THE DIVIDED HOUSE
By Julia D. Whiting,
Author of "The Story of Myra," "Brother Sesostris," "A Special Providence," and other stories.
HEN Selucius Huxter had arrived at his last illness, he proved himself more than ever in his life troublesome and wearing. Having a suspicion that his condition was worse than his doctor or children allowed, he gave them no peace until he had extracted an admission that such was the case. Left alone with the doctor at his request, he reproached him.
"Ye might as well told me before as let me lay here thinkin' and stewin' about it. I've lost a sight of strength tryin' to git the truth from ye, and there wa'n't no need. Wall—I suppose I ain't reely dyin' naow, while I'm a-talkin', be I?"
Assured as to that point, he added: "The reason I wanted to know is because I've got to fix my concerns so as to leave 'em as well as I can; and all I want of you is that when you think I'm—wall—if you see there's goin' to be a change, I want you should tell me, so's't I can straighten things right out and git their consent to it." Having promised, the doctor apprised him as the last moments drew near.
"Sho! I want to know! Why, I feel full as well as I did yes'dy and a leetle grain easier, if anythin'."
"I hope this notice does not find you unprepared," observed the doctor.
"Wall, no; I'm prepared as much as I can be, as you may say. I've been a member in good and regular standin' this fifty-five year—and I hain't arrived at my age without seeing there's somethin' in life beside livin'." He paused, then added with an accent of pride, "I don't owe any man a cent, nor never cheated a man of one. Wall, I've had quite a spell to think of things in, durin' my sickness, and I don't know but what I've enjoyed it considerable. Thought of things all along back to when I was a boy. Events come up that I'd clean forgot."
The doctor gone, he called his children in.
"Wall, Armidy, wall, Lucas, the doctor don't seem to think I shall tucker it out much longer. Wall, naow," he exclaimed, quite vexed, "I vow for't if I didn't forgit to ask him how long! Wall, too late naow. He's got out of sight, I s'pose."
Armida stepped to the window, and assured him of the fact.
"Wall, no gret matter. I jist thought if I could git him to fix the time I'd like to see how nigh he'd hit it.
"Naow, I want to fix the property so's't you won't have no trouble with it. No use wastin' money gittin' lawyers here. There ain't no cheatin' nor double-dealin' anywhere to be found amongst the Huxters nor the Lucases; and when you give me your promises to abide by my last will and testament I shall expect you to hold to it jist the same as if it was writ out.
"Naow, about the farm and house. The house, as you know, stands in the middle line of the farm; that is, the north side has a leetle the advantage in hevin' the Jabez Norcross paster tacked unto it, over and above the south half, but it's near enough. That paster don't count for much. Pooty thick with sheep laurel. Wall, seein' the land lies jist as it does, and the house is jist as it is, I propose to divide it even. Lucas, you can have the north half, and Armidy the south, beginnin' right to the front door, and runnin' right through the house and right along down to the river, straight as you can fetch it. Do you agree to my plan?"
Armida and Lucas exchanged glances. "You speak," said Lucas in a low tone.
"No, you," said Armida.
"What you whisperin' about? P'raps you think I can't hear because I'm dyin', but I'd have you to know my hearin' ain't affected a grain. Speak up naow! What is it, Lucas?"
"We were thinkin' of Theodore," said Lucas. "You're leavin' him out, seems so."
"'Tain't 'cause I forgot him; but I give him all I cal'lated to when he quit home five year ago—money; and so I sha'n't leave him anythin'. Wouldn't do him no good, if I did," he said to himself.
"Well, we should feel better if you did," said Armida. "I don't want he should be left out. Neither would mother if she was livin'; she'd feel bad."
"'WALL, ARMIDY, WALL, LUCAS, THE DOCTOR DON'T SEEM TO THINK I SHALL TUCKER IT OUT MUCH LONGER.'"
"I'll settle it with your ma when I see her. Come, now, what do you say?"
There was a long silence, which Armida broke by saying, "S'posin' him or me was to want to leave the place, I mean for good—get tired of stayin' here to home?"
