Wayside Courtships

by Garland, Hamlin

She had laughed at him—O God!—she flushed hot with shame from head to foot—but his eyes had not changed. His lips had kept their pitying droop, and his somber eyes had burned deep into the sacred places of her thought, where something sweet and girlish lay, unwasted and untrampled.

  "He called me. He called me."

  * * *

  Under the trees where the moonlight threw tracing of shadows she came upon him standing, waiting for her. She held out her hand to him like a babe. He was taller than she thought.

  He took her hands silently and she grew calm at once. All shame left her. She forgot her city life; she remembered only the sweet, merry life of the village where she was born. The sound of sleigh bells and song, and the lisp of wind in the grass, and songs of birds in the maples came to her.

  His voice began softly:

  "You are too good and sweet to be so devoured of beasts. In your little Northern home they are waiting for you. To-morrow you will go back to them."

  He placed his hand, which was soft and warm and broad, over her eyes. His voice was like velvet, soft yet elastic.

  "When you wake you will hate what you have been. No power can keep you here. You will go back to the simple life from which you should never have departed. You will love simple things and the pleasures of your native place."

  Her face was turned upward, but her eyelids had fallen.

  "When you wake you will not remember your life here. You will be a girl again, unstained and ready to begin life without remorse and without accusing memory. When I leave you at your door to-night, you will belong to the kingdom of good and not to the kingdom of evil."

  He dropped her hands and pointed across the park.

  "Now go to that gray house. Ring the bell, and you will be housed for the night. Remember you are mine. When the bell rings you will 'wake.'"

  She moved away without looking back—moved mechanically like one still in sleep.

  The man watched her until the door opened and admitted her; then he passed on into the shadow of the narrow street.

  And this the listener gravely asked:

  "One was chosen, the other left. Were the others less in need of grace?"

  * * *

  BEFORE THE LOW GREEN DOOR.

  Matilda Bent was dying; there was no doubt of that now, if there had been before. The gruff old physician—one of the many overworked and underpaid country doctors—shook his head and pushed by Joe Bent, her husband, as he passed through the room which served as dining room, sitting room, and parlor. The poor fellow slouched back to his chair by the stove as if dazed, and before he could speak again the doctor was gone.

  Mrs. Ridings was just coming up the walk as the doctor stepped out of the door.

  "O doctor, how is she?"

  "She is a dying woman, madam."

  "Oh! don't say that, doctor. What's the matter?"

  "Cancer."

  "Then the news was true——"

  "I don't know anything of the news, Mrs. Ridings, but Mrs. Bent is dying from the effects of a cancer primarily, which she has had for years—since her last child, which died in infancy, you remember."

  "But, doctor, she never told me——"

  "Neither did she tell me. But no matter now. I have done all I can for her. If you can make death any easier for her, go and do it. You will find some opiate powders there with directions. Keep the pain down at all hazards. Don't let her suffer; that is useless. She is likely to last a day or two—but if any change comes to-night, send for me."

  When the good matron entered the dowdy, suffocating little room where Matilda Bent lay gasping for breath, she was sick for a moment with sympathetic pain. There the dying woman lay, her world narrowed to four close walls, propped up on the pillows near the one little window. Her eyes seemed very large and bright, and the brow, made prominent by the sinking away of the cheeks, gave evidence that it was an uncommon woman who lay there quietly waiting the death angel.

  She smiled, and lifted her eyebrows in a ghastly way.

  "O Marthy!" she breathed.

  "Matildy, I didn't know you was so bad, or I'd 'a' come before. Why didn't you let me know?" said Mrs. Ridings, kneeling by the bed and taking the ghostly hands of the sufferer in her own warm and soft palms. She shuddered as she kissed the thin lips.

  "I think you'll soon be around agin," she added, in the customary mockery of an attempt at cheer. The other woman started slightly, turned her head, and gazed on her old friend long and intently. The hollowness of her neighbor's words stung her.

  "I hope not, Marthy—I'm ready to go. I want to go. I don't care to live."

