He Fell In Love With His Wife - Edward Payson Roe (the speed reading book .txt) 📗

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hired farm-hands of the ruder sort came riding and trudging to Weeks’ barn,

where there was a barrel of cider on tap. Here they blackened their faces

with charcoal and stimulated their courage, for it was well known that

Holcroft was anything but lamblike when angered.

 

“He’ll be like a bull in a china shop,” remarked Tim, “but then there’s enough

of us to handle him if he gets too obstrep’rous.”

 

Armed with tin pans and horns which were to furnish the accompaniment to their

discordant voices, they started about eight in the evening. As they moved up

the road there was a good deal of coarse jesting and bravado, but when they

approached the farmhouse silence was enjoined. After passing up the lane they

looked rather nervously at the quiet dwelling softly outlined in the

moonlight. A lamp illumined the kitchen window, and Tim Weeks whispered

excitedly, “He’s there. Let’s first peek in the window and then give ‘em a

scorcher.”

 

Knowing that they should have the coming day in which to rest, Holcroft and

Alida had busied themselves with outdoor matters until late. She had been

planning her flower beds, cutting out the dead wood from some neglected

rosebushes and shrubbery, and had also helped her husband by sowing seed in

the kitchen garden back of the house. Then, weary, yet pleased with the labor

accomplished, they made a very leisurely supper, talking over garden matters

and farm prospects in general. Alida had all her flower seeds on the table

beside her, and she gloated over them and expatiated on the kind of blossoms

they would produce with so much zest that Holcroft laughingly remarked, “I

never thought that flowers would be one of the most important crops on the

place.”

 

“You will think so some day. I can see, from the expression of your eyes,

that the cherry blossoms and now the apple blows which I put on the table

please you almost as much as the fruit would.”

 

“Well, it’s because I notice ‘em. I never seemed to notice ‘em much before.”

 

“Oh, no! It’s more than that,” she replied, shaking her head. “Some people

would notice them, yet never see how pretty they were.”

 

“Then they’d be blind as moles.”

 

“The worst kind of blindness is that of the mind.”

 

“Well, I think many country people are as stupid and blind as oxen, and I was

one of ‘em. I’ve seen more cherry and apple blossoms this year than in all my

life before, and I haven’t thought only of cherries and apples either.”

 

“The habit of seeing what is pretty grows on one,” she resumed. “It seems to

me that flowers and such things feed mind and heart. So if one HAS mind and

heart, flowers become one of the most useful crops. Isn’t that practical

common sense?”

 

“Not very common in Oakville. I’m glad you think I’m in a hopeful frame of

mind, as they used to say down at the meeting house. Anyhow, since you wish

it, we will have a flower crop as well as a potato crop.”

 

Thus they continued chatting while Alida cleared up the table, and Holcroft,

having lighted his pipe, busied himself with peeling a long, slim hickory

sapling intended for a whipstock.

 

Having finished her tasks, Alida was finally drying her hands on a towel that

hung near a window. Suddenly, she caught sight of a dark face peering in.

Her startled cry brought Holcroft hastily to his feet. “What’s the matter?” he

asked.

 

“I saw—” Then she hesitated from a fear that he would rush into some unknown

danger.

 

The rough crew without perceived that their presence was known, and Tim Weeks

cried, “Now, all together!”

 

A frightful overture began at once, the hooting and yelling almost drowning

the instrumental part and sending to Alida’s heart that awful chill of fear

produced by human voices in any mob-like assemblage. Holcroft understood the

affair at once, for he was familiar with the custom, but she did not. He

threw open the door with the purpose of sternly expostulating with the

disturbers of the peace and of threatening them with the law unless they

retired. With an instinct to share his danger she stepped to his side, and

this brought a yell of derision. Lurid thoughts swept through her mind. She

had brought this danger. Her story had become known. What might they not do

to Holcroft? Under the impulse of vague terror and complete self-sacrifice,

she stepped forward and cried, “I only am to blame. I will go away forever if

you will spare—” But again the scornful clamor rose and drowned her voice.

 

Her action and words had been so swift that Holcroft could not interfere, but

in an instant he was at her side, his arm around her, his square jaw set, and

his eyes blazing with his kindling anger. He was not one of those men who

fume early under provocation and in words chiefly. His manner and gesture

were so impressive that his tormentors paused to listen.

 

“I know,” he said quietly, “all about this old, rude custom—that it’s often

little more than a rough lark. Well, now that you’ve had it, leave at once.

I’m in no mood for such attention from my neighbors. This is my wife, and

I’ll break any man’s head who says a word to hurt her feelings—”

 

“Oh yes! Take care of her feelings, now it’s your turn. They must ‘a’ been

hurt before,” piped up Tim Weeks.

 

“Good for you, old man, for showin’ us your poorhouse bride,” said another.

 

“We don’t fancy such grass-widders, and much married, half-married women in

Oakville,” yelled a third.

 

“Why didn’t yer jump over a broomstick for a weddin’ ceremony?” someone else

bawled.