"Wall," said her father with a chuckle, "if either of you feels like givin your share to the other, you may. I ain't goin' to leave my old place for either of you to sell to each other nor nobody else. I expect you to live on't."
"Well," now objected Lucas; "s'posin' one of us should git married, then how would it be?"
"Why, live along. Put in and work a leetle harder, maybe. This farm carried a pooty fair number when I was younger. If you should git too numerous you could build on either side. I guess there ain't no gret danger," he added.
As neither offered further objections, Mr. Huxter said: "There's been talk enough, I s'pose. Do you agree to 't?" He waited while each gave an audible "yes." "Naow," said he, "I hain't an earthly thing to hamper me."
The father dead, for the brother and sister no new life began. Armida still skimmed all the milk and made the butter, looked after Lucas as she had before, and Lucas attended impartially to the whole of the farm, and Armida sometimes wondered what difference it made. To be sure the profits were divided with the most rigid exactness; but everything went tranquilly on until more than a year after their father's death, when Armida had a suspicion, confirmed by appearances, that Lucas was becoming interested in a young girl in a neighborhood a few miles away. The spirit of jealousy surely animated poor Armida, for nothing else could have prompted her action. Having ascertained the girl's name, she caused to be conveyed to her the facts, colored for the occasion, relating to the partition of the house and land; and the young woman, having a shrewd eye to the main chance, bluntly told Lucas when next she saw him that she didn't wish the half of a house nor the half of a farm.
THE DIVIDED HOUSE.—"ARMIDA'S SIDE OF THE HOUSE FELL MORE AND MORE INTO RUIN; WHILE LUCAS ... KEPT HIS IN EXCELLENT REPAIR, AND OCCASIONALLY RENEWED THE PAINT."
Lucas had thought all might go on smoothly with a wife, and had counted on her accepting the situation. Inquiring as to who had meddled in his affairs, he traced the matter back to Armida, and coming home mortified and angry, reproached her in unsparing terms, ending his recital of wrongs with: "I don't know what you did it for, unless you was afraid your half was going to be invaded; and if you feel that way you'd better keep to your side and take care of your own property. I ain't going to interfere."
Armida was powerless to protect herself except with tears, which did not avail with Lucas. She made overtures of peace, such as offering to cook her brother's meals and look after his share of the milk; but was warned to attend to her own business.
Lucas had a new pipe-hole made in the kitchen chimney, and bought a new stove, and hunted up a kitchen table, telling Armida she was welcome to the stove and table they had previously used in common, but he'd thank her to stay on her own side of the room. The situation would have been ludicrous if it had not been grim earnest to the brother and sister. Lucas had a hard side to his character, and he could not forgive his sister's interference. He would not even give Armida advice, but allowed her cows to break into her cornfield and her sheep to stray away, without warning her, though all the while his heart pricked him at sight of her distress. Still all he would do was to suggest that she get a hired man.
Accordingly Armida, in despair, hired an easy-going, good-natured creature that offered his services. He did very well, and Armida got on better, and took courage.
But there was a dreadful blow in store for her. Lucas brought a gang of carpenters to the farm, who instituted repairs on his half of the house. He even went so far as to commit the extravagance of having blinds hung for his sitting-room and front chamber windows, and his half of the front porch was trimmed with brackets, and then the whole of his half of the house painted white, so that his neighbors rallied him on being proud. "Only," as one said, "why don't you extend your improvements right along acrost the house, Lucas? It looks sorter queer to see one-half so fine and the other so slack."
"Armida's free to do she's a mind to," said Lucas. "If she wants to fix up her side, she can. I don't hinder her—"
"Nor you don't help her neither, as I see," said the other.
"I believe in 'tendin' to your own affairs and not interferin' with other folks," Lucas rejoined.
Armida was made very unhappy by these changes and the comments of the neighbors, and would gladly have beautified her half also, but had no money to spend. The farm had fallen behind, and she was pinched for means. She did what she could, taking more care than usual of vines and flowers, and even had an extra bed dug under her front windows, where she had many bright-hued flowers; but as she rose from digging around her plants and surveyed the house—Lucas's side with the new green blinds and the clapboards shining with paint, hers with its stained, weather-beaten appearance and its staring windows—she felt ashamed and discouraged.
