The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 1 December 1910, Page 1955

The Storyteller

TO MARRY OR NOT TO MARRY

When Alice Armstrong came downstairs in a blue lawn, crisp and fresh from the iron, and stood putting on her bonnet before the kitchen looking-glass, the hands of the little round clock beside the window pointed to a quarter to two. 'You're starting out pretty early, ain't you?' her mother called from the dining-room, where she was sewing. Alice glanced toward the clock. 'Yes,' she answered- " it is early, but I'm all ready how.' • '. . Her mother laid down " her work and came to the kitchen door. ' Well, i suppose you'd as well go on, then, aim take your time for it, so as not to get all bet up She turned her daughter around to fluff out a ruffle here and pat it in there, and then, looking straight into the eyes that fell beneath her glance, she said rather sharply: •And Ido wish you'd try to spunk up a little. You look like you d buried your last friend. I'm ashamed of the way yon act about this, Alice.' The girl made no answer, and, taking up her cotton mitts she left the house and turned into the path that led down the hill to the main road below. \uJho of ° U V v t 0 take , her yearly tea with Miss Martha Cotton It was a movable feast, like Easter and Ihanksgivmg, falling on the Thursday of the week in which strawberries were at their best. Its beginning lay in nothing more than a child's disffies at " 0t gotting a P™ mi dish of strawr>™ Y-h" i AIk '° "m S five y ., a, ' s l(1 ' she was pending the oay with her mother at Martha Cotton's, after the old fashion oi staying to dinner and supper and going home in the cool ol the evening. Alice found it tiresome, and very soon after dinner she began teasing her mother to take her Home. To amuse her, Miss Martha gave her the little shell box from the mantel and let her have the string of blue and white beads and the charm string it contained to play with and, as a crowning inducement to stay, promised her a dish of strawberries when the sun should have gone off lit 1 . a S" * ' < ? at ' shod '- Alic °, sat on the steps that projected below the stair door into the room, and made patterns of she 6 fell asleep. " S m her little pink Calico lap until o. i While she slept, a sudden shower, with hail, came up and wet the road, so that her father driven in from the he 'and &*£*?* t ? Wn toth « ™SS™ and came to take he, and her mother home. Alice was glad enough to go, until she remembered the promised berries " gn t 0 'Why, honey,' Miss Martha said in answer to her impatient demand to be taken to the garden for them, they re all beat down in the ground now by the hail that came up while you were, asleep. Never mind, next summer von c™ US l ° TM? n ? that J 0" get all the strawberries myself.' UP ° ld P °" y and Come after y° u A ,. But he P r ° mise of a pleasure so remote did not satisfy Alice. i Lve„ 10 maple-sugar egg and the string of blue and white beads that Miss Martha put into her hands as parting gifts very poorly made up for the missing: berries and she sat in the high seat between her rathe?' and mother on her way home, feeling very much cheated, in the next strawberry season, however, Miss Martha true to her promise, drove old Poney over for Alice They had V Very pleasant visit together; so pleasant, indeed f e JiTf r fP eate . d the following year, and by that time the event had acquired the dignity of a custom, which had it, is fctS en from that ' A,ice ' s " t,r " In other + times Alice had pushed her way through the Kw USI t 0 t , he i lr "S-places and had come to Miss Marthas house laden with the woods' treasures- but today she had „o heart for them, and save for a few buds of that grew close beside the way, her hands were fi Q i,i At *i h ? bond of the lane she came upon the edge of a held, and far across the rows of young corn she eauSit; aidit of a man ploughing; but she looked quickly away her heart beating painfully, and hurried on. Presently she was looking down upon the long, sloping roof of Martha Krfttte T 5 and , m ° SSy - amo,l the orchard trees Pail, tI J 1J H ™ TI a ! Kl ' ° P T?" a gate, followed a little Martha's In? Tl * he wood *<* to the bars beside Miss viaithas bam. Nothing seemed ever to change here On «lk belt clasped by a square buckle" ,f pale olf gold out

lining her waist. : and a bow of purple ribbon at her' throat. 'Why, you've r come real early,' she said as she kissed Alice's cheek, pink and soft within the stiff bonnet. And I'm real glad; too, N for it'll give us a nice long visit before supper. Come in and take off your bonnet you look kind o' ; hot and tired.' And she led the way into a cool, shady room. '•*•- '>»■;:■".;: Alice handed her the rosebuds. 'They're all I brought you this time,' she apologised. 'And they're all wilted; I must have held them too tight.' ' Oh, they'll freshen up when I put 'em in water. I'll go right now and draw a bucket- out of the bottom of the well.'

