"It would be strange," she said, "if a wife should need encouragement to stand by her husband when he is in trouble."
Alex had hated the minister ever since, and had made this an excuse for growing neglect of religious duties.
"It is no wonder he dreads to go to preachin', with that awful sin on his conscience," the women whispered to one another. They always whispered when they spoke of sin, as if it were sleeping somewhere near, and were liable to be aroused. Matilda divined their thoughts, and fretted under Alex's neglect of public service. She wished him to carry his head high, with the dignity of innocence. It appalled him at times to see how perfectly she apprehended her own part as the wife of a man wrongfully accused. He was not dull, but he had a stupid masculine candor of soul that stood aghast before her unswerving hypocrisy. She had never asked him to deny his guilt; she had simply set herself to establish his innocence.
Small wonder that she was tried and hampered by his failure to "act like other people," as she would have said if she had ever put her worry into words. It had been one of many disappointments to her that he should go to mill that day, instead of putting on his best coat and sitting in sullen discomfort through the pastor's "catechising." She had felt such pride in his presence at church on Sabbath; and then had come the announcement, "Thursday afternoon, God willing, I shall visit the family of Mr. Alexander Randall." How austerely respectable it had sounded! And the people had glanced toward the pew and seen Alex sitting there, with Wattie on his knee. And after all he had gone to mill, and left her to be pitied as the wife of a man who was afraid to face the preacher in his own house!
Matilda slipped the rustling splendor of her purple silk over her head, and went back to the limpness of her week-day calico with a sigh.
When Alex came in for the milk-pail, she was standing by the stove, turning the long strips of salt pork that curled and sizzled in the skillet. Her shoulders seemed to droop a trifle more in her working-dress, but her face was flushed from the heat of the cooking.
"There wasn't any call to get a warm supper for me, Tildy. I ain't hungry to speak of."
"Well, I guess anyway I'd better make some milk gravy for the children; I didn't have up a fire at noon, see'n' you was away. It ain't much trouble."
Her voice was resolutely cheerful, and Alex knew that the discussion was ended. But after the supper things were cleared away, she said to Mary Frances, "Can't you go and let your pa see how nice you can say your psa'm?"
And the child had gone outside where Alex was sitting, and had stood with her hands behind her, her sharp little shoulders moving in unison with her sing-song as she repeated the verses.