The White Flag

by Gene Stratton-Porter

Mahala hurried back to Jemima and to her mother with the glad news that they really had a small inheritance.

The following Sunday, her mother feeling unusually well and being able to sit propped in her bed for an hour, Mahala took the lunch Jemima had prepared for her and started to the country on foot to see if she could find the property from the descriptions given her by Albert Rich. She wanted to see whether, by any possibility, the house could be utilized for a home, or whether it could be sold for enough to buy a small town house for them. She felt that if she owned a roof, the question of clothing and food would be easy. Those were the days when more goods could be bought for less money than ever before in the history of the world. They were the days when the country was cleared and developed to such a degree that gardens, orchards, vineyards, and farm lands were pouring out a wealth of fruitfulness. They were the days before the forests had been cut and land had been cleared to such a degree that the heat and drought that attacked a following generation were unknown. Factories all over the country were turning out lavish quantities of a high grade of goods. People were rapidly advancing to a degree of luxury and comfort that the country had never known.

With the furnishings from their former home, with the amount of fresh food that could be secured in the days when milk was four cents a quart, cream six, and a substantial pair of shoes could be had for a dollar and a half, while the finest silk and satin dress material might be purchased for from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half a yard, if she but owned a roof, the remainder of her problem would be easy.

She had learned to her surprise that she liked to work; that she took pride in ripping up the old hats that were brought to her and making of them something so fresh, so dainty, constructed so becomingly to the face and figure of the wearer, that it was joy to do the work. She was learning that lesson which all the world was later to learn—that the greatest happiness that was possible to be experienced by any mortal came through the performance of work which was loved and which was beneficial to one’s fellow man.

She had been careful from the start not to overwork. When she had sat for a certain length of time with her needle, she laid it down, squared her shoulders, and went for a few minutes to walk over the grasses of the front yard, through the garden where Jemima worked when she had no other employment.

This morning she went down the road, her head erect, her nostrils distended, hearing the bird songs above her, sensing the waves of sound sweeping through the air around her, absorbing with her eyes and her ears the rhythms of life that flowed in streams as she passed. She was trying to gauge the quality and the value of the land through which she had been accustomed to driving all her life in her father’s surrey.

She was following what was known as the River Road. She paused on the bridge, looking up and down the length of the Ashwater, her heart and soul alive to the beauty of the lazily flowing water, the great sycamores, the big maples and elms which bordered it, to the gold shoots of the willows with their long, graceful leaves and the red of the cornels. She smiled down at the big, delicate pink mallows blushing at the beauty of their own reflections in the clear water. Her heart was weighted with grief over the loss of her father, with pity and regret for her mother. It was filled with anger against Martin Moreland and Junior.

She conceded her father’s weakness in having gone on keeping up a business he could not afford and allowing himself to become so heavily involved. At the same time, she was certain that Martin Moreland had deceived him, had deliberately enmeshed him, had not mentioned notes that were overdue, had conducted business in a loose and unbusiness-like manner for the express purpose of accomplishing the downfall of a man whose popularity and place in the community had always been an offence to him.

That morning she tried to put these things out of her mind. She tried to think that in some way, whatever happened to her might work out for the best. She tried deliberately to fill her mind with the ripple of water, with the flush of the mallow, with the lark song over the adjacent clover fields.

When, finally, she aroused herself and went forward hunting for the inheritance that was vastly welcome no matter how small, she was almost shocked with the realization for the first time that ultimately peace would return to her heart; never would she relinquish her old pride in blood and breeding. Her father had been foolish, but he had not been wicked. He had misplaced his confidence. He had lost his money; but he had not involved other men. His name was clear. He might be blamed with the tongue of envy or of jealousy, but he never could be defamed with the tongue of slander.