"AS ARMIDA SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE OLD RUSSET APPLE-TREE, ... SHE ... LOOKED UP TO SEE A SHABBY, SHAMBLING, OLDISH MAN COMING AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE."
She feared her hired man was slack and neglected his work; yet when he threatened to go, and afterward compromised the matter by offering to stay if she'd marry him, at a loss what to do, and partly because she was lonely, she married him. He was a respectable man, whose only fault was laziness, and she hoped that now he would take an interest. When Armida and her husband came back from the minister's and announced to Lucas that they were married, his only comment was, "Well, a slack help will make a shif'less husband."
Years went by, and Armida's side of the house fell more and more into ruin; while Lucas, with what Armida considered cruel carefulness, kept his in excellent repair and occasionally renewed the paint. The contrast was so great that passers-by stopped their horses that they might look and wonder at their leisure. Every glance was like a blow to Armida, so that she avoided her sitting-room and kept herself in the uncomfortable kitchen that was divided by an imaginary line directly through the middle, a line never crossed by her brother, her husband, or herself.
It would have looked absurd enough to a stranger to see this divided room, with the brother clumsily carrying on his household affairs on the one side and the sister doing her work on the other, with often not a word exchanged between them for days together. Absurd it might be, but it was certainly wretched. Armida grew old rapidly. Her husband was a poor stick, and when, as years passed, a touch of rheumatism gave him a real excuse for laziness, he did little more than sit by the fire and smoke.
As Armida sat on the bench under the old russet apple-tree by the back door one day, regretting her evil fate, she heard footsteps approaching, and, pushing back her old sun-bonnet, looked up to see a shabby, shambling, oldish man coming around the side of the house and gazing in at the windows, "What ye doin' there?" said Armida sharply.
The man turned, surveyed her with a smile, then said with a drawl she remembered: "I hain't been gone so long but that I know ye, Armidy. Don't you remember me?"
"Theodore Huxter! Is that you? Well!" and she hurried up to him, and shook hands violently.
"I heard only last week that father was dead," he explained. "I seen a man from this way, and he said he was gone. How long since?"
"More than ten years ago."
"Well, I thought I'd come and see ye."
"I'm glad you did," she said. "But come right in;" and she led the way into the kitchen.
He leaned up against the door and surveyed the room. "I should 'a' s'posed I'd have remembered this room, but what ye done to it? What hev you got two stoves and two tables and all that for, Armidy?"
Armida told him all, winding up her story with a few tears.
"That accounts for the looks of the outside, I s'pose," was his only comment. "I thought it was about the queerest I ever see. It's ridiculous! Why haven't you and Lucas straightened out affairs before this?"
"I can't, and he can't, I s'pose," she said hopelessly; "and everything makes it worse. I wouldn't care so much if he hadn't fixed up the outside the way he did."
"Oh, well now, don't you fret. If I had money—but then I haven't."
"How have you lived sence you left home?" Armida inquired.
"Why, I've had a still, and made essence and peddled it out; but I sold the still to git money to come here, and it took all I had."
"Well now, Theodore, I wish you'd stay here now you've got round again," said Armida with great earnestness. "I've worried about you a sight. I'd be glad to have you, and Lucas would, I know."
To spare a possible rebuff for Theodore, she ran out as she saw Lucas coming to the house to get his supper, and apprised him of his brother's arrival, glad to find he shared her pleasure in it. As Lucas entered the room he shook hands with Theodore, saying, "How are ye?" to which Theodore responded with "How are you, Lucas?"
Theodore was a relief and pleasure to all the family. He observed a strict impartiality. If he split some kindling-wood for Armida, he churned for Lucas. If he took Armida's old horse to be shod, he helped Lucas wash his sheep. He accepted everything, asking no questions after the first evening, but kept an observant eye on all.
