The Wind Before the Dawn Part 11

Susan Hornby's delight over Elizabeth's coming was the most satisfying thing Nathan had seen since his return from Topeka. He had traded the land to please his wife, by getting nearer Elizabeth, but the presence of the girl in the house was so overwhelmingly surprising that Susan was swept by its very suddenness into shedding tears of actual joy. Elizabeth was put to the disconcerting necessity of explaining that her mother somewhat resented Aunt Susan's influence upon her daughter's life when she found her friends enthusiastically planning visits in the near future. She softened the details as much as possible and pa.s.sed it over as only a bit of maternal jealousy, but was obliged to let this dear friend see that it was rather a serious matter in her calculations. Susan Hornby now understood why Elizabeth had never visited her in these four years.

With the eyes of love Aunt Susan saw that four years in a position of authority had ripened her darling, and made of her a woman of wit and judgment, who could tell a necessary thing in a right manner or with a reserve which was commendable. Eagerly she studied her to see what the changes of those formative years had brought her. She listened to Elizabeth's plans for going to Topeka, and rejoiced that the intellectual stimulus was still strong in her. Elizabeth was obliged to explain away her parent's att.i.tude regarding further education, and left much for the older woman to fill in by her intuitions and experience of the world, but there again Susan Hornby saw evidences of strength which made her feel that the loss was offset by power gained. Elizabeth Farnshaw had matured and had qualities which would command recognition. John Hunter had shown that he recognized them--a thing which Elizabeth without egotism also knew.

It was a new experience to go to sleep thinking of any man but Hugh. In the darkness of the little bedroom in which Elizabeth slept that night Hugh's priority was met face to face by John Hunter's proximity.

Possession is said to be nine points in the law, and John Hunter was on the ground. The girl had been shut away from those of her kind until her hungry hands in that hour of thought, reached out to the living presence of the cultured man, and her hungry heart prayed to heaven that she might not be altogether unpleasing to him.

In the hour spent with John Hunter she had learned that he had come to Kansas to open a farm on the only unmortgaged piece of property which his father had left him when he died; that his mother intended to come to him as soon as he had a house built; and by an accidental remark she had also learned that there were lots in some eastern town upon which enough money could be raised to stock the farm with calves and that it was the young man's intention to farm this land himself. It seemed so incredible that John Hunter should become a farmer that by her astonished exclamation over it she had left him self-satisfied at her estimate of his foreignness to the life he was driven to pursue.

Elizabeth saw that if John Hunter must needs run a farm that he would do his best at it, but that he did not wish to _appear_ one with a role, and being young and with her own philosophy of life in a very much muddled condition, she liked him the better for it. Crucified daily by the incongruities of her own home, she craved deliverance from it and all it represented.

Just now Elizabeth Farnshaw was going home with something akin to fear in her heart. She rated herself soundly for the useless advice she had thrust upon her mother and for the entangling difficulties which her thoughtless words had produced. That the union of her parents was unclean, that it was altogether foul and by far worse than a divorce, she still felt confident, but she saw that her mother was totally unable to comprehend the difference between a clean separate life and the nagging poison dealt out as daily bread to the husband with whom she lived; but she saw that because of that very inability to understand the difference, the mother must be left to find the light in her own way. In her desire to help, Elizabeth had but increased her mother's burdens, and she tried to a.s.sume an att.i.tude of added tenderness toward her in her own mind, and puckered her young face into a frown as she let Patsie limp slowly from one low hill to another.

"I'll do everything I can to square the deal for ma," she resolved, but in her heart there was a sick suspicion that all she could do was not much, and that it had small chance really to avail.

Elizabeth had started early for home, but the sun rode high in the heavens before she arrived. Albert, who was herding the cattle on the short gra.s.s a half mile from home, warned her as she pa.s.sed that she would do well to hurry to the house.

"Pa waited for you to do the milking, Bess, an' you didn't come. He's mad as a hornet, an' You'll have t' bring th' cows out after he gets through."

It was a friendly warning. To be milking at that hour, when all the men in the neighbourhood were already following plow and harrow, was an important matter on the farm. Plainly it had been arranged to make Elizabeth feel a hindrance to the business of getting in the crops, and it was with increased apprehension that she approached home.

The storm broke as soon as she was within hailing distance.

"It's time you brought that horse home, young lady. You see to it that it's harnessed for th' drag as quick as ever you can. Next time you get a horse You'll know it."

When Elizabeth started on and Mr. Farnshaw saw that Patsie was lame his anger knew no bounds, and the sound of his exasperated voice could have been heard half a mile away as he poured out a stream of vituperation.

Elizabeth dodged into the barn as soon as its friendly door could be reached, thankful that the cows were as far as they were from it. Joe was harnessing a team in the far corner.

"You better shy around pa, Sis; and get t' th' house," he cautioned.

"All right. He told me to harness Patsie, but she's so lame I know she can't work--what will I do?"

"If she can't work, she can't. How did it happen?"

"She strained herself just before I got to Mr. Chamberlain's. I was pa.s.sing a young man by the name of Hunter and she fell flat. Say, do you know anything about Mr. Hunter?"

"Yes, yes. Jimmie Crane says he's a stuck-up, who's goin' t' show us country jakes how t' farm; but th' best thing you can do is t' get in an'

not let pa get any excuse for a row."

Mr. Farnshaw had taken the milkpails to the house while they were talking and it was Elizabeth's fate to encounter him on the doorstep as she ran up to the kitchen door.

