________________________________________________
_ Signa's wedding supper was over. The guests, and the tiresome
little Norwegian preacher who had performed the marriage ceremony,
were saying good-night. Old Ivar was hitching the horses to the
wagon to take the wedding presents and the bride and groom up to
their new home, on Alexandra's north quarter. When Ivar drove up
to the gate, Emil and Marie Shabata began to carry out the presents,
and Alexandra went into her bedroom to bid Signa good-bye and to
give her a few words of good counsel. She was surprised to find
that the bride had changed her slippers for heavy shoes and was
pinning up her skirts. At that moment Nelse appeared at the gate
with the two milk cows that Alexandra had given Signa for a wedding
present.
Alexandra began to laugh. "Why, Signa, you and Nelse are to ride
home. I'll send Ivar over with the cows in the morning."
Signa hesitated and looked perplexed. When her husband called her,
she pinned her hat on resolutely. "I ta-ank I better do yust like
he say," she murmured in confusion.
Alexandra and Marie accompanied Signa to the gate and saw the
party set off, old Ivar driving ahead in the wagon and the bride
and groom following on foot, each leading a cow. Emil burst into
a laugh before they were out of hearing.
"Those two will get on," said Alexandra as they turned back to the
house. "They are not going to take any chances. They will feel
safer with those cows in their own stable. Marie, I am going to
send for an old woman next. As soon as I get the girls broken in,
I marry them off."
"I've no patience with Signa, marrying that grumpy fellow!" Marie
declared. "I wanted her to marry that nice Smirka boy who worked
for us last winter. I think she liked him, too."
"Yes, I think she did," Alexandra assented, "but I suppose she was
too much afraid of Nelse to marry any one else. Now that I think
of it, most of my girls have married men they were afraid of. I
believe there is a good deal of the cow in most Swedish girls.
You high-strung Bohemian can't understand us. We're a terribly
practical people, and I guess we think a cross man makes a good
manager."
Marie shrugged her shoulders and turned to pin up a lock of hair
that had fallen on her neck. Somehow Alexandra had irritated her
of late. Everybody irritated her. She was tired of everybody. "I'm
going home alone, Emil, so you needn't get your hat," she said as
she wound her scarf quickly about her head. "Good-night, Alexandra,"
she called back in a strained voice, running down the gravel walk.
Emil followed with long strides until he overtook her. Then she began
to walk slowly. It was a night of warm wind and faint starlight,
and the fireflies were glimmering over the wheat.
"Marie," said Emil after they had walked for a while, "I wonder if
you know how unhappy I am?"
Marie did not answer him. Her head, in its white scarf, drooped
forward a little.
Emil kicked a clod from the path and went on:--
"I wonder whether you are really shallow-hearted, like you seem?
Sometimes I think one boy does just as well as another for you.
It never seems to make much difference whether it is me or Raoul
Marcel or Jan Smirka. Are you really like that?"
"Perhaps I am. What do you want me to do? Sit round and cry all
day? When I've cried until I can't cry any more, then--then I must
do something else."
"Are you sorry for me?" he persisted.
"No, I'm not. If I were big and free like you, I wouldn't let
anything make me unhappy. As old Napoleon Brunot said at the fair,
I wouldn't go lovering after no woman. I'd take the first train
and go off and have all the fun there is."
"I tried that, but it didn't do any good. Everything reminded me.
The nicer the place was, the more I wanted you." They had come to
the stile and Emil pointed to it persuasively. "Sit down a moment,
I want to ask you something." Marie sat down on the top step and
Emil drew nearer. "Would you tell me something that's none of my
business if you thought it would help me out? Well, then, tell
me, PLEASE tell me, why you ran away with Frank Shabata!"
Marie drew back. "Because I was in love with him," she said firmly.
"Really?" he asked incredulously.
"Yes, indeed. Very much in love with him. I think I was the one
who suggested our running away. From the first it was more my
fault than his."
Emil turned away his face.
"And now," Marie went on, "I've got to remember that. Frank is
just the same now as he was then, only then I would see him as I
wanted him to be. I would have my own way. And now I pay for it."
"You don't do all the paying."
"That's it. When one makes a mistake, there's no telling where
it will stop. But you can go away; you can leave all this behind
you."
"Not everything. I can't leave you behind. Will you go away with
me, Marie?"
Marie started up and stepped across the stile. "Emil! How wickedly
you talk! I am not that kind of a girl, and you know it. But what
am I going to do if you keep tormenting me like this!" she added
plaintively.
"Marie, I won't bother you any more if you will tell me just
one thing. Stop a minute and look at me. No, nobody can see us.
Everybody's asleep. That was only a firefly. Marie, STOP and tell
me!"
Emil overtook her and catching her by the shoulders shook her
gently, as if he were trying to awaken a sleepwalker.
Marie hid her face on his arm. "Don't ask me anything more. I
don't know anything except how miserable I am. And I thought it
would be all right when you came back. Oh, Emil," she clutched his
sleeve and began to cry, "what am I to do if you don't go away? I
can't go, and one of us must. Can't you see?"
Emil stood looking down at her, holding his shoulders stiff and
stiffening the arm to which she clung. Her white dress looked
gray in the darkness. She seemed like a troubled spirit, like some
shadow out of the earth, clinging to him and entreating him to give
her peace. Behind her the fireflies were weaving in and out over
the wheat. He put his hand on her bent head. "On my honor, Marie,
if you will say you love me, I will go away."
She lifted her face to his. "How could I help it? Didn't you
know?"
Emil was the one who trembled, through all his frame. After he
left Marie at her gate, he wandered about the fields all night,
till morning put out the fireflies and the stars. _
Read next: PART IV - The White Mulberry Tree: Chapter 3
Read previous: PART IV - The White Mulberry Tree: Chapter 1
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