The moment he was within hailing distance he began his complaint, heedless even of the courtesy of a greeting. He declared he was too exhausted to take another step; that he had lost his wife, and he asked if Nannie had seen her.
"Oh, Mr. Seymour! Hilda--Hilda--is--at my house--dead."
"Dead!" he fairly screamed.
"No, dying."
He started toward the house with the speed of the wind, but Nannie stopped him.
"Don"t!" she exclaimed. "Wait! Oh, I"m so excited I"m all mixed up!
She"s had an awful spell, but she"s better now; but you mustn"t startle her. Something"s the matter with her heart. It was beating like a sledge-hammer--an awful spell."
"Oh, if she dies, who"ll take care of me? What shall I do?"
And he wrung his weak little hands.
"She won"t die, I guess, if we take good care of her. Oh, it"s awful to have anything of this kind happen when you"re out in the country miles from a doctor."
"And I have been crazy enough to rent a cottage in the Adirondacks!"
Nannie looked at him solemnly and said:
"Oh!"
"I"ll let it stand idle! Hilda might die up there! I never thought of such a thing, she looks so well. And _I_ might be taken worse," he gasped as one who suddenly realized a still more awful possibility.
"It would never do for us to go up there."
Nannie looked still more solemn and said:
"Oh, no."
By this time they had reached the house, and Mr. Seymour was tiptoeing about, getting out one remedy after another for his prostrate wife, who feebly a.s.sured him she was better. By the time he had given her smelling salts, a little port, a whiff of ammonia, some soda and water, a smell of camphor, and had bathed her forehead in Florida water, alcohol, witch-hazel, and rubbed it with camphor ice and a menthol pencil, the case began to look really serious, and Hilda was honestly ill.
She lay on the divan, perspiring and uncomfortable, uneasy in conscience and timorous as to results, until near evening, when her husband, with many a misgiving, took her away in a carriage--not to the Adirondacks.
Nannie watched until they were out of sight, and when she turned she saw Steve coming, and in her swift way contrasted him with DeLancy Seymour.
That evening after dinner, without a word of explanation to her husband, Nannie walked off to the house of her cousin, Mr. Misfit.
Now, Steve was by this time somewhat accustomed to her eccentric ways and seldom questioned them, nor did he realize that they were eccentric. He had grown up knowing very little of women and regarding them as a peculiar cla.s.s, which no doubt they are. Indeed, his rural experiences, not only with his wife, but also with the hens and with Sarah Maria, had tended toward the inclusion of the entire s.e.x under the head incomprehensible, and he was inclined to treat them like difficult words, which we point at from a distance without attempting to grapple.
He might have maintained this let-alone att.i.tude indefinitely but for a growing sense of the total depravity of vegetable sins and a realization of his miserable insufficiency as a combatant. Naturally, in looking about him for a.s.sistance he thought of her who should be his help-meet, and mentally began to question her continual absence from home. This evening he was feeling a little more tired than usual, and an ill-selected luncheon in town had depressed him. When he found that the weeds were likely to overpower him he arose and decided that Nannie must be called upon. She was not at home, but he could fetch her. To be sure that might not be easy, but Steve was now fully roused. Prolonged warfare had developed in his nature a trace of pugilism hitherto unsuspected by his nearest friend. Every man has more or less of the warrior within him. It may be asleep, but it is there, and Steve was no exception.
A short walk brought him to the house of Nannie"s cousin, and there he found the lady for whom he was seeking.
"Are you going home now, Nannie?" he asked in his usual gentle way.
Nannie looked into his face and saw something new, and it roused her opposition.
"No," she said.
Now, Steve had read Ian Maclaren"s story of the wretched beadle who, newly inflated, but not profited, by his lonely wedding journey to a Presbyterian synod, resolved to experiment in the exercise of authority upon his bride. But, alas! he had read to his destruction.
He remembered with what majesty the beadle said:
"Rebecca, close the door."
But he did not remember what Rebecca did, and hence had no better sense than to say this evening, with a quiet firmness new to his domestic use:
"I should like to have you go home now, Nannie. There are matters that need your attention."
Nannie rose at once and walked home without a word, Steve accompanying her. By the time they got there a young moon was sinking in the west, and with the curiosity common to extreme youth it strained its eyes to see through the trees what Nannie would do.
"The radishes and lettuce need weeding," said Steve when they reached the garden, and Nannie walked directly to these beds and went to work, while Steve occupied himself at a little distance.
