"Poor child!" she murmured. "The Warham men"s hard. But then all the men"s hard. Poor child." And gently she kissed the girl"s flushed cheek. "And she never had no mother, nor nothing." She sighed, gradually lowered the flame of the little old gla.s.s lamp, blew it out, and went noiselessly from the room, closing the door behind her.
CHAPTER IX
SUSAN sat up in bed suddenly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
It was broad day, and the birds were making a mighty clamor. She gazed round, astonished that it was not her own room. Then she remembered. But it was as a child remembers; for when we have the sense of perfect physical well-being we cannot but see our misfortunes with the child"s sense of unreality--and Susan had not only health but youth, was still in the child stage of the period between childhood and womanhood. She lay down again, with the feeling that so long as she could stay in that comfortable bed, with the world shut out, just so long would all be well with her. Soon, however, the restlessness of all nature under the stimulus and heat of that brilliant day communicated itself to her vigorous young body. For repose and inaction are as foreign to healthy life as death itself, of which they are the symptoms; and if ever there was an intense and vivid life, Susan had it. She got up and dressed, and leaned from the window, watching the two-horse reaper in the wheat fields across the hollow of the pasture, and listening to its faint musical whirr.
The cows which had just been milked were moving sedately through the gate into the pasture, where the bull, under a tree, was placidly awaiting them. A boy, in huge straw hat and a blue cotton shirt and linsey woolsey trousers rolled high upon his brown bare legs, was escorting the herd.
Her aunt in fresh, blue, checked calico came in. "Wouldn"t you like some breakfast?" said she. And Susan read in her manner that the men were out of the way.
"No, I don"t feel hungry," Susan replied.
She thought this was true; but when she was at the table she ate almost as heartily as she had the night before. As Susan ate she gazed out into the back yard of the house, where chickens of all sizes, colors and ages were peering and picking about. Through the fence of the kitchen garden she saw Lew, the farm hand, digging potatoes. There were ripening beans on tall poles, and in the farther part the forming heads of cabbages, the sprouting melon vines, the beautiful fresh green of the just springing garden corn. The window through which she was looking was framed in morning glories and hollyhocks, and over by the garden gate were on the one side a clump of elders, on the other the hardy graceful stalks of gaudily spreading sunflowers. Bees flew in and out, and one lighted upon the dish of honey in the comb that went so well with the hot biscuit.
She rose and wandered out among the chickens, to pick up little fluffy youngsters one after another, and caress them, to look in the henhouse itself, where several hens were sitting with the pensive expression that accompanies the laying of eggs. She thought of those other hens, less conventional, who ran away to lay in secret places in the weeds, to acc.u.mulate a store against the time when the setting instinct should possess them.
She thought of those cannier, less docile hens and laughed. She opened a gate into the barnyard, intending to go to the barn for a look at the horses, taking in the duck pond and perhaps the pigs on the way. Her Uncle George"s voice arrested her.
"Susan," he cried. "Come here."
She turned and looked wistfully at him. The same harsh, unforgiving countenance--mean with anger and petty thoughts. As she moved hesitatingly toward him he said, "You are not to go out of the yard." And he reentered the house. What a mysterious cruel world! Could it be the same world she had lived in so happily all the years until a few days ago--the same she had always found "G.o.d"s beautiful world," full of gentleness and kindness?
And why had it changed? What was this sin that after a long sleep in her mother"s grave had risen to poison everyone against her? And why had it risen? It was all beyond her.
She strolled wretchedly within bounds, with a foreboding of impending evil. She watched Lew in the garden; she got her aunt to let her help with the churning--drive the dasher monotonously up and down until the b.u.t.ter came; then she helped work the b.u.t.ter, helped gather the vegetables for dinner, did everything and anything to keep herself from thinking. Toward eleven o"clock her Uncle Zeke appeared in the dining-room, called his wife from the kitchen. Susan felt that at last something was to happen. After a long time her aunt returned; there were all the evidences of weeping in her face.
"You"d better go to your room and straighten it up," she said without looking at the girl. "The thing has aired long enough, I reckon. . . . And you"d better stay up there till I call you."
Susan had finished the room, was about to unpack the heavy-laden shawl strap and shake the wrinkles out of the skirts, folded away for two days now. She heard the sound of a horse"s hoofs, went to the window. A young man whom she recognized as one of her Uncle Zeke"s tenants was. .h.i.tching to the horse block a well-set-up young mare drawing a species of broad-seated breaking sulky. He had a handsome common face, a wavy black mustache. She remembered that his name was Ferguson--Jeb Ferguson, and that he was working on shares what was known as "the creek-bottom farm," which began about a mile and a half away, straight down the pasture hollow. He glanced up at the window, raised his black slouch hat, and nodded with the self-conscious, self-a.s.sured grin of the desired of women. She tried to return this salute with a pleasant smile. He entered the gate and she heard his boots upon the front steps.
