Chapter 18. The Child Of Her Body

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_ CHAPTER XVIII. THE CHILD OF HER BODY

In the spring Elizabeth's affairs, which had promised to straighten out, were complicated from a new quarter. She was now to test her strength against the greatest of all problems for women and to find out if she could put her precepts into practice. The probability of a second child had become a certainty; the necessity of adjusting her good-will to accidental child-bearing was upon her. Often and often her words to Sadie--"I always wanted my baby"--rose up to accuse her. Only of late had suspicion become a certainty. Elizabeth did not greet that certainty with joy. Life was hard; she had more work to do already than she was able to perform; try as she would she could not get her mental consent. Why must she have this undesired child? When the thought first wormed its way into her head, Elizabeth passed from disappointment to self-accusation. By every law of God and man a mother should want her child; if she did not, then she stood accused at Nature's bar.

"For its sake I've got to want it; I'll make myself," she decided. But she did not want it, and found to her growing dismay that she could not make herself satisfied about it. Instead of becoming reconciled, the question enlarged and grew and gained in point and force. The girl decided that she would be glad in spite of every opposing thing, but her resolution was formed with tears in her heart, if not in her eyes, and the weary ache in her back never ceased. "It must not be so. My child must be welcome!" Elizabeth told herself each morning, but she was too tired; it was not welcome, and all her efforts failed to make it so.

John was vexed when he found her in tears.

"The idea!" he exclaimed. "Now if we were too poor to feed and clothe it there'd be some excuse, but----" He made his pause as expressive as he could.

"It isn't that. I--I'm so tired and--I ought to be glad--and--and I'm not," she began.

"Well, I suppose with mother gone"--Mrs. Hunter had returned to her old home on a visit--"you have got a good deal to look after, but I've got to get to the field now. You're always raking something up that looks wrong to you. If you'd stick to your work and not run around looking for trouble you'd be able to want it, maybe."

The force of her husband's suggestion struck the girl. Perhaps it was true that she had missed the very highest for herself in loving ease and comfort enough to seek them. To put discontent away from her and to keep her thoughts occupied she began the spring housecleaning. There was so much regular cooking and milk work that only one room could be attacked at a time, but she kept busy, and the plan worked admirably during the day. She was not sleeping well, however, and found that nights have a power all their own. When the lights went out, thought held the girl in its relentless grip. It was of no use to lengthen her working hours in the hope that sleep would come more promptly, for the more exhausted Elizabeth became the less able was she to sleep, and thought stared at her out of the darkness with eyes like living coals.

Wherever Elizabeth turned this monster confronted her, this monster whose tail was a question mark, whose body obscured everything on the horizon of the immediate future except its own repulsive presence, and threw her back upon the suffering present and the much to be deplored past. Was it right to permit a child to come when joy had gone out of relations between its parents? This question grew and ripened and spread, and whenever she summoned up enough will-power to weed it out for an hour it would spring up anew, refreshed and more tenacious than ever.

"Whether it's right or not for John and me to have a child after we've quit loving each other, if I can only be glad it's coming, or even be willing to have it, I won't mind, now," she told herself. But she was not glad, and she was not even willing. She dragged herself about, keeping busy day after day as her husband had advised; it was her only refuge, and one which could not avail very long, for already she was worn out. On the last day of the cleaning, Hugh Noland came to the door of her room and speaking from the outside said:

"I came in to see if I couldn't help you a little in getting ready for those shellers, Mrs. Hunter." Hugh had noticed her weary look of late, and, as all the men about the house did, tried to help whenever there was time to be spared from the fields or when extra work was required of her.

"Shellers?"

Elizabeth backed out of the closet she was cleaning, and came around to the door.

"Shellers? Are we going to have shellers?"

"To-morrow," he said in surprise.

In spite of her exclamation of astonishment Elizabeth noted a familiar look on Hugh Noland's face which had something in it that always caught her attention. Always when an unexpected thing came upon Hugh, Elizabeth had a sense of having had past relations with him.

