“Why don’t you stay with your ma?”
“Because I have an idea this concerns me, too.”
“Eh?” said Peter, sitting upright, and looking sharply from husband to wife. “What’s all this, anyway?”
John gestured with annoyance. “Oh, all right! All right! Wimin pokin’ their noses into others’ business! Pete,” turning abruptly to his father-in-law, “has anybody asked you to sell your farm to the railroad?”
“Eh? Railroad? Um. Wal, yes, now that you speak of it, they did. Last winter. Some feller from Williamsburg dickered awhile, but I said, ‘No, sir. I ain’t sellin’ this here ole farm. No, sir. It’s mine. Run your ole steam cars over some other folks’ farm, not mine!’”
John smiled indulgently. “Say, you’re bein’ chuckleheaded, Pete! Know how much they want to give you? Two thousand! Two thousand dollars for this worthless strip of land. Why, it ain’t worth two hundred dollars! Let me handle this for you. Say! I just took over a farm in Banford township. Worth four thousand if it’s worth a cent. One hundred and fifty acres. Five cows, three horses, two hundred chickens, good well, good house, fine barn and outbuildings, and seventy-five acres of it, the best bottom land I ever saw. I’ll let you have it for the two thousand! What do you say?”
He beamed from father to daughter with a proud consciousness of his own magnanimity. Peter shook his head.
“No, sir, Johnny! This here land’s belonged to the Hamiltons for nigh onto a hunnerd years. Nearly. Why, old Margot’s buried right where the railroad’d run, and so’s old great-grandpa Sam Hamilton, and most of their young uns. They’d run their damn rails right over their graves. ’Sides, this is my land. It’s part of me, Johnny. Money never did seem more important, someways, than the place where you belong, and where your folks died and got buried. I git along. And when I’m dead, Johnny, and you’re dead, it won’t make no difference to us if we left money in the bank and good acres, or jest had a good time, smokin’ and gassin’, like me.”
John controlled himself with an effort. “That don’t make sense, Pete. You got a family. Young uns growin’ up wild, without no schoolin’. Why, that gal of yours, Linda, ought to have a chanc’t. Pretty gal. If you had a good farm, she’d git herself a good husband. Look at this damn’ place! Git yourself somethin’ decent, and you’ll be able to have your young uns look like somebody instead of heathen.”
“Say,” drawled Peter. His black eyes narrowed. “Why you so all-fired set on me sellin’ out? Where do you come in on this?”
John chuckled good humoredly. He looked at Peter frankly. “We’ll, tell you the truth, Pete, they want to buy that southeast strip of mine, too. It’s longer’n your’n, and then, there’s the hill they want to tunnel. Run out through the other side, to your wife’s sister’s place. ’Spect they’ll be askin’ her to sell, too, of they get your land. T’ain’t fair, Pete, to keep me and Susie Blodgett from turnin’ a penny. And they won’t buy ours without your’n.”
Peter sat back into his chair and smoked for a few moments. “So that’s how it is,” he said slowly. Then he shook his head. “No, sir! I ain’t sellin’. And that’s my last word.” He slapped the arm of his chair and rose.
Before John could answer, the door opened and Me linda, wrapped in a blanket, stood in the doorway. Her straggling hair fell over her shoulders; fever and rage burned in her eyes. Margaret went to her involuntarily, put her arm about her mother. But the woman did not notice her; she was glaring at Peter with frenzied hatred.
“I heard, Peter Hamilton! I heard! And you’ll keep your fam’ly and me stuck on this no-account place just because your ole grandma’s buried here! And we could live on a fine farm, with a good house and stock and good water, and you’d keep us here on this turrible place out of plumb stubbornness, jest because you’re afraid of a little work! That’s all bothers you, Peter Hamilton! You allus was shiftless!”
John’s face smoothed into a gratified smile.
