Way Down East Part 9

How could she cope with such heartless cruelty as that of Sanderson?

All that she had asked for was an honest roof in return for honest toil. And there are so few such, thought the helpless girl, remembering with awful vividness her efforts to find work and the pitfalls and barriers that had been put in her way, often in the guise of friendly interest.

She could not go out and face it all over again. It was so bleak--so bleak. There seemed to be no place in the great world that she could fill, no one stood in need of her help, no one required her services.

They had no faith in her story that she was looking for work and had no home.

"What, a good-looking young girl like you! What, no home? No, no; we don't need you," or the other frightful alternative.

And yet she must go. Sanderson was right. She could not stay where he was. She must go. But where?

She could hear his voice in the dining-room, entertaining them all with his inimitable gift of story-telling. And then, their laughter--peal on peal of it--and his voice cutting in, with its well-bred modulation: "Yes, I thought it was a pretty good story myself, even if the joke was on me." And again their laughter and applause. She had no weapons with which to fight such cold-blooded selfishness. To stay meant eternal torture. She saw herself forced to face his complacent sneer day after day and death on the roadside seemed preferable.

She tried to face the situation in all its pitiful reality, but the injustice of it cried out for vengeance and she could not think. She could only bury her throbbing temples in her hands and murmur over and over again: "It is all wrong."

David found her thus, as he made his way to the house from the barn, where he had been detained later than the others. When he saw her forlorn little figure huddled by the well-curb in an att.i.tude of absolute dejection, he could not go on without saying some word of comfort.

"Miss Anna," he said very gently, "I hope you are not going to be homesick with us."

She lifted a pale, tear-stained face, on which the lines of suffering were written far in advance of her years.

"It does not matter, Mr. David," she answered him, "I am going away."

"No, no, you are not going to do anything of the kind," he said gently; "the work seems hard today because it is new, but in a day or two you will become accustomed to it, and to us. We may seem a bit hard and unsympathetic; I can see you are not used to our ways of living, and looking at things, but we are sincere, and we want you to stay with us; indeed, we do."

She gave him a wealth of grat.i.tude from her beautiful brown eyes. "It is not that I find the place hard, Mr. David. Every one has been so kind to me that I would be glad to stay, but--but----"

He did not press her for her reason. "You have been ill, I believe you said?"

"Yes, very ill indeed, and there are not many who would give work to a delicate girl. Oh, I am sorry to go----" She broke off wildly, and the tears filled her eyes.

"Miss Anna, when one is ill, it's hard to know what is best. Don't make up your mind just yet. Stay for a few days and give us a trial, and just call on me when you want a bucket of water or anything else that taxes your strength."

She tried to answer him but could not. They were the first words of real kindness, after all these months of sorrow and loneliness, and they broke down the icy barrier that seemed to have enclosed her heart.

She bent her head and wept silently.

"There, there, little woman," he said, patting her shoulder when he would have given anything to put his arm around her and offer her the devotion of his life. But Dave had a good bit of hard common sense under his hat, and he knew that such a declaration would only hasten her departure and the wise young man continued to be brotherly, to urge her to stay for his mother's sake, and because it was so hard for a young woman to find the proper kind of a home, and really she was not a good judge of what was best for her.

And Anna, whose storm-swept soul was so weary of beating against the rocks, listened and made up her mind to enjoy the wholesome companionship of these good people, for a little while at least.

CHAPTER XI.

RUSTIC HOSPITALITY.

"Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale."--_Goldsmith_.

Sanderson's clothes, his manner, his slightly English accent, were all so many items in a good letter of credit to those simple people. The Squire was secretly proud at having a city man like young Sanderson for a neighbor. It would unquestionably add tone to Wakefield society.

Kate regarded him with the frank admiration of a young woman who appreciates a smart appearance, good manner, and the indefinable something that goes to make up the ensemble of the man of the world.

He could say nothing, cleverly; he had little subtleties of manner that put the other men she had met to poor advantage beside him. On the night in question the Squire was giving a supper in honor of the berry-pickers who had helped to gather in the crop the week before.

Afterwards, they would sing the sweet, homely songs that all the village loved, and then troop home by moonlight to the accompaniment of their own music.

"Well, Mr. Sanderson," said the Squire, "suppose you stay to supper with us. See, we've lots of good company"--and he waved his hand, indicating the different groups, "and we'll talk about the stock afterwards."

