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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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65 about Mattie’s going-” “That so?” said Jotham indifferently; and they went on with their work. When they returned to the kitchen the two women were already at breakfast. Zeena had an air of unusual alertness and activity. She drank two cups of coffee and fed the cat with the scraps left in the pie-dish; then she rose from her seat and, walking over to the window, snipped two or three yellow leaves from the geraniums. “Aunt Martha’s ain’t got a faded leaf on ‘em; but they pine away when they ain’t cared for,” she said reflectively. Then she turned to Jotham and asked: “What time’d you say Dan’l Byrne’d be along?” The hired man threw a hesitating glance at Ethan. “Round about noon,” he said. Zeena turned to Mattie. “That trunk of yours is too heavy for the sleigh, and Dan’l Byrne’ll be round to take it over to the Flats,” she said. “I’m much obliged to you, Zeena,” said Mattie. “I’d like to go over things with you first,” Zeena continued in an unperturbed voice. “I know there’s a huckabuck towel missing; and I can’t take out what you done with that match-safe ‘t used to stand behind the stuffed owl in the parlour.” She went out, followed by Mattie, and when the men were alone Jotham said to his employer: “I guess I better let Dan’l come round, then.” Ethan finished his usual morning tasks about the house and barn; then he said to Jotham: “I’m going down to Starkfield. Tell them not to wait dinner.” The passion of rebellion had broken out in him again. That which had seemed incredible in the sober light of day had really come to pass, and he was to assist as a helpless spectator at Mattie’s banishment. His manhood was humbled by the part he was compelled to play and by the thought of what Mattie must think of him. Confused impulses struggled in him as he strode along to the village. He had made up his mind to do something, but he did not know what it would be. The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield under the sun. It was one of the days when the glitter of winter shines through a pale haze of spring. Every yard of the road was alive with Mattie’s presence, and there was hardly a branch against the sky or a tangle of brambles on the bank in which some bright shred of memory was not caught. Once, in the stillness, the call of a bird in a mountain ash was so like her laughter that his heart tightened and then grew large; and all these things made him see that something must be done at once. Suddenly it occurred to him that Andrew Hale, who was a kind- hearted man, might be induced to reconsider his refusal and |
