← catalogue

He Fell in Love with His Wife

by Edward Payson Roe · English · Gutenberg #2271 · 581,362 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of He Fell in Love with His Wife
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: He Fell in Love with His Wife

Author: Edward Payson Roe


        
Release date: August 1, 2000 [eBook #2271]
                Most recently updated: December 31, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2271

Credits: Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer. HTML
        version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE ***




Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer. HTML
version by Al Haines.










HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE


by

Edward P. Roe




CONTENTS

Chapter

      I  Left Alone
     II  A Very Interested Friend
    III  Mrs. Mumpson Negotiates and Yields
     IV  Domestic Bliss
      V  Mrs. Mumpson Takes up Her Burdens
     VI  A Marriage?
    VII  From Home to the Street
   VIII  Holcroft's View of Matrimony
     IX  Mrs. Mumpson Accepts Her Mission
      X  A Night of Terror
     XI  Baffled
    XII  Jane
   XIII  Not Wife, But Waif
    XIV  A Pitched Battle
     XV  "What is to Become of Me?"
    XVI  Mrs. Mumpson's Vicissitudes
   XVII  A Momentous Decision
  XVIII  Holcroft Gives His Hand
    XIX  A Business Marriage
     XX  Uncle Jonathan's Impression of the Bride
    XXI  At Home
   XXII  Getting Acquainted
  XXIII  Between the Past and Future
   XXIV  Given Her Own Way
    XXV  A Charivari
   XXVI  "You Don't Know"
  XXVII  Farm and Farmer Bewitched
 XXVIII  Another Waif
   XXIX  Husband and Wife in Trouble
    XXX  Holcroft's Best Hope
   XXXI  "Never!"
  XXXII  Jane Plays Mouse to the Lion
 XXXIII  "Shrink From YOU?"




Chapter I.

Left Alone

The dreary March evening is rapidly passing from murky gloom to
obscurity. Gusts of icy rain and sleet are sweeping full against a man
who, though driving, bows his head so low that he cannot see his
horses.  The patient beasts, however, plod along the miry road,
unerringly taking their course to the distant stable door.  The highway
sometimes passes through a grove on the edge of a forest, and the trees
creak and groan as they writhe in the heavy blasts.  In occasional
groups of pines there is sighing and moaning almost human in
suggestiveness of trouble.  Never had Nature been in a more dismal
mood, never had she been more prodigal of every element of discomfort,
and never had the hero of my story been more cast down in heart and
hope than on this chaotic day which, even to his dull fancy, appeared
closing in harmony with his feelings and fortune.  He is going home,
yet the thought brings no assurance of welcome and comfort.  As he
cowers upon the seat of his market wagon, he is to the reader what he
is in the fading light--a mere dim outline of a man.  His progress is
so slow that there will be plenty of time to relate some facts about
him which will make the scenes and events to follow more intelligible.

James Holcroft is a middle-aged man and the owner of a small, hilly
farm.  He had inherited his rugged acres from his father, had always
lived upon them, and the feeling had grown strong with the lapse of
time that he could live nowhere else.  Yet he knew that he was, in the
vernacular of the region, "going down-hill."  The small savings of
years were slowly melting away, and the depressing feature of this
truth was that he did not see how he could help himself.  He was not a
sanguine man, but rather one endowed with a hard, practical sense which
made it clear that the down-hill process had only to continue
sufficiently long to leave him landless and penniless.  It was all so
distinct on this dismal evening that he groaned aloud.

"If it comes to that, I don't know what I'll do--crawl away on a night
like this and give up, like enough."

Perhaps he was right.  When a man with a nature like his "gives up,"
the end has come.  The low, sturdy oaks that grew so abundantly along
the road were types of his character--they could break, but not bend.
He had little suppleness, little power to adapt himself to varied
conditions of life.  An event had occurred a year since, which for
months, he could only contemplate with dull wonder and dismay.  In his
youth he had married the daughter of a small farmer.  Like himself, she
had always been accustomed to toil and frugal living.  From childhood
she had been impressed with the thought that parting with a dollar was
a serious matter, and to save a dollar one of the good deeds rewarded
in this life and the life to come.  She and her husband were in
complete harmony on this vital point.  Yet not a miserly trait entered
into their humble thrift.  It was a necessity entailed by their meager
resources; it was inspired by the wish for an honest independence in
their old age.

There was to be no old age for her.  She took a heavy cold, and almost
before her husband was aware of her danger, she had left his side.  He
was more than grief-stricken, he was appalled.  No children had blessed
their union, and they had become more and more to each other in their
simple home life.  To many it would have seemed a narrow and even a
sordid life.  It could not have been the latter, for all their hard
work, their petty economies and plans to increase the hoard in the
savings bank were robbed of sordidness by an honest, quiet affection
for each other, by mutual sympathy and a common purpose.  It
undoubtedly was a meager life, which grew narrower with time and habit.
There had never been much romance to begin with, but something that
often wears better--mutual respect and affection.  From the first,
James Holcroft had entertained the sensible hope that she was just the
girl to help him make a living from his hillside farm, and he had not
hoped for or even thought of very much else except the harmony and good
comradeship which bless people who are suited to each other.  He had
been disappointed in no respect; they had toiled and gathered like
ants; they were confidential partners in the homely business and
details of the farm; nothing was wasted, not even time.  The little
farmhouse abounded in comfort, and was a model of neatness and order.
If it and its surroundings were devoid of grace and ornament, they were
not missed, for neither of its occupants had ever been accustomed to
such things. The years which passed so uneventfully only cemented the
union and increased the sense of mutual dependence.  They would have
been regarded as exceedingly matter-of-fact and undemonstrative, but
they were kind to each other and understood each other.  Feeling that
they were slowly yet surely getting ahead, they looked forward to an
old age of rest and a sufficiency for their simple needs.  Then, before
he could realize the truth, he was left alone at her wintry grave;
neighbors dispersed after the brief service, and he plodded back to his
desolate home.  There was no relative to step in and partially make
good his loss.  Some of the nearest residents sent a few cooked
provisions until he could get help, but these attentions soon ceased.
It was believed that he was abundantly able to take care of himself,
and he was left to do so.  He was not exactly unpopular, but had been
much too reticent and had lived too secluded a life to find uninvited
sympathy now.  He was the last man, however, to ask for sympathy or
help; and this was not due to misanthropy, but simply to temperament
and habits of life.  He and his wife had been sufficient for each
other, and the outside world was excluded chiefly because they had not
time or taste for social interchanges.  As a result, he suffered
serious disadvantages; he was misunderstood and virtually left to meet
his calamity alone.

But, indeed he could scarcely have met it in any other way.  Even to
his wife, he had never formed the habit of speaking freely of his
thoughts and feelings. There had been no need, so complete was the
understanding between them.  A hint, a sentence, reveled to each other
their simple and limited processes of thought.  To talk about her now
to strangers was impossible.  He had no language by which to express
the heavy, paralyzing pain in his heart.

For a time he performed necessary duties in a dazed, mechanical way.
The horses and live stock were fed regularly, the cows milked; but the
milk stood in the dairy room until it spoiled.  Then he would sit down
at his desolate hearth and gaze for hours into the fire, until it sunk
down and died out. Perhaps no class in the world suffers from such a
terrible sense of loneliness as simple-natured country people, to whom
a very few have been all the company they required.

At last Holcroft partially shook off his stupor, and began the
experiment of keeping house and maintaining his dairy with hired help.
For a long year he had struggled on through all kinds of domestic
vicissitude, conscious all the time that things were going from bad to
worse.  His house was isolated, the region sparsely settled, and good
help difficult to be obtained under favoring auspices.  The few
respectable women in the neighborhood who occasionally "lent a hand" in
other homes than their own would not compromise themselves, as they
expressed it, by "keepin' house for a widower."  Servants obtained from
the neighboring town either could not endure the loneliness, or else
were so wasteful and ignorant that the farmer, in sheer desperation,
discharged them.  The silent, grief-stricken, rugged-featured man was
no company for anyone.  The year was but a record of changes, waste,
and small pilferings. Although he knew he could not afford it, he tried
the device of obtaining two women instead of one, so that they might
have society in each other; but either they would not stay or else he
found that he had two thieves to deal with instead of one--brazen,
incompetent creatures who knew more about whisky than milk, and who
made his home a terror to him.

Some asked good-naturedly, "Why don't you marry again?"  Not only was
the very thought repugnant, but he knew well that he was not the man to
thrive on any such errand to the neighboring farmhouses.  Though
apparently he had little sentiment in his nature, yet the memory of his
wife was like his religion.  He felt that he could not put an ordinary
woman into his wife's place, and say to her the words he had spoken
before.  Such a marriage would be to him a grotesque farce, at which
his soul revolted.

At last he was driven to the necessity of applying for help to an Irish
family that had recently moved into the neighborhood.  The promise was
forbidding, indeed, as he entered the squalid abode in which were
huddled men, women, and children.  A sister of the mistress of the
shanty was voluble in her assurances of unlimited capability.

"Faix I kin do all the wourk, in doors and out, so I takes the notion,"
she had asserted.

There certainly was no lack of bone and muscle in the big, red-faced,
middle-aged woman who was so ready to preside at his hearth and glean
from his diminished dairy a modicum of profit; but as he trudged home
along the wintry road, he experienced strong feelings of disgust at the
thought of such a creature sitting by the kitchen fire in the place
once occupied by his wife.

During all these domestic vicissitudes he had occupied the parlor, a
stiff, formal, frigid apartment, which had been rarely used in his
married life.  He had no inclination for the society of his help; in
fact, there had been none with whom he could associate.  The better
class of those who went out to service could find places much more to
their taste than the lonely farmhouse. The kitchen had been the one
cozy, cheerful room of the house, and, driven from it, the farmer was
an exile in his own home.  In the parlor he could at least brood over
the happy past, and that was about all the solace he had left.

Bridget came and took possession of her domain with a sangfroid which
appalled Holcroft from the first.  To his directions and suggestions,
she curtly informed him that she knew her business and "didn't want no
mon around, orderin' and interferin'."

In fact, she did appear, as she had said, capable of any amount of
work, and usually was in a mood to perform it; but soon her male
relatives began to drop in to smoke a pipe with her in the evening.  A
little later on, the supper table was left standing for those who were
always ready to "take a bite."--The farmer had never heard of the camel
who first got his head into the tent, but it gradually dawned upon him
that he was half supporting the whole Irish tribe down at the shanty.
Every evening, while he shivered in his best room, he was compelled to
hear the coarse jests and laughter in the adjacent apartment. One night
his bitter thoughts found expression: "I might as well open a free
house for the keeping of man and beast."

He had endured this state of affairs for some time simply because the
woman did the essential work in her offhand, slapdash style, and left
him unmolested to his brooding as long as he did not interfere with her
ideas of domestic economy.  But his impatience and the sense of being
wronged were producing a feeling akin to desperation.  Every week there
was less and less to sell from the dairy; chickens and eggs
disappeared, and the appetites of those who dropped in to "kape Bridgy
from bein' a bit lonely" grew more voracious.

Thus matters had drifted on until this March day when he had taken two
calves to market.  He had said to the kitchen potentate that he would
take supper with a friend in town and therefore would not be back
before nine in the evening.  This friend was the official keeper of the
poorhouse and had been a crony of Holcroft's in early life.  He had
taken to politics instead of farming, and now had attained to what he
and his acquaintances spoke of as a "snug berth."  Holcroft had
maintained with this man a friendship based partly on business
relations, and the well-to-do purveyor for paupers always gave his old
playmate an honest welcome to his private supper table, which differed
somewhat from that spread for the town's pensioners.

On this occasion the gathering storm had decided Holcroft to return
without availing himself of his friend's hospitality, and he is at last
entering the lane leading from the highway to his doorway.  Even as he
approaches his dwelling he hears the sound of revelry and readily
guesses what is taking place.

Quiet, patient men, when goaded beyond a certain point, are capable of
terrible ebullitions of anger, and Holcroft was no exception.  It
seemed to him that night that the God he had worshiped all his life was
in league with man against him.  The blood rushed to his face, his
chilled form became rigid with a sudden passionate protest against his
misfortunes and wrongs. Springing from the wagon, he left his team
standing at the barn door and rushed to the kitchen window.  There
before him sat the whole tribe from the shanty, feasting at his
expense.  The table was loaded with coarse profusion. Roast fowls
alternated with fried ham and eggs, a great pitcher of milk was flanked
by one of foaming cider, while the post of honor was occupied by the
one contribution of his self-invited guests--a villainous-looking jug.

They had just sat down to the repast when the weazen-faced patriarch of
the tribe remarked, by way of grace, it may be supposed, "Be jabers,
but isn't ould Holcroft givin' us a foine spread the noight!  Here's
bad luck to the glowerin' ould skinflint!" and he poured out a bumper
from the jug.

The farmer waited to see and hear no more.  Hastening to a parlor
window, he raised it quietly and clambered in; then taking his rusty
shotgun, which he kept loaded for the benefit of the vermin that
prowled about his hen-roost, he burst in upon the startled group.

"Be off!" he shouted. "If you value your lives, get out of that door,
and never show your faces on my place again.  I'll not be eaten out of
house and home by a lot of jackals!"

His weapon, his dark, gleaming eyes, and desperate aspect taught the
men that he was not to be trifled with a moment, and they slunk away.

Bridget began to whine, "Yez wouldn't turn a woman out in the noight
and storm."

"You are not a woman!" thundered Holcroft, "you are a jackal, too!  Get
your traps and begone!  I warn the whole lot of you to beware!  I give
you this chance to get off the premises, and then I shall watch for you
all, old and young!"

There was something terrible and flame-like in his anger, dismaying the
cormorants, and they hastened away with such alacrity that Bridget went
down the lane screaming, "Sthop, I tell yees, and be afther waitin' for
me!"

Holcroft hurled the jug after them with words that sounded like an
imprecation.  He next turned to the viands on the table with an
expression of loathing, gathered them up, and carried them to the hog
pen.  He seemed possessed by a feverish impatience to banish every
vestige of those whom he had driven forth, and to restore the apartment
as nearly as possible to the aspect it had worn in former happy years.
At last, he sat down where his wife had been accustomed to sit,
unbuttoned his waistcoat and flannel shirt, and from against his naked
breast took an old, worn daguerreotype.  He looked a moment at the
plain, good face reflected there, them, bowing his head upon it,
strong, convulsive sobs shook his frame, though not a tear moistened
his eyes.

How long the paroxysm would have lasted it were hard to say, had not
the impatient whinnying of his horses, still exposed to the storm,
caught his attention.  The lifelong habit of caring for the dumb
animals in his charge asserted itself.  He went out mechanically,
unharnessed and stabled them as carefully as ever before in his life,
then returned and wearily prepared himself a pot of coffee, which, with
a crust of bread, was all the supper he appeared to crave.



Chapter II.

A Very Interested Friend

For the next few days, Holcroft lived alone.  The weather remained
inclement and there was no occasion for him to go farther away than the
barn and outbuildings.  He felt that a crisis in his life was
approaching, that he would probably be compelled to sell his property
for what it would bring, and begin life again under different auspices.

"I must either sell or marry," he groaned, "and one's about as hard and
bad as the other.  Who'll buy the place and stock at half what they're
worth, and where could I find a woman that would look at an old fellow
like me, even if I could bring myself to look at her?"

The poor man did indeed feel that he was shut up to dreadful
alternatives. With his ignorance of the world, and dislike for contact
with strangers, selling out and going away was virtually starting out
on an unknown sea without rudder or compass.  It was worse than
that--it was the tearing up of a life that had rooted itself in the
soil whereon he had been content from childhood to middle age.  He
would suffer more in going, and in the memory of what he had parted
with, than in any of the vicissitudes which might overtake him.  He had
not much range of imagination or feeling, but within his limitations
his emotions were strong and his convictions unwavering.  Still, he
thought it might be possible to live in some vague, unknown place,
doing some kind of work for people with whom he need not have very much
to do. "I've always been my own master, and done things in my own way,"
he muttered, "but I suppose I could farm it to suit some old, quiet
people, if I could only find 'em.  One thing is certain, anyhow--I
couldn't stay here in Oakville, and see another man living in these
rooms, and plowing my fields, and driving his cows to my old pasture
lots.  That would finish me like a galloping consumption."

Every day he shrunk with a strange dread from the wrench of parting
with the familiar place and with all that he associated with his wife.
This was really the ordeal which shook his soul, and not the fear that
he would be unable to earn his bread elsewhere.  The unstable
multitude, who are forever fancying that they would be better off
somewhere else or at something else, can have no comprehension of this
deep-rooted love of locality and the binding power of long association.
They regard such men as Holcroft as little better than plodding oxen.
The highest tribute which some people can pay to a man, however, is to
show that they do not and cannot understand him.  But the farmer was
quite indifferent whether he was understood or not.  He gave no thought
to what people said or might say.  What were people to him?  He only
had a hunted, pathetic sense of being hedged in and driven to bay.
Even to his neighbors, there was more of the humorous than the tragic
in his plight. It was supposed that he had a goodly sum in the bank,
and gossips said that he and his wife thought more of increasing this
hoard than of each other, and that old Holcroft's mourning was chiefly
for a business partner.  His domestic tribulations evoked mirth rather
than sympathy; and as the news spread from farmhouse to cottage of his
summary bundling of Bridget and her satellites out of doors, there were
both hilarity and satisfaction.

While there was little commiseration for the farmer, there was decided
disapprobation of the dishonest Irish tribe, and all were glad that the
gang had received a lesson which might restrain them from preying upon
others.

Holcroft was partly to blame for his present isolation.  Remote rural
populations are given to strong prejudices, especially against those
who are thought to be well-off from an oversaving spirit; and who,
worse still, are unsocial.  Almost anything will be forgiven sooner
than "thinking one's self better than the other folks;" and that is the
usual interpretation of shy, reticent people.  But there had been a
decided tinge of selfishness in the Holcrofts' habit of seclusion; for
it became a habit rather than a principle. While they cherished no
active dislike to their neighbors, or sense of superiority, these were
not wholly astray in believing that they had little place in the
thoughts or interests of the occupants of the hill farm. Indifference
begat indifference, and now the lonely, helpless man had neither the
power nor the disposition to bridge the chasm which separated him from
those who might have given him kindly and intelligent aid.  He was
making a pathetic effort to keep his home and to prevent his heart from
being torn bleeding away from all it loved.  His neighbors thought that
he was merely exerting himself to keep the dollars which it had been
the supreme motive of his life to accumulate.

Giving no thought to the opinions of others, Holcroft only knew that he
was in sore straits--that all which made his existence a blessing was
at stake.

At times, during these lonely and stormy March days, he would dismiss
his anxious speculations in regard to his future course.  He was so
morbid, especially at night, that he felt that his wife could revisit
the quiet house. He cherished the hope that she could see him and hear
what he said, and he spoke in her viewless presence with a freedom and
fullness that was unlike his old reticence and habit of repression.  He
wondered that he had not said more endearing words and given her
stronger assurance of how much she was to him. Late at night, he would
start out of a long reverie, take a candle, and, going through the
house, would touch what she had touched, and look long and fixedly at
things associated with her.  Her gowns still hung in the closet, just
as she had left them; he would take them out and recall the
well-remembered scenes and occasions when they were worn.  At such
times, she almost seemed beside him, and he had a consciousness  of
companionship which soothed his perturbed spirit.  He felt that she
appreciated such loving remembrance, although unable to express her
approval.  He did not know it, but his nature was being softened,
deepened, and enriched by these deep and unwonted experiences; the hard
materiality of his life was passing away, rendering him capable of
something better than he had ever known.

In the morning all the old, prosaic problems of his life would return,
with their hard, practical insistence, and he knew that he must decide
upon something very soon.  His lonely vigils and days of quiet had
brought him to the conclusion that he could not hunt up a wife as a
matter of business.  He would rather face the "ever angry bears" than
breathe the subject of matrimony to any woman that he could ever
imagine himself marrying.  He was therefore steadily drifting toward
the necessity of selling everything and going away. This event,
however, was like a coral reef to a sailor, with no land in view beyond
it.  The only thing which seemed certain was the general breaking up of
all that had hitherto made his life.

The offer of help came from an unexpected source.  One morning Holcroft
received a call from a neighbor who had never before shown any interest
in his affairs.  On this occasion, however, Mr. Weeks began to display
so much solicitude that the farmer was not only surprised, but also a
little distrustful.  Nothing in his previous knowledge of the man had
prepared the way for such very kindly intervention.

After some general references to the past, Mr. Weeks continued, "I've
been saying to our folks that it was too bad to let you worry on alone
without more neighborly help.  You ought either to get married or have
some thoroughly respectable and well-known middle-aged woman keep house
for you.  That would stop all talk, and there's been a heap of it, I
can tell you.  Of course, I and my folks don't believe anything's been
wrong."

"Believing that something was wrong is about all the attention my
neighbors have given me, as far as I can see," Holcroft remarked
bitterly.