He accepted their invitation to supper with flattering alacrity; they were so good to take pity on a solitaire, and Mrs. Bartlett was such a famous housekeeper; he had heard of her apple-pies in Boston. Dave scented patronage in his "citified" air; he and other young men at the table--young men who helped about the farm--resented everything about the stranger from the self-satisfied poise of his head to the aggressive gloss on his riding-boots.

"Why, Dave," said Kate to her cousin in an undertone, "you look positively fierce. If I had a particle of vanity I should say you were jealous."

"When I get jealous, Kate, it will be of a man, not of a tailor's sign."

"Say, Miss Kate," said Hi Holler, "they're a couple of old lengths of stove-pipes out in the loft; I'm going to polish 'em up for leggins.

Darned if I let any city dude get ahead o' me."

"The green-eyed monster is driving you all crazy," laughed Kate, in great good humor. "The girls don't seem to find any fault with him."

Cynthia and Amelia were both regarding him with admiring glances.

Dave turned away in some impatience. Involuntarily his eyes sought out Anna Moore to see if she, too, was adding her quota of admiration to the stranger's account. But Anna had no eyes or ears for anything but the business of the moment, which was attending to the Squire's guests.

Evidently one woman could retain her senses in the presence of this tailor's figure. Dave's admiration of Anna went up several points.

She slipped about as quietly as a spirit, removing and replacing dishes with exquisite deftness. Even the Squire was forced to acknowledge that she was a great acquisition to the household. She neither sought to avoid nor to attract the attention of Sanderson; she waited on him attentively and un.o.btrusively as she would have waited on any other guest at the Squire's table. The Squire and Sanderson retired to the porch to discuss the purchase of the stock, and Mrs. Bartlett and Anna set to work to clear away the dishes. Kate excused herself from a.s.sisting, as she had to a.s.sume the position as hostess and soon had the church choir singing in its very best style. Song after song rang out on the clear summer air. It was a treat not likely to be forgotten soon by the listeners. All the members of the choir had what is known as "natural talent," joined to which there was a very fair amount of cultivation, and the result was music of a most pleasing type, music that touches the heart--not a mere display Of vocal gymnastics.

Toward the close of the festivities, the sound of wheels was heard, and the cracked voice of Rube Whipple, the town constable, urging his ancient nag to greater speed, issued out of the darkness. Rube was what is known as a "character." He had held the office, which on account of being a.s.sociated with him had become a sort of munic.i.p.al joke, in the earliest recollections of the oldest inhabitants. He apparently got no older. For the past fifty years he had looked as if he had been ready to totter into the grave at any moment, but he took it out apparently, in attending to other people's funerals instead.

His voice was cracked, he walked with a limp, and his clothes, Hi Holler said: "was the old suit Noah left in the ark."

The choir had just finished singing "Rock of Ages" as the constable turned his venerable piece of horseflesh into the front yard.

"Well, well," he said, in a voice like a graphophone badly in need of repair, "I might have knowed it was the choir kicking up all that rumpus. Heard the row clear up to the postoffice, and thought I'd come up to see if anyone was getting murdered."

"Thought you'd be on the spot for once, did you, Rube?" inquired Hi Holler. "Well, seeing you're here, we might accommodate you, by getting up a murder, or a row, or something. 'Twould be too bad to have nothing happen, seeing you are on hand for once."

The choir joined heartily in the laugh on the constable, who waited till it had subsided and then said:

"Well, what's the matter with jailing all of you for disturbing the public peace. There's law for it--'disturbin' the public peace with strange sounds at late and unusual hours of the night.'"

"All right, constable," said Cynthia, "I suppose you'll drive us to jail in that rig o' yourn. I'd be willing to stay there six months for the sake o' driving behind so spry a piece of horse-flesh as that."

"'Tain't the horseflesh she's after, constable, it's the driver.

Everyone 'round here knows how Cynthia dew admire you."

"Professional jealousy is what's at the bottom of this," declared Kate, "the choir is jealous of Uncle Rube's reputation as a singer, and Uncle Rube does not care for the choir's new-fangled methods of singing.

Rivalry! Rivalry! That's what the matter."

"That's right, Miss Kate," squeaked the constable, "they're jealous of my singing. There ain't one of 'em, with all their scaling, and do-re-mi-ing can touch me. If I turned professional to-day, I'd make more'n all of 'em put together."

"That's cause they'd pay you to quit. Ha, ha," said Hi Holler.