The Wind Before the Dawn Part 40

The old man nearly upset the milk a second time in his astonishment, and the milking was cut as short as could decently be done so as to get to the house. The early winter night had settled down and the sting of the cold was paralyzing as they hastened in. Silas went straight to Luther, and Elizabeth and the new man brought a fresh supply of coal and cobs before they went in. They met Silas coming out as they carried the last basketful from the shed.

"I'm goin' right over t' tell Sadie," he announced. "I brought Noland over to help, but Luther says you're goin' t' need 'im right along, an' I'll jes' leave 'im for good. You'll like each other an' he'll want t' stay as bad as You'll want 'im."

Silas had poured the whole arrangement out, and as it was about what was necessary it was accepted.

The presence of a stranger necessitated more formal housekeeping, and when the new man came back from helping Silas saddle Patsie he found the kitchen in order and the savoury smell of fresh biscuits and ham. A small table was placed beside Luther, and the ham and hot things had a seasoning of brilliant, intellectual conversation, for the man from college was adept at entertaining his fellow men and showed his best powers.

Elizabeth was too tired to stay awake long and she left him and Luther chatting, after she had shown Mr. Noland where he was to sleep and had filled the cold bed with hot flatirons to take the chill from the icy sheets. However happy she may have been while feeding the stock, she had to acknowledge that the loss of sleep the night before and the unaccustomed use of the pitchfork had made of her bed a desirable place.

She awoke when the stranger went up the stairs, but was asleep before his footsteps had reached the room above her. A tantalizing remembrance of his face disturbed her for a moment, but only for a moment, and then tired nature carried her back to the land of dreams. She had seen him somewhere, but where, she was too sleepy to think out.

The next morning Silas came with his bobsled and they helped Luther into a chair and carried him in it to the sled and so to his home. John and his mother came a little after noon, and the girl watched to see how her husband would like the new man, half afraid that because she had secured him in John's absence that he would not like him, and she wished it might be possible to keep him with them. She need not have worried, for Hugh Noland had looked about the place and decided to make himself so necessary to its proprietor that his presence would be desired, and he had gifts which favoured him in that respect. Besides, John had been unsuccessful in obtaining help and was overjoyed to come home and find the cattle fed and everything at the barn in good order. Patsie and her mate were hitched to the lumber wagon and stood waiting in the lane when John came and Jack was being wrapped in his warmest cloak.

"Where on earth are you going?" John asked in profound astonishment.

"I told Mr. Noland to hitch up and take me to Uncle Nathan's, but now that you are here, you can go if you wish," Elizabeth replied quietly. "I should have gone a long time ago. Will you go along mother, or will you stay at home after climbing these drifts all day? I think now that you're at home we'll take the sled instead of the wagon. You won't mind making the change, will you?"

She ended by addressing the new man, and it was all so naturally done that John Hunter swallowed whatever was uncomfortable in it. He would not go himself, and Elizabeth set off with the stranger, glad of the chance to do so.

"I'll drive right home and help with things there. What time shall I come back for you?" Noland asked as he set her on the ground as near Nathan's doorstep as he could get the team to go.

"Not till after five. Mother's there and I'll let her get your suppers, and I'll get mine here with Uncle Nate."

It was such a perfectly normal arrangement that Hugh Noland did not guess that there was anything new in it. He drove away with a feeling of disappointment because he had been unable to draw her into conversation on the way over. She had proven herself a good conversationalist at meals and he looked forward to a time when he would be a permanent part of that household. Luther and Silas had been right. Here was the partner he was looking for if he could only make himself appreciated.

He had laid out every faculty and put it to the best use for that purpose and had been a bit disconcerted to have her suddenly become uncommunicative.

Nathan was at the barn; he saw them stop and recognized his visitor.

"Humph!" he snorted in disgust. However, a man could not leave a woman with a baby in her arms standing on his doorstep on a raw February day.

"How do you do, Uncle Nate?" the girl said timidly as soon as he was near enough to accost.

Nathan's greeting was short and inhospitable. He did not offer to shake hands, nor pretend to see the hand she extended to him. Instead, he opened the door and invited her gruffly to enter. Closing the door behind them, he went to the stove and began to stir the fire industriously.

Elizabeth saw that she must have the difficulty over at once or her courage would wilt. Setting Jack on the floor, she went to Nathan and put her hand on his arm detainingly.

"You have fire enough, Uncle Nate. Let me talk to you."

"Well?" he said briefly.

The girl was staggered by the nature of her reception. It was worse than she had expected. Luther Hansen's estimate of the real situation had been only too right. She stood before Nathan Hornby trembling and disconcerted by the wall of his silence. The old kitchen clock ticked loudly, she could hear her own pulses, and the freshly stirred fire roared--roared in a rusty and unpolished stove. Dust lay thick on the unswept floor. Nathan needed her. She would win her way back to his heart.

