The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863

"Of course. Past help.—When are we to be taken out of this trap, eh?"—going on.

"I did what I could."

As the Doctor's parched lips moved, he looked up. How deep the blue was! how the cold air blew his hair about, fresh and boisterous! He went down the field with a light, springing step, as he used, when a boy, long ago, to run to the hay-field. The earth was so full of health, life, beauty, he could have cried or laughed out loud. He stopped on the bridge, seeing only the bright, rushing clouds, the broad river, the sunlight,—a little way from him in the world, little Grey.

"I thank Thee," baring his head and bending it,—the words died in an awestruck whisper in his heart,—"for Thy great glory, O Lord!"

"Will you come a little farther? Let a few months slip by, and let us see what a March day is in the old Pennsylvania hills. The horrors of the war have not crept hither yet, into these hill-homesteads. Never were crops richer than those of '61 and '62, nor prices better. So the barns were full to bursting through the autumn of those years, and the fires were big enough to warm you to your very marrow in winter.

Even now, if young Corporal Simpson, or Joe Hainer, or any other of the neighbors' boys come home wounded, it only spices the gossip for the apple-butter-parings or spelling-matches. Then the men, being Democrats, are reconciled to the ruin of the country, because it has been done by the Republicans; and the women can construct secret hiding-places in the meat-cellar for the dozen silver teaspoons and tea-pot, in dread of Stuart's cavalry. Altogether, the war gives quite a zest to life up here. Then, in these low-hill valleys of the Alleghanies the sun pours its hottest, most life-breeding glow, and even the wintry wind puts all its vigor into the blast, knowing that there are no lachrymose, whey-skinned city-dyspeptics to inhale it, but full-breasted, strong-muscled women and men,—with narrow brains, maybe, but big, healthy hearts, and physique to match. Very much the same type of animal and moral organization, as well as natural, you would have found before the war began, ran through the valley of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

One farm, eight or ten miles from the village where the Gurneys lived, might be taken as a specimen of these old homesteads. It lay in a sort of meadow-cove, fenced in with low, rolling hills that were wooded with oaks on the summits,—sheep-cots, barns, well-to-do plum and peach orchards creeping up the sides,—a creek binding it in with a broad, flashing band. The water was frozen on this March evening: it had plenty of time to freeze, and stay there altogether, in fact, it moved so slowly, knowing it had got into comfortable quarters. There was just enough cold crispiness in the air to-night to make the two fat cows move faster into the stable, with smoking breath, to bring out a crow of defiance from the chickens huddling together on the roost; it spread, too, a white rime over the windows, shining red in the sinking sun. When the sun was down, the nipping northeaster grew sharper, swept about the little valley, rattled the bare-limbed trees, blew boards off the corn-crib that Doctor Blecker had built only last week, tweaked his nose and made his eyes water as he came across the field clapping his hands to make the blood move faster, and, in short, acted as if the whole of that nook in the hills belonged to it in perpetuity. But the house, square, brick, solid-seated, began to glow red and warm out of every window,—not with the pale rose-glow of your anthracite, but fitful, flashing, hearty, holding out all its hands to you like a Western farmer. That's the way our fires burn. The very smoke went out of no stove-pipe valve, but rushed from great mouths of chimneys, brown, hot, glowing, full of spicy smiles of supper below. Down in the kitchen, by a great log-fire, where irons were heating, sat Oth, feebly knitting, and overseeing a red-armed Dutch girl cooking venison-steaks and buttermilk-biscuit on the coal-stove beside him.

"Put jelly on de table, you, mind! Strangers here fur tea. Anyhow it ort to go down. Nuffin but de best ob currant Miss Grey 'ud use in her father's house. Lord save us!"—in an underbreath. "But it's fur de honor ob de family,"—in a mutter.

