Dust Part 5

He decided this state of mind must be rather general among married people, and reasoned his way to the conclusion that marriage was a good thing in that it drove out pa.s.sion and placed human animals on a more practicable foundation. If there had been the likelihood of children, he undoubtedly would have sought her from time to time, but with that hope out of their lives the attraction died completely.

When he was through with his work, it was late and he was sleepy. When he woke early in the morning, he had to hurry to his stock. So that which always had been less than secondary, now became completely quiescent, and he was satisfied that it should. It never occurred to him to consider what Rose might be thinking and feeling. She wondered about it, and would have liked to ask advice from someone--the older Mrs.

Mall or Dr. Bradley--but habitual reserve held her back. After all, she decided finally, what did it matter? Meanwhile, financially, things were going better than ever.

Martin had the most improved farm in the neighborhood; he was looked up to by everyone as one of the most intelligent men in the county, and his earnings were swelling, going into better stock and the surplus into mortgages which he acc.u.mulated with surprising rapidity. Occasionally, he would wonder why he was working so hard, saving so a.s.siduously and investing so consistently. His growing fortune seemed to mean little now that his affluence was thoroughly established. For whom was he working?

he would ask himself. For the life of him, he could not answer. Surely not for his Rag-weed of Sharon. Nellie? She was well enough fixed and he didn't care a shot for her husband. Then why? Sometimes he pursued this chain of thought further, "I'll die and probably leave five times as much as I have now to her and who knows what she'll do with it? I'll never enjoy any of it myself. I'm not such a fool as to expect it. What difference can a few thousand dollars more or less make to me from now on? Then why do I scheme and slave? Pshaw! I've known the answer ever since I first turned the soil of this farm. The man who thinks about things knows there's nothing to life. It's all a grinding chase for the day when someone will pat my cheek with a spade."

He might have escaped this materialism through the church, but to him it offered no inducements. He could find nothing spiritual in it. In his opinion, it was a very carnal inst.i.tution conducted by very hypocritical men and women. He smiled at their h.e.l.l and despised their Heaven. Their religion, to him, seemed such a crudely selfish affair. They were always expecting something from G.o.d; always praying for petty favors--begging and whining for money, or good crops, or better health. Martin would have none of this nonsense. He was as selfish as they, probably more so, he conceded, but he hoped he would never reach the point of currying favor with anyone, even G.o.d. With his own good strength he would answer his own prayers. This farm was the nearest he would ever come to a paradise and on it he would be his own G.o.d. Rose did not share these feelings. She went to church each Sunday and read her Bible daily with a simple faith that defied derision. Once, when she was gone, Martin idly hunted out the Song of Solomon. His lips curled with contempt at the pa.s.sionate rhapsody. He knew a thing or two, he allowed, about these wonderful Roses of Sharon and this Song of Songs. Lies, all lies, every word of it! Yet, in spite of himself, from time to time, he liked to reread it. He fancied this was because of the sardonic pleasure its superlative phrases gave him, but the truth was it held him. He despised sentiment, tenderness, and, by the strangeness of the human mind, he went, by way of paradox, to the tenderest, most sublime spot in a book supreme in tenderness and sublimity.

At forty, he owned and, with the aid of two hired hands, worked an entire section of land. The law said it was his and he had the might to back up the law. On these six hundred and forty broad acres he could have lived without the rest of the world. Here he was King. Other farms he regarded as foreign countries, their owners with impersonal suspicion. Yet he trusted them after a fashion, because he had learned from many and devious dealings with a large a.s.sortment of people that the average human being is honest, which is to say that he does not steal his neighbor's stock nor fail to pay his just debts if given plenty of time and the conditions have the explicitness of black and white. He knew them to be as mercenary as himself, with this only difference: Where he was frankly so, they pretended otherwise.

They bothered him with their d.i.n.ky deals, with their scrimping and scratching, and their sneaky attempts to hide their ugliness by the observance of one set day of sanctuary. Because they seemed to him so two-faced, so trifling, so cowardly, he liked to "stick" them every time he had a fair chance and could do it within the law. It was his favorite game. They worked so blindly and went on so stupidly, talking so foolishly, that it afforded him sport to come along and take the bacon away from them.

All held him a little in awe, for he was of a forbidding bearing, tall, grave and thoughtful; accurate in his facts and sure of himself; slow to express an opinion, but positive in his conclusions; seeking no favors, and giving none; careful not to offend, indifferent whether he pleased.

He would deceive, but never insult. The women were afraid of him, because he never "jollied." He had no jokes or bright remarks for them.

