The Mettle of the Pasture Part 32

Autumn and winter had pa.s.sed. Another spring was nearly gone. One Monday morning of that May, the month of new growths and of old growths with new starting-points on them, Ambrose Webb was walking to and fro across the fresh oilcloth in his short hall; the front door and the back door stood wide open, as though to indicate the receptivity of his nature in opposite directions; all the windows were wide open, as though to bring out of doors into his house: he was much more used to the former; during married life the open had been more friendly than the interior. But he was now also master of the interior and had been for nearly a year.

Some men succeed best as partial automata, as dogs for instance that can be highly trained to pull little domestic carts. Ambrose had grown used to pulling his cart: he had expected to pull it for the rest of his days; and now the cart had suddenly broken down behind him and he was left standing in the middle of the long life-road. But liberty was too large a destiny for a mind of that order; the rod of empire does not fit such hands; it was intolerable to Ambrose that he was in a world where he could do as he pleased.

On this courageous Monday, therefore,--whatsoever he was to do during the week he always decided on Mondays,--after months of irresolution he finally determined to make a second dash for slavery. But he meant to be canny; this time he would choose a woman who, if she ruled him, would not misrule him; what he could stand was a sovereign, not a despot, and he believed that he had found this exceptionally gifted and exceptionally moderated being: it was Miss Anna Hardage.

From the day of Miss Anna's discovery that Ambrose had a dominating consort, she had been, she had declared she should be, much kinder to him. When his wife died, Miss Anna had been kinder still.

Affliction present, affliction past, her sympathy had not failed him.

He had fallen into the habit of lingering a little whenever he took his dairy products around to the side porch. Every true man yearns for the eyes of some woman; and Ambrose developed the feeling that he should like to live with Miss Anna's. He had no gift for judging human conduct except by common human standards; and so at bottom he believed that Miss Anna in her own way had been telling him that if the time ever came, she could be counted on to do the right thing by him.

So Ambrose paced the sticky oilcloth this morning as a man who has reached the hill of decision. He had bought him a new buggy and new harness. Hitched to the one and wearing the other was his favorite roan mare with a Roman nose and a white eye, now dozing at the stiles in the front yard. He had curried her and had combed her mane and tail and had had her newly shod, and altogether she may have felt too comfortable to keep awake. He himself seemed to have received a coating of the same varnish as his buggy. Had you pinned a young beetle in the back of his coat or on either leg of his trousers, as a mere study in shades of blackness, it must have been lost to view at the distance of a few yards through sheer harmony with its background. Under his Adam's apple there was a green tie--the bough to the fruit. His eyes sparkled as though they had lately been reset and polished by a jeweller.

What now delayed and excited him at this last moment before setting out was uncertainty as to the offering he should bear Miss Anna.

Fundamental instincts vaguely warned him that love's altar must be approached with gifts. He knew that some brought fortune, some warlike deeds, some fame, some the beauty of their strength and youth. He had none of these to offer; but he was a plain farmer, and he could give her what he had so often sold her--a pound of b.u.t.ter.

He had awaited the result of the morning churning; but the b.u.t.ter had tasted of turnips, and Ambrose did not think that the taste of turnips represented the flavor of his emotion. Nevertheless, there was one thing that she preferred even to b.u.t.ter; he would ensnare her in her own weakness, catch her in her own net: he would take her a jar of cream.

Miss Anna was in her usual high spirits that morning. She was trying a new recipe for some dinner comfort for Professor Hardage, when her old cook, who also answered the doorbell, returned to the kitchen with word that Mr. Webb was in the parlor.

"Why, I paid him for his milk," exclaimed Miss Anna, without ceasing to beat and stir. "And what is he doing in the parlor?

Why didn't he come around to the side door? I'll be back in a moment." She took off her ap.r.o.n from an old habit of doing so whenever she entered the parlor.

She gave her dairyman the customary hearty greeting, hurried back to get him a gla.s.s of water, inquired dispa.s.sionately about gra.s.s, inundated him with a bounteous overflow of her impersonal humanity.

But he did not state his business, and she grew impatient to return to her confection.

"Do I owe you for anything, Mr. Webb?" she suddenly asked, groping for some clew to this lengthening labyrinthine visit.

He rose and going to the piano raked heavily off of the top of it a gla.s.s jar and brought it over to her and resumed his seat with a speaking countenance.

"Cream!" cried Miss Anna, delighted, running her practised eye downward along the bottle to discover where the contents usually began to get blue: it was yellow to the bottom. "How much is it?

I'm afraid we are too poor to buy so much cream all at once."

"It has no price; it is above price."

"How much is it, Mr. Webb?" she insisted with impatience.

"It is a free gift."

"Oh, what a beautiful present!" exclaimed Miss Anna, holding it up to the light admiringly. "How can I ever thank you."

"Don't thank me: you could have the dairy! You could have the cows, the farm."

"O dear, no!" cried Miss Anna, "that would be altogether too much!

One bottle goes far beyond all that I ever hoped for."

"I wish ail women were like you."

"O dear, no! that would not do at all! I am an old maid, and women must marry, must, must! What would become of the world?"

"You need not be an old maid unless you wish."

"Now, I had never thought of that!" observed Miss Anna, in a very peculiar tone. "But we'll not talk about myself; let us talk about yourself. You are looking extremely well--now aren't you?"

"No one has a better right. It is due you to let you know this.

There's good timber in me yet."

"Due _me_! I am not interested in timber."

"Anna," he said, throwing his arms around one of his knees, "our hour has come--we need not wait any longer."

"Wait for _what_?" inquired Miss Anna, bending toward him with the scrutiny of a near-sighted person trying to make out some looming horror.

"Our marriage."

Miss Anna rose as by an inward explosion.

"Go, _buzzard_!"

He kept his seat and stared at her with a dropped jaw. Habit was powerful in him; and there was something in her anger, in that complete sweeping of him out other way, that recalled the domestic usages of former years and brought to his lips an involuntary time-worn expression:

"I meant nothing offensive."

"I do not know what you meant, and I do not care: go!"

He rose and stood before her, and with a flash of sincere anger he spoke his honest mind: "It was you who put the notion in my head.

You encouraged me, encouraged me systematically; and now you are pretending. You are a bad woman."

"I think I am a bad woman after what has happened to me this morning," said Miss Anna, dazed and ready to break down.

He hesitated when he reached the door, smarting with his honest hurt; and he paused there and made a request.

"At least I hope that you will never mention this; it might injure me." He did not explain how, but he seemed to know.

"Do you suppose I'd tell my Maker if He did not already know it?"

She swept past him into the kitchen.

"As soon as you have done your work, go clean the parlor," she said to the cook. "Give it a good airing. And throw that cream away, throw the bottle away."

A few moments later she hurried with her bowl into the pantry; there she left it unfinished and crept noiselessly up the backstairs to her room.

That evening as Professor Hardage sat opposite to her, reading, while she was doing some needlework, he laid his book down with the idea of asking her some question. But he caught sight of her expression and studied it a few moments. It was so ludicrous a commingling of mortification and rage that he laughed outright.

"Why, Anna, what on earth is the matter?"

At the first sound of his voice she burst into hysterical sobs.

He came over and tried to draw her fingers away from her eyes.

"Tell me all about it."