A Crown of Gold,

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 61, 9 September 1905, Page 10

A Crown of Gold,

Mirabel stood in tho kitchen door, on an April day, waiting for her husband to come in from tho barn, where he had been unharnessing after his trip to town. It was noon, and her dinner-table, in exquisite order, stood waiting for tflem. A beef soup of ihe old-fashioned kind, with onions and dumplings, bubbled on the stove. Mirabel knew ho would be content. Pleasure was too strong a word for anything Harrison might feel. He had no commendations to express moro than a sober certainty that she would do tilings as perfectly as they could be done, no thought exceedingly well of Mirnbel, bufc there was no throb of surprise over any miracle she could offer him from time to time. She stood there on the doorsill swaying from one foot to the other in a childish way she had, her face half smiling in a quivering response to the bright spring weather. It made her feel quite strangely, as if she were a little girl, with no tasks, only to laugh and sib in tho sun. Yet she liked her work. Only there was a part of her that seemed to be always flying abroad oVer the boughs, or singing irresponsible things like the bluebirds, now in their nesting fervor. From the sky she looked down at her blue calico and wondered if it were becoming, and then sighed impatiently because there was no way to find out. Mirabel looked quite unlike any of the girls in the neighbourhood, or any girl she had ever sfieji. She had a skin so delicate that the sun seemed to scorch it, and a fine drooping profile. But what puzzled her niosb was that there were freckles on her nose, and that she had thick, heavy hair, bright bronze red, and curling passionately, and that to her husband none of these things seemed to s matter. Sometimes when sho weht into a room all by herself, and stood in front of the glass in wild 6elf-scrutuiy, it seemed to her that sho bad the prettiest neck and chin a- girl ever had, and her hair was so glorious to her that she caught her breath. After such a meeting! w ith herself she would look ht Harrison when he came in from the barn nnd, flushing all over her delicate face, wonder if he would tell her how pretty she was. But he never told hei 1 . Not once in nil their courting days had, he mentioned how Bhe looked to him, and they had began their love-making so early lhat there had been hardly time* for other men 1«> speak of it. Sometimes Mirabel wondered if he took her look* for granted Sometimes, with a sorry laugh, she wondered if he thought she was really too hideous, with her red hair, for anything but the homely Uses' of life, and if it was his kindness that mad* him keep that silence towards her. lib was coming now from the barn, a straight tall fellow wilii good brown eyes and a square chin. Mirabel sped in to the stove, and had the steaming dinner up before his feet could toych the sill. Harrison bad an armful of packages. Ho laid them down on the kitrhen lounge, swept , off % his hat with one motion of his hand, and with the other begah to pump into the basin in the sink. He/ soused his head and face, and came out' dripping, After a scrub at tho towel by the dOor, he ,turned to Mirabel, waiting beside her plnte. "Well," said he, "you all right?" That was deep affection. Mirabel knew it and her eyes glowed. But she answered soberly, because that contented him, and they snt down to eat. When Harrison had dulled the edge of appetite he sat bftck and sighedSwith satisfaction.. "Well, he said, "ivlu, do you s'pose I see In the post office waitin' for the lnnil?'' "I don't know." "Lucy Miles." In spite of her the colour flew up into Mirabel's tell-tale skin. She felt it there and chided herself for it . I'How's she look?" she asked, with a careful interest, "Young us ever. Pretty, too." "How's, sho look,- Harrison?" said Mirabel. "You know I never really see her." "No, she wasvisitin' here when I used to see so much of her. That's what sh^'.i doin'-now. Goin' to-morror, sho said." "How's she look?" Mirabel repeated the question clearly, nnd turned candid ejes on him. She had no re#*on for leing jealous Over Lucy Miles. ' If Ilnri"«oa had wnnted her, she had 'many a time assured heiself, ho might have : had her But Harrison always called her preUy nnd hearing that her heart ached and her lips grew mutinous. Harrison was speculating over her question. "Yes,' 1 he said, 'at length, "I guess Lucy's a mighty pretty girl, fur nB looks go. She's got black eyes on' blnck hair an' a good skin, and 1 she's straight ns an ai-rer. Yes, I guess there's no doubt bub what Lucy's pretty^ Got any pie?" There wan a custard pie, w,arm from the oven, and Harrison addressed himself to ifc with n fervour feminine beauty hnd not challenged in him. Mirabel ate a little of the brown skin oil the top of her piece. "You sick?" inquired Hai'rison, seeing it unfinished on her plate. "No," she answered, < "I ain'6 very hungry. " "GiVfe it to rae, then." He nte both pieces and rose With