Chapter 8

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_ Chapter VIII

When Jane Field, in her assumed character, had lived three months in Elliot, she was still unsuspected. She was not liked, and that made her secret safer. She was full of dogged resolution and audacity. She never refused to see a caller nor accept an invitation, but people never called upon her nor invited her when they could avoid it, and thus she was not so often exposed to contradictions and inconsistencies which might have betrayed her. Elliot people not only disliked her, they were full of out-spoken indignation against her. The defiant, watchful austerity which made her repel when she intended to encourage their advances had turned them against her, but more than that her supposed ill-treatment of her orphan niece.

When Lois, the third week of her stay in Elliot, had gone to a dressmaker and asked for some sewing to do, the news was well over the village by night. "That woman, who has all John Maxwell's money, is too stingy and mean to support her niece, and she too delicate to work," people said. The dressmaker to whom Lois appealed did not for a minute hesitate to give her work, although she had already many women sewing for her, and she had just given some to Mrs. Maxwell's daughter Flora.

"There!" said she, when Lois had gone out. "I ain't worth five hundred dollars in the world, I don't know how she'll sew, and I didn't need any extra help--it's takin' it right out of my pocket, likely as not--but I couldn't turn off a cat that looked up at me the way that child did. She looks pinched. I don't believe that old woman gives her enough to eat. Of all the mean work--worth all that money, and sending her niece out to get sewing to do! I don't believe but what she's most starved her."

It was true that Lois for the last week had not had enough to eat, but neither had her mother. The two had been eking out the remnants of Lois's school-money as best they might. There were many provisions in the pantry and cellar of the Maxwell house, but they would touch none of them. Some money which Mr. Tuxbury had paid to Mrs. Field--the first instalment from the revenue of her estate--she had put carefully away in a sugar-bowl on the top shelf of the china closet, and had not spent a penny of it. After Lois began to sew, her slender earnings provided them with the most frugal fare. Mrs. Field eked it out in every way that she could. She had a little vegetable garden and kept a few hens. As the season advanced, she scoured the berry pastures, and spent many hours stooping painfully over the low bushes. Three months from the time at which she came to Elliot, on the day on which her neighbors started from Green River to visit her, she was out in the pasture trying to fill her pail with blueberries. All the sunlight seemed to centre on her black figure like a burning-glass; the thick growth of sweet-fern around the blueberry bushes sent a hot and stifling aroma into her face; the wild flowers hung limply, like delicate painted rags, and the rocks were like furnaces. Mrs. Field went out soon after dinner, and at half-past five she was still picking; the berries were not very plentiful.

Lois, at home, wondered why she did not return, and the more because there was a thunder-storm coming up. There was a heavy cloud in the northwest, and a steady low rumble of thunder. Lois sat out in the front yard sewing; her face was pink and moist with the heat; the sleeves of her old white muslin dress clung to her arms. Presently the gate clicked, and Mrs. Jane Maxwell's daughter Flora came toward her over the grass.

"Hullo!" said she.

"Hullo!" returned Lois.

"It's a terrible day--isn't it?"

"Terrible!"

Lois got up, but Flora would not take her chair. She sat down clumsily on the pine needles, and fanned herself with the cover of a book she carried.

"I've just been down to the library, an' got this book," she remarked.

"Is it good?"

"They say it's real good. Addie Green's been reading it."

Flora wore a bright blue cambric dress and a brown straw hat. Her figure was stout and high-shouldered, her dull-complexioned face full of placid force. She was not very young, and she looked much older than she was; and people had wondered how George Freeman, who was handsome and much courted by the girls, as well as younger than she, had come to marry her. They also wondered how her mother, who had been so bitterly opposed to the match, had given in, and was now living so amicably with the young couple; they had been on the alert for a furious village feud. But when Flora and her husband had returned from their stolen wedding tour, Mrs. Maxwell had met them at the depot and bidden them home with her with vociferous ardor, and the next Sunday Flora had gone to church in the new silk. There had been a conflict of two wills, and one had covered its defeat with a parade of victory. Mrs. Maxwell had talked a great deal about her daughter's marriage and how well she had done.

