The Harvester Part 46

"This is the dining-room," said the Girl, leading the way.

Granny Moreland stepped in and sent her keen eyes ranging over the floor, walls, and furnis.h.i.+ngs. She sank on a chair and said with a chuckle, "Now you go on and tell me all about it, honey. Jest what things are and why you fixed them, and how they are used."

The Girl did her best, and the old woman nodded in delighted approval.

"It's the purtiest thing I ever saw," she announced. "A minute ago, I'd 'a' said them blue walls back there, jest like October skies in Indian summer, and the brown rugs, like leaves in the woods, couldn't be beat; but this green and yaller is purtier yet. That blue room will keep the best lookin' part of fall on all winter, and with a roarin' wood fire, it'll be capital, and no mistake; but this here is spring, jest spring eternal, an' that's best of all. Looks like it was about time the leaves was bustin' and things pus.h.i.+n' up. It wouldn't surprise me a mite to see a flock of swallers come sailin' right through these winders. And here's a place big enough to lay down and rest a spell right handy to the kitchen, where a-body gits tiredest, without runnin' a half mile to find a bed, and in the mornin' you can look down to the 'still waters'; and in the afternoon, when the sun gits around here, you can pull that blind and 'lift your eyes to the hills,' like David of the Bible says. My, didn't he say the purtiest things! I never read nothin' could touch him!"

"Have you seen the Psalms arranged in verse as we would write it now?"

"You don't mean to tell me David's been put into real poetry?"

"Yes. Some Bibles have all the poetical books in our forms of verse."

"Well! Sometimes I git kind o' knocked out! As a rule I hold to old ways. I think they're the healthiest and the most faver'ble to the soul.

But they's some changes come along, that's got sech hard common-sense to riccomend them, that I wonder the past generations didn't see sooner.

Now take this! An hour ago I'd told you I'd read my father's Bible to the end of my days. But if they's a new one that's got David, Solomon, and Job in nateral form, I'll have one, and I'll git a joy I never expected out of life. I ain't got so much poetry in me, but it always riled me to read, '7. The law of the Lord is perfect, covertin' the soul. 8. The statutes of the Lord are right. 9. The fear of the Lord is clean.' And so it goes on, 'bout as much figgers as they is poetry.

Always did worry me. So if they make Bibles 'cordin' to common sense, I'll have one to-morrow if I have to walk to Onabasha to get it. Lawsy me! if you ain't gathered up Marthy's old pink tea set, and give it a show, too! Did you do that to please David, or do you honestly think them is nice dishes?"

"I think they are beautiful," laughed the Girl, sinking to a chair. "I don't know that it did please him. He had been studying the subject, but something saved him from buying anything until I came. I'd have felt dreadfully if he had gotten what he wanted."

"What did he want, honey?" asked the old lady in an awestruck whisper.

"Egg-sh.e.l.l china and cut gla.s.s."

"And you wouldn't let him! Woman! What do you want?"

"A set of tulip-yellow dishes, with Dutch little figures on them. They are so quaint and they would harmonize perfectly with this room."

The old lady laughed gleefully.

"My! I wouldn't 'a' missed this for a dollar," she cried. "It jest does my soul good. More'n that, if you really like Marthy's dishes and are going to take care of them and use them right, I'll give you mine, too.

I ain't never had a girl. I've always hoped she'd 'a' had some jedgment of her own, and not been eternally apin', if I had, but the Lord may 'a'

saved me many a disappointment by sendin' all mine boys. Not that I'm layin' the babies on to the Lord at all----I jest got into the habit of sayin' that, 'cos everybody else does, but all mine, I had a purty good idy how I got them. If a girl of mine wouldn't 'a' had more sense, raised right with me, I'd' a' been purty bad cut up over it. Of course, I can't be held responsible for the girls my boys married, but t'other day Emmeline----that's John's wife----John is the youngest, and I sort o' cling to him----Emmeline she says to me, 'Mother, can't I have this old pink and green teapot?' My heart warmed right up to the child, and I says, 'What do you want it for, Emmeline?' And she says, 'To draw the tea in.' Cracky Dinah! That fool woman meant to set my grandmother's weddin' present from her pa and ma, dishes same as Marthy Was.h.i.+ngton used, on the stove to bile the tea in. I jest snorted! 'No, says I, 'you can't! 'Fore I die,' says I, 'I'll meet up with some woman that 'll love dishes and know how to treat them.' I think jest about as much of David as I do my own boys, and I don't make no bones of the fact that he's a heap more of a man. I'd jest as soon my dishes went to his children as to John's. I'll give you every piece I got, if you'll take keer of them."

"Would it be right?" wavered the girl.

