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

upon her

was a blessed privilege, and still more happy was the truth that she could

rest. Reclining on the lounge in the parlor, with a wood fire on one side and

the April sun on the other, both creating warmth and good cheer, she felt like

those who have just escaped from a wreck and engulfing waves. Her mind was

too weary to question either the past or the future, and sometimes a

consciousness of safety is happiness in itself. In the afternoon, the

crackling of the fire and the calling and singing of the birds without formed

a soothing lullaby and she fell asleep.

 

At last, in a dream, she heard exquisite music which appeared to grow so loud,

strong, and triumphant that she started up and looked around bewildered. A

moment later, she saw that a robin was singing in a lilac bush by the window

and that near the bird was a nest partially constructed. She recalled her

hopeless grief when she had last seen the building of one of their little

homes; and she fell upon her knees with a gratitude too deep for words, and

far more grateful to Heaven than words.

 

Stepping out on the porch, she saw by the shadows that the sun was low in the

west and that Holcroft was coming down the lane with his horses. He nodded

pleasantly as he passed on to the barn. Her eyes followed him lingeringly

till he disappeared, and then they ranged over the wide valley and the wooded

hills in the distance. Not a breath of air was stirring; the lowing of cattle

and other rural sounds softened by distance came from other farmhouses; the

birds were at vespers, and their songs, to her fancy, were imbued with a

softer, sweeter melody than in the morning. From the adjacent fields came

clear, mellow notes that made her nerves tingle, so ethereal yet penetrating

were they. She was sure she had never heard such bird music before. When

Holcroft came in to supper she asked, “What birds are those that sing in the

field?”

 

“Meadow larks. Do you like them?”

 

“I never heard a hymn sung that did me more good.”

 

“Well, I own up, I’d rather hear ‘em than much of the singing we used to have

down at the meeting house.”

 

“It seems to me,” she remarked, as she sat down at the table, “that I’ve never

heard birds sing as they have today.”

 

“Now I think of it, they have been tuning up wonderfully. Perhaps they’ve an

idea of my good luck,” he added smilingly.

 

“I had thought of that about myself,” she ventured. “I took a nap this

afternoon, and a robin sang so near the window that he woke me up. It was a

pleasant way to be waked.”

 

“Took a nap, did you? That’s famous! Well, well! This day’s gone just to

suit me, and I haven’t had many such in a good while, I can tell you. I’ve

got in a big strip of oats, and now, when I come in tired, here’s a good

supper. I certainly shall have to be on the watch to do Tom Watterly good

turns for talking me into this business. That taking a nap was a first-rate

idea. You ought to keep it up for a month.”

 

“No, indeed! There’s no reason why you should work hard and I be idle. I’ve

rested today, as you wished, and I feel better than I ever expected to again;

but tomorrow I must begin in earnest. What use is there of your keeping your

cows if good butter is not made? Then I must be busy with my needle.”

 

“Yes, that’s true enough. See how thoughtless I am! I forgot you hadn’t any

clothes to speak of. I ought to take you to town to a dressmaker.”

 

“I think you had better get your oats in,” she replied, smiling shyly.

“Besides, I have a dressmaker that just suits me—one that’s made my dresses a

good many years.”

 

“If she don’t suit you, you’re hard to be suited,” said he, laughing. “Well,

some day, after you are fixed up, I shall have to let you know how dilapidated

I am.”

 

“Won’t you do me a little favor?”

 

“Oh, yes! A dozen of ‘em, big or little.”

 

“Please bring down this evening something that needs mending. I am so much

better—”

 

“No, no! I wasn’t hinting for you to do anything tonight.”

 

“But you’ve promised me,” she urged. “Remember I’ve been resting nearly all

day. I’m used to sewing, and earned my living at it. Somehow, it don’t seem

natural for me to sit with idle hands.”

 

“If I hadn’t promised—”

 

“But you have.”

 

“I suppose I’m fairly caught,” and he brought down a little of the most

pressing of the mending.

 

“Now I’ll reward you,” she said, handing him his pipe, well filled. “You go in

the parlor and have a quiet smoke. I won’t be long in clearing up the

kitchen.”

 

“What! Smoke in the parlor?”

 

“Yes, why not? I assure you I don’t mind it.”

 

“Ha! Ha! Why didn’t I think of it before—I might have kept the parlor and

smoked Mrs. Mumpson out.”

 

“It won’t be smoke that will keep me out.”

 

“I should hope not, or anything else. I must tell you how I DID have to smoke

Mrs. Mumpson out at last,” and he did so with so much drollery that she again

yielded to irrepressible laughter.

 

“Poor thing! I’m sorry for her,” she said.

