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

agreeable that neither memories of the past nor misgivings as to

the future are obtrusive. He met Watterly in town, and remarked, “This is

another piece of good luck. I hadn’t time to go out to your place, although I

meant to take time.”

 

“A piece of good luck indeed!” Tom mentally echoed, for he would have been

greatly embarrassed if Holcroft had called. Mrs. Watterly felt that she had

been scandalized by the marriage which had taken place in her absence, and was

all the more resentful for the reason that she had spoken to a cousin of

uncertain age and still more uncertain temper in behalf of the farmer. In

Mrs. Watterly’s estimate of action, it was either right, that is, in

accordance with her views, or else it was intolerably wrong and without

excuse. Poor Tom had been made to feel that he had not only committed an

almost unpardonable sin against his wife and her cousin, but also against all

the proprieties of life. “The idea of such a wedding taking place in my rooms

and with my husband’s sanction!” she had said with concentrated bitterness.

Then had followed what he was accustomed to characterize as a spell of “zero

weather.” He discreetly said nothing. “It didn’t seem such a bad idea to me,”

he thought, “but then I suppose women folks know best about such things.”

 

He was too frank in his nature to conceal from Holcroft his misgivings or his

wife’s scornful and indignant disapproval. “Sorry Angy feels so bad about it,

Jim,” he said ruefully, “but she says I mustn’t buy anything more of you.”

 

“Or have anything more to do with me, I suppose?”

 

“Oh, come now! You know a man’s got to let his women-folks have their say

about household matters, but that don’t make any difference in my feelings

toward you.”

 

“Well, well, Tom! If it did, I should be slow to quarrel with a man who had

done me as good a turn as you have. Thank the Lord! I’ve got a wife that’ll

let me have some say about household and all other matters. You, too, are

inclined to think that I’m in an awful scrape. I feel less like getting out

of it every day. My wife is as respectable as I am and a good sight better

than I am. If I’m no longer respectable for having married her, I certainly

am better contented than I ever expected to be again. I want it understood,

though, that the man who says anything against my wife may have to get me

arrested for assault and battery.”

 

“When it comes to that, Jim,” replied Watterly, who was meek only in the

presence of his wife, “I’d just as lief speak against her as wink if there was

anything to say. But I say now, as I said to you at first, she aint one of

the common sort. I thought well of her at first, and I think better of her

now since she’s doing so well by you. But I suppose marrying a woman situated

as she was isn’t according to regulation. We men are apt to act like the boys

we used to be and go for what we want without thinking of the consequences.”

 

“It’s the consequences that please me most. If you had been dependent on

Mumpson, Malonys, and Wigginses for your home comfort you wouldn’t worry about

the talk of people who’d never raise a finger for you. Well, goodbye, I’m in

a hurry. Your heart’s in the right place, Tom, and some day you’ll come out

and take dinner with me. One dinner, such as she’ll give you, will bring you

round. One of our steady dishes is a bunch of flowers and I enjoy ‘em, too.

What do you think of that for a hard-headed old fellow like me?”

 

Some men are chilled by public disapproval and waver under it, but Holcroft

was thereby only the more strongly confirmed in his course. Alida had won his

esteem as well as his good will, and it was the instinct of his manhood to

protect and champion her. He bought twice as many flowers and seeds as she

had asked for, and also selected two simple flower vases; then started on his

return with the feeling that he had a home.

 

Alida entered upon her duties to the poultry with almost the pleasure of a

child. She first fed them, then explored every accessible nook and hiding

place in the barn and outbuildings. It was evident that many of the biddies

had stolen their nests, and some were brooding upon them with no disposition

to be disturbed. Out of the hundred or more fowls on the place, a good many

were clucking their maternal instincts, and their new keeper resolved to put

eggs under all except the flighty ones that left their nests within two or

three days’ trial. As the result of her search, the empty egg basket was in a

fair way to be full again very soon. She gloated over her spoils as she

smilingly assured herself, “I shall take him at his word. I shall spend

nearly all I make this year in fixing up the old house within and without, so

he’ll scarcely know it.”

 

It was eleven o’clock before Holcroft drove to the door with the flowers, and

he was amply repaid by her pleasure in receiving them. “Why, I only expected

geraniums,” she said, “and you’ve bought half a dozen other kinds.”

 

“And I expected to get my own coffee this morning and a good breakfast was

given me instead, so we are quits.”

 

“You’re probably ready for your dinner now, if it is an hour earlier than

usual. It will be ready in ten minutes.”

 

“Famous! That will give me a good long afternoon. I say, Alida, when do you

want the flower beds made?”