"Well, you see, Holcroft, you've kept yourself so inside your shell
that people don't know what to believe.  Now, the thing to do is to
change all that.  I know how hard it is for a man, placed as you be, to
get decent help. My wife was a-wondering about it the other day, and I
shut her up mighty sudden by saying, 'You're a good manager, and know
all the country side, yet how often you're a-complaining that you can't
get a girl that's worth her salt to help in haying and other busy times
when we have to board a lot of men.' Well, I won't beat around the bush
any more.  I've come to act the part of a good neighbor.  There's no
use of you're trying to get along with such haphazard help as you can
pick up here and in town.  You want a respectable woman for
housekeeper, and then have a cheap, common sort of a girl to work under
her.  Now, I know of just such a woman, and it's not unlikely she'd be
persuaded to take entire charge of your house and dairy.  My wife's
cousin, Mrs. Mumpson--" At the mention of this name Holcroft gave a
slight start, feeling something like a cold chill run down his back.

Mr. Weeks was a little disconcerted but resumed, "I believe she called
on your wife once?"

"Yes," the farmer replied laconically. "I was away and did not see her."

"Well, now," pursued Mr. Weeks, "she's a good soul.  She has her little
peculiarities; so have you and me, a lot of 'em; but she's thoroughly
respectable, and there isn't a man or woman in the town that would
think of saying a word against her.  She has only one child, a nice,
quiet little girl who'd be company for her mother and make everything
look right, you know."

"I don't see what there's been to look wrong," growled the farmer.

"Nothing to me and my folks, of course, or I wouldn't suggest the idea
of a relation of my wife coming to live with you.  But you see people
will talk unless you stop their mouths so they'll feel like fools in
doing it.  I know yours has been a mighty awkward case, and here's a
plain way out of it.  You can set yourself right and have everything
looked after as it ought to be, in twenty-four hours.  We've talked to
Cynthy--that's Mrs. Mumpson--and she takes a sight of interest.  She'd
do well by you and straighten things out, and you might do a plaguey
sight worse than give her the right to take care of your indoor affairs
for life."

"I don't expect to marry again," said Holcroft curtly.

"Oh, well!  Many a man and woman has said that and believed it, too, at
the time.  I'm not saying that my wife's cousin is inclined that way
herself. Like enough, she isn't at all, but then, the right kind of
persuading does change women's minds sometimes, eh?  Mrs. Mumpson is
kinder alone in the world, like yourself, and if she was sure of a good
home and a kind husband there's no telling what good luck might happen
to you.  But there'll be plenty of time for considering all that on
both sides.  You can't live like a hermit."

"I was thinking of selling out and leaving these parts," Holcroft
interrupted.

"Now look here, neighbor, you know as well as I do that in these times
you couldn't give away the place.  What's the use of such foolishness?
The thing to do is to keep the farm and get a good living out of it.
You've got down in the dumps and can't see what's sensible and to your
own advantage."

Holcroft was thinking deeply, and he turned his eyes wistfully to the
upland slopes of his farm.  Mr. Weeks had talked plausibly, and if all
had been as he represented, the plan would not have been a bad one.
But the widower did not yearn for the widow.  He did not know much
about her, but had very unfavorable impressions.  Mrs. Holcroft had not
been given to speaking ill of anyone, but she had always shaken her
head with a peculiar significance when Mrs. Mumpson's name was
mentioned.

The widow had felt it her duty to call and counsel against the sin of
seclusion and being too much absorbed in the affairs of this world.

"You should take an interest in everyone," this self-appointed
evangelist had declared, and in one sense she lived up to her creed.
She permitted no scrap of information about people to escape her, and
was not only versed in all the gossip of Oakville, but also of several
other localities in which she visited.

But Holcroft had little else to deter him from employing her services
beyond an unfavorable impression.  She could not be so bad as Bridget
Malony, and he was almost willing to employ her again for the privilege
of remaining on his paternal acres.  As to marrying the widow--a slight
shudder passed through his frame at the thought.

Slowly he began, as if almost thinking aloud, "I suppose you are right,
Lemuel Weeks, in what you say about selling the place.  The Lord knows
I don't want to leave it.  I was born and brought up here, and that
counts with some people.  If your wife's cousin is willing to come and
help me make a living, for such wages as I can pay, the arrangement
might be made.  But I want to look on it as a business arrangement.  I
have quiet ways of my own, and things belonging to the past to think
about, and I've got a right to think about 'em. I aint one of the
marrying kind, and I don't want people to be a-considering such notions
when I don't.  I'd be kind and all that to her and her little girl, but
I should want to be left to myself as far as I could be."

"Oh, certainly," said Mr. Weeks, mentally chuckling over the slight
prospect of such immunity, "but you must remember that Mrs. Mumpson
isn't like common help--"

"That's where the trouble will come in," ejaculated the perplexed
farmer, "but there's been trouble enough with the other sort."

"I should say so," Mr. Weeks remarked emphatically. "It would be a pity
if you couldn't get along with such a respectable, conscientious woman
as Mrs. Mumpson, who comes from one of the best families in the
country."

Holcroft removed his hat and passed his hand over his brow wearily as
he said, "Oh, I could get along with anyone who would do the work in a
way that would give me a chance to make a little, and then leave me to
myself."

"Well, well," said Mr. Weeks, laughing, "you needn't think that because
I've hinted at a good match for you I'm making one for my wife's
cousin.  You may see the day when you'll be more hot for it than she
is.  All I'm trying to do is to help you keep your place, and live like
a man ought and stop people's mouths."

"If I could only fill my own and live in peace, it's all I ask.  When I
get to plowing and planting again I'll begin to take some comfort."

These words were quoted against Holcroft, far and near. "Filling his
own mouth and making a little money are all he cares for," was the
general verdict.  And thus people are misunderstood.  The farmer had
never turned anyone hungry from his door, and he would have gone to the
poorhouse rather than have acted the part of the man who misrepresented
him.  He had only meant to express the hope that he might be able to
fill his mouth--earn his bread, and get it from his native soil.
"Plowing and planting"--working where he had toiled since a
child--would be a solace in itself, and not a grudged means to a sordid
end.

Mr. Weeks was a thrifty man also, and in nothing was he more economical
than in charitable views of his neighbors' motives and conduct.  He
drove homeward with the complacent feeling that he had done a shrewd,
good thing for himself and "his folks" at least.  His wife's cousin was
not exactly embraced in the latter category, although he had been so
active in her behalf.  The fact was, he would be at much greater pains
could he attach her to Holcroft or anyone else and so prevent further
periodical visits.

He regarded her and her child as barnacles with such appalling adhesive
powers that even his ingenuity at "crowding out" had been baffled.  In
justice to him, it must be admitted that Mrs. Mumpson was a type of the
poor relation that would tax the long suffering of charity itself.  Her
husband had left her scarcely his blessing, and if he had fled to ills
he knew not of, he believed that he was escaping from some of which he
had a painfully distinct consciousness.  His widow was one of the
people who regard the "world as their oyster," and her scheme of life
was to get as much as possible for nothing. Arrayed in mourning weeds,
she had begun a system of periodical descents upon his relatives and
her own.  She might have made such visitations endurable and even
welcome, but she was not shrewd enough to be sensible.  She appeared to
have developed only the capacity to talk, to pry, and to worry people.
She was unable to rest or to permit others to rest, yet her aversion to
any useful form of activity was her chief characteristic.  Wherever she
went she took the ground that she was "company," and with a shawl
hanging over her sharp, angular shoulders, she would seize upon the
most comfortable rocking chair in the house, and mouse for bits of news
about everyone of whom she had ever heard.  She was quite as ready to
tell all she knew also, and for the sake of her budget of gossip and
small scandal, her female relatives tolerated her after a fashion for a
time; but she had been around so often, and her scheme of obtaining
subsistence for herself and child had become so offensively apparent,
that she had about exhausted the patience of all the kith and kin on
whom she had the remotest claim.  Her presence was all the more
unwelcome by reason of the faculty for irritating the men of the
various households which she invaded.  Even the most phlegmatic or the
best-natured lost their self-control, and as their wives declared,
"felt like flying all to pieces" at her incessant rocking, gossiping,
questioning, and, what was worse still, lecturing.  Not the least
endurable thing about Mrs. Mumpson was her peculiar phase of piety.
She saw the delinquencies and duties of others with such painful
distinctness that she felt compelled to speak of them; and her zeal was
sure to be instant out of season.

When Mr. Weeks had started on his ominous mission to Holcroft his wife
remarked to her daughter confidentially, "I declare, sis, if we don't
get rid of Cynthy soon, I believe Lemuel will fly off the handle."

To avoid any such dire catastrophe, it was hoped and almost prayed in
the Weeks household that the lonely occupant of the hill farm would
take the widow for good and all.



Chapter III.

Mrs. Mumpson Negotiates and Yields

Mr. Weeks, on his return home, dropped all diplomacy in dealing with
the question at issue. "Cynthy," he said in his own vernacular, "the
end has come, so far as me and my folks are concerned--I never expect
to visit you, and while I'm master of the house, no more visits will be
received.  But I haint taken any such stand onconsiderately," he
concluded. "I've given up the whole forenoon to secure you a better
chance of living than visiting around.  If you go to Holcroft's you'll
have to do some work, and so will your girl.  But he'll hire someone to
help you, and so you won't have to hurt yourself.  Your trump card will
be to hook him and marry him before he finds you out.  To do this,
you'll have to see to the house and dairy, and bestir yourself for a
time at least.  He's pretty desperate off for lack of women folks to
look after indoor matters, but he'll sell out and clear out before
he'll keep a woman, much less marry her, if she does nothing but talk.
Now remember, you've got a chance which you won't get again, for
Holcroft not only owns his farm, but has a snug sum in the bank.  So
you had better get your things together, and go right over while he's
in the mood."

When Mrs. Mumpson reached the blank wall of the inevitable, she
yielded, and not before.  She saw that the Weeks mine was worked out
completely, and she knew that this exhaustion was about equally true of
all similar mines, which had been bored until they would yield no
further returns.

But Mr. Weeks soon found that he could not carry out his summary
measures. The widow was bent on negotiations and binding agreements.
In a stiff, cramped hand, she wrote to Holcroft in regard to the amount
of "salary" he would be willing to pay, intimating that one burdened
with such responsibilities as she was expected to assume "ort to be
compensiated proposhundly."

Weeks groaned as he dispatched his son on horseback with this first
epistle, and Holcroft groaned as he read it, not on account of its
marvelous spelling and construction, but by reason of the vista of
perplexities and trouble it opened to his boding mind.  But he named on
half a sheet of paper as large a sum as he felt it possible to pay and
leave any chance for himself, then affixed his signature and sent it
back by the messenger.

The widow Mumpson wished to talk over this first point between the high
contracting powers indefinitely, but Mr. Weeks remarked cynically,
"It's double what I thought he'd offer, and you're lucky to have it in
black and white.  Now that everything's settled, Timothy will hitch up
and take you and Jane up there at once."

But Mrs. Mumpson now began to insist upon writing another letter in
regard to her domestic status and that of her child.  They could not
think of being looked upon as servants.  She also wished to be assured
that a girl would be hired to help her, that she should have all the
church privileges to which she had been accustomed and the right to
visit and entertain her friends, which meant every farmer's wife and
all the maiden sisters in Oakville. "And then," she continued, "there
are always little perquisites which a housekeeper has a right to look
for--"  Mr. Weeks irritably put a period to this phase of diplomacy by
saying, "Well, well, Cynthy, the stage will be along in a couple of
hours.  We'll put you and your things aboard, and you can go on with
what you call your negotiations at Cousin Abiram's.  I can tell you one
thing though--if you write any such letter to Holcroft, you'll never
hear from him again."

Compelled to give up all these preliminaries, but inwardly resolving to
gain each point by a nagging persistence of which she was a mistress,
she finally declared that she "must have writings about one thing which
couldn't be left to any man's changeful mind.  He must agree to give me
the monthly salary he names for at least a year."

Weeks thought a moment, and then, with a shrewd twinkle in his eyes,
admitted, "It would be a good thing to have Holcroft's name to such an
agreement.  Yes, you might try that on, but you're taking a risk.  If
you were not so penny-wise and pound-foolish, you'd go at once and
manage to get him to take you for 'better or worse.'"

"You--misjudge me, Cousin Lemuel," replied the widow, bridling and
rocking violently.  "If there's any such taking to be done, he must get
me to take him."

"Well, well, write your letter about a year's engagement.  That'll
settle you for a twelvemonth, at least."

Mrs. Mumpson again began the slow, laborious construction of a letter
in which she dwelt upon the uncertainties of life, her "duty to her
offspring," and the evils of "vicissitude." "A stable home is woman's
chief desire," she concluded, "and you will surely agree to pay me the
salary you have said for a year."

When Holcroft read this second epistle he so far yielded to his first
impulse that he half tore the sheet, then paused irresolutely.  After a
few moments he went to the door and looked out upon his acres. "It'll
soon be plowing and planting time," he thought.  "I guess I can stand
her--at least I can try it for three months.  I'd like to turn a few
more furrows on the old place," and his face softened and grew wistful
as he looked at the bare, frost-bound fields.  Suddenly it darkened and
grew stern as he muttered, "But I'll put my hand to no more paper with
that Weeks tribe."

He strode to the stable, saying to Timothy Weeks, as he passed, "I'll
answer this letter in person."

Away cantered Timothy, and soon caused a flutter of expectancy in the
Weeks household, by announcing that "Old Holcroft looked black as a
thundercloud and was comin' himself."

"I tell you what 'tis, Cynthy, it's the turn of a hair with you now,"
growled Weeks. "Unless you agree to whatever Holcroft says, you haven't
the ghost of a chance."

The widow felt that a crisis had indeed come.  Cousin Abiram's was the
next place in the order of visitation, but her last experience there
left her in painful doubt as to a future reception.  Therefore she tied
on a new cap, smoothed her apron, and rocked with unwonted rapidity.
"It'll be according to the ordering of Providence--"

"Oh, pshaw!" interrupted Cousin Lemuel, "it'll be according to whether
you've got any sense or not."

Mrs. Weeks had been in a pitiable state of mind all day.  She saw that
her husband had reached the limit of his endurance--that he had
virtually already "flown off the handle."  But to have her own kin
actually bundled out of the house--what would people say?

Acceptance of Holcroft's terms, whatever they might be, was the only
way out of the awkward predicament, and so she began in a wheedling
tone, "Now, Cousin Cynthy, as Lemuel says, you've got a first-rate
chance.  Holcroft's had an awful time with women, and he'll be glad
enough to do well by anyone who does fairly well by him.  Everybody
says he's well off, and once you're fairly there and get things in your
own hands, there's no telling what may happen. He'll get a girl to help
you, and Jane's big enough now to do a good deal. Why, you'll be the
same as keeping house like the rest of us."

Further discussion was cut short by the arrival of the victim.  He
stood awkwardly in the door of the Weeks sitting room for a moment,
seemingly at a loss how to state his case.

Mr. And Mrs. Weeks now resolved to appear neutral and allow the farmer
to make his terms.  Then, like other superior powers in the background,
they proposed to exert a pressure on their relative and do a little
coercing.  But the widow's course promised at first to relieve them of
all further effort.  She suddenly seemed to become aware of Holcroft's
presence, sprang up, and gave him her hand very cordially.

"I'm glad to see you, sir," she began. "It's very considerate of you to
come for me.  I can get ready in short order, and as for Jane, she's
never a bit of trouble.  Sit down, sir, and make yourself to home while
I get our things together and put on my bonnet;" and she was about to
hasten from the room.

She, too, had been compelled to see that Holcroft's farmhouse was the
only certain refuge left, and while she had rocked and waited the
thought had come into her scheming mind, "I've stipulated to stay a
year, and if he says nothing against it, it's a bargain which I can
manage to keep him to in spite of himself, even if I don't marry him."

But the straightforward farmer was not to be caught in such a trap.  He
had come himself to say certain words and he would say them.  He
quietly, therefore, stood in the door and said, "Wait a moment, Mrs.
Mumpson.  It's best to have a plain understanding in all matters of
business.  When I've done, you may conclude not to go with me, for I
want to say to you what I said this morning to your cousin, Lemuel
Weeks.  I'm glad he and his wife are now present, as witnesses.  I'm a
plain man, and all I want is to make a livin' off the farm I've been
brought up on.  I'll get a girl to help you with the work.  Between
you, I'll expect it to be done in a way that the dairy will yield a
fair profit.  We'll try and see how we get on for three months and not
a year.  I'll not bind myself longer than three months.  Of course, if
you manage well, I'll be glad to have this plain business arrangement
go on as long as possible, but it's all a matter of business.  If I
can't make  my farm pay, I'm going to sell or rent and leave these
parts."

"Oh, certainly, certainly, Mr. Holcroft!  You take a very senserble
view of affairs.  I hope you will find that I will do all that I agree
to and a great deal more.  I'm a little afraid of the night air and the
inclement season, and so will hasten to get myself and my child ready,"
and she passed quickly out.

Weeks put his hand to his mouth to conceal a grin as he thought, "She
hasn't agreed to do anything that I know on.  Still, she's right;
she'll do a sight more than he expects, but it won't be just what he
expects."

Mrs. Weeks followed her relative to expedite matters, and it must be
confessed that the gathering of Mrs. Mumpson's belongings was no heavy
task.  A small hair trunk, that had come down from the remote past,
held her own and her child's wardrobe and represented all their worldly
possessions.

Mr. Weeks, much pleased at the turn of affairs, became very affable,
but confined his remarks chiefly to the weather, while Holcroft, who
had an uneasy sense of being overreached in some undetected way, was
abstracted and laconic. He was soon on the road home, however, with
Mrs. Mumpson and Jane.  Cousin Lemuel's last whispered charge was,
"Now, for mercy's sake, do keep your tongue still and your hands busy."

Whatever possibilities there may be for the Ethiopian or the leopard,
there was no hope that Mrs. Mumpson would materially change any of her
characteristics.  The chief reason was that she had no desire to
change.  A more self-complacent person did not exist in Oakville.  Good
traits in other people did not interest her.  They were insipid, they
lacked a certain pungency which a dash of evil imparts; and in the
course of her minute investigations she had discerned or surmised so
much that was reprehensible that she had come to regard herself as
singularly free from sins of omission and commission. "What have I ever
done?" she would ask in her self-communings. The question implied so
much truth of a certain kind that all her relatives were in gall and
bitterness as they remembered the weary months during which she had
rocked idly at their firesides. With her, talking was as much of a
necessity as breathing; but during the ride to the hillside farm she,
in a sense, held her breath, for a keen March wind was blowing.

She was so quiet that Holcroft grew hopeful, not realizing that the
checked flow of words must have freer course later on.  A cloudy
twilight was deepening fast when they reached the dwelling.  Holcroft's
market wagon served for the general purposes of conveyance, and he
drove as near as possible to the kitchen door.  Descending from the
front seat, which he had occupied alone, he turned and offered his hand
to assist the widow to alight, but she nervously poised herself on the
edge of the vehicle and seemed to be afraid to venture.  The wind
fluttered her scanty draperies, causing her to appear like a bird of
prey about to swoop down upon the unprotected man. "I'm afraid to jump
so far--" she began.

"There's the step, Mrs. Mumpson."

"But I can't see it.  Would you mind lifting me down?"

He impatiently took her by the arms, which seemed in his grasp like the
rounds of a chair, and put her on the ground.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, in gushing tones, "there's nothing to equal the
strong arms of a man."

He hastily lifted out her daughter, and said, "You had getter hurry in
to the fire.  I'll be back in a few minutes," and he led his horses
down to the barn, blanketed and tied them.  When he returned, he saw
two dusky figures standing by the front door which led to the little
hall separating the kitchen from the parlor.

"Bless me!" he exclaimed. "You haven't been standing here all this
time?"

"It's merely due to a little oversight.  The door is locked, you see,
and--"

"But the kitchen door is not locked."

"Well, it didn't seem quite natural for us to enter the dwelling, on
the occasion of our first arrival, by the kitchen entrance, and--"

Holcroft, with a grim look, strode through the kitchen and unlocked the
door.

"Ah!" exclaimed the widow. "I feel as if I was coming home.  Enter,
Jane, my dear.  I'm sure the place will soon cease to be strange to
you, for the home feeling is rapidly acquired when--"

"Just wait a minute, please," said Holcroft, "and I'll light the lamp
and a candle."  This he did with the deftness of a man accustomed to
help himself, then led the way to the upper room which was to be her
sleeping apartment. Placing the candle on the bureau, he forestalled
Mrs. Mumpson by saying, "I'll freshen up the fire in the kitchen and
lay out the ham, eggs, coffee, and other materials for supper.  Then I
must go out and unharness and do my night work.  Make yourselves to
home.  You'll soon be able to find everything," and he hastened away.

It would not be their fault if they were not soon able to find
everything. Mrs. Mumpson's first act was to take the candle and survey
the room in every nook and corner.  She sighed when she found the
closet and bureau drawers empty.  Then she examined the quantity and
texture of the bedding of the "couch on which she was to repose," as
she would express herself.  Jane followed her around on tiptoe, doing
just what her mother did, but was silent.

At last they shivered in the fireless apartment, threw off their scanty
wraps, and went down to the kitchen.  Mrs. Mumpson instinctively looked
around for a rocking chair, and as none was visible she hastened to the
parlor, and, holding the candle aloft, surveyed this apartment.  Jane
followed in her wake as before, but at last ventured to suggest,
"Mother, Mr. Holcroft'll be in soon and want his supper."

