"h.e.l.lo, Zeke," called George. He opened the surrey door. "Get down," he said to the girl, at the same time taking her bundle.
He set it on the horse block beside the gate, took out his pocketbook and paid over the four dollars. "Good-by, Vic," said he pleasantly. "That"s a good team you"ve got."
"Not so coa.r.s.e," said Vic. "Good-by, Mr. Warham." And off he drove.
Zeke Warham had now descended the steps and was opening the front gate, which was evidently as unaccustomed to use as the front door. "Howdy, George," said he. "Ain"t that Susie you"ve got with you?" Like George, Zeke had had an elementary education. But he had married an ignorant woman, and had lived so long among his farm hands and tenants that he used their mode of speech.
"Yes, it"s Susie," said George, shaking hands with his brother.
"Howdy, Susie," said Zeke, shaking hands with her. "I see you"ve got your things with you. Come to stay awhile?"
George interrupted. "Susan, go up on the porch and take your bundle."
The girl took up the shawl strap and went to the front door. She leaned upon the railing of the stoop and watched the two men standing at the gate. George was talking to his brother in a low tone. Occasionally the brother uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. She could not hear; their heads were so turned that she could not see their faces. The moon made it almost as bright as day. From the pasture woods came a low, sweet chorus of night life--frogs and insects and occasionally a night bird. From the orchard to the left and the clover fields beyond came a wonderful scented breeze. She heard a step in the hall; her Aunt Sallie appeared--a comfortable, voluble woman, a hard worker and a harder eater and showing it in thin hair and wrinkled face.
"Why, Susie Lenox, ain"t that you?" she exclaimed.
"Yes, Aunt," said Susan.
Her aunt kissed her, diffusing that earthy odor which is the basis of the smell of country persons. At various hours of the day this odor would be modified with the smell of cow stables, of chickens, of cooking, according to immediate occupation. But whatever other smell there was, the earthy smell persisted. And it was the smell of the house, too.
"Who"s at the gate with your Uncle Zeke?" inquired Sallie.
"Ain"t it George?"
"Yes," said Susan.
"Why don"t he come in?" She raised her voice. "George, ain"t you coming in?"
"Howdy, Sallie," called George. "You take the girl in. Zeke and I"ll be along."
"Some business, I reckon," said her aunt to Susan. "Come on.
Have you had supper?"
"No," said Susan. She was hungry now. The splendid health of the girl that had calmed her torment of soul into a dull ache was clamoring for food--food to enable her body to carry her strong and enduring through whatever might befall.
"I"ll set something out for you," said Sallie. "Come right in.
You might leave your bundle here by the parlor door. We"ll put you in the upstairs room."
They pa.s.sed the front stairway, went back through the hall, through the big low-ceilinged living-room with its vast fireplace now covered for the warm season by a screen of flowered wallpaper. They were in the plain old dining-room with its smaller fireplace and its big old-fashioned cupboards built into the wall on either side of the projecting chimney-piece.
"There ain"t much," resumed Sallie. "But I reckon you kin make out."
On the gayly patterned table cover she set an array of substantial plates and gla.s.ses. From various cupboards in dining-room and adjoining kitchen she a.s.sembled a gla.s.s pitcher of sweet milk, a gla.s.s pitcher of b.u.t.termilk, a plate of cold cornbread, a platter of cold fried chicken, a dish of golden b.u.t.ter, a pan of cold fried potatoes, a jar of preserved crab apples and another of peach b.u.t.ter. Susan watched with hungry eyes. She was thinking of nothing but food now. Her aunt looked at her and smiled.
"My, but you"re shootin" up!" she exclaimed, admiring the girl"s tall, straight figure. "And you don"t seem to get stringy and bony like so many, but keep nice and round. Do set down."
"I--I think I"ll wait until Uncle George comes."
"Nothing of the kind!" She pushed a wooden chair before one of the two plates she had laid. "I see you"ve still got that lovely skin. And how tasty you dress! Now, do set!"
