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For Woman’s Work.
Married for Love.
LINES TO W. A. B.
You will be married to-day, Billy,
“Married for love” to-day—
Who could help loving your beautiful bride?
I know the boys envy you there by her side,
And wish yon were far away!
’Tis well that you married for love, Billy,
’Twill ever prove wealth untold;
Riches take wings, but a solace through life,
Is a beautiful, loving, and dutiful wife,
Whose heart can never grow old.
And, though I’m not with you to-day, Billy,
Regrets, and best wishes, I send
To you, and to her, on each passing breeze,
While softly they whisper among leafy trees —
They come from the heart of a friend.
Rose Heath.
For Woman’s Work.
The Square Hole.
RS. MILLER glanced at the eight
in day clock for the hundredth time
M
that afternoon, then, going to the window,
gazed down the dusty, country road, with
its row of weeds growing up in the mid
dle, showing that the vehicles driven
along it were generally drawn by two
horses.
“It’s time the folks were here,” she said
with a gentle sigh—for everything she
did was gentle—then returned to her
calico-cushion rocking chair and resigned
herself to more waiting. Five minutes
later she again went to the window, and
this time was rewarded by seeing a lum
bering, two-seated, open buggy—known
as a “Democrat” —drawn by two plow
horses, coming down the road. Without
waiting for her sun bonnet, Mrs. Miller
hurried down to the whitewashed fence
and stood by the “horseblock,” watching
for the vehicle to draw up beside it. As
it came nearer she could distinguish her
husband, sunburned a din his gingham
shirt sleeves, sitting by the side of a well
dressed young lady, who held a lace
trimmed parasol over her be-flowered hat
and kept her dainty skirts away from the
farmer’s dusty trousers.
Mrs. Miller gazed long and lovingly at
the young lady, but when that person
finally stepped out on the horseblock, she
could find nothing to say, except,
“Welcome home, Gusty.”
The your g lady shivered as she said,
while she carelessly kissed her mother on
the cheek:
“Oh, please, Mamma, don’t call me that
fearful name.”
The good lady looked astonished as she
asked:
“Not call you Gusty?”
“Certainly not. They always call me
Agnes at school.”
“But your name is Augusta.”
“I know it is, but when one has such a
fearful name she isn’t apt to keep it, es
pecially at school,” and the girl brushed
past her mother and went towards the
house, not noticing her mother’s pained
expression. Augusta was her own name
and her mother’s before her, and the pet
name of Gusty was one her daughter had
given herself when a tiny tot, scarcely
able to talk.
Standing on the porch, with its worm
eaten floor, she looked into the living
room which opened directly ofl it. Every
thing was exactly as she had left it four
years before, when a cousin of her mother’s
had offered to take the girl, educate and
dress her, provided in the interval she
stay with her as a companion. Agnes
had fully expected to continue to live with
this cousin, who was a widow, after finish
ing school; but the gay little widow had
married again, and the girl was forced to
return home, with accomplishments as out
of place in her father’s house as the trunks
of dainty garments she brought with her.
A shiver ran through her as she looked
at each familiar object; the table with the
drooping leaves, which had to be propped
up 'with pieces of wood, the clock shelf
with the eight-day clock and a small lamp,
in which a red flannel rag was always
kept; the half a dozen straight-backed
chairs and the two rockers, covered with
calico; the bare, yellow painted floor, and
the ugly stove in the corner—all these
things had surrounded her as far back as
BY MILDRED HOUSTON HEMINGWAY.
she could remember. Before going away
she had hated them, but now she felt as
though it would be impossible to enflure
the sight of the worn, commonplace furni
ture, unembellished and unlovely.
It was all such a contrast to Cousin
Kathie’s beautiful rooms, overflowing with
dainty bric-a-brac! Coming from them
and the excitement of her cousin’s mar
riage, Agnes felt that she wished the
train had run off the track or that she had
been carried far beyond her destination.
However, she said nothing, but slowly
mounted the stairs to the little room
which had been hers since she was pro
moted from the trundle bed in her
mother’s room. As she turned toward it
her mother, who had followed her, said in
her usual gentle manner:
“Not that way, dear, since Lizzy’s mar
ried you can just as well as not have her
room.”
Feeling grateful for this—for Lizzy’s
room was larger and better aired—Agnes
asked carelessly:
“How is Lizzy, and how are the boys?”
