Jane Field Part 29

Mrs. Babc.o.c.k said no more; somehow she and the others felt repelled.

They all sat in silence except for awed e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns when now and then came a louder crash of thunder. All at once, after a sharp flash, there was a wild clamor in the street; a bell clanged out.

"It's struck! it's struck!" shrieked Mrs. Babc.o.c.k.

"Oh, it ain't this house, is it?" Amanda wailed.

They all rushed to the windows and flung open the blinds; a red glare filled the room; a large barn nearly opposite was on fire. They clutched each other, and watched the red gush of flame. The barn burned as if lighted at every corner.

"Are there any cows or horses in it?" panted Mrs. Babc.o.c.k. "Oh, ain't it dreadful? Are there any, Mis' Field?"

"I dunno," said Mrs. Field.

She stood like a grim statue, the red light of the fire in her face.

Lois was sobbing. Mrs. Green had put an arm around her.

"Don't, Lois, don't," she kept saying, in a solemn, agitated voice.

"The Lord will overrule it all; it is He speakin' in it."

The women watched while the street filled with people, and the barn burned down. It did not take long. The storm began to lull rapidly.

The thunder came at long intervals, and the hail turned into a gentle rain. Finally Mrs. Field went out into the kitchen to prepare supper, and Lois followed her.

"I never see anything like the way she acts," said Mrs. Babc.o.c.k cautiously.

"She always was kind of quiet," rejoined Mrs. Green.

"Quiet! She acts as if she'd had thunder an' lightnin' an' hail an'

barns burnt down every day since she's been here. I never see anybody act so queer."

"I 'most wish I'd stayed to home," said Amanda.

"Well, I wouldn't be backin' out the minute I'd got here, if I was you," returned Mrs. Babc.o.c.k sharply. "It's comin' cooler, that's one thing, an' you won't need that white sacque. I should think you'd feel kinder glad of it, for them shoulder seams did look pretty long to what they wear 'em. An' I dare say folks here are pretty dressy. I declare I shall be kinder glad when supper's ready. I feel real faint to my stomach, as if I'd like somethin' hearty. I should have gone into one of them places in Boston if things hadn't been so awful dear."

But when Mrs. Field finally called them out to partake of the meal which she had prepared, there was little to satisfy an eager appet.i.te. Nothing but the berries for which she had toiled so hard, a few thin slices of bread, no b.u.t.ter, and no tea, so little sugar in the bowl that the guests sprinkled it sparingly on their berries.

"I'll tell you what 'tis," Mrs. Babc.o.c.k whispered when they were upstairs in their chambers that night, "Mis' Field has grown tight since she got all that money. Sometimes it does work that way. I believe we should starve to death if we stayed here long. If it wa'n't for gittin' my money's worth, I should be for goin' home to-morrow. No b.u.t.ter an' no tea after we've come that long journey. I never heard of such a thing."

"I don't care anything about the b.u.t.ter and the tea," rejoined Amanda, "but I 'most feel as if I'd better go home to-morrow."

"If," said Mrs. Babc.o.c.k, "you want to go home instead of gittin' the good of that excursion ticket, that you can stay a week on, you can, Amanda Pratt. I'm goin' to stay now, if it kills me."

Chapter IX

The three women from Green River had been six days in Elliot, they were going to leave the next morning, and Mrs. Field's secret had not been discovered. Nothing but her ill favor in the village had saved her. n.o.body except Mrs. Jane Maxwell had come to call. Mrs. Babc.o.c.k talked and wondered about it a great deal to Mrs. Green and Amanda.

"It's mighty queer, seems to me, that there ain't a soul but that one old woman set foot inside this house since we've been here," said she. "It don't look to me as if folks here thought much of Mis'

Field. I know one thing: there couldn't three strange ladies come visitin' to Green River without I should feel as if I'd ought to go an' call an' find out who they was, an' pay 'em a little attention, if I thought anything at all of the folks they was visitin'. There's considerable more dress here, but I guess, on the whole, it ain't any better a place to live in than Green River."

The three women had not had a very lively or pleasant visit in Elliot. Jane Field, full of grim defiance of her own guilt and misery and of them, was not a successful entertainer of guests. She fed them as best she could with her scanty resources, and after her house-work was done, took her knitting-work and sat with them in her gloomy sitting-room, while they also kept busy at the little pieces of handiwork they had brought with them.

