O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 46

But something in her youth had definitely vanished, as it always does when responsibility lays its heavy hand on us. She went about her new life questioningly eager for understanding. There was so much for her to see and learn--the erratic ways of setting hens, the care of foolish little baby chicks; the spring house, cool and damp and gray-walled, with its trickle of cold water forever eddying about the crocks of cream-topped milk; the garden making, left to her and Aunt Dolcey after the first spading; the various messes and mashes to be prepared for cows with calf; the use of the stored vegetables and fruits, and meat dried and salted in such generous quant.i.ty that she marvelled at it. All the farm woman's primer she learned, bit by bit, seeing how it supplemented and harmonized with that life of the fields that so engrossed and commanded Wes.

But through it all, beneath it all, she found herself waiting, with dread, for another outburst. Against whom would it be this time--Unc'

Zenas again--Aunt Dolcey--one of the animals--or perhaps herself? She wondered if she could bear it if he turned on her.

She was working in the spring house mixing cream with curd for cottage cheese, very busy and anxious over it, for this was her first essay alone, when she heard Wes again in anger. She dropped her spoon, but did not go to look, only concentrated herself to listen.

This time he was cursing one of his horses, and she could hear the stinging whish of a whip, a wicked and sinister emphasis to the beast's snorting and frenzied thumping of hoofs. Her blue eyes dilated with fear; she knew in what pain and fright the horse must be lunging under those blows. And Wes, raucous, violent, his mouth foul with unclean words--only this morning he had told her that when Sunday came they'd go into the woods and find a wild clematis to plant beside the front door. Wild clematis! She could have laughed at the irony of it.

At last she could bear it no longer; she put her hands to her ears to shut out the hideousness of it. After an interminable wait she took them down. He had stopped--there was silence--but she heard footsteps outside, and she literally cowered into the darkest corner of the spring house. But it was only Aunt Dolcey, her lips set in a line of endurance.

"I was lookin' erbout foh you, honey," she said rea.s.suringly. "I di'n'

know where you was, en den I remembah you come off down heah. Let Aunt Dolcey finish up dat cheese."

"What--what started him?" asked Annie piteously.

"I doan' jes' know--sound' like one de big team di'n' go inter his right stall, er som'n like dat. It's always som'n triflin', en no 'count. But land, he'll be ovah it come night. Doan' look so white en skeer, chile."

"But--but I been thinking--what if he might turn on me--what if he'd strike me? Aunt Dolcey--did he ever strike you?"

"Oncet."

"Oh, Aunt Dolcey, what did you do?"

Something flared in Aunt Dolcey's eyes that was as old as her race.

She looked past Annie as if she saw something she rather relished; just so her ancestors must have looked when they were dancing before a bloodstained Congo fetish.

"You see dat big white scar on Ma.r.s.e Wes' lef' wris'? When he struck me I mahk him dere wid my hot flatiron. Am' no man eveh gwine lif' his hand to Dolcey, no matter who."

A shrewd question came to Annie:

"Aunt Dolcey, did he ever strike you again?"

"No, ma'am, no 'ndeedy, he didn'. Wil' Ma.r.s.e Wes may be, but he ain'

no crazy man. It's dat ole debbil in his nature, Miss Annie, honey. En ef ever once som'n tremenjus happen to Ma.r.s.e Wes, dat debbil'll be cas' out. But hit's got to be stronger en mo' pow'ful dan he is. Not 'ligion, fer 'ligion goes f'm de outside in. Som'n got to come from inside Ma.r.s.e Wes out befo' dat ole debbil is laid."

This was meagre comfort, and Annie did not follow the primitive psychology of it. She only knew that into her happiness there had come again the darkening of a fear, fear that was to be her devil, no less terrible because his presence was for the most part veiled.

But again she steeled her courage. "I won't let him spoil everything; I won't let him make me afraid of him," she vowed, seeing Wes in his silent mood that night. "I won't be afraid of him. I wish I could cut that old vein out of his forehead. I hate it--it's just as if it was the thing that starts him. Never seems as if it was part of the real Wes, my Wes."

