The Story of a Country Town

by E. W. Howe

He was always saying that; everything went wrong in spite of him, which has been the experience of so many thousands before him, but I felt with a keen pang of conscience that he had done more than I, for while I was secretly blaming Mateel, he did not blame Jo; that while I had never thought of aiding a reconciliation, unless Mateel should ask it, that had been his one prayer and hope.

“I see now, after it is too late,—somehow I never see anything in time to be of use to others or to myself,—that this is all a dreadful mistake. You have not said it, but your coming here tells me that what I think is true; that he was always waiting for Mateel to come to him, and I know so well that she was always praying that he would come to her; not to ask forgiveness, but to say he missed her, and loved her, and that his home and heart were lonely. She was waiting for him to write her just a line—what a little thing to have prevented all this—that she must see him or die, as she will die now without it. He was expecting a simple request from his wife to come to her, and had it been sent, my brave Jo would have come though a thousand Braggs blocked the way.”

He got up from his chair, and walked up and down the room, wringing his hands helplessly, and repeating: “My poor children; my poor children! How they have suffered!”

“We thought in our pride—how unjust it was I now see, though you have not said a word—that he was determined to live without her, and that he had steeled his heart against a reconciliation, and you believed that we were determined she should not go back to him except upon promises and conditions, but I swear to you my belief that she would have crawled on her knees to her old home had she believed he would have admitted her. From what has happened since, I know he loved her all the time, and that he was expecting a summons to come to her every moment of the day and night. What a little thing would have prevented all this; a word from you or me and it would have been done, but we have kept apart from the beginning until the end. We shall have to answer for it, I fear, and I shall not know what to say at the judgment.”

I thought I knew what he would say: “I could not help it,” but what would my own answer be? Perhaps only what millions of other trembling men will say: “I did the best I could; I did not think.”

In looking toward him to make reply, and assure him that he was right in his generous surmise, I became aware that some one was standing just inside the door which led into the other room, and taking a quick glance I saw it was Mateel, dressed in a long white night-robe; that she waited rather than listened, and that she was much agitated. From the half-open door came the odor of a sick room, and in that one glance I saw that she was very pale, and very weak, and very ill.

Instinctively I moved in my chair, to get my face away from the door, instead of turning it, and betraying that I had seen her, and as I did this I heard her light step enter the room. I saw her father look up in wonder, and knew that her mother followed in a frightened way, and gently laid hands on her, entreating her to return, but she put them off, and came on toward me. I had only a side glance, but I could see that her eyes were riveted on me, and that she leaned forward in a supplicating way.

“Jo, my husband,” she said timidly, and pausing to put her hands to her head, as her father had done, “why have you delayed coming so long?”

She fell on her knees when I did not reply, and looked at me with a pitiful face indicating that she would shortly burst out crying. I turned in my chair that she might see that I was not her husband, but her mind was troubled and she did not realize it. Indeed, when I looked steadily into her eyes, she seemed to take it as an accusation from Jo of neglect and dishonor, and she staggered to her feet again, as if determined to tell her story. There was a look of mingled timidity, sorrow, and sickness in her face which comes to me yet when I am alone, and which I can never forget.

“I was afraid you might not understand that I always wanted you to come,” she said, coming near to me, and gently stroking my hand, as if hoping to thus induce a fierce man to listen until she had concluded, “but I thought you would, and night and day since I have been away from home—such a long time it has been; oh, such a very long time—I have expected you every moment. Every noise I have thought your step, and when I found it was not, I listened and hoped again. You have never been out of my thoughts for a moment, but my prayers have been answered, for I was always praying for you to come. I wanted to tell you how truly I have always loved you, and how unhappy and ill I have been without you.”