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

awaken a desire

for my society, then yearnings. My first error was in not giving myself time

to make a proper impression. He will soon begin to yield like the earth

without. First it is hard and frosty, then it is cold and muddy, if I may

permit myself so disagreeable an illustration. Now he is becoming mellow, and

soon every word I utter will be like good seed in good ground. How aptly it

all fits! I have only to be patient.”

 

She was finally left almost to utter idleness, for Jane and Mrs. Wiggins

gradually took from the incompetent hands even the light tasks which she had

attempted. She made no protest, regarding all as another proof that Holcroft

was beginning to recognize her superiority and unfitness for menial tasks.

She would maintain, however, her character as the caretaker and ostentatiously

inspected everything; she also tried to make as much noise in fastening up the

dwelling at night as if she were barricading a castle. Holcroft would listen

grimly, well aware that no house had been entered in Oakville during his

memory. He had taken an early occasion to say at the table that he wished no

one to enter his room except Jane, and that he would not permit any

infringement of this rule. Mrs. Mumpson’s feelings had been hurt at first by

this order, but she soon satisfied herself that it had been meant for Mrs.

Wiggins’ benefit and not her own. She found, however, that Jane interpreted

it literally. “If either of you set foot in that room, I’ll tell him,” she

said flatly. “I’ve had my orders and I’m a-goin’ to obey. There’s to be no

more rummagin’. If you’ll give me the keys I’ll put things back in order

ag’in.”

 

“Well, I won’t give you the keys. I’m the proper person to put things in

order if you did not replace them properly. You are just making an excuse to

rummage yourself. My motive for inspecting is very different from yours.”

 

“Shouldn’t wonder if you was sorry some day,” the girl had remarked, and so

the matter had dropped and been forgotten.

 

Holcroft solaced himself with the fact that Jane and Mrs. Wiggins served his

meals regularly and looked after the dairy with better care than it had

received since his wife died. “If I had only those two in the house, I could

get along first-rate,” he thought. “After the three months are up, I’ll try to

make such an arrangement. I’d pay the mother and send her off now, but if I

did, Lemuel Weeks would put her up to a lawsuit.”

 

April days brought the longed-for plowing and planting, and the farmer was so

busy and absorbed in his work that Mrs. Mumpson had less and less place in his

thoughts, even as a thorn in the flesh. One bright afternoon, however, chaos

came again unexpectedly. Mrs. Wiggins did not suggest a volatile creature,

yet such, alas! she was. She apparently exhaled and was lost, leaving no

trace. The circumstances of her disappearance permit of a very matter-of-fact

and not very creditable explanation. On the day in question she prepared an

unusually good dinner, and the farmer had enjoyed it in spite of Mrs.

Mumpson’s presence and desultory remarks. The morning had been fine and he

had made progress in his early spring work. Mrs. Wiggins felt that her hour

and opportunity had come. Following him to the door, she said in a low tone

and yet with a decisive accent, as if she was claiming a right, “Master, hi’d

thank ye for me two weeks’ wages.”

 

He unsuspectingly and unhesitatingly gave it to her, thinking, “That’s the way

with such people. They want to be paid often and be sure of their money.

She’ll work all the better for having it.”

 

Mrs. Wiggins knew the hour when the stage passed the house; she had made up a

bundle without a very close regard to meum or tuum, and was ready to flit.

The chance speedily came.

 

The “caretaker” was rocking in the parlor and would disdain to look, while

Jane had gone out to help plant some early potatoes on a warm hillside. The

coast was clear. Seeing the stage coming, the old woman waddled down the lane

at a remarkable pace, paid her fare to town, and the Holcroft kitchen knew her

no more.

 

That she found the “friend” she had wished to see on her way out to the farm,

and that this friend brought her quickly under Tom Watterly’s care again, goes

without saying.

 

As the shadows lengthened and the robins became tuneful, Holcroft said,

“You’ve done well, Jane. Thank you. Now you can go back to the house.”

 

The child soon returned in breathless haste to the field where the farmer was

covering the potato pieces she had dropped, and cried, “Mrs. Wiggins’s gone!”

 

Like a flash the woman’s motive in asking for her wages occurred to him, but

he started for the house to assure himself of the truth. “Perhaps she’s in the

cellar,” he said, remembering the cider barrel, “or else she’s out for a

walk.”

 

“No, she aint,” persisted Jane. “I’ve looked everywhere and all over the barn,

and she aint nowhere. Mother haint seen her, nuther.”

 

With dreary misgivings, Holcroft remembered that he no longer had a practical

ally in the old Englishwoman, and he felt that a new breaking up was coming.

He looked wistfully at Jane, and thought, “I COULD get along with that child

if the other was away. But that can’t be; SHE’D visit here indefinitely if

Jane stayed.”

 

When Mrs. Mumpson learned from Jane of Mrs. Wiggins’ disappearance, she was

thrown into a state of strong excitement. She felt that her hour and

opportunity might be near also, and she began to rock very fast. “What else

could he expect of such a female?” she soliloquized. “I’ve no doubt but she’s

taken things, too. He’ll now learn my value and what it is to have a

caretaker who will never desert him.”

