PART IV.
SIM BURNS'S WIFE: A PRAIRIE HEROINE
A tale of toil that's never done I tell; Of life where love's a fleeting wing Above the woman's hopeless hell Of ceaseless, year-round journeying.
SIM BURNS'S WIFE.
I.
Lucretia Burns had never been handsome, even in her days of earlygirlhood, and now she was middle-aged, distorted with work andchild-bearing, and looking faded and worn as one of the boulders thatlay beside the pasture fence near where she sat milking a large whitecow.
She had no shawl or hat and no shoes, for it was still muddy in thelittle yard, where the cattle stood patiently fighting the flies andmosquitoes swarming into their skins, already wet with blood. Theevening was oppressive with its heat, and a ring of just-seenthunder-heads gave premonitions of an approaching storm.
She rose from the cow's side at last, and, taking her pails of foamingmilk, staggered toward the gate. The two pails hung from her lean arms,her bare feet slipped on the filthy ground, her greasy and faded calicodress showed her tired, swollen ankles, and the mosquitoes swarmedmercilessly on her neck and bedded themselves in her colorless hair.
The children were quarreling at the well, and the sound of blows couldbe heard. Calves were querulously calling for their milk, and littleturkeys, lost in a tangle of grass, were piping plaintively.
The sun just setting struck through a long, low rift like a boy peepingbeneath the eaves of a huge roof. Its light brought out Lucretia's faceas she leaned her sallow forehead on the top bar of the gate and lookedtoward the west.
It was a pitifully worn, almost tragic face--long, thin, sallow,hollow-eyed. The mouth had long since lost the power to shape itselfinto a kiss, and had a droop at the corners which seemed to announce abreaking-down at any moment into a despairing wail. The collarless neckand sharp shoulders showed painfully.
She felt vaguely that the night was beautiful. The setting sun, thenoise of frogs, the nocturnal insects beginning to pipe--all in some waycalled her girlhood back to her, though there was little in her girlhoodto give her pleasure. Her large gray eyes grew round, deep and wistfulas she saw the illimitable craggy clouds grow crimson, roll slowly up,and fire at the top. A childish scream recalled her.
"Oh, my soul!" she half groaned, half swore, as she lifted her milk andhurried to the well. Arriving there, she cuffed the children right andleft with, all her remaining strength, saying in justification:
"My soul! can't you--you young 'uns give me a minute's peace? Landknows, I'm almost gone up; washin', an' milkin' six cows, and tendin'you, and cookin' f'r _him_, ought 'o be enough f'r one day! Sadie, youlet him drink now 'r I'll slap your head off, you hateful thing! Whycan't you behave, when you know I'm jest about dead?" She was weepingnow, with nervous weakness. "Where's y'r pa?" she asked after a moment,wiping her eyes with her apron.
One of the group, the one cuffed last, sniffed out, in rage and grief:
"He's in the cornfield; where'd ye s'pose he was?"
"Good land! why don't the man work all night? Sile, you put that dipperin that milk agin, an' I'll whack you till your head'll swim! Sadie, le'go Pet, an' go 'n get them turkeys out of the grass 'fore it gits dark!Bob, you go tell y'r dad if he wants the rest o' them cows milked he'sgot 'o do it himself. I jest can't, and what's more, I _won't_," sheended, rebelliously.
Having strained the milk and fed the children, she took some skimmedmilk from the cans and started to feed the calves bawling strenuouslybehind the barn. The eager and unruly brutes pushed and struggled to getinto the pails all at once, and in consequence spilt nearly all of themilk on the ground. This was the last trial; the woman fell down on thedamp grass and moaned and sobbed like a crazed thing. The children cameto seek her and stood around like little partridges, looking at her inscared silence, till at last the little one began to wail. Then themother rose wearily to her feet, and walked slowly back toward thehouse.
She heard Burns threshing his team at the well, with the sound of oaths.He was tired, hungry and ill-tempered, but she was too desperate tocare. His poor, overworked team did not move quickly enough for him, andhis extra long turn in the corn had made him dangerous. His eyes gleamedwrathfully from his dust-laid face.
