Читать книгу God's Green Country - Ethel M. Chapman - Страница 5

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“I want to tell you how much I love you. I also want not to tell you at all, but to do something for you with my hands and feet, to make your bed, to pick lavender pine cones for you, to do something you would never know that I had done. For of the many ways of love, one of the dearest is to serve in silence, to celebrate and not be found out. Mothering is a great business on these lines.”—Dr. Richard Cabot in “What Men Live By.”

Summer had passed with the anxiety and toil of harvest, and the cheering presence of numberless bird colonies, living out the romances and cares of their family history in the meadow of the Swamp Farm. The sumachs in the fence corners were turning crimson before a plan that had long been evolving in Mary’s mind took definite direction. Dan had gone on a two days’ trip for one of his agencies. It might be the only opportunity she would have for secrecy. Nothing had ever before driven her to such drastic measures, but never before had she had so much at stake. She felt distinctly guilty as she evaded Billy’s few searching questions and looked away from the troubled appeal in Jean’s brimming eyes. For the first time in their lives she was leaving them; no wonder they had misgivings. She was almost frightened herself, at this new thing that could drive her to practise such deception.

Still she set out on her six mile walk to town with grim determination, walking fast to reach the railroad track before she should meet any one she knew on the travelled highway. By the time she came to the narrow board walk at the edge of the town she was hot and tired and white with excitement. Everyone seemed to be looking at her. She supposed they all knew Dan, but then there was no reason why they should associate her with Dan. It was a long time since they had been in town together, strangely enough, on a similar errand.

That was before Jean was born, and Dan had brought her in to the lawyer’s office. He had sold a town lot that her father had given her, and superficial as it might seem, it had been necessary for her to come to the lawyer’s office to put her name to the deed, and sign another paper applying the proceeds against the mortgage on the Swamp Farm. It was the first time Mary had put her name to any legal document except her marriage certificate, and she wished now that she had known more about what these papers meant with their dazzling red seals and nothing clear about them except the dotted line for her name.

She had another town lot, though. That was what had brought her out on such a questionable adventure to-day. Dan had sold it too, but when he came home with arrangements all made to take her to town the next day to sign the papers again, she gave him the biggest surprise of his married life by saying she didn’t want to sell; she wanted to keep that lot—her father had given it to her.

And Dan had laughed, a very indulgent, unnatural laugh for Dan, and said she was “such a whimsical little woman.” However it was much better to sell the lot and turn the money into the farm where it would be safe for the children; so he had sold it. He wanted to make that quite clear; the lot was already sold; all that remained was to sign the papers.

And Mary with that quiet immovableness that sometimes takes possession of those gentle, pliable, unquestioning women, replied that she was sorry, but she wouldn’t sign the papers. She didn’t say why. She didn’t mention that the farm was running deeper into debt every year; that it was already proving more of an injury than a help to the children, and that in this remnant of her inheritance lay the only hope she had of ever giving them anything better. She just repeated slowly, a bit shakily, and looking down at the spout of her tea-pot, that she wouldn’t sign them.

And then Dan dropped his indulgent, protective attitude quite suddenly. He asked her “what in hell” she expected to do with the lot, then. Did she think she could look after it herself? She knew about as much about business as a squaw. How was any woman to look after her interests in legal affairs where even a man had to keep his eyes open? And who would be expected to take care of such things for her if not her husband? He also enlarged upon a business man’s attitude toward women who cared to mix up in such things instead of keeping their place. Altogether he was very much annoyed over this unexpected check in his affairs. It was extremely humiliating to have to tell Harding that his wife, for sentimental reasons, didn’t want the lot sold; besides he needed the money. He had no doubt about getting it ultimately, of course. Several plans might be worked to that end, one of the most feasible being to take Billy out of school because there were no funds forthcoming to hire help. But even under the pressure of this, Mary was risking his further displeasure, and taking a venture that would have seemed madness to her a year ago.

The world seemed swimming around her when she entered the lawyer’s office, nervously tucking back the damp hair from her forehead, and painfully conscious of the years-old cut of her dress, the road-dust on her shoes, and her absolute ignorance of what to do. If the lawyer was surprised he didn’t show it. His practice was not very pressing in the sleepy little town, and he could afford time to put his clients at ease before proceeding to business.

“You mean,” he repeated when she had explained her errand, “that you have changed your mind about the lot; that you would like to see Harding this afternoon?”

