The End of the World: A Love Story, Page 3

  THE END OF THE WORLD.

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER I.

  IN LOVE WITH A DUTCHMAN.

  "I don't believe that you'd care a cent if she did marry a Dutchman! Shemight as well as to marry some white folks I know."

  Samuel
Anderson made no reply. It would be of no use to reply. Shrewsare tamed only by silence. Anderson had long since learned that thelittle shred of influence which remained to him in his own house woulddisappear whenever his teeth were no longer able to shut his tonguesecurely in. So now, when his wife poured out this hot lava of_argumentum ad hominem_, he closed the teeth down in a dead-lock wayover the tongue, and compressed the lips tightly over the teeth, andshut his finger-nails into his work-hardened palms. And then,distrusting all these precautions, fearing lest he should be unable tohold on to his temper even with this grip, the little man strode out ofthe house with his wife's shrill voice in his ears.

  Mrs. Anderson had good reason to fear that her daughter was in love witha "Dutchman," as she phrased it in her contempt. The few Germans who hadpenetrated to the West at that time were looked upon with hardly morefavor than the Californians feel for the almond-eyed Chinaman. They wereforeigners, who would talk gibberish instead of the plain English whicheverybody could understand, and they were not yet civilized enough tolike the yellow saleratus-biscuit and the "salt-rising" bread of whichtheir neighbors were so fond. Reason enough to hate them!

  Only half an hour before this outburst of Mrs. Anderson's, she had set atrap for her daughter Julia, and had fairly caught her.

  "Jule! Jule! O Jul-y-e-ee!" she had called.

  And Julia, who was down in the garden hoeing a bed in which she meant toplant some "Johnny-Jump-ups," came quickly toward the house, though sheknow it would be of no use to come quickly. Let her come quickly, or lether come slowly, the rebuke was sure to greet her all the name.

  "Why don't you come when you're called, _I'd_ like to know! You're neverin reach when you're wanted, and you're good for nothing when youare here!"

  Julia Anderson's earliest lesson from her mother's lips had been thatshe was good for nothing. And every day and almost every hour since hadbrought her repeated assurances that she was good for nothing. If shehad not been good for a great deal, she would long since have been goodfor nothing as the result of such teaching. But though this was not thefirst, nor the thousandth, nor the ten thousandth time that she hadbeen told that she was good for nothing, the accustomed insult seemed tosting her now more than ever. Was it that, being almost eighteen, shewas beginning to feel the woman blossoming in her nature? Or, was itthat the tender words of August Wehle had made her sure that she wasgood for something, that now her heart felt her mother's insult to be astale, selfish, ill-natured lie?

  "Take this cup of tea over to Mrs. Malcolm's, and tell her that it a'n'tquite as good as what I borried of her last week. And tell her thatthey'll be a new-fangled preacher at the school-house a Sunday, aMillerite or somethin', a preachin' about the end of the world."

  Julia did not say "Yes, ma'am," in her usually meek style. She smarted alittle yet from the harsh words, and so went away in silence.

  Why did she walk fast? Had she noticed that August Wehle, who was"breaking up" her father's north field, was just plowing down the westside of his land? If she hastened, she might reach the cross-fence as hecame round to it, and while he was yet hidden from the sight of thehouse by the turn of the hill. And would not a few words from AugustWehle be pleasant to her ears after her mother's sharp depreciation? Itis at least safe to conjecture that some such feeling made her hurrythrough the long, waving timothy of the meadow, and made her cross thelog that spanned the brook without ever so much as stopping to look atthe minnows glancing about in the water flecked with the sunlight thatstruggled through the boughs of the water-willows. For, in her thoroughloneliness, Julia Anderson had come to love the birds, the squirrels,and the fishes as companions, and in all her life she had never beforecrossed the meadow brook without stooping to look at the minnows.

  All this haste Mrs. Anderson noticed. Having often scolded

  TAKING AN OBSERVATION.]

  Julia for "talking to the fishes like a fool," she noticed the omission.And now she only waited until Julia was over the hill to take the pathround the fence under shelter of the blackberry thicket until she cameto the clump of alders, from the midst of which she could plainly seeif any conversation should take place between her Julia and the comelyyoung Dutchman.

  In fact, Julia need not have hurried so much. For August Wehle had keptone eye on his horses and the other on the house all that day. It wasthe quick look of intelligence between the two at dinner that hadaroused the mother's suspicions. And Wehle had noticed the work on thegarden-bed, the call to the house, and the starting of Julia on the pathtoward Mrs. Malcolm's. His face had grown hot, and his hand hadtrembled. For once he had failed to see the stone in his way, until theplow was thrown clean from the furrow. And when he came to the shade ofthe butternut-tree by which she must pass, it had seemed to himimperative that the horses should rest. Besides, the hames-string wantedtightening on the bay, and old Dick's throat-latch must need a littlefixing. He was not sure that the clevis-pin had not been loosened by thecollision with the stone just now. And so, upon one pretext and another,he managed to delay starting his plow until Julia came by, and then,though his heart had counted all her steps from the door-stone to thetree, then he looked up surprised. Nothing could be so astonishing tohim as to see her there! For love is needlessly crafty, it has always aninstinct of concealment, of indirection about it. The boy, andespecially the girl, who will tell the truth frankly in regard to a loveaffair is a miracle of veracity. But there are such, and they are to bereverenced--with the reverence paid to martyrs.

