Elizabeth was back in her own kitchen in time to get dinner. John had seen her as she came home, but made no remark.

At the end of three weeks there was a consultation between Hugh Noland and John regarding a possible partnership. Not only did Noland like John Hunter, but he was delighted with the atmosphere with which he found him surrounded.

"This is a home," had been Hugh's secret a.n.a.lysis of the household. In fact the home was the main feature of the Hunter farm, the main reason for wishing to stay.

To John the offer of partnership was a blessing from heaven itself. The matter of interest was pressing on him far more than he had acknowledged to Elizabeth. It galled him to discuss things with her since she had ceased to ask about them or even to show any concern. He did not realize that she had been compelled to consider the matter hopeless.

It was agreed that Hugh should lift the indebtedness and have one half interest in the concern, land and stock. There would be about five hundred dollars left over after all the debts were paid, and John gleefully decided to buy some more calves with the residue.

"But we shall need every cent of that for running expenses this summer,"

Noland objected.

"Oh, well, if we do, we can always get money on sixty or ninety day loans," John replied easily.

"I'd rather not go into debt, with my health," the new partner said decidedly.

He happened to look across at Elizabeth and caught the alert sign of approval in her face. He had heard Silas and some others discuss the Hunter mortgages, but here was a still more significant evidence.

Elizabeth had not signalled him, but the look told the story; in fact, it told more than the girl had intended.

"I should consider it a necessary condition of any business I went into,"

he added steadily. "I am an uncertain quant.i.ty, as I have told you, with this heart, and I could not be worried with debts."

Elizabeth did not look at him this time, but he saw the look of satisfaction and heard her indrawn breath. And now the really lovable side of Hugh Noland began to show out. Feeling now that he was a real member of the family, he began to give himself to its pleasing features. The evening's reading became a thing to which the whole group looked forward.

The flow of companionship exceeded anything any member of the family had ever antic.i.p.ated. Jake arrived in time for the spring work, as he had agreed, and was astonished by every feature of the family life which he saw about him. Elizabeth was cheerful, even happy, while John Hunter was another man. Jake figured out the changes about him wistfully, craving a part in the good-fellowship. Here was contentment such as Jake had never witnessed. Not a trace of the old tragic conditions seemed to remain. Jake had missed the key to the situation by his absence at the time of the blizzard, but he was keenly aware that some change had been wrought. He studied Hugh Noland and was even more enthusiastic about his personality and powers than the family. All called the new man by his given name, a sure sign of their affection.

Elizabeth had worked a radical change in her life. Jake watched her come and go without remark from her husband, give her orders to Hugh to hitch up for her if she chose to drive, or if she walked, going without permission, and was almost as pleased as she. He saw that she had learned to keep her own counsel and not to speak of her plans till the time for action had arrived. He felt a something new in her.

Elizabeth had, in fact, learned that while openness was a point of character, nevertheless, if she dealt openly with her husband it led to quarrelsome discussions. She saw that John did not know why he opposed her, that it was instinctive. As she studied him, however, she found how widely separated they were in spirit. The calm which Jake saw, was all there, but there were other things fully as vital which had not been there before. The self-questioning of those months previous to Aunt Susan's death had been productive of results. While a certain openness of att.i.tude had disappeared, there was the strength which has all the difference between deceit and reserve in Elizabeth Hunter's face.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CHILD OF HER BODY

In the spring Elizabeth's affairs, which had promised to straighten out, were complicated from a new quarter. She was now to test her strength against the greatest of all problems for women and to find out if she could put her precepts into practice. The probability of a second child had become a certainty; the necessity of adjusting her good-will to accidental child-bearing was upon her. Often and often her words to Sadie--"I always wanted my baby"--rose up to accuse her. Only of late had suspicion become a certainty. Elizabeth did not greet that certainty with joy. Life was hard; she had more work to do already than she was able to perform; try as she would she could not get her mental consent. Why must she have this undesired child? When the thought first wormed its way into her head, Elizabeth pa.s.sed from disappointment to self-accusation. By every law of G.o.d and man a mother should want her child; if she did not, then she stood accused at Nature's bar.

"For its sake I've got to want it; I'll make myself," she decided. But she did not want it, and found to her growing dismay that she could not make herself satisfied about it. Instead of becoming reconciled, the question enlarged and grew and gained in point and force. The girl decided that she would be glad in spite of every opposing thing, but her resolution was formed with tears in her heart, if not in her eyes, and the weary ache in her back never ceased. "It must not be so. My child must be welcome!"

Elizabeth told herself each morning, but she was too tired; it was not welcome, and all her efforts failed to make it so.

John was vexed when he found her in tears.

"The idea!" he exclaimed. "Now if we were too poor to feed and clothe it there'd be some excuse, but----" He made his pause as expressive as he could.

"It isn't that. I--I'm so tired and--I ought to be glad--and--and I'm not," she began.

