The Second Chance

by Nellie L. McClung

  CHAPTER XIV

  "IN CASE----"

  Ah! well for us all some deep hope lies Deeply buried from mortal eyes.

  _----Whittier._

  PEARL went around the settlement the next week, to tell the peoplethat there would be church in the schoolhouse the next Sundayafternoon.

  On Monday evening, coming home from school, she went into the Perkinshome. She had not seen Martha since she had lived at the Motherwells'the year before. It was a large frame house, with a well-kept gardenin front and a hedge of purple and white lilacs in full bloom. Pearlwas standing looking at the hedge in mute enjoyment, when Martha cameout to get green onions and lettuce for tea.

  "Take some lilacs, Pearl," she said, pointing to them. "They arepretty, aren't they?"

  "Oh, Martha!" Pearl cried, "you must be happy living with thesethings. Don't you just wish you could gather up all the poor littlechildren? Mr. Donald was reading to us out of a magazine to-day, andshowing us the pictures of how they are crowded together in thecities, and never see any grass, just all side walks and black dirt.Wouldn't you love to let them all have a look and a smell and armfuland be happy for once?"

  "I guess it doesn't do much good to be once if it doesn't last."

  "Well, I don't know," Pearl said, after some deliberation. "I believeit does. I've often heard Ma tell about the day she and Pa weremarried, how the sun just danced on the flowers and the grass, andshe carried a big sheaf of lilacs, and when she came to this country,and it was all so new and bare, and no flowers only the wild ones,and she hadn't got used to them, she often thought of them lilacs andpretty near smelled them again, and cried over them, and got realhappy just thinkin' of them. You know there's a lot in lilacs, morethan their beauty. Some flowers have a lot in them, just like people.Now, there's the wild sunflower, it's a pretty flower, with real richcolours, yellow and brown; but nobody ever cries over it, or has agood time over it in any way, because it doesn't make you think ofanything."

  "It's just a weed," Martha said with conviction.

  "Well, now," Pearl went on, "even some weeds have something in them.There's the blue cockle and the ball mustard. They're bad weeds, butthey're pretty. They've got a sort of a bold-as-brass look aboutthem, and they have to be pulled, but they're pretty."

  "Yes; they're pretty," Martha agreed. She had often thought about thecockle as she pulled it out of the garden. The flaming purple of it,so strong and bold and defiant, seemed to mock her and sneer at hersallow face and streaky, hay-coloured hair. In her best moments shehad often wondered how it could be so bad when it was so beautiful,but there were times, too, when she had almost envied the bold andevil cockle, and thought bitterly that somehow it had the best of it.

  "But what's the use of its lovely flashing purple?" Pearl said, as ifin answer to her thoughts. "Nobody likes it, and it just gets rootedup and flung in heaps. It only takes up room and spoils crops andmakes people mad. Look at the mignonette--it isn't pretty, buteverybody loves it and plants it, and don't think a garden's a gardenwithout it. Oh, I tell ye, Martha, beauty ain't everything, unless,ye can back it up with something better. Lots of the finest people onearth ain't much to look at, but nobody thinks of that."

  Pearl was pinning a spray of lilac on her print dress as she talked.Then she made known her errand.

  "Yes, I'll go," Martha said, readily. "And so will Bud. He likes Mr.Burrell. Pa and Ma will go, too, I guess. I'll be glad to havesomewhere to go on Sunday afternoons--it's lonesome since Edith wentto Winnipeg. Come in, Pearl. You've never been in our house yet, haveyou?"

  Pearl followed her into the big kitchen, spotlessly clean andcomfortable. Three windows let in the afternoon sunlight, windowsthat sparkled from a recent washing; a trailing fuchsia in fullbloom, in an old wash-basin painted green, was suspended from theceiling in front of the east window. There were flowers in everywindow, abundant in bloom, showing that a loving hand was caring forthem. On the wall was a paper-holder made of cretonne with beadsoutlining the flowers.

  "Did Mrs. Cavers make that?" Pearl asked quickly. "Yes," Martha said."Mrs. Cavers gave it to mother years ago."

