diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-8.txt | 10184 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 173102 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 1783254 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/17428-h.htm | 8807 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem01.png | bin | 0 -> 109482 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem02.png | bin | 0 -> 123205 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem03.png | bin | 0 -> 105928 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem04.png | bin | 0 -> 103001 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem05.png | bin | 0 -> 105052 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem06.png | bin | 0 -> 121788 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem07.png | bin | 0 -> 113149 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem08.png | bin | 0 -> 109534 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem09.png | bin | 0 -> 99343 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem10.png | bin | 0 -> 85115 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem11.png | bin | 0 -> 114987 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem12.png | bin | 0 -> 104435 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem13.png | bin | 0 -> 113048 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem14.png | bin | 0 -> 98787 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428-h/images/pem15.png | bin | 0 -> 95772 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428.txt | 10184 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 17428.zip | bin | 0 -> 173066 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
24 files changed, 29191 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17428-8.txt b/17428-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49cc46d --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10184 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pembroke, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pembroke + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: December 31, 2005 [EBook #17428] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEMBROKE *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: +The images for this text were scanned from the 1894 edition. + + + + +Pembroke + +Mary E. Wilkins + +Harper & Brothers Publishers; New York: 1900 + + +[Illustration: "'It's beautiful,' Rose said"] + + +Introductory Sketch + + +_Pembroke_ was originally intended as a study of the human will in +several New England characters, in different phases of disease and +abnormal development, and to prove, especially in the most marked +case, the truth of a theory that its cure depended entirely upon the +capacity of the individual for a love which could rise above all +considerations of self, as Barnabas Thayer's love for Charlotte +Barnard finally did. + +While Barnabas Thayer is the most pronounced exemplification of this +theory, and while he, being drawn from life, originally suggested the +scheme of the study, a number of the other characters, notably +Deborah Thayer, Richard Alger, and Cephas Barnard, are instances of +the same spiritual disease. Barnabas to me was as much the victim of +disease as a man with curvature of the spine; he was incapable of +straightening himself to his former stature until he had laid hands +upon a more purely unselfish love than he had ever known, through his +anxiety for Charlotte, and so raised himself to his own level. + +When I make use of the term abnormal, I do not mean unusual in any +sense. I am far from any intention to speak disrespectfully or +disloyally of those stanch old soldiers of the faith who landed upon +our inhospitable shores and laid the foundation, as on a very rock of +spirit, for the New England of to-day; but I am not sure, in spite of +their godliness, and their noble adherence, in the face of obstacles, +to the dictates of their consciences, that their wills were not +developed past the reasonable limit of nature. What wonder is it that +their descendants inherit this peculiarity, though they may develop +it for much less worthy and more trivial causes than the exiling +themselves for a question of faith, even the carrying-out of personal +and petty aims and quarrels? + +There lived in a New England village, at no very remote time, a man +who objected to the painting of the kitchen floor, and who quarrelled +furiously with his wife concerning the same. When she persisted, in +spite of his wishes to the contrary, and the floor was painted, he +refused to cross it to his dying day, and always, to his great +inconvenience, but probably to his soul's satisfaction, walked around +it. + +A character like this, holding to a veriest trifle with such a +deathless cramp of the will, might naturally be regarded as a notable +exception to a general rule; but his brethren who sit on church steps +during services, who are dumb to those whom they should love, and +will not enter familiar doors because of quarrels over matters of +apparently no moment, are legion. _Pembroke_ is intended to portray a +typical New England village of some sixty years ago, as many of the +characters flourished at that time, but villages of a similar +description have existed in New England at a much later date, and +they exist to-day in a very considerable degree. There are at the +present time many little towns in New England along whose pleasant +elm or maple shaded streets are scattered characters as pronounced as +any in Pembroke. A short time since a Boston woman recited in my +hearing a list of seventy-five people in the very small Maine village +in which she was born and brought up, and every one of the characters +which she mentioned had some almost incredibly marked physical or +mental characteristic. + +However, this state of things--this survival of the more prominent +traits of the old stiff-necked ones, albeit their necks were +stiffened by their resistance of the adversary--can necessarily be +known only to the initiated. The sojourner from cities for the summer +months cannot often penetrate in the least, though he may not be +aware of it, the reserve and dignified aloofness of the dwellers in +the white cottages along the road over which he drives. He often +looks upon them from the superior height of a wise and keen student +of character; he knows what he thinks of them, but he never knows +what they think of him or themselves. Unless he is a man of the +broadest and most democratic tendencies, to whom culture and the +polish of society is as nothing beside humanity, and unless he +returns, as faithfully as the village birds to their nests, to his +summer home year after year, he cannot see very far below the +surfaces of villages of which Pembroke is typical. Quite naturally, +when the surfaces are broken by some unusual revelation of a +strongly serrate individuality, and the tale thereof is told +at his dinner-table with an accompaniment of laughter and +exclamation-points, he takes that case for an isolated and by no +means typical one, when, if the truth were told, the village windows +are full of them as he passes by. + +However, this state of things must necessarily exist, and has +existed, in villages which, like Pembroke, have not been brought much +in contact with outside influences, and have not been studied or +observed at all by people not of their kind by birth or long +familiarity. In towns which have increased largely in population, and +have become more or less assimilated with a foreign element, these +characters do not exist in such a large measure, are more isolated in +reality, and have, consequently, less claim to be considered types. +But there have been, and are to-day in New England, hundreds of +villages like Pembroke, where nearly every house contains one or more +characters so marked as to be incredible, though a writer may be +prevented, for obvious reasons, from mentioning names and proving +facts. + +There is often to a mind from the outside world an almost repulsive +narrowness and a pitiful sordidness which amounts to tragedy in the +lives of such people as those portrayed in _Pembroke_, but quite +generally the tragedy exists only in the comprehension of the +observer and not at all in that of the observed. The pitied would +meet pity with resentment; they would be full of wonder and wrath if +told that their lives were narrow, since they have never seen the +limit of the breadth of their current of daily life. A singing-school +is as much to them as a symphony concert and grand opera to their +city brethren, and a sewing church sociable as an afternoon tea. +Though the standard of taste of the simple villagers, and their +complete satisfaction therewith, may reasonably be lamented, as also +their restricted view of life, they are not to be pitied, generally +speaking, for their unhappiness in consequence. It may be that the +lack of unhappiness constitutes the real tragedy. + + + +Chapter I + + +At half-past six o'clock on Sunday night Barnabas came out of his +bedroom. The Thayer house was only one story high, and there were no +chambers. A number of little bedrooms were clustered around the three +square rooms--the north and south parlors, and the great kitchen. + +Barnabas walked out of his bedroom straight into the kitchen where +the other members of the family were. They sat before the hearth fire +in a semi-circle--Caleb Thayer, his wife Deborah, his son Ephraim, +and his daughter Rebecca. It was May, but it was quite cold; there +had been talk of danger to the apple blossoms; there was a crisp +coolness in the back of the great room in spite of the hearth fire. + +Caleb Thayer held a great leather-bound Bible on his knees, and was +reading aloud in a solemn voice. His wife sat straight in her chair, +her large face tilted with a judicial and argumentative air, and +Rebecca's red cheeks bloomed out more brilliantly in the heat of the +fire. She sat next her mother, and her smooth dark head with its +carven comb arose from her Sunday kerchief with a like carriage. She +and her mother did not look alike, but their motions were curiously +similar, and perhaps gave evidence to a subtler resemblance in +character and motive power. + +Ephraim, undersized for his age, in his hitching, home-made clothes, +twisted himself about when Barnabas entered, and stared at him with +slow regard. He eyed the smooth, scented hair, the black satin vest +with a pattern of blue flowers on it, the blue coat with brass +buttons, and the shining boots, then he whistled softly under his +breath. + +"Ephraim!" said his mother, sharply. She had a heavy voice and a +slight lisp, which seemed to make it more impressive and more +distinctively her own. Caleb read on ponderously. + +"Where ye goin', Barney?" Ephraim inquired, with a chuckle and a +grin, over the back of his chair. + +"Ephraim!" repeated his mother. Her blue eyes frowned around his +sister at him under their heavy sandy brows. + +Ephraim twisted himself back into position. "Jest wanted to know +where he was goin'," he muttered. + +Barnabas stood by the window brushing his fine bell hat with a white +duck's wing. He was a handsome youth; his profile showed clear and +fine in the light, between the sharp points of his dicky bound about +by his high stock. His cheeks were as red as his sister's. + +When he put on his hat and opened the door, his mother herself +interrupted Caleb's reading. + +"Don't you stay later than nine o'clock, Barnabas," said she. + +The young man murmured something unintelligibly, but his tone was +resentful. + +"I ain't going to have you out as long as you were last Sabbath +night," said his mother, in quick return. She jerked her chin down +heavily as if it were made of iron. + +Barnabas went out quickly, and shut the door with a thud. + +[Illustration: "Barnabas went out quickly"] + +"If he was a few years younger, I'd make him come back an' shut that +door over again," said his mother. + +Caleb read on; he was reading now one of the imprecatory psalms. +Deborah's blue eyes gleamed with warlike energy as she listened: she +confused King David's enemies with those people who crossed her own +will. + +Barnabas went out of the yard, which was wide and deep on the south +side of the house. The bright young grass was all snowed over with +cherry blossoms. Three great cherry-trees stood in a row through the +centre of the yard; they had been white with blossoms, but now they +were turning green; and the apple-trees were in flower. + +There were many apple-trees behind the stone-walls that bordered the +wood. The soft blooming branches looked strangely incongruous in the +keen air. The western sky was clear and yellow, and there were a few +reefs of violet cloud along it. Barnabas looked up at the apple +blossoms over his head, and wondered if there would be a frost. From +their apple orchard came a large share of the Thayer income, and +Barnabas was vitally interested in such matters now, for he was to be +married the last of June to Charlotte Barnard. He often sat down with +a pencil and slate, and calculated, with intricate sums, the amounts +of his income and their probable expenses. He had made up his mind +that Charlotte should have one new silk gown every year, and two new +bonnets--one for summer and one for winter. His mother had often +noted, with scorn, that Charlotte Barnard wore her summer bonnet with +another ribbon on it winters, and, moreover, had not had a new bonnet +for three years. + +"She looks handsomer in it than any girl in town, if she hasn't," +Barnabas had retorted with quick resentment, but he nevertheless felt +sensitive on the subject of Charlotte's bonnet, and resolved that she +should have a white one trimmed with gauze ribbons for summer, and +one of drawn silk, like Rebecca's, for winter, only the silk should +be blue instead of pink, because Charlotte was fair. + +Barnabas had even pondered with tender concern, before he bought his +fine flowered satin waistcoat, if he might not put the money it would +cost into a bonnet for Charlotte, but he had not dared to propose it. +Once he had bought a little blue-figured shawl for her, and her +father had bade her return it. + +"I ain't goin' to have any young sparks buyin' your clothes while you +are under my roof," he had said. + +Charlotte had given the shawl back to her lover. "Father don't feel +as if I ought to take it, and I guess you'd better keep it now, +Barney," she said, with regretful tears in her eyes. + +Barnabas had the blue shawl nicely folded in the bottom of his little +hair-cloth trunk, which he always kept locked. + +After a quarter of a mile the stone-walls and the spray of apple +blossoms ended; there was a short stretch of new fence, and a new +cottage-house only partly done. The yard was full of lumber, and a +ladder slanted to the roof, which gleamed out with the fresh pinky +yellow of unpainted pine. + +Barnabas stood before the house a few minutes, staring at it. Then he +walked around it slowly, his face upturned. Then he went in the front +door, swinging himself up over the sill, for there were no steps, and +brushing the sawdust carefully from his clothes when he was inside. +He went all over the house, climbing a ladder to the second story, +and viewing with pride the two chambers under the slant of the new +roof. He had repelled with scorn his father's suggestion that he have +a one-story instead of a story-and-a-half house. Caleb had an +inordinate horror and fear of wind, and his father, who had built the +house in which he lived, had it before him. Deborah often descanted +indignantly upon the folly of sleeping in little tucked-up bedrooms +instead of good chambers, because folks' fathers had been scared to +death of wind, and Barnabas agreed with her. If he had inherited any +of his father's and grandfather's terror of wind, he made no +manifestation of it. + +In the lower story of the new cottage were two square front rooms +like those in his father's house, and behind them the great kitchen +with a bedroom out of it, and a roof of its own. + +Barnabas paused at last in the kitchen, and stood quite still, +leaning against a window casement. The windows were not in, and the +spaces let in the cool air and low light. Outside was a long reach of +field sloping gently upward. In the distance, at the top of the hill, +sharply outlined against the sky, was a black angle of roof and a +great chimney. A thin column of smoke rose out of it, straight and +dark. That was where Charlotte Barnard lived. + +Barnabas looked out and saw the smoke rising from the chimney of the +Barnard house. There was a little hollow in the field that was quite +blue with violets, and he noted that absently. A team passed on the +road outside; it was as if he saw and heard everything from the +innermost recesses of his own life, and everything seemed strange and +far off. + +He turned to go, but suddenly stood still in the middle of the +kitchen, as if some one had stopped him. He looked at the new +fireless hearth, through the open door into the bedroom which he +would occupy after he was married to Charlotte, and through others +into the front rooms, which would be apartments of simple state, not +so closely connected with every-day life. The kitchen windows would +be sunny. Charlotte would think it a pleasant room. + +"Her rocking-chair can set there," said Barnabas aloud. The tears +came into his eyes; he stepped forward, laid his smooth boyish cheek +against a partition wall of this new house, and kissed it. It was a +fervent demonstration, not towards Charlotte alone, nor the joy to +come to him within those walls, but to all life and love and nature, +although he did not comprehend it. He half sobbed as he turned away; +his thoughts seemed to dazzle his brain, and he could not feel his +feet. He passed through the north front room, which would be the +little-used parlor, to the door, and suddenly started at a long black +shadow on the floor. It vanished as he went on, and might have been +due to his excited fancy, which seemed substantial enough to cast +shadows. + +"I shall marry Charlotte, we shall live here together all our lives, +and die here," thought Barnabas, as he went up the hill. "I shall lie +in my coffin in the north room, and it will all be over," but his +heart leaped with joy. He stepped out proudly like a soldier in a +battalion, he threw back his shoulders in his Sunday coat. + +The yellow glow was paling in the west, the evening air was like a +cold breath in his face. He could see the firelight flickering upon +the kitchen wall of the Barnard house as he drew near. He came up +into the yard and caught a glimpse of a fair head in the ruddy glow. +There was a knocker on the door; he raised it gingerly and let it +fall. It made but a slight clatter, but a woman's shadow moved +immediately across the yard outside, and Barnabas heard the inner +door open. He threw open the outer one himself, and Charlotte stood +there smiling, and softly decorous. Neither of them spoke. Barnabas +glanced at the inner door to see if it were closed, then he caught +Charlotte's hands and kissed her. + +"You shouldn't do so, Barnabas," whispered Charlotte, turning her +face away. She was as tall as Barnabas, and as handsome. + +"Yes, I should," persisted Barnabas, all radiant, and his face +pursued hers around her shoulder. + +"It's pretty cold out, ain't it?" said Charlotte, in a chiding voice +which she could scarcely control. + +"I've been in to see our house. Give me one more kiss. Oh, +Charlotte!" + +"Charlotte!" cried a deep voice, and the lovers started apart. + +"I'm coming, father," Charlotte cried out. She opened the door and +went soberly into the kitchen, with Barnabas at her heels. Her +father, mother, and Aunt Sylvia Crane sat there in the red gleam of +the firelight and gathering twilight. Sylvia sat a little behind the +others, and her face in her white cap had the shadowy delicacy of one +of the flowering apple sprays outside. + +"How d'ye do?" said Barnabas in a brave tone which was slightly +aggressive. Charlotte's mother and aunt responded rather nervously. + +"How's your mother, Barnabas?" inquired Mrs. Barnard. + +"She's pretty well, thank you." + +Charlotte pulled forward a chair for her lover; he had just seated +himself, when Cephas Barnard spoke in a voice as sudden and gruff as +a dog's bark. Barnabas started, and his chair grated on the sanded +floor. + +"Light the candle, Charlotte," said Cephas, and Charlotte obeyed. She +lighted the candle on the high shelf, then she sat down next +Barnabas. Cephas glanced around at them. He was a small man, with a +thin face in a pale film of white locks and beard, but his black eyes +gleamed out of it with sharp fixedness. Barnabas looked back at him +unflinchingly, and there was a curious likeness between the two pairs +of black eyes. Indeed, there had been years ago a somewhat close +relationship between the Thayers and the Barnards, and it was not +strange if one common note was repeated generations hence. + +Cephas had been afraid lest Barnabas should, all unperceived in the +dusk, hold his daughter's hand, or venture upon other loverlike +familiarity. That was the reason why he had ordered the candle +lighted when it was scarcely dark enough to warrant it. + +But Barnabas seemed scarcely to glance at his sweetheart as he sat +there beside her, although in some subtle fashion, perhaps by some +finer spiritual vision, not a turn of her head, nor a fleeting +expression on her face, like a wind of the soul, escaped him. He saw +always Charlotte's beloved features high and pure, almost severe, but +softened with youthful bloom, her head with fair hair plaited in a +smooth circle, with one long curl behind each ear. Charlotte would +scarcely have said he had noticed, but he knew well she had on a new +gown of delaine in a mottled purple pattern, her worked-muslin +collar, and her mother's gold beads which she had given her. + +Barnabas kept listening anxiously for the crackle of the hearth fire +in the best room; he hoped Charlotte had lighted the fire, and they +should soon go in there by themselves. They usually did of a Sunday +night, but sometimes Cephas forbade his daughter to light the fire +and prohibited any solitary communion between the lovers. + +"If Barnabas Thayer can't set here with the rest of us, he can go +home," he proclaimed at times, and he had done so to-night. Charlotte +had acquiesced forlornly; there was nothing else for her to do. Early +in her childhood she had learned along with her primer her father's +character, and the obligations it imposed upon her. + +"You must be a good girl, and mind; it's your father's way," her +mother used to tell her. Mrs. Barnard herself had spelt out her +husband like a hard and seemingly cruel text in the Bible. She +marvelled at its darkness in her light, but she believed in it +reverently, and even pugnaciously. + +The large, loosely built woman, with her heavy, sliding step, waxed +fairly decisive, and her soft, meek-lidded eyes gleamed hard and +prominent when her elder sister, Hannah, dared inveigh against +Cephas. + +"I tell you it is his way," said Sarah Barnard. And she said it as if +"his way" was the way of the King. + +"His way!" Hannah would sniff back. "His way! Keepin' you all on rye +meal one spell, an' not lettin' you eat a mite of Injun, an' then +keepin' you on Injun without a mite of rye! Makin' you eat nothin' +but greens an' garden stuff, an' jest turnin' you out to graze an' +chew your cuds like horned animals one spell, an' then makin' you +live on meat! Lettin' you go abroad when he takes a notion, an' then +keepin' you an' Charlotte in the house a year!" + +"It's his way, an' I ain't goin' to have anything said against it," +Sarah Barnard would retort stanchly, and her sister would sniff back +again. Charlotte was as loyal as her mother; she did not like it if +even her lover intimated anything in disfavor of her father. + +No matter how miserable she was in consequence of her acquiescence +with her father's will, she sternly persisted. + +To-night she knew that Barnabas was waiting impatiently for her +signal to leave the rest of the company and go with her into the +front room; there was also a tender involuntary impatience and +longing in every nerve of her body, but nobody would have suspected +it; she sat there as calmly as if Barnabas were old Squire Payne, who +sometimes came in of a Sabbath evening, and seemed to be listening +intently to her mother and her Aunt Sylvia talking about the spring +cleaning. + +Cephas and Barnabas were grimly silent. The young man suspected that +Cephas had prohibited the front room; he was indignant about that, +and the way in which Charlotte had been summoned in from the entry, +and he had no diplomacy. + +Charlotte, under her calm exterior, grew uneasy; she glanced at her +mother, who glanced back. It was to both women as if they felt by +some subtle sense the brewing of a tempest. Charlotte unobtrusively +moved her chair a little nearer her lover's; her purple delaine skirt +swept his knee; both of them blushed and trembled with Cephas's black +eyes upon them. + +Charlotte never knew quite how it began, but her father suddenly +flung out a dangerous topic like a long-argued bone of contention, +and he and Barnabas were upon it. Barnabas was a Democrat, and Cephas +was a Whig, and neither ever forgot it of the other. None of the +women fairly understood the point at issue; it was as if they drew +back their feminine skirts and listened amazed and trembling to this +male hubbub over something outside their province. Charlotte grew +paler and paler. She looked piteously at her mother. + +"Now, father, don't," Sarah ventured once or twice, but it was like a +sparrow piping against the north wind. + +Charlotte laid her hand on her lover's arm and kept it there, but he +did not seem to heed her. "Don't," she said; "don't, Barnabas. I +think there's going to be a frost to-night; don't you?" But nobody +heard her. Sylvia Crane, in the background, clutched the arms of her +rocking-chair with her thin hands. + +Suddenly both men began hurling insulting epithets at each other. +Cephas sprang up, waving his right arm fiercely, and Barnabas shook +off Charlotte's hand and was on his feet. + +"Get out of here!" shouted Cephas, in a hoarse voice--"get out of +here! Get out of this house, an' don't you ever darse darken these +doors again while the Lord Almighty reigns!" The old man was almost +inarticulate; he waved his arms, wagged his head, and stamped; he +looked like a white blur with rage. + +"I never will, by the Lord Almighty!" returned Barnabas, in an awful +voice; then the door slammed after him. Charlotte sprang up. + +"Set down!" shouted Cephas. Charlotte rushed forward. "You set down!" +her father repeated; her mother caught hold of her dress. + +"Charlotte, do set down," she whispered, glancing at her husband in +terror. But Charlotte pulled her dress away. + +"Don't you stop me, mother. I am not going to have him turned out +this way," she said. Her father advanced threateningly, but she set +her young, strong shoulders against him and pushed past out of the +door. The door was slammed to after her and the bolt shot, but she +did not heed that. She ran across the yard, calling: "Barney! Barney! +Barney! Come back!" Barnabas was already out in the road; he never +turned his head, and kept on. Charlotte hurried after him. "Barney," +she cried, her voice breaking with sobs--"Barney, do come back. You +aren't mad at me, are you?" Barney never turned his head; the +distance between them widened as Charlotte followed, calling. She +stopped suddenly, and stood watching her lover's dim retreating back, +straining with his rapid strides. + +"Barney Thayer," she called out, in an angry, imperious tone, "if +you're ever coming back, you come now!" + +But Barney kept on as if he did not hear. Charlotte gasped for breath +as she watched him; she could scarcely help her feet running after +him, but she would not follow him any farther. She did not call him +again; in a minute she turned around and went back to the house, +holding her head high in the dim light. + +She did not try to open the door; she was sure it was locked, and she +was too proud. She sat down on the flat, cool door-stone, and +remained there as dusky and motionless against the old gray panel of +the door as the shadow of some inanimate object that had never moved. + +The wind began to rise, and at the same time the full moon, impelled +softly upward by force as unseen as thought. Charlotte's fair head +gleamed out abruptly in the moonlight like a pale flower, but the +folds of her mottled purple skirt were as vaguely dark as the foliage +on the lilac-bush beside her. All at once the flowering branches on a +wide-spreading apple-tree cut the gloom like great silvery wings of a +brooding bird. The grass in the yard was like a shaggy silver fleece. +Charlotte paid no more attention to it all than to her own breath, or +a clock tick which she would have to withdraw from herself to hear. + +A low voice, which was scarcely more than a whisper, called her, a +slender figure twisted itself around the front corner of the house +like a vine. "Charlotte, you there?" Charlotte did not hear. Then the +whisper came again. "Charlotte!" + +Charlotte looked around then. + +A slender white hand reached out in the gloom around the corner and +beckoned. "Charlotte, come; come quick." + +Charlotte did not stir. + +"Charlotte, do come. Your mother's dreadful afraid you'll catch cold. +The front door is open." + +Charlotte sat quite rigid. The slender figure began moving towards +her stealthily, keeping close to the house, advancing with frequent +pauses like a wary bird. When she got close to Charlotte she reached +down and touched her shoulder timidly. "Oh, Charlotte, don't you feel +bad? He'd ought to know your father by this time; he'll get over it +and come back," she whispered. + +"I don't want him to come back," Charlotte whispered fiercely in +return. + +Sylvia stared at her helplessly. Charlotte's face looked strange and +hard in the moonlight. "Your mother's dreadful worried," she +whispered again, presently. "She thinks you'll catch cold. I come out +of the front door on purpose so you can go in that way. Your father's +asleep in his chair. He told your mother not to unbolt this door +to-night, and she didn't darse to. But we went past him real still to +the front one, an' you can slip in there and get up to your chamber +without his seeing you. Oh, Charlotte, do come!" + +Charlotte arose, and she and Sylvia went around to the front door. +Sylvia crept close to the house as before, but Charlotte walked +boldly along in the moonlight. "Charlotte, I'm dreadful afraid he'll +see you," Sylvia pleaded, but Charlotte would not change her course. + +Just as they reached the front door it was slammed with a quick puff +of wind in their faces. They heard Mrs. Barnard's voice calling +piteously. "Oh, father, do let her in!" it implored. + +"Don't you worry, mother," Charlotte called out. "I'll go home with +Aunt Sylvia." + +"Oh, Charlotte!" her mother's voice broke in sobs. + +"Don't you worry, mother," Charlotte repeated, with an unrelenting +tone in the comforting words. "I'll go right home with Aunt Sylvia. +Come," she said, imperatively to her aunt, "I am not going to stand +here any longer," and she went out into the road, and hastened down +it, as Barnabas had done. + +"I'll take her right home with me," Sylvia called to her sister in a +trembling voice (nobody knew how afraid she was of Cephas); and she +followed Charlotte. + +Sylvia lived on an old road that led from the main one a short +distance beyond the new house, so the way led past it. Charlotte went +on at such a pace that Sylvia could scarcely keep up with her. She +slid along in her wake, panting softly, and lifting her skirts out of +the evening dew. She was trembling with sympathy for Charlotte, and +she had also a worry of her own. When they reached the new house she +fairly sobbed outright, but Charlotte went past in her stately haste +without a murmur. + +"Oh, Charlotte, don't feel so bad," mourned her aunt. "I know it will +all come right." But Charlotte made no reply. Her dusky skirts swept +around the bushes at the corner of the road, and Sylvia hurried +tremulously after her. + +Neither of them dreamed that Barnabas watched them, standing in one +of the front rooms of his new house. He had gone in there when he +fled from Cephas Barnard's, and had not yet been home. He recognized +Charlotte's motions as quickly as her face, and knew Sylvia's voice, +although he could not distinguish what she said. He watched them turn +the corner of the other road, and thought that Charlotte was going to +spend the night with her aunt--he did not dream why. He had resolved +to stay where he was in his desolate new house, and not go home +himself. + +A great grief and resentment against the whole world and life itself +swelled high within him. It was as if he lost sight of individual +antagonists, and burned to dash life itself in the face because he +existed. The state of happiness so exalted that it became almost +holiness, in which he had been that very night, flung him to lower +depths when it was retroverted. He had gone back to first causes in +the one and he did the same in the other; his joy had reached out +into eternity, and so did his misery. His natural religious bent, +inherited from generations of Puritans, and kept in its channel by +his training from infancy, made it impossible for him to conceive of +sympathy or antagonism in its fullest sense apart from God. + +Sitting on a pile of shavings in a corner of the north room, he +fairly hugged himself with fierce partisanship. "What have I done to +be treated in this way?" he demanded, setting his face ahead in the +darkness; and he did not see Cephas Barnard's threatening +countenance, but another, gigantic with its vague outlines, which his +fancy could not limit, confronting him with terrible negative power +like a stone image. He struck out against it, and the blows fell back +on his own heart. + +"What have I done?" he demanded over and over of this great immovable +and silent consciousness which he realized before him. "Have I not +kept all thy commandments from childhood? Have I ever failed to +praise thee as the giver of my happiness, and ask thy blessing upon +it? What have I done that it should be taken away? It was given to me +only to be taken away. Why was it given to me, then?--that I might be +mocked? Oh, I am mocked, I am mocked!" he cried out, in a great rage, +and he struck out in the darkness, and his heart leaped with futile +pain. The possibility that his misery might not be final never +occurred to him. It never occurred to him that he could enter Cephas +Barnard's house again, ask his pardon, and marry Charlotte. It seemed +to him settled and inevitable; he could not grasp any choice in the +matter. + +Barnabas finally threw himself back on the pile of shavings, and lay +there sullenly. Great gusts of cold wind came in at the windows at +intervals, a loose board somewhere in the house rattled, the trees +outside murmured heavily. + +"There won't be a frost," Barnabas thought, his mind going apace on +its old routine in spite of its turmoil. Then he thought with the +force of an oath that he did not care if there was a frost. All the +trees this spring had blossomed only for him and Charlotte; now there +was no longer any use in that; let the blossoms blast and fall! + + + +Chapter II + + +Sylvia Crane's house was the one in which her grandmother had been +born, and was the oldest house in the village. It was known as the +"old Crane place." It had never been painted, it was shedding its +flapping gray shingles like gray scales, the roof sagged in a mossy +hollow before the chimney, the windows and doors were awry, and the +whole house was full of undulations and wavering lines, which gave it +a curiously unreal look in broad daylight. In the moonlight it was +the shadowy edifice built of a dream. + +As Sylvia and Charlotte came to the front door it seemed as if they +might fairly walk through it as through a gray shadow; but Sylvia +stooped, and her shoulders strained with seemingly incongruous force, +as if she were spending it to roll away a shadow. On the flat +doorstep lay a large round stone, pushed close against the door. +There were no locks and keys in the old Crane place; only bolts. +Sylvia could not fasten the doors on the inside when she went away, +so she adopted this expedient, which had been regarded with favor by +her mother and grandmother before her, and illustrated natures full +of gentle fallacies which went far to make existence comfortable. + +Always on leaving the house alone the Crane women had bolted the side +door, which was the one in common use, gone out the front one, and +laboriously rolled this same round stone before it. Sylvia reasoned +as her mother and grandmother before her, with the same simplicity: +"When the stone's in front of the door, folks must know there ain't +anybody to home, because they couldn't put it there if they was." + +And when some neighbor had argued that the evil-disposed might roll +away the stone and enter at will, Sylvia had replied, with the +innocent conservatism with which she settled an argument, "Nobody +ever did." + +To-night she rolled away the stone to the corner of the door-step, +where it had lain through three generations when the Crane women were +at home, and sighed with regret that she had defended the door with +it. "I wish I hadn't put the stone up," she thought. "If I hadn't, +mebbe he'd gone in an' waited." She opened the door, and the gloom of +the house, deeper than the gloom of the night, appeared. "You wait +here a minute," she said to Charlotte, "an' I'll go in an' light a +candle." + +Charlotte waited, leaning against the door-post. There was a flicker +of fire within. Then Sylvia held the flaring candle towards her. +"Come in," she said; "the candle's lit." + +There was a bed of coals on the hearth in the best room; Sylvia had +made a fire there before going over to her sister's, but it had +burned low. The glow of the coals and the smoky flare of the candle +lighted the room uncertainly, scattering and not dispelling the +shadows. There was a primly festive air in the room. The +flag-bottomed chairs stood by twos, finely canted towards each other, +against the wall; the one great hair-cloth rocker stood +ostentatiously in advance of them, facing the hearth fire; the long +level of the hair-cloth sofa gleamed out under stiff sweeps of the +white fringed curtains at the window behind it. The books on the +glossy card-table were set canting towards each other like the +chairs, and with their gilt edges towards the light. And Sylvia had +set also on the table a burnished pitcher of a rosy copper-color full +of apple blossoms. + +She looked at it when she had set the candle on the shelf. It seemed +to her that all the light in the room centred on it, and it shone in +her eyes like a copper lamp. + +Charlotte also glanced at it. "Why, Richard must have come while you +were over to our house," she said. + +"It don't make any odds if he did," returned Sylvia, with a faint +blush and a bridle. Sylvia was much younger than her sister. Standing +there in the dim light she did not look so much older than her niece. +Her figure had the slim angularity and primness which are sometimes +seen in elderly women who are not matrons, and she had donned a +little white lace cap at thirty, but her face had still a delicate +bloom, and the wistful wonder of expression which belongs to youth. + +However, she never thought of Charlotte as anything but a child as +compared with herself. Sylvia felt very old, and the more so that she +grudged her years painfully. She stirred up the fire a little, +holding back her shiny black silk skirt carefully. Charlotte stood +leaning against the shelf, looking moodily down at the fire. + +"I wouldn't feel bad if I was you, Charlotte," Sylvia ventured, +timidly. + +"I guess we'd better go to bed pretty soon," returned Charlotte. "It +must be late." + +"Had you rather sleep with me, Charlotte, or sleep in the spare +chamber?" + +"I guess I'll go in the spare chamber." + +"Well, I'll get you a night-gown." + +Both of their faces were sober, but perfectly staid. They bade each +other good-night without a quiver; but Charlotte, after she had said +her dutiful and unquestioning prayer, and lay folded in Sylvia's +ruffled night-gown in the best bed, shook with great sobs. "Poor +Barney!" she kept muttering. "Poor Barney! poor Barney!" + +The doors were all open, and once she thought she heard a sob from +below, then concluded she must be mistaken. But she was not, for +Sylvia Crane was lamenting as sorely as the younger maiden up-stairs. +"Poor Richard!" she repeated, piteously. "Poor Richard! There he +came, and the stone was up, and he had to go away." + +The faces which were so clear to the hearts of both women, as if they +were before their eyes, had a certain similarity. Indeed, Richard +Alger and Barnabas Thayer were distantly related on the mother's +side, and people said they looked enough alike to be brothers. Sylvia +saw the same type of face as Charlotte, only Richard's face was +older, for he was six years older than she. + +"If I hadn't put the stone up," she moaned, "maybe he would have +thought I didn't hear him knock, an' he'd come in an' waited. Poor +Richard, I dunno what he thought! It's the first time it's happened +for eighteen years." + +Sylvia, as she lay there, looked backward, and it seemed to her that +the eighteen years were all made up of the Sunday nights on which +Richard Alger had come to see her, as if they were all that made them +immortal and redeemed them from the dead past. She had endured grief, +but love alone made the past years stand out for her. Sylvia, in +looking back over eighteen years, forgot the father, mother, and +sister who had died in that time; their funeral trains passed before +her eyes like so many shadows. She forgot all their cares and her +own; she forgot how she had nursed her bedridden mother for ten +years; she forgot everything but those blessed Sunday nights on which +Richard Alger had come. She called to mind every little circumstance +connected with them--how she had adorned the best room by slow +degrees, saving a few cents at a time from her sparse income, because +he sat in it every Sunday night; how she had had the bed which her +mother and grandmother kept there removed because the fashion had +changed, and the guilty audacity with which she had purchased a +hair-cloth sofa to take its place. + +That adorning of the best room had come to be a religion with Sylvia +Crane. As faithfully as any worshipper of the Greek deity she laid +her offerings, her hair-cloth sofa and rocker, her copper-gilt +pitcher of apple blossoms, upon the altar of love. + +Sylvia recalled, sobbing more piteously in the darkness, sundry +dreams, which had never been realized, of herself and Richard sitting +side by side and hand in hand, as confessed lovers, on that sofa. +Richard Alger, during all those eighteen years, had never made love +to Sylvia, unless his constant attendance upon Sabbath evenings could +be so construed, as it was in that rural neighborhood, and as Sylvia +was fain to construe it in her innocent heart. + +It is doubtful if Sylvia, in her perfect decorum and long-fostered +maiden reserve, fairly knew that Richard Alger had never made love to +her. She scarcely expected her dreams of endearments to be realized; +she regarded them, except in desperate moods, with shame. If her old +admirer had, indeed, attempted to sit by her side upon that +hair-cloth sofa and hold her hand, she would have arisen as if +propelled by stiff springs of modest virtue. She did not fairly know +that she was not made love to after the most honorable and orthodox +fashion without a word of endearment or a caress; for she had been +trained to regard love as one of the most secret of the laws of +nature, to be concealed, with shamefaced air, even from herself; but +she did know that Richard had never asked her to marry him, and for +that she was impatient without any self-reserve; she was even +confidential with her sister, Charlotte's mother. + +"I don't want to say anything outside," she once said, "but I do +think it would be a good deal better for him if we was settled down. +He ain't half taken care of since his mother died." + +"He's got money enough," returned Mrs. Barnard. + +"That can't buy everything." + +"Well, I don't pity him; I pity you," said Mrs. Barnard. + +"I guess I shall get along a while longer, as far as that goes," +Sylvia had replied to her sister, with some pride. "I ain't worried +on my account." + +"Women don't worry much on their own accounts, but they've got +accounts," returned Mrs. Barnard, with more contempt for her sister +than she had ever shown for herself. "You're gettin' older, Sylvy." + +"I know it," Sylvia had replied, with a quick shrinking, as if from a +blow. + +The passing years, as they passed for her, stung her like swarming +bees, with bitter humiliation; but never for herself, only for +Richard. Nobody knew how painfully she counted the years, how she +would fain have held time back with her thin hands, how futilely and +pitifully she set her loving heart against it, and not for herself +and her own vanity, but for the sake of her lover. She had come, in +the singleness of her heart, to regard herself in the light of a +species of coin to be expended wholly for the happiness and interest +of one man. Any depreciation in its value was of account only as it +affected him. + +Sylvia Crane, sitting in the meeting-house of a Sunday, used to watch +the young girls coming in, as radiant and flawless as new flowers, in +their Sunday bests, with a sort of admiring envy, which could do them +no harm, but which tore her own heart. + +When she should have been contrasting the wickedness of her soul with +the grace of the Divine Model, she was contrasting her fading face +with the youthful bloom of the young girls. "He'd ought to marry one +of them," she thought; "he'd ought to, by good rights." It never +occurred to Sylvia that Richard also was growing older, and that he +was, moreover, a few years older than she. She thought of him as an +immortal youth; his face was the same to her as when she had first +seen it. + +When it came before a subtler vision than her bodily one, there in +the darkness and loneliness of this last Sunday night, it wore the +beauty and innocent freshness of a child. If Richard Alger could have +seen his own face as the woman who loved him saw it, he could never +have doubted his own immortality. + +"There he came, an' the stone was up, an' he had to go away," moaned +Sylvia, catching her breath softly. Many a time she had pitied +Richard because he had not the little womanly care which men need; +she had worried lest his stockings were not darned, and his food not +properly cooked; but to-night she had another and strange anxiety. +She worried lest she herself had hurt him and sent him home with a +heavy heart. + +Sylvia had gone about for the last few days with her delicate face as +irresponsibly calm as a sweet-pea; nobody had dreamed of the turmoil +in her heart. On the Wednesday night before she had nearly reached +the climax of her wishes. Richard had come, departing from his usual +custom--he had never called except on Sunday before--and remained +later. It was ten o'clock before he went home. He had been very +silent all the evening, and had sat soberly in the great best +rocking-chair, which was, in a way, his throne of state, with Sylvia +on the sofa on his right. Many a time she had dreamed that he came +over there and sat down beside her, and that night it had come to +pass. + +Just before ten o'clock he had arisen hesitatingly; she thought it +was to take leave, but she sat waiting and trembling. They had sat in +the twilight and young moonlight all the evening. Richard had checked +her when she attempted to light a candle. That had somehow made the +evening seem strange, and freighted with consequences; and besides +the white light of the moon, full of mystic influence, there was +something subtler and more magnetic, which could sway more than the +tides, even the passions of the human heart, present, and they both +felt it. + +Neither had said much, and they had been sitting there nearly two +hours, when Richard had arisen, and moved curiously, rather as if he +was drawn than walked of his own volition, over to the sofa. He sank +down upon it with a little cough. Sylvia moved away a little with an +involuntary motion, which was pure maidenliness. + +"It's getting late," remarked Richard, trying to make his voice +careless, but it fell in spite of him into deep cadences. + +"It ain't very late, I guess," Sylvia had returned, tremblingly. + +"I ought to be going home." + +Then there was silence for a while. Sylvia glanced sidewise, timidly +and adoringly, at Richard's smoothly shaven face, pale as marble in +the moonlight, and waited, her heart throbbing. + +[Illustration: "Sylvia glanced timidly at Richard's smoothly-shaven +face"] + +"I've been coming here a good many years," Richard observed finally, +and his own voice had a solemn tremor. + +Sylvia made an almost inarticulate assent. + +"I've been thinking lately," said Richard; then he paused. They could +hear the great clock out in the kitchen tick. Sylvia waited, her very +soul straining, although shrinking at the same time, to hear. + +"I've been thinking lately," said Richard again, "that--maybe--it +would be wise for--us both to--make some different arrangement." + +Sylvia bent her head low. Richard paused for the second time. "I have +always meant--" he began again, but just then the clock in the +kitchen struck the first stroke of ten. Richard caught his breath and +arose quickly. Never in his long courtship had he remained as late as +that at Sylvia Crane's. It was as if a life-long habit struck as well +as the clock, and decided his times for him. + +"I must be going," said he, speaking against the bell notes. Sylvia +arose without a word of dissent, but Richard spoke as if she had +remonstrated. + +"I'll come again next Sunday night," said he, apologetically. + +Sylvia followed him to the door. They bade each other good-night +decorously, with never a parting kiss, as they had done for years. +Richard went out of sight down the white gleaming road, and she went +in and to bed, with her heart in a great tumult of expectation and +joyful fear. + +She had tried to wait calmly for Sunday night. She had done her neat +household tasks as usual, her face and outward demeanor were sweetly +unruffled, but her thoughts seemed shivering with rainbows that +constantly dazzled her with sweet shocks when her eyes met them. Her +feet seemed constantly flying before her into the future, and she +could scarcely tell where she might really be, in the present or in +her dreams, which had suddenly grown so real. + +On Sunday morning she had curled her soft fair hair, and arranged +with trepidation one long light curl outside her bonnet on each side +of her face. Her bonnet was tied under her chin with a green ribbon, +and she had a little feathery green wreath around her face inside the +rim. Her wide silk skirt was shot with green and blue, and rustled as +she walked up the aisle to her pew. People stared after her without +knowing why. There was no tangible change in her appearance. She had +worn that same green shot silk many Sabbaths; her bonnet was three +summers old; the curls drooping on her cheeks were an innovation, but +the people did not recognize the change as due to them. Sylvia +herself had looked with pleased wonder at her face in the glass; it +was as if all her youthful beauty had suddenly come up, like a +withered rose which is dipped in a vase. + +"I sha'n't look so terrible old side of him when I go out bride," she +reflected, happily, smiling fondly at herself. All the way to meeting +that Sunday morning she saw her face as she had seen it in the glass, +and it was as if she walked with something finer than herself. + +Richard Alger sat with the choir in a pew beside the pulpit, at right +angles with the others. He had a fine tenor voice, and had sung in +the choir ever since he was a boy. When Sylvia sat down in her place, +which was in full range of his eyes, he glanced at her without +turning his head; he meant to look away again directly, so as not to +be observed, but her face held him. A color slowly flamed out on his +pale brown cheeks; his eyes became intense and abstracted. A soprano +singer nudged the girl at her side; they both glanced at him and +tittered, but he did not notice it. + +Sylvia knew that he was looking at her, but she never looked at him. +She sat soberly waving a little brown fan before her face; the light +curls stirred softly. She wondered what he thought of them; if he +considered them too young for her, and silly; but he did not see them +at all. He had no eye for details. And neither did she even hear his +fine tenor, still sweet and powerful, leading all the other male +voices when the choir stood up to sing. She thought only of Richard +himself. + +After meeting, when she went down the aisle, several women had spoken +to her, inquired concerning her health, and told her, with wondering +eyes, that she looked well. Richard was far behind her, but she did +not look around. They very seldom accosted each other, unless it was +unavoidable, in any public place. Still, Sylvia, going out with +gentle flounces of her green shot silk, knew well that Richard's eyes +followed her, and his thought was close at her side. + +After she got home from meeting that Sunday, Sylvia Crane did not +know how to pass the time until the evening. She could not keep +herself calm and composed as was her wont on the Sabbath day. She +changed her silk for a common gown; she tried to sit down and read +the Bible quietly and with understanding, but she could not. She +turned to Canticles, and read a page or two. She had always believed +loyally and devoutly in the application to Christ and the Church; but +suddenly now, as she read, the restrained decorously chanting New +England love-song in her maiden heart had leaped into the fervid +measures of the oriental King. She shut the Bible with a clap. "I +ain't giving the right meaning to it," she said, sternly, aloud. + +She put away the Bible, went into the pantry, and got out some bread +and cheese for her luncheon, but she could eat nothing. She picked +the apple blossoms and arranged them in the copper-gilt pitcher on +the best-room table. She even dusted off the hair-cloth sofa and +rocker, with many compunctions, because it was Sunday. "I know I +hadn't ought to do it to-day," she murmured, apologetically, "but +they do get terrible dusty, and need dusting every day, and he is +real particular, and he'll have on his best clothes." + +Finally, just before twilight, Sylvia, unable to settle herself, had +gone over to her sister's for a little call. Richard never came +before eight o'clock, except in winter, when it was dark earlier. +There was a certain half-shamefaced reserve about his visits. He knew +well enough that people looked from their windows as he passed, and +said, facetiously, "There goes Richard Alger to court Sylvy Crane." +He preferred slipping past in a half-light, in which he did not seem +so plain to himself, and could think himself less plain to other +people. + +Sylvia, detained at her sister's by the quarrel between Cephas and +Barnabas, had arisen many a time to take leave, all palpitating with +impatience, but her sister had begged her, in a distressed whisper, +to remain. + +"I guess you can get along without Richard Alger one Sunday evening," +she had said finally, quite aloud, and quite harshly. "I guess your +own sister has just as much claim on you as he has. I dunno what's +going to be done. I don't believe Charlotte's father will let her in +the house to-night." + +Poor Sylvia had sunk back in her chair. To her sensitive conscience +the duty nearest at hand seemed always to bark the loudest, and the +precious moments had gone by until she knew that Richard had come, +found the stone before the door, and gone away, and all her sweet +turmoil of hope and anticipation had gone for naught. + +Sylvia, lying there awake that night, her mind carrying her back over +all that had gone before, had no doubt that this was the end of +everything. Not originally a subtle discerner of character, she had +come insensibly to know Richard so well that certain results from +certain combinations of circumstances in his life were as plain and +inevitable to her as the outcome of a simple sum in mathematics. +"He'd got 'most out of his track for once," she groaned out softly, +"but now he's pushed back in so hard he can't get out again if he +wants to. I dunno how he's going to get along." + +Sylvia, with the roof settling over her head, with not so much upon +her few sterile acres to feed her as to feed the honey-bees and +birds, with her heart in greater agony because its string of joy had +been strained so high and sweetly before it snapped, did not lament +over herself at all; neither did she over the other woman who lay +up-stairs suffering in a similar case. She lamented only over Richard +living alone and unministered to until he died. + +When daylight came she got up, dressed herself, and prepared +breakfast. Charlotte came down before it was ready. "Let me help get +breakfast," she said, with an assumption of energy, standing in the +kitchen doorway in her pretty mottled purple delaine. The purple was +the shade of columbine, and very becoming to Charlotte. In spite of +her sleepless night, her fine firm tints had not faded; she was too +young and too strong and too full of involuntary resistance. She had +done up her fair hair compactly; her chin had its usual proud lift. + +Sylvia, shrinking as if before some unseen enemy as she moved about, +her face all wan and weary, glanced at her half resentfully. "I guess +she 'ain't had any such night as I have," she thought. "Girls don't +know much about it." + +"No, I don't need any help," she replied, aloud. "I 'ain't got +anything to do but to stir up an Injun cake. You've got your best +dress on. You'd better go and sit down." + +"It won't hurt my dress any." Charlotte glanced down half scornfully +at her purple skirt. It had lost all its glory for her. She was not +even sure that Barney had seen it. + +"Set down. I've got breakfast 'most ready," Sylvia said, again, more +peremptorily than she was wont, and Charlotte sat down in the +hollow-backed cherry rocking-chair beside the kitchen window, leaned +her head back, and looked out indifferently between the lilac-bushes. +The bushes were full of pinkish-purple buds. Sylvia's front yard +reached the road in a broad slope, and the ground was hard, and green +with dampness under the shade of a great elm-tree. The grass would +never grow there over the roots of the elm, which were flung out +broadly like great recumbent limbs over the whole yard, and were +barely covered by the mould. + +Across the street, seen under the green sweep of the elm, was an +orchard of old apple-trees which had blossomed out bravely that +spring. Charlotte looked at the white and rosy masses of bloom. + +"I guess there wasn't any frost last night, after all," she remarked. + +"I dunno," responded Sylvia, in a voice which made her niece look +around at her. There was a curious impatient ring in it which was +utterly foreign to it. There was a frown between Sylvia's gentle +eyes, and she moved with nervous jerks, setting down dishes hard, as +if they were refractory children, and lashing out with spoons as if +they were whips. The long, steady strain upon her patience had not +affected her temper, but this last had seemed to bring out a certain +vicious and waspish element which nobody had suspected her to +possess, and she herself least of all. She felt this morning disposed +to go out of her way to sting, and as if some primal and evil +instinct had taken possession of her. She felt shocked at herself, +but all the more defiant and disposed to keep on. + +"Breakfast is ready," she announced, finally; "if you don't set right +up an' eat it, it will be gettin' cold. I wouldn't give a cent for +cold Injun cake." + +Charlotte arose promptly and brought a chair to the table, which +Sylvia always set punctiliously in the centre of the kitchen as if +for a large family. + +"Don't scrape your chair on the floor that way; it wears 'em all +out," cried Sylvia, sharply. + +Charlotte stared at her again, but she said nothing; she sat down and +began to eat absently. Sylvia watched her angrily between her own +mouthfuls, which she swallowed down defiantly like medicine. + +"It ain't much use cookin' things if folks don't eat 'em," said she. + +"I am eating," returned Charlotte. + +"Eatin'? Swallowin' down Injun cake as if it was sawdust! I don't +call that eatin'. You don't act as if you tasted a mite of it!" + +"Aunt Sylvy, what has got into you?" said Charlotte. + +"Got into me? I should think you'd talk about anything gettin' into +me, when you set there like a stick. I guess you 'ain't got all there +is to bear." + +"I never thought I had," said Charlotte. + +"Well, I guess you 'ain't." + +They went on swallowing their food silently; the great clock ticked +slowly, and the spring birds called outside; but they heard neither. +The shadows of the young elm leaves played over the floor and the +white table-cloth. It was much warmer that morning, and the shadows +were softer. + +Before they had finished breakfast, Charlotte's mother came, +advancing ponderously, with soft thuds, across the yard to the side +door. She opened it and peered in. + +"Here you be," said she, scanning both their faces with anxious and +deprecating inquiry. + +"Can't you come in, an' not stand there holdin' the door open?" +inquired Sylvia. "I feel the wind on my back, and I've got a bad pain +enough in it now." + +Mrs. Barnard stepped in, and shut the door quickly, in an alarmed +way. + +"Ain't you feelin' well this mornin', Sylvy?" said she. + +"Oh yes, I'm feelin' well enough. It ain't any matter how I feel, but +it's a good deal how some other folks do." + +Sarah Barnard sank into the rocking-chair, and sat there looking at +them hesitatingly, as if she did not dare to open the conversation. + +Suddenly Sylvia arose and went out of the kitchen with a rush, +carrying a plate of Indian cake to feed the hens. "I can't set here +all day; I've got to do something," she announced as she went. + +When the door had closed after her, Mrs. Barnard turned to Charlotte. + +"What's the matter with her?" she asked, nodding towards the door. + +"I don't know." + +"She ain't sick, is she? I never see her act so. Sylvy's generally +just like a lamb. You don't s'pose she's goin' to have a fever, do +you?" + +"I don't know." + +Suddenly Charlotte, who was still sitting at the table, put up her +two hands with a despairing gesture, and bent her head forward upon +them. + +"Now don't, you poor child," said her mother, her eyes growing +suddenly red. "Didn't he even turn round when you called him back +last night?" + +Charlotte shook her bowed head dumbly. + +"Don't you s'pose he'll ever come again?" + +Charlotte shook her head. + +"Mebbe he will. I know he's terrible set." + +"Who's set?" demanded Sylvia, coming in with her empty plate. + +"Oh, I was jest sayin' that I thought Barney was kinder set," replied +her sister, mildly. + +"He ain't no more set than Cephas," returned Sylvia. + +"Cephas ain't set. It's jest his way." + +Sylvia sniffed. She looked scornfully at Charlotte, who had raised +her head when she came in, but whose eyes were red. "Folks had better +been created without ways, then," she retorted. "They'd better have +been created slaves; they'd been enough sight happier an' better off, +an' so would other folks that they have to do with, than to have so +many ways, an' not sense enough to manage 'em. I don't believe in +free-will, for my part." + +"Sylvy Crane, you ain't goin' to deny one of the doctrines of the +Church at your time of life?" demanded a new voice. Sylvia's other +sister, Hannah Berry, stood in the doorway. + +Sylvia ordinarily was meek before her, but now she faced her. "Yes, I +be," said she; "I don't approve of free-will, and I ain't afraid to +say it." + +Sylvia had always been considered very unlike Mrs. Hannah Berry in +face and character. Now, as she stood before her, a curious +similarity appeared; even her voice sounded like her sister's. + +"What on earth ails you, Sylvy?" asked Mrs. Berry, ignoring suddenly +the matter in hand. + +"Nothin' ails me that I know of. I don't think much of free-will, an' +I ain't goin' to say I do when I don't." + +"Then all I've got to say is you'd ought to be ashamed of yourself. +Why, I should think you was crazy, Sylvy Crane, settin' up yourself +agin' the doctrines of the Word. I'd like to know what you know about +them." + +"I know enough to see how they work," returned Sylvia, undauntedly, +"an' I ain't goin' to pretend I'm blind when I can see." + +Sylvia's serene arc of white forehead was shortened by a distressed +frown, her mild mouth dropped sourly at the corners, and the lips +were compressed. Her white cap was awry, and one of yesterday's curls +hung lankly over her left cheek. + +"You look an' act like a crazy creature," said Hannah Berry, eying +her with indignant amazement. She walked across the room to another +rocking-chair, moving with unexpected heaviness. She was in reality +as stout as her sister Sarah Barnard, but she had a long, thin, and +rasped face, which misled people. + +"Now," said she, looking around conclusively, "I ain't come over here +to argue about free-will. I want to know what all this is about?" + +"All what?" returned Mrs. Barnard, feebly. She was distinctly afraid +of her imperious sister, yet she was conscious of a quiver of +resentment. + +"All this fuss about Barney Thayer," said Hannah Berry. + +"How did you hear about it?" Mrs. Barnard asked with a glance at +Charlotte, who was sitting erect with her cheeks very red and her +mouth tightly closed. + +"Never mind how I heard," replied Hannah. "I did hear, an' that's +enough. Now I want to know if you're really goin' to set down like an +old hen an' give up, an' let this match between Charlotte an' a good, +smart, likely young man like Barnabas Thayer be broken off on account +of Cephas Barnard's crazy freaks?" + +Sarah stiffened her neck. "There ain't no call for you to speak that +way, Hannah. They got to talkin' over the 'lection." + +"The 'lection! I'd like to know what business they had talkin' about +it Sabbath night anyway? I ain't blamin' Barnabas so much; he's +younger an' easier stirred up; but Cephas Barnard is an old man, an' +he has been a church-member for forty year, an' he ought to know +enough to set a better example. I'd like to know what difference it +makes about the 'lection anyway? What odds does it make which one is +President if he rules the country well? An' that they can't tell till +they've tried him awhile anyway. I guess they don't think much about +the country; it's jest to have their own way about it. I'd like to +know what mortal difference it's goin' to make to Barney Thayer or +Cephas Barnard which man is President? He won't never hear of them, +an' they won't neither of them make him rule any different after he's +chose. It's jest like two little boys--one wants to play marbles +'cause the other wants to play puss-in-the-corner, an' that's all the +reason either one of 'em's got for standin' out. Men ain't got any +too much sense anyhow, when you come right down to it. They don't +ever get any too much grown up, the best of 'em. I'd like to know +what Cephas Barnard has got to say because he's drove a good, likely +young man like Barnabas Thayer off an' broke off his daughter's +match? It ain't likely she'll ever get anybody now; young men like +him, with nice new houses put up to go right to housekeepin' in as +soon as they are married, don't grow on every bush. They ain't quite +so thick as wild thimbleberries. An' Charlotte ain't got any money +herself, an' her father ain't got any to build a house for her. I'd +like to know what he's got to say about it?" + +Mrs. Barnard put up her apron and began to weep helplessly. + +"Don't, mother," said Charlotte, in an undertone. But her mother +began talking in a piteous wailing fashion. + +"You hadn't ought to talk so about Cephas," she moaned. "He's my +husband. I guess you wouldn't like it if anybody talked so about your +husband. Cephas ain't any worse than anybody else. It's jest his way. +He wa'n't any more to blame than Barney; they both got to talkin'. I +know Cephas is terrible upset about it this mornin'; he 'ain't really +said so in so many words, but I know by the way he acts. He said this +mornin' that he didn't know but we were eatin' the wrong kind of +food. Lately he's had an idea that mebbe we'd ought to eat more meat; +he's thought it was more strengthenin', an' we'd ought to eat things +as near like what we wanted to strengthen as could be. I've made a +good deal of bone soup. But now he says he thinks mebbe he's been +mistaken, an' animal food kind of quickens the animal nature in us, +an' that we'd better eat green things an' garden sass." + +"I guess garden sass will strengthen the other kind of sass that +Cephas Barnard has got in him full as much as bone soup has," +interrupted Hannah Berry, with a sarcastic sniff. + +"I dunno but he's right," said Mrs. Barnard. "Cephas thinks a good +deal an' looks into things. I kind of wish he'd waited till the +garden had got started, though, for there ain't much we can eat now +but potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens." + +"If you want to live on potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens, +you can," cried Hannah Berry; "What I want to know is if you're goin' +to settle down an' say nothin', an' have Charlotte lose the best +chance she'll ever have in her life, if she lives to be a hundred--" + +Charlotte spoke up suddenly; her blue eyes gleamed with steely light. +She held her head high as she faced her aunt. + +"I don't want any more talk about it, Aunt Hannah," said she. + +"Hey?" + +"I don't want any more talk about it." + +"Well, I guess you'll have more talk about it; girls don't get jilted +without there is talk generally. I guess you'll have to make up your +mind to it, for all you put on such airs with your own aunt, who left +her washin' an' come over here to take your part. I guess when you +stand out in the road half an hour an' call a young man to come back, +an' he don't come, that folks are goin' to talk some. Who's that +comin' now?" + +"It's Cephas," whispered Mrs. Barnard, with a scared glance at +Charlotte. + +Cephas Barnard entered abruptly, and stood for a second looking at +the company, while they looked back at him. His eyes were stolidly +defiant, but he stood well back, and almost shrank against the door. +There seemed to be impulses in Hannah's and Sylvia's faces +confronting his. + +He turned to his wife. "When you comin' home?" said he. + +"Oh, Cephas! I jest ran over here a minute. I--wanted to +see--if--Sylvy had any emptins. Do you want me an' Charlotte to come +now?" + +Cephas turned on his heel. "I think it's about time for you both to +be home," he grunted. + +Sarah Barnard arose and looked with piteous appeal at Charlotte. + +Charlotte hesitated a second, then she arose without a word, and +followed her mother, who followed Cephas. They went in a procession +of three, with Cephas marching ahead like a general, across the yard, +and Sylvia and Hannah stood at a window watching them. + +"Well," said Hannah Berry, "all I've got to say is I'm thankful I +'ain't got a man like that, an' you ought to be mighty thankful you +'ain't got any man at all, Sylvy Crane." + + + +Chapter III + + +When Cephas Barnard and his wife and daughter turned into the main +road and came in sight of the new house, not one of them appeared to +even glance at it, yet they all saw at once that there were no +workmen about, and they also saw Barnabas himself ploughing with a +white horse far back in a field at the left of it. + +[Illustration: "They came in sight of the house"] + +They all kept on silently. Charlotte paled a little when she caught +sight of Barney, but her face was quite steady. "Hold your dress up a +little higher; the grass is terrible wet," her mother whispered once, +and that was all that any of them said until they reached home. + +Charlotte went at once up-stairs to her own chamber, took off her +purple gown, and hung it up in her closet, and got out a common one. +The purple gown was part of her wedding wardrobe, and she had worn it +in advance with some misgivings. "I dunno but you might jest as well +wear it a few Sundays," her mother had said; "you're goin' to have +your silk dress to come out bride in. I dunno as there's any sense in +your goin' lookin' like a scarecrow all the spring because you're +goin' to get married." + +So Charlotte had put on the new purple dress the day before; now it +looked, as it hung in the closet, like an effigy of her happier self. + +When Charlotte went down-stairs she found her mother showing much +more spirit than usual in an altercation with her father. Sarah +Barnard stood before her husband, her placid face all knitted with +perplexed remonstrance. "Why, I can't, Cephas," she said. "Pies can't +be made that way." + +"I know they can," said Cephas. + +"They can't, Cephas. There ain't no use tryin'. It would jest be a +waste of the flour." + +"Why can't they, I'd like to know?" + +"Folks don't ever make pies without lard, Cephas." + +"Why don't they?" + +"Why, they wouldn't be nothin' more than-- You couldn't eat them +nohow if they was made so, Cephas. I dunno how the sorrel pies would +work. I never heard of anybody makin' sorrel pies. Mebbe the Injuns +did; but I dunno as they ever made pies, anyway. Mebbe the sorrel, if +it had some molasses on it for juice, wouldn't taste very bad; I +dunno; but anyway, if the sorrel did work, the other wouldn't. I +can't make pies fit to eat without any lard or any butter or anything +any way in the world, Cephas." + +"I know you can make 'em without," said Cephas, and his black eyes +looked like flint. Mrs. Barnard appealed to her daughter. + +"Charlotte," said she, "you tell your father that pies can't be made +fit to eat without I put somethin' in 'em for short'nin'." + +"No, they can't, father," said Charlotte. + +"He wants me to make sorrel pies, Charlotte," Mrs. Barnard went on, +in an injured and appealing tone which she seldom used against +Cephas. "He's been out in the field, an' picked all that sorrel," and +she pointed to a pan heaped up with little green leaves on the table, +"an' I tell him I dunno how that will work, but he wants me to make +the pie-crust without a mite of short'nin', an' I can't do that +nohow, can I?" + +"I don't see how you can," assented Charlotte, coldly. + +Cephas went with a sudden stride towards the pantry. "I'll make 'em +myself, then," he cried. + +Mrs. Barnard gasped, and looked piteously at her daughter. "What you +goin' to do, Cephas?" she asked, feebly. + +Cephas was in the pantry rattling the dishes with a fierce din. "I'm +a-goin' to make them sorrel pies myself," he shouted out, "if none of +you women folks know enough to." + +"Oh, Cephas, you can't!" + +Cephas came out, carrying the mixing-board and rolling-pin like a +shield and a club; he clapped them heavily on to the table. + +Mrs. Barnard stood staring aghast at him; Charlotte sat down, took +some lace edging from her pocket, and began knitting on it. She +looked hard and indifferent. + +"Oh, Charlotte, ain't it dreadful?" her mother whispered, when Cephas +went into the pantry again. + +"I don't care if he makes pies out of burrs," returned Charlotte, +audibly, but her voice was quite even. + +"I don't b'lieve but what sorrel would do some better than burrs," +said her mother, "but he can't make pies without short'nin' nohow." + +Cephas came out of the pantry with a large bowl of flour and a spoon. +"He 'ain't sifted it," Mrs. Barnard whispered to Charlotte, as though +Cephas were not there; then she turned to him. "You sifted the flour, +didn't you, Cephas?" said she. + +"You jest let me alone," said Cephas, grimly. "I'm goin' to make +these pies, an' I don't need any help. I've picked the sorrel, an' +I've got the brick oven all heated, an' I know what I want to do, an' +I'm goin' to do it!" + +"I've got some pumpkin that would make full as good pies as sorrel, +Cephas. Mebbe the sorrel will be real good. I ain't sayin' it won't, +though I never heard of sorrel pies; but you know pumpkin is good, +Cephas." + +"I know pumpkin pies have milk in 'em," said Cephas; "an' I tell you +I ain't goin' to have anything of an animal nature in 'em. I've been +studyin' into it, an' thinkin' of it, an' I've made up my mind that +I've made a mistake along back, an' we've ate too much animal food. +We've ate a whole pig an' half a beef critter this winter, to say +nothin' of eggs an' milk, that are jest as much animal as meat, +accordin' to my way of thinkin'. I've reasoned it out all along that +as long as we were animals ourselves, an' wanted to strengthen +animal, that it was common-sense that we ought to eat animal. It +seemed to me that nature had so ordered it. I reasoned it out that +other animals besides man lived on animals, except cows, an' they, +bein' ruminatin' animals, ain't to be compared to men--" + +"I should think we'd be somethin' like 'em if we eat that," said Mrs. +Barnard, pointing at the sorrel, with piteous sarcasm. + +"It's the principle I'm thinkin' about," said Cephas. He stirred some +salt into the flour very carefully, so not a dust fell over the brim +of the bowl. + +"Horses don't eat meat, neither, an' they don't chew their cuds," +Mrs. Barnard argued further. She had never in her life argued with +Cephas; but sorrel pies, after the night before, made her wildly +reckless. + +Cephas got a gourdful of water from the pail in the sink, and carried +it carefully over to the table. "Horses are the exception," he +returned, with dignified asperity. "There always are exceptions. What +I was comin' at was--I'd been kind of wrong in my reasonin'. That is, +I 'ain't reasoned far enough. I was right so far as I went." + +Cephas poured some water from the gourd into the bowl of flour and +began stirring. + +Sarah caught her breath. "He's makin'--paste!" she gasped. "He's jest +makin' flour paste!" + +"Jest so far as I went I was right," Cephas resumed, pouring in a +little more water with a judicial air. "I said Man was animal, an' he +is animal; an' if you don't take anything else into account, he'd +ought to live on animal food, jest the way I reasoned it out. But +you've got to take something else into account. Man is animal, but he +ain't all animal. He's something else. He's spiritual. Man has +command over all the other animals, an' all the beasts of the field; +an' it ain't because he's any better an' stronger animal, because he +ain't. What's a man to a horse, if the horse only knew it? but the +horse don't know it, an' there's jest where Man gets the advantage. +It's knowledge an' spirit that gives Man the rule over all the other +animals. Now, what we want is to eat the kind of things that will +strengthen knowledge an' spirit an' self-control, because the first +two ain't any account without the last; but there ain't no kind of +food that's known that can do that. If there is, I 'ain't never heard +of it." + +Cephas dumped the whole mass of paste with a flop upon the +mixing-board, and plunged his fists into it. Sarah made an +involuntary motion forward, then she stood back with a great sigh. + +"But what we can do," Cephas proceeded, "is to eat the kind of things +that won't strengthen the animal nature at the expense of the +spiritual. We know that animal food does that; we can see how it +works in tigers an' bears. Now, it's the spiritual part of us we want +to strengthen, because that is the biggest strength we can get, an' +it's worth more. It's what gives us the rule over animals. It's +better for us to eat some other kind of food, if we get real weak and +pindlin' on it, rather than eat animal food an' make the animal in us +stronger than the spiritual, so we won't be any better than wild +tigers an' bears, an' lose our rule over the other animals." + +Cephas took the rolling-pin and brought it heavily down upon the +sticky mass on the board. Sarah shuddered and started as if it had +hit her. "Now, if we can't eat animal food," said Cephas, "what other +kind of food can we eat? There ain't but one other kind that's known +to man, an' that's vegetable food, the product of the earth. An' +that's of two sorts: one gets ripe an' fit to eat in the fall of the +year, an' the other comes earlier in the spring an' summer. Now, in +order to carry out the plans of nature, we'd ought to eat these +products of the earth jest as near as we can in the season of 'em. +Some had ought to be eat in the fall an' winter, an' some in the +spring an' summer. Accordin' to my reasonin', if we all lived this +way we should be a good deal better off; our spiritual natures would +be strengthened, an' we should have more power over other animals, +an' better dispositions ourselves." + +"I've seen horses terribly ugly, an' they don't eat a mite of meat," +said Sarah, with tremulous boldness. Her right hand kept moving +forward to clutch the rolling-pin, then she would draw it back. + +"'Ain't I told ye once horses were the exceptions?" said Cephas, +severely. "There has to be exceptions. If there wa'n't any exceptions +there couldn't be any rule, an' there bein' exceptions shows there is +a rule. Women can't ever get hold of things straight. Their minds +slant off sideways, the way their arms do when they fling a stone." + +Cephas brought the rolling-pin down upon the paste again with fierce +impetus. "You'll break it," Sarah murmured, feebly. Cephas brought it +down again, his mouth set hard; his face showed a red flush through +his white beard, the veins on his high forehead were swollen and his +brows scowling. The paste adhered to the rolling-pin; he raised it +with an effort; his hands were helplessly sticky. Sarah could +restrain herself no longer. She went into the pantry and got a dish +of flour, and spooned out some suddenly over the board and Cephas's +hands. "You've got to have some more flour," she said, in a desperate +tone. + +Cephas's black eyes flashed at her. "I wish you would attend to your +own work, an' leave me alone," said he. But at last he succeeded in +moving the rolling-pin over the dough as he had seen his wife move +it. + +"He ain't greasin' the pie-plates," said Sarah, as Cephas brought a +piece of dough with a dexterous jerk over a plate; "there ain't much +animal in the little mite of lard it takes to grease a plate." + +Cephas spread handfuls of sorrel leaves over the dough; then he +brought the molasses-jug from the pantry, raised it, and poured +molasses over the sorrel with an imperturbable air. + +Sarah watched him; then she turned to Charlotte. "To think of eatin' +it!" she groaned, quite openly; "it looks like p'ison." + +Charlotte made no response; she knitted as one of the Fates might +have spun. Sarah sank down on a chair, and looked away from Cephas +and his cookery, as if she were overcome, and quite done with all +remonstrance. + +Never before had she shown so much opposition towards one of her +husband's hobbies, but this galloped so ruthlessly over her own +familiar fields that she had plucked up boldness to try to veer it +away. + +Somebody passed the window swiftly, the door opened abruptly, and +Mrs. Deborah Thayer entered. "_Good_-mornin'," said she, and her +voice rang out like a herald's defiance. + +Sarah Barnard arose, and went forward quickly. "Good-mornin'," she +responded, with nervous eagerness. "Good-mornin', Mis' Thayer. Come +in an' set down, won't you?" + +"I 'ain't come to set down," responded Deborah's deep voice. + +She moved, a stately high-hipped figure, her severe face almost +concealed in a scooping green barège hood, to the centre of the +floor, and stood there with a pose that might have answered for a +statue of Judgment. She turned her green-hooded head slowly towards +them all in turn. Sarah watched her and waited, her eyes dilated. +Cephas rolled out another pie, calmly. Charlotte knitted fast; her +face was very pale. + +"I've come over here," said Deborah Thayer, "to find out what my son +has done." + +There was not a sound, except the thud of Cephas's rolling-pin. + +"Mr. Barnard!" said Deborah. Cephas did not seem to hear her. + +"Mr. Barnard!" she said, again. There was that tone of command in her +voice which only a woman can accomplish. It was full of that maternal +supremacy which awakens the first instinct of obedience in man, and +has more weight than the voice of a general in battle. Cephas did not +turn his head, but he spoke. "What is it ye want?" he said, gruffly. + +"I want to know what my son has done, an' I want you to tell me in so +many words. I ain't afraid to face it. What has my son done?" + +Cephas grunted something inarticulate. + +"What?" said Deborah. "I can't hear what you say. I want to know what +my son has done. I've heard how you turned him out of your house last +night, and I want to know what it was for. I want to know what he has +done. You're an old man, and a God-fearing one, if you have got your +own ideas about some things. Barnabas is young, and apt to be +headstrong. He ain't always been as mindful of obedience as he might +be. I've tried to do my best by him, but he don't always carry out my +teachin's. I ain't afraid to say this, if he is my son. I want to +know what he's done. If it's anything wrong, I shall be jest as hard +on him as the Lord for it. I'm his mother, but I can see his faults, +and be just. I want to know what he has done." + +Charlotte gave one great cry. "Oh, Mrs. Thayer, he hasn't done +anything wrong; Barney hasn't done anything wrong!" + +But Deborah quite ignored her. She kept her eyes fixed upon Cephas. +"What has my son done?" she demanded again. "If he's done anything +wrong I want to know it. I ain't afraid to deal with him. You ordered +him out of your house, and he didn't come home at all last night. I +don't know where he was. He won't speak a word this mornin' to tell +me. I've been out in the field where he's to work ploughin', and I +tried to make him tell me, but he wouldn't say a word. I sat up and +waited all night, but he didn't come home. Now I want to know where +he was, and what he's done, and why you ordered him out of the house. +If he's been swearin', or takin' anything that didn't belong to him, +or drinkin', I want to know it, so I can deal with him as his mother +had ought to deal." + +"He hasn't been doing anything wrong!" Charlotte cried out again; +"you ought to be ashamed of yourself talking so about him, when +you're his mother!" + +Deborah Thayer never glanced at Charlotte. She kept her eyes fixed +upon Cephas. "What has he done?" she repeated. + +"I guess he didn't do much of anything," Mrs. Barnard murmured, +feebly; but Deborah did not seem to hear her. + +Cephas opened his mouth as if perforce. "Well," he said, slowly, "we +got to talkin'--" + +"Talkin' about what?" + +"About the 'lection. I think, accordin' to my reasonin', that what we +eat had a good deal to do with it." + +"What?" + +"I think if you'd kept your family on less meat, and given 'em more +garden-stuff to eat Barney wouldn't have been so up an' comin'. It's +what he's eat that's made him what he is." + +Deborah stared at Cephas in stern amazement. "You're tryin' to make +out, as near as I can tell," said she, "that whatever my son has done +wrong is due to what he's eat, and not to original sin. I knew you +had queer ideas, Cephas Barnard, but I didn't know you wa'n't sound +in your faith. What I want to know is, what has he done?" + +Suddenly Charlotte sprang up, and pushed herself in between her +father and Mrs. Thayer; she confronted Deborah, and compelled her to +look at her. + +"I'll tell you what he's done," she said, fiercely. "I know what he's +done; you listen to me. He has done nothing--nothing that you've got +to deal with him for. You needn't feel obliged to deal with him. He +and father got into a talk over the 'lection, and they had words +about it. He didn't talk any worse than father, not a mite. Father +started it, anyway, and he knew better; he knew just how set Barney +was on his own side, and how set he was on his; he wanted to pick a +quarrel." + +"Charlotte!" shouted Cephas. + +"You keep still, father," returned Charlotte, with steady fierceness. +"I've never set myself up against you in my whole life before; but +now I'm going to, because it's just and right. Father wanted to pick +a quarrel," she repeated, turning to Deborah; "he's been kind of +grouty to Barney for some time. I don't know why; he took a notion +to, I suppose. When they got to having words about the 'lection, +father begun it. I heard him. Barney answered back, and I didn't +blame him; I would, in his place. Then father ordered him out of the +house, and he went. I don't see what else he could do. And I don't +blame him because he didn't go home if he didn't feel like it." + +"Didn't he go away from here before nine o'clock?" demanded Deborah, +addressing Charlotte at last. + +"Yes, he did, some time before nine; he had plenty of time to go home +if he wanted to." + +"Where was he, then, I'd like to know?" + +"I don't know, and I wouldn't lift my finger to find out. I am not +afraid he was anywhere he hadn't ought to be, nor doin' anything he +hadn't ought to." + +"Didn't you stand out in the road and call him back, and he wouldn't +come, nor even turn his head to look at you?" asked Deborah. + +"Yes, I did," returned Charlotte, unflinchingly. "And I don't blame +him for not coming back and not turning his head. I wouldn't if I'd +been in his place." + +"You'll have to uphold him a long time, then; I can tell you that," +said Deborah. "He won't never come back if he's said he won't. I know +him; he's got some of me in him." + +"I'll uphold him as long as I live," said Charlotte. + +"I wonder you ain't ashamed to talk so." + +"I am not." + +Deborah looked at Charlotte as if she would crush her; then she +turned away. + +"You're a hard woman, Mrs. Thayer, and I pity Barney because he's got +you for a mother," Charlotte said, in undaunted response to Deborah's +look. + +"Well, you'll never have to pity yourself on that account," retorted +Deborah, without turning her head. + +The door opened softly, and a girl of about Charlotte's age slipped +in. Nobody except Mrs. Barnard, who said, absently, "How do you do, +Rose?" seemed to notice her. She sat down unobtrusively in a chair +near the door and waited. Her blue eyes upon the others were so +intense with excitement that they seemed to blot out the rest of her +face. She had her blue apron tightly rolled about both hands. + +Deborah Thayer, on her way to the door, looked at her as if she had +been a part of the wall, but suddenly she stopped and cast a glance +at Cephas. "What be you makin'?" she asked, with a kind of scorn at +him, and scorn at her own curiosity. + +Cephas did not reply, but he looked ugly as he slapped another piece +of dough heavily upon a plate. + +Deborah, as if against her will, moved closer to the table and bent +over the pan of sorrel. She smelled of it; then she took a leaf and +tasted it, cautiously. She made a wry face. "It's sorrel," said she. +"You're makin' pies out of sorrel. A man makin' pies out of sorrel!" + +She looked at Cephas like a condemning judge. He shot a fiery glance +at her, but said nothing. He sprinkled the sorrel leaves in the pie. + +"Well," said Deborah, "I've got a sense of justice, and if my son, or +any other man, has asked a girl to marry him, and she's got her +weddin' clothes ready, I believe in his doin' his duty, if he can be +made to; but I must say if it wa'n't for that, I'd rather he'd gone +into a family that was more like other folks. I'm goin' to do the +best I can, whether you go half way or not. I'm goin' to try to make +my son do his duty. I don't expect he will, but I shall do all I can, +tempers or no tempers, and sorrel pies or no sorrel pies." + +Deborah went out, and shut the door heavily after her. + + + +Chapter IV + + +After Deborah Thayer had shut the door, the young girl sitting beside +it arose. "I didn't know she was in here, or I wouldn't have come +in," she said, nervously. + +"That don't make any odds," replied Mrs. Barnard, who was trembling +all over, and had sunk helplessly into a rocking-chair, which she +swayed violently and unconsciously. + +Cephas opened the door of the brick oven, and put in a batch of his +pies, and the click of the iron latch made her start as if it were a +pistol-shot. + +Charlotte got up and went out of the room with a backward glance and +a slight beckoning motion of her head, and the girl slunk after her +so secretly that it seemed as if she did not see herself. Cephas +looked sharply after them, but said nothing; he was like a +philosopher in such a fury of research and experiment that for the +time he heeded thoroughly nothing else. + +The young girl, who was Rose Berry, Charlotte's cousin, followed her +panting up the steep stairs to her chamber. She was a slender little +creature, and was now overwrought with nervous excitement. She fairly +gasped for breath when she sat down in the little wooden chair in +Charlotte's room. Charlotte sat on the bed. The two girls looked at +each other--Rose with a certain wary alarm and questioning in her +eyes, Charlotte with a dignified confidence of misery. + +"I didn't sleep here last night," Charlotte said, at length. + +"You went over to Aunt Sylvy's, didn't you?" returned Rose, as if +that were all the matter in hand. + +Charlotte nodded, then she looked moodily past her cousin's face out +of the window. + +"You've heard about it, I suppose?" said Charlotte. + +"Something," replied Rose, evasively. + +"I don't see how it got out, for my part. I don't believe he told +anybody." + +Rose flushed all over her little eager face and her thin neck. She +opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it with a catch of her +breath. + +"I can't imagine how it got out," repeated Charlotte. + +Rose looked at Charlotte with a painful effort; she clutched her +hands tightly into fists as she spoke. "I was coming up here 'cross +lots last night, and I heard you out in the road calling Barney," she +said, as if she forced out the words. + +"Rose Berry, you didn't tell!" + +"I went home and told mother, that's all. I didn't think that it +would do any harm, Charlotte." + +"It'll be all over town, that's all. It's bad enough, anyway." + +"I don't believe it'll get out; I told mother not to tell." + +"Mrs. Thayer knew." + +"Maybe Barney told her." + +"Rose Berry, you know better. You know Barney wouldn't do such a +thing." + +"No; I don't s'pose he would." + +"Don't suppose! Don't you know?" + +"Yes, of course I do. I know Barney just as well as you do, +Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte, don't feel bad. I wouldn't have told mother +if I'd thought. I didn't mean to do any harm. I was all upset myself +by it. Don't cry, Charlotte." + +"I ain't going to cry," said Charlotte, with spirit. "I've stopped +cryin'." She wiped her eyes forcibly with her apron, and gave her +head a proud toss. "I know you didn't mean to do any harm, Rose, and +I suppose it would have got out anyway. 'Most everything does get out +but good deeds." + +"I truly didn't mean to do any harm, Charlotte," Rose repeated. + +"I know you didn't. We won't say any more about it." + +"I was just running over across lots last night," Rose said. "I +supposed you'd be in the front room with Barney, but I thought I'd +see Aunt Sarah. I'd got terrible lonesome; mother had gone to sleep +in her chair, and father had gone to bed. When I got out by the +stone-wall next the wood I heard you; then I ran right back. Don't +you--suppose he'll ever come again, Charlotte?" + +"No," said Charlotte. + +"Oh, Charlotte!" There was a curious quality in the girl's voice, as +if some great hidden emotion in her heart tried to leap to the +surface and make a sound, although it was totally at variance with +the import of her cry. Charlotte started, without knowing why. It was +as if Rose's words and her tone had different meanings, and +conflicted like the wrong lines with a tune. + +"I gave it up last night," said Charlotte. "It's all over. I'm goin' +to pack my wedding things away." + +"I don't see what makes you so sure." + +"I know him." + +"But I don't see what you've done, Charlotte; he didn't quarrel with +you." + +"That don't make any odds. He can't get married to me now without he +breaks his will, and he can't. He can't get outside himself enough to +break it. I've studied it all out. It's like ciphering. It's all +over." + +"Charlotte." + +"What is it?" + +"Why--couldn't you go somewhere else to get married? What's the need +of his comin' here, if he's been ordered out, and he's said he +wouldn't?" + +"That's just the letter of it," returned Charlotte, scornfully. "Do +you suppose he could cheat himself that way, or I'd have him if he +could? When Barney Thayer went out of this house last night, and said +what he did, he meant that it was all over, that he was never going +to marry me, nor have anything more to do with us, and he's going to +stand by it. I am not finding any fault with him. I've made up my +mind that it's all over, and I'm going to pack away my weddin' +things." + +"Oh, Charlotte, you take it so calm!" + +"What do you want me to do?" + +"If it was anybody else, I should think they didn't care." + +"Maybe I don't." + +"I couldn't bear it so, anyhow! I couldn't!" Rose cried out, with +sudden passion. "I wouldn't bear it. I'd go down on my knees to him +to come back!" Rose flung back her head and looked at Charlotte with +a curious defiance; her face grew suddenly intense, and seemed to +open out into bloom and color like a flower. The pupils of her blue +eyes dilated until they looked black; her thin lips looked full and +red; her cheeks were flaming; her slender chest heaved. "I would," +said she; "I don't care, I would." + +Charlotte looked at her, and a quivering flush like a reflection was +left on her fair, steady face. + +"I would," said Rose again. + +"It wouldn't do any good." + +"It would if he cared anything about you." + +"It would if he could give up to the care. Barney Thayer has got a +terrible will that won't always let him do what he wants to himself." + +"I don't believe he's enough of a fool to put his own eyes out." + +"You don't know him." + +"I'd try, anyway." + +"It wouldn't do any good." + +"I don't believe you care anything about him, Charlotte Barnard!" +Rose cried out. "If you did, you couldn't give him up so easy for +such a silly thing. You sit there just as calm. I don't believe but +what you'll have another fellow on the string in a month. I know one +that's dying to get you." + +"Maybe I shall," replied Charlotte. + +"Won't you, now?" Rose tried to speak archly, but her eyes were +fiercely eager. + +"I can't tell till I get home from the grave," said Charlotte. "You +might wait till I did, Rose." She got up and went to dusting her +bureau and the little gilt-framed mirror behind it. Her lips were +shut tightly, and she never looked at her cousin. + +"Now don't get mad, Charlotte," Rose said. "Maybe I ought not to have +spoken so, but it did seem to me you couldn't care as _much_-- It +does seem to me I couldn't settle down and be so calm if I was in +your place, and all ready to be married to anybody. I should want to +do something." + +"I should, if there was anything to do," said Charlotte. She stopped +dusting and leaned against the wall, reflecting. "I wish it was a +real mountain to move," said she; "I'd do it." + +"I'd go right down in the field where he is ploughing, and I'd make +him say he'd come to see me to-night." + +"I called him back last night--you heard me," said Charlotte, with +slow bitterness. Her square delicate chin dipped into the muslin +folds of her neckerchief; she looked steadily at the floor and bent +her brow. + +"I'd call him again." + +"You would, would you?" cried Charlotte, straightening herself. "You +would stand out in the road and keep on calling a man who wouldn't +even turn his head? You'd keep on calling, and let all the town +hear?" + +"Yes, I would. I would! I wouldn't be ashamed of anything if I was +going to marry him. I'd go on my knees before him in the face and +eyes of the whole town." + +"Well, I wouldn't," said Charlotte. + +"I would, if I was sure he thought as much of me as I did of him." + +Charlotte looked at her proudly. "I'm sure enough of that," said she. + +Rose winced a little. "Then I wouldn't mind what I did," she +persisted, stubbornly. + +"Well, I would," said Charlotte; "but maybe I don't care. Maybe all +this isn't as hard for me as it would be for another girl." +Charlotte's voice broke, but she tossed her head back with a proud +motion; she took up the dusting-cloth and fell to work again. + +"Oh, Charlotte!" said Rose; "I didn't mean that. Of course I know you +care. It's awful. It was only because I didn't see how you could seem +so calm; it ain't like me. Of course I know you feel bad enough +underneath. Your wedding-clothes all done and everything. They are +pretty near all done, ain't they, Charlotte?" + +"Yes," said Charlotte. "They're--pretty near--done." She tried to +speak steadily, but her voice failed. Suddenly she threw herself on +the bed and hid her face, and her whole body heaved and twisted with +great sobs. + +"Oh, poor Charlotte, don't!" Rose cried, wringing her own hands; her +face quivered, but she did not weep. + +"Maybe I don't care," sobbed Charlotte; "maybe--I don't care." + +"Oh, Charlotte!" Rose looked at Charlotte's piteous girlish shoulders +shaken with sobs, and the fair prostrate girlish head. Charlotte all +drawn up in this little heap upon the bed looked very young and +helpless. All her womanly stateliness, which made her seem so +superior to Rose, had vanished. Rose pulled her chair close to the +bed, sat down, and laid her little thin hand on Charlotte's arm, and +Charlotte directly felt it hot through her sleeve. "Don't, +Charlotte," Rose said; "I'm sorry I spoke so." + +"Maybe I don't care," Charlotte sobbed out again. "Maybe I don't." + +"Oh, Charlotte, I'm sorry," Rose said, trembling. "I do know you +care; don't you feel so bad because I said that." + +Rose tightened her grasp on Charlotte's arm; her voice changed +suddenly. "Look here, Charlotte," said she, "I'll do anything in the +world I can to help you; I promise you that, and I mean it, honest." + +Charlotte reached around a hand, and clasped her cousin's. + +"I'm sorry I spoke so," Rose said. + +"Never mind," Charlotte responded, chokingly. She sobbed a little +longer from pure inertia of grief; then she raised herself, shaking +off Rose's hand. "It's all right," said she; "I needn't have minded; +I know you didn't mean anything. It was just--the last straw, +and--when you said that about my wedding-clothes--" + +"Oh, Charlotte, you did speak about them yourself first," Rose said, +deprecatingly. + +"I did, so nobody else would," returned Charlotte. She wiped her +eyes, drooping her stained face away from her cousin with a kind of +helpless shame; then she smoothed her hair with the palms of her +hands. "I know you didn't mean any harm, Rose," she added, presently. +"I got my silk dress done last Wednesday; I wanted to tell you." +Charlotte tried to smile at Rose with her poor swollen lips and her +reddened eyes. + +"I'm sorry I said anything," Rose repeated; "I ought to have known it +would make you feel bad, Charlotte." + +"No, you hadn't. I was terrible silly. Don't you want to see my +dress, Rose?" + +"Oh, Charlotte! you don't want to show it to me?" + +"Yes, I do. I want you to see it--before I pack it away. It's in the +north chamber." + +Rose followed Charlotte out of the room across the passageway to the +north chamber. Charlotte had had one brother, who had died some ten +years before, when he was twenty. The north chamber had been his +room, the bureau drawers were packed with his clothes, and the silk +hat which had been the pride of his early manhood hung on the nail +where he had left it, and also his Sunday coat. His mother would not +have them removed, but kept them there, with frequent brushings, to +guard against dust and moths. + +Always when Charlotte entered this small long room, which was full of +wavering lines from its uneven floor and walls and ceiling and the +long arabesques on its old blue-and-white paper, whose green paper +curtains with fringed white dimity ones drooping over them were +always drawn, and in summertime when the windows were open undulated +in the wind, she had the sense of a presence, dim, but as positive as +the visions she had used to have of faces in the wandering design of +the old wall-paper when she had studied it in her childhood. Ever +since her brother's death she had had this sense of his presence in +his room; now she thought no more of it than of any familiar figure. +All the grief at his death had vanished, but she never entered his +old room that the thought of him did not rise up before her and stay +with her while she remained. + +Now, when she opened the door, and the opposite green and white +curtains flew out in the draught towards her, they were no more +evident than this presence to which she now gave no thought, and +pushed by her brother's memory without a glance. + +Rose followed her to the bed. A white linen sheet was laid over the +chintz counterpane. Charlotte lifted the sheet. + +"I took the last stitch on it Wednesday night," she said, in a hushed +voice. + +"Didn't he come that night?" + +"I finished it before he came." + +"Did he see it?" + +Charlotte nodded. The two girls stood looking solemnly at the silk +dress. + +"You can't see it here; it's too dark," said Charlotte, and she +rolled up a window curtain. + +"Yes, I can see better," said Rose, in a whisper. "It's beautiful, +Charlotte." + +The dress was spread widely over the bed in crisp folds. It was +purple, plaided vaguely with cloudy lines of white and delicate +rose-color. Over it lay a silvery lustre that was the very light of +the silken fabric. + +Rose felt it reverently. "How thick it is!" said she. + +"Yes, it's a good piece," Charlotte replied. + +"You thought you'd have purple?" + +"Yes, he liked it." + +"Well, it's pretty, and it's becoming to you." + +Charlotte took up the skirt, and slipped it, loud with silken +whispers, over her head. It swept out around her in a great circle; +she looked like a gorgeous inverted bell-flower. + +"It's beautiful," Rose said. + +Charlotte's face, gazing downward at the silken breadths, had quite +its natural expression. It was as if her mind in spite of herself +would stop at old doors. + +"Try on the waist," pleaded Rose. + +Charlotte slipped off her calico waist, and thrust her firm white +arms into the flaring silken sleeves of the wedding-gown. Her neck +arose from it with a grand curve. She stood before the glass and +strained the buttons together, frowning importantly. + +"It fits you like a glove," Rose murmured, admiringly, smoothing +Charlotte's glossy back. + +"I've got a spencer-cape to wear over my neck to meeting," Charlotte +said, and she opened the upper-most drawer in the chest and took out +a worked muslin cape, and adjusted it carefully over her shoulders, +pinning it across her bosom with a little brooch of her brother's +hair in a rim of gold. + +"It's elegant," said Rose. + +"I'll show you my bonnet," said Charlotte. She went into a closet and +emerged with a great green bandbox. + +Rose bent over, watching her breathlessly as she opened it. "Oh!" she +cried. "Oh, Charlotte!" + +Charlotte held up the bonnet of fine Dunstable straw, flaring in +front, and trimmed under the brim with a delicate lace ruche and a +wreath of feathery white flowers. Bows of white gauze ribbon stood up +from it stiffly. Long ribbon strings floated back over her arm as she +held it up. + +"Try it on," said Rose. + +Charlotte stepped before the glass and adjusted the bonnet to her +head. She tied the strings carefully under her chin in a great square +bow; then she turned towards Rose. The fine white wreath under the +brim encircled her face like a nimbus; she looked as she might have +done sitting a bride in the meeting-house. + +"It's beautiful," Rose said, smiling, with grave eyes. "You look real +handsome in it, Charlotte." Charlotte stood motionless a moment, with +Rose surveying her. + +"Oh, Charlotte," Rose cried out, suddenly, "I don't believe but what +you'll have him, after all!" Rose's eyes were sharp upon Charlotte's +face. It was as if the bridal robes, which were so evident, became +suddenly proofs of something tangible and real, like a garment left +by a ghost. Rose felt a sudden conviction that the quarrel was but a +temporary thing; that Charlotte would marry Barney, and that she knew +it. + +A change came over Charlotte's face. She began untying the bonnet +strings. + +"Sha'n't you?" repeated Rose, breathlessly. + +"No, I sha'n't." + +Charlotte took the bonnet off and smoothed the creases carefully out +of the strings. + +"If I were you," Rose cried out, "I'd feel like tearing that bonnet +to pieces!" + +Charlotte replaced it in the bandbox, and began unfastening her +dress. + +"I don't see how you can bear the sight of them. I don't believe I +could bear them in the house!" Rose cried out again. "I would put +that dress in the rag-bag if it was mine!" Her cheeks burned and her +eyes were quite fierce upon the dress as Charlotte slipped it off and +it fell to the floor in a rustling heap around her. + +"I don't see any sense in losing everything you have ever had because +you haven't got anything now," Charlotte returned, in a stern voice. +She laid the shining silk gown carefully on the bed, and put on her +cotton one again. Her face was quite steady. + +Rose watched her with the same sharp question in her eyes. "You know +you and Barney will make it up," she said, at length. + +"No, I don't," returned Charlotte. "Suppose we go down-stairs now. +I've got some work I ought to do." + +Charlotte pulled down the green paper shades of the windows, and went +out of the room. Rose followed. Charlotte turned to go down-stairs, +but Rose caught her arm. + +"Wait a minute," said she. "Look here, Charlotte." + +"What is it?" + +"Charlotte," said Rose again; then she stopped. + +Charlotte turned and looked at her. Rose's eyes met hers, and her +face had a noble expression. + +"You write a note to him, and I'll carry it," said Rose. "I'll go +down in the field where he is, on my way home." + +Tears sprang into Charlotte's eyes. "You're real good, Rose," she +said; "but I can't." + +"Hadn't you better?" + +"No; I can't. Don't let's talk any more about it." + +Charlotte pushed past Rose's detaining hand, and the girls went +down-stairs. Mrs. Barnard looked around dejectedly at them as they +entered the kitchen. Her eyes were red, and her mouth drooping; she +was clearing the débris of the pies from the table; there was a smell +of baking, but Cephas had gone out. She tried to smile at Rose. "Are +you goin' now?" said she. + +"Yes; I've got to. I've got to sew on my muslin dress. When are you +coming over, Aunt Sarah? You haven't been over to our house for an +age." + +"I don't care if I never go anywhere!" cried Sarah Barnard, with +sudden desperation. "I'm discouraged." She sank in a chair, and flung +her apron over her face. + +"Don't, mother," said Charlotte. + +"I can't help it," sobbed her mother. "You're young and you've got +more strength to bear it, but mine's all gone. I feel worse about you +than if it was myself, an' there's so much to put up with besides. I +don't feel as if I could put up with things much longer, nohow." + +"Uncle Cephas ought to be ashamed of himself!" Rose cried out. + +Sarah stood up. "Well, I don't s'pose I have so much to put up with +as some folks," she said, catching her breath as if it were her +dignity. "Your Uncle Cephas means well. It did seem as if them sorrel +pies were the last straw, but I hadn't ought to have minded it." + +"You haven't got to eat sorrel pies, have you?" Rose asked, in a +bewildered way. + +"I don't s'pose they'll be any worse than some other things we eat," +Sarah answered, scraping the pie-board again. + +"I don't see how you can." + +"I guess they won't hurt us any," Sarah said, shortly, and Rose +looked abashed. + +"Well, I must be going," said she. + +As she went out, she looked hesitatingly at Charlotte. "Hadn't you +better?" she whispered. Charlotte shook her head, and Rose went out +into the spring sunlight. She bent her head as she went down the road +before the sweet gusts of south wind; the white apple-trees seemed to +sing, for she could not see the birds in them. + +Rose's face between the green sides of her bonnet had in it all the +quickened bloom of youth in spring; her eyes had all the blue +surprise of violets; she panted softly between red swelling lips as +she walked; pulses beat in her crimson cheeks. Her slender figure +yielded to the wind as to a lover. She passed Barney Thayer's new +house; then she came opposite the field where he was at work +ploughing, driving a white horse, stooping to his work in his blue +frock. + +Rose stood still and looked at him; then she walked on a little way; +then she paused again. Barney never looked around at her. There was +the width of a field between them. + +Finally Rose went through the open bars into the first field. She +crossed it slowly, holding up her skirts where there was a wet gleam +through darker grass, and getting a little nosegay of violets with a +busy air, as if that were what she had come for. She passed through +the other bars into the second field, and Barney was only a little +way from her. He did not glance at her then. He was ploughing with +the look that Cadmus might have worn preparing the ground for the +dragon's teeth. + +Rose held up her skirts, and went along the furrows behind him. +"Hullo, Barney," she said, in a trembling voice. + +"Hullo," he returned, without looking around, and he kept on, with +Rose following. + +"Barney," said she, timidly. + +"Well?" said Barney, half turning, with a slight show of courtesy. + +"Do you know if Rebecca is at home?" + +"I don't know whether she is or not." + +Barney held stubbornly to his rocking plough, and Rose followed. + +"Barney," said she, again. + +"Well?" + +"Stop a minute, and look round here." + +"I can't stop to talk." + +"Yes, you can; just a minute. Look round here." + +Barney stopped, and turned a stern, miserable face over his shoulder. + +"I've been up to Charlotte's," Rose said. + +"I don't know what that is to me." + +"Barney Thayer, ain't you ashamed of yourself?" + +"I can't stop to talk." + +"Yes, you can. Look here. Charlotte feels awfully." + +Barney stood with his back to Rose; his very shoulders had a dogged +look. + +"Barney, why don't you make up with her?" + +Barney stood still. + +"Barney, she feels awfully because you didn't come back when she +called you last night." + +Barney made no reply. He and the white horse stood like statues. + +"Barney, why don't you make up with her? I wish you would." Rose's +voice was full of tender inflections; it might have been that of an +angel peace-making. + +Barney turned around between the handles of the plough, and looked at +her steadily. "You don't know anything about it, Rose," he said. + +Rose looked up in his face, and her own was full of fine pleading. +"Oh, Barney," she said, "poor Charlotte does feel so bad! I know that +anyhow." + +"You don't know how I am situated. I can't--" + +"Do go and see her, Barney." + +"Do you think I'm going into Cephas Barnard's house after he's +ordered me out?" + +"Go up the road a little way, and she'll come and meet you. I'll run +ahead and tell her." + +Barney shook his head. "I can't; you don't know anything about it, +Rose." He looked into Rose's eyes. "You're real good, Rose," he said, +as if with a sudden recognition of her presence. + +Rose blushed softly, a new look came into her eyes, she smiled up at +him, and her face was all pink and sweet and fully set towards him, +like a rose for which he was a sun. + +"No, I ain't good," she whispered. + +"Yes, you are; but I can't. You don't know anything about it." He +swung about and grasped his plough-handles again. + +"Barney, do stop a minute," Rose pleaded. + +"I can't stop any longer; there's no use talking," Barney said; and +he went on remorselessly through the opening furrow. Just before he +turned the corner Rose made a little run forward and caught his arm. + +"You don't think I've done anything out of the way speaking to you +about it, do you, Barney?" she said, and she was half crying. + +"I don't know why I should think you had; I suppose you meant all +right," Barney said. He pulled his arm away softly, and jerked the +right rein to turn the horse. "G'lang!" he cried out, and strode +forward with a conclusive air. + +Rose stood looking after him a minute; then she struck off across the +field. Her knees trembled as she stepped over the soft plough-ridges. + +When she was out on the road again she went along quickly until she +came to the Thayer house. She was going past that when she heard some +one calling her name, and turned to see who it was. + +Rebecca Thayer came hurrying out of the yard with a basket on her +arm. "Wait a minute," she called, "and I'll go along with you." + + + +Chapter V + + +Rebecca, walking beside Rose, looked like a woman of another race. +She was much taller, and her full, luxuriant young figure looked +tropical beside Rose's slender one. Her body undulated as she walked, +but Rose moved only with forward flings of delicate limbs. + +"I've got to carry these eggs down to the store and get some sugar," +said Rebecca. + +Rose assented, absently. She was full of the thought of her talk with +Barney. + +"It's a pleasant day, ain't it?" said Rebecca. + +"Yes, it's real pleasant. Say, Rebecca, I'm awful afraid I made +Barney mad just now." + +"Why, what did you do?" + +"I stopped in the field when I was going by. I'd been up to see +Charlotte, and I said something about it to him." + +"How much do you know about it?" Rebecca asked, abruptly. + +"Charlotte told me this mornin', and last night when I was going to +her house across lots I saw Barney going, and heard her calling him +back. I thought I'd see if I couldn't coax him to make up with her, +but I couldn't." + +"Oh, he'll come round," said Rebecca. + +"Then you think it'll be made up?" Rose asked, quickly. + +"Of course it will. We're having a terrible time about poor Barney. +He didn't come home last night, and it's much as ever he's spoken +this morning. He wouldn't eat any breakfast. He just went into his +room, and put on his other clothes, and then went out in the field to +work. He wouldn't tell mother anything about it. I never saw her so +worked up. She's terribly afraid he's done something wrong." + +"He hasn't done anything wrong," returned Rose. "I think your mother +is terrible hard on him. It's Uncle Cephas; he just picked the +quarrel. He hasn't never more'n half liked Barney. So you think +Barney will make up with Charlotte, and they'll get married, after +all?" + +"Of course they will," Rebecca replied, promptly. "I guess they won't +be such fools as not to for such a silly reason as that, when +Barney's got his house 'most done, and Charlotte has got all her +wedding-clothes ready." + +"Ain't Barney terrible set?" + +"He's set enough, but I guess you'll find he won't be this time." + +"Well, I'm sure I hope he won't be," Rose said, and she walked along +silently, her face sober in the depths of her bonnet. + +They came to Richard Alger's house on the right-hand side of the +road, and Rebecca looked reflectively at the white cottage with its +steep peak of Gothic roof set upon a ploughed hill. "It's queer how +he's been going with your aunt Sylvy all these years," she said. + +"Yes, 'tis," assented Rose, and she too glanced up at the house. As +they looked, a man came around the corner with a basket. He was about +to plant potatoes in his hilly yard. + +"There he is now," said Rose. + +They watched Richard Alger coming towards them, past a great tree +whose new leaves were as red as flowers. + +"What do you suppose the reason is?" Rebecca said, in a low voice. + +"I don't know. I suppose he's got used to living this way." + +"I shouldn't think they'd be very happy," Rebecca said; and she +blushed, and her voice had a shamefaced tone. + +"I don't suppose it makes so much difference when folks get older," +Rose returned. + +"Maybe it don't. Rose." + +"What is it?" + +"I wish you'd go into the store with me." + +Rose laughed. "What for?" + +"Nothing. Only I wish you would." + +"You afraid of William?" Rose peered around into Rebecca's bonnet. + +Rebecca blushed until tears came to her eyes. "I'd like to know what +I'd be afraid of William Berry for," she replied. + +"Then what do you want me to go into the store with you for?" + +"Nothing." + +"You're a great ninny, Rebecca Thayer," Rose said, laughing, "but +I'll go if you want me to. I know William won't like it. You run away +from him the whole time. There isn't another girl in Pembroke treats +him as badly as you do." + +"I don't treat him badly." + +"Yes, you do. And I don't believe but what you like him, Rebecca +Thayer; you wouldn't act so silly if you didn't." + +Rebecca was silent. Rose peered around in her face again. "I was only +joking. I think a sight more of you for not running after him, and so +does William. You haven't any idea how some of the girls act chasing +to the store. Mother and I have counted 'em some days, and then we +plague William about it, but he won't own up they come to see him. He +acts more ashamed of it than the girls do." + +"That's one thing I never would do--run after any fellow," said +Rebecca. + +"I wouldn't either." + +Then the two girls had reached the tavern and the store. Rose's +father, Silas Berry, had kept the tavern, but now it was closed, +except to occasional special guests. He had gained a competency, and +his wife Hannah had rebelled against further toil. Then, too, the +railroad had been built through East Pembroke instead of Pembroke, +the old stage line had become a thing of the past, and the tavern was +scantily patronized. Still, Silas Berry had given it up with great +reluctance; he cherished a grudge against his wife because she had +insisted upon it, and would never admit that business policy had +aught to do with it. + +The store adjoining the tavern, which he had owned for years, he +still retained, but his son William had charge of it. Silas Berry was +growing old, and the year before had had a slight shock of paralysis, +which had made him halt and feeble, although his mind was as clear as +ever. However, although he took no active part in the duties of the +store, he was still there, and sharply watchful for his interests, +the greater part of every day. + +The two girls went up the steps to the store piazza. Rose stepped +forward and looked in the door. "Father's in there, and Tommy Ray," +she whispered. "You needn't be afraid to go in." But she entered as +she spoke, and Rebecca followed her. + +There was one customer in the great country store, a stout old man, +on the grocery side. His broad red face turned towards them a second, +then squinted again at some packages on the counter. He was haggling +for garden seeds. William Berry, who was waiting upon him, did not +apparently look at his sister and Rebecca Thayer, but Rebecca had +entered his heart as well as the store, and he saw her face deep in +his own consciousness. + +Tommy Ray, the great white-headed boy who helped William in the +store, shuffled along behind the counter indeterminately, but the +girls did not seem to see him. Rose was talking fast to Rebecca. He +lounged back against the shelves, stared out the door, and whistled. + +Out of the obscurity in the back of the store an old man's narrow +bristling face peered, watchful as a cat, his body hunched up in a +round-backed arm-chair. + +"Mr. Nims will go in a minute," Rose whispered, and presently the old +farmer clamped past them out the door, counting his change from one +hand to the other, his lips moving. + +William Berry replaced the seed packages which the customer had +rejected on the shelves as the girls approached him. + +"Rebecca's got some eggs to sell," Rose announced. + +[Illustration: "'Rebecca's got some eggs to sell'"] + +William Berry's thin, wide-shouldered figure towered up behind the +counter; he smiled, and the smile was only a deepening of the +pleasant intensity of his beardless face, with its high pale forehead +and smooth crest of fair hair. The lines in his face scarcely +changed. + +"How d'ye do?" said he. + +"How d'ye do?" returned Rebecca, with fluttered dignity. Her face +bloomed deeply pink in the green tunnel of her sun-bonnet, her black +eyes were as soft and wary as a baby's, her full red lips had a +grave, innocent expression. + +"How many dozen eggs have you got, Rebecca?" Rose inquired, peering +into the basket. + +"Two; mother couldn't spare any more to-day," Rebecca replied, in a +trembling voice. + +"How much sugar do you give for two dozen eggs, William?" asked Rose. + +William hesitated; he gave a scarcely perceptible glance towards the +watchful old man, whose eyes seemed to gleam out of the gloom in the +back of the store. "Well, about two pounds and a half," he replied, +in a low voice. + +Rebecca set her basket of eggs on the counter. + +"How many pound did you tell her, William?" called the old man's +hoarse voice. + +William compressed his lips. "About two and a half, father." + +"How many?" + +"Two and a half." + +"How many dozen of eggs?" + +"Two." + +"You ain't offerin' of her two pound of sugar for two dozen eggs?" + +"I said two pounds and a half of sugar, father," said William. He +began counting the eggs. + +"Be you gone crazy?" + +"Never mind," whispered Rebecca. "That's too much sugar for the eggs. +Mother didn't expect so much. Don't say any more about it, William." +Her face was quite steady and self-possessed now, as she looked at +William, frowning heavily over the eggs. + +"Give Rebecca two pounds of sugar for the eggs, father, and call it +square," Rose called out. + +Silas Berry pulled himself up a joint at a time; then he came forward +at a stiff halt, his face pointing out in advance of his body. He +entered at the gap in the counter, and pressed close to his son's +side. Then he looked sharply across at Rebecca. "Sugar is fourteen +cents a pound now," said he, "an' eggs ain't fetchin' more'n ten +cents a dozen. You tell your mother." + +"Father, I told her I'd giver her two and a half pounds for two +dozen," said William; he was quite pale. He began counting the eggs +over again, and his hands trembled. + +"I'll take just what you're willing to give," Rebecca said to Silas. + +"Sugar is fourteen cents a pound, an' eggs is fetchin' ten cents a +dozen," said the old man; "you can have a pound and a half of sugar +for them eggs if you can give me a cent to boot." + +Rebecca colored. "I'm afraid I haven't got a cent with me," said she; +"I didn't fetch my purse. You'll have to give me a cent's worth less +sugar, Mr. Berry." + +"It's kinder hard to calkilate so close as that," returned Silas, +gravely; "you had better tell your mother about it, an' you come back +with the cent by-an'-by." + +"Why, father!" cried Rose. + +William shouldered his father aside with a sudden motion. "I'm +tending to this, father," he said, in a stern whisper; "you leave it +alone." + +"I ain't goin' to stan' by an' see you givin' twice as much for eggs +as they're worth 'cause it's a gal you're tradin' with. That wa'n't +never my way of doin' business, an' I ain't goin' to have it done in +my store. I shouldn't have laid up a cent if I'd managed any such +ways, an' I ain't goin' to see my hard earnin's wasted by you. You +give her a pound and a half of sugar for them eggs and a cent to +boot." + +"You sha'n't lose anything by it, father," said William, fiercely. +"You leave me alone." + +The sugar-barrel stood quite near. William strode over to it, and +plunged in the great scoop with a grating noise. He heaped it +recklessly on some paper, and laid it on the steelyards. + +"Don't give me more'n a pound and a half," Rebecca said, softly. + +"Keep still," Rose whispered in her ear. + +Silas pushed forward, and bent over the steelyards. "You've weighed +out nigh three," he began. Then his son's face suddenly confronted +his, and he stopped talking and stood back. + +Almost involuntarily at times Silas Berry yielded to the combination +of mental and superior physical force in his son. While his own mind +had lost nothing of its vigor, his bodily weakness made him +distrustful of it sometimes, when his son towered over him in what +seemed the might of his own lost strength and youth, brandishing his +own old weapons. + +William tied up the sugar neatly; then he took the eggs from +Rebecca's basket, and put the parcel in their place. Silas began +lifting the eggs from the box in which William had put them, and +counted them eagerly. + +"There ain't but twenty-three eggs here," he called out, as Rebecca +and Rose turned away, and William was edging after them from behind +the counter. + +"I thought there were two dozen," Rebecca responded, in a distressed +voice. + +"Of course there are two dozen," said Rose, promptly. "You 'ain't +counted 'em right, father. Go along, Rebecca; it's all right." + +"I tell ye it ain't," said Silas. "There ain't but twenty-three. It's +bad enough to be payin' twice what they're wuth for eggs, without +havin' of 'em come short." + +"I tell you I counted 'em twice over, and they're all right. You keep +still, father," said William's voice at his ear, in a fierce whisper, +and Silas subsided into sullen mutterings. + +William had meditated following Rebecca to the door; he had even +meditated going farther; but now he stood back behind the counter, +and began packing up some boxes with a busy air. + +"Ain't you going a piece with Rebecca, and carry her basket, +William?" Rose called back, when the two girls reached the door. + +Rebecca clutched her arm. "Oh, don't," she gasped, and Rose giggled. + +"Ain't you, William?" she said again. + +Rebecca hurried out the door, but she heard William reply coldly that +he couldn't, he was too busy. She was half crying when Rose caught up +with her. + +"William wanted to go bad enough, but he was too upset by what father +said. You mustn't mind father," Rose said, peering around into +Rebecca's bonnet. "Why, Rebecca, what is the matter?" + +"I didn't go into that store a step to see William Berry. You know I +didn't," Rebecca cried out, with sudden passion. Her voice was hoarse +with tears; her face was all hot and quivering with shame and anger. + +"Why, of course you didn't," Rose returned, in a bewildered way. "Who +said you did, Rebecca?" + +"You know I didn't. I hated to go to the store this morning. I told +mother I didn't want to, but she didn't have a mite of sugar in the +house, and there wasn't anybody else to send. Ephraim ain't very +well, and Doctor Whiting says he ought not to walk very far. I had to +come, but I didn't come to see William Berry, and nobody has any call +to think I did." + +"I don't know who said you did. I don't know what you mean, Rebecca." + +"You acted as if you thought so. I don't want William Berry seeing me +home in broad daylight, when I've been to the store to trade, and you +needn't think that's what I came for, and he needn't." + +"Good land, Rebecca Thayer, he didn't, and I was just in fun. He'd +have come with you, but he was so mad at what father said that he +backed out. William's just about as easy upset as you are. I didn't +mean any harm. Say, Rebecca, come into the house a little while, +can't you? I don't believe your mother is in any great hurry for the +sugar." Rose took hold of Rebecca's arm, but Rebecca jerked herself +away with a sob, and went down the road almost on a run. + +"Well, I hope you're touchy enough, Rebecca Thayer," Rose called out, +as she stood looking after her. "Folks will begin to think you did +come to see William if you make such a fuss when nobody accuses you +of it, if you don't look out." + +Rebecca hastened trembling down the road. She made no reply, but she +knew that Rose was quite right, and that she had attacked her with +futile reproaches in order to save herself from shame in her own +eyes. Rebecca knew quite well that in spite of her hesitation and +remonstrances, in spite of her maiden shrinking on the threshold of +the store, she had come to see William Berry. She had been glad, +although she had turned a hypocritical face towards her own +consciousness, that Ephraim was not well enough and she was obliged +to go. Her heart had leaped with joy when Rose had proposed William's +walking home with her, but when he refused she was crushed with +shame. "He thought I came to see him," she kept saying to herself as +she hurried along, and there was no falsehood that she would not have +sworn to to shield her modesty from such a thought on his part. + +When she got home and entered the kitchen, she kept her face turned +away from her mother. "Here's the sugar," she said, and she took it +out of the basket and placed it on the table. + +"How much did he give you?" asked Deborah Thayer; she was standing +beside the window beating eggs. Over in the field she could catch a +glimpse of Barnabas now and then between the trees as he passed with +his plough. + +"About two pounds." + +"That was doin' pretty well." + +Rebecca said nothing. She turned to go out of the room. + +"Where are you going?" her mother asked, sharply. "Take off your +bonnet. I want you to beat up the butter and sugar; this cake ought +to be in the oven." + +Deborah's face, as she beat the eggs and made cake, looked as full of +stern desperation as a soldier's on the battle-field. Deborah never +yielded to any of the vicissitudes of life; she met them in fair +fight like enemies, and vanquished them, not with trumpet and spear, +but with daily duties. It was a village story how Deborah Thayer +cleaned all the windows in the house one afternoon when her first +child had died in the morning. To-day she was in a tumult of wrath +and misery over her son; her mouth was so full of the gall of +bitterness that no sweet on earth could overcome it; but she made +sweet cake. + +Rebecca took off her sun-bonnet and hung it on a peg; she got a box +from the pantry, and emptied the sugar into in, still keeping her +face turned away as best she could from her mother's eyes. + +Deborah looked approvingly at the sugar. "It's nigher three pounds +than anything else. I guess you were kind of favored, Rebecca. Did +William wait on you?" + +"Yes, he did." + +"I guess you were kind of favored," Deborah repeated, and a +half-smile came over her grim face. + +Rebecca said nothing. She got some butter, and fell to work with a +wooden spoon, creaming the butter and sugar in a brown wooden bowl +with swift turns of her strong white wrist. Ephraim watched her +sharply; he sat by a window stoning raisins. His mother had forbidden +him to eat any, as she thought them injurious to him; but he +carefully calculated his chances, and deposited many in his mouth +when she watched Barney; but his jaws were always gravely set when +she turned his way. + +Ephraim's face had a curious bluish cast, as if his blood were the +color of the juice of a grape. His chest heaved shortly and heavily. +The village doctor had told is mother that he had heart-disease, +which might prove fatal, although there was a chance of his +outgrowing it, and Deborah had set her face against that. + +Ephraim's face, in spite of its sickly hue, had a perfect healthiness +and naturalness of expression, which insensibly gave confidence to +his friends, although it aroused their irritation. A spirit of boyish +rebellion and importance looked out of Ephraim's black eyes; his +mouth was demure with mischief, his gawky figure perpetually uneasy +and twisting, as if to find entrance into small forbidden places. +There was something in Ephraim's face, when she looked suddenly at +him, which continually led his mother to infer that he had been +transgressing. "What have you been doin', Ephraim?" she would call +out, sharply, many a time, with no just grounds for suspicion, and be +utterly routed by Ephraim's innocent, wondering grin in response. + +The boy was set about with restrictions which made his life +miserable, but the labor of picking over plums for a cake was quite +to his taste. He dearly loved plums, although they were especially +prohibited. He rolled one quietly under his tongue, and watched +Rebecca with sharp eyes. She could scarcely keep her face turned away +from him and her mother too. + +"Say, mother, Rebecca's been cryin'!" Ephraim announced, suddenly. + +Deborah turned and looked at Rebecca's face bending lower over the +wooden bowl; her black lashes rested on red circles, and her lips +were swollen. + +"I'd like to know what you've been cryin' about," said Deborah. It +was odd that she did not think that Rebecca's grief might be due to +the worry over Barney; but she did not for a minute. She directly +attributed it to some personal and strictly selfish consideration +which should arouse her animosity. + +"Nothing," said Rebecca, with sulky misery. + +"Yes, you've been cryin' about something, too. I want to know what +'tis." + +"Nothing. I wish you wouldn't, mother." + +"Did you see William Berry over to the store?" + +"I told you I did once." + +"Well, you needn't bite my head off. Did he say anything to you?" + +"He weighed out the sugar. I know one thing: I'll never set my foot +inside that store again as long as I live!" + +"I'd like to know what you mean, Rebecca Thayer." + +"I ain't going to have folks think I'm running after William Berry." + +"I'd like to know who thinks you are. If it's Hannah Berry, she +needn't talk, after the way her daughter has chased over here. Mebbe +it's all you Rose Berry has been to see, but I've had my doubts. What +did Hannah Berry say to you?" + +"She didn't say anything. I haven't seen her." + +"What was it, then?" + +But Rebecca would not tell her mother what the trouble had been; she +could not bring herself to reveal how William had been urged to walk +home with her and how coldly he had refused, and finally Deborah, in +spite of baffled interest, turned upon her. "Well, I hope you didn't +do anything unbecoming," said she. + +"Mother, you know better." + +"Well, I hope you didn't." + +"Mother, I won't stand being talked to so!" + +"I rather think I shall talk to you all I think I ought to for your +own good," said Deborah, with fierce persistency. "I ain't goin' to +have any daughter of mine doin' anything bold and forward, if I know +it." + +Rebecca was weeping quite openly now. "Mother, you know you sent me +down to the store yourself; there wasn't anybody else to go," she +sobbed out. + +"Your goin' to the store wa'n't anything. I guess you can go to the +store to trade off some eggs for sugar when I'm makin' cake without +William Berry thinkin' you're runnin' after him, or Hannah Berry +thinkin' so either. But there wa'n't any need of your makin' any +special talk with him, or lookin' as if you was tickled to death to +see him." + +"I didn't. I wouldn't go across the room to see William Berry. You +haven't any right to say such things to me, mother." + +"I guess I've got a right to talk to my own daughter. I should think +things had come to a pretty pass if I can't speak when I see you +doin' out of the way. I know one thing, you won't go to that store +again. I'll go myself next time. Have you got that butter an' sugar +mixed up?" + +"I hope you will go, I'm sure. I don't want to," returned Rebecca. +She had stopped crying, but her face was burning; she hit the spoon +with dull thuds against the wooden bowl. + +"Don't you be saucy. That's done enough; give it here." + +Deborah finished the cake with a master hand. When she measured the +raisins which Ephraim had stoned she cast a sharp glance at him, but +he was ready for it with beseechingly upturned sickly face. "Can't I +have just one raisin, mother?" he pleaded. + +"Yes, you may, if you 'ain't eat any while you was pickin' of 'em +over," she answered. And he reached over a thumb and finger and +selected a large fat plum, which he ate with ostentatious relish. +Ephraim's stomach oppressed him, his breath came harder, but he had a +sense of triumph in his soul. This depriving him of the little +creature comforts which he loved, and of the natural enjoyments of +boyhood, aroused in him a blind spirit of revolution which he felt +virtuous in exercising. Ephraim was absolutely conscienceless with +respect to all his stolen pleasures. + +Deborah had a cooking-stove. She had a progressive spirit, and when +stoves were first introduced had promptly done away with the brick +oven, except on occasions when much baking-room was needed. After her +new stove was set up in her back kitchen, she often alluded to Hannah +Berry's conservative principles with scorn. Hannah's sister, Mrs. +Barnard, had told her how a stove could be set up in the tavern any +minute; but Hannah despised new notions. "Hannah won't have one, +nohow," said Mrs. Barnard. "I dunno but I would, if Cephas could +afford it, and wa'n't set against it. It seems to me it might save a +sight of work." + +"Some folks are rooted so deep in old notions that they can't see +their own ideas over them," declared Deborah. Often when she cooked +in her new stove she inveighed against Hannah Berry's foolishness. + +"If Hannah Berry wants to heat up a whole brick oven and work the +whole forenoon to bake a loaf of cake, she can," said she, as she put +the pan of cake in the oven. "Now, you watch this, Rebecca Thayer, +and don't you let it burn, and you get the potatoes ready for +dinner." + +"Where are you going, mother?" asked Ephraim. + +"I'm just goin' to step out a little way." + +"Can't I go too?" + +"No; you set still. You ain't fit to walk this mornin'. You know what +the doctor told you." + +"It won't hurt me any," whined Ephraim. There were times when the +spirit of rebellion in him made illness and even his final demise +flash before his eyes like sweet overhanging fruit, since they were +so strenuously forbidden. + +"You set still," repeated his mother. She tied on her own green +sun-bonnet, stiffened with pasteboard, and went with it rattling +against her ears across the fields to the one where her son was +ploughing. The grass was not wet, but she held her dress up high, +showing her thick shoes and her blue yarn stockings, and took long +strides. Barney was guiding the plough past her when she came up. + +"You stop a minute," she said, authoritatively. "I want to speak to +you." + +"Whoa!" said Barney, and pulled up the horse. "Well, what is it?" he +said, gruffly, with his eyes upon the plough. + +"You go this minute and set the men to work on your house again. You +leave the horse here--I'll watch him--and go and tell Sam Plummer to +come and get the other men." + +"G'lang!" said Barney, and the horse pulled the plough forward with a +jerk. + +Mrs. Thayer seized Barney's arm. "You stop!" said she. "Whoa, whoa! +Now you look here, Barnabas Thayer. I don't know what you did to make +Cephas Barnard order you out of the house, but I know it was +something. I ain't goin' to believe it was all about the election. +There was something back of that. I ain't goin' to shield you because +you're my son. I know jest how set you can be in your own ways, and +how you can hang on to your temper. I've known you ever since you was +a baby; you can't teach me anything new about yourself. I don't know +what you did to make Cephas mad, but I know what you've got to do +now. You go and set the men to work on that house again, and then you +go over to Cephas Barnard's, and you tell him you're sorry for what +you've done. I don't care anything about Cephas Barnard, and if I'd +had my way in the first place I wouldn't have had anything to do with +him or his folks either; but now you've got to do what's right if +you've gone as far as this, and Charlotte's all ready to be married. +You go right along, Barnabas Thayer!" + +Barnabas stood immovable, his face set past his mother, as +irresponsively unyielding as a rock. + +"Be you goin'?" + +Barnabas did not reply. His mother moved, and brought her eyes on a +range with his, and the two faces confronted each other in silence, +while it was as if two wills clashed swords in advance of them. + +Then Mrs. Thayer moved away. "I ain't never goin' to say anything +more to you about it," she said; "but there's one thing--you needn't +come home to dinner. You sha'n't ever sit down to a meal in your +father's and mother's house whilst this goes on." + +"G'lang!" said Barnabas. The horse started, and he bent to the +plough. His mother stepped homeward over the plough-ridges with stern +unyielding steps, as if they were her enemies slain in battle. + +Just as she reached her own yard her husband drove in on a rattling +farm cart. She beckoned to him, and he pulled the horse up short. + +"I've told him he needn't come home to dinner," she said, standing +close to the wheel. + +Caleb looked down at her with a scared expression. "Well, I s'pose +you know what's best, Deborah," he said. + +"If he can't do what's right he's got to suffer for it," returned +Deborah. + +She went into the house, and Caleb drove clanking into the barn. + +Before dinner the old man stole off across lots, keeping well out of +sight of the kitchen windows lest his wife should see him, and +pleaded with Barnabas, but all in vain. The young man was more +outspoken with his father, but he was just as firm. + +"Your mother's terrible set about it, Barney. You'd better go over to +Charlotte's and make up." + +"I can't; it's all over," Barney said, in reply; and Caleb at length +plodded soberly and clumsily home. + +After dinner he went out behind the barn, and Rebecca, going to feed +the hens, found him sitting under the wild-cherry tree, fairly +sobbing in his old red handkerchief. + +She went near him, and stood looking at him with restrained sympathy. + +"Don't feel bad, father," she said, finally. "Barney'll get over it, +and come to supper." + +"No, he won't," groaned the old man--"no, he won't. He's jest like +your mother." + + + +Chapter VI + + +The weeks went on, and still Barnabas had not yielded. The story of +his quarrel with Cephas Barnard and his broken engagement with +Charlotte had become an old one in Pembroke, but it had not yet lost +its interest. A genuine excitement was so rare in the little peaceful +village that it had to be made to last, and rolled charily under the +tongue like a sweet morsel. However, there seemed to be no lack now, +for the one had set others in motion: everybody knew how Barnabas +Thayer no longer lived at home, and did not sit in his father's pew +in church, but in the gallery, and how Richard Alger had stopped +going to see Sylvia Crane. + +There was not much walking in the village, except to and from church +on a Sabbath day; but now on pleasant Sabbath evenings an occasional +couple, or an inquisitive old man with eyes sharp under white brows, +and chin set ahead like a pointer's, strolled past Sylvia's house and +the Thayer house, Barney's new one and Cephas Barnard's. + +They looked sharply and furtively to see if Sylvia had a light in her +best room, and if Richard Alger's head was visible through the +window, if Barney Thayer had gone home and yielded to his mother's +commands, if any more work had been done on the new house, and if he +perchance had gone a-courting Charlotte again. + +But they never saw Richard Alger's face in poor Sylvia's best room, +although her candle was always lit, they never saw Barney at his old +home, the new house advanced not a step beyond its incompleteness, +and Barney never was seen at Charlotte Barnard's on a Sabbath night. +Once, indeed, there was a rumor to that effect. A man's smooth dark +head was visible at one of the front-room windows opposite +Charlotte's fair one, and everybody took it for Barney's. + +The next morning Barney's mother came to the door of the new house. +"I want to know if it's true that you went over there last night," +she said; her voice was harsh, but her mouth was yielding. + +"No, I didn't," said Barney, shortly, and Deborah went away with a +harsh exclamation. Before long she knew and everybody else knew that +the man who had been seen at Charlotte's window was not Barney, but +Thomas Payne. + +Presently Ephraim came slowly across to the garden-patch where Barney +was planting. He was breathing heavily, and grinning. When he reached +Barney he stood still watching him, and the grin deepened. "Say, +Barney," he panted at length. + +"Well, what is it?" + +"You've lost your girl; did you know it, Barney?" + +Barney muttered something unintelligible; it sounded like the growl +of a dog, but Ephraim was not intimidated. He chuckled with delight +and spoke again. "Say, Barney, Thomas Payne's got your girl; did you +know it, Barney?" + +Barney turned threateningly, but he was helpless before his brother's +sickly face, and Ephraim knew it. That purple hue and that panting +breath had gained an armistice for him on many a battle-field, and he +had a certain triumph in it. It was power of a lugubrious sort, +certainly, but still it was power, and so to be enjoyed. + +"Thomas Payne's got your girl," he repeated; "he was over there +a-courtin' of her last night; a-settin' up along of her." + +Barney took a step forward, and Ephraim fell back a little, still +grinning imperturbably. "You mind your own business," Barney said, +between his teeth; and right upon his words followed Ephraim's hoarse +chuckle and his "Thomas Payne's got your girl." + +Barney turned about and went on with his planting. Ephraim, standing +a little aloof, somewhat warily since his brother's threatening +advance, kept repeating his one remark, as mocking as the snarl of a +mosquito. "Thomas Payne's got your girl, Barney. Say, did you know +it? Thomas Payne's got your girl." + +Finally Ephraim stepped close to Barney and shouted it into his ear: +"Say, Barney, Barney Thayer, be you deaf? Thomas Payne has +got--your--_girl!"