It was home-like and companionable to have a woman and baby in the house, and Nathan Hornby had been lonesome a long time. He clucked to the baby and began to trot him up and down on his knee. With a relieved sigh Elizabeth dropped into a chair and watched them.

Jack, unaccustomed to whiskers, put his hand out to investigate. Nathan waggled his chin to shake its pendant brush, and Jack started nervously.

Nathan looked across at Elizabeth and laughed. That little laugh did a world of good in aiding Elizabeth's plans. It was not possible for Nathan to catch her eye in good-natured raillery and remain cool of manner; that laugh and the glance that went with it did much to wash away his hurt. In his secret soul Nathan had craved Elizabeth's love and Elizabeth's baby.

She had been like a daughter in the house. He had missed her almost as much as his wife had done, but he had resented her long absence. He had come to the house determined not to forget his wrongs, and here he was, in less than fifteen minutes, smiling at her over the head of the baby in friendly amus.e.m.e.nt. He was puzzled now at the readiness with which he had given in, but Nathan found his love stronger than his grievances.

"Take off your things, Lizzie; th' house's yours if you--if you really want it to be."

Elizabeth took off her wraps and prepared to begin work on the disorderly kitchen. Aunt Susan's limp ap.r.o.n hung on the nail from which the bonnet had fallen, and she put it on, looking about her, undecided where it was best to commence.

"I've come to help--where shall I begin?" she said.

"If I could tell you what t' do I could 'a' done it myself," Nathan said ruefully.

Elizabeth thought of the orderly wife who was gone and a sob arose in her throat.

"Oh, Uncle Nate! You don't know how I miss her sometimes."

And Nathan Hornby replied sadly:

"I kind a think maybe I do."

The night was cloudy and the long diagonal drifts made it hard to drive after dark. The ch.o.r.es had kept Noland later than he had thought and it was dusk when he arrived at Nathan's for Elizabeth.

Hugh Noland had been spending the afternoon with John Hunter about the barn, measuring him and talking of farm prospects. Here was the place for him to settle down, if he could arrange for a partnership. He was so much convinced of this that he was endeavouring to make the alliances of friendship before he led up to the more serious one. It had baffled him to have Elizabeth answer in monosyllables both going to Mr. Hornby's and again during their return; he wanted to talk. Her home was the first farmhouse he had ever entered that he felt could be home to him; its evidences of culture and refinement had made as lasting an impression upon Hugh Noland as that same home had done upon Elizabeth when John Hunter had taken her to see his mother in it. It was an oasis in the rural desert. He meant to exert every effort to establish himself in it. When Elizabeth did not respond to his attempts at conversation, he fell back upon the a.n.a.lysis of herself and her husband which had been going on in his mind all day. They were evidently not people who felt above their neighbours on account of their superior education, for she had gone to spend a whole afternoon with that plain old farmer and she had shown the liveliest interest, even friendship, for the Swede on the other side of the farm. He liked them the better for that. If a man or woman lived in a community he or she should be a part of that community. Hugh Noland never doubted that the friendly interest he had witnessed was the regularly established course of action and that it was mutual in the household. Coming into the household at this transition point, he was to make many such mistakes in his estimates.

John Hunter was at the side gate to a.s.sist his wife and baby out of the sled. He left Elizabeth to carry Jack to the house and went to the barn to help Noland put the team away. This man, who took milking as a lark, and all farm work as a thing to be desired, and yet was a gentleman, was to John Hunter, who scorned these things as beneath himself, an anomaly. It had never occurred to John that labour of that sort could have dignity, nor that a man could choose it as a livelihood unless driven to it. It had never occurred to him that if driven to it one should enter into it as a real partic.i.p.ant. To him it was a thing to endure for a time and never refer to after it could be put behind him. The beauty of the dawn, the pleasant odours of new-mown hay, the freshness of the crisp air, the a.s.sociation with the living creatures about him, the joys of a clean life, all escaped him. Hugh Noland had enumerated these things, and many more, while they had worked together that afternoon, and John Hunter accepted the enumeration, not because it was fundamentally true, but because it was the estimate of a cultured and well-educated man.

John Hunter had been vexed at Elizabeth for the sangfroid with which she had walked away from established custom in ordering the team prepared for her to be taken to Nathan's, but with Noland present he had accepted it without remark. Here was a man before whom John would always, but instinctively rather than premeditatively, endeavour to show his best side.

Hugh Noland went to the house with John, talking farm work and prices of produce as if they were matters of pleasant as well as necessary importance, and he set John to talking in his best vein and without superciliousness; he had the faculty of bringing out the best in the people he met. He brought some of his books--he had stopped at the Chamberlain homestead for his trunk on their return that evening--and added them to those already on the Hunter shelves. While arranging them, he sat on the floor before the bookcase and glancing over the t.i.tles of those belonging to the family, opened an occasional one and read aloud a verse or a paragraph or two. He read with zest and enthusiasm. He was fresh from the world of lectures and theatres, and the social life of the city, and became a rejuvenating leaven for this entire household.

Luther was on Elizabeth's mind when she awakened the next morning, and as soon as the breakfast work was finished and she had time to get the house in order, she decided to move from her new standpoint and go to see him.