"I suppose he'll want a great many things," replied Mrs. Mumpson with
dignity, "but he can't expect a lady of my connections to fly around
like a common servant.  It is but natural, in coming to a new abode,
that I should wish to know something of that abode.  There should have
been a hired girl here ready to receive and get supper for us.  Since
there is not one to receive us, bring that rocking chair, my dear, and
I will direct you how to proceed."

The child did as she was told, and her mother was soon rocking on the
snuggest side of the kitchen stove, interspersing her rather
bewildering orders with various reflections and surmises.

Sketching the child Jane is a sad task, and pity would lead us to
soften every touch if this could be done in truthfulness.  She was but
twelve years of age, yet there was scarcely a trace of childhood left
in her colorless face. Stealthy and catlike in all her movements, she
gave the impression that she could not do the commonest thing except in
a sly, cowering manner.  Her small greenish-gray eyes appeared to be
growing nearer together with the lease of time, and their indirect,
furtive glances suggested that they had hardly, if ever, seen looks of
frank affection bent upon her.  She had early learned, on the round of
visits with her mother, that so far from being welcome she was scarcely
tolerated, and she reminded one of a stray cat that comes to a dwelling
and seeks to maintain existence there in a lurking, deprecatory manner.
Her kindred recognized this feline trait, for they were accustomed to
remark, "She's always snoopin' around."

She could scarcely do otherwise, poor child!  There had seemed no place
for her at any of the firesides.  She haunted halls and passage-ways,
sat in dusky corners, and kept her meager little form out of sight as
much as possible. She was the last one helped at table when she was
permitted to come at all, and so had early learned to watch, like a
cat, and when people's backs were turned, to snatch something, carry it
off, and devour it in secret.  Detected in these little pilferings, to
which she was almost driven, she was regarded as even a greater
nuisance than her mother.

The latter was much too preoccupied to give her child attention.
Ensconced in a rocking chair in the best room, and always in full tide
of talk if there was anyone present, she rarely seemed to think where
Jane was or what she was doing.  The rounds of visitation gave the
child no chance to go to school, so her developing mind had little
other pabulum than what her mother supplied so freely.  She was
acquiring the same consuming curiosity, with the redeeming feature that
she did not talk.  Listening in unsuspected places, she heard much that
was said about her mother and herself, and the pathetic part of this
experience was that she had never known enough of kindness to be
wounded.  She was only made to feel more fully how precarious was her
foothold in her transient abiding place, and therefore was rendered
more furtive, sly, and distant in order to secure toleration by keeping
out of everyone's way.  In her prowlings, however, she managed to learn
and understand all that was going on even better than her mother, who,
becoming aware of this fact, was acquiring the habit of putting her
through a whispered cross-questioning when they retired for the night.
It would be hard to imagine a child beginning life under more
unfavorable auspices and still harder to predict the outcome.

In the course of her close watchfulness she had observed how many of
the domestic labors had been performed, and she would have helped more
in the various households if she had been given a chance; but the
housewives had not regarded her as sufficiently honest to be trusted in
the pantries, and also found that, if there was a semblance of return
for such hospitality as they extended, Mrs. Mumpson would remain
indefinitely.  Moreover, the homely, silent child made the women
nervous, just as her mother irritated the men, and they did not want
her around.  Thus she had come to be but the specter of a child,
knowing little of the good in the world and as much of the evil as she
could understand.

She now displayed, however, more sense than her mother.  The habit of
close scrutiny had made it clear that Holcroft would not long endure
genteel airs and inefficiency, and that something must be done to keep
this shelter.  She did her best to get supper, with the aid given from
the rocking chair, and at last broke out sharply, "You must get up and
help me.  He'll turn us out of doors if we don't have supper ready when
he comes in."

Spurred by fear of such a dire possibility, Mrs. Mumpson was bustling
around when Holcroft entered. "We'll soon be ready," she gushed, "we'll
soon place our evening repast upon the table."

"Very well," was the brief reply, as he passed up the stairs with the
small hair trunk on his shoulder.



Chapter IV.

Domestic Bliss

Holcroft had been given a foretaste of the phase of torment which he
was destined to endure in his domestic relations, and was planning to
secure a refuge into which he could not be pursued.  He had made
himself a little more presentable for supper, instinctively aware that
nothing would escape the lynx-eyed widow, and was taking some
measurements from the floor to a stovepipe hole leading into the
chimney flue, when he became aware that someone was in the doorway.
Turning, he saw Jane with her small catlike eyes fixed intently upon
him.  Instantly he had the feeling that he was being watched and would
be watched.

"Supper's ready," said the girl, disappearing.

Mrs. Mumpson smiled upon him--if certain contortions of her thin, sharp
face could be termed a smile--from that side of the table at which his
wife had sat so many years, and he saw that the low rocking chair,
which he had preserved jealously from his former "help," had been
brought from the parlor and established in the old familiar place.
Mrs. Mumpson folded her hands and assumed a look of deep solemnity;
Jane, as instructed, also lowered her head, and they waited for him to
say "grace."  He was in far too bitter a mood for any such pious farce,
and stolidly began to help them to the ham and eggs, which viands had
been as nearly spoiled as was possible in their preparation. The widow
raised her head with a profound sigh which set Holcroft's teeth on
edge, but he proceeded silently with his supper.  The biscuits were
heavy enough to burden the lightest conscience; and the coffee, simply
grounds swimming around in lukewarm water.  He took a sip, then put
down his cup and said, quietly, "Guess I'll take a glass of milk
tonight.  Mrs. Mumpson, if you don't know how to make coffee, I can
soon show you."

"Why!  Isn't it right?  How strange!  Perhaps it would be well for you
to show me just exactly how you like it, for it will afford me much
pleasure to make it to your taste.  Men's tastes differ so!  I've heard
that no two men's tastes were alike; and, after all, everything is a
matter of taste.  Now Cousin Abiram doesn't believe in coffee at all.
He thinks it is unwholesome. Have YOU ever thought that it might be
unwholesome?"

"I'm used to it, and would like it good when I have it at all."

"Why, of course, of course!  You must have it exactly to your taste.
Jane, my dear, we must put our minds on coffee and learn precisely how
Mr. Holcroft likes it, and when the hired girl comes we must carefully
superintend her when she makes it.  By the way, I suppose you will
employ my assistant tomorrow, Mr. Holcroft."

"I can't get a girl short of town," was the reply, "and there is so
much cream in the dairy that ought to be churned at once that I'll wait
till next Monday and take down the butter."

Mrs. Mumpson put on a grave, injured air, and said, "Well," so
disapprovingly that it was virtually saying that it was not well at
all.  Then, suddenly remembering that this was not good policy, she was
soon all smiles and chatter again. "How cozy this is!" she cried, "and
how soon one acquires the home feeling!  Why, anyone looking in at the
window would think that we were an old established family, and yet this
is but our first meal together.  But it won't be the last, Mr.
Holcroft.  I cannot make it known to you how your loneliness, which
Cousin Lemuel has so feelingly described to me, has affected my
feelings.  Cousin Nancy said but this very day that you have had
desperate times with all kinds of dreadful creatures.  But all that's
past.  Jane and me will give a look of stability and respecterbility to
every comer."

"Well, really, Mrs. Mumpson, I don't know who's to come."

"Oh, you'll see!" she replied, wrinkling her thin, blue lips into what
was meant for a smile, and nodding her head at him encouragingly. "You
won't be so isolated no more.  Now that I'm here, with my offspring,
your neighbors will feel that they can show you their sympathy.  The
most respecterble people in town will call, and your life will grow
brighter and brighter; clouds will roll away, and--"

"I hope the neighbors will not be so ill-mannered as to come without
being invited," remarked Mr. Holcroft grimly. "It's too late in the day
for them to begin now."

"My being here with Jane will make all the difference in the world,"
resumed Mrs. Mumpson, with as saccharine an expression as she could
assume. "They will come out of pure kindness and friendly interest,
with the wish to encourage--"

"Mrs. Mumpson," said Holcroft, half desperately, "if anyone comes it'll
be out of pure curiosity, and I don't want such company.  Selling
enough butter, eggs, and produce to pay expenses will encourage me more
than all the people of Oakville, if they should come in a body.  What's
the use of talking in this way?  I've done without the neighbors so
far, and I'm sure they've been very careful to do without me.  I shall
have nothing to do with them except in the way of business, and as I
said to you down at Lemuel Weeks's, business must be the first
consideration with us all," and he rose from the table.

"Oh, certainly, certainly!" the widow hastened to say, "but then
business is like a cloud, and the meetings and greetings of friends is
a sort of silver lining, you know.  What would the world be without
friends--the society of those who take an abiding interest?  Believe
me, Mr. Holcroft," she continued, bringing her long, skinny finger
impressively down on the table, "you have lived alone so long that you
are unable to see the crying needs of your own constitution.  As a
Christian man, you require human sympathy and--"

Poor Holcroft knew little of centrifugal force; but at that moment he
was a living embodiment of it, feeling that if he did not escape he
would fly into a thousand atoms.  Saying nervously, "I've a few chores
to do," he seized his hat, and hastening out, wandered disconsolately
around the barn. "I'm never going to be able to stand her," he groaned.
"I know now why my poor wife shook her head whenever this woman was
mentioned.  The clack of her tongue would drive any man living crazy,
and the gimlet eyes of that girl Jane would bore holes through a
saint's patience.  Well, well!  I'll put a stove up in my room, then
plowing and planting time will soon be here, and I guess I can stand it
at mealtimes for three months, for unless she stops her foolishness she
shan't stay any longer."

Jane had not spoken during the meal, but kept her eyes on Holcroft,
except when he looked toward her, and then she instantly averted her
gaze.  When she was alone with her mother, she said abruptly, "We aint
a-goin' to stay here long, nuther."

"Why not?" was the sharp, responsive query.

"'Cause the same look's comin' into his face that was in Cousin
Lemuel's and Cousin Abiram's and all the rest of 'em.  'Fi's you I'd
keep still now. 'Pears to me they all want you to keep still and you
won't."

"Jane," said Mrs. Mumpson in severe tones, "you're an ignorant child.
Don't presume to instruct ME!  Besides, this case is entirely
different.  Mr. Holcroft must be made to understand from the start that
I'm not a common woman--that I'm his equal, and in most respects his
superior.  If he aint made to feel this, it'll never enter his
head--but law!  There's things which you can't and oughtn't to
understand."

"But I do," said the girl shortly, "and he won't marry you, nor keep
you, if you talk him to death."

"Jane!" gasped Mrs. Mumpson, as she sank into the chair and rocked
violently.

The night air was keen and soon drove Holcroft into the house.  As he
passed the kitchen window, he saw that Mrs. Mumpson was in his wife's
rocking chair and that Jane was clearing up the table.

He kindled a fire on the parlor hearth, hoping, but scarcely expecting,
that he would be left alone.

Nor was he very long, for the widow soon opened the door and entered,
carrying the chair. "Oh, you are here," she said sweetly. "I heard the
fire crackling, and I do so love open wood fires.  They're company in
themselves, and they make those who bask in the flickering blaze
inclined to be sociable.  To think of how many long, lonely evenings
you have sat here when you had persons in your employ with whom you
could have no affinity whatever!  I don't see how you stood it.  Under
such circumstances life must cloud up into a dreary burden."  It never
occurred to Mrs. Mumpson that her figures of speech were often mixed.
She merely felt that the sentimental phase of conversation must be very
flowery.  But during the first evening she had resolved on prudence.
"Mr. Holcroft shall have time," she thought, "for the hope to steal
into his heart that his housekeeper may become something more to him
than housekeeper--that there is a nearer and loftier relation."

Meanwhile she was consumed with curiosity to know something about the
"persons" previously employed and his experiences with them.  With a
momentary, and, as she felt, a proper pause before descending to
ordinary topics, she resumed, "My dear Mr. Holcroft, no doubt it will
be a relief to your overfraught mind to pour into a symperthetic ear
the story of your troubles with those--er--those peculiar females
that--er--that--"

"Mrs. Mumpson, it would be a much greater relief to my mind to forget
all about 'em," he replied briefly.

"INDEED!" exclaimed the widow. "Was they as bad as that?  Who'd 'a'
thought it!  Well, well, well; what people there is in the world!  And
you couldn't abide 'em, then?"

"No, I couldn't."

"Well now; what hussies they must have been!  And to think you were
here all alone, with no better company!  It makes my heart bleed.  They
DO say that Bridget Malony is equal to anything, and I've no doubt but
that she took things and did things."

"Well, she's taken herself off, and that's enough."  Then he groaned
inwardly, "Good Lord!  I could stand her and all her tribe bettern'n
this one."

"Yes, Mr. Holcroft," pursued Mrs. Mumpson, sinking her voice to a loud,
confidential whisper, "and I don't believe you've any idea how much she
took with her.  I fear you've been robbed in all these vicissitudes.
Men never know what's in a house.  They need caretakers; respecterble
women, that would sooner cut out their tongues than purloin.  How happy
is the change which has been affected!  How could you abide in the
house with such a person as that Bridget Malony?"

"Well, well, Mrs. Mumpson!  She abode with herself.  I at least had
this room in peace and quietness."

"Of course, of course!  A person so utterly unrespecterble would not
think of entering THIS apartment; but then you had to meet her, you
know.  You could not act as if she was not, when she was, and there
being so much of her, too. She was a monstrous-looking person.  It's
dreadful to think that such persons belong to our sex.  I don't wonder
you feel as you do about it all.  I can understand you perfectly.  All
your senserbleness was offended.  You felt that your very home had
become sacrilegious.  Well, now, I suppose she said awful things to
you?"

Holcroft could not endure this style of inquisition and comment another
second longer.  He rose and said, "Mrs. Mumpson, if you want to know
just what she said and did, you must go and ask her. I'm very tired.
I'll go out and see that the stock's all right, and then go to bed."

"Oh, certainly, certainly!" ejaculated the widow. "Repose is nature's
sweet rester, says the poet.  I can see how recalling those dreadful
scenes with those peculiar females--" But he was gone.

In passing out, he caught sight of Jane whisking back into the kitchen.
"She's been listening," he thought. "Well, I'll go to town tomorrow
afternoon, get a stove for my room upstairs, and stuff the keyhole."

He went to the barn and looked with envy at the placid cows and quiet
horses. At last, having lingered as long as he could, he returned to
the kitchen. Jane had washed and put away the supper dishes after a
fashion, and was now sitting on the edge of a chair in the farthest
corner of the room.

"Take this candle and go to your mother," he said curtly.  Then he
fastened the doors and put out the lamp.  Standing for an instant at
the parlor entrance, he added,  "Please rake up the fire and put out
the light before you come up.  Good night."

"Oh, certainly, certainly! We'll look after everything just as if it
was our own.  The sense of strangeness will soon pass--" But his steps
were halfway up the stairs.

Mother and daughter listened until they heard him overhead, then,
taking the candle, they began a most minute examination of everything
in the room.

Poor Holcroft listened also; too worried, anxious, and nervous to sleep
until they came up and all sounds ceased in the adjoining apartment.



Chapter V.

Mrs. Mumpson Takes Up Her Burdens

The next morning Holcroft awoke early.  The rising sun flooded his
plain little room with mellow light.  It was impossible to give way to
dejection in that radiance, and hope, he scarcely knew why, sprung up
in his heart.  He was soon dressed, and having kindled the kitchen
fire, went out on the porch. There had been a change in the wind during
the night, and now it blew softly from the south.  The air was sweet
with the indefinable fragrance of spring. The ethereal notes of
bluebirds were heard on every side.  Migratory robins were feeding in
the orchard, whistling and calling their noisy congratulations on
arriving at old haunts.  The frost was already oozing from the ground,
but the farmer welcomed the mud, knowing that it indicated a long
advance toward plowing and planting time.

He bared his head to the sweet, warm air and took long, deep breaths.
"If this weather holds," he muttered, "I can soon put in some early
potatoes on that warm hillside yonder.  Yes, I can stand even her for
the sake of being on the old place in mornings like this.  The
weather'll be getting better every day and I can be out of doors more.
I'll have a stove in my room tonight; I would last night if the old
air-tight hadn't given out completely.  I'll take it to town this
afternoon and sell it for old iron.  Then I'll get a bran'-new one and
put it up in my room.  They can't follow me there and they can't follow
me outdoors, and so perhaps I can live in peace and work most of the
time."

Thus he was muttering to himself, as lonely people so often do, when he
felt that someone was near.  Turning suddenly, he saw Jane half-hidden
by the kitchen door.  Finding herself observed, the girl came forward
and said in her brief monotonous way:

"Mother'll be down soon.  If you'll show me how you want the coffee and
things, I guess I can learn."

"I guess you'll have to, Jane.  There'll be more chance of your
teaching your mother than of her teaching you, I fear.  But we'll see,
we'll see; it's strange people can't see what's sensible and best for
'em when they see so much."

The child made no reply, but watched him intently as he measured out
and then ground half a cup of coffee.

"The firs thing to do," he began kindly, "is to fill the kettle with
water fresh drawn from the well.  Never make coffee or tea with water
that's been boiled two or three times.  Now, I'll give the kettle a
good rinsing, so as to make sure you start with it clean."

Having accomplished this, he filled the vessel at the well and placed
it on the fire, remarking as he did so, "Your mother can cook a little,
can't she?"

"I s'pose so," Jane replied. "When father was livin' mother said she
kept a girl.  Since then, we've visited round.  But she'll learn, and
if she can't, I can."

"What on earth--but there's no use of talking.  When the water
boils--bubbles up and down, you know--call me.  I suppose you and your
mother can get the rest of the breakfast?  Oh, good morning, Mrs.
Mumpson!  I was just showing Jane about the coffee.  You two can go on
and do all the rest, but don't touch the coffee till the kettle boils,
and then I'll come in and show you my way, and, if you please, I don't
wish it any other way."

"Oh, certainly, certainly!" began Mrs. Mumpson, but Holcroft waited to
hear no more.

"She's a woman," he muttered, "and I'll say nothing rude or ugly to
her, but I shan't listen to her talk half a minute when I can help
myself; and if she won't do any thing but talk--well, we'll see, we'll
see!  A few hours in the dairy will show whether she can use anything
besides her tongue."

As soon as they were alone Jane turned sharply on her mother and said,
"Now you've got to do something to help.  At Cousin Lemuel's and other
places they wouldn't let us help.  Anyhow, they wouldn't let me.  He
'spects us both to work, and pays you for it.  I tell you agin, he
won't let us stay here unless we do. I won't go visitin' round any
more, feelin' like a stray cat in every house I go to.  You've got to
work, and talk less."

"Why, Jane!  How YOU talk!"

"I talk sense.  Come, help me get breakfast."

"Do you think that's a proper way for a child to address a parent?"

"No matter what I think.  Come and help.  You'll soon know what he
thinks if we keep breakfast waitin'."

"Well, I'll do such menial work until he gets a girl, and then he shall
learn that he can't expect one with such respecterble connections--"

"Hope I may never see any of 'em agin," interrupted Jane shortly, and
then she relapsed into silence while her mother rambled on in her
characteristic way, making singularly inapt efforts to assist in the
task before them.

As Holcroft rose from milking a cow he found Jane beside him.  A ghost
could not have come more silently, and again her stealthy ways gave him
an unpleasant sensation. "Kettle is boilin'," she said, and was gone.

He shook his head and muttered, "Queer tribe, these Mumpsons!  I've
only to get an odd fish of a girl to help, and I'll have something like
a menagerie in the house."  He carried his pails of foaming milk to the
dairy, and then entered the kitchen.

"I've only a minute," he began hastily, seeking to forestall the widow.
"Yes, the kettle's boiling all right.  First scald out the
coffeepot--put three-quarters of a cup of ground coffee into the pot,
break an egg into it, so; pour on the egg and coffee half a cup of cold
water and stir it all up well, this way.  Next pour in about a pint of
boiling water from the kettle, set the pot on the stove and let it--the
coffee, I mean--cook twenty minutes, remember, not less than twenty
minutes.  I'll be back to breakfast by that time.  Now you know just
how I want my coffee, don't you?" looking at Jane.

Jane nodded, but Mrs. Mumpson began, "Oh certainly, certainly!  Boil an
egg twenty minutes, add half a cup of cold water, and--"

"I know," interrupted Jane, "I can always do as you did."

Holcroft again escaped to the barn, and eventually returned with a deep
sigh. "I'll have to face a good deal of her music this morning," he
thought, "but I shall have at least a good cup of coffee to brace me."

Mrs. Mumpson did not abandon the suggestion that grace should be
said,--she never abandoned anything,--but the farmer, in accordance
with his purpose to be civil, yet pay no attention to her obtrusive
ways, gave no heed to her hint.  He thought Jane looked apprehensive,
and soon learned the reason.  His coffee was at least hot, but seemed
exceedingly weak.

