Short Stories for English Courses

V >> Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.) >> Short Stories for English Courses

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was
forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to
the snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a
pair of snowshoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack-
saddle. "There's one chance in a hundred to save her yet," he
said, pointing to Piney; "but it's there," he added, pointing
toward Poker Flat. "If you can reach there in two days she's
safe." "And you?" asked Tom Simson. "I'll stay here," was the curt
reply.

The lovers parted with a long embrace. "You are not going, too?"
said the Duchess, as she saw Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to
accompany him. "As far as the canon," he replied. He turned
suddenly, and kissed the Duchess, leaving her pallid face aflame,
and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.

Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and
the whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that
some one had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a
few days longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from
Piney.

The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each
other's faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke; but Piney,
accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her
arm around the Duchess's waist. They kept this attitude for the
rest of the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury,
and, rending asunder the protecting pines, invaded the very hut.

Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire,
which gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the
Duchess crept closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many
hours: "Piney, can you pray?" "No, dear," said Piney, simply. The
Duchess, without knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting
her head upon Piney's shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining,
the younger and purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon
her virgin breast, they fell asleep.

The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of
snow, shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white-winged
birds, and settled about them as they slept. The moon through the
rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the camp. But all
human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the
spotless mantle mercifully flung from above.

They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when
voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when
pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could
scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them,
which was she that had sinned. Even the Law of Poker Flat
recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in
each other's arms.

But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine-trees,
they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie
knife. It bore the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand:

BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A
STREAK OF BAD LUCK ON THE 2ND OF NOVEMBER, 1850, AND HANDED IN HIS
CHECKS ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.

And, pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a
bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the
snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of
the outcasts of Poker Flat.

THE REVOLT OF "MOTHER"

BY

MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN

This is a story of character against a New England background.
Each character is worked out with the delicacy and minuteness of a
cameo. Each is intensely realistic, yet, as in the cameo, palely
flushed with romance. "Mother," along with her originality of
action and long-concealed ideals, has the saving quality of
common-sense, which makes its powerful appeal to the daily
realities of life. Thus when "Father," dazed by the unexpected
revelation of the character and ideals of the woman he has
misunderstood for forty years, stands uncertain whether to assert
or to surrender his long-established supremacy, she decides him in
her favor by a practical suggestion of acquiescence: "You'd better
take your coat off an' get washed--there's the wash-basin--an'
then we'll have supper."

THE REVOLT OF "MOTHER"

[Footnote: From "A New England Nun and Other Stories," by Mary E.
Wilkins Freeman. Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Bros. Reprinted by
special permission.]

"Father!"

"What is it?"

"What are them men diggin' over there in the field for?"

There was a sudden dropping and enlarging of the lower part of the
old man's face, as if some heavy weight had settled therein; he
shut his mouth tight, and went on harnessing the great bay mare.
He hustled the collar on to her neck with a jerk.

"Father!"

The old man slapped the saddle upon the mare's back.

"Look here, father, I want to know what them men are diggin' over
in the field for, an' I'm goin' to know."

"I wish you'd go into the house, mother, an' 'tend to your own
affairs," the old man said then. He ran his words together, and
his speech was almost as inarticulate as a growl.

But the woman understood; it was her most native tongue. "I ain't
goin' into the house till you tell me what them men are doin' over
there in the field," said she.

Then she stood waiting. She was a small woman, short and straight-
waisted like a child in her brown cotton gown. Her forehead was
mild and benevolent between the smooth curves of gray hair; there
were meek downward lines about her nose and mouth; but her eyes,
fixed upon the old man, looked as if the meekness had been the
result of her own will, never of the will of another.

They were in the barn, standing before the wide-open doors. The
spring air, full of the smell of growing grass and unseen
blossoms, came in their faces. The deep yard in front was littered
with farm wagons and piles of wood, on the edges, close to the
fence and the house, the grass was a vivid green, and there were
some dandelions.

The old man glanced doggedly at his wife as he tightened the last
buckles on the harness. She looked as immovable to him as one of
the rocks in his pastureland, bound to the earth with generations
of blackberry vines. He slapped the reins over the horse, and
started forth from the barn.

"FATHER!" said she.

