They were only having two meals a day now that the corn was all picked, and dinner came so late in the afternoon that there was already a blaze of sunset colour in the west as she pa.s.sed around the barn and started down the bank of the stream. The sun had set, but was still reflected on the heaps of billowy gray clouds just above the horizon. It made the snow in front of her a delicate pink. The girl had not got far enough from the house to see a sunset for months. The freshness and keenness of the air, the colours in the sky, the grandeur and sublimity of it all chased away her anger and left her in a mood to reason over her situation. She followed the cow-path down to the bed of the stream and then threaded her way along its winding route for a greater distance than she had ever gone before. A broken willow barred her way after a time, and she climbed up on its swaying trunk and let her feet dangle over the frozen streamlet below.

The snow made lighter than usual the early evening and extended the time she could safely stay so far from the house.

The colours faded rapidly from the sky and the bewildered girl returned to her own affairs, which were puzzling enough. Of late she had found herself unable to maintain her enthusiasm. She found herself increasingly irritable--from her standpoint the one thing most to be despised in others and which she had supposed most impossible in herself. There were so many unforeseen possibilities within herself that she devoted her entire attention to her own actions and impulses, and was completely drawn away from the consideration of the motives of others by her struggle with the elemental forces in which she found herself engulfed. The temper aroused by John's objection to her Thanksgiving company had indications in spite of the fact that she had controlled it. Elizabeth knew that she had but barely kept her speech within the limits of kindliness and consideration for Mrs. Hunter, who had not wished to frustrate her plans at all, and she knew that she would be less likely to do so if the offence were repeated.

She knew that Mrs. Hunter tried with real honesty of purpose to keep on good terms with her, and yet she also knew that she was increasingly annoyed with whatever she did. There was an element of unfairness in her att.i.tude toward the older woman which alarmed her.

"I'm just like pa, after all," she thought as she swung her feet and looked in a troubled way down at the frozen stream below.

Elizabeth reflected that when Aunt Susan, or Silas, or Luther Hansen came into the house she became instantly her own buoyant, optimistic self: not that she intentionally feigned such feelings for the benefit of her company, but she felt the presence of trust, of faith in herself and her powers. She did not recognize that such trust was necessary to the unfoldment of character, nor even that it was her birthright.

The girl watched the gathering twilight and deliberately let the time pa.s.s without attempting to return to the house until compelled to do so by real darkness, realizing that some beneficial thing was happening in her in this free out-of-doors place, for she was less annoyed and more a.n.a.lytical with each breath she drew in it.

"If only I'd take time to do this sort of thing I'd be more as I ought to be," she meditated when she had at last risen to go home. "I won't be like pa! I won't! I won't!" she reiterated many times as she walked back, over the frozen cow-path. "I'll come here every few days. Ma and pa were born to be happy, only they never took time to be."

And though John was cross because the baby had cried in her absence, Elizabeth felt that she had been helped by getting away from him. She accepted her husband's reproaches without reply, and was able to forget them even while they were still issuing from his mouth. She kept her temper down all that week, and though the Thanksgiving invitations were not sent, she cooked the dinner and put as many hours into its concoction as if she had had all the people she had hoped to have about her board to eat it, and she was so sunny and natural as she served it that John did not even guess that she was governing herself consciously. She stayed at home the next Sunday and the next, and John Hunter was unaware that she was endeavouring to surrender herself to his will.

"She'll get over wanting to run somewhere all the time," he told his mother, and Mrs. Hunter, to whom these people were not pleasing, agreed with him, and thought that it was just as well if it were so, not realizing that the girl lived alone in their house and that she might have an att.i.tude toward these people distinctly different from theirs.

This winter, like the preceding one, pa.s.sed with Elizabeth at home. There was no peace to be had if she thought of going anywhere for any purpose whatever. Elizabeth went nowhere and required few clothes. The cold the child had caught on that first trip to Luther's was sufficient excuse to prevent any further foolishness on the part of its mother. However, a trip to town was in waiting for Elizabeth Hunter and was proposed by John Hunter himself.

There had been a "warm spell" in the month of February and John had asked Elizabeth to help him with the pump in the barnyard, which had been working badly for days. It was Sat.u.r.day evening, and Jake and the other hired man had been granted time off that day; the pump had refused to work at all after they were gone, and with a hundred cattle waiting for water it was necessary to impress any one available with the duty of helping.

Elizabeth was more than willing to help: it meant a couple of hours out of doors. They had worked industriously and their efforts were about crowned with success when Mrs. Hunter came out to them with the baby wrapped in a warm shawl. John tossed aside the extra piece of leather he had cut from the top of an old boot and fitted the round piece in his hand about the sucker.

