Mrs. Hunter turned and went back to the kitchen. John came toward his wife.

"What is it, John? What has happened?" she asked in a whisper. There was a sick look on John Hunter's face.

Elizabeth did not put her hand on him as was her usual way. The girl-wife had an indistinct feeling that her husband and his mother were a combination for the moment of which she was not a part.

"Enough has happened," the man said, pa.s.sing her and going toward their bedroom. "Come in here!"

He held the door open for her to enter, and she pa.s.sed in and stood waiting while he shut it behind them.

"What is it, John?" she queried, unable to wait longer.

"Your father has gone to Colebyville and got into a drunken row," was the bald statement. "Everybody in the country knows about his fuss with you."

He did not offer to touch her, but walked over to the window and began to drum on the window-pane with nervous fingers.

"Drunk! Row! My father was never drunk in his life!" was the astonished exclamation with which Elizabeth Hunter met this unbelievable accusation.

"Well, he's been drunk enough to last the rest of his life this time, and we're the laughing stock of this whole country."

John Hunter had gone to Colebyville that morning in the new buggy, rather pleased to be the centre of observation and remark. He quite liked to swagger before these country people whom he chose otherwise to ignore. He was well dressed, his buggy was the admired of all admirers, and he was newly married. Country gossip had some pleasing qualifications. When he had arrived at Colebyville, however, John Hunter had found that country people had little ways of their own for the edification of the vainglorious, and that trim young men in buggies became infinitely more interesting to the scorned when they could be a.s.sociated with scandal. He soon found that he was the object of much amused discussion and shortly it became evident that they were quite willing that he should know that he was the object of ridicule. Pretending friendship, one of them enlightened him as to the exact circ.u.mstances which were amusing them, and then sneaked back to his companions with a verbatim report of his surprised exclamations. John Hunter did not enjoy being the victim of a trap laid by those he had patronized. It had been a humiliating day, and John Hunter always handed his misfortunes along. He poured his disgust over his wife as if she alone were responsible for all he had suffered that day.

"What was the row with you about, anyway?" he inquired with evident aversion to her presence.

Elizabeth had withered into a quivering semblance of the confident woman who had run to meet him five minutes ago. Her knees shook under her with collapse. She sat down on the edge of the bed and stammered her explanations as if she had been a naughty child caught red-handed in some act of which she was ashamed.

"It--oh, John! I only went to him to make up about--about other things.

We--we didn't have any fuss exactly. It--it was just the same old thing.

I--I begged ma not to make me go home. I told her what he would--I knew he'd whip me, but she would have me go."

"Well, he couldn't whip you for nothing," John said, with brutal inquiry.

"What'd you fall out with him for? I never heard of such a thing as a girl who was a woman grown that fell out with her father till he whipped her."

Exasperated and miserable, John bestowed blame in the only convenient place he found.

The young wife buried her face in the counterpane and did not attempt to reply, and after looking dully at her for a moment John Hunter went out and left her to carry her burden of shame alone. The sound of the closing door a.s.sured her that at least she could be alone in her tears, and the humbled girl gave herself up to sobbing. Luther and Aunt Susan would never be quite convinced that she had done her best to avoid trouble; she even wondered herself if there might not have been some fault in the way she had approached her father. As usual, Elizabeth was concerned with the trouble of others. The whole dreadful thing pa.s.sed before her with the vividness of actual reproduction. John's mother knew this at any rate.

That was a sore point. They were in the kitchen talking it over now! With the conviction of absolute certainty, Elizabeth buried her face in the counterpane of her bridal couch and sobbed in desolate abandon.

After a time John came back again and looked into the room. Seeing her distress, he went over slowly and lifted her to her feet with a stir of pity.

"Don't cry," he said gloomily. "It can't be helped. Come on out to the kitchen and help mother with the supper."

Elizabeth knew that at that moment he did not want to caress her, but her hungry soul craved comfort beyond her power to control and she dug her face into his breast and sobbed there unasked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE YOUNG WIFE BURIED HER FACE IN THE COUNTERPANE AND DID NOT ATTEMPT TO REPLY"]

John's arms closed about her in a relaxed sort of way, and patting her head half-heartedly, he said again:

"Come on, dear. Mother's out there getting supper alone." He took his own pocket handkerchief and wiped her tear-stained face and, after kissing her, pushed her gently but firmly toward the kitchen.

Supper was not a cheerful meal. Elizabeth's voice was thick from crying and she did not talk at all, while John and his mother could not discuss the topic uppermost in their minds in her presence. The feeling that there was a combination of which she was not a part grew upon the young wife, and a longing for Aunt Susan grew with it.

"I'd like to go over to Uncle Nate's immediately after supper," she said.

"I'll do the dishes while you hitch up."