The old man pulled up. "What is it?"

"I want to know what them men are diggin' over there in that field
for."

"They're diggin' a cellar, I s'pose, if you've got to know."

"A cellar for what?"

"A barn."

"A barn? You ain't goin' to build a barn over there where we was
goin' to have a house, father?"

The old man said not another word. He hurried the horse into the
farm wagon, and clattered out of the yard, jouncing as sturdily on
his seat as a boy.

The woman stood a moment looking after him, then she went out of
the barn across a corner of the yard to the house. The house,
standing at right angles with the great barn and a long reach of
sheds and out-buildings, was infinitesimal compared with them. It
was scarcely as commodious for people as the little boxes under
the barn eaves were for doves.

A pretty girl's face, pink and delicate as a flower, was looking
out of one of the house windows. She was watching three men who
were digging over in the field which bounded the yard near the
road line. She turned quietly when the woman entered.

"What are they digging for, mother?" said she. "Did he tell you?"

"They're diggin' for--a cellar for a new barn."

"Oh, mother, he ain't going to build another barn?"

"That's what he says."

A boy stood before the kitchen glass combing his hair. He combed
slowly and painstakingly, arranging his brown hair in a smooth
hillock over his forehead. He did not seem to pay any attention to
the conversation.

"Sammy, did you know father was going to build a new barn?" asked
the girl.

The boy combed assiduously.

"Sammy!"

He turned, and showed a face like his father's under his smooth
crest of hair. "Yes, I s'pose I did," he said, reluctantly.

"How long have you known it?" asked his mother.

"'Bout three months, I guess."

"Why didn't you tell of it?"

"Didn't think 'twould do no good."

"I don't see what father wants another barn for," said the girl,
in her sweet, slow voice. She turned again to the window, and
stared out at the digging men in the field. Her tender, sweet face
was full of a gentle distress. Her forehead was as bald and
innocent as a baby's, with the light hair strained back from it in
a row of curl-papers. She was quite large, but her soft curves did
not look as if they covered muscles.

Her mother looked sternly at the boy. "Is he goin' to buy more
cows?" said she.

The boy did not reply; he was tying his shoes.

"Sammy, I want you to tell me if he's goin' to buy more cows."

"I s'pose he is."

"How many?"

"Four, I guess."

His mother said nothing more. She went into the pantry, and there
was a clatter of dishes. The boy got his cap from a nail behind
the door, took an old arithmetic from the shelf, and started for
school. He was lightly built, but clumsy. He went out of the yard
with a curious spring in the hips, that made his loose home-made
jacket tilt up in the rear.

The girl went to the sink, and began to wash the dishes that were
piled up there. Her mother came promptly out of the pantry, and
shoved her aside. "You wipe 'em," said she; "I'll wash. There's a
good many this mornin'."

The mother plunged her hands vigorously into the water, the girl
wiped the plates slowly and dreamily. "Mother," said she, "don't
you think it's too bad father's going to build that new barn, much
as we need a decent house to live in?"

Her mother scrubbed a dish fiercely. "You ain't found out yet
we're women-folks, Nanny Penn," said she. "You ain't seen enough
of men-folks yet to. One of these days you'll find it out, an'
then you'll know that we know only what men-folks think we do, so
far as any use of it goes, an' how we'd ought to reckon men-folks
in with Providence, an' not complain of what they do any more than
we do of the weather."

"I don't care; I don't believe George is anything like that,
anyhow," said Nanny. Her delicate face flushed pink, her lips
pouted softly, as if she were going to cry.

"You wait an' see. I guess George Eastman ain't no better than
other men. You hadn't ought to judge father, though. He can't help
it, 'cause he don't look at things jest the way we do. An' we've
been pretty comfortable here, after all. The roof don't leak--
ain't never but once--that's one thing. Father's kept it shingled
right up."

"I do wish we had a parlor."

"I guess it won't hurt George Eastman any to come to see you in a
nice clean kitchen. I guess a good many girls don't have as good a
place as this. Nobody's ever heard me complain."

"I ain't complained either, mother."

"Well, I don't think you'd better, a good father an' a good home
as you've got. S'pose your father made you go out an' work for
your livin'? Lots of girls have to that ain't no stronger an'
better able to than you be."

