Across the Years Part 10

"I know, William, I'm sorry," stammered the old man miserably.

"Oh, I can let you have it all right, father, and glad to," a.s.sured William, still frowning. "It's only that just at this time I'm a little short, and--" He stopped abruptly and thrust his hands into his pockets.

"Hm-m," he vouchsafed after a minute. "Well, I'll tell you what--I haven't got any now, but in a day or two I'll take you over to the village and see what Skinner's got that will fit you. Oh, we'll have some shoes, father, never fear!" he laughed. "You don't suppose I'm going to let my father go barefoot!--eh?" And he laughed again.

Things wore out that winter in the most unaccountable fas.h.i.+on--at least those belonging to Jeremiah and Hester did, especially undergarments.

One by one they came to mending, and one by one Hester mended them, patch upon patch, until sometimes there was left scarcely a thread of the original garment. Once she asked William for money to buy new ones, but it happened that William was again short, and though the money she had asked for came later, Hester did not make that same request again.

There were two things that Hester could not patch very successfully--her shoes. She fried to patch them to be sure, but the coa.r.s.e thread knotted in her shaking old hands, and the bits of leather--cut from still older shoes--slipped about and left her poor old thumb exposed to the sharp p.r.i.c.k of the needle, so that she finally gave it up in despair. She tucked her feet still farther under her chair these days when Jeremiah was near, and she pieced down two of her dress skirts so that they might touch the floor all round. In spite of all this, however, Jeremiah saw, one day--and understood.

"Hester," he cried sharply, "put out your foot."

Hester did not hear--apparently. She lowered the paper she was reading and laughed a little hysterically.

"Such a good joke, Jeremiah!" she quavered. "Just let me read it. A man--"

"Hester, be them the best shoes you've got?" demanded Jeremiah.

And Hester, with a wisdom born of fifty years' experience of that particular tone of voice, dropped her paper and her subterfuge, and said gently: "Yes, Jeremiah."

There was a moment's pause; then Jeremiah sprang to his feet, thrust his hands into his pockets, and paced the tiny bedroom from end to end.

"Hester, this thing's a-killin' me!" he blurted out at last. "Here I'm seventy-eight years old--an' I hain't got money enough ter buy my wife a pair of shoes!"

"But the farm, Jeremiah--"

"I tell ye the farm ain't mine," cut in Jeremiah savagely. "Look a-here, Hester, how do you s'pose it feels to a man who's paid his own way since he was a boy, bought a farm with his own money an' run it, brought up his boys an' edyercated 'em--how do ye s'pose it feels fur that man ter go ter his own son an' say: 'Please, sir, can't I have a nickel ter buy me a pair o' shoestrings?' How do ye s'pose it feels? I tell ye, Hester, I can't stand it--I jest can't! I'm goin' ter work."

"Jere-mi-ah!"

"Well, I am," repeated the old man doggedly. "You're goin' ter have some shoes, an' I'm goin' ter earn 'em. See if I don't!" And he squared his shoulders, and straightened his bent back as if already he felt the weight of a welcome burden.

Spring came, and with it long sunny days and the smell of green things growing. Jeremiah began to be absent day after day from the farmhouse.

The few tasks that he performed each morning were soon finished, and after that he disappeared, not to return until night. William wondered a little, but said nothing. Other and more important matters filled his mind.

Only Hester noticed that the old man's step grew more languid and his eye more dull; and only Hester knew that at night he was sometimes too tired to sleep--that he could not "seem ter hit the bed," as he expressed it.

It was at about this time that Hester began to make frequent visits to the half-dozen farmhouses in the settlement about them. She began to be wonderfully busy these days, too, knitting socks and mittens, or piecing up quilts. Sarah Ellen asked her sometimes what she was doing, but Hester's answers were always so cheery and bright that Sarah Ellen did not realize that the point was always evaded and the subject changed.

It was in May that the inevitable happened. William came home one day to find an excited, weeping wife who hurried him into the seclusion of their own room.

"William, William," she moaned, "what shall we do? It's father and mother; they've--oh, William, how can I tell you!" and she covered her face with her hands.

William paled under his coat of tan. He gripped his wife's arm with fingers that hurt.

"What is it--what's happened?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely. "They aren't hurt or--dead?"

"No, no," choked Sarah Ellen. "I didn't mean to frighten you. They're all right that way. They--they've _gone to work_! William, what _shall_ we do?"

Again William Whipple gripped his wife's arm with fingers that hurt.

"Sarah Ellen, quit that crying, for Heaven's sake! What does this mean?

What are you talking about?" he demanded.

Sarah Ellen sopped her eyes with her handkerchief and lifted her head.

"It was this morning. I was over to Maria Weston's," she explained brokenly. "Maria dropped something about a quilt mother was piecing for her, and when I asked her what in the world she meant, she looked queer, and said she supposed I knew. Then she tried to change the subject; but I wouldn't let her, and finally I got the whole story out of her."

"Yes, yes, go on," urged William impatiently, as Sarah Ellen paused for breath.

"It seems mother came to her a while ago, and--and she went to others, too. She asked if there wasn't some knitting or patchwork she could do for them. She said she--she wanted to earn some money." Sarah Ellen's voice broke over the last word, and William muttered something under his breath. "She said they'd lost all they had in the bank," went on Sarah Ellen hurriedly, "and that they didn't like to ask you for money."

"Why, I always let them have--" began William defensively; then he stopped short, a slow red staining his face.

"Yes, I know you have," interposed Sarah Ellen eagerly; "and I said so to Maria. But mother had already told her that, it seems. She said that mother said you were always glad to give it to them when they asked for it, but that it hurt father's pride to beg, so he'd gone to work to earn some of his own."

"Father!" exclaimed William. "But I thought you said 'twas mother.

Surely father isn't knitting socks and mittens, is he?"

"No, no," cried Sarah Ellen. "I'm coming to that as fast as I can. You see, 'twas father who went to work first. He's been doing all sorts of little odd jobs, even to staying with the Snow children while their folks went to town, and spading up Nancy Howe's flower beds for her. But it's been wearing on him, and he was getting all tired out. Only think of it, William--_working out--father and mother_! I just can't ever hold up my head again! What _shall_ we do?"

"Do? Why, we'll stop it, of course," declared William savagely. "I guess I can support my own father and mother without their working for a living!"

"But it's money, William, that they want. Don't you see?"

"Well, we'll give them money, then. I always have, anyway,--when they asked for it," finished William in an aggrieved voice.

Sarah Ellen shook her head.

"It won't do," she sighed. "It might have done once--but not now.

They've got to the point where they just can't accept money doled out to them like that. Why, just think, 't was all theirs once!"

"Well, 'tis now--in a way."

"I know--but we haven't acted as if it were. I can see that now, when it's too late."

"We'll give it back, then," cried William, his face clearing; "the whole blamed farm!"

Sarah Ellen frowned. She shook her head slowly, then paused, a dawning question in her eyes.

"You don't suppose--William, could we?" she cried with sudden eagerness.

"Well, we can try mighty hard," retorted the man grimly. "But we've got to go easy, Sarah Ellen,--no bungling. We've got to spin some sort of a yarn that won't break, nor have any weak places; and of course, as far as the real work of the farm is concerned, we'll still do the most of it. But the place'll be theirs. See?--theirs! _Working out_--good Heavens!"

It must have been a week later that Jeremiah burst into his wife's room.

Hester sat by the window, bending over numberless sc.r.a.ps of blue, red, and pink calico.

"Put it up, put it up, Hester," he panted joyously. "Ye hain't got to sew no more, an' I hain't neither. The farm is ours!"

"Why, Jeremiah, what--how--"