The Wind Before the Dawn Part 24

"Why--yes--if you're going," Mrs. Hunter answered with a hesitant glance at John.

The tone and the hesitancy struck Elizabeth. She looked at John as she had seen the older woman do.

"Mother spoke yesterday of your going," John said quickly, "and I said--well, I want to get some more cleaning done about that barn before the man comes. There's plenty of time about that. Let them come here if they want to see us."

"But I want to go," Elizabeth persisted. She had been accustomed to dictating where John Hunter should take her. John himself had taught her to do so.

"Well, there's plenty of time. I'm busy to-day, if it is Sunday," was all that her husband thought it necessary to reply.

The hope that Aunt Susan would come to see her if she found that they were not coming over helped Elizabeth to accept the brusque refusal better than she otherwise would have done. John was cheerful and pleasant, and the hurt that she had felt at first died away. He asked her to go to the barn with him and was merry and full of small talk and chatter, such as lovers appreciate, and the girl finally concluded that that must be his naturally decided manner when suddenly approached on a subject to which he could not consent. Elizabeth was aware that there was little consideration shown her at such times, but was resolved not to find fault unless the question were a vital one. Altogether it was a happy day. Grat.i.tude was a large feature of Elizabeth's make-up, and there was something about being in the atmosphere of refinement and beauty which made her accept many little evidences of inattentiveness on the part of her husband. As she helped with the cooking, she was conscious of the difference between the kitchen utensils of this and her own home; as she swept she contrasted the red-and-green ingrain carpet of the sitting room with the worn and ugly rag carpet of her mother's house; as she set the table she reflected that no other house of that community boasted a dining room, and certainly no other young wife could say she had napkins and a white tablecloth every day in the week; and there was yet a larger item than these for which the girl was thankful: no girl she had ever known had married so cultured a man. Elizabeth looked across the table as she served the pie at dinner and in spite of every snub was humbly thankful to be a part of that family.

Nor was she a mere sn.o.b and deserving of what she got in the way of ill treatment because she submitted to it; Elizabeth was a young girl of artistic temperament, craving beauty, and longing for the companions.h.i.+p of those who talked in terms comprehensible to her at the same time that they advanced her aesthetic education and possibilities. In proportion as she valued this thing was she to pay her price.

The price Elizabeth was to pay came at strange and unexpected moments. The hired man, when he appeared, proved to be Jake Ransom, now a man, and ready to do a man's work in his simple station. Jake of course knew for whom he was to work and came into the kitchen to his first meal with his face wreathed in a sheepish grin.

"I'd better 'a' taken your advice an' gone t' th' high school," he said, extending his calloused hand to shake. "Only I wouldn't 'a' been workin'

fur you."

He laughed his great hearty guffaw, partly in embarra.s.sment and partly because he really enjoyed the joke of the possibility of him being an educated man. It was a cheap country pleasantry, and said with genuine good-fellows.h.i.+p, but Mrs. Hunter, who heard it as she turned to the dining room with the coffee pot in her hand, disapproved of the familiarity of it. Mrs. Hunter had disapproved of the plate laid for Jake at the family table and was out of sorts with the country life into which she had been plunged.

After Jake had gone to bed upstairs--and that was another grievance of Mrs. Hunter's, this having the hired man in the room next to her own--she took up the matter of his position in her son's house seriously.

"All the hired help in the country eat at the table and are accorded the privileges of any member of the family, mother," John replied to her objections.

"You don't mean that You'll have to have them at your table day after day--always?" his mother exclaimed. "You'll never have any home life at all."

"As long as we farm, mother, we'll be in exactly that position," John said, stirring the fire in the sitting-room stove, about which they were gathered for the evening.

"But they eat so awfully much," Mrs. Hunter continued, "and they drink out of their saucers, and suck their teeth till it makes one sick!" Then happening to look across at Elizabeth she caught the flush on her young face and stopped so short that all were embarra.s.sed.

John got up suddenly and left the room and the house. The two women sat in an uncomfortable silence for some minutes, and then the elder of them went upstairs to bed, leaving the younger to her mortifying thoughts. Elizabeth remembered the scorn of the young teacher in her own childhood for the same offence and reflected that she had been unable to break her family of similar habits. As far as she was concerned, however, the presence of the hired man at her table was far less disturbing than that of her husband's mother. Part of the time she was happy to learn from Mrs. Hunter, but more of the time she was restless under her supervision.

The week had been an uncomfortable one in both tangible and intangible ways. Elizabeth had often found John and his mother talking and have them drop the conversation when she appeared. She had had many humiliating hours over the disgrace she knew they were discussing. The fact had come out that Mr. Farnshaw had returned to his home, but nothing beyond that.

