THE DREAM ROOM
Long ago, when Stephen was a boy of fourteen or fifteen, he had gonewith his father to a distant town to spend the night. After an earlybreakfast next morning his father had driven off for a businessinterview, and left the boy to walk about during his absence. Hewandered aimlessly along a quiet side street, and threw himself down onthe grass outside a pretty garden to amuse himself as best he could.
After a few minutes he heard voices, and, turning, peeped through thebars of the gate in idle, boyish curiosity. It was a small brown house;the kitchen door was open, and a table spread with a white cloth was setin the middle of the room. There was a cradle in a far corner, and aman was seated at the table as though he might be waiting for hisbreakfast.
There is a kind of sentiment about the kitchen in New England, a kind ofsentiment not provoked by other rooms. Here the farmer drops in to spenda few minutes when he comes back from the barn or field on an errand.Here, in the great, clean, sweet, comfortable place, the busy housewifelives, sometimes rocking the cradle, sometimes opening and shutting theoven door, sometimes stirring the pot, darning stockings, paringvegetables, or mixing goodies in a yellow bowl. The children sit on thesteps, stringing beans, shelling peas, or hulling berries; the catsleeps on the floor near the wood-box; and the visitor feels exiled ifhe stays in sitting-room or parlor, for here, where the mother is alwaysbusy, is the heart of the farm-house.
There was an open back door to this kitchen, a door framed inmorning-glories, and the woman (or was she only girl?) standing at thestove was pretty,--oh, so pretty in Stephen's eyes! His boyish heartwent out to her on the instant. She poured a cup of coffee and walkedwith it to the table; then an unexpected, interesting thinghappened--something the boy ought not to have seen, and never forgot.The man, putting out his hand to take the cup, looked up at the prettywoman with a smile, and she stooped and kissed him.
Stephen was fifteen. As he looked, on the instant he became a man, witha man's hopes, desires, ambitions. He looked eagerly, hungrily, and thescene burned itself on the sensitive plate of his young heart, so that,as he grew older, he could take the picture out in the dark, from timeto time, and look at it again. When he first met Rose, he did not knowprecisely what she was to mean to him; but before long, when he closedhis eyes and the old familiar picture swam into his field of vision,behold, by some spiritual chemistry, the pretty woman's face had givenplace to that of Rose!
All such teasing visions had been sternly banished during this sorrowfulsummer, and it was a thoughtful, sober Stephen who drove along the roadon this mellow August morning. The dust was deep; the goldenrod wavedits imperial plumes, making the humble waysides gorgeous; the riverchattered and sparkled till it met the logs at the Brier Neighorhood,and then, lapsing into silence, flowed steadily under them till it founda vent for its spirits in the dashing and splashing of the falls.
Haying was over; logging was to begin that day; then harvesting; thenwood-cutting; then eternal successions of plowing, sowing, reaping,haying, logging, harvesting, and so on, to the endless end of his days.Here and there a red or a yellow branch, painted only yesterday, caughthis eye and made him shiver. He was not ready for winter; his heartstill craved the summer it had missed.
Hello! What was that? Corn-stalks prone on the earth? Sign torn down andlying flat in the grass? Blinds open, fire in the chimney?
He leaped from the wagon, and, flinging the reins to Alcestis Crambry,said, "Stay right here out of sight, and don't you move till I callyou!" and striding up the green pathway, flung open the kitchen door.
A forest of corn waving in the doorway at the back, morning-gloriesclambering round and round the window-frames, table with shining whitecloth, kettle humming and steaming, something bubbling in a pan on thestove, fire throwing out sweet little gleams of welcome through the opendamper. All this was taken in with one incredulous, rapturous twinkle ofan eye; but something else, too: Rose of all roses, Rose of the river,Rose of the world, standing behind a chair, her hand pressed againsther heart, her lips parted, her breath coming and going! She wasglowing like a jewel, glowing with the extraordinary brilliancy thatemotion gives to some women. She used to be happy in a gay, sparklingway, like the shallow part of the stream as it chatters over whitepebbles and bright sands. Now it was a broad, steady, full happinesslike the deeps of the river under the sun.