"Miss Grey" waited within. Not patiently: sure pleasure was too new for her. She smoothed her crimson dress, pushed back the sleeves that the white dimpled arms might show, and then bustled about the room, to tidy it for the hundredth time. A bright winter's room: its owner had a Southern taste for hot, heartsome colors, you could be sure, and would bring heat and flavor into his life, too. There were soft astral lamps, and a charred red fire, a warm, unstingy glow, wasting itself even in long streams of light through the cold windows. There were bright bits of Turnerish pictures on the gray walls, a mass of gorgeous autumn-leaves in the soft wool of the carpet, a dainty white-spread table in the middle of the room, jars of flowers everywhere, flowers that had caught most passion and delight from the sun,—scarlet and purple fuchsias, heavy-breathed heliotrope. Yet Grey bent longest over her own flower, that every childlike soul loves best,—mignonette. She chose some of its brown sprigs to fasten in her hair, the fragrance was so clean and caressing. Paul Blecker, even at the other end of the field, and in the gathering twilight, caught a glimpse of his wife's face pressed against the pane. It was altered: the contour more emphatic, the skin paler, the hazel eyes darker, lighted from farther depths. No glow of color, only in the meaning lips and the fine reddish hair.

Doctor Blecker stopped to help a stout little lady out of a buggy at the stile, then sent the boy to the stable with it: it was his own, with saddle-bags under the seat. But there was a better-paced horse in the shafts than suited a heavy country-practice. The lady looked at it with one eye shut.

"A Morgan-Cottrell, eh? I know by the jaw,"—jogging up the stubble-field beside him, her fat little satchel rattling as she walked. Doctor Blecker, a trifle graver and more assured than when we saw him last, sheltered her with his overcoat from the wind, taking it off for that purpose by the stile. You could see that this woman was one of the few for whom he had respect.

"Your wife understands horses, Doctor. And dogs. I did not expect it of Grey. No. There's more outcome in her than you give her credit for,"—turning sharply on him.

He smiled quietly, taking her satchel to carry.

"When we came to Pittsburg, I said to Pratt, 'I'll follow you to New York in a day or two, but I'm going now to see Paul Blecker's little wife. She's sound, into the marrow.' And I'll tell you, too, what I said to Pratt. 'That is a true marriage, heart and soul and ways of thinking. God fitted those two into one another.' Some matches, Doctor Blecker, put me in mind of my man Kellar, making ready the axes for winter's work, little head on big heft, misjoined always: in consequence, thing breaks apart with no provocation whatever. "When God wants work done down here, He makes His axes better,—eh?"

There was a slight pause.

"Maybe, now, you'll think I take His name in vain, using it so often. But I like to get at the gist of a matter, and I generally find God has somewhat to do with everything,—down to the pleasement, to me, of my bonnet: or the Devil,—which means the same, for he acts by leave.—Where did you get that Cottrell, Doctor? From Faris? Pha! pha! Grey showed me the look in his face this morning, innocent, naïf, as all well-blooded horses' eyes are. Like her own, eh? I says to Pratt, long ago,—twenty he was then,—'When you want a wife, find one who laughs out from her heart, and see if dogs and horses kinsfolk with her: that's your woman to marry, if they do.'"

They had stopped by the front-steps for her to finish her soliloquy. Grey tapped on the window-pane.

"Yes, yes, I see. You want to go in. But first,"—lowering her voice,—"I was at the Gurney house this evening."

"You were?" laughed the Doctor, "And what did you do there?"

"Eh? What? Something is needed to be done, and I—Yes, I know my reputation,"—her face flushing.

"You strike the nails where they are needed,—what few women do, Mrs. Sheppard," said the Doctor, trying to keep his face grave. "Strike them on the head, too."

"Umph!"

No woman likes to be classed properly,—no matter where she belongs.

"I never interfere, Doctor Blecker; I may advise. But, as I was going to say, that father of Grey's seemed to me such a tadpole of a man, rooting after tracks of lizards that crept ages ago, while the country is going to mash, and his own children next door to starvation, I thought a little plain talk would try if it was blood or water in his veins. So I went over to spend the day there on purpose to give it to him."

"Yes. Well?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I see. Then you tried Joseph?"