“Well, that’s how it is, Ma. That’s what I been tellin’ Pete. He ain’t got no right keepin’ his woman and his kids on this place, when he’s got a chance to improve himself. I been tellin’ him—”
“You mean, damn you, you been tellin’ him to help you get a few measly dollars!” shouted Peter, shaking his fist under John’s nose. “Much you care what becomes of us! Well, here’s my last word—I ain’t sellin’! And you can’t make me sell! And no one’s goin’ to make me let the steam cars run over old Margot’s grave!” He turned to the silent Margaret. “Maggie! You ain’t said a word. Come now, do you want me to sell out ole Margot’s grave and the Hamilton’s land? My ole grandma wuz mighty good to you; loved you better’n anybody. Think she’d like you do that?”
Margaret turned frankly to her husband and her father. “Yes, Pa, she’d like us to do that,” she said quietly. Peter’s mouth fell open with astonishment; John broke out into a surprised and affectionate smile. “Yes, she’d like us to do that, Pa. She’d say, ‘Don’t be fools. My old body isn’t worth your life. Go on, and five.’ That’s what she’d say. But,” she added slowly, “that’s not what we think. And we, being alive, have the right to what we feel. We couldn’t bear to have the graves run over and mangled, and their markings gone. We have the right to those graves, more than the people in them have. We are Hamiltons; they are our people. We can’t consider what they’d think or do. We must do what we want to. We are living; they are only dead.”
Peter looked at his daughter soberly, almost respectfully.
But John burst out, enraged, “What’s all this damn talk about the livin’ and the dead? That don’t enter into it. Hard cash is enterin’ in it. And that’s what life is, my girl! Hard cash. On one side you got those damn silly graves, and on the other, hard cash. That’s all. And you’d make your pore Ma here, and that sister of yours, Linda, ’bout which you was whinin’ this evenin’, and all the other kids, live on here, half starvin’ and puny, without no chanc’t to live. Just for graves! God, you make me sick!”
Melinda, recovering from her stupefaction, struck her daughter a feeble blow in the chest.
“You allus stood with your Pa, Maggie! A bad, no account, shiftless gal, that you are! You ain’t got no heart in you; you ain’t got no sense. You’re just like your Pa. You want me to die; you want those pore young uns to die, so you won’t be ’shamed of us any more, now you got a fine house and a fine husband! You want to keep us here, then play the grand lady and give us a measly dollar whenever you think of it, and some of your ole rags! I don’t want ’em! I don’t want nothin’ you got! I’ll spit on them, like this!” and she spat fully into Margaret’s face.
“Here, here!” said John, forgetting for a moment his quarrel with Peter. “Don’t you do that to my wife! Maggie, come over here, near me!”
He seized Margaret’s arm and dragged her across the room. Peter laid his mighty hands on his wife’s frail shoulder and thrust her from the room, dropping the old wooden bar into place behind her. On the other side of the door Melinda beat with her fists, shrieking feebly.
John resumed the argument where it had left off. But now his voice was quiet and hard.
“All right, then. You make me do what I didn’t want to do. Ole Margot left this land to Maggie, here. It’s her’n. And she bein’ my wife, it’s mine. I’ll sell it over your head. That’s my final word. Think it over. You’ll sell the land like a gentleman to the railroad, or I’ll sell it. That’s the law. Come on, Maggie.”
“You can’t do that, John!” cried Margaret. “I won’t let you do that!”
“You’ll have nothin’ to say ’bout it, my fine lady,” said John between his teeth. She could not resist his grasp; he propelled her as if she were a child. She protested without result and stumbled over her own feet. In the kitchen Melinda had sunk upon her bed. Linda shot a malicious glance at her sister; the children were sober and frightened, standing near their mother’s bed. John thrust Margaret’s arms into her coat; he caught up her muff and dragged h
er firmly to the door. Peter followed them into the kitchen.
“Go on, Johnny Hobart,” he said in a deadly voice. “Go on, it don’t matter. But there’s a law besides hard cash, Johnny Hobart.”
“Yes? And what is that law, Pete?”
He thrust Margaret out into the cold wetness of the April night. He half carried, half dragged her, with a sort of rough tenderness, to the buggy. He swung her carefully to her seat, where she collapsed, sobbing silently. They drove away and John began to hum good-naturedly. Once or twice he chuckled. Then at last he put his big arm about his wife, tilted up her face with the back of his hand, and kissed her. Her lips were cold under his.