Both Lucas and Armida had loved him since their earliest remembrance, and retained their old fondness for him now. He was a welcome guest on either side of the kitchen, and though when he announced of an evening that he was going visiting, and stepped across the line to the other side of the half from where he had been sitting, the owner of the side he honored felt pleased by the distinction, yet the one on the opposite side, though no longer (according to an understood law) joining in the conversation, still had the benefit of Theodore's narratives.
EVENING IN THE DIVIDED KITCHEN.
He was busy, too, in his way. He was indefatigable in berry-picking and herb-gathering, selling what Armida and Lucas did not wish, and showing not a little shrewdness. When he had laid a little money together he bought a still, and distilled essences of peppermint, wintergreen, and other sweet-smelling herbs and roots, and when a store was accumulated he filled a basket and departed on a peddling expedition, returning with money in his purse and a handkerchief or ribbon for Armida. Once he bought her a stuff gown, which she came near ruining by weeping over it, it was such a delight.
Lucas remonstrated. "I think you're foolish, Theodore. Why don't you spend your money on yourself? You'd a sight better get you a new coat."
"I'd rather see Armida crying over that stuff," said Theodore, "than have a dozen coats. Nobody knows Armida's good looking, because she's no good clothes. But she is, and when she gets that dress made up and puts it on with that pink ribbon I bought her last time, she'll look as pretty as a pink."
Not so great a success were the Venetian blinds that he bought second-hand and gave to Armida to hang in the sitting-room. They proved to be in sorry condition, and Theodore was much mortified. Being a handy creature, he managed to patch them up so that, though they could not be rolled up, they looked very well from the outside; and, as he philosophically remarked:
"What more do you want, Armidy? A room you never set in, you don't want any light in."
There was one thing that Theodore would not do. He would not, as he said, fellowship with Jerry, Armida's husband. "Tell you, Armidy," he would say, "I can't put up with a man like him."
"Some folks call you shif'less, Theodore," Armida retorted with bitterness.
"Well, I am," he allowed; "but the difference is—I'm lazy, but work, my fashion; but he's lazy, and don't work at all."
Though he disdained Jerry, he would rather do his tasks than see Armida's interests suffer; and when he was not occupied with his still or peddling, he busied himself on her side of the farm. Lucas would at any time give him a helping hand rather than see Theodore hurt himself, and so Armida's fences were mended and sundry repairs on her barns and out-houses made. Lucas was still as stiff as ever, and the help given was always to oblige Theodore, who laughed to himself but said nothing.
He once attempted to wheedle Lucas into painting at least all of the front of the house, but Lucas was not to be moved. Disappointed in that, Theodore brought home a pot of yellow paint when returning from his next expedition, and painted his sister's half of the kitchen floor, in spite of her remonstrating that Lucas wouldn't like it, though she acknowledged it looked pretty, and in spite of Lucas's vexation at finding the room ridiculous.
"No more ridiculous than it was before," Theodore assured him; "it couldn't be. Besides," he added, as an afterthought, "I'll bring it plumb up to the middle, and neither of you will be trespassin' on the other's side. I noticed one of your chairs was a leetle grain onto Armidy's side the other night, and that ain't right."
In the middle of an afternoon, as Lucas was ploughing out his corn, he heard a "Hello!" to which, when it had been two or three times repeated, he replied, though without looking around. Presently he heard some one coming, in a sort of scuffling run, and breathing heavily, and looked over his shoulder to see Theodore, who dropped into a walk as he spied him, and gasped: "Lucas! Say! Stop! Look here!"
"Well?" said Lucas, and pulled up his horse.
"I'm too old to run like this, that's a fact," said Theodore, mopping his face and leaning up against the plough. "There's a queer piece of work for us to do, Lucas. Armidy's all smashed up on the road, right down here on that second dip, and I guess Jerry is stone dead, and we must fetch 'em up just as soon as we can."
Lucas made no comment, but mechanically unfastened the horse and turned toward the house, his brother stumbling behind, quite exhausted by the hurry and fatigue of the hour.
As they went Lucas said: "How did you come to know of it?"
