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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wind Before the Dawn, by Dell H. Munger
+
+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: The Wind Before the Dawn
+
+Author: Dell H. Munger
+
+Release Date: October 22, 2008 [EBook #26992]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIND BEFORE THE DAWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WIND BEFORE THE DAWN
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE GIRL ALSO KNELT AT HIS SIDE RENDERING SUCH
+ASSISTANCE AS WAS IN HER POWER"]
+
+
+
+
+THE WIND BEFORE THE DAWN
+
+BY DELL H. MUNGER
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+Publishers--New York
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1912, by
+Doubleday, Page & Company
+
+All rights reserved, including that of
+translation into foreign languages,
+including the Scandinavian
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+      I  Castles in Spain                              3
+
+     II  Brushing up to go to Topeka                  43
+
+    III  Reforms not easy to Discuss                  74
+
+     IV  A cultured man                               92
+
+      V  Reaching hungry hands toward a symbol       115
+
+     VI  "Didn't take 'em long"                      131
+
+    VII  Erasing her blackboard                      150
+
+   VIII  Cyclones                                    174
+
+     IX  "Against her instincts, against her better
+         judgment, against her will"                 195
+
+      X  Philosophy of Elizabeth's life voiced       210
+
+     XI  "Wives, submit yourselves unto your
+         husbands, as unto the Lord"                 224
+
+    XII  "Pore little woman"                         266
+
+   XIII  "Ennobled by the reflected story of
+         another's goodness and love"                291
+
+    XIV  Mortgages of soul                           317
+
+     XV  Hugh Noland                                 353
+
+    XVI  Revivifying fires                           356
+
+   XVII  Adjusting domestic to social ideals         372
+
+  XVIII  The child of her body                       399
+
+    XIX  "Her wages, food and clothing she
+         must accept"                                419
+
+     XX  The cream-jars of her life                  426
+
+    XXI  Bound to the stake                          458
+
+   XXII  "There are some things we have
+         to settle for ourselves"                    467
+
+  XXIII  "At any cost"                               496
+
+   XXIV  Facing consequences                         506
+
+    XXV  "The weight of a dollaree and out
+         of debt don't forget that"                  534
+
+   XXVI  "Was--was my papa here then?"               540
+
+  XXVII  To do over, and to do better,
+         was the opportunity offered                 548
+
+ XXVIII  "Till death do you part" considered         562
+
+
+
+
+THE WIND BEFORE THE DAWN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CASTLES IN SPAIN
+
+
+The unclouded sun of a burning August day had driven bird and beast to
+shelter wherever a bit of shade could be found. The Kansas prairie
+afforded little refuge from sun or wind. The long stretches of low rolling
+hills were mostly covered with short grass, now dry from a protracted
+season of drought. Occasionally a group of stunted cottonwood trees
+surrounded an equally stunted looking hut, or dugout, but the blazing
+sunshine had browned all to a monotonous tone in keeping with the
+monotonous life it represented. The only corn to be seen was of the
+variety called sod-corn, which, unwashed by rain for a full month now, had
+failed to mature, such stalks as had tasselled at all being as barren as
+the rest because the tender silks had dried too rapidly and could furnish
+no fertilizing moisture to the pollen which sifted down from the scanty
+bloom above.
+
+The sun's rays beat down upon the head of a fourteen-year-old girl who
+rode slowly around a herd of cattle, the members of which lay in the
+unavailing shade of the rosin weeds or browsed drowsily on the short
+grass. The day had been long and hard. The child knew that it was not
+later than two o'clock, having counted the hours eagerly since early
+morning, and having eaten her bit of cornbread and bacon full two hours
+before. She stopped her horse for the fortieth time, however, to get the
+angle of her shadow on the ground and to confirm her calculations. The
+sigh she gave as she again started on her round was not of relief, but of
+resignation. It was necessary to keep on the move or she was likely to
+fall asleep in her saddle, and then the cattle would escape to the nearby
+fields, and there would be a neighbourhood altercation over the matter,
+whether the fields held crops of value or not, farmers being jealous of
+their territorial rights, and ready to resent intrusion upon them.
+
+Another horseback rider was moving across the prairie toward her, and the
+girl smiled when she saw him and stopped to watch his calico pony lope
+unevenly across the grass-covered slope. The pony was prone to drop into a
+rough trot at short intervals, and at such times was urged to renewed
+efforts by a dig of its rider's heels in the under regions of its stunted
+body. In order to get his heels in contact with his mount, the lanky boy
+was obliged to elevate his knees slightly, and when it was over his feet
+dropped languidly and his heavy plow-shoes dangled loosely, with several
+inches of bare ankle in evidence before the faded overalls concealed
+further stretches of the hairy legs.
+
+"Howdie, Lizzie!" he said with a pleasant smile as he drew his pony up
+beside her. "I've got something to tell you. We've sold out, an' goin'
+right off. Th' other folks moved in last night. They was goin' through
+with a wagon an' stopped to eat. They found out that pap wanted to sell
+an' go back to Minnesoty, an' took th' land quick. I've come to say
+good-bye."
+
+It had been so exciting that he had tumbled his news all out at once,
+although he was a quiet boy and slow of speech.
+
+"Oh, Luther! Are you really going away?" The girl exclaimed in dismay.
+
+"Yass," the boy replied, falling back unconsciously into Swedish
+pronunciation. He had begun his announcement with pleased animation, but
+now that it was out, and she was sorry, the going did not seem so
+pleasing. "I wisht I wasn't!" he added with quick dejection.
+
+"I should think you'd be glad. I'd be glad, if I was going too."
+
+The boy looked surprised and asked with some curiosity, "What do you want
+to go for? I thought you liked Kansas."
+
+"Put your hand on your horse's neck," she commanded, leaning forward and
+setting the example.
+
+The boy did as she told him, but drew his hand back suddenly.
+
+"Gosh!" he exclaimed. "Don't their hair get hot in this sun!"
+
+"Well, I'm just as hot as that all over," she replied emphatically, "and I
+want to go to a country where a body can get under a tree once in a while.
+I can't go in till five o'clock, and I forgot my jug, and I'm so thirsty I
+feel as if I'd crack like this ground," she said, pointing to the earth
+between them.
+
+"Jimminy! I'll ride back and fetch you a drink," he said, poking his heels
+into his pony's ribs so suddenly that the little beast kicked spitefully.
+
+The girl called after him to "never mind," but he was off on his errand.
+It was a good mile to her home, but the boy knew what it meant to forget
+the water-jug on a day like this.
+
+When he returned half an hour later the sunshine had changed character and
+there was a peculiar dimming of its brilliancy.
+
+"Is it going to rain?" the girl asked as she lowered the jug to her knee.
+She wiped her lips on the skirt of the faded sunbonnet she wore and looked
+up again.
+
+"Rain!" Luther Hansen swept the horizon with the air of one who knew the
+signs, backing his horse about to see on all sides as he did so.
+
+"Th' don't seem t' be any clouds," he said in surprise. "Ain't it queer!
+Looks's if it might be some kind of eclipse," he said. "Do you
+remember--no, of course you don't--but, th' was an eclipse of th'
+sun--total, I believe they called it--when I was only about seven year
+old. All th' chickens went to roost, it got so dark, an' when th' cover
+come off they crowed's if 'twas mornin'. We had a blue hen an' she crowed
+too. Pap killed 'er. He said it was bad luck t' have a hen crowin' about
+th' place."
+
+"You all don't believe in luck, do you?" the child asked.
+
+"I don't, but pap does," the boy answered apologetically. "I cried about
+th' blue hen; she was just like a dog; she'd let you ketch 'er, an' she'd
+sing, 'co-ook, co-ook, co-ook,' to 'erself, right in your arms, an' wasn't
+afraid. She wouldn't never set though. I guess that's why pap was so ready
+with his axe."
+
+Happening to look up again, the girl gave an exclamation of surprise. "Is
+it snow?" she asked.
+
+"No!"
+
+They sat with their faces turned skyward, studying the upper air intently.
+The sun was completely obscured now and the rapidly moving mass, not
+unlike snow indeed, was being driven straight toward the north. Whatever
+it was, it was driving fiercely ahead, as if impelled by a strong wind,
+though there was not a breath of air stirring below. Soon small objects
+began to detach themselves from the mass, so that the eye could
+distinguish separate particles, which looked not unlike scraps of silver
+driven with terrific force from the tail end of some gigantic machine. One
+of these scraps struck the girl on the cheek and she put her hand up
+quickly to feel the spot. While examining the place she received a similar
+blow on the forehead and another on the back of her hand. Drawing her
+bonnet down tight over her face for protection, she shaded her eyes and
+again looked up. The whole moving cloud had lowered to a distinguishable
+distance.
+
+"Why, they're all grasshoppers!" she exclaimed; and indeed so true was the
+observation and so rapidly were the grasshoppers settling that the boy and
+girl were obliged to turn their backs and shield their faces from the
+storm.
+
+The cattle also, annoyed by the myriads of insects settling upon them,
+began to move about restlessly and presently to mill slowly around,
+threshing with their heads from side to side while they whipped their
+flanks with their tails.
+
+"I didn't know they came like this!" the girl said, as Luther's pony
+sidled over toward her.
+
+"What'd you say?" the boy demanded, leaning forward to catch her reply.
+
+"I said I didn't know they came like this," the girl shouted, raising her
+voice to make herself heard above the rasping noise of many wings. "Father
+read out of the _Prairie Farmer_ last week that they was hatching out in
+the south."
+
+The two drifted apart and circled about the herd again. The cattle were
+growing more restless and began to move determinedly away from the
+oncoming swarm. To keep them in the centre of the section, and away from
+the cornfields, the girl whipped her horse into a gallop.
+
+Without paying the slightest attention to either her voice or her whip,
+half blinded in fact by the cutting wings of the grasshoppers, the
+irritated cattle began to move faster and, before either boy or girl knew
+what was happening, were in full trot toward the north. Seeing that the
+matter was becoming serious, Luther lent all the aid of which he was
+capable and circled about the herd, shouting with all his strength, but
+the cattle, contending against countless numbers of smaller things and
+unable to look steadily in any direction because of the little wings which
+cut like the blades of many saws, stumbled blindly against his horse if he
+got in their way, and, shifting around him, went on.
+
+The girl was beside herself with trouble and anxiety. Lashing her horse
+one minute, and the nearest cow the next, she raged up and down in front
+of the herd, bending all her energies toward deflecting her charges from
+their course, but the struggle was useless.
+
+Seeing that they could do nothing, Luther caught her horse by the bit as
+she passed him and shouted explanations in her ear.
+
+"Let 'em go, Lizzie! You can't stop 'em! I'll have t' come with you! We'll
+just follow 'em up!"
+
+"But they're going to get into that field right off if we don't get them
+turned!" the girl cried in distress, pulling down her long scoop-like
+bonnet and holding it together to keep the grasshoppers out of her face
+while they talked.
+
+The cattle now broke into a run. There was nothing to do but follow, as
+Luther had advised. But the exasperated beasts were not looking for fodder
+and paid no attention to the corn. They were not out on a picnicking
+expedition; they were escaping from this tormenting swarm of insects which
+settled on itching back and horns and tail, settled anywhere that a
+sufficiently broad surface presented itself. Having started to run, they
+ran on and on and on. The boy and girl followed, their horses stumbling
+blindly over the ridges between which the corn was growing. The grayish
+brown sod, through which the matted white roots of the grass showed
+plainly, lay in fine lines down the long field, their irregular edges
+causing horses and cattle to go down on their knees frequently as they
+ran. But though the cattle sometimes fell, they were as quickly up and
+pushed blindly ahead, neither knowing nor caring where they were going,
+their only instinct being to get away.
+
+Not a breath of air was in motion except such as was stirred by the wings
+of the grasshoppers or was blown from the hot nostrils of the harassed
+cattle. They passed through the cornfield, over a stubblefield beyond,
+through a slough, another stubblefield, and on to the open prairie of
+another section of "Railroad land." The boy and girl made no further
+attempt to guide them. A cow, with the tickling feet of half a dozen of
+these devils of torment on the end of a bare, wet nose, was in no state of
+mind to be argued with, and the tossing horns, threshing about to free the
+head from the pests, were to be taken into sober account. All they could
+do was to let the maddened beasts take their own course.
+
+For an hour, helpless to prevent the stampede, desiring nothing now but to
+keep the cattle in sight, the weary, sunbaked children trudged along in
+the rear of the herd, following through fields cut and uncut, over the
+short grass of the hills or the long bluestem of the hollows, their horses
+sweating profusely, their own faces too parched to emit moisture,
+conscious only of the business of following the panting herd and of
+avoiding the pitfalls under their horses' feet.
+
+At last the cattle came to a walk. The heat of the day and the unusual
+exertion had told upon them. Occasionally a tongue lolled from the mouth
+of some wearied beast, but it was not permitted even that respite for
+long; the grasshoppers respected no part of the bovine anatomy, and with
+an angry snort and an annoyed toss of the head the tongue would be
+withdrawn.
+
+The perspiring cattle seemed so fatigued that the despairing children
+thought at last that they might be turned toward home, but though whips
+and voices were used to the utmost the nettled beasts could not be made to
+face the stinging devils which settled thicker and ever thicker about
+them. They came down to a walk, but they walked doggedly toward the north.
+At last the sun's rays began to peep through. The air soon cleared, and
+the scorched and burning children began to wish for even a cloud of
+grasshoppers to protect them from the heat. Wherever the light fell it
+disclosed moving masses of locusts which covered the entire face of the
+landscape. The teeming cloud of insects was a pest equal to that of the
+lice of Egypt. They overflowed the Kansas prairies like the lava from
+Mount Vesuvius, burying vegetation and causing every living thing to flee
+from their path.
+
+At last the storm spent itself. The sun came out clear, and as hot as
+molten brass. The cattle could hold out no longer. The swarms which flew
+up in front of their moving feet were as unbearable as any that had come
+from above. The exhausted beasts gave up and permitted themselves to be
+headed toward home.
+
+"I began to think they wouldn't stop till they had reached the State
+line," the girl said with a relieved sigh, when they were safely started
+down the first road they came upon after turning south again.
+
+Luther made no reply. He had stopped the pony and was watching the inroads
+of numberless scissor-like mouths on a stub of corn near the roadside. The
+tassel was gone, the edges of the leaves were eaten away, and lines of
+hungry insects hung to the centre rib of each blade, gnawing and cutting
+at every inch of the stem.
+
+"Th' won't be a cornstalk left standin' by night," Luther observed as the
+girl rode up to see what it was that attracted his attention. "Crackie!
+but I'm glad pap's sold out. It'd be no shoes for me this winter if we
+didn't get away," he added, spitefully brushing a grasshopper from the end
+of his nose and rubbing the injured member.
+
+The girl's face fell at the mention of hard times. Times were always hard
+in the Farnshaw home, but she could never get accustomed to them, and each
+new phase of the trouble was a blow. The sensitive child already carried a
+load of financial worry which was tugging at every pleasure her young life
+craved.
+
+"Won't we have any corn at all?" she cried in dismay.
+
+"I don't know," Luther answered dubiously. "It'll be starvin' times about
+here. You better get your folks t' sell out and go East too," he said,
+without looking up.
+
+The child's fear of financial disaster was eased by the prospect of "goin'
+East." The "East" was the fairyland of her dreams, the childhood's home of
+her father, who was a good story-teller when he was not irritated, the
+Mecca and Medina of all the pilgrimages of all their little world. To go
+East was to be a travelled person, to attain distinction, just the next
+best thing in fact to being made President of the United States. To go
+East was to live near the timber, where one could wander for hours, days,
+ages, in the cool freshness of its shady paths. The sunburned child, with
+her jug hanging by a strap from the saddle horn, had a swift, rapturous
+vision of alluring, mossy banks, canopied by rustling leaves, before she
+was called back to the stern hills of her native Kansas and the sterner
+necessity of forcing a hundred head of maddened cattle to keep within the
+confines of an illy defined road.
+
+By the time they had ridden ahead and crowded the cattle down to the right
+of way again, the child's natural good sense and business instincts had
+combined to temporarily shatter the dream.
+
+"Nobody 'd buy us out if there ain't nothing to feed the cattle," she
+said, watching the boy's face eagerly in the hope that he would reassure
+her.
+
+When he did not speak, she added, with discouraged conviction, "Pa
+wouldn't sell out anyhow; ma's been trying to get him to for a year."
+
+"He'll have to. You won't be able t' stay if there's nothin' t' feed," the
+lad said with emphasis, and then added with a giggle, "I bet th' Cranes is
+mad for bein' in such a hurry t' get in. They paid pap th' money last
+night, an' made 'im promise t' give possession 'fore t'morrow night. Three
+hundred dollars! Th' old woman took it out of 'er stockin'."
+
+"Three hundred dollars!" Lizzie Farnshaw repeated, whirling her horse
+about suddenly at the mention of a sum of money which ran into hundreds.
+She looked at the boy enviously. She was but fourteen, and did not realize
+that more than three hundred acres of fertile land had been exchanged for
+the sum. Her spirits rose as they turned to follow the cattle again.
+Perhaps, as Luther had said, they would have to sell out also. The dream
+of going East absorbed her once more. As she dreamed, however, a shrewd
+eye was kept on the cattle. As nearly as possible she lived up to the
+trust reposed in her. Quick to serve, sensitive, honest, dependable as she
+was, these cattle constituted the point of contact between the developing
+girl and her developing philosophy of life. Duty pointed sternly to the
+undesired task, and duty was writ large on the pages of Lizzie Farnshaw's
+monotonous life. Her hands and face had browned thickly at its bidding,
+but though, as she had remarked a couple of hours before, she should crack
+like the sunbaked earth beneath her feet, she would not fail in her
+obligation to keep the cattle out of other men's fields, and her father
+out of the primitive courts where damages could be assessed. Poverty she
+had always known, but now they were threatened with a new and more
+dreadful form of it than any hitherto encountered, a fact of which courts
+took no cognizance. Hope and fear alternated in her heart as she rode
+along, but for the most part the young life in her clung to the idea of
+the Eastern trip. Hope springs eternal in the child heart. Perhaps after
+all they would have to leave Kansas, as Luther had said. If only----. In
+spite of the arguments of good sense she clung to the idea. She was glad
+Luther was there. In her simple way she had told her plans, her hopes, and
+her fears to Luther's willing ears ever since she had known him: she did
+so now. A Maggie Tulliver in her own family, Luther was the one
+compensating feature of her life. Luther not only understood but was
+interested. His tallow-candle face and faded hair were those of the--in
+that country--much despised Swede, but the child saw the gentle spirit
+shining out of his kindly blue eyes. Luther was her oracle, and she quoted
+his words so often at home that it was a family joke.
+
+Luther Hansen was the only preacher to whom Lizzie Farnshaw ever listened.
+Her Sundays had been spent on the prairies from choice. Mrs. Farnshaw
+mourned over what she considered her daughter's unregenerate condition,
+but Mr. Farnshaw was quite willing that the child should herd the cattle
+if she preferred it to spending an hour at "meetin'." Luther, who also
+until this year had herded his father's cattle and who usually spent the
+long days with the girl, had quaint ways of looking at religious questions
+which was a never-ending source of delight and interest to her. Their
+problems at home as well as at school were subjects of common discussion.
+He had been the beginning and the end of her social life. Now she took him
+into her dream of going away, and discussed her ideas of the best way of
+disposing of the stock by sale or gift, the sort of home she would have
+with her grandparents, and pictured, with a vivid imagination, the woods
+and streams she had heard her father describe. If she only could go! They
+stopped at every field to watch the voracious insects, which were eating
+every green thing upon which they happened to alight. A turnip patch on
+the corner of the Farnshaw place which had been straggling, but green,
+when the cattle had passed through it that afternoon, had not a leaf to
+show as they returned. The ground was dotted all over the patch with small
+holes where the hungry swarms, not satisfied with the tops, had followed
+the stems down into the earth, eating out the bulbs to the very taproots.
+
+They drove the cattle across to the usual feeding place, but the
+grasshoppers flew up in continuous clouds before every moving object, and
+it was impossible for them to eat.
+
+"Why don't you take them in and shut them up?" Luther asked when he saw
+that the herd was so restless that the child could not manage them alone.
+
+"Pa wouldn't let me," she sighed, and continued to ride around her
+charges.
+
+Luther had intended going home long before this, but he knew that Lizzie
+could not control the restless cattle, and so he stayed with her, rather
+glad of the excuse to do so. Josiah Farnshaw's temper was a matter of
+neighbourhood knowledge. A word of explanation to his father, Luther knew,
+would be all that he would need to make the fact of his absence
+commendable. He was glad of any excuse which would leave him with Lizzie
+Farnshaw for an extra hour, but he was to find that hour disappointing,
+for the cattle were restless and kept them both in constant motion.
+
+When at last the time came to corral the stock a new calamity was
+discovered. The cattle wandered into the edge of a field of flax as they
+neared the barn. Luther, following them, dropped from the back of his pony
+and stopped to examine the grain. The girl was excitedly getting the
+straying animals crowded on toward the pens and it was not till she had
+the gate shut fast on them that she could take time to join him.
+
+"What is it?" she asked as she rode up.
+
+The lanky boy, who was really a man, measured the field slowly with his
+eye, calculating the damage before he answered slowly:
+
+"Kicked it out o' th' pods flyin' through. Must 'a' been twenty acres.
+What made you let it get s' ripe for? It ought t' been cut three days ago,
+anyhow."
+
+The girl was out of her saddle in an instant. She walked into the body of
+the field somewhat, her face quivering pitifully as she examined the grain
+for herself. It was only too true! The beautiful brown seeds carpeted the
+earth around the roots of the flax, but no amount of harvesting would ever
+gather so much as a handful. The crop was a total loss.
+
+"Poor ma!" she cried, when convinced beyond a doubt of the empty bolls.
+With the eyes of the prematurely old, she saw the extent of the ruin, and
+she knew what would be its effect upon the mother who seldom knew joy.
+
+The loss of the turnips had seemed bad enough, but while watching the
+green things about her disappear it had not occurred to the child that the
+grasshoppers would eat the dry and, as Luther had said, overripe stems of
+the flax. Still less had it occurred to her that the insignificant wings
+and feet of such small things could do damage to an entire field by merely
+flying through it.
+
+That flax was of paramount importance in the family calculations just now.
+In her considerations of the prospective move to the East, the price of
+this flax had figured largely. Family discussions had centred about that
+field for weeks. It was the one definite starting point in the bickerings
+about their weak and indefinite plans for the future. The loss of every
+other family asset could not have undone the child's faith in the ultimate
+good of things so overwhelmingly. She choked back a sob as she mounted her
+horse again.
+
+"Poor ma!" she repeated. "Pa told her she could have the money from the
+flax to go and see grandma on. You know grandma's old, and they think she
+can't live through the winter. That's one reason why I was so glad when I
+thought we were going to have to go East to live. She don't hardly know
+her own children any more, I hope ma don't know about the flax; She'll be
+sure to have one of her spells, and she's just got over one. Ain't it
+awful?"
+
+Luther feared she was going to cry, and, man fashion, prepared to flee.
+
+"I've got t' go, Lizzie," he said, and awkwardly held out his hand.
+
+All thought of the flax disappeared from the girl's mind.
+
+"Oh, Luther!" she exclaimed in new distress, "won't I ever see you
+again?"
+
+The thought was so overwhelming that her tears came now from quite a
+different cause, and the frank eyes threatened to overflow as she stood
+clasping his bony hand in hers insistently. "What will I do without you?"
+she sobbed.
+
+The unexpected question and the unexpected tears had an uncomfortable
+effect on the boy. He grew suddenly embarrassed and drew his hand away.
+
+Some indefinable thing about the action made her conscious that there was
+a change in his feelings. It checked her rising emotions and made her
+curious. What was he embarrassed about? The girl stole a look at him,
+which left him still more disturbed and uneasy. It was an intangible thing
+upon which she could not remark and yet could not fail to recognize.
+Luther had never been awkward in her presence before. Their association
+had been of the most offhand and informal character. As a boy of fifteen
+he had carried her, a girl of eleven, over many a snowbank their first
+winter of school in the Prairie Home school district. They had herded
+cattle together, waded the shallow ponds and hunted for mussel shells, and
+until this year they had seen each other daily. This year Luther had taken
+a man's place in the fields and the girl had seen him at rare intervals.
+She was not conscious of the change which this year of dawning adolescence
+had brought to them both. Luther had developed a growing need of a razor
+on his thin, yellow face, while she, four years younger, had also matured.
+The outgrown calico dress she wore was now halfway to her knees, its
+sleeves exposed some inches of sunburned wrists, and the scanty waist
+disclosed a rapidly rounding form. Young womanhood was upon her, unknown
+to her, and but now discovered by Luther Hansen. For the first time Luther
+felt the hesitancy of a youth in the presence of a maid.
+
+"I shall miss you _so!_" the girl said, looking at him, puzzled by the
+indefinable something in his manner which was a new element in their
+communications.
+
+Her frank curiosity put the boy utterly to rout. The blood surged to his
+pale face and pounded in the veins under his ears, half choking him; it
+cut short the leave-taking and left the child bewildered and half hurt.
+
+She watched the calico pony lope away in a cloud of scurrying grasshoppers
+and wondered in a child-like way what could have happened. This abrupt and
+confused departure increased the loneliness she felt. He was her one real
+friend, and her tears came again as she turned toward the house.
+
+There was little time given the child to indulge her feelings, or to
+speculate upon a friend's confusion or adieus, for a sharp voice summoned
+her to the house and fresh duties.
+
+"When I call you I want you to step spry," was the greeting the child
+received from the stooped figure putting the potatoes over the fire to
+fry, as she entered the door.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw had her head tied up in a white cloth; "the spell" had
+arrived. It was no time to tell of the loss of the flax, and Luther's
+going was not mentioned, because Mrs. Farnshaw shared the public contempt
+for his nationality and had failed to get her daughter's confidence in
+that quarter.
+
+"Here, set this table for me; I'm clear done out. Did you ever hear of
+such a crazy thing as all them hoppers comin' down like bees? Your pa's
+gone over to Hansen's t' see what he thinks. Looks 's if we'd be harder up
+'n ever, an' I thought I'd done 'bout all th' savin' a woman could do
+a'ready. I'm goin' t' get right off t' mother's soon's ever we can sell
+that flax. If I don't, we'll be havin' t' use th' money for feed."
+
+Her daughter made no reply. It was no time, when her mother was having one
+of her periodical sick-headaches, to let it be known that there was no
+flax to sell. That flax had been one long series of troublesome worries,
+to which the total loss was a fittingly tragic end. The restless
+grasshoppers outside were forgotten.
+
+Some weeks before, Mr. Farnshaw had given a grudging consent to the use of
+the proceeds from the flax crop for a trip' to his wife's old home while
+her mother yet lived. Josiah Farnshaw's temper was an uncertain quantity.
+Had Mrs. Farnshaw been wise she would have dropped all reference to the
+flax when the promise was obtained. But Mrs. Farnshaw had to talk; it was
+her fate. She had hovered about the field, she had centred her faculties
+on the considerations of harvesting, and prices. She laboriously and
+obviously collected eggs, skimped the family on its supply of butter, and
+had counted her chickens to see how many she could sacrifice for the
+purchase of "a decent bit of black."
+
+As she sewed upon the premature emblems of her coming woe, she had
+discussed the desirability of threshing out of the shock instead of
+waiting for the stack to go through the sweating process; she talked,
+talked, talked, with an endless clacking, till her husband fled from her
+presence or cut her short with an oath. He wished he had never planted
+flax, he wished he had never heard of it, he wished--he hardly knew what
+he did wish, but he was sick of flax.
+
+Crops of all sorts were shortened by continued drought; corn would be an
+utter failure. He had given notes for a new harvester and other machinery
+while the prospects for crops were good, and the knowledge that implement
+dealers would collect those notes whether the yield of grain was equal to
+their demands or not tightened the set lines about his naturally stern
+mouth and irritated a temper never good at the best. Daily he became more
+obstinate and unapproachable.
+
+Josiah Farnshaw was not only obstinate, he was surly. Nothing could induce
+him to show any interest in the flax field after he found that his wife
+was looking out for its advantages. If she suggested that they go to
+examine it, he was instantly busy. If she asked when he intended to begin
+the cutting, he was elaborately indifferent and replied, "When its ripe;
+there's plenty of time." When at last the field showed a decided tendency
+to brown, he helped a neighbour instead of beginning on Friday, as his
+wife urged. Saturday he found something wrong with the binder. By Saturday
+night he began to see that the grain was ripening fast. He was warned and
+was ready to actually start the machine early the next day. His grizzled
+face concealed the grin it harboured at the idea of running the harvester
+on Sunday; he knew Mrs. Farnshaw's scruples. The flax had ripened, almost
+overnight, because of the extreme heat. Torn with anxiety and the certain
+knowledge that haste was necessary, Mrs. Farnshaw quoted scripture and
+hesitated. Her husband, who had delayed in all possible ways up to this
+time, and had refused to listen to her advice, became suddenly anxious to
+do "that cuttin'." Now that his wife hesitated from principle, he was
+intensely anxious to move contrary to her scruples.
+
+The knowledge that her husband was enjoying her indecision, and that he
+was grimly thinking that her religious scruples would not stand the test,
+made her even less able to decide a question than usual.
+
+The game was getting exciting and he let her argue, urging with pretended
+indifference that, "That flax's dead ripe now an' if it shatters out on
+th' ground you kin blame yourself," adding with grim humour, "There's
+nothin' like th' sound of money t' bring folks t' their senses. It's good
+as a pinch of pepper under th' nose of a bulldog."
+
+There was everything to point that way, but a woman and a mother must
+vindicate her claims to religion, and Mrs. Farnshaw refused to give her
+consent to the Sunday harvesting.
+
+Torn between her desire to save every grain of the precious crop and the
+fear of a hell that burned with fire and brimstone, her husband's scorn
+did what neither had been able to do. Mrs. Farnshaw forbade the machine
+being taken to the field, and then cried herself into a headache.
+
+"Do as you please; it's your lookout, but I tell you It'll be a sick
+lookin' field by to-morrow mornin'," was Mr. Farnshaw's final shot.
+
+When her decision was finally reached, Mr. Farnshaw became alarmed. He
+knew he had let the flax go too long uncut. He had half believed in the
+reasons he had given for delay up to this point, but suddenly realizing
+that the overripe grain would suffer great loss if left another day in the
+hot sun, he reasoned with real earnestness that it must be cut if it were
+to be saved. His wife, thoroughly convinced that he was still tormenting
+her and that he would never let her hear the last of the matter if she
+gave up, closed her lips down firmly and declined to allow it to be done.
+
+All this the child had heard argued out that morning. It was a cruel
+position in which to place one of her years. Part of it she had
+comprehended, part had escaped her, but she was sensitive to the
+atmosphere of suffering. The details of past elements in the tragedy she
+could not be expected to understand. The stunted, barren life of her
+mother was but half guessed. What child could know of the heartsick
+longing for affection and a but little understood freedom, the daily
+coercion, the refusal of her husband to speak kindly or to meet her eye
+with a smile?
+
+The sorely puzzled and bewildered woman thought affection was withheld
+from her because of something done or undone, and strove blindly to
+achieve it by acts, not knowing that acts have little, if anything, to do
+with affection. She strove daily to win love, not knowing that love is a
+thing outside the power to win or bestow. Had she had understanding she
+would have spared the child with whom she worked; instead, she talked on
+with her dreary whine, morbidly seeking a sympathy of which she did not
+know how to avail herself when it was so plainly hers.
+
+With a lump in her throat of which the mother did not even suspect, Lizzie
+Farnshaw set the table, cut the bread, brought the water, "put up the
+chairs," and, when her father came from the stable, slipped out to where
+he was washing for supper and whispered about the flax, asking him not to
+mention it while her mother was suffering with the headache.
+
+The news was not news to Josiah Farnshaw, who had examined the field
+anxiously as he had returned from Hansen's. Sobered by the loss, he was
+less disagreeable than usual and only pushed his daughter out of his way
+as he reached around her for the sun-cracked bar of yellow laundry soap
+with which to wash his hands. Thankful to have the unpleasant but
+important matter, as she thought, safely attended to, the child returned
+to help lift the meal to the bare kitchen table.
+
+The illy lighted room, with its one small window, was dim and dismal in
+the dusk of evening. In spite of the added heat it would produce, the
+child decided that a light was necessary.
+
+After the kerosene lamp was lighted, she turned to see if her mother
+needed her help again. The crooked blaze ran up unexpectedly and blacked
+the cracked chimney on one side with a soot so thick that one half of the
+room was soon in semi-darkness. Mrs. Farnshaw took it fretfully in hand.
+
+"Why can't you trim it when you see it runnin' up that way?" she demanded
+querulously, poking at the lopsided and deeply charred wick with a sliver
+obtained from the side of the wood-box.
+
+Her ministrations were not very successful, however, for when the chimney
+was replaced it ran up on the other side, and in the end her daughter had
+to prosecute a search for the scissors and cut the wick properly. As they
+worked over the ill-smelling light, Albert, the youngest of the three
+children of the household, burst into the kitchen crying excitedly:
+
+"Ma, did you know that th' flax was all whipped out of th' pods on to the
+ground?"
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw, who had received the lamp from her daughter's hand, let it
+fall on the edge of an upturned plate in her excitement, and then, seeing
+what she had done, fumbled blindly in a terrified effort to right it
+before it should go over. The cracked chimney fell from its moorings, and,
+striking a teacup, spattered broken glass over the table like hailstones.
+The entire family scrambled to save the lamp itself from a similar fate
+and were plunged into darkness by the girl blowing out its flame to save
+an explosion.
+
+The excitement of the moment served, temporarily, to lessen the blow of
+Albert's announcement, but by the time "a dip" had been constructed the
+full weight of the disaster had fallen upon the defeated and despairing
+woman, and to protect her from the taunts of the head of the house, Lizzie
+induced her to go to bed, where she sobbed throughout the night.
+
+The next day was hot and windy. The grasshoppers, unable to fly in a
+strong wind, clung to the weeds, to the dry grass, the stripped branches
+of the half-grown trees, to the cattle and hogs upon which they happened
+to alight, and even to people themselves, unless brushed off.
+
+Lizzie took the cattle out to the usual grazing ground, but there was no
+Luther to help, and the grasshoppers made the lives of the restless
+animals so unendurable that in real alarm, lest they run away again, she
+took them home, preferring her father's wrath to the experience of getting
+them back if they should get beyond her control. Fortune favoured her.
+Unable to endure the demonstrations of grief at home, her father had taken
+himself to a distant neighbour's to discuss the "plague of locusts."
+
+The wind blew a gale throughout the day, sweeping remorselessly over the
+unobstructed hillsides. Unable to fly, the helpless insects hugged the
+earth while the gale tore over the Kansas prairies with a fearful
+velocity. With feminine instinct, every female grasshopper burrowed into
+the dry earth, making a hole which would receive almost her entire body
+back of her wings and legs. The spring sod, half rotted and loosened from
+the grass roots, furnished the best lodgment. In each hole, as deep down
+as her body could reach, her pouch of eggs was deposited.
+
+No attempt was made to cover the hole, and by night the sod presented a
+honeycombed appearance never before seen by the oldest settlers. Having
+performed nature's functions, and provided for the propagation of their
+kind, the lately fecund grasshoppers were hungry when the act was over.
+Not a spear of anything green was left. The travel-worn horde had devoured
+everything in sight the day before. Evening closed in upon a restless and
+excited swarm of starving insects, but they were unable to fly at night or
+while the wind was blowing.
+
+It was necessary to find food; hunger's pangs may not be suffered long by
+creatures whose active life is numbered in weeks. The high wind had cooled
+the air and made the locusts stupid and sleepy, but when the next morning
+the wind had fallen, and the sun had warmed their bodies, as fast as they
+were able all were on the wing, headed for the north. The air was calm,
+and by ten o'clock they were away in swarms, leaving ruin and desolation
+to show that they had sojourned in the land.
+
+The situation was truly desperate. Cattle, horses, and hogs were without
+food of any sort. Many families were new to the country and had depended
+upon sod-corn for the winter's supply of provender for both man and beast.
+Mr. Farnshaw, being one of the older residents, had grown a crop of wheat,
+so that his bread was assured; but the herd of cattle which had been his
+delight was now a terrorizing burden. Cattle and horses could not live on
+wheat, and there was no hay because of the dry weather. What was to be
+done?
+
+That night the neighbours held a consultation at the Farnshaw house, where
+grizzled and despairing men discussed the advisability of "goin' East,"
+and ways and means of getting there. The verdict was strongly in favour of
+going.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw brightened. Perhaps, after all, she would get away from
+these wind-blown prairies, where no shade offered its protecting presence
+against a sun which took life and spirits out of the pluckiest of them.
+Even more childish than the daughter at her side, Mrs. Farnshaw clapped
+her hands with joy as she leaned forward expectantly to address her new
+neighbour.
+
+"If I can only get t' my mother's, I won't care for nothin' after that. My
+heart goes out t' Mrs. Crane. Think of all that good money goin' t' them
+Swedes! You just better pocket your loss an' get away while you can."
+
+"You're goin' too, then, Farnshaw?" the new neighbour asked.
+
+All eyes turned upon Mr. Farnshaw, who had not as yet expressed himself on
+either side. These neighbours had asked to assemble in his house because
+his kitchen afforded more room than any other house in the vicinity, the
+kitchen being a large room with no beds in it to take up floor space.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw realized as soon as the question was asked that her joy had
+been premature.
+
+Josiah Farnshaw sat with his chair tilted back on two legs against the
+wall, snapping the blade of his pocket knife back and forth as he
+considered what he was going to say in reply. He felt all eyes turned in
+his direction and quite enjoyed the suspense. Mr. Farnshaw was an artist
+in calculating the suspense of others. He gave them plenty of time to get
+their perspective before he replied. At last he shut the blade of the
+knife down ostentatiously, replaced it in his trousers' pocket, and
+announced slowly:
+
+"Well, sir, as for me and mine, I think we'll stay right here."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw gave a despairing, "Oh!" and covered her face with her hands
+to strangle back her tears. Her one hope had been that poverty would
+accomplish what the flax had failed to do.
+
+"Why--I thought you said there'd be nothin' t' feed an' you'd have t',"
+said a man whose shaggy whiskers had not seen a comb that year. "What'll
+you do? You can't see things starve!"
+
+"I thought you was strong for goin'. What'll you do with all your stock?"
+another said, and all bent forward and waited for his answer as if he
+could find a way out of the tangle for them.
+
+"That's just it." Again he paused, enjoying the suspense that his silence
+created. Mr. Farnshaw was not popular, but he had more stock than all his
+simple neighbours put together and was conscious that money, or its
+equivalent, had weight. "That's just it," he repeated to add emphasis to
+his opinion. "What is a man to do? You folks that have nothin' but your
+teams an' wagons can load th' family in an' get away. How'd I feel 'bout
+th' time that I got t' th' Missouri River if I knowed all them hogs an'
+cattle was layin' around here too weak t' get up cause they hadn't been
+fed?"
+
+He dropped his argument into the midst of them and then sat back and
+enjoyed its effect. He had intended to go till ten minutes previous. The
+argument sounded good to him now, however. It put him on a higher basis
+with himself, in spite of the fact that it had only popped into his head
+while he was clicking his knife blade. He conceived a new liking for
+himself. "No, sir," he continued; "I'll stay by it."
+
+"I don't see as your stayin' helps anything if you ain't got nothin' t'
+feed," was the reiterated objection.
+
+"Well," Mr. Farnshaw replied, careful not to look in his wife's direction,
+"I was for goin' at first, but I've listened t' you folks an' I've come t'
+th' conclusion that you ain't goin' t' better yourselves any. If you go
+East, You'll have t' come back here in th' spring, or live on day's work
+there--an'--an' I'll take my chances right here. It's a long lane that has
+no turn. Grasshoppers can't stay always."
+
+"What'll you do if all them eggs hatch out an' eat th' crops in th'
+spring?" the new neighbour asked, determined to look on all sides of the
+question before he decided to give up his recently purchased farm, and
+glad of this opportunity to get the opinions of his fellow sufferers on
+that particular phase of his unexpected calamity. "What'll you do with all
+that bunch of cattle, anyhow?" he added.
+
+"I'll share what I've got with th' stuff, an' if part of it dies I'll drag
+it out on th' hill t' rot; th' rest I'll stay by," was the stubborn reply.
+"As for them eggs a-hatchin', they'll be good ones if they can stand a
+Kansas winter; they'll do a blamed sight better'n any eggs Mrs. Farnshaw
+gethers in. They'd better go south."
+
+This raised a laugh. The grim humour of anything, that could get away,
+spending a winter in Kansas, appealed to these grizzly pioneers, who
+struggled with the question of fuel in a country where there was little
+natural timber, and coal must be paid for before it was burned. But all
+their arguments would not turn him from his course.
+
+"Your wife's turrible set on goin', Farnshaw," one of the men said to him
+as they went to the stable for their horses when the meeting broke up.
+
+"Women's always wantin' things," was the indifferent reply. "Say, you've
+got a stack of wheat straw. What'll you take for it?"
+
+In the house the sympathetic daughter helped her mother prepare for bed.
+
+"I thought sure to-night we'd get to go," the child said. "If you could
+get back East you might get to stay; and then you wouldn't have to cry so
+much," she added as she picked up the abandoned clothing her mother had
+left lying on the floor.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw, who was turning the same matter over disconsolately as she
+sat on the side of the bed, shook her head with the bitter certainty that
+her fate would pursue her, and replied hopelessly:
+
+"It wouldn't make no difference, I guess, Lizzie. He'd be there, an' it'd
+be just the same."
+
+And the girl, who was naturally reflective, carried with her to the loft
+overhead that night a new idea: that it was not the place, but the manner
+in which lives were lived, which mattered.
+
+The preparations for the coming of that winter were the strangest ever
+witnessed in a farming community. Never had any man known fuel to be so
+scarce. Cornstalks, which were usually staple articles for fuel in that
+country, had been eaten almost to the very ground, but the stubs were
+gathered, the dirt shaken from them, and they were then carted to the
+house. Rosin weeds were collected and piled in heaps. The dried dung of
+cattle, scattered over the grazing lands, and called "buffalo chips," was
+stored in long ricks, also, and used sparingly, for even this simple fuel
+was so scarce as to necessitate care in its use.
+
+To keep out the driving winds, the houses were banked with sods and earth
+halfway to the roofs. With so little material for keeping warm, and that
+of the lightest variety, it was necessary to make the living quarters
+impervious to the never-ceasing winds which tore at the thin walls of the
+unprotected houses that sheltered such folk as were hardy enough to
+remain.
+
+It was impossible to build sheds for all the stock, so the hogs were
+allowed to swarm under the feet of the horses tied in the straw stable,
+and many and sad were the accidents to the smaller animals. It was soon
+clear that not many of them could be carried through till the spring.
+Seeing that they lost weight rapidly, as many as were full grown were
+killed and their flabby carcasses salted away to be eaten.
+
+Fortunately, the grasshoppers had not arrived in Kansas till after the
+small grain had been nearly all cut, so that there was considerable oat
+and wheat straw in the country. Mr. Farnshaw bargained for every straw
+stack he could find, but straw was a poor substitute for the corn and hay
+to which the cattle were accustomed, and as the weeks lengthened into
+months, and winter closed in, the unprotected cattle grew thinner and ever
+thinner. Corn was quoted in the markets at a dollar a bushel, but in fact
+was not to be had at any price. Iowa had had a drought, and Illinois was
+the nearest base of supplies, and as it was generally known that there was
+no money west of the Missouri River, no grain was sent to Kansas.
+
+Finding that the horses did not thrive on the straw alone, and knowing
+that wheat would very quickly kill them, Mr. Farnshaw put away a
+sufficient amount of oats for seed and then carefully portioned out the
+rest to be fed to four of his best broodmares, hoping to be able to put in
+the spring crops with them as well as to save the coming colts of two. The
+rest, he decided, must take their chances on getting through the winter
+alive.
+
+The family food consisted largely of bread and the slabs of thin meat,
+with a sort of coffee made from browned rye. As a "company dish" there was
+a scanty supply of sweet corn, dried before the drought had cut the crop
+short. There were no eggs, because the chickens had sickened from eating
+grasshoppers in the fall and nearly all had died. The few hens which
+remained clung to the limbs of the half-grown cottonwood trees throughout
+the long winter nights, and found barely food enough during the day to
+keep life in their fuzzy bodies, which could not even furnish the oil
+necessary to lay their feathers smooth, much less foster the growth of
+eggs.
+
+Josiah Farnshaw secretly questioned the propriety of having remained in
+that desolate territory when, as spring approached, the shrunken cows died
+one after another in giving birth to the calves which had matured in their
+slowly perishing bodies, but he made no sign or admission of the fact.
+
+It was a season of gloom such as our frontier states had never known, and
+to add to the general depression there was a growing conviction that the
+hatching of the grasshoppers' eggs when warm weather came would complete
+the famine.
+
+To support his action in refusing to go East, Josiah Farnshaw asserted
+stubbornly that the frost of their hard winter would certainly kill the
+larvae of the locusts. So persistent was his attitude that at short
+intervals throughout the entire winter rumours that "th' hopper eggs is
+dead 's doornails" stirred the community and set its members to making
+tests in a vain endeavour to establish their truth. Pieces of earth,
+honeycombed with the tiny nests, would be placed near the fire and kept at
+as regular a degree of warmth as possible, the condition of the eggs would
+be noted carefully, and in a short time the hopes of the anxious pioneers
+would be dashed to the ground by wriggling little insects climbing
+cheerfully out of their winter quarters and hopping about in a vain search
+for something green to live upon. Often, in sheer desperation, the
+harassed settler would sweep the hatching brood into the fire, remarking
+as he did so, "Burnin's too good for such pests," and always fear gripped
+the heart. If the crops in spring were eaten, other homes must be sought,
+and all knew that the weakened horses were unfit for travel. In fact, no
+team in that entire country was fit to travel far or fast, except the two
+which Mr. Farnshaw groomed and fed so carefully for the sake of the spring
+work and the much desired colts.
+
+The depression and worries of the Farnshaw home increased the spirit of
+contention and distrust of its guardians. The husband daily grew surlier
+and more unpleasant and the wife more lachrymose and subject to "spells."
+The children learned to avoid the presence of either parent as much as
+possible, and to look outside the home for the joy childhood demands. The
+chores were heavy and difficult, but could at least be performed in the
+open light of God's great out-of-doors, where the imagination could people
+the world with pleasant features and pleasant prospects.
+
+The cattle were driven daily to the ponds, half a mile away, for water,
+and if the ice was thick and the axe-handle benumbing to the mittened
+hands as they chopped the holes for the tottering animals to drink from,
+there was the prospect of a slide on the uncut portions of the ice later;
+and as the plucky youngsters followed the cattle home they dreamed of
+skates to be obtained in the dim future, and tried to run fast enough to
+keep warm. The blessing of childhood is that it cannot be cheated of its
+visions, and the blood of adolescence was coursing riotously through the
+veins of the daughter of the Farnshaw house. If her hands were cold when
+she returned to the barnyard, after watering the cattle, she beat them
+about her shoulders or held them against the shrunken flank of some dumb
+animal, or blew her breath through the fingers of her knitted mittens; but
+her thoughts were of other things.
+
+It is an old saying that "God helps them who help themselves," and in the
+case of Lizzie Farnshaw the axiom became a living truth. While the rest of
+her family suffered and magnified their sufferings, she, by a vivid
+imagination, placed herself in the path of fortune and obtained the thing
+she demanded. The simple country schoolhouse that year, dreary and
+cheerless enough to the pert Miss who had come out from Topeka to teach
+there, and incidentally to collect twenty-five dollars a month from the
+school board, was to be the scene of the initial change in Lizzie
+Farnshaw's life.
+
+Verily, God helps them who help themselves, and Lizzie Farnshaw proved the
+old saw by laying hold of and absorbing every new idea and mannerism of
+which the new teacher was arrogantly possessed--absorbed them, but
+transmuted them, winnowing out the coarse, the sarcastic, the unkind, and
+making of what was left a substance of finer fibre.
+
+The number of children in the Prairie Home school that year was limited to
+five, the rest having departed for the indefinable land known as the
+"East." Three of these children came from the Farnshaw home and the other
+two from the new neighbours, the Cranes, on the Hansen place.
+
+Sadie Crane hated the new teacher with all the might that her pinched
+little twelve-year-old body could bring to bear. She saw only the
+snippish, opinionated, young peacock, and the self-assurance which came
+from the empty-headed ability to tie a ribbon well. She was so occupied
+with resenting the young teacher's feeling of vast superiority that she
+failed to understand, as did the Farnshaw child, that along with all that
+vainglorious assumption went a real knowledge of some things with which it
+was valuable to become acquainted.
+
+To the spiteful Crane child the schoolma'am was "stuck-up," while to the
+imaginative daughter of the Farnshaw house she was a bird of paradise, and
+though Lizzie was conscious that the teacher's voice was harsh, and her
+air affected, the child reached out like a drowning man toward this symbol
+of the life she coveted. To her the new teacher was a gift from heaven
+itself.
+
+This young girl from Topeka brought into activity every faculty the
+sensitive, ambitious child possessed.
+
+Lizzie Farnshaw laid hold, with a strong hand, upon every blessing which
+came in her way. She knew that the foppish young thing at the teacher's
+desk was "stuck-up," but Lizzie was willing that she should be whatever
+she chose, so long as it was possible to live near her, to study her, and
+to become like the best that was in her.
+
+The teacher's matter-of-fact assumption that no self-respecting person
+failed to obtain a high-school education was a good thing for the country
+girl, however overdrawn it might be. Lizzie Farnshaw listened and built
+air-castles. To this one child, out of that entire community, the idea
+appealed alluringly. But for her castles in Spain she must have burst with
+her unexpressed desires. To add fuel to the fires of her fancy, Mr.
+Farnshaw also fell under the fascinations of the school teacher and
+boasted in the bosom of his family that "Lizzie's just as smart as that
+Topeka girl any day," and when his daughter began to talk hopefully about
+teaching school it appealed to the father's pride, and he encouraged her
+dreams. He had been the leading man in the community since coming to
+Kansas because of the number of cattle he had been able to accumulate. A
+small legacy had aided in that accumulation, and it appealed to his pride
+to have his daughter's intellectual ambitions adding to the general family
+importance. Pride is an important factor in the lives of all, but to the
+children of the farm it is an ambrosia, which once sipped is never
+forgotten and to obtain which many strange sacrifices will be made. Mr.
+Farnshaw usually regarded a request from his children as a thing to be
+denied promptly, and always as a matter for suspicion. Yet here he was,
+considering soberly, yea pleasurably, a move involving money, at a time
+when money was more than usually scarce. His assent was even of such a
+nature as to deceive both himself and the child into thinking that it was
+being done for her benefit!
+
+The young girl received a new impetus toward improvement. The family began
+to regard her as a member set apart, as one from whom special things were
+to be expected. From being just comfortably at the head of her classes,
+she became more ambitious, reached over into new territory, and induced
+the teacher to create new classes for her benefit. The subjects required
+for the examination of teachers were added to those usually carried. There
+was a real purpose in her efforts now, and the smoky kerosene lamp burned
+stubbornly till late hours.
+
+The new teacher not only listened to recitations but appealed to the
+artistic in the newly developing woman. She rolled her hair from neck to
+brow in a "French twist" and set on the top of it an "Alsatian bow," which
+stood like gigantic butterfly wings across her proud head. The long basque
+of her school dress was made after the newest pattern and had smoke-pearl
+buttons, in overlapping groups of three, set on each side of its vest
+front. The skirt of this wonderful dress was "shirred" and hung in
+graceful festoons between the rows of gatherings, and was of an entirely
+new style. Last, but not least, the teacher's feet were shod in "side
+laces," the first pair of a new kind of shoes, destined to become popular,
+which laced on the inside of the ankle instead of on the top as we have
+them now. Of all her stylish attractions this was the most absorbing.
+"Fool shoes," Sadie Crane called them, and her little black eyes twinkled
+with a consuming spite when she mentioned them, but the ambitious Farnshaw
+child, reaching out for improvement and change, coveted them, and preened
+her own feathers, and mimicked, and dreamed. She accepted the shoes just
+as she accepted the teacher's other attributes: they were better than her
+own.
+
+To be better than her own--that was the measure of Lizzie Farnshaw's
+demand. If the shoes, the clothing, the manners, the ideas, were better
+than her own they were worthy of honest consideration. The teacher's
+tongue was sharp and her criticisms ruthless, but they had elements of
+truth in them, and even when they were directed against the child herself
+they were a splendid spur. The young girl copied her manners, her gait,
+and her vocabulary. She watched her own conversation to see that she did
+not say "have went" and "those kind"; she became observant of the state of
+her finger-nails; if she had to lace her shoes with twine string, she
+blackened the string with soot from the under side of the stove lids, and
+polished her shoes from the same source.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw, broken with the cold, the privations of the long winter,
+and the growing disappointments of her domestic life, saw nothing but
+overdressing and foolishness in her daughter's new attention to the
+details of personal appearance. Burdened with her inability to furnish the
+clothes the family needed, she complained monotonously over every evidence
+of the young girl's desire to beautify herself. When the mother's
+complaints became unendurable, the father usually growled out a stern,
+"Let the child alone," but for the most part the growing girl lived a life
+apart from her family, thought along different lines, and built about the
+future a wall they could never climb, and over whose rim they would
+rarely, if ever, catch a glimpse of the world within. No life, however
+hard, could ever tame that spirit, or grind its owner into an alien groove
+after that year of imaginative castle building.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BRUSHING UP TO GO TO TOPEKA
+
+
+With the opening of spring and the coming of the young grass, the handful
+of cattle that had not died of starvation began to look healthier. A
+shipment of seed corn for planting, and even a stinted amount for feed,
+had been sent from the East in March. But for that donation even the work
+horses must have succumbed. Josiah Farnshaw had the best horses in the
+country and was suspected of having had far more help than he had really
+received. The two teams he had favoured all winter against the seeding
+season were the envy of all. Some of the old neighbours, after a winter
+spent with the wife's relatives in the East, had decided to return and
+take the chances of the grasshopper-ridden Middle West, and had come with
+horses able to drag the plow, but, worn from travel, most of them were
+practically useless.
+
+There was a lull after the small grain was in the ground. The menacing
+eggs of the grasshoppers began to hatch as the sun warmed the earth. It
+was a period of intense anxiety. So many months had been spent in
+alternate intervals of hope and fear that now, since the test was actually
+and immediately to be made, the tension was terrific. Men rose as soon as
+the first light of day appeared and went to examine the tender grain,
+without which they could not remain upon the land which had cost so dear
+in the suffering of the winter just past.
+
+A surprise was in store for them. The young insects matured rapidly. While
+they appeared in swarms, it was noticed that they disappeared immediately
+upon hatching.
+
+Kansas began to get its breath.
+
+Never was promise of crops more encouraging. There was a distinct note of
+reassurance and hopefulness in the air. What became of the grasshoppers
+nobody knew exactly, but they went almost as fast as they hatched. Some
+shook their heads and said, "Wait till hot weather."
+
+Josiah Farnshaw moved steadily ahead with his planting. He announced that
+he had faith in Kansas--had always had--he'd stand on the burning deck!
+While others hesitated, he took advantage of wind and weather to get his
+crops in the ground. He had been right all along. He did not propose "to
+be run off of the land he had homesteaded and set with trees by any durned
+little bugs he'd ever come across." It was necessary to be up and doing if
+a man was going to provide for a family.
+
+Now this assertion proved to be true, for the agent of the harvester
+company visited him and requested payment of the notes given the year
+before. The agent was gracious when the inability to pay was explained. He
+would renew the paper if it could be secured by the land. There was no
+hurry about payment, but it was necessary for the details to be finished
+up in a business-like manner. The thing looked simple enough. It was a
+just debt and Mr. Farnshaw intended to pay it. He'd as soon it was secured
+by the land as any other way. The details were soon arranged.
+
+Mr. Farnshaw agreed to meet the agent in Colebyville, the nearest town,
+the next day, and have the papers made out. After the agent was gone Mr.
+Farnshaw went to the house to inform his wife that she was to go to town
+and attach her name to the document.
+
+The storm of protest was expected, and when Mrs. Farnshaw broke out with:
+
+"Now, pa, you ain't never goin' t' mortgage th' farm, are you?" he
+answered surlily:
+
+"Yes, I be, an' I don't want no words about it neither," and walked
+determinedly out of the house, leaving his wife to cry out her fears with
+her children.
+
+"We won't have where to lay our heads, soon," she announced bitterly.
+"I've seen somethin' of th' mortgage business an' I ain't never seen any
+of 'em free from payin' interest afterward." This was no mere personal
+quarrel. Her children distinguished that. This was real, definite
+trouble.
+
+Accustomed as the child was to her mother's woes, Lizzie Farnshaw was
+moved to unusual demonstrations by the quality of the outburst of tears
+which followed the words, and said impulsively:
+
+"Never you mind, ma, I'm going to teach school in another year, and I'll
+help pay the interest; and we'll get out of debt, too, somehow."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw brightened.
+
+"I hadn't thought of that!" she said. "I'm glad you're willin' t' help
+out. I had thought maybe you'd get me one of them new nubies after you got
+some money of your own." She went into the other room to lay out the black
+dress, which death had sanctified some months before, for use on the
+morrow. The opportunity to wear the emblems of mourning turned her
+childish mind away from the object of her journey, and left her as
+unconscious as the young girl herself that the mortgage had extended from
+the land to the lives of herself and her husband, and that in that promise
+it had laid its withering hand on the future of her child as well.
+
+The promise of assistance had been lightly given; unearned money is always
+easily spent; besides, a teacher's salary seemed rolling wealth to the
+girl who had never had a whole dollar in her life. The question of paying
+the next year's interest was for the time settled. The next morning the
+healthy young mind was much more largely concerned with the appearance of
+her mother in the new black dress than with either the mourning it
+represented or the mortgage which occasioned its presence. She sensed
+dimly that a mortgage was a calamity, but her vigorous youth refused to
+concern itself for long with a disaster so far removed as the next year.
+
+But though calamity might pursue Lizzie Farnshaw on one hand, true to her
+innate nature she handled fate in so masterful a manner that even poverty
+could not cheat her youth of all its prerogatives. In order to
+sufficiently nourish the teams which must be used in seeding, Josiah
+Farnshaw had been obliged to use a part of his seed corn for feed. In
+despair at the thought of not being able to plant all the land under
+cultivation, he was overjoyed to hear that a farmer by the name of Hornby,
+who lived twenty miles or more to the south, had a new and desirable
+variety which he was trying to exchange for cows with young calves by
+their sides. A calf was selected from their diminished herd, its mother
+tied behind the wagon which held it, and Lizzie taken along to assist in
+driving. The journey, though begun in early morning, was a tedious one,
+for the cow fretted, the day was hot, and the footsore and weary child was
+worn out long before the Hornby place was reached. It was after nine
+o'clock when they did arrive, the last five miles having been made with
+the added burden of a horse which seemed not at all well. Mr. Farnshaw
+would not even go into the house to eat supper, but asked the farmer to
+see that Lizzie was put to bed at once, while he remained with the sick
+horse. The best team had been chosen for this trip, in spite of the near
+approach of foaling time for one of the mares, because the other horses
+were too reduced by lack of food to drive so far.
+
+After eating a bowl of bread and milk the tired child was taken to her
+room by Mrs. Hornby, and in spite of the ruffled curtains which adorned
+the windows and the other evidences of taste and refinement about her, she
+was soon fast asleep.
+
+The next morning at daybreak the household of Nathan Hornby was astir. The
+first object upon which Lizzie's eyes fell was Susan Hornby herself, who
+had come to call her to breakfast.
+
+"Your father took one of our horses and started right off home this
+morning. The one that was sick last night died and left a little colt. He
+said he thought he had better get the other one home at once, so he took
+ours. Come right into our room to wash and comb."
+
+Lizzie was on her feet instantly and followed her hostess into the next
+room, making love to the neat white bows of her hostess' apron-strings as
+she went. What did she care about her father's departure without her when
+she could wash her face in a white bowl whose pitcher stood beside the
+washstand, and comb her hair before a looking-glass "where you could see
+your head and your belt at the same time?" But the combing was destined to
+be a lengthy process, for before the child had pulled her comb through the
+first lock attacked she saw reflected beside her face in that mirror an
+old-fashioned, black walnut secretary _full of books_! Lizzie Farnshaw had
+never seen a dozen books in one house in her life except school books, and
+here were rows of books that didn't look like any she had ever seen. She
+took her comb and walked over to the bookcase where she could read the
+titles and comb at the same time, the spacious mirror, two whole feet in
+length, being forgotten in this much more desirable gift of fortune.
+
+Susan Hornby's eyes twinkled with delight. In the five years she had been
+in Kansas she had never been able to persuade any one to read with her.
+Here was a kindred spirit. She looked at the fifteen-year-old girl and was
+anxious to know how it happened that she was interested in books at her
+time of life.
+
+"Do you like to read?"
+
+The question was repeated, and once more she asked it before the child
+heard her.
+
+"I guess you do," she laughed, answering her own question. "We'll have
+some good times before your father comes back for you. Come on to
+breakfast now--the men are waiting."
+
+Lizzie Farnshaw fell naturally into her improved surroundings. The
+educating processes of reforming her language that year had also tended to
+improve the girl in other ways and it was with her straight brown hair
+gathered into neat braids, clean finger-nails, and a feeling of general
+self-respect that she approached Susan Hornby's white-clothed table and
+was introduced to Mr. Hornby and the hired men who were already seated
+there.
+
+"Right glad t' see you. I been feedin' th' colt. It's about as likely a
+specimine as you be," was Nathan Hornby's salutation, and his handclasp
+was as hearty as his stubby fingered, hairy hands could make it.
+
+Lizzie slipped quietly into her chair at his side, and stole a glance up
+at him again. All through the meal he found her eyes turning toward him
+curiously, and at last he said good-naturedly:
+
+"I'll know you next time whether you do me or not."
+
+The remark was a random one and meant nothing at all, except that he had
+been conscious of her close attention, but something in the way her gaze
+was withdrawn showed that whatever she had been thinking she wished to
+conceal it, and in the end it made Nathan Hornby really uncomfortable. The
+fact of the matter was that Nathan's language did not fit his
+surroundings. Susan Hornby's house was in advance of the country in which
+they lived, while her husband fitted the pioneer life he had chosen. Of
+this fact neither husband nor wife seemed to be conscious. Nathan was ten
+years older than the woman he had married. In accepting him she had
+accepted him as he was; later she had grown, but to her he remained the
+same; he was just Nathan, and needed no analysis. They lived and loved,
+and radiated the harmony which was theirs. The incongruities of their
+union were evident to this child, who was supersensitive about grammatical
+constructions, but their harmony was to be one of the strong lessons of
+her life. Lizzie was accustomed to ungrammatical language at home, but the
+atmosphere of this house made ignorance of good form noticeable. She liked
+Mr. Hornby, but she wondered a little about his association with his wife
+and her home. She went with him to see the colt after breakfast and
+remarked upon his neat barnyard in a manner which lifted the cloud upon
+his face; he had had a feeling that he did not somehow come up to her
+expectations.
+
+The little colt nosed about his hand looking for food, and Nathan
+laughed.
+
+"It's just like th' human critter o' that age--wants t' try everything in
+its mouth," he said, trying to find a topic of conversation.
+
+Again Nathan Hornby caught a flicker of surprise in Lizzie Farnshaw's eye,
+and again he was disconcerted.
+
+"Wonder what I done t' set that child t' lookin' at me so funny?" he asked
+himself as he went to the field later, and being big-hearted and ignorant
+was unaware that a man could hamstring himself by an ungrammatical
+phrase.
+
+All day Susan Hornby read with the young girl and questioned her to get
+into touch with her life and thought, and when night came was wildly
+enthusiastic about her.
+
+"Nate, she's worth a lift," she said to her husband after Lizzie had again
+been tucked into bed. "Let's take her with us to Topeka this fall and put
+her into the high school. She's--she's just the age our Katie would have
+been. She says some teacher told her she was ready for the high school."
+
+"Better wait till I'm elected, Sue," Nathan replied, and then, seeing
+Susan's face cloud over with disappointment, added more cheerfully:
+
+"Of course I don't care if you have the child, but you mustn't get to
+countin' on this thing. That's th' trouble with these here fool politics:
+they get folks t' countin' on things that can't come around."
+
+Long after his wife was asleep, however, he mused upon the prospects of
+going to Topeka, and for her sake he wanted to go. Nathan Hornby always
+spoke of his chances of being elected to the legislature of his state
+deprecatingly. He swaggered and pretended to be indifferent, but the worm
+of desire burrowed deeper every time Topeka was mentioned. The very fact
+that he was uneducated, and, as the Democrats had said, unfit, made him
+desire it the more. Criticism had aroused the spirit of contest in him.
+Also he wanted Susan, now that she had begun to plan for it, to have it.
+Nathan Hornby knew that the woman he had married was his superior, and
+loved her for it. Masculine jealousy he did not know. He would have been
+sincerely glad to have had her elected to the legislature of Kansas
+instead of himself.
+
+"It's like Sue t' want t' take th' girl," he meditated, the next day in
+the cornfield. "She'll see Katie in every girl she sees for th' rest of
+'er days, I reckon. I wouldn't 'a' had no show at Topeka, nohow, if she
+hadn't 'a' made Wallace feel good 'bout that crazy thing he calls 'is
+wife. Curious how big things hinge on little ones. Now Sue had no more
+idea o' gettin' a nomination t' th' legislature for me than that hen she
+was foolin' with this mornin'." Later, he remembered the thing that had
+worried him before the subject of Topeka came up. "Wonder what I done that
+set that youngster t' lookin' at me so funny?"
+
+Mrs. Hornby had not set her heart on going to Topeka foolishly, but she
+wanted to go and it entered into all her plans. She did not tell the young
+girl of her plans at once, but waited for her to make her place in
+Nathan's heart, as she was sure she would do. On that point the girl
+succeeded surprisingly. Her knowledge of horses, of harness, of farm
+subjects in general made good soil for conversation with her host, and her
+love for the motherless colt called her to the barn and made special
+openings for communications. Nathan called the colt, which was of the
+feminine gender, Pat, because its upper lip was so long, and that too the
+girl enjoyed, and entered into the joke by softening the name to Patsie.
+They were good friends. Having decided to befriend her, the man's interest
+in her increased. She was to be theirs. The sense of possession grew with
+both husband and wife. Already they had cast their lot with the child, and
+when at last they put the question of the high school to her, the
+friendship was firmly welded by the extravagance of its reception.
+
+"Think of it! Think of it! Only think of it! I didn't know how it was
+going to come about, but I was sure I was going to get it somehow!" the
+young girl cried, dancing about the room excitedly. "Whenever I was afraid
+something was going to keep me from it, I used to say, 'I will! I will! I
+will go to high school!' Oh, isn't it too lovely! Do you think my saying
+it made any difference?" she asked eagerly; and the quaint couple, who
+were born two generations in advance of the birth cry of New Thought,
+laughed innocently and made no reply.
+
+When the floodgates of surprise and emotion were opened, and she began to
+talk of her hopes and fears, it was but natural that she should speak of
+her struggles for personal improvement, though this was instinctively done
+when Mr. Hornby was absent.
+
+Curiously enough, some of her points of information were as helpful to
+Susan Hornby as they had been to her. Mrs. Hornby knew the rules of good
+grammar, but many little observances of table manners had changed since
+her youth. She read and was well informed on general topics of the day,
+but her life for more than fifteen years had been spent with Nathan and
+with the hired men who ate at her table, and she had become careless of
+small things, so that she listened with an amused smile, but with real
+profit as well, to Lizzie's confidences that "You shouldn't cross your
+knife and fork on your plate when you are through eating, like the hired
+men, but lay them side by side, neat and straight"; that "You shouldn't
+eat with your knife, neither," and that "To sip your coffee out of your
+saucer with a noise like grasshoppers' wings was just awful!" She, too,
+was brushing up to go to Topeka, and while much in advance of her husband
+or any of her associates in society matters, she had lived the life of the
+farm, and to the end of her existence would be conscious of the
+inequalities of her education. Of this she said nothing to the child, but
+listened and remembered. Occasionally she reminded the girl that they
+might not go to Topeka, but even as she warned she was quickening the
+subconscious mind to aid in recording any fact which might be advantageous
+when she herself got there, and her love for the child grew. The girl was
+part of the scheme. In a week she had become one of the family.
+
+At the end of the week Mr. Farnshaw did not appear; farm matters had
+detained him, so that the opportunity for a closer acquaintance with his
+daughter was permitted. Under Mrs. Hornby the child blossomed naturally.
+The old-fashioned secretary was the young girl's delight. Seeing her
+shaking in silent glee over "David Copperfield" one night, and remembering
+her eager pursuit of intellectual things, Mrs. Hornby remarked to her
+husband, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The world of to-day
+would add to Susan Hornby's little speech, "Not only as a man thinketh in
+his heart, so is he," but "So shall he live, and do, and be surrounded."
+This simple daughter of the farm, the herds, and the homesteaded hills of
+bleak and barren Kansas, where the educated and intellectual of earth were
+as much foreigners as the inhabitants of far off Russia or Hindustan, had
+by her thought not only prepared herself for the life she coveted, but had
+compelled the opportunity to enter upon her travels therein. When Mr.
+Farnshaw arrived, Mrs. Hornby was fortunate in the form of her request to
+take his daughter with her, and it was arranged that if they went to
+Topeka the child should be a member of their household.
+
+"We'll be just as good to her as if she were our own," she promised, and
+then added reflectively, "We're going to call her her full name too.
+Elizabeth was my mother's name. It's so much prettier than Lizzie."
+
+Under any other circumstances Mr. Farnshaw would have seen symptoms of
+being "stuck-up" in the change of name, but Elizabeth had been his
+mother's name, and although he had little recollection of his mother, and
+had never heard her called by her given name, he had seen it writ large on
+her tombstone, and, his eye having become accustomed to the word, his ear
+fell naturally into line with its pronunciation; besides, his daughter was
+to be a school-teacher, and was to sign contracts like a man, and must
+have a proper sort of name. She was to live in the house of a member of
+the legislature, too, and already called him and his wife "Uncle" and
+"Aunt." Mr. Farnshaw tasted pride and found it a sweet morsel.
+
+Election day came the first week in November and Nathan was successful.
+With the high school year in view, they moved to Topeka the next week. It
+was as if they were literally to educate their Katie. A slight
+disappointment awaited them. Though they were ready the young girl did not
+come immediately.
+
+According to the dilatory methods of the Farnshaw household,
+Elizabeth--she had been supported by her father when the boys had shown an
+inclination to laugh her out of the change of name--was three weeks later
+yet in going. The eager girl urged at home that she would be behind her
+classes if she went into school so late in the term, but her parents, who
+knew nothing of school requirements, refused to let her go till the corn
+was all husked and everything snug for the winter, arguing that so much
+stock had been lost the winter before that every care must be taken of
+what was left. Tears at the prospect of such a handicap made no
+impression, and it was not till December that the child and her father set
+off in the farm wagon for Topeka, two days distant. Railroad fare was not
+to be considered, and two new dresses and a new pair of shoes--not
+side-laces--were all the additions to her wardrobe.
+
+Susan Hornby was much annoyed at the delay, but met the young girl with
+open arms when she arrived.
+
+She was less happy in accosting Mr. Farnshaw.
+
+"Why in this world did you keep her so late? Half the year is gone!" was
+her luckless remark to him.
+
+"She's doin' mighty well t' get t' come at all," Mr. Farnshaw replied,
+taking instant offence. "I'm th' only man in our part of th' country
+that's givin' 'is childern any show at th' high school at all, I can tell
+you. I knew I wouldn't get no thanks for it from th' beginnin'. That's th'
+way with things nowadays," was his reply.
+
+"Oh, well, we all know you have needed her, and that it's hard to spare a
+child on the farm, but we were so anxious to have her have all that could
+be got out of this year," Mrs. Hornby said, divided between a desire to
+scold the man and a real disinclination to hurt any one. So much valuable
+time had been lost. She saw that she must be politic for Elizabeth's sake,
+however, for the child's appearance told the experienced woman that she
+must keep him in a good humour and inveigle him into giving her a little
+money for clothes.
+
+"We'll just make the best of the time that is left, little girl," Mrs.
+Hornby said cheerfully, and in that only added to the impression already
+made, for Mr. Farnshaw remembered his daughter's tears, and the feeling
+grew that instead of being lauded for what he considered a great sacrifice
+on his part, he was coming in for a blame wholly unexpected, and that this
+woman was siding with the girl and going to spoil her. People of the farm,
+more than any other class, resent being blamed, and Josiah Farnshaw was an
+extreme representative of his class. He had come to Topeka delighted with
+himself because of the fine opportunities he was giving his daughter, and
+here was this woman at the first word finding fault because he had not
+done better; it was no wonder that children were not satisfied with
+anything a man could give them!
+
+There was now no possibility of Elizabeth entering school till after
+Christmas, and Aunt Susan turned her attention to efforts to get the most
+out of the time they would have to reorganize the poorly constructed
+dresses. She was considerate of Mr. Farnshaw's evident sensitiveness,
+seeing also that he had no real comprehension of the damage done by the
+delay, and made him comfortable by urging him to stay on after he was
+really ready to go home. So successful was she that he forgot for the time
+he was in her presence that all was not in his favour, and she was able to
+induce him to give all that he was able to give toward the improvements
+she suggested in his daughter's wearing apparel. Elizabeth was surprised
+at the ready response to demands made upon his purse, but here again Mrs.
+Hornby left a sting, wholly unintended and at the time not recognized by
+Mr. Farnshaw himself, but remembered by him later and never forgotten
+after it was once fixed firmly in his mind. Aunt Susan, concerned for the
+entrance of the child into the company of those of her own age, pointed
+out to her father the gayly dressed girls of Elizabeth's age, and
+suggested that a new coat would be an absolute necessity. Mr. Farnshaw had
+given Mrs. Hornby all the money he had with him except four dollars, and
+his wife had given him a list of groceries to be purchased in the city. It
+rather pleased him to use the money toward his daughter's adornment and it
+tickled his pride as well to give his last cent toward her education. Mrs.
+Hornby looked at the money he placed in her hand, and hesitated visibly.
+Josiah Farnshaw stiffened at her manner. Aunt Susan hated to ask for more,
+but this would not buy the girl a coat that she could wear in Topeka!
+
+"You are just as good as you can be about this, Mr. Farnshaw, but--but a
+coat like the other girls have will cost at least eight or ten dollars."
+She felt his attitude.
+
+The amount named took the man's breath. He had given all he had and yet
+this woman, whom he had begun to like again, was not satisfied!
+
+"A man can't do no more'n he can, an' that's th' last red cent I've got,"
+he replied, humiliated at the necessity of the confession.
+
+"Oh! I'm so sorry," Aunt Susan exclaimed, really so at having forced the
+statement. She sat with her brows knit in serious thought a moment, and a
+light began to break in upon her. Elizabeth had to have that wrap somehow
+and here was a way right before her. She remembered a long cape she had
+noticed going down the street that very morning.
+
+"I guess we can make it do," she said hesitantly. She was thinking out her
+plan and spoke slowly. "We'll just make a cloak ourselves. We can do it."
+
+Josiah Farnshaw left the next day for home, in a good humour with himself
+and his munificence, but on the way home remembered Susan Hornby's
+hesitancy and later decision to make the cloak herself, and the worm of
+suspicion began to gnaw again.
+
+"If that woman could make something that'd do, what'd she ask for one of
+them expensive coats for?" he asked himself. "I guess it's only th' girl
+that figures in that deal! I ain't nothin' but th' oats she feeds on
+nohow," he reflected, and having once given the thought lodgment it grew
+and became the chief stone of the corner.
+
+Our own comes to us, and Josiah Farnshaw had formed the habit of that kind
+of thinking. He felt that he was being robbed, and forgot that his
+daughter was being befriended, and out of his trip to Topeka got only a
+sour distaste for the woman he could clearly see was going to encourage
+the child in extravagance. He had never spent so much money on the entire
+family in a winter as he had done on that girl, and yet it wasn't enough.
+"He'd bet he'd never give 'er another year's schoolin'. She'd come home
+an' get a summer school--that's what she'd do. All folks thought about
+nowadays was clothes!"
+
+To Elizabeth Farnshaw every day of that busy month was full of unconscious
+growth. As soon as Mr. Farnshaw was out of sight, Mrs. Hornby said to
+Elizabeth:
+
+"Now, my child, I am going to take up the seams in that basque."
+
+Elizabeth looked down at her "long basque" in dismay; she had striven hard
+over that waist and had thought that it would do very well, though
+conscious that it had faults. Her face flushed as she answered
+reluctantly:
+
+"The seam in the back isn't quite straight, but--I never made one like it
+before--and I thought it would do."
+
+"So it would, dear, but it can do better and we've got plenty of time to
+fix it. You'll feel ever so much better about it when you see how the
+other girls are dressed."
+
+As Aunt Susan snipped and ripped and rebasted the refractory seam,
+Elizabeth brought out her little stores of finery to discuss their
+artistic features.
+
+"Look," she said, opening a pasteboard box which held her few ribbons. "I
+coaxed a long time for that, but I got it." She held up for Aunt Susan's
+approval a new Alsatian bow of pink ribbon. "I wanted the wide, but they
+didn't have it, so I got a lot of the narrow and hid the joinings in the
+pleats. I think it's pretty, don't you?"
+
+Susan Hornby looked at the bow critically, and then seeing Elizabeth's
+face cloud over with a suspicion that she did not regard the treasure with
+favour, said slowly:
+
+"It's pretty--that is, it's a pretty colour; but I was looking to see
+about how many yards there was in it, for the girls aren't wearing
+Alsatian bows, as you call them, this year. They seem to be wearing their
+hair mostly in two plain braids. I'm glad of it, for you look ever so much
+better with your hair done that way. We can rip it up and press the
+ribbon. I'm awfully glad you've got such a lot; It'll make lovely bows for
+the braids."
+
+While Elizabeth ripped her bow to pieces Aunt Susan's tongue ran on with
+the subject nearest her heart.
+
+"To-morrow morning I'm going to have you sit by that window and watch the
+girls that go past about school time. You'll learn more this month doing
+that than you would in school, I expect. It's just as well you can't start
+till next term, since you didn't get here at first."
+
+"Next term!" her new dresses with their long basques--long basques were
+more talked of than any other feature of dress that year, not by Elizabeth
+alone but all womankind--had seemed so magnificent that she could not
+think of it being necessary to take a whole month to make them over.
+
+"Yes, not till after Christmas. You can't start in at the middle of a term
+in high school like you can in the country. We'll get you a wrap made
+before that time. I told your father I couldn't think of your going
+without a coat of some sort. He didn't feel that he could afford a coat,
+so I'm going to get the cloth and you and I will make you a circular this
+week."
+
+"A circular? What's that?"
+
+Aunt Susan explained the new kind of cape which came down to the bottom of
+the dress and had a hood lined with bright coloured silk and was puckered
+with rubber to make it fit the face.
+
+It took all day to finish the basque, and the next morning Elizabeth
+watched the well-dressed city girls loiter past, and was glad that she
+could have a month to get ready to meet them in the schoolroom. She had
+never known anybody dressed so well for anything but a funeral, or a
+party, or to go to church. They actually wore gloves to school! Elizabeth
+looked at her brown hands and decided that she would wear her mittens to
+bed till her hands sweated themselves to a proper degree of whiteness, and
+Susan Hornby let her look on, and weigh, and exclaim. Thus was Elizabeth
+Farnshaw's education begun.
+
+The afternoon was spent selecting the goods for the new cape, and
+wandering about the great stores and the streets; a new pair of pretty
+gray gloves were obtained, and for the first time Elizabeth heard the term
+"lisle thread" used as against the common term of cotton for all things
+not silk or woollen. The new cape was to have a wonderful metal fastener
+called a clasp, and life ran like a silver stream the next two days as
+they sewed on the new-fangled garment.
+
+Oh, father! could you have but seen truly, how great would have been your
+joy!
+
+Each day Elizabeth watched the boys and girls come and go past Nathan
+Hornby's house, and when the cape was finished she and Aunt Susan went
+daily on shopping expeditions. It was the most wonderful week of her
+fifteen years, and was well rounded out by going to church on Sunday and
+for the first time listening to a choir, and seeing a window of softly
+coloured glass. She almost wondered if she had been transported from the
+body to the heaven of crowns and harps which her mother loved to
+describe.
+
+To heaven Elizabeth Farnshaw had gone in very truth, but it was the heaven
+of adolescence and developing womanhood. In the short time she had been
+observing the comings and goings of the boys and girls of their
+neighbourhood one young man had begun to stand out from the rest.
+Elizabeth was nearly sixteen, and when she saw _him_ now in a pew a few
+seats ahead of her she made a little movement of astonishment.
+
+Aunt Susan caught the sound of the indrawn breath and looked around
+inquiringly, but Elizabeth, with eyes modestly down, studied her
+gray-gloved hands and seemed unaware of her scrutiny. Happiness had been
+Elizabeth Farnshaw's daily portion for weeks, but this was different. Here
+was happiness of another sort, with other qualities, composed of more
+compelling elements. The gamut of bliss had not all been run. Elizabeth
+had progressed from Arcadia to Paradise and was invoicing her emotions.
+She never shied around a subject, but looked all things in the face; and
+she found this delightfully surprising world of emotions as entrancing as
+the external one of mellow light, music, good clothes, and educational
+prospects. The rest of the hour was a blissful dream, in which the only
+thought was a wish for Luther and his stunted pony and the freedom of
+grassy slopes where she could pour out her newfound joy. With each new
+event of this life the loss of Luther was accentuated.
+
+Nathan Hornby and his wife had no acquaintances in Topeka. They left the
+church as soon as the service was over. The young girl went with them,
+conscious that _he_ was behind her, glad that her new cape was finished,
+wondering if _he_ noticed it, eager to be seen yet wanting to hide, and
+foolishly aglow and wishing devoutly that she had eyes in the back of her
+head. Henceforth Elizabeth lived in the thought of seeing _him_. She
+dubbed him "The Unknown," and if she looked out of the window at home, it
+was in the hope of seeing him pass; on the way to school she was alert and
+watchful for a glimpse of him in the distance; if she went to church it
+was to look for him as soon as seated, though he was rarely there. If she
+saw him in the morning her day was made glad; if she failed to see him she
+looked forward with anticipation to the next day.
+
+The winter spent itself. January passed, and February. The glad days ran
+on in kaleidoscopic readjustment of joy, work, wonder, and unfoldment, as
+far as Elizabeth's own life was concerned. After the manner of youth, her
+own affairs absorbed her. In fact the young girl was so filled with the
+delights of her own little world that it was only gradually that she began
+to understand that the life in Topeka was not as fortunate with the dear
+couple who had shared with her their home. The first signs of trouble were
+made manifest to her by the increasing tenderness with which Susan Hornby
+hovered around her mate, and her evident and growing solicitude.
+
+Elizabeth was startled when she did at last comprehend the gloom and
+anxiety about her. The manner of the pair prevented questions, but, as she
+watched covertly, Aunt Susan's distress was transferred to her. Elizabeth
+was not curious, but she was intensely sympathetic, and from disinterested
+motives she became keenly observant of all that took place about her. No
+opportunity to help offered. With a sharp realization that her best
+friends were in trouble, she was obliged to conceal any trace of that
+knowledge. Nathan and his wife talked apart and in low tones, avoiding the
+young girl's presence, and were evidently puzzled and uneasy. It was
+Elizabeth's way to make the troubles of those about her her own. Longing
+to help, it was impossible to be indifferent. Gradually she got bits of
+indirect light upon the subject. From little things dropped accidentally,
+and often from explanations which circumstances forced upon them,
+Elizabeth learned that money was scarce. This came as a shock, and with
+all the hurt and heartsick worry which the mention of finances always
+brought to the girl. Why must people have money? she asked herself daily.
+And mixed with dreams of "The Unknown" came speculations as to the part
+which money played in the game of life, and the bondage of men to it, and
+a longing to be free from its withering grasp. In her childish mind the
+matter of freedom became slightly mixed and she dreamed dreams of being
+free by owning unlimited amounts of it, and she coveted marvellous bank
+accounts, acquired in some mystical way, with which the woes of humanity
+could be relieved by giving. Along with this new idea of dispensing
+charity grew a desire to know why the crop of cash was short in Nathan
+Hornby's home. In her innocent way she led up to the subject of expenses
+in general, but Aunt Susan kept family affairs strictly in the family and
+vouchsafed no explanations, unaware that the example she set in that way
+was to bear strange and unexpected fruit. But though Elizabeth carried the
+reflex of the anxiety of those about her, she was scarcely sixteen, and
+youth and joy and life claimed her attention and the affairs of her stage
+in life's span crowded out the affairs of others.
+
+These were days of transition. The child was becoming a woman. The love
+which was flowing out of her heart like a spring freshet toward one who,
+because she saw him less often was the more often in her thoughts, was
+making Elizabeth Farnshaw more observant of those who professed love.
+Desiring mutual relations, she became sensitive to the communications of
+those about her who had to do with mutual relations.
+
+Elizabeth saw that the more trouble clouded the brow of Nathan Hornby the
+cheerier and closer Aunt Susan drew to him. There was none of the quarrels
+here to which Elizabeth had become accustomed when things went wrong at
+home. The contrast between her father's and mother's daily life and that
+of Nathan and Susan Hornby in times of trouble was the subject of constant
+thought. Nathan and Susan Hornby were to be guide-posts along the highway
+of Elizabeth Farnshaw's domestic affairs. Love pointed her thoughts toward
+marriage, and here was a worthy model after which to build. Her natural
+affection and gratitude were enhanced by the fact that this couple with
+whom she lived, and who were otherwise very dear to her, were the
+immediate example of all that was noble in the world of her present
+dreams.
+
+The fact that the harmony between Aunt Susan and her mate was of stern
+stuff and not matured solely upon success and pleasure added to the
+strength of that example. Elizabeth had not been taken into the confidence
+of either; their private affairs were kept screened from the gaze of any
+but themselves. By a word dropped here and there, however, she learned
+that Nathan had speculated and lost much money; also that he had favoured
+measures advanced by butter-tongued lobbyists, and that he had lost the
+good-will of many of his constituents.
+
+While Elizabeth watched the tender association of Nathan Hornby and his
+wife and found such glowing tribute in her heart toward the life they
+lived together, a tragedy, in spite of the support and affection lavished
+by a faithful wife, was to leave the sunny, cordial man a broken,
+half-suspicious one.
+
+Nathan Hornby was to learn that legislative assemblies were death-traps to
+those whom providence had failed to coach in diplomacy and judgment, that
+legislation was a game at which none but gamesters might successfully
+play, a devouring flame singeing the wings of all who failed to
+distinguish between the light of a common candle and that of a real sun,
+that it was a nightmare to most, and ticklish business for all. Unable to
+distinguish between the good and the bad intentions of those who advocated
+the passage of bills, convinced long before the end of the legislative
+session that a bill looking innocent and direct in its wording might be
+evil and indirect in its outworking, Nathan became more and more confused
+and less and less able to withstand the attacks made upon him.
+
+Nathan Hornby was a leaden figure in the legislative assembly. He was
+honest, but slow of wit, and apt to become passive if pushed beyond his
+power to understand. This man who could throw the earth up to a hill of
+corn with skill and precision, who could build a haystack which would turn
+the rains and snows of winter, and break a colt to the harness without
+breaking its spirit, who had handled successfully the problems to which he
+had been trained, was not able to throw arguments up to the legislative
+hill or protect his reputation against the floods of criticism and
+accusation to which his actions were subjected either here in the Capitol
+or at home among his constituents. His spirit was broken: he recognized
+that he was totally unfit for the position into which fortune had thrust
+him. Nathan sat back in his chair, in the House, with few books and papers
+on the desk before him, and these unopened, his manner, like his wrinkled
+boots, indicative of the farm, his whole attitude that of the
+unsophisticated. He listened to the speeches made around him, but had no
+ideas to express. He was a pathetic figure. Only the accidents of
+Grasshopper Year, when legislative timber was scarce, could have placed
+him in such a position. His tough, shaven cheeks grew thinner day by day
+as he pulled at the brush of grizzled chin-whiskers and tried to
+understand what went on before him.