"There's a thunder-shower coming up," Flora said after a little. "Where's your aunt?"

"Gone berrying."

"She'll get caught in the shower if she don't look out. What makes you work so steady this hot day, Lois?"

"I've got to get this done."

"There isn't any need of your working so hard."

Lois said nothing.

"If your aunt ain't willing to do for you it's time you had somebody else to," persisted Flora. "I wish I had had the money on your account. I wouldn't have let you work so. You look better than you did when you came here, but you look tired. I heard somebody else say so the other day."

Flora said the last with a meaning smile.

Lois blushed.

"Yes, I did," Flora repeated. "I don't suppose you can guess who 'twas?"

Lois said nothing; she bent her hot face closer over her work.

"See here, Lois," said Flora. She hesitated with her eyes fixed warily on Lois; then she went on: "What makes you treat Francis so queer lately?"

"I didn't know I had," replied Lois, evasively.

"You don't treat him a bit the way you did at first."

"I don't know what you mean, Flora."

"Well, if you don't, it's no matter," returned Flora. "Francis hasn't said anything about it to me; you needn't think he has. All is, you'll never find a better fellow than he is, Lois Field, I don't care where you go."

Flora spoke with slow warmth. Lois's face quivered. "If you don't take care you'll never get married at all," said Flora, half laughing.

Lois sat up straight. "I shall never get married to anybody," said she. "That's one thing I won't do. I'll die first."

Flora stared at her. "Why, why not?" said she.

"I won't."

"I never knew what happiness was until I got married," said Flora. Then she flushed up suddenly all over her steady face.

Lois, too, started and blushed, as if the other girl's speech had struck some answering chord in her. The two were silent a moment. Lois sewed; Flora stared off through the trees at the darkening sky. The low rumble of thunder was incessant.

"George is one of the best husbands that ever a girl had," said Flora, in a tender, shamed voice; "but Francis would make just as good a one."

Lois made no reply. She almost turned her back toward Flora as she sewed.

"I guess you'll change your mind some time about getting married," Flora said.

"No, I never will," returned Lois.

"Well, I suppose if you don't, you'll have money enough to take care of yourself with some time, as far as that goes," said Flora. Her voice had a sarcastic ring.

"I shall never have one cent of that Maxwell money," said Lois, with sudden fire. "I'll tell you that much, once for all!" Her eyes fairly gleamed in her delicate, burning face.

"Why, you scare me! What is the matter?" cried Flora.

Lois took a stitch. "Nothing," said she.

"You'd ought to have the money, of course," said Flora, in a bewildered way. "Who else would have it?"

"I don't know," said Lois. "You are the one that ought to have it."

Flora laughed. "Land, I don't want it!" said she. "George earns plenty for us to live on. She's your own aunt, and of course she'll have to leave it to you, if she does act so miserly with it now. There, I know she's your aunt, Lois, and I don't suppose I ought to speak so, but I can't help it. After all, it don't make much difference, or it needn't, whether you have it or not. I've begun to think money is the very least part of anything in this world, and I want you to be looking out for something else, too, Lois."

"I can't look out for money, or something else, either. You don't know," said Lois, in a pitiful voice.

There came a flash, and then a great crash of thunder. The tempest was about to break.

Flora started up abruptly. "I must run," she shouted through a sudden gust of wind. "Good-by."

Flora sped out of the yard. Her blue dress, lashing around her feet, changed color in the ghastly light of the storm. Some flying leaves struck her in the face. At the gate a cloud of dust from the road nearly blinded her. She realized in a bewildered fashion that there were three women on the other side struggling frantically with the latch.

"Does Mis' Jane Field live here?" inquired one of them, breathlessly.

"No," replied Flora; "that isn't her name."