"I hope now that it's just right," said Mrs. Mumpson complacently, "and
feeling sure that it was made just to suit you, I filled the coffeepot
full from the kettle.  We can drink what we desire for breakfast and
then the rest can be set aside until dinner time and warmed over.  Then
you'll have it just to suit you for the next meal, and we, at the same
time, will be practicing econermy.  It shall now be my great aim to
help you econermize.  Any coarse, menial hands can work, but the great
thing to be considered is a caretaker; one who, by thoughtfulness and
the employment of her mind, will make the labor of others affective."

During this speech, Holcroft could only stare at the woman.  The rapid
motion of her thin jaw seemed to fascinate him, and he was in
perplexity over not merely her rapid utterance, but also the queries.
Had she maliciously spoiled the coffee?  Or didn't she know any better?
"I can't make her out," he thought, "but she shall learn that I have a
will of my own," and he quietly rose, took the coffeepot, and poured
its contents out of doors; then went through the whole process of
making his favorite beverage again, saying coldly, "Jane, you had
better watch close this time.  I don't wish anyone to touch the
coffeepot but you."

Even Mrs. Mumpson was a little abashed by his manner, but when he
resumed his breakfast she speedily recovered her complacency and
volubility. "I've always heard," she said, with her little cackling
laugh, "that men would be extravergant, especially in some things.
There are some things they're fidgety about and will have just so.
Well, well, who has a better right than a well-to-do, fore-handed man?
Woman is to complement the man, and it should be her aim to study the
great--the great--shall we say reason, for her being? Which is
adaptation," and she uttered the word with feeling, assured that
Holcroft could not fail of being impressed by it.  The poor man was
bolting such food as had been prepared in his haste to get away.

"Yes," continued the widow, "adaptation is woman's mission and--"

"Really, Mrs. Mumpson, your and Jane's mission this morning will be to
get as much butter as possible out of the cream and milk on hand.  I'll
set the old dog on the wheel, and start the churn within half an hour,"
and he rose with the thought, "I'd rather finish my breakfast on milk
and coffee by and by than stand this."  And he said, "Please let the
coffee be until I come in to show you about taking out and working the
butter."

The scenes in the dairy need not be dwelt upon.  He saw that Jane might
be taught, and that she would probably try to do all that her strength
permitted. It was perfectly clear that Mrs. Mumpson was not only
ignorant of the duties which he had employed her to perform, but that
she was also too preoccupied with her talk and notions of gentility
ever to learn.  He was already satisfied that in inducing him to engage
her, Lemuel Weeks had played him a trick, but there seemed no other
resource than to fulfill his agreement.  With Mrs. Mumpson in the
house, there might be less difficulty in securing and keeping a hired
girl who, with Jane, might do the essential work.  But the future
looked so unpromising that even the strong coffee could not sustain his
spirits.  The hopefulness of the early morning departed, leaving
nothing but dreary uncertainty.

Mrs. Mumpson was bent upon accompanying him to town and engaging the
girl herself. "There would be great propriety in my doing so," she
argued at dinner, "and propriety is something that adorns all the human
race.  There would be no danger of my getting any of the peculiar
females such as you have been afflicted with.  As I am to superintend
her labors, she will look up to me with respect and humility if she
learns from the first to recognize in me a superior on whom she will be
dependent for her daily bread.  No shiftless hussy would impose upon
ME.  I would bring home--how sweet the word sounds!--a model of
industry and patient endurance.  She would be deferential, she would
know her place, too.  Everything would go like clockwork in our home.
I'll put on my things at once and--"

"Excuse me, Mrs. Mumpson.  It would not be right to leave Jane here
alone. Moreover, I'd rather engage my own help."

"But my dear Mr. Holcroft, you don't realize--men never do
realize--that you will have a long, lonely ride with a female of
unknown--unknown antercedents. It will be scarcely respecterble, and
respecterbility should be man and woman's chief aim.  Jane is not a
timid child, and in an emergency like this, even if she was, she would
gladly sacrifice herself to sustain the proprieties of life.  Now that
your life has begun under new and better auspices, I feel that I ought
to plead with you not to cloud your brightening prospects by a
thoughtless unregard of what society looks upon as proper.  The eyes of
the community will now be upon us--"

"You must excuse me, Mrs. Mumpson.  All I ask of the community is to
keep their eyes on their own business, while I attend to mine in my own
way.  The probabilities are that the girl will come out on the stage
Monday," and he rose from the dinner table and hastily made his
preparations for departure. He was soon driving rapidly away, having a
sort of nervous apprehension lest Jane, or the widow, should suddenly
appear on the seat beside him.  A basket of eggs and some inferior
butter, with the burnt-out stove, were in his wagon and his bank book
was in his pocket.  It was with sinking heart that he thought of making
further inroads on his small accumulations.

Before he was out of sight Mrs. Mumpson betook herself to the rocking
chair and began to expatiate on the blindness and obduracy of men in
general and of Mr. Holcroft in particular. "They are all much alike,"
she complained, "and are strangely neglectful of the proprieties of
life.  My dear, deceased husband, your father, was becoming gradually
senserble of my value in guiding him in this respect, and indeed, I may
add in all respects, when, in the very prime of his expanding manhood,
he was laid low.  Of course, my happiness was buried then and my heart
can never throb again, but I have a mission in the world--I feel
it--and here is a desolate home bereft of female influence and
consolation and hitherto painfully devoid of respecterbility.

"I once called on the late Mrs. Holcroft, and--I must say it--I went
away depressed by a sense of her lack of ability to develop in her
husband those qualities which would make him an ornament to society.
She was a silent woman, she lacked mind and ideas.  She had seen little
of the world and knew not what was swaying people.  Therefore, her
husband, having nothing else to think of, became absorbed in the
accumulation of dollars.  Not that I object to dollars--they have their
proper place,--but minds should be fixed on all things.  We should take
a deep personal interest in our fellow beings, and thus we grow broad.
As I was saying, Mr. Holcroft was not developed by his late spouse.  He
needs awakening, arousing, stimulating, drawing out, and such I feel to
be my mission.  I must be patient; I cannot expect the habits of years
to pass away under a different kind of female influence, at once."

Jane had been stolidly washing and putting away dishes during this
partial address to herself and partial soliloquy, but now remarked,
"You and me will pass away in a week if you go on as you've begun.  I
can see it comin'.  Then, where'll we go to?"

"Your words, Jane, only show that you are an ignorant, short-sighted
child. Do you suppose that a woman of my years and experience would
make no better provision for the future than a man's changeful mind--a
warped and undeveloped mind, at that?  No; I have an agreement with Mr.
Holcroft.  I shall be a member of his household for three months at
least, and long before that he will begin to see everything in a new
light.  It will gradually dawn upon him that he has been defrauded of
proper female influence and society.  Now, he is crude, he thinks only
of work and accumulating; but when the work is done by a menial
female's hands and his mind is more at rest, there will begin to steal
in upon him the cravings of his mind.  He will see that material things
are not all in all."

"P'raps he will.  I don't half know that you're talkin' about.  'Fi's
you, I'd learn to work and do things as he wants 'em.  That's what I'm
going to do. Shall I go now and make up his bed and tidy his room?"

"I think I will accompany you, Jane, and see that your task is properly
performed."

"Of course you want to see everythin' in the room, just as I do."

"As housekeeper, I should see everything that is under my care.  That
is the right way to look at the matter."

"Well, come and look then."

"You are becoming strangely disrespectful, Jane."

"Can't help it," replied the girl, "I'm gettin' mad.  We've been
elbowed around long's I can remember, at least I've been, and now we're
in a place where we've a right to be, and you do nothin' but talk,
talk, talk, when he hates talk.  Now you'll go up in his room and
you'll see everythin' in it, so you could tell it all off tomorrow.
Why, can't you see he hates talk and wants somethin' done?"

"Jane," said Mrs. Mumpson, in her most severe and dignified manner,
"you are not only disrespectful to your parent, but you're a time
server.  What Mr. Holcroft wants is a very secondary matter; what is
BEST for him is the chief consideration.  But I have touched on things
far above your comprehension. Come, you can make up the bed, and I
shall inspect as becomes my station."



Chapter VI.

A Marriage!

In a quiet side street of the market town in which Mr. Holcroft was
accustomed to dispose of his farm produce was a three-story tenement
house. A family occupied each floor, those dwelling in the first two
stories being plain, respectable people of the mechanic class.  The
rooms in the third story were, of course, the cheapest, but even from
the street might be seen evidences that more money had been spent upon
them than could have been saved in rent.  Lace curtains were looped
aside from the windows, through which were caught glimpses of flowers
that must have come from a greenhouse.  We have only to enter these
apartments to find that the suggestion of refined taste is amply
fulfilled.  While nothing is costly, there is a touch of grace, a hint
of beauty in everything permitting simple adornment.  The mistress of
these rooms is not satisfied with neatness and order merely; it is her
instinct to add something to please the eye--a need essential to her,
yet too often conspicuously absent in rented quarters of a similar
character.

It is remarkable to what a degree people's abodes are a reflex of
themselves. Mrs. Alida Ostrom had been brought to these rooms a happy
bride but a few months since.  They were then bare and not very clean.
Her husband had seemed bent on indulging her so far as his limited
means permitted.  He had declared that his income was so modest that he
could afford nothing better than these cheap rooms in an obscure
street, but she had been abundantly content, for she had known even the
extremity of poverty.

Alida Ostrom had passed beyond the period of girlhood, with its
superficial desires and ambitions.  When her husband first met her, she
was a woman of thirty, and had been chastened by deep sorrows and some
bitter experiences. Years before, she and her mother had come to this
town from a New England city in the hope of bettering their
circumstances.  They had no weapons other than their needles with which
to fight life's battle, but they were industrious and
frugal--characteristic traits which won the confidence of the
shopkeepers for whom they worked.  All went as well, perhaps, as they
could expect, for two or three years, their secluded lives passing
uneventfully and, to a certain extent, happily.  They had time to read
some good books obtained at a public library; they enjoyed an
occasional holiday in the country; and they went to church twice every
Sunday when it was not stormy.  The mother usually dozed in the obscure
seat near the door which they occupied, for she was getting old, and
the toil of the long week wearied her.--Alida, on the contrary, was
closely attentive.  Her mind seemed to crave all the sustenance it
could get from every source, and her reverential manner indicated that
the hopes inspired by her faith were dear and cherished.  Although they
lived such quiet lives and kept themselves apart from their neighbors,
there was no mystery about them which awakened surmises. "They've seen
better days," was the common remark when they were spoken of; and this
was true.  While they had no desire to be social with the people among
whom they lived, they did not awaken prejudices by the assertion of
superiority.  Indeed, it was seen that the two women had all they could
do to earn their livelihood, and they were left to do this in peace.

When Alida Armstrong--for that was her maiden name--carried her own and
her mother's work to and from the shops, she often encountered admiring
glances. She was not exactly pretty, but she had the good, refined face
which is often more attractive than the merely pretty one, and she
possessed a trim, rounded figure which she knew how to clothe with
taste from the simplest and most inexpensive materials.  Nor did she
seek to dress above her station.  When passing along the street, any
discerning person would recognize that she was a working girl; only the
superficial would look upon her as a common-place girl. There was
something in her modest air and graceful, elastic carriage which
suggested the thought to many observers, "She has seen better days."

The memory of these days, which had promised immunity from wearing
toil, anxiety, and poverty, was a barrier between the two women and
their present world.  Death had bereft them of husband, father, and
such property as he had left had been lost in a bad investment.
Learning that they were almost penniless, they had patiently set about
earning honest bread.  This they had succeeded in doing as long as the
mother kept her usual health.  But the infirmities of age were creeping
upon her.  One winter she took a heavy cold and was very ill.  She
rallied only temporarily in the milder days of spring. In the summer's
heat her strength failed, and she died.

During her mother's long illness Alida was devotion itself.  The strain
upon her was severe indeed, for she not only had to earn food for both,
but there were also doctor's bills, medicines, and delicacies to pay
for.  The poor girl grew thin from work by day, watching by night, and
from fear and anxiety at all times.  Their scanty savings were
exhausted; articles were sold from their rooms; the few precious
heirlooms of silver and china were disposed of; Alida even denied
herself the food she needed rather than ask for help or permit her
mother to want for anything which ministered to their vain hopes of
renewed health.

What she should have done she scarcely knew, had not an unexpected
friend interested himself in her behalf.  In one of the men's clothing
stores was a cutter from whom she obtained work.  Soon after he
appeared in this shop he began to manifest signs of interest in her  He
was about her own age, he had a good trade, and she often wondered why
he appeared so reticent and moody, as compared with others in similar
positions.  But he always spoke kindly to her, and when her mother's
illness first developed, he showed all the leniency permitted to him in
regard to her work.  His apparent sympathy, and the need of explaining
why she was not able to finish her tasks as promptly as usual, led her
gradually to reveal to him the sad struggle in which she was engaged.
He promised to intercede in her behalf with their mutual employers, and
asked if he might come to see her mother.

Recognizing how dependent she was upon this man's good will, and seeing
nothing in his conduct but kindness and sympathy, she consented.  His
course and his words confirmed all her good impressions and awakened on
her side corresponding sympathy united with a lively gratitude.  He
told her that he also was a stranger in the town, that he had but few
acquaintances and no friends, that he had lost relatives and was in no
need to go about like other young men.  His manner was marked
apparently by nothing more than interest and a wish to help her, and
was untinged by gallantry; so they gradually became good friends.  When
he called Sunday afternoons the mother looked at him wistfully, in the
hope that her daughter would not be left without a protector.  At last
the poor woman died, and Alida was in sore distress, for she had no
means with which to bury her.  Ostrom came and said in the kindest
tones:

"You must let me lend you what you need and you can pay me back with
interest, if you wish.  You won't be under any obligation, for I have
money lying idle in the bank.  When you have only yourself to support
it will not take you long to earn the sum."

There seemed nothing else for her to do and so it was arranged.  With
tear-blinded eyes she made her simple mourning, and within a week after
her mother's death was at work again, eager to repay her debt.  He
urged her not to hasten--to take all the rest she could while the hot
weather lasted, and few evenings passed that he did not come to take
her out for a walk through the quieter streets.

By this time he had won her confidence completely, and her heart
overflowed with gratitude.  Of course she was not so unsophisticated as
not to know whither all this attention was tending, but it was a great
relief to her mind that his courtship was so quiet and undemonstrative.
Her heart was sore and grief-stricken, and she was not conscious of any
other feeling toward him than the deepest gratitude and wish to make
such return as was within her power. He was apparently very frank in
regard to his past life, and nothing was said which excited her
suspicions.  Indeed, she felt that it would be disloyalty to think of
questioning or surmising evil of one who had proved himself so true a
friend in her sore need.  She was therefore somewhat prepared for the
words he spoke one warm September day, as they sat together in a little
shaded park.

"Alida," he said, a little nervously, "we are both strangers and alone
in this world, but surely we are no longer strangers to each other.
Let us go quietly to some minister and be married.  That is the best
way for you to pay your debt and keep me always in debt to you."

She was silent a moment, then faltered, "I'd rather pay all my debt
first."

"What debts can there be between husband and wife?  Come now, let us
look at the matter sensibly.  I don't want to frighten you.  Things
will go on much the same.  We can take quiet rooms, I will bring work
to you instead of your having to go after it.  It's nobody's business
but our own.  We've not a circle of relations to consult or invite.  We
can go to some parsonage, the minister's family will be the witnesses;
then I'll leave you at your room as usual, and no one will be any the
wiser till I've found a place where we can go to housekeeping.  That
won't be long, I can tell you."

He placed the matter in such a simple, natural light that she did not
know how to refuse.

"Perhaps I do not love you as much as you ought to be loved, and
deserve to be in view of all your kindness," she tried to explain. "I
feel I ought to be very truthful and not deceive you in the least, as I
know you would not deceive me."  So strong a shiver passed through his
frame that she exclaimed, "You are taking cold or you don't feel well."

"Oh, it's nothing!" he said hastily, "only the night air, and then a
fellow always feels a little nervous, I suppose, when he's asking for
something on which his happiness depends.  I'm satisfied with such
feeling and good will as you have for me, and will be only too glad to
get you just as you are.  Come, before it is too late in the evening."

"Is your heart bent on this, after what I have said, Wilson?"

"Yes, yes, indeed!" clasping her hand and drawing her to her feet.

"It would seem very ungrateful in me to refuse, after all you have done
for me and mother, if you think it's right and best.  Will you go to
the minister whose church I attended, and who came to see mother?"

"Certainly, anyone you like," and he put her hand on his arm and led
her away.

The clergyman listened sympathetically to her brief history of Ostrom's
kindness, then performed a simple ceremony which his wife and daughters
witnessed.  As they were about to depart he said, "I will send you a
certificate."

"Don't trouble yourself to do that," said the groom. "I'll call for it
some evening soon."

Never had she seen Ostrom in such gay spirits as on their return; and,
woman-like, she was happy chiefly because she had made him happy.  She
also felt a glad sense of security.  Her mother's dying wish had been
fulfilled; she had now a protector, and would soon have a home instead
of a boarding place among strangers.

Her husband speedily found the rooms to which the reader has been
introduced. The street on which they were located was no thoroughfare.
Its farther end was closed by a fence and beyond were fields.  With the
exception of those who dwelt upon it or had business with the
residents, few people came thither.  To this locality, Ostrom brought
his bride, and selected rooms whose windows were above those of the
surrounding houses.  So far from regretting this isolation and
remoteness from the central life of the town, Alida's feelings
sanctioned his choice.  The sense of possessing security and a refuge
was increased, and it was as natural for her to set about making the
rooms homelike as it was to breathe.  Her husband appeared to have
exhausted his tendencies toward close economy in the choice of
apartments, and she was given more money than she desired with which to
furnish and decorate.  He said, "fix everything up to suit your mind,
and I'll be satisfied."

This she did with such skill, taste, and good management that she
returned a large portion of the sum he had given her, whereupon he
laughingly remarked that she had already saved more than she owed him.
He seemed disinclined to accompany her in the selection of their simple
outfit, but professed himself so pleased with her choice of everything
that she was gratified and happy in the thought of relieving him from
trouble.

Thus their married life began under what appeared to her the most
promising and congenial circumstances.  She soon insisted on having
work again, and her busy fingers did much to increase his income.

Alida was not an exacting woman, and recognized from the beginning that
her husband would naturally have peculiar ways of his own.  Unlike Mrs.
Mumpson, she never expatiated on "adaptation," but Ostrom soon learned,
with much inward relief, that his wife would accept unquestioningly
what appeared to be his habits and preferences.  He went early to his
place of work, taking the nice little lunch which she prepared, and
returned in the dusk of the evening when he always found a warm dinner
in readiness.  After this, he was ready enough to walk with her, but,
as before, chose the least frequented streets. Places of amusement and
resort seemed distasteful.  On Sundays he enjoyed a ramble in the
country as long as the season permitted, and then showed a great
disinclination to leave the fireside.  For a time he went with her in
the evening to church, but gradually persuaded her to remain at home
and read or talk to him.

His wife felt that she had little cause to complain of his quiet ways
and methodical habits.  He had exhibited them before marriage and they
were conducive to her absolute sense of proprietorship in him--an
assurance so dear to a woman's heart.  The pleasures of his home and
her society appeared to be all that he craved.  At times she had
wondered a little at a certain air of apprehensiveness in his manner
when steps were heard upon the stairs, but as the quiet days and weeks
passed, such manifestations of nervousness ceased. Occasionally, he
would start violently and mutter strange words in his sleep, but noting
disturbed the growing sense of security and satisfaction in Alida's
heart.  The charm of a regular, quiet life grows upon one who has a
nature fitted for it, and this was true to an unusual degree of Alida
Ostrom.  Her content was also increased by the fact that her husband
was able each month to deposit a goodly portion of their united
earnings in a savings bank.

Every day, every week, was so like the preceding ones that it seemed as
if their happy life might go on forever.  She was gladly conscious that
there was more than gratitude and good will in her heart.  She now
cherished a deep affection for her husband and felt that he had become
essential to her life.

"Oh, how happy mother would be if she knew how safe and protected I
am!" she murmured one March evening, as she was preparing her husband's
dinner. "Leaving me alone in the world was far worse to her than dying."

At that very moment a gaunt-looking woman, with a child in her arms,
stood in the twilight on the opposite side of the street, looking up at
the windows.



Chapter VII.

From Home to the Street

As the shadows of the gloomy March evening deepened, Alida lighted the
lamp, and was then a little surprised to hear a knock at the door.  No
presentiment of trouble crossed her mind; she merely thought that one
of her neighbors on the lower floors had stepped up to borrow something.

"Come in!" she cried, as she adjusted the shade of the lamp.

A tall, thin, pale woman entered, carrying a child that was partly
hidden by a thin shawl, their only outer protection against the chill
winds which had been blustering all day.  Alida looked at the stranger
inquiringly and kindly, expecting an appeal for charity.  The woman
sank into a chair as if exhausted, and fixed her dark hollow eyes on
Mrs. Ostrom.  She appeared consumed by a terrible curiosity.

Alida wondered at the strange chill of apprehension with which she
encountered this gaze.  It was so intent, so searching, yet so utterly
devoid of a trace of good will.  She began gently, "Can I do anything
for you?"

For a moment or two longer there was no response other than the same
cold, questioning scrutiny, as if, instead of a sweet-faced woman,
something monstrously unnatural was present.  At last, in slow, icy
utterance, came the words, "So you are--HER!"

