At the Crossroads Part 22

"Guessing about me, Aunt Polly?"

"Guessing about everything, son. Just when I thought I was nearing port, where I ought to be at my age, I find myself all at sea."

"Same with me, Aunt Polly. We're part of the whole upheaval, and take it from me, some of us are going to find ourselves high and dry by and by and some of us will go under. We don't understand it; we can't; but we've got to try to--and that's the very devil. Aunt Polly, I've been on the Point, talking to some of the folks down there--there is a fellow called Twombley, odd cuss. He told me he's tried to earn his living, but found people too particular."

"Earn his living, huh!" Polly tried to look indignant. "He's a scamp, and old Doctor Rivers was the ruination of him. The old doctor used to quote Scripture in a scandalous way. He said since we have the poor always with us, it is up to us to have a place for them where they can be comfortable. Terrible doctrine, I say, but that was what the old doctor kept the Point for and it was after Twombley tried to earn his living--the scamp!" Northrup saw that he had diverted Aunt Polly and gladly let her talk on.

"Doctor had an old horse as was just pleading to be put an end to, but the doctor couldn't make his mind up to it and Twombley finally undertook to settle the matter with a shot-gun, up back in the hills.

Twombley never missed the bull's-eye--a terrible hand with a gun he was. The doctor gave him two dollars for the job and looked real sick the day he heard that shot. Well, less than a week after Twombley came to the doctor and says as how he heard that a horse has to be buried and that if it isn't the owner gets fined twenty-five dollars, and he says he'll bury the carca.s.s for five dollars. He explained how the horse, lying flat, was powerful sizable, and it would be a stern job to get it under ground. Well, old doctor gave the five dollars and Twombley took to the woods.

"It was a matter of a month, maybe, when Twombley came back, and soon after old Philander Sniff appeared with a horse and cart, and Doctor Rivers, as soon as he set his eyes on the horse, sent for Twombley. Do you know, son, that scamp actually figured it out with the doctor as to the cost of food and care he'd been put to in order to get that shot-and-buried-horse into shape for selling! He'd sold him for ten dollars and expenses were twelve."

Northrup leaned back and laughed until the quiet house reechoed with his mirth.

"Son, son!" cautioned Polly, shaking and dim-eyed, "it's going on to midnight. We can't carouse like this. But land! it is uplifting to have a talk when you ought to be sleeping. Well, the old doctor bought the Point just then and bought Twombley a new gun. Folks as couldn't earn their keep proper naturally drifted to the Point--G.o.d's living acre, as the doctor called it."

Northrup rose and stretched his arms and then bent, as Peter had done, to Aunt Polly. But unlike Peter he kissed the small yearning face upraised to his.

"It must be pleasant--being your mother," Polly whispered.

"It's pleasant having you acting as subst.i.tute," Northrup replied.

"Shall I bank the fire, Aunt Polly?"

"No, son, there's something else I must see to before I turn in.

Aren't you going for the cookies?"

"Yes'm. Going to munch them in bed." And tiptoeing away in the most orthodox manner Northrup left Aunt Polly alone.

Why was she staying up? She had no clear idea but she was restless, sleepless, and bed, to her, was no comfort under such conditions.

However, since she had stated that she had something to do, she must find it. She went to a desk in the farther end of the room, and took from it her house-keeping book. She would balance that and surprise Peter! Peter always _was_ so surprised when she did. She bought the book to her nest on the sofa and set to work.

Debit and credit. Figures, figures, figures. And then, mistily, words took their places. Names.

Mary-Clare: Larry.

Larry: Northrup.

Mary-Clare! It was funny. The columns danced and giddily wobbled--and at the foot there was only--Mary-Clare! Mary-Clare was troubling the dear old soul.

Then, startled by the falling of the book to the floor, Aunt Polly opened her eyes and gazed into the face of Mary-Clare standing before her!

The girl had a wind-swept look, physically and spiritually. Her hair was loose about her face, her eyes like stars, and she was smiling.

"Oh! you dear thing," she whispered, bending to recover the book, "adding and subtracting when the whole world sleeps. Isn't it a wonderful feeling to have the night to yourself?"

