by Kate Chopin
He himself was a good-looking young blond fellow, full of hope and belief in his future; though he tried hard to cultivate an interesting cynicism, which he could never succeed in making anyone believe in.
III
Had Mrs. Mobry’s intention been that Sigmund should fall in love with her daughter she could not have designed a plan more Machiavellian than the one she employed. But her only thought had been a caution against marriage. Thus there was no cause to grumble, for she had done her work well and surely.
This caution served Sigmund as his only shield — poor fool; all others he set aside at once. It was more than a shield. It was a license, drawn, signed, stamped and delivered to his conscience, which permitted him to live at Naomi’s side with his young nature all unbridled to wound itself, after the manner of young unbridled natures.
They lived such a joyous life during those spring and summer days, and did so many things that were delightful! For must it not have been a delight to rise when the morning was yet gray, and to tramp — high-booted both of them — through the brush of the hillside, crisp and silvered with dew? To silently wait with ready rifle for the young covey to start with sudden whirr from the fence corners? To watch the east begin to fire and set the wet earth sparkling?
But perhaps they liked it better, or certainly as well, when they sat side by side in Naomi’s wagonette and went jogging to town, three miles away, behind the fat, lazy pony who always wanted to stop and drink when they crossed the shallow ford of the Meramec, where the water ran like liquid crystal over the shining pebbles beneath. He always wanted to stop, too, and rest under the branches of the big walnut tree that marked the limit of the Mobrys’ field. It was a whim of Naomi’s to let her pony do what he wanted to, and as often as not he wanted to nibble the grass that grew tender along the edges of the road.
It is no wonder then that their little jogs to town consumed an incredible length of time. Yet what had they to do with time but to waste it? And this they did from morning till night. Sometimes upon the river that twines like a silver ribbon through the green slopes of Southern Missouri, seated in Naomi’s slender boat, they floated in mid-stream when the stars or moon were over them. They skirted the banks, gliding under the shade of hanging willows when the sun grew hot and lurid, as it did often when the summer days came.
Then Sigmund’s blue eyes saw nothing in all the world so good to look upon as Naomi’s brown ones, that filled with wonder at the sweet trouble which stirred her when she caught his gaze and answered it.
There was much reading in books, too, during that summer time. There are many things in books beside isms and ologies. The world has always its poets who sing. And, strangely enough, Sigmund could think of no training so fit for Naomi’s untrammelled thought as to follow Lancelot in his loves or Juliet in her hot despair. And Naomi often sighed over such tales, and wept sometimes, for Sigmund told them from his heart, and they seemed very real.
Mrs. Mobry’s first care — and John Mobry’s, too, for that matter — was always Naomi’s health; then, Naomi’s happiness. These had been from babyhood so fixed and well established that the mother could surely have been forgiven had she permitted her solicitude to wane sometimes. But this she never did. The color must be always there in Naomi’s cheek, or she must know why it was not. When the girl grew languid and dreamy — the summer being hot — the mother must know why it was so.
“I’m sure I don’t know, mamma. This heavy heat would make anyone’s blood run a little sluggishly, I think.”
IV
One morning when the family arose and assembled at an early breakfast, it was to find that Naomi had been up long before and had gone for one of her tramps. The gardener had seen her pass when he left his cottage just at daybreak, and she had called to him: “We are no sluggards to lie abed, Heinrich, when the earth has waked up,” so he said.
They thought at every moment she would enter, flushed and dishevelled, to take her place at table. Sigmund was restless because she was not there; Mrs. Mobry anxious, as she gazed constantly from the window and listened to every sound. When the meal ended, and John Mobry was forced to leave for the station without giving Naomi the accustomed morning farewell, it was plainly a thing that gave him annoyance and pain, for that early kiss from the daughter he loved was a day’s inspiration to him.
Sigmund went in search of her. He was quite sure she would be up on the summit of that nearest hill, seated upon the rocky plateau that he knew. But she was not there, nor in the oak grove, nor in any of the places where he looked. The time was speeding, and the sun had grown fierce. He retraced his steps, sure that he would find her at home when he reached there. Passing an opening in the wood that led down to the river, and where it was narrow, he turned instinctively, thinking that she might be there by the water, where she loved to sit. And there he found her. But she was across the stream in her boat, resting motionless under the willow branches, her big straw hat hanging down over the side of her face.
