The Happy End | Page 3

land about his
house. When the right time came he would invest it in more property--
grazing, a few herd of cattle and maybe in timber. Calvin had
innumerable schemes for their betterment and success. To all this the
sheer fact of Hannah was like the haunting refrain of a song. She was
never really out of his planning. He might be sitting on his rooftree
squaring the shingling; bargaining with Eli Goss, the stone-cutter;
renewing the rock salt for Alderwith's steers; but running through every
occupation was the memory of Hannah's pale distracting face, the
scarlet thread of the lips she was continually biting, her slender solid
body.
He had heard that her mother was like that when she was young; but
looking at Mrs. Braley's spent being, hearing her thin complaining
voice, it seemed impossible. People who had known her in her youth
asserted that it was so. Phebe too, they said, was the same--Phebe who
had left Greenstream nine years ago, when she was seventeen, to
become an actress in the great cities beyond the mountains. This might
or might not be a fact. Calvin always doubted that any one else could

have Hannah's charm.
However, he had never seen Phebe; he had moved from a distant part
of the county to the principal Greenstream settlement after she had
gone. But the legend of Phebe's beauty and talent was a part of the
Braley household. Mrs. Braley told it as a distinguished trait that Phebe
would never set her hand in hot dishwater. Calvin noted that Hannah
was often blamed for domestic negligence, but this and far more
advanced conduct in Phebe was surrounded by a halo of superiority.
After supper, in view of the fact of their courtship, Calvin and Hannah
were permitted to sit undisturbed in the formality of the parlor. The rest
of the family congregated with complete normality in the kitchen. The
parlor was an uncomfortable chamber with uncomfortable elaborate
chairs in orange plush upholstery, a narrow sofa, an organ of highly
varnished lightwood ornamented with scrolled fretwork, and a cannon
stove with polished brass spires.
Calvin sat on the sofa with an arm about Hannah's waist, while she
twisted round her finger the ring he had given her, a ring of warranted
gold clasping a large red stone. Her throat was circled by a silver chain
supporting a mounted polished Scotch pebble, his gift as well. Their
position was conventional; Calvin's arm was cramped from its unusual
position, he had to brace his feet to keep firm on the slippery plush, but
he was dazed with delight. His heart throbs were evident in his wrists
and throat, while a tenderness of pity actually wet his eyes. At times he
spoke in a hushed voice, phrases meaningless in word but charged with
inarticulate emotion; Hannah replied more coherently; but for the most
they were silent. She accepted the situation with evident calm as an
inevitable part of life. Drawn against him she rested her head lightly on
his shoulder, her gaze speculative and undisturbed.
Once he exclaimed: "I don't believe you love me! I don't believe you're
interested in the things for the kitchen or the bedroom suite I saw in a
catalogue at Priest's store!"
"Don't be silly!" she murmured. "Why shouldn't I be when it's my own,
when it's all I'm going to have."

He cried bravely. "It's only the beginning! Wait till you see our cattle
herded over the mountain to the railroad; wait till you see a spur come
up the Sugarloaf and haul away our hardwood. Just you wait----"
There was the clip-clip of a horse outside, and the creaking of wheels.
"I believe that's Hosmer." Hannah rose. "It's funny, too, because he said
he'd have to stay at the hotel to-night, there was so much settling up at
the bank."
It was, however, Hosmer Braley. He paused at the parlor door, a man in
the vicinity of thirty, fat in body and carefully clad, with a white
starched collar and figured satin tie.
"I didn't want to drive out," he said, at once bland and aggrieved; "but it
couldn't be helped. Here's a piece of news for all of you-- Phebe is
coming home to visit She wrote me to say so, and I only got the letter
this evening. Whatever do you suppose took her?"
Hannah at once flushed with excitement--like, Calvin Stammark
thought, the parlor lamp with the pink shade, turned up suddenly. An
instant vague depression settled over him; Hannah, only the minute
before in his arms, seemed to draw away from him, remote and
unconcerned by anything but Phebe's extraordinary return. Hosmer
made it clear that the event promised nothing but annoyance for him.
"She's coming by to-morrow's stage," he went on, untouched by the