Bessie Marchant

“ Would the man live until Pentland Broads was reached? The question beat itself out to a monotonous, dirge-like tune in the brain of Edgar as he drove along, and the clop, clop, clop of Pucker’s feet was the only sound that broke the stillness.
Night in the forest is rarely entirely quiet; there is sound and movement all the time, faint whisperings, stealthy creakings, and a suggestion of hidden life on every side. But on the open prairie there is none of this; it is a dense, brooding quiet, which may be literally felt, and it lay upon Edgar as a burden that was too heavy to be borne. ”

“ If trouble could make a plain man look like that, surely it could not be unmixed disaster! That was the thought in Bertha’s mind for the remainder of the day, and though she tried to escape it she could not. All her life she had worshipped beauty wherever she could find it. Tom Ellis had seemed hitherto to be only a struggling unlettered farmer, more intent on making money than improving his intellectual standing; but the blow which might have felled a less noble soul had left him standing erect and strong, so surely the disaster had wrought him only good. ”

“ Dear Gott in Heaven, don’t let him die before our eyes,” sobbed the German, sinking on his knees in the roadway with his hands clasped in supplication.
“I will run for Anne; she can swim, and she is so brave!” cried Bertha, whose breath was coming in lumpy gasps of excitement.
“No use at all; he would be drowned before school-marm could get here, if she ran every step of the way,” said old Jan hoarsely. “See, the boat bumped that time, and he got a nasty knock, poor chap! It is your chance, missie, and only yours; and it is a man’s life that is hanging on your hands, to save or to throw away.” ”

“ She had been in the farther bedroom, putting the twins and Noll to bed, when she heard a squeal of amazement from Molly, with a shout of “Mummy! Mummy!” from Dicky, and, thinking that something must have gone wrong, she ran back to the kitchen, and there, to her amazement, was Grace sitting erect on her couch, holding fast to the edge of the little bookshelf, by which she had contrived to pull herself erect.
“Bertha! Bertha! Look at me!” cried Grace, in an ecstasy of joy. “I did it myself, all myself; the children did not help me at all. ”

“ Bertha’s tone was shocked, for no one had told her of the change in Eunice, and she had not seen here for weeks.
“The doctor says that I shall get better if I try hard enough; but I suppose it is the indolence of my nature revolting against hard work, for it seems too much trouble to struggle on trying to get better. Death looks so easy and pleasant, just getting a little weaker every day and then dropping to sleep at the last, like a child that is too tired to play any longer,” said Eunice, and she looked so white and worn, that Bertha thought she was actually dying then. ”

“ If anyone had told her that genius was only an infinite capacity for hard work in any given direction, it is to be feared that she would not have believed it, but would have still dreamed on, expecting to wake some day to find herself famous.
If there had been anyone in her little world of whom she could have made a confidante, her eyes might have been the sooner opened to her mistakes; but the three girls kept very much to themselves, and Bertha would just as soon have thought of standing on her head in Mestlebury Main Street, as of confiding any of her aspirations to her sisters. ”

“ Anne and Hilda must think what they liked about her incapacity and general helplessness. She must be of some use in the world, for she had given Grace the courage to keep alive. It was a joy that more than repaid her for the hard toil, the monotony, and the unloveliness of her life. But the trouble was that the temptation would keep coming back, and for weeks afterwards, while the shortening days crept down to winter, and the sting of bitter cold came into the little house on the prairie, Bertha was fighting her longings for a life of leisured ease. ”

“ I did not mean to be so silly!” she exclaimed, when Grace chanced to find her in tears.
“My dear, I have cried over the bare ugliness of it all too often not to be able to sympathize with anyone else. But it is strange how that passes off, and one grows to find a beauty even in the flat monotony, at least I have found it so,” said Mrs. Ellis, with a rapt look, which poor Bertha could not understand or in any way appreciate.
“That is because you are content with your home and your children; they are your world, and you do not want anything else!” she cried. ”

“ Bertha dropped on her knees beside the couch, soothing Grace as she would have soothed one of the children. Such stormy emotion must surely be bad for the invalid, and it would shake the feeble spark of life in the helpless body, might indeed even shake it out, or so in her ignorance she feared. But Grace was soon quiet again, only there was a deep glow of happiness in her eyes, and the radiance of hope on the face which had grown so wan from the weeks of hopeless helplessness. ”

“ Go to sleep now, dear, go to sleep,” said the little woman gently, and then, under the influence of the medicine, which was a sleeping draught, Grace was speedily unconscious again.
“Her brain is all right, thank God!” said Eunice, in a low moved tone, as the two stood looking at the quiet figure in her deep slumber.
“But her body! Oh, Miss Long, did you hear what she said?” cried Bertha, with a sob.
“Yes; but the body is such a small matter compared with the brain, and in time who can say but what she may be quite well again. ”

“ I should love it myself, I know. Why, when I was a child I was always wishing that I had lived about a hundred years ago, so that I could have been carried off by Micmacs or had adventures of sorts. And really, you know, life nowadays is very tame indeed.”
Bertha laughed, although in truth she could just as easily have cried, to hear the poor helpless woman talking of adventures with such incredible zest. What a fine plucky spirit it was that was caged in that prison-house of clay! And the difference between Grace and herself struck her more forcibly than ever. ”

