Rose O' the River [30]
a wider sky and in a clearer light. Above all, her heart was wrung with pity for Stephen--Stephen, with no comforting woman's hand to help him in his sore trouble; Stephen, bearing his losses alone, his burdens and anxieties alone, his nursing and daily work alone. Oh, how she felt herself needed! Needed! that was the magic word that unlocked her better nature. "Darkness is the time for making roots and establishing plants, whether of the soil or of the soul," and all at once Rose had become a woman: a little one, perhaps, but a whole woman--and a bit of an angel, too, with healing in her wings. When and how had this metamorphosis come about? Last summer the fragile brier-rose had hung over the river and looked at its pretty reflection in the placid surface of the water. Its few buds and blossoms were so lovely, it sighed for nothing more. The changes in the plant had been wrought secretly and silently. In some mysterious way, as common to soul as to plant life, the roots had gathered in more nourishment from the earth, they had stored up strength and force, and all at once there was a marvelous fructifying of the plant, hardiness of stalk, new shoots everywhere, vigorous leafage, and a shower of blossoms.
But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a weakling and a flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the riverbank; Stephen did not love her any longer; her flower-beds were plowed up and planted in corn; and the cottage that Stephen had built and she had furnished, that beloved cottage, was to let.
She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What was the State House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church to a pride wounded like hers?
At last she fell asleep, but it was only by stopping her ears to the noises of the city streets and making herself imagine the sound of the river rippling under her bedroom windows at home. The back yards of Boston faded, and in their place came the banks of the Saco, strewn with pine needles, fragrant with wild flowers. Then there was the bit of sunny beach, where Stephen moored his boat. She could hear the sound of his paddle. Boston lovers came a-courting in the horse-cars, but hers had floated down stream to her just at dusk in a birch-bark canoe, or sometimes, in the moonlight, on a couple of logs rafted together.
But it was all over now, and she could see only Stephen's stern face as he flung the despised turquoise ring down the river bank.
A COUNTRY CHEVALIER
It was early in August when Mrs. Wealthy Brooks announced her speedy return from Boston to Edgewood.
"It's jest as well Rose is comin' back," said Mr. Wiley to his wife. "I never favored her goin' to Boston, where that rosyposy Claude feller is. When he was down here he was kep' kind o' tied up in a boxstall, but there he's caperin' loose round the pastur'."
"I should think Rose would be ashamed to come back, after the way she's carried on," remarked Mrs. Wiley, "but if she needed punishment I guess she's got it bein' comp'ny-keeper to Wealthy Ann Brooks. Bein' a church member in good an' reg'lar standin', I s'pose Wealthy Ann'll go to heaven, but I can only say that it would be a sight pleasanter place for a good many if she didn't."
"Rose has be'n foolish an' flirty an' wrong-headed," allowed her grandfather; "but it won't do no good to treat her like a hardened criminile, same's you did afore she went away. She ain't hardly got her wisdom teeth cut, in love affairs! She ain't broke the laws of the State o' Maine, nor any o' the ten commandments; she ain't disgraced the family, an' there's a chance for her to reform, seein' as how she ain't twenty year old yet. I was turrible wild an' hot-headed myself afore you ketched me an' tamed me down."
"You ain't so tame now as I wish you was," Mrs. Wiley replied testily.
"If you could smoke a clay pipe 'twould calm your nerves, mother, an' help you to git some philosophy inter you; you need a little philosophy turrible bad."
"I need patience consid'able more," was Mrs. Wiley's withering
But everything was awry: Boston was a failure; Claude was a weakling and a flirt; her turquoise ring was lying on the riverbank; Stephen did not love her any longer; her flower-beds were plowed up and planted in corn; and the cottage that Stephen had built and she had furnished, that beloved cottage, was to let.
She was in Boston; but what did that amount to, after all? What was the State House to a bleeding heart, or the Old South Church to a pride wounded like hers?
At last she fell asleep, but it was only by stopping her ears to the noises of the city streets and making herself imagine the sound of the river rippling under her bedroom windows at home. The back yards of Boston faded, and in their place came the banks of the Saco, strewn with pine needles, fragrant with wild flowers. Then there was the bit of sunny beach, where Stephen moored his boat. She could hear the sound of his paddle. Boston lovers came a-courting in the horse-cars, but hers had floated down stream to her just at dusk in a birch-bark canoe, or sometimes, in the moonlight, on a couple of logs rafted together.
But it was all over now, and she could see only Stephen's stern face as he flung the despised turquoise ring down the river bank.
A COUNTRY CHEVALIER
It was early in August when Mrs. Wealthy Brooks announced her speedy return from Boston to Edgewood.
"It's jest as well Rose is comin' back," said Mr. Wiley to his wife. "I never favored her goin' to Boston, where that rosyposy Claude feller is. When he was down here he was kep' kind o' tied up in a boxstall, but there he's caperin' loose round the pastur'."
"I should think Rose would be ashamed to come back, after the way she's carried on," remarked Mrs. Wiley, "but if she needed punishment I guess she's got it bein' comp'ny-keeper to Wealthy Ann Brooks. Bein' a church member in good an' reg'lar standin', I s'pose Wealthy Ann'll go to heaven, but I can only say that it would be a sight pleasanter place for a good many if she didn't."
"Rose has be'n foolish an' flirty an' wrong-headed," allowed her grandfather; "but it won't do no good to treat her like a hardened criminile, same's you did afore she went away. She ain't hardly got her wisdom teeth cut, in love affairs! She ain't broke the laws of the State o' Maine, nor any o' the ten commandments; she ain't disgraced the family, an' there's a chance for her to reform, seein' as how she ain't twenty year old yet. I was turrible wild an' hot-headed myself afore you ketched me an' tamed me down."
"You ain't so tame now as I wish you was," Mrs. Wiley replied testily.
"If you could smoke a clay pipe 'twould calm your nerves, mother, an' help you to git some philosophy inter you; you need a little philosophy turrible bad."
"I need patience consid'able more," was Mrs. Wiley's withering