Fenner,and she answered:"All right,if you need him.Don't you dare for me!I'll not see him.All I want is a little peace and rest."The idea!Not one of us ever had spoken to mother like that before in all our born days.I held my breath to see what she would do,but she didn't seem to have heard it,or to notice how rude it had been.Well,THAT told about as plain as anything what we had on our hands.I wandered around and NOW there was no trouble about thinking things.They came in such a jumble I could get no sense from them;but one big black thought came over,and over,and over,and wouldn't be put away.It just stood,stayed,forced you,and made you look it in the face.If Shelley weren't stopped quickly she was going up on the hill with the little fever and whooping cough sisters.There it was!You could try to think other things,to play,to work,to talk it down in the pulpit,to sing it out in a tree,to slide down the haystack away from it--there it stayed!And every glimpse you had of Shelley made it surer.
There was no trouble about keeping awake that night;I couldn't sleep.I stood at the window and looked down the Big Hill through the soft white moonlight,and thought about it,and then I thought of mother.I guess NOW you see what kind of things mothers have to face.All day she had gone around doing her work,every few minutes suggesting some new thing for one of us to try,or trying it herself;all day she had talked and laughed,and when Sarah Hood came she told her she thought Shelley must be bilious,that she had travelled all night and was sleeping:but she would be up the first place she went,and then they talked all over creation and Mrs.Hood went home and never remembered that she hadn't seen Shelley.She worked Mrs.Freshett off the same way,but you could see she was almost too tired to do it,so by night she was nearly as white as Shelley,yet keeping things going.When the house was still,she came into the room,and stood at the window as I had,until father entered,then she turned,and I could see they were staring at each other in the moonlight,as they had all day.
"She's sick?"asked father,at last.
"Heartsick!"said mother bitterly.
"We'd better have Doc come?"
"She says she isn't sick,and she won't see him.""She will if I put my foot down."
"Best not,Paul!She'll feel better soon.She's so young!She must get over it."They were silent for a long time and then father asked in a harsh whisper:"Ruth,can she possibly have brought us to shame?""God forbid!"cried mother."Let us pray."
Then those two people knelt on each side of that bed,and I could hear half the words they muttered,until I was wild enough to scream.I wished with all my heart that I hadn't listened.I had always known it was no nice way.I must have gone to sleep after a while,but when I woke up I was still thinking about it,and to save me,I couldn't quit.All day,wherever I went,that question of father's kept going over in my head.I thought about it until I was almost crazy,and I just couldn't see where anything about shame came in.
She was only mistaken.She THOUGHT he loved her,and he didn't.
She never could have been so bloomy,so filled with song,laughter,and lovely like she was,if she hadn't truly believed with all her heart that he loved her.Of course it would almost finish her to give him up,when she felt like that;and maybe she did wrong to let herself care so much,before she was sure about him;but that would only be foolish,there wouldn't be even a shadow of shame about it.Besides,Laddie had done exactly the same thing.He loved the Princess until it nearly killed him when he thought he had to give her up,and he loved her as hard as ever he could,when he hadn't an idea whether she would love him back,even a tiny speck;and the person who wasn't foolish,and never would be,was Laddie.
The more I thought,the worse I got worked up,and I couldn't see how Shelley was to blame for anything at all.Love just came to her,like it came to Laddie.She would hardly have knelt down and beseeched the Lord to make her fall in love with a man she scarcely knew,and when she couldn't be sure what he was going to do about it--not the Lord,the man,I mean.You could see for yourself she wouldn't do that.I finished my work,and then I tried to do things for her,and she wouldn't let me.Mother told me to ask her to make Grace Greenwood the dress she had promised when I was so sick;so I took the Scotch plaid to her and reminded her,and she pushed me away and said:"Some time!"I even got Grace,and showed Shelley the spills on her dress,and how badly she needed a new one,but she never looked,she said:
"Oh bother!My head aches.Do let me be!"
Mother was listening.I could see her standing outside the door.
She motioned to me to come away,so I went to her and she was white as Shelley.She was sick too,she couldn't say a word for a minute,but after a while she kissed me,I could feel the quivers in her lips,and she said stifflike:"Never mind,she'll be better soon,then she will!Run play now!"Sometimes I wandered around looking at things and living dully.
I didn't try to study out anything,but I must have watched closer than I knew,for every single thing I saw then,over that whole farm,I can shut my eyes and see to-day;everything,from the old hawk tilting his tail to steer him in soaring,to a snake catching field mice in the grass,lichens on the fence,flowers,butterflies,every single thing.Mostly I sat to watch something that promised to become interesting,and before I knew it,I was back on the shame question.That's the most dreadful word in the dictionary.There's something about it that makes your face burn,only to have it in your mind.
