The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives

by Elizabeth Strong Worthington

Now he was out again, following the sweep of the bluff and looking eastward over the big waters. Some days the sun appeared there in regal splendor, but on this particular morning there was a delicacy about the picture suggestive of the careful work on one of Turner's loveliest. There was no gorgeous red, no blazing gold, but tints as exquisite as those seen in the heart of an abalone shell—still lakes of sea-green feathered about by a fleecy white just touched with the yellow of the daisy; lambent wings of gray, kissed into a roseate hue as they spread outward and upward toward the zenith; and the expectant waters on the lake trembling 'neath their answering pink.

Steve stood and faced it all, hat in hand. His locks were stirred by the slight fresh breeze that came over the lake, and something else was stirred within him. There was a fine look on his face. The physical had disappeared. He no longer felt that strong animal buoyancy akin to the strength of the wild horse as he courses the prairies, but his soul was answering “Here” to the call from the skies.

He turned by-and-by and walked onward in a still mood—the receptive mood into which God sows rare seed. He was walking away from the sunrise now out toward the Skokie, that great bog, but he could see the west flushing with delight—could see the windows of a cottage far ahead blazing with reflected glory.

He reached the cottage ere long. There were no signs of life about it as yet.

“I'm the first man up,” Steve thought, smiling as he went on.

The little home put the finishing touch to the picture, and Steve looked at it so long and so intently that he might have been accused of rudeness had the occupants seen him. His thoughts, however, were anything but rude, for a home had always been sacred to him. Had he acted at the bidding of his fine instinct, he would have raised his hat and stood uncovered in its presence. Since his marriage a home had taken on a deeper meaning. Without losing a jot of its sacredness, it had come to stand for something of pain. On his walk that morning he had noted many things with new eyes—the flowers gladdening the face of nature; the trees rearing their proud heads and standing each in his own place—each doing his own work; the birds trilling their songs of praise and stirring in the soul those holy aspirations whose feet scarce touch the earth and whose face is set toward heaven—all these doing the Father's work and answering with the quick response of perfect obedience, perfect sympathy to the divine will. Viewing them now with a soul made receptive by the tender sadness of real life, Steve asked himself over and over again, Am I fulfilling the divine mission?

When he reached home his face wore a thoughtful look, and the question of the morning lay deep within his eyes as he walked into the garden and came upon Nannie's work. For a long time he stood there gazing at it. An ordinary man would have been intensely angry, and whatever good he might have felt or purposed during his walk would have taken wings.

But it did not occur to Steve just then to be angry. Up to this time, like most another really thoughtful person, he had done very little actual thinking, but now he was entered upon a life which is God's own school for the development of character, and in the mental and spiritual awakening of which he was only dimly conscious he began to see that many things which he had hitherto accepted as a matter of course were in reality the result of causes which could and should be removed. Passion blurs the vision, and Steve was straining his eyes to see just then, so it was necessary above all things that he should hold himself in hand.

“What makes Nannie act so?”

This was the question he was asking as he stood by his despoiled garden, and the answer began to come to him in a shadowy sort of way. It was not just what he imagined it would be—not just what he would have wished it to be. Few answers take on the shape we anticipate or desire, but it was undeniably an answer, and he turned, possibly in obedience, to a cool, shady nook near by, and plucking a few late violets which were growing there, went into the house where Nannie sat alone at breakfast, and laying these gently on the table beside her, without a word went on his way to the station and took his usual train.