Sarah Penn washed the frying-pan with a conclusive air. She
scrubbed the outside of it as faithfully as the inside. She was a
masterly keeper of her box of a house. Her one living-room never
seemed to have in it any of the dust which the friction of life
with inanimate matter produces. She swept, and there seemed to be
no dirt to go before the broom; she cleaned, and one could see no
difference. She was like an artist so perfect that he has
apparently no art. To-day she got out a mixing bowl and a board,
and rolled some pies, and there was no more flour upon her than
upon her daughter who was doing finer work. Nanny was to be
married in the fall, and she was sewing on some white cambric and
embroidery. She sewed industriously while her mother cooked, her
soft milk-white hands and wrists showed whiter than her delicate
work.

"We must have the stove moved out in the shed before long," said
Mrs. Penn. "Talk about not havin' things, it's been a real
blessin' to be able to put a stove up in that shed in hot weather.
Father did one good thing when he fixed that stove-pipe out
there."

Sarah Penn's face as she rolled her pies had that expression of
meek vigor which might have characterized one of the New Testament
saints. She was making mince-pies. Her husband, Adoniram Penn,
liked them better than any other kind. She baked twice a week.
Adoniram often liked a piece of pie between meals. She hurried
this morning. It had been later than usual when she began, and she
wanted to have a pie baked for dinner. However deep a resentment
she might be forced to hold against her husband, she would never
fail in sedulous attention to his wants.

Nobility of character manifests itself at loop-holes when it is
not provided with large doors. Sarah Penn's showed itself to-day
in flaky dishes of pastry. So she made the pies faithfully, while
across the table she could see, when she glanced up from her work,
the sight that rankled in her patient and steadfast soul--the
digging of the cellar of the new barn in the place where Adoniram
forty years ago had promised her their new house should stand.

The pies were done for dinner. Adoniram and Sammy were home a few
minutes after twelve o'clock. The dinner was eaten with serious
haste. There was never much conversation at the table in the Penn
family. Adoniram asked a blessing, and they ate promptly, then
rose up and went about their work.

Sammy went back to school, taking soft, sly lopes out of the yard
like a rabbit. He wanted a game of marbles before school, and
feared his father would give him some chores to do. Adoniram
hastened to the door and called after him, but he was out of
sight.

"I don't see what you let him go for, mother," said he. "I wanted
him to help me unload that wood."

Adoniram went to work out in the yard unloading wood from the
wagon. Sarah put away the dinner dishes, while Nanny took down her
curl-papers and changed her dress. She was going down to the store
to buy some more embroidery and thread.

When Nanny was gone, Mrs. Penn went to the door. "Father!" she
called.

"Well, what is it!"

"I want to see you jest a minute, father."

"I can't leave this wood nohow. I've got to git it unloaded an' go
for a load of gravel afore two o'clock. Sammy had ought to helped
me. You hadn't ought to let him go to school so early."

"I want to see you jest a minute."

"I tell ye I can't, nohow, mother."

"Father, you come here." Sarah Penn stood in the door like a
queen; she held her head as if it bore a crown; there was that
patience which makes authority royal in her voice. Adoniram went.

Mrs. Penn led the way into the kitchen, and pointed to a chair.
"Sit down, father," said she; "I've got somethin' I want to say to
you."

He sat down heavily; his face was quite stolid, but he looked at
her with restive eyes. "Well, what is it, mother?"

"I want to know what you're buildin' that new barn for, father?"

"I ain't got nothin' to say about it."

"It can't be you think you need another barn?"

"I tell ye I ain't got nothin' to say about it, mother; an' I
ain't goin' to say nothin'."

"Be you goin' to buy more cows?"

Adoniram did not reply; he shut his mouth tight.

