________________________________________________
_ As soon as his wife had driven off Ethan took his coat and cap from
the peg. Mattie was washing up the dishes, humming one of the dance
tunes of the night before. He said "So long, Matt," and she answered
gaily "So long, Ethan"; and that was all.
It was warm and bright in the kitchen. The sun slanted through the
south window on the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a
chair, and on the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where
Ethan had planted them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie.
He would have liked to linger on, watching her tidy up and then
settle down to her sewing; but he wanted still more to get the
hauling done and be back at the farm before night.
All the way down to the village he continued to think of his return
to Mattie. The kitchen was a poor place, not "spruce" and shining as
his mother had kept it in his boyhood; but it was surprising what a
homelike look the mere fact of Zeena's absence gave it. And he
pictured what it would be like that evening, when he and Mattie were
there after supper. For the first time they would be alone together
indoors, and they would sit there, one on each side of the stove,
like a married couple, he in his stocking feet and smoking his pipe,
she laughing and talking in that funny way she had, which was always
as new to him as if he had never heard her before.
The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his
fears of "trouble" with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits
with a rush, and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang
aloud as he drove through the snowy fields. There was in him a
slumbering spark of sociability which the long Starkfield winters
had not yet extinguished. By nature grave and inarticulate, he
admired recklessness and gaiety in others and was warmed to the
marrow by friendly human intercourse. At Worcester, though he had
the name of keeping to himself and not being much of a hand at a
good time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped on the back and
hailed as "Old Ethe" or "Old Stiff"; and the cessation of such
familiarities had increased the chill of his return to Starkfield.
There the silence had deepened about him year by year. Left alone,
after his father's accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill,
he had had no time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when
his mother fell ill the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive
than that of the fields. His mother had been a talker in her day,
but after her "trouble" the sound of her voice was seldom heard,
though she had not lost the power of speech. Sometimes, in the long
winter evenings, when in desperation her son asked her why she
didn't "say something," she would lift a finger and answer: "Because
I'm listening"; and on stormy nights, when the loud wind was about
the house, she would complain, if he spoke to her: "They're talking
so out there that I can't hear you."
It was only when she drew toward her last illness, and his cousin
Zenobia Pierce came over from the next valley to help him nurse her,
that human speech was heard again in the house. After the mortal
silence of his long imprisonment Zeena's volubility was music in his
ears. He felt that he might have "gone like his mother" if the sound
of a new voice had not come to steady him. Zeena seemed to
understand his case at a glance. She laughed at him for not knowing
the simplest sick-bed duties and told him to "go right along out"
and leave her to see to things. The mere fact of obeying her orders,
of feeling free to go about his business again and talk with other
men, restored his shaken balance and magnified his sense of what he
owed her. Her efficiency shamed and dazzled him. She seemed to
possess by instinct all the household wisdom that his long
apprenticeship had not instilled in him. When the end came it was
she who had to tell him to hitch up and go for the undertaker, and
she thought it "funny" that he had not settled beforehand who was to
have his mother's clothes and the sewing-machine. After the funeral,
when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an
unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he
knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He
had often thought since that it would not have happened if his
mother had died in spring instead of winter...
When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten
out the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome's long illness, they
would sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town.
Ethan's love of nature did not take the form of a taste for
agriculture. He had always wanted to be an engineer, and to live in
towns, where there were lectures and big libraries and "fellows
doing things." A slight engineering job in Florida, put in his way
during his period of study at Worcester, increased his faith in his
ability as well as his eagerness to see the world; and he felt sure
that, with a "smart" wife like Zeena, it would not be long before he
had made himself a place in it.
Zeena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway
than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that
life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected when she
married. But purchasers were slow in coming, and while he waited for
them Ethan learned the impossibility of transplanting her. She chose
to look down on Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place
which looked down on her. Even Bettsbridge or Shadd's Falls would
not have been sufficiently aware of her, and in the greater cities
which attracted Ethan she would have suffered a complete loss of
identity. And within a year of their marriage she developed the
"sickliness" which had since made her notable even in a community
rich in pathological instances. When she came to take care of his
mother she had seemed to Ethan like the very genius of health, but
he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had been acquired by the
absorbed observation of her own symptoms.
