THE GOOD RED EARTH

New Zealand Tablet, 7 December 1911, Page 2453

THE GOOD RED EARTH

Abby Wells had retired in disgust from the city life. She had found it too strenuous, and as she was well-nigh thirty years of age she had given up hope of settling herself matrimonially. She put her savings in to the purchase of • a small cottage in the country and a couple of acres of ground.. She meant to do such farming there upon a miniature scale as might be attempted by a woman—to grow fruit and vegetables and to raise poultry. To her friends, who remonstrated against the rashness of the venture, she declared that she was perfectly confident she could make a living for herself out of the good red earth. And she might have realised her ambition but for a certain untoward circumstance. Her farm adjoined another, and as often happens in country districts, a strip of land where the property joined was claimed by both parties. The feud was a long-standing one, but the previous owner of the farm had included this land in the sale to Abby, as though it was really his, despite the strenuous protestations of the neighbor. Abby having purchased in good faith, and having an obstinate will of her own, was indisposed to admit that opposing claim. The piece of ground chanced to be particularly desirable. It had a spring, it was fertile —it had a sunny exposure, and, to crown all, a delightful view. Abby not only asserted a vigorous claim • to this bit of the farm, but set about preparing to utilize it. She determined to grow fruit there, to add to the fruit trees already planted, and to supplement them by currant and raspberry bushes. She hoped, in the course of a few years, to realise handsomely upon her expenditure. She made it her custom, moreover, to proceed thither every evening and enjoy the view, seated usually upon a great boulder of rock, which served as a boundary between that and her neighbor's possessions. It was the highest point of the land, and the view was glorious, over wide meadows and downward into a valley watered by more than one stream. She found this a relief from the quietude of the house, where only the presence of her old nurse disturbed the absolute solitude. Hostilities from next door began with a letter which fell as a bombshell upon her plans and projects She was warned off the disputed ground, forbidden to till or to plant, or even to trespass there. Thence sprang a voluminous correspondence. Abby, who was reticent of speech, and decidedly mild-mannered, penned page after page of argument and remonstrance, which gradually, it must be owned, became abusive and vituperative. The replies were couched in a bold strong caligraphy, and were concise and to the point' Abby declared to her confidant, the nurse, that they were aggressive and dictatorial. She made a few disheartened and dispirited attempts by day to proceed with her planting, with a view to asserting her rights and at evening, all the summer through, she took her station upon the boulder, at sunset time usually. She brought her book, but she no longer enjoyed either its perusal or the delights' of the landscape. She had an uneasy fear of being watched by malignant eyes and of some disagreeable interruption to the solitude. The controversy meanwhile grew hotter and hotter upon paper, so that Abby, who did not dare to plant in the forbidden ground, and merely made a pretence of having work done there, frequently spent the sunset hour in looking over her shoulder for the village constable to eject her as a trespasser. Despite her brave words on paper, she had a wholesome fear of her neighbor, whom she pictured to herself as bullying and aggressive. He on his part regarded Abby as the worst virago with whom a man had ever had to deal, and cited to himself certain portions of her letter in support of his contention. Sometimes as he read his cheek blushed, and he only wished that it were a man who had penned the document. ■ ■ ' Every evening he stood at the door of his house which was at a considerable distance from the adjoining farm, and peered cautiously thence at the prim, erect figure, which he could just see seated upon the boulder and outlined against the sky. He had. no idea of what

