Green Valley Part 8

Dear Mother:--

It's no use waiting any longer for any of the good times or new dresses you said I'd have by and by. We never have any good times and I'm tired waiting for a real new hat. Tommy's going to buy me one with bunches of violets on it and he don't drink, so it's alright and you don't need to worry. I'll live near and be handy and don't you let father swear too much at you because I did this.

Your loving child, ALICE.

When Mrs. Sears found the letter she read it six times, over and over till she knew it by heart. It wasn't the first such letter she had ever had. When Johnny went off to Alaska or somewhere away off, because his father took the twenty-five dollars that the nineteen-year-old boy had saved so prayerfully for a bicycle, Johnny had left just such a letter. When Jimmy went away he left a letter that sounded very much like it on the top of his mother's sewing machine.

It wasn't a bicycle with Jimmy. It was chickens. Jimmy was wild over chickens. He was a great favorite with Frank Burton. He helped Frank about the coops and was so handy that Frank paid him regular wages and gave him several settings of eggs. And in no time the boy had a thriving little chicken business that might have grown into bigger things. But Sears sold the whole thing out one day when he wanted money worse than usual. And Jimmy, white to the very roots of his reddish-brown hair, cursed his father and left home. He wandered about, the Lord knows where, but eventually joined the army. He wrote home once to tell his mother what he had done and to say that he intended to save all his pay for the three years and start a chicken farm with it somewhere.

And now gentle, little, eighteen-year-old Alice was gone too.

Mrs. Sears sat down and cried in that patient, helpless, miserable way of hers. She didn't know just what she was crying for, herself or the children. Life was a hopeless, unmanageable tangle that seemed to give her nothing and take her all. So Mrs. Sears sat and cried. It was a habit she had.

f.a.n.n.y Foster came along just then. She had run over to see if she couldn't borrow a cake of yeast. She was going to town in an hour, she said, but she wanted to set her bread before she went and she'd bring yeast back with her and--

"Why, for pity's sake alive, Mrs. Sears, what's the matter?"

That was just f.a.n.n.y's luck or perhaps her misfortune, her happening on events first-hand that way. She read the letter of course, sympathized with Mrs. Sears, patted her check and told her not to worry, that everything would be all right and to set right still, that she'd be right back to do the dishes and stay with her.

And f.a.n.n.y hurried to town, talking all the way. She came back in record time but by the time she had her hands in Mrs. Sears' dishpan Green Valley was already buzzing with astonishment. Some were shaking their heads in utter unbelief, some were smiling and one or two who had slept badly were saying something like this:

"Well, did you ever! And you never can tell. Those meek, quiet little things are usually deep. And the dear Lord only knows what the true state of things is. And poor Mrs. Sears! Of course, she's done her best, but isn't it too bad to have a batch of children turn out so kind of disappointing and her so meek and patient and hard-working!"

In three hours the news had gotten out to the out-lying homes and Sears, the little bride's father, heard it as he was nailing siding on one of the two new bungalows that were being built in that part of Green Valley.

When Sears heard the rumor he put down his hammer and quit work. He was a man who made a practice of quitting work at the least provocation. He said what a man needed most was self-respect and he, Will Sears, would have it at any cost. He had it. In fact, he was so respectful and thoughtful of himself that he never had time to respect the rights of any one else.

Green Valley saw him going home and because Green Valley knew him well and respected him not at all it took no pains to hush its chatter, and so he heard a good deal that it may have done him good to hear. At any rate, it sort of prepared him for what came later.

He stamped into the house and wanted to know why in this and that he hadn't been told about all this before he went to work, and what in this and that she meant by such doings and goings on.

And Mrs. Sears, whose greatest daily trial was getting her husband off to work on such mornings as he felt so inclined, said tearfully:

"Why, father, you know that when I'm getting you off of a morning I wouldn't see a twenty-dollar gold piece if it was right before my eyes on the table. I never found the piece of paper with Alice's letter on it till you'd gone and I'd set down for a cup of coffee."

For thirty years Milly Sears had called her husband "father" and now that he had fathered all his children away from home she still called him "father." Poor Mrs. Sears had no sense of humor.

After her pitiful little explanation Mrs. Sears sank down into her rocker and went back to weeping. It was her way of taking life's sudden turns.

Sears tore through the house and every once in a while he'd walk back to the kitchen and swear. Sears was not in any way a likeable man.

Though so self-respecting, he had all his life been careless about his language and his breath. That was probably the reason why his children never got the habit of running out to meet him or bringing their thorns and splinters for him to pull out with his jackknife. He was a man who never stopped in the front yard to see how the clover was coming up, who never hoed around his currant bushes or ever found time to prune his fruit trees. He was in short a mean, selfish man who was yet decent enough to know himself for what he was but not decent enough to admit it and mend his ways. It may be that he did not know how to go about this.

At any rate, here he was, pacing back and forth in his still, empty house, swearing and threatening all manner of terrible things. That was his way of showing his helplessness.

And all about this helpless, incompetent father and patiently sobbing mother the Green Valley world buzzed and the prettiest kind of a May day smiled. All their life was a muddle with this dreary ending but the world outside was as young, as bright, as promising as ever.

Something of this must have come to these two for Mrs. Sears' sobs quieted and out in the front room Sears sank into a chair and grew still.