  The two women communed by looking for a long time in each other's eyes, as if to get at the very secretest desires and hopes of the heart. Tears fell from Martha's eyes upon the cold and nerveless hands of her friend—poor, faithful hands, hacked and knotted and worn by thirty years of ceaseless daily toil. They lay there motionless upon the coverlet, pathetic protest for all the world to see.

  "O Matildy, I wish I could do something for you! I want to help you so. I feel so bad that I didn't come before. Ain't they somethin'?"

  "Yes, Marthy—jest set there—till I die—it won't be long," whispered the pale lips. The sufferer, as usual, was calmer than her visitor, and her eyes were thoughtful.

  "I will! I will! But oh! must you go? Can't somethin' be done. Don't yo' want the minister to be sent for?"

  "No, I'm all ready. I ain't afraid to die. I ain't worth savin' now. O Marthy! I never thought I'd come to this—did you? I never thought I'd die—so early in life—and die—unsatisfied."

  She lifted her head a little as she gasped out these words with an intensity of utterance that thrilled her hearer—a powerful, penetrating earnestness that burned like fire.

  "Are you satisfied?" pursued the steady lips. "My life's a failure, Marthy—I've known it all along—all but my children. O Marthy, what'll become o' them? This is a hard world."

  The amazed Martha could only chafe the hands, and note sorrowfully the frightful changes in the face of her friend. The weirdly calm, slow voice began to shake a little.

  "I'm dyin', Marthy, without ever gittin' to the sunny place we girls—used to think—we'd git to, by an' by. I've been a-gittin' deeper 'n' deeper—in the shade—till it's most dark. They ain't been no rest—n'r hope f'r me, Marthy—none. I ain't——"

  "There, there! Tillie, don't talk so—don't, dear. Try to think how bright it'll be over there——"

  "I don't know nawthin' about over there; I'm talkin' about here. I ain't had no chance here, Marthy."

  "He will heal all your care——"

  "He can't wipe out my sufferin's here."

  "Yes, He can, and He will. He can wipe away every tear and heal every wound."

  "No—he—can't. God himself can't wipe out what has been. O Mattie, if I was only there!—in the past—if I was only young and purty agin! You know how tall I was! how we used to run—O Mattie, if I was only there! The world was all bright then—wasn't it? We didn't expect—to work all our days. Life looked like a meadow, full of daisies and pinks, and the nicest ones and the sweetest birds was just a little ways on—where the sun was—it didn't look—wasn't we happy?"

  "Yes, yes, dear. But you mustn't talk so much." The good woman thought Matilda's mind was wandering. "Don't you want some med'cine? Ain't your fever risin'?"

  "But the daisies and pinks all turned to weeds," she went on, waiting a little, "when we picked 'em. An' the sunny place—has been always behind me, and the dark before me. Oh! if I was only there—in the sun—where the pinks and daisies are!"

  "You mustn't talk so, Mattie! Think about your children. You ain't sorry y' had them. They've been a comfort to y'. You ain't sorry you had 'em."

  "I ain't glad," was the unhesitating reply of the failing woman; and then she went on, in growing excitement: "They'll haf to grow old jest as I have—git bent and gray, an' die. They ain't ben much comfort to me; the boys are like their father, and Julyie's weak. They
ain't no happiness—for such as me and them."

  She paused for breath, and Mrs. Ridings, not knowing what to say, did better than speak. She fell to stroking the poor face, and the hands getting more restless each moment. It was as if Matilda Fletcher had been silent so long, had borne so much without complaint, that now it burst from her in a torrent not to be stayed. All her most secret doubts and her sweetest hopes seemed trembling on her lips or surging in her brain, racking her poor, emaciated frame for utterance. Now that death was sure, she was determined to rid her bosom of its perilous stuff. Martha was appalled.

  "I used to think—that when I got married I'd be perfectly happy—but I never have been happy sence. It was the beginning of trouble to me. I never found things better than they looked; they was always worse. I've gone further an' further from the sunshiny meadow, an' the birds an' flowers—- and I'll never git back to 'em again, never!" She ended with a sob and a low wail.

  Her face was horrifying with its intensity of pathetic regret. Her straining, wide-open eyes seemed to be seeing those sunny spots in the meadow.

