The Happy End | Page 5

Braleys had their clearing.
Phebe crushed the cigarette in her fingers. Suddenly she was nervous.
"It's natural I have changed a lot," she said. "If you hear me saying anything rough pinch me."
Richmond Braley was standing beside his house in the muddy clothes in which he had labored on the roads, and Mrs. Braley and Hannah came eagerly forward. Behind them sounded Susan's racking cough. Sentimental tears rolled dustily over Phebe's cheeks as she kissed and embraced her mother and sisters.
"H'y," Richmond Braley awkwardly saluted her; and "H'y," she answered in the local manner.
"Well," he commented, "you hain't forgotten that anyway."
Calvin was asked to stay for the supper that had been delayed for Phebe's return, but when he declined uncertainly he wasn't pressed. Putting up Hosmer's rig and saddling his own horse he rode slowly and dejectedly on.
Instead of going directly back to Greenstream he followed the way that led to his new house. The evening was silvery with a full brilliant moon, and the fresh paint and bright woodwork were striking against the dark elevated background of trees. The truck patch would be dug on the right, the clearing widen rod by rod. From Alderwith's meadows came the soft blowing of a steer's nostrils, while the persistent piping of the frogs in the hollows fluctuated in his depressed consciousness.
Calvin had drawn rein and sat on his horse in the road. He was trying to picture Hannah standing in the door waiting for him, to hear her calling him from work; but always Phebe intervened with her travesty of Hannah's clear loveliness.
IV
Again at the Braleys' he found the family--in the kitchen--listening with absorbed interest to Phebe's stories of life and the stage. Richmond Braley sat with an undisguised wonderment and frequent exclamations; there was a faint flush in Mrs. Braley's dun cheeks; Susan tried without success to strangle her coughing. Only Hosmer was unmoved; at times he nodded in recognition of the realities of Phebe's narratives; his attitude was one of complacent understanding.
Calvin, at last succeeding in catching Hannah's attention, made a suggestive gesture toward the front of the house, but she ignored his desire. She, more than any of the others, was intent upon Phebe. And he realized that Phebe paid her a special attention.
"My," she exclaimed, "the healthy life has put you in the front row. Ned Higmann would rave about your shape and airs. It's too bad to bury them here in the mountains. I reckon you love me for that"--she turned cheerfully to Calvin--"but it's the truth. If you could do anything at all, Hannah, you'd lead a chorus and go in the olio. And you would draw at the stage door better than you would on the front. Young and fresh as a daisy spells champagne and diamond garters. I don't believe they'd let you stay in burlesque but sign you for comic opera."
The blood beat angrily in Calvin Stammark's head. Whatever did Phebe mean by talking like that to Hannah just when she was to marry him! He cursed silently at Richmond Braley's fatuous face, at Mrs. Braley's endorsement of all that her eldest daughter related, at Hosmer's assumption of worldly experience. But Hannah's manner filled him with apprehension.
"It's according to how you feel," Phebe continued; "some like to get up of a black winter morning and fight the kitchen fire. I don't. Some women are happy handing plates to their husband while he puts down a square feed. Not in mine."
"The loneliness is what I hate," Hannah added.
"It's hell," the other agreed. "Excuse me, ma."
Hannah went on: "And you get old without ever seeing things. There is all that you tell about going on--those crowds and the jewels and dresses, the parties and elegant times; but there is never a whisper of it in Greenstream; nothing but the frogs that I could fairly scream at --and maybe a church social." As she talked Hannah avoided Celvin Stammark's gaze.
"Me and you'll have a conversation," Phebe promised her recklessly.
Choking with rage Calvin rose. "I might as well move along," he asserted.
"Don't get heated," Phebe advised him. "I wouldn't break up your happy home, only I want Hannah to have an idea of what's what. I don't doubt you'll get her for a wife."
"There's nothing but slaving for a woman round here," Mrs. Braley put in. "I'm right glad Phebe had so much spirit."
Richmond Braley evidently thought it was time for certain reservations. "You mustn't come down so hard on Calvin and me," he said practically. "We're both likely young fellows."
"I'll be here evening after to-morrow," Calvin told Hannah in a low voice.
She nodded without interest. They must be married at once, he decided, his wise horse following unerringly the rocky road, stepping through splashing dark fords. If there was a repetition of the past visit he would