“Oh, Wully!”
CHAPTER VII
IT was growingly inevitable that the news, the determined news, must be broken. Wully, with his whole heart shrinking from the task, made light of it to Chirstie. Wasn’t having her better than anything he had ever imagined! He hadn’t really known at all at the time how greatly he was enriching himself. If he had been ready then to shoulder whatever blame there might be, he was ready now to do it a dozen times over. He didn’t mind in the least telling his parents about it. Accidents of the sort happen among even the most respectable people from time to time. It was in vain that he tried to reassure her. It might be all very well for him to talk so, but when everyone knew about her— Oh, what should she do then! Was it that she doubted him, then? Wasn’t he going to be with her? If by chance there should be one neighbor rash enough to see anything not perfect about his marriage, he would tell her for sure there would never be another! It was his mother she thought most about! What would his mother ever do when she heard it? That was nothing! Wully would go and explain it all to her, after his fashion—falsely, his wife insisted on saying wretchedly. His mother would be angry, of course, at first, and give him the scolding of his life. But she’d soon get over it, and come over bringing Chirstie a lot of baby clothes. Chirstie would see if she wouldn’t! Why hadn’t he explained it to her then, the last time he went over for that purpose, if it was so light a matter? The children happened to be all at home that day because the teacher was ill, and he had got no word alone with her. He didn’t add that he had been highly relieved to find them all there. He would go over at once, so that the burden would be off Chirstie’s mind.
Having arrived at the scene of his humiliation the next morning, he saw his father coming from the cornfield with his hands and pockets full of chosen ears of seed corn. Wully met him in the path just behind the barn, and they greeted each other without a sign of affection. What did Wully think of these ears? Wully felt them critically, one after another, with his thumb, and found them good. His father started on towards the barn.
“I want to tell you something, father.”
He stopped without a word, and stood listening.
“We’re going to have a baby.”
“’Tis likely.”