Unleavened Bread | Page 2

any other daughter of Eve.
Under the agreeable but sobering influence of this faith she had grown
to womanhood, and the heroic deeds of the civil war had served to
intensify a belief, the truth of which she had never heard questioned.
Her mission in life had promptly been recognized by her as the
development of her soul along individual lines, but until the necessity
for a choice had arisen she had been content to contemplate a little
longer. Now the world was before her, for she was twenty-three and
singularly free from ties. Her mother had died when she was a child.
Her father, the physician of the surrounding country, a man of engaging
energy with an empirical education and a speculative habit of mind,
had been the companion of her girlhood. During the last few years
since his return from the war an invalid from a wound, her care for him
had left her time for little else.
No more was Babcock in haste to reach home; and after the preliminary
dash from the door into the glorious night he suffered the farm-horse to
pursue its favorite gait, a deliberate jog. He knew the creature to be
docile, and that he could bestow his attention on his companion without
peril to her. His own pulses were bounding. He was conscious of

having made the whirligig of time pass merrily for the company by his
spirits and jolly quips, and that in her presence, and he was groping for
an appropriate introduction to the avowal he had determined to make.
He would never have a better opportunity than this, and it had been his
preconceived intention to take advantage of it if all went well. All had
gone well and he was going to try. She had been kind coming over; and
had seemed to listen with interest as he told her about himself: and
somehow he had felt less distant from her. He was not sure what she
would say, for he realized that she was above him. That was one reason
why he admired her so. She symbolized for him refinement, poetry, art,
the things of the spirit -- things from which in the same whirligig of
time he had hitherto been cut off by the vicissitudes of the varnish
business; but the value of which he was not blind to. How proud he
would be of such a wife! How he would strive and labor for her! His
heart was in his mouth and trembled on his lip as he thought of the
possibility. What a joy to be sitting side by side with her under this
splendid moon! He would speak and know his fate.
"Isn't it a lovely night?" murmured Selma appreciatively. "There they
go," she added, indicating the disappearance over the brow of a hill of
the last of the line of vehicles of the rest of the party, whose songs had
come back fainter and fainter.
"I don't care. Do you?" He snuggled toward her a very little.
"I guess they won't think I'm lost," she said, with a low laugh.
"What d'you suppose your folks would say if you were lost? I mean if I
were to run away with you and didn't bring you back?" There was a
nervous ring in the guffaw which concluded his question.
"My friends wouldn't miss me much; at least they'd soon get over the
shock; but I might miss myself, Mr. Babcock."
Selma was wondering why it was that she rather liked being alone with
this man, big enough, indeed, to play the monster, yet half school-boy,
but a man who had done well in his calling. He must be capable; he
could give her a home in Benham; and it was plain that he loved her.

"I'll tell you something," he said, eagerly, ignoring her suggestion. "I'd
like to run away with you and be married to-night, Selma. That's what
I'd like, and I guess you won't. But it's the burning wish of my heart
that you'd marry me some time. I want you to be my wife. I'm a rough
fellow along-side of you, Selma, but I'd do well by you; I would. I'm
able to look after you, and you shall have all you want. There's a nice
little house building now in Benham. Say the word and I'll buy it for us
to-morrow. I'm crazy after you, Selma."
The rein was dangling, and Babcock reached his left arm around the
waist of his lady-love. He had now and again made the same
demonstration with others jauntily, but this was a different matter. She
was not to be treated like other women. She was a goddess to him, even
in his ardor, and he reached gingerly. Selma did not wholly withdraw
from the