“Don’t blame you for standin’ up for that pa of your’n, old girl. Would do the same in your place. But don’t stand in the way of others. And let me do all the managin’ there’s to be done, myself. Feelin’ all right?”
She nodded in the dimness. She leaned against his shoulder, his arm still about her. A pleasant exhaustion overwhelmed her. Then through her fatigue a face formed itself; Ralph’s, and her heart contracted with distant pain. She leaned more heavily against John’s shoulder; the buggy wheels dipped and swayed in the watery road, on each side stretched the silent fields, shrouded in vapor. There was nothing but silence.
John was restored to good temper. He lifted his hand again and stroked Margaret’s cheek.
“Don’t worry about it, Mag. I’ll talk to Pete alone in the smithy tomorrow. Everythin’ will be all right. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
Margaret heard his voice; it was heartening in the pleasurable warmth of her drowsing. She had a sensation that she was drifting away, and she was not afraid. Everything was unimportant.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
But John did not talk to Peter “tomorrow.” For, only a few moments before he reached the smithy, Peter Hamilton was dead.
Jim Brownlow had brought his stallion, a huge, black, half-wild animal, to Peter’s smithy. The horse was frightened and enraged by this strange man, and reared and struck out with his front legs in an effort to escape him. However, after a few moments Peter’s magic with animals partially overcame the beast’s fear and he stood quietly, though his flanks quivered and his teeth were bared.
Then Peter made a fatal mistake. He knew animals, but today he was mentally disturbed. Any other time, he would have noticed the danger signals. But he was accustomed to handling difficult animals, and when they finally stood quiet, like this one, he assumed absently that all was well.
He had just bent to take the hoof in his hand when the horse leaped away and struck out with his hind leg. The powerful hoof struck Peter squarely in the forehead, crushing it, toppling him over. Before the horse’s startled master could control him, he had struck again and again at the great huddled form on the ground. Then, with a wild, triumphant snort, the horse was off, galloping homeward.
It had all happened in an instant. Jim Brownlow stared blankly from his distantly galloping horse to the bloody mass upon the floor of the smithy. He put out a tentative hand, then recoiled, shuddering.
The April sunlight lay pale and wide upon the earth, in silence. Green shoots were visible over all the basking fields. And then John Hobart rode around the bend, humming to himself. He was astonished to see Jim Brownlow running wildly toward him. He reined in abruptly and waited.
Jim’s face was white, ghastly. He pointed back to the smithy and shuddered again. “Pete—” he gasped. “Pete. My horse. Pete. I think he’s dead!”
John stared. “Who’s—what’s dead?” he said roughly. “Stop your shaking, Jim. Who’s dead?”
“Pete. Pete Hamilton. It was that stallion of mine—”
John dismounted. “Let’s go.”
With steady, competent hands John examined the mass of bleeding flesh that had been Margaret’s father.
“He’s dead, all right,” he said soberly. He thought of Margaret and frowned. Damn it, what would happen now, and she approaching her eighth month?
They carried Peter home; Pete Hamilton who had loved life. Well, thought John, it’s the best way out for him. No sickness, no impatient tossing on a hot bed, no foreknowledge of what was coming.
He was relieved to discover that the widow was so ill today that she could not comprehend what had happened. He sent for Dr. Webster and remained until the physician arrived. It was too late for Peter, but the doctor informed John that Melinda had typhoid fever. The three younger children were also feverish, and were ordered to bed. Linda alone was well. Susan Blodgett was sent for, and she arrived just before John left, full of discriminations.
Looks like the whole lot of ’em’s goin’, thought John, riding home slowly in the pale wash of spring sunshine. Everythin’ seems to happen at once.
He went to see his aunt for the first time in weeks.
She was out in the garden, kneeling in the wet rich earth, and looked up at him in dour silence as he approached. Then she stood up, wiping her hands on her apron.
“What’s the matter?” she asked abruptly.
“Pete Hamilton. He was killed by a horse this morning. And Melinda, she’s got typhoid fever, and so have all the kids except the oldest. Nice mess. Don’t expect Melinda to live to morning. Must be that damn stagnant water they got down there.”
Betsy was silent for a few moments. Then, “And you want me to break the news to Margaret, eh?”
