Clover and Blue Grass

by Eliza Calvert Hall

"I'd better see about makin' the fire and gettin' a cup of tea," said Mrs. Martin. "I can tell by the shadow of that maple tree, that it's near supper time." Then hesitatingly, as if it were a doubtful point of etiquette, "It looks like foolishness to have two fires. Mine's already laid; suppose you eat supper with me to-night."

"I'll be glad to," responded Mrs. Williams heartily, "for I haven't half got my things in order yet." She followed Mrs. Martin to the kitchen, and together they set the table and waited for the kettle to boil. Mrs. Martin was pleased to find that Mrs. Williams preferred black tea to green, and while she was slicing the bread, Mrs. Williams disappeared for a moment, returning with something wrapped in a napkin. She unfolded it, disclosing huge slices of wedding cake, white cake, golden cake, and spice cake dark and fragrant.

"There!" she said complacently. "You and me were too flustered to eat much at the weddin', but maybe we'll enjoy a piece of this cake now."

Silently and abstractedly the two women ate the simple meal. Now and then Mrs. Martin looked across the table at the vacant place where Henry had always sat, and as Mrs. Williams ate wedding cake, her thoughts were with the daughter whose face for twenty years had smiled at her across the little square leaf-table in the old home; also, she had a queer, uneasy feeling, as if she had spent the afternoon with her friend and should have gone home before supper. After the dishes were washed, they seated themselves again on the cool, shadowy porch. Both were feeling the depression that follows an emotional strain; besides, it was night, the time when the heart throws off the smothering cares of the day and cries aloud for its own. It was Mrs. Williams who finally broke the silence.

"While I think of it," she said, dropping her voice to a confidential whisper, "I want to tell you what I heard Job Andrews and Sam Moreman say when they brought my trunk in this mornin'. They didn't know I could hear 'em, and they were laughin' and whisperin' as they set the trunk down on the porch, and Job says: 'Some of these days these two women are goin' to have a rippet that you can hear from one end of this town to the other,' and Sam says: 'Yes, they'll be dissolvin' partnership in less than two months.'"

"Did you ever!" ejaculated Mrs. Martin.

"I thought once I'd go out and say somethin' to 'em," pursued Mrs. Williams, "but I didn't. I just shut my mouth tight, and I made a solemn resolution right there that there'd never be any rippet if I could help it, and if there was any, I'd take care that those men never heard of it, There's nothin' in the world men enjoy so much as seein' women fall out and quarrel, and I don't intend to furnish 'em with that sort o' pleasure."

"Nor I," said Mrs. Martin warmly. "I don't see why two women can't live in peace under the same roof. For my part, quarrelin' comes hard with me. It's not Christian, and it's not ladylike."

"Well, if I felt inclined to quarrel," said Mrs. Williams, "the thought of Sam and Job would be enough to keep me from it, and if that's not enough, there's the thought of Anna Belle and Henry. They can't be happy unless we get along well together, and we mustn't do anything to spoil their happiness."

Mrs. Martin made an assenting murmur, and another silence fell between them, Both were conscious of the strangeness of their new relation. To Mrs. Martin it seemed that Mrs. Williams was her guest, and she was vaguely wondering if it would be polite to suggest that it was time to go to bed. Mrs. Williams rocked to and fro, and the squeak of the old chair mingled with the shrill notes of the crickets. Presently she stopped rocking and heaved a deep sigh.