Life at High Tide Part 4

"Oh, well, there!" Mrs. b.u.t.terfield said, comfortably; "I don't believe Nat'll mind after he's been at the Farm a bit. Honest, I don't, Lizzie. How comes it you didn't know yourself?"

"I'm sure I don't know; it ain't on my certificate, anyhow. Maybe it's on the voucher; but I ain't read that since I first went to sign it. I just go every three months and draw my money, and think no more about it. Maybe--if they knew at Washington--"

"Sho! they couldn't make a difference for one; and it's just what Josh says--they ain't goin' to pay you for havin' a dead husband if you got a live one. Well, it wouldn't be sense, Lizzie."

Lizzie shook her head. "Wait till I look at my paper--"

Mrs. b.u.t.terfield followed her into the house, and waited while she lighted a lamp and lifted a blue china vase off the shelf above the stove. "I keep it in here," Lizzie said, shaking the paper out. Then, unfolding it on the kitchen table, the two women, the lamplight shining upon their excited faces, read the certificate together, aloud, with agitated voices:

"BUREAU OF PENSIONS

"It is hereby certified that in conformity with the laws of the United States--" and on through to the end.

"It don't say a word about not marryin' again," Lizzie declared.

"Well, all the same, it's the law. Josh knows."

Lizzie blew out the lamp, and they went back to the door-step. Mrs.

b.u.t.terfield's hard feelings were all gone; her heart warmed to Nathaniel; warmed even to the mangy dog that limped out from the barn and curled up on Lizzie's skirt. But when she went away, "comfortable in her mind," as she told her husband, Lizzie Graham still sat in the dark under her elm, trying to get her wits together.

"I know Josh is right," she told herself; "he's a careful talker. I can't do it!" But she winced, and drew in her breath; poor Nathaniel!

She had seen him that afternoon, and had told him, this time with no embarra.s.sment (for he was as simple as a child about it), that she had arranged with Mr. Niles to marry them. "An' you fetch your bag along, Nathaniel, and we'll put the machine together, evenin's," she said.

"Yes, kind woman," he answered, joyously. "Oh, what a weight you have taken from my soul!"

His half-blind eyes were luminous with belief. Lizzie had smiled, and shaken her head slightly, looking at the battered rubbish in the bag--the little, tarnished mirrors, one of them cracked; the two small lenses, scratched and dim; the handful of rusty cogs and wheels. With what pa.s.sion he had dreamed that he would see that which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive! He began to talk, eagerly, of his invention; but reasonably, it seemed to Lizzie. Indeed, except for the idea itself, there was nothing that betrayed the unbalanced mind. His grat.i.tude, too, was sane enough; he had been planning how he could he useful to her, how he was to do this or that sort of work for her--at least until his eyes gave out, he said, cheerfully. "But by that time, kind woman, my invention will be perfected, and you shall have no need to consider ways and means."

Lizzie, smiling, had left him to his joy, and gone back to sit under her elm in the twilight, and think soberly of the economies which a husband--such a husband--would necessitate.

And then Mrs. b.u.t.terfield had come panting up to the gate; and now--

"I don't see as I can tell him!" she thought, desperately. To go and say to Nathaniel, all eager and happy and full of hope as he was, "You must go to the Farm,"--would be like striking in the face some child that is holding out its arms to you. Lizzie twisted her hands together. "I just can't!" But, of course, she would have to. That was all there was to it. If she married him, why, there would be two to go to the Farm instead of one. Oh, why wouldn't they give her her pension if she married again! Her eyes smarted with tears; Nathaniel's pain seemed to her unendurable.

But all the same, the next morning, heavily, she set out to tell him.

At Dyer's, Jonesville had gathered to see the sight; and as she came up to the porch, there were nudgings and whisperings, and Hiram Wells, bolder than the rest, said, "Well, Mis' Graham, this is a fine day for a weddin'--"

Lizzie Graham, without turning her head, said, coldly, "There ain't goin' to be no weddin'." Then she went on upstairs to Nathaniel's room.