+
+During those days Susan was both his refuge and the cross of his
+crucifixion. The deeper his difficulties became the more he turned to her
+for help, certain not only that she understood better than he the measures
+about which his colleagues argued, but that she understood him and his
+failures, as well as his needs. It was because Susan understood that the
+cross was so heavy. If his wife had been a dull woman, if she had been a
+woman without ambitions of her own, if she could have been hoaxed into
+thinking him the equal of his associates, it would have been easier; but
+Nathan was aware that Susan Hornby knew to the finest detail the nature of
+his failure as well as she understood and loved the best in him. During
+those gloomy days the man marvelled at the gentleness of her solicitations
+for his cheering and encouragement, not realizing that woman is by nature
+faithful where man is appreciative of her devotion. Appreciation! that had
+been the keynote of Nathan Hornby's attitude toward his wife. Susan had
+always known what she ought to do, what she wanted to do, and what it was
+best for her to do, and in all matters where her individual affairs were
+concerned Nathan had never interposed coercion nor advice. If Susan made
+mistakes, her husband knew that they were the mistakes of the head and not
+of the heart, and left her to correct them in her own way.
+
+Susan Hornby had always been free, and now the walls of love and trust
+which Nathan Hornby had builded about their home for nearly twenty years
+were to be a flawless rampart behind which he could take refuge from foes
+without and receive help from within. At Nathan's request his wife came
+day after day and listened to the discussions toward the end of the
+session. Nathan sat before her dumb, but she was the anchor to his
+drifting soul as the political landslide took the ground out from under
+his feet.
+
+"I only wisht I'd 'a' taken you in on this thing sooner," he said on one
+occasion, and remembered those first weeks when he had felt
+self-sufficient, and had made false moves at the State House, and had also
+let himself be inveigled into buying "a few margins." That was the
+bitterest drop in his cup. Wheat had dropped steadily from the very day he
+had begun buying. A steady decline in prices was unthinkable, and it was
+not till their land was endangered that the trusting man began to take
+alarm, and even then he let the speculators who profited by the sales
+induce him to make one more wild investment to save that which he had
+already lost.
+
+His certainty that his neighbors would take revenge upon _him_ for
+political differences by sly prods regarding speculation was of slight
+importance, but Susan was to be humiliated before them!--Susan, who had
+tried to help him to see the dangers--Susan, who did not complain when she
+was called upon to sign the deeds to the land she had helped to win from
+the Indians and the wilderness of uncultivated things. Nathan remembered
+on that bitter day that but for her adventurous spirit he would have been
+working at day's wages in old Indiana, instead of having a home and being
+an active member of his community and a member of the legislature of his
+state, with opportunities to prove himself a man in the world of men. He
+had failed, and his failure reacted upon her. It was not the loss of money
+and political prestige alone which bit. Another phase of their life in
+Topeka added its humiliation. Nathan had wanted his wife to share his
+political honours and had found himself ignorant of every means by which
+these things could be brought to her. He had heard of gay winters at the
+Capital, but they lived apart from it all. The house in which he had
+placed her was attractive and on a good street, but the men whom he met at
+the State House soon saw that nothing was to be gained through knowing
+Nathan Hornby, and failed to ask their wives to call upon his wife.
+
+Disaster is in exact ratio to our valuation of things. Although Nathan
+Hornby had lost three fourths of his land, his reputation as a business
+man and politician, and his faith in men, he still had left the one
+essential gift which should have helped him to win again all that which he
+had lost. Susan Hornby, like Ruth of old, abandoned all else and abode
+with her husband in love, cheering him at each problematical step, and
+saying as they returned from the notary's office after signing away their
+land to a stranger:
+
+"Never mind, Nate, there are only two of us," and for the first time since
+their little daughter had been taken from them, he had replied:
+
+"Yes, only two, thank God!" and had kissed awkwardly the hand laid over
+his mouth, and Susan had seen the glitter of a tear on his faded lashes,
+the first in many years.
+
+Susan knew that Nathan would never forget the failures of that year, but
+she also knew that the comfort of accustomed activities would help to fill
+his mind and keep his thoughts from sore introspection. Here in Topeka
+there was nothing to do but cogitate and reflect. It was therefore a
+relief to her when Elizabeth received a letter from her mother summoning
+her home to teach a spring term of school. While at any other time she
+would have been filled with indignation at the recall of Elizabeth just as
+she was beginning to get settled to her new work, Susan Hornby felt that
+Elizabeth needed education less at this point than Nathan needed the busy
+seeding season to occupy his troubled thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+REFORMS NOT EASY TO DISCUSS
+
+
+Elizabeth kept her tears and regrets to herself. She cried them out on her
+pillow that night, all the disappointments and handicaps of that wonderful
+year of experience and aspiration, but as she cried she planned the
+arrangements of her going.
+
+The letter was received on Thursday night; Elizabeth decided that she
+would go for her books the next day, and say her farewells to desk,
+recitation room, and the halls that had been dear to her. When Elizabeth
+was called to the blackboard that afternoon to explain a problem in
+algebra, the board, the pointer, the very chalk in her fingers cried aloud
+their unity with her life and thought, and she sat down when it was over
+with a great throbbing in her throat and ears, and a sense of overwhelming
+disaster.
+
+As Elizabeth carried her books home under her arm, bulging out one side of
+her circular like an unevenly inflated pudding-bag, the throbbing
+continued, and she turned into the less frequented streets with the
+certainty that she was going to disgrace herself with tears shed publicly.
+It had been a trying day, and in spite of all efforts her emotions broke
+loose before she could gain the shelter of home. Hurrying blindly to get
+the last block covered, she nearly dropped her books as she turned the
+corner.
+
+"The Unknown" was coming toward her!
+
+Her startled glance of recognition was so unexpectedly open that he
+thought that he had probably met her. He looked puzzled, but lifted his
+hat as she hurried past him, wiping the tears from her face with her free
+hand.
+
+A boy called from across the street an instant later.
+
+"Oh, Hugh, I'm coming over for some help on that chem. ex. to-night."
+
+"All right," came the answer from "The Unknown," and mixed with
+Elizabeth's mortifying confusion was a quick thrill at knowing his name.
+
+"Hugh!"
+
+No opportunity had ever come to meet him or to find out what his name
+might be. Elizabeth was conscious that her life on the farm had made of
+her an impossible mate for this young man who, even among the young men of
+the city, was set apart by a peculiar grace and culture. She remembered
+the hat which had not merely been lifted from the head, but had been
+carried below the chin as he bowed distantly, and also the well-bred
+curiosity of his look. The rest of the leave-taking was made easier by
+having met him, and received his bow, and acquired the glorious, mystical
+knowledge of his name.
+
+To round out the experiences of the winter, fate decreed that Mr. Farnshaw
+could not come for her, and the glitter of the inside of a railway coach,
+with its brass lamps, plush seats, and polished woods, was added to her
+experimental knowledge. Luther was somehow connected in her mind with the
+day's experiences and she wished devoutly that she could talk to him about
+the disappointment of leaving her school before the end of the term, and
+of this journey home on the train, and of Hugh. Yes, Elizabeth would have
+told Luther even of Hugh. Luther Hansen was to Elizabeth Farnshaw
+unchanged and unchangeable. The transformations of her own life did not
+call for any such transformations in him. He was Luther. It had been his
+mental processes which had won and now sustained her attachment for him.
+Their two minds had worked together as one mind while they had struggled
+with the innocent problems of their childhood days, and Elizabeth still
+felt incomplete without him. She had been less conscious of Luther's
+absence the first year than at any time since his going away, but in
+Topeka, and now that she was approaching the scene of their association
+together, Elizabeth wanted him with a depth of homesickness she had never
+felt before. It was hard to go back to the old battleground and not find
+him there. The prospects in store for her at home made her shrink.
+Elizabeth fell to wondering if any improvement in that home were possible.
+She had had them quite cheerfully in mind all winter, but now that the
+distance between her home and herself lessened rapidly a feeling of
+inadequacy came upon her, and the glitter of the wonderful coach in which
+she was riding was forgotten. Could she help? The only thing that was very
+clear to her was that much patience would be necessary. At Uncle Nathan's
+they had been gentle and loving and tolerant.
+
+"Can I make them see it--and see how?" she asked herself so many times
+that the wheels beneath her took up the refrain.
+
+"Gentle and loving and tolerant--gentle and loving and tolerant--gentle
+and loving and tolerant," they sang for miles as she sat with her young
+brow puckered into a deep frown.
+
+The realities of life were thrust into the foreground the moment Elizabeth
+arrived, and for new reasons she missed Luther. Mr. Farnshaw resented the
+new circular.
+
+"Is that th' damned fool kind of coat she was talkin' about?" he inquired
+as his daughter alighted from the farm wagon at the kitchen door that
+afternoon. "It ain't got no warmth," he added scornfully. "Th' ain'
+nothin' to it but looks, an' not much of that. What 'd y' you do with th'
+coat you had?"
+
+The old heartsickening contention had begun.
+
+"I've got it."
+
+"Well, you see that you wear it and don't go makin' a fool out of yourself
+around here. I'd 'a' kept my money if I'd 'a' knowed it was goin' t' be
+put into a thing that'd swell up in th' wind like a balloon."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw saw the look that swept over Elizabeth's face and
+instinctively ranged herself on the side of the young girl. She saw with a
+woman's eyes the style in the garment and its importance in her daughter's
+appearance. When Elizabeth took it off her mother took it to the bedroom
+to put it away, remarking in a whisper that it made her look quite like a
+school-teacher ought to look. She was secretly glad that her daughter had
+it, since it was already paid for and she did not have to make it. It
+would be the most observed wrap in the schoolhouse the next Sunday if she
+could only persuade Elizabeth to go to meeting. The metal clasp had
+virtues all its own.
+
+"I think it's ever so much more stuck-up than if it had buttons," she
+whispered.
+
+The undertone rasped on Elizabeth's nerves. Aunt Susan never differed with
+Uncle Nate in undertones.
+
+"Let's get supper, ma," she said, to shake herself from threatened
+despondency.
+
+But though Elizabeth bustled energetically about the getting of that meal,
+the eating of it was not a very great success. Mr. Farnshaw discoursed
+upon the senselessness of prevailing styles, with the new cape plainly in
+mind, and Mrs. Farnshaw nudged her daughter's knee under the table
+whenever Elizabeth seemed inclined to defensive retorts.
+
+When Mr. Farnshaw had taken the milk pails on his arm and repaired to the
+corral, however, Mrs. Farnshaw turned from a belated churning and
+administered the caution in words:
+
+"Don't ever say anything back to your pa, Lizzie; he gets worse and worse
+all th' time."
+
+Elizabeth considered the subject for some minutes. The wear and tear of
+the discords of her mother's life she knew were far more responsible for
+her mother's broken health than anything she did in the way of hard work.
+It seemed a good time to begin the reforms upon which her heart was set.
+
+"Ma, I've been thinking about you a good deal this winter," she began
+slowly. "Something is wrong with us all." The girl thought again for a
+moment. Her mother watched her with sharp attention and waited. Reforms
+were not easy to discuss with her mother; they were very different,
+Elizabeth and her mother. Elizabeth hardly dared express her longing to
+reorganize their home. If only she could effect a reformation! Her heart
+had been set on it all winter. She knew now how people _could_ live if
+only they understood how to do it. Her help here was needed. When she
+began to speak again it was very slowly, and with a careful consideration
+of the words she was using.
+
+"We ought all of us to be different. We go along day after day hating our
+work, scolding and fretting at each other, and never really happy, any of
+us, and I've been wondering why?"
+
+Her mother eyed her closely. Something of the girl's mood stirred a
+responsive chord.
+
+"I've thought of it too," she said, "but I can't never tell why it is
+though, unless"--she spoke slowly and Elizabeth was encouraged--"unless
+it's because we don't never belong to ourselves. Now your pa wants t' run
+th' house, an' th' farm, an' you children, an' me, an' everything, an' I'm
+so tired, an' never have any help, that anybody'd be cross. Nobody ever
+pities me, though. Here, take this dasher an' finish this here churnin'
+for me."
+
+Elizabeth took the dasher into her own hand and stood looking down
+meditatively at the cream gathered about the hole in the churn lid. The
+first sentence of her mother's remark struck her attention.
+
+"Why can't folks belong to themselves?" she asked, letting the dasher rest
+while she churned mental problems of greater moment.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw looked up quickly. "Well, if you think you can marry an'
+belong t' yourself, just you try it," she replied.
+
+"But, ma, if a man loved a woman couldn't she get him to leave her free?
+Now--"
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw cut her short. "Love! Men don't know how to spell th' word.
+They get a woman, an' after she's got children they know she can't help
+herself. She's got t' stick to it 'cause she can't raise 'em alone
+an'--an' it don't make no difference whether he takes care of 'em or
+not--" Words failed the exasperated woman.
+
+Elizabeth studied her mother with a new interest. She began to apply her
+mother's words to her own case. She knew that her mother had wanted her
+services this spring as much as her father, and remembered the letter
+calling her home.
+
+"But that don't cover your case, ma. You love pa more than you do us
+children; you know you do, and we know that you do too."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw usually denied the most obvious thing if her protective
+instincts prompted her to do so, but her daughter had hit the bull's-eye
+so exactly that for the moment she had no defence ready. Elizabeth was
+encouraged by her mother's silence. Mrs. Farnshaw talked so much that it
+was not easy to get her attention. The young girl, glowing with the
+discoveries made in Aunt Susan's home, desired to get at the bottom of the
+causes of inharmony in her own and to reorganize it on a better basis. It
+looked as if she was to be granted a hearing upon her schemes.
+
+"I don't care about him running over _us_ so much," she said
+diplomatically, "but you let him run over you in the same way. Now isn't
+there some way to come at him and get him to see it. When we're alone you
+talk about him domineering over you, but when he's here you let him say
+anything he wants to and you never try to help yourself. Why don't you
+strike out on a new tack and say you won't do it when he makes
+unreasonable demands? Why don't you reason with him good-naturedly, if you
+think that's better, without crying, I mean, and then if he won't listen
+at all----"
+
+"I don't know, Lizzie," the mother interposed slowly. "I sometimes think I
+will an' then when he's here something won't let me. It ain't what he says
+to you; it's--it's--something he does to you when he looks at you. I'm as
+weak as water when he looks at me. I don't know why. I guess it's because
+I've always give up--an'--an'--I can't tell why. A woman does just like a
+horse--there's more'n one kind of whippin' a man can give--an' she gets
+scared--an' minds. A man begins right from th' first t' tell her what to
+do an' she loves 'im and wants t' please 'im, an' before long she don't
+have her way no more'n a nigger."
+
+Some of the truth of the statement came within the grasp of the daughter,
+who was looking across the idle churn with her mind fixed in singleness of
+purpose upon remedies, and yet she felt that there was some other element
+in the matter not yet accounted for. The hopeless tone of the older woman,
+however, goaded her young spirit into forgetting the caution necessary to
+dealing with the subject. Her blood fired with resentment that one life
+should be so crushed by another. It was her mother whose shoulders drooped
+with a burden too heavy for her to throw off.
+
+"If you're sure of that, why don't you leave him? We children are old
+enough to support ourselves and----"
+
+"Lizzie!"
+
+Elizabeth had overshot the mark. Her mother was of another generation.
+
+"But, ma," the girl protested quickly, "I don't say leave him if you can
+find any way of settling matters. Can't you have a talk with him--and get
+him to let you alone if you are willing to do the very best you can?
+That's the best way. Have you tried it?"
+
+"No I hain't," the mother replied shortly; "it wouldn't do no good. But if
+my talkin' t' you is goin' t' make you say such things, I ain't goin't'
+talk t' you no more. When folks is married they're married, an' I don't
+believe in partin', nor talk of partin'."
+
+"Well, I think maybe you are right, but if you and pa are going to live
+together you ought to try and have it out, and be a help to each other
+instead----" She broke off and thought a moment, "Now Aunt Susan and Uncle
+Nate----"
+
+"Stop right there!" Mrs. Farnshaw cried, afire with jealousy. "That
+woman's brought more trouble into this house a'ready than She'll ever take
+out. Your pa's been rantin' about her all winter an'--an' he said you'd be
+pokin' her ways into our faces th' very day you got home. I 'spect she's
+th' one that got it into your head to talk of partin', most likely."
+
+"Oh, now, ma, don't go on like that. You don't know about Aunt Susan.
+She's the last person in the world to ever suggest such a thing. That's
+just what I started out to say--they never have a word about anything.
+It's the loveliest home to live in, and I was just thinking that they must
+have found----"
+
+"I said I didn't want t' hear nothin' more about them folks, an' I don't,"
+Mrs. Farnshaw cried, caught on the other horn of the argument and even
+more deeply offended than before. "She'll most likely get all your love
+just like she got all your father's money last winter. You needn't mention
+her here no more. Th' school directors 'll be over to see you about
+fillin' out that term, to-night," Mrs. Farnshaw ended shortly, and turned
+the subject of conversation to other channels.
+
+"Me? To fill out the term?" Elizabeth exclaimed in surprise. "What's gone
+wrong with the school here? I don't want a piece of a term, and I don't
+want, ever, to teach in this district where I've gone to school."
+
+"Well, you're goin' to," was the brief reply. "Your pa an' me told 'em
+you'd take it."
+
+"But how does it happen that the school is without a teacher?" Elizabeth
+asked with curiosity, ignoring the curt disposal of her services. She was
+accustomed to the peremptory measures of her parents.
+
+"Jake Ransom run him out. He just piked off after he got his money order
+cashed last Saturday mornin'."
+
+"And you expect me to take a school that's all upside down from that kind
+of handling--and me without any experience?"
+
+"You'll take it an' You'll do your best, an' we won't hear no more about
+it. Here, ma, tie up this finger," Mr. Farnshaw said. He had just come in
+from the barn in time to hear his daughter's objections.
+
+Later in the evening the directors came. Family pressure was strong, and
+with reluctance Elizabeth accepted the month yet to be taught. It would
+help with the interest, and that interest clouded the family sky to the
+horizon on every side now. Elizabeth was divided between a fear of
+inability to manage a demoralized school and the desire to add twenty-five
+dollars to the family revenue. In anticipation she saw the unruly boys
+supported and encouraged in insubordination by such as Sadie Crane, who
+was jealously ready to resent her--a former playmate--in the rôle of
+authority. And to put herself right with the governing board Elizabeth
+told the new director--Sadie's own father--her fears on that score.
+
+"They have played with me and we have had the sort of quarrels all
+children have, Mr. Crane, and I may not be able to manage them."
+
+Lon Crane was ignorant and uncouth, but big of heart, and the openness of
+the discussion pleased him.
+
+"You jest take that school, young lady, an' I'll see that my end of th'
+thing's kep' up. I'll come over there an thrash every mother's son of 'em
+if I have t'. I'd kind o' like t' lick a few of 'em anyhow, an' if my
+young ones give any trouble, you jes' stop in on your way home an' I'll
+see that it don't never happen ag'in."
+
+Half the battle was won; she let him hold her hand a moment at
+leave-taking while he reinforced his remarks by many repetitions.
+
+"Don't you worry, Sis," he repeated as he backed out of the door; "you
+needn't be afraid; this here school board's at your back. We know it's a
+bad school, but, by ginger! we'll see that you're stood by. You jes' let
+me know if that there Jake Ransom tries any more monkeyshines and I'll tan
+his hide till It'll be good for shoe leather."
+
+It occurred to Elizabeth that every word they were saying would be carried
+to the boy long before Monday morning and that a bad matter might from the
+very goodness of the teller's intentions be made worse.
+
+"How old did you say the Ransom boy was?" she asked with concern.
+
+"Fifteen--and a stinker if there ever was one."
+
+"Then I think maybe I'll have a show. I thought he was older than that,"
+she said diplomatically. "Now may I ask that what we have said be kept
+quiet? I would rather like to have a fair show with him--and I'll admit
+I'd like to be on good terms. Promise me that what we have said may be a
+secret even from your own family till after Monday."
+
+Elizabeth went forward and spoke confidentially. The man liked her even
+better than before.
+
+"I'll do it, by jing!" he exclaimed. "They'll be wantin' t' know soon's
+ever I get home what we done about it, an' fur once they'll suck their
+thumbs. Look out fur that boy, though; he's a black sheep that lives
+around in any flock; ain't got no home. I'll help if I'm needed."
+
+Elizabeth listened closely to all that she heard her brothers say about
+Jake Ransom, trying to form some estimate of his character, and soon came
+to the conclusion that whatever else the boy might be, he was at least not
+to be classed as a sneak. In fact, Jake seemed to have rather a surprising
+faculty for announcing his policies before he began action.
+
+When school opened Monday morning the bully was easily recognizable.
+Elizabeth had gone through all the stages of fright, of distaste for the
+job, and lastly of set determination to show this district that she could
+take that boy and not only conquer him but become friends with him.
+Instead of being nervous about the coming encounter, however, Elizabeth
+grew more steady and self-reliant as she felt his eyes upon her, and
+actually became interested in the small affairs preceding the ringing of
+the bell, and forgot him altogether till it was time to call the roll.
+
+Jacob Ransom's name came last on the list. A titter ran around the room
+when it was called. The tone of reply was louder than the rest and defiant
+of manner. Elizabeth looked around the room with frank inquiry and the
+titter died down. She let her gaze wander quietly and naturally down the
+aisle to the seat of the bully and was surprised to find that she liked
+the boy.
+
+Closing the roll book and following an instinct rather than a formulated
+plan, Elizabeth walked slowly down the room to his desk. A faint giggle
+behind her spoke of the hushed expectations of trouble.
+
+"If I hear any more laughing in this room, I shall inquire into the
+matter," she said sternly, facing about beside Jake's desk.
+
+The instant response to that remark gave her confidence in her own powers.
+It was the first time she had ever used the tone of authority and she
+instinctively recognized that the quality of her personality in that
+position was good. Both she and Jake Ransom were on trial in that room.
+
+"So you are the 'Jake' I have heard about?" she said, looking him frankly
+in the face and letting him see that she was measuring him openly. "Is
+your name Jake or Jacob?" she asked, as if it were an important matter to
+get settled.
+
+"Don't call me Jacob," the boy snapped.
+
+"I think I like the nickname better myself," Elizabeth replied easily. Her
+good fairy beckoned her on. "These children are all laughing because they
+think we are going to pull each other's hair presently. We will show them
+at least that we are a lady and a gentleman, I trust. Let me see your
+books." She looked at him with such straightforward sincerity that the boy
+returned the look in the same spirit.
+
+The books were produced in surprise; this was walking into the middle of
+the ring and bidding for an _open_ fight, if fight they must. The boy
+loved a square deal. Jake Ransom's sting had been drawn.
+
+"You are in advance of the rest of the school. Are you preparing for the
+high school?" Elizabeth asked, emphasizing her surprise.
+
+"Lord, no!" the boy blurted out.
+
+Elizabeth looked through the book in her hand slowly before she asked:
+
+"Why don't you? I was only about as far along as this in arithmetic last
+year. Some one said you were ready for it."
+
+"Oh, I kin do 'rithmetic all right, but I ain't no good in nothin'
+else--an'--an'--wouldn't I look fine teachin' school?" Jake Ransom
+exclaimed, but the bully melted out of him by way of the fact that she had
+heard good reports of him. He would not smoke this level-eyed girl out of
+the schoolhouse, nor sprinkle the floor with cayenne, as was the usual
+proceeding of the country bumpkin who failed to admire his teacher. Jake
+Ransom was not really a bully; he was a shy boy who had been domineered
+over by a young popinjay of a teacher who had never taught school before
+and who had himself many lessons to learn in life's school. The boy
+brought out his slate, spit on its grimy surface and wiped it with his
+sleeve. One of the buttons on his cuff squeaked as he wiped it across, and
+the children had something tangible to laugh at. Elizabeth was wise enough
+to take no notice of that laugh.
+
+Some one has said that experience is not as to duration but as to
+intensity, and it was Elizabeth's fate to live at great pressure in every
+important stage of her life. But for the fact that she had made a friend
+of Jake Ransom that month's events would have had a different story. Sadie
+Crane took exceptions to every move made and every mandate issued from the
+teacher's desk. The spirit of insubordination to which the entire school
+had been subjected that winter made good soil for Sadie's tares. For the
+most part the dissatisfaction was a subtle thing, an undercurrent of which
+Elizabeth was aware, but upon which she could lay no finger of rebuke, but
+at times it was more traceable, and then, to the young teacher's surprise,
+Jake Ransom had ways of dealing with the offenders outside of school
+hours. Sadie's tongue was sharp and she was accustomed to a wholesome
+attitude of fear among the scholars, but her first thrusts at Jake had
+aroused a demon of which she had little dreamed. Jake had no foolish pride
+and would admit his faults so guilelessly that her satire fell to the
+ground. He was an entirely new sort to the spiteful child. The terrible
+advantage the person who will admit his faults cheerfully has over the one
+who has pride and evades was never more manifest. Jake Ransom pointed out
+to a credulous following the causes of Sadie's disaffection, and left the
+envious child in such a state of futile rage that she was ready to burst
+with her ill-directed fury. In the end the month's work had to be granted
+the tribute of success, and the term closed with a distinct triumph for
+Elizabeth and the experience of a whole year's trial crowded into four
+short weeks.
+
+At home things were not so fortunate. The young girl had come back from
+Topeka with higher ideals of home life, of personal conduct, and of good
+manners than she had ever had before. It was so good to have something
+better, and Elizabeth hungered to pass along the transforming things she
+had found; but when she tried to give the boys gentle hints about correct
+ways of eating she was greeted with guffaws and sarcastic chuckles about
+handling soup with a fork. Mrs. Farnshaw saw nothing but Susan Hornby's
+interference, Mr. Farnshaw told her to attend to her own affairs until her
+help was desired, and when the child was rebuffed and unable to hide her
+disappointment and retired within herself, both parents resented the
+evident and growing difference between her and themselves.
+
+It was to escape from a home which was unendurable that Elizabeth
+flat-footedly, and for the first time, refused to accede to her parents'
+authority. When the matter of a spring term of school came up for
+discussion she refused to teach the home school again, though Mr. Crane
+had been so pleased with her work that he had offered it to her. When
+asked if Jake Ransom was the objection she indignantly asserted to the
+contrary.
+
+"He was the best pupil I had," she said, "but I don't want to teach at
+home, and I won't do it," and that was all she would say. She secured a
+school ten miles north of her home; ten miles had been the nearest point
+which she would consider.
+
+The interest was at last paid, but when the summer groceries were paid for
+there was no money left with which to go back to Topeka, and it was
+necessary to teach a winter school. Elizabeth went to work anew to collect
+funds for another year's schooling. Mr. Farnshaw sold himself short of
+corn in the fall, however, and the young girl was expected to make up the
+deficit. In the spring the interest was to be paid again, and so at the
+end of a year and a half the situation was unchanged. The next year a
+threshing machine was added to the family assets, and again the cry of
+"help" went up, again Elizabeth's plans were sacrificed. The next year the
+interest was doubled, and for four years Elizabeth Farnshaw worked against
+insurmountable odds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A CULTURED MAN
+
+
+When no remonstrance of hers availed to prevent the constant increase of
+expenses, Elizabeth saw that her assistance, instead of helping the family
+to get out of debt, was simply the means of providing toys for
+experimentation, and that she was being quietly but persistenly euchred
+out of all that her heart cherished. Mr. Farnshaw valued the machinery he
+was collecting about him, Mrs. Farnshaw valued the money, partly because
+in one way and another it added to the family possessions, and also
+because her husband having found out that he could obtain it through her
+easier than by direct appeal, she could avoid unpleasantness with him by
+insisting upon her daughter giving it to him; but Elizabeth's education
+was valued by no one but Elizabeth, and unless she were to learn her
+lesson quickly the time for an education to be obtained would have
+passed.
+
+"It's of no use for you to talk to me, ma," Elizabeth said the spring
+after she was twenty years old, "I shall keep every cent I make this
+summer. Pa gets into debt and won't let anybody help him out, and I am
+going to go to Topeka this fall. I'm years older right now than the rest
+of the scholars will be--not a single pupil that was there when I went
+before will be there--and I'm going to go. I don't ever intend to pay the
+interest on that old mortgage again--it's just pouring money into a
+rat-hole!"
+
+[Illustration: "'NOW LOOK HERE, LIZZIE, ... YOUR PA EXPECTS IT'"]
+
+It was early morning and they were planting potatoes. Her mother stood
+with her back turned toward the raw April wind as they talked, her old
+nubia tied loosely about her head and neck, and her hands red with the
+cold.
+
+"Now look here, Lizzie"--Mrs. Farnshaw always refused to use the full
+name--"your pa expects it."
+
+"Of course he expects it; that's why he keeps adding to the mortgage; but
+that don't make any difference. I'm going to Topeka this fall just the
+same. I am not going to pay one dollar on the interest in May, and you can
+tell pa if you like."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw was alarmed. Elizabeth had protested and tried to beg off
+from the yearly stipend before, but never in that manner. The tone her
+daughter had used frightened her and she quivered with an unacknowledged
+fear. Her husband's wrath was the Sheol she fought daily to avoid. What
+would become of them if the interest were not paid?
+
+Added to Mrs. Farnshaw's personal desire to command her daughter's funds
+there was the solid fear of her husband's estimate of her failure. She
+could not look in his eye and tell him that she was unable to obtain their
+daughter's consent. To live in the house with him after Lizzie had told
+him herself was equally unthinkable, for his wrath would be visited upon
+her own head.
+
+"My child! My child!" she cried, "you don't have to be told what he will
+do t' me."
+
+There was a long pause while she sobbed. The pause became a compelling
+one; some one had to speak.
+
+"I can't help it, ma," Elizabeth said doggedly after a time.
+
+"Oh, but you don't know what it means. Come on to th' house. I can't work
+no more, an' I've got t' talk this thing out with you."
+
+They picked up the pails and the hoe with which they had been covering the
+hills and went to the house, carrying a burden that made a potato-planting
+day a thing of no consequence.
+
+The mother busied herself with the cob fire as she argued, and Elizabeth
+put away the old mittens with which she had protected her hands from the
+earth which never failed to leave them chapped, before she picked up the
+broom and began an onslaught on the red and fluffy dust covering the
+kitchen floor.
+
+"You see, You'll go off t' teach an' won't know nothin' about it,
+an'--an'--I'll have it t' bear an'----" The pause was significant.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw watched her daughter furtively and strained her ears for
+signs of giving up. At last Elizabeth said slowly:
+
+"I'm as sorry as I can be, ma, but--I'm twenty years old, and I've _got_
+to go."
+
+There was no doubting that her mind was made up, and yet her mother threw
+herself against that stone wall of determination in frantic despair.
+
+"Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie! I can't live an' have you do it. You don't know,
+child, what I have to bear."
+
+"Now look here, ma; you won't let me have things out openly with pa and
+come to an understanding with him, and when I told you four years ago that
+you ought to leave him if you couldn't live with him peaceably you talked
+as if I had committed some sort of sin. You and pa are determined to fuss
+it out and I can't help it, and I've sacrificed four good years to you and
+the interest is bigger than it ever was. I haven't helped you one bit. If
+you want to go on living with him You'll do it in your own way, but if
+your life is unbearable, and you want to leave him, I'll see that you are
+provided for. The law would give you a share of this----"
+
+The noise of the broom and of their voices had prevented them from hearing
+any other sounds, but a shadow fell across the middle door and Josiah
+Farnshaw entered the kitchen a blazing picture of wrath. Before he could
+speak, however, the dog on the doorstep barked sharply at a stranger who
+was close upon him, and the irate father was obliged to smooth his
+manner.
+
+Elizabeth escaped to the bedroom as her father crossed to the kitchen to
+see what the man wanted, and Mr. Farnshaw went on out to the pens a moment
+later with the "hog buyer," as the man proved to be.
+
+"My God! My God! What have you done?" Mrs. Farnshaw cried, following
+Elizabeth into the bedroom.
+
+"I don't know, ma," the girl cried, as white as her mother. "I'm going to
+get off to hunt up a school while that man is here. The sun has come out
+and it's only ten o'clock. If you're afraid, come along," she advised, as
+she hurried into a clean calico dress and took down her old black riding
+skirt from its nail.
+
+"Lizzie!" the mother exclaimed, as much afraid of the advice as she was of
+her husband.
+
+There was little time left her for argument, for Elizabeth hurriedly tied
+a thick green veil over her plain straw hat and left the house. The hog
+pens were on the opposite side of the stable from the house and Elizabeth
+soon had Patsie, now a mare of five years, saddled and bridled.
+
+The air was softening, and it occurred to her that it was going to rain,
+as she hurried out of the yard, but she did not wait to get extra wraps
+nor her umbrella. The best thing to do, she knew, was to get away while
+that hog buyer was there and trust to luck for the edge of her father's
+anger to wear away before she returned.
+
+Fortunately she had worn her old coat, which was heavy and waterproof, and
+when it did begin to rain half an hour later, instead of turning back she
+pressed forward, more afraid of the thunderstorm at home than any to be
+encountered on the way.
+
+Elizabeth rode steadily southward, thinking out her share in this new
+quarrel in which she had embroiled her parents, unaware that as it
+drizzled it became warmer and that the day had become spring-like and
+endurable. She began to question the propriety of having suggested drastic
+measures to her mother. "Till death do you part" rang in her ears in spite
+of the certainty that the union of her mother and her father was an unholy
+thing which was damning them more surely than a separation could possibly
+do. Of only one thing could Elizabeth be sure: she saw without mistake at
+last that she must decide upon her own duties hereafter without listening
+to a mother who could not decide anything for herself.
+
+The director of the district to which Elizabeth first turned her steps was
+away from home when she arrived and it was necessary to consider where she
+would go next. After some thought she decided to try the Chamberlain
+district, which lay between there and her home. It was eight miles from
+the Farnshaw homestead and far enough away so that she would not have to
+board with her parents and she determined to try to meet the school board,
+which met usually on the first Tuesday night in April.
+
+The fact of facing around toward the north again set her to considering
+what course of action she would pursue when she went back home.
+
+"I'll go back, I guess, and be patient with whatever he feels like doing
+with me," she resolved, reflecting that from her father's standpoint he
+had a very real grievance against her. "It was a dreadful thing for him to
+hear me advising ma to leave him. I guess I owe it to them to try to
+straighten it up. But I don't believe it can ever be straightened up," she
+ended doubtfully.
+
+Elizabeth was passing a grove of young cottonwood trees and was so
+absorbed in her thoughts that, becoming only half conscious that Patsie
+was lagging and that time was passing rapidly, she gave her a slap with
+the strap in her hand, urging the horse to a faster pace as she rounded
+the corner of the section without looking up. Patsie broke into a long,
+easy lope. Suddenly Elizabeth became conscious of the noise of other hoofs
+splashing toward them. Glancing up, she saw a farm team almost upon them,
+whose driver was stooped to avoid the rain.
+
+Elizabeth pulled her horse up sharply, and to one side. The trail was an
+old one, and the sloping, washed-out rut was deep. Patsie lost her footing
+and, after a slipping plunge or two, fell floundering on her side before
+her mistress could support her with the rein. Active as a boy, Elizabeth
+loosened her foot from the stirrup and flung herself to the other side of
+the road, out of the way of the dangerous hoofs. Elizabeth slipped as her
+feet struck the ground and she landed on "all-fours" in the grass.
+
+The young man, suddenly awake to what had happened, was out of his high
+seat and had the mare by the bridle before its rider had fairly scrambled
+up.
+
+"I beg your pardon! Are you hurt?" he called across the wagon, when
+Patsie, still nervous from her fall, hung back as far as her rein would
+permit and not only refused to be led but threatened to break away
+altogether.
+
+"Not at all! Not a bit! Whoa! Patsie! Whoa! Lady!" Elizabeth cried, coming
+around to them, and extending a smeary, dripping hand for the taut rein.
+
+The young man let her step in front of him and put her hand on the strap,
+but kept his own there as well, while they both followed the backing horse
+with braced steps, the girl talking soothingly to the frightened animal
+the while. The naturally docile filly responded to the voice she had heard
+from earliest colthood and soon let Elizabeth approach close enough to put
+her hand on the bit. The seriousness of the affair gave way to the comic
+when the horse began to snatch bits of grass from the roadside.
+
+The young couple laughed and looked at each other rather sheepishly as
+they saw that further cooperation was not needed. They untangled their
+hands where they had slipped tight together in the loop of the bridle rein
+as they had followed the rearing beast.
+
+"She has broken the girth," the young man said, lifting his hat
+ceremoniously and with a manner not born of life on the farm.
+
+He threw the stirrup over the top of the saddle and fished under the now
+quiet horse for her dangling surcingle. Having secured it, he untied the
+strap and examined it to see if it were sufficiently long to permit of
+tying another knot. Deciding that it was, he tied one end in the ring in
+the saddle and, passing the other through the ring of the girth, drew it
+up with a strong, steady pull. His side face against the saddle, as he
+pulled, permitted him to examine curiously the young girl in front of
+him.
+
+"Are you sure you are not hurt at all?" he asked solicitously.
+
+"Not a bit--only muddy," she replied, stooping to brush her earth-stained
+hands through the rain-laden grass at the roadside. He was still working
+with the straps when her hands were cleaned and watched her openly as she
+shielded her face behind Patsie's head while waiting. The water dripped
+from the ends of her braided brown hair and the long dark lashes of her
+brown eyes were mist-laden also. He examined all the accoutrements of her
+mount minutely. When at last it occurred to her that he was giving them
+extra attention for the sake of extending the time Elizabeth's eyes
+lighted up with a humorous twinkle. The young man caught and rightly
+interpreted the expression and was embarrassed.
+
+"I think it's all right," he said quickly. "I'm awfully sorry to have been
+so stupid. I never thought of meeting any one in all this rain."
+
+Elizabeth took that as a reflection upon her presence out of doors on such
+a day, and leading her horse down into the deep road sprang into the
+saddle from the bank before he could offer his assistance.
+
+"Thank you for helping me," she said, and was off toward the west before
+he could speak.
+
+She was gone, and he could do nothing but look after her helplessly.
+
+"Your horse has lamed itself," he called when he was at last able to
+concern himself with such matters, but either the spattering hoofbeats
+prevented her hearing his voice or she was determined not to reply; he
+could not tell which. There was nothing to do but return to his wagon.
+
+"Confound it!" he exclaimed. "Now you've made an ass of yourself and let
+her get away without finding out who she was or where she lived." He liked
+her--and he was an ass! He anathematized himself openly.
+
+When well away from the man, Elizabeth saw that his observation regarding
+the prospects of meeting people on such a day was a perfectly natural one
+and not aimed at her at all. She laughed at the spectacle she was sure she
+must have presented, and wished now that she had not been in such a hurry
+in leaving him. Here was a man worth looking at. The gesture as he had
+lifted his hat indicated refinement.
+
+"Curious that I haven't seen him--he lives here some where," she pondered,
+and now that she could not find out she rated herself severely for the
+embarrassment which was apt to assail her at critical moments.
+
+Patsie limped miserably, and Elizabeth brought her down to a walk and let
+her droop along the old country road, and speculated on this new specimen
+of masculinity which had dropped from the skies to puzzle and delight her
+soul.
+
+The rain beat heavily now, and Elizabeth began to take her situation into
+account after thinking over the stranger a few minutes. There was a
+perfect deluge of water from the burdened sky, and though no sign of a
+house could be seen, she knew she could not be far from the Chamberlain
+homestead; but the ground was becoming more and more soggy, and her
+garments were not of the heaviest. Patsie's feet went ploop, ploop, ploop,
+in the soft, muddy road. Elizabeth urged her to the fastest possible
+walking speed in spite of her lameness. To trot or gallop was impossible,
+and the young horse slipped now and then in a manner which would have
+unseated a less skilful rider.
+
+The sodden Kansas road was aflood with this spring rain. Patsie laboured
+heavily and Elizabeth gave herself up to her cogitations again. Her mind
+had reacted to more pleasant subjects than home affairs.
+
+It had been a dreary, disheartening ride, and yet it had had its
+compensations, for was not the rider young and the earth filled with the
+freshness of spring? The short and tender grass bordered the road to the
+very wheel-ruts; the meadow larks sang regardless of the rain, or mayhap
+in sheer meadow-lark delight because of it. To the south a prairie chicken
+drummed, and a cow called to her calf, whose reply came from a point still
+farther in the distance. At the sound of the cow's lowing Elizabeth
+Farnshaw peered delightedly through mists.
+
+"I knew it couldn't be much farther, Patsie," she said, leaning forward
+and patting the neck of the dripping horse. Little spurts of water flew
+spatteringly from under the affectionate palm, and Elizabeth shook her
+bare hand to free it from the wet hairs which adhered to it, laughing at
+her rainsoaked condition.
+
+It was indeed a time for seeking shelter.
+
+Presently the rattle of a chain was heard nearby, then the outlines of a
+straw stable were seen, and from the foreground of mist a man appeared
+unhitching a team of horses from a large farm wagon. Patsie gave a little
+nicker of anticipation as she scented the sacks of oats, carefully
+covered, in the back of the wagon. The old man rose from his stooping
+position in unfastening the tugs and faced the newcomer.
+
+"Why, it's Miss Farnshaw! Gee whiz! Be you a duck t' be out on such a day
+as this?" he inquired, stepping forward when he saw that she was coming
+in. Then chuckling at his own humour, he added:
+
+"I guess you be a goslin'--a goslin' bein' a young goose, you know."
+
+Elizabeth Farnshaw laughed. "But my feathers aren't turning the rain, Mr.
+Chamberlain." It was the second time within the hour that she had been
+reminded that women were not expected to go out of doors in a rainstorm.
+
+"That's because you're such a young goose, you know; you ain't got no
+feathers yet, it's only down."
+
+"Fairly caught!" she replied, backing her horse around so that the rain
+would come from behind, "Tell me, does the school board meet to-night?"
+
+"Oh, ho!" the farmer replied, "that's th' way th' wind blows, is it? Now
+look here, young lady, if you be as prompt in lickin' them youngsters in
+season an' out o' season as you be in lookin' up schools I guess You'll
+do. Yes, sir-ee, th' school board meets to-night an' you jes' come t' th'
+house an' have a bite t' eat an' we'll see what we can do for you. Why,
+stars an' garters!" he exclaimed as he lifted her down from her horse,
+"Liza Ann 'll have t' put you in th' oven along with th' rest of th'
+goslins." Then he added: "Now you run along to th' house, an' I'll take
+this horse in hand. I judge by its nicker you didn't stop for no dinner
+to-day."
+
+Mrs. Chamberlain appeared at the door and her husband called to her,
+
+"Liza Ann! here's Miss Farnshaw, as wet as that last brood of chickens you
+found under th' corn-planter. Give 'er a dry pair of shoes an' take 'er
+wet coat off o' 'er."
+
+As Elizabeth turned to her hostess, the old man exclaimed, "Why, Gosh all
+Friday, what's happened to your horse?"
+
+"I'm awfully worried about Patsie's foot. She slipped in the muddy road
+this afternoon. Do you suppose It'll lay her up? It's a busy time and pa
+needs her."
+
+"I don't know; it's in a ticklish place. I'll rub it good with Mustang
+liniment; that's th' best thing I know of. Now you run on to th' house;
+you're wet enough t' wake up lame yourself in th' mornin'," he admonished,
+straightening up, with his hands on the small of his back.
+
+Having dismissed Elizabeth, Silas Chamberlain took Patsie's saddle from
+her back and laid it across Old Queen's harness, taking his own team into
+the barn first. Old Queen was an unsocial animal and it was necessary to
+tie her in the far stall when a strange horse was brought into the barn,
+as she had a way of treating intruders badly. She sniffed at the saddle
+distrustfully as Mr. Chamberlain tied her up.
+
+"Whoa! there!" he said emphatically, giving her a slap on the flank which
+sent her into the opposite corner of the stall. "You needn't be s' all
+fired touchy you can't let a strange saddle come into th' stall. That
+saddle's carried th' pluckiest girl in this end of th' county t'day.
+Gosh-a-livin's! Think of her a comin' out on a day like this, an' smilin'
+at them wet feathers, as she called 'em, 's if it didn't make no
+difference bein' wet at all. Now if John Hunter gets his eyes on 'er
+there'll be an end of ma's board money; an' then how'll I finish payin'
+fur that sewin' machine?"
+
+In the house, after some time spent in trying to be stiffly polite to her
+guest, the unwilling hostess began the supper. The potatoes were put on to
+fry, the kettle sang, and Mrs. Chamberlain sat down to grind the coffee in
+a mill which she grasped firmly between her knees.
+
+"Maybe you 'uns don't drink coffee?" she remarked anxiously, stopping to
+look over at the girl, who sat near the fire drying her shoes in the
+oven.
+
+"Oh, yes," Elizabeth answered slowly, coming back reluctantly from a
+consideration of the handsome stranger she had met; "that is," she added
+confusedly, "I never drink anything but water, anyhow."
+
+Mrs. Chamberlain gave a relieved sigh. "I was afraid you'd rather have
+tea, an' I ain't got no tea in th' house. Bein' farmin' season now it
+seems as if I can't never get t' town."
+
+Just then one adventurous chick which, with the rest of the brood, had
+been discovered under the corn-planter earlier in the day, jumped out of
+the box in which it had been kept near the fire. Mrs. Chamberlain set the
+mill on the table and gave chase to the runaway.
+
+"That's th' peertest chicken of th' lot," she remarked as she again
+enveloped him in the old woollen skirt, from the folds of which came much
+distressed cheeping. "They're hungry, I think," she added, reaching for a
+bowl of yellow cornmeal which she mixed with water. Lifting the skirt off
+the little brood carefully, and giving it a cautious shake to assure
+herself that no unwary chick was caught in its folds, she dropped some of
+the mixture in the middle of the box, tapping lightly with the spoon to
+call the attention of the chicks to its presence. The chickens pecked
+hungrily, and there was a satisfied note in the twitterings of the downy
+little group as Mrs. Chamberlain turned to the preparation of her supper
+again.
+
+"Yes, he's th' peertest chicken of th' lot; an' I'd most as soon he'd been
+more like th' rest--he's always gettin' out of th' box."
+
+"Now, Liza Ann, you ain't thinkin' nothin' of th' kind," said her husband,
+who had hurried with his evening chores so as to get a chance to visit
+with the company and had just come in from the stable. "You know you said
+yourself, 'Thank goodness, there's one on 'em alive,' when you fished 'em
+out from under that planter. Th' same thing's keeping 'im on th' go now
+that kept 'im from givin' up as quick as th' rest did then. Chicken's is
+like boys, Miss Farnshaw," Silas continued, addressing Elizabeth; "th'
+ones that makes th' most trouble when thy're little, you can count on as
+bein' th' most likely when they're growed up. Now, Liza Ann there counted
+on that chicken soon's ever she set eyes on 'im."
+
+Having washed his face and hands in the tin basin on the bench just
+outside the kitchen door, Silas Chamberlain combed his curly locks of iron
+gray before the little looking glass which was so wrinkled that he looked
+like some fantastic caricature when mirrored on its surface. After a short
+grace at the opening of the meal, he passed a dish of potatoes,
+remarking:
+
+"We ain't much hands t' wait on th' table, Miss Farnshaw; You'll have t'
+reach an' help yourself."
+
+"Who's this plate for?" Elizabeth asked at last, designating the vacant
+place at her side.
+
+"That's John's," said Mrs. Chamberlain.
+
+"John Hunter's, Miss Farnshaw," said Silas. "He's our boarder, an' th'
+likeliest young man in these parts." Then he added with conviction, "You
+two be goin' t' like each other."
+
+A girlish blush covered the well-tanned cheeks, and to hide her
+embarrassment Elizabeth said with a laugh:
+
+"Describe this beau ideal of yours."
+
+"Now, Si, do let th' child alone," Mrs. Chamberlain protested. "He's
+always got t' tease," she added deprecatingly.
+
+"Sometimes I be an' sometimes not. Miss Farnshaw made me think of you some
+way when I see her this afternoon." Noting his wife's look of surprise, he
+explained: "I mean when I see you down to th' Cherryvale meetin' house.
+An' it didn't take me long t' make up my mind after that, neither."
+
+Mrs. Chamberlain smiled at the mention of girlhood days, but said nothing,
+and Silas turned to Elizabeth again with his honest face alight with
+memories of youth.
+
+"You see, Miss Farnshaw, I'd gone out on th' hunt of a stray calf, an' an
+unexpected shower came on--th' kind that rains with th' sun still a
+shinin'--an' I dug my heels into old Charlie's flanks an' hurried along
+down th' road to th' meeting house, a few rods farther on, when what
+should I see but a pretty girl on th' steps of that same place of refuge!
+Well, I begged 'er pardon, but I stayed on them there steps till that
+shower cleared off. Most of th' time I was a prayin' that another cloud
+would appear, an' I didn't want it no bigger than a man's hand neither.
+No, sir-ee, I wouldn't 'a' cared if it'd 'a' been as big as th' whole Bay
+of Biscay. An' what I was thinkin' jest now was that there was about th'
+same fundamental differences 'tween you an' John Hunter that th' was
+'tween Liza Ann an' me. He's light haired an' blue eyed, an tall an' slim,
+an' he's openin' up a new farm, an' 'll need a wife. He talks of his
+mother comin' out t' keep house for him, but, law's sakes! she wasn't
+raised on a farm an' wouldn't know nothin' about farm work. Oh, yes, I
+forgot t' tell you th' best part of my story: I got t' carry Miss Liza Ann
+Parkins home on old Charlie, 'cause th' crick rose over th' banks outen
+th' clouds of rain I prayed for!"
+
+"Now, Si Chamberlain, there ain't a word of truth in that, an' you know
+it," said his wife, passing Elizabeth a hot biscuit. "I walked home by th'
+turnpike road, Miss Farnshaw, though we did wait a bit, till it dried up a
+little."
+
+Her husband's laugh rang out; he had trapped Liza Ann into the discussion,
+in spite of herself, and he had trapped her into an admission as well.
+
+"Well," he said, "I may be mistaken about th' details, but I've always had
+a soft spot in my heart for th' rainy days since that particular time."
+
+"But you haven't told me why Mr. Hunter isn't here to eat his supper,"
+said Elizabeth, "nor have you told me what he is like."
+
+"Oh, he's gone over to Colebyville for his mail, an' won't be home till
+late--in all this mud. As to what he's like--it ain't easy t' tell what
+John's like; he's--he's a university feller; most folks say he's a dude,
+but we like him?"
+
+"What university?" Elizabeth asked with a quick indrawn breath; she knew
+now whom she had met on the road that afternoon.
+
+"He comes from Illinois. I guess it's th' State University--I never asked
+him. His father died an' left him this land an' he's come out here to farm
+it. Couldn't plow a straight furrow t' save his life when he come a little
+over a year ago, but he's picked up right smart," Silas added, thereby
+giving the information the young girl wanted.
+
+This young man was to be in this neighbourhood all summer. Still another
+reason for applying for the Chamberlain school.
+
+As Elizabeth helped Liza Ann with her dishwashing after supper, John
+Hunter came in. The ground had been too soft for them to hear the wagon
+when he drove up. Silas introduced them promptly and added with a grin:
+
+"You've heard of folks that didn't know enough t' come in out of th' rain?
+Well, that's her!"
+
+John Hunter's eyes twinkled an amused recognition, but he did not mention
+the accident in which Patsie had come to grief.
+
+"I am very glad to meet you, Miss Farnshaw; we are both wet weather
+birds."
+
+Seeing Liza Ann reach for a frying pan, he addressed himself to her:
+
+"Never mind any supper for me, Mrs. Chamberlain. I knew I'd be late, as I
+had to go around by Warren's after I got back, and I got an early supper
+at the new hotel before I left town!"
+
+"The extravagance of that!" exclaimed Mrs. Chamberlain, to whom hotel
+bills were unknown.
+
+John Hunter went to the door to clean some extra mud off his boot tops,
+and to hide a wide and fatuous smile at the thought of tricking Silas out
+of his accustomed joke. He felt nearer the girl, because she too had been
+silent regarding the afternoon encounter. He liked the mutuality of it and
+resolved that it should not be the last touch of that sort between them.
+While not really intellectual, John Hunter had the polish and tastes of
+the college man, and here he reflected was a girl who seemed near being on
+his own level. She looked, he thought, as if she could see such small
+matters as bespattered clothes.
+
+Silas followed him out. "You didn't bed them horses down did you?" he
+asked.
+
+"No. I expect we'd better do it now and have it out of the way."
+
+As they entered the dark stable and felt their way along the back of the
+little alley, behind the stalls, for the pitchforks, the younger man asked
+indifferently:
+
+"Who did you say the young lady was?"
+
+"Oh, ho!" shouted Silas; "it didn't take you long. I knew you'd be
+courtin' of me along with your questions. Now look here, John Hunter, you
+can't go an' carry this schoolma'am off till this here term's finished. I
+look fur Carter an' that new director over to-night, for a school meetin',
+an' I'm blamed if I'm goin' t' have you cuttin' into our plans--no,
+sirr-ee--she's t' be left free t' finish up this school, anyhow, if I help
+'er get it."
+
+"No danger! You get her the school; but how does she come to have that air
+away out here? Does she come from some town near here?"
+
+"Town nothin'! She was jest raised on these prairies, same as th' rest of
+us. Ain't she a dandy! No, sir--'er father's a farmer--'bout as common as
+any of us, an' she ain't had no different raisin'. She's different in
+'erself somehow. Curious thing how one body'll have a thing an' another
+won't, an' can't seem t' get it, even when he wants it an' tries. Now you
+couldn't make nothin' but jest plain farmer out of me, no matter what you
+done t' me."
+
+"Do you think they'll give her the school?" John asked.
+
+Silas's laugh made the young man uncomfortable. He had intended to avoid
+the necessity for it, but had forgotten himself.
+
+"There's Carter now," was all the reply the old man gave as he moved
+toward the door, which he could dimly see now that he had been in the
+darkness long enough for his eyes to become accustomed to it. The
+splashing footsteps of a horse and the voice of a man cautioning it came
+from toward the road.
+
+"That you, Carter?" Silas called.
+
+"Yes. This ground's fairly greasy to-night," answered the voice.
+
+"Bring your horse in here; there's room under cover for it," was the
+rejoinder.
+
+They tied it in the darkness, feeling their way from strap to manger. "The
+Farnshaw girl's here waitin' fur th' school."
+
+"Glad of that," replied the newcomer. "I don't know her very well, but
+they say she can handle youngsters. She's had some extry schoolin' too.
+Don't know as that makes any difference in a summer term, but it's never
+in th' way."
+
+The young man slipped out of the stable, intending to get a word with the
+new teacher before the others came to the house. The school was assured to
+her with two members of the board in her favour, he reflected. Liza Ann
+had gone to the other room, and finding the way clear he asked in a half
+whisper:
+
+"Did you lame your horse badly?" And when Elizabeth only nodded and looked
+as if she hoped her hostess had not heard, John Hunter was filled with
+joy. The mutuality of the reticence put them on the footing of good
+fellowship. There was no further opportunity for conversation, as they
+heard Silas and Carter on the step and a third party hail them from a
+distance.
+
+There was a moment's delay and when the door did at last open Elizabeth
+Farnshaw gave a glad cry:
+
+"Uncle Nate! Where in the world did you come from?"
+
+She caught Nathan Hornby by the lapels of his wet overcoat and stood him
+off from her, looking at him in such a transport of joy that they were the
+centre of an admiring and curious group instantly.
+
+While Nathan explained that they had only last month traded their wooded
+eighty for a hundred and sixty acres of prairie land in this district, and
+that it had been their plan to surprise her the next Sunday by driving
+over to see her before she had heard that they were in that part of the
+state, Elizabeth sat on the edge of the wood-box and still held to his
+coat as if afraid the vision might vanish from her sight, and asked
+questions twice as fast as the pleased old man could answer them, and
+learned that Nathan had been appointed to fill out the unexpired term of
+the moderator of the Chamberlain school district, with whom he had traded
+for the land. The business of the evening was curtailed to give the pair a
+chance to talk, and when the contract was signed, Elizabeth said that she
+would go home with Nathan, and John Hunter thrust himself into the
+felicitous arrangement by taking the young girl over in his farm wagon, it
+being decided that Patsie's lameness made it best for her to remain housed
+in Silas's barn for the night.
+
+It was a mile and a half along soggy roads to Nathan Hornby's, and John
+Hunter made as much of the time fortune had thrown at him as possible.
+They sat under one umbrella, and found the distance short, and John told
+her openly that he was glad she was to be in his neighbourhood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+REACHING HUNGRY HANDS TOWARD A SYMBOL
+
+
+Susan Hornby's delight over Elizabeth's coming was the most satisfying
+thing Nathan had seen since his return from Topeka. He had traded the land
+to please his wife, by getting nearer Elizabeth, but the presence of the
+girl in the house was so overwhelmingly surprising that Susan was swept by
+its very suddenness into shedding tears of actual joy. Elizabeth was put
+to the disconcerting necessity of explaining that her mother somewhat
+resented Aunt Susan's influence upon her daughter's life when she found
+her friends enthusiastically planning visits in the near future. She
+softened the details as much as possible and passed it over as only a bit
+of maternal jealousy, but was obliged to let this dear friend see that it
+was rather a serious matter in her calculations. Susan Hornby now
+understood why Elizabeth had never visited her in these four years.
+
+With the eyes of love Aunt Susan saw that four years in a position of
+authority had ripened her darling, and made of her a woman of wit and
+judgment, who could tell a necessary thing in a right manner or with a
+reserve which was commendable. Eagerly she studied her to see what the
+changes of those formative years had brought her. She listened to
+Elizabeth's plans for going to Topeka, and rejoiced that the intellectual
+stimulus was still strong in her. Elizabeth was obliged to explain away
+her parent's attitude regarding further education, and left much for the
+older woman to fill in by her intuitions and experience of the world, but
+there again Susan Hornby saw evidences of strength which made her feel
+that the loss was offset by power gained. Elizabeth Farnshaw had matured
+and had qualities which would command recognition. John Hunter had shown
+that he recognized them--a thing which Elizabeth without egotism also
+knew.
+
+It was a new experience to go to sleep thinking of any man but Hugh. In
+the darkness of the little bedroom in which Elizabeth slept that night
+Hugh's priority was met face to face by John Hunter's proximity.
+Possession is said to be nine points in the law, and John Hunter was on
+the ground. The girl had been shut away from those of her kind until her
+hungry hands in that hour of thought, reached out to the living presence
+of the cultured man, and her hungry heart prayed to heaven that she might
+not be altogether unpleasing to him.
+
+In the hour spent with John Hunter she had learned that he had come to
+Kansas to open a farm on the only unmortgaged piece of property which his
+father had left him when he died; that his mother intended to come to him
+as soon as he had a house built; and by an accidental remark she had also
+learned that there were lots in some eastern town upon which enough money
+could be raised to stock the farm with calves and that it was the young
+man's intention to farm this land himself. It seemed so incredible that
+John Hunter should become a farmer that by her astonished exclamation over
+it she had left him self-satisfied at her estimate of his foreignness to
+the life he was driven to pursue.
+
+Elizabeth saw that if John Hunter must needs run a farm that he would do
+his best at it, but that he did not wish to _appear_ one with a rôle, and
+being young and with her own philosophy of life in a very much muddled
+condition, she liked him the better for it. Crucified daily by the
+incongruities of her own home, she craved deliverance from it and all it
+represented.
+
+Just now Elizabeth Farnshaw was going home with something akin to fear in
+her heart. She rated herself soundly for the useless advice she had thrust
+upon her mother and for the entangling difficulties which her thoughtless
+words had produced. That the union of her parents was unclean, that it was
+altogether foul and by far worse than a divorce, she still felt confident,
+but she saw that her mother was totally unable to comprehend the
+difference between a clean separate life and the nagging poison dealt out
+as daily bread to the husband with whom she lived; but she saw that
+because of that very inability to understand the difference, the mother
+must be left to find the light in her own way. In her desire to help,
+Elizabeth had but increased her mother's burdens, and she tried to assume
+an attitude of added tenderness toward her in her own mind, and puckered
+her young face into a frown as she let Patsie limp slowly from one low
+hill to another.
+
+"I'll do everything I can to square the deal for ma," she resolved, but in
+her heart there was a sick suspicion that all she could do was not much,
+and that it had small chance really to avail.
+
+Elizabeth had started early for home, but the sun rode high in the heavens
+before she arrived. Albert, who was herding the cattle on the short grass
+a half mile from home, warned her as she passed that she would do well to
+hurry to the house.
+
+"Pa waited for you to do the milking, Bess, an' you didn't come. He's mad
+as a hornet, an' You'll have t' bring th' cows out after he gets
+through."
+
+It was a friendly warning. To be milking at that hour, when all the men in
+the neighbourhood were already following plow and harrow, was an important
+matter on the farm. Plainly it had been arranged to make Elizabeth feel a
+hindrance to the business of getting in the crops, and it was with
+increased apprehension that she approached home.
+
+The storm broke as soon as she was within hailing distance.
+
+"It's time you brought that horse home, young lady. You see to it that
+it's harnessed for th' drag as quick as ever you can. Next time you get a
+horse You'll know it."
+
+When Elizabeth started on and Mr. Farnshaw saw that Patsie was lame his
+anger knew no bounds, and the sound of his exasperated voice could have
+been heard half a mile away as he poured out a stream of vituperation.
+
+Elizabeth dodged into the barn as soon as its friendly door could be
+reached, thankful that the cows were as far as they were from it. Joe was
+harnessing a team in the far corner.
+
+"You better shy around pa, Sis; and get t' th' house," he cautioned.
+
+"All right. He told me to harness Patsie, but she's so lame I know she
+can't work--what will I do?"
+
+"If she can't work, she can't. How did it happen?"
+
+"She strained herself just before I got to Mr. Chamberlain's. I was
+passing a young man by the name of Hunter and she fell flat. Say, do you
+know anything about Mr. Hunter?"
+
+"Yes, yes. Jimmie Crane says he's a stuck-up, who's goin' t' show us
+country jakes how t' farm; but th' best thing you can do is t' get in an'
+not let pa get any excuse for a row."
+
+Mr. Farnshaw had taken the milkpails to the house while they were talking
+and it was Elizabeth's fate to encounter him on the doorstep as she ran up
+to the kitchen door.
+
+"Where were you last night?"
+
+"I'm awfully sorry about the horse, pa. I hurried this morning, but Patsie
+was so lame and I had to come all the way from the Chamberlain district.
+The Haddon school board didn't meet this week and the director of number
+Twelve was away, and it was so late last night that I couldn't get home."
+
+"Oh, you've always got a good excuse. I bet you didn't get a school after
+all."
+
+Elizabeth had been edging toward the door as her father was speaking and
+now made her escape to the inside of the house as she replied over her
+shoulder in a perfectly respectful tone:
+
+"Oh, yes, I did, and it begins Monday."
+
+"Well, it's better than I expected. Now see to it that you get that riding
+skirt off an' come an' drive my team while I finish them oats."
+
+The daughter stopped where she stood and was going to reply that she must
+get ready if she were to go to Aunt Susan's the next day, but on second
+thought closed her mouth down firmly. She knew she would do well if she
+escaped with no harder tax laid upon her temper than that of putting off
+her arrival at the Hornby home, and she turned to do as she was bidden.
+
+When Elizabeth found her homecoming unpleasant and her father sullen and
+evidently nursing his wrath, she faced the storm without protest, took all
+that was said quietly, helped in the fields and endeavoured to make up for
+her unfortunate words in every helpful way possible. In all, she was so
+subtly generous with her assistance that it was impossible to bring on a
+quarrel with her, and the sour demeanour of her father was so carefully
+handled that Friday arrived without an open break having occurred. A new
+dress had been one of the longed-for accomplishments of the week's work,
+but certain of Aunt Susan's help when she was safely entrenched in her
+home, Elizabeth retired to the attic whenever she saw her father approach
+the house. His attitude was threatening, but the anxious girl was able to
+delay the encounter. It could only be _delayed_, for Mr. Farnshaw made a
+virtue of not forgetting unpleasant things.
+
+The only unfortunate occurrence of the week was the presence of Sadie
+Crane and her mother when Mr. Hunter drove up to the back door for
+Elizabeth's trunk, but even this had had its beneficial side, for Josiah
+Farnshaw had been mending harness, because a shower had made the ground
+too wet to plow, and the presence of neighbours made it possible to get
+the trunk packed without unpleasantness. When John Hunter drove up to the
+back door, Mr. Farnshaw rose from his chair beside the window and went to
+help put his daughter's possessions in the wagon. Sadie crossed over to
+the window to get a look at Lizzie's new beau.
+
+Sadie Crane was now sixteen years old, and being undersized and childish
+of appearance had never had the pleasure of the company of a young man.
+The yearning in her pettish face as she stood unevenly on the discarded
+harness, looking out of the window toward John Hunter, caught Elizabeth's
+attention and illuminated the whole affair to the older girl.
+
+"Dude!" Sadie exclaimed spitefully, facing about and evidently offering
+insult.
+
+But Elizabeth Farnshaw had seen the unsatisfied look which preceded the
+remark and it was excused. Sadie was just Sadie, and not to be taken
+seriously.
+
+"He'd better soak his head; he can't farm."
+
+No one replied, and Elizabeth said hurried good-byes and escaped.
+
+But though Sadie Crane was undersized and spoke scornfully, she was old
+enough to feel a woman's desires and dream a woman's dreams. She watched
+the pair drive away together in pleasant converse on the quilt-lined
+spring seat of the farm wagon, and swallowed a sob.
+
+"Lizzie always had th' best of everything," she reflected.
+
+The roads were slippery and gave an excuse for driving slowly, and the
+young man exerted himself to be agreeable. The distaste for the presence
+of the Cranes at her home when he came for her, his possible opinion of
+her family and friends, the prolonged struggle with her father, even the
+headache from which she had not been free for days, melted out of
+Elizabeth's mind in the joy of that ride, and left it a perfect
+experience. It began to rain before they were halfway to their
+destination, and they sat shoulder to shoulder under the umbrella, with
+one of the quilts drawn around both. There was a sack of butterscotch, and
+they talked of Scott, and Dickens, and the other books Elizabeth Farnshaw
+had absorbed from Aunt Susan's old-fashioned library; and Elizabeth was
+surprised to find that she had read almost as much as this college man,
+and still more surprised to find that she remembered a great deal more of
+what she had read than he seemed to do. She asked many questions about his
+college experiences and learned that he had lacked but a year and a half
+of graduation.
+
+"Why didn't you finish?" she asked curiously.
+
+"Well, you know, father died, and I didn't have hardly enough to finish
+on, so I thought I'd come out here and get to making something. I didn't
+care to finish. I'd had my fun out of it. I wish I hadn't gone at all. If
+I'd gone into the office with my father and been admitted to the Bar it
+would have been better for me. I wouldn't have been on the farm then," he
+said regretfully.
+
+"Then why didn't you go into the law? You could have made it by yourself,"
+Elizabeth said, understanding that it hurt John Hunter's pride to farm.
+
+The young man shrugged his dripping shoulders and pulled the quilt tighter
+around them as he answered indifferently:
+
+"Not very well. Father left very little unmortgaged except mother's own
+property, and I thought I'd get out of Canton. It ain't easy to live
+around folks you know unless you have money."
+
+"But you could have worked your way through college; lots of boys do it,"
+the girl objected.
+
+"Not on your life!" John Hunter exclaimed emphatically. "I don't go to
+college that way." After a few moments' musing he added slowly, "I'll make
+money enough to get out of here after a while."
+
+"I only wish I'd had your chance," Elizabeth said with a sigh.
+
+"Let's talk about something cheerful," young Hunter replied, when he
+realized that the ride was nearly over. "When may I come to see you
+again?" he asked. "You are to see a good deal of me this summer if you
+will permit it."
+
+Elizabeth Farnshaw caught a happy breath before she replied. He wanted to
+come; she was to see much of him this summer if she would permit it! Could
+nature and fate ask for more?
+
+When Elizabeth arrived, the old couple bustled about the bright carpeted
+room, making it comfortable, and cooing over the return of their prodigal,
+till a heaven of homeness was made of her advent.
+
+Half an hour later Elizabeth, dry and warm and with a cup of tea beside
+her which she had found it easier to accept than to refuse, looked about
+her and invoiced the changes of four years which in her preoccupied state
+of mind during her former visit she had neglected to think upon. There
+were many little changes in the household arrangement, due to the
+observations of the winter spent in Topeka. In personal appearance Aunt
+Susan herself showed improvement.
+
+When Elizabeth's attention was turned to Nathan, however, the glad little
+enumeration became a more sober one. In the days when they had fed the
+motherless Patsie together Nathan Hornby had been portly, even inclined to
+stoutness, and his face, though tough from wind and sun, inclined to be
+ruddy. The genial gray eyes had sparkled with confidence in himself and
+good-will toward all about him. At Silas Chamberlain's house a week ago
+the girl had noticed that Nathan let others arrange the business details
+of contracts and credentials, but his joy at meeting her had obscured the
+habitual sadness of his present manner. She had noticed that he was
+thinner, but to-night she saw the waste and aging which had consumed him.
+The belt line which had bulged comfortably under the vest of five years
+ago was flat and flabby, the thick brown hair which had shown scarcely a
+thread of white was now grizzled and thin, the ruddy cheeks had fallen in,
+and two missing lower teeth made him whistle his s'es through the gap with
+a sound unlike his bluff speech of their first acquaintance, so that
+without the face which accompanied the words she could hardly have
+recognized the connection between the man who had and the man who did
+embody the same personality. The cogitations of the first half hour in the
+white counterpaned bed that night left Elizabeth in a maze of wonder over
+his physical as well as mental collapse.
+
+Aunt Susan was evidently aware of changes also, for she hovered over him
+solicitously. Nathan Hornby was a broken man.
+
+School opened auspiciously on Monday; John Hunter came and stayed to walk
+home with Elizabeth on Tuesday afternoon, and the glad weeks which
+followed were but the happy record of so many rides, walks, and talks, and
+the dreams of Elizabeth Farnshaw and John Hunter. He was with the girl
+daily. Elizabeth never expressed the smallest desire for anything human
+hand could obtain for her that John Hunter did not instantly assure her
+that she should receive it. If she stayed to sweep out the schoolhouse,
+John would almost certainly appear at the door before she had
+finished--his fields commanded a view of her comings and goings--if she
+went to Carter's to have a money order cashed he accompanied her; if she
+wished to go anywhere she had but to mention it and John Hunter and his
+team were at her service.
+
+Elizabeth could not have been otherwise than happy. The spring, with its
+freshness and promise, was symbolical of the gladsome currents of her life
+that joyous April and May. Her lightest wish was the instant consideration
+of the man she admired above all others, and that man, in refinement of
+appearance and knowledge of the world, was as far above those of the
+country community in which they lived as the sun was above the smoky
+kerosene lamps by which the members of that community lighted themselves
+to bed.
+
+John Hunter, during the season of his courtship, served the girl of his
+choice almost upon his knees. He made her feel that she could command his
+services, his time, and himself. By his request he ceased to ask when he
+could come again, but encouraged, even commanded, her to tell him when and
+where she wished to be taken and to let him come to see her unannounced.
+He paid tribute to her as if she had been a goddess and he her devotee.
+
+Silas looked on and chuckled.
+
+"Didn't take 'em long," he remarked to Liza Ann, and when as usual his
+wife did not reply, he added: "Glad we're to have 'em for neighbours.
+She's about th' liveliest meadow lark on these prairies, an' if she don't
+sing on a fence post it's 'cause she ain't built that way, an' can't;
+she's full enough to."
+
+Susan Hornby looked on and had her misgivings. She saw the devotion the
+young man poured out at her darling's feet, and she knew that it was the
+fervour of the courting time in a man's life that made him abandon his own
+interests and plans while he plumed himself and pursued his desired mate.
+She saw the rapturous, dreamy look of love and mating time in Elizabeth's
+eyes, and she knew that the inevitable had happened, but she was not
+content. Premonitions which she sought to strangle shook her whenever the
+pair wandered away on real or fictitious errands. She saw that no word of
+love had yet been spoken, but every look cried it aloud and the day could
+not be far distant.
+
+Between corn planting and corn plowing the foundations of the new house
+had been laid and work on it had progressed fitfully and whenever the
+young man could find time to help the occasional mason who laid brick and
+stone for simple foundations, and who had crops of his own to tend between
+times. The work had progressed slowly, but at last the wall had been
+finished and the carpenters had come to do their share. It gave excuse for
+many trips in the evening twilight. They usually went on horseback, and
+Silas's pony with Liza Ann's sidesaddle on its back had more business on
+hand that month than in all the other years of its lazy existence.
+
+Susan Hornby watched the pair ride away one evening the first week in
+June. Nathan stood at her side on the doorstep.
+
+"Of course he loves her; how could he help it? and yet----"
+
+"And yet, what?" Nathan asked impatiently. "She wants him, an' he wants
+her, an' you stand there lookin' as if that wasn't enough."
+
+Susan Hornby turned to her husband with some uncertainty regarding his
+comprehension of the subject, and with a gentle patience with his mood.
+Nathan was often impatient of late.
+
+"Yes, I know--only it seems as if----"
+
+"Well, now what's lacking?" her husband asked when she again broke off the
+sentence doubtfully. "He's got a good farm, an' he needs a wife to help
+him run it. From what he says, his mother's too old t' be of any help. He
+can't run it alone, an' seems t' me it's a good thing for both of 'em."
+
+"That's just it!" Susan Hornby broke out, turning back, her eyes following
+the progress of the pair toward the crimson west, her thoughts running
+ahead to the unknown future where the progress of the soul would be helped
+or hindered; "that's just it! He has a farm; now he's going to need a wife
+to help run it--just as he needs a horse. If he'd only be fair about it,
+but he's misleading her. She thinks he'll always do things the way he's
+doing them now, and he won't; there'll be an end to that kind of thing
+some day--and--and when they're married and he's got her fast, that kind
+of man won't be nice about it--and--they'll live on the farm--and life's
+so hard sometimes! Oh! I can't bear to see her broken to it!" she cried
+with such intensity that the man at her side caught his breath with a sort
+of sob.
+
+"Anybody'd think to hear you talk, Susan, that marryin' was a thing to be
+feared, an' that I'd been mean t' you."
+
+What had she done? There was a half-frightened pause as Susan Hornby
+struggled to bring herself back to the husband standing beside her who was
+broken by failure.
+
+"Bless your old soul, Nate," she answered quickly, and with the flush of
+confusion on her face strangely like the flush of guilt, "if he's only
+half as good to her as you've been to me, She'll never have anything to
+complain of nor need anybody's sympathy."
+
+Susan understood that her assurance did not wholly reassure that bleeding
+heart, and to turn Nathan's thoughts to other things she slipped one hand
+through his arm, and picking up the milk pails from the bench at her side
+with the other, said with a little laugh:
+
+"There now! I'll do your milking for that. You throw down the hay while I
+do it. There's nothing the matter with you and me, except that I've done a
+washing to-day and you don't sleep well of late. I haven't one thing in
+all this world to complain of, and this would be the happiest year of my
+life if you weren't a bit gloomy and under the weather. Come on--I'm
+nervous. You know I never am well in hot weather."
+
+Nathan knew that Susan was really worried over Elizabeth's prospects, but
+her luckless remark upon the marriage of farmers cut into his raw,
+quivering consciousness of personal failure like a saw-bladed knife,
+torturing the flesh as it went. His failure to place her where her own
+natural characteristics and attainments deserved had eaten into his mind
+like acid. In proportion as he loved her and acknowledged her worth he was
+humiliated by the fact that she was not getting all out of life of which
+she was capable, as his wife, and it left him sensitive regarding her
+possible estimate of it.
+
+"She always seems satisfied," he said to himself as he turned his
+pitchfork to get a hold on the pile into which he had thrust it, "but here
+she is pityin' this here girl that's goin' t' be married as if she goin'
+t' be damned."
+
+The Adam's apple in his wrinkled throat tightened threateningly, and to
+keep down any unmanly weakness it indicated he fell upon the hay savagely,
+but the suspicion stayed with him and left its bitter sting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"DIDN'T TAKE 'EM LONG"
+
+
+John Hunter and Elizabeth Farnshaw rode away in the cool summer evening,
+wholly unconscious of the thoughts of others. The sun had dropped behind
+the low hills in front of them, and as they rode along, the light-floating
+clouds were dyed blazing tints of red and gold, as glowing and rosy as
+life itself appeared to the young pair. Elizabeth took off her hat and let
+the cool evening breeze blow through the waves of hair on her temples and
+about the smooth braids which, because of the heat of the prematurely hot
+summer day, had been wound about her head. Her eyes were dreamy and her
+manner detached as she let the pony wander a half length ahead of its
+companion, and she was unaware that John was not talking. She was just
+drinking in the freshness of the evening breeze and sky, scarcely
+conscious of any of her surroundings, glad as a kitten to be alive, and as
+unaware of self as a young animal should be.
+
+John Hunter rode at her side, watching the soft curls on her round girlish
+neck, athrob and athrill with her presence, and trying to formulate the
+thing he had brought her out to say. It was not till they were turning
+into the lane beside the new house that his companion realized that he had
+been more than usually quiet.
+
+"You are a Quaker to-night, evidently, and do not speak till the spirit
+moves, Mr. Hunter," she said, facing about near the gateway and waiting
+for him to ride alongside.
+
+The young man caught the cue. "I wish you would call me John. I've been
+intending to ask you for some time. I have a given name," he added.
+
+"Will you do the same?" she asked.
+
+"Call myself John?" he replied.
+
+They both laughed as if a great witticism had been perpetrated.
+
+"No, call me by my given name."
+
+"Lizzie, Bess, Elizabeth, or Sis?" he asked, remembering the various
+nicknames of her family.
+
+"You may call me whatever you choose," she answered, drawing the pony up
+where they were to dismount.
+
+John Hunter stepped to the ground and with his bridle rein over his arm
+came around to the left side of her pony. Laying one hand on its neck and
+the other on the hand that grasped its bridle, he looked up into her face
+earnestly and said:
+
+"I would like to call you 'Wife,' if I may, Elizabeth," and held up his
+arms quickly to help her from the saddle.
+
+When she was on the ground before him he barred her way and stood, pulsing
+and insistent, waiting for her answer.
+
+It was a full minute before either moved, she looking down at their feet,
+he looking at her and trying to be sure he could push his claims.
+
+When Elizabeth did look up it was with her eyes brimming shyly over with
+happy tears, and without waiting for her answer in words, John Hunter
+gathered her into his arms and smothered her face in kisses.
+
+Ten minutes later they tied the horses to the new hitching post and passed
+into the yard.
+
+"It is to be your house and mine, dearie," the young man said, and then
+looked down at her to see why she did not answer.
+
+Elizabeth was walking toward the house which was to be hers, oblivious of
+time and place, almost unconscious of the man at her side, stunned by the
+unexpectedness of this precious gift of love which had just been offered
+her. As they stepped upon the little back porch, he said:
+
+"I brought you over to ask your advice about the stairway; the carpenters
+want to leave one step in the sitting room. It'll be back far enough from
+the chimney to be out of the way and it makes their calculations easier
+about the stairs somehow. What do you think?"
+
+Elizabeth was altogether too new in the sense of possession to grasp the
+full significance of the question. John Hunter laughed at the look she
+turned upon him and said, with a large and benevolent wave of the hand,
+indicating the entire premises:
+
+"The house is yours, little girl, and you are to have it as you want it.
+The only desire I have on earth is to do things for you."
+
+Elizabeth shot a quick look of joy up to him. "No one but Aunt Susan has
+ever wanted to do anything for me," she said, and opening her arms held
+them out to him, crying, "Am I to be happy? John! John! do you love me,
+really?"
+
+And that was the burden of their conversation during the entire stay.
+
+"It can't be possible, John," the happy girl said at one point. "I have
+never known love--and--and I want it till I could die for it."
+
+"Just so you don't die _of_ it, You'll be all right," John Hunter replied,
+and went home from Nathan's, later, whistling a merry tune. He had not
+known that love poured itself out with such abandonment. It was a new
+feature of the little god's manoeuvring, but John doubted not that it was
+the usual thing where a girl really cared for a man.
+
+"I'll farm the whole place next year, and It'll be different from boarding
+at the Chamberlains', where they don't have any napkins and the old man
+sucks his coffee out of his saucer as if it hurt him. Mother 'll like her
+too, after we get her away from that sort of thing and brush her up, and
+get her into the Hunter ways," he told himself as he tied the pony in the
+dark stall.
+
+The next day was a dream to the young girl, who patiently watched the
+clock and waited for the hour of visiting the new house again. "I have no
+higher desire on earth than to do things for you," was the undercurrent of
+her thoughts. She was to escape from the things which threatened at home.
+Instead of always rendering services, which were seldom satisfactory after
+she had sacrificed herself to them, she was to be served as well. Oh, the
+glad thought! Not of service as such, but of the mutuality of it. She
+loved John Hunter and he loved her. There was to be understanding between
+them. That was the joy of it. To put her hand on the arm of one that
+appreciated not only her but all that she aimed at, to open her heart to
+him, to be one with him in aspiration, that was the point of value which
+Elizabeth Farnshaw never doubted was to be the leading characteristic of
+their life together.
+
+Now that she was engaged, Elizabeth felt herself emancipated from home
+authority. She would belong to herself hereafter. She would stay with Aunt
+Susan till she had her sewing done for the winter at Topeka. She would go
+to school only one year, just enough to polish up on social ideas and
+matters of dress. Elizabeth Farnshaw knew that both John Hunter and his
+mother were critical upon those accomplishments and her pride told her to
+prepare for the mother's inspection. She knew that she was considered a
+country girl by those of superior advantages, and she was resolved to show
+what could be done in a year in the way of improvement; then she would
+come home and teach for money with which to buy her wedding outfit, and
+then they would be married. Two years and the certainty of graduation
+would have suited her better, but two years was a long time. The picture
+of John without her, and the home he was building for her, planted
+themselves in the foreground of her thoughts, and Elizabeth was unselfish.
+She would not make John Hunter wait. She would make that one year at
+Topeka equal to two in the intensity of its living. She would remain away
+the shortest possible length of time which was required for her
+preparation. Elizabeth was glad that John had his mother to keep house for
+him, because she did not want him to be lonesome while she was gone,
+though she did not doubt that he would come to Topeka many times while she
+was there. Her mind flew off in another direction at that, and she planned
+to send him word when there were good lectures to attend.
+
+"John likes those things," she thought, and was filled with a new joy at
+the prospect of their books, and lectures, and intellectual pursuits. Her
+plan of teaching in the high school was abandoned. It was better to be
+loved and have a home with John Hunter than to live in Topeka. The more
+Elizabeth thought of it the more she was convinced that her plan was
+complete. She was glad there was a month to spare before Mrs. Hunter came.
+John's mother was the only warning finger on Elizabeth's horizon. She had
+always been conscious of a note of anxiety in John Hunter's voice and
+manner whenever he spoke of his mother coming to Kansas to live, and she
+found the anxiety had been transferred to her own mind when she began to
+consider her advent into the home John was building. She had gathered,
+more from his manner than anything definitely said, that his mother would
+not approve of much that she would be obliged to meet in the society about
+them, that she was a social arbiter in a class of women superior to these
+simple farmers' wives, and that her whole life and thought were of a
+different and more desirable sort. When Elizabeth thought of Mrs. Hunter
+she unconsciously glanced down at herself, her simple print dress, her
+brown hands, and the heavy shoes which much walking made necessary, and
+wondered how she did really appear; and there was a distinct misgiving in
+everything where the older woman had to be considered.
+
+John came early that evening. The carpenters had raised new questions
+about shelves and doors and Elizabeth must go over and decide those
+matters. They walked over, and it was late before all the simple
+arrangements could be decided upon. As they returned they walked close
+together in the centre of the deep road so as to avoid the dew-laden grass
+on either side. The open door of Nathan's house gave out a hospitable
+light, but they were content to saunter slowly, listening to the harvest
+crickets which were already chirruping in the weeds about them, and
+looking at the lazy red disk of the moon just peeping above the eastern
+horizon.
+
+"I shall write mother of our engagement to-night," John said after a
+rather long silence.
+
+"Oh, don't," the girl replied, awakened suddenly from a reverie of a
+different sort. "Let's keep it a secret for a while. I haven't told Aunt
+Susan yet, and I don't want to tell her till I go to Topeka. Of course
+I'll have to explain if you come down there to see me."
+
+"To Topeka?" John exclaimed in astonishment.
+
+Elizabeth laughed merrily. "Why, yes," she said. "Isn't it like me to
+think you knew all about that? I'm going to Topeka to school this
+winter--and--and I hope You'll come a lot. We'll have awfully good times.
+Then I'll teach another term and get my wedding clothes and get them made,
+and then, John Hunter, I am yours to have and to hold," she ended
+happily.
+
+"You don't mean that you are going to school again now that you are going
+to get married?" John Hunter asked with such incredulity that Elizabeth
+laughed a little joyous laugh full of girlish amusement, full of love and
+anticipation.
+
+"Why of course--why not? All the more because we are going to be married.
+I'll want to brush up on lots of things before I have to live near your
+mother; and--and we'll have awfully good times when you come to see me."
+
+"Oh, goodness!" John said irritably. "I'd counted on being married this
+fall. I simply can't wait two years, and that is all there is about it."
+Elizabeth argued easily at first, certain that it could be readily
+arranged, but John became more and more positive. At last she became
+worried.
+
+The harvest crickets were forgotten as the young girl pressed closer to
+his side, explaining the necessity, pointing out that it was to be her
+last little fling at the education for which she had planned so long, her
+timidity where his mother was concerned, and her desire to enter the
+family upon equal social terms.
+
+"It is all tomfoolery," John answered with fixity of purpose. "You don't
+need a thing that you haven't already got--except," he added slowly,
+"except what mother could help you to. But that isn't the point. I shall
+need you. It's time for me to get down to business and raise some money.
+Between building the house and going"--John hesitated--"and not applying
+myself as I should, I'm not making anything this summer. I want to get
+away from this--from here--some day, and I want to begin real work at
+once. Mother can help you in anything you don't know; she's up on all
+those things; and we've got to get down to business," he repeated.
+
+There was a tone of finality in it. Elizabeth recognized it, but her plans
+were made and she was not ready to give them up.
+
+"I can't go into your house, John, I simply cannot, without getting away
+and learning some things. When I become your wife I want to be a woman you
+are proud to take to your mother. I can't have it otherwise."
+
+There was quiet while she waited for the answer to her assertion.
+Elizabeth thought he was formulating a reply. The silence lengthened, and
+still she waited. They were getting nearer the house and she moved more
+slowly, drawing on his arm to check his advance. At last, realizing that
+he did not intend to speak when they were just outside of the lighted
+doorstep, Elizabeth stopped and, facing around so that she could see him
+in the dim light, asked:
+
+"What is it? What have I done to offend you?"
+
+"Nothing, only it upsets every plan I have on earth. I tell you, it's all
+foolishness; and besides, I need you. Now see here"--and he went on to
+show her how his mother knew all the things she was going to Topeka to
+learn, and to outline his schemes for the future.
+
+Confused by his opposition, and not knowing just how to meet this first
+difference of opinion, Elizabeth listened and made no reply. It was her
+way to wait when disturbed until she saw her way clear. Elizabeth was
+sound and sturdy but not quick and resourceful when attacked. John talked
+on till he had finished his argument and then turned to the house again.
+When they arrived at the step he said a whispered good-bye and was gone
+before Elizabeth realized that he was not coming in with her.
+
+Susan Hornby had risen from her chair, thinking that John was coming into
+the house, and when she saw that he did not she slipped her arm about the
+young girl and kissed her as she was passing.
+
+"I'm going to bed, Aunt Susan," Elizabeth said, and passed on to the door
+of her own room. Susan Hornby knew that something had gone wrong.
+
+Saturday morning was spent by Elizabeth sewing on a dress she was anxious
+to finish before Mrs. Hunter came, and when there were only mornings and
+evenings in which to sew, and inexperience made much ripping necessary,
+the work did not progress rapidly. As she sewed she considered. No, she
+would not give up the year away at school. It was absolutely essential
+that she come into the Hunter family equipped and ready to assume the rôle
+which a wife should play in it. She would be married without a whole new
+outfit of clothes, but the year at school was a necessity. Elizabeth's
+pride revolted against being taught social customs by John Hunter's
+mother. As she thought of the year he must spend alone, however, she was
+quite willing to give up teaching an extra year for the sake of the usual
+bridal finery. She resolved to tell him that. She would be married in the
+simplest thing she had if he wished.
+
+Fate in the person of John Hunter himself took the settlement of the
+bride's gown out of Elizabeth's hands. Just before noon he stopped, on his
+way back from Colebyville, to give Susan Hornby the mail he had brought
+out from the post-office. Elizabeth followed him to the wagon when he went
+out.
+
+"Well, I wrote mother. Can you be ready by October?" He spoke across the
+backs of the horses as he untied them, and was very busy with the straps.
+
+Elizabeth Farnshaw's face contracted visibly. He had taken advantage of
+her.
+
+"How could you do it?" she asked indignantly.
+
+"Why, I thought it was settled! I told you I couldn't wait a whole year,
+much less two. I told you about getting Mitchell County land and getting
+down to cattle raising right off. You didn't say anything."