"Well, I suppose with mother gone"--Mrs. Hunter had returned to her old home on a visit--"you _have_ got a good deal to look after, but I've got to get to the field now. You're always raking something up that looks wrong to you. If you'd stick to your work and not run around looking for trouble you'd be able to want it, maybe."

The force of her husband's suggestion struck the girl. Perhaps it was true that she had missed the very highest for herself in loving ease and comfort enough to seek them. To put discontent away from her and to keep her thoughts occupied she began the spring housecleaning. There was so much regular cooking and milk work that only one room could be attacked at a time, but she kept busy, and the plan worked admirably during the day.

She was not sleeping well, however, and found that nights have a power all their own. When the lights went out, thought held the girl in its relentless grip. It was of no use to lengthen her working hours in the hope that sleep would come more promptly, for the more exhausted Elizabeth became the less able was she to sleep, and thought stared at her out of the darkness with eyes like living coals.

Wherever Elizabeth turned this monster confronted her, this monster whose tail was a question mark, whose body obscured everything on the horizon of the immediate future except its own repulsive presence, and threw her back upon the suffering present and the much to be deplored past. Was it right to permit a child to come when joy had gone out of relations between its parents? This question grew and ripened and spread, and whenever she summoned up enough will-power to weed it out for an hour it would spring up anew, refreshed and more tenacious than ever.

"Whether it's right or not for John and me to have a child after we've quit loving each other, if I can only be glad it's coming, or even be willing to have it, I won't mind, now," she told herself. But she was not glad, and she was not even willing. She dragged herself about, keeping busy day after day as her husband had advised; it was her only refuge, and one which could not avail very long, for already she was worn out. On the last day of the cleaning, Hugh Noland came to the door of her room and speaking from the outside said:

"I came in to see if I couldn't help you a little in getting ready for those sh.e.l.lers, Mrs. Hunter." Hugh had noticed her weary look of late, and, as all the men about the house did, tried to help whenever there was time to be spared from the fields or when extra work was required of her.

"Sh.e.l.lers?"

Elizabeth backed out of the closet she was cleaning, and came around to the door.

"Sh.e.l.lers? Are we going to have sh.e.l.lers?"

"To-morrow," he said in surprise.

In spite of her exclamation of astonishment Elizabeth noted a familiar look on Hugh Noland's face which had something in it that always caught her attention. Always when an unexpected thing came upon Hugh, Elizabeth had a sense of having had past relations with him.

"You don't tell me you didn't know?"

"I surely didn't. When did John go to see the men about it? Why, I haven't even bread baked!" she exclaimed.

"That's funny! Well--I suppose he forgot to tell you. The men pa.s.sed here before dinner and he went out to the road and engaged them. We've got a little corn left over, and prices seem to be up this week."

"Well, it's only one of many things," she said, trying to smile.

Her eyes wandered over the disordered bedroom as she considered. Clothing, boots, shoes, and other articles of apparel lay scattered over the bed.

Her orderly soul could not leave them without finishing.

"I'll tell you what you do--I'll straighten up here. You go over to Uncle Nate's and get me some yeast. I'll have to bake. I made him some yeast the last time I made for myself, and he'll have some left. It's been too damp and cloudy to make any of late. Then I'll see what you can do," she said wearily. "I surely will need help if I've got to have a dozen extra men without notice. I suppose John forgot. He's usually thoughtful about the cooking for strange men."

Something in the hurt, weary look of her went to Hugh Noland's heart.

"I'll run over to Hornby's and back in half an hour unless he's at the far side of the field. Anyhow, I'll get back the very first minute I can. I have to start to Mitch.e.l.l County to-morrow, early in the morning, so I won't have any time to do anything except to-night. I can kill the chickens for you, and bring things up out of the cellar. What on earth made anybody put a cave as far from the kitchen door as that for is more than I can see," he said, taking vengeance on the first unpleasant feature of her circ.u.mstances that presented itself.

Hugh did not at all understand why she was sick and unequal to the demands made upon her strength, but he did see that she was so, and that her tired young face wore a discouraged expression.

"I'll take Jack with me; that'll help some," he said as an afterthought.

"If you would----" The relief in her voice told the strain it was upon her to work and watch the toddling child. "I'll tell you--hurry back and tack this carpet down for me. I'll have the room and closet straightened up so that you can do it by then."

She wiped Jack's dirty face with the end of a towel she thrust into the water pitcher on the washstand and sent him off with a kiss to the welcome ride. As she worked after they were gone, she ran over in her mind the supplies on hand for the feeding of fifteen men on such short notice.

Threshing and corn-sh.e.l.ling meant hard work to the men who followed the business, but it meant feasting and festivity as well, and it was with the prospect of much cooking on the morrow that Elizabeth furrowed her forehead, and hurried with the replacing of the contents of the closet.

There was a sponge to be set to-night and bread to bake to-morrow; there was a cake to be baked, beans picked over and set to soak, and dried fruit to stew; also, and what was more annoying, she had let the churning run over for twenty-four hours in order to finish her cleaning.