Chapter VI: Aunt Katharine—continued

After supper that evening, as Ruel Saxon sat in his room in the twilight, Esther came softly in and sat down beside him.

“Grandfather,” she said, “what made Aunt Katharine so bitter against the men?”

She had been turning the question wonderingly in her thoughts ever since the interview of the afternoon. There was something in the lonely old woman, crabbed of manner and sharp of tongue as she was, which had appealed to her strongly. That she was a unique personality, unlike any one she had seen before, was no doubt a part of it, for Esther loved the striking and picturesque; but there was more than this. She, too, had felt some touch of revolt against the limitations with which custom had hedged the ordinary life of woman, and Aunt Katharine’s fierce, uncaring challenge of it all had not been wholly unpleasing to her.

“What made Katharine so bitter against the men?” repeated her grandfather. He had started at the question, as one does sometimes when called upon suddenly to account for a familiar fact which everyday acquaintance has robbed of all its wonder. “Well, that’s a long story, and I don’t s’pose anybody but Katharine herself could tell the whole of it; but there were some things all of us knew, and she did have her grievances—there’s no doubt but what she had her grievances.”

He jerked off his spectacles, through which he had been trying to read a chapter of Proverbs, settled himself in his chair, dropped his chin in his hand, and began:—

“It started just about the time that Nancy came home with her children; Nancy was our sister, you know. There were three of us: Nancy and Katharine and me. Katharine was the youngest, and she was going to be married that spring to Levi Dodge. He was a likely young fellow, as everybody thought, and they’d been keeping company for upward of a year. But when Nancy came home it changed everything. There were those six children to be done for, and Nancy herself all wore out with work ’n’ worry, and your grandmother—for I was married then, you know—had her hands more ’n full with the housework and her own children, and it looked to Katharine as if she’d or’ to put off getting married a while and help things along here at home.”

“We didn’t ask her to, and we didn’t so much as know she was thinking of it, till she’d got her mind all made up; but I tell you we were awful glad, and I never shall forget how Nancy and your grandmother cried and hugged her, when she told ’em what she was going to do, right here in this room where you ’n’ I be to-night.”

He paused, and it seemed to Esther as if the shadows in the dusky room took momentary shape of those three women, young, loving, and in trouble together, who had met there so long ago. Perhaps the old man felt their presence too, for there was a peculiar softness in his voice as he went on:—

“We wouldn’t ’a’ let her do it, if we’d known how things were coming out, but you see we thought Nancy’d be in a home of her own again inside a year, and then the way’d be open for Katharine ’n’ Levi, and of course we thought he’d be reasonable about it. But bless your heart, when she came to talk it over with him he wouldn’t give in an inch. He said she’d giv’ her promise to him, and she couldn’t go back on it; he had more claim on her than John Proctor’s family had. Well, of course, I don’t know what passed between ’em,—Katharine never talked it over much,—but she was always high strung, and I guess she gave it to him pretty straight that if he couldn’t wait for her a little while under such circumstances he needn’t count on having her at all. Anyhow, the upshot of it was he went away mad, and we were dreadful sorry, but we thought he’d get over it in a day or two. He didn’t, though. In less ’n a week he was courting Sally Fry, and they two were married on the very day that was set for Katharine’s wedding.”

“How perfectly abominable!” burst out Esther. “I don’t wonder she despises the men if that’s the way she was treated.”

“She needn’t despise ’em all, need she?” said her grandfather, sharply. “There _have_ been men that could wait as long as any woman. There was Jacob, for instance. He waited seven years for Rachel, working for a hard man all the time, and the Bible says they seemed like only a few days to him for the love he bore her. And then he worked for her seven years more.”

Esther was silent. There was no answer to this case of Jacob, dear old Jacob, a prince indeed, with all his meanness, since he could love like that!

“Do you suppose Aunt Katharine really cared for that man?” she asked after a moment.

“I guess most likely she did,” said her grandfather, nodding his head slowly. “She wasn’t the kind to say she’d marry a man unless she loved him. But she never made a sound after he left her. She held her head higher than ever, and the way she worked! You’d have thought she had the strength of ten women in her.”

