THE HEN WIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 81

THE HEN WIFE.

By’

J. G. Horne.

I canna aye be restin’, laddie,” his mother said, without looking round, when he remonstrated with her on being so much on her feet. “ The werk maun be dune, and there’s as muckle o’t as there used to be.”

“.But, mither,” he said, as he had said so often before, “ you ken you’re no’ sae able as you used to be,” and he smoothed her grey hair tenderly. His unfailing gentleness with her was touching to see. He had come in from the fields, unexpectedly that afternoon to find her jelly-making, when she should have been lying on the sofa he had wheeled into the kitchen for that very purpose. She saw he was on the point of again pressing on her the need of a servant.

“ Noo, Alick,” she said, knowing the symptoms, “ you needna stert your phraisin’ again. I’ll ha’e nae mair" fremd folk messin’ aboot my kitchen.” Argument was of no use when she adopted that tone. He had tried every form of persuasion, especially when she showed signs of weariness at bed time, but she seemed as determined as ever not to have a strange or “ fremd ” woman in the house. Even when she had had that nasty fall in the winter and broken her leg, she would have no other outside help than that of the district nurse, and it was the doctor that had fetched her. Of course, it had been a great comfort to have her, but you can’t expect a nurse to cook and clean up in every house in the parish where there is illness. This attitude of his mothers had deterred many of their neighbours from offering friendly services; and it meant, too, that, as long as she was ill, any w’ay, her son had always to be about the doors, and it was no easy matter to work a farm, small though it was, and do household work as veil. Not to speak of his poultry farm, conducted on modern lines, of which he was so proud. Poultry-keeping was not the light work it used to be in the olden days when the farmer’s wife would set out a big pot at the back door for the barn fowls of multifarious colours and kinds, and in divers stages of infirmity, to tumble and scramble and chase each other after a scrap of fat, an’ De’il tak’ the hinmaist! That haphazard way was gone for ever. His mother was as hard to convince of this as of the necessity of having assistance in the house.

It was no virtue in the woman to be so dourly independent. It was just a habit. When her elder son, Alick, had gone off to the war, she was inwardly proud of him and did nothing to dissuade him, although she might well have, being a widow with a boy and girl still a + school. She had somehow managed through these awful years, and had put her boy, Jim, through college since then, though the girl, Mary, had died of influenza in the last year of the war. She was a strange, silent woman, and though. he was devoted to her, Alick never wholly understood her. There was always a reticence, a kind of reserve, between them. They would never tell each other their inner thoughts. Not that they wanted to hide their thoughts from each other, but that they, could not come to lay bare their hearts. Alick greatly wondered some days how she got through so much work. If he had believed in fairies he might almost have thought that some such invisible and beneficent agent was sometimes at .work in the house. Especially in the spring forenoons when he was away ploughing over the hill. Naturally, fairies have their special reasons and seasons.

Perhaps it was because she had so long fended for herself and her son that she did not relish the idea of being forestalled by a servant. She rose every morning at 5, summer and winter, and breakfast was on the table at G. During her illness, of course, he had been obliged to kindle the fire and prepare breakfast, and he had settled to continue this office even when she was again on her feet. But no sooner was the kettle singing than she was “ butt the hoose ” ready for,, the day’s darg. It was amusing, too, in its way. He would be moving about in the grey of the dawn, on his stocking soles, with the stealth of a cat, laying out the breakfast things with the deftness and silence of a waiter, and chuckling to himself at having stolen a march on her for once, when she would pop into the kitchen fully dressed for the fray. He had once, and only once, taken the law into his own hands, and applied personally at the servants’ registry for a girl to do farmhouse work. He got one readily enough. But she' had arrived suddenly with her box without any warning when he happened; to, be in the fields. And his mother, not having any

warning either, from her son was naturally taken by surprise. Many a woman with less force of character and less consideration for others would have packed the girl off home again before her son came in. That would have been an easy solution, prompt and dramatic. Instead they put up with each other for a week, and then parted. Although his mother never flaunted her victory he nevertheless admitted defeat and a degree of humiliation. It would never do, Alick saw, to repeat the experiment. It was evident that she would not thole for longer than a week, any more than he would, the daily and hourly sight of the usual feckless, gawky _ servant lass, genteelly termed a maid, who was the muscular and intellectual mainstay at most of the farmhouses round about. There were others to be had, of course, but they were usually getting married in a hurry, or running away, or both. . This frontal attack had proved abortive. He gave up frontal attacks, and revolved in his mind how he could get round his mother in some way or other. Not that he schemed and plotted. He was too simple for that. Curious that with so direct a nature, he never once thought of getting married, and cutting one knot by making another. His mother would surely then have seen the necessity of compromise—with a daugh-ter-in-law. But it never occurred to him. Perhaps he knew nobody who would be willing to act in such a capacity. !

