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

her

apparel had been examined and commented on; her wedding ring had been seen and

its absence soon noted, for Alida, after gaining the power to recall the past

fully, had thrown away the metal lie, feeling that it was the last link in a

chain binding her to a loathed and hated relationship. Learning from their

questions that the inmates of the almshouse did not know her history, she

refused to reveal it, thus awakening endless surmises. Many histories were

made for her, the beldams vying with each other in constructing the worst one.

Poor Alida soon learned that there was public opinion even in an almshouse,

and that she was under its ban. In dreary despondency she thought, “They’ve

found out about me. If such creatures as these think I’m hardly fit to speak

to, how can I ever find work among good, respectable people?”

 

Her extreme depression, the coarse, vulgar, and uncharitable natures by which

she was surrounded, retarded her recovery. By her efforts to do anything in

her power for others she disarmed the hostility of some of the women, and

those that were more or less demented became fond of her; but the majority

probed her wound by every look and word. She was a saint compared with any of

these, yet they made her envy their respectability. She often thought, “Would

to God that I was as old and ready to die as the feeblest woman here, if I

could only hold up my head like her!”

 

One day a woman who had a child left it sleeping in its rude wooden cradle and

went downstairs. The babe wakened and began to cry. Alida took it up and

found a strange solace in rocking it to sleep again upon her breast. At last

the mother returned, glared a moment into Alida’s appealing eyes, then

snatched the child away with the cruel words, “Don’t ye touch my baby ag’in!

To think it ud been in the arms o’ the loikes o’ye!”

 

Alida went away and sobbed until her strength was gone. She found that there

were some others ostracized like herself, but they accepted their position as

a matter of course—as if it belonged to them and was the least of their

troubles.

 

Her strength was returning, yet she was still feeble when she sent for Mrs.

Watterly and asked, “Do you think I’m strong enough to take a place

somewhere?”

 

“You ought to know that better than me,” was the chilly reply.

 

“Do you—do you think I could get a place? I would be willing to do any kind

of honest work not beyond my strength.”

 

“You hardly look able to sit up straight. Better wait till you’re stronger.

I’ll tell my husband. If applications come, he’ll see about it,” and she

turned coldly away.

 

A day or two later Tom came and said brusquely, but not unkindly, “Don’t like

my hotel, hey? What can you do?”

 

“I’m used to sewing, but I’d try to do almost anything by which I could earn

my living.”

 

“Best thing to do is to prosecute that scamp and make him pay you a good round

sum.”

 

She shook her head decidedly. “I don’t wish to see him again. I don’t wish to

go before people and have the—the—past talked about. I’d like a place with

some kind, quiet people who keep no other help. Perhaps they wouldn’t take me

if they knew; but I would be so faithful to them, and try so heard to learn

what they wanted—”

 

“That’s all nonsense, their not taking you. I’ll find you a place some day,

but you’re not strong enough yet. You’d be brought right back here. You’re

as pale as a ghost—almost look like one. So don’t be impatient, but give me

a chance to find you a good place. I feel sorry for you, and don’t want you

to get among folks that have no feelings. Don’t you worry now; chirk up, and

you’ll come out all right.”

 

“I—I think that if—if I’m employed, the people who take me ought to know,”

said Alida with bowed head.

 

“They’ll be blamed fools if they don’t think more of you when they do know,”

was his response. “Still, that shall be as you please. I’ve told only my

wife, and they’ve kept mum at the police station, so the thing hasn’t got into

the papers.”

 

Alida’s head bowed lower still as she replied, “I thank you. My only wish now

is to find some quiet place in which I can work and be left to myself.”

 

“Very well,” said Tom good-naturedly. “Cheer up! I’ll be on the lookout for

you.”

 

She turned to the window near which she was sitting to hide the tears which

his rough kindness evoked. “He don’t seem to shrink from me as if I wasn’t fit

to be spoken to,” she thought; “but his wife did. I’m afraid people won’t

take me when they know.”

 

The April sunshine poured in at the window; the grass was becoming green; a

robin alighted on a tree nearby and poured out a jubilant song. For a few

moments hope, that had been almost dead in her heart, revived. As she looked

gratefully at the bird, thanking it in her heart for the song, it darted upon

a string hanging on an adjacent spray and bore it to a crotch between two

boughs. Then Alida saw it was building a nest. Her woman’s heart gave way.

“Oh,” she moaned, “I shall never have a home again! No place shared by one

who cares for me. To work, and to be tolerated for the sake of my work, is

all that’s left.”

 

Chapter XIV. A Pitched Battle

 

It was an odd household under Holcroft’s roof on the evening of the Sunday we

have described. The farmer, in a sense, had “taken sanctuary” in his own

room, that he might escape the maneuvering wiles of his tormenting

housekeeper. If she would content herself with general topics he would try to

endure her foolish, high-flown talk until the three months expired; but that

she should speedily and openly take the initiative in matrimonial designs was

proof of such an unbalanced mind that he was filled with nervous dread.