"I know you be, as well as I want to. Now, father, look here"--
Sarah Penn had not sat down; she stood before her husband in the
humble fashion of a Scripture woman--"I'm goin' to talk real plain
to you; I never have sence I married you, but I'm goin' to now. I
ain't never complained, an' I ain't goin' to complain now, but I'm
goin' to talk plain. You see this room here, father; you look at
it well. You see there ain't no carpet on the floor, an' you see
the paper is all dirty, an' droppin' off the walls. We ain't had
no new paper on it for ten year, an' then I put it on myself, an'
it didn't cost but ninepence a roll. You see this room, father;
it's all the one I've had to work in an' eat in an' sit in sence
we was married. There ain't another woman in the whole town whose
husband ain't got half the means you have but what's got better.
It's all the room Nanny's got to have her company in; an' there
ain't one of her mates but what's got better, an' their fathers
not so able as hers is. It's all the room she'll have to be
married in. What would you have thought, father, if we had had our
weddin' in a room no better than this? I was married in my
mother's parlor, with a carpet on the floor, an' stuffed
furniture, an' a mahogany card-table. An' this is all the room my
daughter will have to be married in. Look here, father!"

Sarah Penn went across the room as though it were a tragic stage.
She flung open a door and disclosed a tiny bedroom, only large
enough for a bed and bureau, with a path between. "There, father,"
said she--"there's all the room I've had to sleep in forty year.
All my children were born there--the two that died, an' the two
that's livin'. I was sick with a fever there."

She stepped to another door and opened it. It led into the small,
ill-lighted pantry. "Here," said she, "is all the buttery I've
got--every place I've got for my dishes, to set away my victuals
in, an' to keep my milk-pans in. Father, I've been takin' care of
the milk of six cows in this place, an' now you're goin' to build
a new barn, an' keep more cows, an' give me more to do in it."

She threw open another door. A narrow crooked flight of stairs
wound upward from it. "There, father," said she, "I want you to
look at the stairs that go up to them two unfinished chambers that
are all the places our son an' daughter have had to sleep in all
their lives. There ain't a prettier girl in town nor a more
ladylike one than Nanny, an' that's the place she has to sleep in.
It ain't so good as your horse's stall; it ain't so warm an'
tight."

Sarah Penn went back and stood before her husband. "Now, father,"
said she, "I want to know if you think you're doin' right an'
accordin' to what you profess. Here, when we was married, forty
year ago, you promised me faithful that we should have a new house
built in that lot over in the field before the year was out. You
said you had money enough, an' you wouldn't ask me to live in no
such place as this. It is forty year now, an' you've been makin'
more money, an' I've been savin' of it for you ever sence, an' you
ain't built no house yet. You've built sheds an' cow-houses an'
one new barn, an' now you're goin' to build another. Father, I
want to know if you think it's right. You're lodgin' your dumb
beasts better than you are your own flesh an' blood. I want to
know if you think it's right."

"I ain't got nothin' to say."

"You can't say nothin' without ownin' it ain't right, father. An'
there's another thing--I ain't complained; I've got along forty
year, an' I s'pose I should forty more, if it wa'n't for that--if
we don't have another house. Nanny she can't live with us after
she's married. She'll have to go somewheres else to live away from
us, an' it don't seem as if I could have it so, noways, father.
She wa'n't ever strong. She's got considerable color, but there
wa'n't never any backbone to her. I've always took the heft of
everything off her, an' she ain't fit to keep house an' do
everything herself. She'll be all worn out inside of a year. Think
of her doin' all the washin' an' ironin' an' bakin' with them soft
white hands an' arms, an' sweepin'! I can't have it so, noways,
father."

Mrs. Penn's face was burning; her mild eyes gleamed. She had
pleaded her little cause like a Webster; she had ranged from
severity to pathos; but her opponent employed that obstinate
silence which makes eloquence futile with mocking echoes. Adoniram
arose clumsily.

"Father, ain't you got nothin' to say?" said Mrs. Penn.

"I've got to go off after that load of gravel. I can't stan' here
talkin' all day."

"Father, won't you think it over, an' have a house built there
instead of a barn?"

"I ain't got nothin' to say."

Adoniram shuffled out. Mrs. Penn went into her bedroom. When she
came out, her eyes were red. She had a roll of unbleached cotton
cloth. She spread it out on the kitchen table, and began cutting
out some shirts for her husband. The men over in the field had a
team to help them this afternoon; she could hear their halloos.
She had a scanty pattern for the shirts; she had to plan and piece
the sleeves.

Nanny came home with her embroidery, and sat down with her
needlework. She had taken down her curl-papers, and there was a
soft roll of fair hair like an aureole over her forehead; her face
was as delicately fine and clear as porcelain. Suddenly she looked
up, and the tender red flamed all over her face and neck.
"Mother," said she.