_ But Barney planted on; his nerves were quivering, +the impetus to strike out was so strong in his arms that it seemed as +if it must by sheer mental force affect his teasing brother, but he +made no sign, and said not another word. + +Ephraim, worsted at length by silence, beat a gradual retreat. +Half-way across the field his panting voice called back, "Barney, +Thomas Payne has got your girl," and ended in a choking giggle. +Barney planted, and made no response; but when Ephraim was well out +of sight, he flung down his hoe with a groaning sigh, and went +stumbling across the soft loam of the garden-patch into a little +woody thicket beside it. He penetrated deeply between the trees and +underbrush, and at last flung himself down on his face among the soft +young flowers and weeds. "Oh, Charlotte!" he groaned out. "Oh, +Charlotte, Charlotte!" Barney began sobbing and crying like a child +as he lay there; he moved his arms convulsively, and tore up handfuls +of young grass and leaves, and flung them away in the unconscious +gesturing of grief. "Oh, I can't, I can't!" he groaned. +"I--can't--Charlotte! I can't--let any other man have you! No other +man shall have you!" he cried out, fiercely, and flung up his head; +"you are mine, mine! I'll kill any other man that touches you!" +Barney got up, and his face was flaming; he started off with a great +stride, and then he stopped short and flung an arm around the slender +trunk of a white-birch tree, and pulled it against him and leaned +against it as if it were Charlotte, and laid his cheek on the cool +white bark and sobbed again like a girl. "Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte!" +he moaned, and his voice was drowned out by the manifold rustling of +the young birch leaves, as a human grief is overborne and carried out +of sight by the soft, resistless progress of nature. + +Barney, although his faith in Charlotte had been as strong as any +man's should be in his promised wife, had now no doubt but this other +man had met with favor in her eyes. But he had no blame for her, nor +even any surprise at her want of constancy. He blamed the Lord, for +Charlotte as well as for himself. "If this hadn't happened she never +would have looked at any one else," he thought, and his thought had +the force of a blow against fate. + +This Thomas Payne was the best match in the village; he was the +squire's son, good-looking, and college-educated. Barney had always +known that he fancied Charlotte, and had felt a certain triumph that +he had won her in the face of it. "You might have somebody that's a +good deal better off if you didn't have me," he said to her once, and +they both knew whom he meant. "I don't want anybody else," Charlotte +had replied, with her shy stateliness. Now Barney thought that she +had changed her mind; and why should she not? A girl ought to marry +if she could; he could not marry her himself, and should not expect +her to remain single all her life for his sake. Of course Charlotte +wanted to be married, like other women. This probable desire of +Charlotte's for love and marriage in itself, apart from him, thrilled +his male fancy with a certain holy awe and respect, from his love for +her and utter ignorance of the attitude of womankind. Then, too, he +reflected that Thomas Payne would probably make her a good husband. +"He can buy her everything she wants," he thought, with a curious +mixture of gratulation for her and agony on his own account. He +thought of the little bonnets he had meant to buy for her himself, +and these details pierced his heart like needles. He sobbed, and the +birch-tree quivered in a wind of human grief. He saw Charlotte going +to church in her bridal bonnet with Thomas Payne more plainly than he +could ever see her in life, for a torturing imagination reflects life +like a magnifying-glass, and makes it clearer and larger than +reality. He saw Charlotte with Thomas Payne, blushing all over her +proud, delicate face when he looked at her; he saw her with Thomas +Payne's children. "O God!" he gasped, and he threw himself down on +the ground again, and lay there, face downward, motionless as if fate +had indeed seized him and shaken the life out of him and left him +there for dead; but it was his own will which was his fate. + +"Barney," his father called, somewhere out in the field. "Barney, +where be you?" + +"I'm coming," Barney called back, in a surly voice, and he pulled +himself up and pushed his way out of the thicket to the ploughed +field where his father stood. + +"Oh, there you be!" said Caleb. Barney grunted something +inarticulate, and took up his hoe again. Caleb stood watching him, +his eyes irresolute under anxiously frowning brows. "Barney," he +said, at length. + +"Well, what do you want?" + +"I've jest heard--" the old man began; then he stopped with a jump. + +"I don't want to hear what you've heard. Keep it to yourself if +you've heard anything!" Barney shouted. + +"I didn't know as you knew," Caleb stammered, apologetically. "I +didn't know as you'd heard, Barney." + +Caleb went to the edge of the field, and sat down on a great stone +under a wild-cherry tree. He was not feeling very well; his head was +dizzy, and his wife had given him a bowl of thoroughwort and ordered +him not to work. + +Caleb pushed his hat back and passed his hand across his forehead. It +was hot, and his face was flushed. He watched his son following up +his work with dogged energy as if it were an enemy, and his mind +seemed to turn stupid in the face of speculation, like a boy's over a +problem in arithmetic. + +There was no human being so strange and mysterious, such an unknown +quantity, to Caleb Thayer as his own son. He had not one trait of +character in common with him--at least, not one so translated into +his own vernacular that he could comprehend it. It was to Caleb as if +he looked in a glass expecting to see his own face, and saw therein +the face of a stranger. + +The wind was quite cool, and blew full on Caleb as he sat there. +Barney kept glancing at him. At length he spoke. "You'll get cold if +you sit there in that wind, father," he sang out, and there was a +rude kindliness in his tone. + +Caleb jumped up with alacrity. "I dunno but I shall. I guess you're +right. I wa'n't goin' to set here but a minute," he answered, +eagerly. Then he went over to Barney again, and stood near watching +him. Barney's hoe clinked on a stone, and he stooped and picked it +out of the loam, and threw it away. "There's a good many stone in +this field," said the old man. + +"There's some." + +"It was a heap of work clearin' of it in the first place. You wa'n't +more'n two year old when I cleared it. My brother Simeon helped me. +It was five year before he got the fever an' died." Caleb looked at +his son with anxious pleading which was out of proportion to his +words, and seemed to apply to something behind them in his own mind. + +Barney worked on silently. + +"I don't believe but what--if you was--to go over there--you could +get her back again now, away from that Payne fellar," Caleb blurted +out, suddenly; then he shrank back as if from an anticipated blow. + +Barney threw a hoeful of earth high in air and faced his father. + +"Once for all, father," said he, "I don't want to hear another word +about this." + +"I shouldn't have said nothin', Barney, but I kinder thought--" + +"I don't care what you thought. Keep your thoughts to yourself." + +"I know she allers thought a good deal of you, an'--" + +"I don't want another word out of your mouth about it, father." + +"Well, I ain't goin' to say nothin' about it if you don't want me to, +Barney; but you know how mother feels, an'-- Well, I ain't goin' to +say no more." + +Caleb passed his hand across his forehead, and set off across the +field. Just before he was out of hearing, Barney hailed him. + +"Do you feel better'n you did, father?" said he. + +"What say, Barney?" + +"Do you feel better'n you did this morning?" + +"Yes, I feel some better, Barney--some considerable better." Caleb +started to go back to Barney; then he paused and stood irresolute, +smiling towards him. "I feel considerable better," he called again; +"my head ain't nigh so dizzy as 'twas." + +"You'd better go home, father, and lay down, and see if you can't get +a nap," called Barney. + +"Yes, I guess I will; I guess 'twould be a good plan," returned the +old man, in a pleased voice. And he went on, clambered clumsily over +a stone-wall, disappeared behind some trees, reappeared in the open, +then disappeared finally over the slope of the hilly field. + +It was just five o'clock in the afternoon. Presently a woman came +hurrying across the field, with some needle-work gathered up in her +arms. She had been spending the afternoon at a neighbor's with her +sewing, and was now hastening home to get supper for her husband. She +was a pretty woman, and she had not been married long. She nodded to +Barney as she hurried past him, holding up her gay-flowered calico +skirt tidily. Her smooth fair hair shone like satin in the sun; she +wore a little blue kerchief tied over her head, and it slipped back +as she ran against the wind. She did not speak to Barney nor smile; +he thought her handsome face looked severely at him. She had always +known him, although she had not been one of his mates; she was +somewhat older. + +Barney felt a pang of misery as this fair, severe, and happy face +passed him by. He wondered if she had been up to Charlotte's, and if +Charlotte or her mother had been talking to her, and if she knew +about Thomas Payne. He watched her out of sight in a swirl of gay +skirts, her blue and golden head bobbing with her dancing steps; then +he glanced over his shoulder at his poor new house, with its fireless +chimneys. If all had gone well, he and Charlotte would have been +married by this time, and she would have been bestirring herself to +get supper for him--perhaps running home from a neighbor's with her +sewing as this other woman was doing. All the sweet domestic comfort +which he had missed seemed suddenly to toss above his eyes like the +one desired fruit of his whole life; its wonderful unknown flavor +tantalized his soul. All at once he thought how Charlotte would +prepare supper for another man, and the thought seemed to tear his +heart like a panther. "He sha'n't have her!" he cried out, quite +loudly and fiercely. His own voice seemed to quiet him, and he fell +to work again with his mouth set hard. + +In half an hour he quitted work, and went up to his house with his +hoe over his shoulder like a bayonet. The house was just as the +workmen had left it on the night before his quarrel with Cephas +Barnard. He had himself fitted some glass into the windows of the +kitchen and bedroom, and boarded up the others--that was all. He had +purchased a few simple bits of furniture, and set up his miserable +bachelor house-keeping. Barney was no cook, and he could purchase no +cooked food in Pembroke. He had subsisted mostly upon milk and eggs +and a poor and lumpy quality of corn-meal mush, which he had made +shift to stir up after many futile efforts. + +The first thing which he saw on entering the room to-night was a +generous square of light Indian cake on the table. It was not in a +plate, the edges were bent and crumbling, and the whole square looked +somewhat flattened. Barney knew at once that his father had saved it +from his own supper, had slipped it slyly into his pocket, and stolen +across the field with it. His mother had not given him a mouthful +since she had forbidden him to come home to dinner, and his sister +had not dared. + +Barney sat down and ate the Indian cake, a solitary householder at +his solitary table, around which there would never be any faces but +those of his dead dreams. Afterwards he pulled a chair up to an open +window, and sat there, resting his elbows on the sill, staring out +vacantly. The sun set, and the dusk deepened; the air was loud with +birds; there were shouts of children in the distance; gradually these +died away, and the stars came out. The wind was damp and sweet; over +in the field pale shapes of mist wavered and changed like phantoms. A +woman came running noiselessly into the yard, and pressed against the +door panting, and knocked. Barney saw the swirl of light skirts +around the corner; then the knock came. + +[Illustration: "Barney sat staring at vacancy"] + +He got up, trembling, and opened the door, and stood there looking at +the woman, who held her hooded head down. + +"It's me, Barney," said Charlotte's voice. + +"Come in," said Barney, and he moved aside. + +But Charlotte stood still. "I can say what I want to here," she +whispered, panting. "Barney." + +"Well, what is it, Charlotte?" + +"Barney." + +Barney waited. + +"I've come over here to-night, Barney, to see you," said Charlotte, +with solemn pauses between her words. "I don't know as I ought to; I +don't know but I ought to have more pride. I thought at first I +never--could--but afterwards I thought it was my duty. Barney, are +you going to let--anything like this--come between us--forever?" + +"There's no use talking, Charlotte." + +Charlotte's hooded figure stood before him stiff and straight. There +was resolution in her carriage, and her pleading tone was grave and +solemn. + +"Barney," she said again; and Barney waited, his pale face standing +aloof in the dark. + +"Barney, do you think it is right to let anything like this come +between you and me, when we were almost husband and wife?" + +"It's no use talking, Charlotte." + +"Do you think this is right, Barney?" + +Barney was silent. + +"If you can't answer me I will go home," said Charlotte, and she +turned, but Barney caught her in his arms. He held her close, +breathing in great pants. He pulled her hood back with trembling +strength, and kissed her over and over, roughly. + +"Charlotte," he half sobbed. + +Charlotte's voice, full of a great womanly indignation, sounded in +his ear. "Barney, you let me go," she said, and Barney obeyed. + +"When I came here alone this way I trusted you to treat me like a +gentleman," said she. She pulled her hood over her face again and +turned to go. "I shall never speak to you about this again," said +she. "You have chosen your own way, and you know best whether it's +right, or you're happy in it." + +"I hope you'll be happy, Charlotte," Barney said, with a great sigh. + +"That doesn't make any difference to you," said Charlotte, coldly. + +"Yes, it does; it does, Charlotte! When I heard about Thomas Payne, I +felt as if--if it would make you happy. I--" + +"What about Thomas Payne?" asked Charlotte, sharply. + +"I heard--how he was coming to see you--" + +"Do you mean that you want me to marry Thomas Payne, Barney Thayer?" + +"I want you to be happy, Charlotte." + +"Do you want me to marry Thomas Payne?" + +Barney was silent. + +"Answer me," cried Charlotte. + +"Yes, I do," replied Barney, firmly, "if it would make you happy." + +"You want me to marry Thomas Payne?" repeated Charlotte. "You want me +to be his wife instead of yours, and go to live with him instead of +you? You want me to live with another man?" + +"It ain't right for you not to get married," Barney said, and his +voice was hoarse and strange. + +"You want me to get married to another man? Do you know what it +means?" + +Barney gave a groan that was half a cry. + +"Do you?" + +"Oh, Charlotte!" Barney groaned, as if imploring her for pity. + +"You want me to marry Thomas Payne, and live with him--" + +"He'd--make you a good husband. He's--Charlotte--I can't. You've got +to be happy. It isn't right--I can't--" + +"Well," said Charlotte, "I will marry him. Good-night, Barney +Thayer." She went swiftly out of the yard. + +"Charlotte!" Barney called after her, as if against his will; but she +never turned her head. + + + +Chapter VII + + +On the north side of the old tavern was a great cherry orchard. In +years back it had been a source of considerable revenue to Silas +Berry, but for some seasons his returns from it had been very small. +The cherries had rotted on the branches, or the robins had eaten +them, for Silas would not give them away. Rose and her mother would +smuggle a few small baskets of cherries to Sylvia Crane and Mrs. +Barnard, but Silas's displeasure, had he found them out, would have +been great. "I ain't a-goin' to give them cherries away to nobody," +he would proclaim. "If folks don't want 'em enough to pay for 'em +they can go without." + +Many a great cherry picnic had been held in Silas Berry's orchard. +Parties had come in great rattling wagons from all the towns about, +and picked cherries and ate their fill at a most overreaching and +exorbitant price. + +There were no cherries like those in Silas Berry's orchard in all the +country roundabout. There was no competition, and for many years he +had had it all his own way. The young people's appetite for cherries +and their zeal for pleasure had overcome their indignation at his +usury. But at last Silas's greed got the better of his financial +shrewdness; he increased his price for cherries every season, and the +year after the tavern closed it became so preposterous that there was +a rebellion. It was headed by Thomas Payne, who, as the squire's son +and the richest and most freehanded young man in town, could incur no +suspicion of parsimony. Going one night to the old tavern to make +terms with Silas for the use of his cherry orchard, for a party which +included some of his college friends from Boston and his fine +young-lady cousin from New York, and hearing the preposterous sum +which Silas stated as final, he had turned on his heel with a strong +word under his breath. "You can eat your cherries yourself and be +damned," said Thomas Payne, and was out of the yard with the gay +swagger which he had learned along with his Greek and Latin at +college. The next day Silas saw the party in Squire Payne's big +wagon, with Thomas driving, and the cousin's pink cheeks and white +plumed hat conspicuous in the midst, pass merrily on their way to a +cherryless picnic at a neighboring pond, and the young college men +shouted out a doggerel couplet which the wit of the party had made +and set to a rough tune. + +"Who lives here?" the basses demanded in grim melody, and the tenors +responded, "Old Silas Berry, who charges sixpence for a cherry." + +Silas heard the mocking refrain repeated over and over between shouts +of laughter long after they were out of sight. + +Rose, who had not been bidden to the picnic, heard it and wept as she +peered around her curtain at the gay party. William, who had also not +been bidden, stormed at his father, and his mother joined him. + +"You're jest a-puttin' your own eyes out, Silas Berry," said she; +"you hadn't no business to ask such a price for them cherries; it's +more than they are worth; folks won't stand it. You asked too much +for 'em last year." + +"I know what I'm about," returned Silas, sitting in his arm-chair at +the window, with dogged chin on his breast. + +"You wait an' see," said Hannah. "You've jest put your own eyes out." + +And after-events proved that Hannah was right. Silas Berry's cherry +orchard was subjected to a species of ostracism in the village. There +were no more picnics held there, people would buy none of his +cherries, and he lost all the little income which he had derived from +them. Hannah often twitted him with it. "You can see now that what I +told you was true," said she; "you put your own eyes out." Silas +would say nothing in reply; he would simply make an animal sound of +defiance like a grunt in his throat, and frown. If Hannah kept on, he +would stump heavily out of the room, and swing the door back with a +bang. + +This season Hannah had taunted her husband more than usual with his +ill-judged parsimony in the matter of the cherries. The trees were +quite loaded with the small green fruit, and there promised to be a +very large crop. One day Silas turned on her. "You wait," said he; +"mebbe I know what I'm about, more'n you think I do." + +Hannah scowled with sharp interrogation at her husband's shrewdly +leering face. "What be you agoin' to do?" she demanded. But she got +no more out of him. + +One morning about two weeks before the cherries were ripe Silas went +halting in a casual way across the south yard towards his daughter +Rose, who was spreading out some linen to bleach. He picked up a few +stray sticks on the way, ostentatiously, as if that were his errand. + +Rose was spreading out the lengths of linen in a wide sunny space +just outside the shade of the cherry-trees. Her father paused, tilted +his head back, and eyed the trees with a look of innocent reflection. +Rose glanced at him, then she went on with her work. + +"Guess there's goin' to be considerable many cherries this year," +remarked her father, in an affable and confidential tone. + +"I guess so," replied Rose, shortly, and she flapped out an end of +the wet linen. The cherries were a sore subject with her. + +"I guess there's goin' to be more than common," said Silas, still +gazing up at the green boughs full of green fruit clusters. + +Rose made no reply; she was down on her knees in the grass stretching +the linen straight. + +"I've been thinkin'," her father continued, slowly, "that--mebbe +you'd like to have a little--party, an' ask some of the young folks, +an' eat some of 'em when they get ripe. You could have four trees to +pick off of." + +"I should think we'd had enough of cherry parties," Rose cried out, +bitterly. + +"I didn't say nothin' about havin' 'em pay anything," said her +father. + +Rose straightened herself and looked at him incredulously. "Do you +mean it, father?" said she. + +"'Ain't I jest said you might, if you wanted to?" + +"Do you mean to have them come here and not pay, father?" + +"There ain't no use tryin' to sell any of 'em," replied Silas. "You +can talk it over with your mother, an' do jest as you're a mind to +about it, that's all. If you want to have a few of the young folks +over here when them cherries are ripe, you can have four of them +trees to pick off of. I ain't got no more to say about it." + +Silas turned in a peremptory and conclusive manner. Rose fairly +gasped as she watched his stiff one-sided progress across the yard. +The vague horror of the unusual stole over her. A new phase of her +father's character stood between her and all her old memories like a +supernatural presence. She left the rest of the linen in the basket +and sought her mother in the house. "Mother!" she called out, in a +cautious voice, as soon as she entered the kitchen. Mrs. Berry's face +looked inquiringly out of the pantry, and Rose motioned her back, +went in herself, and shut the door. + +"What be you a-shuttin' the door for?" asked her mother, wonderingly. + +"I don't know what has come over father." + +"What do you mean, Rose Berry? He 'ain't had another shock?" + +"I'm dreadful afraid he's going to! I'm dreadful afraid something's +going to happen to him!" + +"I'd like to know what you mean?" Mrs. Berry was quite pale. + +"Father says I can have a cherry party, and they needn't pay +anything." + +Her mother stared at her. "He didn't!" + +"Yes, he did." + +They looked in each other's eyes, with silent renewals of doubt and +affirmation. Finally Mrs. Berry laughed. "H'm! Don't you see what +your father's up to?" she said. + +"No, I don't. I'm scared." + +"You needn't be. You ain't very cute. He's an old head. He thinks if +he has this cherry party for nothin' folks will overlook that other +affair, an' next year they'll buy the cherries again. Mebbe he thinks +they'll buy the other trees this year, after the party. How many +trees did he say you could have?" + +"Four. Maybe that is it." + +"Of course 'tis. Your father's an old head. Well, you'd better ask +'em. They won't see through it, and it'll make things pleasanter. +I've felt bad enough about it. I guess Mis' Thayer won't look down on +us quite so much if we ask a party here and let 'em eat cherries for +nothin'. It's more'n she'd do, I'll warrant." + +"Maybe they won't any of them come," said Rose. + +"H'm! Don't you worry about that. They'll come fast enough. I never +see any trouble yet about folks comin' to get anything good that they +didn't have to pay for." + +Rose and her mother calculated how many to invite to the party. They +decided to include all the available young people in Pembroke. + +"We might jest as well while we're about it," said Hannah, +judiciously. "There are cherries enough, and the Lord only knows when +your father 'll have another freak like this. I guess it's like an +eclipse of the sun, an' won't come again very soon." + +Within a day or two all the young people had been bidden to the +cherry party, and, as Mrs. Berry had foretold, accepted. Their +indignation was not proof against the prospect of pleasure; and, +moreover, they all liked Rose and William, and would not have refused +on their account. + +The week before the party, when the cherries were beginning to turn +red, and the robins had found them out, was an arduous one to little +Ezra Ray, a young brother of Tommy Ray, who tended in Silas Berry's +store. He was hired for twopence to sit all day in the cherry orchard +and ring a cow-bell whenever the robins made excursions into the +trees. From earliest dawn when the birds were first astir, until they +sought their little nests, did Ezra sit uncomfortably upon a hard +peaked rock in the midst of the orchard and jingle his bell. + +He was white-headed, and large of his age like his brother. His pale +blue eyes were gravely vacant under his thick white thatch; his chin +dropped; his mouth gaped with stolid patience. There was no +mitigation for his dull task; he was not allowed to keep his vigil on +a comfortable branch of a tree with the mossy trunk for a support to +his back, lest he might be tempted to eat of the cherries, and turn +pal of the robins instead of enemy. He dared not pull down any low +bough and have a surreptitious feast, for he understood well that +there were likely to be sharp eyes at the rear windows of the house, +that it was always probable that old Silas Berry, of whom he was in +mortal fear, might be standing at his back, and, moreover, he should +be questioned, and had not falsehood for refuge, for he was a good +child, and would be constrained to speak the truth. + +They would not let him have a gun instead of a bell, although he +pleaded hard. Could he have sat there presenting a gun like a sentry +on duty, the week, in spite of discomfort and deprivations, would +have been full of glory and excitement. As it was, the dulness and +monotony of the jingling of the cow-bell made even his stupid +childish mind dismal. All the pleasant exhilaration of youth seemed +to have deserted the boy, and life to him became as inane and bovine +as to the original ringer of that bell grazing all the season in her +own shadow over the same pasture-ground. + +And more than all, that twopence for which Ezra toiled so miserably +was to go towards the weaving of a rag carpet which his mother was +making, and for which she was saving every penny. He could not lay it +out in red-and-white sugar-sticks at the store. He sat there all the +week, and every time there was a whir of little brown wings and the +darting flash of a red breast among the cherry branches he rang in +frantic haste the old cow-bell. All the solace he obtained was an +occasional robin-pecked cherry which he found in the grass, and then +Mr. Berry questioned him severely when he saw stains around his mouth +and on his fingers. + +He was on hand early in the morning on the day of the cherry picnic, +trudging half awake, with the taste of breakfast in his mouth, +through the acres of white dewy grass. He sat on his rock until the +grass was dry, and patiently jingled his cow-bell. It was to young +Ezra Ray, although all unwittingly, as if he himself were assisting +in the operations of nature. He watched so assiduously that it was as +if he dried the dewy grass and ripened the cherries. + +When the cherry party began to arrive he still sat on his rock and +jingled his bell; he did not know when to stop. But his eyes were +upon the assembling people rather than upon the robins. He watched +the brave young men whose ignominy of boyhood was past, bearing +ladders and tossing up shining tin pails as they came. He watched the +girls swinging their little straw baskets daintily; his stupidly +wondering eyes followed especially Rebecca Thayer. Rebecca, in her +black muslin, with her sweet throat fairly dazzling above the +half-low bodice, and wound about twice with a slender gold chain, +with her black silk apron embroidered with red roses, and beautiful +face glowing with rich color between the black folds of her hair, +held the instinctive attention of the boy. He stared at her as she +stood talking to another girl with her back quite turned upon all the +young men, until his own sister touched him upon the shoulder with a +sharp nudge of a bony little hand. + +Amelia Ray's face, blonde like her brother's, but sharp with the +sharpness of the thin and dark, was thrust into his. "You must go +right home now," declared her high voice. "Mother said so." + +"I'm going to stay and help pick 'em," said Ezra, in a voice which +was not affirmative. + +"No, you ain't." + +"I can climb trees." + +"You've got to go right straight home. Mother wants you to wind balls +for the rag carpet." + +And then Ezra Ray, with disconsolate gaping face over his shoulder, +retreated with awkward lopes across the field, the cow-bell +accompanying his steps with doleful notes. + +There were about forty young people at the party when all were +assembled. They came mostly in couples, although now and then a +little group of girls advanced across the field, and young men came +singly. Barnabas Thayer came alone, and rather late; Rebecca had come +some time before with one of her girl mates who had stopped for her. +Barnabas, slender and handsome in his best suit, advancing with a +stern and almost martial air, tried not to see Charlotte Barnard; but +it was as if her face were the natural focus for his eyes, which they +could not escape. However, Charlotte was not talking to Thomas Payne; +he was not even very near her. He was already in the top of a +cherry-tree picking busily. Barney saw his trim dark head and his +bright blue waistcoat among the branches, and his heart gave a guilty +throb of relief. But soon he noted that Charlotte had not her basket, +and the conviction seized him that Thomas had it and was filling it +with the very choicest cherries from the topmost branches, as was +indeed the case. + +Charlotte never looked at Barney, although she knew well when he +came. She stood smiling beside another girl, her smooth fair hair +gleaming in the sun, her neck showing pink through her embroidered +lace kerchief, and her gleaming head and her neck seemed to survey +Barney as consciously as her face. Suddenly the fierceness of the +instinct of possession seized him; he said to himself that it was his +wife's neck; no one else should see it. He felt like tearing off his +own coat and covering her with rude force. It made no difference to +him that nearly every other girl there, his sister among the rest, +wore her neck uncovered by even a kerchief; he felt that Charlotte +should not have done so. The other young men were swarming up the +trees with the girls' baskets, but he stood aloof with his forehead +knitted; it was as if all his reason had deserted him. All at once +there was a rustle at his side, and Rose Berry touched him on the +arm; he started, and looked down into her softly glowing little face. + +[Illustration: "Charlotte stood beside another girl"] + +"Oh, here you are!" said she, and her voice had adoring cadences. + +Barney nodded. + +"I was afraid you weren't coming," said she, and she panted softly +through her red parted lips. + +Rose's crisp pink muslin gown flared scalloping around her like the +pink petals of a hollyhock; her slender white arms showed through the +thin sleeves. Barney could not look away from her wide-open, +unfaltering blue eyes, which suddenly displayed to him strange +depths. Charlotte, during all his courtship, had never looked up in +his face like that. He could not himself have told why; but Charlotte +had never for one moment lost sight of the individual, and the +respect due him, in her lover. Rose, in the heart of New England, +bred after the precepts of orthodoxy, was a pagan, and she worshipped +Love himself. Barney was simply the statue that represented the +divinity; another might have done as well had the sculpture been as +fine. + +"I told you I was coming," Barney said, slowly, and his voice sounded +odd to himself. + +"I know you did, but I was afraid you wouldn't." + +Rose still held her basket. Barney reached out for it. "Let me get +some cherries for you," he said. + +"Oh, I guess you hadn't better," Rose returned, holding the basket +firmly. + +"Why not?" + +"I'm--afraid Charlotte won't like it," Rose said. Her face, upturned +to Barney, was full of pitiful seriousness, like a child's. + +"Give me the basket," demanded Barney, and she yielded. She stood +watching him as he climbed the nearest tree; then she turned and met +Charlotte's stern eyes full upon her. Rose went under the tree +herself, pulled down a low branch, and began to eat; several other +girls were doing the same. Thomas Payne passed the tree, bearing +carefully Charlotte's little basket heaped with the finest cherries. +Rose tossed her head defiantly. "She needn't say anything," she +thought. + +The morning advanced, the sun stood high, and there was a light wind, +which now and then caused the cherry-leaves to smite the faces of the +pickers. There were no robins in the trees that morning; there were +only swift whirs of little wings in the distance, and sweet flurried +calls which were scarcely noted in the merry clamor of the young men +and girls. + +Silas Berry stood a little aloof, leaning on a stout cane, looking on +with an inscrutable expression on his dry old face. He noted +everything; he saw Rose talking to Barney; he saw his son William +eating cherries with Rebecca Thayer out of one basket; but his +expression never changed. The predominant trait in his whole +character had seemed to mould his face to itself unchangeably, as the +face of a hunting-dog is moulded to his speed and watchfulness. + +"Don't Mr. Berry look just like an old miser?" a girl whispered to +Rebecca Thayer; then she started and blushed confusedly, for she +remembered suddenly that William Berry was said to be waiting upon +Rebecca, and she also remembered that Charlotte Barnard, who was +within hearing distance, was his niece. + +Rebecca blushed, too. "I never thought of it," she said, in a +constrained voice. + +"Well, I don't know as he does," apologized the girl. "I suppose I +thought of it because he's thin. I always had an idea that a miser +was thin." Then she slipped away, and presently whispered to another +girl what a mistaken speech she had made, and they put their heads +together with soft, averted giggles. + +The girls had brought packages of luncheon in their baskets, which +they had removed to make space for the cherries, and left with Mrs. +Berry in the tavern. At noon they sent the young men for them, and +prepared to have dinner at a little distance from the trees where +they had been picking, where the ground was clean. William and Rose +also went up to the tavern, and Rose beckoned to Barney as she passed +him. "Don't you want to come?" she whispered, as he followed +hesitatingly; "there's something to carry." + +When the party returned, Mrs. Berry was with them, and she and Rose +bore between them a small tub of freshly-fried hot doughnuts. Mrs. +Berry had utterly refused to trust it to the young men. "I know +better than to let you have it," she said, laughing. "You'd eat all +the way there, and there wouldn't be enough left to go round. Me and +Rose will carry it; it ain't very heavy." William and Barney each +bore two great jugs of molasses-and-water spiced with ginger. + +Silas pulled himself up stiffly when he saw them coming; he had been +sitting upon the peaked rock whereon Ezra Ray had kept vigil with the +cow-bell. Full of anxiety had he been all day lest they should pick +from any except the four trees which he had set apart for them, and +his anxiety was greater since he knew that the best cherries were not +on those four trees. Silas sidled painfully towards his wife and +daughter; he peered over into the tub, but they swung it +remorselessly past him, even knocking his shin with its iron-bound +side. + +"What you got there?" he demanded, huskily. + +"Don't you say one word," returned his wife, with a fierce shake of +her head at him. + +"What's in them jugs?" + +"It's nothing but sweetened water. Don't, father," pleaded Rose under +her breath, her pretty face flaming. + +Her mother scowled indomitably at Silas tagging threateningly at her +elbow. "Don't you say one word," she whispered again. + +"You ain't goin' to--give 'em--" + +"Don't you speak," she returned, hissing out the "s." + +Silas said no more. He followed on, and watched the doughnuts being +distributed to the merry party seated in a great ring like a very +garland of youth under his trees; he saw them drink his sweetened +water. + +"Don't you want some?" asked his wife's defiantly pleasant voice in +his ear. + +"No, I don't want none," he returned. + +Finally, long before they had finished eating, he went home to the +tavern. There was no one in the house. He stole cautiously into the +pantry, and there was a reserve of doughnuts in a large milk-pan +sitting before the window. Silas crooked his old arm around the pan, +carried it painfully across the great kitchen and the entry into the +best room, and pushed it far under the bureau. Then he returned, and +concealed the molasses-jug in the brick oven. He stood for a minute +in the middle of the kitchen floor, chuckling and nodding as if to +the familiar and confidential spirit of his own greed; then he went +out, and a short way down the road to the cottage house where old +Hiram Baxter lived and kept a little shoemaker's shop in the L. He +entered, and sat down in the little leather-reeking place with Hiram, +and was safe and removed from inquiry when Mrs. Berry returned to the +tavern for the remaining doughnuts and to mix more sweetened water. +The doughnuts could not be found, but she carried a pail across to +the store, got more molasses from the barrel, and so in one point +outwitted her husband. + +Mrs. Berry was famous for her rich doughnuts, and the first supply +had been quite exhausted. William went up to her at once when she +returned to the party. "Where's the rest of the doughnuts?" he +whispered. + +"Your father's hid 'em," she whispered back. "Hush, don't say +anything." + +William scowled and made an exclamation. "The old--" + +"Hush!" whispered his mother again; "go up to the house and get the +sweetened water. I've mixed another jug." + +"Where is he?" demanded William. + +"I dunno. He ain't to the store." + +William strode off across the field, and he searched through the +house with an angry stamping and banging of doors, but he could not +find his father or the doughnuts. "Father!" he called, in an angry +shout, standing in the doorway, "Father!" But there was no reply, and +he went back to the others with the jug of sweetened water. Rebecca +watched him with furtive, anxious eyes, but he avoided looking at +her. When he passed her a tumbler of sweetened water she took it and +thanked him fervently, but he did not seem to heed her at all. + +After dinner they played romping games under the trees--hunt the +slipper, and button, and Copenhagen. Mrs. Barnard and two other women +had come over to see the festivity, and they sat at a little distance +with Mrs. Berry, awkwardly disposed against the trunks of trees, with +their feet tucked under their skirts to keep them from the damp +ground. + +Copenhagen was the favorite game of the young people, and they played +on and on while the afternoon deepened. Clinging to the rope they +formed a struggling ring, looping this way and that way as the +pursuers neared them. Their laughter and gay cries formed charming +discords; their radiant faces had the likeness of one family of +flowers, through their one expression. The wind blew harder; the +girls' muslin skirts clung to their limbs as they moved against it, +and flew out around their heels in fluttering ruffles. The cherry +boughs tossed over their heads full of crisp whispers among their +dark leaves and red fruit clusters. Over across the field, under the +low-swaying boughs, showed the old red wall of the tavern, and +against it a great mass of blooming phlox, all vague with distance +like purple smoke. Over on the left, fence rails glistened purple in +the sun and wind--a bluebird sat on a crumbling post and sang. But +the young men and girls playing Copenhagen saw and heard nothing of +these things. + +They heard only that one note of love which all unwittingly, and +whether they would or not, they sang to each other through all the +merry game. Charlotte heard it whether she would or not, and so did +Barney, and it produced in them as in the others a reckless +exhilaration in spite of their sadness. William Berry forgot all his +mortification and annoyance as he caught Rebecca's warm fingers on +the rope and bent over her red, averted cheek. Barney, when he had +grasped Rose's hands, which had fairly swung the rope his way, kissed +her with an ardor which had in it a curious, fierce joy, because at +that moment he caught a glimpse of Thomas Payne's handsome, audacious +face meeting Charlotte's. + +Barney had not wished to play, but he played with zeal, only he never +seemed to see Charlotte's fingers on the rope, and Charlotte never +saw his. The girls' cheeks flushed deeper, their smooth locks became +roughened. The laughter waxed louder and longer; the matrons looking +on doubled their broad backs with responsive merriment. It became +like a little bacchanalian rout in a New England field on a summer +afternoon, but they did not know it in their simple hearts. + +At six o'clock the mist began to rise, the sunlight streamed through +the trees in slanting golden shafts, long drawn out like organ +chords. The young people gathered up their pails and baskets and went +home, flocking down the road together, calling back farewells to Rose +and William and their mother, who stood in front of the tavern +watching them out of sight. + +They were not quite out of sight when they came to Hiram Baxter's +little house, and Silas Berry emerged from the shop door. "Hullo!" he +cried out, and they all stopped, smiling at him with a cordiality +which had in it a savor of apology. Indeed, Thomas Payne had just +remarked, with a hearty chorus of assents, that he guessed the old +man wasn't so bad after all. + +Silas advanced towards them; he also was smiling. He fumbled in his +waistcoat pocket, and drew out a roll of paper which he shook out +with trembling fingers. He stepped close to Thomas Payne and extended +it. + +"What is it?" asked the young man. + +Silas smiled up in his face with the ingenuous smile of a child. + +"What is it?" Thomas Payne asked again. + +The others crowded around. + +"It's nothin' but the bill," replied Silas, in a wheedling whisper. +His dry old face turned red, his smile deepened. + +"The bill for what?" demanded Thomas Payne, and he seized the paper. + +"For the cherries you eat," replied Silas. "I've always been in the +habit of chargin' more, but I've took off a leetle this time." His +voice had a ring of challenge, his eyes were sharp, while his mouth +smiled. + +Thomas Payne scowled over the bill. The other young men peered at it +over his shoulder, and repeated the amount with whistles and +half-laughs of scorn and anger. The girls ejaculated to each other in +whispers. Silas stood impervious, waiting. + +The young men whipped out their purses without a word, but Thomas +motioned them back. "I'll pay, and we'll settle afterwards. We can't +divide up here," he said, and he crammed some money hard in Silas's +eagerly outstretched hand. "Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. +Berry," said Thomas Payne, his face all flaming and his eyes +flashing, but his voice quite steady. "I hope you'll have as good +luck selling your cherries next year." + +There was a little exulting titter over the sarcasm among the girls, +in which Rebecca did not join; then the party kept on. The indignant +clamor waxed loud in a moment; they scarcely waited for the old man's +back to be turned on his return to the tavern. + +But the young people, crying out all together against this last +unparalleled meanness, had not reached the foot of the hill, where +some of them separated, when they heard the quick pound of running +feet behind them and a hoarse voice calling on Thomas Payne to stop. +They all turned, and William came up, pale and breathing hard. "What +did you pay him?" he asked of Thomas Payne. + +"See here, William, we all know you had nothing to do with it," +Thomas cried out. + +"What did you pay him?" William repeated, in a stern gasp. + +"It's all right." + +"You tell me what you paid him." + +Thomas Payne blushed all over his handsome boyish face. He half +whispered the amount to William, although the others knew it as well +as he. + +William pulled out his purse, and counted out some money with +trembling fingers. "Take it, for God's sake!" said he, and Thomas +Payne took it. "We all know that you knew nothing about it," he said +again. The others chimed in with eager assent, but William gave his +head a shake, as if he shook off water, and broke away from them all, +and pelted up the hill with his heart so bitterly sore that it seemed +as if he trod on it at every step. + +A voice was crying out behind him, but he never heeded. There were +light, hurrying steps after him, and a soft flutter of girlish +skirts, but he never looked away from his own self until Rebecca +touched his arm. Then he looked around with a start and a great +blush, and jerked his arm away. + +But Rebecca followed him up quite boldly, and caught his arm again, +and looked up in his face. "Don't you feel bad," said she; "don't you +feel bad. You aren't to blame." + +"Isn't he my father?" + +"You aren't to blame for that." + +"Disgrace comes without blame," said William, and he moved on. + +Rebecca kept close to his side, clinging to his arm. "It's your +father's way," said she. "He's honest, anyway. Nobody can say he +isn't honest." + +"It depends upon what you call honest," William said, bitterly. +"You'd better run back, Rebecca. You don't want them to think you're +going with me, and they will. I'm disgraced, and so is Rose. You'd +better run back." + +Rebecca stopped, and he did also. She looked up in his face; her +mouth was quivering with a kind of helpless shame, but her eyes were +full of womanly courage and steadfastness. "William," said she, "I +ran away in the face and eyes of them all to comfort you. They saw +me, and they can see me now, but I don't care. And I don't care if +you see me; I always have cared, but I don't now. I have always been +terribly afraid lest you should think I was running after you, but I +ain't afraid now. Don't you feel bad, William. That's all I care +about. Don't you feel bad; nobody is going to think any less of you. +I don't; I think more." + +William looked down at her; there was a hesitating appeal in his +face, as in that of a hurt child. Suddenly Rebecca raised both her +arms and put them around his neck; he leaned his cheek down against +her soft hair. "Poor William," she whispered, as if he had been her +child instead of her lover. + +A girl in the merry party speeding along at the foot of the hill +glanced around just then; she turned again, blushing hotly, and +touched a girl near her, who also glanced around. Then their two +blushing faces confronted each other with significant half-shamed +smiles of innocent young girlhood. + +They locked arms, and whispered as they went on. "Did you see?" +"Yes." "His head?" "Yes." "Her arms?" "Yes." Neither had ever had a +lover. + +But the two lovers at the top of the hill paid no heed. The party +were all out of sight when they went slowly down in the gathering +twilight. William left Rebecca when they came opposite her house. + + + +Chapter VIII + + +When Rebecca entered the house, her mother was standing over the +stove, making milk-toast for supper. The boiling milk steamed up +fiercely in her face. "What makes you so long behind the others?" she +demanded, without turning, stirring the milk as she spoke. + +"I guess I ain't much, am I?" Rebecca said, evasively. She tried to +make her voice sound as it usually did, but she could not. It broke +and took on faltering cadences, as if she were intoxicated with some +subtle wine of the spirit. + +Her mother looked around at her. Rebecca's face was full of a strange +radiance which she could not subdue before her mother's hard, +inquiring gaze. Her cheeks burned with splendid color, her lips +trembled into smiles in spite of herself, her eyes were like dark +fires, shifting before her mother's, but not paling. + +"Ephraim see 'em all go by half an hour ago," said her mother. + +Rebecca made no reply. + +"If," said her mother, "you stayed behind to see William Berry, I can +tell you one thing, once for all: you needn't do it again." + +"I had to see him about something," Rebecca faltered. + +"Well, you needn't see him again about anything. You might jest as +well understand it first as last: if you've got any idea of havin' +William Berry, you've got to give it up." + +"Mother, I'd like to know what you mean!" Rebecca cried out, +blushing. + +"Look 'round here at me!" her mother ordered, suddenly. + +"Don't, mother." + +"Look at me!" + +Rebecca lifted her face perforce, and her mother eyed her pitilessly. +"You ain't been tellin' of him you'd have him, now?" said she. "Why +don't you speak?" + +"Not--just." + +"Then you needn't." + +"Mother!" + +"You needn't talk. You can jest make up your mind to it. You ain't +goin' to marry William Berry. Your brother has had enough to do with +that family." + +"Mother, you won't stop my marrying William because Barney won't +marry his cousin Charlotte? There ain't any sense in that." + +"I've got my reasons, an' that's enough for you," said Deborah. "You +ain't goin' to marry William Berry." + +"I am, if you haven't got any better reason than that. I won't stand +it, mother; it ain't right!" Rebecca cried out. + +"Then," said Deborah, and as she spoke she began spooning out the +toast gravy into a bowl with a curious stiff turn of her wrist and a +superfluous vigor of muscle, as if it were molten lead instead of +milk; and, indeed, she might, from the look in her face, have been +one of her female ancestors in the times of the French and Indian +wars, casting bullets with the yells of savages in her ears--"then," +said she, "I sha'n't have any child but Ephraim left, that's all!" + +"Mother, don't!" gasped Rebecca. + +"There's another thing: if you marry William Berry against your +parents' wishes, you know what you have to expect. You remember your +aunt Rebecca." + +Rebecca twisted her whole body about with the despairing motion with +which she would have wrung her hands, flung open the door, and ran +out of the room. + +Deborah went on spooning up the toast. Ephraim had come in just as +she spoke last to Rebecca, and he stood staring, grinning with gaping +mouth. + +"What's Rebecca done, mother?" he asked, pleadingly, catching hold of +his mother's dress. + +"Nothin' for you to know. Go an' wash your face an' hands, an' come +in to supper." + +"Mother, what's she done?" Ephraim's pleading voice lengthened into a +whine. He took more liberties with his mother than any one else +dared; he even jerked her dress now by way of enforcing an answer. +But she grasped his arm so vigorously that he cried out. "Go out to +the pump, an' wash your face an' hands," she repeated, and Ephraim +made a little involuntary run to the door. + +As he went out he rolled his eyes over his shoulder at his mother +with tragic surprise and reproach, but she paid no attention. When he +came in she ignored the great painful sigh which he heaved and the +podgy hand clapped ostentatiously over his left side. "Draw your +chair up," said she. + +"I dunno as I want any supper. I've got a pain. Oh dear!" Ephraim +writhed, with attentive eyes upon his mother; he was like an +executioner turning an emotional thumbscrew on her. But Deborah +Thayer's emotions sometimes presented steel surfaces. "You can have a +pain, then," said she. "I ain't goin' to let you go to ruin because +you ain't well, not if I know it. You've got to mind, sick or well, +an' you might jest as well know it. I'll have one child obey me, +whether or no. Set up to the table." + +Ephraim drew up his chair, whimpering; but he fell to on the +milk-toast with ardor, and his hand dropped from his side. He had +eaten half a plateful when his father came in. Caleb had been +milking; the cows had been refractory as he drove them from pasture, +and he was late. + +"Supper's been ready half an hour," his wife said, when he entered. + +"The heifer run down the old road when I was a-drivin' of her home, +an' I had to chase her," Caleb returned, meekly, settling down in his +arm-chair at the table. + +"I guess that heifer wouldn't cut up so every night if I had the +drivin' of her," remarked Deborah. She filled a plate with toast and +passed it over to Caleb. + +Caleb set it before him, but he did not begin to eat. He looked at +Rebecca's empty place, then at his wife's face, long and pale and +full of stern rancor, behind the sugar-bowl and the cream-pitcher. + +"Rebecca got home?" he ventured, with wary eyes upon her. + +"Yes, she's got home." + +Caleb winked, meekly. "Ain't she comin' to supper?" + +"I dunno whether she is or not." + +"Does she know it's ready?" Deborah vouchsafed no reply. She poured +out the tea. + +Caleb grated his chair suddenly. "I'll jest speak to her," he +proclaimed, courageously. + +"She knows it's ready. You set still," said Deborah. And Caleb drew +his chair close again, and loaded his knife with toast, bringing it +around to his mouth with a dexterous sidewise motion. + +"She ain't sick, is she?" he said, presently, with a casual air. + +"No, I guess she ain't sick." + +"I s'pose she eat so many cherries she didn't want any supper," Caleb +said, chuckling anxiously. His wife made no reply. Ephraim reached +over slyly for the toast-spoon, and she pushed his hand back. + +"You can't have any more," said she. + +"Can't I have jest a little more, mother?" + +"No, you can't." + +"I feel faint at my stomach, mother." + +"You can keep on feelin' faint." + +"Can't I have a piece of pie, mother?" + +"You can't have another mouthful of anything to eat to-night." + +Ephraim clapped his hand to his side again and sighed, but his mother +took no notice. + +"Have you got a pain, sonny?" asked Caleb. + +"Yes, dreadful. Oh!" + +"Hadn't he ought to have somethin' on it?" Caleb inquired, looking +appealingly at Deborah. + +"He can have some of his doctor's medicine if he don't feel better," +she replied, in a hard voice. "Set your chair back now, Ephraim, and +get out your catechism." + +"I don't feel fit to, mother," groaned Ephraim. + +"You do jest as I tell you," said his mother. + +And Ephraim, heaving with sighs, muttering angrily far under his +breath lest his mother should hear, pulled his chair back to the +window, and got his catechism out of the top drawer of his father's +desk, and began droning out in his weak, sulky voice the first +question therein: "What is the chief end of man?" + +"Now shut the book and answer it," said his mother, and Ephraim +obeyed. + +Ephraim was quite conversant with the first three questions and their +answers, after that his memory began to weaken; either he was a +naturally dull scholar, or his native indolence made him appear so. +He had been drilled nightly upon the "Assembly's Catechism" for the +past five years, and had had many a hard bout with it before that in +his very infancy, when his general health admitted--and sometimes, it +seemed to Ephraim, when it had not admitted. + +Many a time had the boy panted for breath when he rehearsed those +grandly decisive, stately replies to those questions of all ages, but +his mother had been obdurate. He could not understand why, but in +reality Deborah held her youngest son, who was threatened with death +in his youth, to the "Assembly's Catechism" as a means of filling his +mind with spiritual wisdom, and fitting him for that higher state to +which he might soon be called. Ephraim had been strictly forbidden to +attend school--beyond reading he had no education; but his mother +resolved that spiritual education he should have, whether he would or +not, and whether the doctor would or not. So Ephraim laboriously read +the Bible through, a chapter at a time, and he went, step by step, +through the wisdom of the Divines of Westminster. No matter how much +he groaned over it, his mother was pitiless. Sometimes Caleb plucked +up courage and interceded. "I don't believe he feels quite ekal to +learnin' of his stint to-night," he would say, and then his eyes +would fall before the terrible stern pathos in Deborah's, as she +would reply in her deep voice: "If he can't learn nothin' about +books, he's got to learn about his own soul. He's got to, whether it +hurts him or not. I shouldn't think, knowin' what you know, you'd say +anything, Caleb Thayer." + +And Caleb's old face would quiver suddenly like a child's; he would +rub the back of his hand across his eyes, huddle himself into his +arm-chair, and say no more; and Deborah would sharply order Ephraim, +spying anxiously over his catechism, to go on with the next question. + +It was nearly dark to-night when Ephraim finished his stint; he was +slower than usual, his progress being somewhat hindered by the +surreptitious eating of a hard red apple, which he had stowed away in +his jacket-pocket. Hard apples were strictly forbidden to Ephraim as +articles of diet, and to eat many during the season required +diplomacy. + +The boy's jaws worked with furious zeal over the apple during his +mother's temporary absences from the room on household tasks, and on +her return were mumbling solemnly and innocently the precepts of the +catechism, after a spasmodic swallowing. His father was nodding in +his chair and saw nothing, and had he seen would not have betrayed +him. After a little inefficient remonstrance on his own account, +Caleb always subsided, and watched anxiously lest Deborah should +discover the misdemeanor and descend upon Ephraim. + +To-night, after the task was finished, Deborah sent Ephraim stumbling +out of the room to bed, muttering remonstrances, his eyes as wild and +restless as a cat's, his ears full of the nocturnal shouts of his +play-fellows that came through the open windows. + +"Mother, can't I go out an' play ball a little while?" sounded in a +long wail from the dusk outside the door. + +"You go to bed," answered his mother. Then the slamming of a door +shook the house. + +"If he wa'n't sick, I'd whip him," said Deborah, between tight lips; +the spiritual whip which Ephraim held by right of his illness over +her seemed to sing past her ears. She shook Caleb with the force with +which she might have shaken Ephraim. "You'd better get up an' go to +bed now, instead of sleepin' in your chair," she said, imperatively; +and Caleb obeyed, staggering, half-dazed, across the floor into the +bedroom. Deborah was only a few years younger than her husband, but +she had retained her youthful vigor in much greater degree. She never +felt the drowsiness of age stealing over her at nightfall. Indeed, +oftentimes her senses seemed to gain in alertness as the day wore on, +and many a night she was up and at work long after all the other +members of her family were in bed. There came at such times to +Deborah Thayer a certain peace and triumphant security, when all the +other wills over which her own held contested sway were lulled to +sleep, and she could concentrate all her energies upon her work. Many +a long task of needle-work had she done in the silence of the night, +by her dim oil lamp; in years past she had spun and woven, and there +was in a clothes-press up-stairs a wonderful coverlid in an intricate +pattern of blue and white, and not a thread of it woven by the light +of the sun. + +[Illustration: "Many a long task of needle-work had she done"] + +None of the neighbors knew why Deborah Thayer worked so much at +night; they attributed it to her tireless industry. "The days wa'n't +never long enough for Deborah Thayer," they said--and she did not +know why herself. + +There was deep in her heart a plan for the final disposition of these +nightly achievements, but she confided it to no one, not even to +Rebecca. The blue-and-white coverlid, many a daintily stitched linen +garment and lace-edged pillow-slip she destined for Rebecca when she +should be wed, although she frowned on Rebecca's lover and spoke +harshly to her of marriage. To-night, while Rebecca lay sobbing in +her little bedroom, the mother knitted assiduously until nearly +midnight upon a wide linen lace with which to trim dimity curtains +for the daughter's bridal bedstead. + +Deborah needed no lamplight for this knitting-work; she was so +familiar with it, having knitted yards with her thoughts elsewhere, +that she could knit without seeing her needles. + +So she sat in the deepening dusk and knitted, and heard the laughter +and shouts of the boys at play a little way down the road with a +deeper pang than Ephraim had ever felt over his own deprivation. + +She was glad when the gay hubbub ceased and the boys were haled into +bed. Shortly afterwards she heard out in the road a quick, manly +tread and a merry whistle. She did not know the tune, but only one +young man in Pembroke could whistle like that. "It's Thomas Payne +goin' up to see Charlotte Barnard," she said to herself, with a +bitter purse of her lips in the dark. That merry whistler, passing +her poor cast-out son in his lonely, half-furnished house, whose +dark, shadowy walls she could see across the field, smote her as +sorely as he smote him. It seemed to her that she could hear that +flute-like melody even as far as Charlotte's door. In spite of her +stern resolution to be just, a great gust of wrath shook her. +"Lettin' of him come courtin' her when it ain't six weeks since +Barney went," she said, quite out loud, and knitted fiercely. + +But poor Thomas Payne, striding with his harmless swagger up the +hill, whistling as loud as might be one of his college airs, need +not, although she knew it not and he knew it not himself, have +disturbed her peace of mind. + +Charlotte, at the cherry party, had asked him, with a certain +dignified shyness, if he could come up to her house that evening, and +he had responded with alacrity. "Why, of course I can," he cried, +blushing joyfully all over his handsome face--"of course I can, +Charlotte!" And he tried to catch one of her hands hanging in the +folds of her purple dress, but she drew it away. + +"I want to see you a few minutes about something," she said, soberly; +and then she pressed forward to speak to another girl, and he could +not get another word with her about it. + +Charlotte, after she got home from the party, had changed her pretty +new gown for her every-day one of mottled brown calico set with a +little green sprig, and had helped her mother get supper. + +Cephas, however, was late, and did not come home until just before +Thomas Payne arrived. Sarah had begun to worry. "I don't see where +your father is," she kept saying to Charlotte. When she heard his +shuffling step on the door-stone she started as if he had been her +lover. When he came in she scrutinized him anxiously, to see if he +looked ill or disturbed. Sarah Barnard, during all absences of her +family, dug busily at imaginary pitfalls for them; had they all +existed the town would have been honey-combed. + +"There ain't nothin' happened, has there, Cephas?" she said. + +"I dunno of anythin' that's happened." + +"I got kind of worried. I didn't know where you was." Sarah had an +air of apologizing for her worry. Cephas made no reply; he did not +say where he had been, nor account for his tardiness; he did not look +at his wife, standing before him with her pathetically inquiring +face. He pulled a chair up to the table and sat down, and Charlotte +set his supper before him. It was a plate of greens, cold boiled +dock, and some rye-and-Indian bread. Cephas still adhered to his +vegetarian diet, although he pined on it, and the longing for the +flesh-pots was great in his soul. However, he said no more about +sorrel pies, for the hardness and the flavor of those which he had +prepared had overcome even his zeal of invention. He ate of them +manfully twice; then he ate no more, and he did not inquire how Sarah +disposed of them after they had vainly appeared on the table a week. +She, with no pig nor hens to eat them, was forced, with many +misgivings as to the waste, to deposit them in the fireplace. + +"They actually made good kindlin' wood," she told her sister Sylvia. +"Poor Cephas, he didn't have no more idea than a baby about makin' +pies." All Sarah's ire had died away; to-night she set a large plump +apple-pie slyly on the table--an apple-pie with ample allowance of +lard in the crust thereof; and she felt not the slightest exultation, +only honest pleasure, when she saw, without seeming to, Cephas cut +off a goodly wedge, after disposing of his dock greens. + +"Poor father, I'm real glad he's tastin' of the pie," she whispered +to Charlotte in the pantry; "greens ain't very fillin'." + +Charlotte smiled, absently. Presently she slipped into the best room +and lighted the candles. "You expectin' of anybody to-night?" her +mother asked, when she came out. + +"I didn't know but somebody might come," Charlotte replied, +evasively. She blushed a little before her mother's significantly +smiling face, but there was none of the shamed delight which should +have accompanied the blush. She looked very sober--almost stern. + +"Hadn't you better put on your other dress again, then?" asked her +mother." + +"No, I guess this 'll do." + +Cephas ate his pie in silence--he had helped himself to another +piece--but he heard every word. After he had finished, he fumbled in +his pocket for his old leather purse, and counted over a little store +of money on his knee. + +Charlotte was setting away the dishes in the pantry when her father +came up behind her and crammed something into her hand. She started. +"What is it?" said she. + +"Look and see," said Cephas. + +Charlotte opened her hand, and saw a great silver dollar. "I thought +mebbe you'd like to buy somethin' with it," said Cephas. He cleared +his throat, and went out through the kitchen into the shed. Charlotte +was too amazed to thank him; her mother came into the pantry. "What +did he give you?" she whispered. + +Charlotte held up the money. "Poor father," said Sarah Barnard, "he's +doin' of it to make up. He was dreadful sorry about that other, an' +he's tickled 'most to death now he thinks you've got somebody else, +and are contented. Poor father, he ain't got much money, either." + +"I don't want it," Charlotte said, her steady mouth quivering +downward at the corners. + +"You keep it. He'd feel all upset if you didn't. You'll find it come +handy. I know you've got a good many things now, but you had ought to +have a new cape come fall; you can't come out bride in a muslin one +when snow flies." Sarah cast a half-timid, half-shrewd glance at +Charlotte, who put the dollar in her pocket. + +"A green satin cape, lined and wadded, would be handsome," pursued +her mother. + +"I sha'n't ever come out bride," said Charlotte. + +"How you talk. There, he's comin' now!" + +And, indeed, at that the clang of the knocker sounded through the +house. Charlotte took off her apron and started to answer it, but her +mother caught her and pinned up a stray lock of hair. "I 'most wish +you had put on your other dress again," she whispered. + +Sarah listened with her ear close to the crack of the kitchen door +when her daughter opened the outside one. She heard Thomas Payne's +hearty greeting and Charlotte's decorous reply. The door of the front +room shut, then she set the kitchen door ajar softly, but she could +hear nothing but a vague hum of voices across the entry; she could +not distinguish a word. However, it was as well that she could not, +for her heart would have sunk, as did poor Thomas Payne's. + +Thomas, with his thick hair brushed into a shining roll above his +fair high forehead, in his best flowered waistcoat and blue coat with +brass buttons, sat opposite Charlotte, his two nicely booted feet +toeing out squarely on the floor, his two hands on his knees, and +listened to what she had to say, while his boyish face changed and +whitened. Thomas was older than Charlotte, but he looked younger. +It seemed, too, as if he looked younger when with her than at other +times, although he was always anxiously steady and respectful, and +lost much of that youthful dash which made him questioningly admired +by the young people of Pembroke. + +Charlotte began at once after they were seated. Her fair, grave face +colored, her voice had in it a solemn embarrassment. "I don't know +but you thought I was doing a strange thing to ask you to come here +to-night," she said. + +"No, I didn't; I didn't think so, Charlotte," Thomas declared, +warmly. + +"I felt as if I ought to. I felt as if it was my duty to," said she. +She cast her eyes down. Thomas waited, looking at her with vague +alarm. Somehow some college scrapes of his flashed into his head, and +he had a bewildered idea the she had found them out and that her +sweet rigid innocence was shocked, and she was about to call him to +account. + +But Charlotte continued, raising her eyes, and meeting his gravely +and fairly: + +"You've been coming here three Sabbath evenings running, now," said +she. + +"Yes, I know I have, Charlotte." + +"And you mean to keep on coming, if I don't say anything to hinder +it?" + +"You know I do, Charlotte," replied Thomas, with ardent eyes upon her +face. + +"Then," said Charlotte, "I feel as if it was my duty to say this to +you, Thomas. If you come in any other way than as a friend, if you +come on any other errand than friendship, you must not come here any +more. It isn't right for me to encourage you, and let you come here +and get your feelings enlisted. If you come here occasionally as a +friend in friendship I shall be happy to have you, but you must not +come here with any other hopes or feelings." + +Charlotte's solemnly stilted words, and earnest, severe face chilled +the young man opposite. His face sobered. "You mean that you can't +ever think of me in any other way than as a friend," he said. + +Charlotte nodded. "You know it is not because there's one thing +against you, Thomas." + +"Then it is Barney, after all." + +"I was all ready to marry him a few weeks ago," Charlotte said, with +a kind of dignified reproach. + +Thomas colored. "I know it, Charlotte; I ought not to have +expected--I suppose you couldn't get over it so soon. I couldn't if I +had been in your place, and been ready to marry anybody. But I didn't +know about girls; I didn't know but they were different; I always +heard they got over things quicker. I ought not to have thought-- +But, oh, Charlotte, if I wait, if you have a little more time, don't +you think you will feel different about it?" + +Charlotte shook her head. + +"But he is such a good-for-nothing dog to treat you the way he does, +Charlotte!" Thomas cried out, in a great burst of wrath and jealous +love. + +"I don't want to hear another word like that, Thomas Payne," +Charlotte said, sternly, and the young man drooped before her. + +"I beg your pardon, Charlotte," said he. "I suppose I ought not to +have spoken so, if you-- Oh, Charlotte, then you don't think you ever +can get over this and think a little bit of me?" + +"No," replied Charlotte, in a steady voice, "I don't think I ever +can, Thomas." + +"I don't mean that I am trying to get you away from any other fellow, +Charlotte--I wouldn't do anything like that; but if he won't-- Oh, +Charlotte, are you sure?" + +"I don't think I ever can," repeated Charlotte, monotonously, looking +at the wall past Thomas. + +"I've always thought so much of you, Charlotte, though I never told +you so." + +"You'd better not now." + +"Yes, I'm going to, now. I've got to. Then I'll never say another +word--I'll go away, and never say another word." Thomas got up, and +brought his chair close to Charlotte's. "Don't move away," he +pleaded; "let me sit here near you once--I never shall again. I'm +going to tell you, Charlotte. I used to look across at you sitting +in the meeting-house, Sabbath days, when I was a boy, and think you +were the handsomest girl I ever saw. Then I did try to go with you +once before I went to college; perhaps you didn't know that I meant +anything, but I did. Barney was in the way then a little, but I +didn't think much of it. I didn't know that he really meant to go +with you. You let me go home with you two or three times--perhaps you +remember." + +Charlotte nodded. + +"I never forgot," said Thomas Payne. "Well, father found it out, and +he had a talk with me. He made me promise to wait till I got through +college before I said anything to you; he was doing a good deal for +me, you know. So I waited, and the first thing I knew, when I came +home, they said Barney Thayer was waiting on you, and I thought it +was all settled and there was nothing more to be done. I made up my +mind to bear it like a man and make the best of it, and I did. But +this spring when I was through college, and that happened betwixt you +and Barney, when he--didn't come back to you, and you didn't seem to +mind so much, I couldn't help having a little hope. I waited and +kept thinking he'd make up with you, but he didn't, and I knew how +determined he was. Then finally I began to make a few advances, +but--well, it's all over now, Charlotte. There's only one thing I'd +like to ask: if I hadn't waited, as I promised father, would it have +made any difference? Did you always like Barney Thayer?" + +"Yes; it wouldn't have made any difference," Charlotte said. There +were tears in her eyes. + +Thomas Payne arose. "Then that is all," said he. "I never had any +chance, if I had only known. I've got nothing more to say. I want to +thank you for asking me to come here to-night and telling me. It was +a good deal kinder than to let me keep on coming. That would have +been rather hard on a fellow." Thomas Payne fairly laughed, although +his handsome face was white. "I hope it will all come right betwixt +you and Barney, Charlotte," he said, "and don't you worry about me, I +shall get on. I'll own this seems a little harder than it was before, +but I shall get on." Thomas brushed his bell hat carefully with his +cambric handkerchief, and stowed it under his arm. "Good-bye, +Charlotte," said he, in his old gay voice; "when you ask me, I'll +come and dance at your wedding." + +Charlotte got up, trembling. Thomas reached out his hand and touched +her smooth fair head softly. "I never touched you nor kissed you, +except in games like that Copenhagen to-day," said he; "but I've +thought of it a good many times." + +Charlotte drew back. "I can't, Thomas," she faltered. She could not +herself have defined her reason for refusing her cast-off lover this +one comfort, but it was not so much loyalty as the fear of disloyalty +which led her to do so. In spite of herself, she saw Barney for an +instant beside Thomas to his disadvantage, and her love could not +cover him, extend it as she would. The conviction was strong upon her +that Thomas was the better man of the two, although she did not love +him. + +"All right," said Thomas, "I ought not to have asked it of you, +Charlotte. Good-bye." + +As soon as Thomas Payne got out in the dark night air, and the door +had shut behind him, he set up his merry whistle. Charlotte stood at +the front window, and heard it from far down the hill. + + + +Chapter IX + + +One Sunday evening, about four months after the cherry party, +Barnabas Thayer came out of his house and strolled slowly across the +road. Then he paused, and leaned up against some pasture bars and +looked around him. There was nobody in sight on the road in either +direction, and everything was very still, except for the vibrating +calls of the hidden insects that come to their flood-tide of life in +early autumn. + +Barnabas listened to those calls, which had in them a certain element +of mystery, as have all things which reach only one sense. They were +in their humble way the voices of the unseen, and as he listened they +seemed to take on a rhythmic cadence. Presently the drone of +multifold vibrations sounded in his ears with even rise and fall, +like the mighty breathing of Nature herself. The sun was low, and the +sky was full of violet clouds. Barney could see outlined faintly +against them the gray sweep of the roof that covered Charlotte's +daily life. + +Soon the bell for the evening meeting began to ring, and Barney +started. People might soon appear on their way to meeting, and he +did not want to see them. Barney avoided everybody now; he had been +nowhere since the cherry party, not even to meeting. He led the life +of a hermit, and seldom met his kind at all, except at the store, +where he went to buy the simple materials for his solitary meals. + +Barney turned aside from the main road into the old untravelled one +leading past Sylvia Crane's house. It appeared scarcely more than a +lane; the old wheel-ruts were hidden between green weedy ridges, the +bordering stone-walls looked like long green barrows, being overgrown +with poison-ivy vines and rank shrubs. For a long way there was no +house except Sylvia Crane's. There was one cellar where a house had +stood before Barney could remember. There were a few old blackened +chimney-bricks still there, the step-stone worn by dead and forgotten +feet, and the old lilac-bushes that had grown against the front +windows. Two poplar-trees, too, stood where the front yard had met +the road, casting long shadows like men. Sylvia Crane's house was +just beyond, and Barney passed it with a furtive anxious glance, +because Charlotte's aunt lived there. He saw nobody at the windows, +but the guardian-stone was quite rolled away from the door, so Sylvia +was at home. + +Barney walked a little way beyond; then he sat down on the +stone-wall, and remained there, motionless. He heard the meeting-bell +farther away, then it ceased. The wind was quite crisp and cool, and +it smote his back from the northwest. He could smell wild-grapes and +the pungent odor of decaying leaves. The autumn was beginning, and +over his thoughts, raised like a ghost from the ashes of the summer, +stole a vague vision of the winter. He saw for a second the driving +slant of the snow-storm over the old drifting road, he saw the white +slant of Sylvia's house-roof through it. And at the same time a +curious, pleasant desire, which might be primitive and coeval with +the provident passion of the squirrels and honey-bees, thrilled him. +Then he dismissed it bitterly. What need of winter-stores and +provisions for sweet home-comfort in the hearts of freezing storms +was there for him? What did he care whether or not he laid in stores +of hearth-wood, of garden produce, of apples, just for himself in his +miserable solitude? The inborn desire of Northern races at the +approach of the sterile winters, containing, as do all desires to +insure their fulfilment, the elements of human pleasure, failed +suddenly to move him when he remembered that his human life, in one +sense, was over. + +[Illustration: "He remained there motionless"] + +Opposite him across the road, in an old orchard, was a tree full of +apples. The low sun struck them, and they showed spheres of rosy +orange, as brilliant as Atalanta's apples of gold, against the +background of dark violet clouds. Barney looked at this tree, which +was glorified for the time almost out of its common meaning as a +tree, as he might have looked at a gorgeous procession passing before +him, while his mind was engrossed with his own misery, seeming to +project before his eyes like a veil. + +Presently it grew dusky, and the glowing apples faded; the town-clock +struck eight. Barney counted the strokes; then he arose and went +slowly back. He had not gone far when he saw at a distance down the +road a man and woman strolling slowly towards him. They disappeared +suddenly, and he thought they had turned into a lane which opened +upon the road just there. He thought to himself, and with no concern, +that it might have been his sister Rebecca--something about the +woman's gait suggested her--and William Berry. He knew that William +was not allowed in his mother's house, and that he and Rebecca met +outside. He looked up the dusky lane when he came to it, but he saw +nobody. + +When he reached Sylvia Crane's house he noticed that the front door +was open, and a woman stood there in a dim shaft of candle-light +which streamed from the room beyond. He started, for he thought it +might be Charlotte; then he saw that it was Sylvia Crane leaning out +towards him, shading her eyes with her hand. + +He said "Good-evening" vaguely, and passed on. Then he heard a cry of +indistinct words behind him, and turned. "What is it?" he called. But +still he could not understand what she said, her voice was so broken, +and he went back. + +When he got quite close to the gate he understood. "You ain't goin' +past, Richard? You ain't goin' past, Richard?" Sylvia was wailing +over and over, clinging to the old gate-post. + +Barney stood before her, hesitating. Sylvia reached out a hand +towards him, clutching piteously with pale fingers through the gloom. +Barney drew back from the poor hand. "I rather think--you've--made a +mistake," he faltered out. + +"You ain't goin' past, Richard?" Sylvia wailed out again. She flung +out her lean arm farther towards him. Then she wavered. Barney +thought she was going to fall, and he stepped forward and caught +hold of her elbow. "I guess you don't feel well, do you, Miss Crane?" +he said. "I guess you had better go into the house, hadn't you?" + +"I feel--kind of--bad--I--thought you was goin'--past," gasped +Sylvia. Barney supported her awkwardly into the house. At times she +leaned her whole trembling weight upon him, and then withdrew +herself, all unnerved as she was, with the inborn maiden reticence +which so many years had strengthened; once she pushed him from her, +then drooped upon his arm again, and all the time she kept moaning, +"I thought you was goin' right past, Richard, I thought you was goin' +right past." + +And Barney kept repeating, "I guess you've made a mistake, Miss +Crane"; but she did not heed him. + +When they were inside the parlor he shifted her weight gently on to +the sofa, and would have drawn off; but she clung to his arm, and it +seemed to him that he was forced to sit down beside her or be rough +with her. "I thought you was goin' right past, Richard," she said +again. + +"I ain't Richard," said Barney; but she did not seem to hear him. She +looked straight in his face with a strange boldness, her body +inclined towards him, her head thrown back. Her thin, faded cheeks +were burning, her blue eyes eager, her lips twitching with pitiful +smiles. The room was dim with candle-light, but everything in it was +distinct, and Sylvia Crane, looking straight at Barney Thayer's face, +saw the face of Richard Alger. + +Suddenly Barney himself had a curious impression. The features of +Richard Alger instead of his own seemed to look back at him from his +own thoughts. He dashed his hand across his face with an impatient, +bewildered motion, as if he brushed away unseen cobwebs, and stood +up. "You have made--" he began again; but Sylvia interrupted him with +a weak cry. "Set down here, set down here, jest a minute, if you +don't want to kill me!" she wailed out, and she clutched at his +sleeve and pulled him down, and before he knew what she was doing had +shrunk close to him, and laid her head on his shoulder. She went on +talking desperately in her weak voice--strained shrill octaves above +her ordinary tone. + +"I've had this--sofa ten years," she said--"ten years, Richard--an' +you never set with me on it before, an'--you'd been comin'--here a +long while before that came betwixt us last spring, Richard. Ain't +you forgiven me yet?" + +Barney made no reply. + +"Can't you put your arm around me jest once, Richard?" she went on. +"You ain't never, an' you've been comin' here a long while. I've had +this sofa ten years." + +Barney put his arm around her, seemingly with no volition of his own. + +"It's six months to-day sence you came last," Sylvia said--"it's six +whole months; an' when I see you goin' past to-night, it didn't seem +as if I could bear it--it didn't seem as if I could bear it, +Richard." Sylvia turned her pale profile closer to Barney's breast +and sobbed faintly. "I've watched so long for you," she sighed out; +"all these months I've sat there at the window, strainin' my eyes +into the dark. Oh, you don't know, Richard, you won't never know!" + +Barney trembled with Sylvia's sobs. He sat with a serious +shamefacedness, his arm around the poor bony waist, staring over the +faded fair head, which had never lain on any lover's breast except in +dreams. For the moment he could not stir; he had a feeling of horror, +as if he saw his own double. There was a subtle resemblance which +lay deeper than the features between him and Richard Alger. Sylvia +saw it, and he saw his own self reflected as Richard Alger in that +straining mental vision of hers which exceeded the spiritual one. + +"Can't you forgive me, an'--come again the way--you used to?" Sylvia +panted out. "I couldn't get home before, that night, nohow. I +couldn't, Richard--'twas the night Charlotte an' Barney fell out. +They had a dreadful time. I had to stay there. It wa'n't my fault. +If Barney had come back, I could have got here in season; but poor +Charlotte was settin' out there all alone on the doorstep, an' her +father wouldn't let her in, an' Sarah took on so I had to stay. I +thought I should die when I got back an' found out you'd been here +an' gone. Ain't you goin' to forgive me, Richard?" + +Barney suddenly removed his arm from Sylvia's waist, pushed her +clinging hands away, and stood up again. "Now, Miss Crane," he said, +"I've got to tell you. You've got to listen, and take it in. I am +not Richard Alger; I am Barney Thayer." + +"What?" Sylvia said, feebly, looking up at him. "I don't know what +you say, Richard; I wish you'd say it again." + +"I ain't Richard Alger; I am Barney Thayer," repeated Barney, in a +loud, distinct voice. Sylvia's straining, questioning eyes did not +leave his face. "You made a mistake," said Barney. + +Sylvia turned her eyes away; she laid her head down on the arm of the +hair-cloth sofa, and gasped faintly. Barney bent over her. "Now don't +feel bad, Miss Crane," said he; "I sha'n't ever say a word about this +to anybody." + +Sylvia made no reply; she lay there half gasping for breath, and her +face looked deathly to Barney. + +"Miss Crane, are you sick?" he cried out in alarm. When she did not +answer, he even laid hold of her shoulder, and shook her gently, and +repeated the question. He did not know if she were faint or dying; he +had never seen anybody faint or die. He wished instinctively that his +mother were there; he thought for a second of running for her in +spite of everything. + +"I'll go and get some water for you, Miss Crane," he said, +desperately, and seized the candle, and went with it, flaring and +leaving a wake of smoke, out into the kitchen. He presently came back +with a dipper of water, and held it dripping over Sylvia. "Hadn't you +better drink a little?" he urged. But Sylvia suddenly motioned him +away and sat up. "No, I don't want any water; I don't want anything +after this," she said, in a quick, desperate tone. "I can never look +anybody in the face again. I can never go to meetin' again." + +"Don't you feel so about it, Miss Crane," Barney pleaded, his own +voice uncertain and embarrassed. "The room ain't very light, and it's +dark outside; maybe I do look like him a little. It ain't any wonder +you made the mistake." + +"It wa'n't that," returned Sylvia. "I dunno what the reason was; it +don't make any difference. I can't never go to meetin' again." + +"I sha'n't tell anybody," said Barney; "I sha'n't ever speak of it to +any human being." + +Sylvia turned on him with sudden fierceness. "You had better not," +said she, "when you're doin' jest the same as Richard Alger yourself, +an' you're makin' Charlotte sit an' watch an' suffer for nothin' at +all, jest as he makes me. You had better not tell of it, Barney +Thayer, when it was all due to your awful will that won't let you +give in to anybody, in the first place, an' when you are so much like +Richard Alger yourself that it's no wonder that anybody that knows +him body and soul, as I do, took you for him. You had better not +tell." + +Again Barney seemed to see before his eyes that image of himself as +Richard Alger, and he could no more change it than he could change +his own image in the looking-glass. He said not another word, but +carried the dipper of water back to the kitchen, returned with the +candle, setting it gingerly on the white mantel-shelf between a vase +of dried flowers and a mottle-backed shell, and went out of the +house. Sylvia did not speak again; but he heard her moan as he closed +the door, and it seemed to him that he heard her as he went down the +road, although he knew that he could not. + +It was quite dark now; all the light came from a pale wild sky. The +moon was young, and feebly intermittent with the clouds. + +Barney, hastening along, was all trembling and unnerved. He tried to +persuade himself that the woman whom he had just left was ill, and +laboring under some sudden aberration of mind; yet, in spite of +himself, he realized a terrible rationality in it. Little as he had +been among the village people of late, and little as he had heard of +the village gossip, he knew the story of Richard Alger's desertion +of Sylvia Crane. Was he not like Richard Alger in his own desertion +of Charlotte Barnard? and had not Sylvia been as little at fault +in taking one for the other as if they had been twin brothers? +Might there not be a closer likeness between characters than +features--perhaps by a repetition of sins and deformities? and might +not one now and then be able to see it? + +Then the question came, was Charlotte like Sylvia? Was Charlotte even +now sitting watching for him with that awful eagerness which comes +from a hunger of the heart? He had seen one woman's wounded heart, +and, like most men, was disposed to generalize, and think he had seen +the wounded hearts of all women. + +When he had reached the turn of the road, and had come out on the +main one where his house was, and where Charlotte lived, he stood +still, looking in her direction. He seemed to see her, a quarter of a +mile away in the darkness, sitting in her window watching for him, as +Sylvia had watched for Richard. + +He set his mouth hard and crossed the road. He had just reached his +own yard when there was the pale flutter of a skirt out of the +darkness before him, and a little shadowy figure met him with a soft +shock. The was a smothered nervous titter from the figure. Barney did +not know who it was; he muttered an apology, and was about to pass +into his yard when Rose Berry's voice arrested him. It was quite +trembling and uncertain; all the laughter had gone out of it. + +"Oh, it's you," said she; "you frightened me. I didn't know who it +was." + +Barney felt suddenly annoyed without knowing why. "Oh, is it you, +Rose?" he returned, stiffly. "It's a pleasant evening;" then he +turned. + +"Barney!" Rose said, and her voice sounded as if she were weeping. + +Barney stopped and waited. + +"I want to know if--you're mad with me, Barney." + +"No, of course I ain't; why?" + +"I thought you'd acted kind of queer to me lately." + +Barney stood still, frowning in the darkness. "I don't know what you +mean," he said at length. "I don't know how I've treated you any +different from any of the girls." + +"You haven't been to see me, and--you've hardly spoken to me since +the cherry party." + +"I haven't been to see anybody," said Barney, shortly; and he turned +away again, but Rose caught his arm. "Then you are sure you aren't +mad with me?" she whispered. + +"Of course I'm sure," Barney returned, impatiently. + +"It would kill me if you were," Rose whispered. She pressed close to +him; he could feel her softly panting against his side, her head sunk +on his shoulder. "I've been worrying about it all these months," she +said in his ear. Her soft curly hair brushed his cheek, but her +little transient influence over him was all gone. He felt angry and +ashamed. + +"I haven't thought anything about it," he said, brusquely. + +Rose sobbed faintly, but she did not move away from him. Suddenly +that cruel repulsion which seizes mankind towards reptiles and +unsought love seized Barney. He unclasped her clinging hands, and +fairly pushed her away from him. "Good-night, Rose," he said, +shortly, and turned, and went up the path to his own door with +determined strides. + +"Barney!" Rose called after him; but he paid no attention. She even +ran up the path after him; but the door shut, and she turned back. +She was trembling from head to foot, there was a great rushing in her +ears; but she heard a quick light step behind her when she got out on +the road, and she hurried on before it with a vague dread. + +She almost ran at length; but the footsteps gained on her. A dark +skirt brushed her light-colored one, and Charlotte's voice, full of +contempt and indignation, said in her ear: "Oh, I thought it was +you." + +"I--was coming up--to your--house," Rose faltered; she could hardly +get her breath to speak. + +"Why didn't you come, then?" demanded Charlotte. "What made you go to +Barney Thayer's?" + +"I didn't," said Rose, in feeble self-defence. "He was out in the +road--I--just stopped to--speak to him--" + +"You were coming out of his yard," Charlotte said, pitilessly. "You +followed him in there--I saw you. Shame on you!" + +"Oh, Charlotte, I haven't done anything out of the way," pleaded +Rose, weakly. + +"You have tried your best to get Barney Thayer all the time you have +been pretending to be such a good friend to me. I don't know what you +call out of the way." + +"Charlotte, don't--I haven't." + +"Yes, you have. I am going to tell you, once for all, what I think of +you. You've been a false friend to me; and now when Barney don't +notice you, you follow him up as no girl that thought anything of +herself would. And you don't even care anything for him; you haven't +even that for an excuse." + +"You don't know but what I do!" Rose cried out, desperately. + +"Yes, I do know. If anybody else came along, you'd care for him just +the same." + +"I shouldn't--Charlotte, I should never have thought of Barney if +he--hadn't left you, you know I shouldn't." + +"That's no excuse," said Charlotte, sternly. + +"You said yourself he would never come back to you," said Rose. + +"Would you have liked me to have done so by you, if you had been in +my place?" + +Rose twitched herself about. "You can't expect him never to marry +anybody because he isn't going to marry you," she said, defiantly. + +"I don't--I am not quite so selfish as that. But he won't ever marry +anybody he don't like because she follows him up, and I don't see how +that alters what you've done." + +Rose began to walk away. Charlotte stood still, but she raised her +voice. "I am not very happy," said she, "and I sha'n't be happy my +whole life, but I wouldn't change places with you. You've lowered +yourself, and that's worse than any unhappiness." + +Rose fled away in the darkness without another word, and Charlotte +crossed the road to go to her Aunt Sylvia's. + +Rose, as she went on, felt as if all her dreams were dying within +her; a dull vision of the next morning when she should awake without +them weighed upon her. She had a childish sense of shame and remorse, +and a conviction of the truth of Charlotte's words. And yet she had +an injured and bewildered feeling, as if somewhere in this terrible +nature, at whose mercy she was, there was some excuse for her. + +Rose was nearly home when she began to meet the people coming from +meeting. She kept close to the wall, and scudded along swiftly that +no one might recognize her. All at once a young man whom she had +passed turned and walked along by her side, making a shy clutch at +her arm. + +"Oh, it's you," she said, wearily. + +"Yes; do you care if I walk along with you?" + +"No," said Rose, "not if you want to." + +An old pang of gratitude came over her. It was only the honest, +overgrown boy, Tommy Ray, of the store. She had known he worshipped +her afar off; she had laughed at him and half despised him, but now +she felt suddenly humble and grateful for even this devotion. She +moved her arm that he might hold it more closely. + +"It's too dark for you to be out alone," he said, in his embarrassed, +tender voice. + +"Yes, it's pretty dark," said Rose. Her voice shook. They had passed +the last group of returning people. Suddenly Rose, in spite of +herself, began to cry. She sobbed wildly, and the boy, full of alarm +and sympathy, walked on by her side. + +"There ain't anything--scared you, has there?" he stammered out, +awkwardly, at length. + +"No," sobbed Rose. + +"You ain't sick?" + +"No, it isn't anything." + +The boy held her arm closer; he trembled and almost sobbed himself +with sympathy. Before they reached the old tavern Rose had stopped +crying--she even tried to laugh and turn it off with a jest. "I don't +know what got into me," she said; "I guess I was nervous." + +"I didn't know but something had scared you," said the boy. + +They stood on the door-steps; the house was dark. Rose's parents had +gone to bed, and William was out. The boy still held Rose's arm. He +had adored her secretly ever since he was a child, and he had never +dared as much as that before. He had thought of Rose like a queen or +a princess, and the thought had ennobled his boyish ignorance and +commonness. + +"No, I wasn't scared," said Rose, and something in her voice gave +sudden boldness to her young lover. + +He released her arm, and put both his arms around her. "I'm sorry you +feel so bad," he whispered, panting. + +"It isn't anything," returned Rose, but she half sobbed again; the +boy's round cheek pressed against her wet, burning one. He was +several years younger than she. She had half scorned him, but she had +one of those natures that crave love for its own sweetness as palates +crave sugar. + +She wept a little on his shoulder; and the boy, half beside himself +with joy and terror, stood holding her fast in his arms. + +"Don't feel bad," he kept whispering. Finally Rose raised herself. "I +must go in," she whispered; "good-night." + +The boy's pleading face, his innocent, passionate lips approached +hers, and they kissed each other. + +"Don't you--like me a little?" gasped the boy. + +"Maybe I will," Rose whispered back. His face came closer, and she +kissed him again. Then, with a murmured "good-night," she fled into +the house, and the boy went down the hill with sweeter dreams in his +heart than those which she had lost. + + + +Chapter X + + +On the Sunday following the one of Barnabas Thayer's call Sylvia +Crane appeared at meeting in a black lace veil like a Spanish +señorita. The heavily wrought black lace fell over her face, and +people could get only shifting glimpses of her delicate features +behind it. + +Richard Alger glanced furtively at the pale face shrinking austerely +behind the net-work of black silk leaves and flowers, and wondered at +some change which he felt but could not fathom. He scarcely knew that +she had never worn the veil before. And Richard Alger, had he known, +could never have fathomed the purely feminine motive compounded of +pride and shame which led his old sweetheart to unearth from the +depths of a bandbox her mother's worked-lace veil, and tie its narrow +black drawing-string with trembling fingers over her own bonnet. + +"I'd like to know what in creation you've got that veil on for?" +whispered her sister, Hannah Berry, as they went down the aisle after +meeting. + +"I thought I would," responded Sylvia's muffled voice behind the +veil. + +"You've got the flowers right over your eyes. I shouldn't think you +could see to walk. You ain't never worn a veil in your life. I can't +see what has got into you," persisted Hannah. + +Sylvia edged away from her as soon as she could, and glided down the +road towards her own house swiftly, although her knees trembled. +Sylvia's knees always trembled when she came out of church, after she +had sat an hour and a half opposite Richard Alger. To-day they felt +weaker than ever, after her encounter with Hannah. Nobody knew the +terror Sylvia had of her sister's discovering how she had called in +Barnabas Thayer, and in a manner unveiled her maiden heart to him. +When Charlotte had come in that night after Barnabas had gone, and +discovered her crying on the sofa, she had jumped up and confronted +her with a fierce instinct of concealment. + +"There ain't nothin' new the matter," she said, in response to +Charlotte's question; "I was thinkin' about mother; I'm apt to when +it comes dusk." It was the first deliberate lie that Sylvia Crane had +ever told in her life. She reflected upon it after Charlotte had +gone, and reflected also with fierce hardihood that she would lie +again were it necessary. Should she hesitate at a lie if it would +cover the maiden reserve that she had cherished so long? + +However, Charlotte had suspected more than her aunt knew of the true +cause of her agitation. A similar motive for grief made her acute. +Sylvia, mourning alone of a Sabbath night upon her hair-cloth sofa, +struck an old chord of her own heart. Charlotte dared not say a +word to comfort her directly. She condoled with her for the +fifteen-years-old loss of her mother, and did not allude to Richard +Alger; but going home she said to herself, with a miserable qualm of +pity, that poor Aunt Sylvia was breaking her heart because Richard +had stopped coming. + +"It's harder for Aunt Sylvia because she's older," thought Charlotte, +on her way home that night. But then she thought also, with a sorer +qualm of self-pity, that Sylvia had not quite so long a life before +her, to live alone. Charlotte had nearly reached her own home that +night when two figures suddenly slunk across the road before her. She +at once recognized Rebecca Thayer as one of them, and called out +"Good-evening, Rebecca!" to her. + +Rebecca made only a muttered sound in response, and they both +disappeared in the darkness. There was a look of secrecy and flight +about it which somehow startled Charlotte, engrossed as she was with +her own troubles and her late encounter with Rose. + +When she got into the house she spoke of it to her mother. Cephas had +gone to bed, and Sarah was sitting up waiting for her. + +"I met Rebecca and William out here," said she, untying her hat, "and +I thought they acted real queer." Sarah cast a glance at the bedroom +door, which was ajar, and motioned Charlotte to close it. Charlotte +tiptoed across the room and shut the door softly, lest she should +awaken her father; then her mother beckoned her to come close, and +whispered something in her ear. + +Charlotte started, and a great blush flamed out all over her face and +neck. She looked at her mother with angry shame. "I don't believe a +word of it," said she; "not a word of it." + +"I walked home from meetin' with Mrs. Allen this evenin'," said her +mother, "an' she says it's all over town. She says Rebecca's been +stealin' out, an' goin' to walk with him unbeknownst to her mother +all summer. You know her mother wouldn't let him come to the house." + +"I don't believe one word of it," repeated Charlotte. + +"Mis' Allen says it's so," said Sarah. "She says Mis' Thayer has had +to stay home from evenin' meetin' on account of Ephraim--she don't +like to leave him alone, he ain't been quite so well lately--an' +Rebecca has made believe go to meetin' when she's been off with +William. Mis' Thayer went to meetin' to-night." + +"Wasn't Mr. Thayer there?" + +"Yes, he was there, but he wouldn't know what was goin' on. 'Tain't +very hard to pull the wool over Caleb Thayer's eyes." + +"I don't believe one word of it," Charlotte said, again. When she +went up-stairs to bed that whisper of her mother's seemed to sound +through and above all her own trouble. It was to her like a note of +despair and shame, quite outside her own gamut of life. She could not +believe that she heard it at all. Rebecca's face as she had always +known her came up before her. "I don't believe one word of it," she +said again to herself. + +But that whisper which had shocked her ear had already begun to be +repeated all over the village--by furtive matrons, behind their +hands, when the children had been sent out of the room; by girls, +blushing beneath each other's eyes as they whispered; by the lounging +men in the village store; it was sent like an evil strain through the +consciousness of the village, until everybody except Rebecca's own +family had heard it. + +Barnabas saw little of other people, and nobody dared repeat the +whisper to him, and they had too much mercy or too little courage to +repeat it to Caleb or Deborah. Indeed, it is doubtful if any woman in +the village, even Hannah Berry, would have ventured to face Deborah +Thayer with this rumor concerning her daughter. + +Deborah had of late felt anxious about Rebecca, who did not seem like +herself. Her face was strangely changed; all the old meaning had gone +out of it, and given place to another, which her mother could not +interpret. Sometimes Rebecca looked like a stranger to her as she +moved about the house. She said to many that Rebecca was miserable, +and was incensed that she got so little sympathy in response. Once +when Rebecca fainted in meeting, and had to be carried out, she felt +in the midst of her alarm a certain triumph. "I guess folks will see +now that I ain't been fussin' over her for nothin'," she thought. +When Rebecca revived under a sprinkle of water, out in the vestibule, +she said impatiently to the other women bending their grave, +concerned faces over her, "She's been miserable for some time. I +ain't surprised at this at all myself." + +Deborah watched over Rebecca with a fierce, pecking tenderness like a +bird. She brewed great bowls of domestic medicines from nuts and +herbs, and made her drink whether she would or not. She sent her to +bed early, and debarred her from the night air. She never had a +suspicion of the figure slipping softly as a shadow across the north +parlor and out the front door night after night. + +She never exchanged a word with Rebecca about William Berry. She +tried to persuade herself that Rebecca no longer thought much about +him; she drove from her mind the fear lest Rebecca's illness might be +due to grief at parting from him. She looked at Thomas Payne with a +speculative eye; she thought that he would make a good husband for +Rebecca; she dreamed of him, and built bridal castles for him and her +daughter, as she knitted those yards of lace at night, when Rebecca +had gone to bed in her little room off the north parlor. When Thomas +Payne went west a month after Charlotte Barnard had refused him, she +transferred her dreams to some fine stranger who should come to the +village and at once be smitten with Rebecca. She never thought it +possible that Rebecca could be persisting in her engagement to +William Berry against her express command. Her own obstinacy was +incredible to her in her daughter; she had not the slightest +suspicion of it, and Rebecca had less to guard against. + +As the fall advanced Rebecca showed less and less inclination to go +in the village society. Her mother fairly drove her out at times. +Once Rebecca, utterly overcome, sank down in a chair and wept when +her mother urged her to go to a husking-party in the neighborhood. + +"You've got to spunk up an' go, if you don't feel like it," said her +mother. "You'll feel better for it afterwards. There ain't no use in +givin' up so. I'm goin' to get you a new crimson woollen dress, an' +I'm goin' to have you go out more'n you've done lately." + +"I--don't want a new dress," returned Rebecca, with wild sobs. + +"Well, I'm goin' to get you one to-morrow," said her mother. "Now go +an' wash your face an' do up your hair, an' get ready. You can wear +your brown dress, with the cherry ribbon in your hair, to-night." + +"I don't--feel fit to, mother," moaned Rebecca, piteously. + +But Deborah would not listen to her. She made her get ready for the +husking-party, and looked at her with pride when she stood all +dressed to go, in the kitchen. + +"You look better than you've done for some time," said she, "an' that +brown dress don't look bad, either, if you have had it three winters. +I'm goin' to get you a nice new crimson woollen this winter. I've had +my mind made up to for some time." + +After Rebecca had gone and Ephraim had said his catechism and gone to +bed, Deborah sat and knitted, and planned to get the crimson dress +for Rebecca the next day. + +She looked over at Caleb, who sat dozing by the fire. "I'll go +to-morrow, if he ain't got to spend all that last interest-money for +the parish taxes an' cuttin' that wood," said she. "I dunno how much +that wood-cuttin' come to, an' he won't know to-night if I wake him +up. I can't get it through his head. But I'll buy it to-morrow if +there's money enough left." + +But Deborah was forced to wait a few weeks, since it took all the +interest-money for the parish taxes and to pay for the wood-cutting. +She had to wait until Caleb had sold some of the wood, and that took +some time, since seller and purchasers were slow-motioned. + +At last, one afternoon, she drove herself over to Bolton in the +chaise to buy the dress. She went to Bolton, because she would not go +herself to Silas Berry's store and trade with William. She could send +Caleb there for household goods, but this dress she would trust no +one but herself to purchase. + +She had planned that Rebecca should go with her, but the girl looked +so utterly wan and despairing that day that she forbore to insist +upon it. Caleb would have accompanied her, but she would not let him. +"I never did think much of men-folks standin' round in stores gawpin' +while women-folks was tradin'," said she. She would not allow Ephraim +to go, although he pleaded hard. It was quite a cold day, and she was +afraid of the sharp air for his laboring breath. + +A little after noon she set forth, all alone in the chaise, slapping +the reins energetically over the white horse's back, a thick green +veil tied over her bonnet under her chin, and the thin, sharp wedge +of face visible between the folds crimsoning in the frosty wind. + +While she was gone Rebecca sat beside the window and sewed, Caleb +shelled corn in the chimney-corner, and Ephraim made a pretence of +helping him. "You set down an' help your father shell corn while I am +gone," his mother had sternly ordered. + +Occasionally Ephraim addressed whining remonstrances to his father, +and begged to be allowed to go out-of-doors, and Caleb would quiet +him with one effectual rejoinder: "You know she won't like it if you +do, sonny. You know what she said." + +Caleb, as he shelled the corn with the pottering patience of old age +and constitutional slowness, glanced now and then at his daughter in +the window. He thought she looked very badly, and he had all the time +lately the bewildered feeling of a child who sees in a familiar face +the marks of emotions unknown to it. + +"Don't you feel as well as common to-day, Rebecca?" he asked once, +and cleared his throat. + +"I don't feel sick, as I know of, any day," replied Rebecca, shortly, +and her face reddened. + +As she sewed she looked out now and then at the wild December day, +the trees reeling in the wind, and the sky driving with the leaden +clouds. It was too cold and too windy to snow all the afternoon, but +towards night it moderated, and the wind died down. When Mrs. Thayer +came home it was snowing quite hard, and her green veil was white +when she entered the kitchen. She took it off and shook it, +sputtering moisture in the fireplace. + +"There's goin' to be a hard storm; it's lucky I went to-day," said +she. "I kept the dress under the buffalo-robe, an' that ain't hurt +any." + +Deborah waxed quite angry, when she proudly shook out the soft +gleaming crimson lengths of thibet, because Rebecca showed so little +interest in it. "You don't deserve to have a new dress; you act like +a stick of wood," she said. + +Rebecca made no reply. Presently, when she had gone out of the room +for something, Caleb said, anxiously, "I guess she don't feel quite +so well as common to-night." + +"I'm gettin' most out of patience; I dunno what ails her. I'm goin' +to have the doctor if this keeps on," returned Deborah. + +Ephraim, sucking a stick of candy brought to him from Bolton, cast a +strange glance at his mother--a glance compounded of shrewdness and +terror; but she did not see it. + +It snowed hard all night; in the morning the snow was quite deep, and +there was no appearance of clearing. As soon as the breakfast dishes +were put away, Deborah got out the crimson thibet. She had learned +the tailoring and dressmaking trade in her youth, and she always cut +and fitted the garments for the family. + +She worked assiduously; by the middle of the forenoon the dress was +ready to be tried on. Ephraim and his father were out in the barn, +she and Rebecca were alone in the house. + +She made Rebecca stand up in the middle of the kitchen floor, and she +began fitting the crimson gown to her. Rebecca stood drooping +heavily, her eyes cast down. Suddenly her mother gave a great start, +pushed the girl violently from her, and stood aloof. She did not +speak for a few minutes; the clock ticked in the dreadful silence. +Rebecca cast one glance at her mother, whose eyes seemed to light the +innermost recesses of her being to her own vision; then she would +have looked away, but her mother's voice arrested her. + +"Look at me," said Deborah. And Rebecca looked; it was like +uncovering a disfigurement or a sore. + +"What--ails you?" said her mother, in a terrible voice. + +Then Rebecca turned her head; her mother's eyes could not hold her +any longer. It was as if her very soul shrank. + +"Go out of this house," said her mother, after a minute. + +Rebecca did not make a sound. She went, bending as if there were a +wind at her back impelling her, across the kitchen in her quilted +petticoat and her crimson thibet waist, her white arms hanging bare. +She opened the door that led towards her own bedroom, and passed out. + +Presently Deborah, still standing where Rebecca had left her, heard +the front door of the house shut. After a few minutes she took the +broom from its peg in the corner, went through the icy north parlor, +past Rebecca's room, to the front door. The snow heaped on the outer +threshold had fallen in when Rebecca opened it, and there was a +quantity on the entry floor. + +Deborah opened the door again, and swept out the snow carefully; she +even swept the snow off the steps outside, but she never cast a +glance up or down the road. Then she beat the snow off the broom, and +went in and locked the door behind her. + +On her way back to the kitchen she paused at Rebecca's little +bedroom. The waist of the new gown lay on the bad. She took it out +into the kitchen, and folded it carefully with the skirt and the +pieces; then she carried it up to the garret and laid it away in a +chest. + +When Caleb and Ephraim came in from the barn they found Deborah +sitting at the window knitting a stocking. She did not look up when +they entered. + +The corn was not yet shelled, and Caleb arranged his baskets in the +chimney-corner, and fell to again. Ephraim began teasing his mother +to let him crack some nuts, but she silenced him peremptorily. "Set +down an' help your father shell that corn," said she. And Ephraim +pulled a grating chair up to his father, muttering cautiously. + +Caleb kept looking at Deborah anxiously. He glanced at the door +frequently. + +"Where's Rebecca?" he asked at last. + +"I dunno," replied Deborah. + +"Has she laid down?" + +"No, she ain't." + +"She ain't gone out in the snow, has she?" Caleb said, with deploring +anxiety. + +Deborah answered not a word. She pursed her lips and knitted. + +"She ain't, has she, mother?" + +"Keep on with your corn," said Deborah; and that was all she would +say. + +Presently she arose and prepared dinner in the same dogged silence. +Caleb, and even Ephraim, watched her furtively, with alarmed eyes. + +When Rebecca did not appear at the dinner-table Caleb did not say +anything about it, but his old face was quite pale. He ate his dinner +from the force of habit of over seventy years, during which time he +had always eaten his dinner, but he did not taste it consciously. + +He made up his mind that as soon as he got up from the table he would +go over to Barney's and consult him. After he pushed his chair away +he was slipping out shyly, but Deborah stopped him. + +"Set down an' finish that corn. I don't want it clutterin' up the +kitchen any longer," said she. + +"I thought I'd jest slip out a minute, mother." + +Deborah motioned him towards the chimney-corner and the baskets of +corn with a stern gesture, and Caleb obeyed. Ephraim, too, settled +down beside his father, and fell to shelling corn without being told. +He was quite cowed and intimidated by this strange mood of his +mother's, and involuntarily shrank closer to his father when she +passed near him. + +Caleb and Ephraim both watched Deborah with furtive terror, as she +moved about, washing and putting away the dinner-dishes and sweeping +the kitchen. + +They looked at each other, when, after the after-dinner housework was +all done, she took her shawl and hood from the peg, and drew some old +wool socks of Caleb's over her shoes. She went out without saying a +word. Ephraim waited a few minutes after the door shut behind her; +then he ran to the window. + +"She's gone to Barney's," he announced, rolling great eyes over his +shoulder at his father; and the old man also went over to the window +and watched Deborah plodding through the snow up the street. + +It was not snowing so hard now, and the clouds were breaking, but a +bitter wind was blowing from the northwest. It drove Deborah along +before it, lashing her skirts around her gaunt limbs; but she leaned +back upon it, and did not bend. + +The road was not broken out, and the snow was quite deep, but she +went along with no break in her gait. She went into Barney's yard and +knocked at his door. She set her mouth harder when she heard him +coming. + +Barney opened the door and started when he saw who was there. "Is it +you, mother?" he said, involuntarily; then his face hardened like +hers, and he waited. The mother and son confronted each other looked +more alike than ever. + +Deborah opened her mouth to speak twice before she made a sound. She +stood upright and unyielding, but her face was ghastly, and she drew +her breath in long, husky gasps. Finally she spoke, and Barney +started again at her voice. + +"I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry Rebecca," +she said. + +"Mother, what do you mean?" + +"I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry Rebecca." + +"Mother!" + +"Rebecca is gone. I turned her out of the house this mornin'. I don't +know where she is. Go and find her, and make William Berry marry +her." + +"Mother, before the Lord, I don't know what you mean!" Barney cried +out. "You didn't turn Rebecca out of the house in all this storm! +What did you turn her out for? Where is she?" + +"I don't know where she is. I turned her out because I wouldn't have +her in the house. You brought it all on us; if you hadn't acted so I +shouldn't have felt as I did about her marryin'. Now you can go an' +find her, and get William Berry an' make him marry her. I ain't got +anything more to do with it." + +Deborah turned, and went out of the yard. + +"Mother!" Barney called after her, but she kept on. He stood for a +second looking after her retreating figure, struggling sternly with +the snow-drifts, meeting the buffets of the wind with her head up; +then he went in, and put on his boots and his overcoat. + +Barney had heard not one word of the village gossip, and the +revelation in his mother's words had come to him with a great shock. +As he went up the hill to the old tavern he could hardly believe that +he had understood her rightly. Once he paused and turned, and was +half inclined to go back. He was as pure-minded as a girl, and almost +as ignorant; he could not believe that he knew what she meant. + +Barney hesitated again before the store; then he opened the great +clanging door and went in. A farmer, in a blue frock stiff with snow, +had just completed his purchases and was going out. William, who had +been waiting upon him, was quite near the door behind the counter. At +the farther end of the store could be seen the red glow of a stove +and Tommy Ray's glistening fair had. Some one else, who had shrunk +out of sight when Barney entered, was also there. + +Barney saw no one but William. He looked at him, and all his +bewilderment gathered itself into a point. He felt a sudden fierce +impulse to spring at him. + +William looked at Barney, and his faced changed in a minute. He took +up his hat, and came around the counter. "Did you want to see me?" he +said, hoarsely. + +"Come outside," said Barney. And the two men went out, and stood in +the snow before the store. + +"Where is Rebecca?" said Barney. He looked at William, and again the +savage impulse seized him. William did not shrink before it. + +[Illustration: "'Where is Rebecca?' said Barney"] + +"What do you mean?" he returned. His lips were quite stiff and white, +but he looked back at Barney. + +"Don't you know where she is?" + +"Before God I don't, Barney. What do you mean?" + +"She left home this morning. Mother turned her out." + +"Turned her out!" repeated William. + +"Come with me and find her and marry her, or I'll kill you," said +Barney, and he lashed out suddenly with his fist in William's face. + +"You won't need to, for I'll kill myself if I don't," William gasped +out. Then he turned and ran. + +"Where are you going?" Barney shouted, rushing after him, in a fury. + +"To put the horse in the cutter," William called back. And, indeed, +he was headed towards the barn. Barney followed him, and the two men +put the horse between the shafts. Once William asked, hoarsely, "Any +idea which way?" and Barney shook his head. + +"What time did she go?" + +"Some time this forenoon." + +William groaned. + +The horse was nearly harnessed when Tommy Ray came running out from +the store, and beckoned to Barney. "Rose says she see her going up +the turnpike this morning," he said, in a low voice. "She was up in +her chamber that looks over the turnpike, and she see somebody goin' +up the turnpike. She thought it looked like Rebecca, but she supposed +it must be Mis' Jim Sloane. It must have been Rebecca." + +"What time was it?" William asked, thrusting his white face between +them. The boy turned aside with a gesture of contempt and dislike. +"About half-past ten," he answered, shortly. Then he turned on his +heel and went back to the store. Rose was peering around the +half-open door with a white, shocked face. Somehow she had fathomed +the cause of the excitement. + +"We'll go up the turnpike, then," said Barney. William nodded. The +two men sprang into the cutter, and the snow flew in their faces from +the horse's hoofs as they went out the barn door. + +The old tavern stood facing the old turnpike road to Boston, but the +store and barn faced on the new road at its back, and people +generally approached the tavern by that way. + +William and Barney had to drive down the hill; then turn the corner, +and up the hill again on the old turnpike. + +There was not a house on that road for a full mile. William urged the +horse as fast as he could through the fresh snow. Both men kept a +sharp lookout at the sides of the road. The sun was out now, and the +snow was blinding white; the north wind drove a glittering spray as +sharp and stinging as diamond-dust in their faces. + +Once William cried out, with a dry sob, "My God, she'll freeze in +this wind, if she's out in it!" + +And Barney answered, "Maybe it would be better for her if she did." + +William looked at him for the first time since they started. "See +here, Barney," he said, "God knows it's not to shield myself--I'm +past that; but I've begged her all summer to be married. I've been +down on my knees to her to be married before it came to this." + +"Why wouldn't she?" + +"I don't know, oh, I don't know! The poor girl was near distracted. +Her mother forbade her to marry me, and held up her Aunt Rebecca, who +married against her parents' wishes and hung herself, before her, all +the time. Your trouble with Charlotte Barnard brought it all about. +Her mother never opposed it before. I begged her to marry me, but she +was afraid, or something, I don't know what." + +"Can't you drive faster?" said Barney. + +William had been urging the horse while he spoke, but now he shook +the whip over him again. + +Mrs. Jim Sloane's house was a long, unpainted cottage quite near the +road. The woman who lived alone there was under a kind of indefinite +ban in the village. Her husband, who had died several years before, +had been disreputable and drunken, and the mantle of his disgrace had +seemed to fall upon his wife, if indeed she was not already provided +with such a mantle of her own. Everybody spoke slightingly of Mrs. +Jim Sloane. The men laughed meaningly when they saw her pass, wrapped +in an old plaid shawl, which she wore summer and winter, and which +seemed almost like a uniform. Stories were told of her dirt and +shiftlessness, of the hens which roosted in her kitchen. Poor Mrs. +Jim Sloane, in her blue plaid shawl, tramping frequently from her +solitary house through the village, was a byword and a mocking to all +the people. + +When William and Barney came abreast of her house they saw the blue +flutter of Mrs. Jim Sloane's shawl out before, above the blue dazzle +of the snow. + +"Hullo!" she was crying out in her shrill voice, and waving her hand +to them to stop. + +William pulled the horse up short, and the woman came plunging +through the snow close to his side. + +"She's in here," she said, with a knowing smile. The faded fair hair +blew over her eyes; she pushed it back with a coquettish gesture; +there was a battered prettiness about her thin pink-and-white face, +turning blue in the sharp wind. + +"When did she get here?" asked Barney. + +"This forenoon. She fell down out here, couldn't get no farther. I +came out an' got her into the house. Didn't know but she was done to; +but I fixed her up some hot drink an' made her lay down. I s'posed +you'd be along." She smiled again. + +William jumped out of the cutter, and tied the horse to an old +fence-post. Then he and Barney followed the woman into the house. +Barney looked at the old blue plaid shawl with utter disgust and +revulsion. He had always felt a loathing for the woman, and her being +a distant relative on his father's side intensified it. + +Mrs. Sloane threw open the door, and bade them enter, as if to a +festival. "Walk right in," said she. + +There was a wild flutter of hens as they entered. Mrs. Sloane drove +them before her. "The hen-house roof fell in, an' I have to keep 'em +in here," she said, and shooed them and shook her shawl at them, +until they alighted all croaking with terror upon the bed in the +corner. + +Then she looked inquiringly around the room. "Why," she cried, "she's +gone; she was settin' here in this rockin'-chair when I went out. She +must have run when she see you comin'!" + +Mrs. Sloane hustled through a door, the tattered fringes of her shawl +flying, and then her voice, shrilly expostulating, was heard in the +next room. + +The two men waited, standing side by side near the door in a shamed +silence. They did not look at each other. + +Presently Mrs. Sloane returned without her shawl. Her old cotton gown +showed tattered and patched, and there were glimpses of her sharp +white elbows at the sleeves. "She won't come out a step," she +announced. "I can't make her. She's takin' on terribly." + +William made a stride forward. "I'll go in and see her," he said, +hoarsely; but Mrs. Jim Sloane stood suddenly in his way, her slender +back against the door. + +"No, you ain't goin' in," said she, "I told her I wouldn't let you go +in." + +William looked at her. + +"She's dreadful set against either one of you comin' in, an' I told +her you shouldn't," she said, firmly. She smoothed her wild locks +down tightly over her ears as she spoke. All the coquettish look was +gone. + +William turned around, and looked helplessly at Barney, and Barney +looked back at him. Then Barney put on his hat, and shrugged himself +more closely into his great-coat. + +"I'll go and get the minister," he said. + +Mrs. Sloane thrust her chin out alertly. "Goin' to get her married +right off?" she asked, with a confidential smile. + +Barney ignored her. "I guess it's the best way to do," he said, +sternly, to William; and William nodded. + +"Well, I guess 'tis the best way," Mrs. Sloane said, with cheerful +assent. "I don't b'lieve you could hire her to come out of that room +an' go to the minister's, nohow. She's terrible upset, poor thing." + +As Barney went out of the door he cast a look full of involuntary +suspicion back at William, and hesitated a second on the threshold. +Mrs. Sloane intercepted the look. "I'll look out he don't run away +while you're gone," she said; then she laughed. + +William's white face flamed up suddenly, but he made no reply. When +Barney had gone he drew a chair up close to the hearth, and sat +there, bent over, with his elbows on his knees. Mrs. Sloane sat down +on the foot of the bed, close to the door of the other room, as if +she were mounting guard over it. She kept looking at William, and +smiling, and opening her mouth to speak, then checking herself. + +"It's a pretty cold day," she said, finally. + +William grunted assent without looking up. Then he motioned with his +shoulder towards the door of the other room. "Ain't it cold in +there?" he half whispered. + +"I rolled her all up in my shawl; I guess she won't ketch cold; it's +thick," responded the woman, effusively, and William said no more. He +sat with his chin in his hands and his eyes fixed absently. The fire +was smoking over a low, red glow of coals, the chimney-place yawned +black before him, the hearth was all strewn with pots and kettles, +and the shelf above it was piled high with a vague household litter. +It had leaked around the chimney, and there was a great discolored +blotch on the wall above the shelf, and the ceiling. Two or three +hens came pecking around the kettles at William's feet. + +To this young man, brought up in the extreme thrift and neatness of a +typical New England household, this strange untidiness, as he viewed +it through his strained mental state, seemed to have a deeper +significance, and reveal the very shame and squalor of the soul +itself, and its own existence and thoughts, by material images. + +He might from his own sensations, as he sat there, have been actually +translated into a veritable hell, from the utter strangeness of the +atmosphere which his thoughts seemed to gasp in. William had never +come fully into the atmosphere of his own sin before, but now he had, +and somehow the untidy pots and kettles on the hearth made it more +real. He was conscious as he sat there of very little pity for the +girl in the other room, of very little love for her, and also of very +little love or pity for himself; he felt nothing but a kind of +horror. He saw suddenly the alien side of life, and the alien side of +his own self, which he would always have kept faced out towards +space, away from all eyes, like the other side of the moon, and that +was for the time all he could grasp. + +Once or twice Mrs. Sloane volunteered a remark, but he scarcely +responded, and once he heard absently her voice and Rebecca's in the +other room. Otherwise he sat in utter silence, except for the low +chuckle of the hens and the taps of their beaks against the iron +pots, until Barney came with the minister and the minister's wife. + +Barney had taken the minister aside, and asked him, stammeringly, if +he thought his wife would come. He could not bear the thought of the +Sloane woman's being a witness at his sister's wedding. The minister +and his wife were both very young, and had not lived long in +Pembroke. They looked much alike: the minister's small, pale, peaked +face peered with anxious solicitude between the folds of the great +green scarf which he tied over his cap, and his wife looked like him +out of her great wadded green silk hood, when they got into the +sleigh with Barney. + +The minister had had a whispered conference with his wife, and now +she never once let her eyes rest on either of the two men as they +slid swiftly along over the new snow. Her heart beat loudly in her +ears, her little thin hands were cold in her great muff. She had +married very young, out of a godly New England minister's home. She +had never known anything like this before, and a sort of general +shame of femininity seemed to be upon her. + +When she followed her husband into Mrs. Sloane's house she felt +herself as burdened with shame--as if she stood in Rebecca's place. +Her little face, all blue with the sharp cold, shrank, shocked and +sober, into the depths of her great hood. She stood behind her +husband, her narrow girlish shoulders bending under her thick +mantilla, and never looked at the face of anybody in the room. + +She did not see William at all. He stood up before them as they +entered; they all nodded gravely. Nobody spoke but Mrs. Sloane, +vibrating nervously in the midst of her clamorous hens, and Barney +silenced her. + +"We'll go right in," he said, in a stern, peremptory tone; then he +turned to William. "Are you ready?" he asked. + +William nodded, with his eyes cast down. The party made a motion +towards the other room, but Mrs. Sloane unexpectedly stood before the +door. + +"I told her there shouldn't nobody come in," said she, "an' I ain't +goin' to have you all bustin' in on her without she knows it. She's +terrible upset. You wait a minute." + +Mrs. Sloane's blue eyes glared defiantly at the company. The +minister's wife bent her hooded head lower. She had heard about Mrs. +Sloane, and felt as if she were confronted by a woman from Revelation +and there was a flash of scarlet in the room. + +"Go in and tell her we are coming," said Barney. And Mrs. Sloane +slipped out of the room cautiously, opening the door only a little +way. Her voice was heard, and suddenly Rebecca's rang out shrill in +response, although they could not distinguish the words. Mrs. Sloane +looked out. "She says she won't be married," she whispered. + +"You let me see her," said Barney, and he took a stride forward, but +Mrs. Sloane held the door against him. + +"You can't," she whispered again. "I'll talk to her some more. I can +talk her over, if anybody can." + +Barney fell back, and again the door was shut and the voices were +heard. This time Rebecca's arose into a wail, and they heard her cry +out, "I won't, I won't! Go away, and stop talking to me! I won't! Go +away!" + +William turned around, and hid his face against the corner of the +mantel-shelf. Barney went up and clapped him roughly on the shoulder. +"Can't you go in there and make her listen to reason?" he said. + +But just then Mrs. Sloane opened the door again. "You can walk right +in now," she announced, smiling, her thin mouth sending the lines of +her whole face into smirking upward curves. + +The whole company edged forward solemnly. Mrs. Sloane was following, +but Barney stood in her way. "I guess you'd better not come in," he +said, abruptly. + +Mrs. Sloane's face flushed a burning red. "I guess," she began, in a +loud voice, but Barney shut the door in her face. She ran noisily, +stamping her feet like an angry child, to the fireplace, caught up a +heavy kettle, and threw it down on the hearth. The hens flew up with +a great clamor and whir of wings; Mrs. Sloane's shrill, mocking laugh +arose above it. She began talking in a high-pitched voice, flinging +out vituperations which would seem to patter against the closed door +like bullets. Suddenly she stopped, as if her ire had failed her, and +listened intently to a low murmur from the other room. She nodded her +head when it ceased. + +The door opened soon, and all except Rebecca came out. They stood +consulting together in low voices, and Mrs. Sloane listened. They +were deciding where to take Rebecca. + +All at once Mrs. Sloane spoke. Her voice was still high-pitched with +anger. + +"If you want to know where to take her to, I can tell you," said she. +"I'd keep her here an' welcome, but I s'pose you think I ain't good +enough, you're all such mighty particular folks, an' ain't never had +no disgrace in your own families. William Berry can't take her to his +home to-night, for his mother wouldn't leave a whole skin on either +of 'em. Her own mother has turned her out, an' Barney can't take her +in. She's got to go somewhere where there's a woman; she's terrible +upset. There ain't no other way but for you an' Mis' Barnes to take +her home to-night, an' keep her till William gets a place fixed to +put her in." Mrs. Sloane turned to the minister and his wife, +regarding them with a mixture of defiance, sarcasm, and appeal. + +They looked at each other hesitatingly. The minister's wife paled +within her hood, and her eyes reddened with tears. + +"I shouldn't s'pose you'd need any time to think on it, such good +folks as you be," said Mrs. Sloane. "There ain't no other way. She's +got to be where there's a woman." + +Mrs. Barnes turned her head towards her husband. "She can come, if +you think she ought to," she said, in a trembling voice. + +The sun was setting when the party started. William led Rebecca out +through the kitchen--a muffled, hesitating figure, whose very +identity seemed to be lost, for she wore Mrs. Sloane's blue plaid +shawl pinned closely over her head and face--and lifted her into his +cutter with the minister and his wife. Then he and Barney walked +along, plodding through the deep snow behind the cutter. The sun was +setting, and it was bitterly cold; the snow creaked and the trees +swung with a stiff rattle of bare limbs in the wind. + +The two men never spoke to each other. The minister drove slowly, and +they could always see Mrs. Jim Sloane's blue plaid shawl ahead. + +When they reached the Caleb Thayer house, Barney stopped and William +followed on alone after the sleigh. + +Barney turned into the yard, and his father was standing in the barn +door, looking out. + +"Tell mother she's married," Barney sang out, hoarsely. Then he went +back to the road, and home to his own house. + + + +Chapter XI + + +Barney went to see Rebecca the next day, but the minister's wife came +to the door and would not admit him. She puckered her lips painfully, +and a blush shot over her face and little thin throat as she stood +there before him. "I guess you had better not come in," said she, +nervously. "I guess you had better wait until Mrs. Berry gets settled +in her house. Mr. Berry is going to hire the old Bennett place. I +guess it would be pleasanter." + +Barney turned away, blushing also as he stammered an assent. Always +keenly alive to the shame of the matter, it seemed as if his sense of +it were for the moment intensified. The minister's wife's whole +nature seemed turned into a broadside of mirrors towards Rebecca's +shame and misery, and it was as if the reflection was multiplied in +Barney as he looked at her. + +Still, he could not take the shame to his own nature as she could, +being a woman. He looked back furtively at the house as he went down +the road, thinking he might catch a glimpse of poor Rebecca at the +window. + +But Rebecca kept herself well hid. After William had hired the old +Bennet house and established her there, she lived with curtains down +and doors bolted. Never a neighbor saw her face at door or window, +although all the women who lived near did their housework with eyes +that way. She would not go to the door if anybody knocked. The caller +would hear her scurrying away. Nobody could gain admittance if +William were not at home. + +Barney went to the door once, and her voice sounded unexpectedly loud +and piteously shrill in response to his knock. + +"You can't come in! go away!" cried Rebecca. + +"I don't want to say anything hard to you," said Barney. + +"Go away, go away!" repeated Rebecca, and then he heard her sob. + +"Don't cry," pleaded Barney, futilely, through the door. But he heard +his sister's retreating steps and her sobs dying away in the +distance. + +He went away, and did not try to see her again. + +Rose went to see Rebecca, stealing out of a back door and scudding +across snowy fields lest her mother should espy her and stop her. But +Rebecca had not come to the door, although Rose had stood there a +long time in a bitter wind. + +"She wouldn't let me in," she whispered to her brother in the store, +when she returned. She was friendly to him in a shamefaced, evasive +sort of way, and she alone of his family. His father and mother +scarcely noticed him. + +"Much as ever as she'll let me in, poor girl," responded William, +looking miserably aside from his sister's eyes and weighing out some +meal. + +"She wouldn't let mother in if she went there," said Rose. She felt a +little piqued at Rebecca's refusing her admittance. It was as if all +her pity and generous sympathy had been thrust back upon her, and her +pride in it swamped. + +"There's no danger of her going there," William returned, bitterly. + +And there was not. Hannah Berry would have set herself up in a +pillory as soon as she would have visited her son's wife. She +scarcely went into a neighbor's lest she should hear some allusion to +it. + +Rebecca's father often walked past her house with furtive, wistful +eyes towards the windows. Once or twice when nobody was looking he +knocked timidly, but he never got any response. He always took a +circuitous route home, that his wife might not know where he had +been. Deborah never spoke of Rebecca; neither Caleb nor Ephraim dared +mention her name in her hearing. + +Although Deborah never asked a question, and although people were shy +of alluding to Rebecca, she yet seemed to know, in some occult and +instinctive fashion, all about her. + +When a funeral procession passed the Thayer house one afternoon +Deborah knew quite well whose little coffin was in the hearse, +although she could scarcely have said that anybody had told her. + +Caleb came to her after dinner, with a strange, defiant air. "I want +a clean dicky, mother; I'm agoin'," said he. And Deborah got out the +old man's Sunday clothes for him without a word. She even brushed his +hair with hard, careful strokes, and helped him on with his +great-coat; but she never said a word about Rebecca and her baby's +funeral. + +"They had some white posies on it," Caleb volunteered, tremblingly, +when he got home. + +Deborah made no reply. + +"There was quite a lot there," added Caleb. + +"Go an' bring me in some kindlin' wood," said Deborah. + +Ephraim stood by, staring alternately at his father and mother. He +had watched the funeral procession pass with furtive interest. + +"It won't hurt you none to make a few lamp-lighters," said his +mother. "You set right down here, an' I'll get you some paper." + +Ephraim clapped his hand to his side, and rolled his eyes agonizingly +towards his mother, but she took no notice. She got some paper out of +the cupboard, and Ephraim sat down and began quirling it into long +spirals with a wretched sulky air. + +Since his sister's marriage Ephraim had had a sterner experience than +had ever fallen to his lot before. His mother redoubled her +discipline over him. It was as if she had resolved, since all her +vigorous training had failed in the case of his sister, that she +would intensify it to such purpose that it should not fail with him. + +So strait and narrow was the path in which Ephraim was forced to +tread those wintry days, so bound and fettered was he by precept and +admonition, that it seemed as if his very soul could do no more than +shuffle along where his mother pointed. + +A scanty and simple diet had Ephraim, and it seemed to him not so +much from a solicitude for his health as from a desire to mortify his +flesh for the good of his spirit. Ephraim obeyed perforce; he was +sincerely afraid of his mother, but he had within him a dogged and +growing resentment against those attempts to improve his spirit. + +Not a bit of cake was he allowed to taste. When the door of a certain +closet in which pound-cake for possible guests was always kept in a +jar, and had been ever since Ephraim could remember, was opened, the +boy's eyes would fairly glare with desire. "Jest gimme a little +scrap, mother," he would whine. He had formerly, on rare occasions, +been allowed a small modicum of cake, but now his mother was +unyielding. He got not a crumb; he could only sniff hungrily at the +rich, spicy, and fruity aroma which came forth from the closet, and +swallow at it vainly and unsatisfactorily with straining palate. + +Ephraim was not allowed a soft-stoned plum from a piece of mince-pie; +the pie had always been tabooed. He was not even allowed to pick over +the plums for the pies, unless under the steady watch of his mother's +eyes. Once she seemed to see him approach a plum to his mouth when +her back was towards him. + +"What are you doing, Ephraim?" she said, and her voice sounded to the +boy like one from the Old Testament. He put the plum promptly into +the bowl instead of his mouth. + +"I ain't doin' nothin', mother," said he; but his eyes rolled +alarmedly after his mother as she went across the kitchen. That +frightened Ephraim. He was a practical boy and not easily imposed +upon, but it really seemed to him that his mother had seen him, after +some occult and uncanny fashion, from the back of her head. A vague +and preposterous fancy actually passed through his bewildered boyish +brain that the little, tightly twisted knob of hair on the back of a +feminine head might have some strange visual power of its own. + +He never dared taste another plum, even if the knob of hair directly +faced him. + +Every day Ephraim had a double task to learn in his catechism, for +Deborah held that no labor, however arduous, which savored of the +Word and the Spirit could work him bodily ill. If Ephraim had been +enterprising and daring enough, he would have fairly cursed the +Westminster divines, as he sat hour after hour, crooking his boyish +back painfully over their consolidated wisdom, driving the letter of +their dogmas into his boyish brain, while the sense of them utterly +escaped him. + +There was one whole day during which Ephraim toiled, laboriously +conning over the majestic sentences in loud whispers, and received +thereby only a vague impression and maudlin hope that he himself +might be one of the elect of which they treated, because he was so +strenuously deprived of plums in this life, and might therefore +reasonably expect his share of them in the life to come. + +That day poor Ephraim--glancing between whiles at some boys out +coasting over in a field, down a fine icy slope, hearing now and then +their shouts of glee--had a certain sense of superiority and +complacency along with the piteous and wistful longing which always +abode in his heart. + +"Maybe," thought Ephraim, half unconsciously, not framing the thought +in words to his mind--"maybe if I am a good boy, and don't have any +plums, nor go out coasting like them, I shall go to heaven, and maybe +they won't." Ephraim's poor purple face at the window-pane took on a +strange, serious expression as he evolved his childish tenet of +theology. His mother came in from another room. "Have you got that +learned?" said she, and Ephraim bent over his task again. + +Ephraim had not been quite as well as usual this winter, and his +mother had been more than usually anxious about him. She called the +doctor in finally, and followed him out into the cold entry when he +left. "He's worse than he has been, ain't he?" she said, abruptly. + +The doctor hesitated. He was an old man with a moderate manner. He +buttoned his old great-coat, redolent of drugs, closer, his breath +steamed out in the frosty entry. "I guess you had better be a little +careful about getting him excited," he said at last, evasively. "You +had better get along as easy as you can with him." The doctor's +manner implied more than his words; he had his own opinion of Deborah +Thayer's sternness of rule, and he had sympathy with Rebecca. + +Deborah seemed to have an intuition of it, for she looked at him, and +raised her voice after a manner which would have become the Deborah +of the scriptures. + +"What would you have me do?" she demanded. "Would you have me let him +have his own way if it were for the injury of his soul?" It was +curious that Deborah, as she spoke, seemed to look only at the +spiritual side of the matter. The idea that her discipline was +actually necessary for her son's bodily weal did not occur to her, +and she did not urge it as an argument. + +"I guess you had better be a little careful and get along as easy as +you can," repeated the doctor, opening the door. + +"That ain't all that's to be thought of," said Deborah, with stern +and tragic emphasis, as the doctor went out. + +"What did the doctor say, mother?" Ephraim inquired, when she went +into the room again. He looked half scared, half important, as he sat +in the great rocking-chair by the fire. He breathed short, and his +words were disconnected as he spoke. + +His mother, for answer, took the catechism from the shelf, and +extended it towards him with a decisive thrust of her arm. + +"It is time you studied some more," said she. + +Ephraim jerked himself away from the proffered book. "I don't want to +study any more now, mother," he whined. + +"Take it," said Deborah. + +Caleb was paring apples for pies on the other side of the hearth. +Ephraim looked across at him desperately. "I want to play holly-gull +with father," he said. + +"Ephraim!" + +"Can't I play holly-gull with father jest a little while?" + +"You take this book and study your lesson," said Deborah, between +nearly closed lips. + +Ephraim began to weep; he took the book with a vicious snatch and an +angry sob. "Won't never let me do anythin' I want to," he cried, +convulsively. + +"Not another word," said Deborah. Ephraim bent over his catechism +with half-suppressed sobs. He dared not weep aloud. Deborah went into +the pantry with the medicine-bottle which the doctor had left; she +wanted a spoon. Caleb caught hold of her dress as she was passing +him. + +"What is it?" said she. + +"Look here, jest a minute, mother." + +"I can't stop, father; Ephraim has got to have his medicine." + +"Jest look here a minute, mother." + +Deborah bent her head impatiently, and Caleb whispered. "No, he +can't; I told him he couldn't," she said aloud, and passed on into +the pantry. + +Caleb looked over at Ephraim with piteous and helpless sympathy. +"Never you mind, sonny," he said, cautiously. + +"She--makes--" began Ephraim with a responsive plaint; but his mother +came out of the pantry, and he stopped short. Caleb dropped a pared +apple noisily into the pan. + +"You'll dent that pan, father, if you fling the apples in that way," +said Deborah. She had a thick silver spoon, and she measured out a +dose of the medicine for Ephraim. She approached him, extending the +spoon carefully. "Open your mouth," commanded she. + +"Oh, mother, I don't want to take it!" + +"Open your mouth!" + +"Oh, mother--I don't--want to--ta-ke it!" + +"Now, sonny, I wouldn't mind takin' of it. It's real good medicine +that the doctor left you, an' father's payin' consid'able for it. The +doctor thinks it's goin' to make you well," said Caleb, who was +looking on anxiously. + +"Open your mouth and _take_ it!" said Deborah, sternly. She presented +the spoon at Ephraim as if it were a bayonet and there were death at +the point. + +"Oh, mother," whimpered Ephraim. + +"Mebbe mother will let you have a little taste of lasses arter it, if +you take it real good," ventured Caleb. + +"No, he won't have any lasses after it," said Deborah. "I'm a-tendin' +to him, father. Now, Ephraim, you take this medicine this minute, or +I shall give you somethin' worse than medicine. Open your mouth!" And +Ephraim opened his mouth as if his mother's will were a veritable +wedge between his teeth, swallowed the medicine with a miserable +gulp, and made a grotesque face of wrath and disgust. Caleb, +watching, swallowed and grimaced at the same instant that his son +did. There were tears in his old eyes as he took up another apple to +pare. + +Deborah set the bottle on the shelf and laid the spoon beside it. +"You've got to take this every hour for a spell," said she, "an' I +ain't goin' to have any such work, if you be sick; you can make up +your mind to it." + +And make up his mind to this unwelcome dose Ephraim did. Once an hour +his mother stood over him with the spoon, and the fierce odor of the +medicine came to his nostrils; he screwed his eyes tight, opened his +mouth, and swallowed without a word. There were limits to his +mother's patience which Ephraim dared not pass. He had only vague +ideas of what might happen if he did, but he preferred to be on the +safe side. So he took the medicine, and did not lift his voice +against it, although he had his thoughts. + +It did seem as if the medicine benefited him. He breathed more easily +after a while, and his color was more natural. Deborah felt +encouraged; she even went down upon her stiff knees after her family +were in bed, and thanked the Lord from the depths of her sorely +chastened but proud heart. She did not foresee what was to come of +it; for that very night Ephraim, induced thereto by the salutary +effect of the medicine, which removed somewhat the restriction of his +laboring heart upon his boyish spirits, perpetrated the crowning act +of revolt and rebellion of his short life. + +The moon was bright that night. The snow was frozen hard. The long +hills where the boys coasted looked like slopes of silver. Ephraim +had to go to bed at eight. He lay, well propped up on pillows, in his +little bedroom, and he could hear the shouts of the coasting boys. +Now that he could breathe more easily the superiority of his enforced +deprivation of such joys no longer comforted him as much as it had +done. His curtain was up, and the moonlight lay on his bed. The +mystic influence of that strange white orb which moves the soul of +the lover to dream of love and yearnings after it, which saddens with +sweet wounds the soul who has lost it forever, which increases the +terrible freedom of the maniac, and perhaps moves the tides, +apparently increased the longing in the heart of one poor boy for all +the innocent hilarity of his youth which he had missed. + +Ephraim lay there in the moonlight, and longed as he had never longed +before to go forth and run and play and halloo, to career down those +wonderful shining slants of snow, to be free and equal with those +other boys, whose hearts told off their healthy lives after the +Creator's plan. + +The clock in the kitchen struck nine, then ten. Caleb and Deborah +went to bed, and Ephraim could hear his father's snores and his +mother's heavy breathing from a distant room. Ephraim could not go to +sleep. He lay there and longed for the frosty night air, the sled, +and the swift flight down the white hill as never lover longed for +his mistress. + +At half-past ten o'clock Ephraim rose up. He dressed himself in the +moonlight--all except his shoes; those he carried in his hand--and +stole out in his stocking-feet to the entryway, where his warm coat +and cap, which he so seldom wore, hung. Ephraim pulled the cap over +his ears, put on the coat, cautiously unbolted the door, and stepped +forth like a captive from prison. + +He sat down on the doorstep and put on his shoes, tying them with +trembling, fumbling fingers. He expected every minute to hear his +mother's voice. + +Then he ran down the yard to the wood shed. It was so intensely cold +that the snow did not yield to his tread, but gave out quick sibilant +sounds. It seemed to him like a whispering multitude called up by his +footsteps, and as if his mother must hear. + +He knew where Barney's old sled hung in the woodshed, and the +woodshed door was unlocked. + +Presently a boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard with a +bobbing sled in his wake. He expected every minute to hear the door +or window open; but he cleared the yard and dashed up the road, and +nobody arrested him. + +[Illustration: "A boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard"] + +Ephraim knew well the way to the coasting-hill, which was considered +the best in the village, although he had never coasted there himself, +except twice or thrice, surreptitiously, on another boy's sled, and +not once this winter. He heard no more shouts; the frosty air was +very still. He thought to himself that the other boys had gone home, +but he did not care. + +However, when he reached the top of the hill there was another boy +with his sled. He had been all ready to coast down, but had seen +Ephraim coming, and waited. + +"Hullo!" he called. + +"Hullo!" returned Ephraim, panting. + +Then the boy stared. "It ain't you, Ephraim Thayer!" he demanded. + +"Why ain't it me?" returned Ephraim, with a manful air, swaggering +back his shoulders at the other boy, who was Ezra Ray. + +"Why, I didn't know your mother ever let you out," said Ezra, in a +bewildered fashion. In fact, the vision of Ephraim Thayer out with a +sled, coasting, at eleven o'clock at night, was startling. Ezra +remembered dazedly how he had heard his mother say that very +afternoon that Ephraim was worse, that the doctor had been there last +Saturday, and she didn't believe he would live long. He looked at +Ephraim standing there in the moonlight almost as if he were a +spirit. + +"She ain't let me for some time; I've been sick," admitted Ephraim, +yet with defiance. + +"I heard you was awful sick," said Ezra. + +"I was; but the doctor give me some medicine that cured me." + +Ephraim placed his sled in position and got on stiffly. The other boy +still watched. "She know you're out to-night?" he inquired, abruptly. + +Ephraim looked up at him. "S'pose you think you'll go an' tell her, +if she don't," said he. + +"No, I won't, honest." + +"Hope to die if you do?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, I run out of the side door." + +"Both on 'em asleep?" + +Ephraim nodded. + +Ezra Ray whistled. "You'll get a whippin' when your mother finds it +out." + +"No, I sha'n't. Mother can't whip me, because the doctor says it +ain't good for me. You goin' down?" + +"Can't go down but once. I've got to go home, or mother 'll give it +to me." + +"Does she ever whip you?" + +"Sometimes." + +"Mine don't," said Ephraim, and he felt a superiority over Ezra Ray. +He thought, too, that his sled was a better one. It was not painted, +nor was it as new as Ezra's, but it had a reputation. Barney had won +many coasting laurels with it in his boyhood, and his little brother, +who had never used it himself, had always looked upon it with +unbounded faith and admiration. + +He gathered up his sled-rope, spurred himself into a start with his +heels, and went swiftly down the long hill, gathering speed as he +went. Poor Ephraim had an instinct for steering; he did not swerve +from the track. The frosty wind smote his face, his breath nearly +failed him, but half-way down he gave a triumphant whoop. When he +reached the foot of the hill he had barely wind enough to get off his +sled and drag it to one side, for Ezra Ray was coming down. + +Ezra did not slide as far as Ephraim had done. Ephraim watched +anxiously lest he should. "That sled of yours ain't no good," he +panted, when Ezra had stopped several yards from where he stood. + +"Guess it ain't quite so fast as yours," admitted Ezra. "That's your +brother's, ain't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, that sled can't be beat in town. Mine's 'bout as good as any, +'cept that. I've always heard my brother say that your brother's sled +was the best one he ever see." + +Ephraim stood looking at his brother's old battered but distinguished +sled as if it had been a blood-horse. "Guess it can't be beat," he +chuckled. + +"No sir, it can't," said Ezra. He started off past Ephraim down the +road, with his sled trailing at his heels. + +"Hullo!" called Ephraim, "ain't you goin' up again?" + +"Can't, got to go home." + +"Less try it jest once more, an' see if you can't go further." + +"No, I can't, nohow. Mother won't like it as 'tis." + +"Whip you?" + +"'Spect so; don't mind it if she does." Ezra brought a great show of +courage to balance the other's immunity from danger. "Don't mind +nothin' 'bout a little whippin'," he added, with a brave and +contemptuous air. He whistled as he went on. + +Ephraim stood watching him. He had enough brave blood in his veins to +feel that this contempt of a whipping was a greater thing than not +being whipped. He felt an envious admiration of Ezra Ray, but that +did not prevent his calling after him: + +"Ezra!" + +"What say?" + +"You ain't goin' to tell my mother?" + +"Didn't I say I wasn't? I don't tell fibs. Hope to die if I do." + +Ezra's brave whistle, as cheerfully defiant of his mother's +prospective wrath as the note of a bugler advancing to the charge, +died away in the distance. For Ephraim now began the one unrestrained +hilarity of his whole life. All by himself in the white moonlight and +the keen night air he climbed the long hill, and slid down over and +over. He ignored his feeble and laboring breath of life. He trod +upon, he outspeeded all infirmities of the flesh in his wild triumph +of the spirit. He shouted and hallooed as he shot down the hill. His +mother could not have recognized his voice had she heard it, for it +was the first time that the boy had ever given full cry to the +natural voice of youth and his heart. A few stolen races, and sorties +up apple-trees, a few stolen slides had poor Ephraim Thayer had; they +had been snatched in odd minutes, at the imminent danger of +discovery; but now he had the wide night before him; he had broken +over all his trammels, and he was free. + +Up and down the hill went Ephraim Thayer, having the one playtime of +his life, speeding on his brother's famous sled against bondage and +deprivation and death. It was after midnight when he went home; all +the village lights were out; the white road stretched before him, as +still and deserted as a road through solitude itself. Ephraim had +never been out-of-doors so late before, he had never been so alone in +his life, but he was not afraid. He was not afraid of anything in the +lonely night, and he was not afraid of his mother at home. He thought +to himself exultantly that Ezra Ray had been no more courageous than +he, although, to be sure, he had not a whipping to fear like Ezra. +His heart was full of joyful triumph that he was not wholly guilty, +since it was the outcome of an innocent desire. + +As he walked along he tipped up his face and stared with his stupid +boyish eyes at the stars paling in the full moonlight, and the great +moon herself overriding the clouds and the stars. It made him think +of the catechism and the Commandments, and then a little pang of +terror shot through him, but even that did not daunt him. He did not +look up at the stars again, but bent his head and trudged on, with +the sled-rope pulling at his weak chest. + +When he reached his own yard he stepped as carefully as he could; +still he was not afraid. He put the sled back in the shed; then he +stole into the house. He took off his shoes in the entry, and got +safely into his own room. He was in his night-gown and all ready for +bed when another daring thought struck him. + +Ephraim padded softly on his bare feet out through the kitchen to the +pantry. Every third step or so he stopped and listened to the heavy +double breathing from the bedroom beyond. So long as that continued +he was safe. He listened, and then slid on a pace or two as noiseless +as a shadow in the moonlight. + +Ephraim knew well where the mince-pies were kept. There was a long +row of them covered with towels on an upper shelf. + +Ephraim hoisted himself painfully upon a meal-bucket, and clawed a +pie over the edge of the shelf. He could scarcely reach, and there +was quite a loud grating noise. He stood trembling on the bucket and +listened, but the double breathing continued. Deborah had been +unusually tired that night; she had gone to bed earlier, and slept +more soundly. + +Ephraim broke a great jagged half from the mince-pie; then replaced +it with another grating slide. Again he listened, but his mother had +not been awakened. + +Ephraim crept back to his bedroom. There he sat on the edge of his +bed and devoured his pie. The rich spicy compound and the fat plums +melted on his tongue, and the savor thereof delighted his very soul. +Then Ephraim got into bed and pulled the quilts over him. For the +first and only occasion in his life he had had a good time. + +The next morning Ephraim felt very ill, but he kept it from his +mother. He took his medicine of his own accord several times, and +turned his head from her, that she might not notice his laboring +breath. + +In the middle of the forenoon Deborah went out. She had to drive over +to Bolton to get some sugar and tea. She would not buy anything now +at Berry's store. Caleb had gone down to the lot to cut a little +wood; he had harnessed the horse for her before he went. It was a +cold day, and she wrapped herself up well in two shawls and a thick +veil over her hood. When she was all ready she gave Ephraim his +parting instructions, rearing over him with stern gestures, like a +veiled justice. + +"Now," said she, "you listen to what I tell you. When your father +comes in you tell him I want him to set right down and finish parin' +them apples. They are spoilin', an' I'm goin' to make 'em into sauce. +You tell him to set right down and go to work on 'em; he can get 'em +done by the time I get home, an' I can make the sauce this afternoon. +You set here an' take your medicine an' learn your catechism. You can +study over the Commandments, too; you ain't got 'em any too well. Do +you hear?" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Ephraim. He looked away from his mother as he +spoke, and his panting breath clouded the clear space on the frosty +window-pane. He sat beside the window in the rocking-chair. + +"Mind you tell your father about them apples," repeated his mother as +she went out. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Ephraim. He watched his mother drive out of the +yard, guiding the horse carefully through the frozen ridges of the +drive. Presently he took another spoonful of his medicine. He felt a +little easier, but still very ill. His father came a few minutes +after his mother had gone. He heard him stamping in through the back +door; then his frost-reddened old face looked in on Ephraim. + +"Mother gone?" said he. + +"She's jest gone," replied Ephraim. His father came in. He looked at +the boy with a childish and anxious sweetness. "Don't you feel quite +as well as you did?" he inquired. + +"Dunno as I do." + +"Took your medicine reg'lar?" + +Ephraim nodded. + +"I guess it's good medicine," said Caleb; "it come real high; I guess +the doctor thought consid'ble of it. I'd take it reg'lar if I was +you. I thought you looked as if you didn't feel quite so well as +common when I come in." + +Caleb took off his boots and tended the fire. Ephraim began to feel a +little better; his heart did not beat quite so laboriously. + +He did not say a word to his father about paring the apples. Caleb +went into the pantry and came back eating a slice of mince-pie. + +"I found there was a pie cut, and I thought mother wouldn't mind if I +took a leetle piece," he remarked, apologetically. He would never +have dared take the pie without permission had his wife been at home. +"She ain't goin' to be home till arter dinner-time, an' I began to +feel kinder gone," added Caleb. He stood by the fire, and munched the +pie with a relish slightly lessened by remorse. "Don't you want +nothin'" he asked of Ephraim. "Mebbe a little piece of pie wouldn't +hurt you none." + +Caleb's ideas of hygienic food were primitive. He believed, as +innocently as if he had lived in Eden before the Prohibition, that +all food which he liked was good for him, and he applied his theory +to all mankind. He had deferred to Deborah's imperious will, but he +had never been able to understand why she would not allow Ephraim to +eat mince-pie or anything else which his soul loved and craved. + +"No, guess I don't," Ephraim replied. He gazed moodily out of the +window. "Father," said he, suddenly. + +"What say, sonny?" + +"I eat some of that pie last night." + +"Mother give it to you?" + +"No; I clim up on the meal-bucket, an' got it in the night." + +"You might have fell, an' then I dunno what mother'd ha' said to +you," said Caleb. + +"An' I did somethin' else." + +"What else did you do?" + +"I went out a-coastin' after you an' her was asleep." + +"You didn't, now?" + +"Yes, I did." + +"An' we didn't neither on us wake up?" + +"You was a-snorin' the whole time." + +"I don't s'pose you'd oughter have done it, Ephraim," said Caleb, and +he tried to make his tone severe. + +"I never went a-coastin' in my whole life before," said Ephraim; "it +ain't fair." + +"I dunno what mother 'd say if she was to find out about it," said +Caleb, and he shook his head. + +"Ezra Ray was the only one that was out there, an' he said he +wouldn't tell." + +"Well, mebbe he won't, mebbe he won't. I guess you most hadn't +oughter gone unbeknownst to your mother, sonny." + +"Barney's sled jest beat Ezra's all holler." + +"It did, hey? That allers was a good sled," returned the old man, +chuckling. + +Caleb went into the pantry again, and returned rattling a handful of +corn. "Want a game of holly-gull?" he asked. "I've got a leetle time +to spare now while mother's gone." + +"Guess so," replied Ephraim. He dragged his chair forward to the +hearth; he and his father sat opposite each other and played the old +childish game of holly-gull. Ephraim was very fond of the game, and +would have played it happily hour after hour had not Deborah esteemed +it a sinful waste of time. When Caleb held up his old fist, wherein +he had securely stowed a certain number of kernels of corn, and +demanded, "Holly-gull, hand full, passel how many?" Ephraim's spirit +was thrilled with a fine stimulation, of which he had known little in +his life. If he guessed the number of kernels right and confiscated +the contents of his father's hand, he felt the gratified ambition of +a successful financier; if he lost, his heart sank, only to bound +higher with new hope for the next chance. A veritable gambling game +was holly-gull, but they gambled for innocent Indian-corn instead of +the coin of the realm, and nobody suspected it. The lack of value of +the stakes made the game quite harmless and unquestioned in public +opinion. + +The waste of time was all Deborah's objection to the game. Caleb and +Ephraim said not a word about it to each other, but both kept an +anxious ear towards Deborah's returning sleigh-bells. + +At last they both heard the loud, brazen jingle entering the yard, +and Caleb gathered all the corn together and stowed it away in his +pocket. Then he stood on the hearth, looking like a guilty child. +Ephraim went slowly over to the window; he did not feel quite so well +again. + +Deborah's harsh "Whoa!" sounded before the door; presently she came +in, her garments radiating cold air, her arms full of bundles. + +"What you standin' there for, father?" she demanded of Caleb. "Why +didn't you come out an' take some of these bundles? Why ain't you +goin' out an' puttin' the horse up instead of standin' there +starin'?" + +"I'm goin' right off, mother," Caleb answered, apologetically; and he +turned his old back towards her and scuffled out in haste. + +"Put on your cap!" Deborah called after him. + +She laid off her many wraps, her hood and veil, and mufflers and +shawls, folded them carefully, and carried them into her bedroom, to +be laid in her bureau drawers. Deborah was very orderly and +methodical. + +"Did you take your medicine?" she asked Ephraim as she went out of +the room. + +"Yes, ma'am," said he. He did not feel nearly as well; he kept his +face turned from his mother. Ephraim was accustomed to complain +freely, but now the coasting and the mince-pie had made him patient. +He was quite sure that his bad feelings were due to that, and suppose +his mother should suspect and ask him what he had been doing! He was +also terrified by the thought of the holly-gull and her unfulfilled +order about the apple-paring. He sat very still; his heart shook his +whole body, which had grown thin lately. He looked very small, in +spite of his sturdy build. + +Deborah was gone quite a while; she had left some work unfinished in +her bedroom that morning. Caleb returned before she did, and pulled +up a chair close to the fire. He was holding his reddened fingers out +towards the blaze to warm them when Deborah came in. + +She looked at him, then around the room, inquiringly. + +"Where did you put the apples?" said she to Caleb. + +Caleb stared around at her. "What apples, mother?" he asked, feebly. + +"The apples I left for you to pare. I want to put 'em on before I get +dinner." + +"I ain't heard nothin' about apples, mother." + +"Ain't you pared any apples this forenoon?" + +"I didn't know as you wanted any pared, mother." + +Deborah turned fiercely on Ephraim. + +"Ephraim Thayer, look here!" said she. Ephraim turned his poor blue +face slowly; his breath came shortly between his parted lips; he +clapped one hand to his side. "Didn't you tell your father to pare +them apples, the way I told you to?" she demanded. + +Ephraim dropped his chin lower. + +"Answer me!" + +"No, ma'am." + +"What have you been a-doin' of?" + +"Playin'." + +"Playin' what?" + +"Holly-gull." + +Deborah stood quite still for a moment. Her mouth tightened; she grew +quite pale. Ephraim and Caleb watched her. Deborah strode across the +room, out into the shed. + +"I guess she won't say much; don't you be scared, Ephraim," whispered +Caleb. + +But Ephraim, curious to say, did not feel scared. Suddenly his mother +seemed to have lost all her terrifying influence over him. He felt +very strange, and as if he were sinking away from it all through deep +abysses. + +His mother came back, and she held a stout stick in her right hand. +Caleb gasped when he saw it. "Mother, you ain't goin' to whip him?" +he cried out. + +"Father, you keep still!" commanded Deborah. "Ephraim, you come with +me!" + +She led the way into Ephraim's little bedroom, and he stumbled up and +followed her. He saw the stick before him in his mother's hand; he +knew she was going to whip him, but he did not feel in the least +disturbed or afraid. Ezra Ray could not have faced a whipping any +more courageously than Ephraim. But he staggered as he went, and his +feet met the floor with strange shocks, since he had prepared his +steps for those deep abysses. + +He and his mother stood together in his little bedroom. She, when she +faced him, saw how ill he looked, but she steeled herself against +that. She had seen him look as badly before; she was not to be +daunted by that from her high purpose. For it was a high purpose to +Deborah Thayer. She did not realize the part which her own human will +had in it. + +She lifted up her voice and spoke solemnly. Caleb, listening, all +trembling, at the kitchen door, heard her. + +"Ephraim," said his mother, "I have spared the rod with you all my +life because you were sick. Your brother and your sister have both +rebelled against the Lord and against me. You are all the child I've +got left. You've got to mind me and do right. I ain't goin' to spare +you any longer because you ain't well. It is better you should be +sick than be well and wicked and disobedient. It is better that your +body should suffer than your immortal soul. Stand still." + +Deborah raised her stick, and brought it down. She raised it again, +but suddenly Ephraim made a strange noise and sunk away before it, +down in a heap on the floor. + +Caleb heard him fall, and came quickly. + +"Oh, mother," he sobbed, "is he dead? What ails him?" + +"He's got a bad spell," said Deborah. "Help me lay him on the bed." +Her face was ghastly. She spoke with hoarse pulls for breath, but she +did not flinch. She and Caleb laid Ephraim on his bed; then she +worked over him for a few minutes with mustard and hot-water--all the +simple remedies in which she was skilled. She tried to pour a little +of the doctor's medicine into his mouth, but he did not swallow, and +she wiped it away. + +"Go an' get Barney to run for the doctor, quick!" she told Caleb at +last. Caleb fled, sobbing aloud like a child, out of the house. +Deborah closed the boy's eyes, and straightened him a little in the +bed. Then she stood over him there, and began to pray aloud. It was a +strange prayer, full of remorse, of awful agony, of self-defense of +her own act, and her own position as the vicar of God upon earth for +her child. "I couldn't let him go astray too!" she shrieked out. "I +couldn't, I couldn't! O Lord, thou knowest that I couldn't! I +would--have lain him upon--the altar, as Abraham laid Isaac! Oh, +Ephraim, my son, my son, my son!" + +Deborah prayed on and on. The doctor and a throng of pale women came +in; the yard was full of shocked and staring people. Deborah heeded +nothing; she prayed on. + +Some of the women got her into her own room. She stayed there, with a +sort of rigid settling into the spot where she was placed and she +pleaded with the Lord for upholding and justification until the +daylight faded, and all night. The women, Mrs. Ray and the doctor's +wife, who watched with poor Ephraim, heard her praying all night +long. They sat in grave silence, and their eyes kept meeting with +shocked significance as they listened to her. Now and then they wet +the cloth on Ephraim's face. About two o'clock Mrs. Ray tiptoed into +the pantry, and brought forth a mince-pie. "I found one that had been +cut on the top shelf," she whispered. She and the doctor's wife ate +the remainder of poor Ephraim's pie. + +The two women stayed next day and assisted in preparations for the +funeral. Deborah seemed to have no thought for any of her household +duties. She stayed in her bedroom most of the time, and her praying +voice could be heard at intervals. + +Some other women came in, and they went about with silent efficiency, +performing their services to the dead and setting the house in order; +but they said very little to Deborah. When she came out of her room +they eyed her with a certain grim furtiveness, and they never said a +word to her about Ephraim. + +It was already known all over the village that she had been whipping +Ephraim when he died. Poor old Caleb, when the neighbors had come +flocking in, had kept repeating with childish sobs, "Mother hadn't +ought to have whipped him! mother hadn't ought to have whipped him!" + +"Did Mrs. Thayer whip that boy?" the doctor had questioned, sharply, +before all the women, and Caleb had sobbed back, hoarsely, "She was +jest a-whippin' of him; I told her she hadn't ought to." + +That had been enough. "She whipped him," the women repeated to each +other in shocked pantomime. They all knew how corporal punishment had +been tabooed for Ephraim. + +The Thayer house was crowded the afternoon of the funeral. The decent +black-clad village people, with reddening eyes and mouths drooping +with melancholy, came in throngs into the snowy yard. The men in +their Sunday gear tiptoed creaking across the floors; the women, +feeling for their pocket-handkerchiefs, padded softly and heavily +after them, folded in their black shawls like mourning birds. + +[Illustration: "The Thayer house was crowded the afternoon of the +funeral"] + +Caleb and Deborah and Barney sat in the north parlor, where Ephraim +lay. Deborah's hoarse laments, which were not like the ordinary +hysterical demonstrations of feminine grief, being rather a stern +uprising and clamor of herself against her own heart, filled the +house. + +The minister had to pray and speak against it; scarcely any one +beyond the mourners' room could hear his voice. It was a hard task +that the poor young minister had. He was quite aware of the feeling +against Deborah, and it required finesse to avoid jarring that, and +yet display the proper amount of Christian sympathy for the +afflicted. Then there were other difficulties. The minister had +prayed in his closet for a small share of the wisdom of Solomon +before setting forth. + +The people in the other rooms leaned forward and strained their ears. +The minister's wife sat beside her husband with bright spots of color +in her cheeks, her little figure nervously contracted in her chair. +They had had a discussion concerning the advisability of his +mentioning the sister and daughter in his prayer, and she had pleaded +with him strenuously that he should not. + +When the minister prayed for the afflicted "sister and daughter, who +was now languishing upon a bed of sickness," his wife's mouth +tightened, her feet and hands grew cold. It seemed to her that her +own tongue pronounced every word that her husband spoke. And there +was, moreover, a little nervous thrill through the audience. Oddly +enough, everybody seemed to hear that portion of the minister's +prayer quite distinctly. Even one old deaf man in the farthest corner +of the kitchen looked meaningly at his neighbor. + +The service was a long one. The village hearse and the line of black +covered wagons waited in front of the Thayer house over an hour. +There had been another fall of snow the night before, and now the +north wind blew it over the country. Outside ghostly spirals of snow +raised from the new drifts heaped along the road-sides like graves, +disappeared over the fields, and moved on the borders of distant +woods, while in-doors the minister held forth, and the choir sang +funeral hymns with a sweet uneven drone of grief and consolation. + +When at last the funeral was over and the people came out, they bent +their heads before this wild storm which came from the earth instead +of the sky. + +The cemetery was a mile out of the village; when the procession came +driving rapidly home it was nearly sunset, and the thoughts of the +people turned from poor Ephraim to their suppers. It is only for a +minute that death can blur life for the living. Still, when the +evening smoke hung over the roofs the people talked untiringly of +Ephraim and his mother. + +As time went on the dark gossip in the village swelled louder. It was +said quite openly that Deborah Thayer had killed her son Ephraim. The +neighbors did not darken her doors. The minister and his wife called +once. The minister offered prayer and spoke formal words of +consolation as if he were reading from invisible notes. His wife sat +by in stiff, scared silence. Deborah nodded in response; she said +very little. + +Indeed, Deborah had become very silent. She scarcely spoke to Caleb. +For hours after he had gone to bed the poor bewildered old man could +hear his wife wrestling in prayer with the terrible angel of the Lord +whom she had evoked by the stern magic of grief and remorse. He could +hear her harsh, solemn voice in self-justification and agonized +appeal. After a while he learned to sleep with it still ringing in +his ears, and his heavy breathing kept pace with Deborah's prayer. + +Deborah had not the least doubt that she had killed her son Ephraim. + +There was some talk of the church's dealing with her, some women +declared that they would not go to meeting if she did; but no +stringent measures were taken, and she went to church every Sunday +all the rest of the winter and during the spring. + +It was an afternoon in June when the doctor's wife and Mrs. Ray went +into Deborah Thayer's yard. They paused hesitatingly before the door. + +"I think you're the one that ought to tell her," said Mrs. Ray. + +"I think it's your place to, seeing as 'twas your Ezra that knew +about it," returned the doctor's wife. Her voice sounded like the hum +of a bee, being full of husky vibrations; her double chin sank into +her broad heaving bosom, folded over with white plaided muslin. + +"Seems to me it belongs to you, as long as you're the doctor's wife," +said Mrs. Ray. She was very small and lean beside the soft bulk of +the other woman, but there was a sort of mental uplifting about her +which made her unconscious of it. Mrs. Ray had never considered +herself a small woman; she seemed always to see the tops of other +women's heads. + +The doctor's wife looked at her dubiously, panting softly all over +her great body. It was a warm afternoon. The low red and white +rose-bushes sprayed all around the step-stone, and they were full of +roses. The doctor's wife raised the brass knocker. "Well, I'd just as +lieves," said she, resignedly. "She'd ought to be told, anyway; the +doctor said so." The knocker fell with a clang of brass. + +Deborah opened the door at once. "Good-afternoon," said she. + +"We thought we'd come over a few minutes, it's so pleasant this +afternoon," said the doctor's wife. + +"Walk in," said Deborah. She aided them in through the kitchen to the +north parlor. She always entertained guests there on warm afternoons. + +The north parlor was very cool and dark; the curtains were down, and +undulated softly like sails. Deborah placed the big haircloth +rocking-chair for the doctor's wife, and Mrs. Ray sat down on the +sofa. + +There was a silence. The doctor's wife flushed red. Mrs. Ray's sharp +face was imperturbable. Deborah, sitting erect in one of her best +flag-bottomed chairs, looked as if she were alone in the room. + +The doctor's wife cleared her throat. "Mis' Thayer," she began. + +Deborah looked at her with calm expectation. + +"Mis' Thayer," said the doctor's wife, "Mis' Ray and I thought we +ought to come over here this afternoon. Mis' Ray heard something last +night, an' she came over an' told the doctor, an' he said you ought +to know--" + +The doctor's wife paused, panting. Then the door opened and Caleb +peered in. He bowed stiffly to the two guests; then, with +apprehensive glances at his wife, slid into a chair near the door. + +"Mis' Ray's Ezra told her last night," proceeded the doctor's wife, +"that the night before your son died he run away unbeknown to you, +an' went slidin' down hill. The doctor says mebbe that was what +killed him. He said you'd ought to know." + +Deborah leaned forward; her face worked like the breaking up of an +icy river. "Be you sure?" said she. + +"Ezra told me last night," interposed Mrs. Ray. "I had a hard time +gettin' it out of him; he promised Ephraim he wouldn't tell. But +somethin' he said made me suspect, an' I got it out of him. He said +Ephraim told him he run away, an' he left him there slidin' when he +came home. 