"There's our farm, Pearlie," her father said.
What Pearl saw was one long field of old stubble, gray and faded, cut out of the scrub, and at the end of the field, against a grove of poplars, stood a little house, so sad, so battered, so broken, that Pearl's stout heart almost sank. It was made of logs and plastered with mud, and had settled down on one side, looking as ungainly and tired as an old horse when he rests on one leg. There was a door in the side next the road, with one window at each side of it—windows with almost everything in them except glass.
Pearl jumped down from the waggon and ran around her new home trying to find something good about it. When her father came in after tying up his horses, he found her almost in tears.
"Pa," she said, "this is sadder than I ever thought it would be. I wish it had been real dirty and shiftless; but look, Pa, they've tried to keep it nice. See, it's been whitewashed, and there's a place you can tell they've had a bit of oil-cloth behind the box the wash basin sat on, to keep the spatters off the wall. And see here, Pa," stooping to pick up a piece of cretonne from the rubbish on the floor—"this has been a paper holder—there's beads sewed on it around the flowers; and do you see yon little shelf? It's got tack marks on it; she's had a white curtain on it, with knitted lace. I know she has, and see, Pa"—looking behind the window casing—"yes, sir, she's had curtains on here, too. There's the tack. She had them tied back, too, and you can see where they've had pictures. I know just what Mrs. Cavers is like—a poor, thin woman, with knots on her knuckles. I could see her face in the house as we drove up to the door, kind of crooked like the house, and gray and weather-beaten, with teeth out. Houses always get to look like the people who live in them. They've tried—at least she has, and she's failed. That's the sad thing to me, Pa—she's tried. If people just set around and let things go to smash and don't care, that's too bad but there's nothing sad about it. But to try your livin' best and still have to go under—that's awful!"
Pearl walked to the window and wiped the cobwebs from it.
"I know how she felt when she was standin' here watchin' fer Bill, hopin' so hard that he's come home right this time, and bring the list of things she asked him to bring with his wheat-ticket. I can see she was that kind, always hopin'; if she wasn't that kind she wouldn't ever have sewed the beads on. She'd stand here and watch for Bill so full of hope and still so black afraid, and then it would come on dark and she couldn't see anything but Perkins's light winkin' through the trees, and then she'd lay out the supper, but not eat a bite herself, but just wait, and wait, and wait. And then when Bill did come she'd run out wid the lantern with her heart thumpin' so, and her knees all weak and wobbly—and Bill, you know how he'd be. Sandy Braden had got the wheat-ticket, and he hadn't paid a bill or bro't a thing for the house, and so at last she saw she was beat and done for; she saw that every hope she had had was a false one."
They were putting up the stove now, and when it was set in place Pearl said: "Let's get a fire goin' now, quick, Pa—and that'll cheer us up."
Her father went to the river and brought water, which they heated on the stove, and then he scrubbed the floor while Pearl cleaned the windows and put up the cheese-cloth curtains she had brought. She went outside to see how the curtains looked, and came back well pleased.
"Pa," she said, "I've got a name for it. We'll call it 'The Second
Chance.'"
"For why, Pearlie?" her father asked curiously. "Well, it just came to me as I was lookin' round, what this farm has had to put up with Bill Cavers. Here it is as good a farm as any around here, and it's all run to weeds. I am sure this yard is knee-high with ragweed and lamb's quarter in the summer, and the fields are all grown up with mustard and wild-oats, and they're an abomination to any farm; and so it has just sort, of give up and got discouraged, and now it lets in any old weed that comes along, because it thinks it'll never be any good. But here comes the Watsons, the whole bilin' of them, and I can see over there, Pa"—taking him to the window—"the place the garden will be, all nicely fenced to keep out the cattle; and over there, under the trees, will be the chicken-house, with big white hens swaggerin' in and out of it and down the ravine there will be the pig-pasture, and forninst us will be acres and acres of wheat, and be hind the bluff there will be the oat-field. I can see it, Pa."