“The boys are all right, you’ll see them
at supper. Lizzy’s got a good man, and
the baby’s just lovely.”
“The baby?”
“Lizzy’s baby. I wrote you about it.”
“Ob, yes,” Agnes replied with a slight
blush, not caring to confess that she had
only skimmed through her home letters
during the past few months: and, feeling
chilled by her daughter’s manner, Mrs.
Miller left her alone to open her trunks—
which the father tugged up stairs—and
began to look after the evening meal.
The young girl was to be pitied as she
sat there in the bare room, with tears
rolling down her cheeks, feeling so
homesick and desolate that her heart ached
for herself.
“It was cruel to take me away from all
this, only to send me back again when I
have learned to love beautiful things and
know cultured people!” and as she whis
pered these words, the sobs broke forth
and Agnes indulged in a good cry.
All traces of her tears were not removed
when she went down stairs an hour later;
her parents and two brothers noticed them,
and naturally resented what they felt was
a reflection upon them all. The boys—
great awkward fellows, with overalls
tucked into their cowhide boots, their
gingham shirts open at the neck—were
not the kind of men she had been accus
tomed to, and as she gazed at them shov
eling in their food with their knives, her
appetite failed her, she laid down the
heavy, three-tined fork, and tried to swal
low the lump which rose in her throat.
“What’s the matter; don’t you relish
your food?” asked her mother kindly.
“My head aches.”
Mrs. Miller’s face brightened. It was
very stupid of her not to have remember
ed that the girl would be tired with her
journey, and so she said cheerfully:
“All right, honey, just run out on the
porch and look for Lizzy and her man.
They’re going to come over just as quick
as he gets done the chores. I’ll clean up
to-night, although you must pitch in to
morrow morning. We all work here, you
know.”
The words fell upon unheeding ears, for
Agnes was so anxious to leave the hot,
stuffy room, with its odors of greasy food,
WOMAN’S WORK.
that she left the further
ceremony, wardered
curled herself up on gazed down
the road as her hours
before; the girl was for any
one, however, but of the home
she bad left and it with her
present one.
In the house, critic! as severely
passed upon her by father and brothers,
but her mother pleaded with them for a
little patience:
“Naturally the child feels like a chick
in the wet grass. Let her alone and she’ll
come around all right,” but the men folks
felt grieved. They rattled the milk pails
with unnecessary noise, but Agnes did
not hoar them as she sat out on the stile,
perfectly motionless, looking into the
gathering dusk. Everything seemed so
mournfully quiet, the stillness being only
broken by the croak of the frogs in a
neighboring marsh, and Agnes felt as
though she were separated from her for
mer life by many years, instead of by only
two days.
When Lizzy and her husband and baby
drove up things were not much bettered,
for in her sister Agnes found a common
place farmer’s wife, looking old and care
worn—pulled down by over-work and her
lusty baby—with mind fully occupied by
her household affairs. She and her
mother entered into an endless conversa
sation relative to the wonderful baby, and
poor Agnes was blamed because she did
not admire the child. She felt sorry, but,
never having been accustomed to very
small children, she was somewhat afraid
of them; besides, this one was not very at
tractive to her, with its yellow calico dress
and red flannel skirts. She remembered
the lovely outfit a young married friend of
hers had prepared for her first baby, and
blamed Lizzy that she had done otherwise,
forgetting that a farmer’s busy wife has
no time to spend over white garments or
embroidered flannels. Therefore she sat
by perfectly quiet, while Lizzy indignant
ly resented her indifference, and soon in
sisted upon going home—much to her
husband’s delight, as he had been openly
yawning over his father-in-law’s conver
sation about crops. As they drove away
she remarked angrily, as she pressed her
baby to her bosom, thinking him the most
wonderful child in the world:
“Well, Gusty ain’t no great shakes af
ter all, Jim. She’s awful stuckup, so she
is! I told mother how it’d be.”
“Oh, she’s all right, I guess,” her hus
band replied, holding the reins in one
hand and slipping his other arm about
his wife and child; he did not notice
any lack of beauty in his wife, and loved
her much more deeply now than when
they were first married, especially admir
ing her ability in managing her house
work and tending to the butter and eggs.
Lizzy shook her head, but some of the
sting left her heart as she leaned over
against Jim’s shoulder, and at last she
said as they drew up before their home:
‘She ain’t got you, anyway,” to which
Jim replied:
“And wouldn’t have me, neither!”
