They had just finished washing the supper dishes together, and Elizabeth considered as she emptied the dishpan and put it away. She had been refused so often that she rather expected it, and yet she had thought by the cordiality with which John had always treated Aunt Susan that he would be reasonable about this visit now that she was able, and the baby old enough to go out.

Elizabeth was never clear about a difficulty, nor had her defences well in hand upon the first occasion. With those she loved, and with John in particular, any offence had to be repeated over and over again before she could protect herself. She felt her way slowly and tried to preserve her ideals; she tried to be fair. She could not tell quickly what to do about a situation; she took a long time to get at her own att.i.tudes and understand them, and it took her still longer to get at the real intentions of others. As she brought out her cold-boiled potatoes and began to peel them for breakfast, she reflected that Aunt Susan had come as regularly to see them as if she had always been well treated, until Mrs. Hunter's coming. At that point the visits had dropped off.

"Baby is nearly three months old, and I promised Aunt Susan that I'd take him to see her the first place I took him. We owe it to her, and I'm not going to neglect her any more. We can leave a dinner of cold chicken and pies for the men, and I'll get a hot supper for them when I come home. I'd like to start about ten o'clock."

It sounded so much as if it were all settled that the girl felt that it really was.

"That leaves mother here alone all day, and I'm not going to do it," John returned with equal a.s.surance.

"Mother can go with us. I should want her to do that, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would."

Mrs. Hunter was pa.s.sing through the room with the broom and dustpan and paused long enough to say pleasantly:

"Don't count on me, children. I'll take care of myself and get the men a hot dinner besides. I'd just as soon."

"We'd like to have you go, mother, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would want us to bring you," Elizabeth replied with a little catch in her breath. If Mrs. Hunter refused to go, John would not take her if she begged on her knees.

"No, I don't want to go. I'll get the dinner though, and you needn't hurry back." She went on upstairs contentedly and with the feeling that she had arranged the matter to everybody's liking.

"Let her get the dinner then," Elizabeth said, exasperated. "I'll leave everything ready for it."

"I shall not go and leave her alone all day. She has a hard enough time out on this farm without getting the feeling that we care as little as that for her comfort. Besides that, the buggy is not mended yet."

"We can go in the lumber wagon. We didn't have a buggy till long after we were engaged," Elizabeth said, not going into the matter of leaving his mother at home, which she knew would be useless.

"I should think you'd want to rest when you did get a chance. You talk all the time about having too much to do," John replied evasively.

"I wouldn't get any rest," Elizabeth replied quickly. "I'd get a dinner--that's what I'd have to do if I stayed at home. I'd be on my feet three solid hours and then have to nurse the baby. That's the rest I'd have."

"The devil!" was the answer she got as John went out.

The weeks flew past, and still Elizabeth served hot dinners and mourned in secret over Susan Hornby's neglected kindness. Aunt Susan had been cheerful as well as discreet during those weeks when she had helped them.

She had been so happy over the evident friendliness of John Hunter that she had felt sure that the old cordiality was to be resumed.

After what seemed to Elizabeth endless weeks, a curious circ.u.mstance aided her in getting to Aunt Susan's in the end. Mrs. Hunter, who was not greatly concerned about her disappointment, heard constant reference to Mrs. Hornby's a.s.sistance at the time of the baby's coming, and knowing that there would be discussion of their neglect to her in the neighbourhood, joined authoritatively in Elizabeth's entreaty the next time it was mentioned, thereby accomplishing through fear of gossip a thing which no amount of coaxing on Elizabeth's part could ever have done, and at last the trip was to be made.

Susan Hornby's home was so unchanged in the year that Elizabeth had been gone that, but for the baby in her arms, she could hardly have realized that she had been away. Aunt Susan sent her to the bedroom with the wraps when they were taken off. It was the same little room the girl had occupied for half that year, the same rag carpet, the same mended rocking chair which had come to grief in the cyclone, and the knitted tidy which the girl herself had made. With the hot tears running down her cheeks the girl-mother threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in the baby's wraps to stifle the cry she was afraid would escape her. In the sanctuary of her girlhood's highest hopes, Elizabeth sobbed out her disappointments and acknowledged to herself that life had tricked her into a sorry network of doubts and unsettled mysteries. For the first time she sunk her pride and let Susan think what she would of her prolonged absence, and went openly to the kitchen to bathe her face in Nathan's familiar tin basin. A sudden suspicion of John's reception at Nathan's hands made it possible to go back to Aunt Susan with a smile on her lips.