"She don't?"

"No," gasped Flora, her head lowered before the wind.

"Well, I want to know, ain't this the old Maxwell place?"

"Yes," said Flora.

Some great drops of rain began to fall; there was another flash. The woman struggled mightily, and prevailed over the gate-latch. She pushed it open. "Well, I don't care," said she, "I'm comin' in, whether or no. I dunno but my bonnet-strings will spot, an' I ain't goin' to have my best clothes soaked. It's mighty funny nobody knows where Mis' Field lives; but this is the old Maxwell house, where she wrote Mandy she lived, an' I'm goin' in."

Flora stood aside, and the three women entered with a rush. Lois, standing near the door front, saw them coming through the greenish-yellow gloom, their three black figures scudding before the wind like black-sailed ships.

"Land sakes!" shrieked out Mrs. Babcock, "there's Lois now! Lois, how are you? I'd like to know what that girl we met at the gate meant telling us they didn't live here. Why, Lois Field, how do you do? Where's your mother? I guess we'd better step right in, an' not stop to talk. It's an awful tempest. I'm dreadful afraid my bonnet trimmin' will spot."

They all scurried up the steps and into the house. Then the women turned and kissed Lois, and raised a little clamor of delight over her. She stood panting. She did not ask them into the sitting-room. Her head whirled. It seemed to her that the end of everything had come.

But Mrs. Babcock turned toward the sitting-room door. She had pulled off her bonnet, and was wiping it anxiously with her handkerchief. "This is the way, ain't it?" she said.

Lois followed them in helplessly. The room was dark as night, for the shutters were closed. Mrs. Babcock flung one open peremptorily.

"We'll break our necks here, if we don't have some light," she said. The hail began to rattle on the window-panes.

"It's hailin'!" the women chorussed.

"Are your windows all shut?" Mrs. Babcock demanded of Lois.

And the girl said, in a dazed way, that the bedroom windows were open, and then went mechanically to shut them.

"Shut the blinds, too!" screamed Mrs. Babcock. "The hail's comin' in this side terrible heavy. I'm afraid it'll break the glass." Mrs. Babcock herself, her face screwed tightly against an onslaught of wind and hail, shut the blinds, and the room was again plunged in darkness. "We'll have to stan' it," said she. "Mis' Field don't want her windows all broke in. That's dreadful sharp."

Thunder shook the house like an explosion. The women looked at each other with awed faces.

"Where is your mother? Why don't she come in here?" Mrs. Babcock asked excitedly of Lois returning from the bedroom.

"She's gone berrying," replied Lois, feebly. She sank into a chair.

"Gone berryin'!" screamed Mrs. Babcock, and the other women echoed her.

"Yes'm."

"When did she go?"

"Right after dinner."

"Right after dinner, an' she ain't got home yet! Out in this awful tempest! Well, she'll be killed. You'll never see her again, that's all. A berry pasture is the most dangerous place in creation in a thunder-shower. Out berryin' in all this hail an' thunder an' lightnin'!"

Mrs. Green pressed close up to Lois. "Ain't you any idea where she's gone?" said she. "If you have, I'll jest slip off my dress skirt, an' you give me an old shawl, an' I'll go with you an' see if we can't find her."

"I'll go, too," cried Amanda. "Don't you know which way they went, Lois?"

Just then the south side-door slammed sharply.

"She's come," said Lois, in a strained voice.

"Well, I'm thankful!" cried Mrs. Green. "Hadn't you better run out an' help her off with her wet things, Lois?"

But the sitting-room door opened, and Mrs. Field stood there, a tall black shadow hardly shaped out from the gloom. The women all arose and hurried toward her. There was a shrill flurry of greeting. Mrs. Field's voice arose high and terrified above it.

"Who is it?" she cried out. "Who's here?"

"Why, your old neighbors, Mrs. Field. Don't you know us--Mandy an' Mis' Green an' Mis' Babcock? We come down on an excursion ticket to Boston--only three dollars an' sixty cents--an' we thought we'd surprise you."