Mary-Clare crouched down before the red blazing logs; her coat and hat fell from her and she stretched her hands out to the heat with a little s.h.i.+ver of luxurious content.

Aunt Polly knew the girl's mood and left her to herself. She had come to tell something but must tell it in her own way. To question, to intrude a thought, would only tend to confuse and distract her, so Polly took up her knitting and nodded cheerfully. She had a feeling that all along she had been waiting for Mary-Clare.

"I suppose big things like being born and dying are very simple when they come. It is the mistaking the big and little things that makes us all so uncertain. Aunt Polly, Larry has left me." The start had been made!

"Yes; Peneluna told us. He hasn't gone far." Aunt Polly knitted on while Mary-Clare gave a little laugh.

"Oh! dearie, he was far, far away before he started for the Point.

Land doesn't count--it's more than that, only I did not know. Isn't it queer, Aunt Polly, now that I understand things, I find that marrying Larry and having the babies haven't touched me at all--I never belonged to them or they to me--except Noreen. And it's queer about Noreen, too, she will never seem part of all that."

Mary-Clare, her eyes fixed on the fire, was thinking aloud; her breath came short and quick as if she had been running.

"My dear child!" Aunt Polly was shocked in spite of herself. "No woman can shake off her responsibilities in that way. Larry is your husband and you have been a mother."

"You are talking _words_, Aunt Polly, not things." Aunt Polly knew that she _was_ and it made her wince.

"That's the trouble with us all, Aunt Polly. Saying words over and over and calling them things--as if you could take G.o.d in!"

There was no bitterness in the tones, but there was the weary impatience of a child that had been too often denied the truth.

"No matter what people say and say, underneath there is _truth_, Aunt Polly, and it's up to us to find it."

"And you think you are competent"--Aunt Polly, reflecting that she was using _words_, used them doubtfully--"you think you are competent to know what _is_ truth and to act upon it--to the extent of sending your husband out of his home?"

If a small love-bird could look and sound fierce it would resemble Aunt Polly at that moment. Mary-Clare turned from the contemplation of the fire and fixed her deep eyes upon the troubled old face.

"You dear!" she whispered and then laughed.

Presently, the fire again holding her, Mary-Clare went on:

"I think I must try to find truth with my woman-brain, Aunt Polly.

That was what my doctor-daddy always insisted upon. He wouldn't even let me take _his_ word when it came to anything that meant a lot to me."

"He wanted you to marry Larry!"

This was a telling stroke and a long silence followed. Then:

"I wonder, Aunt Polly, I wonder."

"Do you doubt, child?"

"I don't know, but even if he did he was sick and so--so tired, and Larry always worried him. I know very surely that if my doctor were here, and knew everything, he'd say harder than ever: 'Use your woman-mind.' And I'm going to! Why, Aunt Polly, I haven't driven Larry away from his home. I meant to make it a better place, once I set the wrong aside. But you see, he wanted it just _his_ way and nothing else would do."

The dear old face that had confronted life vicariously flushed gently; but the young face that had set itself to the stern facts of life showed neither weakness nor doubt.

"It has come to me, dear"--Mary-Clare now turned and came close to Aunt Polly, resting her folded arms on the thin little knees--"It has come to me, dear, that things are not fixed right and when they are not, it won't do any good to keep on acting as if they were. Being married to Larry could never make it right for me to do what seems to me wrong. And oh! Aunt Polly, I wish that I could make you understand.

Do try to understand, dear, there is a sacred place in my soul, and I just do believe it is in all women's souls if they dared to say so--that no one, not even a husband, has a right to claim. It is hers and--G.o.d's. But men don't know, and some don't care--and they just rush along and take and take, never counting what it may cost--and they make laws to help them when they might fail without, and--well, Aunt Polly, it is hard to stand all alone in the world. I think the really happy women are those who don't know what I mean, or those that have loved enough, loved a man true enough--to share that sacred place with him--the place he ought not ask for or have a law for. I know you do not understand, Aunt Polly. I did not myself until Peneluna told me."

At this Aunt Polly braced against the pillows as if they were rocks.

"Peneluna!" she gasped.

"Let me tell you, Aunt Polly. It is such a wonderful thing."