"Is this woman insane?" thought Alida. "Why else does she look at me
so?  Oh, that Wilson would come!  I'm sorry for you, my good woman,"
she began kindly. "You are laboring under some mistake.  My husband--"

"YOUR husband!" exclaimed the stranger, with an indescribable accent of
scorn and reproach.

"Yes," replied Alida with quiet dignity. "MY husband will be home soon
and he will protect me.  You have no right to enter my rooms and act as
you do.  If you are sick and in trouble, I and my husband--"

"Please tell me, miss, how he became YOUR husband?"

"By lawful marriage, by my pastor."

"We'll soon see how LAWFUL it was," replied the woman, with a bitter
laugh. "I'd like you to tell me how often a man can be married
lawfully."

"What do you mean?" cried Alida, with a sudden flash in her blue eyes.
Then, as if reproaching herself, she added kindly, "Pardon me.  I see
you are not well.  You do not realize what you are saying or where you
are.  Take a seat nearer the fire, and when Mr. Ostrom comes from his
work he'll take you to your friends."

All the while she was speaking the woman regarded her with a hard,
stony gaze; then replied, coldly and decisively, "You are wrong,
miss"--how that title grated on Alida's ears!--"I am neither insane nor
drunk.  I do know what I am saying and where I am.  You are playing a
bold game or else you have been deceived, and very easily deceived,
too.  They say some women are so eager to be married that they ask no
questions, but jump at the first chance.  Whether deceived or
deceiving, it doesn't matter now.  But you and he shall learn that
there is a law in the land which will protect an honest woman in her
sacred rights.  You needn't look so shocked and bewildered.  You are
not a young, giddy girl if I may judge from your face.  What else could
you expect when you took up with a stranger you knew nothing about?  Do
you know that likeness?" and she drew from her bosom a daguerreotype.

Alida waved it away as she said indignantly, "I won't believe ill of my
husband.  I--"

"No, miss," interrupted the woman sternly, "you are right for once.
You won't indeed believe ill of YOUR husband, but you'll have to
believe ill of MINE. There's no use of your putting on such airs any
longer.  No matter how rash and silly you may have been, if you have a
spark of honesty you'll be open to proof.  If you and he try to brazen
it out, the law will open both your eyes. Look at that likeness, look
at these letters; and I have other proof and witnesses which can't be
disputed.  The name of the man you are living with is not Wilson
Ostrom.  His name is Henry Ferguson.  I am Mrs. Ferguson, and I have my
marriage certificate, and--What!  Are you going to faint?  Well, I can
wait till you recover and till HE comes," and she coolly sat down again.

Alida had glanced at the proofs which the woman had thrust into her
hands, then staggered back to a lounge that stood near.  She might have
fainted, but at that awful moment she heard a familiar step on the
stairs.  She was facing the door; the terrible stranger sat at one
side, with her back toward it.

When Ostrom entered he first saw Alida looking pale and ill.  He
hastened toward her exclaiming, "Why, Lida, dear, what is the matter?
You are sick!"

Instinctively she sprang to his arms, crying, "Oh, thank God!  You've
come. Take away this awful woman!"

"Yes, Henry Ferguson; it's very proper you should take me away from a
place like this."

As the man who had called himself Wilson Ostrom heard that voice he
trembled like an aspen; his clasp of Alida relaxed, his arms dropped to
his side, and, as he sank into a chair and covered his face with his
hands, he groaned, "Lost!"

"Found out, you mean," was the woman's reply.

Step by step, with horror-stricken eyes, Alida retreated from the man
to whose protection and embrace she had flown. "Then it's true?" she
said in a hoarse whisper.

He was speechless.

"You are willfully blind now, miss, if you don't see it's true," was
the stranger's biting comment.

Paying no heed to her, Alida's eyes rested on the man whom she had
believed to be her husband.  She took an irresolute step toward him.
"Speak, Wilson!" she cried. "I gave you my whole faith and no one shall
destroy it but yourself. Speak, explain!  Show me that there's some
horrible mistake."

"Lida," said the man, lifting his bloodless face, "if you knew all the
circumstances--"

"She shall know them!" half shrieked the woman, as if at last stung to
fury. "I see that you both hope to get through this affair with a
little high tragedy, then escape and come together again in some other
hiding place.  As for this creature, she can go where she pleases,
after hearing the truth; but you, Henry Ferguson, have got to do your
duty by me and your child or go to prison.  Let me tell you, miss, that
this man was also married to me by a minister.  I have my certificate
and can produce witnesses.  There's one little point you'll do well to
consider," she continued, in bitter sarcasm, "he married me first.  I
suppose you are not so young and innocent as not to know where this
fact places YOU.  He courted and won me as other girls are courted and
married.  He promised me all that he ever promised you.  Then, when I
lost my rosy cheeks--when I became sick and feeble from
child-bearing--he deserted and left me almost penniless.  You needn't
think you will have to take my word for this.  I have proof enough.
And now, Henry Ferguson, I've a few words for you, and then you must
take your choice.  You can't escape.  I and my brother have tracked you
here.  You can't leave these rooms without going to prison.  You'd be
taken at the very door.  But I give you one more chance.  If you will
promise before God to do your duty by me and your child, I'll forgive
as far as a wronged woman can forgive.  Neither I nor my brother will
take proceedings against you.  What this woman will do I don't know.
If she prosecutes you, and you are true to me, I'll stand by you, but I
won't stand another false step or a false word from you."

Ferguson had again sunk into his chair, buried his face in his hands,
and sat trembling and speechless.  Never for an instant had Alida taken
her eyes from him; and now, with a long, wailing cry, she exclaimed,
"Thank God, thank God! Mother's dead."

This was now her best consolation.  She rushed into her bedchamber, and
a moment later came out, wearing her hat and cloak.  Ferguson started
up and was about to speak, but she silenced him by a gesture, and her
tones were sad and stern as she said, "Mr. Ferguson, from your manner
more truly than from this woman, I learn the truth.  You took advantage
of my misfortunes, my sorrow and friendlessness, to deceive me.  You
know how false are your wife's words about my eagerness to be deceived
and married.  But you have nothing to fear from me.  I shall not
prosecute you as she suggests, and I charge you before God to do your
duty by your wife and child and never to speak to me again."  Turning,
she hastened toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Ferguson exclaimed, seeking to intercept her.

She waved him off. "I don't know," she replied. "I've no right to be
here," and she fled down the stairway and out into the darkness.

The child had not wakened.  It was well that it had not looked upon
such a scene, even in utter ignorance of its meaning.



Chapter VIII.

Holcroft's View of Matrimony

Holcroft was indeed very lonely as he drove through the bare March
fields and leafless woods on his way to town.  The sky had clouded
again, like his prospects, and he had the dreary sense of desolation
which overwhelms a quiet, domestic man who feels that his home and all
to which he clings are slipping from him.  His lot was hard enough at
best, and he had a bitter sense of being imposed upon and wronged by
Lemuel Weeks.  It was now evident enough that the widow and her
daughter had been an intolerable burden to his neighbor, who had taken
advantage of his need and induced him to assume the burden through
false representation.  To a man of Holcroft's simple, straightforward
nature, any phase of trickery was intensely repugnant, and the fact
that he had been overreached in a matter relating to his dearest hopes
galled him to the quick. He possessed the strong common sense of his
class; his wife had been like him in this respect, and her influence
had intensified the trait.  Queer people with abnormal manners excited
his intense aversion.  The most charitable view that he could take of
Mrs. Mumpson was that her mind--such as she had--was unbalanced, that
it was an impossibility for her to see any subject or duty in a
sensible light or its right proportions.

Her course, so prejudicial to her own interests, and her incessant and
stilted talk, were proof to his mind of a certain degree of insanity,
and he had heard that people in this condition often united to their
unnatural ways a wonderful degree of cunning.  Her child was almost as
uncanny as herself and gave him a shivering sense of discomfort
whenever he caught her small, greenish eyes fixed upon him.

"Yet, she'll be the only one who'll earn her salt.  I don't see how I'm
going to stand 'em--I don't, indeed, but suppose I'll have to for three
months, or else sell out and clear out."

By the time he reached town a cold rain had set in.  He went at once to
the intelligence office, but could obtain no girl for Mrs. Mumpson to
"superintend," nor any certain promise of one.  He did not much care,
for he felt that the new plan was not going to work.  Having bartered
all his eggs for groceries, he sold the old stove and bought a new one,
then drew from the bank a little ready money.  Since his butter was so
inferior, he took it to his friend Tom Watterly, the keeper of the
poorhouse.

Prosperous Tom slapped his old friend on the back and said, "You look
awfully glum and chopfallen, Jim.  Come now, don't look at the world as
if it was made of tar, pitch, and turpentine.  I know your luck's been
hard, but you make it a sight harder by being so set in all your ways.
You think there's no place to live on God's earth but that old
up-and-down-hill farm of yours that I wouldn't take as a gift.  Why,
man alive, there's a dozen things you can turn your hand to; but if you
will stay there, do as other men do.  Pick out a smart, handy woman
that can make butter yaller as gold, that'll bring gold, and not such
limpsy-slimsy, ghostly-looking stuff as you've brought me.  Bein' it's
you, I'll take it and give as much for it as I'd pay for better, but
you can't run your old ranch in this fashion."

"I know it, Tom," replied Holcroft ruefully. "I'm all at sea; but, as
you say, I'm set in my ways, and I'd rather live on bread and milk and
keep my farm than make money anywhere else.  I guess I'll have to give
it all up, though, and pull out, but it's like rooting up one of the
old oaks in the meadow lot. The fact is, Tom, I've been fooled into one
of the worst scrapes I've got into yet."

"I see how it is," said Tom heartily and complacently, "you want a
practical, foresighted man to talk straight at you for an hour or two
and clear up the fog you're in.  You study and brood over little things
out there alone until they seem mountains which you can't get over
nohow, when, if you'd take one good jump out, they'd be behind you.
Now, you've got to stay and take a bite with me, and then we'll light
our pipes and untangle this snarl.  No backing out!  I can do you more
good than all the preachin' you ever heard.  Hey, there, Bill!"
shouting to one of the paupers who was detailed for such work, "take
this team to the barn and feed 'em.  Come in, come in, old feller!
You'll find that Tom Watterly allus has a snack and a good word for an
old crony."

Holcroft was easily persuaded, for he felt the need of cheer, and he
looked up to Tom as a very sagacious, practical man.  So he said,
"Perhaps you can see farther into a millstone than I can, and if you
can show me a way out of my difficulties you'll be a friend sure
enough."

"Why, of course I can.  Your difficulties are all here and here,"
touching his bullet head and the region of his heart. "There aint no
great difficulties in fact, but, after you've brooded out there a week
or two alone, you think you're caught as fast as if you were in a bear
trap.  Here, Angy," addressing his wife, "I've coaxed Holcroft to take
supper with us.  You can hurry it up a little, can't you?"

Mrs. Watterly gave their guest a cold, limp hand and a rather frigid
welcome. But this did not disconcert him. "It's only her way," he had
always thought. "She looks after her husband's interests as mine did
for me, and she don't talk him to death."

This thought, in the main, summed up Mrs. Watterly's best traits.

She was a commonplace, narrow, selfish woman, whose character is not
worth sketching.  Tom stood a little in fear of her, and was usually
careful not to impose extra tasks, but since she helped him to save and
get ahead, he regarded her as a model wife.

Holcroft shared in his opinion and sighed deeply as he sat down to
supper. "Ah, Tom!" he said, "you're a lucky man.  You've got a wife
that keeps everything indoors up to the mark, and gives you a chance to
attend to your own proper business.  That's the way it was with mine.
I never knew what a lopsided, helpless creature a man was until I was
left alone.  You and I were lucky in getting the women we did, but when
my partner left me, she took all the luck with her.  That aint the
worst.  She took what's more than luck and money and everything.  I
seemed to lose with her my grit and interest in most things.  It'll
seem foolishness to you, but I can't take comfort in anything much
except working that old farm that I've worked and played on ever since
I can remember anything.  You're not one of those fools, Tom, that have
to learn from their own experience.  Take a bit from mine, and be good
to your wife while you can.  I'd give all I'm worth--I  know that aint
much--if I could say some things to my wife and do some things for her
that I didn't do."

Holcroft spoke in the simplicity of a full and remorseful heart, but he
unconsciously propitiated Mrs. Watterly in no small degree.  Indeed,
she felt that he had quite repaid her for his entertainment, and the
usually taciturn woman seconded his remarks with much emphasis.

"Well now, Angy," said Tom, "if you averaged up husbands in these parts
I guess you'd find you were faring rather better than most women folks.
I let you take the bit in your teeth and go your own jog mostly.  Now,
own up, don't I?"

"That wasn't my meaning, exactly, Tom," resumed Holcroft. "You and I
could well afford to let our wives take their own jog, for they always
jogged steady and faithful and didn't need any urging and guiding.  But
even a dumb critter likes a good word now and then and a little patting
on the back.  It doesn't cost us anything and does them a sight of
good.  But we kind of let the chances slip by and forget about it until
like enough it's too late."

"Well," replied Tom, with a deprecatory look at his wife, "Angy don't
take to pettin' very much.  She thinks it's a kind of foolishness for
such middle-aged people as we're getting to be."

"A husband can show his consideration without blarneying," remarked
Mrs. Watterly coldly. "When a man takes on in that way, you may be sure
he wants something extra to pay for it."

After a little thought Holcroft said, "I guess it's a good way to pay
for it between husband and wife."

"Look here, Jim, since you're so well up on the matrimonial question,
why in thunder don't you marry again?  That would settle all your
difficulties," and Tom looked at his friend with a sort of wonder that
he should hesitate to take this practical, sensible course.

"It's very easy for you to say, 'Why don't you marry again?'  If you
were in my place you'd see that there are things in the way of marrying
for the sake of having a good butter maker and all that kind of thing."

"Mr. Watterly wouldn't be long in comforting himself," remarked his
wife.--"His advice to you makes the course he'd take mighty clear."

"Now, Angy!" said Tom reproachfully. "Well," he added with a grin,
"you're forewarned.  So you've only to take care of yourself and not
give me a chance."

"The trouble is," Holcroft resumed, "I don't see how an honest man is
going to comfort himself unless it all comes about in some natural sort
of way.  I suppose there are people who can marry over and over again,
just as easy as they'd roll off a log.  It aint for me to judge 'em,
and I don't understand how they do it.  You are a very practical man,
Tom, but just you put yourself in my shoes and see what you'd do.  In
the first place, I don't know of a woman in the world that I'd think of
marrying.  That's saying nothing against the women,--there's lots too
good for me,--but I don't know 'em and I can't go around and hunt 'em
up.  Even if I could, with my shy, awkward ways, I wouldn't feel half
so nervous starting out on a bear hunt.  Here's difficulty right at the
beginning.  Supposing I found a nice, sensible woman, such as I'd be
willing to marry, there isn't one chance in a hundred she'd look at an
old fellow like me.  Another difficulty: Supposing she would; suppose
she looked me square in the eyes and said, 'So you truly want a wife?'
what in thunder would I say then?--I don't want a wife, I want a
housekeeper, a butter maker, one that would look after my interests as
if they were her own; and if I could hire a woman that would do what I
wish, I'd never think of marrying.  I can't tell a woman that I love
her when I don't.  If I went to a minister with a woman I'd be
deceiving him, and deceiving her, and perjuring myself promiscuously.
I married once according to law and gospel and I was married through
and through, and I can't do the thing over again in any way that would
seem to me like marrying at all.  The idea of me sitting by the fire
and wishing that the woman who sat on the t'other side of the stove was
my first wife!  Yet I couldn't help doing this any more than breathing.
Even if there was any chance of my succeeding I can't see anything
square or honest in my going out and hunting up a wife as a mere matter
of business.  I know other people do it and I've thought a good deal
about it myself, but when it comes to the point of acting I find I
can't do it."

The two men now withdrew from the table to the fireside and lighted
their pipes.  Mrs. Watterly stepped out for a moment and Tom, looking
over his shoulder to make sure she was out of ear shot, said under his
breath, "But suppose you found a woman that you could love and obey,
and all that?"

"Oh, of course, that would make everything different.  I wouldn't begin
with a lie then, and I know enough of my wife to feel sure that she
wouldn't be a sort of dog in the manger after she was dead.  She was
one of those good souls that if she could speak her mind this minute
she would say, 'James, what's best and right for you is best and
right.'  But it's just because she was such a good wife that I know
there's no use of trying to put anyone in her place. Where on earth
could I find anybody, and how could we get acquainted so that we'd know
anything about each other?  No, I must just scratch along for a short
time as things are and be on the lookout to sell or rent."

Tom smoked meditatively for a few moments, and then remarked, "I guess
that's your best way out."

"It aint an easy way, either," said Holcroft. "Finding a purchaser or
tenant for a farm like mine is almost as hard as finding a wife.  Then,
as I feel, leaving my place is next to leaving the world."

Tom shook his head ruefully and admitted, "I declare, Jim, when a
feller comes to think it all over, you ARE in a bad fix, especially as
you feel.  I thought I could talk you over into practical common sense
in no time.  It's easy enough when one don't know all the bearin's of a
case, to think carelessly, 'Oh, he aint as bad off as he thinks he is.
He can do this and that and the t'other thing.'  But when you come to
look it all over, you find he can't, except at a big loss.  Of course,
you can give away your farm on which you were doing well and getting
ahead, though how you did it, I can't see.  You'd have to about give it
away if you forced a sale, and where on earth you'll find a tenant
who'll pay anything worth considering--But there's no use of croaking.
I wish I could help you, old feller.  By jocks! I believe I can.
There's an old woman here who's right smart and handy when she can't
get her bottle filled.  I believe she'd be glad to go with you, for she
don't like our board and lodging over much."

"Do you think she'd go tonight?"

"Oh, yes!  Guess so.  A little cold water'll be a good change for her."

Mrs. Wiggins was seen, and feeling that any change would be for the
better, readily agreed to go for very moderate wages.  Holcroft looked
dubiously at the woman's heavy form and heavier face, but felt that it
was the best he could do.  Squeezing Mrs. Watterly's cold, limp hand in
a way that would have thawed a lump of ice, he said "goodby;" and then
declaring that he would rather do his own harnessing for a night ride,
he went out into the storm. Tom put on his rubber coat and went to the
barn with his friend, toward whom he cherished honest good will.

"By jocks!" he ejaculated sympathetically, "but you have hard lines,
Jim. What in thunder would I do with two such widdy women to look after
my house!"



Chapter IX.

Mrs. Mumpson Accepts Her Mission

As Holcroft drove through the town, Mrs. Wiggins, who, as matters were
explained to her, had expressed her views chiefly by affirmative nods,
now began to use her tongue with much fluency.

"Hi 'ave a friend 'herhabouts," she said, "an' she's been a-keepin'
some of my things.  Hi'll be 'olden to ye, master, hif ye'll jes stop a
bit hat the door whiles hi gets 'em.  Hif ye'll hadvance me a dollar or
so on me wages hit'll be a long time hafore I trouble ye hagain."

The farmer had received too broad a hint not to know that Mrs. Wiggins
was intent on renewing her acquaintance with her worst enemy.  He
briefly replied, therefore, "It's too late to stop now.  I'll be coming
down soon again and will get your things."

In vain Mrs. Wiggins expostulated, for he drove steadily on.  With a
sort of grim humor, he thought of the meeting of the two "widdy women,"
as Tom had characterized them, and of Mrs. Mumpson's dismay at finding
in the "cheap girl" a dame of sixty, weighing not far from two hundred.
"If it wasn't such awfully serious business for me," he thought, "it
would be better'n going to a theater to see the two go on.  If I
haven't got three 'peculiar females' on my hands now, I'd like to hear
of the man that has."

When Mrs. Wiggins found that she could not gain her point, she subsided
into utter silence.  It soon became evident in the cloudy light of the
moon that she was going to sleep, for she so nodded and swayed about
that the farmer feared she would tumble out of the wagon.  She occupied
a seat just back of his and filled it, too.  The idea of stepping over,
sitting beside her, and holding her in, was inexpressibly repugnant to
him.  So he began talking to her, and finally shouting at her, to keep
her awake.

His efforts were useless.  He glanced with rueful dismay over his
shoulder as he thought, "If she falls out, I don't see how on earth
I'll ever get her back again."

Fortunately the seat slipped back a little, and she soon slid down into
a sort of mountainous heap on the bottom of the wagon, as unmindful of
the rain as if it were a lullaby.  Now that his mind was at rest about
her falling out, and knowing that he had a heavy load, Holcroft let the
horses take their own time along the miry highway.

Left to her own devices by Holcroft's absence, Mrs. Mumpson had passed
what she regarded as a very eventful afternoon and evening.  Not that
anything unusual had happened, unless everything she said and did may
be looked upon as unusual; but Mrs. Mumpson justly felt that the
critical periods of life are those upon which definite courses of
action are decided upon.  In the secret recess of her heart--supposing
her to possess such an organ--she had partially admitted to herself,
even before she had entered Holcroft's door, that she might be
persuaded into marrying him; but the inspection of his room, much
deliberate thought, and prolonged soliloquy, had convinced her that she
ought to "enter into nuptial relations," as her thought formulated
itself.  It was a trait of Mrs. Mumpson's active mind, that when it
once entered upon a line of thought, it was hurried along from
conclusion to conclusion with wonderful rapidity.

