Never his wife’s, I noticed, when it came to this end of the farming institution. And as an aside I could not help thinking of those breakfasts in bed and of his wife pitching hay and plowing, as well as milking the cow and feeding the chickens while he slept.
The lorn Ida and her great love! And then one day, expressing curiosity as to this menage, I was taken there to visit. The place looked comfortable enough — a small, unpainted, two-room affair, with a lean-to at the back for a kitchen, a porch added only the preceding spring, so that milord might have a view of the thymy valley below, with its green fields and distant hills, while he smoked and meditated. It was very clean, as I noticed even from a distance, the doorway and the paths and all. And all about it, at points equidistant from the kitchen, were built a barn, a corn-crib, a smokehouse and a chicken-coop, to say nothing of a new well-top, all unpainted as yet, but all framed by the delicious green of the lawn. And Widdle, once he came forward, commented rather shyly on his treasures, walking about with me the while and pointing them out.
“What with all the other things I gotta do, I ain’t got round to paintin’ yet; but I low as how this comin’ fall or spring mebbe I’ll be able to do sumpin’ on it, if my wife’s health keeps up. These chickens are a sight o’ bother at times, an’ we’re takin’ on another cow next week, an’ some pigs.”
I thought of those glum days when he was still hauling sand and stone in his squeaky wagon.
And then came Ida, big, bony, silent, diffident, red-tanned by sun and weather, to whom this narrow fifteen-acre world was no doubt a paradise. Love had at last come to her. It being a Sunday afternoon, the only appropriate time to make a call in the farming world, when presumably the chores of the week were out of the way, still she was astir among her pots and pans, though she came forward and made us welcome in her shy way. Wouldn’t we sit down? Wouldn’t we have a glass of milk? The worthy Widdle, resuming his seat on the porch, went on smoking and dreaming and surveying his possessions. If ever a man looked at ease, he did, and his wife seemed to take great satisfaction in his comfort. She smiled as we talked to him or answered in monosyllables when we addressed her, having been so long repressed by her father, as I assumed, that she could not talk.
But my relative had called my attention to one thing which I was to note, and that was that despite the fact she was within three months of an accouchement, we would find her working as usual, which was true. She was obviously as near her day as that, and yet during our visit she went to look after the pigs and chickens, the while milord smoked on and talked. His one theme was his farm, his proposed addition to his chicken-coop, a proposed enlargement of his pig-pen, the fact that his farm would be better if he could afford to take over the five acres to the east, and so on. Several times he referred to his tour of the West and the fact that he had “served his time” on the Denver & Rio Grande.
After that I could not help thinking of him from time to time, for he illustrated to me again so clearly the casual and accidental character of so many things in nature, the fact that fortune, strength, ease, beauty, fame, any power of the mind or body, come in the main to the individual as gifts and are so often not even added to or developed by any effort of his. Here was this vague, casual weakling drawn back to this region by a kind of sixth sense which regulated his well-being, and after he had failed in all other things, only to find this repressed and yet now free victim, his wife, seeking, by the aid of her small means, some satisfaction in the world of love through him. But did he really care for her? I sometimes asked myself. Could he? Had he the capacity, the power of appreciation and understanding which any worth-while love requires? I wondered.
§ 3
The events of the following September seemed to answer the question in a rather definite way, and yet I am not so sure that they did, either. Life is so casual; love, or the matter of affinity, such an indefinite thing with so many! I was sleeping in a large room which faced the front of the house — a room which commanded the slope of a hill and a distant and splendid valley beyond. Outside was a number of evergreens and horse-chestnuts that rustled and whispered in the slightest breeze. At two or three of the clock of one of those fine moonlit nights I heard a knocking below and a voice calling:
“Oh, Mis’ K—-! Oh, Mis’ K—-!”
Fearing that my hostess might not hear, I went to one of the open windows; but as I did so, the door below opened, and I heard her voice and then Widdle’s, though I could not make him out in the pale light. He seemed, for once, somewhat concerned, and asked if she would not come over and see his wife.
“She’s been taken powerful’ bad all of a sudden, Mis’ K—-,” I heard him say. “She ain’t been feelin’ well for the last few days; been complainin’, sorta, an’ she’s very bad now, an’ I do’ know what to do. It’d be a big favor if you’d come. Mis’ Agrew ‘phoned fer a doctor fer me, but she don’t seem to be able to get none yet.”
So the time had come! I wondered how the spinsterish Ida would make out. She was rather old now for motherhood, and so large and ungainly. How would she fare? How serve a nursing child? Not many minutes after I heard Mrs. K—-, accompanied by one of her sons, leaving in the machine, the humanitarian and social aspects of the situation seeming to arouse in her the greatest solicitude. Then I heard nothing more until the following noon, when she returned. By that time Mrs. Widdle was very ill indeed. She had worked in the fields up to three days before, and on the day before her illness had attempted to do a week’s washing. No help of any kind had been called in, no doctor consulted. Widdle had gone on dreaming as usual, possibly doing his share of the work, but no more, and no doubt accepting cheerfully the sacrifices and the ministrations of his wife until this latest hour.
It was evident to all that the conditions underlying possible motherhood for Mrs. Widdle were most unsatisfactory. During all the nine months of gestation she had given herself no least attention. A doctor called in at this late hour by my relative wagged his head most dolefully. Perhaps she would come through all right, but there was undue pressure on the kidneys. He suggested a nurse, but this Mrs. Widdle, ill as she was, would not hear of. The end came swiftly on the following night, and with great agony. She was in nowise fitted to endure the strain, and an attempt to remove the child, accompanied by uric poisoning, did for her completely. Ether was given, and she remained unconscious until she died.
§ 4
I saw her once afterward, and only once, when I joined the family in “viewing the body.” Widdle was in no great standing with either his relatives or his neighbors, being of that poor, drifting, dreaming caliber which offers no least foundation on which a friendship or even a community of interests may be reared. He was usually silent or slow of speech, with just a few ideas relative to his present state upon which to meditate or discuss. Consequently, few neighbors and no relatives, barring her two brothers, were interested to call, and the latter in only the most perfunctory way. Such as did come or had offered assistance had arranged that the parlor, a most sacred place, should be devoted to the last ceremonies and the reception of visitors; and here the body, in a coffin the like of which for color and decoration I had never seen before, lay in state. It was of lavender plush, lined with pink silk, and to be carried by handles of gilt. And this parlor was no doubt a realm of beauty as these two had seen it, and hence arrested my attention. It was furnished with a center-table, now pushed to one side, some stiff and homely chairs with red plush seats, and a parlor wood-stove decorated with nickel and with red isinglass windows in front. On the walls, which were papered a bright pink, were two yarn mottos handsomely framed in walnut, a picture of Widdle and his wife boxed in walnut and glass and surrounded by a wax wreath, and, for sharp contrast, a brightly colored calendar exhibited a blonde movie queen rampant. Gracing the centertable was a Bible, and a yellow plush album in which was not a single picture, for I looked. It must have been the yellow plush that had fascinated them, that ancient and honorable symbol of luxury.