"Now, mother, you shouldn't bring that child out here; You'll have him sick on our hands again," he said.

"Oh, lots of children go out of doors in winter. I took you out whenever I wanted to, and you've lived to tell the tale," his mother said easily, seating herself on the end of the trough.

"Well, I don't want anything to happen to him for a few days, I can tell you. I want you to keep him and let Elizabeth go in to town with me and sign the mortgage on this eighty, Monday," John replied, examining the valve with great attention.

"Why, I thought this eighty was already mortgaged!" Mrs. Hunter exclaimed.

"Well, it is," John replied uneasily, "but I've got to raise the interest before I can get that bunch of shoats ready to sell, and I've got to do it that way."

He did not look at either of the two women, but kept himself very busy about the rod and sucker he was manipulating.

Mrs. Hunter seldom remarked upon anything that was done about the farm, but this was surprising news. _A second mortgage_ on part of the land! She had just opened her mouth to speak, when she happened to glance across at her daughter-in-law. Elizabeth's face was white. Something in it implored Mrs. Hunter to go away, to leave them to have the matter out together, and the older woman took her cue from it and went with a haste which caused her son to look up from the piston with which he fumbled.

"She's gone to the house; I motioned to her to go," Elizabeth announced.

"She don't know much about mortgages, but she knows this won't do. You told me last week that the hogs would be ready in time. My soul alive, John! do you realize what you are doing? This is the home-eighty! What's happened to the hogs?"

"Say, look here! If I want to mortgage this eighty, I'm going to do it.

Those hogs are just where it pays to feed them. If I sell now, I'll lose half the profits."

John got up and faced her ready to fight, if fight he must on this question. He had chosen an opportune time to tell it, but he meant to do as he wished about those hogs and the land and whatever else they possessed. He hated to open a discussion, but he did not hate to continue one after he had made the plunge. He had feasible reasons for all that he did.

Elizabeth saw that he meant to insist and she resented the deception he had practised in securing this loan without telling her, but the danger was so great that she could not afford to let her feelings blind her, nor to put the thing in a bad light by seeming to wrangle about it. She looked at him steadily, so steadily, in fact, that John was disconcerted. The work in hand gave excuse for withdrawing his eyes and Elizabeth watched him arrange the knot of the rope so that they could lower the pipe back into the well. The girl did not begin to speak at once: she marshalled her forces and considered what manner of argument she would put forth. She knew that every piece of land they possessed except the Mitch.e.l.l County pastures was covered with one third of its value in inc.u.mbrances. If the interest was hard to meet now, what would it be three years hence? She had come to understand that the man she had married was not a farmer. She helped him lower the long pipe into the well, and watched him try the pump handle to see if the sucker would work. It was slow in drawing, and she filled a small pail from the trough and poured it into the pump head.

After a few sputtering strokes the water began to come freely, and then she had to wait for the pumping to stop before she could make herself heard above its rumblings.

John Hunter knew perfectly well that Elizabeth was waiting and prolonged the work till the great trough was full. When it began to overflow and there was no further need for drawing water, he turned abruptly toward the gate where the cattle were. Elizabeth had waited in the frosty air till she was chilled from standing and could not remain for the stock to drink before she had a chance to go to the house.

"I want to talk to you before those cattle come out here," she said, more hurt by his avoidance of her now than she had been by the original deception; he was really ignoring her as a factor in their mutual affairs.

"I have to protest against this mortgage, John. We ought to keep a small home free at least, and instead of putting more on this eighty we ought to sell enough of the stuff to pay off on this part. Every farmer in this country has his nose on the interest grindstone, and my life has been spoiled with it ever since I can remember. Please, dear, let's not put a second mortgage on this eighty."

In her anxiety to get John's attention Elizabeth went forward and put her hand on his arm, forgetting in her earnestness the slight he had just shown toward her in ignoring her claims to a voice in the matter.

John Hunter shook off the detaining hand impatiently.

"If you're going to run this business you may as well do it without my help and I'll quit," he said, his body braced away from her with the plain intimation that he preferred that she should not touch him.

Elizabeth hesitated. Her impulse was to turn and leave him without further words, but the farm, their future comfort, the whole scheme of family peace and harmony depended upon obtaining a hearing.

"I don't want to run things--really, I do not. I've never tried to, but I've lived on a farm, and I know how impossible it is ever to raise a mortgage if you get it on a place. I--let's sell enough to raise the one we have on this eighty while we can, instead. I'm willing to live on a little; but, oh, John, I do so want to have one place that is our own."