another sigh. But he came hack from Hie door, on his way out again, hearing how Mirabel's step lagged, beating back and forth from table to pnnlry, "I gUesp ytm ain't very rug' ged to-day," said Harrison. He put <1 big hand on hei* shoulder nnd Mirabel brightened^ "I'd lay down a upell." Her spirits came back ih a dflneiiig troop, Tier face dimpled delightfully. Sho bent her hend and dropped a kiss on his sleeve. "No," she said, "no. I nin't tired. I ain'b^ ever tired, this weather. Only I got thinkin'." "Well," said Harrison, kindly, and went on to the bnrn. The days when Mirnbel got thinking were nor very frcquelil ; but she was conscious all the time tlmt sho did want llnrrifion to like her looks. At lenat, she longed to know whether he did or not. ( It wns partly hunger and partly curiosity, but between them they consumed her. ' The next dny the fever was Mill upon her, and when, in the morning, he told her lie was going tn the river pnshire fencing, to bo coiie. all day, she was gliid. Bho could wiidi her long red hair, and then coil it up decently, nnd by the time ho came home ho ready to fdrget it and ulittke herself down into a new calmness. It wns n sweet April morning with the Warmth of Mny. Harrison looked at her n-lmost regretfully ns she ran out to give him his little packet of luncli, where ho sill in tho dingle Cart, ready to go. "1 'most wish you wns comin', too," he mused. "Mebbo 'twould be kinder damp, though, fscllin' round outdoors all day long." "I've got lots to do " said Mirnbel, ftnily. "Good-bj*. I'll lmvo somelhin' for supper 'long about six." When the blue Carb was bobbing flwny ,

down under the old elm, she ceased to watch it, and ran indoors, because she meant to be so busy, and the outside sweetnej-'s tempted her. She hurried through her tasks, with a lick and a, promise, as old Aunt Mag used 4o say, the vagabond aunt who had named her, and then got out the little keeler, and into a bath of warm suds let down her long thick hair. It wns a hnrd task for one pair of hands, but in half an hour she was sitting out in the yard in ithe full flood of sunlight with the hair streaming over her ehonlders, drying, and Curling as it dried. She rubbed it, and played with it, and towed it up to let the ah' blow through it, and when tho bronze-red kinks, like growing things all alive, were clustering over her head, she still sat there, holding up the ends of it to let the sunlight in again. "Good morning," said a voice. Mirabel gave a lifle cry. She dropped her hair, and parted the golden fleece to look at him. ghe knew him at once. He was the man who boarded two miles away on the Sudliegh-road, and put up his great umbrella in the midst of meadows, and snt there painting all day long. He was a short, stout man, with a grayish, pointed beard, and eyes set veiy far under straggly brows. He carried the umbrella closed, and other things she did not understand. "Good morning," said he again. "I want to paint your hair." Mirabel gathered it about her, this time like a mantle. Sho said nothing. He was opening a camp-stool, and, with out looking at her, he kept on talking. "I guess you can jgive me a sitting, can't you? Give me ali the 'time you've got to-day. I'm going away to-morrow. Wish I could stay longer, but I sail Saturday. I didn't know there was such hair within a, hundred miles." Sho half rose from her seat. He seemed kind, and also irresistible, but she felt like flying into the house, and doing her hair up tight and firm and nob looking at it all day long. "Come ! cbme !" said he. "I can't waste a minute. Infernal fools not to tell me there was hair iike that—" Ho stopped hid grumbling and smiled at her. At once Mirabel sat down in her chair, and timidly returned 'the smile. "Why," said ho, "you musn't be afraid. You wouldn't be afraid to have youi! photograph taken, now would you?" "No," said Mirabel, almost inandibly. "Well then ! I only want to make a picture of ;rour hair. Sit still, like a good girl, and let me do it." He had unstrapped other things. He was seated before her. Sho could not flee. But her face quivered a little. She felt as if she wero going to cry. ne had been dabbing colours on his palette, and now he leaned back and, looked at her, his head on ono side. She felt her chin trembling. "That's right," he snid. "Part it a little more away from your face. That's good. I want you to seem to be looking through it. There, that's exactly right." Then he began to Work. Mirabel's chin shook more and more, but he either did nob feee it, or he did not seem to mind. Suddenly he began talking. It might have been to himself, though it sounded partly as if he were rending from a book. "Once upon a time there was a little girl, and she had read hair. Why !" he glanced at her with a queer surprise in his lifted eyebrows, "it was just like yours. Isn't that odd ? Well, she v:ent to school with other girls, and none of them had red hair. None of the boys had,, except oiie, and his was a real carroty red, and he was all freckles. On his