style="font-size:15px;"> "Well, I don't know," Mr. Bowen said, opening the mouth of the horse and looking in it; "we all have our troubles, an' if it ain't one thing it's another. Now if John wasn't sick, I s'pose you'd be frettin' about somethin' else; you mustn't think you're particularly sot apart in your afflictions, any how. This rain that's getherin' is goin' to spile a couple of acres of grass for me, don't you see?"
Mrs. Walker was hurt. Her neighbor had not given her the sympathy she expected; he had not said anything about John one way nor another; had not inquired whether there was anything he could do, nor what the doctor said, nor asked any of those questions that express a kindly solicitude.
"I am sorry about your hay," she answered, "but I must be going."
"Don't want to hurry you; but if you will go, the sooner the better. That thunder-cloud is certain to bust in a few minutes." And Mr. Bowen turned toward the house.
"Wait a minute, Mrs. Walker," called a young voice, full of kindness; "here's my umberell. It'll save your bonnet, any how; and it's a real purty one. But didn't I hear you say somebody was sick over to your son's house?"
"Yes, darlin'," answered the old woman as she took the umbrella; "it's Johnny himself; he's right bad, they say. I just got word about an hour ago, and left everything, and started off. They think he's got the small-pox."
Jenny Bowen, the young girl who had brought the umbrella, looked terribly frightened. "They won't let me go over, you know," she said, nodding her head toward the house, "not if it's really small-pox!" And then, with the hope at which the young are so quick to catch, she added, "May be it isn't small-pox. I haven't heard of a case anywhere about. I don't believe it is." And then she told Mrs. Walker not to fret about home. "I will go," she said, "and milk the cow, and look after things. Don't think one thought about it." And then she asked if the rest of them at John Walker's were well.
"If it's Hobert you want to know about," the grandmother said, smiling faintly, "he's well; but, darlin', you'd better not think about him: they'll be ag'in it, in there!" and she nodded toward the house as Jenny had done before her.
The face of the young girl flushed,—not with confusion, but with self-asserting and defiant brightness that seemed to say, "Let them do their worst." The thunder rattled sharper and nearer, bursting right upon the flash of the lightning, and then came the rain. But it proved not one of those bright, brief dashes that leave the world sparkling, but settled toward sunset into a slow, dull drizzle.
Jenny had her milking, and all the other evening chores, done betimes, and with an alertness and cheerfulness in excess of her usual manner, that might have indicated an unusual favor to be asked. She had made her evening toilet; that is, she had combed her hair, tied on a pair of calf-skin shoes, and a blue checked apron, newly washed and ironed; when she said, looking toward a faint light in the west, and as though the thought had just occurred to her, "It's going to break away, I see. Don't you think, mother, I had better just run over to Mrs. Walker's, and milk her cow for her?"
"Go to Miss Walker's!" repeated the mother, as though she were as much outraged as astonished. She was seated in the door, patching, by the waning light, an old pair of mud-spattered trousers, her own dress being very old-fashioned, coarse, and scanty,—so scant, in fact, as to reveal the angles of her form with ungraceful definiteness, especially the knees, that were almost suggestive of a skeleton, and now, as she put herself in position, as it were, stood up with inordinate prominence. Her hands were big in the joints, ragged in the nails, and marred all over with the cuts, burns, and scratches of indiscriminate and incessant toil. But her face was, perhaps, the most sadly divested of all womanly charm. It had, in the first place, the deep yellow, lifeless appearance of an old bruise, and was expressive of pain, irritation, and fanatical anxiety.
"Go to Miss Walker's!" she said again, seeing that Jenny was taking down from its peg in the kitchen-wall a woollen cloak that had been hers since she was a little girl, and her mother's before her.
"Yes, mother. You know John Walker is very sick, and Mrs. Walker has been sent for over there. She's very down-hearted about him. He's dangerous, they think; and I thought may be I'd come round that way as I come home, and ask how he was. Don't you think I'd better?"
"I think you had better stay at home and tend to your own business. You'll spile your clothes, and do no good that I can see by traipsin' out in such a storm."
"Why, you would think it was bad for one of our cows to go without milking," Jenny said, "and I suppose Mrs. Walker's cow is a good deal like ours, and she is giving a pailful of milk now."
"How do you know so much about Miss Walker's cow? If you paid more attention to things at home, and less to other folks, you'd be more dutiful."
"That's true, mother, but would I be any better?"
"Not in your own eyes, child; but you're so much wiser than your father and me, that words are throwed away on you."
"I promised Mrs. Walker that I would milk for her to-night," Jenny said, hesitating, and dropping her eyes.
"O yes, you've always got some excuse! What did you make a promise for, that you knowed your father wouldn't approve of? Take your things right off now, and peel the potaters, and sift the meal for mush in the morning; an' if Miss Walker's cow must be milked, what's to hender that Hobe, the great lazy strapper, shouldn't go and milk her?"
"You forget how much he has to do at home now; and one pair of hands can't do everything, even if they are Hobert Walker's!"
Jenny had spoken with much spirit and some bitterness; and the bright defiant flush, before noticed, came into her face, as she untied the cloak and proceeded to sift the meal and peel the potatoes for breakfast. She did her work quietly, but with a determination in every movement that indicated a will not easily overruled.
It was nearly dark, and the rain still persistently falling, when she turned the potato-peelings into the pig-trough that stood only a few yards from the door, and, returning, put the cloak about her shoulders, tied it deliberately, turned the hood over her head, and, without another word, walked straight out into the rain.
"Well, I must say! Well, I must say!" cried the mother, in exasperated astonishment. "What on airth is that girl a-comin' to?" And, resting her elbows on her knees, she leaned her yellow face in her hands, and gathered out of her hard, embittered heart such consolation as she could.
Jenny, meantime, tucked up her petticoats, and, having left a field or two between her and the homestead, tripped lightly along, debating with herself whether or not she should carry out her will to the full, and return by the way of Mr. John Walker's,—a question she need hardly have raised, if unexpected events had not interfered with her predeterminations. At Mrs. Walker's gate she stopped and pulled half a dozen roses from the bush that was almost lying on the ground with its burden,—they seemed, somehow, brighter than the roses at home,—and, with them swinging in her hand, had wellnigh gained the door, before she perceived that it was standing open. She hesitated an instant,—perhaps some crazy wanderer or drunken person might have entered the house,—when brisk steps, coming up the path that led from the milking-yard, arrested her attention, and, looking that way, she recognized through the darkness young Hobert Walker, with the full pail in his hand.
"O Jenny," he said, setting down the pail, "we are in such trouble at home! The doctor says father is better, but I don't think so, and I ain't satisfied with what is being done for him. Besides, I had such a strange dream,—I thought I met you, Jenny, alone, in the night, and you had six red roses in your hand,—let me see how many have you." He had come close to her, and he now took the roses and counted them. There were six, sure enough. "Humph!" he said, and went on. "Six red roses, I thought; and while I looked at them they turned white as snow;