"Right! Why, I'm jest tellin' you the fool wimmen would bile tea in them, make grease sa.s.sers of them, and use them to dish up the bakin'

on! Wouldn't you a heap rather see them go into a cupboard like David's ma's is in, where they'd be taken keer of, if they was yours? I guess you would!"

"Well if you feel that way, and really want us to have them, I know David will build another little cupboard on the other side of the fireplace to put yours in, and I can't tell you how I'd love and care for them."

"I'll jest do it!" said Granny Moreland. "I got about as many blue ones as Marthy had an' mine are purtier than hers. And my l.u.s.tre is brighter, for I didn't use it so much. Is this the kitchen? Well if I ever saw sech a cool, white place to cook in before! Ain't David the beatenest hand to think up things? He got the start of that takin' keer of his ma all his life. He sort of learned what a woman uses, and how it's handiest. Not that other men don't know; it's jest that they are too mortal selfish and keerless to fix things. Well this is great! Now when you bile cabbage and the wash, always open your winders wide and let the steam out, so it won't spile your walls."

"I'll be very careful," promised the Girl. "Now come see my bathroom, closet and bedroom."

"Well as I live! Ain't this fine. I'll bet a purty that if I'd 'a' had a room and a trough like this to soak in when I was wore to a frazzle, I wouldn't 'a' got all twisted up with rheumatiz like I am. It jest looks restful to see. I never washed in a place like this in all my days. Must feel grand to be wet all over at once! Now everybody ought to have sech a room and use it at all hours, like David does the lake. Did you ever see his beat to go swimmin'? He's always in splas.h.i.+n'! Been at it all his life. I used to be skeered when he was a little tyke. He soaked so much 'peared like he'd wash all the substance out of him, but it only made him strong."

"Has he ever been ill?"

"Not that I know of, and I reckon I'd knowed it if he had. Well what a clothespress! I never saw so many dresses at once. Ain't they purty? Oh I wish I was young, and could have one like that yaller. And I'd like to have one like your lavender right now. My! You are lucky to have so many nice clothes. It's a good thing most girls haven't got them, or they'd stand primpin' all day tryin' to decide which one to put on. I don't see how you tell yourself."

"I wear the one that best hides how pale I am," answered the Girl. "I use the colours now. When I grow plump and rosy, I'll wear the white."

Granny Moreland dropped on the couch and a.s.sured herself that it was Martha's pink Peter Hartman. Then she examined the suns.h.i.+ne room.

"Well I got to go back to the start," she said at last. "This beats the dinin'-room. This is the purtiest thing I ever saw. Oh I do hope they ain't so run to white in Heaven as some folks seem to think! Used to be scandalized if a-body took anythin' but a white flower to a funeral. Now they tell me that when Jedge Stilton's youngest girl come from New York to her pa's buryin' she fetched about a wash tub of blood-red roses.

Put them all over him, too! Said he loved red roses livin' and so he was goin' to have them when he pa.s.sed over. Now if they are lettin' up a little on white on earth, mebby some of the stylish ones will carry the fas.h.i.+on over yander. If Heaven is like this, I won't spend none of my time frettin' about the foundations. I'll jest forget there is any, even if we do always have to be so perticler to get them solid on earth. Talk of gold harps! Can't you almost hear them? And listen to the birds and that water! Say, you won't get lonesome here, will you?"

"Indeed no!" answered the Girl. "Wouldn't you like to lie on my beautiful couch that the Harvester made with his own hands, and I'll spread Mother Langston's coverlet over you and let you look at all my pretty things while I slip away a few minutes to something I'd like to do?"

"I'd love to!" said the old woman. "I never had a chance at such fine things. David told me he was makin' your room all himself, and that he was goin' to fill it chuck full of everythin' a girl ever used, and I see he done it right an' proper. Away last March he told me he was buildin' for you, an' I hankered so to have a woman here again, even though I never s'posed she'd be sochiable like you, that I egged him on jest all I could. I never would 'a' s'posed the boy could marry like this----all by himself."

The Girl went to the ice chest to bring some of the fruit juice, chilled berries, and to the pantry for bread and wafers to make a dainty little lunch that she placed on the veranda table; and then she and Granny Moreland talked, until the visitor said that she must go. The Girl went with her to the little bridge crossing Singing Water on the north. There the old lady took her hand.

"Honey," she said, "I'm goin' to tell you somethin'. I am so happy I can purt near fly. Last night I was comin' down the pike over there chasin'

home a contrary old gander of mine, and I looked over on your land and I see David settin' on a log with his head between his hands a lookin'

like grim death, if I ever see it. My heart plum stopped. Says I, 'she's a failure! She's a bustin' the boy's heart! I'll go straight over and tell her so.' I didn't dare bespeak him, but I was on nettles all night.

