He Fell In Love With His Wife, Edward Payson Roe [children's books read aloud .TXT] 📗
- Author: Edward Payson Roe
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the morning? I hope you haven’t overtaxed yourself.”
“No, only a little of just the right kind of tired feeling.”
“Haven’t you left anything for me to do?”
“Perhaps. You will know when I’ve put all on the table. What I’ve prepared
is ready.”
“Well, this is famous. I’ll go and wash and fix up a little and be right
down.”
When Holcroft returned, he looked at her curiously, for he felt that he, too,
was getting acquainted. Her thin face was made more youthful by color; a
pleased look was in her blue eyes, and a certain neatness and trimness about
her dress to which he had not been accustomed. He scanned the table
wonderingly, for things were not put upon it at haphazard; the light biscuits
turned their brown cheeks invitingly toward him,—she had arranged that they
should do that,—the ham was crisp, not sodden, and the omelet as russet as a
November leaf. “This is a new dish,” he said, looking at it closely. “What do
you call it?”
“Omelet. Perhaps you won’t like it, but mother used to be very fond of it.”
“No matter. We’ll have it if you like it and it brings you pleasant thoughts
of your mother.” Then he took a good sip of coffee and set the cup down again
as he had before under the Mumpson regime, but with a very different
expression. She looked anxiously at him, but was quickly reassured. “I
thought I knew how to make coffee, but I find I don’t. I never tasted
anything so good as that. How DO you make it?”
“Just as mother taught me.”
“Well, well! And you call this making a beginning? I just wish I could give
Tom Watterly a cup of this coffee. It would set his mind at rest. ‘By
jocks!’ he would say, ‘isn’t this better than going it alone?’”
She looked positively happy under this sweet incense to a housewifely heart.
She was being paid in the coin that women love best, and it was all the more
precious to her because she had never expected to receive it again.
He did like the omelet; he liked everything, and, after helping her liberally,
cleared the table, then said he felt equal to doing two men’s work. Before
going out to his work, he lighted a fire on the parlor hearth and left a good
supply of fuel beside it. “Now, Alida,” he remarked humorously, “I’ve already
found out that you have one fault that you and I will have to watch against.
You are too willing. I fear you’ve gone beyond your strength this morning. I
don’t want you to do a thing today except to get the meals, and remember, I
can help in this if you don’t feel well. There is a fire in the parlor, and
I’ve wheeled the lounge up by it. Take it quietly today, and perhaps tomorrow
I can begin to show you about butter-making.”
“I will do as you wish,” she replied, “but please show me a little more where
things are before you go out.”
This he did and added, “You’ll find the beef and some other things on a
swing-shelf in the cellar. The potato bins are down there, too. But don’t
try to get up much dinner. What comes quickest and easiest will suit me. I’m
a little backward with my work and must plow all day for oats. It’s time they
were in. After such a breakfast, I feel as if I had eaten a bushel myself.”
A few moments later she saw him going up the lane, that continued on past the
house, with his stout team and the plow, and she smiled as she heard him
whistling “Coronation” with levity, as some good people would have thought.
Plowing and planting time had come and under happier auspices, apparently,
than he had ever imagined possible again. With the lines about his neck, he
began with a sidehill plow at the bottom of a large, sloping field which had
been in corn the previous year, and the long, straight furrows increased from
a narrow strip to a wide, oblong area. “Ah,” said he in tones of strong
satisfaction, “the ground crumbles freely; it’s just in the right condition.
I’ll quit plowing this afternoon in time to harrow and sow all the ground
that’s ready. Then, so much’ll be all done and well done. It’s curious how
seed, if it goes into the ground at the right time and in the right way, comes
right along and never gets discouraged. I aint much on scientific farming,
but I’ve always observed that when I sow or plant as soon as the ground is
ready, I have better luck.”
The horses seemed infected by his own brisk spirit, stepping along without
urging, and the farmer was swept speedily into the full, strong current of his
habitual interests.
One might have supposed the recent events would have the uppermost place in
his thoughts, but this was not true. He rather dwelt upon them as the
unexpectedly fortunate means to the end now attained. This was his life, and
he was happy in the thought that his marriage promised to make this life not
merely possible, but prosperous and full of quiet content.
