"A horrid old maid," I ejaculated. Single women were not held in high esteem in those days. There was a great need of wives, indeed many a first wife died of overwork or over ambition, and more men than women immigrated from the older States. Only the very undesirable were left behind. Of course I should be married sometime.
But it seemed strange to think of Dan Hayne as a husband. He was so much older. He rightly belonged to the girls of eighteen or twenty. But after I was in bed, and I could not sleep readily, I thought of the kind of son father needed. A man in store business or a mechanic of any kind would be of little service to him. Dan was buying and selling property and stock, went round to the near-by settlements, was considered a good judge of many things, and had friends on every hand, though he was masterful and at times high tempered. He was a gay young "buck" as they termed it then, but marriage was supposed to settle a man.
The figure of Polly Morrison flashed up before me. Why, I could not tell, for I had not thought of her until she appeared like a strange, splendid vision. There was a mocking light in her glittering eyes. Why did she not forbid the bans? She only smiled in a sort of triumph.
The next morning Nanette came for me to go shopping with her, and though we had not a very extensive array of stores, still we had a nice variety of goods. Some of the older people thought there was too much catering to the pride of life. We made one or two calls, we chatted with the clerks we knew, and when I reached home Dan was just going away. He and father had been examining some business papers. We merely spoke. I ran in the kitchen to hurry Jolette about the dinner.
Chris came in the next morning. There was a wonderful preacher from England who could give our town but this one evening. Mrs. Hayne wanted me to come over to supper and we would both go. "And I'll see you home," said Chris, "if you can't stay all night."
I kissed father and went away. We had grown so much more caressing since his hurt. There was another neighbor in to tea. We started early and it was well we did, for before service time the church was packed.
As I said, I liked the full, hearty singing. The strange clergyman had a rather imposing presence. I may as well confess that I was not particularly fond of sermons, but after a little I became strangely interested in this. There was the heroic self-sacrifice in it that appeals strongly to youth, taking up the duty set plainly before one and not making mean and shifty evasions. But unless the sacrifice or the work had some high purpose in view for God or the neighbor, it was in vain and useless. We were to help in the daily life that God gave us, to live out at our very best and truest. Simply praying for our neighbor was not all, when there was something to do.
I think I lost sight of the spiritual application. I kept looking at a thing that seemed set before me to do, and it grew clearer and clearer even if I did shrink from it. I was to trust to the promise—"My grace shall be sufficient." I was moved, exalted. I can do the sermon no sort of justice, but every one for weeks afterward talked of it, and Chris was most enthusiastic.
When we came home father and Dan were playing checkers, and they were both excellent players. Father held up his finger and merely nodded to Chris, who said good-night, for he knew how Dan hated to be interrupted in a game. I came and stood by them. This was the rubber, each had won one game. They were almost at the last and so evenly balanced that it seemed to me there was something more at stake than a mere king row. A human soul was to be crowned or—Is there such a determining power as fate? If father won I should be free, if Dan, I should, I must be his wife. I watched with strained eyes. Fingers were hardly touched, then lifted. Father's forehead seemed gathered in a knot, Dan's face was smiling with that wonderful ease he had, the French call it insouciance. Father moved—Dan's last man went into the king row, and Dan smiled over at me.