Finally she said: “Getting married is so different from being in love. When you’re in love and not married there are no responsibilities; everything is wonderful. But when a girl gets married she has so many things to think about. She has to think of her family, because she has duties and responsibilities to share with them. Then she has to think of herself, and whether she is fit to take over the burden of being a wife. She has to be a homemaker, and a cook and a mother. I’ll think about it, Edgar. I’m not of age yet, and neither are you.”
Hastily he crammed the tobacco into the pipe and lighted it. He felt foolish and irresponsible. He was confused, too. He had been thinking about the dream, and his mother’s interpretation of it. She had said that the engagement was the easy part, and all was happiness during that period. But Gertrude was thinking of the engagement in terms of the marriage. Her idea of happiness was the courting time before the engagement.
“You’re right,” he said. “We’d better not think about it now. We’re too young. I’m sorry I mentioned it. Just don’t think about it!”
“Of course I will!” Gertrude said. She looked at him in surprise. “We have to face these responsibilities sometime. I’m a grown woman, and I’m able to take my place in life. I just need a little time to consider everything before making a decision.” She sat up, straightening her back and tilting her head proudly. He blew a cloud of smoke to hide his smile; she looked so small, so pale, and so sure of herself.
“I’ll give you your answer next Sunday night,” she said.
“That’s the fourteenth. I’ll be here early,” he answered.
She stood up.
“Then let’s not talk about it any more. Let’s find Carrie and Stella and play some whist.”
She was nervous; she didn’t want to be alone with him. He felt better; he was even confident, at least of Gertrude. During the whist he was particularly nice to Carrie and Stella. Gertrude would consult them, as she would all the family. He hoped they were for him.
It rained all day Sunday. When he went to the livery stable at five o’clock all the covered carriages were gone. He chose a saddle horse in preference to an open carriage. When he got to the Hill his outer clothing and the lower parts of his trousers were wet. Sitting before the fire in the living room, drying them, he said nothing until she put a hand on his arm.
“The answer is yes, Edgar,” she said.
She hadn’t looked at him. He didn’t look at her. They sat, staring at the flames, listening to the rain.
It seemed a long time before either spoke. Then Gertrude said:
“What are you thinking about?”
He turned his head toward her slowly, swallowed dryly, and said:
“I was thinking that I’m going to have a hard time keeping my pipe lit on the way home if this rain keeps up.”
They laughed together, and he kissed her.
“I intended saying yes all the time,” she said, “but I wanted to make certain that everyone in the family agreed with me.”
She laughed again.
“I thought some of them might object, but before I got through asking each one I was jealous. They all seem to love you as much as I do.”
He kissed her again. Then he sneezed. Gertrude jumped up.
“I’d better put your feet in a mustard bath,” she said. “You’re catching cold!”
—
The days of that spring were long and sweet. From the time he got up in the morning until he fell asleep at night he followed the same general plan. When it was absolutely necessary he thought about other things. When it wasn’t, he thought about Gertrude.
The week after she accepted him he purchased a diamond. Then, in a burst of magnificence, he sent it to Rumania to be cut. Gertrude traced the journey on a map.
“Imagine a diamond going all the way across the ocean, and through most all of Europe, just to be cut for my ring!” she said. “It makes my finger itch just to think about it!”
When the stone came back, and was set in the ring, and the ring was on her finger, she carried her left hand as if it were a chalice.
They went everywhere together now: to parties, picnics, dances, baseball games—Gertrude’s brother Lynn was one of the town’s best players—hay rides, and shows at Holland’s Opera House. Edgar bought a derby. Gertrude wore the most fashionable clothes, brought to her by Carrie, who was now working for a department store in Springfield, Tennessee.
Long ago Edgar had lost his shyness and fear of people. Everyone in Hopkinsville, he had gradually discovered, was related to everyone else; whole gobs of them were his cousins. Behind the counter at Hopper’s he acquired the ease necessary for surface acquaintanceship, which passed among most people, it appeared, for friendship. He met and became familiar with the boys and girls of his own age, and they turned out to be not the paragons of manners and education he had at first supposed, but ordinary youngsters trying to learn a little and enjoy themselves a lot. He sold them school supplies, listened to them complain about the difficulty of their lessons, and went with Gertrude to their parties and dances.
Some of them attended his Sunday school class. He had not forgotten Mr. Moody or the missions, and little by little his group had transformed itself into a special class for the study of mission work. Boys and girls from other churches joined it, and meetings were held in various of the churches. Edgar was unquestionably accorded an intellectual status above that of his students, although many of them had gone far beyond him in schooling. As Mr. Moody had said, they knew many books, Edgar knew one, but they were agreed that the one he knew was of more importance than the others.
The enrollment of members from other churches was what pleased him most.
“Someday,” he told Gertrude, “all the churches will get together and be one again, the way Jesus intended. There were different sects in the Jewish faith when He lived, and He didn’t approve of them. There are more Christian sects now than there were believers in the Lord when He was crucified. I don’t think He’d like that.”