One day in the summer when he had come in rather later from tending his poultry his mother looked up from her darning, and said: “I wunner, Alick, that ye dinna hire a laddie to help ye wi’ yer bits o’ hens. It w’ould save ye mony a trauchle.”

“ I wadna lippen my hens to a laddie,” he said, taking off his clogs. “A lassie then,” she said in an off- . hand kind of way, “ a hen-wife.” Now, he had never thought of that. It was an idea worth considering. He wondered if his mother had been thinking of any girl in particular .when she had suggested that—somebody who would be acceptable to her as well as to him. A woman can think long thoughts, when she is darning socks. It would be clever, now, if he could find a personable lass to mind the hens, and at the same time, perhaps, by imperceptible degrees make herself indispensable to his mother in the kitchen. He might have asked his mother if she had had anybody in her mind, had he not dreaded that she might mention a name that there and then almost leaped to his lips. She could not possibly have meant her? If she had, then it was not a hen-wife, but a wife, she had implied. Surely she could not have hinted that he should marry and bring in a wife to supplant her! She was too masterful for that. That was out of the question. It would be passing strange, indeed if she had even tho ight of such a thing. Absurd. He had ever consciously given her any guide to his feelings in that way. She knew nothing of his heart. He had kept it locked securely—even from himself ' perhaps.

Besides, Nellie Blair would never entertain the idea of such work. She was the sister of the village carpenter, and was at present keeping house for her brother. He was soon to be married, however, and she would be out of a place. At least it wasn’t l : kely that she would be staying. But she might be going back to that office in the town where she had been in the winter. He thought of that with a twinge of uneasiness. It was futile to consider that any further. She would never stoop to be a hen-wife. It was strange, however, that the more impossible it seemed, the more alluring it became. He reflected that if his sister, Mary, had lived she would have been of an age with Nellie. They had been great chums at school, and she had been often about the farm then, but that was ten years ago, when he had come home from the war. ; She would be twenty-five or so. She had good looks, too, and a taking way with her. He was almost certain she would prove acceptable to his mother. Not that he had much to go by. His mother never mentioned her name, and Nellie was seldom at the farm, as far as he knew, except that she came each morning for her milk. That was nothing. Still he felt somehow’ that the two would get on well together.

It was w’eeks now since his mother had suddenly sprung this idea on him. and she had never mentioned it again. That was her way. Alick had not lost sight of it, but had done nothing further than in his simplicity consult his brother about it, his younger brother, Jim, w?io was a doctor in Glasgow’, and he had been humorously sympathetic in Ms reply. What was. it he had written again? “ Homoepathic doses of Nellie might do the trick.” He did not know whether to take it as encouragement or not. The more he thought of asking her the more he shrunk from doing it. It would be an awful hack to him if she refused. He would likely make a bung’e of it, anyway. He somehow was buoyed up by the thought that Nellie was good and kind and would let him down easilv.

The hay was all in, the peats home from the moss, and the corn was ripening fast. The harvest would be on them in a clap, with extra hands to feed, and pieces to send out to the fields. Something would need to he done. One evening in the gloaming he. took a daunder ddWn to the carpenter’s shop to see about the “ spillbands ” that Nellie’s brother was riiaking for one of his carts. He saw Nellie scattering corn to the hens incthe yard, and singing softly to herself. - Now was the time

to get her breath on the matter, if he could summon up enough courage to broach it. He was feeling unaccountably nervous for a big man like him. How was he to begin ? She greeted him with a shy gladness that did not help him any. But at last he got it out in a shame-faced kind of way.

When he mentioned “ hen-wife ” she reddened vexed-like, and he thought it was because the work was not to her liking. “ Of course, Nellie,” he said anxiously. “ I’ll dae a* the heavy and dirty work like cairryin’ water-to fill the pans, and clcanin the bosses.”