"Good Lord! I don't want to go over there to-night," was the reply. "I wish you'd quit calling those people 'Aunt' and 'Uncle'."

Elizabeth's face blazed with colour as he got up and went into the sitting room. The brutality of the answer was so evident to John's mother that she followed him.

"You had better take Elizabeth to Mr. Hornby's, John. I don't think you should speak to her in that way, either," she said in a low tone of voice.

Elizabeth could not hear Mrs. Hunter's remarks, but John's reply was audible enough.

"I'm not going over there to-night. I don't feel as if I ever wanted to go anywhere again."

She also heard Mrs. Hunter's low "Sh!" and felt more than ever an alien.

When the dishes were finished Mrs. Hunter went upstairs. John followed her.

"I will not be hurt, because I will not see hurt," Elizabeth told herself as she slipped through the house to her own room. Because her lips quivered as she said it, she busied herself in taking down her hair to brush for the night. Her sleeves were tight and hindered, and she took off her dress and folded it across the back of a chair carefully, and finished braiding her hair in her petticoat.

John found her with her white arms uplifted as she combed the long strands. Moved by her girlish beauty and freshness, he went over and put his arms about her. The girl's mouth was full of hairpins, and she mumbled something he did not understand. He kept his arms about her insistently, and rubbed his chin on her smooth shoulder with a little laugh. She struggled to free herself, but he held her teasingly, and finally accepting the playful tussle as an apology, though she knew it was not an adequate one, she gave up. She was resolved not to split hairs with her husband over small matters; she would not nurse grievances.

As for John Hunter, he had not thought of apology,--or of the necessity of one; he had been moved by the sight of the tempting figure of the woman he possessed.

Elizabeth loved her husband and wished to believe that he loved her; she was unwilling to begin her married life with any sort of whining or suspicion, so she ended the matter by resting unresisting in his arms and turning her young face up to be kissed.

The next morning Elizabeth washed the dishes alone, and Mrs. Hunter followed John to the barn and later to the pasture, where he went to catch a horse.

"Where are you going with a horse?" his mother asked as they pa.s.sed through the pasture gate.

"I have to go over to Chamberlain's to help with a small stack of hay he put up in the field and wants to move, now that he's got the time. I told him he'd better let me help him before the new hired man comes to begin the husking; I'm going to need the team every day after that," John replied.

"So you got a man, did you?" Mrs. Hunter said, catching hold of his arm to keep him from outwalking her. "If you're going as far as Chamberlain's you'd better take Elizabeth over to Mr. Hornby's while you're hitched up.

I'll get dinner. You hurt her feelings last night, and that'll be a good way to make it right with her."

"Now look here, mother," John Hunter answered decidedly, "I'll do nothing of the kind. With this story going around we'll stay at home where we belong. Anyhow, the sooner she's cut away from these country jakes the better for her, and I'll begin right here and now. I don't intend--never have intended--to have these people tacked to my coat-tails every move I make. If she's hurt, She'll simply have to get over it; besides, she didn't stay mad long--you saw that for yourself. She's all right if she's managed right."

It was true, Mrs. Hunter reflected. Elizabeth had not seemed to take much offence, and was perfectly good-natured this morning. She did not intend to interfere with the affairs of her son and his wife. Elizabeth seemed submissive, and promised well. She hoped that this horrid gossip would die down. That was a nasty thing to be mixed up with. Mr. Hunter had never had anything like that happen to him before, and she was devoutly glad they were away out here in Kansas where no one who had ever known them would hear it. Elizabeth would be all the better as a wife if she did not start out by running around too much. It did not occur to Mrs. Hunter, nor to her son, that if the old acquaintances were to be taken away from Elizabeth that in all justice she must be provided with new ones. In fact, it did not occur to them at all that her opinions were of any value whatever. Why should John explain his plans to her? Why, indeed?

As she went about her Sat.u.r.day morning's work Elizabeth watched John and his mother stroll down the path in the pasture, certain that she herself was the subject of their conversation, and her eyes burned with unshed tears. The intimacy between John and his mother seemed so much more firmly established than the intimacy between John and herself that she was filled with lonesomeness and a longing for Aunt Susan.

"To-morrow's Sunday and there'll be nothing to do. He'll have to take me then. He was tired and upset by that horrid talk last night. Oh, why do I have to be mixed up with things I can't help--and--and have him cross, and everything?" She ended with a little shuddering cry, and buried her head in the kitchen towel and gave up to the tears which, now that she was alone, she could candidly shed. How she longed for Aunt Susan, and yet she could not have talked to her of these things; but in spite of that she wanted her.

"Will you go over to--to Mrs. Hornby's with us to-day?" she asked Mrs.

Hunter at the breakfast table the next morning.