The Wind Before the Dawn. Dell H. Munger
all. The house in which he had placed her was attractive and on a good street, but the men whom he met at the State House soon saw that nothing was to be gained through knowing Nathan Hornby, and failed to ask their wives to call upon his wife.
Disaster is in exact ratio to our valuation of things. Although Nathan Hornby had lost three fourths of his land, his reputation as a business man and politician, and his faith in men, he still had left the one essential gift which should have helped him to win again all that which he had lost. Susan Hornby, like Ruth of old, abandoned all else and abode with her husband in love, cheering him at each problematical step, and saying as they returned from the notary’s office after signing away their land to a stranger:
“Never mind, Nate, there are only two of us,” and for the first time since their little daughter had been taken from them, he had replied:
“Yes, only two, thank God!” and had kissed awkwardly the hand laid over his mouth, and Susan had seen the glitter of a tear on his faded lashes, the first in many years.
Susan knew that Nathan would never forget the failures of that year, but she also knew that the comfort of accustomed activities would help to fill his mind and keep his thoughts from sore introspection. Here in Topeka there was nothing to do but cogitate and reflect. It was therefore a relief to her when Elizabeth received a letter from her mother summoning her home to teach a spring term of school. While at any other time she would have been filled with indignation at the recall of Elizabeth just as she was beginning to get settled to her new work, Susan Hornby felt that Elizabeth needed education less at this point than Nathan needed the busy seeding season to occupy his troubled thoughts.
CHAPTER III
REFORMS NOT EASY TO DISCUSS
Elizabeth kept her tears and regrets to herself. She cried them out on her pillow that night, all the disappointments and handicaps of that wonderful year of experience and aspiration, but as she cried she planned the arrangements of her going.
The letter was received on Thursday night; Elizabeth decided that she would go for her books the next day, and say her farewells to desk, recitation room, and the halls that had been dear to her. When Elizabeth was called to the blackboard that afternoon to explain a problem in algebra, the board, the pointer, the very chalk in her fingers cried aloud their unity with her life and thought, and she sat down when it was over with a great throbbing in her throat and ears, and a sense of overwhelming disaster.
As Elizabeth carried her books home under her arm, bulging out one side of her circular like an unevenly inflated pudding-bag, the throbbing continued, and she turned into the less frequented streets with the certainty that she was going to disgrace herself with tears shed publicly. It had been a trying day, and in spite of all efforts her emotions broke loose before she could gain the shelter of home. Hurrying blindly to get the last block covered, she nearly dropped her books as she turned the corner.
“The Unknown” was coming toward her!
Her startled glance of recognition was so unexpectedly open that he thought that he had probably met her. He looked puzzled, but lifted his hat as she hurried past him, wiping the tears from her face with her free hand.
A boy called from across the street an instant later.
“Oh, Hugh, I’m coming over for some help on that chem. ex. to-night.”
“All right,” came the answer from “The Unknown,” and mixed with Elizabeth’s mortifying confusion was a quick thrill at knowing his name.
“Hugh!”
No opportunity had ever come to meet him or to find out what his name might be. Elizabeth was conscious that her life on the farm had made of her an impossible mate for this young man who, even among the young men of the city, was set apart by a peculiar grace and culture. She remembered the hat which had not merely been lifted from the head, but had been carried below the chin as he bowed distantly, and also the well-bred curiosity of his look. The rest of the leave-taking was made easier by having met him, and received his bow, and acquired the glorious, mystical knowledge of his name.
To round out the experiences of the winter, fate decreed that Mr. Farnshaw could not come for her, and the glitter of the inside of a railway coach, with its brass lamps, plush seats, and polished woods, was added to her experimental knowledge. Luther was somehow connected in her mind with the day’s experiences and she wished devoutly that she could talk to him about the disappointment of leaving her school before the end of the term, and of this journey home on the train, and of Hugh. Yes, Elizabeth would have told Luther even of Hugh. Luther Hansen was to Elizabeth Farnshaw unchanged and unchangeable. The transformations of her own life did not call for any such transformations in him. He was Luther. It had been his mental processes which had won and now sustained her attachment for him. Their two minds had worked together as one mind while they had struggled with the innocent problems of their childhood days, and Elizabeth still felt incomplete without him. She had been less conscious of Luther’s absence the first year than at any time since his going away, but in Topeka, and now that she was approaching the scene of their association together, Elizabeth wanted him with a depth of homesickness she had never felt before. It was hard to go back to the old battleground and not find him there. The prospects in store for her at home made her shrink. Elizabeth fell to wondering if any improvement in that home were possible. She had had them quite cheerfully in mind all winter, but now that the distance between her home and herself lessened rapidly a feeling of inadequacy came upon her, and the glitter of the wonderful coach in which she was riding was forgotten. Could she help? The only thing that was very clear to her was that much patience would be necessary. At Uncle Nathan’s they had been gentle and loving and tolerant.
“Can I make them see it—and see how?” she asked herself so many times that the wheels beneath her took up the refrain.
“Gentle and loving and tolerant—gentle and loving and tolerant—gentle and loving and tolerant,” they sang for miles as she sat with her young brow puckered into a deep frown.
The realities of life were thrust into the foreground the moment Elizabeth arrived, and for new reasons she missed Luther. Mr. Farnshaw resented the new circular.
“Is that th’ damned fool kind of coat she was talkin’ about?” he inquired as his daughter alighted from the farm wagon at the kitchen door that afternoon. “It ain’t got no warmth,” he added scornfully. “Th’ ain’ nothin’ to it but looks, an’ not much of that. What ’d y’ you do with th’ coat you had?”
The old heartsickening contention had begun.
“I’ve got it.”
“Well, you see that you wear it and don’t go makin’ a fool out of yourself around here. I’d ’a’ kept my money if I’d ’a’ knowed it was goin’ t’ be put into a thing that’d swell up in th’ wind like a balloon.”
Mrs. Farnshaw saw the look that swept over Elizabeth’s face and instinctively ranged herself on the side of the young girl. She saw with a woman’s eyes the style in the garment and its importance in her daughter’s appearance. When Elizabeth took it off her mother took it to the bedroom to put it away, remarking in a whisper that it made her look quite like a school-teacher ought to look. She was secretly glad that her daughter had it, since it was already paid for and she did not have to make it. It would be the most observed wrap in the schoolhouse the next Sunday if she could only persuade Elizabeth to go to meeting. The metal clasp had virtues all its own.
“I think it’s ever so much more stuck-up than if it had buttons,” she whispered.
The undertone rasped on Elizabeth’s nerves. Aunt Susan never differed with Uncle