The Fortunes of Oliver Horn [29]
muster, and then shuffled off to the kitchen for hot waffles and certain other comforting viands that Aunt Hannah, the cook, had kept hot for her young master, Malachi's several reports having confirmed her suspicions that Oliver, as usual, would be half an hour late.
"What a morning, motherkins," Oliver cried. "Such a sky, all china-blue and white. Oh, you just ought to see how fine the old church looms up behind the trees. I'm going to paint that some day, from my window. Dad had his breakfast?" and he glanced at the empty seat and plate. "Sausage, eh? Mally, got any for me?" and he dragged up his chair beside her, talking all the time as he spread his napkin and drew the dishes toward him.
He never once noticed her anxious face, he was so full of his own buoyant happiness. She did not check his enthusiasm. This breakfast-hour alone with her boy--he was almost always later than Richard --was the happiest of the day. But her heart was too heavy this morning to enjoy it. Instead of listening with her smile of quiet satisfaction, answering him now and then with a gayety of humor which matched his own, she was conscious only of the waiting for an opportunity to break into his talk with out jarring upon his mood. At last, with a hesitating emphasis that would have alarmed anyone less wrapped in his own content than her son, she said:
"Ollie, when you finish your breakfast I want you, on your way to Judge Ellicott's office, to stop at Colonel Clayton's and ask him to be good enough to come and see me as soon as he can on a little matter of business. Tell him I will keep him but a minute. If you hurry, my son, you'll catch him before he leaves the house."
The die was cast now. She had taken her first step without Richard's hand to guide her--the first in all her life. It was pain to do it--the more exquisite because she loved to turn to him for guidance or relief, to feel the sense of his protection. Heretofore he had helped her in every domestic emergency, his soft, gentle hand soothing and quieting her, when troubles arose. She had wavered during the night between her duty to her family in saving the farm, and her duty to her husband in preserving unbroken the tie of loyal dependence that had always bound them together. Many emotions had shaken her as she lay awake, her eyes fixed on the flutings in the canopy of the high-post bedstead which the night-lamp faintly illumined, Richard asleep beside her, dreaming doubtless of cogs and pulleys and for the hundredth time of his finding the one connecting link needed to complete the chain of his success.
But before the day had broken, her keen, penetrating mind had cut through the fog of her doubts. Come what may, the farm should never be given up. Richard, for all his urgent need of money to perfect his new motor, should not be allowed to sacrifice this the only piece of landed property which they possessed, except the roof that sheltered them all. The farm saved, she would give her attention to Oliver's future career. On one point her mind was firmly made up--he should never, in spite of what his father said, become a painter.
Oliver hurried through his breakfast, cut short Malachi's second relay of waffles to the great disappointment of that excellent servitor, and with his mother's message for the moment firmly fixed in his mind, tilted his hat on one side of his head and started across Kennedy Square, whistling as he went.
Mrs. Horn moved her seat to the window and looked out upon the brick-paved yard. The door of the shop was shut. Richard was already at work, for a thin curl of blue smoke was rising from the chimney. As she sat looking out upon the tulip-tree and the ivy-covered wall beyond, a strange, unaccountable sense of loneliness new in her experience came over her. The lines about her mouth settled more firmly, and the anxious look that had filled her eyes changed to one of determination.
"Nobody can help," she said to herself with a sigh. "I must do it all myself;" and picking up her basket of keys she mounted slowly to her room.
"What a morning, motherkins," Oliver cried. "Such a sky, all china-blue and white. Oh, you just ought to see how fine the old church looms up behind the trees. I'm going to paint that some day, from my window. Dad had his breakfast?" and he glanced at the empty seat and plate. "Sausage, eh? Mally, got any for me?" and he dragged up his chair beside her, talking all the time as he spread his napkin and drew the dishes toward him.
He never once noticed her anxious face, he was so full of his own buoyant happiness. She did not check his enthusiasm. This breakfast-hour alone with her boy--he was almost always later than Richard --was the happiest of the day. But her heart was too heavy this morning to enjoy it. Instead of listening with her smile of quiet satisfaction, answering him now and then with a gayety of humor which matched his own, she was conscious only of the waiting for an opportunity to break into his talk with out jarring upon his mood. At last, with a hesitating emphasis that would have alarmed anyone less wrapped in his own content than her son, she said:
"Ollie, when you finish your breakfast I want you, on your way to Judge Ellicott's office, to stop at Colonel Clayton's and ask him to be good enough to come and see me as soon as he can on a little matter of business. Tell him I will keep him but a minute. If you hurry, my son, you'll catch him before he leaves the house."
The die was cast now. She had taken her first step without Richard's hand to guide her--the first in all her life. It was pain to do it--the more exquisite because she loved to turn to him for guidance or relief, to feel the sense of his protection. Heretofore he had helped her in every domestic emergency, his soft, gentle hand soothing and quieting her, when troubles arose. She had wavered during the night between her duty to her family in saving the farm, and her duty to her husband in preserving unbroken the tie of loyal dependence that had always bound them together. Many emotions had shaken her as she lay awake, her eyes fixed on the flutings in the canopy of the high-post bedstead which the night-lamp faintly illumined, Richard asleep beside her, dreaming doubtless of cogs and pulleys and for the hundredth time of his finding the one connecting link needed to complete the chain of his success.
But before the day had broken, her keen, penetrating mind had cut through the fog of her doubts. Come what may, the farm should never be given up. Richard, for all his urgent need of money to perfect his new motor, should not be allowed to sacrifice this the only piece of landed property which they possessed, except the roof that sheltered them all. The farm saved, she would give her attention to Oliver's future career. On one point her mind was firmly made up--he should never, in spite of what his father said, become a painter.
Oliver hurried through his breakfast, cut short Malachi's second relay of waffles to the great disappointment of that excellent servitor, and with his mother's message for the moment firmly fixed in his mind, tilted his hat on one side of his head and started across Kennedy Square, whistling as he went.
Mrs. Horn moved her seat to the window and looked out upon the brick-paved yard. The door of the shop was shut. Richard was already at work, for a thin curl of blue smoke was rising from the chimney. As she sat looking out upon the tulip-tree and the ivy-covered wall beyond, a strange, unaccountable sense of loneliness new in her experience came over her. The lines about her mouth settled more firmly, and the anxious look that had filled her eyes changed to one of determination.
"Nobody can help," she said to herself with a sigh. "I must do it all myself;" and picking up her basket of keys she mounted slowly to her room.