"Uncle Nate, I don't blame you one bit if you aren't nice to me. I haven't deserved it, but----"

"I guess you needn't 'Uncle Nate' me any more," he said when she paused.

His speech was bitter and full of animosity, but it was better than his compelling silence.

"I don't blame you one bit for being mad at me----I should think you would be. I don't know what I'm going to say to you either, but I've come to beg your forgiveness," she stammered.

Nathan Hornby did not speak, but waited coldly for her to continue. There was plainly no help offered her.

"I--I can't explain, Uncle Nate--I am going to call you so--you--you shall not put me away. I have come for your forgiveness and--and I'm going to stay till I get it. I--I can't explain--there--there are things in life that we can't explain, but I'm innocent of this stuck-up business you think I've had. I--I've loved you and Aunt Susan. Oh, Uncle Nate, I've loved her better than I ever did my own mother," she ended with a sob.

There was the voice of honesty in what she said, but Nathan remembered his wrongs.

"If that's so, why didn't you come t' see 'er?" he said. "If you loved 'er, why'd you let 'er go down to 'er grave a pinin' for you? She looked for you till she was crazy 'most, an' she never got a decent word out of you, nor a decent visit neither. If you loved 'er, what'd you act that way for?"

The memory of that last day, when his wife had yearned so pitifully for this girl, arose before him as he stood there, and shook his faith in the honesty of Elizabeth's purposes in spite of the earnestness of her manner.

"That is the one thing I cannot explain, Uncle Nate," Elizabeth answered.

"I--I was all ready to come that day and--and--then I couldn't."

She buried her face in her hands at the memory of it and burst into tears.

"Is it true that Hunter won't take you anywhere?" he asked pointedly.

"You have been listening to the Cranes," she answered.

"I've been listenin' t' more'n them," he said with the fixed purpose of drawing her out on the subject. "I've been listenin' t' some as says you're too high and mighty t' a.s.sociate with th' likes of us--an' I've heard it said that your husband won't take you nowhere. Now I just naturally know that a man can't shut a woman up in this American country, so's she can't go anywhere she wants t', if she wants t' bad enough; an' I remember how Hunter was 'fore 'e married you; 'e was always on th' go--an'

there's a n.i.g.g.e.r in th' woodpile somewheres."

Elizabeth was for the moment staggered. What he said was so true. And yet, how untrue! It was hard to think with the eye of suspicion on her.

Appearances were against her, but she was determined not to discuss the privacies of her married life. She paused and looked Nathan squarely in the face till she could control her reasoning faculties.

"That is neither here nor there," she said quite firmly at last. "I shall not defend myself to you, Uncle Nate, nor explain away bad reports. It would not help me and it would not help you. What I am here for is to offer you my love _now_. What I want you to believe is that I mean it, that I've wanted to come, that I'm here because I want to be here, and that I never mean to neglect you again. I--I couldn't come to see her--but, oh, Uncle Nate, mayn't I come to see you? I can't tell you all the little ins and outs of why I haven't come before, but you must believe me."

Elizabeth ended imploringly.

The man was softened by her evident sincerity in spite of himself, and yet his wound was of long standing, his belief in her honesty shaken, his beloved wife in her grave, a.s.sisted to her final stroke by this girl's neglect, and he could not lay his bitterness aside easily. He did not speak.

The silence which followed was broken only by the ticking of the old-fas.h.i.+oned Seth Thomas clock and the roar of the fire.

Elizabeth looked around the familiar room in her dilemma, entangled in the mesh of her loyalty to her husband's dubious and misleading actions.

Nearly every article in that room was a.s.sociated with some tender recollection in the girl's mind. Not even the perplexity of the moment could entirely shut out the reminiscent side of the occasion. The bread-board, dusty and unused, leaned against the flour barrel, the little line above it where the dishtowels should hang sagged under the weight of a bridle hung there to warm the frosty bit, the rocking chair, mended with broom wire after the cyclone, and on its back Aunt Susan's chambray sunbonnet where it had fallen from its nail: all familiar. With a little cry Elizabeth fell on her knees by Nathan Hornby's side.

"Oh, Uncle Nate! you can't tell what others have to contend with, and--and you must not even ask, but----" She could not proceed for sobs.

Nathan Hornby's own face twitched and trembled with emotion. The girl had unconsciously used Susan's own last words. His heart was touched. Susan's great love for Elizabeth pleaded for her.

"Can't I come, Uncle Nate? Won't you be friends with me?"

And Nathan Hornby, who wanted her friends.h.i.+p, answered reluctantly:

"Yes-s-s--come along if you want t'. You won't find it a very cheerful place t' come to, but she'd be glad t' know you're here, I guess."

Jack, sitting in his shawls and wraps on the floor, began to cry. He had been neglected long enough. His mother got suddenly to her feet. Both stooped to take the baby. Elizabeth resigned him to Nathan, instinctively realizing that Jack was a good advocate in her favour if Nathan still retained fragments of his grievances. She let the old man retain him on his lap while she busied herself about him unpinning his shawls.