The White Flag

by Gene Stratton-Porter

Nothing could have given Mahala more comfort at that minute than the thought that Jason was not sacrificing himself; that he was doing the thing that he had hoped, and for a long time planned, to do; that he was happy with the wind in his hair and his feet in the freshly turned earth of a furrow. Watching him at his work, sometimes answering the chatter of Ellen, who was so full of the joy of living that she talked upon any occasion that she felt it proper that she might speak, milling these things over in her heart, there came to Mahala the realization that Ashwater stood to Jason Peters in some small degree in the same light as it now did to her. It had been a place where an unkind fate had bound him and he had suffered from taunt and from insult; he had suffered from unjust persecution; manhood had brought to him the power to fend for himself and the friend he needed in his hour of trial, but it had not taught him to love the place in which he lived or the people among whom he had endured humiliation and suffering.

The first wave of gladness that she had known since her earliest calamity had befallen her, washed up in Mahala’s heart with a real comprehension of the fact that Jason was happy; that he wanted to live upon the land; that he enjoyed every foot of his environment. It pleased her when she discovered that he disliked that day upon which he was forced to go upon errands to Ashwater to repair implements or for food.

When she had watched him until she thoroughly convinced herself of these things, one degree of the bitterness in Mahala’s heart was assuaged. Another thing that helped her on the road toward an approach to her normal condition was the attitude of Ellen Ford. Ellen was a charming girl. Mahala soon learned to love her. She was frank, unusually innocent. Mahala decided that her mother must have used a much greater degree of caution in speech before her daughter than she had understood was common with country women in general. Ellen came when she was wanted; with perfect cheerfulness went home when she was not. She chattered on every other subject on earth, but she never evinced the slightest curiosity concerning Mahala or what the future might have in store for her. If the task Mahala laid out for herself was so heavy she could not finish it, Jason went down the road and told Ellen. The girl came singing, did what was wanted efficiently, begged the privilege of brushing Mahala’s hair or doing any possible personal service for her, and went back singing, Mahala thought, as spontaneously as the bluebirds and the fat robins of the garden and the orchard. For these reasons, Mahala found her heart running out to her; found herself praising her and loving her; listening for her song and her footstep; wishing that she might do for her some pleasing service in return for the many kind and practical things that Ellen could think of to do for her.

Imperceptibly each day, but surely in a total of days, Mahala’s strength began to return, and with it came a high tide in her beauty. Washed in rain water and dried in the sun, the golden life came back to her hair; an adorable pink flush into her cheeks; a deeper red than they ever had known stained her lips. The one place that the mark remained was in the depths of her eyes. In them dwelt a dread question, a pain that never left them. Looking deep into them at times, Jason felt that the one thing for which he could thank God was that he did not there find any semblance of fear. The horror that had hovered over his boyhood from a gnawing stomach, a beaten body, and a tormented brain, had left him in such a condition that at times he acknowledged a sickening surge of pure fear sweeping through him. Whenever this happened, he set himself to master it, to prove that he was not afraid. There had been a few times in his life when the obsession was heaviest upon him, that he had deliberately put himself in Martin Moreland’s presence, in order to prove to himself that he could stand, in those days, at the height of the banker with his shoulders squared and his eyes able to meet those of any man straightly. He never had been afraid of Junior physically since the first day in which he had tested the high tide of his youth upon him. Knowing what Junior had been able to do to him, feeling in the depths of his heart that the troubles that had fallen upon Mahala were of Junior’s devising, would breed and keep in Jason a nauseating nerve strain springing from mental suffering, so strong that it caused physical reaction.

Mahala spent much of her time in the house. She experienced such joy as she never had hoped for again merely in walking over the carpets, in touching the curtains, in handling the linens, the books, the needle work, and the silver that had been her father’s and her mother’s. By imperceptible degrees she had altered Jason’s arrangement of the house until the place became a reproduction of the delicate colour, of alluring invitation, of nerve-soothing rest that she had homed among during her childhood. When she could find nothing further to prettify inside her house—the little house that was truly hers—she walked around it lavishing love upon the flowers and the bushes, the trees and the shrubs. She spent a great deal of time on her knees before the boxed bed running around the house, loosening and fertilizing the soil, picking out the sly weeds that tried to find a home under the shelter of the star flowers and the daffodils and the iris. She loved every foot of the old garden. On her writing desk there were catalogues from which she was selecting the seeds and bulbs she meant to order for fall planting so that the coming summer her garden should once more spread its tapestry of colour and wave its banners of beauty on the air.

She liked to cross the corner of the orchard and feed the chickens and the white pigeons that shared the barn loft with Jason. She liked to pet the calf and make friends with the cow. With the assistance of Ellen, and under the advice of Mrs. Ford, remembering what she could of Jemima’s methods and following the instructions of several cook books, she began to prepare meals for Jason and herself which were nourishing and sustaining, and at the same time, appetizing and attractive. It was several months before the morning dawned upon which Mahala realized that the full tide of health was flowing in her veins; that strength had come back to her; that when she sent for Ellen, most frequently she was doing it because she wanted company, for the day had not yet arrived when Mahala would face Ashwater.

There was no one there whom she cared to see; nothing there that she cared to do. A written slip naming her necessities went in Jason’s pocket on his trips to town on business connected with the grocery or conveniences necessary for his farm work. She found, after a few months of experience of living with the woman who was herself, that a mark had been set upon her, literally burned into her brain, her heart, and her soul,—a mark that never could be effaced. The other doors and windows of the house stood wide open. The front door was always closed, always locked. She found, too, that if, while she sat by an open window sewing or under the trees of the dooryard, she heard the rattle of wheels and saw a face she recognized, she arose and on winged feet put herself out of hearing in case any one should knock upon her door, so that she would not be forced to open it and face them.

There were times when she deliberately tried to determine what she thought and felt concerning Jason, but her brain was still in such tumult that she could not be definite even with herself. Life had narrowed her proposition to the one fact that he was everything that she had left of her old life. She could not look at any beloved possession that had belonged to her father and her mother without the knowledge that, save for him, she would have been denied even this poor consolation from life. She could not move through the small home that in her heart she soon grew almost to worship without the knowledge that she owed to him her joy in having it to live in so soon. As she tried to think things out, it appealed to Mahala that the time had passed in which she could spend even a thought on remembering the days of his youth. She herself had been stripped to the bone. She had lost everything but her respect for herself. Every material comfort she had, she owed to him. Slowly in her heart there began to take form the decision that whatever there was of her personality, of her life, belonged to Jason if he wanted it. If there was any way in which he cared to use it, it was for him to say what he desired.

During the winter Mahala found herself living passively. She found that she was allowing each day to provide its duties, and on land she learned that they were many. Whatever there was to do, she went about casually and determinedly. Slowly, through absorption in her work, through contact with the growing and the rejuvenating processes of nature, through the healing power of spontaneous life around her, the shadow began to lift. One day she stopped short in crossing the kitchen with a pan of odorous golden biscuit fresh from the oven in her hands, stunned by the realization that she was hearing her own voice lifted in a little murmuring song. There had been days in Mahala’s life when she never expected that song could ever again return to her lips. After a while, she realized that she was laughing with Jason over things that occurred when he came in ravenous from work to food of her preparing. She found herself talking happy, nonsensical things to the calf and the chickens that she was feeding, and she had trained the pigeons until they came circling around her, settling over her head and shoulders like a white cloud when she entered the barnyard with her feed basket.

So spring came again.