'Twas as much as 'leven o'clock then; I remember I give +Ezra a whippin' next mornin' for stayin' out so late. But then, of +course, whippin' Ezra wa'n't nothin' like whippin' Ephraim." + +"The doctor says most likely that was what killed him, after all, an' +you'd ought to know," said the doctor's wife. + +"Be you sure?" said Deborah again. + +"Ephraim wa'n't to blame. He never had no show; he never went +a-slidin' like the other little fellers," said Caleb, suddenly, out +of his corner; and he snivelled as he spoke. + +Deborah turned on him sharply. "Did you know anything about it?" said +she. + +"He told me on 't that mornin'," said Caleb; "he told me how he'd +been a-slidin', an' how he eat some mince-pie." + +"Eat--some--mince-pie!" gasped Deborah, and there was a great light +of hope in her face. + +"Well," said the doctor's wife, "if that boy eat mince-pie, an' slid +down hill, too, I guess you ain't much call to worry about anything +you've done, Mis' Thayer. I know what the doctor has said right +along." + +The doctor's wife arose with a certain mild impressiveness, as if +some mantle of her husband's authority had fallen upon her. She shook +out her ample skirts as if they were redolent of rhubarb and mint. +"Well, I guess we had better be going," said she, and her inflections +were like the doctor's. + +Mrs. Ray rose also. "Well, we thought you'd ought to know," said she. + +"I'm much obliged to you," said Deborah. + +She went through the kitchen with them. When the door was shut behind +them she turned to Caleb, who had shuffled along at her heels. "Oh, +father, why didn't you tell me if you knew, why didn't you tell me?" +she gasped out. + +Caleb stared at her. "Why, mother?" he returned. + +"Didn't you know I thought I'd killed him, father? didn't you know I +thought I'd killed my son? An' now maybe I haven't! maybe I haven't! +O Lord, I thank thee for letting me know before I die! Maybe I +haven't killed him, after all!" + +"I didn't s'pose it would make any difference," said Caleb, +helplessly. + +Suddenly, to the old man's great terror, his wife caught hold of him +and clung to him. He staggered a little; his arms hung straight at +his sides. "Why, what ails you, mother?" he stammered out. "I didn't +tell you, 'cause I thought you'd be blamin' him for 't. Mother, don't +you take on so; now don't!" + +"I--wish--you'd go an' get Rebecca an' Barney, father," said Deborah, +faintly. She suddenly wavered so that her old husband wavered with +her, and they reeled back and forth like two old trees in a wind. + +"Why, what ails you, mother, what ails you?" Caleb gasped out. He +caught Deborah's arm, and clutched out at something to save himself. +Then they sank to the floor together. + +Barney had just come up from the field, and was at his own door when +his father came panting into the yard. "What is it? what's the +matter?" he cried out. + +"Mother's fell!" gasped Caleb. + +"Fell! has she hurt her?" + +"Dunno--she can't get up; come quick!" + +As Barney rushed out of the yard he cast a glance up the hill towards +Charlotte's house; in every crisis of his life his mind turned +involuntarily to her, as if she were another self, to be made +acquainted with all its exigencies. But when he came out on the road +he met Charlotte herself face to face; she had been over to her Aunt +Sylvia's. + +"Something is wrong with mother," Barney said, with a strange appeal. +Then he went on, and Charlotte was at his side, running as fast as +he. Caleb hurried after them, panting, the tears running down his old +cheeks. + +"Father says she's fell!" Barney said, as they sped along. + +"Maybe she's only fainted," responded Charlotte's steady, faithful +voice. + +But Deborah Thayer had more than fainted. It might have been that +Ephraim had inherited from her the heart-taint that had afflicted and +shortened his life, and it might have been that her terrible +experiences of the last few months would have strained her heart to +its undoing, had its valves been made of steel. + +Barney carried his mother into the bedroom, and laid her on the bed. +He and Charlotte worked over her, but she never spoke nor moved +again. At last Charlotte laid her hand on Barney's arm. "Come out +now," said she, and Barney followed her out. + +When they were out in the kitchen Barney looked in her face. "It's no +use, she's gone!" he said, hoarsely. Charlotte nodded. Suddenly she +put her arms up around his neck, and drew his head down to her bosom, +and held it there, stroking his cheek. + +"Oh, Charlotte," Barney sobbed. Charlotte bent over him, whispering +softly, smoothing his hair and cheek with her tender hand. + +Caleb had gone for the doctor and Rebecca while they tried to restore +Deborah, and had given the alarm on the way. Some women came hurrying +in with white faces, staring curiously even then at Barney and +Charlotte; but she never heeded them, except to answer in the +affirmative when they asked, in shocked voices, if Deborah was dead. +She went on soothing Barney, as if he had been her child, with no +more shame in it, until he raised his white face from her breast of +his own accord. + +"Oh, Charlotte, you will stay to-night, won't you?" he pleaded. + +"Yes, I'll stay," said Charlotte. Young as Charlotte was, she had +watched with the sick and sat up with the dead many a time. So she +and the doctor's wife watched with Deborah Thayer that night. Rebecca +came, but she was not strong enough to stay. The next day Charlotte +assisted in the funeral preparations. It made a great deal of talk in +the village. People wondered if Barney would marry her now, and if +she would sit with the mourners at the funeral. But she sat with her +father and mother in the south room, and time went on after Deborah +died, and Barney did not marry her. + + + +Chapter XII + + +A few days after Deborah's funeral Charlotte had an errand at the +store after supper. When she went down the hill the sun had quite +set, but there was a clear green light. The sky gave it out, and +there seemed to be also a green glow from the earth. Charlotte went +down the hill with the evening air fresh and damp in her face. Lilacs +were in blossom all about, and their fragrance was so vital and +intense that it seemed almost like a wide presence in the green +twilight. + +She reached Barney's house, and passed it; then she came to the +Thayer house. Before that lay the garden. The ranks of pease and +beans were in white blossom, and there was a pale shimmer as of a +cobweb veil over it. + +Charlotte had passed the garden when she heard a voice behind her: + +"Charlotte!" + +She stopped, and Barney came up. + +"Good-evening," said he. + +"Good-evening," said Charlotte. + +"I saw you going by," said Barney. Then he paused again, and +Charlotte waited. + +"I saw you going by," he repeated, "and--I thought I'd like to speak +to you. I wanted to thank you for what you did--about mother." + +"You're very welcome," replied Charlotte. + +Barney ground a stone beneath his heel. "I sha'n't ever forget it, +and--father won't, either," he said. His voice trembled, and yet +there was a certain doggedness in it. + +Charlotte stood waiting. Barney turned slowly away. "Good-night," he +said. + +"Good-night," returned Charlotte, quickly, and she fairly sprang away +from him and down the road. Her limbs trembled, but she held her head +up proudly. She understood it all perfectly. Barney had meant to +inform her that his behavior towards her on the day his mother died +had been due to a momentary weakness; that she was to expect nothing +further. She went on to the store and did her errand, then went home. +As she entered the kitchen her mother came through from the front +room. She had been sitting at a window watching for Charlotte to +return; she thought Barney might be with her. + +"Well, you've got home," said she, and it sounded like a question. + +"Yes," said Charlotte. She laid her parcels on the table. "I guess +I'll go to bed," she added. + +"Why, it's dreadful early to go to bed, ain't it?" + +"Well, I'm tired; I guess I'll go." + +The candle-light was dim in the room, but Sarah eyed her daughter +sharply. She thought she looked pale. + +"Did you meet anybody?" she asked. + +"I don't know; there wasn't many folks out." + +"You didn't see Barney, did you?" + +"Yes, I met him." + +Charlotte lighted another candle, and opened the door. + +"Look here," said her mother. + +"Well?" replied Charlotte, with a sort of despairing patience. + +"What did he say to you? I want to know." + +"He didn't say much of anything. He thanked me for what I did about +his mother." + +"Didn't he say anything about anything else?" + +"No, he didn't." Charlotte went out, shielding her candle. + +"You don't mean that he didn't say anything, after the way he acted +that day his mother died?" + +"I didn't expect him to say anything." + +"He's treated you mean, Charlotte," her mother cried out, with a half +sob. "He'd ought to be strung up after he acted so, huggin' an' +kissin' you right before folk's face and eyes." + +"It was more my fault than 'twas his," returned Charlotte; and she +shut the door. + +"Then I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself," Sarah called +after her, but Charlotte did not seem to hear. + +"I never see such work, for my part," Sarah wailed out to herself. + +"Mother, you come in here a minute," Cephas called out of the +bedroom. He had gone to bed soon after supper. + +"Anythin' new about Barney?" he asked, when his wife stood beside +him. + +"Barney ain't no more notion of comin' back than he had before, in +spite of all the talk. I never see such work," replied Sarah, in a +voice strained high with tears. + +"I call it pretty doin's," assented Cephas. His pale face, with its +venerable beard, was closely set about with his white nightcap. He +lay staring straight before him with a solemnly reflective air. + +"I wish you hadn't brought up 'lection that time, father," ventured +Sarah, with a piteous sniff. + +"If the Democratic party had only lived different, an' hadn't eat so +much meat, there wouldn't have been any trouble," returned Cephas, +magisterially. "If you go far enough, you'll always get back to that. +A man is what he puts into his mouth. Meat victuals is at the bottom +of democracy. If there wa'n't any meat eat there wouldn't be any +Democratic party, an' there wouldn't be any wranglin' in the state. +There'd be one party, jest as there'd ought to be." + +"I wish you hadn't brought it up, father," Sarah lamented again; +"it's most killin' me." + +"If we hadn't both of us been eatin' so much animal food there +wouldn't have been any trouble," repeated Cephas. + +"Well, I dunno much about animal food, but I know I'm about +discouraged," said Sarah. And she went back to the kitchen, and sat +down in the rocking-chair and cried a long time, with her apron over +her face. Her heartache was nearly as sore as her daughter's +up-stairs. + +Charlotte did not speak to Barney again all summer--indeed, she +scarcely ever saw him. She had an occasional half-averted glimpse of +his figure across the fields, and that was all. Barney had gone back +to the old house to live with his father, and remained there through +the summer and fall; but Caleb died in November. He had never been +the same since Deborah's death; whether, like an old tree whose roots +are no longer so firm in the earth that they can withstand every wind +of affliction, the shock itself had shaken him to his fall, or the +lack of that strange wontedness which takes the place of early love +and passion had enfeebled him, no one could tell. He had seemed to +simply stare at life from a sunny place on a stone-wall or a +door-step all summer. + +When the autumn set in he sat in his old chair by the fire. Caleb had +always felt cold since Deborah died. When the bell tolled off his +years, one morning in November, nobody felt surprised. People had +said to each other for some time that Caleb Thayer was failing. + +Barney, after his father died, went back to his own forlorn new house +to live, and his sister Rebecca and her husband came to live in the +old one. Rebecca went to meeting now every Sunday, wearing her +mother's black shawl and a black ribbon on her bonnet, and sitting in +her mother's place in the Thayer pew. She never went anywhere else, +her rosy color had gone, and she looked old and haggard. + +Barney went into his sister's now and then of a Sunday night, and sat +with her and William an hour or so. He and William would sometimes +warm into quite an animated discussion over politics or theology, +while Rebecca sat silently by. Barney went nowhere else, not even to +meeting. Sundays he used to watch furtively for Charlotte to go past +with her father and mother. Quite often Sylvia Crane used to appear +from her road and join them, and walk along with Charlotte. Barney +used to look at her moving down the road at Charlotte's side, as at +the merest supernumerary on his own tragic stage. But every tragedy +has its multiplying glass to infinity, and every actor has his own +tragedy. Sylvia Crane that winter, all secretly and silently, was +acting her own principal rôle in hers. She had quite come to the end +of her small resources, and nobody, except the selectmen of Pembroke, +knew it. They were three saturnine, phlegmatic, elderly men, old +Squire Payne being the chairman, and they kept her secret well. +Sylvia waylaid them in by-places, she stole around to the back door +of Squire Payne's house by night, she conducted herself as if it were +a guilty intrigue, and all to keep her poverty hid as long as may be. + +Old Squire Payne was a widower, a grave old man of few words. He +advanced poor Sylvia meagre moneys on her little lands, and he told +nobody. There came a day when he gave her the last dollar upon her +New England soil, full of old plough-ridges and dried weeds and +stones. + +Sylvia went home with it in the pocket of her quilted petticoat under +her dress skirt. She kept feeling of it to see if it were safe as she +walked along. The snow was quite deep, the road was not well broken +out, and she plodded forward with bent head, her black skirt +gathering a crusty border of snow. + +She had to pass Richard Alger's house, but she never looked up. It +was six o'clock, and quite dark; it had been dark when she set out at +five. The housewives were preparing supper; there was a smell of +burning pine-wood in the air, and now and then a savory scent of +frying meat. Sylvia had smelled brewing tea and baking bread in +Squire Payne's house, and she had heard old Margaret, the Scotch +woman who had lived with the squire's family ever since she could +remember, stepping around in another room. Old Margaret was almost +the only servant, the only regular and permanent servant, in +Pembroke, and she enjoyed a curious sort of menial distinction: she +dressed well, wore a handsome cashmere shawl which had come from +Scotland, and held her head high in the squire's pew. People saluted +her with respect, and her isolation of inequality gave her a reversed +dignity. + +Sylvia had hoped Margaret would not come in while she sat with the +squire. She was afraid of her eyes, which flashed keen like a man's +under shaggy brows. She did not want her to see the squire counting +out the money from his leather purse, although she knew that Margaret +would keep her own counsel. + +She had been glad enough to escape and not see her appear behind the +bulk of the squire in the doorway. Squire Payne was full of laborious +courtesy, and always himself aided Sylvia to the door when she came +for money, and that always alarmed her. She would drop a meek +courtesy on trembling knees and hurry away. + +Sylvia had almost reached the old road leading to her own house, when +she saw a figure advancing towards her through the dusk. She saw it +was a woman by the wide swing of the skirts, and trembled. She felt a +presentiment as to who it was. She held her head down and well to one +side, she bent over and tried to hurry past, but the figure stopped. + +"Is that you, Sylvy Crane?" said her sister, Hannah Berry. + +Sylvia did not stop. "Yes, it's me," she stammered. "Good-evenin', +Hannah." + +She tried to pass, but Hannah stood in her way. "What you hurryin' so +for?" she asked, sharply; "where you been?" + +"Where _you_ been?" returned Sylvia, trembling. + +"Up to Sarah's. Charlotte, she's gone down to Rebecca's. She's +terrible thick with Rebecca. Well, I've been to see Rebecca; an' +Rose, she's been, an' I ain't nothin' to say. William has got her for +a wife, an' we've got to hold up our heads before folks; an' when it +comes right down to it, there's a good many folks can't say much. If +Charlotte Barnard wants to be thick with Rebecca, she can. Her mother +won't say nothin'. She always was as easy as old Tilly; an' as for +Cephas, he's either eatin' grass, or he ain't eatin' grass, an' +that's all he cares about, unless he gets stirred up about politics, +the way he did with Barney Thayer. I dunno but Charlotte thinks +she'll get him back again goin' to see Rebecca. I miss my guess but +what she sees him there sometimes. I wouldn't have a daughter of mine +chasin' a fellar that had give her the mitten; but Charlotte ain't +got no pride, nor her mother, neither. Where did you say you'd been, +trapesin' through the snow?" + +"Has Rose got her things most done?" asked Sylvia, desperately. +Distress was awakening duplicity in her simple, straightforward +heart. All Hannah Berry's thought slid, as it were, in well-greased +grooves; only give one a starting push and it went on indefinitely +and left all others behind, and her sister Sylvia knew it. + +"Well, she's got 'em pretty near done," replied Hannah Berry. "Her +underclothes are all done, an' the quilts; the weddin'-dress ain't +bought yet, an' she's got to have a mantilla. Do you know Charlotte +ain't never wore that handsome mantilla she had when she was +expectin' to marry Barney?" + +"Ain't she?" + +"No, she ain't, nor her silk gown neither. I said all I darsed to. I +thought mebbe she or Sarah would offer; they both of 'em know how +hard it is to get anything out of Silas; but they didn't, an' I +wa'n't goin' to ask, nohow. I shall get a new silk an' a mantilla for +Rose, an' not be beholden to nobody, if I have to sell the spoons I +had when I was married." + +"I don't s'pose they have much to do with," said Sylvia. She began to +gradually edge past her sister. + +"Of course they haven't; I know that jest as well as you do. But if +Charlotte ain't goin' to get married she don't want any weddin'-gown +an' mantilla, an' she won't ever get married. She let Thomas Payne +slip, an' there ain't nobody else I can think of for her. If she +ain't goin' to want weddin'-clothes, I don't see why she an' her +mother would be any poorer for givin' hers away. 'Twouldn't cost 'em +any more than to let 'em lay in the chest. Well, I've got to go home; +it's supper-time. Where did you say you'd been, Sylvy?" + +Sylvia was well past her sister; she pretended not to hear. "You +ain't been over for quite a spell," she called back, faintly. + +"I know I ain't," returned Hannah. "I've been tellin' Rose we'd come +over to tea some afternoon before she was married." + +"Do," said Sylvia, but the cordiality in her voice seemed to +overweigh it. + +"Well, mebbe we'll come over to-morrow," said Hannah. "We've got some +pillow-slips to trim, an' we can bring them. You'd better ask Sarah +an' Charlotte, if she can stay away from Rebecca Thayer's long +enough." + +"Yes, I will," said Sylvia, feebly, over her shoulder. + +"We'll come early," said Hannah. Then the sisters sped apart through +the early winter darkness. Poor Sylvia fairly groaned out loud when +her sister was out of hearing and she had turned the corner of the +old road. + +"What shall I do? what shall I do?" she muttered. + +Her sisters to tea meant hot biscuits and plum sauce and pie and +pound-cake and tea. Sylvia had yet a little damson sauce at the +bottom of a jar, although she had not preserved last year, for lack +of sugar; but hot biscuits and pie, the pound-cake and tea would have +to be provided. + +She felt again of the little money-store in her pocket; that was all +that stood between her and the poor-house; every penny was a barrier +and had its carefully calculated value. This outlay would reduce +terribly her little period of respite and independence; yet she +hesitated as little as Fouquet planning the splendid entertainment, +which would ruin him, for Louis XIII. + +Her sisters and nieces must come to tea; and all the food, which was +the village fashion and as absolute in its way as court etiquette, +must be provided. + +"They'll suspect if I don't," said Sylvia Crane. + +She rolled away the stone from the door and entered her solitary +house. She lighted her candle and prepared for bed. She did not get +any supper. She said to herself with a sudden fierceness, which came +over her at times--a mild impulse of rebellion which indicated +perhaps some strain from far-off, untempered ancestors, which had +survived New England generations--that she did not care if she never +ate supper again. + +"They're all comin' troopin' in here to-morrow, an' it's goin' to +take about all the little I've got left to get victuals for 'em, an' +I've got to go without to-night if I starve!" she cried out quite +loud and defiantly, as if her hard providence lurked within hearing +in some dark recess of the room. + +She raked ashes over the coals in the fireplace. "I'll go to bed an' +save the fire, too," she said; "it'll take about all the wood I've +got left to-morrow. I've got to heat the oven. Might as well go to +bed, an' lay there forever, anyway. If I stayed up till doomsday +nobody'd come." + +Sylvia set the shovel back with a vicious clatter; then she struck +out--like a wilful child who hurts itself because of its rage and +impotent helplessness to hurt aught else--her thin, red hand against +the bricks of the chimney. She looked at the bruises on it with +bitter exultation, as if she saw in them some evidence of her own +freedom and power, even to her own hurt. + +When she went to bed she stowed away her money under the feather-bed. +She could not go to sleep. Some time in the night a shutter in +another room up-stairs banged. She got up, lighted the candle, and +trod over the icy floors to the room relentlessly with her bare feet. +There was a pane of glass broken behind the shutter, and the wind had +loosened the fastening. Sylvia forced the shutter back; in a strange +rage she heard another pane of glass crack. "I don't care if every +pane of glass in the window is broken," she muttered, as she hooked +the fastening with angry, trembling fingers. + +Her thin body in its cotton night-gown, cramped with long rigors of +cold, her delicate face reddened as if before a fire, her jaws felt +almost locked as she went through the deadly cold of the lonely house +back to bed; but that strange rage in her heart enabled her to defy +it, and awakened within her something like blasphemy against life and +all the conditions thereof, but never against Richard Alger. She +never felt one throb of resentment against him. She even wondered, +when she was back in bed, if he had bedclothing enough, if the quilts +and bed-puffs that his mother had left were not worn out; her own +were very thin. + +The next day Sylvia heated her brick oven; she went to the store and +bought materials, and made pound-cake and pies. While they were +baking she ran over and invited Charlotte and her mother. She did not +see Cephas; he had gone to draw some wood. + +"I'd like to have him come, too," she said, as she went out; "but I +dunno as he'd eat anything I've got for tea." + +"Land! he eats anything when he goes out anywhere to tea," replied +Mrs. Barnard. "He was over to Hannah's a while ago, an' he eat +everything. He eats pie-crust with shortenin' now, anyway. He got so +he couldn't stan' it without. I guess he'd like to come. He'll have +to draw wood some this afternoon, but he can come in time for tea. +I'll lay out his clothes on the bed for him." + +"Well, have him come, then," said Sylvia. Sylvia was nearly out of +the yard when Charlotte called after her: "Don't you want me to come +over and help you, Aunt Sylvia?" she called out. She stood in the +door with her apron flying out in the wind like a blue flag. + +"No, I guess not," replied Sylvia; "I don't need any help. I ain't +got much to do." + +"I think Aunt Sylvia looks sick," Charlotte said to her mother when +she went in. + +"I thought she looked kind of peaked," said Sarah. But neither of +them dreamed of the true state of affairs: how poor Sylvia Crane, +half-starved and half-frozen in heart and stomach, was on the verge +of bankruptcy of all her little worldly possessions. + +Sylvia's sisters, practical enough in other respects, were singularly +ignorant and incompetent concerning any property except the few +dollars and cents in their own purses. + +They had always supposed Sylvia had enough to live on, as long as she +lived at all. They had a comfortable sense of generosity and +self-sacrifice, since they had let her have all the old homestead +after her mother's death without a word, and even against covert +remonstrances on the parts of their husbands. + +Silas Berry had once said out quite openly to his wife and Sarah +Barnard: "That will had ought to be broke, accordin' to my way of +thinkin'," and Hannah had returned with spirit: "It won't ever be +broke unless it's against my will, Silas Berry. I know it seems +considerable for Sylvy to have it all, but she's took care of mother +all those years, an' I don't begrutch it to her, an' she's a-goin' to +have it. I don't much believe Richard Alger will ever have her now +she's got so old, an' she'd ought to have enough to live on the rest +of her life an' keep her comfortable." + +Therefore Sylvia's sisters had a conviction that she was comfortably +provided with worldly gear. Mrs. Berry was even speculating upon the +probability of her giving Rose something wherewith to begin +house-keeping when her marriage with Tommy Ray took place. + +The two sisters, with their daughters, came early that afternoon. +Mrs. Berry and Rose sewed knitted lace on pillow-slips; Mrs. Barnard +and Charlotte were making new shirts for Cephas; Charlotte sat by the +window and set beautiful stitches in her father's linen shirt-bosoms, +while her aunt Hannah's tongue pricked her ceaselessly as with small +goading thorns. + +"I s'pose this seems kind of natural to you, don't it, Charlotte, +gettin' pillow-slips ready?" said Mrs. Berry. + +"I don't know but it does," answered Charlotte, never raising her +eyes from her work. Her mother flushed angrily. She opened her mouth +as if to speak, then she shut it again hard. + +"Let me see, how many did you make?" asked Mrs. Berry. + +"She made two dozen pair," Charlotte's mother answered for her. + +"An' you've got 'em all laid away, yellowin'?" + +"I guess they ain't yellowed much," said Sarah Barnard. + +"I don't see when you're ever goin' to use 'em." + +"Mebbe there'd be chances enough to use 'em if some folks was as +crazy to take up with 'em as some other folks," returned Sarah +Barnard. + +"I'd like to know what you mean?" + +"Oh, nothin'. If folks want chances to make pillow-slips bad enough +there's generally poor tools enough layin' 'round, that's all." + +"I'd like to know what you mean, Sarah Barnard." + +"Oh, I don't mean nothin'," answered Sarah Barnard. She glanced at +her daughter Charlotte and smiled slyly, but Charlotte never returned +the glance and smile. She sewed steadily. Rose colored, but she said +nothing. She looked very pretty and happy, as she sat there, sewing +knitted lace on her wedding-pillows; and she really was happy. Her +passionate heart had really satisfied itself with the boyish lover +whom she would have despised except for lack of a better. She was and +would be happy enough; it was only a question of deterioration of +character, and the nobility of applying to the need of love the rules +of ordinary hunger and thirst, and eating contentedly the crust when +one could not get the pie, of drinking the water when one could not +get the wine. Contentment may be sometimes a degradation; but she was +happier than she had ever been in her life, although she had a little +sense of humiliation when she reflected that Tommy Ray, younger than +herself, tending store under her brother, was not exactly a brilliant +match for her, and that everybody in the village would think so. So +she colored angrily when her aunt Sarah spoke as she did, although +she said nothing. But her mother, although she had rebelled in +private bitterly against her daughter's choice, was ready enough to +take up the cudgels for her in public. + +"Well," said Hannah Berry, "two old maids in the family is about +enough, accordin' to my way of thinkin'." + +"It's better to be an old maid than to marry somebody you don't want, +jest for the sake of bein' married," retorted Sarah Barnard, +fiercely. + +The two sisters clashed like two thorny bushes of one family in a +gale the whole afternoon. The two daughters sewed silently, and +Sylvia knitted a stocking with scarcely a word until she arose to get +tea. + +Cephas and Silas both came to tea, which was served in state, with a +fine linen table-cloth, and Sylvia's mother's green and white +sprigged china. Nobody suspected, as they tasted the damson sauce +with the thin silver spoons, as they tilted the green and white +teacups to their lips, and ate the rich pound-cake and pie, what a +very feast of renunciation and tragedy this was to poor Sylvia Crane. +Cephas and Silas, indeed, knew that money had been advanced her by +the town upon her estate, but they were far from suspecting, and, +indeed, were unwilling to suspect, how nearly it was exhausted and +the property lived out. It was only a meagre estimate that the town +of Pembroke had made of the Crane ancestral acres. If Silas and +Cephas had ever known what it was, they had dismissed it from their +minds, they were interested in not knowing. Suppose their wives +should want to give her a home and support. + +The women knew nothing whatever. + +When they went home, an hour after tea, Hannah Berry turned to Sylvia +in the doorway. "I suppose you know the weddin' is comin' off pretty +soon now," said she. + +"Yes, I s'posed 'twas," answered Sylvia, trying to smile. + +"Well, I thought I'd jest mention it, so you could get your present +ready," said Hannah. She nudged Rose violently as she spoke. + +"I don't care; I meant to give her a hint," she said, chuckling, when +they were outside. "She can give you something jest as well as not; +she might give you some silver teaspoons, or a table, or sofa. There! +she bought that handsome sofa for herself a few years ago, an' she +didn't need it more'n nothin' at all. I suppose she thought Richard +Alger was comin' steady, but now he's stopped." + +Rose was married in a few weeks. The morning of the wedding-day +Sylvia went into Berry's store and called William aside. + +"If you can, I wish you'd come 'round by-an'-by with your horse an' +your wood-sled," said she. + +"Yes, guess I can; what is it you want?" asked William, eying her +curiously. She was very pale; there were red circles around her eyes, +and her mouth trembled. + +"Oh, it ain't anything, only a little present I wanted to send to +Rose," replied Sylvia. + +"Well," said William, "I'll be along by-an'-by." He looked after her +in a perplexed way as she went out. + +Silas was in the back of the store, and presently he came forward. +"What she want you to do?" he inquired of his son. + +William told him. The old man chuckled. "Hannah give her a hint +'tother day, an' I guess she took it," he said. + +"I thought she looked pretty poorly," said William--"looked as if +she'd been crying or something. How do you suppose that property +holds out, father? I heard the town was allowing her on it." + +"Oh, I guess it'll last her as long as she lives," replied Silas, +gruffly. "Your mother had ought to had her thirds in it." + +"I don't know about that," said William. "Aunt Sylvy had a hard time +takin' care of grandmother." + +"She was paid for 't," returned Silas. + +"Richard Alger treated her mean." + +"Guess he sat out considerable firewood an' candle-grease," assented +the old man. + +A customer came in then, and Ezra Ray sprang forward. He was all +excited over his brother's wedding, and was tending store in his +place that day. His mother was making him a new suit to wear to the +wedding, and he felt as if the whole affair hung, as it were, upon +the buttons of his new jacket and the straps of his new trousers. + +"Guess I might as well go over to Aunt Sylvy's now as any time," said +William. + +"Don't see what she wanted you to fetch the horse an' sled for," +ruminated Silas. "Mother thought most likely she'd give some silver +teaspoons if she give anything." + +William went out to the barn, put the horse in the sled, and drove +down the hill towards Sylvia's. When he returned the old thin silver +teaspoons of the Crane family were in his coat-pocket, and Sylvia's +dearly beloved and fondly cherished hair-cloth sofa was on the sled +behind him. + +"What in creation did she send them old teaspoons and that old sofa +for?" his mother asked, disgustedly. + +"I don't know," replied William, soberly; "but I do know one thing: I +hated to take them bad enough. She acted all upset over it. I think +she'd better have kept her sofa and teaspoons as long as she lived." + +"Course she was upset givin' away anything," scolded his mother. "It +was jest like her, givin' away a passel of old truck ruther than +spend any money. Well, I s'pose you may as well set that sofa in the +parlor. It ain't hurt much, anyway." + +Rose and her husband were to live with her parents for the present. +She was married that evening. She wore a blue silk dress, and some +rose-geranium blossoms and leaves in her hair. Tommy Ray sat by her +side on Sylvia's sofa until the company and the minister were all +there. Then they stood up and were married. + +Sylvia came to the wedding in her best silk gown; she had trembled +lest Richard Alger should be there, but he had not been invited. +Hannah Berry cherished a deep resentment against him. + +"I ain't goin' to have any man that's treated one of my folks as mean +as he has set foot in my house to a weddin', not if I know it," she +told Rose. + +After the marriage-cake and cider were passed around, the old people +sat solemnly around the borders of the rooms, and the young people +played games. William and his wife were not there. Hannah had not +dared to slight them, but William could not prevail upon Rebecca to +go. + +Barney, also, had not been invited to the wedding. Mrs. Berry had an +open grudge against him on her niece's account, and a covert one on +her daughter's. Hannah Berry had a species of loyalty in her nature, +inasmuch as she would tolerate ill-treatment of her kin from nobody +but her own self. + +Charlotte Barnard came with her father and mother, and sat quietly +with them all the evening. She was beginning insensibly to rather +hold herself aloof from the young people, and avoid joining in their +games. She felt older. People had wondered if she would not wear the +dress she had had made for her own wedding, but she did not. She wore +her old purple silk, which had been made over from one of her +mother's, and a freshly-starched muslin collar. The air was full of +the rich sweetness of cake; there was a loud discord of laughter and +high shrill voices, through which yet ran a subtle harmony of mirth. +Laughing faces nodded and uplifted like flowers in the merry romping +throngs in the middle of the room, while the sober ones against the +walls watched with grave, elderly, retrospective eyes. + +As soon as she could, Sylvia Crane stole into her sister's bedroom, +where the women's outside garments were heaped high on the bed, got +her own, opened the side door softly, and went home. The next day she +was going to the poor-house, and nobody but the three selectmen of +Pembroke knew it. She had begged them, almost on her knees, to tell +nobody until she was there. + +That night she rolled away the guardian stone from before the door +with the feeling that it was for the last time. All that night she +worked. She could not go to bed, she could not sleep, and she had +gone beyond any frenzy of sorrow and tears. All her blind and +helpless rage against life and the obdurately beneficent force, which +had been her conception of Providence, was gone. When the battle is +over there is no more need for the fury of combat. Sylvia felt her +battle was over, and she felt the peace of defeat. + +She was to take a few necessaries to the poor-house with her; she had +them to pack, and she also had some cleaning to do. + +She had a vague idea that the town, which seemed to loom over her +like some dreadful shadowy giant of a child's story, would sell the +house, and it must be left in neat order for the inspection of seller +and buyer. "I ain't goin' to have the town lookin' over the house an' +sayin' it ain't kept decent," she said. So she worked hard all night, +and her candle lit up first one window, then another, moving all over +the house like a will-o'-the-wisp. + +The man who had charge of the poor-house came for her the next +morning at ten o'clock. Sylvia was all ready. At quarter past ten he +drove out of the old road where the Crane house stood and down the +village street. The man's name was Jonathan Leavitt. He was quite old +but hearty, with a stubbly fringe of white beard around a ruddy face. +He had come on a wood-sled for the greater convenience of bringing +Sylvia's goods. There were a feather-bed, bolster, and pillows, tied +up in an old homespun blanket, on the rear of the sled; there was +also a red chest, and a great bundle of bedclothing. Sylvia sat in +her best rocking-chair just behind Jonathan Leavitt, who drove +standing. + +"It's a pleasant day for this time of year," he observed to Sylvia +when they started. Sylvia nodded assent. + +Jonathan Leavitt had had a fear lest Sylvia might make a disturbance +about going. Many a time had it taken hours for him to induce a poor +woman to leave her own door-stone; and when at length they had set +forth, it was to an accompaniment of shrill, piteous lamentations, so +strained and persistent that they seemed scarcely human, and more +like the cries of a scared cat being hauled away from her home. +Everybody on the road had turned to look after the sled, and Jonathan +Leavitt had driven on, looking straight ahead, his face screwed hard, +lashing now and then his old horse, with a gruff shout. Now he felt +relieved and grateful to Sylvia for going so quietly. He was disposed +to be very friendly to her. + +"You'd better keep your rockin'-chair kind of stiddy," he said, when +they turned the corner into the new road, and the chair oscillated +like an uneasy berth at sea. + +Sylvia sat up straight in the chair. She had on her best bonnet and +shawl, and her worked lace veil over her face. Her poor blue eyes +stared out between the black silk leaves and roses. If she had been a +dead woman and riding to her grave, and it had been possible for her +to see as she was borne along the familiar road, she would have +regarded everything in much the same fashion that she did now. She +looked at everything--every tree, every house and wall--with a pang +of parting forever. She felt as if she should never see them again in +their old light. + +The poor-house was three miles out of the village; the road lay past +Richard Alger's house. When they drew near it Sylvia bent her head +low and averted her face; she shut her eyes behind the black roses. +She did not want to know when she passed the house. An awful shame +that Richard should see her riding past to the poor-house seized upon +her. + +The wood-sled went grating on, a chain rattled; she calculated that +they were nearly past when there was a jerk, and Jonathan Leavitt +cried "Hullo!" + +"Where are you going?" shouted another voice. Sylvia knew it. Her +heart pounded. She turned her face farther to one side, and did not +open her eyes. + +Richard Alger came plunging down out of his yard. His handsome face +was quite pale under a slight grizzle of beard, he was in his +shirt-sleeves, he had on no dicky or stock, and his sinewy throat +showed. + +"Where you goin'?" he gasped out again, as he came up to the sled. + +"I'm a takin' Sylvy home. Why?" inquired Jonathan Leavitt, with a +dazed look. + +"Home? What are you headed this way for? What are all those things on +the sled?" + +"She's lived out her place, an' the town's jest took it; guess you +didn't know, Richard," said Jonathan Leavitt. His eyes upon the other +man were half shrewdly inquiring, half bewildered. + +Sylvia never turned her head. She sat with her eyes closed behind her +veil. + +[Illustration: "Sylvia never turned her head"] + +"Just turn that sled 'round," said Richard Alger. + +"Turn the sled 'round?" + +"Yes, turn it 'round!" Richard himself grasped the bay horse by the +bit as he spoke. "Back, back!" he shouted. + +"What are you doin' on, Richard?" cried the old man; but he pulled +his right rein mechanically, and the sled slewed slowly and safely +around. + +Richard jumped on and stood just beside Sylvia, holding to a stake. +"Where d'ye want to go?" asked the old man. + +"Back." + +"But the town--" + +"I'll take care of the town." + +Jonathan Leavitt drove back. Sylvia opened her eyes a little way, and +saw Richard's back. "You'll catch cold without your coat," she half +gasped. + +"No, I sha'n't," returned Richard, but he did not turn his head. + +Sylvia did not say any more. She was trembling so that her very +thoughts seemed to waver. They turned the corner of the old road, and +drove up to her old house. Richard stepped off the sled, and held out +his hands to Sylvia. "Come, get off," said he. + +"I dunno about this," said Jonathan Leavitt. "I'm willin' as far as +I'm concerned, Richard, but I've had my instructions." + +"I tell you I'll take care of it," said Richard Alger. "I'll settle +all the damages with the town. Come, Sylvia, get off." + +And Sylvia Crane stepped weakly off the wood-sled, and Richard Alger +helped her into the house. "Why, you can't hardly walk," said he, and +Sylvia had never heard anything like the tenderness in his tone. He +bent down and rolled away the stone. Sylvia had rolled it in front of +the door herself, when she went out, as she supposed, for the last +time. Then he opened the door, and took hold of her slender shawled +arm, and half lifted her in. + +"Go in an' sit down," said he, "while we get the things in." + +Sylvia went mechanically into her clean, fireless parlor; it was the +room where she had always received Richard. She sat down in a +flag-bottomed chair and waited. + +Richard and Jonathan Leavitt came into the house tugging the +feather-bed between them. "We'll put it in the kitchen," she heard +Richard say. They brought in the chest and the bundle of bedding. +Then Richard came into the parlor carrying the rocking-chair before +him. "You want this in here, don't you?" he said. + +"It belongs here," said Sylvia, faintly. Jonathan Leavitt gathered up +his reins and drove out of the yard. + +Richard set down the chair; then he went and stood before Sylvia. + +"Look here, Sylvia," said he. Then he stopped and put his hands over +his face. His whole frame shook. Sylvia stood up. "Don't, Richard," +she said. + +"I never had any idea of this," said Richard Alger, with a great +groaning sob. + +"Don't you feel so bad, Richard," said Sylvia. + +Suddenly Richard put is arm around Sylvia, and pulled her close to +him. "I'll look out and do better by you the rest of your life, +anyhow," he said. He took hold of Sylvia's veil and pulled it back. +Her pale face drooped before him. + +"You look--half--starved," he groaned. Sylvia looked up and saw tears +on his rough cheeks. + +"Don't you feel bad, Richard," she said again. + +"I'd ought to feel bad," said Richard, fiercely. + +"I couldn't help it, that night you come an' found me gone. It was +that night Charlotte had the trouble with Barney. Sarah, she wouldn't +let me come home any sooner. I was dreadful upset about it." + +"I've been meaner than sin, an' I don't know as it makes it any +better, because I couldn't seem to help it," said Richard Alger. "I +didn't forget you a single minute, Sylvia, an' I was awful sorry for +you, an' there wasn't a Sabbath night that I didn't want to come more +than I wanted to go to Heaven! But I couldn't, I couldn't nohow. I've +always had to travel in tracks, an' no man livin' knows how deep a +track he's in till he gets jolted out of it an' can't get back. But +I've got into a track now, an' I'll die before I get out of it. There +ain't any use in your lookin' at me, Sylvia, but if you can make up +your mind to have me, I'll try my best, an' do all I can to make it +all up to you in the time that's left." + +"I'm afraid you've had a dreadful hard time, livin' alone so long, +an' tryin' to do for yourself," said Sylvia, pitifully. + +"I'm glad I have," replied Richard, grimly. + +He clasped Sylvia closer; her best bonnet was all crushed against his +breast. He looked around over her head, as if searching for +something. + +"Where's the sofa gone?" he asked. + +"I gave it to Rose for a weddin' present. I thought I shouldn't ever +need it," Sylvia murmured. + +"Well, I've got one, it ain't any matter," said Richard. + +He moved towards the rocking-chair, drawing Sylvia gently along with +him. + +"Sit down, Sylvia," said he, softly. + +"No, you sit down in the rocking-chair, Richard," said Sylvia. She +reached out and pulled a flag-bottomed chair close and sat down +herself. Richard sat in the rocking-chair. + +Sylvia untied her bonnet, took it off, and straightened it. Richard +watched her. "I want you to have a white bonnet," said he. + +"I'm too old, Richard," Sylvia replied, blushing. + +"No, you ain't," he said, defiantly; "you've got to have a white +bonnet." + +Sylvia looked in his face--and indeed hers looked young enough for a +white bonnet; it flushed and lit up, like an old flower revived in a +new spring. + +Richard leaned over towards her, and the two old lovers kissed each +other. Richard moved his chair close to hers, and Sylvia felt his arm +coming around her waist. She sat still. "Put your head down on my +shoulder," whispered Richard. + +And Sylvia laid her head on Richard's shoulder. She felt as if she +were dreaming of a dream. + + + +Chapter XIII + + +When Richard Alger went home he wore an old brown shawl of Sylvia's +over his shoulders. He had demurred a little. "I can't go down the +street with your shawl on, Sylvia," he had pleaded, but Sylvia +insisted. + +"You'll catch your death of cold, goin' home in your shirt-sleeves," +she said. "They won't know it's my shawl. Men wear shawls." + +"You've worn this ever since I've known you, Sylvia, an' I ain't +given to catchin' cold easy," said Richard almost pitifully. But he +stood still and let Sylvia pin the shawl around his neck. Sylvia +seemed to have suddenly acquired a curious maternal authority over +him, and he submitted to it as if it were merely natural that he +should. + +Richard Alger went meekly down the road, wearing the old brown shawl +that had often draped Sylvia Crane's slender feminine shoulders when +she walked abroad, since she was a young girl. Sylvia had always worn +it corner-wise, but she had folded it square for him as making it +more of a masculine garment. Two corners waved out stiffly from his +square shoulders. He tried to swing his arms unconcernedly under it; +once the fringe hit his hand and he jumped. + +He was shame-faced when he struck out into the main road, but he did +not dream of taking off the shawl. A very passion of obedience and +loyalty to Sylvia had taken possession of him. With every submission +after long persistency, there is a strong reverse action, as from the +sudden cessation of any motion. Richard now yielded in more marked +measure than he had opposed. He had borne with his whimsical will +against all his sweetheart's dearest wishes during the better part of +her life; now he would wear any insignia of bondage if she bade him. + +He had gone a short distance on the main road when he met Hannah +Berry. She was hurrying along, her face was quite red, and he could +hear her pant as she drew near. She looked at him sharply, she fairly +narrowed her eyes over the shawl. "Good-mornin'," said she. + +Richard said "Good-morning," gruffly. The shawl blew out against +Hannah's shoulder as she passed him. She turned about and stared +after him, and he knew it. He went on with dogged chin in the folds +of the shawl. + +Hannah Berry hurried along to Sylvia Crane's. When she opened the +door Sylvia was just coming out of the parlor, and the two sisters +met in the entry with a kind of shock. + +"Oh, it's you," murmured Sylvia. Sylvia cast down her eyes before her +sister. She tried not to smile. Her hair was tumbled and there were +red spots on her cheeks. + +"Has he been here all this time?" demanded Hannah. + +"He's just gone." + +"I met him out here. What in creation did you rig him up in your old +shawl for, Sylvy Crane?" + +"He was in his shirt-sleeves, an' I wasn't goin' to have him catch +his death of cold," replied Sylvia with dignity. + +"In his shirt-sleeves!" + +"Yes, he run out just as he was." + +"Land sakes!" said Hannah. The two women looked at each other. +Suddenly Hannah threw out her arms from under her shawl, and clasped +Sylvia. "Oh, Sylvy," she sobbed out, "to think you was settin' out +for the poor-house this mornin', an' we havin' a weddin' last night, +an' never knowin' it! Why didn't you say anythin' about it, why +didn't you, Sylvy?" + +"I knew you couldn't do anything, Hannah." + +"Knew I couldn't do anything! Do you suppose me or Sarah would have +let all the sister we've got go to the poor-house whilst we had a +roof over our heads? We'd took you right in, either one of us." + +"I was afraid Silas an' Cephas wouldn't be willin'." + +"I guess they'd had to be willin'. I told Silas just now that if +Richard Alger didn't come forward like a man, you was comin' to my +house, an' have the best we've got as long as you lived. Silas, he +said he thought you'd ought to earn your own livin', an' I told him +there wa'n't any chance for a woman like you to earn your livin' in +Pembroke, that you could earn your livin' enough livin' at your own +sister's. Oh, Sylvy, I can't stand it, when I think of your startin' +out that way, an' never sayin' a word." Hannah sobbed convulsively on +her sister's shoulder. There were tears in Sylvia's eyes, but her +face above her sister's head was radiant. "Don't, Hannah," she said. +"It's all over now, you know." + +"Is he--goin' to have you now--Sylvy?" + +"I guess so, maybe," said Sylvia. + +"I suppose you'll go to his house, this is so run down." + +"He's goin' to fix this one up." + +"You think you'd rather live here, then? Well, I s'pose I should. I +s'pose he's goin' to buy it. The town hadn't ought to ask much. Sylvy +Crane, I can't get it through my head, nohow." + +"What?" said Sylvia. + +"How you run out this nice place so quick. I thought an' Sarah +thought you'd got enough to last you jest as long as you lived, an' +have some left to leave then." + +Hannah stood back and looked at her sister sharply. + +"I've always been as savin' as I knew how," said Sylvia. + +"Well, I dunno but you have. You got that sofa, that cost +considerable. I shouldn't have thought you'd got that, if you'd known +how things were, Sylvy." + +"I kinder felt as if I needed it." + +"Well, I guess you might have got along without that, anyhow. +Richard's got one, ain't he?" + +"Yes, he says he has." + +"I thought I remembered his mother's buyin' one just before his +father died. Well, you'll have his sofa, then; if I remember right, +it's a better one than yours that you give Rose. Now, Sylvy Crane, +you jest put on your hood an' shawl, an' come home with me, an' have +some dinner. Have you got anything in the house to eat?" + +"I've got a few things," replied Sylvia, evasively. + +"What?" + +"Some potatoes an' apples." + +"Potatoes an' apples!" Hannah began to sob again. "To think of your +comin' to this," she wailed. "My own sister not havin' anything in +the house to eat, an' settin' out for the poor-house, an' everybody +in town knowin' it." + +"Don't feel bad about it, Hannah; it's all over now," said Sylvia. + +"Don't feel bad about it! I guess you'd feel bad about it if you was +in my place," returned Hannah. "I s'pose you think now you've got +Richard Alger that there's nothin' else makes any odds. I guess I've +got some feelin's. Get your hood and shawl, now do; dinner was all +ready when I come away." + +"I guess I'd better not, Hannah," said Sylvia. It seemed to her that +she never would want anything to eat again. She wanted to be alone in +her old house, and hug her happiness to her heart, whose starvation +had caused her more agony than any other. Now that was appeased she +cared for nothing else. + +"You come right along," said Hannah. "I've got a nice roast spare-rib +an' turnip an' squash, an' you're goin' to come an' have some of it." + +When Hannah and Sylvia got out on the main road, they heard Sarah +Barnard's voice calling them. She was hurrying down the hill. Cephas +had just come home with the news. Jonathan Leavitt had spread it over +the village from the nucleus of the store where he had stopped on his +way home. + +Sarah Barnard sat down on the snowy stone-wall among the last year's +blackberry vines, and cried as if her heart would break. Finally +Hannah, after joining with her awhile, turned to and comforted her. + +"Land sake, don't take on so, Sarah Barnard!" said she; "it's all +over now. Sylvy's goin' to marry Richard Alger, an' there ain't a man +in Pembroke any better off, unless it's Squire Payne. She's goin' to +have him right off, an' he's goin' to buy the house an' fix it up, +an' she's goin' to have all his mother's nice things, an' she's +comin' home with me now, an' have some nice roast spare-rib an' +turnip. There ain't nothin' to take on about." + +Hannah fairly pulled Sarah off the stone-wall. "Sylvy an' me have got +to go," said she. "You come down this afternoon, an' we'll all go +over to her house, an' talk it over. I s'pose Richard will come +to-night. I hope he'll shave first, an' put on his coat. I never see +such a lookin' sight as he was when I met him jest now." + +"I didn't see as he looked very bad," said Sylvia, with dignity. + +"It seems as if it would kill me jest to think of it," sobbed Sarah +Barnard, turning tremulously away. + +"Don't you feel bad about it any longer, Sarah," Sylvia said, half +absently. Her hair blew out wildly from under her hood over her +flushed cheeks; she smiled as if at something visible, past her +sister, and past everything around her. + +"I tell you there ain't nothin' to be killed about!" Hannah called +after Sarah; she caught hold of Sylvia's arm. "Sarah always was kind +of hystericky," said she. "That spare-rib will be all dried up, an' I +wouldn't give a cent for it, if you don't come along." + +Richard Alger and Sylvia Crane were married very soon. There was no +wedding, and people were disappointed about that. Hannah Berry tried +to persuade Sylvia to have one. "I'm willin' to make the cake," said +she. "I've jest been through one weddin', but I'll do it. If I'd been +goin' with a feller as long as you have with him, I wouldn't get +cheated out of a weddin', anyhow. I'd have a weddin' an' I'd have +cake, an' I'd ask folks, especially after what's happened. I'd let +'em see I wa'n't quite so far gone, if I had set out for the +poor-house once. I'd have a weddin'. Richard's got money enough. I +had real good-luck with Rose's cake, an' I ain't afraid to try yours. +I guess I should make it a little mite stiffer than I did hers." + +But Sylvia was obdurate. She did not say much, but she went her own +way. She had gained a certain quiet decision and dignity which +bewildered everybody. Her sisters had dimly realized that there was +something about her out of plumb, as it were. Her nature had been +warped to one side by one concentrated and unsatisfied desire. "Seems +to me, sometimes, as if Sylvy was kind of queer," Hannah Berry often +said. "I dunno but she's kinder turned on Richard Alger," Sarah would +respond. Now she seemed suddenly to have regained her equilibrium, +and no longer slanted doubtfully across her sisters' mental horizons. + +She and Richard went to the minister's house early one Sabbath +morning, and were married. Then they went to meeting, Sylvia on +Richard's arm. They sat side by side in the Alger pew; it was on the +opposite side of the meeting-house from Sylvia's old pew. It seemed +to her as if she would see her old self sitting there alone, as of +old, if she looked across. She fixed her eyes straight ahead, and +never glanced at Richard by her side. She held her white-bonneted +head up like some gentle flower which had sprung back to itself after +a hard wind. She had a new white bridal bonnet, as Richard had +wished; it was trimmed with white plumes and ribbons, and she wore a +long white-worked veil over her face. The wrought net-work, as +delicate as frost, softened all the hard lines and fixed tints, and +gave to her face an illusion of girlhood. She wore the two curls over +her cheeks. Richard had asked her why she didn't curl her hair as she +used to do. + +All the people saw Sylvia's white bonnet; it seemed to turn their +eyes like a brilliant white spot, which reflected all the light in +the meeting-house. But there were a few women who eyed more sharply +Sylvia's wedding-gown and mantilla, for she wore the very ones which +poor Charlotte Barnard had made ready for her own bridal. Sylvia was +just about her niece's height; the gown had needed a little taking in +to fit her thinner form, and that was all. + +Charlotte's mother had brought them over to Sylvia's one night, all +nicely folded in white linen towels. + +"Charlotte wants you to have 'em; she says she won't ever need 'em, +poor child!" she said, in response to Sylvia's remonstrances. Mrs. +Barnard's eyes were red, as if she had been crying. It had apparently +been harder for her to give up the poor slighted wedding-clothes than +for her daughter. Charlotte had not shed a tear when she took them +out of the chest and shook off the sprigs of lavender which she had +laid over them; but it seemed to her that she could smell that faint +elusive breath of lavender across the meeting-house when Sylvia came +in, and the rustle of her bridal-gown was as loud in her ears as if +she herself wore it. + +"Somebody might just as well have them, and have some good of them," +she had told her mother, and she spoke as if they were the garments +of some one who was dead. + +"Seems to me, as much as they cost, you'd ought to wear 'em +yourself," said her mother. + +"I never shall," Charlotte said, firmly; "and they might just as well +do somebody some good." Charlotte's New England thrift and practical +sense stretched her sentiment on the rack, and she never made a +sound. + +Barney, watching out from his window that Sunday, caught a flash of +green and purple from Sylvia's silken skirt as she turned the corner +of the old road with Richard. "She's got on Charlotte's +wedding-dress. She's--given it to her," he said, with a gasp. He had +never forgotten it since the day Charlotte had shown it to him. He +had pictured her in it, hundreds of times, to his own delight and +torment. He had a fierce impulse to rush out and strip his +Charlotte's wedding-clothes from this other bride's back. + +"She's gone and given it away, and she hasn't got a good silk dress +herself; she's wearing her old cloak to meeting," he half sobbed to +himself. He wondered piteously, thinking of his savings and of his +property since his father's death, if he might not, at least, buy +Charlotte a new silk dress and a mantilla. "I don't believe she'd be +mad," he said; "but I'm afraid her father wouldn't let her wear it." + +The more he thought of it the more it seemed as if he could not bear +it, unless he could buy Charlotte the silk dress. "Her clothes ain't +as good as mine," he said, and he thought of his best blue broadcloth +suit, and his flowered vest and silk hat. It seemed to him that with +all the terrible injury he was doing Charlotte, he also injured her +by having better clothes than she, and that that was something which +might be set right. + +As Barney sat by his window that Sunday afternoon he saw a man coming +down the hill. He watched him idly, then his heart leaped and he +leaned forward. The man advanced with a careless, stately swing, his +head was thrown back, his mulberry-colored coat had a sheen like a +leaf in the sun. The man was Thomas Payne. Barney turned white as he +watched him. He had not known he was in town, and his jealous heart +at once whispered that he had come to see Charlotte. Thomas Payne +came opposite the house, then passed out of sight. Barney sat with +staring eyes full of miserable questioning upon the road. Had he been +to see Charlotte? he speculated. He had come from that direction; but +Barney remembered, with a sigh of hope, that Squire Payne had a +sister, an old maiden lady, who lived a half-mile beyond Charlotte. +Perhaps Thomas Payne had been to see his aunt. + +[Illustration: "Thomas Payne advanced with a careless, stately +swing"] + +All the rest of the day Barney was in an agony of doubt and unrest +over the unsettled question. He had been living lately in a sort of +wretched peace of remorse and misery; now it was rudely shaken. He +walked the floor; at night he could not sleep. He seemed to be in a +very torture-chamber of his own making, and the tortures were worse +than any enemies could have devised. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting +up with Charlotte this Sunday night. Once he thought, wildly, of +going up the hill to see if there was a light in her parlor, but it +seemed to him as if the doubt was more endurable than the certainty +might be. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting up with Charlotte; he +called to mind all her sweet ways. Suppose she was looking and +speaking to Thomas Payne in this way or that way; his imagination +threw out pictures before him upon which he could not close his eyes. +He saw Thomas Payne's face all glowing with triumph, he saw +Charlotte's with the old look that she had worn for him. Charlotte's +caresses had been few and maidenly; they all came into his mind like +stings. He knew just how she would put her tender arm around this +other man's neck, how she would lift grave, willing lips to his. He +wished that they had never been for him, for all they seemed worth to +him now was this bitter knowledge. His fancy led him on and on to his +own torment. There was a bridal mist around Charlotte. He followed +the old courses of his own dreams, after his memories were passed, +and they caused him worse agony. + +The next morning Barney went to the store. It was absolutely +necessary for him to go, but he shunned everybody. He had a horrible +fear lest somebody should say, "Hallo, Barney, know Thomas Payne's +goin' to marry your old girl?" He had planned the very words, and the +leer of sly exultation that would accompany it. + +But he made his purchase and went out, and nobody spoke to him. He +had not seen Thomas Payne in the back part of the store behind the +stove. Presently Thomas got up and lounged leisurely out through the +store, exchanging a word with one and another on his way. When he got +out Barney was going down the road quite a way ahead of him. Thomas +Payne kept on in his tracks. There was another man coming towards +him, and presently he stood aside to let him pass. "Good-day, Royal," +said Thomas Payne. + +"Good-day, Thomas," returned the other. "When d'ye get home?" + +"Day before yesterday. How are you this winter, Royal?" + +"Well, I'm pretty fair to middlin'." The man's face, sunken in his +feeble chest far below the level of Thomas's eyes, looked up at him +with a sort of whimsical patience. His back was bent like a bow; he +had had curvature of the spine for years, from a fall when a young +man. + +"Glad to hear that," returned Thomas. The man passed him, walking as +if he were vainly trying to straighten himself at every step. He held +his knees stiff and threw his elbows back, but his back still curved +pitifully, although it seemed as if he were half cheating himself +into the belief that he was walking as straight as other men. + +Thomas walked on rapidly, lessening the distance between himself and +Barney. As he went on he began to have a curious fancy, which he +could hardly persuade himself was a fancy. It seemed to him that +Barney Thayer was walking like the man whom he had just met, that his +back had that same terrible curve. + +Thomas Payne stared in strange bewilderment at Barney's back. "It +can't be that he has spine disease, that he has got hurt in any way," +he thought to himself. The purpose with which he had started out +rather paled in his mind. He walked more rapidly. It certainly seemed +to him that Barney's back was bent. He got within hailing distance +and called out. + +"Hallo!" cried Thomas Payne. + +Barney turned around, and it seemed as if he turned with the feeble, +crooked motion of the other man. He saw Thomas Payne, and his face +was ghastly white, but he stood still and waited. + +"How are you?" Thomas said, gruffly, as he came up. + +"How are you, Thomas?" returned Barney. He looked at Thomas with a +dogged expectancy. He thought he was going to tell him that he was to +marry Charlotte. + +But Thomas was surveying him still in that strange bewilderment. +"Look here, Barney," said he, bluntly, "have you been sick? I haven't +heard of it." + +"No, I haven't," replied Barney, wonderingly. + +Thomas's eyes were fixed upon his back. "I didn't know but you had +got hurt or something," said he. + +Barney shook his head. Thomas thought to himself that his back was +certainly curved. "I guess I'll walk along with you a little way," +said he; "I've got something I wanted to say. For God's sake, Barney, +you are sick!" + +"No, I ain't sick." + +"You are white as death." + +"There's nothing the matter with me," Barney half gasped. He turned +and walked on, and his back still bent like a bow to Thomas Payne's +eyes. + +Thomas went on silently until they had passed a house just beyond. +Then he stopped again. "Look here, Barney," said he. + +"Well," said Barney. He stopped, but he did not turn or face Thomas. +He only presented to him that curved, or semblance of a curved, back. + +"I want to speak to you about Charlotte Barnard," said Thomas Payne, +abruptly. Barney waited without a word. + +"I suppose you'll think it's none of my business, and in one way it +isn't," said Thomas, "but I am going to say it for her sake; I have +made up my mind to. It seems to me it's time, if anybody cares +anything about her. What are you treating Charlotte Barnard so for, +Barnabas Thayer? It's time you gave an account to somebody, and you +can give it to me." + +Barney did not answer. + +"Speak, you miserable coward!" shouted Thomas Payne, with a sudden +threatening motion of his right arm. + +Then Barney turned, and Thomas started back at the sight of his face. +"I can't help it," he said. + +"Can't help it, you--" + +"I can't, before God, Thomas." + +"Why not?" + +Barney raised his right hand and pointed past Thomas. +"You--met--Royal Bennet just--now," he gasped, hoarsely. + +Thomas nodded. + +"You--saw--his--back?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, something like that ails me. I--can't help it--before God." + +"You don't mean--" Thomas said, and stopped, looking at Barney's +back. + +"I mean that's why I can't--help it." + +"Have you hurt your back?" Thomas asked, in a subdued tone. + +"I've hurt my soul," said Barney. "It happened that Sunday night +years ago. I--can't get over it. I am bent like his back." + +"I should think you'd better get over it, then, if that's all," +Thomas Payne said, roughly. + +"I--can't, any more than he can." + +"Do you mean your back's hurt? For God's sake talk sense, Barney!" +Thomas cried out, in bewilderment. + +"It's more than my back; it's me." + +Thomas stared at Barney; a horror as of something uncanny and +abnormal stole over him. Was the man's back curved, or had he by some +subtle vision a perception of some terrible spiritual deformity, only +symbolized by a curved spine? In a minute he gave an impatient stamp, +and tried to shake himself free from the vague pity and horror which +the other had aroused. + +"Do you know that you are ruining the life of the best woman that +ever lived?" he demanded, fiercely. + +Barney looked at him, and suddenly there was a flash as of something +noble in his face. + +"Look here, Thomas," he said, brokenly, in hoarse gasps. "Last night +I--went mad, almost, because--I thought--maybe you'd been to +see--her. I--saw you coming down the hill. I thought--I'd die +thinking of--you--with her. I can't tell you--what I've been through, +what I've suffered, and--what I suffer right along. I know I ain't to +be pitied. I know--there ain't any pity--anywhere for anything--like +this. I don't pity--myself. But it's awful. If you could get a sight +of it, you'd know." + +Again to Thomas Payne, looking at the other, it was as if he saw a +pale agonized face staring up at him from the midst of a curved mass +of deformity. He shuddered. + +"I don't know what to make of you, Barney Thayer," he said, looking +away. + +"There's one thing--I want to say," Barney went on. "I think there's +enough of a man left in me--I--think I've got strength enough to say +it. She--ought to be happy. I don't want her--wasting her whole +life--God knows--I don't--no matter what it does--to me. I--wish-- +See here, Thomas. I know you--like her. Maybe she'll--turn to you. It +seems as if she must. I hope you will--oh, for God's sake, be--good +to her, Thomas!" + +Thomas Payne's face was as white as Barney's. He turned to go. +"There's no use talking this way. You know Charlotte Barnard as well +as I do," he said. "You know she's one of the women that never love +any man but one. I don't want another man's wife, if she'd have me." +Suddenly he faced Barney again. "For God's sake, Barney," he cried +out, "be a man and go back to her, and marry her!" + +Barney shook his head; with a kind of a sob he turned around and went +his way without another word. Thomas Payne said no more; he stared +after Barney's retreating figure, and again the look of bewilderment +and horror was in his face. + +That afternoon he asked his father, with a casual air, if he had +heard anything about Barney Thayer getting his back injured in any +way. + +"Why, no, I can't say as I have," returned the squire. + +"I saw him this morning, and I thought his back looked as if it was +growing like Royal Bennet's. I dare say I imagined it," said Thomas. +Then he went out of the room whistling. + +But, during his few weeks' stay in Pembroke, he put the same question +to one and another, with varying results. Some said at once, with a +sudden look of vague horror, that it was so. That Barney Thayer was +indeed growing deformed; that they had noticed it. Others scouted the +idea. "Saw him this morning, and he's as straight as he ever was," +they said. + +Whether Barney Thayer's back was, indeed, bowed into that terrible +spinal curve or not, Thomas Payne could not tell by any agreement of +witnesses. If some, gifted with acute spiritual insight, really +perceived that dreadful warping of a diseased will, and clothed it +with a material image for their own grosser senses; or if Barney, +through dwelling upon his own real but hidden infirmity, had actually +come unconsciously to give it a physical expression, and walked at +times through the village with his back bent like his spirit, +although not diseased, Thomas Payne could only speculate. He finally +began to adopt the latter belief, as he himself, sometimes on meeting +Barney, thought that he walked as erect as he ever had. + +Thomas Payne stayed several weeks in Pembroke, and he did not go to +see Charlotte. Once he met her in the street, and stopped and shook +hands with gay heartiness. + +"He's got over caring about me," Charlotte thought to herself with a +strange pang, which shocked and shamed her. "Most likely he's got +somebody out West, where he is," she said to herself firmly; that she +ought to be glad if he had, and that she was; and yet she was not, +although she never owned it to herself, and was stanchly loyal to her +old love. + +Charlotte herself often fancied uneasily that Barney's back was +growing like Royal Bennet's. She watched him furtively when she +could. Then she would say to herself, another time, that she must +have imagined it. + +Thomas Payne went away the first of May. That evening Charlotte sat +on the door-step in the soft spring twilight. Her mother had just +come home from her sister Hannah Berry's. "Thomas Payne went this +afternoon," her mother said, standing before her. + +"Did he?" said Charlotte. + +"You might have had him if you hadn't stuck to a poor stick that +ain't fit to tie your shoes up!" Sarah cried out, with sudden +bitterness. Her voice sounded like Hannah Berry's. Charlotte knew +that was just what her aunt Hannah had said about it. + +"I don't ask him to tie my shoes up," returned Charlotte. + +"You can stan' up for him all you want to," said her mother. "You +know he's a poor tool, an' he's treatin' you mean. You know he can't +begin to come up to a young man like Thomas Payne." + +"Thomas Payne don't want me, and I don't want him; don't talk any +more about it, mother." + +"I think somebody ought to talk about it," said her mother, and she +pushed roughly past Charlotte into the house. + +Charlotte sat on the door-step a long while. "If Thomas Payne has got +anybody out West, I guess she'll be glad to see him," she thought. +The fancy pained her, and yet she seemed to see Thomas Payne and +Barney side by side, the one like a young prince--handsome and +stately, full of generous bravery--the other vaguely crouching +beneath some awful deformity, pitiful yet despicable in the eyes of +men, and her whole soul cleaved to her old lover. "What we've got is +ours," she said to herself. + +As she sat there a band of children went past, with a shrill, sweet +clamor of voices. They were out hanging May-baskets and bunches of +anemones. That was the favorite sport of the village children during +the month of May. The woods were full of soft, innocent, seeking +faces, bending over the delicate bells nodding in the midst of whorls +of dark leaves. Every evening, after sundown, there were mysterious +bursts of laughter and tiny scamperings around doors, and great balls +of bloom swinging from the latchets when they were opened; but no +person in sight, only soft gurgles of mirth and delight sounded +around a corner of darkness. + +After Charlotte went to bed that night she thought she heard somebody +at the south door. "It is the children with some may-flowers," she +thought. But presently she reflected that it was very late for the +children to be out. + +After a little while she got up, and stole down-stairs to the door, +feeling her way through the dark house. + +She opened the south door cautiously, and put her hand out. There +were no flowers swinging from the latch as she half expected. Her +bare feet touched something on the door-step; she stooped, and there +was a great package. + +Charlotte took it up, and went noiselessly back to her room with it. +She lighted a candle, and unfastened the paper wrappings. She gave a +little cry. There were yards of beautiful silk shimmering with lilac +and silver and rose-color, and there was also a fine lace mantle. + +Charlotte looked at them; she was quite pale and trembling. She +folded the silk and lace again carefully, and put them in a chest out +of sight. Then she went back to bed, and lay there crying wildly. + +"Poor Barney! poor Barney!" she sobbed to herself. + +The next evening, after Cephas and Sarah had gone to bed, Charlotte +crept out of the house with the package under her shawl. It was still +early. She ran nearly all the way to Barney Thayer's house; she was +afraid of meeting somebody, but she did not. + +She knocked softly on Barney's door, and heard him coming to open it +at once. When he saw her standing there he gave a great start, and +did not say anything. Charlotte thought he did not recognize her in +the dusk. + +"It's me, Barney," she said. + +"I know you," said Barney. She held out the package to him. "I've +brought this back," said she. + +Barney made no motion to take it from her. + +"I can't take it," she said, firmly. + +Suddenly Barney threw up his hands over his face. "Can't you take +just that much from me, Charlotte? Can't you let me do as much as +that for you?" he groaned out. + +"No, I can't," said Charlotte. "You must take it back, Barney." + +"Oh, Charlotte, can't you--take that much from me?" + +"I can take nothing from you as things are," Charlotte replied. + +"I wanted you to have a dress. I saw you had given the other away. I +didn't think--there was any harm in buying it for you, Charlotte." + +"It isn't your place to buy dresses for me as things are," said +Charlotte. She extended the package, and he took it, as if by force. +She heard him sob. + +"You must never try to do anything like this again," she said. "I +want you to understand it, Barney." + +Then she went away, and left him standing there holding his discarded +gift. + + + +Chapter XIV + + +After a while the village people ceased to have the affairs of Barney +Thayer and Charlotte Barnard particularly upon their minds. As time +went on, and nothing new developed in the case, they no longer dwelt +upon it. Circumstances, like people, soon show familiar faces, and +are no longer stared after and remarked. The people all became +accustomed to Barney living alone in his half-furnished house season +after season, and to Charlotte walking her solitary maiden path. They +seldom spoke of it among themselves; sometimes, when a stranger came +to town, they pointed out Barney and Charlotte as they would have any +point of local interest. + +"Do you see that house?" a woman bent on hospitable entertainment +said as she drove a matronly cousin from another village down the +street; "the one with the front windows boarded up, without any step +to the front door? Well, Barney Thayer lives there all alone. He's +old Caleb Thayer's son, all the son that's left; the other one died. +There was some talk of his mother's whippin' him to death. She died +right after, but they said afterwards that she didn't, that he run +away one night, an' went slidin' downhill, an' that was what killed +him; he'd always had heart trouble. I dunno; I always thought Deborah +Thayer was a pretty good woman, but she was pretty set. I guess +Barney takes after her. He was goin' with Charlotte Barnard years +ago--I guess 'twas as much as nine or ten years ago, now--an' they +were goin' to be married. She was all ready--weddin'-dress an' bonnet +an' everything--an' this house was 'most done an' ready for them to +move into; but one Sunday night Barney he went up to see Charlotte, +an' he got into a dispute with her father about the 'lection, an' the +old man he ordered Barney out of the house, an' Barney he went out, +an' he never went in again--couldn't nobody make him. His mother she +talked; it 'most killed her; an' I guess Charlotte said all she +could, but he wouldn't stir a peg. + +"He went right to livin' in his new house, an' he lives there now; he +ain't married, an' Charlotte ain't. She's had chances, too. Squire +Payne's son, he wanted her bad." + +The visiting cousin's mild, interrogative face peered out around the +black panel of the covered wagon at Barney's poor house; her +spectacles glittered at it in the sun. "I want to know!" said she, +with the expression of strained, entertained amiability which she +wore through her visit. + +When they passed the Barnard house the Pembroke woman partly drew +rein again; the old horse meandered in a zigzag curve, with his head +lopping. "That's where Charlotte Barnard lives," she said. Suddenly +she lowered her voice. "There she is now, out in the yard," she +whispered. + +Again the visiting cousin peered out. "She's good-lookin', ain't +she?" she remarked, cautiously viewing Charlotte's straight figure +and fair face as she came towards them out of the yard. + +"She ain't so good-lookin' as she used to be," rejoined the other +woman. "I guess she's goin' down to her aunt Sylvy's--Sylvy Crane as +was. She married Richard Alger a while ago, after she'd been goin' +with him over twenty year. He's fixed up the old Crane place. It got +dreadful run down, an' Sylvy she actually set out for the poor-house, +an' Richard he stopped Jonathan Leavitt, he was carryin' of her over +there, an' he brought her home, an' married her right off. That +brought him to the point. Sylvy lives on the old road; we can drive +round that way when we go home, an' I'll show you the place." + +When they presently drove down the green length of the old road, the +visiting cousin spied interestedly at Sylvia's house and Sylvia's own +delicate profile frilled about with lace, drooping like the raceme of +some white flower in one of the windows. + +"That's her at the window," whispered the Pembroke woman, "an' +there's Richard out there in the bean-poles." Just then Richard +peered out at them from the green ranks of the beans at the sound of +their wheels, and the Pembroke woman nodded, with a cough. + +They drove slowly out of the old road into the main-travelled one, +and presently passed the old Thayer house. A woman's figure fled +hurriedly up the yard into the house as they approached. There was a +curious shrinking look about her as she fled, her very clothes, her +muslin skirts, her light barège shawl, her green bonnet, seemed to +slant away before the eyes of the two women who were watching her. + +The Pembroke woman leaned close to her cousin's ear, and whispered +with a sharp hiss of breath. The cousin started and colored red all +over her matronly face and neck. She stared with a furtive shamed air +at poor Rebecca hastening into her house. The door closed after her +with a quick slam. + +It was always to Rebecca, years beyond her transgression, admitted +ostensibly to her old standing in the village, as if an odor of +disgrace and isolation still clung to her, shaken out from her every +motion from the very folds of her garments. It came in her own +nostrils wherever she went, like a miserable emanation of her own +personality. She always shrank back lest others noticed it, and she +always would. She particularly shunned strangers. The sight of a +strange woman clothed about with utter respectability and strictest +virtue intimidated her beyond her power of self-control, for she +always wondered if she had been told about her, and realized that, if +she had, her old disgrace had assumed in this new mind a hideous +freshness. + +After the door had slammed behind Rebecca the two women drove home, +and the guest was presently feasted on company-fare for supper, and +all these strange tragedies and histories to which she had listened +had less of a savor in her memory, than the fine green tea and the +sweet cake on her tongue. The hostess, too, did not have them in mind +any longer; she pressed the plum-cake and hot biscuits and honey on +her cousin, in lieu of gossip, for entertainment. The stories were +old to her, except as she found a new listener to them, and they had +never had any vital interest for her. They had simply made her +imagination twang pleasantly, and now they could hardly stir the old +vibrations. + +It seemed sometimes as if their hard story must finally grow old, and +lose its bitter savor to Charlotte and Barney themselves. Sometimes +Charlotte's mother looked at her inquiringly and said to herself, "I +don't believe she ever thinks about it now." She told Cephas so, and +the old man nodded. "She's a fool if she does," he returned, gruffly. + +Cephas had never told anybody how he had gone once to Barney Thayer's +door, and there stood long and delivered himself of a strange +harangue, wherein the penitence and desire for peace had been thinly +veiled by a half-wild and eccentric philosophy; but the gist of which +had been the humble craving for pardon of an old man, and his +beseeching that his daughter's lover, separated from her by his own +fault, should forget it and come back to her. + +"I haven't got anything to say about it," Barney had replied, and the +old man had seemed to experience a sudden shock and rebound, as from +the unexpected face of a rock in his path. + +However, he still hoped that Barney would relent and come. The next +Sunday evening he had himself laid the parlor fire all ready for +lighting, and hinted that Charlotte should change her dress. When +nobody came he looked more crestfallen than his daughter; she +suspected, although he never knew it. + +Charlotte had never learned any trade, but she had a reputation for +great natural skill with her needle. Gradually, as she grew older, +she settled into the patient single-woman position as assister at +feasts, instead of participator. When a village girl of a younger +generation than herself was to be married, she was in great demand +for the preparation of the bridal outfit and the finest needle-work. +She would go day after day to the house of the bride-elect, and sew +from early morning until late night upon the elaborate quilts, the +dainty linen, and the fine new wedding-gowns. + +She bore herself always with a steady cheerfulness; nobody dreamed +that this preparing others for the happiness which she herself had +lost was any trial to her. Nobody dreamed that every stitch which she +set in wedding-garments took painfully in a piece of her own heart, +and that not from envy. Her faithful needle, as she sewed, seemed to +keep her old wounds open like a harrow, but she never shrank. She saw +the sweet, foolish smiles and blushes of happy girls whose very wits +were half astray under the dazzle of love; she felt them half tremble +under her hands as she fitted the bridal-gowns to their white +shoulders, as if under the touch of their lovers. + +They walked before her and met her like doppelgängers, wearing the +self-same old joy of her own face, but she looked at them +unswervingly. It is harder to look at the likeness of one's joy than +at one's old sorrow, for the one was dearer. If Charlotte's task +whereby she earned her few shillings had been the consoling and +strengthening of poor forsaken, jilted girls, instead of the arraying +of brides, it would have been a happier and an easier one. + +But she sat sewing fine, even stitches by the light of the evening +candle, hearing the soft murmur of voices from the best rooms, where +the fond couples sat, smiling like a soldier over her work. She +pinned on bridal veils and flowers, and nobody knew that her own face +instead of the bride's seemed to smile mockingly at her through the +veil. + +She was much happier, although she would have sternly denied it to +herself, when she was watching with the sick and putting her +wonderful needle-work into shrouds, for it was in request for that +also. + +Except for an increase in staidness and dignity, and a certain +decorous change in her garments, Charlotte Barnard did not seem to +grow old at all. Her girlish bloom never faded under her sober +bonnet, although ten years had gone by since her own marriage had +been broken off. + +Barney used to watch furtively Charlotte going past. He knew quite +well when she was helping such and such a girl get ready to be +married. He saw her going home, a swift shadowy figure, after dark, +with her few poor shillings in her pocket. That she should go out to +work filled him with a fierce resentment. With a childish and +masculine disregard for all except bare actualities, he could not see +why she need to, why she could not let him help her. He knew that +Cephas Barnard's income was very meagre, that Charlotte needed her +little earnings for the barest necessaries; but why could she not let +him give them to her? + +Barney was laying up money. He had made his will, whereby he left +everything to Charlotte, and to her children after her if she +married. He worked very hard. In summer he tilled his great farm, in +winter he cut wood. + +The winter of the tenth year after his quarrel with Charlotte was a +very severe one--full of snow-storms and fierce winds, and bitterly +cold. All winter long the swamps were frozen up, and men could get +into them to cut wood. Barney went day after day and cut the wood in +a great swamp a mile behind his house. He stood from morning until +night hewing down the trees, which had gotten their lusty growth from +the graves of their own kind. Their roots were sunken deep among and +twined about the very bones of their fathers which helped make up the +rich frozen soil of the great swamp. The crusty snow was three feet +deep; the tall blackberry vines were hooped with snow, set fast at +either end like snares: it was hard work making one's way through +them. The snow was over the heads of those dried weeds which did not +blow away in the autumn, but stayed on their stalks with that +persistency of life that outlives death; but all the sturdy bushes, +which were almost trees, the swamp-pinks and the wild-roses, waxed +gigantic, lost their own outlines, and stretched out farther under +their loads of snow. + +Barney hewed wood in the midst of this white tangle of trees and +bushes and vines, which were like a wild, dumb multitude of +death-things pressing ever against him, trying to crowd him away. +When he hit them as he passed, they swung back in his face with a +semblance of life. If a squirrel chattered and leaped between some +white boughs, he started as if some dead thing had come to life, for +it seemed like the voice and motion of death rather than of life. + +Half a mile away at the right other wood-cutters were at work. When +the wind was the right way he could now and then hear the strokes of +their axes and a shout. Often as he worked alone, swinging his axe +steadily with his breath in a white cloud before his face, he amused +himself miserably--as one might with a bitter sweetmeat--with his old +dreams. + +He had no dreams in the present; they all belonged to the past, and +he dreamed them over as one sings over old songs. Sometimes it seemed +quite possible that they still belonged to his life, and might still +come true. + +Then he would hear a hoarse shout through the still air from the +other side of the swamp, and he would know suddenly that Charlotte +would never wait in his home yonder, while he worked, and welcome him +home at night. + +The other wood-cutters had families. They had to pass his lot on +their way out to the open road. Barney would either retreat farther +among the snowy thickets, or else work with such fury that he could +seem not to see them as they filed past. + +Often he did not go home at noon, and ate nothing from morn until +night. He cut wood many days that winter when the other men thought +the weather too severe and sat huddled over their fires in their +homes, shoving their chairs this and that way at their wives' +commands, or else formed chewing and gossiping rings within the +glowing radius of the red-hot store stove. + +"See Barney Thayer goin' cross lots with his axe as I come by," one +said to another, rolling the tobacco well back into his grizzled +cheek. + +"Works as if he was possessed," was the reply, in a +half-inarticulate, gruff murmur. + +"Well, he can if he wants to," said still another. "I ain't goin' to +work out-doors in any such weather as this for nobody, not if I know +it, an' I've got a wife an' eight children, an' he ain't got nobody." +And the man cast defiant eyes at the great store-windows, dim with +thick blue sheaves of frost. + +On a day like that Barney seemed to be hewing asunder not only the +sturdy fibres of oak and hemlock, but the terrible sinews of frost +and winter, and many a tree seemed to rear itself over him +threatening stiffly like an old man of death. Only by fierce contest, +as it were, could he keep himself alive, but he had a certain delight +in working in the swamp during those awful arctic days. The sense +that he could still fight and conquer something, were it only the +simple destructive force of nature, aroused in him new self-respect. + +Through snow-storms Barney plunged forth to the swamp, and worked all +day in the thick white slant of the storm, with the snow heaping +itself upon his bowed shoulders. + +People prophesied that he would kill himself; but he kept on day +after day, and had not even a cold until February. Then there came a +south rain and a thaw, and Barney went to the swamp and worked two +days knee-deep in melting snow. Then there was a morning when he +awoke as if on a bed of sharp knives, and lay alone all day and all +that night, and all the next day and that night, not being able to +stir without making the knives cut into his vitals. + +Barney lay there all that time, and his soul became fairly bound into +passiveness with awful fetters of fiery bone and muscle; sometimes he +groaned, but nobody heard him. The last night he felt as if his whole +physical nature was knitting about him and stifling him with awful +coils of pain. The tears rolled over his cheeks. He prayed with +hoarse gasps, and he could not tell if anybody heard him. A dim light +from a window in the Barnard house on the hill lay into the kitchen +opposite his bedroom door. He thought of Charlotte, as if he had been +a child and she his mother. The maternal and protecting element in +her love was all that appealed to him then, and all that he missed or +wanted. "Charlotte, Charlotte," he mumbled to himself with his +parched, quivering lips. + +At noon the next day Cephas Barnard came home from the store; he had +been down to buy some molasses. When he entered his kitchen he set +the jug down on the table with a hard clap, then stood still in his +wet boots. + +Sarah and Charlotte were getting dinner, both standing over the +stove. Sarah glanced at Cephas furtively, then at Charlotte; Cephas +never stirred. A pool of water collected around his boots, his brows +bent moodily under his cap. + +"Why don't you set down, Cephas, an' take off your boots?" Sarah +ventured at length, timidly. + +"Folks are fools," grunted Cephas. + +"I dunno what you mean, Cephas." + +Cephas got the boot-jack out of the corner, sat down, and began +jerking off the wet boots with sympathetic screws of his face. + +Sarah stood with a wooden spoon uplifted, eying him anxiously. +Charlotte went into the pantry. + +"There 'ain't anythin' happened, has there, Cephas?" said Sarah, +presently. + +Cephas pulled off the second boot, and sat holding his blue yarn +stocking-feet well up from the wet floor. "There ain't no need of +havin' the rheumatiz, accordin' to my way of thinkin'," said he. + +"Who's got the rheumatiz, Cephas?" + +"If folks lived right they wouldn't have it." + +"You 'ain't got it, have you, Cephas?" + +"I 'ain't never had a tech of it in my life except once, an' then +'twas due to my not drinkin' enough." + +"Not drinkin' enough?" + +"Yes, I didn't drink enough water. Folks with rheumatiz had ought to +drink all the water they can swaller. They had ought to drink more'n +they eat." + +"I dunno what you mean, Cephas." + +"It stands to reason. I've worked it all out in my mind. Rheumatiz +comes on in wet weather, because there's too much water an' damp +'round. Now, if there's too much water outside, you can kind of even +it up by takin' more water inside. The reason for any sickness +is--the balance ain't right. The weight gets shifted, an' folks begin +to topple, then they're sick. If it goes clean over, they die. The +balance has got to be kept even if you want to be well. When the +swamps are fillin' up with water, an' there's too much moisture in +the outside air, an' too much pressure of it on your bones an' +joints, if you swallow enough water inside it keeps things even. If +Barney Thayer had drunk a gallon of water a day, he might have worked +in the wet swamp till doomsday an' he wouldn't have got the +rheumatiz." + +"Has Barney Thayer got the rheumatiz, Cephas?" + +Charlotte's pale face appeared in the pantry door. + +"Yes, he has got it bad. 'Ain't stirred out of his bed since night +before last; been all alone; nobody knew it till William Berry went +in this forenoon. Guess he'd died there if he'd been left much +longer." + +"Who's with him now?" asked Charlotte, in a quick, strained voice. + +"The Ray boy is sittin' with him, whilst William is gone to the North +Village to see if he can get somebody to come. There's a widow woman +over there that goes out nussin', Silas said, an' they hope they can +get her. The doctor says he's got to have somebody." + +"Rebecca can't do anything, of course," said Sarah, meditatively; "he +'ain't got any of his own folks to come, poor feller." + +Charlotte crossed the kitchen floor with a resolute air. + +"What are you goin' to do, Charlotte?" her mother asked in a +trembling voice. + +Charlotte turned around and faced her father and mother. "I shouldn't +think you'd ask me," said she. + +"You ain't--goin'--over--?" + +"Of course I am going over there. Do you suppose I am going to let +him lie there and suffer all alone, with nobody to take care of him?" + +"There's--the woman--comin'." + +"She can't come. I know who the woman is. They tried to get her when +Squire Payne's sister died last week. Aunt Sylvy told me about it. +She was engaged 'way ahead." + +"Oh, Charlotte! I'm afraid you hadn't ought to go," her mother said, +half crying. + +"I've got to go, mother," Charlotte said, quietly. She opened the +door. + +"You come back here!" Cephas called after her in a great voice. + +Charlotte turned around. "I am going, father," said she. + +"You ain't goin' a step." + +"Yes, I am." + +"Oh, Charlotte! I'll go over," sobbed her mother. + +"You haven't gone a step out-doors for a month with your own lame +knee. I am the one to go, and I am going." + +"You ain't goin' a step." + +"Oh, Charlotte! I'm afraid you hadn't better," wailed Sarah. + +Charlotte stood before them both. "Look here, father and mother," +said she. "I've never gone against your wishes in my life, but now +I'm going to. It's my duty to. I was going to marry him once." + +"You didn't marry him," said Cephas. + +"I was willing to marry him, and that amounts to the same thing for +any woman," said Charlotte. "It is just as much my duty to go to him +when he's sick; I am going. There's no use talking, I am going." + +"You needn't come home again, then," said her father. + +"Oh, Cephas!" Sarah cried out. "Charlotte, don't go against your +father's wishes! Charlotte!" + +But Charlotte shut the door and hurried up-stairs to her room. Her +mother followed her, trembling. Cephas sat still, dangling his +stocking-feet clear of the floor. He had an ugly look on his face. +Presently he heard the two women coming down-stairs, and his wife's +sobbing, pleading voice; then he heard the parlor door shut; +Charlotte had gone through the house, and out the front door. + +Sarah came in, sniffing piteously. "Oh, Cephas! don't you be hard on +the poor child; she felt as if she had got to go," she said, +chokingly. + +Cephas got up, went padding softly and cautiously in his +stocking-feet across the floor to the sink, and took a long drink +with loud gulps out of the gourd in the water-pail. + +"I don't want to have no more talk about it; I've said my say," said +he, with a hard breath, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. + +Charlotte, with a little bundle under her arm, hastened down the +hill. When she reached Barney's house she went around and knocked at +the side door. As she went into the yard she could see dimly a +white-capped woman's head in a south window of the Thayer house +farther down the road, and she knew that Rebecca's nurse was watching +her. Rebecca's second baby was a week old, so she could do nothing +for her brother. + +Charlotte knocked softly and waited. She heard a loud clamping step +across the floor inside, and a whistle. A boy opened the door and +stood staring at her, half abashed, half impudently important, his +mouth still puckered with the whistle. + +"Is there anybody here but you, Ezra?" asked Charlotte. + +The boy shook his head. + +"I have come to take care of Mr. Thayer now," said Charlotte. + +She entered, and Ezra Ray stood aside, rolling his eyes after her as +she went through the kitchen. He whistled again half involuntarily, a +sudden jocular pipe on the brink of motion, like a bird. Charlotte +turned and shook her head at him, and he stopped short. He sat down +on a chair near the door, and dangled his feet irresolutely. + +Charlotte went into the bedroom where Barney lay, a rigidly twisted, +groaning heap under a mass of bed-clothing, which Ezra Ray had kept +over him with energy. She bent over him. "I've come to take care of +you, Barney," said she. His eyes, half dazed in his burning face, +looked up at her with scarcely any surprise. + +[Illustration: "'I've come to take care of you'"] + +Charlotte laid back some of the bedclothes whose weight was a +torture, and straightened the others. She worked about the house +noiselessly and swiftly. She was skilful in the care of the sick; she +had had considerable experience. Soon everything was clean and in +order; there was a pleasant smell of steeping herbs through the +house. Charlotte had set an old remedy of her mother's steeping over +the fire--a harmless old-wives' decoction, with which to supplement +the doctor's remedies, and give new courage to the patient's mind. + +Barney came to think that this remedy which Charlotte prepared was of +more efficacy than any which the doctor mixed in his gallipots. That +is, when he could think at all, and his mind and soul was able to +reassert itself over his body. He had a hard illness, and after he +was out of bed he could only sit bent miserably over in a +quilt-covered rocking-chair beside the fire. He could not straighten +himself up without agonizing pain. People thought that he never +would, and he thought so himself. His grandfather, his mother's +father, had been in a similar condition for years before his death. +People called that to mind, and so did Barney. "He's goin' to be the +way his grandfather Emmons was," the men said in the store. Barney +could dimly remember that old figure bent over almost on all-fours +like a dog; its wretched, grizzled face turned towards the earth with +a brooding sternness of contemplation. He wondered miserably where +his grandfather's old cane was, when he should be strong enough in +his pain-locked muscles to leave his rocking-chair and crawl about in +the spring sunshine. It used to be in the garret of the old house. He +thought that he would ask Rebecca or William to look for it some day. +He hesitated to speak about it. He half dreaded to think that the +time was coming when he would be strong enough to move about, for +then he was afraid Charlotte would leave him and go home. He had been +afraid that she would when he left his bed. He had a childishly +guilty feeling that he had perhaps stayed there a little longer than +was necessary on that account. One Sunday the doctor had said quite +decisively to Charlotte, "It won't hurt him any to be got up a little +while to-morrow. It will be better for him. You can get William to +come in and help." Charlotte had come back from the door and reported +to Barney, and he had turned his face away with a quivering sigh. + +"Why, what is the matter? Don't you want to be got up?" asked +Charlotte. + +"Yes," said Barney, miserably. + +"What is the matter?" Charlotte said, bending over him. "Don't you +feel well enough?" + +Barney gave her a pitiful, shamed look like a child. "You'll go, +then," he half sobbed. + +Charlotte turned away quickly. "I shall not go as long as you need +me, Barney," she said, with a patient dignity. + +Barney did not dream against what odds Charlotte had stayed with him. +Her mother had come repeatedly, and expostulated with her out in the +entry when she went away. + +"It ain't fit for you to stay here, as if you was married to him, +when you ain't, and ain't ever goin' to be, as near as I can make +out," she said. "William can get that woman over to the North Village +now, or I can come, or your aunt Hannah would come for a while, till +Rebecca gets well enough to see to him a little. She was sayin' +yesterday that it wa'n't fit for you to stay here." + +"I'm here, and I'm going to stay here till he's better than he is +now," said Charlotte. + +"Folks will talk." + +"I can't help it if they do. I'm doing what I think is right." + +"It ain't fit for an unmarried woman like you to be takin' care of +him," said her mother, and a sudden blush flamed over her old face. + +Charlotte did not blush at all. "William comes in every day," she +said, simply. + +"I think he could get along a while now with what William does an' +what we could cook an' bring in," pleaded her mother. "I'd come over +every day an' set a while; I'd jest as lieves as not. If you'd only +come home, Charlotte. Your father didn't mean anythin' when he said +you shouldn't. He asked me jest this mornin' when you was comin'." + +"I ain't coming till he's well enough so he don't need me," said +Charlotte. "There's no use talking, mother. I must go back now; he'll +wonder what we're talking about;" and she shut the door gently upon +her mother, still talking. + +Her aunt Hannah came, and her aunt Sylvia, quaking with gentle fears. +She even had to listen to remonstrances from William Berry, honestly +grateful as he was for her care of his brother-in-law. + +"I ain't quite sure that it's right for you to stay here, Charlotte," +he said, looking away from her uncomfortably. "Rebecca says--'Hadn't +you better let me go for that woman again?'" + +"I think I had better stay for the present," Charlotte replied. + +"Of course--I know you do better for him--than anybody else could, +but--" + +"How is Rebecca?" asked Charlotte. + +"She is getting along pretty well, but it's slow. She's kind of +worried about you, you know. She's had considerable herself to bear. +It's hard to have folks--" William stopped short, his face burning. + +"I am not afraid, if I know I am doing what is right," said +Charlotte. "You tell Rebecca I am coming in to see her as soon as I +can get a chance." + +One contingency had never occurred to Barney in his helpless clinging +to Charlotte. He had never once dreamed that people might talk +disparagingly about her in consequence. He had, partly from his +isolated life, partly from natural bent, a curious innocence and +ignorance in his conception of human estimates of conduct. He had not +the same vantage-points with many other people, and indeed in many +cases seemed to hold the identical ones which he had chosen when a +child and first observed anything. + +If now and then he overheard a word of expostulation, he never +interpreted it rightly. He thought that people considered it wrong +for Charlotte to do so much for him, and weary herself, when he had +treated her so badly. And he agreed with them. + +He thought that he should never stand upright again. He went always +before his own mental vision bent over like his grandfather, his face +inclined ever downward towards his miserable future. + +Still, as he sat after William had gotten him up in the morning, +bowed over pitifully in his chair, there was at times a strange look +in his eyes as he watched Charlotte moving about, which seemed +somehow to give the lie to his bent back. Often Charlotte would start +as she met this look, and think involuntarily that he was quite +straight; then she would come to her old vision with a shock, and see +him sitting there as he was. + +At last there came a day when the minister and one of the deacons of +the church called and asked to see Charlotte privately. Barney looked +at them, startled and quite white. They sat with him quite a long +while, when, after many coercive glances between the deacon and the +minister, the latter had finally arisen and made the request, in a +trembling, embarrassed voice. + +Charlotte led them at once into the unfinished front parlor, with its +boarded-up windows. Barney heard her open the front door to give them +light and air. He sat still and waited, breathing hard. A terrible +dread and curiosity came over him. It seemed as if his soul +overreached his body into that other room. Without overhearing a +word, suddenly a knowledge quite foreign to his own imagination +seemed to come to him. + +Presently he heard the front door shut, then Charlotte came in alone. +She was very pale, but she had a sweet, exalted look as her eyes met +Barney's. + +"Have they gone?" he asked, hoarsely. + +Charlotte nodded. + +"What--did they want?" + +"Never mind," said Charlotte. + +"I want to know." + +"It is nothing for you to worry about." + +"I know," said Barney. + +"You didn't hear anything?" Charlotte cried out in a startled voice. + +"No, I didn't hear, but I know. The church--don't--think you ought +to--stay here. They are--going to--take it--up. I never--thought of +that, Charlotte. I never thought of that." + +"Don't you worry anything about it." Charlotte had never touched him, +except to minister to his illness, since she had been there. Now she +went close, and smoothed his hair with her tender hands. "Don't you +worry," she said again. + +Barney looked up in her face. "Charlotte." + +"What is it?" + +"I--want you--to go--home." + +Charlotte started. "I shall not go home as long as you need me," she +said. "You need not think I mind what they say." + +"I--want you to go home." + +"Barney!" + +"I mean what--I say. I--want you to go--now." + +"Not now?" + +"Yes, now." + +Charlotte drew back; her lips wore a white line. She went out into +the front south room, where she had slept. She did not come back. +Barney listened until he heard the front door shut after her. Then he +waited fifteen minutes, with his eyes upon the clock. Then he got up +out of his chair. He moved his body as if it were some piece of +machinery outside himself, as if his will were full of dominant +muscles. He got his hat off the peg, where it had hung for weeks; he +went out of the house and out of the yard. + +His sister Rebecca was moving feebly up the road with her little baby +in her arms. She was taking her first walk out in the spring +sunshine. The nurse had gone away the week before. Her face was clear +and pale. All her sweet color was gone, but her eyes were radiant, +and she held up her head in the old way. This new love was lifting +her above her old memories. + +She stared wonderingly over the baby's little downy head at her +brother. "It can't be Barney," she said out loud to herself. She +stood still in the road, staring after him with parted lips. The baby +wailed softly, and she hushed it mechanically, her great, happy, +startled eyes fixed upon her brother. + +Barnabas went on up the hill to Charlotte Barnard's. The spring was +advancing. All the trees were full of that green nebula of life which +comes before the blossom. Little wings, bearing birds and songs, cut +the air. A bluebird shone on a glistening fence-rail, like a jewel on +a turned hand. Over across the fields red oxen were moving down +plough-ridges, the green grass was springing, the air was full of +that strange fragrance which is more than fragrance, since it strikes +the thoughts, which comes in the spring alone, being the very odor +thrown off by the growing motion of life and the resurrection. + +Barney Thayer went slowly up the hill with a curious gait and strange +gestures, as if his own angel were wrestling with himself, casting +him off with strong motions as of wings. + +He fought, as it were, his way step by step. He reached the top of +the hill, and went into the yard of the Barnard house. Sarah Barnard +saw him coming, and shrieked out, "There's Barney, there's Barney +Thayer comin'! He's walkin', he's walkin' straight as anybody!" + +When Barney reached the door, they all stood there--Cephas and Sarah +and Charlotte. Barney stood before them all with that noble bearing +which comes from humility itself when it has fairly triumphed. + +Charlotte came forward, and he put his arm around her. Then he looked +over her head at her father. "I've come back," said he. + +"Come in," said Cephas. + +And Barney entered the house with his old sweetheart and his old +self. + +THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pembroke, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEMBROKE *** + +***** This file should be named 17428-8.txt or 17428-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/2/17428/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/17428-8.zip b/17428-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9d7582 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-8.zip diff --git a/17428-h.zip b/17428-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5fa1365 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h.zip diff --git a/17428-h/17428-h.htm b/17428-h/17428-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94fdc15 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/17428-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8807 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Pembroke</title> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pembroke, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pembroke + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: December 31, 2005 [EBook #17428] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEMBROKE *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin + + + + + +</pre> + +<pre> +Transcriber's Note: +The images for this text were scanned from the 1894 edition. + + + +</pre> +<h2 align="center">Pembroke</h2> +<h3 align="center"><i>Mary E. Wilkins</i></h3> +<p align="center">Harper & Brothers Publishers; New York: +1900</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem01.png" width="322" height="437" +alt="[Illustration: “‘It's beautiful,’ Rose said”]"> +</p> +<h4 align="center">Introductory Sketch</h4> +<p><cite>Pembroke</cite> was originally intended as a study of the +human will in several New England characters, in different phases +of disease and abnormal development, and to prove, especially in +the most marked case, the truth of a theory that its cure depended +entirely upon the capacity of the individual for a love which could +rise above all considerations of self, as Barnabas Thayer's love +for Charlotte Barnard finally did.</p> +<p>While Barnabas Thayer is the most pronounced exemplification of +this theory, and while he, being drawn from life, originally +suggested the scheme of the study, a number of the other +characters, notably Deborah Thayer, Richard Alger, and Cephas +Barnard, are instances of the same spiritual disease. Barnabas to +me was as much the victim of disease as a man with curvature of the +spine; he was incapable of straightening himself to his former +stature until he had laid hands upon a more purely unselfish love +than he had ever known, through his anxiety for Charlotte, and so +raised himself to his own level.</p> +<p>When I make use of the term abnormal, I do not mean unusual in +any sense. I am far from any intention to speak disrespectfully or +disloyally of those stanch old soldiers of the faith who landed +upon our inhospitable shores and laid the foundation, as on a very +rock of spirit, for the New England of to-day; but I am not sure, +in spite of their godliness, and their noble adherence, in the face +of obstacles, to the dictates of their consciences, that their +wills were not developed past the reasonable limit of nature. What +wonder is it that their descendants inherit this peculiarity, +though they may develop it for much less worthy and more trivial +causes than the exiling themselves for a question of faith, even +the carrying-out of personal and petty aims and quarrels?</p> +<p>There lived in a New England village, at no very remote time, a +man who objected to the painting of the kitchen floor, and who +quarrelled furiously with his wife concerning the same. When she +persisted, in spite of his wishes to the contrary, and the floor +was painted, he refused to cross it to his dying day, and always, +to his great inconvenience, but probably to his soul's +satisfaction, walked around it.</p> +<p>A character like this, holding to a veriest trifle with such a +deathless cramp of the will, might naturally be regarded as a +notable exception to a general rule; but his brethren who sit on +church steps during services, who are dumb to those whom they +should love, and will not enter familiar doors because of quarrels +over matters of apparently no moment, are legion. +<cite>Pembroke</cite> is intended to portray a typical New England +village of some sixty years ago, as many of the characters +flourished at that time, but villages of a similar description have +existed in New England at a much later date, and they exist to-day +in a very considerable degree. There are at the present time many +little towns in New England along whose pleasant elm or maple +shaded streets are scattered characters as pronounced as any in +Pembroke. A short time since a Boston woman recited in my hearing a +list of seventy-five people in the very small Maine village in +which she was born and brought up, and every one of the characters +which she mentioned had some almost incredibly marked physical or +mental characteristic.</p> +<p>However, this state of things—this survival of the more +prominent traits of the old stiff-necked ones, albeit their necks +were stiffened by their resistance of the adversary—can +necessarily be known only to the initiated. The sojourner from +cities for the summer months cannot often penetrate in the least, +though he may not be aware of it, the reserve and dignified +aloofness of the dwellers in the white cottages along the road over +which he drives. He often looks upon them from the superior height +of a wise and keen student of character; he knows what he thinks of +them, but he never knows what they think of him or themselves. +Unless he is a man of the broadest and most democratic tendencies, +to whom culture and the polish of society is as nothing beside +humanity, and unless he returns, as faithfully as the village birds +to their nests, to his summer home year after year, he cannot see +very far below the surfaces of villages of which Pembroke is +typical. Quite naturally, when the surfaces are broken by some +unusual revelation of a strongly serrate individuality, and the +tale thereof is told at his dinner-table with an accompaniment of +laughter and exclamation-points, he takes that case for an isolated +and by no means typical one, when, if the truth were told, the +village windows are full of them as he passes by.</p> +<p>However, this state of things must necessarily exist, and has +existed, in villages which, like Pembroke, have not been brought +much in contact with outside influences, and have not been studied +or observed at all by people not of their kind by birth or long +familiarity. In towns which have increased largely in population, +and have become more or less assimilated with a foreign element, +these characters do not exist in such a large measure, are more +isolated in reality, and have, consequently, less claim to be +considered types. But there have been, and are to-day in New +England, hundreds of villages like Pembroke, where nearly every +house contains one or more characters so marked as to be +incredible, though a writer may be prevented, for obvious reasons, +from mentioning names and proving facts.</p> +<p>There is often to a mind from the outside world an almost +repulsive narrowness and a pitiful sordidness which amounts to +tragedy in the lives of such people as those portrayed in +<cite>Pembroke</cite>, but quite generally the tragedy exists only +in the comprehension of the observer and not at all in that of the +observed. The pitied would meet pity with resentment; they would be +full of wonder and wrath if told that their lives were narrow, +since they have never seen the limit of the breadth of their +current of daily life. A singing-school is as much to them as a +symphony concert and grand opera to their city brethren, and a +sewing church sociable as an afternoon tea. Though the standard of +taste of the simple villagers, and their complete satisfaction +therewith, may reasonably be lamented, as also their restricted +view of life, they are not to be pitied, generally speaking, for +their unhappiness in consequence. It may be that the lack of +unhappiness constitutes the real tragedy.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="I">Chapter I</a></h4> +<p>At half-past six o'clock on Sunday night Barnabas came out of +his bedroom. The Thayer house was only one story high, and there +were no chambers. A number of little bedrooms were clustered around +the three square rooms—the north and south parlors, and the +great kitchen.</p> +<p>Barnabas walked out of his bedroom straight into the kitchen +where the other members of the family were. They sat before the +hearth fire in a semi-circle—Caleb Thayer, his wife Deborah, +his son Ephraim, and his daughter Rebecca. It was May, but it was +quite cold; there had been talk of danger to the apple blossoms; +there was a crisp coolness in the back of the great room in spite +of the hearth fire.</p> +<p>Caleb Thayer held a great leather-bound Bible on his knees, and +was reading aloud in a solemn voice. His wife sat straight in her +chair, her large face tilted with a judicial and argumentative air, +and Rebecca's red cheeks bloomed out more brilliantly in the heat +of the fire. She sat next her mother, and her smooth dark head with +its carven comb arose from her Sunday kerchief with a like +carriage. She and her mother did not look alike, but their motions +were curiously similar, and perhaps gave evidence to a subtler +resemblance in character and motive power.</p> +<p>Ephraim, undersized for his age, in his hitching, home-made +clothes, twisted himself about when Barnabas entered, and stared at +him with slow regard. He eyed the smooth, scented hair, the black +satin vest with a pattern of blue flowers on it, the blue coat with +brass buttons, and the shining boots, then he whistled softly under +his breath.</p> +<p>“Ephraim!” said his mother, sharply. She had a heavy +voice and a slight lisp, which seemed to make it more impressive +and more distinctively her own. Caleb read on ponderously.</p> +<p>“Where ye goin', Barney?” Ephraim inquired, with a +chuckle and a grin, over the back of his chair.</p> +<p>“Ephraim!” repeated his mother. Her blue eyes +frowned around his sister at him under their heavy sandy brows.</p> +<p>Ephraim twisted himself back into position. “Jest wanted +to know where he was goin',” he muttered.</p> +<p>Barnabas stood by the window brushing his fine bell hat with a +white duck's wing. He was a handsome youth; his profile showed +clear and fine in the light, between the sharp points of his dicky +bound about by his high stock. His cheeks were as red as his +sister's.</p> +<p>When he put on his hat and opened the door, his mother herself +interrupted Caleb's reading.</p> +<p>“Don't you stay later than nine o'clock, Barnabas,” +said she.</p> +<p>The young man murmured something unintelligibly, but his tone +was resentful.</p> +<p>“I ain't going to have you out as long as you were last +Sabbath night,” said his mother, in quick return. She jerked +her chin down heavily as if it were made of iron.</p> +<p>Barnabas went out quickly, and shut the door with a thud.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem02.png" width="453" height="362" +alt="[Illustration: “Barnabas went out quickly”]"></p> +<p>“If he was a few years younger, I'd make him come back an' +shut that door over again,” said his mother.</p> +<p>Caleb read on; he was reading now one of the imprecatory psalms. +Deborah's blue eyes gleamed with warlike energy as she listened: +she confused King David's enemies with those people who crossed her +own will.</p> +<p>Barnabas went out of the yard, which was wide and deep on the +south side of the house. The bright young grass was all snowed over +with cherry blossoms. Three great cherry-trees stood in a row +through the centre of the yard; they had been white with blossoms, +but now they were turning green; and the apple-trees were in +flower.</p> +<p>There were many apple-trees behind the stone-walls that bordered +the wood. The soft blooming branches looked strangely incongruous +in the keen air. The western sky was clear and yellow, and there +were a few reefs of violet cloud along it. Barnabas looked up at +the apple blossoms over his head, and wondered if there would be a +frost. From their apple orchard came a large share of the Thayer +income, and Barnabas was vitally interested in such matters now, +for he was to be married the last of June to Charlotte Barnard. He +often sat down with a pencil and slate, and calculated, with +intricate sums, the amounts of his income and their probable +expenses. He had made up his mind that Charlotte should have one +new silk gown every year, and two new bonnets—one for summer +and one for winter. His mother had often noted, with scorn, that +Charlotte Barnard wore her summer bonnet with another ribbon on it +winters, and, moreover, had not had a new bonnet for three +years.</p> +<p>“She looks handsomer in it than any girl in town, if she +hasn't,” Barnabas had retorted with quick resentment, but he +nevertheless felt sensitive on the subject of Charlotte's bonnet, +and resolved that she should have a white one trimmed with gauze +ribbons for summer, and one of drawn silk, like Rebecca's, for +winter, only the silk should be blue instead of pink, because +Charlotte was fair.</p> +<p>Barnabas had even pondered with tender concern, before he bought +his fine flowered satin waistcoat, if he might not put the money it +would cost into a bonnet for Charlotte, but he had not dared to +propose it. Once he had bought a little blue-figured shawl for her, +and her father had bade her return it.</p> +<p>“I ain't goin' to have any young sparks buyin' your +clothes while you are under my roof,” he had said.</p> +<p>Charlotte had given the shawl back to her lover. “Father +don't feel as if I ought to take it, and I guess you'd better keep +it now, Barney,” she said, with regretful tears in her +eyes.</p> +<p>Barnabas had the blue shawl nicely folded in the bottom of his +little hair-cloth trunk, which he always kept locked.</p> +<p>After a quarter of a mile the stone-walls and the spray of apple +blossoms ended; there was a short stretch of new fence, and a new +cottage-house only partly done. The yard was full of lumber, and a +ladder slanted to the roof, which gleamed out with the fresh pinky +yellow of unpainted pine.</p> +<p>Barnabas stood before the house a few minutes, staring at it. +Then he walked around it slowly, his face upturned. Then he went in +the front door, swinging himself up over the sill, for there were +no steps, and brushing the sawdust carefully from his clothes when +he was inside. He went all over the house, climbing a ladder to the +second story, and viewing with pride the two chambers under the +slant of the new roof. He had repelled with scorn his father's +suggestion that he have a one-story instead of a story-and-a-half +house. Caleb had an inordinate horror and fear of wind, and his +father, who had built the house in which he lived, had it before +him. Deborah often descanted indignantly upon the folly of sleeping +in little tucked-up bedrooms instead of good chambers, because +folks' fathers had been scared to death of wind, and Barnabas +agreed with her. If he had inherited any of his father's and +grandfather's terror of wind, he made no manifestation of it.</p> +<p>In the lower story of the new cottage were two square front +rooms like those in his father's house, and behind them the great +kitchen with a bedroom out of it, and a roof of its own.</p> +<p>Barnabas paused at last in the kitchen, and stood quite still, +leaning against a window casement. The windows were not in, and the +spaces let in the cool air and low light. Outside was a long reach +of field sloping gently upward. In the distance, at the top of the +hill, sharply outlined against the sky, was a black angle of roof +and a great chimney. A thin column of smoke rose out of it, +straight and dark. That was where Charlotte Barnard lived.</p> +<p>Barnabas looked out and saw the smoke rising from the chimney of +the Barnard house. There was a little hollow in the field that was +quite blue with violets, and he noted that absently. A team passed +on the road outside; it was as if he saw and heard everything from +the innermost recesses of his own life, and everything seemed +strange and far off.</p> +<p>He turned to go, but suddenly stood still in the middle of the +kitchen, as if some one had stopped him. He looked at the new +fireless hearth, through the open door into the bedroom which he +would occupy after he was married to Charlotte, and through others +into the front rooms, which would be apartments of simple state, +not so closely connected with every-day life. The kitchen windows +would be sunny. Charlotte would think it a pleasant room.</p> +<p>“Her rocking-chair can set there,” said Barnabas +aloud. The tears came into his eyes; he stepped forward, laid his +smooth boyish cheek against a partition wall of this new house, and +kissed it. It was a fervent demonstration, not towards Charlotte +alone, nor the joy to come to him within those walls, but to all +life and love and nature, although he did not comprehend it. He +half sobbed as he turned away; his thoughts seemed to dazzle his +brain, and he could not feel his feet. He passed through the north +front room, which would be the little-used parlor, to the door, and +suddenly started at a long black shadow on the floor. It vanished +as he went on, and might have been due to his excited fancy, which +seemed substantial enough to cast shadows.</p> +<p>“I shall marry Charlotte, we shall live here together all +our lives, and die here,” thought Barnabas, as he went up the +hill. “I shall lie in my coffin in the north room, and it +will all be over,” but his heart leaped with joy. He stepped +out proudly like a soldier in a battalion, he threw back his +shoulders in his Sunday coat.</p> +<p>The yellow glow was paling in the west, the evening air was like +a cold breath in his face. He could see the firelight flickering +upon the kitchen wall of the Barnard house as he drew near. He came +up into the yard and caught a glimpse of a fair head in the ruddy +glow. There was a knocker on the door; he raised it gingerly and +let it fall. It made but a slight clatter, but a woman's shadow +moved immediately across the yard outside, and Barnabas heard the +inner door open. He threw open the outer one himself, and Charlotte +stood there smiling, and softly decorous. Neither of them spoke. +Barnabas glanced at the inner door to see if it were closed, then +he caught Charlotte's hands and kissed her.</p> +<p>“You shouldn't do so, Barnabas,” whispered +Charlotte, turning her face away. She was as tall as Barnabas, and +as handsome.</p> +<p>“Yes, I should,” persisted Barnabas, all radiant, +and his face pursued hers around her shoulder.</p> +<p>“It's pretty cold out, ain't it?” said Charlotte, in +a chiding voice which she could scarcely control.</p> +<p>“I've been in to see our house. Give me one more kiss. Oh, +Charlotte!”</p> +<p>“Charlotte!” cried a deep voice, and the lovers +started apart.</p> +<p>“I'm coming, father,” Charlotte cried out. She +opened the door and went soberly into the kitchen, with Barnabas at +her heels. Her father, mother, and Aunt Sylvia Crane sat there in +the red gleam of the firelight and gathering twilight. Sylvia sat a +little behind the others, and her face in her white cap had the +shadowy delicacy of one of the flowering apple sprays outside.</p> +<p>“How d'ye do?” said Barnabas in a brave tone which +was slightly aggressive. Charlotte's mother and aunt responded +rather nervously.</p> +<p>“How's your mother, Barnabas?” inquired Mrs. +Barnard.</p> +<p>“She's pretty well, thank you.”</p> +<p>Charlotte pulled forward a chair for her lover; he had just +seated himself, when Cephas Barnard spoke in a voice as sudden and +gruff as a dog's bark. Barnabas started, and his chair grated on +the sanded floor.</p> +<p>“Light the candle, Charlotte,” said Cephas, and +Charlotte obeyed. She lighted the candle on the high shelf, then +she sat down next Barnabas. Cephas glanced around at them. He was a +small man, with a thin face in a pale film of white locks and +beard, but his black eyes gleamed out of it with sharp fixedness. +Barnabas looked back at him unflinchingly, and there was a curious +likeness between the two pairs of black eyes. Indeed, there had +been years ago a somewhat close relationship between the Thayers +and the Barnards, and it was not strange if one common note was +repeated generations hence.</p> +<p>Cephas had been afraid lest Barnabas should, all unperceived in +the dusk, hold his daughter's hand, or venture upon other loverlike +familiarity. That was the reason why he had ordered the candle +lighted when it was scarcely dark enough to warrant it.</p> +<p>But Barnabas seemed scarcely to glance at his sweetheart as he +sat there beside her, although in some subtle fashion, perhaps by +some finer spiritual vision, not a turn of her head, nor a fleeting +expression on her face, like a wind of the soul, escaped him. He +saw always Charlotte's beloved features high and pure, almost +severe, but softened with youthful bloom, her head with fair hair +plaited in a smooth circle, with one long curl behind each ear. +Charlotte would scarcely have said he had noticed, but he knew well +she had on a new gown of delaine in a mottled purple pattern, her +worked-muslin collar, and her mother's gold beads which she had +given her.</p> +<p>Barnabas kept listening anxiously for the crackle of the hearth +fire in the best room; he hoped Charlotte had lighted the fire, and +they should soon go in there by themselves. They usually did of a +Sunday night, but sometimes Cephas forbade his daughter to light +the fire and prohibited any solitary communion between the +lovers.</p> +<p>“If Barnabas Thayer can't set here with the rest of us, he +can go home,” he proclaimed at times, and he had done so +to-night. Charlotte had acquiesced forlornly; there was nothing +else for her to do. Early in her childhood she had learned along +with her primer her father's character, and the obligations it +imposed upon her.</p> +<p>“You must be a good girl, and mind; it's your father's +way,” her mother used to tell her. Mrs. Barnard herself had +spelt out her husband like a hard and seemingly cruel text in the +Bible. She marvelled at its darkness in her light, but she believed +in it reverently, and even pugnaciously.</p> +<p>The large, loosely built woman, with her heavy, sliding step, +waxed fairly decisive, and her soft, meek-lidded eyes gleamed hard +and prominent when her elder sister, Hannah, dared inveigh against +Cephas.</p> +<p>“I tell you it is his way,” said Sarah Barnard. And +she said it as if “his way” was the way of the +King.</p> +<p>“His way!” Hannah would sniff back. “His way! +Keepin' you all on rye meal one spell, an' not lettin' you eat a +mite of Injun, an' then keepin' you on Injun without a mite of rye! +Makin' you eat nothin' but greens an' garden stuff, an' jest +turnin' you out to graze an' chew your cuds like horned animals one +spell, an' then makin' you live on meat! Lettin' you go abroad when +he takes a notion, an' then keepin' you an' Charlotte in the house +a year!”</p> +<p>“It's his way, an' I ain't goin' to have anything said +against it,” Sarah Barnard would retort stanchly, and her +sister would sniff back again. Charlotte was as loyal as her +mother; she did not like it if even her lover intimated anything in +disfavor of her father.</p> +<p>No matter how miserable she was in consequence of her +acquiescence with her father's will, she sternly persisted.</p> +<p>To-night she knew that Barnabas was waiting impatiently for her +signal to leave the rest of the company and go with her into the +front room; there was also a tender involuntary impatience and +longing in every nerve of her body, but nobody would have suspected +it; she sat there as calmly as if Barnabas were old Squire Payne, +who sometimes came in of a Sabbath evening, and seemed to be +listening intently to her mother and her Aunt Sylvia talking about +the spring cleaning.</p> +<p>Cephas and Barnabas were grimly silent. The young man suspected +that Cephas had prohibited the front room; he was indignant about +that, and the way in which Charlotte had been summoned in from the +entry, and he had no diplomacy.</p> +<p>Charlotte, under her calm exterior, grew uneasy; she glanced at +her mother, who glanced back. It was to both women as if they felt +by some subtle sense the brewing of a tempest. Charlotte +unobtrusively moved her chair a little nearer her lover's; her +purple delaine skirt swept his knee; both of them blushed and +trembled with Cephas's black eyes upon them.</p> +<p>Charlotte never knew quite how it began, but her father suddenly +flung out a dangerous topic like a long-argued bone of contention, +and he and Barnabas were upon it. Barnabas was a Democrat, and +Cephas was a Whig, and neither ever forgot it of the other. None of +the women fairly understood the point at issue; it was as if they +drew back their feminine skirts and listened amazed and trembling +to this male hubbub over something outside their province. +Charlotte grew paler and paler. She looked piteously at her +mother.</p> +<p>“Now, father, don't,” Sarah ventured once or twice, +but it was like a sparrow piping against the north wind.</p> +<p>Charlotte laid her hand on her lover's arm and kept it there, +but he did not seem to heed her. “Don't,” she said; +“don't, Barnabas. I think there's going to be a frost +to-night; don't you?” But nobody heard her. Sylvia Crane, in +the background, clutched the arms of her rocking-chair with her +thin hands.</p> +<p>Suddenly both men began hurling insulting epithets at each +other. Cephas sprang up, waving his right arm fiercely, and +Barnabas shook off Charlotte's hand and was on his feet.</p> +<p>“Get out of here!” shouted Cephas, in a hoarse +voice—“get out of here! Get out of this house, an' +don't you ever darse darken these doors again while the Lord +Almighty reigns!” The old man was almost inarticulate; he +waved his arms, wagged his head, and stamped; he looked like a +white blur with rage.</p> +<p>“I never will, by the Lord Almighty!” returned +Barnabas, in an awful voice; then the door slammed after him. +Charlotte sprang up.</p> +<p>“Set down!” shouted Cephas. Charlotte rushed +forward. “You set down!” her father repeated; her +mother caught hold of her dress.</p> +<p>“Charlotte, do set down,” she whispered, glancing at +her husband in terror. But Charlotte pulled her dress away.</p> +<p>“Don't you stop me, mother. I am not going to have him +turned out this way,” she said. Her father advanced +threateningly, but she set her young, strong shoulders against him +and pushed past out of the door. The door was slammed to after her +and the bolt shot, but she did not heed that. She ran across the +yard, calling: “Barney! Barney! Barney! Come back!” +Barnabas was already out in the road; he never turned his head, and +kept on. Charlotte hurried after him. “Barney,” she +cried, her voice breaking with sobs—“Barney, do come +back. You aren't mad at me, are you?” Barney never turned his +head; the distance between them widened as Charlotte followed, +calling. She stopped suddenly, and stood watching her lover's dim +retreating back, straining with his rapid strides.</p> +<p>“Barney Thayer,” she called out, in an angry, +imperious tone, “if you're ever coming back, you come +now!”</p> +<p>But Barney kept on as if he did not hear. Charlotte gasped for +breath as she watched him; she could scarcely help her feet running +after him, but she would not follow him any farther. She did not +call him again; in a minute she turned around and went back to the +house, holding her head high in the dim light.</p> +<p>She did not try to open the door; she was sure it was locked, +and she was too proud. She sat down on the flat, cool door-stone, +and remained there as dusky and motionless against the old gray +panel of the door as the shadow of some inanimate object that had +never moved.</p> +<p>The wind began to rise, and at the same time the full moon, +impelled softly upward by force as unseen as thought. Charlotte's +fair head gleamed out abruptly in the moonlight like a pale flower, +but the folds of her mottled purple skirt were as vaguely dark as +the foliage on the lilac-bush beside her. All at once the flowering +branches on a wide-spreading apple-tree cut the gloom like great +silvery wings of a brooding bird. The grass in the yard was like a +shaggy silver fleece. Charlotte paid no more attention to it all +than to her own breath, or a clock tick which she would have to +withdraw from herself to hear.</p> +<p>A low voice, which was scarcely more than a whisper, called her, +a slender figure twisted itself around the front corner of the +house like a vine. “Charlotte, you there?” Charlotte +did not hear. Then the whisper came again. +“Charlotte!”</p> +<p>Charlotte looked around then.</p> +<p>A slender white hand reached out in the gloom around the corner +and beckoned. “Charlotte, come; come quick.”</p> +<p>Charlotte did not stir.</p> +<p>“Charlotte, do come. Your mother's dreadful afraid you'll +catch cold. The front door is open.”</p> +<p>Charlotte sat quite rigid. The slender figure began moving +towards her stealthily, keeping close to the house, advancing with +frequent pauses like a wary bird. When she got close to Charlotte +she reached down and touched her shoulder timidly. “Oh, +Charlotte, don't you feel bad? He'd ought to know your father by +this time; he'll get over it and come back,” she +whispered.</p> +<p>“I don't want him to come back,” Charlotte whispered +fiercely in return.</p> +<p>Sylvia stared at her helplessly. Charlotte's face looked strange +and hard in the moonlight. “Your mother's dreadful +worried,” she whispered again, presently. “She thinks +you'll catch cold. I come out of the front door on purpose so you +can go in that way. Your father's asleep in his chair. He told your +mother not to unbolt this door to-night, and she didn't darse to. +But we went past him real still to the front one, an' you can slip +in there and get up to your chamber without his seeing you. Oh, +Charlotte, do come!”</p> +<p>Charlotte arose, and she and Sylvia went around to the front +door. Sylvia crept close to the house as before, but Charlotte +walked boldly along in the moonlight. “Charlotte, I'm +dreadful afraid he'll see you,” Sylvia pleaded, but Charlotte +would not change her course.</p> +<p>Just as they reached the front door it was slammed with a quick +puff of wind in their faces. They heard Mrs. Barnard's voice +calling piteously. “Oh, father, do let her in!” it +implored.</p> +<p>“Don't you worry, mother,” Charlotte called out. +“I'll go home with Aunt Sylvia.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte!” her mother's voice broke in +sobs.</p> +<p>“Don't you worry, mother,” Charlotte repeated, with +an unrelenting tone in the comforting words. “I'll go right +home with Aunt Sylvia. Come,” she said, imperatively to her +aunt, “I am not going to stand here any longer,” and +she went out into the road, and hastened down it, as Barnabas had +done.</p> +<p>“I'll take her right home with me,” Sylvia called to +her sister in a trembling voice (nobody knew how afraid she was of +Cephas); and she followed Charlotte.</p> +<p>Sylvia lived on an old road that led from the main one a short +distance beyond the new house, so the way led past it. Charlotte +went on at such a pace that Sylvia could scarcely keep up with her. +She slid along in her wake, panting softly, and lifting her skirts +out of the evening dew. She was trembling with sympathy for +Charlotte, and she had also a worry of her own. When they reached +the new house she fairly sobbed outright, but Charlotte went past +in her stately haste without a murmur.</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, don't feel so bad,” mourned her +aunt. “I know it will all come right.” But Charlotte +made no reply. Her dusky skirts swept around the bushes at the +corner of the road, and Sylvia hurried tremulously after her.</p> +<p>Neither of them dreamed that Barnabas watched them, standing in +one of the front rooms of his new house. He had gone in there when +he fled from Cephas Barnard's, and had not yet been home. He +recognized Charlotte's motions as quickly as her face, and knew +Sylvia's voice, although he could not distinguish what she said. He +watched them turn the corner of the other road, and thought that +Charlotte was going to spend the night with her aunt—he did +not dream why. He had resolved to stay where he was in his desolate +new house, and not go home himself.</p> +<p>A great grief and resentment against the whole world and life +itself swelled high within him. It was as if he lost sight of +individual antagonists, and burned to dash life itself in the face +because he existed. The state of happiness so exalted that it +became almost holiness, in which he had been that very night, flung +him to lower depths when it was retroverted. He had gone back to +first causes in the one and he did the same in the other; his joy +had reached out into eternity, and so did his misery. His natural +religious bent, inherited from generations of Puritans, and kept in +its channel by his training from infancy, made it impossible for +him to conceive of sympathy or antagonism in its fullest sense +apart from God.</p> +<p>Sitting on a pile of shavings in a corner of the north room, he +fairly hugged himself with fierce partisanship. “What have I +done to be treated in this way?” he demanded, setting his +face ahead in the darkness; and he did not see Cephas Barnard's +threatening countenance, but another, gigantic with its vague +outlines, which his fancy could not limit, confronting him with +terrible negative power like a stone image. He struck out against +it, and the blows fell back on his own heart.</p> +<p>“What have I done?” he demanded over and over of +this great immovable and silent consciousness which he realized +before him. “Have I not kept all thy commandments from +childhood? Have I ever failed to praise thee as the giver of my +happiness, and ask thy blessing upon it? What have I done that it +should be taken away? It was given to me only to be taken away. Why +was it given to me, then?—that I might be mocked? Oh, I am +mocked, I am mocked!” he cried out, in a great rage, and he +struck out in the darkness, and his heart leaped with futile pain. +The possibility that his misery might not be final never occurred +to him. It never occurred to him that he could enter Cephas +Barnard's house again, ask his pardon, and marry Charlotte. It +seemed to him settled and inevitable; he could not grasp any choice +in the matter.</p> +<p>Barnabas finally threw himself back on the pile of shavings, and +lay there sullenly. Great gusts of cold wind came in at the windows +at intervals, a loose board somewhere in the house rattled, the +trees outside murmured heavily.</p> +<p>“There won't be a frost,” Barnabas thought, his mind +going apace on its old routine in spite of its turmoil. Then he +thought with the force of an oath that he did not care if there was +a frost. All the trees this spring had blossomed only for him and +Charlotte; now there was no longer any use in that; let the +blossoms blast and fall!</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="II">Chapter II</a></h4> +<p>Sylvia Crane's house was the one in which her grandmother had +been born, and was the oldest house in the village. It was known as +the “old Crane place.” It had never been painted, it +was shedding its flapping gray shingles like gray scales, the roof +sagged in a mossy hollow before the chimney, the windows and doors +were awry, and the whole house was full of undulations and wavering +lines, which gave it a curiously unreal look in broad daylight. In +the moonlight it was the shadowy edifice built of a dream.</p> +<p>As Sylvia and Charlotte came to the front door it seemed as if +they might fairly walk through it as through a gray shadow; but +Sylvia stooped, and her shoulders strained with seemingly +incongruous force, as if she were spending it to roll away a +shadow. On the flat doorstep lay a large round stone, pushed close +against the door. There were no locks and keys in the old Crane +place; only bolts. Sylvia could not fasten the doors on the inside +when she went away, so she adopted this expedient, which had been +regarded with favor by her mother and grandmother before her, and +illustrated natures full of gentle fallacies which went far to make +existence comfortable.</p> +<p>Always on leaving the house alone the Crane women had bolted the +side door, which was the one in common use, gone out the front one, +and laboriously rolled this same round stone before it. Sylvia +reasoned as her mother and grandmother before her, with the same +simplicity: “When the stone's in front of the door, folks +must know there ain't anybody to home, because they couldn't put it +there if they was.”</p> +<p>And when some neighbor had argued that the evil-disposed might +roll away the stone and enter at will, Sylvia had replied, with the +innocent conservatism with which she settled an argument, +“Nobody ever did.”</p> +<p>To-night she rolled away the stone to the corner of the +door-step, where it had lain through three generations when the +Crane women were at home, and sighed with regret that she had +defended the door with it. “I wish I hadn't put the stone +up,” she thought. “If I hadn't, mebbe he'd gone in an' +waited.” She opened the door, and the gloom of the house, +deeper than the gloom of the night, appeared. “You wait here +a minute,” she said to Charlotte, “an' I'll go in an' +light a candle.”</p> +<p>Charlotte waited, leaning against the door-post. There was a +flicker of fire within. Then Sylvia held the flaring candle towards +her. “Come in,” she said; “the candle's +lit.”</p> +<p>There was a bed of coals on the hearth in the best room; Sylvia +had made a fire there before going over to her sister's, but it had +burned low. The glow of the coals and the smoky flare of the candle +lighted the room uncertainly, scattering and not dispelling the +shadows. There was a primly festive air in the room. The +flag-bottomed chairs stood by twos, finely canted towards each +other, against the wall; the one great hair-cloth rocker stood +ostentatiously in advance of them, facing the hearth fire; the long +level of the hair-cloth sofa gleamed out under stiff sweeps of the +white fringed curtains at the window behind it. The books on the +glossy card-table were set canting towards each other like the +chairs, and with their gilt edges towards the light. And Sylvia had +set also on the table a burnished pitcher of a rosy copper-color +full of apple blossoms.</p> +<p>She looked at it when she had set the candle on the shelf. It +seemed to her that all the light in the room centred on it, and it +shone in her eyes like a copper lamp.</p> +<p>Charlotte also glanced at it. “Why, Richard must have come +while you were over to our house,” she said.</p> +<p>“It don't make any odds if he did,” returned Sylvia, +with a faint blush and a bridle. Sylvia was much younger than her +sister. Standing there in the dim light she did not look so much +older than her niece. Her figure had the slim angularity and +primness which are sometimes seen in elderly women who are not +matrons, and she had donned a little white lace cap at thirty, but +her face had still a delicate bloom, and the wistful wonder of +expression which belongs to youth.</p> +<p>However, she never thought of Charlotte as anything but a child +as compared with herself. Sylvia felt very old, and the more so +that she grudged her years painfully. She stirred up the fire a +little, holding back her shiny black silk skirt carefully. +Charlotte stood leaning against the shelf, looking moodily down at +the fire.</p> +<p>“I wouldn't feel bad if I was you, Charlotte,” +Sylvia ventured, timidly.</p> +<p>“I guess we'd better go to bed pretty soon,” +returned Charlotte. “It must be late.”</p> +<p>“Had you rather sleep with me, Charlotte, or sleep in the +spare chamber?”</p> +<p>“I guess I'll go in the spare chamber.”</p> +<p>“Well, I'll get you a night-gown.”</p> +<p>Both of their faces were sober, but perfectly staid. They bade +each other good-night without a quiver; but Charlotte, after she +had said her dutiful and unquestioning prayer, and lay folded in +Sylvia's ruffled night-gown in the best bed, shook with great sobs. +“Poor Barney!” she kept muttering. “Poor Barney! +poor Barney!”</p> +<p>The doors were all open, and once she thought she heard a sob +from below, then concluded she must be mistaken. But she was not, +for Sylvia Crane was lamenting as sorely as the younger maiden +up-stairs. “Poor Richard!” she repeated, piteously. +“Poor Richard! There he came, and the stone was up, and he +had to go away.”</p> +<p>The faces which were so clear to the hearts of both women, as if +they were before their eyes, had a certain similarity. Indeed, +Richard Alger and Barnabas Thayer were distantly related on the +mother's side, and people said they looked enough alike to be +brothers. Sylvia saw the same type of face as Charlotte, only +Richard's face was older, for he was six years older than she.</p> +<p>“If I hadn't put the stone up,” she moaned, +“maybe he would have thought I didn't hear him knock, an' +he'd come in an' waited. Poor Richard, I dunno what he thought! +It's the first time it's happened for eighteen years.”</p> +<p>Sylvia, as she lay there, looked backward, and it seemed to her +that the eighteen years were all made up of the Sunday nights on +which Richard Alger had come to see her, as if they were all that +made them immortal and redeemed them from the dead past. She had +endured grief, but love alone made the past years stand out for +her. Sylvia, in looking back over eighteen years, forgot the +father, mother, and sister who had died in that time; their funeral +trains passed before her eyes like so many shadows. She forgot all +their cares and her own; she forgot how she had nursed her +bedridden mother for ten years; she forgot everything but those +blessed Sunday nights on which Richard Alger had come. She called +to mind every little circumstance connected with them—how she +had adorned the best room by slow degrees, saving a few cents at a +time from her sparse income, because he sat in it every Sunday +night; how she had had the bed which her mother and grandmother +kept there removed because the fashion had changed, and the guilty +audacity with which she had purchased a hair-cloth sofa to take its +place.</p> +<p>That adorning of the best room had come to be a religion with +Sylvia Crane. As faithfully as any worshipper of the Greek deity +she laid her offerings, her hair-cloth sofa and rocker, her +copper-gilt pitcher of apple blossoms, upon the altar of love.</p> +<p>Sylvia recalled, sobbing more piteously in the darkness, sundry +dreams, which had never been realized, of herself and Richard +sitting side by side and hand in hand, as confessed lovers, on that +sofa. Richard Alger, during all those eighteen years, had never +made love to Sylvia, unless his constant attendance upon Sabbath +evenings could be so construed, as it was in that rural +neighborhood, and as Sylvia was fain to construe it in her innocent +heart.</p> +<p>It is doubtful if Sylvia, in her perfect decorum and +long-fostered maiden reserve, fairly knew that Richard Alger had +never made love to her. She scarcely expected her dreams of +endearments to be realized; she regarded them, except in desperate +moods, with shame. If her old admirer had, indeed, attempted to sit +by her side upon that hair-cloth sofa and hold her hand, she would +have arisen as if propelled by stiff springs of modest virtue. She +did not fairly know that she was not made love to after the most +honorable and orthodox fashion without a word of endearment or a +caress; for she had been trained to regard love as one of the most +secret of the laws of nature, to be concealed, with shamefaced air, +even from herself; but she did know that Richard had never asked +her to marry him, and for that she was impatient without any +self-reserve; she was even confidential with her sister, +Charlotte's mother.</p> +<p>“I don't want to say anything outside,” she once +said, “but I do think it would be a good deal better for him +if we was settled down. He ain't half taken care of since his +mother died.”</p> +<p>“He's got money enough,” returned Mrs. Barnard.</p> +<p>“That can't buy everything.”</p> +<p>“Well, I don't pity him; I pity you,” said Mrs. +Barnard.</p> +<p>“I guess I shall get along a while longer, as far as that +goes,” Sylvia had replied to her sister, with some pride. +“I ain't worried on my account.”</p> +<p>“Women don't worry much on their own accounts, but they've +got accounts,” returned Mrs. Barnard, with more contempt for +her sister than she had ever shown for herself. “You're +gettin' older, Sylvy.”</p> +<p>“I know it,” Sylvia had replied, with a quick +shrinking, as if from a blow.</p> +<p>The passing years, as they passed for her, stung her like +swarming bees, with bitter humiliation; but never for herself, only +for Richard. Nobody knew how painfully she counted the years, how +she would fain have held time back with her thin hands, how +futilely and pitifully she set her loving heart against it, and not +for herself and her own vanity, but for the sake of her lover. She +had come, in the singleness of her heart, to regard herself in the +light of a species of coin to be expended wholly for the happiness +and interest of one man. Any depreciation in its value was of +account only as it affected him.</p> +<p>Sylvia Crane, sitting in the meeting-house of a Sunday, used to +watch the young girls coming in, as radiant and flawless as new +flowers, in their Sunday bests, with a sort of admiring envy, which +could do them no harm, but which tore her own heart.</p> +<p>When she should have been contrasting the wickedness of her soul +with the grace of the Divine Model, she was contrasting her fading +face with the youthful bloom of the young girls. “He'd ought +to marry one of them,” she thought; “he'd ought to, by +good rights.” It never occurred to Sylvia that Richard also +was growing older, and that he was, moreover, a few years older +than she. She thought of him as an immortal youth; his face was the +same to her as when she had first seen it.</p> +<p>When it came before a subtler vision than her bodily one, there +in the darkness and loneliness of this last Sunday night, it wore +the beauty and innocent freshness of a child. If Richard Alger +could have seen his own face as the woman who loved him saw it, he +could never have doubted his own immortality.</p> +<p>“There he came, an' the stone was up, an' he had to go +away,” moaned Sylvia, catching her breath softly. Many a time +she had pitied Richard because he had not the little womanly care +which men need; she had worried lest his stockings were not darned, +and his food not properly cooked; but to-night she had another and +strange anxiety. She worried lest she herself had hurt him and sent +him home with a heavy heart.</p> +<p>Sylvia had gone about for the last few days with her delicate +face as irresponsibly calm as a sweet-pea; nobody had dreamed of +the turmoil in her heart. On the Wednesday night before she had +nearly reached the climax of her wishes. Richard had come, +departing from his usual custom—he had never called except on +Sunday before—and remained later. It was ten o'clock before +he went home. He had been very silent all the evening, and had sat +soberly in the great best rocking-chair, which was, in a way, his +throne of state, with Sylvia on the sofa on his right. Many a time +she had dreamed that he came over there and sat down beside her, +and that night it had come to pass.</p> +<p>Just before ten o'clock he had arisen hesitatingly; she thought +it was to take leave, but she sat waiting and trembling. They had +sat in the twilight and young moonlight all the evening. Richard +had checked her when she attempted to light a candle. That had +somehow made the evening seem strange, and freighted with +consequences; and besides the white light of the moon, full of +mystic influence, there was something subtler and more magnetic, +which could sway more than the tides, even the passions of the +human heart, present, and they both felt it.</p> +<p>Neither had said much, and they had been sitting there nearly +two hours, when Richard had arisen, and moved curiously, rather as +if he was drawn than walked of his own volition, over to the sofa. +He sank down upon it with a little cough. Sylvia moved away a +little with an involuntary motion, which was pure maidenliness.</p> +<p>“It's getting late,” remarked Richard, trying to +make his voice careless, but it fell in spite of him into deep +cadences.</p> +<p>“It ain't very late, I guess,” Sylvia had returned, +tremblingly.</p> +<p>“I ought to be going home.”</p> +<p>Then there was silence for a while. Sylvia glanced sidewise, +timidly and adoringly, at Richard's smoothly shaven face, pale as +marble in the moonlight, and waited, her heart throbbing.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem03.png" width="393" height="348" +alt="[Illustration: “Sylvia glanced timidly at Richard's smoothly-shaven face”]"> +</p> +<p>“I've been coming here a good many years,” Richard +observed finally, and his own voice had a solemn tremor.</p> +<p>Sylvia made an almost inarticulate assent.</p> +<p>“I've been thinking lately,” said Richard; then he +paused. They could hear the great clock out in the kitchen tick. +Sylvia waited, her very soul straining, although shrinking at the +same time, to hear.</p> +<p>“I've been thinking lately,” said Richard again, +“that—maybe—it would be wise for—us both +to—make some different arrangement.”</p> +<p>Sylvia bent her head low. Richard paused for the second time. +“I have always meant—” he began again, but just +then the clock in the kitchen struck the first stroke of ten. +Richard caught his breath and arose quickly. Never in his long +courtship had he remained as late as that at Sylvia Crane's. It was +as if a life-long habit struck as well as the clock, and decided +his times for him.</p> +<p>“I must be going,” said he, speaking against the +bell notes. Sylvia arose without a word of dissent, but Richard +spoke as if she had remonstrated.</p> +<p>“I'll come again next Sunday night,” said he, +apologetically.</p> +<p>Sylvia followed him to the door. They bade each other good-night +decorously, with never a parting kiss, as they had done for years. +Richard went out of sight down the white gleaming road, and she +went in and to bed, with her heart in a great tumult of expectation +and joyful fear.</p> +<p>She had tried to wait calmly for Sunday night. She had done her +neat household tasks as usual, her face and outward demeanor were +sweetly unruffled, but her thoughts seemed shivering with rainbows +that constantly dazzled her with sweet shocks when her eyes met +them. Her feet seemed constantly flying before her into the future, +and she could scarcely tell where she might really be, in the +present or in her dreams, which had suddenly grown so real.</p> +<p>On Sunday morning she had curled her soft fair hair, and +arranged with trepidation one long light curl outside her bonnet on +each side of her face. Her bonnet was tied under her chin with a +green ribbon, and she had a little feathery green wreath around her +face inside the rim. Her wide silk skirt was shot with green and +blue, and rustled as she walked up the aisle to her pew. People +stared after her without knowing why. There was no tangible change +in her appearance. She had worn that same green shot silk many +Sabbaths; her bonnet was three summers old; the curls drooping on +her cheeks were an innovation, but the people did not recognize the +change as due to them. Sylvia herself had looked with pleased +wonder at her face in the glass; it was as if all her youthful +beauty had suddenly come up, like a withered rose which is dipped +in a vase.</p> +<p>“I sha'n't look so terrible old side of him when I go out +bride,” she reflected, happily, smiling fondly at herself. +All the way to meeting that Sunday morning she saw her face as she +had seen it in the glass, and it was as if she walked with +something finer than herself.</p> +<p>Richard Alger sat with the choir in a pew beside the pulpit, at +right angles with the others. He had a fine tenor voice, and had +sung in the choir ever since he was a boy. When Sylvia sat down in +her place, which was in full range of his eyes, he glanced at her +without turning his head; he meant to look away again directly, so +as not to be observed, but her face held him. A color slowly flamed +out on his pale brown cheeks; his eyes became intense and +abstracted. A soprano singer nudged the girl at her side; they both +glanced at him and tittered, but he did not notice it.</p> +<p>Sylvia knew that he was looking at her, but she never looked at +him. She sat soberly waving a little brown fan before her face; the +light curls stirred softly. She wondered what he thought of them; +if he considered them too young for her, and silly; but he did not +see them at all. He had no eye for details. And neither did she +even hear his fine tenor, still sweet and powerful, leading all the +other male voices when the choir stood up to sing. She thought only +of Richard himself.</p> +<p>After meeting, when she went down the aisle, several women had +spoken to her, inquired concerning her health, and told her, with +wondering eyes, that she looked well. Richard was far behind her, +but she did not look around. They very seldom accosted each other, +unless it was unavoidable, in any public place. Still, Sylvia, +going out with gentle flounces of her green shot silk, knew well +that Richard's eyes followed her, and his thought was close at her +side.</p> +<p>After she got home from meeting that Sunday, Sylvia Crane did +not know how to pass the time until the evening. She could not keep +herself calm and composed as was her wont on the Sabbath day. She +changed her silk for a common gown; she tried to sit down and read +the Bible quietly and with understanding, but she could not. She +turned to Canticles, and read a page or two. She had always +believed loyally and devoutly in the application to Christ and the +Church; but suddenly now, as she read, the restrained decorously +chanting New England love-song in her maiden heart had leaped into +the fervid measures of the oriental King. She shut the Bible with a +clap. “I ain't giving the right meaning to it,” she +said, sternly, aloud.</p> +<p>She put away the Bible, went into the pantry, and got out some +bread and cheese for her luncheon, but she could eat nothing. She +picked the apple blossoms and arranged them in the copper-gilt +pitcher on the best-room table. She even dusted off the hair-cloth +sofa and rocker, with many compunctions, because it was Sunday. +“I know I hadn't ought to do it to-day,” she murmured, +apologetically, “but they do get terrible dusty, and need +dusting every day, and he is real particular, and he'll have on his +best clothes.”</p> +<p>Finally, just before twilight, Sylvia, unable to settle herself, +had gone over to her sister's for a little call. Richard never came +before eight o'clock, except in winter, when it was dark earlier. +There was a certain half-shamefaced reserve about his visits. He +knew well enough that people looked from their windows as he +passed, and said, facetiously, “There goes Richard Alger to +court Sylvy Crane.” He preferred slipping past in a +half-light, in which he did not seem so plain to himself, and could +think himself less plain to other people.</p> +<p>Sylvia, detained at her sister's by the quarrel between Cephas +and Barnabas, had arisen many a time to take leave, all palpitating +with impatience, but her sister had begged her, in a distressed +whisper, to remain.</p> +<p>“I guess you can get along without Richard Alger one +Sunday evening,” she had said finally, quite aloud, and quite +harshly. “I guess your own sister has just as much claim on +you as he has. I dunno what's going to be done. I don't believe +Charlotte's father will let her in the house to-night.”</p> +<p>Poor Sylvia had sunk back in her chair. To her sensitive +conscience the duty nearest at hand seemed always to bark the +loudest, and the precious moments had gone by until she knew that +Richard had come, found the stone before the door, and gone away, +and all her sweet turmoil of hope and anticipation had gone for +naught.</p> +<p>Sylvia, lying there awake that night, her mind carrying her back +over all that had gone before, had no doubt that this was the end +of everything. Not originally a subtle discerner of character, she +had come insensibly to know Richard so well that certain results +from certain combinations of circumstances in his life were as +plain and inevitable to her as the outcome of a simple sum in +mathematics. “He'd got 'most out of his track for +once,” she groaned out softly, “but now he's pushed +back in so hard he can't get out again if he wants to. I dunno how +he's going to get along.”</p> +<p>Sylvia, with the roof settling over her head, with not so much +upon her few sterile acres to feed her as to feed the honey-bees +and birds, with her heart in greater agony because its string of +joy had been strained so high and sweetly before it snapped, did +not lament over herself at all; neither did she over the other +woman who lay up-stairs suffering in a similar case. She lamented +only over Richard living alone and unministered to until he +died.</p> +<p>When daylight came she got up, dressed herself, and prepared +breakfast. Charlotte came down before it was ready. “Let me +help get breakfast,” she said, with an assumption of energy, +standing in the kitchen doorway in her pretty mottled purple +delaine. The purple was the shade of columbine, and very becoming +to Charlotte. In spite of her sleepless night, her fine firm tints +had not faded; she was too young and too strong and too full of +involuntary resistance. She had done up her fair hair compactly; +her chin had its usual proud lift.</p> +<p>Sylvia, shrinking as if before some unseen enemy as she moved +about, her face all wan and weary, glanced at her half resentfully. +“I guess she 'ain't had any such night as I have,” she +thought. “Girls don't know much about it.”</p> +<p>“No, I don't need any help,” she replied, aloud. +“I 'ain't got anything to do but to stir up an Injun cake. +You've got your best dress on. You'd better go and sit +down.”</p> +<p>“It won't hurt my dress any.” Charlotte glanced down +half scornfully at her purple skirt. It had lost all its glory for +her. She was not even sure that Barney had seen it.</p> +<p>“Set down. I've got breakfast 'most ready,” Sylvia +said, again, more peremptorily than she was wont, and Charlotte sat +down in the hollow-backed cherry rocking-chair beside the kitchen +window, leaned her head back, and looked out indifferently between +the lilac-bushes. The bushes were full of pinkish-purple buds. +Sylvia's front yard reached the road in a broad slope, and the +ground was hard, and green with dampness under the shade of a great +elm-tree. The grass would never grow there over the roots of the +elm, which were flung out broadly like great recumbent limbs over +the whole yard, and were barely covered by the mould.</p> +<p>Across the street, seen under the green sweep of the elm, was an +orchard of old apple-trees which had blossomed out bravely that +spring. Charlotte looked at the white and rosy masses of bloom.</p> +<p>“I guess there wasn't any frost last night, after +all,” she remarked.</p> +<p>“I dunno,” responded Sylvia, in a voice which made +her niece look around at her. There was a curious impatient ring in +it which was utterly foreign to it. There was a frown between +Sylvia's gentle eyes, and she moved with nervous jerks, setting +down dishes hard, as if they were refractory children, and lashing +out with spoons as if they were whips. The long, steady strain upon +her patience had not affected her temper, but this last had seemed +to bring out a certain vicious and waspish element which nobody had +suspected her to possess, and she herself least of all. She felt +this morning disposed to go out of her way to sting, and as if some +primal and evil instinct had taken possession of her. She felt +shocked at herself, but all the more defiant and disposed to keep +on.</p> +<p>“Breakfast is ready,” she announced, finally; +“if you don't set right up an' eat it, it will be gettin' +cold. I wouldn't give a cent for cold Injun cake.”</p> +<p>Charlotte arose promptly and brought a chair to the table, which +Sylvia always set punctiliously in the centre of the kitchen as if +for a large family.</p> +<p>“Don't scrape your chair on the floor that way; it wears +'em all out,” cried Sylvia, sharply.</p> +<p>Charlotte stared at her again, but she said nothing; she sat +down and began to eat absently. Sylvia watched her angrily between +her own mouthfuls, which she swallowed down defiantly like +medicine.</p> +<p>“It ain't much use cookin' things if folks don't eat +'em,” said she.</p> +<p>“I am eating,” returned Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Eatin'? Swallowin' down Injun cake as if it was sawdust! +I don't call that eatin'. You don't act as if you tasted a mite of +it!”</p> +<p>“Aunt Sylvy, what has got into you?” said +Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Got into me? I should think you'd talk about anything +gettin' into me, when you set there like a stick. I guess you +'ain't got all there is to bear.”</p> +<p>“I never thought I had,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Well, I guess you 'ain't.”</p> +<p>They went on swallowing their food silently; the great clock +ticked slowly, and the spring birds called outside; but they heard +neither. The shadows of the young elm leaves played over the floor +and the white table-cloth. It was much warmer that morning, and the +shadows were softer.</p> +<p>Before they had finished breakfast, Charlotte's mother came, +advancing ponderously, with soft thuds, across the yard to the side +door. She opened it and peered in.</p> +<p>“Here you be,” said she, scanning both their faces +with anxious and deprecating inquiry.</p> +<p>“Can't you come in, an' not stand there holdin' the door +open?” inquired Sylvia. “I feel the wind on my back, +and I've got a bad pain enough in it now.