What Diantha Did | Page 9

loved him as a child does if not ill-treated;
but she loved her mother with a sort of passionate pity mixed with
pride; feeling always nobler power in her than had ever had a fair
chance to grow. It seemed to her an interminable dull tragedy; this
graceful, eager, black-eyed woman, spending what to the girl was
literally a lifetime, in the conscientious performance of duties she did
not love.
She knew her mother's idea of duty, knew the clear head, the steady
will, the active intelligence holding her relentlessly to the task; the
chafe and fret of seeing her husband constantly attempting against her
judgment, and failing for lack of the help he scorned. Young as she was,
she realized that the nervous breakdown of these later years was wholly
due to that common misery of "the square man in the round hole."
She folded her finished sheet in accurate lines and laid it away--taking
her mother's also. "Now you sit still for once, Mother dear, read or lie
down. Don't you stir till supper's ready."
And from pantry to table she stepped, swiftly and lightly, setting out

what was needed, greased her pans and set them before her, and
proceeded to make biscuit.
Her mother watched her admiringly. "How easy you do it!" she said. "I
never could make bread without getting flour all over me. You don't
spill a speck!"
Diantha smiled. "I ought to do it easily by this time. Father's got to
have hot bread for supper--or thinks he has!--and I've made 'em--every
night when I was at home for this ten years back!"
"I guess you have," said Mrs. Bell proudly. "You were only eleven
when you made your first batch. I can remember just as well! I had one
of my bad headaches that night--and it did seem as if I couldn't sit up!
But your Father's got to have his biscuit whether or no. And you said,
'Now Mother you lie right still on that sofa and let me do it! I can!' And
you could!--you did! They were bettern' mine that first time--and your
Father praised 'em--and you've been at it ever since."
"Yes," said Diantha, with a deeper note of feeling than her mother
caught, "I've been at it ever since!"
"Except when you were teaching school," pursued her mother.
"Except when I taught school at Medville," Diantha corrected. "When I
taught here I made 'em just the same."
"So you did," agreed her mother. "So you did! No matter how tired you
were--you wouldn't admit it. You always were the best child!"
"If I was tired it was not of making biscuits anyhow. I was tired enough
of teaching school though. I've got something to tell you, presently,
Mother."
She covered the biscuits with a light cloth and set them on the shelf
over the stove; then poked among the greasewood roots to find what
she wanted and started a fire. "Why _don't_ you get an oil stove? Or a
gasoline? It would be a lot easier."

"Yes," her mother agreed. "I've wanted one for twenty years; but you
know your Father won't have one in the house. He says they're
dangerous. What are you going to tell me, dear? I do hope you and
Ross haven't quarrelled."
"No indeed we haven't, Mother. Ross is splendid. Only--"
"Only what, Dinah?"
"Only he's so tied up!" said the girl, brushing every chip from the
hearth. "He's perfectly helpless there, with that mother of his--and those
four sisters."
"Ross is a good son," said Mrs. Bell, "and a good brother. I never saw a
better. He's certainly doing his duty. Now if his father'd lived you two
could have got married by this time maybe, though you're too young
yet."
Diantha washed and put away the dishes she had used, saw that the
pantry was in its usual delicate order, and proceeded to set the table,
with light steps and no clatter of dishes.
"I'm twenty-one," she said.
"Yes, you're twenty-one," her mother allowed. "It don't seem possible,
but you are. My first baby!" she looked at her proudly
"If Ross has to wait for all those girls to marry--and to pay his father's
debts--I'll be old enough," said Diantha grimly.
Her mother watched her quick assured movements with admiration,
and listened with keen sympathy. "I know it's hard, dear child. You've
only been engaged six months--and it looks as if it might be some years
before Ross'll be able to marry. He's got an awful load for a boy to
carry alone."
"I should say he had!" Diantha burst forth. "Five helpless women!--or
three women, and two girls. Though Cora's as old as I was when I

began to teach. And not one of 'em will lift a finger to earn her own