Ann Boyd: A Novel

by Will N. Harben

"But it's got to be the time and place," she retorted, shaking a stiff finger in his face. "I want to show you one side of this matter. I won't mention names, but a man, an old man, come to me one day. He set there on my door-step and told me about his life of his own free will and accord, because he'd heard of mine, and wanted to comfort me. He'd just buried his wife—a woman he'd lived with for thirty-odd years, and big tears rolled down his cheeks while he was talking. He said he was going to tell me what he'd never told a living soul. He said away back, when he was young, he loved his wife and courted her. He saw that she loved him, but she kept holding off and wouldn't give in till he was nearly distracted; then he said her mother come to him and told him what the trouble was. It was because the girl had had bad luck like I did. She loved him and wanted to make him a good wife, but was afraid it would be wrong. He said he told the girl's mother that it made no difference to him, and that he then and there promised never on this earth to mention it to her, and he never did. She was the woman he lived with for a third of a century in holy wedlock, and who he couldn't speak of without shedding tears. Now, Joe Boyd, here's my point—the only difference I can see in that woman's conduct and mine is that I would have told you, but I didn't think you was the kind of a man to tell a thing like that to. I didn't think you was strong enough, as a man, but I thought your happiness and mine depended on our marriage, and so after you had dogged my steps for years I consented. So you see, if—if, I say—you had gone and let the old matter drop, you wouldn't have been in the plight you are now, and our child would have had more of the things she needed."

"There are two sides to it," Boyd said, raising a sullen glance to her impassioned face. "And that reminds me of an old man I knew about. He was the best husband that ever walked the earth. He loved his wife and children, and when he was seventytwo years of age he used to totter about with his grandchildren all day long, loving them, with his whole heart. Then one day proof was handed him—actual proof—that not a speck of his blood flowed in their veins. He was hugging one of the little ones in his arms when he heard the truth. Ann, it killed him. That's t'other side. You nor me can't handle a matter as big and endless as that is. The Lord God of the universe is handling ours. We can talk and plan, but most of us, in a pinch, will do as generations before us have done in sech delicate matters."

"I suppose so." Ann's lips were white; there was a wild, hunted look in her great, staring eyes.

"I tried to reason myself out of the action I finally took," Boyd went on, deliberately, "but there was nothing else to do. I was bothered nigh to death. The thing was running me stark crazy. I had to chop it off, and I'm frank to say, even at this late day, that I don't see how I could have done otherwise. But I didn't come here to fetch all this up. It was just the other matter, and the belief that it was my duty to give you a chance to act on it as you saw fit."

"If her wedding depends on it, the farm must be saved," Ann said, quietly. "I give away money to others, why shouldn't I to—to her? I'll get a blank and write a check for the money."

He lowered his head, staring at the flames. "That's for you to decide," he muttered. "When the debt is paid the land shall be deeded to her. I'll die rather than borrow on it again."

Ann went to the clock on the mantel-piece and took down a pad of blank checks and a pen and bottle of ink. Placing them on the table, she sat down and began to write with a steady hand and a firm tilt of her head to one side.

"Hold on!" Boyd said, turning his slow glance upon her. "Excuse me, but there's one thing we haven't thought of."

Ann looked up from the paper questioningly. "What is that?"

"Why, you see, I reckon I'd have to get that check cashed somewhere, Ann, and as it will have your name on it, why, you see, in a country where everybody knows everybody else's business—"