"Ain't you dreadful wet, Mis' Field?" interposed Mrs. Green's solicitous voice.

"You'd better go and change your dress," said Amanda.

"When did you come?" said Mrs. Field.

"Jest now. For the land sakes, Mis' Field, your dress is soppin' wet! Do go an' change it, or you'll catch your death of cold."

Mrs. Field did not stir. The hail pelted on the windows. "Now, you go right along an' change it," cried Mrs. Babcock.

"Well," said Mrs. Field vaguely, "mebbe I'd better." She fumbled her way unsteadily toward her bedroom door.

"You go help her; it's dark as a pocket," said Mrs. Babcock imperatively to Lois; and the girl followed her mother.

"They act dreadful queer, seems to me," whispered Mrs. Babcock, when the bedroom door was closed.

"I guess it's jest because they're so surprised to see us," Mrs. Green whispered back.

"Well, if I ain't wanted, I can go back to where I come from, if I do have to throw the money away," Mrs. Babcock said, almost aloud. "I think they act queer, both on 'em. I should think they might seem a little mite more pleased to see three old neighbors so."

"Mebbe it's the thunder-shower that's kind of dazed 'em," said Amanda. She herself was much afraid of a thunder-shower. She had her feet well drawn up, and her hand over her eyes.

"It's a mercy Mis' Field wa'n't killed out in it," said Mrs. Green.

"I don't see what in creation she stayed out so in it for," rejoined Mrs. Babcock. "She must have seen the cloud comin' up. This is a pretty big house, ain't it? An' I should think it was furnished nice, near's I can see, but it's terrible old-fashioned."

Amanda huddled up in her chair, looked warily at the strange shadows in this unfamiliar room, and wished she were at home.

The storm increased rather than diminished. When Mrs. Field and Lois returned, all the women, at Mrs. Babcock's order, drew their chairs close together in the middle of the room.

"I've always heard that was the safest place," said she. "That was the way old Dr. Barnes always used to do. He had thirteen children; nine of 'em was girls. Whenever he saw a thunder-shower comin' up, he used to make Mis' Barnes an' the children go into the parlor, an' then they'd all set in the middle of the floor, an' he'd offer prayer. He used to say he'd do his part an' get in the safest place he knew of, an' then ask the Lord to help him. Mandy Pratt!"

"What say, Mis' Babcock?" returned Amanda, trembling.

"Have you got your hoop-skirt on?"

Amanda sprang up. "Yes, I have. I forgot it!"

"For the land sakes! I should think you'd thought of that, scared as you pretend to be in a thunder-shower. Do go in the bedroom an' drop it off this minute! Lois, you go with her."

While Amanda and Lois were gone there was a slight lull in the storm.

"I guess it's kind of lettin' up," said Mrs. Babcock. "This is a nice house you've got here, ain't it, Mis' Field?"

"Yes, 'tis," replied Jane Field.

"I s'pose there was a good deal of nice furniture in it, wa'n't there?"

"Considerable."

"Was there nice beddin'?"

"Yes."

"I s'pose there was plenty of table-cloths an' such things? Have you bought any new furniture, Mis' Field?"

"No, I ain't," said Mrs. Field. She moved her chair a little to make room for Lois and Amanda when they returned. Lois sat next her mother.

"I didn't know but you had. I thought mebbe the furniture was kind of old-fashioned. Have you--oh, ain't it awful?"

The storm had gathered itself like an animal for a fiercer onset. The room was lit up with a wild play of blue fire. The thunder crashed closely in its wake.

"Oh, we hadn't ought to talk of anything but the mercy of the Lord an' our sins!" wailed Mrs. Babcock. "Don't let's talk of anything else. That struck somewheres near. There's no knowin' where it'll come next. I never see such a shower. We don't have any like it in Green River. Oh, I hope we're all prepared!"

