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

scheming mind, “I’ve stipulated to stay a year, and if he says

nothing against it, it’s a bargain which I can manage to keep him to in spite

of himself, even if I don’t marry him.”

 

But the straightforward farmer was not to be caught in such a trap. He had

come himself to say certain words and he would say them. He quietly,

therefore, stood in the door and said, “Wait a moment, Mrs. Mumpson. It’s

best to have a plain understanding in all matters of business. When I’ve

done, you may conclude not to go with me, for I want to say to you what I said

this morning to your cousin, Lemuel Weeks. I’m glad he and his wife are now

present, as witnesses. I’m a plain man, and all I want is to make a livin’

off the farm I’ve been brought up on. I’ll get a girl to help you with the

work. Between you, I’ll expect it to be done in a way that the dairy will

yield a fair profit. We’ll try and see how we get on for three months and not

a year. I’ll not bind myself longer than three months. Of course, if you

manage well, I’ll be glad to have this plain business arrangement go on as

long as possible, but it’s all a matter of business. If I can’t make my farm

pay, I’m going to sell or rent and leave these parts.”

 

“Oh, certainly, certainly, Mr. Holcroft! You take a very senserble view of

affairs. I hope you will find that I will do all that I agree to and a great

deal more. I’m a little afraid of the night air and the inclement season, and

so will hasten to get myself and my child ready,” and she passed quickly out.

 

Weeks put his hand to his mouth to conceal a grin as he thought, “She hasn’t

agreed to do anything that I know on. Still, she’s right; she’ll do a sight

more than he expects, but it won’t be just what he expects.”

 

Mrs. Weeks followed her relative to expedite matters, and it must be confessed

that the gathering of Mrs. Mumpson’s belongings was no heavy task. A small

hair trunk, that had come down from the remote past, held her own and her

child’s wardrobe and represented all their worldly possessions.

 

Mr. Weeks, much pleased at the turn of affairs, became very affable, but

confined his remarks chiefly to the weather, while Holcroft, who had an uneasy

sense of being overreached in some undetected way, was abstracted and laconic.

He was soon on the road home, however, with Mrs. Mumpson and Jane. Cousin

Lemuel’s last whispered charge was, “Now, for mercy’s sake, do keep your

tongue still and your hands busy.”

 

Whatever possibilities there may be for the Ethiopian or the leopard, there

was no hope that Mrs. Mumpson would materially change any of her

characteristics. The chief reason was that she had no desire to change. A

more self-complacent person did not exist in Oakville. Good traits in other

people did not interest her. They were insipid, they lacked a certain

pungency which a dash of evil imparts; and in the course of her minute

investigations she had discerned or surmised so much that was reprehensible

that she had come to regard herself as singularly free from sins of omission

and commission. “What have I ever done?” she would ask in her self-communings.

The question implied so much truth of a certain kind that all her relatives

were in gall and bitterness as they remembered the weary months during which

she had rocked idly at their firesides. With her, talking was as much of a

necessity as breathing; but during the ride to the hillside farm she, in a

sense, held her breath, for a keen March wind was blowing.

 

She was so quiet that Holcroft grew hopeful, not realizing that the checked

flow of words must have freer course later on. A cloudy twilight was

deepening fast when they reached the dwelling. Holcroft’s market wagon served

for the general purposes of conveyance, and he drove as near as possible to

the kitchen door. Descending from the front seat, which he had occupied

alone, he turned and offered his hand to assist the widow to alight, but she

nervously poised herself on the edge of the vehicle and seemed to be afraid to

venture. The wind fluttered her scanty draperies, causing her to appear like

a bird of prey about to swoop down upon the unprotected man. “I’m afraid to

jump so far—” she began.

 

“There’s the step, Mrs. Mumpson.”

 

“But I can’t see it. Would you mind lifting me down?”

 

He impatiently took her by the arms, which seemed in his grasp like the rounds

of a chair, and put her on the ground.

 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, in gushing tones, “there’s nothing to equal the strong

arms of a man.”

 

He hastily lifted out her daughter, and said, “You had getter hurry in to the

fire. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” and he led his horses down to the barn,

blanketed and tied them. When he returned, he saw two dusky figures standing

by the front door which led to the little hall separating the kitchen from the

parlor.

 

“Bless me!” he exclaimed. “You haven’t been standing here all this time?”

 

“It’s merely due to a little oversight. The door is locked, you see, and—”

 

“But the kitchen door is not locked.”

 

“Well, it didn’t seem quite natural for us to enter the dwelling, on the

occasion of our first arrival, by the kitchen entrance, and—”

 

Holcroft, with a grim look, strode through the kitchen and unlocked the door.