While Jane made up Mr. Holcroft's bed, her mother began to inspect, and
soon suffered keenly from every painful discovery.  The farmer's meager
wardrobe and other belongings were soon rummaged over, but one large
closet and several bureau drawers were locked. "These are the
receptercles of the deceased Mrs. Holcroft's affects," she said with
compressed lips. "They are moldering useless away.  Moth and rust will
enter, while I, the caretaker, am debarred. I should not be debarred.
All the things in that closet should be shaken out, aired, and
carefully put back.  Who knows how useful they may be in the future!
Waste is wicked.  Indeed, there are few things more wicked than waste.
Now I think of it, I have some keys in my trunk."

"He won't like it," interposed Jane.

"In the responserble persition I have assumed," replied Mrs. Mumpson
with dignity, "I must consider not what he wants, but what is best for
him and what may be best for others."

Jane had too much curiosity herself to make further objection, and the
keys were brought.  It was astonishing what a number of keys Mrs.
Mumpson possessed, and she was not long in finding those which would
open the ordinary locks thought by Holcroft to be ample protection.

"I was right," said Mrs. Mumpson complacently. "A musty odor exudes
from these closed receptercles.  Men have no comprehension of the need
of such caretakers as I am."

Everything that had ever belonged to poor Mrs. Holcroft was pulled out,
taken to the window, and examined, Jane following, as usual, in the
wake of her mother and putting everything to the same tests which her
parent applied. Mrs. Holcroft had been a careful woman, and the extent
and substantial character of her wardrobe proved that her husband had
not been close in his allowances to her.  Mrs. Mumpson's watery blue
eyes grew positively animated as she felt of and held up to the light
one thing after another. "Mrs. Holcroft was evidently unnaturally
large," she reflected aloud, "but then these things could be made over,
and much material be left to repair them, from time to time.  The
dresses are of somber colors, becoming to a lady somewhat advanced in
years and of subdued taste."

By the time that the bed and all the chairs in the room were littered
with wearing apparel, Mrs. Mumpson said, "Jane, I desire you to bring
the rocking chair.  So many thoughts are crowding upon me that I must
sit down and think."

Jane did as requested, but remarked, "The sun is gettin' low, and all
these things'll have to be put back just as they was or he'll be awful
mad."

"Yes, Jane," replied Mrs. Mumpson abstractedly and rocking gently, "you
can put them back.  Your mind is not burdened like mine, and you
haven't offspring and the future to provide for," and, for a wonder,
she relapsed into silence. Possibly she possessed barely enough of
womanhood to feel that her present train of thought had better be kept
to herself.  She gradually rocked faster and faster, thus indicating
that she was rapidly approaching a conclusion.

Meanwhile, Jane was endeavoring to put things back as they were before
and found it no easy task.  As the light declined she was overcome by a
sort of panic, and, huddling the things into the drawers as fast as
possible, she locked them up.  Then, seizing her mother's hand and
pulling the abstracted woman to her feet, she cried, "If he comes and
finds us here and no supper ready, he'll turn us right out into the
rain!"

Even Mrs. Mumpson felt that she was perhaps reaching conclusions too
fast and that some diplomacy might be necessary to consummate her
plans.  Her views, however, appeared to her so reasonable that she
scarcely thought of failure, having the happy faculty of realizing
everything in advance, whether it ever took place or not.

As she slowly descended the stairs with the rocking chair, she thought,
"Nothing could be more suiterble.  We are both about the same age; I am
most respecterbly connected--in fact, I regard myself as somewhat his
superior in this respect; he is painfully undeveloped and irreligious
and thus is in sore need of female influence; he is lonely and
down-hearted, and in woman's voice there is a spell to banish care;
worst of all, things are going to waste.  I must delib'rately face the
great duty with which Providence has brought me face to face.  At
first, he may be a little blind to this great oppertunity of his
life--that I must expect, remembering the influence he was under so
many years--but I will be patient and, by the proper use of language,
place everything eventually before him in a way that will cause him to
yield in glad submission to my views of the duties, the privileges, and
the responserbilities of life."

So active was Mrs. Mumpson's mind that this train of thought was
complete by the time she had ensconced herself in the rocking chair by
the fireless kitchen stove.  Once more Jane seized her hand and dragged
her up. "You must help," said the child. "I 'spect him every minnit and
I'm scart half to death to think what he'll do, 'specially if he finds
out we've been rummagin'."

"Jane," said Mrs. Mumpson severely, "that is not a proper way of
expressing yourself.  I am housekeeper here, and I've been inspecting."

"Shall I tell him you've been inspectin'?" asked the girl keenly.

"Children of your age should speak when they are spoken to," replied
her mother, still more severely. "You cannot comprehend my motives and
duties, and I should have to punish you if you passed any remarks upon
my actions."

"Well," said Jane apprehensively, "I only hope we'll soon have a chance
to fix up them drawers, for if he should open 'em we'd have to tramp
again, and we will anyway if you don't help me get supper."

"You are mistaken, Jane," responded Mrs. Mumpson with dignity. "We
shall not leave this roof for three months, and that will give me ample
time to open his eyes to his true interests.  I will condescend to
these menial tasks until he brings a girl who will yield the deference
due to my years and station in life."

Between them, after filling the room with smoke, they kindled the
kitchen fire.  Jane insisted on making the coffee and then helped her
mother to prepare the rest of the supper, doing, in fact, the greater
part of the work. Then they sat down to wait, and they waited so long
that Mrs. Mumpson began to express her disapproval by rocking
violently.  At last, she said severely, "Jane, we will partake of
supper alone."

"I'd ruther wait till he comes."

"It's not proper that we should wait.  He is not showing me due
respect. Come, do as I command."

Mrs. Mumpson indulged in lofty and aggrieved remarks throughout the
meal and then returned to her rocker.  At last, her indignant sense of
wrong reached such a point that she commanded Jane to clear the table
and put away the things.

"I won't," said the child.

"What!  Will you compel me to chastise you?"

"Well, then, I'll tell him it was all your doin's."

"I shall tell him so myself.  I shall remonstrate with him.  The idea
of his coming home alone at this time of night with an unknown female!"

"One would think you was his aunt, to hear you talk," remarked the girl
sullenly.

"I am a respecterble woman and most respecterbly connected.  My
character and antercedents render me irrerproachful.--This could not be
said of a hussy, and a hussy he'll probably bring--some flighty,
immerture female that will tax even MY patience to train."

Another hour passed, and the frown on Mrs. Mumpson's brow grew
positively awful. "To think," she muttered, "that a man whom I have
deemed it my duty to marry should stay out so and under such peculiar
circumstances.  He must have a lesson which he can never forget."  Then
aloud, to Jane, "Kindle a fire on the parlor hearth and let this fire
go out.  He must find us in the most respecterble room in the house--a
room befitting my station."

"I declare, mother, you aint got no sense at all!" exclaimed the child,
exasperated beyond measure.

"I'll teach you to use such unrerspectful language!" cried Mrs.
Mumpson, darting from her chair like a hawk and pouncing upon the
unhappy child.

With ears tingling from a cuffing she could not soon forget, Jane
lighted the parlor fire and sat down sniffling in the farthest corner.

"There shall be only one mistress in this house," said Mrs. Mumpson,
who had now reached the loftiest plane of virtuous indignation, "and
its master shall learn that his practices reflect upon even me as well
as himself."

At last the sound of horses' feet were heard on the wet, oozy ground
without. The irate widow did not rise, but merely indicated her
knowledge of Holcroft's arrival by rocking more rapidly.

"Hello, there, Jane!" he shouted, "bring a light to the kitchen."

"Jane, remain!" said Mrs. Mumpson, with an awful look.

Holcroft stumbled through the dark kitchen to the parlor door and
looked with surprise at the group before him,--Mrs. Mumpson apparently
oblivious and rocking as if the chair was possessed, and the child
crying in a corner.

"Jane, didn't you hear me call for a light?" he asked a little sharply.

Mrs. Mumpson rose with great dignity and began, "Mr. Holcroft, I wish
to remonstrate--"

"Oh, bother!  I've brought a woman to help you, and we're both wet
through from this driving rain."

"You've brought a strange female at this time of--"

Holcroft's patience gave say, but he only said quietly, "You had better
have a light in the kitchen within two minutes.  I warn you both.  I
also wish some hot coffee."

Mrs. Mumpson had no comprehension of a man who could be so quiet when
he was angry, and she believed that she might impress him with a due
sense of the enormity of his offense. "Mr. Holcroft, I scarcely feel
that I can meet a girl who has no more sense of decorum than to--" But
Jane, striking a match, revealed the fact that she was speaking to
empty air.

Mrs. Wiggins was at last so far aroused that she was helped from the
wagon and came shivering and dripping toward the kitchen.  She stood a
moment in the doorway and filled it, blinking confusedly at the light.
There was an absence of celerity in all Mrs. Wiggins' movements, and
she was therefore slow in the matter of waking up.  Her aspect and
proportions almost took away Mrs. Mumpson's breath.  Here certainly was
much to superintend, much more than had been anticipated.  Mrs. Wiggins
was undoubtedly a "peculiar female," as had been expected, but she was
so elderly and monstrous that Mrs. Mumpson felt some embarrassment in
her purpose to overwhelm Holcroft with a sense of the impropriety of
his conduct.

Mrs. Wiggins took uncertain steps toward the rocking chair, and almost
crushed it as she sat down. "Ye gives a body a cold velcome," she
remarked, rubbing her eyes.

Mrs. Mumpson had got out of her way as a minnow would shun a leviathan.
"May I ask your name?" she gasped.

"Viggins, Mrs. Viggins."

"Oh, indeed!  You are a married woman?"

"No, hi'm a vidder.  What's more, hi'm cold, and drippin', an' 'ungry.
Hi might 'a' better stayed at the poor-us than come to a place like
this."

"What!" almost screamed Mrs. Mumpson, "are you a pauper?"

"Hi tell ye hi'm a vidder, an' good as you be, for hall he said," was
the sullen reply.

"To think that a respecterbly connected woman like me--" But for once
Mrs. Mumpson found language inadequate.  Since Mrs. Wiggins occupied
the rocking chair, she hardly knew what to do and plaintively declared,
"I feel as if my whole nervous system was giving way."

"No 'arm 'll be done hif hit does," remarked Mrs. Wiggins, who was not
in an amiable mood.

"This from the female I'm to superintend!" gasped the bewildered woman.

Her equanimity was still further disturbed by the entrance of the
farmer, who looked at the stove with a heavy frown.

"Why in the name of common sense isn't there a fire?" he asked, "and
supper on the table?  Couldn't you hear that it was raining and know
we'd want some supper after a long, cold ride?"

"Mr. Holcroft," began the widow, in some trepidation, "I don't
approve--such irregular habits--"

"Madam," interrupted Holcroft sternly, "did I agree to do what you
approved of?  Your course is so peculiar that I scarcely believe you
are in your right mind.  You had better go to your room and try to
recover your senses.  If I can't have things in this house to suit me,
I'll have no one in it.  Here, Jane, you can help."

Mrs. Mumpson put her handkerchief to her eyes and departed.  She felt
that this display of emotion would touch Holcroft's feelings when he
came to think the scene all over.

Having kindled the fire, he said to Jane, "You and Mrs. Wiggins get
some coffee and supper in short order, and have it ready when I come
in," and he hastened out to care for his horses.  If the old woman was
slow, she knew just how to make every motion effective, and a good
supper was soon ready.

"Why didn't you keep up a fire, Jane?" Holcroft asked.

"She wouldn't let me.  She said how you must be taught a lesson,"
replied the girl, feeling that she must choose between two potentates,
and deciding quickly in favor of the farmer.  She had been losing faith
in her mother's wisdom a long time, and this night's experience had
banished the last shred of it.

Some rather bitter words rose to Holcroft's lips, but he restrained
them.  He felt that he ought not to disparage the mother to the child.
As Mrs. Wiggins grew warm, and imbibed the generous coffee, her
demeanor thawed perceptibly and she graciously vouchsafed the remark,
"Ven you're hout late hag'in hi'll look hafter ye."

Mrs. Mumpson had not been so far off as not to hear Jane's explanation,
as the poor child found to her cost when she went up to bed.



Chapter X.

A Night of Terror

As poor, dazed, homeless Alida passed out into the street after the
revelation that she was not a wife and never had been, she heard a
voice say, "Well, Hanner wasn't long in bouncing the woman.  I guess
we'd better go up now. Ferguson will need a lesson that he won't soon
forget."

The speaker of these words was Mrs. Ferguson's brother, William
Hackman, and his companion was a detective.  The wife had laid her
still sleeping child down on the lounge and was coolly completing
Alida's preparations for dinner. Her husband had sunk back into a chair
and again buried his face in his hands. He looked up with startled,
bloodshot eyes as his brother-in-law and the stranger entered, and then
resumed his former attitude.

Mrs. Ferguson briefly related what had happened, and then said, "Take
chairs and draw up."

"I don't want any dinner," muttered the husband.

Mr. William Hackman now gave way to his irritation.  Turning to his
brother, he relieved his mind as follows: "See here, Hank Ferguson, if
you hadn't the best wife in the land, this gentleman would now be
giving you a promenade to jail.  I've left my work for weeks, and spent
a sight of money to see that my sister got her rights, and, by thunder!
she's going to have 'em.  We've agreed to give you a chance to brace up
and be a man.  If we find out there isn't any man in you, then you go
to prison and hard labor to the full extent of the law.  We've fixed
things so you can't play any more tricks.  This man is a private
detective.  As long as you do the square thing by your wife and child,
you'll be let alone.  If you try to sneak off, you'll be nabbed.  Now,
if you aint a scamp down to your heel-taps, get up out of that chair
like a man, treat your wife as she deserves for letting you off so
easy, and don't make her change her mind by acting as if you, and not
her, was the wronged person."

At heart Ferguson was a weak, cowardly, selfish creature, whose chief
aim in life was to have things to suit himself.  When they ceased to be
agreeable, he was ready for a change, without much regard for the means
to his ends.  He had always foreseen the possibility of the event which
had now taken place, but, like all self-indulgent natures, had hoped
that he might escape detection.

Alida, moreover, had won a far stronger hold upon him than he had once
imagined possible.  He was terribly mortified and cast down by the
result of his experiment, as he regarded it.  But the thought of a
prison and hard labor speedily drew his mind away from this aspect of
the affair.  He had been fairly caught, his lark was over, and he soon
resolved that the easiest and safest way out of the scrape was the best
way.  He therefore raised his head and came forward with a penitent air
as he said: "It's natural I should be overwhelmed with shame at the
position in which I find myself.  But I see the truth of your words,
and I'll try to make it all right as far as I can.  I'll go back with
you and Hannah to my old home.  I've got money in the bank, I'll sell
out everything here, and I'll pay you, William, as far as I can, what
you've spent.  Hannah is mighty good to let me off so easy, and she
won't be sorry.  This man is witness to what I say," and the detective
nodded.

"Why, Ferguson," said Mr. Hackman effusively, "now you're talking like
a man. Come and kiss him, Hannah, and make it all up."

"That's the way with you men," said the woman bitterly. "These things
count for little.  Henry Ferguson must prove he's honest in what he
says by deeds, not words.  I'll do as I've said if he acts square, and
that's enough to start with."

"All right," said Ferguson, glad enough to escape the caress. "I'll do
as I say."

He did do all he promised, and very promptly, too.  He was not capable
of believing that a woman wronged as Alida had been would not prosecute
him, and he was eager to escape to another state, and, in a certain
measure, again to hide his identity under his own actual name.

Meanwhile, how fared the poor creature who had fled, driven forth by
her first wild impulse to escape from a false and terrible position?
With every step she took down the dimly lighted street, the abyss into
which she had fallen seemed to grow deeper and darker.  She was
overwhelmed with the magnitude of her misfortune.  She shunned the
illumined thoroughfares with a half-crazed sense that every finger
would be pointed at her.  Her final words, spoken to Ferguson, were the
last clear promptings of her womanly nature.  After that, everything
grew confused, except the impression of remediless disaster and shame.
She was incapable of forming any correct judgment concerning her
position.  The thought of her pastor filled her with horror.  He, she
thought, would take the same view which the woman had so brutally
expressed--that in her eagerness to be married, she had brought to the
parsonage an unknown man and had involved a clergyman in her own
scandalous record.--It would all be in the papers, and her pastor's
name mixed up in the affair.  She would rather die than subject him to
such an ordeal.  Long after, when he learned the facts in the case, he
looked at her very sadly as he asked: "Didn't you know me better than
that?  Had I so failed in my preaching that you couldn't come straight
to me?"

She wondered afterward that she had not done this, but she was too
morbid, too close upon absolute insanity, to do what was wise and safe.
She simply yielded to the wild impulse to escape, to cower, to hide
from every human eye, hastening through the darkest, obscurest streets,
not caring where.  In the confusion of her mind she would retrace her
steps, and soon was utterly lost, wandering she knew not whither.  As
it grew late, casual passers-by looked after her curiously, rough men
spoke to her, and others jeered.  She only hastened on, driven by her
desperate trouble like the wild, ragged clouds that were flying across
the stormy March sky.

At last a policeman said gruffly, "You've passed me twice.  You can't
be roaming the streets at this time of night.  Why don't you go home?"

Standing before him and wringing her hands, she moaned, "I have no
home."

"Where did you come from?"

"Oh, I can't tell you! Take me to any place where a woman will be safe."

"I can't take you to any place now but the station house."

"But can I be alone there?  I won't be put with anybody?"

"No, no; of course not!  You'll be better off there.  Come along.
'Taint far."

She walked beside him without a word.

"You'd better tell me something of your story.  Perhaps I can do more
for you in the morning."

"I can't.  I'm a stranger.  I haven't any friends in town."

"Well, well, the sergeant will see what can be done in the morning.
You've been up to some foolishness, I suppose, and you'd better tell
the whole story to the sergeant."

She soon entered the station house and was locked up in a narrow cell.
She heard the grating of the key in the lock with a sense of relief,
feeling that she had at least found a temporary place of refuge and
security.  A hard board was the only couch it possessed, but the
thought of sleep did not enter her mind.  Sitting down, she buried her
face in her hands and rocked back and forth in agony and distraction
until day dawned.  At last, someone--she felt she could not raise her
eyes to his face--brought her some breakfast and coffee.  She drank the
latter, but left the food untasted.  Finally, she was led to the
sergeant's private room and told that she must give an account of
herself. "If you can't or won't tell a clear story," the officer
threatened, "you'll have to go before the justice in open court, and he
may commit you to prison.  If you'll tell the truth now, it may be that
I can discharge you. You had no business to be wandering about the
streets like a vagrant or worse; but if you were a stranger or lost and
hadn't sense enough to go where you'd be cared for, I can let you go."

"Oh!" said Alida, again wringing her hands and looking at the officer
with eyes so full of misery and fear that he began to soften, "I don't
know where to go."

"Haven't you a friend or acquaintance in town?"

"Not one that I can go to!"

"Why don't you tell me your story?  Then I'll know what to do, and
perhaps can help you.  You don't look like a depraved woman."

"I'm not.  God knows I'm not!"

"Well, my poor woman, I've got to act in view of what I know, not what
God knows."

"If I tell my story, will I have to give names?"

"No, not necessarily.  It would be best, though."

"I can't do that, but I'll tell you the truth.  I will swear it on the
Bible I married someone.  A good minister married us.  The man deceived
me.  He was already married, and last night his wife came to my happy
home and proved before the man whom I thought my husband that I was no
wife at all.  He couldn't, didn't deny it.  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!"  And she
again rocked back and forth in uncontrollable anguish. "That's all,"
she added brokenly. "I had no right to be near him or her any longer,
and I rushed out.  I don't remember much more.  My brain seemed on
fire.  I just walked and walked till I was brought here."

"Well, well!" said the sergeant sympathetically, "you have been treated
badly, outrageously; but you are not to blame unless you married the
man hastily and foolishly."

"That's what everyone will think, but it don't seem to me that I did.
It's a long story, and I can't tell it."

"But you ought to tell it, my poor woman.  You ought to sue the man for
damages and send him to State prison."

"No, no!" cried Alida passionately. "I don't want to see him again, and
I won't go to a court before people unless I am dragged there."

The sergeant looked up at the policeman who had arrested her and said,
"This story is not contrary to anything you saw?"

"No, sir; she was wandering about and seemed half out of her mind."

"Well, then, I can let you go."

"But I don't know where to go," she replied, looking at him with
hunted, hollow eyes. "I feel as if I were going to be sick.  Please
don't turn me into the streets.  I'd rather go back to the cell--"

"That won't answer.  There's no place that I can send you to except the
poorhouse.  Haven't you any money?"

"No, sir.  I just rushed away and left everything when I learned the
truth."

"Tom Watterly's hotel is the only place for her," said the policeman
with a nod.

"Oh, I can't go to a hotel."

"He means the almshouse," explained the sergeant. "What is your name?"