And then it was that f.a.n.n.y Poster, who had been flitting about like a very spirit of help and curiosity, flitted down the road to Grandma Wentworth's. For f.a.n.n.y felt that somebody had to do something and f.a.n.n.y knew that n.o.body could do it so efficiently as the strong, sweet, gray-eyed Grandma Wentworth who, for all her sweetness, could yet rebuke most sternly and fearlessly even while she helped and advised wisely.

Green Valley had its generous share of philosophers and helpful spirits but Grandma Wentworth towered above them all. And every soul in the village, when in trouble, turned to her as naturally as flowers turn their faces to the sun.

Her little vine-clad cottage sat just beyond the curve where the three roads met at Old Roads Corners. Her back garden was full of the choicest vegetables and sweetest-smelling herbs and there was a heavenly array of flowers all about the front windows. The neighbors said that Grandma Wentworth's house and garden looked just like her and ministers usually sent their spiritually hopeless cases to her because she dared and knew how to say the soul-necessary things that no bread-and-b.u.t.ter-cautious minister can find the courage to say.

The path to Grandma's house was worn smooth by the feet of the many who came for advice, encouragement and for sheer love of the woman who lived in that little garden.

And so f.a.n.n.y went flying to Grandma now, perfectly, childishly confident that Grandma would and could fix up everything. She began to talk as soon as she opened the door. But what she saw in Grandma's kitchen sent the words tumbling down her throat.

For there sat little Alice, eating a late breakfast with Grandma. She looked a little scared around the eyes but smiley round the mouth and there was a gold ring on her left hand.

When Grandma caught sight of f.a.n.n.y she smiled.

"Come right in, f.a.n.n.y. I've been expecting you. But first let me make you acquainted with Mrs. Tommy Winston. That rascal of a boy run away with her last night as far as Spring Road, where Judge Edwards married them. And then Tommy brought her here to me to spend the night while he went and rented that funny little box of a house just back of that stylish Mrs. Brownlee. And that's where the wedding supper's going to be to-night. Of course you're invited. I'm going right now to see Milly Sears about what we must cook up and bake. I was going over to get you too to help out. The little house'll need overhauling but I know I can depend on you, f.a.n.n.y. Do your very best and there'll be--"

But by this time f.a.n.n.y found her voice and began to tell about how Sears was going on. But Grandma only smiled and said, "Yes, of course, I know. But don't worry about that. I'll attend to Will Sears. You two just skip along now to the house and start the wedding."

Grandma walked over to the Sears cottage without any show of worry or hurry. But she wasn't smiling. Those gray eyes of hers were sparkling with something very different. And when Will Sears saw her coming in the gate he was both relieved and uncomfortably uneasy.

She came right in and just looked at that desolate couple for a few seconds. Then:

"Will Sears," she asked briefly, "what are you aiming to do about this?"

Sears, who couldn't do anything, didn't know how to do anything about it but swear, said pompously:

"What any decent, respectable, hard-working man would do,--bring back the girl and horsewhip that whippersnapper."

Then Grandma, who knew just how much this sort of bl.u.s.ter was worth, let herself go.

"Will Sears, if you honestly have an idea that you are a decent, respectable, hard-working man, hold on to it for the love of heaven, for you're the only human in this town that has any such notion."

"I work," Sears began defiantly.

"Oh, yes, Will, you work in a sort of a way; though I can remember the time when Green Valley folks thought you were going to be a big contractor. You promised well but somehow you never worked hard enough. You work at things now to keep your own miserable self alive, I guess, because when you get through using your week's wages there's hardly enough left to keep bare life and decency in your family."

"I'm not a drunkard," Sears muttered, "and you know it."

"No, you're not a drunkard, Will Sears, more's the pity. When it comes to choosing between a man who gets openly drunk and staggers down Main Street in drunken penitence to his wife and children and the man who drinks just enough to be a surly, selfish brute and yet look half-way respectable on the outside, why, give me the drunk every time.

"You don't get drunk, only just full enough to have your family afraid and ashamed of you. You have made life a hateful, shameful, miserable existence for your wife and children. You've robbed them of every right and what pitiful little possessions, hopes and plans they'd been able to find for themselves. That's why John's in Alaska, Jimmy in the army and Alice an eighteen-year-old wife. A precious father you've been to make your children choose the bitter snows, the jungle and a doubtful future with a stranger to life with you, their father."

"I've fed my children and clothed them," again muttered Sears.

"Yes, Will, you have. But--man, man--it takes more than just blood, three begrudged meals a day and a skimpy calico dress to prove real fatherhood. But I'm not blaming you any more than I'm blaming this wife of yours.

"For thirty years, Milly Sears, you've been so busy trying to be a doormat saint that you had no time to be a strong, useful mother. When you married Will he was no worse than the average fellow. He had faults aplenty but he had goodnesses too, and hopes and dreams. And you, you Milly, let all the hopes and dreams die and the faults grow and multiply. Just by letting Will backslide, forget and grow careless.

"Somebody told you that patience was a pretty ornament. It is if it's the genuine article and properly used. But letting a man spend his wages hoggishly on himself and robbing his children and driving them from their lawful home and cheating you out of every right and even your self-respect is nothing to be patient about. As for tears, they have their uses, but they never mended wrongs that I know of. It's fool, weeping, patient women that make selfish, mean men. It's plain, honest, righteous anger that brings about the reforms in this world.

"If the first time that Will got ugly drunk or swearing cross about nothing you had stood up for yourself and the children and reminded him sharply of the decencies instead of crying softly and praying for patience, you wouldn't be sitting here, the two of you, in an empty house with your children G.o.d knows where.