Evered and his son drove home together through the clotting dusk in a
silence that was habitual with them. The buggy was a light vehicle, the
horse was swift and powerful, and they made good time. Evered, driving,
used the whip now and then; and at each red-hot touch of the light lash
the horse leaped like a stricken thing; and at each whiplash John
Evered’s lips pressed firmly each against the other, as though to hold
back the word he would have said. No good in speaking, he knew. It would
only rouse the lightly slumbering anger in his father, only lead to more
hurts for the horse, and a black scowl or an oath to himself. There were
times when John Evered longed to put his strength against his father’s;
when he was hungry for the feel of flesh beneath his smashing fists. But
these moments were few. He understood the older man; there was a blood
sympathy between them. He knew his father’s heart as no other did or
could; and in the last analysis he loved his father loyally. Thus had he
learned long patience and restraint. It is very easy to damn and hate a
man like Evered, hot and fierce and ruthlessly overbearing. But John
Evered, his son, who had suffered more from Evered than any other man,
neither damned nor hated him.
They drove home together in silence. Evered sat still in his seat, but
there was no relaxation in his attitude. He was still as a tiger is
still before the charge and the leap. John at his side could feel the
other’s shoulder muscles tensing. His father was always so, always a
boiling vessel of emotions. You might call him a powerful man, a
masterful man. John Evered knew him for a slave, for the slave of his
own hot and angry pulse beats. And he loved and pitied him.
Out of Fraternity they took the Liberty road, and came presently to a
turning which led them to the right, and so to the way to Evered’s farm,
a narrow road, leading nowhere except into the farmyard, and traveled by
few men who had no business there.
When they came into the farmyard it was almost dark. Yet there was still
light enough to see, beyond the shadow of the barn, the sloping
hillside that led down to Whitcher Swamp; and the swamp itself, brooding
beneath its gray mists in the thickening night. The farm buildings were
set on a jutting shoulder of the hill, looking out across the valley
where the swamp lay, to Fraternity, and off toward Moody Mountain beyond
the town. By day there was a glory in this valley that was spread below
them; by night it was a place of dark and mystery. Sounds used to come
up the hill from the swamp; the sounds of thrashing brush where the
moose fed, or perhaps the clash of ponderous antlers in the fall, or the
wicked scream of a marauding cat, or the harsh cries of night-hawks, or
the tremolo hoot of an owl.
Built against the barn on the side away from the house there was a stout
roofed stall; and opening from this stall a pen with board walls higher
than a man’s head and cedar posts as thick as a man’s leg, set every
four feet to support the planking of the walls. As the horse stopped in
the farmyard and Evered and his son alighted, a sound came from this
stall--a low, inhuman, monstrous sound, like the rumbling of a storm,
like the complaint of a hungry beast, like the promise of evil things
too dreadful for describing; the muffled roaring of Evered’s great red
bull, disturbed by the sound of the horse. John Evered stood still for
an instant, listening. It was impossible for most men to hear that sound
without an appalling tremor of the heart. But Evered himself gave no
heed to it. He spoke to the horse. He said “Hush, now. Still.”
The horse was as still as stone, yet it trembled as it had trembled at
Will’s store. Evered gathered parcels from beneath the seat; and John
filled his arms with what remained. They turned toward the house
together, the son a little behind the father.
There was a light in the kitchen of the farmhouse; and a woman had come
to the open door and was looking out toward them. She was silhouetted
blackly by the light behind her. It revealed her figure as slim and
pleasantly graven. The lamp’s rays turned her hair into an iridescent
halo about her head. She rested one hand against the frame of the door;
and her lifted arm guided her body into graceful lines.
She called to them in a low voice, “Do you need light?”
Evered answered. “If you were out of the door there’d be light enough,”
he said.
The woman lifted her hand to her lips in a hurt little gesture; and she
stepped aside with no further word. She still stood thus, at one side of
the door, when they came in. The lamplight fell full upon her, full upon
her countenance.