"Alida--that's all now.  Yes, I'm a pauper and I can't work just yet.
I'll be safe there, won't I?"

"Certainly, safe as in your mother's house."

"Oh, mother, mother; thank God, you are dead!"

"Well, I AM sorry for you," said the sergeant kindly. "'Taint often we
have so sad a case as yours.  If you say so, I'll send for Tom
Watterly, and he and his wife will take charge of you.  After a few
days, your mind will get quieter and clearer, and then you'll prosecute
the man who wronged you."

"I'll go to the poorhouse until I can do better," she replied wearily.
"Now, if you please, I'll return to my cell where I can be alone."

"Oh, we can give you a better room than that," said the sergeant. "Show
her into the waiting room, Tim.  If you prosecute, we can help you with
our testimony.  Goodbye, and may you have better days!"

Watterly was telegraphed to come down with a conveyance for the
almshouse was in a suburb.  In due time he appeared, and was briefly
told Alida's story.  He swore a little at the "mean cuss," the author
of all the trouble, and then took the stricken woman to what all his
acquaintances facetiously termed his "hotel."



Chapter XI.

Baffled

In the general consciousness Nature is regarded as feminine, and even
those who love her most will have to adopt Mrs. Mumpson's oft-expressed
opinion of the sex and admit that she is sometimes a "peculiar female."
During the month of March, in which our story opens, there was scarcely
any limit to her varying moods.  It would almost appear that she was
taking a mysterious interest in Holcroft's affairs; but whether it was
a kindly interest or not, one might be at a loss to decide.  When she
caught him away from home, she pelted him with the coldest of rain and
made his house, with even Mrs. Mumpson and Jane abiding there, seem a
refuge.  In the morning after the day on which he had brought, or in a
sense had carted, Mrs. Wiggins to his domicile, Nature was evidently
bent on instituting contrasts between herself and the rival phases of
femininity with which the farmer was compelled to associate.  It may
have been that she had another motive and was determined to keep her
humble worshiper at her feet, and to render it impossible for him to
make the changes toward which he had felt himself driven.

Being an early riser he was up with the sun, and the sun rose so
serenely and smiled so benignly that Holcroft's clouded brow cleared in
spite of all that had happened or could take place.  The rain, which
had brought such discomfort the night before, had settled the ground
and made it comparatively firm to his tread.  The southern breeze which
fanned his cheek was as soft as the air of May.  He remembered that it
was Sunday, and that beyond feeding his stock and milking, he would
have nothing to do.  He exulted in the unusual mildness and thought,
with an immense sense of relief, "I can stay outdoors nearly all day."
He resolved to let his help kindle the fire and get breakfast as they
could, and to keep out of their way.  Whatever changes the future might
bring, he would have one more long day in rambling about his fields and
in thinking over the past.  Feeling that there need be no haste about
anything, he leisurely inhaled the air, fragrant from springing grass,
and listened with a vague, undefined pleasure to the ecstatic music of
the bluebirds, song-sparrows, and robins.  If anyone had asked him why
he liked to hear them, he would have replied, "I'm used to 'em.  When
they come, I know that plowing and planting time is near."

It must be admitted that Holcroft's enjoyment of spring was not very
far removed from that of the stock in his barnyard.  All the animal
creation rejoices in the returning sun and warmth.  A subtle, powerful
influence sets the blood in more rapid motion, kindles new desires, and
awakens a glad expectancy.  All that is alive becomes more thoroughly
alive and existence in itself is a pleasure.  Spring had always brought
to the farmer quickened pulses, renewed activity and hopefulness, and
he was pleased to find that he was not so old and cast down that its
former influence had spent itself. Indeed, it seemed that never before
had his fields, his stock, and outdoor work--and these comprised Nature
to him--been so attractive.  They remained unchanged amid the sad
changes which had clouded his life, and his heart clung more
tenaciously than ever to old scenes and occupations.  They might not
bring him happiness again, but he instinctively felt that they might
insure a comfort and peace with which he could be content.

At last he went to the barn and began his work, doing everything
slowly, and getting all the solace he could from the tasks.  The horses
whinnied their welcome and he rubbed their noses caressingly as he fed
them.  The cows came briskly to the rack in which he foddered them in
pleasant weather, and when he scratched them between the horns they
turned their mild, Juno-like eyes upon him with undisguised affection.
The chickens, clamoring for their breakfast, followed so closely that
he had to be careful where he stepped.  Although he knew that all this
good will was based chiefly on the hope of food and the remembrance of
it in the past, nevertheless it soothed and pleased him.  He was in
sympathy with this homely life; it belonged to him and was dependent on
him; it made him honest returns for his care.  Moreover, it was
agreeably linked with the past.  There were quiet cows which his wife
had milked, clucking biddies which she had lifted from nests with their
downy broods.  He looked at them wistfully, and was wondering if they
ever missed the presence that he regretted so deeply, when he became
conscious that Jane's eyes were upon him.  How long she had been
watching him he did not know, but she merely said, "Breakfast's ready,"
and disappeared.

With a sigh he went to his room to perform his ablutions, remembering
with a slight pang how his wife always had a basin and towel ready for
him in the kitchen.  In the breaking up of just such homely customs, he
was continually reminded of his loss.

On awakening to the light of this Sabbath morning, Mrs. Mumpson had
thought deeply and reasoned everything out again.  She felt that it
must be an eventful day and that there was much to be accomplished.  In
the first place there was Mrs. Wiggins.  She disapproved of her
decidedly. "She isn't the sort of person that I would prefer to
superintend," she remarked to Jane while making a toilet which she
deemed befitting the day, "and the hour will assuredly come when Mr.
Holcroft will look upon her in the light that I do. He will eventually
realize that I cannot be brought in such close relationship with a
pauper.  Not that the relationship is exactly close, but then I shall
have to speak to her--in brief, to superintend her.  My eyes will be
offended by her vast proportions and uncouth appearance.  The floor
creaks beneath her tread and affects my nerves seriously.  Of course,
while she is here, I shall zealously, as befits one in my responserble
position, try to render useful such service as she can perform.  But
then, the fact that I disapprove of her must soon become evident.  When
it is discovered that I only tolerate her, there will be a change.  I
cannot show my disapproval very strongly today for this is a day set
apart for sacred things, and Mrs. Viggins, as she called herself,--I
cannot imagine a Mr. Viggins for no man in his senses could have
married such a creature,--as I was saying, Mrs. Viggins is not at all
sacred, and I must endeavor to abstract my mind from her till tomorrow,
as far as posserble.  My first duty today is to induce Mr. Holcroft to
take us to church.  It will give the people of Oakville such a pleasing
impression to see us driving to church.  Of course, I may fail, Mr.
Holcroft is evidently a hardened man.  All the influences of his life
have been adverse to spiritual development, and it may require some
weeks of my influence to soften him and awaken yearnings for what he
has not yet known."

"He may be yearnin' for breakfast," Jane remarked, completing her
toilet by tying her little pigtail braid with something that had once
been a bit of black ribbon, but was now a string. "You'd better come
down soon and help."

"If Mrs. Viggins cannot get breakfast, I would like to know what she is
here for" continued Mrs. Mumpson loftily, and regardless of Jane's
departure. "I shall decline to do menial work any longer, especially on
this sacred day, and after I have made my toilet for church.  Mr.
Holcroft has had time to think. My disapproval was manifest last night
and it has undoubtedly occurred to him that he has not conformed to the
proprieties of life.  Indeed, I almost fear I shall have to teach him
what the proprieties of life are.  He witnessed my emotions when he
spoke as he should not have spoken to ME.  But I must make allowances
for his unregenerate state.  He was cold, and wet, and hungry last
night, and men are unreasonerble at such times.  I shall now heap coals
of fire upon his head.  I shall show that I am a meek, forgiving
Christian woman, and he will relent, soften, and become penitent.  Then
will be my opportunity," and she descended to the arena which should
witness her efforts.

During the period in which Mrs. Mumpson had indulged in these lofty
reflections and self-communings, Mrs. Wiggins had also arisen.  I am
not sure whether she had thought of anything in particular or not.  She
may have had some spiritual longings which were not becoming to any day
of the week.  Being a woman of deeds, rather than of thought, probably
not much else occurred to her beyond the duty of kindling the fire and
getting breakfast.  Jane came down, and offered to assist, but was
cleared out with no more scruple than if Mrs. Wiggins had been one of
the much-visited relatives.

"The hidee," she grumbled, "of 'avin' sich a little trollop round
hunder my feet!"

Jane, therefore, solaced herself by watching the "cheap girl" till her
mother appeared.

Mrs. Mumpson sailed majestically in and took the rocking chair,
mentally thankful that it had survived the crushing weight imposed upon
it the evening before.  Mrs. Wiggins did not drop a courtesy.  Indeed,
not a sign of recognition passed over her vast, immobile face.  Mrs.
Mumpson was a little embarrassed. "I hardly know how to comport myself
toward that female," she thought. "She is utterly uncouth.  Her manners
are unmistakerbly those of a pauper.  I think I will ignore her today.
I do not wish my feelings ruffled or put out of harmony with the sacred
duties and motives which actuate me."

Mrs. Mumpson therefore rocked gently, solemnly, and strange to say,
silently, and Mrs. Wiggins also proceeded with her duties, but not in
silence, for everything in the room trembled and clattered at her
tread.  Suddenly she turned on Jane and said, "'Ere, you little
baggage, go and tell the master breakfast's ready."

Mrs. Mumpson sprang from her chair, and with a voice choked with
indignation, gasped, "Do you dare address my offspring thus?"

"Yer vat?"

"My child, my daughter, who is not a pauper, but the offspring of a
most respecterble woman and respecterbly connected.  I'm amazed, I'm
dumfoundered, I'm--"

"Ye're a bit daft, hi'm a-thinkin'."  Then to Jane, "Vy don't ye go an'
hearn yer salt?"

"Jane, I forbid--"  But it had not taken Jane half a minute to decide
between the now jarring domestic powers, and henceforth she would be at
Mrs. Wiggins' beck and call. "She can do somethin'," the child
muttered, as she stole upon Holcroft.

Mrs. Mumpson sank back in her chair, but her mode of rocking betokened
a perturbed spirit. "I will restrain myself till tomorrow, and then--"
She shook her head portentously and waited till the farmer appeared,
feeling assured that Mrs. Wiggins would soon be taught to recognize her
station.  When breakfast was on the table, she darted to her place
behind the coffeepot, for she felt that there was no telling what this
awful Mrs. Wiggins might not assume during this day of sacred
restraint.  But the ex-pauper had no thought of presumption in her
master's presence, and the rocking chair again distracted Mrs.
Mumpson's nerves as it creaked under an unwonted weight.

Holcroft took his seat in silence.  The widow again bowed her head
devoutly, and sighed deeply when observing that the farmer ignored her
suggestion.

"I trust that you feel refreshed after your repose," she said benignly.

"I do."

"It is a lovely morning--a morning, I may add, befitting the sacred
day. Nature is at peace and suggests that we and all should be at
peace."

"There's nothing I like more, Mrs. Mumpson, unless it is quiet."

"I feel that way, myself.  You don't know what restraint I have put
upon myself that the sacred quiet of this day might not be disturbed.
I have had strong provercation since I entered this apartment.  I will
forbear to speak of it till tomorrow in order that there may be
quietness and that our minds may be prepared for worship.  I feel that
it would be unseemly for us to enter a house of worship with thoughts
of strife in our souls.  At precisely what moment do you wish me to be
ready for church?"

"I am not going to church, Mrs. Mumpson."

"Not going to church!  I--I--scarcely understand.  Worship is such a
sacred duty--"

"You and Jane certainly have a right to go to church, and since it is
your wish, I'll take you down to Lemuel Weeks' and you can go with
them."

"I don't want to go to Cousin Lemuel's, nor to church, nuther," Jane
protested.

"Why, Mr. Holcroft," began the widow sweetly, "after you've once
harnessed up it will take but a little longer to keep on to the meeting
house.  It would appear so seemly for us to drive thither, as a matter
of course.  It would be what the communerty expects of us.  This is not
our day, that we should spend it carnally.  We should be
spiritually-minded.  We should put away things of earth.  Thoughts of
business and any unnecessary toil should be abhorrent.  I have often
thought that there was too much milking done on Sunday among farmers.
I know they say it is essential, but they all seem so prone to forget
that but one thing is needful.  I feel it borne in upon my mind, Mr.
Holcroft, that I should plead with you to attend divine worship and
seek an uplifting of your thoughts.  You have no idea how differently
the day may end, or what emotions may be aroused if you place yourself
under the droppings of the sanctuary."

"I'm like Jane, I don't wish to go," said Mr. Holcroft nervously.

"But my dear Mr. Holcroft,"--the farmer fidgeted under this
address,--"the very essence of true religion is to do what we don't
wish to do.  We are to mortify the flesh and thwart the carnal mind.
The more thorny the path of self-denial is, the more certain it's the
right path. I've already entered upon it," she continued, turning a
momentary glare upon Mrs. Wiggins. "Never before was a respecterble
woman so harrowed and outraged; but I am calm; I am endeavoring to
maintain a frame of mind suiterble to worship, and I feel it my bounden
duty to impress upon you that worship is a necessity to every human
being.  My conscience would not acquit me if I did not use all my
influence--"

"Very well, Mrs. Mumpson, you and your conscience are quits.  You have
used all your influence.  I will do as I said--take you to Lemuel
Weeks'--and you can go to church with his family," and he rose from the
table.

"But Cousin Lemuel is also painfully blind to his spiritual interests--"

Holcroft did not stay to listen and was soon engaged in the morning
milking. Jane flatly declared that she would not go to Cousin Lemuel's
or to church. "It don't do me no good, nor you, nuther," she sullenly
declared to her mother.

Mrs. Mumpson now resolved upon a different line of tactics.  Assuming a
lofty, spiritual air, she commanded Jane to light a fire in the parlor,
and retired thither with the rocking chair.  The elder widow looked
after her and ejaculated, "Vell, hif she haint the craziest loon hi
hever 'eard talk.  Hif she vas blind she might 'a' seen that the master
didn't vant hany sich lecturin' clack."

Having kindled the fire, the child was about to leave the room when her
mother interposed and said solemnly, "Jane, sit down and keep Sunday."

"I'm going to help Mrs. Wiggins if she'll let me."

"You will not so demean yourself.  I wish you to have no relations
whatever with that female in the kitchen.  If you had proper
self-respect, you would never speak to her again."

"We aint visitin' here.  If I can't work indoors, I'll tell him I'll
work outdoors."

"It's not proper for you to work today.  I want you to sit there in the
corner and learn the Fifth Commandment."

"Aint you goin' to Cousin Lemuel's?"

"On mature reflection, I have decided to remain at home."

"I thought you would if you had any sense left.  You know well enough
we aint wanted down there.  I'll go tell him not to hitch up."

"Well, I will permit you to do so.  Then return to your Sunday task."

"I'm goin' to mind him," responded the child.  She passed rapidly and
apprehensively through the kitchen, but paused on the doorstep to make
some overtures to Mrs. Wiggins.  If that austere dame was not to be
propitiated, a line of retreat was open to the barn. "Say," she began,
to attract attention.

"Vell, young-un," replied Mrs. Wiggins, rendered more pacific by her
breakfast.

"Don't you want me to wash up the dishes and put 'em away?  I know how."

"Hi'll try ye.  Hif ye breaks hanythink--" and the old woman nodded
volumes at the child.

"I'll be back in a minute," said Jane.  A moment later she met Holcroft
carrying two pails of milk from the barnyard.  He was about to pass
without noticing her, but she again secured attention by her usual
preface, "Say," when she had a somewhat extended communication to make.

"Come to the dairy room, Jane, and say your say there," said Holcroft
not unkindly.

"She aint goin' to Cousin Lemuel's," said the girl, from the door.

"What is she going to do."

"Rock in the parlor.  Say, can't I help Mrs. Wiggins wash up the dishes
and do the work?"

"Certainly, why not?"

"Mother says I must sit in the parlor 'n' learn Commandments 'n' keep
Sunday."

"Well, Jane, which do you think you ought to do?"

"I think I oughter work, and if you and Mrs. Wiggins will let me, I
will work in spite of mother."

"I think that you and your mother both should help do the necessary
work today.  There won't be much."

"If I try and help Mrs. Wiggins, mother'll bounce out at me.  She shook
me last night after I went upstairs, and she boxed my ears 'cause I
wanted to keep the kitchen fire up last night."

"I'll go with you to the kitchen and tell Mrs. Wiggins to let you help,
and I won't let your mother punish you again unless you do wrong."

Mrs. Wiggins, relying on Jane's promise of help, had sat down to the
solace of her pipe for a few minutes, but was about to thrust it
hastily away on seeing Holcroft.  He reassured her by saying
good-naturedly, "No need of that, my good woman.  Sit still and enjoy
your pipe.  I like to smoke myself.  Jane will help clear away things
and I wish her to.  You'll find she's quite handy. By the way, have you
all the tobacco you want?"

"Vell, now, master, p'raps ye know the 'lowance down hat the poor-us
vasn't sich as ud keep a body in vat ye'd call satisfyin' smokin'.  Hi
never 'ad henough ter keep down the 'ankerin'."

"I suppose that's so.  You shall have half of my stock, and when I go
to town again, I'll get you a good supply.  I guess I'll light my pipe,
too, before starting for a walk."

"Bless yer 'art, master, ye makes a body comf'terble.  Ven hi smokes,
hi feels more hat 'ome and kind o' contented like.  An hold 'ooman like
me haint got much left to comfort 'er but 'er pipe."

"Jane!" called Mrs. Mumpson sharply from the parlor.  As there was no
answer, the widow soon appeared in the kitchen door.  Smoking was one
of the unpardonable sins in Mrs. Mumpson's eyes; and when she saw Mrs.
Wiggins puffing comfortably away and Holcroft lighting his pipe, while
Jane cleared the table, language almost failed her.  She managed to
articulate, "Jane, this atmosphere is not fit for you to breathe on
this sacred day. I wish you to share my seclusion."

"Mrs. Mumpson, I have told her to help Mrs. Wiggins in the necessary
work," Holcroft interposed.

"Mr. Holcroft, you don't realize--men never do--Jane is my offspring,
and--"

"Oh, if you put it that way, I shan't interfere between mother and
child.  But I suppose you and Jane came here to work."

"If you will enter the parlor, I will explain to you fully my views,
and--"

"Oh, please excuse me!" said Holcroft, hastily passing out. "I was just
starting for a walk--I'm bound to have one more day to myself on the
old place," he muttered as he bent his steps toward an upland pasture.

Jane, seeing that her mother was about to pounce upon her, ran behind
Mrs. Wiggins, who slowly rose and began a progress toward the irate
widow, remarking as she did so, "Hi'll just shut the door 'twixt ye and
yer hoffspring, and then ye kin say yer prayers hon the t'other side."

Mrs. Mumpson was so overcome at the turn affairs had taken on this day,
which was to witness such progress in her plans and hopes, as to feel
the absolute necessity of a prolonged season of thought and soliloquy,
and she relapsed, without further protest, into the rocking chair.



Chapter XII.

Jane

Holcroft was not long in climbing to a sunny nook whence he could see
not only his farm and dwelling, but also the Oakville valley, and the
little white spire of the distant meeting house.  He looked at this
last-named object wistfully and very sadly.  Mrs. Mumpson's tirade
about worship had been without effect, but the memories suggested by
the church were bitter-sweet indeed.  It belonged to the Methodist
denomination, and Holcroft had been taken, or had gone thither, from
the time of his earliest recollection.  He saw himself sitting between
his father and mother, a round-faced urchin to whom the sermon was
unintelligible, but to whom little Bessie Jones in the next pew was a
fact, not only intelligible, but very interesting.  She would turn
around and stare at him until he smiled, then she would giggle until
her mother brought her right-about-face with considerable emphasis.
After this, he saw the little boy--could it have been
himself?--nodding, swaying, and finally slumbering peacefully, with his
head on his mother's lap, until shaken into sufficient consciousness to
be half dragged, half led, to the door.  Once in the big, springless
farm wagon he was himself again, looking eagerly around to catch
another glimpse of Bessie Jones.  Then he was a big, irreverent boy,
shyly and awkwardly bent on mischief in the same old meeting house.
Bessie Jones no longer turned and stared at him, but he exultingly
discovered that he could still make her giggle on the sly.  Years
passed, and Bessie was his occasional choice for a sleigh-ride when the
long body of some farm wagon was placed on runners, and boys and
girls--young men and women, they almost thought themselves--were packed
in like sardines.  Something like self-reproach smote Holcroft even
now, remembering how he had allowed his fancy much latitude at this
period, paying attention to more than one girl besides Bessie, and
painfully undecided which he liked best.

Then had come the memorable year which had opened with a protracted
meeting. He and Bessie Jones had passed under conviction at the same
time, and on the same evening had gone forward to the anxious seat.
From the way in which she sobbed, one might have supposed that the
good, simple-hearted girl had terrible burdens on her conscience; but
she soon found hope, and her tears gave place to smiles.  Holcroft, on
the contrary, was terribly cast down and unable to find relief.  He
felt that he had much more to answer for than Bessie; he accused
himself of having been a rather coarse, vulgar boy; he had made fun of
sacred things in that very meeting house more times than he liked to
think of, and now for some reason could think of nothing else.