"You don't tell me you didn't know?"

"I surely didn't. When did John go to see the men about it? Why, I haven't even bread baked!" she exclaimed.

"That's funny! Well--I suppose he forgot to tell you. The men passed here before dinner and he went out to the road and engaged them. We've got a little corn left over, and prices seem to be up this week."

"Well, it's only one of many things," she said, trying to smile.

Her eyes wandered over the disordered bedroom as she considered. Clothing, boots, shoes, and other articles of apparel lay scattered over the bed. Her orderly soul could not leave them without finishing.

"I'll tell you what you do--I'll straighten up here. You go over to Uncle Nate's and get me some yeast. I'll have to bake. I made him some yeast the last time I made for myself, and he'll have some left. It's been too damp and cloudy to make any of late. Then I'll see what you can do," she said wearily. "I surely will need help if I've got to have a dozen extra men without notice. I suppose John forgot. He's usually thoughtful about the cooking for strange men."

Something in the hurt, weary look of her went to Hugh Noland's heart.

"I'll run over to Hornby's and back in half an hour unless he's at the far side of the field. Anyhow, I'll get back the very first minute I can. I have to start to Mitchell County to-morrow, early in the morning, so I won't have any time to do anything except to-night. I can kill the chickens for you, and bring things up out of the cellar. What on earth made anybody put a cave as far from the kitchen door as that for is more than I can see," he said, taking vengeance on the first unpleasant feature of her circumstances that presented itself.

Hugh did not at all understand why she was sick and unequal to the demands made upon her strength, but he did see that she was so, and that her tired young face wore a discouraged expression.

"I'll take Jack with me; that'll help some," he said as an afterthought.

"If you would----" The relief in her voice told the strain it was upon her to work and watch the toddling child. "I'll tell you--hurry back and tack this carpet down for me. I'll have the room and closet straightened up so that you can do it by then."

She wiped Jack's dirty face with the end of a towel she thrust into the water pitcher on the washstand and sent him off with a kiss to the welcome ride. As she worked after they were gone, she ran over in her mind the supplies on hand for the feeding of fifteen men on such short notice. Threshing and corn-shelling meant hard work to the men who followed the business, but it meant feasting and festivity as well, and it was with the prospect of much cooking on the morrow that Elizabeth furrowed her forehead, and hurried with the replacing of the contents of the closet. There was a sponge to be set to-night and bread to bake to-morrow; there was a cake to be baked, beans picked over and set to soak, and dried fruit to stew; also, and what was more annoying, she had let the churning run over for twenty-four hours in order to finish her cleaning.

"If I can't get around to that churning, I'll just let it go if it does sour," she decided at last.

When Hugh came back she set him to work at the carpet and went to the kitchen to look after things there. Nathan had offered to keep Jack when he heard of the unexpected work his mother was going to have thrust upon her, and Hugh, remembering Elizabeth's relieved expression when he had offered to bring the child, was only too glad to leave him in such good hands.

"How long is that child going to stay at Hornby's?" John demanded the next morning. He set the heavy cream jar on the table and faced Elizabeth, who was kneading the bread on the big bread-board which rested on the top of the flour barrel.

"I don't know--till Uncle Nate gets time to bring him home to-day, I suppose."

Elizabeth did not look up.

"Well, I don't want this thing to happen again. A child that age has no business away from home. What was your idea, anyhow?"

"Ask Hugh. I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't even know it till he got back. He knew you had engaged the shellers without giving me any notice, and he knew I had too much for any woman to do. Uncle Nate knew it too. Go on, and don't bother me this morning; I'm so tired I can't talk about it, anyhow."

John Hunter was instantly apologetic.

"Oh, well, if Hugh did it I suppose he meant well. He got off all right. I look for some results with that Mitchell County land if he goes into it right. I'll send the cattle down as soon as he has time to get the fences in line and a man to look after them. I brought this cream up; it won't keep any longer."