+
+There was such righteous innocence in his voice that the sting of
+deception was drawn from her mind. The young girl made no reply, but
+leaned her head against the withers of the horse at her side and looked
+down at her foot to hide her tears. It was a blow. She was conscious that
+somehow there had been a lack of high principle in it. Her silence the
+night before _had_ given some colour to the claim of it having been
+settled, but there had been a haste about this letter which was
+suspicious. Why could he not have stopped on the way to town as well as
+now on the way home?
+
+The question which was forming in Elizabeth's mind was cut short by
+feeling John's arm stealing around her. She started and glanced at the
+house apprehensively.
+
+"Oh, they can't see us," John said, glad to have that phase of the
+situation up for argument. "It wouldn't matter if they did, since we are
+to be married so soon." He added the last warily and watched to see its
+effect upon her.
+
+"But I didn't want it to be as soon as that," the girl objected
+half-heartedly, making her usual mistake of laying the vital point of
+difference away to be settled in her own mind before she discussed it.
+Perhaps after all John had thought it was settled the night before; at any
+rate she would not speak of her suspicion till sure on that point.
+
+John Hunter noticed that she did not refuse outright to consent to the
+early marriage and drew her complacently to him.
+
+"I couldn't wait that long, sweet. I want you and I want you now."
+
+He drew her close, in a firm, insistent grasp of his strong arm. Her
+resistance began to melt.
+
+"I love you," his voice said close to her ear. She felt his eyes seeking
+hers. His was the position of advantage. Elizabeth loved love, and she had
+never had it before. She had never been wanted for love's sake. She wished
+to believe him. It came over her that she had wronged him by even the
+thought of an advantage having been taken of her. John's arm was about
+her, he was pleading his love. Why be unpleasant about it? It was only a
+little thing. As she had said in her engagement hour, Elizabeth wanted
+love till she could die for it. She gave up, though something in her held
+back and was left hungry.
+
+As John Hunter drove home to Liza Ann's waiting dinner he said to
+himself:
+
+"Gosh! but I'm glad I got that letter off. I knew I'd better do it this
+morning or she'd be hanging back. It worked better than I had any reason
+to expect. She's going to be easy to manage. Mother ain't able to cook for
+hired men. She's never had it to do--and she don't have to begin. This
+school business is all foolishness, anyhow."
+
+Elizabeth did not stand as usual and watch her lover drive toward home.
+Something in her wanted to run away, to cry out, to forget. She was torn
+by some indefinable thing; her confidence had received a shock. She went
+back to the house, but to sew was impossible now. She decided to go home,
+to walk. The long stretches of country road would give time and isolation
+in which to think. She announced her determination briefly as she passed
+through the kitchen, oblivious of Aunt Susan's questioning eyes. Snatching
+up the large sunbonnet which was supposed to protect her from the browning
+effects of Kansas winds and sun, she told the older woman, who made no
+effort to disguise her astonishment at the sudden change, to tell John to
+come for her on the morrow, and set off toward the north.
+
+Elizabeth knew that her father's temper made her homegoing an unsafe
+procedure, but the tumult within her demanded that she get away from Susan
+Hornby and think her own thoughts unobserved.
+
+But though the walk gave her time to think, Elizabeth was no nearer a
+decision when she sighted the Farnshaw cottonwoods than she had been when
+she started out. The sun burned her shoulders where the calico dress was
+thin, and she wiped her perspiring face as she stopped determinedly to
+come to some conclusion before she should encounter her mother.
+
+"I suppose I ought to give up to him," she said, watching a furry-legged
+bumblebee as it moved about over the face of a yellow rosin weed flower by
+the roadside. "I wouldn't care if it weren't for his mother. I'd like to
+get some of these country ways worked out of me before I have to see too
+much of her. She'll never feel the same toward me if she has to tell me
+what to do and what not to do. If only he didn't want me so badly. If only
+I could have one year away."
+
+The new house pleaded for John Hunter, the content of a home, life with
+the young man himself. Elizabeth had reasoned away her distrust of the
+means by which her consent had been gained, but her heart clung to the
+desire to appear well before Mrs. Hunter. Something warned her that she
+must enter that house on an equal footing with the older woman.
+
+"Well, he wants me, and I ought to be glad he is in a hurry. I'll do it. I
+ought to have insisted last night if I meant to hold out, and not have let
+him misunderstand me. If it weren't for his mother, I wouldn't care."
+
+Having decided to accept the terms offered her, Elizabeth sat down in the
+shade of a clump of weeds and pictured, as she rested, the home which was
+to be hers. Compared to those of the farmers' wives about them, it was to
+be sumptuous. She thought of its size, its arrangement, and the man who
+was inviting her to share it with him, and a glad little thrill ran
+through her. When Elizabeth began to sum up her blessings she began to be
+ashamed of having suspected John Hunter of duplicity in writing the
+letter.
+
+"He told me he had no higher desires on earth than to do things for me,"
+she said, springing up and starting home with a song in her heart.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw, called to the door by the barking of the dogs, exclaimed:
+
+"What in this world brings you home at this time of day?" Mrs. Farnshaw's
+hands were covered with the dough of her belated Saturday's baking.
+
+"Just had to come, mummie; just had to come," Elizabeth cried, giving her
+mother a rapturous little hug.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw ducked her head to avoid the manoeuvre, saying petulantly:
+
+"Look out! Can't you see I'm in th' flour up t' my elbows."
+
+Elizabeth flicked her dress sleeve and laughed in merry derision.
+
+"Kansas flour brushes off easily, ma," she said, "and I've got something
+to tell you."
+
+The corners of Mrs. Farnshaw's mouth twitched in a pleased effort to cover
+a smile.
+
+Elizabeth was surprised at her own statement. She had not exactly intended
+to tell her mother at this time and could not understand herself in having
+put the idea forth, that she had come all the way home to tell something
+of importance. She sat down and leaned her elbows on the littered kitchen
+table too confused to speak for a moment. She had made the plunge; there
+was no other excuse for the trip that she could think of at that time,
+and, with a feeling that Aunt Susan had been defrauded of something
+distinctly belonging to her, Elizabeth broke the silence with the bald
+statement.
+
+"Mr. Hunter and I are going to be married."
+
+"Well, Lizzie, that ain't much news; we seen it comin' weeks ago," the
+mother replied with a laugh.
+
+"You did? I don't see how you knew," the girl said, startled out of her
+confusion.
+
+"What's he been comin' here so steady for?" Mrs. Farnshaw replied,
+scraping the side of her bread pan with a kitchen knife, and ready to
+enter into this delightful bit of argument. Lizzie was doing well for
+herself.
+
+"Lots of girls have steady company and don't get married either," the girl
+replied hesitantly.
+
+"Oh, yes, but this is different," the mother said. "When's it goin' t'
+be?"
+
+"Some time in October," Elizabeth said, her words dragging. She had
+consented, but the mere mention of the time made her shrink.
+
+"Is th' house done?" Mrs. Farnshaw asked, her mind, like her hands, filled
+with practical concerns.
+
+"Almost," Elizabeth returned as she rose to get the broom with which to
+sweep the ever dusty floor. "It's ready to paint," she added.
+
+"Is it goin' t' be painted? Will it be white and have green shutters?"
+
+Elizabeth laughed at the gratified pride in her mother's tone.
+
+"I don't know, ma," she said, looking for the shovel, which, when it could
+be located, served as a dustpan.
+
+"Didn't he ask you what colour to put on it?" the mother asked, fishing
+the shovel out of the rubbish collected behind the rusty cook stove. "Now
+look here, Lizzie," she added with sudden suspicion, "don't you go an'
+spoil him right t' begin with. You let him see that you want things your
+own way about th' house. If you set your foot down now, You'll have it
+easier all th' way through. That's where I made my mistake. I liked t'
+give up t' your pa at first an' then--an' then he got t' thinkin' I didn't
+have no right t' want anything my way."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw filled the hungry stove with cobs and studied the subject
+dejectedly.
+
+"I don't get my way about nothin'. I can't go t' town t' pick out a new
+dress that is bought with money I get from th' eggs, even. He'll manage
+most any way t' get off t' town so's t' keep me from knowin' he's goin',
+an' then make me send th' eggs an' butter by some one that's goin' by. He
+makes me stay home t' watch something if he has t' let me know he's goin'
+his self. I don't own my house, nor my children, nor myself."
+
+The undercurrent of Elizabeth's thoughts as she listened to the spiritless
+tale was, "but John's so different from pa."
+
+"I reckon I'll never have no help from you now," Mrs. Farnshaw continued
+in the same whine.
+
+The girl crossed the room and put her arms tenderly around her mother's
+neck.
+
+"I'll live real near you, ma, and you can come and see me every few days.
+Don't let's spoil these last few weeks by worrying," Elizabeth said, her
+eyes opened to the longing expressed.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw was heating the oven for baking, and broke away from the
+sympathetic clasp to refill the roaring stove.
+
+"These cobs don't last a minute," she said, and then turned to Elizabeth
+again. "You'll have th' nicest house in th' country. My! won't it make th'
+Cranes jealous?"
+
+"They don't count," Elizabeth answered. "I believe you think more of
+John's house than you do of him."
+
+"No, I don't, but I'm glad t' see you doin' so well for yourself."
+
+As she finished speaking, Mr. Farnshaw came into the kitchen.
+
+"Well, pa, how do you do?" Elizabeth said, turning toward him pleasantly.
+She wanted to tell him of her engagement, now that she had told her
+mother, and she wanted to be at peace with him.
+
+Mr. Farnshaw mumbled a curt reply and, picking up the empty basket
+standing beside the stove, went out of the house, slamming the door behind
+him significantly.
+
+"I wanted to tell him myself," Elizabeth said with a half-shamed look in
+her mother's direction. "I'm glad all men aren't like that."
+
+"Well, he remembers that awful thing you said about partin'----" Mrs.
+Farnshaw began.
+
+"But this isn't any new thing in him, ma. He's always been that way,"
+Elizabeth objected, determined not to let her mother start on that subject
+to-day.
+
+"Oh, I know it! They all get that way if they're let; think they own
+everything in sight. They get worse, too, as they get older. You do what I
+said an' set your foot down about that house," her mother replied, and
+turned to put a pan of bread in the oven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ERASING HER BLACKBOARD
+
+
+John's attention centred about the new house and each day found him more
+impatient to see it finished. The creature comforts of life were his main
+ideals and he wanted to get settled. Sunday afternoon found him early at
+Nathan's to consult with Elizabeth about the kitchen windows. Susan
+Hornby's surprised recognition of his annoyance, when he was told that she
+had gone home, added to the unpleasantness of the eight-mile drive. What
+business had that woman studying him or his moods? he asked himself as he
+drove away. He would not get out of the wagon when he reached Elizabeth's
+home, though the sun was hot and Mrs. Farnshaw urged him to do so. He was
+irritated, he did not know at what, but he was. He hurried Elizabeth away
+without ceremony. As soon as they were beyond earshot he began to voice
+his grievances. The point he discussed had nothing whatever to do with the
+real ground for his irritability, but served as an outlet for his acrid
+frame of mind.
+
+"If you want to go anywhere, let me know it so that I can take you. I
+can't have you running around the country in this fashion," he began.
+
+Elizabeth, who had felt his manner, looked up in puzzled surprise. She
+could see nothing in that to be fretted about. It was so good to see him,
+to have him with her again after a night spent in her father's house, that
+she was ready to concede any point her lover might raise, but this seemed
+so trivial that she laughed a happy laugh as she answered caressingly:
+
+"I have always walked whenever and wherever I chose around here. I like
+it, dear."
+
+"That don't make any difference; it ain't good for any woman to walk eight
+miles at one time," John answered shortly.
+
+Unable to see the reason for laying stress upon the danger in doing a
+thing she had done for years without harm to herself, Elizabeth was
+surprised into continuing the argument without at all caring whether she
+ever walked again or not.
+
+"I've walked that much a hundred times in my life, and I'll probably walk
+it a hundred times more," she replied with a laugh.
+
+"Not if you live with me," John Hunter announced, standing as solid as a
+rock on the issue now that he had raised it.
+
+"But why not?" the girl inquired, still but little concerned, and looking
+her betrothed over with a girl's eye for correct combinations of collar,
+tie, and driving gloves. Those gloves had been the chief objection
+Elizabeth's brothers had been able to raise against the Eastern man, and
+gave colour to the spiteful "dude" with which John Hunter was mentioned by
+the envious.
+
+"Why not?" John repeated after her. "Because it don't look well."
+
+The ridiculous and inadequate reply drew the girl still deeper into the
+discussion. She began to reason with him quite earnestly. She had always
+walked a great deal; she loved it. Walking was jolly fun. Everybody knew
+she was not as dependent upon being taken as the ordinary woman. When,
+however, John would not give in and insisted that things were different
+now that they were engaged, she ceased to say more.
+
+"You see," he concluded, "people expect me to take you. They'll think
+something's happened and that I don't want to. If I want to take my future
+wife, she ought to be willing to be taken. I don't want you ever to walk
+home again."
+
+Elizabeth Farnshaw was young, the experiences of her night at home had
+made her covet peace, she was unaware that she was being moulded, or that
+her lover considered the Hunter ways, as such, especially desirable.
+Willing to pay the price, rather enjoying the masterful way in which her
+betrothed insisted upon serving her, reflecting that no one had ever been
+willing to serve her at all, and feeling that it was a minor matter, she
+gave up.
+
+"All right! I like to walk, but if you look at it in that way I won't do
+it again," she promised, and in the silence which followed stole a look
+now and then at John Hunter, revelling in his well-groomed appearance. A
+vision of her father's slatternly, one-suspendered shoulders, and
+button-less sleeves flapping about his rough brown wrists, set against
+this well-shirted gentleman produced sharp contrast and made of the future
+a thing altogether desirable. The useless arguments between her parents
+arose before her also; she resolved to argue less and love more. It was
+something, she reflected, to know when to lay an argument down. Besides,
+John wanted it. Leaning over, she rubbed her cheek softly against his
+sleeve.
+
+"I never thought I could be so happy." The words were whispered tenderly,
+as she looked up into his face.
+
+Could mortal man fail to appreciate the manner of the surrender? There was
+nothing left to argue about; all had been granted. Elizabeth was learning,
+as all women have had to do before her, that the man-creature loves to be
+adored, that by cloaking her own desires, stroking his fur the right way,
+giving it little pats of approval and admitting the pleasure conferred by
+his presence, she could work a magic. John's arm dropped about her and she
+gave herself up to the delights of being cuddled.
+
+It was not possible for the inexperienced girl to measure the importance
+of the freedom she had surrendered. Elizabeth desired to forget the
+unpleasant things. Real issues were obscured for the girl by her desire to
+escape from her father's house. In addition to that, Elizabeth had not yet
+become analytical. Instead of meditating upon the manner or the
+positiveness of her lover's commands, she took counsel with herself how to
+make their lives different from her parents', and in her efforts to keep
+her own attitude right forgot to see to it that there was a similar
+attitude on the part of her future husband.
+
+As they drove along with John's arm about her they ceased to talk, and
+Elizabeth's thoughts drifted off to her affairs with her father and the
+night just spent at home. Mr. Farnshaw had adopted the policy of
+contemptuous silence toward her, and Elizabeth hoped devoutly that he
+would continue in that frame of mind. Only so would she dare to spend at
+home the weeks between the close of school and her marriage. She had
+counted much upon spending those weeks with Aunt Susan, who daily became
+dearer. She was not moved to tell Aunt Susan girlish secrets, but she was
+understood and rightly valued in Susan Hornby's home; and now, during this
+one of all the critical periods in her life the most important, Elizabeth
+desired to be with her, but Mrs. Farnshaw demanded uncompromisingly that
+her daughter come home at that time. There was no escaping Mrs. Farnshaw's
+demands on her children, and, troubled and uncertain, Elizabeth pondered
+and snuggled closer to the man who was to deliver her from them.
+
+The pair drove to the new house before going to the Hornbys' for the rest
+of the day. John ceased to be fretful, and by the time for leaving had
+arrived, Elizabeth had forgotten that he had ever been so. That evening
+Aunt Susan was told of the engagement, and having divined its arrival, she
+was able to hide any misgivings she had about it. Besides, not having
+anything upon which to fasten her objections to John Hunter, she was wise
+enough to know that love must have its way, and when Elizabeth pictured
+the life that awaited her, her lover's good points, and her satisfaction
+rang out in a song of glad notes with no hint of apprehension, the older
+woman tried to enter into the spirit of the hour.
+
+Elizabeth was certain she could meet John Hunter's moods as the occasion
+required. No doubts assailed her about the future life except where John's
+mother was concerned. When Elizabeth got to that point in her reflections
+she stopped short without speaking of the matter and announced her
+intention of going to bed. Elizabeth Farnshaw loved John Hunter devotedly,
+but his mother was another matter. There was a strong undercurrent of
+anxiety whenever Mrs. Hunter had to be considered. The nearer the time
+came for her arrival, the more the girl dreaded meeting her. Elizabeth was
+loyal to John, however, and Susan Hornby was given no hint of that dread.
+
+Mrs. Hunter came west the last week of school, and when John was so busy
+getting her and her household goods settled that Elizabeth did not see him
+the entire week, it was like a stab to the sensitive girl. Filled with a
+natural sense of good-byes to all that she had known and loved in the
+work, the impending changes in her life took on a troubled air when John
+failed to come as usual and did not account for the delay. By some
+psychological process Susan Hornby's misgivings began to be transferred to
+Elizabeth's mind. Always as they sewed together Elizabeth was tempted to
+talk about the subject, but something held her back. Often Susan Hornby,
+who suspected her troubled state of mind, was moved to ask questions and
+could not.
+
+A week is a long time when anxiety governs the thoughts, and as Elizabeth
+grew more lonely she crept into Aunt Susan's arms as well as into her
+heart. It became her custom to creep up to the older woman after the lamps
+were lighted and lay her head in her lap, while she would imprison one of
+Aunt Susan's hands so as to be able to fondle it. The evidences of
+affection became more and more a part of her thoughts now that the days
+were slipping by without receiving those evidences from the one who had
+educated her in them.
+
+The last day of school arrived. John had told Elizabeth the week before
+that he expected to take her and her trunk home, but not having seen him
+nor had a word from him recently regarding the matter, a strange feeling
+of disaster made the closing school exercises unreal and uninteresting.
+After the children were gone, Elizabeth began the task of cleaning the
+schoolroom and putting it in order. She set about the work slowly, making
+it last as long as she could. School teaching had been pleasant work. It
+had been the one free field of action life had ever granted her, the one
+point where she had ever possessed herself and moved unquestioned. The
+presence of John Hunter's mother in the community had made the teaching
+seem a refuge to the young girl who was to live in the house with her.
+Elizabeth had not understood that Mrs. Hunter was actually to live with
+them till a short time before her arrival, and then had very nearly given
+offence to her lover by an astonished exclamation of surprise. Perceiving
+that she had done so she hastened to say that she would be very glad to
+have his mother with them. As soon as Elizabeth had got away, and taken
+time to think it out, she saw that she had lied. John also knew that it
+was not exactly true, and was therefore more sensitive. It had been the
+first point of real difference between them. There had been no discussion
+of it. Elizabeth would have been glad to go to him and say that she wished
+it, but she did not wish it and would not lie consciously. If it had to
+be, she would make the best of it and make his mother as welcome as she
+could, but with the instincts of all young things, the girl wanted to live
+alone with her mate. The unnaturalness of having others thrust upon them
+during that first year of married life jarred upon her, just as it has
+jarred upon every bride who has been compelled to endure it since the
+beginning of time. It made of the new home a workshop instead of a nest,
+and took from the glamour of marriage. It made the girl cling to the
+freedom of the country schoolhouse and fear the new life, where the
+examples presented to her by those who had tried it were discouraging to
+an observant onlooker. All this came up as she worked, and saddened the
+day even more than before. As she put the broom away in the corner beside
+the water pail, she noticed that the blackboard remained to be cleaned.
+Taking an eraser she rubbed vigorously.
+
+"It is a rat. Run, rat, run," begun as high as little arms could reach,
+and straggling zigzagingly down toward the bottom, was the last to be
+attacked. As her hand passed reluctantly over it she said aloud:
+
+"I'm erasing my blackboard too. Pretty soon I won't be a girl any more.
+Pretty soon----"
+
+She checked herself, and putting away the eraser, packed the few
+belongings in the drawer of the desk into a neat bundle to be carried
+home. With the package under her arm and her little tin dinner pail
+dangling from her wrist, Elizabeth fitted the key into the lock. As it
+clicked under her fingers the thought came to her that she must turn it
+over to the school board. The finality of it clutched her. Thrusting the
+key back into the door, she was about to go into the little room again for
+another look around, when Susan Hornby's voice at her elbow made her
+start.
+
+Aunt Susan saw the tears which had sprung into the young eyes at the
+leave-taking and drew her down on the step.
+
+"What is it?" she asked earnestly. "You ought to tell me if you are
+worried."
+
+The tears which had been gathering spilled themselves over cheek and
+chin.
+
+"Will I get like the rest of them, Aunt Susan?--never go anywhere, never
+read anything, have nothing ahead but the same weary round over again
+every day?" she queried, when she was able to command her voice.
+
+Susan Hornby's face worked determinedly to control her own emotions for a
+moment before she could speak.
+
+Elizabeth continued: "I've been--I've been so happy this summer, Aunt
+Susan, and--and I'm a little afraid of that other life. Don't think I
+don't want to be married--I do," she felt bound to interpose. "It's
+just--just that--well, you can see how it is; the married women around
+here wear faded things, and--and their teeth get bad--and a man hardly
+ever wants to take his wife anywhere. Look at Mrs. Carter, and Mrs. Crane,
+and ma. Poor ma! She never gets to go anywhere she wants to."
+
+The girlish questionings and fears broke down Susan Hornby's control and
+she fell on Elizabeth's neck and sobbed openly as she said:
+
+"I know, I know. I've thought of little else of late. My poor little ewe
+lamb! My poor little ewe lamb!"
+
+The ethics of Susan Hornby's generation did not permit of an outright
+discussion of the marriage relation. She did not have the matter clear in
+her own mind, but a sort of dull terror came over her whenever she thought
+of Elizabeth becoming John Hunter's wife. She could hardly have told why.
+She knew that somehow human beings missed the highest in the marriage
+relation and that the undiscussed things of life had to do with the
+failure; she knew also that her instincts regarding this marriage were
+true, but she could sound no warning because her knowledge came from the
+instincts and had no outward evidence of fact with which to support it. To
+how large a degree did these warnings apply to all? Susan Hornby had
+plenty of time to wonder and think, for Elizabeth cried softly to herself
+without speaking further. The older woman's hand wandered over the glossy
+braids in her lap, and her eyes wandered off toward the Carter homestead
+while her mind struggled with the problems of the neighbourhood. Elizabeth
+had put into words a thing she had herself observed. She saw the
+irritability of men toward their wives; she saw women about them who
+toiled earnestly, who bore children, and who denied themselves every sort
+of pleasurable relation at the demand of husbands who never gave them a
+look of comradery or good fellowship in return. Was it the weariness of
+the struggle to live, or was it sex, or was it the evil domination of men?
+This girl whose sunny hair she was caressing was to go under the merciless
+hammer of the matrimonial auctioneer. What was to be her fate? Susan
+Hornby saw that love had touched the highest in Elizabeth Farnshaw's
+nature and that the girl yearned toward a high ideal of family life. She
+had shown it in her girlish chatter as they had sewed together. Could she
+attain to it? Susan Hornby thought of John Hunter and stiffened. She felt
+that Elizabeth would yearn toward it all the days of her life with him and
+never catch even a fleeting glimpse of it.
+
+Elizabeth snuggled closer on the step and reached for the hand stroking
+her head.
+
+"It isn't the faded dresses, Aunt Susan; it's--it's the faded life I'm
+afraid of," she whispered thickly.
+
+Susan Hornby bent her head to catch the sobbing voice, and losing control
+of her reserve, said abruptly: "I know it, I know all about it. If I
+thought John Hunter'd let you set at home like----"
+
+She knew while the words were still in her mouth that it was a mistake.
+The girl shrank away and dropped the hand she had been fondling. There was
+absolute silence for a moment, the older woman dumb, unable to go on,
+unable to explain, unable to retract, or extricate herself in any way. The
+discussion had promised so well at first that both had entered into it
+with zest, and yet the moment it had become personal, loyalty had risen
+between them and hushed their words and left them uncomfortable. The
+silence became so intolerable that Elizabeth arose, and unable to look up
+turned and fumbled with the lock on the schoolhouse door. Aunt Susan rose
+also and waited, without speaking, for her to start home. Something hurt
+on both sides. Neither blamed the other, but both were to look back to the
+rough schoolhouse steps and the half-hearted discussion of man's
+domination and woman's inability to defend herself against it.
+
+Before supper was quite finished John came to take Elizabeth to meet his
+mother. He was all bustle and activity; in fact, John Hunter was at his
+best. He took possession of her in exactly the way to show how unnecessary
+her fears had been. The reaction set in. John was fresh and clean of linen
+and finger-nails and pleasing to the eye. Elizabeth's mood changed the
+moment he presented himself on Nathan's doorstep. Every fear of the faded
+life disappeared in his magical presence. John Hunter at least was not
+faded. After all, Elizabeth had been a bit piqued and really wanted to
+meet Mrs. Hunter. John whisked her off merrily and carried her to the home
+which was to be theirs.
+
+"Mother, this is Elizabeth Farnshaw, soon to be your daughter," was the
+introduction he gave her when his mother met them at the door, and then
+watched narrowly to see what sort of impression Elizabeth would make.
+
+Mrs. Hunter kissed the girl gravely, and still retaining her hand stepped
+back and looked at her curiously, but kindly.
+
+"I am glad you are to be John's wife, dear," she said slowly. "I am sure
+we shall like each other. We must--he is all I have, you know."
+
+Elizabeth, who had felt herself on trial, was near tears, but her lover
+saved her from that embarrassment when, feeling that the Hunter approval
+was accorded, he stepped forward and put his arms about the two, kissing
+first one and then the other.
+
+"My mother and my wife-to-be must certainly like each other," he said.
+
+They passed into the house, over which John and his mother conducted
+Elizabeth, talking of its arrangement and furnishings. The girl had
+supposed that she had a fairly definite idea of the appearance that house
+would have, having overseen every feature of its building, but it was a
+world of surprises she entered upon to-day. In her wildest dreams of what
+they would do when they had become rich, as they had planned much to do,
+this daughter of the Kansas prairies had never pictured such tasteful
+home-making. Each bedroom had its bureau with bedstead to match, and the
+one downstairs had ruffled pillow-shams.
+
+"This is to be your own room," Mrs. Hunter whispered in Elizabeth's ear,
+and the young girl stole a shy look at her lover, who was drumming on the
+window and had not heard, and made no reply, but it gave her a sense of
+possession in the new house which she had very nearly lost of late.
+
+It was reserved for the new cook stove in the spotless kitchen to complete
+the surprises of Elizabeth's new world. Elizabeth fingered the nickled
+knobs, exclaimed over the reservoir for hot water at its back and the
+warming closet below, and investigated all its secret places as if it had
+been a toy. John Hunter gave his mother an approving nod behind the girl's
+back, and the visit was a success. Elizabeth forgot that she was to share
+the honours of the home with "Mother Hunter," as she had secretly called
+her a few times, and in the end overstayed her time till the leave-taking
+at Aunt Susan's had to be cut short, and they were late in arriving at her
+father's house.
+
+The day, which had had so many variations, however, like a piece of music,
+was to return to the original theme before it closed. It had been a day of
+forebodings and anxiety. Fate never permitted Elizabeth Farnshaw more than
+a short snatch at happiness, and as John Hunter drove away after he had
+helped her deposit her trunk in a dusty corner, the girl wanted to run
+after him and implore him not to leave her at the mercy of the morrow.
+
+As she gazed about the cheerless kitchen she noticed a muffled lump in the
+middle of the table. The sponge for the Saturday's baking had been warmly
+wrapped for the night. To-morrow would be bake day! Oh, joy! Elizabeth
+resolved to insist upon kneading the dough the next morning, and before
+starting up the ladder to the loft where she was to sleep she hunted
+around in the kitchen safe for the cook book, wondering if by any chance
+she could induce her mother to let her try her hand at baking a cake
+also.
+
+"Go to bed, in there!" growled a voice from the other room, and the girl
+climbed to her pallet, on which dreams of cooking were to entertain her
+waking as well as her sleeping hours.
+
+Elizabeth's cooking schemes turned out rather better than she had
+expected. There are some things common to all women, and Mrs. Farnshaw
+entered into her daughter's desire to learn to cater to the appetite of
+the man she was going to marry. She worked with the girl at the home-made
+kitchen table, and as they worked she talked of many things which to her
+mind were essential to preparations for marriage, of the dresses to be
+made, of the new house, which was Mrs. Farnshaw's pride, and of John
+Hunter himself. By some unlucky chance Elizabeth mentioned her father's
+name. Mrs. Farnshaw had been waiting for an opportunity to speak of the
+misunderstanding between her husband and their daughter. It is the
+tendency of the weak to waste much time and energy in reconciliations, and
+to Mrs. Farnshaw peace meant far more than principles. She gave little
+thought to the rightness of her husband's demands, but bent every faculty
+toward coaxing her family to accede to them. If he were angry, all must
+move in cautious attempt to placate his temper, and if his feelings were
+hurt no principle must be permitted to stand in the way of excuse and
+explanation. She was rejoiced when Elizabeth mentioned her father's name
+and forced upon her at once the necessity of asking pardon for the
+luckless remark regarding separation which Mr. Farnshaw had overheard
+three months before.
+
+"But it isn't a particle of use, ma," Elizabeth replied when pushed to the
+point of answering. "You know he'll hate me now, no matter what I ever do.
+I've only got along peaceably this far by not talking to him of anything
+at all. It's his way. Let it alone. I'm sorry I ever said it, but it can't
+be helped."
+
+"Yes, it can," Mrs. Farnshaw persisted. "Anyhow, he's your pa,
+an'--an'--an' you owe it t' him. You owe it t' me too, t' make it right.
+I'll never have a day of peace with him again if you don't. You'd no
+business t' talk of partin' nohow! 'Taint decent, an'--an' it give him th'
+feelin' that I was sidin' in with such talk."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw had been shrewd enough to save her strongest point till the
+last. That was the lever by which she could pry Elizabeth loose from her
+seated conviction that nothing could be done. Those sentiments had been
+_Elizabeth's_, not her mother's. Something was due the mother who had been
+compelled to share the blame for words as abhorrent to her as they were to
+the irate husband who supposed she had instigated them. Elizabeth knew
+that her mother would never have a day of peace with the man in any case,
+but she knew from her own experience with him that a remark such as she
+had made would be used to worry her mother and to stir even more bitter
+accusations than usual. In her heart she knew that nothing she could say
+would change her father's feelings or alter his belief about the matter,
+but she did feel that her mother was justified from her own standpoint in
+making the demand. As she stirred the cake dough and pondered, she glanced
+across the table to the open door of her mother's scantily furnished
+bedroom opposite. A vision of ruffled pillow-shams where she was soon to
+sleep came to her in strong contrast. The memory of muffled sobs which she
+had heard coming from that poverty-stricken couch in the corner opposite
+the door was set over against the peaceful look of the room which was to
+be hers. She was going away to be happy: why not do this thing her mother
+asked before she went? Elizabeth knew that her attempt at reconciliation
+would be fruitless, but she resolved to do the best she could to leave all
+possible comfort to the mother whose portion was sorrow and bread eaten in
+bitterness and disappointment. She thought it out slowly. After pondering
+a long time, during which Mrs. Farnshaw studied her but did not speak,
+Elizabeth delivered her promise.
+
+"I'll do the best I can, ma. I don't believe It'll do any good, but it
+isn't fair that you should suffer for a thing you hate as bad as he does.
+Don't let's talk about it, and let me find my own time to do it.
+I'll--I'll do my very best."
+
+Pushing the cake-bowl away from her, she went around the table, and taking
+her mother's face between her hands she stroked the thin hair away from
+the wasted forehead, and kissed her with a tenderness which brought a
+quiver to the unsatisfied lips.
+
+"I'll do it as well as I possibly know how. I--I'm going away to be happy,
+and--and I want you to be happy too."
+
+It was easier to say than to do, for things went wrong about the barn, and
+when supper time arrived Elizabeth decided to wait for a more propitious
+time.
+
+In spite of her determination to get the disagreeable task behind her as
+soon as possible, Elizabeth could find no chance at the breakfast table
+the next morning to broach the subject, though she tried several times.
+Mrs. Farnshaw gave her warning looks, but it was clearly not the time.
+When at last the family was ready for divine services and Mr. Farnshaw
+drove up in front of the house with the lumber wagon, the mother gave
+Elizabeth a little push toward the door, admonishing her to "be quick
+about it. Now's your time."
+
+Elizabeth went slowly out. Mr. Farnshaw had just jumped out of the wagon
+and when he saw his daughter coming stooped quickly to examine the leather
+shoe sole which served to protect the brake. The elaborate attempt to
+ignore her presence made the hard duty still harder. She waited for him to
+take cognizance of her presence, and to cover her confusion adjusted and
+readjusted a strap on Patsie's harness, thankful for the presence of her
+favourite.
+
+"Let that harness alone!" her father commanded when he was at last
+embarrassed by his prolonged inspection of the wagon-brake.
+
+"All right, pa," Elizabeth replied, glad to have the silence broken in any
+manner. "I--I came out to talk to you. If I--if I've done anything to
+annoy you, ever, I want to ask your pardon. I--ma--I want to tell you that
+John Hunter and I are to be married this fall, and--and I'd like to be the
+kind of friends we ought to be before I go away."
+
+The last sounded rather good to the girl and she stopped, encouraged, also
+feeling that it was best to let well enough alone; but when she looked up
+at him and encountered his look she shrank as if to avoid something aimed
+at her.
+
+The tyrant detests anything which cringes before him, and Josiah Farnshaw
+was as much fired to anger by what he saw in his daughter's face as he
+could have been by her defiance.
+
+"Oh, I know you'd like to be friends!" he sneered with the fierce hatred
+of a man caught in an evil act. "Now that you're goin' away you'd like t'
+be on good terms with me, would you? How many cows would you like for your
+peaceable intentions? What's th' price of your friendship, anyhow? Of
+course you don't owe me anything! You're a lady! Now that you're goin' t'
+set up housekeepin' you'd like t' be good friends. You'll get nothin' from
+me; I'll let you know that right here and now. Go along with you; I don't
+want nothin' from you, an' I don't propose t' give nothin' to you."
+
+It was so coarse, so brutal, so untrue, that the girl met him once in his
+life as he deserved.
+
+"Keep your cows," she said in the low tones of concentrated bitterness. "I
+don't want them, nor money from you. I don't owe you anything, either.
+I've done more work and furnished you more money than ever I cost you
+since the day I was born. I knew no one could explain anything to you. I
+told ma so, but she's afraid for her life of you, and insisted. I've tried
+to keep the peace with you, really, but no one ever has or ever will be
+able to do that. I'll let you alone after this."
+
+"You damned huzzy!" the now thoroughly aroused man exclaimed, lunging
+forward to strike her with his open hand. He had only listened to her so
+far because there had been something so compelling in the rush of her
+words that he had been stupefied by astonishment into doing so.
+
+Patsie, who was in line with the blow, reared and threw herself against
+her mate, knowing what that tone of her master's voice indicated, and his
+hands were so occupied for a few seconds in quieting the team that he
+could not follow his daughter and administer the chastisement he wished.
+
+"I'll thrash you within an inch of your life!" he cried, however, when he
+saw her disappearing through the open door of the house.
+
+"Now, and what have you done?" Mrs. Farnshaw demanded when the breathless
+girl pushed rapidly past her at the inner door and faced about defiantly
+in the middle of the kitchen.
+
+"I don't want to hear another word about it, ever. I've done it about as
+bad as I could, I guess, but I'll never take another whipping from him,
+and you needn't expect it."
+
+"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," she moaned after the family had
+gone, referring to the figurative speech, "She's afraid for her life of
+you." That had been meant in a very different sense. The girl would have
+given much to have unsaid it, to have given any sort of explanation.
+
+It was not possible to explain anything to Josiah Farnshaw, and
+remembering the threat to flog her as soon as he returned from meeting,
+Elizabeth began to put up her hair and prepare for the departure which was
+her only way of escape. Josiah Farnshaw never forgot a promise of that
+sort.
+
+"I'll go to Aunt Susan's," she resolved, and as soon as she could get her
+dress changed and a few things thrown quickly into the trunk which she had
+partially unpacked the day before, Elizabeth took her parasol and started
+toward the south. John lived in that direction also, and would be on his
+way to see her, for his mother had asked Elizabeth to spend the day with
+her. She would ask John to come for her trunk and then have him take her
+to Susan Hornby's house. Aunt Susan would welcome her with open arms. She
+was covered with perspiration when she met her lover, who was hot and
+uncomfortable also, and had been cursing every mile of the shadeless
+Kansas road. John's relief was so great at meeting her a couple of miles
+on the way that he did not inquire why she was there at that hour till she
+was seated beside him.
+
+"But your father can't do anything to you," he objected when she had
+outlined her plan of going to Aunt Susan's to stay till the wedding.
+"Everybody knows that you have left there and You'll have to explain
+things and get into a scandal."
+
+Without going into details, Elizabeth insisted that he drive on at once
+and get her trunk before her father and the family should get home from
+church.
+
+John Hunter argued the matter.
+
+"If you leave home," he said slowly, refusing to drive on, "people will
+talk, and it isn't to be considered."
+
+There was a pause. Should she explain the case fully? It could not be
+done. John could not be made to understand. Elizabeth knew that even in
+the primitive community in which she had been brought up a man would be
+filled with disgust at the idea of striking a full-grown woman on any sort
+of provocation, and that a man reared as John Hunter had been reared would
+be alienated not only from her family but from her.
+
+Caught like a rat in a trap, Elizabeth Farnshaw let her future husband
+study her curiously, while she deliberated and cast about for some means
+of getting his approval to her scheme without villifying her parents by
+telling the whole truth.
+
+"I'll be nearer you, and Aunt Susan's always glad to have me," she said
+coaxingly.
+
+It was a good bit of argument to put forth at that moment. The sun poured
+his heat out upon them in scalding fierceness, and John Hunter had cursed
+his luck every mile he had covered that morning. He had been accustomed to
+reach her in fifteen minutes, and the suggestion that she go back to the
+old place began to look more reasonable, yet he hesitated and was
+reluctant to let a breath of gossip touch his future wife. Whether
+Elizabeth were right or wrong did not enter into his calculations.
+
+It looked as if his consent was not to be obtained. She could not go
+back.
+
+"I'm not going home, and that is all that there is about it," the girl
+announced in desperation.
+
+John still hung back.
+
+When he did not reply and it became necessary for her to go into the
+details she had been trying to avoid, it was done reluctantly and with as
+little emphasis put upon the possibility of physical chastisement as could
+be done and convince him at all. To Elizabeth's surprise John did not take
+much notice of that element. It did not occur to her at that time that it
+was a strange thing that her lover should fail to be stirred by the
+probability of her receiving a blow. Elizabeth had never had consideration
+shown her by any one but Susan Hornby and had not yet learned to expect
+it. John struck the horses with the dangling lines he held and drove on
+toward the waiting trunk. She watched him as he rode by her side moodily
+thinking of the gossip threatened, and while it was not the mood she
+wished him to entertain, it did not occur to her that it was anything but
+a natural one. They rode without speaking until the house was reached.
+
+"This'll have to be explained to mother," he remarked discontentedly as he
+shoved the unoffending trunk into the back of the wagon. Elizabeth made no
+reply. She had been thinking of that very thing.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+CYCLONES
+
+
+Susan Hornby asked no questions when Elizabeth and John presented
+themselves at her door. Their embarrassed faces warned her. She gathered
+Elizabeth into her arms for a brief hug, and then pushed her toward the
+inside of the house, remaining behind to show John where to put the trunk.
+When it had been set beside the kitchen door she dismissed him by saying:
+
+"I won't ask you to stay for a bite of dinner, since your mother is alone,
+Mr. Hunter."
+
+"Well--er--that is--mother expected Elizabeth over there," John stammered,
+looking toward the front room.
+
+"Tell your mother Elizabeth will stay right here till she has rested up
+from that headache," the woman replied with the tone of having settled the
+matter.
+
+Elizabeth, in the other room, noted that he did not argue about it and
+heard him drive away with mixed feelings. When at last Aunt Susan's
+questions were answered the girl in turn became questioner.
+
+"Will she think--John's mother--that we're coarse and common?" she asked
+when she had told as much as she could bring herself to tell of the
+morning's altercation.
+
+The look on the older woman's face was not a hopeful one, and the girl got
+up restlessly from the trunk-top where she had dropped beside her. She
+remembered the fear, half expressed, on the schoolhouse steps two days
+before and drew within herself, sick with life.
+
+"Can I put my trunk away?" she asked, to break the awkward silence she
+felt coming.
+
+"Yes," was the relieved answer, and each took a handle, carrying the light
+piece of baggage to the bedroom. At the door Elizabeth stopped short. A
+strange coat and vest were spread carelessly over the bed, and a razor
+strop lay across the back of the little rocking chair.
+
+"Oh, I forgot!" Susan Hornby exclaimed, sweeping the offending male attire
+into her apron. "A young fellow stopped last night and asked to stay till
+he could get a house built on that land west of Hunter's. You're going to
+have a bachelor for a neighbour."
+
+"Who?" Elizabeth asked, and then added, "What will he do for a room if I
+take this one?"
+
+"I don't know," Aunt Susan replied to the last clause of the question.
+"The room is yours, anyhow. I'm so glad to have you back that I'd turn him
+out if need be. Honestly, we could hardly eat Saturday. Nate was as bad as
+I was. They've gone to Colebyville together to-day. I'm glad Nate's got
+him--he's lonesome enough these days."
+
+It was Elizabeth's turn to cheer up Aunt Susan, for she always fell into a
+gloom when she mentioned Nathan. It took Elizabeth's mind from her own
+affairs, and by the time the unpacking was finished the volatile spirits
+of youth had asserted themselves. They took a walk toward evening, and
+only returned in time to meet John Hunter, who had come to see his
+betrothed about a trip he had decided suddenly to take to Mitchell County.
+He had spoken of it to Elizabeth before, and had only waited to get his
+mother established and a desirable hired man to run the place in his
+absence. The man had come that day asking for work and giving good
+references and John had decided to go at once.
+
+In the excitement of preparation John seemed to have forgotten the
+discomforts of the morning, and though he soon took his departure, he left
+Elizabeth less unhappy than she had been. Nathan and the new man were
+coming in the distance as John Hunter drove away, and the girl turned back
+into the kitchen to help with the supper.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Lizzie Farnshaw! And you are the Elizabeth these folk have been talkin'
+about? Well, I'll be hornswoggled!"
+
+Nathan and the new boarder had just come in.
+
+"Is it really you, Luther?" Elizabeth asked, and there was no mistaking
+the glad tones.
+
+They looked each other over for changes; they sat beside each other at the
+table, and Elizabeth asked questions and talked excitedly while he ate.
+
+"Your hair is darker, and it's curly," she remarked, remembering the
+tow-coloured locks cut square across the boyish, sunburned neck.
+
+Luther Hansen's face crinkled into fine lines and his blue-gray eyes
+laughed amusedly.
+
+"Got darker as I got older, Lizzie, an' th' typhoid put them girl-twists
+into th' ends of it. Bet you're a wishin' for it--all th' women folks do.
+Wish you had it."
+
+They went for a walk after supper and talked of many things. He was the
+same Luther, grown older and even more companionable. Elizabeth learned
+that both his parents had died, leaving the then seventeen-year-old boy a
+piece of land heavily mortgaged, and with nothing but a broken down team
+and a superannuated cow to raise the debt. By constant labour and
+self-denial the boy had lifted the financial load, and then happening to
+meet a man who owned this Kansas land had traded, with the hope that on
+the cheaper land he could reach out faster and get a good increase on the
+original price besides.
+
+"I remembered th' kind of land it was about here, an' didn't need t' come
+an' see it first," he said. "I was goin' t' hunt you up 'fore long,
+anyhow. I never thought of these folks a knowin' you, though, after I got
+here. Funny, ain't it? I'm right glad t' be back t' you," was his frank
+confession.
+
+And Elizabeth Farnshaw looked up happily into his face, meeting his eye
+squarely and without embarrassment. It was as natural to have Luther, and
+to have him say that he wanted to see her, as it would have been to listen
+to the announcement from her brother.
+
+"I'm so glad," she replied, "and I've so much to tell you that I hardly
+know where to begin."
+
+Luther laughed.
+
+"Mrs. Hornby thought I'd be put out about that room, but I told 'er
+nothin' like that'd bother me if it brought you t' th' house. I've been
+sleepin' under th' wagon all th' way down from Minnesoty an' I can go
+right on doin' it."
+
+They did not go far, but wandered back and sat on Nathan's unpainted
+doorstep while the stars came out, and Elizabeth forgot all about the
+trials of the morning, and told him of her engagement to John Hunter.
+
+"I'm going to live right next to your farm, Luther, and you must----"
+
+Elizabeth Farnshaw had started to say that he must know John, and somehow
+the words got suddenly tangled in her throat, and the sentence was
+unfinished for the fraction of a moment and then ended differently from
+what she had intended: "And I shall be so glad to have you for a
+neighbour, and You'll marry--now who will you marry?"
+
+Luther, who had begun to like this new Elizabeth even better than the girl
+of six years ago, had his little turn in the dark shadow of Nathan's
+overhanging roof at the mention of this love affair, but he swallowed the
+bitter pill like a man. The renewed acquaintance had been begun on
+friendly lines and through all the days which followed it was kept rigidly
+on that ground. He was glad to have been told frankly and at once of John
+Hunter's claims.
+
+In spite of the fact that Elizabeth had stumbled and found herself unable
+to suggest that John and Luther were to be friends, she talked to Luther
+of her plans, her hopes of becoming a good housekeeper, her efforts at
+cooking, and of the sewing she was engaged upon. He learned, in time, of
+the disagreements with her father, and was not surprised, and with him she
+took up the subject of the marital relations at home. Luther's experience
+was more limited than Susan Hornby's, but he looked the matter of personal
+relations squarely in the face and discussed them without reserve. There
+was always something left to be finished between them, and night after
+night they walked or sat together on the doorstep till late. Nathan looked
+on disapprovingly, not understanding the bond between them, but Susan, who
+heard the girl chatting happily about her coming marriage, saw that the
+friendship was on safe ground and laughed away his fears.
+
+Nathan had found his first friend since his Topeka experience, and was
+unwilling to see him come to harm; also, while Nathan had come to love
+Elizabeth almost as much as his own daughter, and to miss her when she was
+away, he was uncomfortably aware that she prized a culture which he did
+not possess, and was subject to fits of jealousy and distrust because of
+it.
+
+Days passed. Elizabeth could not induce herself to call on her future
+mother-in-law. The surety that she was cheapened by reports of her home
+affairs stung her consciousness and made it impossible to make the call
+which she knew she would certainly give offence by omitting. This, too,
+she talked over with Luther, and he advised her to go at once. Each day
+she would promise, and each day she would make excuses to herself and him,
+till at last the man's sober sense told him it must not be put off
+longer.
+
+One evening, after John had been gone two weeks, and Elizabeth explained
+the fact of not having gone to see Mrs. Hunter because of the extreme
+heat, Luther suggested that she go over to the "shanty" with him.
+
+"I forgot my coat, and it looks as if it'd rain 'fore mornin'," he
+remarked. "I kept th' harness on th' horses, so's t' drive over."
+
+As Elizabeth expected, the visit to Mrs. Hunter was the first subject
+broached after they started.
+
+"You're goin' t' live in th' house with Mrs. Hunter, Lizzie"--Luther
+always used the old-fashioned name--"an' you must be friends with 'er," he
+cautioned.
+
+"I know it, Luther. I'll go to-morrow, sure, no matter what happens," the
+girl promised, her words coming so slowly that there was no mistaking her
+reluctance. "I just can't bear to, but I will."
+
+Luther considered at some length.
+
+"She'll be lonesome, not knowin' anybody here," he said with almost equal
+reluctance. "I--I want t' see you start in right. You've got t' live in
+th' house with 'er."
+
+The last clause of his argument was not exactly in line with the
+impression he wished to produce; in fact, it was only a weak repetition of
+what he had begun the argument with, but somehow, like Elizabeth, that was
+the main fact in the case which absorbed his attention. He was
+dissatisfied with it, but could think of no way to state it better; so to
+turn the subject to something foreign to the hated topic, he remarked on a
+hayfield they were passing.
+
+"Them windrows ought t' 'a' been shocked up," he said, casting his eye up
+at the northwest to measure the clouds. "Jimminy!" he exclaimed, slapping
+the team with the lines. "I wonder if I've brought you out here t' get you
+wet?"
+
+He glanced apprehensively at Elizabeth's thin print dress as the startled
+team jerked the old lumber wagon over the rough road, and half wished he
+had not brought her with him, for the signs were ominous. The breeze,
+which had been fitful when they had started, had died away altogether. Not
+a breath of air was stirring; even the birds and crickets were silent.
+
+The storm was gathering rapidly.
+
+They rounded the corner, near his building place, on a full trot, and
+plunged into the grove of cottonwoods which surrounded the "shanty," with
+a consciousness that if they were to avoid a wetting, haste was
+necessary.
+
+The faded coat, which was the object of the journey, hung on the handle of
+the windlass at the newly sunk well. The dried lumps of blue clay heaped
+themselves about the new pine curb and the young man stumbled awkwardly
+over the sunbaked clods as he reached for his coat. As he turned back
+toward the wagon an exclamation of dismay escaped him. The storm had
+gathered so rapidly that the boiling clouds could be plainly seen now
+above the tops of the ragged trees which surrounded the place. Instead of
+waiting to put the coat on, Luther flung it into the back of the wagon,
+and, climbing hastily over the hub, turned the horses and drove them into
+the open road. One glance after they were free from the grove was enough.
+With a shout, he stood up, urging the horses into a gallop.
+
+Boiling like smoke from the stack of a rapidly moving locomotive, the
+storm bore down upon the level Kansas prairie. Not a sound was heard
+except a dull roar from the north. Urging the horses to their utmost
+efforts with voice and threatening gestures, Luther looked back at the
+girl on the spring seat reassuringly.
+
+"We're makin' good time, Lizzie," he shouted, "but I'm afraid You'll get
+th' starch took out of that purty dress. I never thought of this when I
+brought you."
+
+Elizabeth, clinging to the backless spring seat with both hands, smiled
+back at him. It was only a storm, and at best could only soak their
+clothes and hair; but to Luther more than that was indicated.
+
+As they rounded the corner and turned toward the north, a sudden puff of
+wind jerked the shapeless straw hat from Luther's head and sent it
+careening dizzily over the stubs of the hay field at the right. Hats cost
+money, and Luther pulled up the galloping horses. Hardly waiting to see
+whether Elizabeth caught the lines he flung to her, he sprang to the
+ground and gave chase. The hat rolled flat side down against a windrow and
+stuck, so that it looked as if it were to be captured, but before he
+reached it the wind, which had now become a steady blow, caught it, and as
+the only loose thing of its size to be found, played tag with its owner.
+At last he turned back, gasping for breath and unable to lift his head
+against the blast.
+
+A fleeting glimpse of Elizabeth standing up in the wagon was all that he
+got, for a blinding flash of lightning split the sky from north to south,
+followed by a terrific crash of thunder. Half stunned, he fell into the
+deep rut of an old road crossing the hayfield at right angles to his
+course.
+
+As he arose a moment later, a scene never to be forgotten met his gaze.
+One of his horses lay motionless on the ground, the other was struggling
+feebly to regain its feet, and Elizabeth was scrambling wildly out of the
+wagon. Rushing to her side, Luther drew her away from the floundering
+horse. A gust of rain struck them.
+
+"Can you hold his head," Luther shouted in her ear, "while I get him out
+of the harness?"
+
+Elizabeth nodded, and together they caught the bit and laid the beast's
+head flat on the ground, where the girl held it fast by main force while
+Luther worked at the straps and buckles.
+
+"At last!" he cried, when the name-strap gave way under his fingers. He
+flung the neck-yoke over against the body of the dead horse, and stepped
+back to free himself from the dangling lines.
+
+Elizabeth let the horse's head loose and jumped back, still holding to the
+halter-strap. The frightened animal bounded to its feet with a neigh of
+alarm, dragging the girl out of Luther's reach just as a thunderous roar
+and utter darkness enveloped them.
+
+What happened, exactly, the man never knew. He picked himself up, half
+senseless, some minutes later, covered with mud, and his clothing half
+torn from his body. At first he could not recall where he was; then seeing
+the dead horse in the road, and the upturned bed of the wagon itself, he
+realized that they had been struck by a cyclone.
+
+The darkness had whirled away with the retreating tornado, and a gray
+light showed the demoralized wagon overturned by the roadside. The wagon
+was in painful evidence, but Elizabeth? Where was Elizabeth? Looking
+wildly about in all directions, Luther called her name:
+
+"Lizzie! Lizzie! God in heaven! What has become of you?"
+
+He remembered the fate of a girl in Marshall County which he had heard
+discussed only last week. That child had been picked up by one of these
+whirling devils and her neck broken against a tree!
+
+With a wild cry, he turned and ran in the direction of the receding storm,
+calling her name and looking frantically on both sides of the path where
+the cyclone had licked the ground as clean as a swept floor. He could see
+nothing at all of Elizabeth. Realizing at last that he was wasting his
+efforts, and that some degree of composure would assist in the search,
+Luther stopped and looked about him.
+
+Outside the immediate path of the cyclone, which was cleared of every
+movable thing, the hay was tossed and thrown about as if it had been
+forked over the ground to dry itself from the wetting it had had. Hay
+everywhere, but no living thing to be seen. Could it be that Elizabeth had
+been carried completely away by the storm, or was she buried in the hay
+somewhere?
+
+Unresponsive as all nature to human emotions, the tumbled grass lay about
+him, a picture of confusion and ruin. The futility of human effort was
+borne in upon him as he scanned the waste. A pile larger than the
+surrounding piles separated itself from the scattered heaps at last. He
+regarded it eagerly. Yes! there was a flutter of wet calico.
+
+Half rejoicing, half terrified at the prospect of what he might find,
+Luther Hansen ran and flung himself down on his knees beside it, dragging
+at the half-buried form of the girl in frantic haste. She was doubled
+together and mixed with the hay as if, after being picked up with it, she
+had been whirled with it many times and then contemptuously flung aside.
+
+Drawing her out, Luther gathered her into his arms and listened to her
+heart beat to make certain that she still lived.
+
+Though limp and unconscious, Elizabeth Farnshaw was alive, and Luther drew
+her up and leaned her loosely rolling head on his shoulder while he
+considered what to do.
+
+A sharp, peppering fall of hail struck them. Luther looked about quickly
+for shelter. The Kansas prairie stretched level and bare before him. Not
+even a bush presented itself. The size of the hailstones increased.
+
+Elizabeth began to show signs of returning consciousness and to move
+feebly.
+
+The hailstones came down like a very avalanche of ice. It became necessary
+to interpose his body between her and the storm. He thought of the coat
+they had come to obtain, but that had probably gone with the hat and the
+hay and all other things in the route of the hurricane. He stooped close
+over her quivering form and let the frozen pellets fall on his unprotected
+head. The deluge was mercifully short, but at the end Luther Hansen was
+almost beaten into insensibility.
+
+When the hailstorm was over the rain burst upon them with renewed fury,
+and the wind blew as cold as a winter's gale. The chill stung them into
+activity. Luther got slowly, to his feet, bracing himself against the
+blast as he did so, and also pulled up the now conscious girl. Elizabeth's
+strength had not returned and she fell back, dragging him to his knees at
+her side. The rain ran off her hair and clothes in streams, and against
+the storm her thin cotton dress was of no protection whatever. Luther
+urged her to control her shaking limbs and try to walk. It could only be
+accomplished by much effort. When at last she staggered to her feet, he
+put his arm about her and with bent head turned to face the rain, which
+cut like switches at their faces and cold shoulders, to which the wet
+cotton garments clung like part of the very skin itself.
+
+The wind blew a gale. It was almost impossible to make headway against it.
+Had it not been for Elizabeth's chilled state Luther would have slipped
+down in a wagon rut and waited for the squall to subside, but it was
+essential that the girl be got under shelter of some sort At length, after
+struggling and buffeting with the storm for what seemed an age,
+alternately resting and then battling up the road toward home, they turned
+the corner of the section from which the Hornby house could be seen.
+
+Suddenly, Elizabeth gave a frightened scream. Luther, whose head had been
+bowed against the wind, looked up with a start.
+
+"Good God!" broke from his lips.
+
+Only a twisted pile of débris was to be seen where that house had stood.
+
+With the impulse to reach it instantly, they started on a run, hand in
+hand, but the fierceness of the gale prevented them. Out of breath before
+they had gone a dozen yards, there was nothing to do but stop and recover
+breath and start again at a pace more in keeping with their powers.
+Impatient and horrified, they struggled ahead, running at times,
+stumbling, falling, but not giving up. Terrified by the thought of they
+knew not what possible disaster ahead of them, they at last turned into
+the little path leading to the ruined house.
+
+Picking their way over scattered bits of household belongings, broken
+boards and shingles, for some distance, they at last reached the main pile
+of timbers. The girl's heart sank at the thought of what they might find
+there, and she made a gesture of distress.
+
+"This is no place for you, Lizzie," Luther said, quick to comprehend, and
+sick with pity for her.
+
+As he spoke, his foot sank between some timbers into a pile of wet cloth,
+and thinking that it was a human form, he shuddered and fell forward to
+avoid giving an injury the nature of which he could only guess.
+
+They dug frantically at the pile, and were relieved to find that it was
+only a ragged knot of rainsoaked carpet. It indicated, however, the
+possibilities of the moment, and Luther ceased to urge the now frenzied
+girl to leave him, and together they stumbled about in their search.
+Darkness was falling rapidly, and they called first the name of Nathan,
+and then of his wife, beside themselves because they could not find even a
+trace of either to indicate their fate. Had the storm picked them up as it
+had done Elizabeth and carried them out of the wreckage?
+
+Luther stopped and shouted the thought into Elizabeth's ear. The wind
+dropped for an instant, and they stood looking about the place as well as
+the gloom would permit. The rain fell less noisily also. All at once they
+heard their names called from somewhere toward the north. Turning, they
+saw, what they had not noticed before, that the straw sheds and the
+granary were untouched by the tornado.
+
+"Here, Luther! Here, Lizzie!" came another call from the granary door.
+
+Nathan Hornby, faintly seen, was shouting to them at the top of his voice.
+A new dash of rain came, and the wind redoubled its fury as if vexed with
+itself for having carelessly let the wayfarers get a glimpse of the
+harbour where it would be unable to do them further harm. With a glad cry,
+they ran toward the beckoning figure, and a second later Elizabeth was
+lifted by Nathan and Luther into the open door of the bin-room, and
+literally fell across the shifting grain into Aunt Susan's open arms,
+sobbing and clinging to her as if fearing that the fierce winds would
+snatch her away. The relief was almost too much for the girl.
+
+"Aunt Susan! Aunt Susan! How could I live without you?" she sobbed.
+
+Susan Hornby drew the horse blanket with which she was covered over the
+shuddering child in her arms, and patted and soothed her, crying softly
+for joy as she did so, for the fears of the last hour had been mutual. The
+thought of her darling out in the storm, suffering she knew not what, had
+unnerved Susan Hornby, and brought home to her as nothing else had ever
+done a realization of the precious relation between them.
+
+"My daughter! My daughter! My Katy's own self!" she repeated over and
+over.
+
+The reaction of fright and cold and wet brought on a chill which set
+Elizabeth's teeth to chattering audibly. Aunt Susan was beside herself
+with worry. Do what she would, the girl could not control herself. They
+rubbed and worked with her for some minutes. Luther was alarmed and blamed
+himself for having taken her out in threatening weather. Elizabeth
+insisted that no harm had come to her except a wetting, but could not
+convince the others till Nathan had a bright idea.
+
+"Here! we'll scoop these warm oats over you. They're as warm as
+toast--havin' th' blazin' sun on th' roof of this place all day."
+
+The two men were alert for any signs of the old building toppling over
+under the terrific pressure of the wind, and had kept pretty close to the
+door; but they moved over in the direction of the two women, and using
+their hands as shovels soon had them well covered with oats.
+
+"There you are," Nathan shouted, when Susan had begged them to desist
+because of the dust they were raising. "We'll set you folks a sproutin' if
+heat an' moisture's got anything t' do with it," he continued.
+
+He pulled some grain sacks out of the empty wheat bin and advised Luther
+to wrap them around himself. "I'm some wet, myself," he announced, "but
+I've got warm ragin' round here like a gopher. Now tell us how you folks
+come t' get here in all this storm. What'd you do with th' horses?"
+
+All this had been shouted at the top of his voice, for the wind rattled
+and tore at the old building with the noise of a cannonade, as if
+determined to wreck even this shelter. It was not possible to see one's
+hand in the darkness, for when the door had been pulled shut after the
+young couple, the last ray of light was shut out. Besides, night had
+fallen now, and the darkness outside was no less dense.
+
+Luther told in as few words as possible of the catastrophe which had
+befallen them on the road.
+
+"Why, Susan," Nathan exclaimed, "th' same twister struck them as struck
+us! Now don't that beat you? Funny th' stables didn't go, too. That's th'
+way with them things--they go along an' mow a patch a rod 'r two wide as
+clean as a whistle, an' not touch a thing ten feet away. Lord man!" he
+cried, turning toward Luther in the dark with a reminiscent giggle, "you
+should 'a' seen us. Sue saw th' storm a-comin', an' she run out t' git th'
+chickens in, an' nothin' 'd do 'er when she see th' way them clouds was a
+actin' but I must come in, too. We didn't even milk! I never see anything
+come on like it; we didn't hardly have time t' git th' winders shut till
+we could hear it roarin'! Lord, you should 'a' heard it come! All at onct
+it got dark, an' th' house begun t' rock; an' then it slid along on th'
+ground, an' then it lifted clear up at th' northeast corner, an' we slid
+down in a heap on th' other side along o' th' cupboards an' th' kitchen
+table an' crocks we'd set out for th' milk we didn't get into 'em, an'
+then th' house lit over on th' other corner an' went t' pieces like a
+dry-goods box. That kitchen table was th' savin' of us! I don't know how
+it got over us, but there it was with th' safe an' water-bench a holdin'
+th' timbers off'n us." Nathan wound up his story in a lowered tone, and
+there was silence for a moment as each went over his personal experience
+in thought.
+
+"Gittin' warm there, Elizabeth?" he asked after a time.
+
+"A little," the girl answered, still shivering, but with less audible
+chattering of her teeth.
+
+"You'll be all right in half an hour," Nathan said with a relieved sigh.
+"I think we'll put a little more of these oats over you for good luck," he
+added.
+
+They heaped the warm grain thick about her, and then, because it was hard
+to converse with the noise of the roaring wind outside, gave up the
+effort. The old granary had a good roof and did not leak; they grew less
+frightened, and Elizabeth grew warm in Aunt Susan's arms and slept at
+last. The rest lay long, listening to the angry blast, counting up their
+losses and planning to reconstruct so as to fit the new circumstances. For
+Luther another horse would be needed, while Nathan would have to build a
+house and furnish it anew.
+
+After the wind subsided the two men discussed in low tones the best way of
+beginning on the morrow, and it was finally decided that Luther should go
+out and appeal to the neighbours to gather together and assist in sorting
+and saving such things as were worth it, and construct out of the broken
+timbers a habitation which would shelter them till a better could be
+erected. Fortunately, Luther had used none of the lumber of his last load,
+and but little of the one he had bought before.
+
+It was almost morning before they fell asleep, and the sun was shining
+brightly before they awoke. As they emerged from the musty oats bin into
+the fresh air, which had been purified by the wind and rain of the night
+before, a curious sight met their eyes.
+
+The house was indeed a wreck! Roof, side-walls, plaster, floor, and
+furniture were mixed in one indistinguishable mass. The kitchen table
+Nathan had mentioned stood as a centre-pole under a leaning pile of boards
+and splintered scantlings, and had evidently done much to save the lives
+of its owners when the roof fell. One end of the house lay, almost
+uninjured, on the grass, the window panes unbroken and still in their
+frames. Other windows had been hurled from the walls to which they
+belonged and ground to powder. Half the roof had been deposited between
+the road and the rest of the débris as carefully as if it had been lifted
+by some gigantic machinery, and was unhurt, while the other side,
+splintered and riddled, was jumbled together with joists, siding, and
+kitchen chairs.
+
+They spent but little time over the ruin of treasures, but after a hurried
+breakfast, consisting of such eggs as they could find about the haystacks,
+and coffee--rainsoaked, but still coffee, which was dug out of a stone jar
+where it had fallen--the men went at once for help.
+
+In spite of bridges washed out, and many hindrances, sympathetic farmers
+began to gather within two hours after Luther had started out. The lumber
+he had offered was brought and many willing hands began the erection of
+the simple four-room house on the old foundation. The place was cleared,
+furniture carried to one side, while broken timbers were carried to the
+other and sorted, nails drawn, and every available stick laid in neat
+piles ready for those who had brought saws and hammers for building.
+
+Susan and Elizabeth sorted the soaked and muddy clothing, carpets, and
+bedclothes, and Mrs. Chamberlain and other neighbour women, around a great
+out-of-door fire near the well, washed and spread the clothes on the grass
+to dry.
+
+As if by magic, a house arose before night and, minus doors and windows,
+but otherwise ready for occupancy, offered its shelter to the tired but
+grateful family. Broken bedsteads had been mended and put in place,
+feather-beds had been dried in the hot sun, straw ticks had been filled
+with clean hay; broken chairs nailed or wired together occupied their old
+places; the kitchen safe, with its doors replaced but shutting grudgingly,
+was in its old corner, and the unplastered house had a look of homey
+comfort in spite of the lack of some of its usual features.
+
+Luther, who was a sort of carpenter, donated his services for several
+days, and except for patches of new weather-boarding or shingles mixed
+with the old there was little to indicate the path of a cyclone in the
+country. Yes, there was a pile of splintered boards tossed roughly
+together not far from the back door, and the usual fuel of corncobs was
+below par.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"AGAINST HER INSTINCTS, AGAINST HER BETTER
+JUDGMENT, AGAINST HER WILL"
+
+
+Mrs. Hunter did not come to help, nor to call upon Elizabeth and Susan
+Hornby, after the disaster, and Elizabeth was finally obliged to go to see
+John's mother without any encouragement other than Luther's urging.
+
+The day came at last when the call had to be made, and for the first time
+Elizabeth came in contact with polite society which smiles and bows in
+polite form without any especial regard for sincerity. There was not a
+ripple of discontent on the surface at her future home. Mrs. Hunter might
+never have heard of the girl's family difficulties. The girl might have
+called the day before, so courteous and charming was the dignified
+hospitality with which she was accepted. Elizabeth felt as if the most
+painful possibility of her life had been safely put behind her. She had
+been nervous and uncomfortable about this visit, and was correspondingly
+sensitive to the perfect manner of her hostess, and carried away with her
+a new problem to work upon: if John Hunter's mother, by her poise and
+presence, made of his home a social unit of appearance and value, John
+Hunter's wife must not fall below the grade of that home when she became
+its mistress. She pondered long upon that subtle air of good breeding
+which ignored real issues and smoothed communication by seeming not to
+know disagreeable facts. Elizabeth decided that it was much more desirable
+than the rugged honesty with which the primitive folk about them would
+have humiliated themselves by explanation and apology. She would copy that
+suavity of manner. Also, she resolved not to discuss grievances. They were
+a bore and it was horribly countrified.
+
+"I will not let myself think any more about it. I will be myself, and not
+be affected by what the rest of the folks do, and I'll not let myself sit
+and fumble with my buttons because some one else is going to think about
+them. Mrs. Hunter's manners are beautiful. I'd just love her if I didn't
+know I was going to have to live with her," she thought. Mrs. Hunter was a
+fixture in Elizabeth's mental world, and her estimates were the standards
+Elizabeth considered when she sewed alone or when Aunt Susan was silent.
+The girl was both fascinated and repelled by them. Mrs. Hunter's bearing
+was the subject of constant and delighted meditation, while the cold
+carefulness of it was a terrorizing nightmare. The girl kept up a
+conversation with Aunt Susan on the sewing, or a fire of mirth and jollity
+with Nathan or Luther, with this undercurrent of thought always going on.
+How was she to emulate that polish with so little experience in social
+affairs she would ask herself one moment, and the next would be harassed
+by the certainty that equal perfection in housekeeping and entertainment
+would be expected of her. There was no escaping her fate. If she was to
+learn these things, she must learn them of John's mother. There was no way
+of acquiring them beforehand. Elizabeth faced her position squarely: she
+decided to accept her teacher. At least Mrs. Hunter seemed willing to make
+it easy for her.
+
+When Elizabeth went home that night she spoke in glowing terms of Mrs.
+Hunter's friendly reception, and praised the real merit of her
+housekeeping, letting Luther see that she hoped to acquire it, and left
+the little group around the supper table in great good humour because the
+visit had been a success. She took Luther after the meal was over and went
+to look for the eggs about the haystacks, talking all the while of John
+Hunter's mother in the happiest manner she could assume. The visit to
+John's home had made her a bit homesick for John himself. Luther's
+presence had so completely filled the days since John's departure that she
+had not been lonesome for him, but the house with which he was associated
+had brought John back to the foreground of her consciousness with a rush,
+and Luther saw that she was aglow with longing for the man she was to
+marry. They did not walk as usual after the eggs were hunted, but went
+back to the house, where Elizabeth excused herself and soon went to bed.
+John was expected now at any time.
+
+When John did arrive two days later he found a welcome awaiting him that
+was all that the most exacting of men could have desired, a thing which
+astonished him somewhat, for rumour had reached him as soon as he had come
+into the home neighbourhood that the new Swede had cut him out. John came
+to see Elizabeth with curiosity predominating in his mind, though there
+was a distinct feeling of determination to master the situation if rumour
+had been right.
+
+Luther was not at the house when John Hunter arrived. Elizabeth's delight
+over her lover's return was not a thing to be deceived about, but one
+thing left its impress upon his mind: Elizabeth called this new man by his
+given name and spoke of him as one speaks of an intimate. This was soon
+dismissed from John's mind, however, for Elizabeth was all agog to learn
+about the Mitchell County land which he said he had bought, and John
+Hunter stretched his legs out comfortably in the mended rocker of Nathan
+Hornby's little front room and talked enthusiastically of the pasture he
+would have for surplus cattle when he had got the farm in running order.
+No reference was made to Elizabeth's affairs with her family. John was
+keenly appreciative of her joy in his presence, and the old relations were
+renewed; in fact, the relations were on a better basis than they had been
+for several days before John's absence. By a curious stroke of fate,
+Luther was away from the house every time John Hunter called for over a
+week. It whetted John's interest in the other man not to be able to see
+him, and it added an element to the courtship which had threatened to
+disappear. This other man on the scene made him apprehensive; he wanted
+the centre of the stage for himself, and he became more ardent. Elizabeth
+was courted with sweet manner, and all her wishes considered.
+
+The summer was a happy one. Aside from a simple white dress to be married
+in, and two calico dresses for house wear, Elizabeth put her own sewing
+away and helped Aunt Susan repair her quilts and carpets which had
+suffered badly in the cyclone. Two weeks had to be given up to the
+plastering of the remodelled house, and all the furniture was revarnished
+by their own hands. By the time all this was finished the girl felt a
+personal possession in every article the house contained, and it had
+indeed become a home to her. The home she had left was scarcely more than
+a shadow in Elizabeth's mind. The work of remodelling and brightening up
+Nathan's house was hastened because of the wedding, which they planned to
+have take place there. Susan Hornby and Elizabeth had grown closer than
+ever since the storm, when each had feared the loss of the other. They
+worked and sewed together, skimping Nathan and Luther on the cooking till
+the former threatened to turn cook in self-defence.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw had not come to help when the neighbours put up the
+demolished house. The bridges had been out and no one had gone to warn her
+that help was needed. When the news had arrived the omission had been
+taken as an offence and no effort had been made to go at all. The last
+week in September, however, Elizabeth's mother came to see her. The girl
+was helping Susan Hornby put fresh straw under the rag carpet in the front
+room. The straw was carefully spread and the carpet tacked along one side
+of the room, and Elizabeth, hammer in hand, turned over from her knees to
+a sitting position and surveyed her mother with a dull fear at her heart;
+she knew what her mother's presence meant. Mrs. Farnshaw resented the new
+carpet, she resented Susan Hornby, she resented the comradeship she felt
+existed between her daughter and this alien woman who was no relation to
+her by the ties of blood. Ignoring Aunt Susan's courteous attempts to make
+her feel welcome, she drove straight to the object of her visit and
+demanded that Elizabeth come home to be married.
+
+"I'm going to be married right here, ma," Elizabeth replied, twisting the
+hammer around in the other hand and filled with apprehension. She knew her
+mother's tendency to hold fast to foolish demands.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw's ready handkerchief went up to her eyes at once.
+
+"Now look a' here, Lizzie, I ain't got no other girl, an' it's a pretty
+how-de-do if I can't have my only daughter married from my own house."
+
+Elizabeth fidgeted about, laying her hammer down and picking up a straw
+that had pushed its way through the loose rags of the carpet on which she
+sat. After a time she turned her eyes to Aunt Susan with a mute call for
+help. Susan Hornby was decidedly uncomfortable.
+
+"I thought of course you'd come home to be married," Mrs. Farnshaw
+continued.
+
+"You know pa 'd raise a fuss as soon as I appeared," her daughter
+replied.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw brightened. She was strong on argument. Elizabeth's silence
+had disconcerted her, but if she would talk--well, Mrs. Farnshaw began to
+have hopes.
+
+"You've been away all summer," she sobbed, returning to her handkerchief.
+
+Elizabeth kept her eyes on Aunt Susan's face and did not reply again.
+There was another silence.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw began to be desperate.
+
+"Folks has talked an' talked," she said, "an' I let 'em, because I thought
+when you come home for th' weddin' it'd put a stop t' their tongues.
+You've been down here, an' you don't know how hard it's been."
+
+Elizabeth had listened in a distressed silence and studied Susan Hornby's
+face for signs of assistance.
+
+"I guess they haven't talked----" she began at length, and then stopped
+short at something in Aunt Susan's eye which confirmed her mother's
+words.
+
+"Oh, yes, they have," her mother hastened to say. "They say you ain't got
+no proper pride, an' they say you've got too stuck up t' live to home any
+longer, now that you're goin' t' marry rich, an' they say I can't make
+your things good enough for you t' be married in, an'----"
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw had voiced her greatest grievance--her neighbours criticised
+her. She broke into such real weeping that it was impossible not to be
+moved by it.
+
+Forgetting her policy of silence, Elizabeth argued and explained. Talking
+to her mother, but keeping her eyes glued on Aunt Susan's, she went into
+details about the difficulty at home.
+
+"You know pa 'll find some excuse to strike me as soon as I get there,"
+she concluded. She had a painful sense of weakness and inadequacy in the
+presence of her mother's determination. Her own worries seemed so trivial
+in the presence of her mother's sorrow.
+
+"E won't, I tell you," Mrs. Farnshaw repeated for the twentieth time.
+"E'll let you alone if you do th' right thing. We love our children--if
+th' neighbours don't think so," she wailed.
+
+As she talked, however, she kept a shrewd eye on her daughter and soon saw
+that Elizabeth's eyes turned to those of Aunt Susan. It was not enough for
+this Hornby woman to be neutral; Mrs. Farnshaw decided to enlist her.
+
+"If you had a girl you'd want 'er t' be married in your own house, I
+know," she said, leaning forward eagerly. "Suppose you only had th'
+one----" She saw the quick tears gathering. "Did you ever have a little
+girl?" she asked.
+
+Susan Hornby's emotions mastered her. She made no attempt to reply.
+
+"Then tell 'er t' come home for just two more days," she said quickly. "I
+don't ask for no more than that. Just long enough to put an end t' this
+talk. I don't never 'spect t' have 'er after that, but----"
+
+She sprang to her feet and, crossing the room, dragged Elizabeth to her
+feet also.
+
+"I've got t' have you, Lizzie, an' that's all th' is about it!" They
+looked at each other a long time. Elizabeth weakened.
+
+What could the girl do? Against her instincts, against her better
+judgment, against her will, she consented.
+
+"See to it, then, that no new thing comes up to disgrace us," she said,
+stepping back to avoid the compelling touch of the hand that clutched at
+her sleeve, still looking across despairingly at Aunt Susan.
+
+All help had been taken from that quarter. Bewildered, torn between her
+comprehension of mother love and a real knowledge of this particular case,
+Susan Hornby fumbled with the hem of her apron and did not look up.
+
+Elizabeth, alone and without support, was easily victimized.
+
+"I'll go," she said briefly.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the peaceful summer ended for Elizabeth Farnshaw with her promise to go
+home. She hated to go, but the phrasing of her mother's plea, "just two
+more days," helped to sustain her. It had been a happy summer, two days
+would not be long, and then would come John and the new home.
+
+There had been many reasons for the happiness of Elizabeth's last weeks of
+girlhood. The days had been full of pleasant work, and John had taken
+regular and masterful possession of her evenings. He came always such a
+picture of natty cleanliness and taste that it was a joy to be the object
+of his wooing. When John had found that Elizabeth was not in love with
+Luther, as she had been reported to be, but accorded the old grounds of
+affection to him, he had spread himself comfortably in Luther's presence
+and drawn him into conversation whenever it could be done. In addition to
+a desire to set his well-polished boots in strong contrast against those
+of busy, unobserving Luther, the only dressing of which was an occasional
+soaking in oil to keep them from cracking, John Hunter had been half
+forced to like honest, kindly Luther Hansen. Luther was not a man to
+arouse antagonisms. He assumed his natural rôle with Elizabeth even before
+her fiancé and let the ground of their cordiality and friendship rest on
+such sensible basis that they were accepted as a matter of course.
+
+John Hunter had been restless and half angry when he had first come home
+from Mitchell County--a thing he had not let Elizabeth see--but his
+feelings had been soothed and delighted by the display of her preference
+for him on his return. A new buggy had been purchased, and it was John
+Hunter's pride.
+
+Elizabeth was unconscious of any rivalry. The new buggy was a great
+acquisition. It was the first to appear in that part of the country. She
+felt favoured to have it at her service, but the crown of all her felicity
+had been John Hunter's adoration, which had been poured at her feet
+without stint. If she wished to go anywhere, she had but to mention it.
+The relations of the early summer had been reëstablished. He talked of the
+new land, and of the cattle to be placed on it in two or three years, when
+the calves he was buying would be grown. The lots in which he had held an
+equity since his father's death had been sold before his mother's
+departure from the old home, and twenty-five calves had been picked up
+from the surrounding farmers with the money thus secured. Every evening
+John drove to some farm to look for young cattle, and Elizabeth
+accompanied him. Cash had been paid for the Western land, and at the end
+of the summer most of the money that had been received from the estate had
+been invested.
+
+As they drove from farm to farm, discussing prices; sheds, feed, and the
+wintering of stock, the girl's heart swelled with gratitude that her lines
+had fallen in such well-provided places. The pinch of poverty was to be
+lifted from her life.
+
+More than the plenty, Elizabeth prized the peace which seemed to be
+drifting in her direction.
+
+Every day since John Hunter's return had been a happy day. John consulted
+her judgment and her wishes, and it was done with that air of comradeship
+which was the most sought-for thing in Elizabeth Farnshaw's life. All her
+lonely days she had longed for it, and in all her girlish dreams it had
+been the prime factor. She had obtained glimpses of it in Susan Hornby's
+home, and now, she told herself joyfully, it was to be a permanent feature
+of her future life.
+
+With Mrs. Farnshaw's advent a series of unpleasant things began to
+manifest. John was glad that the marriage was to take place in Elizabeth's
+own home. Because of their engagement, he had heard little of the gossip
+about her, but it had been enough to make him suspect more and wish her
+well out of it. If now she would go home it would make the whole thing
+look right and stop the reports.
+
+John Hunter was distinctly a man of moods and reflected the conditions in
+which he happened for the moment to find himself. When he came to see
+Elizabeth the night after her mother had been to see her, he was pleased
+that she was to go home the next day, but he instantly partook of the
+discontent she showed. He took her to his mother's house for a short stay,
+but both were heavy of spirits and John was actually depressed. Elizabeth
+was almost abnormally sensitive to the attitude assumed toward her, and
+had she been shrewd she would never have carried any doubts of her own
+efficiency or judgment to her lover, but she was as open as a little
+child. John left her at the little gate and drove away so promptly that
+the girl's lip quivered as she turned in the dark to go to the house.
+
+Elizabeth found Luther seated on the low doorstep. The shadow of the house
+prevented her from seeing him till she was almost upon him.
+
+"Of all things! I never thought of you being here," she exclaimed,
+thinking of the kiss she had just received not three rods distant.
+
+Luther laughed sheepishly.
+
+"I hadn't intended t' see your good-nights," he said honestly, "but I'd
+'a' made a worse mess of it by runnin' than I did by settin' still.
+Anyhow, you're goin' t' be married in three days, an' it needn't make no
+difference. I've been a thinkin' about you an' I waited up t' talk." He
+made room on the step for her to sit beside him.
+
+"Thinking about me?"
+
+"Yes. Mrs. Hornby says your mother was here to-day. She's kind of worried
+about it--you goin' home, I mean. I don't know about that--I hope It'll be
+all right. Try an' make it right, Lizzie. Th' Hunters go a good deal on
+looks."
+
+Elizabeth was silent.
+
+Luther felt it and interpreted her silence rightly.
+
+"Is that something I'm not to talk about, Lizzie?" he asked.
+
+The question hurt worse than the statement.
+
+"I--I--don't know why you ask me such a thing, Luther," she faltered.
+
+Luther arose. He was not to be offended, nor would he put away what he had
+waited to say.
+
+"I only wanted to say that--well, do what th' folks ask of you, Lizzie.
+You're only home for a couple of days an'--an'"--after a long pause--"an'
+it won't hurt nobody."
+
+Elizabeth got up slowly.
+
+"Good-night, Luther," she said.
+
+She wanted to offer him her hand; she was sure she was hurting him, but
+she could not talk to him on this point; the very truth of his suspicious
+that the Hunter estimate of her might be affected by scandal made of it a
+sore point. Elizabeth Farnshaw would be loyal to mutual relations, even
+where Luther's feelings were concerned.
+
+They met in the morning on perfectly friendly ground, but there was an
+attitude of reserve which brooked no remark on her part. Luther departed
+early for his own house, and John Hunter came before noon to take her to
+her father's home. After all her simple possessions were in the wagon,
+Elizabeth went back and threw herself into the arms of Aunt Susan, who was
+crying miserably.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Susan! I feel as if I had taken leave of you forever. I've--I've
+been so happy in this house--till yesterday. Can I ever repay what you've
+done for me?"
+
+Susan Hornby gathered Elizabeth into her arms and sobbed more vehemently.
+The silence was unbroken except by those sobs, and at last the girl, moved
+out of herself, tried to comfort her, and said coaxingly:
+
+"I'll live right near you. I'll see you every few days and--and I'll never
+forget how good you've been to me. It's--it's too bad these last two days
+had to be so--so different. I--I don't know what went wrong,
+but--but"--she laughed desperately--"where have our good times gone to?
+I'm going to be married to the man I love--and I'm going to live right
+near you--and--what is the matter with us, anyway?"
+
+Susan Hornby clung to the girl and could not cease crying, till at last
+Elizabeth lifted her chin on one finger and with a corner of Aunt Susan's
+own apron, wiped the tears from the contorted face.
+
+"Now then, don't cry," she said, kissing her again and again.
+
+"Keep the folks in a good humour, dear. The Hunters 'll feel awful if
+anything more happens," Susan Hornby faltered, and then, to keep the girl
+from, replying, and to avoid the surprise and pain in the young face,
+pushed her gently but firmly toward the door and John Hunter, who was
+waiting impatiently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PHILOSOPHY OF ELIZABETH'S LIFE VOICED
+
+
+"To-morrow," Elizabeth said, significantly, as John turned back to get
+into the wagon after they had deposited the trunk in the house.
+
+"To-morrow," John smiled back at her. It was a reluctant smile he gave
+her, but the bid for affection in her young eyes was irresistible.
+
+"He had to be nice," she thought as she walked back to the house; "it was
+a good way."
+
+A sudden thought came to her.
+
+"Did you ask Luther to the wedding?" she asked of her mother as she
+entered.
+
+"No, I didn't. What do you want of that Swede?" Mrs. Farnshaw asked
+petulantly. "I should think----"
+
+What she thought was never recorded in words, for Elizabeth was out of the
+house like a flash, calling to John Hunter as she ran down the road after
+him. It was a surprised John who took her message.
+
+"Yes, I'll tell him, but I don't see what you want of that Swede--he
+always seems to cut such a figure in everything you do," John said
+discontentedly.
+
+"Well, just tell him that ma sends the invitation, will you?" was all
+Elizabeth could say.
+
+It was John's first contemptuous remark about Luther, and it disturbed
+her. They were to live closer to Luther Hansen than any other neighbour
+and it was essential that they be on friendly terms. She had hoped it
+might be that John would appreciate the good things in Luther which even
+his nationality could not spoil. Dear old Luther! In spite of the
+observation she had seemed to resent the night before, Elizabeth loved
+him--loved him all the more because she had been obliged to hurt him. It
+suddenly occurred to her that John might not deliver her message. She put
+the thought away from her instantly, saying aloud:
+
+"He'd do anything he knew I wanted him to do," and then was struck with
+the doubtful tone in which it was said.
+
+"What did you say?" her mother asked, for Elizabeth had just entered the
+door.
+
+"Nothing. I hate this wedding!"
+
+"Well, now, I like that, after all I've done to give you a good time," the
+mother said angrily.
+
+"No, ma; you mean to give yourself a good time. You make me come home when
+I don't want to, and you ask people I hate to have, and then you leave out
+the people I want most. It isn't my wedding. I'm going to stand up and be
+married so as to get rid of it all, but John won't have the minister I
+want, you won't have the people I want, I'm most sure pa 'll kick up some
+kind of a row about it--and--and I was so happy till you came and made me
+consent to it. What did you do it for?"
+
+"Do it for? You ungrateful child! What did I do it for? I'll tell you,"
+Mrs. Farnshaw's eyes hardened into momentary coals of fire. "I did it
+because I don't like your whole goings on. Minister? Why don't you say
+preacher, like the rest of your folks? It's that Hornby woman. She made
+you talk of divorces----" At thought of all her supposed wrongs at the
+hand of Susan Hornby Mrs. Farnshaw broke into a half scream and ended by
+throwing herself into a chair by her daughter's side and clinging to her
+hand with her upturned face streaming over with tears, her mouth convulsed
+with pain till speech was impossible.
+
+Moved to repentance at the sight of the pang she had caused, Elizabeth
+fell on her knees by her mother's side, and with her arms encircling her,
+cried contritely:
+
+"I didn't mean it, ma, really--that is, I didn't mean it that way. Don't
+mind what I said. I do love you."
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw clung to her, so shaken by sobs that she still could not
+speak, and the penitent daughter soothed and comforted her with her own
+heart breaking at the thoughtlessness of her speech.
+
+"Put it away and don't remember it; I didn't mean it. I'm tired to
+death--and--and----" She pondered a moment and then made the experiment.
+"And I want to speak of Aunt Susan to you. I can't bear to have you feel
+so bad about me liking her. She hasn't put a single notion into my head.
+Be good and get acquainted with her. She'd like to have you. If you knew
+her you'd know how different she is from what you think. I'll take you to
+see her the very first time you come to see me. Say you will."
+
+Elizabeth stroked the thin hair back from the passion-worn face, and
+waited for her reply.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw shook her head, but could not meet the offer squarely.
+
+"The two of you'd be a wishin' you could get rid of me so's you could talk
+your own kind of talk," she said with conviction. "'Taint any use, Lizzie;
+I ain't your kind. Your pa 'd be madder at me 'n ever, too."
+
+"Well, he's mad all the time, anyhow," Elizabeth said.
+
+"No 'e wasn't till you said that awful thing--that is, 'e was mad often
+enough, but not like 'e's been since. You don't know what you done t' your
+mother then. Be good, an' go t' 'im, an' settle 'is mind 'fore you're
+married. It don't matter if I know Miss Hornby 'r not; but what a
+difference it'd make t' me if he only knowed I never put you up t' that
+partin' business! Please do it fur me, Lizzie."
