Dust

"Martin, I"ve given in to you on everything else," she a.s.serted firmly.

"I"m not going to give this up. I"ll pay for it out of my own money."

"What do you mean "out of my own money"?" he asked sternly. "I told Osborne we"d run one account. If what is mine is going to be yours, what is yours is going to be mine. I"d think your own sense of fairness would tell you that."

As a matter of fact, Martin had no intention of ever touching Rose"s little capital, but he had made up his mind to direct the spending of its income. He would keep her from putting it into just such foolishnesses as this fireplace. But Rose, listening, saw the last of her independence going. She felt tricked, outraged. During the years she had been at the head of her father"s household, she had regulated the family budget and, no matter how small it had happened to be, she always had contrived to have a surplus. This notion of Martin"s that he, and he alone, should decide upon expenditures was ridiculous. She told him so and in spite of himself, he was impressed.

"All right," he said calmly. "You can do all the buying for the house.

Write a check with my name and sign your own initials. Get what you think we need. But there isn"t going to be any fireplace. You can just set that down."

Voice, eyes, the line of his chin, all told Rose that he would not yield. Nothing could be gained from a quarrel except deeper ill feeling.

With a supreme effort of will she obeyed the dictates of common sense and ended the argument abruptly.

But, for months after she was settled in the new little house, her eye never fell on the s.p.a.ce where the fireplace should have been without a bitter feeling of revolt sweeping over her. She never carried a heavy bucket in from the pump without thinking cynically of Martin"s promises of running water. As she swept the dust out of her front and back doors to narrow steps, she remembered the s.p.a.cious porches that were to have been; and as she wiped the floors she had painted herself, and polished her pine furniture, she was taunted by memories of the smooth boards and the golden oak to which she had once looked forward so happily. This resentment was seldom expressed, but its flame scorched her soul.

Her work increased steadily. She did not object to this; it kept her from thinking and brooding; it helped her to forget all that might have been, all that was. She milked half the cows, separated the cream, took charge of the dairy house and washed all the cans. Three times a week she churned, and her b.u.t.ter became locally famous. She took over completely both the chickens and the garden. Often, because her feet ached from being on them such long hours, she worked barefoot in the soft dirt. According to the season, she canned vegetables, preserved fruit, rendered lard and put down pork. When she sat at meals now, like Martin she was too tired for conversation. From the time she arose in the morning until she dropped off to sleep at night, her thoughts, like his, were chiefly of immediate duties to be performed. One concept dominated their household--work. It seemed to offer the only way out of life"s perplexities.

IV. ROSE-BUD IN THE DUST

UNDER this rigid regime Martin"s prosperity increased. Although he would not have admitted it, Rose"s good cooking and the sweet, fresh cleanliness with which he was surrounded had their effect, giving him a new sense of physical well-being, making his mind more alert. Always, he had been a hard worker, but now he began for the first time to take an interest in the scientific aspects of farming. He subscribed for farm journals and put real thought into all he did, with results that were gratifying. He grew the finest crop of wheat for miles around; in the season which brought others a yield of fifteen or twenty bushels to the acre, Martin averaged thirty-three, without buying a ton of commercial fertilizer. His corn was higher than anybody"s else; the ears longer, the stalks juicier, because of his careful, intelligent cultivating. In the driest season, it resisted the hot winds; this, he explained, was the result of his knowing how to prepare his seed bed and when to plant--moisture could be retained if the soil was handled scientifically. He bought the spoiled acreage of his neighbors, which he cut up for the silo--as yet the only one in the county--adding water to help fermentation. His imported hogs seemed to justify the prices he paid for them, growing faster and rounder and fatter than any in the surrounding county. The chinch bugs might bother everyone else, but Martin seemed to be able to guard against them with fair success. He took correspondence courses in soils and fertilizers, animal husbandry and every related subject; kept a steady stream of letters flowing to and from both Washington and the State Agricultural College.

Now and then it crossed his mind that with the farm developing into such an inst.i.tution it would be more than desirable to pa.s.s it on to one of his own blood, and secretly he was pleased when Rose told him a baby was coming. A child, a son, might bring with him a little of what was missing in his marriage with her. She irritated him more and more, not by what she did but by what she was. Her whole temperament, in so much as he permitted himself to be aware of it, her whole nature, jarred on his.

"When is it due?"

"October."

"It"s lucky harvest will be over; silo filling, too," was his only comment.

In spite of Rose"s three long years with Martin his lack of enthusiasm was like a sharp stab. What had she expected, she asked herself sternly.

To be taken in his arms and rejoiced over as others were at such a moment? What did he care so long as he wouldn"t have to hire extra help for her in the busy season! It was incredible--his hardness.