'l'd rather go to the porch.' So they went back to the shade of the grapevine, and Miss,Martha resumed her work. She was piecing a quilt, a double Irish chain of tiny red and white blocks. Alice watched her for a minute and then asked a little shyly: " Is that my quilt you're piecing, Aunt Mattie?' Yes, I guess it is. It's the one I promised you, anyhow, if. you like it. It'll be right pretty, I think/ and she held up a piece for Alice to get the effect. But the girl looked away, and a slow color came into her cheeks. ' Aunt Mattie,' she said softly, ' 1 sha'n't need it. I'm— John and' I—we've quit.' Miss Martha looked at her a moment and then let her hands drop with the work in them to her lap. She showed no surprise; the words seemed rather to be a confirmation of something she had expected and dreaded. 'l.don't know what to say,' she said finally. 'I reckon you've made up your mind and are settled about it; only,' she hesitated, 'I hope it's all for the best.' She began her work again. I'll go ahead and finish the quilt anyhow, and give it to you as I said I would, for I guess you'll need quilts whether you marry or don't. I find I always do.* 'But I'm not going to keep house and live by myself as you do,' the girl demonstrated. 'What are you going to do, then?' 'Live at home. Why not?' ' Well, yes, that's likely for a while, but one of these times you won't have no home to stay at, honey; your ma and pa they'll be gone same as mine is, and your brothers and sisters they'll be married and gone, too. Then you'll be living by yourself, I guess, same as I do,' ' My experience is that you won't ever keep that up long. I've tried it, and 1 know what I'm talking about.' 'Weren't they good to you, Aunt Mattie?' the girl asked after a minute.

'Why, yes, they meant to be, but they've got their own interests and their own families, and it don't make no difference how long you.stay— an outsider. Why, you ought to know yourself how 'tis; you've visited at your sister Elma's. Did you really to say feel at home there, like you do at your own home now?' No Alice admitted reluctantly, 1 didn't, hut Elma's so awfully changed. You know how she used to be so particular about everything—takin' such care of her face and hands, and always curling her hair; well, I wish you'd see her now. She goes* out without a bonnet, and combs back her hair tight and slick, and does it up any way that's handiest. She hardly ever changes her dress after dinner, and she just works and slaves; don't think of anything else. And Harry's worse than she is: goes around without any kind of a collar; and it seems to me, Aunt Mattie, they don't care much about each other any more. That's the worst thing. When he came from his work he used to call to her and go in where she was and laugh and joke about things, and seem to take some enjoyment in life; but now it's work and save and lav by for the children, and that's all they live for. Don't you hate to see folks get that way,, Aunt Mattie ' Yes, I do. ' And- yet, you know, we maybe ain't fair to 'em, judging on the outside like we do. I reckon it seems; different to them. And as for not makin* over each other, don't you reckon that's partly because they understand each other so well it ain't—well, ain't called for? Yet I'm like you; I don't just like to see it.' There seemed no more to say on the subject, and a silence fell between. them, broken after some minutes by Miss Martha, who asked with some hesitation: ' What was the-trouble between you and John, if you don't mind my asking?' ' I don't mind your asking, Aunt Mattie,' Alice answered, flushing, 'but I don't know how to answer you, for there wasn't really anything the trouble. We 'just quit.' . ' Mutual consent?' No—well, not at first. I didn't want, to set the day; I couldn't. It was after I'd been down to Elma's and' I was disgusted with the thought of everything. I 'don't want to live like she does and be like them; "and that's what it does mean to get married and settle down on a farm; and I told John so and it made him angry.' 'Well, I; thought that was about what's the matter. I don't blame you—and I don't blame John for gettin' mad, either. What does you ma think about it?* ~ ' Oh, she l doesn't say anything. I guess she's glad, though. 1 " - I don't think ma wants me ever to get married You know I'm the baby; and she likes to keep me with her, I suppose. Then,, you know, she's got an idea that

I'd make an artist if I had : a chance". I do draw' fairly well, arid-she's always been at -to send s me-away : where 1 can take, lessons. My teacher :at the? academy; said she thought 1 couid illustrate for magazines and papers if I was trained for it, and now pa says he'll let trie* go' and take lessons next fall if I want to. And I guess ma-likes' that.' .': 'I must say I wouldn't hardly 'a' thought it. John's a good boy, and he's got good prospects. I'd 'a' thought your ma'd 'a' hated it.' 'Well, she didn't she did more than anyone else to bring it about. When I came back from Elrria's* arid told her how it all was out there, she said* it was' 4 what anyone mierht exnect • mars-vino- a. v*>~riitw n'n*l*«a!.+*K»«- +~ i:«~* on a farm _ always meant about the' same thing! Arid* she s said she didn't for the life of her see' how a girl that had been raised on a farm and knew what it meant could do it. Then she said to me, It'll be just the same with you, mind my word"; and 1 made up my mind right then, that it wouldn't.' Miss Martha threaded her needle carefully and tied a knot before she made" any comment. 'I don't think she did right to say what she-did inthe first place, and I'll say it if she is your mother,' she' said. ' I always hate to hear married women talking : that way, because, to begin with, they don't mean it. They don't stop to think—that's where the trouble is. They see their girls young and care-free and havin' a good time, and they hate to see 'em tied down to hard work and Worries and everything. But if they'd think a minute, they'd see that their girls'll get old and care'll come'to 'em and worry, whether they marry or don't marry, and they'll riot find it any easier to bear havin' it all to bear by theirselves; either.' ■

