The Green Bough

by E. Temple Thurston

That there was nothing more wonderful to a woman than this, Mary knew in all the certainty of her heart. There alone with her baby, she wanted no other passion, no other love, no other company. This for a woman was the completeness of fulfillment. Yet this it was that men denied to so many.

She knew then in those moments that no shame would be too great to bear with patience for such realization of life as this. Realization it was and, to fail in knowing it, was like a fallow field to have yielded naught but a harvest of weeds in which there was shame indeed.

Often in the previous summer she had heard Mr. Peverell bitterly accusing himself for the bare and weedy patches in his crops. Twice since she had been there on the farm had a barren cow been sent to market for sale because it was of no use to them. They had been cows she herself had named. She had fretted when they were driven away and had taken herself far from the yard when it came to the moment of their departure.

Yet no word of pleading had she said to Mr. Peverell on such occasions. Receive and give, these were the laws she recognized and found no power of sentiment strong enough in her to make her seek or need to disobey them. Gain and keep--against such principles as these her soul had caparisoned and armed itself, clearly knowing how all laws in the operation must carry with them the savor of injustice, uncomplaining if that injustice should be measured for her portion. For never so great an injustice could it be as that which men in their ideals of possession and inheritance had meted out to women. Living there at Yarningdale Farm so close to the land, she had found a greater beneficence in Nature than in all the organized charity of mankind.

On the second occasion when the barren cow had been sent to market some delay had been made in her departure and Mary had returned to the house just as the flurried beast had been driven out of the yard. With head averted, she had quickened her steps into the house, finding Mrs. Peverell looking out of the window in the parlor kitchen.

"Why are they drivin' that cow to market?" she asked. "He said naught to me 'bout sellin' a cow to-day."

"She's barren," said Mary. "They sent her four times to the bull. I've milked her nearly dry now. It does seem hard, doesn't it? She was so quiet. But I'm afraid she's no good to us."

She had been taking off her hat as she spoke, never appreciating the significance of what she said when, in a moment, she became conscious of Mrs. Peverell's silence and swiftly turned round.

She was standing quite motionless with one hand resting on the back of a chair, staring out of the window at the departing beast, yet seeing nothing, for, with a searching steadfastness, her eyes were looking inwards.

For a moment Mary's presence of mind had left her. She had swayed in movement, half coming forward when indecision had arrested her. It might not be that her thoughts were what Mary supposed. To comfort her for them if they were not there was only to put them in her mind.