“I don’t think He’d like what has happened to Christianity at all,” Gertrude said. “Nobody practices it.”
“Some people try,” he said. “They do the best they can.”
“Most of them have a funny idea of what their best is,” she answered.
For a moment she looked stubborn; her greatest hate was hypocrisy. Then she squeezed his arm.
“The leaves will be turning color in a few weeks,” she said. “Can you smell autumn in the air?”
The seasons rolled on. His father complained all winter, as he had the winter before, and the winter before that, of pneumonia and an early grave, the only results he could foresee of constant trips to the Hill in rain, sleet, cold, and snow.
“Don’t worry,” his mother would say. “He already has a fatal disease. It will keep all the others away.”
She watched him without his knowing it, nursing him with hope when the slow increase of his bank balance filled him with despair about getting married, soothing him with nonsense or tales of miracles when he worried about Gertrude’s health, listening to his Bible lesson every Saturday night so that he would have the confidence of her approval when he went to teach it Sunday morning.
He watched her, too, without her knowing it, seeing the lines in her face loosen and relax as the girls grew up and became a help instead of a problem; watching the light in her eyes brighten as the squire’s business became more solid, more dependable as a source of livelihood. She was getting older, but she was becoming happier.
Annie, the eldest of the girls, who was called “sister” by the family, was working in Mrs. Ada Layne’s millinery shop. Annie was a pretty girl, shorter than her younger sisters, and more heavy-set, with dark-gray eyes and light-brown hair. She was chief adorer of her big brother. Ola was next; she was the student of the family—a tall, slender, dark-haired gir
l who was leading her class in high school, specializing in bookkeeping and business training. Mary was the next daughter, ready now for high school, and Sara was the baby, still in pigtails.
They were all upstairs with Ola, dressing her up for a date, on the Saturday night in June when Edgar, polishing his Sunday shoes in the kitchen, found it impossible to concentrate on his job. He threw the brush into the shoebox and turned to his mother. “I’ve lost my job,” he said.
His mother stopped what she was doing and waited, not looking at him.
He explained. “Mr. D. W. Kitchen has bought a half interest in the store. Mr. Harry is married and living down in Tennessee, and he doesn’t want to keep his part of the business. So I’m out. Mr. Kitchen will take my place himself.”
His mother went on with what she was doing.
“What are your plans?” she said. “Have you thought of anything?”
“I’ve thought of everything, but it’s not just a matter of another job. The bookstore was the place I liked to work in. I could get a job next door in the hardware store. Mr. Thompson would give me a job. But that wouldn’t be the bookstore. That would be just a job. I know I wouldn’t be happy.”
“Why don’t you leave Hopkinsville?” she said. “Why don’t you go to some big city, like Louisville, and get a job in a bookstore there? You’d soon be getting more money, and be able to marry. There isn’t much for an ambitious boy in Hopkinsville.”
“You want me to go away?” He was surprised.
“I’ve kept you long enough . . . too long,” she said. “But I needed you. Things are better now. The girls are more help than bother, and your father’s doing well.
“You’re the sort of boy who can do better for himself away from home, because at home you spend your time thinking of others and doing things for them. You’ve got to think of yourself and your future. You have a responsibility to Gertrude, and the children you’ll have someday.”
They were both silent. She bent over her sewing basket. He took the brush from the shoebox and shined the toes of his boots. After a while he looked up. She was trying to thread a needle, without success. He went over to help her. She gave him the needle and thread and reached for her handkerchief.
“After all,” she said, “you’re twenty-one. A mother has to give up her boy sometime. She can’t expect to keep him forever.”
He stabbed at the eye of the needle in vain.
—
Edgar, why in the world don’t you get out of this town?” Carrie said. “You’re just wasting your time here, and you know it. The hardware store is bad enough, but a dry goods store is worse. In the shoe department!
“I know these stores, Edgar. I’ve worked in them. I work in one now. They’ll just take everything out of you, and you get nothing for it in the end. You get back in the business you know, where you like your work and can get some place. Get a job in a bookstore.”
“Where?” he asked.
“Anywhere,” she said, “except in Hopkinsville. In Louisville, or Bowling Green, or Cincinnati. Goodness, you and Gertrude sitting around mooning over each other just give me fits. That child only weighs eighty pounds now, and there’s nothing in the world the matter with her except she’s so much in love with you she doesn’t know what to do with herself, and she’s worried sick about your job, and when you two can get married.
“You go away for a while and get a job that suits you, and believe me you’ll both be better. Gertrude will get well if she knows you’re happy; and as soon as you both have something to look forward to again you’ll be better off.”
It was a July day in Hopkinsville. They stood in the back of Richard’s Dry Goods Store, in the shoe department, where Edgar worked.
He finished wrapping the shoes she had bought and handed her the package.
“You think about that, Edgar, and do something about it,” she said.
When she had gone he went to the clerk’s office and borrowed stationery and a pen. A plan had been growing in his mind for weeks. He decided to act on it.