“ It strikes me, Alick,” she said rather drily, and looking at him strangely, “ that efter you dae a’ that, there’ll no’ be very muckle for a hen-wife to dae.’’

“ Oh, ay, plenty,” he hurried on to say. “ There’s the feedin’ and the ringin’ o’ the pullets, and the dockers to shut in by theirsels (there’s aye a wheen o’ them at this time o’ the year), the gaitherin’ an’ stampin’ o’ the eggs, and the books to keep. There’ll be plenty to dae. But atweenwhiles, Nellie” (she was smiling more like herself now), “I would like if you would get acquent again wi’ iny mither (she used to be fell fond o’ ye), an’ mebbe dae an orra troke for her withoot her kennin like. She canna bide to think that the work’s bein’ ta’en owre her heid, but still-an-on, she’s no’ fit for’t. It’s no’ that she’s thrawn, but she’s in a kin’ o’ sheuch that she canna win oot o’. You see what I mean?”

“ Brawly I I’ve—” then she stopped. “ It’ll tak’ some daein’ I can tell ye. You maun creep canny at first, till you ken her weys. Of eoorse I’ll tell her you’re cornin’ to mind the hens. That’ll*be a’ richt. She’ll have nae objection to that. The difficulty’ll be in gettin’ a fittin’ i’ the hoose. That’ll take some manoeuvrin'.”

“ If a’ tales are true, your mither is gey ill to get on wi’,” said Nellie as if doubtfully, “ but I’m game to ha’e a trv.”

“ That’s a’ richt then. Ye’ve ta’en a heavy wecht aff my mind, Nellie. The hairst’ll sune be here, and I was wunnerin hoo I wad manage the year, wi’ her no’ bein’ sae able. An’ noo aboot wages?” “ We’ll no’ fa’ oot aboot that, Alick,” she said hastily, almost testily. “ Let that stand enoo. It’s mair o’ an obleegnient than ocht else, mind ye, an’ I mith no’ suit either you or Mrs Grant.”

“ There’ll be nae doot about your suitin’ me, lassie. We’ll get on fine.” “Weel, I’ll be owre on Monday, efter Bob s mairrage,” she said in a business like way. “ I’ll no’ promise to bide a’ winter, though; I’ll mebbe gan back to my job in the toon efter the New Year.” No fear of that. Now that he had got her he would-keep her. So he said carelessly, “ It’s a lang time ere that, Nellie; we mich be a’ deid by that time.” “Ay, you never ken your luck,” she said as carelessly, “ but it’s as weel to be forehandit.” She was vexed that he took the prospect so light-heartedly. Alick daundered home with “mixed feelings.”

“The gomeril!” she said softly to herself as he went round the corner. “ Bargainin’ wi’ me aboot wages! The dear old gomeril! ” •

He found his mother bedded, but still awake, and told her what he had done. She sat up in bed. “ Wha did ye say?” “ Nellie Blair.” Nellie Blair! You’ve an awfu’ nerve to ask her to dae ony sic werk!” She lay down again with a thud.

That was how he had felt, too, but he had motives for her good that she could know nothing of. So he said nothing. But he felt abashed and aggrieved. Was lie not carying out her suggestion ?” I hope, it 11 be a’ for the best, Sandy. I would juist ha’e liked to ha’e seen her face tho’,” she said with a laugh. And after a while, “ Dae ye ken ocht aboot lassies ava, laddie? ” No that muckle; but Nellie has a braw wey wi’ the hens, mither.” His mither wished him “ guid nicht,” and turned her face to the wall to hide a wry smile. As if he could beguile his mother!

Alick went softly to his room in a kind of stupor. “Women are kittle fowk to deal wi’,” he thought as he undressed. Nellie started her duties on Monday morning, and Alick soon initiated her into the mysteries of his sideshow. She first learned about the proportions of food necessary to make the morning mixture, and she even went to the kitchen for hot water. Alick thought that was a splendid beginning, although she seemed to take a long time about it. Perhaps the kettle was not boiling. He watched her roll her sleeves up to the oxters, and noted the rounded beauty of her arms and the white magic of her slender neck as she leaned down and thoroughly mixed the stuff in the pails to the proper consistency. Just then he saw his ploughman glowering quissically at them from a byre door. “ Hey, Jock. Here’s a job for ye. Cairry thae pails to the pens! ” He followed slowly to see that all was right. But he could not superintend this work every morning. . They were to be cutting the roads for the binder the morn. The harvest would soon be in full swing. At dinner time there was a letter from Jim to say that he was coming north soon for a fortnight’s holiday. That was fine. He would help in the harvest as usual.

