Chapter Seven.
Waiting for News.
“Well, the time went by till our children were two years old—not, to be sure, without some trouble, but still we got along, and I was never without the hope that better days were coming. About that time we got some new neighbours; but it was a dark day for us,—the day that Sam Healy came and took a place near us. They were kind folks enough, and I don’t think the man began by wishing to do my Stephen harm. He could drink and stop when he wanted to—at least, so he said; but Stephen couldn’t, and I was never sure of him after the Healys came.
“They came in the fall and a dreary winter followed their coming; but when spring opened things began to mend with us. I did what I could to help Stephen, and kept by him in the field. There wasn’t much to do within doors. There was only one room in the house, and a bed and table and a bench or two was all the furniture we had; but we might have been well and happy there till now, if we had been let alone.
“So, having but little to do in the house, as I said, I helped what I could in the field. I used to take my boys out and let them play about on the warm ground while I planted or hoed; and in this way I got Stephen home many a time when he would have gone over to Healy’s, or some of the neighbours, if it hadn’t been for carrying the babies home. Not that they needed carrying, for they were strong, hearty lads; but they were fond of their father, and a ride on his shoulders was their great pleasure. And he was always good to them when he was himself; and I kept them out of the way as much as I could at other times.
“We got along somehow, on into the summer. Healy’s wife was a kind woman enough, but she had been brought up different to me; and it worried me so to have Stephen hanging round there that I hadn’t much to say to her any way. I suppose this vexed her, for she was lonesome, and didn’t know what to do with herself; and I used to think she put her husband up to being more friendly with Stephen on that account: I mean, partly because she was lonesome, and partly because she saw his being there worried me. I suffered everything, that summer, in my mind. It was the old Weston days over again, only worse. It was so lonesome. I had no one to look to, nowhere to turn. It wouldn’t have been so if Stephen had been all right. With him and my boys well, I would have asked for nothing more.
“Sunday was worst. I used to think I was a Christian then; but I didn’t take all the comfort in my religion that I might have done; and Sunday was a long day. There was no meeting to go to. We had been too well brought up to think of working in the fields, as the Healys and others of the neighbours did; and the day was long—longer to Stephen than to me. I used to read and sing to him and the babies; and if we got through the day without his straying off to Healy’s or some of the neighbours, I was happy. He might by chance come home sober on other nights, but on Sunday—never; and it was like death to me to see him go.
“Well, one Sunday afternoon Healy sent for him. Some folks had come from a settlement farther up the lake, and they wanted Stephen for some reason or other—I can’t tell what, now—and me too, if I would come, the boy said who brought the message. But I wouldn’t go, and did my best to keep Stephen at home, till he got vexed, and went away, at last, without a pleasant word.
“Oh! what a long day that was! The children played about very quietly by themselves, and I sat with my head upon my hands, thinking some, praying a little, and murmuring a great deal. I can shut my eyes now, and see myself sitting there so miserable, and the little boys playing about, so hushed and quiet. I can see the little green patch of vegetables, and the cornfield, and the roof of Healy’s house beyond, and the blue smoke rising up so straight and still, and on the other side the prairie, and the gleam of the lake-water far away. I never hear the crickets on a summer afternoon but I think of that day, so bright and warm and still. Oh, how long it seemed to me!