Mrs Flint's Married Experience.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 429, 4 August 1904, Page 2

Mrs Flint's Married Experience.

IV.—(Continued.) Mindwell looked up at him with all her heart in her eyes, but she said nothing, and he gave a shy laugh: their deep love for each other was ' a fountain shut up,' and sj far no angel had rolled away the stone and given it visible life; it was still voiceless and Bleeping. Before her wedding day was over Mrs. Flint's new life began, for Polly Morse had been sent off the night before, being the end of an even week, leßt she might charge ninepenca for an extra day; eo her successor without wages had to lay aside her plum-coiored silk, put on a ealiminco petticoat and short gown, and proceed to get supper, while Polly, leaning over the half-door of the old red house which she shared with the riilsge tailoreas, exchanged pungent remarks with old Israel on the topic of the day in Baesett. 'No, they didn't make no weddin', Israel; there wasn't nobody aaked/nor no loaf-cake made for her; he wouldn't hear to't, noway. I'a have staid and fixed up for her to-day, but he was bound I shouldn't. As for me, I'm most amazing glad to get hum, now 111 tell ye. I'd a sight ruther be in Simsbary prison for a spell, if it wasn't for the name on't.' ' Say, Folly, do yon call to mind what I said three weeks back about Miss Flint coming home P Oh, ye do, do ye P Well, I ain't nobody's fool, be IP I guess I can see through a millstone, providing the hole's big enough, as well as the next man. I'm what ye may call mighty obsarving, now. I can figger considerable well on folks, ef I can't on arithmetic, and I know'd jest as well when I see him rigged up in his Sabbath-day go-to-meetings, and his nose pointed for Colebrook, what he was up* to, as though I heerd him a-iaking her to hev him.' •Well, I never did think Sarepty Gold would demean herself to have bim. Sne'a got means and a real good home, and Mindwell 86ts a sight by hex, and so does Sam Pratt; but here she's ben and gone and done it. I wouldn't have thought it, not if the angel Gabriel had have told me on't I*

'Guess he's in better business than going round with Bassett gossip, anyhow, but what- was jou so took back bj? Lordy! I should think you was old enough to git oyer being surprised at womenfolks } them and the weather is two things I don't never calculate on. You can't no more tell what a woman 'll do, especially about marrying, than you can tell which way in the road a pig 'll go; onless you work it baokwaid, same as some folks tell they drive a pig, and then tain't reel reliable—they may go right ahead when you don't a mite expect it.' 'That is one thing about men, I allow, Israel; you can always tell which way they'll go for sartain, and that is after their own advantage, and nobody else's now and forever.'

'Amen! They'd be all fools, like me, if they didn't/ assented the old man with a dry chuckle aa he drove off his empty cart Yet, for all his sneers and sniffy neither Polly nor the new Mrs Flint had a truer friend than Israel; rough as he was, satiric as a chestnut burr that sho wa nil its prickles in open defiance, conscious of a sweet white heart within, hm words only were bitter, his nature was generous, kindly, and perceptive; he had become the peripatetic satirist and philosopher that ha was out of this very nature, * Dowered with a ssorn of soorn, a love of love,*'

