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

too. You’ve been able to forgive grown people, your equals,

and strangers in a sense. Suppose you had a little boy that had done wrong,

but said he was sorry, would you hold a grudge against him?”

 

“The idea! I’d be a brute.”

 

She laughed softly as she asked again, “don’t you see?”

 

He sat looking thoughtfully away across the fields for a long time, and

finally asked, “Is your idea of becoming a Christian just being forgiven like

a child and then trying to do right?”

 

“Yes. Why not?”

 

“Well,” he remarked, with a grim laugh. “I didn’t expect to be cornered in

this way.”

 

“You who are truthful should face the truth. It would make you happier. A

good deal that was unexpected has happened. When I look out on a scene like

this and think that I am safe and at home, I feel that God has been very good

to me and that you have, too. I can’t bear to think that you have that old

trouble on your mind—the feeling that you had been a Christian once, but was

not one now. Being sure that there is no need of your continuing to feel so,

what sort of return would I be making for all your kindness if I did not try

to show you what is as clear to me as this sunshine?”

 

“You are a good woman, Alida. Believing as you do, you have done right to

speak to me, and I never believed mortal lips could speak so to the purpose.

I shall think of what you have said, for you have put things in a new light.

But say, Alida, what on earth possesses you to call me ‘Mr.’? You don’t need

to be scared half to death every time to call me by my first name, do you?”

 

“Scared? Oh, no!” She was a trifle confused, he thought, but then her tone

was completely reassuring.

 

The day was one long remembered by both. As in nature about them, the

conditions of development and rapid change now existed.

 

She did not read aloud very much, and long silences fell between them. They

were reaching a higher plane of companionship, in which words are not always

essential. Both had much to think about, and their thoughts were like roots

which prepare for blossom and fruit.

 

With Monday, busy life was resumed. The farmer began planting his corn and

Alida her flower seeds. Almost every day now added to the brood of little

chicks under her care. The cows went out to pasture. Holcroft brought in an

increasing number of overflowing pails of milk, and if the labors of the dairy

grew more exacting, they also grew more profitable. The tide had turned;

income was larger than outgo, and it truly seemed to the long-harassed man

that an era of peace and prosperity had set in.

 

To a superficial observer things might have appeared to be going on much as

before, but there were influences at work which Holcroft did not clearly

comprehend.

 

As Alida had promised herself, she spent all the money which the eggs brought

in, but Holcroft found pretty muslin curtains at the parlor windows, and

shades which excluded the glare from the kitchen. Better china took the place

of that which was cracked and unsightly. In brief, a subtle and refining

touch was apparent all over the house.

 

“How fine we are getting!” he remarked one evening at supper.

 

“I’ve only made a beginning,” she replied, nodding defiantly at him. “The

chickens will paint the house before the year is over.”

 

“Phew! When do the silk dresses come in?”

 

“When your broadcloth does.”

 

“Well, if this goes on, I shall certainly have to wear purple and fine linen

to keep pace.”

 

“Fine linen, certainly. When you take the next lot of eggs to town I shall

tell you just the number of yards I need to make half a dozen extra fine

shirts. Those you have are getting past mending.”

 

“Do you think I’ll let you spend your money in that way?”

 

“You’ll let me spend MY money just as I please—in the way that will do me the

most good!”

 

“What a saucy little woman you are becoming!” he said, looking at her so

fondly that she quickly averted her eyes. “It’s a way people fall into when

humored,” she answered.

 

“See here, Alida, you’re up to some magic. It seems but the other day I

brought you here, a pale ghost of a woman. As old Jonathan Johnson said, you

were ‘enj’yin’ poor health.’ Do you know what he said when I took him off so

he wouldn’t put you through the catechism?”

 

“No,” she replied, with a deprecating smile and rising color.

 

“He said he was ‘afeared I’d been taken in, you were such a sickly lookin’

critter.’ Ha! Ha! Wish he might see you now, with that flushed face of

yours. I never believed in magic, but I’ll have to come to it. You are

bewitched, and are being transformed into a pretty young girl right under my

eyes; the house is bewitched, and is growing pretty, too, and pleasanter all

the time. The cherry and apple trees are bewitched, for they never blossomed

so before; the hens are bewitched, they lay as if possessed; the—”

 

“Oh, stop! Or I shall think that you’re bewitched yourself.”

 

“I truly begin to think I am.”

 

“Oh, well! Since we all and everything are affected in the same way, it don’t

matter.”

 

“But it does. It’s unaccountable. I’m beginning to rub my eyes and pinch

myself to wake up.”

 

“If you like it, I wouldn’t wake up.”

 

“Suppose I did, and saw Mrs. Mumpson sitting where you do, Jane here, and Mrs.