“Hanged if one can tell what such a silly, hairbrained woman will do next!” he

thought, as he brooded by the fire. “Sunday or no Sunday, I feel as if I’d

like to take my horsewhip and give Lemuel Weeks a piece of my mind.”

 

Such musings did not promise well for Mrs. Mumpson, scheming in the parlor

below; but, as we have seen, she had the faculty of arranging all future

events to her mind. That matters had not turned out in the past as she had

expected, counted for nothing. She was one who could not be taught, even by

experience. The most insignificant thing in Holcroft’s dwelling had not

escaped her scrutiny and pretty accurate guess as to value, yet she could not

see or understand the intolerable disgust and irritation which her ridiculous

conduct excited. In a weak mind egotism and selfishness, beyond a certain

point, pass into practical insanity. All sense of delicacy, of the fitness of

things, is lost; even the power to consider the rights and feelings of others

is wanting. Unlike poor Holcroft, Mrs. Mumpson had few misgivings in regard

to coming years. As she rocked unceasingly before the parlor fire, she

arranged everything in regard to his future as well as her own.

 

Jane, quite forgotten, was oppressed with a miserable presentiment of evil.

Her pinched but intense little mind was concentrated on two facts—Holcroft’s

anger and her mother’s lack of sense. From such premises it did not take her

long to reason out but one conclusion—“visitin’ again;” and this was the

summing up of all evils. Now and then a tear would force its way out of one

of her little eyes, but otherwise she kept her troubles to herself.

 

Mrs. Wiggins was the only complacent personage in the house, and she unbent

with a garrulous affability to Jane, which could be accounted for in but one

way—Holcroft had forgotten about his cider barrel, thereby unconsciously

giving her the chance to sample its contents freely. She was now smoking her

pipe with much content, and indulging in pleasing reminiscences which the

facts of her life scarcely warranted.

 

“Ven hi vas as leetle a gal as ye are,” she began, and then she related

experiences quite devoid of the simplicity and innocence of childhood. The

girl soon forgot her fears and listened with avidity until the old dame’s face

grew heavier, if possible, with sleep, and she stumbled off to bed.

 

Having no wish to see or speak to her mother again, the child blew out the

candle and stole silently up the stairway. At last Mrs. Mumpson took her

light and went noisily around, seeing to the fastenings of doors and windows.

“I know he is listening to every sound from me, and he shall learn what a

caretaker I am,” she murmured softly.

 

Once out of doors in the morning, with his foot on the native heath of his

farm, Holcroft’s hopefulness and courage always returned. He was half angry

with himself at his nervous irritation of the evening before. “If she becomes

so cranky that I can’t stand her, I’ll pay the three months’ wages and clear

her out,” he had concluded, and he went about his morning work with a grim

purpose to submit to very little nonsense.

 

Cider is akin to vinegar, and Mrs. Wiggins’ liberal potations of the evening

before had evidently imparted a marked acidity to her temper. She laid hold

of the kitchen utensils as if she had a spite against them, and when Jane,

confiding in her friendliness shown so recently, came down to assist, she was

chased out of doors with language we forbear to repeat. Mrs. Mumpson,

therefore, had no intimation of the low state of the barometer in the region

of the kitchen. “I have taken time to think deeply and calmly,” she murmured.

“The proper course has been made clear to me. He is somewhat uncouth; he is

silent and unable to express his thoughts and emotions—in brief, undeveloped;

he is awfully irreligious. Moth and rust are busy in this house; much that

would be so useful is going to waste. He must learn to look upon me as the

developer, the caretaker, a patient and healthful embodiment of female

influence. I will now begin actively my mission of making him an ornerment to

society. That mountainous Mrs. Viggins must be replaced by a deferential girl

who will naturally look up to me. How can I be a true caretaker—how can I

bring repose and refinement to this dwelling with two hundred pounds of female

impudence in my way? Mr. Holcroft shall see that Mrs. Viggins is an unseemly

and jarring discord in our home,” and she brought the rocking chair from the

parlor to the kitchen, with a serene and lofty air. Jane hovered near the

window, watching.

 

At first, there was an ominous silence in respect to words. Portentous sounds

increased, however, for Mrs. Wiggins strode about with martial tread, making

the boards creak and the dishes clatter, while her red eyes shot lurid and

sanguinary gleams. She would seize a dipper as if it were a foe, slamming it

upon the table again as if striking an enemy. Under her vigorous

manipulation, kettles and pans resounded with reports like firearms.

 

Mrs. Mumpson was evidently perturbed; her calm superiority was forsaking her;

every moment she rocked faster—a sure indication that she was not at peace.

At last she said, with great dignity: “Mrs. Viggins, I must request you to

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