The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives Part 13

"Then down from the other world there shot a gleam of golden light that rested on a shadow, and w.i.l.l.y-nilly--not knowing, not caring, possibly resisting had they fully comprehended--mankind was endowed with another gift, and its name was Antic.i.p.ation. One face was dazzling in its radiance--that they called Hope; the other was deep with gloom, and that was Dread. With the coming of this gift the veil that hung athwart the future was pierced, and mankind saw as the G.o.ds see, not only what was, not alone what had been, but what was to be as well.

"And on a day when all went fair they clung to these three gifts--Realization, Memory, and Antic.i.p.ation--and thanked the gracious G.o.ds, but on another day, when Life pressed hard, they tried to fling them off and cried in bitter reproach: 'Why didst thou burden us with double-faced, tormenting creatures? Why wore they not a single face, and that a happy one?'

"Then down through the immeasurable quivering ether that veils eternity came the answering murmur, tender and pitiful as a strain of music upon a broken heart:

"'Thou canst not know--not yet--some day; for "now we see through a gla.s.s darkly, but then face to face."'"

And when the story was told Nannie was weeping, for all at once she knew where she stood--all at once looked backward and saw what she had done; looked forward and saw what was to come.

But betwixt herself and Constance there was a high stone wall, called Misunderstanding, and Constance did not scale this wall, and so lost one of the sweetest pleasures known to mortals--helping a fellow-being out of the dark into the light.

And Nannie hungered and went home unfed.

IX

It is a well-known fact that many a poor wretch has gone up to the very gate of Paradise, only to bound back again, as if either he himself or that bar to bliss were made of India rubber. Nothing could be more tantalizing or discouraging to the spirit, unless, indeed, it were the experience of many a despairing and hoping convalescent who is bandied about by the hand of fate with a shuttlec.o.c.k movement betwixt sickness and health.

Many of us feel good for an hour at a time, several hours occasionally, but to be good overnight--to waken in the morning with one's resolutions and aspirations as crisp and fresh as they were the evening before--is proof positive of regeneration.

Once in a while it occurs to the rebellious that things might have been made a trifle easier. For instance, if only one had to walk miles to meet the tempter, or if only he had the decency and dignity to demand that we meet him half way, instead of coming all the way himself and invading the privacy of our very homes. If only he would wear his horns and tail all the time, that we might know him on sight and realize what we are about when we go under, instead of slinking in clothed as an angel of light. Not that the Andersonvilles, as Nannie called the mother and son Anderson, looked like angels of light. On the contrary, they were as ugly as the evil one, but they were without horns or tails, and so not easily recognizable as that particular and very reprehensible person. And Nannie was lured by them to let loose her spirit of mischief.

We have mentioned neighbors once or twice before. Now, the biblical definition of neighbor covers a wide field, and all experience will bear me out in an a.s.sertion, that apart from numbers the word stands for all sizes, shapes, and varieties of human being. Nowadays most of us whisper the term crazy, realizing that we ourselves are liable to be caught up and incarcerated under that head. Nevertheless within ourselves we know that some of those about us--and we could point them out if we were asked--are trying to pa.s.s off cracked brains for sound ones.

Before Steve and Nannie had been domiciled more than a fortnight in their new abode, where they had fancied that their living was to be of the best, a fly appeared in the ointment, a fly which directly proved to be out of its mind--in other words, they discovered that they had crazy neighbors. Let no one understand me to signify by this the kind of crazy person who seizes you by the hair and brandishes his fist in your face, declaring that your hour has come. That is one variety, to be sure, an unpleasant variety, too; but there are others. If it came to a matter of weeding out all those whose brains were slightly out of gear, most of us could appear in court with a batch of crazy neighbors, thereby depriving a city of some of its princ.i.p.al men and society of some of its chief ornaments.

No one would like to do this, but when the crack in a neighbor's brains widens so as to seriously upset his notions of other people's rights, then he is bound to become not dangerous necessarily, but certainly troublesome, and some step must be taken in self-defense.

As Steve learned too late, he stood upon contested ground. The former owner being now in the insane asylum, and having, before she became unbalanced, deeded the property to her husband (who had subsequently sold it to Steve), she was temporarily out of the way, but it seemed that by some oversight she had left outside a mother and a brother, whom she should have taken in with her.

These relatives, as far as Steve was able to learn, never claimed that the transfer of property to the husband was invalid because the owner was at that time insane. Their claim was that she had not gone insane at all, and that she had, in a manner, been forced into deeding her property away, and consequently the transaction was null and void and she still owned it. A written doc.u.ment to this effect was posted on one of the largest trees near the house soon after the newly wedded pair moved out there, but Steve found upon investigation that this was but one of many threads forming a cobweb of prodigious size within the brains of these peculiar folk whose relative had outrun them to the asylum. Consequently he was disposed to dismiss the whole matter from his mind. Not so the crazy neighbors, for they continued to post the contested place with notices, and Nannie became habituated to plucking several of these legal _billets-doux_ from the trees every morning before breakfast.

All this was great sport for Nannie, but the trouble soon took a more serious turn. The outcome of this latter was an anonymous notification to Steve that if he failed to take down an obstruction which he had put across one of the roads on his place to prevent its being used as a public thoroughfare, he would be mobbed by a crowd of men and boys.