  "Mattie, sometimes when I'm asleep I think I am back there ag'in—and you girls are there—an' we're pullin' off the leaves of the wild sunflower—'rich man, poor man, beggar man'—and I hear you all laugh when I pull off the last leaf; an' when I come to myself—and I'm an old, dried-up woman, dyin' unsatisfied!"

  "I've felt that way a little myself, Matildy," confessed the watcher in a scared whisper.

  "I knew it, Mattie; I knew you'd know how I felt. Things have been better for you. You ain't had to live in an old log house all your life, an' work yourself to skin an' bone for a man you don't respect nor like."

  "Matildy Bent, take that back! Take it back, for mercy sake! Don't you dare die thinkin' that—don't you dare!"

  Bent, hearing her voice rising, came to the door, and the wife, knowing his step, cried:

  "Don't let him in! Don't! I can't bear him—keep him out; I don't want to see him ag'in."

  "Who do you mean? Not Joe?"

  "Yes. Him."

  Had the dying woman confessed to murder, good Martha could not have been more shocked. She could not understand this terrible revulsion in feeling, for she herself had been absolutely loyal to her husband through all the trials which had come upon them.

  But she met Bent at the threshold, and, closing the door, went out with him into the summer kitchen, where the rest of the family were sitting. A gloomy silence fell on them all after the greetings were over. The men were smoking; all were seated in chairs tipped back against the wall. Joe Bent, a smallish man, with a weak, good-natured face, asked in a hoarse whisper:

  "How is she, Mis' Ridings?"

  "She seems quite strong, Mr. Bent. I think you had all better go to bed; if I want you I can call you. Doctor give me directions."

  "All right," responded the relieved man. "I'll sleep on the lounge in the other room. If you want me, just rap on the door."

  When, after making other arrangements, Martha went back to the bedroom, she was startled to hear the sick woman muttering to herself, or perhaps because she had forgotten Martha's absence.

  "But the shadows on the meadow didn't stay; they passed on, and then the sun was all the brighter on the flowers. We used to string sweet-williams on spears of grass—don't you remember?"

  Martha gave her a drink of the opiate in the glass, adjusted her on the pillow, and threw open the window, even to the point of removing the screen, and the gibbous moon flooded the room with light. She did not light a lamp, for its flame would heat the room. Besides, the moonlight was sufficient. It fell on the face of the sick woman, till she looked like a thing of marble—all but her dark eyes.

  "Does the moon hurt you, Tilly? Shall I put down the curtain?"

  The woman heard with difficulty, and when the question was repeated said slowly:

  "No, I like it." After a little—"Don't you remember, Mattie 'how beautiful the moonlight seemed? It seemed to promise happiness—and love—but it never come for us. It makes me dream of the past now—just as it did o' future then; an' the whip-poor-wills too——"

  The night was perfectly beautiful, such a night as makes dying an infinite sorrow. The summer was at its liberalest. Innumerable insects of the nocturnal sort were singing in unison with the frogs in the pools. A whip-poor-will called, and its neighbor answered it like an echo. The leaves of the trees, glossy from the late rain, moved musically to the light west wind, and the exquisite perfume of many flowers came in on the breeze.

  When the failing woman sank into silence, Martha leaned her elbow on the window sill, and, gazing far into the great deeps of space, gave herself up to unwonted musings upon the problems of human life. She sighed deeply at times. She found herself at moments in the almost terrifying position of a human soul in space. Not a wife, not a mother, but just a soul facing the questions which harass philosophers. As she realized her condition of mind she apprehended something of the thinking of the woman on the bed. Matilda had gone beyond or far back of the wife and mother.

  The hours wore on; the dying woman stirred uneasily now and then, whispering a word or phrase which related to her girlhood—never to her later life. Once she said:

  "Mother, hold me. I'm so tired."

  Martha took the thin form in her arms, and, laying her head close beside the sunken cheek, sang, in half breath, a lullaby till the sufferer grew quiet again.