"That's the principal thing," said Mrs. Green, in a solemn trembling voice.

Amanda said nothing. She thought of her will; a vision of the nicely ordered rooms she had left seemed to show out before her in the flare of the lightning; in spite of her terror it was a comfort to her.

"We'd ought to be thankful in a time like this that we ain't any of us got any great wickedness on our consciences," said Mrs. Babcock. "It must be terrible for them that have, thinkin' they may die any minute when the next flash comes. I don't envy 'em."

"It must be terrible," assented Mrs. Green, like an amen.

"It's bad enough with the sins we've got on all our minds, the best of us," continued Mrs. Babcock. "Think how them that's broken God's commandments an' committed murders an' robberies must feel. I shouldn't think they could stan' it, unless they burst right out an' confessed to everybody--should you, Mis' Field?"

"I guess so," said Mrs. Field, in a hard voice.

Mrs. Babcock said no more; somehow she and the others felt repelled. They all sat in silence except for awed ejaculations when now and then came a louder crash of thunder. All at once, after a sharp flash, there was a wild clamor in the street; a bell clanged out.

"It's struck! it's struck!" shrieked Mrs. Babcock.

"Oh, it ain't this house, is it?" Amanda wailed.

They all rushed to the windows and flung open the blinds; a red glare filled the room; a large barn nearly opposite was on fire. They clutched each other, and watched the red gush of flame. The barn burned as if lighted at every corner.

"Are there any cows or horses in it?" panted Mrs. Babcock. "Oh, ain't it dreadful? Are there any, Mis' Field?"

"I dunno," said Mrs. Field.

She stood like a grim statue, the red light of the fire in her face. Lois was sobbing. Mrs. Green had put an arm around her.

"Don't, Lois, don't," she kept saying, in a solemn, agitated voice. "The Lord will overrule it all; it is He speakin' in it."

The women watched while the street filled with people, and the barn burned down. It did not take long. The storm began to lull rapidly. The thunder came at long intervals, and the hail turned into a gentle rain. Finally Mrs. Field went out into the kitchen to prepare supper, and Lois followed her.

"I never see anything like the way she acts," said Mrs. Babcock cautiously.

"She always was kind of quiet," rejoined Mrs. Green.

"Quiet! She acts as if she'd had thunder an' lightnin' an' hail an' barns burnt down every day since she's been here. I never see anybody act so queer."

"I 'most wish I'd stayed to home," said Amanda.

"Well, I wouldn't be backin' out the minute I'd got here, if I was you," returned Mrs. Babcock sharply. "It's comin' cooler, that's one thing, an' you won't need that white sacque. I should think you'd feel kinder glad of it, for them shoulder seams did look pretty long to what they wear 'em. An' I dare say folks here are pretty dressy. I declare I shall be kinder glad when supper's ready. I feel real faint to my stomach, as if I'd like somethin' hearty. I should have gone into one of them places in Boston if things hadn't been so awful dear."

But when Mrs. Field finally called them out to partake of the meal which she had prepared, there was little to satisfy an eager appetite. Nothing but the berries for which she had toiled so hard, a few thin slices of bread, no butter, and no tea, so little sugar in the bowl that the guests sprinkled it sparingly on their berries.

"I'll tell you what 'tis," Mrs. Babcock whispered when they were upstairs in their chambers that night, "Mis' Field has grown tight since she got all that money. Sometimes it does work that way. I believe we should starve to death if we stayed here long. If it wa'n't for gittin' my money's worth, I should be for goin' home to-morrow. No butter an' no tea after we've come that long journey. I never heard of such a thing."

"I don't care anything about the butter and the tea," rejoined Amanda, "but I 'most feel as if I'd better go home to-morrow."

"If," said Mrs. Babcock, "you want to go home instead of gittin' the good of that excursion ticket, that you can stay a week on, you can, Amanda Pratt. I'm goin' to stay now, if it kills me." _

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