The calling of the born agriculturist, like that of the fisherman, has in it
the element of chance and is therefore full of moderate yet lasting
excitement. Holcroft knew that, although he did his best, much would depend
on the weather and other causes. He had met with disappointments in his
crops, and had also achieved what he regarded as fine successes, although they
would have seemed meager on a Western prairie. Every spring kindled anew his
hopefulness and anticipation. He watched the weather with the interested and
careful scrutiny of a sailor, and it must be admitted that his labor and its
results depended more on natural causes than upon his skill and the careful
use of the fertilizers. He was a farmer of the old school, the traditions
received from his father controlled him in the main. Still, his good common
sense and long experience stood him fairly well in the place of science and
knowledge of improved methods, and he was better equipped than the man who has
in his brain all that the books can teach, yet is without experience. Best of
all, he had inherited and acquired an abiding love of the soil; he never could
have been content except in its cultivation; he was therefore in the right
condition to assimilate fuller knowledge and make the most of it.
He knew well enough when it was about noon. From long habit he would have
known had the sky been overcast, but now his glance at the sun was like
looking at a watch. Dusty and begrimed he followed his team to the barn,
slipped from them their headstalls and left them to amuse themselves with a
little hay while they cooled sufficiently for heartier food. “Well now,” he
mused, “I wonder what that little woman has for dinner? Another new dish,
like enough. Hanged if I’m fit to go in the house, and she looking so trim
and neat. I think I’ll first take a souse in the brook,” and he went up
behind the house where an unfailing stream gurgled swiftly down from the
hills. At the nearest point a small basin had been hollowed out, and as he
approached he saw two or three speckled trout darting away through the limpid
water.
“Aha!” he muttered, “glad you reminded me. When SHE’S stronger, she may enjoy
catching our supper some afternoon. I must think of all the little things I
can to liven her up so she won’t get dull. It’s curious how interested I am
to know how she’s got along and what she has for dinner. And to think that,
less than a week ago, I used to hate to go near the house!”
As he entered the hall on his way to his room, that he might make himself more
presentable, an appetizing odor greeted him and Alida smiled from the kitchen
door as she said, “Dinner’s ready.”
Apparently she had taken him at his word, as she had prepared little else than
an Irish stew, yet when he had partaken of it, he thought he would prefer
Irish stews from that time onward indefinitely. “Where did you learn to cook,
Alida?” he asked.
“Mother wasn’t very strong and her appetite often failed her. Then, too, we
hadn’t much to spend on our table so we tried to make simple things taste
nice. Do you like my way of preparing that old-fashioned dish?”
“I’m going to show you how I like it,” he replied, nodding approvingly. “Well,
what have you been doing besides tempting me to eat too much?”
“What you said, resting. You told me not to get up much of a dinner, so I
very lazily prepared what you see. I’ve been lying on the lounge most of the
morning.”
“Famous, and you feel better?”
“Yes, I think I shall soon get well and strong,” she replied, looking at him
gratefully.
“Well, well! My luck’s turned at last. I once thought it never would, but if
this goes on—well, you can’t know what a change it is for the better. I can
now put my mind on my work.”
“You’ve been plowing all the morning, haven’t you?” she ventured, and there
was the pleased look in her eyes that he already liked to see.
“Yes,” he replied, “and I must keep at it several days to get in all the oats
I mean to sow. If this weather holds, I shall be through next week.”
“I looked in the milk-room a while ago. Isn’t there anything I could do there
this afternoon?”
“No. I’ll attend to everything there. It’s too damp for you yet. Keep on
resting. Why, bless me! I didn’t think you’d be well enough to do anything
for a week.”
“Indeed,” she admitted, “I’m surprised at myself. It seems as if a crushing
weight had been lifted off my mind and that I was coming right up. I’m so
glad, for I feared I might be feeble and useless a long time.”
“Well, Alida, if you had been, or if you ever are, don’t think I’ll be
impatient. The people I can’t stand are those who try to take advantage of
me, and I tell you I’ve had to contend with that disposition so long that I
feel as if I could do almost anything for one who is simply honest and tries
to keep her part of an agreement. But this won’t do. I’ve enjoyed my own
dinner so much that I’ve half forgotten that the horses haven’t had theirs
yet. Now will you scold if I light my pipe before I go out?”
“Oh, no! I don’t mind that.”
“No good-natured fibs! Isn’t smoke disagreeable?”
She shook her head. “I don’t mind it at all,” she said, but her sudden
paleness puzzled him. He could not know that he had involuntarily recalled
the many times that she had filled the evening pipe for a man who now haunted
her memory like a specter.
“I guess you don’t like it very much,” he said, as he passed out. “Well, no
matter! It’s getting so mild that I can smoke out of doors.”
With the exception of the episode of dinner the day was chiefly passed by
Alida in a health-restoring languor, the natural reaction from the distress
and strong excitements of the past. The rest that had been enjoined
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