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Barnard stepped in, and shut the door quickly, in an +alarmed way.</p> +<p>“Ain't you feelin' well this mornin', Sylvy?” said +she.</p> +<p>“Oh yes, I'm feelin' well enough. It ain't any matter how +I feel, but it's a good deal how some other folks do.”</p> +<p>Sarah Barnard sank into the rocking-chair, and sat there looking +at them hesitatingly, as if she did not dare to open the +conversation.</p> +<p>Suddenly Sylvia arose and went out of the kitchen with a rush, +carrying a plate of Indian cake to feed the hens. “I can't +set here all day; I've got to do something,” she announced as +she went.</p> +<p>When the door had closed after her, Mrs. Barnard turned to +Charlotte.</p> +<p>“What's the matter with her?” she asked, nodding +towards the door.</p> +<p>“I don't know.”</p> +<p>“She ain't sick, is she? I never see her act so. Sylvy's +generally just like a lamb. You don't s'pose she's goin' to have a +fever, do you?”</p> +<p>“I don't know.”</p> +<p>Suddenly Charlotte, who was still sitting at the table, put up +her two hands with a despairing gesture, and bent her head forward +upon them.</p> +<p>“Now don't, you poor child,” said her mother, her +eyes growing suddenly red. “Didn't he even turn round when +you called him back last night?”</p> +<p>Charlotte shook her bowed head dumbly.</p> +<p>“Don't you s'pose he'll ever come again?”</p> +<p>Charlotte shook her head.</p> +<p>“Mebbe he will. I know he's terrible set.”</p> +<p>“Who's set?” demanded Sylvia, coming in with her +empty plate.</p> +<p>“Oh, I was jest sayin' that I thought Barney was kinder +set,” replied her sister, mildly.</p> +<p>“He ain't no more set than Cephas,” returned +Sylvia.</p> +<p>“Cephas ain't set. It's jest his way.”</p> +<p>Sylvia sniffed. She looked scornfully at Charlotte, who had +raised her head when she came in, but whose eyes were red. +“Folks had better been created without ways, then,” she +retorted. “They'd better have been created slaves; they'd +been enough sight happier an' better off, an' so would other folks +that they have to do with, than to have so many ways, an' not sense +enough to manage 'em. I don't believe in free-will, for my +part.”</p> +<p>“Sylvy Crane, you ain't goin' to deny one of the doctrines +of the Church at your time of life?” demanded a new voice. +Sylvia's other sister, Hannah Berry, stood in the doorway.</p> +<p>Sylvia ordinarily was meek before her, but now she faced her. +“Yes, I be,” said she; “I don't approve of +free-will, and I ain't afraid to say it.”</p> +<p>Sylvia had always been considered very unlike Mrs. Hannah Berry +in face and character. Now, as she stood before her, a curious +similarity appeared; even her voice sounded like her sister's.</p> +<p>“What on earth ails you, Sylvy?” asked Mrs. Berry, +ignoring suddenly the matter in hand.</p> +<p>“Nothin' ails me that I know of. I don't think much of +free-will, an' I ain't goin' to say I do when I don't.”</p> +<p>“Then all I've got to say is you'd ought to be ashamed of +yourself. Why, I should think you was crazy, Sylvy Crane, settin' +up yourself agin' the doctrines of the Word. I'd like to know what +you know about them.”</p> +<p>“I know enough to see how they work,” returned +Sylvia, undauntedly, “an' I ain't goin' to pretend I'm blind +when I can see.”</p> +<p>Sylvia's serene arc of white forehead was shortened by a +distressed frown, her mild mouth dropped sourly at the corners, and +the lips were compressed. Her white cap was awry, and one of +yesterday's curls hung lankly over her left cheek.</p> +<p>“You look an' act like a crazy creature,” said +Hannah Berry, eying her with indignant amazement. She walked across +the room to another rocking-chair, moving with unexpected +heaviness. She was in reality as stout as her sister Sarah Barnard, +but she had a long, thin, and rasped face, which misled people.</p> +<p>“Now,” said she, looking around conclusively, +“I ain't come over here to argue about free-will. I want to +know what all this is about?”</p> +<p>“All what?” returned Mrs. Barnard, feebly. She was +distinctly afraid of her imperious sister, yet she was conscious of +a quiver of resentment.</p> +<p>“All this fuss about Barney Thayer,” said Hannah +Berry.</p> +<p>“How did you hear about it?” Mrs. Barnard asked with +a glance at Charlotte, who was sitting erect with her cheeks very +red and her mouth tightly closed.</p> +<p>“Never mind how I heard,” replied Hannah. “I +did hear, an' that's enough. Now I want to know if you're really +goin' to set down like an old hen an' give up, an' let this match +between Charlotte an' a good, smart, likely young man like Barnabas +Thayer be broken off on account of Cephas Barnard's crazy +freaks?”</p> +<p>Sarah stiffened her neck. “There ain't no call for you to +speak that way, Hannah. They got to talkin' over the +'lection.”</p> +<p>“The 'lection! I'd like to know what business they had +talkin' about it Sabbath night anyway? I ain't blamin' Barnabas so +much; he's younger an' easier stirred up; but Cephas Barnard is an +old man, an' he has been a church-member for forty year, an' he +ought to know enough to set a better example. I'd like to know what +difference it makes about the 'lection anyway? What odds does it +make which one is President if he rules the country well? An' that +they can't tell till they've tried him awhile anyway. I guess they +don't think much about the country; it's jest to have their own way +about it. I'd like to know what mortal difference it's goin' to +make to Barney Thayer or Cephas Barnard which man is President? He +won't never hear of them, an' they won't neither of them make him +rule any different after he's chose. It's jest like two little +boys—one wants to play marbles 'cause the other wants to play +puss-in-the-corner, an' that's all the reason either one of 'em's +got for standin' out. Men ain't got any too much sense anyhow, when +you come right down to it. They don't ever get any too much grown +up, the best of 'em. I'd like to know what Cephas Barnard has got +to say because he's drove a good, likely young man like Barnabas +Thayer off an' broke off his daughter's match? It ain't likely +she'll ever get anybody now; young men like him, with nice new +houses put up to go right to housekeepin' in as soon as they are +married, don't grow on every bush. They ain't quite so thick as +wild thimbleberries. An' Charlotte ain't got any money herself, an' +her father ain't got any to build a house for her. I'd like to know +what he's got to say about it?”</p> +<p>Mrs. Barnard put up her apron and began to weep helplessly.</p> +<p>“Don't, mother,” said Charlotte, in an undertone. +But her mother began talking in a piteous wailing fashion.</p> +<p>“You hadn't ought to talk so about Cephas,” she +moaned. “He's my husband. I guess you wouldn't like it if +anybody talked so about your husband. Cephas ain't any worse than +anybody else. It's jest his way. He wa'n't any more to blame than +Barney; they both got to talkin'. I know Cephas is terrible upset +about it this mornin'; he 'ain't really said so in so many words, +but I know by the way he acts. He said this mornin' that he didn't +know but we were eatin' the wrong kind of food. Lately he's had an +idea that mebbe we'd ought to eat more meat; he's thought it was +more strengthenin', an' we'd ought to eat things as near like what +we wanted to strengthen as could be. I've made a good deal of bone +soup. But now he says he thinks mebbe he's been mistaken, an' +animal food kind of quickens the animal nature in us, an' that we'd +better eat green things an' garden sass.”</p> +<p>“I guess garden sass will strengthen the other kind of +sass that Cephas Barnard has got in him full as much as bone soup +has,” interrupted Hannah Berry, with a sarcastic sniff.</p> +<p>“I dunno but he's right,” said Mrs. Barnard. +“Cephas thinks a good deal an' looks into things. I kind of +wish he'd waited till the garden had got started, though, for there +ain't much we can eat now but potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion +greens.”</p> +<p>“If you want to live on potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion +greens, you can,” cried Hannah Berry; “What I want to +know is if you're goin' to settle down an' say nothin', an' have +Charlotte lose the best chance she'll ever have in her life, if she +lives to be a hundred—”</p> +<p>Charlotte spoke up suddenly; her blue eyes gleamed with steely +light. She held her head high as she faced her aunt.</p> +<p>“I don't want any more talk about it, Aunt Hannah,” +said she.</p> +<p>“Hey?”</p> +<p>“I don't want any more talk about it.”</p> +<p>“Well, I guess you'll have more talk about it; girls don't +get jilted without there is talk generally. I guess you'll have to +make up your mind to it, for all you put on such airs with your own +aunt, who left her washin' an' come over here to take your part. I +guess when you stand out in the road half an hour an' call a young +man to come back, an' he don't come, that folks are goin' to talk +some. Who's that comin' now?”</p> +<p>“It's Cephas,” whispered Mrs. Barnard, with a scared +glance at Charlotte.</p> +<p>Cephas Barnard entered abruptly, and stood for a second looking +at the company, while they looked back at him. His eyes were +stolidly defiant, but he stood well back, and almost shrank against +the door. There seemed to be impulses in Hannah's and Sylvia's +faces confronting his.</p> +<p>He turned to his wife. “When you comin' home?” said +he.</p> +<p>“Oh, Cephas! I jest ran over here a minute. I—wanted +to see—if—Sylvy had any emptins. Do you want me an' +Charlotte to come now?”</p> +<p>Cephas turned on his heel. “I think it's about time for +you both to be home,” he grunted.</p> +<p>Sarah Barnard arose and looked with piteous appeal at +Charlotte.</p> +<p>Charlotte hesitated a second, then she arose without a word, and +followed her mother, who followed Cephas. They went in a procession +of three, with Cephas marching ahead like a general, across the +yard, and Sylvia and Hannah stood at a window watching them.</p> +<p>“Well,” said Hannah Berry, “all I've got to +say is I'm thankful I 'ain't got a man like that, an' you ought to +be mighty thankful you 'ain't got any man at all, Sylvy +Crane.”</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="III">Chapter III</a></h4> +<p>When Cephas Barnard and his wife and daughter turned into the +main road and came in sight of the new house, not one of them +appeared to even glance at it, yet they all saw at once that there +were no workmen about, and they also saw Barnabas himself ploughing +with a white horse far back in a field at the left of it.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem04.png" width="383" height="353" +alt="[Illustration: “They came in sight of the house”]"></p> +<p>They all kept on silently. Charlotte paled a little when she +caught sight of Barney, but her face was quite steady. “Hold +your dress up a little higher; the grass is terrible wet,” +her mother whispered once, and that was all that any of them said +until they reached home.</p> +<p>Charlotte went at once up-stairs to her own chamber, took off +her purple gown, and hung it up in her closet, and got out a common +one. The purple gown was part of her wedding wardrobe, and she had +worn it in advance with some misgivings. “I dunno but you +might jest as well wear it a few Sundays,” her mother had +said; “you're goin' to have your silk dress to come out bride +in. I dunno as there's any sense in your goin' lookin' like a +scarecrow all the spring because you're goin' to get +married.”</p> +<p>So Charlotte had put on the new purple dress the day before; now +it looked, as it hung in the closet, like an effigy of her happier +self.</p> +<p>When Charlotte went down-stairs she found her mother showing +much more spirit than usual in an altercation with her father. +Sarah Barnard stood before her husband, her placid face all knitted +with perplexed remonstrance. “Why, I can't, Cephas,” +she said. “Pies can't be made that way.”</p> +<p>“I know they can,” said Cephas.</p> +<p>“They can't, Cephas. There ain't no use tryin'. It would +jest be a waste of the flour.”</p> +<p>“Why can't they, I'd like to know?”</p> +<p>“Folks don't ever make pies without lard, +Cephas.”</p> +<p>“Why don't they?”</p> +<p>“Why, they wouldn't be nothin' more than— You +couldn't eat them nohow if they was made so, Cephas. I dunno how +the sorrel pies would work. I never heard of anybody makin' sorrel +pies. Mebbe the Injuns did; but I dunno as they ever made pies, +anyway. Mebbe the sorrel, if it had some molasses on it for juice, +wouldn't taste very bad; I dunno; but anyway, if the sorrel did +work, the other wouldn't. I can't make pies fit to eat without any +lard or any butter or anything any way in the world, +Cephas.”</p> +<p>“I know you can make 'em without,” said Cephas, and +his black eyes looked like flint. Mrs. Barnard appealed to her +daughter.</p> +<p>“Charlotte,” said she, “you tell your father +that pies can't be made fit to eat without I put somethin' in 'em +for short'nin'.”</p> +<p>“No, they can't, father,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“He wants me to make sorrel pies, Charlotte,” Mrs. +Barnard went on, in an injured and appealing tone which she seldom +used against Cephas. “He's been out in the field, an' picked +all that sorrel,” and she pointed to a pan heaped up with +little green leaves on the table, “an' I tell him I dunno how +that will work, but he wants me to make the pie-crust without a +mite of short'nin', an' I can't do that nohow, can I?”</p> +<p>“I don't see how you can,” assented Charlotte, +coldly.</p> +<p>Cephas went with a sudden stride towards the pantry. “I'll +make 'em myself, then,” he cried.</p> +<p>Mrs. Barnard gasped, and looked piteously at her daughter. +“What you goin' to do, Cephas?” she asked, feebly.</p> +<p>Cephas was in the pantry rattling the dishes with a fierce din. +“I'm a-goin' to make them sorrel pies myself,” he +shouted out, “if none of you women folks know enough +to.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Cephas, you can't!”</p> +<p>Cephas came out, carrying the mixing-board and rolling-pin like +a shield and a club; he clapped them heavily on to the table.</p> +<p>Mrs. Barnard stood staring aghast at him; Charlotte sat down, +took some lace edging from her pocket, and began knitting on it. +She looked hard and indifferent.</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, ain't it dreadful?” her mother +whispered, when Cephas went into the pantry again.</p> +<p>“I don't care if he makes pies out of burrs,” +returned Charlotte, audibly, but her voice was quite even.</p> +<p>“I don't b'lieve but what sorrel would do some better than +burrs,” said her mother, “but he can't make pies +without short'nin' nohow.”</p> +<p>Cephas came out of the pantry with a large bowl of flour and a +spoon. “He 'ain't sifted it,” Mrs. Barnard whispered to +Charlotte, as though Cephas were not there; then she turned to him. +“You sifted the flour, didn't you, Cephas?” said +she.</p> +<p>“You jest let me alone,” said Cephas, grimly. +“I'm goin' to make these pies, an' I don't need any help. +I've picked the sorrel, an' I've got the brick oven all heated, an' +I know what I want to do, an' I'm goin' to do it!”</p> +<p>“I've got some pumpkin that would make full as good pies +as sorrel, Cephas. Mebbe the sorrel will be real good. I ain't +sayin' it won't, though I never heard of sorrel pies; but you know +pumpkin is good, Cephas.”</p> +<p>“I know pumpkin pies have milk in 'em,” said Cephas; +“an' I tell you I ain't goin' to have anything of an animal +nature in 'em. I've been studyin' into it, an' thinkin' of it, an' +I've made up my mind that I've made a mistake along back, an' we've +ate too much animal food. We've ate a whole pig an' half a beef +critter this winter, to say nothin' of eggs an' milk, that are jest +as much animal as meat, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. I've +reasoned it out all along that as long as we were animals +ourselves, an' wanted to strengthen animal, that it was +common-sense that we ought to eat animal. It seemed to me that +nature had so ordered it. I reasoned it out that other animals +besides man lived on animals, except cows, an' they, bein' +ruminatin' animals, ain't to be compared to men—”</p> +<p>“I should think we'd be somethin' like 'em if we eat +that,” said Mrs. Barnard, pointing at the sorrel, with +piteous sarcasm.</p> +<p>“It's the principle I'm thinkin' about,” said +Cephas. He stirred some salt into the flour very carefully, so not +a dust fell over the brim of the bowl.</p> +<p>“Horses don't eat meat, neither, an' they don't chew their +cuds,” Mrs. Barnard argued further. She had never in her life +argued with Cephas; but sorrel pies, after the night before, made +her wildly reckless.</p> +<p>Cephas got a gourdful of water from the pail in the sink, and +carried it carefully over to the table. “Horses are the +exception,” he returned, with dignified asperity. +“There always are exceptions. What I was comin' at +was—I'd been kind of wrong in my reasonin'. That is, I 'ain't +reasoned far enough. I was right so far as I went.”</p> +<p>Cephas poured some water from the gourd into the bowl of flour +and began stirring.</p> +<p>Sarah caught her breath. “He's makin'—paste!” +she gasped. “He's jest makin' flour paste!”</p> +<p>“Jest so far as I went I was right,” Cephas resumed, +pouring in a little more water with a judicial air. “I said +Man was animal, an' he is animal; an' if you don't take anything +else into account, he'd ought to live on animal food, jest the way +I reasoned it out. But you've got to take something else into +account. Man is animal, but he ain't all animal. He's something +else. He's spiritual. Man has command over all the other animals, +an' all the beasts of the field; an' it ain't because he's any +better an' stronger animal, because he ain't. What's a man to a +horse, if the horse only knew it? but the horse don't know it, an' +there's jest where Man gets the advantage. It's knowledge an' +spirit that gives Man the rule over all the other animals. Now, +what we want is to eat the kind of things that will strengthen +knowledge an' spirit an' self-control, because the first two ain't +any account without the last; but there ain't no kind of food +that's known that can do that. If there is, I 'ain't never heard of +it.”</p> +<p>Cephas dumped the whole mass of paste with a flop upon the +mixing-board, and plunged his fists into it. Sarah made an +involuntary motion forward, then she stood back with a great +sigh.</p> +<p>“But what we can do,” Cephas proceeded, “is to +eat the kind of things that won't strengthen the animal nature at +the expense of the spiritual. We know that animal food does that; +we can see how it works in tigers an' bears. Now, it's the +spiritual part of us we want to strengthen, because that is the +biggest strength we can get, an' it's worth more. It's what gives +us the rule over animals. It's better for us to eat some other kind +of food, if we get real weak and pindlin' on it, rather than eat +animal food an' make the animal in us stronger than the spiritual, +so we won't be any better than wild tigers an' bears, an' lose our +rule over the other animals.”</p> +<p>Cephas took the rolling-pin and brought it heavily down upon the +sticky mass on the board. Sarah shuddered and started as if it had +hit her. “Now, if we can't eat animal food,” said +Cephas, “what other kind of food can we eat? There ain't but +one other kind that's known to man, an' that's vegetable food, the +product of the earth. An' that's of two sorts: one gets ripe an' +fit to eat in the fall of the year, an' the other comes earlier in +the spring an' summer. Now, in order to carry out the plans of +nature, we'd ought to eat these products of the earth jest as near +as we can in the season of 'em. Some had ought to be eat in the +fall an' winter, an' some in the spring an' summer. Accordin' to my +reasonin', if we all lived this way we should be a good deal better +off; our spiritual natures would be strengthened, an' we should +have more power over other animals, an' better dispositions +ourselves.”</p> +<p>“I've seen horses terribly ugly, an' they don't eat a mite +of meat,” said Sarah, with tremulous boldness. Her right hand +kept moving forward to clutch the rolling-pin, then she would draw +it back.</p> +<p>“'Ain't I told ye once horses were the exceptions?” +said Cephas, severely. “There has to be exceptions. If there +wa'n't any exceptions there couldn't be any rule, an' there bein' +exceptions shows there is a rule. Women can't ever get hold of +things straight. Their minds slant off sideways, the way their arms +do when they fling a stone.”</p> +<p>Cephas brought the rolling-pin down upon the paste again with +fierce impetus. “You'll break it,” Sarah murmured, +feebly. Cephas brought it down again, his mouth set hard; his face +showed a red flush through his white beard, the veins on his high +forehead were swollen and his brows scowling. The paste adhered to +the rolling-pin; he raised it with an effort; his hands were +helplessly sticky. Sarah could restrain herself no longer. She went +into the pantry and got a dish of flour, and spooned out some +suddenly over the board and Cephas's hands. “You've got to +have some more flour,” she said, in a desperate tone.</p> +<p>Cephas's black eyes flashed at her. “I wish you would +attend to your own work, an' leave me alone,” said he. But at +last he succeeded in moving the rolling-pin over the dough as he +had seen his wife move it.</p> +<p>“He ain't greasin' the pie-plates,” said Sarah, as +Cephas brought a piece of dough with a dexterous jerk over a plate; +“there ain't much animal in the little mite of lard it takes +to grease a plate.”</p> +<p>Cephas spread handfuls of sorrel leaves over the dough; then he +brought the molasses-jug from the pantry, raised it, and poured +molasses over the sorrel with an imperturbable air.</p> +<p>Sarah watched him; then she turned to Charlotte. “To think +of eatin' it!” she groaned, quite openly; “it looks +like p'ison.”</p> +<p>Charlotte made no response; she knitted as one of the Fates +might have spun. Sarah sank down on a chair, and looked away from +Cephas and his cookery, as if she were overcome, and quite done +with all remonstrance.</p> +<p>Never before had she shown so much opposition towards one of her +husband's hobbies, but this galloped so ruthlessly over her own +familiar fields that she had plucked up boldness to try to veer it +away.</p> +<p>Somebody passed the window swiftly, the door opened abruptly, +and Mrs. Deborah Thayer entered. +“<em>Good</em>-mornin',” said she, and her voice rang +out like a herald's defiance.</p> +<p>Sarah Barnard arose, and went forward quickly. +“Good-mornin',” she responded, with nervous eagerness. +“Good-mornin', Mis' Thayer. Come in an' set down, won't +you?”</p> +<p>“I 'ain't come to set down,” responded Deborah's +deep voice.</p> +<p>She moved, a stately high-hipped figure, her severe face almost +concealed in a scooping green barège hood, to the centre of +the floor, and stood there with a pose that might have answered for +a statue of Judgment. She turned her green-hooded head slowly +towards them all in turn. Sarah watched her and waited, her eyes +dilated. Cephas rolled out another pie, calmly. Charlotte knitted +fast; her face was very pale.</p> +<p>“I've come over here,” said Deborah Thayer, +“to find out what my son has done.”</p> +<p>There was not a sound, except the thud of Cephas's +rolling-pin.</p> +<p>“Mr. Barnard!” said Deborah. Cephas did not seem to +hear her.</p> +<p>“Mr. Barnard!” she said, again. There was that tone +of command in her voice which only a woman can accomplish. It was +full of that maternal supremacy which awakens the first instinct of +obedience in man, and has more weight than the voice of a general +in battle. Cephas did not turn his head, but he spoke. “What +is it ye want?” he said, gruffly.</p> +<p>“I want to know what my son has done, an' I want you to +tell me in so many words. I ain't afraid to face it. What has my +son done?”</p> +<p>Cephas grunted something inarticulate.</p> +<p>“What?” said Deborah. “I can't hear what you +say. I want to know what my son has done. I've heard how you turned +him out of your house last night, and I want to know what it was +for. I want to know what he has done. You're an old man, and a +God-fearing one, if you have got your own ideas about some things. +Barnabas is young, and apt to be headstrong. He ain't always been +as mindful of obedience as he might be. I've tried to do my best by +him, but he don't always carry out my teachin's. I ain't afraid to +say this, if he is my son. I want to know what he's done. If it's +anything wrong, I shall be jest as hard on him as the Lord for it. +I'm his mother, but I can see his faults, and be just. I want to +know what he has done.”</p> +<p>Charlotte gave one great cry. “Oh, Mrs. Thayer, he hasn't +done anything wrong; Barney hasn't done anything wrong!”</p> +<p>But Deborah quite ignored her. She kept her eyes fixed upon +Cephas. “What has my son done?” she demanded again. +“If he's done anything wrong I want to know it. I ain't +afraid to deal with him. You ordered him out of your house, and he +didn't come home at all last night. I don't know where he was. He +won't speak a word this mornin' to tell me. I've been out in the +field where he's to work ploughin', and I tried to make him tell +me, but he wouldn't say a word. I sat up and waited all night, but +he didn't come home. Now I want to know where he was, and what he's +done, and why you ordered him out of the house. If he's been +swearin', or takin' anything that didn't belong to him, or +drinkin', I want to know it, so I can deal with him as his mother +had ought to deal.”</p> +<p>“He hasn't been doing anything wrong!” Charlotte +cried out again; “you ought to be ashamed of yourself talking +so about him, when you're his mother!”</p> +<p>Deborah Thayer never glanced at Charlotte. She kept her eyes +fixed upon Cephas. “What has he done?” she +repeated.</p> +<p>“I guess he didn't do much of anything,” Mrs. +Barnard murmured, feebly; but Deborah did not seem to hear her.</p> +<p>Cephas opened his mouth as if perforce. “Well,” he +said, slowly, “we got to talkin'—”</p> +<p>“Talkin' about what?”</p> +<p>“About the 'lection. I think, accordin' to my reasonin', +that what we eat had a good deal to do with it.”</p> +<p>“What?”</p> +<p>“I think if you'd kept your family on less meat, and given +'em more garden-stuff to eat Barney wouldn't have been so up an' +comin'. It's what he's eat that's made him what he is.”</p> +<p>Deborah stared at Cephas in stern amazement. “You're +tryin' to make out, as near as I can tell,” said she, +“that whatever my son has done wrong is due to what he's eat, +and not to original sin. I knew you had queer ideas, Cephas +Barnard, but I didn't know you wa'n't sound in your faith. What I +want to know is, what has he done?”</p> +<p>Suddenly Charlotte sprang up, and pushed herself in between her +father and Mrs. Thayer; she confronted Deborah, and compelled her +to look at her.</p> +<p>“I'll tell you what he's done,” she said, fiercely. +“I know what he's done; you listen to me. He has done +nothing—nothing that you've got to deal with him for. You +needn't feel obliged to deal with him. He and father got into a +talk over the 'lection, and they had words about it. He didn't talk +any worse than father, not a mite. Father started it, anyway, and +he knew better; he knew just how set Barney was on his own side, +and how set he was on his; he wanted to pick a quarrel.”</p> +<p>“Charlotte!” shouted Cephas.</p> +<p>“You keep still, father,” returned Charlotte, with +steady fierceness. “I've never set myself up against you in +my whole life before; but now I'm going to, because it's just and +right. Father wanted to pick a quarrel,” she repeated, +turning to Deborah; “he's been kind of grouty to Barney for +some time. I don't know why; he took a notion to, I suppose. When +they got to having words about the 'lection, father begun it. I +heard him. Barney answered back, and I didn't blame him; I would, +in his place. Then father ordered him out of the house, and he +went. I don't see what else he could do. And I don't blame him +because he didn't go home if he didn't feel like it.”</p> +<p>“Didn't he go away from here before nine o'clock?” +demanded Deborah, addressing Charlotte at last.</p> +<p>“Yes, he did, some time before nine; he had plenty of time +to go home if he wanted to.”</p> +<p>“Where was he, then, I'd like to know?”</p> +<p>“I don't know, and I wouldn't lift my finger to find out. +I am not afraid he was anywhere he hadn't ought to be, nor doin' +anything he hadn't ought to.”</p> +<p>“Didn't you stand out in the road and call him back, and +he wouldn't come, nor even turn his head to look at you?” +asked Deborah.</p> +<p>“Yes, I did,” returned Charlotte, unflinchingly. +“And I don't blame him for not coming back and not turning +his head. I wouldn't if I'd been in his place.”</p> +<p>“You'll have to uphold him a long time, then; I can tell +you that,” said Deborah. “He won't never come back if +he's said he won't. I know him; he's got some of me in +him.”</p> +<p>“I'll uphold him as long as I live,” said +Charlotte.</p> +<p>“I wonder you ain't ashamed to talk so.”</p> +<p>“I am not.”</p> +<p>Deborah looked at Charlotte as if she would crush her; then she +turned away.</p> +<p>“You're a hard woman, Mrs. Thayer, and I pity Barney +because he's got you for a mother,” Charlotte said, in +undaunted response to Deborah's look.</p> +<p>“Well, you'll never have to pity yourself on that +account,” retorted Deborah, without turning her head.</p> +<p>The door opened softly, and a girl of about Charlotte's age +slipped in. Nobody except Mrs. Barnard, who said, absently, +“How do you do, Rose?” seemed to notice her. She sat +down unobtrusively in a chair near the door and waited. Her blue +eyes upon the others were so intense with excitement that they +seemed to blot out the rest of her face. She had her blue apron +tightly rolled about both hands.</p> +<p>Deborah Thayer, on her way to the door, looked at her as if she +had been a part of the wall, but suddenly she stopped and cast a +glance at Cephas. “What be you makin'?” she asked, with +a kind of scorn at him, and scorn at her own curiosity.</p> +<p>Cephas did not reply, but he looked ugly as he slapped another +piece of dough heavily upon a plate.</p> +<p>Deborah, as if against her will, moved closer to the table and +bent over the pan of sorrel. She smelled of it; then she took a +leaf and tasted it, cautiously. She made a wry face. “It's +sorrel,” said she. “You're makin' pies out of sorrel. A +man makin' pies out of sorrel!”</p> +<p>She looked at Cephas like a condemning judge. He shot a fiery +glance at her, but said nothing. He sprinkled the sorrel leaves in +the pie.</p> +<p>“Well,” said Deborah, “I've got a sense of +justice, and if my son, or any other man, has asked a girl to marry +him, and she's got her weddin' clothes ready, I believe in his +doin' his duty, if he can be made to; but I must say if it wa'n't +for that, I'd rather he'd gone into a family that was more like +other folks. I'm goin' to do the best I can, whether you go half +way or not. I'm goin' to try to make my son do his duty. I don't +expect he will, but I shall do all I can, tempers or no tempers, +and sorrel pies or no sorrel pies.”</p> +<p>Deborah went out, and shut the door heavily after her.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="IV">Chapter IV</a></h4> +<p>After Deborah Thayer had shut the door, the young girl sitting +beside it arose. “I didn't know she was in here, or I +wouldn't have come in,” she said, nervously.</p> +<p>“That don't make any odds,” replied Mrs. Barnard, +who was trembling all over, and had sunk helplessly into a +rocking-chair, which she swayed violently and unconsciously.</p> +<p>Cephas opened the door of the brick oven, and put in a batch of +his pies, and the click of the iron latch made her start as if it +were a pistol-shot.</p> +<p>Charlotte got up and went out of the room with a backward glance +and a slight beckoning motion of her head, and the girl slunk after +her so secretly that it seemed as if she did not see herself. +Cephas looked sharply after them, but said nothing; he was like a +philosopher in such a fury of research and experiment that for the +time he heeded thoroughly nothing else.</p> +<p>The young girl, who was Rose Berry, Charlotte's cousin, followed +her panting up the steep stairs to her chamber. She was a slender +little creature, and was now overwrought with nervous excitement. +She fairly gasped for breath when she sat down in the little wooden +chair in Charlotte's room. Charlotte sat on the bed. The two girls +looked at each other—Rose with a certain wary alarm and +questioning in her eyes, Charlotte with a dignified confidence of +misery.</p> +<p>“I didn't sleep here last night,” Charlotte said, at +length.</p> +<p>“You went over to Aunt Sylvy's, didn't you?” +returned Rose, as if that were all the matter in hand.</p> +<p>Charlotte nodded, then she looked moodily past her cousin's face +out of the window.</p> +<p>“You've heard about it, I suppose?” said +Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Something,” replied Rose, evasively.</p> +<p>“I don't see how it got out, for my part. I don't believe +he told anybody.”</p> +<p>Rose flushed all over her little eager face and her thin neck. +She opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it with a catch of +her breath.</p> +<p>“I can't imagine how it got out,” repeated +Charlotte.</p> +<p>Rose looked at Charlotte with a painful effort; she clutched her +hands tightly into fists as she spoke. “I was coming up here +'cross lots last night, and I heard you out in the road calling +Barney,” she said, as if she forced out the words.</p> +<p>“Rose Berry, you didn't tell!”</p> +<p>“I went home and told mother, that's all. I didn't think +that it would do any harm, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“It'll be all over town, that's all. It's bad enough, +anyway.”</p> +<p>“I don't believe it'll get out; I told mother not to +tell.”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Thayer knew.”</p> +<p>“Maybe Barney told her.”</p> +<p>“Rose Berry, you know better. You know Barney wouldn't do +such a thing.”</p> +<p>“No; I don't s'pose he would.”</p> +<p>“Don't suppose! Don't you know?”</p> +<p>“Yes, of course I do. I know Barney just as well as you +do, Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte, don't feel bad. I wouldn't have told +mother if I'd thought. I didn't mean to do any harm. I was all +upset myself by it. Don't cry, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“I ain't going to cry,” said Charlotte, with spirit. +“I've stopped cryin'.” She wiped her eyes forcibly with +her apron, and gave her head a proud toss. “I know you didn't +mean to do any harm, Rose, and I suppose it would have got out +anyway. 'Most everything does get out but good deeds.”</p> +<p>“I truly didn't mean to do any harm, Charlotte,” +Rose repeated.</p> +<p>“I know you didn't. We won't say any more about +it.”</p> +<p>“I was just running over across lots last night,” +Rose said. “I supposed you'd be in the front room with +Barney, but I thought I'd see Aunt Sarah. I'd got terrible +lonesome; mother had gone to sleep in her chair, and father had +gone to bed. When I got out by the stone-wall next the wood I heard +you; then I ran right back. Don't you—suppose he'll ever come +again, Charlotte?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte!” There was a curious quality in the +girl's voice, as if some great hidden emotion in her heart tried to +leap to the surface and make a sound, although it was totally at +variance with the import of her cry. Charlotte started, without +knowing why. It was as if Rose's words and her tone had different +meanings, and conflicted like the wrong lines with a tune.</p> +<p>“I gave it up last night,” said Charlotte. +“It's all over. I'm goin' to pack my wedding things +away.”</p> +<p>“I don't see what makes you so sure.”</p> +<p>“I know him.”</p> +<p>“But I don't see what you've done, Charlotte; he didn't +quarrel with you.”</p> +<p>“That don't make any odds. He can't get married to me now +without he breaks his will, and he can't. He can't get outside +himself enough to break it. I've studied it all out. It's like +ciphering. It's all over.”</p> +<p>“Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“What is it?”</p> +<p>“Why—couldn't you go somewhere else to get married? +What's the need of his comin' here, if he's been ordered out, and +he's said he wouldn't?”</p> +<p>“That's just the letter of it,” returned Charlotte, +scornfully. “Do you suppose he could cheat himself that way, +or I'd have him if he could? When Barney Thayer went out of this +house last night, and said what he did, he meant that it was all +over, that he was never going to marry me, nor have anything more +to do with us, and he's going to stand by it. I am not finding any +fault with him. I've made up my mind that it's all over, and I'm +going to pack away my weddin' things.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, you take it so calm!”</p> +<p>“What do you want me to do?”</p> +<p>“If it was anybody else, I should think they didn't +care.”</p> +<p>“Maybe I don't.”</p> +<p>“I couldn't bear it so, anyhow! I couldn't!” Rose +cried out, with sudden passion. “I wouldn't bear it. I'd go +down on my knees to him to come back!” Rose flung back her +head and looked at Charlotte with a curious defiance; her face grew +suddenly intense, and seemed to open out into bloom and color like +a flower. The pupils of her blue eyes dilated until they looked +black; her thin lips looked full and red; her cheeks were flaming; +her slender chest heaved. “I would,” said she; “I +don't care, I would.”</p> +<p>Charlotte looked at her, and a quivering flush like a reflection +was left on her fair, steady face.</p> +<p>“I would,” said Rose again.</p> +<p>“It wouldn't do any good.”</p> +<p>“It would if he cared anything about you.”</p> +<p>“It would if he could give up to the care. Barney Thayer +has got a terrible will that won't always let him do what he wants +to himself.”</p> +<p>“I don't believe he's enough of a fool to put his own eyes +out.”</p> +<p>“You don't know him.”</p> +<p>“I'd try, anyway.”</p> +<p>“It wouldn't do any good.”</p> +<p>“I don't believe you care anything about him, Charlotte +Barnard!” Rose cried out. “If you did, you couldn't +give him up so easy for such a silly thing. You sit there just as +calm. I don't believe but what you'll have another fellow on the +string in a month. I know one that's dying to get you.”</p> +<p>“Maybe I shall,” replied Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Won't you, now?” Rose tried to speak archly, but +her eyes were fiercely eager.</p> +<p>“I can't tell till I get home from the grave,” said +Charlotte. “You might wait till I did, Rose.” She got +up and went to dusting her bureau and the little gilt-framed mirror +behind it. Her lips were shut tightly, and she never looked at her +cousin.</p> +<p>“Now don't get mad, Charlotte,” Rose said. +“Maybe I ought not to have spoken so, but it did seem to me +you couldn't care as <em>much</em>— It does seem to me I +couldn't settle down and be so calm if I was in your place, and all +ready to be married to anybody. I should want to do +something.”</p> +<p>“I should, if there was anything to do,” said +Charlotte. She stopped dusting and leaned against the wall, +reflecting. “I wish it was a real mountain to move,” +said she; “I'd do it.”</p> +<p>“I'd go right down in the field where he is ploughing, and +I'd make him say he'd come to see me to-night.”</p> +<p>“I called him back last night—you heard me,” +said Charlotte, with slow bitterness. Her square delicate chin +dipped into the muslin folds of her neckerchief; she looked +steadily at the floor and bent her brow.</p> +<p>“I'd call him again.”</p> +<p>“You would, would you?” cried Charlotte, +straightening herself. “You would stand out in the road and +keep on calling a man who wouldn't even turn his head? You'd keep +on calling, and let all the town hear?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I would. I would! I wouldn't be ashamed of anything +if I was going to marry him. I'd go on my knees before him in the +face and eyes of the whole town.”</p> +<p>“Well, I wouldn't,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“I would, if I was sure he thought as much of me as I did +of him.”</p> +<p>Charlotte looked at her proudly. “I'm sure enough of +that,” said she.</p> +<p>Rose winced a little. “Then I wouldn't mind what I +did,” she persisted, stubbornly.</p> +<p>“Well, I would,” said Charlotte; “but maybe I +don't care. Maybe all this isn't as hard for me as it would be for +another girl.” Charlotte's voice broke, but she tossed her +head back with a proud motion; she took up the dusting-cloth and +fell to work again.</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte!” said Rose; “I didn't mean +that. Of course I know you care. It's awful. It was only because I +didn't see how you could seem so calm; it ain't like me. Of course +I know you feel bad enough underneath. Your wedding-clothes all +done and everything. They are pretty near all done, ain't they, +Charlotte?”</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Charlotte. “They're—pretty +near—done.” She tried to speak steadily, but her voice +failed. Suddenly she threw herself on the bed and hid her face, and +her whole body heaved and twisted with great sobs.</p> +<p>“Oh, poor Charlotte, don't!” Rose cried, wringing +her own hands; her face quivered, but she did not weep.</p> +<p>“Maybe I don't care,” sobbed Charlotte; +“maybe—I don't care.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte!” Rose looked at Charlotte's piteous +girlish shoulders shaken with sobs, and the fair prostrate girlish +head. Charlotte all drawn up in this little heap upon the bed +looked very young and helpless. All her womanly stateliness, which +made her seem so superior to Rose, had vanished. Rose pulled her +chair close to the bed, sat down, and laid her little thin hand on +Charlotte's arm, and Charlotte directly felt it hot through her +sleeve. “Don't, Charlotte,” Rose said; “I'm sorry +I spoke so.”</p> +<p>“Maybe I don't care,” Charlotte sobbed out again. +“Maybe I don't.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, I'm sorry,” Rose said, trembling. +“I do know you care; don't you feel so bad because I said +that.”</p> +<p>Rose tightened her grasp on Charlotte's arm; her voice changed +suddenly. “Look here, Charlotte,” said she, “I'll +do anything in the world I can to help you; I promise you that, and +I mean it, honest.”</p> +<p>Charlotte reached around a hand, and clasped her cousin's.</p> +<p>“I'm sorry I spoke so,” Rose said.</p> +<p>“Never mind,” Charlotte responded, chokingly. She +sobbed a little longer from pure inertia of grief; then she raised +herself, shaking off Rose's hand. “It's all right,” +said she; “I needn't have minded; I know you didn't mean +anything. It was just—the last straw, and—when you said +that about my wedding-clothes—”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, you did speak about them yourself +first,” Rose said, deprecatingly.</p> +<p>“I did, so nobody else would,” returned Charlotte. +She wiped her eyes, drooping her stained face away from her cousin +with a kind of helpless shame; then she smoothed her hair with the +palms of her hands. “I know you didn't mean any harm, +Rose,” she added, presently. “I got my silk dress done +last Wednesday; I wanted to tell you.” Charlotte tried to +smile at Rose with her poor swollen lips and her reddened eyes.</p> +<p>“I'm sorry I said anything,” Rose repeated; “I +ought to have known it would make you feel bad, +Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“No, you hadn't. I was terrible silly. Don't you want to +see my dress, Rose?”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte! you don't want to show it to +me?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I do. I want you to see it—before I pack it +away. It's in the north chamber.”</p> +<p>Rose followed Charlotte out of the room across the passageway to +the north chamber. Charlotte had had one brother, who had died some +ten years before, when he was twenty. The north chamber had been +his room, the bureau drawers were packed with his clothes, and the +silk hat which had been the pride of his early manhood hung on the +nail where he had left it, and also his Sunday coat. His mother +would not have them removed, but kept them there, with frequent +brushings, to guard against dust and moths.</p> +<p>Always when Charlotte entered this small long room, which was +full of wavering lines from its uneven floor and walls and ceiling +and the long arabesques on its old blue-and-white paper, whose +green paper curtains with fringed white dimity ones drooping over +them were always drawn, and in summertime when the windows were +open undulated in the wind, she had the sense of a presence, dim, +but as positive as the visions she had used to have of faces in the +wandering design of the old wall-paper when she had studied it in +her childhood. Ever since her brother's death she had had this +sense of his presence in his room; now she thought no more of it +than of any familiar figure. All the grief at his death had +vanished, but she never entered his old room that the thought of +him did not rise up before her and stay with her while she +remained.</p> +<p>Now, when she opened the door, and the opposite green and white +curtains flew out in the draught towards her, they were no more +evident than this presence to which she now gave no thought, and +pushed by her brother's memory without a glance.</p> +<p>Rose followed her to the bed. A white linen sheet was laid over +the chintz counterpane. Charlotte lifted the sheet.</p> +<p>“I took the last stitch on it Wednesday night,” she +said, in a hushed voice.</p> +<p>“Didn't he come that night?”</p> +<p>“I finished it before he came.”</p> +<p>“Did he see it?”</p> +<p>Charlotte nodded. The two girls stood looking solemnly at the +silk dress.</p> +<p>“You can't see it here; it's too dark,” said +Charlotte, and she rolled up a window curtain.</p> +<p>“Yes, I can see better,” said Rose, in a whisper. +“It's beautiful, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>The dress was spread widely over the bed in crisp folds. It was +purple, plaided vaguely with cloudy lines of white and delicate +rose-color. Over it lay a silvery lustre that was the very light of +the silken fabric.</p> +<p>Rose felt it reverently. “How thick it is!” said +she.</p> +<p>“Yes, it's a good piece,” Charlotte replied.</p> +<p>“You thought you'd have purple?”</p> +<p>“Yes, he liked it.”</p> +<p>“Well, it's pretty, and it's becoming to you.”</p> +<p>Charlotte took up the skirt, and slipped it, loud with silken +whispers, over her head. It swept out around her in a great circle; +she looked like a gorgeous inverted bell-flower.</p> +<p>“It's beautiful,” Rose said.</p> +<p>Charlotte's face, gazing downward at the silken breadths, had +quite its natural expression. It was as if her mind in spite of +herself would stop at old doors.</p> +<p>“Try on the waist,” pleaded Rose.</p> +<p>Charlotte slipped off her calico waist, and thrust her firm +white arms into the flaring silken sleeves of the wedding-gown. Her +neck arose from it with a grand curve. She stood before the glass +and strained the buttons together, frowning importantly.</p> +<p>“It fits you like a glove,” Rose murmured, +admiringly, smoothing Charlotte's glossy back.</p> +<p>“I've got a spencer-cape to wear over my neck to +meeting,” Charlotte said, and she opened the upper-most +drawer in the chest and took out a worked muslin cape, and adjusted +it carefully over her shoulders, pinning it across her bosom with a +little brooch of her brother's hair in a rim of gold.</p> +<p>“It's elegant,” said Rose.</p> +<p>“I'll show you my bonnet,” said Charlotte. She went +into a closet and emerged with a great green bandbox.</p> +<p>Rose bent over, watching her breathlessly as she opened it. +“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Charlotte!”</p> +<p>Charlotte held up the bonnet of fine Dunstable straw, flaring in +front, and trimmed under the brim with a delicate lace ruche and a +wreath of feathery white flowers. Bows of white gauze ribbon stood +up from it stiffly. Long ribbon strings floated back over her arm +as she held it up.</p> +<p>“Try it on,” said Rose.</p> +<p>Charlotte stepped before the glass and adjusted the bonnet to +her head. She tied the strings carefully under her chin in a great +square bow; then she turned towards Rose. The fine white wreath +under the brim encircled her face like a nimbus; she looked as she +might have done sitting a bride in the meeting-house.</p> +<p>“It's beautiful,” Rose said, smiling, with grave +eyes. “You look real handsome in it, Charlotte.” +Charlotte stood motionless a moment, with Rose surveying her.</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte,” Rose cried out, suddenly, “I +don't believe but what you'll have him, after all!” Rose's +eyes were sharp upon Charlotte's face. It was as if the bridal +robes, which were so evident, became suddenly proofs of something +tangible and real, like a garment left by a ghost. Rose felt a +sudden conviction that the quarrel was but a temporary thing; that +Charlotte would marry Barney, and that she knew it.</p> +<p>A change came over Charlotte's face. She began untying the +bonnet strings.</p> +<p>“Sha'n't you?” repeated Rose, breathlessly.</p> +<p>“No, I sha'n't.”</p> +<p>Charlotte took the bonnet off and smoothed the creases carefully +out of the strings.</p> +<p>“If I were you,” Rose cried out, “I'd feel +like tearing that bonnet to pieces!”</p> +<p>Charlotte replaced it in the bandbox, and began unfastening her +dress.</p> +<p>“I don't see how you can bear the sight of them. I don't +believe I could bear them in the house!” Rose cried out +again. “I would put that dress in the rag-bag if it was +mine!” Her cheeks burned and her eyes were quite fierce upon +the dress as Charlotte slipped it off and it fell to the floor in a +rustling heap around her.</p> +<p>“I don't see any sense in losing everything you have ever +had because you haven't got anything now,” Charlotte +returned, in a stern voice. She laid the shining silk gown +carefully on the bed, and put on her cotton one again. Her face was +quite steady.</p> +<p>Rose watched her with the same sharp question in her eyes. +“You know you and Barney will make it up,” she said, at +length.</p> +<p>“No, I don't,” returned Charlotte. “Suppose we +go down-stairs now. I've got some work I ought to do.”</p> +<p>Charlotte pulled down the green paper shades of the windows, and +went out of the room. Rose followed. Charlotte turned to go +down-stairs, but Rose caught her arm.</p> +<p>“Wait a minute,” said she. “Look here, +Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“What is it?”</p> +<p>“Charlotte,” said Rose again; then she stopped.</p> +<p>Charlotte turned and looked at her. Rose's eyes met hers, and +her face had a noble expression.</p> +<p>“You write a note to him, and I'll carry it,” said +Rose. “I'll go down in the field where he is, on my way +home.”</p> +<p>Tears sprang into Charlotte's eyes. “You're real good, +Rose,” she said; “but I can't.”</p> +<p>“Hadn't you better?”</p> +<p>“No; I can't. Don't let's talk any more about +it.”</p> +<p>Charlotte pushed past Rose's detaining hand, and the girls went +down-stairs. Mrs. Barnard looked around dejectedly at them as they +entered the kitchen. Her eyes were red, and her mouth drooping; she +was clearing the débris of the pies from the table; there +was a smell of baking, but Cephas had gone out. She tried to smile +at Rose. “Are you goin' now?” said she.</p> +<p>“Yes; I've got to. I've got to sew on my muslin dress. +When are you coming over, Aunt Sarah? You haven't been over to our +house for an age.”</p> +<p>“I don't care if I never go anywhere!” cried Sarah +Barnard, with sudden desperation. “I'm discouraged.” +She sank in a chair, and flung her apron over her face.</p> +<p>“Don't, mother,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“I can't help it,” sobbed her mother. “You're +young and you've got more strength to bear it, but mine's all gone. +I feel worse about you than if it was myself, an' there's so much +to put up with besides. I don't feel as if I could put up with +things much longer, nohow.”</p> +<p>“Uncle Cephas ought to be ashamed of himself!” Rose +cried out.</p> +<p>Sarah stood up. “Well, I don't s'pose I have so much to +put up with as some folks,” she said, catching her breath as +if it were her dignity. “Your Uncle Cephas means well. It did +seem as if them sorrel pies were the last straw, but I hadn't ought +to have minded it.”</p> +<p>“You haven't got to eat sorrel pies, have you?” Rose +asked, in a bewildered way.</p> +<p>“I don't s'pose they'll be any worse than some other +things we eat,” Sarah answered, scraping the pie-board +again.</p> +<p>“I don't see how you can.”</p> +<p>“I guess they won't hurt us any,” Sarah said, +shortly, and Rose looked abashed.</p> +<p>“Well, I must be going,” said she.</p> +<p>As she went out, she looked hesitatingly at Charlotte. +“Hadn't you better?” she whispered. Charlotte shook her +head, and Rose went out into the spring sunlight. She bent her head +as she went down the road before the sweet gusts of south wind; the +white apple-trees seemed to sing, for she could not see the birds +in them.</p> +<p>Rose's face between the green sides of her bonnet had in it all +the quickened bloom of youth in spring; her eyes had all the blue +surprise of violets; she panted softly between red swelling lips as +she walked; pulses beat in her crimson cheeks. Her slender figure +yielded to the wind as to a lover. She passed Barney Thayer's new +house; then she came opposite the field where he was at work +ploughing, driving a white horse, stooping to his work in his blue +frock.</p> +<p>Rose stood still and looked at him; then she walked on a little +way; then she paused again. Barney never looked around at her. +There was the width of a field between them.</p> +<p>Finally Rose went through the open bars into the first field. +She crossed it slowly, holding up her skirts where there was a wet +gleam through darker grass, and getting a little nosegay of violets +with a busy air, as if that were what she had come for. She passed +through the other bars into the second field, and Barney was only a +little way from her. He did not glance at her then. He was +ploughing with the look that Cadmus might have worn preparing the +ground for the dragon's teeth.</p> +<p>Rose held up her skirts, and went along the furrows behind him. +“Hullo, Barney,” she said, in a trembling voice.</p> +<p>“Hullo,” he returned, without looking around, and he +kept on, with Rose following.</p> +<p>“Barney,” said she, timidly.</p> +<p>“Well?” said Barney, half turning, with a slight +show of courtesy.</p> +<p>“Do you know if Rebecca is at home?”</p> +<p>“I don't know whether she is or not.”</p> +<p>Barney held stubbornly to his rocking plough, and Rose +followed.</p> +<p>“Barney,” said she, again.</p> +<p>“Well?”</p> +<p>“Stop a minute, and look round here.”</p> +<p>“I can't stop to talk.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you can; just a minute. Look round here.”</p> +<p>Barney stopped, and turned a stern, miserable face over his +shoulder.</p> +<p>“I've been up to Charlotte's,” Rose said.</p> +<p>“I don't know what that is to me.”</p> +<p>“Barney Thayer, ain't you ashamed of yourself?”</p> +<p>“I can't stop to talk.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you can. Look here. Charlotte feels +awfully.”</p> +<p>Barney stood with his back to Rose; his very shoulders had a +dogged look.</p> +<p>“Barney, why don't you make up with her?”</p> +<p>Barney stood still.</p> +<p>“Barney, she feels awfully because you didn't come back +when she called you last night.”</p> +<p>Barney made no reply. He and the white horse stood like +statues.</p> +<p>“Barney, why don't you make up with her? I wish you +would.” Rose's voice was full of tender inflections; it might +have been that of an angel peace-making.</p> +<p>Barney turned around between the handles of the plough, and +looked at her steadily. “You don't know anything about it, +Rose,” he said.</p> +<p>Rose looked up in his face, and her own was full of fine +pleading. “Oh, Barney,” she said, “poor Charlotte +does feel so bad! I know that anyhow.”</p> +<p>“You don't know how I am situated. I +can't—”</p> +<p>“Do go and see her, Barney.”</p> +<p>“Do you think I'm going into Cephas Barnard's house after +he's ordered me out?”</p> +<p>“Go up the road a little way, and she'll come and meet +you. I'll run ahead and tell her.”</p> +<p>Barney shook his head. “I can't; you don't know anything +about it, Rose.” He looked into Rose's eyes. “You're +real good, Rose,” he said, as if with a sudden recognition of +her presence.</p> +<p>Rose blushed softly, a new look came into her eyes, she smiled +up at him, and her face was all pink and sweet and fully set +towards him, like a rose for which he was a sun.</p> +<p>“No, I ain't good,” she whispered.</p> +<p>“Yes, you are; but I can't. You don't know anything about +it.” He swung about and grasped his plough-handles again.</p> +<p>“Barney, do stop a minute,” Rose pleaded.</p> +<p>“I can't stop any longer; there's no use talking,” +Barney said; and he went on remorselessly through the opening +furrow. Just before he turned the corner Rose made a little run +forward and caught his arm.</p> +<p>“You don't think I've done anything out of the way +speaking to you about it, do you, Barney?” she said, and she +was half crying.</p> +<p>“I don't know why I should think you had; I suppose you +meant all right,” Barney said. He pulled his arm away softly, +and jerked the right rein to turn the horse. “G'lang!” +he cried out, and strode forward with a conclusive air.</p> +<p>Rose stood looking after him a minute; then she struck off +across the field. Her knees trembled as she stepped over the soft +plough-ridges.</p> +<p>When she was out on the road again she went along quickly until +she came to the Thayer house. She was going past that when she +heard some one calling her name, and turned to see who it was.</p> +<p>Rebecca Thayer came hurrying out of the yard with a basket on +her arm. “Wait a minute,” she called, “and I'll +go along with you.”</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="V">Chapter V</a></h4> +<p>Rebecca, walking beside Rose, looked like a woman of another +race. She was much taller, and her full, luxuriant young figure +looked tropical beside Rose's slender one. Her body undulated as +she walked, but Rose moved only with forward flings of delicate +limbs.</p> +<p>“I've got to carry these eggs down to the store and get +some sugar,” said Rebecca.</p> +<p>Rose assented, absently. She was full of the thought of her talk +with Barney.</p> +<p>“It's a pleasant day, ain't it?” said Rebecca.</p> +<p>“Yes, it's real pleasant. Say, Rebecca, I'm awful afraid I +made Barney mad just now.”</p> +<p>“Why, what did you do?”</p> +<p>“I stopped in the field when I was going by. I'd been up +to see Charlotte, and I said something about it to him.”</p> +<p>“How much do you know about it?” Rebecca asked, +abruptly.</p> +<p>“Charlotte told me this mornin', and last night when I was +going to her house across lots I saw Barney going, and heard her +calling him back. I thought I'd see if I couldn't coax him to make +up with her, but I couldn't.”</p> +<p>“Oh, he'll come round,” said Rebecca.</p> +<p>“Then you think it'll be made up?” Rose asked, +quickly.</p> +<p>“Of course it will. We're having a terrible time about +poor Barney. He didn't come home last night, and it's much as ever +he's spoken this morning. He wouldn't eat any breakfast. He just +went into his room, and put on his other clothes, and then went out +in the field to work. He wouldn't tell mother anything about it. I +never saw her so worked up. She's terribly afraid he's done +something wrong.”</p> +<p>“He hasn't done anything wrong,” returned Rose. +“I think your mother is terrible hard on him. It's Uncle +Cephas; he just picked the quarrel. He hasn't never more'n half +liked Barney. So you think Barney will make up with Charlotte, and +they'll get married, after all?”</p> +<p>“Of course they will,” Rebecca replied, promptly. +“I guess they won't be such fools as not to for such a silly +reason as that, when Barney's got his house 'most done, and +Charlotte has got all her wedding-clothes ready.”</p> +<p>“Ain't Barney terrible set?”</p> +<p>“He's set enough, but I guess you'll find he won't be this +time.”</p> +<p>“Well, I'm sure I hope he won't be,” Rose said, and +she walked along silently, her face sober in the depths of her +bonnet.</p> +<p>They came to Richard Alger's house on the right-hand side of the +road, and Rebecca looked reflectively at the white cottage with its +steep peak of Gothic roof set upon a ploughed hill. “It's +queer how he's been going with your aunt Sylvy all these +years,” she said.</p> +<p>“Yes, 'tis,” assented Rose, and she too glanced up +at the house. As they looked, a man came around the corner with a +basket. He was about to plant potatoes in his hilly yard.</p> +<p>“There he is now,” said Rose.</p> +<p>They watched Richard Alger coming towards them, past a great +tree whose new leaves were as red as flowers.</p> +<p>“What do you suppose the reason is?” Rebecca said, +in a low voice.</p> +<p>“I don't know. I suppose he's got used to living this +way.”</p> +<p>“I shouldn't think they'd be very happy,” Rebecca +said; and she blushed, and her voice had a shamefaced tone.</p> +<p>“I don't suppose it makes so much difference when folks +get older,” Rose returned.</p> +<p>“Maybe it don't. Rose.”</p> +<p>“What is it?”</p> +<p>“I wish you'd go into the store with me.”</p> +<p>Rose laughed. “What for?”</p> +<p>“Nothing. Only I wish you would.”</p> +<p>“You afraid of William?” Rose peered around into +Rebecca's bonnet.</p> +<p>Rebecca blushed until tears came to her eyes. “I'd like to +know what I'd be afraid of William Berry for,” she +replied.</p> +<p>“Then what do you want me to go into the store with you +for?”</p> +<p>“Nothing.”</p> +<p>“You're a great ninny, Rebecca Thayer,” Rose said, +laughing, “but I'll go if you want me to. I know William +won't like it. You run away from him the whole time. There isn't +another girl in Pembroke treats him as badly as you do.”</p> +<p>“I don't treat him badly.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you do. And I don't believe but what you like him, +Rebecca Thayer; you wouldn't act so silly if you didn't.”</p> +<p>Rebecca was silent. Rose peered around in her face again. +“I was only joking. I think a sight more of you for not +running after him, and so does William. You haven't any idea how +some of the girls act chasing to the store. Mother and I have +counted 'em some days, and then we plague William about it, but he +won't own up they come to see him. He acts more ashamed of it than +the girls do.”</p> +<p>“That's one thing I never would do—run after any +fellow,” said Rebecca.</p> +<p>“I wouldn't either.”</p> +<p>Then the two girls had reached the tavern and the store. Rose's +father, Silas Berry, had kept the tavern, but now it was closed, +except to occasional special guests. He had gained a competency, +and his wife Hannah had rebelled against further toil. Then, too, +the railroad had been built through East Pembroke instead of +Pembroke, the old stage line had become a thing of the past, and +the tavern was scantily patronized. Still, Silas Berry had given it +up with great reluctance; he cherished a grudge against his wife +because she had insisted upon it, and would never admit that +business policy had aught to do with it.</p> +<p>The store adjoining the tavern, which he had owned for years, he +still retained, but his son William had charge of it. Silas Berry +was growing old, and the year before had had a slight shock of +paralysis, which had made him halt and feeble, although his mind +was as clear as ever. However, although he took no active part in +the duties of the store, he was still there, and sharply watchful +for his interests, the greater part of every day.</p> +<p>The two girls went up the steps to the store piazza. Rose +stepped forward and looked in the door. “Father's in there, +and Tommy Ray,” she whispered. “You needn't be afraid +to go in.” But she entered as she spoke, and Rebecca followed +her.</p> +<p>There was one customer in the great country store, a stout old +man, on the grocery side. His broad red face turned towards them a +second, then squinted again at some packages on the counter. He was +haggling for garden seeds. William Berry, who was waiting upon him, +did not apparently look at his sister and Rebecca Thayer, but +Rebecca had entered his heart as well as the store, and he saw her +face deep in his own consciousness.</p> +<p>Tommy Ray, the great white-headed boy who helped William in the +store, shuffled along behind the counter indeterminately, but the +girls did not seem to see him. Rose was talking fast to Rebecca. He +lounged back against the shelves, stared out the door, and +whistled.</p> +<p>Out of the obscurity in the back of the store an old man's +narrow bristling face peered, watchful as a cat, his body hunched +up in a round-backed arm-chair.</p> +<p>“Mr. Nims will go in a minute,” Rose whispered, and +presently the old farmer clamped past them out the door, counting +his change from one hand to the other, his lips moving.</p> +<p>William Berry replaced the seed packages which the customer had +rejected on the shelves as the girls approached him.</p> +<p>“Rebecca's got some eggs to sell,” Rose +announced.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem05.png" width="322" height="395" +alt="[Illustration: “‘Rebecca's got some eggs to sell’”]"> +</p> +<p>William Berry's thin, wide-shouldered figure towered up behind +the counter; he smiled, and the smile was only a deepening of the +pleasant intensity of his beardless face, with its high pale +forehead and smooth crest of fair hair. The lines in his face +scarcely changed.</p> +<p>“How d'ye do?” said he.</p> +<p>“How d'ye do?” returned Rebecca, with fluttered +dignity. Her face bloomed deeply pink in the green tunnel of her +sun-bonnet, her black eyes were as soft and wary as a baby's, her +full red lips had a grave, innocent expression.</p> +<p>“How many dozen eggs have you got, Rebecca?” Rose +inquired, peering into the basket.</p> +<p>“Two; mother couldn't spare any more to-day,” +Rebecca replied, in a trembling voice.</p> +<p>“How much sugar do you give for two dozen eggs, +William?” asked Rose.</p> +<p>William hesitated; he gave a scarcely perceptible glance towards +the watchful old man, whose eyes seemed to gleam out of the gloom +in the back of the store. “Well, about two pounds and a +half,” he replied, in a low voice.</p> +<p>Rebecca set her basket of eggs on the counter.</p> +<p>“How many pound did you tell her, William?” called +the old man's hoarse voice.</p> +<p>William compressed his lips. “About two and a half, +father.”</p> +<p>“How many?”</p> +<p>“Two and a half.”</p> +<p>“How many dozen of eggs?”</p> +<p>“Two.”</p> +<p>“You ain't offerin' of her two pound of sugar for two +dozen eggs?”</p> +<p>“I said two pounds and a half of sugar, father,” +said William. He began counting the eggs.</p> +<p>“Be you gone crazy?”</p> +<p>“Never mind,” whispered Rebecca. “That's too +much sugar for the eggs. Mother didn't expect so much. Don't say +any more about it, William.” Her face was quite steady and +self-possessed now, as she looked at William, frowning heavily over +the eggs.</p> +<p>“Give Rebecca two pounds of sugar for the eggs, father, +and call it square,” Rose called out.</p> +<p>Silas Berry pulled himself up a joint at a time; then he came +forward at a stiff halt, his face pointing out in advance of his +body. He entered at the gap in the counter, and pressed close to +his son's side. Then he looked sharply across at Rebecca. +“Sugar is fourteen cents a pound now,” said he, +“an' eggs ain't fetchin' more'n ten cents a dozen. You tell +your mother.”</p> +<p>“Father, I told her I'd giver her two and a half pounds +for two dozen,” said William; he was quite pale. He began +counting the eggs over again, and his hands trembled.</p> +<p>“I'll take just what you're willing to give,” +Rebecca said to Silas.</p> +<p>“Sugar is fourteen cents a pound, an' eggs is fetchin' ten +cents a dozen,” said the old man; “you can have a pound +and a half of sugar for them eggs if you can give me a cent to +boot.”</p> +<p>Rebecca colored. “I'm afraid I haven't got a cent with +me,” said she; “I didn't fetch my purse. You'll have to +give me a cent's worth less sugar, Mr. Berry.”</p> +<p>“It's kinder hard to calkilate so close as that,” +returned Silas, gravely; “you had better tell your mother +about it, an' you come back with the cent by-an'-by.”</p> +<p>“Why, father!” cried Rose.</p> +<p>William shouldered his father aside with a sudden motion. +“I'm tending to this, father,” he said, in a stern +whisper; “you leave it alone.”</p> +<p>“I ain't goin' to stan' by an' see you givin' twice as +much for eggs as they're worth 'cause it's a gal you're tradin' +with. That wa'n't never my way of doin' business, an' I ain't goin' +to have it done in my store. I shouldn't have laid up a cent if I'd +managed any such ways, an' I ain't goin' to see my hard earnin's +wasted by you. You give her a pound and a half of sugar for them +eggs and a cent to boot.”</p> +<p>“You sha'n't lose anything by it, father,” said +William, fiercely. “You leave me alone.”</p> +<p>The sugar-barrel stood quite near. William strode over to it, +and plunged in the great scoop with a grating noise. He heaped it +recklessly on some paper, and laid it on the steelyards.</p> +<p>“Don't give me more'n a pound and a half,” Rebecca +said, softly.</p> +<p>“Keep still,” Rose whispered in her ear.</p> +<p>Silas pushed forward, and bent over the steelyards. +“You've weighed out nigh three,” he began. Then his +son's face suddenly confronted his, and he stopped talking and +stood back.</p> +<p>Almost involuntarily at times Silas Berry yielded to the +combination of mental and superior physical force in his son. While +his own mind had lost nothing of its vigor, his bodily weakness +made him distrustful of it sometimes, when his son towered over him +in what seemed the might of his own lost strength and youth, +brandishing his own old weapons.</p> +<p>William tied up the sugar neatly; then he took the eggs from +Rebecca's basket, and put the parcel in their place. Silas began +lifting the eggs from the box in which William had put them, and +counted them eagerly.</p> +<p>“There ain't but twenty-three eggs here,” he called +out, as Rebecca and Rose turned away, and William was edging after +them from behind the counter.</p> +<p>“I thought there were two dozen,” Rebecca responded, +in a distressed voice.</p> +<p>“Of course there are two dozen,” said Rose, +promptly. “You 'ain't counted 'em right, father. Go along, +Rebecca; it's all right.”</p> +<p>“I tell ye it ain't,” said Silas. “There ain't +but twenty-three. It's bad enough to be payin' twice what they're +wuth for eggs, without havin' of 'em come short.”</p> +<p>“I tell you I counted 'em twice over, and they're all +right. You keep still, father,” said William's voice at his +ear, in a fierce whisper, and Silas subsided into sullen +mutterings.</p> +<p>William had meditated following Rebecca to the door; he had even +meditated going farther; but now he stood back behind the counter, +and began packing up some boxes with a busy air.</p> +<p>“Ain't you going a piece with Rebecca, and carry her +basket, William?” Rose called back, when the two girls +reached the door.</p> +<p>Rebecca clutched her arm. “Oh, don't,” she gasped, +and Rose giggled.</p> +<p>“Ain't you, William?” she said again.</p> +<p>Rebecca hurried out the door, but she heard William reply coldly +that he couldn't, he was too busy. She was half crying when Rose +caught up with her.</p> +<p>“William wanted to go bad enough, but he was too upset by +what father said. You mustn't mind father,” Rose said, +peering around into Rebecca's bonnet. “Why, Rebecca, what is +the matter?”</p> +<p>“I didn't go into that store a step to see William Berry. +You know I didn't,” Rebecca cried out, with sudden passion. +Her voice was hoarse with tears; her face was all hot and quivering +with shame and anger.</p> +<p>“Why, of course you didn't,” Rose returned, in a +bewildered way. “Who said you did, Rebecca?”</p> +<p>“You know I didn't. I hated to go to the store this +morning. I told mother I didn't want to, but she didn't have a mite +of sugar in the house, and there wasn't anybody else to send. +Ephraim ain't very well, and Doctor Whiting says he ought not to +walk very far. I had to come, but I didn't come to see William +Berry, and nobody has any call to think I did.”</p> +<p>“I don't know who said you did. I don't know what you +mean, Rebecca.”</p> +<p>“You acted as if you thought so. I don't want William +Berry seeing me home in broad daylight, when I've been to the store +to trade, and you needn't think that's what I came for, and he +needn't.”</p> +<p>“Good land, Rebecca Thayer, he didn't, and I was just in +fun. He'd have come with you, but he was so mad at what father said +that he backed out. William's just about as easy upset as you are. +I didn't mean any harm. Say, Rebecca, come into the house a little +while, can't you? I don't believe your mother is in any great hurry +for the sugar.” Rose took hold of Rebecca's arm, but Rebecca +jerked herself away with a sob, and went down the road almost on a +run.</p> +<p>“Well, I hope you're touchy enough, Rebecca Thayer,” +Rose called out, as she stood looking after her. “Folks will +begin to think you did come to see William if you make such a fuss +when nobody accuses you of it, if you don't look out.”</p> +<p>Rebecca hastened trembling down the road. She made no reply, but +she knew that Rose was quite right, and that she had attacked her +with futile reproaches in order to save herself from shame in her +own eyes. Rebecca knew quite well that in spite of her hesitation +and remonstrances, in spite of her maiden shrinking on the +threshold of the store, she had come to see William Berry. She had +been glad, although she had turned a hypocritical face towards her +own consciousness, that Ephraim was not well enough and she was +obliged to go. Her heart had leaped with joy when Rose had proposed +William's walking home with her, but when he refused she was +crushed with shame. “He thought I came to see him,” she +kept saying to herself as she hurried along, and there was no +falsehood that she would not have sworn to to shield her modesty +from such a thought on his part.</p> +<p>When she got home and entered the kitchen, she kept her face +turned away from her mother. “Here's the sugar,” she +said, and she took it out of the basket and placed it on the +table.</p> +<p>“How much did he give you?” asked Deborah Thayer; +she was standing beside the window beating eggs. Over in the field +she could catch a glimpse of Barnabas now and then between the +trees as he passed with his plough.</p> +<p>“About two pounds.”</p> +<p>“That was doin' pretty well.”</p> +<p>Rebecca said nothing. She turned to go out of the room.</p> +<p>“Where are you going?” her mother asked, sharply. +“Take off your bonnet. I want you to beat up the butter and +sugar; this cake ought to be in the oven.”</p> +<p>Deborah's face, as she beat the eggs and made cake, looked as +full of stern desperation as a soldier's on the battle-field. +Deborah never yielded to any of the vicissitudes of life; she met +them in fair fight like enemies, and vanquished them, not with +trumpet and spear, but with daily duties. It was a village story +how Deborah Thayer cleaned all the windows in the house one +afternoon when her first child had died in the morning. To-day she +was in a tumult of wrath and misery over her son; her mouth was so +full of the gall of bitterness that no sweet on earth could +overcome it; but she made sweet cake.</p> +<p>Rebecca took off her sun-bonnet and hung it on a peg; she got a +box from the pantry, and emptied the sugar into in, still keeping +her face turned away as best she could from her mother's eyes.</p> +<p>Deborah looked approvingly at the sugar. “It's nigher +three pounds than anything else. I guess you were kind of favored, +Rebecca. Did William wait on you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, he did.”</p> +<p>“I guess you were kind of favored,” Deborah +repeated, and a half-smile came over her grim face.</p> +<p>Rebecca said nothing. She got some butter, and fell to work with +a wooden spoon, creaming the butter and sugar in a brown wooden +bowl with swift turns of her strong white wrist. Ephraim watched +her sharply; he sat by a window stoning raisins. His mother had +forbidden him to eat any, as she thought them injurious to him; but +he carefully calculated his chances, and deposited many in his +mouth when she watched Barney; but his jaws were always gravely set +when she turned his way.</p> +<p>Ephraim's face had a curious bluish cast, as if his blood were +the color of the juice of a grape. His chest heaved shortly and +heavily. The village doctor had told is mother that he had +heart-disease, which might prove fatal, although there was a chance +of his outgrowing it, and Deborah had set her face against +that.</p> +<p>Ephraim's face, in spite of its sickly hue, had a perfect +healthiness and naturalness of expression, which insensibly gave +confidence to his friends, although it aroused their irritation. A +spirit of boyish rebellion and importance looked out of Ephraim's +black eyes; his mouth was demure with mischief, his gawky figure +perpetually uneasy and twisting, as if to find entrance into small +forbidden places. There was something in Ephraim's face, when she +looked suddenly at him, which continually led his mother to infer +that he had been transgressing. “What have you been doin', +Ephraim?” she would call out, sharply, many a time, with no +just grounds for suspicion, and be utterly routed by Ephraim's +innocent, wondering grin in response.</p> +<p>The boy was set about with restrictions which made his life +miserable, but the labor of picking over plums for a cake was quite +to his taste. He dearly loved plums, although they were especially +prohibited. He rolled one quietly under his tongue, and watched +Rebecca with sharp eyes. She could scarcely keep her face turned +away from him and her mother too.</p> +<p>“Say, mother, Rebecca's been cryin'!” Ephraim +announced, suddenly.</p> +<p>Deborah turned and looked at Rebecca's face bending lower over +the wooden bowl; her black lashes rested on red circles, and her +lips were swollen.</p> +<p>“I'd like to know what you've been cryin' about,” +said Deborah. It was odd that she did not think that Rebecca's +grief might be due to the worry over Barney; but she did not for a +minute. She directly attributed it to some personal and strictly +selfish consideration which should arouse her animosity.</p> +<p>“Nothing,” said Rebecca, with sulky misery.</p> +<p>“Yes, you've been cryin' about something, too. I want to +know what 'tis.”</p> +<p>“Nothing. I wish you wouldn't, mother.”</p> +<p>“Did you see William Berry over to the store?”</p> +<p>“I told you I did once.”</p> +<p>“Well, you needn't bite my head off. Did he say anything +to you?”</p> +<p>“He weighed out the sugar. I know one thing: I'll never +set my foot inside that store again as long as I live!”</p> +<p>“I'd like to know what you mean, Rebecca +Thayer.”</p> +<p>“I ain't going to have folks think I'm running after +William Berry.”</p> +<p>“I'd like to know who thinks you are. If it's Hannah +Berry, she needn't talk, after the way her daughter has chased over +here. Mebbe it's all you Rose Berry has been to see, but I've had +my doubts. What did Hannah Berry say to you?”</p> +<p>“She didn't say anything. I haven't seen her.”</p> +<p>“What was it, then?”</p> +<p>But Rebecca would not tell her mother what the trouble had been; +she could not bring herself to reveal how William had been urged to +walk home with her and how coldly he had refused, and finally +Deborah, in spite of baffled interest, turned upon her. +“Well, I hope you didn't do anything unbecoming,” said +she.</p> +<p>“Mother, you know better.”</p> +<p>“Well, I hope you didn't.”</p> +<p>“Mother, I won't stand being talked to so!”</p> +<p>“I rather think I shall talk to you all I think I ought to +for your own good,” said Deborah, with fierce persistency. +“I ain't goin' to have any daughter of mine doin' anything +bold and forward, if I know it.”</p> +<p>Rebecca was weeping quite openly now. “Mother, you know +you sent me down to the store yourself; there wasn't anybody else +to go,” she sobbed out.</p> +<p>“Your goin' to the store wa'n't anything. I guess you can +go to the store to trade off some eggs for sugar when I'm makin' +cake without William Berry thinkin' you're runnin' after him, or +Hannah Berry thinkin' so either. But there wa'n't any need of your +makin' any special talk with him, or lookin' as if you was tickled +to death to see him.”</p> +<p>“I didn't. I wouldn't go across the room to see William +Berry. You haven't any right to say such things to me, +mother.”</p> +<p>“I guess I've got a right to talk to my own daughter. I +should think things had come to a pretty pass if I can't speak when +I see you doin' out of the way. I know one thing, you won't go to +that store again. I'll go myself next time. Have you got that +butter an' sugar mixed up?”</p> +<p>“I hope you will go, I'm sure. I don't want to,” +returned Rebecca. She had stopped crying, but her face was burning; +she hit the spoon with dull thuds against the wooden bowl.</p> +<p>“Don't you be saucy. That's done enough; give it +here.”</p> +<p>Deborah finished the cake with a master hand. When she measured +the raisins which Ephraim had stoned she cast a sharp glance at +him, but he was ready for it with beseechingly upturned sickly +face. “Can't I have just one raisin, mother?” he +pleaded.</p> +<p>“Yes, you may, if you 'ain't eat any while you was pickin' +of 'em over,” she answered. And he reached over a thumb and +finger and selected a large fat plum, which he ate with +ostentatious relish. Ephraim's stomach oppressed him, his breath +came harder, but he had a sense of triumph in his soul. This +depriving him of the little creature comforts which he loved, and +of the natural enjoyments of boyhood, aroused in him a blind spirit +of revolution which he felt virtuous in exercising. Ephraim was +absolutely conscienceless with respect to all his stolen +pleasures.</p> +<p>Deborah had a cooking-stove. She had a progressive spirit, and +when stoves were first introduced had promptly done away with the +brick oven, except on occasions when much baking-room was needed. +After her new stove was set up in her back kitchen, she often +alluded to Hannah Berry's conservative principles with scorn. +Hannah's sister, Mrs. Barnard, had told her how a stove could be +set up in the tavern any minute; but Hannah despised new notions. +“Hannah won't have one, nohow,” said Mrs. Barnard. +“I dunno but I would, if Cephas could afford it, and wa'n't +set against it. It seems to me it might save a sight of +work.”</p> +<p>“Some folks are rooted so deep in old notions that they +can't see their own ideas over them,” declared Deborah. Often +when she cooked in her new stove she inveighed against Hannah +Berry's foolishness.</p> +<p>“If Hannah Berry wants to heat up a whole brick oven and +work the whole forenoon to bake a loaf of cake, she can,” +said she, as she put the pan of cake in the oven. “Now, you +watch this, Rebecca Thayer, and don't you let it burn, and you get +the potatoes ready for dinner.”</p> +<p>“Where are you going, mother?” asked Ephraim.</p> +<p>“I'm just goin' to step out a little way.”</p> +<p>“Can't I go too?”</p> +<p>“No; you set still. You ain't fit to walk this mornin'. +You know what the doctor told you.”</p> +<p>“It won't hurt me any,” whined Ephraim. There were +times when the spirit of rebellion in him made illness and even his +final demise flash before his eyes like sweet overhanging fruit, +since they were so strenuously forbidden.</p> +<p>“You set still,” repeated his mother. She tied on +her own green sun-bonnet, stiffened with pasteboard, and went with +it rattling against her ears across the fields to the one where her +son was ploughing. The grass was not wet, but she held her dress up +high, showing her thick shoes and her blue yarn stockings, and took +long strides. Barney was guiding the plough past her when she came +up.</p> +<p>“You stop a minute,” she said, authoritatively. +“I want to speak to you.”</p> +<p>“Whoa!” said Barney, and pulled up the horse. +“Well, what is it?” he said, gruffly, with his eyes +upon the plough.</p> +<p>“You go this minute and set the men to work on your house +again. You leave the horse here—I'll watch him—and go +and tell Sam Plummer to come and get the other men.”</p> +<p>“G'lang!” said Barney, and the horse pulled the +plough forward with a jerk.</p> +<p>Mrs. Thayer seized Barney's arm. “You stop!” said +she. “Whoa, whoa! Now you look here, Barnabas Thayer. I don't +know what you did to make Cephas Barnard order you out of the +house, but I know it was something. I ain't goin' to believe it was +all about the election. There was something back of that. I ain't +goin' to shield you because you're my son. I know jest how set you +can be in your own ways, and how you can hang on to your temper. +I've known you ever since you was a baby; you can't teach me +anything new about yourself. I don't know what you did to make +Cephas mad, but I know what you've got to do now. You go and set +the men to work on that house again, and then you go over to Cephas +Barnard's, and you tell him you're sorry for what you've done. I +don't care anything about Cephas Barnard, and if I'd had my way in +the first place I wouldn't have had anything to do with him or his +folks either; but now you've got to do what's right if you've gone +as far as this, and Charlotte's all ready to be married. You go +right along, Barnabas Thayer!”</p> +<p>Barnabas stood immovable, his face set past his mother, as +irresponsively unyielding as a rock.</p> +<p>“Be you goin'?”</p> +<p>Barnabas did not reply. His mother moved, and brought her eyes +on a range with his, and the two faces confronted each other in +silence, while it was as if two wills clashed swords in advance of +them.</p> +<p>Then Mrs. Thayer moved away. “I ain't never goin' to say +anything more to you about it,” she said; “but there's +one thing—you needn't come home to dinner. You sha'n't ever +sit down to a meal in your father's and mother's house whilst this +goes on.”</p> +<p>“G'lang!” said Barnabas. The horse started, and he +bent to the plough. His mother stepped homeward over the +plough-ridges with stern unyielding steps, as if they were her +enemies slain in battle.</p> +<p>Just as she reached her own yard her husband drove in on a +rattling farm cart. She beckoned to him, and he pulled the horse up +short.</p> +<p>“I've told him he needn't come home to dinner,” she +said, standing close to the wheel.</p> +<p>Caleb looked down at her with a scared expression. “Well, +I s'pose you know what's best, Deborah,” he said.</p> +<p>“If he can't do what's right he's got to suffer for +it,” returned Deborah.</p> +<p>She went into the house, and Caleb drove clanking into the +barn.</p> +<p>Before dinner the old man stole off across lots, keeping well +out of sight of the kitchen windows lest his wife should see him, +and pleaded with Barnabas, but all in vain. The young man was more +outspoken with his father, but he was just as firm.</p> +<p>“Your mother's terrible set about it, Barney. You'd better +go over to Charlotte's and make up.”</p> +<p>“I can't; it's all over,” Barney said, in reply; and +Caleb at length plodded soberly and clumsily home.</p> +<p>After dinner he went out behind the barn, and Rebecca, going to +feed the hens, found him sitting under the wild-cherry tree, fairly +sobbing in his old red handkerchief.</p> +<p>She went near him, and stood looking at him with restrained +sympathy.</p> +<p>“Don't feel bad, father,” she said, finally. +“Barney'll get over it, and come to supper.”</p> +<p>“No, he won't,” groaned the old man—“no, +he won't. He's jest like your mother.”</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="VI">Chapter VI</a></h4> +<p>The weeks went on, and still Barnabas had not yielded. The story +of his quarrel with Cephas Barnard and his broken engagement with +Charlotte had become an old one in Pembroke, but it had not yet +lost its interest. A genuine excitement was so rare in the little +peaceful village that it had to be made to last, and rolled charily +under the tongue like a sweet morsel. However, there seemed to be +no lack now, for the one had set others in motion: everybody knew +how Barnabas Thayer no longer lived at home, and did not sit in his +father's pew in church, but in the gallery, and how Richard Alger +had stopped going to see Sylvia Crane.</p> +<p>There was not much walking in the village, except to and from +church on a Sabbath day; but now on pleasant Sabbath evenings an +occasional couple, or an inquisitive old man with eyes sharp under +white brows, and chin set ahead like a pointer's, strolled past +Sylvia's house and the Thayer house, Barney's new one and Cephas +Barnard's.</p> +<p>They looked sharply and furtively to see if Sylvia had a light +in her best room, and if Richard Alger's head was visible through +the window, if Barney Thayer had gone home and yielded to his +mother's commands, if any more work had been done on the new house, +and if he perchance had gone a-courting Charlotte again.</p> +<p>But they never saw Richard Alger's face in poor Sylvia's best +room, although her candle was always lit, they never saw Barney at +his old home, the new house advanced not a step beyond its +incompleteness, and Barney never was seen at Charlotte Barnard's on +a Sabbath night. Once, indeed, there was a rumor to that effect. A +man's smooth dark head was visible at one of the front-room windows +opposite Charlotte's fair one, and everybody took it for +Barney's.</p> +<p>The next morning Barney's mother came to the door of the new +house. “I want to know if it's true that you went over there +last night,” she said; her voice was harsh, but her mouth was +yielding.</p> +<p>“No, I didn't,” said Barney, shortly, and Deborah +went away with a harsh exclamation. Before long she knew and +everybody else knew that the man who had been seen at Charlotte's +window was not Barney, but Thomas Payne.</p> +<p>Presently Ephraim came slowly across to the garden-patch where +Barney was planting. He was breathing heavily, and grinning. When +he reached Barney he stood still watching him, and the grin +deepened. “Say, Barney,” he panted at length.</p> +<p>“Well, what is it?”</p> +<p>“You've lost your girl; did you know it, +Barney?”</p> +<p>Barney muttered something unintelligible; it sounded like the +growl of a dog, but Ephraim was not intimidated. He chuckled with +delight and spoke again. “Say, Barney, Thomas Payne's got +your girl; did you know it, Barney?”</p> +<p>Barney turned threateningly, but he was helpless before his +brother's sickly face, and Ephraim knew it. That purple hue and +that panting breath had gained an armistice for him on many a +battle-field, and he had a certain triumph in it. It was power of a +lugubrious sort, certainly, but still it was power, and so to be +enjoyed.</p> +<p>“Thomas Payne's got your girl,” he repeated; +“he was over there a-courtin' of her last night; a-settin' up +along of her.”</p> +<p>Barney took a step forward, and Ephraim fell back a little, +still grinning imperturbably. “You mind your own +business,” Barney said, between his teeth; and right upon his +words followed Ephraim's hoarse chuckle and his “Thomas +Payne's got your girl.”</p> +<p>Barney turned about and went on with his planting. Ephraim, +standing a little aloof, somewhat warily since his brother's +threatening advance, kept repeating his one remark, as mocking as +the snarl of a mosquito. “Thomas Payne's got your girl, +Barney. Say, did you know it? Thomas Payne's got your +girl.”</p> +<p>Finally Ephraim stepped close to Barney and shouted it into his +ear: “Say, Barney, Barney Thayer, be you deaf? Thomas Payne +has got—your—<em>girl!”</em> But Barney planted +on; his nerves were quivering, the impetus to strike out was so +strong in his arms that it seemed as if it must by sheer mental +force affect his teasing brother, but he made no sign, and said not +another word.</p> +<p>Ephraim, worsted at length by silence, beat a gradual retreat. +Half-way across the field his panting voice called back, +“Barney, Thomas Payne has got your girl,” and ended in +a choking giggle. Barney planted, and made no response; but when +Ephraim was well out of sight, he flung down his hoe with a +groaning sigh, and went stumbling across the soft loam of the +garden-patch into a little woody thicket beside it. He penetrated +deeply between the trees and underbrush, and at last flung himself +down on his face among the soft young flowers and weeds. “Oh, +Charlotte!” he groaned out. “Oh, Charlotte, +Charlotte!” Barney began sobbing and crying like a child as +he lay there; he moved his arms convulsively, and tore up handfuls +of young grass and leaves, and flung them away in the unconscious +gesturing of grief. “Oh, I can't, I can't!” he groaned. +“I—can't—Charlotte! I can't—let any other +man have you! No other man shall have you!” he cried out, +fiercely, and flung up his head; “you are mine, mine! I'll +kill any other man that touches you!” Barney got up, and his +face was flaming; he started off with a great stride, and then he +stopped short and flung an arm around the slender trunk of a +white-birch tree, and pulled it against him and leaned against it +as if it were Charlotte, and laid his cheek on the cool white bark +and sobbed again like a girl. “Oh, Charlotte, +Charlotte!” he moaned, and his voice was drowned out by the +manifold rustling of the young birch leaves, as a human grief is +overborne and carried out of sight by the soft, resistless progress +of nature.</p> +<p>Barney, although his faith in Charlotte had been as strong as +any man's should be in his promised wife, had now no doubt but this +other man had met with favor in her eyes. But he had no blame for +her, nor even any surprise at her want of constancy. He blamed the +Lord, for Charlotte as well as for himself. “If this hadn't +happened she never would have looked at any one else,” he +thought, and his thought had the force of a blow against fate.</p> +<p>This Thomas Payne was the best match in the village; he was the +squire's son, good-looking, and college-educated. Barney had always +known that he fancied Charlotte, and had felt a certain triumph +that he had won her in the face of it. “You might have +somebody that's a good deal better off if you didn't have +me,” he said to her once, and they both knew whom he meant. +“I don't want anybody else,” Charlotte had replied, +with her shy stateliness. Now Barney thought that she had changed +her mind; and why should she not? A girl ought to marry if she +could; he could not marry her himself, and should not expect her to +remain single all her life for his sake. Of course Charlotte wanted +to be married, like other women. This probable desire of +Charlotte's for love and marriage in itself, apart from him, +thrilled his male fancy with a certain holy awe and respect, from +his love for her and utter ignorance of the attitude of womankind. +Then, too, he reflected that Thomas Payne would probably make her a +good husband. “He can buy her everything she wants,” he +thought, with a curious mixture of gratulation for her and agony on +his own account. He thought of the little bonnets he had meant to +buy for her himself, and these details pierced his heart like +needles. He sobbed, and the birch-tree quivered in a wind of human +grief. He saw Charlotte going to church in her bridal bonnet with +Thomas Payne more plainly than he could ever see her in life, for a +torturing imagination reflects life like a magnifying-glass, and +makes it clearer and larger than reality. He saw Charlotte with +Thomas Payne, blushing all over her proud, delicate face when he +looked at her; he saw her with Thomas Payne's children. “O +God!” he gasped, and he threw himself down on the ground +again, and lay there, face downward, motionless as if fate had +indeed seized him and shaken the life out of him and left him there +for dead; but it was his own will which was his fate.</p> +<p>“Barney,” his father called, somewhere out in the +field. “Barney, where be you?”</p> +<p>“I'm coming,” Barney called back, in a surly voice, +and he pulled himself up and pushed his way out of the thicket to +the ploughed field where his father stood.</p> +<p>“Oh, there you be!” said Caleb. Barney grunted +something inarticulate, and took up his hoe again. Caleb stood +watching him, his eyes irresolute under anxiously frowning brows. +“Barney,” he said, at length.</p> +<p>“Well, what do you want?”</p> +<p>“I've jest heard—” the old man began; then he +stopped with a jump.</p> +<p>“I don't want to hear what you've heard. Keep it to +yourself if you've heard anything!” Barney shouted.</p> +<p>“I didn't know as you knew,” Caleb stammered, +apologetically. “I didn't know as you'd heard, +Barney.”</p> +<p>Caleb went to the edge of the field, and sat down on a great +stone under a wild-cherry tree. He was not feeling very well; his +head was dizzy, and his wife had given him a bowl of thoroughwort +and ordered him not to work.</p> +<p>Caleb pushed his hat back and passed his hand across his +forehead. It was hot, and his face was flushed. He watched his son +following up his work with dogged energy as if it were an enemy, +and his mind seemed to turn stupid in the face of speculation, like +a boy's over a problem in arithmetic.</p> +<p>There was no human being so strange and mysterious, such an +unknown quantity, to Caleb Thayer as his own son. He had not one +trait of character in common with him—at least, not one so +translated into his own vernacular that he could comprehend it. It +was to Caleb as if he looked in a glass expecting to see his own +face, and saw therein the face of a stranger.</p> +<p>The wind was quite cool, and blew full on Caleb as he sat there. +Barney kept glancing at him. At length he spoke. “You'll get +cold if you sit there in that wind, father,” he sang out, and +there was a rude kindliness in his tone.</p> +<p>Caleb jumped up with alacrity. “I dunno but I shall. I +guess you're right. I wa'n't goin' to set here but a minute,” +he answered, eagerly. Then he went over to Barney again, and stood +near watching him. Barney's hoe clinked on a stone, and he stooped +and picked it out of the loam, and threw it away. “There's a +good many stone in this field,” said the old man.</p> +<p>“There's some.”</p> +<p>“It was a heap of work clearin' of it in the first place. +You wa'n't more'n two year old when I cleared it. My brother Simeon +helped me. It was five year before he got the fever an' +died.” Caleb looked at his son with anxious pleading which +was out of proportion to his words, and seemed to apply to +something behind them in his own mind.</p> +<p>Barney worked on silently.</p> +<p>“I don't believe but what—if you was—to go +over there—you could get her back again now, away from that +Payne fellar,” Caleb blurted out, suddenly; then he shrank +back as if from an anticipated blow.</p> +<p>Barney threw a hoeful of earth high in air and faced his +father.</p> +<p>“Once for all, father,” said he, “I don't want +to hear another word about this.”</p> +<p>“I shouldn't have said nothin', Barney, but I kinder +thought—”</p> +<p>“I don't care what you thought. Keep your thoughts to +yourself.”</p> +<p>“I know she allers thought a good deal of you, +an'—”</p> +<p>“I don't want another word out of your mouth about it, +father.”</p> +<p>“Well, I ain't goin' to say nothin' about it if you don't +want me to, Barney; but you know how mother feels, an'— Well, +I ain't goin' to say no more.”</p> +<p>Caleb passed his hand across his forehead, and set off across +the field. Just before he was out of hearing, Barney hailed +him.</p> +<p>“Do you feel better'n you did, father?” said he.</p> +<p>“What say, Barney?”</p> +<p>“Do you feel better'n you did this morning?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I feel some better, Barney—some considerable +better.” Caleb started to go back to Barney; then he paused +and stood irresolute, smiling towards him. “I feel +considerable better,” he called again; “my head ain't +nigh so dizzy as 'twas.”</p> +<p>“You'd better go home, father, and lay down, and see if +you can't get a nap,” called Barney.</p> +<p>“Yes, I guess I will; I guess 'twould be a good +plan,” returned the old man, in a pleased voice. And he went +on, clambered clumsily over a stone-wall, disappeared behind some +trees, reappeared in the open, then disappeared finally over the +slope of the hilly field.</p> +<p>It was just five o'clock in the afternoon. Presently a woman +came hurrying across the field, with some needle-work gathered up +in her arms. She had been spending the afternoon at a neighbor's +with her sewing, and was now hastening home to get supper for her +husband. She was a pretty woman, and she had not been married long. +She nodded to Barney as she hurried past him, holding up her +gay-flowered calico skirt tidily. Her smooth fair hair shone like +satin in the sun; she wore a little blue kerchief tied over her +head, and it slipped back as she ran against the wind. She did not +speak to Barney nor smile; he thought her handsome face looked +severely at him. She had always known him, although she had not +been one of his mates; she was somewhat older.</p> +<p>Barney felt a pang of misery as this fair, severe, and happy +face passed him by. He wondered if she had been up to Charlotte's, +and if Charlotte or her mother had been talking to her, and if she +knew about Thomas Payne. He watched her out of sight in a swirl of +gay skirts, her blue and golden head bobbing with her dancing +steps; then he glanced over his shoulder at his poor new house, +with its fireless chimneys. If all had gone well, he and Charlotte +would have been married by this time, and she would have been +bestirring herself to get supper for him—perhaps running home +from a neighbor's with her sewing as this other woman was doing. +All the sweet domestic comfort which he had missed seemed suddenly +to toss above his eyes like the one desired fruit of his whole +life; its wonderful unknown flavor tantalized his soul. All at once +he thought how Charlotte would prepare supper for another man, and +the thought seemed to tear his heart like a panther. “He +sha'n't have her!” he cried out, quite loudly and fiercely. +His own voice seemed to quiet him, and he fell to work again with +his mouth set hard.</p> +<p>In half an hour he quitted work, and went up to his house with +his hoe over his shoulder like a bayonet. The house was just as the +workmen had left it on the night before his quarrel with Cephas +Barnard. He had himself fitted some glass into the windows of the +kitchen and bedroom, and boarded up the others—that was all. +He had purchased a few simple bits of furniture, and set up his +miserable bachelor house-keeping. Barney was no cook, and he could +purchase no cooked food in Pembroke. He had subsisted mostly upon +milk and eggs and a poor and lumpy quality of corn-meal mush, which +he had made shift to stir up after many futile efforts.</p> +<p>The first thing which he saw on entering the room to-night was a +generous square of light Indian cake on the table. It was not in a +plate, the edges were bent and crumbling, and the whole square +looked somewhat flattened. Barney knew at once that his father had +saved it from his own supper, had slipped it slyly into his pocket, +and stolen across the field with it. His mother had not given him a +mouthful since she had forbidden him to come home to dinner, and +his sister had not dared.</p> +<p>Barney sat down and ate the Indian cake, a solitary householder +at his solitary table, around which there would never be any faces +but those of his dead dreams. Afterwards he pulled a chair up to an +open window, and sat there, resting his elbows on the sill, staring +out vacantly. The sun set, and the dusk deepened; the air was loud +with birds; there were shouts of children in the distance; +gradually these died away, and the stars came out. The wind was +damp and sweet; over in the field pale shapes of mist wavered and +changed like phantoms. A woman came running noiselessly into the +yard, and pressed against the door panting, and knocked. Barney saw +the swirl of light skirts around the corner; then the knock +came.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem06.png" width="314" height="535" +alt="[Illustration: “Barney sat staring at vacancy”]"></p> +<p>He got up, trembling, and opened the door, and stood there +looking at the woman, who held her hooded head down.</p> +<p>“It's me, Barney,” said Charlotte's voice.</p> +<p>“Come in,” said Barney, and he moved aside.</p> +<p>But Charlotte stood still. “I can say what I want to +here,” she whispered, panting. “Barney.”</p> +<p>“Well, what is it, Charlotte?”</p> +<p>“Barney.”</p> +<p>Barney waited.</p> +<p>“I've come over here to-night, Barney, to see you,” +said Charlotte, with solemn pauses between her words. “I +don't know as I ought to; I don't know but I ought to have more +pride. I thought at first I never—could—but afterwards +I thought it was my duty. Barney, are you going to +let—anything like this—come between +us—forever?”</p> +<p>“There's no use talking, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>Charlotte's hooded figure stood before him stiff and straight. +There was resolution in her carriage, and her pleading tone was +grave and solemn.</p> +<p>“Barney,” she said again; and Barney waited, his +pale face standing aloof in the dark.</p> +<p>“Barney, do you think it is right to let anything like +this come between you and me, when we were almost husband and +wife?”</p> +<p>“It's no use talking, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“Do you think this is right, Barney?”</p> +<p>Barney was silent.</p> +<p>“If you can't answer me I will go home,” said +Charlotte, and she turned, but Barney caught her in his arms. He +held her close, breathing in great pants. He pulled her hood back +with trembling strength, and kissed her over and over, roughly.</p> +<p>“Charlotte,” he half sobbed.</p> +<p>Charlotte's voice, full of a great womanly indignation, sounded +in his ear. “Barney, you let me go,” she said, and +Barney obeyed.</p> +<p>“When I came here alone this way I trusted you to treat me +like a gentleman,” said she. She pulled her hood over her +face again and turned to go. “I shall never speak to you +about this again,” said she. “You have chosen your own +way, and you know best whether it's right, or you're happy in +it.”</p> +<p>“I hope you'll be happy, Charlotte,” Barney said, +with a great sigh.</p> +<p>“That doesn't make any difference to you,” said +Charlotte, coldly.</p> +<p>“Yes, it does; it does, Charlotte! When I heard about +Thomas Payne, I felt as if—if it would make you happy. +I—”</p> +<p>“What about Thomas Payne?” asked Charlotte, +sharply.</p> +<p>“I heard—how he was coming to see +you—”</p> +<p>“Do you mean that you want me to marry Thomas Payne, +Barney Thayer?”</p> +<p>“I want you to be happy, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“Do you want me to marry Thomas Payne?”</p> +<p>Barney was silent.</p> +<p>“Answer me,” cried Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Yes, I do,” replied Barney, firmly, “if it +would make you happy.”</p> +<p>“You want me to marry Thomas Payne?” repeated +Charlotte. “You want me to be his wife instead of yours, and +go to live with him instead of you? You want me to live with +another man?”</p> +<p>“It ain't right for you not to get married,” Barney +said, and his voice was hoarse and strange.</p> +<p>“You want me to get married to another man? Do you know +what it means?”</p> +<p>Barney gave a groan that was half a cry.</p> +<p>“Do you?”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte!” Barney groaned, as if imploring her +for pity.</p> +<p>“You want me to marry Thomas Payne, and live with +him—”</p> +<p>“He'd—make you a good husband. +He's—Charlotte—I can't. You've got to be happy. It +isn't right—I can't—”</p> +<p>“Well,” said Charlotte, “I will marry him. +Good-night, Barney Thayer.” She went swiftly out of the +yard.</p> +<p>“Charlotte!” Barney called after her, as if against +his will; but she never turned her head.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="VII">Chapter VII</a></h4> +<p>On the north side of the old tavern was a great cherry orchard. +In years back it had been a source of considerable revenue to Silas +Berry, but for some seasons his returns from it had been very +small. The cherries had rotted on the branches, or the robins had +eaten them, for Silas would not give them away. Rose and her mother +would smuggle a few small baskets of cherries to Sylvia Crane and +Mrs. Barnard, but Silas's displeasure, had he found them out, would +have been great. “I ain't a-goin' to give them cherries away +to nobody,” he would proclaim. “If folks don't want 'em +enough to pay for 'em they can go without.”</p> +<p>Many a great cherry picnic had been held in Silas Berry's +orchard. Parties had come in great rattling wagons from all the +towns about, and picked cherries and ate their fill at a most +overreaching and exorbitant price.</p> +<p>There were no cherries like those in Silas Berry's orchard in +all the country roundabout. There was no competition, and for many +years he had had it all his own way. The young people's appetite +for cherries and their zeal for pleasure had overcome their +indignation at his usury. But at last Silas's greed got the better +of his financial shrewdness; he increased his price for cherries +every season, and the year after the tavern closed it became so +preposterous that there was a rebellion. It was headed by Thomas +Payne, who, as the squire's son and the richest and most freehanded +young man in town, could incur no suspicion of parsimony. Going one +night to the old tavern to make terms with Silas for the use of his +cherry orchard, for a party which included some of his college +friends from Boston and his fine young-lady cousin from New York, +and hearing the preposterous sum which Silas stated as final, he +had turned on his heel with a strong word under his breath. +“You can eat your cherries yourself and be damned,” +said Thomas Payne, and was out of the yard with the gay swagger +which he had learned along with his Greek and Latin at college. The +next day Silas saw the party in Squire Payne's big wagon, with +Thomas driving, and the cousin's pink cheeks and white plumed hat +conspicuous in the midst, pass merrily on their way to a cherryless +picnic at a neighboring pond, and the young college men shouted out +a doggerel couplet which the wit of the party had made and set to a +rough tune.</p> +<p>“Who lives here?” the basses demanded in grim +melody, and the tenors responded, “Old Silas Berry, who +charges sixpence for a cherry.”</p> +<p>Silas heard the mocking refrain repeated over and over between +shouts of laughter long after they were out of sight.</p> +<p>Rose, who had not been bidden to the picnic, heard it and wept +as she peered around her curtain at the gay party. William, who had +also not been bidden, stormed at his father, and his mother joined +him.</p> +<p>“You're jest a-puttin' your own eyes out, Silas +Berry,” said she; “you hadn't no business to ask such a +price for them cherries; it's more than they are worth; folks won't +stand it. You asked too much for 'em last year.”</p> +<p>“I know what I'm about,” returned Silas, sitting in +his arm-chair at the window, with dogged chin on his breast.</p> +<p>“You wait an' see,” said Hannah. “You've jest +put your own eyes out.”</p> +<p>And after-events proved that Hannah was right. Silas Berry's +cherry orchard was subjected to a species of ostracism in the +village. There were no more picnics held there, people would buy +none of his cherries, and he lost all the little income which he +had derived from them. Hannah often twitted him with it. “You +can see now that what I told you was true,” said she; +“you put your own eyes out.” Silas would say nothing in +reply; he would simply make an animal sound of defiance like a +grunt in his throat, and frown. If Hannah kept on, he would stump +heavily out of the room, and swing the door back with a bang.</p> +<p>This season Hannah had taunted her husband more than usual with +his ill-judged parsimony in the matter of the cherries. The trees +were quite loaded with the small green fruit, and there promised to +be a very large crop. One day Silas turned on her. “You +wait,” said he; “mebbe I know what I'm about, more'n +you think I do.”</p> +<p>Hannah scowled with sharp interrogation at her husband's +shrewdly leering face. “What be you agoin' to do?” she +demanded. But she got no more out of him.</p> +<p>One morning about two weeks before the cherries were ripe Silas +went halting in a casual way across the south yard towards his +daughter Rose, who was spreading out some linen to bleach. He +picked up a few stray sticks on the way, ostentatiously, as if that +were his errand.</p> +<p>Rose was spreading out the lengths of linen in a wide sunny +space just outside the shade of the cherry-trees. Her father +paused, tilted his head back, and eyed the trees with a look of +innocent reflection. Rose glanced at him, then she went on with her +work.</p> +<p>“Guess there's goin' to be considerable many cherries this +year,” remarked her father, in an affable and confidential +tone.</p> +<p>“I guess so,” replied Rose, shortly, and she flapped +out an end of the wet linen. The cherries were a sore subject with +her.</p> +<p>“I guess there's goin' to be more than common,” said +Silas, still gazing up at the green boughs full of green fruit +clusters.</p> +<p>Rose made no reply; she was down on her knees in the grass +stretching the linen straight.</p> +<p>“I've been thinkin',” her father continued, slowly, +“that—mebbe you'd like to have a little—party, +an' ask some of the young folks, an' eat some of 'em when they get +ripe. You could have four trees to pick off of.”</p> +<p>“I should think we'd had enough of cherry parties,” +Rose cried out, bitterly.</p> +<p>“I didn't say nothin' about havin' 'em pay +anything,” said her father.</p> +<p>Rose straightened herself and looked at him incredulously. +“Do you mean it, father?” said she.</p> +<p>“'Ain't I jest said you might, if you wanted +to?”</p> +<p>“Do you mean to have them come here and not pay, +father?”</p> +<p>“There ain't no use tryin' to sell any of 'em,” +replied Silas. “You can talk it over with your mother, an' do +jest as you're a mind to about it, that's all. If you want to have +a few of the young folks over here when them cherries are ripe, you +can have four of them trees to pick off of. I ain't got no more to +say about it.”</p> +<p>Silas turned in a peremptory and conclusive manner. Rose fairly +gasped as she watched his stiff one-sided progress across the yard. +The vague horror of the unusual stole over her. A new phase of her +father's character stood between her and all her old memories like +a supernatural presence. She left the rest of the linen in the +basket and sought her mother in the house. “Mother!” +she called out, in a cautious voice, as soon as she entered the +kitchen. Mrs. Berry's face looked inquiringly out of the pantry, +and Rose motioned her back, went in herself, and shut the door.</p> +<p>“What be you a-shuttin' the door for?” asked her +mother, wonderingly.</p> +<p>“I don't know what has come over father.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean, Rose Berry? He 'ain't had another +shock?”</p> +<p>“I'm dreadful afraid he's going to! I'm dreadful afraid +something's going to happen to him!”</p> +<p>“I'd like to know what you mean?” Mrs. Berry was +quite pale.</p> +<p>“Father says I can have a cherry party, and they needn't +pay anything.”</p> +<p>Her mother stared at her. “He didn't!”</p> +<p>“Yes, he did.”</p> +<p>They looked in each other's eyes, with silent renewals of doubt +and affirmation. Finally Mrs. Berry laughed. “H'm! Don't you +see what your father's up to?” she said.</p> +<p>“No, I don't. I'm scared.”</p> +<p>“You needn't be. You ain't very cute. He's an old head. He +thinks if he has this cherry party for nothin' folks will overlook +that other affair, an' next year they'll buy the cherries again. +Mebbe he thinks they'll buy the other trees this year, after the +party. How many trees did he say you could have?”</p> +<p>“Four. Maybe that is it.”</p> +<p>“Of course 'tis. Your father's an old head. Well, you'd +better ask 'em. They won't see through it, and it'll make things +pleasanter. I've felt bad enough about it. I guess Mis' Thayer +won't look down on us quite so much if we ask a party here and let +'em eat cherries for nothin'. It's more'n she'd do, I'll +warrant.”</p> +<p>“Maybe they won't any of them come,” said Rose.</p> +<p>“H'm! Don't you worry about that. They'll come fast +enough. I never see any trouble yet about folks comin' to get +anything good that they didn't have to pay for.”</p> +<p>Rose and her mother calculated how many to invite to the party. +They decided to include all the available young people in +Pembroke.</p> +<p>“We might jest as well while we're about it,” said +Hannah, judiciously. “There are cherries enough, and the Lord +only knows when your father 'll have another freak like this. I +guess it's like an eclipse of the sun, an' won't come again very +soon.”</p> +<p>Within a day or two all the young people had been bidden to the +cherry party, and, as Mrs. Berry had foretold, accepted. Their +indignation was not proof against the prospect of pleasure; and, +moreover, they all liked Rose and William, and would not have +refused on their account.</p> +<p>The week before the party, when the cherries were beginning to +turn red, and the robins had found them out, was an arduous one to +little Ezra Ray, a young brother of Tommy Ray, who tended in Silas +Berry's store. He was hired for twopence to sit all day in the +cherry orchard and ring a cow-bell whenever the robins made +excursions into the trees. From earliest dawn when the birds were +first astir, until they sought their little nests, did Ezra sit +uncomfortably upon a hard peaked rock in the midst of the orchard +and jingle his bell.</p> +<p>He was white-headed, and large of his age like his brother. His +pale blue eyes were gravely vacant under his thick white thatch; +his chin dropped; his mouth gaped with stolid patience. There was +no mitigation for his dull task; he was not allowed to keep his +vigil on a comfortable branch of a tree with the mossy trunk for a +support to his back, lest he might be tempted to eat of the +cherries, and turn pal of the robins instead of enemy. He dared not +pull down any low bough and have a surreptitious feast, for he +understood well that there were likely to be sharp eyes at the rear +windows of the house, that it was always probable that old Silas +Berry, of whom he was in mortal fear, might be standing at his +back, and, moreover, he should be questioned, and had not falsehood +for refuge, for he was a good child, and would be constrained to +speak the truth.</p> +<p>They would not let him have a gun instead of a bell, although he +pleaded hard. Could he have sat there presenting a gun like a +sentry on duty, the week, in spite of discomfort and deprivations, +would have been full of glory and excitement. As it was, the +dulness and monotony of the jingling of the cow-bell made even his +stupid childish mind dismal. All the pleasant exhilaration of youth +seemed to have deserted the boy, and life to him became as inane +and bovine as to the original ringer of that bell grazing all the +season in her own shadow over the same pasture-ground.</p> +<p>And more than all, that twopence for which Ezra toiled so +miserably was to go towards the weaving of a rag carpet which his +mother was making, and for which she was saving every penny. He +could not lay it out in red-and-white sugar-sticks at the store. He +sat there all the week, and every time there was a whir of little +brown wings and the darting flash of a red breast among the cherry +branches he rang in frantic haste the old cow-bell. All the solace +he obtained was an occasional robin-pecked cherry which he found in +the grass, and then Mr. Berry questioned him severely when he saw +stains around his mouth and on his fingers.</p> +<p>He was on hand early in the morning on the day of the cherry +picnic, trudging half awake, with the taste of breakfast in his +mouth, through the acres of white dewy grass. He sat on his rock +until the grass was dry, and patiently jingled his cow-bell. It was +to young Ezra Ray, although all unwittingly, as if he himself were +assisting in the operations of nature. He watched so assiduously +that it was as if he dried the dewy grass and ripened the +cherries.</p> +<p>When the cherry party began to arrive he still sat on his rock +and jingled his bell; he did not know when to stop. But his eyes +were upon the assembling people rather than upon the robins. He +watched the brave young men whose ignominy of boyhood was past, +bearing ladders and tossing up shining tin pails as they came. He +watched the girls swinging their little straw baskets daintily; his +stupidly wondering eyes followed especially Rebecca Thayer. +Rebecca, in her black muslin, with her sweet throat fairly dazzling +above the half-low bodice, and wound about twice with a slender +gold chain, with her black silk apron embroidered with red roses, +and beautiful face glowing with rich color between the black folds +of her hair, held the instinctive attention of the boy. He stared +at her as she stood talking to another girl with her back quite +turned upon all the young men, until his own sister touched him +upon the shoulder with a sharp nudge of a bony little hand.</p> +<p>Amelia Ray's face, blonde like her brother's, but sharp with the +sharpness of the thin and dark, was thrust into his. “You +must go right home now,” declared her high voice. +“Mother said so.”</p> +<p>“I'm going to stay and help pick 'em,” said Ezra, in +a voice which was not affirmative.</p> +<p>“No, you ain't.”</p> +<p>“I can climb trees.”</p> +<p>“You've got to go right straight home. Mother wants you to +wind balls for the rag carpet.”</p> +<p>And then Ezra Ray, with disconsolate gaping face over his +shoulder, retreated with awkward lopes across the field, the +cow-bell accompanying his steps with doleful notes.</p> +<p>There were about forty young people at the party when all were +assembled. They came mostly in couples, although now and then a +little group of girls advanced across the field, and young men came +singly. Barnabas Thayer came alone, and rather late; Rebecca had +come some time before with one of her girl mates who had stopped +for her. Barnabas, slender and handsome in his best suit, advancing +with a stern and almost martial air, tried not to see Charlotte +Barnard; but it was as if her face were the natural focus for his +eyes, which they could not escape. However, Charlotte was not +talking to Thomas Payne; he was not even very near her. He was +already in the top of a cherry-tree picking busily. Barney saw his +trim dark head and his bright blue waistcoat among the branches, +and his heart gave a guilty throb of relief. But soon he noted that +Charlotte had not her basket, and the conviction seized him that +Thomas had it and was filling it with the very choicest cherries +from the topmost branches, as was indeed the case.</p> +<p>Charlotte never looked at Barney, although she knew well when he +came. She stood smiling beside another girl, her smooth fair hair +gleaming in the sun, her neck showing pink through her embroidered +lace kerchief, and her gleaming head and her neck seemed to survey +Barney as consciously as her face. Suddenly the fierceness of the +instinct of possession seized him; he said to himself that it was +his wife's neck; no one else should see it. He felt like tearing +off his own coat and covering her with rude force. It made no +difference to him that nearly every other girl there, his sister +among the rest, wore her neck uncovered by even a kerchief; he felt +that Charlotte should not have done so. The other young men were +swarming up the trees with the girls' baskets, but he stood aloof +with his forehead knitted; it was as if all his reason had deserted +him. All at once there was a rustle at his side, and Rose Berry +touched him on the arm; he started, and looked down into her softly +glowing little face.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem07.png" width="393" height="351" +alt="[Illustration: “Charlotte stood beside another girl”]"> +</p> +<p>“Oh, here you are!” said she, and her voice had +adoring cadences.</p> +<p>Barney nodded.</p> +<p>“I was afraid you weren't coming,” said she, and she +panted softly through her red parted lips.</p> +<p>Rose's crisp pink muslin gown flared scalloping around her like +the pink petals of a hollyhock; her slender white arms showed +through the thin sleeves. Barney could not look away from her +wide-open, unfaltering blue eyes, which suddenly displayed to him +strange depths. Charlotte, during all his courtship, had never +looked up in his face like that. He could not himself have told +why; but Charlotte had never for one moment lost sight of the +individual, and the respect due him, in her lover. Rose, in the +heart of New England, bred after the precepts of orthodoxy, was a +pagan, and she worshipped Love himself. Barney was simply the +statue that represented the divinity; another might have done as +well had the sculpture been as fine.</p> +<p>“I told you I was coming,” Barney said, slowly, and +his voice sounded odd to himself.</p> +<p>“I know you did, but I was afraid you wouldn't.”</p> +<p>Rose still held her basket. Barney reached out for it. +“Let me get some cherries for you,” he said.</p> +<p>“Oh, I guess you hadn't better,” Rose returned, +holding the basket firmly.</p> +<p>“Why not?”</p> +<p>“I'm—afraid Charlotte won't like it,” Rose +said. Her face, upturned to Barney, was full of pitiful +seriousness, like a child's.</p> +<p>“Give me the basket,” demanded Barney, and she +yielded. She stood watching him as he climbed the nearest tree; +then she turned and met Charlotte's stern eyes full upon her. Rose +went under the tree herself, pulled down a low branch, and began to +eat; several other girls were doing the same. Thomas Payne passed +the tree, bearing carefully Charlotte's little basket heaped with +the finest cherries. Rose tossed her head defiantly. “She +needn't say anything,” she thought.</p> +<p>The morning advanced, the sun stood high, and there was a light +wind, which now and then caused the cherry-leaves to smite the +faces of the pickers. There were no robins in the trees that +morning; there were only swift whirs of little wings in the +distance, and sweet flurried calls which were scarcely noted in the +merry clamor of the young men and girls.</p> +<p>Silas Berry stood a little aloof, leaning on a stout cane, +looking on with an inscrutable expression on his dry old face. He +noted everything; he saw Rose talking to Barney; he saw his son +William eating cherries with Rebecca Thayer out of one basket; but +his expression never changed. The predominant trait in his whole +character had seemed to mould his face to itself unchangeably, as +the face of a hunting-dog is moulded to his speed and +watchfulness.</p> +<p>“Don't Mr. Berry look just like an old miser?” a +girl whispered to Rebecca Thayer; then she started and blushed +confusedly, for she remembered suddenly that William Berry was said +to be waiting upon Rebecca, and she also remembered that Charlotte +Barnard, who was within hearing distance, was his niece.</p> +<p>Rebecca blushed, too. “I never thought of it,” she +said, in a constrained voice.</p> +<p>“Well, I don't know as he does,” apologized the +girl. “I suppose I thought of it because he's thin. I always +had an idea that a miser was thin.” Then she slipped away, +and presently whispered to another girl what a mistaken speech she +had made, and they put their heads together with soft, averted +giggles.</p> +<p>The girls had brought packages of luncheon in their baskets, +which they had removed to make space for the cherries, and left +with Mrs. Berry in the tavern. At noon they sent the young men for +them, and prepared to have dinner at a little distance from the +trees where they had been picking, where the ground was clean. +William and Rose also went up to the tavern, and Rose beckoned to +Barney as she passed him. “Don't you want to come?” she +whispered, as he followed hesitatingly; “there's something to +carry.”</p> +<p>When the party returned, Mrs. Berry was with them, and she and +Rose bore between them a small tub of freshly-fried hot doughnuts. +Mrs. Berry had utterly refused to trust it to the young men. +“I know better than to let you have it,” she said, +laughing. “You'd eat all the way there, and there wouldn't be +enough left to go round. Me and Rose will carry it; it ain't very +heavy.” William and Barney each bore two great jugs of +molasses-and-water spiced with ginger.</p> +<p>Silas pulled himself up stiffly when he saw them coming; he had +been sitting upon the peaked rock whereon Ezra Ray had kept vigil +with the cow-bell. Full of anxiety had he been all day lest they +should pick from any except the four trees which he had set apart +for them, and his anxiety was greater since he knew that the best +cherries were not on those four trees. Silas sidled painfully +towards his wife and daughter; he peered over into the tub, but +they swung it remorselessly past him, even knocking his shin with +its iron-bound side.</p> +<p>“What you got there?” he demanded, huskily.</p> +<p>“Don't you say one word,” returned his wife, with a +fierce shake of her head at him.</p> +<p>“What's in them jugs?”</p> +<p>“It's nothing but sweetened water. Don't, father,” +pleaded Rose under her breath, her pretty face flaming.</p> +<p>Her mother scowled indomitably at Silas tagging threateningly at +her elbow. “Don't you say one word,” she whispered +again.</p> +<p>“You ain't goin' to—give 'em—”</p> +<p>“Don't you speak,” she returned, hissing out the +“s.”</p> +<p>Silas said no more. He followed on, and watched the doughnuts +being distributed to the merry party seated in a great ring like a +very garland of youth under his trees; he saw them drink his +sweetened water.</p> +<p>“Don't you want some?” asked his wife's defiantly +pleasant voice in his ear.</p> +<p>“No, I don't want none,” he returned.</p> +<p>Finally, long before they had finished eating, he went home to +the tavern. There was no one in the house. He stole cautiously into +the pantry, and there was a reserve of doughnuts in a large +milk-pan sitting before the window. Silas crooked his old arm +around the pan, carried it painfully across the great kitchen and +the entry into the best room, and pushed it far under the bureau. +Then he returned, and concealed the molasses-jug in the brick oven. +He stood for a minute in the middle of the kitchen floor, chuckling +and nodding as if to the familiar and confidential spirit of his +own greed; then he went out, and a short way down the road to the +cottage house where old Hiram Baxter lived and kept a little +shoemaker's shop in the L. He entered, and sat down in the little +leather-reeking place with Hiram, and was safe and removed from +inquiry when Mrs. Berry returned to the tavern for the remaining +doughnuts and to mix more sweetened water. The doughnuts could not +be found, but she carried a pail across to the store, got more +molasses from the barrel, and so in one point outwitted her +husband.</p> +<p>Mrs. Berry was famous for her rich doughnuts, and the first +supply had been quite exhausted. William went up to her at once +when she returned to the party. “Where's the rest of the +doughnuts?” he whispered.</p> +<p>“Your father's hid 'em,” she whispered back. +“Hush, don't say anything.”</p> +<p>William scowled and made an exclamation. “The +old—”</p> +<p>“Hush!” whispered his mother again; “go up to +the house and get the sweetened water. I've mixed another +jug.”</p> +<p>“Where is he?” demanded William.</p> +<p>“I dunno. He ain't to the store.”</p> +<p>William strode off across the field, and he searched through the +house with an angry stamping and banging of doors, but he could not +find his father or the doughnuts. “Father!” he called, +in an angry shout, standing in the doorway, “Father!” +But there was no reply, and he went back to the others with the jug +of sweetened water. Rebecca watched him with furtive, anxious eyes, +but he avoided looking at her. When he passed her a tumbler of +sweetened water she took it and thanked him fervently, but he did +not seem to heed her at all.</p> +<p>After dinner they played romping games under the +trees—hunt the slipper, and button, and Copenhagen. Mrs. +Barnard and two other women had come over to see the festivity, and +they sat at a little distance with Mrs. Berry, awkwardly disposed +against the trunks of trees, with their feet tucked under their +skirts to keep them from the damp ground.</p> +<p>Copenhagen was the favorite game of the young people, and they +played on and on while the afternoon deepened. Clinging to the rope +they formed a struggling ring, looping this way and that way as the +pursuers neared them. Their laughter and gay cries formed charming +discords; their radiant faces had the likeness of one family of +flowers, through their one expression. The wind blew harder; the +girls' muslin skirts clung to their limbs as they moved against it, +and flew out around their heels in fluttering ruffles. The cherry +boughs tossed over their heads full of crisp whispers among their +dark leaves and red fruit clusters. Over across the field, under +the low-swaying boughs, showed the old red wall of the tavern, and +against it a great mass of blooming phlox, all vague with distance +like purple smoke. Over on the left, fence rails glistened purple +in the sun and wind—a bluebird sat on a crumbling post and +sang. But the young men and girls playing Copenhagen saw and heard +nothing of these things.</p> +<p>They heard only that one note of love which all unwittingly, and +whether they would or not, they sang to each other through all the +merry game. Charlotte heard it whether she would or not, and so did +Barney, and it produced in them as in the others a reckless +exhilaration in spite of their sadness. William Berry forgot all +his mortification and annoyance as he caught Rebecca's warm fingers +on the rope and bent over her red, averted cheek. Barney, when he +had grasped Rose's hands, which had fairly swung the rope his way, +kissed her with an ardor which had in it a curious, fierce joy, +because at that moment he caught a glimpse of Thomas Payne's +handsome, audacious face meeting Charlotte's.</p> +<p>Barney had not wished to play, but he played with zeal, only he +never seemed to see Charlotte's fingers on the rope, and Charlotte +never saw his. The girls' cheeks flushed deeper, their smooth locks +became roughened. The laughter waxed louder and longer; the matrons +looking on doubled their broad backs with responsive merriment. It +became like a little bacchanalian rout in a New England field on a +summer afternoon, but they did not know it in their simple +hearts.</p> +<p>At six o'clock the mist began to rise, the sunlight streamed +through the trees in slanting golden shafts, long drawn out like +organ chords. The young people gathered up their pails and baskets +and went home, flocking down the road together, calling back +farewells to Rose and William and their mother, who stood in front +of the tavern watching them out of sight.</p> +<p>They were not quite out of sight when they came to Hiram +Baxter's little house, and Silas Berry emerged from the shop door. +“Hullo!” he cried out, and they all stopped, smiling at +him with a cordiality which had in it a savor of apology. Indeed, +Thomas Payne had just remarked, with a hearty chorus of assents, +that he guessed the old man wasn't so bad after all.</p> +<p>Silas advanced towards them; he also was smiling. He fumbled in +his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a roll of paper which he shook +out with trembling fingers. He stepped close to Thomas Payne and +extended it.</p> +<p>“What is it?” asked the young man.</p> +<p>Silas smiled up in his face with the ingenuous smile of a +child.</p> +<p>“What is it?” Thomas Payne asked again.</p> +<p>The others crowded around.</p> +<p>“It's nothin' but the bill,” replied Silas, in a +wheedling whisper. His dry old face turned red, his smile +deepened.</p> +<p>“The bill for what?” demanded Thomas Payne, and he +seized the paper.</p> +<p>“For the cherries you eat,” replied Silas. +“I've always been in the habit of chargin' more, but I've +took off a leetle this time.” His voice had a ring of +challenge, his eyes were sharp, while his mouth smiled.</p> +<p>Thomas Payne scowled over the bill. The other young men peered +at it over his shoulder, and repeated the amount with whistles and +half-laughs of scorn and anger. The girls ejaculated to each other +in whispers. Silas stood impervious, waiting.</p> +<p>The young men whipped out their purses without a word, but +Thomas motioned them back. “I'll pay, and we'll settle +afterwards. We can't divide up here,” he said, and he crammed +some money hard in Silas's eagerly outstretched hand. “Thank +you for your hospitality, Mr. Berry,” said Thomas Payne, his +face all flaming and his eyes flashing, but his voice quite steady. +“I hope you'll have as good luck selling your cherries next +year.”</p> +<p>There was a little exulting titter over the sarcasm among the +girls, in which Rebecca did not join; then the party kept on. The +indignant clamor waxed loud in a moment; they scarcely waited for +the old man's back to be turned on his return to the tavern.</p> +<p>But the young people, crying out all together against this last +unparalleled meanness, had not reached the foot of the hill, where +some of them separated, when they heard the quick pound of running +feet behind them and a hoarse voice calling on Thomas Payne to +stop. They all turned, and William came up, pale and breathing +hard. “What did you pay him?” he asked of Thomas +Payne.</p> +<p>“See here, William, we all know you had nothing to do with +it,” Thomas cried out.</p> +<p>“What did you pay him?” William repeated, in a stern +gasp.</p> +<p>“It's all right.”</p> +<p>“You tell me what you paid him.”</p> +<p>Thomas Payne blushed all over his handsome boyish face. He half +whispered the amount to William, although the others knew it as +well as he.</p> +<p>William pulled out his purse, and counted out some money with +trembling fingers. “Take it, for God's sake!” said he, +and Thomas Payne took it. “We all know that you knew nothing +about it,” he said again. The others chimed in with eager +assent, but William gave his head a shake, as if he shook off +water, and broke away from them all, and pelted up the hill with +his heart so bitterly sore that it seemed as if he trod on it at +every step.</p> +<p>A voice was crying out behind him, but he never heeded. There +were light, hurrying steps after him, and a soft flutter of girlish +skirts, but he never looked away from his own self until Rebecca +touched his arm. Then he looked around with a start and a great +blush, and jerked his arm away.</p> +<p>But Rebecca followed him up quite boldly, and caught his arm +again, and looked up in his face. “Don't you feel bad,” +said she; “don't you feel bad. You aren't to +blame.”</p> +<p>“Isn't he my father?”</p> +<p>“You aren't to blame for that.”</p> +<p>“Disgrace comes without blame,” said William, and he +moved on.</p> +<p>Rebecca kept close to his side, clinging to his arm. “It's +your father's way,” said she. “He's honest, anyway. +Nobody can say he isn't honest.”</p> +<p>“It depends upon what you call honest,” William +said, bitterly. “You'd better run back, Rebecca. You don't +want them to think you're going with me, and they will. I'm +disgraced, and so is Rose. You'd better run back.”</p> +<p>Rebecca stopped, and he did also. She looked up in his face; her +mouth was quivering with a kind of helpless shame, but her eyes +were full of womanly courage and steadfastness. +“William,” said she, “I ran away in the face and +eyes of them all to comfort you. They saw me, and they can see me +now, but I don't care. And I don't care if you see me; I always +have cared, but I don't now. I have always been terribly afraid +lest you should think I was running after you, but I ain't afraid +now. Don't you feel bad, William. That's all I care about. Don't +you feel bad; nobody is going to think any less of you. I don't; I +think more.”</p> +<p>William looked down at her; there was a hesitating appeal in his +face, as in that of a hurt child. Suddenly Rebecca raised both her +arms and put them around his neck; he leaned his cheek down against +her soft hair. “Poor William,” she whispered, as if he +had been her child instead of her lover.</p> +<p>A girl in the merry party speeding along at the foot of the hill +glanced around just then; she turned again, blushing hotly, and +touched a girl near her, who also glanced around. Then their two +blushing faces confronted each other with significant half-shamed +smiles of innocent young girlhood.</p> +<p>They locked arms, and whispered as they went on. “Did you +see?” “Yes.” “His head?” +“Yes.” “Her arms?” “Yes.” +Neither had ever had a lover.</p> +<p>But the two lovers at the top of the hill paid no heed. The +party were all out of sight when they went slowly down in the +gathering twilight. William left Rebecca when they came opposite +her house.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="VIII">Chapter VIII</a></h4> +<p>When Rebecca entered the house, her mother was standing over the +stove, making milk-toast for supper. The boiling milk steamed up +fiercely in her face. “What makes you so long behind the +others?” she demanded, without turning, stirring the milk as +she spoke.</p> +<p>“I guess I ain't much, am I?” Rebecca said, +evasively. She tried to make her voice sound as it usually did, but +she could not. It broke and took on faltering cadences, as if she +were intoxicated with some subtle wine of the spirit.</p> +<p>Her mother looked around at her. Rebecca's face was full of a +strange radiance which she could not subdue before her mother's +hard, inquiring gaze. Her cheeks burned with splendid color, her +lips trembled into smiles in spite of herself, her eyes were like +dark fires, shifting before her mother's, but not paling.</p> +<p>“Ephraim see 'em all go by half an hour ago,” said +her mother.</p> +<p>Rebecca made no reply.</p> +<p>“If,” said her mother, “you stayed behind to +see William Berry, I can tell you one thing, once for all: you +needn't do it again.”</p> +<p>“I had to see him about something,” Rebecca +faltered.</p> +<p>“Well, you needn't see him again about anything. You might +jest as well understand it first as last: if you've got any idea of +havin' William Berry, you've got to give it up.”</p> +<p>“Mother, I'd like to know what you mean!” Rebecca +cried out, blushing.</p> +<p>“Look 'round here at me!” her mother ordered, +suddenly.</p> +<p>“Don't, mother.”</p> +<p>“Look at me!”</p> +<p>Rebecca lifted her face perforce, and her mother eyed her +pitilessly. “You ain't been tellin' of him you'd have him, +now?” said she. “Why don't you speak?”</p> +<p>“Not—just.”</p> +<p>“Then you needn't.”</p> +<p>“Mother!”</p> +<p>“You needn't talk. You can jest make up your mind to it. +You ain't goin' to marry William Berry. Your brother has had enough +to do with that family.”</p> +<p>“Mother, you won't stop my marrying William because Barney +won't marry his cousin Charlotte? There ain't any sense in +that.”</p> +<p>“I've got my reasons, an' that's enough for you,” +said Deborah. “You ain't goin' to marry William +Berry.”</p> +<p>“I am, if you haven't got any better reason than that. I +won't stand it, mother; it ain't right!” Rebecca cried +out.</p> +<p>“Then,” said Deborah, and as she spoke she began +spooning out the toast gravy into a bowl with a curious stiff turn +of her wrist and a superfluous vigor of muscle, as if it were +molten lead instead of milk; and, indeed, she might, from the look +in her face, have been one of her female ancestors in the times of +the French and Indian wars, casting bullets with the yells of +savages in her ears—“then,” said she, “I +sha'n't have any child but Ephraim left, that's all!”</p> +<p>“Mother, don't!” gasped Rebecca.</p> +<p>“There's another thing: if you marry William Berry against +your parents' wishes, you know what you have to expect. You +remember your aunt Rebecca.”</p> +<p>Rebecca twisted her whole body about with the despairing motion +with which she would have wrung her hands, flung open the door, and +ran out of the room.</p> +<p>Deborah went on spooning up the toast. Ephraim had come in just +as she spoke last to Rebecca, and he stood staring, grinning with +gaping mouth.</p> +<p>“What's Rebecca done, mother?” he asked, pleadingly, +catching hold of his mother's dress.</p> +<p>“Nothin' for you to know. Go an' wash your face an' hands, +an' come in to supper.”</p> +<p>“Mother, what's she done?” Ephraim's pleading voice +lengthened into a whine. He took more liberties with his mother +than any one else dared; he even jerked her dress now by way of +enforcing an answer. But she grasped his arm so vigorously that he +cried out. “Go out to the pump, an' wash your face an' +hands,” she repeated, and Ephraim made a little involuntary +run to the door.</p> +<p>As he went out he rolled his eyes over his shoulder at his +mother with tragic surprise and reproach, but she paid no +attention. When he came in she ignored the great painful sigh which +he heaved and the podgy hand clapped ostentatiously over his left +side. “Draw your chair up,” said she.</p> +<p>“I dunno as I want any supper. I've got a pain. Oh +dear!” Ephraim writhed, with attentive eyes upon his mother; +he was like an executioner turning an emotional thumbscrew on her. +But Deborah Thayer's emotions sometimes presented steel surfaces. +“You can have a pain, then,” said she. “I ain't +goin' to let you go to ruin because you ain't well, not if I know +it. You've got to mind, sick or well, an' you might jest as well +know it. I'll have one child obey me, whether or no. Set up to the +table.”</p> +<p>Ephraim drew up his chair, whimpering; but he fell to on the +milk-toast with ardor, and his hand dropped from his side. He had +eaten half a plateful when his father came in. Caleb had been +milking; the cows had been refractory as he drove them from +pasture, and he was late.</p> +<p>“Supper's been ready half an hour,” his wife said, +when he entered.</p> +<p>“The heifer run down the old road when I was a-drivin' of +her home, an' I had to chase her,” Caleb returned, meekly, +settling down in his arm-chair at the table.</p> +<p>“I guess that heifer wouldn't cut up so every night if I +had the drivin' of her,” remarked Deborah. She filled a plate +with toast and passed it over to Caleb.</p> +<p>Caleb set it before him, but he did not begin to eat. He looked +at Rebecca's empty place, then at his wife's face, long and pale +and full of stern rancor, behind the sugar-bowl and the +cream-pitcher.</p> +<p>“Rebecca got home?” he ventured, with wary eyes upon +her.</p> +<p>“Yes, she's got home.”</p> +<p>Caleb winked, meekly. “Ain't she comin' to +supper?”</p> +<p>“I dunno whether she is or not.”</p> +<p>“Does she know it's ready?” Deborah vouchsafed no +reply. She poured out the tea.</p> +<p>Caleb grated his chair suddenly. “I'll jest speak to +her,” he proclaimed, courageously.</p> +<p>“She knows it's ready. You set still,” said Deborah. +And Caleb drew his chair close again, and loaded his knife with +toast, bringing it around to his mouth with a dexterous sidewise +motion.</p> +<p>“She ain't sick, is she?” he said, presently, with a +casual air.</p> +<p>“No, I guess she ain't sick.”</p> +<p>“I s'pose she eat so many cherries she didn't want any +supper,” Caleb said, chuckling anxiously. His wife made no +reply. Ephraim reached over slyly for the toast-spoon, and she +pushed his hand back.</p> +<p>“You can't have any more,” said she.</p> +<p>“Can't I have jest a little more, mother?”</p> +<p>“No, you can't.”</p> +<p>“I feel faint at my stomach, mother.”</p> +<p>“You can keep on feelin' faint.”</p> +<p>“Can't I have a piece of pie, mother?”</p> +<p>“You can't have another mouthful of anything to eat +to-night.”</p> +<p>Ephraim clapped his hand to his side again and sighed, but his +mother took no notice.</p> +<p>“Have you got a pain, sonny?” asked Caleb.</p> +<p>“Yes, dreadful. Oh!”</p> +<p>“Hadn't he ought to have somethin' on it?” Caleb +inquired, looking appealingly at Deborah.</p> +<p>“He can have some of his doctor's medicine if he don't +feel better,” she replied, in a hard voice. “Set your +chair back now, Ephraim, and get out your catechism.”</p> +<p>“I don't feel fit to, mother,” groaned Ephraim.</p> +<p>“You do jest as I tell you,” said his mother.</p> +<p>And Ephraim, heaving with sighs, muttering angrily far under his +breath lest his mother should hear, pulled his chair back to the +window, and got his catechism out of the top drawer of his father's +desk, and began droning out in his weak, sulky voice the first +question therein: “What is the chief end of man?”</p> +<p>“Now shut the book and answer it,” said his mother, +and Ephraim obeyed.</p> +<p>Ephraim was quite conversant with the first three questions and +their answers, after that his memory began to weaken; either he was +a naturally dull scholar, or his native indolence made him appear +so. He had been drilled nightly upon the “Assembly's +Catechism” for the past five years, and had had many a hard +bout with it before that in his very infancy, when his general +health admitted—and sometimes, it seemed to Ephraim, when it +had not admitted.</p> +<p>Many a time had the boy panted for breath when he rehearsed +those grandly decisive, stately replies to those questions of all +ages, but his mother had been obdurate. He could not understand +why, but in reality Deborah held her youngest son, who was +threatened with death in his youth, to the “Assembly's +Catechism” as a means of filling his mind with spiritual +wisdom, and fitting him for that higher state to which he might +soon be called. Ephraim had been strictly forbidden to attend +school—beyond reading he had no education; but his mother +resolved that spiritual education he should have, whether he would +or not, and whether the doctor would or not. So Ephraim laboriously +read the Bible through, a chapter at a time, and he went, step by +step, through the wisdom of the Divines of Westminster. No matter +how much he groaned over it, his mother was pitiless. Sometimes +Caleb plucked up courage and interceded. “I don't believe he +feels quite ekal to learnin' of his stint to-night,” he would +say, and then his eyes would fall before the terrible stern pathos +in Deborah's, as she would reply in her deep voice: “If he +can't learn nothin' about books, he's got to learn about his own +soul. He's got to, whether it hurts him or not. I shouldn't think, +knowin' what you know, you'd say anything, Caleb Thayer.”</p> +<p>And Caleb's old face would quiver suddenly like a child's; he +would rub the back of his hand across his eyes, huddle himself into +his arm-chair, and say no more; and Deborah would sharply order +Ephraim, spying anxiously over his catechism, to go on with the +next question.</p> +<p>It was nearly dark to-night when Ephraim finished his stint; he +was slower than usual, his progress being somewhat hindered by the +surreptitious eating of a hard red apple, which he had stowed away +in his jacket-pocket. Hard apples were strictly forbidden to +Ephraim as articles of diet, and to eat many during the season +required diplomacy.</p> +<p>The boy's jaws worked with furious zeal over the apple during +his mother's temporary absences from the room on household tasks, +and on her return were mumbling solemnly and innocently the +precepts of the catechism, after a spasmodic swallowing. His father +was nodding in his chair and saw nothing, and had he seen would not +have betrayed him. After a little inefficient remonstrance on his +own account, Caleb always subsided, and watched anxiously lest +Deborah should discover the misdemeanor and descend upon +Ephraim.</p> +<p>To-night, after the task was finished, Deborah sent Ephraim +stumbling out of the room to bed, muttering remonstrances, his eyes +as wild and restless as a cat's, his ears full of the nocturnal +shouts of his play-fellows that came through the open windows.</p> +<p>“Mother, can't I go out an' play ball a little +while?” sounded in a long wail from the dusk outside the +door.</p> +<p>“You go to bed,” answered his mother. Then the +slamming of a door shook the house.</p> +<p>“If he wa'n't sick, I'd whip him,” said Deborah, +between tight lips; the spiritual whip which Ephraim held by right +of his illness over her seemed to sing past her ears. She shook +Caleb with the force with which she might have shaken Ephraim. +“You'd better get up an' go to bed now, instead of sleepin' +in your chair,” she said, imperatively; and Caleb obeyed, +staggering, half-dazed, across the floor into the bedroom. Deborah +was only a few years younger than her husband, but she had retained +her youthful vigor in much greater degree. She never felt the +drowsiness of age stealing over her at nightfall. Indeed, +oftentimes her senses seemed to gain in alertness as the day wore +on, and many a night she was up and at work long after all the +other members of her family were in bed. There came at such times +to Deborah Thayer a certain peace and triumphant security, when all +the other wills over which her own held contested sway were lulled +to sleep, and she could concentrate all her energies upon her work. +Many a long task of needle-work had she done in the silence of the +night, by her dim oil lamp; in years past she had spun and woven, +and there was in a clothes-press up-stairs a wonderful coverlid in +an intricate pattern of blue and white, and not a thread of it +woven by the light of the sun.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem08.png" width="399" height="357" +alt="[Illustration: “Many a long task of needle-work had she done”]"> +</p> +<p>None of the neighbors knew why Deborah Thayer worked so much at +night; they attributed it to her tireless industry. “The days +wa'n't never long enough for Deborah Thayer,” they +said—and she did not know why herself.</p> +<p>There was deep in her heart a plan for the final disposition of +these nightly achievements, but she confided it to no one, not even +to Rebecca. The blue-and-white coverlid, many a daintily stitched +linen garment and lace-edged pillow-slip she destined for Rebecca +when she should be wed, although she frowned on Rebecca's lover and +spoke harshly to her of marriage. To-night, while Rebecca lay +sobbing in her little bedroom, the mother knitted assiduously until +nearly midnight upon a wide linen lace with which to trim dimity +curtains for the daughter's bridal bedstead.</p> +<p>Deborah needed no lamplight for this knitting-work; she was so +familiar with it, having knitted yards with her thoughts elsewhere, +that she could knit without seeing her needles.</p> +<p>So she sat in the deepening dusk and knitted, and heard the +laughter and shouts of the boys at play a little way down the road +with a deeper pang than Ephraim had ever felt over his own +deprivation.</p> +<p>She was glad when the gay hubbub ceased and the boys were haled +into bed. Shortly afterwards she heard out in the road a quick, +manly tread and a merry whistle. She did not know the tune, but +only one young man in Pembroke could whistle like that. “It's +Thomas Payne goin' up to see Charlotte Barnard,” she said to +herself, with a bitter purse of her lips in the dark. That merry +whistler, passing her poor cast-out son in his lonely, +half-furnished house, whose dark, shadowy walls she could see +across the field, smote her as sorely as he smote him. It seemed to +her that she could hear that flute-like melody even as far as +Charlotte's door. In spite of her stern resolution to be just, a +great gust of wrath shook her. “Lettin' of him come courtin' +her when it ain't six weeks since Barney went,” she said, +quite out loud, and knitted fiercely.</p> +<p>But poor Thomas Payne, striding with his harmless swagger up the +hill, whistling as loud as might be one of his college airs, need +not, although she knew it not and he knew it not himself, have +disturbed her peace of mind.</p> +<p>Charlotte, at the cherry party, had asked him, with a certain +dignified shyness, if he could come up to her house that evening, +and he had responded with alacrity. “Why, of course I +can,” he cried, blushing joyfully all over his handsome +face—“of course I can, Charlotte!” And he tried +to catch one of her hands hanging in the folds of her purple dress, +but she drew it away.</p> +<p>“I want to see you a few minutes about something,” +she said, soberly; and then she pressed forward to speak to another +girl, and he could not get another word with her about it.</p> +<p>Charlotte, after she got home from the party, had changed her +pretty new gown for her every-day one of mottled brown calico set +with a little green sprig, and had helped her mother get +supper.</p> +<p>Cephas, however, was late, and did not come home until just +before Thomas Payne arrived. Sarah had begun to worry. “I +don't see where your father is,” she kept saying to +Charlotte. When she heard his shuffling step on the door-stone she +started as if he had been her lover. When he came in she +scrutinized him anxiously, to see if he looked ill or disturbed. +Sarah Barnard, during all absences of her family, dug busily at +imaginary pitfalls for them; had they all existed the town would +have been honey-combed.</p> +<p>“There ain't nothin' happened, has there, Cephas?” +she said.</p> +<p>“I dunno of anythin' that's happened.”</p> +<p>“I got kind of worried. I didn't know where you +was.” Sarah had an air of apologizing for her worry. Cephas +made no reply; he did not say where he had been, nor account for +his tardiness; he did not look at his wife, standing before him +with her pathetically inquiring face. He pulled a chair up to the +table and sat down, and Charlotte set his supper before him. It was +a plate of greens, cold boiled dock, and some rye-and-Indian bread. +Cephas still adhered to his vegetarian diet, although he pined on +it, and the longing for the flesh-pots was great in his soul. +However, he said no more about sorrel pies, for the hardness and +the flavor of those which he had prepared had overcome even his +zeal of invention. He ate of them manfully twice; then he ate no +more, and he did not inquire how Sarah disposed of them after they +had vainly appeared on the table a week. She, with no pig nor hens +to eat them, was forced, with many misgivings as to the waste, to +deposit them in the fireplace.</p> +<p>“They actually made good kindlin' wood,” she told +her sister Sylvia. “Poor Cephas, he didn't have no more idea +than a baby about makin' pies.” All Sarah's ire had died +away; to-night she set a large plump apple-pie slyly on the +table—an apple-pie with ample allowance of lard in the crust +thereof; and she felt not the slightest exultation, only honest +pleasure, when she saw, without seeming to, Cephas cut off a goodly +wedge, after disposing of his dock greens.</p> +<p>“Poor father, I'm real glad he's tastin' of the +pie,” she whispered to Charlotte in the pantry; “greens +ain't very fillin'.”</p> +<p>Charlotte smiled, absently. Presently she slipped into the best +room and lighted the candles. “You expectin' of anybody +to-night?” her mother asked, when she came out.</p> +<p>“I didn't know but somebody might come,” Charlotte +replied, evasively. She blushed a little before her mother's +significantly smiling face, but there was none of the shamed +delight which should have accompanied the blush. She looked very +sober—almost stern.</p> +<p>“Hadn't you better put on your other dress again, +then?” asked her mother.”</p> +<p>“No, I guess this 'll do.”</p> +<p>Cephas ate his pie in silence—he had helped himself to +another piece—but he heard every word. After he had finished, +he fumbled in his pocket for his old leather purse, and counted +over a little store of money on his knee.</p> +<p>Charlotte was setting away the dishes in the pantry when her +father came up behind her and crammed something into her hand. She +started. “What is it?” said she.</p> +<p>“Look and see,” said Cephas.</p> +<p>Charlotte opened her hand, and saw a great silver dollar. +“I thought mebbe you'd like to buy somethin' with it,” +said Cephas. He cleared his throat, and went out through the +kitchen into the shed. Charlotte was too amazed to thank him; her +mother came into the pantry. “What did he give you?” +she whispered.</p> +<p>Charlotte held up the money. “Poor father,” said +Sarah Barnard, “he's doin' of it to make up. He was dreadful +sorry about that other, an' he's tickled 'most to death now he +thinks you've got somebody else, and are contented. Poor father, he +ain't got much money, either.”</p> +<p>“I don't want it,” Charlotte said, her steady mouth +quivering downward at the corners.</p> +<p>“You keep it. He'd feel all upset if you didn't. You'll +find it come handy. I know you've got a good many things now, but +you had ought to have a new cape come fall; you can't come out +bride in a muslin one when snow flies.” Sarah cast a +half-timid, half-shrewd glance at Charlotte, who put the dollar in +her pocket.</p> +<p>“A green satin cape, lined and wadded, would be +handsome,” pursued her mother.</p> +<p>“I sha'n't ever come out bride,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“How you talk. There, he's comin' now!”</p> +<p>And, indeed, at that the clang of the knocker sounded through +the house. Charlotte took off her apron and started to answer it, +but her mother caught her and pinned up a stray lock of hair. +“I 'most wish you had put on your other dress again,” +she whispered.</p> +<p>Sarah listened with her ear close to the crack of the kitchen +door when her daughter opened the outside one. She heard Thomas +Payne's hearty greeting and Charlotte's decorous reply. The door of +the front room shut, then she set the kitchen door ajar softly, but +she could hear nothing but a vague hum of voices across the entry; +she could not distinguish a word. However, it was as well that she +could not, for her heart would have sunk, as did poor Thomas +Payne's.</p> +<p>Thomas, with his thick hair brushed into a shining roll above +his fair high forehead, in his best flowered waistcoat and blue +coat with brass buttons, sat opposite Charlotte, his two nicely +booted feet toeing out squarely on the floor, his two hands on his +knees, and listened to what she had to say, while his boyish face +changed and whitened. Thomas was older than Charlotte, but he +looked younger. It seemed, too, as if he looked younger when with +her than at other times, although he was always anxiously steady +and respectful, and lost much of that youthful dash which made him +questioningly admired by the young people of Pembroke.</p> +<p>Charlotte began at once after they were seated. Her fair, grave +face colored, her voice had in it a solemn embarrassment. “I +don't know but you thought I was doing a strange thing to ask you +to come here to-night,” she said.</p> +<p>“No, I didn't; I didn't think so, Charlotte,” Thomas +declared, warmly.</p> +<p>“I felt as if I ought to. I felt as if it was my duty +to,” said she. She cast her eyes down. Thomas waited, looking +at her with vague alarm. Somehow some college scrapes of his +flashed into his head, and he had a bewildered idea the she had +found them out and that her sweet rigid innocence was shocked, and +she was about to call him to account.</p> +<p>But Charlotte continued, raising her eyes, and meeting his +gravely and fairly:</p> +<p>“You've been coming here three Sabbath evenings running, +now,” said she.</p> +<p>“Yes, I know I have, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“And you mean to keep on coming, if I don't say anything +to hinder it?”</p> +<p>“You know I do, Charlotte,” replied Thomas, with +ardent eyes upon her face.</p> +<p>“Then,” said Charlotte, “I feel as if it was +my duty to say this to you, Thomas. If you come in any other way +than as a friend, if you come on any other errand than friendship, +you must not come here any more. It isn't right for me to encourage +you, and let you come here and get your feelings enlisted. If you +come here occasionally as a friend in friendship I shall be happy +to have you, but you must not come here with any other hopes or +feelings.”</p> +<p>Charlotte's solemnly stilted words, and earnest, severe face +chilled the young man opposite. His face sobered. “You mean +that you can't ever think of me in any other way than as a +friend,” he said.</p> +<p>Charlotte nodded. “You know it is not because there's one +thing against you, Thomas.”</p> +<p>“Then it is Barney, after all.”</p> +<p>“I was all ready to marry him a few weeks ago,” +Charlotte said, with a kind of dignified reproach.</p> +<p>Thomas colored. “I know it, Charlotte; I ought not to have +expected—I suppose you couldn't get over it so soon. I +couldn't if I had been in your place, and been ready to marry +anybody. But I didn't know about girls; I didn't know but they were +different; I always heard they got over things quicker. I ought not +to have thought— But, oh, Charlotte, if I wait, if you have a +little more time, don't you think you will feel different about +it?”</p> +<p>Charlotte shook her head.</p> +<p>“But he is such a good-for-nothing dog to treat you the +way he does, Charlotte!” Thomas cried out, in a great burst +of wrath and jealous love.</p> +<p>“I don't want to hear another word like that, Thomas +Payne,” Charlotte said, sternly, and the young man drooped +before her.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon, Charlotte,” said he. “I +suppose I ought not to have spoken so, if you— Oh, Charlotte, +then you don't think you ever can get over this and think a little +bit of me?”</p> +<p>“No,” replied Charlotte, in a steady voice, “I +don't think I ever can, Thomas.”</p> +<p>“I don't mean that I am trying to get you away from any +other fellow, Charlotte—I wouldn't do anything like that; but +if he won't— Oh, Charlotte, are you sure?”</p> +<p>“I don't think I ever can,” repeated Charlotte, +monotonously, looking at the wall past Thomas.</p> +<p>“I've always thought so much of you, Charlotte, though I +never told you so.”</p> +<p>“You'd better not now.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I'm going to, now. I've got to. Then I'll never say +another word—I'll go away, and never say another word.” +Thomas got up, and brought his chair close to Charlotte's. +“Don't move away,” he pleaded; “let me sit here +near you once—I never shall again. I'm going to tell you, +Charlotte. I used to look across at you sitting in the +meeting-house, Sabbath days, when I was a boy, and think you were +the handsomest girl I ever saw. Then I did try to go with you once +before I went to college; perhaps you didn't know that I meant +anything, but I did. Barney was in the way then a little, but I +didn't think much of it. I didn't know that he really meant to go +with you. You let me go home with you two or three +times—perhaps you remember.”</p> +<p>Charlotte nodded.</p> +<p>“I never forgot,” said Thomas Payne. “Well, +father found it out, and he had a talk with me. He made me promise +to wait till I got through college before I said anything to you; +he was doing a good deal for me, you know. So I waited, and the +first thing I knew, when I came home, they said Barney Thayer was +waiting on you, and I thought it was all settled and there was +nothing more to be done. I made up my mind to bear it like a man +and make the best of it, and I did. But this spring when I was +through college, and that happened betwixt you and Barney, when +he—didn't come back to you, and you didn't seem to mind so +much, I couldn't help having a little hope. I waited and kept +thinking he'd make up with you, but he didn't, and I knew how +determined he was. Then finally I began to make a few advances, +but—well, it's all over now, Charlotte. There's only one +thing I'd like to ask: if I hadn't waited, as I promised father, +would it have made any difference? Did you always like Barney +Thayer?”</p> +<p>“Yes; it wouldn't have made any difference,” +Charlotte said. There were tears in her eyes.</p> +<p>Thomas Payne arose. “Then that is all,” said he. +“I never had any chance, if I had only known. I've got +nothing more to say. I want to thank you for asking me to come here +to-night and telling me. It was a good deal kinder than to let me +keep on coming. That would have been rather hard on a +fellow.” Thomas Payne fairly laughed, although his handsome +face was white. “I hope it will all come right betwixt you +and Barney, Charlotte,” he said, “and don't you worry +about me, I shall get on. I'll own this seems a little harder than +it was before, but I shall get on.” Thomas brushed his bell +hat carefully with his cambric handkerchief, and stowed it under +his arm. “Good-bye, Charlotte,” said he, in his old gay +voice; “when you ask me, I'll come and dance at your +wedding.”</p> +<p>Charlotte got up, trembling. Thomas reached out his hand and +touched her smooth fair head softly. “I never touched you nor +kissed you, except in games like that Copenhagen to-day,” +said he; “but I've thought of it a good many +times.”</p> +<p>Charlotte drew back. “I can't, Thomas,” she +faltered. She could not herself have defined her reason for +refusing her cast-off lover this one comfort, but it was not so +much loyalty as the fear of disloyalty which led her to do so. In +spite of herself, she saw Barney for an instant beside Thomas to +his disadvantage, and her love could not cover him, extend it as +she would. The conviction was strong upon her that Thomas was the +better man of the two, although she did not love him.</p> +<p>“All right,” said Thomas, “I ought not to have +asked it of you, Charlotte. Good-bye.”