The pelting rain and deepening chill made the little home a very snug nest that night. There was only one stove to warm the house, but they kept up a fiction of parlor and dining room, kitchen and bed chamber. Even the library was there, although it encroached dreadfully on the parlor, bedroom and kitchen, all three, for it consisted of space enough for two chairs, one footstool, and a tiny lamp-stand, beside which they spent their evenings.
“Who’s likely to drop in tonight, and what’s the program for the evening: charades, music, readings, dancing, cribbage, or political speeches?” Asher inquired.
They had invented all sorts of pastimes, with make-believe audiences, such as little children create for their plays. For these two were children in a big child world. 48 The wilderness is never grown up. It is Nature’s little one waiting to be led on and disciplined to mature uses. Asher and Virginia had already peopled the valley with imaginary settlers, each one of a certain type, and they adapted their pastime to the particular neighbors whom they chose to invite for the evening. How little the helpless folk in the city, bored with their own dullness, and dependent on others for amusement—how little could such as these cope with the loneliness of the home on the plains, or comprehend the resourcefulness of the home-makers there!
“Oh, let’s just spend the evening alone. It’s too stormy for the Arnolds and Archibalds beyond the Deep Bend, and the Spoopendykes have relatives from the East and the Gilliwigs are all down with colds.”
Virginia had tucked herself down in the one rocking chair, with her feet on the footstool.
“It’s such a nice night to be to ourselves. Watch the rain washing that west window. It’s getting worse. I always think of Jim on nights like this.”
“So do I,” Asher said, as he sat down in the armed chair he had made for himself of cottonwood limbs with a gunny sack seat. “He’s all alone with his dog these dark nights, and loneliness cuts to the heart of a man like Jim. I’m glad I have you, Virginia. I couldn’t do without you now. The rain is getting heavier every minute. Sounds like it was thumping on the door. Listen to that wind!”
“Tell me about Jim, Asher. What made him come out here anyhow?” Virginia asked.
“I don’t know all the story. Jim has never seemed to want to tell me, and I’ve never cared to ask him,” Asher replied. “When we were away together at school, he was 49 in love with one of the prettiest girls that Ohio ever grew. She lived in the country up the valley from Cloverdale. Her name was Alice Leigh, and she was a whole cut above the neighborhood. Jim said she was an artist, could do wonderful things with a brush and she was just wild to go somewhere and take lessons.
“Jim was planning always how to give her the opportunity to do it, but her mother, who owned a lot of land for that country and could afford to send Alice away to study, couldn’t see any dollar sign in it, so she kept her daughter on the farm.”