Then she too fell silent. Perhaps it was the inevitable effect of
life on the farm, or perhaps, as she sometimes said, it was because
Ethan "never listened." The charge was not wholly unfounded. When
she spoke it was only to complain, and to complain of things not in
his power to remedy; and to check a tendency to impatient retort he
had first formed the habit of not answering her, and finally of
thinking of other things while she talked. Of late, however, since
he had reasons for observing her more closely, her silence had begun
to trouble him. He recalled his mother's growing taciturnity, and
wondered if Zeena were also turning "queer." Women did, he knew.
Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the pathological chart of the
whole region, had cited many cases of the kind while she was nursing
his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely farm-houses in the
neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and of others where
sudden tragedy had come of their presence. At times, looking at
Zeena's shut face, he felt the chill of such forebodings. At other
times her silence seemed deliberately assumed to conceal
far-reaching intentions, mysterious conclusions drawn from
suspicions and resentments impossible to guess. That supposition was
even more disturbing than the other; and it was the one which had
come to him the night before, when he had seen her standing in the
kitchen door.
Now her departure for Bettsbridge had once more eased his mind, and
all his thoughts were on the prospect of his evening with Mattie.
Only one thing weighed on him, and that was his having told Zeena
that he was to receive cash for the lumber. He foresaw so clearly
the consequences of this imprudence that with considerable
reluctance he decided to ask Andrew Hale for a small advance on his
load.
When Ethan drove into Hale's yard the builder was just getting out
of his sleigh.
"Hello, Ethe!" he said. "This comes handy."
Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean
shirt was always fastened by a small diamond stud. This display of
opulence was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it
was known that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large
family frequently kept him what Starkfield called "behind." He was
an old friend of Ethan's family, and his house one of the few to
which Zeena occasionally went, drawn there by the fact that Mrs.
Hale, in her youth, had done more "doctoring" than any other woman
in Starkfield, and was still a recognised authority on symptoms and
treatment.
Hale went up to the grays and patted their sweating flanks.
"Well, sir," he said, "you keep them two as if they was pets."
Ethan set about unloading the logs and when he had finished his job
he pushed open the glazed door of the shed which the builder used as
his office. Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped
against a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man,
was warm, genial and untidy.
"Sit right down and thaw out," he greeted Ethan.
The latter did not know how to begin, but at length he managed to
bring out his request for an advance of fifty dollars. The blood
rushed to his thin skin under the sting of Hale's astonishment. It
was the builder's custom to pay at the end of three months, and
there was no precedent between the two men for a cash settlement.
Ethan felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need Hale might have
made shift to pay him; but pride, and an instinctive prudence, kept
him from resorting to this argument. After his father's death it had
taken time to get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew
Hale, or any one else in Starkfield, to think he was going under
again. Besides, he hated lying; if he wanted the money he wanted it,
and it was nobody's business to ask why. He therefore made his
demand with the awkwardness of a proud man who will not admit to
himself that he is stooping; and he was not much surprised at Hale's
refusal.
The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated
the matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and
wanted to know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a
"cupolo" to his house; offering, in the latter case, to give his
services free of cost.
Ethan's arts were soon exhausted, and after an embarrassed pause he
wished Hale good day and opened the door of the office. As he passed
out the builder suddenly called after him: "See here-you ain't in a
tight place, are you?"
"Not a bit," Ethan's pride retorted before his reason had time to
intervene.
"Well, that's good! Because I am, a shade. Fact is, I was going to
ask you to give me a little extra time on that payment. Business is
pretty slack, to begin with, and then I'm fixing up a little house
for Ned and Ruth when they're married. I'm glad to do it for 'em,
but it costs." His look appealed to Ethan for sympathy. "The young
people like things nice. You know how it is yourself: it's not so
long ago since you fixed up your own place for Zeena."
Ethan left the grays in Hale's stable and went about some other
business in the village. As he walked away the builder's last phrase
lingered in his ears, and he reflected grimly that his seven years
with Zeena seemed to Starkfield "not so long."
The afternoon was drawing to an end, and here and there a lighted
pane spangled the cold gray dusk and made the snow look whiter. The
bitter weather had driven every one indoors and Ethan had the long
rural street to himself. Suddenly he heard the brisk play of
sleigh-bells and a cutter passed him, drawn by a free-going horse.
Ethan recognised Michael Eady's roan colt, and young Denis Eady, in
a handsome new fur cap, leaned forward and waved a greeting. "Hello,
Ethe!" he shouted and spun on.