Why couldn"t she hate him? He was mean enough to her, surely. "I"m as foolish as old Rover," she thought bitterly. The faithful dog lived for his master and yet Rose could not remember ever having seen Martin give him a pat. "When I once hold my own little baby in my arms, I won"t care like this. I"ll have someone else to fill my heart," she consoled herself, thrilling anew with the conviction that then she would be more than recompensed for everything. The love she had missed, the house that had been stolen from her--what were they in comparison to this growing bit of life? Meanwhile, she longed as never before to feel near to Martin. She could not help recalling how gallantly her father had watched over her mother when she carried her last child and how eagerly they all had waited upon her. At times, the contrast was scarcely to be borne.

Rose was troubled with nausea, but Martin pooh-poohed, as childish, the notion of dropping some of her responsibilities. Didn"t his mares work almost to the day of foaling? It was good for them, keeping them in shape. And the cows--didn"t they go about placidly until within a few hours of bringing their calves? Even the sows--did they droop as they neared farrowing? Why should a woman be so different? Her child would be healthier and she able to bring it into the world with less discomfort to herself if she went about her ordinary duties in her usual way. Thus Martin, impersonally, logically.

"That would be true," Rose agreed, "if the work weren"t so heavy and if I were younger."

"It"s the work you"re used to doing all the time, isn"t it? Because you aren"t young is all the more reason you need the exercise. You"re not going to hire extra help, so you might just as well get any to-do out of your mind," he retorted, the dreaded note in his voice.

She considered leaving him. If she had earned her living before, she could again. More than once she had thought of doing this, but always the hope of a child had shone like a tiny bright star through the midnight of her trials. Since she had endured so much, why not endure a little longer and reap a dear reward? Then, too, she could never quite bring herself to face the pictures her imagination conjured of Martin, struggling along uncared for. Now, as her heart hardened against him, an inner voice whispered that everyone had a right to a father as well as a mother, and Martin might be greatly softened by daily contact with a little son or daughter. In fairness, she must wait.

Yet, she knew these were not her real reasons. They lay far deeper, in the very warp and woof of her nature. She did not leave Martin because she could not. She was incapable of making drastic changes, of tearing herself from anyone to whom she was tied by habit and affection--no matter how bitterly the mood of the moment might demand it. Always she would be bound by circ.u.mstances. True, however hard and adverse they might prove, she could adapt herself to them with rare patience and dignity, but never would she be able to compel them to her will, rise superbly above them, toss them aside. Her life had been, and would be, shaped largely by others. Her mother"s death, the particular enterprise in which her father"s little capital had been invested, Martin"s peculiar temperament--these had moulded and were moulding Rose Wade. At the time she came to Martin"s shack, she was potentially any one of a half dozen women. It was inevitable that the particular one into which she would evolve should be determined by the type of man she might happen to marry, inevitable that she would become, to a large degree, what he wished and expected, that her thoughts would take on the complexion of his. Lacking in strength of character? In power of resistance, certainly. Time out of mind, such malleability has been the cross of the Magdalenes. Yet in what else lies the secret of the harmony achieved by successful wives?

And as, her nausea pa.s.sing, Rose began to feel a glorious sensation of vigor, she decided that perhaps, after all, Martin had been right.

Child-bearing was a natural function. People probably made far too much fuss about it. Nellie came to help her cook for the threshers and, for the rest, she managed very well, even milking her usual eight cows and carrying her share of the foaming buckets.

All might have gone smoothly if only she had not overslept one morning in late September. When she reached the barn, Martin was irritable. She did not answer him but sat down quietly by her first cow, a fine-blooded animal which soon showed signs of restlessness under her tense hands.

"There! There! So Bossy," soothed Rose gently.

"You never will learn how to manage good stock," Martin criticized bitingly.

"Nor you how to treat a wife."

"Oh, shut up."

"Don"t talk to me that way."

As she started to rise, a kick from the cow caught her square on the stomach with such force that it sent her staggering backward, still clutching the handle of the pail from which a snowy stream cascaded.

"Now what have you done?" demanded Martin sternly. "Haven"t I warned you time and again that milk cows are sensitive, nervous? Fidgety people drive them crazy. Why can"t you behave simply and directly with them!

Why is it I always get more milk from mine! It"s your own fault this happened--fussing around, taking out your ill temper at me on her.

Shouting at me. What could you expect?"

For the first time in their life together, Rose was frankly unnerved. It seemed to her that she would go mad. "You devil!" she burst out, wildly.

"That"s what you are, Martin Wade! You"re not human. Your child may be lost and you talk about cows letting down more milk. Oh G.o.d! I didn"t know there was any one living who could be so cruel, so cold, so diabolical. You"ll be punished for this some day--you will--you will.

You don"t love me--never did, oh, don"t I know it. But some time you will love some one. Then you"ll understand what it is to be treated like this when your whole soul is in need of tenderness. You"ll see then what--"

"Oh, shut up," growled Martin, somewhat abashed by the violence of her broken words and gasping sobs. "You"re hysterical. You"re doing yourself as much harm right now as that kick did you."

"Oh, Martin, please be kind," pleaded Rose more quietly. "Please! It"s your baby as much as mine. Be just half as kind as you are to these cows."

