Part 21 (1/2)
”That's so,” a.s.sented Andrew.
”Well,” said f.a.n.n.y, ”I've been thinkin'--”
”What?”
”Well, I've been thinkin' that--of course your mother is goin' to give her the dress, and that's all, of course, and it's a real handsome present. I ain't sayin' a word against that; but there ain't anybody else to give her much except us. Poor Eva 'd like to, but she can't; it takes all she earns, since Jim's out of work, and I don't know what she's goin' to do. So that leaves n.o.body but us, and I've been thinkin'--I dun'no' what you'll say, Andrew, but I've been thinkin'--s'pose you took a little money out of the bank, and--got Ellen--a watch.” f.a.n.n.y spoke the last word in a faint whisper. She actually turned pale in the darkness.
”A watch?” repeated Andrew.
”Yes, a watch. I've always wanted Ellen to have a gold watch and chain. I've always thought she could, and so she could if you hadn't been out of work so much.”
”Yes, she could,” said Andrew--”a watch and mebbe a piano. I thought I'd be back in Lloyd's before now. Well, mebbe I shall before long.
They say there's better times comin' by fall.”
”Well, Ellen will be graduated by that time,” said f.a.n.n.y, ”and she ought to have the watch now if she's ever goin' to. She'll never think so much of it. Floretta Vining is goin' to have a watch, too.
Mrs. Cross says her mother told her so; said Mr. Vining had it all bought--a real handsome one. I don't believe Sam Vining can afford to buy a gold watch. I don't believe it is all gold, for my part.
They 'ain't got as much as we have, if Sam has had work steadier. I don't believe it's gold. I don't want Ellen to have a watch at all unless it's a real good one. It seems to me you'd better take a little money out and buy her one, Andrew.”
”Well, I'll see,” said Andrew. He had a terrible sense of guilt before f.a.n.n.y. Suppose she knew that there was no money at all in the bank to take out?
”Well, I'll buy her one if you say so,” said he, in a curious, slow, stern voice. In his heart was a fierce rising of rebellion, that he, hard-working and frugal and self-denying all his life, should be denied the privilege of buying a present for his darling without resorting to deception, and even almost robbery. He did not at that minute blame himself in the least for his misadventure with his mining stock. Had not the same relentless Providence driven him to that also? His weary spirit took for the first time a poise of utter self-righteousness in opposition to this Providence, and he blasphemed in his inner closet of self, before the face of the Lord, as he comprehended it.
”Well, I have a sort of set my heart on it,” said f.a.n.n.y.
”She shall have the watch,” repeated Andrew, and his voice was fairly defiant.
After f.a.n.n.y had gone into the house and lighted her lamp, and resumed work on her wrapper, Andrew still sat on the step in the cool evening. There was a full moon, and great ma.s.ses of shadows seemed to float and hover and alight on the earth with a gigantic brooding as of birds. The trees seemed redoubled in size from the soft indetermination of the moonlight which confused shadow and light, and deceived the eye as with soft loomings out of false distances. There was a tall pine, grown from a sapling since Ellen's childhood, and that looked more like a column of mist than a tree, but the Norway spruces clove the air sharply like silhouettes in ink, and outlined their dark profiles clearly against the silver radiance.
To Andrew, looking at it all, came the feeling of a traveller who pa.s.ses all scenes whether of joy or woe, being himself in his pa.s.sing the one thing which remains, and somehow he got from it an enormous comfort.
”We're all travellin' along,” he said aloud, in a strained, solemn voice.
”What did you say, Andrew?” f.a.n.n.y called from the open window.
”Nothin',” replied Andrew.
Chapter XVII
Ellen had always had objective points, as it were, in her life, and she always would have, no matter how long she lived. She came to places where she stopped mentally, for retrospection and forethought, wherefrom she could seem to obtain a view of that which lay behind, and of the path which was set for her feet in advance.
She saw the tracked and the trackless. Once, going with Abby Atkins and Floretta in search of early spring flowers, Ellen had lingered and let them go out of sight, and had sat down on a springing mat of wintergreen leaves under the windy outstretch of a great pine, and had remained there quite deaf to shrill halloos. She had sat there with eyes of inward scrutiny like an Eastern sage's, motionless as on a rock of thought, while her daily life eddied around her. Ellen, sitting there, had said to herself: ”This I will always remember. No matter how long I live, where I am, and what happens to me, I will always remember how I was a child, and sat here this morning in spring under the pine-tree, looking backward and forward. I will never forget.”
When, finally, Abby and Floretta had run back, and spied her there, they had stared half frightened. ”You ain't sick, are you, Ellen?”
asked Abby, anxiously.
”What are you sitting there for?” asked Floretta.
Ellen had replied that she was not sick, and had risen and run on, looking for flowers, but the flowers for her bloomed always against a background of the past, and nodded with forward flings of fragrance into the future; for the other children, who were wholly of their own day and generation, they bloomed in the simple light of their own desire of possession. They picked only flowers, but Ellen picked thoughts, and they kept casting bewildered side-glances at her, for the look which had come into her eyes as she sat beneath the pine-tree lingered.