She assented with inward panic at the thought of it. “Or would I need to see him? You couldn’t just—telephone him or something? I should be getting back, and I wanted to—it seems foolish—but I thought I would like to make my will.”

“I see. And you think if you had the lot turned into cash it would be easier to leave it as you want to? I’ll just ask Harding to come around. You feel that you know what the lot’s worth?”

“Why, I hadn’t thought much about that. Father paid five hundred for it, I think.”

“That was a long time ago. A dollar doesn’t go as far now. Do you remember just what Harding offered Mr. Withers this spring?”

“Six hundred.”

The lawyer’s mouth hardened a little. He had heard the offer made in his office, and had suspected that Dan wanted to reserve a few hundred for immediate use.

“Better ask for a thousand,” he advised casually, “and would you like to put the money out on a mortgage?”

“I’d rather put it in the bank. I want it where it can be got at. That’s why I came about the will. I want it used for the children while they need it, before they come of age. I want it used to send them to school. That could be arranged, couldn’t it?”

“I guess so. What about your executor?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. How do they generally do?”

“A woman generally makes her husband her executor, but if there is any reason why you would rather have someone else——.”

“Certainly not.” Mary had come into possession of her dignity with remarkable suddenness. A bright red covered her face, but her head was up, and the eyes that had wandered all over the room in nervous embarrassment before, met the lawyer’s squarely with something of a challenge. She even held them there in the face of his amusement while she finished a bit lamely: “But I think I would rather leave it with you to take care of for them, if you would—Dan has so much to look after.”

Mary didn’t notice the weariness of the way home that night. A strange, new elation carried her aching feet over the bruising, irregular railroad ties. The whole dismal swamp seemed singing with the joy of a breaker passed. Only, when the stars began to come out over the trees, she wondered if the children would be afraid to stay alone, and quickened her steps. Several times she slipped her hand into her bag just to feel the copy of the will that was to be their safeguard if anything happened. Once she took out her bank-book and peered through the faint moonlight at the dancing figures. She had never had a bank-book before. She had never known what it was to take a ten-dollar bill from a pile, and spend it with luxurious recklessness in white flannelette and nainsook and shirting and various colored calicoes for the children. Then she would gather up the parcels in her aching arms and hurry on again with a thrill of happy anticipation.

A section-man watching her thought her deranged, but Mary knew that she was just beginning to see clearly. She had learned that the laws relating to a woman’s property were not framed to be beyond a woman’s understanding, and the men hadn’t seemed to consider her out of her place. A hot wave went over her when she thought of her ignorance of the simplest parts of the procedure. They had been very kind about it, but some arrangement must be made to teach these things to Jean, and save her the agony of such embarrassment.

So it seems we have one of the great motive forces of human evolution—the ambition of individuals here and there to give their children the things they have missed themselves.

The days after this were filled with a mother’s provident setting of her house in order. Piles of little garments took shape and received their distinguishing hand touches of smocking and embroidery in the cold, weary hours when everyone else was sleeping. When she smoothed them out the soft nap caught on her roughened hands like the clutch of something frail and clinging—something that needed her, and she prayed for life desperately, as though the waters were already covering her.

Then, one day in late November, when Dan had gone on an indefinite itinerary selling incubators, and Billy was trying to harvest the turnip crop, the dinner-bell called over the fields again. Something in the short, quick ring told him the call was urgent, but when he reached the house he could only stare with growing terror. His mother’s face and hair were wet with perspiration; her mouth was set hard and white at the edges; her eyes were bright like stars—full of suffering that could not be hidden even from the child. She was sorting through a basket of white stuff and as usual she stopped to reassure him.

“It’s all right, Boy. Just take the colt and run and tell Auntie Brown to come.”

Through all the hard things that had tried the boy’s courage and robbed him of the irresponsibility of childhood, he had never known what real fear was before. It seemed to make his limbs and voice powerless to urge the colt to his hardest run. Only one thing was clear to him—his mother might die, and she was alone. It was miles farther to the doctor’s, but if only Auntie Brown were there! She was as good as a doctor, everyone said, and she was the only physician many of them knew.