</p> +<p>As soon as Thomas Payne got out in the dark night air, and the +door had shut behind him, he set up his merry whistle. Charlotte +stood at the front window, and heard it from far down the hill.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="IX">Chapter IX</a></h4> +<p>One Sunday evening, about four months after the cherry party, +Barnabas Thayer came out of his house and strolled slowly across +the road. Then he paused, and leaned up against some pasture bars +and looked around him. There was nobody in sight on the road in +either direction, and everything was very still, except for the +vibrating calls of the hidden insects that come to their flood-tide +of life in early autumn.</p> +<p>Barnabas listened to those calls, which had in them a certain +element of mystery, as have all things which reach only one sense. +They were in their humble way the voices of the unseen, and as he +listened they seemed to take on a rhythmic cadence. Presently the +drone of multifold vibrations sounded in his ears with even rise +and fall, like the mighty breathing of Nature herself. The sun was +low, and the sky was full of violet clouds. Barney could see +outlined faintly against them the gray sweep of the roof that +covered Charlotte's daily life.</p> +<p>Soon the bell for the evening meeting began to ring, and Barney +started. People might soon appear on their way to meeting, and he +did not want to see them. Barney avoided everybody now; he had been +nowhere since the cherry party, not even to meeting. He led the +life of a hermit, and seldom met his kind at all, except at the +store, where he went to buy the simple materials for his solitary +meals.</p> +<p>Barney turned aside from the main road into the old untravelled +one leading past Sylvia Crane's house. It appeared scarcely more +than a lane; the old wheel-ruts were hidden between green weedy +ridges, the bordering stone-walls looked like long green barrows, +being overgrown with poison-ivy vines and rank shrubs. For a long +way there was no house except Sylvia Crane's. There was one cellar +where a house had stood before Barney could remember. There were a +few old blackened chimney-bricks still there, the step-stone worn +by dead and forgotten feet, and the old lilac-bushes that had grown +against the front windows. Two poplar-trees, too, stood where the +front yard had met the road, casting long shadows like men. Sylvia +Crane's house was just beyond, and Barney passed it with a furtive +anxious glance, because Charlotte's aunt lived there. He saw nobody +at the windows, but the guardian-stone was quite rolled away from +the door, so Sylvia was at home.</p> +<p>Barney walked a little way beyond; then he sat down on the +stone-wall, and remained there, motionless. He heard the +meeting-bell farther away, then it ceased. The wind was quite crisp +and cool, and it smote his back from the northwest. He could smell +wild-grapes and the pungent odor of decaying leaves. The autumn was +beginning, and over his thoughts, raised like a ghost from the +ashes of the summer, stole a vague vision of the winter. He saw for +a second the driving slant of the snow-storm over the old drifting +road, he saw the white slant of Sylvia's house-roof through it. And +at the same time a curious, pleasant desire, which might be +primitive and coeval with the provident passion of the squirrels +and honey-bees, thrilled him. Then he dismissed it bitterly. What +need of winter-stores and provisions for sweet home-comfort in the +hearts of freezing storms was there for him? What did he care +whether or not he laid in stores of hearth-wood, of garden produce, +of apples, just for himself in his miserable solitude? The inborn +desire of Northern races at the approach of the sterile winters, +containing, as do all desires to insure their fulfilment, the +elements of human pleasure, failed suddenly to move him when he +remembered that his human life, in one sense, was over.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem09.png" width="410" height="357" +alt="[Illustration: “He remained there motionless”]"></p> +<p>Opposite him across the road, in an old orchard, was a tree full +of apples. The low sun struck them, and they showed spheres of rosy +orange, as brilliant as Atalanta's apples of gold, against the +background of dark violet clouds. Barney looked at this tree, which +was glorified for the time almost out of its common meaning as a +tree, as he might have looked at a gorgeous procession passing +before him, while his mind was engrossed with his own misery, +seeming to project before his eyes like a veil.</p> +<p>Presently it grew dusky, and the glowing apples faded; the +town-clock struck eight. Barney counted the strokes; then he arose +and went slowly back. He had not gone far when he saw at a distance +down the road a man and woman strolling slowly towards him. They +disappeared suddenly, and he thought they had turned into a lane +which opened upon the road just there. He thought to himself, and +with no concern, that it might have been his sister +Rebecca—something about the woman's gait suggested +her—and William Berry. He knew that William was not allowed +in his mother's house, and that he and Rebecca met outside. He +looked up the dusky lane when he came to it, but he saw nobody.</p> +<p>When he reached Sylvia Crane's house he noticed that the front +door was open, and a woman stood there in a dim shaft of +candle-light which streamed from the room beyond. He started, for +he thought it might be Charlotte; then he saw that it was Sylvia +Crane leaning out towards him, shading her eyes with her hand.</p> +<p>He said “Good-evening” vaguely, and passed on. Then +he heard a cry of indistinct words behind him, and turned. +“What is it?” he called. But still he could not +understand what she said, her voice was so broken, and he went +back.</p> +<p>When he got quite close to the gate he understood. “You +ain't goin' past, Richard? You ain't goin' past, Richard?” +Sylvia was wailing over and over, clinging to the old +gate-post.</p> +<p>Barney stood before her, hesitating. Sylvia reached out a hand +towards him, clutching piteously with pale fingers through the +gloom. Barney drew back from the poor hand. “I rather +think—you've—made a mistake,” he faltered +out.</p> +<p>“You ain't goin' past, Richard?” Sylvia wailed out +again. She flung out her lean arm farther towards him. Then she +wavered. Barney thought she was going to fall, and he stepped +forward and caught hold of her elbow. “I guess you don't feel +well, do you, Miss Crane?” he said. “I guess you had +better go into the house, hadn't you?”</p> +<p>“I feel—kind of—bad—I—thought you +was goin'—past,” gasped Sylvia. Barney supported her +awkwardly into the house. At times she leaned her whole trembling +weight upon him, and then withdrew herself, all unnerved as she +was, with the inborn maiden reticence which so many years had +strengthened; once she pushed him from her, then drooped upon his +arm again, and all the time she kept moaning, “I thought you +was goin' right past, Richard, I thought you was goin' right +past.”</p> +<p>And Barney kept repeating, “I guess you've made a mistake, +Miss Crane”; but she did not heed him.</p> +<p>When they were inside the parlor he shifted her weight gently on +to the sofa, and would have drawn off; but she clung to his arm, +and it seemed to him that he was forced to sit down beside her or +be rough with her. “I thought you was goin' right past, +Richard,” she said again.</p> +<p>“I ain't Richard,” said Barney; but she did not seem +to hear him. She looked straight in his face with a strange +boldness, her body inclined towards him, her head thrown back. Her +thin, faded cheeks were burning, her blue eyes eager, her lips +twitching with pitiful smiles. The room was dim with candle-light, +but everything in it was distinct, and Sylvia Crane, looking +straight at Barney Thayer's face, saw the face of Richard +Alger.</p> +<p>Suddenly Barney himself had a curious impression. The features +of Richard Alger instead of his own seemed to look back at him from +his own thoughts. He dashed his hand across his face with an +impatient, bewildered motion, as if he brushed away unseen cobwebs, +and stood up. “You have made—” he began again; +but Sylvia interrupted him with a weak cry. “Set down here, +set down here, jest a minute, if you don't want to kill me!” +she wailed out, and she clutched at his sleeve and pulled him down, +and before he knew what she was doing had shrunk close to him, and +laid her head on his shoulder. She went on talking desperately in +her weak voice—strained shrill octaves above her ordinary +tone.</p> +<p>“I've had this—sofa ten years,” she +said—“ten years, Richard—an' you never set with +me on it before, an'—you'd been comin'—here a long +while before that came betwixt us last spring, Richard. Ain't you +forgiven me yet?”</p> +<p>Barney made no reply.</p> +<p>“Can't you put your arm around me jest once, +Richard?” she went on. “You ain't never, an' you've +been comin' here a long while. I've had this sofa ten +years.”</p> +<p>Barney put his arm around her, seemingly with no volition of his +own.</p> +<p>“It's six months to-day sence you came last,” Sylvia +said—“it's six whole months; an' when I see you goin' +past to-night, it didn't seem as if I could bear it—it didn't +seem as if I could bear it, Richard.” Sylvia turned her pale +profile closer to Barney's breast and sobbed faintly. “I've +watched so long for you,” she sighed out; “all these +months I've sat there at the window, strainin' my eyes into the +dark. Oh, you don't know, Richard, you won't never know!”</p> +<p>Barney trembled with Sylvia's sobs. He sat with a serious +shamefacedness, his arm around the poor bony waist, staring over +the faded fair head, which had never lain on any lover's breast +except in dreams. For the moment he could not stir; he had a +feeling of horror, as if he saw his own double. There was a subtle +resemblance which lay deeper than the features between him and +Richard Alger. Sylvia saw it, and he saw his own self reflected as +Richard Alger in that straining mental vision of hers which +exceeded the spiritual one.</p> +<p>“Can't you forgive me, an'—come again the +way—you used to?” Sylvia panted out. “I couldn't +get home before, that night, nohow. I couldn't, Richard—'twas +the night Charlotte an' Barney fell out. They had a dreadful time. +I had to stay there. It wa'n't my fault. If Barney had come back, I +could have got here in season; but poor Charlotte was settin' out +there all alone on the doorstep, an' her father wouldn't let her +in, an' Sarah took on so I had to stay. I thought I should die when +I got back an' found out you'd been here an' gone. Ain't you goin' +to forgive me, Richard?”</p> +<p>Barney suddenly removed his arm from Sylvia's waist, pushed her +clinging hands away, and stood up again. “Now, Miss +Crane,” he said, “I've got to tell you. You've got to +listen, and take it in. I am not Richard Alger; I am Barney +Thayer.”</p> +<p>“What?” Sylvia said, feebly, looking up at him. +“I don't know what you say, Richard; I wish you'd say it +again.”</p> +<p>“I ain't Richard Alger; I am Barney Thayer,” +repeated Barney, in a loud, distinct voice. Sylvia's straining, +questioning eyes did not leave his face. “You made a +mistake,” said Barney.</p> +<p>Sylvia turned her eyes away; she laid her head down on the arm +of the hair-cloth sofa, and gasped faintly. Barney bent over her. +“Now don't feel bad, Miss Crane,” said he; “I +sha'n't ever say a word about this to anybody.”</p> +<p>Sylvia made no reply; she lay there half gasping for breath, and +her face looked deathly to Barney.</p> +<p>“Miss Crane, are you sick?” he cried out in alarm. +When she did not answer, he even laid hold of her shoulder, and +shook her gently, and repeated the question. He did not know if she +were faint or dying; he had never seen anybody faint or die. He +wished instinctively that his mother were there; he thought for a +second of running for her in spite of everything.</p> +<p>“I'll go and get some water for you, Miss Crane,” he +said, desperately, and seized the candle, and went with it, flaring +and leaving a wake of smoke, out into the kitchen. He presently +came back with a dipper of water, and held it dripping over Sylvia. +“Hadn't you better drink a little?” he urged. But +Sylvia suddenly motioned him away and sat up. “No, I don't +want any water; I don't want anything after this,” she said, +in a quick, desperate tone. “I can never look anybody in the +face again. I can never go to meetin' again.”</p> +<p>“Don't you feel so about it, Miss Crane,” Barney +pleaded, his own voice uncertain and embarrassed. “The room +ain't very light, and it's dark outside; maybe I do look like him a +little. It ain't any wonder you made the mistake.”</p> +<p>“It wa'n't that,” returned Sylvia. “I dunno +what the reason was; it don't make any difference. I can't never go +to meetin' again.”</p> +<p>“I sha'n't tell anybody,” said Barney; “I +sha'n't ever speak of it to any human being.”</p> +<p>Sylvia turned on him with sudden fierceness. “You had +better not,” said she, “when you're doin' jest the same +as Richard Alger yourself, an' you're makin' Charlotte sit an' +watch an' suffer for nothin' at all, jest as he makes me. You had +better not tell of it, Barney Thayer, when it was all due to your +awful will that won't let you give in to anybody, in the first +place, an' when you are so much like Richard Alger yourself that +it's no wonder that anybody that knows him body and soul, as I do, +took you for him. You had better not tell.”</p> +<p>Again Barney seemed to see before his eyes that image of himself +as Richard Alger, and he could no more change it than he could +change his own image in the looking-glass. He said not another +word, but carried the dipper of water back to the kitchen, returned +with the candle, setting it gingerly on the white mantel-shelf +between a vase of dried flowers and a mottle-backed shell, and went +out of the house. Sylvia did not speak again; but he heard her moan +as he closed the door, and it seemed to him that he heard her as he +went down the road, although he knew that he could not.</p> +<p>It was quite dark now; all the light came from a pale wild sky. +The moon was young, and feebly intermittent with the clouds.</p> +<p>Barney, hastening along, was all trembling and unnerved. He +tried to persuade himself that the woman whom he had just left was +ill, and laboring under some sudden aberration of mind; yet, in +spite of himself, he realized a terrible rationality in it. Little +as he had been among the village people of late, and little as he +had heard of the village gossip, he knew the story of Richard +Alger's desertion of Sylvia Crane. Was he not like Richard Alger in +his own desertion of Charlotte Barnard? and had not Sylvia been as +little at fault in taking one for the other as if they had been +twin brothers? Might there not be a closer likeness between +characters than features—perhaps by a repetition of sins and +deformities? and might not one now and then be able to see it?</p> +<p>Then the question came, was Charlotte like Sylvia? Was Charlotte +even now sitting watching for him with that awful eagerness which +comes from a hunger of the heart? He had seen one woman's wounded +heart, and, like most men, was disposed to generalize, and think he +had seen the wounded hearts of all women.</p> +<p>When he had reached the turn of the road, and had come out on +the main one where his house was, and where Charlotte lived, he +stood still, looking in her direction. He seemed to see her, a +quarter of a mile away in the darkness, sitting in her window +watching for him, as Sylvia had watched for Richard.</p> +<p>He set his mouth hard and crossed the road. He had just reached +his own yard when there was the pale flutter of a skirt out of the +darkness before him, and a little shadowy figure met him with a +soft shock. The was a smothered nervous titter from the figure. +Barney did not know who it was; he muttered an apology, and was +about to pass into his yard when Rose Berry's voice arrested him. +It was quite trembling and uncertain; all the laughter had gone out +of it.</p> +<p>“Oh, it's you,” said she; “you frightened me. +I didn't know who it was.”</p> +<p>Barney felt suddenly annoyed without knowing why. “Oh, is +it you, Rose?” he returned, stiffly. “It's a pleasant +evening;” then he turned.</p> +<p>“Barney!” Rose said, and her voice sounded as if she +were weeping.</p> +<p>Barney stopped and waited.</p> +<p>“I want to know if—you're mad with me, +Barney.”</p> +<p>“No, of course I ain't; why?”</p> +<p>“I thought you'd acted kind of queer to me +lately.”</p> +<p>Barney stood still, frowning in the darkness. “I don't +know what you mean,” he said at length. “I don't know +how I've treated you any different from any of the +girls.”</p> +<p>“You haven't been to see me, and—you've hardly +spoken to me since the cherry party.”</p> +<p>“I haven't been to see anybody,” said Barney, +shortly; and he turned away again, but Rose caught his arm. +“Then you are sure you aren't mad with me?” she +whispered.</p> +<p>“Of course I'm sure,” Barney returned, +impatiently.</p> +<p>“It would kill me if you were,” Rose whispered. She +pressed close to him; he could feel her softly panting against his +side, her head sunk on his shoulder. “I've been worrying +about it all these months,” she said in his ear. Her soft +curly hair brushed his cheek, but her little transient influence +over him was all gone. He felt angry and ashamed.</p> +<p>“I haven't thought anything about it,” he said, +brusquely.</p> +<p>Rose sobbed faintly, but she did not move away from him. +Suddenly that cruel repulsion which seizes mankind towards reptiles +and unsought love seized Barney. He unclasped her clinging hands, +and fairly pushed her away from him. “Good-night, +Rose,” he said, shortly, and turned, and went up the path to +his own door with determined strides.</p> +<p>“Barney!” Rose called after him; but he paid no +attention. She even ran up the path after him; but the door shut, +and she turned back. She was trembling from head to foot, there was +a great rushing in her ears; but she heard a quick light step +behind her when she got out on the road, and she hurried on before +it with a vague dread.</p> +<p>She almost ran at length; but the footsteps gained on her. A +dark skirt brushed her light-colored one, and Charlotte's voice, +full of contempt and indignation, said in her ear: “Oh, I +thought it was you.”</p> +<p>“I—was coming up—to your—house,” +Rose faltered; she could hardly get her breath to speak.</p> +<p>“Why didn't you come, then?” demanded Charlotte. +“What made you go to Barney Thayer's?”</p> +<p>“I didn't,” said Rose, in feeble self-defence. +“He was out in the road—I—just stopped +to—speak to him—”</p> +<p>“You were coming out of his yard,” Charlotte said, +pitilessly. “You followed him in there—I saw you. Shame +on you!”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, I haven't done anything out of the +way,” pleaded Rose, weakly.</p> +<p>“You have tried your best to get Barney Thayer all the +time you have been pretending to be such a good friend to me. I +don't know what you call out of the way.”</p> +<p>“Charlotte, don't—I haven't.”</p> +<p>“Yes, you have. I am going to tell you, once for all, what +I think of you. You've been a false friend to me; and now when +Barney don't notice you, you follow him up as no girl that thought +anything of herself would. And you don't even care anything for +him; you haven't even that for an excuse.”</p> +<p>“You don't know but what I do!” Rose cried out, +desperately.</p> +<p>“Yes, I do know. If anybody else came along, you'd care +for him just the same.”</p> +<p>“I shouldn't—Charlotte, I should never have thought +of Barney if he—hadn't left you, you know I +shouldn't.”</p> +<p>“That's no excuse,” said Charlotte, sternly.</p> +<p>“You said yourself he would never come back to you,” +said Rose.</p> +<p>“Would you have liked me to have done so by you, if you +had been in my place?”</p> +<p>Rose twitched herself about. “You can't expect him never +to marry anybody because he isn't going to marry you,” she +said, defiantly.</p> +<p>“I don't—I am not quite so selfish as that. But he +won't ever marry anybody he don't like because she follows him up, +and I don't see how that alters what you've done.”</p> +<p>Rose began to walk away. Charlotte stood still, but she raised +her voice. “I am not very happy,” said she, “and +I sha'n't be happy my whole life, but I wouldn't change places with +you. You've lowered yourself, and that's worse than any +unhappiness.”</p> +<p>Rose fled away in the darkness without another word, and +Charlotte crossed the road to go to her Aunt Sylvia's.</p> +<p>Rose, as she went on, felt as if all her dreams were dying +within her; a dull vision of the next morning when she should awake +without them weighed upon her. She had a childish sense of shame +and remorse, and a conviction of the truth of Charlotte's words. +And yet she had an injured and bewildered feeling, as if somewhere +in this terrible nature, at whose mercy she was, there was some +excuse for her.</p> +<p>Rose was nearly home when she began to meet the people coming +from meeting. She kept close to the wall, and scudded along swiftly +that no one might recognize her. All at once a young man whom she +had passed turned and walked along by her side, making a shy clutch +at her arm.</p> +<p>“Oh, it's you,” she said, wearily.</p> +<p>“Yes; do you care if I walk along with you?”</p> +<p>“No,” said Rose, “not if you want +to.”</p> +<p>An old pang of gratitude came over her. It was only the honest, +overgrown boy, Tommy Ray, of the store. She had known he worshipped +her afar off; she had laughed at him and half despised him, but now +she felt suddenly humble and grateful for even this devotion. She +moved her arm that he might hold it more closely.</p> +<p>“It's too dark for you to be out alone,” he said, in +his embarrassed, tender voice.</p> +<p>“Yes, it's pretty dark,” said Rose. Her voice shook. +They had passed the last group of returning people. Suddenly Rose, +in spite of herself, began to cry. She sobbed wildly, and the boy, +full of alarm and sympathy, walked on by her side.</p> +<p>“There ain't anything—scared you, has there?” +he stammered out, awkwardly, at length.</p> +<p>“No,” sobbed Rose.</p> +<p>“You ain't sick?”</p> +<p>“No, it isn't anything.”</p> +<p>The boy held her arm closer; he trembled and almost sobbed +himself with sympathy. Before they reached the old tavern Rose had +stopped crying—she even tried to laugh and turn it off with a +jest. “I don't know what got into me,” she said; +“I guess I was nervous.”</p> +<p>“I didn't know but something had scared you,” said +the boy.</p> +<p>They stood on the door-steps; the house was dark. Rose's parents +had gone to bed, and William was out. The boy still held Rose's +arm. He had adored her secretly ever since he was a child, and he +had never dared as much as that before. He had thought of Rose like +a queen or a princess, and the thought had ennobled his boyish +ignorance and commonness.</p> +<p>“No, I wasn't scared,” said Rose, and something in +her voice gave sudden boldness to her young lover.</p> +<p>He released her arm, and put both his arms around her. +“I'm sorry you feel so bad,” he whispered, panting.</p> +<p>“It isn't anything,” returned Rose, but she half +sobbed again; the boy's round cheek pressed against her wet, +burning one. He was several years younger than she. She had half +scorned him, but she had one of those natures that crave love for +its own sweetness as palates crave sugar.</p> +<p>She wept a little on his shoulder; and the boy, half beside +himself with joy and terror, stood holding her fast in his +arms.</p> +<p>“Don't feel bad,” he kept whispering. Finally Rose +raised herself. “I must go in,” she whispered; +“good-night.”</p> +<p>The boy's pleading face, his innocent, passionate lips +approached hers, and they kissed each other.</p> +<p>“Don't you—like me a little?” gasped the +boy.</p> +<p>“Maybe I will,” Rose whispered back. His face came +closer, and she kissed him again. Then, with a murmured +“good-night,” she fled into the house, and the boy went +down the hill with sweeter dreams in his heart than those which she +had lost.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="X">Chapter X</a></h4> +<p>On the Sunday following the one of Barnabas Thayer's call Sylvia +Crane appeared at meeting in a black lace veil like a Spanish +señorita. The heavily wrought black lace fell over her face, +and people could get only shifting glimpses of her delicate +features behind it.</p> +<p>Richard Alger glanced furtively at the pale face shrinking +austerely behind the net-work of black silk leaves and flowers, and +wondered at some change which he felt but could not fathom. He +scarcely knew that she had never worn the veil before. And Richard +Alger, had he known, could never have fathomed the purely feminine +motive compounded of pride and shame which led his old sweetheart +to unearth from the depths of a bandbox her mother's worked-lace +veil, and tie its narrow black drawing-string with trembling +fingers over her own bonnet.</p> +<p>“I'd like to know what in creation you've got that veil on +for?” whispered her sister, Hannah Berry, as they went down +the aisle after meeting.</p> +<p>“I thought I would,” responded Sylvia's muffled +voice behind the veil.</p> +<p>“You've got the flowers right over your eyes. I shouldn't +think you could see to walk. You ain't never worn a veil in your +life. I can't see what has got into you,” persisted +Hannah.</p> +<p>Sylvia edged away from her as soon as she could, and glided down +the road towards her own house swiftly, although her knees +trembled. Sylvia's knees always trembled when she came out of +church, after she had sat an hour and a half opposite Richard +Alger. To-day they felt weaker than ever, after her encounter with +Hannah. Nobody knew the terror Sylvia had of her sister's +discovering how she had called in Barnabas Thayer, and in a manner +unveiled her maiden heart to him. When Charlotte had come in that +night after Barnabas had gone, and discovered her crying on the +sofa, she had jumped up and confronted her with a fierce instinct +of concealment.</p> +<p>“There ain't nothin' new the matter,” she said, in +response to Charlotte's question; “I was thinkin' about +mother; I'm apt to when it comes dusk.” It was the first +deliberate lie that Sylvia Crane had ever told in her life. She +reflected upon it after Charlotte had gone, and reflected also with +fierce hardihood that she would lie again were it necessary. Should +she hesitate at a lie if it would cover the maiden reserve that she +had cherished so long?</p> +<p>However, Charlotte had suspected more than her aunt knew of the +true cause of her agitation. A similar motive for grief made her +acute. Sylvia, mourning alone of a Sabbath night upon her +hair-cloth sofa, struck an old chord of her own heart. Charlotte +dared not say a word to comfort her directly. She condoled with her +for the fifteen-years-old loss of her mother, and did not allude to +Richard Alger; but going home she said to herself, with a miserable +qualm of pity, that poor Aunt Sylvia was breaking her heart because +Richard had stopped coming.</p> +<p>“It's harder for Aunt Sylvia because she's older,” +thought Charlotte, on her way home that night. But then she thought +also, with a sorer qualm of self-pity, that Sylvia had not quite so +long a life before her, to live alone. Charlotte had nearly reached +her own home that night when two figures suddenly slunk across the +road before her. She at once recognized Rebecca Thayer as one of +them, and called out “Good-evening, Rebecca!” to +her.</p> +<p>Rebecca made only a muttered sound in response, and they both +disappeared in the darkness. There was a look of secrecy and flight +about it which somehow startled Charlotte, engrossed as she was +with her own troubles and her late encounter with Rose.</p> +<p>When she got into the house she spoke of it to her mother. +Cephas had gone to bed, and Sarah was sitting up waiting for +her.</p> +<p>“I met Rebecca and William out here,” said she, +untying her hat, “and I thought they acted real queer.” +Sarah cast a glance at the bedroom door, which was ajar, and +motioned Charlotte to close it. Charlotte tiptoed across the room +and shut the door softly, lest she should awaken her father; then +her mother beckoned her to come close, and whispered something in +her ear.</p> +<p>Charlotte started, and a great blush flamed out all over her +face and neck. She looked at her mother with angry shame. “I +don't believe a word of it,” said she; “not a word of +it.”</p> +<p>“I walked home from meetin' with Mrs. Allen this +evenin',” said her mother, “an' she says it's all over +town. She says Rebecca's been stealin' out, an' goin' to walk with +him unbeknownst to her mother all summer. You know her mother +wouldn't let him come to the house.”</p> +<p>“I don't believe one word of it,” repeated +Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Mis' Allen says it's so,” said Sarah. “She +says Mis' Thayer has had to stay home from evenin' meetin' on +account of Ephraim—she don't like to leave him alone, he +ain't been quite so well lately—an' Rebecca has made believe +go to meetin' when she's been off with William. Mis' Thayer went to +meetin' to-night.”</p> +<p>“Wasn't Mr. Thayer there?”</p> +<p>“Yes, he was there, but he wouldn't know what was goin' +on. 'Tain't very hard to pull the wool over Caleb Thayer's +eyes.”</p> +<p>“I don't believe one word of it,” Charlotte said, +again. When she went up-stairs to bed that whisper of her mother's +seemed to sound through and above all her own trouble. It was to +her like a note of despair and shame, quite outside her own gamut +of life. She could not believe that she heard it at all. Rebecca's +face as she had always known her came up before her. “I don't +believe one word of it,” she said again to herself.</p> +<p>But that whisper which had shocked her ear had already begun to +be repeated all over the village—by furtive matrons, behind +their hands, when the children had been sent out of the room; by +girls, blushing beneath each other's eyes as they whispered; by the +lounging men in the village store; it was sent like an evil strain +through the consciousness of the village, until everybody except +Rebecca's own family had heard it.</p> +<p>Barnabas saw little of other people, and nobody dared repeat the +whisper to him, and they had too much mercy or too little courage +to repeat it to Caleb or Deborah. Indeed, it is doubtful if any +woman in the village, even Hannah Berry, would have ventured to +face Deborah Thayer with this rumor concerning her daughter.</p> +<p>Deborah had of late felt anxious about Rebecca, who did not seem +like herself. Her face was strangely changed; all the old meaning +had gone out of it, and given place to another, which her mother +could not interpret. Sometimes Rebecca looked like a stranger to +her as she moved about the house. She said to many that Rebecca was +miserable, and was incensed that she got so little sympathy in +response. Once when Rebecca fainted in meeting, and had to be +carried out, she felt in the midst of her alarm a certain triumph. +“I guess folks will see now that I ain't been fussin' over +her for nothin',” she thought. When Rebecca revived under a +sprinkle of water, out in the vestibule, she said impatiently to +the other women bending their grave, concerned faces over her, +“She's been miserable for some time. I ain't surprised at +this at all myself.”</p> +<p>Deborah watched over Rebecca with a fierce, pecking tenderness +like a bird. She brewed great bowls of domestic medicines from nuts +and herbs, and made her drink whether she would or not. She sent +her to bed early, and debarred her from the night air. She never +had a suspicion of the figure slipping softly as a shadow across +the north parlor and out the front door night after night.</p> +<p>She never exchanged a word with Rebecca about William Berry. She +tried to persuade herself that Rebecca no longer thought much about +him; she drove from her mind the fear lest Rebecca's illness might +be due to grief at parting from him. She looked at Thomas Payne +with a speculative eye; she thought that he would make a good +husband for Rebecca; she dreamed of him, and built bridal castles +for him and her daughter, as she knitted those yards of lace at +night, when Rebecca had gone to bed in her little room off the +north parlor. When Thomas Payne went west a month after Charlotte +Barnard had refused him, she transferred her dreams to some fine +stranger who should come to the village and at once be smitten with +Rebecca. She never thought it possible that Rebecca could be +persisting in her engagement to William Berry against her express +command. Her own obstinacy was incredible to her in her daughter; +she had not the slightest suspicion of it, and Rebecca had less to +guard against.</p> +<p>As the fall advanced Rebecca showed less and less inclination to +go in the village society. Her mother fairly drove her out at +times. Once Rebecca, utterly overcome, sank down in a chair and +wept when her mother urged her to go to a husking-party in the +neighborhood.</p> +<p>“You've got to spunk up an' go, if you don't feel like +it,” said her mother. “You'll feel better for it +afterwards. There ain't no use in givin' up so. I'm goin' to get +you a new crimson woollen dress, an' I'm goin' to have you go out +more'n you've done lately.”</p> +<p>“I—don't want a new dress,” returned Rebecca, +with wild sobs.</p> +<p>“Well, I'm goin' to get you one to-morrow,” said her +mother. “Now go an' wash your face an' do up your hair, an' +get ready. You can wear your brown dress, with the cherry ribbon in +your hair, to-night.”</p> +<p>“I don't—feel fit to, mother,” moaned Rebecca, +piteously.</p> +<p>But Deborah would not listen to her. She made her get ready for +the husking-party, and looked at her with pride when she stood all +dressed to go, in the kitchen.</p> +<p>“You look better than you've done for some time,” +said she, “an' that brown dress don't look bad, either, if +you have had it three winters. I'm goin' to get you a nice new +crimson woollen this winter. I've had my mind made up to for some +time.”</p> +<p>After Rebecca had gone and Ephraim had said his catechism and +gone to bed, Deborah sat and knitted, and planned to get the +crimson dress for Rebecca the next day.</p> +<p>She looked over at Caleb, who sat dozing by the fire. +“I'll go to-morrow, if he ain't got to spend all that last +interest-money for the parish taxes an' cuttin' that wood,” +said she. “I dunno how much that wood-cuttin' come to, an' he +won't know to-night if I wake him up. I can't get it through his +head. But I'll buy it to-morrow if there's money enough +left.”</p> +<p>But Deborah was forced to wait a few weeks, since it took all +the interest-money for the parish taxes and to pay for the +wood-cutting. She had to wait until Caleb had sold some of the +wood, and that took some time, since seller and purchasers were +slow-motioned.</p> +<p>At last, one afternoon, she drove herself over to Bolton in the +chaise to buy the dress. She went to Bolton, because she would not +go herself to Silas Berry's store and trade with William. She could +send Caleb there for household goods, but this dress she would +trust no one but herself to purchase.</p> +<p>She had planned that Rebecca should go with her, but the girl +looked so utterly wan and despairing that day that she forbore to +insist upon it. Caleb would have accompanied her, but she would not +let him. “I never did think much of men-folks standin' round +in stores gawpin' while women-folks was tradin',” said she. +She would not allow Ephraim to go, although he pleaded hard. It was +quite a cold day, and she was afraid of the sharp air for his +laboring breath.</p> +<p>A little after noon she set forth, all alone in the chaise, +slapping the reins energetically over the white horse's back, a +thick green veil tied over her bonnet under her chin, and the thin, +sharp wedge of face visible between the folds crimsoning in the +frosty wind.</p> +<p>While she was gone Rebecca sat beside the window and sewed, +Caleb shelled corn in the chimney-corner, and Ephraim made a +pretence of helping him. “You set down an' help your father +shell corn while I am gone,” his mother had sternly +ordered.</p> +<p>Occasionally Ephraim addressed whining remonstrances to his +father, and begged to be allowed to go out-of-doors, and Caleb +would quiet him with one effectual rejoinder: “You know she +won't like it if you do, sonny. You know what she said.”</p> +<p>Caleb, as he shelled the corn with the pottering patience of old +age and constitutional slowness, glanced now and then at his +daughter in the window. He thought she looked very badly, and he +had all the time lately the bewildered feeling of a child who sees +in a familiar face the marks of emotions unknown to it.</p> +<p>“Don't you feel as well as common to-day, Rebecca?” +he asked once, and cleared his throat.</p> +<p>“I don't feel sick, as I know of, any day,” replied +Rebecca, shortly, and her face reddened.</p> +<p>As she sewed she looked out now and then at the wild December +day, the trees reeling in the wind, and the sky driving with the +leaden clouds. It was too cold and too windy to snow all the +afternoon, but towards night it moderated, and the wind died down. +When Mrs. Thayer came home it was snowing quite hard, and her green +veil was white when she entered the kitchen. She took it off and +shook it, sputtering moisture in the fireplace.</p> +<p>“There's goin' to be a hard storm; it's lucky I went +to-day,” said she. “I kept the dress under the +buffalo-robe, an' that ain't hurt any.”</p> +<p>Deborah waxed quite angry, when she proudly shook out the soft +gleaming crimson lengths of thibet, because Rebecca showed so +little interest in it. “You don't deserve to have a new +dress; you act like a stick of wood,” she said.</p> +<p>Rebecca made no reply. Presently, when she had gone out of the +room for something, Caleb said, anxiously, “I guess she don't +feel quite so well as common to-night.”</p> +<p>“I'm gettin' most out of patience; I dunno what ails her. +I'm goin' to have the doctor if this keeps on,” returned +Deborah.</p> +<p>Ephraim, sucking a stick of candy brought to him from Bolton, +cast a strange glance at his mother—a glance compounded of +shrewdness and terror; but she did not see it.</p> +<p>It snowed hard all night; in the morning the snow was quite +deep, and there was no appearance of clearing. As soon as the +breakfast dishes were put away, Deborah got out the crimson thibet. +She had learned the tailoring and dressmaking trade in her youth, +and she always cut and fitted the garments for the family.</p> +<p>She worked assiduously; by the middle of the forenoon the dress +was ready to be tried on. Ephraim and his father were out in the +barn, she and Rebecca were alone in the house.</p> +<p>She made Rebecca stand up in the middle of the kitchen floor, +and she began fitting the crimson gown to her. Rebecca stood +drooping heavily, her eyes cast down. Suddenly her mother gave a +great start, pushed the girl violently from her, and stood aloof. +She did not speak for a few minutes; the clock ticked in the +dreadful silence. Rebecca cast one glance at her mother, whose eyes +seemed to light the innermost recesses of her being to her own +vision; then she would have looked away, but her mother's voice +arrested her.</p> +<p>“Look at me,” said Deborah. And Rebecca looked; it +was like uncovering a disfigurement or a sore.</p> +<p>“What—ails you?” said her mother, in a +terrible voice.</p> +<p>Then Rebecca turned her head; her mother's eyes could not hold +her any longer. It was as if her very soul shrank.</p> +<p>“Go out of this house,” said her mother, after a +minute.</p> +<p>Rebecca did not make a sound. She went, bending as if there were +a wind at her back impelling her, across the kitchen in her quilted +petticoat and her crimson thibet waist, her white arms hanging +bare. She opened the door that led towards her own bedroom, and +passed out.</p> +<p>Presently Deborah, still standing where Rebecca had left her, +heard the front door of the house shut. After a few minutes she +took the broom from its peg in the corner, went through the icy +north parlor, past Rebecca's room, to the front door. The snow +heaped on the outer threshold had fallen in when Rebecca opened it, +and there was a quantity on the entry floor.</p> +<p>Deborah opened the door again, and swept out the snow carefully; +she even swept the snow off the steps outside, but she never cast a +glance up or down the road. Then she beat the snow off the broom, +and went in and locked the door behind her.</p> +<p>On her way back to the kitchen she paused at Rebecca's little +bedroom. The waist of the new gown lay on the bad. She took it out +into the kitchen, and folded it carefully with the skirt and the +pieces; then she carried it up to the garret and laid it away in a +chest.</p> +<p>When Caleb and Ephraim came in from the barn they found Deborah +sitting at the window knitting a stocking. She did not look up when +they entered.</p> +<p>The corn was not yet shelled, and Caleb arranged his baskets in +the chimney-corner, and fell to again. Ephraim began teasing his +mother to let him crack some nuts, but she silenced him +peremptorily. “Set down an' help your father shell that +corn,” said she. And Ephraim pulled a grating chair up to his +father, muttering cautiously.</p> +<p>Caleb kept looking at Deborah anxiously. He glanced at the door +frequently.</p> +<p>“Where's Rebecca?” he asked at last.</p> +<p>“I dunno,” replied Deborah.</p> +<p>“Has she laid down?”</p> +<p>“No, she ain't.”</p> +<p>“She ain't gone out in the snow, has she?” Caleb +said, with deploring anxiety.</p> +<p>Deborah answered not a word. She pursed her lips and +knitted.</p> +<p>“She ain't, has she, mother?”</p> +<p>“Keep on with your corn,” said Deborah; and that was +all she would say.</p> +<p>Presently she arose and prepared dinner in the same dogged +silence. Caleb, and even Ephraim, watched her furtively, with +alarmed eyes.</p> +<p>When Rebecca did not appear at the dinner-table Caleb did not +say anything about it, but his old face was quite pale. He ate his +dinner from the force of habit of over seventy years, during which +time he had always eaten his dinner, but he did not taste it +consciously.</p> +<p>He made up his mind that as soon as he got up from the table he +would go over to Barney's and consult him. After he pushed his +chair away he was slipping out shyly, but Deborah stopped him.</p> +<p>“Set down an' finish that corn. I don't want it clutterin' +up the kitchen any longer,” said she.</p> +<p>“I thought I'd jest slip out a minute, mother.”</p> +<p>Deborah motioned him towards the chimney-corner and the baskets +of corn with a stern gesture, and Caleb obeyed. Ephraim, too, +settled down beside his father, and fell to shelling corn without +being told. He was quite cowed and intimidated by this strange mood +of his mother's, and involuntarily shrank closer to his father when +she passed near him.</p> +<p>Caleb and Ephraim both watched Deborah with furtive terror, as +she moved about, washing and putting away the dinner-dishes and +sweeping the kitchen.</p> +<p>They looked at each other, when, after the after-dinner +housework was all done, she took her shawl and hood from the peg, +and drew some old wool socks of Caleb's over her shoes. She went +out without saying a word. Ephraim waited a few minutes after the +door shut behind her; then he ran to the window.</p> +<p>“She's gone to Barney's,” he announced, rolling +great eyes over his shoulder at his father; and the old man also +went over to the window and watched Deborah plodding through the +snow up the street.</p> +<p>It was not snowing so hard now, and the clouds were breaking, +but a bitter wind was blowing from the northwest. It drove Deborah +along before it, lashing her skirts around her gaunt limbs; but she +leaned back upon it, and did not bend.</p> +<p>The road was not broken out, and the snow was quite deep, but +she went along with no break in her gait. She went into Barney's +yard and knocked at his door. She set her mouth harder when she +heard him coming.</p> +<p>Barney opened the door and started when he saw who was there. +“Is it you, mother?” he said, involuntarily; then his +face hardened like hers, and he waited. The mother and son +confronted each other looked more alike than ever.</p> +<p>Deborah opened her mouth to speak twice before she made a sound. +She stood upright and unyielding, but her face was ghastly, and she +drew her breath in long, husky gasps. Finally she spoke, and Barney +started again at her voice.</p> +<p>“I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry +Rebecca,” she said.</p> +<p>“Mother, what do you mean?”</p> +<p>“I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry +Rebecca.”</p> +<p>“Mother!”</p> +<p>“Rebecca is gone. I turned her out of the house this +mornin'. I don't know where she is. Go and find her, and make +William Berry marry her.”</p> +<p>“Mother, before the Lord, I don't know what you +mean!” Barney cried out. “You didn't turn Rebecca out +of the house in all this storm! What did you turn her out for? +Where is she?”</p> +<p>“I don't know where she is. I turned her out because I +wouldn't have her in the house. You brought it all on us; if you +hadn't acted so I shouldn't have felt as I did about her marryin'. +Now you can go an' find her, and get William Berry an' make him +marry her. I ain't got anything more to do with it.”</p> +<p>Deborah turned, and went out of the yard.</p> +<p>“Mother!” Barney called after her, but she kept on. +He stood for a second looking after her retreating figure, +struggling sternly with the snow-drifts, meeting the buffets of the +wind with her head up; then he went in, and put on his boots and +his overcoat.</p> +<p>Barney had heard not one word of the village gossip, and the +revelation in his mother's words had come to him with a great +shock. As he went up the hill to the old tavern he could hardly +believe that he had understood her rightly. Once he paused and +turned, and was half inclined to go back. He was as pure-minded as +a girl, and almost as ignorant; he could not believe that he knew +what she meant.</p> +<p>Barney hesitated again before the store; then he opened the +great clanging door and went in. A farmer, in a blue frock stiff +with snow, had just completed his purchases and was going out. +William, who had been waiting upon him, was quite near the door +behind the counter. At the farther end of the store could be seen +the red glow of a stove and Tommy Ray's glistening fair had. Some +one else, who had shrunk out of sight when Barney entered, was also +there.</p> +<p>Barney saw no one but William. He looked at him, and all his +bewilderment gathered itself into a point. He felt a sudden fierce +impulse to spring at him.</p> +<p>William looked at Barney, and his faced changed in a minute. He +took up his hat, and came around the counter. “Did you want +to see me?” he said, hoarsely.</p> +<p>“Come outside,” said Barney. And the two men went +out, and stood in the snow before the store.</p> +<p>“Where is Rebecca?” said Barney. He looked at +William, and again the savage impulse seized him. William did not +shrink before it.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem10.png" width="322" height="357" +alt="[Illustration: “‘Where is Rebecca?’ said Barney”]"> +</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” he returned. His lips were quite +stiff and white, but he looked back at Barney.</p> +<p>“Don't you know where she is?”</p> +<p>“Before God I don't, Barney. What do you mean?”</p> +<p>“She left home this morning. Mother turned her +out.”</p> +<p>“Turned her out!” repeated William.</p> +<p>“Come with me and find her and marry her, or I'll kill +you,” said Barney, and he lashed out suddenly with his fist +in William's face.</p> +<p>“You won't need to, for I'll kill myself if I +don't,” William gasped out. Then he turned and ran.</p> +<p>“Where are you going?” Barney shouted, rushing after +him, in a fury.</p> +<p>“To put the horse in the cutter,” William called +back. And, indeed, he was headed towards the barn. Barney followed +him, and the two men put the horse between the shafts. Once William +asked, hoarsely, “Any idea which way?” and Barney shook +his head.</p> +<p>“What time did she go?”</p> +<p>“Some time this forenoon.”</p> +<p>William groaned.</p> +<p>The horse was nearly harnessed when Tommy Ray came running out +from the store, and beckoned to Barney. “Rose says she see +her going up the turnpike this morning,” he said, in a low +voice. “She was up in her chamber that looks over the +turnpike, and she see somebody goin' up the turnpike. She thought +it looked like Rebecca, but she supposed it must be Mis' Jim +Sloane. It must have been Rebecca.”</p> +<p>“What time was it?” William asked, thrusting his +white face between them. The boy turned aside with a gesture of +contempt and dislike. “About half-past ten,” he +answered, shortly. Then he turned on his heel and went back to the +store. Rose was peering around the half-open door with a white, +shocked face. Somehow she had fathomed the cause of the +excitement.</p> +<p>“We'll go up the turnpike, then,” said Barney. +William nodded. The two men sprang into the cutter, and the snow +flew in their faces from the horse's hoofs as they went out the +barn door.</p> +<p>The old tavern stood facing the old turnpike road to Boston, but +the store and barn faced on the new road at its back, and people +generally approached the tavern by that way.</p> +<p>William and Barney had to drive down the hill; then turn the +corner, and up the hill again on the old turnpike.</p> +<p>There was not a house on that road for a full mile. William +urged the horse as fast as he could through the fresh snow. Both +men kept a sharp lookout at the sides of the road. The sun was out +now, and the snow was blinding white; the north wind drove a +glittering spray as sharp and stinging as diamond-dust in their +faces.</p> +<p>Once William cried out, with a dry sob, “My God, she'll +freeze in this wind, if she's out in it!”</p> +<p>And Barney answered, “Maybe it would be better for her if +she did.”</p> +<p>William looked at him for the first time since they started. +“See here, Barney,” he said, “God knows it's not +to shield myself—I'm past that; but I've begged her all +summer to be married. I've been down on my knees to her to be +married before it came to this.”</p> +<p>“Why wouldn't she?”</p> +<p>“I don't know, oh, I don't know! The poor girl was near +distracted. Her mother forbade her to marry me, and held up her +Aunt Rebecca, who married against her parents' wishes and hung +herself, before her, all the time. Your trouble with Charlotte +Barnard brought it all about. Her mother never opposed it before. I +begged her to marry me, but she was afraid, or something, I don't +know what.”</p> +<p>“Can't you drive faster?” said Barney.</p> +<p>William had been urging the horse while he spoke, but now he +shook the whip over him again.</p> +<p>Mrs. Jim Sloane's house was a long, unpainted cottage quite near +the road. The woman who lived alone there was under a kind of +indefinite ban in the village. Her husband, who had died several +years before, had been disreputable and drunken, and the mantle of +his disgrace had seemed to fall upon his wife, if indeed she was +not already provided with such a mantle of her own. Everybody spoke +slightingly of Mrs. Jim Sloane. The men laughed meaningly when they +saw her pass, wrapped in an old plaid shawl, which she wore summer +and winter, and which seemed almost like a uniform. Stories were +told of her dirt and shiftlessness, of the hens which roosted in +her kitchen. Poor Mrs. Jim Sloane, in her blue plaid shawl, +tramping frequently from her solitary house through the village, +was a byword and a mocking to all the people.</p> +<p>When William and Barney came abreast of her house they saw the +blue flutter of Mrs. Jim Sloane's shawl out before, above the blue +dazzle of the snow.</p> +<p>“Hullo!” she was crying out in her shrill voice, and +waving her hand to them to stop.</p> +<p>William pulled the horse up short, and the woman came plunging +through the snow close to his side.</p> +<p>“She's in here,” she said, with a knowing smile. The +faded fair hair blew over her eyes; she pushed it back with a +coquettish gesture; there was a battered prettiness about her thin +pink-and-white face, turning blue in the sharp wind.</p> +<p>“When did she get here?” asked Barney.</p> +<p>“This forenoon. She fell down out here, couldn't get no +farther. I came out an' got her into the house. Didn't know but she +was done to; but I fixed her up some hot drink an' made her lay +down. I s'posed you'd be along.” She smiled again.</p> +<p>William jumped out of the cutter, and tied the horse to an old +fence-post. Then he and Barney followed the woman into the house. +Barney looked at the old blue plaid shawl with utter disgust and +revulsion. He had always felt a loathing for the woman, and her +being a distant relative on his father's side intensified it.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sloane threw open the door, and bade them enter, as if to a +festival. “Walk right in,” said she.</p> +<p>There was a wild flutter of hens as they entered. Mrs. Sloane +drove them before her. “The hen-house roof fell in, an' I +have to keep 'em in here,” she said, and shooed them and +shook her shawl at them, until they alighted all croaking with +terror upon the bed in the corner.</p> +<p>Then she looked inquiringly around the room. “Why,” +she cried, “she's gone; she was settin' here in this +rockin'-chair when I went out. She must have run when she see you +comin'!”</p> +<p>Mrs. Sloane hustled through a door, the tattered fringes of her +shawl flying, and then her voice, shrilly expostulating, was heard +in the next room.</p> +<p>The two men waited, standing side by side near the door in a +shamed silence. They did not look at each other.</p> +<p>Presently Mrs. Sloane returned without her shawl. Her old cotton +gown showed tattered and patched, and there were glimpses of her +sharp white elbows at the sleeves. “She won't come out a +step,” she announced. “I can't make her. She's takin' +on terribly.”</p> +<p>William made a stride forward. “I'll go in and see +her,” he said, hoarsely; but Mrs. Jim Sloane stood suddenly +in his way, her slender back against the door.</p> +<p>“No, you ain't goin' in,” said she, “I told +her I wouldn't let you go in.”</p> +<p>William looked at her.</p> +<p>“She's dreadful set against either one of you comin' in, +an' I told her you shouldn't,” she said, firmly. She smoothed +her wild locks down tightly over her ears as she spoke. All the +coquettish look was gone.</p> +<p>William turned around, and looked helplessly at Barney, and +Barney looked back at him. Then Barney put on his hat, and shrugged +himself more closely into his great-coat.</p> +<p>“I'll go and get the minister,” he said.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sloane thrust her chin out alertly. “Goin' to get her +married right off?” she asked, with a confidential smile.</p> +<p>Barney ignored her. “I guess it's the best way to +do,” he said, sternly, to William; and William nodded.</p> +<p>“Well, I guess 'tis the best way,” Mrs. Sloane said, +with cheerful assent. “I don't b'lieve you could hire her to +come out of that room an' go to the minister's, nohow. She's +terrible upset, poor thing.”</p> +<p>As Barney went out of the door he cast a look full of +involuntary suspicion back at William, and hesitated a second on +the threshold. Mrs. Sloane intercepted the look. “I'll look +out he don't run away while you're gone,” she said; then she +laughed.</p> +<p>William's white face flamed up suddenly, but he made no reply. +When Barney had gone he drew a chair up close to the hearth, and +sat there, bent over, with his elbows on his knees. Mrs. Sloane sat +down on the foot of the bed, close to the door of the other room, +as if she were mounting guard over it. She kept looking at William, +and smiling, and opening her mouth to speak, then checking +herself.</p> +<p>“It's a pretty cold day,” she said, finally.</p> +<p>William grunted assent without looking up. Then he motioned with +his shoulder towards the door of the other room. “Ain't it +cold in there?” he half whispered.</p> +<p>“I rolled her all up in my shawl; I guess she won't ketch +cold; it's thick,” responded the woman, effusively, and +William said no more. He sat with his chin in his hands and his +eyes fixed absently. The fire was smoking over a low, red glow of +coals, the chimney-place yawned black before him, the hearth was +all strewn with pots and kettles, and the shelf above it was piled +high with a vague household litter. It had leaked around the +chimney, and there was a great discolored blotch on the wall above +the shelf, and the ceiling. Two or three hens came pecking around +the kettles at William's feet.</p> +<p>To this young man, brought up in the extreme thrift and neatness +of a typical New England household, this strange untidiness, as he +viewed it through his strained mental state, seemed to have a +deeper significance, and reveal the very shame and squalor of the +soul itself, and its own existence and thoughts, by material +images.</p> +<p>He might from his own sensations, as he sat there, have been +actually translated into a veritable hell, from the utter +strangeness of the atmosphere which his thoughts seemed to gasp in. +William had never come fully into the atmosphere of his own sin +before, but now he had, and somehow the untidy pots and kettles on +the hearth made it more real. He was conscious as he sat there of +very little pity for the girl in the other room, of very little +love for her, and also of very little love or pity for himself; he +felt nothing but a kind of horror. He saw suddenly the alien side +of life, and the alien side of his own self, which he would always +have kept faced out towards space, away from all eyes, like the +other side of the moon, and that was for the time all he could +grasp.</p> +<p>Once or twice Mrs. Sloane volunteered a remark, but he scarcely +responded, and once he heard absently her voice and Rebecca's in +the other room. Otherwise he sat in utter silence, except for the +low chuckle of the hens and the taps of their beaks against the +iron pots, until Barney came with the minister and the minister's +wife.</p> +<p>Barney had taken the minister aside, and asked him, +stammeringly, if he thought his wife would come. He could not bear +the thought of the Sloane woman's being a witness at his sister's +wedding. The minister and his wife were both very young, and had +not lived long in Pembroke. They looked much alike: the minister's +small, pale, peaked face peered with anxious solicitude between the +folds of the great green scarf which he tied over his cap, and his +wife looked like him out of her great wadded green silk hood, when +they got into the sleigh with Barney.</p> +<p>The minister had had a whispered conference with his wife, and +now she never once let her eyes rest on either of the two men as +they slid swiftly along over the new snow. Her heart beat loudly in +her ears, her little thin hands were cold in her great muff. She +had married very young, out of a godly New England minister's home. +She had never known anything like this before, and a sort of +general shame of femininity seemed to be upon her.</p> +<p>When she followed her husband into Mrs. Sloane's house she felt +herself as burdened with shame—as if she stood in Rebecca's +place. Her little face, all blue with the sharp cold, shrank, +shocked and sober, into the depths of her great hood. She stood +behind her husband, her narrow girlish shoulders bending under her +thick mantilla, and never looked at the face of anybody in the +room.</p> +<p>She did not see William at all. He stood up before them as they +entered; they all nodded gravely. Nobody spoke but Mrs. Sloane, +vibrating nervously in the midst of her clamorous hens, and Barney +silenced her.</p> +<p>“We'll go right in,” he said, in a stern, peremptory +tone; then he turned to William. “Are you ready?” he +asked.</p> +<p>William nodded, with his eyes cast down. The party made a motion +towards the other room, but Mrs. Sloane unexpectedly stood before +the door.</p> +<p>“I told her there shouldn't nobody come in,” said +she, “an' I ain't goin' to have you all bustin' in on her +without she knows it. She's terrible upset. You wait a +minute.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Sloane's blue eyes glared defiantly at the company. The +minister's wife bent her hooded head lower. She had heard about +Mrs. Sloane, and felt as if she were confronted by a woman from +Revelation and there was a flash of scarlet in the room.</p> +<p>“Go in and tell her we are coming,” said Barney. And +Mrs. Sloane slipped out of the room cautiously, opening the door +only a little way. Her voice was heard, and suddenly Rebecca's rang +out shrill in response, although they could not distinguish the +words. Mrs. Sloane looked out. “She says she won't be +married,” she whispered.</p> +<p>“You let me see her,” said Barney, and he took a +stride forward, but Mrs. Sloane held the door against him.</p> +<p>“You can't,” she whispered again. “I'll talk +to her some more. I can talk her over, if anybody can.”</p> +<p>Barney fell back, and again the door was shut and the voices +were heard. This time Rebecca's arose into a wail, and they heard +her cry out, “I won't, I won't! Go away, and stop talking to +me! I won't! Go away!”</p> +<p>William turned around, and hid his face against the corner of +the mantel-shelf. Barney went up and clapped him roughly on the +shoulder. “Can't you go in there and make her listen to +reason?” he said.</p> +<p>But just then Mrs. Sloane opened the door again. “You can +walk right in now,” she announced, smiling, her thin mouth +sending the lines of her whole face into smirking upward +curves.</p> +<p>The whole company edged forward solemnly. Mrs. Sloane was +following, but Barney stood in her way. “I guess you'd better +not come in,” he said, abruptly.</p> +<p>Mrs. Sloane's face flushed a burning red. “I guess,” +she began, in a loud voice, but Barney shut the door in her face. +She ran noisily, stamping her feet like an angry child, to the +fireplace, caught up a heavy kettle, and threw it down on the +hearth. The hens flew up with a great clamor and whir of wings; +Mrs. Sloane's shrill, mocking laugh arose above it. She began +talking in a high-pitched voice, flinging out vituperations which +would seem to patter against the closed door like bullets. Suddenly +she stopped, as if her ire had failed her, and listened intently to +a low murmur from the other room. She nodded her head when it +ceased.</p> +<p>The door opened soon, and all except Rebecca came out. They +stood consulting together in low voices, and Mrs. Sloane listened. +They were deciding where to take Rebecca.</p> +<p>All at once Mrs. Sloane spoke. Her voice was still high-pitched +with anger.</p> +<p>“If you want to know where to take her to, I can tell +you,” said she. “I'd keep her here an' welcome, but I +s'pose you think I ain't good enough, you're all such mighty +particular folks, an' ain't never had no disgrace in your own +families. William Berry can't take her to his home to-night, for +his mother wouldn't leave a whole skin on either of 'em. Her own +mother has turned her out, an' Barney can't take her in. She's got +to go somewhere where there's a woman; she's terrible upset. There +ain't no other way but for you an' Mis' Barnes to take her home +to-night, an' keep her till William gets a place fixed to put her +in.” Mrs. Sloane turned to the minister and his wife, +regarding them with a mixture of defiance, sarcasm, and appeal.</p> +<p>They looked at each other hesitatingly. The minister's wife +paled within her hood, and her eyes reddened with tears.</p> +<p>“I shouldn't s'pose you'd need any time to think on it, +such good folks as you be,” said Mrs. Sloane. “There +ain't no other way. She's got to be where there's a +woman.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Barnes turned her head towards her husband. “She can +come, if you think she ought to,” she said, in a trembling +voice.</p> +<p>The sun was setting when the party started. William led Rebecca +out through the kitchen—a muffled, hesitating figure, whose +very identity seemed to be lost, for she wore Mrs. Sloane's blue +plaid shawl pinned closely over her head and face—and lifted +her into his cutter with the minister and his wife. Then he and +Barney walked along, plodding through the deep snow behind the +cutter. The sun was setting, and it was bitterly cold; the snow +creaked and the trees swung with a stiff rattle of bare limbs in +the wind.</p> +<p>The two men never spoke to each other. The minister drove +slowly, and they could always see Mrs. Jim Sloane's blue plaid +shawl ahead.</p> +<p>When they reached the Caleb Thayer house, Barney stopped and +William followed on alone after the sleigh.</p> +<p>Barney turned into the yard, and his father was standing in the +barn door, looking out.</p> +<p>“Tell mother she's married,” Barney sang out, +hoarsely. Then he went back to the road, and home to his own +house.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="XI">Chapter XI</a></h4> +<p>Barney went to see Rebecca the next day, but the minister's wife +came to the door and would not admit him. She puckered her lips +painfully, and a blush shot over her face and little thin throat as +she stood there before him. “I guess you had better not come +in,” said she, nervously. “I guess you had better wait +until Mrs. Berry gets settled in her house. Mr. Berry is going to +hire the old Bennett place. I guess it would be +pleasanter.”</p> +<p>Barney turned away, blushing also as he stammered an assent. +Always keenly alive to the shame of the matter, it seemed as if his +sense of it were for the moment intensified. The minister's wife's +whole nature seemed turned into a broadside of mirrors towards +Rebecca's shame and misery, and it was as if the reflection was +multiplied in Barney as he looked at her.</p> +<p>Still, he could not take the shame to his own nature as she +could, being a woman. He looked back furtively at the house as he +went down the road, thinking he might catch a glimpse of poor +Rebecca at the window.</p> +<p>But Rebecca kept herself well hid. After William had hired the +old Bennet house and established her there, she lived with curtains +down and doors bolted. Never a neighbor saw her face at door or +window, although all the women who lived near did their housework +with eyes that way. She would not go to the door if anybody +knocked. The caller would hear her scurrying away. Nobody could +gain admittance if William were not at home.</p> +<p>Barney went to the door once, and her voice sounded unexpectedly +loud and piteously shrill in response to his knock.</p> +<p>“You can't come in! go away!” cried Rebecca.</p> +<p>“I don't want to say anything hard to you,” said +Barney.</p> +<p>“Go away, go away!” repeated Rebecca, and then he +heard her sob.</p> +<p>“Don't cry,” pleaded Barney, futilely, through the +door. But he heard his sister's retreating steps and her sobs dying +away in the distance.</p> +<p>He went away, and did not try to see her again.</p> +<p>Rose went to see Rebecca, stealing out of a back door and +scudding across snowy fields lest her mother should espy her and +stop her. But Rebecca had not come to the door, although Rose had +stood there a long time in a bitter wind.</p> +<p>“She wouldn't let me in,” she whispered to her +brother in the store, when she returned. She was friendly to him in +a shamefaced, evasive sort of way, and she alone of his family. His +father and mother scarcely noticed him.</p> +<p>“Much as ever as she'll let me in, poor girl,” +responded William, looking miserably aside from his sister's eyes +and weighing out some meal.</p> +<p>“She wouldn't let mother in if she went there,” said +Rose. She felt a little piqued at Rebecca's refusing her +admittance. It was as if all her pity and generous sympathy had +been thrust back upon her, and her pride in it swamped.</p> +<p>“There's no danger of her going there,” William +returned, bitterly.</p> +<p>And there was not. Hannah Berry would have set herself up in a +pillory as soon as she would have visited her son's wife. She +scarcely went into a neighbor's lest she should hear some allusion +to it.</p> +<p>Rebecca's father often walked past her house with furtive, +wistful eyes towards the windows. Once or twice when nobody was +looking he knocked timidly, but he never got any response. He +always took a circuitous route home, that his wife might not know +where he had been. Deborah never spoke of Rebecca; neither Caleb +nor Ephraim dared mention her name in her hearing.</p> +<p>Although Deborah never asked a question, and although people +were shy of alluding to Rebecca, she yet seemed to know, in some +occult and instinctive fashion, all about her.</p> +<p>When a funeral procession passed the Thayer house one afternoon +Deborah knew quite well whose little coffin was in the hearse, +although she could scarcely have said that anybody had told +her.</p> +<p>Caleb came to her after dinner, with a strange, defiant air. +“I want a clean dicky, mother; I'm agoin',” said he. +And Deborah got out the old man's Sunday clothes for him without a +word. She even brushed his hair with hard, careful strokes, and +helped him on with his great-coat; but she never said a word about +Rebecca and her baby's funeral.</p> +<p>“They had some white posies on it,” Caleb +volunteered, tremblingly, when he got home.</p> +<p>Deborah made no reply.</p> +<p>“There was quite a lot there,” added Caleb.</p> +<p>“Go an' bring me in some kindlin' wood,” said +Deborah.</p> +<p>Ephraim stood by, staring alternately at his father and mother. +He had watched the funeral procession pass with furtive +interest.</p> +<p>“It won't hurt you none to make a few +lamp-lighters,” said his mother. “You set right down +here, an' I'll get you some paper.”</p> +<p>Ephraim clapped his hand to his side, and rolled his eyes +agonizingly towards his mother, but she took no notice. She got +some paper out of the cupboard, and Ephraim sat down and began +quirling it into long spirals with a wretched sulky air.</p> +<p>Since his sister's marriage Ephraim had had a sterner experience +than had ever fallen to his lot before. His mother redoubled her +discipline over him. It was as if she had resolved, since all her +vigorous training had failed in the case of his sister, that she +would intensify it to such purpose that it should not fail with +him.</p> +<p>So strait and narrow was the path in which Ephraim was forced to +tread those wintry days, so bound and fettered was he by precept +and admonition, that it seemed as if his very soul could do no more +than shuffle along where his mother pointed.</p> +<p>A scanty and simple diet had Ephraim, and it seemed to him not +so much from a solicitude for his health as from a desire to +mortify his flesh for the good of his spirit. Ephraim obeyed +perforce; he was sincerely afraid of his mother, but he had within +him a dogged and growing resentment against those attempts to +improve his spirit.</p> +<p>Not a bit of cake was he allowed to taste. When the door of a +certain closet in which pound-cake for possible guests was always +kept in a jar, and had been ever since Ephraim could remember, was +opened, the boy's eyes would fairly glare with desire. “Jest +gimme a little scrap, mother,” he would whine. He had +formerly, on rare occasions, been allowed a small modicum of cake, +but now his mother was unyielding. He got not a crumb; he could +only sniff hungrily at the rich, spicy, and fruity aroma which came +forth from the closet, and swallow at it vainly and +unsatisfactorily with straining palate.</p> +<p>Ephraim was not allowed a soft-stoned plum from a piece of +mince-pie; the pie had always been tabooed. He was not even allowed +to pick over the plums for the pies, unless under the steady watch +of his mother's eyes. Once she seemed to see him approach a plum to +his mouth when her back was towards him.</p> +<p>“What are you doing, Ephraim?” she said, and her +voice sounded to the boy like one from the Old Testament. He put +the plum promptly into the bowl instead of his mouth.</p> +<p>“I ain't doin' nothin', mother,” said he; but his +eyes rolled alarmedly after his mother as she went across the +kitchen. That frightened Ephraim. He was a practical boy and not +easily imposed upon, but it really seemed to him that his mother +had seen him, after some occult and uncanny fashion, from the back +of her head. A vague and preposterous fancy actually passed through +his bewildered boyish brain that the little, tightly twisted knob +of hair on the back of a feminine head might have some strange +visual power of its own.</p> +<p>He never dared taste another plum, even if the knob of hair +directly faced him.</p> +<p>Every day Ephraim had a double task to learn in his catechism, +for Deborah held that no labor, however arduous, which savored of +the Word and the Spirit could work him bodily ill. If Ephraim had +been enterprising and daring enough, he would have fairly cursed +the Westminster divines, as he sat hour after hour, crooking his +boyish back painfully over their consolidated wisdom, driving the +letter of their dogmas into his boyish brain, while the sense of +them utterly escaped him.</p> +<p>There was one whole day during which Ephraim toiled, laboriously +conning over the majestic sentences in loud whispers, and received +thereby only a vague impression and maudlin hope that he himself +might be one of the elect of which they treated, because he was so +strenuously deprived of plums in this life, and might therefore +reasonably expect his share of them in the life to come.</p> +<p>That day poor Ephraim—glancing between whiles at some boys +out coasting over in a field, down a fine icy slope, hearing now +and then their shouts of glee—had a certain sense of +superiority and complacency along with the piteous and wistful +longing which always abode in his heart.</p> +<p>“Maybe,” thought Ephraim, half unconsciously, not +framing the thought in words to his mind—“maybe if I am +a good boy, and don't have any plums, nor go out coasting like +them, I shall go to heaven, and maybe they won't.” Ephraim's +poor purple face at the window-pane took on a strange, serious +expression as he evolved his childish tenet of theology. His mother +came in from another room. “Have you got that learned?” +said she, and Ephraim bent over his task again.</p> +<p>Ephraim had not been quite as well as usual this winter, and his +mother had been more than usually anxious about him. She called the +doctor in finally, and followed him out into the cold entry when he +left. “He's worse than he has been, ain't he?” she +said, abruptly.</p> +<p>The doctor hesitated. He was an old man with a moderate manner. +He buttoned his old great-coat, redolent of drugs, closer, his +breath steamed out in the frosty entry. “I guess you had +better be a little careful about getting him excited,” he +said at last, evasively. “You had better get along as easy as +you can with him.” The doctor's manner implied more than his +words; he had his own opinion of Deborah Thayer's sternness of +rule, and he had sympathy with Rebecca.</p> +<p>Deborah seemed to have an intuition of it, for she looked at +him, and raised her voice after a manner which would have become +the Deborah of the scriptures.</p> +<p>“What would you have me do?” she demanded. +“Would you have me let him have his own way if it were for +the injury of his soul?” It was curious that Deborah, as she +spoke, seemed to look only at the spiritual side of the matter. The +idea that her discipline was actually necessary for her son's +bodily weal did not occur to her, and she did not urge it as an +argument.</p> +<p>“I guess you had better be a little careful and get along +as easy as you can,” repeated the doctor, opening the +door.</p> +<p>“That ain't all that's to be thought of,” said +Deborah, with stern and tragic emphasis, as the doctor went +out.</p> +<p>“What did the doctor say, mother?” Ephraim inquired, +when she went into the room again. He looked half scared, half +important, as he sat in the great rocking-chair by the fire. He +breathed short, and his words were disconnected as he spoke.</p> +<p>His mother, for answer, took the catechism from the shelf, and +extended it towards him with a decisive thrust of her arm.</p> +<p>“It is time you studied some more,” said she.</p> +<p>Ephraim jerked himself away from the proffered book. “I +don't want to study any more now, mother,” he whined.</p> +<p>“Take it,” said Deborah.</p> +<p>Caleb was paring apples for pies on the other side of the +hearth. Ephraim looked across at him desperately. “I want to +play holly-gull with father,” he said.</p> +<p>“Ephraim!”</p> +<p>“Can't I play holly-gull with father jest a little +while?”</p> +<p>“You take this book and study your lesson,” said +Deborah, between nearly closed lips.</p> +<p>Ephraim began to weep; he took the book with a vicious snatch +and an angry sob. “Won't never let me do anythin' I want +to,” he cried, convulsively.</p> +<p>“Not another word,” said Deborah. Ephraim bent over +his catechism with half-suppressed sobs. He dared not weep aloud. +Deborah went into the pantry with the medicine-bottle which the +doctor had left; she wanted a spoon. Caleb caught hold of her dress +as she was passing him.</p> +<p>“What is it?” said she.</p> +<p>“Look here, jest a minute, mother.”</p> +<p>“I can't stop, father; Ephraim has got to have his +medicine.”</p> +<p>“Jest look here a minute, mother.”</p> +<p>Deborah bent her head impatiently, and Caleb whispered. +“No, he can't; I told him he couldn't,” she said aloud, +and passed on into the pantry.</p> +<p>Caleb looked over at Ephraim with piteous and helpless sympathy. +“Never you mind, sonny,” he said, cautiously.</p> +<p>“She—makes—” began Ephraim with a +responsive plaint; but his mother came out of the pantry, and he +stopped short. Caleb dropped a pared apple noisily into the +pan.</p> +<p>“You'll dent that pan, father, if you fling the apples in +that way,” said Deborah. She had a thick silver spoon, and +she measured out a dose of the medicine for Ephraim. She approached +him, extending the spoon carefully. “Open your mouth,” +commanded she.</p> +<p>“Oh, mother, I don't want to take it!”</p> +<p>“Open your mouth!”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother—I don't—want to—ta-ke +it!”</p> +<p>“Now, sonny, I wouldn't mind takin' of it. It's real good +medicine that the doctor left you, an' father's payin' consid'able +for it. The doctor thinks it's goin' to make you well,” said +Caleb, who was looking on anxiously.</p> +<p>“Open your mouth and <em>take</em> it!” said +Deborah, sternly. She presented the spoon at Ephraim as if it were +a bayonet and there were death at the point.</p> +<p>“Oh, mother,” whimpered Ephraim.</p> +<p>“Mebbe mother will let you have a little taste of lasses +arter it, if you take it real good,” ventured Caleb.</p> +<p>“No, he won't have any lasses after it,” said +Deborah. “I'm a-tendin' to him, father. Now, Ephraim, you +take this medicine this minute, or I shall give you somethin' worse +than medicine. Open your mouth!” And Ephraim opened his mouth +as if his mother's will were a veritable wedge between his teeth, +swallowed the medicine with a miserable gulp, and made a grotesque +face of wrath and disgust. Caleb, watching, swallowed and grimaced +at the same instant that his son did. There were tears in his old +eyes as he took up another apple to pare.</p> +<p>Deborah set the bottle on the shelf and laid the spoon beside +it. “You've got to take this every hour for a spell,” +said she, “an' I ain't goin' to have any such work, if you be +sick; you can make up your mind to it.”</p> +<p>And make up his mind to this unwelcome dose Ephraim did. Once an +hour his mother stood over him with the spoon, and the fierce odor +of the medicine came to his nostrils; he screwed his eyes tight, +opened his mouth, and swallowed without a word. There were limits +to his mother's patience which Ephraim dared not pass. He had only +vague ideas of what might happen if he did, but he preferred to be +on the safe side. So he took the medicine, and did not lift his +voice against it, although he had his thoughts.</p> +<p>It did seem as if the medicine benefited him. He breathed more +easily after a while, and his color was more natural. Deborah felt +encouraged; she even went down upon her stiff knees after her +family were in bed, and thanked the Lord from the depths of her +sorely chastened but proud heart. She did not foresee what was to +come of it; for that very night Ephraim, induced thereto by the +salutary effect of the medicine, which removed somewhat the +restriction of his laboring heart upon his boyish spirits, +perpetrated the crowning act of revolt and rebellion of his short +life.</p> +<p>The moon was bright that night. The snow was frozen hard. The +long hills where the boys coasted looked like slopes of silver. +Ephraim had to go to bed at eight. He lay, well propped up on +pillows, in his little bedroom, and he could hear the shouts of the +coasting boys. Now that he could breathe more easily the +superiority of his enforced deprivation of such joys no longer +comforted him as much as it had done. His curtain was up, and the +moonlight lay on his bed. The mystic influence of that strange +white orb which moves the soul of the lover to dream of love and +yearnings after it, which saddens with sweet wounds the soul who +has lost it forever, which increases the terrible freedom of the +maniac, and perhaps moves the tides, apparently increased the +longing in the heart of one poor boy for all the innocent hilarity +of his youth which he had missed.</p> +<p>Ephraim lay there in the moonlight, and longed as he had never +longed before to go forth and run and play and halloo, to career +down those wonderful shining slants of snow, to be free and equal +with those other boys, whose hearts told off their healthy lives +after the Creator's plan.</p> +<p>The clock in the kitchen struck nine, then ten. Caleb and +Deborah went to bed, and Ephraim could hear his father's snores and +his mother's heavy breathing from a distant room. Ephraim could not +go to sleep. He lay there and longed for the frosty night air, the +sled, and the swift flight down the white hill as never lover +longed for his mistress.</p> +<p>At half-past ten o'clock Ephraim rose up. He dressed himself in +the moonlight—all except his shoes; those he carried in his +hand—and stole out in his stocking-feet to the entryway, +where his warm coat and cap, which he so seldom wore, hung. Ephraim +pulled the cap over his ears, put on the coat, cautiously unbolted +the door, and stepped forth like a captive from prison.</p> +<p>He sat down on the doorstep and put on his shoes, tying them +with trembling, fumbling fingers. He expected every minute to hear +his mother's voice.</p> +<p>Then he ran down the yard to the wood shed. It was so intensely +cold that the snow did not yield to his tread, but gave out quick +sibilant sounds. It seemed to him like a whispering multitude +called up by his footsteps, and as if his mother must hear.</p> +<p>He knew where Barney's old sled hung in the woodshed, and the +woodshed door was unlocked.</p> +<p>Presently a boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard +with a bobbing sled in his wake. He expected every minute to hear +the door or window open; but he cleared the yard and dashed up the +road, and nobody arrested him.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem11.png" width="307" height="535" +alt="[Illustration: “A boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard”]"> +</p> +<p>Ephraim knew well the way to the coasting-hill, which was +considered the best in the village, although he had never coasted +there himself, except twice or thrice, surreptitiously, on another +boy's sled, and not once this winter. He heard no more shouts; the +frosty air was very still. He thought to himself that the other +boys had gone home, but he did not care.</p> +<p>However, when he reached the top of the hill there was another +boy with his sled. He had been all ready to coast down, but had +seen Ephraim coming, and waited.</p> +<p>“Hullo!” he called.</p> +<p>“Hullo!” returned Ephraim, panting.</p> +<p>Then the boy stared. “It ain't you, Ephraim Thayer!” +he demanded.</p> +<p>“Why ain't it me?” returned Ephraim, with a manful +air, swaggering back his shoulders at the other boy, who was Ezra +Ray.</p> +<p>“Why, I didn't know your mother ever let you out,” +said Ezra, in a bewildered fashion. In fact, the vision of Ephraim +Thayer out with a sled, coasting, at eleven o'clock at night, was +startling. Ezra remembered dazedly how he had heard his mother say +that very afternoon that Ephraim was worse, that the doctor had +been there last Saturday, and she didn't believe he would live +long. He looked at Ephraim standing there in the moonlight almost +as if he were a spirit.</p> +<p>“She ain't let me for some time; I've been sick,” +admitted Ephraim, yet with defiance.</p> +<p>“I heard you was awful sick,” said Ezra.</p> +<p>“I was; but the doctor give me some medicine that cured +me.”</p> +<p>Ephraim placed his sled in position and got on stiffly. The +other boy still watched. “She know you're out +to-night?” he inquired, abruptly.</p> +<p>Ephraim looked up at him. “S'pose you think you'll go an' +tell her, if she don't,” said he.</p> +<p>“No, I won't, honest.”</p> +<p>“Hope to die if you do?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Well, then, I run out of the side door.”</p> +<p>“Both on 'em asleep?”</p> +<p>Ephraim nodded.</p> +<p>Ezra Ray whistled. “You'll get a whippin' when your mother +finds it out.”</p> +<p>“No, I sha'n't. Mother can't whip me, because the doctor +says it ain't good for me. You goin' down?”</p> +<p>“Can't go down but once. I've got to go home, or mother +'ll give it to me.”</p> +<p>“Does she ever whip you?”</p> +<p>“Sometimes.”</p> +<p>“Mine don't,” said Ephraim, and he felt a +superiority over Ezra Ray. He thought, too, that his sled was a +better one. It was not painted, nor was it as new as Ezra's, but it +had a reputation. Barney had won many coasting laurels with it in +his boyhood, and his little brother, who had never used it himself, +had always looked upon it with unbounded faith and admiration.</p> +<p>He gathered up his sled-rope, spurred himself into a start with +his heels, and went swiftly down the long hill, gathering speed as +he went. Poor Ephraim had an instinct for steering; he did not +swerve from the track. The frosty wind smote his face, his breath +nearly failed him, but half-way down he gave a triumphant whoop. +When he reached the foot of the hill he had barely wind enough to +get off his sled and drag it to one side, for Ezra Ray was coming +down.</p> +<p>Ezra did not slide as far as Ephraim had done. Ephraim watched +anxiously lest he should. “That sled of yours ain't no +good,” he panted, when Ezra had stopped several yards from +where he stood.</p> +<p>“Guess it ain't quite so fast as yours,” admitted +Ezra. “That's your brother's, ain't it?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Well, that sled can't be beat in town. Mine's 'bout as +good as any, 'cept that. I've always heard my brother say that your +brother's sled was the best one he ever see.”</p> +<p>Ephraim stood looking at his brother's old battered but +distinguished sled as if it had been a blood-horse. “Guess it +can't be beat,” he chuckled.</p> +<p>“No sir, it can't,” said Ezra. He started off past +Ephraim down the road, with his sled trailing at his heels.</p> +<p>“Hullo!” called Ephraim, “ain't you goin' up +again?”</p> +<p>“Can't, got to go home.”</p> +<p>“Less try it jest once more, an' see if you can't go +further.”</p> +<p>“No, I can't, nohow. Mother won't like it as +'tis.”</p> +<p>“Whip you?”</p> +<p>“'Spect so; don't mind it if she does.” Ezra brought +a great show of courage to balance the other's immunity from +danger. “Don't mind nothin' 'bout a little whippin',” +he added, with a brave and contemptuous air. He whistled as he went +on.</p> +<p>Ephraim stood watching him. He had enough brave blood in his +veins to feel that this contempt of a whipping was a greater thing +than not being whipped. He felt an envious admiration of Ezra Ray, +but that did not prevent his calling after him:</p> +<p>“Ezra!”</p> +<p>“What say?”</p> +<p>“You ain't goin' to tell my mother?”</p> +<p>“Didn't I say I wasn't? I don't tell fibs. Hope to die if +I do.”</p> +<p>Ezra's brave whistle, as cheerfully defiant of his mother's +prospective wrath as the note of a bugler advancing to the charge, +died away in the distance. For Ephraim now began the one +unrestrained hilarity of his whole life. All by himself in the +white moonlight and the keen night air he climbed the long hill, +and slid down over and over. He ignored his feeble and laboring +breath of life. He trod upon, he outspeeded all infirmities of the +flesh in his wild triumph of the spirit. He shouted and hallooed as +he shot down the hill. His mother could not have recognized his +voice had she heard it, for it was the first time that the boy had +ever given full cry to the natural voice of youth and his heart. A +few stolen races, and sorties up apple-trees, a few stolen slides +had poor Ephraim Thayer had; they had been snatched in odd minutes, +at the imminent danger of discovery; but now he had the wide night +before him; he had broken over all his trammels, and he was +free.</p> +<p>Up and down the hill went Ephraim Thayer, having the one +playtime of his life, speeding on his brother's famous sled against +bondage and deprivation and death. It was after midnight when he +went home; all the village lights were out; the white road +stretched before him, as still and deserted as a road through +solitude itself. Ephraim had never been out-of-doors so late +before, he had never been so alone in his life, but he was not +afraid. He was not afraid of anything in the lonely night, and he +was not afraid of his mother at home. He thought to himself +exultantly that Ezra Ray had been no more courageous than he, +although, to be sure, he had not a whipping to fear like Ezra. His +heart was full of joyful triumph that he was not wholly guilty, +since it was the outcome of an innocent desire.</p> +<p>As he walked along he tipped up his face and stared with his +stupid boyish eyes at the stars paling in the full moonlight, and +the great moon herself overriding the clouds and the stars. It made +him think of the catechism and the Commandments, and then a little +pang of terror shot through him, but even that did not daunt him. +He did not look up at the stars again, but bent his head and +trudged on, with the sled-rope pulling at his weak chest.</p> +<p>When he reached his own yard he stepped as carefully as he +could; still he was not afraid. He put the sled back in the shed; +then he stole into the house. He took off his shoes in the entry, +and got safely into his own room. He was in his night-gown and all +ready for bed when another daring thought struck him.</p> +<p>Ephraim padded softly on his bare feet out through the kitchen +to the pantry. Every third step or so he stopped and listened to +the heavy double breathing from the bedroom beyond. So long as that +continued he was safe. He listened, and then slid on a pace or two +as noiseless as a shadow in the moonlight.</p> +<p>Ephraim knew well where the mince-pies were kept. There was a +long row of them covered with towels on an upper shelf.</p> +<p>Ephraim hoisted himself painfully upon a meal-bucket, and clawed +a pie over the edge of the shelf. He could scarcely reach, and +there was quite a loud grating noise. He stood trembling on the +bucket and listened, but the double breathing continued. Deborah +had been unusually tired that night; she had gone to bed earlier, +and slept more soundly.</p> +<p>Ephraim broke a great jagged half from the mince-pie; then +replaced it with another grating slide. Again he listened, but his +mother had not been awakened.</p> +<p>Ephraim crept back to his bedroom. There he sat on the edge of +his bed and devoured his pie. The rich spicy compound and the fat +plums melted on his tongue, and the savor thereof delighted his +very soul. Then Ephraim got into bed and pulled the quilts over +him. For the first and only occasion in his life he had had a good +time.</p> +<p>The next morning Ephraim felt very ill, but he kept it from his +mother. He took his medicine of his own accord several times, and +turned his head from her, that she might not notice his laboring +breath.</p> +<p>In the middle of the forenoon Deborah went out. She had to drive +over to Bolton to get some sugar and tea. She would not buy +anything now at Berry's store. Caleb had gone down to the lot to +cut a little wood; he had harnessed the horse for her before he +went. It was a cold day, and she wrapped herself up well in two +shawls and a thick veil over her hood. When she was all ready she +gave Ephraim his parting instructions, rearing over him with stern +gestures, like a veiled justice.</p> +<p>“Now,” said she, “you listen to what I tell +you. When your father comes in you tell him I want him to set right +down and finish parin' them apples. They are spoilin', an' I'm +goin' to make 'em into sauce. You tell him to set right down and go +to work on 'em; he can get 'em done by the time I get home, an' I +can make the sauce this afternoon. You set here an' take your +medicine an' learn your catechism. You can study over the +Commandments, too; you ain't got 'em any too well. Do you +hear?”</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” said Ephraim. He looked away from his +mother as he spoke, and his panting breath clouded the clear space +on the frosty window-pane. He sat beside the window in the +rocking-chair.</p> +<p>“Mind you tell your father about them apples,” +repeated his mother as she went out.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” said Ephraim. He watched his mother +drive out of the yard, guiding the horse carefully through the +frozen ridges of the drive. Presently he took another spoonful of +his medicine. He felt a little easier, but still very ill. His +father came a few minutes after his mother had gone. He heard him +stamping in through the back door; then his frost-reddened old face +looked in on Ephraim.</p> +<p>“Mother gone?” said he.</p> +<p>“She's jest gone,” replied Ephraim. His father came +in. He looked at the boy with a childish and anxious sweetness. +“Don't you feel quite as well as you did?” he +inquired.</p> +<p>“Dunno as I do.”</p> +<p>“Took your medicine reg'lar?”</p> +<p>Ephraim nodded.</p> +<p>“I guess it's good medicine,” said Caleb; “it +come real high; I guess the doctor thought consid'ble of it. I'd +take it reg'lar if I was you. I thought you looked as if you didn't +feel quite so well as common when I come in.”</p> +<p>Caleb took off his boots and tended the fire. Ephraim began to +feel a little better; his heart did not beat quite so +laboriously.</p> +<p>He did not say a word to his father about paring the apples. +Caleb went into the pantry and came back eating a slice of +mince-pie.</p> +<p>“I found there was a pie cut, and I thought mother +wouldn't mind if I took a leetle piece,” he remarked, +apologetically. He would never have dared take the pie without +permission had his wife been at home. “She ain't goin' to be +home till arter dinner-time, an' I began to feel kinder +gone,” added Caleb. He stood by the fire, and munched the pie +with a relish slightly lessened by remorse. “Don't you want +nothin'” he asked of Ephraim. “Mebbe a little piece of +pie wouldn't hurt you none.”</p> +<p>Caleb's ideas of hygienic food were primitive. He believed, as +innocently as if he had lived in Eden before the Prohibition, that +all food which he liked was good for him, and he applied his theory +to all mankind. He had deferred to Deborah's imperious will, but he +had never been able to understand why she would not allow Ephraim +to eat mince-pie or anything else which his soul loved and +craved.</p> +<p>“No, guess I don't,” Ephraim replied. He gazed +moodily out of the window. “Father,” said he, +suddenly.</p> +<p>“What say, sonny?”</p> +<p>“I eat some of that pie last night.”</p> +<p>“Mother give it to you?”</p> +<p>“No; I clim up on the meal-bucket, an' got it in the +night.”</p> +<p>“You might have fell, an' then I dunno what mother'd ha' +said to you,” said Caleb.</p> +<p>“An' I did somethin' else.”</p> +<p>“What else did you do?”</p> +<p>“I went out a-coastin' after you an' her was +asleep.”</p> +<p>“You didn't, now?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I did.”</p> +<p>“An' we didn't neither on us wake up?”</p> +<p>“You was a-snorin' the whole time.”</p> +<p>“I don't s'pose you'd oughter have done it, +Ephraim,” said Caleb, and he tried to make his tone +severe.</p> +<p>“I never went a-coastin' in my whole life before,” +said Ephraim; “it ain't fair.”</p> +<p>“I dunno what mother 'd say if she was to find out about +it,” said Caleb, and he shook his head.</p> +<p>“Ezra Ray was the only one that was out there, an' he said +he wouldn't tell.”</p> +<p>“Well, mebbe he won't, mebbe he won't. I guess you most +hadn't oughter gone unbeknownst to your mother, sonny.”</p> +<p>“Barney's sled jest beat Ezra's all holler.”</p> +<p>“It did, hey? That allers was a good sled,” returned +the old man, chuckling.</p> +<p>Caleb went into the pantry again, and returned rattling a +handful of corn. “Want a game of holly-gull?” he asked. +“I've got a leetle time to spare now while mother's +gone.”</p> +<p>“Guess so,” replied Ephraim. He dragged his chair +forward to the hearth; he and his father sat opposite each other +and played the old childish game of holly-gull. Ephraim was very +fond of the game, and would have played it happily hour after hour +had not Deborah esteemed it a sinful waste of time. When Caleb held +up his old fist, wherein he had securely stowed a certain number of +kernels of corn, and demanded, “Holly-gull, hand full, passel +how many?” Ephraim's spirit was thrilled with a fine +stimulation, of which he had known little in his life. If he +guessed the number of kernels right and confiscated the contents of +his father's hand, he felt the gratified ambition of a successful +financier; if he lost, his heart sank, only to bound higher with +new hope for the next chance. A veritable gambling game was +holly-gull, but they gambled for innocent Indian-corn instead of +the coin of the realm, and nobody suspected it. The lack of value +of the stakes made the game quite harmless and unquestioned in +public opinion.</p> +<p>The waste of time was all Deborah's objection to the game. Caleb +and Ephraim said not a word about it to each other, but both kept +an anxious ear towards Deborah's returning sleigh-bells.</p> +<p>At last they both heard the loud, brazen jingle entering the +yard, and Caleb gathered all the corn together and stowed it away +in his pocket. Then he stood on the hearth, looking like a guilty +child. Ephraim went slowly over to the window; he did not feel +quite so well again.</p> +<p>Deborah's harsh “Whoa!” sounded before the door; +presently she came in, her garments radiating cold air, her arms +full of bundles.</p> +<p>“What you standin' there for, father?” she demanded +of Caleb. “Why didn't you come out an' take some of these +bundles? Why ain't you goin' out an' puttin' the horse up instead +of standin' there starin'?”</p> +<p>“I'm goin' right off, mother,” Caleb answered, +apologetically; and he turned his old back towards her and scuffled +out in haste.</p> +<p>“Put on your cap!” Deborah called after him.</p> +<p>She laid off her many wraps, her hood and veil, and mufflers and +shawls, folded them carefully, and carried them into her bedroom, +to be laid in her bureau drawers. Deborah was very orderly and +methodical.</p> +<p>“Did you take your medicine?” she asked Ephraim as +she went out of the room.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” said he. He did not feel nearly as +well; he kept his face turned from his mother. Ephraim was +accustomed to complain freely, but now the coasting and the +mince-pie had made him patient. He was quite sure that his bad +feelings were due to that, and suppose his mother should suspect +and ask him what he had been doing! He was also terrified by the +thought of the holly-gull and her unfulfilled order about the +apple-paring. He sat very still; his heart shook his whole body, +which had grown thin lately. He looked very small, in spite of his +sturdy build.</p> +<p>Deborah was gone quite a while; she had left some work +unfinished in her bedroom that morning. Caleb returned before she +did, and pulled up a chair close to the fire. He was holding his +reddened fingers out towards the blaze to warm them when Deborah +came in.</p> +<p>She looked at him, then around the room, inquiringly.</p> +<p>“Where did you put the apples?” said she to +Caleb.</p> +<p>Caleb stared around at her. “What apples, mother?” +he asked, feebly.</p> +<p>“The apples I left for you to pare. I want to put 'em on +before I get dinner.”</p> +<p>“I ain't heard nothin' about apples, mother.”</p> +<p>“Ain't you pared any apples this forenoon?”</p> +<p>“I didn't know as you wanted any pared, mother.”</p> +<p>Deborah turned fiercely on Ephraim.</p> +<p>“Ephraim Thayer, look here!” said she. Ephraim +turned his poor blue face slowly; his breath came shortly between +his parted lips; he clapped one hand to his side. “Didn't you +tell your father to pare them apples, the way I told you to?” +she demanded.</p> +<p>Ephraim dropped his chin lower.</p> +<p>“Answer me!”</p> +<p>“No, ma'am.”</p> +<p>“What have you been a-doin' of?”</p> +<p>“Playin'.”</p> +<p>“Playin' what?”</p> +<p>“Holly-gull.”</p> +<p>Deborah stood quite still for a moment. Her mouth tightened; she +grew quite pale. Ephraim and Caleb watched her. Deborah strode +across the room, out into the shed.</p> +<p>“I guess she won't say much; don't you be scared, +Ephraim,” whispered Caleb.</p> +<p>But Ephraim, curious to say, did not feel scared. Suddenly his +mother seemed to have lost all her terrifying influence over him. +He felt very strange, and as if he were sinking away from it all +through deep abysses.</p> +<p>His mother came back, and she held a stout stick in her right +hand. Caleb gasped when he saw it. “Mother, you ain't goin' +to whip him?” he cried out.</p> +<p>“Father, you keep still!” commanded Deborah. +“Ephraim, you come with me!”</p> +<p>She led the way into Ephraim's little bedroom, and he stumbled +up and followed her. He saw the stick before him in his mother's +hand; he knew she was going to whip him, but he did not feel in the +least disturbed or afraid. Ezra Ray could not have faced a whipping +any more courageously than Ephraim. But he staggered as he went, +and his feet met the floor with strange shocks, since he had +prepared his steps for those deep abysses.</p> +<p>He and his mother stood together in his little bedroom. She, +when she faced him, saw how ill he looked, but she steeled herself +against that. She had seen him look as badly before; she was not to +be daunted by that from her high purpose. For it was a high purpose +to Deborah Thayer. She did not realize the part which her own human +will had in it.</p> +<p>She lifted up her voice and spoke solemnly. Caleb, listening, +all trembling, at the kitchen door, heard her.</p> +<p>“Ephraim,” said his mother, “I have spared the +rod with you all my life because you were sick. Your brother and +your sister have both rebelled against the Lord and against me. You +are all the child I've got left. You've got to mind me and do +right. I ain't goin' to spare you any longer because you ain't +well. It is better you should be sick than be well and wicked and +disobedient. It is better that your body should suffer than your +immortal soul. Stand still.”</p> +<p>Deborah raised her stick, and brought it down. She raised it +again, but suddenly Ephraim made a strange noise and sunk away +before it, down in a heap on the floor.</p> +<p>Caleb heard him fall, and came quickly.</p> +<p>“Oh, mother,” he sobbed, “is he dead? What +ails him?”</p> +<p>“He's got a bad spell,” said Deborah. “Help me +lay him on the bed.” Her face was ghastly. She spoke with +hoarse pulls for breath, but she did not flinch. She and Caleb laid +Ephraim on his bed; then she worked over him for a few minutes with +mustard and hot-water—all the simple remedies in which she +was skilled. She tried to pour a little of the doctor's medicine +into his mouth, but he did not swallow, and she wiped it away.</p> +<p>“Go an' get Barney to run for the doctor, quick!” +she told Caleb at last. Caleb fled, sobbing aloud like a child, out +of the house. Deborah closed the boy's eyes, and straightened him a +little in the bed. Then she stood over him there, and began to pray +aloud. It was a strange prayer, full of remorse, of awful agony, of +self-defense of her own act, and her own position as the vicar of +God upon earth for her child. “I couldn't let him go astray +too!” she shrieked out. “I couldn't, I couldn't! O +Lord, thou knowest that I couldn't! I would—have lain him +upon—the altar, as Abraham laid Isaac! Oh, Ephraim, my son, +my son, my son!”</p> +<p>Deborah prayed on and on. The doctor and a throng of pale women +came in; the yard was full of shocked and staring people. Deborah +heeded nothing; she prayed on.</p> +<p>Some of the women got her into her own room. She stayed there, +with a sort of rigid settling into the spot where she was placed +and she pleaded with the Lord for upholding and justification until +the daylight faded, and all night. The women, Mrs. Ray and the +doctor's wife, who watched with poor Ephraim, heard her praying all +night long. They sat in grave silence, and their eyes kept meeting +with shocked significance as they listened to her. Now and then +they wet the cloth on Ephraim's face. About two o'clock Mrs. Ray +tiptoed into the pantry, and brought forth a mince-pie. “I +found one that had been cut on the top shelf,” she whispered. +She and the doctor's wife ate the remainder of poor Ephraim's +pie.</p> +<p>The two women stayed next day and assisted in preparations for +the funeral. Deborah seemed to have no thought for any of her +household duties. She stayed in her bedroom most of the time, and +her praying voice could be heard at intervals.</p> +<p>Some other women came in, and they went about with silent +efficiency, performing their services to the dead and setting the +house in order; but they said very little to Deborah. When she came +out of her room they eyed her with a certain grim furtiveness, and +they never said a word to her about Ephraim.</p> +<p>It was already known all over the village that she had been +whipping Ephraim when he died. Poor old Caleb, when the neighbors +had come flocking in, had kept repeating with childish sobs, +“Mother hadn't ought to have whipped him! mother hadn't ought +to have whipped him!”</p> +<p>“Did Mrs. Thayer whip that boy?” the doctor had +questioned, sharply, before all the women, and Caleb had sobbed +back, hoarsely, “She was jest a-whippin' of him; I told her +she hadn't ought to.”</p> +<p>That had been enough. “She whipped him,” the women +repeated to each other in shocked pantomime. They all knew how +corporal punishment had been tabooed for Ephraim.</p> +<p>The Thayer house was crowded the afternoon of the funeral. The +decent black-clad village people, with reddening eyes and mouths +drooping with melancholy, came in throngs into the snowy yard. The +men in their Sunday gear tiptoed creaking across the floors; the +women, feeling for their pocket-handkerchiefs, padded softly and +heavily after them, folded in their black shawls like mourning +birds.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem12.png" width="384" height="350" +alt="[Illustration: “The Thayer house was crowded the afternoon of the funeral”]"> +</p> +<p>Caleb and Deborah and Barney sat in the north parlor, where +Ephraim lay. Deborah's hoarse laments, which were not like the +ordinary hysterical demonstrations of feminine grief, being rather +a stern uprising and clamor of herself against her own heart, +filled the house.</p> +<p>The minister had to pray and speak against it; scarcely any one +beyond the mourners' room could hear his voice. It was a hard task +that the poor young minister had. He was quite aware of the feeling +against Deborah, and it required finesse to avoid jarring that, and +yet display the proper amount of Christian sympathy for the +afflicted. Then there were other difficulties. The minister had +prayed in his closet for a small share of the wisdom of Solomon +before setting forth.</p> +<p>The people in the other rooms leaned forward and strained their +ears. The minister's wife sat beside her husband with bright spots +of color in her cheeks, her little figure nervously contracted in +her chair. They had had a discussion concerning the advisability of +his mentioning the sister and daughter in his prayer, and she had +pleaded with him strenuously that he should not.</p> +<p>When the minister prayed for the afflicted “sister and +daughter, who was now languishing upon a bed of sickness,” +his wife's mouth tightened, her feet and hands grew cold. It seemed +to her that her own tongue pronounced every word that her husband +spoke. And there was, moreover, a little nervous thrill through the +audience. Oddly enough, everybody seemed to hear that portion of +the minister's prayer quite distinctly. Even one old deaf man in +the farthest corner of the kitchen looked meaningly at his +neighbor.</p> +<p>The service was a long one. The village hearse and the line of +black covered wagons waited in front of the Thayer house over an +hour. There had been another fall of snow the night before, and now +the north wind blew it over the country. Outside ghostly spirals of +snow raised from the new drifts heaped along the road-sides like +graves, disappeared over the fields, and moved on the borders of +distant woods, while in-doors the minister held forth, and the +choir sang funeral hymns with a sweet uneven drone of grief and +consolation.</p> +<p>When at last the funeral was over and the people came out, they +bent their heads before this wild storm which came from the earth +instead of the sky.</p> +<p>The cemetery was a mile out of the village; when the procession +came driving rapidly home it was nearly sunset, and the thoughts of +the people turned from poor Ephraim to their suppers. It is only +for a minute that death can blur life for the living. Still, when +the evening smoke hung over the roofs the people talked untiringly +of Ephraim and his mother.</p> +<p>As time went on the dark gossip in the village swelled louder. +It was said quite openly that Deborah Thayer had killed her son +Ephraim. The neighbors did not darken her doors. The minister and +his wife called once. The minister offered prayer and spoke formal +words of consolation as if he were reading from invisible notes. +His wife sat by in stiff, scared silence. Deborah nodded in +response; she said very little.</p> +<p>Indeed, Deborah had become very silent. She scarcely spoke to +Caleb. For hours after he had gone to bed the poor bewildered old +man could hear his wife wrestling in prayer with the terrible angel +of the Lord whom she had evoked by the stern magic of grief and +remorse. He could hear her harsh, solemn voice in +self-justification and agonized appeal. After a while he learned to +sleep with it still ringing in his ears, and his heavy breathing +kept pace with Deborah's prayer.</p> +<p>Deborah had not the least doubt that she had killed her son +Ephraim.</p> +<p>There was some talk of the church's dealing with her, some women +declared that they would not go to meeting if she did; but no +stringent measures were taken, and she went to church every Sunday +all the rest of the winter and during the spring.</p> +<p>It was an afternoon in June when the doctor's wife and Mrs. Ray +went into Deborah Thayer's yard. They paused hesitatingly before +the door.</p> +<p>“I think you're the one that ought to tell her,” +said Mrs. Ray.</p> +<p>“I think it's your place to, seeing as 'twas your Ezra +that knew about it,” returned the doctor's wife. Her voice +sounded like the hum of a bee, being full of husky vibrations; her +double chin sank into her broad heaving bosom, folded over with +white plaided muslin.</p> +<p>“Seems to me it belongs to you, as long as you're the +doctor's wife,” said Mrs. Ray. She was very small and lean +beside the soft bulk of the other woman, but there was a sort of +mental uplifting about her which made her unconscious of it. Mrs. +Ray had never considered herself a small woman; she seemed always +to see the tops of other women's heads.</p> +<p>The doctor's wife looked at her dubiously, panting softly all +over her great body. It was a warm afternoon. The low red and white +rose-bushes sprayed all around the step-stone, and they were full +of roses. The doctor's wife raised the brass knocker. “Well, +I'd just as lieves,” said she, resignedly. “She'd ought +to be told, anyway; the doctor said so.” The knocker fell +with a clang of brass.</p> +<p>Deborah opened the door at once. “Good-afternoon,” +said she.</p> +<p>“We thought we'd come over a few minutes, it's so pleasant +this afternoon,” said the doctor's wife.</p> +<p>“Walk in,” said Deborah. She aided them in through +the kitchen to the north parlor. She always entertained guests +there on warm afternoons.</p> +<p>The north parlor was very cool and dark; the curtains were down, +and undulated softly like sails. Deborah placed the big haircloth +rocking-chair for the doctor's wife, and Mrs. Ray sat down on the +sofa.</p> +<p>There was a silence. The doctor's wife flushed red. Mrs. Ray's +sharp face was imperturbable. Deborah, sitting erect in one of her +best flag-bottomed chairs, looked as if she were alone in the +room.</p> +<p>The doctor's wife cleared her throat. “Mis' Thayer,” +she began.</p> +<p>Deborah looked at her with calm expectation.</p> +<p>“Mis' Thayer,” said the doctor's wife, “Mis' +Ray and I thought we ought to come over here this afternoon. Mis' +Ray heard something last night, an' she came over an' told the +doctor, an' he said you ought to know—”</p> +<p>The doctor's wife paused, panting. Then the door opened and +Caleb peered in. He bowed stiffly to the two guests; then, with +apprehensive glances at his wife, slid into a chair near the +door.</p> +<p>“Mis' Ray's Ezra told her last night,” proceeded the +doctor's wife, “that the night before your son died he run +away unbeknown to you, an' went slidin' down hill. The doctor says +mebbe that was what killed him. He said you'd ought to +know.”</p> +<p>Deborah leaned forward; her face worked like the breaking up of +an icy river. “Be you sure?” said she.</p> +<p>“Ezra told me last night,” interposed Mrs. Ray. +“I had a hard time gettin' it out of him; he promised Ephraim +he wouldn't tell. But somethin' he said made me suspect, an' I got +it out of him. He said Ephraim told him he run away, an' he left +him there slidin' when he came home. 'Twas as much as 'leven +o'clock then; I remember I give Ezra a whippin' next mornin' for +stayin' out so late. But then, of course, whippin' Ezra wa'n't +nothin' like whippin' Ephraim.”</p> +<p>“The doctor says most likely that was what killed him, +after all, an' you'd ought to know,” said the doctor's +wife.</p> +<p>“Be you sure?” said Deborah again.</p> +<p>“Ephraim wa'n't to blame. He never had no show; he never +went a-slidin' like the other little fellers,” said Caleb, +suddenly, out of his corner; and he snivelled as he spoke.</p> +<p>Deborah turned on him sharply. “Did you know anything +about it?” said she.</p> +<p>“He told me on 't that mornin',” said Caleb; +“he told me how he'd been a-slidin', an' how he eat some +mince-pie.”</p> +<p>“Eat—some—mince-pie!” gasped Deborah, +and there was a great light of hope in her face.</p> +<p>“Well,” said the doctor's wife, “if that boy +eat mince-pie, an' slid down hill, too, I guess you ain't much call +to worry about anything you've done, Mis' Thayer. I know what the +doctor has said right along.”</p> +<p>The doctor's wife arose with a certain mild impressiveness, as +if some mantle of her husband's authority had fallen upon her. She +shook out her ample skirts as if they were redolent of rhubarb and +mint. “Well, I guess we had better be going,” said she, +and her inflections were like the doctor's.</p> +<p>Mrs. Ray rose also. “Well, we thought you'd ought to +know,” said she.</p> +<p>“I'm much obliged to you,” said Deborah.</p> +<p>She went through the kitchen with them. When the door was shut +behind them she turned to Caleb, who had shuffled along at her +heels. “Oh, father, why didn't you tell me if you knew, why +didn't you tell me?” she gasped out.</p> +<p>Caleb stared at her. “Why, mother?” he returned.</p> +<p>“Didn't you know I thought I'd killed him, father? didn't +you know I thought I'd killed my son? An' now maybe I haven't! +maybe I haven't! O Lord, I thank thee for letting me know before I +die! Maybe I haven't killed him, after all!”</p> +<p>“I didn't s'pose it would make any difference,” said +Caleb, helplessly.</p> +<p>Suddenly, to the old man's great terror, his wife caught hold of +him and clung to him. He staggered a little; his arms hung straight +at his sides. “Why, what ails you, mother?” he +stammered out. “I didn't tell you, 'cause I thought you'd be +blamin' him for 't. Mother, don't you take on so; now +don't!”</p> +<p>“I—wish—you'd go an' get Rebecca an' Barney, +father,” said Deborah, faintly. She suddenly wavered so that +her old husband wavered with her, and they reeled back and forth +like two old trees in a wind.</p> +<p>“Why, what ails you, mother, what ails you?” Caleb +gasped out. He caught Deborah's arm, and clutched out at something +to save himself. Then they sank to the floor together.</p> +<p>Barney had just come up from the field, and was at his own door +when his father came panting into the yard. “What is it? +what's the matter?” he cried out.</p> +<p>“Mother's fell!” gasped Caleb.</p> +<p>“Fell! has she hurt her?”</p> +<p>“Dunno—she can't get up; come quick!”</p> +<p>As Barney rushed out of the yard he cast a glance up the hill +towards Charlotte's house; in every crisis of his life his mind +turned involuntarily to her, as if she were another self, to be +made acquainted with all its exigencies. But when he came out on +the road he met Charlotte herself face to face; she had been over +to her Aunt Sylvia's.</p> +<p>“Something is wrong with mother,” Barney said, with +a strange appeal. Then he went on, and Charlotte was at his side, +running as fast as he. Caleb hurried after them, panting, the tears +running down his old cheeks.</p> +<p>“Father says she's fell!” Barney said, as they sped +along.</p> +<p>“Maybe she's only fainted,” responded Charlotte's +steady, faithful voice.</p> +<p>But Deborah Thayer had more than fainted. It might have been +that Ephraim had inherited from her the heart-taint that had +afflicted and shortened his life, and it might have been that her +terrible experiences of the last few months would have strained her +heart to its undoing, had its valves been made of steel.</p> +<p>Barney carried his mother into the bedroom, and laid her on the +bed. He and Charlotte worked over her, but she never spoke nor +moved again. At last Charlotte laid her hand on Barney's arm. +“Come out now,” said she, and Barney followed her +out.</p> +<p>When they were out in the kitchen Barney looked in her face. +“It's no use, she's gone!” he said, hoarsely. Charlotte +nodded. Suddenly she put her arms up around his neck, and drew his +head down to her bosom, and held it there, stroking his cheek.</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte,” Barney sobbed. Charlotte bent over +him, whispering softly, smoothing his hair and cheek with her +tender hand.</p> +<p>Caleb had gone for the doctor and Rebecca while they tried to +restore Deborah, and had given the alarm on the way. Some women +came hurrying in with white faces, staring curiously even then at +Barney and Charlotte; but she never heeded them, except to answer +in the affirmative when they asked, in shocked voices, if Deborah +was dead. She went on soothing Barney, as if he had been her child, +with no more shame in it, until he raised his white face from her +breast of his own accord.</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, you will stay to-night, won't you?” +he pleaded.</p> +<p>“Yes, I'll stay,” said Charlotte. Young as Charlotte +was, she had watched with the sick and sat up with the dead many a +time. So she and the doctor's wife watched with Deborah Thayer that +night. Rebecca came, but she was not strong enough to stay. The +next day Charlotte assisted in the funeral preparations. It made a +great deal of talk in the village. People wondered if Barney would +marry her now, and if she would sit with the mourners at the +funeral. But she sat with her father and mother in the south room, +and time went on after Deborah died, and Barney did not marry +her.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="XII">Chapter XII</a></h4> +<p>A few days after Deborah's funeral Charlotte had an errand at +the store after supper. When she went down the hill the sun had +quite set, but there was a clear green light. The sky gave it out, +and there seemed to be also a green glow from the earth. Charlotte +went down the hill with the evening air fresh and damp in her face. +Lilacs were in blossom all about, and their fragrance was so vital +and intense that it seemed almost like a wide presence in the green +twilight.</p> +<p>She reached Barney's house, and passed it; then she came to the +Thayer house. Before that lay the garden. The ranks of pease and +beans were in white blossom, and there was a pale shimmer as of a +cobweb veil over it.</p> +<p>Charlotte had passed the garden when she heard a voice behind +her:</p> +<p>“Charlotte!”</p> +<p>She stopped, and Barney came up.</p> +<p>“Good-evening,” said he.</p> +<p>“Good-evening,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“I saw you going by,” said Barney. Then he paused +again, and Charlotte waited.</p> +<p>“I saw you going by,” he repeated, +“and—I thought I'd like to speak to you. I wanted to +thank you for what you did—about mother.”</p> +<p>“You're very welcome,” replied Charlotte.</p> +<p>Barney ground a stone beneath his heel. “I sha'n't ever +forget it, and—father won't, either,” he said. His +voice trembled, and yet there was a certain doggedness in it.</p> +<p>Charlotte stood waiting. Barney turned slowly away. +“Good-night,” he said.</p> +<p>“Good-night,” returned Charlotte, quickly, and she +fairly sprang away from him and down the road. Her limbs trembled, +but she held her head up proudly. She understood it all perfectly. +Barney had meant to inform her that his behavior towards her on the +day his mother died had been due to a momentary weakness; that she +was to expect nothing further. She went on to the store and did her +errand, then went home. As she entered the kitchen her mother came +through from the front room. She had been sitting at a window +watching for Charlotte to return; she thought Barney might be with +her.</p> +<p>“Well, you've got home,” said she, and it sounded +like a question.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Charlotte. She laid her parcels on the +table. “I guess I'll go to bed,” she added.</p> +<p>“Why, it's dreadful early to go to bed, ain't +it?”</p> +<p>“Well, I'm tired; I guess I'll go.”</p> +<p>The candle-light was dim in the room, but Sarah eyed her +daughter sharply. She thought she looked pale.</p> +<p>“Did you meet anybody?” she asked.</p> +<p>“I don't know; there wasn't many folks out.”</p> +<p>“You didn't see Barney, did you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I met him.”</p> +<p>Charlotte lighted another candle, and opened the door.</p> +<p>“Look here,” said her mother.</p> +<p>“Well?” replied Charlotte, with a sort of despairing +patience.</p> +<p>“What did he say to you? I want to know.”</p> +<p>“He didn't say much of anything. He thanked me for what I +did about his mother.”</p> +<p>“Didn't he say anything about anything else?”</p> +<p>“No, he didn't.” Charlotte went out, shielding her +candle.</p> +<p>“You don't mean that he didn't say anything, after the way +he acted that day his mother died?”</p> +<p>“I didn't expect him to say anything.”</p> +<p>“He's treated you mean, Charlotte,” her mother cried +out, with a half sob. “He'd ought to be strung up after he +acted so, huggin' an' kissin' you right before folk's face and +eyes.”</p> +<p>“It was more my fault than 'twas his,” returned +Charlotte; and she shut the door.</p> +<p>“Then I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself,” +Sarah called after her, but Charlotte did not seem to hear.</p> +<p>“I never see such work, for my part,” Sarah wailed +out to herself.</p> +<p>“Mother, you come in here a minute,” Cephas called +out of the bedroom. He had gone to bed soon after supper.</p> +<p>“Anythin' new about Barney?” he asked, when his wife +stood beside him.</p> +<p>“Barney ain't no more notion of comin' back than he had +before, in spite of all the talk. I never see such work,” +replied Sarah, in a voice strained high with tears.</p> +<p>“I call it pretty doin's,” assented Cephas. His pale +face, with its venerable beard, was closely set about with his +white nightcap. He lay staring straight before him with a solemnly +reflective air.</p> +<p>“I wish you hadn't brought up 'lection that time, +father,” ventured Sarah, with a piteous sniff.</p> +<p>“If the Democratic party had only lived different, an' +hadn't eat so much meat, there wouldn't have been any +trouble,” returned Cephas, magisterially. “If you go +far enough, you'll always get back to that. A man is what he puts +into his mouth. Meat victuals is at the bottom of democracy. If +there wa'n't any meat eat there wouldn't be any Democratic party, +an' there wouldn't be any wranglin' in the state. There'd be one +party, jest as there'd ought to be.”</p> +<p>“I wish you hadn't brought it up, father,” Sarah +lamented again; “it's most killin' me.”</p> +<p>“If we hadn't both of us been eatin' so much animal food +there wouldn't have been any trouble,” repeated Cephas.</p> +<p>“Well, I dunno much about animal food, but I know I'm +about discouraged,” said Sarah. And she went back to the +kitchen, and sat down in the rocking-chair and cried a long time, +with her apron over her face. Her heartache was nearly as sore as +her daughter's up-stairs.</p> +<p>Charlotte did not speak to Barney again all summer—indeed, +she scarcely ever saw him. She had an occasional half-averted +glimpse of his figure across the fields, and that was all. Barney +had gone back to the old house to live with his father, and +remained there through the summer and fall; but Caleb died in +November. He had never been the same since Deborah's death; +whether, like an old tree whose roots are no longer so firm in the +earth that they can withstand every wind of affliction, the shock +itself had shaken him to his fall, or the lack of that strange +wontedness which takes the place of early love and passion had +enfeebled him, no one could tell. He had seemed to simply stare at +life from a sunny place on a stone-wall or a door-step all +summer.</p> +<p>When the autumn set in he sat in his old chair by the fire. +Caleb had always felt cold since Deborah died. When the bell tolled +off his years, one morning in November, nobody felt surprised. +People had said to each other for some time that Caleb Thayer was +failing.</p> +<p>Barney, after his father died, went back to his own forlorn new +house to live, and his sister Rebecca and her husband came to live +in the old one. Rebecca went to meeting now every Sunday, wearing +her mother's black shawl and a black ribbon on her bonnet, and +sitting in her mother's place in the Thayer pew. She never went +anywhere else, her rosy color had gone, and she looked old and +haggard.</p> +<p>Barney went into his sister's now and then of a Sunday night, +and sat with her and William an hour or so. He and William would +sometimes warm into quite an animated discussion over politics or +theology, while Rebecca sat silently by. Barney went nowhere else, +not even to meeting. Sundays he used to watch furtively for +Charlotte to go past with her father and mother. Quite often Sylvia +Crane used to appear from her road and join them, and walk along +with Charlotte. Barney used to look at her moving down the road at +Charlotte's side, as at the merest supernumerary on his own tragic +stage. But every tragedy has its multiplying glass to infinity, and +every actor has his own tragedy. Sylvia Crane that winter, all +secretly and silently, was acting her own principal rôle in +hers. She had quite come to the end of her small resources, and +nobody, except the selectmen of Pembroke, knew it. They were three +saturnine, phlegmatic, elderly men, old Squire Payne being the +chairman, and they kept her secret well. Sylvia waylaid them in +by-places, she stole around to the back door of Squire Payne's +house by night, she conducted herself as if it were a guilty +intrigue, and all to keep her poverty hid as long as may be.</p> +<p>Old Squire Payne was a widower, a grave old man of few words. He +advanced poor Sylvia meagre moneys on her little lands, and he told +nobody. There came a day when he gave her the last dollar upon her +New England soil, full of old plough-ridges and dried weeds and +stones.</p> +<p>Sylvia went home with it in the pocket of her quilted petticoat +under her dress skirt. She kept feeling of it to see if it were +safe as she walked along. The snow was quite deep, the road was not +well broken out, and she plodded forward with bent head, her black +skirt gathering a crusty border of snow.</p> +<p>She had to pass Richard Alger's house, but she never looked up. +It was six o'clock, and quite dark; it had been dark when she set +out at five. The housewives were preparing supper; there was a +smell of burning pine-wood in the air, and now and then a savory +scent of frying meat. Sylvia had smelled brewing tea and baking +bread in Squire Payne's house, and she had heard old Margaret, the +Scotch woman who had lived with the squire's family ever since she +could remember, stepping around in another room. Old Margaret was +almost the only servant, the only regular and permanent servant, in +Pembroke, and she enjoyed a curious sort of menial distinction: she +dressed well, wore a handsome cashmere shawl which had come from +Scotland, and held her head high in the squire's pew. People +saluted her with respect, and her isolation of inequality gave her +a reversed dignity.</p> +<p>Sylvia had hoped Margaret would not come in while she sat with +the squire. She was afraid of her eyes, which flashed keen like a +man's under shaggy brows. She did not want her to see the squire +counting out the money from his leather purse, although she knew +that Margaret would keep her own counsel.</p> +<p>She had been glad enough to escape and not see her appear behind +the bulk of the squire in the doorway. Squire Payne was full of +laborious courtesy, and always himself aided Sylvia to the door +when she came for money, and that always alarmed her. She would +drop a meek courtesy on trembling knees and hurry away.</p> +<p>Sylvia had almost reached the old road leading to her own house, +when she saw a figure advancing towards her through the dusk. She +saw it was a woman by the wide swing of the skirts, and trembled. +She felt a presentiment as to who it was. She held her head down +and well to one side, she bent over and tried to hurry past, but +the figure stopped.</p> +<p>“Is that you, Sylvy Crane?” said her sister, Hannah +Berry.</p> +<p>Sylvia did not stop. “Yes, it's me,” she stammered. +“Good-evenin', Hannah.”</p> +<p>She tried to pass, but Hannah stood in her way. “What you +hurryin' so for?” she asked, sharply; “where you +been?”</p> +<p>“Where <em>you</em> been?” returned Sylvia, +trembling.</p> +<p>“Up to Sarah's. Charlotte, she's gone down to Rebecca's. +She's terrible thick with Rebecca. Well, I've been to see Rebecca; +an' Rose, she's been, an' I ain't nothin' to say. William has got +her for a wife, an' we've got to hold up our heads before folks; +an' when it comes right down to it, there's a good many folks can't +say much. If Charlotte Barnard wants to be thick with Rebecca, she +can. Her mother won't say nothin'. She always was as easy as old +Tilly; an' as for Cephas, he's either eatin' grass, or he ain't +eatin' grass, an' that's all he cares about, unless he gets stirred +up about politics, the way he did with Barney Thayer. I dunno but +Charlotte thinks she'll get him back again goin' to see Rebecca. I +miss my guess but what she sees him there sometimes. I wouldn't +have a daughter of mine chasin' a fellar that had give her the +mitten; but Charlotte ain't got no pride, nor her mother, neither. +Where did you say you'd been, trapesin' through the +snow?”</p> +<p>“Has Rose got her things most done?” asked Sylvia, +desperately. Distress was awakening duplicity in her simple, +straightforward heart. All Hannah Berry's thought slid, as it were, +in well-greased grooves; only give one a starting push and it went +on indefinitely and left all others behind, and her sister Sylvia +knew it.</p> +<p>“Well, she's got 'em pretty near done,” replied +Hannah Berry. “Her underclothes are all done, an' the quilts; +the weddin'-dress ain't bought yet, an' she's got to have a +mantilla. Do you know Charlotte ain't never wore that handsome +mantilla she had when she was expectin' to marry Barney?”</p> +<p>“Ain't she?”</p> +<p>“No, she ain't, nor her silk gown neither. I said all I +darsed to. I thought mebbe she or Sarah would offer; they both of +'em know how hard it is to get anything out of Silas; but they +didn't, an' I wa'n't goin' to ask, nohow. I shall get a new silk +an' a mantilla for Rose, an' not be beholden to nobody, if I have +to sell the spoons I had when I was married.”</p> +<p>“I don't s'pose they have much to do with,” said +Sylvia. She began to gradually edge past her sister.</p> +<p>“Of course they haven't; I know that jest as well as you +do. But if Charlotte ain't goin' to get married she don't want any +weddin'-gown an' mantilla, an' she won't ever get married. She let +Thomas Payne slip, an' there ain't nobody else I can think of for +her. If she ain't goin' to want weddin'-clothes, I don't see why +she an' her mother would be any poorer for givin' hers away. +'Twouldn't cost 'em any more than to let 'em lay in the chest. +Well, I've got to go home; it's supper-time. Where did you say +you'd been, Sylvy?”</p> +<p>Sylvia was well past her sister; she pretended not to hear. +“You ain't been over for quite a spell,” she called +back, faintly.</p> +<p>“I know I ain't,” returned Hannah. “I've been +tellin' Rose we'd come over to tea some afternoon before she was +married.”</p> +<p>“Do,” said Sylvia, but the cordiality in her voice +seemed to overweigh it.</p> +<p>“Well, mebbe we'll come over to-morrow,” said +Hannah. “We've got some pillow-slips to trim, an' we can +bring them. You'd better ask Sarah an' Charlotte, if she can stay +away from Rebecca Thayer's long enough.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I will,” said Sylvia, feebly, over her +shoulder.</p> +<p>“We'll come early,” said Hannah. Then the sisters +sped apart through the early winter darkness. Poor Sylvia fairly +groaned out loud when her sister was out of hearing and she had +turned the corner of the old road.</p> +<p>“What shall I do? what shall I do?” she +muttered.</p> +<p>Her sisters to tea meant hot biscuits and plum sauce and pie and +pound-cake and tea. Sylvia had yet a little damson sauce at the +bottom of a jar, although she had not preserved last year, for lack +of sugar; but hot biscuits and pie, the pound-cake and tea would +have to be provided.</p> +<p>She felt again of the little money-store in her pocket; that was +all that stood between her and the poor-house; every penny was a +barrier and had its carefully calculated value. This outlay would +reduce terribly her little period of respite and independence; yet +she hesitated as little as Fouquet planning the splendid +entertainment, which would ruin him, for Louis XIII.</p> +<p>Her sisters and nieces must come to tea; and all the food, which +was the village fashion and as absolute in its way as court +etiquette, must be provided.</p> +<p>“They'll suspect if I don't,” said Sylvia Crane.</p> +<p>She rolled away the stone from the door and entered her solitary +house. She lighted her candle and prepared for bed. She did not get +any supper. She said to herself with a sudden fierceness, which +came over her at times—a mild impulse of rebellion which +indicated perhaps some strain from far-off, untempered ancestors, +which had survived New England generations—that she did not +care if she never ate supper again.</p> +<p>“They're all comin' troopin' in here to-morrow, an' it's +goin' to take about all the little I've got left to get victuals +for 'em, an' I've got to go without to-night if I starve!” +she cried out quite loud and defiantly, as if her hard providence +lurked within hearing in some dark recess of the room.</p> +<p>She raked ashes over the coals in the fireplace. “I'll go +to bed an' save the fire, too,” she said; “it'll take +about all the wood I've got left to-morrow. I've got to heat the +oven. Might as well go to bed, an' lay there forever, anyway. If I +stayed up till doomsday nobody'd come.”</p> +<p>Sylvia set the shovel back with a vicious clatter; then she +struck out—like a wilful child who hurts itself because of +its rage and impotent helplessness to hurt aught else—her +thin, red hand against the bricks of the chimney. She looked at the +bruises on it with bitter exultation, as if she saw in them some +evidence of her own freedom and power, even to her own hurt.</p> +<p>When she went to bed she stowed away her money under the +feather-bed. She could not go to sleep. Some time in the night a +shutter in another room up-stairs banged. She got up, lighted the +candle, and trod over the icy floors to the room relentlessly with +her bare feet. There was a pane of glass broken behind the shutter, +and the wind had loosened the fastening. Sylvia forced the shutter +back; in a strange rage she heard another pane of glass crack. +“I don't care if every pane of glass in the window is +broken,” she muttered, as she hooked the fastening with +angry, trembling fingers.</p> +<p>Her thin body in its cotton night-gown, cramped with long rigors +of cold, her delicate face reddened as if before a fire, her jaws +felt almost locked as she went through the deadly cold of the +lonely house back to bed; but that strange rage in her heart +enabled her to defy it, and awakened within her something like +blasphemy against life and all the conditions thereof, but never +against Richard Alger. She never felt one throb of resentment +against him. She even wondered, when she was back in bed, if he had +bedclothing enough, if the quilts and bed-puffs that his mother had +left were not worn out; her own were very thin.</p> +<p>The next day Sylvia heated her brick oven; she went to the store +and bought materials, and made pound-cake and pies. While they were +baking she ran over and invited Charlotte and her mother. She did +not see Cephas; he had gone to draw some wood.</p> +<p>“I'd like to have him come, too,” she said, as she +went out; “but I dunno as he'd eat anything I've got for +tea.”</p> +<p>“Land! he eats anything when he goes out anywhere to +tea,” replied Mrs. Barnard. “He was over to Hannah's a +while ago, an' he eat everything. He eats pie-crust with shortenin' +now, anyway. He got so he couldn't stan' it without. I guess he'd +like to come. He'll have to draw wood some this afternoon, but he +can come in time for tea. I'll lay out his clothes on the bed for +him.”</p> +<p>“Well, have him come, then,” said Sylvia. Sylvia was +nearly out of the yard when Charlotte called after her: +“Don't you want me to come over and help you, Aunt +Sylvia?” she called out. She stood in the door with her apron +flying out in the wind like a blue flag.</p> +<p>“No, I guess not,” replied Sylvia; “I don't +need any help. I ain't got much to do.”</p> +<p>“I think Aunt Sylvia looks sick,” Charlotte said to +her mother when she went in.</p> +<p>“I thought she looked kind of peaked,” said Sarah. +But neither of them dreamed of the true state of affairs: how poor +Sylvia Crane, half-starved and half-frozen in heart and stomach, +was on the verge of bankruptcy of all her little worldly +possessions.</p> +<p>Sylvia's sisters, practical enough in other respects, were +singularly ignorant and incompetent concerning any property except +the few dollars and cents in their own purses.</p> +<p>They had always supposed Sylvia had enough to live on, as long +as she lived at all. They had a comfortable sense of generosity and +self-sacrifice, since they had let her have all the old homestead +after her mother's death without a word, and even against covert +remonstrances on the parts of their husbands.</p> +<p>Silas Berry had once said out quite openly to his wife and Sarah +Barnard: “That will had ought to be broke, accordin' to my +way of thinkin',” and Hannah had returned with spirit: +“It won't ever be broke unless it's against my will, Silas +Berry. I know it seems considerable for Sylvy to have it all, but +she's took care of mother all those years, an' I don't begrutch it +to her, an' she's a-goin' to have it. I don't much believe Richard +Alger will ever have her now she's got so old, an' she'd ought to +have enough to live on the rest of her life an' keep her +comfortable.”</p> +<p>Therefore Sylvia's sisters had a conviction that she was +comfortably provided with worldly gear. Mrs. Berry was even +speculating upon the probability of her giving Rose something +wherewith to begin house-keeping when her marriage with Tommy Ray +took place.</p> +<p>The two sisters, with their daughters, came early that +afternoon. Mrs. Berry and Rose sewed knitted lace on pillow-slips; +Mrs. Barnard and Charlotte were making new shirts for Cephas; +Charlotte sat by the window and set beautiful stitches in her +father's linen shirt-bosoms, while her aunt Hannah's tongue pricked +her ceaselessly as with small goading thorns.</p> +<p>“I s'pose this seems kind of natural to you, don't it, +Charlotte, gettin' pillow-slips ready?” said Mrs. Berry.</p> +<p>“I don't know but it does,” answered Charlotte, +never raising her eyes from her work. Her mother flushed angrily. +She opened her mouth as if to speak, then she shut it again +hard.</p> +<p>“Let me see, how many did you make?” asked Mrs. +Berry.</p> +<p>“She made two dozen pair,” Charlotte's mother +answered for her.</p> +<p>“An' you've got 'em all laid away, yellowin'?”</p> +<p>“I guess they ain't yellowed much,” said Sarah +Barnard.</p> +<p>“I don't see when you're ever goin' to use 'em.”</p> +<p>“Mebbe there'd be chances enough to use 'em if some folks +was as crazy to take up with 'em as some other folks,” +returned Sarah Barnard.</p> +<p>“I'd like to know what you mean?”</p> +<p>“Oh, nothin'. If folks want chances to make pillow-slips +bad enough there's generally poor tools enough layin' 'round, +that's all.”</p> +<p>“I'd like to know what you mean, Sarah Barnard.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I don't mean nothin',” answered Sarah Barnard. +She glanced at her daughter Charlotte and smiled slyly, but +Charlotte never returned the glance and smile. She sewed steadily. +Rose colored, but she said nothing. She looked very pretty and +happy, as she sat there, sewing knitted lace on her +wedding-pillows; and she really was happy. Her passionate heart had +really satisfied itself with the boyish lover whom she would have +despised except for lack of a better. She was and would be happy +enough; it was only a question of deterioration of character, and +the nobility of applying to the need of love the rules of ordinary +hunger and thirst, and eating contentedly the crust when one could +not get the pie, of drinking the water when one could not get the +wine. Contentment may be sometimes a degradation; but she was +happier than she had ever been in her life, although she had a +little sense of humiliation when she reflected that Tommy Ray, +younger than herself, tending store under her brother, was not +exactly a brilliant match for her, and that everybody in the +village would think so. So she colored angrily when her aunt Sarah +spoke as she did, although she said nothing. But her mother, +although she had rebelled in private bitterly against her +daughter's choice, was ready enough to take up the cudgels for her +in public.</p> +<p>“Well,” said Hannah Berry, “two old maids in +the family is about enough, accordin' to my way of +thinkin'.”</p> +<p>“It's better to be an old maid than to marry somebody you +don't want, jest for the sake of bein' married,” retorted +Sarah Barnard, fiercely.</p> +<p>The two sisters clashed like two thorny bushes of one family in +a gale the whole afternoon. The two daughters sewed silently, and +Sylvia knitted a stocking with scarcely a word until she arose to +get tea.</p> +<p>Cephas and Silas both came to tea, which was served in state, +with a fine linen table-cloth, and Sylvia's mother's green and +white sprigged china. Nobody suspected, as they tasted the damson +sauce with the thin silver spoons, as they tilted the green and +white teacups to their lips, and ate the rich pound-cake and pie, +what a very feast of renunciation and tragedy this was to poor +Sylvia Crane. Cephas and Silas, indeed, knew that money had been +advanced her by the town upon her estate, but they were far from +suspecting, and, indeed, were unwilling to suspect, how nearly it +was exhausted and the property lived out. It was only a meagre +estimate that the town of Pembroke had made of the Crane ancestral +acres. If Silas and Cephas had ever known what it was, they had +dismissed it from their minds, they were interested in not knowing. +Suppose their wives should want to give her a home and support.</p> +<p>The women knew nothing whatever.</p> +<p>When they went home, an hour after tea, Hannah Berry turned to +Sylvia in the doorway. “I suppose you know the weddin' is +comin' off pretty soon now,” said she.</p> +<p>“Yes, I s'posed 'twas,” answered Sylvia, trying to +smile.</p> +<p>“Well, I thought I'd jest mention it, so you could get +your present ready,” said Hannah. She nudged Rose violently +as she spoke.</p> +<p>“I don't care; I meant to give her a hint,” she +said, chuckling, when they were outside. “She can give you +something jest as well as not; she might give you some silver +teaspoons, or a table, or sofa. There! she bought that handsome +sofa for herself a few years ago, an' she didn't need it more'n +nothin' at all. I suppose she thought Richard Alger was comin' +steady, but now he's stopped.”</p> +<p>Rose was married in a few weeks. The morning of the wedding-day +Sylvia went into Berry's store and called William aside.</p> +<p>“If you can, I wish you'd come 'round by-an'-by with your +horse an' your wood-sled,” said she.</p> +<p>“Yes, guess I can; what is it you want?” asked +William, eying her curiously. She was very pale; there were red +circles around her eyes, and her mouth trembled.</p> +<p>“Oh, it ain't anything, only a little present I wanted to +send to Rose,” replied Sylvia.</p> +<p>“Well,” said William, “I'll be along +by-an'-by.” He looked after her in a perplexed way as she +went out.</p> +<p>Silas was in the back of the store, and presently he came +forward. “What she want you to do?” he inquired of his +son.</p> +<p>William told him. The old man chuckled. “Hannah give her a +hint 'tother day, an' I guess she took it,” he said.</p> +<p>“I thought she looked pretty poorly,” said +William—“looked as if she'd been crying or something. +How do you suppose that property holds out, father? I heard the +town was allowing her on it.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I guess it'll last her as long as she lives,” +replied Silas, gruffly. “Your mother had ought to had her +thirds in it.”</p> +<p>“I don't know about that,” said William. “Aunt +Sylvy had a hard time takin' care of grandmother.”</p> +<p>“She was paid for 't,” returned Silas.</p> +<p>“Richard Alger treated her mean.”</p> +<p>“Guess he sat out considerable firewood an' +candle-grease,” assented the old man.</p> +<p>A customer came in then, and Ezra Ray sprang forward. He was all +excited over his brother's wedding, and was tending store in his +place that day. His mother was making him a new suit to wear to the +wedding, and he felt as if the whole affair hung, as it were, upon +the buttons of his new jacket and the straps of his new +trousers.</p> +<p>“Guess I might as well go over to Aunt Sylvy's now as any +time,” said William.</p> +<p>“Don't see what she wanted you to fetch the horse an' sled +for,” ruminated Silas. “Mother thought most likely +she'd give some silver teaspoons if she give anything.”</p> +<p>William went out to the barn, put the horse in the sled, and +drove down the hill towards Sylvia's. When he returned the old thin +silver teaspoons of the Crane family were in his coat-pocket, and +Sylvia's dearly beloved and fondly cherished hair-cloth sofa was on +the sled behind him.</p> +<p>“What in creation did she send them old teaspoons and that +old sofa for?” his mother asked, disgustedly.</p> +<p>“I don't know,” replied William, soberly; “but +I do know one thing: I hated to take them bad enough. She acted all +upset over it. I think she'd better have kept her sofa and +teaspoons as long as she lived.”</p> +<p>“Course she was upset givin' away anything,” scolded +his mother. “It was jest like her, givin' away a passel of +old truck ruther than spend any money. Well, I s'pose you may as +well set that sofa in the parlor. It ain't hurt much, +anyway.”</p> +<p>Rose and her husband were to live with her parents for the +present. She was married that evening. She wore a blue silk dress, +and some rose-geranium blossoms and leaves in her hair. Tommy Ray +sat by her side on Sylvia's sofa until the company and the minister +were all there. Then they stood up and were married.</p> +<p>Sylvia came to the wedding in her best silk gown; she had +trembled lest Richard Alger should be there, but he had not been +invited. Hannah Berry cherished a deep resentment against him.</p> +<p>“I ain't goin' to have any man that's treated one of my +folks as mean as he has set foot in my house to a weddin', not if I +know it,” she told Rose.</p> +<p>After the marriage-cake and cider were passed around, the old +people sat solemnly around the borders of the rooms, and the young +people played games. William and his wife were not there. Hannah +had not dared to slight them, but William could not prevail upon +Rebecca to go.</p> +<p>Barney, also, had not been invited to the wedding. Mrs. Berry +had an open grudge against him on her niece's account, and a covert +one on her daughter's. Hannah Berry had a species of loyalty in her +nature, inasmuch as she would tolerate ill-treatment of her kin +from nobody but her own self.</p> +<p>Charlotte Barnard came with her father and mother, and sat +quietly with them all the evening. She was beginning insensibly to +rather hold herself aloof from the young people, and avoid joining +in their games. She felt older. People had wondered if she would +not wear the dress she had had made for her own wedding, but she +did not. She wore her old purple silk, which had been made over +from one of her mother's, and a freshly-starched muslin collar. The +air was full of the rich sweetness of cake; there was a loud +discord of laughter and high shrill voices, through which yet ran a +subtle harmony of mirth. Laughing faces nodded and uplifted like +flowers in the merry romping throngs in the middle of the room, +while the sober ones against the walls watched with grave, elderly, +retrospective eyes.</p> +<p>As soon as she could, Sylvia Crane stole into her sister's +bedroom, where the women's outside garments were heaped high on the +bed, got her own, opened the side door softly, and went home. The +next day she was going to the poor-house, and nobody but the three +selectmen of Pembroke knew it. She had begged them, almost on her +knees, to tell nobody until she was there.</p> +<p>That night she rolled away the guardian stone from before the +door with the feeling that it was for the last time. All that night +she worked. She could not go to bed, she could not sleep, and she +had gone beyond any frenzy of sorrow and tears. All her blind and +helpless rage against life and the obdurately beneficent force, +which had been her conception of Providence, was gone. When the +battle is over there is no more need for the fury of combat. Sylvia +felt her battle was over, and she felt the peace of defeat.</p> +<p>She was to take a few necessaries to the poor-house with her; +she had them to pack, and she also had some cleaning to do.</p> +<p>She had a vague idea that the town, which seemed to loom over +her like some dreadful shadowy giant of a child's story, would sell +the house, and it must be left in neat order for the inspection of +seller and buyer. “I ain't goin' to have the town lookin' +over the house an' sayin' it ain't kept decent,” she said. So +she worked hard all night, and her candle lit up first one window, +then another, moving all over the house like a +will-o'-the-wisp.</p> +<p>The man who had charge of the poor-house came for her the next +morning at ten o'clock. Sylvia was all ready. At quarter past ten +he drove out of the old road where the Crane house stood and down +the village street. The man's name was Jonathan Leavitt. He was +quite old but hearty, with a stubbly fringe of white beard around a +ruddy face. He had come on a wood-sled for the greater convenience +of bringing Sylvia's goods. There were a feather-bed, bolster, and +pillows, tied up in an old homespun blanket, on the rear of the +sled; there was also a red chest, and a great bundle of +bedclothing. Sylvia sat in her best rocking-chair just behind +Jonathan Leavitt, who drove standing.</p> +<p>“It's a pleasant day for this time of year,” he +observed to Sylvia when they started. Sylvia nodded assent.</p> +<p>Jonathan Leavitt had had a fear lest Sylvia might make a +disturbance about going. Many a time had it taken hours for him to +induce a poor woman to leave her own door-stone; and when at length +they had set forth, it was to an accompaniment of shrill, piteous +lamentations, so strained and persistent that they seemed scarcely +human, and more like the cries of a scared cat being hauled away +from her home. Everybody on the road had turned to look after the +sled, and Jonathan Leavitt had driven on, looking straight ahead, +his face screwed hard, lashing now and then his old horse, with a +gruff shout. Now he felt relieved and grateful to Sylvia for going +so quietly. He was disposed to be very friendly to her.</p> +<p>“You'd better keep your rockin'-chair kind of +stiddy,” he said, when they turned the corner into the new +road, and the chair oscillated like an uneasy berth at sea.</p> +<p>Sylvia sat up straight in the chair. She had on her best bonnet +and shawl, and her worked lace veil over her face. Her poor blue +eyes stared out between the black silk leaves and roses. If she had +been a dead woman and riding to her grave, and it had been possible +for her to see as she was borne along the familiar road, she would +have regarded everything in much the same fashion that she did now. +She looked at everything—every tree, every house and +wall—with a pang of parting forever. She felt as if she +should never see them again in their old light.</p> +<p>The poor-house was three miles out of the village; the road lay +past Richard Alger's house. When they drew near it Sylvia bent her +head low and averted her face; she shut her eyes behind the black +roses. She did not want to know when she passed the house. An awful +shame that Richard should see her riding past to the poor-house +seized upon her.</p> +<p>The wood-sled went grating on, a chain rattled; she calculated +that they were nearly past when there was a jerk, and Jonathan +Leavitt cried “Hullo!”</p> +<p>“Where are you going?” shouted another voice. Sylvia +knew it. Her heart pounded. She turned her face farther to one +side, and did not open her eyes.</p> +<p>Richard Alger came plunging down out of his yard. His handsome +face was quite pale under a slight grizzle of beard, he was in his +shirt-sleeves, he had on no dicky or stock, and his sinewy throat +showed.</p> +<p>“Where you goin'?” he gasped out again, as he came +up to the sled.</p> +<p>“I'm a takin' Sylvy home. Why?” inquired Jonathan +Leavitt, with a dazed look.</p> +<p>“Home? What are you headed this way for? What are all +those things on the sled?”</p> +<p>“She's lived out her place, an' the town's jest took it; +guess you didn't know, Richard,” said Jonathan Leavitt. His +eyes upon the other man were half shrewdly inquiring, half +bewildered.</p> +<p>Sylvia never turned her head. She sat with her eyes closed +behind her veil.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem13.png" width="445" height="351" +alt="[Illustration: “Sylvia never turned her head”]"></p> +<p>“Just turn that sled 'round,” said Richard +Alger.</p> +<p>“Turn the sled 'round?”</p> +<p>“Yes, turn it 'round!” Richard himself grasped the +bay horse by the bit as he spoke. “Back, back!” he +shouted.</p> +<p>“What are you doin' on, Richard?” cried the old man; +but he pulled his right rein mechanically, and the sled slewed +slowly and safely around.</p> +<p>Richard jumped on and stood just beside Sylvia, holding to a +stake. “Where d'ye want to go?” asked the old man.</p> +<p>“Back.”</p> +<p>“But the town—”</p> +<p>“I'll take care of the town.”</p> +<p>Jonathan Leavitt drove back. Sylvia opened her eyes a little +way, and saw Richard's back. “You'll catch cold without your +coat,” she half gasped.</p> +<p>“No, I sha'n't,” returned Richard, but he did not +turn his head.</p> +<p>Sylvia did not say any more. She was trembling so that her very +thoughts seemed to waver. They turned the corner of the old road, +and drove up to her old house. Richard stepped off the sled, and +held out his hands to Sylvia. “Come, get off,” said +he.</p> +<p>“I dunno about this,” said Jonathan Leavitt. +“I'm willin' as far as I'm concerned, Richard, but I've had +my instructions.”</p> +<p>“I tell you I'll take care of it,” said Richard +Alger. “I'll settle all the damages with the town. Come, +Sylvia, get off.”</p> +<p>And Sylvia Crane stepped weakly off the wood-sled, and Richard +Alger helped her into the house. “Why, you can't hardly +walk,” said he, and Sylvia had never heard anything like the +tenderness in his tone. He bent down and rolled away the stone. +Sylvia had rolled it in front of the door herself, when she went +out, as she supposed, for the last time. Then he opened the door, +and took hold of her slender shawled arm, and half lifted her +in.</p> +<p>“Go in an' sit down,” said he, “while we get +the things in.”</p> +<p>Sylvia went mechanically into her clean, fireless parlor; it was +the room where she had always received Richard. She sat down in a +flag-bottomed chair and waited.</p> +<p>Richard and Jonathan Leavitt came into the house tugging the +feather-bed between them. “We'll put it in the +kitchen,” she heard Richard say. They brought in the chest +and the bundle of bedding. Then Richard came into the parlor +carrying the rocking-chair before him. “You want this in +here, don't you?” he said.</p> +<p>“It belongs here,” said Sylvia, faintly. Jonathan +Leavitt gathered up his reins and drove out of the yard.</p> +<p>Richard set down the chair; then he went and stood before +Sylvia.</p> +<p>“Look here, Sylvia,” said he. Then he stopped and +put his hands over his face. His whole frame shook. Sylvia stood +up. “Don't, Richard,” she said.</p> +<p>“I never had any idea of this,” said Richard Alger, +with a great groaning sob.</p> +<p>“Don't you feel so bad, Richard,” said Sylvia.</p> +<p>Suddenly Richard put is arm around Sylvia, and pulled her close +to him. “I'll look out and do better by you the rest of your +life, anyhow,” he said. He took hold of Sylvia's veil and +pulled it back. Her pale face drooped before him.</p> +<p>“You look—half—starved,” he groaned. +Sylvia looked up and saw tears on his rough cheeks.</p> +<p>“Don't you feel bad, Richard,” she said again.</p> +<p>“I'd ought to feel bad,” said Richard, fiercely.</p> +<p>“I couldn't help it, that night you come an' found me +gone. It was that night Charlotte had the trouble with Barney. +Sarah, she wouldn't let me come home any sooner. I was dreadful +upset about it.”</p> +<p>“I've been meaner than sin, an' I don't know as it makes +it any better, because I couldn't seem to help it,” said +Richard Alger. “I didn't forget you a single minute, Sylvia, +an' I was awful sorry for you, an' there wasn't a Sabbath night +that I didn't want to come more than I wanted to go to Heaven! But +I couldn't, I couldn't nohow. I've always had to travel in tracks, +an' no man livin' knows how deep a track he's in till he gets +jolted out of it an' can't get back. But I've got into a track now, +an' I'll die before I get out of it. There ain't any use in your +lookin' at me, Sylvia, but if you can make up your mind to have me, +I'll try my best, an' do all I can to make it all up to you in the +time that's left.”</p> +<p>“I'm afraid you've had a dreadful hard time, livin' alone +so long, an' tryin' to do for yourself,” said Sylvia, +pitifully.</p> +<p>“I'm glad I have,” replied Richard, grimly.</p> +<p>He clasped Sylvia closer; her best bonnet was all crushed +against his breast. He looked around over her head, as if searching +for something.</p> +<p>“Where's the sofa gone?” he asked.</p> +<p>“I gave it to Rose for a weddin' present. I thought I +shouldn't ever need it,” Sylvia murmured.</p> +<p>“Well, I've got one, it ain't any matter,” said +Richard.</p> +<p>He moved towards the rocking-chair, drawing Sylvia gently along +with him.</p> +<p>“Sit down, Sylvia,” said he, softly.</p> +<p>“No, you sit down in the rocking-chair, Richard,” +said Sylvia. She reached out and pulled a flag-bottomed chair close +and sat down herself. Richard sat in the rocking-chair.</p> +<p>Sylvia untied her bonnet, took it off, and straightened it. +Richard watched her. “I want you to have a white +bonnet,” said he.</p> +<p>“I'm too old, Richard,” Sylvia replied, +blushing.</p> +<p>“No, you ain't,” he said, defiantly; “you've +got to have a white bonnet.”</p> +<p>Sylvia looked in his face—and indeed hers looked young +enough for a white bonnet; it flushed and lit up, like an old +flower revived in a new spring.</p> +<p>Richard leaned over towards her, and the two old lovers kissed +each other. Richard moved his chair close to hers, and Sylvia felt +his arm coming around her waist. She sat still. “Put your +head down on my shoulder,” whispered Richard.</p> +<p>And Sylvia laid her head on Richard's shoulder. She felt as if +she were dreaming of a dream.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="XIII">Chapter XIII</a></h4> +<p>When Richard Alger went home he wore an old brown shawl of +Sylvia's over his shoulders. He had demurred a little. “I +can't go down the street with your shawl on, Sylvia,” he had +pleaded, but Sylvia insisted.</p> +<p>“You'll catch your death of cold, goin' home in your +shirt-sleeves,” she said. “They won't know it's my +shawl. Men wear shawls.”</p> +<p>“You've worn this ever since I've known you, Sylvia, an' I +ain't given to catchin' cold easy,” said Richard almost +pitifully. But he stood still and let Sylvia pin the shawl around +his neck. Sylvia seemed to have suddenly acquired a curious +maternal authority over him, and he submitted to it as if it were +merely natural that he should.</p> +<p>Richard Alger went meekly down the road, wearing the old brown +shawl that had often draped Sylvia Crane's slender feminine +shoulders when she walked abroad, since she was a young girl. +Sylvia had always worn it corner-wise, but she had folded it square +for him as making it more of a masculine garment. Two corners waved +out stiffly from his square shoulders. He tried to swing his arms +unconcernedly under it; once the fringe hit his hand and he +jumped.</p> +<p>He was shame-faced when he struck out into the main road, but he +did not dream of taking off the shawl. A very passion of obedience +and loyalty to Sylvia had taken possession of him. With every +submission after long persistency, there is a strong reverse +action, as from the sudden cessation of any motion. Richard now +yielded in more marked measure than he had opposed. He had borne +with his whimsical will against all his sweetheart's dearest wishes +during the better part of her life; now he would wear any insignia +of bondage if she bade him.</p> +<p>He had gone a short distance on the main road when he met Hannah +Berry. She was hurrying along, her face was quite red, and he could +hear her pant as she drew near. She looked at him sharply, she +fairly narrowed her eyes over the shawl. +“Good-mornin',” said she.</p> +<p>Richard said “Good-morning,” gruffly. The shawl blew +out against Hannah's shoulder as she passed him. She turned about +and stared after him, and he knew it. He went on with dogged chin +in the folds of the shawl.</p> +<p>Hannah Berry hurried along to Sylvia Crane's. When she opened +the door Sylvia was just coming out of the parlor, and the two +sisters met in the entry with a kind of shock.</p> +<p>“Oh, it's you,” murmured Sylvia. Sylvia cast down +her eyes before her sister. She tried not to smile. Her hair was +tumbled and there were red spots on her cheeks.</p> +<p>“Has he been here all this time?” demanded +Hannah.</p> +<p>“He's just gone.”</p> +<p>“I met him out here. What in creation did you rig him up +in your old shawl for, Sylvy Crane?”</p> +<p>“He was in his shirt-sleeves, an' I wasn't goin' to have +him catch his death of cold,” replied Sylvia with +dignity.</p> +<p>“In his shirt-sleeves!”</p> +<p>“Yes, he run out just as he was.”</p> +<p>“Land sakes!” said Hannah. The two women looked at +each other. Suddenly Hannah threw out her arms from under her +shawl, and clasped Sylvia. “Oh, Sylvy,” she sobbed out, +“to think you was settin' out for the poor-house this +mornin', an' we havin' a weddin' last night, an' never knowin' it! +Why didn't you say anythin' about it, why didn't you, +Sylvy?”</p> +<p>“I knew you couldn't do anything, Hannah.”</p> +<p>“Knew I couldn't do anything! Do you suppose me or Sarah +would have let all the sister we've got go to the poor-house whilst +we had a roof over our heads? We'd took you right in, either one of +us.”</p> +<p>“I was afraid Silas an' Cephas wouldn't be +willin'.”</p> +<p>“I guess they'd had to be willin'. I told Silas just now +that if Richard Alger didn't come forward like a man, you was +comin' to my house, an' have the best we've got as long as you +lived. Silas, he said he thought you'd ought to earn your own +livin', an' I told him there wa'n't any chance for a woman like you +to earn your livin' in Pembroke, that you could earn your livin' +enough livin' at your own sister's. Oh, Sylvy, I can't stand it, +when I think of your startin' out that way, an' never sayin' a +word.” Hannah sobbed convulsively on her sister's shoulder. +There were tears in Sylvia's eyes, but her face above her sister's +head was radiant. “Don't, Hannah,” she said. +“It's all over now, you know.”</p> +<p>“Is he—goin' to have you now—Sylvy?”</p> +<p>“I guess so, maybe,” said Sylvia.</p> +<p>“I suppose you'll go to his house, this is so run +down.”</p> +<p>“He's goin' to fix this one up.”</p> +<p>“You think you'd rather live here, then? Well, I s'pose I +should. I s'pose he's goin' to buy it. The town hadn't ought to ask +much. Sylvy Crane, I can't get it through my head, +nohow.”</p> +<p>“What?” said Sylvia.</p> +<p>“How you run out this nice place so quick. I thought an' +Sarah thought you'd got enough to last you jest as long as you +lived, an' have some left to leave then.”</p> +<p>Hannah stood back and looked at her sister sharply.</p> +<p>“I've always been as savin' as I knew how,” said +Sylvia.</p> +<p>“Well, I dunno but you have. You got that sofa, that cost +considerable. I shouldn't have thought you'd got that, if you'd +known how things were, Sylvy.”</p> +<p>“I kinder felt as if I needed it.”</p> +<p>“Well, I guess you might have got along without that, +anyhow. Richard's got one, ain't he?”</p> +<p>“Yes, he says he has.”</p> +<p>“I thought I remembered his mother's buyin' one just +before his father died. Well, you'll have his sofa, then; if I +remember right, it's a better one than yours that you give Rose. +Now, Sylvy Crane, you jest put on your hood an' shawl, an' come +home with me, an' have some dinner. Have you got anything in the +house to eat?”</p> +<p>“I've got a few things,” replied Sylvia, +evasively.</p> +<p>“What?”</p> +<p>“Some potatoes an' apples.”</p> +<p>“Potatoes an' apples!” Hannah began to sob again. +“To think of your comin' to this,” she wailed. +“My own sister not havin' anything in the house to eat, an' +settin' out for the poor-house, an' everybody in town knowin' +it.”</p> +<p>“Don't feel bad about it, Hannah; it's all over +now,” said Sylvia.</p> +<p>“Don't feel bad about it! I guess you'd feel bad about it +if you was in my place,” returned Hannah. “I s'pose you +think now you've got Richard Alger that there's nothin' else makes +any odds. I guess I've got some feelin's. Get your hood and shawl, +now do; dinner was all ready when I come away.”</p> +<p>“I guess I'd better not, Hannah,” said Sylvia. It +seemed to her that she never would want anything to eat again. She +wanted to be alone in her old house, and hug her happiness to her +heart, whose starvation had caused her more agony than any other. +Now that was appeased she cared for nothing else.</p> +<p>“You come right along,” said Hannah. “I've got +a nice roast spare-rib an' turnip an' squash, an' you're goin' to +come an' have some of it.”</p> +<p>When Hannah and Sylvia got out on the main road, they heard +Sarah Barnard's voice calling them. She was hurrying down the hill. +Cephas had just come home with the news. Jonathan Leavitt had +spread it over the village from the nucleus of the store where he +had stopped on his way home.</p> +<p>Sarah Barnard sat down on the snowy stone-wall among the last +year's blackberry vines, and cried as if her heart would break. +Finally Hannah, after joining with her awhile, turned to and +comforted her.