  There was a bookshelf made by stringing together empty spools, withtwo boards covered with flowered cretonne for the shelves, but theonly books on it were a cook-book, covered with oil-cloth, andKendall's Horse Book. A framed picture of "Dan Patch" was on thewall.

  "That belongs to Bud," she said smiling. "He's the greatest boy forhorses--he's always training the colts, down in the pasture. He hasone now that is a pacer. He's always wanting to run his colts in theraces, but father won't let him. I've never been a race in my life,have you?"

  "Oh, yes," Pearl said. "I've been at every race that I ever was nearenough to go to, or lacrosse match or baseball match, or anything.You sure must come to the Pioneers' Picnic this year, Martha; we willhave a splendid time."

  "I've never had time to go," Martha said slowly. "I've always had tostay home and look after things, and besides, I don't know manypeople and I don't like going among strangers. I often get lonesomenow since Mrs. Cavers has gone to live on the other farm, and I amreal glad you came over, Pearl. I hope you and I will be goodfriends."

  Pearl looked at her with quick sympathy.

  "You bet we will, Martha," she said heartily.

  Martha's pale face flushed with pleasure. Pearl was quick to noticewhat a fine forehead and what steady, calm eyes she had, and thatshe would be a good-looking girl if her hair were combed becomingly.Poor Martha, who stayed so much at home, knew but one way ofhair-dressing, which was to part it in the middle and comb itstraight back--the way hair was done when her mother was young. Shewas dressed in a clean, starched dress of gray print, plain as anun's. Pearl noticed that her teeth were clean and even, and heractive brain was doing a rapid summing-up of Martha's chances forbeauty.

  "Look at how pretty her teeth are," she was thinking to herself; "shemay not know how to do her hair, but you bet she takes care of them.Whether or not yer hair's combed right is a matter of style, butclean or dirty teeth is a matter of the heart. Martha's heart's allright, you bet; and say, wouldn't she look fine in a wine, coloureddress, made long, with lots of fluffy things to make her look rounderand fatter, and her hair like Miss Morrison's, all kinkly and puffed,with a smashin' big combs with diamonds--no, I wouldn't just like abig comb either, it wouldn't suit her face. I just wish Camilla couldlive in the house with her for a while. She'd make Martha look adifferent girl. She's got hair, too," Pearl was thinking, "but sherolls it into such a hard little nub you'd never know. It needs to beall fluffed out. That nub of hair is just like Martha herself. It'sall there, good stuff in it, but it needs to be fluffed out."

  "Stay for tea, Pearl," Martha was saying. "Father and Mother areaway, and there's only Bud and me at home."

  Pearl readily agreed. She had told her mother that she probably wouldnot be home for tea. Pearl's social instincts were strong.

  Martha took her into the parlour, a close, stuffy little room, andshowed some of her treasured possessions. There were the hair-wreath,the seed-wreath, and the wax flowers, which, to Pearl, were triumphsof art. There were three huckaback cushions standing stiff and grandon the high back of the lounge, and another one made of little bunsof silk beside them, all far beyond the reach of mortal head.

  "Do you never use them, Martha?" Pearl asked, touching them gently."Do you know, I like cushions that are not half as pretty, but lookmore friendly like and welcome. But these are just lovely," she addedquickly.

  An enlarged picture of Mr. Perkins was on one wall, while on theopposite side of the room hung one of Mrs. Perkins.

  Pearl told the other children about them when she went home. "Therethey are," she said, "just glarin' straight at each other, day andnight, winter or summer, just the same, neither one of them givin' inan inch. 'I can stare as long as you,' you'd think they was saying,the way they've got their eyes glued on one another; and it ain'tcheerful."

  A hanging lamp, with its fringe of glittering pend
ants, hung over atable made of spools like the bookshelves, and covered with a drapeof tissue paper table-napkins, cut into a deep fringe around theedge.

  The table that held the family Bible had a cover made of rope,hanging in huge tassels down at each corner. Under the carpet hadbeen placed newspapers, to make it wear better, and it cracklednoisily as they walked over it. On the window curtains were pinnedlittle calendars and Christmas cards, stuck on ribbons.