Mrs. Brown saw him coming and opened the door before he stopped. She didn’t ask him what he came for. She just said she would go right down, and told him to go for the doctor, then called after him to ask if his father was at home, or when he was coming, but Billy didn’t answer. Already he was floating down the road on the horse’s neck. He might have told her, he reflected, that they didn’t know when his father was coming home; his trip had been delayed because he had to stay around until Nell’s colt came, but there was no time for gossiping now. Anyway, he couldn’t see why anyone should be concerned about where his father was at such a time as this.

The doctor wasn’t at home. His wife said she would telephone and send him right down from another case but to the boy, remembering the look in his mother’s eyes when he left her, it seemed as though the fates in general had conspired against him. When he reached home with his lathered, limping colt, the doctor hadn’t arrived yet and Mrs. Brown was worried. She wouldn’t let him see his mother, but she lifted the corner of a shawl from a white flannel bundle in the rocking chair and Billy looked. He swallowed his astonishment and looked again, at the squirming, blind, uncomfortable little mite, and sighed. He felt much as he had done when a kindly-intentioned neighbor had unexpectedly thrust into his arms one cold day in winter, a very young, whimpering puppy, when he had no warm place to keep it, and the cows were dry—he couldn’t see how he was going to make it very comfortable. Perhaps, however, the dog had developed his sense of responsibility and protection, for he bent down till he could feel the baby’s breath in faint, warm little puffs against his face and from the depths of bitter experience, confided his sympathy.

“Poor little beggar,” he said. “Just startin’ out, ain’t you?”

The baby didn’t make much difference to the tenor of affairs in the household. When he was three days old his father came home and was glad to see him. A week later Billy discovered that the newcomer was going to get him into serious difficulties. Mrs. Brown had told him, with no uncertain meaning, that if he wanted to keep his mother he would have to help her a lot, and Billy was beginning awkwardly and heroically, because he hated it, to add several new chores about the house to his regular daily programme. On this afternoon he was riding the disc-harrow up the field toward the house when his mother, who had been washing, came out with a basket of clothes. It occurred to Billy that he might hang out the clothes for her, and he brought down a storm of his father’s wrath by urging the horses over the half-frozen clods almost at a trot. He was so sure that his case was justified that he offered a spirited, if terrified, explanation, but Dan wasn’t interested in hanging out a washing. Out of all patience with Billy’s lack of judgment as a horseman, he demanded with finality, “Don’t you know that mare has a colt?”

Then one day, in the winter, the baby dropped out of the world as unceremoniously as he had entered. Dan was away on another business trip when the first heavy snowfall came and the young cattle had to be housed. As she had done in other years, Mary went out to help. The next day the baby had a cold. In a few days more he was fighting a losing battle with pneumonia. His father reached home in time to see him go.

Dan had been proud of the happy, laughing little fellow, with his strong little body and bright, dark eyes, just like his own. He had never cared to handle him much, and he had often sworn moderately when he cried in the night—not at the baby himself, just at the general conspiracy of domestic affairs to disturb a man’s sleep. But he had felt a real thrill of pride when anyone who came into the house exclaimed at his sturdy, perfect little form, at his striking resemblance to his father. Now all this was slipping away under his eyes, and he could do nothing but stand there helpless. There was a hard bitterness in the set of his jaw, and it grew harder as he watched his wife’s pitiful, useless efforts and tearless submission. She had been with the baby day and night, through it all, and now, even as she felt the round, clinging arms slowly loosen from around her neck, she was glad his suffering was over. For the first time she seemed to notice that Dan was there. She looked up and waited.

“You killed him,” he said. “He hadn’t no chance to live. You just killed him. After you had deliberately gone out and waded in the snow for half a day when you knowed better—after you had give it to him, if you couldn’t save him yourself, why didn’t you get someone who could? Don’t look at me like that. If you’ve a spark of motherliness in you, cry or something.”

And, looking down at the little form, before the neighbors sent him out, Dan himself cried, freely and easily as one does at a pathetic play, until the women felt sure that the loss of his child had reformed him. Mary followed him out to the porch, pleading in dry, broken attempts. She reached out and almost touched him, but he folded his arms with a cruelty of aloofness and contempt that was almost dramatic. Then a hard glitter came into his eyes, and in a steely voice, too low to carry into the house, he said:

“Keep away, will you. ‘Tain’t only the boy, there, but I can’t trust you. You’ve deceived me. I seen Harding yesterday.”

And Billy, watching and listening with a child’s intuition, saw his mother stagger against the door as she went into the house. The old smouldering hate possessed him wickedly; he had never wanted so much to be a man.