</p> +<p>“Land sake, don't take on so, Sarah Barnard!” said +she; “it's all over now. Sylvy's goin' to marry Richard +Alger, an' there ain't a man in Pembroke any better off, unless +it's Squire Payne. She's goin' to have him right off, an' he's +goin' to buy the house an' fix it up, an' she's goin' to have all +his mother's nice things, an' she's comin' home with me now, an' +have some nice roast spare-rib an' turnip. There ain't nothin' to +take on about.”</p> +<p>Hannah fairly pulled Sarah off the stone-wall. “Sylvy an' +me have got to go,” said she. “You come down this +afternoon, an' we'll all go over to her house, an' talk it over. I +s'pose Richard will come to-night. I hope he'll shave first, an' +put on his coat. I never see such a lookin' sight as he was when I +met him jest now.”</p> +<p>“I didn't see as he looked very bad,” said Sylvia, +with dignity.</p> +<p>“It seems as if it would kill me jest to think of +it,” sobbed Sarah Barnard, turning tremulously away.</p> +<p>“Don't you feel bad about it any longer, Sarah,” +Sylvia said, half absently. Her hair blew out wildly from under her +hood over her flushed cheeks; she smiled as if at something +visible, past her sister, and past everything around her.</p> +<p>“I tell you there ain't nothin' to be killed about!” +Hannah called after Sarah; she caught hold of Sylvia's arm. +“Sarah always was kind of hystericky,” said she. +“That spare-rib will be all dried up, an' I wouldn't give a +cent for it, if you don't come along.”</p> +<p>Richard Alger and Sylvia Crane were married very soon. There was +no wedding, and people were disappointed about that. Hannah Berry +tried to persuade Sylvia to have one. “I'm willin' to make +the cake,” said she. “I've jest been through one +weddin', but I'll do it. If I'd been goin' with a feller as long as +you have with him, I wouldn't get cheated out of a weddin', anyhow. +I'd have a weddin' an' I'd have cake, an' I'd ask folks, especially +after what's happened. I'd let 'em see I wa'n't quite so far gone, +if I had set out for the poor-house once. I'd have a weddin'. +Richard's got money enough. I had real good-luck with Rose's cake, +an' I ain't afraid to try yours. I guess I should make it a little +mite stiffer than I did hers.”</p> +<p>But Sylvia was obdurate. She did not say much, but she went her +own way. She had gained a certain quiet decision and dignity which +bewildered everybody. Her sisters had dimly realized that there was +something about her out of plumb, as it were. Her nature had been +warped to one side by one concentrated and unsatisfied desire. +“Seems to me, sometimes, as if Sylvy was kind of +queer,” Hannah Berry often said. “I dunno but she's +kinder turned on Richard Alger,” Sarah would respond. Now she +seemed suddenly to have regained her equilibrium, and no longer +slanted doubtfully across her sisters' mental horizons.</p> +<p>She and Richard went to the minister's house early one Sabbath +morning, and were married. Then they went to meeting, Sylvia on +Richard's arm. They sat side by side in the Alger pew; it was on +the opposite side of the meeting-house from Sylvia's old pew. It +seemed to her as if she would see her old self sitting there alone, +as of old, if she looked across. She fixed her eyes straight ahead, +and never glanced at Richard by her side. She held her +white-bonneted head up like some gentle flower which had sprung +back to itself after a hard wind. She had a new white bridal +bonnet, as Richard had wished; it was trimmed with white plumes and +ribbons, and she wore a long white-worked veil over her face. The +wrought net-work, as delicate as frost, softened all the hard lines +and fixed tints, and gave to her face an illusion of girlhood. She +wore the two curls over her cheeks. Richard had asked her why she +didn't curl her hair as she used to do.</p> +<p>All the people saw Sylvia's white bonnet; it seemed to turn +their eyes like a brilliant white spot, which reflected all the +light in the meeting-house. But there were a few women who eyed +more sharply Sylvia's wedding-gown and mantilla, for she wore the +very ones which poor Charlotte Barnard had made ready for her own +bridal. Sylvia was just about her niece's height; the gown had +needed a little taking in to fit her thinner form, and that was +all.</p> +<p>Charlotte's mother had brought them over to Sylvia's one night, +all nicely folded in white linen towels.</p> +<p>“Charlotte wants you to have 'em; she says she won't ever +need 'em, poor child!” she said, in response to Sylvia's +remonstrances. Mrs. Barnard's eyes were red, as if she had been +crying. It had apparently been harder for her to give up the poor +slighted wedding-clothes than for her daughter. Charlotte had not +shed a tear when she took them out of the chest and shook off the +sprigs of lavender which she had laid over them; but it seemed to +her that she could smell that faint elusive breath of lavender +across the meeting-house when Sylvia came in, and the rustle of her +bridal-gown was as loud in her ears as if she herself wore it.</p> +<p>“Somebody might just as well have them, and have some good +of them,” she had told her mother, and she spoke as if they +were the garments of some one who was dead.</p> +<p>“Seems to me, as much as they cost, you'd ought to wear +'em yourself,” said her mother.</p> +<p>“I never shall,” Charlotte said, firmly; “and +they might just as well do somebody some good.” Charlotte's +New England thrift and practical sense stretched her sentiment on +the rack, and she never made a sound.</p> +<p>Barney, watching out from his window that Sunday, caught a flash +of green and purple from Sylvia's silken skirt as she turned the +corner of the old road with Richard. “She's got on +Charlotte's wedding-dress. She's—given it to her,” he +said, with a gasp. He had never forgotten it since the day +Charlotte had shown it to him. He had pictured her in it, hundreds +of times, to his own delight and torment. He had a fierce impulse +to rush out and strip his Charlotte's wedding-clothes from this +other bride's back.</p> +<p>“She's gone and given it away, and she hasn't got a good +silk dress herself; she's wearing her old cloak to meeting,” +he half sobbed to himself. He wondered piteously, thinking of his +savings and of his property since his father's death, if he might +not, at least, buy Charlotte a new silk dress and a mantilla. +“I don't believe she'd be mad,” he said; “but I'm +afraid her father wouldn't let her wear it.”</p> +<p>The more he thought of it the more it seemed as if he could not +bear it, unless he could buy Charlotte the silk dress. “Her +clothes ain't as good as mine,” he said, and he thought of +his best blue broadcloth suit, and his flowered vest and silk hat. +It seemed to him that with all the terrible injury he was doing +Charlotte, he also injured her by having better clothes than she, +and that that was something which might be set right.</p> +<p>As Barney sat by his window that Sunday afternoon he saw a man +coming down the hill. He watched him idly, then his heart leaped +and he leaned forward. The man advanced with a careless, stately +swing, his head was thrown back, his mulberry-colored coat had a +sheen like a leaf in the sun. The man was Thomas Payne. Barney +turned white as he watched him. He had not known he was in town, +and his jealous heart at once whispered that he had come to see +Charlotte. Thomas Payne came opposite the house, then passed out of +sight. Barney sat with staring eyes full of miserable questioning +upon the road. Had he been to see Charlotte? he speculated. He had +come from that direction; but Barney remembered, with a sigh of +hope, that Squire Payne had a sister, an old maiden lady, who lived +a half-mile beyond Charlotte. Perhaps Thomas Payne had been to see +his aunt.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem14.png" width="376" height="352" +alt="[Illustration: “Thomas Payne advanced with a careless, stately swing”]"> +</p> +<p>All the rest of the day Barney was in an agony of doubt and +unrest over the unsettled question. He had been living lately in a +sort of wretched peace of remorse and misery; now it was rudely +shaken. He walked the floor; at night he could not sleep. He seemed +to be in a very torture-chamber of his own making, and the tortures +were worse than any enemies could have devised. Suppose Thomas +Payne was sitting up with Charlotte this Sunday night. Once he +thought, wildly, of going up the hill to see if there was a light +in her parlor, but it seemed to him as if the doubt was more +endurable than the certainty might be. Suppose Thomas Payne was +sitting up with Charlotte; he called to mind all her sweet ways. +Suppose she was looking and speaking to Thomas Payne in this way or +that way; his imagination threw out pictures before him upon which +he could not close his eyes. He saw Thomas Payne's face all glowing +with triumph, he saw Charlotte's with the old look that she had +worn for him. Charlotte's caresses had been few and maidenly; they +all came into his mind like stings. He knew just how she would put +her tender arm around this other man's neck, how she would lift +grave, willing lips to his. He wished that they had never been for +him, for all they seemed worth to him now was this bitter +knowledge. His fancy led him on and on to his own torment. There +was a bridal mist around Charlotte. He followed the old courses of +his own dreams, after his memories were passed, and they caused him +worse agony.</p> +<p>The next morning Barney went to the store. It was absolutely +necessary for him to go, but he shunned everybody. He had a +horrible fear lest somebody should say, “Hallo, Barney, know +Thomas Payne's goin' to marry your old girl?” He had planned +the very words, and the leer of sly exultation that would accompany +it.</p> +<p>But he made his purchase and went out, and nobody spoke to him. +He had not seen Thomas Payne in the back part of the store behind +the stove. Presently Thomas got up and lounged leisurely out +through the store, exchanging a word with one and another on his +way. When he got out Barney was going down the road quite a way +ahead of him. Thomas Payne kept on in his tracks. There was another +man coming towards him, and presently he stood aside to let him +pass. “Good-day, Royal,” said Thomas Payne.</p> +<p>“Good-day, Thomas,” returned the other. “When +d'ye get home?”</p> +<p>“Day before yesterday. How are you this winter, +Royal?”</p> +<p>“Well, I'm pretty fair to middlin'.” The man's face, +sunken in his feeble chest far below the level of Thomas's eyes, +looked up at him with a sort of whimsical patience. His back was +bent like a bow; he had had curvature of the spine for years, from +a fall when a young man.</p> +<p>“Glad to hear that,” returned Thomas. The man passed +him, walking as if he were vainly trying to straighten himself at +every step. He held his knees stiff and threw his elbows back, but +his back still curved pitifully, although it seemed as if he were +half cheating himself into the belief that he was walking as +straight as other men.</p> +<p>Thomas walked on rapidly, lessening the distance between himself +and Barney. As he went on he began to have a curious fancy, which +he could hardly persuade himself was a fancy. It seemed to him that +Barney Thayer was walking like the man whom he had just met, that +his back had that same terrible curve.</p> +<p>Thomas Payne stared in strange bewilderment at Barney's back. +“It can't be that he has spine disease, that he has got hurt +in any way,” he thought to himself. The purpose with which he +had started out rather paled in his mind. He walked more rapidly. +It certainly seemed to him that Barney's back was bent. He got +within hailing distance and called out.</p> +<p>“Hallo!” cried Thomas Payne.</p> +<p>Barney turned around, and it seemed as if he turned with the +feeble, crooked motion of the other man. He saw Thomas Payne, and +his face was ghastly white, but he stood still and waited.</p> +<p>“How are you?” Thomas said, gruffly, as he came +up.</p> +<p>“How are you, Thomas?” returned Barney. He looked at +Thomas with a dogged expectancy. He thought he was going to tell +him that he was to marry Charlotte.</p> +<p>But Thomas was surveying him still in that strange bewilderment. +“Look here, Barney,” said he, bluntly, “have you +been sick? I haven't heard of it.”</p> +<p>“No, I haven't,” replied Barney, wonderingly.</p> +<p>Thomas's eyes were fixed upon his back. “I didn't know but +you had got hurt or something,” said he.</p> +<p>Barney shook his head. Thomas thought to himself that his back +was certainly curved. “I guess I'll walk along with you a +little way,” said he; “I've got something I wanted to +say. For God's sake, Barney, you are sick!”</p> +<p>“No, I ain't sick.”</p> +<p>“You are white as death.”</p> +<p>“There's nothing the matter with me,” Barney half +gasped. He turned and walked on, and his back still bent like a bow +to Thomas Payne's eyes.</p> +<p>Thomas went on silently until they had passed a house just +beyond. Then he stopped again. “Look here, Barney,” +said he.</p> +<p>“Well,” said Barney. He stopped, but he did not turn +or face Thomas. He only presented to him that curved, or semblance +of a curved, back.</p> +<p>“I want to speak to you about Charlotte Barnard,” +said Thomas Payne, abruptly. Barney waited without a word.</p> +<p>“I suppose you'll think it's none of my business, and in +one way it isn't,” said Thomas, “but I am going to say +it for her sake; I have made up my mind to. It seems to me it's +time, if anybody cares anything about her. What are you treating +Charlotte Barnard so for, Barnabas Thayer? It's time you gave an +account to somebody, and you can give it to me.”</p> +<p>Barney did not answer.</p> +<p>“Speak, you miserable coward!” shouted Thomas Payne, +with a sudden threatening motion of his right arm.</p> +<p>Then Barney turned, and Thomas started back at the sight of his +face. “I can't help it,” he said.</p> +<p>“Can't help it, you—”</p> +<p>“I can't, before God, Thomas.”</p> +<p>“Why not?”</p> +<p>Barney raised his right hand and pointed past Thomas. +“You—met—Royal Bennet just—now,” he +gasped, hoarsely.</p> +<p>Thomas nodded.</p> +<p>“You—saw—his—back?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Well, something like that ails me. I—can't help +it—before God.”</p> +<p>“You don't mean—” Thomas said, and stopped, +looking at Barney's back.</p> +<p>“I mean that's why I can't—help it.”</p> +<p>“Have you hurt your back?” Thomas asked, in a +subdued tone.</p> +<p>“I've hurt my soul,” said Barney. “It happened +that Sunday night years ago. I—can't get over it. I am bent +like his back.”</p> +<p>“I should think you'd better get over it, then, if that's +all,” Thomas Payne said, roughly.</p> +<p>“I—can't, any more than he can.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean your back's hurt? For God's sake talk sense, +Barney!” Thomas cried out, in bewilderment.</p> +<p>“It's more than my back; it's me.”</p> +<p>Thomas stared at Barney; a horror as of something uncanny and +abnormal stole over him. Was the man's back curved, or had he by +some subtle vision a perception of some terrible spiritual +deformity, only symbolized by a curved spine? In a minute he gave +an impatient stamp, and tried to shake himself free from the vague +pity and horror which the other had aroused.</p> +<p>“Do you know that you are ruining the life of the best +woman that ever lived?” he demanded, fiercely.</p> +<p>Barney looked at him, and suddenly there was a flash as of +something noble in his face.</p> +<p>“Look here, Thomas,” he said, brokenly, in hoarse +gasps. “Last night I—went mad, almost, because—I +thought—maybe you'd been to see—her. I—saw you +coming down the hill. I thought—I'd die thinking +of—you—with her. I can't tell you—what I've been +through, what I've suffered, and—what I suffer right along. I +know I ain't to be pitied. I know—there ain't any +pity—anywhere for anything—like this. I don't +pity—myself. But it's awful. If you could get a sight of it, +you'd know.”</p> +<p>Again to Thomas Payne, looking at the other, it was as if he saw +a pale agonized face staring up at him from the midst of a curved +mass of deformity. He shuddered.</p> +<p>“I don't know what to make of you, Barney Thayer,” +he said, looking away.</p> +<p>“There's one thing—I want to say,” Barney went +on. “I think there's enough of a man left in +me—I—think I've got strength enough to say it. +She—ought to be happy. I don't want her—wasting her +whole life—God knows—I don't—no matter what it +does—to me. I—wish— See here, Thomas. I know +you—like her. Maybe she'll—turn to you. It seems as if +she must. I hope you will—oh, for God's sake, be—good +to her, Thomas!”</p> +<p>Thomas Payne's face was as white as Barney's. He turned to go. +“There's no use talking this way. You know Charlotte Barnard +as well as I do,” he said. “You know she's one of the +women that never love any man but one. I don't want another man's +wife, if she'd have me.” Suddenly he faced Barney again. +“For God's sake, Barney,” he cried out, “be a man +and go back to her, and marry her!”</p> +<p>Barney shook his head; with a kind of a sob he turned around and +went his way without another word. Thomas Payne said no more; he +stared after Barney's retreating figure, and again the look of +bewilderment and horror was in his face.</p> +<p>That afternoon he asked his father, with a casual air, if he had +heard anything about Barney Thayer getting his back injured in any +way.</p> +<p>“Why, no, I can't say as I have,” returned the +squire.</p> +<p>“I saw him this morning, and I thought his back looked as +if it was growing like Royal Bennet's. I dare say I imagined +it,” said Thomas. Then he went out of the room whistling.</p> +<p>But, during his few weeks' stay in Pembroke, he put the same +question to one and another, with varying results. Some said at +once, with a sudden look of vague horror, that it was so. That +Barney Thayer was indeed growing deformed; that they had noticed +it. Others scouted the idea. “Saw him this morning, and he's +as straight as he ever was,” they said.</p> +<p>Whether Barney Thayer's back was, indeed, bowed into that +terrible spinal curve or not, Thomas Payne could not tell by any +agreement of witnesses. If some, gifted with acute spiritual +insight, really perceived that dreadful warping of a diseased will, +and clothed it with a material image for their own grosser senses; +or if Barney, through dwelling upon his own real but hidden +infirmity, had actually come unconsciously to give it a physical +expression, and walked at times through the village with his back +bent like his spirit, although not diseased, Thomas Payne could +only speculate. He finally began to adopt the latter belief, as he +himself, sometimes on meeting Barney, thought that he walked as +erect as he ever had.</p> +<p>Thomas Payne stayed several weeks in Pembroke, and he did not go +to see Charlotte. Once he met her in the street, and stopped and +shook hands with gay heartiness.</p> +<p>“He's got over caring about me,” Charlotte thought +to herself with a strange pang, which shocked and shamed her. +“Most likely he's got somebody out West, where he is,” +she said to herself firmly; that she ought to be glad if he had, +and that she was; and yet she was not, although she never owned it +to herself, and was stanchly loyal to her old love.</p> +<p>Charlotte herself often fancied uneasily that Barney's back was +growing like Royal Bennet's. She watched him furtively when she +could. Then she would say to herself, another time, that she must +have imagined it.</p> +<p>Thomas Payne went away the first of May. That evening Charlotte +sat on the door-step in the soft spring twilight. Her mother had +just come home from her sister Hannah Berry's. “Thomas Payne +went this afternoon,” her mother said, standing before +her.</p> +<p>“Did he?” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“You might have had him if you hadn't stuck to a poor +stick that ain't fit to tie your shoes up!” Sarah cried out, +with sudden bitterness. Her voice sounded like Hannah Berry's. +Charlotte knew that was just what her aunt Hannah had said about +it.</p> +<p>“I don't ask him to tie my shoes up,” returned +Charlotte.</p> +<p>“You can stan' up for him all you want to,” said her +mother. “You know he's a poor tool, an' he's treatin' you +mean. You know he can't begin to come up to a young man like Thomas +Payne.”</p> +<p>“Thomas Payne don't want me, and I don't want him; don't +talk any more about it, mother.”</p> +<p>“I think somebody ought to talk about it,” said her +mother, and she pushed roughly past Charlotte into the house.</p> +<p>Charlotte sat on the door-step a long while. “If Thomas +Payne has got anybody out West, I guess she'll be glad to see +him,” she thought. The fancy pained her, and yet she seemed +to see Thomas Payne and Barney side by side, the one like a young +prince—handsome and stately, full of generous +bravery—the other vaguely crouching beneath some awful +deformity, pitiful yet despicable in the eyes of men, and her whole +soul cleaved to her old lover. “What we've got is +ours,” she said to herself.</p> +<p>As she sat there a band of children went past, with a shrill, +sweet clamor of voices. They were out hanging May-baskets and +bunches of anemones. That was the favorite sport of the village +children during the month of May. The woods were full of soft, +innocent, seeking faces, bending over the delicate bells nodding in +the midst of whorls of dark leaves. Every evening, after sundown, +there were mysterious bursts of laughter and tiny scamperings +around doors, and great balls of bloom swinging from the latchets +when they were opened; but no person in sight, only soft gurgles of +mirth and delight sounded around a corner of darkness.</p> +<p>After Charlotte went to bed that night she thought she heard +somebody at the south door. “It is the children with some +may-flowers,” she thought. But presently she reflected that +it was very late for the children to be out.</p> +<p>After a little while she got up, and stole down-stairs to the +door, feeling her way through the dark house.</p> +<p>She opened the south door cautiously, and put her hand out. +There were no flowers swinging from the latch as she half expected. +Her bare feet touched something on the door-step; she stooped, and +there was a great package.</p> +<p>Charlotte took it up, and went noiselessly back to her room with +it. She lighted a candle, and unfastened the paper wrappings. She +gave a little cry. There were yards of beautiful silk shimmering +with lilac and silver and rose-color, and there was also a fine +lace mantle.</p> +<p>Charlotte looked at them; she was quite pale and trembling. She +folded the silk and lace again carefully, and put them in a chest +out of sight. Then she went back to bed, and lay there crying +wildly.</p> +<p>“Poor Barney! poor Barney!” she sobbed to +herself.</p> +<p>The next evening, after Cephas and Sarah had gone to bed, +Charlotte crept out of the house with the package under her shawl. +It was still early. She ran nearly all the way to Barney Thayer's +house; she was afraid of meeting somebody, but she did not.</p> +<p>She knocked softly on Barney's door, and heard him coming to +open it at once. When he saw her standing there he gave a great +start, and did not say anything. Charlotte thought he did not +recognize her in the dusk.</p> +<p>“It's me, Barney,” she said.</p> +<p>“I know you,” said Barney. She held out the package +to him. “I've brought this back,” said she.</p> +<p>Barney made no motion to take it from her.</p> +<p>“I can't take it,” she said, firmly.</p> +<p>Suddenly Barney threw up his hands over his face. “Can't +you take just that much from me, Charlotte? Can't you let me do as +much as that for you?” he groaned out.</p> +<p>“No, I can't,” said Charlotte. “You must take +it back, Barney.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte, can't you—take that much from +me?”</p> +<p>“I can take nothing from you as things are,” +Charlotte replied.</p> +<p>“I wanted you to have a dress. I saw you had given the +other away. I didn't think—there was any harm in buying it +for you, Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“It isn't your place to buy dresses for me as things +are,” said Charlotte. She extended the package, and he took +it, as if by force. She heard him sob.</p> +<p>“You must never try to do anything like this again,” +she said. “I want you to understand it, Barney.”</p> +<p>Then she went away, and left him standing there holding his +discarded gift.</p> +<h4 align="center"><a name="XIV">Chapter XIV</a></h4> +<p>After a while the village people ceased to have the affairs of +Barney Thayer and Charlotte Barnard particularly upon their minds. +As time went on, and nothing new developed in the case, they no +longer dwelt upon it. Circumstances, like people, soon show +familiar faces, and are no longer stared after and remarked. The +people all became accustomed to Barney living alone in his +half-furnished house season after season, and to Charlotte walking +her solitary maiden path. They seldom spoke of it among themselves; +sometimes, when a stranger came to town, they pointed out Barney +and Charlotte as they would have any point of local interest.</p> +<p>“Do you see that house?” a woman bent on hospitable +entertainment said as she drove a matronly cousin from another +village down the street; “the one with the front windows +boarded up, without any step to the front door? Well, Barney Thayer +lives there all alone. He's old Caleb Thayer's son, all the son +that's left; the other one died. There was some talk of his +mother's whippin' him to death. She died right after, but they said +afterwards that she didn't, that he run away one night, an' went +slidin' downhill, an' that was what killed him; he'd always had +heart trouble. I dunno; I always thought Deborah Thayer was a +pretty good woman, but she was pretty set. I guess Barney takes +after her. He was goin' with Charlotte Barnard years ago—I +guess 'twas as much as nine or ten years ago, now—an' they +were goin' to be married. She was all ready—weddin'-dress an' +bonnet an' everything—an' this house was 'most done an' ready +for them to move into; but one Sunday night Barney he went up to +see Charlotte, an' he got into a dispute with her father about the +'lection, an' the old man he ordered Barney out of the house, an' +Barney he went out, an' he never went in again—couldn't +nobody make him. His mother she talked; it 'most killed her; an' I +guess Charlotte said all she could, but he wouldn't stir a peg.</p> +<p>“He went right to livin' in his new house, an' he lives +there now; he ain't married, an' Charlotte ain't. She's had +chances, too. Squire Payne's son, he wanted her bad.”</p> +<p>The visiting cousin's mild, interrogative face peered out around +the black panel of the covered wagon at Barney's poor house; her +spectacles glittered at it in the sun. “I want to +know!” said she, with the expression of strained, entertained +amiability which she wore through her visit.</p> +<p>When they passed the Barnard house the Pembroke woman partly +drew rein again; the old horse meandered in a zigzag curve, with +his head lopping. “That's where Charlotte Barnard +lives,” she said. Suddenly she lowered her voice. +“There she is now, out in the yard,” she whispered.</p> +<p>Again the visiting cousin peered out. “She's good-lookin', +ain't she?” she remarked, cautiously viewing Charlotte's +straight figure and fair face as she came towards them out of the +yard.</p> +<p>“She ain't so good-lookin' as she used to be,” +rejoined the other woman. “I guess she's goin' down to her +aunt Sylvy's—Sylvy Crane as was. She married Richard Alger a +while ago, after she'd been goin' with him over twenty year. He's +fixed up the old Crane place. It got dreadful run down, an' Sylvy +she actually set out for the poor-house, an' Richard he stopped +Jonathan Leavitt, he was carryin' of her over there, an' he brought +her home, an' married her right off. That brought him to the point. +Sylvy lives on the old road; we can drive round that way when we go +home, an' I'll show you the place.”</p> +<p>When they presently drove down the green length of the old road, +the visiting cousin spied interestedly at Sylvia's house and +Sylvia's own delicate profile frilled about with lace, drooping +like the raceme of some white flower in one of the windows.</p> +<p>“That's her at the window,” whispered the Pembroke +woman, “an' there's Richard out there in the +bean-poles.” Just then Richard peered out at them from the +green ranks of the beans at the sound of their wheels, and the +Pembroke woman nodded, with a cough.</p> +<p>They drove slowly out of the old road into the main-travelled +one, and presently passed the old Thayer house. A woman's figure +fled hurriedly up the yard into the house as they approached. There +was a curious shrinking look about her as she fled, her very +clothes, her muslin skirts, her light barège shawl, her +green bonnet, seemed to slant away before the eyes of the two women +who were watching her.</p> +<p>The Pembroke woman leaned close to her cousin's ear, and +whispered with a sharp hiss of breath. The cousin started and +colored red all over her matronly face and neck. She stared with a +furtive shamed air at poor Rebecca hastening into her house. The +door closed after her with a quick slam.</p> +<p>It was always to Rebecca, years beyond her transgression, +admitted ostensibly to her old standing in the village, as if an +odor of disgrace and isolation still clung to her, shaken out from +her every motion from the very folds of her garments. It came in +her own nostrils wherever she went, like a miserable emanation of +her own personality. She always shrank back lest others noticed it, +and she always would. She particularly shunned strangers. The sight +of a strange woman clothed about with utter respectability and +strictest virtue intimidated her beyond her power of self-control, +for she always wondered if she had been told about her, and +realized that, if she had, her old disgrace had assumed in this new +mind a hideous freshness.</p> +<p>After the door had slammed behind Rebecca the two women drove +home, and the guest was presently feasted on company-fare for +supper, and all these strange tragedies and histories to which she +had listened had less of a savor in her memory, than the fine green +tea and the sweet cake on her tongue. The hostess, too, did not +have them in mind any longer; she pressed the plum-cake and hot +biscuits and honey on her cousin, in lieu of gossip, for +entertainment. The stories were old to her, except as she found a +new listener to them, and they had never had any vital interest for +her. They had simply made her imagination twang pleasantly, and now +they could hardly stir the old vibrations.</p> +<p>It seemed sometimes as if their hard story must finally grow +old, and lose its bitter savor to Charlotte and Barney themselves. +Sometimes Charlotte's mother looked at her inquiringly and said to +herself, “I don't believe she ever thinks about it +now.” She told Cephas so, and the old man nodded. +“She's a fool if she does,” he returned, gruffly.</p> +<p>Cephas had never told anybody how he had gone once to Barney +Thayer's door, and there stood long and delivered himself of a +strange harangue, wherein the penitence and desire for peace had +been thinly veiled by a half-wild and eccentric philosophy; but the +gist of which had been the humble craving for pardon of an old man, +and his beseeching that his daughter's lover, separated from her by +his own fault, should forget it and come back to her.</p> +<p>“I haven't got anything to say about it,” Barney had +replied, and the old man had seemed to experience a sudden shock +and rebound, as from the unexpected face of a rock in his path.</p> +<p>However, he still hoped that Barney would relent and come. The +next Sunday evening he had himself laid the parlor fire all ready +for lighting, and hinted that Charlotte should change her dress. +When nobody came he looked more crestfallen than his daughter; she +suspected, although he never knew it.</p> +<p>Charlotte had never learned any trade, but she had a reputation +for great natural skill with her needle. Gradually, as she grew +older, she settled into the patient single-woman position as +assister at feasts, instead of participator. When a village girl of +a younger generation than herself was to be married, she was in +great demand for the preparation of the bridal outfit and the +finest needle-work. She would go day after day to the house of the +bride-elect, and sew from early morning until late night upon the +elaborate quilts, the dainty linen, and the fine new +wedding-gowns.</p> +<p>She bore herself always with a steady cheerfulness; nobody +dreamed that this preparing others for the happiness which she +herself had lost was any trial to her. Nobody dreamed that every +stitch which she set in wedding-garments took painfully in a piece +of her own heart, and that not from envy. Her faithful needle, as +she sewed, seemed to keep her old wounds open like a harrow, but +she never shrank. She saw the sweet, foolish smiles and blushes of +happy girls whose very wits were half astray under the dazzle of +love; she felt them half tremble under her hands as she fitted the +bridal-gowns to their white shoulders, as if under the touch of +their lovers.</p> +<p>They walked before her and met her like doppelgängers, +wearing the self-same old joy of her own face, but she looked at +them unswervingly. It is harder to look at the likeness of one's +joy than at one's old sorrow, for the one was dearer. If +Charlotte's task whereby she earned her few shillings had been the +consoling and strengthening of poor forsaken, jilted girls, instead +of the arraying of brides, it would have been a happier and an +easier one.</p> +<p>But she sat sewing fine, even stitches by the light of the +evening candle, hearing the soft murmur of voices from the best +rooms, where the fond couples sat, smiling like a soldier over her +work. She pinned on bridal veils and flowers, and nobody knew that +her own face instead of the bride's seemed to smile mockingly at +her through the veil.</p> +<p>She was much happier, although she would have sternly denied it +to herself, when she was watching with the sick and putting her +wonderful needle-work into shrouds, for it was in request for that +also.</p> +<p>Except for an increase in staidness and dignity, and a certain +decorous change in her garments, Charlotte Barnard did not seem to +grow old at all. Her girlish bloom never faded under her sober +bonnet, although ten years had gone by since her own marriage had +been broken off.</p> +<p>Barney used to watch furtively Charlotte going past. He knew +quite well when she was helping such and such a girl get ready to +be married. He saw her going home, a swift shadowy figure, after +dark, with her few poor shillings in her pocket. That she should go +out to work filled him with a fierce resentment. With a childish +and masculine disregard for all except bare actualities, he could +not see why she need to, why she could not let him help her. He +knew that Cephas Barnard's income was very meagre, that Charlotte +needed her little earnings for the barest necessaries; but why +could she not let him give them to her?</p> +<p>Barney was laying up money. He had made his will, whereby he +left everything to Charlotte, and to her children after her if she +married. He worked very hard. In summer he tilled his great farm, +in winter he cut wood.</p> +<p>The winter of the tenth year after his quarrel with Charlotte +was a very severe one—full of snow-storms and fierce winds, +and bitterly cold. All winter long the swamps were frozen up, and +men could get into them to cut wood. Barney went day after day and +cut the wood in a great swamp a mile behind his house. He stood +from morning until night hewing down the trees, which had gotten +their lusty growth from the graves of their own kind. Their roots +were sunken deep among and twined about the very bones of their +fathers which helped make up the rich frozen soil of the great +swamp. The crusty snow was three feet deep; the tall blackberry +vines were hooped with snow, set fast at either end like snares: it +was hard work making one's way through them. The snow was over the +heads of those dried weeds which did not blow away in the autumn, +but stayed on their stalks with that persistency of life that +outlives death; but all the sturdy bushes, which were almost trees, +the swamp-pinks and the wild-roses, waxed gigantic, lost their own +outlines, and stretched out farther under their loads of snow.</p> +<p>Barney hewed wood in the midst of this white tangle of trees and +bushes and vines, which were like a wild, dumb multitude of +death-things pressing ever against him, trying to crowd him away. +When he hit them as he passed, they swung back in his face with a +semblance of life. If a squirrel chattered and leaped between some +white boughs, he started as if some dead thing had come to life, +for it seemed like the voice and motion of death rather than of +life.</p> +<p>Half a mile away at the right other wood-cutters were at work. +When the wind was the right way he could now and then hear the +strokes of their axes and a shout. Often as he worked alone, +swinging his axe steadily with his breath in a white cloud before +his face, he amused himself miserably—as one might with a +bitter sweetmeat—with his old dreams.</p> +<p>He had no dreams in the present; they all belonged to the past, +and he dreamed them over as one sings over old songs. Sometimes it +seemed quite possible that they still belonged to his life, and +might still come true.</p> +<p>Then he would hear a hoarse shout through the still air from the +other side of the swamp, and he would know suddenly that Charlotte +would never wait in his home yonder, while he worked, and welcome +him home at night.</p> +<p>The other wood-cutters had families. They had to pass his lot on +their way out to the open road. Barney would either retreat farther +among the snowy thickets, or else work with such fury that he could +seem not to see them as they filed past.</p> +<p>Often he did not go home at noon, and ate nothing from morn +until night. He cut wood many days that winter when the other men +thought the weather too severe and sat huddled over their fires in +their homes, shoving their chairs this and that way at their wives' +commands, or else formed chewing and gossiping rings within the +glowing radius of the red-hot store stove.</p> +<p>“See Barney Thayer goin' cross lots with his axe as I come +by,” one said to another, rolling the tobacco well back into +his grizzled cheek.</p> +<p>“Works as if he was possessed,” was the reply, in a +half-inarticulate, gruff murmur.</p> +<p>“Well, he can if he wants to,” said still another. +“I ain't goin' to work out-doors in any such weather as this +for nobody, not if I know it, an' I've got a wife an' eight +children, an' he ain't got nobody.” And the man cast defiant +eyes at the great store-windows, dim with thick blue sheaves of +frost.</p> +<p>On a day like that Barney seemed to be hewing asunder not only +the sturdy fibres of oak and hemlock, but the terrible sinews of +frost and winter, and many a tree seemed to rear itself over him +threatening stiffly like an old man of death. Only by fierce +contest, as it were, could he keep himself alive, but he had a +certain delight in working in the swamp during those awful arctic +days. The sense that he could still fight and conquer something, +were it only the simple destructive force of nature, aroused in him +new self-respect.</p> +<p>Through snow-storms Barney plunged forth to the swamp, and +worked all day in the thick white slant of the storm, with the snow +heaping itself upon his bowed shoulders.</p> +<p>People prophesied that he would kill himself; but he kept on day +after day, and had not even a cold until February. Then there came +a south rain and a thaw, and Barney went to the swamp and worked +two days knee-deep in melting snow. Then there was a morning when +he awoke as if on a bed of sharp knives, and lay alone all day and +all that night, and all the next day and that night, not being able +to stir without making the knives cut into his vitals.</p> +<p>Barney lay there all that time, and his soul became fairly bound +into passiveness with awful fetters of fiery bone and muscle; +sometimes he groaned, but nobody heard him. The last night he felt +as if his whole physical nature was knitting about him and stifling +him with awful coils of pain. The tears rolled over his cheeks. He +prayed with hoarse gasps, and he could not tell if anybody heard +him. A dim light from a window in the Barnard house on the hill lay +into the kitchen opposite his bedroom door. He thought of +Charlotte, as if he had been a child and she his mother. The +maternal and protecting element in her love was all that appealed +to him then, and all that he missed or wanted. “Charlotte, +Charlotte,” he mumbled to himself with his parched, quivering +lips.</p> +<p>At noon the next day Cephas Barnard came home from the store; he +had been down to buy some molasses. When he entered his kitchen he +set the jug down on the table with a hard clap, then stood still in +his wet boots.</p> +<p>Sarah and Charlotte were getting dinner, both standing over the +stove. Sarah glanced at Cephas furtively, then at Charlotte; Cephas +never stirred. A pool of water collected around his boots, his +brows bent moodily under his cap.</p> +<p>“Why don't you set down, Cephas, an' take off your +boots?” Sarah ventured at length, timidly.</p> +<p>“Folks are fools,” grunted Cephas.</p> +<p>“I dunno what you mean, Cephas.”</p> +<p>Cephas got the boot-jack out of the corner, sat down, and began +jerking off the wet boots with sympathetic screws of his face.</p> +<p>Sarah stood with a wooden spoon uplifted, eying him anxiously. +Charlotte went into the pantry.</p> +<p>“There 'ain't anythin' happened, has there, Cephas?” +said Sarah, presently.</p> +<p>Cephas pulled off the second boot, and sat holding his blue yarn +stocking-feet well up from the wet floor. “There ain't no +need of havin' the rheumatiz, accordin' to my way of +thinkin',” said he.</p> +<p>“Who's got the rheumatiz, Cephas?”</p> +<p>“If folks lived right they wouldn't have it.”</p> +<p>“You 'ain't got it, have you, Cephas?”</p> +<p>“I 'ain't never had a tech of it in my life except once, +an' then 'twas due to my not drinkin' enough.”</p> +<p>“Not drinkin' enough?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I didn't drink enough water. Folks with rheumatiz +had ought to drink all the water they can swaller. They had ought +to drink more'n they eat.”</p> +<p>“I dunno what you mean, Cephas.”</p> +<p>“It stands to reason. I've worked it all out in my mind. +Rheumatiz comes on in wet weather, because there's too much water +an' damp 'round. Now, if there's too much water outside, you can +kind of even it up by takin' more water inside. The reason for any +sickness is—the balance ain't right. The weight gets shifted, +an' folks begin to topple, then they're sick. If it goes clean +over, they die. The balance has got to be kept even if you want to +be well. When the swamps are fillin' up with water, an' there's too +much moisture in the outside air, an' too much pressure of it on +your bones an' joints, if you swallow enough water inside it keeps +things even. If Barney Thayer had drunk a gallon of water a day, he +might have worked in the wet swamp till doomsday an' he wouldn't +have got the rheumatiz.”</p> +<p>“Has Barney Thayer got the rheumatiz, Cephas?”</p> +<p>Charlotte's pale face appeared in the pantry door.</p> +<p>“Yes, he has got it bad. 'Ain't stirred out of his bed +since night before last; been all alone; nobody knew it till +William Berry went in this forenoon. Guess he'd died there if he'd +been left much longer.”</p> +<p>“Who's with him now?” asked Charlotte, in a quick, +strained voice.</p> +<p>“The Ray boy is sittin' with him, whilst William is gone +to the North Village to see if he can get somebody to come. There's +a widow woman over there that goes out nussin', Silas said, an' +they hope they can get her. The doctor says he's got to have +somebody.”</p> +<p>“Rebecca can't do anything, of course,” said Sarah, +meditatively; “he 'ain't got any of his own folks to come, +poor feller.”</p> +<p>Charlotte crossed the kitchen floor with a resolute air.</p> +<p>“What are you goin' to do, Charlotte?” her mother +asked in a trembling voice.</p> +<p>Charlotte turned around and faced her father and mother. +“I shouldn't think you'd ask me,” said she.</p> +<p>“You ain't—goin'—over—?”</p> +<p>“Of course I am going over there. Do you suppose I am +going to let him lie there and suffer all alone, with nobody to +take care of him?”</p> +<p>“There's—the woman—comin'.”</p> +<p>“She can't come. I know who the woman is. They tried to +get her when Squire Payne's sister died last week. Aunt Sylvy told +me about it. She was engaged 'way ahead.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte! I'm afraid you hadn't ought to go,” +her mother said, half crying.</p> +<p>“I've got to go, mother,” Charlotte said, quietly. +She opened the door.</p> +<p>“You come back here!” Cephas called after her in a +great voice.</p> +<p>Charlotte turned around. “I am going, father,” said +she.</p> +<p>“You ain't goin' a step.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I am.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte! I'll go over,” sobbed her +mother.</p> +<p>“You haven't gone a step out-doors for a month with your +own lame knee. I am the one to go, and I am going.”</p> +<p>“You ain't goin' a step.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Charlotte! I'm afraid you hadn't better,” +wailed Sarah.</p> +<p>Charlotte stood before them both. “Look here, father and +mother,” said she. “I've never gone against your wishes +in my life, but now I'm going to. It's my duty to. I was going to +marry him once.”</p> +<p>“You didn't marry him,” said Cephas.</p> +<p>“I was willing to marry him, and that amounts to the same +thing for any woman,” said Charlotte. “It is just as +much my duty to go to him when he's sick; I am going. There's no +use talking, I am going.”</p> +<p>“You needn't come home again, then,” said her +father.</p> +<p>“Oh, Cephas!” Sarah cried out. “Charlotte, +don't go against your father's wishes! Charlotte!”</p> +<p>But Charlotte shut the door and hurried up-stairs to her room. +Her mother followed her, trembling. Cephas sat still, dangling his +stocking-feet clear of the floor. He had an ugly look on his face. +Presently he heard the two women coming down-stairs, and his wife's +sobbing, pleading voice; then he heard the parlor door shut; +Charlotte had gone through the house, and out the front door.</p> +<p>Sarah came in, sniffing piteously. “Oh, Cephas! don't you +be hard on the poor child; she felt as if she had got to go,” +she said, chokingly.</p> +<p>Cephas got up, went padding softly and cautiously in his +stocking-feet across the floor to the sink, and took a long drink +with loud gulps out of the gourd in the water-pail.</p> +<p>“I don't want to have no more talk about it; I've said my +say,” said he, with a hard breath, wiping his mouth with the +back of his hand.</p> +<p>Charlotte, with a little bundle under her arm, hastened down the +hill. When she reached Barney's house she went around and knocked +at the side door. As she went into the yard she could see dimly a +white-capped woman's head in a south window of the Thayer house +farther down the road, and she knew that Rebecca's nurse was +watching her. Rebecca's second baby was a week old, so she could do +nothing for her brother.</p> +<p>Charlotte knocked softly and waited. She heard a loud clamping +step across the floor inside, and a whistle. A boy opened the door +and stood staring at her, half abashed, half impudently important, +his mouth still puckered with the whistle.</p> +<p>“Is there anybody here but you, Ezra?” asked +Charlotte.</p> +<p>The boy shook his head.</p> +<p>“I have come to take care of Mr. Thayer now,” said +Charlotte.</p> +<p>She entered, and Ezra Ray stood aside, rolling his eyes after +her as she went through the kitchen. He whistled again half +involuntarily, a sudden jocular pipe on the brink of motion, like a +bird. Charlotte turned and shook her head at him, and he stopped +short. He sat down on a chair near the door, and dangled his feet +irresolutely.</p> +<p>Charlotte went into the bedroom where Barney lay, a rigidly +twisted, groaning heap under a mass of bed-clothing, which Ezra Ray +had kept over him with energy. She bent over him. “I've come +to take care of you, Barney,” said she. His eyes, half dazed +in his burning face, looked up at her with scarcely any +surprise.</p> +<p align="center"><img src="images/pem15.png" width="372" height="347" +alt="[Illustration: “‘I've come to take care of you’”]"> +</p> +<p>Charlotte laid back some of the bedclothes whose weight was a +torture, and straightened the others. She worked about the house +noiselessly and swiftly. She was skilful in the care of the sick; +she had had considerable experience. Soon everything was clean and +in order; there was a pleasant smell of steeping herbs through the +house. Charlotte had set an old remedy of her mother's steeping +over the fire—a harmless old-wives' decoction, with which to +supplement the doctor's remedies, and give new courage to the +patient's mind.</p> +<p>Barney came to think that this remedy which Charlotte prepared +was of more efficacy than any which the doctor mixed in his +gallipots. That is, when he could think at all, and his mind and +soul was able to reassert itself over his body. He had a hard +illness, and after he was out of bed he could only sit bent +miserably over in a quilt-covered rocking-chair beside the fire. He +could not straighten himself up without agonizing pain. People +thought that he never would, and he thought so himself. His +grandfather, his mother's father, had been in a similar condition +for years before his death. People called that to mind, and so did +Barney. “He's goin' to be the way his grandfather Emmons +was,” the men said in the store. Barney could dimly remember +that old figure bent over almost on all-fours like a dog; its +wretched, grizzled face turned towards the earth with a brooding +sternness of contemplation. He wondered miserably where his +grandfather's old cane was, when he should be strong enough in his +pain-locked muscles to leave his rocking-chair and crawl about in +the spring sunshine. It used to be in the garret of the old house. +He thought that he would ask Rebecca or William to look for it some +day. He hesitated to speak about it. He half dreaded to think that +the time was coming when he would be strong enough to move about, +for then he was afraid Charlotte would leave him and go home. He +had been afraid that she would when he left his bed. He had a +childishly guilty feeling that he had perhaps stayed there a little +longer than was necessary on that account. One Sunday the doctor +had said quite decisively to Charlotte, “It won't hurt him +any to be got up a little while to-morrow. It will be better for +him. You can get William to come in and help.” Charlotte had +come back from the door and reported to Barney, and he had turned +his face away with a quivering sigh.</p> +<p>“Why, what is the matter? Don't you want to be got +up?” asked Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Barney, miserably.</p> +<p>“What is the matter?” Charlotte said, bending over +him. “Don't you feel well enough?”</p> +<p>Barney gave her a pitiful, shamed look like a child. +“You'll go, then,” he half sobbed.</p> +<p>Charlotte turned away quickly. “I shall not go as long as +you need me, Barney,” she said, with a patient dignity.</p> +<p>Barney did not dream against what odds Charlotte had stayed with +him. Her mother had come repeatedly, and expostulated with her out +in the entry when she went away.</p> +<p>“It ain't fit for you to stay here, as if you was married +to him, when you ain't, and ain't ever goin' to be, as near as I +can make out,” she said. “William can get that woman +over to the North Village now, or I can come, or your aunt Hannah +would come for a while, till Rebecca gets well enough to see to him +a little. She was sayin' yesterday that it wa'n't fit for you to +stay here.”</p> +<p>“I'm here, and I'm going to stay here till he's better +than he is now,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“Folks will talk.”</p> +<p>“I can't help it if they do. I'm doing what I think is +right.”</p> +<p>“It ain't fit for an unmarried woman like you to be takin' +care of him,” said her mother, and a sudden blush flamed over +her old face.</p> +<p>Charlotte did not blush at all. “William comes in every +day,” she said, simply.</p> +<p>“I think he could get along a while now with what William +does an' what we could cook an' bring in,” pleaded her +mother. “I'd come over every day an' set a while; I'd jest as +lieves as not. If you'd only come home, Charlotte. Your father +didn't mean anythin' when he said you shouldn't. He asked me jest +this mornin' when you was comin'.”</p> +<p>“I ain't coming till he's well enough so he don't need +me,” said Charlotte. “There's no use talking, mother. I +must go back now; he'll wonder what we're talking about;” and +she shut the door gently upon her mother, still talking.</p> +<p>Her aunt Hannah came, and her aunt Sylvia, quaking with gentle +fears. She even had to listen to remonstrances from William Berry, +honestly grateful as he was for her care of his brother-in-law.</p> +<p>“I ain't quite sure that it's right for you to stay here, +Charlotte,” he said, looking away from her uncomfortably. +“Rebecca says—‘Hadn't you better let me go for +that woman again?’”</p> +<p>“I think I had better stay for the present,” +Charlotte replied.</p> +<p>“Of course—I know you do better for him—than +anybody else could, but—”</p> +<p>“How is Rebecca?” asked Charlotte.</p> +<p>“She is getting along pretty well, but it's slow. She's +kind of worried about you, you know. She's had considerable herself +to bear. It's hard to have folks—” William stopped +short, his face burning.</p> +<p>“I am not afraid, if I know I am doing what is +right,” said Charlotte. “You tell Rebecca I am coming +in to see her as soon as I can get a chance.”</p> +<p>One contingency had never occurred to Barney in his helpless +clinging to Charlotte. He had never once dreamed that people might +talk disparagingly about her in consequence. He had, partly from +his isolated life, partly from natural bent, a curious innocence +and ignorance in his conception of human estimates of conduct. He +had not the same vantage-points with many other people, and indeed +in many cases seemed to hold the identical ones which he had chosen +when a child and first observed anything.</p> +<p>If now and then he overheard a word of expostulation, he never +interpreted it rightly. He thought that people considered it wrong +for Charlotte to do so much for him, and weary herself, when he had +treated her so badly. And he agreed with them.</p> +<p>He thought that he should never stand upright again. He went +always before his own mental vision bent over like his grandfather, +his face inclined ever downward towards his miserable future.</p> +<p>Still, as he sat after William had gotten him up in the morning, +bowed over pitifully in his chair, there was at times a strange +look in his eyes as he watched Charlotte moving about, which seemed +somehow to give the lie to his bent back. Often Charlotte would +start as she met this look, and think involuntarily that he was +quite straight; then she would come to her old vision with a shock, +and see him sitting there as he was.</p> +<p>At last there came a day when the minister and one of the +deacons of the church called and asked to see Charlotte privately. +Barney looked at them, startled and quite white. They sat with him +quite a long while, when, after many coercive glances between the +deacon and the minister, the latter had finally arisen and made the +request, in a trembling, embarrassed voice.</p> +<p>Charlotte led them at once into the unfinished front parlor, +with its boarded-up windows. Barney heard her open the front door +to give them light and air. He sat still and waited, breathing +hard. A terrible dread and curiosity came over him. It seemed as if +his soul overreached his body into that other room. Without +overhearing a word, suddenly a knowledge quite foreign to his own +imagination seemed to come to him.</p> +<p>Presently he heard the front door shut, then Charlotte came in +alone. She was very pale, but she had a sweet, exalted look as her +eyes met Barney's.</p> +<p>“Have they gone?” he asked, hoarsely.</p> +<p>Charlotte nodded.</p> +<p>“What—did they want?”</p> +<p>“Never mind,” said Charlotte.</p> +<p>“I want to know.”</p> +<p>“It is nothing for you to worry about.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said Barney.</p> +<p>“You didn't hear anything?” Charlotte cried out in a +startled voice.</p> +<p>“No, I didn't hear, but I know. The +church—don't—think you ought to—stay here. They +are—going to—take it—up. I never—thought of +that, Charlotte. I never thought of that.”</p> +<p>“Don't you worry anything about it.” Charlotte had +never touched him, except to minister to his illness, since she had +been there. Now she went close, and smoothed his hair with her +tender hands. “Don't you worry,” she said again.</p> +<p>Barney looked up in her face. “Charlotte.”</p> +<p>“What is it?”</p> +<p>“I—want you—to go—home.”</p> +<p>Charlotte started. “I shall not go home as long as you +need me,” she said. “You need not think I mind what +they say.”</p> +<p>“I—want you to go home.”</p> +<p>“Barney!”</p> +<p>“I mean what—I say. I—want you to +go—now.”</p> +<p>“Not now?”</p> +<p>“Yes, now.”</p> +<p>Charlotte drew back; her lips wore a white line. She went out +into the front south room, where she had slept. She did not come +back. Barney listened until he heard the front door shut after her. +Then he waited fifteen minutes, with his eyes upon the clock. Then +he got up out of his chair. He moved his body as if it were some +piece of machinery outside himself, as if his will were full of +dominant muscles. He got his hat off the peg, where it had hung for +weeks; he went out of the house and out of the yard.</p> +<p>His sister Rebecca was moving feebly up the road with her little +baby in her arms. She was taking her first walk out in the spring +sunshine. The nurse had gone away the week before. Her face was +clear and pale. All her sweet color was gone, but her eyes were +radiant, and she held up her head in the old way. This new love was +lifting her above her old memories.</p> +<p>She stared wonderingly over the baby's little downy head at her +brother. “It can't be Barney,” she said out loud to +herself. She stood still in the road, staring after him with parted +lips. The baby wailed softly, and she hushed it mechanically, her +great, happy, startled eyes fixed upon her brother.</p> +<p>Barnabas went on up the hill to Charlotte Barnard's. The spring +was advancing. All the trees were full of that green nebula of life +which comes before the blossom. Little wings, bearing birds and +songs, cut the air. A bluebird shone on a glistening fence-rail, +like a jewel on a turned hand. Over across the fields red oxen were +moving down plough-ridges, the green grass was springing, the air +was full of that strange fragrance which is more than fragrance, +since it strikes the thoughts, which comes in the spring alone, +being the very odor thrown off by the growing motion of life and +the resurrection.</p> +<p>Barney Thayer went slowly up the hill with a curious gait and +strange gestures, as if his own angel were wrestling with himself, +casting him off with strong motions as of wings.</p> +<p>He fought, as it were, his way step by step. He reached the top +of the hill, and went into the yard of the Barnard house. Sarah +Barnard saw him coming, and shrieked out, “There's Barney, +there's Barney Thayer comin'! He's walkin', he's walkin' straight +as anybody!”</p> +<p>When Barney reached the door, they all stood there—Cephas +and Sarah and Charlotte. Barney stood before them all with that +noble bearing which comes from humility itself when it has fairly +triumphed.</p> +<p>Charlotte came forward, and he put his arm around her. Then he +looked over her head at her father. “I've come back,” +said he.</p> +<p>“Come in,” said Cephas.</p> +<p>And Barney entered the house with his old sweetheart and his old +self.</p> +<p align="center"><br> +THE END</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pembroke, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEMBROKE *** + +***** This file should be named 17428-h.htm or 17428-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/2/17428/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem01.png b/17428-h/images/pem01.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4436c00 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem01.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem02.png b/17428-h/images/pem02.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9766080 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem02.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem03.png b/17428-h/images/pem03.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..657ea83 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem03.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem04.png b/17428-h/images/pem04.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5480b86 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem04.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem05.png b/17428-h/images/pem05.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a9cb9e --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem05.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem06.png b/17428-h/images/pem06.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bac1d86 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem06.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem07.png b/17428-h/images/pem07.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3528bf --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem07.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem08.png b/17428-h/images/pem08.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9a49c4e --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem08.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem09.png b/17428-h/images/pem09.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1077b59 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem09.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem10.png b/17428-h/images/pem10.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2fc1acc --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem10.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem11.png b/17428-h/images/pem11.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a18af5e --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem11.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem12.png b/17428-h/images/pem12.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..89f33b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem12.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem13.png b/17428-h/images/pem13.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f0199a --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem13.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem14.png b/17428-h/images/pem14.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c912c73 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem14.png diff --git a/17428-h/images/pem15.png b/17428-h/images/pem15.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..68efe2c --- /dev/null +++ b/17428-h/images/pem15.png diff --git a/17428.txt b/17428.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f7c7f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/17428.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10184 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pembroke, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pembroke + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: December 31, 2005 [EBook #17428] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEMBROKE *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: +The images for this text were scanned from the 1894 edition. + + + + +Pembroke + +Mary E. Wilkins + +Harper & Brothers Publishers; New York: 1900 + + +[Illustration: "'It's beautiful,' Rose said"] + + +Introductory Sketch + + +_Pembroke_ was originally intended as a study of the human will in +several New England characters, in different phases of disease and +abnormal development, and to prove, especially in the most marked +case, the truth of a theory that its cure depended entirely upon the +capacity of the individual for a love which could rise above all +considerations of self, as Barnabas Thayer's love for Charlotte +Barnard finally did. + +While Barnabas Thayer is the most pronounced exemplification of this +theory, and while he, being drawn from life, originally suggested the +scheme of the study, a number of the other characters, notably +Deborah Thayer, Richard Alger, and Cephas Barnard, are instances of +the same spiritual disease. Barnabas to me was as much the victim of +disease as a man with curvature of the spine; he was incapable of +straightening himself to his former stature until he had laid hands +upon a more purely unselfish love than he had ever known, through his +anxiety for Charlotte, and so raised himself to his own level. + +When I make use of the term abnormal, I do not mean unusual in any +sense. I am far from any intention to speak disrespectfully or +disloyally of those stanch old soldiers of the faith who landed upon +our inhospitable shores and laid the foundation, as on a very rock of +spirit, for the New England of to-day; but I am not sure, in spite of +their godliness, and their noble adherence, in the face of obstacles, +to the dictates of their consciences, that their wills were not +developed past the reasonable limit of nature. What wonder is it that +their descendants inherit this peculiarity, though they may develop +it for much less worthy and more trivial causes than the exiling +themselves for a question of faith, even the carrying-out of personal +and petty aims and quarrels? + +There lived in a New England village, at no very remote time, a man +who objected to the painting of the kitchen floor, and who quarrelled +furiously with his wife concerning the same. When she persisted, in +spite of his wishes to the contrary, and the floor was painted, he +refused to cross it to his dying day, and always, to his great +inconvenience, but probably to his soul's satisfaction, walked around +it. + +A character like this, holding to a veriest trifle with such a +deathless cramp of the will, might naturally be regarded as a notable +exception to a general rule; but his brethren who sit on church steps +during services, who are dumb to those whom they should love, and +will not enter familiar doors because of quarrels over matters of +apparently no moment, are legion. _Pembroke_ is intended to portray a +typical New England village of some sixty years ago, as many of the +characters flourished at that time, but villages of a similar +description have existed in New England at a much later date, and +they exist to-day in a very considerable degree. There are at the +present time many little towns in New England along whose pleasant +elm or maple shaded streets are scattered characters as pronounced as +any in Pembroke. A short time since a Boston woman recited in my +hearing a list of seventy-five people in the very small Maine village +in which she was born and brought up, and every one of the characters +which she mentioned had some almost incredibly marked physical or +mental characteristic. + +However, this state of things--this survival of the more prominent +traits of the old stiff-necked ones, albeit their necks were +stiffened by their resistance of the adversary--can necessarily be +known only to the initiated. The sojourner from cities for the summer +months cannot often penetrate in the least, though he may not be +aware of it, the reserve and dignified aloofness of the dwellers in +the white cottages along the road over which he drives. He often +looks upon them from the superior height of a wise and keen student +of character; he knows what he thinks of them, but he never knows +what they think of him or themselves. Unless he is a man of the +broadest and most democratic tendencies, to whom culture and the +polish of society is as nothing beside humanity, and unless he +returns, as faithfully as the village birds to their nests, to his +summer home year after year, he cannot see very far below the +surfaces of villages of which Pembroke is typical. Quite naturally, +when the surfaces are broken by some unusual revelation of a +strongly serrate individuality, and the tale thereof is told +at his dinner-table with an accompaniment of laughter and +exclamation-points, he takes that case for an isolated and by no +means typical one, when, if the truth were told, the village windows +are full of them as he passes by. + +However, this state of things must necessarily exist, and has +existed, in villages which, like Pembroke, have not been brought much +in contact with outside influences, and have not been studied or +observed at all by people not of their kind by birth or long +familiarity. In towns which have increased largely in population, and +have become more or less assimilated with a foreign element, these +characters do not exist in such a large measure, are more isolated in +reality, and have, consequently, less claim to be considered types. +But there have been, and are to-day in New England, hundreds of +villages like Pembroke, where nearly every house contains one or more +characters so marked as to be incredible, though a writer may be +prevented, for obvious reasons, from mentioning names and proving +facts. + +There is often to a mind from the outside world an almost repulsive +narrowness and a pitiful sordidness which amounts to tragedy in the +lives of such people as those portrayed in _Pembroke_, but quite +generally the tragedy exists only in the comprehension of the +observer and not at all in that of the observed. The pitied would +meet pity with resentment; they would be full of wonder and wrath if +told that their lives were narrow, since they have never seen the +limit of the breadth of their current of daily life. A singing-school +is as much to them as a symphony concert and grand opera to their +city brethren, and a sewing church sociable as an afternoon tea. +Though the standard of taste of the simple villagers, and their +complete satisfaction therewith, may reasonably be lamented, as also +their restricted view of life, they are not to be pitied, generally +speaking, for their unhappiness in consequence. It may be that the +lack of unhappiness constitutes the real tragedy. + + + +Chapter I + + +At half-past six o'clock on Sunday night Barnabas came out of his +bedroom. The Thayer house was only one story high, and there were no +chambers. A number of little bedrooms were clustered around the three +square rooms--the north and south parlors, and the great kitchen. + +Barnabas walked out of his bedroom straight into the kitchen where +the other members of the family were. They sat before the hearth fire +in a semi-circle--Caleb Thayer, his wife Deborah, his son Ephraim, +and his daughter Rebecca. It was May, but it was quite cold; there +had been talk of danger to the apple blossoms; there was a crisp +coolness in the back of the great room in spite of the hearth fire. + +Caleb Thayer held a great leather-bound Bible on his knees, and was +reading aloud in a solemn voice. His wife sat straight in her chair, +her large face tilted with a judicial and argumentative air, and +Rebecca's red cheeks bloomed out more brilliantly in the heat of the +fire. She sat next her mother, and her smooth dark head with its +carven comb arose from her Sunday kerchief with a like carriage. She +and her mother did not look alike, but their motions were curiously +similar, and perhaps gave evidence to a subtler resemblance in +character and motive power. + +Ephraim, undersized for his age, in his hitching, home-made clothes, +twisted himself about when Barnabas entered, and stared at him with +slow regard. He eyed the smooth, scented hair, the black satin vest +with a pattern of blue flowers on it, the blue coat with brass +buttons, and the shining boots, then he whistled softly under his +breath. + +"Ephraim!" said his mother, sharply. She had a heavy voice and a +slight lisp, which seemed to make it more impressive and more +distinctively her own. Caleb read on ponderously. + +"Where ye goin', Barney?" Ephraim inquired, with a chuckle and a +grin, over the back of his chair. + +"Ephraim!" repeated his mother. Her blue eyes frowned around his +sister at him under their heavy sandy brows. + +Ephraim twisted himself back into position. "Jest wanted to know +where he was goin'," he muttered. + +Barnabas stood by the window brushing his fine bell hat with a white +duck's wing. He was a handsome youth; his profile showed clear and +fine in the light, between the sharp points of his dicky bound about +by his high stock. His cheeks were as red as his sister's. + +When he put on his hat and opened the door, his mother herself +interrupted Caleb's reading. + +"Don't you stay later than nine o'clock, Barnabas," said she. + +The young man murmured something unintelligibly, but his tone was +resentful. + +"I ain't going to have you out as long as you were last Sabbath +night," said his mother, in quick return. She jerked her chin down +heavily as if it were made of iron. + +Barnabas went out quickly, and shut the door with a thud. + +[Illustration: "Barnabas went out quickly"] + +"If he was a few years younger, I'd make him come back an' shut that +door over again," said his mother. + +Caleb read on; he was reading now one of the imprecatory psalms. +Deborah's blue eyes gleamed with warlike energy as she listened: she +confused King David's enemies with those people who crossed her own +will. + +Barnabas went out of the yard, which was wide and deep on the south +side of the house. The bright young grass was all snowed over with +cherry blossoms. Three great cherry-trees stood in a row through the +centre of the yard; they had been white with blossoms, but now they +were turning green; and the apple-trees were in flower. + +There were many apple-trees behind the stone-walls that bordered the +wood. The soft blooming branches looked strangely incongruous in the +keen air. The western sky was clear and yellow, and there were a few +reefs of violet cloud along it. Barnabas looked up at the apple +blossoms over his head, and wondered if there would be a frost. From +their apple orchard came a large share of the Thayer income, and +Barnabas was vitally interested in such matters now, for he was to be +married the last of June to Charlotte Barnard. He often sat down with +a pencil and slate, and calculated, with intricate sums, the amounts +of his income and their probable expenses. He had made up his mind +that Charlotte should have one new silk gown every year, and two new +bonnets--one for summer and one for winter. His mother had often +noted, with scorn, that Charlotte Barnard wore her summer bonnet with +another ribbon on it winters, and, moreover, had not had a new bonnet +for three years. + +"She looks handsomer in it than any girl in town, if she hasn't," +Barnabas had retorted with quick resentment, but he nevertheless felt +sensitive on the subject of Charlotte's bonnet, and resolved that she +should have a white one trimmed with gauze ribbons for summer, and +one of drawn silk, like Rebecca's, for winter, only the silk should +be blue instead of pink, because Charlotte was fair. + +Barnabas had even pondered with tender concern, before he bought his +fine flowered satin waistcoat, if he might not put the money it would +cost into a bonnet for Charlotte, but he had not dared to propose it. +Once he had bought a little blue-figured shawl for her, and her +father had bade her return it. + +"I ain't goin' to have any young sparks buyin' your clothes while you +are under my roof," he had said. + +Charlotte had given the shawl back to her lover. "Father don't feel +as if I ought to take it, and I guess you'd better keep it now, +Barney," she said, with regretful tears in her eyes. + +Barnabas had the blue shawl nicely folded in the bottom of his little +hair-cloth trunk, which he always kept locked. + +After a quarter of a mile the stone-walls and the spray of apple +blossoms ended; there was a short stretch of new fence, and a new +cottage-house only partly done. The yard was full of lumber, and a +ladder slanted to the roof, which gleamed out with the fresh pinky +yellow of unpainted pine. + +Barnabas stood before the house a few minutes, staring at it. Then he +walked around it slowly, his face upturned. Then he went in the front +door, swinging himself up over the sill, for there were no steps, and +brushing the sawdust carefully from his clothes when he was inside. +He went all over the house, climbing a ladder to the second story, +and viewing with pride the two chambers under the slant of the new +roof. He had repelled with scorn his father's suggestion that he have +a one-story instead of a story-and-a-half house. Caleb had an +inordinate horror and fear of wind, and his father, who had built the +house in which he lived, had it before him. Deborah often descanted +indignantly upon the folly of sleeping in little tucked-up bedrooms +instead of good chambers, because folks' fathers had been scared to +death of wind, and Barnabas agreed with her. If he had inherited any +of his father's and grandfather's terror of wind, he made no +manifestation of it. + +In the lower story of the new cottage were two square front rooms +like those in his father's house, and behind them the great kitchen +with a bedroom out of it, and a roof of its own. + +Barnabas paused at last in the kitchen, and stood quite still, +leaning against a window casement. The windows were not in, and the +spaces let in the cool air and low light. Outside was a long reach of +field sloping gently upward. In the distance, at the top of the hill, +sharply outlined against the sky, was a black angle of roof and a +great chimney. A thin column of smoke rose out of it, straight and +dark. That was where Charlotte Barnard lived. + +Barnabas looked out and saw the smoke rising from the chimney of the +Barnard house. There was a little hollow in the field that was quite +blue with violets, and he noted that absently. A team passed on the +road outside; it was as if he saw and heard everything from the +innermost recesses of his own life, and everything seemed strange and +far off. + +He turned to go, but suddenly stood still in the middle of the +kitchen, as if some one had stopped him. He looked at the new +fireless hearth, through the open door into the bedroom which he +would occupy after he was married to Charlotte, and through others +into the front rooms, which would be apartments of simple state, not +so closely connected with every-day life. The kitchen windows would +be sunny. Charlotte would think it a pleasant room. + +"Her rocking-chair can set there," said Barnabas aloud. The tears +came into his eyes; he stepped forward, laid his smooth boyish cheek +against a partition wall of this new house, and kissed it. It was a +fervent demonstration, not towards Charlotte alone, nor the joy to +come to him within those walls, but to all life and love and nature, +although he did not comprehend it. He half sobbed as he turned away; +his thoughts seemed to dazzle his brain, and he could not feel his +feet. He passed through the north front room, which would be the +little-used parlor, to the door, and suddenly started at a long black +shadow on the floor. It vanished as he went on, and might have been +due to his excited fancy, which seemed substantial enough to cast +shadows. + +"I shall marry Charlotte, we shall live here together all our lives, +and die here," thought Barnabas, as he went up the hill. "I shall lie +in my coffin in the north room, and it will all be over," but his +heart leaped with joy. He stepped out proudly like a soldier in a +battalion, he threw back his shoulders in his Sunday coat. + +The yellow glow was paling in the west, the evening air was like a +cold breath in his face. He could see the firelight flickering upon +the kitchen wall of the Barnard house as he drew near. He came up +into the yard and caught a glimpse of a fair head in the ruddy glow. +There was a knocker on the door; he raised it gingerly and let it +fall. It made but a slight clatter, but a woman's shadow moved +immediately across the yard outside, and Barnabas heard the inner +door open. He threw open the outer one himself, and Charlotte stood +there smiling, and softly decorous. Neither of them spoke. Barnabas +glanced at the inner door to see if it were closed, then he caught +Charlotte's hands and kissed her. + +"You shouldn't do so, Barnabas," whispered Charlotte, turning her +face away. She was as tall as Barnabas, and as handsome. + +"Yes, I should," persisted Barnabas, all radiant, and his face +pursued hers around her shoulder. + +"It's pretty cold out, ain't it?" said Charlotte, in a chiding voice +which she could scarcely control. + +"I've been in to see our house. Give me one more kiss. Oh, +Charlotte!" + +"Charlotte!" cried a deep voice, and the lovers started apart. + +"I'm coming, father," Charlotte cried out. She opened the door and +went soberly into the kitchen, with Barnabas at her heels. Her +father, mother, and Aunt Sylvia Crane sat there in the red gleam of +the firelight and gathering twilight. Sylvia sat a little behind the +others, and her face in her white cap had the shadowy delicacy of one +of the flowering apple sprays outside. + +"How d'ye do?" said Barnabas in a brave tone which was slightly +aggressive. Charlotte's mother and aunt responded rather nervously. + +"How's your mother, Barnabas?" inquired Mrs. Barnard. + +"She's pretty well, thank you." + +Charlotte pulled forward a chair for her lover; he had just seated +himself, when Cephas Barnard spoke in a voice as sudden and gruff as +a dog's bark. Barnabas started, and his chair grated on the sanded +floor. + +"Light the candle, Charlotte," said Cephas, and Charlotte obeyed. She +lighted the candle on the high shelf, then she sat down next +Barnabas. Cephas glanced around at them. He was a small man, with a +thin face in a pale film of white locks and beard, but his black eyes +gleamed out of it with sharp fixedness. Barnabas looked back at him +unflinchingly, and there was a curious likeness between the two pairs +of black eyes. Indeed, there had been years ago a somewhat close +relationship between the Thayers and the Barnards, and it was not +strange if one common note was repeated generations hence. + +Cephas had been afraid lest Barnabas should, all unperceived in the +dusk, hold his daughter's hand, or venture upon other loverlike +familiarity. That was the reason why he had ordered the candle +lighted when it was scarcely dark enough to warrant it. + +But Barnabas seemed scarcely to glance at his sweetheart as he sat +there beside her, although in some subtle fashion, perhaps by some +finer spiritual vision, not a turn of her head, nor a fleeting +expression on her face, like a wind of the soul, escaped him. He saw +always Charlotte's beloved features high and pure, almost severe, but +softened with youthful bloom, her head with fair hair plaited in a +smooth circle, with one long curl behind each ear. Charlotte would +scarcely have said he had noticed, but he knew well she had on a new +gown of delaine in a mottled purple pattern, her worked-muslin +collar, and her mother's gold beads which she had given her. + +Barnabas kept listening anxiously for the crackle of the hearth fire +in the best room; he hoped Charlotte had lighted the fire, and they +should soon go in there by themselves. They usually did of a Sunday +night, but sometimes Cephas forbade his daughter to light the fire +and prohibited any solitary communion between the lovers. + +"If Barnabas Thayer can't set here with the rest of us, he can go +home," he proclaimed at times, and he had done so to-night. Charlotte +had acquiesced forlornly; there was nothing else for her to do. Early +in her childhood she had learned along with her primer her father's +character, and the obligations it imposed upon her. + +"You must be a good girl, and mind; it's your father's way," her +mother used to tell her. Mrs. Barnard herself had spelt out her +husband like a hard and seemingly cruel text in the Bible. She +marvelled at its darkness in her light, but she believed in it +reverently, and even pugnaciously. + +The large, loosely built woman, with her heavy, sliding step, waxed +fairly decisive, and her soft, meek-lidded eyes gleamed hard and +prominent when her elder sister, Hannah, dared inveigh against +Cephas. + +"I tell you it is his way," said Sarah Barnard. And she said it as if +"his way" was the way of the King. + +"His way!" Hannah would sniff back. "His way! Keepin' you all on rye +meal one spell, an' not lettin' you eat a mite of Injun, an' then +keepin' you on Injun without a mite of rye! Makin' you eat nothin' +but greens an' garden stuff, an' jest turnin' you out to graze an' +chew your cuds like horned animals one spell, an' then makin' you +live on meat! Lettin' you go abroad when he takes a notion, an' then +keepin' you an' Charlotte in the house a year!" + +"It's his way, an' I ain't goin' to have anything said against it," +Sarah Barnard would retort stanchly, and her sister would sniff back +again. Charlotte was as loyal as her mother; she did not like it if +even her lover intimated anything in disfavor of her father. + +No matter how miserable she was in consequence of her acquiescence +with her father's will, she sternly persisted. + +To-night she knew that Barnabas was waiting impatiently for her +signal to leave the rest of the company and go with her into the +front room; there was also a tender involuntary impatience and +longing in every nerve of her body, but nobody would have suspected +it; she sat there as calmly as if Barnabas were old Squire Payne, who +sometimes came in of a Sabbath evening, and seemed to be listening +intently to her mother and her Aunt Sylvia talking about the spring +cleaning. + +Cephas and Barnabas were grimly silent. The young man suspected that +Cephas had prohibited the front room; he was indignant about that, +and the way in which Charlotte had been summoned in from the entry, +and he had no diplomacy. + +Charlotte, under her calm exterior, grew uneasy; she glanced at her +mother, who glanced back. It was to both women as if they felt by +some subtle sense the brewing of a tempest. Charlotte unobtrusively +moved her chair a little nearer her lover's; her purple delaine skirt +swept his knee; both of them blushed and trembled with Cephas's black +eyes upon them. + +Charlotte never knew quite how it began, but her father suddenly +flung out a dangerous topic like a long-argued bone of contention, +and he and Barnabas were upon it. Barnabas was a Democrat, and Cephas +was a Whig, and neither ever forgot it of the other. None of the +women fairly understood the point at issue; it was as if they drew +back their feminine skirts and listened amazed and trembling to this +male hubbub over something outside their province. Charlotte grew +paler and paler. She looked piteously at her mother. + +"Now, father, don't," Sarah ventured once or twice, but it was like a +sparrow piping against the north wind. + +Charlotte laid her hand on her lover's arm and kept it there, but he +did not seem to heed her. "Don't," she said; "don't, Barnabas. I +think there's going to be a frost to-night; don't you?" But nobody +heard her. Sylvia Crane, in the background, clutched the arms of her +rocking-chair with her thin hands. + +Suddenly both men began hurling insulting epithets at each other. +Cephas sprang up, waving his right arm fiercely, and Barnabas shook +off Charlotte's hand and was on his feet. + +"Get out of here!" shouted Cephas, in a hoarse voice--"get out of +here! Get out of this house, an' don't you ever darse darken these +doors again while the Lord Almighty reigns!" The old man was almost +inarticulate; he waved his arms, wagged his head, and stamped; he +looked like a white blur with rage. + +"I never will, by the Lord Almighty!" returned Barnabas, in an awful +voice; then the door slammed after him. Charlotte sprang up. + +"Set down!" shouted Cephas. Charlotte rushed forward. "You set down!" +her father repeated; her mother caught hold of her dress. + +"Charlotte, do set down," she whispered, glancing at her husband in +terror. But Charlotte pulled her dress away. + +"Don't you stop me, mother. I am not going to have him turned out +this way," she said. Her father advanced threateningly, but she set +her young, strong shoulders against him and pushed past out of the +door. The door was slammed to after her and the bolt shot, but she +did not heed that. She ran across the yard, calling: "Barney! Barney! +Barney! Come back!" Barnabas was already out in the road; he never +turned his head, and kept on. Charlotte hurried after him. "Barney," +she cried, her voice breaking with sobs--"Barney, do come back. You +aren't mad at me, are you?" Barney never turned his head; the +distance between them widened as Charlotte followed, calling. She +stopped suddenly, and stood watching her lover's dim retreating back, +straining with his rapid strides. + +"Barney Thayer," she called out, in an angry, imperious tone, "if +you're ever coming back, you come now!" + +But Barney kept on as if he did not hear. Charlotte gasped for breath +as she watched him; she could scarcely help her feet running after +him, but she would not follow him any farther. She did not call him +again; in a minute she turned around and went back to the house, +holding her head high in the dim light. + +She did not try to open the door; she was sure it was locked, and she +was too proud. She sat down on the flat, cool door-stone, and +remained there as dusky and motionless against the old gray panel of +the door as the shadow of some inanimate object that had never moved. + +The wind began to rise, and at the same time the full moon, impelled +softly upward by force as unseen as thought. Charlotte's fair head +gleamed out abruptly in the moonlight like a pale flower, but the +folds of her mottled purple skirt were as vaguely dark as the foliage +on the lilac-bush beside her. All at once the flowering branches on a +wide-spreading apple-tree cut the gloom like great silvery wings of a +brooding bird. The grass in the yard was like a shaggy silver fleece. +Charlotte paid no more attention to it all than to her own breath, or +a clock tick which she would have to withdraw from herself to hear. + +A low voice, which was scarcely more than a whisper, called her, a +slender figure twisted itself around the front corner of the house +like a vine. "Charlotte, you there?" Charlotte did not hear. Then the +whisper came again. "Charlotte!" + +Charlotte looked around then. + +A slender white hand reached out in the gloom around the corner and +beckoned. "Charlotte, come; come quick." + +Charlotte did not stir. + +"Charlotte, do come. Your mother's dreadful afraid you'll catch cold. +The front door is open." + +Charlotte sat quite rigid. The slender figure began moving towards +her stealthily, keeping close to the house, advancing with frequent +pauses like a wary bird. When she got close to Charlotte she reached +down and touched her shoulder timidly. "Oh, Charlotte, don't you feel +bad? He'd ought to know your father by this time; he'll get over it +and come back," she whispered. + +"I don't want him to come back," Charlotte whispered fiercely in +return. + +Sylvia stared at her helplessly. Charlotte's face looked strange and +hard in the moonlight. "Your mother's dreadful worried," she +whispered again, presently. "She thinks you'll catch cold. I come out +of the front door on purpose so you can go in that way. Your father's +asleep in his chair. He told your mother not to unbolt this door +to-night, and she didn't darse to. But we went past him real still to +the front one, an' you can slip in there and get up to your chamber +without his seeing you. Oh, Charlotte, do come!" + +Charlotte arose, and she and Sylvia went around to the front door. +Sylvia crept close to the house as before, but Charlotte walked +boldly along in the moonlight. "Charlotte, I'm dreadful afraid he'll +see you," Sylvia pleaded, but Charlotte would not change her course. + +Just as they reached the front door it was slammed with a quick puff +of wind in their faces. They heard Mrs. Barnard's voice calling +piteously. "Oh, father, do let her in!" it implored. + +"Don't you worry, mother," Charlotte called out. "I'll go home with +Aunt Sylvia." + +"Oh, Charlotte!" her mother's voice broke in sobs. + +"Don't you worry, mother," Charlotte repeated, with an unrelenting +tone in the comforting words. "I'll go right home with Aunt Sylvia. +Come," she said, imperatively to her aunt, "I am not going to stand +here any longer," and she went out into the road, and hastened down +it, as Barnabas had done. + +"I'll take her right home with me," Sylvia called to her sister in a +trembling voice (nobody knew how afraid she was of Cephas); and she +followed Charlotte. + +Sylvia lived on an old road that led from the main one a short +distance beyond the new house, so the way led past it. Charlotte went +on at such a pace that Sylvia could scarcely keep up with her. She +slid along in her wake, panting softly, and lifting her skirts out of +the evening dew. She was trembling with sympathy for Charlotte, and +she had also a worry of her own. When they reached the new house she +fairly sobbed outright, but Charlotte went past in her stately haste +without a murmur. + +"Oh, Charlotte, don't feel so bad," mourned her aunt. "I know it will +all come right." But Charlotte made no reply. Her dusky skirts swept +around the bushes at the corner of the road, and Sylvia hurried +tremulously after her. + +Neither of them dreamed that Barnabas watched them, standing in one +of the front rooms of his new house. He had gone in there when he +fled from Cephas Barnard's, and had not yet been home. He recognized +Charlotte's motions as quickly as her face, and knew Sylvia's voice, +although he could not distinguish what she said. He watched them turn +the corner of the other road, and thought that Charlotte was going to +spend the night with her aunt--he did not dream why. He had resolved +to stay where he was in his desolate new house, and not go home +himself. + +A great grief and resentment against the whole world and life itself +swelled high within him. It was as if he lost sight of individual +antagonists, and burned to dash life itself in the face because he +existed. The state of happiness so exalted that it became almost +holiness, in which he had been that very night, flung him to lower +depths when it was retroverted. He had gone back to first causes in +the one and he did the same in the other; his joy had reached out +into eternity, and so did his misery. His natural religious bent, +inherited from generations of Puritans, and kept in its channel by +his training from infancy, made it impossible for him to conceive of +sympathy or antagonism in its fullest sense apart from God. + +Sitting on a pile of shavings in a corner of the north room, he +fairly hugged himself with fierce partisanship. "What have I done to +be treated in this way?" he demanded, setting his face ahead in the +darkness; and he did not see Cephas Barnard's threatening +countenance, but another, gigantic with its vague outlines, which his +fancy could not limit, confronting him with terrible negative power +like a stone image. He struck out against it, and the blows fell back +on his own heart. + +"What have I done?" he demanded over and over of this great immovable +and silent consciousness which he realized before him. "Have I not +kept all thy commandments from childhood? Have I ever failed to +praise thee as the giver of my happiness, and ask thy blessing upon +it? What have I done that it should be taken away? It was given to me +only to be taken away. Why was it given to me, then?--that I might be +mocked? Oh, I am mocked, I am mocked!" he cried out, in a great rage, +and he struck out in the darkness, and his heart leaped with futile +pain. The possibility that his misery might not be final never +occurred to him. It never occurred to him that he could enter Cephas +Barnard's house again, ask his pardon, and marry Charlotte. It seemed +to him settled and inevitable; he could not grasp any choice in the +matter. + +Barnabas finally threw himself back on the pile of shavings, and lay +there sullenly. Great gusts of cold wind came in at the windows at +intervals, a loose board somewhere in the house rattled, the trees +outside murmured heavily. + +"There won't be a frost," Barnabas thought, his mind going apace on +its old routine in spite of its turmoil. Then he thought with the +force of an oath that he did not care if there was a frost. All the +trees this spring had blossomed only for him and Charlotte; now there +was no longer any use in that; let the blossoms blast and fall! + + + +Chapter II + + +Sylvia Crane's house was the one in which her grandmother had been +born, and was the oldest house in the village. It was known as the +"old Crane place." It had never been painted, it was shedding its +flapping gray shingles like gray scales, the roof sagged in a mossy +hollow before the chimney, the windows and doors were awry, and the +whole house was full of undulations and wavering lines, which gave it +a curiously unreal look in broad daylight. In the moonlight it was +the shadowy edifice built of a dream. + +As Sylvia and Charlotte came to the front door it seemed as if they +might fairly walk through it as through a gray shadow; but Sylvia +stooped, and her shoulders strained with seemingly incongruous force, +as if she were spending it to roll away a shadow. On the flat +doorstep lay a large round stone, pushed close against the door. +There were no locks and keys in the old Crane place; only bolts. +Sylvia could not fasten the doors on the inside when she went away, +so she adopted this expedient, which had been regarded with favor by +her mother and grandmother before her, and illustrated natures full +of gentle fallacies which went far to make existence comfortable. + +Always on leaving the house alone the Crane women had bolted the side +door, which was the one in common use, gone out the front one, and +laboriously rolled this same round stone before it. Sylvia reasoned +as her mother and grandmother before her, with the same simplicity: +"When the stone's in front of the door, folks must know there ain't +anybody to home, because they couldn't put it there if they was." + +And when some neighbor had argued that the evil-disposed might roll +away the stone and enter at will, Sylvia had replied, with the +innocent conservatism with which she settled an argument, "Nobody +ever did." + +To-night she rolled away the stone to the corner of the door-step, +where it had lain through three generations when the Crane women were +at home, and sighed with regret that she had defended the door with +it. "I wish I hadn't put the stone up," she thought. "If I hadn't, +mebbe he'd gone in an' waited." She opened the door, and the gloom of +the house, deeper than the gloom of the night, appeared. "You wait +here a minute," she said to Charlotte, "an' I'll go in an' light a +candle." + +Charlotte waited, leaning against the door-post. There was a flicker +of fire within. Then Sylvia held the flaring candle towards her. +"Come in," she said; "the candle's lit." + +There was a bed of coals on the hearth in the best room; Sylvia had +made a fire there before going over to her sister's, but it had +burned low. The glow of the coals and the smoky flare of the candle +lighted the room uncertainly, scattering and not dispelling the +shadows. There was a primly festive air in the room. The +flag-bottomed chairs stood by twos, finely canted towards each other, +against the wall; the one great hair-cloth rocker stood +ostentatiously in advance of them, facing the hearth fire; the long +level of the hair-cloth sofa gleamed out under stiff sweeps of the +white fringed curtains at the window behind it. The books on the +glossy card-table were set canting towards each other like the +chairs, and with their gilt edges towards the light. And Sylvia had +set also on the table a burnished pitcher of a rosy copper-color full +of apple blossoms. + +She looked at it when she had set the candle on the shelf. It seemed +to her that all the light in the room centred on it, and it shone in +her eyes like a copper lamp. + +Charlotte also glanced at it. "Why, Richard must have come while you +were over to our house," she said. + +"It don't make any odds if he did," returned Sylvia, with a faint +blush and a bridle. Sylvia was much younger than her sister. Standing +there in the dim light she did not look so much older than her niece. +Her figure had the slim angularity and primness which are sometimes +seen in elderly women who are not matrons, and she had donned a +little white lace cap at thirty, but her face had still a delicate +bloom, and the wistful wonder of expression which belongs to youth. + +However, she never thought of Charlotte as anything but a child as +compared with herself. Sylvia felt very old, and the more so that she +grudged her years painfully. She stirred up the fire a little, +holding back her shiny black silk skirt carefully. Charlotte stood +leaning against the shelf, looking moodily down at the fire. + +"I wouldn't feel bad if I was you, Charlotte," Sylvia ventured, +timidly. + +"I guess we'd better go to bed pretty soon," returned Charlotte. "It +must be late." + +"Had you rather sleep with me, Charlotte, or sleep in the spare +chamber?" + +"I guess I'll go in the spare chamber." + +"Well, I'll get you a night-gown." + +Both of their faces were sober, but perfectly staid. They bade each +other good-night without a quiver; but Charlotte, after she had said +her dutiful and unquestioning prayer, and lay folded in Sylvia's +ruffled night-gown in the best bed, shook with great sobs. "Poor +Barney!" she kept muttering. "Poor Barney! poor Barney!" + +The doors were all open, and once she thought she heard a sob from +below, then concluded she must be mistaken. But she was not, for +Sylvia Crane was lamenting as sorely as the younger maiden up-stairs. +"Poor Richard!" she repeated, piteously. "Poor Richard! There he +came, and the stone was up, and he had to go away." + +The faces which were so clear to the hearts of both women, as if they +were before their eyes, had a certain similarity. Indeed, Richard +Alger and Barnabas Thayer were distantly related on the mother's +side, and people said they looked enough alike to be brothers. Sylvia +saw the same type of face as Charlotte, only Richard's face was +older, for he was six years older than she. + +"If I hadn't put the stone up," she moaned, "maybe he would have +thought I didn't hear him knock, an' he'd come in an' waited. Poor +Richard, I dunno what he thought! It's the first time it's happened +for eighteen years." + +Sylvia, as she lay there, looked backward, and it seemed to her that +the eighteen years were all made up of the Sunday nights on which +Richard Alger had come to see her, as if they were all that made them +immortal and redeemed them from the dead past. She had endured grief, +but love alone made the past years stand out for her. Sylvia, in +looking back over eighteen years, forgot the father, mother, and +sister who had died in that time; their funeral trains passed before +her eyes like so many shadows. She forgot all their cares and her +own; she forgot how she had nursed her bedridden mother for ten +years; she forgot everything but those blessed Sunday nights on which +Richard Alger had come. She called to mind every little circumstance +connected with them--how she had adorned the best room by slow +degrees, saving a few cents at a time from her sparse income, because +he sat in it every Sunday night; how she had had the bed which her +mother and grandmother kept there removed because the fashion had +changed, and the guilty audacity with which she had purchased a +hair-cloth sofa to take its place. + +That adorning of the best room had come to be a religion with Sylvia +Crane. As faithfully as any worshipper of the Greek deity she laid +her offerings, her hair-cloth sofa and rocker, her copper-gilt +pitcher of apple blossoms, upon the altar of love. + +Sylvia recalled, sobbing more piteously in the darkness, sundry +dreams, which had never been realized, of herself and Richard sitting +side by side and hand in hand, as confessed lovers, on that sofa. +Richard Alger, during all those eighteen years, had never made love +to Sylvia, unless his constant attendance upon Sabbath evenings could +be so construed, as it was in that rural neighborhood, and as Sylvia +was fain to construe it in her innocent heart. + +It is doubtful if Sylvia, in her perfect decorum and long-fostered +maiden reserve, fairly knew that Richard Alger had never made love to +her. She scarcely expected her dreams of endearments to be realized; +she regarded them, except in desperate moods, with shame. If her old +admirer had, indeed, attempted to sit by her side upon that +hair-cloth sofa and hold her hand, she would have arisen as if +propelled by stiff springs of modest virtue. She did not fairly know +that she was not made love to after the most honorable and orthodox +fashion without a word of endearment or a caress; for she had been +trained to regard love as one of the most secret of the laws of +nature, to be concealed, with shamefaced air, even from herself; but +she did know that Richard had never asked her to marry him, and for +that she was impatient without any self-reserve; she was even +confidential with her sister, Charlotte's mother. + +"I don't want to say anything outside," she once said, "but I do +think it would be a good deal better for him if we was settled down. +He ain't half taken care of since his mother died." + +"He's got money enough," returned Mrs. Barnard. + +"That can't buy everything." + +"Well, I don't pity him; I pity you," said Mrs. Barnard. + +"I guess I shall get along a while longer, as far as that goes," +Sylvia had replied to her sister, with some pride. "I ain't worried +on my account." + +"Women don't worry much on their own accounts, but they've got +accounts," returned Mrs. Barnard, with more contempt for her sister +than she had ever shown for herself. "You're gettin' older, Sylvy." + +"I know it," Sylvia had replied, with a quick shrinking, as if from a +blow. + +The passing years, as they passed for her, stung her like swarming +bees, with bitter humiliation; but never for herself, only for +Richard. Nobody knew how painfully she counted the years, how she +would fain have held time back with her thin hands, how futilely and +pitifully she set her loving heart against it, and not for herself +and her own vanity, but for the sake of her lover. She had come, in +the singleness of her heart, to regard herself in the light of a +species of coin to be expended wholly for the happiness and interest +of one man. Any depreciation in its value was of account only as it +affected him. + +Sylvia Crane, sitting in the meeting-house of a Sunday, used to watch +the young girls coming in, as radiant and flawless as new flowers, in +their Sunday bests, with a sort of admiring envy, which could do them +no harm, but which tore her own heart. + +When she should have been contrasting the wickedness of her soul with +the grace of the Divine Model, she was contrasting her fading face +with the youthful bloom of the young girls. "He'd ought to marry one +of them," she thought; "he'd ought to, by good rights." It never +occurred to Sylvia that Richard also was growing older, and that he +was, moreover, a few years older than she. She thought of him as an +immortal youth; his face was the same to her as when she had first +seen it. + +When it came before a subtler vision than her bodily one, there in +the darkness and loneliness of this last Sunday night, it wore the +beauty and innocent freshness of a child. If Richard Alger could have +seen his own face as the woman who loved him saw it, he could never +have doubted his own immortality. + +"There he came, an' the stone was up, an' he had to go away," moaned +Sylvia, catching her breath softly. Many a time she had pitied +Richard because he had not the little womanly care which men need; +she had worried lest his stockings were not darned, and his food not +properly cooked; but to-night she had another and strange anxiety. +She worried lest she herself had hurt him and sent him home with a +heavy heart. + +Sylvia had gone about for the last few days with her delicate face as +irresponsibly calm as a sweet-pea; nobody had dreamed of the turmoil +in her heart. On the Wednesday night before she had nearly reached +the climax of her wishes. Richard had come, departing from his usual +custom--he had never called except on Sunday before--and remained +later. It was ten o'clock before he went home. He had been very +silent all the evening, and had sat soberly in the great best +rocking-chair, which was, in a way, his throne of state, with Sylvia +on the sofa on his right. Many a time she had dreamed that he came +over there and sat down beside her, and that night it had come to +pass. + +Just before ten o'clock he had arisen hesitatingly; she thought it +was to take leave, but she sat waiting and trembling. They had sat in +the twilight and young moonlight all the evening. Richard had checked +her when she attempted to light a candle. That had somehow made the +evening seem strange, and freighted with consequences; and besides +the white light of the moon, full of mystic influence, there was +something subtler and more magnetic, which could sway more than the +tides, even the passions of the human heart, present, and they both +felt it. + +Neither had said much, and they had been sitting there nearly two +hours, when Richard had arisen, and moved curiously, rather as if he +was drawn than walked of his own volition, over to the sofa. He sank +down upon it with a little cough. Sylvia moved away a little with an +involuntary motion, which was pure maidenliness. + +"It's getting late," remarked Richard, trying to make his voice +careless, but it fell in spite of him into deep cadences. + +"It ain't very late, I guess," Sylvia had returned, tremblingly. + +"I ought to be going home." + +Then there was silence for a while. Sylvia glanced sidewise, timidly +and adoringly, at Richard's smoothly shaven face, pale as marble in +the moonlight, and waited, her heart throbbing. + +[Illustration: "Sylvia glanced timidly at Richard's smoothly-shaven +face"] + +"I've been coming here a good many years," Richard observed finally, +and his own voice had a solemn tremor. + +Sylvia made an almost inarticulate assent. + +"I've been thinking lately," said Richard; then he paused. They could +hear the great clock out in the kitchen tick. Sylvia waited, her very +soul straining, although shrinking at the same time, to hear. + +"I've been thinking lately," said Richard again, "that--maybe--it +would be wise for--us both to--make some different arrangement." + +Sylvia bent her head low. Richard paused for the second time. "I have +always meant--" he began again, but just then the clock in the +kitchen struck the first stroke of ten. Richard caught his breath and +arose quickly. Never in his long courtship had he remained as late as +that at Sylvia Crane's. It was as if a life-long habit struck as well +as the clock, and decided his times for him. + +"I must be going," said he, speaking against the bell notes. Sylvia +arose without a word of dissent, but Richard spoke as if she had +remonstrated. + +"I'll come again next Sunday night," said he, apologetically. + +Sylvia followed him to the door. They bade each other good-night +decorously, with never a parting kiss, as they had done for years. +Richard went out of sight down the white gleaming road, and she went +in and to bed, with her heart in a great tumult of expectation and +joyful fear. + +She had tried to wait calmly for Sunday night. She had done her neat +household tasks as usual, her face and outward demeanor were sweetly +unruffled, but her thoughts seemed shivering with rainbows that +constantly dazzled her with sweet shocks when her eyes met them. Her +feet seemed constantly flying before her into the future, and she +could scarcely tell where she might really be, in the present or in +her dreams, which had suddenly grown so real. + +On Sunday morning she had curled her soft fair hair, and arranged +with trepidation one long light curl outside her bonnet on each side +of her face. Her bonnet was tied under her chin with a green ribbon, +and she had a little feathery green wreath around her face inside the +rim. Her wide silk skirt was shot with green and blue, and rustled as +she walked up the aisle to her pew. People stared after her without +knowing why. There was no tangible change in her appearance. She had +worn that same green shot silk many Sabbaths; her bonnet was three +summers old; the curls drooping on her cheeks were an innovation, but +the people did not recognize the change as due to them. Sylvia +herself had looked with pleased wonder at her face in the glass; it +was as if all her youthful beauty had suddenly come up, like a +withered rose which is dipped in a vase. + +"I sha'n't look so terrible old side of him when I go out bride," she +reflected, happily, smiling fondly at herself. All the way to meeting +that Sunday morning she saw her face as she had seen it in the glass, +and it was as if she walked with something finer than herself. + +Richard Alger sat with the choir in a pew beside the pulpit, at right +angles with the others. He had a fine tenor voice, and had sung in +the choir ever since he was a boy. When Sylvia sat down in her place, +which was in full range of his eyes, he glanced at her without +turning his head; he meant to look away again directly, so as not to +be observed, but her face held him. A color slowly flamed out on his +pale brown cheeks; his eyes became intense and abstracted. A soprano +singer nudged the girl at her side; they both glanced at him and +tittered, but he did not notice it. + +Sylvia knew that he was looking at her, but she never looked at him. +She sat soberly waving a little brown fan before her face; the light +curls stirred softly. She wondered what he thought of them; if he +considered them too young for her, and silly; but he did not see them +at all. He had no eye for details. And neither did she even hear his +fine tenor, still sweet and powerful, leading all the other male +voices when the choir stood up to sing. She thought only of Richard +himself. + +After meeting, when she went down the aisle, several women had spoken +to her, inquired concerning her health, and told her, with wondering +eyes, that she looked well. Richard was far behind her, but she did +not look around. They very seldom accosted each other, unless it was +unavoidable, in any public place. Still, Sylvia, going out with +gentle flounces of her green shot silk, knew well that Richard's eyes +followed her, and his thought was close at her side. + +After she got home from meeting that Sunday, Sylvia Crane did not +know how to pass the time until the evening. She could not keep +herself calm and composed as was her wont on the Sabbath day. She +changed her silk for a common gown; she tried to sit down and read +the Bible quietly and with understanding, but she could not. She +turned to Canticles, and read a page or two. She had always believed +loyally and devoutly in the application to Christ and the Church; but +suddenly now, as she read, the restrained decorously chanting New +England love-song in her maiden heart had leaped into the fervid +measures of the oriental King. She shut the Bible with a clap. "I +ain't giving the right meaning to it," she said, sternly, aloud. + +She put away the Bible, went into the pantry, and got out some bread +and cheese for her luncheon, but she could eat nothing. She picked +the apple blossoms and arranged them in the copper-gilt pitcher on +the best-room table. She even dusted off the hair-cloth sofa and +rocker, with many compunctions, because it was Sunday. "I know I +hadn't ought to do it to-day," she murmured, apologetically, "but +they do get terrible dusty, and need dusting every day, and he is +real particular, and he'll have on his best clothes." + +Finally, just before twilight, Sylvia, unable to settle herself, had +gone over to her sister's for a little call. Richard never came +before eight o'clock, except in winter, when it was dark earlier. +There was a certain half-shamefaced reserve about his visits. He knew +well enough that people looked from their windows as he passed, and +said, facetiously, "There goes Richard Alger to court Sylvy Crane." +He preferred slipping past in a half-light, in which he did not seem +so plain to himself, and could think himself less plain to other +people. + +Sylvia, detained at her sister's by the quarrel between Cephas and +Barnabas, had arisen many a time to take leave, all palpitating with +impatience, but her sister had begged her, in a distressed whisper, +to remain. + +"I guess you can get along without Richard Alger one Sunday evening," +she had said finally, quite aloud, and quite harshly. "I guess your +own sister has just as much claim on you as he has. I dunno what's +going to be done. I don't believe Charlotte's father will let her in +the house to-night." + +Poor Sylvia had sunk back in her chair. To her sensitive conscience +the duty nearest at hand seemed always to bark the loudest, and the +precious moments had gone by until she knew that Richard had come, +found the stone before the door, and gone away, and all her sweet +turmoil of hope and anticipation had gone for naught. + +Sylvia, lying there awake that night, her mind carrying her back over +all that had gone before, had no doubt that this was the end of +everything. Not originally a subtle discerner of character, she had +come insensibly to know Richard so well that certain results from +certain combinations of circumstances in his life were as plain and +inevitable to her as the outcome of a simple sum in mathematics. +"He'd got 'most out of his track for once," she groaned out softly, +"but now he's pushed back in so hard he can't get out again if he +wants to. I dunno how he's going to get along." + +Sylvia, with the roof settling over her head, with not so much upon +her few sterile acres to feed her as to feed the honey-bees and +birds, with her heart in greater agony because its string of joy had +been strained so high and sweetly before it snapped, did not lament +over herself at all; neither did she over the other woman who lay +up-stairs suffering in a similar case. She lamented only over Richard +living alone and unministered to until he died. + +When daylight came she got up, dressed herself, and prepared +breakfast. Charlotte came down before it was ready. "Let me help get +breakfast," she said, with an assumption of energy, standing in the +kitchen doorway in her pretty mottled purple delaine. The purple was +the shade of columbine, and very becoming to Charlotte. In spite of +her sleepless night, her fine firm tints had not faded; she was too +young and too strong and too full of involuntary resistance. She had +done up her fair hair compactly; her chin had its usual proud lift. + +Sylvia, shrinking as if before some unseen enemy as she moved about, +her face all wan and weary, glanced at her half resentfully. "I guess +she 'ain't had any such night as I have," she thought. "Girls don't +know much about it." + +"No, I don't need any help," she replied, aloud. "I 'ain't got +anything to do but to stir up an Injun cake. You've got your best +dress on. You'd better go and sit down." + +"It won't hurt my dress any." Charlotte glanced down half scornfully +at her purple skirt. It had lost all its glory for her. She was not +even sure that Barney had seen it. + +"Set down. I've got breakfast 'most ready," Sylvia said, again, more +peremptorily than she was wont, and Charlotte sat down in the +hollow-backed cherry rocking-chair beside the kitchen window, leaned +her head back, and looked out indifferently between the lilac-bushes. +The bushes were full of pinkish-purple buds. Sylvia's front yard +reached the road in a broad slope, and the ground was hard, and green +with dampness under the shade of a great elm-tree. The grass would +never grow there over the roots of the elm, which were flung out +broadly like great recumbent limbs over the whole yard, and were +barely covered by the mould. + +Across the street, seen under the green sweep of the elm, was an +orchard of old apple-trees which had blossomed out bravely that +spring. Charlotte looked at the white and rosy masses of bloom. + +"I guess there wasn't any frost last night, after all," she remarked. + +"I dunno," responded Sylvia, in a voice which made her niece look +around at her. There was a curious impatient ring in it which was +utterly foreign to it. There was a frown between Sylvia's gentle +eyes, and she moved with nervous jerks, setting down dishes hard, as +if they were refractory children, and lashing out with spoons as if +they were whips. The long, steady strain upon her patience had not +affected her temper, but this last had seemed to bring out a certain +vicious and waspish element which nobody had suspected her to +possess, and she herself least of all. She felt this morning disposed +to go out of her way to sting, and as if some primal and evil +instinct had taken possession of her. She felt shocked at herself, +but all the more defiant and disposed to keep on. + +"Breakfast is ready," she announced, finally; "if you don't set right +up an' eat it, it will be gettin' cold. I wouldn't give a cent for +cold Injun cake." + +Charlotte arose promptly and brought a chair to the table, which +Sylvia always set punctiliously in the centre of the kitchen as if +for a large family. + +"Don't scrape your chair on the floor that way; it wears 'em all +out," cried Sylvia, sharply. + +Charlotte stared at her again, but she said nothing; she sat down and +began to eat absently. Sylvia watched her angrily between her own +mouthfuls, which she swallowed down defiantly like medicine. + +"It ain't much use cookin' things if folks don't eat 'em," said she. + +"I am eating," returned Charlotte. + +"Eatin'? Swallowin' down Injun cake as if it was sawdust! I don't +call that eatin'. You don't act as if you tasted a mite of it!" + +"Aunt Sylvy, what has got into you?" said Charlotte. + +"Got into me? I should think you'd talk about anything gettin' into +me, when you set there like a stick. I guess you 'ain't got all there +is to bear." + +"I never thought I had," said Charlotte. + +"Well, I guess you 'ain't." + +They went on swallowing their food silently; the great clock ticked +slowly, and the spring birds called outside; but they heard neither. +The shadows of the young elm leaves played over the floor and the +white table-cloth. It was much warmer that morning, and the shadows +were softer. + +Before they had finished breakfast, Charlotte's mother came, +advancing ponderously, with soft thuds, across the yard to the side +door. She opened it and peered in. + +"Here you be," said she, scanning both their faces with anxious and +deprecating inquiry. + +"Can't you come in, an' not stand there holdin' the door open?" +inquired Sylvia. "I feel the wind on my back, and I've got a bad pain +enough in it now." + +Mrs. Barnard stepped in, and shut the door quickly, in an alarmed +way. + +"Ain't you feelin' well this mornin', Sylvy?" said she. + +"Oh yes, I'm feelin' well enough. It ain't any matter how I feel, but +it's a good deal how some other folks do." + +Sarah Barnard sank into the rocking-chair, and sat there looking at +them hesitatingly, as if she did not dare to open the conversation. + +Suddenly Sylvia arose and went out of the kitchen with a rush, +carrying a plate of Indian cake to feed the hens. "I can't set here +all day; I've got to do something," she announced as she went. + +When the door had closed after her, Mrs. Barnard turned to Charlotte. + +"What's the matter with her?" she asked, nodding towards the door. + +"I don't know." + +"She ain't sick, is she? I never see her act so. Sylvy's generally +just like a lamb. You don't s'pose she's goin' to have a fever, do +you?" + +"I don't know." + +Suddenly Charlotte, who was still sitting at the table, put up her +two hands with a despairing gesture, and bent her head forward upon +them. + +"Now don't, you poor child," said her mother, her eyes growing +suddenly red. "Didn't he even turn round when you called him back +last night?" + +Charlotte shook her bowed head dumbly. + +"Don't you s'pose he'll ever come again?" + +Charlotte shook her head. + +"Mebbe he will. I know he's terrible set." + +"Who's set?" demanded Sylvia, coming in with her empty plate. + +"Oh, I was jest sayin' that I thought Barney was kinder set," replied +her sister, mildly. + +"He ain't no more set than Cephas," returned Sylvia. + +"Cephas ain't set. It's jest his way." + +Sylvia sniffed. She looked scornfully at Charlotte, who had raised +her head when she came in, but whose eyes were red. "Folks had better +been created without ways, then," she retorted. "They'd better have +been created slaves; they'd been enough sight happier an' better off, +an' so would other folks that they have to do with, than to have so +many ways, an' not sense enough to manage 'em. I don't believe in +free-will, for my part." + +"Sylvy Crane, you ain't goin' to deny one of the doctrines of the +Church at your time of life?" demanded a new voice. Sylvia's other +sister, Hannah Berry, stood in the doorway. + +Sylvia ordinarily was meek before her, but now she faced her. "Yes, I +be," said she; "I don't approve of free-will, and I ain't afraid to +say it." + +Sylvia had always been considered very unlike Mrs. Hannah Berry in +face and character. Now, as she stood before her, a curious +similarity appeared; even her voice sounded like her sister's. + +"What on earth ails you, Sylvy?" asked Mrs. Berry, ignoring suddenly +the matter in hand. + +"Nothin' ails me that I know of. I don't think much of free-will, an' +I ain't goin' to say I do when I don't." + +"Then all I've got to say is you'd ought to be ashamed of yourself. +Why, I should think you was crazy, Sylvy Crane, settin' up yourself +agin' the doctrines of the Word. I'd like to know what you know about +them." + +"I know enough to see how they work," returned Sylvia, undauntedly, +"an' I ain't goin' to pretend I'm blind when I can see." + +Sylvia's serene arc of white forehead was shortened by a distressed +frown, her mild mouth dropped sourly at the corners, and the lips +were compressed. Her white cap was awry, and one of yesterday's curls +hung lankly over her left cheek. + +"You look an' act like a crazy creature," said Hannah Berry, eying +her with indignant amazement. She walked across the room to another +rocking-chair, moving with unexpected heaviness. She was in reality +as stout as her sister Sarah Barnard, but she had a long, thin, and +rasped face, which misled people. + +"Now," said she, looking around conclusively, "I ain't come over here +to argue about free-will. I want to know what all this is about?" + +"All what?" returned Mrs. Barnard, feebly. She was distinctly afraid +of her imperious sister, yet she was conscious of a quiver of +resentment. + +"All this fuss about Barney Thayer," said Hannah Berry. + +"How did you hear about it?" Mrs. Barnard asked with a glance at +Charlotte, who was sitting erect with her cheeks very red and her +mouth tightly closed. + +"Never mind how I heard," replied Hannah. "I did hear, an' that's +enough. Now I want to know if you're really goin' to set down like an +old hen an' give up, an' let this match between Charlotte an' a good, +smart, likely young man like Barnabas Thayer be broken off on account +of Cephas Barnard's crazy freaks?" + +Sarah stiffened her neck. "There ain't no call for you to speak that +way, Hannah. They got to talkin' over the 'lection." + +"The 'lection! I'd like to know what business they had talkin' about +it Sabbath night anyway? I ain't blamin' Barnabas so much; he's +younger an' easier stirred up; but Cephas Barnard is an old man, an' +he has been a church-member for forty year, an' he ought to know +enough to set a better example. I'd like to know what difference it +makes about the 'lection anyway? What odds does it make which one is +President if he rules the country well? An' that they can't tell till +they've tried him awhile anyway. I guess they don't think much about +the country; it's jest to have their own way about it. I'd like to +know what mortal difference it's goin' to make to Barney Thayer or +Cephas Barnard which man is President? He won't never hear of them, +an' they won't neither of them make him rule any different after he's +chose. It's jest like two little boys--one wants to play marbles +'cause the other wants to play puss-in-the-corner, an' that's all the +reason either one of 'em's got for standin' out. Men ain't got any +too much sense anyhow, when you come right down to it. They don't +ever get any too much grown up, the best of 'em. I'd like to know +what Cephas Barnard has got to say because he's drove a good, likely +young man like Barnabas Thayer off an' broke off his daughter's +match? It ain't likely she'll ever get anybody now; young men like +him, with nice new houses put up to go right to housekeepin' in as +soon as they are married, don't grow on every bush. They ain't quite +so thick as wild thimbleberries. An' Charlotte ain't got any money +herself, an' her father ain't got any to build a house for her. I'd +like to know what he's got to say about it?" + +Mrs. Barnard put up her apron and began to weep helplessly. + +"Don't, mother," said Charlotte, in an undertone. But her mother +began talking in a piteous wailing fashion. + +"You hadn't ought to talk so about Cephas," she moaned. "He's my +husband. I guess you wouldn't like it if anybody talked so about your +husband. Cephas ain't any worse than anybody else. It's jest his way. +He wa'n't any more to blame than Barney; they both got to talkin'. I +know Cephas is terrible upset about it this mornin'; he 'ain't really +said so in so many words, but I know by the way he acts. He said this +mornin' that he didn't know but we were eatin' the wrong kind of +food. Lately he's had an idea that mebbe we'd ought to eat more meat; +he's thought it was more strengthenin', an' we'd ought to eat things +as near like what we wanted to strengthen as could be. I've made a +good deal of bone soup. But now he says he thinks mebbe he's been +mistaken, an' animal food kind of quickens the animal nature in us, +an' that we'd better eat green things an' garden sass." + +"I guess garden sass will strengthen the other kind of sass that +Cephas Barnard has got in him full as much as bone soup has," +interrupted Hannah Berry, with a sarcastic sniff. + +"I dunno but he's right," said Mrs. Barnard. "Cephas thinks a good +deal an' looks into things. I kind of wish he'd waited till the +garden had got started, though, for there ain't much we can eat now +but potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens." + +"If you want to live on potatoes an' turnips an' dandelion greens, +you can," cried Hannah Berry; "What I want to know is if you're goin' +to settle down an' say nothin', an' have Charlotte lose the best +chance she'll ever have in her life, if she lives to be a hundred--" + +Charlotte spoke up suddenly; her blue eyes gleamed with steely light. +She held her head high as she faced her aunt. + +"I don't want any more talk about it, Aunt Hannah," said she. + +"Hey?" + +"I don't want any more talk about it." + +"Well, I guess you'll have more talk about it; girls don't get jilted +without there is talk generally. I guess you'll have to make up your +mind to it, for all you put on such airs with your own aunt, who left +her washin' an' come over here to take your part. I guess when you +stand out in the road half an hour an' call a young man to come back, +an' he don't come, that folks are goin' to talk some. Who's that +comin' now?" + +"It's Cephas," whispered Mrs. Barnard, with a scared glance at +Charlotte. + +Cephas Barnard entered abruptly, and stood for a second looking at +the company, while they looked back at him. His eyes were stolidly +defiant, but he stood well back, and almost shrank against the door. +There seemed to be impulses in Hannah's and Sylvia's faces +confronting his. + +He turned to his wife. "When you comin' home?" said he. + +"Oh, Cephas! I jest ran over here a minute. I--wanted to +see--if--Sylvy had any emptins. Do you want me an' Charlotte to come +now?" + +Cephas turned on his heel. "I think it's about time for you both to +be home," he grunted. + +Sarah Barnard arose and looked with piteous appeal at Charlotte. + +Charlotte hesitated a second, then she arose without a word, and +followed her mother, who followed Cephas. They went in a procession +of three, with Cephas marching ahead like a general, across the yard, +and Sylvia and Hannah stood at a window watching them. + +"Well," said Hannah Berry, "all I've got to say is I'm thankful I +'ain't got a man like that, an' you ought to be mighty thankful you +'ain't got any man at all, Sylvy Crane." + + + +Chapter III + + +When Cephas Barnard and his wife and daughter turned into the main +road and came in sight of the new house, not one of them appeared to +even glance at it, yet they all saw at once that there were no +workmen about, and they also saw Barnabas himself ploughing with a +white horse far back in a field at the left of it. + +[Illustration: "They came in sight of the house"] + +They all kept on silently. Charlotte paled a little when she caught +sight of Barney, but her face was quite steady. "Hold your dress up a +little higher; the grass is terrible wet," her mother whispered once, +and that was all that any of them said until they reached home. + +Charlotte went at once up-stairs to her own chamber, took off her +purple gown, and hung it up in her closet, and got out a common one. +The purple gown was part of her wedding wardrobe, and she had worn it +in advance with some misgivings. "I dunno but you might jest as well +wear it a few Sundays," her mother had said; "you're goin' to have +your silk dress to come out bride in. I dunno as there's any sense in +your goin' lookin' like a scarecrow all the spring because you're +goin' to get married." + +So Charlotte had put on the new purple dress the day before; now it +looked, as it hung in the closet, like an effigy of her happier self. + +When Charlotte went down-stairs she found her mother showing much +more spirit than usual in an altercation with her father. Sarah +Barnard stood before her husband, her placid face all knitted with +perplexed remonstrance. "Why, I can't, Cephas," she said. "Pies can't +be made that way." + +"I know they can," said Cephas. + +"They can't, Cephas. There ain't no use tryin'. It would jest be a +waste of the flour." + +"Why can't they, I'd like to know?" + +"Folks don't ever make pies without lard, Cephas." + +"Why don't they?" + +"Why, they wouldn't be nothin' more than-- You couldn't eat them +nohow if they was made so, Cephas. I dunno how the sorrel pies would +work. I never heard of anybody makin' sorrel pies. Mebbe the Injuns +did; but I dunno as they ever made pies, anyway. Mebbe the sorrel, if +it had some molasses on it for juice, wouldn't taste very bad; I +dunno; but anyway, if the sorrel did work, the other wouldn't. I +can't make pies fit to eat without any lard or any butter or anything +any way in the world, Cephas." + +"I know you can make 'em without," said Cephas, and his black eyes +looked like flint. Mrs. Barnard appealed to her daughter. + +"Charlotte," said she, "you tell your father that pies can't be made +fit to eat without I put somethin' in 'em for short'nin'." + +"No, they can't, father," said Charlotte. + +"He wants me to make sorrel pies, Charlotte," Mrs. Barnard went on, +in an injured and appealing tone which she seldom used against +Cephas. "He's been out in the field, an' picked all that sorrel," and +she pointed to a pan heaped up with little green leaves on the table, +"an' I tell him I dunno how that will work, but he wants me to make +the pie-crust without a mite of short'nin', an' I can't do that +nohow, can I?" + +"I don't see how you can," assented Charlotte, coldly. + +Cephas went with a sudden stride towards the pantry. "I'll make 'em +myself, then," he cried. + +Mrs. Barnard gasped, and looked piteously at her daughter. "What you +goin' to do, Cephas?" she asked, feebly. + +Cephas was in the pantry rattling the dishes with a fierce din. "I'm +a-goin' to make them sorrel pies myself," he shouted out, "if none of +you women folks know enough to." + +"Oh, Cephas, you can't!" + +Cephas came out, carrying the mixing-board and rolling-pin like a +shield and a club; he clapped them heavily on to the table. + +Mrs. Barnard stood staring aghast at him; Charlotte sat down, took +some lace edging from her pocket, and began knitting on it. She +looked hard and indifferent. + +"Oh, Charlotte, ain't it dreadful?" her mother whispered, when Cephas +went into the pantry again. + +"I don't care if he makes pies out of burrs," returned Charlotte, +audibly, but her voice was quite even. + +"I don't b'lieve but what sorrel would do some better than burrs," +said her mother, "but he can't make pies without short'nin' nohow." + +Cephas came out of the pantry with a large bowl of flour and a spoon. +"He 'ain't sifted it," Mrs. Barnard whispered to Charlotte, as though +Cephas were not there; then she turned to him. "You sifted the flour, +didn't you, Cephas?" said she. + +"You jest let me alone," said Cephas, grimly. "I'm goin' to make +these pies, an' I don't need any help. I've picked the sorrel, an' +I've got the brick oven all heated, an' I know what I want to do, an' +I'm goin' to do it!" + +"I've got some pumpkin that would make full as good pies as sorrel, +Cephas. Mebbe the sorrel will be real good. I ain't sayin' it won't, +though I never heard of sorrel pies; but you know pumpkin is good, +Cephas." + +"I know pumpkin pies have milk in 'em," said Cephas; "an' I tell you +I ain't goin' to have anything of an animal nature in 'em. I've been +studyin' into it, an' thinkin' of it, an' I've made up my mind that +I've made a mistake along back, an' we've ate too much animal food. +We've ate a whole pig an' half a beef critter this winter, to say +nothin' of eggs an' milk, that are jest as much animal as meat, +accordin' to my way of thinkin'. I've reasoned it out all along that +as long as we were animals ourselves, an' wanted to strengthen +animal, that it was common-sense that we ought to eat animal. It +seemed to me that nature had so ordered it. I reasoned it out that +other animals besides man lived on animals, except cows, an' they, +bein' ruminatin' animals, ain't to be compared to men--" + +"I should think we'd be somethin' like 'em if we eat that," said Mrs. +Barnard, pointing at the sorrel, with piteous sarcasm. + +"It's the principle I'm thinkin' about," said Cephas. He stirred some +salt into the flour very carefully, so not a dust fell over the brim +of the bowl. + +"Horses don't eat meat, neither, an' they don't chew their cuds," +Mrs. Barnard argued further. She had never in her life argued with +Cephas; but sorrel pies, after the night before, made her wildly +reckless. + +Cephas got a gourdful of water from the pail in the sink, and carried +it carefully over to the table. "Horses are the exception," he +returned, with dignified asperity. "There always are exceptions. What +I was comin' at was--I'd been kind of wrong in my reasonin'. That is, +I 'ain't reasoned far enough. I was right so far as I went." + +Cephas poured some water from the gourd into the bowl of flour and +began stirring. + +Sarah caught her breath. "He's makin'--paste!" she gasped. "He's jest +makin' flour paste!" + +"Jest so far as I went I was right," Cephas resumed, pouring in a +little more water with a judicial air. "I said Man was animal, an' he +is animal; an' if you don't take anything else into account, he'd +ought to live on animal food, jest the way I reasoned it out. But +you've got to take something else into account. Man is animal, but he +ain't all animal. He's something else. He's spiritual. Man has +command over all the other animals, an' all the beasts of the field; +an' it ain't because he's any better an' stronger animal, because he +ain't. What's a man to a horse, if the horse only knew it? but the +horse don't know it, an' there's jest where Man gets the advantage. +It's knowledge an' spirit that gives Man the rule over all the other +animals. Now, what we want is to eat the kind of things that will +strengthen knowledge an' spirit an' self-control, because the first +two ain't any account without the last; but there ain't no kind of +food that's known that can do that. If there is, I 'ain't never heard +of it." + +Cephas dumped the whole mass of paste with a flop upon the +mixing-board, and plunged his fists into it. Sarah made an +involuntary motion forward, then she stood back with a great sigh. + +"But what we can do," Cephas proceeded, "is to eat the kind of things +that won't strengthen the animal nature at the expense of the +spiritual. We know that animal food does that; we can see how it +works in tigers an' bears. Now, it's the spiritual part of us we want +to strengthen, because that is the biggest strength we can get, an' +it's worth more. It's what gives us the rule over animals. It's +better for us to eat some other kind of food, if we get real weak and +pindlin' on it, rather than eat animal food an' make the animal in us +stronger than the spiritual, so we won't be any better than wild +tigers an' bears, an' lose our rule over the other animals." + +Cephas took the rolling-pin and brought it heavily down upon the +sticky mass on the board. Sarah shuddered and started as if it had +hit her. "Now, if we can't eat animal food," said Cephas, "what other +kind of food can we eat? There ain't but one other kind that's known +to man, an' that's vegetable food, the product of the earth. An' +that's of two sorts: one gets ripe an' fit to eat in the fall of the +year, an' the other comes earlier in the spring an' summer. Now, in +order to carry out the plans of nature, we'd ought to eat these +products of the earth jest as near as we can in the season of 'em. +Some had ought to be eat in the fall an' winter, an' some in the +spring an' summer. Accordin' to my reasonin', if we all lived this +way we should be a good deal better off; our spiritual natures would +be strengthened, an' we should have more power over other animals, +an' better dispositions ourselves." + +"I've seen horses terribly ugly, an' they don't eat a mite of meat," +said Sarah, with tremulous boldness. Her right hand kept moving +forward to clutch the rolling-pin, then she would draw it back. + +"'Ain't I told ye once horses were the exceptions?" said Cephas, +severely. "There has to be exceptions. If there wa'n't any exceptions +there couldn't be any rule, an' there bein' exceptions shows there is +a rule. Women can't ever get hold of things straight. Their minds +slant off sideways, the way their arms do when they fling a stone." + +Cephas brought the rolling-pin down upon the paste again with fierce +impetus. "You'll break it," Sarah murmured, feebly. Cephas brought it +down again, his mouth set hard; his face showed a red flush through +his white beard, the veins on his high forehead were swollen and his +brows scowling. The paste adhered to the rolling-pin; he raised it +with an effort; his hands were helplessly sticky. Sarah could +restrain herself no longer. She went into the pantry and got a dish +of flour, and spooned out some suddenly over the board and Cephas's +hands. "You've got to have some more flour," she said, in a desperate +tone. + +Cephas's black eyes flashed at her. "I wish you would attend to your +own work, an' leave me alone," said he. But at last he succeeded in +moving the rolling-pin over the dough as he had seen his wife move +it. + +"He ain't greasin' the pie-plates," said Sarah, as Cephas brought a +piece of dough with a dexterous jerk over a plate; "there ain't much +animal in the little mite of lard it takes to grease a plate." + +Cephas spread handfuls of sorrel leaves over the dough; then he +brought the molasses-jug from the pantry, raised it, and poured +molasses over the sorrel with an imperturbable air. + +Sarah watched him; then she turned to Charlotte. "To think of eatin' +it!" she groaned, quite openly; "it looks like p'ison." + +Charlotte made no response; she knitted as one of the Fates might +have spun. Sarah sank down on a chair, and looked away from Cephas +and his cookery, as if she were overcome, and quite done with all +remonstrance. + +Never before had she shown so much opposition towards one of her +husband's hobbies, but this galloped so ruthlessly over her own +familiar fields that she had plucked up boldness to try to veer it +away. + +Somebody passed the window swiftly, the door opened abruptly, and +Mrs. Deborah Thayer entered. "_Good_-mornin'," said she, and her +voice rang out like a herald's defiance. + +Sarah Barnard arose, and went forward quickly. "Good-mornin'," she +responded, with nervous eagerness. "Good-mornin', Mis' Thayer. Come +in an' set down, won't you?" + +"I 'ain't come to set down," responded Deborah's deep voice. + +She moved, a stately high-hipped figure, her severe face almost +concealed in a scooping green barege hood, to the centre of the +floor, and stood there with a pose that might have answered for a +statue of Judgment. She turned her green-hooded head slowly towards +them all in turn. Sarah watched her and waited, her eyes dilated. +Cephas rolled out another pie, calmly. Charlotte knitted fast; her +face was very pale. + +"I've come over here," said Deborah Thayer, "to find out what my son +has done." + +There was not a sound, except the thud of Cephas's rolling-pin. + +"Mr. Barnard!" said Deborah. Cephas did not seem to hear her. + +"Mr. Barnard!" she said, again. There was that tone of command in her +voice which only a woman can accomplish. It was full of that maternal +supremacy which awakens the first instinct of obedience in man, and +has more weight than the voice of a general in battle. Cephas did not +turn his head, but he spoke. "What is it ye want?" he said, gruffly. + +"I want to know what my son has done, an' I want you to tell me in so +many words. I ain't afraid to face it. What has my son done?" + +Cephas grunted something inarticulate. + +"What?" said Deborah. "I can't hear what you say. I want to know what +my son has done. I've heard how you turned him out of your house last +night, and I want to know what it was for. I want to know what he has +done. You're an old man, and a God-fearing one, if you have got your +own ideas about some things. Barnabas is young, and apt to be +headstrong. He ain't always been as mindful of obedience as he might +be. I've tried to do my best by him, but he don't always carry out my +teachin's. I ain't afraid to say this, if he is my son. I want to +know what he's done. If it's anything wrong, I shall be jest as hard +on him as the Lord for it. I'm his mother, but I can see his faults, +and be just. I want to know what he has done." + +Charlotte gave one great cry. "Oh, Mrs. Thayer, he hasn't done +anything wrong; Barney hasn't done anything wrong!" + +But Deborah quite ignored her. She kept her eyes fixed upon Cephas. +"What has my son done?" she demanded again. "If he's done anything +wrong I want to know it. I ain't afraid to deal with him. You ordered +him out of your house, and he didn't come home at all last night. I +don't know where he was. He won't speak a word this mornin' to tell +me. I've been out in the field where he's to work ploughin', and I +tried to make him tell me, but he wouldn't say a word. I sat up and +waited all night, but he didn't come home. Now I want to know where +he was, and what he's done, and why you ordered him out of the house. +If he's been swearin', or takin' anything that didn't belong to him, +or drinkin', I want to know it, so I can deal with him as his mother +had ought to deal." + +"He hasn't been doing anything wrong!" Charlotte cried out again; +"you ought to be ashamed of yourself talking so about him, when +you're his mother!" + +Deborah Thayer never glanced at Charlotte. She kept her eyes fixed +upon Cephas. "What has he done?" she repeated. + +"I guess he didn't do much of anything," Mrs. Barnard murmured, +feebly; but Deborah did not seem to hear her. + +Cephas opened his mouth as if perforce. "Well," he said, slowly, "we +got to talkin'--" + +"Talkin' about what?" + +"About the 'lection. I think, accordin' to my reasonin', that what we +eat had a good deal to do with it." + +"What?" + +"I think if you'd kept your family on less meat, and given 'em more +garden-stuff to eat Barney wouldn't have been so up an' comin'. It's +what he's eat that's made him what he is." + +Deborah stared at Cephas in stern amazement. "You're tryin' to make +out, as near as I can tell," said she, "that whatever my son has done +wrong is due to what he's eat, and not to original sin. I knew you +had queer ideas, Cephas Barnard, but I didn't know you wa'n't sound +in your faith. What I want to know is, what has he done?" + +Suddenly Charlotte sprang up, and pushed herself in between her +father and Mrs. Thayer; she confronted Deborah, and compelled her to +look at her. + +"I'll tell you what he's done," she said, fiercely. "I know what he's +done; you listen to me. He has done nothing--nothing that you've got +to deal with him for. You needn't feel obliged to deal with him. He +and father got into a talk over the 'lection, and they had words +about it. He didn't talk any worse than father, not a mite. Father +started it, anyway, and he knew better; he knew just how set Barney +was on his own side, and how set he was on his; he wanted to pick a +quarrel." + +"Charlotte!" shouted Cephas. + +"You keep still, father," returned Charlotte, with steady fierceness. +"I've never set myself up against you in my whole life before; but +now I'm going to, because it's just and right. Father wanted to pick +a quarrel," she repeated, turning to Deborah; "he's been kind of +grouty to Barney for some time. I don't know why; he took a notion +to, I suppose. When they got to having words about the 'lection, +father begun it. I heard him. Barney answered back, and I didn't +blame him; I would, in his place. Then father ordered him out of the +house, and he went. I don't see what else he could do. And I don't +blame him because he didn't go home if he didn't feel like it." + +"Didn't he go away from here before nine o'clock?" demanded Deborah, +addressing Charlotte at last. + +"Yes, he did, some time before nine; he had plenty of time to go home +if he wanted to." + +"Where was he, then, I'd like to know?" + +"I don't know, and I wouldn't lift my finger to find out. I am not +afraid he was anywhere he hadn't ought to be, nor doin' anything he +hadn't ought to." + +"Didn't you stand out in the road and call him back, and he wouldn't +come, nor even turn his head to look at you?" asked Deborah. + +"Yes, I did," returned Charlotte, unflinchingly. "And I don't blame +him for not coming back and not turning his head. I wouldn't if I'd +been in his place." + +"You'll have to uphold him a long time, then; I can tell you that," +said Deborah. "He won't never come back if he's said he won't. I know +him; he's got some of me in him." + +"I'll uphold him as long as I live," said Charlotte. + +"I wonder you ain't ashamed to talk so." + +"I am not." + +Deborah looked at Charlotte as if she would crush her; then she +turned away. + +"You're a hard woman, Mrs. Thayer, and I pity Barney because he's got +you for a mother," Charlotte said, in undaunted response to Deborah's +look. + +"Well, you'll never have to pity yourself on that account," retorted +Deborah, without turning her head. + +The door opened softly, and a girl of about Charlotte's age slipped +in. Nobody except Mrs. Barnard, who said, absently, "How do you do, +Rose?" seemed to notice her. She sat down unobtrusively in a chair +near the door and waited. Her blue eyes upon the others were so +intense with excitement that they seemed to blot out the rest of her +face. She had her blue apron tightly rolled about both hands. + +Deborah Thayer, on her way to the door, looked at her as if she had +been a part of the wall, but suddenly she stopped and cast a glance +at Cephas. "What be you makin'?" she asked, with a kind of scorn at +him, and scorn at her own curiosity. + +Cephas did not reply, but he looked ugly as he slapped another piece +of dough heavily upon a plate. + +Deborah, as if against her will, moved closer to the table and bent +over the pan of sorrel. She smelled of it; then she took a leaf and +tasted it, cautiously. She made a wry face. "It's sorrel," said she. +"You're makin' pies out of sorrel. A man makin' pies out of sorrel!" + +She looked at Cephas like a condemning judge. He shot a fiery glance +at her, but said nothing. He sprinkled the sorrel leaves in the pie. + +"Well," said Deborah, "I've got a sense of justice, and if my son, or +any other man, has asked a girl to marry him, and she's got her +weddin' clothes ready, I believe in his doin' his duty, if he can be +made to; but I must say if it wa'n't for that, I'd rather he'd gone +into a family that was more like other folks. I'm goin' to do the +best I can, whether you go half way or not. I'm goin' to try to make +my son do his duty. I don't expect he will, but I shall do all I can, +tempers or no tempers, and sorrel pies or no sorrel pies." + +Deborah went out, and shut the door heavily after her. + + + +Chapter IV + + +After Deborah Thayer had shut the door, the young girl sitting beside +it arose. "I didn't know she was in here, or I wouldn't have come +in," she said, nervously. + +"That don't make any odds," replied Mrs. Barnard, who was trembling +all over, and had sunk helplessly into a rocking-chair, which she +swayed violently and unconsciously. + +Cephas opened the door of the brick oven, and put in a batch of his +pies, and the click of the iron latch made her start as if it were a +pistol-shot. + +Charlotte got up and went out of the room with a backward glance and +a slight beckoning motion of her head, and the girl slunk after her +so secretly that it seemed as if she did not see herself. Cephas +looked sharply after them, but said nothing; he was like a +philosopher in such a fury of research and experiment that for the +time he heeded thoroughly nothing else. + +The young girl, who was Rose Berry, Charlotte's cousin, followed her +panting up the steep stairs to her chamber. She was a slender little +creature, and was now overwrought with nervous excitement. She fairly +gasped for breath when she sat down in the little wooden chair in +Charlotte's room. Charlotte sat on the bed. The two girls looked at +each other--Rose with a certain wary alarm and questioning in her +eyes, Charlotte with a dignified confidence of misery. + +"I didn't sleep here last night," Charlotte said, at length. + +"You went over to Aunt Sylvy's, didn't you?" returned Rose, as if +that were all the matter in hand. + +Charlotte nodded, then she looked moodily past her cousin's face out +of the window. + +"You've heard about it, I suppose?" said Charlotte. + +"Something," replied Rose, evasively. + +"I don't see how it got out, for my part. I don't believe he told +anybody." + +Rose flushed all over her little eager face and her thin neck. She +opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it with a catch of her +breath. + +"I can't imagine how it got out," repeated Charlotte. + +Rose looked at Charlotte with a painful effort; she clutched her +hands tightly into fists as she spoke. "I was coming up here 'cross +lots last night, and I heard you out in the road calling Barney," she +said, as if she forced out the words. + +"Rose Berry, you didn't tell!" + +"I went home and told mother, that's all. I didn't think that it +would do any harm, Charlotte." + +"It'll be all over town, that's all. It's bad enough, anyway." + +"I don't believe it'll get out; I told mother not to tell." + +"Mrs. Thayer knew." + +"Maybe Barney told her." + +"Rose Berry, you know better. You know Barney wouldn't do such a +thing." + +"No; I don't s'pose he would." + +"Don't suppose! Don't you know?" + +"Yes, of course I do. I know Barney just as well as you do, +Charlotte. Oh, Charlotte, don't feel bad. I wouldn't have told mother +if I'd thought. I didn't mean to do any harm. I was all upset myself +by it. Don't cry, Charlotte." + +"I ain't going to cry," said Charlotte, with spirit. "I've stopped +cryin'." She wiped her eyes forcibly with her apron, and gave her +head a proud toss. "I know you didn't mean to do any harm, Rose, and +I suppose it would have got out anyway. 