+
+This was an unexpected turn. Elizabeth had hoped to avoid the recurrence
+of this issue. Knowing that she was keeping her mother in cruel suspense,
+Elizabeth hesitated and by every sign showed her disinclination to discuss
+the subject. What should she do? What _could_ she do? The tortured eyes of
+her mother studied her with an intensity which she could not avoid. To
+consent was to fail with her father, to refuse was to make matters much
+worse with the mother she had just hurt. Luther had warned her to avoid
+collisions with her family which were liable to cause gossip; Aunt Susan
+had implored her to keep the folks in a good humour; her own instincts
+were against the movement, but her feelings were pleading for the mother
+who begged her to try once again to obtain reconciliation before she was
+married. Ah! if this time would end it!
+
+"Say you will," the mother begged with pathetic brevity.
+
+"I'd do it in a minute if there were the least opportunity to succeed,
+ma," Elizabeth said reluctantly, and not looking toward her. "If I do it
+and fail, You'll be wanting me to go right on with it after I'm married,
+and that I won't do for anybody." The sentence ended savagely.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw studied her daughter eagerly. She began to have hopes. Now,
+if only she could get the right touch on her appeal.
+
+"If You'll do it, an' be careful-like, Lizzie," she said compellingly, "if
+You'll be careful-like this time, I'll never ask you again. I can't live
+this way any longer. I won't never ask you again. Please," she insisted.
+"Speak real soft an' nice-like. Please."
+
+"But, ma, are you crazy? You told me--you told me that--oh dear, what's
+the use to tell you what you said?" the girl cried, her judgment giving
+its last caution a hearing.
+
+What was the use indeed!
+
+In the end Elizabeth consented--consented with kindliness of manner. Since
+she was going to do it at all she would do it lovingly. She argued herself
+into that mood before she agreed to the move. Her mother had a hard life;
+on one who knew her doubted that fact. Neither would any one have doubted
+that Mr. Farnshaw led a hard life also. Some devil of unrest demanded
+excitement and disagreement.
+
+"Keep the folks in a good humour," Luther had said.
+
+Elizabeth had no support from any quarter. She could only consent.
+
+"I'll do it, ma," she agreed. "I am going away to be happy. John and his
+mother never have a word together that isn't pleasant."
+
+"I hope so," Mrs. Farnshaw said with relief, "but men don't always treat
+their wives like they do their mothers. It's something they get t' feel
+about their wives that's th' trouble. Women think th' only way t' be good
+wives's t' give up--an' men think so too. Women's most always afraid of
+what th' men 'll think, an' th' men know it."
+
+"Well, ma, come on! There's lots to do; let's get at it."
+
+Elizabeth was in no mood to philosophize. She hated the coming conference
+with her father to the utter exclusion of every other thought at that
+moment, and had hardly heard what her mother had said.
+
+"You'll never regret bein' good t' your old mother," Mrs. Farnshaw said,
+rubbing her hand over the girl's glossy braids as Elizabeth turned away to
+begin the work she had suggested. "My! it don't seem like six weeks since
+I was your age--young an' startin' out--an' life looked good t' me, I kin
+tell you. Now I ain't got nothin' t' be good t' me but you."
+
+"I think I'll wash my hair before the sun gets low," Elizabeth said. "Then
+I'll help you in here." She was disturbed about the promise she had given
+and wanted to get away from her mother before she should say some unlucky
+thing that would show it. She let her hair down and loosened it with a
+toss of her head. It was a glittering garment which covered her from head
+to knees in wavy strands which flew about her in lines of beauty as she
+moved about getting her hot water and towels. Mrs. Farnshaw watched her
+with an expression near real affection. She came over and ran her hands
+through the rippling mass as the girl turned to go out of doors where she
+could splash comfortably, and after she had gone passed her hands over her
+own faded locks slowly.
+
+"Lizzie's always had th' best of everything," she said, shaking her head
+sadly. "I wisht she wasn't s' set against 'er pa. I'm goin' t' make 'er do
+it all th' same."
+
+The girl in the backyard pondered upon the same thing as she dried her
+hair in the hot sun.
+
+"I hate it," she thought, "but I'm going to do it just the best I know
+how. Ma _didn't_ say it, nor agree with it, and I'm going to make it as
+easy as I can for her before I go. Will we ever be like they are?" she
+asked herself half seriously, and felt sure it could not be. "Ma has
+always insisted on things and never lets pa nor the rest of us forget
+anything or lay it down. I believe a woman can manage those things. Aunt
+Susan does."
+
+As Elizabeth started to the house, she noticed her father and the boys
+coming from the cornfield with a wagon-load of snapped corn. Joe drove the
+team and his father sat in the back with his feet dangling over the
+end-gate. They were turning into the barnyard when she discovered them.
+
+With her hair floating about her like a veil, she started at once for the
+barn. She could not talk this out with her mother listening, and if she
+did not do it now it would be forced upon her at supper, when her father
+was certain to be in his worst mood. Mr. Farnshaw always came to the table
+tired.
+
+Seeing Elizabeth coming toward him, Mr. Farnshaw dropped from the wagon
+and went to fill the swill pails. The hogs knew they were to be fed and
+set up their usual noisy clamour. It was his purpose to divert their
+attention till the boys could drive the wagon into the corral, hoping also
+to leave his daughter where she could not approach him. Mr. Farnshaw
+delighted in making people wait. With a pail in either hand he advanced to
+the fence. The hogs left the gate and ran to meet him, upsetting the
+trough as they came. Setting the pails down, he snatched up a peeled osage
+stick, kept outside of the pen for that purpose, and belaboured angrily
+the snouts sticking over the fence. The pigs were hungry and persistent.
+By the time they were beaten into a respectable awe and had backed away
+squealing, Mr. Farnshaw discovered his daughter at his elbow. He had
+intended to ignore her; he turned red with rage. With a look of infinite
+contempt, he stooped and picked up a pail.
+
+"What a racket they do make," she remarked, smiling at him without
+offence.
+
+In spite of her smiling manner, Elizabeth was half sick with apprehension.
+It was not a propitious time to approach him, but Mr. Farnshaw watched to
+see that a propitious moment should not arrive when he was in one of his
+sulking fits. Elizabeth had played that game with him before. With her
+courage oozing away, and a feeling that there was no benefit in seeming
+not to know what he was thinking about, she put her hand on his sleeve
+saying:
+
+"Don't be cross with me, pa. Really I _do_ want to be friends."
+
+Mr. Farnshaw jerked his arm aside to avoid her touch and spilled half the
+pail of swill on the ground. He lurched over to the other side to right
+the pail; the bucket at his feet upset, pouring dishwater, milk, and
+potato peelings over his heavy plow-shoes as it went. To avoid the onrush
+of the greasy tide he sprang back, slipped in its oily overflow, and fell,
+the pail he held pouring its contents over him as he went. His gray
+whiskers, the bottom of his jersey, his very ears dripped swill as he
+arose. It was disconcertingly funny, and the girl helped him to his feet,
+laughing in spite of every effort to restrain herself.
+
+To lose his temper was bad enough, but to be made ridiculous and be
+laughed at at the same time was more than the man could endure. He was
+insane with fury. There was such a look of malignity on his face as he
+jerked away and turned to face her that the girl, suddenly sobered, dodged
+and started to run. Her long hair trailed across his arm, and lost to
+every consideration but that of satisfying his temper, he caught it as she
+passed and swinging the osage stick to which he still clung, shouted:
+
+"Damn you! This is th' kind of friends I'll be."
+
+He struck with all his force, jerking her hair at the same time. Thrown
+from her feet, the full weight of the girl's body came on her hair. It
+hurt cruelly. She veered around on her knees and caught the now tangled
+hair with both hands to ease the strain. He grabbed her by one arm and
+rained blows on her thinly clad shoulders which hissed in tune with the
+man's temper as they fell.
+
+"I'll be friends with you!" he shrieked. "I'll send you t' that young
+smartie with some marks on you that'll show 'im what kind of a wife he's
+gettin'. You told your ma t' leave me! Maybe You'll be leavin' him next.
+Tell 'im I said so, will you?"
+
+Cut by the flexible withe, which left welts like ribbons on her young
+shoulders, the girl was unable to endure more passively, and struggled to
+free herself. The partially successful opposition infuriated the man. He
+was not accustomed to defence. His fury knew no restraint. He rained the
+blows harder than ever and the girl finally caught the whip itself.
+Catching the limber end desperately, she jerked it sidewise;
+unconsciously, she had deflected her father's hand so that it struck her
+head just below the ear. It stretched her senseless at his feet.
+
+Josiah Farnshaw was aghast. With a gulping cry of alarm and pity, he
+stooped to lift his unconscious daughter. He had not intended to do so
+brutal a thing.
+
+"Now look what you've gone an' done!"
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw had watched Elizabeth go to him with something of prayer in
+her heart. She knew the girl's intention was to be square about the
+apology and she had strained every nerve to watch the encounter. At the
+first blow she had started to the scene of action.
+
+"I think you might have----"
+
+The man's relenting mood vanished. He dropped the limp body and rose to
+his full height.
+
+"You damned fool," he exclaimed, "if you hadn't set this a goin' an' kept
+it a goin' this wouldn't 'a' happened. Of all th' blasted, impossible
+things it's t' have a snivelling she-devil always at your elbow. Keep your
+hands off of me!" he cried, shaking himself loose from the detaining hand
+she had laid on his arm. "I'm goin' t' git."
+
+The boys had arrived by that time. They carried the girl to the well and
+bathed her face and hands with fresh water, while the head of the house
+strode down the road toward the north. Elizabeth was not seriously injured
+and recovered consciousness as soon as the water touched her. Mrs.
+Farnshaw left the task of resuscitation to her sons and looked after her
+rapidly disappearing husband with eyes that longed for reconciliation.
+Reconciliation for one thing or another had been the most driving
+inspiration her twenty years of married life had known; it was her most
+potent incentive. Cowed and broken, fear bound her fast to his footsteps.
+Not even the daughter struggling to her feet at her side could detract her
+attention from his receding form.
+
+Elizabeth stood balancing herself dizzily for a moment before she began
+really to see or grasp what was going on around her; then the full value
+of the mishap broke upon her. All that Luther and Aunt Susan had hinted at
+had befallen her in spite of every effort to avoid it.
+
+But not even the calamity which had befallen them could stop their busy
+fingers. The preparations for the wedding feast were a merciful feature of
+the rest of the evening. The guests had been invited and must be prepared
+for. The hair that had been washed was braided, the mother's tears dried,
+and every member of the family pressed into the service. The entire house
+was cleaned and rearranged. Not till after midnight did the members of the
+little group seek their beds. Mr. Farnshaw had not returned. They had even
+forgotten him a large part of the time in the hurry. Elizabeth regarded
+the half dozen bruises which her sleeves would not cover with alarm when
+she was at last ready to climb her ladder. Joe covered them with a
+liniment which he brought from the barn. As he set the dusty bottle on the
+kitchen table after the anointing had been done, he remarked dryly:
+
+"Wonder if you an' me 'll ever do that kind of thing t' our young ones?
+Everybody's always said we was like the old man."
+
+"Take that nasty smellin' bottle out of here, an' don't begin any talk
+about your pa. Everybody get t' bed," Mrs. Farnshaw commanded.
+
+Even the absence of her husband could not dim the interest of Mrs.
+Farnshaw in the coming spectacle of her daughter's marriage. With the
+capacity of a little child to suffer from unkindness or neglect, she
+combined the same child-like capability to enjoy pageantry of any sort.
+Benches for curious neighbours surrounded Mrs. Farnshaw's bed when she
+retired, and unaccustomed things filled every nook of the usually
+unattractive room. Evergreen boughs stared at her from the corner opposite
+her bed; the bed was to be removed in the morning. It had been her own
+romantic idea to have a bower for the bride and groom. She had been so
+busy making that bower that she had forgotten her own troubles for an hour
+and more, but she remembered them now and her interest died out. With a
+quivering indrawn breath she turned out the light and dived into the huge
+feather-bed, smothering her sobs by crushing her pillow against her face.
+
+Elizabeth, upstairs, had her own disappointments to go over, and her
+mother's sobbing coloured her ruminations. Her vision had been cleared. In
+spite of youth, and of humiliation, she saw that the blow that had undone
+her had been accidental. She saw what the encouragement of temper would
+lead to. She saw the gradual growth and stimulation of that temper in the
+daily contentions of her father and mother.
+
+She rubbed her bruises and thought long on the troubles about her.
+Accusations and defence, she decided, were at the root of them. They were
+the universal topics of the conversations at home and among all the people
+she had ever known except the Hornbys and the Chamberlains.
+
+"Defence!" she said in a scornful whisper. "What does it matter _who_ is
+wrong in anything? The only thing that matters is _what_ is wrong and to
+find a way to make it come out better next time," and at last went to
+sleep quite unaware that she had evolved a philosophy which rightly
+applied would reorganize the world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"WIVES, SUBMIT YOURSELVES UNTO YOUR
+HUSBANDS, AS UNTO THE LORD"
+
+
+The day after the wedding was Friday, or "sweep day," as Mrs. Hunter
+called it. Anxious to begin as she expected to hold out, and to form
+regular habits in John's wife, Mrs. Hunter superintended the housecleaning
+processes.
+
+Elizabeth had had no idea that any one could put in so many hours with
+broom and dust rag, but when it was done, looked about her with
+housekeeperly delight in the orderly, well-kept rooms. As they had worked
+that day the girl had been keenly observant of John's mother. She could
+not tell whether John had told her of the trouble in her home or not. Mrs.
+Hunter did not refer to it directly or indirectly, and this fact was the
+subject of much thought. This faultless manner of dismissing unpleasant
+things stood out in strong contrast to the endless and tiresome
+discussions to which the girl was accustomed. Elizabeth wished she could
+find time to run over to Uncle Nate's for a chat with Aunt Susan, but the
+busy day absorbed her and there was no time to go anywhere; in fact, it
+was time for John to come home from Colebyville, where he had gone to hunt
+for a hired man before the cleaning was really finished. Glancing up at
+the clock on the lambrequined shelf in the sitting room, the girl was
+surprised to see that it was already four o'clock. The cleaning was
+finished and she ran to the kitchen to put up the rag in her hand, and
+then went hurriedly into her bedroom to comb her hair and get her dress
+changed before John should come.
+
+Absorbed in her dressing, Elizabeth did not hear her husband enter the
+house until she heard him talking to his mother in the dining room. With
+freshly combed hair and clean calico dress she ran with a glad little
+bound to meet him.
+
+John Hunter and his mother stopped short with their conversation when they
+saw her and were plainly embarrassed.
+
+The young wife became conscious that something was wrong and stopped in
+the middle of the room, looking from one to the other in mute inquiry.
+
+Mrs. Hunter turned and went back to the kitchen. John came toward his
+wife.
+
+"What is it, John? What has happened?" she asked in a whisper. There was a
+sick look on John Hunter's face.
+
+Elizabeth did not put her hand on him as was her usual way. The girl-wife
+had an indistinct feeling that her husband and his mother were a
+combination for the moment of which she was not a part.
+
+"Enough has happened," the man said, passing her and going toward their
+bedroom. "Come in here!"
+
+He held the door open for her to enter, and she passed in and stood
+waiting while he shut it behind them.
+
+"What is it, John?" she queried, unable to wait longer.
+
+"Your father has gone to Colebyville and got into a drunken row," was the
+bald statement. "Everybody in the country knows about his fuss with you."
+
+He did not offer to touch her, but walked over to the window and began to
+drum on the window-pane with nervous fingers.
+
+"Drunk! Row! My father was never drunk in his life!" was the astonished
+exclamation with which Elizabeth Hunter met this unbelievable accusation.
+
+"Well, he's been drunk enough to last the rest of his life this time, and
+we're the laughing stock of this whole country."
+
+John Hunter had gone to Colebyville that morning in the new buggy, rather
+pleased to be the centre of observation and remark. He quite liked to
+swagger before these country people whom he chose otherwise to ignore. He
+was well dressed, his buggy was the admired of all admirers, and he was
+newly married. Country gossip had some pleasing qualifications. When he
+had arrived at Colebyville, however, John Hunter had found that country
+people had little ways of their own for the edification of the
+vainglorious, and that trim young men in buggies became infinitely more
+interesting to the scorned when they could be associated with scandal. He
+soon found that he was the object of much amused discussion and shortly it
+became evident that they were quite willing that he should know that he
+was the object of ridicule. Pretending friendship, one of them enlightened
+him as to the exact circumstances which were amusing them, and then
+sneaked back to his companions with a verbatim report of his surprised
+exclamations. John Hunter did not enjoy being the victim of a trap laid by
+those he had patronized. It had been a humiliating day, and John Hunter
+always handed his misfortunes along. He poured his disgust over his wife
+as if she alone were responsible for all he had suffered that day.
+
+"What was the row with you about, anyway?" he inquired with evident
+aversion to her presence.
+
+Elizabeth had withered into a quivering semblance of the confident woman
+who had run to meet him five minutes ago. Her knees shook under her with
+collapse. She sat down on the edge of the bed and stammered her
+explanations as if she had been a naughty child caught red-handed in some
+act of which she was ashamed.
+
+"It--oh, John! I only went to him to make up about--about other things.
+We--we didn't have any fuss exactly. It--it was just the same old thing.
+I--I begged ma not to make me go home. I told her what he would--I knew
+he'd whip me, but she would have me go."
+
+"Well, he couldn't whip you for nothing," John said, with brutal inquiry.
+"What'd you fall out with him for? I never heard of such a thing as a girl
+who was a woman grown that fell out with her father till he whipped her."
+
+Exasperated and miserable, John bestowed blame in the only convenient
+place he found.
+
+The young wife buried her face in the counterpane and did not attempt to
+reply, and after looking dully at her for a moment John Hunter went out
+and left her to carry her burden of shame alone. The sound of the closing
+door assured her that at least she could be alone in her tears, and the
+humbled girl gave herself up to sobbing. Luther and Aunt Susan would never
+be quite convinced that she had done her best to avoid trouble; she even
+wondered herself if there might not have been some fault in the way she
+had approached her father. As usual, Elizabeth was concerned with the
+trouble of others. The whole dreadful thing passed before her with the
+vividness of actual reproduction. John's mother knew this at any rate.
+That was a sore point. They were in the kitchen talking it over now! With
+the conviction of absolute certainty, Elizabeth buried her face in the
+counterpane of her bridal couch and sobbed in desolate abandon.
+
+After a time John came back again and looked into the room. Seeing her
+distress, he went over slowly and lifted her to her feet with a stir of
+pity.
+
+"Don't cry," he said gloomily. "It can't be helped. Come on out to the
+kitchen and help mother with the supper."
+
+Elizabeth knew that at that moment he did not want to caress her, but her
+hungry soul craved comfort beyond her power to control and she dug her
+face into his breast and sobbed there unasked.
+
+[Illustration: "THE YOUNG WIFE BURIED HER FACE IN THE COUNTERPANE
+AND DID NOT ATTEMPT TO REPLY"]
+
+John's arms closed about her in a relaxed sort of way, and patting her
+head half-heartedly, he said again:
+
+"Come on, dear. Mother's out there getting supper alone." He took his own
+pocket handkerchief and wiped her tear-stained face and, after kissing
+her, pushed her gently but firmly toward the kitchen.
+
+Supper was not a cheerful meal. Elizabeth's voice was thick from crying
+and she did not talk at all, while John and his mother could not discuss
+the topic uppermost in their minds in her presence. The feeling that there
+was a combination of which she was not a part grew upon the young wife,
+and a longing for Aunt Susan grew with it.
+
+"I'd like to go over to Uncle Nate's immediately after supper," she said.
+"I'll do the dishes while you hitch up."
+
+"Good Lord! I don't want to go over there to-night," was the reply. "I
+wish you'd quit calling those people 'Aunt' and 'Uncle'."
+
+Elizabeth's face blazed with colour as he got up and went into the sitting
+room. The brutality of the answer was so evident to John's mother that she
+followed him.
+
+"You had better take Elizabeth to Mr. Hornby's, John. I don't think you
+should speak to her in that way, either," she said in a low tone of
+voice.
+
+Elizabeth could not hear Mrs. Hunter's remarks, but John's reply was
+audible enough.
+
+"I'm not going over there to-night. I don't feel as if I ever wanted to go
+anywhere again."
+
+She also heard Mrs. Hunter's low "Sh!" and felt more than ever an alien.
+
+When the dishes were finished Mrs. Hunter went upstairs. John followed
+her.
+
+"I will not be hurt, because I will not see hurt," Elizabeth told herself
+as she slipped through the house to her own room. Because her lips
+quivered as she said it, she busied herself in taking down her hair to
+brush for the night. Her sleeves were tight and hindered, and she took off
+her dress and folded it across the back of a chair carefully, and finished
+braiding her hair in her petticoat.
+
+John found her with her white arms uplifted as she combed the long
+strands. Moved by her girlish beauty and freshness, he went over and put
+his arms about her. The girl's mouth was full of hairpins, and she mumbled
+something he did not understand. He kept his arms about her insistently,
+and rubbed his chin on her smooth shoulder with a little laugh. She
+struggled to free herself, but he held her teasingly, and finally
+accepting the playful tussle as an apology, though she knew it was not an
+adequate one, she gave up. She was resolved not to split hairs with her
+husband over small matters; she would not nurse grievances.
+
+As for John Hunter, he had not thought of apology,--or of the necessity of
+one; he had been moved by the sight of the tempting figure of the woman he
+possessed.
+
+Elizabeth loved her husband and wished to believe that he loved her; she
+was unwilling to begin her married life with any sort of whining or
+suspicion, so she ended the matter by resting unresisting in his arms and
+turning her young face up to be kissed.
+
+The next morning Elizabeth washed the dishes alone, and Mrs. Hunter
+followed John to the barn and later to the pasture, where he went to catch
+a horse.
+
+"Where are you going with a horse?" his mother asked as they passed
+through the pasture gate.
+
+"I have to go over to Chamberlain's to help with a small stack of hay he
+put up in the field and wants to move, now that he's got the time. I told
+him he'd better let me help him before the new hired man comes to begin
+the husking; I'm going to need the team every day after that," John
+replied.
+
+"So you got a man, did you?" Mrs. Hunter said, catching hold of his arm to
+keep him from outwalking her. "If you're going as far as Chamberlain's
+you'd better take Elizabeth over to Mr. Hornby's while you're hitched up.
+I'll get dinner. You hurt her feelings last night, and that'll be a good
+way to make it right with her."
+
+"Now look here, mother," John Hunter answered decidedly, "I'll do nothing
+of the kind. With this story going around we'll stay at home where we
+belong. Anyhow, the sooner she's cut away from these country jakes the
+better for her, and I'll begin right here and now. I don't intend--never
+have intended--to have these people tacked to my coat-tails every move I
+make. If she's hurt, She'll simply have to get over it; besides, she
+didn't stay mad long--you saw that for yourself. She's all right if she's
+managed right."
+
+It was true, Mrs. Hunter reflected. Elizabeth had not seemed to take much
+offence, and was perfectly good-natured this morning. She did not intend
+to interfere with the affairs of her son and his wife. Elizabeth seemed
+submissive, and promised well. She hoped that this horrid gossip would die
+down. That was a nasty thing to be mixed up with. Mr. Hunter had never had
+anything like that happen to him before, and she was devoutly glad they
+were away out here in Kansas where no one who had ever known them would
+hear it. Elizabeth would be all the better as a wife if she did not start
+out by running around too much. It did not occur to Mrs. Hunter, nor to
+her son, that if the old acquaintances were to be taken away from
+Elizabeth that in all justice she must be provided with new ones. In fact,
+it did not occur to them at all that her opinions were of any value
+whatever. Why should John explain his plans to her? Why, indeed?
+
+As she went about her Saturday morning's work Elizabeth watched John and
+his mother stroll down the path in the pasture, certain that she herself
+was the subject of their conversation, and her eyes burned with unshed
+tears. The intimacy between John and his mother seemed so much more firmly
+established than the intimacy between John and herself that she was filled
+with lonesomeness and a longing for Aunt Susan.
+
+"To-morrow's Sunday and there'll be nothing to do. He'll have to take me
+then. He was tired and upset by that horrid talk last night. Oh, why do I
+have to be mixed up with things I can't help--and--and have him cross, and
+everything?" She ended with a little shuddering cry, and buried her head
+in the kitchen towel and gave up to the tears which, now that she was
+alone, she could candidly shed. How she longed for Aunt Susan, and yet she
+could not have talked to her of these things; but in spite of that she
+wanted her.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Will you go over to--to Mrs. Hornby's with us to-day?" she asked Mrs.
+Hunter at the breakfast table the next morning.
+
+"Why--yes--if you're going," Mrs. Hunter answered with a hesitant glance
+at John.
+
+The tone and the hesitancy struck Elizabeth. She looked at John as she had
+seen the older woman do.
+
+"Mother spoke yesterday of your going," John said quickly, "and I
+said--well, I want to get some more cleaning done about that barn before
+the man comes. There's plenty of time about that. Let them come here if
+they want to see us."
+
+"But I want to go," Elizabeth persisted. She had been accustomed to
+dictating where John Hunter should take her. John himself had taught her
+to do so.
+
+"Well, there's plenty of time. I'm busy to-day, if it is Sunday," was all
+that her husband thought it necessary to reply.
+
+The hope that Aunt Susan would come to see her if she found that they were
+not coming over helped Elizabeth to accept the brusque refusal better than
+she otherwise would have done. John was cheerful and pleasant, and the
+hurt that she had felt at first died away. He asked her to go to the barn
+with him and was merry and full of small talk and chatter, such as lovers
+appreciate, and the girl finally concluded that that must be his naturally
+decided manner when suddenly approached on a subject to which he could not
+consent. Elizabeth was aware that there was little consideration shown her
+at such times, but was resolved not to find fault unless the question were
+a vital one. Altogether it was a happy day. Gratitude was a large feature
+of Elizabeth's make-up, and there was something about being in the
+atmosphere of refinement and beauty which made her accept many little
+evidences of inattentiveness on the part of her husband. As she helped
+with the cooking, she was conscious of the difference between the kitchen
+utensils of this and her own home; as she swept she contrasted the
+red-and-green ingrain carpet of the sitting room with the worn and ugly
+rag carpet of her mother's house; as she set the table she reflected that
+no other house of that community boasted a dining room, and certainly no
+other young wife could say she had napkins and a white tablecloth every
+day in the week; and there was yet a larger item than these for which the
+girl was thankful: no girl she had ever known had married so cultured a
+man. Elizabeth looked across the table as she served the pie at dinner and
+in spite of every snub was humbly thankful to be a part of that family.
+Nor was she a mere snob and deserving of what she got in the way of ill
+treatment because she submitted to it; Elizabeth was a young girl of
+artistic temperament, craving beauty, and longing for the companionship of
+those who talked in terms comprehensible to her at the same time that they
+advanced her æsthetic education and possibilities. In proportion as she
+valued this thing was she to pay her price.
+
+The price Elizabeth was to pay came at strange and unexpected moments. The
+hired man, when he appeared, proved to be Jake Ransom, now a man, and
+ready to do a man's work in his simple station. Jake of course knew for
+whom he was to work and came into the kitchen to his first meal with his
+face wreathed in a sheepish grin.
+
+"I'd better 'a' taken your advice an' gone t' th' high school," he said,
+extending his calloused hand to shake. "Only I wouldn't 'a' been workin'
+fur you."
+
+He laughed his great hearty guffaw, partly in embarrassment and partly
+because he really enjoyed the joke of the possibility of him being an
+educated man. It was a cheap country pleasantry, and said with genuine
+good-fellowship, but Mrs. Hunter, who heard it as she turned to the dining
+room with the coffee pot in her hand, disapproved of the familiarity of
+it. Mrs. Hunter had disapproved of the plate laid for Jake at the family
+table and was out of sorts with the country life into which she had been
+plunged.
+
+After Jake had gone to bed upstairs--and that was another grievance of
+Mrs. Hunter's, this having the hired man in the room next to her own--she
+took up the matter of his position in her son's house seriously.
+
+"All the hired help in the country eat at the table and are accorded the
+privileges of any member of the family, mother," John replied to her
+objections.
+
+"You don't mean that You'll have to have them at your table day after
+day--always?" his mother exclaimed. "You'll never have any home life at
+all."
+
+"As long as we farm, mother, we'll be in exactly that position," John
+said, stirring the fire in the sitting-room stove, about which they were
+gathered for the evening.
+
+"But they eat so awfully much," Mrs. Hunter continued, "and they drink out
+of their saucers, and suck their teeth till it makes one sick!" Then
+happening to look across at Elizabeth she caught the flush on her young
+face and stopped so short that all were embarrassed.
+
+John got up suddenly and left the room and the house. The two women sat in
+an uncomfortable silence for some minutes, and then the elder of them went
+upstairs to bed, leaving the younger to her mortifying thoughts. Elizabeth
+remembered the scorn of the young teacher in her own childhood for the
+same offence and reflected that she had been unable to break her family of
+similar habits. As far as she was concerned, however, the presence of the
+hired man at her table was far less disturbing than that of her husband's
+mother. Part of the time she was happy to learn from Mrs. Hunter, but more
+of the time she was restless under her supervision.
+
+The week had been an uncomfortable one in both tangible and intangible
+ways. Elizabeth had often found John and his mother talking and have them
+drop the conversation when she appeared. She had had many humiliating
+hours over the disgrace she knew they were discussing. The fact had come
+out that Mr. Farnshaw had returned to his home, but nothing beyond that.
+
+Another week passed, and again John refused to take Elizabeth to see Aunt
+Susan. This time he said that the team had worked all week, and that he
+felt that the horses needed rest. A new team was added to the farm assets
+and the next Sunday John said he was too tired himself to go away from
+home. Never once did he say that he had any motive which extended beyond
+the time at hand. Each Sunday the excuse fitted the circumstances of that
+particular day, and he talked of going in a general way as if it were a
+matter of course that they would go soon. It was clearly the duty of the
+young couple to make the first visit, and as clearly Nathan Hornby and his
+wife were waiting for them to do so. Elizabeth was puzzled by her
+husband's refusal. At the end of a month she became alarmed for fear their
+neglect would give offence to the dear couple who had sheltered her when
+she was in need. It had not occurred to her to discredit John's reasons,
+though she began to suspect that she had married the sort of man she had
+heard much about--the husband who never wanted to go anywhere.
+
+Early in December Mrs. Hunter was called East by the serious illness of a
+sister in Illinois. The day she left a heavy snow fell. Elizabeth went out
+into the still yard and let the white flakes fall on her uncovered head
+with such a sense of freedom as she had never felt since her marriage.
+
+"The house is mine," she whispered ecstatically; "the house is all mine,
+and now I can go out of doors if I want to and not be criticised."
+
+Elizabeth had been far more accustomed to barn life than the life of the
+house. This was a thing that Mrs. Hunter could not understand. It was not
+the correct thing for a woman to go about the barn where a hired man was
+employed, even if her husband worked at his side, and Elizabeth's trips to
+the cow stable and granaries had been discouraged. Jake Ransom had been
+shrewd enough to see that his first joke in the Hunter house had been
+unpleasant to the mother of his employer and had never trespassed upon the
+grounds of familiarity again, but Elizabeth had been criticised until
+willing to give up her trips to the scene of her husband's work. John
+might be impatient, but Elizabeth loved him; his mother was patient but
+critical, and Elizabeth did not love her; therefore the first feeling of
+relief when the older woman had gone away included the delight of being
+free to go where she wished--at his side. The barns were a source of great
+interest to Elizabeth. The pride of the girl, accustomed to straw stables
+and slatternly yards and unhoused machinery, in the well-kept barnyard of
+her husband was natural and commendatory. John had order well developed in
+his scheme of things. John's cribs did not stand open to the weather. Now
+that Mrs. Hunter was away, Elizabeth spent most of the day going about the
+place, looking into every bin, and making the acquaintance of each new
+animal they possessed. Jake was helping Silas and it left the girl plenty
+of time to explore. The amount of new stock struck her as surprising. Here
+too she was glad. John was evidently going to be a man of large affairs.
+Elizabeth had a sudden desire to run over and talk it over with Luther as
+she had done when she drove out with her affianced husband to buy the
+calves. She was surprised to see how the little bunch of calves had grown,
+not only in size but in numbers. The thought of Luther carried her back,
+as she stood looking over the calf yard, to the matter of visiting Aunt
+Susan. Of late the feeling had grown strong upon her that Mrs. Hunter had
+had something to do with John's reluctance to making this visit. The
+calves ceased to interest her and she wandered slowly back to the house
+thinking about it. There were so many phases of her domestic affairs to
+consider: Aunt Susan's right to the evidences of her love and her
+inability to show that love because of her husband's reluctance to take
+her; Luther's evident offence, and the possibility that the wedding
+invitation had not been extended to him by John, since he had never paid
+them a neighbourly visit; the close alliance between John and his mother
+and the brusqueness with which John disposed of any request of hers if he
+did not choose of himself to do the thing she wanted--all called for
+examination. Elizabeth shook the snow from her hair and cloak and built up
+the fire, intending to sit down by it and think over her situation, but
+John arrived in the middle of her preparations and supper had to be
+hastily prepared, for the afternoon had gone and much of the regular
+morning's work still remained to be done. With flying feet, Elizabeth
+attacked the task of getting things in order, and it was a relief when
+John, who had left the last chores to Jake, came in and helped her. They
+had hardly ever been left alone in the house in all the three months they
+had been married, and to Elizabeth it was working in fairyland to have
+John make one side of a bed's clothes lie smooth while she pulled and
+straightened at the other.
+
+With Mrs. Hunter gone, John took up the task of drilling his young wife in
+the Hunter ways. To Elizabeth he was a model husband. She contrasted her
+father's stupid inability and unwillingness inside of his home with the
+orderly and systematic way in which John Hunter helped her. John took part
+in whatever household function was taking place in his presence. He wiped
+the dishes if she washed them; if a carpet was to be swept he handled the
+broom if he were there to do it, and he never went to the field without
+filling the reservoir and water pail as well as the coal scuttle and cob
+basket. He assumed the management of cooking and housework so subtly that
+the unsophisticated girl saw only his helpfulness; in fact, he had only
+helpfulness in mind. John had ideas of neatness and order which made of
+housekeeping a never-ending process, but John himself laboured steadily
+toward their accomplishment, and he was so successful in inspiring her
+with those same ideals that her pride helped her over many a weary day's
+cleaning. She entered into them week after week and became expert at
+ironing, baking, and all the little offices of the domestic altar. All her
+strength was given to her work each day, and for a time she succeeded
+comfortably, but as the days shortened and the routine became more
+exacting she longed for the out-of-door freedom in which she had been
+raised.
+
+Christmas passed, and still Elizabeth had entered no house except her own
+since her marriage in October. This would not have disturbed her, for she
+was not a girl who cared for visiting, if it had not been that Aunt Susan
+was being neglected.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw came and did not fail to let Elizabeth know that the country
+gossips were concerned with tales supposed to account for her secluded way
+of living. Some said that she was too "stuck-up" to associate with her old
+friends, while others said that John Hunter had married her to keep his
+house, but that he was not proud of her and preferred to leave her at
+home. Luther had completed his "shanty," and Elizabeth knew by the smoke
+she could see rising from his chimney that he no longer lived with Aunt
+Susan; also Elizabeth heard bits of gossip about him from Jake, who had
+taken a great liking to Luther and often spent his evenings with him.
+Luther Hansen had come to borrow a scoop shovel when he had shelled his
+corn, but John had managed to accept it as a barnyard call and had not
+invited him to the house, and after the scoop was returned Luther did not
+come again. Elizabeth had days when she wanted his cheery presence and
+sensible ways of looking at life, but she was almost glad he did not come;
+she could not have explained her seclusion to him nor could she have
+refused to explain. The girl's pride was cut to the quick.
+
+January passed, and February. One afternoon in early March Elizabeth sat
+at the dining-room window sewing and meditating sadly upon John's growing
+irritability whenever she mentioned Aunt Susan. She was unable as yet to
+force him to take her as she requested; neither had she been able to get
+her own consent to going the first time to the house of this old friend
+alone and have Aunt Susan's questioning eyes looking her over for
+explanations. She was puzzled still, for John usually spoke of her friends
+with respect, and there was nothing to indicate his reasons for opposition
+except that he was simply averse to visiting on general principles, and
+even then why should he so resolutely refuse to accommodate her when he
+was so reasonable on all other subjects?
+
+"I don't care, I'm going this week if he's ever so cross," she muttered.
+
+Almost at the same instant she looked up and saw a bobsled coming into the
+side lane.
+
+"Aunt Susan's very self!" she cried, pushing away the little garment on
+which she was sewing, and running to the door.
+
+She met the muffled figure halfway down the path, called to Nathan to take
+his team to the barn, where they would be out of the cutting wind, and
+bundled Susan Hornby into the house with little shrieks of delight and
+welcome.
+
+Susan Hornby knew that she was wanted at the end of that five minutes.
+
+"However could you know that I was wanting you so bad to-day?" Elizabeth
+said finally, as she thrust her guest down into a rocking chair and then
+went down on her knees to unfasten her overshoes.
+
+"Land sakes! What are you trying to do--and you----" The sentence stopped
+and the speaker looked embarrassed.
+
+Elizabeth, still on her knees, looked up. A soft blush covered her face as
+she gave a happy little laugh.
+
+"Yes--it's true," she whispered. "Oh, Aunt Susan, I'm so happy!"
+
+Outside, Nathan Hornby seized the opportunity to look around the barns.
+
+"Good cattle sheds," he remarked to himself. "Good bunch of pigs, too. I
+hope 'e ain't goin' into debt, as they say, but I swan, it looks like
+it."
+
+Nathan's survey of the barns had given the two women inside the house time
+to talk over the affair so close to their hearts, and the little sitting
+room had been turned into a temple by the presence of a young mother that
+was to be and that older but childless mother who loved her as her own.
+Elizabeth, still on her knees, laid her head in Aunt Susan's lap as of
+old, and Susan Hornby, with every hurt buried, listened to her
+confessions, with her free hand feeling its way over the thick braids as
+she prayed earnestly in her heart that her beloved child would go through
+the travail awaiting her without harm and not be left childless in her old
+age.
+
+When Nathan's heavy boot crunched on the snow-covered doorstep, Elizabeth
+ran to meet him with the broom and a whole world's wealth of welcome in
+voice and manner.
+
+"I'm so glad you came to-day. I've been wanting Aunt Susan _so_ of late.
+Isn't it a heavy snow for this late in the season?"
+
+She rattled busily along to carry the impress of welcome, for the old man
+had not responded to her as his wife had done.
+
+"Well, now," said candid Nathan, "you don't exactly give one th'
+impression of pinin' t' see folks when you never come over at all."
+
+Elizabeth knew that though he regarded the broom with which he brushed at
+his boots with extra attention, he was listening closely for her answer.
+
+"There's John!" she cried, seeing her husband as he drove a bunch of
+calves into the lane. She hastened to tell her guest that her husband had
+been some miles to the west to attend a sale, and pretended to have
+forgotten Nathan's awkward remark.
+
+She was glad to see that John left Jake to turn the calves into the yards
+and came to the house at once, with cordiality shining out of every line
+of his face. He made Nathan Hornby so welcome that every sign of
+displeasure faded from Nathan's countenance. He gave a hasty brush at his
+boots and came in to shake hands with Susan Hornby. He stirred the fire
+briskly, and remarked to Nathan:
+
+"Ain't that a dandy bunch of calves? I had a chance to get them at that
+Irishman's sale--I forget his name--oh, yes, Tim--Tim--you know? I ought
+to know myself since I just signed a note to him. Averaged eighteen
+dollars a head--forty-three of 'em. With corn at thirty cents, they'll
+turn quick money."
+
+The fire roared under his vigorous poking, and he applied himself to
+putting more coal in the stove without looking up.
+
+Elizabeth Hunter's face lost the happy expression with which she had been
+regarding him as he welcomed the old couple and stirred the fire,
+presumably for their benefit. He _had_ been glad to see them: they had
+helped him over an awkward announcement. He had not told her he meant to
+get these cattle, and he had let her think that he meant to take her
+advice and not go into debt any more than he had already done.
+
+John Hunter heard his wife's low exclamation of surprise. He was glad it
+was over.
+
+Susan Hornby heard it too and caught the sick look on her face, but though
+she wondered about it she asked no questions, for Elizabeth Hunter was a
+woman of reserve. Elizabeth Hunter had developed a power unknown to
+Elizabeth Farnshaw.
+
+"Got a good many sheds built a'ready, I see," was the next remark the girl
+heard.
+
+"Yes," John replied, still devoting himself to the fire. "I expected to
+get the stock sooner--haven't used it all this year--but it's there for
+next season. I've got about all the cattle I'll get now. I told Carter I'd
+take seventeen head of his. He was going to put them up at his sale next
+week, but I persuaded him to let me have them in a bunch. I'll get them
+home to-morrow. Got 'em on 6 per cent. They'll grow into money every day
+this summer--mostly two-year-olds. Don't you think so?"
+
+"That's all owin'," Nathan replied slowly. "Cattle take a lot of cover,
+an' you ain't usin' straw sheds."
+
+"Oh, my sheds ain't cost so very much," John replied easily. "They're
+substantial too. I don't think much of the straw-shed business. It'll do
+for Hansen, now, that ain't got anything to put under cover, but when a
+man's got anything----" John filled out the sentence with an expressive
+gesture, and then before any one could speak said casually: "By the way, I
+hear the Swede's going to be married to-morrow."
+
+"Married?" Elizabeth Hunter exclaimed. Every word of the conversation had
+been a stab, but to have Luther called a Swede was too much.
+
+"Yes, dear," Aunt Susan said, laying a hand on her arm. "I meant to have
+told you and I hadn't got to it yet. Nate and I are invited to the
+wedding. It's Sadie Crane, you know."
+
+Elizabeth fell into the nearest chair utterly limp. "Sadie Crane?" she
+said over and over.
+
+"I knew you'd hate to have it Sadie, but any woman could be glad to get a
+man as good as Luther, and she's crazy over him. He'll make her a good
+husband whether she makes a good wife or not. She'll have her own way a
+good deal further than most wives."
+
+John Hunter suspected that the latter was said for his benefit.
+
+Nathan and Susan Hornby disagreed, as much as it was possible for them to
+do, on the way home.
+
+"You may say what you please, if she don't come it's because she don't
+want to. You couldn't ask for a more rousin' welcome 'n _he_ give us,"
+Nathan said as he watched the forefoot on the off horse to see whether it
+was a cake of snow that made it limp or a more serious trouble.
+
+"It wasn't any more rousing than hers was when I went in and--and look how
+he spoke of Luther," Susan replied hesitatingly. She hardly dare point out
+the weakness of John, however angry she was at him, for she had had
+trouble enough to get Nathan to bring her at all.
+
+"That's so," Nathan admitted. "They're a pair of snobs, anyhow. You think
+she treats you all right, but you saw how she shied round th' subject when
+I put it straight to 'er. I went because you wanted me to--but I ain't
+sure----" Nathan Hornby ceased to speak before his sentence was finished.
+Elizabeth's neglect had been another nail in the coffin of his friendly
+trust. Susan had had hard work to persuade him to bring her to-day and had
+hoped that some lucky circumstance would help to dispel his suspicions.
+This had looked possible at first, but she saw that he still nursed his
+grievances.
+
+Susan had her suspicions also, but they were of John, not of Elizabeth.
+Elizabeth had been as glad to see her as she had always been, whatever
+there might have been that was unexplainable on the surface. Susan Hornby
+knew with a knowledge that was unassailable that Elizabeth Hunter loved
+her as much as Elizabeth Farnshaw had done.
+
+"I don't care, I'm going again some day before long," she said; "she won't
+be going out much now for a while."
+
+"Well, now, look here," Nathan said, stubbornly sticking to a conviction
+from which he was unable to get away. "You think Hunter keeps her from
+coming. He give us more of a welcome 'n she did, a good sight."
+
+Susan Hornby glanced around at her husband in astonishment. She had never
+said that she thought Elizabeth was prevented by John from coming to see
+them. Nathan had measured her better than she had realized.
+
+"No-o, he didn't," she replied slowly. She resolved to speak frankly. "You
+didn't see her when she took me into the house. Honestly, Nate, it was
+better than a whole revival service to have that girl tell me of--of----"
+
+"I didn't see that," Nathan interrupted, "I only know he _was_ glad t' see
+us; you saw that for yourself."
+
+"I was just going to say----" Susan considered a moment and then said
+firmly: "He was glad to see us because there was something about those
+cattle he hadn't told her. Didn't you see the look on her face?"
+
+"That wouldn't make no difference with th' way he'd do by us. 'E was as
+glad as could be, an' asked you t' come back 's if you'd been 'is mother.
+It's some stuck-up notion of hers--this thing of them not visitin' their
+neighbours."
+
+Susan looked up at him indulgently.
+
+"You won't refuse to be good friends with her--for my sake, Nate. She was
+as glad to see me as a little child."
+
+"Why don't she come t' see you then?" Nathan asked sternly, able only to
+see the one point.
+
+"I don't exactly know, Nate. I couldn't crowd her on that matter--she
+looked so worried when I brought it up that I just let it go. I only
+_know_ she wants to come."
+
+They dropped the subject and rode along over the smooth road, too absorbed
+in their own thoughts to get pleasure out of this last sleighride of the
+season, both endeavoring to solve the problem from their own viewpoint,
+Nathan full of distrust and suspicion, his wife too well versed in human
+nature to doubt Elizabeth's honesty or believe that she was spoiled by a
+fine home or an advanced social position. At last she spoke her
+conclusions:
+
+"There's something in her face I like better'n ever, but there's a worried
+something there I don't like to see."
+
+Nathan was sorry he had criticised Elizabeth. Sue loved the girl. Nathan
+and Susan discussed, but never argued. If Susan remained of her first
+opinion after talking a thing over, Nathan conceded within himself that
+she had some good reason for her convictions even where he could not
+agree.
+
+"Sue 'll have t' see it for herself," he meditated. "I'd be glad t' see
+'er right. We'll see how it turns out." But as he tried to get himself
+into that frame of mind he remembered how many days had been spoiled for
+his wife that winter because she longed for Elizabeth, and he
+involuntarily muttered:
+
+"Dirty little huzzy!" and ground his straggling teeth as he thought of
+it.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+After Nathan and Susan Hornby had turned into the main road, John walked
+slowly back to the house.
+
+"What'd I say that Mrs. Hornby didn't like?" he asked, as he entered the
+kitchen where Elizabeth was preparing the supper which Nathan had declined
+to stay and eat.
+
+Elizabeth's brow was drawn into a puckered wrinkle. She followed her own
+laborious thinking, unaware that her husband had spoken.
+
+"What'd I say that riled Mrs. Hornby?" he repeated.
+
+Elizabeth heard the question now and looked up. It was hard to answer. To
+mention the tone in which he had spoken of Luther was useless she knew.
+Her hesitancy annoyed her husband.
+
+"Well, what's wrong?"
+
+"Nothing--that is----" Elizabeth could not discuss it.
+
+John Hunter resented her silence. He turned without speaking and picked up
+the water pail quickly. John heaped coals of fire by performing household
+duties.
+
+Reflecting that he was going to be angry whether she talked out or not,
+Elizabeth laid a detaining hand on his arm and spoke of what she felt she
+could get his attention fixed upon.
+
+"I was thinking of all that money we're going to have to pay some day,
+John. I--I've tried before to make you understand me. Oh, John, dear,
+don't you see--but then, no, of course you don't, you've never had the
+experience of it. You see, dear, I've had it. It takes the heart out of
+people. You never get rid of it after you get into it once. You just go
+on, you get old and quarrelsome--and--and you never have any good times
+because you're afraid of something--of the interest that's got to be met,
+and things. Why won't you let me help you? You didn't tell me about these
+last cattle, nor the Carter lot. Why----"
+
+"Now look here, Elizabeth, a man can't run to the house and consult a
+woman about every little thing he does, before he does it. I always tell
+you when I can. I told you about this."
+
+Irritability was John Hunter's strongest weapon.
+
+"I don't want you to run to the house to tell me about every little thing
+you do," the young wife explained patiently, "but these debts will not be
+little things when they come to be paid off, dear. Really, you don't know
+how they will sap you and me later on; they may even take the farm right
+out from under our feet. There are so many things that can happen to
+cattle--and interest _has_ to be paid. That's the awful part of it,
+and----"
+
+John fidgeted uneasily and did not look at her. He wanted to get away. He
+had not come in to talk of this. Elizabeth held his sleeve and he had to
+say something.
+
+"I haven't failed to get what you need out of this money," he said at
+last. "I can't have you shutting out opportunities for business. I'll
+raise the interest. If I furnish the money I ought to be free to make a
+living the best way I see how. What do you know about a man's business?"
+
+Desiring only to convince him, which she could not do if he were
+irritated, Elizabeth laid her paring knife on the kitchen table and put
+her arm about her husband's neck coaxingly.
+
+"Of course you get everything I need, dear; that isn't the trouble. I
+don't want to shut out opportunities for business either, but I gave up my
+education to help pay interest. I know how hard it is to raise. The calves
+die, and the cows don't give milk enough to make up the difference. The
+loss---- Oh, I know," she said putting her hand affectionately over his
+mouth to still the objection he had started to offer. "You think beef
+cattle will be different, but black-leg gets into a herd of beef cattle
+just as readily as into the cows and calves, and frosted corn is a
+liability Kansas farmers always have hanging over a crop. I'm not
+complaining about the cattle that are paid for--it's those we'd have to
+pay for that were dead. The money was yours and you had a right to spend
+it as you chose, but the debts will be _ours_. The skimping and saving
+will fall on me as much as on you, and skimping makes people mean and
+penurious. Promise me you won't go into debt without telling me again."
+
+"Forget it, little woman," John replied, patting her face and kissing it
+many times. "I'll never do anything to disgrace you."
+
+He had not replied to a single argument; he had not made a single promise.
+Elizabeth submitted to his caresses with a sigh. It was useless. She could
+not fall out with him for the sake of the child that was coming. She
+resolved to accept what she could get and try to be patient.
+
+"I'm glad you were so nice to Aunt Susan," she said, trying to get away
+from the impossible and make as much as she could out of the possible.
+"we'll go over Sunday. I'd begun to think you'd never do it. We'll take
+them by surprise."
+
+John Hunter laughed indulgently. "You think you got me that time," he
+said, and escaped to the well without further remark.
+
+Elizabeth looked after him, and pondered, with a quivering lip, on the
+wilfulness of the refusal to promise. She had been so sure that she was
+escaping the hell of mortgages and interest when she married. The farm was
+already carrying every cent the loan companies would give on first papers.
+If anything should happen to the stock they would have to put a second
+mortgage on part of it. John was determined to work on a large scale. She
+had tried many times to show him how hard it would be to raise large
+incumbrances, but whenever she did so he became fretful and for days
+spoiled the home comfort for which she strove. Elizabeth tried to model
+their home life after that of Aunt Susan, and leave her husband free to
+use his own judgment, but this matter of indebtedness was alarming. She
+knew how slowly money came in on the farm and how impossible it was to
+raise a mortgage once it was plastered over a piece of land. Already she
+saw the day of payments, note-renewals, and chattel mortgages staring them
+in the face. Elizabeth's pride had suffered a fall. She saw the weary
+years stretch ahead of them without joy and without hope other than that
+which those about them had, unless some special providence assisted them
+to avoid the common lot of farmers. As she went about her table-setting,
+however, the quality of the linen, of the dishes, of every object in the
+room differed from anything she had ever known, and the hope of youth came
+to her aid. This home should be different from the rest; she would make it
+so by patience as well as by its possessions. The black-leg was not an
+immediate danger, and she would look for the best.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Winter passed, and spring. The patience Elizabeth had vowed to command had
+been tried to the utmost in some particulars. John had never taken her to
+see Aunt Susan. Sometimes he said "wait till next week," sometimes he said
+he was tired, more often he retired into his accustomed irritability, and
+at last because of the evidences of her pregnant state she ceased to
+desire it. The winter had not been totally unpleasant. If she did not
+irritate her husband they were very happy together. John had pleasant
+little ways about the house and was as helpful as the most exacting woman
+could demand. The spring had been harder because Elizabeth had less
+strength and the house and garden work had increased. It took three hired
+men to keep the farm work done, and there were many mouths to fill.
+
+One particularly hot day in June John unloaded on the kitchen table an
+armful of groceries he had just brought from town, remarking as he did
+so:
+
+"I brought home some dried blackberries for pies, Elizabeth."
+
+Hepsie Brown, the lately acquired hired girl, stood at Elizabeth's elbow,
+and began to put the parcels away in the cupboard.
+
+Elizabeth took a couple of letters he was handing her and went into the
+sitting room to read them. John followed her in.
+
+"Be sure you make the pies," he said with an emphasis which showed he
+meant to have it remembered.
+
+"All right, dear."
+
+"You'd better cook the fruit to-night," he added.
+
+"All right. I'll tell Hepsie."
+
+"Better do it yourself," he cautioned.
+
+"She can do it. I'll tell her," Elizabeth said without looking up, but she
+knew that that would not end the discussion the moment it was out of her
+mouth. She recognized John's most unpleasant insisting mood.
+
+"Mother always tends to her own pie-baking. Girls never get things right,"
+he said emphatically, waiting for her to raise her eyes to his.
+
+"Yes, yes, dear," the girl answered, looking up as he required. "She can
+do it just as well as I can; it don't hurt her to stand on her feet."
+
+She had given the sign of submission and he was ready to be pleasant about
+it, but he reiterated the demand.
+
+"I know, dear," he said, kissing her, "but I can't bear to have things
+coming on the table not right when we have men about. It don't take long
+to make a few pies."
+
+Elizabeth rose wearily, put the letters down and went to the kitchen. Her
+face was drawn and there was a fagged, weary droop to the shoulders. John
+demanded that the house and cooking be kept up to the city standard,
+forgetting that there was a garden to keep in order also, besides little
+chickens to feed and butter to be made. If Elizabeth had said she were
+sick and had gone to bed, John would have had the doctor come to see her
+twice as often as necessary, and would have exhausted the little town of
+Colebyville to supply such things as she could eat, but it never occurred
+to John Hunter that as long as his wife was able to go about the house
+that she might know what she should do much better than he.
+
+Elizabeth was unable to defend herself. She coveted peace, and she could
+not have peace unless she responded to John's suggestions. Also, at this
+time Elizabeth was determined that she would not be cross. The coming
+child absorbed her mind as much as it absorbed her body. She would not let
+one hour of discord or inharmony affect its life. Elizabeth had no idea
+how to manage her husband so as to get him even to listen to her side of
+an argument. The girl was worn out by useless things which she could not
+avoid doing.
+
+Elizabeth was extremely nervous at this period of her life. John went to
+bed full of healthy fatigue and slept soundly till morning, and knew
+nothing of mental and physical strains which left his wife more tired in
+the morning than when she went to bed at night. Elizabeth had been a
+strong girl, but she was supporting the life of another; she tossed and
+moaned through the two or three short hours in which she could sleep, and
+for the rest lay wide-eyed, staring into the darkness, filled with terror
+at what the rapidly approaching future held for her. In her girlish
+imaginings and fears, ignorant of the facts a young mother should have
+known, she had magnified the sufferings of childbirth till life was a
+network of horrors, and her nerves were at the breaking point.
+
+The next morning Elizabeth, with aching back and trembling knees, her face
+flushed from the heat of the stove, stood at the kitchen table rolling out
+the pie crust. A tear rolled down her cheek. Hepsie, who stood near and
+was regarding her sympathetically, laid firm hold on the rolling-pin.
+
+"I knew you'd no business t' do it. Now you go in an' set down in th'
+rockin' chair while I finish this here batch of pies."
+
+Hepsie was older than Elizabeth and making pies had been her business; the
+crust was mixed and the fruit had been cooked the night before. Reflecting
+that not much could happen to a pie after getting that far on the road to
+perfection, Elizabeth let the rolling-pin be taken from her hand and went
+in wearily to throw herself on the lounge to rest.
+
+John came into the kitchen and his face darkened.
+
+"Tell Mrs. Hunter that I look for Hansen to help with the grain to-day,
+and that I told him to bring his wife with him," he said to Hepsie, and
+went out, banging the door after him.
+
+Elizabeth had heard him come in and had risen to explain, but stopped
+short when she heard that Luther had been asked to help. Her first feeling
+was of a joy which brought the tears to her eyes. John had been
+persistently cool whenever Luther had been mentioned since their marriage.
+The next feeling of which she was conscious was an intense distaste to
+having Sadie in the house with her all day, and this was followed by the
+thought that John had known that Luther and Sadie were coming since the
+day before and had said nothing about it to her; but small time was given
+her to think about any phase of the matter, for Luther's familiar,
+unpainted wagon was at that very moment coming into the side lane. With a
+conviction that she had not been told till it was absolutely necessary,
+Elizabeth walked promptly out to meet her young neighbours.
+
+It was the old Luther which greeted her.
+
+"You know my wife, Lizzie," he said with such a happy look in Sadie's
+direction that Elizabeth's heart responded to the call for open
+friendship. Luther never nursed suspicion.
+
+"I should just say I did," Elizabeth replied warmly, extending her hand to
+the little woman Luther was setting on her feet. Luther climbed promptly
+into the high seat from which he had just lifted his wife and held his own
+hand down to Elizabeth from there.
+
+"It was mighty fine for you to send word for her t' come along."
+
+And Elizabeth did not let him gather from any hint of expression or word
+that so far from sending word for Sadie to spend the day with her, she had
+not known till in these last ten minutes that either of them was expected.
+John came and talked to Luther, mounting the spring-seat at his side to
+ride to the field, but did not look at Elizabeth, though she looked at him
+longingly and everything in her cried out for reconciliation and openness.
+John had a way of ignoring her when explanations had to be made.
+
+Luther's attitude toward his wife had influenced Elizabeth in Sadie's
+favour as nothing else had ever been able to do. She began to feel less
+hostile, and as they turned toward the house asked her interestedly how
+she was "coming on" with her garden and chickens. This was common ground,
+and Sadie warmed to the real welcome she was accorded. She stopped beside
+Elizabeth's coops in the backyard and examined the little groups of
+begging, downy balls with the animation of a true farmer's wife. Here was
+something she knew as well as Elizabeth; in fact, when a count was made it
+was discovered that Sadie's broods several times outnumbered those of the
+neighbour she envied. It was an absorbing topic of conversation, and the
+two women stood for some moments with the hungry little beggars clamouring
+lustily about them. Suddenly they became conscious of the smell of burning
+sugar.
+
+"Oh, my goodness!" Elizabeth exclaimed, and ran to the kitchen, leaving
+her guest to follow as she chose.
+
+Hepsie had gone upstairs, and as Elizabeth opened the oven door a cloud of
+smoke rolled out which nearly blinded her and set her to coughing.
+
+Sadie followed her in and somehow her mood changed as she looked over the
+well-kept kitchen. Something in the tidy order and tasty arrangement of
+its shelves hurt. Sadie was not a natural housekeeper.
+
+"Bet she just thinks she beat us all," she thought as she laid her bonnet
+on the sitting-room sofa, where she had felt of the pillows, and the
+lambrequin which hung from the long shelf where the clock and vasts stood,
+on the opposite side of the room. "Bet she don't put on no airs about me
+just the same." She looked at the small bookcase below the mantel in a
+perfect rage of envy. Elizabeth was surrounded by the things which
+befitted Elizabeth, and Sadie realized as she had never done in their
+childhood the chasm which separated them, and knew nothing of the anguish
+of the young wife as she laboured with the disfigured pies, nor that
+Elizabeth thought of the look of love she had seen Sadie receive with
+something very like envy in her heart.
+
+Elizabeth thought long upon the joy in Luther's face as he greeted her.
+John must have made some move about the request for help which covered the
+neglect of all these months adequately to Luther. Sadie finished her
+inspection of the inner regions and returned to the kitchen primed with
+things to be said to her rival, and Elizabeth fared badly at her hands.
+Her innate refinement would not let Elizabeth strike back in the coarse
+way in which she was attacked, and she listened to hints and pretended
+sympathy on the subject of Farnshaw domestic difficulties, of reported
+debts which John Hunter had contracted, and neighbourhood estimates of the
+fact of her own secluded manner of life since her marriage, till her head
+swam and her memory was scorched for many a day. But though her head ached
+and her knees almost refused to perform their office, Elizabeth remained
+in the kitchen and superintended every dish prepared for that harvest
+dinner. The fact that the pies had scorched left her with the feeling that
+John had had a foundation of real fact for his demand that she give them
+her personal attention, and left her humbled and ready to beg forgiveness.
+Every fibre of her cried out for the trust she had seen in Luther's glance
+at Sadie. _There_ was true marriage, and the state which she laboured
+daily to establish.
+
+At dinner John did not look at Elizabeth, though her eyes sought his
+constantly, and when the pie was passed around she remarked on its trimmed
+edges shamefacedly.
+
+Silas Chamberlain wiped his knife on a piece of bread and slid it under
+the section nearest him.
+
+"You never mind about them edges. It looks like a good pie t' me, an' John
+here will eat his share of it, I'll warrant you. Th' rest of this company
+can survive if he does. I just been a thinkin' as I set here what a
+stunnin' cook you've got t' be in these ten months. I used t' think you'd
+have a lot t' learn after you was married, but you seem t' 'a' learned it
+short off--eh, John?"
+
+John Hunter had to reply. "I've been sorry mother had to go away.
+Elizabeth's done pretty well, but mother would have been a great help,
+with her fixed ways of doing things," he said reluctantly.
+
+Luther had been looking earnestly at John, but spared Elizabeth when he
+saw her confusion by looking quickly down at his plate and saying
+nothing.
+
+"Don't know's Lizzie needs any help as far as doin' things is concerned,
+though she may need more rest," Silas returned; and Sadie took up the
+subject.
+
+"I think my stove bakes a little better on the bottom," she remarked
+critically.
+
+"I low t' taste your pies to-morrow if it don't rain," Silas answered her
+without looking up from the bite he was severing with the knife upon which
+it was to be conveyed to his mouth.
+
+Luther Hansen's laugh rang out heartily.
+
+"Don't," he said, winking at Sadie. "She'll be keepin' me out of th' field
+t' fire th' oven."
+
+The sting of the criticism was drawn by Luther's merry acceptation of it.
+Sadie laughed too, but the hint left its rankling point. These same men
+would harvest for them on the morrow, and as Sadie looked over Elizabeth
+Hunter's well set table she knew that she would not have the advantage on
+her side.
+
+"Lizzie's always had th' best of everything," she thought.
+
+Silas Chamberlain thought over the day's events as he rode slowly home.
+While unhitching, Old Queen nipped angrily at Bob, who had sniffed at her
+collar pad, and Silas cuffed her ears.
+
+"Whoa, there, you spiteful beast! You'll be wantin' pie that's a leetle
+better done on th' under crust next. Drat 'er! I could 'a' fit right
+there, only--well you kin allus hit harder with that kind of folks if you
+don't let yourself git riled. Pore little woman! Not little, neither--but
+a year ago so young an' glowin' with happiness. Used t' make me think of a
+bob-white, trottin' up an down these roads s' contented like, an' allus so
+friendly an' sociable. Looks 's if she didn't have spirits enough t' laugh
+at nothin' these days. Looks 's if she'd had a peep into a den of wild
+beasts an' was afraid they'd break out an' get 'er. Liza Ann's got t' go
+an' see 'er, an' I'm goin' t' tell 'er so."
+
+As Silas went toward the house, he stopped suddenly and looked back at the
+wagon, which stood in the same place he had left it that rainy afternoon
+over a year ago.
+
+"She looked that peert with 'er red lips an' bright eyes, a askin' if th'
+school board was t' meet. Pore little woman--she ain't a goslin' any more,
+an' 'er new feathers ain't turnin' th' rain very good neither," he
+reflected, shaking his head.
+
+The long day ended at last and John came to the house after the evening
+chores were finished. Elizabeth waited for him in her bedroom. Throughout
+the entire evening she had been telling herself that she must make this
+thing right. For the sake of the expected child she must not let her mind
+be disturbed with the hurt feeling she had been unable to put away since
+John had gone out without letting her explain about the morning's baking.
+She allowed herself no angry or resentful thought for the prolonged and
+cruel reproach. Dry-eyed, she sat by the open window in her nightdress,
+making buttonholes in a tiny slip as she waited. She heard him deposit the
+basket of cobs beside the kitchen stove, which he never forgot to bring in
+at night, and by the rattle of the dipper which followed and the chug,
+chug, chug of the pump knew that he was filling the reservoir. Breakfast
+on the farm was an early meal and greatly facilitated by small
+preparations. John never forgot nor neglected his part of the household
+duties. Elizabeth sighed. John had the appearance of right on his side
+when he demanded her highest efforts at the household altar. She put away
+the little slip as she heard him coming toward the bedroom and rose to
+meet him. The tears came in spite of every effort to stay them, and to
+hide her face she dug it deep into his shoulder while she sobbed out her
+story. It was a full minute before John's arm went about her, but at last
+reflecting that something was due one in her condition, he patted her
+heaving shoulders and said as if addressing a child:
+
+"There, there now, I never thought of you feeling so bad," and after a
+minute's thought added, "but you see, dear, the part of the dinner you saw
+to yourself was all right, and the pies had to be apologized for."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"PORE LITTLE WOMAN"
+
+
+Silas Chamberlain answered to a loud knock on his door at the midnight
+hour. It was the first week of August.
+
+"From Hunter's, you say?"
+
+There was a mumbled conversation at the door.
+
+"Why, yes, of course. Come right in--glad t' have you. When was you
+called--an hour an' a half ago? Now you come right upstairs, an' we'll
+have you in bed in two shakes. There now--them covers'll be too heavy, I
+'spect, but you kin throw 'em off if you don't want 'em. Jest keep that
+light. I'll git another downstairs. Good-night. Oh, yes! Jake's gone for
+th' doctor, you say? Started an hour an' a half ago? Guess 'e ain't there
+yet--seven mile you know. Well, good-night!"
+
+Silas stumbled down the steep stairs.
+
+"Liza Ann, it's come! Pore little woman!"
+
+He got back into bed and lay so still that his wife thought him asleep.
+"Pore child!" she heard him say just as she was drifting off to dreamland.
+An hour passed. An hour and a half. There was the sound of wheels.
+
+"That's th' doctor, Liza Ann." There was no reply.
+
+The old man fidgeted for fifteen minutes more; he had grown nervous. He
+slid out of the bed quietly and went to the barn.
+
+"Thought I heard a noise," he told himself by way of excuse for his
+action. "Wonder if Old Queen's loose?" He felt his way along the manger
+carefully. Unaccustomed to midnight visitors, Queen snorted and shrank
+from his hand when he touched her.
+
+"Whoa, there! You needn't be so blamed 'fraid--nothin's goin' t' hurt you.
+You ain't a woman."
+
+Silas found a nail-keg and sat down on it across from the nibbling horses,
+and thought and waited.
+
+"He's there by this time," he murmured presently. "Wisht they'd 'a' sent
+for Liza Ann. No, I guess it's better not. She wouldn't know what t' do,
+havin' no experience."
+
+He debated with himself as to whether he should go back to bed or not.
+
+"Couldn't sleep," he concluded. "Lord! how long the nights is when a
+feller's awake!"
+
+The horses ate on uninterruptedly and the soft breeze stole through the
+old barn, while everything in nature was indicative of peace except the
+old man, whose mind worked relentlessly on the situation of the young wife
+whose certain suffering racked him almost as much as if he had stood in
+its presence.
+
+"Gosh-a-livin's!" he exclaimed as a new thought struck him. "I wonder
+which one of 'em Jake got. Now that young Doc Stubbins ain't got no more
+sense 'n a louse. I ought t' 'a' told John an' I forgot. Lord! Lord! th'
+chances th' poor critters have t' take!"
+
+Mrs. Chamberlain was awakened in the gray light of morning as her husband
+crept shivering into bed.
+
+"Where you been?" she asked.
+
+"Out t' th' barn. Heard a noise an' thought I'd better look into it," was
+Silas's reply.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the sun rose the new life was ushered in. Doctor Morgan did not start
+home till after nine o'clock.
+
+"Who is to have charge of your wife, Mr. Hunter?" he asked as he paused in
+the door and looked back at his patient anxiously. Seven miles was a long
+distance--and she might need him suddenly.
+
+"Why, I thought Hepsie and I could care for her," John replied. Trained
+nurses were unheard of in those days.
+
+"It simply cannot be," answered the old man. (Doctor Stubbins had not been
+engaged.) "Another attack like this last one would--well, you _must_ have
+some one of experience here. It's a matter of life or death--at least it
+might be," he added under his breath. "Couldn't you stay?" he asked Susan
+Hornby, who sat with the baby on her knee. "The girl's liable to slip away
+from us before I could get here."
+
+It was arranged that Aunt Susan should stay with the young mother, who was
+too weak to turn her head on the pillow it lay upon, for as the old doctor
+had said she was a desperately sick girl. They had but just kept her with
+them. The presence of Aunt Susan was almost as delightful to Elizabeth
+Hunter as the head of the child on her arm. Weak and exhausted, she was
+permitted such rest as she had not known in all the days of her married
+life. The darkened room and the quiet of the next three days were such a
+mercy to her tired nerves that she would have been glad to lie there for
+ages. Doctor Morgan let Susan Hornby return to her home and husband at the
+end of the week, confident that with care, Hepsie could perform the little
+offices required, but he was to learn that country people have little
+judgment in serious cases of illness, and that the young mother's room
+would be filled with company when he came out the next day.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Crane were the first to arrive on Sunday morning, and when
+John announced that they were driving up to the hitching post, Elizabeth
+begged weakly for him to say that she was too ill to see any one that day.
+John would have been glad to deliver that message, remembering the wedding
+day, but Sadie was with her mother, and John had found Luther a convenient
+neighbour of late.
+
+"We can't offend them," he said.
+
+"But I can't have them. Please, John--with my head aching already."
+
+"Don't speak so loud," John said warningly.
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw came and had to have her team tied to the barnyard fence.
+She walked to the house with the rest of the company, and even in their
+presence could not restrain her complaints because she had not been
+notified of her daughter's serious illness and the arrival of the child.
+Elizabeth's protest that they had been absorbed by that illness, and too
+busy to think of anything but the most urgent and immediate duties, did
+not quiet the objections, for Mrs. Farnshaw had the habit of weak
+insistence. Her mother's whine was never so hard to bear.
+
+"Where's Mr. Farnshaw?" Mr. Crane asked. "He's grandpa now."
+
+Elizabeth shrank into her pillows, and Mrs. Farnshaw bridled angrily.
+
+"He's busy," was her tart reply.
+
+"I should think he'd want t' see his grandson. Lizzie, you haven't showed
+me that boy," Mr. Crane insisted.
+
+And Elizabeth, weak and worn, had to draw the sleeping child from under
+the quilts at her side and show him off as if he had been a roll of butter
+at a country fair, while constant reference was made to one phase or
+another of the unpleasant things in her experience. Her colour deepened
+and her head thumped more and more violently, and by noon when they
+trooped out to the dining room, where Hepsie had a good dinner waiting,
+the girl-wife was worn out. She could not eat the food brought to her, but
+drank constantly, and was unable to get a snatch of sleep before the
+visitors assembled about her bed again.
+
+At four o'clock Doctor Morgan arrived and Luther Hansen came for Sadie.
+Sadie saw him drive in, and laughed unpleasantly.
+
+"Luther wasn't a bit for comin', but I told him I'd come over with ma, an'
+he could come after me. He's always chicken-hearted, an' said since Lizzie
+was so sick we oughtn't t' come. I don't see as you're s' sick, Lizzie;
+you've got lots of good colour in your face, an' th' way you pull that
+baby around don't look much like you was goin' t' kick the bucket just
+yet."
+
+Elizabeth made no reply, but watched John help Doctor Morgan tie his
+team.
+
+"How's Mrs. Hunter?" Doctor Morgan asked John as he came around to the
+gate after the horses were fastened.
+
+"All right, I guess. She's had a good deal of company to-day. I didn't
+want them, but you can't offend people."
+
+"We usually have a good deal of company at a funeral," the old doctor said
+dryly, as he viewed the extra horses and wagons about the fence.
+
+When he entered the sickroom his face hardened.
+
+"I'm not as much afraid of your neighbours as you are, Mr. Hunter," he
+said, and went to the middle door and beckoned Luther to come with him
+into the yard. A few words was all that was needed with Luther Hansen, and
+the doctor returned to his patient.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sadie was more sarcastic than usual as they drove home.
+
+"I wouldn't 'a' come if I'd a known I wasn't wanted," she remarked
+sulkily.
+
+"But, Sadie, Doc Morgan says she's worse! I'd turn 'em out quick enough if
+it was you."
+
+Poor little Sadie Hansen caught the spirit of the remark. Nothing like it
+had ever before been offered her in all her bitter, sensitive experience.
+She looked up at her husband mollified, and let even Elizabeth have a
+season of rest as she considered this astonishing thing which marriage had
+brought to her.
+
+Susan Hornby, who had thought her darling resting on this quiet Sabbath
+day, was reëstablished at the bedside, and it was not till the morning of
+the tenth day that she again left the house. At the end of that time she
+was dismissed reluctantly by the good old doctor himself. It had been such
+a good excuse to be with Elizabeth that Aunt Susan had persuaded the
+long-suffering Nathan that her presence beside her was a thing not to be
+denied, and Nathan, glad to see Sue so happy, ate many a cold meal that
+haying season and did not complain. It was a great event in Susan Hornby's
+life. Gentle and cordial to all, Susan Hornby lived much alone--alone most
+of all when surrounded with her neighbours. Elizabeth was her only real
+tie.
+
+"Oh, child! I'm so glad you've got him," she said one day as she laid the
+beautiful brown head on Elizabeth's arm.
+
+Elizabeth patted the hand that was drawing the little white shawl over the
+baby's head. Master John Hunter--the babe had been named for its
+father--had had his daily bath, and robed in fresh garments, and being
+well fed and housed in the snuggest of all quarters, the little triangle
+made by a mother's arm, settled himself for his daily nap, while the two
+women watched him with the eyes of affection. Never again do we so nearly
+attain perfect peace in this turbulent life as during those first few
+weeks when the untroubled serenity of human existence is infringed upon by
+nothing but a desire for nourishment, which is conveniently present, to be
+had at the first asking, and which there is such a heaven of delight in
+obtaining. We are told that we can only enter the Kingdom of Heaven by
+becoming as little children: no other Kingdom of Heaven is adequate after
+that.
+
+The life in this little room had taken Susan Hornby back to her own youth,
+and as often as otherwise when Master John was being put through his daily
+ablutions it was the little Katie of long ago that she bathed and robed
+fresh and clean for the morning nap. At other times Elizabeth was her
+Katie grown older. It was the flowering time of Susan Hornby's life. The
+fact that Elizabeth had never crossed her threshold since her marriage to
+John Hunter had faded out of Aunt Susan's mind. Elizabeth's every word and
+look spoke the affection she felt for her. Other people might sneer and
+doubt, but Susan Hornby accepted what her instincts told her was genuine.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Elizabeth got about the house slowly. The days in bed had been made
+tolerable by the presence of those she loved, but she was far from strong,
+and she looked forward with reluctance to the time when Aunt Susan would
+not be with her. John complained of Hepsie's work only when with his wife
+alone, for Aunt Susan had been so constant in her praises that he would
+not start a discussion which he had found he brought out by such
+criticism.
+
+Susan Hornby looked on, and was as much puzzled as ever about the
+relations of the young couple. Elizabeth was evidently anxious about
+John's opinions, but she never by so much as a word indicated that they
+differed from hers. She spoke of him with all the glow of her early love;
+she pointed out his helpfulness as if he were the only man in the world
+who looked after the kitchen affairs with such exactitude; she would have
+the baby named for no one else, and all her life and thought centred
+around him in so evident a manner that Aunt Susan could not but feel that
+she was the happiest of wives. She talked of her ideals of harmony, of her
+thankfulness for the example of the older woman's life with her husband,
+of her desire to pattern after that example, of everything that was good
+and hopeful in her life, with so much enthusiasm as to completely convince
+her friend that she had found a fitting abiding place. And, indeed,
+Elizabeth believed all that she said. Each mistake of their married life
+together had been put away as a mistake. Each day she began in firm faith
+in the possibility of bringing about necessary changes. If she failed, she
+was certain in her own mind that the failure had been due to some weakness
+of her own. Never did man have a more patient, trusting wife than John
+Hunter. There had been much company about the house of late, and there had
+been no difficulties. Elizabeth was not yet analytical enough to reason
+out that because of the presence of that company far less demand had been
+made upon her by her husband. She thought that they were really getting on
+better than they had done, and told herself happily that it must be
+because she was more rested than she had been and was therefore not so
+annoyed by small things. It was ever Elizabeth's way to look for blame in
+herself. The baby was a great source of pleasure also. He was a good child
+and slept in the most healthy fashion, though beginning now when awake to
+look about him a little and try to associate himself with his
+surroundings. Elizabeth had begun to look forward to Silas's first visit
+with the child. Silas had quaint ways with the young, and it was with very
+real pleasure that she dragged herself to the door and admitted him the
+first week she was out of bed. Elizabeth led the old man to the lounge on
+tiptoe.
+
+"I want you to see him, Mr. Chamberlain; you and he are to be great
+friends," she said as she went down on her knees and drew the white shawl
+reverently from the sleeping face. "Isn't he a fine, big fellow?" she
+asked, looking up at the old man.
+
+"'E ought t' be, havin' you for his mother," Silas said with an attempt at
+being witty, and looking at the baby shyly.
+
+The baby roused a little, and stretched and grunted, baby fashion.
+
+"Lordie! what good sleep they do have!" Silas said, holding out his finger
+to the little red hand extended toward him, and then withdrawing it
+suddenly. "Now, Liza Ann sleeps just like that t' this day." He spoke
+hesitatingly, as if searching for a topic of conversation. "She does 'er
+work regular like, an' she sleeps as regular as she works. I often think
+what a satisfyin' sort of life she leads, anyhow. She tends t' 'er own
+business an' she don't tend t' nobody else's, an'--an'--she ain't got no
+more on 'er mind 'n that there baby."
+
+Elizabeth gathered the child into her arms and seated herself in a rocking
+chair, while the old man sat stiffly down on the edge of the lounge and
+continued:
+
+"Now I ain't that way, you know. I have a most uncomfortable way of
+gettin' mixed up in th' affairs of others."
+
+"But it's always a friendly interest," Elizabeth interposed, mystified by
+his curious manner and rambling conversation.
+
+Silas crossed his knees and, clasping his hands about the uppermost one,
+rocked back and forth on the edge of the lounge.
+
+"Most allus," he admitted, "but not quite. Now I'm fair ready t' fight
+that new Mis Hansen. I've been right fond of Luther, for th' short time
+I've knowed 'im, but what he see in that there Sadie Crane's beyond me.
+_He's_ square. He looks you in th' face 's open 's day when he talks t'
+you, an' you know th' ain't no lawyer's tricks in th' wordin' of it. But
+she's different. They was over t' our house Sunday 'fore last an' I never
+knowed Liza Ann t' be's near explodin' 's she was 'fore they left. It done
+me right smart good t' see 'er brace up an' defend 'erself. I tell you Mis
+Hansen see she'd riled a hornet 'fore she got away. Liza Ann 'll take an'
+take, till you hit 'er just right, an' then--oh, my!"
+
+Silas ended with a chuckle.
+
+"After they left, she just told me I could exchange works with somebody
+else; she wasn't goin' t' have that woman comin' t' our house no more."
+
+"Sadie is awfully provoking," Elizabeth admitted, "but--but--Luther likes
+her, and Luther is a good judge of people, I always thought."
+
+"Yep," Silas admitted in return, "an' I don't understand it. Anyhow, I
+never knew Liza Ann come s' near forgettin' 'erself. It was worth a day's
+travel t' see."
+
+They talked of other things, the baby dropped asleep in its mother's arms,
+and Silas took his departure.
+
+"How unlike him," Elizabeth said to herself as she watched him go to his
+wagon.
+
+Silas rode away in an ill-humour with himself.
+
+"Now there I've been an' talked like a lunatic asylum," he meditated. "I
+allus was that crazy about babies! Here I've gone an' talked spiteful
+about th' neighbours, an' told things that hadn't ought t' be told. If I'd
+a talked about that baby, I'd 'a' let 'er see I was plum foolish about
+it--an' I couldn't think of a blessed thing but th' Hansens."
+
+He rode for a while with a dissatisfied air which gave way to a look of
+yearning.
+
+"My! How proud a man ought t' be! How little folks knows what they've got
+t' be thankful for! Now I'll bet 'e just takes it as a matter of course,
+an' never stops t' think whether other folks is as lucky or not. She
+don't. She's in such a heaven of delight, she don't care if she has lost
+'er purty colour, or jumped into a life that'll make an ol' woman of 'er
+'fore she's hardly begun t' be a girl, nor nothin'. She's just livin' in
+that little un, an' don't even know that can't last long."
+
+There was a long pause, and then he broke out again.
+
+"Think of a man havin' all that, an' not knowin' th' worth of it! Lord! If
+I'd 'a' had--but there now, Liza Ann wouldn't want me t' mourn over
+it--not bein' 'er fault exactly. Guess I ought t' be patient; but I would
+'a' liked a little feller."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+When John came home that night Elizabeth told him of Silas's visit.
+
+"He hardly looked at baby at all," she said disappointedly, "and I'd
+counted on his cunning ways with it more than anybody's. I thought he'd be
+real pleased with it, and instead of that, he didn't seem interested in it
+at all, and sat and stared at me and talked about Sadie. I thought sure
+he'd want to hold it--he's got such cute ways."
+
+"How could you expect an old fellow like him to care for babies?" John
+said, smiling at the thought of it. "A man has to experience such things
+to know what they mean."
+
+He took the child from her arms and sat down to rock it while he waited
+for the supper to be put on the table.
+
+"Say," he began, "I saw Hepsie setting the sponge for to-morrow's bread as
+I came through the kitchen. I'll take care of baby, and you go and see
+about it. The bread hasn't been up to standard since you've been sick.
+You'll have to look after things a little closer now that you are up
+again."
+
+Elizabeth, whose back was not strong, had been sitting on the lounge, and
+now dropped into a reclining position as she replied:
+
+"The bread has not been bad, John. Aunt Susan was always marvelling at how
+good it was compared to the usual hired girl's bread."
+
+"It was pretty badly burned last time," John observed dryly.
+
+"That didn't happen in the sponge, dear, and anybody burns the bread
+sometimes," she returned; "besides that, it makes my back ache to stir
+things these days."
+
+John Hunter did not reply, but every line of him showed his displeasure.
+It was not possible to go on talking about anything else while he was
+annoyed, and the girl began to feel she was not only lazy but easily
+irritated about a very small thing. Reflecting that her back would quit
+hurting if she rested afterward, she arose from the lounge and dragged
+herself to the kitchen, where she stirred the heavy sponge batter as she
+was bidden.
+
+Mrs. Hunter was expected to return in a little over a week, and the first
+days when Elizabeth was able to begin to do small things about the house
+were spent in getting the house cleaning done and the entire place in
+order for her coming. It happened that a light frost fell upon Kansas that
+year weeks before they were accustomed to look for it; and the tomato
+vines were bitten. It was necessary to can quickly such as could be saved.
+In those days all the fruit and vegetables used on Kansas farms were "put
+up" at home, and Elizabeth, with two, and sometimes more, hired men to
+cook for, was obliged to have her pantry shelves well stocked. The heat of
+the great range and the hurry of the extra work flushed the pale face and
+made deep circles below her eyes, but Elizabeth's pride in her table kept
+her at her post till the canning was done. By Saturday night the tomatoes
+were all "up," and the carpets upstairs had been beaten and retacked. Mrs.
+Hunter's room had been given the most exact care and was immaculate with
+tidies and pillow-shams, ironed by Elizabeth's own hands, and the chickens
+to be served on the occasion of her arrival were "cut up" and ready for
+the frying pan.
+
+Sunday there was a repast fit for a king when John and his mother came
+from town. Every nerve in Elizabeth's body had been stretched to the limit
+in the production of that meal. Too tired to eat herself, the young wife
+sat with her baby in her arms and watched the hungry family devour the
+faultless repast. She might be tired, but the dinner was a success. The
+next morning, when the usual rising hour of half-past four o'clock came,
+it seemed to the weary girl that she could not drag herself up to
+superintend the getting of the breakfast.
+
+"Mother'll help you with the morning work and you can lie down afterward,"
+John assured her when she expressed a half determination not to rise.
+
+But after breakfast Mrs. Hunter suggested that they scour the tinware, and
+the three women put in the spare time of the entire morning polishing and
+rubbing pans and lids. As they worked, Mrs. Hunter discussed tinware, till
+not even the shininess of the pans upon which they worked could cover the
+disappointment of the girl that her mother-in-law should have discovered
+it in such a neglected condition.
+
+"Really, child, it isn't fit to put milk in again till it's in better
+condition. How did you happen to let it get so dull and rusty?"
+
+"Now, mother, it isn't rusty at all. It is pretty dull, but that's not
+Hepsie's fault. It was as bright as a pin when I got up, but we've had the
+tomatoes to put up and the housecleaning to do and it couldn't be helped,"
+Elizabeth replied, covering up any share the girl might have had in the
+matter. She knew the extra work which had fallen on Hepsie's shoulders in
+those last weeks, and particularly since she herself had been out of bed,
+for the girl loved Elizabeth and had shielded her by extra steps many
+times when her own limbs must have ached with weariness.
+
+"You don't mean to say you used the tin pans for any thing as corroding as
+tomatoes!" Mrs. Hunter exclaimed in astonishment.
+
+"We used everything in sight I think--and then didn't have enough,"
+Elizabeth said with a laugh.
+
+"But you should never use your milk pans for anything but milk, dear," the
+older woman remonstrated. "You know milk takes up everything that comes
+its way, and typhoid comes from milk oftener than any other source."
+
+"There are no typhoids in tomatoes fresh from the vine," Elizabeth replied
+testily, and Mrs. Hunter dropped the subject.
+
+But though she dropped the subject she did not let the pans drop till the
+last one shone like a mirror. With the large number of cows they were
+milking many receptacles were needed and John had got those pans because
+they were lighter to handle than the heavy stone crocks used by most
+farmers' wives. Elizabeth was more appreciative, of those pans than any
+purchase which had been made for her benefit in all the months she had
+served as John's housekeeper, but by the time she was through scouring she
+was ready to throw them at any one who was foolish enough to address her
+upon housekeeping; besides, she plainly discerned the marks of discontent
+upon Hepsie's face. Hepsie was a faithful servitor, but she had learned by
+several years of service to stop before her energies were exhausted. It
+was the first sign of dissatisfaction she had ever shown, and Elizabeth
+was concerned.
+
+The next morning Elizabeth's head was one solid, throbbing globe of roar
+and pain. Mrs. Hunter brought her a dainty breakfast which it was
+impossible for her to eat, and said with genuine affection:
+
+"We have let you do too much, my dear, and I mean to take some of this
+burden off of your shoulders. You're not yourself yet. John tells me you
+were sicker than people usually are at such times. I ought to have helped
+the girl with that tinware yesterday and sent you to bed."
+
+Elizabeth listened with some alarm to the proposition of Mrs. Hunter
+taking the house into her own hands, but she was touched by the real
+sympathy and concern evident.
+
+"It's good of you, mother. You'll have to be careful about Hepsie, though.
+You must not call her 'the girl' where she hears you. You see she is one
+of our old neighbours, and--and--well, they hate to be called that--and
+they aren't exactly servants."
+
+"Well, I'll get the dinner for her--it's wash day. Don't try to get up,"
+Mrs. Hunter said, taking the breakfast away with her.
+
+"Be careful about Hepsie, mother," Elizabeth called after her in an
+undertone. "She's a good girl, if you understand her and--and they leave
+you at the drop of a hat."
+
+Hepsie's going came sooner than even Elizabeth had feared. She brought a
+cup of coffee to her at noon, but avoided conversation and went out at
+once.
+
+Elizabeth called her mother-in-law to her after dinner was over and
+cautioned her afresh.
+
+"But I haven't had a word with her that was ill-natured or cross," Mrs.
+Hunter protested indignantly.
+
+"I don't suppose you have, mother," the miserable girl replied, puzzled as
+to how she was to make the older woman understand. "It's--it's a way you
+have. I saw that she was hurt about that tinware. She's been very
+satisfactory, really. She takes every step off of me that she can. She's
+the best in the country--and--and they hang together too. If we lost her,
+we'd have a hard time getting another."
+
+"Well, it makes me cross to have to work with them as if they were rotten
+eggs and we were afraid of breaking one, but if I have it to do I suppose
+I can. I only looked after the clothes to see that she got the streaks out
+of them. I knew she was mad about something, but I rinsed them myself; I
+always do that."
