Jane Field Part 26

"For the land sakes, Amanda Pratt!" gasped Mrs. Babc.o.c.k, "you don't s'pose that cat is goin' to stint herself to a saucer a day? Why, she'll eat half of it all up before night."

Amanda stood up in the carriage. "I've got to go back, that's all,"

said she. "I ain't goin' to have that cat starve."

"Land sakes, set down!" cried Mrs. Babc.o.c.k. "She won't starve. She can hunt."

"Abby'll feed her, I know," said Mrs. Green, pulling gently at her companion's arm. "Don't you worry, Mandy."

"Well, I guess I shouldn't worry about a cat with claws to catch mice in warm weather," said Mrs. Babc.o.c.k, with a sarcastic t.i.tter. "It's goin' to be a dreadful hot day. Set down, Mandy. There ain't no use talkin' about goin' back. There ain't any time. Mis' Green an' me ain't goin' to stay to home on account of a cat."

Amanda subsided weakly. She felt strange, and not like herself. Mrs.

Babc.o.c.k seemed to recognize it by some subtle intuition. She would never have dared use such a tone toward her without subsequent concessions. Amanda had always had a certain dignity and persistency which had served to intimidate too presuming people; now she had lost it all.

"I'll write to Abby, jest as soon as I get down there, to give the cat her milk," whispered Mrs. Green soothingly; and Amanda was comforted.

The covered wagon rolled along the country road toward the railroad station. Adoniram drove, and the three women sat up straight, and looked out with a strange interest, as if they had never seen the landscape before. The meadows were all filmy with cobwebs; there were patches of corn in the midst of them, and the long blades drooped limply. The flies swarmed thickly over the horse's back. The air was scalding; there was a slight current of cool freshness from the dewy ground, but it would soon be gone.

"It ain't goin' to rain," said Mrs. Babc.o.c.k, "there's cobwebs on the gra.s.s, but it's goin' to be terrible hot."

They reached the station fifteen minutes before the train. After Adoniram had driven away, they sat in a row on a bench on the platform, with their baggage around them. They did not talk much; even Mrs. Babc.o.c.k looked serious and contemplative in this momentary lull. Their thoughts reached past and beyond them to the homes they had left, and the new scenes ahead.

When the whistle of the train sounded they all stood up, and grasped their valises tightly. Mrs. Green looked toward the coming train; her worn face under her black bonnet, between its smooth curves of gray hair, had all the sensitive earnestness which comes from generations of high breeding. She was, on her father's side, of a race of old New England ministers.

"Well, I dunno but I've been pretty faithful, an' minded my household the way women are enjoined to in the Scriptures; mebbe it's right for me to take this little vacation," she said, and her serious eyes were full of tears.

Chapter VIII

When Jane Field, in her a.s.sumed character, had lived three months in Elliot, she was still unsuspected. She was not liked, and that made her secret safer. She was full of dogged resolution and audacity. She never refused to see a caller nor accept an invitation, but people never called upon her nor invited her when they could avoid it, and thus she was not so often exposed to contradictions and inconsistencies which might have betrayed her. Elliot people not only disliked her, they were full of out-spoken indignation against her.

The defiant, watchful austerity which made her repel when she intended to encourage their advances had turned them against her, but more than that her supposed ill-treatment of her orphan niece.

When Lois, the third week of her stay in Elliot, had gone to a dressmaker and asked for some sewing to do, the news was well over the village by night. "That woman, who has all John Maxwell's money, is too stingy and mean to support her niece, and she too delicate to work," people said. The dressmaker to whom Lois appealed did not for a minute hesitate to give her work, although she had already many women sewing for her, and she had just given some to Mrs. Maxwell's daughter Flora.

"There!" said she, when Lois had gone out. "I ain't worth five hundred dollars in the world, I don't know how she'll sew, and I didn't need any extra help--it's takin' it right out of my pocket, likely as not--but I couldn't turn off a cat that looked up at me the way that child did. She looks pinched. I don't believe that old woman gives her enough to eat. Of all the mean work--worth all that money, and sending her niece out to get sewing to do! I don't believe but what she's most starved her."

