Phoebe Deane (3 page)

Then Albert appeared in the kitchen door with the hired man behind him, and the sense of her duty made her turn to work, that old, blessed refuge for those who are turned out of their bits of Edens for a time. She hurried to take up the breakfast, while the two men washed their faces at the pump and dried them on the long roller-towel that hung from the inside of the door.

" Hello, Phoebe," called Albert, as he turned to surrender his place at the comb and the looking-glass. " I say, Phoebe, you're looking like a rose this morning. What makes your cheeks so red ? Anybody been kissing you this early ? "

This pleasantry was intended as a joke. Albert had never said anything of the sort to her before. She felt instinctively that Emmeline had been putting ideas about her and Hiram into his head. It almost brought the tears to have Albert speak in this way. He was so uniformly kind to her and treated her as if she were still almost a child. She hated jokes of this sort, and it was all the worse because of the presence of Alma and the hired man. Alma grinned knowingly, and went over where she could look into Phoebe’s face. Henry Williams, with the freedom born of his own social equality—he being the son of a neighboring farmer who had hired himself out for the season as there were more brothers at home than were needed—turned and stared admiringly at Phoebe.

" Say, Phoebe," put in Henry, " you do look real pretty this morning, now if I do say it. I never noticed before how handsome your eyes were. What's that you said about kissing, Albert? I wouldn't mind taking the job, if it's going. How about it, Phoebe ? "

Pleasantry of this sort was common in the neighborhood, but Phoebe had never joined in it, and she had always looked upon it as unrefined, and a form of amusement that her mother would not have liked. Now when it was directed toward her, and she realized that it trifled with the most sacred and personal relations of life, it filled her with horror.

" Please don't, Albert!" she said, with trembling lips in a low voice. " Don't! I don't like it." And Alma saw with wonder, and gloated over the fact, that there were tears in Aunt Phoebe's eyes. That would be something to remember and tell. Aunt Phoebe usually kept her emotions to herself with the door shut too tight for Alma to peep in.

" Not ? " said Albert, perplexed. " Well, course I won't if you don't like it. I was only telling you how bright and pretty you looked and making you know how nice it was to have you around. Sit down, child, and let's have breakfast. Where's your mother, Alma?"

Emmeline entered with a flushed face, and a couple of cowed and dejected small boys held firmly by the shoulders.

Somewhat comforted by Albert's assurance, Phoebe was able to finish her work and sit down at the table; but although she busied herself industriously in putting on the baby's bib, spreading Johnny's bread, handing Alma the syrup-jug, and preventing her from emptying its entire contents over her personal breakfast, inside and out, she ate nothing herself: for every time she raised her eyes she found a battalion of other eyes staring at her.

Emmeline was looking her through, in puzzled annoyance and chagrin, taking in the fact that her well-planned matchmaking was not running as smoothly as had been expected. Albert was studying her in the astonishing discovery that the thin, sad little half-sister he had brought into his home, who had seemed so lifeless and colorless and unlike the bouncing pretty girls of the neighborhood, had suddenly become beautiful, and was almost a woman. Several times he opened his mouth to say this in the bosom of his family, and then the dignified poise of the lovely head, or a something in the stately set of the small shoulders, or a pleading look in the large soft eyes raised to him, held him quiet; and his own eyes tried to tell her again that he would not say it if she did not like it.

Alma was staring at her between mouthfuls of mush, and thinking how she would tell about those tears, and how perhaps she would taunt Aunt Phoebe with them sometime when she tried to " boss," when ma was out to a sewing-bee. " Ehh! I saw you cry once, Aunt Phoebe! Ehh! Right before folks. EHH-HH! Cry baby! You had great big tears in your eyes, when my pa teased you. I saw um. Eh-hh-hh! " How would that sound? Alma felt the roll of the taunt now, and wished it were time to try it. She knew she could make Aunt Phoebe writhe sometime, and that was what she had always wanted to do, for Aunt Phoebe was always discovering her best laid plans and revealing them to Emmeline, and Alma longed sorely for revenge.