+
+After Mrs. Hunter was gone Elizabeth thought the matter over seriously.
+Neither Hepsie nor any other girl they could get in that country was going
+to have her work inspected as if she were a slave. They were free-born
+American women, ignorant of many things regarding the finer kinds of
+housekeeping in most instances, but independent from birth and
+surroundings. In fact, there was a peculiar swagger of independence which
+bordered upon insolence in most of the homes from which Kansas help must
+be drawn. Elizabeth knew that their dignity once insulted they could not
+be held to any contract.
+
+Mrs. Hunter went back to the kitchen and tried to redeem the mistakes she
+had made, but Hepsie would not be cajoled and the unpleasantness grew.
+Saturday night the girl came to Elizabeth and said, without looking her in
+the face at all:
+
+"Jake says, if he can have th' team, he'll take me home. I--I think I
+won't stay any longer."
+
+"Do you have to go, Hepsie?" Elizabeth said, her face troubled.
+
+Hepsie avoided her glance because she knew the trouble was there. Hepsie
+had been very happy in this house and had been proud of a chance to keep
+its well supplied shelves in satisfactory condition. Gossip hovered over
+whatever went on in the Hunter home, and there was a distinction in being
+associated with it; also Hepsie had come to love Elizabeth more than she
+usually did her country mistresses. She saw that all the unkind things
+which were being said about Elizabeth's stuck-up propensities were untrue,
+and that Elizabeth Hunter was as sensible and kindly as could be wished
+when people understood her.
+
+"I'll be up and around hereafter," Elizabeth continued. "You don't
+understand mother. She's all right, only she isn't used to the farm."
+
+"I guess I understand 'er all right," Hepsie said sullenly; "'t wouldn't
+make no difference, you bein' up. She'd be a-tellin' me what t' do just
+th' same, an' I'm tired enough, washdays, without havin' somebody t'
+aggravate me about every piece that goes through th' rench."
+
+She stood waiting for Elizabeth to speak, and when she did not, added
+resentfully:
+
+"You an' me always got along. We had a clean house, too, if Mr. Hunter
+didn't think I knew much."
+
+Elizabeth's surprise was complete. She had not supposed the girl knew
+John's estimate of her work. John was usually so clever about keeping out
+of sight when he insisted upon anything unpleasant that it had never
+occurred to Elizabeth that Hepsie was aware that John insisted upon having
+her do things which he felt that Hepsie could not be trusted to do
+unwatched. There was nothing more to be said. She reckoned the girl's
+wages, and told her that Jake could have the team.
+
+Before Hepsie went that night, she came back to the bedroom and cuddled
+the baby tenderly.
+
+"I'm--I'm sorry t' go an' leave you with th' baby so little, Lizzie.
+'Taint hardly fair, but--but if you worked out a while you'd learn t' quit
+'fore you was wore out." She stood thinking a moment, and then cautioned
+Elizabeth sincerely: "I'm goin' t' say one thing 'fore I leave: you'd
+better ship that old woman 'fore you try t' get another girl around these
+parts. I'll be asked why I left an'--an' I'll have t' tell, or git folks
+t' thinkin' I'm lazy an' you won't have me."
+
+Elizabeth's heart sank. She would not plead for the girl to keep still. It
+would have been of no use; besides, her own sense of fairness told her
+that there was room for all that had been hinted at.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monday John spent the day looking for a girl to take Hepsie's place. Tired
+and discouraged, he came home about four o'clock in the afternoon.
+
+"Could you get me a bite to eat?" he asked Elizabeth as he came in. "I
+haven't had a bite since breakfast."
+
+Elizabeth laid the baby on the bed, and turned patiently toward the
+kitchen. An hour was consumed in getting the extra meal and doing the
+dishes afterward, and then it was time to begin the regular supper for the
+rest of the family. When John found that she had thrown herself down on
+the bed to nurse the baby instead of coming to the table for her supper,
+he insisted that she at least come and pour the tea, and when she sat
+unresistant through the meal, but could not eat, he sent her to bed and
+helped his mother wash the supper dishes without complaint. The next
+morning, however, he hailed her forth to assist with the half-past four
+o'clock breakfast relentlessly, unaware that she had spent a weary and
+sleepless night.
+
+"Are you going to look for a girl to-day?" she asked as he was leaving the
+house after the breakfast was eaten.
+
+"Oh! I suppose so, but I haven't much hopes of getting one," he answered
+impatiently. Then seeing the tears in her eyes at the thought of the
+washing waiting to be done, he kissed her tenderly. "I'll do the best I
+can, dear; I know you're tired."
+
+"Well, the next one I get I hope mother 'll let me manage her. If Hepsie
+wouldn't stand her ways of talking about things none of the rest will."
+After a moment's reflection she added: "I cannot do all this work myself.
+I'm so tired I'm ready to die."
+
+John slipped his arm about her and said earnestly:
+
+"I'll do all I can to help you with the dinner dishes, but you are not to
+say one word to mother about this."
+
+It was gently put, but authoritative.
+
+"Then you needn't look for one at all," she said sharply.
+
+John's arm fell from about her and he looked at her in cold astonishment.
+
+"I don't care," she insisted. "I can't keep a girl and have mother looking
+over every piece of washing that is hung on the line."
+
+"Mother kept girls a long time in her own house," he answered, taking
+offence at once.
+
+"I don't care; she dealt with a different kind of girls." Then with a
+sudden illumination, she added: "She didn't have such quantities of work
+to do, either. If we go on this way we'll have to have help and keep it or
+we'll have to cut down the farm work." She brightened with the thought.
+"Let's cut the work down anyhow, dear. I'd have so much an easier time
+and--and you wouldn't have all those wages to raise every month, and we
+could live so much more comfortably."
+
+She leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"I don't see but we're living as comfortably as folks usually do," John
+replied evasively.
+
+"I know, dear, but we have to have the men at meals all the time
+and--and----"
+
+"Now see here, Elizabeth, don't go and get foolish. A man has to make a
+living," John said fretfully.
+
+The girl had worked uncomplainingly until her last remnant of strength was
+gone, and they were neither willing to do the thing which made it possible
+to keep help, nor to let her do the work as she was able to do it. With it
+all, however, she tried patiently to explain and arrange. Something had to
+be done.
+
+"I know you have to make a living, John, and I often think that I must let
+you do it in your own way, but there are so many things that are getting
+into a snarl while we try it this way. We don't have much home with
+strangers at our table every day in the year. We never have a meal alone.
+I wouldn't mind that, but it makes more work than I am able to do, it is
+getting you into debt deeper every month to pay their wages, and you don't
+know how hard it is going to be to pay those debts a few years from now.
+But that isn't the worst of it as far as I am concerned. I work all the
+time and you--you aren't satisfied with what I do when I do everything my
+strength will let me do. I can't do any more than I'm doing either."
+
+"I _am_ satisfied with what you do," he said with evident annoyance at
+having his actions and words remarked upon. "Besides, you have mother to
+help you." He had ignored her remarks upon the question of debts,
+determined to fasten the attention elsewhere.
+
+The little ruse succeeded, for Elizabeth's attention was instantly riveted
+upon her own hopeless situation.
+
+"It isn't much help to run the girl out and then make it so hard to get
+another one," she said bitterly.
+
+Instantly she wished she had not said it. It was true, but she wished she
+could have held it back. John did not realize as she did how hard it was
+going to be to get another girl. She had not told him of Hepsie's remarks
+nor of her advice. Elizabeth was not a woman to tattle, and the "old
+woman" Hepsie had referred to was his mother.
+
+"Don't think I'm hard on her, John. If we could only get another girl I
+wouldn't care."
+
+She waited for him to speak, and, when he did not do so, asked
+hopelessly:
+
+"Don't you think we can get another girl pretty soon if we go a good ways
+off from this neighbourhood?"
+
+"I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to hear anything more
+about it either," was the ungracious reply.
+
+"I am in the wrong. You will hear no more on either subject."
+
+The tone was earnest. Elizabeth meant what she said. John went from the
+house without the customary good-bye kiss. We live and learn, and we learn
+most when we get ourselves thoroughly in the wrong.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+"ENNOBLED BY THE REFLECTED STORY OF
+ANOTHER'S GOODNESS AND LOVE"
+
+
+It was on a Saturday, three weeks after Mrs. Hunter's return, that
+Elizabeth asked to make her first visit with the baby.
+
+"Aunt Susan was here so much while I was sick, John, that I feel that we
+must go to see them to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, my goodness!" John replied, stepping to the cupboard to put away the
+pile of plates in his hands. "I'm tired enough to stay at home."
+
+They had just finished washing the supper dishes together, and Elizabeth
+considered as she emptied the dishpan and put it away. She had been
+refused so often that she rather expected it, and yet she had thought by
+the cordiality with which John had always treated Aunt Susan that he would
+be reasonable about this visit now that she was able, and the baby old
+enough to go out.
+
+Elizabeth was never clear about a difficulty, nor had her defences well in
+hand upon the first occasion. With those she loved, and with John in
+particular, any offence had to be repeated over and over again before she
+could protect herself. She felt her way slowly and tried to preserve her
+ideals; she tried to be fair. She could not tell quickly what to do about
+a situation; she took a long time to get at her own attitudes and
+understand them, and it took her still longer to get at the real
+intentions of others. As she brought out her cold-boiled potatoes and
+began to peel them for breakfast, she reflected that Aunt Susan had come
+as regularly to see them as if she had always been well treated, until
+Mrs. Hunter's coming. At that point the visits had dropped off.
+
+"Baby is nearly three months old, and I promised Aunt Susan that I'd take
+him to see her the first place I took him. We owe it to her, and I'm not
+going to neglect her any more. We can leave a dinner of cold chicken and
+pies for the men, and I'll get a hot supper for them when I come home. I'd
+like to start about ten o'clock."
+
+It sounded so much as if it were all settled that the girl felt that it
+really was.
+
+"That leaves mother here alone all day, and I'm not going to do it," John
+returned with equal assurance.
+
+"Mother can go with us. I should want her to do that, and I'm sure Aunt
+Susan would."
+
+Mrs. Hunter was passing through the room with the broom and dustpan and
+paused long enough to say pleasantly:
+
+"Don't count on me, children. I'll take care of myself and get the men a
+hot dinner besides. I'd just as soon."
+
+"We'd like to have you go, mother, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would want us
+to bring you," Elizabeth replied with a little catch in her breath. If
+Mrs. Hunter refused to go, John would not take her if she begged on her
+knees.
+
+"No, I don't want to go. I'll get the dinner though, and you needn't hurry
+back." She went on upstairs contentedly and with the feeling that she had
+arranged the matter to everybody's liking.
+
+"Let her get the dinner then," Elizabeth said, exasperated. "I'll leave
+everything ready for it."
+
+"I shall not go and leave her alone all day. She has a hard enough time
+out on this farm without getting the feeling that we care as little as
+that for her comfort. Besides that, the buggy is not mended yet."
+
+"We can go in the lumber wagon. We didn't have a buggy till long after we
+were engaged," Elizabeth said, not going into the matter of leaving his
+mother at home, which she knew would be useless.
+
+"I should think you'd want to rest when you did get a chance. You talk all
+the time about having too much to do," John replied evasively.
+
+"I wouldn't get any rest," Elizabeth replied quickly. "I'd get a
+dinner--that's what I'd have to do if I stayed at home. I'd be on my feet
+three solid hours and then have to nurse the baby. That's the rest I'd
+have."
+
+"The devil!" was the answer she got as John went out.
+
+The weeks flew past, and still Elizabeth served hot dinners and mourned in
+secret over Susan Hornby's neglected kindness. Aunt Susan had been
+cheerful as well as discreet during those weeks when she had helped them.
+She had been so happy over the evident friendliness of John Hunter that
+she had felt sure that the old cordiality was to be resumed.
+
+After what seemed to Elizabeth endless weeks, a curious circumstance aided
+her in getting to Aunt Susan's in the end. Mrs. Hunter, who was not
+greatly concerned about her disappointment, heard constant reference to
+Mrs. Hornby's assistance at the time of the baby's coming, and knowing
+that there would be discussion of their neglect to her in the
+neighbourhood, joined authoritatively in Elizabeth's entreaty the next
+time it was mentioned, thereby accomplishing through fear of gossip a
+thing which no amount of coaxing on Elizabeth's part could ever have done,
+and at last the trip was to be made.
+
+Susan Hornby's home was so unchanged in the year that Elizabeth had been
+gone that, but for the baby in her arms, she could hardly have realized
+that she had been away. Aunt Susan sent her to the bedroom with the wraps
+when they were taken off. It was the same little room the girl had
+occupied for half that year, the same rag carpet, the same mended rocking
+chair which had come to grief in the cyclone, and the knitted tidy which
+the girl herself had made. With the hot tears running down her cheeks the
+girl-mother threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in the baby's
+wraps to stifle the cry she was afraid would escape her. In the sanctuary
+of her girlhood's highest hopes, Elizabeth sobbed out her disappointments
+and acknowledged to herself that life had tricked her into a sorry network
+of doubts and unsettled mysteries. For the first time she sunk her pride
+and let Susan think what she would of her prolonged absence, and went
+openly to the kitchen to bathe her face in Nathan's familiar tin basin. A
+sudden suspicion of John's reception at Nathan's hands made it possible to
+go back to Aunt Susan with a smile on her lips.
+
+Indeed, Elizabeth's suspicions were so far true that they were a
+certainty. Nathan, by Luther's marriage to a woman the old man suspected
+of every evil, had cut himself off from every friend. Nathan had been
+thrown in upon himself and had pondered and nursed his suspicions of all
+men, and of John Hunter in particular. He finished the milking without
+offering to go into the house; and John, who had insisted upon coming at
+night instead of on a Sunday, was obliged to stand around the cow stable
+and wait, or go to the house alone. He chose the former course and was
+made happy by the arrival of Jake, who had not known where his employer
+was going when his team was hitched to the wagon.
+
+"I've just been over to Luther's, Mrs. Hornby," Jake said when they
+finally stood around Aunt Susan's fire. "Did you know Sadie was sick?
+Luther's awful good to 'er, but I know she'd be glad t' see a woman body
+about once in a while."
+
+"Wisht she'd die an' get out of th' way," Nathan Hornby said bitterly. "A
+body could see Luther once in a while then 'thout havin' 'is words cut up
+an' pasted together some new way for passin' round."
+
+No one spoke, and Nathan felt called upon to defend his words.
+
+"I don't care! It's a God's pity t' have a woman like that carry off th'
+best man this country's ever had, an' then fix up every word 'is friends
+says t' him so's t' make trouble."
+
+Nathan's whole bitter longing for companionship was laid bare. Elizabeth's
+eyes filled with tears; Elizabeth was lonely also.
+
+The call was a short one. John moved early to go home and there was
+nothing to do but give way. It was not till the next day that Elizabeth
+suspected that Nathan's remarks had offended John Hunter, and then in
+spite of her eagerness to keep the peace between the two men, she laughed
+aloud. She was also somewhat amused at the insistence on a call upon Sadie
+which John wanted that she should make. The perfect frankness of his
+announcement that Luther was a convenient neighbour, and that they must
+pay neighbourly attention to illness, when he had never encouraged her to
+go for any other reason, was a new viewpoint from which the young wife
+could observe the workings of his mind. Something about it subtracted from
+her faith in him, and in life.
+
+While she was still washing the dinner dishes John came in to discuss the
+visit. Elizabeth was athrob with the weariness of a half day spent at the
+ironing table, and to avoid dressing the baby had asked Mrs. Hunter to
+take care of him.
+
+With no other visible reason but his customary obstinacy, John insisted
+upon the child being taken.
+
+"I've got to get back early and get the coloured clothes folded down.
+Every one of the boys had a white shirt and two or three collars this
+week, so I asked mother to keep him for me," Elizabeth said.
+
+"Now see here," John argued. "Mother 'll fold those clothes and you can
+just as well take him along and make a decent visit. They're the nicest
+people in the country, according to some of the neighbours."
+
+Elizabeth's laugh nettled her husband. When he appeared with the wagon,
+she was ready, with the baby in her arms.
+
+The wind was keen and cold, the laprobes flew and fluttered in derisive
+refusal to be tucked in.
+
+"Take the buggy in and have it mended the next time you go to town," she
+said, with her teeth chattering, as they drew near to Luther's home. "I
+want to go up to see ma before long and it's almost impossible to keep a
+baby covered on this high seat." She thought a while and then added, "I
+haven't been home since I was married."
+
+"I shouldn't think you'd ever want to go," John replied ungraciously.
+
+Tears of anger as well as mortification filled her eyes, and her throat
+would not work. It was to stop gossip as much as to see her mother that
+the girl desired to make the visit. The world was right: John was not
+proud of her.
+
+The sight of the "shanty" as they turned the corner near Luther's place
+brought a new train of thought. Dear, kindly, sweet-souled Luther! The
+world disapproved of his marriage too. He was coming toward them now, his
+ragged overcoat blowing about him as he jumped over the ridges made by the
+plow in turning out the late potatoes he had been digging.
+
+"You carry the baby in for Lizzie, an' I'll tie these horses," he said,
+beaming with cordiality. "Got caught with Sadie's sickness an' let half
+th' potatoes freeze 's hard 's brickbats."
+
+It was so cold that Elizabeth did not stand to ask about Sadie, but turned
+to the house to escape the blast.
+
+"I'll come for you at five if I can get back. I'm going over to see about
+some calves at Warren's," John said as they went up the path.
+
+"Is that why you insisted that I bring the baby? You needn't have been
+afraid to tell me; you do as you please anyhow."
+
+"H-s-sh! Here comes Hansen," John Hunter said warningly, and turned back
+to the wagon, giving the child into Luther's arms at the door.
+
+Luther Hansen cuddled the child warmly to him and without waiting to go in
+the house raised the white shawl from its sleeping face for a peep at it.
+
+"We lost ours," he said simply.
+
+The house sheltered them from the wind, and Elizabeth stopped and looked
+up at him in astonishment.
+
+"You don't mean it? I--I didn't know you were expecting a child, Luther.
+I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known."
+
+The expression of sympathy escaped her unconsciously. Elizabeth would
+always want to know of Luther's joys and sorrows.
+
+A glad little light softened the pain in his face, and he looked at her
+with a steady gaze, discerning the feeling of sound friendship behind the
+words.
+
+"I believe you are," he said, expressing the confirmation of a thing he
+had never doubted. "I ain't askin' you any questions, Lizzie, I just
+know--that's all."
+
+With something like a glow about his heart, he opened the door of his
+simple dwelling. He had never doubted her, nor believed the nonsense he
+had heard about her, but he had just had his faith refreshed. He carried
+the baby to the one little bedroom of his house, scuffing a wooden rocking
+chair behind him across the rough floor. He established Elizabeth in it
+beside Sadie, and then placing the sleeping child in its mother's arms
+went back to the potato field, hurrying his work to finish before dark. He
+understood in a measure why this was Elizabeth's first visit to them, and
+he did not resent it. Luther never resented. He lived his own kindly,
+industrious life. If people did not like Sadie he accepted it as a fact,
+but not as a thing to be aggrieved about. He could wait for Sadie to grow,
+and others must wait also. In the meantime, Luther watched Elizabeth and
+desired growth for her; her smallest movement was of interest to him.
+Elizabeth as a mother was a new feature. He remembered the deft way she
+had nestled the baby to her as he had relinquished it a few moments
+before, and thought with a sigh, of the cowhide-covered trunk filled with
+little garments under the bed by which she sat. Not even Sadie knew what
+the loss of that first child meant to Luther. A new love for women's ways
+with babies grew up in him as he thought of Elizabeth's cuddling.
+
+In the house, Elizabeth was getting into touch with the young mother who
+was childless. Sadie, in spite of a determination not to do so, was
+warming to that touch reluctantly. After all, it was pleasant to be
+telling Elizabeth about it, and to have her asking as if she wanted to
+know.
+
+"Yes--I took bad about a week ago," she was saying. "I'd been kind of
+miserable for several days. I got a fall that last rain we had, an' I
+didn't seem t' get over it."
+
+"I'd have come sooner if I'd known it," Elizabeth said, thinking of
+Luther's acceptance of a similar statement. "Jake didn't even tell us last
+night what was the matter."
+
+"I guess he didn't know. Would you 'a' come if you'd 'a' known, Lizzie?"
+Before Elizabeth could reply, she continued, "Ma used t' think it'd be
+kind o' nice for me t' live close t' you, but I knew you wouldn't never
+come t' see me. I used t' be kind o' jealous cause Luther liked you s'
+much. I said everything mean I could think of about you, t' him--but law!
+Luther ain't got no pride. He don't care. He defends you from everybody,
+whether you come t' see us 'r not."
+
+It was a curious little confession and one Sadie had not intended to make.
+Something big and sweet in Elizabeth had forced it from her. It
+embarrassed Elizabeth Hunter, and it held things which could not be
+discussed, and she turned the subject without answering.
+
+"When did you lose the baby?"
+
+"Oh, it only lived a couple of hours. You see it was too soon an'--an' it
+wasn't right. Th' doctor didn't expect it t' live as long as it did, but
+Luther would have it that it could, an' kept 'em a tryin' everything that
+could be thought of."
+
+Sadie's voice died away gradually and she lay looking out of the window
+retrospectively: the last two weeks had brought food for much thinking.
+
+"I didn't know, Lizzie, that a man could be as good as Luther. I'd always
+kind o' hated men, an' I thought I'd have t' fight my way through, like
+th' rest of th' women, an'--an'--he's that good an' thoughtful of me, an'
+of everybody else, that I'm clean ashamed of myself half th' time. He
+nearly had a fit when' he found out that I'd slipped with that wood. 'Twas
+ironing day, an' th' box got empty--an' then, when th' baby died, it just
+seemed as if he couldn't stand it."
+
+She looked up at Elizabeth earnestly: "I never heard any one but th'
+preacher pray out loud, Lizzie, an'--an'--somehow--well," she stumbled,
+"Luther prayed so sweet, when he see it was gone--I--I ain't thought of
+much else since. It--it seemed like th' baby'd done something good t' both
+of us."
+
+The spiteful, pettish face was for the moment ennobled by the reflected
+glory of another's goodness and love. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a
+condition which makes heaven here upon earth. There was the harmony here
+in the "shanty" such as she coveted and strove in vain to establish in her
+own home. Of course there would be harmony where Luther Hansen was
+concerned: Luther _was_ harmony. Ignoring his part in the little drama,
+she was wise enough to touch the other side of the story in her reply.
+
+"These little ones bring blessings all their own, Sadie," she said, giving
+the hand on the patchwork quilt a little squeeze.
+
+There was that in the impulsive little touch which was to be a lasting
+reminder to Sadie Hansen that Elizabeth Hunter responded to the things
+which were making of her life a different story. They had found common
+ground, where neither scoffed at the other.
+
+"Did your baby make you feel that way?" she asked earnestly.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Luther came at five o'clock to say that John was waiting he found
+them, at peace, with the baby between them.
+
+Luther tucked Elizabeth and her child into the unprotected wagon seat with
+concern.
+
+"This wind's a tartar. Pull th' covers down tight over its face, Lizzie.
+What's become of th' buggy, Hunter?"
+
+Luther saw Elizabeth's face harden in a sudden contraction of pain, and
+glanced across at John, but whatever there was about it that hurt belonged
+to Elizabeth alone, for John Hunter pulled at the flapping laprobes
+without seeming to have heard clearly and evidently thinking that the
+remark was addressed to his wife. Dusk was falling, and Luther watched
+them drive away with a premonition of trouble as the night seemed to close
+in about them. He turned his back to the wind and stood humped over,
+peering through the evening at their disappearing forms. He saw Elizabeth
+snatch at the corner of the robe as they turned into the main road, and
+dug his own hands deeper into his pockets with his attention turned from
+Elizabeth and her possible trouble to that of the child.
+
+"Hope th' little feller don't ketch cold." He turned to the house filled
+with his vision of a baby being cuddled close in a mother's arms, and with
+a new understanding of the comfort of such cuddling. His breath flew
+before him in a frosty stream when he entered the kitchen, and he hastened
+to build a fire and set the teakettle on to heat. He lighted a lamp and
+set it on a chair, and also stirred the fire in the little stove in
+Sadie's room before he went to milk.
+
+"Wisht Lizzie'd come oftener. Wonder why she don't. She don't seem near as
+stuck-up as she used to. Say, Luther, Lizzie told me th' queerest thing:
+she says th' way a mother feels before a baby's born makes a difference.
+She says if a woman's mean before a child comes It'll make th' young one
+mean too. She told a lot of things that showed it's true, about folks we
+know? I wonder how she learns everything? Ain't she smart! I wisht she'd
+come oftener. Say, if I ever get that way again----" The sentence was
+unfinished.
+
+"Wisht ours 'd 'a' lived," Luther said longingly.
+
+"Did Lizzie's baby make you feel that way too?"
+
+Luther went to milk with a song in his heart. The little word "too" told
+more than all the discussions they had ever had. Sadie had not been
+pleased about the coming of the child they had lost.
+
+"If I could get 'em together more," he said wistfully. "It was a good
+thing t' have 'er see Lizzie an' 'er baby together. I hope th' little Tad
+don't ketch cold. That laprobe didn't stay tucked in very well."
+
+As he rose from milking the last cow, his mind went back to his visitors.
+
+"Somethin' hurt Lizzie about th' buggy 'r somethin'--she's too peaked for
+her, too."
+
+Luther's premonitions about the Hunter baby were only too well founded.
+The cold was not serious, but there was a frightened skirmish for hot
+water and lubricants before morning. The hoarse little cough gave way
+under the treatment, but the first baby's first cold is always a thing of
+grave importance to inexperienced parents, and Elizabeth knew that her
+chances of getting to go home, or any other place, that winter, were
+lessened. Her growing fear of neighbourhood criticism outgrew her fear of
+refusal, however, and at the end of the next week she reminded her husband
+that she had planned to take the child to see her mother.
+
+"You may be willing to take that child out again; I'm not," he replied
+severely.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+A bright idea struck Elizabeth's imagination after she had gone to bed
+that night. Why not ask her own family, the Chamberlains, Aunt Susan's,
+and Luther Hansen's to a Thanksgiving dinner? She was so elated by the
+idea that she could hardly get to sleep at all, and before she could
+settle herself to rest she had killed in her imagination the half dozen or
+more turkeys she had raised that season. A big dinner given to those who
+could act as mouthpieces would silence a lot of talk; also, it would take
+away a certain questioning look the girl feared in Luther's and Aunt
+Susan's eyes. The latter was the sorest point of her married life, and the
+conviction that they were thinking much worse things than were true did
+not make her any more comfortable. All Sunday she planned, and Sunday
+night went to bed with the first secret thought she had ever harboured
+from her husband's knowledge.
+
+Mrs. Hunter entered into the plan with zest when on Monday afternoon it
+became necessary to tell her. She had begun to love her son's wife in
+spite of her family history. Had Elizabeth known how to manage it she
+could have made of John's mother a comfortable ally, but Elizabeth, with
+characteristic straightforwardness, sought no alliance except the natural
+one with her husband. The two women planned the articles to be served in
+the dinner, and then turned to the discussion of other preparations about
+the house. Elizabeth was proud of the home of which she was a part, but
+her strength was limited since baby's coming, and after looking about her
+critically decided that there would be no necessity for any more cleaning
+than the regular weekly amount.
+
+"We'll have to get the cleaning done on Wednesday instead of Friday, but I
+think that will be all that will be needed. The carpets were put down
+fresh the week before you came home, and I don't intend to take them up
+again till spring."
+
+"I think so," Mrs. Hunter agreed, "but You'll have to have the curtains in
+the dining room washed, and the tidies and pillow-shams done up fresh."
+
+"Now, mother!" Elizabeth exclaimed, "don't begin to lay out work I can't
+get done. The tidies are not hard, and I could do the shams, but those
+curtains are not to be thought of. I'd be so tired if I had to go to work
+and wash all that, after the washing I put on the line to-day, that I just
+wouldn't be able to get the dinner on the table Thursday. Talking about
+the dinner, I think we'd better have two turkeys. I can roast two by
+putting them in the one big pan."
+
+Mrs. Hunter was willing that the younger woman should prove her talent as
+a cook, but she planned to take some of the necessary things upon her own
+shoulders, and to take her son into her schemes for brightening things up
+a bit. Accordingly, the next morning she asked John to help her take the
+curtains down.
+
+Elizabeth had been so full of her own plans that she had forgotten to tell
+John's mother that she intended to keep them secret till she had all her
+preparations made. The next morning when she heard the thud of some one
+stepping down from a chair, and her husband say: "There you are! How do
+you happen to be taking the curtains down at this time of the week?" she
+realized as she had never done before how much afraid of him she really
+was, for her pulses bounded, and her ears boomed like cannon, long before
+John had time to appear in the door to inquire who was coming, and why
+they were to do so.
+
+With a look very much like guilt, Elizabeth told over the names of her
+proposed guests, but with Mrs. Hunter in the next room she could not tell
+him why it meant so much to her to ask these people to dine with them.
+
+The customary protest was offered without delay.
+
+"I don't believe I'd do it, dear. Thanksgiving is a day for home folks,
+not neighbours, and, besides, see all the work it will make."
+
+"The work is just what we choose to make it. If I'd known mother was going
+to clean house I wouldn't have said anything about it," Elizabeth answered
+sullenly.
+
+"Sh!" John Hunter said in a low tone and with a look of anger that was
+direct and full of meaning.
+
+Elizabeth was ready to cry. She was angry. In every move she made she was
+checkmated; not because it was not a good move, but because it was hers.
+She could readily have given up any one thing as it came along, but the
+true meaning and spirit of these interferences were beginning to dawn upon
+her. However, once more she yielded to the unreasonable wishes of her
+husband and the dinner was given up. She made no attempt to finish the
+mincemeat they had planned to chop after dinner, but after putting the
+baby to sleep threw a shawl about her and slipping out of the house ran to
+the barn and down the creek in the pasture while John was helping his
+mother rehang the freshly ironed curtains.
+
+They were only having two meals a day now that the corn was all picked,
+and dinner came so late in the afternoon that there was already a blaze of
+sunset colour in the west as she passed around the barn and started down
+the bank of the stream. The sun had set, but was still reflected on the
+heaps of billowy gray clouds just above the horizon. It made the snow in
+front of her a delicate pink. The girl had not got far enough from the
+house to see a sunset for months. The freshness and keenness of the air,
+the colours in the sky, the grandeur and sublimity of it all chased away
+her anger and left her in a mood to reason over her situation. She
+followed the cow-path down to the bed of the stream and then threaded her
+way along its winding route for a greater distance than she had ever gone
+before. A broken willow barred her way after a time, and she climbed up on
+its swaying trunk and let her feet dangle over the frozen streamlet below.
+The snow made lighter than usual the early evening and extended the time
+she could safely stay so far from the house.
+
+The colours faded rapidly from the sky and the bewildered girl returned to
+her own affairs, which were puzzling enough. Of late she had found herself
+unable to maintain her enthusiasm. She found herself increasingly
+irritable--from her standpoint the one thing most to be despised in others
+and which she had supposed most impossible in herself. There were so many
+unforeseen possibilities within herself that she devoted her entire
+attention to her own actions and impulses, and was completely drawn away
+from the consideration of the motives of others by her struggle with the
+elemental forces in which she found herself engulfed. The temper aroused
+by John's objection to her Thanksgiving company had indications in spite
+of the fact that she had controlled it. Elizabeth knew that she had but
+barely kept her speech within the limits of kindliness and consideration
+for Mrs. Hunter, who had not wished to frustrate her plans at all, and she
+knew that she would be less likely to do so if the offence were repeated.
+She knew that Mrs. Hunter tried with real honesty of purpose to keep on
+good terms with her, and yet she also knew that she was increasingly
+annoyed with whatever she did. There was an element of unfairness in her
+attitude toward the older woman which alarmed her.
+
+"I'm just like pa, after all," she thought as she swung her feet and
+looked in a troubled way down at the frozen stream below.
+
+Elizabeth reflected that when Aunt Susan, or Silas, or Luther Hansen came
+into the house she became instantly her own buoyant, optimistic self: not
+that she intentionally feigned such feelings for the benefit of her
+company, but she felt the presence of trust, of faith in herself and her
+powers. She did not recognize that such trust was necessary to the
+unfoldment of character, nor even that it was her birthright.
+
+The girl watched the gathering twilight and deliberately let the time pass
+without attempting to return to the house until compelled to do so by real
+darkness, realizing that some beneficial thing was happening in her in
+this free out-of-doors place, for she was less annoyed and more analytical
+with each breath she drew in it.
+
+"If only I'd take time to do this sort of thing I'd be more as I ought to
+be," she meditated when she had at last risen to go home. "I won't be like
+pa! I won't! I won't!" she reiterated many times as she walked back, over
+the frozen cow-path. "I'll come here every few days. Ma and pa were born
+to be happy, only they never took time to be."
+
+And though John was cross because the baby had cried in her absence,
+Elizabeth felt that she had been helped by getting away from him. She
+accepted her husband's reproaches without reply, and was able to forget
+them even while they were still issuing from his mouth. She kept her
+temper down all that week, and though the Thanksgiving invitations were
+not sent, she cooked the dinner and put as many hours into its concoction
+as if she had had all the people she had hoped to have about her board to
+eat it, and she was so sunny and natural as she served it that John did
+not even guess that she was governing herself consciously. She stayed at
+home the next Sunday and the next, and John Hunter was unaware that she
+was endeavouring to surrender herself to his will.
+
+"She'll get over wanting to run somewhere all the time," he told his
+mother, and Mrs. Hunter, to whom these people were not pleasing, agreed
+with him, and thought that it was just as well if it were so, not
+realizing that the girl lived alone in their house and that she might have
+an attitude toward these people distinctly different from theirs.
+
+This winter, like the preceding one, passed with Elizabeth at home. There
+was no peace to be had if she thought of going anywhere for any purpose
+whatever. Elizabeth went nowhere and required few clothes. The cold the
+child had caught on that first trip to Luther's was sufficient excuse to
+prevent any further foolishness on the part of its mother. However, a trip
+to town was in waiting for Elizabeth Hunter and was proposed by John
+Hunter himself.
+
+There had been a "warm spell" in the month of February and John had asked
+Elizabeth to help him with the pump in the barnyard, which had been
+working badly for days. It was Saturday evening, and Jake and the other
+hired man had been granted time off that day; the pump had refused to work
+at all after they were gone, and with a hundred cattle waiting for water
+it was necessary to impress any one available with the duty of helping.
+Elizabeth was more than willing to help: it meant a couple of hours out of
+doors. They had worked industriously and their efforts were about crowned
+with success when Mrs. Hunter came out to them with the baby wrapped in a
+warm shawl. John tossed aside the extra piece of leather he had cut from
+the top of an old boot and fitted the round piece in his hand about the
+sucker.
+
+"Now, mother, you shouldn't bring that child out here; You'll have him
+sick on our hands again," he said.
+
+"Oh, lots of children go out of doors in winter. I took you out whenever I
+wanted to, and you've lived to tell the tale," his mother said easily,
+seating herself on the end of the trough.
+
+"Well, I don't want anything to happen to him for a few days, I can tell
+you. I want you to keep him and let Elizabeth go in to town with me and
+sign the mortgage on this eighty, Monday," John replied, examining the
+valve with great attention.
+
+"Why, I thought this eighty was already mortgaged!" Mrs. Hunter
+exclaimed.
+
+"Well, it is," John replied uneasily, "but I've got to raise the interest
+before I can get that bunch of shoats ready to sell, and I've got to do it
+that way."
+
+He did not look at either of the two women, but kept himself very busy
+about the rod and sucker he was manipulating.
+
+Mrs. Hunter seldom remarked upon anything that was done about the farm,
+but this was surprising news. _A second mortgage_ on part of the land! She
+had just opened her mouth to speak, when she happened to glance across at
+her daughter-in-law. Elizabeth's face was white. Something in it implored
+Mrs. Hunter to go away, to leave them to have the matter out together, and
+the older woman took her cue from it and went with a haste which caused
+her son to look up from the piston with which he fumbled.
+
+"She's gone to the house; I motioned to her to go," Elizabeth announced.
+"She don't know much about mortgages, but she knows this won't do. You
+told me last week that the hogs would be ready in time. My soul alive,
+John! do you realize what you are doing? This is the home-eighty! What's
+happened to the hogs?"
+
+"Say, look here! If I want to mortgage this eighty, I'm going to do it.
+Those hogs are just where it pays to feed them. If I sell now, I'll lose
+half the profits."
+
+John got up and faced her ready to fight, if fight he must on this
+question. He had chosen an opportune time to tell it, but he meant to do
+as he wished about those hogs and the land and whatever else they
+possessed. He hated to open a discussion, but he did not hate to continue
+one after he had made the plunge. He had feasible reasons for all that he
+did.
+
+Elizabeth saw that he meant to insist and she resented the deception he
+had practised in securing this loan without telling her, but the danger
+was so great that she could not afford to let her feelings blind her, nor
+to put the thing in a bad light by seeming to wrangle about it. She looked
+at him steadily, so steadily, in fact, that John was disconcerted. The
+work in hand gave excuse for withdrawing his eyes and Elizabeth watched
+him arrange the knot of the rope so that they could lower the pipe back
+into the well. The girl did not begin to speak at once: she marshalled her
+forces and considered what manner of argument she would put forth. She
+knew that every piece of land they possessed except the Mitchell County
+pastures was covered with one third of its value in incumbrances. If the
+interest was hard to meet now, what would it be three years hence? She had
+come to understand that the man she had married was not a farmer. She
+helped him lower the long pipe into the well, and watched him try the pump
+handle to see if the sucker would work. It was slow in drawing, and she
+filled a small pail from the trough and poured it into the pump head.
+After a few sputtering strokes the water began to come freely, and then
+she had to wait for the pumping to stop before she could make herself
+heard above its rumblings.
+
+John Hunter knew perfectly well that Elizabeth was waiting and prolonged
+the work till the great trough was full. When it began to overflow and
+there was no further need for drawing water, he turned abruptly toward the
+gate where the cattle were. Elizabeth had waited in the frosty air till
+she was chilled from standing and could not remain for the stock to drink
+before she had a chance to go to the house.
+
+"I want to talk to you before those cattle come out here," she said, more
+hurt by his avoidance of her now than she had been by the original
+deception; he was really ignoring her as a factor in their mutual affairs.
+"I have to protest against this mortgage, John. We ought to keep a small
+home free at least, and instead of putting more on this eighty we ought to
+sell enough of the stuff to pay off on this part. Every farmer in this
+country has his nose on the interest grindstone, and my life has been
+spoiled with it ever since I can remember. Please, dear, let's not put a
+second mortgage on this eighty."
+
+In her anxiety to get John's attention Elizabeth went forward and put her
+hand on his arm, forgetting in her earnestness the slight he had just
+shown toward her in ignoring her claims to a voice in the matter.
+
+John Hunter shook off the detaining hand impatiently.
+
+"If you're going to run this business you may as well do it without my
+help and I'll quit," he said, his body braced away from her with the plain
+intimation that he preferred that she should not touch him.
+
+Elizabeth hesitated. Her impulse was to turn and leave him without further
+words, but the farm, their future comfort, the whole scheme of family
+peace and harmony depended upon obtaining a hearing.
+
+"I don't want to run things--really, I do not. I've never tried to, but
+I've lived on a farm, and I know how impossible it is ever to raise a
+mortgage if you get it on a place. I--let's sell enough to raise the one
+we have on this eighty while we can, instead. I'm willing to live on a
+little; but, oh, John, I do so want to have one place that is our own."
+
+"There's money in those cattle," John answered sullenly. "A woman don't
+know anything about such things. You'll go and get mother started on it
+too, I suppose. I'm going to do as I see fit about it, anyhow. I know
+there's money to be made there."
+
+With a great sob in her throat, Elizabeth turned to the house.
+
+"Look here, Elizabeth," John called after her peremptorily.
+
+Elizabeth stopped respectfully to listen, but she did not return to his
+side. John waited, thinking she would come to him.
+
+"Cattle ain't like ordinary farming," he argued with a flush of anger. "A
+man simply has to take time to let steers grow into money. We haven't been
+at it a long enough time. Those big steers will be ready to feed this
+fall, and corn's going to be cheap. We'd be cutting off our noses to spite
+our own faces to sell now."
+
+"Perhaps," the girl replied bitterly, and went on to the house.
+
+She knew that John had argued with the hope of getting her to admit
+herself in the wrong, not to hear her side of the case.
+
+John Hunter gazed after his retreating wife in vexed petulance for a
+moment and then, with a sigh of relief, turned toward the waiting cattle.
+
+"She'll be ready when I want to go to town all the same," he reflected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MORTGAGES OF SOUL
+
+
+The mortgage was signed. The fine weather had brought many people to
+Colebyville. Elizabeth had not been in town for a year, and the sight of
+pleasant, happy folk greeting each other cordially and wandering from
+store to store bartering eggs and butter for groceries and family
+necessities, and exchanging ideas and small talk about their purchases,
+had accentuated her isolation. Those people who knew her spoke to her
+also, but with an air of suspicion and reserve. A puzzling feature of the
+day had been that John had received a more cordial reception than she had.
+The main suspicion had been directed against her. There seemed to be a
+certain acceptance of John's "stuck-upness." He had some reason for his
+attitude toward them which they were inclined to accept, but Elizabeth saw
+that to this community she was a "beggar on horseback." Instead of seeing
+that the man who had thrust her into this false relation was utterly
+inadequate to realize it, or that if he realized it he was utterly
+indifferent to her sufferings in it, she inquired into her own failure to
+get his attention, and felt that he was after all a better husband than
+any she had ever known, with few exceptions. John had managed to add to
+her confusion where he was concerned that day by being floridly insistent
+upon her spending a generous sum upon her purchases and taking as much
+interest in what she bought as a woman. There had been so much to buy that
+Elizabeth's economical soul had been torn by the desire to cut down the
+expense. The baby was ready for short clothes and there had been materials
+for little dresses, stockings, little shoes, a hood and cloak, to get for
+him alone, and Elizabeth saw in every dollar spent a dollar lost at
+interest-paying time. John had been happy and genial on the way home and
+had altogether treated her so much better than her mood had permitted her
+to treat him that there was a bit of self-accusation in her meditations.
+Everything had gone wrong. The waters of human affection ran everywhere in
+the wrong direction. She desired understanding between herself and her
+husband; her attitude toward the community in which they lived had been
+one of friendliness, her attitude toward Aunt Susan and Luther one of
+whole-hearted love, her attitude toward this family of which she found
+herself a part that of a devoted slave, yet nowhere had she been able to
+make proper alliances. Some curious defeating element had crept into every
+relation life offered her. While the rest ate supper that night,
+Elizabeth, who had no appetite and was too sick with a sense of failure to
+eat, nursed her baby and meditated upon the indications of the day's
+occurrences. Forgetting her surroundings, she drew in a fluttering,
+sobbing breath. Jake Ransom, across the corner of the table, caught the
+sound of that sob and flashed a quick glance in her direction. His eyes
+were as quickly withdrawn, but Elizabeth knew without looking up that he
+had heard. With a desire to escape observation, she made an excuse of
+putting the baby away and went to the bedroom with the child. Slipping him
+into his little nightdress she made him comfortable for the night, after
+which she went back to the dining room to keep Jake from thinking she had
+anything to cry about. There was an added hum of voices, and she went in
+with some curiosity.
+
+Silas Chamberlain stood beside the stove with his old cap and his
+home-knit mittens under his arm, while he leaned over the welcome fire.
+The blues were gone instantly. There was such a glad light in her eyes as
+she advanced to meet him that Jake Ransom wondered if he had been mistaken
+in the quivering breath, and there was such genuine pleasure in her
+surprised greeting that Silas Chamberlain was warmed and fed by it.
+
+"Where's that baby?" he demanded. "You ain't gone an' tucked him into bed
+this time o' night, have you? I come special t' see 'im."
+
+For months Elizabeth had wanted to see Silas and the baby in a "free for
+all tumble" and her eyes danced with delight at the idea. She had not had
+such a thrill in many weeks; the young mother spoke in every line of her
+young face. As if by magic her troubles fell away from her. Crooking her
+finger beckoningly at the old man, she crept on tiptoe to the bedroom
+door. She had left a lamp lighted in the room and it was possible to
+observe the baby without him being aware of their presence. Silas had
+crept behind her like an Indian stalking a deer, and she caught his
+suppressed breath as she turned with her finger on her lips at the door.
+The rest of the group trailed behind with anticipatory grins.
+
+Master John Hunter lay on the bed, very wide awake, making sputtering
+efforts to devour his thumb, while he kicked his little feet as vigorously
+as the confines of the pinning-blanket would allow.
+
+Silas chuckled. Hearing a noise at the door, the heir of the house rolled
+his head on his pillow till his mother's face came within the range of his
+vision. Her absence that day had made the child more than usually eager
+for her presence. The little feet kicked more wildly than ever, and
+forgetting the generous slice of thumb still to be devoured, he grinned
+such a vast and expansive grin that the hand to which the thumb was
+attached, being free, joined the other in waving salutations of such
+joyful pantomime that the object of his industrious beckonings, completely
+carried into the current, rushed at him and, sweeping him up in her arms,
+tossed him on high as gleefully as if she had not been weighed down by
+care but a moment before the old man's advent into the room.
+
+"There, Mr. Chamberlain, was there ever another like him?" she cried.
+
+Baby, who had come down from a point as high as his mother's arms could
+reach, doubled his fat little body together with a smothered, squeezed off
+little gurgle of delight. Silas was aquiver with sympathetic glee. Those
+were not the days when babies were raised by scientific rules, and Silas
+caught the child from its mother's arms and repeated the tossing process,
+while the baby shouted and struggled. At last the three, followed by the
+family, retired to convenient chairs about the sitting-room fire.
+
+"Now, Jack Horner, you can pare that thumb down a leetle more if you want
+t'. You've swallowed enough wind to give you the colic for a day or two,"
+Silas said when the child began to hiccough.
+
+Elizabeth clapped her hands delightedly.
+
+"You have named the baby!" she exclaimed.
+
+"How's that?" Silas asked.
+
+"Oh, John can't bear to have him called Johnnie, and John is too awfully
+old for him now. Little Jack Horner--no, Little Jack Hunter. I'm so glad!
+I just do love it; and we had called him Baby till I was afraid we'd never
+quit it," Elizabeth said.
+
+They kept the old man as long as they could induce him to stay, and when
+he did go home it was with the settled conviction that he had been wanted.
+He described the visit enthusiastically to Liza Ann and tried to induce
+her to go over to see Elizabeth the next Sunday. Silas craved the
+privilege of that baby's presence.
+
+"I know, Si," his wife replied, "but she could come here if she wanted to.
+It's her fool notions. John was th' greatest hand t' go you ever saw till
+he married her, an' now he don't go nowhere, an' when I asked him about
+it, he said she wasn't well! She's as well as any woman that's nursin',
+an' she's got his mother t' help 'er too."
+
+"Well, I don't pretend t' know th' why's an' th' wherefores of it, but I
+do know there ain't a stuck-up bone in 'er body--I don't care what nobody
+says," loyal Silas Chamberlain replied.
+
+The new mood stayed with Elizabeth Hunter and called for much perplexed
+introspection. It had been a perplexing day. There was no reason that she
+could assign for her contradictory actions. She found herself even
+softened toward John and able to enter into his attempt to be sociable
+after Silas's departure. He seemed to be anxious to set himself before her
+in a kindlier light and she was able to meet the attempt as he wished.
+Elizabeth lost faith in herself as she saw her apparent whimsicalness and
+began to lash herself into line as John and his mother wished. She asked
+no more to be taken places.
+
+In May, Luther came to help John with his team, and for the first time in
+months Elizabeth saw a neighbour woman. Luther lifted Sadie down from the
+high seat with as much care as if she had been a child.
+
+"Sadie's lonesome at the house alone all day, an' it was good of you,
+Lizzie, t' ask 'er," he said as he climbed back into the wagon.
+
+Elizabeth wanted a visit with Luther, himself, but was less fearful of a
+day with Sadie than she had been. She took her guest into the house and at
+the sitting-room door paused to point to Master Jack, who sat on an old
+quilt with a pillow at his back, digging his little heels into the floor
+and holding out dimpled hands imploringly.
+
+"You darling child!" Sadie cried, going down on her knees at his side and
+hugging him till he sent up an indignant howl. "Isn't he cunnin'? Isn't
+he?" she cried, releasing him and subsiding into a doubled figure by his
+side. "Honestly, Lizzie, why don't you bring him over?"
+
+She looked so insistent, that she had to be answered.
+
+"I don't go any place, Sadie," Elizabeth answered truthfully.
+
+"Is it so, that Mr. Hunter won't take you?" Sadie asked, and then at sight
+of the anger in Elizabeth's face rose to her knees and laid her hand on
+her arm hastily. "I didn't say that to hurt; honestly, Lizzie, I didn't.
+I'm trying not to do that this time."
+
+Elizabeth's indignation was cooled slightly by the genuineness of the
+speech, but she did not understand the last sentence till her eye happened
+to fall on Sadie's form. In a flash she saw what was meant. Forgetting her
+hurt, she was silent from pure delight. She knew what a child would mean
+in that home. The other misunderstood her silence and hastened on with her
+apologies:
+
+"Honest, Lizzie, I didn't want to hurt, but they do say such mean things
+about it that I want you t' know. Why don't you ever take Mrs. Hunter and
+th' baby and go t' meetin'?"
+
+Elizabeth's face went white as she realized that she must continue to
+answer since she had begun.
+
+"I don't care in the least what they say, Sadie, and I don't want you ever
+to mention this to me again," she said sternly.
+
+Sadie's face worked in silent misery till she could control her voice.
+
+"You won't be mad at me, Lizzie? I told Luther I wouldn't be mean t'
+nobody till _it_ was born," she said with quivering lip.
+
+Elizabeth took some seconds to consider the thing that had been told to
+her. It was of far more importance than the gossip Sadie had just hinted
+at, but the gossip must be answered first.
+
+"I won't be mad at you at all," she said after a moment. "That is, I won't
+if I never have to listen to such things again. I don't care in the least,
+if I don't have to hear it. Don't ever come to me again with anything that
+anybody says. Now, then, tell me about yourself. I half believe you're
+glad of it."
+
+"Glad?" Sadie told her secret, which could be a secret no more. Luther had
+wanted the child, and she had come to the point of wanting it for his
+sake, and the sight of chubby Jack Hunter had aroused the latent mother
+love in her till, as she talked, her eyes shone with the brightness of
+imaginative maternity. She implored Elizabeth to come to her aid when the
+day of her labour arrived in September, and rambled along telling of their
+preparations for its coming, and little home incidents, disclosing a home
+life of so sweet a character that if Elizabeth Hunter had not been sincere
+and utterly without jealousy she would have drawn the discussion to a
+close.
+
+The incident had a peculiar effect upon Elizabeth. She began really to
+like Sadie, and all her old desire for harmony in the home welled up in
+her anew. The old attitude of self-blame was assumed also. Here was Sadie
+Crane, the most spiteful girl that had ever been raised on these prairies,
+able to command the love and respect of the man she had married, to do
+things because her husband desired them, even so difficult a thing as the
+bearing of children, and she, Elizabeth, had failed to accomplish any of
+these things. There was a renewed resolve to be more patient. Elizabeth
+hated sulking, and the remembrance of the day when she had gone to sign
+the mortgage and had been unable to respond to John's good-humoured
+willingness to get abundant supplies because she saw the money going out
+so fast was fixed in her mind with new significance. Here was Sadie doing
+the things that her husband wished of her and obtaining not only his love
+but her own self-respect, while she, Elizabeth, was able to command
+neither. Instead of reasoning upon the differences between the two
+husbands, Elizabeth reasoned on the differences between her own actions
+and those of Sadie, and from the results of that reasoning entered upon a
+period of self-denial and abject devotion to the man of her choice. John
+Hunter accepted this new devotion with satisfied serenity, and, not being
+obstructed in any of his little exactions, became more cheerful and
+agreeable to live with. This added to Elizabeth's conviction that the
+difficulty had been somewhat within herself. She ceased to ask for the
+things which caused friction, and there was a season of comparative
+peace.
+
+In July, however, a new phase of the old difficulty arose. Nathan and
+Susan Hornby were driving past the Hunter house one Sunday afternoon.
+Elizabeth saw them and with a glad little shout ran to the road to greet
+them.
+
+Susan Hornby's delight was fully equal to her own. The two persuaded
+Nathan to wait till Aunt Susan should have time to go into the house and
+see the baby. Nathan would not go in, but sat waiting in offended
+aloofness in the wagon.
+
+"Why don't you come to see me, Elizabeth?" Aunt Susan whispered as they
+went back to the wagon. "He's always loved you so, but he thinks--well,
+he's always been so good to me about everything else, but his feelings are
+awfully hurt about you. Can't you come soon?" She looked into the girl's
+face with such a wealth of pent-up love that Elizabeth answered
+positively:
+
+"I will come next Sunday, Aunt Susan. You may look for us, for we'll be
+there."
+
+The glad look in Susan Hornby's eyes was a sad reproach to the younger
+woman, and though Elizabeth wondered how she would get her husband's
+consent, she made up her mind to force him by every means in her power to
+comply. All through the week she had it upon her mind, but Elizabeth had
+learned not to open a discussion till the necessity of action was upon
+her, and it was not till Sunday morning that she mentioned the visit to
+John.
+
+Nothing but the pleading in Susan Hornby's face could have induced
+Elizabeth to ask to be taken to see her at this time, but the troubled
+whispering of Aunt Susan about this visit had awakened Elizabeth to the
+tragedy of her neglect. Susan Hornby had never before whispered where
+Nathan was concerned before. Elizabeth at last saw the loneliness of the
+old couple. It would never do to continue such treatment of those who had
+befriended her when she was in need.
+
+Jack was fretful that Sunday morning and John walked the floor with him
+while Elizabeth finished her breakfast dishes. The breakfast had been late
+and it was time to get ready if they were to go. Her heart sank as she
+approached the subject. Jack had not slept well of late. He was not ill,
+but teething. Always a light sleeper, Elizabeth had kept the fact of his
+indisposition to herself, hoping that John, who slept soundly, might not
+be aware of it, but the baby had fretted in the daytime and was now
+tossing restlessly in his father's arms. Elizabeth was worn out from the
+loss of sleep and was half afraid to trust herself to make the request,
+because it would require politic treatment to get John in the mood. If she
+became vexed or upset by his opposition she would lose her opportunity.
+Elizabeth was weaker than John when her feelings were ruffled. She had
+planned and waited till the last moment, afraid of herself and afraid of
+her husband. She looked at him as he paced back and forth, back and forth,
+with a torrent of longing swelling up in her and threatening to bring her
+tears. She must find a way to get his ear.
+
+"Let me take Jack," she said, hoping that something in the conversation
+would give her a natural opening for what must come.
+
+"Poor little chap," John replied, releasing the child.
+
+Elizabeth was bathed in perspiration from the hurry of having late
+breakfast and the fact that she would never dare to ask to be taken before
+all the work was done and the kitchen ready for close inspection, and she
+thought indignantly of the scrubbed floors of yesterday and wondered how
+the child could be expected to be well when he was fed on overheated milk
+day after day. Instantly she put the thought away from her. She must be
+cool and careful if she were to get to Aunt Susan's to-day.
+
+"I'll sponge him off with soda in his bath and he'll be all right. I told
+Aunt Susan we'd take dinner with them to-day, and it's nearly half-past
+ten now. They have dinner at noon on Sunday as well as other days; so run
+and hitch up, and I'll be ready with baby. I'll have your things laid out
+so you can jump right into them when you come in."
+
+She looked down at the baby so as not to meet his eye, but the offhand
+assumption of his readiness to go seemed to her to be encouraging.
+
+"With that child?" was the astonished exclamation.
+
+"It won't hurt him as much as for me to stand over the stove and cook a
+dinner at home," Elizabeth answered firmly, "and, besides, John, I
+promised Aunt Susan we'd come. Now don't be cross. I've got to go, and
+that's all there is about it."
+
+John Hunter was actually astonished now. He had started out with his usual
+pretenses, but this was something new. Elizabeth had promised without
+consulting him! What was happening?
+
+"You may be willing to take that child out in his condition--I'm not," he
+said severely. "I don't understand what you're thinking about."
+
+"_I'm_ thinking there'd be less harm to him in a day of rest for his
+mother than anything else," she said bitterly, "and I am not allowed to
+get a minute of it in this house. _You'd_ let me heat his milk to the
+boiling point to get dinner and think it was what we both deserved!"
+
+She was instantly dismayed at what she had done. She had spit out all the
+actuality of her convictions in spite of every effort not to reply
+unkindly when he was unfair to her. She could not afford to retort sharply
+to-day. She must resort to other tactics if she were to win to-day.
+Besides, the truth was only a half-truth. John did not in his heart wish
+either of them harm; he was just a blind sort of bossing creature who had
+somehow got into command of her and enjoyed bullying her and setting tasks
+to keep her occupied. He owned her, however, and she must court his
+consent to this visit.
+
+"Please, dear. I told Aunt Susan we'd come. I'd--I'd have told you
+before--only--only I was afraid you'd not be willing--and then I'd get to
+crying and give up--and I've got to go. Now don't be cross. Go this once
+good-naturedly."
+
+To get close to him she put her hand on his arm and put up her face
+coaxingly for a kiss.
+
+John Hunter ignored his wife's signal for tender relations and shook off
+her hand impatiently without looking at her.
+
+"Even if Jack were well I wouldn't go away and leave mother alone all
+day." John moved restlessly away from her.
+
+Elizabeth would not give up.
+
+"I'll manage mother. She'll go if I insist." John was edging toward the
+door. "Anyhow I told Aunt Susan I'd come." John was going through the
+door. "Please hurry. We must be on our way pretty soon," she called after
+his receding back.
+
+Elizabeth's lips tightened with vexation at the contempt shown by his
+refusal to answer, and then loosened and spread into an amused smile.
+
+"He can be just as mad as he wants to. I stuck to it and am going to get
+to go. It's better than to give up to him all the time."
+
+She turned into the sitting room and putting the baby on the floor emptied
+the clothespin bag in his lap to keep him occupied, and flew up the stairs
+to Mrs. Hunter's room.
+
+"Mother, we're going to Aunt Susan's to-day and you are to go with us. Now
+don't say you aren't, for it is settled," she said, slipping her hand over
+the older woman's mouth to prevent the objection she saw coming, but
+nothing she would do or say would persuade the older woman to go.
+
+"I'll settle that with John when he comes in," Mrs. Hunter said, slipping
+away from the restraining hand. "There's no reason why you should stay at
+home on my account and I will not have it done," was all that she could
+get out of her.
+
+"But John will not go without you!" Elizabeth cried in dismay.
+
+The girl was tempted to tell her of the gossip she had heard, but it
+suddenly seemed small and not worth while. She had already told her that
+Aunt Susan had her promise to come in time for dinner; it occurred to her
+to tell her of Nathan's attitude toward them for their unfriendly neglect,
+but that too seemed unnecessary and trivial since they were going. On that
+point Elizabeth did not intend to give in an inch: she was going, even if
+John _was_ cross about it.
+
+"Yes, he will go without me, for I'll see that he does," Mrs. Hunter
+assured her, and with that Elizabeth was content.
+
+Taking the baby to her own room, she undressed and bathed him and then
+arrayed him in the daintiest white dress she had for him, determined that
+Aunt Susan should see him at his best. As she nursed him so that he would
+drop off to sleep till they were ready to go, she looked long and
+earnestly at the soft skin and dark lashes of his baby face and realized
+as she had never done before the loneliness of the old couple whom they
+were going to visit. The little Katie of that house had been taken from
+them at about this age. A sob arose in Elizabeth's throat when she
+considered how they had besought her for an opportunity to pour the
+dammed-up stream of their love at the feet of this child, and how slighted
+their efforts had been.
+
+Jack was wide-eyed and would not sleep, and after losing much valuable
+time his mother set him in the middle of the bed and began her own
+preparations. As she looked about for something suitable to wear, she saw
+a simple white percale with red dots scattered over it, which she had worn
+the summer she had lived in Aunt Susan's house. So little had she gone out
+and so free from personal vanity was she that it was still eligible to
+best wear. Besides, it had associations that were pleasant.
+
+"Why, I made it in Aunt Susan's own house," she said aloud.
+
+She looked down at it wistfully; those had been happy days.
+
+A sudden impulse made her drop her heavy hair from its coil high on her
+head and, picking up her comb, divide it with deft movement. Brushing it
+into shape, she braided it as of old, in two braids, and then fished with
+rapturous fingers in her ribbon box for the bows she had always worn with
+that dress. When the bows were tied she put the braids back with a
+characteristic toss of the head and stood looking at herself in the
+glass.
+
+"There now, he can't be cross after that," she said, feeling more as if
+she were her real self than she had done for many months.
+
+Jack was restless and cried. Elizabeth turned to him with a start.
+
+"You blessed baby! Your mother was way off and had forgotten that there
+was such a small person as you."
+
+She sat down and nursed him again to fill in the time till his father
+should come and dress. This time he seemed sleepy, and Elizabeth sang
+happily to him, kissing his pink palm and satisfying the maternal instinct
+in her by softly stroking his plump body. He had never looked so fair to
+her in all the months that she had had him. John was long in coming and
+she fell into a dreamy state of maternal comfort as she rocked, and forgot
+the hour and the place and the dinner that would soon be waiting at Aunt
+Susan's, till the baby went to sleep in her arms.
+
+When Jack was at last soundly asleep she placed him on the bed, covering
+him with a piece of white mosquito netting to keep the flies from
+disturbing him, and, rearranging dress and ribbons, went into the sitting
+room to see what time it was. An exclamation of dismay escaped her. It was
+but ten minutes to twelve o'clock! She had dreamed much longer than she
+had been aware. In a fever of hurry she ran back to the bedroom and laid
+out John's best suit. That had pleasant associations also. But what could
+be keeping him so long when it was time to go? As soon as everything was
+in order she ran to the barn to see what the trouble was. John came out as
+she neared the barn door, talking to Jake, who followed leisurely.
+
+"Are you ready to dress?" she asked hastily, vexed at the signs of
+loitering.
+
+"Dress? Why--what? Oh, I forgot. I told you I didn't want to go," he said
+impatiently.
+
+"Well, you're going to take me if it is late," she said firmly. "Aunt
+Susan was told that we'd come, and she has dinner waiting this minute.
+Jake, put the horses in the wagon while Mr. Hunter dresses, and be as
+quick about it as you can."
+
+"The horses--th' horses are in th' pasture, Lizzie," Jake said hesitantly.
+"I didn't know an'--an'--I--an' we turned 'em out an hour ago."
+
+Jake Ransom saw the colour die out of the young face and understood
+exactly what had happened. He saw her turn without a look at her husband
+and start to the house, bowed and broken and without hope. Jake understood
+that a trick had been played on her, for he had been slow about turning
+the horses out and John had untied and led the team used for driving to
+the pasture gate himself.
+
+"I don't know whether I kin ketch 'em 'r not, but I'll try," he called
+after her.
+
+Elizabeth turned back hopefully, but John said
+
+"Now look here, Elizabeth, those horses have been playing like mad for
+half an hour, and you could no more catch them than you could fly."
+Turning to Jake, "I'll take Mrs. Hunter next Sunday if she's just got to
+go. A man wants to rest when Sunday comes," he added under his breath.
+
+Jake Ransom watched Elizabeth drag her listless feet up the steps and shot
+a look of disdain at the back of John Hunter as he followed her.
+
+"You dirty cuss!" he exclaimed under his breath. "Lizzie's as good a woman
+as th' is in this country, an' she don't git nothin' she wants. I bet I
+see t' gittin' them horses ready next Sunday myself."
+
+Going into her bedroom, Elizabeth Hunter laid off the finery of girlhood,
+and with it her girlhood also.
+
+"I'll never ask him again," she told herself, and put her hair back into
+its woman's knot and went to the kitchen and began dinner.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Susan Hornby shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked up the road for the
+fortieth time.
+
+"The baby must be worse, Nate," she said to her husband when at last there
+had to be a discussion of the matter.
+
+Nathan Hornby followed her into the kitchen and helped to take up the
+dinner which had been waiting over an hour. His head burned with
+indignation, but there was something in Susan's defeat which brooked no
+discussion on his side. They had come as near quarrelling over this
+invitation as they had ever done about anything in their married life.
+
+As they sat at the table eating their belated dinner, a lonely horseman
+appeared coming down the road from the west.
+
+"It's Jake! I wonder if he's going for the doctor?" Susan exclaimed. "You
+never can tell what anybody has to contend with." And the meal was left to
+cool unfinished as the old couple left the house and hailed the rider.
+
+"I didn't hear nothin' about th' baby bein' worse," Jake was obliged to
+answer when put under question.
+
+He was so conscious that Elizabeth would not approve of the truth being
+told that he stammered and made his listeners feel that something was left
+untold. In fact, Jake's reticence was of the exact quality to add to the
+distrust already aroused. He edged away at last and left Susan Hornby
+looking at her husband in such a state that Nathan was moved to say:
+
+"Never mind, Sue, I'll take you over after dinner and you can see for
+yourself."
+
+Susan Hornby turned and started to the house. Nathan followed her aquiver
+with the slight that his common sense told him had been put upon her by
+those whom she had so faithfully and fully served.
+
+Susan stumbled and put her hands to her head with a harsh laugh. Nathan
+hurried forward a step and looked searchingly into her face. With a great
+sob, he put his arms about her. Susan paid not the slightest attention to
+him, but let herself be guided along the path without actual resistance.
+Her face was flushed and her eyes did not see. She went docilely to her
+room and permitted the stricken husband to place her on the bed, where he
+loosened her collar and, removing her clothing, dressed her for bed as if
+she had been a little child. When nothing more could be done, he knelt by
+her and fondling her unresponsive hand let the tears he could no longer
+control pour over his ashen cheeks.
+
+"Don't you know me, Sue? Don't you know your old Nate at all?" he
+quavered, but there was no reply except the puffing breath which was every
+moment growing more and more laboured. Nathan knew what it meant--she had
+been so once before.
+
+As the Hunter family sat about the dinner table on Tuesday, Silas
+Chamberlain drove up to the side gate, and after tying his team came to
+the door. He entered when bidden, but would not sit down, and looked about
+him with an effort to adjust his impressions with what he saw before him.
+
+"Ain't you goin' t' th' funeral?" he asked when he saw that there seemed
+to be no air of mourning in the house.
+
+"Funeral?" John Hunter exclaimed. "Who's dead?"
+
+"I told Nate Hornby you didn't know nothin' about it."
+
+"Hornby? We haven't heard of any one being dead. Who is it?" John Hunter
+asked, puzzled at the reticence of the old man, who stood with his straw
+hat in his hand and slid his fingers about its greasy brim uneasily.
+
+"Is--is it possible you all didn't know Mrs. Hornby was sick?" he asked,
+unable to lift his eyes.
+
+There was a low cry from Elizabeth Hunter, the noise of her escape to the
+privacy of her own room, the sound of moans and cries after the door was
+shut, and Silas Chamberlain paid bitter toll for delivering his message.
+The family sat stunned and silent in the presence of those sounds of
+grief. The bowed head of the old man told his comprehension of the news
+and left Jake Ransom with an understanding of him which words could never
+have given.
+
+As soon as Elizabeth could get control of her feelings and command her
+scattered senses, she snatched her bonnet from the chair beside the bed
+where she had dropped it before dinner and flew to the dining room again,
+her one impulse to get to the side of the friend whose spirit had gone
+from her. Going to Silas, she clutched him by the arm with fingers that
+sank into the flesh like a vise.
+
+"Take me to her!--take me now!" she cried, pushing him toward the door.
+
+"I'll take you, Elizabeth," John Hunter said, rising, and Jake Ransom saw
+the look of nameless horror she took on at thought of her husband's
+presence.
+
+"Take me to her at once, Mr. Chamberlain. Do, for God's sake, take me to
+her!" she cried, and pulled the old man through the door with nervous
+hands, and then ran down the path before him and began to pull at the
+straps with which the horses were tied.
+
+John followed them out, still protesting that he would take her himself if
+she would wait, but without a look in his direction she urged Silas on.
+
+"Hurry! Hurry! Do!" she implored, and Silas gave the horses such a sharp
+slap with the lines that they started on a swift trot almost before they
+were seated, leaving John Hunter in the midst of his expostulations.
+
+"I'll bring her back safe," Silas called over his shoulder.
+
+Now that no further action was possible, Elizabeth sat with her hands
+clasped, her teeth set, and her eyes looking into vacancy, numbed beyond
+words, asking no questions and making no complaints. Silas's heart beat
+with an anguish of sympathy. He stopped at his own house a moment to tell
+Liza Ann that he would come back for her within the hour, and still
+Elizabeth gave no sign of realizing what was going on about her.
+
+At last a terrible thought took hold of Silas, and he pulled up his team,
+which was sweating heavily.
+
+"You ain't fit t' go, Lizzie. You ain't fit t' go, child. I'm goin' t'
+take you back home." He began to turn the horses' heads toward home, and
+then stopped for her wandering wits to gather.
+
+"Why, oh, why don't you hurry?" Elizabeth exclaimed when she realized that
+they were standing still.
+
+The old man's heart was torn with pity, and it was in the voice of a
+mother that he addressed her.
+
+"You ain't fit t' go," he repeated. "I'm going t' take you back home."
+There was a white look about her mouth that frightened him.
+
+The girl grasped his arm with fingers that closed with a grip like a
+drowning person.
+
+"I couldn't see her when she was living--surely I can see her dead." Then
+with a wail, "Oh, no--no, not dead! Oh, my God!"
+
+She sobbed in a dry sort of way that contracted Silas's throat to witness,
+and left the old man almost as undone as herself, and without further
+argument he drove on to Nathan Hornby's desolated home, where he lifted
+her tenderly down from the high seat, with a mist before his eyes that
+blurred her image till it was unrecognizable, and stood watching her go up
+the path.
+
+A woman met her at the door, but she did not know who, and brushed past
+her hurriedly and ran into the kitchen, where she could see Nathan Hornby
+sitting with his head on his arms beside the kitchen table.
+
+Going down on her knees with a swift movement, Elizabeth threw her arm
+across his shoulder, and laid her head beside his, sobbing convulsively.
+Nathan raised his head in dull surprise, and seeing who it was, shook her
+arm off resentfully and rose to his feet. Elizabeth crawled after him on
+her knees and clasped his own with both arms, turning her stricken face up
+to his and crying:
+
+"Oh, I know! I know how you feel, but truly, truly, Uncle Nate, I am not
+to blame. For God's sake--for God's sake, forgive!"
+
+He looked down on her coldly and was tempted to spurn her from him with
+his foot, but there was such anguish in voice and eye as he himself had
+hardly felt, and his wife's words, her last words, flashed through his
+bewildered brain: "We can't tell what anybody has to contend with." He
+stood irresolute while she rose to her feet. When he did not answer her,
+Elizabeth threw herself down in the chair from which he had just risen and
+bowing her head on the table moaned in such bitterness of spirit that
+Nathan was moved to pity, and would have comforted her if he could.
+
+Silas, having tied his team, came to the kitchen door, but on seeing its
+occupants turned hastily and went out to his wagon again, where he stood
+choking and swallowing in helpless misery.
+
+Presently, Nathan Hornby, at a loss to check her grief, laid a hand on her
+shoulder and said:
+
+"Come and see her, Elizabeth."
+
+Elizabeth Hunter arose like one walking in her sleep and followed Nathan
+to the sitting room. The black casket resting on two chairs in the middle
+of the room was a worse shock than any she had yet had, and with a
+horror-stricken cry of fright she fled to the kitchen again, and when
+Nathan reached her side, her teeth were chattering and great beads of
+sweat covered her quivering face; she sank into Nathan's chair unable to
+support herself.
+
+When at last she was assisted tenderly to her feet, she begged feebly to
+be taken home.
+
+"But you can't ride that far," Silas protested, pityingly. "You just
+naturally can't ride that far in th' big wagon, child."
+
+For answer she dragged herself forward and staggered to the chair where
+they had put her bonnet. Nathan saw that her strength was returning and
+gave Silas a little nod. They each took an arm to steady her, and so
+Elizabeth passed from the presence of her one dear friend into a life as
+colourless as the form she left behind.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"He's an awful sick child, Mrs. Hunter, but we may--I believe we will pull
+him through."
+
+It was Thursday, and Doctor Morgan sat opposite Elizabeth, holding the
+hand of the shadow of the baby of three days ago.
+
+"You see that milk has not agreed with him. Mr. Hunter says you took a
+drive over to Hornby's the day of the funeral. The heat and excitement has
+been too much for you. You nursed him immediately on getting home?"
+
+"Yes," she replied lifelessly.
+
+"Well, we'll have to wean him now," the old doctor said, looking the
+unresponsive mother over sharply. "It won't do to try any experiments with
+him. Your milk may be all right now, but he wouldn't stand a relapse."
+
+Elizabeth made no reply and listened patiently to his directions for
+preparing the new food. After he was gone, she laid the shrunken little
+body on the bed and went to the kitchen to prepare the milk. She took up
+the new bottle with the rubber on the end and looked at it in stupefied,
+aimless disgust. Her impulse was to fling it out of the open door, but
+remembering that she would but poison him by putting his lips to her own
+breast, she turned to the table and placing the bottle in a pan covered it
+with cold water and set it on the stove to come to a slow boil.
+
+Going back to the bedroom she picked up the pillow--the child was so limp
+that they had to handle him on a pillow--and sat down, holding it close to
+her heart.
+
+John came in. She did not look up. He came over to her and stooped to look
+at the half-conscious child, who lay with half-open eyes and under jaw
+dropped down. There were deep greenish rings under those eyes, and a great
+sob broke from John Hunter's throat.
+
+Elizabeth stirred dully and looked up, but did not speak. There was that
+about her which made her unapproachable. She showed no resentment, no
+anger, no emotion of any sort. She had come home from Nathan's house as
+she was now. She had refused to go to the funeral, but she had had supper
+ready when John and his mother had returned from the graveyard, and it had
+been as orderly and as well cooked as usual, but she had not talked at the
+meal, nor seemed to hear when she was spoken to, but there was evidently
+no pouting. John had tried to explain, and she had given silent
+opportunity, and when it had been finished had said, "Yes," in a hollow
+voice, and had moved on about her work without looking up, but there had
+been no apparent resentment.
+
+Before bedtime that night the baby (who had gone to sleep while she had
+nursed him when she had come home), awoke crying. She had taken him up and
+had offered her breast, but it had turned away as if sickened, and had
+continued to cry till, presently, it had doubled its little body together
+with a sharp scream and vomited till its breath was nearly gone. There had
+been a sour odour to the contents of its stomach that had struck terror to
+their hearts, and before morning Doctor Morgan was at its side. He had
+noted the leaden movements of the mother and calling John outside had
+questioned him regarding her. John, troubled at her indifference to him
+and the lifelessness of her attitude even toward the babe, had told him
+all he knew--as he understood it.
+
+"Of course she boarded with them two years ago," he had said in
+concluding, "but I don't see that that needs to cut such a figure."
+
+"Were your wife and Mrs. Hornby great friends?" Doctor Morgan asked,
+studying John Hunter and puzzling over the evident mystery of the
+situation.
+
+"Ye-e-s-s!" with perplexed deliberation; "that is, she liked her better
+than any of the rest of the neighbours around here. She wanted to go there
+last Sunday and I thought the baby wasn't fit to take out. It looks now as
+if I was right."
+
+"Well, she's had a shock of some kind, and if you don't look out She'll be
+down on our hands too. You'd better get a girl or let your mother do the
+work for a couple of weeks," Doctor Morgan advised.
+
+And John Hunter had looked faithfully for some one to take his wife's
+place in the kitchen and had found what she had told him when Hepsie left
+to be true. In many places where there was no excuse given and girls were
+at home he had met with a sort of refusal which stung him to the quick.
+
+Elizabeth rocked the baby with a mechanical dead sort of care. John was
+emotional enough to be badly broken up by the child's looks, but
+Elizabeth's unresponsiveness at such a time made of it a tragedy which he
+could not understand; he wanted greetings and discussion, and attentions
+showered upon him as usual, and they were not forthcoming. He could not
+understand what had brought this state of things to pass, but no more
+could he question one who was so evidently removed from present
+conditions. With a sense of forlornness he had never known, he fell on his
+knees by her side and laid his head against her arm, seeking comfort, and
+when she still did not speak, the fullness of his misery became apparent,
+and he got up unsteadily and left the house.
+
+Slowly life and returning interest awakened in the child; still more
+slowly did the mother take up her threads in the web of living. The old
+routine was established, with a few exceptions. Elizabeth arose early and
+prepared breakfast before sunrise as before, the washing and ironing were
+as well done, but when she prepared to clean the kitchen floor the first
+washday after Aunt Susan's death, she took the mop down from its nail on
+the back porch and used it as she had done that first winter.
+
+John and his mother came in with the clothes basket as she started to
+wring out the mop to wipe the first corner finished.
+
+"Hadn't I better get down and scrub it for you with the brush?" John
+asked.
+
+"There will be no more of that in my kitchen," replied Elizabeth, and she
+had quietly continued her work without looking up.
+
+"Why not?" had been the astonished query.
+
+"We will not argue it," she had said in the same spiritless tone in which
+she always spoke those days, and had been so quietly determined that she
+got her way. John could not argue with a woman who was so unresistant of
+manner: to him, manner constituted argument. Elizabeth went her own quiet
+way and took no part in the things that went on about her unless her
+services were required, then she served faithfully and uncomplainingly,
+but she held converse with no one in the happy way of old.
+
+Thus summer passed, and autumn also. Little Jack walked now and was
+beginning to lisp an occasional word, making of himself a veritable fairy
+in the household. With the close of the warm weather he grew less and less
+fretful, and when the first snow fell he became as happy and active as a
+kitten. The mother had kept him with her every minute, and when her work
+had been done, which was seldom, was satisfied to rock him and listen to
+his baby chatter.
+
+Elizabeth had not been angry in the whole six months, neither had she been
+glad. She never vexed John by asking to be taken places. Gladly would he
+have taken her, if by so doing he could have brought back her old
+enthusiasm and girlish glee, for Elizabeth had been the life of the
+household, and things had settled into a dead monotony that made of their
+home but a house since Susan Hornby's death. Sometimes, vexed by her
+passive acceptation of whatever came, John would throw out stinging
+observations about women who made their husbands turn to others for their
+society, and then be left in an uncomfortable situation by the fact that
+he had aroused neither anger nor annoyance, for Elizabeth would inquire in
+her lifeless tones what he wished her to do which was left undone. Puzzled
+by her real meekness of spirit, the man was compelled to admit that she
+made no vexatious demands upon him and that she laboured unceasingly to
+keep the soulless home in order. One of the strange and contradictory
+things in the situation was that John Hunter did not turn to the mother
+whom he had ever been ready to exalt for consolation in this time of
+trouble; the demand his feelings made was for the companionship which
+while it was his he had not desired. The revelation of the months showed
+him what he had lost. Mrs. Hunter was as much in the dark about the real
+cause of Elizabeth's changed condition as was John.
+
+"The ride to Mr. Hornby's had something to do with it," she said dubiously
+when talking the matter over with her son after the baby began to get well
+and Elizabeth showed no improvement in a mental way.
+
+"It comes from that ride in the hot sun. You see it made the baby sick
+too; but it ain't any use to say so to her," John replied, but in spite of
+the firmness of his tone there was a puzzled look on his face and the last
+word dragged with indecision.
+
+"She was very fond of Mrs. Hornby, too, and that may have had something to
+do with it," Mrs. Hunter observed.
+
+"Ye-e-s-s-s!" John replied. "But she couldn't care for that kind of people
+enough to make herself sick about them," he said more firmly.
+
+Mrs. Hunter considered slowly for some moments.
+
+"I guess you're right," she said at last. "She seemed to be attached to
+them, but she don't ask to go to see him since his wife's death; and I
+should think now's when her love for them would show out."
+
+"I wish to God she would ask to go anywhere. I'm tired of the kind of life
+we're leading," John said in a manner which supported his words.
+
+The weariness of life was modified, or at least shifted from one shoulder
+to the other for John Hunter by the increasing burden of financial
+worries. In this also he was denied any comfort or assistance from
+Elizabeth; she asked no questions, and if he talked of notes which were
+falling due, or of interest soon to be paid, she listened without remark,
+and moved about her endless round of cleaning, cooking, or sewing
+apparently absorbed in the work in hand. If he complained about expenses,
+the only reply he received was for the food on the table to be of a
+plainer quality and a lessened grocery bill the next time he went to town.
+This he would not permit, being sensitive about the opinions of the men
+who worked for him. Elizabeth never remarked upon the matter of keeping
+three men through the winter as she would have done a year ago when there
+was little to do which counted in farm affairs. She left her husband free
+to do as he chose on all those matters. She did not sulk; she had lost
+hope, she was temporarily beaten. In that first hour after her return from
+Aunt Susan's death chamber she had meditated flight. She longed to get
+away, to go anywhere where she would never see her husband's face again,
+but there was Jack. Jack belonged to his father as much as to her, and
+Elizabeth was fair. Besides, she was helpless about the support of the
+child. Her health was quite seriously interfered with by the ache in her
+back which was always present since the baby's coming. She had told her
+mother but two short years before that she would not live with a man who
+would treat her as her father treated his wife, and here she found herself
+in those few months as enmeshed as her mother had ever been. Aye! even
+more so. Hers was a position even more to be feared, because it was more
+subtle, more intangible, more refined, and John's rule as determined and
+unyielding as that of Josiah Farnshaw.
+
+Having failed to act in that first hour of her trouble, Elizabeth drifted
+into inaction. Even her thoughts moved slowly as she pondered on her
+situation; her thoughts moved slowly, but they moved constantly. Under all
+that quiet of manner was a slow fire of reasoning which was working things
+out. Gradually Elizabeth was getting a view of the real trouble. Two
+things absorbed her attention: one was the domination of men, and the
+other was the need of money adjustment. To live under the continual
+interference of a man who refused to listen to the story of one's needs
+was bad enough, but to live without an income while one had a small child
+was worse. She would leave this phase of her difficulties at times and
+wander back to the character of the treatment she received and compare it
+to that accorded to her mother. It occasioned great surprise to find
+herself admiring her father's manner more than that of her husband. Mr.
+Farnshaw had the virtue of frankness in his mastery, John used
+subterfuges; Mr. Farnshaw was openly brutal, John secretly heartless; her
+father was a domineering man, her husband even more determined, more
+inflexible. While considering the possibility of escape by running away,
+many things were clarified in Elizabeth's mind regarding her position as a
+wife, and the position of all wives. She, for the first time, began to see
+the many whips which a determined husband had at his command, chief of
+which was the crippling processes of motherhood. She could not teach
+school--Jack was too young; neither could she take any other work and keep
+the child with her. As she meditated upon the impossibility of the various
+kinds of work a woman could do, another phase of her situation arose
+before her: even if the baby were older, and a school easily obtained, the
+gossip that would follow a separation would be unendurable. Having
+accumulated a reputation for snobbishness and aristocratic seclusion,
+people would not neglect so rare an opportunity to even old scores. She
+would be a grass widow, a subject for all the vulgar jest and loathsome
+wit of the community. Country people know how to sting and annoy in a
+thousand ways. However, the possibility of this sort of retribution was
+put entirely away by the baby's illness. By the time Jack had recovered,
+the young mother was worn to a lifeless machine, compelled to accept what
+came to her. Her youth, her health, her strength were gone; worse than all
+that, her interest in things, in her own affairs even, had almost gone.
+
+John wandered about the house disconsolate and dissatisfied, and made
+amends in curious little ways, and from John's standpoint. He opened
+relations with Elizabeth's family and insisted upon taking her home for a
+visit. Elizabeth went with him, and accepted the more than half-willing
+recognition of her father, who wanted to get into communication with the
+baby. He was offering for sale a young team and John, thinking to do a
+magnanimous thing, bought Patsie. Elizabeth accepted the visit and the
+horse without emotions of any sort, and left her husband annoyed and her
+family floundering in perplexity at her passive attitude toward life. At
+home that night he said to her sneeringly:
+
+"No matter what a man does for you, you pout, and act as if you didn't
+like it. If I don't offer to take you you're mad, and if I do you set
+around and act as if you were bored to death by having to go. What th'
+devil's a man to do?"
+
+"I was perfectly willing to go," was the reply, and she went on dressing
+Jack for bed without looking up.
+
+John cast a baffled look at her as she carried the child out of the room,
+and returned to his uncomfortable thoughts without trying to talk of
+anything else when she returned and sat down to sew. The sitting room in
+which they spent their evenings was in perfect order; the whole house was
+never so orderly, nor their table better served, but John pined for
+companionship. The work he had worn her out in doing was never better
+performed, but there was no love in the doing, and when he addressed her,
+though her answer was always ready and kind, there was no love in it, and
+he was learning that our equity in the life of another has fixed and
+unalterable lines of demarkation.
+
+Thus matters progressed till February, when Jake was called home to Iowa
+by the death of his mother. Jake had lived such a careless, happy-go-lucky
+sort of life that he was obliged to borrow a large part of his railroad
+fare from John Hunter, who was himself so badly in debt that he was
+wondering how he was to meet the interest which would fall due in May.
+John gave him the money with the understanding that Jake would come back
+in time for the early seeding, and prepared to take him into town. Jake
+was the only man left on the farm, and there was consternation in John's
+heart at the prospect of having all the chores thrown upon his own
+shoulders in cold weather. Jake had been the only reliable man he had ever
+been able to hire. The more independent sort of hired men resented John
+Hunter's interference in the farm work, which they understood far better
+than he, and seldom stayed long, but Jake Ransom liked Elizabeth, was
+close friends with Luther Hansen, and since he saw the mistress of the
+house drooping and discouraged, doubly appreciated the home into which he
+had fallen. Jake had been devoted to Elizabeth with a dog-like devotion
+since his first meeting with her in the little schoolhouse six years
+before. He was more than glad that he could secure his return to the
+Hunter home by the simple method of borrowing money. More nearly than any
+one else in her whole circle of acquaintances, Jake Ransom had Elizabeth's
+situation figured out. He wanted to come back to her service, and it was
+with a satisfied security that he helped prepare the bobsled for the trip
+to town. They went early and took Mrs. Hunter with them to do some
+shopping for herself and Elizabeth. John hoped to find a man who could
+come back with them that afternoon and help with the work of watering and
+feeding the hundred and fifty head of cattle that made of their farm life
+a busy round of daily toil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HUGH NOLAND
+
+
+Doctor Morgan folded his stethoscope and thrust it into his inner pocket.
+
+"Your heart's been pounding like that for seven years, you say?" he asked
+of the man sitting before him.
+
+"Seven years in May," was the brief answer.
+
+The patient got up from the office chair and adjusted his waistcoat. The
+waistcoat was ample and covered a broad chest. The face also was broad,
+with a square chin, and eyes set well apart. The man was twenty-eight or
+thirty years old and nearly six feet in height.
+
+"I know all you've got to tell me," he said, going to the mirror to brush
+his tumbled hair. "They sent me out to find a place on a farm because
+medicine wouldn't do anything for me. I'm tolerably comfortable if I don't
+overdo--that is, if I stay out of doors while I'm doing. I don't expect
+you to make a new man out of me; I only thought I'd have you look me over
+the first thing, because I might need you suddenly, and it's better for
+you to know what sort of patient you've got beforehand." He paused for an
+inspection of his well-groomed hands.
+
+"You may not need me for years," Doctor Morgan interrupted hastily. "That
+kind of a heart outlasts the other organs sometimes. The doctor twisted
+the heavy-linked watch chain which dangled from his vest pocket as if
+calling upon it for words. Of course an out-of-doors life is best. What
+have you been doing of late?" he asked.
+
+"Teaching in the old university since I got my degree, but they've sent me
+out like a broken-down fire horse. I'll get used to it," the young man
+said indifferently. He was accustomed to signs of hopelessness when his
+case was discussed, and was unmoved by them.
+
+"Have you family ties?" the doctor asked. He liked the grit this man's
+manner indicated.
+
+"None that need to be counted," was the brief reply.
+
+The doctor noticed that his patient wasted no extra words in self-pity.
+"That's good! It lessens a man's worries. And--where are you staying, Mr.
+Noland?"
+
+"At the hotel, till I get a place on a farm. Before I invest I'm going to
+get my bearings about farms, by working around till I get on to things.
+You don't know of a place where a man could work for his board for a month
+till the spring seeding and things come on do you?"
+
+He was pushing the cuticle back from his finger-nails as they talked, and
+Doctor Morgan smiled.
+
+"Those hands don't look much like farm work," he said.
