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

must be in some place where I’ve a right to be away

from mother. I’ve found that there’s no sense in her talk, and it drives me

crazy.”

 

Although Jane’s words and utterance were strangely uncouth, they contained a

despairing echo which the farmer could not resist. Turning his troubled face

to his wife, he began, ““If this is possible, Alida, it will be a great deal

harder on you than it will on me. I don’t feel that I would be doing right by

you unless you gave your consent with full knowledge of—”

 

“Then please let her stay, if it is possible. She seems to need a friend and

home as much as another that you heard about.”

 

“There’s no chance of such a blessed reward in this case,” he replied, with a

grim laugh. Then, perplexed indeed, he continued to Jane, “I’m just as sorry

for you as I can be, but there’s no use of getting my wife and self in trouble

which in the end will do you no good. You are too young to understand all

that your staying may lead to.”

 

“It won’t lead to mother’s comin’ here, and that’s the worst that could

happen. Since she can’t do anything for me she’s got to let me do for

myself.”

 

“Alida, please come with me in the parlor a moment. You stay here, Jane.”

When they were alone, he resumed, “Somehow, I feel strangely unwilling to have

that child live with us. We were enjoying our quiet life so much. Then you

don’t realize how uncomfortable she will make you, Alida.”

 

“Yes, I do.”

 

“I don’t think you can yet. Your sympathies are touched now, but she’ll watch

you and irritate you in a hundred ways. Don’t her very presence make you

uncomfortable?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, then, she can’t stay,” he began decidedly. “This is your home, and no

one shall make you uncomfortable—”

 

“But I should be a great deal more uncomfortable if she didn’t stay,” Alida

interrupted. “I should feel that I did not deserve my home. Not long ago my

heart was breaking because I was friendless and in trouble. What could I

think of myself if I did not entreat you in behalf of this poor child?”

 

“Thunder!” ejaculated Holcroft. “I guess I was rather friendless and troubled

myself, and I didn’t know the world had in it such a good friend as you’ve

become, Alida. Well, well! You’ve put it in such a light that I’d be almost

tempted to take the mother, also.”

 

“No,” she replied, laughing; “we’ll draw the line at the mother.”

 

“Well, I’ll take Jane to town this afternoon, and if her mother will sign an

agreement to leave us all in peace, we’ll give up our old cozy comfort of

being alone. I suppose it must be a good deed, since it’s so mighty hard to

do it,” he concluded with a wry face, leading the way to the kitchen again.

She smiled as if his words were already rewarding her self denial.

 

“Well, Jane,” he resumed, “Mrs. Holcroft has spoken in your behalf, and if we

can arrange matters so that you can stay, you will have her to thank chiefly.

I’ll take you back to the poorhouse after dinner, so it may be known what’s

become of you. Then, if your mother’ll sign an agreement to make no trouble

and not come here, we’ll give you a home until we can find a better place for

you.”

 

There was no outburst of gratitude. The repressed, dwarfed nature of the

child was incapable of this, yet there was an unwonted little thrill of hope

in her heart. Possibly it was like the beginning of life in a seed under the

first spring rays of the sun. She merely nodded to Holcroft as if the matter

had been settled as far as it could be, and ignored Alida.

 

“Why don’t you thank Mrs. Holcroft?” he asked.

 

Then Jane turned and nodded at Alida. Her vocabulary of thanks was

undeveloped.

 

“She’s glad,” said Alida. “You’ll see. Now that it’s settled, we hope you’re

hungry, Jane, aren’t you?”

 

“Yes, I be. Can’t I help you put things on the table?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Holcroft looked at the two for a moment, and then shook his head as he went up

to his room. “I thought my wife was nice and pleasant looking before,” he

thought, “but she’s like a picture beside that child. Well, she has behaved

handsomely. Tom Watterly didn’t tell half the truth when he said she was not

of the common run. She’s a Christian in deeds, not talk. What’s that in

Scripture about ‘I was hungry’? Well, well! She makes religion kind of

natural and plain like, whether it’s easy or not. Thunder! What a joke it is

to see her so grateful because I’ve given her a chance to help me out of the

worst scrape a man could be in! As if she hadn’t changed everything for the

better! Here I am sure of my home and getting ahead in the world again, and

it’s all her doing.”

 

In admiration of his wife Holcroft quite forgot that there had been any

self-sacrifice on his part, and he concluded that he could endure Jane and

almost anything else as long as Alida continued to look after his comfort and

interests.

 

Now that the worst stress of Jane’s anxiety was over, she proved that she was

half starved. Indeed she had few misgivings now, for her confidence that

Holcroft would accomplish what he attempted was almost unbounded. It was a

rather silent meal at first, for the farmer and his wife had much to think

about and Jane much to do in making up for many limited meals. At last

Holcroft smiled so broadly that Alida said, “Something seems to please you.”