  To Pearl these decorations were full of beauty, all except the woolwreath, which hung over the lounge in a deep frame covered withglass; but its indigo and mustard coloured roses and swollen brightgreen leaves made her suspicious that it was not in keeping with thefindings of good taste.

  There was something in Pearl's sympathetic interest that encouragedMartha to show her the contents of a cupboard upstairs in her room.

  There were quilts in abundance. Martha held them up lovingly indifferent angles to show how they "make a pattern every way you lookat them." There were the "Pavements of New York" in blue and white,the "Double Irish Chain" in red and white, "Fox and Geese" in buffand white; there were daintily hemstitched sheets and pillow covers;there were hooked mats in great variety, a lovely one in autumnleaves which seemed a wonderful creation to Pearl; there werepin-cushions, all ribbon and lace, and picture-frames ready forpictures, made of pine cones that Martha had gathered on thesand-hills of the Assiniboine.

  When Pearl had feasted her eyes on all these wonders and praised themabundantly, Martha opened her trunk and showed her a still moreprecious store of hand embroidery, such beautiful garments as Pearlhad never dreamed of.

  "Martha," she cried impulsively, "are you going to be married, too?"

  Martha's pale face flushed painfully, and Pearl was quick to see hermistake.

  "No, I am not, Pearl," she answered steadily.

  "Not just now," Pearl said, trying to speak carelessly; "but, ofcourse, you will some time. Such a clever girl as you are will besure to get married. You're a dandy housekeeper, Martha, and when itcomes to gettin' married, that's what counts."

  "Oh, no, Pearl, there are other things more important than that,"Martha spoke sadly and with settled conviction. She was standing atthe foot of the bed, looking out between the muslin curtains at thelevel stretch of country, bordered by the wooded river bank. She hadbeen looking at this same scene, varied only by the changing seasons,for many weary, wearing years, and the big elms on the river bank hadlooked back indifferently, although they must have known that Marthawas growing old, that Martha was fading, and that the chances of thetrunk and cupboardful ever being used were growing less. The longarms of the windmill on the barn caught the sunlight and threw it ina thousand dancing splinters on the floor behind her.

  "Being a good housekeeper hasn't got anything to do with gettingmarried," she said again, and her voice was tense with feeling. "Ican work and keep house, and sew and bake; but no man would everfancy me' why should he? A man wants his wife to be pretty and smartand bright, and what am I?"

  The strain in her voice struck Pearl's heart with pity.

  "I am old, and wrinkled, and weatherbeaten. Look at that, Pearl." Sheheld up her hands, so cruelly lined and calloused: "That's mypicture; they look like me."

  "No, no, no!" Pearl cried, throwing her arms around Martha's thinshoulders, and holding her tight in her strong young arms. "You'reonly twenty-five, and that's not old; and your looks are all right ifyou would only do your hair out bigger and fluffier, and you'd get tobe a better figure if you'd breathe deep, and throw back yourshoulders, and sleep with your windows open. I read all about it, andI'll get it for you. It was in a paper Camilla gets--a long piececalled 'How to Be Pretty, though Plain.' I am doin' the things, too,and we'll do them together, Martha. See here, Martha, here's the wayto breathe, and here's the way to throw back your shoulders"--suitingthe action to the word--"and a cold bath every morning will give yourosy cheeks."

  She kissed Martha impulsively. "Oh, you bet you'll get married,Martha, and I'll be your bridesmaid--me and Bud will be it--and LibCavers will be maid of honour and carry a shock of lilacs, and I'llwrite a piece about it for the paper."

  Martha smiled bravely, and Pearl was too polite to notice that hereyes were suspiciously dewy.

  "Oh, no, Pearl," she said, as she put away all the things carefully,"I guess I'll never be married; but I love to make these things, andwhen I'm sewing at them I often imagine things, foolish thingsthat'll never be; but I have them all ready, anyway"--she was closingdown her trunk lid--"I have them ready, anyway--in case--well, justin case----".