"Well, it was cur'us," said Theodore. "You know I had old Sam this morning, bringing in a little jag of wood for Armidy, and lengthened out the traces to fit the old waggin. Well, all I know about it is what I guess. I see from the looks they must 'a' concluded to go to the village with some eggs and so on, 'cause you can see in the road where they smashed when the basket flew out; and Jerry didn't know no more than to hitch up into the buggy without shortenin' the traces, and you know how that would work. Well, the cur'us thing is that I was out in the paster mowin' some brakes—here, let me hitch up this side, while you do the other—and I heard somebody or somethin' comin' slam-bang, and I looked up—I wa'n't near enough so as to see who 'twas nor anythin'—and I looked up, and see 'em comin' like hudy, down one of them pitches. Thinks said I, well, there's a hitch-up that's goin' to flinders—and just then the forward wheel struck a big stone, and I see the woman and man and all fly inter the air and come down agin, and the hoss went."
"Where's the horse now?" said Lucas.
"I don't know, and I don't care. Tell ye, best put a feather-bed in the bottom of this waggin, because her arm's broke for certain, and I don't know what else. I'll fetch it—if you've got some spirits."
"Yes," said Lucas, "I'll fetch some;" and both hurried into the house, and soon came out again and hastened off.
"How did you know who 'twas?" Lucas inquired, with solemn curiosity fitting the occasion.
"Why, I didn't; but I knew when they didn't offer to git up, whoever 'twas wanted help, and I put across the lot to 'em, and sure enough 'twas Armidy and Jerry. I looked her over, and see by the way she lay that one of her arms was broke, anyway, and stepped over to where Jerry was, and sir! he was as dead as Moses! Head struck right on a big stone and broke his neck—his head hung down like that," letting his hand fall limply from the wrist.
"Does she know?" said Lucas.
"No, and I hope she won't for a spell. She hadn't come to when I left her."
Lucas struck the horse with the end of the reins to urge him on.
"There, now you can see 'em," said Theodore, rising in his seat and pointing down the road. Lucas followed his example, and looking before them they could see both husband and wife lying motionless in the road.
"LOOKING BEFORE THEM THEY COULD SEE BOTH HUSBAND AND WIFE LYING MOTIONLESS IN THE ROAD."
Between them they soon lifted poor Armida into the wagon, and laid her on the bed as tenderly as might be, eliciting a groan by the operation.
"Best give her some?" said Lucas, bringing a bottle of brandy from out his pocket. "Come to think of it, best not. She won't sense it so much if she don't realize."
A brief examination of Jerry was sufficient. The brothers exchanged glances and shakes of the head. "And to think," said Theodore, as they regarded the body, "that it was only this morning I said to Armidy there was one tramp too many in the house, meaning me, and now to have my words brought before me like this! 'Twasn't anything but a joke, but I hope she won't remember it against me."
"Well, first thing we've got to do is to get her to the house," said Lucas.
Armida having been made as comfortable as the present would allow, and Jerry having been brought up and consigned to the best chamber, as befitted his state, Lucas hastened after the doctor and Aunt Polly Slater. The doctor found Armida in a sad case. "Though I don't think," he assured the brothers, "if she isn't worried she will be hard sick. She's naturally rugged, and it's merely a simple fracture of the forearm. The sprained ankle will be the most tedious thing, but I must charge you to keep her in ignorance of her husband's death."
Theodore helped Aunt Polly in caring for Armida, and never was woman more tenderly cared for. Many were the lies he was forced to tell, as Armida was first surprised, then indignant, at Jerry's apparent neglect.
"Even Lucas has come to the door and looked at me," she complained, "and Jerry ain't so much as been near me."
Theodore was fain to concoct a story about a strained back that would not allow Jerry to rise from the bed. When it was deemed prudent to tell her, the task fell to Theodore, who was very tender of his sister, remembering that though he considered Jerry a shiftless, poor shack of a creature, Armida probably had affection for him. She took her loss very quietly.
"He was always good to me," she said, "and he cared for me when no one else did."
"You're wrong there," Theodore remonstrated.