 

These insults were fired almost in a volley. Alida felt Holcroft’s arm grow

rigid for a second. “Go in, quick!” he said.

 

Then she saw him seize the hickory sapling he had leaned against the house,

and burst upon the group like a thunderbolt. Cries of pain, yells, and oaths

of rage rose above the rain of blows. The older members of the crew sought to

close upon him, but he sprung back, and the tough sapling swept about him like

a circle of light. It was a terrific weapon in the hands of a strong man, now

possessed of almost giant strength in his rage. More than one fellow went

down under its stinging cut, and heads and faces were bleeding. The younger

portion of the crowd speedily took to their heels, and soon even the most

stubborn fled; the farmer vigorously assisting their ignominious retreat with

tremendous downward blows on any within reach. Tim Weeks had managed to keep

out of the way till they entered the lane; then, taking a small stone from the

fence, he hurled it at their pursuer and attempted to jump over the wall.

This was old, and gave way under him in such a way that he fell on the other

side. Holcroft leaped the fence with a bound, but Tim, lying on his back,

shrieked and held up his hands, “You won’t hit a feller when he’s down!”

 

“No,” said Holcroft, arresting his hickory. “I’ll send you to jail, Tim Weeks.

That stone you fired cut my head. Was your father in that crowd?”

 

“No-o-o!” blubbered Tim.

 

“If he was, I’d follow him home and whip him in his own house. Now, clear

out, and tell the rest of your rowdy crew that I’ll shoot the first one of you

that disturbs me again. I’ll send the constable for you, and maybe for some

of the others.”

 

Dire was the dismay, and dreadful the groaning in Oakville that night. Never

before had salves and poultices been in such demand. Not a few would be

disfigured for weeks, and wherever Holcroft’s blows had fallen welts arose

like whipcords. In Lemuel Weeks’ dwelling the consternation reached its

climax. Tim, bruised from his fall, limped in and told his portentous story.

In his spite, he added, “I don’t care, I hit him hard. His face was all

bloody.”

 

“All bloody!” groaned his father. “Lord ‘a mercy! He can send you to jail,

sure enough!”

 

Then Mrs. Weeks sat down and wailed aloud.

 

Chapter XXVI. “You Don’t Know.”

 

As Timothy Weeks limped hastily away, Holcroft, with a strong revulsion of

feeling, thought of Alida. HE had been able to answer insults in a way

eminently satisfactory to himself, and every blow had relieved his electrical

condition. But how about the poor woman who had received worse blows than he

had inflicted? As he hastened toward the house he recalled a dim impression

of seeing her sink down on the doorstep. Then he remembered her effort to

face the marauders alone. “She said she was to blame, poor child! As if there

were any blame at all! She said, ‘spare him,’ as if I was facing a band of

murderers instead of a lot of neighborhood scamps, and that she’d go away.

I’d fight all Oakville—men, women, and children—before I’d permit that,” and

he started on a run.

 

He found Alida on the step, where she had sunk as if struck down by the rough

epithets hurled at her. She was sobbing violently, almost hysterically, and

at first could not reply to his soothing words. He lifted her up, and half

carried her within to a chair. “Oh, oh,” she cried, “why did I not realize it

more fully before? Selfish woman that I was, to marry you and bring on you all

this shame and danger. I should have thought of it all, I ought to have died

rather than do you such a wrong.”

 

“Alida, Alida,” protested Holcroft, “if it were all to do over again, I’d be a

thousand times more—”

 

“Oh, I know, I know! You are brave and generous and honest. I saw that much

when you first spoke to me. I yielded to the temptation to secure such a

friend. I was too cowardly to face the world alone. And now see what’s

happened! You’re in danger and disgrace on my account. I must go away—I

must do what I should have done at first,” and with her face buried in her

hands she rocked back and forth, overwhelmed by the bitterness and reproach of

her thoughts.

 

“Alida,” he urged, “please be calm and sensible. Let me reason with you and

tell you the truth. All that’s happened is that the Oakville cubs have

received a well-deserved whipping. When you get calm, I can explain

everything so it won’t seem half so bad. Neither you nor I are in any danger,

and, as for your going away, look me in the eyes and listen.”

 

His words were almost stern in their earnestness. She raised her streaming

eyes to his face, then sprung up, exclaiming, “Oh! You’re wounded!”

 

“What’s that, compared with your talk of going away?”

 

All explanations and reassurances would have been trivial in effect, compared

with the truth that he had been hurt in her defense. She dashed her tears

right and left, ran for a basin of water, and making him take her chair, began

washing away the blood stains.

 

“Thunder!” he said, laughing, “How quickly we’ve changed places!”

 

“Oh, oh!” she moaned, “It’s a terrible wound; it might have killed you, and

they WILL kill you yet.”

 

He took her hands and held them firmly. “Alida,” he said, gravely yet kindly,

“be still and listen to me.”

 

For a moment or two longer her bosom heaved with convulsive sobs, and then she

grew quiet. “Don’t you know you can’t go away?” he asked, still retaining her

hands and