The Wind Before the Dawn

by Dell H. Munger

Early in December Mrs. Hunter was called East by the serious illness of a sister in Illinois. The day she left a heavy snow fell. Elizabeth went out into the still yard and let the white flakes fall on her uncovered head with such a sense of freedom as she had never felt since her marriage.

“The house is mine,” she whispered ecstatically; “the house is all mine, and now I can go out of doors if I want to and not be criticised.”

Elizabeth had been far more accustomed to barn life than the life of the house. This was a thing that Mrs. Hunter could not understand. It was not the correct thing for a woman to go about the barn where a hired man was employed, even if her husband worked at his side, and Elizabeth’s trips to the cow stable and granaries had been discouraged. Jake Ransom had been shrewd enough to see that his first joke in the Hunter house had been unpleasant to the mother of his employer and had never trespassed upon the grounds of familiarity again, but Elizabeth had been criticised until willing to give up her trips to the scene of her husband’s work. John might be impatient, but Elizabeth loved him; his mother was patient but critical, and Elizabeth did not love her; therefore the first feeling of relief when the older woman had gone away included the delight of being free to go where she wished—at his side. The barns were a source of great interest to Elizabeth. The pride of the girl, accustomed to straw stables and slatternly yards and unhoused machinery, in the well-kept barnyard of her husband was natural and commendatory. John had order well developed in his scheme of things. John’s cribs did not stand open to the weather. Now that Mrs. Hunter was away, Elizabeth spent most of the day going about the place, looking into every bin, and making the acquaintance of each new animal they possessed. Jake was helping Silas and it left the girl plenty of time to explore. The amount of new stock struck her as surprising. Here too she was glad. John was evidently going to be a man of large affairs. Elizabeth had a sudden desire to run over and talk it over with Luther as she had done when she drove out with her affianced husband to buy the calves. She was surprised to see how the little bunch of calves had grown, not only in size but in numbers. The thought of Luther carried her back, as she stood looking over the calf yard, to the matter of visiting Aunt Susan. Of late the feeling had grown strong upon her that Mrs. Hunter had had something to do with John’s reluctance to making this visit. The calves ceased to interest her and she wandered slowly back to the house thinking about it. There were so many phases of her domestic affairs to consider: Aunt Susan’s right to the evidences of her love and her inability to show that love because of her husband’s reluctance to take her; Luther’s evident offence, and the possibility that the wedding invitation had not been extended to him by John, since he had never paid them a neighbourly visit; the close alliance between John and his mother and the brusqueness with which John disposed of any request of hers if he did not choose of himself to do the thing she wanted—all called for examination. Elizabeth shook the snow from her hair and cloak and built up the fire, intending to sit down by it and think over her situation, but John arrived in the middle of her preparations and supper had to be hastily prepared, for the afternoon had gone and much of the regular morning’s work still remained to be done. With flying feet, Elizabeth attacked the task of getting things in order, and it was a relief when John, who had left the last chores to Jake, came in and helped her. They had hardly ever been left alone in the house in all the three months they had been married, and to Elizabeth it was working in fairyland to have John make one side of a bed’s clothes lie smooth while she pulled and straightened at the other.

With Mrs. Hunter gone, John took up the task of drilling his young wife in the Hunter ways. To Elizabeth he was a model husband. She contrasted her father’s stupid inability and unwillingness inside of his home with the orderly and systematic way in which John Hunter helped her. John took part in whatever household function was taking place in his presence. He wiped the dishes if she washed them; if a carpet was to be swept he handled the broom if he were there to do it, and he never went to the field without filling the reservoir and water pail as well as the coal scuttle and cob basket. He assumed the management of cooking and housework so subtly that the unsophisticated girl saw only his helpfulness; in fact, he had only helpfulness in mind. John had ideas of neatness and order which made of housekeeping a never-ending process, but John himself laboured steadily toward their accomplishment, and he was so successful in inspiring her with those same ideals that her pride helped her over many a weary day’s cleaning. She entered into them week after week and became expert at ironing, baking, and all the little offices of the domestic altar. All her strength was given to her work each day, and for a time she succeeded comfortably, but as the days shortened and the routine became more exacting she longed for the out-of-door freedom in which she had been raised.

Christmas passed, and still Elizabeth had entered no house except her own since her marriage in October. This would not have disturbed her, for she was not a girl who cared for visiting, if it had not been that Aunt Susan was being neglected.

Mrs. Farnshaw came and did not fail to let Elizabeth know that the country gossips were concerned with tales supposed to account for her secluded way of living. Some said that she was too “stuck-up” to associate with her old friends, while others said that John Hunter had married her to keep his house, but that he was not proud of her and preferred to leave her at home. Luther had completed his “shanty,” and Elizabeth knew by the smoke she could see rising from his chimney that he no longer lived with Aunt Susan; also Elizabeth heard bits of gossip about him from Jake, who had taken a great liking to Luther and often spent his evenings with him. Luther Hansen had come to borrow a scoop shovel when he had shelled his corn, but John had managed to accept it as a barnyard call and had not invited him to the house, and after the scoop was returned Luther did not come again. Elizabeth had days when she wanted his cheery presence and sensible ways of looking at life, but she was almost glad he did not come; she could not have explained her seclusion to him nor could she have refused to explain. The girl’s pride was cut to the quick.

January passed, and February. One afternoon in early March Elizabeth sat at the dining-room window sewing and meditating sadly upon John’s growing irritability whenever she mentioned Aunt Susan. She was unable as yet to force him to take her as she requested; neither had she been able to get her own consent to going the first time to the house of this old friend alone and have Aunt Susan’s questioning eyes looking her over for explanations. She was puzzled still, for John usually spoke of her friends with respect, and there was nothing to indicate his reasons for opposition except that he was simply averse to visiting on general principles, and even then why should he so resolutely refuse to accommodate her when he was so reasonable on all other subjects?

“I don’t care, I’m going this week if he’s ever so cross,” she muttered.

Almost at the same instant she looked up and saw a bobsled coming into the side lane.

“Aunt Susan’s very self!” she cried, pushing away the little garment on which she was sewing, and running to the door.