"Now, Mr. Mason,--Hiram, I mean,--I"m going to punish myself for my foolish pride. I must have felt very differently then to what I do now.
The more I have seen of you the more I have--admired you." Barbara stopped and took up the hem of her ap.r.o.n and picked at the st.i.tches as though she would ravel them. Then she proceeded, dropping her head lower, "Somehow I hate to say it,--but I"m going to punish myself,--the more I have seen of you the more I have--_liked_ you. It don"t matter much to me now whether your mother likes me or not, and I really don"t seem to care what your sisters think about your loving a poor girl from the country."
"Hush! Don"t talk that way about yourself," said Hiram. But Barbara was so intent on finishing what she had resolved to say that she did not give any heed to him, but only went on pulling and picking at the hem of her ap.r.o.n.
"I only want to know one thing, Mr. Mason, and that is whether you--whether you really and truly want me?" Her face blushed deeply, she caught her breath, her head bowed lower than before, as though trying in vain to escape from Hiram"s steadfast gaze.
"G.o.d only knows how I do love you, Barbara," said Hiram, speaking softly now and letting his eyes rest on the floor.
"Well," said Barbara, "as good a man as you deserves to have what he wants, you know"; and here she smiled faintly. "I"ll put in the dust all the wicked pride that hurts you so." And Barbara made a little gesture.
Then after a moment she began again, stammeringly, "If--if you really want me, Hiram Mason,--why--then--I"ll face anything rather than miss of being yours. Now will that do? And will you forgive me for keeping you in purgatory, as you call it, all this time?" There were tears in her eyes as she spoke; partly of penitence, perhaps, but more than half of happiness.
When she had finished, Mason got up and pushed his chair away and came and sat down on the loom-bench beside her, Barbara making room for him, as for the first time she lifted her eyes timidly to his.
"I"ve been a goose, Barbara, not to understand you before. What a woman you are!"
x.x.xII
THE NEXT MORNING
When Tom waked up the next morning in the gray daybreak, he found that Mason, who should have shared his room, had not come to bed at all. And when Tom came down to uncover the live coals and build up the kitchen fire, he found that the embers had not been covered under the ashes as usual; there were instead smoking sticks of wood that had newly burned in two, the ends having canted over backward outside of the andirons.
The table stood in the floor set with plates and cups and saucers for two, and there were the remains of an early breakfast. There was still heat in the coffee-pot when Tom touched it, and from these signs he read the story of Barbara"s betrothal to Mason; he conjectured that this interview, which was to precede a separation of many months, had been unintentionally protracted until it was near the time for Mason"s departure. The debris of the farewell love-feast, eaten in the silent hour before daybreak, seemed to have a.s.sociations of sentiment. Tom regarded these things and was touched and pleased, but he was also amused. This sitting the night out seemed an odd freak for a couple so tremendously serious and proper as the little sister and the schoolmaster.
An hour later, when Tom, having finished his ch.o.r.es, came in for his breakfast, Barbara had reappeared below stairs with an expression of countenance so demure--so entirely innocent and unconscious--that Tom could not long keep his gravity; before he had fairly begun to eat he broke into a merry, boyish laugh.
"What _are_ you laughing about?" demanded Barbara, looking a little foolish and manifesting a rising irritation, that showed how well she knew the cause of his amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Oh! nothing; but why don"t you eat your breakfast, Barb? You seem to have lost your appet.i.te."
"Don"t tease Barb"ry now," said Mrs. Grayson.
"I"m not teasing," said Tom; "but I declare, Barb, it must have seemed just like going to housekeeping when you two sat down to eat breakfast by yourselves this morning."
"O Tom!" broke in Janet, who couldn"t quite catch the drift of the conversation, "Barbara went to bed with her clothes on last night. When I waked up this morning she was lying on the bed by me with her dress on."
Tom now laughed in his old unrestrained fashion.
"Say, Barbara," Janet went on, "are you going to marry that Mr. Mason that was here yesterday?"
Knowing that she could not get rid of Janet"s inquiries except by answering, Barbara said: "Oh, I suppose so," as she got up to set the pot of coffee back on the trivet and hide a vexation that she knew to be foolish.
"Don"t you _know_ whether you"re going to marry him or not?" put in Janet. "I sh"d think you"d know. And I sh"d think he"d be a real nice husband." Then after a few moments of silence, Janet turned on Tom.
"Tom, who"s _your_ sweetheart?"
"Haven"t got any," said Tom.
"Isn"t that purty girl that was here yesterday your sweetheart?"
"No!"
"Aren"t you _ever_ going to get married?"
