an’ crochet an’ serpentine
braid—with insertin’ two inches wide on ’em, too. You didn’t have anybody
to go with, aigh? What’s the matter with Jim Sheppard?”
Zarelda set her eyes on the red rose, as if that gave her courage.
“He took Em Brackett.”
“Not much!” said Matt, turning sharply. “Honest? Well, then, he only took
her because you couldn’t go an’ ast him to take her instid.”
“Why, the idee!” exclaimed Em, coloring angrily and fluttering until the
rose almost fell out of her girdle. “Zarelda Winser, you tell her that
ain’t so!”
“No, it ain’t so,” said Zarelda, composedly, finishing her soup and
beginning on a soda cracker. “He didn’t ask me at all. He asked Em
hisself.”
“My!” said Net Carter, who had not been giving attention to the
conversation. “What larrapin’ good lunches you do have, Em Brackett.
Chicken sandwich, an’ spiced cur’nts, an’ cake! My!”
Em Brackett looked out of the cobwebbed window at a small dwelling
between the factory and the river. “I wonder why Mis’ Allen don’t hide
up that ugly porch o’ her’n with vines,” she said, frostily. In factory
society “larrapin” was not considered a polite word and a snub invariably
awaited the unfortunate young woman who used it. The line must be drawn.
When the whistle blew the girls started leisurely for the stairs. There
would be fifteen minutes during which they might stand around the halls
and talk to the young men. Zarelda fell back, permitting all to precede
her. Em looked back once or twice to see where she was.
“Well, if that ’Reldy Winser ain’t grit!” whispered Nell Curry to Min
Aster. “Just as good as acknowledgin’ he’s threw off on her, an’ her
a-holdin’ up her head that way. There ain’t another girl in the factory
c’u’d do that—without flinchin’, too.”
When Zarelda reached the first hall she looked about her deliberately
for Jim Sheppard. It had been his custom to meet her at the head of the
stairs and going with her to one of the windows overlooking the Falls, to
talk until the second whistle sent them to their looms. With a resolute
air she joined Em Brackett, who was looking unusually pretty with a flush
of excitement on her face and a defiant sparkle in her eyes.
In a moment Jim Sheppard came in. He hesitated when he saw the two girls
together. A dull red went over his face. Then he crossed the hall and
deliberately ignoring Zarelda, smiled into Em’s boldly inviting eyes and
said, distinctly—“Em, don’t you want to take a little walk? There’s just
time.”
“Why, yes,” said Em, with a flash of poorly concealed triumph. “’Reldy,
if you’re a-goin’ on upstairs, would you just as lieve pack my bucket up?”
“I’d just as lieve.” Zarelda took the bucket, and the young couple walked
away airily.
This was the way the factory young men had of disclosing their
preferences. It was considered quite proper for a young man and a young
woman to “go together” for months, or even years, and for one to “throw
off” on the other, when attracted by a fresher face, with no explanation
or apology.
“Well,” whispered Belle Church, “I guess there ain’t one of us but’s
been threw off on some time or other, so we know how it feels. But this
is worse. He’s been goin’ with her more’n a year—an then to stop off so
sudden!”
“It’s better to stop off sudden than slow,” said Matt Wilson, with an air
of grim wisdom. “It hurts worse, but it don’t hurt so long. Well, if I
ever! Just look at that!”
Out of sheer pity Frank Haddon had sidled out of a group of young men and
made his way hesitatingly to Zarelda. “’Reldy,” he said, “don’t you want
to—want to—take a walk, too?”
The girl’s eyes flamed at him. She knew that he was pitying her, and she
was not of a nature to accept pity meekly. “No!” she flashed out, with
scorn. “I don’t want to—want to”—mimicking his tone—“take a walk, too. If
I did, I guess I know the road.”
She went upstairs, holding her head high.
When Zarelda went home that evening she found the family already at the
supper table. The Winsers were not very particular about their home
manners.
“We don’t wait on each other here,” Mrs. Winser explained, frequently,
with pride, to her neighbors. “When a meal’s done, on the table it goes
in a jiffy, an’ such of us as is here, eat. I just put the things back in
the oven an’ keep ’em hot for them that ain’t on hand.”
Zarelda was compelled to pass through the kitchen to reach the stairs.
“Well, ’Reldy,” said her mother, “you’re here at last, be you? Hurry up
an’ wash yourself. Your supper’s in the oven, but I guess the fire’s
about out. It does beat all how quick it goes out. Paw, I do wish you’d
hump yourself an’ git some dry wood. It ’u’d try the soul of a saint to
cook with that green stuff. Sap fairly _oozes_ out of it!”
“I don’t want any supper, maw,” said Zarelda.
“You don’t want any supper! What ails you? Aigh?”
“I don’t feel hungry. I got a headache.”
She passed the table without a glance and went upstairs. Her mother
arose, pushing back her chair with decision and followed her. When she
reached Zarelda’s room, the girl was on her knees before her trunk. She
had taken out a small writing-desk and was fitting a tiny key in the
lock. Her hat was still on her head, but pushed back.
She started when the door opened, and looked over her shoulder, flushing
with embarrassment and annoyance. Then, without haste or nervousness,
she replaced the desk and closing the trunk, stood up calmly and faced
her mother.
“Why don’t you want any supper?” Mrs. Winser took in the trunk, the desk,
and the blush at one glance. “Be you sick?”