While this conversation was taking
place, the subject of it was crying herself
to sleep, to awake the next morning
with throbbing temples and burning eyes,
utterly unfit for any work. Her mother
soon discovered this, and sent her out in
to the orchard to rest, and drag away a
few weary hours. On the following day,
however, she was gently asked to perform
some of the lighter tasks about the house,
which she did sullenly, never expressing
any opinion upon the subject, but wearing
such an injured expression that at last her
father broke angrily forth as they were
sitting at their midday meal.
“I want to know why you look like a
whipped dog all the time! You just drag
about the house and let your mother do all
the work, and then can’t give any of us a
single smile, even. It’s a shame!”
Agnes raised her heavy eyes to his in
surprise. All the while she was feeling
so hurt, it Lad never occurred to her that
the others were uncomfortable, too; but
she only said in a very low voice:
“I am homesick.”
“Homesick? Thuider and lightning!
Homesick in your own home! Well this
beats anything I ever heard of!” and his
face grew very red.
“Yes, homesick,” Agnes returned, look
ing straight at him and speaking in her
clear, even tones. “It was a great mis
take to send me away in the first place;
now, that 1 have lived in another atmos
phere, I cannot be content here. Noth
ing interests me, I am willing to confess
that, and how can it, when I have learned
to know and like other modes of living!
You know nothing of a life outside your
own, but I do, and I am hungering for it.
Let me go back and earn my own living
and I will be content.’’
“How,” sneered Jake, her elder brother,
“when you don’t earn your salt here?”
“Farmwork is not the only thing I can
work at.”
“What did you think of doing, dear?”
asked her mother.
“Cousin Kathie wrote me, and I receiv
ed the letter yesterday. She says that
she misses me in spite of being married,
and her husband is willing for her to
have me back again; but, if I want to
have something to do, she can get me a
position in a private collection of books,
where I would be occupied from nine
until four and earn enough to buy my
clothes, and I could live with her. Please
let me go: I’ll die if I stay here!”
Mr. Miller looked angrily at the plead
ing face of the young girl, who, in spite
of her sullenness and somewhat disdainful
manner, was dear to him, and he shook
his head. But the entire family talked the
matter over, and it was finally Lizzy who
persuaded them to allow Agnes to return
to the city.
“She never was quite like us, even
when she was a little bit of a thing, and
now that Cousin Kathie brought her up
as she did, I don’t think we ought to get
mad just because she shows marks of train
ing. Let her go, and if she don’t like it I
guess she can trail back again.” So it
was decided that Agnes was to be allowed
to return to Cousin Kathie, and within a
week from the time the decision was ar
rived at, Agnes stood on the horseblock
in the early morning air, waiting ‘ for the
“Democrat,” and gazing about at the al
most hated surroundings. With the
newly risen sun upon the house and trees
about it, however, the old homestead did
not look quite so repulsive, and she showed
some real affection as she bid her parents
and Jake goodbye, and climbed in the
vehicle by Nat’s side—the younger brother
having been detailed to drive her to the
nearest railway station. She waved her
hand as long as she could see them stand
ing on the stile, then she turned her face
towards her new life with the determina
tion to make something of it and show
those who criticised her that, although
she could not make a success of farm work,
she could of something else.
In time she succeeded beyond her fond
est hopes, and eventually married a man
in her own rank of life who understood
and appreciated her. After Lizzy had
made Agnes a visit, she no longer won
dered at her sister’s disgust with the some
what restricted farm life, but she told Jim,
as he drove her home from the railroad
town and tried to express how much he
had missed her:
“I tell you, Jim, none of us understood
Agnes, nohow. She was just as nice to
me as though I had been as fine as any of
them. But I don’t want to change places
with her, fine as she has things fixed up.
I am a farmer’s wife, and fitted for that;
Agnes ain’t, and never was, and it would
have been a shame to tie her down. She
says she wants us all to come to see her
whenever we can—and she means it—but
that it is best for her not to come here,
and I guess she’s right. You can’t fit a
round peg in a square hole, nohow, and
Agnes was nothing but that down home
there. I’m glad she’s found her right
place at last,” and by the way Lizzy
fondly kissed her three little ones—one of
whom was the wonderful baby grown to
a big boy of six—she evidently felt that
she had found her place, too, and was well
contented with it.
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