He drew his hand reflectively across his chin for a moment, then added: “But somehow I never thought ’twas that affair with Levi that soured your Aunt Katharine as much as it was the way John Proctor acted. It was strange about Proctor. You see, in those days they could put a man in prison for debt, and he had got in debt—not so very deep, only a matter of three or four hundred dollars; but the man he owed it to was threatening to have the law of him if he didn’t pay, and there warn’t any way John could turn to get that money. There was nothing he could do but get out of the country, and I’m free to confess now that I helped him go.

“You see, we thought if he could once get into Canada, and work at his trade—he was a first-rate carpenter—he could pay off that money in a little while, and I agreed to do what I could for his family while he was gone. We went over everything together, and he talked as fair as a man could, and then I drove with him one day ’n’ night, and the relatives up New Hampshire way gave him a lift when he got there, and between us all he was over the border before folks round here knew he was gone. I thought then that I was doing my duty, for it was an unjust law, and they did away with it pretty soon after that; but looking back _now_, and seeing how things turned out, I sometimes wish I’d let John Proctor stay here, and take what came of it.”

“Why, didn’t he pay that money, after all?” asked Esther, as her grandfather paused.

“Pay it!” he repeated. “Not a cent of it; and what’s more we never saw hide or hair of him in this country again. For a while he wrote to his wife, and now ’n’ then sent her some money, but it got longer between times, and by’m by the letters stopped for good, though we heard of him now ’n’ then, and knew he was alive and earning a good living. I never could figure it out why he acted that way, for Nancy was a good wife, and up to the time he went away John seemed to think as much of his family as other men. There was such a thing in Bible times as folks being possessed with the devil,” he added solemnly, “and I have my suspicions that that was what ailed John Proctor.”

He paused when he had made this not wholly unkind suggestion, then went on: “It was terrible hard for all of us, but somehow it seemed as if it worked on Katharine more ’n anybody else. She hated the very name of John Proctor, but she took up the cudgels for his wife ’n’ children, and I always thought ’twas slaving for them, and seeing all they went through with, that set her so against the men. Mebbe she might have got over it some, when the children grew older, and times eased up a little, but then came that trouble to Ruth, the oldest of Nancy’s girls, and the one Katharine thought the most of.

“We thought Ruth had made a good match, though the man was consider’ble older ’n she was,—her mother hurried it on a little herself, for of course she was anxious to get the girls into homes of their own,—but he never was good to her after they were married. He broke her down with hard work, and holding her in, and the poor little thing only lived a year or two. After that if anybody said marriage to Katharine it was like tinder in dry leaves. She took to studying about woman’s rights and all that, till she got to be as—well, as you saw her this afternoon.”

“Poor Aunt Katharine!” said Esther, softly. That she had suffered wrong might surely bespeak in a generous mind some excuse for her bitterness, but that, after all, it was not her own wrongs, but those of others which had burned that bitterness into her soul, made it seem even noble to the girl who had heard her story.

“Yes, it was too bad. I’ve always been sorry for Katharine,” said the old gentleman, and then he added, with an asperity he could not quite repress: “but the trouble is she got into the way of looking all the time at the worst side of things, and by’m by it ’peared to her as if that side reached all the way round. She talks about folks having sense enough to put two ’n’ two together, but I notice she always picks out the partic’ler two she wants when _she_ adds things up.”

A light step crossed the threshold at that moment, and Stella Saxon’s graceful figure appeared behind her grandfather’s chair. “Haven’t you had enough of Aunt Katharine for one day, Esther?” she demanded. “Leave grandfather to think up some new arguments for the next time he goes to see her, and come with me. I want you to see what a picture it is from the back of our old barn when the shadows creep over the hills.”

She lighted the lamp that stood by the open Bible, then slipped her arm through her cousin’s and drew her away. “Thank you for telling me all this,” said Esther, lingering a moment by her grandfather’s chair. “I love to hear stories of what happened here so long ago.”

“There are plenty of ’em, and they’ll keep,” he replied, smiling; and then he returned to the Proverbs again with unabated enjoyment.

“Do you know,” said Esther, as the two walked away, “I believe I should really love Aunt Katharine if I knew her.”

