Whatever Lewis Morgan thought of this direct question he made no definite answer, and the subject dropped.
All things considered, Louise was well pleased with the result of one evening's sacrifice; for to give up the delightful privacy of their own room, and their own plans, and listen to a book that she had read before, was of course somewhat of a sacrifice. Its result elated her; she felt that her position in the family was on a more assured footing, and looked forward to the accomplishment of other little plans with a greater degree of certainty of success than she had felt heretofore. What a pity that her complacent feelings should have been put to rout through the intervention of a boiled dinner!
A victim to old-fashioned dinners of that type once explained to a novice the method of making them after this fashion: "You take a few of everything that grows in the garden, and dump them all together, with some slab-sided beef and a little pork, and let them boil for hours and hours, sending a remarkable odour through the house, which penetrates through every tightly-closed door and window; and then serve with quarts of slush!" Whether this recipe would be acknowledged by the lovers of such dinners or not, it exactly describes the state of nerves with which a few people sit down to them. Now, I beg you will not fall into the mistake of supposing my friend Louise to be an epicure, or of being unreasonably dainty as to the food which she ate. On the contrary, if her friends had but known it, she had the comfortable natural appetite which a healthy condition of stomach and brain are likely to produce. She was not one of those unhappy beings to whom the sight and smell of food which they do not happen to like is positive torture; on the contrary, Mother Morgan might have had a boiled dinner three days out of every week, had she chosen; and so long as the bread-tray was piled high with generous slices of good, sweet, home-made bread, and the butter-dish held its roll of hard, yellow, glistening butter, and the generous-sized pitcher brimmed with creamy milk, Louise would have made a dinner fit for a queen, in her own estimation. For when was a healthy city maiden other than rejoiced over real country butter and cream?
The trouble lay in the fact that poor Mother Morgan herself had nerves. Albeit she despised the name, and considered all such matters as modern inventions of fashionable society, it was just as surely an over-wrought and undisciplined state of nerves which caused her to visit hard-voiced displeasure on certain innocent tastes differing from her own, as though she had expressed it with a burst of tears. Did you ever have for a hostess one who accepted it as a personal insult if you declined any dish of her preparing? If not, you are fortunate. But just such an one was Mother Morgan: Her family had, for years and years, partaken, with a fair degree of relish, of cabbage and turnip and potato and beets and beef and parsnips and pork, all dwelling in friendly nearness in the same large pot. Nay, they had appreciated sometimes in addition, little round, yellow balls, known to the initiated to be meal balls, but tasting to the ignorant like nothing so much as sawdust wetted up with a little pork gravy.
With a feeling nearly akin to dismay did Louise watch the lading of the plate which she knew was intended for her. How was she ever to dispose of that mass, which, from the unmeshed turnip down to the yellow cannon-balls, she disliked? If she might only say, "No, thank you," and betake herself to the inviting-looking bread and butter and milk! Why need people have nerves leading straight to their palates, and, in this world of infinite variety, take the trouble to be aggrieved because tastes differ? Meekly she received the well-laden plate, meekly she sliced bits of potato and minced at the turnip, even taking delicate nibbles of the stump of cabbage, which she detested. All to no purpose. Mrs. Morgan was watching her with jealous eyes. What right had she to presume to dislike so savoury a dinner? Presently her indignation found vent in words.
"I don't see but we shall have to set a separate table for you; it seems you can't stand the dishes we are used to. I don't want you to starve on our hands, I'm sure."
Despite the fact that Louise had just received a letter full of tenderness from the dear mother at home—a tenderness which made this mother a sharp contrast—she was enabled to laugh, as she answered, pleasantly,—
"Oh, mother, I'm in no danger of starving. It seems to me that I like your bread and butter better than any I ever tasted. I suppose I am somewhat peculiar in my tastes; but I always find plenty to eat."
If people could see into each other's hearts, or if people could keep still when they ought, it might yet have been well. But it chanced that life had gone awry with the young husband that morning. A discussion had arisen between his father and himself concerning certain farming plans, and a decided difference of opinion had developed, during which the son expressed himself warmly and positively; and the father, waxing indignant, had sharply informed him that going to college and Australia, and marrying a fine lady for a wife, didn't make a farmer. Had Lewis found a moment's leisure and privacy with his wife, and he had spoken his thoughts, they would have been somewhat after this fashion:
"I am discouraged with the whole thing; we never can assimilate. If it were not for you, I should be miserable; you are the joy of my heart, and my rest." Then Louise would have comforted and encouraged him.