In Louisville there was a large bookstore, J. P. Morton and Company. He wrote them, asking for a copy of their complete catalogue.
A week later it arrived. That night he slept on it. Meanwhile he had solicited letters of recommendation from every political officer, judge, doctor, lawyer, and businessman of his acquaintance in Hopkinsville and Christian County.
When he was sure that he knew the catalogue from cover to cover, he wrote a letter to the company, applying for a position as clerk. He received a polite reply, stating that no jobs were open at present, but that his application would be placed on file. By return mail he started the stream of letters of recommendation on its way. A batch went in every mail.
Three days later a telegram came from Louisville, signed by the manager of the bookstore. It read:
“Quit sending recommendations. Report for work August 1.”
It was the twenty-ninth of July. Edgar withdrew his money from the bank, bought a linen suit, packed his belongings, spent the evening with Gertrude, and took a train early the next morning. Louisville bewildered him, until he discovered that he had bewildered J. P. Morton and Company. The clerks came to look at him. They shook his hand and told him that he had “sure put one over on the boss!”
“Nobody ever came to us with such recommendations,” the manager admitted. “They must think you’re the greatest man in the world over in Hopkinsville. But there really isn’t a job here. You’ll have to make one for yourself.”
Edgar did his best, as he had with the Hopper brothers. He used his knowledge of the catalogue whenever possible. When a customer bought a book on a certain subject he would say, “We also have . . .” and recite the appropriate list of parallel works. One lady was so fascinated by this that she asked about books on all the subjects in which she had any interest. Edgar recited the names of the books dealing with them. Finally the lady accused him of learning the catalogue by heart. He admitted it. She told his employer, complimenting him on having such a bright clerk.
When she had gone the manager hugged Edgar.
“You’ve made a hit with the richest woman in town!” he said. “I’ve been trying to get her trade for years, and you’ve done it! From now on your salary is raised from seven-fifty a week to ten dollars!”
SIX
Gertrude ran into the yard, waving the letter. “He’s coming home for Christmas!” she cried, landing in a heap on the grass in front of her mother, Aunt Kate, and Stella.
Her mother marked the place in her book and looked up, smiling.
“That’s lovely,” she said. “His mother will be glad to see him.” Aunt Kate finished a stroke of needle-point. Then she said, laughing:
“Heavenly day, Gertrude, Christmas is four months off. Why all the excitement?”
Gertrude jumped to her feet and grabbed Stella.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
They went around the house and down the path, in the cooling shade of the oaks and maples.
“It’s just a year that he’s been gone,” Gertrude said, “and I thought he was never going to have a chance to come home. Now it seems that he hasn’t been gone at all!”
They hung on the gate, looking down the road toward Hopkinsville. By stretching as far as she could, Gertrude was able to see the front of the little house where she had spent her childhood. It stood in a grove of trees just beyond the carriage gate. There she and Hugh and Lynn had played together, until the house was rented and they all moved to the Hill.
Her childhood seemed a long way off, as if she had lived it in another life, when she was someone else. The things that concerned her now had all begun at the gate on which she was perched.
“I remember the first night he came out here,” she said to Stella. “He was so shy and bashful that I took him by the arm and led him down here,
so he could get away from the crowd. I was trying to put him at his ease and make him feel at home, but when I remember it now, it’s a wonder he didn’t think I was being bold.”
Stella laughed.
“No one but yourself would accuse you of being flirtatious,” she said. “You’re not the type.”
Gertrude looked at her seriously.
“Do you think I’m the type for marriage?” she asked. “Do you think I’ll make a good wife?”
“Oh, yes,” Stella said. “You’ll spoil your husband, and spoil your children, and work yourself to death. That’s the definition of a good wife—according to the men.”
“I think two people have to learn gradually to forget what each one wants, when they get married, and find out what they want together,” Gertrude said. “And the best way to do that is to have children and let the parents train themselves not to be selfish by sharing the child and all the things that parents want to do for a child.”
Stella was suspicious.
“Did you read that in a book?” she asked.
Gertrude shook her head.
“I’ve been thinking all those things out for myself.” She laughed. “I haven’t had much else to do for a year.”
“It’s made you healthy,” Stella said. “I didn’t know that thinking was so good for muscles. Tell me, what do you expect of marriage, Gertrude?”
They talked on and on, while the day fought off its heat and waited for evening.
To Gertrude it was but a roll of the seasons and he was there, telling her about Louisville and admiring the new color in her cheeks and the new health that glowed from her. She was radiant.
She found him taller, heavier, but as young as ever in his admiration of her. He said nothing about the subject that was uppermost in both their minds until a few days before he was to leave. Then he explained his reticence.
“I’ve had all the raises I wrote you about,” he said, “but I found that living expenses in Louisville just have a way of keeping up with your income, no matter what it is. By the time I got my first raise I was tired of the way in which I had been forced to live, so I expanded a little. With the next raise I expanded a little more.
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