The next time she delivered an order at Peter Potter’s grocery, she went deliberately and without the slightest regard as to who might be in the store at the time, and standing before Jason at the desk bearing the big ledgers, she spent an extra fifteen minutes telling him in detail things that had come up in the classes that she thought would interest and help him. There was a tinge of red on her cheeks and a sliver of light in her eyes when she told him concerning non-venomous snakes and field mice among the wheat and cautioned him not to strike until he knew the identity of a species.
Jason looked at her with adoration in his heart, commendation in his brain. She was the daintiest thing. She was the prettiest thing. She was the fairest thing in her judgments.
He said to her laughingly: “You know, there aren’t a large collection of snakes running up and down these aisles, and the ones I do come in contact with I am not supposed to hit, no matter how venomous I know they are.”
Mahala smiled because she realized that Jason was making an effort to be amusing. This happened so very seldom that she felt he should have a reward when he tried. Usually, Jason’s face was extremely grave. Few days passed in which, in some way, he was not forced to feel the secret power working against him. He did not tell Mahala that twice since he had been with Peter Potter the store had been broken into at night by some one who was interested in finding Peter’s old account books, since the intruder took neither groceries nor robbed the cash drawer. The ledgers were safe because Jason had urged Peter to take them to his Bluffport bank where they would be secure. He did not tell her how frequently, at the post office, the express office, at the freight office, among the business men of the town, he received a rebuff the origin of which he understood. He avoided meeting either Mr. Moreland or Junior when it was possible. When it was not, he went straight on his way. Many times it had been demonstrated to him that he was working in the one store in Ashwater in which the power of the Morelands was not strong enough to throw him out. Had he been anywhere else, he would have lost his work, his earnings, and his room, speedily. The thing that filled Jason with surprise was the fact that while Mr. Moreland and Junior wanted him to be poor, without friends, without education, the father, at least, did not want him to leave the town; else he would have awaited his return and sent him away with Marcia when she made her mysterious disappearance.
During the four years of the high-school course, there was no week in which Mahala failed to enter Peter Potter’s grocery under some pretext, if she could invent a pretext; if she could not, specifically for the purpose of keeping Jason posted as to what was going on in school. In this matter she reserved the right to use her own judgment because in her judgment, Jason was not fairly treated, and the impulse to be fair to every one was big in her heart. In her opinion, the town was full of things that were unjust and unfair. People were forever standing up in churches and in public places prating about the poor and the downtrodden, but there was no single person, not even the ministers, doing the things that Jesus Christ had said should be done in order to make all men brothers. Her life was filled with preaching concerning the spirit of the law. She knew of no one who was following the letter—not even herself—as she felt she should. In self-analysis, her scorn included herself.
Sometimes in talking of these things she had made bold to say that Rebecca, carrying her white symbol and urging all the people she met to cleanse their hearts, was the only consistent disciple of Christ in Ashwater. She was forced to say that laughingly, as a daring piece of impudence. It would have been too shocking for the nerves of Mahlon, Elizabeth, or any of their friends, had the girl allowed them to surmise that she truly felt that Rebecca, mentally innocent, physically clean, with the fibre of persistence so strong in her nature that, year after year, she undeviatingly followed her hard course, was the only Christ-like one among them. To Mahala, given from childhood to periods of reflection, to consecutive thought, Rebecca came closer to being truly an envoy of Jesus Christ than any minister or deacon or church member she knew. Yet she had been so trained since childhood by her father and mother that she found it impossible to defy them openly. Even at times when her lips parted and the words formed, she had not quite the moral courage to say what she thought and felt. The one thing that she did realize concerning them was that they really had persuaded themselves that they were sincere; they felt they were right. Their love for her was unquestionable. She could not cry at them: “You drug yourselves with narcotics that you brew for the purpose. You lie to yourselves almost every time you open your lips.” In her heart she was hoping that a day would come speedily when she should be independent, when she might begin to try, by ways however devious, to show every one what she truly thought and felt.