"I used to tell myself I was," she replied sadly. "I knew I give the first offence, but Lucas never would 'a' done as he did by the house if he'd cared for me."
Lucas heard the reproach where he stood out of sight in the little entry that led to Armida's room, listening to the brother and sister as they talked together within. He often lingered there, wishing to enter, but not daring to; longing to atone for the unhappiness he had caused his sister, but not knowing how to set about it. Now, taking Theodore into his confidence, he set to work to obliterate all outward signs that made it "the divided house," leaving to his brother the task of keeping it from Armida. As she querulously inquired what all the hammering and pounding that was going on in front of the house meant, Theodore had a story ready about the steps to the front porch being so worn out that Lucas had to have some new ones, "or else break his legs goin' over them." The smell of paint was accounted for by Lucas "havin' one of his spells of gittin' his side painted over agin;" on which Armida gave way to tears, until her brother comforted her by saying it didn't make much difference, a new coat couldn't make it any whiter than it was.
It was a great day when Armida was pronounced well enough to eat breakfast in the kitchen. Hobbling out with the aid of Theodore's arm, she stepped on the threshold, and looked over to where Lucas stood by his window. He greeted her with, "How are ye, Armidy?" but did not leave his place.
"It seems good to git out of my bedroom," said Armida; then stopped, gazed about her, and sank into a convenient chair, exclaiming, "What does it mean?"
For both her and Lucas's old stoves were gone, and a new one stood directly before the middle of the chimney, with its pipe running into the old pipe-hole that they used before the house was divided. The coffee-pot steamed and bubbled over the fire, and a platter of ham and eggs stood on the hearth, while the table, set for breakfast, stood exactly in the centre of the room; the dividing line had been wiped out by the paint-brush, and Lucas's side shone with yellow paint like her own.
"What does it mean?" she cried, trembling and clutching at Theodore's arm. Theodore said nothing, but slipped out of the room, and Lucas, after an awkward pause, said: "Armidy, I wanted, if you was willin', that we should quit doin' as we have done and have things together as we used to. Seems as if it would be pleasanter, and if you can forgive what I've done, I'll try to make it up to ye."
"Why, Lucas!" was all she could say.
"I know I hain't done by ye like a brother," said Lucas, anxious to get his self-imposed humiliation over, "and I'm sorry, and I'd like to begin over again."
"I'm just as much a transgressor as you be," said Armida, anxious to spare him. "If I hadn't said what I did, I 'spose you'd married Ianthe, and like as not had a family round ye."
"I don't know as I care now," said Lucas; "I have felt hard to ye; but I see Ianthe last March"—he laughed—"and I didn't mourn much that her name wa'n't Huxter. But that's neither here nor there. If you feel as if you could git along with two old brothers to look after instead of one, and overlook what's passed—"
"I'd be glad to, Lucas, if you won't lay up anything against me."
"Well, then;" and coming to her side Lucas bent over her, and, to her great surprise, kissed her. Turning away before she could return the kiss, he opened the back door and called to Theodore.
As Theodore came in, Lucas said: "If you had a shawl round ye, Armidy, wouldn't you like to git out a minute before breakfast?" and without waiting for an answer, he brought her shawl and wrapped it round her, then put on her bonnet.
"Can't you and I," he said to Theodore, "make a chair and take her out? You hain't forgot sence you left school, hev you?"
Locking their hands together they formed what school-children call a chair, and lifting Armida between them, carried her through the hall, out at the front door, down the walk to the gate, and turned round, while Theodore bade his sister look up at the house. Armida obeyed. She saw the house glistening with paint, her side of it as white as Lucas's, and blinds adorning her front windows, while the front porch, with new-laid floor and steps and bristling with brackets, was, in her eyes, the most imposing of entrances.
Could it be true? she asked herself, and shut her eyes; then glanced again, then looked at her brothers, who were both silent, Theodore smiling with joy, while Lucas looked gravely down at her.
"Oh, Lucas!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck, "you done this for me!"
"I told you I was sorry, Armidy," he said.