To this end she asked Mrs. Hunter to keep Jack while she was gone, and to the older woman's objections that she should let the men hitch up the sled and drive her over she answered firmly:

"I don't want a word said about it. I will go whenever I please without arguing it with anybody."

In her secret soul she was glad to get past the barn without John seeing her. She would not have permitted him to stop her, or delay her visit, but a discussion with her husband was apt to hold surprises and she to become confused and angry, and worsted in the _manner_ of her insistence. To get away without having to explain put her in good spirits.

The sun shone brightly and the air, though snappy and cold, was brisk and fresh. It was the first free walk of a mile Elizabeth had ever taken since her marriage. Elizabeth was herself again. She skirted around the long drifts as she crossed the field humming a s.n.a.t.c.h of tune with all her blood atingle with the delight of being alone in the vast silent fields.

The mere pa.s.sing of time since Aunt Susan's death had gradually worked a change in her condition, which Luther's presence and the stimulating quality of his words, John's absence, the intoxication of the wild and unfettered storm, the visit to Nathan Hornby's, and the invigorating personality of Hugh Noland had combined to rejuvenate in the crushed and beaten girl. Life held meanings to which she had long been blind.

Elizabeth set about the reorganizing of her life with no bitterness toward John, only glad to have found herself, with duty to herself as well as others still possible.

Sadie Hansen met Elizabeth at the door with such evident uneasiness that Elizabeth was moved to ask:

"Luther's all right, Sadie?"

"Yes-s-s!" Sadie replied slowly, and with such reluctance that Elizabeth was puzzled.

Sadie took her to the bedroom and shut the door behind her as tight as if she hoped to shut out some evil spirit in the action. Her manner filled Elizabeth with curiosity, but she crossed to Luther and held out her hand.

"Before you 'uns begin," Sadie said with the air of burning her bridges behind her, and before any one had had a chance to speak, "I want t' tell you something. I could 'a' told it in th' kitchen," she stammered, "but I made up my mind last night that I'd have it out with both of you. I've done you th' meanest trick, Lizzie. Luther said you was goin' t' Hornby's yesterday. Did you go?"

Elizabeth, standing at the head of Luther's bed, nodded in her surprise, feeling that her visit with Nathan was not a subject to which she could lend words.

"Now look here, Lizzie, if what I said t' th' Hornbys has made any difference, I'll go t' him an' take it back right before your face."

Elizabeth's eyes opened in astonishment.

"Uncle Nate did not mention it to me," Elizabeth replied.

"Well, I've made up my mind I want t' tell it, an' have it off my mind."

Sadie considered a moment and then plunged into her tale hurriedly, for fear that her courage would cease to support her.

"Well, when I was to your house last summer, an' you told me about th'

effect it had on a baby t' have a mother that never got mad, I come home an' tried t' do everything I thought you meant an'--seems t' me I never was s' mean in my life. Mean feelin' I mean. I got along pretty well at first--I guess it was somethin' new--? but th' nearer I got t' th' time, th' worse I got. I scolded Luther Hansen till I know he wished he'd never been born. Th' worst of it was that I'd told 'im how--what a difference it made, and he was that anxious----?"

Luther raised his hand to protest, but Sadie waved him aside and continued:

"Oh, you needn't defend me, Luther!" she exclaimed. "I've been meaner 'n you know of." Turning to Elizabeth again, "I used t' look over t' your house an' feel--an' feel 's if I could only see you an' talk a while, I'd git over wantin' t' be s' mean, but you wouldn't never come t' see us--an'--an' I didn't feel's if--I didn't feel free t' go any more, 'cause ma said you didn't want t' be sociable with our kind of folks."

Sadie paused a moment to crease the hem of her ap.r.o.n and get the twitching out of the corners of her distressed mouth.

"Well, at last, when you didn't come, an' I couldn't git no help from no one, I just said every mean thing I could. I told Hornby a week 'fore his wife died that you said you didn't want t' change visits with us country jakes, 'cause you wanted your boy t' be different from th' likes of us.

Ma'd heard that somewhere, but I told it t' 'im 's if you'd said it t' me.

Sue Hornby put 'er hand on my arm an' said, so kind like, 'Sadie, ain't you 'fraid t' talk that way an' you in that fix?' An' I just cried an'

cried, an' couldn't even tell 'er I'd tried t' do different."

Luther Hansen had been trying to interrupt the flow of his wife's confession, and broke in at this point by saying:

"Sadie's nervous an' upset over----"

"No, I ain't," Sadie replied hastily. "I've been as mean as mud, an' here she's took care of you, an' I've gone an' got Hornby mad at 'er. He believed what I told, if 'is wife didn't. They say, Lizzie, that 'e lives there all by 'iself an'----" Sadie choked, and waited for Elizabeth to speak.

"I guess you've worried about nothing," Elizabeth said brightly. "I've been to see him, and we're good friends--the best kind in fact, and no one could ever make us anything else hereafter." She looked down at Luther and smiled.

"Will it make any difference with my baby?" Sadie asked anxiously, her mind working like a treadmill in its own little round.

"No, Sadie--that is, I guess not. I've been thinking, as I listened to you, that the way you tried would have to count--it's bigger than anything else you've done."

Sadie Hansen dropped into a chair sobbing hysterically.

Elizabeth's hand went to the girl's shoulder comfortingly.

"G.o.d does not ask that we succeed, Sadie; he asks that we try."