 

“I’m sorry for Jane—poor little stray cat of a child! I hope we can do

something for her some day,” and having lighted his pipe, he took up the

county paper, left weekly in a hollow tree by the stage driver, and went into

the parlor.

 

After freshening up the fire he sat down to read, but by the time she joined

him the tired man was nodding. He tried to brighten up, but his eyes were

heavy.

 

“You’ve worked hard today,” she said sympathetically.

 

“Well, I have,” he answered. “I’ve not done such a good day’s work in a year.”

 

“Then why don’t you go to sleep at once?”

 

“It don’t seem polite—”

 

“Please don’t talk that way,” she interrupted. “I don’t mind being alone at

all. I shall feel a great deal more at home if you forget all about

ceremony.”

 

“Well, Alida, I guess we had both better begin on that basis. If I give up

when I’m tired, you must. You mustn’t think I’m always such a sleepyhead.

The fact is I’ve been more tired out with worry of late than with work. I can

laugh about it now, but I’ve been so desperate over it that I’ve felt more

like swearing. You’ll find out I’ve become a good deal of a heathen.”

 

“Very well; I’ll wait till I find out.”

 

“I think we are getting acquainted famously, don’t you?”

 

“Yes,” she nodded, with a smile that meant more than a long speech. “Good

night.”

 

Chapter XXIII. Between the Past and Future

 

Human nature, in common with Mother Nature, has its immutable laws. The

people who existed before the flood were, in their primal motives, like those

of today. The conventionality of highly civilized society does not change the

heart, but it puts so much restraint upon it that not a few appear heartless.

They march through life and fight its battles like uniformed men, trained in a

certain school of tactics. The monotony of character and action is

superficial, in most cases, rather than real, and he who fathoms the eyes of

others, who catches the subtle quality of tones and interprets the flexible

mouth that utters them, will discover that the whole gamut of human nature

exists in those that appear only like certain musical instruments, made by

machinery to play a few well-known tunes. Conventional restraint often, no

doubt, produces dwarfed and defective human nature. I suppose that if souls

could be put under a microscope, the undeveloped rudiments of almost

everything would be discovered. It is more satisfactory to study the things

themselves than their suggestions; this we are usually better able to do among

people of simple and untrammeled modes of life, who are not practiced in

disguises. Their peculiar traits and their general and dominant laws and

impulses are exhibited with less reserve than by those who have learned to be

always on their guard. Of course there are commonplace yeomen as truly as

commonplace aristocrats, and simple life abounds in simpletons.

 

When a man in Holcroft’s position has decided traits, they are apt to have a

somewhat full expression; his rugged nature beside a tamer one outlines itself

more vividly, just as a mountain peak is silhouetted against the horizon

better than a rounded hill. It probably has been observed that his character

possessed much simplicity and directness. He had neither the force nor the

ambition to raise him above his circumstances; he was merely decided within

the lines of his environment. Perhaps the current of his life was all the

stronger for being narrow. His motives were neither complex nor vacillating.

He had married to keep his home and to continue in the conditions of life dear

from association and the strongest preference, and his heart overflowed with

good will and kindness toward Alida because she promised to solve the hard

problem of the future satisfactorily. Apart from the sympathy which her

misfortune had evoked, he probably could have felt much the same toward any

other good, sensible woman, had she rendered him a similar service. It is

true, now that Alida was in his home, that she was manifesting agreeable

traits which gave him pleasant little surprises. He had not expected that he

would have had half so much to say to her, yet felt it his duty to be sociable

in order to cheer up and mark the line between even a business marriage and

the employment of a domestic. Both his interest and his duty required that he

should establish the bonds of strong friendly regard on the basis of perfect

equality, and he would have made efforts, similar to those he put forth, in

behalf of any woman, if she had consented to marry him with Alida’s

understanding. Now, however, that his suddenly adopted project of securing a

housekeeper and helper had been consummated, he would find that he was not

dealing with a business partner in the abstract, but a definite woman, who had

already begun to exert over him her natural influence. He had expected more

or less constraint and that some time must elapse before his wife would cease

to be in a sense company whom he, with conscious and deliberate effort, must

entertain. On the contrary she entertained and interested him, although she

said so little, and by some subtle power she unloosed his tongue and made it

easy for him to talk to her. In the most quiet and unobtrusive way, she was

not only making herself at home, but him also; she was very subservient to his

wishes, but not servilely so; she did not assert, but only revealed her

superiority, and after even so brief an acquaintance he was ready to indorse

Tom Watterly’s view, “She’s out of the common run.”

 

While all this was true, the farmer’s heart was as untouched as that of a

child who simply and instinctively likes a person. He was still quietly and

unhesitatingly loyal to his former wife. Apart from his involuntary favor,

his shrewd, practical reason was definite enough in its grounds of approval.

Reason assured him that she promised to do and to be just what he