There seemed something personal in Miss Martha's resentment, and Alice was at a loss for a reply. Finally she asked shyly: Do you think, Aunt Mattie, that married folks are happier than others?' 'Well, now, that's hard to say; in lota of eases of course they ain't; but I do think, Alice, as a general thing they are.' ,' 'But you have an easy life here by yourself; you haven t much to do, and your house is always just so; when you put anything away it stays right where you put it, and there's nobody to bother you. Seems to me 1 you've escaped a good deal.' Miss Martha looked at her. 'Now, Alice;' she said, 'seems tome that's a good. deal like congratulatin' a man that hadn't any legs on escaping rheumatism in the knees, and you wouldn't do that. No, don't apologise—everybody says that to me. I ought to get used to it, I suppose; but I don t, somehow. It hurts every time. : But -then-1 can't expect folks that are always wbrkin' to keep things up and gettin' all wore out at it, to know how much' more tiresome 'tis not to have it to do.' She paused, looking away from.her work and from her visitor, far away, across the field of young corn that lay beyond the road, to where the river shone.silver between the trunks :i of the sycamores and the cotton woods. 'Honey,' she said at last, without turning her eyes. Id tell you something if I thought you'd care about it or it would do you any good: something 1 haven't told many. 1 don t know if you ever knowed it or not, but I was engaged myself once.' Alice shook her head.

~, ' No I reckon not,' Miss Martha went on, 'There didn t many know it, I guess; folks Was slyer about " being engaged them days. I'd just -. turned" eighteen when we broke oft. I can't tell you how old I was when I got engaged, because I don't know myself.' 'Why, how was that?' -. ... .'■' 'Well, I guess I'll begin at the beginning. His name was Charley Mills, and his folks used to live back along the road about half a mile from us, and he always came along by our house to go to school. Seems as if folks took it for granted we'd marry, same as we- did l ourselves 1 Though I can't say as my folks approved of it. They never* had anything against Charley, as I know of, butHhey' was pretty well off for them days, and carried -their* heads •higher than most, and the Millses was poor. They' was the only renters in our whole district. Of ' course .'the people around thought that anybody with any spunk would at least make out to get a place of their own. But the' Millses was content as anybody; fact is, I think' that was what aggravated our folks, that they was content. ' I remember how often father'd manage to bring up that'old sayin about "What's bred in the bone and' born in the blood, and I knowed he was hittin' Charley Mills for I my benefit just as well as if he'd called out his'name. And mother she d say things about folks that -didn't have"no' regular wash-day and that fried down" their sausages in cakes 'stead of casin' 'em and all such. 'Well you know how it is; if you're looking for a thing, you re mighty apt to find it or to think -you 1 do' which comes to the same thing. I got to watchiri* Charley and pickm flaws in him and thinkin' every little fault meant a bigger one : behind > it, <■ though If did love hira'i I knew that all the time. Sometimes seems to me it is that ■ way; nobody can see the faults in a body like the onethat loves em best, .because it don't hurt anybody else'so much, and they don't care enough- to notice 'em. But it s a bad habit to get into. . .