John lifted the lid of the cream jar and sniffed with disapproval. "I'll just put it into the churn for you."

"Oh, dear! what did you bring it up for to-day? I can't churn with all I've got to do. Take it back."

"It won't keep!"

"Well--I can't churn, and I won't, so there! I've got all I can do to-day. I should not have let it go, but the cleaning dragged so; besides, I didn't know I was going to have all these men to-day and I thought I could get it done. Take it back. I can't have the churn around in the way to-day. I've never let a churning go to waste in my life, but if this gets too sour it won't cost any more than to have hired a girl to help with the work this week. Go on, and take it to the cellar and let me alone."

Elizabeth turned her back to show him that the argument was over, and did not see that he went out without it, leaving it on the back of the one small kitchen table she had. The pies she had just finished baking were ready to be taken from the oven, and when she turned to put them on the table she was confronted by the cream jar. The table was not large and she must have room for the food to be cooked that day, so Elizabeth lifted the heavy jar from the table and, after the pies were out, brought the churn. She could not carry it to the cellar again and there was no other way.

The sour cream refused to yield, and the girl churned on and on while she watched the dinner cook. The dinner boiled and bubbled, and the stove was working as actively in the kitchen as the corn-sheller was doing in the barnyard, when Nathan set Jack in the doorway and followed him in. Nathan sniffed appreciatively.

"Smells pretty good in here," he said, and then surveying the room in surprise added, "What on earth be you churnin' for? Ain't you got enough t' do, child?"

Elizabeth stooped to gather Jack into her arms and made no reply.

"It's as hot as th' devil in here," Nathan said, taking his coat off. "Here let me have a turn at that churn. You ought t' be in bed. That's where Sue'd put you if she was here."

He took the dasher into his own hand and began a brave onslaught on the over-sour cream. The butter gave signs of coming, but would not gather. He churned, and the sweat of his brow had to be wiped frequently to keep it from where he would literally have it to eat; it ran down inside his prickly blue flannel shirt, it stood out on his hair, hands and arms like dew on the morning grass, and the old man looked out to the wheezing corn-sheller and envied the men working in the cool breeze where life and courage could be sustained while one laboured.

"I wouldn't be a woman for fifty dollars a day," he announced with grim conviction. "It'd make a devil out of anybody t' work in this hell-hole. No wonder you're s' peeked, child."

* * * * *

John came back to the house almost immediately after leaving it to go to work in the afternoon.

"You'll have to bake more pies, Elizabeth. The men have been put back by a breakdown. They won't be able to get through before five or half-past," he said, coming into the kitchen to investigate the larder.

"They can't?" Elizabeth exclaimed, longing for the rest she had planned to get after the dinner work was finished.

"No. It's too bad, but it can't be helped. Now you get the oven going and I'll come in and help you about beating the eggs. You'll have to make custard pie, I guess, for there ain't enough fruit to make any more. Hurry, and I'll be in in a few minutes."

"I'm not going to make any more pies to-day," Elizabeth replied.

"You'll have to. Men like pies better than anything you could put on the table. How are you off for meat? Have you chicken enough left or shall I bring up a ham?"

Elizabeth faced this second meal with a dread she could not have expressed; she was so tired that she could scarcely stand; her back ached, and there was a strange pain pulling at her vitals.

"I'll attend to the supper. Go right on out of here. I am not going to bake any more pies. You crowded that churning on me this morning and you'd make my work double what it ought to be if I let you help. Go on!"

John brushed past her and lifted the bread-box.

The fierce heat of the cook stove, the pain in her back, the certain knowledge of suggestions to come, broke down the poise the girl was trying to maintain.

"I don't want any remarks about that bread-box! I've got sense enough to get supper. Go on out to your own work and let me attend to mine."

