When Tom Motherwell called at the Millford post office one day he got the surprise of his life.
The Englishman had asked him to get his mail, and, of course, there was the Northwest Farmer to get, and there might be catalogues; but the possibilities of a letter addressed to Mr. Thos. Motherwell did not occur to him.
But it was there!
A square gray envelope with his own name written on it. He had never before got a real letter. Once he had a machinery catalogue sent to him, with a typewritten letter inside beginning "Dear Sir," but his mother had told him that it was just money they were after, but what would she say if she saw this?
He did not trust himself to open it in the plain gaze of the people in the office. The girl behind the wicket noticed his excitement.
"Ye needn't glue yer eye on me," Tom thought indignantly. "I'll not open it here for you to watch me. They're awful pryin' in this office. What do you bet she hasn't opened it?" He moved aside as others pressed up to the wicket, feeling that every eye was upon him.
In a corner outside the door, Tom opened his letter, and laboriously made out its contents. It was written neatly with carefully shaded capitals:
Dear Tom: We are going to have a party to-morrow night,
because George and Fred are going back to college next
week. We want you to come and bring your Englishman.
We all hope you will come.
Ever your friend,
NELLIE SLATER.
Tom read it again with burning cheeks. A party at Slater's and him invited!
He walked down the street feeling just the same as when his colt got the prize at the "Fair." He felt he was a marked man—eagerly sought after—invited to parties—girls writing to him! That's what it was to have the cash!—you bet pa and ma were right!—money talks every time!
When he came in sight of home his elation vanished. His father and mother would not let him go, he knew that very well. They were afraid that Nellie Slater wanted to marry him. And Nellie Slater was not eligible for the position of daughter-in-law. Nellie Slater had never patched a quilt nor even made a tie-down. She always used baking powder instead of cream of tartar and soda, and was known to have a leaning toward canned goods. Mrs. Motherwell considered her just the girl to spend a man's honest earnings and bring him to seedy ruin. Moreover, she idled away her time, teaching cats to jump, and her eighteen years old, if she was a day!
Tom knew that if he went to the party it must be by stealth. When he drove up to the kitchen door his mother looked up from her ironing and asked:
"What kept you, Tom?"
Tom had not been detained at all, but Mrs. Motherwell always used this form of salutation to be sure.
Tom grumbled a reply, and handing out the mail began to unhitch.
Mrs. Motherwell read the addresses on the Englishman's letters:
Mr. Arthur Wemyss,
c/o Mr. S. Motherwell,
Millford P.O.,
Manitoba, Canada,
Township 8, range 16, sec't. 20. North America.
"Now I wonder who's writing to him?" she said, laying the two letters down reluctantly.
There was one other letter addressed to Mr. Motherwell, which she took to be a twine bill. It was post-marked Brandon. She put it up in the pudding dish on the sideboard.
As Tom led the horse to the stable he met Pearl coming in with the eggs.
"See here, kid," he said carelessly, handing her the letter.
Tom knew Pearl was to be trusted. She had a good head, Pearl had, for a girl.
"Oh, good shot!" Pearl cried delightedly, as she read the note. "Won't that be great? Are your clothes ready, though?" It was the eldest of the family who spoke.
"Clothes," Tom said contemptuously. "They are a blamed sight readier than I am."
"I'll blacken your boots," Pearl said, "and press out a tie. Say, how about a collar?"
"Oh, the clothes are all right, but pa and ma won't let me go near Nellie Slater."
"Is she tooberkler?" Pearl asked quickly.
"Not so very," Tom answered guardedly. "Ma is afraid I might marry her."
"Is she awful pretty?" Pearl asked, glowing with pleasure. Here was a rapturous romance.
"You bet," Tom declared with pride. "She's the swellest girl in these parts"—this with the air of a man who had weighed many feminine charms and found them wanting.
"Has she eyes like stars, lips like cherries, neck like a swan, and a laugh like a ripple of music?" Pearl asked eagerly.
"Them's it," Tom replied modestly.
"Then I'd go, you bet!" was Pearl's emphatic reply. "There's your mother calling."
"Yes'm, I'm comin'. I'll help you, Tom. Keep a stout heart and all will be well."
Pearl knew all about frustrated love. Ma had read a story once, called "Wedded and Parted, and Wedded Again." Cruel and designing parents had parted young Edythe (pronounced Ed'-ith-ee) and Egbert, and Egbert just pined and pined and pined. How would Mrs. Motherwell like it if poor Tom began to pine and turn from his victuals. The only thing that saved Egbert from the silent tomb where partings come no more, was the old doctor who used to say, "Keep a stout heart, Egbert, all will be well." That's why she said it to Tom.
Edythe had eyes like stars, mouth like cherries, neck like a swan, and a laugh like a ripple of music, and wasn't it strange, Nellie Slater had, too? Pearl knew now why Tom chewed Old Chum tobacco so much. Men often plunge into dissipation when they are crossed in love, and maybe Tom would go and be a robber or a pirate or something; and then he might kill a man and be led to the scaffold, and he would turn his haggard face to the howling mob, and say, "All that I am my mother made me." Say, wouldn't that make her feel cheap! Wouldn't that make a woman feel like thirty cents if anything would. Here Pearl's gloomy reflections overcame her and she sobbed aloud.