'Most everything does get out +but good deeds." + +"I truly didn't mean to do any harm, Charlotte," Rose repeated. + +"I know you didn't. We won't say any more about it." + +"I was just running over across lots last night," Rose said. "I +supposed you'd be in the front room with Barney, but I thought I'd +see Aunt Sarah. I'd got terrible lonesome; mother had gone to sleep +in her chair, and father had gone to bed. When I got out by the +stone-wall next the wood I heard you; then I ran right back. Don't +you--suppose he'll ever come again, Charlotte?" + +"No," said Charlotte. + +"Oh, Charlotte!" There was a curious quality in the girl's voice, as +if some great hidden emotion in her heart tried to leap to the +surface and make a sound, although it was totally at variance with +the import of her cry. Charlotte started, without knowing why. It was +as if Rose's words and her tone had different meanings, and +conflicted like the wrong lines with a tune. + +"I gave it up last night," said Charlotte. "It's all over. I'm goin' +to pack my wedding things away." + +"I don't see what makes you so sure." + +"I know him." + +"But I don't see what you've done, Charlotte; he didn't quarrel with +you." + +"That don't make any odds. He can't get married to me now without he +breaks his will, and he can't. He can't get outside himself enough to +break it. I've studied it all out. It's like ciphering. It's all +over." + +"Charlotte." + +"What is it?" + +"Why--couldn't you go somewhere else to get married? What's the need +of his comin' here, if he's been ordered out, and he's said he +wouldn't?" + +"That's just the letter of it," returned Charlotte, scornfully. "Do +you suppose he could cheat himself that way, or I'd have him if he +could? When Barney Thayer went out of this house last night, and said +what he did, he meant that it was all over, that he was never going +to marry me, nor have anything more to do with us, and he's going to +stand by it. I am not finding any fault with him. I've made up my +mind that it's all over, and I'm going to pack away my weddin' +things." + +"Oh, Charlotte, you take it so calm!" + +"What do you want me to do?" + +"If it was anybody else, I should think they didn't care." + +"Maybe I don't." + +"I couldn't bear it so, anyhow! I couldn't!" Rose cried out, with +sudden passion. "I wouldn't bear it. I'd go down on my knees to him +to come back!" Rose flung back her head and looked at Charlotte with +a curious defiance; her face grew suddenly intense, and seemed to +open out into bloom and color like a flower. The pupils of her blue +eyes dilated until they looked black; her thin lips looked full and +red; her cheeks were flaming; her slender chest heaved. "I would," +said she; "I don't care, I would." + +Charlotte looked at her, and a quivering flush like a reflection was +left on her fair, steady face. + +"I would," said Rose again. + +"It wouldn't do any good." + +"It would if he cared anything about you." + +"It would if he could give up to the care. Barney Thayer has got a +terrible will that won't always let him do what he wants to himself." + +"I don't believe he's enough of a fool to put his own eyes out." + +"You don't know him." + +"I'd try, anyway." + +"It wouldn't do any good." + +"I don't believe you care anything about him, Charlotte Barnard!" +Rose cried out. "If you did, you couldn't give him up so easy for +such a silly thing. You sit there just as calm. I don't believe but +what you'll have another fellow on the string in a month. I know one +that's dying to get you." + +"Maybe I shall," replied Charlotte. + +"Won't you, now?" Rose tried to speak archly, but her eyes were +fiercely eager. + +"I can't tell till I get home from the grave," said Charlotte. "You +might wait till I did, Rose." She got up and went to dusting her +bureau and the little gilt-framed mirror behind it. Her lips were +shut tightly, and she never looked at her cousin. + +"Now don't get mad, Charlotte," Rose said. "Maybe I ought not to have +spoken so, but it did seem to me you couldn't care as _much_-- It +does seem to me I couldn't settle down and be so calm if I was in +your place, and all ready to be married to anybody. I should want to +do something." + +"I should, if there was anything to do," said Charlotte. She stopped +dusting and leaned against the wall, reflecting. "I wish it was a +real mountain to move," said she; "I'd do it." + +"I'd go right down in the field where he is ploughing, and I'd make +him say he'd come to see me to-night." + +"I called him back last night--you heard me," said Charlotte, with +slow bitterness. Her square delicate chin dipped into the muslin +folds of her neckerchief; she looked steadily at the floor and bent +her brow. + +"I'd call him again." + +"You would, would you?" cried Charlotte, straightening herself. "You +would stand out in the road and keep on calling a man who wouldn't +even turn his head? You'd keep on calling, and let all the town +hear?" + +"Yes, I would. I would! I wouldn't be ashamed of anything if I was +going to marry him. I'd go on my knees before him in the face and +eyes of the whole town." + +"Well, I wouldn't," said Charlotte. + +"I would, if I was sure he thought as much of me as I did of him." + +Charlotte looked at her proudly. "I'm sure enough of that," said she. + +Rose winced a little. "Then I wouldn't mind what I did," she +persisted, stubbornly. + +"Well, I would," said Charlotte; "but maybe I don't care. Maybe all +this isn't as hard for me as it would be for another girl." +Charlotte's voice broke, but she tossed her head back with a proud +motion; she took up the dusting-cloth and fell to work again. + +"Oh, Charlotte!" said Rose; "I didn't mean that. Of course I know you +care. It's awful. It was only because I didn't see how you could seem +so calm; it ain't like me. Of course I know you feel bad enough +underneath. Your wedding-clothes all done and everything. They are +pretty near all done, ain't they, Charlotte?" + +"Yes," said Charlotte. "They're--pretty near--done." She tried to +speak steadily, but her voice failed. Suddenly she threw herself on +the bed and hid her face, and her whole body heaved and twisted with +great sobs. + +"Oh, poor Charlotte, don't!" Rose cried, wringing her own hands; her +face quivered, but she did not weep. + +"Maybe I don't care," sobbed Charlotte; "maybe--I don't care." + +"Oh, Charlotte!" Rose looked at Charlotte's piteous girlish shoulders +shaken with sobs, and the fair prostrate girlish head. Charlotte all +drawn up in this little heap upon the bed looked very young and +helpless. All her womanly stateliness, which made her seem so +superior to Rose, had vanished. Rose pulled her chair close to the +bed, sat down, and laid her little thin hand on Charlotte's arm, and +Charlotte directly felt it hot through her sleeve. "Don't, +Charlotte," Rose said; "I'm sorry I spoke so." + +"Maybe I don't care," Charlotte sobbed out again. "Maybe I don't." + +"Oh, Charlotte, I'm sorry," Rose said, trembling. "I do know you +care; don't you feel so bad because I said that." + +Rose tightened her grasp on Charlotte's arm; her voice changed +suddenly. "Look here, Charlotte," said she, "I'll do anything in the +world I can to help you; I promise you that, and I mean it, honest." + +Charlotte reached around a hand, and clasped her cousin's. + +"I'm sorry I spoke so," Rose said. + +"Never mind," Charlotte responded, chokingly. She sobbed a little +longer from pure inertia of grief; then she raised herself, shaking +off Rose's hand. "It's all right," said she; "I needn't have minded; +I know you didn't mean anything. It was just--the last straw, +and--when you said that about my wedding-clothes--" + +"Oh, Charlotte, you did speak about them yourself first," Rose said, +deprecatingly. + +"I did, so nobody else would," returned Charlotte. She wiped her +eyes, drooping her stained face away from her cousin with a kind of +helpless shame; then she smoothed her hair with the palms of her +hands. "I know you didn't mean any harm, Rose," she added, presently. +"I got my silk dress done last Wednesday; I wanted to tell you." +Charlotte tried to smile at Rose with her poor swollen lips and her +reddened eyes. + +"I'm sorry I said anything," Rose repeated; "I ought to have known it +would make you feel bad, Charlotte." + +"No, you hadn't. I was terrible silly. Don't you want to see my +dress, Rose?" + +"Oh, Charlotte! you don't want to show it to me?" + +"Yes, I do. I want you to see it--before I pack it away. It's in the +north chamber." + +Rose followed Charlotte out of the room across the passageway to the +north chamber. Charlotte had had one brother, who had died some ten +years before, when he was twenty. The north chamber had been his +room, the bureau drawers were packed with his clothes, and the silk +hat which had been the pride of his early manhood hung on the nail +where he had left it, and also his Sunday coat. His mother would not +have them removed, but kept them there, with frequent brushings, to +guard against dust and moths. + +Always when Charlotte entered this small long room, which was full of +wavering lines from its uneven floor and walls and ceiling and the +long arabesques on its old blue-and-white paper, whose green paper +curtains with fringed white dimity ones drooping over them were +always drawn, and in summertime when the windows were open undulated +in the wind, she had the sense of a presence, dim, but as positive as +the visions she had used to have of faces in the wandering design of +the old wall-paper when she had studied it in her childhood. Ever +since her brother's death she had had this sense of his presence in +his room; now she thought no more of it than of any familiar figure. +All the grief at his death had vanished, but she never entered his +old room that the thought of him did not rise up before her and stay +with her while she remained. + +Now, when she opened the door, and the opposite green and white +curtains flew out in the draught towards her, they were no more +evident than this presence to which she now gave no thought, and +pushed by her brother's memory without a glance. + +Rose followed her to the bed. A white linen sheet was laid over the +chintz counterpane. Charlotte lifted the sheet. + +"I took the last stitch on it Wednesday night," she said, in a hushed +voice. + +"Didn't he come that night?" + +"I finished it before he came." + +"Did he see it?" + +Charlotte nodded. The two girls stood looking solemnly at the silk +dress. + +"You can't see it here; it's too dark," said Charlotte, and she +rolled up a window curtain. + +"Yes, I can see better," said Rose, in a whisper. "It's beautiful, +Charlotte." + +The dress was spread widely over the bed in crisp folds. It was +purple, plaided vaguely with cloudy lines of white and delicate +rose-color. Over it lay a silvery lustre that was the very light of +the silken fabric. + +Rose felt it reverently. "How thick it is!" said she. + +"Yes, it's a good piece," Charlotte replied. + +"You thought you'd have purple?" + +"Yes, he liked it." + +"Well, it's pretty, and it's becoming to you." + +Charlotte took up the skirt, and slipped it, loud with silken +whispers, over her head. It swept out around her in a great circle; +she looked like a gorgeous inverted bell-flower. + +"It's beautiful," Rose said. + +Charlotte's face, gazing downward at the silken breadths, had quite +its natural expression. It was as if her mind in spite of herself +would stop at old doors. + +"Try on the waist," pleaded Rose. + +Charlotte slipped off her calico waist, and thrust her firm white +arms into the flaring silken sleeves of the wedding-gown. Her neck +arose from it with a grand curve. She stood before the glass and +strained the buttons together, frowning importantly. + +"It fits you like a glove," Rose murmured, admiringly, smoothing +Charlotte's glossy back. + +"I've got a spencer-cape to wear over my neck to meeting," Charlotte +said, and she opened the upper-most drawer in the chest and took out +a worked muslin cape, and adjusted it carefully over her shoulders, +pinning it across her bosom with a little brooch of her brother's +hair in a rim of gold. + +"It's elegant," said Rose. + +"I'll show you my bonnet," said Charlotte. She went into a closet and +emerged with a great green bandbox. + +Rose bent over, watching her breathlessly as she opened it. "Oh!" she +cried. "Oh, Charlotte!" + +Charlotte held up the bonnet of fine Dunstable straw, flaring in +front, and trimmed under the brim with a delicate lace ruche and a +wreath of feathery white flowers. Bows of white gauze ribbon stood up +from it stiffly. Long ribbon strings floated back over her arm as she +held it up. + +"Try it on," said Rose. + +Charlotte stepped before the glass and adjusted the bonnet to her +head. She tied the strings carefully under her chin in a great square +bow; then she turned towards Rose. The fine white wreath under the +brim encircled her face like a nimbus; she looked as she might have +done sitting a bride in the meeting-house. + +"It's beautiful," Rose said, smiling, with grave eyes. "You look real +handsome in it, Charlotte." Charlotte stood motionless a moment, with +Rose surveying her. + +"Oh, Charlotte," Rose cried out, suddenly, "I don't believe but what +you'll have him, after all!" Rose's eyes were sharp upon Charlotte's +face. It was as if the bridal robes, which were so evident, became +suddenly proofs of something tangible and real, like a garment left +by a ghost. Rose felt a sudden conviction that the quarrel was but a +temporary thing; that Charlotte would marry Barney, and that she knew +it. + +A change came over Charlotte's face. She began untying the bonnet +strings. + +"Sha'n't you?" repeated Rose, breathlessly. + +"No, I sha'n't." + +Charlotte took the bonnet off and smoothed the creases carefully out +of the strings. + +"If I were you," Rose cried out, "I'd feel like tearing that bonnet +to pieces!" + +Charlotte replaced it in the bandbox, and began unfastening her +dress. + +"I don't see how you can bear the sight of them. I don't believe I +could bear them in the house!" Rose cried out again. "I would put +that dress in the rag-bag if it was mine!" Her cheeks burned and her +eyes were quite fierce upon the dress as Charlotte slipped it off and +it fell to the floor in a rustling heap around her. + +"I don't see any sense in losing everything you have ever had because +you haven't got anything now," Charlotte returned, in a stern voice. +She laid the shining silk gown carefully on the bed, and put on her +cotton one again. Her face was quite steady. + +Rose watched her with the same sharp question in her eyes. "You know +you and Barney will make it up," she said, at length. + +"No, I don't," returned Charlotte. "Suppose we go down-stairs now. +I've got some work I ought to do." + +Charlotte pulled down the green paper shades of the windows, and went +out of the room. Rose followed. Charlotte turned to go down-stairs, +but Rose caught her arm. + +"Wait a minute," said she. "Look here, Charlotte." + +"What is it?" + +"Charlotte," said Rose again; then she stopped. + +Charlotte turned and looked at her. Rose's eyes met hers, and her +face had a noble expression. + +"You write a note to him, and I'll carry it," said Rose. "I'll go +down in the field where he is, on my way home." + +Tears sprang into Charlotte's eyes. "You're real good, Rose," she +said; "but I can't." + +"Hadn't you better?" + +"No; I can't. Don't let's talk any more about it." + +Charlotte pushed past Rose's detaining hand, and the girls went +down-stairs. Mrs. Barnard looked around dejectedly at them as they +entered the kitchen. Her eyes were red, and her mouth drooping; she +was clearing the debris of the pies from the table; there was a smell +of baking, but Cephas had gone out. She tried to smile at Rose. "Are +you goin' now?" said she. + +"Yes; I've got to. I've got to sew on my muslin dress. When are you +coming over, Aunt Sarah? You haven't been over to our house for an +age." + +"I don't care if I never go anywhere!" cried Sarah Barnard, with +sudden desperation. "I'm discouraged." She sank in a chair, and flung +her apron over her face. + +"Don't, mother," said Charlotte. + +"I can't help it," sobbed her mother. "You're young and you've got +more strength to bear it, but mine's all gone. I feel worse about you +than if it was myself, an' there's so much to put up with besides. I +don't feel as if I could put up with things much longer, nohow." + +"Uncle Cephas ought to be ashamed of himself!" Rose cried out. + +Sarah stood up. "Well, I don't s'pose I have so much to put up with +as some folks," she said, catching her breath as if it were her +dignity. "Your Uncle Cephas means well. It did seem as if them sorrel +pies were the last straw, but I hadn't ought to have minded it." + +"You haven't got to eat sorrel pies, have you?" Rose asked, in a +bewildered way. + +"I don't s'pose they'll be any worse than some other things we eat," +Sarah answered, scraping the pie-board again. + +"I don't see how you can." + +"I guess they won't hurt us any," Sarah said, shortly, and Rose +looked abashed. + +"Well, I must be going," said she. + +As she went out, she looked hesitatingly at Charlotte. "Hadn't you +better?" she whispered. Charlotte shook her head, and Rose went out +into the spring sunlight. She bent her head as she went down the road +before the sweet gusts of south wind; the white apple-trees seemed to +sing, for she could not see the birds in them. + +Rose's face between the green sides of her bonnet had in it all the +quickened bloom of youth in spring; her eyes had all the blue +surprise of violets; she panted softly between red swelling lips as +she walked; pulses beat in her crimson cheeks. Her slender figure +yielded to the wind as to a lover. She passed Barney Thayer's new +house; then she came opposite the field where he was at work +ploughing, driving a white horse, stooping to his work in his blue +frock. + +Rose stood still and looked at him; then she walked on a little way; +then she paused again. Barney never looked around at her. There was +the width of a field between them. + +Finally Rose went through the open bars into the first field. She +crossed it slowly, holding up her skirts where there was a wet gleam +through darker grass, and getting a little nosegay of violets with a +busy air, as if that were what she had come for. She passed through +the other bars into the second field, and Barney was only a little +way from her. He did not glance at her then. He was ploughing with +the look that Cadmus might have worn preparing the ground for the +dragon's teeth. + +Rose held up her skirts, and went along the furrows behind him. +"Hullo, Barney," she said, in a trembling voice. + +"Hullo," he returned, without looking around, and he kept on, with +Rose following. + +"Barney," said she, timidly. + +"Well?" said Barney, half turning, with a slight show of courtesy. + +"Do you know if Rebecca is at home?" + +"I don't know whether she is or not." + +Barney held stubbornly to his rocking plough, and Rose followed. + +"Barney," said she, again. + +"Well?" + +"Stop a minute, and look round here." + +"I can't stop to talk." + +"Yes, you can; just a minute. Look round here." + +Barney stopped, and turned a stern, miserable face over his shoulder. + +"I've been up to Charlotte's," Rose said. + +"I don't know what that is to me." + +"Barney Thayer, ain't you ashamed of yourself?" + +"I can't stop to talk." + +"Yes, you can. Look here. Charlotte feels awfully." + +Barney stood with his back to Rose; his very shoulders had a dogged +look. + +"Barney, why don't you make up with her?" + +Barney stood still. + +"Barney, she feels awfully because you didn't come back when she +called you last night." + +Barney made no reply. He and the white horse stood like statues. + +"Barney, why don't you make up with her? I wish you would." Rose's +voice was full of tender inflections; it might have been that of an +angel peace-making. + +Barney turned around between the handles of the plough, and looked at +her steadily. "You don't know anything about it, Rose," he said. + +Rose looked up in his face, and her own was full of fine pleading. +"Oh, Barney," she said, "poor Charlotte does feel so bad! I know that +anyhow." + +"You don't know how I am situated. I can't--" + +"Do go and see her, Barney." + +"Do you think I'm going into Cephas Barnard's house after he's +ordered me out?" + +"Go up the road a little way, and she'll come and meet you. I'll run +ahead and tell her." + +Barney shook his head. "I can't; you don't know anything about it, +Rose." He looked into Rose's eyes. "You're real good, Rose," he said, +as if with a sudden recognition of her presence. + +Rose blushed softly, a new look came into her eyes, she smiled up at +him, and her face was all pink and sweet and fully set towards him, +like a rose for which he was a sun. + +"No, I ain't good," she whispered. + +"Yes, you are; but I can't. You don't know anything about it." He +swung about and grasped his plough-handles again. + +"Barney, do stop a minute," Rose pleaded. + +"I can't stop any longer; there's no use talking," Barney said; and +he went on remorselessly through the opening furrow. Just before he +turned the corner Rose made a little run forward and caught his arm. + +"You don't think I've done anything out of the way speaking to you +about it, do you, Barney?" she said, and she was half crying. + +"I don't know why I should think you had; I suppose you meant all +right," Barney said. He pulled his arm away softly, and jerked the +right rein to turn the horse. "G'lang!" he cried out, and strode +forward with a conclusive air. + +Rose stood looking after him a minute; then she struck off across the +field. Her knees trembled as she stepped over the soft plough-ridges. + +When she was out on the road again she went along quickly until she +came to the Thayer house. She was going past that when she heard some +one calling her name, and turned to see who it was. + +Rebecca Thayer came hurrying out of the yard with a basket on her +arm. "Wait a minute," she called, "and I'll go along with you." + + + +Chapter V + + +Rebecca, walking beside Rose, looked like a woman of another race. +She was much taller, and her full, luxuriant young figure looked +tropical beside Rose's slender one. Her body undulated as she walked, +but Rose moved only with forward flings of delicate limbs. + +"I've got to carry these eggs down to the store and get some sugar," +said Rebecca. + +Rose assented, absently. She was full of the thought of her talk with +Barney. + +"It's a pleasant day, ain't it?" said Rebecca. + +"Yes, it's real pleasant. Say, Rebecca, I'm awful afraid I made +Barney mad just now." + +"Why, what did you do?" + +"I stopped in the field when I was going by. I'd been up to see +Charlotte, and I said something about it to him." + +"How much do you know about it?" Rebecca asked, abruptly. + +"Charlotte told me this mornin', and last night when I was going to +her house across lots I saw Barney going, and heard her calling him +back. I thought I'd see if I couldn't coax him to make up with her, +but I couldn't." + +"Oh, he'll come round," said Rebecca. + +"Then you think it'll be made up?" Rose asked, quickly. + +"Of course it will. We're having a terrible time about poor Barney. +He didn't come home last night, and it's much as ever he's spoken +this morning. He wouldn't eat any breakfast. He just went into his +room, and put on his other clothes, and then went out in the field to +work. He wouldn't tell mother anything about it. I never saw her so +worked up. She's terribly afraid he's done something wrong." + +"He hasn't done anything wrong," returned Rose. "I think your mother +is terrible hard on him. It's Uncle Cephas; he just picked the +quarrel. He hasn't never more'n half liked Barney. So you think +Barney will make up with Charlotte, and they'll get married, after +all?" + +"Of course they will," Rebecca replied, promptly. "I guess they won't +be such fools as not to for such a silly reason as that, when +Barney's got his house 'most done, and Charlotte has got all her +wedding-clothes ready." + +"Ain't Barney terrible set?" + +"He's set enough, but I guess you'll find he won't be this time." + +"Well, I'm sure I hope he won't be," Rose said, and she walked along +silently, her face sober in the depths of her bonnet. + +They came to Richard Alger's house on the right-hand side of the +road, and Rebecca looked reflectively at the white cottage with its +steep peak of Gothic roof set upon a ploughed hill. "It's queer how +he's been going with your aunt Sylvy all these years," she said. + +"Yes, 'tis," assented Rose, and she too glanced up at the house. As +they looked, a man came around the corner with a basket. He was about +to plant potatoes in his hilly yard. + +"There he is now," said Rose. + +They watched Richard Alger coming towards them, past a great tree +whose new leaves were as red as flowers. + +"What do you suppose the reason is?" Rebecca said, in a low voice. + +"I don't know. I suppose he's got used to living this way." + +"I shouldn't think they'd be very happy," Rebecca said; and she +blushed, and her voice had a shamefaced tone. + +"I don't suppose it makes so much difference when folks get older," +Rose returned. + +"Maybe it don't. Rose." + +"What is it?" + +"I wish you'd go into the store with me." + +Rose laughed. "What for?" + +"Nothing. Only I wish you would." + +"You afraid of William?" Rose peered around into Rebecca's bonnet. + +Rebecca blushed until tears came to her eyes. "I'd like to know what +I'd be afraid of William Berry for," she replied. + +"Then what do you want me to go into the store with you for?" + +"Nothing." + +"You're a great ninny, Rebecca Thayer," Rose said, laughing, "but +I'll go if you want me to. I know William won't like it. You run away +from him the whole time. There isn't another girl in Pembroke treats +him as badly as you do." + +"I don't treat him badly." + +"Yes, you do. And I don't believe but what you like him, Rebecca +Thayer; you wouldn't act so silly if you didn't." + +Rebecca was silent. Rose peered around in her face again. "I was only +joking. I think a sight more of you for not running after him, and so +does William. You haven't any idea how some of the girls act chasing +to the store. Mother and I have counted 'em some days, and then we +plague William about it, but he won't own up they come to see him. He +acts more ashamed of it than the girls do." + +"That's one thing I never would do--run after any fellow," said +Rebecca. + +"I wouldn't either." + +Then the two girls had reached the tavern and the store. Rose's +father, Silas Berry, had kept the tavern, but now it was closed, +except to occasional special guests. He had gained a competency, and +his wife Hannah had rebelled against further toil. Then, too, the +railroad had been built through East Pembroke instead of Pembroke, +the old stage line had become a thing of the past, and the tavern was +scantily patronized. Still, Silas Berry had given it up with great +reluctance; he cherished a grudge against his wife because she had +insisted upon it, and would never admit that business policy had +aught to do with it. + +The store adjoining the tavern, which he had owned for years, he +still retained, but his son William had charge of it. Silas Berry was +growing old, and the year before had had a slight shock of paralysis, +which had made him halt and feeble, although his mind was as clear as +ever. However, although he took no active part in the duties of the +store, he was still there, and sharply watchful for his interests, +the greater part of every day. + +The two girls went up the steps to the store piazza. Rose stepped +forward and looked in the door. "Father's in there, and Tommy Ray," +she whispered. "You needn't be afraid to go in." But she entered as +she spoke, and Rebecca followed her. + +There was one customer in the great country store, a stout old man, +on the grocery side. His broad red face turned towards them a second, +then squinted again at some packages on the counter. He was haggling +for garden seeds. William Berry, who was waiting upon him, did not +apparently look at his sister and Rebecca Thayer, but Rebecca had +entered his heart as well as the store, and he saw her face deep in +his own consciousness. + +Tommy Ray, the great white-headed boy who helped William in the +store, shuffled along behind the counter indeterminately, but the +girls did not seem to see him. Rose was talking fast to Rebecca. He +lounged back against the shelves, stared out the door, and whistled. + +Out of the obscurity in the back of the store an old man's narrow +bristling face peered, watchful as a cat, his body hunched up in a +round-backed arm-chair. + +"Mr. Nims will go in a minute," Rose whispered, and presently the old +farmer clamped past them out the door, counting his change from one +hand to the other, his lips moving. + +William Berry replaced the seed packages which the customer had +rejected on the shelves as the girls approached him. + +"Rebecca's got some eggs to sell," Rose announced. + +[Illustration: "'Rebecca's got some eggs to sell'"] + +William Berry's thin, wide-shouldered figure towered up behind the +counter; he smiled, and the smile was only a deepening of the +pleasant intensity of his beardless face, with its high pale forehead +and smooth crest of fair hair. The lines in his face scarcely +changed. + +"How d'ye do?" said he. + +"How d'ye do?" returned Rebecca, with fluttered dignity. Her face +bloomed deeply pink in the green tunnel of her sun-bonnet, her black +eyes were as soft and wary as a baby's, her full red lips had a +grave, innocent expression. + +"How many dozen eggs have you got, Rebecca?" Rose inquired, peering +into the basket. + +"Two; mother couldn't spare any more to-day," Rebecca replied, in a +trembling voice. + +"How much sugar do you give for two dozen eggs, William?" asked Rose. + +William hesitated; he gave a scarcely perceptible glance towards the +watchful old man, whose eyes seemed to gleam out of the gloom in the +back of the store. "Well, about two pounds and a half," he replied, +in a low voice. + +Rebecca set her basket of eggs on the counter. + +"How many pound did you tell her, William?" called the old man's +hoarse voice. + +William compressed his lips. "About two and a half, father." + +"How many?" + +"Two and a half." + +"How many dozen of eggs?" + +"Two." + +"You ain't offerin' of her two pound of sugar for two dozen eggs?" + +"I said two pounds and a half of sugar, father," said William. He +began counting the eggs. + +"Be you gone crazy?" + +"Never mind," whispered Rebecca. "That's too much sugar for the eggs. +Mother didn't expect so much. Don't say any more about it, William." +Her face was quite steady and self-possessed now, as she looked at +William, frowning heavily over the eggs. + +"Give Rebecca two pounds of sugar for the eggs, father, and call it +square," Rose called out. + +Silas Berry pulled himself up a joint at a time; then he came forward +at a stiff halt, his face pointing out in advance of his body. He +entered at the gap in the counter, and pressed close to his son's +side. Then he looked sharply across at Rebecca. "Sugar is fourteen +cents a pound now," said he, "an' eggs ain't fetchin' more'n ten +cents a dozen. You tell your mother." + +"Father, I told her I'd giver her two and a half pounds for two +dozen," said William; he was quite pale. He began counting the eggs +over again, and his hands trembled. + +"I'll take just what you're willing to give," Rebecca said to Silas. + +"Sugar is fourteen cents a pound, an' eggs is fetchin' ten cents a +dozen," said the old man; "you can have a pound and a half of sugar +for them eggs if you can give me a cent to boot." + +Rebecca colored. "I'm afraid I haven't got a cent with me," said she; +"I didn't fetch my purse. You'll have to give me a cent's worth less +sugar, Mr. Berry." + +"It's kinder hard to calkilate so close as that," returned Silas, +gravely; "you had better tell your mother about it, an' you come back +with the cent by-an'-by." + +"Why, father!" cried Rose. + +William shouldered his father aside with a sudden motion. "I'm +tending to this, father," he said, in a stern whisper; "you leave it +alone." + +"I ain't goin' to stan' by an' see you givin' twice as much for eggs +as they're worth 'cause it's a gal you're tradin' with. That wa'n't +never my way of doin' business, an' I ain't goin' to have it done in +my store. I shouldn't have laid up a cent if I'd managed any such +ways, an' I ain't goin' to see my hard earnin's wasted by you. You +give her a pound and a half of sugar for them eggs and a cent to +boot." + +"You sha'n't lose anything by it, father," said William, fiercely. +"You leave me alone." + +The sugar-barrel stood quite near. William strode over to it, and +plunged in the great scoop with a grating noise. He heaped it +recklessly on some paper, and laid it on the steelyards. + +"Don't give me more'n a pound and a half," Rebecca said, softly. + +"Keep still," Rose whispered in her ear. + +Silas pushed forward, and bent over the steelyards. "You've weighed +out nigh three," he began. Then his son's face suddenly confronted +his, and he stopped talking and stood back. + +Almost involuntarily at times Silas Berry yielded to the combination +of mental and superior physical force in his son. While his own mind +had lost nothing of its vigor, his bodily weakness made him +distrustful of it sometimes, when his son towered over him in what +seemed the might of his own lost strength and youth, brandishing his +own old weapons. + +William tied up the sugar neatly; then he took the eggs from +Rebecca's basket, and put the parcel in their place. Silas began +lifting the eggs from the box in which William had put them, and +counted them eagerly. + +"There ain't but twenty-three eggs here," he called out, as Rebecca +and Rose turned away, and William was edging after them from behind +the counter. + +"I thought there were two dozen," Rebecca responded, in a distressed +voice. + +"Of course there are two dozen," said Rose, promptly. "You 'ain't +counted 'em right, father. Go along, Rebecca; it's all right." + +"I tell ye it ain't," said Silas. "There ain't but twenty-three. It's +bad enough to be payin' twice what they're wuth for eggs, without +havin' of 'em come short." + +"I tell you I counted 'em twice over, and they're all right. You keep +still, father," said William's voice at his ear, in a fierce whisper, +and Silas subsided into sullen mutterings. + +William had meditated following Rebecca to the door; he had even +meditated going farther; but now he stood back behind the counter, +and began packing up some boxes with a busy air. + +"Ain't you going a piece with Rebecca, and carry her basket, +William?" Rose called back, when the two girls reached the door. + +Rebecca clutched her arm. "Oh, don't," she gasped, and Rose giggled. + +"Ain't you, William?" she said again. + +Rebecca hurried out the door, but she heard William reply coldly that +he couldn't, he was too busy. She was half crying when Rose caught up +with her. + +"William wanted to go bad enough, but he was too upset by what father +said. You mustn't mind father," Rose said, peering around into +Rebecca's bonnet. "Why, Rebecca, what is the matter?" + +"I didn't go into that store a step to see William Berry. You know I +didn't," Rebecca cried out, with sudden passion. Her voice was hoarse +with tears; her face was all hot and quivering with shame and anger. + +"Why, of course you didn't," Rose returned, in a bewildered way. "Who +said you did, Rebecca?" + +"You know I didn't. I hated to go to the store this morning. I told +mother I didn't want to, but she didn't have a mite of sugar in the +house, and there wasn't anybody else to send. Ephraim ain't very +well, and Doctor Whiting says he ought not to walk very far. I had to +come, but I didn't come to see William Berry, and nobody has any call +to think I did." + +"I don't know who said you did. I don't know what you mean, Rebecca." + +"You acted as if you thought so. I don't want William Berry seeing me +home in broad daylight, when I've been to the store to trade, and you +needn't think that's what I came for, and he needn't." + +"Good land, Rebecca Thayer, he didn't, and I was just in fun. He'd +have come with you, but he was so mad at what father said that he +backed out. William's just about as easy upset as you are. I didn't +mean any harm. Say, Rebecca, come into the house a little while, +can't you? I don't believe your mother is in any great hurry for the +sugar." Rose took hold of Rebecca's arm, but Rebecca jerked herself +away with a sob, and went down the road almost on a run. + +"Well, I hope you're touchy enough, Rebecca Thayer," Rose called out, +as she stood looking after her. "Folks will begin to think you did +come to see William if you make such a fuss when nobody accuses you +of it, if you don't look out." + +Rebecca hastened trembling down the road. She made no reply, but she +knew that Rose was quite right, and that she had attacked her with +futile reproaches in order to save herself from shame in her own +eyes. Rebecca knew quite well that in spite of her hesitation and +remonstrances, in spite of her maiden shrinking on the threshold of +the store, she had come to see William Berry. She had been glad, +although she had turned a hypocritical face towards her own +consciousness, that Ephraim was not well enough and she was obliged +to go. Her heart had leaped with joy when Rose had proposed William's +walking home with her, but when he refused she was crushed with +shame. "He thought I came to see him," she kept saying to herself as +she hurried along, and there was no falsehood that she would not have +sworn to to shield her modesty from such a thought on his part. + +When she got home and entered the kitchen, she kept her face turned +away from her mother. "Here's the sugar," she said, and she took it +out of the basket and placed it on the table. + +"How much did he give you?" asked Deborah Thayer; she was standing +beside the window beating eggs. Over in the field she could catch a +glimpse of Barnabas now and then between the trees as he passed with +his plough. + +"About two pounds." + +"That was doin' pretty well." + +Rebecca said nothing. She turned to go out of the room. + +"Where are you going?" her mother asked, sharply. "Take off your +bonnet. I want you to beat up the butter and sugar; this cake ought +to be in the oven." + +Deborah's face, as she beat the eggs and made cake, looked as full of +stern desperation as a soldier's on the battle-field. Deborah never +yielded to any of the vicissitudes of life; she met them in fair +fight like enemies, and vanquished them, not with trumpet and spear, +but with daily duties. It was a village story how Deborah Thayer +cleaned all the windows in the house one afternoon when her first +child had died in the morning. To-day she was in a tumult of wrath +and misery over her son; her mouth was so full of the gall of +bitterness that no sweet on earth could overcome it; but she made +sweet cake. + +Rebecca took off her sun-bonnet and hung it on a peg; she got a box +from the pantry, and emptied the sugar into in, still keeping her +face turned away as best she could from her mother's eyes. + +Deborah looked approvingly at the sugar. "It's nigher three pounds +than anything else. I guess you were kind of favored, Rebecca. Did +William wait on you?" + +"Yes, he did." + +"I guess you were kind of favored," Deborah repeated, and a +half-smile came over her grim face. + +Rebecca said nothing. She got some butter, and fell to work with a +wooden spoon, creaming the butter and sugar in a brown wooden bowl +with swift turns of her strong white wrist. Ephraim watched her +sharply; he sat by a window stoning raisins. His mother had forbidden +him to eat any, as she thought them injurious to him; but he +carefully calculated his chances, and deposited many in his mouth +when she watched Barney; but his jaws were always gravely set when +she turned his way. + +Ephraim's face had a curious bluish cast, as if his blood were the +color of the juice of a grape. His chest heaved shortly and heavily. +The village doctor had told is mother that he had heart-disease, +which might prove fatal, although there was a chance of his +outgrowing it, and Deborah had set her face against that. + +Ephraim's face, in spite of its sickly hue, had a perfect healthiness +and naturalness of expression, which insensibly gave confidence to +his friends, although it aroused their irritation. A spirit of boyish +rebellion and importance looked out of Ephraim's black eyes; his +mouth was demure with mischief, his gawky figure perpetually uneasy +and twisting, as if to find entrance into small forbidden places. +There was something in Ephraim's face, when she looked suddenly at +him, which continually led his mother to infer that he had been +transgressing. "What have you been doin', Ephraim?" she would call +out, sharply, many a time, with no just grounds for suspicion, and be +utterly routed by Ephraim's innocent, wondering grin in response. + +The boy was set about with restrictions which made his life +miserable, but the labor of picking over plums for a cake was quite +to his taste. He dearly loved plums, although they were especially +prohibited. He rolled one quietly under his tongue, and watched +Rebecca with sharp eyes. She could scarcely keep her face turned away +from him and her mother too. + +"Say, mother, Rebecca's been cryin'!" Ephraim announced, suddenly. + +Deborah turned and looked at Rebecca's face bending lower over the +wooden bowl; her black lashes rested on red circles, and her lips +were swollen. + +"I'd like to know what you've been cryin' about," said Deborah. It +was odd that she did not think that Rebecca's grief might be due to +the worry over Barney; but she did not for a minute. She directly +attributed it to some personal and strictly selfish consideration +which should arouse her animosity. + +"Nothing," said Rebecca, with sulky misery. + +"Yes, you've been cryin' about something, too. I want to know what +'tis." + +"Nothing. I wish you wouldn't, mother." + +"Did you see William Berry over to the store?" + +"I told you I did once." + +"Well, you needn't bite my head off. Did he say anything to you?" + +"He weighed out the sugar. I know one thing: I'll never set my foot +inside that store again as long as I live!" + +"I'd like to know what you mean, Rebecca Thayer." + +"I ain't going to have folks think I'm running after William Berry." + +"I'd like to know who thinks you are. If it's Hannah Berry, she +needn't talk, after the way her daughter has chased over here. Mebbe +it's all you Rose Berry has been to see, but I've had my doubts. What +did Hannah Berry say to you?" + +"She didn't say anything. I haven't seen her." + +"What was it, then?" + +But Rebecca would not tell her mother what the trouble had been; she +could not bring herself to reveal how William had been urged to walk +home with her and how coldly he had refused, and finally Deborah, in +spite of baffled interest, turned upon her. "Well, I hope you didn't +do anything unbecoming," said she. + +"Mother, you know better." + +"Well, I hope you didn't." + +"Mother, I won't stand being talked to so!" + +"I rather think I shall talk to you all I think I ought to for your +own good," said Deborah, with fierce persistency. "I ain't goin' to +have any daughter of mine doin' anything bold and forward, if I know +it." + +Rebecca was weeping quite openly now. "Mother, you know you sent me +down to the store yourself; there wasn't anybody else to go," she +sobbed out. + +"Your goin' to the store wa'n't anything. I guess you can go to the +store to trade off some eggs for sugar when I'm makin' cake without +William Berry thinkin' you're runnin' after him, or Hannah Berry +thinkin' so either. But there wa'n't any need of your makin' any +special talk with him, or lookin' as if you was tickled to death to +see him." + +"I didn't. I wouldn't go across the room to see William Berry. You +haven't any right to say such things to me, mother." + +"I guess I've got a right to talk to my own daughter. I should think +things had come to a pretty pass if I can't speak when I see you +doin' out of the way. I know one thing, you won't go to that store +again. I'll go myself next time. Have you got that butter an' sugar +mixed up?" + +"I hope you will go, I'm sure. I don't want to," returned Rebecca. +She had stopped crying, but her face was burning; she hit the spoon +with dull thuds against the wooden bowl. + +"Don't you be saucy. That's done enough; give it here." + +Deborah finished the cake with a master hand. When she measured the +raisins which Ephraim had stoned she cast a sharp glance at him, but +he was ready for it with beseechingly upturned sickly face. "Can't I +have just one raisin, mother?" he pleaded. + +"Yes, you may, if you 'ain't eat any while you was pickin' of 'em +over," she answered. And he reached over a thumb and finger and +selected a large fat plum, which he ate with ostentatious relish. +Ephraim's stomach oppressed him, his breath came harder, but he had a +sense of triumph in his soul. This depriving him of the little +creature comforts which he loved, and of the natural enjoyments of +boyhood, aroused in him a blind spirit of revolution which he felt +virtuous in exercising. Ephraim was absolutely conscienceless with +respect to all his stolen pleasures. + +Deborah had a cooking-stove. She had a progressive spirit, and when +stoves were first introduced had promptly done away with the brick +oven, except on occasions when much baking-room was needed. After her +new stove was set up in her back kitchen, she often alluded to Hannah +Berry's conservative principles with scorn. Hannah's sister, Mrs. +Barnard, had told her how a stove could be set up in the tavern any +minute; but Hannah despised new notions. "Hannah won't have one, +nohow," said Mrs. Barnard. "I dunno but I would, if Cephas could +afford it, and wa'n't set against it. It seems to me it might save a +sight of work." + +"Some folks are rooted so deep in old notions that they can't see +their own ideas over them," declared Deborah. Often when she cooked +in her new stove she inveighed against Hannah Berry's foolishness. + +"If Hannah Berry wants to heat up a whole brick oven and work the +whole forenoon to bake a loaf of cake, she can," said she, as she put +the pan of cake in the oven. "Now, you watch this, Rebecca Thayer, +and don't you let it burn, and you get the potatoes ready for +dinner." + +"Where are you going, mother?" asked Ephraim. + +"I'm just goin' to step out a little way." + +"Can't I go too?" + +"No; you set still. You ain't fit to walk this mornin'. You know what +the doctor told you." + +"It won't hurt me any," whined Ephraim. There were times when the +spirit of rebellion in him made illness and even his final demise +flash before his eyes like sweet overhanging fruit, since they were +so strenuously forbidden. + +"You set still," repeated his mother. She tied on her own green +sun-bonnet, stiffened with pasteboard, and went with it rattling +against her ears across the fields to the one where her son was +ploughing. The grass was not wet, but she held her dress up high, +showing her thick shoes and her blue yarn stockings, and took long +strides. Barney was guiding the plough past her when she came up. + +"You stop a minute," she said, authoritatively. "I want to speak to +you." + +"Whoa!" said Barney, and pulled up the horse. "Well, what is it?" he +said, gruffly, with his eyes upon the plough. + +"You go this minute and set the men to work on your house again. You +leave the horse here--I'll watch him--and go and tell Sam Plummer to +come and get the other men." + +"G'lang!" said Barney, and the horse pulled the plough forward with a +jerk. + +Mrs. Thayer seized Barney's arm. "You stop!" said she. "Whoa, whoa! +Now you look here, Barnabas Thayer. I don't know what you did to make +Cephas Barnard order you out of the house, but I know it was +something. I ain't goin' to believe it was all about the election. +There was something back of that. I ain't goin' to shield you because +you're my son. I know jest how set you can be in your own ways, and +how you can hang on to your temper. I've known you ever since you was +a baby; you can't teach me anything new about yourself. I don't know +what you did to make Cephas mad, but I know what you've got to do +now. You go and set the men to work on that house again, and then you +go over to Cephas Barnard's, and you tell him you're sorry for what +you've done. I don't care anything about Cephas Barnard, and if I'd +had my way in the first place I wouldn't have had anything to do with +him or his folks either; but now you've got to do what's right if +you've gone as far as this, and Charlotte's all ready to be married. +You go right along, Barnabas Thayer!" + +Barnabas stood immovable, his face set past his mother, as +irresponsively unyielding as a rock. + +"Be you goin'?" + +Barnabas did not reply. His mother moved, and brought her eyes on a +range with his, and the two faces confronted each other in silence, +while it was as if two wills clashed swords in advance of them. + +Then Mrs. Thayer moved away. "I ain't never goin' to say anything +more to you about it," she said; "but there's one thing--you needn't +come home to dinner. You sha'n't ever sit down to a meal in your +father's and mother's house whilst this goes on." + +"G'lang!" said Barnabas. The horse started, and he bent to the +plough. His mother stepped homeward over the plough-ridges with stern +unyielding steps, as if they were her enemies slain in battle. + +Just as she reached her own yard her husband drove in on a rattling +farm cart. She beckoned to him, and he pulled the horse up short. + +"I've told him he needn't come home to dinner," she said, standing +close to the wheel. + +Caleb looked down at her with a scared expression. "Well, I s'pose +you know what's best, Deborah," he said. + +"If he can't do what's right he's got to suffer for it," returned +Deborah. + +She went into the house, and Caleb drove clanking into the barn. + +Before dinner the old man stole off across lots, keeping well out of +sight of the kitchen windows lest his wife should see him, and +pleaded with Barnabas, but all in vain. The young man was more +outspoken with his father, but he was just as firm. + +"Your mother's terrible set about it, Barney. You'd better go over to +Charlotte's and make up." + +"I can't; it's all over," Barney said, in reply; and Caleb at length +plodded soberly and clumsily home. + +After dinner he went out behind the barn, and Rebecca, going to feed +the hens, found him sitting under the wild-cherry tree, fairly +sobbing in his old red handkerchief. + +She went near him, and stood looking at him with restrained sympathy. + +"Don't feel bad, father," she said, finally. "Barney'll get over it, +and come to supper." + +"No, he won't," groaned the old man--"no, he won't. He's jest like +your mother." + + + +Chapter VI + + +The weeks went on, and still Barnabas had not yielded. The story of +his quarrel with Cephas Barnard and his broken engagement with +Charlotte had become an old one in Pembroke, but it had not yet lost +its interest. A genuine excitement was so rare in the little peaceful +village that it had to be made to last, and rolled charily under the +tongue like a sweet morsel. However, there seemed to be no lack now, +for the one had set others in motion: everybody knew how Barnabas +Thayer no longer lived at home, and did not sit in his father's pew +in church, but in the gallery, and how Richard Alger had stopped +going to see Sylvia Crane. + +There was not much walking in the village, except to and from church +on a Sabbath day; but now on pleasant Sabbath evenings an occasional +couple, or an inquisitive old man with eyes sharp under white brows, +and chin set ahead like a pointer's, strolled past Sylvia's house and +the Thayer house, Barney's new one and Cephas Barnard's. + +They looked sharply and furtively to see if Sylvia had a light in her +best room, and if Richard Alger's head was visible through the +window, if Barney Thayer had gone home and yielded to his mother's +commands, if any more work had been done on the new house, and if he +perchance had gone a-courting Charlotte again. + +But they never saw Richard Alger's face in poor Sylvia's best room, +although her candle was always lit, they never saw Barney at his old +home, the new house advanced not a step beyond its incompleteness, +and Barney never was seen at Charlotte Barnard's on a Sabbath night. +Once, indeed, there was a rumor to that effect. A man's smooth dark +head was visible at one of the front-room windows opposite +Charlotte's fair one, and everybody took it for Barney's. + +The next morning Barney's mother came to the door of the new house. +"I want to know if it's true that you went over there last night," +she said; her voice was harsh, but her mouth was yielding. + +"No, I didn't," said Barney, shortly, and Deborah went away with a +harsh exclamation. Before long she knew and everybody else knew that +the man who had been seen at Charlotte's window was not Barney, but +Thomas Payne. + +Presently Ephraim came slowly across to the garden-patch where Barney +was planting. He was breathing heavily, and grinning. When he reached +Barney he stood still watching him, and the grin deepened. "Say, +Barney," he panted at length. + +"Well, what is it?" + +"You've lost your girl; did you know it, Barney?" + +Barney muttered something unintelligible; it sounded like the growl +of a dog, but Ephraim was not intimidated. He chuckled with delight +and spoke again. "Say, Barney, Thomas Payne's got your girl; did you +know it, Barney?" + +Barney turned threateningly, but he was helpless before his brother's +sickly face, and Ephraim knew it. That purple hue and that panting +breath had gained an armistice for him on many a battle-field, and he +had a certain triumph in it. It was power of a lugubrious sort, +certainly, but still it was power, and so to be enjoyed. + +"Thomas Payne's got your girl," he repeated; "he was over there +a-courtin' of her last night; a-settin' up along of her." + +Barney took a step forward, and Ephraim fell back a little, still +grinning imperturbably. "You mind your own business," Barney said, +between his teeth; and right upon his words followed Ephraim's hoarse +chuckle and his "Thomas Payne's got your girl." + +Barney turned about and went on with his planting. Ephraim, standing +a little aloof, somewhat warily since his brother's threatening +advance, kept repeating his one remark, as mocking as the snarl of a +mosquito. "Thomas Payne's got your girl, Barney. Say, did you know +it? Thomas Payne's got your girl." + +Finally Ephraim stepped close to Barney and shouted it into his ear: +"Say, Barney, Barney Thayer, be you deaf? Thomas Payne has +got--your--_girl!"_ But Barney planted on; his nerves were quivering, +the impetus to strike out was so strong in his arms that it seemed as +if it must by sheer mental force affect his teasing brother, but he +made no sign, and said not another word. + +Ephraim, worsted at length by silence, beat a gradual retreat. +Half-way across the field his panting voice called back, "Barney, +Thomas Payne has got your girl," and ended in a choking giggle. +Barney planted, and made no response; but when Ephraim was well out +of sight, he flung down his hoe with a groaning sigh, and went +stumbling across the soft loam of the garden-patch into a little +woody thicket beside it. He penetrated deeply between the trees and +underbrush, and at last flung himself down on his face among the soft +young flowers and weeds. "Oh, Charlotte!" he groaned out. "Oh, +Charlotte, Charlotte!" Barney began sobbing and crying like a child +as he lay there; he moved his arms convulsively, and tore up handfuls +of young grass and leaves, and flung them away in the unconscious +gesturing of grief. "Oh, I can't, I can't!" he groaned. +"I--can't--Charlotte! I can't--let any other man have you! No other +man shall have you!" he cried out, fiercely, and flung up his head; +"you are mine, mine! I'll kill any other man that touches you!" +Barney got up, and his face was flaming; he started off with a great +stride, and then he stopped short and flung an arm around the slender +trunk of a white-birch tree, and pulled it against him and leaned +against it as if it were Charlotte, and laid his cheek on the cool +white bark and sobbed again like a girl. "Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte!" +he moaned, and his voice was drowned out by the manifold rustling of +the young birch leaves, as a human grief is overborne and carried out +of sight by the soft, resistless progress of nature. + +Barney, although his faith in Charlotte had been as strong as any +man's should be in his promised wife, had now no doubt but this other +man had met with favor in her eyes. But he had no blame for her, nor +even any surprise at her want of constancy. He blamed the Lord, for +Charlotte as well as for himself. "If this hadn't happened she never +would have looked at any one else," he thought, and his thought had +the force of a blow against fate. + +This Thomas Payne was the best match in the village; he was the +squire's son, good-looking, and college-educated. Barney had always +known that he fancied Charlotte, and had felt a certain triumph that +he had won her in the face of it. "You might have somebody that's a +good deal better off if you didn't have me," he said to her once, and +they both knew whom he meant. "I don't want anybody else," Charlotte +had replied, with her shy stateliness. Now Barney thought that she +had changed her mind; and why should she not? A girl ought to marry +if she could; he could not marry her himself, and should not expect +her to remain single all her life for his sake. Of course Charlotte +wanted to be married, like other women. This probable desire of +Charlotte's for love and marriage in itself, apart from him, thrilled +his male fancy with a certain holy awe and respect, from his love for +her and utter ignorance of the attitude of womankind. Then, too, he +reflected that Thomas Payne would probably make her a good husband. +"He can buy her everything she wants," he thought, with a curious +mixture of gratulation for her and agony on his own account. He +thought of the little bonnets he had meant to buy for her himself, +and these details pierced his heart like needles. He sobbed, and the +birch-tree quivered in a wind of human grief. He saw Charlotte going +to church in her bridal bonnet with Thomas Payne more plainly than he +could ever see her in life, for a torturing imagination reflects life +like a magnifying-glass, and makes it clearer and larger than +reality. He saw Charlotte with Thomas Payne, blushing all over her +proud, delicate face when he looked at her; he saw her with Thomas +Payne's children. "O God!" he gasped, and he threw himself down on +the ground again, and lay there, face downward, motionless as if fate +had indeed seized him and shaken the life out of him and left him +there for dead; but it was his own will which was his fate. + +"Barney," his father called, somewhere out in the field. "Barney, +where be you?" + +"I'm coming," Barney called back, in a surly voice, and he pulled +himself up and pushed his way out of the thicket to the ploughed +field where his father stood. + +"Oh, there you be!" said Caleb. Barney grunted something +inarticulate, and took up his hoe again. Caleb stood watching him, +his eyes irresolute under anxiously frowning brows. "Barney," he +said, at length. + +"Well, what do you want?" + +"I've jest heard--" the old man began; then he stopped with a jump. + +"I don't want to hear what you've heard. Keep it to yourself if +you've heard anything!" Barney shouted. + +"I didn't know as you knew," Caleb stammered, apologetically. "I +didn't know as you'd heard, Barney." + +Caleb went to the edge of the field, and sat down on a great stone +under a wild-cherry tree. He was not feeling very well; his head was +dizzy, and his wife had given him a bowl of thoroughwort and ordered +him not to work. + +Caleb pushed his hat back and passed his hand across his forehead. It +was hot, and his face was flushed. He watched his son following up +his work with dogged energy as if it were an enemy, and his mind +seemed to turn stupid in the face of speculation, like a boy's over a +problem in arithmetic. + +There was no human being so strange and mysterious, such an unknown +quantity, to Caleb Thayer as his own son. He had not one trait of +character in common with him--at least, not one so translated into +his own vernacular that he could comprehend it. It was to Caleb as if +he looked in a glass expecting to see his own face, and saw therein +the face of a stranger. + +The wind was quite cool, and blew full on Caleb as he sat there. +Barney kept glancing at him. At length he spoke. "You'll get cold if +you sit there in that wind, father," he sang out, and there was a +rude kindliness in his tone. + +Caleb jumped up with alacrity. "I dunno but I shall. I guess you're +right. I wa'n't goin' to set here but a minute," he answered, +eagerly. Then he went over to Barney again, and stood near watching +him. Barney's hoe clinked on a stone, and he stooped and picked it +out of the loam, and threw it away. "There's a good many stone in +this field," said the old man. + +"There's some." + +"It was a heap of work clearin' of it in the first place. You wa'n't +more'n two year old when I cleared it. My brother Simeon helped me. +It was five year before he got the fever an' died." Caleb looked at +his son with anxious pleading which was out of proportion to his +words, and seemed to apply to something behind them in his own mind. + +Barney worked on silently. + +"I don't believe but what--if you was--to go over there--you could +get her back again now, away from that Payne fellar," Caleb blurted +out, suddenly; then he shrank back as if from an anticipated blow. + +Barney threw a hoeful of earth high in air and faced his father. + +"Once for all, father," said he, "I don't want to hear another word +about this." + +"I shouldn't have said nothin', Barney, but I kinder thought--" + +"I don't care what you thought. Keep your thoughts to yourself." + +"I know she allers thought a good deal of you, an'--" + +"I don't want another word out of your mouth about it, father." + +"Well, I ain't goin' to say nothin' about it if you don't want me to, +Barney; but you know how mother feels, an'-- Well, I ain't goin' to +say no more." + +Caleb passed his hand across his forehead, and set off across the +field. Just before he was out of hearing, Barney hailed him. + +"Do you feel better'n you did, father?" said he. + +"What say, Barney?" + +"Do you feel better'n you did this morning?" + +"Yes, I feel some better, Barney--some considerable better." Caleb +started to go back to Barney; then he paused and stood irresolute, +smiling towards him. "I feel considerable better," he called again; +"my head ain't nigh so dizzy as 'twas." + +"You'd better go home, father, and lay down, and see if you can't get +a nap," called Barney. + +"Yes, I guess I will; I guess 'twould be a good plan," returned the +old man, in a pleased voice. And he went on, clambered clumsily over +a stone-wall, disappeared behind some trees, reappeared in the open, +then disappeared finally over the slope of the hilly field. + +It was just five o'clock in the afternoon. Presently a woman came +hurrying across the field, with some needle-work gathered up in her +arms. She had been spending the afternoon at a neighbor's with her +sewing, and was now hastening home to get supper for her husband. She +was a pretty woman, and she had not been married long. She nodded to +Barney as she hurried past him, holding up her gay-flowered calico +skirt tidily. Her smooth fair hair shone like satin in the sun; she +wore a little blue kerchief tied over her head, and it slipped back +as she ran against the wind. She did not speak to Barney nor smile; +he thought her handsome face looked severely at him. She had always +known him, although she had not been one of his mates; she was +somewhat older. + +Barney felt a pang of misery as this fair, severe, and happy face +passed him by. He wondered if she had been up to Charlotte's, and if +Charlotte or her mother had been talking to her, and if she knew +about Thomas Payne. He watched her out of sight in a swirl of gay +skirts, her blue and golden head bobbing with her dancing steps; then +he glanced over his shoulder at his poor new house, with its fireless +chimneys. If all had gone well, he and Charlotte would have been +married by this time, and she would have been bestirring herself to +get supper for him--perhaps running home from a neighbor's with her +sewing as this other woman was doing. All the sweet domestic comfort +which he had missed seemed suddenly to toss above his eyes like the +one desired fruit of his whole life; its wonderful unknown flavor +tantalized his soul. All at once he thought how Charlotte would +prepare supper for another man, and the thought seemed to tear his +heart like a panther. "He sha'n't have her!" he cried out, quite +loudly and fiercely. His own voice seemed to quiet him, and he fell +to work again with his mouth set hard. + +In half an hour he quitted work, and went up to his house with his +hoe over his shoulder like a bayonet. The house was just as the +workmen had left it on the night before his quarrel with Cephas +Barnard. He had himself fitted some glass into the windows of the +kitchen and bedroom, and boarded up the others--that was all. He had +purchased a few simple bits of furniture, and set up his miserable +bachelor house-keeping. Barney was no cook, and he could purchase no +cooked food in Pembroke. He had subsisted mostly upon milk and eggs +and a poor and lumpy quality of corn-meal mush, which he had made +shift to stir up after many futile efforts. + +The first thing which he saw on entering the room to-night was a +generous square of light Indian cake on the table. It was not in a +plate, the edges were bent and crumbling, and the whole square looked +somewhat flattened. Barney knew at once that his father had saved it +from his own supper, had slipped it slyly into his pocket, and stolen +across the field with it. His mother had not given him a mouthful +since she had forbidden him to come home to dinner, and his sister +had not dared. + +Barney sat down and ate the Indian cake, a solitary householder at +his solitary table, around which there would never be any faces but +those of his dead dreams. Afterwards he pulled a chair up to an open +window, and sat there, resting his elbows on the sill, staring out +vacantly. The sun set, and the dusk deepened; the air was loud with +birds; there were shouts of children in the distance; gradually these +died away, and the stars came out. The wind was damp and sweet; over +in the field pale shapes of mist wavered and changed like phantoms. A +woman came running noiselessly into the yard, and pressed against the +door panting, and knocked. Barney saw the swirl of light skirts +around the corner; then the knock came. + +[Illustration: "Barney sat staring at vacancy"] + +He got up, trembling, and opened the door, and stood there looking at +the woman, who held her hooded head down. + +"It's me, Barney," said Charlotte's voice. + +"Come in," said Barney, and he moved aside. + +But Charlotte stood still. "I can say what I want to here," she +whispered, panting. "Barney." + +"Well, what is it, Charlotte?" + +"Barney." + +Barney waited. + +"I've come over here to-night, Barney, to see you," said Charlotte, +with solemn pauses between her words. "I don't know as I ought to; I +don't know but I ought to have more pride. I thought at first I +never--could--but afterwards I thought it was my duty. Barney, are +you going to let--anything like this--come between us--forever?" + +"There's no use talking, Charlotte." + +Charlotte's hooded figure stood before him stiff and straight. There +was resolution in her carriage, and her pleading tone was grave and +solemn. + +"Barney," she said again; and Barney waited, his pale face standing +aloof in the dark. + +"Barney, do you think it is right to let anything like this come +between you and me, when we were almost husband and wife?" + +"It's no use talking, Charlotte." + +"Do you think this is right, Barney?" + +Barney was silent. + +"If you can't answer me I will go home," said Charlotte, and she +turned, but Barney caught her in his arms. He held her close, +breathing in great pants. He pulled her hood back with trembling +strength, and kissed her over and over, roughly. + +"Charlotte," he half sobbed. + +Charlotte's voice, full of a great womanly indignation, sounded in +his ear. "Barney, you let me go," she said, and Barney obeyed. + +"When I came here alone this way I trusted you to treat me like a +gentleman," said she. She pulled her hood over her face again and +turned to go. "I shall never speak to you about this again," said +she. "You have chosen your own way, and you know best whether it's +right, or you're happy in it." + +"I hope you'll be happy, Charlotte," Barney said, with a great sigh. + +"That doesn't make any difference to you," said Charlotte, coldly. + +"Yes, it does; it does, Charlotte! When I heard about Thomas Payne, I +felt as if--if it would make you happy. I--" + +"What about Thomas Payne?" asked Charlotte, sharply. + +"I heard--how he was coming to see you--" + +"Do you mean that you want me to marry Thomas Payne, Barney Thayer?" + +"I want you to be happy, Charlotte." + +"Do you want me to marry Thomas Payne?" + +Barney was silent. + +"Answer me," cried Charlotte. + +"Yes, I do," replied Barney, firmly, "if it would make you happy." + +"You want me to marry Thomas Payne?" repeated Charlotte. "You want me +to be his wife instead of yours, and go to live with him instead of +you? You want me to live with another man?" + +"It ain't right for you not to get married," Barney said, and his +voice was hoarse and strange. + +"You want me to get married to another man? Do you know what it +means?" + +Barney gave a groan that was half a cry. + +"Do you?" + +"Oh, Charlotte!" Barney groaned, as if imploring her for pity. + +"You want me to marry Thomas Payne, and live with him--" + +"He'd--make you a good husband. He's--Charlotte--I can't. You've got +to be happy. It isn't right--I can't--" + +"Well," said Charlotte, "I will marry him. Good-night, Barney +Thayer." She went swiftly out of the yard. + +"Charlotte!" Barney called after her, as if against his will; but she +never turned her head. + + + +Chapter VII + + +On the north side of the old tavern was a great cherry orchard. In +years back it had been a source of considerable revenue to Silas +Berry, but for some seasons his returns from it had been very small. +The cherries had rotted on the branches, or the robins had eaten +them, for Silas would not give them away. Rose and her mother would +smuggle a few small baskets of cherries to Sylvia Crane and Mrs. +Barnard, but Silas's displeasure, had he found them out, would have +been great. "I ain't a-goin' to give them cherries away to nobody," +he would proclaim. "If folks don't want 'em enough to pay for 'em +they can go without." + +Many a great cherry picnic had been held in Silas Berry's orchard. +Parties had come in great rattling wagons from all the towns about, +and picked cherries and ate their fill at a most overreaching and +exorbitant price. + +There were no cherries like those in Silas Berry's orchard in all the +country roundabout. There was no competition, and for many years he +had had it all his own way. The young people's appetite for cherries +and their zeal for pleasure had overcome their indignation at his +usury. But at last Silas's greed got the better of his financial +shrewdness; he increased his price for cherries every season, and the +year after the tavern closed it became so preposterous that there was +a rebellion. It was headed by Thomas Payne, who, as the squire's son +and the richest and most freehanded young man in town, could incur no +suspicion of parsimony. Going one night to the old tavern to make +terms with Silas for the use of his cherry orchard, for a party which +included some of his college friends from Boston and his fine +young-lady cousin from New York, and hearing the preposterous sum +which Silas stated as final, he had turned on his heel with a strong +word under his breath. "You can eat your cherries yourself and be +damned," said Thomas Payne, and was out of the yard with the gay +swagger which he had learned along with his Greek and Latin at +college. The next day Silas saw the party in Squire Payne's big +wagon, with Thomas driving, and the cousin's pink cheeks and white +plumed hat conspicuous in the midst, pass merrily on their way to a +cherryless picnic at a neighboring pond, and the young college men +shouted out a doggerel couplet which the wit of the party had made +and set to a rough tune. + +"Who lives here?" the basses demanded in grim melody, and the tenors +responded, "Old Silas Berry, who charges sixpence for a cherry." + +Silas heard the mocking refrain repeated over and over between shouts +of laughter long after they were out of sight. + +Rose, who had not been bidden to the picnic, heard it and wept as she +peered around her curtain at the gay party. William, who had also not +been bidden, stormed at his father, and his mother joined him. + +"You're jest a-puttin' your own eyes out, Silas Berry," said she; +"you hadn't no business to ask such a price for them cherries; it's +more than they are worth; folks won't stand it. You asked too much +for 'em last year." + +"I know what I'm about," returned Silas, sitting in his arm-chair at +the window, with dogged chin on his breast. + +"You wait an' see," said Hannah. "You've jest put your own eyes out." + +And after-events proved that Hannah was right. Silas Berry's cherry +orchard was subjected to a species of ostracism in the village. There +were no more picnics held there, people would buy none of his +cherries, and he lost all the little income which he had derived from +them. Hannah often twitted him with it. "You can see now that what I +told you was true," said she; "you put your own eyes out." Silas +would say nothing in reply; he would simply make an animal sound of +defiance like a grunt in his throat, and frown. If Hannah kept on, he +would stump heavily out of the room, and swing the door back with a +bang. + +This season Hannah had taunted her husband more than usual with his +ill-judged parsimony in the matter of the cherries. The trees were +quite loaded with the small green fruit, and there promised to be a +very large crop. One day Silas turned on her. "You wait," said he; +"mebbe I know what I'm about, more'n you think I do." + +Hannah scowled with sharp interrogation at her husband's shrewdly +leering face. "What be you agoin' to do?" she demanded. But she got +no more out of him. + +One morning about two weeks before the cherries were ripe Silas went +halting in a casual way across the south yard towards his daughter +Rose, who was spreading out some linen to bleach. He picked up a few +stray sticks on the way, ostentatiously, as if that were his errand. + +Rose was spreading out the lengths of linen in a wide sunny space +just outside the shade of the cherry-trees. Her father paused, tilted +his head back, and eyed the trees with a look of innocent reflection. +Rose glanced at him, then she went on with her work. + +"Guess there's goin' to be considerable many cherries this year," +remarked her father, in an affable and confidential tone. + +"I guess so," replied Rose, shortly, and she flapped out an end of +the wet linen. The cherries were a sore subject with her. + +"I guess there's goin' to be more than common," said Silas, still +gazing up at the green boughs full of green fruit clusters. + +Rose made no reply; she was down on her knees in the grass stretching +the linen straight. + +"I've been thinkin'," her father continued, slowly, "that--mebbe +you'd like to have a little--party, an' ask some of the young folks, +an' eat some of 'em when they get ripe. You could have four trees to +pick off of." + +"I should think we'd had enough of cherry parties," Rose cried out, +bitterly. + +"I didn't say nothin' about havin' 'em pay anything," said her +father. + +Rose straightened herself and looked at him incredulously. "Do you +mean it, father?" said she. + +"'Ain't I jest said you might, if you wanted to?" + +"Do you mean to have them come here and not pay, father?" + +"There ain't no use tryin' to sell any of 'em," replied Silas. "You +can talk it over with your mother, an' do jest as you're a mind to +about it, that's all. If you want to have a few of the young folks +over here when them cherries are ripe, you can have four of them +trees to pick off of. I ain't got no more to say about it." + +Silas turned in a peremptory and conclusive manner. Rose fairly +gasped as she watched his stiff one-sided progress across the yard. +The vague horror of the unusual stole over her. A new phase of her +father's character stood between her and all her old memories like a +supernatural presence. She left the rest of the linen in the basket +and sought her mother in the house. "Mother!" she called out, in a +cautious voice, as soon as she entered the kitchen. Mrs. Berry's face +looked inquiringly out of the pantry, and Rose motioned her back, +went in herself, and shut the door. + +"What be you a-shuttin' the door for?" asked her mother, wonderingly. + +"I don't know what has come over father." + +"What do you mean, Rose Berry? He 'ain't had another shock?" + +"I'm dreadful afraid he's going to! I'm dreadful afraid something's +going to happen to him!" + +"I'd like to know what you mean?" Mrs. Berry was quite pale. + +"Father says I can have a cherry party, and they needn't pay +anything." + +Her mother stared at her. "He didn't!" + +"Yes, he did." + +They looked in each other's eyes, with silent renewals of doubt and +affirmation. Finally Mrs. Berry laughed. "H'm! Don't you see what +your father's up to?" she said. + +"No, I don't. I'm scared." + +"You needn't be. You ain't very cute. He's an old head. He thinks if +he has this cherry party for nothin' folks will overlook that other +affair, an' next year they'll buy the cherries again. Mebbe he thinks +they'll buy the other trees this year, after the party. How many +trees did he say you could have?" + +"Four. Maybe that is it." + +"Of course 'tis. Your father's an old head. Well, you'd better ask +'em. They won't see through it, and it'll make things pleasanter. +I've felt bad enough about it. I guess Mis' Thayer won't look down on +us quite so much if we ask a party here and let 'em eat cherries for +nothin'. It's more'n she'd do, I'll warrant." + +"Maybe they won't any of them come," said Rose. + +"H'm! Don't you worry about that. They'll come fast enough. I never +see any trouble yet about folks comin' to get anything good that they +didn't have to pay for." + +Rose and her mother calculated how many to invite to the party. They +decided to include all the available young people in Pembroke. + +"We might jest as well while we're about it," said Hannah, +judiciously. "There are cherries enough, and the Lord only knows when +your father 'll have another freak like this. I guess it's like an +eclipse of the sun, an' won't come again very soon." + +Within a day or two all the young people had been bidden to the +cherry party, and, as Mrs. Berry had foretold, accepted. Their +indignation was not proof against the prospect of pleasure; and, +moreover, they all liked Rose and William, and would not have refused +on their account. + +The week before the party, when the cherries were beginning to turn +red, and the robins had found them out, was an arduous one to little +Ezra Ray, a young brother of Tommy Ray, who tended in Silas Berry's +store. He was hired for twopence to sit all day in the cherry orchard +and ring a cow-bell whenever the robins made excursions into the +trees. From earliest dawn when the birds were first astir, until they +sought their little nests, did Ezra sit uncomfortably upon a hard +peaked rock in the midst of the orchard and jingle his bell. + +He was white-headed, and large of his age like his brother. His pale +blue eyes were gravely vacant under his thick white thatch; his chin +dropped; his mouth gaped with stolid patience. There was no +mitigation for his dull task; he was not allowed to keep his vigil on +a comfortable branch of a tree with the mossy trunk for a support to +his back, lest he might be tempted to eat of the cherries, and turn +pal of the robins instead of enemy. He dared not pull down any low +bough and have a surreptitious feast, for he understood well that +there were likely to be sharp eyes at the rear windows of the house, +that it was always probable that old Silas Berry, of whom he was in +mortal fear, might be standing at his back, and, moreover, he should +be questioned, and had not falsehood for refuge, for he was a good +child, and would be constrained to speak the truth. + +They would not let him have a gun instead of a bell, although he +pleaded hard. Could he have sat there presenting a gun like a sentry +on duty, the week, in spite of discomfort and deprivations, would +have been full of glory and excitement. As it was, the dulness and +monotony of the jingling of the cow-bell made even his stupid +childish mind dismal. All the pleasant exhilaration of youth seemed +to have deserted the boy, and life to him became as inane and bovine +as to the original ringer of that bell grazing all the season in her +own shadow over the same pasture-ground. + +And more than all, that twopence for which Ezra toiled so miserably +was to go towards the weaving of a rag carpet which his mother was +making, and for which she was saving every penny. He could not lay it +out in red-and-white sugar-sticks at the store. He sat there all the +week, and every time there was a whir of little brown wings and the +darting flash of a red breast among the cherry branches he rang in +frantic haste the old cow-bell. All the solace he obtained was an +occasional robin-pecked cherry which he found in the grass, and then +Mr. Berry questioned him severely when he saw stains around his mouth +and on his fingers. + +He was on hand early in the morning on the day of the cherry picnic, +trudging half awake, with the taste of breakfast in his mouth, +through the acres of white dewy grass. He sat on his rock until the +grass was dry, and patiently jingled his cow-bell. It was to young +Ezra Ray, although all unwittingly, as if he himself were assisting +in the operations of nature. He watched so assiduously that it was as +if he dried the dewy grass and ripened the cherries. + +When the cherry party began to arrive he still sat on his rock and +jingled his bell; he did not know when to stop. But his eyes were +upon the assembling people rather than upon the robins. He watched +the brave young men whose ignominy of boyhood was past, bearing +ladders and tossing up shining tin pails as they came. He watched the +girls swinging their little straw baskets daintily; his stupidly +wondering eyes followed especially Rebecca Thayer. Rebecca, in her +black muslin, with her sweet throat fairly dazzling above the +half-low bodice, and wound about twice with a slender gold chain, +with her black silk apron embroidered with red roses, and beautiful +face glowing with rich color between the black folds of her hair, +held the instinctive attention of the boy. He stared at her as she +stood talking to another girl with her back quite turned upon all the +young men, until his own sister touched him upon the shoulder with a +sharp nudge of a bony little hand. + +Amelia Ray's face, blonde like her brother's, but sharp with the +sharpness of the thin and dark, was thrust into his. "You must go +right home now," declared her high voice. "Mother said so." + +"I'm going to stay and help pick 'em," said Ezra, in a voice which +was not affirmative. + +"No, you ain't." + +"I can climb trees." + +"You've got to go right straight home. Mother wants you to wind balls +for the rag carpet." + +And then Ezra Ray, with disconsolate gaping face over his shoulder, +retreated with awkward lopes across the field, the cow-bell +accompanying his steps with doleful notes. + +There were about forty young people at the party when all were +assembled. They came mostly in couples, although now and then a +little group of girls advanced across the field, and young men came +singly. Barnabas Thayer came alone, and rather late; Rebecca had come +some time before with one of her girl mates who had stopped for her. +Barnabas, slender and handsome in his best suit, advancing with a +stern and almost martial air, tried not to see Charlotte Barnard; but +it was as if her face were the natural focus for his eyes, which they +could not escape. However, Charlotte was not talking to Thomas Payne; +he was not even very near her. He was already in the top of a +cherry-tree picking busily. Barney saw his trim dark head and his +bright blue waistcoat among the branches, and his heart gave a guilty +throb of relief. But soon he noted that Charlotte had not her basket, +and the conviction seized him that Thomas had it and was filling it +with the very choicest cherries from the topmost branches, as was +indeed the case. + +Charlotte never looked at Barney, although she knew well when he +came. She stood smiling beside another girl, her smooth fair hair +gleaming in the sun, her neck showing pink through her embroidered +lace kerchief, and her gleaming head and her neck seemed to survey +Barney as consciously as her face. Suddenly the fierceness of the +instinct of possession seized him; he said to himself that it was his +wife's neck; no one else should see it. He felt like tearing off his +own coat and covering her with rude force. It made no difference to +him that nearly every other girl there, his sister among the rest, +wore her neck uncovered by even a kerchief; he felt that Charlotte +should not have done so. The other young men were swarming up the +trees with the girls' baskets, but he stood aloof with his forehead +knitted; it was as if all his reason had deserted him. All at once +there was a rustle at his side, and Rose Berry touched him on the +arm; he started, and looked down into her softly glowing little face. + +[Illustration: "Charlotte stood beside another girl"] + +"Oh, here you are!" said she, and her voice had adoring cadences. + +Barney nodded. + +"I was afraid you weren't coming," said she, and she panted softly +through her red parted lips. + +Rose's crisp pink muslin gown flared scalloping around her like the +pink petals of a hollyhock; her slender white arms showed through the +thin sleeves. Barney could not look away from her wide-open, +unfaltering blue eyes, which suddenly displayed to him strange +depths. Charlotte, during all his courtship, had never looked up in +his face like that. He could not himself have told why; but Charlotte +had never for one moment lost sight of the individual, and the +respect due him, in her lover. Rose, in the heart of New England, +bred after the precepts of orthodoxy, was a pagan, and she worshipped +Love himself. Barney was simply the statue that represented the +divinity; another might have done as well had the sculpture been as +fine. + +"I told you I was coming," Barney said, slowly, and his voice sounded +odd to himself. + +"I know you did, but I was afraid you wouldn't." + +Rose still held her basket. Barney reached out for it. "Let me get +some cherries for you," he said. + +"Oh, I guess you hadn't better," Rose returned, holding the basket +firmly. + +"Why not?" + +"I'm--afraid Charlotte won't like it," Rose said. Her face, upturned +to Barney, was full of pitiful seriousness, like a child's. + +"Give me the basket," demanded Barney, and she yielded. She stood +watching him as he climbed the nearest tree; then she turned and met +Charlotte's stern eyes full upon her. Rose went under the tree +herself, pulled down a low branch, and began to eat; several other +girls were doing the same. Thomas Payne passed the tree, bearing +carefully Charlotte's little basket heaped with the finest cherries. +Rose tossed her head defiantly. "She needn't say anything," she +thought. + +The morning advanced, the sun stood high, and there was a light wind, +which now and then caused the cherry-leaves to smite the faces of the +pickers. There were no robins in the trees that morning; there were +only swift whirs of little wings in the distance, and sweet flurried +calls which were scarcely noted in the merry clamor of the young men +and girls. + +Silas Berry stood a little aloof, leaning on a stout cane, looking on +with an inscrutable expression on his dry old face. He noted +everything; he saw Rose talking to Barney; he saw his son William +eating cherries with Rebecca Thayer out of one basket; but his +expression never changed. The predominant trait in his whole +character had seemed to mould his face to itself unchangeably, as the +face of a hunting-dog is moulded to his speed and watchfulness. + +"Don't Mr. Berry look just like an old miser?" a girl whispered to +Rebecca Thayer; then she started and blushed confusedly, for she +remembered suddenly that William Berry was said to be waiting upon +Rebecca, and she also remembered that Charlotte Barnard, who was +within hearing distance, was his niece. + +Rebecca blushed, too. "I never thought of it," she said, in a +constrained voice. + +"Well, I don't know as he does," apologized the girl. "I suppose I +thought of it because he's thin. I always had an idea that a miser +was thin." Then she slipped away, and presently whispered to another +girl what a mistaken speech she had made, and they put their heads +together with soft, averted giggles. + +The girls had brought packages of luncheon in their baskets, which +they had removed to make space for the cherries, and left with Mrs. +Berry in the tavern. At noon they sent the young men for them, and +prepared to have dinner at a little distance from the trees where +they had been picking, where the ground was clean. William and Rose +also went up to the tavern, and Rose beckoned to Barney as she passed +him. "Don't you want to come?" she whispered, as he followed +hesitatingly; "there's something to carry." + +When the party returned, Mrs. Berry was with them, and she and Rose +bore between them a small tub of freshly-fried hot doughnuts. Mrs. +Berry had utterly refused to trust it to the young men. "I know +better than to let you have it," she said, laughing. "You'd eat all +the way there, and there wouldn't be enough left to go round. Me and +Rose will carry it; it ain't very heavy." William and Barney each +bore two great jugs of molasses-and-water spiced with ginger. + +Silas pulled himself up stiffly when he saw them coming; he had been +sitting upon the peaked rock whereon Ezra Ray had kept vigil with the +cow-bell. Full of anxiety had he been all day lest they should pick +from any except the four trees which he had set apart for them, and +his anxiety was greater since he knew that the best cherries were not +on those four trees. Silas sidled painfully towards his wife and +daughter; he peered over into the tub, but they swung it +remorselessly past him, even knocking his shin with its iron-bound +side. + +"What you got there?" he demanded, huskily. + +"Don't you say one word," returned his wife, with a fierce shake of +her head at him. + +"What's in them jugs?" + +"It's nothing but sweetened water. Don't, father," pleaded Rose under +her breath, her pretty face flaming. + +Her mother scowled indomitably at Silas tagging threateningly at her +elbow. "Don't you say one word," she whispered again. + +"You ain't goin' to--give 'em--" + +"Don't you speak," she returned, hissing out the "s." + +Silas said no more. He followed on, and watched the doughnuts being +distributed to the merry party seated in a great ring like a very +garland of youth under his trees; he saw them drink his sweetened +water. + +"Don't you want some?" asked his wife's defiantly pleasant voice in +his ear. + +"No, I don't want none," he returned. + +Finally, long before they had finished eating, he went home to the +tavern. There was no one in the house. He stole cautiously into the +pantry, and there was a reserve of doughnuts in a large milk-pan +sitting before the window. Silas crooked his old arm around the pan, +carried it painfully across the great kitchen and the entry into the +best room, and pushed it far under the bureau. Then he returned, and +concealed the molasses-jug in the brick oven. He stood for a minute +in the middle of the kitchen floor, chuckling and nodding as if to +the familiar and confidential spirit of his own greed; then he went +out, and a short way down the road to the cottage house where old +Hiram Baxter lived and kept a little shoemaker's shop in the L. He +entered, and sat down in the little leather-reeking place with Hiram, +and was safe and removed from inquiry when Mrs. Berry returned to the +tavern for the remaining doughnuts and to mix more sweetened water. +The doughnuts could not be found, but she carried a pail across to +the store, got more molasses from the barrel, and so in one point +outwitted her husband. + +Mrs. Berry was famous for her rich doughnuts, and the first supply +had been quite exhausted. William went up to her at once when she +returned to the party. "Where's the rest of the doughnuts?" he +whispered. + +"Your father's hid 'em," she whispered back. "Hush, don't say +anything." + +William scowled and made an exclamation. "The old--" + +"Hush!" whispered his mother again; "go up to the house and get the +sweetened water. I've mixed another jug." + +"Where is he?" demanded William. + +"I dunno. He ain't to the store." + +William strode off across the field, and he searched through the +house with an angry stamping and banging of doors, but he could not +find his father or the doughnuts. "Father!" he called, in an angry +shout, standing in the doorway, "Father!" But there was no reply, and +he went back to the others with the jug of sweetened water. Rebecca +watched him with furtive, anxious eyes, but he avoided looking at +her. When he passed her a tumbler of sweetened water she took it and +thanked him fervently, but he did not seem to heed her at all. + +After dinner they played romping games under the trees--hunt the +slipper, and button, and Copenhagen. Mrs. Barnard and two other women +had come over to see the festivity, and they sat at a little distance +with Mrs. Berry, awkwardly disposed against the trunks of trees, with +their feet tucked under their skirts to keep them from the damp +ground. + +Copenhagen was the favorite game of the young people, and they played +on and on while the afternoon deepened. Clinging to the rope they +formed a struggling ring, looping this way and that way as the +pursuers neared them. Their laughter and gay cries formed charming +discords; their radiant faces had the likeness of one family of +flowers, through their one expression. The wind blew harder; the +girls' muslin skirts clung to their limbs as they moved against it, +and flew out around their heels in fluttering ruffles. The cherry +boughs tossed over their heads full of crisp whispers among their +dark leaves and red fruit clusters. Over across the field, under the +low-swaying boughs, showed the old red wall of the tavern, and +against it a great mass of blooming phlox, all vague with distance +like purple smoke. Over on the left, fence rails glistened purple in +the sun and wind--a bluebird sat on a crumbling post and sang. But +the young men and girls playing Copenhagen saw and heard nothing of +these things. + +They heard only that one note of love which all unwittingly, and +whether they would or not, they sang to each other through all the +merry game. Charlotte heard it whether she would or not, and so did +Barney, and it produced in them as in the others a reckless +exhilaration in spite of their sadness. William Berry forgot all his +mortification and annoyance as he caught Rebecca's warm fingers on +the rope and bent over her red, averted cheek. Barney, when he had +grasped Rose's hands, which had fairly swung the rope his way, kissed +her with an ardor which had in it a curious, fierce joy, because at +that moment he caught a glimpse of Thomas Payne's handsome, audacious +face meeting Charlotte's. + +Barney had not wished to play, but he played with zeal, only he never +seemed to see Charlotte's fingers on the rope, and Charlotte never +saw his. The girls' cheeks flushed deeper, their smooth locks became +roughened. The laughter waxed louder and longer; the matrons looking +on doubled their broad backs with responsive merriment. It became +like a little bacchanalian rout in a New England field on a summer +afternoon, but they did not know it in their simple hearts. + +At six o'clock the mist began to rise, the sunlight streamed through +the trees in slanting golden shafts, long drawn out like organ +chords. The young people gathered up their pails and baskets and went +home, flocking down the road together, calling back farewells to Rose +and William and their mother, who stood in front of the tavern +watching them out of sight. + +They were not quite out of sight when they came to Hiram Baxter's +little house, and Silas Berry emerged from the shop door. "Hullo!" he +cried out, and they all stopped, smiling at him with a cordiality +which had in it a savor of apology. Indeed, Thomas Payne had just +remarked, with a hearty chorus of assents, that he guessed the old +man wasn't so bad after all. + +Silas advanced towards them; he also was smiling. He fumbled in his +waistcoat pocket, and drew out a roll of paper which he shook out +with trembling fingers. He stepped close to Thomas Payne and extended +it. + +"What is it?" asked the young man. + +Silas smiled up in his face with the ingenuous smile of a child. + +"What is it?" Thomas Payne asked again. + +The others crowded around. + +"It's nothin' but the bill," replied Silas, in a wheedling whisper. +His dry old face turned red, his smile deepened. + +"The bill for what?" demanded Thomas Payne, and he seized the paper. + +"For the cherries you eat," replied Silas. "I've always been in the +habit of chargin' more, but I've took off a leetle this time." His +voice had a ring of challenge, his eyes were sharp, while his mouth +smiled. + +Thomas Payne scowled over the bill. The other young men peered at it +over his shoulder, and repeated the amount with whistles and +half-laughs of scorn and anger. The girls ejaculated to each other in +whispers. Silas stood impervious, waiting. + +The young men whipped out their purses without a word, but Thomas +motioned them back. "I'll pay, and we'll settle afterwards. We can't +divide up here," he said, and he crammed some money hard in Silas's +eagerly outstretched hand. "Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. +Berry," said Thomas Payne, his face all flaming and his eyes +flashing, but his voice quite steady. "I hope you'll have as good +luck selling your cherries next year." + +There was a little exulting titter over the sarcasm among the girls, +in which Rebecca did not join; then the party kept on. The indignant +clamor waxed loud in a moment; they scarcely waited for the old man's +back to be turned on his return to the tavern. + +But the young people, crying out all together against this last +unparalleled meanness, had not reached the foot of the hill, where +some of them separated, when they heard the quick pound of running +feet behind them and a hoarse voice calling on Thomas Payne to stop. +They all turned, and William came up, pale and breathing hard. "What +did you pay him?" he asked of Thomas Payne. + +"See here, William, we all know you had nothing to do with it," +Thomas cried out. + +"What did you pay him?" William repeated, in a stern gasp. + +"It's all right." + +"You tell me what you paid him." + +Thomas Payne blushed all over his handsome boyish face. He half +whispered the amount to William, although the others knew it as well +as he. + +William pulled out his purse, and counted out some money with +trembling fingers. "Take it, for God's sake!" said he, and Thomas +Payne took it. "We all know that you knew nothing about it," he said +again. The others chimed in with eager assent, but William gave his +head a shake, as if he shook off water, and broke away from them all, +and pelted up the hill with his heart so bitterly sore that it seemed +as if he trod on it at every step. + +A voice was crying out behind him, but he never heeded. There were +light, hurrying steps after him, and a soft flutter of girlish +skirts, but he never looked away from his own self until Rebecca +touched his arm. Then he looked around with a start and a great +blush, and jerked his arm away. + +But Rebecca followed him up quite boldly, and caught his arm again, +and looked up in his face. "Don't you feel bad," said she; "don't you +feel bad. You aren't to blame." + +"Isn't he my father?" + +"You aren't to blame for that." + +"Disgrace comes without blame," said William, and he moved on. + +Rebecca kept close to his side, clinging to his arm. "It's your +father's way," said she. "He's honest, anyway. Nobody can say he +isn't honest." + +"It depends upon what you call honest," William said, bitterly. +"You'd better run back, Rebecca. You don't want them to think you're +going with me, and they will. I'm disgraced, and so is Rose. You'd +better run back." + +Rebecca stopped, and he did also. She looked up in his face; her +mouth was quivering with a kind of helpless shame, but her eyes were +full of womanly courage and steadfastness. "William," said she, "I +ran away in the face and eyes of them all to comfort you. They saw +me, and they can see me now, but I don't care. And I don't care if +you see me; I always have cared, but I don't now. I have always been +terribly afraid lest you should think I was running after you, but I +ain't afraid now. Don't you feel bad, William. That's all I care +about. Don't you feel bad; nobody is going to think any less of you. +I don't; I think more." + +William looked down at her; there was a hesitating appeal in his +face, as in that of a hurt child. Suddenly Rebecca raised both her +arms and put them around his neck; he leaned his cheek down against +her soft hair. "Poor William," she whispered, as if he had been her +child instead of her lover. + +A girl in the merry party speeding along at the foot of the hill +glanced around just then; she turned again, blushing hotly, and +touched a girl near her, who also glanced around. Then their two +blushing faces confronted each other with significant half-shamed +smiles of innocent young girlhood. + +They locked arms, and whispered as they went on. "Did you see?" +"Yes." "His head?" "Yes." "Her arms?" "Yes." Neither had ever had a +lover. + +But the two lovers at the top of the hill paid no heed. The party +were all out of sight when they went slowly down in the gathering +twilight. William left Rebecca when they came opposite her house. + + + +Chapter VIII + + +When Rebecca entered the house, her mother was standing over the +stove, making milk-toast for supper. The boiling milk steamed up +fiercely in her face. "What makes you so long behind the others?" she +demanded, without turning, stirring the milk as she spoke. + +"I guess I ain't much, am I?" Rebecca said, evasively. She tried to +make her voice sound as it usually did, but she could not. It broke +and took on faltering cadences, as if she were intoxicated with some +subtle wine of the spirit. + +Her mother looked around at her. Rebecca's face was full of a strange +radiance which she could not subdue before her mother's hard, +inquiring gaze. Her cheeks burned with splendid color, her lips +trembled into smiles in spite of herself, her eyes were like dark +fires, shifting before her mother's, but not paling. + +"Ephraim see 'em all go by half an hour ago," said her mother. + +Rebecca made no reply. + +"If," said her mother, "you stayed behind to see William Berry, I can +tell you one thing, once for all: you needn't do it again." + +"I had to see him about something," Rebecca faltered. + +"Well, you needn't see him again about anything. You might jest as +well understand it first as last: if you've got any idea of havin' +William Berry, you've got to give it up." + +"Mother, I'd like to know what you mean!" Rebecca cried out, +blushing. + +"Look 'round here at me!" her mother ordered, suddenly. + +"Don't, mother." + +"Look at me!" + +Rebecca lifted her face perforce, and her mother eyed her pitilessly. +"You ain't been tellin' of him you'd have him, now?" said she. "Why +don't you speak?" + +"Not--just." + +"Then you needn't." + +"Mother!" + +"You needn't talk. You can jest make up your mind to it. You ain't +goin' to marry William Berry. Your brother has had enough to do with +that family." + +"Mother, you won't stop my marrying William because Barney won't +marry his cousin Charlotte? There ain't any sense in that." + +"I've got my reasons, an' that's enough for you," said Deborah. "You +ain't goin' to marry William Berry." + +"I am, if you haven't got any better reason than that. I won't stand +it, mother; it ain't right!" Rebecca cried out. + +"Then," said Deborah, and as she spoke she began spooning out the +toast gravy into a bowl with a curious stiff turn of her wrist and a +superfluous vigor of muscle, as if it were molten lead instead of +milk; and, indeed, she might, from the look in her face, have been +one of her female ancestors in the times of the French and Indian +wars, casting bullets with the yells of savages in her ears--"then," +said she, "I sha'n't have any child but Ephraim left, that's all!" + +"Mother, don't!" gasped Rebecca. + +"There's another thing: if you marry William Berry against your +parents' wishes, you know what you have to expect. You remember your +aunt Rebecca." + +Rebecca twisted her whole body about with the despairing motion with +which she would have wrung her hands, flung open the door, and ran +out of the room. + +Deborah went on spooning up the toast. Ephraim had come in just as +she spoke last to Rebecca, and he stood staring, grinning with gaping +mouth. + +"What's Rebecca done, mother?" he asked, pleadingly, catching hold of +his mother's dress. + +"Nothin' for you to know. Go an' wash your face an' hands, an' come +in to supper." + +"Mother, what's she done?" Ephraim's pleading voice lengthened into a +whine. He took more liberties with his mother than any one else +dared; he even jerked her dress now by way of enforcing an answer. +But she grasped his arm so vigorously that he cried out. "Go out to +the pump, an' wash your face an' hands," she repeated, and Ephraim +made a little involuntary run to the door. + +As he went out he rolled his eyes over his shoulder at his mother +with tragic surprise and reproach, but she paid no attention. When he +came in she ignored the great painful sigh which he heaved and the +podgy hand clapped ostentatiously over his left side. "Draw your +chair up," said she. + +"I dunno as I want any supper. I've got a pain. Oh dear!" Ephraim +writhed, with attentive eyes upon his mother; he was like an +executioner turning an emotional thumbscrew on her. But Deborah +Thayer's emotions sometimes presented steel surfaces. "You can have a +pain, then," said she. "I ain't goin' to let you go to ruin because +you ain't well, not if I know it. You've got to mind, sick or well, +an' you might jest as well know it. I'll have one child obey me, +whether or no. Set up to the table." + +Ephraim drew up his chair, whimpering; but he fell to on the +milk-toast with ardor, and his hand dropped from his side. He had +eaten half a plateful when his father came in. Caleb had been +milking; the cows had been refractory as he drove them from pasture, +and he was late. + +"Supper's been ready half an hour," his wife said, when he entered. + +"The heifer run down the old road when I was a-drivin' of her home, +an' I had to chase her," Caleb returned, meekly, settling down in his +arm-chair at the table. + +"I guess that heifer wouldn't cut up so every night if I had the +drivin' of her," remarked Deborah. She filled a plate with toast and +passed it over to Caleb. + +Caleb set it before him, but he did not begin to eat. He looked at +Rebecca's empty place, then at his wife's face, long and pale and +full of stern rancor, behind the sugar-bowl and the cream-pitcher. + +"Rebecca got home?" he ventured, with wary eyes upon her. + +"Yes, she's got home." + +Caleb winked, meekly. "Ain't she comin' to supper?" + +"I dunno whether she is or not." + +"Does she know it's ready?" Deborah vouchsafed no reply. She poured +out the tea. + +Caleb grated his chair suddenly. "I'll jest speak to her," he +proclaimed, courageously. + +"She knows it's ready. You set still," said Deborah. And Caleb drew +his chair close again, and loaded his knife with toast, bringing it +around to his mouth with a dexterous sidewise motion. + +"She ain't sick, is she?" he said, presently, with a casual air. + +"No, I guess she ain't sick." + +"I s'pose she eat so many cherries she didn't want any supper," Caleb +said, chuckling anxiously. His wife made no reply. Ephraim reached +over slyly for the toast-spoon, and she pushed his hand back. + +"You can't have any more," said she. + +"Can't I have jest a little more, mother?" + +"No, you can't." + +"I feel faint at my stomach, mother." + +"You can keep on feelin' faint." + +"Can't I have a piece of pie, mother?" + +"You can't have another mouthful of anything to eat to-night." + +Ephraim clapped his hand to his side again and sighed, but his mother +took no notice. + +"Have you got a pain, sonny?" asked Caleb. + +"Yes, dreadful. Oh!" + +"Hadn't he ought to have somethin' on it?" Caleb inquired, looking +appealingly at Deborah. + +"He can have some of his doctor's medicine if he don't feel better," +she replied, in a hard voice. "Set your chair back now, Ephraim, and +get out your catechism." + +"I don't feel fit to, mother," groaned Ephraim. + +"You do jest as I tell you," said his mother. + +And Ephraim, heaving with sighs, muttering angrily far under his +breath lest his mother should hear, pulled his chair back to the +window, and got his catechism out of the top drawer of his father's +desk, and began droning out in his weak, sulky voice the first +question therein: "What is the chief end of man?" + +"Now shut the book and answer it," said his mother, and Ephraim +obeyed. + +Ephraim was quite conversant with the first three questions and their +answers, after that his memory began to weaken; either he was a +naturally dull scholar, or his native indolence made him appear so. +He had been drilled nightly upon the "Assembly's Catechism" for the +past five years, and had had many a hard bout with it before that in +his very infancy, when his general health admitted--and sometimes, it +seemed to Ephraim, when it had not admitted. + +Many a time had the boy panted for breath when he rehearsed those +grandly decisive, stately replies to those questions of all ages, but +his mother had been obdurate. He could not understand why, but in +reality Deborah held her youngest son, who was threatened with death +in his youth, to the "Assembly's Catechism" as a means of filling his +mind with spiritual wisdom, and fitting him for that higher state to +which he might soon be called. Ephraim had been strictly forbidden to +attend school--beyond reading he had no education; but his mother +resolved that spiritual education he should have, whether he would or +not, and whether the doctor would or not. So Ephraim laboriously read +the Bible through, a chapter at a time, and he went, step by step, +through the wisdom of the Divines of Westminster. No matter how much +he groaned over it, his mother was pitiless. Sometimes Caleb plucked +up courage and interceded. "I don't believe he feels quite ekal to +learnin' of his stint to-night," he would say, and then his eyes +would fall before the terrible stern pathos in Deborah's, as she +would reply in her deep voice: "If he can't learn nothin' about +books, he's got to learn about his own soul. He's got to, whether it +hurts him or not. I shouldn't think, knowin' what you know, you'd say +anything, Caleb Thayer." + +And Caleb's old face would quiver suddenly like a child's; he would +rub the back of his hand across his eyes, huddle himself into his +arm-chair, and say no more; and Deborah would sharply order Ephraim, +spying anxiously over his catechism, to go on with the next question. + +It was nearly dark to-night when Ephraim finished his stint; he was +slower than usual, his progress being somewhat hindered by the +surreptitious eating of a hard red apple, which he had stowed away in +his jacket-pocket. Hard apples were strictly forbidden to Ephraim as +articles of diet, and to eat many during the season required +diplomacy. + +The boy's jaws worked with furious zeal over the apple during his +mother's temporary absences from the room on household tasks, and on +her return were mumbling solemnly and innocently the precepts of the +catechism, after a spasmodic swallowing. His father was nodding in +his chair and saw nothing, and had he seen would not have betrayed +him. After a little inefficient remonstrance on his own account, +Caleb always subsided, and watched anxiously lest Deborah should +discover the misdemeanor and descend upon Ephraim. + +To-night, after the task was finished, Deborah sent Ephraim stumbling +out of the room to bed, muttering remonstrances, his eyes as wild and +restless as a cat's, his ears full of the nocturnal shouts of his +play-fellows that came through the open windows. + +"Mother, can't I go out an' play ball a little while?" sounded in a +long wail from the dusk outside the door. + +"You go to bed," answered his mother. Then the slamming of a door +shook the house. + +"If he wa'n't sick, I'd whip him," said Deborah, between tight lips; +the spiritual whip which Ephraim held by right of his illness over +her seemed to sing past her ears. She shook Caleb with the force with +which she might have shaken Ephraim. "You'd better get up an' go to +bed now, instead of sleepin' in your chair," she said, imperatively; +and Caleb obeyed, staggering, half-dazed, across the floor into the +bedroom. Deborah was only a few years younger than her husband, but +she had retained her youthful vigor in much greater degree. She never +felt the drowsiness of age stealing over her at nightfall. Indeed, +oftentimes her senses seemed to gain in alertness as the day wore on, +and many a night she was up and at work long after all the other +members of her family were in bed. There came at such times to +Deborah Thayer a certain peace and triumphant security, when all the +other wills over which her own held contested sway were lulled to +sleep, and she could concentrate all her energies upon her work. Many +a long task of needle-work had she done in the silence of the night, +by her dim oil lamp; in years past she had spun and woven, and there +was in a clothes-press up-stairs a wonderful coverlid in an intricate +pattern of blue and white, and not a thread of it woven by the light +of the sun. + +[Illustration: "Many a long task of needle-work had she done"] + +None of the neighbors knew why Deborah Thayer worked so much at +night; they attributed it to her tireless industry. "The days wa'n't +never long enough for Deborah Thayer," they said--and she did not +know why herself. + +There was deep in her heart a plan for the final disposition of these +nightly achievements, but she confided it to no one, not even to +Rebecca. The blue-and-white coverlid, many a daintily stitched linen +garment and lace-edged pillow-slip she destined for Rebecca when she +should be wed, although she frowned on Rebecca's lover and spoke +harshly to her of marriage. To-night, while Rebecca lay sobbing in +her little bedroom, the mother knitted assiduously until nearly +midnight upon a wide linen lace with which to trim dimity curtains +for the daughter's bridal bedstead. + +Deborah needed no lamplight for this knitting-work; she was so +familiar with it, having knitted yards with her thoughts elsewhere, +that she could knit without seeing her needles. + +So she sat in the deepening dusk and knitted, and heard the laughter +and shouts of the boys at play a little way down the road with a +deeper pang than Ephraim had ever felt over his own deprivation. + +She was glad when the gay hubbub ceased and the boys were haled into +bed. Shortly afterwards she heard out in the road a quick, manly +tread and a merry whistle. She did not know the tune, but only one +young man in Pembroke could whistle like that. "It's Thomas Payne +goin' up to see Charlotte Barnard," she said to herself, with a +bitter purse of her lips in the dark. That merry whistler, passing +her poor cast-out son in his lonely, half-furnished house, whose +dark, shadowy walls she could see across the field, smote her as +sorely as he smote him. It seemed to her that she could hear that +flute-like melody even as far as Charlotte's door. In spite of her +stern resolution to be just, a great gust of wrath shook her. +"Lettin' of him come courtin' her when it ain't six weeks since +Barney went," she said, quite out loud, and knitted fiercely. + +But poor Thomas Payne, striding with his harmless swagger up the +hill, whistling as loud as might be one of his college airs, need +not, although she knew it not and he knew it not himself, have +disturbed her peace of mind. + +Charlotte, at the cherry party, had asked him, with a certain +dignified shyness, if he could come up to her house that evening, and +he had responded with alacrity. "Why, of course I can," he cried, +blushing joyfully all over his handsome face--"of course I can, +Charlotte!" And he tried to catch one of her hands hanging in the +folds of her purple dress, but she drew it away. + +"I want to see you a few minutes about something," she said, soberly; +and then she pressed forward to speak to another girl, and he could +not get another word with her about it. + +Charlotte, after she got home from the party, had changed her pretty +new gown for her every-day one of mottled brown calico set with a +little green sprig, and had helped her mother get supper. + +Cephas, however, was late, and did not come home until just before +Thomas Payne arrived. Sarah had begun to worry. "I don't see where +your father is," she kept saying to Charlotte. When she heard his +shuffling step on the door-stone she started as if he had been her +lover. When he came in she scrutinized him anxiously, to see if he +looked ill or disturbed. Sarah Barnard, during all absences of her +family, dug busily at imaginary pitfalls for them; had they all +existed the town would have been honey-combed. + +"There ain't nothin' happened, has there, Cephas?" she said. + +"I dunno of anythin' that's happened." + +"I got kind of worried. I didn't know where you was." Sarah had an +air of apologizing for her worry. Cephas made no reply; he did not +say where he had been, nor account for his tardiness; he did not look +at his wife, standing before him with her pathetically inquiring +face. He pulled a chair up to the table and sat down, and Charlotte +set his supper before him. It was a plate of greens, cold boiled +dock, and some rye-and-Indian bread. Cephas still adhered to his +vegetarian diet, although he pined on it, and the longing for the +flesh-pots was great in his soul. However, he said no more about +sorrel pies, for the hardness and the flavor of those which he had +prepared had overcome even his zeal of invention. He ate of them +manfully twice; then he ate no more, and he did not inquire how Sarah +disposed of them after they had vainly appeared on the table a week. +She, with no pig nor hens to eat them, was forced, with many +misgivings as to the waste, to deposit them in the fireplace. + +"They actually made good kindlin' wood," she told her sister Sylvia. +"Poor Cephas, he didn't have no more idea than a baby about makin' +pies." All Sarah's ire had died away; to-night she set a large plump +apple-pie slyly on the table--an apple-pie with ample allowance of +lard in the crust thereof; and she felt not the slightest exultation, +only honest pleasure, when she saw, without seeming to, Cephas cut +off a goodly wedge, after disposing of his dock greens. + +"Poor father, I'm real glad he's tastin' of the pie," she whispered +to Charlotte in the pantry; "greens ain't very fillin'." + +Charlotte smiled, absently. Presently she slipped into the best room +and lighted the candles. "You expectin' of anybody to-night?" her +mother asked, when she came out. + +"I didn't know but somebody might come," Charlotte replied, +evasively. She blushed a little before her mother's significantly +smiling face, but there was none of the shamed delight which should +have accompanied the blush. She looked very sober--almost stern. + +"Hadn't you better put on your other dress again, then?" asked her +mother." + +"No, I guess this 'll do." + +Cephas ate his pie in silence--he had helped himself to another +piece--but he heard every word. After he had finished, he fumbled in +his pocket for his old leather purse, and counted over a little store +of money on his knee. + +Charlotte was setting away the dishes in the pantry when her father +came up behind her and crammed something into her hand. She started. +"What is it?" said she. + +"Look and see," said Cephas. + +Charlotte opened her hand, and saw a great silver dollar. "I thought +mebbe you'd like to buy somethin' with it," said Cephas. He cleared +his throat, and went out through the kitchen into the shed. Charlotte +was too amazed to thank him; her mother came into the pantry. "What +did he give you?" she whispered. + +Charlotte held up the money. "Poor father," said Sarah Barnard, "he's +doin' of it to make up. He was dreadful sorry about that other, an' +he's tickled 'most to death now he thinks you've got somebody else, +and are contented. Poor father, he ain't got much money, either." + +"I don't want it," Charlotte said, her steady mouth quivering +downward at the corners. + +"You keep it. He'd feel all upset if you didn't. You'll find it come +handy. I know you've got a good many things now, but you had ought to +have a new cape come fall; you can't come out bride in a muslin one +when snow flies." Sarah cast a half-timid, half-shrewd glance at +Charlotte, who put the dollar in her pocket. + +"A green satin cape, lined and wadded, would be handsome," pursued +her mother. + +"I sha'n't ever come out bride," said Charlotte. + +"How you talk. There, he's comin' now!" + +And, indeed, at that the clang of the knocker sounded through the +house. Charlotte took off her apron and started to answer it, but her +mother caught her and pinned up a stray lock of hair. "I 'most wish +you had put on your other dress again," she whispered. + +Sarah listened with her ear close to the crack of the kitchen door +when her daughter opened the outside one. She heard Thomas Payne's +hearty greeting and Charlotte's decorous reply. The door of the front +room shut, then she set the kitchen door ajar softly, but she could +hear nothing but a vague hum of voices across the entry; she could +not distinguish a word. However, it was as well that she could not, +for her heart would have sunk, as did poor Thomas Payne's. + +Thomas, with his thick hair brushed into a shining roll above his +fair high forehead, in his best flowered waistcoat and blue coat with +brass buttons, sat opposite Charlotte, his two nicely booted feet +toeing out squarely on the floor, his two hands on his knees, and +listened to what she had to say, while his boyish face changed and +whitened. Thomas was older than Charlotte, but he looked younger. +It seemed, too, as if he looked younger when with her than at other +times, although he was always anxiously steady and respectful, and +lost much of that youthful dash which made him questioningly admired +by the young people of Pembroke. + +Charlotte began at once after they were seated. Her fair, grave face +colored, her voice had in it a solemn embarrassment. "I don't know +but you thought I was doing a strange thing to ask you to come here +to-night," she said. + +"No, I didn't; I didn't think so, Charlotte," Thomas declared, +warmly. + +"I felt as if I ought to. I felt as if it was my duty to," said she. +She cast her eyes down. Thomas waited, looking at her with vague +alarm. Somehow some college scrapes of his flashed into his head, and +he had a bewildered idea the she had found them out and that her +sweet rigid innocence was shocked, and she was about to call him to +account. + +But Charlotte continued, raising her eyes, and meeting his gravely +and fairly: + +"You've been coming here three Sabbath evenings running, now," said +she. + +"Yes, I know I have, Charlotte." + +"And you mean to keep on coming, if I don't say anything to hinder +it?" + +"You know I do, Charlotte," replied Thomas, with ardent eyes upon her +face. + +"Then," said Charlotte, "I feel as if it was my duty to say this to +you, Thomas. If you come in any other way than as a friend, if you +come on any other errand than friendship, you must not come here any +more. It isn't right for me to encourage you, and let you come here +and get your feelings enlisted. If you come here occasionally as a +friend in friendship I shall be happy to have you, but you must not +come here with any other hopes or feelings." + +Charlotte's solemnly stilted words, and earnest, severe face chilled +the young man opposite. His face sobered. "You mean that you can't +ever think of me in any other way than as a friend," he said. + +Charlotte nodded. "You know it is not because there's one thing +against you, Thomas." + +"Then it is Barney, after all." + +"I was all ready to marry him a few weeks ago," Charlotte said, with +a kind of dignified reproach. + +Thomas colored. "I know it, Charlotte; I ought not to have +expected--I suppose you couldn't get over it so soon. I couldn't if I +had been in your place, and been ready to marry anybody. But I didn't +know about girls; I didn't know but they were different; I always +heard they got over things quicker. I ought not to have thought-- +But, oh, Charlotte, if I wait, if you have a little more time, don't +you think you will feel different about it?" + +Charlotte shook her head. + +"But he is such a good-for-nothing dog to treat you the way he does, +Charlotte!" Thomas cried out, in a great burst of wrath and jealous +love. + +"I don't want to hear another word like that, Thomas Payne," +Charlotte said, sternly, and the young man drooped before her. + +"I beg your pardon, Charlotte," said he. "I suppose I ought not to +have spoken so, if you-- Oh, Charlotte, then you don't think you ever +can get over this and think a little bit of me?" + +"No," replied Charlotte, in a steady voice, "I don't think I ever +can, Thomas." + +"I don't mean that I am trying to get you away from any other fellow, +Charlotte--I wouldn't do anything like that; but if he won't-- Oh, +Charlotte, are you sure?" + +"I don't think I ever can," repeated Charlotte, monotonously, looking +at the wall past Thomas. + +"I've always thought so much of you, Charlotte, though I never told +you so." + +"You'd better not now." + +"Yes, I'm going to, now. I've got to. Then I'll never say another +word--I'll go away, and never say another word." Thomas got up, and +brought his chair close to Charlotte's. "Don't move away," he +pleaded; "let me sit here near you once--I never shall again. I'm +going to tell you, Charlotte. I used to look across at you sitting +in the meeting-house, Sabbath days, when I was a boy, and think you +were the handsomest girl I ever saw. Then I did try to go with you +once before I went to college; perhaps you didn't know that I meant +anything, but I did. Barney was in the way then a little, but I +didn't think much of it. I didn't know that he really meant to go +with you. You let me go home with you two or three times--perhaps you +remember." + +Charlotte nodded. + +"I never forgot," said Thomas Payne. "Well, father found it out, and +he had a talk with me. He made me promise to wait till I got through +college before I said anything to you; he was doing a good deal for +me, you know. So I waited, and the first thing I knew, when I came +home, they said Barney Thayer was waiting on you, and I thought it +was all settled and there was nothing more to be done. I made up my +mind to bear it like a man and make the best of it, and I did. But +this spring when I was through college, and that happened betwixt you +and Barney, when he--didn't come back to you, and you didn't seem to +mind so much, I couldn't help having a little hope. I waited and +kept thinking he'd make up with you, but he didn't, and I knew how +determined he was. Then finally I began to make a few advances, +but--well, it's all over now, Charlotte. There's only one thing I'd +like to ask: if I hadn't waited, as I promised father, would it have +made any difference? Did you always like Barney Thayer?" + +"Yes; it wouldn't have made any difference," Charlotte said. There +were tears in her eyes. + +Thomas Payne arose. "Then that is all," said he. "I never had any +chance, if I had only known. I've got nothing more to say. I want to +thank you for asking me to come here to-night and telling me. It was +a good deal kinder than to let me keep on coming. That would have +been rather hard on a fellow." Thomas Payne fairly laughed, although +his handsome face was white. "I hope it will all come right betwixt +you and Barney, Charlotte," he said, "and don't you worry about me, I +shall get on. I'll own this seems a little harder than it was before, +but I shall get on." Thomas brushed his bell hat carefully with his +cambric handkerchief, and stowed it under his arm. "Good-bye, +Charlotte," said he, in his old gay voice; "when you ask me, I'll +come and dance at your wedding." + +Charlotte got up, trembling. Thomas reached out his hand and touched +her smooth fair head softly. "I never touched you nor kissed you, +except in games like that Copenhagen to-day," said he; "but I've +thought of it a good many times." + +Charlotte drew back. "I can't, Thomas," she faltered. She could not +herself have defined her reason for refusing her cast-off lover this +one comfort, but it was not so much loyalty as the fear of disloyalty +which led her to do so. In spite of herself, she saw Barney for an +instant beside Thomas to his disadvantage, and her love could not +cover him, extend it as she would. The conviction was strong upon her +that Thomas was the better man of the two, although she did not love +him. + +"All right," said Thomas, "I ought not to have asked it of you, +Charlotte. Good-bye." + +As soon as Thomas Payne got out in the dark night air, and the door +had shut behind him, he set up his merry whistle. Charlotte stood at +the front window, and heard it from far down the hill. + + + +Chapter IX + + +One Sunday evening, about four months after the cherry party, +Barnabas Thayer came out of his house and strolled slowly across the +road. Then he paused, and leaned up against some pasture bars and +looked around him. There was nobody in sight on the road in either +direction, and everything was very still, except for the vibrating +calls of the hidden insects that come to their flood-tide of life in +early autumn. + +Barnabas listened to those calls, which had in them a certain element +of mystery, as have all things which reach only one sense. They were +in their humble way the voices of the unseen, and as he listened they +seemed to take on a rhythmic cadence. Presently the drone of +multifold vibrations sounded in his ears with even rise and fall, +like the mighty breathing of Nature herself. The sun was low, and the +sky was full of violet clouds. Barney could see outlined faintly +against them the gray sweep of the roof that covered Charlotte's +daily life. + +Soon the bell for the evening meeting began to ring, and Barney +started. People might soon appear on their way to meeting, and he +did not want to see them. Barney avoided everybody now; he had been +nowhere since the cherry party, not even to meeting. He led the life +of a hermit, and seldom met his kind at all, except at the store, +where he went to buy the simple materials for his solitary meals. + +Barney turned aside from the main road into the old untravelled one +leading past Sylvia Crane's house. It appeared scarcely more than a +lane; the old wheel-ruts were hidden between green weedy ridges, the +bordering stone-walls looked like long green barrows, being overgrown +with poison-ivy vines and rank shrubs. For a long way there was no +house except Sylvia Crane's. There was one cellar where a house had +stood before Barney could remember. There were a few old blackened +chimney-bricks still there, the step-stone worn by dead and forgotten +feet, and the old lilac-bushes that had grown against the front +windows. Two poplar-trees, too, stood where the front yard had met +the road, casting long shadows like men. Sylvia Crane's house was +just beyond, and Barney passed it with a furtive anxious glance, +because Charlotte's aunt lived there. He saw nobody at the windows, +but the guardian-stone was quite rolled away from the door, so Sylvia +was at home. + +Barney walked a little way beyond; then he sat down on the +stone-wall, and remained there, motionless. He heard the meeting-bell +farther away, then it ceased. The wind was quite crisp and cool, and +it smote his back from the northwest. He could smell wild-grapes and +the pungent odor of decaying leaves. The autumn was beginning, and +over his thoughts, raised like a ghost from the ashes of the summer, +stole a vague vision of the winter. He saw for a second the driving +slant of the snow-storm over the old drifting road, he saw the white +slant of Sylvia's house-roof through it. And at the same time a +curious, pleasant desire, which might be primitive and coeval with +the provident passion of the squirrels and honey-bees, thrilled him. +Then he dismissed it bitterly. What need of winter-stores and +provisions for sweet home-comfort in the hearts of freezing storms +was there for him? What did he care whether or not he laid in stores +of hearth-wood, of garden produce, of apples, just for himself in his +miserable solitude? The inborn desire of Northern races at the +approach of the sterile winters, containing, as do all desires to +insure their fulfilment, the elements of human pleasure, failed +suddenly to move him when he remembered that his human life, in one +sense, was over. + +[Illustration: "He remained there motionless"] + +Opposite him across the road, in an old orchard, was a tree full of +apples. The low sun struck them, and they showed spheres of rosy +orange, as brilliant as Atalanta's apples of gold, against the +background of dark violet clouds. Barney looked at this tree, which +was glorified for the time almost out of its common meaning as a +tree, as he might have looked at a gorgeous procession passing before +him, while his mind was engrossed with his own misery, seeming to +project before his eyes like a veil. + +Presently it grew dusky, and the glowing apples faded; the town-clock +struck eight. Barney counted the strokes; then he arose and went +slowly back. He had not gone far when he saw at a distance down the +road a man and woman strolling slowly towards him. They disappeared +suddenly, and he thought they had turned into a lane which opened +upon the road just there. He thought to himself, and with no concern, +that it might have been his sister Rebecca--something about the +woman's gait suggested her--and William Berry. He knew that William +was not allowed in his mother's house, and that he and Rebecca met +outside. He looked up the dusky lane when he came to it, but he saw +nobody. + +When he reached Sylvia Crane's house he noticed that the front door +was open, and a woman stood there in a dim shaft of candle-light +which streamed from the room beyond. He started, for he thought it +might be Charlotte; then he saw that it was Sylvia Crane leaning out +towards him, shading her eyes with her hand. + +He said "Good-evening" vaguely, and passed on. Then he heard a cry of +indistinct words behind him, and turned. "What is it?" he called. But +still he could not understand what she said, her voice was so broken, +and he went back. + +When he got quite close to the gate he understood. "You ain't goin' +past, Richard? You ain't goin' past, Richard?" Sylvia was wailing +over and over, clinging to the old gate-post. + +Barney stood before her, hesitating. Sylvia reached out a hand +towards him, clutching piteously with pale fingers through the gloom. +Barney drew back from the poor hand. "I rather think--you've--made a +mistake," he faltered out. + +"You ain't goin' past, Richard?" Sylvia wailed out again. She flung +out her lean arm farther towards him. Then she wavered. Barney +thought she was going to fall, and he stepped forward and caught +hold of her elbow. "I guess you don't feel well, do you, Miss Crane?" +he said. "I guess you had better go into the house, hadn't you?" + +"I feel--kind of--bad--I--thought you was goin'--past," gasped +Sylvia. Barney supported her awkwardly into the house. At times she +leaned her whole trembling weight upon him, and then withdrew +herself, all unnerved as she was, with the inborn maiden reticence +which so many years had strengthened; once she pushed him from her, +then drooped upon his arm again, and all the time she kept moaning, +"I thought you was goin' right past, Richard, I thought you was goin' +right past." + +And Barney kept repeating, "I guess you've made a mistake, Miss +Crane"; but she did not heed him. + +When they were inside the parlor he shifted her weight gently on to +the sofa, and would have drawn off; but she clung to his arm, and it +seemed to him that he was forced to sit down beside her or be rough +with her. "I thought you was goin' right past, Richard," she said +again. + +"I ain't Richard," said Barney; but she did not seem to hear him. She +looked straight in his face with a strange boldness, her body +inclined towards him, her head thrown back. Her thin, faded cheeks +were burning, her blue eyes eager, her lips twitching with pitiful +smiles. The room was dim with candle-light, but everything in it was +distinct, and Sylvia Crane, looking straight at Barney Thayer's face, +saw the face of Richard Alger. + +Suddenly Barney himself had a curious impression. The features of +Richard Alger instead of his own seemed to look back at him from his +own thoughts. He dashed his hand across his face with an impatient, +bewildered motion, as if he brushed away unseen cobwebs, and stood +up. "You have made--" he began again; but Sylvia interrupted him with +a weak cry. "Set down here, set down here, jest a minute, if you +don't want to kill me!" she wailed out, and she clutched at his +sleeve and pulled him down, and before he knew what she was doing had +shrunk close to him, and laid her head on his shoulder. She went on +talking desperately in her weak voice--strained shrill octaves above +her ordinary tone. + +"I've had this--sofa ten years," she said--"ten years, Richard--an' +you never set with me on it before, an'--you'd been comin'--here a +long while before that came betwixt us last spring, Richard. Ain't +you forgiven me yet?" + +Barney made no reply. + +"Can't you put your arm around me jest once, Richard?" she went on. +"You ain't never, an' you've been comin' here a long while. I've had +this sofa ten years." + +Barney put his arm around her, seemingly with no volition of his own. + +"It's six months to-day sence you came last," Sylvia said--"it's six +whole months; an' when I see you goin' past to-night, it didn't seem +as if I could bear it--it didn't seem as if I could bear it, +Richard." Sylvia turned her pale profile closer to Barney's breast +and sobbed faintly. "I've watched so long for you," she sighed out; +"all these months I've sat there at the window, strainin' my eyes +into the dark. Oh, you don't know, Richard, you won't never know!" + +Barney trembled with Sylvia's sobs. He sat with a serious +shamefacedness, his arm around the poor bony waist, staring over the +faded fair head, which had never lain on any lover's breast except in +dreams. For the moment he could not stir; he had a feeling of horror, +as if he saw his own double. There was a subtle resemblance which +lay deeper than the features between him and Richard Alger. Sylvia +saw it, and he saw his own self reflected as Richard Alger in that +straining mental vision of hers which exceeded the spiritual one. + +"Can't you forgive me, an'--come again the way--you used to?" Sylvia +panted out. "I couldn't get home before, that night, nohow. I +couldn't, Richard--'twas the night Charlotte an' Barney fell out. +They had a dreadful time. I had to stay there. It wa'n't my fault. +If Barney had come back, I could have got here in season; but poor +Charlotte was settin' out there all alone on the doorstep, an' her +father wouldn't let her in, an' Sarah took on so I had to stay. I +thought I should die when I got back an' found out you'd been here +an' gone. Ain't you goin' to forgive me, Richard?" + +Barney suddenly removed his arm from Sylvia's waist, pushed her +clinging hands away, and stood up again. "Now, Miss Crane," he said, +"I've got to tell you. You've got to listen, and take it in. I am +not Richard Alger; I am Barney Thayer." + +"What?" Sylvia said, feebly, looking up at him. "I don't know what +you say, Richard; I wish you'd say it again." + +"I ain't Richard Alger; I am Barney Thayer," repeated Barney, in a +loud, distinct voice. Sylvia's straining, questioning eyes did not +leave his face. "You made a mistake," said Barney. + +Sylvia turned her eyes away; she laid her head down on the arm of the +hair-cloth sofa, and gasped faintly. Barney bent over her. "Now don't +feel bad, Miss Crane," said he; "I sha'n't ever say a word about this +to anybody." + +Sylvia made no reply; she lay there half gasping for breath, and her +face looked deathly to Barney. + +"Miss Crane, are you sick?" he cried out in alarm. When she did not +answer, he even laid hold of her shoulder, and shook her gently, and +repeated the question. He did not know if she were faint or dying; he +had never seen anybody faint or die. He wished instinctively that his +mother were there; he thought for a second of running for her in +spite of everything. + +"I'll go and get some water for you, Miss Crane," he said, +desperately, and seized the candle, and went with it, flaring and +leaving a wake of smoke, out into the kitchen. He presently came back +with a dipper of water, and held it dripping over Sylvia. "Hadn't you +better drink a little?" he urged. But Sylvia suddenly motioned him +away and sat up. "No, I don't want any water; I don't want anything +after this," she said, in a quick, desperate tone. "I can never look +anybody in the face again. I can never go to meetin' again." + +"Don't you feel so about it, Miss Crane," Barney pleaded, his own +voice uncertain and embarrassed. "The room ain't very light, and it's +dark outside; maybe I do look like him a little. It ain't any wonder +you made the mistake." + +"It wa'n't that," returned Sylvia. "I dunno what the reason was; it +don't make any difference. I can't never go to meetin' again." + +"I sha'n't tell anybody," said Barney; "I sha'n't ever speak of it to +any human being." + +Sylvia turned on him with sudden fierceness. "You had better not," +said she, "when you're doin' jest the same as Richard Alger yourself, +an' you're makin' Charlotte sit an' watch an' suffer for nothin' at +all, jest as he makes me. You had better not tell of it, Barney +Thayer, when it was all due to your awful will that won't let you +give in to anybody, in the first place, an' when you are so much like +Richard Alger yourself that it's no wonder that anybody that knows +him body and soul, as I do, took you for him. You had better not +tell." + +Again Barney seemed to see before his eyes that image of himself as +Richard Alger, and he could no more change it than he could change +his own image in the looking-glass. He said not another word, but +carried the dipper of water back to the kitchen, returned with the +candle, setting it gingerly on the white mantel-shelf between a vase +of dried flowers and a mottle-backed shell, and went out of the +house. Sylvia did not speak again; but he heard her moan as he closed +the door, and it seemed to him that he heard her as he went down the +road, although he knew that he could not. + +It was quite dark now; all the light came from a pale wild sky. The +moon was young, and feebly intermittent with the clouds. + +Barney, hastening along, was all trembling and unnerved. He tried to +persuade himself that the woman whom he had just left was ill, and +laboring under some sudden aberration of mind; yet, in spite of +himself, he realized a terrible rationality in it. Little as he had +been among the village people of late, and little as he had heard of +the village gossip, he knew the story of Richard Alger's desertion +of Sylvia Crane. Was he not like Richard Alger in his own desertion +of Charlotte Barnard? and had not Sylvia been as little at fault +in taking one for the other as if they had been twin brothers? +Might there not be a closer likeness between characters than +features--perhaps by a repetition of sins and deformities? and might +not one now and then be able to see it? + +Then the question came, was Charlotte like Sylvia? Was Charlotte even +now sitting watching for him with that awful eagerness which comes +from a hunger of the heart? He had seen one woman's wounded heart, +and, like most men, was disposed to generalize, and think he had seen +the wounded hearts of all women. + +When he had reached the turn of the road, and had come out on the +main one where his house was, and where Charlotte lived, he stood +still, looking in her direction. He seemed to see her, a quarter of a +mile away in the darkness, sitting in her window watching for him, as +Sylvia had watched for Richard. + +He set his mouth hard and crossed the road. He had just reached his +own yard when there was the pale flutter of a skirt out of the +darkness before him, and a little shadowy figure met him with a soft +shock. The was a smothered nervous titter from the figure. Barney did +not know who it was; he muttered an apology, and was about to pass +into his yard when Rose Berry's voice arrested him. It was quite +trembling and uncertain; all the laughter had gone out of it. + +"Oh, it's you," said she; "you frightened me. I didn't know who it +was." + +Barney felt suddenly annoyed without knowing why. "Oh, is it you, +Rose?" he returned, stiffly. "It's a pleasant evening;" then he +turned. + +"Barney!" Rose said, and her voice sounded as if she were weeping. + +Barney stopped and waited. + +"I want to know if--you're mad with me, Barney." + +"No, of course I ain't; why?" + +"I thought you'd acted kind of queer to me lately." + +Barney stood still, frowning in the darkness. "I don't know what you +mean," he said at length. "I don't know how I've treated you any +different from any of the girls." + +"You haven't been to see me, and--you've hardly spoken to me since +the cherry party." + +"I haven't been to see anybody," said Barney, shortly; and he turned +away again, but Rose caught his arm. "Then you are sure you aren't +mad with me?" she whispered. + +"Of course I'm sure," Barney returned, impatiently. + +"It would kill me if you were," Rose whispered. She pressed close to +him; he could feel her softly panting against his side, her head sunk +on his shoulder. "I've been worrying about it all these months," she +said in his ear. Her soft curly hair brushed his cheek, but her +little transient influence over him was all gone. He felt angry and +ashamed. + +"I haven't thought anything about it," he said, brusquely. + +Rose sobbed faintly, but she did not move away from him. Suddenly +that cruel repulsion which seizes mankind towards reptiles and +unsought love seized Barney. He unclasped her clinging hands, and +fairly pushed her away from him. "Good-night, Rose," he said, +shortly, and turned, and went up the path to his own door with +determined strides. + +"Barney!" Rose called after him; but he paid no attention. She even +ran up the path after him; but the door shut, and she turned back. +She was trembling from head to foot, there was a great rushing in her +ears; but she heard a quick light step behind her when she got out on +the road, and she hurried on before it with a vague dread. + +She almost ran at length; but the footsteps gained on her. A dark +skirt brushed her light-colored one, and Charlotte's voice, full of +contempt and indignation, said in her ear: "Oh, I thought it was +you." + +"I--was coming up--to your--house," Rose faltered; she could hardly +get her breath to speak. + +"Why didn't you come, then?" demanded Charlotte. "What made you go to +Barney Thayer's?" + +"I didn't," said Rose, in feeble self-defence. "He was out in the +road--I--just stopped to--speak to him--" + +"You were coming out of his yard," Charlotte said, pitilessly. "You +followed him in there--I saw you. Shame on you!" + +"Oh, Charlotte, I haven't done anything out of the way," pleaded +Rose, weakly. + +"You have tried your best to get Barney Thayer all the time you have +been pretending to be such a good friend to me. I don't know what you +call out of the way." + +"Charlotte, don't--I haven't." + +"Yes, you have. I am going to tell you, once for all, what I think of +you. You've been a false friend to me; and now when Barney don't +notice you, you follow him up as no girl that thought anything of +herself would. And you don't even care anything for him; you haven't +even that for an excuse." + +"You don't know but what I do!" Rose cried out, desperately. + +"Yes, I do know. If anybody else came along, you'd care for him just +the same." + +"I shouldn't--Charlotte, I should never have thought of Barney if +he--hadn't left you, you know I shouldn't." + +"That's no excuse," said Charlotte, sternly. + +"You said yourself he would never come back to you," said Rose. + +"Would you have liked me to have done so by you, if you had been in +my place?" + +Rose twitched herself about. "You can't expect him never to marry +anybody because he isn't going to marry you," she said, defiantly. + +"I don't--I am not quite so selfish as that. But he won't ever marry +anybody he don't like because she follows him up, and I don't see how +that alters what you've done." + +Rose began to walk away. Charlotte stood still, but she raised her +voice. "I am not very happy," said she, "and I sha'n't be happy my +whole life, but I wouldn't change places with you. You've lowered +yourself, and that's worse than any unhappiness." + +Rose fled away in the darkness without another word, and Charlotte +crossed the road to go to her Aunt Sylvia's. + +Rose, as she went on, felt as if all her dreams were dying within +her; a dull vision of the next morning when she should awake without +them weighed upon her. She had a childish sense of shame and remorse, +and a conviction of the truth of Charlotte's words. And yet she had +an injured and bewildered feeling, as if somewhere in this terrible +nature, at whose mercy she was, there was some excuse for her. + +Rose was nearly home when she began to meet the people coming from +meeting. She kept close to the wall, and scudded along swiftly that +no one might recognize her. All at once a young man whom she had +passed turned and walked along by her side, making a shy clutch at +her arm. + +"Oh, it's you," she said, wearily. + +"Yes; do you care if I walk along with you?" + +"No," said Rose, "not if you want to." + +An old pang of gratitude came over her. It was only the honest, +overgrown boy, Tommy Ray, of the store. She had known he worshipped +her afar off; she had laughed at him and half despised him, but now +she felt suddenly humble and grateful for even this devotion. She +moved her arm that he might hold it more closely. + +"It's too dark for you to be out alone," he said, in his embarrassed, +tender voice. + +"Yes, it's pretty dark," said Rose. Her voice shook. They had passed +the last group of returning people. Suddenly Rose, in spite of +herself, began to cry. She sobbed wildly, and the boy, full of alarm +and sympathy, walked on by her side. + +"There ain't anything--scared you, has there?" he stammered out, +awkwardly, at length. + +"No," sobbed Rose. + +"You ain't sick?" + +"No, it isn't anything." + +The boy held her arm closer; he trembled and almost sobbed himself +with sympathy. Before they reached the old tavern Rose had stopped +crying--she even tried to laugh and turn it off with a jest. "I don't +know what got into me," she said; "I guess I was nervous." + +"I didn't know but something had scared you," said the boy. + +They stood on the door-steps; the house was dark. Rose's parents had +gone to bed, and William was out. The boy still held Rose's arm. He +had adored her secretly ever since he was a child, and he had never +dared as much as that before. He had thought of Rose like a queen or +a princess, and the thought had ennobled his boyish ignorance and +commonness. + +"No, I wasn't scared," said Rose, and something in her voice gave +sudden boldness to her young lover. + +He released her arm, and put both his arms around her. "I'm sorry you +feel so bad," he whispered, panting. + +"It isn't anything," returned Rose, but she half sobbed again; the +boy's round cheek pressed against her wet, burning one. He was +several years younger than she. She had half scorned him, but she had +one of those natures that crave love for its own sweetness as palates +crave sugar. + +She wept a little on his shoulder; and the boy, half beside himself +with joy and terror, stood holding her fast in his arms. + +"Don't feel bad," he kept whispering. Finally Rose raised herself. "I +must go in," she whispered; "good-night." + +The boy's pleading face, his innocent, passionate lips approached +hers, and they kissed each other. + +"Don't you--like me a little?" gasped the boy. + +"Maybe I will," Rose whispered back. His face came closer, and she +kissed him again. Then, with a murmured "good-night," she fled into +the house, and the boy went down the hill with sweeter dreams in his +heart than those which she had lost. + + + +Chapter X + + +On the Sunday following the one of Barnabas Thayer's call Sylvia +Crane appeared at meeting in a black lace veil like a Spanish +senorita. The heavily wrought black lace fell over her face, and +people could get only shifting glimpses of her delicate features +behind it. + +Richard Alger glanced furtively at the pale face shrinking austerely +behind the net-work of black silk leaves and flowers, and wondered at +some change which he felt but could not fathom. He scarcely knew that +she had never worn the veil before. And Richard Alger, had he known, +could never have fathomed the purely feminine motive compounded of +pride and shame which led his old sweetheart to unearth from the +depths of a bandbox her mother's worked-lace veil, and tie its narrow +black drawing-string with trembling fingers over her own bonnet. + +"I'd like to know what in creation you've got that veil on for?" +whispered her sister, Hannah Berry, as they went down the aisle after +meeting. + +"I thought I would," responded Sylvia's muffled voice behind the +veil. + +"You've got the flowers right over your eyes. I shouldn't think you +could see to walk. You ain't never worn a veil in your life. I can't +see what has got into you," persisted Hannah. + +Sylvia edged away from her as soon as she could, and glided down the +road towards her own house swiftly, although her knees trembled. +Sylvia's knees always trembled when she came out of church, after she +had sat an hour and a half opposite Richard Alger. To-day they felt +weaker than ever, after her encounter with Hannah. Nobody knew the +terror Sylvia had of her sister's discovering how she had called in +Barnabas Thayer, and in a manner unveiled her maiden heart to him. +When Charlotte had come in that night after Barnabas had gone, and +discovered her crying on the sofa, she had jumped up and confronted +her with a fierce instinct of concealment. + +"There ain't nothin' new the matter," she said, in response to +Charlotte's question; "I was thinkin' about mother; I'm apt to when +it comes dusk." It was the first deliberate lie that Sylvia Crane had +ever told in her life. She reflected upon it after Charlotte had +gone, and reflected also with fierce hardihood that she would lie +again were it necessary. Should she hesitate at a lie if it would +cover the maiden reserve that she had cherished so long? + +However, Charlotte had suspected more than her aunt knew of the true +cause of her agitation. A similar motive for grief made her acute. +Sylvia, mourning alone of a Sabbath night upon her hair-cloth sofa, +struck an old chord of her own heart. Charlotte dared not say a +word to comfort her directly. She condoled with her for the +fifteen-years-old loss of her mother, and did not allude to Richard +Alger; but going home she said to herself, with a miserable qualm of +pity, that poor Aunt Sylvia was breaking her heart because Richard +had stopped coming. + +"It's harder for Aunt Sylvia because she's older," thought Charlotte, +on her way home that night. But then she thought also, with a sorer +qualm of self-pity, that Sylvia had not quite so long a life before +her, to live alone. Charlotte had nearly reached her own home that +night when two figures suddenly slunk across the road before her. She +at once recognized Rebecca Thayer as one of them, and called out +"Good-evening, Rebecca!" to her. + +Rebecca made only a muttered sound in response, and they both +disappeared in the darkness. There was a look of secrecy and flight +about it which somehow startled Charlotte, engrossed as she was with +her own troubles and her late encounter with Rose. + +When she got into the house she spoke of it to her mother. Cephas had +gone to bed, and Sarah was sitting up waiting for her. + +"I met Rebecca and William out here," said she, untying her hat, "and +I thought they acted real queer." Sarah cast a glance at the bedroom +door, which was ajar, and motioned Charlotte to close it. Charlotte +tiptoed across the room and shut the door softly, lest she should +awaken her father; then her mother beckoned her to come close, and +whispered something in her ear. + +Charlotte started, and a great blush flamed out all over her face and +neck. She looked at her mother with angry shame. "I don't believe a +word of it," said she; "not a word of it." + +"I walked home from meetin' with Mrs. Allen this evenin'," said her +mother, "an' she says it's all over town. She says Rebecca's been +stealin' out, an' goin' to walk with him unbeknownst to her mother +all summer. You know her mother wouldn't let him come to the house." + +"I don't believe one word of it," repeated Charlotte. + +"Mis' Allen says it's so," said Sarah. "She says Mis' Thayer has had +to stay home from evenin' meetin' on account of Ephraim--she don't +like to leave him alone, he ain't been quite so well lately--an' +Rebecca has made believe go to meetin' when she's been off with +William. Mis' Thayer went to meetin' to-night." + +"Wasn't Mr. Thayer there?" + +"Yes, he was there, but he wouldn't know what was goin' on. 