The White Flag

by Gene Stratton-Porter

The thing that dazed her, that kept sleep from her eyes, the knowledge of how weary she was from her brain, and sent her wandering from one room to another all through the night, and at the break of day, to the little gold bird that still sang in her window, to the garden, and from the garden to the pigeons, and from the pigeons to the calves, and back again to the cases of her father’s books and to the pictured faces of Mahlon and Elizabeth—the one thing that she found predominant out of the whole matter, the one thing that in the end mounted above everything else, was the fact that Jason had doubted her, that because he doubted her, he had made another woman his wife, the mother of the child that should have been hers.

All the morning Mahala struggled to understand him. She tried to tell her heart that it was because of the scorching humiliations he had endured in his youth, the worst of which she now understood she had never realized. It was the taunts that had been flung at him, the loneliness of his unloved childhood, that had influenced him in his decision not to make any woman concerning whom there was a shadow of doubt, the mother of his child. It was not in the power of a woman like Mahala to gauge the depth of physical passion, to understand the force that drove Jason, in addition to the knowledge that he had found the money where he supposed she had, in some way, managed to have it placed.

Throughout the day, Mahala found her heart crying out achingly and unceasingly over Jason’s lack of confidence in her. She had learned that she could spare the rest of the world. They might think what they pleased. It was Jason alone who mattered. In living over the previous day in her tortured wanderings about the house, through the orchard, in the dead stillness that always precedes a summer storm, she found herself speaking aloud at times. She cried to the walls of her room: “Oh, Jason, I would not have doubted you, if I had seen you take the money myself!”

To the trees of the old orchard she stretched out her arms. She said to them: “If it had been Jason, I’d have known that there had to be some explanation. I’d have felt that anything else might have happened except that he could have been guilty.”

Across the road and down a few rods farther, Jason had reached his home and Ellen in a condition that alarmed her. He had tried to tell her what had happened. He had tried to explain to her, but she had felt that he was speaking as if there were a weight upon his heart and brain that was almost more than he could endure. She had felt that he scarcely realized what he was saying to her. She had tried to feed him; she had wept over him; she had rejoiced with him that there could be no stain upon his name and upon his birthright, and through it all she had seen that he did not hear her, that he did not care for anything she might say or anything she might do. Then she watched him stagger across the road and start toward Mahala’s house.

She stood awhile meditating. She decided that probably there were things that she might do. She ought to go herself and prepare some food. She might give Mahala the comfort of playing with the baby while she worked. She was half in doubt as to whether she should go, and yet she could think of many reasonable excuses. She realized that it was on slow feet that she walked down the road carrying the baby that every day was growing a heavier burden for her slight young shoulders. She was thinking a queer thing as she went along. He was heavier to carry when he was asleep than when he was awake. Asleep, he lay a dead weight on her arms; awake he clung around her neck, he scattered his weight over her chest and shoulders. She was surprised that she had thought this out for herself.

As she reached the gate, she was saying to herself: “He’s a dead weight asleep. He’s not near so heavy when he’s awake!”

Seeing that the front door was closed, she followed the narrow path of hard-beaten earth running around the house. As she came to the big clump of lilacs at the corner, she heard Mahala’s voice cry, “Jason!”

Through the lilac bushes she saw that Jason had fallen at Mahala’s back door. He was lying face down upon the ground, either exhausted or unconscious. She stood one instant in paralysed apprehension. The thing that kept her from movement was the look that was upon Mahala’s face as she crossed the back porch and went to him. Ellen saw that Mahala’s skirts were drawn back and there was a look of scorn and repulsion on her face. It was quite out of the girl’s power to move. She merely stood and stared at them. As she watched, she saw a slow change pass over Mahala. She saw her clenched hands relax; she saw her face soften and break up; she saw a quiver come to her lips and big tears squeeze from her eyes; she saw her fall on her knees beside Jason, and with unsuspected strength, lift and turn his body. She saw Mahala take Jason’s head on her lap and lean over him; she saw her hands slip under his vest and down to the region of his heart. She caught the torn note of agony in Mahala’s voice as she cried to him: “Jason, have the Morelands killed you, too?”

Then Ellen saw Mahala lose her self-control. She stood watching her as she took Jason’s head in her arms and kissed him from brow to lips.