It was true that Lois for the last week had not had enough to eat, but neither had her mother. The two had been eking out the remnants of Lois's school-money as best they might. There were many provisions in the pantry and cellar of the Maxwell house, but they would touch none of them. Some money which Mr. Tuxbury had paid to Mrs.

Field--the first instalment from the revenue of her estate--she had put carefully away in a sugar-bowl on the top shelf of the china closet, and had not spent a penny of it. After Lois began to sew, her slender earnings provided them with the most frugal fare. Mrs. Field eked it out in every way that she could. She had a little vegetable garden and kept a few hens. As the season advanced, she scoured the berry pastures, and spent many hours stooping painfully over the low bushes. Three months from the time at which she came to Elliot, on the day on which her neighbors started from Green River to visit her, she was out in the pasture trying to fill her pail with blueberries.

All the sunlight seemed to centre on her black figure like a burning-gla.s.s; the thick growth of sweet-fern around the blueberry bushes sent a hot and stifling aroma into her face; the wild flowers hung limply, like delicate painted rags, and the rocks were like furnaces. Mrs. Field went out soon after dinner, and at half-past five she was still picking; the berries were not very plentiful.

Lois, at home, wondered why she did not return, and the more because there was a thunder-storm coming up. There was a heavy cloud in the northwest, and a steady low rumble of thunder. Lois sat out in the front yard sewing; her face was pink and moist with the heat; the sleeves of her old white muslin dress clung to her arms. Presently the gate clicked, and Mrs. Jane Maxwell's daughter Flora came toward her over the gra.s.s.

"Hullo!" said she.

"Hullo!" returned Lois.

"It's a terrible day--isn't it?"

"Terrible!"

Lois got up, but Flora would not take her chair. She sat down clumsily on the pine needles, and fanned herself with the cover of a book she carried.

"I've just been down to the library, an' got this book," she remarked.

"Is it good?"

"They say it's real good. Addie Green's been reading it."

Flora wore a bright blue cambric dress and a brown straw hat. Her figure was stout and high-shouldered, her dull-complexioned face full of placid force. She was not very young, and she looked much older than she was; and people had wondered how George Freeman, who was handsome and much courted by the girls, as well as younger than she, had come to marry her. They also wondered how her mother, who had been so bitterly opposed to the match, had given in, and was now living so amicably with the young couple; they had been on the alert for a furious village feud. But when Flora and her husband had returned from their stolen wedding tour, Mrs. Maxwell had met them at the depot and bidden them home with her with vociferous ardor, and the next Sunday Flora had gone to church in the new silk. There had been a conflict of two wills, and one had covered its defeat with a parade of victory. Mrs. Maxwell had talked a great deal about her daughter's marriage and how well she had done.

"There's a thunder-shower coming up," Flora said after a little.

"Where's your aunt?"

"Gone berrying."

"She'll get caught in the shower if she don't look out. What makes you work so steady this hot day, Lois?"

"I've got to get this done."

"There isn't any need of your working so hard."

Lois said nothing.

"If your aunt ain't willing to do for you it's time you had somebody else to," persisted Flora. "I wish I had had the money on your account. I wouldn't have let you work so. You look better than you did when you came here, but you look tired. I heard somebody else say so the other day."

Flora said the last with a meaning smile.

Lois blushed.

"Yes, I did," Flora repeated. "I don't suppose you can guess who 'twas?"

Lois said nothing; she bent her hot face closer over her work.

"See here, Lois," said Flora. She hesitated with her eyes fixed warily on Lois; then she went on: "What makes you treat Francis so queer lately?"

"I didn't know I had," replied Lois, evasively.

"You don't treat him a bit the way you did at first."

"I don't know what you mean, Flora."

"Well, if you don't, it's no matter," returned Flora. "Francis hasn't said anything about it to me; you needn't think he has. All is, you'll never find a better fellow than he is, Lois Field, I don't care where you go."

Flora spoke with slow warmth. Lois's face quivered. "If you don't take care you'll never get married at all," said Flora, half laughing.

Lois sat up straight. "I shall never get married to anybody," said she. "That's one thing I won't do. I'll die first."