He Fell In Love With His Wife by Edward Payson Roe (best books to read for students TXT) đź“–
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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,
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