Part 31 (1/2)

In fact, it was just here that, in spite of the heartache, each found an odd satisfaction.

”By sugar--but she's a s.p.u.n.ky one!” Cyrus would chuckle admiringly, as he discovered some new evidence of his wife's shrewdness in obtaining what she wanted with yet no spoken word.

”There isn't another man in town who could do it--and stick to it!”

exulted Huldah proudly, her eyes on her husband's form, bent over his egg-frying at the other side of the room.

Not only the cause of the quarrel, but almost the quarrel itself, had now long since been forgotten; in fact, to both Cyrus and his wife it had come to be a sort of game in which each player watched the other's progress with fully as much interest as he did his own. And yet, with it all there was the heartache; for the question came to them at times with sickening force--just when and how could it possibly end?

It was at about this time that each began to worry about the other.

Huldah shuddered at the changeless fried eggs and boiled potatoes; and Cyrus ordered a heavy storm window for the room where Huldah slept alone. Huldah slyly left a new apple pie almost under her husband's nose one day, and Cyrus slipped a five-dollar bill beneath his wife's napkin ring. When both pie and greenback remained untouched, Huldah cried, and Cyrus said, ”Gosh darn it!” three times in succession behind the woodshed door.

A week before Thanksgiving a letter came from the married daughter, and another from the married son. They were good letters, kind and loving; and each closed with a suggestion that all go home at Thanksgiving for a family reunion.

Huldah read the letters eagerly, but at their close she frowned and looked anxious. In a moment she had pa.s.sed them to Cyrus with a toss of her head. Five minutes later Cyrus had flung them back with these words trailing across one of the envelopes:

Write um. Tell um we are sick--dead--gone away--anything! Only don't let um come. A if _we_ wanted to Thanksgive!

Huldah answered the letters that night. She, too, wrote kindly and lovingly; but at the end she said that much as she and father would like to see them, it did not seem wise to undertake to entertain such a family gathering just now. It would be better to postpone it.

Both Huldah and Cyrus hoped that this would end the subject of Thanksgiving; but it did not. The very next day Cyrus encountered neighbor Wiley in the village store. Wiley's round red face shone like the full moon.

”Well, well, Cy, what ye doin' down your way Thanksgivin'--eh?” he queried.

Cyrus stiffened; but before he could answer he discovered that Wiley had asked the question, not for information, but as a mere introduction to a recital of his own plans.

”We're doin' great things,” announced the man. ”Sam an' Jennie an' the hull kit on 'em's comin' home an' bring all the chicks. Tell ye what, Cy, we _be_ a-Thanksgivin' this year! Ain't nothin' like a good old fam'ly reunion, when ye come right down to it.”

”Yes, I know,” said Cyrus gloomily. ”But we--we ain't doin' much this year.”

A day later came Huldah's turn. She had taken some calf's-foot jelly to Mrs. Taylor in the little house at the foot of the hill. The Widow Taylor was crying.

”You see, it's Thanksgiving!” she sobbed, in answer to Huldah's dismayed questions.

”Thanksgiving!”

”Yes. And last year I had--_him_!”

Huldah sighed, and murmured something comforting, appropriate; but almost at once she stopped, for the woman had turned searching eyes upon her.

”Huldah Gregg, do you appreciate Cyrus?”

Huldah bridled angrily, but there was no time for a reply, for the woman answered her own question, and hurried on wildly.

”No. Did I appreciate my husband? No. Does Sally Clark appreciate her husband? No. And there don't none of us do it till he's gone--gone--gone!”

As soon as possible Huldah went home. She was not a little disconcerted.

The ”gone--gone--gone” rang unpleasantly in her ears, and before her eyes rose a hateful vision of unappetizing fried eggs and boiled potatoes. As to her not appreciating Cyrus--that was all nonsense; she had always appreciated him, and that, too, far beyond his just deserts, she told herself angrily.

There was no escaping Thanksgiving after that for either Huldah or Cyrus. It looked from every eager eye, and dropped from every joyous lip, until, of all the world Huldah and Cyrus came to regard themselves as the most forlorn, and the most abused.