alluded to as “good folks,” “true blue,” “solid people,” “ideal husband and wife,” or “salt of the earth.”
Each year they gave a round sum to the church, and Martin took caustic gratification in the fact that, although his attitude toward it and religion was well known, he too was counted as one of the fold. To do its leaders justice, he admitted that this might have been partly through their hesitancy to hurt Rose who was always to be found in the thick of its sale-dinners, bazaars and sociables. How she was able to accomplish so much without neglecting her own heavy duties, which now included cooking, washing, mending and keeping in order the old shack for the hired men, was a topic upon which other women feasted with appreciative gusto, especially at missionary meetings when she was not present. It really was extraordinary how much she managed to put into a day. Early as Martin was up to feed his stock, she was up still earlier that she might lend a hand to a neighbor, harrowed by the fear that gathered fruit might perish. Late as he plowed, in the hot summer evenings, her sweaty fingers were busy still later with patching, brought home to boost along some young wife struggling with a teething baby. She seemed never too rushed to tuck in an extra baking for someone even more rushed than herself, or to make delicious broths and tasty dishes for sick folk. In her quiet way, she became a real power, always in demand, the first to be entrusted with sweet secrets, the first to be sent for in paralysing emergencies and moments of sorrow. The warmth of heart which Martin ridiculed and resented, intensified by its very repression, bubbled out to others in cheery helpfulness, and blessed her quick tears.
Of her deep yearning for love, she never spoke. Just when she would begin to feel almost self-sufficient it would quicken to a throbbing ache. Usually, at such times, she buried it determinedly under work. But one day, yielding to an impulse, she wrote to Norah asking if her little namesake could come for a month’s visit.
“I know she is only seven,” the letter ran, “but I am sure if she were put in care of the conductor she would come through safely, and I do so want to see her.” After long hesitation, she enclosed a check to cover expenses. She was half frightened by her own daring and did not tell Martin until she had received the reply giving the date for the child’s arrival.
“I earned that, Martin,” she returned determinedly to his emphatic remonstrance. “And when the check comes in it’s going to be honored.”
“A Wade check is always honored,” was his cryptic assertion. “I merely say,” he added more calmly, “that if we are to board her, and I don’t make any protest over that at all, it seems to me only fair that her father should have bought the ticket.”
“Maybe you’re right—in theory. But then she simply couldn’t have come and I’ve never seen her. I first knew of her the very day you asked me to marry you. I’ve thought of her, often and often. Her mother named her after me and calls her `Little Rose of Sharon, Illinois’.”
“Another rag-weed, probably,” said Martin, shortly. Yet, to his own surprise, he was not altogether sorry she was to come—this house of his had never had a child in it for more than a few hours. He was rather curious to find out how it would seem. If only her name were not Rose, and if only she were not coming from Sharon.
But little Rose, with her dark brown curls, merry expression, roguish nose and soft radiance swept all his misgivings and prejudices before her. One might as well hold grudges against a flower, he thought. He liked the confiding way she had of suddenly slipping her little hand into his great one. Her prattle amused him, and he was both flattered and worried by the fearlessness with which she followed him everywhere. She seemed to bring a veritable shower of song into this home of long silences. The very chaos made Mrs. Wade’s heart beat tumultuously, and once when Martin came upon the little girl seated solemnly in the midst of a circle of corncob dolls, his throat contracted with an extraordinary tightness.
“You really are a rose—a lovely, sweet brown Rose of Sharon,” he had exclaimed, forgetting his wife’s presence and not stopping to think how strange the words must sound on his lips. “If you’ll give me a kiss, I’ll let you ride on old Jettie.”
The child scrambled to her feet and, seated on his broad shoulder, granted the demand for toll. Her aunt’s eyes filled. This was the first time she had ever heard Martin ask for something as sentimental as a kiss. She was thoroughly ashamed of herself for it—it was really too absurd!—but she felt jealousy, an emotion that had never bothered her since they had been married. And this bit of chattering femininity had caused it. Mrs. Wade worked faster.
The kiss was like the touch of silk against Martin’s cheek. He felt inexplicably sad as he put the child down again among her playthings. There was, he realized with a shock, much that he was missing, things he was letting work supplant. He wished that boy of theirs could have lived. All might have been different. He had almost forgotten that disappointment, had never understood until this moment what a misfortune it had been, and here he was being gripped by a more poignant sense of loss than he had ever before felt, even when he had lost his mother.
Wonderful as little Rose was, she was not his own. But, he wondered suddenly, wasn’t this aching sense of need perhaps something utterly different from unsatisfied paternal instinct? He turned his head toward the kitchen where his Rag-weed was working and asked himself if she were gone and some other woman were here—such as little Rose might be when she grew up, one to whom he went out spontaneously, would not his life be more complete and far more worth while? What a fool he was, to bother his head with such get-nowhere questions! He dismissed them roughly, but new processes of thought had been opened, new emotions awakened. Meanwhile, little Rose’s response to his clumsy tenderness taught him many unsuspected lessons. He never would have believed the pleasure there could be in simply watching a child’s eyes light with glee over a five-cent bag of candy. It began to be a regular thing for him to bring one home from Fallon, each trip, and the gay hunts that followed as she searched for it—sometimes to find the treasure in Martin’s hat, sometimes under the buggy seat, sometimes in a knobby hump under the table-cloth at her plate—more than once brought his rare smile. For years afterward, the memory of one evening lingered with him. He was resting in an old chair tipped back against the house, thinking deeply, when the little girl, tired from her play, climbed into his lap and, making a cozy nest for herself in the crook of his arm, fell asleep. He had finished planning out the work upon which he had been concentrating and had been about to take her into the house when he suddenly became aware of the child’s loveliness. In the silvery moonlight all the fairy, flower-like quality of her was enhanced. Martin studied her closely, reverently. It was his first conscious worship of beauty. Leaning down to the rosy lips he listened to the almost imperceptible breathing; he touched the long, sweeping lashes resting on the smooth cheeks and lifted one of the curls the wind had been ruffling lightly against his face. With his whole soul, he marvelled at her softness and relaxation. A profound, pitying rebellion gripped him at the idea that anything so sweet, so perfect must pass slowly through the defacing furnaces of time and pain. “Little Rose of Sharon!” he thought gently, conscious of an actual tearing at his heart, even a startling stinging in his eyes. With an abruptness that almost awakened her, he carried her in to his wife.
Mrs. Wade felt an inexplicable hurt at the decidedness of little Rose’s preference for Martin. She could not understand it. She took exquisite care of her, cooked the things she liked best, let her mess to her heart’s content in the kitchen, made her dolls pretty frocks, cuddled her, told her stories and stopped her work to play with her on rainy days—but she could not win the same affection the little girl bestowed so lavishly on Martin. If left to herself she was always to be found with the big, silent man.
As the month’s visit lengthened into three, it was astonishing what good times they had together. If he was pitching hay, her slender little figure, short dress a-flutter, was to be seen standing on the fragrant wagonload. At threshing time, she darted lightly all over the separator, Martin’s watchful eye constantly upon her, and his protective hand near her. She went with him