+
+The man laughed easily. "Oh, that's habit. I'll get over it after a
+while."
+
+"You will if you work for these yahoos around here much. Why don't you
+invest in land and have your own home right from the start? A man like you
+can't live in the kind of houses and do the kind of work You'll find in
+this country."
+
+"I wouldn't work for myself--I've nothing to work for. When you take away
+a man's chances to marry and live the normal life, you make a sluggard of
+him. I've got to have a partner, and have his interests to serve as well
+as my own, or I won't work, and in the meantime I want to look about a bit
+before I pick up some one to go into business with. I won't be long
+finding some one."
+
+"No whine in him," was the doctor's mental comment, but what he said was:
+"Well, You'll find life about here a bit dull. Come in, and make yourself
+at home in this office while you're in town, and I'll see what I can do
+about finding a place for you."
+
+After he had watched his patient swing off up the street he considered the
+case seriously.
+
+"College athletics do just about that sort of thing for a boy," he said
+aloud. "Now I believe Silas Chamberlain would take him for his board, and
+there ain't any children there. Children's the devil in a farmhouse: no
+manners, and they set right on top of you, and if you say anything the
+folks are hurt. He's a nice fellow, and I intend to hold on to him. It was
+like old times to talk for a while to a man that knows chemistry and
+things. I'll see more of him. I'm gettin' old altogether too fast in this
+blamed hole. I need some one to talk to that's more like a man ought to
+be."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+REVIVIFYING FIRES
+
+
+It was butchering day at Silas Chamberlain's and Liza Ann had the
+household astir early. Luther Hansen was master of ceremonies in the
+backyard, and relieved Silas of the heavy lifting. It was a day for
+visiting and neighbourly activity as well as hard work. Hugh Noland had
+been sent to Silas the week before by Doctor Morgan, and assisted in
+rolling the pork barrel from the cellar door to a convenient post near the
+out-of-door fire, where they sunk the bottom of it into the frozen earth
+and carefully tilted it to the proper angle for scalding purposes.
+
+"It's fifteen years since I've been at 'a killing,' and I feel as if I
+were ten years old again," Noland said as he watched the hard earth give
+way under the mattock Luther wielded.
+
+"Go hunt a straw in that case, and I'll see that you get the bladder.
+Shall I save you the pig's tail?" Luther said as he settled the barrel
+into the cavity.
+
+They swung the great iron kettle over the pile of kindling and corncobs
+laid ready for lighting, and then carried water to fill it.
+
+As the last bucket was emptied into the kettle, Luther turned and swung
+his cap at John Hunter and Jake, who were passing in the bobsled.
+
+"Hunters," he explained. "Have you met them yet?"
+
+"No," replied Noland. "Who are they? He drives a good team."
+
+"Nearest neighbours on th' west over there," Luther said, pointing to the
+roofs of the Hunter place, plainly to be seen over the rise of land
+between. "They're th' folks for you t' know--th' only ones with
+book-learnin' around here. Goin' t' stay with th' Chamberlains long?"
+
+"No," replied the other, with a look of reticence; "that is, only for a
+time. He don't hire much, he tells me. I'm just helping him till he gets
+his fencing tightened up and this work done. Why?"
+
+"Well, I was just a thinkin' that that's th' place for you. Hunter hires a
+lot of work done, and--and you'd like each other. You're th' same kind of
+folks. I wonder how he come t' be takin' 'is man along t' town with 'im?
+Th' was a trunk in th' back of the sled too, but that may 'a' been for
+Mrs. Hunter. That was 'is mother with 'im."
+
+There was not much time to speculate about future work, there was much to
+be done in the present, and before noon five limp bodies had been dragged
+from the pens to the scalding barrel, plunged into the steaming water,
+turned, twisted, turned again, and after being churned back and forth till
+every inch of the black hides was ready to shed its coat of hair and
+scarf-skin, were drawn out upon the wheelbarrow. Then a gambol-stick was
+thrust through the tendons of the hind legs and the hogs were suspended
+from a cross pole about six feet from the ground, where they hung while
+the great corn-knives scraped and scratched and scrubbed and scoured till
+the black bodies gradually lost their coating and became pink and tender
+looking and perfectly clean. They were then drawn and left to cool and
+stiffen.
+
+The sloppy, misty weather made the work hard because of the frozen earth
+under the melting snow, and the steaming, half foggy atmosphere was too
+warm for comfort of men working over an open fire and a steaming barrel of
+hot water, but by noon the butchering was finished. To the new man it was
+a journey back to childhood. How well he remembered the various features
+of preparation: the neighbours asked in to assist, the odours pleasant and
+unpleasant, the bustling about of his mother as she baked and boiled and
+stewed for the company, the magic circle about the pens from which he was
+excluded when the men went forth with the rifle, and the squeal which
+followed the rifle's crack, and the fear which gripped him when he thought
+the poor pig was hurt, but which was explained away by his father, who,
+proud of his marksmanship, assured him that "that pig never knew what hit
+it."
+
+In addition to the fact that the man had spent his childhood on a farm, he
+had the happy faculty of entering into the life of the people among whom
+he found himself. He entertained the little group at the dinner table that
+day with a description of his mother's soap-making, and discussed the best
+ways of preparing sausage for summer use as if he himself were a cook; and
+as Luther listened he was convinced that the Hunter home was the proper
+place for him to settle down.
+
+At two o'clock Luther started home with some spareribs, wrapped in one of
+Liza Ann's clean towels, under his arm. It was early, but nothing more
+could be done at Silas's house till the carcasses were cold enough to cut
+and trim, and, besides, there was an ominous looking bank of dull gray
+cloud in the northwest. Luther swung along the road toward the west
+energetically.
+
+The wind gave a little twisting flurry, and dropped completely when he was
+about halfway between Chamberlain's and the Hunter place. A few minutes
+later there was a puff of wind from the opposite direction, succeeded by a
+feeling of chill. Luther scanned the horizon and stepped faster. When the
+advance guard of fine snow began to sift down from the leaden sky above,
+he started to run. He had lived in the north, and knew the meaning of the
+rapidly darkening sky. The signs were unmistakable. Presently the fine
+flakes began to rush along toward the south with greater force. The wind
+came on steadily now. Luther looked about anxiously, making a note of the
+location of things. It was still a quarter of a mile to Hunter's. As he
+peered ahead, wishing himself nearer protection, with a roar the blizzard
+fell upon him, blotting out the landscape before him as completely as if a
+curtain had fallen between.
+
+With all his might Luther struggled forward. The wind came from the right
+side and almost carried him from his feet. He had been standing over a
+steaming kettle and scalding barrel most of the day, and the icy blast
+went through him, chilling his blood instantly. Luther knew his danger.
+This was not a cyclone where men were carried away by the winds of summer;
+this was a winter's storm where men could freeze to death, and men froze
+quickly in blizzards. The driving particles of snow and ice made it
+impossible to look ahead. He shielded his face with his right arm, and
+tried, as he hurried forward, to keep in mind the exact direction of the
+Hunter house. If he could only reach that he would be safe. The road was a
+new one, recently opened, and not well defined. It was almost at once
+obliterated. Little needles of ice thrust themselves at him with stinging
+force, and he could not see; the blinding snow whirled and whistled about
+his feet, and in five minutes Luther Hansen realized that he had got out
+of the road. He stopped in alarm and, turning his back to the storm, tried
+to see about him. The gray wall of snow completely obscured every object
+from his sight. He had a sense of being the only thing alive in the
+universe; all else seemed to have been destroyed. His every nerve ached
+with the cold, but peer about as he would he could not possibly tell where
+he was. He remembered that there had been a cornfield on his right, and
+thought that he must have gone too far south, for he was certainly in the
+meadow now. The pressure of the wind, he reflected, would naturally carry
+him in that direction, so he faced around and started on, bearing
+stubbornly toward the north. Every fibre in him shook; no cold he had ever
+felt in Minnesota was equal to this; there was a quality in the pressure
+of this cold that was deadly. The wind pierced in spite of every kind of
+covering. Real fear began to lay hold upon him. He stumbled easily; the
+action of his limbs began to give him alarm. The package of spareribs fell
+from under his arm, and he stooped to pick it up. As he bent over the wind
+caught him like a tumble-weed and threw him in a shivering heap on the
+ground. He had worn no mittens in the morning, and his hands stung as if
+tortured by the lashes of many whips. To ease their hurt he remained
+huddled together with his back to the wind while he breathed on his
+freezing fingers, but remembered that that was the surest way to add to
+the nip of the cold in a blast which condensed the breath from his mouth
+into icicles before it had time to get away from his moustache. Staggering
+to his feet, he stumbled on toward the Hunter house, trying as hard as his
+fast benumbing senses would permit to bear toward the wind and the
+cornfield at the right. He had not picked up the package--had forgotten it
+in fact--and now he tried to beat his freezing hands across his shoulders
+as he ran. The bitter wind could not be endured, and he crossed his hands,
+thrusting them into his sleeves, hoping to warm them somehow on his
+wrists; but with eyes uncovered he could not gauge his steps, and stumbled
+and fell. Unable to get his hands out of his sleeves in time to protect
+himself, he tripped forward awkwardly and scratched his face on the cut
+stubs of the meadow-grass. Evidently he had not reached the road as yet.
+He knew the road so well that he could have kept it with a bandage over
+his eyes but for the wind which thrust him uncertainly from his course. It
+was that which was defeating him. Try as he would, he could not keep his
+attention fixed upon the necessity of staying near that cornfield.
+Determined to find it before he proceeded farther toward the west, he
+faced the wind squarely, and, bracing his body firmly, hurried as fast as
+he could toward the stalkfield.
+
+After a time he seemed to wake up; he was not facing the wind, and he was
+aching miserably. Luther Hansen knew what that meant: he was freezing.
+Already the lethargy of sleep weighted each dragging foot. He thought of
+the nest an old sow had been building in the pen next to the one where the
+killing had been done that day. With the instincts of her kind, the
+mother-pig had prepared for the storm by making a bed where it would be
+sheltered. Luther's mind dwelt lingeringly upon its cozy arrangement;
+every atom of his body craved shelter. Death by freezing faced him
+already, though he had been in the grip of the storm but one short quarter
+of an hour. He had lost consciousness of time: he only knew that he was
+freezing within sight of home. Nothing but action could save him. Nerving
+himself for another trial, the bewildered man turned toward the north and
+walked into the very teeth of the storm, searching for the lost trail.
+Sometimes he thought his foot had found it; then it would be lost again.
+He wandered on hours, days, weeks--he wandered shivering over the meadow,
+the road, the state of Kansas--over the whole globe and through all space,
+till at last a great wall shut off the offending wind, the roar of the
+planets lessened, and the numb and frozen man fell forward insensible,
+striking his head against a dark obstruction thrusting its shoulder
+through a bank of dirty gray snow.
+
+The sound of a heavy body falling on her doorstep brought Elizabeth Hunter
+to the door. She opened it cautiously. The snow swirled in as it was drawn
+back and the heated air of the sitting room rushed out, forming a cloud of
+steam which almost prevented her from seeing the helpless figure at her
+feet. She could not distinguish the features, but it was a man, and the
+significance of his presence was plain. Seizing him about the body,
+Elizabeth dragged him into the house, and shut the door behind him to keep
+out the blast.
+
+"Luther Hansen!" she exclaimed.
+
+Finding that she could not arouse him, she pulled the relaxed and
+nerveless form to the lounge, but when she attempted to lift the limp
+figure to the couch she found it almost more than all her woman's strength
+could accomplish. Luther stirred and muttered, but could not be awakened
+sufficiently to help himself, and it was only after some minutes and the
+putting forth of every ounce of strength that the girl had that he was at
+last stretched upon the lounge. Elizabeth brought blankets to cover the
+shivering, muttering, delirious man, and having heard that the frost must
+be drawn gradually from frozen extremities, and being unable to get his
+hands and feet into cold water, she brought and wrapped wet towels about
+them, and chafed his frozen face.
+
+It was a long time before the white nose and cheeks began to show colour;
+then the ears became scarlet, and pain began to sting the man into
+consciousness. The chafing hurt, and Luther fought off the hands that
+rubbed so tenderly.
+
+Gradually Luther Hansen awoke to his surroundings. Delirium and reality
+mixed helplessly for some moments. He remembered his struggles to reach
+the Hunter house, but the gap in the train of his affairs made him suspect
+that this was a phase of delirium and that he was in reality freezing. He
+was stinging all over. He wanted to find out where he was, and tried to
+get upon his feet.
+
+"You are right here in my house, Luther," Elizabeth said, holding him on
+his pillow.
+
+Luther relaxed and lay looking at her for some time before he asked:
+
+"How did I get here, Lizzie?"
+
+"I don't know, Luther," she replied. "I heard you fall on the doorstep. I
+never was so surprised. How did you come to be out--and without mittens
+too?"
+
+She removed the wet towel from one of his hands, and he drew it away with
+a groan.
+
+"I expect, Lizzie, it's frozen. You better rub it with snow."
+
+The question of how he reached her house puzzled Luther throughout the
+long afternoon and evening, while they listened to the roar of the wind
+and talked of the unsheltered cattle in the many Kansas stalkfields.
+
+"The only thing that kept our cattle from being out of doors was the fact
+that Jake had to go to Iowa and John had to take him to town," Elizabeth
+had said at one point.
+
+"Has Jake left for good?" Luther asked hesitatingly. He knew John's
+unpopularity with the men who worked for him and was a little afraid to
+ask Elizabeth, who might be sensitive about it.
+
+"No. Jake has lost his mother, but he'll come back for the spring seeding.
+Jake's a good man; he and John seem to get along pretty well." It was
+Elizabeth's turn to speak hesitatingly. She did not know how much Luther
+knew of John's affairs with his men, nor what opinion Jake might have
+expressed to Luther.
+
+"Jake's a curious cub! He's been your dog, Lizzie, ever since that school
+business. I've heard 'im tell it over twenty times."
+
+"I wish we could find another like him," Elizabeth said wistfully. "John
+isn't able to take care of all this stock unless he gets a man in
+Colebyville to-day, and--and if he did, the man, as likely as not,
+wouldn't stay more than a week or two."
+
+Luther Hansen looked up eagerly.
+
+"Lizzie, I've found th' very man for you folks. He'll stay too. He's a
+fellow by th' name of Noland--workin' for Chamberlain, an' wants a job
+right soon--got a lot of book-learnin'--just your kind."
+
+"I'll have John see him when he gets home," Elizabeth answered
+indifferently. "My! I wonder when they will be able to get back?" she
+added.
+
+"They wasn't through tradin' when this thing come on," Luther replied.
+"Anyhow, houses was too thick t' get lost th' first half of th' way.
+Listen to that wind, though! I'm glad t' be here if I do look like a
+turkey gobbler with these ears," he laughed.
+
+It was so cold that Elizabeth had built a roaring fire, and to keep the
+snow, which penetrated every crack, from sifting under the door, she laid
+old coats and carpets across the sill. She brought coal and cobs from the
+shed, stopping each trip to get warm, for even to go the twenty steps
+required to get to the cobhouse was to experience more cold than she had
+ever encountered in all the days when she had plowed through the snows of
+Kansas winters while teaching; in fact, had the fuel been much farther
+from her door she would hardly have ventured out for it at all in a wind
+which drove one out of his course at every fresh step and so confused and
+blinded him that the points of the compass were a blank, and paths could
+not be located for the drifts, which ran in every direction the swirling
+wind chose to build them. She had gone around the shed to the back door,
+knowing that the front door being on the windward side could not be shut
+again if once opened, and the few extra steps necessary to creep around
+the building froze her to the bone, for the eddying wind had carried the
+snow deep at that point and, being enough sheltered to prevent packing,
+had left it a soft pile into which she sank almost to her waist. She was
+obliged to hunt for a shovel and clear the snow out of the doorway when
+she was through, and her hands were completely numbed when she reached the
+house after it was over. With the feeling that she might not be able to
+reach the shed at all in the morning, or that the doors might be drifted
+shut altogether, Elizabeth had taken enough cobs and coal into the kitchen
+to half fill the room and was ready to withstand a siege of days, but she
+paid toll with aching hands and feet that frightened Luther into a new
+realization of the nature of the storm.
+
+When at last the one fire Elizabeth thought it wise to keep up was rebuilt
+and dry shoes had replaced the wet ones, she settled down beside the
+lounge, with her feet in another chair to keep them off the cold floor,
+and turned to Luther expectantly.
+
+"This storm's awful, as you say," she said in reply to his observation
+that it might hold for days, "but I'm just so glad of a real chance for a
+visit with you that I'm quite willing to bring cobs and keep fires."
+
+"If that's true, why don't you come t' see us as you ought t', Lizzie?"
+Luther said, looking her searchingly in the eye. "I never meddle in other
+people's business, but you ain't th' stuck-up thing folks says you are.
+Honest now, why don't you do as a neighbour should?"
+
+Elizabeth Hunter's face flushed crimson and she leaned forward to tuck the
+old coat, in which she had wrapped her feet, more closely about them while
+she took time to get herself ready to answer the paralyzing question. The
+longer she waited the harder it became to meet the kindly questioning eyes
+bent upon her, and the more embarrassing it became to answer at all. She
+fumbled and tucked and was almost at the point of tears when Jack, who was
+asleep on a bed made on two chairs, began to fret. Seizing the welcome
+means of escape, she got up and took the child, sitting down a little
+farther away from Luther and hugging the baby as if he were a refuge from
+threatened harm.
+
+Luther felt the distance between them, but decided to force the issue. He
+came about it from another quarter, but with inflexible determination.
+
+"I hope Sadie got her kindling in before the storm began. It'll be awful
+cold in th' mornin', and--I do wish I could 'a' got home. Sadie's fires
+always go out."
+
+"Your cobs are closer to the house than mine; Sadie 'll get along all
+right."
+
+"How do you know where our cobhouse is now, Lizzie? You ain't seen it for
+over a year," Luther observed quietly. And when Elizabeth did not reply,
+said with his eyes fastened on Jack's half-asleep face: "I wonder how
+Janie is?"
+
+Glad to talk of anything but herself and her own affairs, Elizabeth
+answered with feverish readiness the last half of Luther's observation.
+
+"You never told me what the baby's name was before. Isn't it sweet?"
+
+"Do you know, Lizzie, that Sadie 'd most made 'er mind up t' call it after
+you, if it was a girl, if you'd 'a' come t' be with 'er when it was born,
+as you said you would?" Luther looked at her almost tenderly, and with a
+yearning beyond words.
+
+"After me? She didn't send for me when she was sick, Luther."
+
+"No, but she would 'a', if you'd 'a' come as you ought t' 'a' done them
+months when she wasn't goin' out." He looked at her penetratingly.
+
+"I haven't been anywhere since Aunt Susan's death," Elizabeth evaded,
+determined not to recognize his trend.
+
+"You could 'a' come before her death, there was plenty of time. Now look
+here, I ain't goin' t' beat about th' bush. I'm talkin' square. You can't
+git away from me. You've had th' best chance a woman ever had t' help
+another woman, an' you didn't take it. Sadie was that took by what you
+said about bein' glad for th' chance t' have your baby, an' th' idea of
+helpin' him t' have th' best disposition you could give 'im, that she
+didn't talk of nothin' else for weeks, an' she looked for you till she was
+sick, an' you never come. I want t' know why?"
+
+Elizabeth Hunter had come to the judgment-bar; she could not escape these
+cross-questions, neither could she answer. Her face grew white as Luther
+Hansen looked searchingly into it, and her breath came hard and harder as
+he looked and waited. This chance to talk to Luther was like wine to her
+hungry soul, but John Hunter was her husband and she refused to accuse him
+even after the long months of despair she had suffered at his hands.
+Luther let her gather herself for her reply, not adding a word to the
+demand for truth and friendship. How he trusted her in spite of it all! He
+watched her indecision change to indignation at his insistence, and he saw
+her head grow clear as she decided upon her course.
+
+"I will not discuss the past with you, Luther," she said slowly, as one
+who comes to a conclusion as he proceeds. "I cannot tell you all the
+things which have led up to it. I am going to ask you not to mention it to
+me again, but I will try to do it better next time. I had no idea that
+Sadie cared whether I came to see her or not; she had always seemed to
+dislike me." Elizabeth added the last hesitatingly lest she hurt Luther's
+feelings.
+
+"Lizzie, I won't be put off. If you don't want t' tell me _why_ you've
+done as you have, I won't ask you t', but you've got t' let me talk t' you
+about it all th' same. I ain't a man t' let myself mix up in my
+neighbours' affairs, but, Lizzie, you ought t' live up t' th' things God's
+put int' your power t' do. Now, then, you let folks get a wrong idea of
+you. You've got more education 'n anybody else's got in this country, an'
+you've got more money, an' you've got more everything 'n th' rest of us,
+an' what's it been give t' you for if it ain't goin' t' come t' nothin'?
+Here you've had th' best chance t' do somethin' for a neighbour woman a
+woman ever had: Sadie's been that took with th' things you said about
+children that she was ready t' listen t' you on anything, an' you won't
+let 'er have a chance t' get at you at all--an' ain't she come out? You'd
+have t' live with 'er, Lizzie, t' know what that little woman's done fur
+herself this last year--an' it was you that helped t' do it. Honest, now,
+don't you see yourself that if you've had things give t' you that th' rest
+ain't had that you owe somethin' t' th' rest of us?"
+
+In all the weary discordant time when she had struggled for better
+conditions Elizabeth Hunter had never thought of anything in the situation
+but the bettering of her own surroundings. It had been the suffering of
+blind stupidity, of youth, of the human being too deeply submerged to
+think of aught but personal affairs. Luther drew her attention to the main
+facts of her life, drawing her away from self. It was a simple occurrence,
+a simple subject, a simple question: it was in itself the reason for the
+perpetuation of their friendship. The winds blew, the snow found its way
+under door and sash and heaped itself in ridges across the floor, and in
+spite of the roaring fire they were not always warm, but throughout the
+night Elizabeth sat beside her lifelong friend and drew in a revivifying
+fire which was to remould and make over a life which had almost flickered
+to a smouldering resentment and inactivity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ADJUSTING DOMESTIC TO SOCIAL IDEALS
+
+
+The next morning the wind blew the fine snow in one vast driving cloud; it
+was impossible to see a hundred feet. Elizabeth knew that the stock was
+suffering, but was almost certain that she could not reach them. It would
+not be hard to reach the barn, since the wind would be with her, but to
+return would be a different matter. To feel that she had done all that she
+could, she went as far as the gate, and when she could not see the house
+from that point was sufficiently warned and struggled back to safety. No
+sound but that of the storm came to her even at the gate, but she was
+certain that the famishing cattle were calling for food. Her day was
+consumed in the care of Luther's inflamed hands and feet. The only remedy
+she knew was wet cloths and she worked anxiously to reduce the swelling
+and congestion.
+
+About four o'clock the wind dropped. Though the air was still full of fine
+snow, Elizabeth wrapped herself in John's old overcoat and muffler, and
+putting a pair of Jake's heavy mittens on her hands, and taking the
+milkpails on her arm to save a trip back for them, she went to the barn.
+
+The barn door stuck, with the snow which had collected in the runway, and
+she had to fumble for some time before it would come open. A perfect babel
+of voices greeted her. Jake had left the south door of the barn ajar when
+he left that morning, and the eddying snow had banked itself along the
+entire centre of the building. Patsie stood in the stall nearest the door,
+humped up with the cold, and with a layer of snow on her hips and
+spreading black tail. She turned sidewise and pawed furiously, giving
+shrill little whinnies as Elizabeth seized a half-bushel measure and waded
+through the snow to the oats bin.
+
+"No, corn's better this cold weather," the girl said aloud, and hurried to
+the other bin. Soon the horses were making noise enough to inflame the
+appetites of the other animals, who redoubled their cries.
+
+She investigated the pens and found the hogs in good condition, but the
+drifts so high as to make it possible for them to make neighbourly visits
+from pen to pen, and even into the cattle yard. It was a struggle to carry
+the heavy ear corn from the crib to the pens, but it was done, and then
+Elizabeth turned her attention to the excited cattle.
+
+Taking time to rest and get her breath, Elizabeth noticed that a few of
+the hogs had not come to get their feed, and went to investigate the
+cause. They seemed to be fighting over some choice morsel on the far side
+of the cattle yard. At first she thought that it was one of their number
+that they were fighting about, but as she approached the knot, one of them
+ran off to one side dragging something, its head held high to avoid
+stepping on the grewsome thing it carried. One of the young cows had lost
+her calf in the freezing storm, and the hogs were fighting over its torn
+and mangled body. Elizabeth sought out the little mother, and segregating
+her from the herd, drove her into the straw cow-stable, where she would be
+sheltered. The other milch cows had been left in their stalls by the men
+the day before, and snorted and tugged at their ropes as the newcomer
+appeared. Elizabeth tied the heifer, and then shut the door after her and
+returned to the unprotected herd outside.
+
+The fodder was so full of snow that it was impossible for the girl to
+handle it at all, so she dug the ladder out of the snow and placed it
+against the long hayrick beside the fence and forked the hay over into the
+racks below. It required every ounce of strength she had to throw the hay
+clear of the stack and in line with the racks where the cattle could reach
+it, but the girl worked with a will, while the cattle fought for best
+places, or any place at all, and reached hungry tongues for the sweet
+hay.
+
+Elizabeth worked with joy and energy. The mood of the storm was upon the
+girl. Not before in all the months she had been married had she ever moved
+in perfect freedom in her native out-of-doors element. It was a gift of
+the gods and not to be despised or neglected, for to-morrow would come
+John--and prison bars. Before she had begun, she faced the wind, and with
+bounding joy looked over the drifted fields toward the north and
+northeast. The air was clearing. The world looked different from this
+lofty position. She was Elizabeth again, Elizabeth transformed and made
+new. The lethargy of recent months had slipped away; something about the
+rush and motion of things in the last twenty-four hours inspired her; the
+fierce winds of yesterday and to-day stirred her spirit to do, to be in
+motion herself. They had communicated their energy, their life, their free
+and ungoverned humour. Elizabeth's thoughts ran on as fast as her blood.
+She thought of Luther, and of all he had said to her, of her neglected
+opportunities which he had pointed out to her, and wondered modestly if he
+were right, and then knew that he was. She thought of how she, the
+out-of-door prisoner of her father's home, had become the indoor prisoner
+of her husband's home. She had thought that to marry and escape her
+father's grasp was to possess herself; but Elizabeth Hunter saw that as a
+wife she was really much less free. She thought of the sacrifices she had
+made in the hope of securing harmony, and she thought of the futility of
+it all. She decided that if a woman were enslaved it was because she
+herself permitted it, that to yield where she should stand fast did not
+secure a man's love, it only secured his contempt and increased his
+demands. In the three years she had been married she had not been
+permitted an hour of real companionship until the accident of this storm
+had brought an old friend to her door and kept him there till she had had
+a chance to realize the mental depths to which she had fallen in her
+isolation. In all the time she had been married she had not thought of
+anything but the bare details of their daily life. A woman had to have the
+association of congenial people to keep her from falling into housekeeping
+dry-rot. For thirty-six hours she had possessed herself, and in that time
+she had renewed her youth and acquired a new outlook. As she stood looking
+across the fields, her eyes fell on Nathan Hornby's chimney. The wind had
+dropped so completely that the air had cleared of snow, and the curling
+smoke from a freshly built fire arose in the frosty air, sending a thrill
+of homesickness through her as she pictured the orderly kitchen in which
+that fire was built. Was it orderly now that its guardian angel was gone?
+The hideous cruelty of a neglect which kept her from knowing whether it
+was well kept swept over her. Once she would have spent herself in
+emotionalism and tears at remembrance of it, but Elizabeth had advanced.
+
+"I'll go and see him to-morrow, or as soon as the roads are fit," was her
+resolve. "Luther's right; he usually is."
+
+The cattle calling from below brought her back to the necessities of the
+hour. Laying hold of the frosty pitchfork she renewed her attack upon the
+hay and continued till the racks were filled. By the time the ladder was
+put away again her hands were stinging till it was impossible to work, and
+she ran to the barn where she could put them against Patsie's flank while
+she blew her warm breath upon them. Patsie was ticklish, and twitched her
+loose hide nervously and gnawed at her feed-box with little squeals of
+excitement. The feed-box was of two-inch lumber instead of the usual sort.
+It was like all John did: so much attention put in one place there was no
+time for the rest; well done, but much left undone. Everything about
+John's barn was orderly and well built. There had been a time when she had
+rejoiced at what seemed to be thrift, but to-day she saw it from a new
+angle; Mr. Farnshaw had wastefully let his machinery rot and his stock
+perish from cold, but here was wastefulness of another sort; Elizabeth
+speculated on the cost of this barn and thought of the interest to be
+paid.
+
+On her way to the cow-stable where the little mother whose calf had fallen
+a victim to the cold awaited her, she thought of the toolroom where she
+had gone for her feed. A forty-dollar set of harness hung there: Carter's
+harness had chains instead of leather tugs, and would outwear them several
+times over. It was an orderly toolroom: the bridles occupied a row over
+the collars, hames and back-bands came next, and on the other side of the
+room, on six-inch spikes, hung extra clevises, buckles, straps, and such
+materials as accidents to farm machinery required. John's mending was well
+provided for and well done. Elizabeth would have loved just this sort of
+order if it had not been so costly.
+
+The little cow was so hungry that she hardly knew that she was giving her
+milk into a foreign receptacle till a voice at the stable door made her
+jump so violently that the pail was knocked over and Elizabeth had to
+scramble hastily to avoid a similar fate.
+
+"Well, now, there you be! Gosh-a-livin's!----"
+
+Silas Chamberlain never finished that speech. The milk from the rolling
+pail spattered over his feet as he sprang to Elizabeth's rescue. The
+little cow tore at the rope that held her, and every mate she had in the
+stable joined her in snorting and threatening to bolt over the mangers.
+The old man, "So-bossied," and vented all the soothing cattle talk he
+could command while he looked on in embarrassed confusion.
+
+"Now ain't that jes' like me?" he queried in dismay. "Look what I've gone
+an' done!" He picked up the empty pail and handed it to the man that was
+with him to keep it from being trampled upon by the plunging cows, while
+he tried to establish confidential relations with them.
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Chamberlain. She's only a heifer and never milked before.
+She wouldn't have let me get that far without trouble, anyhow, if she
+hadn't been so hungry. The hogs killed her calf last night or this morning
+and I thought I'd milk her before I began on the rest. I don't suppose
+John can get home before to-morrow night, and the chores had to be done.
+Here, there's an extra bucket or two. Do you want to help milk? they'll
+quit fussing in a minute."
+
+"Course I do. That's what Noland an' I come for. This is Mrs. Hunter,
+Noland," Silas said, remembering formalities at the last moment. "We
+thought John wouldn't 'a' got back 'fore th' storm come on. Now let's get
+this milkin' done 'fore dark or we'll be havin' t' ask for a lantern."
+
+"Oh! Mr. Chamberlain, I forgot to tell you that Luther Hansen got caught
+in the storm and nearly froze," Elizabeth said when they had settled
+themselves to the work. "He's at our house now; his feet and hands are
+awful. I think they're all right, but I wish we could get at Doctor
+Morgan."
+
+The old man nearly upset the milk a second time in his astonishment, and
+the milking was cut as short as could decently be done so as to get to the
+house. The early winter night had settled down and the sting of the cold
+was paralyzing as they hastened in. Silas went straight to Luther, and
+Elizabeth and the new man brought a fresh supply of coal and cobs before
+they went in. They met Silas coming out as they carried the last basketful
+from the shed.
+
+"I'm goin' right over t' tell Sadie," he announced. "I brought Noland over
+to help, but Luther says you're goin' t' need 'im right along, an' I'll
+jes' leave 'im for good. You'll like each other an' he'll want t' stay as
+bad as You'll want 'im."
+
+Silas had poured the whole arrangement out, and as it was about what was
+necessary it was accepted.
+
+The presence of a stranger necessitated more formal housekeeping, and when
+the new man came back from helping Silas saddle Patsie he found the
+kitchen in order and the savoury smell of fresh biscuits and ham. A small
+table was placed beside Luther, and the ham and hot things had a seasoning
+of brilliant, intellectual conversation, for the man from college was
+adept at entertaining his fellow men and showed his best powers.
+
+Elizabeth was too tired to stay awake long and she left him and Luther
+chatting, after she had shown Mr. Noland where he was to sleep and had
+filled the cold bed with hot flatirons to take the chill from the icy
+sheets. However happy she may have been while feeding the stock, she had
+to acknowledge that the loss of sleep the night before and the
+unaccustomed use of the pitchfork had made of her bed a desirable place.
+She awoke when the stranger went up the stairs, but was asleep before his
+footsteps had reached the room above her. A tantalizing remembrance of his
+face disturbed her for a moment, but only for a moment, and then tired
+nature carried her back to the land of dreams. She had seen him somewhere,
+but where, she was too sleepy to think out.
+
+The next morning Silas came with his bobsled and they helped Luther into a
+chair and carried him in it to the sled and so to his home. John and his
+mother came a little after noon, and the girl watched to see how her
+husband would like the new man, half afraid that because she had secured
+him in John's absence that he would not like him, and she wished it might
+be possible to keep him with them. She need not have worried, for Hugh
+Noland had looked about the place and decided to make himself so necessary
+to its proprietor that his presence would be desired, and he had gifts
+which favoured him in that respect. Besides, John had been unsuccessful in
+obtaining help and was overjoyed to come home and find the cattle fed and
+everything at the barn in good order. Patsie and her mate were hitched to
+the lumber wagon and stood waiting in the lane when John came and Jack was
+being wrapped in his warmest cloak.
+
+"Where on earth are you going?" John asked in profound astonishment.
+
+"I told Mr. Noland to hitch up and take me to Uncle Nathan's, but now that
+you are here, you can go if you wish," Elizabeth replied quietly. "I
+should have gone a long time ago. Will you go along mother, or will you
+stay at home after climbing these drifts all day? I think now that you're
+at home we'll take the sled instead of the wagon. You won't mind making
+the change, will you?"
+
+She ended by addressing the new man, and it was all so naturally done that
+John Hunter swallowed whatever was uncomfortable in it. He would not go
+himself, and Elizabeth set off with the stranger, glad of the chance to do
+so.
+
+"I'll drive right home and help with things there. What time shall I come
+back for you?" Noland asked as he set her on the ground as near Nathan's
+doorstep as he could get the team to go.
+
+"Not till after five. Mother's there and I'll let her get your suppers,
+and I'll get mine here with Uncle Nate."
+
+It was such a perfectly normal arrangement that Hugh Noland did not guess
+that there was anything new in it. He drove away with a feeling of
+disappointment because he had been unable to draw her into conversation on
+the way over. She had proven herself a good conversationalist at meals and
+he looked forward to a time when he would be a permanent part of that
+household. Luther and Silas had been right. Here was the partner he was
+looking for if he could only make himself appreciated.
+
+He had laid out every faculty and put it to the best use for that purpose
+and had been a bit disconcerted to have her suddenly become
+uncommunicative.
+
+Nathan was at the barn; he saw them stop and recognized his visitor.
+
+"Humph!" he snorted in disgust. However, a man could not leave a woman
+with a baby in her arms standing on his doorstep on a raw February day.
+
+"How do you do, Uncle Nate?" the girl said timidly as soon as he was near
+enough to accost.
+
+Nathan's greeting was short and inhospitable. He did not offer to shake
+hands, nor pretend to see the hand she extended to him. Instead, he opened
+the door and invited her gruffly to enter. Closing the door behind them,
+he went to the stove and began to stir the fire industriously.
+
+Elizabeth saw that she must have the difficulty over at once or her
+courage would wilt. Setting Jack on the floor, she went to Nathan and put
+her hand on his arm detainingly.
+
+"You have fire enough, Uncle Nate. Let me talk to you."
+
+"Well?" he said briefly.
+
+The girl was staggered by the nature of her reception. It was worse than
+she had expected. Luther Hansen's estimate of the real situation had been
+only too right. She stood before Nathan Hornby trembling and disconcerted
+by the wall of his silence. The old kitchen clock ticked loudly, she could
+hear her own pulses, and the freshly stirred fire roared--roared in a
+rusty and unpolished stove. Dust lay thick on the unswept floor. Nathan
+needed her. She would win her way back to his heart.
+
+"Uncle Nate, I don't blame you one bit if you aren't nice to me. I haven't
+deserved it, but----"
+
+"I guess you needn't 'Uncle Nate' me any more," he said when she paused.
+
+His speech was bitter and full of animosity, but it was better than his
+compelling silence.
+
+"I don't blame you one bit for being mad at me----I should think you would
+be. I don't know what I'm going to say to you either, but I've come to beg
+your forgiveness," she stammered.
+
+Nathan Hornby did not speak, but waited coldly for her to continue. There
+was plainly no help offered her.
+
+"I--I can't explain, Uncle Nate--I am going to call you so--you--you shall
+not put me away. I have come for your forgiveness and--and I'm going to
+stay till I get it. I--I can't explain--there--there are things in life
+that we can't explain, but I'm innocent of this stuck-up business you
+think I've had. I--I've loved you and Aunt Susan. Oh, Uncle Nate, I've
+loved her better than I ever did my own mother," she ended with a sob.
+
+There was the voice of honesty in what she said, but Nathan remembered his
+wrongs.
+
+"If that's so, why didn't you come t' see 'er?" he said. "If you loved
+'er, why'd you let 'er go down to 'er grave a pinin' for you? She looked
+for you till she was crazy 'most, an' she never got a decent word out of
+you, nor a decent visit neither. If you loved 'er, what'd you act that way
+for?"
+
+The memory of that last day, when his wife had yearned so pitifully for
+this girl, arose before him as he stood there, and shook his faith in the
+honesty of Elizabeth's purposes in spite of the earnestness of her
+manner.
+
+"That is the one thing I cannot explain, Uncle Nate," Elizabeth answered.
+"I--I was all ready to come that day and--and--then I couldn't."
+
+She buried her face in her hands at the memory of it and burst into
+tears.
+
+"Is it true that Hunter won't take you anywhere?" he asked pointedly.
+
+"You have been listening to the Cranes," she answered.
+
+"I've been listenin' t' more'n them," he said with the fixed purpose of
+drawing her out on the subject. "I've been listenin' t' some as says
+you're too high and mighty t' associate with th' likes of us--an' I've
+heard it said that your husband won't take you nowhere. Now I just
+naturally know that a man can't shut a woman up in this American country,
+so's she can't go anywhere she wants t', if she wants t' bad enough; an' I
+remember how Hunter was 'fore 'e married you; 'e was always on th' go--an'
+there's a nigger in th' woodpile somewheres."
+
+Elizabeth was for the moment staggered. What he said was so true. And yet,
+how untrue! It was hard to think with the eye of suspicion on her.
+Appearances were against her, but she was determined not to discuss the
+privacies of her married life. She paused and looked Nathan squarely in
+the face till she could control her reasoning faculties.
+
+"That is neither here nor there," she said quite firmly at last. "I shall
+not defend myself to you, Uncle Nate, nor explain away bad reports. It
+would not help me and it would not help you. What I am here for is to
+offer you my love _now_. What I want you to believe is that I mean it,
+that I've wanted to come, that I'm here because I want to be here, and
+that I never mean to neglect you again. I--I couldn't come to see
+her--but, oh, Uncle Nate, mayn't I come to see you? I can't tell you all
+the little ins and outs of why I haven't come before, but you must believe
+me."
+
+Elizabeth ended imploringly.
+
+The man was softened by her evident sincerity in spite of himself, and yet
+his wound was of long standing, his belief in her honesty shaken, his
+beloved wife in her grave, assisted to her final stroke by this girl's
+neglect, and he could not lay his bitterness aside easily. He did not
+speak.
+
+The silence which followed was broken only by the ticking of the
+old-fashioned Seth Thomas clock and the roar of the fire.
+
+Elizabeth looked around the familiar room in her dilemma, entangled in the
+mesh of her loyalty to her husband's dubious and misleading actions.
+Nearly every article in that room was associated with some tender
+recollection in the girl's mind. Not even the perplexity of the moment
+could entirely shut out the reminiscent side of the occasion. The
+bread-board, dusty and unused, leaned against the flour barrel, the little
+line above it where the dishtowels should hang sagged under the weight of
+a bridle hung there to warm the frosty bit, the rocking chair, mended with
+broom wire after the cyclone, and on its back Aunt Susan's chambray
+sunbonnet where it had fallen from its nail: all familiar. With a little
+cry Elizabeth fell on her knees by Nathan Hornby's side.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Nate! you can't tell what others have to contend with, and--and
+you must not even ask, but----" She could not proceed for sobs.
+
+Nathan Hornby's own face twitched and trembled with emotion. The girl had
+unconsciously used Susan's own last words. His heart was touched. Susan's
+great love for Elizabeth pleaded for her.
+
+"Can't I come, Uncle Nate? Won't you be friends with me?"
+
+And Nathan Hornby, who wanted her friendship, answered reluctantly:
+
+"Yes-s-s--come along if you want t'. You won't find it a very cheerful
+place t' come to, but she'd be glad t' know you're here, I guess."
+
+Jack, sitting in his shawls and wraps on the floor, began to cry. He had
+been neglected long enough. His mother got suddenly to her feet. Both
+stooped to take the baby. Elizabeth resigned him to Nathan, instinctively
+realizing that Jack was a good advocate in her favour if Nathan still
+retained fragments of his grievances. She let the old man retain him on
+his lap while she busied herself about him unpinning his shawls.
+
+It was home-like and companionable to have a woman and baby in the house,
+and Nathan Hornby had been lonesome a long time. He clucked to the baby
+and began to trot him up and down on his knee. With a relieved sigh
+Elizabeth dropped into a chair and watched them.
+
+Jack, unaccustomed to whiskers, put his hand out to investigate. Nathan
+waggled his chin to shake its pendant brush, and Jack started nervously.
+Nathan looked across at Elizabeth and laughed. That little laugh did a
+world of good in aiding Elizabeth's plans. It was not possible for Nathan
+to catch her eye in good-natured raillery and remain cool of manner; that
+laugh and the glance that went with it did much to wash away his hurt. In
+his secret soul Nathan had craved Elizabeth's love and Elizabeth's baby.
+She had been like a daughter in the house. He had missed her almost as
+much as his wife had done, but he had resented her long absence. He had
+come to the house determined not to forget his wrongs, and here he was, in
+less than fifteen minutes, smiling at her over the head of the baby in
+friendly amusement. He was puzzled now at the readiness with which he had
+given in, but Nathan found his love stronger than his grievances.
+
+"Take off your things, Lizzie; th' house's yours if you--if you really
+want it to be."
+
+Elizabeth took off her wraps and prepared to begin work on the disorderly
+kitchen. Aunt Susan's limp apron hung on the nail from which the bonnet
+had fallen, and she put it on, looking about her, undecided where it was
+best to commence.
+
+"I've come to help--where shall I begin?" she said.
+
+"If I could tell you what t' do I could 'a' done it myself," Nathan said
+ruefully.
+
+Elizabeth thought of the orderly wife who was gone and a sob arose in her
+throat.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Nate! You don't know how I miss her sometimes."
+
+And Nathan Hornby replied sadly:
+
+"I kind a think maybe I do."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was cloudy and the long diagonal drifts made it hard to drive
+after dark. The chores had kept Noland later than he had thought and it
+was dusk when he arrived at Nathan's for Elizabeth.
+
+Hugh Noland had been spending the afternoon with John Hunter about the
+barn, measuring him and talking of farm prospects. Here was the place for
+him to settle down, if he could arrange for a partnership. He was so much
+convinced of this that he was endeavouring to make the alliances of
+friendship before he led up to the more serious one. It had baffled him to
+have Elizabeth answer in monosyllables both going to Mr. Hornby's and
+again during their return; he wanted to talk. Her home was the first
+farmhouse he had ever entered that he felt could be home to him; its
+evidences of culture and refinement had made as lasting an impression upon
+Hugh Noland as that same home had done upon Elizabeth when John Hunter had
+taken her to see his mother in it. It was an oasis in the rural desert. He
+meant to exert every effort to establish himself in it. When Elizabeth did
+not respond to his attempts at conversation, he fell back upon the
+analysis of herself and her husband which had been going on in his mind
+all day. They were evidently not people who felt above their neighbours on
+account of their superior education, for she had gone to spend a whole
+afternoon with that plain old farmer and she had shown the liveliest
+interest, even friendship, for the Swede on the other side of the farm. He
+liked them the better for that. If a man or woman lived in a community he
+or she should be a part of that community. Hugh Noland never doubted that
+the friendly interest he had witnessed was the regularly established
+course of action and that it was mutual in the household. Coming into the
+household at this transition point, he was to make many such mistakes in
+his estimates.
+
+John Hunter was at the side gate to assist his wife and baby out of the
+sled. He left Elizabeth to carry Jack to the house and went to the barn to
+help Noland put the team away. This man, who took milking as a lark, and
+all farm work as a thing to be desired, and yet was a gentleman, was to
+John Hunter, who scorned these things as beneath himself, an anomaly. It
+had never occurred to John that labour of that sort could have dignity,
+nor that a man could choose it as a livelihood unless driven to it. It had
+never occurred to him that if driven to it one should enter into it as a
+real participant. To him it was a thing to endure for a time and never
+refer to after it could be put behind him. The beauty of the dawn, the
+pleasant odours of new-mown hay, the freshness of the crisp air, the
+association with the living creatures about him, the joys of a clean life,
+all escaped him. Hugh Noland had enumerated these things, and many more,
+while they had worked together that afternoon, and John Hunter accepted
+the enumeration, not because it was fundamentally true, but because it was
+the estimate of a cultured and well-educated man.
+
+John Hunter had been vexed at Elizabeth for the sangfroid with which she
+had walked away from established custom in ordering the team prepared for
+her to be taken to Nathan's, but with Noland present he had accepted it
+without remark. Here was a man before whom John would always, but
+instinctively rather than premeditatively, endeavour to show his best
+side.
+
+Hugh Noland went to the house with John, talking farm work and prices of
+produce as if they were matters of pleasant as well as necessary
+importance, and he set John to talking in his best vein and without
+superciliousness; he had the faculty of bringing out the best in the
+people he met. He brought some of his books--he had stopped at the
+Chamberlain homestead for his trunk on their return that evening--and
+added them to those already on the Hunter shelves. While arranging them,
+he sat on the floor before the bookcase and glancing over the titles of
+those belonging to the family, opened an occasional one and read aloud a
+verse or a paragraph or two. He read with zest and enthusiasm. He was
+fresh from the world of lectures and theatres, and the social life of the
+city, and became a rejuvenating leaven for this entire household.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Luther was on Elizabeth's mind when she awakened the next morning, and as
+soon as the breakfast work was finished and she had time to get the house
+in order, she decided to move from her new standpoint and go to see him.
+To this end she asked Mrs. Hunter to keep Jack while she was gone, and to
+the older woman's objections that she should let the men hitch up the sled
+and drive her over she answered firmly:
+
+"I don't want a word said about it. I will go whenever I please without
+arguing it with anybody."
+
+In her secret soul she was glad to get past the barn without John seeing
+her. She would not have permitted him to stop her, or delay her visit, but
+a discussion with her husband was apt to hold surprises and she to become
+confused and angry, and worsted in the _manner_ of her insistence. To get
+away without having to explain put her in good spirits.
+
+The sun shone brightly and the air, though snappy and cold, was brisk and
+fresh. It was the first free walk of a mile Elizabeth had ever taken since
+her marriage. Elizabeth was herself again. She skirted around the long
+drifts as she crossed the field humming a snatch of tune with all her
+blood atingle with the delight of being alone in the vast silent fields.
+The mere passing of time since Aunt Susan's death had gradually worked a
+change in her condition, which Luther's presence and the stimulating
+quality of his words, John's absence, the intoxication of the wild and
+unfettered storm, the visit to Nathan Hornby's, and the invigorating
+personality of Hugh Noland had combined to rejuvenate in the crushed and
+beaten girl. Life held meanings to which she had long been blind.
+Elizabeth set about the reorganizing of her life with no bitterness toward
+John, only glad to have found herself, with duty to herself as well as
+others still possible.
+
+Sadie Hansen met Elizabeth at the door with such evident uneasiness that
+Elizabeth was moved to ask:
+
+"Luther's all right, Sadie?"
+
+"Yes-s-s!" Sadie replied slowly, and with such reluctance that Elizabeth
+was puzzled.
+
+Sadie took her to the bedroom and shut the door behind her as tight as if
+she hoped to shut out some evil spirit in the action. Her manner filled
+Elizabeth with curiosity, but she crossed to Luther and held out her
+hand.
+
+"Before you 'uns begin," Sadie said with the air of burning her bridges
+behind her, and before any one had had a chance to speak, "I want t' tell
+you something. I could 'a' told it in th' kitchen," she stammered, "but I
+made up my mind last night that I'd have it out with both of you. I've
+done you th' meanest trick, Lizzie. Luther said you was goin' t' Hornby's
+yesterday. Did you go?"
+
+Elizabeth, standing at the head of Luther's bed, nodded in her surprise,
+feeling that her visit with Nathan was not a subject to which she could
+lend words.
+
+"Now look here, Lizzie, if what I said t' th' Hornbys has made any
+difference, I'll go t' him an' take it back right before your face."
+
+Elizabeth's eyes opened in astonishment.
+
+"Uncle Nate did not mention it to me," Elizabeth replied.
+
+"Well, I've made up my mind I want t' tell it, an' have it off my mind."
+
+Sadie considered a moment and then plunged into her tale hurriedly, for
+fear that her courage would cease to support her.
+
+"Well, when I was to your house last summer, an' you told me about th'
+effect it had on a baby t' have a mother that never got mad, I come home
+an' tried t' do everything I thought you meant an'--seems t' me I never
+was s' mean in my life. Mean feelin' I mean. I got along pretty well at
+first--I guess it was somethin' new--? but th' nearer I got t' th' time,
+th' worse I got. I scolded Luther Hansen till I know he wished he'd never
+been born. Th' worst of it was that I'd told 'im how--what a difference it
+made, and he was that anxious----?"
+
+Luther raised his hand to protest, but Sadie waved him aside and
+continued:
+
+"Oh, you needn't defend me, Luther!" she exclaimed. "I've been meaner 'n
+you know of." Turning to Elizabeth again, "I used t' look over t' your
+house an' feel--an' feel 's if I could only see you an' talk a while, I'd
+git over wantin' t' be s' mean, but you wouldn't never come t' see
+us--an'--an' I didn't feel's if--I didn't feel free t' go any more, 'cause
+ma said you didn't want t' be sociable with our kind of folks."
+
+Sadie paused a moment to crease the hem of her apron and get the twitching
+out of the corners of her distressed mouth.
+
+"Well, at last, when you didn't come, an' I couldn't git no help from no
+one, I just said every mean thing I could. I told Hornby a week 'fore his
+wife died that you said you didn't want t' change visits with us country
+jakes, 'cause you wanted your boy t' be different from th' likes of us.
+Ma'd heard that somewhere, but I told it t' 'im 's if you'd said it t' me.
+Sue Hornby put 'er hand on my arm an' said, so kind like, 'Sadie, ain't
+you 'fraid t' talk that way an' you in that fix?' An' I just cried an'
+cried, an' couldn't even tell 'er I'd tried t' do different."
+
+Luther Hansen had been trying to interrupt the flow of his wife's
+confession, and broke in at this point by saying:
+
+"Sadie's nervous an' upset over----"
+
+"No, I ain't," Sadie replied hastily. "I've been as mean as mud, an' here
+she's took care of you, an' I've gone an' got Hornby mad at 'er. He
+believed what I told, if 'is wife didn't. They say, Lizzie, that 'e lives
+there all by 'iself an'----" Sadie choked, and waited for Elizabeth to
+speak.
+
+"I guess you've worried about nothing," Elizabeth said brightly. "I've
+been to see him, and we're good friends--the best kind in fact, and no one
+could ever make us anything else hereafter." She looked down at Luther and
+smiled.
+
+"Will it make any difference with my baby?" Sadie asked anxiously, her
+mind working like a treadmill in its own little round.
+
+"No, Sadie--that is, I guess not. I've been thinking, as I listened to
+you, that the way you tried would have to count--it's bigger than anything
+else you've done."
+
+Sadie Hansen dropped into a chair sobbing hysterically.
+
+Elizabeth's hand went to the girl's shoulder comfortingly.
+
+"God does not ask that we succeed, Sadie; he asks that we try."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Elizabeth was back in her own kitchen in time to get dinner. John had seen
+her as she came home, but made no remark.
+
+At the end of three weeks there was a consultation between Hugh Noland and
+John regarding a possible partnership. Not only did Noland like John
+Hunter, but he was delighted with the atmosphere with which he found him
+surrounded.
+
+"This is a home," had been Hugh's secret analysis of the household. In
+fact the home was the main feature of the Hunter farm, the main reason for
+wishing to stay.
+
+To John the offer of partnership was a blessing from heaven itself. The
+matter of interest was pressing on him far more than he had acknowledged
+to Elizabeth. It galled him to discuss things with her since she had
+ceased to ask about them or even to show any concern. He did not realize
+that she had been compelled to consider the matter hopeless.
+
+It was agreed that Hugh should lift the indebtedness and have one half
+interest in the concern, land and stock. There would be about five hundred
+dollars left over after all the debts were paid, and John gleefully
+decided to buy some more calves with the residue.
+
+"But we shall need every cent of that for running expenses this summer,"
+Noland objected.
+
+"Oh, well, if we do, we can always get money on sixty or ninety day
+loans," John replied easily.
+
+"I'd rather not go into debt, with my health," the new partner said
+decidedly.
+
+He happened to look across at Elizabeth and caught the alert sign of
+approval in her face. He had heard Silas and some others discuss the
+Hunter mortgages, but here was a still more significant evidence.
+Elizabeth had not signalled him, but the look told the story; in fact, it
+told more than the girl had intended.
+
+"I should consider it a necessary condition of any business I went into,"
+he added steadily. "I am an uncertain quantity, as I have told you, with
+this heart, and I could not be worried with debts."
+
+Elizabeth did not look at him this time, but he saw the look of
+satisfaction and heard her indrawn breath. And now the really lovable side
+of Hugh Noland began to show out. Feeling now that he was a real member of
+the family, he began to give himself to its pleasing features. The
+evening's reading became a thing to which the whole group looked forward.
+The flow of companionship exceeded anything any member of the family had
+ever anticipated. Jake arrived in time for the spring work, as he had
+agreed, and was astonished by every feature of the family life which he
+saw about him. Elizabeth was cheerful, even happy, while John Hunter was
+another man. Jake figured out the changes about him wistfully, craving a
+part in the good-fellowship. Here was contentment such as Jake had never
+witnessed. Not a trace of the old tragic conditions seemed to remain. Jake
+had missed the key to the situation by his absence at the time of the
+blizzard, but he was keenly aware that some change had been wrought. He
+studied Hugh Noland and was even more enthusiastic about his personality
+and powers than the family. All called the new man by his given name, a
+sure sign of their affection.
+
+Elizabeth had worked a radical change in her life. Jake watched her come
+and go without remark from her husband, give her orders to Hugh to hitch
+up for her if she chose to drive, or if she walked, going without
+permission, and was almost as pleased as she. He saw that she had learned
+to keep her own counsel and not to speak of her plans till the time for
+action had arrived. He felt a something new in her.
+
+Elizabeth had, in fact, learned that while openness was a point of
+character, nevertheless, if she dealt openly with her husband it led to
+quarrelsome discussions. She saw that John did not know why he opposed
+her, that it was instinctive. As she studied him, however, she found how
+widely separated they were in spirit. The calm which Jake saw, was all
+there, but there were other things fully as vital which had not been there
+before. The self-questioning of those months previous to Aunt Susan's
+death had been productive of results. While a certain openness of attitude
+had disappeared, there was the strength which has all the difference
+between deceit and reserve in Elizabeth Hunter's face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE CHILD OF HER BODY
+
+
+In the spring Elizabeth's affairs, which had promised to straighten out,
+were complicated from a new quarter. She was now to test her strength
+against the greatest of all problems for women and to find out if she
+could put her precepts into practice. The probability of a second child
+had become a certainty; the necessity of adjusting her good-will to
+accidental child-bearing was upon her. Often and often her words to
+Sadie--"I always wanted my baby"--rose up to accuse her. Only of late had
+suspicion become a certainty. Elizabeth did not greet that certainty with
+joy. Life was hard; she had more work to do already than she was able to
+perform; try as she would she could not get her mental consent. Why must
+she have this undesired child? When the thought first wormed its way into
+her head, Elizabeth passed from disappointment to self-accusation. By
+every law of God and man a mother should want her child; if she did not,
+then she stood accused at Nature's bar.
+
+"For its sake I've got to want it; I'll make myself," she decided. But she
+did not want it, and found to her growing dismay that she could not make
+herself satisfied about it. Instead of becoming reconciled, the question
+enlarged and grew and gained in point and force. The girl decided that she
+would be glad in spite of every opposing thing, but her resolution was
+formed with tears in her heart, if not in her eyes, and the weary ache in
+her back never ceased. "It must not be so. My child must be welcome!"
+Elizabeth told herself each morning, but she was too tired; it was not
+welcome, and all her efforts failed to make it so.
+
+John was vexed when he found her in tears.
+
+"The idea!" he exclaimed. "Now if we were too poor to feed and clothe it
+there'd be some excuse, but----" He made his pause as expressive as he
+could.
+
+"It isn't that. I--I'm so tired and--I ought to be glad--and--and I'm
+not," she began.
+
+"Well, I suppose with mother gone"--Mrs. Hunter had returned to her old
+home on a visit--"you _have_ got a good deal to look after, but I've got
+to get to the field now. You're always raking something up that looks
+wrong to you. If you'd stick to your work and not run around looking for
+trouble you'd be able to want it, maybe."
+
+The force of her husband's suggestion struck the girl. Perhaps it was true
+that she had missed the very highest for herself in loving ease and
+comfort enough to seek them. To put discontent away from her and to keep
+her thoughts occupied she began the spring housecleaning. There was so
+much regular cooking and milk work that only one room could be attacked at
+a time, but she kept busy, and the plan worked admirably during the day.
+She was not sleeping well, however, and found that nights have a power all
+their own. When the lights went out, thought held the girl in its
+relentless grip. It was of no use to lengthen her working hours in the
+hope that sleep would come more promptly, for the more exhausted Elizabeth
+became the less able was she to sleep, and thought stared at her out of
+the darkness with eyes like living coals.
+
+Wherever Elizabeth turned this monster confronted her, this monster whose
+tail was a question mark, whose body obscured everything on the horizon of
+the immediate future except its own repulsive presence, and threw her back
+upon the suffering present and the much to be deplored past. Was it right
+to permit a child to come when joy had gone out of relations between its
+parents? This question grew and ripened and spread, and whenever she
+summoned up enough will-power to weed it out for an hour it would spring
+up anew, refreshed and more tenacious than ever.
+
+"Whether it's right or not for John and me to have a child after we've
+quit loving each other, if I can only be glad it's coming, or even be
+willing to have it, I won't mind, now," she told herself. But she was not
+glad, and she was not even willing. She dragged herself about, keeping
+busy day after day as her husband had advised; it was her only refuge, and
+one which could not avail very long, for already she was worn out. On the
+last day of the cleaning, Hugh Noland came to the door of her room and
+speaking from the outside said:
+
+"I came in to see if I couldn't help you a little in getting ready for
+those shellers, Mrs. Hunter." Hugh had noticed her weary look of late,
+and, as all the men about the house did, tried to help whenever there was
+time to be spared from the fields or when extra work was required of her.
+
+"Shellers?"
+
+Elizabeth backed out of the closet she was cleaning, and came around to
+the door.
+
+"Shellers? Are we going to have shellers?"
+
+"To-morrow," he said in surprise.
+
+In spite of her exclamation of astonishment Elizabeth noted a familiar
+look on Hugh Noland's face which had something in it that always caught
+her attention. Always when an unexpected thing came upon Hugh, Elizabeth
+had a sense of having had past relations with him.
+
+"You don't tell me you didn't know?"
+
+"I surely didn't. When did John go to see the men about it? Why, I haven't
+even bread baked!" she exclaimed.
+
+"That's funny! Well--I suppose he forgot to tell you. The men passed here
+before dinner and he went out to the road and engaged them. We've got a
+little corn left over, and prices seem to be up this week."
+
+"Well, it's only one of many things," she said, trying to smile.
+
+Her eyes wandered over the disordered bedroom as she considered. Clothing,
+boots, shoes, and other articles of apparel lay scattered over the bed.
+Her orderly soul could not leave them without finishing.
+
+"I'll tell you what you do--I'll straighten up here. You go over to Uncle
+Nate's and get me some yeast. I'll have to bake. I made him some yeast the
+last time I made for myself, and he'll have some left. It's been too damp
+and cloudy to make any of late. Then I'll see what you can do," she said
+wearily. "I surely will need help if I've got to have a dozen extra men
+without notice. I suppose John forgot. He's usually thoughtful about the
+cooking for strange men."
+
+Something in the hurt, weary look of her went to Hugh Noland's heart.
+
+"I'll run over to Hornby's and back in half an hour unless he's at the far
+side of the field. Anyhow, I'll get back the very first minute I can. I
+have to start to Mitchell County to-morrow, early in the morning, so I
+won't have any time to do anything except to-night. I can kill the
+chickens for you, and bring things up out of the cellar. What on earth
+made anybody put a cave as far from the kitchen door as that for is more
+than I can see," he said, taking vengeance on the first unpleasant feature
+of her circumstances that presented itself.
+
+Hugh did not at all understand why she was sick and unequal to the demands
+made upon her strength, but he did see that she was so, and that her tired
+young face wore a discouraged expression.
+
+"I'll take Jack with me; that'll help some," he said as an afterthought.
+
+"If you would----" The relief in her voice told the strain it was upon her
+to work and watch the toddling child. "I'll tell you--hurry back and tack
+this carpet down for me. I'll have the room and closet straightened up so
+that you can do it by then."
+
+She wiped Jack's dirty face with the end of a towel she thrust into the
+water pitcher on the washstand and sent him off with a kiss to the welcome
+ride. As she worked after they were gone, she ran over in her mind the
+supplies on hand for the feeding of fifteen men on such short notice.
+Threshing and corn-shelling meant hard work to the men who followed the
+business, but it meant feasting and festivity as well, and it was with the
+prospect of much cooking on the morrow that Elizabeth furrowed her
+forehead, and hurried with the replacing of the contents of the closet.
+There was a sponge to be set to-night and bread to bake to-morrow; there
+was a cake to be baked, beans picked over and set to soak, and dried fruit
+to stew; also, and what was more annoying, she had let the churning run
+over for twenty-four hours in order to finish her cleaning.
+
+"If I can't get around to that churning, I'll just let it go if it does
+sour," she decided at last.
+
+When Hugh came back she set him to work at the carpet and went to the
+kitchen to look after things there. Nathan had offered to keep Jack when
+he heard of the unexpected work his mother was going to have thrust upon
+her, and Hugh, remembering Elizabeth's relieved expression when he had
+offered to bring the child, was only too glad to leave him in such good
+hands.
+
+"How long is that child going to stay at Hornby's?" John demanded the next
+morning. He set the heavy cream jar on the table and faced Elizabeth, who
+was kneading the bread on the big bread-board which rested on the top of
+the flour barrel.
+
+"I don't know--till Uncle Nate gets time to bring him home to-day, I
+suppose."
+
+Elizabeth did not look up.
+
+"Well, I don't want this thing to happen again. A child that age has no
+business away from home. What was your idea, anyhow?"
+
+"Ask Hugh. I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't even know it
+till he got back. He knew you had engaged the shellers without giving me
+any notice, and he knew I had too much for any woman to do. Uncle Nate
+knew it too. Go on, and don't bother me this morning; I'm so tired I can't
+talk about it, anyhow."
+
+John Hunter was instantly apologetic.
+
+"Oh, well, if Hugh did it I suppose he meant well. He got off all right. I
+look for some results with that Mitchell County land if he goes into it
+right. I'll send the cattle down as soon as he has time to get the fences
+in line and a man to look after them. I brought this cream up; it won't
+keep any longer."
+
+John lifted the lid of the cream jar and sniffed with disapproval. "I'll
+just put it into the churn for you."
+
+"Oh, dear! what did you bring it up for to-day? I can't churn with all
+I've got to do. Take it back."
+
+"It won't keep!"
+
+"Well--I can't churn, and I won't, so there! I've got all I can do to-day.
+I should not have let it go, but the cleaning dragged so; besides, I
+didn't know I was going to have all these men to-day and I thought I could
+get it done. Take it back. I can't have the churn around in the way
+to-day. I've never let a churning go to waste in my life, but if this gets
+too sour it won't cost any more than to have hired a girl to help with the
+work this week. Go on, and take it to the cellar and let me alone."
+
+Elizabeth turned her back to show him that the argument was over, and did
+not see that he went out without it, leaving it on the back of the one
+small kitchen table she had. The pies she had just finished baking were
+ready to be taken from the oven, and when she turned to put them on the
+table she was confronted by the cream jar. The table was not large and she
+must have room for the food to be cooked that day, so Elizabeth lifted the
+heavy jar from the table and, after the pies were out, brought the churn.
+She could not carry it to the cellar again and there was no other way.
+
+The sour cream refused to yield, and the girl churned on and on while she
+watched the dinner cook. The dinner boiled and bubbled, and the stove was
+working as actively in the kitchen as the corn-sheller was doing in the
+barnyard, when Nathan set Jack in the doorway and followed him in. Nathan
+sniffed appreciatively.
+
+"Smells pretty good in here," he said, and then surveying the room in
+surprise added, "What on earth be you churnin' for? Ain't you got enough
+t' do, child?"
+
+Elizabeth stooped to gather Jack into her arms and made no reply.
+
+"It's as hot as th' devil in here," Nathan said, taking his coat off.
+"Here let me have a turn at that churn. You ought t' be in bed. That's
+where Sue'd put you if she was here."
+
+He took the dasher into his own hand and began a brave onslaught on the
+over-sour cream. The butter gave signs of coming, but would not gather. He
+churned, and the sweat of his brow had to be wiped frequently to keep it
+from where he would literally have it to eat; it ran down inside his
+prickly blue flannel shirt, it stood out on his hair, hands and arms like
+dew on the morning grass, and the old man looked out to the wheezing
+corn-sheller and envied the men working in the cool breeze where life and
+courage could be sustained while one laboured.
+
+"I wouldn't be a woman for fifty dollars a day," he announced with grim
+conviction. "It'd make a devil out of anybody t' work in this hell-hole.
+No wonder you're s' peeked, child."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+John came back to the house almost immediately after leaving it to go to
+work in the afternoon.
+
+"You'll have to bake more pies, Elizabeth. The men have been put back by a
+breakdown. They won't be able to get through before five or half-past," he
+said, coming into the kitchen to investigate the larder.
+
+"They can't?" Elizabeth exclaimed, longing for the rest she had planned to
+get after the dinner work was finished.
+
+"No. It's too bad, but it can't be helped. Now you get the oven going and
+I'll come in and help you about beating the eggs. You'll have to make
+custard pie, I guess, for there ain't enough fruit to make any more.
+Hurry, and I'll be in in a few minutes."
+
+"I'm not going to make any more pies to-day," Elizabeth replied.
+
+"You'll have to. Men like pies better than anything you could put on the
+table. How are you off for meat? Have you chicken enough left or shall I
+bring up a ham?"
+
+Elizabeth faced this second meal with a dread she could not have
+expressed; she was so tired that she could scarcely stand; her back ached,
+and there was a strange pain pulling at her vitals.
+
+"I'll attend to the supper. Go right on out of here. I am not going to
+bake any more pies. You crowded that churning on me this morning and you'd
+make my work double what it ought to be if I let you help. Go on!"
+
+John brushed past her and lifted the bread-box.
+
+The fierce heat of the cook stove, the pain in her back, the certain
+knowledge of suggestions to come, broke down the poise the girl was trying
+to maintain.
+
+"I don't want any remarks about that bread-box! I've got sense enough to
+get supper. Go on out to your own work and let me attend to mine."
+
+John Hunter stepped back in astonishment. He had been sympathetic, and had
+really wanted to be helpful. He was insulted and struck an attitude
+intended to convey the fact, but his wife closed the oven door with a bang
+and left the room without looking at him.
+
+John punished his wife that night by letting her wash the supper dishes
+alone.
+
+The next morning John continued to be aloof of manner and went to his work
+without attempting to empty the skimmed milk as usual, or to strain the
+new milk which stood at the top of the long cellar stairs. Elizabeth
+skimmed and strained and put the shelves in order. Her head ached, and her
+back never ceased hurting. When the last crock had been carried from the
+cave, the half-sick girl dragged herself to the bedroom and threw herself
+down on the unmade bed.
+
+"I don't care--I won't do another stroke till I feel better, if it's never
+done. It wasn't nice for me to scold yesterday when he really wanted to
+help, but he makes so much extra work that I _can't_ get it all done. It
+don't hurt him any more to be scolded than it does me to be kept on my
+feet after everything in my body is pulling out. He won't run off again
+and leave me to carry that heavy milk. I don't know why I didn't just
+leave it."
+
+Elizabeth did not realize that she had done more than waste useful
+strength on useless tasks. She had yet to find out that it would have been
+cheaper to have left the entire contents of the cellar to sour or mould
+than to have worked on after she could do no more in comfort. It took
+Doctor Morgan to point out to her that farmers and their wives place undue
+value on a dollar's worth of milk, and that they support those of his
+profession at a far greater price than their butter would cost if they fed
+the milk to the pigs; also that they fill the asylums with victims and
+give younger women the chance to spend what they have worked to save after
+they are transplanted to other regions. They had been obliged to send for
+the doctor at noon.
+
+The name of peritonitis did not impress the young wife with any importance
+when the old doctor warned her to lie still and rest. The fierce pain was
+eased by getting off her feet and she was so glad to rest that she took
+his advice, but she had had no illness and little experience with chronic
+ailments. He hoped to pull her through without the threatened disaster,
+but warned her solemnly.
+
+"I'm glad we have you where you can't carry anything more out of that
+confounded hole in the ground," he said savagely. "You'd never quit till
+you were down, anyhow. Now don't you lift that child, no matter whether he
+cries or not."
+
+He took John aside and talked to him seriously about his wife, and
+demanded that there be a hired girl procured. John listened as seriously
+and went to the kitchen and got the supper and prepared for breakfast. He
+worked diligently and took Elizabeth a dainty bite to eat, but when the
+question of a girl came up, he had his own say about that.
+
+"I'll do the work in this house till you can get around yourself, but I
+never intend to look for a girl in this country again. You'll be stronger
+after a bit and then you can look for one."
+
+He put Jack's nightgown over his little head and buttoned it in the back
+while he talked.
+
+"This 'll pass over, and You'll be better in a week's time. I don't care
+if you have two girls, so I don't have to hunt them. Here, Jack, let me
+slip that shoe off."
+
+"I can't seem to get well, though, with the drag of the housework on my
+mind," the girl said drearily.
+
+Elizabeth wanted a woman in the kitchen. She lay without speaking for a
+moment, thinking that as usual she was unable to get the thing that her
+own judgment demanded. John would wash his dishes clean and keep the
+cooking and sweeping done as well as she, but she knew that the first day
+she would be out of bed she would be dragged to the kitchen to consult and
+oversee continually.
+
+"Doctor Morgan said I might not be able to get around much all summer,"
+she ventured, exaggerating the words of the old doctor somewhat in her
+determination to get help at all costs that would leave her free to get
+well.
+
+"At least you can wait and see," John replied indifferently, already
+concerned with his own problems. He pushed Jack from his lap and sat lost
+in thought.
+
+Elizabeth made it a rule never to argue unless there was hope of righting
+things. To say one word more was to lose her temper and that she tried not
+to do. The girl was really very ill; her head ached, and her body was sore
+and tender. She had not had a whole night's sleep for weeks and every
+nerve in her body cried out for rest; she wanted the light put out, she
+wanted to get quiet and to forget the house, and to be freed from the
+confusion; she was so nervous that she started at every noise. The night
+was cool and Jack, who shivered in his thin gown, crawled into his
+father's lap. John wanted to think at that moment, and to get rid of him
+put him firmly down on the foot of the bed, moving over to give him room
+at his side as he did so.
+
+"Oh, don't shake the bed!" Elizabeth exclaimed, with such concentrated
+irritation that John set the child on the floor hastily.
+
+"I only thought you could watch him a minute. I can't keep him on my lap
+all the time," John replied.
+
+"Well, put him in the bed then, or tie him up or do something. I don't
+want to watch him, and his climbing around on the bed sets me crazy!" she
+exclaimed, pushing the child away from her pillow.
+
+"We don't tie children up in the Hunter family," John replied, as usual
+falling upon the unimportant phase of the discussion and, instead of
+putting the child in bed, carried him off to the sitting room, where he
+fell into another brown study and let the baby slip from his lap again.
+
+Jack, as soon as released, ran back to the bedroom and threw himself up
+against the side of the bed, stretching his arms up to be taken.
+
+"Don't, dear; go to papa," Elizabeth said, trying to reach him.
+
+Jack sidled away toward the foot of the bed, where he regarded his mother
+with stolid eyes, and beat a tattoo on the bed-rail with his hard little
+head.
+
+"Jack! Don't do that!" she commanded sharply.
+
+It was torture for her to have the bed jarred.
+
+Jack, baby fashion, raised his head and gave the bed-rail another whack.
+
+Elizabeth sat up suddenly and gave the child such a resounding slap that
+he sat down, shaking the whole house with the impact, his screams quite in
+keeping with the occasion. John carried the crying child out of the room,
+shutting the door with such a bang that the house and bed shook anew, and
+the girl had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.
+
+It was the first time Elizabeth had ever struck her child in anger.
+Usually gentle and patient with his baby wilfulness, her heart recoiled at
+the deed. She knew that the possibilities of that action had been growing
+upon her of late. Nothing could excuse it to the accusing judge of
+Elizabeth's own soul. It was as if she were fenced around with a thousand
+devils; turn where she would there was no help and but little hope. She
+had come to understand herself enough to know that with sufficient
+provocation she would almost certainly do it again. The girl thought of
+her father. The deed was so like things that she had seen him do that she
+almost tore her hair as she prayed to be spared such a soul-destroying
+fate.
+
+It was Jack's future estimates of her that caused her so much distress.
+The things emphasized by the mother in a home, she knew, were the things
+emphasized in the lives of her children. She had only to look at Jack's
+father to see the evidences of that truth. Mrs. Hunter's cleanliness and
+order, her tendency to over-emphasize details, were her son's strongest
+watchwords. It was absolutely imperative that she do the right thing by
+Jack. As she pondered she decided that she would rise up and make one more
+effort for the child. Then, like a creeping serpent, the thought of her
+attitude toward the child of her body suddenly presented its forked tongue
+and demanded that its future be reckoned with. From what principle was she
+dealing with it? Elizabeth knelt before the shrine of that child, not in
+joy and adoration, but with a fear which had almost become a hatred.
+
+Elizabeth did not realize that it was the work and worry which she had
+gone through in these last weeks which made her irritable. She did not
+recognize the difference between nerves and temper, but she had come to
+understand that the unborn child was draining her strength. The prayer in
+her heart as she lay there thinking it out was for help to adjust her life
+to the conditions which she must meet, for strength to control herself,
+and for the power to so order her mental attitude toward this new child
+that she might be able to love it as it certainly deserved to be loved.
+But even as she prayed a horrible thought took possession of her:
+
+"If only it would die and be prematurely released, as Doctor Morgan had
+said there was danger of it doing!"
+
+It was then that Elizabeth Hunter realized the possibilities in herself.
+That was murder! If John complicated her work throughout eternity it would
+not warrant such an attitude. But this second child! It was the absorbing
+topic of her thoughts as she vainly tried to rest. She was so worn out
+that she could face no more work than she already had to do, and ever as
+she thought this serpent of temptation thrust its head out at her and
+said: "If the child would only die!"
+
+Elizabeth had only to get out of bed and go to work to rid herself of the
+hateful burden in the present state of her health, but under no
+circumstances would she have done it. She would have parted with her right
+hand before she would have helped to destroy a life she had permitted to
+spring into being, and yet---- The thought occurred, and recurred, in
+spite of every effort, "If only----" And she knew that if it happened
+without her assistance she would be glad.
+
+Elizabeth's distress increased, and when John brought her dinner on a tray
+covered with a fresh napkin and beside the plate a violet he and Jack had
+found in the pasture she brightened with pleasure at the dainty
+arrangement, but did not touch the food.
+
+"Now be good to the baby; he's been asking for you all morning," he said,
+kissing Elizabeth with an effort at kindliness and understanding.
+
+Elizabeth's head was aching wildly, and she was so nervous that she could
+scarcely endure being spoken to at all.
+
+"Then don't leave him here, John, for I can't bear to have him fussing
+around," she said, trying to be appreciative.
+
+"Oh, well, if you don't want him at all, I'll take him out again," he said
+crossly, setting the tray on a chair beside the bed.
+
+He was able, however, to see that the girl was not altogether herself, and
+shut the door behind him carefully. The door shut so softly that the latch
+did not catch. When Jack finished his dinner he came running to his
+mother's room at once. The door gave way under his hand and he stood
+looking into the room curiously. After a glance around, he advanced
+confidently toward the bed with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
+
+Elizabeth set her teeth hard. She was unable to reach out and lift him to
+a chair where he would not jar the bed, so it was her intention to be
+patient.
+
+Jack's eyes fell upon the tray as he passed it, and he wheeled around and
+took stock of the contents of this new form of table. Frantic with
+irritability and knowing that she would be at fault in the manner of
+correcting the child, his mother let him eat out of the plate she had left
+untouched, rather than have a scene with him. Presently, however, Jack
+laid down the spoon with which he had been eating and attacked a dish of
+berries with his hands, letting the drops from the ends of his fingers
+trickle down the front of his clean gingham dress. Elizabeth happened to
+look up and saw what he was doing. There was no telling when she could get
+another washing done and her impulse was to spring at him and snatch him
+from harm's way, but she was trying to be more gentle and, drawing in a
+deep breath, she spoke as quietly as she could command herself to do.
+
+"Don't do that, Jack," she said, reaching out her hand to take him by the
+arm.
+
+Jack clutched the dish in sudden haste and raised it to his mouth, letting
+a stream of the purple juice dribble from it to his own bulging front
+before his mother could get her hand on him. Then, fearing a repetition of
+the blow of the night before, the baby threw himself on the floor,
+screaming loudly.
+
+John came excitedly from the kitchen.
+
+"What have you done to him now?" he asked, and without waiting to hear her
+reply went out, flinging the door back with a crash.
+
+It was nearly dark when Doctor Morgan came, but although he was anxious to
+get back to his office he saw at once that he must stay with the suffering
+girl.
+
+In the morning he called John out to the buggy and had a little talk with
+him.
+
+"I feel, Hunter, as if I'd been a little to blame for this thing," he said
+as he picked up his lines to start for home. "I thought you'd be able to
+see that noise and worry were bad for her. I ought to have impressed the
+gravity of her condition on you and warned you that she must not be
+worried by that baby. You can see every muscle in her set hard when the
+bed is jarred. That child's got to be kept out of there. Those things hurt
+a woman in that condition like a knife."
+
+"She's been awfully cross and cried about everything this week, but she
+hasn't complained much--that is, of anything but a little backache," John
+replied, fingering the whipstock of the doctor's buggy and not able to
+connect the present serious illness with any real reason.
+
+"Little backache!" Doctor Morgan exclaimed with exasperation. "I never
+seem to be able to get you men to understand that noise hurts a woman
+sometimes worse than if you'd hit her with a ball-bat. Hurts, mind! It
+ain't imagination; it hurts, and will send a fever up in no time. Have I
+made it clear to you?" he asked doubtfully.
+
+"I guess you have," John said, relinquishing the whipstock. "She's been
+awfully fretful, but I never thought of her being sick enough for this."
+
+"Well," the old doctor said emphatically. "You've lost the child, and
+You'll lose your wife if you don't look out. You get a girl in that
+kitchen, and see to it that she tends things without Mrs. Hunter having to
+look after her. She won't do another day's work for a good long time--and
+mind, I say, You'll lose her yet if you don't keep that child off her till
+she has a chance to get well."
+
+As Doctor Morgan drove away he said meditatively:
+
+"Think I got him that time. Blamed fool!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"HER WAGES, FOOD AND CLOTHING SHE
+MUST ACCEPT"
+
+
+Luther Hansen was at the door when John returned, and they entered the
+sitting room together. Jack was leaning against the bedroom door, and
+John, who remembered Doctor Morgan's parting advice, went to close it. The
+baby ran to his mother, escaping the outstretched hands of the father, who
+was after him, but the child had miscalculated the opposition this time
+and was taken firmly into John's arms and lifted free from the bed.
+
+"Tell Luther to come to me," Elizabeth whispered.
+
+"Doctor Morgan said----" John began.
+
+"Tell Luther to come to me," Elizabeth repeated, putting every particle of
+strength she had into her voice so that by having Luther hear her John
+would be obliged to comply.
+
+Luther came without having to be told.
+
+"Luther, could you get Hepsie back for me, if you told her Mother Hunter
+was gone and would not come back?" she asked, falling back into a whisper
+from sheer weakness.
+
+Luther bent to catch her words. Elizabeth's illness showed plainly in her
+pinched face this morning; he would have done anything she asked of him.
+
+"Of course," he answered cheerfully.
+
+Luther really did not know whether Hepsie could be had, but he meant to
+have her if she was not already at work somewhere else. He listened to the
+directions and promised without equivocation that Hepsie would come. He
+understood that for some reason the thing Elizabeth asked of him she could
+ask of him alone, but was careful to couch his replies so that that fact
+was not indicated even to her.
+
+When it was arranged, Elizabeth closed her weary eyes as a sign that she
+wished to be alone, and the men retired from the room, leaving her in the
+first real peace she had known since her illness began. With Hepsie in the
+house, she could look forward to the days to come with less dismay. She
+resolved that if she did get the girl back that she would keep her as long
+as there were hired men to cook for. With the assurance that Hugh would
+keep John from falling into debt again there would be funds to pay her and
+there was as much need of a girl in the kitchen as of men in the field.
+
+Hepsie came gladly. She had always liked Elizabeth, and the well-furnished
+Hunter house, with the equally well-furnished pantry, was desirable.
+
+Elizabeth's life was in grave danger and when John at last grasped the
+fact he looked after her needs rigorously. He tiptoed about the house,
+looking to it personally that no discomfort assailed the wan patient. Jack
+learned the note of authority in his father's voice, and incidentally the
+weight of his hand also, and quiet prevailed. John reflected the mood of
+the sick room in every step he took. Much of the time Elizabeth was too
+ill to observe John's changed attitude, but the second week she began to
+awake to things about her. She went over the situation again and again.
+Something had to be done. Things had promised to straighten out since
+Hugh's coming, but the very day of his first absence the old coercion was
+renewed. John would not have brought the cream jar up without asking if
+Hugh had been there, or if he had done so she could have mentioned the
+inconvenience of its presence before Hugh and got it carried back to the
+cellar. The importance of Hugh's presence loomed up before Elizabeth as
+she lay considering her situation; Hugh was her only hope for better
+conditions. She had accepted Hugh as a happy feature of the family life
+and of the business, but she had not thought of him as a factor in her
+personal affairs.
+
+There was another feature of the weariness which came from being pushed
+beyond the amount of work she was momentarily able to do: she became
+irritable with Jack when tired, and then John interfered. Here again, her
+only hope lay in Hugh. With Hugh present John was suave, polite, and apt
+to treat her as a man is supposed to treat his wife. Considering all these
+things, Elizabeth began to look forward to Hugh's return eagerly.
+
+As if to favour Elizabeth's plans, Hugh Noland found Mitchell County a
+lonely place to stay and as soon as the fencing was finished put a man in
+charge and returned with all possible speed.
+
+"Oh, John, you brother!" he exclaimed when he met John Hunter at the
+kitchen door the day he arrived. He held out both his hands. "I haven't
+had such a sense of coming _home_ since my mother's death."
+
+They greeted, and looked at each other long and earnestly, and John Hunter
+allowed himself to enter into closer relations of friendship and love than
+he had ever done in the twenty-seven years of his life.
+
+"I'm glad you're here," John said when he had recovered from his surprise
+over this unusual demonstration of affection. "We're going to lift
+Elizabeth out into a chair for the first time to-day. She'll be glad
+you've come too."
+
+"How is she? You didn't say much about her in your last letter."
+
+"Wasn't much to say," John replied. "She's better--that's the main thing.
+Come on into the sitting-room till I can get her ready and get a quilt in
+the rocking chair."
+
+"Got a girl, I see!" Hugh remarked in a whisper as they closed the door
+behind them.
+
+"Yes, and a good one fortunately. Too much milk and butter. I found that
+out when I got at it. No more buttermaking in mine. I had the whole thing
+on my hands for over a week. I turned half those cows out to grass," John
+said, bringing forward the chair for the invalid.
+
+"I was afraid the morning I left that she had too much to do with all
+those shellers on such short notice."
+
+Hugh stooped to pick up the baby.
+
+"How are you, partner?" he cried, swinging the delighted child up to the
+ceiling. Jack was wild with joy. Hugh stood with legs wide apart and
+cuddled the baby to him for a squeeze. This was part of the homecoming
+too. He was still hugging Jack tenderly when John beckoned from the
+bedroom door.
+
+Hugh drew the rocking chair into the bedroom and then stopped to stare at
+the wasted figure wrapped in a quilt who had to be supported while he
+adjusted it.
+
+"John! You didn't tell me she was like this!"
+
+He took the thin hands in his, both of them, just as he had done John's a
+moment before, and was moved almost to tears by the pallid face.
+Elizabeth's brown eyes had fallen back into her bony, sharp-lined head,
+and her nose was thin and drawn.
+
+"Words fail me, Mrs. Hunter," he said feelingly.
+
+But though words failed to express Hugh Noland's sympathy his eyes did
+not, and the girl, who had not had an hour's sympathetic companionship
+since he had been gone, caught the fact and was cheered by it.
+
+Hugh Noland was vital and invigorating. Elizabeth listened to his account
+of the adventures in Mitchell County. He was a good story-teller and his
+incidents were well selected. She was too weak to sit up a whole hour and
+was carried tenderly back to her bed, where the family life centred now
+that she was becoming able to stand the noise and confusion of it.
+
+During the days which followed, Hugh, at John's suggestion, brought his
+books and read aloud to them in that little bedroom in the warm spring
+evenings, and life in the Hunter house took on a brighter complexion than
+it had ever before assumed.
+
+John, who had been sleeping in Hugh's room since Elizabeth's serious
+illness, returned to his own bed. He looked about him for Jack the first
+night and asked where he was.
+
+"I sent him up to Hepsie's room," Elizabeth said quietly.
+
+"To sleep!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The children in the Hunter family are not put into the servants' beds,"
+John Hunter replied. The unexplained statement was offensive to a man
+accustomed to being consulted.
+
+To punish her John went to sleep without giving her the usual good-night
+kiss.
+
+"He'd have been cross, anyhow," was all the thought she gave that part of
+the circumstance. Could John Hunter have known that the absence of that
+kiss was a relief, and that he made of his presence sometimes an
+intolerable nightmare, he might have saved for himself a corner in her
+tired heart against the days to come. John's zeal and passion had gone
+into the pursuit of their courtship days. Now they were married,
+possession was a fact: Elizabeth was his wife.
+
+Elizabeth understood that John was whimsical and tyrannical, but not
+intentionally evil, but in spite of the fact that she had John's character
+summed up and understood that much that he did was not deliberately
+intended to do her injury, that little of it was in fact, she felt a
+growing disinclination for his presence. The unloved, undesired child
+which she had lost was a warning guidepost pointing its finger away from a
+continuance of marital relations. No conditions could make it right for
+her to have another child till love again existed between them. She saw
+that nothing could excuse or make decent the child of wornout conditions;
+nothing but affection made marriage worthy, and when that affection had
+departed from a man and woman, to thrust life upon a child was a crime
+against that child, a crime against nature and a crime against themselves
+and society; yet, what could she do? Her health was broken, and she
+without means of support. After Aunt Susan's death the girl had seriously
+considered separation; she still considered it, but not seriously. Though
+she cried "Fool! fool!" many times, she had given her youth, her health,
+her strength to John Hunter, and her wages--food and clothing--she must
+accept.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE CREAM-JARS OF HER LIFE
+
+
+While Elizabeth progressed toward health the work on the Hunter farm
+progressed also. Because of taking the cattle to Mitchell County it was
+possible to get in a greater acreage of small grain and corn. Patsie had a
+small colt at her side, as did her mate also, and there was an extra man
+needed in the field most of the time, but after repeated consultations it
+was decided that by using care the teams they had would be able to plow
+the corn, and that they could hire help for the harvesting cheaper than
+they could buy another pair of horses.