hrtnds, too." "Lester Plitchard !" called Mirabel. "How'd you know?" Her foice sur-* prised her, it was.so sharp and loud. His eyes twinkled in their ambush. ''There's ahvaye one like that," he said. ''Well, the girl kept on growing and growing till she couldn't grow any longer, because she was grown up. And her hair kept growing and growing and growing, too, and it could always grow longer, if it Wanted to; bub when it gob the right length it stopped. But it was always red hair. Mirnbel was watching him keenly from her glistening covert. "xVnd," he said abruptly, "red hair's tho prettiest hair there is. S6 that's all there is Of that story. What's your name!" She could answer now, though she would rather have stopped to think over the conclusion of the story. "Mirabel May," she said. ''My. husband's name is Harrison May." "Mirabel May. Who gave you such a- pretty name?" Mirnbel jumped in her 1 chair and her eyes gleamed but at him. She began to talk tutnultuously. Tho barriers were down. "Do you think it's a pretty name? My aunt gave it to me. Sho used to read story papers, an' lay round outdoors, mother said, an' she died as poor as n rat. Mother said they all Baitl she would if she carried on so, but liothin' would stop her, I thought maybe 'twas a funny name. 1 thought maybe my hair was funny, too." She ceased, aghast at her own boldness, and gathered her hair ngnin under her chin. The stranger was Smiling at her kindly and pausing with his brush in air. "Sib still," he said, as if ho were gentling a_ horse. "I'll tell you another story. This ,is the story of the picture they inado out of itho red hair, Once upon a time there was a grown-up girl that had red hair. She looked just liko you. Maybe it was you. One day an old man! came limping along to her gate. He looked just like me. Maybo ho was me. 'Hullo !' says he to himself. 'Here's a girl with red hair.' So he sat dOAvn and painted all dny long, and the girl sat still very still— don't wiggle round so. You 11 hear the story it it's ever finished, and I gUess will bo. And he painted all he could that tiny, and took the picture away with htm, and painted some moro ns he remembered it, nnd he called the picture 'A Study in Red." And everybody enme to see it, and they all said 'Oli, my I' And all over the city thoy said 'Oh, my !' for two Weeks by the clock, till tho painter had to pack up his umbrella ond his canvas and his campstool and run away because he was so denfenod by hciring them say 'Oh, my !' " Mirabftl's cheeks were blooming rose with tho wonder of the hour. • She forgot Harrison. ('She forgot her bread . rising. She forgot everything that had once belonged to her'} so'tlml now when the cat crime and rubbed against 'ier skirt, purring and setting n waving toil in air, she looked down as if it were an alien cat, It seemed as if this April day had been the one she had waited for «nd iihe stronger was an old friend come buck from somewhere to talk things over. She began to tnlk heiself, but she cotlld think of only two things to any, though sho had suid them once already. "T thought maybe my name was fftnny." "Mirabel May," he repented. "No ! no! Thnt isn't funny. It'B nice, Mis : trnss Mirabel May I" "I 'thought maybe my hair was homely, too." Ho smiled at lioi', and shook his head over his puinting. "No ! no '" he snid. "No ! no ! You sit still and mnybe I'll tell you another Story about that. Do you mind the sun on your head ?" "No, oh, no," said Mirabel, in a vague happiness. "I like it." There were soft flying clouds in the sky. They dnppled the grtiss with shade. The birds wero very busy tbn>t morning, singing and weaving. Tho road was quite deserted. Nobody went to market and nobody came to spend the day. More and more it seemed to Mirabel that sho and the stranger were in a new place

where she had never sot foot before and where sho liked to be. At noon he lay down his brush. He knew ib was twelve o'clock by his hunger and she knew it by the shadows on the grass. "Well !" he said, in a tone of satisfaction. "I'll run in and cook some eggs," said Mirabel. "Do yoit like milk?" He did. His smile told her. At the door she paused and looked back at him timidly. "Won't • you come in," she asked, "and rest?" "In a minute," said the Stranger, and while sho cooked the eggs he walked about and stretched himself, smoking a bhort black pipe. When the meal Was seb'out she called him. She had put up her hair, and it crowned her heavily, so that she carried her small head with what looked like pride, to balance it. She had spread her table in the sitting-room, With the best pink lustre and the big cut-glass preserve dish Aunt Mag had bought onc6 with money she had taken to town to get shoes. The stranger was very hungry, and he liked everything ; but Mirabel only ate a little bread and milk, perhaps because sho felt to solemn. After it was over and he had gone out to smoke another pipe, she left her dishes standing, and hastily let down her hair. Like amodest handmaid, she appeared before him in tho yard. "You want me to sit down again?" she asked, in a, fervent faithfulness. He nodded, and they itook their places, and that afternoon he worked in silence. When the sun was low, he looked up at her with a different smile, as if they had both been in the picture together, and now they had come out of it . "There, child," be said, "that'll do. We've done all we can." "Have you finshed it?" asked Mirabel. Her eyes were large, and seeking. She' was very pale. At last she began tojfeel how stiff she was "Conle and look at eit," said the stranger. She went timidly round to his side and looked. She gazed at it a long time, and then she took up a strand of her hair and studied that. "You think it's pretty? 