“ Why, I have been expecting Tom every day since the snow went away, and now to be told that he will never come home at all—oh, it is too hard to bear!” wailed the invalid, clinging to the girl’s slight figure with the desperation of despair.
“Then keep on expecting him until we are quite sure,” whispered Bertha, in loving encouragement. “There can be no harm in hoping until there is no longer anything to hope for. Of course it was a kind thought of this—this gentleman to come and tell you the bad news, but on the whole it will be kinder not to insist on your believing it just yet.” ”

“ Grace answered. “How brave do you feel at this moment, Bertha?”
“I don’t know; I don’t think that I am ever brave,” said Bertha slowly; then, suddenly remembering what Eunice had said about her being able to do anything that was required of her, she said, “But I expect that I can muster up as much courage as you require me to have.”
“Good girl! Always be ready to meet the demands upon you, and then you will do,” replied Grace, with a laugh which was unsteady in spite of herself. ”

“ It is too awful to think of, and, of course, they do not know where it has gone astray,” said Grace.
“You don’t mean that you want me to go to-night, do you?” asked Bertha, with some alarm in her tone, for very much she doubted her ability to find her way across the waste of untrodden snow with only the stars for a guide.
“No, certainly you must not go to-night, but be ready to set off with the first gleam of daylight, and do not worry about me or the children while you are away. Divine Providence always takes care of those who cannot help themselves, and I am not afraid,” replied Grace. ”

“ It was getting late, but Bertha had not noticed it; indeed, she was oblivious to most things just then, except the very pleasant dreams in which she was indulging, of being able to earn enough money by literature to keep her from the necessity of doing anything else. Her arms ached with breadmaking, washing, and ironing, and all the other activities of the prairie day, where, if one does not do the work with one’s own hands, it has to go undone. Then up sauntered Dicky, his spade over his shoulder, while Molly trailed limply along behind. ”

“ I could not ride out there if I tried, and I guess that Miss Doyne has had enough of it for one day,” replied Eunice, in her quiet, determined fashion.
“Oh, how kind you are; you think of everything!” exclaimed Bertha, as she limped back to the post office, there to snatch a hasty breakfast, while Bill Humphries, who kept the forge, hitched a pair of particularly mettlesome horses to his wagon, in obedience to the softly uttered command of Miss Long.
“We are bound to do our best for each other,” said Eunice. ”

“ But all her heart was crying out against the monotonous ugliness of a landscape that had no hidden things, no mystery—which, after all, is the charm of nature—and nothing that appealed to the imagination in the slightest degree.
“It is a great land,” said Tom, with a sweep of his arm that included the whole horizon from sky to sky.
“It is certainly very big,” said Bertha, wondering if that were the right thing to say, and then she ventured a question: “What do you grow? I mean, what is there under the snow—grass?”
“Wheat is what I grow,” replied Tom, with a thrill of pride in his tone ”

“ It is not a virtue to be honest,” Bertha repeated, with emphasis.
“I think that it must be, seeing that it is a vice to be dishonest,” said Grace, as she leaned her head against Bertha’s shoulder. “But if it had not been for you and your brave doing of hard and unpleasant duty, I should not have been here at all. I could not have struggled through all that long, hard time of helplessness if it had not been for you. ”

“ One must live through terror, suspense, and pain, you know, before one can really know quite how it all feels,” said Grace.
“I suppose you are right; and perhaps if I could have had the easy, leisured life I have always longed for, I might never have been able to write of realities,” said Bertha.
Grace laughed softly, and then replied: “But you are forgetting. You might have had the leisured life a few months ago, if only you had done as Anne wished and gone out to Australia.” ”

“ But oh, dear, I am always sighing for a quiet life—I mean one that runs on peaceful lines and has no upheavals in it—but somehow I do not seem able to get what I want,” said Bertha, with a sigh; for she saw very plainly that this disaster which had overtaken Grace and Tom would be sure to involve her in heavier responsibility. Happily for her peace of mind, however, she had not the dimmest idea as yet how heavy her burden was likely to prove. ”

“ You cannot really expect me to believe that a Doyne could be slow at anything, except in the matter of thinking evil of one’s neighbour,” said Grace, with a laugh. “And you are only a flapper still, for the matter of that. How old are you—seventeen?”
“Almost eighteen, but I feel quite thirty,” Bertha answered, with a serious air.
“Wait until you are thirty, then the chances are that you will feel only about thirteen. Oh, I know what girls are like, especially girls with brains, and you were due to be the genius of the family!” ”

“ He had been looking forward to a night’s rest in the barn, and to be forced to turn out and drive so many miles through the dark, cold night was by no means a pleasant experience. But it had to be done, and so he sat huddled on the wagon seat, dozing fitfully, and comforting himself that the old horse knew the way much better than he knew it himself, when suddenly Pucker stopped dead, almost flinging Edgar from the driving seat, and arousing him from his dozing with a jerk. ”