Another week pa.s.sed, and again John refused to take Elizabeth to see Aunt Susan. This time he said that the team had worked all week, and that he felt that the horses needed rest. A new team was added to the farm a.s.sets and the next Sunday John said he was too tired himself to go away from home. Never once did he say that he had any motive which extended beyond the time at hand. Each Sunday the excuse fitted the circ.u.mstances of that particular day, and he talked of going in a general way as if it were a matter of course that they would go soon. It was clearly the duty of the young couple to make the first visit, and as clearly Nathan Hornby and his wife were waiting for them to do so. Elizabeth was puzzled by her husband's refusal. At the end of a month she became alarmed for fear their neglect would give offence to the dear couple who had sheltered her when she was in need. It had not occurred to her to discredit John's reasons, though she began to suspect that she had married the sort of man she had heard much about--the husband who never wanted to go anywhere.

Early in December Mrs. Hunter was called East by the serious illness of a sister in Illinois. The day she left a heavy snow fell. Elizabeth went out into the still yard and let the white flakes fall on her uncovered head with such a sense of freedom as she had never felt since her marriage.

"The house is mine," she whispered ecstatically; "the house is all mine, and now I can go out of doors if I want to and not be criticised."

Elizabeth had been far more accustomed to barn life than the life of the house. This was a thing that Mrs. Hunter could not understand. It was not the correct thing for a woman to go about the barn where a hired man was employed, even if her husband worked at his side, and Elizabeth's trips to the cow stable and granaries had been discouraged. Jake Ransom had been shrewd enough to see that his first joke in the Hunter house had been unpleasant to the mother of his employer and had never trespa.s.sed upon the grounds of familiarity again, but Elizabeth had been criticised until willing to give up her trips to the scene of her husband's work. John might be impatient, but Elizabeth loved him; his mother was patient but critical, and Elizabeth did not love her; therefore the first feeling of relief when the older woman had gone away included the delight of being free to go where she wished--at his side. The barns were a source of great interest to Elizabeth. The pride of the girl, accustomed to straw stables and slatternly yards and unhoused machinery, in the well-kept barnyard of her husband was natural and commendatory. John had order well developed in his scheme of things. John's cribs did not stand open to the weather. Now that Mrs. Hunter was away, Elizabeth spent most of the day going about the place, looking into every bin, and making the acquaintance of each new animal they possessed. Jake was helping Silas and it left the girl plenty of time to explore. The amount of new stock struck her as surprising. Here too she was glad. John was evidently going to be a man of large affairs.

Elizabeth had a sudden desire to run over and talk it over with Luther as she had done when she drove out with her affianced husband to buy the calves. She was surprised to see how the little bunch of calves had grown, not only in size but in numbers. The thought of Luther carried her back, as she stood looking over the calf yard, to the matter of visiting Aunt Susan. Of late the feeling had grown strong upon her that Mrs. Hunter had had something to do with John's reluctance to making this visit. The calves ceased to interest her and she wandered slowly back to the house thinking about it. There were so many phases of her domestic affairs to consider: Aunt Susan's right to the evidences of her love and her inability to show that love because of her husband's reluctance to take her; Luther's evident offence, and the possibility that the wedding invitation had not been extended to him by John, since he had never paid them a neighbourly visit; the close alliance between John and his mother and the brusqueness with which John disposed of any request of hers if he did not choose of himself to do the thing she wanted--all called for examination. Elizabeth shook the snow from her hair and cloak and built up the fire, intending to sit down by it and think over her situation, but John arrived in the middle of her preparations and supper had to be hastily prepared, for the afternoon had gone and much of the regular morning's work still remained to be done. With flying feet, Elizabeth attacked the task of getting things in order, and it was a relief when John, who had left the last ch.o.r.es to Jake, came in and helped her. They had hardly ever been left alone in the house in all the three months they had been married, and to Elizabeth it was working in fairyland to have John make one side of a bed's clothes lie smooth while she pulled and straightened at the other.

With Mrs. Hunter gone, John took up the task of drilling his young wife in the Hunter ways. To Elizabeth he was a model husband. She contrasted her father's stupid inability and unwillingness inside of his home with the orderly and systematic way in which John Hunter helped her. John took part in whatever household function was taking place in his presence. He wiped the dishes if she washed them; if a carpet was to be swept he handled the broom if he were there to do it, and he never went to the field without filling the reservoir and water pail as well as the coal scuttle and cob basket. He a.s.sumed the management of cooking and housework so subtly that the unsophisticated girl saw only his helpfulness; in fact, he had only helpfulness in mind. John had ideas of neatness and order which made of housekeeping a never-ending process, but John himself laboured steadily toward their accomplishment, and he was so successful in inspiring her with those same ideals that her pride helped her over many a weary day's cleaning. She entered into them week after week and became expert at ironing, baking, and all the little offices of the domestic altar. All her strength was given to her work each day, and for a time she succeeded comfortably, but as the days shortened and the routine became more exacting she longed for the out-of-door freedom in which she had been raised.

Christmas pa.s.sed, and still Elizabeth had entered no house except her own since her marriage in October. This would not have disturbed her, for she was not a girl who cared for visiting, if it had not been that Aunt Susan was being neglected.