Before long old Hayseed came up and leaned upon the fence.
"Well, neighbor," he said, "what are ye doin" by moonlight?"
Nannie stood erect and looked at him. Her black eyes fairly scintillated and her lips were compressed. All around her were scattered the uprooted weeds, and the lettuce and radishes lay with them.
"What crop air ye raisin" now?" he asked.
"I"m raising Cain!" she said.
VIII
Spite is a whip that cracks at both ends, and the rear lash inflicts by far the sharper sting. Nannie felt its full force when she arose early the next morning after the sowing of her peculiar crop, and looking from the window saw the sad traces of her work lying upon the ground. The evening before she had walked into the house tingling with ign.o.ble triumph, but this morning she felt nothing but shame as she speculated on Steve"s att.i.tude. Possibly--this flashed across her mind--Steve had not seen her work, and she might plant those wretched things again before he wakened. But this poor solace was denied her, for on peeping into Steve"s room she saw that he was already up. Where was he? Not working in the garden as usual; off--somewhere.
In her ignorance of character such as his and in the newness of her emotions, for Nannie was not used to contribution, she exaggerated matters and fancied that Steve, thoroughly disgusted with her conduct (as well he might be), had walked off and left her. The sharpness of her terror as she conceived such a possibility took even herself by surprise. Until this moment it had never entered her mind that she might love her husband. Even now she did not fully comprehend the meaning of her unusual emotion. She only knew that she felt shame-stricken over what she had done and terrified before possible consequences.
Her fears, however, were without substantial foundation. Steve had not as yet seen the uprooted garden, and consequently was still ignorant of her ill-humor. Long confinement to a work for which he was unfitted had worn upon him, and he felt the need of rest and change. As of old, in his weariness he looked to the woods and streams for refreshment, for although poorly adapted to the wringing of his daily bread from the soil, he was nevertheless exquisitely keyed to the harmonies of Nature, and her touch upon his soul was life.
It had been long since he had taken an early morning tramp. In the city his midnight retirement forbade the snapping of his hours of rest at dawn, but now that his life was ordered somewhat differently, he could afford himself the luxury of a sunrise.
With this plan in mind he retired early after setting the hand of his clock at the hour of four.
The alarm went off with a furious bur-r-r that brought him on his feet through sheer astonishment. He had not been wakened in such summary fashion since his last hunting trip, years and years ago. After staring at the still whirring clock for a moment as he sat on the edge of his bed stupid with astonishment, he collected himself and began a hasty toilet. He experienced something of a boy"s glee as he donned his clothes, and when he crept softly downstairs and unbarred the house door, he seemed to be reviving some of his boyish escapades.
It was not difficult to reach the woods, for the little suburb was embraced by these primitive arms, and it was like a child"s running to a waiting mother to go out to them. He took no road or given path for a time, merely tramping through the underbrush that tangled the woodland; along the edges of ravines; down into their shadowy depths; up again; now breaking through the bramble out into the open on the edge of the bluff that skirts the lake; then bounding back again, like a rabbit running to covert. He inhaled with delight the dampness that rose from the ground and from the vegetation about him. In the spring, and in the early summer there is something so hopeful, so suggestive of awakening life in that fragrant moisture, that it seems to call forth an answering energy. Steve felt its significance in full force, and fairly thrilled with delight as it permeated his being.
Now he was out again, following the sweep of the bluff and looking eastward over the big waters. Some days the sun appeared there in regal splendor, but on this particular morning there was a delicacy about the picture suggestive of the careful work on one of Turner"s loveliest. There was no gorgeous red, no blazing gold, but tints as exquisite as those seen in the heart of an abalone sh.e.l.l--still lakes of sea-green feathered about by a fleecy white just touched with the yellow of the daisy; lambent wings of gray, kissed into a roseate hue as they spread outward and upward toward the zenith; and the expectant waters on the lake trembling "neath their answering pink.
Steve stood and faced it all, hat in hand. His locks were stirred by the slight fresh breeze that came over the lake, and something else was stirred within him. There was a fine look on his face. The physical had disappeared. He no longer felt that strong animal buoyancy akin to the strength of the wild horse as he courses the prairies, but his soul was answering "Here" to the call from the skies.
He turned by-and-by and walked onward in a still mood--the receptive mood into which G.o.d sows rare seed. He was walking away from the sunrise now out toward the Skokie, that great bog, but he could see the west flushing with delight--could see the windows of a cottage far ahead blazing with reflected glory.