1 ' she asked him. He answered gravely. "It's very pretty, Mirabel. We've done a. good day's work." "You satisfied?"' She interrogated him like a child. He nodded, again gravely. "Yes, I'm satisfied. Now I must pack up my traps.'' Whilo he did it with deft hands, she stood absently watching him. She still looked pale and her eyes were tired. Glancing at her he hesitated. His hand sought his pocket. "i want—" he began. "I know you'll let me give you 'a little remembrance to—" "No ! no !" she cried. Her voice was sharp with protest. "No, I couldn't" "You wouldn't — " he lifted a little charm on his watch chain and looked at it. "No, no," said Mirabel again. She did not know how do tell him that he had given her already everything he had to give. "Well." He considered a moment. Then he smiled at her as he had when he told tile stories. "I know what I'll do," he said comfortably. "I've got a little pioture of the Long Meadows down below here — with the willows by the edge. You'd like that., Yes, I know you would. I'll send it to you to-mor-row when I go. And thank you, Mirabel. Thank you." He took off his hat and stretched out his hand. She laid hers in ib, and smiled gratefully at him. Then ho picked up all his traps, and she walked, with him to the gate and stood there watching him as he went away, Once he turned and smiled at her. "Oood-by !" she calfed. "Uood-by !" When Harrison came home from the river pasture, the supper-table was- ready in the sitting-room, and there were ham and eggs. Mirabel, her hail* done tidily and her face a little pale but very happy, was ready td pour his tei and listen to his story of the day. It was not until he had finished that he looked about him , and lfcalised the festival aspect of the best china and the table spread in the"company room." "What makes ye eat in here?" he asked, nob complamingly, but with an acquiescent interest. Mirabel did not answer directly. She pushed back her plate and leaned her white arms on the table. "Harrison," said she, "there was somebody here to-day. Ho wanted to mako a picture of my hair. He said 'twas no worse than sit tin' for a photograph." "Sho I" said Harrison. "Where is it?" "The picture? lie .took it away with him." "Was it that feller that's ben paintin' down in the medder?" "Yes." "How was it? Anything like?" A blush burned her check. "I don't know," she said v humbly. "I don't know's wo can tell how wo look ourselves, "n < i Harrison! chuckled. "Sofne on us can," he rejoined. "There'a Lucy Miles. She's peekin' all over hei\self every minulo, jes' liko a rooster afore he crows, Jote Freeman spoke on't last town-meetin' dny. We passed her when we wero drivin 1 along to thfe fichool-hdUse. 'Look there,' says he. 'See her crook her neck and ile her feathers, Now, there's your woman, Harrison,' says he; 'a handsomer woman never stepped, an' sho don't know it no more'n the dead.' " Miiabel was lenning fbrward over her plate. Tile red had comb into her checks and her eyes were shining. "Who did he mean, Harrison?" sho trembled. "Who'd he mean ?" Harrison gazed at her in slow wonder. "Why, I told' ye," he returned. "Was it mo, Harrison ?" I'Why, yes. Who'd ye think it wns?" "Wlnit did you say to him, Harrison?' 1 fho breathed. "You tell me what you said." "Why, I don't rightlr remember what I did say. Come to think of it, yes I do, too. 'That's the way with them real high stepper^,' says I. 'They don't know there's any odds between 'them an' any body .-'so!' Seems queer." Ife was lighting his pipe, on the way to the kitchen, and lie paused to laugh a little. "What seems queer?" she reminded him still breathlessly. "Tho fray things go. When I fust begun to shine up to you, mother she warned me. 'Harrison,' said Bhe, 'she's a handsome crentur'. You dunno how shell turn out.' 'YeV says I, 'she's tho handsomest cicatur' in this country, but she don't caro no moro about if n' I do. Sho lived to see I was right, too. Whores the strainer pail?" Mirabel flew out of her ,chnir, nnd brought it lo him. Ho took it, and sho clung to his arm a moment, laughing and crying together. "Oh, Hairison, 1 ' she said, "ain't it wonderful ! " Ho Rayed a- moment to stroke her hair With Ins clumsy hand. "Thcfe," ho said, tenderly. "I guess you've done 100 much. You're all beat out."— Alice Brown, in the New York Outlook.