The woman’s face, the face of this woman whose body still bore youthful
lines, was shocking. There were weary contours in it; there were shadows
of pain beneath the eyes; there was anguish in the mobile lips. The hair
which had seemed like a halo showed now like a white garland; snow
white, though it still lay heavy and glossy as a girl’s. She was like a
statue of sorrow; the figure of a sad and tortured life.
The woman was Evered’s second wife; Evered’s wife, Mary Evered. His
wife, whom he had won in a courtship that was like red flowers in
spring; whom he had made to suffer interminably, day by day, till
suffering became routine and death would have been happiness; and
whom--believe it or no--Evered had always and would forever love with a
love that was like torment. There is set perversely in man and woman
alike an impulse to tease and hurt and distress those whom we love. It
is, of this stuff that lovers’ quarrels are made; it is from this that
the heartbreaks of the honeymoon are born. The men and women of the
fairy tales, who marry and live happily ever after, are fairy tales
themselves; or else they never loved. For loving, which is sacrifice and
service and kindness and devotion, is also misunderstanding and
distortion and perversity and unhappiness most profound. It is a part of
love to quarrel; the making-up is often so sweet it justifies the
anguish of the conflict. Mary Evered knew this. But Evered had a stiff
pride in him which would not let him yield; be he ever so deeply wrong
he held his ground; and Mary was sick with much yielding.
Annie Paisley, who lived at the next farm on the North Fraternity road,
had given Mary Evered something to think about when Paisley died, the
year before.
For over Paisley’s very coffin Annie had said in a thoughtful,
reminiscent way: “Yes, Mary; Jim ’uz a good husband to me for nigh on
thirty year. A good pervider, and a kind man, and a good father. He
never drunk, nor ever wasted what little money we got; and we always
had plenty to do with; and the children liked him. Kind to me, he was.
Gentle.” Her eyes had narrowed thoughtfully. “But Mary,” she said, “you
know I never liked him.”
Mary Evered had been a girl of spirit and strength; and if she had not
loved Evered she would never have stayed with him a year. Loving him she
had stayed; and the bitter years rolled over her; stayed because she
loved him, and because she--like her son--understood the heart of the
man, and knew that through all his ruthless strength and hard purpose,
with all his might he loved her.
She said now in the kitchen: “You got the salt pork?”
“Of course I got the salt pork,” Evered told her in a level tone that
was like a whip across her shoulders. He dumped his parcels on the
table, pointed to one; and she took it up in a hurried furtive way and
turned to the stove. John laid down his bundles, and Evered said to him:
“Put the horse away.” The young man nodded, and went out into the
farmyard.
The horse still stood where Evered had bade it stand. John went to the
creature’s head and laid his hand lightly on the velvety nose, and spoke
softly; and after a moment the horse mouthed his hand with its lips. He
took the bridle and led it toward the stable. There was a lantern
hanging by the door, but he did not light it. The young man loved the
still darkness of the night; there was some quality in the damp cool air
which was like wine to him. And he needed no light for what he had to
do; he knew every wooden peg in the barn’s stout frame, blindfolded; for
the barn and the farm had been his world for more than twenty years.
Outside the stable door he stopped the horse and loosed the traces and
led it out of the thills, which he lowered carefully to the ground. The
horse turned, as of habit, to a tub full of water which stood beside the
barn door; and while the creature drank John backed the buggy into the
carriage shed and propped up the thills with a plank. When he came to
the stable door again the horse was waiting for him; and he heard its
breath whir in a soundless whinny of greeting. He stripped away the
harness expertly, hanging it on pegs against the wall, and adjusted the
halter. Once, while he worked, the red bull in its closed stall on the
farther side of the barn bellowed softly; and the young man called to
the beast in a tone that was at once strong and kindly.