They were such useless creatures out of their particular duties. There was nothing to take up with them. Everyone rendered him much the same respectful manner that they kept on tap for the leading citizens of the town, David Robinson, for instance. Indeed, Martin himself was somewhat of a banker, for he was a stockholder and director of the First State Bank, where he was looked up to as a shrewd man who was too big even for the operation of his magnificent farm. He understood values. When it came to loans, his judgment on land and livestock was never disputed. If he wanted to make a purchase he did not go to several stores for prices.

He knew, in the first place, what he should pay, and the business men, especially the hardware and implement dealers, were afraid of his knowledge, and still more of his influence.

About Rose, too, there was a poise, an atmosphere of background which inspired respect above her station. When Mrs. Wade said anything, her statement was apt to settle the matter, for on those subjects which she discussed at all, she was an authority, and on those which she was not, her training in Martin's household had taught her to maintain a wise silence. The stern self-control had stolen something of the tenderness from her lips. There were other changes. The sunlight had faded from her hair; the once firm white neck was beginning to lose its resilience.

Deep lines furrowed her cheeks from mouth to jaw, and fine wrinkles had slipped into her forehead. There were delicate webs of them about her patient eyes, under which lack of sleep and overwork had left their brown shadows. Since the birth of her baby she had become much heavier and though she was still neat, her dresses were always of dark colors and made up by herself of cheap materials. For, while she bought without consulting Martin, her privilege of discretion was confined within strict and narrow limits. He kept a meticulous eye on all her cancelled checks and knew to a penny what she spent. If he felt a respect for her thrift it was completely unacknowledged. They worked together with as little liking, as little hatred, as two oxen pulling a plow.

It had been a wise day for both, thought Fallon, when they had decided to marry--they were so well mated. What a model and enviable couple they were! To Rose it seemed the essence of irony that her life with Martin should be looked upon as a flower of matrimony. Yet, womanlike, she took an unconfessed comfort in the fact that this was so--that no one, unless it were Nellie, was sufficiently astute to fathom the truth. To be sure, the Wades were never spoken of as "happy." They were invariably alluded to as "good folks," "true blue," "solid people," "ideal husband and wife," or "salt of the earth."

Each year they gave a round sum to the church, and Martin took caustic gratification in the fact that, although his att.i.tude toward it and religion was well known, he too was counted as one of the fold. To do its leaders justice, he admitted that this might have been partly through their hesitancy to hurt Rose who was always to be found in the thick of its sale-dinners, bazaars and sociables. How she was able to accomplish so much without neglecting her own heavy duties, which now included cooking, washing, mending and keeping in order the old shack for the hired men, was a topic upon which other women feasted with appreciative gusto, especially at missionary meetings when she was not present. It really was extraordinary how much she managed to put into a day. Early as Martin was up to feed his stock, she was up still earlier that she might lend a hand to a neighbor, harrowed by the fear that gathered fruit might perish. Late as he plowed, in the hot summer evenings, her sweaty fingers were busy still later with patching, brought home to boost along some young wife struggling with a teething baby. She seemed never too rushed to tuck in an extra baking for someone even more rushed than herself, or to make delicious broths and tasty dishes for sick folk. In her quiet way, she became a real power, always in demand, the first to be entrusted with sweet secrets, the first to be sent for in paralysing emergencies and moments of sorrow. The warmth of heart which Martin ridiculed and resented, intensified by its very repression, bubbled out to others in cheery helpfulness, and blessed her quick tears.

Of her deep yearning for love, she never spoke. Just when she would begin to feel almost self-sufficient it would quicken to a throbbing ache. Usually, at such times, she buried it determinedly under work. But one day, yielding to an impulse, she wrote to Norah asking if her little namesake could come for a month's visit.

"I know she is only seven," the letter ran, "but I am sure if she were put in care of the conductor she would come through safely, and I do so want to see her." After long hesitation, she enclosed a check to cover expenses. She was half frightened by her own daring and did not tell Martin until she had received the reply giving the date for the child's arrival.

"I earned that, Martin," she returned determinedly to his emphatic remonstrance. "And when the check comes in it's going to be honored."

"A Wade check is always honored," was his cryptic a.s.sertion. "I merely say," he added more calmly, "that if we are to board her, and I don't make any protest over that at all, it seems to me only fair that her father should have bought the ticket."

"Maybe you're right--in theory. But then she simply couldn't have come and I've never seen her. I first knew of her the very day you asked me to marry you. I've thought of her, often and often. Her mother named her after me and calls her 'Little Rose of Sharon, Illinois'."