But the worst pair of eyes of all were those of Henry Williams, bold, and intimate, who sat directly opposite her. He seemed to feel that the way had been opened to him by Albert Deane's words, and was only waiting his opportunity to enter in. He had been admiring Phoebe ever since he came there, early in the spring, and wondering that no one seemed to think her of much account, but somehow her quiet dignity had always kept him at a distance. But now he felt he was justified in making more free with her.

" Did you hear that singing-school was going to open early this fall, Phoebe?" he asked, after many clearings of his throat.

" No," said Phoebe, without looking up. That was rather disappointing to him, for it had taken him a long time to think up that subject, and it was too much to have it disposed of so quickly, without even a glimpse of her eyes.

" Do you usually 'tend ? " he asked again, after a pause filled in by Alma and the little boys in a squabble for the last scrap of mush and molasses.

" No!" said Phoebe again, her eyes still down.

" Phoebe didn't go because there wasn't anyone for her to come home with, before, Hank, but I guess there'll be plenty now," said Emmeline, with a meaningful laugh.

" Yes," said Phoebe, now looking up calmly without a flicker of the anger she was feeling. " Hester McVane and Polly said they were going this winter. If I decide to go I'm going with them. Emmeline, if you're going to dry those apples to-day I'd better begin them. Excuse me, please."

" You haven't eaten any breakfast, Aunt Phoebe! Ma, Aunt Phoebe never touched a bite!" announced Alma, gleefully.

" I'm not hungry this morning," said Phoebe truthfully, and went in triumph from the room, having baffled the gaze of the man and the child, and wrested the dart from her sister-in-law's arrow. It was hard on the man, for he had decided to ask Phoebe if she would go to singing-school with him. He had been a long time making up his mind as to whether he wouldn't rather ask Harriet Woodgate, but now he had decided on Phoebe he did not like to be balked in the asking. He sought her out in the wood-shed where she sat, and gave his invitation, but she only made her white fingers fly the faster round the apple she was peeling as she answered : " Thank you, it won't be necessary for you to go with me if I decide to go." Then as she perceived by his prolonged " H'm-m-m!" that he was about to urge his case she arose hastily, exclaiming: " Emmeline, did you call me ? I'm coming," and vanished into the kitchen. The hired man looked after her wistfully and wondered if he had not better ask Harriet Woodgate after all.

Phoebe was not a weeping girl. Ever since her mother died she had lived a life of self-repression, hiding her inmost feelings from the world, for her world since then had not proved to be a sympathetic one. When annoyances came she buried them in her heart and grieved over them in silence, for she quickly perceived that there was no one in this new atmosphere who would understand her sensitive nature.

Refinements and culture had been hers that these new relatives did not know nor understand. What to her had been necessities were to them foolish nonsense. She looked at Albert wistfully sometimes, for she felt if it were not for Emmeline she might perhaps in time make him understand and change a little in some ways. But Emmeline resented any suggestions she made to Albert, especially when he good- naturedly tried to please her. Emmeline resented almost everything about Phoebe. She had resented her coming in the first place. Albert was grown up and living away from home when his father married Phoebe's mother, a delicate, refined woman, far different from himself. Emmeline felt that Albert had no call to take the child in at all for her to bring up when she was not a " real relation." Besides, Emmeline had an older sister of her own who would have been glad to come and live with them and help with the work, but of course there was no room nor excuse for her with Phoebe there, and they could not afford to have them both, though Albert was ready to take in any stray chick or child that came along. It was only Emmeline's forbidding attitude that kept him from adopting all the lonely creatures, be they animal or human, that appealed to his sympathy. There were a great many nice points about Albert, and Phoebe recognized them gratefully, the more as she grew older, though he would come to the table in his shirt-sleeves and eat his pie with his knife.

