Judith Moore; or, Fashioning a Pipe

by Joanna E. Wood

When Mrs. Morris returned, some half-hour later, she found a row of empty pie plates, and sitting beside them, looking at them with the dissatisfied expression of a dog still hungry, was Tommy Slick's dog Nip. Nip fled from the face of Mrs. Morris towards Andrew's woods, where Tommy was gathering hickory nuts, sped upon his way by an earthen flower pot flung with a vigorous but inaccurate hand. Ever since that day Mrs. Morris had cherished a deep hatred of Tommy and his dog.

Judith, as the days passed, was very happy; but happy in a blind, unreasoning fashion. With persistent self-delusion she put behind her the fact that this dream-like summer was but an interlude in her life. True, at first she persistently took short views, and only interested herself in matters a day or two beyond the present, but gradually she slipped into the habit of speaking and thinking as if she were to be there always.

Now and then there were times when the colder light of reason showed her plainly how factitious this evanescent happiness was. These moods came upon her like so many physical shocks, leaving her feeling much older, much quieter, robbing her life of radiance and giving her almost a distaste for the simple scenes which had created delusions which bade fair to cost her so dear. Sometimes when the clear radiance of the moon shone in upon her at night, she lay and thought of the brilliant scenes, the well-nigh certain triumphs which awaited her—for, immature as she might be in some things, she was mistress of her art and knew it, but her cheeks no longer flushed as they had wont to do, her eyes no longer kindled at the dream: instead, her face set into a cold dignity and her eyes looked out in the moonlight, out into the future with a look of prescient martyrdom—the martyrdom of lonely Genius! The look of those whose brows smooth themselves for the crown of solitary success, that coronal which has so often crushed its wearer, so often obscured the eyes it overshadowed, so that they no longer beheld peace and joy!

But at the first sound of Andrew's footsteps, always eager, hasty, hopeful as they approached her, these shadows vanished, and in their place shone the dawn of a newer light.

She had never before been considered as a woman, but always as a singer; and her womanhood recognizing the tribute paid to it, stirred into life, responded to the feeling which evoked it, and demanded right of way.

There is something dominant in the woman-heart when roused. Judith's nature held deeper depths than she herself wot of—sweet springs for the lilies of love to grow in; reservoirs of feeling, long unsuspected, but now brimming to the brink, threatening to break every barrier, and flood their way over the ruin of her life schemes, her painfully constructed temple of Art, the airy fabric of her ambition; but one obstacle could not be swept aside—the benefits received. When Judith thought of what she owed her manager, then her heart grew faint within her; but, as excessive pain at length numbs sensation, so this thought became one of the accepted facts of her life, the life she was enjoying so much.

And the days were so long, and so sweet, that it seemed impossible that the end would ever come. But it was already midsummer, the harvest fields were brightening beneath the sun, the little school-house was closed for the summer holidays; from the orchards came the odour of ripe harvest apples, and the sun-bonneted women gathered wild raspberries from the fences, or picked currants in the garden.

And Judith had herself grown infinitely charming; for she was not letting all the sunshine slip from her. As the ruby crystal holds the rays which gives it its roseate charm, so Judith was absorbing the beauties about her, and giving them forth in a gentle radiation of womanly graces.

When one part of a nature is nurtured to the exclusion of the rest, it is not strange that the whole suffers somewhat. Judith, taught only to sing, to look well, to win applause by merit, or clever finesse, had known perhaps too little of real womanliness, save the intuitional impulses of her strong, sweet nature. She was wont to be a little petulant, a little self-absorbed, and a little, just a little, arrogant. These blemishes had been chastened into a sweet womanliness, capricious perhaps, but charming. Not but what there were tempests in her summer. As the summer showers swept across the fields, so tears crossed her happy dream.

The interest she took in every detail of his daily occupation amused and touched Andrew very much, but now and then he, in a measure, misunderstood her, which was not wonderful, considering how widely severed their modes of life and methods of thought had been. Once he laughed at some views she was expressing, grave conclusions she had arrived at after long thought and minute observation. Andrew laughed outright. Her remarks related to one of the simplest facts of outdoor life, always so well known to Andrew that he hardly apprehended the marvel of it. At his laugh the colour flooded her face, tears sprang to her eyes, she was wounded to the quick. She tried to disguise her feelings as bravely as possible, fighting off a burst of hysteric tears, making commonplace remarks in a tone strained and muffled by reason of the lump in her throat. Andrew's heart ached with regret. He wanted to take her in his arms, and holding her to his breast win from her a silent pardon, offer her a mute but eloquent apology. He dare not yet. A quick sense of her childishness in some matters came to him, a knowledge that if ever he won her, he must be prepared to be patient, prepared to learn much, to teach her many things. Judith saw that he had noticed her distress, knew he was sorry, and tried in an unselfish woman's way, to make him think that she had not minded. The very tenderness which Andrew's voice and manner assumed, pressed home the sting of that laugh. As they parted that night, the tears were heavy beneath Judith's lids. For a fleeting moment as they said good-night, she looked at him. She was standing within the shadow of the porch, but the star-shine revealed those tears.