  On her part, Julia Anderson had walked on as though she meant to passthe young plowman by, until he spoke, and then she started, and blushed,and stopped, and nervously broke off the top of a last year's iron-weedand began to break it into bits while he talked, looking down most ofthe time, but lifting her eyes to his now and then. And to thesun-browned but delicate-faced young German it seemed, a vision ofParadise--every glimpse of that fresh girl's face in the deep shade ofthe sun-bonnet. For girls' faces can never look so sweet in thisgeneration as they did to the boys who caught sight of them, hiddenaway, precious things, in the obscurity of a tunnel of pasteboardand calico!

  This was not their first love-talk. Were they engaged? Yes, and no. Byall the speech their eyes were capable of in school, and of late bywords, they were engaged in loving one another, and in telling oneanother of it. But they were young, and separated by circumstances, andthey had hardly begun to think of marriage yet. It was enough for thepresent to love and be loved. The most delightful stage of a love affairis that in which the present is sufficient and there is no past orfuture. And so August hung his elbow around the top of the bay horse'shames, and talked to Julia.

  It is the highest praise of the German heart that it loves flowers andlittle children; and like a German and like a lover that he was, Augustbegan to speak of the anemones and the violets that were alreadyblooming in the corners of the fence. Girls in love are not apt to sayany thing very fresh. And Julia only said she thought the flowers seemedhappy in the sunlight In answer to this speech, which seemed to thelover a bit of inspiration, he quoted from Schiller the lines:

  "Yet weep, soft children of the Spring; The feelings Love alone can bring Have been denied to you!"

  With the quick and crafty modesty of her sex, Julia evaded this verypleasant shaft by saying: "How much you know, August! How do youlearn it?"

  A TALK WITH A PLOWMAN.]

  And August was pleased, partly because of the compliment, but chieflybecause in saying it Julia had brought the sun-bonnet in such a rangethat he could see the bright eyes and blushing face at the bottom ofthis _camera-oscura_. He did not hasten to reply. While the visionlasted he enjoyed the vision. Not until the sun-bonnet dropped did hetake up the answer to her question.

  "I don't know much, but what I do know I have learned out of your UncleAndrew's books."

  "Do you know my Uncle Andrew? What a strange man he is! He never comeshere, and we never go there, and my mother never speaks to him, and myfather doesn't often have anything to say to him. And so you have beenat his house. They say he has all up-stairs full of books, and ever somany cats and dogs and birds and squirrels about. But I thought he neverlet anybody go up-stairs."

  "He lets me," said August, when she had ended her speech and dropped hersun-bonnet again out of the range of his eyes, which, in truth, were toosteadfast in their gaze. "I spend many evenings up-stairs." August hadjust a trace of German in his idiom.

  "What makes Uncle Andrew so curious, I wonder?"

  "I don't exactly know. Some say he was treated not just right by a womanwhen he was a young man. I don't know. He seems happy. I don't wonder aman should be curious though when a woman that he loves treats him notjust right. Any way, if he loves her with all his heart, as I love JuleAnderson!"

  These last words came with an effort. And Julia just then rememberedher errand, and said, "I must hurry," and, with a country girl'sagility, she climbed over the fence before August could help her, andgave him another look through her bonnet-telescope from the other Hide,and then hastened on to return the tea, und to tell Mrs. Malcolm thatthere was to be a Millerite preacher at the school-house on Sundaynight. And August found that his horses were quite cool, while he wasquite hot. He cleaned his mold board, and swung his plow round, andthen, with a "Whoa! haw!" and a pull upon the single line which Westernplowmen use to guide their horses, he drew the team into their place,and set himself to watching the turning of the rich, fragrant blackearth. And even as he set his plowshare, so he set his purpose toovercome all obstacles, and to marry Julia Anderson. With the samesteady, irresistible, onward course would he overcome all that laybetween him and the soul that shone out of the face that dwelt in thebottom of the sun-bonnet.

  From her covert in the elder-bushes Mrs. Anderson had seen the parley,and her cheeks had also grown hot, but from a very different emotion.She had not heard the words. She had seen the loitering girl and theloitering plowboy, and she went back to the house vowing that she'd"teach Jule Anderson how to spend her time talking to a Dutchman." Andyet the more she thought of it, the more she was satisfied that itwasn't best to "make a fuss" just yet. She might hasten what she wantedto prevent. For though Julia was obedient and mild in word, she was nonethe less a little stubborn, and in a matter of this sort might take thebit in her teeth.

  And so Mrs. Anderson had recourse, as usual, to her husband. She knewshe could browbeat him. She demanded that August Wehle should be paidoff and discharged. And when Anderson had hesitated, because he fearedhe could not get another so good a hand, and for other reasons, sheburst out into the declaration:

  "I don't believe that you'd care a cent if she did marry a Dutchman! Shemight as well as to marry some white folks I know."