But there was a dreadful blow in store for her. Lucas brought a gang of carpenters to the farm, who instituted repairs on his half of the house. He even went so far as to commit the extravagance of having blinds hung for his sitting-room and front chamber windows, and his half of the front porch was trimmed with brackets, and then the whole of his half of the house painted white, so that his neighbors rallied him on being proud. "Only," as one said, "why don't you extend your improvements right along acrost the house, Lucas? It looks sorter queer to see one-half so fine and the other so slack."
"Armida's free to do she's a mind to," said Lucas. "If she wants to fix up her side, she can. I don't hinder her—"
"Nor you don't help her neither, as I see," said the other.
"I believe in 'tendin' to your own affairs and not interferin' with other folks," Lucas rejoined.
Armida was made very unhappy by these changes and the comments of the neighbors, and would gladly have beautified her half also, but had no money to spend. The farm had fallen behind, and she was pinched for means. She did what she could, taking more care than usual of vines and flowers, and even had an extra bed dug under her front windows, where she had many bright-hued flowers; but as she rose from digging around her plants and surveyed the house—Lucas's side with the new green blinds and the clapboards shining with paint, hers with its stained, weather-beaten appearance and its staring windows—she felt ashamed and discouraged.
"AS ARMIDA SAT ON THE BENCH UNDER THE OLD RUSSET APPLE-TREE, ... SHE ... LOOKED UP TO SEE A SHABBY, SHAMBLING, OLDISH MAN COMING AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE."
She feared her hired man was slack and neglected his work; yet when he threatened to go, and afterward compromised the matter by offering to stay if she'd marry him, at a loss what to do, and partly because she was lonely, she married him. He was a respectable man, whose only fault was laziness, and she hoped that now he would take an interest. When Armida and her husband came back from the minister's and announced to Lucas that they were married, his only comment was, "Well, a slack help will make a shif'less husband."
Years went by, and Armida's side of the house fell more and more into ruin; while Lucas, with what Armida considered cruel carefulness, kept his in excellent repair and occasionally renewed the paint. The contrast was so great that passers-by stopped their horses that they might look and wonder at their leisure. Every glance was like a blow to Armida, so that she avoided her sitting-room and kept herself in the uncomfortable kitchen that was divided by an imaginary line directly through the middle, a line never crossed by her brother, her husband, or herself.