The cutter was going in the direction of the Frome farm, and Ethan's
heart contracted as he listened to the dwindling bells. What more
likely than that Denis Eady had heard of Zeena's departure for
Bettsbridge, and was profiting by the opportunity to spend an hour
with Mattie? Ethan was ashamed of the storm of jealousy in his
breast. It seemed unworthy of the girl that his thoughts of her
should be so violent.
He walked on to the church corner and entered the shade of the
Varnum spruces, where he had stood with her the night before. As he
passed into their gloom he saw an indistinct outline just ahead of
him. At his approach it melted for an instant into two separate
shapes and then conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a
half-laughing "Oh!" provoked by the discovery of his presence. Again
the outline hastily disunited and the Varnum gate slammed on one
half while the other hurried on ahead of him. Ethan smiled at the
discomfiture he had caused. What did it matter to Ned Hale and Ruth
Varnum if they were caught kissing each other? Everybody in
Starkfield knew they were engaged. It pleased Ethan to have
surprised a pair of lovers on the spot where he and Mattie had stood
with such a thirst for each other in their hearts; but he felt a
pang at the thought that these two need not hide their happiness.
He fetched the grays from Hale's stable and started on his long
climb back to the farm. The cold was less sharp than earlier in the
day and a thick fleecy sky threatened snow for the morrow. Here and
there a star pricked through, showing behind it a deep well of blue.
In an hour or two the moon would push over the ridge behind the
farm, burn a gold-edged rent in the clouds, and then be swallowed by
them. A mournful peace hung on the fields, as though they felt the
relaxing grasp of the cold and stretched themselves in their long
winter sleep.
Ethan's ears were alert for the jingle of sleigh-bells, but not a
sound broke the silence of the lonely road. As he drew near the farm
he saw, through the thin screen of larches at the gate, a light
twinkling in the house above him. "She's up in her room," he said to
himself, "fixing herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's
sarcastic stare when Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come
down to supper with smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.
He passed by the graves on the knoll and turned his head to glance
at one of the older headstones, which had interested him deeply as a
boy because it bore his name.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
ETHAN FROME AND ENDURANCE HIS WIFE,
WHO DWELLED TOGETHER IN PEACE
FOR FIFTY YEARS.
He used to think that fifty years sounded like a long time to live
together, but now it seemed to him that they might pass in a flash.
Then, with a sudden dart of irony, he wondered if, when their turn
came, the same epitaph would be written over him and Zeena.
He opened the barn-door and craned his head into the obscurity,
half-fearing to discover Denis Eady's roan colt in the stall beside
the sorrel. But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib
with toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded
down the grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their
mangers. His was not a tuneful throat-but harsh melodies burst from
it as he locked the barn and sprang up the hill to the house. He
reached the kitchen-porch and turned the door-handle; but the door
did not yield to his touch.
Startled at finding it locked he rattled the handle violently; then
he reflected that Mattie was alone and that it was natural she
should barricade herself at nightfall. He stood in the darkness
expecting to hear her step. It did not come, and after vainly
straining his ears he called out in a voice that shook with joy:
"Hello, Matt!"
Silence answered; but in a minute or two he caught a sound on the
stairs and saw a line of light about the door-frame, as he had seen
it the night before. So strange was the precision with which the
incidents of the previous evening were repeating themselves that he
half expected, when he heard the key turn, to see his wife before
him on the threshold; but the door opened, and Mattie faced him.
She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand,
against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at
the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim
young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child's. Then,
striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her
eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black
curve of her brows.
She wore her usual dress of darkish stuff, and there was no bow at
her neck; but through her hair she had run a streak of crimson
ribbon. This tribute to the unusual transformed and glorified her.
She seemed to Ethan taller, fuller, more womanly in shape and
motion. She stood aside, smiling silently, while he entered, and
then moved away from him with something soft and flowing in her
gait. She set the lamp on the table, and he saw that it was
carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts, stewed blueberries
and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass. A bright fire
glowed in the stove and the cat lay stretched before it, watching
the table with a drowsy eye.
Ethan was suffocated with the sense of well-being. He went out into
the passage to hang up his coat and pull off his wet boots. When he
came back Mattie had set the teapot on the table and the cat was
rubbing itself persuasively against her ankles.
"Why, Puss! I nearly tripped over you," she cried, the laughter
sparkling through her lashes.
Again Ethan felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Could it be his coming
that gave her such a kindled face?