In the depths of the woods, on Sunday, she stood by while he dug up the wild clematis--stood so he could not see her lips quiver--and she put her clenched hands behind her for fear they, too, would betray her.

"Wes," she asked, "what made you get so mad last Thursday and beat old Pomp so?"

He turned toward her in genuine surprise.

"I wasn't mad; not much, that is. And all I laid on Pomp's tough old hide couldn't hurt him. He's as mean as a mule, that old scoundrel.

Gets me riled every once in a while."

"I wish you wouldn't ever do it again. It scared me almost to death."

"Scared you!" he laughed. "Oh, Annie, you little silly--you aren't scared of me. Now don't let on you are. What you doing--trying to kid me? There, ain't that a splendid plant? I believe I'll take back a couple shovelfuls this rich wood earth to put in under it. It'll never know it's not at home."

"Yes, but, Wes--I wish you'd promise me something."

"Promise you anything."

"Then--promise me not to get mad and beat the horses any more or holler at Unc' Zenas. I don't like it."

"Annie, you little simp--what's the matter with you? A fellow's got to let off steam once in a while, and if you'd been pestered like I have with Unc' Zenas's ornery trifling spells and old Pomp's general cussedness, you'd wonder that I don't get mad and stay mad every minute. Don't let's talk any more about it. Say, look there--there's a scarlet tanager! Ain't it pretty? Shyest bird there is, but up here in the woods there's a couple pairs 'most every year. Pull that old newspaper up round the earth a little, so's I can get a better holt of it. That's the girl. Gee, I never knew what fun it'd be to have a wife who'd be so darn chummy as you are. How d'you like your husband, Mrs.

Dean? Ain't it about time you said something nice to the poor feller instead of scolding his lights and liver out of place on a nice peaceful Sabbath day? You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

She pushed back the fear devil and answered his smile.

'No, sir, I'm not going to say anything nice to my husband. I'll tell you a secret about him--he's awful stuck on himself now."

"Why shouldn't he be? Look who he picked out to marry."

Who could stand against such beguiling? Annie looked up at him and saw his Dean mark give a little mocking twitch as if it rejoiced in her thwarting.

But she said no more; and they planted the wild clematis with its black woods earth beneath at the side of the front door, and Annie twisted its pliable green stems round one of the posts of the little benched entrance.

Her hands moved deftly, and Wes, who had finished firming the earth about the plant, watched them.

"Your little paws are gettin' awful brown," he said. "I remember that first day, in the shop, how white they were--and how quick they moved.

You wrapped up them ap.r.o.ns like somethin' was after you, and I was trying to get my nerve up to speak to you."

"Tryin' to get up your nerve! I reckon it wasn't much effort. There, don't that vine look's if it grew there of itself?"

"Yeh--it looks fine." He sat down on the bench and pulled her down beside him, his arm about her. "Annie, baby, are y' happy?"

She put her cheek against his shoulder and shut her eyes.

"I'm so happy I wouldn't darst be any happier."

"You're not sorry you picked up with me so quick? You don't wish't you'd stayed down in Balt'mer and got you a city beau?"

"I'd rather be with you--here--than any place in the world. And, Wes--I think you're the best and kindest man that ever lived. I wouldn't have you changed, any way, one little bit."

She defied her fears and that mocking, twitching vein with the words.

"Same here. Made to order for me, you were. First minute I looked in those round blue eyes of yours I knew it."

"It isn't possible," she thought. "It isn't possible that he can get so mad and be so dreadful. Maybe if I can make him think he's awful good and kind"--oh, simple subtlety--"believe he is, too, and he'll stop getting such spells. Oh, if he would always be just like this!"

But it was only two days later when she called him to help her; there was a hen that was possessed to brood, and Aunt Dolcey had declared that it was too late, that summer chickens never thrived.

"I can't get her out, Wes," said Annie. "She's 'way in under the stable, and she pecks at me so mean. You got longer arms'n me--you reach in and grab her."

He came, smiling. He reached in and grabbed, and the incensed biddy pecked viciously.