and free with the freedom of independent poverty to expiate pungently what he felt poignantly, being in his own kind and measure the 'salt of the earth' to Baiset. But in spite of comment and pity, the thing was a fixed faot Mrs Flint's married life had begun under new auspices, and it was not a path of roses upon which she had entered. Her housekeeping had always been frugal, with the thrift that is or was characteristic of her race; but it had been abundant for the wants of her family. The viands she provided were those of the place and period, single and primitive enough; but the great brick oven was well filled with light bread of wheat and rye both; pies of whatever material was in season, whose flaky crußt and well-fllled interiors testified to her knowledge of the art; deep dishes of baked beans, jars of winter peais, pans of golden sweet apples, and cards of yellow gingerbread, with rows of snowy and puffy biscuit. Ede and Sylvia knew very well where to find crisp cookies and fat nut cakes, and pie was reiterated three • times a day on Sam Pratt's table. It was a part of her 'pride of life' that she was a good housekeeper, and Mindwell had given her the widest liberty; bnt now the tide had changed* She ax>n found that Deacon Flint's parsimony extended into every detail. Her pies were first assailed: ' Sarepty, don't make them pies o' your'n so all-fired rich. They ain't good tor the stomach; besides, they nee up all the drippin's, and you had ought to make soap next month. Pie is gocd, and I think it's saving of meat; bnt it pampers up the flesh, too good living does, and we hev got to give an account, ye know, l don't mean to have no wicked waste laid to my account.' So sne left out half the shortening from her crust, and felt ashamed to see the tough substance this economy produced. Next came the sugar question : •We buy too much oweetening, Sarepty, There's a keg of tree molatctß down cellar. I expect it's worked some, bnt you jest take and bile it up, and stir considerable saleratua into it, and it'll do. I wait to get along jest as reasonable as we can. Willful waste makes woful want, ye know.*

Tet in hia own way the deacon wag giMdy enough- He had the insatiable appetite that belongs to people 0 f hia figure fax mozo often than the stout 'He's a real racer/ said.(Jacle Israel,

By Rose Terry Cooke

reverting to his own experience in pigs—-'slab-sided and lank. I bat you could count his ribs this minnit; and that's the kind you can teed till the day after never, and they won't do ye no credit. I never see a man could punish vittles the way he can; but there ain't no more fat to bim than there is to a hen's forehead.' Mrs Fiint was not 'hungery nor hankering,* as Bhe expressed it, bat a reasonable eater of plain food; but the deacon's mode of procedure was peculiar. : - 'Say, Sarepty, don't bile but a small piece of pork with that cabbage to-day. I've got a pain to my head, and I don't feel no appetite, and cold pork gets eat up for supper when there ain't no need on't,'

Obeying instructions, tha small piece of fat pork would be cooked, and. oioe at the table, transferred bodily to the deacon's plate. ' Seems as though my appetite had reely come back. I guess 'twas a hungry headache.' And the tired woman had to make her dinner from cabbage and potatoes, seasoned with the salt and greasy water in which they had been cooked.

There were no amusements for her out of the bouse. The younger people bad their berrying frolics, sleigh-rides, kitchen dances, nuttings, and the like, and their elders their huakings, apple bees, and sewing societies, but against all these the deacon set his hard face.

' It's jest as good to do your own extry ehoreß yourself as to ask folks to oome and help. That costs more'n it oomes to. You've got to feed 'em, and like enough keep a big fire up in the spare room. I'd ruther be diligent in business, as Soripter says, than depend on neighbors,'

Another woman in her place might have had spirit or guile enough to have resisted the pressure under which she only quailed and submitted. She was one of those feeble souls to whom a hard word is like a blow, and who will bear anything and everything rather than be found fault with, and who necessarily become drudges and slaves to those with whom they live, and ate despised and ill-treated simply because they are incapable of resentment. There are some persons who stand in this position not eo much from want of strength as from abounding and eager .affection for those whom they serve, and /their suffering, when they discover how vain has been their labor and self-stcrifice, is known only to Him who was