'Tain't +very hard to pull the wool over Caleb Thayer's eyes." + +"I don't believe one word of it," Charlotte said, again. When she +went up-stairs to bed that whisper of her mother's seemed to sound +through and above all her own trouble. It was to her like a note of +despair and shame, quite outside her own gamut of life. She could not +believe that she heard it at all. Rebecca's face as she had always +known her came up before her. "I don't believe one word of it," she +said again to herself. + +But that whisper which had shocked her ear had already begun to be +repeated all over the village--by furtive matrons, behind their +hands, when the children had been sent out of the room; by girls, +blushing beneath each other's eyes as they whispered; by the lounging +men in the village store; it was sent like an evil strain through the +consciousness of the village, until everybody except Rebecca's own +family had heard it. + +Barnabas saw little of other people, and nobody dared repeat the +whisper to him, and they had too much mercy or too little courage to +repeat it to Caleb or Deborah. Indeed, it is doubtful if any woman in +the village, even Hannah Berry, would have ventured to face Deborah +Thayer with this rumor concerning her daughter. + +Deborah had of late felt anxious about Rebecca, who did not seem like +herself. Her face was strangely changed; all the old meaning had gone +out of it, and given place to another, which her mother could not +interpret. Sometimes Rebecca looked like a stranger to her as she +moved about the house. She said to many that Rebecca was miserable, +and was incensed that she got so little sympathy in response. Once +when Rebecca fainted in meeting, and had to be carried out, she felt +in the midst of her alarm a certain triumph. "I guess folks will see +now that I ain't been fussin' over her for nothin'," she thought. +When Rebecca revived under a sprinkle of water, out in the vestibule, +she said impatiently to the other women bending their grave, +concerned faces over her, "She's been miserable for some time. I +ain't surprised at this at all myself." + +Deborah watched over Rebecca with a fierce, pecking tenderness like a +bird. She brewed great bowls of domestic medicines from nuts and +herbs, and made her drink whether she would or not. She sent her to +bed early, and debarred her from the night air. She never had a +suspicion of the figure slipping softly as a shadow across the north +parlor and out the front door night after night. + +She never exchanged a word with Rebecca about William Berry. She +tried to persuade herself that Rebecca no longer thought much about +him; she drove from her mind the fear lest Rebecca's illness might be +due to grief at parting from him. She looked at Thomas Payne with a +speculative eye; she thought that he would make a good husband for +Rebecca; she dreamed of him, and built bridal castles for him and her +daughter, as she knitted those yards of lace at night, when Rebecca +had gone to bed in her little room off the north parlor. When Thomas +Payne went west a month after Charlotte Barnard had refused him, she +transferred her dreams to some fine stranger who should come to the +village and at once be smitten with Rebecca. She never thought it +possible that Rebecca could be persisting in her engagement to +William Berry against her express command. Her own obstinacy was +incredible to her in her daughter; she had not the slightest +suspicion of it, and Rebecca had less to guard against. + +As the fall advanced Rebecca showed less and less inclination to go +in the village society. Her mother fairly drove her out at times. +Once Rebecca, utterly overcome, sank down in a chair and wept when +her mother urged her to go to a husking-party in the neighborhood. + +"You've got to spunk up an' go, if you don't feel like it," said her +mother. "You'll feel better for it afterwards. There ain't no use in +givin' up so. I'm goin' to get you a new crimson woollen dress, an' +I'm goin' to have you go out more'n you've done lately." + +"I--don't want a new dress," returned Rebecca, with wild sobs. + +"Well, I'm goin' to get you one to-morrow," said her mother. "Now go +an' wash your face an' do up your hair, an' get ready. You can wear +your brown dress, with the cherry ribbon in your hair, to-night." + +"I don't--feel fit to, mother," moaned Rebecca, piteously. + +But Deborah would not listen to her. She made her get ready for the +husking-party, and looked at her with pride when she stood all +dressed to go, in the kitchen. + +"You look better than you've done for some time," said she, "an' that +brown dress don't look bad, either, if you have had it three winters. +I'm goin' to get you a nice new crimson woollen this winter. I've had +my mind made up to for some time." + +After Rebecca had gone and Ephraim had said his catechism and gone to +bed, Deborah sat and knitted, and planned to get the crimson dress +for Rebecca the next day. + +She looked over at Caleb, who sat dozing by the fire. "I'll go +to-morrow, if he ain't got to spend all that last interest-money for +the parish taxes an' cuttin' that wood," said she. "I dunno how much +that wood-cuttin' come to, an' he won't know to-night if I wake him +up. I can't get it through his head. But I'll buy it to-morrow if +there's money enough left." + +But Deborah was forced to wait a few weeks, since it took all the +interest-money for the parish taxes and to pay for the wood-cutting. +She had to wait until Caleb had sold some of the wood, and that took +some time, since seller and purchasers were slow-motioned. + +At last, one afternoon, she drove herself over to Bolton in the +chaise to buy the dress. She went to Bolton, because she would not go +herself to Silas Berry's store and trade with William. She could send +Caleb there for household goods, but this dress she would trust no +one but herself to purchase. + +She had planned that Rebecca should go with her, but the girl looked +so utterly wan and despairing that day that she forbore to insist +upon it. Caleb would have accompanied her, but she would not let him. +"I never did think much of men-folks standin' round in stores gawpin' +while women-folks was tradin'," said she. She would not allow Ephraim +to go, although he pleaded hard. It was quite a cold day, and she was +afraid of the sharp air for his laboring breath. + +A little after noon she set forth, all alone in the chaise, slapping +the reins energetically over the white horse's back, a thick green +veil tied over her bonnet under her chin, and the thin, sharp wedge +of face visible between the folds crimsoning in the frosty wind. + +While she was gone Rebecca sat beside the window and sewed, Caleb +shelled corn in the chimney-corner, and Ephraim made a pretence of +helping him. "You set down an' help your father shell corn while I am +gone," his mother had sternly ordered. + +Occasionally Ephraim addressed whining remonstrances to his father, +and begged to be allowed to go out-of-doors, and Caleb would quiet +him with one effectual rejoinder: "You know she won't like it if you +do, sonny. You know what she said." + +Caleb, as he shelled the corn with the pottering patience of old age +and constitutional slowness, glanced now and then at his daughter in +the window. He thought she looked very badly, and he had all the time +lately the bewildered feeling of a child who sees in a familiar face +the marks of emotions unknown to it. + +"Don't you feel as well as common to-day, Rebecca?" he asked once, +and cleared his throat. + +"I don't feel sick, as I know of, any day," replied Rebecca, shortly, +and her face reddened. + +As she sewed she looked out now and then at the wild December day, +the trees reeling in the wind, and the sky driving with the leaden +clouds. It was too cold and too windy to snow all the afternoon, but +towards night it moderated, and the wind died down. When Mrs. Thayer +came home it was snowing quite hard, and her green veil was white +when she entered the kitchen. She took it off and shook it, +sputtering moisture in the fireplace. + +"There's goin' to be a hard storm; it's lucky I went to-day," said +she. "I kept the dress under the buffalo-robe, an' that ain't hurt +any." + +Deborah waxed quite angry, when she proudly shook out the soft +gleaming crimson lengths of thibet, because Rebecca showed so little +interest in it. "You don't deserve to have a new dress; you act like +a stick of wood," she said. + +Rebecca made no reply. Presently, when she had gone out of the room +for something, Caleb said, anxiously, "I guess she don't feel quite +so well as common to-night." + +"I'm gettin' most out of patience; I dunno what ails her. I'm goin' +to have the doctor if this keeps on," returned Deborah. + +Ephraim, sucking a stick of candy brought to him from Bolton, cast a +strange glance at his mother--a glance compounded of shrewdness and +terror; but she did not see it. + +It snowed hard all night; in the morning the snow was quite deep, and +there was no appearance of clearing. As soon as the breakfast dishes +were put away, Deborah got out the crimson thibet. She had learned +the tailoring and dressmaking trade in her youth, and she always cut +and fitted the garments for the family. + +She worked assiduously; by the middle of the forenoon the dress was +ready to be tried on. Ephraim and his father were out in the barn, +she and Rebecca were alone in the house. + +She made Rebecca stand up in the middle of the kitchen floor, and she +began fitting the crimson gown to her. Rebecca stood drooping +heavily, her eyes cast down. Suddenly her mother gave a great start, +pushed the girl violently from her, and stood aloof. She did not +speak for a few minutes; the clock ticked in the dreadful silence. +Rebecca cast one glance at her mother, whose eyes seemed to light the +innermost recesses of her being to her own vision; then she would +have looked away, but her mother's voice arrested her. + +"Look at me," said Deborah. And Rebecca looked; it was like +uncovering a disfigurement or a sore. + +"What--ails you?" said her mother, in a terrible voice. + +Then Rebecca turned her head; her mother's eyes could not hold her +any longer. It was as if her very soul shrank. + +"Go out of this house," said her mother, after a minute. + +Rebecca did not make a sound. She went, bending as if there were a +wind at her back impelling her, across the kitchen in her quilted +petticoat and her crimson thibet waist, her white arms hanging bare. +She opened the door that led towards her own bedroom, and passed out. + +Presently Deborah, still standing where Rebecca had left her, heard +the front door of the house shut. After a few minutes she took the +broom from its peg in the corner, went through the icy north parlor, +past Rebecca's room, to the front door. The snow heaped on the outer +threshold had fallen in when Rebecca opened it, and there was a +quantity on the entry floor. + +Deborah opened the door again, and swept out the snow carefully; she +even swept the snow off the steps outside, but she never cast a +glance up or down the road. Then she beat the snow off the broom, and +went in and locked the door behind her. + +On her way back to the kitchen she paused at Rebecca's little +bedroom. The waist of the new gown lay on the bad. She took it out +into the kitchen, and folded it carefully with the skirt and the +pieces; then she carried it up to the garret and laid it away in a +chest. + +When Caleb and Ephraim came in from the barn they found Deborah +sitting at the window knitting a stocking. She did not look up when +they entered. + +The corn was not yet shelled, and Caleb arranged his baskets in the +chimney-corner, and fell to again. Ephraim began teasing his mother +to let him crack some nuts, but she silenced him peremptorily. "Set +down an' help your father shell that corn," said she. And Ephraim +pulled a grating chair up to his father, muttering cautiously. + +Caleb kept looking at Deborah anxiously. He glanced at the door +frequently. + +"Where's Rebecca?" he asked at last. + +"I dunno," replied Deborah. + +"Has she laid down?" + +"No, she ain't." + +"She ain't gone out in the snow, has she?" Caleb said, with deploring +anxiety. + +Deborah answered not a word. She pursed her lips and knitted. + +"She ain't, has she, mother?" + +"Keep on with your corn," said Deborah; and that was all she would +say. + +Presently she arose and prepared dinner in the same dogged silence. +Caleb, and even Ephraim, watched her furtively, with alarmed eyes. + +When Rebecca did not appear at the dinner-table Caleb did not say +anything about it, but his old face was quite pale. He ate his dinner +from the force of habit of over seventy years, during which time he +had always eaten his dinner, but he did not taste it consciously. + +He made up his mind that as soon as he got up from the table he would +go over to Barney's and consult him. After he pushed his chair away +he was slipping out shyly, but Deborah stopped him. + +"Set down an' finish that corn. I don't want it clutterin' up the +kitchen any longer," said she. + +"I thought I'd jest slip out a minute, mother." + +Deborah motioned him towards the chimney-corner and the baskets of +corn with a stern gesture, and Caleb obeyed. Ephraim, too, settled +down beside his father, and fell to shelling corn without being told. +He was quite cowed and intimidated by this strange mood of his +mother's, and involuntarily shrank closer to his father when she +passed near him. + +Caleb and Ephraim both watched Deborah with furtive terror, as she +moved about, washing and putting away the dinner-dishes and sweeping +the kitchen. + +They looked at each other, when, after the after-dinner housework was +all done, she took her shawl and hood from the peg, and drew some old +wool socks of Caleb's over her shoes. She went out without saying a +word. Ephraim waited a few minutes after the door shut behind her; +then he ran to the window. + +"She's gone to Barney's," he announced, rolling great eyes over his +shoulder at his father; and the old man also went over to the window +and watched Deborah plodding through the snow up the street. + +It was not snowing so hard now, and the clouds were breaking, but a +bitter wind was blowing from the northwest. It drove Deborah along +before it, lashing her skirts around her gaunt limbs; but she leaned +back upon it, and did not bend. + +The road was not broken out, and the snow was quite deep, but she +went along with no break in her gait. She went into Barney's yard and +knocked at his door. She set her mouth harder when she heard him +coming. + +Barney opened the door and started when he saw who was there. "Is it +you, mother?" he said, involuntarily; then his face hardened like +hers, and he waited. The mother and son confronted each other looked +more alike than ever. + +Deborah opened her mouth to speak twice before she made a sound. She +stood upright and unyielding, but her face was ghastly, and she drew +her breath in long, husky gasps. Finally she spoke, and Barney +started again at her voice. + +"I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry Rebecca," +she said. + +"Mother, what do you mean?" + +"I want you to go after William Berry and make him marry Rebecca." + +"Mother!" + +"Rebecca is gone. I turned her out of the house this mornin'. I don't +know where she is. Go and find her, and make William Berry marry +her." + +"Mother, before the Lord, I don't know what you mean!" Barney cried +out. "You didn't turn Rebecca out of the house in all this storm! +What did you turn her out for? Where is she?" + +"I don't know where she is. I turned her out because I wouldn't have +her in the house. You brought it all on us; if you hadn't acted so I +shouldn't have felt as I did about her marryin'. Now you can go an' +find her, and get William Berry an' make him marry her. I ain't got +anything more to do with it." + +Deborah turned, and went out of the yard. + +"Mother!" Barney called after her, but she kept on. He stood for a +second looking after her retreating figure, struggling sternly with +the snow-drifts, meeting the buffets of the wind with her head up; +then he went in, and put on his boots and his overcoat. + +Barney had heard not one word of the village gossip, and the +revelation in his mother's words had come to him with a great shock. +As he went up the hill to the old tavern he could hardly believe that +he had understood her rightly. Once he paused and turned, and was +half inclined to go back. He was as pure-minded as a girl, and almost +as ignorant; he could not believe that he knew what she meant. + +Barney hesitated again before the store; then he opened the great +clanging door and went in. A farmer, in a blue frock stiff with snow, +had just completed his purchases and was going out. William, who had +been waiting upon him, was quite near the door behind the counter. At +the farther end of the store could be seen the red glow of a stove +and Tommy Ray's glistening fair had. Some one else, who had shrunk +out of sight when Barney entered, was also there. + +Barney saw no one but William. He looked at him, and all his +bewilderment gathered itself into a point. He felt a sudden fierce +impulse to spring at him. + +William looked at Barney, and his faced changed in a minute. He took +up his hat, and came around the counter. "Did you want to see me?" he +said, hoarsely. + +"Come outside," said Barney. And the two men went out, and stood in +the snow before the store. + +"Where is Rebecca?" said Barney. He looked at William, and again the +savage impulse seized him. William did not shrink before it. + +[Illustration: "'Where is Rebecca?' said Barney"] + +"What do you mean?" he returned. His lips were quite stiff and white, +but he looked back at Barney. + +"Don't you know where she is?" + +"Before God I don't, Barney. What do you mean?" + +"She left home this morning. Mother turned her out." + +"Turned her out!" repeated William. + +"Come with me and find her and marry her, or I'll kill you," said +Barney, and he lashed out suddenly with his fist in William's face. + +"You won't need to, for I'll kill myself if I don't," William gasped +out. Then he turned and ran. + +"Where are you going?" Barney shouted, rushing after him, in a fury. + +"To put the horse in the cutter," William called back. And, indeed, +he was headed towards the barn. Barney followed him, and the two men +put the horse between the shafts. Once William asked, hoarsely, "Any +idea which way?" and Barney shook his head. + +"What time did she go?" + +"Some time this forenoon." + +William groaned. + +The horse was nearly harnessed when Tommy Ray came running out from +the store, and beckoned to Barney. "Rose says she see her going up +the turnpike this morning," he said, in a low voice. "She was up in +her chamber that looks over the turnpike, and she see somebody goin' +up the turnpike. She thought it looked like Rebecca, but she supposed +it must be Mis' Jim Sloane. It must have been Rebecca." + +"What time was it?" William asked, thrusting his white face between +them. The boy turned aside with a gesture of contempt and dislike. +"About half-past ten," he answered, shortly. Then he turned on his +heel and went back to the store. Rose was peering around the +half-open door with a white, shocked face. Somehow she had fathomed +the cause of the excitement. + +"We'll go up the turnpike, then," said Barney. William nodded. The +two men sprang into the cutter, and the snow flew in their faces from +the horse's hoofs as they went out the barn door. + +The old tavern stood facing the old turnpike road to Boston, but the +store and barn faced on the new road at its back, and people +generally approached the tavern by that way. + +William and Barney had to drive down the hill; then turn the corner, +and up the hill again on the old turnpike. + +There was not a house on that road for a full mile. William urged the +horse as fast as he could through the fresh snow. Both men kept a +sharp lookout at the sides of the road. The sun was out now, and the +snow was blinding white; the north wind drove a glittering spray as +sharp and stinging as diamond-dust in their faces. + +Once William cried out, with a dry sob, "My God, she'll freeze in +this wind, if she's out in it!" + +And Barney answered, "Maybe it would be better for her if she did." + +William looked at him for the first time since they started. "See +here, Barney," he said, "God knows it's not to shield myself--I'm +past that; but I've begged her all summer to be married. I've been +down on my knees to her to be married before it came to this." + +"Why wouldn't she?" + +"I don't know, oh, I don't know! The poor girl was near distracted. +Her mother forbade her to marry me, and held up her Aunt Rebecca, who +married against her parents' wishes and hung herself, before her, all +the time. Your trouble with Charlotte Barnard brought it all about. +Her mother never opposed it before. I begged her to marry me, but she +was afraid, or something, I don't know what." + +"Can't you drive faster?" said Barney. + +William had been urging the horse while he spoke, but now he shook +the whip over him again. + +Mrs. Jim Sloane's house was a long, unpainted cottage quite near the +road. The woman who lived alone there was under a kind of indefinite +ban in the village. Her husband, who had died several years before, +had been disreputable and drunken, and the mantle of his disgrace had +seemed to fall upon his wife, if indeed she was not already provided +with such a mantle of her own. Everybody spoke slightingly of Mrs. +Jim Sloane. The men laughed meaningly when they saw her pass, wrapped +in an old plaid shawl, which she wore summer and winter, and which +seemed almost like a uniform. Stories were told of her dirt and +shiftlessness, of the hens which roosted in her kitchen. Poor Mrs. +Jim Sloane, in her blue plaid shawl, tramping frequently from her +solitary house through the village, was a byword and a mocking to all +the people. + +When William and Barney came abreast of her house they saw the blue +flutter of Mrs. Jim Sloane's shawl out before, above the blue dazzle +of the snow. + +"Hullo!" she was crying out in her shrill voice, and waving her hand +to them to stop. + +William pulled the horse up short, and the woman came plunging +through the snow close to his side. + +"She's in here," she said, with a knowing smile. The faded fair hair +blew over her eyes; she pushed it back with a coquettish gesture; +there was a battered prettiness about her thin pink-and-white face, +turning blue in the sharp wind. + +"When did she get here?" asked Barney. + +"This forenoon. She fell down out here, couldn't get no farther. I +came out an' got her into the house. Didn't know but she was done to; +but I fixed her up some hot drink an' made her lay down. I s'posed +you'd be along." She smiled again. + +William jumped out of the cutter, and tied the horse to an old +fence-post. Then he and Barney followed the woman into the house. +Barney looked at the old blue plaid shawl with utter disgust and +revulsion. He had always felt a loathing for the woman, and her being +a distant relative on his father's side intensified it. + +Mrs. Sloane threw open the door, and bade them enter, as if to a +festival. "Walk right in," said she. + +There was a wild flutter of hens as they entered. Mrs. Sloane drove +them before her. "The hen-house roof fell in, an' I have to keep 'em +in here," she said, and shooed them and shook her shawl at them, +until they alighted all croaking with terror upon the bed in the +corner. + +Then she looked inquiringly around the room. "Why," she cried, "she's +gone; she was settin' here in this rockin'-chair when I went out. She +must have run when she see you comin'!" + +Mrs. Sloane hustled through a door, the tattered fringes of her shawl +flying, and then her voice, shrilly expostulating, was heard in the +next room. + +The two men waited, standing side by side near the door in a shamed +silence. They did not look at each other. + +Presently Mrs. Sloane returned without her shawl. Her old cotton gown +showed tattered and patched, and there were glimpses of her sharp +white elbows at the sleeves. "She won't come out a step," she +announced. "I can't make her. She's takin' on terribly." + +William made a stride forward. "I'll go in and see her," he said, +hoarsely; but Mrs. Jim Sloane stood suddenly in his way, her slender +back against the door. + +"No, you ain't goin' in," said she, "I told her I wouldn't let you go +in." + +William looked at her. + +"She's dreadful set against either one of you comin' in, an' I told +her you shouldn't," she said, firmly. She smoothed her wild locks +down tightly over her ears as she spoke. All the coquettish look was +gone. + +William turned around, and looked helplessly at Barney, and Barney +looked back at him. Then Barney put on his hat, and shrugged himself +more closely into his great-coat. + +"I'll go and get the minister," he said. + +Mrs. Sloane thrust her chin out alertly. "Goin' to get her married +right off?" she asked, with a confidential smile. + +Barney ignored her. "I guess it's the best way to do," he said, +sternly, to William; and William nodded. + +"Well, I guess 'tis the best way," Mrs. Sloane said, with cheerful +assent. "I don't b'lieve you could hire her to come out of that room +an' go to the minister's, nohow. She's terrible upset, poor thing." + +As Barney went out of the door he cast a look full of involuntary +suspicion back at William, and hesitated a second on the threshold. +Mrs. Sloane intercepted the look. "I'll look out he don't run away +while you're gone," she said; then she laughed. + +William's white face flamed up suddenly, but he made no reply. When +Barney had gone he drew a chair up close to the hearth, and sat +there, bent over, with his elbows on his knees. Mrs. Sloane sat down +on the foot of the bed, close to the door of the other room, as if +she were mounting guard over it. She kept looking at William, and +smiling, and opening her mouth to speak, then checking herself. + +"It's a pretty cold day," she said, finally. + +William grunted assent without looking up. Then he motioned with his +shoulder towards the door of the other room. "Ain't it cold in +there?" he half whispered. + +"I rolled her all up in my shawl; I guess she won't ketch cold; it's +thick," responded the woman, effusively, and William said no more. He +sat with his chin in his hands and his eyes fixed absently. The fire +was smoking over a low, red glow of coals, the chimney-place yawned +black before him, the hearth was all strewn with pots and kettles, +and the shelf above it was piled high with a vague household litter. +It had leaked around the chimney, and there was a great discolored +blotch on the wall above the shelf, and the ceiling. Two or three +hens came pecking around the kettles at William's feet. + +To this young man, brought up in the extreme thrift and neatness of a +typical New England household, this strange untidiness, as he viewed +it through his strained mental state, seemed to have a deeper +significance, and reveal the very shame and squalor of the soul +itself, and its own existence and thoughts, by material images. + +He might from his own sensations, as he sat there, have been actually +translated into a veritable hell, from the utter strangeness of the +atmosphere which his thoughts seemed to gasp in. William had never +come fully into the atmosphere of his own sin before, but now he had, +and somehow the untidy pots and kettles on the hearth made it more +real. He was conscious as he sat there of very little pity for the +girl in the other room, of very little love for her, and also of very +little love or pity for himself; he felt nothing but a kind of +horror. He saw suddenly the alien side of life, and the alien side of +his own self, which he would always have kept faced out towards +space, away from all eyes, like the other side of the moon, and that +was for the time all he could grasp. + +Once or twice Mrs. Sloane volunteered a remark, but he scarcely +responded, and once he heard absently her voice and Rebecca's in the +other room. Otherwise he sat in utter silence, except for the low +chuckle of the hens and the taps of their beaks against the iron +pots, until Barney came with the minister and the minister's wife. + +Barney had taken the minister aside, and asked him, stammeringly, if +he thought his wife would come. He could not bear the thought of the +Sloane woman's being a witness at his sister's wedding. The minister +and his wife were both very young, and had not lived long in +Pembroke. They looked much alike: the minister's small, pale, peaked +face peered with anxious solicitude between the folds of the great +green scarf which he tied over his cap, and his wife looked like him +out of her great wadded green silk hood, when they got into the +sleigh with Barney. + +The minister had had a whispered conference with his wife, and now +she never once let her eyes rest on either of the two men as they +slid swiftly along over the new snow. Her heart beat loudly in her +ears, her little thin hands were cold in her great muff. She had +married very young, out of a godly New England minister's home. She +had never known anything like this before, and a sort of general +shame of femininity seemed to be upon her. + +When she followed her husband into Mrs. Sloane's house she felt +herself as burdened with shame--as if she stood in Rebecca's place. +Her little face, all blue with the sharp cold, shrank, shocked and +sober, into the depths of her great hood. She stood behind her +husband, her narrow girlish shoulders bending under her thick +mantilla, and never looked at the face of anybody in the room. + +She did not see William at all. He stood up before them as they +entered; they all nodded gravely. Nobody spoke but Mrs. Sloane, +vibrating nervously in the midst of her clamorous hens, and Barney +silenced her. + +"We'll go right in," he said, in a stern, peremptory tone; then he +turned to William. "Are you ready?" he asked. + +William nodded, with his eyes cast down. The party made a motion +towards the other room, but Mrs. Sloane unexpectedly stood before the +door. + +"I told her there shouldn't nobody come in," said she, "an' I ain't +goin' to have you all bustin' in on her without she knows it. She's +terrible upset. You wait a minute." + +Mrs. Sloane's blue eyes glared defiantly at the company. The +minister's wife bent her hooded head lower. She had heard about Mrs. +Sloane, and felt as if she were confronted by a woman from Revelation +and there was a flash of scarlet in the room. + +"Go in and tell her we are coming," said Barney. And Mrs. Sloane +slipped out of the room cautiously, opening the door only a little +way. Her voice was heard, and suddenly Rebecca's rang out shrill in +response, although they could not distinguish the words. Mrs. Sloane +looked out. "She says she won't be married," she whispered. + +"You let me see her," said Barney, and he took a stride forward, but +Mrs. Sloane held the door against him. + +"You can't," she whispered again. "I'll talk to her some more. I can +talk her over, if anybody can." + +Barney fell back, and again the door was shut and the voices were +heard. This time Rebecca's arose into a wail, and they heard her cry +out, "I won't, I won't! Go away, and stop talking to me! I won't! Go +away!" + +William turned around, and hid his face against the corner of the +mantel-shelf. Barney went up and clapped him roughly on the shoulder. +"Can't you go in there and make her listen to reason?" he said. + +But just then Mrs. Sloane opened the door again. "You can walk right +in now," she announced, smiling, her thin mouth sending the lines of +her whole face into smirking upward curves. + +The whole company edged forward solemnly. Mrs. Sloane was following, +but Barney stood in her way. "I guess you'd better not come in," he +said, abruptly. + +Mrs. Sloane's face flushed a burning red. "I guess," she began, in a +loud voice, but Barney shut the door in her face. She ran noisily, +stamping her feet like an angry child, to the fireplace, caught up a +heavy kettle, and threw it down on the hearth. The hens flew up with +a great clamor and whir of wings; Mrs. Sloane's shrill, mocking laugh +arose above it. She began talking in a high-pitched voice, flinging +out vituperations which would seem to patter against the closed door +like bullets. Suddenly she stopped, as if her ire had failed her, and +listened intently to a low murmur from the other room. She nodded her +head when it ceased. + +The door opened soon, and all except Rebecca came out. They stood +consulting together in low voices, and Mrs. Sloane listened. They +were deciding where to take Rebecca. + +All at once Mrs. Sloane spoke. Her voice was still high-pitched with +anger. + +"If you want to know where to take her to, I can tell you," said she. +"I'd keep her here an' welcome, but I s'pose you think I ain't good +enough, you're all such mighty particular folks, an' ain't never had +no disgrace in your own families. William Berry can't take her to his +home to-night, for his mother wouldn't leave a whole skin on either +of 'em. Her own mother has turned her out, an' Barney can't take her +in. She's got to go somewhere where there's a woman; she's terrible +upset. There ain't no other way but for you an' Mis' Barnes to take +her home to-night, an' keep her till William gets a place fixed to +put her in." Mrs. Sloane turned to the minister and his wife, +regarding them with a mixture of defiance, sarcasm, and appeal. + +They looked at each other hesitatingly. The minister's wife paled +within her hood, and her eyes reddened with tears. + +"I shouldn't s'pose you'd need any time to think on it, such good +folks as you be," said Mrs. Sloane. "There ain't no other way. She's +got to be where there's a woman." + +Mrs. Barnes turned her head towards her husband. "She can come, if +you think she ought to," she said, in a trembling voice. + +The sun was setting when the party started. William led Rebecca out +through the kitchen--a muffled, hesitating figure, whose very +identity seemed to be lost, for she wore Mrs. Sloane's blue plaid +shawl pinned closely over her head and face--and lifted her into his +cutter with the minister and his wife. Then he and Barney walked +along, plodding through the deep snow behind the cutter. The sun was +setting, and it was bitterly cold; the snow creaked and the trees +swung with a stiff rattle of bare limbs in the wind. + +The two men never spoke to each other. The minister drove slowly, and +they could always see Mrs. Jim Sloane's blue plaid shawl ahead. + +When they reached the Caleb Thayer house, Barney stopped and William +followed on alone after the sleigh. + +Barney turned into the yard, and his father was standing in the barn +door, looking out. + +"Tell mother she's married," Barney sang out, hoarsely. Then he went +back to the road, and home to his own house. + + + +Chapter XI + + +Barney went to see Rebecca the next day, but the minister's wife came +to the door and would not admit him. She puckered her lips painfully, +and a blush shot over her face and little thin throat as she stood +there before him. "I guess you had better not come in," said she, +nervously. "I guess you had better wait until Mrs. Berry gets settled +in her house. Mr. Berry is going to hire the old Bennett place. I +guess it would be pleasanter." + +Barney turned away, blushing also as he stammered an assent. Always +keenly alive to the shame of the matter, it seemed as if his sense of +it were for the moment intensified. The minister's wife's whole +nature seemed turned into a broadside of mirrors towards Rebecca's +shame and misery, and it was as if the reflection was multiplied in +Barney as he looked at her. + +Still, he could not take the shame to his own nature as she could, +being a woman. He looked back furtively at the house as he went down +the road, thinking he might catch a glimpse of poor Rebecca at the +window. + +But Rebecca kept herself well hid. After William had hired the old +Bennet house and established her there, she lived with curtains down +and doors bolted. Never a neighbor saw her face at door or window, +although all the women who lived near did their housework with eyes +that way. She would not go to the door if anybody knocked. The caller +would hear her scurrying away. Nobody could gain admittance if +William were not at home. + +Barney went to the door once, and her voice sounded unexpectedly loud +and piteously shrill in response to his knock. + +"You can't come in! go away!" cried Rebecca. + +"I don't want to say anything hard to you," said Barney. + +"Go away, go away!" repeated Rebecca, and then he heard her sob. + +"Don't cry," pleaded Barney, futilely, through the door. But he heard +his sister's retreating steps and her sobs dying away in the +distance. + +He went away, and did not try to see her again. + +Rose went to see Rebecca, stealing out of a back door and scudding +across snowy fields lest her mother should espy her and stop her. But +Rebecca had not come to the door, although Rose had stood there a +long time in a bitter wind. + +"She wouldn't let me in," she whispered to her brother in the store, +when she returned. She was friendly to him in a shamefaced, evasive +sort of way, and she alone of his family. His father and mother +scarcely noticed him. + +"Much as ever as she'll let me in, poor girl," responded William, +looking miserably aside from his sister's eyes and weighing out some +meal. + +"She wouldn't let mother in if she went there," said Rose. She felt a +little piqued at Rebecca's refusing her admittance. It was as if all +her pity and generous sympathy had been thrust back upon her, and her +pride in it swamped. + +"There's no danger of her going there," William returned, bitterly. + +And there was not. Hannah Berry would have set herself up in a +pillory as soon as she would have visited her son's wife. She +scarcely went into a neighbor's lest she should hear some allusion to +it. + +Rebecca's father often walked past her house with furtive, wistful +eyes towards the windows. Once or twice when nobody was looking he +knocked timidly, but he never got any response. He always took a +circuitous route home, that his wife might not know where he had +been. Deborah never spoke of Rebecca; neither Caleb nor Ephraim dared +mention her name in her hearing. + +Although Deborah never asked a question, and although people were shy +of alluding to Rebecca, she yet seemed to know, in some occult and +instinctive fashion, all about her. + +When a funeral procession passed the Thayer house one afternoon +Deborah knew quite well whose little coffin was in the hearse, +although she could scarcely have said that anybody had told her. + +Caleb came to her after dinner, with a strange, defiant air. "I want +a clean dicky, mother; I'm agoin'," said he. And Deborah got out the +old man's Sunday clothes for him without a word. She even brushed his +hair with hard, careful strokes, and helped him on with his +great-coat; but she never said a word about Rebecca and her baby's +funeral. + +"They had some white posies on it," Caleb volunteered, tremblingly, +when he got home. + +Deborah made no reply. + +"There was quite a lot there," added Caleb. + +"Go an' bring me in some kindlin' wood," said Deborah. + +Ephraim stood by, staring alternately at his father and mother. He +had watched the funeral procession pass with furtive interest. + +"It won't hurt you none to make a few lamp-lighters," said his +mother. "You set right down here, an' I'll get you some paper." + +Ephraim clapped his hand to his side, and rolled his eyes agonizingly +towards his mother, but she took no notice. She got some paper out of +the cupboard, and Ephraim sat down and began quirling it into long +spirals with a wretched sulky air. + +Since his sister's marriage Ephraim had had a sterner experience than +had ever fallen to his lot before. His mother redoubled her +discipline over him. It was as if she had resolved, since all her +vigorous training had failed in the case of his sister, that she +would intensify it to such purpose that it should not fail with him. + +So strait and narrow was the path in which Ephraim was forced to +tread those wintry days, so bound and fettered was he by precept and +admonition, that it seemed as if his very soul could do no more than +shuffle along where his mother pointed. + +A scanty and simple diet had Ephraim, and it seemed to him not so +much from a solicitude for his health as from a desire to mortify his +flesh for the good of his spirit. Ephraim obeyed perforce; he was +sincerely afraid of his mother, but he had within him a dogged and +growing resentment against those attempts to improve his spirit. + +Not a bit of cake was he allowed to taste. When the door of a certain +closet in which pound-cake for possible guests was always kept in a +jar, and had been ever since Ephraim could remember, was opened, the +boy's eyes would fairly glare with desire. "Jest gimme a little +scrap, mother," he would whine. He had formerly, on rare occasions, +been allowed a small modicum of cake, but now his mother was +unyielding. He got not a crumb; he could only sniff hungrily at the +rich, spicy, and fruity aroma which came forth from the closet, and +swallow at it vainly and unsatisfactorily with straining palate. + +Ephraim was not allowed a soft-stoned plum from a piece of mince-pie; +the pie had always been tabooed. He was not even allowed to pick over +the plums for the pies, unless under the steady watch of his mother's +eyes. Once she seemed to see him approach a plum to his mouth when +her back was towards him. + +"What are you doing, Ephraim?" she said, and her voice sounded to the +boy like one from the Old Testament. He put the plum promptly into +the bowl instead of his mouth. + +"I ain't doin' nothin', mother," said he; but his eyes rolled +alarmedly after his mother as she went across the kitchen. That +frightened Ephraim. He was a practical boy and not easily imposed +upon, but it really seemed to him that his mother had seen him, after +some occult and uncanny fashion, from the back of her head. A vague +and preposterous fancy actually passed through his bewildered boyish +brain that the little, tightly twisted knob of hair on the back of a +feminine head might have some strange visual power of its own. + +He never dared taste another plum, even if the knob of hair directly +faced him. + +Every day Ephraim had a double task to learn in his catechism, for +Deborah held that no labor, however arduous, which savored of the +Word and the Spirit could work him bodily ill. If Ephraim had been +enterprising and daring enough, he would have fairly cursed the +Westminster divines, as he sat hour after hour, crooking his boyish +back painfully over their consolidated wisdom, driving the letter of +their dogmas into his boyish brain, while the sense of them utterly +escaped him. + +There was one whole day during which Ephraim toiled, laboriously +conning over the majestic sentences in loud whispers, and received +thereby only a vague impression and maudlin hope that he himself +might be one of the elect of which they treated, because he was so +strenuously deprived of plums in this life, and might therefore +reasonably expect his share of them in the life to come. + +That day poor Ephraim--glancing between whiles at some boys out +coasting over in a field, down a fine icy slope, hearing now and then +their shouts of glee--had a certain sense of superiority and +complacency along with the piteous and wistful longing which always +abode in his heart. + +"Maybe," thought Ephraim, half unconsciously, not framing the thought +in words to his mind--"maybe if I am a good boy, and don't have any +plums, nor go out coasting like them, I shall go to heaven, and maybe +they won't." Ephraim's poor purple face at the window-pane took on a +strange, serious expression as he evolved his childish tenet of +theology. His mother came in from another room. "Have you got that +learned?" said she, and Ephraim bent over his task again. + +Ephraim had not been quite as well as usual this winter, and his +mother had been more than usually anxious about him. She called the +doctor in finally, and followed him out into the cold entry when he +left. "He's worse than he has been, ain't he?" she said, abruptly. + +The doctor hesitated. He was an old man with a moderate manner. He +buttoned his old great-coat, redolent of drugs, closer, his breath +steamed out in the frosty entry. "I guess you had better be a little +careful about getting him excited," he said at last, evasively. "You +had better get along as easy as you can with him." The doctor's +manner implied more than his words; he had his own opinion of Deborah +Thayer's sternness of rule, and he had sympathy with Rebecca. + +Deborah seemed to have an intuition of it, for she looked at him, and +raised her voice after a manner which would have become the Deborah +of the scriptures. + +"What would you have me do?" she demanded. "Would you have me let him +have his own way if it were for the injury of his soul?" It was +curious that Deborah, as she spoke, seemed to look only at the +spiritual side of the matter. The idea that her discipline was +actually necessary for her son's bodily weal did not occur to her, +and she did not urge it as an argument. + +"I guess you had better be a little careful and get along as easy as +you can," repeated the doctor, opening the door. + +"That ain't all that's to be thought of," said Deborah, with stern +and tragic emphasis, as the doctor went out. + +"What did the doctor say, mother?" Ephraim inquired, when she went +into the room again. He looked half scared, half important, as he sat +in the great rocking-chair by the fire. He breathed short, and his +words were disconnected as he spoke. + +His mother, for answer, took the catechism from the shelf, and +extended it towards him with a decisive thrust of her arm. + +"It is time you studied some more," said she. + +Ephraim jerked himself away from the proffered book. "I don't want to +study any more now, mother," he whined. + +"Take it," said Deborah. + +Caleb was paring apples for pies on the other side of the hearth. +Ephraim looked across at him desperately. "I want to play holly-gull +with father," he said. + +"Ephraim!" + +"Can't I play holly-gull with father jest a little while?" + +"You take this book and study your lesson," said Deborah, between +nearly closed lips. + +Ephraim began to weep; he took the book with a vicious snatch and an +angry sob. "Won't never let me do anythin' I want to," he cried, +convulsively. + +"Not another word," said Deborah. Ephraim bent over his catechism +with half-suppressed sobs. He dared not weep aloud. Deborah went into +the pantry with the medicine-bottle which the doctor had left; she +wanted a spoon. Caleb caught hold of her dress as she was passing +him. + +"What is it?" said she. + +"Look here, jest a minute, mother." + +"I can't stop, father; Ephraim has got to have his medicine." + +"Jest look here a minute, mother." + +Deborah bent her head impatiently, and Caleb whispered. "No, he +can't; I told him he couldn't," she said aloud, and passed on into +the pantry. + +Caleb looked over at Ephraim with piteous and helpless sympathy. +"Never you mind, sonny," he said, cautiously. + +"She--makes--" began Ephraim with a responsive plaint; but his mother +came out of the pantry, and he stopped short. Caleb dropped a pared +apple noisily into the pan. + +"You'll dent that pan, father, if you fling the apples in that way," +said Deborah. She had a thick silver spoon, and she measured out a +dose of the medicine for Ephraim. She approached him, extending the +spoon carefully. "Open your mouth," commanded she. + +"Oh, mother, I don't want to take it!" + +"Open your mouth!" + +"Oh, mother--I don't--want to--ta-ke it!" + +"Now, sonny, I wouldn't mind takin' of it. It's real good medicine +that the doctor left you, an' father's payin' consid'able for it. The +doctor thinks it's goin' to make you well," said Caleb, who was +looking on anxiously. + +"Open your mouth and _take_ it!" said Deborah, sternly. She presented +the spoon at Ephraim as if it were a bayonet and there were death at +the point. + +"Oh, mother," whimpered Ephraim. + +"Mebbe mother will let you have a little taste of lasses arter it, if +you take it real good," ventured Caleb. + +"No, he won't have any lasses after it," said Deborah. "I'm a-tendin' +to him, father. Now, Ephraim, you take this medicine this minute, or +I shall give you somethin' worse than medicine. Open your mouth!" And +Ephraim opened his mouth as if his mother's will were a veritable +wedge between his teeth, swallowed the medicine with a miserable +gulp, and made a grotesque face of wrath and disgust. Caleb, +watching, swallowed and grimaced at the same instant that his son +did. There were tears in his old eyes as he took up another apple to +pare. + +Deborah set the bottle on the shelf and laid the spoon beside it. +"You've got to take this every hour for a spell," said she, "an' I +ain't goin' to have any such work, if you be sick; you can make up +your mind to it." + +And make up his mind to this unwelcome dose Ephraim did. Once an hour +his mother stood over him with the spoon, and the fierce odor of the +medicine came to his nostrils; he screwed his eyes tight, opened his +mouth, and swallowed without a word. There were limits to his +mother's patience which Ephraim dared not pass. He had only vague +ideas of what might happen if he did, but he preferred to be on the +safe side. So he took the medicine, and did not lift his voice +against it, although he had his thoughts. + +It did seem as if the medicine benefited him. He breathed more easily +after a while, and his color was more natural. Deborah felt +encouraged; she even went down upon her stiff knees after her family +were in bed, and thanked the Lord from the depths of her sorely +chastened but proud heart. She did not foresee what was to come of +it; for that very night Ephraim, induced thereto by the salutary +effect of the medicine, which removed somewhat the restriction of his +laboring heart upon his boyish spirits, perpetrated the crowning act +of revolt and rebellion of his short life. + +The moon was bright that night. The snow was frozen hard. The long +hills where the boys coasted looked like slopes of silver. Ephraim +had to go to bed at eight. He lay, well propped up on pillows, in his +little bedroom, and he could hear the shouts of the coasting boys. +Now that he could breathe more easily the superiority of his enforced +deprivation of such joys no longer comforted him as much as it had +done. His curtain was up, and the moonlight lay on his bed. The +mystic influence of that strange white orb which moves the soul of +the lover to dream of love and yearnings after it, which saddens with +sweet wounds the soul who has lost it forever, which increases the +terrible freedom of the maniac, and perhaps moves the tides, +apparently increased the longing in the heart of one poor boy for all +the innocent hilarity of his youth which he had missed. + +Ephraim lay there in the moonlight, and longed as he had never longed +before to go forth and run and play and halloo, to career down those +wonderful shining slants of snow, to be free and equal with those +other boys, whose hearts told off their healthy lives after the +Creator's plan. + +The clock in the kitchen struck nine, then ten. Caleb and Deborah +went to bed, and Ephraim could hear his father's snores and his +mother's heavy breathing from a distant room. Ephraim could not go to +sleep. He lay there and longed for the frosty night air, the sled, +and the swift flight down the white hill as never lover longed for +his mistress. + +At half-past ten o'clock Ephraim rose up. He dressed himself in the +moonlight--all except his shoes; those he carried in his hand--and +stole out in his stocking-feet to the entryway, where his warm coat +and cap, which he so seldom wore, hung. Ephraim pulled the cap over +his ears, put on the coat, cautiously unbolted the door, and stepped +forth like a captive from prison. + +He sat down on the doorstep and put on his shoes, tying them with +trembling, fumbling fingers. He expected every minute to hear his +mother's voice. + +Then he ran down the yard to the wood shed. It was so intensely cold +that the snow did not yield to his tread, but gave out quick sibilant +sounds. It seemed to him like a whispering multitude called up by his +footsteps, and as if his mother must hear. + +He knew where Barney's old sled hung in the woodshed, and the +woodshed door was unlocked. + +Presently a boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard with a +bobbing sled in his wake. He expected every minute to hear the door +or window open; but he cleared the yard and dashed up the road, and +nobody arrested him. + +[Illustration: "A boyish figure fled swiftly out of the Thayer yard"] + +Ephraim knew well the way to the coasting-hill, which was considered +the best in the village, although he had never coasted there himself, +except twice or thrice, surreptitiously, on another boy's sled, and +not once this winter. He heard no more shouts; the frosty air was +very still. He thought to himself that the other boys had gone home, +but he did not care. + +However, when he reached the top of the hill there was another boy +with his sled. He had been all ready to coast down, but had seen +Ephraim coming, and waited. + +"Hullo!" he called. + +"Hullo!" returned Ephraim, panting. + +Then the boy stared. "It ain't you, Ephraim Thayer!" he demanded. + +"Why ain't it me?" returned Ephraim, with a manful air, swaggering +back his shoulders at the other boy, who was Ezra Ray. + +"Why, I didn't know your mother ever let you out," said Ezra, in a +bewildered fashion. In fact, the vision of Ephraim Thayer out with a +sled, coasting, at eleven o'clock at night, was startling. Ezra +remembered dazedly how he had heard his mother say that very +afternoon that Ephraim was worse, that the doctor had been there last +Saturday, and she didn't believe he would live long. He looked at +Ephraim standing there in the moonlight almost as if he were a +spirit. + +"She ain't let me for some time; I've been sick," admitted Ephraim, +yet with defiance. + +"I heard you was awful sick," said Ezra. + +"I was; but the doctor give me some medicine that cured me." + +Ephraim placed his sled in position and got on stiffly. The other boy +still watched. "She know you're out to-night?" he inquired, abruptly. + +Ephraim looked up at him. "S'pose you think you'll go an' tell her, +if she don't," said he. + +"No, I won't, honest." + +"Hope to die if you do?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, I run out of the side door." + +"Both on 'em asleep?" + +Ephraim nodded. + +Ezra Ray whistled. "You'll get a whippin' when your mother finds it +out." + +"No, I sha'n't. Mother can't whip me, because the doctor says it +ain't good for me. You goin' down?" + +"Can't go down but once. I've got to go home, or mother 'll give it +to me." + +"Does she ever whip you?" + +"Sometimes." + +"Mine don't," said Ephraim, and he felt a superiority over Ezra Ray. +He thought, too, that his sled was a better one. It was not painted, +nor was it as new as Ezra's, but it had a reputation. Barney had won +many coasting laurels with it in his boyhood, and his little brother, +who had never used it himself, had always looked upon it with +unbounded faith and admiration. + +He gathered up his sled-rope, spurred himself into a start with his +heels, and went swiftly down the long hill, gathering speed as he +went. Poor Ephraim had an instinct for steering; he did not swerve +from the track. The frosty wind smote his face, his breath nearly +failed him, but half-way down he gave a triumphant whoop. When he +reached the foot of the hill he had barely wind enough to get off his +sled and drag it to one side, for Ezra Ray was coming down. + +Ezra did not slide as far as Ephraim had done. Ephraim watched +anxiously lest he should. "That sled of yours ain't no good," he +panted, when Ezra had stopped several yards from where he stood. + +"Guess it ain't quite so fast as yours," admitted Ezra. "That's your +brother's, ain't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, that sled can't be beat in town. Mine's 'bout as good as any, +'cept that. I've always heard my brother say that your brother's sled +was the best one he ever see." + +Ephraim stood looking at his brother's old battered but distinguished +sled as if it had been a blood-horse. "Guess it can't be beat," he +chuckled. + +"No sir, it can't," said Ezra. He started off past Ephraim down the +road, with his sled trailing at his heels. + +"Hullo!" called Ephraim, "ain't you goin' up again?" + +"Can't, got to go home." + +"Less try it jest once more, an' see if you can't go further." + +"No, I can't, nohow. Mother won't like it as 'tis." + +"Whip you?" + +"'Spect so; don't mind it if she does." Ezra brought a great show of +courage to balance the other's immunity from danger. "Don't mind +nothin' 'bout a little whippin'," he added, with a brave and +contemptuous air. He whistled as he went on. + +Ephraim stood watching him. He had enough brave blood in his veins to +feel that this contempt of a whipping was a greater thing than not +being whipped. He felt an envious admiration of Ezra Ray, but that +did not prevent his calling after him: + +"Ezra!" + +"What say?" + +"You ain't goin' to tell my mother?" + +"Didn't I say I wasn't? I don't tell fibs. Hope to die if I do." + +Ezra's brave whistle, as cheerfully defiant of his mother's +prospective wrath as the note of a bugler advancing to the charge, +died away in the distance. For Ephraim now began the one unrestrained +hilarity of his whole life. All by himself in the white moonlight and +the keen night air he climbed the long hill, and slid down over and +over. He ignored his feeble and laboring breath of life. He trod +upon, he outspeeded all infirmities of the flesh in his wild triumph +of the spirit. He shouted and hallooed as he shot down the hill. His +mother could not have recognized his voice had she heard it, for it +was the first time that the boy had ever given full cry to the +natural voice of youth and his heart. A few stolen races, and sorties +up apple-trees, a few stolen slides had poor Ephraim Thayer had; they +had been snatched in odd minutes, at the imminent danger of +discovery; but now he had the wide night before him; he had broken +over all his trammels, and he was free. + +Up and down the hill went Ephraim Thayer, having the one playtime of +his life, speeding on his brother's famous sled against bondage and +deprivation and death. It was after midnight when he went home; all +the village lights were out; the white road stretched before him, as +still and deserted as a road through solitude itself. Ephraim had +never been out-of-doors so late before, he had never been so alone in +his life, but he was not afraid. He was not afraid of anything in the +lonely night, and he was not afraid of his mother at home. He thought +to himself exultantly that Ezra Ray had been no more courageous than +he, although, to be sure, he had not a whipping to fear like Ezra. +His heart was full of joyful triumph that he was not wholly guilty, +since it was the outcome of an innocent desire. + +As he walked along he tipped up his face and stared with his stupid +boyish eyes at the stars paling in the full moonlight, and the great +moon herself overriding the clouds and the stars. It made him think +of the catechism and the Commandments, and then a little pang of +terror shot through him, but even that did not daunt him. He did not +look up at the stars again, but bent his head and trudged on, with +the sled-rope pulling at his weak chest. + +When he reached his own yard he stepped as carefully as he could; +still he was not afraid. He put the sled back in the shed; then he +stole into the house. He took off his shoes in the entry, and got +safely into his own room. He was in his night-gown and all ready for +bed when another daring thought struck him. + +Ephraim padded softly on his bare feet out through the kitchen to the +pantry. Every third step or so he stopped and listened to the heavy +double breathing from the bedroom beyond. So long as that continued +he was safe. He listened, and then slid on a pace or two as noiseless +as a shadow in the moonlight. + +Ephraim knew well where the mince-pies were kept. There was a long +row of them covered with towels on an upper shelf. + +Ephraim hoisted himself painfully upon a meal-bucket, and clawed a +pie over the edge of the shelf. He could scarcely reach, and there +was quite a loud grating noise. He stood trembling on the bucket and +listened, but the double breathing continued. Deborah had been +unusually tired that night; she had gone to bed earlier, and slept +more soundly. + +Ephraim broke a great jagged half from the mince-pie; then replaced +it with another grating slide. Again he listened, but his mother had +not been awakened. + +Ephraim crept back to his bedroom. There he sat on the edge of his +bed and devoured his pie. The rich spicy compound and the fat plums +melted on his tongue, and the savor thereof delighted his very soul. +Then Ephraim got into bed and pulled the quilts over him. For the +first and only occasion in his life he had had a good time. + +The next morning Ephraim felt very ill, but he kept it from his +mother. He took his medicine of his own accord several times, and +turned his head from her, that she might not notice his laboring +breath. + +In the middle of the forenoon Deborah went out. She had to drive over +to Bolton to get some sugar and tea. She would not buy anything now +at Berry's store. Caleb had gone down to the lot to cut a little +wood; he had harnessed the horse for her before he went. It was a +cold day, and she wrapped herself up well in two shawls and a thick +veil over her hood. When she was all ready she gave Ephraim his +parting instructions, rearing over him with stern gestures, like a +veiled justice. + +"Now," said she, "you listen to what I tell you. When your father +comes in you tell him I want him to set right down and finish parin' +them apples. They are spoilin', an' I'm goin' to make 'em into sauce. +You tell him to set right down and go to work on 'em; he can get 'em +done by the time I get home, an' I can make the sauce this afternoon. +You set here an' take your medicine an' learn your catechism. You can +study over the Commandments, too; you ain't got 'em any too well. Do +you hear?" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Ephraim. He looked away from his mother as he +spoke, and his panting breath clouded the clear space on the frosty +window-pane. He sat beside the window in the rocking-chair. + +"Mind you tell your father about them apples," repeated his mother as +she went out. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Ephraim. He watched his mother drive out of the +yard, guiding the horse carefully through the frozen ridges of the +drive. Presently he took another spoonful of his medicine. He felt a +little easier, but still very ill. His father came a few minutes +after his mother had gone. He heard him stamping in through the back +door; then his frost-reddened old face looked in on Ephraim. + +"Mother gone?" said he. + +"She's jest gone," replied Ephraim. His father came in. He looked at +the boy with a childish and anxious sweetness. "Don't you feel quite +as well as you did?" he inquired. + +"Dunno as I do." + +"Took your medicine reg'lar?" + +Ephraim nodded. + +"I guess it's good medicine," said Caleb; "it come real high; I guess +the doctor thought consid'ble of it. I'd take it reg'lar if I was +you. I thought you looked as if you didn't feel quite so well as +common when I come in." + +Caleb took off his boots and tended the fire. Ephraim began to feel a +little better; his heart did not beat quite so laboriously. + +He did not say a word to his father about paring the apples. Caleb +went into the pantry and came back eating a slice of mince-pie. + +"I found there was a pie cut, and I thought mother wouldn't mind if I +took a leetle piece," he remarked, apologetically. He would never +have dared take the pie without permission had his wife been at home. +"She ain't goin' to be home till arter dinner-time, an' I began to +feel kinder gone," added Caleb. He stood by the fire, and munched the +pie with a relish slightly lessened by remorse. "Don't you want +nothin'" he asked of Ephraim. "Mebbe a little piece of pie wouldn't +hurt you none." + +Caleb's ideas of hygienic food were primitive. He believed, as +innocently as if he had lived in Eden before the Prohibition, that +all food which he liked was good for him, and he applied his theory +to all mankind. He had deferred to Deborah's imperious will, but he +had never been able to understand why she would not allow Ephraim to +eat mince-pie or anything else which his soul loved and craved. + +"No, guess I don't," Ephraim replied. He gazed moodily out of the +window. "Father," said he, suddenly. + +"What say, sonny?" + +"I eat some of that pie last night." + +"Mother give it to you?" + +"No; I clim up on the meal-bucket, an' got it in the night." + +"You might have fell, an' then I dunno what mother'd ha' said to +you," said Caleb. + +"An' I did somethin' else." + +"What else did you do?" + +"I went out a-coastin' after you an' her was asleep." + +"You didn't, now?" + +"Yes, I did." + +"An' we didn't neither on us wake up?" + +"You was a-snorin' the whole time." + +"I don't s'pose you'd oughter have done it, Ephraim," said Caleb, and +he tried to make his tone severe. + +"I never went a-coastin' in my whole life before," said Ephraim; "it +ain't fair." + +"I dunno what mother 'd say if she was to find out about it," said +Caleb, and he shook his head. + +"Ezra Ray was the only one that was out there, an' he said he +wouldn't tell." + +"Well, mebbe he won't, mebbe he won't. I guess you most hadn't +oughter gone unbeknownst to your mother, sonny." + +"Barney's sled jest beat Ezra's all holler." + +"It did, hey? That allers was a good sled," returned the old man, +chuckling. + +Caleb went into the pantry again, and returned rattling a handful of +corn. "Want a game of holly-gull?" he asked. "I've got a leetle time +to spare now while mother's gone." + +"Guess so," replied Ephraim. He dragged his chair forward to the +hearth; he and his father sat opposite each other and played the old +childish game of holly-gull. Ephraim was very fond of the game, and +would have played it happily hour after hour had not Deborah esteemed +it a sinful waste of time. When Caleb held up his old fist, wherein +he had securely stowed a certain number of kernels of corn, and +demanded, "Holly-gull, hand full, passel how many?" Ephraim's spirit +was thrilled with a fine stimulation, of which he had known little in +his life. If he guessed the number of kernels right and confiscated +the contents of his father's hand, he felt the gratified ambition of +a successful financier; if he lost, his heart sank, only to bound +higher with new hope for the next chance. A veritable gambling game +was holly-gull, but they gambled for innocent Indian-corn instead of +the coin of the realm, and nobody suspected it. The lack of value of +the stakes made the game quite harmless and unquestioned in public +opinion. + +The waste of time was all Deborah's objection to the game. Caleb and +Ephraim said not a word about it to each other, but both kept an +anxious ear towards Deborah's returning sleigh-bells. + +At last they both heard the loud, brazen jingle entering the yard, +and Caleb gathered all the corn together and stowed it away in his +pocket. Then he stood on the hearth, looking like a guilty child. +Ephraim went slowly over to the window; he did not feel quite so well +again. + +Deborah's harsh "Whoa!" sounded before the door; presently she came +in, her garments radiating cold air, her arms full of bundles. + +"What you standin' there for, father?" she demanded of Caleb. "Why +didn't you come out an' take some of these bundles? Why ain't you +goin' out an' puttin' the horse up instead of standin' there +starin'?" + +"I'm goin' right off, mother," Caleb answered, apologetically; and he +turned his old back towards her and scuffled out in haste. + +"Put on your cap!" Deborah called after him. + +She laid off her many wraps, her hood and veil, and mufflers and +shawls, folded them carefully, and carried them into her bedroom, to +be laid in her bureau drawers. Deborah was very orderly and +methodical. + +"Did you take your medicine?" she asked Ephraim as she went out of +the room. + +"Yes, ma'am," said he. He did not feel nearly as well; he kept his +face turned from his mother. Ephraim was accustomed to complain +freely, but now the coasting and the mince-pie had made him patient. +He was quite sure that his bad feelings were due to that, and suppose +his mother should suspect and ask him what he had been doing! He was +also terrified by the thought of the holly-gull and her unfulfilled +order about the apple-paring. He sat very still; his heart shook his +whole body, which had grown thin lately. He looked very small, in +spite of his sturdy build. + +Deborah was gone quite a while; she had left some work unfinished in +her bedroom that morning. Caleb returned before she did, and pulled +up a chair close to the fire. He was holding his reddened fingers out +towards the blaze to warm them when Deborah came in. + +She looked at him, then around the room, inquiringly. + +"Where did you put the apples?" said she to Caleb. + +Caleb stared around at her. "What apples, mother?" he asked, feebly. + +"The apples I left for you to pare. I want to put 'em on before I get +dinner." + +"I ain't heard nothin' about apples, mother." + +"Ain't you pared any apples this forenoon?" + +"I didn't know as you wanted any pared, mother." + +Deborah turned fiercely on Ephraim. + +"Ephraim Thayer, look here!" said she. Ephraim turned his poor blue +face slowly; his breath came shortly between his parted lips; he +clapped one hand to his side. "Didn't you tell your father to pare +them apples, the way I told you to?" she demanded. + +Ephraim dropped his chin lower. + +"Answer me!" + +"No, ma'am." + +"What have you been a-doin' of?" + +"Playin'." + +"Playin' what?" + +"Holly-gull." + +Deborah stood quite still for a moment. Her mouth tightened; she grew +quite pale. Ephraim and Caleb watched her. Deborah strode across the +room, out into the shed. + +"I guess she won't say much; don't you be scared, Ephraim," whispered +Caleb. + +But Ephraim, curious to say, did not feel scared. Suddenly his mother +seemed to have lost all her terrifying influence over him. He felt +very strange, and as if he were sinking away from it all through deep +abysses. + +His mother came back, and she held a stout stick in her right hand. +Caleb gasped when he saw it. "Mother, you ain't goin' to whip him?" +he cried out. + +"Father, you keep still!" commanded Deborah. "Ephraim, you come with +me!" + +She led the way into Ephraim's little bedroom, and he stumbled up and +followed her. He saw the stick before him in his mother's hand; he +knew she was going to whip him, but he did not feel in the least +disturbed or afraid. Ezra Ray could not have faced a whipping any +more courageously than Ephraim. But he staggered as he went, and his +feet met the floor with strange shocks, since he had prepared his +steps for those deep abysses. + +He and his mother stood together in his little bedroom. She, when she +faced him, saw how ill he looked, but she steeled herself against +that. She had seen him look as badly before; she was not to be +daunted by that from her high purpose. For it was a high purpose to +Deborah Thayer. She did not realize the part which her own human will +had in it. + +She lifted up her voice and spoke solemnly. Caleb, listening, all +trembling, at the kitchen door, heard her. + +"Ephraim," said his mother, "I have spared the rod with you all my +life because you were sick. Your brother and your sister have both +rebelled against the Lord and against me. You are all the child I've +got left. You've got to mind me and do right. I ain't goin' to spare +you any longer because you ain't well. It is better you should be +sick than be well and wicked and disobedient. It is better that your +body should suffer than your immortal soul. Stand still." + +Deborah raised her stick, and brought it down. She raised it again, +but suddenly Ephraim made a strange noise and sunk away before it, +down in a heap on the floor. + +Caleb heard him fall, and came quickly. + +"Oh, mother," he sobbed, "is he dead? What ails him?" + +"He's got a bad spell," said Deborah. "Help me lay him on the bed." +Her face was ghastly. She spoke with hoarse pulls for breath, but she +did not flinch. She and Caleb laid Ephraim on his bed; then she +worked over him for a few minutes with mustard and hot-water--all the +simple remedies in which she was skilled. She tried to pour a little +of the doctor's medicine into his mouth, but he did not swallow, and +she wiped it away. + +"Go an' get Barney to run for the doctor, quick!" she told Caleb at +last. Caleb fled, sobbing aloud like a child, out of the house. +Deborah closed the boy's eyes, and straightened him a little in the +bed. Then she stood over him there, and began to pray aloud. It was a +strange prayer, full of remorse, of awful agony, of self-defense of +her own act, and her own position as the vicar of God upon earth for +her child. "I couldn't let him go astray too!" she shrieked out. "I +couldn't, I couldn't! O Lord, thou knowest that I couldn't! I +would--have lain him upon--the altar, as Abraham laid Isaac! Oh, +Ephraim, my son, my son, my son!" + +Deborah prayed on and on. The doctor and a throng of pale women came +in; the yard was full of shocked and staring people. Deborah heeded +nothing; she prayed on. + +Some of the women got her into her own room. She stayed there, with a +sort of rigid settling into the spot where she was placed and she +pleaded with the Lord for upholding and justification until the +daylight faded, and all night. The women, Mrs. Ray and the doctor's +wife, who watched with poor Ephraim, heard her praying all night +long. They sat in grave silence, and their eyes kept meeting with +shocked significance as they listened to her. Now and then they wet +the cloth on Ephraim's face. About two o'clock Mrs. Ray tiptoed into +the pantry, and brought forth a mince-pie. "I found one that had been +cut on the top shelf," she whispered. She and the doctor's wife ate +the remainder of poor Ephraim's pie. + +The two women stayed next day and assisted in preparations for the +funeral. Deborah seemed to have no thought for any of her household +duties. She stayed in her bedroom most of the time, and her praying +voice could be heard at intervals. + +Some other women came in, and they went about with silent efficiency, +performing their services to the dead and setting the house in order; +but they said very little to Deborah. When she came out of her room +they eyed her with a certain grim furtiveness, and they never said a +word to her about Ephraim. + +It was already known all over the village that she had been whipping +Ephraim when he died. Poor old Caleb, when the neighbors had come +flocking in, had kept repeating with childish sobs, "Mother hadn't +ought to have whipped him! mother hadn't ought to have whipped him!" + +"Did Mrs. Thayer whip that boy?" the doctor had questioned, sharply, +before all the women, and Caleb had sobbed back, hoarsely, "She was +jest a-whippin' of him; I told her she hadn't ought to." + +That had been enough. "She whipped him," the women repeated to each +other in shocked pantomime. They all knew how corporal punishment had +been tabooed for Ephraim. + +The Thayer house was crowded the afternoon of the funeral. The decent +black-clad village people, with reddening eyes and mouths drooping +with melancholy, came in throngs into the snowy yard. The men in +their Sunday gear tiptoed creaking across the floors; the women, +feeling for their pocket-handkerchiefs, padded softly and heavily +after them, folded in their black shawls like mourning birds. + +[Illustration: "The Thayer house was crowded the afternoon of the +funeral"] + +Caleb and Deborah and Barney sat in the north parlor, where Ephraim +lay. Deborah's hoarse laments, which were not like the ordinary +hysterical demonstrations of feminine grief, being rather a stern +uprising and clamor of herself against her own heart, filled the +house. + +The minister had to pray and speak against it; scarcely any one +beyond the mourners' room could hear his voice. It was a hard task +that the poor young minister had. He was quite aware of the feeling +against Deborah, and it required finesse to avoid jarring that, and +yet display the proper amount of Christian sympathy for the +afflicted. Then there were other difficulties. The minister had +prayed in his closet for a small share of the wisdom of Solomon +before setting forth. + +The people in the other rooms leaned forward and strained their ears. +The minister's wife sat beside her husband with bright spots of color +in her cheeks, her little figure nervously contracted in her chair. +They had had a discussion concerning the advisability of his +mentioning the sister and daughter in his prayer, and she had pleaded +with him strenuously that he should not. + +When the minister prayed for the afflicted "sister and daughter, who +was now languishing upon a bed of sickness," his wife's mouth +tightened, her feet and hands grew cold. It seemed to her that her +own tongue pronounced every word that her husband spoke. And there +was, moreover, a little nervous thrill through the audience. Oddly +enough, everybody seemed to hear that portion of the minister's +prayer quite distinctly. Even one old deaf man in the farthest corner +of the kitchen looked meaningly at his neighbor. + +The service was a long one. The village hearse and the line of black +covered wagons waited in front of the Thayer house over an hour. +There had been another fall of snow the night before, and now the +north wind blew it over the country. Outside ghostly spirals of snow +raised from the new drifts heaped along the road-sides like graves, +disappeared over the fields, and moved on the borders of distant +woods, while in-doors the minister held forth, and the choir sang +funeral hymns with a sweet uneven drone of grief and consolation. + +When at last the funeral was over and the people came out, they bent +their heads before this wild storm which came from the earth instead +of the sky. + +The cemetery was a mile out of the village; when the procession came +driving rapidly home it was nearly sunset, and the thoughts of the +people turned from poor Ephraim to their suppers. It is only for a +minute that death can blur life for the living. Still, when the +evening smoke hung over the roofs the people talked untiringly of +Ephraim and his mother. + +As time went on the dark gossip in the village swelled louder. It was +said quite openly that Deborah Thayer had killed her son Ephraim. The +neighbors did not darken her doors. The minister and his wife called +once. The minister offered prayer and spoke formal words of +consolation as if he were reading from invisible notes. His wife sat +by in stiff, scared silence. Deborah nodded in response; she said +very little. + +Indeed, Deborah had become very silent. She scarcely spoke to Caleb. +For hours after he had gone to bed the poor bewildered old man could +hear his wife wrestling in prayer with the terrible angel of the Lord +whom she had evoked by the stern magic of grief and remorse. He could +hear her harsh, solemn voice in self-justification and agonized +appeal. After a while he learned to sleep with it still ringing in +his ears, and his heavy breathing kept pace with Deborah's prayer. + +Deborah had not the least doubt that she had killed her son Ephraim. + +There was some talk of the church's dealing with her, some women +declared that they would not go to meeting if she did; but no +stringent measures were taken, and she went to church every Sunday +all the rest of the winter and during the spring. + +It was an afternoon in June when the doctor's wife and Mrs. Ray went +into Deborah Thayer's yard. They paused hesitatingly before the door. + +"I think you're the one that ought to tell her," said Mrs. Ray. + +"I think it's your place to, seeing as 'twas your Ezra that knew +about it," returned the doctor's wife. Her voice sounded like the hum +of a bee, being full of husky vibrations; her double chin sank into +her broad heaving bosom, folded over with white plaided muslin. + +"Seems to me it belongs to you, as long as you're the doctor's wife," +said Mrs. Ray. She was very small and lean beside the soft bulk of +the other woman, but there was a sort of mental uplifting about her +which made her unconscious of it. Mrs. Ray had never considered +herself a small woman; she seemed always to see the tops of other +women's heads. + +The doctor's wife looked at her dubiously, panting softly all over +her great body. It was a warm afternoon. The low red and white +rose-bushes sprayed all around the step-stone, and they were full of +roses. The doctor's wife raised the brass knocker. "Well, I'd just as +lieves," said she, resignedly. "She'd ought to be told, anyway; the +doctor said so." The knocker fell with a clang of brass. + +Deborah opened the door at once. "Good-afternoon," said she. + +"We thought we'd come over a few minutes, it's so pleasant this +afternoon," said the doctor's wife. + +"Walk in," said Deborah. She aided them in through the kitchen to the +north parlor. She always entertained guests there on warm afternoons. + +The north parlor was very cool and dark; the curtains were down, and +undulated softly like sails. Deborah placed the big haircloth +rocking-chair for the doctor's wife, and Mrs. Ray sat down on the +sofa. + +There was a silence. The doctor's wife flushed red. Mrs. Ray's sharp +face was imperturbable. Deborah, sitting erect in one of her best +flag-bottomed chairs, looked as if she were alone in the room. + +The doctor's wife cleared her throat. "Mis' Thayer," she began. + +Deborah looked at her with calm expectation. + +"Mis' Thayer," said the doctor's wife, "Mis' Ray and I thought we +ought to come over here this afternoon. Mis' Ray heard something last +night, an' she came over an' told the doctor, an' he said you ought +to know--" + +The doctor's wife paused, panting. Then the door opened and Caleb +peered in. He bowed stiffly to the two guests; then, with +apprehensive glances at his wife, slid into a chair near the door. + +"Mis' Ray's Ezra told her last night," proceeded the doctor's wife, +"that the night before your son died he run away unbeknown to you, +an' went slidin' down hill. The doctor says mebbe that was what +killed him. He said you'd ought to know." + +Deborah leaned forward; her face worked like the breaking up of an +icy river. "Be you sure?" said she. + +"Ezra told me last night," interposed Mrs. Ray. "I had a hard time +gettin' it out of him; he promised Ephraim he wouldn't tell. But +somethin' he said made me suspect, an' I got it out of him. He said +Ephraim told him he run away, an' he left him there slidin' when he +came home. 'Twas as much as 'leven o'clock then; I remember I give +Ezra a whippin' next mornin' for stayin' out so late. But then, of +course, whippin' Ezra wa'n't nothin' like whippin' Ephraim." + +"The doctor says most likely that was what killed him, after all, an' +you'd ought to know," said the doctor's wife. + +"Be you sure?" said Deborah again. + +"Ephraim wa'n't to blame. He never had no show; he never went +a-slidin' like the other little fellers," said Caleb, suddenly, out +of his corner; and he snivelled as he spoke. + +Deborah turned on him sharply. "Did you know anything about it?" said +she. + +"He told me on 't that mornin'," said Caleb; "he told me how he'd +been a-slidin', an' how he eat some mince-pie." + +"Eat--some--mince-pie!" gasped Deborah, and there was a great light +of hope in her face. + +"Well," said the doctor's wife, "if that boy eat mince-pie, an' slid +down hill, too, I guess you ain't much call to worry about anything +you've done, Mis' Thayer. I know what the doctor has said right +along." + +The doctor's wife arose with a certain mild impressiveness, as if +some mantle of her husband's authority had fallen upon her. She shook +out her ample skirts as if they were redolent of rhubarb and mint. +"Well, I guess we had better be going," said she, and her inflections +were like the doctor's. + +Mrs. Ray rose also. "Well, we thought you'd ought to know," said she. + +"I'm much obliged to you," said Deborah. + +She went through the kitchen with them. When the door was shut behind +them she turned to Caleb, who had shuffled along at her heels. "Oh, +father, why didn't you tell me if you knew, why didn't you tell me?" +she gasped out. + +Caleb stared at her. "Why, mother?" he returned. + +"Didn't you know I thought I'd killed him, father? didn't you know I +thought I'd killed my son? An' now maybe I haven't! maybe I haven't! +O Lord, I thank thee for letting me know before I die! Maybe I +haven't killed him, after all!" + +"I didn't s'pose it would make any difference," said Caleb, +helplessly. + +Suddenly, to the old man's great terror, his wife caught hold of him +and clung to him. He staggered a little; his arms hung straight at +his sides. "Why, what ails you, mother?" he stammered out. "I didn't +tell you, 'cause I thought you'd be blamin' him for 't. Mother, don't +you take on so; now don't!" + +"I--wish--you'd go an' get Rebecca an' Barney, father," said Deborah, +faintly. She suddenly wavered so that her old husband wavered with +her, and they reeled back and forth like two old trees in a wind. + +"Why, what ails you, mother, what ails you?" Caleb gasped out. He +caught Deborah's arm, and clutched out at something to save himself. +Then they sank to the floor together. + +Barney had just come up from the field, and was at his own door when +his father came panting into the yard. "What is it? what's the +matter?" he cried out. + +"Mother's fell!" gasped Caleb. + +"Fell! has she hurt her?" + +"Dunno--she can't get up; come quick!" + +As Barney rushed out of the yard he cast a glance up the hill towards +Charlotte's house; in every crisis of his life his mind turned +involuntarily to her, as if she were another self, to be made +acquainted with all its exigencies. But when he came out on the road +he met Charlotte herself face to face; she had been over to her Aunt +Sylvia's. + +"Something is wrong with mother," Barney said, with a strange appeal. +Then he went on, and Charlotte was at his side, running as fast as +he. Caleb hurried after them, panting, the tears running down his old +cheeks. + +"Father says she's fell!" Barney said, as they sped along. + +"Maybe she's only fainted," responded Charlotte's steady, faithful +voice. + +But Deborah Thayer had more than fainted. It might have been that +Ephraim had inherited from her the heart-taint that had afflicted and +shortened his life, and it might have been that her terrible +experiences of the last few months would have strained her heart to +its undoing, had its valves been made of steel. + +Barney carried his mother into the bedroom, and laid her on the bed. +He and Charlotte worked over her, but she never spoke nor moved +again. At last Charlotte laid her hand on Barney's arm. "Come out +now," said she, and Barney followed her out. + +When they were out in the kitchen Barney looked in her face. "It's no +use, she's gone!" he said, hoarsely. Charlotte nodded. Suddenly she +put her arms up around his neck, and drew his head down to her bosom, +and held it there, stroking his cheek. + +"Oh, Charlotte," Barney sobbed. Charlotte bent over him, whispering +softly, smoothing his hair and cheek with her tender hand. + +Caleb had gone for the doctor and Rebecca while they tried to restore +Deborah, and had given the alarm on the way. Some women came hurrying +in with white faces, staring curiously even then at Barney and +Charlotte; but she never heeded them, except to answer in the +affirmative when they asked, in shocked voices, if Deborah was dead. +She went on soothing Barney, as if he had been her child, with no +more shame in it, until he raised his white face from her breast of +his own accord. + +"Oh, Charlotte, you will stay to-night, won't you?" he pleaded. + +"Yes, I'll stay," said Charlotte. Young as Charlotte was, she had +watched with the sick and sat up with the dead many a time. So she +and the doctor's wife watched with Deborah Thayer that night. Rebecca +came, but she was not strong enough to stay. The next day Charlotte +assisted in the funeral preparations. It made a great deal of talk in +the village. People wondered if Barney would marry her now, and if +she would sit with the mourners at the funeral. But she sat with her +father and mother in the south room, and time went on after Deborah +died, and Barney did not marry her. + + + +Chapter XII + + +A few days after Deborah's funeral Charlotte had an errand at the +store after supper. When she went down the hill the sun had quite +set, but there was a clear green light. The sky gave it out, and +there seemed to be also a green glow from the earth. Charlotte went +down the hill with the evening air fresh and damp in her face. Lilacs +were in blossom all about, and their fragrance was so vital and +intense that it seemed almost like a wide presence in the green +twilight. + +She reached Barney's house, and passed it; then she came to the +Thayer house. Before that lay the garden. The ranks of pease and +beans were in white blossom, and there was a pale shimmer as of a +cobweb veil over it. + +Charlotte had passed the garden when she heard a voice behind her: + +"Charlotte!" + +She stopped, and Barney came up. + +"Good-evening," said he. + +"Good-evening," said Charlotte. + +"I saw you going by," said Barney. Then he paused again, and +Charlotte waited. + +"I saw you going by," he repeated, "and--I thought I'd like to speak +to you. I wanted to thank you for what you did--about mother." + +"You're very welcome," replied Charlotte. + +Barney ground a stone beneath his heel. "I sha'n't ever forget it, +and--father won't, either," he said. His voice trembled, and yet +there was a certain doggedness in it. + +Charlotte stood waiting. Barney turned slowly away. "Good-night," he +said. + +"Good-night," returned Charlotte, quickly, and she fairly sprang away +from him and down the road. Her limbs trembled, but she held her head +up proudly. She understood it all perfectly. Barney had meant to +inform her that his behavior towards her on the day his mother died +had been due to a momentary weakness; that she was to expect nothing +further. She went on to the store and did her errand, then went home. +As she entered the kitchen her mother came through from the front +room. She had been sitting at a window watching for Charlotte to +return; she thought Barney might be with her. + +"Well, you've got home," said she, and it sounded like a question. + +"Yes," said Charlotte. She laid her parcels on the table. "I guess +I'll go to bed," she added. + +"Why, it's dreadful early to go to bed, ain't it?" + +"Well, I'm tired; I guess I'll go." + +The candle-light was dim in the room, but Sarah eyed her daughter +sharply. She thought she looked pale. + +"Did you meet anybody?" she asked. + +"I don't know; there wasn't many folks out." + +"You didn't see Barney, did you?" + +"Yes, I met him." + +Charlotte lighted another candle, and opened the door. + +"Look here," said her mother. + +"Well?" replied Charlotte, with a sort of despairing patience. + +"What did he say to you? I want to know." + +"He didn't say much of anything. He thanked me for what I did about +his mother." + +"Didn't he say anything about anything else?" + +"No, he didn't." Charlotte went out, shielding her candle. + +"You don't mean that he didn't say anything, after the way he acted +that day his mother died?" + +"I didn't expect him to say anything." + +"He's treated you mean, Charlotte," her mother cried out, with a half +sob. "He'd ought to be strung up after he acted so, huggin' an' +kissin' you right before folk's face and eyes." + +"It was more my fault than 'twas his," returned Charlotte; and she +shut the door. + +"Then I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself," Sarah called +after her, but Charlotte did not seem to hear. + +"I never see such work, for my part," Sarah wailed out to herself. + +"Mother, you come in here a minute," Cephas called out of the +bedroom. He had gone to bed soon after supper. + +"Anythin' new about Barney?" he asked, when his wife stood beside +him. + +"Barney ain't no more notion of comin' back than he had before, in +spite of all the talk. I never see such work," replied Sarah, in a +voice strained high with tears. + +"I call it pretty doin's," assented Cephas. His pale face, with its +venerable beard, was closely set about with his white nightcap. He +lay staring straight before him with a solemnly reflective air. + +"I wish you hadn't brought up 'lection that time, father," ventured +Sarah, with a piteous sniff. + +"If the Democratic party had only lived different, an' hadn't eat so +much meat, there wouldn't have been any trouble," returned Cephas, +magisterially. "If you go far enough, you'll always get back to that. +A man is what he puts into his mouth. Meat victuals is at the bottom +of democracy. If there wa'n't any meat eat there wouldn't be any +Democratic party, an' there wouldn't be any wranglin' in the state. +There'd be one party, jest as there'd ought to be." + +"I wish you hadn't brought it up, father," Sarah lamented again; +"it's most killin' me." + +"If we hadn't both of us been eatin' so much animal food there +wouldn't have been any trouble," repeated Cephas. + +"Well, I dunno much about animal food, but I know I'm about +discouraged," said Sarah. And she went back to the kitchen, and sat +down in the rocking-chair and cried a long time, with her apron over +her face. Her heartache was nearly as sore as her daughter's +up-stairs. + +Charlotte did not speak to Barney again all summer--indeed, she +scarcely ever saw him. She had an occasional half-averted glimpse of +his figure across the fields, and that was all. Barney had gone back +to the old house to live with his father, and remained there through +the summer and fall; but Caleb died in November. He had never been +the same since Deborah's death; whether, like an old tree whose roots +are no longer so firm in the earth that they can withstand every wind +of affliction, the shock itself had shaken him to his fall, or the +lack of that strange wontedness which takes the place of early love +and passion had enfeebled him, no one could tell. He had seemed to +simply stare at life from a sunny place on a stone-wall or a +door-step all summer. + +When the autumn set in he sat in his old chair by the fire. Caleb had +always felt cold since Deborah died. When the bell tolled off his +years, one morning in November, nobody felt surprised. People had +said to each other for some time that Caleb Thayer was failing. + +Barney, after his father died, went back to his own forlorn new house +to live, and his sister Rebecca and her husband came to live in the +old one. Rebecca went to meeting now every Sunday, wearing her +mother's black shawl and a black ribbon on her bonnet, and sitting in +her mother's place in the Thayer pew. She never went anywhere else, +her rosy color had gone, and she looked old and haggard. + +Barney went into his sister's now and then of a Sunday night, and sat +with her and William an hour or so. He and William would sometimes +warm into quite an animated discussion over politics or theology, +while Rebecca sat silently by. Barney went nowhere else, not even to +meeting. Sundays he used to watch furtively for Charlotte to go past +with her father and mother. Quite often Sylvia Crane used to appear +from her road and join them, and walk along with Charlotte. Barney +used to look at her moving down the road at Charlotte's side, as at +the merest supernumerary on his own tragic stage. But every tragedy +has its multiplying glass to infinity, and every actor has his own +tragedy. Sylvia Crane that winter, all secretly and silently, was +acting her own principal role in hers. She had quite come to the end +of her small resources, and nobody, except the selectmen of Pembroke, +knew it. They were three saturnine, phlegmatic, elderly men, old +Squire Payne being the chairman, and they kept her secret well. +Sylvia waylaid them in by-places, she stole around to the back door +of Squire Payne's house by night, she conducted herself as if it were +a guilty intrigue, and all to keep her poverty hid as long as may be. + +Old Squire Payne was a widower, a grave old man of few words. He +advanced poor Sylvia meagre moneys on her little lands, and he told +nobody. There came a day when he gave her the last dollar upon her +New England soil, full of old plough-ridges and dried weeds and +stones. + +Sylvia went home with it in the pocket of her quilted petticoat under +her dress skirt. She kept feeling of it to see if it were safe as she +walked along. The snow was quite deep, the road was not well broken +out, and she plodded forward with bent head, her black skirt +gathering a crusty border of snow. + +She had to pass Richard Alger's house, but she never looked up. It +was six o'clock, and quite dark; it had been dark when she set out at +five. The housewives were preparing supper; there was a smell of +burning pine-wood in the air, and now and then a savory scent of +frying meat. Sylvia had smelled brewing tea and baking bread in +Squire Payne's house, and she had heard old Margaret, the Scotch +woman who had lived with the squire's family ever since she could +remember, stepping around in another room. Old Margaret was almost +the only servant, the only regular and permanent servant, in +Pembroke, and she enjoyed a curious sort of menial distinction: she +dressed well, wore a handsome cashmere shawl which had come from +Scotland, and held her head high in the squire's pew. People saluted +her with respect, and her isolation of inequality gave her a reversed +dignity. + +Sylvia had hoped Margaret would not come in while she sat with the +squire. She was afraid of her eyes, which flashed keen like a man's +under shaggy brows. She did not want her to see the squire counting +out the money from his leather purse, although she knew that Margaret +would keep her own counsel. + +She had been glad enough to escape and not see her appear behind the +bulk of the squire in the doorway. Squire Payne was full of laborious +courtesy, and always himself aided Sylvia to the door when she came +for money, and that always alarmed her. She would drop a meek +courtesy on trembling knees and hurry away. + +Sylvia had almost reached the old road leading to her own house, when +she saw a figure advancing towards her through the dusk. She saw it +was a woman by the wide swing of the skirts, and trembled. She felt a +presentiment as to who it was. She held her head down and well to one +side, she bent over and tried to hurry past, but the figure stopped. + +"Is that you, Sylvy Crane?" said her sister, Hannah Berry. + +Sylvia did not stop. "Yes, it's me," she stammered. "Good-evenin', +Hannah." + +She tried to pass, but Hannah stood in her way. "What you hurryin' so +for?" she asked, sharply; "where you been?" + +"Where _you_ been?" returned Sylvia, trembling. + +"Up to Sarah's. Charlotte, she's gone down to Rebecca's. She's +terrible thick with Rebecca. Well, I've been to see Rebecca; an' +Rose, she's been, an' I ain't nothin' to say. William has got her for +a wife, an' we've got to hold up our heads before folks; an' when it +comes right down to it, there's a good many folks can't say much. If +Charlotte Barnard wants to be thick with Rebecca, she can. Her mother +won't say nothin'. She always was as easy as old Tilly; an' as for +Cephas, he's either eatin' grass, or he ain't eatin' grass, an' +that's all he cares about, unless he gets stirred up about politics, +the way he did with Barney Thayer. I dunno but Charlotte thinks +she'll get him back again goin' to see Rebecca. I miss my guess but +what she sees him there sometimes. I wouldn't have a daughter of mine +chasin' a fellar that had give her the mitten; but Charlotte ain't +got no pride, nor her mother, neither. Where did you say you'd been, +trapesin' through the snow?" + +"Has Rose got her things most done?" asked Sylvia, desperately. +Distress was awakening duplicity in her simple, straightforward +heart. All Hannah Berry's thought slid, as it were, in well-greased +grooves; only give one a starting push and it went on indefinitely +and left all others behind, and her sister Sylvia knew it. + +"Well, she's got 'em pretty near done," replied Hannah Berry. "Her +underclothes are all done, an' the quilts; the weddin'-dress ain't +bought yet, an' she's got to have a mantilla. Do you know Charlotte +ain't never wore that handsome mantilla she had when she was +expectin' to marry Barney?" + +"Ain't she?" + +"No, she ain't, nor her silk gown neither. I said all I darsed to. I +thought mebbe she or Sarah would offer; they both of 'em know how +hard it is to get anything out of Silas; but they didn't, an' I +wa'n't goin' to ask, nohow. I shall get a new silk an' a mantilla for +Rose, an' not be beholden to nobody, if I have to sell the spoons I +had when I was married." + +"I don't s'pose they have much to do with," said Sylvia. She began to +gradually edge past her sister. + +"Of course they haven't; I know that jest as well as you do. But if +Charlotte ain't goin' to get married she don't want any weddin'-gown +an' mantilla, an' she won't ever get married. She let Thomas Payne +slip, an' there ain't nobody else I can think of for her. If she +ain't goin' to want weddin'-clothes, I don't see why she an' her +mother would be any poorer for givin' hers away. 'Twouldn't cost 'em +any more than to let 'em lay in the chest. Well, I've got to go home; +it's supper-time. Where did you say you'd been, Sylvy?" + +Sylvia was well past her sister; she pretended not to hear. "You +ain't been over for quite a spell," she called back, faintly. + +"I know I ain't," returned Hannah. "I've been tellin' Rose we'd come +over to tea some afternoon before she was married." + +"Do," said Sylvia, but the cordiality in her voice seemed to +overweigh it. + +"Well, mebbe we'll come over to-morrow," said Hannah. "We've got some +pillow-slips to trim, an' we can bring them. You'd better ask Sarah +an' Charlotte, if she can stay away from Rebecca Thayer's long +enough." + +"Yes, I will," said Sylvia, feebly, over her shoulder. + +"We'll come early," said Hannah. Then the sisters sped apart through +the early winter darkness. Poor Sylvia fairly groaned out loud when +her sister was out of hearing and she had turned the corner of the +old road. + +"What shall I do? what shall I do?" she muttered. + +Her sisters to tea meant hot biscuits and plum sauce and pie and +pound-cake and tea. Sylvia had yet a little damson sauce at the +bottom of a jar, although she had not preserved last year, for lack +of sugar; but hot biscuits and pie, the pound-cake and tea would have +to be provided. + +She felt again of the little money-store in her pocket; that was all +that stood between her and the poor-house; every penny was a barrier +and had its carefully calculated value. This outlay would reduce +terribly her little period of respite and independence; yet she +hesitated as little as Fouquet planning the splendid entertainment, +which would ruin him, for Louis XIII. + +Her sisters and nieces must come to tea; and all the food, which was +the village fashion and as absolute in its way as court etiquette, +must be provided. + +"They'll suspect if I don't," said Sylvia Crane. + +She rolled away the stone from the door and entered her solitary +house. She lighted her candle and prepared for bed. She did not get +any supper. She said to herself with a sudden fierceness, which came +over her at times--a mild impulse of rebellion which indicated +perhaps some strain from far-off, untempered ancestors, which had +survived New England generations--that she did not care if she never +ate supper again. + +"They're all comin' troopin' in here to-morrow, an' it's goin' to +take about all the little I've got left to get victuals for 'em, an' +I've got to go without to-night if I starve!" she cried out quite +loud and defiantly, as if her hard providence lurked within hearing +in some dark recess of the room. + +She raked ashes over the coals in the fireplace. "I'll go to bed an' +save the fire, too," she said; "it'll take about all the wood I've +got left to-morrow. I've got to heat the oven. Might as well go to +bed, an' lay there forever, anyway. If I stayed up till doomsday +nobody'd come." + +Sylvia set the shovel back with a vicious clatter; then she struck +out--like a wilful child who hurts itself because of its rage and +impotent helplessness to hurt aught else--her thin, red hand against +the bricks of the chimney. She looked at the bruises on it with +bitter exultation, as if she saw in them some evidence of her own +freedom and power, even to her own hurt. + +When she went to bed she stowed away her money under the feather-bed. +She could not go to sleep. Some time in the night a shutter in +another room up-stairs banged. She got up, lighted the candle, and +trod over the icy floors to the room relentlessly with her bare feet. +There was a pane of glass broken behind the shutter, and the wind had +loosened the fastening. Sylvia forced the shutter back; in a strange +rage she heard another pane of glass crack. "I don't care if every +pane of glass in the window is broken," she muttered, as she hooked +the fastening with angry, trembling fingers. + +Her thin body in its cotton night-gown, cramped with long rigors of +cold, her delicate face reddened as if before a fire, her jaws felt +almost locked as she went through the deadly cold of the lonely house +back to bed; but that strange rage in her heart enabled her to defy +it, and awakened within her something like blasphemy against life and +all the conditions thereof, but never against Richard Alger. She +never felt one throb of resentment against him. She even wondered, +when she was back in bed, if he had bedclothing enough, if the quilts +and bed-puffs that his mother had left were not worn out; her own +were very thin. + +The next day Sylvia heated her brick oven; she went to the store and +bought materials, and made pound-cake and pies. While they were +baking she ran over and invited Charlotte and her mother. She did not +see Cephas; he had gone to draw some wood. + +"I'd like to have him come, too," she said, as she went out; "but I +dunno as he'd eat anything I've got for tea." + +"Land! he eats anything when he goes out anywhere to tea," replied +Mrs. Barnard. "He was over to Hannah's a while ago, an' he eat +everything. He eats pie-crust with shortenin' now, anyway. He got so +he couldn't stan' it without. I guess he'd like to come. He'll have +to draw wood some this afternoon, but he can come in time for tea. +I'll lay out his clothes on the bed for him." + +"Well, have him come, then," said Sylvia. Sylvia was nearly out of +the yard when Charlotte called after her: "Don't you want me to come +over and help you, Aunt Sylvia?" she called out. She stood in the +door with her apron flying out in the wind like a blue flag. + +"No, I guess not," replied Sylvia; "I don't need any help. I ain't +got much to do." + +"I think Aunt Sylvia looks sick," Charlotte said to her mother when +she went in. + +"I thought she looked kind of peaked," said Sarah. But neither of +them dreamed of the true state of affairs: how poor Sylvia Crane, +half-starved and half-frozen in heart and stomach, was on the verge +of bankruptcy of all her little worldly possessions. + +Sylvia's sisters, practical enough in other respects, were singularly +ignorant and incompetent concerning any property except the few +dollars and cents in their own purses. + +They had always supposed Sylvia had enough to live on, as long as she +lived at all. They had a comfortable sense of generosity and +self-sacrifice, since they had let her have all the old homestead +after her mother's death without a word, and even against covert +remonstrances on the parts of their husbands. + +Silas Berry had once said out quite openly to his wife and Sarah +Barnard: "That will had ought to be broke, accordin' to my way of +thinkin'," and Hannah had returned with spirit: "It won't ever be +broke unless it's against my will, Silas Berry. I know it seems +considerable for Sylvy to have it all, but she's took care of mother +all those years, an' I don't begrutch it to her, an' she's a-goin' to +have it. I don't much believe Richard Alger will ever have her now +she's got so old, an' she'd ought to have enough to live on the rest +of her life an' keep her comfortable." + +Therefore Sylvia's sisters had a conviction that she was comfortably +provided with worldly gear. Mrs. Berry was even speculating upon the +probability of her giving Rose something wherewith to begin +house-keeping when her marriage with Tommy Ray took place. + +The two sisters, with their daughters, came early that afternoon. +Mrs. Berry and Rose sewed knitted lace on pillow-slips; Mrs. Barnard +and Charlotte were making new shirts for Cephas; Charlotte sat by the +window and set beautiful stitches in her father's linen shirt-bosoms, +while her aunt Hannah's tongue pricked her ceaselessly as with small +goading thorns. + +"I s'pose this seems kind of natural to you, don't it, Charlotte, +gettin' pillow-slips ready?" said Mrs. Berry. + +"I don't know but it does," answered Charlotte, never raising her +eyes from her work. Her mother flushed angrily. She opened her mouth +as if to speak, then she shut it again hard. + +"Let me see, how many did you make?" asked Mrs. Berry. + +"She made two dozen pair," Charlotte's mother answered for her. + +"An' you've got 'em all laid away, yellowin'?" + +"I guess they ain't yellowed much," said Sarah Barnard. + +"I don't see when you're ever goin' to use 'em." + +"Mebbe there'd be chances enough to use 'em if some folks was as +crazy to take up with 'em as some other folks," returned Sarah +Barnard. + +"I'd like to know what you mean?" + +"Oh, nothin'. If folks want chances to make pillow-slips bad enough +there's generally poor tools enough layin' 'round, that's all." + +"I'd like to know what you mean, Sarah Barnard." + +"Oh, I don't mean nothin'," answered Sarah Barnard. She glanced at +her daughter Charlotte and smiled slyly, but Charlotte never returned +the glance and smile. She sewed steadily. Rose colored, but she said +nothing. She looked very pretty and happy, as she sat there, sewing +knitted lace on her wedding-pillows; and she really was happy. Her +passionate heart had really satisfied itself with the boyish lover +whom she would have despised except for lack of a better. She was and +would be happy enough; it was only a question of deterioration of +character, and the nobility of applying to the need of love the rules +of ordinary hunger and thirst, and eating contentedly the crust when +one could not get the pie, of drinking the water when one could not +get the wine. Contentment may be sometimes a degradation; but she was +happier than she had ever been in her life, although she had a little +sense of humiliation when she reflected that Tommy Ray, younger than +herself, tending store under her brother, was not exactly a brilliant +match for her, and that everybody in the village would think so. So +she colored angrily when her aunt Sarah spoke as she did, although +she said nothing. But her mother, although she had rebelled in +private bitterly against her daughter's choice, was ready enough to +take up the cudgels for her in public. + +"Well," said Hannah Berry, "two old maids in the family is about +enough, accordin' to my way of thinkin'." + +"It's better to be an old maid than to marry somebody you don't want, +jest for the sake of bein' married," retorted Sarah Barnard, +fiercely. + +The two sisters clashed like two thorny bushes of one family in a +gale the whole afternoon. The two daughters sewed silently, and +Sylvia knitted a stocking with scarcely a word until she arose to get +tea. + +Cephas and Silas both came to tea, which was served in state, with a +fine linen table-cloth, and Sylvia's mother's green and white +sprigged china. Nobody suspected, as they tasted the damson sauce +with the thin silver spoons, as they tilted the green and white +teacups to their lips, and ate the rich pound-cake and pie, what a +very feast of renunciation and tragedy this was to poor Sylvia Crane. +Cephas and Silas, indeed, knew that money had been advanced her by +the town upon her estate, but they were far from suspecting, and, +indeed, were unwilling to suspect, how nearly it was exhausted and +the property lived out. It was only a meagre estimate that the town +of Pembroke had made of the Crane ancestral acres. If Silas and +Cephas had ever known what it was, they had dismissed it from their +minds, they were interested in not knowing. Suppose their wives +should want to give her a home and support. + +The women knew nothing whatever. + +When they went home, an hour after tea, Hannah Berry turned to Sylvia +in the doorway. "I suppose you know the weddin' is comin' off pretty +soon now," said she. + +"Yes, I s'posed 'twas," answered Sylvia, trying to smile. + +"Well, I thought I'd jest mention it, so you could get your present +ready," said Hannah. She nudged Rose violently as she spoke. + +"I don't care; I meant to give her a hint," she said, chuckling, when +they were outside. "She can give you something jest as well as not; +she might give you some silver teaspoons, or a table, or sofa. There! +she bought that handsome sofa for herself a few years ago, an' she +didn't need it more'n nothin' at all. I suppose she thought Richard +Alger was comin' steady, but now he's stopped." + +Rose was married in a few weeks. The morning of the wedding-day +Sylvia went into Berry's store and called William aside. + +"If you can, I wish you'd come 'round by-an'-by with your horse an' +your wood-sled," said she. + +"Yes, guess I can; what is it you want?" asked William, eying her +curiously. She was very pale; there were red circles around her eyes, +and her mouth trembled. + +"Oh, it ain't anything, only a little present I wanted to send to +Rose," replied Sylvia. + +"Well," said William, "I'll be along by-an'-by." He looked after her +in a perplexed way as she went out. + +Silas was in the back of the store, and presently he came forward. +"What she want you to do?" he inquired of his son. + +William told him. The old man chuckled. "Hannah give her a hint +'tother day, an' I guess she took it," he said. + +"I thought she looked pretty poorly," said William--"looked as if +she'd been crying or something. How do you suppose that property +holds out, father? I heard the town was allowing her on it." + +"Oh, I guess it'll last her as long as she lives," replied Silas, +gruffly. "Your mother had ought to had her thirds in it." + +"I don't know about that," said William. "Aunt Sylvy had a hard time +takin' care of grandmother." + +"She was paid for 't," returned Silas. + +"Richard Alger treated her mean." + +"Guess he sat out considerable firewood an' candle-grease," assented +the old man. + +A customer came in then, and Ezra Ray sprang forward. He was all +excited over his brother's wedding, and was tending store in his +place that day. His mother was making him a new suit to wear to the +wedding, and he felt as if the whole affair hung, as it were, upon +the buttons of his new jacket and the straps of his new trousers. + +"Guess I might as well go over to Aunt Sylvy's now as any time," said +William. + +"Don't see what she wanted you to fetch the horse an' sled for," +ruminated Silas. "Mother thought most likely she'd give some silver +teaspoons if she give anything." + +William went out to the barn, put the horse in the sled, and drove +down the hill towards Sylvia's. When he returned the old thin silver +teaspoons of the Crane family were in his coat-pocket, and Sylvia's +dearly beloved and fondly cherished hair-cloth sofa was on the sled +behind him. + +"What in creation did she send them old teaspoons and that old sofa +for?" his mother asked, disgustedly. + +"I don't know," replied William, soberly; "but I do know one thing: I +hated to take them bad enough. She acted all upset over it. I think +she'd better have kept her sofa and teaspoons as long as she lived." + +"Course she was upset givin' away anything," scolded his mother. "It +was jest like her, givin' away a passel of old truck ruther than +spend any money. Well, I s'pose you may as well set that sofa in the +parlor. It ain't hurt much, anyway." + +Rose and her husband were to live with her parents for the present. +She was married that evening. She wore a blue silk dress, and some +rose-geranium blossoms and leaves in her hair. Tommy Ray sat by her +side on Sylvia's sofa until the company and the minister were all +there. Then they stood up and were married. + +Sylvia came to the wedding in her best silk gown; she had trembled +lest Richard Alger should be there, but he had not been invited. +Hannah Berry cherished a deep resentment against him. + +"I ain't goin' to have any man that's treated one of my folks as mean +as he has set foot in my house to a weddin', not if I know it," she +told Rose. + +After the marriage-cake and cider were passed around, the old people +sat solemnly around the borders of the rooms, and the young people +played games. William and his wife were not there. Hannah had not +dared to slight them, but William could not prevail upon Rebecca to +go. + +Barney, also, had not been invited to the wedding. Mrs. Berry had an +open grudge against him on her niece's account, and a covert one on +her daughter's. Hannah Berry had a species of loyalty in her nature, +inasmuch as she would tolerate ill-treatment of her kin from nobody +but her own self. + +Charlotte Barnard came with her father and mother, and sat quietly +with them all the evening. She was beginning insensibly to rather +hold herself aloof from the young people, and avoid joining in their +games. She felt older. People had wondered if she would not wear the +dress she had had made for her own wedding, but she did not. She wore +her old purple silk, which had been made over from one of her +mother's, and a freshly-starched muslin collar. The air was full of +the rich sweetness of cake; there was a loud discord of laughter and +high shrill voices, through which yet ran a subtle harmony of mirth. +Laughing faces nodded and uplifted like flowers in the merry romping +throngs in the middle of the room, while the sober ones against the +walls watched with grave, elderly, retrospective eyes. + +As soon as she could, Sylvia Crane stole into her sister's bedroom, +where the women's outside garments were heaped high on the bed, got +her own, opened the side door softly, and went home. The next day she +was going to the poor-house, and nobody but the three selectmen of +Pembroke knew it. She had begged them, almost on her knees, to tell +nobody until she was there. + +That night she rolled away the guardian stone from before the door +with the feeling that it was for the last time. All that night she +worked. She could not go to bed, she could not sleep, and she had +gone beyond any frenzy of sorrow and tears. All her blind and +helpless rage against life and the obdurately beneficent force, which +had been her conception of Providence, was gone. When the battle is +over there is no more need for the fury of combat. Sylvia felt her +battle was over, and she felt the peace of defeat. + +She was to take a few necessaries to the poor-house with her; she had +them to pack, and she also had some cleaning to do. + +She had a vague idea that the town, which seemed to loom over her +like some dreadful shadowy giant of a child's story, would sell the +house, and it must be left in neat order for the inspection of seller +and buyer. "I ain't goin' to have the town lookin' over the house an' +sayin' it ain't kept decent," she said. So she worked hard all night, +and her candle lit up first one window, then another, moving all over +the house like a will-o'-the-wisp. + +The man who had charge of the poor-house came for her the next +morning at ten o'clock. Sylvia was all ready. At quarter past ten he +drove out of the old road where the Crane house stood and down the +village street. The man's name was Jonathan Leavitt. He was quite old +but hearty, with a stubbly fringe of white beard around a ruddy face. +He had come on a wood-sled for the greater convenience of bringing +Sylvia's goods. There were a feather-bed, bolster, and pillows, tied +up in an old homespun blanket, on the rear of the sled; there was +also a red chest, and a great bundle of bedclothing. Sylvia sat in +her best rocking-chair just behind Jonathan Leavitt, who drove +standing. + +"It's a pleasant day for this time of year," he observed to Sylvia +when they started. Sylvia nodded assent. + +Jonathan Leavitt had had a fear lest Sylvia might make a disturbance +about going. Many a time had it taken hours for him to induce a poor +woman to leave her own door-stone; and when at length they had set +forth, it was to an accompaniment of shrill, piteous lamentations, so +strained and persistent that they seemed scarcely human, and more +like the cries of a scared cat being hauled away from her home. +Everybody on the road had turned to look after the sled, and Jonathan +Leavitt had driven on, looking straight ahead, his face screwed hard, +lashing now and then his old horse, with a gruff shout. Now he felt +relieved and grateful to Sylvia for going so quietly. He was disposed +to be very friendly to her. + +"You'd better keep your rockin'-chair kind of stiddy," he said, when +they turned the corner into the new road, and the chair oscillated +like an uneasy berth at sea. + +Sylvia sat up straight in the chair. She had on her best bonnet and +shawl, and her worked lace veil over her face. Her poor blue eyes +stared out between the black silk leaves and roses. If she had been a +dead woman and riding to her grave, and it had been possible for her +to see as she was borne along the familiar road, she would have +regarded everything in much the same fashion that she did now. She +looked at everything--every tree, every house and wall--with a pang +of parting forever. She felt as if she should never see them again in +their old light. + +The poor-house was three miles out of the village; the road lay past +Richard Alger's house. When they drew near it Sylvia bent her head +low and averted her face; she shut her eyes behind the black roses. +She did not want to know when she passed the house. An awful shame +that Richard should see her riding past to the poor-house seized upon +her. + +The wood-sled went grating on, a chain rattled; she calculated that +they were nearly past when there was a jerk, and Jonathan Leavitt +cried "Hullo!" + +"Where are you going?" shouted another voice. Sylvia knew it. Her +heart pounded. She turned her face farther to one side, and did not +open her eyes. + +Richard Alger came plunging down out of his yard. His handsome face +was quite pale under a slight grizzle of beard, he was in his +shirt-sleeves, he had on no dicky or stock, and his sinewy throat +showed. + +"Where you goin'?" he gasped out again, as he came up to the sled. + +"I'm a takin' Sylvy home. Why?" inquired Jonathan Leavitt, with a +dazed look. + +"Home? What are you headed this way for? What are all those things on +the sled?" + +"She's lived out her place, an' the town's jest took it; guess you +didn't know, Richard," said Jonathan Leavitt. His eyes upon the other +man were half shrewdly inquiring, half bewildered. + +Sylvia never turned her head. She sat with her eyes closed behind her +veil. + +[Illustration: "Sylvia never turned her head"] + +"Just turn that sled 'round," said Richard Alger. + +"Turn the sled 'round?" + +"Yes, turn it 'round!" Richard himself grasped the bay horse by the +bit as he spoke. "Back, back!" he shouted. + +"What are you doin' on, Richard?" cried the old man; but he pulled +his right rein mechanically, and the sled slewed slowly and safely +around. + +Richard jumped on and stood just beside Sylvia, holding to a stake. +"Where d'ye want to go?" asked the old man. + +"Back." + +"But the town--" + +"I'll take care of the town." + +Jonathan Leavitt drove back. Sylvia opened her eyes a little way, and +saw Richard's back. "You'll catch cold without your coat," she half +gasped. + +"No, I sha'n't," returned Richard, but he did not turn his head. + +Sylvia did not say any more. She was trembling so that her very +thoughts seemed to waver. They turned the corner of the old road, and +drove up to her old house. Richard stepped off the sled, and held out +his hands to Sylvia. "Come, get off," said he. + +"I dunno about this," said Jonathan Leavitt. "I'm willin' as far as +I'm concerned, Richard, but I've had my instructions." + +"I tell you I'll take care of it," said Richard Alger. "I'll settle +all the damages with the town. Come, Sylvia, get off." + +And Sylvia Crane stepped weakly off the wood-sled, and Richard Alger +helped her into the house. "Why, you can't hardly walk," said he, and +Sylvia had never heard anything like the tenderness in his tone. He +bent down and rolled away the stone. Sylvia had rolled it in front of +the door herself, when she went out, as she supposed, for the last +time. Then he opened the door, and took hold of her slender shawled +arm, and half lifted her in. + +"Go in an' sit down," said he, "while we get the things in." + +Sylvia went mechanically into her clean, fireless parlor; it was the +room where she had always received Richard. She sat down in a +flag-bottomed chair and waited. + +Richard and Jonathan Leavitt came into the house tugging the +feather-bed between them. "We'll put it in the kitchen," she heard +Richard say. They brought in the chest and the bundle of bedding. +Then Richard came into the parlor carrying the rocking-chair before +him. "You want this in here, don't you?" he said. + +"It belongs here," said Sylvia, faintly. Jonathan Leavitt gathered up +his reins and drove out of the yard. + +Richard set down the chair; then he went and stood before Sylvia. + +"Look here, Sylvia," said he. Then he stopped and put his hands over +his face. His whole frame shook. Sylvia stood up. "Don't, Richard," +she said. + +"I never had any idea of this," said Richard Alger, with a great +groaning sob. + +"Don't you feel so bad, Richard," said Sylvia. + +Suddenly Richard put is arm around Sylvia, and pulled her close to +him. "I'll look out and do better by you the rest of your life, +anyhow," he said. He took hold of Sylvia's veil and pulled it back. +Her pale face drooped before him. + +"You look--half--starved," he groaned. Sylvia looked up and saw tears +on his rough cheeks. + +"Don't you feel bad, Richard," she said again. + +"I'd ought to feel bad," said Richard, fiercely. + +"I couldn't help it, that night you come an' found me gone. It was +that night Charlotte had the trouble with Barney. Sarah, she wouldn't +let me come home any sooner. I was dreadful upset about it." + +"I've been meaner than sin, an' I don't know as it makes it any +better, because I couldn't seem to help it," said Richard Alger. "I +didn't forget you a single minute, Sylvia, an' I was awful sorry for +you, an' there wasn't a Sabbath night that I didn't want to come more +than I wanted to go to Heaven! But I couldn't, I couldn't nohow. I've +always had to travel in tracks, an' no man livin' knows how deep a +track he's in till he gets jolted out of it an' can't get back. But +I've got into a track now, an' I'll die before I get out of it. There +ain't any use in your lookin' at me, Sylvia, but if you can make up +your mind to have me, I'll try my best, an' do all I can to make it +all up to you in the time that's left." + +"I'm afraid you've had a dreadful hard time, livin' alone so long, +an' tryin' to do for yourself," said Sylvia, pitifully. + +"I'm glad I have," replied Richard, grimly. + +He clasped Sylvia closer; her best bonnet was all crushed against his +breast. He looked around over her head, as if searching for +something. + +"Where's the sofa gone?" he asked. + +"I gave it to Rose for a weddin' present. I thought I shouldn't ever +need it," Sylvia murmured. + +"Well, I've got one, it ain't any matter," said Richard. + +He moved towards the rocking-chair, drawing Sylvia gently along with +him. + +"Sit down, Sylvia," said he, softly. + +"No, you sit down in the rocking-chair, Richard," said Sylvia. She +reached out and pulled a flag-bottomed chair close and sat down +herself. Richard sat in the rocking-chair. + +Sylvia untied her bonnet, took it off, and straightened it. Richard +watched her. "I want you to have a white bonnet," said he. + +"I'm too old, Richard," Sylvia replied, blushing. + +"No, you ain't," he said, defiantly; "you've got to have a white +bonnet." + +Sylvia looked in his face--and indeed hers looked young enough for a +white bonnet; it flushed and lit up, like an old flower revived in a +new spring. + +Richard leaned over towards her, and the two old lovers kissed each +other. Richard moved his chair close to hers, and Sylvia felt his arm +coming around her waist. She sat still. "Put your head down on my +shoulder," whispered Richard. + +And Sylvia laid her head on Richard's shoulder. She felt as if she +were dreaming of a dream. + + + +Chapter XIII + + +When Richard Alger went home he wore an old brown shawl of Sylvia's +over his shoulders. He had demurred a little. "I can't go down the +street with your shawl on, Sylvia," he had pleaded, but Sylvia +insisted. + +"You'll catch your death of cold, goin' home in your shirt-sleeves," +she said. "They won't know it's my shawl. Men wear shawls." + +"You've worn this ever since I've known you, Sylvia, an' I ain't +given to catchin' cold easy," said Richard almost pitifully. But he +stood still and let Sylvia pin the shawl around his neck. Sylvia +seemed to have suddenly acquired a curious maternal authority over +him, and he submitted to it as if it were merely natural that he +should. + +Richard Alger went meekly down the road, wearing the old brown shawl +that had often draped Sylvia Crane's slender feminine shoulders when +she walked abroad, since she was a young girl. Sylvia had always worn +it corner-wise, but she had folded it square for him as making it +more of a masculine garment. Two corners waved out stiffly from his +square shoulders. He tried to swing his arms unconcernedly under it; +once the fringe hit his hand and he jumped. + +He was shame-faced when he struck out into the main road, but he did +not dream of taking off the shawl. A very passion of obedience and +loyalty to Sylvia had taken possession of him. With every submission +after long persistency, there is a strong reverse action, as from the +sudden cessation of any motion. Richard now yielded in more marked +measure than he had opposed. He had borne with his whimsical will +against all his sweetheart's dearest wishes during the better part of +her life; now he would wear any insignia of bondage if she bade him. + +He had gone a short distance on the main road when he met Hannah +Berry. She was hurrying along, her face was quite red, and he could +hear her pant as she drew near. She looked at him sharply, she fairly +narrowed her eyes over the shawl. "Good-mornin'," said she. + +Richard said "Good-morning," gruffly. The shawl blew out against +Hannah's shoulder as she passed him. She turned about and stared +after him, and he knew it. He went on with dogged chin in the folds +of the shawl. + +Hannah Berry hurried along to Sylvia Crane's. When she opened the +door Sylvia was just coming out of the parlor, and the two sisters +met in the entry with a kind of shock. + +"Oh, it's you," murmured Sylvia. Sylvia cast down her eyes before her +sister. She tried not to smile. Her hair was tumbled and there were +red spots on her cheeks. + +"Has he been here all this time?" demanded Hannah. + +"He's just gone." + +"I met him out here. What in creation did you rig him up in your old +shawl for, Sylvy Crane?" + +"He was in his shirt-sleeves, an' I wasn't goin' to have him catch +his death of cold," replied Sylvia with dignity. + +"In his shirt-sleeves!" + +"Yes, he run out just as he was." + +"Land sakes!" said Hannah. The two women looked at each other. +Suddenly Hannah threw out her arms from under her shawl, and clasped +Sylvia. "Oh, Sylvy," she sobbed out, "to think you was settin' out +for the poor-house this mornin', an' we havin' a weddin' last night, +an' never knowin' it! Why didn't you say anythin' about it, why +didn't you, Sylvy?" + +"I knew you couldn't do anything, Hannah." + +"Knew I couldn't do anything! Do you suppose me or Sarah would have +let all the sister we've got go to the poor-house whilst we had a +roof over our heads? We'd took you right in, either one of us." + +"I was afraid Silas an' Cephas wouldn't be willin'." + +"I guess they'd had to be willin'. I told Silas just now that if +Richard Alger didn't come forward like a man, you was comin' to my +house, an' have the best we've got as long as you lived. Silas, he +said he thought you'd ought to earn your own livin', an' I told him +there wa'n't any chance for a woman like you to earn your livin' in +Pembroke, that you could earn your livin' enough livin' at your own +sister's. Oh, Sylvy, I can't stand it, when I think of your startin' +out that way, an' never sayin' a word." Hannah sobbed convulsively on +her sister's shoulder. There were tears in Sylvia's eyes, but her +face above her sister's head was radiant. "Don't, Hannah," she said. +"It's all over now, you know." + +"Is he--goin' to have you now--Sylvy?" + +"I guess so, maybe," said Sylvia. + +"I suppose you'll go to his house, this is so run down." + +"He's goin' to fix this one up." + +"You think you'd rather live here, then? Well, I s'pose I should. I +s'pose he's goin' to buy it. The town hadn't ought to ask much. Sylvy +Crane, I can't get it through my head, nohow." + +"What?" said Sylvia. + +"How you run out this nice place so quick. I thought an' Sarah +thought you'd got enough to last you jest as long as you lived, an' +have some left to leave then." + +Hannah stood back and looked at her sister sharply. + +"I've always been as savin' as I knew how," said Sylvia. + +"Well, I dunno but you have. You got that sofa, that cost +considerable. I shouldn't have thought you'd got that, if you'd known +how things were, Sylvy." + +"I kinder felt as if I needed it." + +"Well, I guess you might have got along without that, anyhow. +Richard's got one, ain't he?" + +"Yes, he says he has." + +"I thought I remembered his mother's buyin' one just before his +father died. Well, you'll have his sofa, then; if I remember right, +it's a better one than yours that you give Rose. Now, Sylvy Crane, +you jest put on your hood an' shawl, an' come home with me, an' have +some dinner. Have you got anything in the house to eat?" + +"I've got a few things," replied Sylvia, evasively. + +"What?" + +"Some potatoes an' apples." + +"Potatoes an' apples!" Hannah began to sob again. "To think of your +comin' to this," she wailed. "My own sister not havin' anything in +the house to eat, an' settin' out for the poor-house, an' everybody +in town knowin' it." + +"Don't feel bad about it, Hannah; it's all over now," said Sylvia. + +"Don't feel bad about it! I guess you'd feel bad about it if you was +in my place," returned Hannah. "I s'pose you think now you've got +Richard Alger that there's nothin' else makes any odds. I guess I've +got some feelin's. Get your hood and shawl, now do; dinner was all +ready when I come away." + +"I guess I'd better not, Hannah," said Sylvia. It seemed to her that +she never would want anything to eat again. She wanted to be alone in +her old house, and hug her happiness to her heart, whose starvation +had caused her more agony than any other. Now that was appeased she +cared for nothing else. + +"You come right along," said Hannah. "I've got a nice roast spare-rib +an' turnip an' squash, an' you're goin' to come an' have some of it." + +When Hannah and Sylvia got out on the main road, they heard Sarah +Barnard's voice calling them. She was hurrying down the hill. Cephas +had just come home with the news. Jonathan Leavitt had spread it over +the village from the nucleus of the store where he had stopped on his +way home. + +Sarah Barnard sat down on the snowy stone-wall among the last year's +blackberry vines, and cried as if her heart would break. Finally +Hannah, after joining with her awhile, turned to and comforted her. + +"Land sake, don't take on so, Sarah Barnard!" said she; "it's all +over now. Sylvy's goin' to marry Richard Alger, an' there ain't a man +in Pembroke any better off, unless it's Squire Payne. She's goin' to +have him right off, an' he's goin' to buy the house an' fix it up, +an' she's goin' to have all his mother's nice things, an' she's +comin' home with me now, an' have some nice roast spare-rib an' +turnip. There ain't nothin' to take on about." + +Hannah fairly pulled Sarah off the stone-wall. "Sylvy an' me have got +to go," said she. "You come down this afternoon, an' we'll all go +over to her house, an' talk it over. I s'pose Richard will come +to-night. I hope he'll shave first, an' put on his coat. I never see +such a lookin' sight as he was when I met him jest now." + +"I didn't see as he looked very bad," said Sylvia, with dignity. + +"It seems as if it would kill me jest to think of it," sobbed Sarah +Barnard, turning tremulously away. + +"Don't you feel bad about it any longer, Sarah," Sylvia said, half +absently. Her hair blew out wildly from under her hood over her +flushed cheeks; she smiled as if at something visible, past her +sister, and past everything around her. + +"I tell you there ain't nothin' to be killed about!" Hannah called +after Sarah; she caught hold of Sylvia's arm. "Sarah always was kind +of hystericky," said she. "That spare-rib will be all dried up, an' I +wouldn't give a cent for it, if you don't come along." + +Richard Alger and Sylvia Crane were married very soon. There was no +wedding, and people were disappointed about that. Hannah Berry tried +to persuade Sylvia to have one. "I'm willin' to make the cake," said +she. "I've jest been through one weddin', but I'll do it. If I'd been +goin' with a feller as long as you have with him, I wouldn't get +cheated out of a weddin', anyhow. I'd have a weddin' an' I'd have +cake, an' I'd ask folks, especially after what's happened. I'd let +'em see I wa'n't quite so far gone, if I had set out for the +poor-house once. I'd have a weddin'. Richard's got money enough. I +had real good-luck with Rose's cake, an' I ain't afraid to try yours. +I guess I should make it a little mite stiffer than I did hers." + +But Sylvia was obdurate. She did not say much, but she went her own +way. She had gained a certain quiet decision and dignity which +bewildered everybody. Her sisters had dimly realized that there was +something about her out of plumb, as it were. Her nature had been +warped to one side by one concentrated and unsatisfied desire. "Seems +to me, sometimes, as if Sylvy was kind of queer," Hannah Berry often +said. "I dunno but she's kinder turned on Richard Alger," Sarah would +respond. Now she seemed suddenly to have regained her equilibrium, +and no longer slanted doubtfully across her sisters' mental horizons. + +She and Richard went to the minister's house early one Sabbath +morning, and were married. Then they went to meeting, Sylvia on +Richard's arm. They sat side by side in the Alger pew; it was on the +opposite side of the meeting-house from Sylvia's old pew. It seemed +to her as if she would see her old self sitting there alone, as of +old, if she looked across. She fixed her eyes straight ahead, and +never glanced at Richard by her side. She held her white-bonneted +head up like some gentle flower which had sprung back to itself after +a hard wind. She had a new white bridal bonnet, as Richard had +wished; it was trimmed with white plumes and ribbons, and she wore a +long white-worked veil over her face. The wrought net-work, as +delicate as frost, softened all the hard lines and fixed tints, and +gave to her face an illusion of girlhood. She wore the two curls over +her cheeks. Richard had asked her why she didn't curl her hair as she +used to do. + +All the people saw Sylvia's white bonnet; it seemed to turn their +eyes like a brilliant white spot, which reflected all the light in +the meeting-house. But there were a few women who eyed more sharply +Sylvia's wedding-gown and mantilla, for she wore the very ones which +poor Charlotte Barnard had made ready for her own bridal. Sylvia was +just about her niece's height; the gown had needed a little taking in +to fit her thinner form, and that was all. + +Charlotte's mother had brought them over to Sylvia's one night, all +nicely folded in white linen towels. + +"Charlotte wants you to have 'em; she says she won't ever need 'em, +poor child!" she said, in response to Sylvia's remonstrances. Mrs. +Barnard's eyes were red, as if she had been crying. It had apparently +been harder for her to give up the poor slighted wedding-clothes than +for her daughter. Charlotte had not shed a tear when she took them +out of the chest and shook off the sprigs of lavender which she had +laid over them; but it seemed to her that she could smell that faint +elusive breath of lavender across the meeting-house when Sylvia came +in, and the rustle of her bridal-gown was as loud in her ears as if +she herself wore it. + +"Somebody might just as well have them, and have some good of them," +she had told her mother, and she spoke as if they were the garments +of some one who was dead. + +"Seems to me, as much as they cost, you'd ought to wear 'em +yourself," said her mother. + +"I never shall," Charlotte said, firmly; "and they might just as well +do somebody some good." Charlotte's New England thrift and practical +sense stretched her sentiment on the rack, and she never made a +sound. + +Barney, watching out from his window that Sunday, caught a flash of +green and purple from Sylvia's silken skirt as she turned the corner +of the old road with Richard. "She's got on Charlotte's +wedding-dress. She's--given it to her," he said, with a gasp. He had +never forgotten it since the day Charlotte had shown it to him. He +had pictured her in it, hundreds of times, to his own delight and +torment. He had a fierce impulse to rush out and strip his +Charlotte's wedding-clothes from this other bride's back. + +"She's gone and given it away, and she hasn't got a good silk dress +herself; she's wearing her old cloak to meeting," he half sobbed to +himself. He wondered piteously, thinking of his savings and of his +property since his father's death, if he might not, at least, buy +Charlotte a new silk dress and a mantilla. "I don't believe she'd be +mad," he said; "but I'm afraid her father wouldn't let her wear it." + +The more he thought of it the more it seemed as if he could not bear +it, unless he could buy Charlotte the silk dress. "Her clothes ain't +as good as mine," he said, and he thought of his best blue broadcloth +suit, and his flowered vest and silk hat. It seemed to him that with +all the terrible injury he was doing Charlotte, he also injured her +by having better clothes than she, and that that was something which +might be set right. + +As Barney sat by his window that Sunday afternoon he saw a man coming +down the hill. He watched him idly, then his heart leaped and he +leaned forward. The man advanced with a careless, stately swing, his +head was thrown back, his mulberry-colored coat had a sheen like a +leaf in the sun. The man was Thomas Payne. Barney turned white as he +watched him. He had not known he was in town, and his jealous heart +at once whispered that he had come to see Charlotte. Thomas Payne +came opposite the house, then passed out of sight. Barney sat with +staring eyes full of miserable questioning upon the road. Had he been +to see Charlotte? he speculated. He had come from that direction; but +Barney remembered, with a sigh of hope, that Squire Payne had a +sister, an old maiden lady, who lived a half-mile beyond Charlotte. +Perhaps Thomas Payne had been to see his aunt. + +[Illustration: "Thomas Payne advanced with a careless, stately +swing"] + +All the rest of the day Barney was in an agony of doubt and unrest +over the unsettled question. He had been living lately in a sort of +wretched peace of remorse and misery; now it was rudely shaken. He +walked the floor; at night he could not sleep. He seemed to be in a +very torture-chamber of his own making, and the tortures were worse +than any enemies could have devised. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting +up with Charlotte this Sunday night. Once he thought, wildly, of +going up the hill to see if there was a light in her parlor, but it +seemed to him as if the doubt was more endurable than the certainty +might be. Suppose Thomas Payne was sitting up with Charlotte; he +called to mind all her sweet ways. Suppose she was looking and +speaking to Thomas Payne in this way or that way; his imagination +threw out pictures before him upon which he could not close his eyes. +He saw Thomas Payne's face all glowing with triumph, he saw +Charlotte's with the old look that she had worn for him. Charlotte's +caresses had been few and maidenly; they all came into his mind like +stings. He knew just how she would put her tender arm around this +other man's neck, how she would lift grave, willing lips to his. He +wished that they had never been for him, for all they seemed worth to +him now was this bitter knowledge. His fancy led him on and on to his +own torment. There was a bridal mist around Charlotte. He followed +the old courses of his own dreams, after his memories were passed, +and they caused him worse agony. + +The next morning Barney went to the store. It was absolutely +necessary for him to go, but he shunned everybody. He had a horrible +fear lest somebody should say, "Hallo, Barney, know Thomas Payne's +goin' to marry your old girl?" He had planned the very words, and the +leer of sly exultation that would accompany it. + +But he made his purchase and went out, and nobody spoke to him. He +had not seen Thomas Payne in the back part of the store behind the +stove. Presently Thomas got up and lounged leisurely out through the +store, exchanging a word with one and another on his way. When he got +out Barney was going down the road quite a way ahead of him. Thomas +Payne kept on in his tracks. There was another man coming towards +him, and presently he stood aside to let him pass. "Good-day, Royal," +said Thomas Payne. + +"Good-day, Thomas," returned the other. "When d'ye get home?" + +"Day before yesterday. How are you this winter, Royal?" + +"Well, I'm pretty fair to middlin'." The man's face, sunken in his +feeble chest far below the level of Thomas's eyes, looked up at him +with a sort of whimsical patience. His back was bent like a bow; he +had had curvature of the spine for years, from a fall when a young +man. + +"Glad to hear that," returned Thomas. The man passed him, walking as +if he were vainly trying to straighten himself at every step. He held +his knees stiff and threw his elbows back, but his back still curved +pitifully, although it seemed as if he were half cheating himself +into the belief that he was walking as straight as other men. + +Thomas walked on rapidly, lessening the distance between himself and +Barney. As he went on he began to have a curious fancy, which he +could hardly persuade himself was a fancy. It seemed to him that +Barney Thayer was walking like the man whom he had just met, that his +back had that same terrible curve. + +Thomas Payne stared in strange bewilderment at Barney's back. "It +can't be that he has spine disease, that he has got hurt in any way," +he thought to himself. The purpose with which he had started out +rather paled in his mind. He walked more rapidly. It certainly seemed +to him that Barney's back was bent. He got within hailing distance +and called out. + +"Hallo!" cried Thomas Payne. + +Barney turned around, and it seemed as if he turned with the feeble, +crooked motion of the other man. He saw Thomas Payne, and his face +was ghastly white, but he stood still and waited. + +"How are you?" Thomas said, gruffly, as he came up. + +"How are you, Thomas?" returned Barney. He looked at Thomas with a +dogged expectancy. He thought he was going to tell him that he was to +marry Charlotte. + +But Thomas was surveying him still in that strange bewilderment. +"Look here, Barney," said he, bluntly, "have you been sick? I haven't +heard of it." + +"No, I haven't," replied Barney, wonderingly. + +Thomas's eyes were fixed upon his back. "I didn't know but you had +got hurt or something," said he. + +Barney shook his head. Thomas thought to himself that his back was +certainly curved. "I guess I'll walk along with you a little way," +said he; "I've got something I wanted to say. For God's sake, Barney, +you are sick!" + +"No, I ain't sick." + +"You are white as death." + +"There's nothing the matter with me," Barney half gasped. He turned +and walked on, and his back still bent like a bow to Thomas Payne's +eyes. + +Thomas went on silently until they had passed a house just beyond. +Then he stopped again. "Look here, Barney," said he. + +"Well," said Barney. He stopped, but he did not turn or face Thomas. +He only presented to him that curved, or semblance of a curved, back. + +"I want to speak to you about Charlotte Barnard," said Thomas Payne, +abruptly. Barney waited without a word. + +"I suppose you'll think it's none of my business, and in one way it +isn't," said Thomas, "but I am going to say it for her sake; I have +made up my mind to. It seems to me it's time, if anybody cares +anything about her. What are you treating Charlotte Barnard so for, +Barnabas Thayer? It's time you gave an account to somebody, and you +can give it to me." + +Barney did not answer. + +"Speak, you miserable coward!" shouted Thomas Payne, with a sudden +threatening motion of his right arm. + +Then Barney turned, and Thomas started back at the sight of his face. +"I can't help it," he said. + +"Can't help it, you--" + +"I can't, before God, Thomas." + +"Why not?" + +Barney raised his right hand and pointed past Thomas. +"You--met--Royal Bennet just--now," he gasped, hoarsely. + +Thomas nodded. + +"You--saw--his--back?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, something like that ails me. I--can't help it--before God." + +"You don't mean--" Thomas said, and stopped, looking at Barney's +back. + +"I mean that's why I can't--help it." + +"Have you hurt your back?" Thomas asked, in a subdued tone. + +"I've hurt my soul," said Barney. "It happened that Sunday night +years ago. I--can't get over it. I am bent like his back." + +"I should think you'd better get over it, then, if that's all," +Thomas Payne said, roughly. + +"I--can't, any more than he can." + +"Do you mean your back's hurt? For God's sake talk sense, Barney!" +Thomas cried out, in bewilderment. + +"It's more than my back; it's me." + +Thomas stared at Barney; a horror as of something uncanny and +abnormal stole over him. Was the man's back curved, or had he by some +subtle vision a perception of some terrible spiritual deformity, only +symbolized by a curved spine? In a minute he gave an impatient stamp, +and tried to shake himself free from the vague pity and horror which +the other had aroused. + +"Do you know that you are ruining the life of the best woman that +ever lived?" he demanded, fiercely. + +Barney looked at him, and suddenly there was a flash as of something +noble in his face. + +"Look here, Thomas," he said, brokenly, in hoarse gasps. "Last night +I--went mad, almost, because--I thought--maybe you'd been to +see--her. I--saw you coming down the hill. I thought--I'd die +thinking of--you--with her. I can't tell you--what I've been through, +what I've suffered, and--what I suffer right along. I know I ain't to +be pitied. I know--there ain't any pity--anywhere for anything--like +this. I don't pity--myself. But it's awful. If you could get a sight +of it, you'd know." + +Again to Thomas Payne, looking at the other, it was as if he saw a +pale agonized face staring up at him from the midst of a curved mass +of deformity. He shuddered. + +"I don't know what to make of you, Barney Thayer," he said, looking +away. + +"There's one thing--I want to say," Barney went on. "I think there's +enough of a man left in me--I--think I've got strength enough to say +it. She--ought to be happy. I don't want her--wasting her whole +life--God knows--I don't--no matter what it does--to me. I--wish-- +See here, Thomas. I know you--like her. Maybe she'll--turn to you. It +seems as if she must. I hope you will--oh, for God's sake, be--good +to her, Thomas!" + +Thomas Payne's face was as white as Barney's. He turned to go. +"There's no use talking this way. You know Charlotte Barnard as well +as I do," he said. "You know she's one of the women that never love +any man but one. I don't want another man's wife, if she'd have me." +Suddenly he faced Barney again. "For God's sake, Barney," he cried +out, "be a man and go back to her, and marry her!" + +Barney shook his head; with a kind of a sob he turned around and went +his way without another word. Thomas Payne said no more; he stared +after Barney's retreating figure, and again the look of bewilderment +and horror was in his face. + +That afternoon he asked his father, with a casual air, if he had +heard anything about Barney Thayer getting his back injured in any +way. + +"Why, no, I can't say as I have," returned the squire. + +"I saw him this morning, and I thought his back looked as if it was +growing like Royal Bennet's. I dare say I imagined it," said Thomas. +Then he went out of the room whistling. + +But, during his few weeks' stay in Pembroke, he put the same question +to one and another, with varying results. Some said at once, with a +sudden look of vague horror, that it was so. That Barney Thayer was +indeed growing deformed; that they had noticed it. Others scouted the +idea. "Saw him this morning, and he's as straight as he ever was," +they said. + +Whether Barney Thayer's back was, indeed, bowed into that terrible +spinal curve or not, Thomas Payne could not tell by any agreement of +witnesses. If some, gifted with acute spiritual insight, really +perceived that dreadful warping of a diseased will, and clothed it +with a material image for their own grosser senses; or if Barney, +through dwelling upon his own real but hidden infirmity, had actually +come unconsciously to give it a physical expression, and walked at +times through the village with his back bent like his spirit, +although not diseased, Thomas Payne could only speculate. He finally +began to adopt the latter belief, as he himself, sometimes on meeting +Barney, thought that he walked as erect as he ever had. + +Thomas Payne stayed several weeks in Pembroke, and he did not go to +see Charlotte. Once he met her in the street, and stopped and shook +hands with gay heartiness. + +"He's got over caring about me," Charlotte thought to herself with a +strange pang, which shocked and shamed her. "Most likely he's got +somebody out West, where he is," she said to herself firmly; that she +ought to be glad if he had, and that she was; and yet she was not, +although she never owned it to herself, and was stanchly loyal to her +old love. + +Charlotte herself often fancied uneasily that Barney's back was +growing like Royal Bennet's. She watched him furtively when she +could. Then she would say to herself, another time, that she must +have imagined it. + +Thomas Payne went away the first of May. That evening Charlotte sat +on the door-step in the soft spring twilight. Her mother had just +come home from her sister Hannah Berry's. "Thomas Payne went this +afternoon," her mother said, standing before her. + +"Did he?" said Charlotte. + +"You might have had him if you hadn't stuck to a poor stick that +ain't fit to tie your shoes up!" Sarah cried out, with sudden +bitterness. Her voice sounded like Hannah Berry's. Charlotte knew +that was just what her aunt Hannah had said about it. + +"I don't ask him to tie my shoes up," returned Charlotte. + +"You can stan' up for him all you want to," said her mother. "You +know he's a poor tool, an' he's treatin' you mean. You know he can't +begin to come up to a young man like Thomas Payne." + +"Thomas Payne don't want me, and I don't want him; don't talk any +more about it, mother." + +"I think somebody ought to talk about it," said her mother, and she +pushed roughly past Charlotte into the house. + +Charlotte sat on the door-step a long while. "If Thomas Payne has got +anybody out West, I guess she'll be glad to see him," she thought. +The fancy pained her, and yet she seemed to see Thomas Payne and +Barney side by side, the one like a young prince--handsome and +stately, full of generous bravery--the other vaguely crouching +beneath some awful deformity, pitiful yet despicable in the eyes of +men, and her whole soul cleaved to her old lover. "What we've got is +ours," she said to herself. + +As she sat there a band of children went past, with a shrill, sweet +clamor of voices. They were out hanging May-baskets and bunches of +anemones. That was the favorite sport of the village children during +the month of May. The woods were full of soft, innocent, seeking +faces, bending over the delicate bells nodding in the midst of whorls +of dark leaves. Every evening, after sundown, there were mysterious +bursts of laughter and tiny scamperings around doors, and great balls +of bloom swinging from the latchets when they were opened; but no +person in sight, only soft gurgles of mirth and delight sounded +around a corner of darkness. + +After Charlotte went to bed that night she thought she heard somebody +at the south door. "It is the children with some may-flowers," she +thought. But presently she reflected that it was very late for the +children to be out. + +After a little while she got up, and stole down-stairs to the door, +feeling her way through the dark house. + +She opened the south door cautiously, and put her hand out. There +were no flowers swinging from the latch as she half expected. Her +bare feet touched something on the door-step; she stooped, and there +was a great package. + +Charlotte took it up, and went noiselessly back to her room with it. +She lighted a candle, and unfastened the paper wrappings. She gave a +little cry. There were yards of beautiful silk shimmering with lilac +and silver and rose-color, and there was also a fine lace mantle. + +Charlotte looked at them; she was quite pale and trembling. She +folded the silk and lace again carefully, and put them in a chest out +of sight. Then she went back to bed, and lay there crying wildly. + +"Poor Barney! poor Barney!" she sobbed to herself. + +The next evening, after Cephas and Sarah had gone to bed, Charlotte +crept out of the house with the package under her shawl. It was still +early. She ran nearly all the way to Barney Thayer's house; she was +afraid of meeting somebody, but she did not. + +She knocked softly on Barney's door, and heard him coming to open it +at once. When he saw her standing there he gave a great start, and +did not say anything. Charlotte thought he did not recognize her in +the dusk. + +"It's me, Barney," she said. + +"I know you," said Barney. She held out the package to him. "I've +brought this back," said she. + +Barney made no motion to take it from her. + +"I can't take it," she said, firmly. + +Suddenly Barney threw up his hands over his face. "Can't you take +just that much from me, Charlotte? Can't you let me do as much as +that for you?" he groaned out. + +"No, I can't," said Charlotte. "You must take it back, Barney." + +"Oh, Charlotte, can't you--take that much from me?" + +"I can take nothing from you as things are," Charlotte replied. + +"I wanted you to have a dress. I saw you had given the other away. I +didn't think--there was any harm in buying it for you, Charlotte." + +"It isn't your place to buy dresses for me as things are," said +Charlotte. She extended the package, and he took it, as if by force. +She heard him sob. + +"You must never try to do anything like this again," she said. "I +want you to understand it, Barney." + +Then she went away, and left him standing there holding his discarded +gift. + + + +Chapter XIV + + +After a while the village people ceased to have the affairs of Barney +Thayer and Charlotte Barnard particularly upon their minds. As time +went on, and nothing new developed in the case, they no longer dwelt +upon it. Circumstances, like people, soon show familiar faces, and +are no longer stared after and remarked. The people all became +accustomed to Barney living alone in his half-furnished house season +after season, and to Charlotte walking her solitary maiden path. They +seldom spoke of it among themselves; sometimes, when a stranger came +to town, they pointed out Barney and Charlotte as they would have any +point of local interest. + +"Do you see that house?" a woman bent on hospitable entertainment +said as she drove a matronly cousin from another village down the +street; "the one with the front windows boarded up, without any step +to the front door? Well, Barney Thayer lives there all alone. He's +old Caleb Thayer's son, all the son that's left; the other one died. +There was some talk of his mother's whippin' him to death. She died +right after, but they said afterwards that she didn't, that he run +away one night, an' went slidin' downhill, an' that was what killed +him; he'd always had heart trouble. I dunno; I always thought Deborah +Thayer was a pretty good woman, but she was pretty set. I guess +Barney takes after her. He was goin' with Charlotte Barnard years +ago--I guess 'twas as much as nine or ten years ago, now--an' they +were goin' to be married. She was all ready--weddin'-dress an' bonnet +an' everything--an' this house was 'most done an' ready for them to +move into; but one Sunday night Barney he went up to see Charlotte, +an' he got into a dispute with her father about the 'lection, an' the +old man he ordered Barney out of the house, an' Barney he went out, +an' he never went in again--couldn't nobody make him. His mother she +talked; it 'most killed her; an' I guess Charlotte said all she +could, but he wouldn't stir a peg. + +"He went right to livin' in his new house, an' he lives there now; he +ain't married, an' Charlotte ain't. She's had chances, too. Squire +Payne's son, he wanted her bad." + +The visiting cousin's mild, interrogative face peered out around the +black panel of the covered wagon at Barney's poor house; her +spectacles glittered at it in the sun. "I want to know!" said she, +with the expression of strained, entertained amiability which she +wore through her visit. + +When they passed the Barnard house the Pembroke woman partly drew +rein again; the old horse meandered in a zigzag curve, with his head +lopping. "That's where Charlotte Barnard lives," she said. Suddenly +she lowered her voice. "There she is now, out in the yard," she +whispered. + +Again the visiting cousin peered out. "She's good-lookin', ain't +she?" she remarked, cautiously viewing Charlotte's straight figure +and fair face as she came towards them out of the yard. + +"She ain't so good-lookin' as she used to be," rejoined the other +woman. "I guess she's goin' down to her aunt Sylvy's--Sylvy Crane as +was. She married Richard Alger a while ago, after she'd been goin' +with him over twenty year. He's fixed up the old Crane place. It got +dreadful run down, an' Sylvy she actually set out for the poor-house, +an' Richard he stopped Jonathan Leavitt, he was carryin' of her over +there, an' he brought her home, an' married her right off. That +brought him to the point. Sylvy lives on the old road; we can drive +round that way when we go home, an' I'll show you the place." + +When they presently drove down the green length of the old road, the +visiting cousin spied interestedly at Sylvia's house and Sylvia's own +delicate profile frilled about with lace, drooping like the raceme of +some white flower in one of the windows. + +"That's her at the window," whispered the Pembroke woman, "an' +there's Richard out there in the bean-poles." Just then Richard +peered out at them from the green ranks of the beans at the sound of +their wheels, and the Pembroke woman nodded, with a cough. + +They drove slowly out of the old road into the main-travelled one, +and presently passed the old Thayer house. A woman's figure fled +hurriedly up the yard into the house as they approached. There was a +curious shrinking look about her as she fled, her very clothes, her +muslin skirts, her light barege shawl, her green bonnet, seemed to +slant away before the eyes of the two women who were watching her. + +The Pembroke woman leaned close to her cousin's ear, and whispered +with a sharp hiss of breath. The cousin started and colored red all +over her matronly face and neck. She stared with a furtive shamed air +at poor Rebecca hastening into her house. The door closed after her +with a quick slam. + +It was always to Rebecca, years beyond her transgression, admitted +ostensibly to her old standing in the village, as if an odor of +disgrace and isolation still clung to her, shaken out from her every +motion from the very folds of her garments. It came in her own +nostrils wherever she went, like a miserable emanation of her own +personality. She always shrank back lest others noticed it, and she +always would. She particularly shunned strangers. The sight of a +strange woman clothed about with utter respectability and strictest +virtue intimidated her beyond her power of self-control, for she +always wondered if she had been told about her, and realized that, if +she had, her old disgrace had assumed in this new mind a hideous +freshness. + +After the door had slammed behind Rebecca the two women drove home, +and the guest was presently feasted on company-fare for supper, and +all these strange tragedies and histories to which she had listened +had less of a savor in her memory, than the fine green tea and the +sweet cake on her tongue. The hostess, too, did not have them in mind +any longer; she pressed the plum-cake and hot biscuits and honey on +her cousin, in lieu of gossip, for entertainment. The stories were +old to her, except as she found a new listener to them, and they had +never had any vital interest for her. They had simply made her +imagination twang pleasantly, and now they could hardly stir the old +vibrations. + +It seemed sometimes as if their hard story must finally grow old, and +lose its bitter savor to Charlotte and Barney themselves. Sometimes +Charlotte's mother looked at her inquiringly and said to herself, "I +don't believe she ever thinks about it now." She told Cephas so, and +the old man nodded. "She's a fool if she does," he returned, gruffly. + +Cephas had never told anybody how he had gone once to Barney Thayer's +door, and there stood long and delivered himself of a strange +harangue, wherein the penitence and desire for peace had been thinly +veiled by a half-wild and eccentric philosophy; but the gist of which +had been the humble craving for pardon of an old man, and his +beseeching that his daughter's lover, separated from her by his own +fault, should forget it and come back to her. + +"I haven't got anything to say about it," Barney had replied, and the +old man had seemed to experience a sudden shock and rebound, as from +the unexpected face of a rock in his path. + +However, he still hoped that Barney would relent and come. The next +Sunday evening he had himself laid the parlor fire all ready for +lighting, and hinted that Charlotte should change her dress. When +nobody came he looked more crestfallen than his daughter; she +suspected, although he never knew it. + +Charlotte had never learned any trade, but she had a reputation for +great natural skill with her needle. Gradually, as she grew older, +she settled into the patient single-woman position as assister at +feasts, instead of participator. When a village girl of a younger +generation than herself was to be married, she was in great demand +for the preparation of the bridal outfit and the finest needle-work. +She would go day after day to the house of the bride-elect, and sew +from early morning until late night upon the elaborate quilts, the +dainty linen, and the fine new wedding-gowns. + +She bore herself always with a steady cheerfulness; nobody dreamed +that this preparing others for the happiness which she herself had +lost was any trial to her. Nobody dreamed that every stitch which she +set in wedding-garments took painfully in a piece of her own heart, +and that not from envy. Her faithful needle, as she sewed, seemed to +keep her old wounds open like a harrow, but she never shrank. She saw +the sweet, foolish smiles and blushes of happy girls whose very wits +were half astray under the dazzle of love; she felt them half tremble +under her hands as she fitted the bridal-gowns to their white +shoulders, as if under the touch of their lovers. + +They walked before her and met her like doppelgaengers, wearing the +self-same old joy of her own face, but she looked at them +unswervingly. It is harder to look at the likeness of one's joy than +at one's old sorrow, for the one was dearer. If Charlotte's task +whereby she earned her few shillings had been the consoling and +strengthening of poor forsaken, jilted girls, instead of the arraying +of brides, it would have been a happier and an easier one. + +But she sat sewing fine, even stitches by the light of the evening +candle, hearing the soft murmur of voices from the best rooms, where +the fond couples sat, smiling like a soldier over her work. She +pinned on bridal veils and flowers, and nobody knew that her own face +instead of the bride's seemed to smile mockingly at her through the +veil. + +She was much happier, although she would have sternly denied it to +herself, when she was watching with the sick and putting her +wonderful needle-work into shrouds, for it was in request for that +also. + +Except for an increase in staidness and dignity, and a certain +decorous change in her garments, Charlotte Barnard did not seem to +grow old at all. Her girlish bloom never faded under her sober +bonnet, although ten years had gone by since her own marriage had +been broken off. + +Barney used to watch furtively Charlotte going past. He knew quite +well when she was helping such and such a girl get ready to be +married. He saw her going home, a swift shadowy figure, after dark, +with her few poor shillings in her pocket. That she should go out to +work filled him with a fierce resentment. With a childish and +masculine disregard for all except bare actualities, he could not see +why she need to, why she could not let him help her. He knew that +Cephas Barnard's income was very meagre, that Charlotte needed her +little earnings for the barest necessaries; but why could she not let +him give them to her? + +Barney was laying up money. He had made his will, whereby he left +everything to Charlotte, and to her children after her if she +married. He worked very hard. In summer he tilled his great farm, in +winter he cut wood. + +The winter of the tenth year after his quarrel with Charlotte was a +very severe one--full of snow-storms and fierce winds, and bitterly +cold. All winter long the swamps were frozen up, and men could get +into them to cut wood. Barney went day after day and cut the wood in +a great swamp a mile behind his house. He stood from morning until +night hewing down the trees, which had gotten their lusty growth from +the graves of their own kind. Their roots were sunken deep among and +twined about the very bones of their fathers which helped make up the +rich frozen soil of the great swamp. The crusty snow was three feet +deep; the tall blackberry vines were hooped with snow, set fast at +either end like snares: it was hard work making one's way through +them. The snow was over the heads of those dried weeds which did not +blow away in the autumn, but stayed on their stalks with that +persistency of life that outlives death; but all the sturdy bushes, +which were almost trees, the swamp-pinks and the wild-roses, waxed +gigantic, lost their own outlines, and stretched out farther under +their loads of snow. + +Barney hewed wood in the midst of this white tangle of trees and +bushes and vines, which were like a wild, dumb multitude of +death-things pressing ever against him, trying to crowd him away. +When he hit them as he passed, they swung back in his face with a +semblance of life. If a squirrel chattered and leaped between some +white boughs, he started as if some dead thing had come to life, for +it seemed like the voice and motion of death rather than of life. + +Half a mile away at the right other wood-cutters were at work. When +the wind was the right way he could now and then hear the strokes of +their axes and a shout. Often as he worked alone, swinging his axe +steadily with his breath in a white cloud before his face, he amused +himself miserably--as one might with a bitter sweetmeat--with his old +dreams. + +He had no dreams in the present; they all belonged to the past, and +he dreamed them over as one sings over old songs. Sometimes it seemed +quite possible that they still belonged to his life, and might still +come true. + +Then he would hear a hoarse shout through the still air from the +other side of the swamp, and he would know suddenly that Charlotte +would never wait in his home yonder, while he worked, and welcome him +home at night. + +The other wood-cutters had families. They had to pass his lot on +their way out to the open road. Barney would either retreat farther +among the snowy thickets, or else work with such fury that he could +seem not to see them as they filed past. + +Often he did not go home at noon, and ate nothing from morn until +night. He cut wood many days that winter when the other men thought +the weather too severe and sat huddled over their fires in their +homes, shoving their chairs this and that way at their wives' +commands, or else formed chewing and gossiping rings within the +glowing radius of the red-hot store stove. + +"See Barney Thayer goin' cross lots with his axe as I come by," one +said to another, rolling the tobacco well back into his grizzled +cheek. + +"Works as if he was possessed," was the reply, in a +half-inarticulate, gruff murmur. + +"Well, he can if he wants to," said still another. "I ain't goin' to +work out-doors in any such weather as this for nobody, not if I know +it, an' I've got a wife an' eight children, an' he ain't got nobody." +And the man cast defiant eyes at the great store-windows, dim with +thick blue sheaves of frost. + +On a day like that Barney seemed to be hewing asunder not only the +sturdy fibres of oak and hemlock, but the terrible sinews of frost +and winter, and many a tree seemed to rear itself over him +threatening stiffly like an old man of death. Only by fierce contest, +as it were, could he keep himself alive, but he had a certain delight +in working in the swamp during those awful arctic days. The sense +that he could still fight and conquer something, were it only the +simple destructive force of nature, aroused in him new self-respect. + +Through snow-storms Barney plunged forth to the swamp, and worked all +day in the thick white slant of the storm, with the snow heaping +itself upon his bowed shoulders. + +People prophesied that he would kill himself; but he kept on day +after day, and had not even a cold until February. Then there came a +south rain and a thaw, and Barney went to the swamp and worked two +days knee-deep in melting snow. Then there was a morning when he +awoke as if on a bed of sharp knives, and lay alone all day and all +that night, and all the next day and that night, not being able to +stir without making the knives cut into his vitals. + +Barney lay there all that time, and his soul became fairly bound into +passiveness with awful fetters of fiery bone and muscle; sometimes he +groaned, but nobody heard him. The last night he felt as if his whole +physical nature was knitting about him and stifling him with awful +coils of pain. The tears rolled over his cheeks. He prayed with +hoarse gasps, and he could not tell if anybody heard him. A dim light +from a window in the Barnard house on the hill lay into the kitchen +opposite his bedroom door. He thought of Charlotte, as if he had been +a child and she his mother. The maternal and protecting element in +her love was all that appealed to him then, and all that he missed or +wanted. "Charlotte, Charlotte," he mumbled to himself with his +parched, quivering lips. + +At noon the next day Cephas Barnard came home from the store; he had +been down to buy some molasses. When he entered his kitchen he set +the jug down on the table with a hard clap, then stood still in his +wet boots. + +Sarah and Charlotte were getting dinner, both standing over the +stove. Sarah glanced at Cephas furtively, then at Charlotte; Cephas +never stirred. A pool of water collected around his boots, his brows +bent moodily under his cap. + +"Why don't you set down, Cephas, an' take off your boots?" Sarah +ventured at length, timidly. + +"Folks are fools," grunted Cephas. + +"I dunno what you mean, Cephas." + +Cephas got the boot-jack out of the corner, sat down, and began +jerking off the wet boots with sympathetic screws of his face. + +Sarah stood with a wooden spoon uplifted, eying him anxiously. +Charlotte went into the pantry. + +"There 'ain't anythin' happened, has there, Cephas?" said Sarah, +presently. + +Cephas pulled off the second boot, and sat holding his blue yarn +stocking-feet well up from the wet floor. "There ain't no need of +havin' the rheumatiz, accordin' to my way of thinkin'," said he. + +"Who's got the rheumatiz, Cephas?" + +"If folks lived right they wouldn't have it." + +"You 'ain't got it, have you, Cephas?" + +"I 'ain't never had a tech of it in my life except once, an' then +'twas due to my not drinkin' enough." + +"Not drinkin' enough?" + +"Yes, I didn't drink enough water. Folks with rheumatiz had ought to +drink all the water they can swaller. They had ought to drink more'n +they eat." + +"I dunno what you mean, Cephas." + +"It stands to reason. I've worked it all out in my mind. Rheumatiz +comes on in wet weather, because there's too much water an' damp +'round. Now, if there's too much water outside, you can kind of even +it up by takin' more water inside. The reason for any sickness +is--the balance ain't right. The weight gets shifted, an' folks begin +to topple, then they're sick. If it goes clean over, they die. The +balance has got to be kept even if you want to be well. When the +swamps are fillin' up with water, an' there's too much moisture in +the outside air, an' too much pressure of it on your bones an' +joints, if you swallow enough water inside it keeps things even. If +Barney Thayer had drunk a gallon of water a day, he might have worked +in the wet swamp till doomsday an' he wouldn't have got the +rheumatiz." + +"Has Barney Thayer got the rheumatiz, Cephas?" + +Charlotte's pale face appeared in the pantry door. + +"Yes, he has got it bad. 'Ain't stirred out of his bed since night +before last; been all alone; nobody knew it till William Berry went +in this forenoon. Guess he'd died there if he'd been left much +longer." + +"Who's with him now?" asked Charlotte, in a quick, strained voice. + +"The Ray boy is sittin' with him, whilst William is gone to the North +Village to see if he can get somebody to come. There's a widow woman +over there that goes out nussin', Silas said, an' they hope they can +get her. The doctor says he's got to have somebody." + +"Rebecca can't do anything, of course," said Sarah, meditatively; "he +'ain't got any of his own folks to come, poor feller." + +Charlotte crossed the kitchen floor with a resolute air. + +"What are you goin' to do, Charlotte?" her mother asked in a +trembling voice. + +Charlotte turned around and faced her father and mother. "I shouldn't +think you'd ask me," said she. + +"You ain't--goin'--over--?" + +"Of course I am going over there. Do you suppose I am going to let +him lie there and suffer all alone, with nobody to take care of him?" + +"There's--the woman--comin'." + +"She can't come. I know who the woman is. They tried to get her when +Squire Payne's sister died last week. Aunt Sylvy told me about it. +She was engaged 'way ahead." + +"Oh, Charlotte! I'm afraid you hadn't ought to go," her mother said, +half crying. + +"I've got to go, mother," Charlotte said, quietly. She opened the +door. + +"You come back here!" Cephas called after her in a great voice. + +Charlotte turned around. "I am going, father," said she. + +"You ain't goin' a step." + +"Yes, I am." + +"Oh, Charlotte! I'll go over," sobbed her mother. + +"You haven't gone a step out-doors for a month with your own lame +knee. I am the one to go, and I am going." + +"You ain't goin' a step." + +"Oh, Charlotte! I'm afraid you hadn't better," wailed Sarah. + +Charlotte stood before them both. "Look here, father and mother," +said she. "I've never gone against your wishes in my life, but now +I'm going to. It's my duty to. I was going to marry him once." + +"You didn't marry him," said Cephas. + +"I was willing to marry him, and that amounts to the same thing for +any woman," said Charlotte. "It is just as much my duty to go to him +when he's sick; I am going. There's no use talking, I am going." + +"You needn't come home again, then," said her father. + +"Oh, Cephas!" Sarah cried out. "Charlotte, don't go against your +father's wishes! Charlotte!" + +But Charlotte shut the door and hurried up-stairs to her room. Her +mother followed her, trembling. Cephas sat still, dangling his +stocking-feet clear of the floor. He had an ugly look on his face. +Presently he heard the two women coming down-stairs, and his wife's +sobbing, pleading voice; then he heard the parlor door shut; +Charlotte had gone through the house, and out the front door. + +Sarah came in, sniffing piteously. "Oh, Cephas! don't you be hard on +the poor child; she felt as if she had got to go," she said, +chokingly. + +Cephas got up, went padding softly and cautiously in his +stocking-feet across the floor to the sink, and took a long drink +with loud gulps out of the gourd in the water-pail. + +"I don't want to have no more talk about it; I've said my say," said +he, with a hard breath, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. + +Charlotte, with a little bundle under her arm, hastened down the +hill. When she reached Barney's house she went around and knocked at +the side door. As she went into the yard she could see dimly a +white-capped woman's head in a south window of the Thayer house +farther down the road, and she knew that Rebecca's nurse was watching +her. Rebecca's second baby was a week old, so she could do nothing +for her brother. + +Charlotte knocked softly and waited. She heard a loud clamping step +across the floor inside, and a whistle. A boy opened the door and +stood staring at her, half abashed, half impudently important, his +mouth still puckered with the whistle. + +"Is there anybody here but you, Ezra?" asked Charlotte. + +The boy shook his head. + +"I have come to take care of Mr. Thayer now," said Charlotte. + +She entered, and Ezra Ray stood aside, rolling his eyes after her as +she went through the kitchen. He whistled again half involuntarily, a +sudden jocular pipe on the brink of motion, like a bird. Charlotte +turned and shook her head at him, and he stopped short. He sat down +on a chair near the door, and dangled his feet irresolutely. + +Charlotte went into the bedroom where Barney lay, a rigidly twisted, +groaning heap under a mass of bed-clothing, which Ezra Ray had kept +over him with energy. She bent over him. "I've come to take care of +you, Barney," said she. His eyes, half dazed in his burning face, +looked up at her with scarcely any surprise. + +[Illustration: "'I've come to take care of you'"] + +Charlotte laid back some of the bedclothes whose weight was a +torture, and straightened the others. She worked about the house +noiselessly and swiftly. She was skilful in the care of the sick; she +had had considerable experience. Soon everything was clean and in +order; there was a pleasant smell of steeping herbs through the +house. Charlotte had set an old remedy of her mother's steeping over +the fire--a harmless old-wives' decoction, with which to supplement +the doctor's remedies, and give new courage to the patient's mind. + +Barney came to think that this remedy which Charlotte prepared was of +more efficacy than any which the doctor mixed in his gallipots. That +is, when he could think at all, and his mind and soul was able to +reassert itself over his body. He had a hard illness, and after he +was out of bed he could only sit bent miserably over in a +quilt-covered rocking-chair beside the fire. He could not straighten +himself up without agonizing pain. People thought that he never +would, and he thought so himself. His grandfather, his mother's +father, had been in a similar condition for years before his death. +People called that to mind, and so did Barney. "He's goin' to be the +way his grandfather Emmons was," the men said in the store. Barney +could dimly remember that old figure bent over almost on all-fours +like a dog; its wretched, grizzled face turned towards the earth with +a brooding sternness of contemplation. He wondered miserably where +his grandfather's old cane was, when he should be strong enough in +his pain-locked muscles to leave his rocking-chair and crawl about in +the spring sunshine. It used to be in the garret of the old house. He +thought that he would ask Rebecca or William to look for it some day. +He hesitated to speak about it. He half dreaded to think that the +time was coming when he would be strong enough to move about, for +then he was afraid Charlotte would leave him and go home. He had been +afraid that she would when he left his bed. He had a childishly +guilty feeling that he had perhaps stayed there a little longer than +was necessary on that account. One Sunday the doctor had said quite +decisively to Charlotte, "It won't hurt him any to be got up a little +while to-morrow. It will be better for him. You can get William to +come in and help." Charlotte had come back from the door and reported +to Barney, and he had turned his face away with a quivering sigh. + +"Why, what is the matter? Don't you want to be got up?" asked +Charlotte. + +"Yes," said Barney, miserably. + +"What is the matter?" Charlotte said, bending over him. "Don't you +feel well enough?" + +Barney gave her a pitiful, shamed look like a child. "You'll go, +then," he half sobbed. + +Charlotte turned away quickly. "I shall not go as long as you need +me, Barney," she said, with a patient dignity. + +Barney did not dream against what odds Charlotte had stayed with him. +Her mother had come repeatedly, and expostulated with her out in the +entry when she went away. + +"It ain't fit for you to stay here, as if you was married to him, +when you ain't, and ain't ever goin' to be, as near as I can make +out," she said. "William can get that woman over to the North Village +now, or I can come, or your aunt Hannah would come for a while, till +Rebecca gets well enough to see to him a little. She was sayin' +yesterday that it wa'n't fit for you to stay here." + +"I'm here, and I'm going to stay here till he's better than he is +now," said Charlotte. + +"Folks will talk." + +"I can't help it if they do. I'm doing what I think is right." + +"It ain't fit for an unmarried woman like you to be takin' care of +him," said her mother, and a sudden blush flamed over her old face. + +Charlotte did not blush at all. "William comes in every day," she +said, simply. + +"I think he could get along a while now with what William does an' +what we could cook an' bring in," pleaded her mother. "I'd come over +every day an' set a while; I'd jest as lieves as not. If you'd only +come home, Charlotte. Your father didn't mean anythin' when he said +you shouldn't. He asked me jest this mornin' when you was comin'." + +"I ain't coming till he's well enough so he don't need me," said +Charlotte. "There's no use talking, mother. I must go back now; he'll +wonder what we're talking about;" and she shut the door gently upon +her mother, still talking. + +Her aunt Hannah came, and her aunt Sylvia, quaking with gentle fears. +She even had to listen to remonstrances from William Berry, honestly +grateful as he was for her care of his brother-in-law. + +"I ain't quite sure that it's right for you to stay here, Charlotte," +he said, looking away from her uncomfortably. "Rebecca says--'Hadn't +you better let me go for that woman again?'" + +"I think I had better stay for the present," Charlotte replied. + +"Of course--I know you do better for him--than anybody else could, +but--" + +"How is Rebecca?" asked Charlotte. + +"She is getting along pretty well, but it's slow. She's kind of +worried about you, you know. She's had considerable herself to bear. +It's hard to have folks--" William stopped short, his face burning. + +"I am not afraid, if I know I am doing what is right," said +Charlotte. "You tell Rebecca I am coming in to see her as soon as I +can get a chance." + +One contingency had never occurred to Barney in his helpless clinging +to Charlotte. He had never once dreamed that people might talk +disparagingly about her in consequence. He had, partly from his +isolated life, partly from natural bent, a curious innocence and +ignorance in his conception of human estimates of conduct. He had not +the same vantage-points with many other people, and indeed in many +cases seemed to hold the identical ones which he had chosen when a +child and first observed anything. + +If now and then he overheard a word of expostulation, he never +interpreted it rightly. He thought that people considered it wrong +for Charlotte to do so much for him, and weary herself, when he had +treated her so badly. And he agreed with them. + +He thought that he should never stand upright again. He went always +before his own mental vision bent over like his grandfather, his face +inclined ever downward towards his miserable future. + +Still, as he sat after William had gotten him up in the morning, +bowed over pitifully in his chair, there was at times a strange look +in his eyes as he watched Charlotte moving about, which seemed +somehow to give the lie to his bent back. Often Charlotte would start +as she met this look, and think involuntarily that he was quite +straight; then she would come to her old vision with a shock, and see +him sitting there as he was. + +At last there came a day when the minister and one of the deacons of +the church called and asked to see Charlotte privately. Barney looked +at them, startled and quite white. They sat with him quite a long +while, when, after many coercive glances between the deacon and the +minister, the latter had finally arisen and made the request, in a +trembling, embarrassed voice. + +Charlotte led them at once into the unfinished front parlor, with its +boarded-up windows. Barney heard her open the front door to give them +light and air. He sat still and waited, breathing hard. A terrible +dread and curiosity came over him. It seemed as if his soul +overreached his body into that other room. Without overhearing a +word, suddenly a knowledge quite foreign to his own imagination +seemed to come to him. + +Presently he heard the front door shut, then Charlotte came in alone. +She was very pale, but she had a sweet, exalted look as her eyes met +Barney's. + +"Have they gone?" he asked, hoarsely. + +Charlotte nodded. + +"What--did they want?" + +"Never mind," said Charlotte. + +"I want to know." + +"It is nothing for you to worry about." + +"I know," said Barney. + +"You didn't hear anything?" Charlotte cried out in a startled voice. + +"No, I didn't hear, but I know. The church--don't--think you ought +to--stay here. They are--going to--take it--up. I never--thought of +that, Charlotte. I never thought of that." + +"Don't you worry anything about it." Charlotte had never touched him, +except to minister to his illness, since she had been there. Now she +went close, and smoothed his hair with her tender hands. "Don't you +worry," she said again. + +Barney looked up in her face. "Charlotte." + +"What is it?" + +"I--want you--to go--home." + +Charlotte started. "I shall not go home as long as you need me," she +said. "You need not think I mind what they say." + +"I--want you to go home." + +"Barney!" + +"I mean what--I say. I--want you to go--now." + +"Not now?" + +"Yes, now." + +Charlotte drew back; her lips wore a white line. She went out into +the front south room, where she had slept. She did not come back. +Barney listened until he heard the front door shut after her. Then he +waited fifteen minutes, with his eyes upon the clock. Then he got up +out of his chair. He moved his body as if it were some piece of +machinery outside himself, as if his will were full of dominant +muscles. He got his hat off the peg, where it had hung for weeks; he +went out of the house and out of the yard. + +His sister Rebecca was moving feebly up the road with her little baby +in her arms. She was taking her first walk out in the spring +sunshine. The nurse had gone away the week before. Her face was clear +and pale. All her sweet color was gone, but her eyes were radiant, +and she held up her head in the old way. This new love was lifting +her above her old memories. + +She stared wonderingly over the baby's little downy head at her +brother. "It can't be Barney," she said out loud to herself. She +stood still in the road, staring after him with parted lips. The baby +wailed softly, and she hushed it mechanically, her great, happy, +startled eyes fixed upon her brother. + +Barnabas went on up the hill to Charlotte Barnard's. The spring was +advancing. All the trees were full of that green nebula of life which +comes before the blossom. Little wings, bearing birds and songs, cut +the air. A bluebird shone on a glistening fence-rail, like a jewel on +a turned hand. Over across the fields red oxen were moving down +plough-ridges, the green grass was springing, the air was full of +that strange fragrance which is more than fragrance, since it strikes +the thoughts, which comes in the spring alone, being the very odor +thrown off by the growing motion of life and the resurrection. + +Barney Thayer went slowly up the hill with a curious gait and strange +gestures, as if his own angel were wrestling with himself, casting +him off with strong motions as of wings. + +He fought, as it were, his way step by step. He reached the top of +the hill, and went into the yard of the Barnard house. Sarah Barnard +saw him coming, and shrieked out, "There's Barney, there's Barney +Thayer comin'! He's walkin', he's walkin' straight as anybody!" + +When Barney reached the door, they all stood there--Cephas and Sarah +and Charlotte. Barney stood before them all with that noble bearing +which comes from humility itself when it has fairly triumphed. + +Charlotte came forward, and he put his arm around her. Then he looked +over her head at her father. "I've come back," said he. + +"Come in," said Cephas. + +And Barney entered the house with his old sweetheart and his old +self. + +THE END + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pembroke, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEMBROKE *** + +***** This file should be named 17428.txt or 17428.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/4/2/17428/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/17428.zip b/17428.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d21d27e --- /dev/null +++ b/17428.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a56a413 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #17428 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17428) |
