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

complement the man, and it should

be her aim to study the great—the great—shall we say reason, for her being?

Which is adaptation,” and she uttered the word with feeling, assured that

Holcroft could not fail of being impressed by it. The poor man was bolting

such food as had been prepared in his haste to get away.

 

“Yes,” continued the widow, “adaptation is woman’s mission and—”

 

“Really, Mrs. Mumpson, your and Jane’s mission this morning will be to get as

much butter as possible out of the cream and milk on hand. I’ll set the old

dog on the wheel, and start the churn within half an hour,” and he rose with

the thought, “I’d rather finish my breakfast on milk and coffee by and by than

stand this.” And he said, “Please let the coffee be until I come in to show

you about taking out and working the butter.”

 

The scenes in the dairy need not be dwelt upon. He saw that Jane might be

taught, and that she would probably try to do all that her strength permitted.

It was perfectly clear that Mrs. Mumpson was not only ignorant of the duties

which he had employed her to perform, but that she was also too preoccupied

with her talk and notions of gentility ever to learn. He was already

satisfied that in inducing him to engage her, Lemuel Weeks had played him a

trick, but there seemed no other resource than to fulfill his agreement. With

Mrs. Mumpson in the house, there might be less difficulty in securing and

keeping a hired girl who, with Jane, might do the essential work. But the

future looked so unpromising that even the strong coffee could not sustain his

spirits. The hopefulness of the early morning departed, leaving nothing but

dreary uncertainty.

 

Mrs. Mumpson was bent upon accompanying him to town and engaging the girl

herself. “There would be great propriety in my doing so,” she argued at

dinner, “and propriety is something that adorns all the human race. There

would be no danger of my getting any of the peculiar females such as you have

been afflicted with. As I am to superintend her labors, she will look up to

me with respect and humility if she learns from the first to recognize in me a

superior on whom she will be dependent for her daily bread. No shiftless

hussy would impose upon ME. I would bring home—how sweet the word sounds!—a

model of industry and patient endurance. She would be deferential, she would

know her place, too. Everything would go like clockwork in our home. I’ll

put on my things at once and—”

 

“Excuse me, Mrs. Mumpson. It would not be right to leave Jane here alone.

Moreover, I’d rather engage my own help.”

 

“But my dear Mr. Holcroft, you don’t realize—men never do realize—that you

will have a long, lonely ride with a female of unknown—unknown antercedents.

It will be scarcely respecterble, and respecterbility should be man and

woman’s chief aim. Jane is not a timid child, and in an emergency like this,

even if she was, she would gladly sacrifice herself to sustain the proprieties

of life. Now that your life has begun under new and better auspices, I feel

that I ought to plead with you not to cloud your brightening prospects by a

thoughtless unregard of what society looks upon as proper. The eyes of the

community will now be upon us—”

 

“You must excuse me, Mrs. Mumpson. All I ask of the community is to keep

their eyes on their own business, while I attend to mine in my own way. The

probabilities are that the girl will come out on the stage Monday,” and he

rose from the dinner table and hastily made his preparations for departure.

He was soon driving rapidly away, having a sort of nervous apprehension lest

Jane, or the widow, should suddenly appear on the seat beside him. A basket

of eggs and some inferior butter, with the burnt-out stove, were in his wagon

and his bank book was in his pocket. It was with sinking heart that he

thought of making further inroads on his small accumulations.

 

Before he was out of sight Mrs. Mumpson betook herself to the rocking chair

and began to expatiate on the blindness and obduracy of men in general and of

Mr. Holcroft in particular. “They are all much alike,” she complained, “and

are strangely neglectful of the proprieties of life. My dear, deceased

husband, your father, was becoming gradually senserble of my value in guiding

him in this respect, and indeed, I may add in all respects, when, in the very

prime of his expanding manhood, he was laid low. Of course, my happiness was

buried then and my heart can never throb again, but I have a mission in the

world—I feel it—and here is a desolate home bereft of female influence and

consolation and hitherto painfully devoid of respecterbility.

 

“I once called on the late Mrs. Holcroft, and—I must say it—I went away

depressed by a sense of her lack of ability to develop in her husband those

qualities which would make him an ornament to society. She was a silent

woman, she lacked mind and ideas. She had seen little of the world and knew

not what was swaying people. Therefore, her husband, having nothing else to

think of, became absorbed in the accumulation of dollars. Not that I object

to dollars—they have their proper place,—but minds should be fixed on all

things. We should take a deep personal interest in our fellow beings, and

thus we grow broad. As I was saying, Mr. Holcroft was not developed by his

late spouse. He needs awakening, arousing, stimulating, drawing out, and such

I feel to be my mission. I must be patient; I cannot expect the habits of

years to pass away under a different kind of female influence, at once.”