They talked desperately of Green River and the people there; they told Mrs. Field of this one and that one whom she had known, and in whom she had been interested; but she seemed to have forgotten everybody and everything connected with her old life.

"Ida Starr is goin' to marry the minister in October," Mrs. Babc.o.c.k had said the day but one after their arrival. "You know there was some talk about it before you went away, Mis' Field. You remember hearin' about it, don't you?"

"I guess I don't remember it," said Mrs. Field.

"Don't remember it? Why, Mis' Field, I should think you'd remember that! It was town's talk how she followed him up. Well, she's got him, an' she's been teachin'--you know she had Lois's school--to get money for her weddin' outfit. They say she's got a brown silk dress to be married in, an' a new black silk one too. Should you think the Starrs could afford any such outlay?"

"I dunno as I should," replied Mrs. Field.

When she went out of the room presently, Mrs. Babc.o.c.k turned to the others. "She didn't act as if she cared no more about it than nothin'

at all," she said indignantly. "She don't act to me as if she had any more interest in Green River than Jerusalem, nor the folks that live there. I keep thinkin' I won't tell her another thing about it. I never see anybody so changed as she is."

"Mebbe she ain't well," said Mrs. Green. "I think she looks awfully.

She's as thin as a rail, an' she ain't a mite of color. Lois looks better."

"Mis' Field never did have any flesh on her bones," Mrs. Babc.o.c.k rejoined; "an' as for Lois, nothin' ever did ail her but spring weather an' fussin'. I guess Mis' Field's well enough, but havin' all this property left her has made a different woman of her. I've seen people's noses teeter up in the air when their purses got heavy before now."

"It ain't that," said Amanda.

"What is it, then?" asked Mrs. Babc.o.c.k sharply.

"I dunno. I know one thing: home's the best place for everybody if they've got one."

"I don't think 'tis always. I b'lieve when you're off on an excursion ticket in makin' the best of things, for my part. To-morrow's Sunday, an' I expect to enjoy the meetin' an' seein' the folks. I shall be kinder glad, for my part, not to see exactly the same old bonnets an'

made-over silks that I see every Sunday to home. I like a change sometimes. It puts new ideas into your head, an' I feel as if I had s.p.u.n.k enough to stan' it."

On Sunday Mrs. Field led her procession of guests into church; and they, in their best black gowns and bonnets, sat listening to the sermon, and looking about with decorous and furtive curiosity.

Mrs. Babc.o.c.k had a handsome fan with spangles on it, and she fanned herself airily, lifting her head up with the innocent importance of a stranger.

She had quite a fine bonnet, and a new mantle with some beaded fringe on it; when she stirred, it tinkled. She looked around and did not see another woman with one as handsome. It was the gala moment of her visit to Elliot. Afterward she was wont to say that when she was in Elliot she did not go out much, n.o.body came to the house nor anything, but she went to meeting and she enjoyed that.

It was the evening following that Mrs. Jane Maxwell came. Mrs. Field, sitting with her guests, felt a strange contraction of her heart when she heard the door open.

"Who's that comin'?" asked Mrs. Babc.o.c.k.

"I guess it's old Mr. Maxwell's brother Henry's wife," replied Mrs.

Field.

She arose. Lois went quickly and softly out of the other door. She felt sure that exposure was near, and her first impulse was to be out of sound and hearing of it. She sat there in the dark on the front door-step awhile, then she went into the house. Sitting there in doubt, half hearing what might be dreadful to hear, was worse than certainty. She had at once a benumbing terror and a fierce desire that her mother should be betrayed, and withal a sudden impulse of loyalty toward her, a feeling that she would stand by her when everybody else turned against her.

She crept in and sat down. Mrs. Maxwell was talking to Mrs. Babc.o.c.k about the state of the church in Elliot. It was wonderful that this call was made without exposure, but it was. Twice Mrs. Maxwell called Jane Field "Esther," but n.o.body noticed it except Amanda, and she said nothing. She only caught her breath each time with a little gasp.

Mrs. Maxwell addressed herself almost wholly to Mrs. Babc.o.c.k concerning her daughter, her daughter's husband, and the people of Elliot. Mrs. Babc.o.c.k constantly bore down upon her, and swerved her aside with her own topics. Indeed, all the conversation lay between these two. There was a curious similarity between them. They belonged apparently to some one subdivision of human nature, being as birds of the same feather, and seemed to instinctively recognize this fact.