"There's money in those cattle," John answered sullenly. "A woman don't know anything about such things. You'll go and get mother started on it too, I suppose. I'm going to do as I see fit about it, anyhow. I know there's money to be made there."

With a great sob in her throat, Elizabeth turned to the house.

"Look here, Elizabeth," John called after her peremptorily.

Elizabeth stopped respectfully to listen, but she did not return to his side. John waited, thinking she would come to him.

"Cattle ain't like ordinary farming," he argued with a flush of anger. "A man simply has to take time to let steers grow into money. We haven't been at it a long enough time. Those big steers will be ready to feed this fall, and corn's going to be cheap. We'd be cutting off our noses to spite our own faces to sell now."

"Perhaps," the girl replied bitterly, and went on to the house.

She knew that John had argued with the hope of getting her to admit herself in the wrong, not to hear her side of the case.

John Hunter gazed after his retreating wife in vexed petulance for a moment and then, with a sigh of relief, turned toward the waiting cattle.

"She'll be ready when I want to go to town all the same," he reflected.

CHAPTER XIV

MORTGAGES OF SOUL

The mortgage was signed. The fine weather had brought many people to Colebyville. Elizabeth had not been in town for a year, and the sight of pleasant, happy folk greeting each other cordially and wandering from store to store bartering eggs and b.u.t.ter for groceries and family necessities, and exchanging ideas and small talk about their purchases, had accentuated her isolation. Those people who knew her spoke to her also, but with an air of suspicion and reserve. A puzzling feature of the day had been that John had received a more cordial reception than she had.

The main suspicion had been directed against her. There seemed to be a certain acceptance of John's "stuck-upness." He had some reason for his att.i.tude toward them which they were inclined to accept, but Elizabeth saw that to this community she was a "beggar on horseback." Instead of seeing that the man who had thrust her into this false relation was utterly inadequate to realize it, or that if he realized it he was utterly indifferent to her sufferings in it, she inquired into her own failure to get his attention, and felt that he was after all a better husband than any she had ever known, with few exceptions. John had managed to add to her confusion where he was concerned that day by being floridly insistent upon her spending a generous sum upon her purchases and taking as much interest in what she bought as a woman. There had been so much to buy that Elizabeth's economical soul had been torn by the desire to cut down the expense. The baby was ready for short clothes and there had been materials for little dresses, stockings, little shoes, a hood and cloak, to get for him alone, and Elizabeth saw in every dollar spent a dollar lost at interest-paying time. John had been happy and genial on the way home and had altogether treated her so much better than her mood had permitted her to treat him that there was a bit of self-accusation in her meditations.

Everything had gone wrong. The waters of human affection ran everywhere in the wrong direction. She desired understanding between herself and her husband; her att.i.tude toward the community in which they lived had been one of friendliness, her att.i.tude toward Aunt Susan and Luther one of whole-hearted love, her att.i.tude toward this family of which she found herself a part that of a devoted slave, yet nowhere had she been able to make proper alliances. Some curious defeating element had crept into every relation life offered her. While the rest ate supper that night, Elizabeth, who had no appet.i.te and was too sick with a sense of failure to eat, nursed her baby and meditated upon the indications of the day's occurrences. Forgetting her surroundings, she drew in a fluttering, sobbing breath. Jake Ransom, across the corner of the table, caught the sound of that sob and flashed a quick glance in her direction. His eyes were as quickly withdrawn, but Elizabeth knew without looking up that he had heard. With a desire to escape observation, she made an excuse of putting the baby away and went to the bedroom with the child. Slipping him into his little nightdress she made him comfortable for the night, after which she went back to the dining room to keep Jake from thinking she had anything to cry about. There was an added hum of voices, and she went in with some curiosity.

Silas Chamberlain stood beside the stove with his old cap and his home-knit mittens under his arm, while he leaned over the welcome fire.

The blues were gone instantly. There was such a glad light in her eyes as she advanced to meet him that Jake Ransom wondered if he had been mistaken in the quivering breath, and there was such genuine pleasure in her surprised greeting that Silas Chamberlain was warmed and fed by it.

"Where's that baby?" he demanded. "You ain't gone an' tucked him into bed this time o' night, have you? I come special t' see 'im."

For months Elizabeth had wanted to see Silas and the baby in a "free for all tumble" and her eyes danced with delight at the idea. She had not had such a thrill in many weeks; the young mother spoke in every line of her young face. As if by magic her troubles fell away from her. Crooking her finger beckoningly at the old man, she crept on tiptoe to the bedroom door. She had left a lamp lighted in the room and it was possible to observe the baby without him being aware of their presence. Silas had crept behind her like an Indian stalking a deer, and she caught his suppressed breath as she turned with her finger on her lips at the door.