He could not shed tears or get up much emotion; neither could he rid
himself of the dull weight at heart.  The minister, the brethren and
sisters, prayed for him and over him, but nothing removed his terrible
inertia.  He became a familiar form on the anxious seat for there was a
dogged persistence in his nature which prevented him from giving up;
but at the close of each meeting he went home in a state of deeper
dejection.  Sometimes, in returning, he was Bessie Jones' escort, and
her happiness added to his gall and bitterness.  One moonlight night
they stopped under the shadow of a pine near her father's door, and
talked over the matter a few moments before parting.  Bessie was full
of sympathy which she hardly knew how to express.  Unconsciously, in
her earnestness--how well he remembered the act!--she laid her hand on
his arm as she said, "James, I guess I know what's the matter with you.
In all your seeking you are thinking only of yourself--how bad you've
been and all that. I wouldn't think of myself and what I was any more,
if I was you.  You aint so awful bad, James, that I'd turn a cold
shoulder to you; but you might think I was doing just that if ye stayed
away from me and kept saying to yourself, 'I aint fit to speak to
Bessie Jones.'"

Her face had looked sweet and compassionate, and her touch upon his arm
had conveyed the subtle magic of sympathy.  Under her homely logic, the
truth had burst upon him like sunshine.  In brief, he had turned from
his own shadow and was in the light.  He remembered how in his deep
feeling he had bowed his head on her shoulder and murmured, "Oh,
Bessie, Heaven bless you!  I see it all."

He no longer went to the anxious seat.  With this young girl, and many
others, he was taken into the church on probation.  Thereafter, his
fancy never wandered again, and there was no other girl in Oakville for
him but Bessie. In due time, he had gone with her to yonder meeting
house to be married.  It had all seemed to come about as a matter of
course.  He scarcely knew when he became formally engaged.  They "kept
company" together steadfastly for a suitable period, and that seemed to
settle it in their own and everybody else's mind.

There had been no change in Bessie's quiet, constant soul.  After her
words under the shadow of the pine tree she seemed to find it difficult
to speak of religious subjects, even to her husband; but her simple
faith had been unwavering, and she had entered into rest without fear
or misgiving.

Not so her husband.  He had his spiritual ups and downs, but, like
herself, was reticent.  While she lived, only a heavy storm kept them
from "going to meeting," but with Holcroft worship was often little
more than a form, his mind being on the farm and its interests.
Parents and relatives had died, and the habit of seclusion from
neighborhood and church life had grown upon them gradually and almost
unconsciously.

For a long time after his wife's death Holcroft had felt that he did
not wish to see anyone who would make references to his loss.

He shrank from formal condolences as he would from the touch of a
diseased nerve.  When the minister called, he listened politely but
silently to a general exhortation; then muttered, when left alone,
"It's all as he says, I suppose; but somehow his words are like the
medicines Bessie took--they don't do any good."

He kept up the form of his faith and a certain vague hope until the
night on which he drove forth the Irish revelers from his home.  In
remembrance of his rage and profanity on that occasion, he silently and
in dreary misgiving concluded that he should not, even to himself, keep
up the pretense of religion any longer. "I've fallen from grace--that
is, if I ever had any"--was a thought which did much to rob him of
courage to meet his other trials. Whenever he dwelt on these subjects,
doubts, perplexities, and resentment at his misfortunes so thronged his
mind that he was appalled; so he strove to occupy himself with the
immediate present.

Today, however, in recalling the past, his thoughts would question the
future and the outcome of his experiences.  In accordance with his
simple, downright nature, he muttered, "I might as well face the truth
and have done with it.  I don't know whether I'll ever see my wife
again or not; I don't know whether God is for me or against me.
Sometimes, I half think there isn't any God.  I don't know what will
become of me when I die.  I'm sure of only one thing--while I do live I
could take comfort in working the old place."

In brief, without ever having heard of the term, he was an agnostic,
but not one of the self-complacent, superior type who fancy that they
have developed themselves beyond the trammels of faith and are ever
ready to make the world aware of their progress.

At last he recognized that his long reverie was leading to despondency
and weakness; he rose, shook himself half angrily, and strode toward
the house. "I'm here, and here I'm going to stay," he growled. "As long
as I'm on my own land, it's nobody's business what I am or how I feel.
If I can't get decent, sensible women help, I'll close up my dairy and
live here alone.  I certainly can make enough to support myself."

Jane met him with a summons to dinner, looking apprehensively at his
stern, gloomy face.  Mrs. Mumpson did not appear. "Call her," he said
curtly.

The literal Jane returned from the parlor and said unsympathetically,
"She's got a hank'chif to her eyes and says she don't want no dinner."

"Very well," he replied, much relieved.

Apparently he did not want much dinner, either, for he soon started out
again. Mrs. Wiggins was not utterly wanting in the intuitions of her
sex, and said nothing to break in upon her master's abstraction.

In the afternoon Holcroft visited every nook and corner of his farm,
laying out, he hoped, so much occupation for both hands and thoughts as
to render him proof against domestic tribulations.

He had not been gone long before Mrs. Mumpson called in a plaintive
voice, "Jane!"

The child entered the parlor warily, keeping open a line of retreat to
the door. "You need not fear me," said her mother, rocking
pathetically. "My feelings are so hurt and crushed that I can only
bemoan the wrongs from which I suffer.  You little know, Jane, you
little know a mother's heart."

"No," assented Jane. "I dunno nothin' about it."

"What wonder, then that I weep, when even my child is so unnatural!"

"I dunno how to be anything else but what I be," replied the girl in
self-defense.

"If you would only yield more to my guidance and influence, Jane, the
future might be brighter for us both.  If you had but stored up the
Fifth Commandment in memory--but I forbear.  You cannot so far forget
your duty as not to tell me how HE behaved at dinner."

"He looked awful glum, and hardly said a word."

"Ah-h!" exclaimed the widow, "the spell is working."

"If you aint a-workin' tomorrow, there'll be a worse spell," the girl
remarked.

"That will do, Jane, that will do.  You little understand--how should
you? Please keep an eye on him, and let me know how he looks and what
he is doing, and whether his face still wears a gloomy or a penitent
aspect.  Do as I bid you, Jane, and you may unconsciously secure your
own well-being by obedience."

Watching anyone was a far more congenial task to the child than
learning the Commandments, and she hastened to comply.  Moreover, she
had the strongest curiosity in regard to Holcroft herself.  She felt
that he was the arbiter of her fate.  So untaught was she that delicacy
and tact were unknown qualities. Her one hope of pleasing was in work.
She had no power of guessing that sly espionage would counterbalance
such service.  Another round of visiting was dreaded above all things;
she was, therefore, exceedingly anxious about the future. "Mother may
be right," she thought. "P'raps she can make him marry her, so we
needn't go away any more.  P'raps she's taken the right way to bring a
man around and get him hooked, as Cousin Lemuel said.  If I was goin'
to hook a man though, I'd try another plan than mother's.  I'd keep my
mouth shut and my eyes open.  I'd see what he wanted and do it, even
'fore he spoke. 'Fi's big anuf I bet I could hook a man quicker'n she
can by usin' her tongue 'stead of her hands."

Jane's scheme was not so bad a one but that it might be tried to
advantage by those so disposed.  Her matrimonial prospects, however,
being still far in the future, it behooved her to make her present
existence as tolerable as possible.  She knew how much depended on
Holcroft, and was unaware of any other method of learning his purposes
except that of watching him.  Both fearing and fascinated, she dogged
his steps most of the afternoon, but saw nothing to confirm her
mother's view that any spell was working.  She scarcely understood why
he looked so long at field, thicket, and woods, as if he saw something
invisible to her.

In planning future work and improvements, the farmer had attained a
quieter and more genial frame of mind. When, therefore, he sat down and
in glancing about saw Jane crouching behind a low hemlock, he was more
amused than irritated.  He had dwelt on his own interests so long that
he was ready to consider even Jane's for a while. "Poor child!" he
thought, "she doesn't know any better and perhaps has even been taught
to do such things.  I think I'll surprise her and draw her out a
little.  Jane, come here," he called.

The girl sprang to her feet, and hesitated whether to fly or obey.
"Don't be afraid," added Holcroft. "I won't scold you.  Come!"

She stole toward him like some small, wild, fearful animal in doubt of
its reception. "Sit down there on that rock," he said.

She obeyed with a sly, sidelong look, and he saw that she kept her feet
gathered under her so as to spring away if he made the slightest
hostile movement.

"Jane, do you think it's right to watch people so?" he asked gravely.

"She told me to."

"Your mother?"

The girl nodded.

"But do you think it's right yourself?"

"Dunno.  'Taint best if you get caught."

"Well, Jane," said Holcroft, with something like a smile lurking in his
deep-set eyes. "I don't think it's right at all.  I don't want you to
watch me any more, no matter who tells you to.  Will you promise not
to?"

The child nodded.  She seemed averse to speaking when a sign would
answer.

"Can I go now?" she asked after a moment.

"Not yet.  I want to ask you some questions.  Was anyone ever kind to
you?"

"I dunno.  I suppose so."

"What would you call being kind to you?"

"Not scoldin' or cuffin' me."

"If I didn't scold or strike you, would you think I was kind, then?"

She nodded; but after a moment's thought, said, "and if you didn't look
as if you hated to see me round."

"Do you think I've been kind to you?"

"Kinder'n anybody else.  You sorter look at me sometimes as if I was a
rat.  I don't s'pose you can help it, and I don't mind.  I'd ruther
stay here and work than go a-visitin' again.  Why can't I work outdoors
when there's nothin' for me to do in the house?"

"Are you willing to work--to do anything you can?"

Jane was not sufficiently politic to enlarge on her desire for honest
toil and honest bread; she merely nodded.  Holcroft smiled as he asked,
"Why are you so anxious to work?"

"'Cause I won't feel like a stray cat in the house then.  I want to be
some'ers where I've a right to be."

"Wouldn't they let you work down at Lemuel Weeks'?"  She shook her head.

"Why not?" he asked.

"They said I wasn't honest; they said they couldn't trust me with
things, 'cause when I was hungry I took things to eat."

"Was that the way you were treated at other places?"

"Mostly."

"Jane," asked Holcroft very kindly, "did anyone ever kiss you?"

"Mother used to 'fore people.  It allus made me kinder sick."

Holcroft shook his head as if this child was a problem beyond him, and
for a time they sat together in silence.  At last he arose and said,
"It's time to go home.  Now, Jane, don't follow me; walk openly at my
side, and when you come to call me at any time, come openly, make a
noise, whistle or sing as a child ought.  As long as you are with me,
never do anything on the sly, and we'll get along well enough."

She nodded and walked beside him.  At last, as if emboldened by his
words, she broke out, "Say, if mother married you, you couldn't send us
away, could you?"

"Why do you ask such a question?" said Holcroft, frowning.

"I was a-thinkin'--"

"Well," he interrupted sternly, "never think or speak of such things
again."

The child had a miserable sense that she had angered him; she was also
satisfied that her mother's schemes would be futile, and she scarcely
spoke again that day.

Holcroft was more than angry; he was disgusted.  That Mrs. Mumpson's
design upon him was so offensively open that even this ignorant child
understood it, and was expected to further it, caused such a strong
revulsion in his mind that he half resolved to put them both in his
market wagon on the morrow and take them back to their relatives.  His
newly awakened sympathy for Jane quickly vanished.  If the girl and her
mother had been repulsive from the first, they were now hideous, in
view of their efforts to fasten themselves upon him permanently.
Fancy, then, the climax in his feelings when, as they passed the house,
the front door suddenly opened and Mrs. Mumpson emerged with clasped
hands and the exclamation, "Oh, how touching!  Just like father and
child!"

Without noticing the remark he said coldly as he passed, "Jane, go help
Mrs. Wiggins get supper."

His anger and disgust grew so strong as he hastily did his evening work
that he resolved not to endanger his self-control by sitting down
within earshot of Mrs. Mumpson.  As soon as possible, therefore, he
carried the new stove to his room and put it up.  The widow tried to
address him as he passed in and out, but he paid no heed to her.  At
last, he only paused long enough at the kitchen door to say, "Jane,
bring me some supper to my room.  Remember, you only are to bring it."

Bewildered and abashed, Mrs. Mumpson rocked nervously. "I had looked
for relentings this evening, a general softening," she murmured, "and I
don't understand his bearing toward me."  Then a happy thought struck
her. "I see, I see," she cried softly and ecstatically: "He is
struggling with himself; he finds that he must either deny himself my
society or yield at once.  The end is near."

A little later she, too, appeared at the kitchen door and said, with
serious sweetness, "Jane, you can also bring me MY supper to the
parlor."

Mrs. Wiggins shook with mirth in all her vast proportions as she
remarked, "Jane, ye can bring me MY supper from the stove to the table
'ere, and then vait hon yeself."



Chapter XIII.

Not Wife, But Waif

Tom Watterly's horse was the pride of his heart.  It was a bobtailed,
rawboned animal, but, as Tom complacently remarked to Alida, "He can
pass about anything on the road"--a boast that he let no chance escape
of verifying.  It was a terrible ordeal to the poor woman to go dashing
through the streets in an open wagon, feeling that every eye was upon
her.  With head bowed down, she employed her failing strength in
holding herself from falling out, yet almost wishing that she might be
dashed against some object that would end her wretched life.  It
finally occurred to Tom that the woman at his side might not, after her
recent experience, share in his enthusiasm, and he pulled up remarking,
with a rough effort at sympathy, "It's a cussed shame you've been
treated so, and as soon as you're ready, I'll help you get even with
the scamp."

"I'm not well, sir," said Alida humbly. "I only ask for a quiet place
where I can rest till strong enough to do some kind of work."

"Well, well," said Tom kindly, "don't lose heart.  We'll do the best by
you we can.  That aint saying very much, though, for we're full and
running over."

He soon drew rein at the poorhouse door and sprang out. "I--I--feel
strange," Alida gasped.

Tom caught the fainting woman in his arms and shouted, "Here, Bill,
Joe!  You lazy loons, where are you?"

Three or four half wrecks of men shuffled to his assistance, and
together they bore the unconscious woman to the room which was used as
a sort of hospital. Some old crones gathered around with such
restoratives as they had at command. Gradually the stricken woman
revived, but as the whole miserable truth came back, she turned her
face to the wall with a sinking of heart akin to despair. At last, from
sheer exhaustion, feverish sleep ensued, from which she often started
with moans and low cries.  One impression haunted her--she was falling,
ever falling into a dark, bottomless abyss.

Hours passed in the same partial stupor, filled with phantoms and
horrible dreams.  Toward evening, she aroused herself mechanically to
take the broth Mrs. Watterly ordered her to swallow, then relapsed into
the same lethargy. Late in the night, she became conscious that someone
was kneeling at her bedside and fondling her.  She started up with a
slight cry.

"Don't be afraid; it's only me, dear," said a quavering voice.

In the dim rays of a night lamp, Alida saw an old woman with gray hair
falling about her face and on her night robe.  At first, in her
confused, feverish impressions, the poor waif was dumb with
superstitious awe, and trembled between joy and fear.  Could her mother
have come to comfort her in her sore extremity?

"Put yer head on me ould withered breast," said the apparition, "an'
ye'll know a mither's heart niver changes.  I've been a-lookin' for ye
and expectin' ye these long, weary years, They said ye wouldn't come
back--that I'd niver find ye ag'in; but I knowed I wud, and here ye are
in me arms, me darlint. Don't draw away from yer ould mither.  Don't ye
be afeard or 'shamed loike. No matter what ye've done or where ye've
been or who ye've been with, a mither's heart welcomes ye back jist the
same as when yes were a babby an' slept on me breast.  A mither's heart
ud quench the fires o' hell.  I'd go inter the burnin' flames o' the
pit an' bear ye out in me arms.  So niver fear.  Now that I've found
ye, ye're safe.  Ye'll not run away from me ag'in. I'll hould ye--I'll
hould ye back," and the poor creature clasped Alida with such
conclusive energy that she screamed from pain and terror.

"Ye shall not get away from me, ye shall not go back to evil ways.
Whist, whist!  Be aisy and let me plead wid ye.  Think how many long,
weary years I've looked for ye and waited for ye.  Niver have I slept
night or day in me watchin'.  Ye may be so stained an' lost an' ruined
that the whole wourld will scorn ye, yet not yer mither, not yer ould
mither.  Oh, Nora, Nora, why did ye rin away from me?  Wasn't I koind?
No, no; ye cannot lave me ag'in," and she threw herself on Alida, whose
disordered mind was tortured by what she heard. Whether or not it was a
more terrible dream than had yet oppressed her, she scarcely knew, but
in the excess of her nervous horror she sent out a cry that echoed in
every part of the large building.  Two old women rushed in and dragged
Alida's persecutor screaming away.

"That's allus the way o' it," she shrieked. "As soon as I find me Nora
they snatches me and carries me off, and I have to begin me watchin'
and waitin' and lookin' ag'in."

Alida continued sobbing and trembling violently.  One of the awakened
patients sought to assure her by saying, "Don't mind it so, miss.  It's
only old crazy Kate.  Her daughter ran away from her years and years
ago--how many no one knows--and when a young woman's brought here she
thinks it's her lost Nora. They oughtn't 'a' let her get out, knowin'
you was here."

For several days Alida's reason wavered.  The nervous shock of her sad
experiences had been so great that it did not seem at all improbable
that she, like the insane mother, might be haunted for the rest of her
life by an overwhelming impression of something lost.  In her morbid,
shaken mind she confounded the wrong she had received with guilt on her
own part.  Eventually, she grew calmer and more sensible.  Although her
conscience acquitted her of intentional evil, nothing could remove the
deep-rooted conviction that she was shamed beyond hope of remedy.  For
a time she was unable to rally from nervous prostration; meanwhile, her
mind was preternaturally active, presenting every detail of the past
until she was often ready to cry aloud in her despair.

Tom Watterly took an unusual interest in her case and exhorted the
visiting physician to do his best for her.  She finally began to
improve, and with the first return of strength sought to do something
with her feeble hands.  The bread of charity was not sweet.

Although the place in which she lodged was clean, and the coarse,
unvarying fare abundant, she shrank shuddering, with each day's clearer
consciousness, from the majority of those about her.  Phases of life of
which she had scarcely dreamed were the common topics of conversation.
In her mother she had learned to venerate gray hairs, and it was an
awful shock to learn that so many of the feeble creatures about her
were coarse, wicked, and evil-disposed. How could their withered lips
frame the words they spoke?  How could they dwell on subjects that were
profanation, even to such wrecks of womanhood as themselves?

Moreover, they persecuted her by their curiosity.  The good material in
her apparel had been examined and commented on; her wedding ring had
been seen and its absence soon noted, for Alida, after gaining the
power to recall the past fully, had thrown away the metal lie, feeling
that it was the last link in a chain binding her to a loathed and hated
relationship.  Learning from their questions that the inmates of the
almshouse did not know her history, she refused to reveal it, thus
awakening endless surmises.  Many histories were made for her, the
beldams vying with each other in constructing the worst one. Poor Alida
soon learned that there was public opinion even in an almshouse, and
that she was under its ban.  In dreary despondency she thought,
"They've found out about me.  If such creatures as these think I'm
hardly fit to speak to, how can I ever find work among good,
respectable people?"

Her extreme depression, the coarse, vulgar, and uncharitable natures by
which she was surrounded, retarded her recovery.  By her efforts to do
anything in her power for others she disarmed the hostility of some of
the women, and those that were more or less demented became fond of
her; but the majority probed her wound by every look and word.  She was
a saint compared with any of these, yet they made her envy their
respectability.  She often thought, "Would to God that I was as old and
ready to die as the feeblest woman here, if I could only hold up my
head like her!"

One day a woman who had a child left it sleeping in its rude wooden
cradle and went downstairs.  The babe wakened and began to cry.  Alida
took it up and found a strange solace in rocking it to sleep again upon
her breast.  At last the mother returned, glared a moment into Alida's
appealing eyes, then snatched the child away with the cruel words,
"Don't ye touch my baby ag'in! To think it ud been in the arms o' the
loikes o'ye!"

Alida went away and sobbed until her strength was gone.  She found that
there were some others ostracized like herself, but they accepted their
position as a matter of course--as if it belonged to them and was the
least of their troubles.

Her strength was returning, yet she was still feeble when she sent for
Mrs. Watterly and asked, "Do you think I'm strong enough to take a
place somewhere?"

"You ought to know that better than me," was the chilly reply.

"Do you--do you think I could get a place?  I would be willing to do
any kind of honest work not beyond my strength."

"You hardly look able to sit up straight.  Better wait till you're
stronger. I'll tell my husband.  If applications come, he'll see about
it," and she turned coldly away.

A day or two later Tom came and said brusquely, but not unkindly,
"Don't like my hotel, hey?  What can you do?"

"I'm used to sewing, but I'd try to do almost anything by which I could
earn my living."

"Best thing to do is to prosecute that scamp and make him pay you a
good round sum."

She shook her head 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/2271