During the high-school years she had never once lost her ascendancy among her classmates. She had been so consistently straightforward, so frank in her likes and dislikes, so clever when a controversy arose, that she had maintained the position in which her parents had intentionally placed her through giving her the best of everything and making her conspicuous from the hour in which a tiny ostrich feather had been attached to her quilted hood and she had ridden in state in the first baby carriage the town had ever seen—an arresting affair, ribbed top covered with black oilcloth sheltering the bed which was mounted on two large wheels having wooden spokes and hubs and a tiny third on the front to make it stand alone. The upcurving tongue ended in a cross piece by which Elizabeth, strong-armed with the strength of a prideful heart, dragged this contraption, shining with black paint, gay with gold lines and red and blue morning-glories, after her over the flag-stone and board walks of Ashwater. This was no easy work for a woman of Elizabeth’s natural proportions, but come what might personally, Elizabeth made the daily and hourly task of her life that of seeing that her child came first, and had the best.
Mrs. Spellman’s deft fingers had been busy in their spare time for two years at elaborate embroidery preparing against Mahala’s day of graduation and her following advent to the best girls’ school of the land. For the same length of time, she and Mahala had discussed a subject for the valedictory which naturally should fall to Mahala. Her mother had been unable to select anything from the store sufficiently dainty and suitable for a graduation dress. Mahlon had been commissioned to bring something especially fine from the city for this purpose. The best sewing woman the village afforded had been in the house working on the foundations of this dress. When it reached a certain point, Mrs. Spellman expected to finish it herself, ably assisted by Mahala whose fingers had become so deft in time set apart each day for their especial training, that, as a needlewoman, she was expert in the extreme.
Even while absorbed with this delightful work, both of them could not help noticing that Mahlon was unduly nervous and excitable; that slight things irritated him; while they confided to each other that they were surprised over the fact that Papa was getting almost stingy. He was not generous as he used to be. He was constantly cautioning them against undue expense. Mother and daughter were considerably worried about a new dry-goods emporium that had located in the town almost immediately opposite Mr. Spellman’s place of business. The Emporium was a brick building, aggressive with marble and paint; the stock of goods fresh and elaborate. Vaguely Mahlon Spellman’s womenfolk began to feel that his business might possibly be undermined by these new competitors, who had no scruples of an old-fashioned kind in their dealings with the public. They represented modern methods. Gradually it became Mahlon’s part to stand in his store and sadly watch many of his best customers going in and out of the opposite doors, and he had been more and more frequently compelled to seek Martin Moreland for larger loans to meet the payment on heavy orders of goods that he was not selling because the cheaper stock handled by his competitors looked equally as attractive, but could be sold for less money.
In the guest room, the graduation dress stood on a form on a sheet tacked on the floor, carefully covered with draperies to keep it fresh, awaiting the finishing touches that Mahala insisted upon adding herself. Standing before it one evening, contemplating the folds of its billowing skirt, the festoons and ruffles of lace, Mahala smiled with pride and delight. It was to be such a dress as Ashwater never before had seen. The only cloud that was on Mahala’s sky twisted into the form and took the name of Edith Williams. Edith had more money at her disposal than Mahala. Her clothes were more expensive. The reasons why her appearance was never so pleasing as Mahala’s were numerous. She remained out of school for long periods of time, partly because she really did not feel well, mostly because she was sour and dissatisfied and did not try to overcome any indisposition she felt by giving it the slightest aid of her mentality. The aunt who pampered and petted her kept the village doctors constantly dosing her with pills and tonics, and allowed her to do precisely as she pleased on all occasions. She went upon the theory that if she bought Edith the most expensive clothing, she was the best-dressed child. She followed this theory for years despite the fact that her friend, Elizabeth Spellman, was constantly proving to her that the best-dressed girl was the one whose clothing was in the best taste and most becoming to her.