+
+However, in spite of the discussions which were supposed to have settled
+the matter, John came home from Colebyville one Saturday with a new team.
+
+"What do you think of them?" he asked Hugh, who opened the gate to let him
+into the barnyard. "I just made up my mind that it wasn't economy to push
+the horses we had so hard. I got them at a bargain."
+
+"You've bought them, you say?"
+
+"Yes," was the brief answer.
+
+"I'd take them back," Hugh said slowly but decidedly. "Horses and dogs
+talk with their tails, and I don't like the way this one acts."
+
+"I can't take them back. I got them from a mover. I got them for a song,
+and we're going to need them for the binder. I know what we said," he went
+on, interrupting Hugh, who was trying to speak, "but there was a bargain
+in them and we do need them."
+
+"But we haven't the money! How did you buy them? You couldn't pay for them
+outright."
+
+Hugh Noland had been feeling his way down the foreleg of the horse nearest
+him. The animal was nervous and had crowded over against its mate in an
+endeavour to get away. Both its ears were laid back, and there was a
+half-threatening air about its movements. As Hugh straightened up to
+continue the discussion of finances, it jumped aside, quivering with
+fright.
+
+"I gave a check on the bank," John replied uneasily. Hugh had never
+criticised him before.
+
+Hugh was taken up with soothing the nervous animal for a moment.
+
+"You'll run out of money before the summer's over," he said warningly.
+
+"Oh, I've had to borrow a little already. With Elizabeth's illness and
+all, I saw we weren't going to get through, so I just took out a loan of
+five hundred and paid Doc Morgan while I was at it. I meant to have told
+you. I've got some calves coming from over west to-morrow too." John
+poured it all out while he was at it, with a relief in having it over.
+
+There was a pause. When Hugh Noland again spoke it was with a distinct
+note of firmness and almost of authority.
+
+"The plain understanding in our partnership--the one I laid the most
+stress upon to start with--was that there should be no debts. I'm willing
+that you should be free to select a team; it isn't that. Did you borrow
+this money in the firm's name?"
+
+"Yes-s-s. I didn't think you'd care about a little sum like that," John
+said slowly. He was very uncomfortable. "I turned my personal note in on
+the account book for the doctor's bill. You can see it on the book."
+
+"I don't doubt at all but that you did, John. You're not called into
+question, old boy, on any other matter than the one of debts, but You'll
+never put this firm five cents in debt without coming to an instant
+understanding. I came to this country to get well. I won't get well, but I
+won't allow myself to get into anything that will run me down quicker with
+worry. You knew it before you went in with me--and you agreed."
+
+That was the final word John Hunter felt as he tied the skittish brute he
+had just purchased in the stall beside the door, and turned to put the hay
+down from the loft above. The sound of plunging feet and snorts of wild
+terror when the hay fell into the manger turned his mind to the probable
+truth of Hugh's opinion of the lately purchased horses.
+
+"I wonder if the blamed brutes are going to be too maggoty for our use
+after all," he thought. "It'd be just my luck. He was fair about it
+though," John admitted reluctantly. "Oh, well, after all, he's worth
+having around, and I'm going to do a deal better than I would if he hadn't
+come along. Elizabeth was right--I did get in too deep." And with this
+astonishing admission, John Hunter finished haying the horses and walked
+slowly to the house, thinking about the new horses, and half prepared to
+admit that he had made a mistake in buying them outright from a man who
+was able to get away before they could be proven, but Elizabeth and Hugh
+were already sitting by the table in the living room and he knew he was
+wanted. He went to the bedroom to wash his hands--John could not form the
+habit of washing in the kitchen as other farmers did--and as he washed,
+meditated, and as he meditated he found himself ready to accept this
+reproof from Hugh Noland, ready to live up to agreements if Hugh imposed
+them, ready to listen to Hugh and love him. Something in Hugh Noland was
+so fundamentally square that the principle of squareness took on a new
+meaning to John Hunter.
+
+"Here you are! You're the one that's insisted on these readings most, and
+you're always late," Hugh cried as John came from the bedroom, fresh and
+well groomed as if he had not done barn chores a few minutes before.
+
+The reading was part of John Hunter's play world. John was not a man of
+scholarly tastes, but reading, like the use of the hairbrush he had just
+laid down, was good form: they were both part of the world to which John
+wished to belong. A book might or might not relate to that world, but it
+was a book and seemed to do so, and while John Hunter might or might not
+get much intellectual advancement out of a book, he got advancement out of
+sitting in Hugh Noland's presence and opening his heart to the love and
+respect Hugh commanded from him. John did not close himself off from
+Hugh's influence as he did from Elizabeth's, and the things he refused to
+take from her he adopted and readily set into action at Hugh's
+suggestion.
+
+It was destined to be the last night in which John was to be permitted the
+comfort of this new feature of home life, however. As they were gathered
+about the breakfast table a man rode into the lane and called John Hunter
+to the door without getting off his horse.
+
+"Doc Morgan was goin' past my house this mornin' an' asked me if I'd bring
+this over t' you. 'E said it came after you left town, an' th' agent
+didn't know how t' git over t' you 'thout he was comin' this way this
+mornin'. Hope it ain't no bad news."
+
+He waited to see John tear open the envelope and read the telegram.
+
+"My mother's sick," was John's hurried statement as he turned toward the
+house.
+
+Hugh drove John Hunter to the station. The sun was hot and he had read
+till nearly midnight the night before, and, busy season though it was, he
+thought it best not to start home till toward night. Doctor Morgan had
+returned home and Hugh, as was his custom, went to the office for a chat.
+It was one of the chief delights of both to have an hour together.
+
+"Do they get along well together--Hunter and his wife?" Doctor Morgan
+asked after he had taken Hugh's health into account.
+
+"You'd think so if you'd heard the directions I received for her care just
+now," Hugh answered with a laugh.
+
+"Well, I don't care--I couldn't make him understand about her when she was
+sick. He let that squalling brat crawl over her, and let her do baking and
+things she wasn't fit to do till she was worn out," the old doctor said
+resentfully. Then added as an afterthought, "Say! You're not letting him
+run you into debt, are you?"
+
+"No debts in mine. There's one note and It'll be cleared up as soon as the
+small grain can be disposed of. I put the clamps on that as soon as I
+heard of it. It won't happen again. I think his wife was about as glad of
+the end of the credit business as any of us," Hugh said, and then added
+with a laugh: "I think you're mistaken about his treatment of her, though.
+You should have heard the directions he gave me about her as the train was
+about to pull out; you'd have thought she was his favourite child and that
+I was going to neglect her."
+
+Doctor Morgan snorted contemptuously.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know him. Hunter loves to give directions to anything from a
+puppy dog to a preacher. That's what's the matter with her. He directs
+_her_ all the time as if she didn't have sense enough to cook hot water or
+wash the baby. He ain't any worse than a lot of men I know of, but you
+expect more of a man that's half-educated. I tell you, Noland, the trouble
+'s in this business of men owning women. I've practised in these parts
+ever since this country's been opened, and I see a good deal of
+husbands--and they're a bad lot."
+
+Hugh Noland watched the old doctor with a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"You aren't going to give us men all a knock, are you?" he said amusedly.
+
+"I'm not saying anybody's bad," Doctor Morgan said, following out his own
+reasonings. "The trouble 's in men owning everything. Theoretically, a
+woman shares in the property, and of course she does if she gets a
+divorce, but as long as she lives with him he's the one that has the money
+and she has to ask for it if she has ever so little. You take Mrs. Hunter:
+she don't spend a cent he don't oversee and comment on; she's dependent on
+that man for every bite she eats and for every stitch she wears and he
+interferes with every blessed thing she does. Give that woman some money
+of her own, Noland, and where'd she be? John Hunter 'd treat her as an
+equal in a minute; he'd know she could quit, and he'd come to terms."
+
+Doctor Morgan swung the stethoscope with which he had been listening to
+Hugh's heart, and proceeded without waiting for Hugh to speak.
+
+"Oh, we doctors see a side of women's lives you other men don't know
+anything about. We see them suffer, and we know that the medicine we give
+them is all knocked out by the doings of the men they live with, and we
+can't raise our hands to stop the thing at the bottom of it all. Why, that
+woman's just lost a child I know she was glad to lose, and--oh, don't
+misunderstand me! She never told me she was glad she lost it, but how in
+God's name could she be otherwise? She couldn't do all he required of her
+without it. She had butter to make, and shellers to cook for, and then the
+damned fool 'd shove that heavy baby on her--and he actually talked to me
+about her being cross!"
+
+Hugh Noland was beginning to feel that living in a man's house did not
+constitute a knowledge of him, and yet there were the things he himself
+had seen and heard.
+
+"But, he's looking after her now as if she were a baby herself," he
+protested. "He urged me to look after her, and see that she didn't have to
+lift Jack yet for a while, and to humour the hired girl for fear they'd
+lose her, and he even insisted that I keep up the reading aloud that I've
+been doing for them."
+
+"I don't doubt that," the old doctor said, a bit nettled. "He's not all
+bad. He's a right good fellow--that's the very point I'm trying to make.
+It's because he _owns_ her and thinks he has a right to run her
+affairs--that's the trouble at the bottom of the whole thing. Now that
+she's sick he'll see that she don't have to lift the baby. If she owned
+herself she could stop lifting the baby before she got sick; a man can't
+tell when a woman feels like working and when she don't. What I want to
+say is, that a man browbeats a woman because she hasn't any money and
+can't help herself. Give a woman a home of her own that he couldn't touch,
+and then give her an income fit to raise her children, and he'd come into
+that house and behave, or he'd be sent out again, and she wouldn't age ten
+years in three, nor be dragged down to the hell of nagging to protect
+herself against him. I tell you, Noland, Kansas would be a stronger state
+right now, and a damned sight stronger state twenty years from now, if the
+women owned and run half of its affairs at least." Doctor Morgan ended
+quite out of breath.
+
+"I guess you're right, doctor, but I've got to get some barb wire loaded
+to take home, and you've preached the regulation hour and a half," Hugh
+said. He was living in the Hunter home, and he really loved both John
+Hunter and his wife, and honour demanded that he should not gossip about
+them.
+
+"Right you are, my boy. And I see your point too; I've no business to talk
+professional secrets even to you." He laid his arm affectionately across
+the younger man's shoulder and squared him around so that he could look
+into his face. "This is only a side of life I battle with in almost every
+home I go into. I'm almost glad you can't marry; It'll leave you where I
+can respect you. Think of a woman having a child she don't want! and think
+of a man respecting himself afterward! It destroys a woman's body, but the
+men--well, it's the most damnable, soul-destroying thing in a man's life;
+he's lost and don't even know it. Run along," he said after a pause, "or
+I'll hold forth for another hour in an unprofessional way. It makes me
+swear to see a pretty girl made old before she's twenty-five."
+
+But Elizabeth Hunter was not to be an old woman before she was
+twenty-five, for Elizabeth had Hepsie in the kitchen, she had learned to
+protect herself by refusing to be oppressed about the work she did do, and
+the weeks of rest that followed John's going were filled with the things
+which rested and restored her. It was not long till she was as attractive
+as she had ever been in all the years of her girlhood. Elizabeth was
+barely twenty-three, and there was a good constitution back of her which
+rest could set right; she was one of nature's favourites to whom colour
+and spirits return quickly. Every charm of person she had was enhanced by
+her present surroundings, for the brightness and freedom which came from
+John's absence were the crowning things needed to complete her recovery.
+
+Hugh Noland read to Elizabeth nightly, and in the daytime her comfort was
+his first thought. The work of cooking for those shellers had been his
+work as much as John's, but it had all fallen on her, fallen, according to
+Doctor Morgan, at a time when a man shielded even the mare in his harness
+from overwork. As he watched the colour come back to the girl's face day
+by day he recognized that the miracle was brought about by rest. In the
+return of Elizabeth's beauty there was a new element which Hugh Noland saw
+but did not recognize as new: to the roundness of girlhood was added the
+strength and experience of womanhood, to the mere physical charm of youth
+the maturity and poise of the woman who has fought, if not conquered,
+self.
+
+John had set the example of late hours, and the two read throughout the
+long, early summer evenings quite as much from habit as from inclination.
+It had been the established custom of the house for so long that Hepsie
+and the hired man accepted it as a matter of course. The men saw little of
+it because one of the first things Hugh had done when he had returned from
+Mitchell County had been to partition off a room in the well-built barn
+for the accommodation of the men. Jake, who loved Elizabeth with a
+dog-like fidelity, came and went about the house more freely than the
+rest, and saw the two seated about the sitting-room lamp, and was as glad
+as if he had had a place among them.
+
+"It's hers, God bless 'er!" he had said the night after John's departure,
+"an' I'm mighty glad she's got it. She ain't had much t' make 'er glad
+since I've been around these diggin's."
+
+Those were evenings never to be forgotten. As Hugh read, Elizabeth
+listened with the open-mouthed joy of girlhood, but the substance of what
+they read was viewed from the standpoint of a woman. Hugh found the girl's
+mind keen and alert. They began to turn to the classics, and Hugh Noland,
+whose profession it had been to teach, was surprised and delighted with
+the aptitude and viewpoints of his pupil. Elizabeth pursued literature
+with her usual thoroughgoing absorption; the dictionary was brought out
+and laid upon the table, and with it she spent long hours when Hugh was in
+the field.
+
+The second week in June, Hugh Noland was brought to a sudden stop in the
+delicious holiday experience by a remark of Elizabeth's. The book had been
+finished earlier than was usual for them to stop reading, and it had been
+decided that it was too late to begin another that night. Hugh was not
+ready to go to bed, and sat watching her as she straightened up the
+littered table. A book of poems they had once read fell open and the girl
+picked it up and began to read to herself. In a moment she was literally
+engulfed in it, and he watched her deep abstraction in full sympathy with
+the mood it represented. Presently she began to read aloud.
+
+Elizabeth read on and on, and Hugh dropped back into his chair and
+listened, studying her as she stood before him reading so intently that
+she forgot that she stood. When the end was reached she dropped the book
+on the table with a rapturous indrawn breath.
+
+"I never knew what real happiness was before," she said. "I wonder if they
+read in heaven?"
+
+"They'd have to let us read in our heaven or it wouldn't be heaven," Hugh
+Noland replied.
+
+With the words still in his mouth he realized what he had said. The
+serpent had invaded their paradise: henceforth they would wander outside
+of its confines. With a self-conscious flush, he shifted the eyes into
+which she was looking, and arose to say good-night.
+
+Although she did not understand it, Elizabeth also turned hastily away;
+Hugh Noland's embarrassment communicated itself to her. Her confusion
+puzzled her. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was near midnight; she
+had read longer than she had thought. In her surprised consideration of
+what Hepsie would think if she should hear Hugh pass her door at that
+hour, she got the first burst of light on the subject. Until now she had
+gone along night after night reading with Hugh Noland, absorbed in the
+books, and without any sort of attitude toward the man except that of
+good-fellowship, but now she stood revealed to herself and was covered
+with shame. That Hugh might be in love with her did not occur to her, but
+that he knew that she had feelings out of keeping with her vows of
+marriage she felt certain, and with her usual intensity Elizabeth went
+over the mark in her shame and contrition.
+
+"What must he have thought I meant? What must he think of me as a woman?
+Worse yet, what must he think of me as a wife?" she asked herself, and
+each question left her more bitterly humiliated, more self-distrusting,
+more unhappy.
+
+They were to learn, however, that three months of continual association
+over the books had formed a habit not easily laid aside. To the habit of
+intellectual companionship had been added the joy of close and
+reciprocated affection, and the sudden breaking off of this daily
+communication left both of them, especially Hugh, in a condition of almost
+tragic loneliness, but honest of heart and true of purpose, both avoided
+further readings.
+
+The nights were hot now; "good corn weather," Jake called it, and the time
+had come to "lay by" the early planting. John's absence had retarded the
+plowing, for try as he would the chores kept Hugh late in the morning and
+had compelled him to quit early at night. It had not been his intention to
+take the place of an active field worker, but the season had come on so
+rapidly that the weeds threatened to get the better of the hired men, and
+though it was all to learn over again, Hugh had gone out with the
+intention of doing good work and had succeeded, to Jake's astonishment and
+great admiration. It served Hugh's plans at this point to put in the long
+hours away from the house, knowing that otherwise he would fall back into
+the old life of the book at once. At first the heavy cultivator handles
+absorbed his time and thought, for it was fifteen years since Hugh Noland
+had cultivated corn, but when the work became more mechanical his mind
+wandered back to forbidden ground and the days were harder than any he had
+ever known.
+
+One frightfully hot day, near the end of the plowing of the first field,
+which lay near the house, Hugh found it necessary to rest the horses
+frequently. With each period of rest his thoughts returned to Elizabeth
+with new force and longing; his mind worked continually on the reading
+matter they had gone over, and constantly he wanted to elaborate or
+discuss some subject left unfinished. It was the devil with which he had
+to wrestle. Also, she showed the strain of disappointment when he met her
+at meals, and he found himself struggling with Doctor Morgan's
+observations on her health, her husband, and her happiness. As far as John
+was concerned, he thought the old doctor was mistaken, and be it
+remembered, Hugh Noland had a genuine liking for John Hunter. That liking
+added to the seriousness of his situation in John Hunter's home.
+
+He mopped his perspiring brow, while little wet lines showed in the
+creases of his sleeves and across the back of his thin summer shirt. The
+fierce heat parched his mouth and his whole burning body called for a
+drink. Tying his team to a post an hour after noon he vaulted over the
+fence and walked to the creek, picking his way down to the narrow stream.
+The heat of summer was drying the brook up rapidly; already there was but
+a tiny rivulet, but such as was left curled and trickled between grassy
+banks in a manner to attract the eye of a thirsty man. Hugh knelt on a
+hummock with his hand on the opposite bank and drank as only the man who
+plows corn on a hot June day can. As he stood up he paused with his
+handkerchief halfway to his face and listened, while the water dripped
+from nose and chin unheeded. The continuous tones of a voice reading aloud
+reached him. It was such a curious place to encounter such a phenomenon
+that he listened intently for a moment.
+
+"Elizabeth!" he whispered.
+
+Every pulse in Hugh Noland's body pounded suddenly. On the first impulse
+he was away in her direction, walking rapidly and without effort at
+concealment. Without taking time to think, without knowing or caring
+whether it were wise, he walked as straight toward the spot as the laden
+bee to the hive.
+
+Hugh's coming fell upon Elizabeth suddenly, but the perfect naturalness of
+her joy put him at his ease.
+
+"I heard you reading," he said simply. "What are you working on now?"
+
+He threw himself down on the grass beside the willow trunk on which she
+was seated and held out his hand for the book. After running his eye over
+the page he handed it back to her with the request that she read on. The
+heat of the summer day shimmered along the horizon outside, but here in
+the cool shade of the willows the delicious afternoon air lulled his
+senses and made of the spot a paradise of comfort and contentment. The
+girl was the embodiment of everything sweet and womanly to him, and the
+joy of the moment, bringing added colour to her cheeks, made the utmost
+contrast imaginable to the dust and drudgery of the afternoon in the corn
+rows.
+
+Hugh's coming had been so obviously voluntary and joyous that the fear she
+had entertained, that he would think ill of her as John Hunter's wife, was
+set at rest. The old confidence, sympathy, and companionship were
+retendered, and the girl met it with her habitual openness. She accepted
+the book from his hand and read as asked. Hugh Noland watched her
+earnestly, and recalled the things he had been told about her and her
+affairs. On more than one occasion he had been told that she had been
+neglected, and at the time had put the tale away as foolish farm gossip,
+but Doctor Morgan was no fool, and his gossip was usually not only true
+but had on this particular occasion fallen out with vehemence and
+conviction. As he looked at her he asked himself how any man could neglect
+a woman of Elizabeth's sincere qualities. She was so true that the only
+indication that he had ever received of even a slight difference of
+opinion with her husband had been the accidental one regarding debts. He
+remembered a remark of Sadie Hansen's to the effect that John Hunter never
+took his wife anywhere, and he remembered that in the four months he had
+been in the house he had never heard him offer to do so, and then Hugh
+Noland remembered that he had no right to think about it at all. However,
+his mind recurred to it in spite of all he could do, and presently he was
+immersed in the old consideration. Loyalty must be one of her qualities:
+four months he had been in her house and she had never been taken anywhere
+except to Nathan's, where he himself had taken her, and she had never
+remarked upon it, and she was but twenty-three!
+
+"Twenty-three!" he said under his breath.
+
+"What was it you said?" Elizabeth asked, looking up.
+
+"Nothing," he replied guiltily.
+
+Elizabeth became conscious and embarrassed.
+
+"I've kept you all afternoon!" she exclaimed, getting suddenly to her
+feet.
+
+"I wanted to be kept," Hugh admitted slowly, rising also. "It's
+frightfully hot in the middle of the afternoon. I'll work late, and milk
+after dark."
+
+"I'll bring up the cows and do the milking," she volunteered.
+
+"Let me see you!" he protested, and went to his work again.
+
+Hugh Noland had never even guessed that he would walk deliberately over
+and spend a whole afternoon with a woman he had no right to love after
+becoming aware that he was already in love with her. For the first time he
+stood in the limelight of strong emotions and knew himself for what he
+was, not only that he was a mere man, but that he was a man who was not
+showing the proper control over feelings and emotions which thousands of
+men and women alike controlled every day. He worked his problem over as he
+worked the mellow soil about the corn roots and made himself late, but
+with contradictory impulses hurried the milking when he did get at it so
+as to get down to the book again.
+
+Elizabeth had taken time to think out her side of their position, and told
+herself that she hoped that Hugh would not offer to read to-night, but as
+the time approached she trimmed the lamp and arranged the books on the
+sitting-room table with a slight sense of worry for fear he would not
+come, and conscious that the evening was going fast. It was late when they
+began, and correspondingly late when they finished the reading that
+night.
+
+The next night Hugh sat on the upturned manure cart talking to the men
+till he saw Elizabeth put out the light in the sitting room, and then, in
+spite of the fact that he had been strong enough to stay away, was sorry
+that he had not had one more night's reading with her before John came
+home. John was coming in the morning, and Hugh was to meet him, and Hugh
+Noland did not like himself, nor the position he would be in when he
+thought of greeting John Hunter as a friend.
+
+The better to think things out and decide what he would do, Hugh sat down
+on the doorstep and did not go in. The night was perfect. There was a full
+moon and the soft breeze was a delicious reminder of the coolness of the
+leafy bower among the willows where he had spent the afternoon with
+Elizabeth. There was to be no more of Elizabeth for him, God bless her!
+Elizabeth was a wife and honour demanded that not even a glance of
+affection pass between them. This Hugh Noland believed, and yet when they
+were together their little embarrassments cried their love aloud, and
+neither could mentally avoid the issue. Each had known that the other had
+resolved and suffered and fallen into the temptation of the reading. The
+book was becoming a delicious torment. He could not stay in that house.
+Plainly, it was going to be necessary for him to go away. The business
+demanded his attention, and he decided to go to Mitchell County. At that
+point Hugh stopped in his calculations to consider how things would run at
+this end of the line if he did so.
+
+In summing the business up, Hugh summed up his impression of John Hunter
+along with it, and found himself reluctant to go away and leave everything
+in his hands. John was industrious and tidy about his work. Dear old John!
+He had come very near Hugh's heart in the short time they had been
+together. The daily consideration of possible death had mellowed Hugh
+Noland's naturally fine nature, and given him the tenderness of attitude
+and thought that the sublime and inevitable impose upon those who live in
+its shadow. Actions considered as final are warmer and less likely to be
+inconsiderate than those where there is a feeling of indefinite time to
+correct mistakes. Hugh sat now and let his heart run out to John with all
+the love of a more than usually affectionate nature. In his heart he
+wanted John back home, and yet it made him uneasy. There was a peculiar
+sense of being a traitor as he considered the meeting with this man who
+had trusted his home in his hands. In regard to the business, he, Hugh,
+would have to let things take their own course. All he had on earth was in
+this farm now, but he would get away as soon as he could possibly do so;
+he would sacrifice that much to the man whose home he had entered. Hugh
+knew to a nicety how necessary it would be for his interests in a business
+way to be here on the ground and keep John Hunter from going into debt.
+Hugh had his own judgment, neighbourhood gossip, and Doctor Morgan's plain
+instructions on that point, but was resolved to go if he lost all that he
+had in so doing. "Well, at any rate, he can't mortgage anything without
+consulting me, and I'll get as much of the stock out there as I can after
+next year--that is, if there is any next year for me," he said, as he got
+up to go to bed long after midnight.
+
+The morning of John's return Elizabeth asked Hugh to take her as far as
+Nathan's on his way in to town. Hugh had not sat on the step till midnight
+the night before to let himself fall into temptation the first thing in
+the morning, and suggested that since the shafts of the buggy were mended
+that she drive over to Nathan's alone, giving as his reason that he might
+be unable to come back promptly. The girl fell into his plan so readily
+that Hugh in his contradictory frame of mind wondered about it and was
+half hurt. As he hitched Patsie into the shafts, however, he reasoned it
+out that Elizabeth Hunter was probably making the same fight that he was
+making. He tied the mare in the side lane and left her there without going
+to the house as usual to help with Jack. If she were fighting for her own
+esteem, as he was doing, Hugh resolved not to be the cause of temptation;
+it made him feel a little better about meeting John. Could he have known,
+as Elizabeth did, that it was the first time since her marriage that she
+had had the privilege of driving alone and that the precedent once
+established would settle the possibility of demanding a horse whenever she
+wanted it, it would have put a different complexion on the matter.
+
+In order for Elizabeth to use the buggy, however, Hugh was obliged to
+drive the strange team. Jake had been using them since John's absence, but
+had come in from the field the night before with the announcement that he
+did not intend "to risk his neck with them broncos any more." Before Hugh
+got to Colebyville he was thoroughly displeased with them, and spoke of
+his dislike of them to John on the way home.
+
+"A few days on the harvester 'll fix them," John replied.
+
+"Well, they're acting better than they did on the way in. They're hot and
+tired, and maybe the harvester will do it, but they're a bad lot," Hugh
+replied wearily. "I feel that I've got to get away to Mitchell County. The
+cattle have been on my mind for days. You'll have this team on your hands,
+for none of the men but Jake would try to use them, and he told me last
+night he'd used them for the last time."
+
+"Aren't you well, Hugh?" John Hunter asked with such concern that Hugh was
+covered with humiliation and shame.
+
+"Oh, yes-s-s. But you can run the place and I'm not hanging out like I
+thought I could--and I like it down there; it's more like the life I've
+been ordered to lead."
+
+"Wait till the rye has been cut. Did you say Silas wanted us to cut his
+too?" John Hunter asked.
+
+"Yes. He stopped me as I drove over this morning. The boys will lay the
+early corn by to-day; we can get the binder out to-morrow and see that it
+is ready by the day after. We might have been through with the corn
+to-day, but I've been lazy of late. I knocked off and rested and read most
+of the hot part of yesterday afternoon," Hugh replied slowly. He wished in
+his heart that he could tell all.
+
+"That's the thing to do. I'm not going to have you going down to Mitchell
+County while it's so hot. You'll lay around the house and read, that's
+what You'll do, and I'll run this farm for a while."
+
+The thought of that took Hugh Noland's breath. That was what he was
+running away from, but he could think of no reason but his health, and
+dropped the subject to get away from it.
+
+John Hunter asked questions about every feature of the farm work, and as
+he asked watched Hugh's face, looking anxiously for signs of breaking
+health. Under no conditions would he let Hugh get sick. Hugh had been the
+happiest circumstance of this farming experience. There was a discouraged
+note in Hugh's voice that John did not like.
+
+"Did you see Morgan to-day?" he asked after he had had all the farm work
+explained to him.
+
+"Oh, now, don't you get to worrying because I happen to mention my health.
+Yes, I saw Morgan, and he agreed with me that the other place would be
+better for me. I can run that and you can run this, and with care we ought
+to make some money pretty soon."
+
+"But that takes you away from us and--and we want you here!" John
+exclaimed with such fervour that Hugh winced under it.
+
+Hugh smiled so sadly back at the eager, boyish face turned to his that
+John was more than ever sure he was ill. His hand shot out to him with an
+almost womanish sympathy.
+
+"We'll see to it that you're kept busy where you belong, and the work
+won't wear you out either, my boy," he said.
+
+Hugh saw that he was getting deeper in at every word he uttered and went
+back to a discussion of the farm work.
+
+Elizabeth waited intentionally till she saw the men pass Nathan's house
+before she started home. Try as she would, she did not yearn for her
+husband's return. Life was short, her youth was going fast, and her fear
+of the faded life grew as she looked forward to an old age spent with John
+Hunter after Hugh's departure. Hugh must go, there was no question about
+that. He had told her night before last that he thought of it; had spoken
+of it incidentally enough, but in such wise that the girl knew why he was
+going. She had felt at the time that Hugh listened for her reply, but
+there was none she could make, and her silence added the final word to his
+decision. Elizabeth knew that it was the only honourable course; she
+consented to it in her mind, and yet, as she looked ahead to a time when
+she could not have him to take shelter behind with the cream jars of her
+life, she was sick at what she must face. Even to-day she hoped that he
+would be present when she drove Patsie into the yard.
+
+Fortune favoured Elizabeth in getting home with the horse and buggy. John
+had said that he was going to the pasture to look over the stock, and when
+Hugh saw Elizabeth drive through the gate they had left open, there was
+nothing for him to do but go forward to take her horse. John had seen her
+coming and had come back from the pasture gate, and the three met.
+
+"See how brave I have become in your absence," she said.
+
+"Well, I guess you've driven horses as long as I have," John Hunter
+replied happily, and kissed the astonished wife and the child in her arms
+with such real pleasure in returning to them that it was good to meet him
+after all.
+
+"If he'd always be like that," Elizabeth thought wistfully, and Hugh
+Noland felt more like a criminal in the presence of that kiss than he had
+ever done in his life.
+
+"Here, I'll tie Patsie up after I give her a drink. You go in with
+Elizabeth and I'll follow as soon as its done," John said to Hugh, and
+turning to Elizabeth said, "You haven't taken very good care of him since
+I've been away, dear. Go on in and get a book and I'll listen for an hour
+before I go to the pasture."
+
+"I'll do no such thing. I'll go to that pasture with you--that's what I'll
+do. I'm not sick. Rats! Elizabeth knows I----"
+
+Hugh Noland stopped short, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hunter," he added
+confusedly.
+
+"I don't know why you shouldn't call me by my first name; I do you,"
+Elizabeth answered, glad in spite of herself.
+
+Hugh went away with John, and Elizabeth had a long time to think about it.
+It was the first time Hugh had ever dropped into the least familiarity in
+addressing her, and no amount of reasoning could keep her from feeling a
+thrill of pleasure over it. She did not approve of herself, but the thrill
+was there. She hated herself, but the thrill remained. She wondered
+bitterly if she would ever be able to approve of herself again; every turn
+of life's wheel brought out some new and hitherto unsuspected
+characteristic, and try as she would she could not make herself do as her
+code of morals demanded that she should. She thought of her various
+friends; none of them had ever been guilty of the things Elizabeth found
+herself culpable of. Sadie had rebelled against her first child, but when
+shown the consequences had cheerfully applied the lesson, while she,
+Elizabeth, had been unable to put into practice later the very precepts
+she had so glibly given her neighbour. None of her friends had ever
+committed the folly of falling in love with men who were not their
+husbands.
+
+Elizabeth would not stay for the reading that night, and had a bad hour
+before she fell asleep. Her love for Hugh looked even worse to her since
+John's arrival than it had done before. This new phase of her life was
+even less able to command respect than any which had preceded it. Why was
+she vexed with such unheard of temptations? It did not comfort her to
+reason it out that this thing had fallen upon her without any wish of
+hers, that the thrill which had followed his use of her name was not a
+thing she had deliberately fostered within herself; she demanded of
+herself that she should not thrill at his voice, not knowing that she
+demanded the impossible.
+
+The rye was to be cut at Silas Chamberlain's. John suggested to Elizabeth
+that she had better go over to help Liza Ann, since she was alone, saying
+that he would take her over when he went. Hugh was to go with the machine.
+Jake would drive the extra team over, and the other two men would plow
+corn at home. A few minutes before nine o'clock John announced that he was
+ready. He had come in to carry Jack to the buggy for her. John had gone
+away with the impressions of Elizabeth's illness still upon him, and
+looked out for her with the same care he had accorded her when an
+invalid.
+
+"How long?" he asked, dropping down on the foot of the bed beside the
+machine upon which she had been putting in the spare time.
+
+"Just this one little seam; I'll have it done then."
+
+She stooped over the machine to finish the seam quickly, not liking to
+keep John waiting when he was already somewhat late.
+
+Jack slipped from his father's lap, and fascinated by the swiftly moving
+wheel on a level with his face, put out a pudgy little forefinger to feel
+of it as it went around. His mother saw it and stopped short with a little
+cry of alarm.
+
+"Don't do that, Jack!" she said sharply. "It'll take your finger right off
+of your hand if you get it in there."
+
+Jack put his hand behind his little back, and stood in round-eyed wonder
+watching the wheel as she started to sew again.
+
+John was getting restless and wanted to go.
+
+"Aren't you about----"
+
+Elizabeth looked up at him as he started to speak, and Jack's finger shot
+out to the forbidden wheel on the instant. Elizabeth saw it at a point
+when she could not control the pedal with her foot. Mother love brought a
+scream to her lips, and to save the child she gave him a shove with her
+hand. Jack fell on the floor in a heap, striking his head on the bedpost
+as he did so.
+
+John had clutched at him ineffectually as he fell and caught him up as
+soon as he could get hold of him, turning him over in his arms to see
+where he was hurt. The blood spurted from the little nose, giving an
+appearance of serious injury to the matter all out of proportion to the
+exact nature of the damage sustained, but as usual, when excited, John saw
+only surface indications.
+
+"What does possess you when you're cross?" he exclaimed as he relinquished
+his hold on the baby, who, however badly he might be hurt, was struggling
+to get to his mother's arms.
+
+Elizabeth carried the screaming child to the kitchen to bathe the bruised
+nose and apply a wet cloth to the nasty blue ridge beginning to form where
+the little cheek had encountered the bedpost.
+
+"I never saw any one act like you do with a child," John said with his
+usual irritation.
+
+"I didn't intend to knock him over, but I couldn't stop my foot and I
+thought he'd get his little finger taken right off before my very eyes."
+
+"Well, you shouldn't go at him so rough. You always treat him as if he
+were a block of wood."
+
+Elizabeth's lips closed down tight, and to keep Jack from hearing further
+criticisms of her management she went back to the bedroom. When John was
+ready to go he called to her from the lane, and she carried Jack to the
+door instead of laying him down.
+
+"Take Hepsie with you. Tell Mrs. Chamberlain that I got ready to come.
+He'd probably be cross if I went now. Hepsie's in the potato patch,"
+Elizabeth said in a low voice, and went back so promptly that John could
+not reply.
+
+John took Hepsie with him, and explained to Liza Ann, as Elizabeth
+requested, that she was unable to come because Jack had hurt himself.
+
+The day was dry and hot, and John Hunter consumed water like a fish upon
+all occasions. The discovery that the water-jugs had been left at home
+called for instant action when he arrived in the field. Silas had put his
+team on the binder and Patsie was free for use on just such errands as
+this. The machine had just been driven up to where Hugh could ask for
+water also. John crossed over and laid his hand on the lines.
+
+"Here, you take the horse and go for the water. I forgot the jugs; You'll
+have to go clear home after them."
+
+"Why don't you do it?" Hugh asked.
+
+John Hunter looked him over rather sharply and replied:
+
+"Because I'm going to drive this binder to-day. I don't like your voice
+very well since I got home, Hugh."
+
+"You won't hear very much more of it if I can get away day after
+to-morrow," Hugh replied, smiling at the turn he had given to John's
+sympathy.
+
+John Hunter grinned back at him, but kept his hand on the lines, and Hugh
+got down.
+
+"You can't start day after to-morrow, for we won't get this rye done, and
+you won't start then, my boy, with such a note in your voice as that. I've
+spoken to Jake about it and he'll go. I don't propose to have you that far
+away when you are not well--it ain't what we want you for. Go on and get
+that water," he added when he saw the expression of protest in Hugh's
+face.
+
+Hugh went without argument, but his determination was as strong as ever.
+Instead of going around the road he drove across the field to the fence
+between the two places, and, tying Patsie, walked through the cornfield to
+the pasture and on toward the house.
+
+The hot sun blazed fiercely down on his thinly clad back, and he noticed
+as he struggled through the tasselling corn that the leaves were already
+firing about the roots. Rain was essential, but he reflected that enough
+rain to do the corn any good would ruin the small grain now ready to cut.
+"Kansas luck," he muttered as he crossed the deep ridges thrown up by his
+own cultivator a few days before. Not a breath of air was stirring, and by
+the time he had reached the house he was hot and tired. Reflecting that
+John had taken Elizabeth to Chamberlain's, he decided to rest before he
+started back with the heavy water-jugs. He stopped in the kitchen for a
+drink and took a small bottle out of his pocket.
+
+"Two, I guess, this time," he said as he poured the tablets into his hand.
+He dropped his finger on the other wrist a moment, and then swallowed both
+pellets.
+
+Elizabeth heard him settle himself in a rocking chair with a long-drawn
+breath of comfort. She was giving Jack little pats to ease him off to
+sleep and the house was very quiet. She decided to keep still and let him
+return to the field without seeing her tear-stained face, but Jack roused
+with a low whimpering cry which she felt sure Hugh must have heard, and as
+soon as the child was asleep she walked out without further effort at
+concealment.
+
+At the noise of the opening door Hugh Noland sprang to his feet in
+surprise; he had been half-asleep.
+
+"Why, I didn't know that you were here!" he exclaimed when he saw that it
+was Elizabeth. "I thought you went to Chamberlain's."
+
+His eyes riveted themselves upon her swollen eyelids, and when she stood
+embarrassed before him and did not reply readily, conscious only of his
+searching gaze, he misunderstood and added gravely:
+
+"Elizabeth, there is something I must speak about. I cannot have you
+worried over matters between us----"
+
+Elizabeth Hunter's eyes ceased to be shy and troubled and came up to his
+in such complete astonishment that he broke off in confusion.
+
+There was a pause for one short second, and then Elizabeth spoke in
+nervous haste, and as if to ward off something.
+
+"I--I--I wasn't crying about--that is, I hurt Jack accidentally and--and
+John misunderstood."
+
+Even while the words were still in her mouth, she realized by his
+expression that what she was saying sounded like a complaint, as if she
+were exposing a difference between herself and her husband, and that was
+the one thing that under no circumstances had she ever done. She made a
+frightened stop without ending the sentence.
+
+As if to save his mother from needless embarrassment, Jack slipped to the
+floor and came stumbling out on sleepy legs, tired and cross, and rubbing
+his sweaty little face with hot, sweaty little fists, and demanding his
+mother's attention. Elizabeth turned to him with a relief beyond words.
+
+Hugh Noland, who had always loved the child, was never so glad to see him,
+and slipped away while he was being soothed and petted out of his tears
+and discomfort. Both Hugh and Elizabeth knew that but for Jack's timely
+interruption words would have escaped Hugh that they both preferred should
+not be uttered. Both knew the situation, but both saw that it would be
+easier, as well as safer and more honourable, not to discuss it.
+
+"I'll not think any more about going away--I wouldn't do it if I had
+money," she decided as she watched Hugh return with his jug. "I married
+John Hunter in good faith, and I'll live with him in good faith and
+straighten things out." The thought of her love for Hugh came up and she
+added, "I don't care! I didn't go out to hunt up a love for him and I
+can't help it if it has come to me; but I hope he gets away to Mitchell
+County day after to-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BOUND TO THE STAKE
+
+
+The harvesting dragged out to the third day, and Silas, who had a felon,
+could not give help when John came to the point of cutting his own grain.
+It was almost impossible to get help, for the reason that the dry weather
+had hastened the reaping of all early crops. It was decided that Elizabeth
+should drive back and forth with the water, and John take a hand at the
+shocking. This left Hugh on the machine, a thing John disliked to do, but
+Hugh made no complaints and accepted the post readily. Hugh had seen that
+he could not refer to his health without endangering his chance of getting
+away. John looked him over critically as he mounted the binder, realizing
+fully that he was unfit to ride in the hot sun all day.
+
+"I'll take his place this afternoon if the shocking never gets done," was
+his mental resolve as he turned to his own share of the work.
+
+The men had taken one jug of water with them, so that it was not necessary
+for Elizabeth to go with a fresh one till ten o'clock. She tied Patsie to
+the fence and, taking Jack with her, crawled under and started across the
+field to a point where she could meet the oncoming binder, so that Hugh
+could take the heavy jug on the machine around to the other side of the
+field where the shockers were. Jack's short legs had hard work in the
+stubble, and she kept a tight hold on him with one hand while she carried
+the jug with the other.
+
+Hugh saw them coming and called to her to wait till he could come for the
+jug. Doctor Morgan had especially cautioned against heavy lifting.
+
+The new team which John had bought was hitched to the pole of the
+harvester, and as he drew them up, a botfly buzzed suddenly about the
+forelegs of the off-wheel horse. The animal struck at it angrily with its
+foot, giving a shrill snort. Its mate threw itself to the other side,
+rattling the double-trees of the leaders against their heels. There was a
+frightened spring on the part of one of the horses in front, and at that
+the wild and half-broken wheel horses began to plunge ahead.
+
+Thoroughly frightened, the four horses became unmanageable at once, and
+the one nearest the revolving reel got its tail over the line, where it
+held firmly to it as it reared and kicked. Almost before it was clear what
+had happened, the horses were on a full run down the field, with a
+barbed-wire fence ahead. Hugh could do but one thing. He circled them
+about toward the outside of the field by the one line he could control,
+while he frantically jammed the lever down, which threw the machine out of
+gear, but at the speed at which the machine was going the lever would not
+act. The one line swung the horses around in a short circle, and as the
+thoroughly alarmed man raised his head he was horrified to find that
+Elizabeth, encumbered with the jug, and so thoroughly frightened that she
+held on to it and to Jack's hand with equal tenacity, was within the
+radius of the circle.
+
+The baby, the mother, and the heavy water-jug were in the centre of that
+narrowing ring, and the natural and spontaneous thing to do was to run in
+the direction away from the careening harvester. They ran, but only for a
+few yards, for by the time they thought that they were nearing a point of
+safety at the circumference of the circle, the horses were nearing that
+point also, and to attempt to cross it was suicidal.
+
+"Go back!" shouted Hugh, his whole body breaking into a cold sweat as the
+woman and child turned to run in the opposite direction.
+
+Had presence of mind been possible at that moment, Elizabeth could have
+slipped quickly behind the binder and passed outside the ring the charging
+animals were making, but as it was, she simply ran blindly back once more
+to another and more dangerous point inside their lessening orbit. One more
+such run and both mother and child would be exhausted.
+
+With the cold sweat of terror breaking over him, Hugh Noland slackened his
+hold on the line and flung himself off the high seat to run to her
+assistance. As he jumped, the horses of their own accord turned sharper
+yet, and the bull-wheel, striking a badger hole, threw the machine over
+sidewise and completely upside down. The wheel horses, released by the
+coupling-pin falling from the main clevis, kicked themselves loose from
+the other team and tore madly across the uncut grain.
+
+Elizabeth Hunter escaped death by the overturning of the heavy binder, but
+when she arrived at the twisted and broken harvester, Hugh Noland lay
+pinned under the wreckage, white and insensible.
+
+It took but a few moments for the men, who had come running at the first
+sounds of the commotion, to lift the heavy machinery from the limp body
+and lay the wounded man down under the shade of a large shock of rye.
+While Luther bent to examine the senseless form, John rushed one of the
+men frantically off for Doctor Morgan.
+
+"No! Wait--I'll go myself!" he called as the man was driving away, and
+flinging himself into the buggy, which Elizabeth had left at the fence,
+laid the whip on the back of the frightened Patsie.
+
+It was not till John was halfway to Colebyville that Hugh Noland opened
+his eyes. Luther was stooping over him, bathing his face with water from
+the jug which Elizabeth had so unconsciously provided. The girl also knelt
+at his side rendering such assistance as was in her power, and when Hugh
+actually showed signs of being alive she buried her face in her hands and
+sobbed with an abandon which Luther Hansen could not mistake. The hired
+men had gone to get the leaders, which, being reliable horses, had got
+over their fright and were nibbling the fresh grass by the fence. The
+other team was completely out of sight. They covered Hugh from the
+scorching sun till the men could bring the wagon from the barn, and then
+the sad little cavalcade returned to the house with the injured man.
+
+Doctor Morgan arrived with John in his own buggy two hours later, and then
+a strange thing was discovered. No bones were broken, and no internal
+injuries were in evidence which would necessarily give cause for alarm.
+The examination pointed to an excited heart chiefly, the weakest link in
+Hugh Noland's system and the place where new troubles centred and
+aggravated old ones. That the man's life had not been instantaneously
+crushed out was due to the fact that the long steel levers had stuck in
+the hard earth and held the machine up. But the trouble with the heart had
+been accentuated acutely before the binder had even capsized, for that
+horrible nightmare of galloping down upon the girl had evidently begun
+what the later catastrophe had carried to a farther and really dangerous
+stage.
+
+Hugh was placed in the downstairs bedroom by the men, whose hearts were
+wrung at every step they carried him, and, as Luther remarked, because
+Elizabeth would have the care of him and stairs were deadly things in case
+of sickness.
+
+Doctor Morgan came again before night, intending to stay with the patient
+till morning. John met him at the gate. With the feeling that he had been
+responsible for this terrible accident to Hugh, whom he loved as he had
+never loved any other human being, John had spent an afternoon of agony.
+The rest of the men could look for a neighbour to finish the grain with
+another machine, but for him, he spent the time at Hugh's side.
+
+"How is he?" Doctor Morgan asked almost before he was within speaking
+distance.
+
+"Resting. We don't trouble him, but he seems quiet."
+
+"That's good!" the old man exclaimed. He had come with his heart in his
+mouth, as they say in that country. "I wish I had as good a report for
+you," he added.
+
+"Why--what's happened to me?" John asked in surprise.
+
+"The young mare you drove in died in the stable. It's hot weather, and I
+guess you were pretty badly excited. I told the men in the livery to shut
+the colt up; it kept nosing around the carcass and it isn't good for it.
+You'd better get in as early as you can and look after it yourself. Those
+stable men don't care for anything that ain't their own."
+
+John Hunter stood speechless till the end of the story, and then helped
+tie the doctor's team.
+
+"That all comes from that miserable team! I'm glad one of them did have to
+be shot. I've half a notion to shoot the other one; it's all cut up by the
+wire and 'll take no end of trouble to cure. Hugh said horses and dogs
+talked with their tails, and I guess they do. Say, will you tell Elizabeth
+about the horse? It's one I got from her father and she's terribly fond of
+it."
+
+Elizabeth met Doctor Morgan as he came from Hugh's room a few minutes
+later with the unspoken question so plainly evident in her face that he
+answered it without waiting to be asked.
+
+"No signs of further trouble, little woman, thank God! They tell me you
+were near being run over by that binder too."
+
+Elizabeth evaded the last remark.
+
+"That's nothing. But are you sure about Hugh?" she asked in a voice that
+quavered a little.
+
+"Now look here," the doctor said, concerned at once for her welfare. "We
+can't have you go and get upset. It looks as if Noland got out of that
+pretty lucky. The only thing that's worrying me is that infernal heart of
+his."
+
+John came in at that point and the old doctor addressed himself to him.
+
+"This woman'll have to take care of Noland, Hunter, and I want you to see
+to it that she don't have another thing to do. She can't have that child
+dragging on her, and we'll have to look out that she don't overdo, or
+we'll have her down on our hands too. The trouble with peritonitis is that
+it don't get well as fast as it looks to. A slight thing will often start
+it up anew, and peritonitis is the devil if it gets to recurring."
+
+"We'll all help take care of Hugh," John promised readily.
+
+Doctor Morgan looked at John Hunter and back to Elizabeth dubiously. He
+reflected that the same lack of caution which had killed the mare
+yesterday might kill a man in case of excitement.
+
+"It isn't necessarily help that she's going to need. It won't be so hard
+to take care of him, if she isn't worried by a lot of other things. I
+don't want another soul to touch that medicine. We've got to be mighty
+careful about that. Heart remedies are poison and as quick as lightning in
+their action, and we can't afford to take any chances on that kind of
+stuff. I'm right glad to put your wife at the helm in this thing; she's
+definite and dependable, two things we doctors don't often find when we
+need them most."
+
+Turning to Elizabeth he said:
+
+"It may be rather hard on you, but our main care is to pull this man
+through the next ten days. If he don't have some one to look after him
+right, he may slip through our fingers."
+
+"Why--I thought you said he was all right," Elizabeth faltered.
+
+In his efforts to impress the need of care with the medicine, Doctor
+Morgan had gone over the mark and added to the fears he had started out to
+allay. Elizabeth was as white as if all the blood in her body had been
+taken away.
+
+"Now don't begin to worry till I tell you there's need, child," he said
+half irritably. "All that's necessary is for you to look after that
+medicine. Noland 'll come out all right with you to nurse him. I wouldn't
+mind being sick myself, Hunter, with her to hold the spoon," he said,
+trying to put a merry face on the matter. "Did it ever occur to you that
+you were a lucky dog to come into this country and run off with the nicest
+girl in it the first year you were here?"
+
+As the doctor drove home the next morning, he said to himself:
+
+"I guess I fixed it about that medicine;" then, his mind reverting to the
+conversation at the gate, he added, "I wasn't goin' to tell her about that
+horse; let him tell her himself. Blamed fool! I think I headed off his
+issuing orders about that sick-bed too. Poor little girl! Now if she'd
+only married Noland!"
+
+The old doctor gave a long, low whistle as a sudden thought struck him,
+but he put it away, and being a busy man thought no more about it for
+weeks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+"THERE ARE SOME THINGS WE HAVE
+TO SETTLE FOR OURSELVES"
+
+
+John's being away from home those first days of Hugh's illness--he had
+gone to Colebyville to dispose of Patsie's body and secure a new team to
+finish harvesting--kept him from getting the run of the affairs of the
+sickroom, and enabled Elizabeth to assume the care of the invalid in her
+own way. An idea once fixed in John Hunter's head was fixed, and having
+accepted the plan of Doctor Morgan that Elizabeth was to be in sole charge
+of care and medicine, he went his way without thrusting his suggestions
+upon her, and Elizabeth, having learned not to discuss things with him,
+did not speak of her work nor of anything connected with the invalid. In
+fact, as soon as John entered the sickroom she went out, as one of the
+best ways she knew of to avoid accidents of conversation. John came to
+Hugh's bedside but little, supposing that he needed rest, and willing to
+sacrifice his all to the comfort of the pale invalid. With the tears of a
+woman in his heart if not in his eyes, John watched from afar the face of
+the man he had been the unconscious means of injuring, and tiptoed about
+the outer rooms with a fear of death which only John could feel. Another
+thing kept him out of the sickroom: impressed with the idea that his
+carelessness in the purchase of the first team had led up to this trouble,
+he had gone to the other extreme in replacing them, and had paid three
+hundred and twenty-five dollars for one of the best and most thoroughly
+proven teams in the country. There were no available funds and he had been
+obliged to give a note for them; this must in time come to Hugh's notice,
+and John had a distinct remembrance of a former note, and did not wish to
+repeat the experience. Luther, who came often to see Hugh, had spoken to
+John of Patsie's death in Elizabeth's presence, and after the first pained
+expression of surprise and grief, Elizabeth had never mentioned it again.
+John had noticed also that Elizabeth had never asked the price of the last
+team, nor seemed to take any interest in them, and he hoped by the same
+means to avoid confessing to Hugh.
+
+John Hunter was glad at this time to escape discussions of an unpleasant
+nature; he was more broken by the accident than he ever admitted; he
+accused himself more bitterly than any one would ever accuse him; he had
+broken up a working team, he had killed his best horse, and he had been
+all but responsible for the death of his best friend, and when John
+Hunter's own misdeeds hit hard enough, he would face things squarely, and
+no matter how hard he worked to avoid owning up to others, would
+acknowledge to himself that he was in the wrong. Hugh's white face grew
+whiter each day and accused him enough without further words. To escape
+it, John worked busily, and there was need of work, for the rapidly drying
+fields required his entire attention during the day, and he left Hugh to
+his wife's care, glad to do so.
+
+There were times, however, when John was alone with Hugh, and at such
+times, because he was full of self-blame and humiliation, he listened to
+what Hugh said with a peculiar attention. Hugh saw that John worried
+himself half sick over his misfortune, and reached out the hand of love
+and fellowship for which John hungered at this time. He talked of his
+possible death as if it were but a journey, which always convulsed John's
+face with child-like emotions. He talked of the farm work, and kept close
+track of what was done. He knew that John had had to go into debt for the
+team, and he wanted John to tell him, without being asked, that a note had
+been given. When he did not, Hugh passed the matter over without reference
+and with a sigh. Hugh Noland was not criticising John Hunter or any of his
+actions these days, but Hugh studied John and found his weaknesses, and
+tried to give him such help as he thought possible. Hugh had long days to
+think, and he began to yearn over this man to whom he had been a sort of
+traitor. He saw John's wilfulness with Elizabeth--heard many things
+without being able to avoid hearing them, being pinned to his bed--he saw
+where John's irritability lost good help during the busy season and left
+double duty for faithful Jake, his supercilious attitude toward Luther,
+and his illy concealed contempt for the farmers about them, and one of his
+ways of keeping his mind off John's wife was to keep it on John and John's
+needs. Hugh kept Luther with him whenever Luther could be spared from his
+home in the evenings, and he spoke to John of Luther with growing
+affection. When he grew stronger, he discussed farm work and farmers with
+John in a way that savoured of interest in their problems; he asked Nathan
+and Silas and Carter and Bob Warren in and talked to them of fertilizers
+and drainage, and when John insisted that those things were in the future,
+he said:
+
+"Yes, but they will come up in our time; you see I come from a place where
+those things were already a necessity to the farmers. I am a farmer myself
+now and I think about those things."
+
+Hugh knew that his consideration of fertilizers was superfluous in a
+country that was hardly past the sod-corn stage, but he longed to dignify
+this work to John Hunter, since John would give his formative years here
+and be unable to do other things if he ever made money enough to get away,
+as he hoped. Hugh had had enough work in the agricultural department of an
+eastern university before he had come to Kansas, to make it possible for
+him to interest these men in the future development of their state. Doctor
+Morgan, who had been rather unwilling that serious subjects should be
+discussed in the sickroom, asked curiously one day:
+
+"What the devil do you want to prate such nonsense as that to these folks
+for? They won't need any kind of fertilizers in this country for twenty
+years. You'd better be resting instead of shooting such useless stuff as
+that at _them_."
+
+"I want to talk farming to John Hunter as if it were a respectable
+business to engage in, Doctor. I don't have to tell you how he views it."
+
+"What in Sam Hill's the difference how he views it?" the doctor asked in
+astonishment. "He's nothing but a cheap skate, and you can't make anything
+else out of him."
+
+Hugh Noland looked at the doctor and made no reply; he understood that the
+unfortunate vision of John Hunter which Doctor Morgan had got would
+prevent him from seeing the point he was trying to make, and so let the
+matter drop, but he kept John with him evenings and worked along on his
+own lines and with persistence. He wanted to feel right about his stay in
+John's home, and one of the ways of doing it was to get close to John's
+heart on important matters. He spoke of Jack as a future farmer, and when
+John indignantly resented the implication and said that he expected his
+son to be an educated man, Hugh replied:
+
+"Why, of course you do, but an educated farmer is exactly the thing to
+make of him. Look at the clean life you'd place him in."
+
+And so the days ran on in the sick-chamber. If John was with Hugh,
+Elizabeth busied herself about the house elsewhere, and John rarely saw
+them together, unless there was medicine to administer, and then the girl
+gave it without remark. A growing fear had taken possession of her lest
+John should fly out at her in unpleasant fashion before Hugh. The
+situation between the two had been made so much more acute by Hugh's
+accidental reference to it when he had thought that she was crying about
+him, that she was supersensitive regarding her half-formed complaint in
+explanation. But for that reference, they could have gone along
+indefinitely with a pretence of indifference, but enough had been said to
+tear away the veil and leave them self-conscious and mutually humiliated.
+Their little avoidances of touch or tenderness spoke in a language not to
+be misunderstood, and their eyes told unconsciously all that they refused
+to say with their tongues.
+
+Elizabeth, in her own way, worried herself half sick in her endeavours to
+care for him gently and yet give him no cause to think she was making a
+demand for a love of which neither approved, but which having once been
+put into words was a constant factor in their association. Once when she
+was bathing his face, Hugh thought she lingered longer over it than was
+necessary and drew himself back on his pillow suddenly, saying:
+
+"Don't Elizabeth. I should have my arms about you in a minute if you did
+that, and you are John's wife--and I couldn't look him in the face if I
+did a thing of that sort."
+
+Elizabeth turned away without replying, her eyes full of tears. He had
+misunderstood her cruelly. The one thing Elizabeth Hunter was trying to do
+was not to show her affection for this man who was not her husband, but as
+she became worn and tired from duty at the sick-bed it became more and
+more evident that she could not accomplish it.
+
+Hugh had the daily fear of her peritonitis coming back upon her; Doctor
+Morgan had warned him while John was away. Unable to lift his head from
+his pillow without assistance, Hugh saw her growing thin and discouraged,
+and knew that it was the enforced condition of caring for him which made
+her so; yet when she tried to avoid his sympathetic eyes, he instantly
+misunderstood her and was hurt. That she was not really strong enough to
+assume the care of him added to his uneasiness, and often when he was on
+the point of saying so, she mistook his glance and was so distant that it
+died on his lips. And so the days ran into each other with the pair. If
+for any reason one advanced, the other retreated, and at last the
+condition became unbearable.
+
+Elizabeth gave much and consuming thought to the issue brought about by
+the fact that her husband, still living in the house with her, had no idea
+that she could be in love with another man, even though her husband no
+longer loved her. Any sort of love-making was a violation of her marriage
+vows, and for her to put love for another man into words was to fall to a
+level to which she had never in her life thought of doing.
+
+What was she to do? John never saw anything except in the light of his own
+instincts and emotions, and an idea or a prejudice once fixed in his mind
+could be uprooted by nothing but death; therefore to confess to him and
+thereby make it possible to get away from Hugh would prejudice him against
+Hugh, whom he would be certain to think had stolen something to which he
+alone had the right, and against her whom he felt that he possessed, and
+upon whom he could wreak almost any form of public revenge. Hugh had tried
+to get away and John had himself held him, but John could not remember
+that nor listen to it if told. Every effort had been made by Hugh to avoid
+Elizabeth since he had found out the true situation, but nothing would
+convince John of that. Had John Hunter the right then, being the kind of
+man he was, to a confession from her that would confuse the whole issue
+and do vital wrong to everybody concerned, including the baby, who must
+suffer with the mother who would be made to seem much worse than she was.
+This Elizabeth Hunter asked herself daily, and with the fear that her
+conscience would force her to confession should she permit any
+demonstration of affection, and to avoid any possibility of it, she became
+colder and colder in her manner toward the sick man.
+
+The effort to keep off dangerous ground was disastrous, for Hugh instantly
+misunderstood it, and the gloom which settled over him increased the
+difficulties with which Elizabeth had to contend. Doctor Morgan saw that
+his patient, who had seemed slightly better, fell back again, and he
+worried about his despondent condition.
+
+"Cheer him up, Mrs. Hunter! Read to him! Anything!" he would exclaim.
+"He's got to have peace of mind, or there's no hope in the world of his
+recovery. Something more 'n staved-in ribs is keeping him down," the
+doctor urged, not knowing that he laid impossible burdens on shoulders too
+young to bear them.
+
+The two duties, the one to her husband and the one to her patient, stared
+her in the face, and she had no one with whom to advise or consult.
+
+"I don't care! His life's worth more than for me to approve of myself as a
+wife," she decided at last, and yet when she gave Hugh his next dose of
+medicine she was colder and more on her guard than ever.
+
+Luther Hansen came to see Hugh that afternoon. Elizabeth received an
+inspiration when he started away and followed him out of the house.
+
+"Luther, will he die?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know, Lizzie," Luther said quietly, not knowing what to say to
+such a question, and too honest to evade.
+
+At the time of the accident to the binder, when Elizabeth knelt, broken
+with exhaustion and terror, looking at the man she loved who lay under the
+mass of machinery with the colour of death upon him, no one but a blind
+man could have mistaken the utter abandonment of her grief, and certainly
+of all men Luther was not blind. Now he recognized the heartache back of
+Elizabeth's question and with an instinct to cheer was almost persuaded to
+answer in the negative. In his heart he thought Hugh would die. The
+rapidly failing strength of the man indicated that he would do so unless
+something came to buoy him up.
+
+"I don't know, Lizzie," he added, as if squaring his conscience, "he looks
+so weak and troubled like."
+
+Luther realized the moment it was out of his mouth that he had said the
+wrong thing. Elizabeth's lips grew white and she held her breath a moment
+as if preparing to accept what she knew must be the truth.
+
+"Lizzie," asked Luther gently, "would you like to talk to me about it?"
+
+The girl's face tensed strangely and her quivering lips refused to do her
+bidding for a full minute, the relief was so great.
+
+"I--I came out for that," she said simply when she could speak. "It's so
+good of you to understand and make it easy for me. I'll walk over toward
+home with you."
+
+They walked slowly through the barnyard, across the creek, and over the
+pleasant pasture land. Neither spoke. Elizabeth, now that she had decided
+to talk to Luther about the circumstances with which she contended, could
+not bring herself readily to do so. Luther had always the insight of true
+wisdom, which let others gauge their own inclinations. When they came to
+the fence which was the boundary line between Luther's and John Hunter's
+farms, they stopped. There was a line of willow trees running at intervals
+down the fence, and Luther waved his hand in the direction of a shady spot
+beside them.
+
+"Set down, Lizzie," he said, seating himself half-facing her.
+
+Elizabeth Hunter crumpled up on the grass with her back against a fence
+post, and thought while Luther got out his knife and looked for something
+to whittle.
+
+"Tell me about it," he said at last. "You want to--and--and I'm a safe
+person."
+
+She looked up at him, glad that he had assumed it, and smoothed the path
+to confession.
+
+"I know you're safe, Luther. You're more than that, God bless you!"
+
+And to this man whom she had always trusted Elizabeth poured out all her
+fears, her feelings, and her frantic cry for help.
+
+"I've had no one to talk to, Luther," she ended, "and I don't believe a
+human being can go on always and not put things into words."
+
+They talked on and on. Having started, she let him see the consuming
+struggle between right and wrong which she waged every day.
+
+"Doctor Morgan says, 'Cheer him up! Cheer him up,' and what am I to do?"
+she closed in desperation.
+
+Elizabeth Hunter had told far more than she supposed. She had bared a
+yearning, struggling heart to Luther's gaze, a soul seeking a right path
+where there seemed no sure road, nothing but confusion.
+
+Luther longed to help, but the problem presented insurmountable
+difficulties; to adopt a rigid code of morals as such was to come out at
+the end of the journey with something in herself and society satisfied,
+and Hugh Noland's life sacrificed, as Doctor Morgan had said; to adopt a
+sympathetic attitude would spare the life of a useful man, but with her
+code shattered. If only she could take John into her confidence both might
+be possible.
+
+"Lizzie, you couldn't tell Hunter, could you?" Even as he asked it he knew
+it could not be done.
+
+"I would tell John instantly if he were like you, Luther," was her reply.
+"I think Hugh himself would have been glad to. If he could have explained,
+he could have got away. No--John isn't the kind of man. He wouldn't
+understand, and he'd make it a great deal worse than it is to everybody.
+He'd accuse me and spoil Jack's life, and----"
+
+The hopelessness of it left her silent for a minute, and then Doctor
+Morgan's warnings came up to be reckoned with.
+
+"The doctor says he'll die if he's worried, Luther. What am I to do?" she
+demanded, wanting him to settle the question for her, and letting the
+tears run unrestrained down her cheeks.
+
+Luther Hansen looked at her pityingly and shook his head.
+
+"There are some things we have to settle for ourselves, Lizzie, and this
+is one of them for you. I do know," he said trustfully, "whatever you do
+'ll be right."
+
+The interview was ended. Luther helped Elizabeth to her feet, and went
+away to his own house and waiting chores, leaving the question with
+her--Elizabeth Hunter--whose life had been punctuated with interrogation
+points.
+
+Elizabeth walked back slowly, going over every hint and suggestion to be
+gained from Luther's discussion of her situation. Nothing was clear except
+that whatever her decision, it must be the nearest right of anything she
+was able to understand. She remembered as she stopped to fasten the
+barnyard gate behind her that Luther had said as he left her:
+
+"He'll go away as soon as he is able, you say, Lizzie," and she remembered
+the lingering tones of fondness in Luther's voice when Hugh's name was
+mentioned.
+
+It was not easy for Luther to say, let him die, either.
+
+Elizabeth remembered at that point that Hugh's medicine was long overdue,
+that medicine was more important just now than any of the questions with
+which she had been struggling. With a frightened little cry she ran to the
+house and to the sick-chamber.
+
+"Never mind, Elizabeth," Hugh said when he saw her shuffling the papers
+about in search of the bottle. "Jack came in and I had Hepsie give it to
+me. I've decided that it isn't a good plan to have it there, and I'll keep
+it under my pillow hereafter."
+
+"I--I went out with Luther, Hugh, and I didn't realize that I was gone so
+long. You've missed two doses!" She noticed that Hugh called her by her
+given name altogether now.
+
+Hugh laughed a sad little laugh.
+
+"Well, I've had the one for this hour at least. I--I tried to take it
+alone. I guess I won't try that again. It stuck in my throat and I got a
+strangling spell. I coughed till--well, I thought I was going to get out
+of taking medicine altogether. It's a terrible fear that grips a fellow
+when he gets something stuck in his throat and knows that he can't lift
+his head off his pillow. It isn't so much that he's afraid to die--it's
+the death struggle he's afraid of."
+
+Absorbed in his own thoughts, Hugh Noland closed his eyes and did not see
+the effect his words produced upon Elizabeth. By some sort of
+psychological process he had placed that death struggle before her very
+eyes. Hugh, all unconscious that he had made any impression, unconscious
+that her attitude toward death differed from his own, or that his death
+could mean much more to her than deliverance from the presence and care of
+him, lay with his eyes closed, thinking his own bitter thoughts.
+
+There was indeed enough in Hugh Noland's appearance to terrify the girl as
+he lay before her, wasted and woebegone, his low forehead blue-veined and
+colourless, his hands blue-veined and transparent, and all his shrunken
+figure sharply outlined under the thin summer covering of the bed with
+ghastly and suggestive significance. Instantly she wanted to go down by
+his side and with her arms about him give him the sympathy and comfort his
+lonely heart craved, but because it was so deliciously tempting she
+distrusted the impulse and, turning hastily, walked out of the room and
+out of the house, going on a run to her refuge in the willows. But though
+she agonized till dark she found herself no nearer a solution than
+before.
+
+Hugh felt the distance Elizabeth maintained and also the fact that she was
+not well. How he hated it when she had to lift him for his medicine.
+Doctor Morgan had especially talked about her lifting when she was at
+first convalescing. His heart was very bad that night.
+
+About three o'clock the next afternoon Elizabeth tiptoed in to see if he
+slept.
+
+"I'm awake," he said without opening his eyes.
+
+Always when Hugh did not open his eyes Elizabeth was filled with
+premonitions. He was very pinched and wan to-day. With a pain at her own
+heart, Elizabeth brought a fresh glass of water for his medicine. She had
+to speak to him to get him ready to take it from her hand. Kneeling, she
+put her arm under the pillow to raise his head while he drank.
+
+Hugh fumbled with the little bottle as he tried to return the extra disks
+he had accidentally poured out into his hand. Elizabeth waited till he had
+the cork in place, with her arm still under the pillow. He turned his face
+toward her as he thrust the bottle back, and accidentally touched her hand
+under his head. He glanced up consciously. Her breath, fresh, warm, full
+of the life man adores, came to him from her parted lips, and to get away
+from the impulse to say things he was resolved not to say, he closed his
+eyes and turned his head feebly.
+
+A gasp of fright came from the girl as she saw the contortion of his
+haggard face.
+
+"Hugh!" she exclaimed.
+
+The glass she held fell from her fingers and rolled to the foot of the
+bed, scattering its contents abroad unobserved, as she threw her other arm
+across him and lifted him for the air she supposed he needed. Their
+breaths mingled. Human nature is but human nature, man is but man and
+woman is but woman in the final analysis: they were in the hands of a fate
+stronger than either of them at that moment.
+
+Elizabeth struggled no more; right or wrong, it had happened, and she
+brought her rocking chair and with her free hand clasped in his, read and
+took life as it came. After that, sin nor sickness could keep them from
+being happy. If the girl talked of the better course of restoring the old
+reserve, Hugh's hand would reach out imploringly:
+
+"Only till I get well, dearest; I won't trouble your conscience after
+that. I know you don't feel right about this, but I can't go back to a
+life without any affection again while I'm here," and Elizabeth always
+responded to that call. She reflected that even Luther could not condemn
+her for it.
+
+Yet when John was in the house or whenever she was obliged to be careful
+about Hepsie, as she often was, she was outraged in her own sight, and her
+colours trailed in the dust of humiliation, for she saw that the path she
+was treading was one of unaccustomed duplicity.
+
+"If I could only approve of myself," she said to Hugh, and then was sorry
+she had spoken, for Hugh Noland's face grew more white and he closed his
+eyes with a little sob.
+
+"Oh, my darling," he said when he could speak again, "you long for that
+and I like you for it too, but I'm weak. I want to be loved and petted,
+and--I'm so tired that I don't want to think about it at all. Kiss me,
+sweet," and Elizabeth kissed him, and was glad in spite of herself.
+
+"You shall not have to think till you're well," she promised, and the days
+ran on throughout the blazing summer, and Hugh improved, and Elizabeth won
+Doctor Morgan's admiration as a nurse.
+
+In the midst of the deceptions which Elizabeth Hunter was called upon to
+practise, however, she followed the natural trend of her character in ways
+which proved how fundamental truth and outrightness were in her make-up.
+Having discussed Hugh with Luther, she told Hugh that she had done so.
+This gave Hugh a wrong impression of affairs between the two which she was
+obliged to set right.
+
+"No, Luther never loved me--that is, he never said that he did. That isn't
+the way we feel about each other. We've just been good friends always. We
+herded cattle together and told each other things all our lives. I could
+tell Luther anything."
+
+"Well, he couldn't love that black-eyed thing he lives with," Hugh said.
+
+"I don't know how it is myself, but he does, and Luther never lies. You
+can see that he's square with her. He gives her a kind of companionship
+that will keep her out of the position I'm in, too," she said with
+conviction, and then saw the kind of blow that she had dealt, and covered
+her face with her hands for shame.
+
+Elizabeth heard the invalid sigh deeply. When she could speak again, she
+slid down on her knees by his bed and, laying her arm across the shoulders
+of the man she had hurt, faced herself and her deeds squarely, as was her
+way.
+
+"It's of no use, Hugh. We've got to face it. I didn't intend to hurt you,
+but I'm in a serious position. I must think of this thing all my life--and
+I shall shrink whenever I do. I shall see everybody in the light of my own
+life. I made no comparison between you and Luther. There's love and love
+in this world, as I've found out. John thought he loved me and I thought I
+loved him--and look at us! I don't know what Luther would do if he were
+placed where we are, but that is not the question. I hurt you just now;
+but, oh, Hugh! I love you too--God help me, and in the midst of it all I
+want my self-respect back till I could almost die to get it. Sometimes I
+think I'll go and tell John yet."
+
+When for sheer want of breath Elizabeth stopped and looked at Hugh Noland
+inquiringly, he asked eagerly:
+
+"Could we?"
+
+And for a long time she looked at him, till her eyes took on a faraway
+look which said that she was going over details and experiences of the
+past. In the light of those experiences she finally shook her head.
+
+"No," she said with simple conviction. "You don't know John. He'd never
+understand that---- Well, he'd mix everything uselessly. It would fall
+hardest on Jack; his future would be spoiled by the humiliation of having
+everybody think I was worse than I----"
+
+Elizabeth could not finish her sentence for the pain on the face before
+her, and hid her face on the same pillow and cried out her grief and
+heartache till Hugh had to warn her that Hepsie might come in.
+
+It was well that Elizabeth's mind was occupied with Hepsie while she
+bathed and cooled her swollen eyelids. Long afterward she remembered Hugh
+had laid his arm across his white face at that moment, but she was never
+to know the fulness of the self-reproach nor the depths of the despair
+which Hugh Noland suffered--Hugh, who loved her. For himself, he did not
+so much care, being a man and accustomed to the life of men in those
+things, but he saw the endless round of her days, carrying with her
+through them all the secrecy and shame of it; she who loved openness! If
+she had been a woman who looked herself less squarely in the face it would
+have been less hard.
+
+"I think I'll talk to Luther too," he said at last. "You couldn't drive
+Patsie over for him this evening, could you?" he asked.
+
+Elizabeth looked down at him in surprise as she wiped her hands.
+
+"Why--why, I thought you knew about Patsie," she said hesitatingly.
+"Patsie's dead."
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"Yes. She died the night you were hurt. John drove her for Doctor Morgan,"
+the girl said, wishing that she could keep the news from him.
+
+After that first startled exclamation Hugh did not remark on the mare's
+death; he noticed that Elizabeth never blamed John for things when talking
+of him, and he liked her for it.
+
+"What became of the horses that day--the ones on the binder? You kept me
+so stupefied at first that I sort of forgot about them."
+
+He forced from her all the vital details of the purchase of the new
+horses. After he had received the answers she felt obliged to give he did
+not comment upon any feature of the story. They never criticised anything
+John did between them; in fact, they rarely mentioned his name, but Hugh
+was struck with the necessity of knowing methods and facts regarding the
+business and asking such simple questions as he was warranted in asking.
+When the discussion was finished he asked again for Luther, and she
+promised to get him as soon as possible.
+
+Hugh Noland had a long afternoon to think out the situation into which he
+had thrust Elizabeth, for when Elizabeth arrived at Luther's house he had
+gone to town and the sun was so hot that she rested before starting home.
+Hugh was only disturbed by Hepsie, who came once an hour to give him the
+drink necessary when medicine time came around. It was lonesome with
+Elizabeth away, but it let him think more clearly. Hugh saw that he had
+entangled Elizabeth in a life which contained something altogether
+extraneous to her whole character. Because she was perfectly open, the
+greater would be the damage which must result to her if this life went on.
+One wild moment of hope had been granted him when they had discussed the
+possibility of telling John. How well Hugh remembered the searching
+thought Elizabeth had given his question before she had shaken her head.
+The time taken to think soberly of confession told more plainly than all
+her words how much she desired it. The one thing in life which Elizabeth
+most disliked was duplicity, and yet so long as he remained an invalid
+their relations would be kept up. For this alone he would have been glad
+to crawl on his knees to Colebyville, though he died on the way. Something
+must be done to free the girl and put her back into a life of which she
+could approve. With self-respect restored, Elizabeth was the kind of woman
+who would take hold of the merely unpleasant features of her life, and in
+time find a way of overcoming them. A plan began to formulate in Hugh
+Noland's head.
+
+The next morning Hepsie came and asked for a few days off to get some
+needed sewing done. With Hugh's illness and the extra work of it she had
+let her own work drag till she felt that she could neglect it no longer.
+Elizabeth let her go, thinking guiltily that there would be less danger of
+the discovery she seemed to be ever fearing these days. How they had gone
+so long without it she could not understand. To get her dinner dishes out
+of the way early she put Jack to sleep immediately after they were through
+eating and then hurried the dishes so as to get in a long afternoon's
+reading. The dishes took a long time in spite of her efforts to hurry.
+When at last she did finish she hastened to the bedroom with a glass of
+water in her hand. Hugh had been thinking seriously and was worn out with
+the tangle of wrongdoing in which he found himself, the solution of which
+involved such unsatisfactory changes, and now just weakly wanted to be
+loved. He did not speak, but after the tablet was swallowed invited a kiss
+by a glance of the eye, and when it was given, drew her head down on his
+breast and lay patting it.
+
+Jack had wakened and toddled into the room on his sleepy little legs. The
+child staggered over to his mother and laid his head against her arm,
+murmuring sleepily:
+
+"Love oo too!"
+
+Elizabeth Hunter sprang to her feet as if a clap of thunder had
+unexpectedly sent its report through the hot afternoon air. Her guilty
+eyes sought Hugh's. Jack encircled her knees with his fat little arms and,
+standing on his tiptoes to be taken, repeated:
+
+"Love oo too!"
+
+There was a noise at the well and Elizabeth, glad of a chance to escape
+from the room, went out. John was pumping water over a jug to cool it
+before he filled it. The sight of the man who was her husband had a
+curious effect on Elizabeth; everything in her, mentally and physically,
+became chaotic, her ears buzzed, her temples throbbed, and there was an
+inner shrinking which could scarcely be controlled. John had seen her and
+waited for her to come out to the well.
+
+When the jug was full, John leaned forward to kiss Jack and a sick sort of
+fear took hold of her lest he would offer to kiss her also. His breath
+fell hot on her neck as he sought Jack's face on her shoulder, but he did
+not offer to kiss her, and she turned away with an unspeakable relief.
+
+"Take Jack and I'll carry the jug out to the boys while you have a chat
+with Hugh," Elizabeth said suddenly.
+
+John was very tired, the field where they had been cutting shock corn was
+very hot, and the house looked cool and inviting.
+
+"Well, I guess I will."
+
+The jug was heavier than Elizabeth had thought and she sat down to rest on
+the way, observing as she did so that Doctor Morgan was driving into the
+lane.
+
+"I am not absolved from blame because he scolds," she told herself.
+
+As she thought of her duties in life, Jack's affectionate little speech of
+half an hour ago came to mind. Aye! there was the crux of the whole
+difficulty. She was Jack's mother! A line of Emerson's which she had read
+with Hugh once came to her mind: "In my dealings with my child, my Latin
+and my Greek, my accomplishments and my money, stead me nothing. They are
+all lost upon him: but as much soul as I have avails." Her whole mind was
+taken up with the quotation as soon as it came before her.
+
+"As much soul as I have avails!" Over and over she repeated it, and when
+she at last saw John bearing down upon her she got up guiltily and waited
+instead of going on with the jug alone.
+
+"Was it too heavy?" he asked. "I'll take it over and come back for you.
+Doctor Morgan wants to see you. I'll come back; it's too hot for me; I'm
+going to rest."
+
+The cool house had appealed to John Hunter.
+
+At the house Hugh Noland was asking searching questions of the old
+doctor.
+
+"When do you intend to let me get out of here, Doctor?" he asked.
+
+"Out of here?" the doctor exclaimed. "Not till you're well enough. Just
+what do you mean by 'out of here?'" he asked in return.
+
+"Just what I said. When will I be well enough to go to Mitchell County?"
+
+There was an intensity about it which caught the doctor's attention.
+
+"Now look here, Noland, you won't go to Mitchell County for a year with
+such a heart as that--it's too far from your friends, my boy. Be good and
+don't you get to worrying. You've got to stand it. Be a man."
+
+Had Doctor Morgan shown any tenderness Hugh Noland would have told him the
+real reason for wanting to get away, but something in the banter of being
+admonished to be a man took away the thing which made it possible.
+
+"Then can't I be taken into town?" Hugh asked when he had had time to
+swallow the bitter pill.
+
+"Into town? Now? Well, not that anybody knows of at this time. Now look
+here, you've got a splendid place to stay; why can't you be sensible and
+lay here and get well? You worry till I might as well go and turn this
+medicine down the gullet of one of Hunter's pigs. Be a man," he repeated,
+hoping to whip the discouraged patient into line with good sense.
+
+"It isn't a case of being a man, when a woman's got to take care of you
+that had better be taking care of herself," Hugh said bitterly.
+
+"Is Mrs. Hunter getting down on our hands too? That won't do. I'm glad we
+sent for her."
+
+Hugh Noland knew that he had played his last card, and he knew that he had
+lost. Elizabeth walked in at that moment, followed by John. Doctor Morgan
+addressed himself to her, taking her aside while they talked.
+
+"All moonshine, Noland, old boy," he exclaimed when he followed Elizabeth
+back to the sickroom a few minutes later. "This girl's as sound as a
+dollar. Noland's been thinking he's too much trouble, Mrs. Hunter."
+
+Doctor Morgan saw Hugh Noland's colour die out, and dropped his finger on
+the patient's wrist apprehensively. Neither spoke. To change the subject,
+and also to get a chance to observe the sick man under less conscious
+circumstances, Doctor Morgan addressed John:
+
+"By the way, Hunter, that man you bought the team of got in a pinch and
+asked me to shave the note for him. It's all right, is it?"
+
+A sort of electric thrill ran from each to all in the room. Doctor Morgan
+understood that he had unwittingly opened Pandora's box; Hugh gave no
+sign, but though John answered promptly and positively in the one word,
+"Surely," a warning was somehow conveyed to John that this was more than a
+merely unfortunate moment. He had been uncomfortable about the note, and
+under ordinary circumstances would have been glad to have the first
+knowledge of it come to Hugh in the presence of a third party, but now, by
+some indefinable thing which was neither sight nor sound, he knew that the
+news was not news to Hugh, and by the same intangible, vague thing, by
+some prophetic premonition, John knew that this matter of the note was a
+disaster.
+
+There was a long pause, finally broken by Hugh.
+
+"Will you be going home by Hansen's to-night, Doctor?"
+
+"I can as well as any other way," the doctor said, glad to hear voices
+again.
+
+"Will you ask Hansen to come over in the morning, then?" Hugh asked.
+
+Both Doctor Morgan and John Hunter looked over at Hugh sharply, wondering
+what he could want of Luther, but the sick man closed his eyes as a way of
+ending the argument. Doctor Morgan dropped his finger on the patient's
+wrist again and looked at John warningly:
+
+"I think I'll be going. You stay with Noland, Hunter. I want a word with
+Mrs. Hunter before I go. I'll stop at Hansen's, Noland."
+
+Doctor Morgan took Elizabeth out and questioned her closely about the diet
+and other important matters, but was able to elicit nothing new.
+
+"I've been encouraged of late," the old doctor said, shaking his head,
+"but here he is as bad as ever--that is, as discouraged and restless. Have
+you been reading to him lately? What's on his nerves, anyhow?"
+
+When the doctor could get no additional information regarding Hugh's
+condition from Elizabeth, he gave it up and turned his attention to the
+girl herself.
+
+"I told him you were as fine as a dollar, but I'm not sure about you. I'm
+going to bring you a tonic to-morrow. I'll be out in the morning, early,
+and I'll try and see him to-morrow night late. I don't like the way he
+looked to-night. Say, you don't know what he wants of Hansen do you?"
+
+"No. He asked me to go over yesterday afternoon after him, but Luther
+wasn't there and hasn't come in since. It's a busy time and he probably
+thought very little of it. Hugh often sends for him. Do you think he's
+worse, Doctor?" she asked anxiously.
+
+"No, not specially," the old doctor answered gruffly, as he turned toward
+Luther Hansen's house. He was a bit annoyed because he thought Hugh showed
+too little backbone, as he termed it.
+
+John Hunter sat long beside the invalid, cut to the quick by the languid
+air and shrunken frame. He wanted to talk about the note now that it was
+not a secret, but Hugh lay absolutely silent and did not open his eyes
+until the lamp was brought in. At that he shifted uneasily and asked that
+it be kept in the other room till needed at medicine time. John finally
+gave it up and went softly out, convinced that Hugh wanted rest and quiet.
+John was broken in many ways by the continued illness for which he felt
+himself responsible, and had particularly wanted a chance to talk
+to-night.
+
+When all had gone to bed but Elizabeth, Hugh called her to him.
+
+Elizabeth answered the call, but stood at a distance from the bed. It had
+come. Hugh had always known it would, but now that it was here it was hard
+to face.
+
+"You mean it, I know you do, Elizabeth," he said. "I want you to do it,
+but--O God! how hard it's going to be!"
+
+He held out his empty arms to her for a last embrace.
+
+Elizabeth shook her head.
+
+"Now's the time to begin, Hugh. 'Too,' Jack says. That tells the whole
+story. I shall pollute his life also. I shall stand, not for what I think
+I am, but for what I am, in that child's sight. I reasoned it out when you
+were so ill, and I thought this was justifiable, and oh, Hugh! I've
+dragged myself down in my own sight and I've dragged you down with me. It
+isn't enough for me to seem to be right, I've got to _be_ right," she said
+in a low tone, and with added shame because she had to keep her voice from
+John's ears--John who slept upstairs and trusted them.
+
+"It would be easier for you, Elizabeth, if I were not here," Hugh Noland
+said sadly. "You could kill it out alone."
+
+"But I am not alone. You are here, and have got to help me. Tell me that
+you will--at any cost," she leaned forward, and in her eagerness raised
+her voice till he pointed upward warningly.
+
+When she had given his medicine without a touch of tenderness, he said to
+her:
+
+"You have bid my soul forth. I will give you that help, at any cost."
+
+He made the last sentence stand out, but in her earnestness she did not
+notice it or think of it again till it was significant. She went back to
+her bed on the sitting-room couch and to the broken rest allowed to those
+who watch with the sick.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"AT ANY COST"
+
+
+The old doctor delivered the message to Luther, and the next morning he
+appeared at the sickroom door.
+
+While he was talking to Hugh, Nathan Hornby came and was called into the
+sickroom also. Elizabeth was too busy with her own work to think much
+about this visit, and before it was finished Doctor Morgan was with her
+questioning her about the night spent by her patient.
+
+Nathan came to the kitchen while they were talking.
+
+"I think I'll take that youngster home with me if you're goin' t' be alone
+t' day," he announced.
+
+Doctor Morgan looked relieved.
+
+"That's about the kindest thing you could do for this girl," he said.
+"Noland isn't as well as I'd like to have him, and she's up every hour in
+the night. It takes a hired girl to run off at a time like this."
+
+Elizabeth defended Hepsie at once. "Hepsie's pure gold. She waited a long
+time for Hugh to get well. Please, Doctor, don't make any such remark as
+that outside of this house or some one 'll tell her I said it. Really,
+she's the best help a woman ever had. She'll come back the first of next
+week. She said she'd come back any day I'd send for her. She'd do anything
+for me."
+
+"I guess you're right, little woman," Doctor Morgan laughed. "I wish all
+the same that you had some one with you so that you could stay right with
+that boy."
+
+All through the forenoon Elizabeth kept out of the sickroom except when
+the medicine was due, and then got away as fast as she could, though it
+was not easy to do so, for Doctor Morgan had urged her to entertain the
+invalid and keep him cheered up, letting her see that he was more than
+usually worried. She meant to live up to her resolutions, but in the
+afternoon Hugh was so quiet that it seemed ominous and began to worry
+her.
+
+"Oh, Hugh! how can I do right if you take it this way?" she cried in
+despair, and would have stroked his hair if he had not shrunk from her
+hand.
+
+"Don't, Elizabeth. You have asked for help. I have to give it in my own
+way. I have done harm enough to your life. Make it as easy for me as you
+can, for I'm only a man and--well, I've promised to help you--_at any
+cost_. You've nothing to worry about. I'm no worse than I've been," he
+ended in a whisper, and closed his eyes, as was his way when he did not
+want to talk.
+
+The girl tiptoed out, and left him to his thoughts. Her own were anything
+but satisfactory. He was more wan and tragic than ever before, and Doctor
+Morgan had especially cautioned her. She worked in the kitchen most of the
+evening, keeping out of his presence, and so the long, hard,
+unsatisfactory day passed, was recorded in the annals of time, and forever
+gone from the opportunity to alter or change its record.
+
+Luther Hansen came in after dark. Elizabeth answered his knock.
+
+"Alone?" he asked in astonishment when he entered the sitting room.
+
+"Yes. Mr. Chamberlain wanted John to bring the men over and load hogs for
+him. It's been too hot to take them to town in the daytime. Hugh's asleep,
+I think," she said in a low tone. "I didn't take a light in, because he
+likes to be in the dark, but I spoke to him two or three times and he
+didn't answer. Are you in a hurry? I hate to waken him."
+
+Doctor Morgan came as they talked. He stopped to look Elizabeth over
+before going to the sickroom, and then took the lamp she handed him and,
+followed by Luther, left Elizabeth standing in the dining room. She heard
+the doctor's sharp order, "Take this light, Hansen," and ran to help.
