The Wind Before the Dawn

by Dell H. Munger

Now that she was engaged, Elizabeth felt herself emancipated from home authority. She would belong to herself hereafter. She would stay with Aunt Susan till she had her sewing done for the winter at Topeka. She would go to school only one year, just enough to polish up on social ideas and matters of dress. Elizabeth Farnshaw knew that both John Hunter and his mother were critical upon those accomplishments and her pride told her to prepare for the mother’s inspection. She knew that she was considered a country girl by those of superior advantages, and she was resolved to show what could be done in a year in the way of improvement; then she would come home and teach for money with which to buy her wedding outfit, and then they would be married. Two years and the certainty of graduation would have suited her better, but two years was a long time. The picture of John without her, and the home he was building for her, planted themselves in the foreground of her thoughts, and Elizabeth was unselfish. She would not make John Hunter wait. She would make that one year at Topeka equal to two in the intensity of its living. She would remain away the shortest possible length of time which was required for her preparation. Elizabeth was glad that John had his mother to keep house for him, because she did not want him to be lonesome while she was gone, though she did not doubt that he would come to Topeka many times while she was there. Her mind flew off in another direction at that, and she planned to send him word when there were good lectures to attend.

“John likes those things,” she thought, and was filled with a new joy at the prospect of their books, and lectures, and intellectual pursuits. Her plan of teaching in the high school was abandoned. It was better to be loved and have a home with John Hunter than to live in Topeka. The more Elizabeth thought of it the more she was convinced that her plan was complete. She was glad there was a month to spare before Mrs. Hunter came. John’s mother was the only warning finger on Elizabeth’s horizon. She had always been conscious of a note of anxiety in John Hunter’s voice and manner whenever he spoke of his mother coming to Kansas to live, and she found the anxiety had been transferred to her own mind when she began to consider her advent into the home John was building. She had gathered, more from his manner than anything definitely said, that his mother would not approve of much that she would be obliged to meet in the society about them, that she was a social arbiter in a class of women superior to these simple farmers’ wives, and that her whole life and thought were of a different and more desirable sort. When Elizabeth thought of Mrs. Hunter she unconsciously glanced down at herself, her simple print dress, her brown hands, and the heavy shoes which much walking made necessary, and wondered how she did really appear; and there was a distinct misgiving in everything where the older woman had to be considered.

John came early that evening. The carpenters had raised new questions about shelves and doors and Elizabeth must go over and decide those matters. They walked over, and it was late before all the simple arrangements could be decided upon. As they returned they walked close together in the centre of the deep road so as to avoid the dew-laden grass on either side. The open door of Nathan’s house gave out a hospitable light, but they were content to saunter slowly, listening to the harvest crickets which were already chirruping in the weeds about them, and looking at the lazy red disk of the moon just peeping above the eastern horizon.

“I shall write mother of our engagement to-night,” John said after a rather long silence.

“Oh, don’t,” the girl replied, awakened suddenly from a reverie of a different sort. “Let’s keep it a secret for a while. I haven’t told Aunt Susan yet, and I don’t want to tell her till I go to Topeka. Of course I’ll have to explain if you come down there to see me.”

“To Topeka?” John exclaimed in astonishment.

Elizabeth laughed merrily. “Why, yes,” she said. “Isn’t it like me to think you knew all about that? I’m going to Topeka to school this winter—and—and I hope You’ll come a lot. We’ll have awfully good times. Then I’ll teach another term and get my wedding clothes and get them made, and then, John Hunter, I am yours to have and to hold,” she ended happily.

“You don’t mean that you are going to school again now that you are going to get married?” John Hunter asked with such incredulity that Elizabeth laughed a little joyous laugh full of girlish amusement, full of love and anticipation.

“Why of course—why not? All the more because we are going to be married. I’ll want to brush up on lots of things before I have to live near your mother; and—and we’ll have awfully good times when you come to see me.”

“Oh, goodness!” John said irritably. “I’d counted on being married this fall. I simply can’t wait two years, and that is all there is about it.” Elizabeth argued easily at first, certain that it could be readily arranged, but John became more and more positive. At last she became worried.