"What say?"

"I've been thinking--I don't see how we're goin' to have any--
wedding in this room. I'd be ashamed to have his folks come if we
didn't have anybody else."

"Mebbe we can have some new paper before then; I can put it on. I
guess you won't have no call to be ashamed of your belongin's."

"We might have the wedding in the new barn," said Nanny, with
gentle pettishness. "Why, mother, what makes you look so?"

Mrs. Penn had started, and was staring at her with a curious
expression. She turned again to her work, and spread out a pattern
carefully on the cloth. "Nothin'," said she.

Presently Adoniram clattered out of the yard in his two-wheeled
dump cart, standing as proudly upright as a Roman charioteer. Mrs.
Penn opened the door and stood there a minute looking out; the
halloos of the men sounded louder.

It seemed to her all through the spring months that she heard
nothing but the halloos and the noises of saws and hammers. The
new barn grew fast. It was a fine edifice for this little village.
Men came on pleasant Sundays, in their meeting suits and clean
shirt bosoms, and stood around it admiringly. Mrs. Penn did not
speak of it, and Adoniram did not mention it to her, although
sometimes, upon a return from inspecting it, he bore himself with
injured dignity.

"It's a strange thing how your mother feels about the new barn,"
he said, confidentially, to Sammy one day.

Sammy only grunted after an odd fashion for a boy; he had learned
it from his father.

The barn was all completed ready for use by the third week in
July. Adoniram had planned to move his stock in on Wednesday; on
Tuesday he received a letter which changed his plans. He came in
with it early in the morning. "Sammy's been to the post-office,"
said he, "an' I've got a letter from Hiram." Hiram was Mrs. Penn's
brother, who lived in Vermont.

"Well," said Mrs. Penn, "what does he say about the folks?"

"I guess they're all right. He says he thinks if I come up country
right off there's a chance to buy jest the kind of a horse I
want." He stared reflectively out of the window at the new barn.

Mrs. Penn was making pies. She went on clapping the rolling-pin
into the crust, although she was very pale, and her heart beat
loudly.

"I dun' know but what I'd better go," said Adoniram. "I hate to go
off jest now, right in the midst of hayin', but the ten-acre lot's
cut, an' I guess Rufus an' the others can git along without me
three or four days. I can't get a horse round here to suit me,
nohow, an' I've got to have another for all that wood-haulin' in
the fall. I told Hiram to watch out, an' if he got wind of a good
horse to let me know. I guess I'd better go."

"I'll get out your clean shirt an' collar," said Mrs. Penn,
calmly.

She laid out Adoniram's Sunday suit and his clean clothes on the
bed in the little bedroom. She got his shaving-water and razor
ready. At last she buttoned on his collar and fastened his black
cravat.

Adoniram never wore his collar and cravat except on extra
occasions. He held his head high, with a rasped dignity. When he
was all ready, with his coat and hat brushed, and a lunch of pie
and cheese in a paper bag, he hesitated on the threshold of the
door. He looked at his wife, and his manner was defiantly
apologetic. "IF them cows come to-day, Sammy can drive 'em into
the new barn," said he; "an' when they bring the hay up, they can
pitch it in there."

"Well," replied Mrs. Penn.

Adoniram set his shaven face ahead and started. When he had
cleared the door-step, he turned and looked back with a kind of
nervous solemnity. "I shall be back by Saturday if nothin'
happens," said he.

"Do be careful, father," returned his wife.

She stood in the door with Nanny at her elbow and watched him out
of sight. Her eyes had a strange, doubtful expression in them; her
peaceful forehead was contracted. She went in, and about her
baking again. Nanny sat sewing. Her wedding-day was drawing
nearer, and she was getting pale and thin with her steady sewing.
Her mother kept glancing at her.

"Have you got that pain in your side this mornin'?" she asked.

"A little."

Mrs. Penn's face, as she worked, changed, her perplexed forehead
smoothed, her eyes were steady, her lips firmly set. She formed a
maxim for herself, although incoherently with her unlettered
thoughts. "Unsolicited opportunities are the guide-posts of the
Lord to the new roads of life," she repeated in effect, and she
made up her mind to her course of action.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28