"Supper ready?" he growled.
"Yes, two hours ago."
"Well, I can't help it!" he said, understanding her reproach. "Thatdevilish corn is gettin' too tall to plow again, and I've got 'o gothrough it to-morrow or not at all. Cows milked?"
"Part of 'em."
"How many left?"
"Three."
"Hell! Which three?"
"Spot, and Brin, and Cherry."
"_Of_ course, left the three worst ones. I'll be damned if I milk a cowto-night. I don't see why you play out jest the nights I need ye most."Here he kicked a child out of the way. "Git out o' that! Hain't you gotno sense? I'll learn ye"----
"Stop that, Sim Burns," cried the woman, snatching up the child. "You'rea reg'lar ol' hyeny,--that's what you are," she added defiantly, rousedat last from her lethargy.
"You're a--beauty, that's what _you_ are," he said, pitilessly. "Keepyour brats out f'um under my feet." And he strode off to a barn afterhis team, leaving her with a fierce hate in her heart. She heard himyelling at his team in their stalls: "Git around there, damn yeh."
The children had had their supper; so she took them to bed. She wasunusually tender to them, for she wanted to make up in some way for herprevious harshness. The ferocity of her husband had shown up her ownpetulant temper hideously, and she sat and sobbed in the darkness a longtime beside the cradle where little Pet slept.
She heard Burns come growling in and tramp about, but she did not rise.The supper was on the table; he could wait on himself. There was anawful feeling at her heart as she sat there and the house grew quiet.She thought of suicide in a vague way; of somehow taking her children inher arms and sinking into a lake somewhere, where she would never morebe troubled, where she could sleep forever, without toil or hunger.
Then she thought of the little turkeys wandering in the grass, of thechildren sleeping at last, of the quiet, wonderful stars. Then shethought of the cows left unmilked, and listened to them stirringuneasily in the yard. She rose, at last, and stole forth. She could notrid herself of the thought that they would suffer. She knew what thedull ache in the full breasts of a mother was, and she could not letthem stand at the bars all night moaning for relief.
The mosquitoes had gone, but the frogs and katydids still sang, whileover in the west Venus shone. She was a long time milking the cows; herhands were so tired she had often to stop and rest them, while the tearsfell unheeded into the pail. She saw and felt little of the external asshe sat there. She thought in vague retrospect of how sweet it seemedthe first time Sim came to see her; of the many rides to town with himwhen he was an accepted lover; of the few things he had given her--acoral breastpin and a ring.
She felt no shame at her present miserable appearance; she was pastpersonal pride. She hardly felt as if the tall, strong girl, attractivewith health and hope, could be the same soul as the woman who now sat inutter despair listening to the heavy breathing of the happy cows,grateful for the relief from their burden of milk.
She contrasted her lot with that of two or three women that she knew(not a very high standard), who kept hired help, and who had fine housesof four or five rooms. Even the neighbors were better off than she, forthey didn't have such quarrels. But she wasn't to blame--Sim didn't----Then her mind changed to a dull resentment against "things." Everythingseemed against her.
She rose at last and carried her second load of milk to the well,strained it, washed out the pails, and, after bathing her tired feet ina tub that stood there, she put on a pair of horrible shoes, withoutstockings, and crept stealthily into the house. Sim did not hear her asshe slipped up the stairs to the little low, unfinished chamber besideher oldest children. She could not bear to sleep near _him_ thatnight,--she wanted a chance to sob herself to quiet.
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nbsp; As for Sim, he was a little disturbed, but would as soon have cut offhis head as acknowledge himself in the wrong. As he went to bed, andfound her still away, he yelled up the stairway:
"Say, o' woman, ain't ye comin' to bed?" Upon receiving no answer herolled his aching body into the creaking bed. "Do as y' damn pleaseabout it. If y' want to sulk y' can." And in such wise the family grewquiet in sleep, while the moist, warm air pulsed with the ceaselesschime of the crickets.