THE spring was early that year. It was only the last of March, but the trees were filmed with green and paling with promise of bloom; the front yards were showing new grass pricking through the old. It was high time to plow the south field and the garden, but Christopher sat in his rocking-chair beside the kitchen window and gazed out, and did absolutely nothing about it.
Myrtle Dodd, Christopher's wife, washed the breakfast dishes, and later kneaded the bread, all the time glancing furtively at her husband. She had a most old-fashioned deference with regard to Christopher. She was always a little afraid of him.
Sometimes Christopher's mother, Mrs. Cyrus Dodd, and his sister Abby, who had never married, re-proached her for this attitude of mind. "You are entirely too much cowed down by Christopher,"Mrs. Dodd said.
"I would never be under the thumb of any man,"Abby said.
"Have you ever seen Christopher in one of his spells?" Myrtle would ask.
Then Mrs. Cyrus Dodd and Abby would look at each other. "It is all your fault, mother," Abby would say. "You really ought not to have allowed your son to have his own head so much.""You know perfectly well, Abby, what I had to contend against," replied Mrs. Dodd, and Abby became speechless. Cyrus Dodd, now deceased some twenty years, had never during his whole life yielded to anything but birth and death. Before those two primary facts even his terrible will was powerless. He had come into the world without his consent being obtained; he had passed in like manner from it. But during his life he had ruled, a petty monarch, but a most thorough one. He had spoiled Christopher, and his wife, although a woman of high spirit, knew of no appealing.
"I could never go against your father, you know that," said Mrs. Dodd, following up her advantage.
"Then," said Abby, "you ought to have warned poor Myrtle. It was a shame to let her marry a man as spoiled as Christopher.""I would have married him, anyway," declared Myrtle with sudden defiance; and her mother-in-law regarded her approvingly.
"There are worse men than Christopher, and Myrtle knows it," said she.
"Yes, I do, mother," agreed Myrtle. "Christo-pher hasn't one bad habit."
"I don't know what you call a bad habit," re-torted Abby. "I call having your own way in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil rather a bad habit. Christopher tramples on everything in his path, and he always has. He tramples on poor Myrtle."At that Myrtle laughed. "I don't think I look trampled on," said she; and she certainly did not.
Pink and white and plump was Myrtle, although she had, to a discerning eye, an expression which denoted extreme nervousness.
This morning of spring, when her husband sat doing nothing, she wore this nervous expression. Her blue eyes looked dark and keen; her forehead was wrinkled; her rosy mouth was set. Myrtle and Christopher were not young people; they were a little past middle age, still far from old in look or ability.
Myrtle had kneaded the bread to rise for the last time before it was put into the oven, and had put on the meat to boil for dinner, before she dared address that silent figure which had about it some-thing tragic. Then she spoke in a small voice.
"Christopher," said she.
Christopher made no reply.
"It is a good morning to plow, ain't it?" said Myrtle.
Christopher was silent.
"Jim Mason got over real early; I suppose he thought you'd want to get at the south field. He's been sitting there at the barn door for 'most two hours."Then Christopher rose. Myrtle's anxious face lightened. But to her wonder her husband went into the front entry and got his best hat. "He ain't going to wear his best hat to plow," thought Myrtle. For an awful moment it occurred to her that something had suddenly gone wrong with her husband's mind. Christopher brushed the hat care-fully, adjusted it at the little looking-glass in the kitchen, and went out.
"Be you going to plow the south field?" Myrtle said, faintly.
"No, I ain't."
"Will you be back to dinner?"
"I don't know -- you needn't worry if I'm not."Suddenly Christopher did an unusual thing for him.
He and Myrtle had lived together for years, and out-ward manifestations of affection were rare between them. He put his arm around her and kissed her.
After he had gone, Myrtle watched him out of sight down the road; then she sat down and wept.
Jim Mason came slouching around from his station at the barn door. He surveyed Myrtle uneasily.
"Mr. Dodd sick?" said he at length.
"Not that I know of," said Myrtle, in a weak quaver. She rose and, keeping her tear-stained face aloof, lifted the lid off the kettle on the stove.
"D'ye know am he going to plow to-day?"
"He said he wasn't."
Jim grunted, shifted his quid, and slouched out of the yard.
Meantime Christopher Dodd went straight down the road to the minister's, the Rev. Stephen Wheaton.
When he came to the south field, which he was neglecting, he glanced at it turning emerald upon the gentle slopes. He set his face harder. Christo-pher Dodd's face was in any case hard-set. Now it was tragic, to be pitied, but warily, lest it turn fiercely upon the one who pitied. Christopher was a handsome man, and his face had an almost classic turn of feature. His forehead was noble; his eyes full of keen light. He was only a farmer, but in spite of his rude clothing he had the face of a man who followed one of the professions. He was in sore trouble of spirit, and he was going to consult the minister and ask him for advice. Christopher had never done this before. He had a sort of in-credulity now that he was about to do it. He had always associated that sort of thing with womankind, and not with men like himself. And, moreover, Stephen Wheaton was a younger man than himself.
He was unmarried, and had only been settled in the village for about a year. "He can't think I'm com-ing to set my cap at him, anyway," Christopher reflected, with a sort of grim humor, as he drew near the parsonage. The minister was haunted by marriageable ladies of the village.