 

“Yes, more than one thing. It might be a great deal worse, and was, not long

ago. I was thinking of old times.”

 

“How pleasant they must have been to make you look so happy!”

 

“They had their uses, and make me think of a picture I saw in a store window

in town. It was a picture of a woman, and she took my fancy amazingly. But

the point uppermost in my mind was a trick of the fellow who painted her. He

had made the background as dark as night and so she stood out as if alive; and

she looked so sweet and good that I felt like shaking hands with her. I now

see why the painter made the background so dark”

 

Alida smiled mischievously as she replied, “That was his art. He knew that

almost anyone would appear well against such a background.”

 

But Holcroft was much too direct to be diverted from his thought or its

expression. “The man knew the mighty nice-looking woman he had painted would

look well,” he said, “and I know of another woman who appears better against a

darker background. That’s enough to make a man smile who has been through

what I have.”

 

She could not help a flush of pleasure or disguise the happy light in her

eyes, but she looked significantly at Jane, who, mystified and curious, was

glancing from one to the other.

 

“Confound it!” thought the farmer. “That’ll be the way of it now. Here’s a

little pitcher that’s nearly all ears. Well, we’re in for it and must do our

duty.”

 

Going to town that day involved no slight inconvenience, but Holcroft dropped

everything and rapidly made his preparations.

 

When Alida was left alone with Jane, the latter began clearing the table with

alacrity, and after a few furtive glances at Mrs. Holcroft, yielded to the

feeling that she should make some acknowledgment of the intercession in her

behalf. “Say,” she began, “I thought you wasn’t goin; to stand up for me,

after all. Women folks are liars, mostly.”

 

“You are mistaken, Jane. If you wish to stay with us, you must tell the truth

and drop all sly ways.”

 

“That’s what he said when I first come.”

 

“I say it too. You see a good deal, Jane. Try to see what will please people

instead of what you can find out about them. It’s a much better plan. Now,

as a friend, I tell you of one thing you had better not do. You shouldn’t

watch and listen to Mr. Holcroft unless he speaks to you. He doesn’t like to

be watched—no one does. It isn’t nice; and if you come to us, I think you

will try to do what is nice. Am I not right?”

 

“I dunno how,” said Jane.

 

“It will be part of my business to teach you. You ought to understand all

about your coming. Mr. Holcroft doesn’t take you because he needs your work,

but because he’s sorry for you, and wishes to give you a chance to do better

and learn something. You must make up your mind to lessons, and learning to

talk and act nicely, as well as to do such work as is given you. Are you

willing to do what I say and mind me pleasantly and promptly?”

 

Jane looked askance at the speaker and was vaguely suspicious of some trick.

In her previous sojourn at the farmhouse she had concluded that it was her

best policy to keep in Holcroft’s good graces, even though she had to defy her

mother and Mrs. Wiggins, and she was now by no means ready to commit herself

to this new domestic power. She had received the impression that the

authority and continued residence of females in this household was involved in

much uncertainty, and although Alida was in favor now and the farmer’s wife,

she didn’t know what “vicissitudes” (as her mother would denominate them)

might occur. Holcroft was the only fixed and certain quantity in her troubled

thoughts, and after a little hesitation she replied, “I’ll do what he says;

I’m goin’ to mind him.”

 

“Suppose he tells you to mind me?”

 

“Then I will. That ud be mindin’ him. I’m goin’ to stick to him, for I made

out by it better before than by mindin’ mother and Mrs. Wiggins.”

 

Alida now understood the child and laughed aloud. “You are right,” she said.

“I won’t ask you to do anything contrary to his wishes. Now tell me, Jane,

what other clothes have you besides those you are wearing?”

 

It did not take the girl long to inventory her scanty wardrobe, and then Alida

rapidly made out a list of what was needed immediately. “Wait here,” she said,

and putting on a pretty straw hat, one of her recent purchases, she started

for the barn.

 

Holcroft had his wagon and team almost ready when Alida joined him, and led

the way to the floor between the sweet-smelling hay-mows.

 

“One thing leads to another,” she began, looking at him a little

deprecatingly. “You must have noticed the condition of Jane’s clothes.”

 

“She does look like a little scarecrow, now I come to think of it,” he

admitted.

 

“Yes, she’s not much better off than I was,” Alida returned, with downcast

eyes and rising color.

 

Her flushing face was so pretty under the straw hat, and the dark mow as a

background brought out her figure so finely that he thought of the picture

again and laughed aloud for pleasure. She looked up in questioning surprise,

thus adding a new grace.

 

“I wish that artist fellow was here now,” he exclaimed. “He could make another

picture that would suit me better than the one I saw in town.”

 

“What nonsense!” she cried, quickly averting her face from