"No, he is in able hands. That Loo is a thorough-pacer,—after my own heart.—Talking of your family, my dear," as Grey opened the door. "Loo will do better for them than you. Pardon me, but a lot of selfish men in a family need to be treated like Pen here, when his stomach is sour. Give them a little wholesome alkali: honey won't answer."

Grey only laughed. Some day, she thought, when her father had completed his survey of the coal-formation, and Joseph had induced Congress to stop the war, people would appreciate them. So she took off Mrs. Sheppard's furs and bonnet, and smoothed the two black shiny puffs of hair, passing her husband with only a smile, as a stranger was there, but his dressing-gown and slippers waited by the fire.

"Paul may be at home before you," she said, nodding to them.

Grey had dropped easily through that indefinable change between a young girl and a married woman: her step was firmer, her smile freer, her head more quietly poised. Some other change, too, in her look, showed that her affections had grown truer and wider of range than before. Meaner women's hearts contract after marriage about their husband and children, like an India-rubber ball thrown into the fire. Hers would enter into his nature as a widening and strengthening power. Whatever deficiency there might be in her brain, she would infuse energy into his care for people about him,—into his sympathy for his patients; in a year or two you might be sure he would think less of Paul Blecker per se, and hate or love fewer men for their opinions than he did before.

The supper, a solid meal always in these houses, was brought in. Grey took her place with a blush and a little conscious smile, to which Mrs. Sheppard called Doctor Blecker's attention by a pursing of her lips, and then, tucking her napkin under her chin, prepared to do justice to venison and biscuits. She sipped her coffee with an approving nod, dear to a young housekeeper's soul.

"Good! Grey begins sound, at the foundations, in cooking, Doctor. No shams, child. Don't tolerate them in housekeeping. If not white sugar, then no cake. If not silver, then not albata. So you're coming with me to New York, my dear?"

Grey's face flushed.

"Paul says we will go."

"Sister there? Teaching, did you say?"

Doctor Blecker's moustache worked nervously. Lizzy Gurney was not of his kind; now, more than ever, he would have cut every tie between her and Grey, if he could. But his wife looked up with a smile.

"She is on the stage,—Lizzy. The opera,—singing;—in choruses only, now,—but it will be better soon."

Mrs. Sheppard let her bit of bread fall, then ate it with a gulp. Why, every drop of the Shelby blood was clean and respectable; it was not easy to have an emissary of hell, a tawdry actress, brought on the carpet before her, with even this mild flourish of trumpets.

The silence grew painful. Grey glanced around quickly, then her Welsh blood made her eyelids shake a little, and her lips shut. But she said gently,—

"My sister is not albata ware,—that you hate, Mrs. Sheppard. She is no sham. When God said to her, 'Do this thing,' she did not ask the neighbors to measure it by their rule of right and wrong."

"Well, well, little Grey,"—with a forbearing smile,—"she is your sister,—you're a clannish body. Your heart's all right, my dear,"—patting the hard nervous hand that lay on the table,—"but you never studied theology, that's clear."

"I don't know."

Mrs. Blecker's face grew hot; but that might have been the steam of the coffee-urn.

"We'll be just to Lizzy," said her husband, gravely. "She had a hurt lately. I don't think she values her life for much now. It is a hungry family, the Gurneys,"—with a quizzical smile. "My wife, here, kept the wolf from the door almost single-handed, though she don't understand theology. You are quite right about that. When I came home here two months ago, she would not be my wife; there was no one to take her place, she said. So, one day, when I was in my office alone, Lizzy came to me, looking like a dead body out of which the soul had been crushed. She had been hurt, I told you:—she came to me with an open letter in her hand. It was from the manager of one of the second-rate opera-troupes. The girl can sing, and has a curious dramatic talent, her only one.

"'It is all I am capable of doing,' she said. 'If I go, Grey can marry. The family will have a sure support.'

"Then she folded the letter into odd shapes, with an idiotic look.

"'Do you want me to answer it?' I asked.

"'Yes, I do. Tell him I'll go. Grey can be happy then, and the others will have enough to eat. I never was of any use before.'

"I knew that well enough. I sat down to write the letter.