 

Jane had been stolidly washing and putting away dishes during this partial

address to herself and partial soliloquy, but now remarked, “You and me will

pass away in a week if you go on as you’ve begun. I can see it comin’. Then,

where’ll we go to?”

 

“Your words, Jane, only show that you are an ignorant, short-sighted child.

Do you suppose that a woman of my years and experience would make no better

provision for the future than a man’s changeful mind—a warped and undeveloped

mind, at that? No; I have an agreement with Mr. Holcroft. I shall be a

member of his household for three months at least, and long before that he

will begin to see everything in a new light. It will gradually dawn upon him

that he has been defrauded of proper female influence and society. Now, he is

crude, he thinks only of work and accumulating; but when the work is done by a

menial female’s hands and his mind is more at rest, there will begin to steal

in upon him the cravings of his mind. He will see that material things are

not all in all.”

 

“P’raps he will. I don’t half know that you’re talkin’ about. ‘Fi’s you, I’d

learn to work and do things as he wants ‘em. That’s what I’m going to do.

Shall I go now and make up his bed and tidy his room?”

 

“I think I will accompany you, Jane, and see that your task is properly

performed.”

 

“Of course you want to see everythin’ in the room, just as I do.”

 

“As housekeeper, I should see everything that is under my care. That is the

right way to look at the matter.”

 

“Well, come and look then.”

 

“You are becoming strangely disrespectful, Jane.”

 

“Can’t help it,” replied the girl, “I’m gettin’ mad. We’ve been elbowed

around long’s I can remember, at least I’ve been, and now we’re in a place

where we’ve a right to be, and you do nothin’ but talk, talk, talk, when he

hates talk. Now you’ll go up in his room and you’ll see everythin’ in it, so

you could tell it all off tomorrow. Why, can’t you see he hates talk and

wants somethin’ done?”

 

“Jane,” said Mrs. Mumpson, in her most severe and dignified manner, “you are

not only disrespectful to your parent, but you’re a time server. What Mr.

Holcroft wants is a very secondary matter; what is BEST for him is the chief

consideration. But I have touched on things far above your comprehension.

Come, you can make up the bed, and I shall inspect as becomes my station.”

 

Chapter VI. A Marriage!

 

In a quiet side street of the market town in which Mr. Holcroft was accustomed

to dispose of his farm produce was a three-story tenement house. A family

occupied each floor, those dwelling in the first two stories being plain,

respectable people of the mechanic class. The rooms in the third story were,

of course, the cheapest, but even from the street might be seen evidences that

more money had been spent upon them than could have been saved in rent. Lace

curtains were looped aside from the windows, through which were caught

glimpses of flowers that must have come from a greenhouse. We have only to

enter these apartments to find that the suggestion of refined taste is amply

fulfilled. While nothing is costly, there is a touch of grace, a hint of

beauty in everything permitting simple adornment. The mistress of these rooms

is not satisfied with neatness and order merely; it is her instinct to add

something to please the eye—a need essential to her, yet too often

conspicuously absent in rented quarters of a similar character.

 

It is remarkable to what a degree people’s abodes are a reflex of themselves.

Mrs. Alida Ostrom had been brought to these rooms a happy bride but a few

months since. They were then bare and not very clean. Her husband had seemed

bent on indulging her so far as his limited means permitted. He had declared

that his income was so modest that he could afford nothing better than these

cheap rooms in an obscure street, but she had been abundantly content, for she

had known even the extremity of poverty.

 

Alida Ostrom had passed beyond the period of girlhood, with its superficial

desires and ambitions. When her husband first met her, she was a woman of

thirty, and had been chastened by deep sorrows and some bitter experiences.

Years before, she and her mother had come to this town from a New England city

in the hope of bettering their circumstances. They had no weapons other than

their needles with which to fight life’s battle, but they were industrious and

frugal—characteristic traits which won the confidence of the shopkeepers for

whom they worked. All went as well, perhaps, as they could expect, for two or

three years, their secluded lives passing uneventfully and, to a certain

extent, happily. They had time to read some good books obtained at a public

library; they enjoyed an occasional holiday in the country; and they went to

church twice every Sunday when it was not stormy. The mother usually dozed in

the obscure seat near the door which they occupied, for she was getting old,

and the toil of the long week wearied her.—Alida, on the contrary, was

closely attentive. Her mind seemed to crave all the sustenance it could get

from every source, and her reverential manner indicated that the hopes

inspired by her faith were dear and cherished. Although they lived such quiet

lives and kept themselves apart from their neighbors, there was no mystery

about them which awakened surmises. “They’ve seen better days,” was the common

remark when they were spoken of; and this was true. While they had no desire

to be social with the people