At supper time he found that all the eggs had been gathered, dated, stored in their proper receptacles, and the numbers booked foment each pen. He usually had this to do himself. He noticed,

too, that the homemade scones were of a different shape, from the kind usually baked on the girdle by his mother, but thought nothing about it. Women were fond of changes, and, as long as you were hungry, scones tasted just as sweet with fresh butter and cheese, no matter what the shape was. He also observed that Jim’s room had been snoddit up. “You’re a wonder, mither! ” he said. “Dae ye think sae, laddie?” was all she said, and wondered how she could have got it done without somebody to do the baking for her. Then he wandered down to the smiddy to see if the binder was ready, and had a crack with the smith who was working late. It would be ready in the morning; On coming back he found an empty two-seater car in the close, and wondered if Jim had arrived already. No. His mother informed him that a lady from Glasgow had come in a car and asked permission to pitch a tent in one of his fields for a day or two. He went down to the permanent pasture below the house and saw his ploughman, Jock, helping to erect a tent near the roadside. Good enough weather for camping, but mebbe late in the year for a woman! He had a talk with her, and by dint of much interrogation he learned that she was on a sketching tour. She seemed shy about speaking, and apparently didn’t know much about fixing up a tent, nearly as much as Jock did, and he noticed that she was young and good-looking. \Vas she alone he asked. Ye—s. Oh, well it would never do to camp so near the public thoroughfare. She must come up nearer the steading. She would get more shelter there in case of wind, and be nearer the house for eggs and milk and water. She hadn’t brought these with her, had she? No. Well it would be better up-by. Besides his mother would like it best that way. So much to Jock’s annoyance (his work was half done), the tent and all her paraphernalia were carried up to the house and a better and safer site chosen. By this time it was darkening.- And when Lis mother heard all about it, nothing would satisfy her but that the girl should come in and spend the first night, anyway, under a solid roof. She had just got her son Jim’s room ready for him. He was coming soon on a holiday. It would do fine for one night. After that she could suit herself, and the two went in together, like mother and daughter. The morning broke cool and clear, with no dew worth mentioning, and soon the sound of the reaper was heard in the land. At 10 o’clock tea and pieces arrived on the field by the lumbering agency of the ploughman’s boy. They were daintier pieces than usual and it took more to go round, but there was plenty of them. At midday his mother was all aione, but in fine fettle. The tent was up, too. A shingled head bobbed out and in, and he noticed Nellie-in the Black Wyandotte pen doing something or other. He wondered if she had been much in the kitchen in the forenoon. If she could only get into the good graces of that mother of his, and relieve her a little!

It would take time and patience, of course, and undermining, mebbe. There were signs of a woman’s hands in the kitchen window anyway. Sweet peas were arranged in a vase, with green sprays and gypsophila. Great! The lady from Glasgow seemed to have taste in flower decoration. It would be funny now if a mere stranger were to make headway with his mother when a neighbour couldn’t. But Jim would be here the day or the morn. She would need to shift and make room for him. But he never could tell what his mother would do. She might, if she took a fancy to the girl, make the brothers sleep together, and give her Jim’s room as long as she wanted it. It would be only for a few days, anyway, seeing she was on a tour. Then he went back to the harvest fields. What a pity the old kind of hairst was past and gone! When you had women in the fields binding and stooking instead of a wheen gangrels! Women with some colour in their get-up! Young treble voices and laughter! Couthy, canny, kindly days those! It was quicker now, of course, but drab and commonplace. Inhuman-like. Nobody seemed to have time to crack a joke or whistle or chase a rabbit. There used to be bairns too, running about, and whiles a wean sleeping in the bield of a stook. Those were the days! Nellie came with the afternoon snack. This w-as more than he had bargained for. She must be making good headway with his mother. Good lass! She sat down among them. It was much pleasanter that way. More like olden times. You seemed to get hungrier, too, and have -more to say between the bites, and sometimes during them. And her jumper or sweater or •whatever it was called had splashes of red and green in it. Bonnie! And it somehow made her look slimmer and taller. He didn’t like the way the men glowered at her, though, and then at him. The bounders. He’d like to crack their heads together like two nuts. She mustn’t come again! He rose up. They must push on with the work if this field was to be cleared the night.