 

Spirits and courage rose with the emergency; her thoughts hurried her along

like a dry leaf caught in a March gale. “Yes,” she murmured, “the time has

come for me to act, to dare, to show him in his desperate need and hour of

desertion what might be, may be, must be. He will now see clearly the

difference between these peculiar females who come and go, and a respecterble

woman and a mother who can be depended upon—one who will never steal away

like a thief in the night.”

 

She saw Holcroft approaching the house with Jane; she heard him ascend to Mrs.

Wiggins’ room, then return to the kitchen and ejaculate, “Yes, she’s gone,

sure enough.”

 

“Now, ACT!” murmured the widow, and she rushed toward the farmer with clasped

hands, and cried with emotion, “Yes, she’s gone; but I’m not gone. You are

not deserted. Jane will minister to you; I will be the caretaker, and our

home will be all the happier because that monstrous creature is absent. Dear

Mr. Holcroft, don’t be so blind to your own interests and happiness, don’t

remain undeveloped! Everything is wrong here if you would but see it. You

are lonely and desolate. Moth and rust have entered, things in unopened

drawers and closets are molding and going to waste. Yield to true female

influence and—”

 

Holcroft had been rendered speechless at first by this onslaught, but the

reference to unopened drawers and closets awakened a sudden suspicion. Had

she dared to touch what had belonged to his wife? “What!” he exclaimed

sharply, interrupting her; then with an expression of disgust and anger, he

passed her swiftly and went to his room. A moment later came the stern

summons, “Jane, come here!”

 

“Now you’ll see what’ll come of that rummagin’,” whimpered Jane. “You aint got

no sense at all to go at him so. He’s jes’ goin’ to put us right out,” and

she went upstairs as if to execution.

 

“Have I failed?” gasped Mrs. Mumpson, and retreating to the chair, she rocked

nervously.

 

“Jane,” said Holcroft in hot anger, “my wife’s things have been pulled out of

her bureau and stuffed back again as if they were no better than dishcloths.

Who did it?”

 

The child now began to cry aloud.

 

“There, there!” he said, with intense irritation, “I can’t trust you either.”

 

“I haint—touched ‘em—since you told me—told me—not to do things on the

sly,” the girl sobbed brokenly; but he had closed the door upon her and did

not hear.

 

He could have forgiven her almost anything but this. Since she only had been

permitted to take care of his room, he naturally thought that she had

committed the sacrilege, and her manner had confirmed this impression. Of

course, the mother had been present and probably had assisted; but he had

expected nothing better of her.

 

He took the things out, folded and smoothed them as carefully as he could with

his heavy hands and clumsy fingers. His gentle, almost reverent touch was in

strange contrast with his flushed, angry face and gleaming eyes. “This is the

worst that’s happened yet,” he muttered. “Oh, Lemuel Weeks! It’s well you are

not here now, or we might both have cause to be sorry. It was you who put

these prying, and for all I know, thieving creatures into my house, and it was

as mean a trick as ever one man played another. You and this precious cousin

of yours thought you could bring about a marriage; you put her up to her

ridiculous antics. Faugh! The very thought of it all makes me sick.”

 

“Oh, mother, what shall I do?” Jane cried, rushing into the parlor and

throwing herself on the floor, “he’s goin’ to put us right out.”

 

“He can’t put me out before the three months are up,” quavered the widow.

 

“Yes, he can. We’ve been a-rummagin’ where we’d no bizniss to be. He’s mad

enough to do anything; he jes’ looks awful; I’m afraid of him.”

 

“Jane,” said her mother plaintively, “I feel indisposed. I think I’ll

retire.”

 

“Yes, that’s the way with YOU,” sobbed the child. “You get me into the scrape

and now you retire.”

 

Mrs. Mumpson’s confidence in herself and her schemes was terribly shaken. “I

must act very discreetly. I must be alone that I may think over these

untoward events. Mr. Holcroft has been so warped by the past female

influences of his life that there’s no counting on his action. He taxes me

sorely,” she explained, and then ascended the stairs.

 

“Oh! Oh!” moaned the child as she writhed on the floor, “mother aint got no

sense at all. What IS goin’ to become of me? I’d ruther hang about his barn

than go back to Cousin Lemuel’s or any other cousin’s.”

 

Spurred by one hope, she at last sprung up and went to the kitchen. It was

already growing dark, and she lighted the lamp, kindled the fire, and began

getting supper with breathless energy.

 

As far as he could discover, Holcroft was satisfied that nothing had been

taken. In this respect he was right. Mrs. Mumpson’s curiosity and

covetousness were boundless, but she would not steal. There are few who do

not draw the line somewhere.

 

Having tried to put the articles back as they were before, he locked them up,

and went hastily down and out, feeling that he must regain his self-control

and decide upon his future action at once. “I will then carry out my purposes

in a way that will give the Weeks tribe no chance to make trouble.”

 

As he passed the kitchen windows he saw Jane rushing