Stella gave one of her shrugs. “There’s no accounting for tastes,” she said. Then, as she glanced in at the barn door, which they were passing at that moment, she added with a laugh: “I declare, if Kate hasn’t managed to make her way with my brother Tom! They’re hobnobbing together like two old cronies.”

The truth was Kate Northmore had made up her mind to get acquainted with her cousin. Whether it was the barn or the boy that had brought her out this evening is not certain. She had a liking for a good quality of each. This particular barn was of a larger sort than she was used to, and the boy—she half suspected that he was smaller. There was something wrong about a boy who would go whistling off across the fields when his chores were done without saying “boo” to a girl who was looking after and longing to go with him. However, he might be only timid.

She had no thought of winning a place in his regard by the thing she did when she stepped into the barn to-night, but by chance she had done it. She had seen Dobbin standing in his stall with his harness on, as he had been put there an hour before. There was a rush of work now, for the cows were in the barn, and Tom and the hired man were seated at the milking. She had taken in the situation; then, with a word to Dobbin and a good-natured slap on his flank, stepped in beside him and removed his unnecessary burden.

It was a foolish thing to do, for she had on her pretty lawn, sash and all, but the fact that she had not minded her clothes, together with the surprising fact that she could do the deed at all, had impressed Tom deeply.

“Well,” he said, “you’re the first girl I ever saw who could do that.”

“That!” repeated Kate, “why, I’ve helped about horses ever since I was big enough to reach up. Father’s a doctor, you know, and the horses have to be got out in a hurry sometimes. I can harness and unharness about as quick as any man he ever had on the place. I’m strong in my arms.” She made a quick, free movement of her arms, from which the sleeves fell back, showing the firm round muscles, then added lightly: “I like everything about horses, specially driving. Dobbin’s too fat to be any good. What makes you feed him so much?”

“You’d better ask grandfather that question,” said Tom. “He never comes into the barn without piling his manger full of hay. He thinks the rest of us abuse him.”

They exchanged a good-natured laugh. Then Kate said: “I should think you would want more than one horse on this place. I don’t see how you can stand it to work behind oxen; they’re so slow.”

Tom’s countenance grew a trifle rigid. “We like them well enough,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, but you wouldn’t,” protested Kate, “if you’d ever worked with horses. Out our way they do all the work with them, and you’ll hardly see a farmer driving into town with a one-horse team.”

Tom would have scorned to appear at all impressed. “I shouldn’t care for such a lot of horses,” he said. “I like cows. There’s more profit in them.”

“Well, when it comes to cows you can make a bigger showing than we can,” said Kate, “but that’s because you raise milk and we raise crops.” And then she added in a tone of candor, “I reckon that makes the difference in the way the work is done. You don’t have big fields to plough and reap, and you can afford to spend time crawling round behind oxen when we can’t.”

Tom did not offer any reply to this interesting theory. “What makes you say ‘reckon’ so much?” he asked abruptly.

Kate’s eyes widened. “It’s as good as ‘guess,’ isn’t it?” she retorted. “I’d as lief reckon as guess any time.”

Tom poured his pail of milk into the big strainer and turned to go. “I’ve got another cow to milk before I’m through,” he said.

“I can milk, too,” said Kate, “though I don’t care much about it. Aunt Milly taught me.” And then she added, with a glance down the line of stalls: “But if I were going to do it I shouldn’t want the cows cooped up this way. I should want them out in the barn lot.”

“What, loose in the yard?” repeated Tom. He positively had to stop now. “And have them walking round all the time you’re trying to milk them? Well, I should think that would be a pretty business!”

“Our cow doesn’t walk round when we’re milking her,” said Kate. “Why, a cow naturally wants to be milked when the time comes, and it’s a great deal pleasanter being outdoors. We don’t care so very much about the milking-stool, either,” she added, laughing. “I _could_ do it on a pinch without any.”

“What, squat on your feet, and the cow not even tied up!” ejaculated Tom. The accomplishments of his cousin Kate were certainly out of the ordinary. He looked at her with a growing curiosity, then added loftily: “In this part of the country women don’t milk. We don’t think it’s their business.”

“Well, I’m glad you don’t,” said Kate; “but ’tisn’t such a queer thing for women to do as you seem to think. In most countries women generally do it.”

“I never heard of a woman milking before,” said Tom, doggedly.