 

“No hurry about them. I shall keep the plants in the window for a week or

two. It isn’t safe to put them outdoors before the last of May. I’ll have

some slips ready by that time.”

 

“Yes, I know. You’ll soon have enough to set out an acre.”

 

The days of another week passed quietly and rapidly away, Alida becoming

almost as much absorbed in her interests as he in his. Every hour added to

the beauty of the season without. The unplowed fields were taking on a vivid

green, and Holcroft said that on the following Monday the cows should go out

to pasture. Wholesome, agreeable occupation enabled Alida to put away sad

thoughts and memories. Nature and pleasant work are two potent healers, and

she was rallying fast under their ministry. Holcroft would have been blind

indeed had he not observed changes for the better. Her thin cheeks were

becoming fuller, and her exertions, with the increasing warmth of the season,

often flushed her face with a charming color. The old sad and troubled

expression was passing away from her blue eyes. Every day it seemed easier

for her to laugh, and her step grew more elastic. It was all so gradual that

he never questioned it, but his eyes followed her with increasing pleasure and

he listened, when she spoke, with deepening interest. Sundays had been long

and rather dreary days, but now he positively welcomed their coming and looked

forward to the hours when, instead of brooding over the past, he should listen

to her pleasant voice reading his few and neglected books. There was a new

atmosphere in his home—a new influence, under which his mind was awakening in

spite of his weariness and absorption in the interests of the farm. Alida was

always ready to talk about these, and her questions would soon enable her to

talk understandingly. She displayed ignorance enough, and this amused him,

but her queries evinced no stupidity. In reading to her father and in the

cultivation of flowers, she had obtained hints of vital horticultural

principles, and Holcroft said to her laughingly one evening at supper, “You’ll

soon learn all I know and begin to teach me.”

 

Her manner of deprecating such remarks was to exaggerate them and she replied,

“Yes, next week you will sell my eggs and I shall subscribe for the

agricultural paper my father used to take. Then will begin all the

improvements of book-farming. I shall advise you to sow oats in June, plant

corn in March, and show you generally that all your experience counts for

nothing.”

 

This kind of badinage was new to the farmer, and it amused him immensely. He

did not grow sleepy so early in the evening, and as he was driving his work

prosperously he shortened his hours of labor slightly. She also found time to

read the county paper and gossip a little about the news, thus making a

beginning in putting him and herself en rapport with other interests than

those which centered in the farm. In brief, she had an active, intelligent

mind and a companionable nature. Her boundless gratitude for her home, which

daily grew more homelike, led her to employ all her tact in adding to his

enjoyment. Yet so fine was her tact that her manner was a simple embodiment

of good will, and he was made to feel that it was nothing more.

 

While all was passing so genially and satisfactorily to Holcroft, it may well

be supposed that his conduct was not at all to the mind of his neighbors.

News, especially during the busy spring season, permeates a country

neighborhood slowly. The fact of his marriage had soon become known, and

eventually, through Justice Harkins, the circumstances relating to it and

something of Alida’s previous history, in a garbled form, came to be discussed

at rural firesides. The majority of the men laughed and shrugged their

shoulders, implying it was none of their business, but not a few, among whom

was Lemuel Weeks, held up their hands and spoke of the event in terms of the

severest reprehension. Many of the farmers’ wives and their maiden sisters

were quite as much scandalized as Mrs. Watterly had been that an unknown

woman, of whom strange stories were told, should have been brought into the

community from the poorhouse, “and after such a heathenish marriage, too,”

they said. It was irregular, unprecedented, and therefore utterly wrong and

subversive of the morals of the town.

 

They longed to ostracize poor Alida, yet saw no chance of doing so. They

could only talk, and talk they did, in a way that would have made her ears

tingle had she heard.

 

The young men and older boys, however, believed that they could do more than

talk. Timothy Weeks had said to a group of his familiars, “Let’s give old

Holcroft and his poorhouse bride a skimelton that will let ‘em know what folks

think of ‘em.”

 

The scheme found favor at once, and Tim Weeks was soon recognized as organizer

and leader of the peculiar style of serenade contemplated. After his day’s

work was over, he rode here and there summoning congenial spirits. The

project soon became pretty well known in several families, but the elder

members remained discreetly blind and deaf, proposing to wink at what was

going on, yet take no compromising part themselves. Lemuel Weeks winked very

knowingly and suggestively. He kept within such bounds, however, as would

enable him to swear that he knew nothing and had said nothing, but his son had

never felt more assured of his father’s sympathy. When at last the motley

gathering rendezvoused at Tim’s house, Weeks, senior, was conveniently making

a call on a near neighbor.

 

It was Saturday evening, and the young May moon would furnish sufficient light

without revealing identity too clearly. About a score of young fellows