The idlers on the porch looked at each other and guffawed. "I knowed Sam was foolin' us," somebody said.

But Sam defended himself. "I tell you I wa'n't foolin'. You ask Rev.

Niles; she told me only yesterday he said he'd tie the knot. I ain't foolin'. She's changed her mind, that's all."

"Lookin' for a handsomer man," Hiram suggested;--"chance for yourself, Sam!"

Lizzie, hot-cheeked, heard the laughter, and went on up-stairs.

Nathaniel was sitting on the edge of his bed, his hat on, his poor coat b.u.t.toned to his chin; he was holding his precious bag, gripped in two nervous hands, on his knee. When he heard her step, he drew a deep breath.

"Oh, kind woman!" he said; "I'd begun to fear you were not coming."

"I am--a little late," Lizzie said. "I--I was detained."

"It does not matter," he said, cheerfully; "I have had much food for thought while awaiting you. I have been thinking that this wonderful invention will be really your gift to humanity, not mine. Had I gone to the Farm, it would never have been. Now--!" His voice broke for joy.

"Oh, well, I don't know 'bout that," Lizzie said, nervously; "I guess you could 'a' done it anywheres."

"No, no; it would have been impossible. And think, Lizzie Graham, what it will mean to the sorrowful world! See," he explained, solemnly; "we poor creatures have not been able to conceive that of which we have had no experience; the unborn child cannot know the meaning of life.

If the babe in the womb questioned, What is birth? what is living?

could even its own mother tell it? Nay! So we, questioning: 'G.o.d, what is death? what is immortality?' Not even G.o.d can tell us. The unborn soul, carried in the womb of Time, has waited death to know the things of Eternity, just as the unborn babe waits birth to know the things of life. But now, _now_, is coming to the world the gift of sight!"

There was a pause; Lizzie Graham swallowed once, and set her lips; then she said, "I am afraid, Nathaniel, that I--I can't marry you--because--"

"Marry me?" he said, with a confused look.

"We were to get married to-day, you know, Nathaniel?"

"Oh yes," he said.

"Yes; but--but I can't, Nathaniel."

"Never mind," he said. "Shall we go now, kind woman?" He rose, smiling, and stretched out one groping hand. Involuntarily she took it; then stood still, and tried to speak. He turned patiently towards her. "Must we wait longer?" he asked, gently.

"Oh, Nathaniel, I--I don't know what to say, but--"

A startled look came into his face. "Is anything the matter?"

"_Oh!_" Lizzie said. "It just breaks my heart!"

His face turned suddenly gray; he sat down, trembling; the contents of his bag rattled, and something snapped--perhaps another mirror broke.

He put one hand up to his head.

"It's that pension," Lizzie said, brokenly; "if I get married, I lose it. An' we wouldn't have a cent to live on. You--you see how it is, Nathaniel?"

He began to whisper to himself, not listening to her. There was a long pause, broken by his strange whispering.

Lizzie Graham looked at him, and turned her eyes away, wincing with pain;--the tears were rolling slowly down his cheeks. She put her hand on his shoulder in a pa.s.sion of pity; then, suddenly, fiercely, she gathered the poor bowed head against her soft breast. "I don't care! My name ain't worth as much as that! Let 'em talk. Nathaniel, are you willin' _not_ to get married?"

But she had to speak twice before he heard her. Then he said, looking up at her out of his despair: "What? What did you say?"

"Nathaniel," she explained, kneeling beside him and holding his hand against her bosom, "if you were to come and live with me, and we were not married--"

But he was not listening. A door opened down-stairs, and there was a noisy burst of laughter; then it closed, and the hot room was still.

"Emily b.u.t.terfield will stand my friend," she said, her lips tightening. Then, gently: "We won't get married; Nathaniel. You will just come and visit me until--until the machine is finished."

"You will let me come?" he said, with a gasp; "you will let me finish my invention?" He got up, trembling, clutching his bag, and holding out one hand to clasp hers.