by Kate Chopin
II
At the Mill.
David Hosmer sat alone in his little office of roughly fashioned pineboard. So small a place, that with his desk and his clerk's desk, anarrow bed in one corner, and two chairs, there was scant room for aman to more than turn himself comfortably about. He had justdispatched his clerk with the daily bundle of letters to thepost-office, two miles away in the Lafirme store, and he now turnedwith the air of a man who had well earned his moment of leisure, tothe questionable relaxation of adding columns and columns of figures.
The mill's unceasing buzz made pleasant music to his ears and stirredreflections of a most agreeable nature. A year had gone by since Mrs.Lafirme had consented to Hosmer's proposal; and already the businessmore than gave promise of justifying the venture. Orders came in fromthe North and West more rapidly than they could be filled. That"Cypresse Funerall" which stands in grim majesty through the denseforests of Louisiana had already won its just recognition; andHosmer's appreciation of a successful business venture was showingitself in a little more pronounced stoop of shoulder, a deepening ofpre-occupation and a few additional lines about mouth and forehead.
Hardly had the clerk gone with his letters than a light footstepsounded on the narrow porch; the quick tap of a parasol was heard onthe door-sill; a pleasant voice asking, "Any admission except onbusiness?" and Therese crossed the small room and seated herselfbeside Hosmer's desk before giving him time to arise.
She laid her hand and arm,--bare to the elbow--across his work, andsaid, looking at him reproachfully:--
"Is this the way you keep a promise?"
"A promise?" he questioned, smiling awkwardly and looking furtively atthe white arm, then very earnestly at the ink-stand beyond.
"Yes. Didn't you promise to do no work after five o'clock?"
"But this is merely pastime," he said, touching the paper, yet leavingit undisturbed beneath the fair weight that was pressing it down. "Mywork is finished: you must have met Henry with the letters."
"No, I suppose he went through the woods; we came on the hand-car. Oh,dear! It's an ungrateful task, this one of reform," and she leanedback, fanning leisurely, whilst he proceeded to throw the contents ofhis desk into hopeless disorder by pretended efforts at arrangement.
"My husband used sometimes to say, and no doubt with reason," shecontinued, "that in my eagerness for the rest of mankind to do right,I was often in danger of losing sight of such necessity for myself."
"Oh, there could be no fear of that," said Hosmer with a short laugh.There was no further pretext for continued occupation with his pensand pencils and rulers, so he turned towards Therese, rested an arm onthe desk, pulled absently at his black moustache, and crossing hisknee, gazed with deep concern at the toe of his boot, and set of histrouser about the ankle.
"You are not what my friend Homeyer would call an individualist," heventured, "since you don't grant a man the right to follow thepromptings of his character."
"No, I'm no individualist, if to be one is to permit men to fall intohurtful habits without offering protest against it. I'm losing faithin that friend Homeyer, who I strongly suspect is a mythical apologyfor your own short-comings."
"Indeed he's no myth; but a friend who is fond of going into suchthings and allows me the benefit of his deeper perceptions."
"You having no time, well understood. But if his influence has had themerit of drawing your thoughts from business once in a while we won'tquarrel with it."
"Mrs. Lafirme," said Hosmer, seeming moved to pursue the subject, andaddressing the spray of white blossoms that adorned Therese's blackhat, "you admit, I suppose, that in urging your views upon me, youhave in mind the advancement of my happiness?"
"Well understood."
"Then why wish to substitute some other form of enjoyment for the onewhich I find in following my inclinations?"
"Because there is an unsuspected selfishness in your inclinations thatworks harm to yourself and to those around you. I want you to know,"she continued warmly, "the good things of life that cheer and warm,that are always at hand."
"Do you think the happiness of Melicent or--or others could bematerially lessened by my fondness for money getting?" he asked dryly,with a faint elevation of eyebrow.
"Yes, in proportion as it deprives them of a charm which any man'ssociety loses, when pursuing one object in life, he grows insensibleto every other. But I'll not scold any more. I've made myselftroublesome enough for one day. You haven't asked about Melicent. It'strue," she laughed, "I haven't given you much chance. She's out on thelake with Gregoire."
"Ah?"
"Yes, in the pirogue. A dangerous little craft, I'm afraid; but shetells me she can swim. I suppose it's all right."
"Oh, Melicent will look after herself."
Hosmer had great faith in his sister Melicent's ability to look afterherself; and it must be granted that the young lady fully justifiedhis belief in her.
"She enjoys her visit more than I thought she would," he said.
"Melicent's a dear girl," replied Therese cordially, "and a wise onetoo in guarding herself against a somber influence that I know," witha meaning glance at Hosmer, who was preparing to close his desk.
She suddenly perceived the picture of a handsome boy, far back in oneof the pigeon-holes, and with the familiarity born of countryintercourse, she looked intently at it, remarking upon the boy'sbeauty.
"A child whom I loved very much," said Hosmer. "He's dead," and heclosed the desk, turning the key in the lock with a sharp click whichseemed to add--"and buried."
Therese then approached the open door, leaned her back against itscasing, and turned her pretty profile towards Hosmer, who, it need notbe supposed, was averse to looking at it--only to being caught in theact.
"I want to look in at the mill before work closes," she said; and notwaiting for an answer she went on to ask--moved by some association ofideas:--
"How is Jocint doing?"
"Always unruly, the foreman tells me. I don't believe we shall be ableto keep him."
Hosmer then spoke a few words through the telephone which connectedwith the agent's desk at the station, put on his great slouch hat, andthrusting keys and hands into his pocket, joined Therese in thedoor-way.
Quitting the office and making a sharp turn to the left, they came indirect sight of the great mill. She quickly made her way past the hugepiles of sawed timber, not waiting for her companion, who loitered ateach step of the way, with observant watchfulness. Then mounting thesteep stairs that led to the upper portions of the mill, she went atonce to her favorite spot, quite on the edge of the open platform thatoverhung the dam. Here she watched with fascinated delight the greatlogs hauled dripping from the water, following each till it hadchanged to the clean symmetry of sawed planks. The unending work madeher giddy. For no one was there a moment of rest, and she could wellunderstand the open revolt of the surly Jocint; for he rode the daylong on that narrow car, back and forth, back and forth, with hisheart in the pine hills and knowing that his little Creole pony wasroaming the woods in vicious idleness and his rifle gathering anunsightly rust on the cabin wall at home.
The boy gave but ugly acknowledgment to Therese's amiable nod; for hethought she was one upon whom partly rested the fault of thisintrusive Industry which had come to fire the souls of indolentfathers with a greedy ambition for gain, at the sore expense ofrevolting youth.