Kate’s eyes grew big again. “Why, in stories they always do it,” she cried.

Tom looked impervious to any memory of the sort, and she added, with insistence: “You must have heard of the woman who counted her chickens before they were hatched. She had a pail of milk on her head at the very time, you know; and in the ‘House that Jack Built’ it was the ‘maiden all forlorn who milked the cow with the crumpled horn.’ The man hadn’t a thing to do with it except bothering her.”

Certainly Tom could not deny acquaintance with those classics. “I never took much stock in Mother Goose,” he said, starting on with his pail again.

“But you’ve _heard_ of them,” Kate cried triumphantly. He did not look back this time, but he was evidently meditating. As for Kate, she felt that the acquaintance had begun in an auspicious manner, and perched on the side of the cutting machine to wait for his return.

They were together preparing some cut-feed for Dobbin’s evening meal when the girls looked in at the door, and the talk was evidently flowing with the greatest ease.

“This is just like a cutting machine we used to have at home, and I have special reason to remember it,” Kate was saying as she turned the wheel, “for I nearly lost the end of my thumb in it when I was a little tot. Father was at home, as good luck would have it, and he fixed it up so quick that no great harm came of it.” She held up a pink thumb for Tom’s inspection, and added, “You wouldn’t know it now by anything except the nail being a little thicker than common at one corner, and that’s really been an advantage to me, for I can open a jack-knife without asking a boy to do it for me.”

Tom gave a grunt of approval. “And sharpen the pencil too?” he asked. Then, suddenly: “Are there many boys out your way? There are more girls here.”

“Oh, there are lots of boys,” said Kate, and then she added: “but the nicest one of all has gone to college, and we don’t see much of him nowadays. Are you going to college?”

He stirred the cut-feed for a minute without speaking, then shook his head. “Stella wants me to go,” he said, “and grandfather used to talk about it, too, but he’s sort of given it up lately. I guess he thinks I’m not scholar enough; and I’m not,” he added frankly. “I don’t take to studying. I’d rather work with things that are outside of my own head.”

Kate dropped the handle of the cutting machine. “Tom,” she exclaimed, in a tone of heartfelt sympathy, “that’s just the way I feel, too. I never did like school as Esther and Mort and some of the others do. I don’t want to be a stupid, of course—you have to know things or you’re no account; but for my part, I’d never get them out of books if I could get them any other way. I like people and affairs better.”

There is nothing like downright honesty to prepare the way for friendship. They had made a frank disclosure of feeling on an important subject, and Kate and Tom were comrades from that moment; comrades, in spite of the fact that certain other points of view were by no means held in common, and that each contended strenuously for his own. They talked for a long time of cousinly affairs. With his mother’s quiet way of looking at things, Tom had a considerable spice of his grandfather’s shrewdness, and Kate found his opinions on various matters interesting.

“Aunt Katharine must be a strange woman,” she said, when they had touched on a variety of other subjects. “Do they always fight, she and grandfather, as they did to-day?”

“Always,” said Tom, promptly. “It’s nip and tuck every time they come together. You’d think sometimes they fairly hated each other. But if one of them gets sick you ought to see how the other frets. Grandfather gets into a regular stew sometimes over her living off there by herself; but it’s a good thing she does. We couldn’t stand it if she lived here.”

“What supports her?” asked Kate, with her quick instinct for practical details.

“Supports her?” repeated Tom; “why, Aunt Katharine’s rich. Didn’t you know that? She had some property left to her years ago,—it was city land, I believe,—and it rose in value so it made a fortune. I heard grandfather say once that she must have as much as forty thousand dollars of her own.” The sum seemed unlimited wealth to the country boy. “Nobody knows what she’ll do with it,” he added; “she’ll want to fix it so the men can’t get it. She says she’d leave it to one of her female relatives if she could find one who’d promise never to marry.”

“She’d better propose that to Stella,” said Kate; “she’s so fond of her art.”

Tom whistled. “She isn’t so fond of it but she’d leave it quick enough if the right one asked her,” he said astutely.

And then they rose and walked together toward the house. Aunt Elsie, in the kitchen door, was calling, with an anxious note in her voice: “Girls, girls, why don’t you come in? You’re staying out in the dew too long.”