The Able McLaughlins

by Margaret Wilson

Presently the silence of the room was broken with a little sob. She looked up. Chirstie’s little sister, standing near the window, was just turning away from it. She had been trying to see something of Chirstie. She felt deserted. Big tears were running slowly down her face. She looked like a neglected, ragged, little heartbroken waif.

Barbara started from her chair. That moment her face showed she had forgotten the surrounding desolations. She ran and gathered the child into her arms. She sat down with her in her lap. The little Jeannie, finding herself caressed, began crying lustily. The new mother kissed her. She caressed her. She soothed her, coaxing her into quietness. She told her little stories. She sang little songs, examining thoughtfully the poor little garments she wore. Dusk came upon them as they sat consoling one another. Barbara demanded help then of the child. Jeannie must show her where all the things were kept which were needed for the supper. They would make some little cakes together. Jeannie grew important and happy.

Dod’s eyes fairly bulged with amazement when he saw that supper table. Nothing of the sort had been set before him in that kitchen. His new mother made no apologies. She had been thinking to herself that it had been food of the most primitive sort that had been set before her by Chirstie on the three occasions upon which they had sat down to eat since she had arrived; doubtless Chirstie wasn’t feeling very well, and she was at best but a young housekeeper, whose omissions one could easily overlook. Barbara was pleased with what she had managed to prepare on the strange stove and in the newfangled oven. She saw her husband scowling at the table.

“I dinna like so many cakes!” he remarked severely. One must begin with these women at once, he seemed to be thinking. He had forgotten apparently that his bride came from the very land of cakes, though he wasn’t to be allowed to forget it often in the future.

She said apologetically;

“They’re not so good, I doubt. I couldn’t find any currants in the house. When we get currants you’ll like them fine.”

“There’s too much in them now!” he declared bravely. “We don’t have cake every day.”

“I do,” she said placidly. “I like a wee cake with my tea.”

Alex McNair was not entirely a stingy man—not the most stingy man in the neighborhood. He wasn’t like Andy McFee, for example, who was so careful of expenditure that when his corn got a little high in the summer he always took off his shirt and hoed the weeds in his skin, to save the wear of the cloth; and who persisted in habits of frugality so that, in his old age, when he rode about in his grandson’s Pierce-Arrow, he removed his shoes upon seating himself, to save them from harm, and persisted in this till an able grand-daughter-in-law urged him not to misuse shoe-strings with such extravagance. Nor was he like the elder John McKnight, who when he went to mill always took with him a hen tied in a little basket, to eat the oats that fell from his horse’s midday feeding. McNair thought such extremes foolish. He even laughed at McKnight’s device. How much easier it was simply to gather the oats up by hand, as he did, dust and all, and to take them home for the hens in his pocket. By this plan the oats were saved, and the hen had a whole day at home to convert useless angleworms into salable eggs. He was not, this proves, an entirely stingy man, yet—the idea of cakes like those for just a common supper! He would have to show that woman his disapproval, his disgust, his sharp pain at such extravagance.

He did his best then, and in the days that followed, to impress her. But she was difficult. She never lifted her voice in perturbation, and she never heeded a word he said. When the howling of the wind woke him up at night, he would hear her sighing, “It’s still raining!” When she looked shrinkingly out of the window in the morning, she murmured, “It’s still at it!” When he came in for dinner, she would ask, “Does it never stop?” At supper she sighed, like a weary child, “’Tis a fine land, this!”—for all the world as if he was to blame for the weather. She had been housekeeping for him but two days, when he pointed out the woodpile to her. “Bring the wood into the house,” she said, as if that was a man’s task. “I don’t like going out in the rain.” “The rain’ll not hurt you,” he assured her, going about his work. When he came in at noon, the fire was out, the room was cold, and she and the little girl were asleep and comfortable in bed. “I don’t like going out in the wet,” she repeated simply, as if she had done nothing outrageous in defying him. He had to wait for dinner till the wood was brought in, and dried, and the fire made. The next day she refused, in the same passive, happy way, to bring water from the slough well. She simply remarked she wouldn’t think of going so far in the mud, and waited till he brought the water. He never knew that she had hidden enough water for thirsty hours in a jug under the bed, and was prepared to stand a long siege. And then his boots were to be tallowed and dried near the fire. His wife Jeannie had always tallowed his boots. The new wife looked mildly surprised that he should have expected such a duty from her, and left the boots standing, muddy and soaked, just where they were, till he was driven to caring for them himself. And she kept asking him hour by hour, mildly, when he was going to town for her other boxes. She asked him so often, so kindly, that he was forced in despair to attempt the journey through the rain, thinking that maybe if she had something to sew, she would cease making cakes by the hour. And when he started, she gave him a great list of groceries to bring back, and ordered more sugar than his family ate in years. He growled at this—just growled. There had been enough sugar in the house when she came to last till spring. They could not use sugar as if it were water! Why not? she asked, simply. Wasn’t he a great lord, with acres? She liked sugar.