  The eastern moon passed over the house, leaving the room dark, and still the patient watcher sat beside the bed, listening to the slow breathing of the dying one. The cool air grew almost chill; the east began to lighten, and with the coming light the tide of life sank in the dying body. The head, hitherto restlessly turning, ceased to move. The eyes grew quiet and began to soften like a sleeper's.

  "How are you now, dear?" asked the watcher several times, bending over the bed, and bathing back the straying hair.

  "I'm tired—tired, mother—turn me," she murmured drowsily, with heavy lids drooping.

  Martha adjusted the pillows again, and turned the face to the wall. The poor, tortured, restless brain slowly stopped its grinding whirl, and the thin limbs, heavy with years of hopeless toil, straightened out in an endless sleep.

  Matilda Fletcher had found rest.

  * * *

  UPON IMPULSE.

  The seminary buildings stood not far from the low, lodgelike railway station, and a path led through a gap in the fence across the meadow. People were soberly converging toward its central building, as if proceeding to church.

  Among the people who alighted from the two o'clock train were Professor Blakesly and his wife and a tall, dark man whom they called Ware.

  Mrs. Blakesly was plump and pretty, plainly the mother of two or three children and the sovereign of a modest suburban cottage. Blakesly was as evidently a teacher; even the casual glances of the other visitors might discover the character of these people.

  Ware was not so easy to be read. His face was lean and brown, and his squarely clipped mustache gave him a stern look. His body was well rounded with muscle, and he walked alertly; his manner was direct and vigorous, manifestly of the open air.

  As they entered the meadow he paused and said with humorous irresolution, "I don't know what I am out here for."

  "To see the pretty girls, of course," said Mrs. Blakesly.

  "They may be plain, after all," he said.

  "They're always pretty at graduation time and at marriage," Blakesly interpreted.

  "Then there's the ice cream and cake," Mrs. Blakesly added.

  "Where do all these people come from?" Ware asked, looking about. "It's all farm land here."

  "They are the fathers, mothers, and brothers of the seminary girls. They come from everywhere. See the dear creatures about the door! Let's hurry along."

  "They do not interest me. I take off my hat to the beauty of the day, however."

  Ware had evidently come under protest, for he lingered in the daisied grass which
was dappled with shadows and tinkling with bobolinks and catbirds.

  A broad path led up to the central building, whose double doors were swung wide with most hospitable intent. Ware ascended the steps behind his friends, a bored look on his dark face.

  Two rows of flushed, excited girls with two teachers at their head stood flanking the doorway to receive the visitors, who streamed steadily into the wide, cool hall.

  Mrs. Blakesly took Ware in hand. "Mr. Ware, this is Miss Powell. Miss Powell, this is Mr. Jenkin Ware, lawyer and friend to the Blakeslys."

  "I'm very glad to see you," said a cool voice, in which gladness was entirely absent.

  Ware turned to shake hands mechanically, but something in the steady eyes and clasp of the hand held out turned his listless manner into surprise and confusion. He stared at her without speaking, only for a second, and yet so long she colored and withdrew her hand sharply.

  "I beg your pardon, I didn't get the name."

  "Miss Powell," answered Mrs. Blakesly, who had certainly missed this little comedy, which would have been so delicious to her.

  Ware moved on, shaking hands with the other teachers and bowing to the girls. He seized an early moment to turn and look back at Miss Powell. His listless indifference was gone. She was a fine figure of a woman—a strong, lithe figure, dressed in a well-ordered, light-colored gown. Her head was girlish, with a fluff of brown hair knotted low at the back. Her profile was magnificent. The head had the intellectual poise, but the proud bosom and strong body added another quality. "She is a modern type," Ware said, remembering a painting of such a head he had seen in a recent exhibition.

  As he studied her she turned and caught him looking, and he felt again a curious fluttering rush at his heart. He fancied she flushed a little deeper as she turned away.

  As for him, it had been a very long while since he had felt that singular weakness in the presence of a young woman. He walked on, trying to account for it. It made him feel very boyish. He had a furtive desire to remain in the hall where he could watch her, and when he passed up the stairs, it was with a distinct feeling of melancholy, as if he were leaving something very dear and leaving it forever.