Susan seated herself.
"Pitch right in, child," urged Sallie. "How"s yer aunt and her Ruth?"
"They"re--they"re well, thank you."
"Do eat!"
"No," said Susan. "I"ll wait for Uncle."
"Never mind your manners. I know you"re starved." Then seeing that the girl would not eat, she said, "Well, I"ll go fetch him."
But Susan stopped her. "Please please don"t," she entreated.
Sallie stared to oppose; then, arrested by the intense, appealing expression in those violet-gray eyes, so beautifully shaded by dark lashes and brows, she kept silent, bustled aimlessly about, boiling with suddenly aroused curiosity. It was nearly half an hour by the big square wooden clock on the chimney-piece when Susan heard the steps of her two uncles. Her hunger fled; the deathly sickness surged up again. She trembled, grew ghastly in the yellow lamplight. Her hands clutched each other in her lap.
"Why, Susie!" cried her aunt. "Whatever is the matter of you!"
The girl lifted her eyes to her aunt"s face the eyes of a wounded, suffering, horribly suffering animal. She rose, rushed out of the door into the yard, flung herself down on the gra.s.s. But still she could not get the relief of tears. After a while she sat up and listened. She heard faintly the voices of her uncle and his relatives. Presently her aunt came out to her.
She hid her face in her arm and waited for the new harshness to strike.
"Get up and come in, Susie." The voice was kind, was pitying--not with the pity that galls, but with the pity of one who understands and feels and is also human, the pity that soothes. At least to this woman she was not outcast.
The girl flung herself down again and sobbed--poured out upon the bosom of our mother earth all the torrents of tears that had been damming up within her. And Sallie knelt beside her and patted her now and then, with a "That"s right. Cry it out, sweetie."
When tears and sobs subsided Sallie lifted her up, walked to the house with her arm round her. "Do you feel better?"
"Some," admitted Susan.
"The men folks have went. So we kin be comfortable. After you"ve et, you"ll feel still better."
George Warham had made a notable inroad upon the food and drink.
But there was an abundance left. Susan began with a hesitating sipping at a gla.s.s of milk and nibbling at one of the generous cubes of old-fashioned cornbread. Soon she was busy. It delighted Sallie to see her eat. She pressed the preserves, the chicken, the cornbread upon her. "I haven"t eaten since early this morning," apologized the girl.
"That means a big hole to fill," observed Sallie. "Try this b.u.t.termilk."
But Susan could hold no more.
"I reckon you"re pretty well tired out," observed Sallie.
"I"ll help you straighten up," said Susan, rising.
"No. Let me take you up to bed--while the men"s still outside."
Susan did not insist. They returned through the empty sitting-room and along the hall. Aunt Sallie took the bundle, and they ascended to the spare bedroom. Sallie showed her into the front room--a damp, earthy odor; a wallpaper with countless reproductions of two little brown girls in a brown swing under a brown tree; a lofty bed, white and tomb-like; some preposterous artificial flowers under gla.s.s on chimney-piece and table; three bright chromos on the walls; "G.o.d Bless Our Home"
in pink, blue and yellow worsted over the door.
"I"ll run down and put the things away," said her aunt. "Then I"ll come back."
Susan put her bundle on the sofa, opened it, found nightgown and toilet articles on top. She looked uncertainly about, rapidly undressed, got into the nightgown. "I"ll turn down the bed and lie on it until Auntie comes," she said to herself. The bed was delightfully cool; the shuck mattress made soft crackling sounds under her and gave out a soothing odor of the fields. Hardly had her head touched the pillow when she fell sound asleep. In a few minutes her aunt came hurrying in, stopped short at sight of that lovely childlike face with the lamplight full upon it. One of Susan"s tapering arms was flung round her dark wavy hair.
Sallie Warham smiled gently. "Bless the baby" she said half aloud. Then her smile faded and a look of sadness and pity came.