He Fell In Love With His Wife, Edward Payson Roe [children's books read aloud .TXT] 📗

will be patient and, by the proper use of language, place

everything eventually before him in a way that will cause him to yield in glad

submission to my views of the duties, the privileges, and the

responserbilities of life.”

 

So active was Mrs. Mumpson’s mind that this train of thought was complete by

the time she had ensconced herself in the rocking chair by the fireless

kitchen stove. Once more Jane seized her hand and dragged her up. “You must

help,” said the child. “I ‘spect him every minnit and I’m scart half to death

to think what he’ll do, ‘specially if he finds out we’ve been rummagin’.”

 

“Jane,” said Mrs. Mumpson severely, “that is not a proper way of expressing

yourself. I am housekeeper here, and I’ve been inspecting.”

 

“Shall I tell him you’ve been inspectin’?” asked the girl keenly.

 

“Children of your age should speak when they are spoken to,” replied her

mother, still more severely. “You cannot comprehend my motives and duties, and

I should have to punish you if you passed any remarks upon my actions.”

 

“Well,” said Jane apprehensively, “I only hope we’ll soon have a chance to fix

up them drawers, for if he should open ‘em we’d have to tramp again, and we

will anyway if you don’t help me get supper.”

 

“You are mistaken, Jane,” responded Mrs. Mumpson with dignity. “We shall not

leave this roof for three months, and that will give me ample time to open his

eyes to his true interests. I will condescend to these menial tasks until he

brings a girl who will yield the deference due to my years and station in

life.”

 

Between them, after filling the room with smoke, they kindled the kitchen

fire. Jane insisted on making the coffee and then helped her mother to

prepare the rest of the supper, doing, in fact, the greater part of the work.

Then they sat down to wait, and they waited so long that Mrs. Mumpson began to

express her disapproval by rocking violently. At last, she said severely,

“Jane, we will partake of supper alone.”

 

“I’d ruther wait till he comes.”

 

“It’s not proper that we should wait. He is not showing me due respect.

Come, do as I command.”

 

Mrs. Mumpson indulged in lofty and aggrieved remarks throughout the meal and

then returned to her rocker. At last, her indignant sense of wrong reached

such a point that she commanded Jane to clear the table and put away the

things.

 

“I won’t,” said the child.

 

“What! Will you compel me to chastise you?”

 

“Well, then, I’ll tell him it was all your doin’s.”

 

“I shall tell him so myself. I shall remonstrate with him. The idea of his

coming home alone at this time of night with an unknown female!”

 

“One would think you was his aunt, to hear you talk,” remarked the girl

sullenly.

 

“I am a respecterble woman and most respecterbly connected. My character and

antercedents render me irrerproachful.—This could not be said of a hussy, and

a hussy he’ll probably bring—some flighty, immerture female that will tax

even MY patience to train.”

 

Another hour passed, and the frown on Mrs. Mumpson’s brow grew positively

awful. “To think,” she muttered, “that a man whom I have deemed it my duty to

marry should stay out so and under such peculiar circumstances. He must have

a lesson which he can never forget.” Then aloud, to Jane, “Kindle a fire on

the parlor hearth and let this fire go out. He must find us in the most

respecterble room in the house—a room befitting my station.”

 

“I declare, mother, you aint got no sense at all!” exclaimed the child,

exasperated beyond measure.

 

“I’ll teach you to use such unrerspectful language!” cried Mrs. Mumpson,

darting from her chair like a hawk and pouncing upon the unhappy child.

 

With ears tingling from a cuffing she could not soon forget, Jane lighted the

parlor fire and sat down sniffling in the farthest corner.

 

“There shall be only one mistress in this house,” said Mrs. Mumpson, who had

now reached the loftiest plane of virtuous indignation, “and its master shall

learn that his practices reflect upon even me as well as himself.”

 

At last the sound of horses’ feet were heard on the wet, oozy ground without.

The irate widow did not rise, but merely indicated her knowledge of Holcroft’s

arrival by rocking more rapidly.

 

“Hello, there, Jane!” he shouted, “bring a light to the kitchen.”

 

“Jane, remain!” said Mrs. Mumpson, with an awful look.

 

Holcroft stumbled through the dark kitchen to the parlor door and looked with

surprise at the group before him,—Mrs. Mumpson apparently oblivious and

rocking as if the chair was possessed, and the child crying in a corner.

 

“Jane, didn’t you hear me call for a light?” he asked a little sharply.

 

Mrs. Mumpson rose with great dignity and began, “Mr. Holcroft, I wish to

remonstrate—”

 

“Oh, bother! I’ve brought a woman to help you, and we’re both wet through

from this driving rain.”

 

“You’ve brought a strange female at this time of—”

 

Holcroft’s patience gave say, but he only said quietly, “You had better have a

light in the kitchen within two minutes. I warn you both. I also wish some

hot coffee.”

 

Mrs. Mumpson had no comprehension of a man who could be so quiet when he was

angry, and she believed that she might impress him with a due sense of the

enormity of his offense. “Mr. Holcroft, I scarcely feel that I can meet a girl

who has no more sense of decorum than to—” But Jane, striking a match,

revealed the fact that she was speaking to empty air.

