Life at High Tide | Page 8

husbands
to wars, if it wa'n't for that. Well, well; to think you didn't know that!
Wonder if Lizzie does?"
"She don't!" Mrs. Butterfield said, excitedly; "course she don't. She's
calculatin' on havin' that pension same as ever. Why, she _can't_ marry
Nat. Goodness! I guess I'll just step down and tell her. Lucky you told
me to-night; to-morrow it would 'a' been too late!"
IV
Lizzie Graham was sitting in the dark on her door-step; a cat had curled
up comfortably in her lap; her elm was faintly murmurous with a
constant soft rustling and whispering of the lace of leaves around its
great boughs. Now and then a tree-toad spoke, or from the pasture pond
behind the house came the metallic twang of a bullfrog. But nothing
else broke the deep stillness of the summer night. Lizzie's elbow was
on her knee, her chin in her hand; she was listening to the peace, and
thinking--not anxiously, but seriously. After all, it was a great
undertaking: Nathaniel wasn't "hearty," perhaps,--but when you don't
average four eggs a day (for in November and December the hens do
act like they are possessed!); when sometimes your cow will be dry;
when your neighbor is mad and won't remember the potato-barrel--the
outlook for one is not simple; for two it is sobering.
"But I can do it," Lizzie said to herself, and set her lips hard together.
The gate clicked shut, and Mrs. Butterfield came in, running almost.
"Look here, Lizzie Graham,--oh my! wait till I get my breath;--_Lizzie,
you can't do it._ Because--" And then, panting, she explained. "So, you
see, you just can't," she repeated.
Lizzie said something under her breath, and stared with blank
bewilderment at her informant.
"Maybe Josh don't know?"
"Maybe he does know," retorted Mrs. Butterfield. "Goodness! makes
me tremble to think if he hadn't told me to-night! Supposin' he hadn't
let on about it till this time to-morrow?"
Lizzie put her hands over her face with an exclamation of dismay.
"Oh, well, there!" Mrs. Butterfield said, comfortably; "I don't believe

Nat'll mind after he's been at the Farm a bit. Honest, I don't, Lizzie.
How comes it you didn't know yourself?"
"I'm sure I don't know; it ain't on my certificate, anyhow. Maybe it's on
the voucher; but I ain't read that since I first went to sign it. I just go
every three months and draw my money, and think no more about it.
Maybe--if they knew at Washington--"
"Sho! they couldn't make a difference for one; and it's just what Josh
says--they ain't goin' to pay you for havin' a dead husband if you got a
live one. Well, it wouldn't be sense, Lizzie."
Lizzie shook her head. "Wait till I look at my paper--"
Mrs. Butterfield followed her into the house, and waited while she
lighted a lamp and lifted a blue china vase off the shelf above the stove.
"I keep it in here," Lizzie said, shaking the paper out. Then, unfolding it
on the kitchen table, the two women, the lamplight shining upon their
excited faces, read the certificate together, aloud, with agitated voices:
"BUREAU OF PENSIONS
"It is hereby certified that in conformity with the laws of the United
States--" and on through to the end.
"It don't say a word about not marryin' again," Lizzie declared.
"Well, all the same, it's the law. Josh knows."
Lizzie blew out the lamp, and they went back to the door-step. Mrs.
Butterfield's hard feelings were all gone; her heart warmed to Nathaniel;
warmed even to the mangy dog that limped out from the barn and
curled up on Lizzie's skirt. But when she went away, "comfortable in
her mind," as she told her husband, Lizzie Graham still sat in the dark
under her elm, trying to get her wits together.
"I know Josh is right," she told herself; "he's a careful talker. I can't do
it!" But she winced, and drew in her breath; poor Nathaniel!
She had seen him that afternoon, and had told him, this time with no
embarrassment (for he was as simple as a child about it), that she had
arranged with Mr. Niles to marry them. "An' you fetch your bag along,
Nathaniel, and we'll put the machine together, evenin's," she said.
"Yes, kind woman," he answered, joyously. "Oh, what a weight you
have taken from my soul!"
His half-blind eyes were luminous with belief. Lizzie had smiled, and
shaken her head slightly, looking at the battered rubbish in the bag--the
little, tarnished mirrors, one of them cracked; the two small lenses,

scratched and dim; the handful of rusty cogs and wheels. With what
passion he had dreamed that he would see that which it hath not entered
into the heart of man to conceive! He began to