Purple Springs

by Nellie L. McClung

But the sun poured down its heat, and the warm breezes frolicked into the out-of-the-way places, where old snowdrifts were hiding their black faces, and gradually their hard hearts broke and ran away in creeping streams, and the earth returned to the earth that gave it; a mist too, arose from the earth, and softened its bare outlines, and soon the first anemone pushed its furry nose through the mat of gray grass, and scored another victory on the robin; the white poplar blushed green at its roots; the willows at the edge of the river reddened higher and higher, as the sap mounted; headings of mouse-ears soon began to show on their branches—a green, glow came over the prairie, and in the ponds, It millions of frogs, at the signal from an unknown conductor, burst into song.

Then it was that the tired old Earth stopped thinking and began to feel—a thrill—a throb—a pulsing of new life—the stirring of new hopes which mocked its fears of cold or frost or sorrow or death.

The Souris Valley opened forgiving arms to the repentant young Spring, and put forth leaves in gayest fashion. The white bones, fantastically sticking through faded red hides, were charitably hidden by the grass, so that the awakened conscience of the tender young Spring might not be unduly reminded of its cruelty and neglect.

The woman who lived alone at Purple Springs always expected great things of the Spring. She could not grow accustomed to the coldness of her neighbors, or believe that they had really cut her off from any communication, and all through the winter which had just gone she had kept on telling herself that everything would be different in the Spring. Looking day after day into the white valley, piled high with snow, she had said to herself over and over again: "There shall be no more snow—there shall be no more snow"—until the words began to mock her and taunt her, and at last lost their meaning altogether like an elastic band that has stretched too far. If she had been as close a student of the Bible as her mother, back in Argylshire, she would have known that her impatience with the snow, which all winter long had threatened and menaced her, and peered at her with its thousand eyes, was just the same feeling that prompted John on the Isle of Patmos, wearied by the eternal breaking of the waves on his island prison, to set down as the first condition in the heavenly city: "There shall be no sea."

Three years before, Mrs. Gray had come to the Souris Valley, and settled on the hill farm. It had been owned by a prospector, who once in a while lived on it, but went away for long periods, when it was believed he had gone north into that great unknown land of fabled riches. He had not been heard from for several years, and the people of the neighborhood had often wondered what would be done with the quarter-section, which was one of the best in the district, in case he never came back. The Cowan's, who lives nearest, had planted one of the fields, and used the land for the last two seasons. The Zinc's had run their cattle in the pasture, and two of the other neighbors were preparing to use the remaining portions of the farm, when there arrived Mrs. Gray and her seven-year-old son to take possession.

It was Mr. Cowan who demanded to know by what right she came, and when she had convinced him by showing him the deed of the farm, she came back at him by demanding that he pay her the rent for the acres he had used, which he did with a bad grace.

She had not been long in the neighborhood when there came to demonstrate a new sewing machine a drooping-eyed, be-whiskered man, in a slim buggy, drawn by a team of sorrel ponies. He claimed to have known Mrs. Gray in that delightfully vague spot known as "down East," and when he found how eagerly any information regarding her was received, he grew eloquent.

Mrs. Cowan departed from her hard and fast rule, and the rule of her mother before her, and asked him to stay for dinner, and being an honest man, in small matters at least, the agent did his best to pay for his victuals. He told her all he knew—and then some, prefacing and footnoting his story with the saving clause "Now this may be only talk—but, anyway, it is what they said about her." He was not a malicious man—he bore the woman, who was a stranger to him, no grudge; but that day as he sat at dinner in the Cowan's big, bare kitchen, he sent out the words which made life hard for the woman at Purple Springs.

So much for the chivalry of the world and the kindly protection it extends to women.

Vague rumors were circulated about her, veiled, indefinite insinuations. The Ladies' Aid decided they would not ask her to join, at least not until they saw how things were going. She might be all right, but they said a church society must be careful.