' At once denied, betrayed, and flsd By those who shared his daily bread.' Bat Mrs Flint had no affsclion for her husband; she married him because it seemed- a good thing to do, and obeyed him beoause he was her husband, as was the custom in those days. So she toiled on dumbly from day to day, half fed, overworked, desperately lonely, but still uncomplaining, for her constitution was naturally strong, and nerves wen unrecognised then. Her only comfort was the rare visits of her children. Mindwell found it hard to leave home, but snspioiocs of her mother's comfort, she made every effort to see her as often as possible, and always to carry her some little present—a dozen fresh eggs, which the poor woman boiled privately, and ate between her scanty meals, a few peaches, or a little loaf of cake—small gifis, merely to demonstrate her feeling. She did not know what good purpose they garved, for Mrs Flint did not tell har daughter what she endured. She remembered too well how Mindwell had begged her to delay aud consider her marriage, and she would not own to her now that she had made any mistake, for Mrs Flint had as much human nature in her composition as the rest of us; and who does like to hear even, their dearest friend Bay, «I told you so' P Matters went on in this way for five years, every day beiHg a little more weary and dreary than the preceding. The plum-colored paduasoy still did duty as the Sunday gown, for non* of her own money ever paessd into Mrs Flint's hands. By this time she understood fully what her ante-nuptial contract meant. She had her living, and no more. People could live without finery, even without warmth; a stuff gown of coarse linseywoolsey for winter wear replaced the soft meriHOts she had always bought for that purpose, and homespun linen check was serviceable in summer, though it kept her busy at flax-wheel and loom many an hour. She had outlived the early forbearances of her married life, and learned to ask, to beg, to persist in entreating for what she absolutely needed, for only in this way could she get her «living.' Her OBly vivid pleasure was in occoasional visits from Ede and Sylvia—lovely little creatures in whom their mother's beauty of character and their father's cheery, genial nature seemed to combine, and wi«h so much of Mind well's delicate loveliness, hez sweet dark eyes contrasted with the fair hair of their father's family, that to jjrandmotherly eyes they seemed perfectly beautiful. For them the poor woman schemed, and toiled, and grew secretive. She hid a ccmb of honey sometimes, when the deacon's back was turned, and kept it for Sylvia, who loved honey like a real bee-bird; ehe stored up red pearmains in the parlor closet for Ede; and when Sam Pratt went into Hartford with a load of wool, and brought the children as far as Bacsott to stay at Deacon Flint's overnight, the poor woman would make for them gingerbread such as they remembered, and savory cookies that they loved, though she encountered hard looks and hard words too for wasting her husband's substance on another man's children.

Eda, who had a ready memory and a fluent tongue, was the first to report to Mindwell these oommeate of • Qrandair Flint,' ib they were taught to call him. 'Oh, mother,' sbo exclaimed, 'I do

think grandsir ia real mean I' •Edy, Kdy, yon musn't talk eo about your elders and bettors.' • I can't help it,' chattered on the irrepressible child. 'What did he want to come into the kitchen for when granny was giving ua sapper, and scold beoansa she made cookies for na P Granny 'most cried, and he kept teUin' how h'd said before she shouldn't do it, and he wouldn't hare it.'

'Don't talk about it, Edy, said her mother, fulljof grief and indignation. * Mother, if s true, I heard him too,' interposed Sylvia, who thought Edy's word was doubted, for the voluble and outspoken child was a little apt to embellish her reports. ' Well, Sylvy, dear, it isn't best to talk about a good maay things that are true.* Bat for all that, Mind well did die dues the matter with Sam before she slept, in that 'grand committee of two' which is the strength and oomfort of a happy marriage. ' What ever can wa do about it, Sam P' she said, with tears in her voice. ' 1 can't bear to keep the children to home—mother sets by 'm like her life—but if they're going to make trouble between her and Dtaoon Flint, don't you think I had ought to prevent their going there P' 'Well, it does seem hard on mother every way, but I guesß I can fix it. You know we had a heap of wheat off that east lot last year, and I've sent it to mill to be ground up for us. I guess I'll take and send a barrel on't over to mother for a present. The deacon won't mistrust nothing, nor he can't say nothing about her using on't for the children.'

. 'That's the very thing,' said Mindwell. And so it was, for that small trouble; yet that was only a drop in the bucket. After a few years of real privation, and a worse hunger of spirit, Mrs Flint's health began to fail- She grew nervous and irritable, and the deacon browbeat her mere than 'ever. Her temper had long since failed under tha hourly exasperation of her husband's companionship, and she had become as ocobs, as peevish, and a3 exasperating herself as a feebls niture can become under such a pressure. ' I never see nobody so changed as MiBS Flint is,' confided Aunt Folly to old Israel. 'l've always heerd tell that 'flictions waa sent for folk's good, bather'n don't seem to work that way a mite.' •Well. Polly, I expect there's a reel vital difference in 'flictions, jest as there is in folks. She picked her'n up, as you may say, when she married bim; 'twan't reel; the Lord's sending; she no need to have married him if she hadn't been a mind to.'