 

Mrs. Wiggins was at last so far aroused that she was helped from the wagon and

came shivering and dripping toward the kitchen. She stood a moment in the

doorway and filled it, blinking confusedly at the light. There was an absence

of celerity in all Mrs. Wiggins’ movements, and she was therefore slow in the

matter of waking up. Her aspect and proportions almost took away Mrs.

Mumpson’s breath. Here certainly was much to superintend, much more than had

been anticipated. Mrs. Wiggins was undoubtedly a “peculiar female,” as had

been expected, but she was so elderly and monstrous that Mrs. Mumpson felt

some embarrassment in her purpose to overwhelm Holcroft with a sense of the

impropriety of his conduct.

 

Mrs. Wiggins took uncertain steps toward the rocking chair, and almost crushed

it as she sat down. “Ye gives a body a cold velcome,” she remarked, rubbing

her eyes.

 

Mrs. Mumpson had got out of her way as a minnow would shun a leviathan. “May I

ask your name?” she gasped.

 

“Viggins, Mrs. Viggins.”

 

“Oh, indeed! You are a married woman?”

 

“No, hi’m a vidder. What’s more, hi’m cold, and drippin’, an’ ‘ungry. Hi

might ‘a’ better stayed at the poor-us than come to a place like this.”

 

“What!” almost screamed Mrs. Mumpson, “are you a pauper?”

 

“Hi tell ye hi’m a vidder, an’ good as you be, for hall he said,” was the

sullen reply.

 

“To think that a respecterbly connected woman like me—” But for once Mrs.

Mumpson found language inadequate. Since Mrs. Wiggins occupied the rocking

chair, she hardly knew what to do and plaintively declared, “I feel as if my

whole nervous system was giving way.”

 

“No ‘arm ‘ll be done hif hit does,” remarked Mrs. Wiggins, who was not in an

amiable mood.

 

“This from the female I’m to superintend!” gasped the bewildered woman.

 

Her equanimity was still further disturbed by the entrance of the farmer, who

looked at the stove with a heavy frown.

 

“Why in the name of common sense isn’t there a fire?” he asked, “and supper on

the table? Couldn’t you hear that it was raining and know we’d want some

supper after a long, cold ride?”

 

“Mr. Holcroft,” began the widow, in some trepidation, “I don’t approve—such

irregular habits—”

 

“Madam,” interrupted Holcroft sternly, “did I agree to do what you approved

of? Your course is so peculiar that I scarcely believe you are in your right

mind. You had better go to your room and try to recover your senses. If I

can’t have things in this house to suit me, I’ll have no one in it. Here,

Jane, you can help.”

 

Mrs. Mumpson put her handkerchief to her eyes and departed. She felt that

this display of emotion would touch Holcroft’s feelings when he came to think

the scene all over.

 

Having kindled the fire, he said to Jane, “You and Mrs. Wiggins get some

coffee and supper in short order, and have it ready when I come in,” and he

hastened out to care for his horses. If the old woman was slow, she knew just

how to make every motion effective, and a good supper was soon ready.

 

“Why didn’t you keep up a fire, Jane?” Holcroft asked.

 

“She wouldn’t let me. She said how you must be taught a lesson,” replied the

girl, feeling that she must choose between two potentates, and deciding

quickly in favor of the farmer. She had been losing faith in her mother’s

wisdom a long time, and this night’s experience had banished the last shred of

it.

 

Some rather bitter words rose to Holcroft’s lips, but he restrained them. He

felt that he ought not to disparage the mother to the child. As Mrs. Wiggins

grew warm, and imbibed the generous coffee, her demeanor thawed perceptibly

and she graciously vouchsafed the remark, “Ven you’re hout late hag’in hi’ll

look hafter ye.”

 

Mrs. Mumpson had not been so far off as not to hear Jane’s explanation, as the

poor child found to her cost when she went up to bed.

 

Chapter X. A Night of Terror

 

As poor, dazed, homeless Alida passed out into the street after the revelation

that she was not a wife and never had been, she heard a voice say, “Well,

Hanner wasn’t long in bouncing the woman. I guess we’d better go up now.

Ferguson will need a lesson that he won’t soon forget.”

 

The speaker of these words was Mrs. Ferguson’s brother, William Hackman, and

his companion was a detective. The wife had laid her still sleeping child

down on the lounge and was coolly completing Alida’s preparations for dinner.

Her husband had sunk back into a chair and again buried his face in his hands.

He looked up with startled, bloodshot eyes as his brother-in-law and the

stranger entered, and then resumed his former attitude.

 

Mrs. Ferguson briefly related what had happened, and then said, “Take chairs

and draw up.”

 

“I don’t want any dinner,” muttered the husband.

 

Mr. William Hackman now gave way to his irritation. Turning to his brother,

he relieved his mind as follows: “See here, Hank Ferguson, if you hadn’t the

best wife in the land, this gentleman would now be giving you a promenade to

jail. I’ve left my work for weeks, and spent a sight of money to see that my

sister got her rights, and, by thunder! she’s going to have ‘em. We’ve

agreed to give you a chance to brace up and be a man. If we find out there

isn’t any man in you, then you go to prison and hard labor to the full extent

of the law. We’ve fixed things so you can’t play any more tricks. This man

is a private detective. As long as you do the square thing by your wife and

child, you’ll be let alone. If you try to sneak off, you’ll be nabbed. Now,

if you aint