she was actually like, but he pictured her as gaunt and rawboned, with a hard, masculine face and a rasping voice. * At last the nights grew colder, the gorgeous colorings of gold and crimson began to die out of the skies, the meadows lay brown and sere, bereft of their golden wealth of grain, and Abby was forced to forsake the boulder and remain by the fireside. After that her neighbor felt a vague disquiet, a sense of loss and loneliness when he no longer descried that figure outlined against the evening sky. In the new restlessness which seized upon him, he wandered one autumn morning in the direction of the disputed territory. He had usually avoided the place in terror of a wordy combat with an opponent of the female sex, which he most of Ell dreaded. But now he felt a desire to see the place, and—yes, to catch one real glimpse of his fiery correspondent. He approached very cautiously, and with considerable trepidation. Abby was there with her skirt tucked up, busily hoeing out stones which might obstruct the growth of that crop which she had not as yet dared to plant. She did not hear her neighbor approach. She was all intent upon her work, a very pretty color in her cheeks, her lips scarlet, her eyes bright, and a few tresses of her firmly brushed hair escaping into curls upon her forehead. The neighbor stood and stared. Instead of the. six feet of gaunt womanhood he had expected, here was a figure under the medium height, which to his own great proportions seemed diminutive. And how pretty she was, and how obstinately was she persevering in her futile labors upon the land! Suddenly Abby turned and saw a man at least six feet high, broad shouldered and muscular. Intuitively she knew it was her neighbor. He was intently regarding her from the shadow of his slouch-hat, and carried a gun in his hand with which he had been duck-shoot-ing. Abby, looking, began to tremble all over. She cast a hasty glance of appeal into his face, and tried to frame some words, then, overcome by fright, which was apparent in every movement, she turned and fled. She never ceased running till she reached the farm house, fearing to be pursued, or to have a shot fired at her. When she found she was safe in her own rockingchair she began to cry, and then she flamed up into fierce wrath against her neighbor, and indulged in the most uncomplimentary epithets she could devise. . The neighbor on his part had been so startled •by her appearance, and so completely dumfounded, as he said, that it took him some time to realize that he had nearly frightened the little woman out of her wits. * - v During the long days of winter that followed the correspondence on Abby.’s part waxed still hotter and more abusive. A new and subtle antagonism against her neighbor had developed since that day when he had suddenly appeared. She recalled sometimes the' expression with which the big man had been regarding her. It could scarcely have been called fierce. Nevertheless, she referred in the most scathing terms to his presence there on that occasion and his deliberate purpose of scaring her away with a gun. From that time on, however, the neighbor’s letters were gradually milder, till they were merely of faint protesting of his right to the ownership of the land, and a much more eager defence of himself against the charges she made. It was curious to see the big man, seated close to the lamp in the great, comfortable kitchen of his homestead, smoothing out Abby’s letters, and reading them over and over again. When they were particularly fierce he looked hurt for a moment, and then he smiled and recalled her just as she appeared, hoe in hand. . At last Abby’s letters suddenly ceased, and the neighbor felt a real pang of loneliness. He was seized with a discontent of his surroundings. He made efforts to find out what was the cause of the discontinuance of Abby’s correspondence, but somehow or other he did not succeed. He made strenuous attempts to draw forth replies by writing innumerable letters, some of which became very beseeching,indeed in begging for

an answer. The truth was Abby had fallen ill, and had been in bed for many weeks with an attack of pleurisy. * It was quite late in the spring when the invalid w ventured forth and was able to walk as far as the dis- * puted territory. She had lost heart considerably in r the affair, and she had also begun to apprehend that what with one circumstance and another, her hopes of gaining a livelihood out of the good, red earth had waned and grown dim. The problem would have to be faced, in what other manner she might add to her resources, once the present scanty pittance upon which she lived was exhausted. As a last, desperate venture with regard to the strip of land, she had sent her neighs' bor a lawyer’s letter. Better that the‘matter should be decided one way or another and at once. It was an exquisite day. Spring reigned supreme in the air, the earth emitted a warm, delightful odor, the trees were sending forth buds, green things were growing in every direction. A vital current was rousing all things to live,, and sending new- hope and joy into the human heart. Despite her anxieties, Abby was not insensible to this influence. She felt as if she had grown young again, and instead of twenty was sweet nineteen. All at once, as she stood there surveying the ground which she had had dug rip by an Italian laborer who chanced to pass, she was aware of the approach of some one. That some one she was certain must be her neighbor. She did not fear him any longer, but what was this new feeling that set her heart beating and her pulse tingling, and made her remember those petitions which he had put .into his last letters for a speedy answer. She turned, however, and faced him. There he was on the other side of the boulder, upon which he leaned his arms. He was clad in a rough-and-ready

