The Happy End | Page 5

and I want solid refreshment. I wonder if you ever saw me. Of
course you didn't, but you might have. Ned Higmann's Parisian
Dainties. Rose Rayner's what I go by. That's French, but spelled
different, and means brightness. And I'm bright, Casper.
"My, what are you so glum about--the dump you live in or matrimony?
There was a gentleman in an orchestra in Harrisburg wanted to marry
me --he played the oboe--but I declined. Too Bohemian.... This is
where we turn," she cried instinctively, and they swung into the valley
where the 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