John Hunter stepped back in astonishment. He had been sympathetic, and had really wanted to be helpful. He was insulted and struck an attitude intended to convey the fact, but his wife closed the oven door with a bang and left the room without looking at him.

John punished his wife that night by letting her wash the supper dishes alone.

The next morning John continued to be aloof of manner and went to his work without attempting to empty the skimmed milk as usual, or to strain the new milk which stood at the top of the long cellar stairs. Elizabeth skimmed and strained and put the shelves in order. Her head ached, and her back never ceased hurting. When the last crock had been carried from the cave, the half-sick girl dragged herself to the bedroom and threw herself down on the unmade bed.

"I don't care--I won't do another stroke till I feel better, if it's never done. It wasn't nice for me to scold yesterday when he really wanted to help, but he makes so much extra work that I can't get it all done. It don't hurt him any more to be scolded than it does me to be kept on my feet after everything in my body is pulling out. He won't run off again and leave me to carry that heavy milk. I don't know why I didn't just leave it."

Elizabeth did not realize that she had done more than waste useful strength on useless tasks. She had yet to find out that it would have been cheaper to have left the entire contents of the cellar to sour or mould than to have worked on after she could do no more in comfort. It took Doctor Morgan to point out to her that farmers and their wives place undue value on a dollar's worth of milk, and that they support those of his profession at a far greater price than their butter would cost if they fed the milk to the pigs; also that they fill the asylums with victims and give younger women the chance to spend what they have worked to save after they are transplanted to other regions. They had been obliged to send for the doctor at noon.

The name of peritonitis did not impress the young wife with any importance when the old doctor warned her to lie still and rest. The fierce pain was eased by getting off her feet and she was so glad to rest that she took his advice, but she had had no illness and little experience with chronic ailments. He hoped to pull her through without the threatened disaster, but warned her solemnly.

"I'm glad we have you where you can't carry anything more out of that confounded hole in the ground," he said savagely. "You'd never quit till you were down, anyhow. Now don't you lift that child, no matter whether he cries or not."

He took John aside and talked to him seriously about his wife, and demanded that there be a hired girl procured. John listened as seriously and went to the kitchen and got the supper and prepared for breakfast. He worked diligently and took Elizabeth a dainty bite to eat, but when the question of a girl came up, he had his own say about that.

"I'll do the work in this house till you can get around yourself, but I never intend to look for a girl in this country again. You'll be stronger after a bit and then you can look for one."

He put Jack's nightgown over his little head and buttoned it in the back while he talked.

"This 'll pass over, and You'll be better in a week's time. I don't care if you have two girls, so I don't have to hunt them. Here, Jack, let me slip that shoe off."

"I can't seem to get well, though, with the drag of the housework on my mind," the girl said drearily.

Elizabeth wanted a woman in the kitchen. She lay without speaking for a moment, thinking that as usual she was unable to get the thing that her own judgment demanded. John would wash his dishes clean and keep the cooking and sweeping done as well as she, but she knew that the first day she would be out of bed she would be dragged to the kitchen to consult and oversee continually.

"Doctor Morgan said I might not be able to get around much all summer," she ventured, exaggerating the words of the old doctor somewhat in her determination to get help at all costs that would leave her free to get well.

"At least you can wait and see," John replied indifferently, already concerned with his own problems. He pushed Jack from his lap and sat lost in thought.

Elizabeth made it a rule never to argue unless there was hope of righting things. To say one word more was to lose her temper and that she tried not to do. The girl was really very ill; her head ached, and her body was sore and tender. She had not had a whole night's sleep for weeks and every nerve in her body cried out for rest; she wanted the light put out, she wanted to get quiet and to forget the house, and to be freed from the confusion; she was so nervous that she started at every noise. The night was cool and Jack, who shivered in his thin gown, crawled into his father's lap. John wanted to think at that moment, and to get rid of him put him firmly down on the foot of the bed, moving over to give him room at his side as he did so.

