Part 6 (1/2)

”Just this--your mother had her ideas and I have mine. I am going to raise Billy in my own way.” But, for weeks thereafter she managed with an almost miraculous adroitness to have him asleep at meal times.

At seven months, Billy was the most adorable, smiling, cuddly baby imaginable, with dimples, four teeth and a tantalizing hint of curl in his soft, surprisingly thick, fawn-colored hair. Already, it was quite evident that he had his mother's sensitive, affectionate nature. If only his father had picked him up, occasionally, had talked to him now and then, he scarcely could have resisted the little fellow's crowing, sweet-tempered, responsive charm, but resentment at the annoyance of his presence was now excessive. For the present, Martin's only concern in his son consisted in seeing to it that his effacement was as nearly complete as possible.

The long-impending clash came one evening after a sultry, dusty day when Rose, occupied with a large was.h.i.+ng in the morning and heavy work in the dairy in the afternoon, realized with compunction that never had she come so near to neglecting her boy. Tired and hot from fretting, he had been slow about going to sleep, and was just dozing off, when Martin came in, worn out and hungry.

”Isn't supper ready yet?”

”All but frying the sausage,” Rose answered, achieving a pleasant tone in spite of her jadedness. ”He's almost turning the corner--hear his little sleepy song? Sit down and cool off. I'll have it ready by the time you and the boys are washed.”

Under its thick coat of tan, Martin's face went white. ”I've had enough of this,” he announced levelly. ”You'll put him down and fry that meat.”

”Wait just a minute,” she coaxed; ”he'll be off for the night and if you wake him, he'll cry and get all worked up.”

”You heard what I said.” His tone was vibrant with determination. ”How am I going to keep hired men if you treat them like this? When they come in to eat, they want to find their food on the table.”

”This doesn't often happen any more and they know, good and well, I make it up to them in other ways,” returned Rose truthfully.

For answer, he crossed over to her quickly, reached down and took the baby from her.

”What are you going to do with him?” she demanded, a-tremble with rage and a sense of impotent helplessness, as, avoiding her quick movement, Martin went into the bedroom.

”Let him go to sleep as other children do, while you finish getting supper. Do you want to make a sissy of him?”

”A lot you care what he becomes!” she flashed, conflicting impulses contending for mastery, as Billy, now thoroughly awake and seeing his mother, began to cry, pleading to her with big blue eyes and out-stretched arms to take him. She started forward, but Martin stepped between herself and the crib.

”Martin Wade, let me pa.s.s. He's mine.”

”It isn't going to hurt him to cry. He does it often enough.”

”If you had a really cross baby around you'd know how good and reasonable Billy is,” she flamed, torn by the little sobs.

”You get out to that kitchen,” he ordered, more openly angry than Rose had ever seen him. ”I've had enough of this talk, do you hear, and enough of this way of doing. Don't you set foot in here again till supper's over. I've had quite enough, too, of jumping up and down to wait on myself.”

Confusedly, Rose thought of her countless hours of lost sleep, her even yet unrecovered strength, the enormous readjustment of her own life in her sincere efforts to do her best by the whole household, her joyous acceptance of all the perpetual self-denial her new duties to Billy necessitated. In comparison, the inconveniences to which Martin had been put seemed trifling. The occasional delays, and the unusual bother of stepping to the stove, now and then, to pour himself and the men a hot cup of coffee--this was their sum total. And how injured he really felt!

The injustice of it left her speechless. Nails biting into her hands in her struggle for self-control, she left the room. With a slam of the door behind him, Martin followed her.

Blindly she strove for reason. Billy would simply cry himself to sleep--it was bad for his whole nervous system, but it would not actually make him sick. What a chaos must be in that little heart! His mother had failed him for the first time in his life. It was cruel, the way Martin had forced her to this, and as she listened, for the next half hour, to the m.u.f.fled sound of Billy's crying and saw how impervious to it Martin was, she knew that never again could things be the same between her husband and herself.

But when, supper over, she found the corners of the rosebud mouth still pathetically down and Billy's breath still quivering in long gasps, she gathered the snuggly body to her and vowed in little broken love-words that from now on his father should have no further opportunities for discipline. Knowing him as she did, she should have trained the baby in the first place to go to sleep alone, should have denied herself those added sweet moments. After this she would be on her guard, forestall Martin, do tenderly what he would do harshly. Never again should her boy be made to suffer through any such mistaken selfishness of hers.

And though, after a while, the importance of this episode shrank to its true proportions, she never forgot or broke this promise. It would have been literally impossible for her to touch Billy, even when he was naughtiest and most exasperating, with other than infinite love, but she had an even firmness of her own. As sensitive as herself, adoring her to the point of wors.h.i.+p, he was easily punished by her displeasure or five minutes of enforced quiet on a chair. The note of dread in her voice as she pleaded: ”Hush, oh, hush, Billy, be good; quick, darling, papa's coming,” was always effective. By ceaseless vigilance and indefatigable patience, she evaded further open rupture until the boy was three years old.

His shrieks had brought both his father and herself flying to the hog barn to find him dancing up and down as, frightened and aghast, he vainly attempted to beat off old Dorcas, a mammoth sow, from one of her day-old litter on which, having crushed it by accident, she was now quite deliberately feasting.

”G.o.d Almighty!” stormed Martin, hastily putting the little pigs back into the next pen. ”Who let them in to her? That's her old trick.”

”I opened the door,” confessed Billy, troubled, frank eyes looking straight into his father's. ”They were hungry; that one wanted her most.” And, at the thought of the tragedy he had witnessed, he flung himself heartbroken into his mother's comforting arms.

”I'll whip you for this,” said Martin sternly.

”Oh, please!” protested Rose, gathering the child closer. ”Can't you see he's had a bitter enough lesson? His little heart is full.”