"Another rag-weed, probably," said Martin, shortly. Yet, to his own surprise, he was not altogether sorry she was to come--this house of his had never had a child in it for more than a few hours. He was rather curious to find out how it would seem. If only her name were not Rose, and if only she were not coming from Sharon.

But little Rose, with her dark brown curls, merry expression, roguish nose and soft radiance swept all his misgivings and prejudices before her. One might as well hold grudges against a flower, he thought. He liked the confiding way she had of suddenly slipping her little hand into his great one. Her prattle amused him, and he was both flattered and worried by the fearlessness with which she followed him everywhere.

She seemed to bring a veritable shower of song into this home of long silences. The very chaos made Mrs. Wade's heart beat tumultuously, and once when Martin came upon the little girl seated solemnly in the midst of a circle of corncob dolls, his throat contracted with an extraordinary tightness.

"You really are a rose--a lovely, sweet brown Rose of Sharon," he had exclaimed, forgetting his wife's presence and not stopping to think how strange the words must sound on his lips. "If you'll give me a kiss, I'll let you ride on old Jettie."

The child scrambled to her feet and, seated on his broad shoulder, granted the demand for toll. Her aunt's eyes filled. This was the first time she had ever heard Martin ask for something as sentimental as a kiss. She was thoroughly ashamed of herself for it--it was really too absurd!--but she felt jealousy, an emotion that had never bothered her since they had been married. And this bit of chattering femininity had caused it. Mrs. Wade worked faster.

The kiss was like the touch of silk against Martin's cheek. He felt inexplicably sad as he put the child down again among her playthings.

There was, he realized with a shock, much that he was missing, things he was letting work supplant. He wished that boy of theirs could have lived. All might have been different. He had almost forgotten that disappointment, had never understood until this moment what a misfortune it had been, and here he was being gripped by a more poignant sense of loss than he had ever before felt, even when he had lost his mother.

Wonderful as little Rose was, she was not his own. But, he wondered suddenly, wasn't this aching sense of need perhaps something utterly different from unsatisfied paternal instinct? He turned his head toward the kitchen where his Rag-weed was working and asked himself if she were gone and some other woman were here--such as little Rose might be when she grew up, one to whom he went out spontaneously, would not his life be more complete and far more worth while? What a fool he was, to bother his head with such get-nowhere questions! He dismissed them roughly, but new processes of thought had been opened, new emotions awakened.

Meanwhile, little Rose's response to his clumsy tenderness taught him many unsuspected lessons. He never would have believed the pleasure there could be in simply watching a child's eyes light with glee over a five-cent bag of candy. It began to be a regular thing for him to bring one home from Fallon, each trip, and the gay hunts that followed as she searched for it--sometimes to find the treasure in Martin's hat, sometimes under the buggy seat, sometimes in a k.n.o.bby hump under the table-cloth at her plate--more than once brought his rare smile. For years afterward, the memory of one evening lingered with him. He was resting in an old chair tipped back against the house, thinking deeply, when the little girl, tired from her play, climbed into his lap and, making a cozy nest for herself in the crook of his arm, fell asleep. He had finished planning out the work upon which he had been concentrating and had been about to take her into the house when he suddenly became aware of the child's loveliness. In the silvery moonlight all the fairy, flower-like quality of her was enhanced. Martin studied her closely, reverently. It was his first conscious worship of beauty. Leaning down to the rosy lips he listened to the almost imperceptible breathing; he touched the long, sweeping lashes resting on the smooth cheeks and lifted one of the curls the wind had been ruffling lightly against his face. With his whole soul, he marvelled at her softness and relaxation.

A profound, pitying rebellion gripped him at the idea that anything so sweet, so perfect must pa.s.s slowly through the defacing furnaces of time and pain. "Little Rose of Sharon!" he thought gently, conscious of an actual tearing at his heart, even a startling stinging in his eyes. With an abruptness that almost awakened her, he carried her in to his wife.

Mrs. Wade felt an inexplicable hurt at the decidedness of little Rose's preference for Martin. She could not understand it. She took exquisite care of her, cooked the things she liked best, let her mess to her heart's content in the kitchen, made her dolls pretty frocks, cuddled her, told her stories and stopped her work to play with her on rainy days--but she could not win the same affection the little girl bestowed so lavishly on Martin. If left to herself she was always to be found with the big, silent man.

