The Memoirs of an American Citizen Part 15

For all reply to this nonsense I kissed her good night.

CHAPTER XI

MARRIAGE

_Old scenes--How home looks after the city--My sister-in-law--In the country a man grows old--The judge once more--I make Will a suggestion--The joy of success--My wedding breakfast--Unexpected talk--The hand of Jane_

Just before we were married, Sarah and I went down to my old home in Jasonville. She was determined that I should make it up with my folks; it hurt her gentle heart to think that I had lived all these years without any news of my kin. It was a freezing January day when we drove up to the red brick house next the store. As we rattled over the rutty streets in the depot carriage, and pa.s.sed the small frame houses all closed in for the winter, I couldn't help feeling a most pharisaical pleasure in knowing that I wasn't condemned to live in this bleak little town.

When I knocked at the door, mother came to see who was there. She knew me at once, but she looked at me slowly, in the questioning way I remembered so well, before she said:--

"Well, Van! You've come back?"

"Yes, mother, and brought with me the best girl in the world."

"I am glad to see you both," she said quietly.

"And how's father?" I asked nervously.

"Your father died nearly three years ago. We didn't know where to send word to you."

There was no reproach in her voice; it was as if she expected nothing of me. We went into the house and sat down, and began to talk. It was solemn and painful all around, and if it hadn't been for Sarah I should have been taking an early train for Chicago. But she was sunny and light-hearted, and seemed to take pleasure in being there. While we were sitting in the front room talking to mother, a young woman came in with two small children hiding in her skirts.

"Your brother Will's wife," mother explained quickly.

"Why, May!" I exclaimed, a little embarra.s.sed, "I didn't exactly look for this. Will didn't let me know--I--"

"We wanted to write you, but we didn't know where you were. I am very glad to see you, Van," May said quietly, a little smile curving up from her lips in a way that reminded me of the girl I once loved. She took both Sarah's hands and looked straight into her eyes.

"And this is your wife, Van?"

"Not quite, yet."

Of course I had told Sarah all about May, and I thought she might be cold to her, meeting her in this way of a sudden as Will's wife. She always said May had been hard that time before--had been too keen about her good principles to be a real woman. Yet, as they stood there looking into each other's eyes, I could see that they would come together very soon. Sarah smiled as if to say: "It's all right, my dear! You see, I am glad you turned him away that time. We have no reason to quarrel, have we?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _I could see that they would come together very soon._]

May began to blush under that smile, as though she knew what was in Sarah's mind. Then mother brought up May's two little boys, who went to Sarah at once. Will was away somewhere and didn't come home until supper. I thought he looked pretty old for his age. Perhaps business was poor in Jasonville. The country ages a man fast when things go hard with him. At first he was stiffish to me, taken aback by our unexpected visit, but pretty soon he thawed to Sarah, who talked with him about his boys.

After dinner Will and I went to the barn and had a long smoke. He told me that the judge had pressed father pretty hard before he died, and after his death there wasn't much saved but the store, and that was mortgaged. And the business didn't amount to anything, according to Will. The mail-order business had cut into the country trade pretty badly by that time, and country people had begun more and more to go to the city to buy their goods. Moreover, time had shown that Jasonville lay to one side of the main lines of traffic. In short, Will had to sc.r.a.pe the barrel to get a living out of the old store.

He asked how it had been with me, and it gave me considerable pride to tell him what I had been doing. I told him about the packing business, my sausage factory, the deal with Strauss. He opened his eyes as he smoked my good cigar.

"So you struck it rich after all, Van!"

There was something on his mind, and after a time he managed to say:--

"I hope you won't have any more hard feeling for mother and me. We all treated you pretty harsh that time; we never gave you credit for what you had in you, Van."

"I guess it would have taken a prophet to see I had anything in me more than foolishness," I laughed. "Anyhow, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, Will, and I can't be too thankful that you folks in Jasonville threw me out."

"Yes, Jasonville ain't just the place for an ambitious man," he sighed.

"And, Van,--about May,--it wasn't hardly fair. She cared most for you, then, at any rate; she wouldn't marry me, not for five years."

"Don't say another word, Will. May will make the best sort of sister.

She's the right kind."

So that was the way we made it up as two brothers should. And the next morning, after doing some thinking over night about how I could best help my brother and May, I followed Will over to the store. On the way I met the old judge, looking hardly a day older than when I saw him last.

He eyed me hard, as if he didn't know me from the last tramp, but I stopped him and greeted him.

"So you're loose once more," he grinned. "I see they shut you up as soon as you struck Chicago." He had a good time laughing at his little joke.

"Yes," I replied, "I am out once more, judge. And, from what I hear, the Harringtons have been paying you pretty well for all the green peaches I ever took off your place."

He mumbled something, but I turned on my heel, rather proud of myself if the truth be told, being well dressed, with an air of city prosperity.

Will was in the bit of an office behind the store. The old place was as mussy and dirty as ever, with fat files of dusty old letters and accounts. The old desk where father used to make up his bills was littered with last year's mail. It was Sunday, and the musty smell of the closed store came in through the door. It all gave me the forlornest feeling I had had in years.

"This will never pay, Will," I said to my brother, who was turning the leaves of a worm-eaten day-book. "The time when the small business would pay a man anything worth while is pretty nearly over for good."

"I suppose so," he replied despondently. "But somehow we must get a living out of it."

"Let the judge have it, if he'll take it. I can find you something better."

There was a place in Dround's that Will might work into; and before long he could be of use to me in a scheme that was coming around the corner of my mind into sight. As I talked, Will's eyes brightened. Before we left the little office a new kind of look, the look of hope, had come over his face. I thought he seemed already some years younger. It takes the steps of a treadmill, downward faced, to crush the spirit in a man!

That was a happy morning. Surely, one of the joys of success is to give it away to the right ones. I remember a good many times in my life that I have had the pleasure of seeing that same look of hope, of a new spirit, come into a man's face, when I gave him his chance where he was least expecting it.

"But, Will, mind you, if you come to the city you'll no longer be your own man," I cautioned him. "Dround'll own you, or I shall. No doing what you want! To work with me is to work under me. Can you stand taking orders from your junior?"

"I guess, Van," he answered without any pride, "you have shown yourself to be the boss. I'll follow."

That night, when Will and May had left us at the junction where we were to take the Chicago train, Sarah brushed my arm with her cheek in a little intimate way she had and whispered:--

"May couldn't thank you. She feels it too much. You have made them so happy--there's a future now for them all. And I think, maybe, I can make you as good a wife as she could--perhaps better, some ways. May said so!

Though May is a very nice woman, and I shall always love her."

"I guess you are both right," I replied, too happy to say much more.

A few weeks later and we were married. The Drounds gave us a pretty little wedding breakfast, to which came the few friends I had in the world and a few of the many Sarah had. If Mrs. Dround was a careless hostess sometimes, that was not the day. She was specially gracious to Will and May, who were 'most strangers. It was all just as it should be, and I felt proud of myself to be there and to have this handsome, high-bred woman for my wife.

It was Sarah's idea that all the others should leave the house first, and that then we should slip away quietly to the train by ourselves. So at the last, while I was waiting for my bride to come downstairs, Mrs.

Dround and I happened to be alone. She looked pale and worn, as if the people had tired her. She ordered the servants to take away the great bunches of roses that filled every nook in the room.