Mrs. Farnshaw came and did not fail to let Elizabeth know that the country gossips were concerned with tales supposed to account for her secluded way of living. Some said that she was too "stuck-up" to a.s.sociate with her old friends, while others said that John Hunter had married her to keep his house, but that he was not proud of her and preferred to leave her at home. Luther had completed his "shanty," and Elizabeth knew by the smoke she could see rising from his chimney that he no longer lived with Aunt Susan; also Elizabeth heard bits of gossip about him from Jake, who had taken a great liking to Luther and often spent his evenings with him.

Luther Hansen had come to borrow a scoop shovel when he had sh.e.l.led his corn, but John had managed to accept it as a barnyard call and had not invited him to the house, and after the scoop was returned Luther did not come again. Elizabeth had days when she wanted his cheery presence and sensible ways of looking at life, but she was almost glad he did not come; she could not have explained her seclusion to him nor could she have refused to explain. The girl's pride was cut to the quick.

January pa.s.sed, and February. One afternoon in early March Elizabeth sat at the dining-room window sewing and meditating sadly upon John's growing irritability whenever she mentioned Aunt Susan. She was unable as yet to force him to take her as she requested; neither had she been able to get her own consent to going the first time to the house of this old friend alone and have Aunt Susan's questioning eyes looking her over for explanations. She was puzzled still, for John usually spoke of her friends with respect, and there was nothing to indicate his reasons for opposition except that he was simply averse to visiting on general principles, and even then why should he so resolutely refuse to accommodate her when he was so reasonable on all other subjects?

"I don't care, I'm going this week if he's ever so cross," she muttered.

Almost at the same instant she looked up and saw a bobsled coming into the side lane.

"Aunt Susan's very self!" she cried, pus.h.i.+ng away the little garment on which she was sewing, and running to the door.

She met the m.u.f.fled figure halfway down the path, called to Nathan to take his team to the barn, where they would be out of the cutting wind, and bundled Susan Hornby into the house with little shrieks of delight and welcome.

Susan Hornby knew that she was wanted at the end of that five minutes.

"However could you know that I was wanting you so bad to-day?" Elizabeth said finally, as she thrust her guest down into a rocking chair and then went down on her knees to unfasten her overshoes.

"Land sakes! What are you trying to do--and you----" The sentence stopped and the speaker looked embarra.s.sed.

Elizabeth, still on her knees, looked up. A soft blush covered her face as she gave a happy little laugh.

"Yes--it's true," she whispered. "Oh, Aunt Susan, I'm so happy!"

Outside, Nathan Hornby seized the opportunity to look around the barns.

"Good cattle sheds," he remarked to himself. "Good bunch of pigs, too. I hope 'e ain't goin' into debt, as they say, but I swan, it looks like it."

Nathan's survey of the barns had given the two women inside the house time to talk over the affair so close to their hearts, and the little sitting room had been turned into a temple by the presence of a young mother that was to be and that older but childless mother who loved her as her own.

Elizabeth, still on her knees, laid her head in Aunt Susan's lap as of old, and Susan Hornby, with every hurt buried, listened to her confessions, with her free hand feeling its way over the thick braids as she prayed earnestly in her heart that her beloved child would go through the travail awaiting her without harm and not be left childless in her old age.

When Nathan's heavy boot crunched on the snow-covered doorstep, Elizabeth ran to meet him with the broom and a whole world's wealth of welcome in voice and manner.

"I'm so glad you came to-day. I've been wanting Aunt Susan _so_ of late.

Isn't it a heavy snow for this late in the season?"

She rattled busily along to carry the impress of welcome, for the old man had not responded to her as his wife had done.

"Well, now," said candid Nathan, "you don't exactly give one th'

impression of pinin' t' see folks when you never come over at all."

Elizabeth knew that though he regarded the broom with which he brushed at his boots with extra attention, he was listening closely for her answer.

"There's John!" she cried, seeing her husband as he drove a bunch of calves into the lane. She hastened to tell her guest that her husband had been some miles to the west to attend a sale, and pretended to have forgotten Nathan's awkward remark.

She was glad to see that John left Jake to turn the calves into the yards and came to the house at once, with cordiality s.h.i.+ning out of every line of his face. He made Nathan Hornby so welcome that every sign of displeasure faded from Nathan's countenance. He gave a hasty brush at his boots and came in to shake hands with Susan Hornby. He stirred the fire briskly, and remarked to Nathan:

"Ain't that a dandy bunch of calves? I had a chance to get them at that Irishman's sale--I forget his name--oh, yes, Tim--Tim--you know? I ought to know myself since I just signed a note to him. Averaged eighteen dollars a head--forty-three of 'em. With corn at thirty cents, they'll turn quick money."

The fire roared under his vigorous poking, and he applied himself to putting more coal in the stove without looking up.

Elizabeth Hunter's face lost the happy expression with which she had been regarding him as he welcomed the old couple and stirred the fire, presumably for their benefit. He _had_ been glad to see them: they had helped him over an awkward announcement. He had not told her he meant to get these cattle, and he had let her think that he meant to take her advice and not go into debt any more than he had already done.

John Hunter heard his wife's low exclamation of surprise. He was glad it was over.