“Naomi! oh, Naomi!” Sigmund called.
At the sound of his voice she looked up, then seizing the oars she pulled with vigorous strokes across the water toward the spot where he stood waiting for her. She sprang from the boat, heedless of the aid which he offered, and passing him quickly, hastened up the slope, where she seated herself, when she had reached its summit, upon the huge trunk of a fallen tree.
Sigmund followed in some surprise, and went to sit beside her.
“We mustn’t linger here too long, Naomi; Aunt Editha is worried about your absence. Why did you stay so long away? You shouldn’t do such cruel things.”
“Sigmund,” she whispered, and drawing nearer to him twined her arms around his neck. “I want you to kiss me, Sigmund.”
Had the earth trembled, that Sigmund shook like that? And had the sky and the air grown red before his eyes? Were his arms turned wooden that they should hang at his side, when hers were around him? He was hoping a senseless hope for strength when she kissed him. Then his arms did their office. He could not help it; he was young and so human. But he sought no further kiss. He only sat motionless with Naomi in his arms; her head resting upon his heart where his pulses had gone mad.
“Ah, Sigmund, this is just as I was dreaming it this morning when I awoke. Then I was angry because you were sleeping off there in your room like a senseless log, when I was awake and wanted you. And you slept on and never came to me. How could you do it? I was angry and went away and walked over the hills. I thought you would come after me, but you never did. I wouldn’t go back till you came. And just now, I went in the boat, and when I was out there in the middle of the stream — listen, Sigmund — the sun struck me upon the head, with something in its hand — no, no, not in his hand— “
“Naomi!”
“And after that I didn’t care, for I know everything now. I know what the birds are saying up in the trees— “
“Naomi, look at me!”
“Like Siegfried when he played upon his pipe under a tree, last winter in town. I can tell you everything that the fishes say in the water. They were talking under the boat when you called me— “
“Naomi! Oh, God — Naomi, look at me!”
He did look into her eyes then — her eyes that he loved so, and there was no more light in them.
“Aunt Editha,” said Sigmund, entering his aunt’s room, where she was in restless movement, as she had been all morning— “Aunt Editha, Naomi is in the library. I left her there. She must have been chilled by the early morning air, I’m afraid. And the sun seems to have made her ill — wait — Aunt Editha — ,” for Mrs. Mobry had clutched Sigmund’s arm with fingers like steel, and was staggering toward the library.
“How dare you tell me Naomi’s ill? She can’t be ill,” she gasped; “she was never ill in all her life.”
They had reached the library, and facing the door through which they entered Naomi sat upon a lounge. She was playing like a little child, with scraps of paper that she was tearing an
d placing in rows upon the cushion beside her. An instant more, and Mrs. Mobry lay in Sigmund’s arms like one dead.
But when night came she kneeled, sobbing as a culprit might, at her husband’s feet, telling him a broken story that he scarcely heeded in his anguish.
“It has been in the blood that is mine for generations, John, and I knew it, and I married you.
“Oh, God! if it might end with me and with her — my stricken dove! But, John,” she whispered with a new terror in her eyes, “Edward has already a child. Others will be born to him, and I see the crime of my marriage reaching out to curse me through the lips of generations that will come.”
THE GOING AWAY OF LIZA
The south-bound mail and express had just pulled away from Bludgitt station. There had been an exchange of mail bags; sundry freight marked “Abner Rydon, Bludgitt Station, Missouri” had been deposited upon the platform and that was all. It was Christmas eve, a raw, chill, Christmas eve, and the air was thick with promise of snow.
A few weazened, shivering men stood with hands plunged in their trouser pockets, watching the train come and go. When the station-master dragged the freight under shelter, depositing some of it within the waiting-room, they all tramped into the room too and proceeded to lounge round the rusty red-hot stove.