Now away across the hollow another figure appeared--a man on horseback coming through the wheat fields. He was riding toward the farther gate of the pasture at a leisurely dignified pace.
She had only made out that he had abundant whiskers when the sound of a step upon the stairs caused her to turn. As that step came nearer her heart beat more and more wildly. Her wide eyes fixed upon the open door of the room. It was her Uncle George.
"Sit down," he said as he reached the threshold. "I want to talk to you."
She seated herself, with hands folded in her lap. Her head was aching from the beat of the blood in her temples.
"Zeke and I have talked it over," said Warham. "And we"ve decided that the only thing to do with you is to get you settled. So in a few minutes now you"re going to be married."
Her lack of expression showed that she did not understand. In fact, she could only feel--feel the cruel, contemptuous anger of that voice which all her days before had caressed her.
"We"ve picked out a good husband for you," Warham continued.
"It"s Jeb Ferguson."
Susan quivered. "I--I don"t want to," she said.
"It ain"t a question of what you want," retorted Warham roughly.
He was twenty-four hours and a night"s sleep away from his first fierce outblazing of fury--away from the influence of his wife and his daughter. If it had not been for his brother Zeke, narrow and cold, the event might have been different. But Zeke was there to keep his "sense of duty" strong. And that he might nerve himself and hide and put down any tendency to be a "soft-hearted fool"--a tendency that threatened to grow as he looked at the girl--the child--he a.s.sumed the roughest manner he could muster.
"It ain"t a question of what you want," he repeated. "It"s a question of what"s got to be done, to save my family and you, too--from disgrace. We ain"t going to have any more b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in this family."
The word meant nothing to the girl. But the sound of it, as her uncle p.r.o.nounced it, made her feel as though the blood were drying up in her veins.
"We ain"t going to take any chances," pursued Warham, less roughly; for now that he had looked the situation full and frankly in the face, he had no nerve to brace himself. The necessity of what he was prepared to do and to make her do was too obvious. "Ferguson"s here, and Zeke saw the preacher we sent for riding in from the main road. So I"ve come to tell you. If you"d like to fix up a little, why your Aunt Sallie"ll be here in a minute. You want to pray G.o.d to make you a good wife. And you ought to be thankful you have sensible relations to step in and save you from yourself."
Susan tried to speak; her voice died in her throat. She made another effort. "I don"t want to," she said.
"Then what do you want to do--tell me that!" exclaimed her uncle, rough again. For her manner was very moving, the more so because there was none of the usual appeal to pity and to mercy.
She was silent.
"There isn"t anything else for you to do."
"I want to--to stay here."
"Do you think Zeke"d harbor you--when you"re about certain to up and disgrace us as your mother did?"
"I haven"t done anything wrong," said the girl dully.
"Don"t you dare lie about that!"
"I"ve seen Ruth do the same with Artie Sinclair--and all the girls with different boys."
"You miserable girl!" cried her uncle.
"I never heard it was so dreadful to let a boy kiss you."
"Don"t pretend to be innocent. You know the difference between that and what you did!"
Susan realized that when she had kissed Sam she had really loved him. Perhaps that was the fatal difference. And her mother--the sin there had been that she really loved while the man hadn"t.
Yes, it must be so. Ruth"s explanation of these mysteries had been different; but then Ruth had also admitted that she knew little about the matter--and Susan most doubted the part that Ruth had a.s.sured her was certainly true.
"I didn"t know," said Susan to her uncle. "n.o.body ever told me.
I thought we were engaged."
"A good woman don"t need to be told," retorted Warham. "But I"m not going to argue with you. You"ve got to marry."
"I couldn"t do that," said the girl. "No, I couldn"t."
"You"ll either take him or you go back to Sutherland and I"ll have you locked up in the jail till you can be sent to the House of Correction. You can take your choice."
Susan sat looking at her slim brown hands and interlacing her long fingers. The jail! The House of Correction was dreadful enough, for though she had never seen it she had heard what it was for, what kind of boys and girls lived there. But the jail--she had seen the jail, back behind the courthouse, with its air of mystery and of horror. Not h.e.l.l itself seemed such a frightful thing as that jail.
"Well--which do you choose?" said her uncle in a sharp voice.
The girl shivered. "I don"t care what happens to me," she said, and her voice was dull and sullen and hard.