"Oh, don't shake the bed!" Elizabeth exclaimed, with such concentrated irritation that John set the child on the floor hastily.

"I only thought you could watch him a minute. I can't keep him on my lap all the time," John replied.

"Well, put him in the bed then, or tie him up or do something. I don't want to watch him, and his climbing around on the bed sets me crazy!" she exclaimed, pushing the child away from her pillow.

"We don't tie children up in the Hunter family," John replied, as usual falling upon the unimportant phase of the discussion and, instead of putting the child in bed, carried him off to the sitting room, where he fell into another brown study and let the baby slip from his lap again.

Jack, as soon as released, ran back to the bedroom and threw himself up against the side of the bed, stretching his arms up to be taken.

"Don't, dear; go to papa," Elizabeth said, trying to reach him.

Jack sidled away toward the foot of the bed, where he regarded his mother with stolid eyes, and beat a tattoo on the bed-rail with his hard little head.

"Jack! Don't do that!" she commanded sharply.

It was torture for her to have the bed jarred.

Jack, baby fashion, raised his head and gave the bed-rail another whack.

Elizabeth sat up suddenly and gave the child such a resounding slap that he sat down, shaking the whole house with the impact, his screams quite in keeping with the occasion. John carried the crying child out of the room, shutting the door with such a bang that the house and bed shook anew, and the girl had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.

It was the first time Elizabeth had ever struck her child in anger. Usually gentle and patient with his baby wilfulness, her heart recoiled at the deed. She knew that the possibilities of that action had been growing upon her of late. Nothing could excuse it to the accusing judge of Elizabeth's own soul. It was as if she were fenced around with a thousand devils; turn where she would there was no help and but little hope. She had come to understand herself enough to know that with sufficient provocation she would almost certainly do it again. The girl thought of her father. The deed was so like things that she had seen him do that she almost tore her hair as she prayed to be spared such a soul-destroying fate.

It was Jack's future estimates of her that caused her so much distress. The things emphasized by the mother in a home, she knew, were the things emphasized in the lives of her children. She had only to look at Jack's father to see the evidences of that truth. Mrs. Hunter's cleanliness and order, her tendency to over-emphasize details, were her son's strongest watchwords. It was absolutely imperative that she do the right thing by Jack. As she pondered she decided that she would rise up and make one more effort for the child. Then, like a creeping serpent, the thought of her attitude toward the child of her body suddenly presented its forked tongue and demanded that its future be reckoned with. From what principle was she dealing with it? Elizabeth knelt before the shrine of that child, not in joy and adoration, but with a fear which had almost become a hatred.

Elizabeth did not realize that it was the work and worry which she had gone through in these last weeks which made her irritable. She did not recognize the difference between nerves and temper, but she had come to understand that the unborn child was draining her strength. The prayer in her heart as she lay there thinking it out was for help to adjust her life to the conditions which she must meet, for strength to control herself, and for the power to so order her mental attitude toward this new child that she might be able to love it as it certainly deserved to be loved. But even as she prayed a horrible thought took possession of her:

"If only it would die and be prematurely released, as Doctor Morgan had said there was danger of it doing!"

It was then that Elizabeth Hunter realized the possibilities in herself. That was murder! If John complicated her work throughout eternity it would not warrant such an attitude. But this second child! It was the absorbing topic of her thoughts as she vainly tried to rest. She was so worn out that she could face no more work than she already had to do, and ever as she thought this serpent of temptation thrust its head out at her and said: "If the child would only die!"

Elizabeth had only to get out of bed and go to work to rid herself of the hateful burden in the present state of her health, but under no circumstances would she have done it. She would have parted with her right hand before she would have helped to destroy a life she had permitted to spring into being, and yet---- The thought occurred, and recurred, in spite of every effort, "If only----" And she knew that if it happened without her assistance she would be glad.