' I sorter thought the Lord sent everything 't happened to folks.' * Well, in a manner mabbe He doos, but don't ye rek'lett what David said, how'd he'd ruther fall inter the hands of the Lord than inter men's P I expect we're to blame for willful sins, ain't we P Aud I gneva we fetch 'flictions on ourselves scmatimes.'

' I doa't see how you make them idees jibe with 'lection and fore-ordination,' rejoined Aunt Polly, who was a zealous theologian, and believed the Saybrook Platform and the Assembly's Catechism to be merely a ekillf nl abridgment and condensation of Scripture. * I don' know as I'm called to. Polly, I don't believe the Lord's ways is jest like a primer, for everybody to learn rigut off. I shouldn't have no great respect for a Baler and Governor, as the Coafession sez, that wasn't no bigger'n I was. Land! ef I was to set sail on them seas of divinity, I should be snooped up in the fust gale, and drowned - right off. I believe He is good, and does right anyhow. Ef I can't Bee tbe way on't, why, it's because my spiritooal eyes ain't big enough, I can't see into some littler things than Him, and I don't hold to taking up the sea in a pint cup; 't won't carry it nohow.' With which aphorism old Israel travelled off with his barrow, leaving Polly amaz:-d and shocked, bat perhaps a little wiser after all.

Just about this time a cousin of Deacon Flint's died 'over in York State,' aa he said, and left him guardian of her only daughter, a girl of eighteen. A couple of thousand dollars was all the property that the widow Eldridge had to give her child, for they had both worked hard for their living after the husband and father left them, and this money was the price of the farm which had been sold at his death It was something to gel; so much cash into bis own hands, and the deacon accordingly wrote at once to MaDel, and offered her a home in his house, intimating that the interest of her money not being enough to board and clothe her, he would, out of family affection, supply these necessities for that inadequate turn, if she was will, ing to help a little about the house. Mabel was friendless enough to grasp eagerly this hops of a home, and very soon the stage stopped at Deacon Flint's door, and a new inmate entered his house.

Mabel Eldridge was a capable, spirited, handsome girl, and before she had been a week in the Fiint family understood her position, and resolved only to endure it till something better could be found, In her heart she pitied Aunt Flint, as she called her, as much as Bhe detested the deacon, and her fresh girlish heart fairly ached with compassion and indignation over the poor woman, But Bhe was a great comfort and help while she stayed, and though she made that stay as short as possible, and utterly refused to give up her savingß-bank beck to the deacon, who was unable legally to claim it, since her mother left no will, having only asked him in a letter written before her death, to act as Mabel's guardian. Her three months' sojourn in the house made her thoroughly aware of Deacon Flint's character and his wife's Bufferings. She could not biame Mrs Flint that she snapped back at the deacon's snarls, or complained long and bitterly of her wants and distresses.

'Ton doa't know nothing what it is, Mabel,' she eaii one day, sobbißg bitterly. 'l'm pafe npon eo hard. I want for cloth6s, and for Tittles, and for some time to rest, so'a't I doa't know but what 'twill clean kill me; and if it wasn't for the childern, I'd wish to die; bnc Ido cteave to them amaz'ngly.' Indignant tews filled Mal'j eyes. *I don't kaow how you bear it, aunty,' she said, putting her arms about the old lady's neck. ' Can't you get away from him anjhow f'

' I could, but I suppose I hadn't ought to. There's a house on my farm that ain't going to be in use come aezt April. Hiram Smith, him that's rented it along back, waata Borne repairing done on t, and Mr Flint won't hear to't, so Hi he's been and gone and bonght a piece of ground aorost the road, and put up a building for himself. He's got a Ion? lease of the land, but he don't want the house no more, and he won't pay for't. I B'pose I might move over there for a spell, and have some p*acej there's enough old furnitoor there that was father's; but then, agin, I do Bupposa I haven't no light to leave my husband.' (To be continued.)