Presently a light cart drove up along-side the platform, and one of this leisurely band craning his neck to peer through the begrimed window panes, remarked :
“Thur’s Abner, now.”
Abner Rydon was a stalwart fellow of thirty. He was stern-visaged, with stubborn determination in the set of his square jaw. The casual glance which he offered the assembled group was neither friendly nor inviting.
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t of took the two horse wagon, Ab, with them roads.” He paid no attention to the insinuation.
“Seems to me you’d fix that thur road and throw a bridge acrost Bludgitt creek,” suggested a second. “If I had your money— “
“If you had my money you wouldn’t run the county with it more ‘an you do your own,” replied Abner as he quitted the room, bearing an armful of freight. Returning for more he was met by further friendly advances:
“I seen a man the other day, Ab, says he run acrost Liza-Jane a couple o’ weeks ago in town.”
Abner turned quickly upon the speaker, and with a sharp blow of his clenched fist sent him sprawling to the floor. He then continued towards the cart, mounted it, and drove rapidly away over the rough and fast-hardening road, and into the woods beyond.
A burst of hilarity greeted the discomfiture of this too daring speaker.
“Oh, Whillikens! you seen a man that run acrost Liza-Jane, did you!” “Anything more to say on the subject of Liza-Jane, Si? Ab ain’t got so fur you can’t ketch up with him.”
Si had risen and was rubbing his injured back as best he could.
“The plague-on-it-fool,” he muttered; “if he thinks so much o’ that red-cheeked huzzy, what in tarnation did he want to turn her loose to Satan fur!”
When the mirth occasioned by this quickly acted scene had subsided, it left the assembly in a pleasant, reminiscent mood that led naturally to the quiet discussion of Abner Rydon’s domestic affairs.
“I always said thet harm would come o’ the match,” remarked the traditional prophet, “time Almiry told me thet Liza-Jane was goin’ to marry Abner Rydon. Why, a blind un could ‘a seen they wasn’t a matched team. First place, thet gal was all fur readin’ — constant readin’ in them paper-covered books thet come to her through the mail, an’ readin’s boun’ to fill the mind up with one thing another in time.
“When she’d come an’ see Almiry she’d out en’ tell by the hour how folks lives in town. How the ladies sets in rockin’ cheers by the winders all day imbroidryin’ things with their white, jewel fingers; an’ how they walks up an’ down drawin’ rooms disdainful; an’ rides in open karridges along the boulyvards, bowin’ languid to gents a horseback. She got it all out o’ them books, an’ she called it the higher life, an’ said she hankered fur it, to Almiry.”
“I was down here to Bludgitt the mornin’ she left,” interrupted one whose information was more to the point. “Time I seen her I knowed somthin’ was up. Her black eyes was fairly snappin’ fire, an’ her cheeks was blazin’ most as red as the ribband round her nake. She never were back’ard with her talk, an’ when I ast whur she was bound fur, she up an’ let loose again’ Ab, an’ mother Rydon, an’ thur life of drudgery what was no ixistence.”
“Ab never turned her out, did he?”
“Turn her out! Abner Rydon ain’t the man to turn a dog from his door. No; they had one o’ them everlastin’ quarrels what’s been a im-bitterin’ their married life. She out with the hull thing that day down here to Bludgitt. How they fussed, an’ how she endid by tellin’ him that no woman born could keep on lovin’ a man that hadn’t no soul above the commonplaces. How he flung back at her that a woman better quit livin’ with a man when she quit kerrin’ fur him. She said she didn’t ask no better, ‘fur,’ sa’ she, I hev that within me, Mr. MicBride, thet craves to taste the joys of ixistence. I hev gathered my belongings; my own incompetence is in my pocket, an’ I hev shook the dust of the Rydon threshold from off of my feet forever,’ was her own words. An’ Si Smith might’s well learn to-day as tomorrow that Ab Rydon’s goin’ to knock any man down that mentions the name o’ Liza-Jane to him.”
At every fresh gust of wind that struck the north-west angle of the old Rydon farm-house that night, mother Rydon would give a little jump and clasp the arms of her comfortable chair that she occupied at the fire-side.