"They have more sense," he retorted angrily. And when Rose woke him, the following night, to go for the doctor, his quick exclamation was: "So now you"ve done it, have you?"

As the sound of his horse"s hoofs died away, it seemed to her that he had taken the very heart out of her courage. She thought with anguished envy of the women whose husbands loved them, for whom the heights and depths of this ordeal were as real as for their wives. It seemed to her that even the severest of pain could be wholly bearable if, in the midst of it, one felt cherished. Well, she would go through it alone as she had gone through everything else since their marriage. She would try to forget Martin. She WOULD forget him. She must. She would keep her mind fixed on the deep joy so soon to be hers. Had she not chosen to suffer of her own free will, because the little creature that could be won only through it was worth so much more than anything else the world had to offer? She imagined the baby already arrived and visualized him as she hoped her child might be at two years. Suppose he were in a burning house, would she have the courage to rescue him? What would be the limit of her endurance in the flames? She laughed to herself at the absurdity of the question. How well she knew its answer! She wished with pa.s.sionate intensity that she could look into the magic depths of some fairy mirror and see, for just the flash of one instant, exactly how her boy or girl really would look. How much easier that would make it to hold fast to the consciousness that she was not merely in pain, but was laboring to bring forth a warm flesh-and-blood child. There was the rub--in spite of her eagerness, the little one, so priceless, wasn"t as yet quite definite, real. She recalled the rosy-checked, curly-haired youngster her fancy had created a moment ago. She would cling to that picture; yes, even if her pain mounted to agony, it should be of the body only; she would not let it get into her mind, not into her soul, not into the welcoming mother-heart of her.

Meanwhile, as she armored her spirit, she built a fire, put on water to heat, attended capably to innumerable details. Rose was a woman of sound experience. She had been with others at such times. It held no goblin terrors for her. Had it not been for Martin"s heartlessness, she would have felt wholly equal to the occasion. As it was, she made little commotion. Dr. Bradley, gentle and direct, had been the Conroys" family physician for years. Nellie, who arrived in an hour, had been through the experience often herself, and was friendly and helpful.

She liked Rose, admired her tremendously and the thought--an odd one for Nellie--crossed her mind that tonight she was downright beautiful. When at dawn, Dr. Bradley whispered: "She has been so brave, Mrs. Mall, I can"t bear to tell her the child is not alive. Wouldn"t it be better for you to do so?" She shrank from the task. "I can"t; I simply can"t," she protested, honest tears pouring down her thin face.

"Could you, Mr. Wade?"

Martin strode into Rose"s room, all his own disappointment adding bitterness to his words: "Well, I knew you"d done it and you have. It"s a fine boy, but he came dead."

Out of the dreariness and the toil, out of the hope, the suffering and the high courage had come--nothing. As Rose lay, the little still form clasped against her, she was too broken for tears. Life had played her another trick. Indignation toward Martin gathered volume with her returning strength.

"You don"t deserve a child," she told him bitterly. "You might treat him when he grew up as you treat me."

"I"ve never laid hand to you," said Martin gruffly, certain stinging words of Nellie"s still smarting. When she chose, his sister"s tongue could be waspish. She had tormented him with it all the way to her home.

He had been goaded into flaring back and both had been thoroughly angry when they separated, yet he was conscious that he came nearer a feeling of affection for her than for any living person. Well, not affection, precisely, he corrected. It was rather that he relished, with a quizzical amus.e.m.e.nt, the completeness of their mutual comprehension. She was growing to be more like their mother, too. Decidedly, this was the type of woman he should have married, not someone soft and eager and full of silly sentiment like Rose. Why didn"t she hold her own as Nellie did? Have more snap and stamina? It was exasperating--the way she frequently made him feel as if he actually were trampling on something defenseless.

He now frankly hated her. There was not dislike merely; there was acute antipathy. He took a delight in having her work harder and harder. It used to be "Rose," but now it was always "say" or "you" or "hey." Once she asked cynically if he had ever heard of a "Rose of Sharon" to which he maliciously replied: "She turned out to be a Rag-weed."

Yet such a leveller of emotions and an adjuster of disparate dispositions is Time that when they rounded their fourth year, Martin viewed his life, with a few reservations, as fairly satisfactory. He turned the matter over judicially in his mind and concluded that even though he cared not a jot for Rose, at least he could think of no other woman who could carry a larger share of the drudgery in their dusty lives, help save more and, on the whole, bother him less. He, like his rag-weed, had settled down to an apathetic jog.

Rose was convinced that Martin would make too unkind a father; he had no wish for another taste of the general confusion and disorganized routine her confinement had entailed. Besides, it would be inconvenient if she were to die, as Dr. Bradley quite solemnly had warned him she might only too probably. Without any exchange of words, it was settled there should not be another child--settled, he dismissed it. In a way, he had come to appreciate Rose, but it was absurd to compliment anyone, let alone a wife whom he saw constantly. Physically, she did not interest him; in fact, the whole business bored him. It was tiresome and got one nowhere.