Elizabeth's distress increased, and when John brought her dinner on a tray covered with a fresh napkin and beside the plate a violet he and Jack had found in the pasture she brightened with pleasure at the dainty arrangement, but did not touch the food.

"Now be good to the baby; he's been asking for you all morning," he said, kissing Elizabeth with an effort at kindliness and understanding.

Elizabeth's head was aching wildly, and she was so nervous that she could scarcely endure being spoken to at all.

"Then don't leave him here, John, for I can't bear to have him fussing around," she said, trying to be appreciative.

"Oh, well, if you don't want him at all, I'll take him out again," he said crossly, setting the tray on a chair beside the bed.

He was able, however, to see that the girl was not altogether herself, and shut the door behind him carefully. The door shut so softly that the latch did not catch. When Jack finished his dinner he came running to his mother's room at once. The door gave way under his hand and he stood looking into the room curiously. After a glance around, he advanced confidently toward the bed with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

Elizabeth set her teeth hard. She was unable to reach out and lift him to a chair where he would not jar the bed, so it was her intention to be patient.

Jack's eyes fell upon the tray as he passed it, and he wheeled around and took stock of the contents of this new form of table. Frantic with irritability and knowing that she would be at fault in the manner of correcting the child, his mother let him eat out of the plate she had left untouched, rather than have a scene with him. Presently, however, Jack laid down the spoon with which he had been eating and attacked a dish of berries with his hands, letting the drops from the ends of his fingers trickle down the front of his clean gingham dress. Elizabeth happened to look up and saw what he was doing. There was no telling when she could get another washing done and her impulse was to spring at him and snatch him from harm's way, but she was trying to be more gentle and, drawing in a deep breath, she spoke as quietly as she could command herself to do.

"Don't do that, Jack," she said, reaching out her hand to take him by the arm.

Jack clutched the dish in sudden haste and raised it to his mouth, letting a stream of the purple juice dribble from it to his own bulging front before his mother could get her hand on him. Then, fearing a repetition of the blow of the night before, the baby threw himself on the floor, screaming loudly.

John came excitedly from the kitchen.

"What have you done to him now?" he asked, and without waiting to hear her reply went out, flinging the door back with a crash.

It was nearly dark when Doctor Morgan came, but although he was anxious to get back to his office he saw at once that he must stay with the suffering girl.

In the morning he called John out to the buggy and had a little talk with him.

"I feel, Hunter, as if I'd been a little to blame for this thing," he said as he picked up his lines to start for home. "I thought you'd be able to see that noise and worry were bad for her. I ought to have impressed the gravity of her condition on you and warned you that she must not be worried by that baby. You can see every muscle in her set hard when the bed is jarred. That child's got to be kept out of there. Those things hurt a woman in that condition like a knife."

"She's been awfully cross and cried about everything this week, but she hasn't complained much--that is, of anything but a little backache," John replied, fingering the whipstock of the doctor's buggy and not able to connect the present serious illness with any real reason.

"Little backache!" Doctor Morgan exclaimed with exasperation. "I never seem to be able to get you men to understand that noise hurts a woman sometimes worse than if you'd hit her with a ball-bat. Hurts, mind! It ain't imagination; it hurts, and will send a fever up in no time. Have I made it clear to you?" he asked doubtfully.

"I guess you have," John said, relinquishing the whipstock. "She's been awfully fretful, but I never thought of her being sick enough for this."

"Well," the old doctor said emphatically. "You've lost the child, and You'll lose your wife if you don't look out. You get a girl in that kitchen, and see to it that she tends things without Mrs. Hunter having to look after her. She won't do another day's work for a good long time--and mind, I say, You'll lose her yet if you don't keep that child off her till she has a chance to get well."

As Doctor Morgan drove away he said meditatively:

"Think I got him that time. Blamed fool!" _

Read next: Chapter 19. "Her Wages, Food And Clothing She Must Accept"

Read previous: Chapter 17. Adjusting Domestic To Social Ideals

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