 

“Ah!” exclaimed the widow. “I feel as if I was coming home. Enter, Jane, my

dear. I’m sure the place will soon cease to be strange to you, for the home

feeling is rapidly acquired when—”

 

“Just wait a minute, please,” said Holcroft, “and I’ll light the lamp and a

candle.” This he did with the deftness of a man accustomed to help himself,

then led the way to the upper room which was to be her sleeping apartment.

Placing the candle on the bureau, he forestalled Mrs. Mumpson by saying, “I’ll

freshen up the fire in the kitchen and lay out the ham, eggs, coffee, and

other materials for supper. Then I must go out and unharness and do my night

work. Make yourselves to home. You’ll soon be able to find everything,” and

he hastened away.

 

It would not be their fault if they were not soon able to find everything.

Mrs. Mumpson’s first act was to take the candle and survey the room in every

nook and corner. She sighed when she found the closet and bureau drawers

empty. Then she examined the quantity and texture of the bedding of the

“couch on which she was to repose,” as she would express herself. Jane

followed her around on tiptoe, doing just what her mother did, but was silent.

 

At last they shivered in the fireless apartment, threw off their scanty wraps,

and went down to the kitchen. Mrs. Mumpson instinctively looked around for a

rocking chair, and as none was visible she hastened to the parlor, and,

holding the candle aloft, surveyed this apartment. Jane followed in her wake

as before, but at last ventured to suggest, “Mother, Mr. Holcroft’ll be in

soon and want his supper.”

 

“I suppose he’ll want a great many things,” replied Mrs. Mumpson with dignity,

“but he can’t expect a lady of my connections to fly around like a common

servant. It is but natural, in coming to a new abode, that I should wish to

know something of that abode. There should have been a hired girl here ready

to receive and get supper for us. Since there is not one to receive us, bring

that rocking chair, my dear, and I will direct you how to proceed.”

 

The child did as she was told, and her mother was soon rocking on the snuggest

side of the kitchen stove, interspersing her rather bewildering orders with

various reflections and surmises.

 

Sketching the child Jane is a sad task, and pity would lead us to soften every

touch if this could be done in truthfulness. She was but twelve years of age,

yet there was scarcely a trace of childhood left in her colorless face.

Stealthy and catlike in all her movements, she gave the impression that she

could not do the commonest thing except in a sly, cowering manner. Her small

greenish-gray eyes appeared to be growing nearer together with the lease of

time, and their indirect, furtive glances suggested that they had hardly, if

ever, seen looks of frank affection bent upon her. She had early learned, on

the round of visits with her mother, that so far from being welcome she was

scarcely tolerated, and she reminded one of a stray cat that comes to a

dwelling and seeks to maintain existence there in a lurking, deprecatory

manner. Her kindred recognized this feline trait, for they were accustomed to

remark, “She’s always snoopin’ around.”

 

She could scarcely do otherwise, poor child! There had seemed no place for

her at any of the firesides. She haunted halls and passage-ways, sat in dusky

corners, and kept her meager little form out of sight as much as possible.

She was the last one helped at table when she was permitted to come at all,

and so had early learned to watch, like a cat, and when people’s backs were

turned, to snatch something, carry it off, and devour it in secret. Detected

in these little pilferings, to which she was almost driven, she was regarded

as even a greater nuisance than her mother.

 

The latter was much too preoccupied to give her child attention. Ensconced in

a rocking chair in the best room, and always in full tide of talk if there was

anyone present, she rarely seemed to think where Jane was or what she was

doing. The rounds of visitation gave the child no chance to go to school, so

her developing mind had little other pabulum than what her mother supplied so

freely. She was acquiring the same consuming curiosity, with the redeeming

feature that she did not talk. Listening in unsuspected places, she heard

much that was said about her mother and herself, and the pathetic part of this

experience was that she had never known enough of kindness to be wounded. She

was only made to feel more fully how precarious was her foothold in her

transient abiding place, and therefore was rendered more furtive, sly, and

distant in order to secure toleration by keeping out of everyone’s way. In

her prowlings, however, she managed to learn and understand all that was going

on even better than her mother, who, becoming aware of this fact, was

acquiring the habit of putting her through a whispered cross-questioning when

they retired for the night. It would be hard to imagine a child beginning

life under more unfavorable auspices and still harder to predict the outcome.

 

In the course of her close watchfulness she had observed how many of the

domestic labors had been performed, and she would have helped more in the

various households if she had been given a chance; but the housewives had not

regarded her as sufficiently honest to be trusted in the pantries, and also

found that, if there was a semblance of return for such hospitality as they

extended, Mrs. Mumpson would remain indefinitely. Moreover, the homely,

silent child made the women nervous, just as her mother irritated the men, and

they did not want her around. Thus she had come to be but the specter of a

child,