"Well, Matt, any visitors?" he threw off, stooping down carelessly
to examine the fastening of the stove.
She nodded and laughed "Yes, one," and he felt a blackness settling
on his brows.
"Who was that?" he questioned, raising himself up to slant a glance
at her beneath his scowl.
Her eyes danced with malice. "Why, Jotham Powell. He came in after
he got back, and asked for a drop of coffee before he went down
home."
The blackness lifted and light flooded Ethan's brain. "That all?
Well, I hope you made out to let him have it." And after a pause he
felt it right to add: "I suppose he got Zeena over to the Flats all
right?"
"Oh, yes; in plenty of time."
The name threw a chill between them, and they stood a moment looking
sideways at each other before Mattie said with a shy laugh. "I guess
it's about time for supper."
They drew their seats up to the table, and the cat, unbidden, jumped
between them into Zeena's empty chair. "Oh, Puss!" said Mattie, and
they laughed again.
Ethan, a moment earlier, had felt himself on the brink of eloquence;
but the mention of Zeena had paralysed him. Mattie seemed to feel
the contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids,
sipping her tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for
dough-nuts and sweet pickles. At last, after casting about for an
effective opening, he took a long gulp of tea, cleared his throat,
and said: "Looks as if there'd be more snow."
She feigned great interest. "Is that so? Do you suppose it'll
interfere with Zeena's getting back?" She flushed red as the
question escaped her, and hastily set down the cup she was lifting.
Ethan reached over for another helping of pickles. "You never can
tell, this time of year, it drifts so bad on the Flats." The name
had benumbed him again, and once more he felt as if Zeena were in
the room between them.
"Oh, Puss, you're too greedy!" Mattie cried.
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat
to the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the
direction of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie. The
two leaned forward at the same moment and their hands met on the
handle of the jug. Mattie's hand was underneath, and Ethan kept his
clasped on it a moment longer than was necessary. The cat, profiting
by this unusual demonstration, tried to effect an unnoticed retreat,
and in doing so backed into the pickle-dish, which fell to the floor
with a crash.
Mattie, in an instant, had sprung from her chair and was down on her
knees by the fragments.
"Oh, Ethan, Ethan-it's all to pieces! What will Zeena say?"
But this time his courage was up. "Well, she'll have to say it to
the cat, any way!" he rejoined with a laugh, kneeling down at
Mattie's side to scrape up the swimming pickles.
She lifted stricken eyes to him. "Yes, but, you see, she never meant
it should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get
up on the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the
china-closet, where she keeps it with all her best things, and of
course she'll want to know why I did it-"
The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent
resolution.
"She needn't know anything about it if you keep quiet. I'll get
another just like it to-morrow. Where did it come from? I'll go to
Shadd's Falls for it if I have to!"
"Oh, you'll never get another even there! It was a wedding
present-don't you remember? It came all the way from Philadelphia,
from Zeena's aunt that married the minister. That's why she wouldn't
ever use it. Oh, Ethan, Ethan, what in the world shall I do?"
She began to cry, and he felt as if every one of her tears were
pouring over him like burning lead. "Don't, Matt, don't-oh, don't!"
he implored her.
She struggled to her feet, and he rose and followed her helplessly
while she spread out the pieces of glass on the kitchen dresser. It
seemed to him as if the shattered fragments of their evening lay
there.
"Here, give them to me," he said in a voice of sudden authority.
She drew aside, instinctively obeying his tone. "Oh, Ethan, what are
you going to do?"
Without replying he gathered the pieces of glass into his broad palm
and walked out of the kitchen to the passage. There he lit a
candle-end, opened the china-closet, and, reaching his long arm up
to the highest shelf, laid the pieces together with such accuracy of
touch that a close inspection convinced him of the impossibility of
detecting from below that the dish was broken. If he glued it
together the next morning months might elapse before his wife
noticed what had happened, and meanwhile he might after all be able
to match the dish at Shadd's Falls or Bettsbridge. Having satisfied
himself that there was no risk of immediate discovery he went back
to the kitchen with a lighter step, and found Mattie disconsolately
removing the last scraps of pickle from the floor.
"It's all right, Matt. Come back and finish supper," he commanded
her.
Completely reassured, she shone on him through tear-hung lashes, and
his soul swelled with pride as he saw how his tone subdued her. She
did not even ask what he had done. Except when he was steering a big
log down the mountain to his mill he had never known such a
thrilling sense of mastery. _
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