Wiggins smoking her pipe in the corner. The very thought makes me shiver. My

first words would be, ‘Please pass the cold p’ison.’”

 

“What nonsense you are talking tonight!” she tried to say severely, but the

pleased, happy look in her eyes betrayed her. He regarded her with the open

admiration of a boy, and she sought to divert his attention by asking, “What

do you think has become of Jane?”

 

“I don’t know—stealing around like a strange cat in some relation’s house, I

suppose.”

 

“You once said you would like to do something for her.”

 

“Well, I would. If I could afford it, I’d like to send her to school.”

 

“Would you like her to come here and study lessons part of the time?”

 

He shivered visibly. “No, Alida, and you wouldn’t either. She’d make you more

nervous than she would me, and that’s saying a good deal. I do feel very

sorry for her, and if Mrs. Weeks comes to see you, we’ll find out if something

can’t be done, but her presence would spoil all our cozy comfort. The fact

is, I wouldn’t enjoy having anyone here. You and I are just about company

enough. Still, if you feel that you’d like to have some help—”

 

“Oh, no! I haven’t enough to do.”

 

“But you’re always a-doing. Well, if you’re content, I haven’t Christian

fortitude enough to make any changes.”

 

She smiled and thought that she was more than content. She had begun to

detect symptoms in her husband which her own heart enabled her to interpret.

In brief, it looked as if he were drifting on a smooth, swift tide to the same

haven in which she was anchored.

 

One unusually warm morning for the season, rain set in after breakfast.

Holcroft did not fret in the least that he could not go to the fields, nor did

he, as had been his custom at first, find rainy-day work at the barn. The

cows, in cropping the lush grass, had so increased their yield of milk that it

was necessary to churn every other day, and Alida was busy in the dairy. This

place had become inviting by reason of its coolness, and she had rendered it

more so by making it perfectly clean and sweet. Strange to say, it contained

another chair besides the one she usually occupied. The apartment was large

and stone-flagged. Along one side were shelves filled with rows of shining

milk-pans. In one corner stood the simple machinery which the old dog put in

motion when tied upon his movable walk, and the churn was near. An iron pipe,

buried deep in the ground, brought cool spring water from the brook above.

This pipe emptied its contents with a low gurgle into a shallow, oblong

receptacle sunk in the floor, and was wide and deep enough for two stone

crocks of ample size to stand abreast up to their rims in the water. The

cream was skimmed into these stone jars until they were full, then Holcroft

emptied them into the churn. He had charged Alida never to attempt this part

of the work, and indeed it was beyond her strength. After breakfast on

churning days, he prepared everything and set the dog at work. Then he

emptied the churn of the buttermilk when he came in to dinner.

 

All the associations of the place were pleasant to Alida. It was here that

her husband had shown patience as well as kindness in teaching her how to

supplement his work until her own experience and judgment gave her a better

skill than he possessed. Many pleasant, laughing words had passed between

them in this cool, shadowy place, and on a former rainy morning he had brought

a chair down that he might keep her company. She had not carried it back, nor

was she very greatly surprised to see him saunter in and occupy it on the

present occasion. She stood by the churn, her figure outlined clearly in the

light from the open door, as she poured in cold water from time to time to

hasten and harden the gathering butter. Her right sleeve was rolled well

back, revealing a white arm that was becoming beautifully plump and round. An

artist would have said that her attitude and action were unconsciously natural

and graceful. Holcroft had scarcely the remotest idea of artistic effect, but

he had a sensible man’s perception of a charming woman when she is charming.

 

“Mr. Holcroft,” she asked very gravely, “will you do something for me?”

 

“Yes, half a dozen things.”

 

“You promise?”

 

“Certainly! What’s the trouble?”

 

“I don’t mean there shall be any if I can help it,” she answered with a light

ripple of laughter. “Please go and put on your coat.”

 

“How you’ve humbugged me! It’s too hot.”

 

“Oh, you’ve got to do it; you promised. You can’t stay here unless you do.”

 

“So you are going to take care of me as if I were a small boy?”

 

“You need care—sometimes.”

 

He soon came back and asked, “Now may I stay?”

 

“Yes. Please untie the dog. Butter’s come.”

 

“I should think it would, or anything else at your coaxing.”

 

“Oh-h, what a speech! Hasn’t that a pretty golden hue?” she asked, holding up

a mass of the butter she was ladling from the churn into a wooden tray.

 

“Yes, you are making the gilt-edge article now. I don’t have to sell it to

Tom Watterly any more.”

 

“I’d like to give him some, though.”

 

He was silent, and something like sudden rage burned in his heart that Mrs.

Watterly would not permit the gift. That anyone should frown on his having

such a helper as Alida was proving herself to be, made him vindictive.

Fortunately her face was turned away, and she did not see his heavy frown.

Then, to