"This is a most extraordinary condition of affairs," said Steve one day in talking the matter over with Randolph Chance, "to be racing around with dogs and cutla.s.ses when you're supposed to be cooling your brow under your vine and fig-tree."

As if to add insult to injury, the Andersons, mother and son, made a pa.s.sageway of the place they claimed (in the name of their daughter and sister) and persisted in using this, in spite of remonstrance and even warning.

Now, for some time past Nannie had, by means best known to women, been contriving to fire Steve's usually placid temper, and the morning after her visit to Constance's an opportunity presented itself for the fanning of the flames she had kindled. On opening her door just after breakfast she saw mother Anderson and her son William land at the little private pier Steve had built, and then walk with a bold and rugged step up toward the house _en route_ to the station, some half mile to the rear.

Now was Nannie's chance!

Such fun to see Steve fight!

"Steve!" she screamed, running into the house, "here are those dreadful people again! They frighten me to death! I shall never dare to stay here alone if you don't make an end of their coming!"

Frightened! Ah, Nannie! with that bright color and those dancing eyes!

Steve ran out, his mind aflame at last as he thought of poor little Nannie's terrors and the offensive note he had received.

"See here, Anderson," he began, "you have been asked to keep away from this place. It has----"

But just here William, who had no regard for social amenities, cut his remarks short by a resounding slap in the face.

Steve had never fought in his life. He was rather ashamed of this (had never confessed it), and the time seemed ripe now to break his peace record. Drawing back, to give himself a greater spring, he landed a heavy blow somewhere in mid-air. Said locality surviving the attack, he withdrew to prepare a fresh onslaught.

Meanwhile he began to notice that he was being smartly thumped by the enemy, and he aimed a supreme effort in that direction.

His blow was not the "immortal pa.s.sado" mentioned by Mercutio, but rather the "punto reverso," for it landed him in the dust, while the enemy remained on high.

Just at this juncture mother Anderson put in her oar, literally as well as figuratively, for happening to have that instrument of navigation in her hand, she proceeded to belabor the prostrate Steve.

"Stop that!" screamed Nannie. "Oh, you bad, fiendish woman! Sick her, Brownie!"

And away went Brownie and attached himself firmly to Madam Anderson's train, and beginning a swift rotary movement, so bewildered the old lady that she lost both oar and enemy, and looked more like a pirouette dancer than a decorous upholder of the cause of individual freedom and public highways.

By this time Steve had regained his perpendicular, and tingling with mortification, started in and really did some inspired work. Taking the foe by the collar, he shook him as a cat would shake a rat.

"You little puppy! Get out of here!" he roared in a most unnatural voice.

Then with the oar (which mother Anderson had abandoned when she took to dancing) in one hand and the dangling enemy in the other, he proceeded down the slope, out upon the little pier, and after sousing the refractory William in the lake, dropped him into his boat.

"Now you follow him, and be off--both of you!" he said sternly to madam, who stood upon the pier, squawking like an old hen on the eve of decapitation.

She lost no time in obeying him, albeit she continued to work nature's bellows with great vigor as Steve threw in the oar he held and gave the boat an energetic thrust.

"Steve, you're a trump!" cried Nannie.

Steve looked at her aghast.

Was this the timid little creature he had been protecting? Evidently he was as much at sea on the feminine question as before marriage.

He walked slowly up to the house and managed to recover his breath before he was called for the next scene in this rural drama. Truth to tell he was disgusted, not because of the disgrace of a quarrel, but--alas for mankind in even his gentlest aspect!--because he had failed to get a crack at the enemy.

That evening near dinner-time the plot was thickened by the arrival of the sheriff, who bore a warrant for the entire Loveland family--dog included.

"If it hedn't been a new jestice she cudn't hev got it out," he said apologetically. "She's arrested everybody in sight agin and agin, includin' her own fam'ly. You hev yer meal now an' then come 'roun'

over ter the jestice's office."

Accordingly, after dinner Steve and Nannie walked over to the village, and after diligent search found the justice, who informed them that he "did hev a place fer ther trial, but they tuk it from him fer a show an' he was a-huntin' fer another."

This other being finally discovered, the criminals--Steve, Nannie and Brownie--were brought in, and William Anderson, being duly sworn, was perched up in an aged arm-chair and encouraged to unfold his tale of woe to a crowded house, for the room was full, and even the doors and windows were blocked by the heads of on-lookers.

"It was about eight o'clock in the morning," William began in a high, cracked voice--possibly his neck was still dislocated. "My mother and myself were on our way to meet some friends whom we expected on the next train. Landing at the pier, we proceeded up toward the cottage now fraudulently occupied by these people." (Here he pointed impressively at the wicked ones, whereupon Brownie, who resented this, barked fiercely and was promptly smothered by the Court.) "Rounding a corner we encountered this man" (another indication with that powerful index finger), "who immediately fell upon me with great fe-roc-i-ty. First he struck me mightily here--then he gave me a terrific blow here--then one of unparalleled strength here."

By this time Steve was bridling up and looking like a conquering hero.

He really had hit the man! It was the first time he or any one else had known it.