Mrs. Motherwell looked up apprehensively
"What are you crying for, Pearl?" she asked not unkindly.
Then, oh, how Pearl wanted to point her finger at Mrs. Motherwell, and say with piercing clearness, the way a woman did in the book:
"I weep not for myself, but for you and for your children." But, of course, that would not do, so she said:
"I ain't cryin'—much."
Pearl was grating horse-radish that afternoon, but the tears she shed were for the parted lovers. She wondered if they ever met in the moonlight and vowed to be true till the rocks melted in the sun, and all the seas ran dry. That's what Egbert had said, and then a rift of cloud passed athwart the moon's face, and Edythe fainted dead away because it is bad luck to have a cloud go over the moon when people are busy plighting vows, and wasn't it a good thing that Egbert was there to break her fall? Pearl could just see poor Nellie Slater standing dry-eyed and pale at the window wondering if Tom could get away from his lynx-eyed parents who dogged his every footstep, and Pearl's tears flowed afresh.
But Nellie Slater was not standing dry-eyed and pale at the window.
"Did you ask Tom Motherwell?" Fred, her brother, asked, looking up from a list he held in his hand.
"I sent him a note," Nellie answered, turning around from the baking-board. "We couldn't leave Tom out. Poor boy, he never has any fun, and I do feel sorry for him."
"His mother won't let him come, anyway," Fred said smiling. "So don't set your heart on seeing him, Nell."
"How discouraging you are Fred," Nellie replied laughing. "Now, I believe he will come. Tom would be a smart boy if he had a chance, I think. But just think what it must be like to live with two people like the Motherwells. You do not realise it, Fred, because you have had the superior advantages of living with clever people like your brother Peter and your sister Eleanor Mary; isn't that so, Peter?"
Peter Slater, the youngest of the family, who had just come in, laid down the milk-pails before replying.
"We have done our best for them all, Nellie," he said modestly. "I hope they will repay us. But did I hear you say Tom Motherwell was coming?"
"You heard Nell say so," Fred answered, checking over the names. "Nell seems to like Tom pretty well."
"I do, indeed," Nellie assented, without turning around.
"You show good taste, Eleanor," Peter said as he washed his hands.
"Who is going to drive into town for Camilla?" Nellie asked that evening.
"I am," Fred answered promptly.
"No, you're not, I am," Peter declared.
George looked up hastily.
"I am going to bring Miss Rose out," he said firmly.
Then they laughed.
"Father," Nellie said gravely, "just to save trouble among the boys, will you do it?"
"With the greatest of pleasure," her father said, smiling.
Under Pearl's ready sympathy Tom began to feel the part of the stricken lover, and to become as eager to meet Nellie as Egbert had been to meet the beautiful Edythe. He moped around the field that afternoon and let Arthur do the heavy share of the work.
The next morning before Mrs. Motherwell appeared Pearl and Tom decided upon the plan of campaign. Pearl was to get his Sunday clothes taken to the bluff in the pasture field, sometime during the day. Then in the evening Tom would retire early, watch his chance, slip out the front door, make his toilet on the bluff, and then, oh bliss! away to Edythe. Pearl had thought of having him make a rope of the sheets; but she remembered that this plan of escape was only used when people were leaving a place for good—such as a prison; but for coming back again, perhaps after all, it was better to use the front door. Egbert had used the sheets, though.
Fortune favoured Pearl's plans that afternoon. A book agent called at the back door with the prospectus of a book entitled, "Woman's Influence in the Home." While he was busy explaining to Mrs. Motherwell the great advantages of possessing a copy of this book, and she was equally busy explaining to him her views on bookselling as an occupation for an able-bodied man, Pearl secured Tom's suit, ran down the front stairs, out the front door and away to the bluff.
Coming back to the house she had an uneasy feeling that she was doing something wrong. Then she remembered Edythe, dry-eyed and pale, and her fears vanished. Pearl had recited once at a Band of Hope meeting a poem of her own choosing—this was before the regulations excluding secular subjects became so rigid. Pearl's recitation dealt with a captive knight who languished in a mouldy prison. He begged a temporary respite—his prayer was heard—a year was given him. He went back to his wife and child and lived the year in peace and happiness. The hour came to part, friends entreated—wife and child wept—the knight alone was calm.
He stepped through the casement, a proud flush on his cheek, casting aside wife, child, friends. "What are wife and child to the word of a knight?" he said. "And behold the dawn has come!"
Pearl had lived the scene over and over; to her it stood for all that was brave and heroic. Coming up through the weeds that day, she was that man. Her step was proud, her head was thrown back, her brown eyes glowed and burned; there was strength and grace in every motion.
When Tom Motherwell furtively left his father's house, and made his way to the little grove where his best clothes were secreted, his movements were followed by two anxious brown eyes that looked out of the little window in the rear of the house.
The men came in from the barn, and the night hush settled down upon the household. Mr. and Mrs. Motherwell went to their repose, little dreaming that their only son had entered society, and, worse still, was exposed to the baneful charms of the reckless young woman who was known to have a preference for baking powder and canned goods, and curled her hair with the curling tongs.
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