I jest laid a-studyin' and a-studyin', and I says, 'Come mornin' I'll go straight and give her a curry-combin' that'll do her good.' And I started a-feelin' pretty grim, and here you came to meet me, and wiped it all out of my heart in a flash. It did look like the boy was grievin'; but I know now he was jest thinkin' up what to put together to take the ache out of some poor old carca.s.s like mine. It never could have been about you. Like a half blind old fool I thought the boy was sufferin', and here he was only studyin'! Like as not he was thinkin'

what to do next to show you how he loves you. What an old silly I was!

I'll sleep like a log to-night to pay up for it. Good-bye, honey! You better go back and lay down a spell. You do look mortal tired."

The Girl said good-bye and staggering a few steps sank on a log and sat staring at the sky.

"Oh he was suffering, and about me!" she gasped. A chill began to shake her and feverish blood to race through her veins. "He does and gives everything; I do and give nothing! Oh why didn't I stay at Uncle Henry's until it ended? It wouldn't have been so bad as this. What will I do? Oh what will I do? Oh mother, mother! if I'd only had the courage you did."

She arose and staggered up the hill, pa.s.sed the cabin and went to the oak. There she sank s.h.i.+vering to earth, and laid her face among the mosses. The frightened Harvester found her at almost dusk when he came from the city with the Dutch dishes, and helped a man launch a gay little motor boat for her on the lake.

"Why Ruth! Ruth-girl!" he exclaimed, kneeling beside her.

She lifted a strained, distorted face.

"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!" she cried. "It is not true that I am better. I am not! I am worse! I never will be better. And before I go I've got to tell you of the debt I owe; then you will hate me, and then I will be glad! Glad, I tell you! Glad! When you despise me? then I can go, and know that some day you will love a girl worthy of you. Oh I want you to hate me I am fit for nothing else."

She fell forward sobbing wildly and the Harvester tried in vain to quiet her. At last he said, "Well then tell me, Ruth. Remember I don't want to hear what you have to say. I will believe nothing against you, not even from your own lips, when you are feverish and excited as now, but if it will quiet you, tell me and have it over. See, I will sit here and listen, and when you have finished I'll pick you up and carry you to your room, and I am not sure but I will kiss you over and over. What is it you want to tell me, Ruth?"

She sat up panting and pushed back the heavy coils of hair.

"I've got to begin away at the beginning to make you see," she said.

"The first thing I can remember is a small, such a small room, and mother sewing and sometimes a man I called father. He was like Henry Jameson made over tall and smooth, and more, oh, much more heartless! He was gone long at a time, and always we had most to eat, and went oftener to the parks, and were happiest with him away. When I was big enough to understand, mother told me that she had met him and cared for him when she was an inexperienced girl. She must have been very, very young, for she was only a girl as I first remember her, and oh! so lovely, but with the saddest face I ever saw. She said she had a good home and every luxury, and her parents adored her; but they knew life and men, and they would not allow him in their home, and so she left it with him, and he married her and tried to force them to accept him, and they would not.

At first she bore it. Later she found him out, and appealed to them, but they were away or would not forgive, and she was a proud thing, and would not beg more after she had said she was wrong, and would they take her back.

"I grew up and we were girls together. We embroidered, and I drew, and sometimes we had little treats and good times, and my father did not come often, and we got along the best we could. Always it was worse on her, because she was not so strong as I, and her heart was secretly breaking for her mother, and she was afraid he would come back any hour. She was tortured that she could not educate me more than to put me through the high school. She wore herself out doing that, but she was wild for me to be reared and trained right. So every day she crouched over delicate laces and embroidery, and before and after school I carried it and got more, and in vacation we worked together. But living grew higher, and she became ill, and could not work, and I hadn't her skill, and the drawings didn't bring much, and I'd no tools----"

"Ruth, for mercy sake let me take you in my arms. If you've got to tell this to find peace, let me hold you while you do it."

"Never again," said the Girl. "You won't want to in a minute. You must hear this, because I can't bear it any longer, and it isn't fair to let you grieve and think me worth loving. Anyway, I couldn't earn what she did, and I was afraid, for a great city is heartless to the poor. One morning she fainted and couldn't get up. I can see the awful look in her eyes now. She knew what was coming. I didn't. I tried to be brave and to work. Oh it's no use to go on with that! It was just worse and worse.

She was lovely and delicate, she was my mother, and I adored her. Oh Man! You won't judge harshly?"

"No!" cried the Harvester, "I won't judge at all, Ruth. I see now. Get it over if you must tell me."