Indeed, Elizabeth's suspicions were so far true that they were a certainty. Nathan, by Luther's marriage to a woman the old man suspected of every evil, had cut himself off from every friend. Nathan had been thrown in upon himself and had pondered and nursed his suspicions of all men, and of John Hunter in particular. He finished the milking without offering to go into the house; and John, who had insisted upon coming at night instead of on a Sunday, was obliged to stand around the cow stable and wait, or go to the house alone. He chose the former course and was made happy by the arrival of Jake, who had not known where his employer was going when his team was. .h.i.tched to the wagon.

"I've just been over to Luther's, Mrs. Hornby," Jake said when they finally stood around Aunt Susan's fire. "Did you know Sadie was sick?

Luther's awful good to 'er, but I know she'd be glad t' see a woman body about once in a while."

"Wisht she'd die an' get out of th' way," Nathan Hornby said bitterly. "A body could see Luther once in a while then 'thout havin' 'is words cut up an' pasted together some new way for pa.s.sin' round."

No one spoke, and Nathan felt called upon to defend his words.

"I don't care! It's a G.o.d's pity t' have a woman like that carry off th'

best man this country's ever had, an' then fix up every word 'is friends says t' him so's t' make trouble."

Nathan's whole bitter longing for companionship was laid bare. Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears; Elizabeth was lonely also.

The call was a short one. John moved early to go home and there was nothing to do but give way. It was not till the next day that Elizabeth suspected that Nathan's remarks had offended John Hunter, and then in spite of her eagerness to keep the peace between the two men, she laughed aloud. She was also somewhat amused at the insistence on a call upon Sadie which John wanted that she should make. The perfect frankness of his announcement that Luther was a convenient neighbour, and that they must pay neighbourly attention to illness, when he had never encouraged her to go for any other reason, was a new viewpoint from which the young wife could observe the workings of his mind. Something about it subtracted from her faith in him, and in life.

While she was still washing the dinner dishes John came in to discuss the visit. Elizabeth was athrob with the weariness of a half day spent at the ironing table, and to avoid dressing the baby had asked Mrs. Hunter to take care of him.

With no other visible reason but his customary obstinacy, John insisted upon the child being taken.

"I've got to get back early and get the coloured clothes folded down.

Every one of the boys had a white shirt and two or three collars this week, so I asked mother to keep him for me," Elizabeth said.

"Now see here," John argued. "Mother 'll fold those clothes and you can just as well take him along and make a decent visit. They're the nicest people in the country, according to some of the neighbours."

Elizabeth's laugh nettled her husband. When he appeared with the wagon, she was ready, with the baby in her arms.

The wind was keen and cold, the laprobes flew and fluttered in derisive refusal to be tucked in.

"Take the buggy in and have it mended the next time you go to town," she said, with her teeth chattering, as they drew near to Luther's home. "I want to go up to see ma before long and it's almost impossible to keep a baby covered on this high seat." She thought a while and then added, "I haven't been home since I was married."

"I shouldn't think you'd ever want to go," John replied ungraciously.

Tears of anger as well as mortification filled her eyes, and her throat would not work. It was to stop gossip as much as to see her mother that the girl desired to make the visit. The world was right: John was not proud of her.

The sight of the "shanty" as they turned the corner near Luther's place brought a new train of thought. Dear, kindly, sweet-souled Luther! The world disapproved of his marriage too. He was coming toward them now, his ragged overcoat blowing about him as he jumped over the ridges made by the plow in turning out the late potatoes he had been digging.

"You carry the baby in for Lizzie, an' I'll tie these horses," he said, beaming with cordiality. "Got caught with Sadie's sickness an' let half th' potatoes freeze 's hard 's brickbats."

It was so cold that Elizabeth did not stand to ask about Sadie, but turned to the house to escape the blast.

"I'll come for you at five if I can get back. I'm going over to see about some calves at Warren's," John said as they went up the path.

"Is that why you insisted that I bring the baby? You needn't have been afraid to tell me; you do as you please anyhow."

"H-s-sh! Here comes Hansen," John Hunter said warningly, and turned back to the wagon, giving the child into Luther's arms at the door.

Luther Hansen cuddled the child warmly to him and without waiting to go in the house raised the white shawl from its sleeping face for a peep at it.

"We lost ours," he said simply.

The house sheltered them from the wind, and Elizabeth stopped and looked up at him in astonishment.

"You don't mean it? I--I didn't know you were expecting a child, Luther.

I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known."

The expression of sympathy escaped her unconsciously. Elizabeth would always want to know of Luther's joys and sorrows.

A glad little light softened the pain in his face, and he looked at her with a steady gaze, discerning the feeling of sound friendship behind the words.