But in spite of her nature this morning Phoebe had much ado to keep from, crying. The annoyances increased as the day grew, and if it had not been for her work she would have felt desperate. As it was she kept steadily at it, conquering everything that came in her way. The apples fairly flew out of their coats into the pan, and Emmeline, glancing into the back shed, noting the set of the forbidding young shoulders, and the undaunted tilt of the head, also the fast diminishing pile of apples on the floor and the multiplying quarters in the pans, forbore to disturb her. Emmeline was far-seeing, and she was anxious to have those apples off her mind. With Phoebe in that mood she knew it would be done before she could possibly get around to help. There was time enough for remarks later; meantime perhaps it was just as well to let my lady alone until she came to her senses a little.

The old stone sun-dial by the side door shadowed the hour of eleven, and the apples were almost gone from the pile on the floor, when Emmeline came into the back shed with a knife and sat down to help. She looked at Phoebe sharply as she seated herself with a show of finishing things up in a hurry, but she intended, and Phoebe knew she did, to have it out with the girl before her.

Phoebe did not help her to begin. Her fingers flew faster than ever, though they ached with the motion, and the juicy knife against her sensitive skin made every nerve cry out to be released. With set lips she went on with her work, though she longed to fling the apple away and run out to the fields for a long, deep breath.

Emmeline had pared two whole apples before she began, in a conciliatory tone. She had eyed Phoebe furtively several times, but the girl might have been a sphinx, or some lovely mountain wrapped about with mist, for all she could read of her mood. This was what Emmeline could not stand, this distant, proud silence that would not mix with other folk. She longed to break through it by force, and reduce the pride to the dust. It would do her heart good to see Phoebe humbled for once, she often told herself.

" Phoebe, I don't see what you find to dislike so in Hiram Green," she began. " He's a good man. He always attends church on Sundays."

" I would respect him more if he was a good man in his home on week-days. Anybody can be good once a week before people. A man needs to be good at home in his family."

" Well, now, he provides well for his family. Look at his comfortable home, and his farm. There isn't a finer in this county. He has his name up all round this region for the fine stock he raises. You can't find a barn like his anywhere. It's the biggest and most expensive in this town."

" He certainly has a fine barn," said Phoebe, " but I don't suppose he expects his family to live in it. He takes better care of his stock than he does of his family. Look at the house "

Phoebe's eyes waxed scornful, and Emmeline marveled. She was brought up to think a barn a most important feature of one's possessions.

"His house is away back from the road out of sight," went on Phoebe, " Annie used to hunger for a sight of people going by on the road when she sat down to sew in the afternoon, but there was that great barn right out on the road, and straight in front of the house. He ought to have put the barn back of the house. And the house is a miserable affair. Low, and ugly, and with two steps between the kitchen and the shed, enough to kill one who does the work. He ought to have built Annie a pleasant home up on that lovely little knoll of maples, where she could have seen out and down the road, and have had a little company now and then. She might have been alive to-day if she had one-half the care and attention that Hiram gave the stock! " Phoebe's words were bitter and vehement.

" It sounds dreadful silly for a girl of your age to be talking like that. You don't know anything about Annie, and if I was you I wouldn't think about her. As for the barn, I should think a wife would be proud to have her husband's barn, the nicest one in the county. Of course the barn had to have the best place. That's his business. I declare you do have the queerest notions!"

Nevertheless she set it down in her mind that she would give Hiram a hint about the house.

Phoebe did not reply. She was peeling the last apple, and as soon as it lay meekly in quarters with the rest she shoved back her chair and left the room. Emmeline felt that she had failed again to make any impression on her sister-in-law. It maddened her almost to distraction to have a girl like that around her, a girl who thought everything beneath her and who criticized the customs of the entire neighborhood. She was an annoyance and a reproach. Emmeline felt she would like to get rid of her if it could be done in a legitimate way.

At dinner Henry Williams looked at Phoebe meaningly and asked if she made the pie. Phoebe had to own that she did.

"It tastes like you, nice and sweet," he declared, gallantly. Whereat Albert laughed, and Alma leaned forward to look into her aunt's flaming face, impudently.