“Lands, Abner! I hain’t hered the wind a blowin’ so since the night the pasture fence was laid low, what’s it a doin’ out o’ doors, anyway. Before dark the hull country was covered with snow. Now the sleet’s a strikin’ like pebbles again’ the window panes.”
“That’s just it, mother; sleet an’ snow an’ wind a tryin’ to outdo thurselves,” said Abner, throwing upon the fire a fresh stick that he had brought from the porch, where a pile of evenly-cut fire wood was stacked.
He sat down beside the table upon which a lamp burned brightly, and opened his newspaper. His features seemed much less harsh than when he faced the roomful of loafers down at Bludgitt. There was a kind ring in his voice.
The two seated so cozily together amid their homely surroundings, resembled each other closely. Only the steadfast look in the eyes of the woman had grown patient with age.
“It’s a mercy you went fur the goods to-day, Abner, what with Moll’s lame foot, an’ the mules loaned fur old man Buckthorn’s funeral, you never would hev got the cart through them roads tomorrow. Who’d you see down to Bludgitt?”
“The same old lot at the station, a settin’ round the stove. It’s a puzzle to me how they live. That McBride don’t do work enough to keep him in tobacco. Old Joseph — I guess he ain’t able to work. But that Si Smith — why!” he exclaimed excitedly, “the government ought to take holt of it.”
“That’s thur business, Abner; ‘tain’t none o’ ours,” his mother replied rebukingly. “I’d like if you’d read me the noos, now. An’ read about them curious animals.”
Abner stretched his fine legs out towards the blaze and began to read from the conglomerate contents of his weekly paper. Old Mother Rydon sat upright, knitting and listening. Abner was reading slowly and carefully:
“This singular animal has seldom been seen by the eye of civilized man, familiar as are the native blacks with his habits and peculiar haunts. The writer — fortunately armed with his trusty— “
“Hold, Abner! Hark!”
“What is it, mother?”
“Seems like I heard something at the door latch, and a movin’ on the porch.”
“The dogs would bark if any one as much as opened the gate, mother. This talk about the animals has got you worked up.”
“No such thing. Thur! I hered it again. Go see, Abner; ‘tain’t goin’ to hurt noth
in’ to look.”
Abner approached the door and opened it abruptly. A wild gust of wind came blowing into the room; beating and lashing as it did so, the bedraggled garments of a young woman who was clinging to the doorpost.
“My God!” cried Abner starting back. Mother Rydon in astonishment could only utter : “Liza-Jane! for the land sakes!”
The wind literally drove the woman into the room. Abner stayed there with his hand upon the latch, shaken at what seemed this apparition before him.
Liza-Jane stood like a hunted and hungry thing in the great glow of the firelight, her big dark eyes greedily seizing upon every detail of homely and honest comfort that surrounded her. Her cheeks were not round nor red as they had been. Whatever sin or suffering had swept over her had left its impress upon her plastic being.
As Abner looked at her, of all the voices that clamored in his soul to be heard, that of the outraged husband was the loudest.
When mother Rydon endeavored to remove Liza-Jane’s wet and tattered shawl the woman clutched it firmly, turning a frightened and beseeching face upon her husband.
“Abner, son, what air you a waitin’ fur?” demanded mother Rydon, standing back.
Mother and son looked for a long instant into each other’s eyes. Then Abner approached his wife. With unsteady hands he lifted the soaking garment from her shoulders. When he saw that Liza-Jane’s arms fell to her side at his approach, and that two shining tears hung beneath the half closed lids, he knelt upon the floor and took the wet and torn shoes from off her feet.
THE MAID OF SAINT PHILLIPPE
Marianne was tall, supple, and strong. Dressed in her worn buckskin trappings she looked like a handsome boy rather than like the French girl of seventeen that she was. As she stepped from the woods the glimmer of the setting sun dazzled her. An instant she raised her hand — palm outward — to shield her eyes from the glare, then she continued to descend the gentle slope and make her way toward the little village of Saint Phillippe that lay before her, close by the waters of the Mississippi.