+
+The horror, the anguish, the regret of that hour are best left untold. The
+number of disks gone from the bottle under the pillow gave the doctor his
+clue. One final effort must have been made by the desperate invalid to
+secure for himself the drink which would wash them down without the
+dreaded coughing spell.
+
+The old doctor, who loved them both, and Luther Hansen also, witnessed
+Elizabeth's despair, and listened to her story. As Luther had said a few
+weeks before, he was a safe person, and her secret remained a secret.
+Luther led her away into the night and sat silently by while her grief
+spent itself in tears; it was a necessary stage. When John and the men
+came, he led her back, and himself met them at the gate to explain.
+
+The morning and the evening were the first day; the comings and goings of
+the inquisitive and the sympathetic were alike unremarked by Elizabeth.
+Only for that first hour did her grief run to tears; it was beyond tears.
+At the coroner's inquest she answered penetrating questions as if they
+related to the affairs of others, and when at last the weary body, whose
+spirit had been strong enough to lay it aside, had been buried on the bare
+hillside, the neighbours and those who came to the funeral from curiosity
+agreed that Elizabeth Hunter could stand anything. So little evidence of
+emotion had she given that Mrs. Crane remarked to Mrs. Farnshaw as they
+rode home together:
+
+"I declare, Lizzie's th' coolest hand I ever met. She couldn't 'a' liked
+Mr. Noland very much. She wasn't near as broke up as Mr. Hunter was, an'
+when I asked her if she wouldn't feel kind of spooky in that house after
+such a thing, she just looked at me, funny-like, an' says 'Why?' an'
+didn't seem t' care a bit."
+
+Doctor Morgan drove home from the graveyard with the family.
+
+"I suppose you know, Hunter, that there's a will," he said before he
+helped Elizabeth into the buggy.
+
+"No! Who's got it?" John exclaimed.
+
+"He gave it to me, with a note asking me not to read it till after he was
+buried, if he should die."
+
+John and Elizabeth followed the doctor's rig home across the long stretch
+of prairie.
+
+"Did you know that Hugh left a will?" John Hunter asked Elizabeth, after
+driving a long time in silence.
+
+"Luther told me last night. I didn't think much about it and I forgot to
+tell you," Elizabeth returned briefly, and fell back into her own sad
+thoughts again.
+
+John Hunter looked at his wife in surprise.
+
+"Luther!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes," she answered indifferently, not looking up, and unaware that John
+was regarding her with a surprise which amounted almost to suspicion.
+
+John let the subject drop, but as they rode home he had an uncomfortable
+sense of unpleasant things to come: first of all why had the presence of
+the will been concealed from him, Hugh Noland's partner and closest
+friend? secondly, why had Luther Hansen been told? thirdly, why had
+Elizabeth declined just now to discuss it with him after knowing about it
+for some time? He could not put his finger on the exact trouble, but John
+Hunter was affronted.
+
+The truth of the matter was that Elizabeth had only heard of the will the
+night before, and had been too stunned by other things to care much about
+it. If she had thought about it at all she would have supposed that John
+had been told also, but Elizabeth had been occupied with troubles quite
+aside from material things, and now did not talk because she was concerned
+with certain sad aspects of the past and almost as sad forebodings for the
+future.
+
+"You better come in too, Hansen," Doctor Morgan said to Luther, when they
+arrived at the Hunter house.
+
+Sadie had stayed with Hepsie at the house, and Luther had expected to take
+her and go straight home. The two women had been busy in the three hours
+since the body of Hugh Noland had been taken from the house. The mattress
+which had been put out in the hot sun for two days had been brought in,
+and order had been restored to the death chamber. There was a dinner ready
+for the party of sorrowing friends who had loved the man that had been
+laid to his final rest, and it was not till after it was eaten that the
+subject of the will was mentioned again.
+
+They sat about the table and listened to Doctor Morgan's remarks and the
+reading of the important document.
+
+"I have," Doctor Morgan began, "a letter from Mr. Noland written the day
+before his death, in which he tells me that he has made a will of which I
+am to be made the sole executor. In that letter he enclosed another sealed
+one on which he had written instructions that it was not to be opened till
+after his death. I opened the latter this morning, and in it he states
+frankly that he has decided to voluntarily leave his slowly dissolving
+body, and spare further pain to those he loves. Perhaps--perhaps I could
+have helped him, if I'd known. I can't tell," the old doctor said
+brokenly. "He asked me to do something for him that I guess I ought to
+have done, but I thought he was all right as he was, and I wouldn't do it.
+However, he asked me as his executor to see to it that every provision of
+this will, which I have never seen, be carried out to the letter. Hansen,
+here, is one of the witnesses he tells me, and Hornby is the other. It is
+unnecessary for me to say that I shall have to carry out these
+instructions as I have been commanded to do."
+
+Turning to John, he added:
+
+"I hope, Hunter, that there's nothing in this that will work any
+inconvenience to you, and I hardly think it will."
+
+John Hunter sat through the opening of the envelope and the rapid survey
+which Doctor Morgan gave its contents before he began to read, stirred by
+varying emotions. Suspicion crawled through his brain, leaving her slimy
+trail; why had there been need of secrecy? Why had all these people been
+told, and he, John Hunter alone, left out? Nathan Hornby and Luther Hansen
+witnesses! But most of all, as was to be expected, his suspicions were
+directed toward Elizabeth. She had known--she probably knew from the
+beginning. She was in the conspiracy. Of the fact of a conspiracy John
+Hunter felt certain when Doctor Morgan cleared his throat and began to
+read:
+
+                                                      Hunter's Farm,
+                                                Colebyville, Kansas,
+                                                     August 22, 18--
+
+  Know all men by these presents that I, Hugh Noland, being of sound
+  mind and memory, not acting under duress, menace, fraud, or undue
+  influence of any person whatsoever, do make, publish, and declare
+  this my last will and testament.
+
+  First, I order and direct that all my just debts be paid by my
+  executor, hereinafter named.
+
+  Second, I expressly provide, order, and direct that all my estate,
+  consisting of one half of the lands and chattels of the firm of
+  "Hunter and Noland" shall be settled by my executor, hereinafter
+  named, without the intervention of the courts, and given, whole and
+  entire, to Elizabeth Hunter, and to her heirs and assigns forever,
+  and that the division be a legal division, so arranged that all deeds
+  to the land and all rights to the personal property shall be legally
+  hers.
+
+  This I do as an inadequate return for all she has done and tried to
+  do for me.
+
+  Lastly, I hereby nominate and appoint George W. Morgan, M. D., sole
+  executor of this my last will and testament, to serve without bonds
+  or the intervention of any court.
+
+  In testimony whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal, and publish and
+  declare this my last will and testament, on this twenty-second day of
+  August, in the year of our Lord 18----
+
+                                           Signed,      Hugh Noland.
+
+  Witnesses: Luther Hansen, Nathan Hornby.
+
+There was a pause. Surprise held every person present, for the witnesses
+had seen only their signatures up to now, not the will, and Doctor Morgan
+was no less astonished than the rest. At last he reached his hand across
+the table to Elizabeth saying:
+
+"It's an instrument that I shall get some pleasure at least from
+administering, Mrs. Hunter. You deserve it. I'm glad it goes to you. It's
+like the boy! God rest his weary soul, and forgive his impatience to be
+off! we'll miss him," he added brokenly.
+
+Elizabeth sat with her hands clasped on the table in front of her, neither
+hearing nor seeing more. She was unaware that she was the object of
+everybody's attention and that all eyes were turned on her. The merely
+material items contained in that instrument were of little moment to her
+just then; to every one else, except perhaps Luther, they were all that
+there was of importance. Sadie Hansen looked at her young neighbour,
+overcome by the fact that she was to have several thousand dollars all her
+own; Luther's gray eyes dwelt upon her affectionately, glad that this last
+evidence of Hugh Noland's sacrifice was hers; Doctor Morgan thought of the
+power it would give her to control the financial side of her life, and
+John Hunter was glad that at least the money was to remain in the
+business, and ready to forget the supposed plot.
+
+Elizabeth was aroused by Doctor Morgan placing a sealed envelope in her
+hand and saying:
+
+"This seems to be for you, Mrs. Hunter. It was in this big envelope with
+the will, and I didn't see it till just now."
+
+The girl was so surprised that she turned the envelope over two or three
+times and read her name carefully to realize that the letter was for her,
+and from Hugh's own hand. When at last it was clear to her, her face
+flushed with confusion, and the first tears which had dimmed her eyes
+since the hour of his death came to her relief. But the tears did not
+fall. Realizing that the eyes of all present were upon her, she controlled
+herself, and rising said:
+
+"Excuse me one moment, till I have read it," and passed into her own
+bedroom, where, with the sense of his presence, she clasped it to her
+tenderly an instant, and still standing, broke the seal.
+
+It was simple, sincere, and so formal that all the world might have read
+it, and yet, it said all that she would have wanted him to say.
+
+  My Dear Elizabeth [it began]: When this reaches your hand, my heart
+  will have ceased to trouble either of us. I will have fought my
+  little fight; I will have kept the faith--which I started out too
+  late to keep. The little I leave you will be small recompense for all
+  I have cost you, but it is all I have, and will, I hope, help toward
+  emancipating you from care. My one earnest bit of advice to you is,
+  _keep it free from debts_.
+
+  I wish I might have spared you these last few days and their various
+  burdens, but I am sure they will be less heavy than if I chose to
+  wait.
+
+                                                               Hugh.
+
+Elizabeth Hunter returned to the table with the open letter, which she
+handed to Doctor Morgan saying:
+
+"Read it aloud, Doctor," and stood behind her chair with her head bowed
+while it was being done.
+
+When it was finished, she looked about her, measuring the different
+members of the group, wondering if it said the things to them which it
+cried aloud to her. The survey was satisfactory, till she suddenly
+realized that John was not there.
+
+"Where's John," she asked.
+
+"Gone out to see Nate Hornby--he's brought the baby," Luther answered.
+
+Doctor Morgan started for home, taking the will with him to have it
+legally probated, and Elizabeth took Jack from his father's arms, and went
+back to put away her letter, forgetting that John had not heard it read.
+Nathan came to spend the rest of the day. He knew from personal experience
+the cheerlessness of the house which has but lately harboured the dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+FACING CONSEQUENCES
+
+
+The next Sunday John was thrown in upon Elizabeth for entertainment. He
+had been a little more tender with her since the funeral, reflecting that
+women were easily upset by death and that this death had been particularly
+tragic in its sadness and disturbing features. He missed Hugh, and an
+intangible something about the will made him uncomfortable; but they would
+be rich in time and he could simply oversee the business, and life would
+be more satisfactory. If he thought of Luther and Nathan as witnesses, the
+thought was made partially acceptable since they could see that Hugh had
+placed the property in his, John Hunter's, hands. When the uncomfortable
+things wormed their way forward and would be considered, he tried to
+reason them out. Some features of it could be accounted for; for instance,
+he, John Hunter, had probably not been consulted by Hugh for legal
+reasons, since the money was to come to them. Hugh must have considered
+that. But Elizabeth had known! He had forgotten that. Right there John
+went into a brown study. Had she known before Hugh's death? It was queer,
+but she never mentioned Hugh these days, nor the will, nor--no, she did
+not speak of the letter, much less offer to show it to him. Still, the
+money was theirs. That was the solid rock under John Hunter's feet.
+Whatever else happened, the money was theirs. Now he could open out and
+farm on a scale befitting a man of his parts. They would make something
+yet. This farming venture had not turned out so badly after all.
+
+A slight rain was falling, the first in two months, two of the most
+important months in the year; but it was only a drizzle and not enough to
+benefit the corn, which--even the last planting--was ruined. The heat and
+drought had forced a premature ripening, and the stubby ears, fully
+formed, were empty of developing grains, except near the butts. It was
+discouraging to lose the corn, and John, to take the place of the
+shortened crop, had had a field plowed and sewed to millet. A promise of
+rain meant a probable crop of that substitute for the heavier grain, but
+it must be rain, not a mere shower. Disappointed at the stingy display of
+water, John wandered about the house, disturbed by Jack's noise, and
+irritably uncomfortable.
+
+"Come on in and sit down," he urged when he saw that Elizabeth intended to
+help Hepsie with the dishes.
+
+"All right. Let the work go, Hepsie, and I'll do it later," Elizabeth said
+quietly. She dreaded an hour with John when he was in that mood, but there
+seemed to be no help for it.
+
+The two women cleared the dinner table and righted the dining room before
+they stopped, then Elizabeth closed the kitchen door and left the
+dishwashing till she could get away from the conference requested. Hepsie
+had hurried to get started early for her home and Elizabeth had entered
+into her plans and offered assistance.
+
+"Why don't you let Hepsie finish them alone?" John said petulantly.
+
+Elizabeth made no reply, but took Jack on her lap and rocked him to keep
+herself occupied. There was less opportunity for disagreement if the child
+were still while his father talked.
+
+"If this rain'd only get busy we'd have a crop of millet yet," John began.
+"Corn's going to be mighty high and scarce this fall."
+
+Elizabeth did not reply; something in the air warned her to let John do
+the talking. She had ceased to enter into conversation with him unless
+something vital made it necessary to speak. The vital thing was not long
+in forthcoming. The whimsical weather made him depressed and kept his mind
+on the gloomy crop outlook.
+
+"Confound this beastly drizzle! If it'd only get down to business and rain
+we'd pull out yet. There'll be corn to buy for the cattle and the very
+devil to pay everywhere. I've got to lengthen out the sheds over those
+feeders--it hurried the cattle to get around them last winter--and here's
+all these extra expenses lately. There's no way out of it--we've got to
+put a mortgage on that west eighty. I'll take up the horse note in that
+case, and Johnson's offering that quarter section so cheap that I think
+I'll just make the loan big enough to cover the first payment and take it
+in. We'll never get it as cheap again."
+
+Elizabeth's eyes were wide open now, but she considered a moment before
+she began to speak.
+
+"We can't do that," she said slowly at last. "We're out of debt, except
+your personal note for the five hundred and the one for the team. It won't
+do to mortgage again."
+
+"But we'll have to mortgage, with the crop short, and all those cattle!"
+he exclaimed.
+
+"Sell a part of them as grass cattle, and use the money to buy corn for
+the rest," she advised.
+
+"Grass cattle are soft and don't weigh down like corn-fed steers. It would
+be sheer waste," John insisted.
+
+Elizabeth understood that right now they were to test their strength. She
+thought it over carefully, not speaking till she had decided what to say.
+The old path of mortgages and interest meant the old agony of dread of
+pay-day and the heart eaten out of every day of their existence, and yet
+she was careful not to rush into discussion. Her voice became more quiet
+as she felt her way in the debate.
+
+"You are right as far as you go, grass cattle do not sell for as much,
+but, on the other hand, a loan means interest, and there is always a
+chance of the loss of a steer or two and then the profit is gone and you
+have your mortgage left. Luther said yesterday that they had black-leg
+over north of home, and you know how contagious it is."
+
+"Oh, Luther! Of course Luther knows all there is to know about anything,"
+sneered her husband, to whom Luther was a sore point just now.
+
+Elizabeth realized her mistake in mentioning Luther's name to John almost
+before it was out of her mouth. John's instincts made him bluster and get
+off the subject of business and on to that of personalities at once. She
+did not reply to the taunt, but went quietly back to the point of
+business.
+
+"The price of corn," she said with perfect control, "will go way up after
+this dry weather, but the price of beef doesn't always rise in proportion.
+Besides that, this is a bad year to get tied up in the money market."
+
+"We're going to have to do it all the same," John replied, spurred on by
+the mention of Luther's name to compel her consent.
+
+"But, we can't do it. Hugh especially directed in his letter that we must
+not go into debt."
+
+"I have not had the honour of seeing Hugh's letter to you, and therefore I
+do not know," John returned. That was another sore point.
+
+"So you didn't! Doctor Morgan read it to all the rest."
+
+Elizabeth had forgotten that John had not heard the letter read, and rose
+promptly and went for it. She laid it on the table at his elbow when she
+returned saying:
+
+"I had forgotten--you didn't hear it when the doctor read it that day."
+
+John Hunter brushed it aside with his arm.
+
+"I don't wish to see it, thank you."
+
+The letter fell on the floor. Elizabeth stooped quickly and picked it up.
+
+"You may do as you wish about that; I shall not consent to the mortgage
+just the same," she said, her temper getting the better of her at last.
+She turned to the bedroom to put the letter away.
+
+"Now look here, Elizabeth!" John called after her.
+
+Seeing the ineffectiveness of carrying on the conversation when they were
+not face to face, John waited till she returned. When she was seated again
+and had begun to rock the restless child once more, he began:
+
+"We may as well understand each other right now as any time. If you're
+going to run this place, I want to know it, and I'll step down and out."
+
+John looked belligerent and waited for her to do her womanly duty and give
+in. Elizabeth made no reply. John waited. He continued to wait for some
+seconds.
+
+"I shall not consent to a mortgage," was the quiet answer.
+
+John Hunter flung himself out of the house.
+
+It was a bad afternoon for John. The drizzle had hardly been enough to lay
+the dust, but had made it impossible to walk through the grass or over the
+fields; his pride made it impossible for him to go back to the house, and
+so there was no place open to him except the hayloft, where he turned his
+own gloomy thoughts over and reasoned out this new development. A day's
+pouting, he was certain, would win his point; it would probably be all
+right when he went back at supper time, but he saw difficulties ahead with
+Elizabeth feeling that she had a right to an opinion regarding the
+property.
+
+"I shall let her see that I mean business all the same. I'm not going to
+have her interfering in my work. Let her attend to her own, as a woman
+ought to do," he concluded.
+
+He did wish, however, that he had read the letter. Doctor Morgan had
+referred to the letter also as being authority. He had an uncomfortable
+feeling that if he ever saw that letter that he would have to ask again;
+Elizabeth was a little less easy of late to manage than she had been that
+first year; she could put a thing aside and not discuss it almost as well
+as he could.
+
+At that point John's mind flamed up against Luther Hansen. Elizabeth was
+always quoting Luther. He was glad he had let her see just now that she
+need not quote that common Swede to him any more. He didn't know a necktie
+from a shoelace! Hugh might have asked him to witness the will, but Hugh
+had seen fit to leave the money to them, all the same. Whatever else hurt,
+the money was his, and he'd turn everything into cattle, and get rich, and
+get out of this damned hole.
+
+Elizabeth, in the house, was doing her own thinking. The conversation just
+finished had indications. She saw that her husband had a definite policy
+in regard to the management of the property, that he did not mean to let
+her have any more to do with it than when it was all his own. A creeping
+suspicion came to her that if she refused to consent to further mortgages
+her husband might leave her. There had been a violence in his tones as
+well as in his manner beyond any he had ever assumed toward her. Elizabeth
+shrank in a heartsick way from the contest. If he would mortgage the one
+eighty and then stop she would far rather have given away that much land
+than to have the quarrel, but that she knew he would not do. She could not
+for a moment think of giving up if she expected to have a roof over her
+head that was unencumbered when she was old. Though half the property was
+now hers by actual right, she would not interfere with anything he wished
+to do with it except to place a loan against it. If he insisted upon
+mortgages, though their disagreement became a scandal, she resolved that
+she would not consent.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+John ate his supper without speaking to any one, and waited from then till
+bedtime for his answer, but Elizabeth gave no sign. The next day he
+waited, and the next, with increasing uneasiness and alarm. He decided at
+last to force her consent.
+
+The third day he put one of the new horses in the single buggy and left
+the place without saying where he was going, and not even when he returned
+in the evening did he mention what his errand had been.
+
+The following morning a team was driven into the side lane and Elizabeth
+saw John meet the driver and help him tie his horses. There was the air of
+a prearranged thing between them, and as they came toward the house it
+flashed through her mind what had been done. Her whole form straightened
+instinctively and she grasped her broom rigidly as she left the dining
+room and went to her own bedroom to get control of herself before she
+should have to meet the stranger. She realized that the man was the
+Johnson John had spoken of as having the quarter section of land for sale.
+She was to be called upon to act. The thing she must do she knew was
+right; could she make the manner of the doing of it right also? She would
+not humiliate him if she could help it; she stayed in her room, hoping
+that he would come to call her himself and then she could warn him when he
+was alone, but John would not meet her except in the presence of the
+stranger, and sent Hepsie to call her. There was no help for it, and
+Elizabeth went as she was bidden--went quietly, and was introduced to the
+neighbour whom she had never seen.
+
+"Mr. Johnson has accepted my proposition, Elizabeth, to give him
+twenty-five dollars an acre for the quarter next to ours," John said after
+all were seated.
+
+The girl waited quietly. She noticed that John did not mention the terms
+of payment, and waited for him to commit himself on that point.
+
+"Do you know where those blank deeds are? We can make one out while we
+conclude the details, and then go in to Colebyville to-morrow and have a
+notary take our signatures," John concluded easily.
+
+Elizabeth hesitated visibly, and John had a startled moment, but she went
+for the blanks at last, as he directed. The two men sat with their heads
+together, and wrote carefully in the numbers and legal description of the
+land.
+
+"And the party of the first part further agrees that the sum of----" John
+was reading as he wrote it in. His voice ran on to the close. When the
+writing was finished the man Johnson rose, and, picking up his straw hat,
+said:
+
+"I guess I'll be hurrying on toward home now. I'll stop in on the way
+to-morrow morning. You'd just as well ride with me."
+
+"Oh, I'll have to take Mrs. Hunter in with me," John replied, "and I can
+just as well hitch up to my own rig."
+
+"What are you taking me in with you for, John?" Elizabeth asked, perfectly
+quiet on the outside, but aquiver with humiliation and dread because of
+the thing she was being compelled to do.
+
+"To fix up the papers on the west eighty; you know It'll be necessary for
+you to sign them too." Addressing Mr. Johnson, he added easily: "My wife
+objects to going into debt, Mr. Johnson, but I felt this too good an
+opportunity to let pass, and since we can arrange it so that I won't have
+to raise but a thousand dollars just now, I'm sure She'll see the
+advisability of the move."
+
+Elizabeth considered a second before she began to speak, and then said
+slowly:
+
+"Mr. Hunter does not understand the nature of my objection, I see. Of
+course if he can arrange it with you so that all the indebtedness falls on
+the land he is buying, I should have no objections whatever, but we cannot
+mortgage our home. The provisions of the will forbid it, and I shall live
+up to those provisions absolutely."
+
+The silence which followed was vocal with astonishment. The man looked
+from husband to wife for signs of quarrelling, but Elizabeth returned his
+gaze quietly, and without signs of anger, and John also gave no indication
+of anything but surprise. After a gasping instant, during which his
+instincts warned him to keep on the side of decency, John accepted the
+situation with seeming calm.
+
+"Well, Mr. Johnson, if Mrs. Hunter feels that way about it, there's
+nothing to do. I'm sorry to have brought you over on a fool's errand," he
+said suavely, "but it can't be helped now. We'll take the land later,
+however," and ushered his guest out of the house and helped him untie his
+team without any sign of the tempest within.
+
+John went back to the house with no concealment and no cajolery.
+
+"We may as well know where we are and what we mean to do right here and
+now, Elizabeth," he began. "If you're going to do this kind of thing, I
+want to know it."
+
+Elizabeth was ready for the storm, and met it without flurry. She looked
+at her husband quietly, steadily, sorrowfully.
+
+"I shall sign no mortgages, if that is what you are in doubt about," she
+said. "I had not intended to ask for a legal division of the property, but
+since you demand the right to make loans, I shall not cripple your plans
+with what is your own. I will have my part set aside; you can farm it in
+any way you choose, but you can only mortgage what is yours. I would have
+told you so if you had played fair and discussed this thing with me
+instead of leaving the house or blustering. You can tell me what you mean
+to do where I am concerned--you would if I were a man--or you can take
+just what you did to-day. You try to put me where I can't help myself
+before strangers when you want me to do a thing you know I don't think I
+ought to do; and you can't handle me that way any longer."
+
+John Hunter had been working himself into a passion as he listened and
+burst out:
+
+"And You'll work for the best interests of this farm, that's what You'll
+do! Every time I ask you to sign a paper you make a little more fuss.
+Because I got in pretty deep before is no sign I'm going to do it again,
+and when I tell you to sign anything You'll do it."
+
+His feet were very wide apart, and he thrust his face forward at her, his
+eyes glaring into hers with every trick which instinct prompted him to use
+in compelling her obedience.
+
+Elizabeth barely glanced at him, and then looked down at the floor,
+quietly considering in what way she should reply to such an attack.
+
+John was disconcerted; his little stage play had fallen flat.
+
+After a moment's pause, Elizabeth began very quietly:
+
+"I will not interfere with anything you do about the land which has been
+left to me, except that I will not have one cent of mortgage on it. If you
+will keep out of debt, you can manage it any way you choose, but I will
+have every step of the business explained to me which involves the safety
+of my home, and it will be explained to me beforehand--or the same thing
+will happen that has just happened. I will not be deceived, even in little
+things."
+
+The girl looked him squarely and kindly in the face, but her look was as
+firm as if he had not blustered.
+
+"I have not deceived you. I brought this man here and explained the whole
+thing before your face, besides telling you the other day that I intended
+to have that land."
+
+"You are shuffling with the truth, and you know it," she said sternly.
+"You did not tell me you had made any arrangements with him, nor that you
+intended to do so, only in a general way. You thought you'd catch me
+before him when it came to signing the papers, and then you thought I
+couldn't help myself."
+
+"I have not tried to deceive you! I brought him here and explained every
+detail," he said with such a righteous appearance of innocence that
+Elizabeth was tempted to laugh. "We've fallen to a pretty state of affairs
+when my own wife hints at my having lied to her," John insisted.
+
+Elizabeth spoke slowly, measuring her words, realizing that the crisis of
+their lives was upon them.
+
+"I will not accuse you any more, but I will explain the plan on which I
+will do business with you."
+
+"You needn't bother," John interrupted sarcastically. "I will let you run
+it."
+
+"I will not go into debt," Elizabeth continued as calmly as if he had not
+interrupted. "That is the absolute decision I have come to. You will not
+explain to me _after_ you have decided to do a thing and in the presence
+of other people, where my property and my freedom are concerned. On the
+other hand, if you are determined to go into debt and branch out into a
+larger business, I feel that I cannot deny you the right to do as you wish
+with what is your own, and if you choose to do so will divide the property
+and leave you as free to mortgage and sell as if you were not married to
+me. I will leave you as free as I ask to be myself."
+
+"Free! Free to be made a fool of. No, ma'am; you don't run any such gag as
+that on me. The people in this community are only too anxious to talk
+about me; they'd roll it under their tongues like a sweet morsel, that as
+soon as you got hold of the money you put the screws on me. You gave
+Johnson just such a handle this afternoon as that. You'll behave yourself,
+and look after your house and child as a woman ought to do, and I'll take
+charge of the work out of doors as a man ought to do."
+
+Elizabeth interrupted him eagerly:
+
+"Now right there, John, you have struck the very heart of the thing which
+first made me feel that I must take care of myself in my own way. You have
+never allowed me to bake a pie or a loaf of bread, nor churn, nor anything
+without you told me how to do it; and then you feel that you have the
+right to mortgage the home right over my head and think I have no rights
+in the matter."
+
+It was John's turn to interrupt eagerly.
+
+"Who put that home over your head?" he asked, for the first time
+addressing himself to the real issue of the home.
+
+Elizabeth looked at him steadily. She was surprised to find herself
+talking thus quietly, she who had been so prone to emotional hindrances.
+
+"Since I have been in your house I have had my food and clothes. I don't
+have to tell you that my mere work is worth far more than that. I have
+borne you a child. Motherhood entitles me to a share in the estate, since
+I have the child on my hands; besides, I could have been teaching school
+these years and not only earned my living but have been free to go and
+come as I have never been free here."
+
+"That has nothing to do with it. You are married and your duty lies here
+as well as your work. It's a wife I want. If you're going to be a wife, be
+one; if you're going to be a boss, I want to know it, and I'll get out."
+
+"Two things I will have my say about: I will not mortgage the half of the
+land which is mine, and I will not be interfered with when I have to
+correct Jack," Elizabeth said slowly. "Also when I see fit to go anywhere
+I shall go hereafter. I was never allowed to go to see Aunt Susan, and she
+went down to her death thinking I didn't want to come. Of course that's
+different now: I do go when I want to these days, but I got my first
+warning right there that I must take care of myself. You don't intend to
+tell me anything about what you mean to do with me, ever, if you can help
+it."
+
+"You'll go into Colebyville and sign the papers on that land all the
+same," John said doggedly.
+
+"I will sign no papers till there is a legal division of the property,
+John. I mean what I say. I'll let people talk if you crowd me before
+them," the girl said decisively.
+
+John glared at her in desperation.
+
+"Damn it! no wonder folks talked the week we were married! I've been
+humiliated ever since I brought you into this house," the man cried,
+breaking into a passion again. "A pretty figure You'll cut, with this last
+thing added to your reputation. Everybody knows you couldn't get along
+with your father. I let you down easy with Johnson just now, in spite of
+the humiliating place you put me in, but if you think I'm going to be
+driven at your beck and call you're mistaken."
+
+John stopped to give effect to his words. He was just beginning to realize
+that Elizabeth was not giving up, and that it was a fight to the finish.
+The feature John disliked was that it was a fight in the open. Well, let
+her fight in the open, she should see that he would not be beaten.
+
+Elizabeth, to be less conscious of the eyes glaring at her, picked up her
+sewing, which had been tossed on the lounge an hour ago, and began to ply
+her needle.
+
+John broke out anew, really losing control of himself this time.
+
+"It's the most outrageous thing I ever heard of--a woman humiliating her
+husband by refusing to sign papers when he has brought the man right into
+the house to fix them up! A pretty reputation I'll get out of it! It's
+sickening, disgusting. What do you expect me to do? Tell me that. If I
+want to buy a load of hay or a boar pig, am I to say to a man, 'Wait till
+I ask my wife if I can?'"
+
+He stood leering at her, hot with passion, determined to make her speak.
+The vulgarity of his discussion nauseated her, but since she must discuss,
+she was resolved to do it quietly and on decent ground as far as she was
+concerned. Without fear she replied slowly:
+
+"You know perfectly well what I have asked of you, John. You won't gain
+anything by blustering. I mean to be consulted on all important matters
+like loans, deeds, and mortgages, exactly as you'd consult with a man, and
+I intend to be consulted _before_ the thing is done, and not have you take
+advantage of me in the presence of strangers. You needn't shuffle matters.
+You understand what I mean, and you can't fool me. Be sensible and do the
+right thing by me, and give me the chance to do the right thing by you."
+
+"I've done the right thing by you already, and I'll go about my own
+affairs as a man should, and You'll attend to your own affairs as a woman
+should if you live with me, and leave me free to act like a man. Do you
+understand that?" he demanded.
+
+"I'm sorry, John," she said, falling back to the needle, which she had let
+rest again for a moment. There was a little choke in her voice, but she
+was firm.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" he asked, suspicious that she was not giving
+up as he intended that she should do.
+
+"I mean just what I said a minute ago: I will let you mortgage your half
+of this farm after it is divided, but I will not sign any such papers on
+the other half. I will not be taken advantage of before strangers; I will
+let them talk first, and I will take care of my house as I see fit. Also,
+I will not speak when you manage Jack, and you will not interfere when I
+have to do it--that is, we will not interfere with each other _before the
+child_."
+
+John Hunter's face turned scarlet, his cheeks stung as if he had been
+slapped; she was not giving in at all! He stood before her incensed beyond
+words for a moment, breathing hard and almost bursting with what he
+considered the insult of it; then the blood which had mounted to his head
+receded and left him deadly white.
+
+"I don't exactly understand you," he said in level tones, "but you shall
+understand me. I will never be made a fool of by you again; if you're
+going to run things, say it out, and I'll let you have it and run it
+alone."
+
+It was hopeless; she did not reply, but stitched in and out on Jack's
+little frock, sick at heart with the shame of such a quarrel, since it was
+to accomplish nothing.
+
+"Answer me!" he thundered.
+
+Elizabeth laid her sewing on the lounge beside her, and rose to her feet.
+She looked him squarely in the face and answered as he demanded.
+
+"I will sign no papers of which I do not approve, and certainly none which
+I have been deceived about in any way. Aside from that you are free to run
+the farm as you wish."
+
+"Then take the whole damned thing, and I'll go back to mother and make a
+home for her. She was never allowed to have a home in this house after you
+came into it," he flung out. "I'll take the Mitchell County land, and you
+can have what's here. That's what you and Hornby and Hansen planned from
+the first, I should judge. That's why you got Noland to do it."
+
+Thrusting his hat down to his very ears, he strode from the house,
+swinging the screen door behind him so hard that it broke and the split
+corner fell out and hung dangling by the net, which kept the splintered
+frame from falling to the ground.
+
+Elizabeth closed the panelled door to keep out the flies, and turned
+quietly to the bedroom for her bonnet. She spoke to Hepsie, who had heard
+the entire argument, as she passed through the kitchen, asking her to keep
+Jack for her, and walked through the barnyard, through the wet pasture,
+and on to her haunt in the willows, where she could think undisturbed.
+
+John was still standing in the harness room of the barn when he heard the
+door close behind Elizabeth, and saw her coming that way.
+
+Elizabeth was coming to the barn! He gave a start of surprise. Even while
+he had not given up all thought of her coming to his terms, he wondered at
+her giving in so promptly. John drew back so that she should not see that
+he was watching her. When she did not immediately appear he thought with a
+smile of satisfaction that she had stopped, not finding it easy to
+approach after the haughty manner in which she had just dismissed his
+demands. He waited a moment, considering terms of capitulation, and then
+walked unconcernedly out.
+
+The truth broke upon him. She had passed the barn, she was on her way to
+the willows, not to him. Something in John Hunter sickened.
+
+Up to the moment when John had seen his wife coming toward him he had been
+fully prepared to stand by the terms of dissolution which he had made. But
+in that moment when he watched her recede from him in the direction of the
+willows, the tide of his feelings turned; he wished he had not issued his
+ultimatum; he wished he had not put it to the test.
+
+The triumph of receiving her submission had been his first thought when he
+had seen her come from the house, and it had been a sweet morsel while it
+had lasted, but when he had seen her going from him toward the willows, he
+suddenly realized that triumph had slipped from his grasp. Suddenly he
+desired to possess her. Not since the first six weeks of their
+acquaintance had Elizabeth looked so fair to him. He had put her away! A
+great sob rose up in him. He had said that he would go back to his mother,
+and his fate was sealed. He had gone to the barn to saddle his horse and
+start on the instant for Mitchell County and the cattle he had chosen as
+his portion, but all at once the glamour of his going died away and he saw
+the choice he had made. To crown his cheerless flight, Jack was at Nathan
+Hornby's, and pride would not let him follow the child up even when he was
+going away forever. Nate Hornby had had something to do with this business
+of Elizabeth getting the money, and he had also had something to do with
+her determination to take the money out of his, her husband's, hands, and
+he, John Hunter, would not humble himself before him. Long before
+Elizabeth's return from the willows her husband was away.
+
+Great was Elizabeth Hunter's surprise when John did not appear at supper.
+She had not taken him seriously; he had always blustered, and while she
+had realized that he was angry enough to make his word good, she had
+supposed that he would make a division of the property if he intended to
+leave her, and make arrangements for the child. She did not believe that
+he was gone, and answered the observations and questions of the hired men
+by saying that he had probably gone for the baby. In fact, having once
+said it, it sounded plausible to her, and she waited till far into the
+night for the sound of his horse's footsteps.
+
+The suspicion which at midnight was yet a suspicion was by morning a
+certainty, but Elizabeth kept her own counsel, and when Nathan brought
+Jack at noon she did not speak of her husband's absence. The second day
+the hired men began to make mention of it, and the evening of the third
+day Luther Hansen appeared at the sitting-room door.
+
+"Lizzie, what's this I hear about Hunter?" he asked, looking searchingly
+into her face.
+
+Elizabeth told him all that she knew, except the unjust thing he had said
+about Luther.
+
+"I don't know anything about his plans," she concluded, "except that he
+said he meant to go to his mother after he had marketed the cattle. You'll
+hear from the neighbours that Hugh's money has set me up and made a fool
+of me, and various other things," she added; and she saw in his face that
+it had already been said.
+
+The girl sat and looked into the night through the open door for a moment
+and then went on:
+
+"I shall go to Colebyville to-morrow, and see Doctor Morgan and look after
+business matters. I'll tell you what we decide upon when I get home.
+There'll have to be a real division of the property now. I don't know what
+to do about living here alone. I suppose there'll be every kind of
+gossip?"
+
+The last part of the sentence was a question, and one Luther was not the
+man to evade.
+
+"You'll have a lot of talk that hain't got no truth in it to meet," he
+said reluctantly. "You'll have t' have some one with you here. You
+couldn't git Hornby, could you?" Luther knew the nature of the gossip the
+neighbours would wreak upon her.
+
+A light fell upon Elizabeth.
+
+"The very idea!" she exclaimed. "Just what I need to do and at the same
+time just what I would love to do."
+
+Luther was delighted that that important feature of the matter could be so
+easily arranged. He could not bear to have her mixed up with any sort of
+scandal, when her neighbours so little understood the real situation, and
+would be so ready to strike her wherever they could.
+
+"Then you go an' see Hornby to-night, Lizzie. Have Jake hitch up for you,
+an' take Hepsie along." Luther paused a moment and then proceeded on
+another phase of her troubles.
+
+"Lizzie, how do you feel about it? Do you--would you like t' have 'im
+back? 'Cause if you would, I'll go to Mitchell County for you. You ain't
+goin' t' have no easy time of it here. Folks--specially th' women's--goin'
+t' have it in for you quite a bit."
+
+"No," Elizabeth answered promptly. "I'll take whatever comes from my
+neighbours. I can shut my doors and keep them outside, but, Luther, I
+can't go on as things have been on the inside of my own house. I don't
+want to talk about it at all, even to you, but I shall let him go. It's
+better than some other things. We'd simply come to the place where we had
+to understand each other. I'd a great deal rather have him back than to
+have him gone, but he wouldn't understand at all if I sent for him."
+
+Luther looked at her approvingly and yet something in him held back. He
+longed to spare her all the low tittle-tattle of her neighbours, the
+coarse jests of the hired men among themselves, and the eternal suspicions
+of the women.
+
+"I know all you would say, Luther," she said, understanding his reluctance
+to give up. "I know what these women who think I haven't wanted to visit
+them will say, and I don't blame them, but I will not send for him now or
+ever. I have wronged him in ways he has known nothing of--maybe the
+scandal I haven't deserved at his hands will square that deal a
+little--but that is not the present difficulty. We'll have to have an
+agreement about our plan of life together. If he ever comes back I shall
+never deceive him again, but I will never be deceived by him again,
+either."
+
+"Well, you know best, Lizzie. I'll talk to Jake for you. You'd best try t'
+keep him an' Hepsie. They're good friends an' you're goin' t' need
+friends."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Luther saw that the buggy was got ready for Elizabeth and Hepsie, and
+after they had gone talked to the men, telling them that Elizabeth had
+asked him to do so. He told them her offer was for them to stay on at the
+usual wage, or go now so that she could fill their places. After they had
+signified their willingness to remain in her employment, he took Jake
+aside and had a long talk with him.
+
+Jake Ransom filled with anger when the two were alone.
+
+"I didn't say anything when you was a talkin' t' them men," he said
+confidentially, "but I ain't lived in this house for close on three year
+now without learnin' somethin'. Damned fool! never done nothin' she's
+wanted 'im to since I've been here. She got 'er eye-teeth cut when Mis
+Hornby died, but it most killed 'er. I've watched 'er a gittin' hold of
+'erself gradual-like, an' I knew there'd be an end of his bossin' some
+day. Gosh! I'm glad she got th' money! Noland was some fond of her."
+
+Jake stole a sidelong glance at Luther as he said it and waited to see if
+he would elicit an answer. When Luther did not reply, he added:
+
+"I'm dog'on glad I've been here. Lots of folks 'll ask me questions, an'
+won't I be innocent? You kin help at your end of this thing too. I guess
+we kin do it 'tween us."
+
+The understanding was perfect, but Jake took warning by Luther's refusal
+to discuss private affairs. Without saying just what was intended, each
+knew what course of action the other meant to take, and so Elizabeth was
+granted friends at the critical moment of her life and spared much that
+was hard in a community where personalities were the only topics of
+conversation.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nathan Hornby was only too glad to live in the house with Jack Hunter. As
+he remarked, it would take no more time to drive over to his work than to
+cook his own breakfast in the morning.
+
+Hepsie was at this time Elizabeth's principal defender. While listening to
+the reading of the will on the day of the funeral, Hepsie, old in the ways
+of her little world, had known that some explanation would have to be made
+of so unusual a matter as a man leaving his money to another man's wife,
+instead of to the man himself, and had begun by giving out the report
+which she intended the world to accept, by talking to Sadie Hansen before
+she got out of the dooryard. Hepsie knew that first reports went farthest
+with country folk, and Luther, who understood better than any one else why
+the money had been left to Elizabeth, was inwardly amused at Sadie's
+explanations afterward.
+
+"You know, Luther," Sadie had said on the way home that day, "Mr. Noland
+told Hepsie he was agoin' t' leave his share of th' land to Lizzie, 'cause
+Doc Morgan says She'll never be strong again after overworkin' for all
+them men, an' things. An' she says he felt awful bad 'cause he was a
+layin' there sick so long an' her a havin' t' do for 'im when she wasn't
+able--an' do you know, she thinks that's why he killed hisself? I always
+did like 'im. I think it was mighty nice for him t' leave 'er th' stuff.
+My! think of a woman havin' a farm all 'er own!"
+
+And Luther Hansen listened to Sadie telling her mother the same thing the
+next day, and smiled again, for Mrs. Crane could talk much, and was to
+talk to better purpose than she knew.
+
+Also, when Elizabeth went to the little schoolhouse to meeting the first
+Sunday of her widowhood, being determined to be a part of the community in
+which she lived, Hepsie was on the outskirts of the little crowd after
+services were over, to explain in a whisper that Lizzie was "goin' t' go
+t' meetin' now like she'd always wanted to do, only Mr. Hunter never 'd
+take 'er anywhere 'cause 'e felt hisself too good."
+
+Hepsie was to fight Elizabeth's battles on many occasions and stayed on,
+watchful as a hawk of Elizabeth's reputation. A sly joke among the hired
+men while discussing their position in the house of "the grass-widder"
+drove Hepsie beside herself and made her even more ready than she had been
+at first to serve the interests of one who was to have no easy time among
+her jealous neighbours. Elizabeth knew that in that hour she could have
+had most of these people for her friends had it not been that she was
+supposed to be "stuck-up." This also was a price she was to pay for having
+let her husband dominate her.
+
+When Doctor Morgan was told of Elizabeth's plan to farm the place herself
+he was delighted and approved of it heartily.
+
+"You're a little brick, Mrs. Hunter," he said. "I'll back you in anything
+you decide to do. It was devilish mean to run off without settling affairs
+up. If any of these yahoos around here say anything about it they'll get a
+setting up from me that they won't want again. But I'm mighty glad you've
+got Hornby. That'll keep actual slander off of you. How much did you say
+you owed now?"
+
+"Five hundred--and some expenses for Mr. Noland--besides the note you hold
+for the team. I've got about a hundred in the bank, but I shall need a
+pony to ride about the farm, and that will take about half of what I have
+ready.
+
+"The pony's a good idea. There's no telling what would be made out of you
+wandering around the fields on foot to look after the hired men, but on
+horseback you'd be all right. Now don't you worry about that note of
+mine--I'm in no hurry," the doctor said encouragingly. Elizabeth saw the
+advantage of having Doctor Morgan as an enthusiastic advocate of her
+plans.
+
+"What about the land, Doctor?" the girl asked next. "I want a legal
+division as soon as possible. Will it have to be appraised and sold?"
+
+Doctor Morgan noted joyfully that Elizabeth Hunter had her business well
+in mind, and assured her that it would be only a formality to have the
+appraising done, as she could buy it in herself, and further assured her
+that he would himself confer with John after all was settled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"THE WEIGHT OF A DOLLAREE AND OUT
+OF DEBT DON'T FORGET THAT"
+
+
+Nathan Hornby moved promptly over to the Hunter farm, and established
+himself in Hugh's old room upstairs.
+
+The farm work prospered under Elizabeth's management. She was fortunate
+enough to trade a young heifer with a calf at her side for Silas's pony,
+and because feed was scarce she sold most of the stock, keeping only such
+as she desired to open farming with the next spring. The hogs were
+marketed early, and the few steers left when the cattle had been taken to
+Mitchell County were sold to the first buyer who offered a reasonable
+figure for them; the cows which gave evidence of increase were kept and
+the rest sold. Altogether money enough was raised to pay the note for the
+team and all the outstanding indebtedness except the note for five hundred
+dollars. The latter did not mature till May and could stand. The expense
+of feeding discouraged the farmers and prices dropped steadily all
+winter.
+
+When April came the Johnson land was sold to a stranger, who came and
+offered to buy the west eighty of Elizabeth's land. The five hundred would
+be due the next month. The new neighbour coveted that eighty, and
+Elizabeth decided that if she could get a price warranting its sale she
+would sell, pay off the five hundred, and put the rest into calves while
+they were cheap. She offered the land for thirty-five dollars an acre. It
+was unheard of! No one had ever asked so much for land in that country,
+but the man wanted to add that land to his farm, and after some bargaining
+paid the price.
+
+Frugal and cautious, Elizabeth paid the five hundred with the first check
+she drew against the price of the land. That left two thousand for calves
+and three hundred for running expenses. John had taken one horse out of
+the new team when he went away, and Elizabeth decided not to buy another,
+but to hire a horse in harvesting time. There were three full teams for
+the plows, besides the horse which had been hurt in the runaway. It had
+recovered and, though scarred and stiffened, could be used for ordinary
+work. She took good care to have it hitched beside a solid, trusty mate
+and treated gently to soothe its wild nature.
+
+No word had come from John except when Doctor Morgan wrote him of the
+appraisement of the land. Then a curt letter had been received saying that
+whatever they did would be satisfactory to him and that when the deeds
+came he would sign them. Not to be outdone, Elizabeth bought the portion
+of land which did not have the house and buildings, agreeing to rent the
+home eighty until such time as he should choose to sell it, and expressing
+a desire, since Jack had been born there, to buy the home if John should
+ever wish to part with it. To his suggestion that she use the home without
+rent--in fact, an offer of it as his share of support of the
+child--Elizabeth refused to listen.
+
+"I'll rent it of him as I would of anybody, Doctor," she had replied, and
+made out a note on the spot.
+
+John had written that he was in the commission business in Chicago, and
+did not say whether his mother was with him nor not. To Elizabeth he did
+not write, but to Jack he sent loads of toys and a sled at Christmas
+time.
+
+Elizabeth had not attempted to communicate with John direct, but had
+rented his share of the land from him through Doctor Morgan. The sale of
+the west eighty gave her enough money to stock the place with every animal
+it would hold. When the girl began to look about her for calves, she found
+that because of the price of corn many farmers were selling their hogs at
+a sacrifice. Hogs were quick money. She invested in such as were ready for
+increase, and by harvest time there was a fine lot of pigs on the Hunter
+farm. Every cow had been milked, and the calves raised by hand so as to
+have the milk for the young pigs till the early corn could be gathered.
+Milking was hard work, but Elizabeth Hunter's pride was up.
+
+Elizabeth's pride had had some sore pricks. In spite of every effort to
+avoid hearing the small talk regarding herself, Elizabeth had been obliged
+to listen to such portions as dribbled through from her mother, and an
+occasional remark from Sadie Hansen. Sadie Hansen's life was a reorganized
+one, but there were small lapses, and from force of habit she repeated
+things, though she was in the main about the kindest neighbour Elizabeth
+had. With Mrs. Farnshaw the case was different. She was Elizabeth's
+mother, and certain privileges must be accorded her because of the
+relationship. When she chose to disapprove of the separation of her
+daughter from her husband, the daughter was compelled to recognize her
+right to protest, and often inadvertently to listen to the gossip which
+her mother urged as reasons for her objections. Mrs. Farnshaw came often
+and talked volubly. Elizabeth shielded herself as best she could from her
+mother's prattlings, but had to endure many tearful complaints, for her
+mother was suffering much loneliness and discomfort since her daughter's
+marriage. Josiah Farnshaw did not forget, nor let his wife forget, the
+disaffection of Elizabeth.
+
+Once when Mrs. Farnshaw had gone beyond the mark where her daughter could
+receive it in silence, urging that Elizabeth call her husband home and
+submit herself to the matrimonial yoke, the girl turned upon her in
+annoyance:
+
+"You'd have me just where you are yourself, ma. You say pa mistreats
+you--that's just what was coming to me. If I didn't have money enough that
+was all my own to live on, my husband would be sneering at me and keeping
+me in hot water all the time, exactly as pa sneers at you."
+
+"But you're separated!" Mrs. Farnshaw cried.
+
+"Yes," the girl said slowly, "and because we are separated I can go to
+town if I like, I can go to church, I can go to see a neighbour, or my
+mother, without hating to ask for a horse to drive or being told when to
+come home, and when Jack is naughty I can talk to him without having
+anybody set his little will against mine and make it harder to deal with
+him. Oh, mother mine! Can't you see that I'm happier than you are?"
+
+"But, you're livin' apart and--and folks is a talkin'!" the mother
+exclaimed hopelessly.
+
+"Let them talk. Their talk don't hurt me, and it shouldn't hurt you. They
+don't talk before me."
+
+"But they talk behind your back, Lizzie," Mrs. Farnshaw said with a wise
+nod of the head.
+
+"They talked about us when John was here, ma, and they always talk about
+us; it doesn't matter much what they talk about; they wouldn't pay off the
+mortgage, nor the interest, nor raise Jack right, nor give me a chance to
+rest on washday. Some will say I was in the wrong, some that John was, and
+they all said that I was stuck-up and wouldn't visit with them when it
+wasn't so at all. They are looking to see _who_ was wrong; I have reasoned
+out _what_ was wrong. It's principles, not personalities, that get people
+into troubles that don't seem to have any way out. Oh! can't you see, ma,
+that I'm free, and the women that talk about me are just where they've
+always been. Free! and don't forget that I'm out of debt. That's more than
+you've got by staying with your husband, and you haven't been able to keep
+people from talking after all. Free, and out of debt! Don't forget it."
+
+"Well, you wouldn't 'a' been free, either, if Mr. Noland hadn't 'a' left
+you th' money," Mrs. Farnshaw replied.
+
+Elizabeth dropped into a retrospective mood for a moment before she
+answered, and then said slowly:
+
+"I know that. God in Heaven, how well I know it! And do you know I think
+about it every day--what could be done for the poor women on these hot
+Kansas prairies if there were some way to see that every girl that loves a
+man enough to marry him could have money enough to keep her if she
+couldn't live under the work and children he crowds on her. I'm free,
+because I have money enough all my own to live on. That's the weight of a
+dollar. Don't forget that, you poor ma, who have never had a dollar except
+what has been doled out to you by the man you married. The weight of a
+dollar," Elizabeth added meditatively, "that's what it is!"
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw, who had bought the groceries for her little family with the
+butter and eggs, and whose sugar had sometimes been short because there
+was a supply of Horse Shoe Plug to provide also, had no answer ready.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+"WAS--WAS MY PAPA HERE THEN?"
+
+
+Two years of favourable weather and good fortune with her livestock saw
+the money Elizabeth had invested in hogs doubled and trebled, and later,
+when the Johnson land was again offered for sale, she was able to buy it
+for cash and have the place well stocked after it was done. Silas
+Chamberlain, who watched Elizabeth with the same fatherly interest he had
+felt when her child was born, and who glowed with secret pride at the way
+in which she had won her way back into the country society about them,
+came in often and offered his measure of good-natured praise. He had
+prophesied the first time she had cooked for harvest hands that she would
+become a famous cook, but he had not expected to find her a famous farmer.
+What was still more astonishing to the old man was that she had become
+noted in quite other ways. The move she had made in going to meeting the
+first Sunday after John's departure, and Hepsie's explanation of it, had
+worked to her advantage in reestablishing her in the community as one of
+its factors, and opened to her the opportunity to wield the influence
+which Luther had pointed out to her the best educated woman in a community
+should wield. She took a class in the little Sunday school at the
+schoolhouse, not so much because she was an enthusiastic churchwoman as
+because it was the place where contact could be had. Elizabeth belonged to
+no church, but Elizabeth could turn the conversation of the church
+members, among whom she mingled, from gossip to better things, and there
+was not a quilting bee nor an aid society meeting in the country around to
+which she was not invited, and which she did not raise to a higher
+standard by her presence.
+
+The snubs which the neighbour women were at first anxious to deliver fell
+flat in the quiet unconsciousness with which they were met. Elizabeth felt
+that much of the treatment she received was given in righteous
+indignation, and pursued the policy when possible to do so of not seeing
+it, and when it must be met to meet it with perfect good humour. She kept
+her credit good among the men with whom she bartered for young stock, and
+there began to creep in a better feeling for her within the first six
+months after she assumed the care of the farm and the problematical
+position of a "grass widow" in the neighborhood. Doctor Morgan, Hepsie,
+Jake, and Luther were splendid assets in the race with public feeling, and
+Silas saw his young neighbour's affairs straighten out with chuckles of
+delight. He watched her manoeuvre with her business deals and saw the
+cool-headedness of them with growing enthusiasm. He passed Nathan on his
+way to the field one spring morning and noticed that Nathan was using a
+seeder from the Hunter farm. It was bright with a coat of freshly dried
+paint.
+
+"That's what she borrowed my brushes for last week," he exclaimed to
+Nathan. "Ever see anything like 'er?" he asked admiringly. "Takes care of
+everything. Did you ever see th' likes of them hogs? She's made more money
+sellin' that land an' buyin' of it back 'n most of us old heads 'll make
+in five year. Everything she touches seems t' have a wad stuck under it
+somewheres."
+
+Elizabeth was more than merely successful in money matters; she was a
+reorganized woman from the standpoint of health also. She was no more the
+weary, harassed woman who had churned, baked, and cooked for shellers, and
+had so nearly found an early grave. The satisfaction of working
+unrestrained, of resting when nature and woman's constitution demanded,
+and the whole matter of living without fear, had given her a sound and
+healthy body and a mind broader and less liable to emotional bias. The
+principle which she had demanded from her husband in their last
+conversation she put into practice. Hepsie ruled the house very much as if
+it were her own. Elizabeth knew from experience the dreariness of
+housework where all individuality is denied the worker. Hepsie came and
+went as the exigencies of the work permitted, and there was always a horse
+provided for her journeys away from the place; in fact, Hepsie was much
+more free than her mistress had been in her first three years in the same
+house. Elizabeth demanded good service, but she gave good service also,
+and from being a good joke to work for the grass widow, it came to be
+recognized that the Hunter farm was a good place to live, and when the
+spring came around the men who had worked there the season before always
+presented themselves for fresh hiring.
+
+Two years more passed, and Master Jack Hunter was seven years old. On his
+seventh birthday his mother dressed him and herself carefully and rode
+over to the lonely graveyard. She did not go flower-laden. Rather, she
+went as was her custom, to spend an hour with the quiet dead in silent
+thought. Hugh Noland's sacrifice had not been in vain. The life he had
+laid down had, whatever its mistakes and weaknesses, been a happy one to
+himself, and had carried a ray of cheer to all with whom it had come in
+contact, while his death had pointed toward an ideal of purity, in spite
+of failures. That brief period during which Elizabeth had been compelled
+to live a double life for his sake had held many lessons, and had forever
+weaned her from duplicity of any sort. Those special hours--the hours
+spent beside Hugh Noland's grave--were spent in searching self-inquiry, in
+casting up accounts, in measuring herself against the principles with
+which she struggled. People had gone out of her wrestlings; principles
+remained. Here Elizabeth meditated upon the fact that because the
+neighbourhood sentiment and discussion centred around their home, she and
+John Hunter had missed a golden opportunity in not having become a force
+for good during those first years of their marriage.
+
+The hour spent beside Hugh's grave was her sacrament. There she went to
+renew her faith in her own powers, which Hugh's interest and estimates had
+first taught her to recognize; there she went to renew her vows of higher
+living, and there to contemplate the freedom which Hugh Noland had given
+her. But for the land and stock which gave her an independent income she
+would have been as tearful, worn, and despondent as many of the women
+about her. Her heart was very tender toward Hugh as she sat beside his
+grave to-day. She held his letter--the only one he had ever written,
+her--in her hands. As she read it over, part of its last sentence, "and
+will, I hope, help toward emancipating you from care," struck her
+attention, and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"What is it, mamma? What hurts?" Jack asked, always quick to respond to
+his mother's moods.
+
+"Nothing, dear, but Uncle Hugh's letter. He wrote it just before he died.
+He was very kind to me," she said, patting the face thrust up for a kiss.
+
+"Was--was my papa here then?" the child asked, curious about the life he
+could not remember, and trying to relate things as he heard of them in
+their true relation to the father who was a mysterious personage and
+therefore interesting.
+
+When his mother did not answer, he crept closer and, laying his head
+against her arm, said wistfully:
+
+"Mamma, will my papa ever come back to us?"
+
+"I don't know, Jack," she answered quietly. "Perhaps. If he don't, you
+shall go and see him when you are a big boy. Now run away, and leave mamma
+a chance to think for a whole ten minutes."
+
+The child ran off to the horses, and Elizabeth faced the life she led. A
+curious thing was made plain to her in that hour--namely, that Hugh, whom
+she remembered tenderly, was but a memory, while John Hunter, the father
+of her child, whom she had no other cause to love, was a living force in
+her life, and that at the child's simple question a longing flamed up, and
+a feeling that she wished he were there. She remembered him as he would
+ride with his hat in his hand, his fair, soft hair wind-blown about his
+temples, and she would have been glad to go forth to meet him and try anew
+to build a life together which would be livable to both.
+
+A long time she pondered, and the impulse to write to him came over her,
+but that impulse was followed by retrospection, and as one thing after
+another arose out of the past in solemn procession, closing with the
+unloved and unwished-for child which she had lost five years ago, she knew
+that she would not open a correspondence. At that point, and with the
+memory of the sweltering day and the unnecessary churning, her tender
+memory of Hugh, who had made her free and economically independent, welled
+up in her in one glad tide of thanksgiving, and she thought of her mother
+and the thousands of other women on these Kansas prairies who had not been
+saved from such a fate by being made independent landowners, and she
+pondered on their fate till she longed for a way out for all women who
+were mothers.
+
+"This income could have set John free too, if he would only have thought
+it over," she said to herself. "He need not have been burdened with us
+while he was getting his depths in the business world," she concluded.
+
+Wherever Elizabeth's thoughts turned to-day, John was the centre of them.
+Elizabeth had never been resentful toward her husband, and the
+never-ceasing cause of speculation and comment in the neighbourhood had
+been upon the fact that though she lived apart from him, she never seemed
+to think of divorce. Elizabeth's attitude toward John was that of a mother
+who waits for a child to find the real light on a situation. She rarely
+heard from him, and never directly. She knew of some of his affairs
+through Doctor Morgan, with whom John corresponded when business required,
+but she wrote regularly to Mrs. Hunter, who had gone to her son the second
+year he had been away, and who had written to her at that time. Elizabeth
+had been glad of so simple a means of keeping the link unbroken between
+him and his child. It had been no part of her plan to separate Jack from
+his father. She would not ask John to return, but she wished him to have
+such knowledge of his son as his temper would permit. She wrote such
+details of the home and the child as would interest them, knowing that
+John would read the letters. Somehow, to-day she wished that she could
+write to him direct, but as she thought she shook her head.
+
+"It cannot be," she said aloud.
+
+"Mamma, if you don't come we won't have time to go for the mail," Jack
+called.
+
+The pleasant afternoon had waned; Elizabeth Hunter gazed about her in
+astonishment; it was indeed late.
+
+She stooped and passed her hand over the name cut in the marble slab.
+"Hugh Noland, aged twenty-nine."
+
+"Hugh Noland, dear," she said aloud, "you have set me financially free,
+but there is another kind of freedom I have got to win for myself. I've
+got to tell John the things that we wanted to tell and were too cowardly
+to do. If we ever come together again I shall tell it out, if all this
+country gets to hear it. Jack can better afford to take the disgrace of it
+than to have a mother who carries it about with her as a secret. Without
+honesty no other virtue is a virtue at all."
+
+Elizabeth's eyes were full of tears as she voiced her vow, but there was a
+sense of relief welling up within her that she had not known in all the
+five years Hugh had lain here. She stood very quiet till her emotions were
+under control and her sunny self in command again, then she blew a kiss at
+Aunt Susan's grave and went to the waiting child and with him rode a merry
+race toward Colebyville.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+TO DO OVER, AND TO DO BETTER,
+WAS THE OPPORTUNITY OFFERED
+
+
+Elizabeth Hunter and her son were still breathing hard from rapid riding
+when they drew up in front of the post-office. Elizabeth dropped from the
+saddle, tossing her rein to Jack to hold till her return, and went inside.
+She was to remember this day and the dingy little window through which
+mail was passed. The postmaster was a new man and tossed the letters out
+carelessly; therefore he did not see the sudden start the girl gave as she
+began to gather them up.
+
+John Hunter's familiar handwriting stared at her from the top envelope.
+
+Elizabeth thought of many things while she waited for the man to run
+through the newspapers and magazines. Half an hour ago she had registered
+a vow beside Hugh Noland's grave. She was to be tested promptly. When all
+was handed out to her, she took the pile--Elizabeth's magazines supplied
+the entire community with reading material, and were handed from house to
+house till as ragged as the tumble weeds of her native Kansas--and put
+them all in the canvas bag at Jack's saddle horn. The letter was unopened.
+Something made her wait. Something said that John was asking to return--to
+do over, and to do better, was the opportunity offered to her. Her vow
+rose up before her; without the fulfillment of that vow there could be no
+_better_, that she recognized--and yet----
+
+[Illustration: "JOHN HUNTER'S FAMILIAR HANDWRITING STARED AT
+HER FROM THE TOP ENVELOPE"]
+
+All through the long ride home she pondered upon the past and upon the
+possibilities of the future. Not till after Jack was safely tucked away in
+his bed, not till Hepsie had her supper work done and had gone upstairs
+and all the various members of her household had retired for the night,
+and she was certain of hours for uninterrupted thinking, did Elizabeth
+Hunter bring out the unopened letter and lay it on the table before her.
+Even then she renewed her vow before she broke the seal. Was he the old
+John, who would fly out impulsively and cover them all with disgrace if
+she told him? she asked herself many times. In a cold sweat of terror, she
+asked herself also if it were possible to build right in this new
+endeavour without telling John of the love which she had shown to Hugh;
+the temptation was terrible, but she was compelled to shake her head. The
+habit of openness and fair dealing would not hold her excused; there was
+no other way, she must tell it out. Carefully she went over all the things
+that would be lost if this story should be bruited abroad. Jack would be
+disgraced, she would be stripped of her influence in the neighbourhood,
+slain in the sight of her friends who had fought her battles for her
+because they believed in her, stripped of everything which had gone to
+make life worth the living, and she would place herself in the power of a
+man whose only attitude toward the story might be one of self-righteous
+justification. Was it worth the price? Her own words rose up before her,
+"Without honesty no other virtue is a virtue at all." Elizabeth pondered a
+long time, and again her own words rose up to confront her, "It does not
+matter _who_ is wrong, the thing that matters is _what_ is wrong," and for
+Elizabeth there was no escape. This had been the philosophy of her life;
+she was called upon to stand or fall on that ground. With her head bowed
+in acknowledgment, she drew the missive out of its envelope and began to
+read:
+
+  Dear Elizabeth: This letter will no doubt surprise you, but I
+  couldn't wait any longer. I might begin by saying that I was homesick
+  for Jack--which is true--but I'm going to confess that I'm homesick
+  for you too. Is there still hope? I would have written you long ago,
+  but I went into things too heavy and lost the money I got for the
+  cattle--and then I couldn't. It would have looked like asking to come
+  back to the land. As you know, I mortgaged the home eighty--it hurt
+  some to do that, knowing you'd have to sign it--and began slower. I
+  got along very well, but it was terribly tedious, and at last, after
+  three years of steady work, and no debts, I couldn't wait any longer,
+  and put half of what I had on the Board of Trade proceedings. _I
+  won!_ Last Saturday I sold all I had, and now while I can come to you
+  right, I want to ask if you will take me? Take me quick, if you are
+  going to, before I do some reckless thing and lose it again. I hear
+  you have prospered; that was why I had to wait so long. I often think
+  of dear old Hugh, and his interest in some of the things about the
+  neighbourhood, and I have been given to see while living in this
+  rotten hole of a city how much I underestimated the people about us
+  in Kansas. I would be glad to come back and live among them. Will you
+  let me? A telegram will bring me to you on the next train.
+
+  With love to both you and Jack, who will be seven years old this
+  week,
+
+                                                 Affectionately,
+                                                               John.
+
+The tension was broken. Elizabeth laid the letter back with a smile. How
+like John to suggest a telegram! John never could wait. How well she knew
+his little weaknesses; the written characters of the missive had the
+flowing curves of haste in their running letters. He had written on the
+impulse of the moment, no matter how long the desire had been in his
+heart. The very spontaneity of the confession was unpremeditated and
+worked in John Hunter's favour. He had remembered Jack's birthday too!
+That day seven years ago rose up in Elizabeth's memory to plead for Jack's
+father. She earnestly desired John's presence, and yet--could it be done?
+
+Far into the night Elizabeth Hunter sat with the letter before her,
+reading and rereading it, pondering upon the possibilities of the future,
+seeing them in the light of the past she had spent with him, wondering
+what sort of man her husband had become in the five years since she had
+seen him. The letter sounded as if those years might have been profitable
+ones. There was both the openness of real honesty and the reserve of real
+strength in the confession about his financial affairs. The most hopeful
+thing she found in the letter was the sentence about Hugh's estimate of
+the neighbours among whom they had lived and the implied comparison
+regarding the city in which he now did business. Dear old John! Had
+Chicago business men tried the methods on him that he had thought it fair
+to apply to his dealings with her? In the midst of that question rose the
+one--would John Hunter feel the same toward Hugh Noland's estimates when
+he was told the truth about his wife's affection for Hugh, and of the
+weakness of both in the demonstrations of that affection? Well, it had to
+be told. Scandal would be hard to face with no denial possible. Doctor
+Morgan had known it all and still trusted her; likewise Luther; but
+Hepsie, and Jake, and Sadie? Besides, Jack would have to know, and would
+suffer for things of which he was innocent! The girl wrestled with the
+subject till midnight, and long after. At last, to put it where she could
+not deceive herself, she wrote a simple statement of the whole thing and
+sealed it up with John's address upon the envelope, and then raising her
+hand solemnly promised herself that this letter which contained the truth,
+the whole truth, and nothing but the truth should be mailed as she had
+written it without being opened to change a word. She would answer John's
+letter in one apart from this and send it by the same mail, but this
+letter she would send as it stood.
+
+As she got up to go to bed, she picked up the bag in which they brought
+the mail and felt in it to see if anything were left. A small narrow book
+that opened endwise and had the name of the Bank of Colebyville on it was
+all. It was a fitting end to her considerations. She had never owned a
+checkbook till recent years. Because of its presence, she might yet be
+able to answer John Hunter as he wished. She thought long on her
+situation. There was no sleep in her. The larger, the universal, aspects
+of the question began to crowd in upon her mind.
+
+"There is no other way," she said. "A woman, to be free, must have money
+of her own. She must not be supported by a man."
+
+She stepped out on the porch and stood looking toward the east. The
+refreshing breeze which had sprung up cooled and invigorated her.
+
+"The wind before the dawn! The beginning of a new day!" she said aloud.
+
+Turning toward the kitchen, she began to pack a box which stood waiting on
+the end of the kitchen table. Doughnuts, cookies and pies had been left
+there to cool the evening before. Mrs. Farnshaw was to have threshers to
+cook for to-day, and Elizabeth had grown thoughtful of the mother, who was
+aging visibly. In such ways as she could, she spared her mother's strength
+and gave her the comfort of frequent visits and companionship. In order to
+get the long eight-mile drive over before it became hot, it was necessary
+to get an early start, and Elizabeth, with Jack at her side, was on the
+road before the sun was fairly above the horizon.
+
+About eight o'clock Mrs. Farnshaw turned at the sound of their feet on her
+doorstep. She set her cob basket on the floor, put the stove lid over the
+roaring fire, and turned to Jack with grandmotherly delight.
+
+"You're a real comfort, Lizzie," she said, straightening up with Jack in
+her arms. "I never used t' think you would be, but you are. I'm that tired
+that I'm ready t' drop."
+
+"Anything more than usual?" Elizabeth asked, noting the fagged and heavy
+face, and the gathering tears.
+
+"Oh, nothin' more 'n 'as happened many a time; only 'e grows crosser,
+seems to me, as 'e grows older. He was particular bad last night, and I
+didn't sleep none. It's awful hot weather t' lay awake."
+
+When Elizabeth did not reply, the mother said testily:
+
+"Now I s'pose You'll be thinkin' that you don't have t' care for what a
+man says."
+
+Elizabeth laughed, but not in her usual merry way.
+
+"Perhaps," she said slowly. "I was thinking farther than that--I was
+wondering----" She paused to think and then broke out suddenly. "John's
+written to ask if he can come back, and I was just wondering----"
+
+Mrs. Farnshaw was all animation at once, her own troubles forgotten.
+
+"You don't say?" she exclaimed. "Now look here, Lizzie, you're goin' t'
+let him come?"
+
+Elizabeth had told her mother on the impulse of the moment after
+withholding the news from Nathan and even from Jack. The child had been
+wriggling out of his grandmother's arms and had not heard what his mother
+said. Elizabeth waited till he was out of hearing. She half regretted
+having mentioned it. She was going to have to argue out her decision with
+her mother, and she had made no decision.
+
+The mother's accidental remark had produced the impulse to tell. Well, it
+was all right. It might be that she could decide better after discussing
+it with some one. Elizabeth looked at her mother doubtfully.
+
+"I don't know, ma. I may. It's all owing to whether we can agree on the
+terms of starting over."
+
+"You ain't goin' t' lay down rules t' him?" the mother cried in
+amazement.
+
+"Now's my time to find out what rules he's going to lay down to me at
+least," Elizabeth said dryly.
+
+"But I never heard of such a thing! Say, don't you love 'im any more,
+Lizzie?"
+
+"I--I think I do, ma," Elizabeth said slowly. "But there's the very
+trouble with women. They think they ought to love a man enough to take him
+without a definite understanding, and then they find that a woman's love
+means mostly obedience to a man. Yes, I think I love him. But I'm going to
+know what he expects, and I'm going to tell him what I expect, and make no
+mistakes this time. We'll know before we begin."
+
+"But he may not take you," Mrs. Farnshaw said in a frightened whisper.
+
+"I rather think I'm taking him," Elizabeth said, beginning to unload the
+box of provisions she had brought. "You forget that I'm making my own
+living."
+
+"That _does_ make a difference," Mrs. Farnshaw admitted.
+
+"That makes _all_ the difference," Elizabeth replied positively. "The
+longer I look at it the more convinced I am that the whole thing hinges
+right on that point. If we live together again I'll know that it isn't
+because he feels that having married me he must keep me in food and
+clothes, and he'll know that it's because I want to and not because I've
+got a child to be supported. I believe I love him; but if I didn't know I
+could leave him in a minute if he made me do things that I wasn't able to
+do I wouldn't dare to say yes. Knowing that I don't have to live with him
+if he begins to order me around, I think I'll try it."
+
+"You're a queer girl, Lizzie," the mother said, puzzled and uncertain what
+to think of the philosophy she propounded. "You don't seem to be afraid of
+men at all."
+
+"I don't have to be, ma, because no man will ever again pay for my food
+and clothes. You are not to tell anybody, even the boys. I may not do it
+yet. I didn't intend to tell you for a while, but you insisted on telling
+me what I was thinking about, and it popped right out at you."
+
+Elizabeth gave her mother a tender look and added: "I told you first when
+he asked me before," which was a thing her mother could understand and
+appreciate. Elizabeth was considerate of the little mother whose life was
+hard, and who was afraid of a man.
+
+At that point Elizabeth fell into a brown study. She argued for her own
+rights, knowing that only on that path could peace come to either herself
+or John, but she did not feel herself wholly worthy, and John wholly
+unworthy; she knew her weaknesses, and she knew she had wronged John
+Hunter as well as he had wronged her; she was willing to take him if he
+would be as willing to correct his faults and confess them as she was
+willing to do. She did not ask of John Hunter that he be always right in
+his actions toward her, but that he discuss their grievances and let them
+look together for better ways of settling what was right for each. She was
+so deep in her own thoughts that she did not hear Jack, who called to her
+from the door:
+
+"Mamma, let's go! Come on! They're going right now, mamma!"
+
+Elizabeth did not hear the child till he tugged at her skirts and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Come on, mamma! Grandma won't care. Come on!"
+
+His mother looked down at the boy with a smile. How well she remembered
+the delights of threshing-day herself. She looked about the kitchen to see
+what had yet to be done.
+
+"Wait a little, Jack. I've got to help get the table set and the dinner on
+to cook. You wouldn't have me leave grandma to do all the work alone,
+would you?" she asked suggestively.
+
+As Jack hesitated between his great desire to see the marvel of the
+stackyard and his desire to show as much manliness as his mother evidently
+expected of him, there was a noise on the doorstep and Hepsie came
+smilingly in.
+
+"I followed you all on th' pony," she said. "I fixed it up with th' boys
+yesterday t' take a cold dinner to-day an' let me come an' help here.
+We're lookin' out that you don't hurt yourself to-day, Mis Farnshaw," she
+added, addressing the older woman.
+
+"Now you can go to the threshing machine too, grandma!" Jack cried with
+delight. "Come on, let's go right now!"
+
+"Not now, Jack," Elizabeth said. "Hepsie didn't come to get the dinner
+alone."
+
+"Oh, yes, she did! She likes to," Jack replied so confidently that they
+all laughed, and Hepsie fell on the child and hugged him.
+
+"Of course I did, Jack. Grandma will show me what to do, and then she and
+mamma can take you out to see the machine go round and round like a big
+coffee mill, and maybe Jack can ride one of the horses."
+
+"Oh, Hepsie! Don't put that into the child's head," Elizabeth interposed
+hastily. "I wouldn't have him on one of those horses for anything."
+
+"Mamma says I spoil you, Jack. Run along now, and let me look after this
+dinner."
+
+As soon as the tables were set and the dinner on to cook, Elizabeth and
+her mother took the excited child and started to the barnyard. Mrs.
+Farnshaw was pulled along by the impatient grandson, and Elizabeth came at
+some distance behind, having stopped to glance in the chicken house as she
+went. The marvellous ant-hill called a stackyard would not permit Jack to
+wait for his mother.
+
+Mr. Farnshaw saw them coming. He would gladly have avoided his wife and
+daughter, but Jack took things for granted and always insisted upon
+dragging his mother into his grandfather's presence and mixing them up in
+the conversation. Elizabeth had dropped behind purposely, knowing her
+father's feelings toward her, and did not hear Jack say persuasively:
+
+"Grandpa, let Jack drive and make the horses go round."
+
+"No, no, Jack," Mrs. Farnshaw said quickly. "Mamma said you could not go
+on the horsepower."
+
+Mr. Farnshaw gave his wife a look of disdain and, stooping, picked the
+child up. Mrs. Farnshaw gave a little cry. When his own team came around,
+Mr. Farnshaw walked in front of it and started toward the platform on
+which Albert stood swinging a long whip.
+
+The "near horse" of the Farnshaw team was a stolid and reliable mare,
+mother of many colts. She was so placed because it had been decided to put
+a young stallion of uncertain temper beside her.
+
+The restive, irritable beast sustained his reputation by nipping angrily
+at Mr. Farnshaw as he dodged under the straps with which the horses were
+tied to the reach ahead. To have passed in front of this team unencumbered
+and alone when the power was in motion would have been foolhardy; but with
+Jack in his arms it was an act of mock-heroics typical of the whole
+bull-headed character of Josiah Farnshaw. He stumbled slightly in
+springing out of the horse's way, and with Jack, who was a load, in his
+arms, was barely able to keep his feet.
+
+A shout went up from every man who saw the occurrence, and Albert shut off
+the power in the endeavour to stop the machine.
+
+Mr. Farnshaw sprang toward the inner corner of the triangular space
+occupied by the team, and as the machine slowly came to a full stop set
+Jack on the boards at Albert's feet and turned toward the horses. The
+stallion threw a challenge at the man who had escaped its teeth, reared
+angrily, shook its black mane, and, with teeth exposed and ears laid back,
+prepared for another lunge. Not only Mrs. Farnshaw but every man on the
+ground called to Josiah Farnshaw to get out of the way of the infuriated
+beast. Instead of heeding the frantic warnings, Mr. Farnshaw, determined
+to let his onlooking neighbours see that he was not afraid, sprang forward
+and struck the squealing animal a stinging blow on the nose with his fist.
+Taken by surprise, the horse set back so suddenly that he broke the straps
+with which he and his mate were fastened to the reach, falling against the
+mare, who was thoroughly frightened by her master's menacing blow. The
+team behind them reared and snorted as the stallion sprang to its feet
+again.
+
+Then a strange and terrible thing happened. The horse stopped and made
+ready for the plunge he had in mind. There were warning cries from every
+man in the stackyard, but there was no chance to escape. With a scream
+which struck terror to the hearts of the onlookers the brute sprang upon
+the man and sunk its teeth through flesh and bone alike as it grabbed the
+arm which was aiming a puny blow, and shook him as if he were a rag,
+flinging him against the ground under its feet, and shaking him as a dog
+shakes a rat it has captured. The men could not rush in, because the other
+horse was on the outside of the team and was kicking and struggling to
+free itself from the shrieking stallion. Every team attached to the
+machine was tearing at its moorings, and horrified as the men were they
+were obliged to attempt to control the other horses. The team immediately
+in front of the stallion broke away altogether, carrying away with it the
+reach to which it was fastened. Seeing his opportunity, Joe Farnshaw
+rushed into the space left open by the disappearance of the other team,
+and with a well-directed blow from an iron bar he had snatched up, he
+staggered the horse so that it dropped the nerveless thing it had been
+shaking, and stood stunned and trembling, sight, sound, and all other
+matters of sense gone. The body was snatched away from in front of the
+tottering horse in time to save it from the heavy weight of the falling
+animal, which began to tremble, and then, losing control of its legs
+altogether, fell heavily toward the platform, dragging its mate to her
+knees as it went.
+
+Elizabeth quieted her shrieking mother as best she could while she hugged
+her rescued child to her bosom, and the sons of Josiah Farnshaw helped the
+men to lay the broken body of their father upon an improvised stretcher to
+be removed to the house. Kind hands performed the little duties necessary
+on such occasions, and then the horrified men stayed on, gathered in
+little groups about the dead stallion in the stackyard.
+
+When all was done and the family were reduced to that terrorizing state of
+idleness which comes to those who stand about their dead, Elizabeth took
+Jack and wandered out of the house to where she could see Joe standing
+near the well. Together they glanced across to the men standing around the
+torn and dismantled horsepower.
+
+"Pa was like that horse, Joe," Elizabeth said with a sudden gleam of
+insight. "They were both ruled by unbridled passions. Everything they did
+they mixed up with hate. You couldn't touch either of them without having
+them lay back their ears."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+"TILL DEATH DO YOU PART" CONSIDERED
+
+
+The day after Josiah Farnshaw was buried, Elizabeth sat down to answer
+John's letter. It was not easy to do, and she sat for a long time with her
+chin in her hand before she began to write. The death of her father
+related to the things of which she must speak. She began by telling him
+the circumstances of her father's death and showed him that the tragedy
+had been the result of pride and the habit of domination, of an
+unwillingness to listen to advice, or to discuss necessary matters. Her
+brothers had urged that the stallion be left in the barn and that another
+horse be substituted, since by its outcries and prancings it would keep
+the strange horses nervous and irritable, but Mr. Farnshaw, having said in
+the beginning that the animal should be used, would not listen to anything
+that the family wished him to do in the matter. Mrs. Farnshaw had objected
+to Jack being placed upon the horsepower, but once having started to place
+him there, her husband would listen to no caution. Last but not least of
+those refusals to advise with those who knew as well as he what should be
+done had been the one of not heeding the cries of the men who had warned
+him not to approach the vicious brute. To dominate had been the keynote of
+her father's character; his death had been a fitting symbol of his
+overweening desire to pursue that phantom.
+
+After enlarging upon the causes of the tragedy, she took up the matter of
+the refusal to listen to necessary explanations which had had so much to
+do with her separation from her husband.
+
+  Hugh Noland's life was sacrificed because he could not go to you and
+  talk to you of necessary things, and I am determined that if you and
+  I ever come together again that neither of us shall be afraid to talk
+  out anything in this whole world that is of interest to us both. Hugh
+  and I would have been so glad to go to you and ask you to let him be
+  taken away, or to have asked you to help us to higher living till he
+  was well enough to go. I need hardly tell you that we both recognized
+  that it was wronging you for him to stay on in the house after we
+  discovered that we loved each other. Hugh planned to go, and then
+  came the accident, and we were helpless. At last, in order not to
+  defeat me when he saw that I was trying to overcome the fault in
+  myself, he thought it necessary to die so that I should be free. You
+  know, John dear, I should never try to live with you again unless I
+  could tell you _anything_ and know that you'd listen and be fair,
+  even to my love for another man. There you have me as I am. If you
+  don't want me, don't take me; but at least you are not deceived about
+  the kind of woman you are going to live with this time.
+
+Then Elizabeth pointed out to him how he had refused to read Hugh's
+innocent letter, and then went on to consider affairs between herself and
+John.
+
+  You will probably remember also that when we were talking over the
+  coming of our second child five years ago you said that I was foolish
+  to be disturbed about it--that if I had not had the wherewithal to
+  feed and clothe it I might have had good cause for complaint, but
+  otherwise not. That is another matter we must settle before we reopen
+  life together. Mere food and clothes are but a part of a child's
+  natural and proper rights of inheritance. My future children--and I
+  hope I shall have more than the one I have now--must be prepared for
+  earnestly and rightly. We are better prepared to have children now
+  than when we were younger, but if we wish the best from our children,
+  we must give the best to their beginnings as well as to their
+  upbringings, and you and I would, I am sure, come much closer to each
+  other and begin to understand each other much better after adopting
+  such a policy. When we were married our love would not permit us to
+  exact conditions, but I have learned to love you and myself enough to
+  wish to consider all the conditions of which I have been speaking
+  before we begin to live together again.
+
+  Years ago I was glibly willing to advise my mother to get a
+  divorce--for her I am not sure yet but that it was the only way to
+  freedom--but I have lived and learned, and you see that for myself I
+  have not wanted it. I have come to understand that you and I are
+  bound together--not by the fact of Jack's presence, I mean not by the
+  mere knowledge that we have him, but by some other law of which he is
+  but the outward evidence. No magistrate could separate us. I belong
+  to you and you belong to me by some primal law of life, not because
+  some minister said over us, "Till death do you part," but because _we
+  have permitted ourselves to become one flesh_. Having set up these
+  relations, let us struggle with the conditions they entail.
+
+  There must be freedom in our home if it is to be reorganized. I want
+  you to be just as free as I am. I told you before you left that you
+  should run the farm; I still prefer it. I don't care what you do on
+  it, so long as you do not mortgage it. I think I have a right to keep
+  a certain part of it free from debt if I choose to do so, so as to be
+  sure of a home in my old age, since I have to suffer if we lose it;
+  otherwise you are free to do as you wish with any part of it.
+
+  I think I have a better sort of love to offer you than I had before,
+  just because it includes a knowledge of our weaknesses. I have had to
+  tell you all this in order that we begin square, but I liked your
+  letter, and I believe we can come to an understanding. My love for
+  Hugh Noland is but a memory, but when your letter came I found that
+  my love for you was a living thing, that I wanted you very much, and
+  even as I write you these words I want you.
+
+When her writing was finished Elizabeth went to the barn to saddle the
+horses, thinking that she would take Jack with her and ride into town to
+mail both letters in the cool of the evening. She saddled Jack's pony and
+started around the corner of the barn to tie it in the lane, when she saw,
+turning into that lane, John Hunter, with a valise in his hand. He had
+come in on the noon train and had caught a ride out home with a stranger
+passing that way. John saw her and waved his hand, calling to her. To
+Elizabeth he was still fair to look upon. She walked toward him holding
+out the letters she had written.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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+My Friend the Chauffeur. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+My Lady Caprice. By Jeffery Farnol, (author of the "Broad Higway")
+My Lady of Doubt. By Randall Parrish.
+My Lady of the North. By Randall Parrish.
+My Lady of the South. By Randall Parrish.
+Mystery Tales. By Edgar Allen Poe.
+Nancy Stair. By Elinor Macartney Lane.
+Ne'er-Do-Well, The. By Rex Beach.
+No Friend Like a Sister. By Rosa N. Carey.
+Officer 666. By Barton W. Currie and Augustin McHugh.
+One Braver Thing. By Richard Dehan.
+Order No. 11. By Caroline Abbot Stanley.
+Orphan, The. By Clarence B. Mulford.
+Out of the Primitive. By Robert Ames Bennett.
+Pam. By Bettina von Hutten.
+Pam Decides. By Bettina von Hutten.
+Pardners. By Rex Beach.
+Partners of the Tide. By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+Passage Perilous, The. By Rosa N. Carey.
+Passers By. By Anthony Partridge.
+Paternoster Ruby, The. By Charles Edmonds Walk.
+Patience of John Moreland, The. By Mary Dillon.
+Paul Anthony, Christian. By Hiram W. Hays.
+Phillip Steele. By James Oliver Curwood.
+Phra the Phoenician. By Edwin Lester Arnold.
+Plunderer, The. By Roy Norton.
+Pole Baker. By Will N. Harben.
+Politician, The. By Edith Huntington Mason.
+Polly of the Circus. By Margaret Mayo.
+Pool of Flame, The. By Louis Joseh Vance.
+Poppy. By Cynthia Stockley.
+Power and the Glory, The. By Grace McGowan Cooke.
+Price of the Prairie, The. By Margaret Hill McCarter.
+Prince of Sinners, A. By E. Phillis Oppenheim.
+Prince or Chauffeur. By Lawrence Perry.
+Princess Dehra, The. By John Reed Scott.
+Princess Passes, The. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+Princess Virginia, The. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+Prisoners of Chance. By Randall Parrish.
+Prodigal Son, The. By Hall Caine.
+Purple Parasol, The. By George Barr McCutcheon.
+Reconstructed Marriage, A. By Amelia Barr.
+Redemption of Kenneth Gait, The. By Will N. Harben.
+Red House on Rowan Street. By Roman Doubleday.
+Red Mouse, The. By William Hamilton Osborne.
+Red Pepper Burns. By Grace S. Richmond.
+Refugees, The. By A. Conan Doyle.
+Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The. By Anne Warner.
+Road to Providence, The. By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+Romance of a Plain Man, The. By Ellen Glasgow.
+Rose in the Ring, The. By George Barr McCutcheon.
+Rose of Old Harpeth, The. By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+Rose of the World. By Agnes and Egerton Castle.
+Round the Corner in Gay Street. By Grace S. Richmond.
+Routledge Rides Alone. By Will Livingston Comfort.
+Running Fight, The. By Wm. Hamilton Osborne.
+Seats of the Mighty, The. By Gilbert Parker.
+Septimus. By William J. Locke.
+Set in Silver. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+Self-Raised. (Illustrated.) By Mrs. Southworth.
+Shepherd of the Hills, The. By Harold Bell Wright.
+Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The. By Ridgwell Cullum.
+Sidney Carteret, Rancher. By Harold Bindloss.
+Simon the Jester. By William J. Locke.
+Silver Blade, The. By Charles E. Walk.
+Silver Horde, The. By Rex Beach.
+Sir Nigel. By A. Conan Doyle.
+Sir Richard Calmady. By Lucas Malet.
+Skyman, The. By Henry Ketchell Webster.
+Slim Princess, The. By George Ade.
+Speckled Bird, A. By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+Spirit in Prison, A. By Robert Hichens.
+Spirit of the Border, The. By Zane Grey.
+Spirit Trail, The. By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
+Spoilers, The. By Rex Beach.
+Stanton Wins. By Eleanor M. Ingram.
+St. Elmo. (Illustrated Edition.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+Stolen Singer, The. By Martha Bellinger.
+Stooping Lady, The. By Maurice Hewlett.
+Story of the Outlaw, The. By Emerson Hough.
+Strawberry Acres. By Grace S. Richmond.
+Strawberry Handkerchief, The. By Amelia E. Barr.
+Sunnyside of the Hill, The. By Rosa N. Carey.
+Sunset Trail, The. By Alfred Henry Lewis.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Wind Before the Dawn, by Dell H. Munger
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