The Wall Between

by Sara Ware Bassett

By the end of the first year he had become resigned to his new career; by the end of the second interested in it; by the end of the third enthusiastic.

In the meantime, as season succeeded season, the soil he had so patiently tended began to give him thanks, returning ever increasing harvests. The trees in the old orchard bent under their weight of apples; the grapevines were lush with fruit. The Howe farm acquired fame in the neighborhood.

The boy was proud of his success and justly so. Not alone did it represent man’s triumph over Nature, but it also meant the mastery of Martin’s own will over his inclinations. And all the while that he was achieving this dual victory he was developing from a thin, over-grown lad into a muscular young giant,—keen-eyed, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, strong-armed. He was lithe as an Indian and almost as unwearying. If through the cross rifts of 27 his daily routine there filtered occasional shadows of loneliness, he only vaguely acknowledged their existence, attributing his groping longing for sympathy to the lack of male companionship and the uncongeniality that existed between himself and his sisters.

He had, to be sure, a few masculine acquaintances in the village, but most of them were older and less progressive than he, and they offered him little aid in his difficulties. Having farmed all their lives and been content with the meager results they had obtained, they shrugged their shoulders at Martin’s experiments with irrigation and fertilizer, regarding his attempts as the impractical theories of a fanatic. Of youth, Sefton Falls contained only a scattering, the more enterprising young men having gone either to the city or to the War.

Thus bereft of friends of his own sex, and turned back from a professional or a soldier’s career by Duty’s flaming sword, Martin reverted to his own home for comradeship. But here, alas, he was again disappointed.

Mary, Eliza, and Jane were not of a type to fill the void in his life that he sought to have filled. It would be unfair to say he had not 28 a warm regard for his sisters, for he was a person of inherent loyalty, and ties of blood meant much to him. Had he not sacrificed his own dreams that his family might retain their old home? Nevertheless one may have a deep-rooted affection for one’s kin and yet not find them congenial; and Martin was compelled to acknowledge that Mary, Eliza and Jane—estimable women as they were—had many fundamental characteristics that were quite out of harmony with his ideals of life. It was possible their faults were peculiar to the entire feminine race. He was not prepared to say, since his knowledge of the sex had never extended beyond the sill of his own doorway. But whether general or particular, the truth remained that the mental horizon of his sisters, bounded as it was by the four walls of the kitchen and such portion of the outside world as could be seen from its windows, was pitiably narrow.

Beyond the round of their daily duties none of the three women had an interest in life. Over and over again they performed their humdrum tasks in the same humdrum fashion, arguing over each petty detail of the time-worn theme until he marveled they could 29 retain a particle of zest for routine they never varied from year to year.

Reading and experimenting brought a freshness to his work that stimulated detours into untraveled paths. But Mary, Eliza, and Jane never sought out the uncharted way. Evidently monotony suited their stolid temperaments; or if it did not, they never rebelled against it or tried to shake off its fetters. Matter-of-fact, timid, faithful, capable, middle-aged,—they were born to be plodders rather than explorers.

Martin admitted that to their undeviating system he owed a great measure of the comfort and tranquillity of his well-ordered house, and hence he struggled earnestly not to complain at the bondage that resulted from their cast-iron methods. Long since he had despaired of expecting adaptability from them. They must cling to their rut or all was lost. Once out of their customary channel, and they were like tossing ships, rudderless and without an anchor.

Their solicitude for him was another source of exasperation. There were days when the brute in him rose and clamored to strike Mary for tagging at his heels with coats and 30 medicines, and Eliza for her lynxlike observation of every mouthful he ate. But he curbed the impulse, shamefacedly confessing himself to be ungrateful.