Phoebe Deane (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ that kept him from adopting all the lonely creatures, be they animal or human, that appealed to his sympathy. There were a great many nice points about Albert, and Phoebe recognized them gratefully, the more as she grew older, though he would come to the table in his shirt-sleeves and eat his pie with his knife.

      But in spite of her nature this morning Phoebe had much ado to keep from, crying. The annoyances increased as the day grew, and if it had not been for her work she would have felt desperate. As it was she kept steadily at it, conquering everything that came in her way. The apples fairly flew out of their coats into the pan, and Emmeline, glancing into the back shed, noting the set of the forbidding young shoulders, and the undaunted tilt of the head, also the fast diminishing pile of apples on the floor and the multiplying quarters in the pans, forbore to disturb her. Emmeline was far-seeing, and she was anxious to have those apples off her mind. With Phoebe in that mood she knew it would be done before she could possibly get around to help. There was time enough for remarks later; meantime perhaps it was just as well to let my lady alone until she came to her senses a little.

      The old stone sun-dial by the side door shadowed the hour of eleven, and the apples were almost gone from the pile on the floor, when Emmeline came into the back shed with a knife and sat down to help. She looked at Phoebe sharply as she seated herself with a show of finishing things up in a hurry, but she intended, and Phoebe knew she did, to have it out with the girl before her.

      Phoebe did not help her to begin. Her fingers flew faster than ever, though they ached with the motion, and the juicy knife against her sensitive skin made every nerve cry out to be released. With set lips she went on with her work, though she longed to fling the apple away and run out to the fields for a long, deep breath.

      Emmeline had pared two whole apples before she began, in a conciliatory tone. She had eyed Phoebe furtively several times, but the girl might have been a sphinx, or some lovely mountain wrapped about with mist, for all she could read of her mood. This was what Emmeline could not stand, this distant, proud silence that would not mix with other folk. She longed to break through it by force, and reduce the pride to the dust. It would do her heart good to see Phoebe humbled for once, she often told herself.

      " Phoebe, I don't see what you find to dislike so in Hiram Green," she began. " He's a good man. He always attends church on Sundays."

      " I would respect him more if he was a good man in his home on week-days. Anybody can be good once a week before people. A man needs to be good at home in his family."

      " Well, now, he provides well for his family. Look at his comfortable home, and his farm. There isn't a finer in this county. He has his name up all round this region for the fine stock he raises. You can't find a barn like his anywhere. It's the biggest and most expensive in this town."

      " He certainly has a fine barn," said Phoebe, " but I don't suppose he expects his family to live in it. He takes better care of his stock than he does of his family. Look at the house——"

      Phoebe's eyes waxed scornful, and Emmeline marveled. She was brought up to think a barn a most important feature of one's possessions.

      "His house is away back from the road out of sight," went on Phoebe, " Annie used to hunger for a sight of people going by on the road when she sat down to sew in the afternoon, but there was that great barn right out on the road, and straight in front of the house. He ought to have put the barn back of the house. And the house is a miserable affair. Low, and ugly, and with two steps between the kitchen and the shed, enough to kill one who does the work. He ought to have built Annie a pleasant home up on that lovely little knoll of maples, where she could have seen out and down the road, and have had a little company now and then. She might have been alive to-day if she had one-half the care and attention that Hiram gave the stock! " Phoebe's words were bitter and vehement.

      " It sounds dreadful silly for a girl of your age to be talking like that. You don't know anything about Annie, and if I was you I wouldn't think about her. As for the barn, I should think a wife would be proud to have her husband's barn, the nicest one in the county. Of course the barn had to have the best place. That's his business. I declare you do have the queerest notions!"

      Nevertheless she set it down in her mind that she would give Hiram a hint about the house.

      Phoebe did not reply. She was peeling the last apple, and as soon as it lay meekly in quarters with the rest she shoved back her chair and left the room. Emmeline felt that she had failed again to make any impression on her sister-in-law. It maddened her almost to distraction to have a girl like that around her, a girl who thought everything beneath her and who criticized the customs of the entire neighborhood. She was an annoyance and a reproach. Emmeline felt she would like to get rid of her if it could be done in a legitimate way.

      At dinner Henry Williams looked at Phoebe meaningly and asked if she made the pie. Phoebe had to own that she did.

      "It tastes like you, nice and sweet," he declared, gallantly. Whereat Albert laughed, and Alma leaned forward to look into her aunt's flaming face, impudently.

      " Betsy Green says she thinks her pa is going to get her a new ma," she remarked, knowingly, when the laugh had subsided. " And Betsy says she bet she knows who 'tis, too! "

      " You shut up!" remarked Emmeline to her offspring, in a low tone, giving Alma a dig under the table. But Phoebe hastily drew back her chair and fled from the table.

      There was a moment of uncomfortable silence after Phoebe left the room. Emmeline felt that things had gone too far. Albert asked what was the matter with Phoebe, but instead of answering him Emmeline yanked Alma from the table and out into the wood-shed, where a whispered scolding was administered as a sort of obligation solo to the accompaniment of some stinging cuts from a little switch that hung conveniently on the wall.

      Alma returned to the table chastened outwardly, but inwardly vowing vengeance on her aunt, her anger in no wise softened by the disappearance of her piece of pie with Bertie. Her mother told her she deserved to lose her pie, and she determined to get even with Aunt Phoebe even if another switching happened.

      Phoebe did not come down stairs again that afternoon. Emmeline hesitated about sending for her, and finally decided to wait until she came. The unwilling Alma was pressed into service to dry the dishes, and the long, yellow, sunny afternoon dragged drowsily on, while Phoebe lay upon her bed up in her kitchen chamber, and pressed her aching eyeballs hard with her cold fingers, wondering why so many tortures were coming to her all at once.

      CHAPTER III

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      Hiram Green kept his word to himself and did not go to see Phoebe for two evenings. By that time Emmeline had begun to wonder what in the world Phoebe had said to him to keep him away when he seemed so anxious to get her; and Phoebe, with the hopefulness of youth, had decided that her trouble in that direction was over. But the third evening he arrived promptly, attired with unusual care, and asked Emmeline if he might see Phoebe alone.

      It happened that Phoebe had finished her work in the kitchen and gone up to rock the baby to sleep. Emmeline swept the younger children out of the sitting-room with alacrity, and called Albert sharply to help her with something in the kitchen, sending Alma up at once with a carefully worded message to Phoebe. Emmeline was relieved to see Hiram again. She knew by his face that he meant business this time, and she hoped to see Phoebe conquered at once.

      " Ma says you please "—the word sounded strangely on Alma's unloving lips—" come down to the settin'-room now— to once," she added.

      The СКАЧАТЬ