"Where were you last night?"

"I'm awfully sorry about the horse, pa. I hurried this morning, but Patsie was so lame and I had to come all the way from the Chamberlain district.

The Haddon school board didn't meet this week and the director of number Twelve was away, and it was so late last night that I couldn't get home."

"Oh, you've always got a good excuse. I bet you didn't get a school after all."

Elizabeth had been edging toward the door as her father was speaking and now made her escape to the inside of the house as she replied over her shoulder in a perfectly respectful tone:

"Oh, yes, I did, and it begins Monday."

"Well, it's better than I expected. Now see to it that you get that riding skirt off an' come an' drive my team while I finish them oats."

The daughter stopped where she stood and was going to reply that she must get ready if she were to go to Aunt Susan's the next day, but on second thought closed her mouth down firmly. She knew she would do well if she escaped with no harder tax laid upon her temper than that of putting off her arrival at the Hornby home, and she turned to do as she was bidden.

When Elizabeth found her homecoming unpleasant and her father sullen and evidently nursing his wrath, she faced the storm without protest, took all that was said quietly, helped in the fields and endeavoured to make up for her unfortunate words in every helpful way possible. In all, she was so subtly generous with her a.s.sistance that it was impossible to bring on a quarrel with her, and the sour demeanour of her father was so carefully handled that Friday arrived without an open break having occurred. A new dress had been one of the longed-for accomplishments of the week's work, but certain of Aunt Susan's help when she was safely entrenched in her home, Elizabeth retired to the attic whenever she saw her father approach the house. His att.i.tude was threatening, but the anxious girl was able to delay the encounter. It could only be _delayed_, for Mr. Farnshaw made a virtue of not forgetting unpleasant things.

The only unfortunate occurrence of the week was the presence of Sadie Crane and her mother when Mr. Hunter drove up to the back door for Elizabeth's trunk, but even this had had its beneficial side, for Josiah Farnshaw had been mending harness, because a shower had made the ground too wet to plow, and the presence of neighbours made it possible to get the trunk packed without unpleasantness. When John Hunter drove up to the back door, Mr. Farnshaw rose from his chair beside the window and went to help put his daughter's possessions in the wagon. Sadie crossed over to the window to get a look at Lizzie's new beau.

Sadie Crane was now sixteen years old, and being undersized and childish of appearance had never had the pleasure of the company of a young man.

The yearning in her pettish face as she stood unevenly on the discarded harness, looking out of the window toward John Hunter, caught Elizabeth's attention and illuminated the whole affair to the older girl.

"Dude!" Sadie exclaimed spitefully, facing about and evidently offering insult.

But Elizabeth Farnshaw had seen the unsatisfied look which preceded the remark and it was excused. Sadie was just Sadie, and not to be taken seriously.

"He'd better soak his head; he can't farm."

No one replied, and Elizabeth said hurried good-byes and escaped.

But though Sadie Crane was undersized and spoke scornfully, she was old enough to feel a woman's desires and dream a woman's dreams. She watched the pair drive away together in pleasant converse on the quilt-lined spring seat of the farm wagon, and swallowed a sob.

"Lizzie always had th' best of everything," she reflected.

The roads were slippery and gave an excuse for driving slowly, and the young man exerted himself to be agreeable. The distaste for the presence of the Cranes at her home when he came for her, his possible opinion of her family and friends, the prolonged struggle with her father, even the headache from which she had not been free for days, melted out of Elizabeth's mind in the joy of that ride, and left it a perfect experience. It began to rain before they were halfway to their destination, and they sat shoulder to shoulder under the umbrella, with one of the quilts drawn around both. There was a sack of b.u.t.terscotch, and they talked of Scott, and d.i.c.kens, and the other books Elizabeth Farnshaw had absorbed from Aunt Susan's old-fashioned library; and Elizabeth was surprised to find that she had read almost as much as this college man, and still more surprised to find that she remembered a great deal more of what she had read than he seemed to do. She asked many questions about his college experiences and learned that he had lacked but a year and a half of graduation.

"Why didn't you finish?" she asked curiously.

"Well, you know, father died, and I didn't have hardly enough to finish on, so I thought I'd come out here and get to making something. I didn't care to finish. I'd had my fun out of it. I wish I hadn't gone at all. If I'd gone into the office with my father and been admitted to the Bar it would have been better for me. I wouldn't have been on the farm then," he said regretfully.

"Then why didn't you go into the law? You could have made it by yourself,"

Elizabeth said, understanding that it hurt John Hunter's pride to farm.

The young man shrugged his dripping shoulders and pulled the quilt tighter around them as he answered indifferently:

"Not very well. Father left very little unmortgaged except mother's own property, and I thought I'd get out of Canton. It ain't easy to live around folks you know unless you have money."

"But you could have worked your way through college; lots of boys do it,"

the girl objected.

"Not on your life!" John Hunter exclaimed emphatically. "I don't go to college that way." After a few moments' musing he added slowly, "I'll make money enough to get out of here after a while."

"I only wish I'd had your chance," Elizabeth said with a sigh.

"Let's talk about something cheerful," young Hunter replied, when he realized that the ride was nearly over. "When may I come to see you again?" he asked. "You are to see a good deal of me this summer if you will permit it."

Elizabeth Farnshaw caught a happy breath before she replied. He wanted to come; she was to see much of him this summer if she would permit it! Could nature and fate ask for more?