As the month's visit lengthened into three, it was astonishing what good times they had together. If he was pitching hay, her slender little figure, short dress a-flutter, was to be seen standing on the fragrant wagonload. At threshing time, she darted lightly all over the separator, Martin's watchful eye constantly upon her, and his protective hand near her. She went with him to haul the grain to mill and was fascinated by the big scales. On the way there and back he let her hold the great lines in her little fists. In the dewy mornings, she hop-skipped and jumped by his side into the pasture to bring in the cows. She flitted in and out among them during milking time.

"I think she makes them too nervous, Martin," Rose had once remarked.

"Better run out, darling, until we finish and then come help auntie in the dairy."

"They might as well get used to her," he had answered tersely. "It'll hurt her feelings to be sent away."

Rose could scarcely believe her ears. Memories, bitter, intolerable, crowded upon her. Had the little girl really changed Martin so completely? Oh, if only her boy could have lived! Perhaps she had made a great mistake in being so determined not to have another. Was it too late now? She looked at her husband. Well as she knew every detail of his fine, clean cut features, his broad shoulders and rippling muscles, they gave her a sudden thrill. It was as if she were seeing him again for the first time in years. If only he could let a shadow of this new thoughtfulness and kindliness fall on her, they might even yet bring some joy into each other's lives. They had stepped off on the wrong foot. Why, they really hadn't been even acquainted. They had been led into thinking so because of the length of time they had both been familiar figures in the same community. Beyond a doubt, if they were being married today, and she understood him as she did now, she could make a success of their marriage. But, as it was, Martin was so fixed in the groove of his att.i.tude of utter indifference toward her that she felt there was little chance of ever jogging him out of it. To Rose, the very fact that the possibility of happiness seemed so nearly within reach was what put the cruel edge to their present status.

She did not comprehend that Martin definitely did not want it changed.

Conscious, at last, that he was slowly starving for a woman's love, beginning to brood because there was no beauty in his life, he was looking at her with eyes as newly appraising as her own. He remembered her as she had been that day in the bank, when he had thought her like a rose. She had been all white and gold then; now, hair, eyes, skin, and clothes seemed to him to be of one earthy color. Her clean, dull calico dress belted in by her checked ap.r.o.n revealed the ungraceful lines of her figure. She looked middle-aged and unshapely, when he wanted youth and an exquisite loveliness. Well, he told himself, harshly, he was not likely to get it. There was no sense in harboring such notions. They must be crushed. He would work harder, much harder, hard enough to forget them. There was but one thing worth while--his farm. He would develop it to its limits.

Accordingly, when little Rose returned to Sharon, he and his Rag-weed soon settled themselves to the old formula of endless toil, investing the profits in sound farm mortgages that were beginning to tax the capacity of his huge tin box in the vault of the First State Bank.

V. DUST BEGETS DUST

YET, through the Wades' busy days the echo of little Rose's visit lingered persistently. Each now anxiously wanted another child, but both were careful to keep this longing locked in their separate bosoms. Their constraint with each other was of far too long a standing to permit of any sudden exchange of confidences. It was with this hope half-acknowledged, however, and in her mind the recent memories of a more approachable Martin, that Rose began to make a greater effort with her appearance. By dint of the most skillful maneuvering, she contrived to purchase herself a silk dress--the first since her marriage. It was of dark blue crepe-de-chine, simply but becomingly made, the very richness of its folds shedding a new l.u.s.ter over her quiet graciousness and large proportions. Even her kind, capable hands seemed subtly enn.o.bled as they emerged from the luscious, well fitting sleeves, and the high collar, with its narrow edge of lace, stressed the n.o.bility of her fine head. When she came home from church, she did not, as she would have heretofore, change at once into calico, but protected by a spick and span white ap.r.o.n, kept on the best frock through dinner and, frequently, until ch.o.r.e time in the afternoon. In the winter, too, she was exposed less to sun and wind and her skin lost much of its weathered look. She took better care of it and was more careful with the arrangement of her hair. Gradually a new series of impressions began to register on Martin's brain.