suit of tweed, showing his fine figure to advantage. He took off Ins slouch-hat as she turned, and displayed the close-cut brown hair with its obstinate determination to curl, and she met his dark eyes that had something of the honesty and directness of a dog in their glance. They had something else, too, in their depths, which caused Abby swiftly, and to turn away her glance. ” , I got your lawyer’s letter,’ the neighbor began slowly that’s all right, though Ido think it a pity for us to go on fighting about this bit of-land.’ Abby gazed at him defiantly, with a little flash of triumph. Oh,’ she said, ‘you are afraid, are you?’ The young man shook his head. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘I ain’t easily frightened. I’m good for a fight in a court of law, or anywhere else for the matter of that.’ He stopped and looked upward. A wild bird was sounding its strange,, sweet notes overhead. The-good, red earth was sending forth its rich, moist smell where Abby had had it dug up upon the disputed territory. ‘ You’ve been digging, I seewhich is clean contrary to justice, since the land is mine; but,’ he stopped and, stretching out his arm, picked up a bit of the clay, ‘ why should two human beings be quarrelling about the very earth given them by their Creator?’ He raised his hat reverently as he spoke. Abby’s heart gave a leap, while her neighbor continued in a lower tone: ‘There’s a way of settling it out of court that’s satisfactory to me, anyhow.’ ‘What way?’ asked Abby, strangely fluttered and unable to find any of the words which had come so glibly to her pen. The young man cleared his throat: ‘ This land’s been a long time in dispute. It might as well be settled.’

But what way?’, persisted, Abby. TJie neighbor looked at her. ‘I was in hopes you could guess,’ he observed. ‘ Supposing we were to get married?’ .... *. The color flamed into Abby’s cheeks, which had been pale since her illness,- and her eyes sought the good, red earth in a confusion which was strangely mixed with gladness. ‘ You can hear about me down at the priest’s. My character’s all right. I’ve got a good bit of land, a house that’s a great sight too big for a bachelor, and a little pile in the bank.’ f-;-Abby made no response, and encouraged perhaps by her silence, or by that something in her face which was not repellant, the neighbor continued: ‘ I’ve liked you real well ever since I saw your face that day when you were hoeing. You looked mighty pretty, I can tell you, and —maybe you didn’t mean just as all you said in your letters.’ Abby, to whom speech never came readily, felt as if her tongue were glued to the roof of her mouth. As she had been eloquent upon paper, so now it was the neighbor’s turn to be eloquent in the speech. . ‘ I guess you’d make more out of your land if you had my help,’ the young man added, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘ Anyway, I’ve got enough for two, and a good sight more. I like you better, I guess, than I ever, liked anyone. So, come, own up, Abby, that you didn’t mean all you said in your letters.’ A smile was softening the curve of Abby’s mouth; her eyes were very soft and sweet in their expression. The neighbor’s heart thumped loudly against the rock while he waited for her answer. ‘ I’d like to see the claim settled,’ Abby said demurely. ‘l’m mighty fond of this bit of earth.’ Couldn’t you manage to get a little mite fond of me?’ the neighbor suggested.

Abby pondered, the smile deepening, the color flickering bewitchingly in her cheeks, and ...the softness growing in her eyes that were now downcast, ‘ I guess I could get to like you some,’ she confessed. Then a great shyness fell upon them both* and a great light of happiness shone in their faces. The .life-giving joy of the spring seemed to pervade them. ‘ May I tell the priest to call our banns in a fortnight?’ whispered the neighbor, and Abby made no objection. * In the years that followed, seated over her sewing in the big farmhouse kitchen, Abby used to say to her friends, with a quiet laugh: ‘ One thing I’ve got out of the good, red eartha husband, and a mighty fine one, too.’Anna T. Sadlier in the Sacred Heart Review