Her lack of emotion at the dreadful news affronted him obscurely.
“Well, yes. Cal’cated you could do it better’n me. A woman—”
Without another word she went toward the new house. John remained in the garden. She looked back at him.
“Aren’t you coming?”
He flushed uncomfortably. “I’ll wait awhile.” He walked off toward the barns. At the doorway of one of them he paused and looked over the countryside. The fields ranged from soft yellowish green to dark blue-green, seemingly asleep in the sunset. But he felt their vigor, their passionate life, their eternal promise of harvest. For the first time he was conscious of a hidden sadness. He was not articulate; he had no words to express the dim bulking of his thoughts, though Margaret would have been surprised that he even had such thoughts. He thought of Pete Hamilton.
He wished to put all the subtleties his mind thought into definition, but he could not. He could only be sad, oppressed by the weight of the mighty things he could not sculpture into words.
He had always taken deep and personal satisfaction in the contemplation of his hundreds of acres, the promise of their yield, but today, as he looked at them, he felt humble and small. Somehow, they did not seem to belong to him; he was presumptuous if he thought that. They were merely lent to him, precariously. Tomorrow, they might belong to someone else. That would not change their form nor their richness; the sun would pour down on them just as benignly.
Within an hour he went, afraid, back to his house. Miss Betsy was in the dining room, sharply supervising the setting of the table. John noticed that she had set a third place. He was suddenly enormously relieved. He was afraid of being alone this first night of grief with his wife.
“How’s Maggie?” he asked in a low voice. Miss Betsy glanced at him briefly.
“She’s got sense,” she replied. “I told her right out. She’s all right. Lying down a spell. She knows she’s got to take care of herself. She’s not a complete fool.” She laid down a knife. “She’s not going down there. Too much danger of getting the fever. She decided that, herself. No, she isn’t crying. She started to, then stopped.”
When Margaret came down to supper she was very quiet, though deathly pale. She ate barely anything, and seemed confused when she caught John’s solicitous gaze. Then, halfway through the meal she said steadily, “I’m glad you’ve arranged everything, John. Aunt Betsy said you got the doctor, and took care of—things. I’m going to send Mabel over there tomorrow; she’s had the fever.”
John reddened. “Oh, I didn’t do anythin’! Leastways, not more than anyone would do. I
’ll send over some things in the morning, and go over, myself.”
Miss Betsy spoke little, and then of ordinary things, in a dry and commonplace voice. Margaret sat alone with her thoughts. Through the mist of her grief she cried internally for Ralph, who would understand. She could say nothing to that giant of a man opposite her, who never experienced the gripping pangs of agony. What could he know of love, of an anguish that devoured, yet never completely devoured? What could she tell him of her grief for Peter Hamilton, who had loved life, and who was now dead? Nothing. She hated him with a ripping agony. She sat, rigid and white, mechanically putting food to her lips, and mechanically removing it before it entered her mouth.
And opposite her, John thought, she’s sufferin’. I can see that. I wish I could say somethin’. But I can’t. Pore Maggie. Somehow, I wish we could get together.
Peter Hamilton was buried in the graveyard, among tall waving grass and ragged trees, far from his ancestors. And the next day Melinda Hamilton was carried there and laid beside him. Margaret did not attend the funerals. She was ill in bed.
She did not know that within four days after Melinda’s death the three younger children were also carried into the graveyard and buried near their parents. Therefore, she was exhaustedly surprised one day when John led Linda into her bedroom. The girl’s face was white and pinched, her eyes swollen. Then Margaret knew. “Please don’t say anything,” she said. “They’re all dead, except me and Linda. I know.”
She turned her head slightly and stared out of the window. Her hair was a shadow on her white cheek.
John shifted on his feet. He wanted to kneel down beside her, to say all the words of comfort that surged in him. But her manner repudiated him.
He cleared his throat. “And here’s Linda,” he said with false cheerfulness. “She’s goin’ to stay with us. Thought it would be nice for you—after everythin’. She’s a right smart girl, Linda.” Margaret did not seem to hear. She still stared through the window at the golden haze of the growing fields. “Maggie, ain’t you goin’ to say anythin’ to us?”
Maggie: Her Marriage Page 11