The White Flag

by Gene Stratton-Porter

For a long time Mahala’s eyes looked intently down the road in front of her. The sight of the little house, almost buried in green, of the neatly fenced fields, and the thought of searching for happiness again had brought rushing back to her brain the one thought that, since her day of direst disaster, had persisted with her. Suddenly the big tears began to brim from her eyes and slide down her cheeks. Then she lifted her head and looked into Jason’s eyes.

“Jason,” she cried, “you know that I never touched that money!”

Jason put his arms around her and muttered words of comfort. He was telling her to be brave, to be calm, to think of nothing but that she was coming to her very own home, that for the remainder of her life, if she chose, she was to do nothing but tend her flowers and her garden and do whatever she pleased there. When they stopped, Jason lifted her bodily, carrying her across the veranda and into her room where he laid her on the bed upon which she had slept as a child.

When she opened her tired eyes, she saw that the room was almost an exact reproduction of her old one. She swung her feet to the floor, and steadying herself by the furniture, made her way around the room in wonderment almost too great for words. At sight of her, the gold bird burst into song. She looked into the living room and she cried out in astonished delight when she saw upon the walls pictures that had belonged to her father and mother, the oil portrait of her mother hanging above the mantel—a whole room full of precious things that she had thought lost to her forever. There were several cases of the books they had loved like old friends waiting to greet her. She forgot her weakness. She voiced a cry of delight as she stood in the middle of the room gazing in an ecstasy at each precious thing she never had hoped to see again.

She made her way to the door of the next room, and there she found a guest chamber furnished with more of their home possessions, and another door led to the dining room—floor, side walls, furnishings—each object was familiar to her. Crossing it, she looked into the kitchen, furnished as were the other rooms, with her possessions. And there she saw Ellen Ford busy preparing supper for her. Through the back door she could see a roofed veranda having chairs and a small table, and on back to the old orchard from which she could hear the humming wings of bees, and the voices of the bluebirds. She could see the stable with white chickens busy around it and a cow and a calf in the lot beside it. Her quick eyes took in the upper part of the stable where she judged, from the arrangement of windows, that Jason had made a room for himself while he worked.

With the bravest effort at self-control of which she was capable, Mahala turned to Ellen Ford. “I want to thank you very much for your kindness in helping to make a home for me,” she said.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” answered the girl, busy over the stove. “We join land, you know, and we always try to do what we can for any of our neighbours.”

And then, in an effort to be friendly, to cover an embarrassing situation, she rattled a kettle lid and fussed with some things on the table as she remarked casually: “Of course, we’d expect you to do anything for us that I’ve tried to do here, in case we needed it.”

Mahala looked at the girl quickly. She divined that the speech had been made to put her at ease, but she also divined something else. It was innocent, it was simple, it was honest. Here was some one who had faith in her, who had been willing to bolster that faith with works; some one who was proud to be with her, to help her till she should again be able to help herself. Before she thought what she was doing, she found herself standing face to face with Ellen Ford. She realized that her hands were reaching up to the shoulders of the girl, who was taller than she. She found herself crying out: “You know, don’t you, that I never touched that money?”

Instantly the stout young arms closed around her. Mahala felt herself drawn to Ellen Ford and a work-coarsened young hand was stroking her hair. “Why, of course you didn’t!” she said. “Every one with any sense knows you couldn’t!”