"Don't speak, Stephen, till you hear what I have to say. It takes a gooddeal of courage for a girl to do as I am doing; but I want to show howsorry I am, and it's the only way." She was trembling, and the wordscame faster and faster. "I've been very wrong and foolish, and made youvery unhappy, but I haven't done what you would have hated most. Ihaven't been engaged to Claude Merrill; he hasn't so much as asked me. Iam here to beg you to forgive me, to eat breakfast with me, to drive meto the minister's and marry me quickly, quickly, before anythinghappens to prevent us, and then to bring me home here to live all thedays of my life. Oh, Stephen dear, honestly, honestly, you haven't lostanything in all this long, miserable summer. I've suffered, too, and I'mbetter worth loving than I was. Will you take me back?"
Rose had a tremendous power of provoking and holding love, and Stephenof loving. His was too generous a nature for revilings and complaintsand reproaches.
The shores of his heart were strewn with the wreckage of the troubledsummer, but if the tide of love is high enough, it washes such thingsout of remembrance. He just opened his arms and took Rose to his heart,faults and all, with joy and gratitude; and she was as happy as a childwho has escaped the scolding it richly deserved, and who determines, forvery thankfulness' sake, never to be naughty again.
"DON'T SPEAK, STEPHEN, TILL YOU HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY"]
"You don't know what you've done for me, Stephen," she whispered, withher face hidden on his shoulder. "I was just a common little pricklyrosebush when you came along like a good gardener and 'grafted in'something better; the something better was your love, Stephen dear, andit's made everything different. The silly Rose you were engaged to longago has disappeared somewhere; I hope you won't be able to find herunder the new leaves."
"She was all I wanted," said Stephen.
"You thought she was," the girl answered, "because you didn't see theprickles, but you'd have felt them sometime. The old Rose was a selfishthing, not good enough for you; the new Rose is going to be your wife,and Rufus's sister, and your mother's daughter, all in one."
Then such a breakfast was spread as Stephen, in his sorry years ofbachelor existence, had forgotten could exist; but before he broke hisfast he ran out to the wagon and served the astonished Alcestis with hiswedding refreshments then and there, bidding him drive back to the RiverFarm and bring him a package that lay in the drawer of hisshaving-stand,--a package placed there when hot youth and love and longinghad inspired him to hurry on the marriage day.
"There's an envelope, Alcestis," he cried, "a long envelope way, wayback in the corner, and a small box on top of it. Bring them both, andmy wallet too, and if you find them all and get them to me safely youshall be bridesmaid and groomsman and best man and usher and maid ofhonor at a wedding, in less than an hour! Off with you! Drive straightand use the whip on Dolly!"
When he reentered the kitchen, flushed with joy and excitement, Rose putthe various good things on the table and he almost tremblingly took hisseat, fearing that contact with the solid wood might wake him from thisentrancing vision.
"I'd like to put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you," hesaid with a soft boyish stammer; "but I am too dazed with happiness tobe of any use."
"It's my turn to wait upon you, and I--Oh! how I love to have youdazed," Rose answered. "I'll be at the table presently myself; but wehave been housekeeping only three minutes, and we have nothing but thetin coffee-pot this morning, so I'll pour the coffee from the stove."
She filled a cup with housewifely care and brought it to Stephen's side.As she set it down and was turning, she caught his look,--a look so fullof longing that no loving woman, h
owever busy, could have resisted it;then she stooped and kissed him fondly, fervently.
Stephen put his arm about her, and, drawing her down to his knee, restedhis head against her soft shoulder with a sigh of comfort, like that ofa tired child. He had waited for it ten years, and at last thedream-room had come true.
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