One Sunday she came in fresh and ruddy from the drive home in the cold, crisp air. Martin found it rather pleasant to watch her brisk movements as she prepared the delayed meal. He observed, with something of a mental start, that today, at least, she still had more than a little of the old sumptuous, full-blown quality. It reminded him, together with the deft way in which she hurried, without haste, without flurry, of their first evening in the shack, nearly seven years ago. How tense they both had been, how afraid of each other, how she had irritated him! Well, he had grown accustomed to her at last, thanks be. Was he, perhaps, foolish not to get more out of their life--it was not improbable that a child might come. Why had he been taking it so for granted that this was out of the question? When one got right down to it, just what was the imaginary obstacle that was blocking the realization of this deep wish? Her chance of not pulling through? He'd get her a hired girl this time and let her have her own head about things. She'd made it all right once, why not again? The settledness of their habitual neutrality? What of it? He would ignore that. It wasn't as if he had to court her, make explanations. She was his wife. He didn't love her, never had, never would, but life was too short to be overly fastidious. It was flying, flying--in a few more years he would be fifty. Fifty! And what had it all been about, anyway? He did have this farm to show for his work--he had not made a bad job of that, he and his Rag-weed. In her own fashion she was a good sort, and better looking than most women past forty.

Rose felt the closeness of his scrutiny, sensed the unusual cordiality of his mood, but from the depths of her hardly won wisdom took no apparent notice of it. She knew well enough how not to annoy him.

If only she had not learned too late! What was it about Martin, she wondered afresh, that had held her through all these deadening years?

Her love for him was like a stream that, disappearing for long periods underground, seemed utterly lost, only to emerge again unexpectedly, cleared of all past murkiness, tranquil and deep.

This unspoken converging of minds, equivocal though it was on Martin's part, resulted gradually in a more friendly period. Rose always liked to remember that winter, with its peace that quenched her thirsty heart and helped to blur the recollection of old unkindnesses long since forgiven, but still too vividly recalled. When, a year later, Billy was born, she was swept up to that dizzy crest of rapture which, to finely attuned souls, is the recompense and justification of all their valleys.

Martin watched her deep, almost painful delight, with a profound envy.

He had looked forward, with more antic.i.p.ation than even he himself had realized, to the thrill which he had supposed fatherhood would bring, taking it entirely for granted that he would feel a bond with this small reincarnation of his own being, but after the first week of attempting to get interested in the unresponsive bundle that was his son, he decided the idea of a baby had certainly signified in his mind emotions which this tiny, troublesome creature, with a voice like a small-sized foghorn, did not cause to materialize. No doubt when it grew into a child he would feel very differently toward it--more as he did toward little Rose, but that was a long time to wait, and meanwhile he could not shake off a feeling of acute disappointment, of defeated hopes.

By the end of the second month, he was sure he must have been out of his senses to bring such a nuisance upon himself and into his well-ordered house. Not only was his rest disturbed with trying regularity by night, and his meals served with an equally trying irregularity by day, but he was obliged to deal with an altogether changed wife. For, yielding as Rose was in all other matters, where Billy was concerned she was simply imperturbable. At times, as she held the chubby little fellow to her breast or caught and kissed a waving pink foot, she would feel a sense of physical weakness come over her--it seemed as if her breath would leave her. Martin could be what he might; life, at last, was worth its price. With the courage of her mother-love she could resist anything and everyone.

To her, the relative importance of the farm to Billy was as simple as a problem in addition. She had lost none of her old knack for turning off large amounts of work quickly, but she firmly stopped just short of the point where her milk might be impaired by her exertions. Martin had insisted that the requirement for hired help was over; however, in despair over his wife's determined sabotage, it was Martin himself who commanded that the girl be reinstated for another two months.

Rose was a methodical mother and not overly fussy. As soon as Billy could sit in a highchair or an ordinary packing box on the floor, she kept him with her while she went about her different tasks, cooing and laughing with him as she worked, but when he needed attention she could disregard calling dishes, chickens, half-churned b.u.t.ter, unfinished ironing, unmilked cows or an irate husband with a placidity that was worthy of the old Greek G.o.ds. Martin was dumbfounded to the point of stupefaction. He was too thoroughly self-centred, however, to let other than his own preferences long dominate his Rag-weed's actions. Her first duty was clearly to administer to his comfort, and that was precisely what she would do. It was ridiculous, the amount of time she gave to that baby--out of all rhyme and reason. If she wasn't feeding him, she was changing him; if she wasn't bathing him she was rocking him to sleep. And there, at last, Martin found a tangible point of resistance, for he discovered from Nellie that not only was it not necessary to rock a baby, but that it was contrary to the new ideas currently endorsed.

Reinforced, he argued the matter, adding that he could remember distinctly his own mother had never rocked Benny.

"Yes, and Benny died."

"It wasn't her fault if he did," he retorted, a trifle disconcerted.

"I don't know about that. She took chances I would never take with Billy. She sacrificed him, with her eyes open, for you and Nellie--gave him up so that you could have this farm."

Martin did not care for this new version. "What has that to do with the question?" he demanded coldly.