He put the horse in its stall, tied the halter rope, and stepped out
into the open floor of the barn to pull down hay for the beast. It was
when he did so that he became conscious that someone was near. He could
not have told how he knew; but there was, of a sudden, a warmth and a
friendliness in the very air about him, so that his breath came a little
more quickly. He stood very still for a moment; and then he looked
toward the stable door. His eyes, accustomed to the dark, discovered
her. She had come inside the barn and was standing against the wall,
watching him. He could see the dim white blur of her face in the
darkness; he could almost see the glow that lay always in her eyes for
him.
He said quietly, “Hello, Ruth.”
And she answered him, “Hello, John.”
“I’ve got to pull down a little hay,” he said. It was as though he
apologized for not coming at once to her side.
“Yes,” she told him, and stood there while he finished tending the
horse.
When he had done he went toward her slowly and stood before her, and she
moved a little nearer to him, so that he put his arms awkwardly round
her shoulders and kissed her. He felt her lips move against his; felt
her womanly and strong. There was no passion in their caress; only an
awkward tenderness on his part, a deep affection on hers.
“I’m glad you came out,” he said; and she nodded against his shoulder.
They went into the barnyard, and his arm was about her waist.
“It’s warm to-night,” she told him. “Summer’s about here.”
He nodded. “We’ll have green peas by the Fourth if we don’t git a
frost.”
Neither of them wanted to get at once to the house. There was youth in
them; the house was no place for youth. She was Ruth MacLure, Mary
Evered’s sister. Not, by that token, John Evered’s aunt; for John
Evered’s mother was dead many years gone, before Evered took Mary
MacLure for wife. A year ago old Bill MacLure had died and Ruth had come
to live with her sister. John had never known her till then; since then
he found it impossible to understand how he had ever lived without
knowing her. She was years younger than her sister, three years younger
than John Evered himself; and he loved her.
They crossed the barnyard to the fence and looked down into the shadowy
pit of blackness where the swamp lay, half a mile below them. They
rested their elbows on the top bar of the fence. Once or twice the bull
muttered in his stall a few rods away. They could hear the champ of the
horse’s teeth as the beast fed before sleeping; they could hear Evered’s
cows stirring in their tie-up. The night was very still and warm, as
though heaven brooded like a mother over the earth.
The girl said at last, “Semler was here while you were gone.”
The young man asked slowly, “What fetched him here?”
“He was on his way home from fishing, down in the swamp stream.”
“Did he do anything down there?”
“Had seventeen. One of them was thirteen inches long. He wanted to leave
some, but Mary wouldn’t let him.”
They were silent for a moment, then John Evered said, “Best not tell my
father.”
The girl cried under her breath, with an impatient gesture of her hand,
“I’m not going to. But I hate it. It isn’t fair. Mary wants him to keep
away. He bothers her.”
“I can keep him away.”
“You did tell him not to come.”
“I can make him not come,” said John Evered; and the girl fell silent,
and said at last, “He’s writing to her. Oh, John, what can she do? More
than she has done?”
“I’ll see to’t he stays away,” the young man promised; and the girl’s
hand fell on his arm.
“Please do,” she said. “He’s so unfair to Mary.”
A little later, when they turned at last toward the house, John said
half to himself, “If my father ever heard, he’d bust that man.”
“I wish he would,” the girl said hotly. “But--I’m afraid he’d find some
way to blame Mary. He mustn’t know.”
“I’ll see Dane Semler,” John promised.
On the doorstep they kissed again. Then they went into the house
together. Evered sitting by the lamp with his paper looked up at them
bleakly, but said no word. Mary Evered smiled at her sister, smiled at
John. She loved her husband’s son, had loved him like a mother since
she came to the house and found him, a boy not four years old, helping
with the chores as a grown man might have done. She had found something
pitiful in the strength and the reserve of the little fellow; and she
had mothered out of him some moments of softness and affection that
would have surprised his father.
There was a certain measure of reassurance in his eyes as he returned
her smile. But when he had sat down across the table from his father,
where she could not see his face, he became sober and very thoughtful.
He was considering the matter of Dane Semler.