"Maybe, some day. Not right off, though."
"I wish you would find a good wife, Tom," said Barbara without looking from her plate. "It would cheer you up." Barbara felt a little guilty at the thought of leaving the brother who had always seemed her chief responsibility.
"Say, Tom, won"t you wait for me?" said Janet, solemnly.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "SAY, TOM, WON"T YOU WAIT FOR ME?"]
"Yes, that"s just what I"ll do," said Tom, looking at her. "I hadn"t thought of it before; but that"s just exactly what I"ll do, Janet. I"ll wait for you, now you mention it."
"Will you, indeed, and double deed?"
"Yes, indeed, and deed and double deed, I"ll wait for you, Janet."
"That"ll be nice," said Janet, continuing her breakfast with meditative seriousness. "Now I"m your sweetheart, ain"t I?"
x.x.xIII
POSTSCRIPTUM
It was in the last days of October, a few weeks after the proper close of the story which I have just related, when Henry Miller--the most matter-of-fact and unsensational of young men--threw his family into a state of excitement and supplied the gossip of the neighborhood with a fresh topic by announcing at home and abroad that he was going to leave the country, either for the Iowa country to the west of the Mississippi or for the fertile bottom-lands up north on the "Wisconse" River, as it was called. He was the only son of his father, and had inherited the steady, plodding industry and frugality so characteristic of a "Pennsylvania Dutch" race. Until he was of age he was bound, not only by law, but by the custom of the country, to serve his father much as a bondsman or an apprentice might have served, for an able-bodied son was distinctly recognized as an available and productive possession in that day. When he became of age his close-fisted father made no new arrangement with him, offered him no start, paid him no wages, and gave him no share in the produce of the fields. It was enough, in the father"s estimation, that Henry would succeed to a large part of the property at his death. But Henry, on mature reflection, had made up his mind that emigration would be better than a reversionary interest that must be postponed to the death of so robust a man as his father, who was yet in middle-life and who came of a stock remarkable for longevity. Was not his grandfather yet alive in Pennsylvania, while his great-grandfather had not been dead many years? It was after calculating the "expectation of life" in the Miller family that Henry notified his father of his intention to go where land was cheap and open a large farm for himself. In vain the father urged that he could not get on without him, and that there would be no one to look after things if the father should die. Henry persisted that he must do something for himself and that his father would have to hire a man, for he should surely leave as soon as the crops were gathered, so as to get land enough open in some frontier country to afford him a small crop of corn the first year.
Henry"s mother and sisters were even more opposed to his going than his father was, and they did not hesitate to blame the senior Miller with great severity for not having "done something" for Henry. Henry"s father had never before known how unpleasant a man"s home may come to be. He was reminded that Henry had not an acre, nor even a colt, that he could call his own, and that other farmers had done better than that. This state of siege became presently quite intolerable, and the elder Miller resolved not only "to do something" for Henry, but to do it in such a way that his son would begin life very well provided for. He wanted to silence the clamor of the house and the neighborhood once for all, and prove to his critics how much they were mistaken.
It was about a week after Henry"s first resolution was taken that he and his father were finishing the corn-gathering. They were throwing the unshucked ears into a great wagon of the Pennsylvania pattern--a wagon painted blue, the "bed" of which rose in a great sweep at each end as though some reminiscence of the antique forms of marine architecture had affected its construction. When all the corn within easy throwing distance had been gathered, Henry, who was on the near side, would slip the reins from the standard over the fore wheel and drive forward the horses, which even in moving bit off the ends of corn ears or nibbled at the greenest-looking blades within their reach.
"Let"s put on the sideboards," said the elder, "and we can finish the field this load." Though Miller"s ancestors had come to this country with the Palatine immigration, away back in 1710, there was a little bit of German in his accent; he said something like "gorn" for corn. The sideboards were put up, and these were so adjusted that when they were on the wagon the inclosing sides were rendered level at the top and capable of holding nearly double the load contained without the boards.
"Henry," said the father, when the two were picking near together and throwing corn over the tail-gate of the wagon, "if you give up goin"
away an" git married right off, an" settle toun here, I"m a-mine to teed you that east eighty an" a forty of timber. Eh?"
"That"s purty good," said Henry; "but if your deed waits till I find a wife, it may be a good while coming."
"That eighty lays "longside of Albaugh"s medder an" lower gorn-field,"
said the father, significantly.
"You mean if I was to marry Rache, Albaugh might give us another slice."
"Of gourse he would; an" I"d help you put up a house, an" maybe I"d let you hav" the roan golt. You"d hav" the red heifer anyhow."