When he left the field near “ lowson’ ” time a fine strong wind had sprung up and was making the stooks reeshle. And there, sauntering down the lane to meet him, between the hedges festooned with purple vetch and reddening brambles, came his brother Jim, and with him the lady of the car and tent, both very friendly-like, and laughing as if at some huge joke.

Alick got the surprise of his life when Jim introduced him to his future wife, Mary. What! his young brother J ’“i thinking about getting married, meditating matrimony, as they said in the novels! Why, it was but a year or two since he was cuddling into his arms in bed, a wee imp of mischief, feeling his big brother’s muscles, and umi,” 8 he had bice P 3 like that. Well' Well!

He got over his surprise at last, and offered his belated congratulations to both of them The girl looked from the one to the other of the brothers as they laughed and shook hands over again, and wondered which one she liked best They were both so jolly fi ne lllen , •> i, wb y a H this mystery, mv boy’ ” said the elder brother at last, looking at the laughing girl. « , ** was idea,” Mary confessed, to come a day or two earlier and try to worm my way into the.castle of your affections, all by myself.” “You were into the citadel the very first night, you—worm! ” Alick said. How sweet of you, Alick! ” said Mary, hugging his arm. She wanted,” added Jim seriously, “to get mother gradually to feel what it would be like to have a grown-up daughter in the house.” “ How nice and wice-like it would be,” she added prettily. “Another Mary,” said Alick to him; self.

“But why,” asked he of his brother, “ did you come so soon and spoil her chances, man ? ”

“ The truth is,” said Jim, “ I couldn’t stay away any longer.” And the girl was so gloriously happy at this that Alick could not help saying mis? chievously. “What an attraction the old home has! ”

“ What a tease of a brother you are! ’* she said happily. And then she told Jim loud and con? fidential-like how this terrible brother of his had last night actually bundled her willy-nilly, bag and baggage, up from the field at the side of the road so as to be within the purview of his castle walls. “As if I was an infant, the bully! ” “ Oh, that's nothing to Alick! He would bully the Infanta of Spain.” And then Jim began to tell in a whisper about some bullying exploit of his brother’s in and they laughed loud and long. -By this time they were near the house.

“ Mother kens a’ aboot Mary and me,” Jim whispered to him as they went in.

When he was washing himself in the back kitchen, Alick felt somehow that he had been defeated, and Nellie had been forestalled. Where was she, he wondered. He would like to see her in the picture. Not that he was unhappy; though. How could he be with the two lovers so happy, and the wind reeshlin his stooks" And when he saw how proud his mother was to set Mary to preside at the head of the tea table in the parlour, he felt very tender towards her, and thought of that other Mary who was never very far from his mother’s thoughts. In the middle of their jollity some one cried in at the window that the tent was “ blawin’ awa.” Mary jumped to save her belongings, and Jim followed. “ And everywhere that Mary wvnt The lamb was sure to go,” quoted the unperturbed Alick to nobody in particular as he watched the salvage operations from the window. “ Alick! ” said his mother suddenly. The two were alone. “What ails ye at Nellie Blair?” He started at the abrupt question, and sat down and stared at her. “ Nothing, mither. What wey are ye speirin’ ? ” “ Yon’s the lassie I wad like to help me in the hoose?” “ Well, mither,” he said in great relief, “ I’ve nae doot that can be managed well eneuch. I’ll speak to her. I’m glad you’ve come roond at last.” “ You’ll need to be quick, then, lad, she was show’n me a letter the day offerin’ her her auld place i’ the toon.” His face was a study.

“ I’ll gan this vera nicht,” he said at last; “ but I doot. mither, we’ll no’ can offer her as muckle as she wad get i’ the toon,”

His mother looked at him keenly and long, and her lips twitched as she said slowly. “ You can offer what will be faur mair to her as she ever get i’ the toon, my son! ” He looked at his mother dazedly, a strange pallor on his brown face. He understood her perfectly, and it coincided exaetlv with his own wishes.

“ Dae ye think she’ll hae me, mither? ” he asked humbly.

“ She’s been helpin’ me in the forenoons for the last six weeks, laddie. Try her and see.” He rose from the table and went out and down the lane without a word.

“ Bless the bairn! ” she said happily to herself, “ an’ he hasna ta’en half his supper! ” —Weekly Scotsman.