'One afternoon Charley looked over here right to this very house; and he says to me: " How'd you like it if I'd buy that place over' there of your father? It would be real nice and handy to home for you, wouldn't it?" " Why, yes," . I says, "if you'd build a nice new house on it; bub I wouldn't, live in that old thing." /You see, father'd .: put ; it tip for the man that dug coal in our bank to live in. It wasn't nothing but a tworoomed log house with a chimbley outside, and no kind of fixin' up. There wasn't: another like it, exceptin' back along the hills, in the whole country round. It did look awful bad to me after our big red brick house; you know 1.«,.r U ,™„],-l an A T A >*. I™~~ T ~, 4- n {.larr-.A ir.r nvn ju »vfiiivt, aiiu a. .uu.il u ivilun <*o 1. wrto uu uiamc jiui feelin' as I did about it. But I hadn't more than got the words out of ray mouth till I see a look come in Charley's eyes that I'd never seen there before. He had beautiful eyes, Charley had, brown and soft as velvet. But there wasn't anything soft in 'em that time. He had been a-whistlin' a willow stick as we was settin' there, and he flung it down and shut up his knife quick as a wink and stood right up before me. .? ' " Mattie," says he, " I don't think you and me understand each other any more, and the sooner we do the better it's going to be for us both. I'm a .poor man, Mattie, and I never expect to be anything but a poor man as long as I live. I'm willin' to work for you with all my strength, but you'll have to be content with my best, and I reckon that don't mean much of fine houses or fine clothes or a good many other things that you're used to. Now you'll have to choose between them and- me. That house over there looks poor enough to you, I reckon, but I could be happy there, and so could you if you thought as much of me tm I do of you, Mattie, and that's the whole thing of it."; • 'l've thought lots of times that he didn't go at me right, but then, too, I've thought how it must have galled him all the time to know how our folks looked on him and his. I reckon many a time he'd set his teeth and stood tilings for my sake; and it must 'a' seemed mighty hard to him to have me turn on him, too. It's all been plain to me a long time how 'twas, but I didn't think of it then, and what he said, and the way he said it, stirreu me all up ; and I don't know what I did say, but I expect it was something I oughtn' to. I know I throwed away the flowers and leaves and things in my lap and started for home. He come along with me, and neither of us spoke a word; and when I turned in at the gate at home I never looked around to say good-bye to him. ' Seems to me lie hadn't more than got out of sight before I was sorry for what I'd said; but I thought he'd get over it and be around again next Sunday, and I dressed up and set all afternoon waitin' for him. I don't know as 1 ever felt so downhearted in my life as I did that night, but still I didn't do anything to let Charley know; and I believe he stayed around home waiting for some kind of a sign from me for two or three weeks, for after that he went off, and for a time 1 never heard a word about him.' For some, time Miss Martha's hands had been idle, and now she took off her classes and held them in her lap. There was a far-away, wistful look in her pale old eyes, and she was so long silent that Alice was afraid she should have no more of the story that was plainly unfinished; so she said by way of reminder: 'Didn't he ever come again, Aunt Mattie?'

Miss Martha roused herself. ( Oh, yes, honey, but it was a good many years afterward, and a good deal had happened. Well, no, I can't say that, either; don't seem as if much ever to say happened to me, but there'd been a sight of change. I was a good' deal older, for one thing. I'd walk around the garden and look 'at the flowers and things, and go in the house and write a letter to one o' my old schoolmates that had married and moved out o' the neighborhood, knowin' like as not when I wrote it I wouldn't get no answer; they'd be too busy with their own concerns to care about an old maid like me.

Well, along about that time the coal company come in and bought up all the land back around the hills. Charley Mills come back, what did he do but buy if of the man we'd sold it to. Didn't it seem odd now that he should buy for his wife (he'd married, where he'd been) this very same place he'd wanted to buy for me? Yet there wasn't so many to pick from, unless he'd 'a' lived up in the company -houses, and he wouldn't do that. He had a real pretty little wife, and he fixed up his place as nice as could be for her; weather-boarded it over, and built on the porch and porch bedroom, and set things out around, and built palm's and walks and things. You don't know how it hurt me, honey: seemed at times I couldn't stand it. 'Mother was poorly and kept me pretty close, and I guess Charley didn't go many places around, either. He had work up to the mines, weighmaster, and though he come and went by the path back of our house, I didn't somehow ever see him till one morning wheiT I was out lookin' for a cow that hadn't come tip to be milked with the others. ' It was over there on the side of the hill where the violets that you used to bring me growed, and it was early. I was hurrvin' along, lookin' through the bushes for the cow, when I hear somebody callin' my name, and I looked around and there stood Charley. I couldn't move a step to save my life, but I held out mv hands, and when he come.mp he took 'em both and held 'em, lookin' me straight in the eyes. Seemed to me it was' a good while we" stood still that way,: and I never could remember* a .word either one of us spoke. I don't believe we did say anything, but there was something in his eyes I couldn't

quite make out. They looked deep and meaning, like they wanted to tell me something. • Sometimes it’s come to me that he felt what was before him; maybe not exactly what it was, but a sort of feeling that something great and strange was coming, and he wanted me to know it, too. ‘ Well, after he’d left me I forgot what I was out there for, and I just turned and went back to the house. But when I got there I couldn’t go in, somehow, so I took up the crocks from the sunnin’-bench and went down to the spring-house to strain away and skim up. But ’twas the same thing there; I just put down the crocks and sat down by the willow-tree and looked down at the spring rirnnin’ over the little shiny pebbles, and thought/ I was settin’ there when I heard an awful noise, like a - sharp clap of thunder, but not like it, either — like ah earthquake, I expect. But I knowed in a minute what it was, though I’d never heard one before. It was an explosion’up to the mines, and I knowed as well as if' I was there and saw it that it was at number three and that Charley was killed. ’ . • , . (To be concluded.)