it was not until the hour for leaving millerstown, when margaret was taken by her hostess to an upstairs' bedroom to rearrange her hair before starting, that she and hiram's wife were given an opportunity for a word together. what, then, was her chagrin to have lizzie at once take up her husband's eulogistic harangue where he had left it off.
"daniel and jennie and sadie always say their new munich preacher seems so slow and uninteresting after they've heard hiram. i guess you'll think, too, next sunday, their minister's a poor preacher towards what hiram is."
"i don't go to church every sunday. to tell you the truth, lizzie, i'm not awfully fond of sermons."
"oh, ain't you? i do like a good sermon, the kind hiram preaches."
"you never get tired of them?"
"not of hiram's," said lizzie, shocked.
"of course not of hiram's," margaret hastily concurred.
"does danny insist you go along to the u. b. church, or do you attend the episcopal?"
"the episcopalians are trying to gather me into their fold and daniel seems to want me to go there."
"it's so much more tony than at the u. b. church," nodded lizzie understandingly. "yes, danny often said already that if he hadn't a brother that is a u. b. preacher, he'd join to the episcopals. but it wouldn't look nice for him to leave the u. b's when hiram's minister of the u. b. church, would it?"
"it wouldn't look nice for him to leave it for the other reason you mentioned."
"that the episcopals are so tony that way? well, but danny thinks an awful lot of that—if a thing is tony or not. don't you, too? you look as if you did."
"the word isn't in my vocabulary, lizzie. let me have another look at the baby before i go, won't you?"
"he looks like hiram—ain't?" said the mother fondly as they stood beside the crib in her bedroom and gazed down upon the sleeping infant. "i hope he gives as smart a man as what his father is."
"but, lizzie, don't you think the room is too close for him?" margaret gasped, loosening the fur at her throat in the stifling atmosphere of the chamber.
"yes," lizzie whispered, "but jennie and sadie are so old-fashioned that way, they think it's awful to have fresh air at a baby. when they go, i open up."
"but," asked margaret, surprised, "why do you have to be 'old-fashioned' because they are?"
"hush—sh! they're coming upstairs to get their coats and hats. a person darsent go against them, especially jennie. haven't you found that out yet? i've been wondering how you were getting on with them; they'll want to boss you so!"
"oh, i was bossed for nine years by the uncle with whom i lived, so i've learned how to—i'm used to it," she judiciously returned.
"do you think you can stick it out with them?" lizzie whispered. "don't you think mebby one of these days they'll go too far and you'll answer them back? and i guess they often bragged to you already, didn't they—how they never get over an insult?"
"i trust i shall never insult them!"
"well, i'm as peaceable as most," said lizzie, "but i often felt glad already that we live a little piece away from jennie and sadie, though i know i oughtn't to say it.'
"but i still don't see, lizzie, why you keep this room air-tight because they don't like fresh air," said margaret, puzzled. "do you mean you'd rather damage your baby than have them quarrel with you?"
"well, i open up as soon as they go. you see if they ever get mad at me, they'd cut our children out of their will."
"their will? i thought daniel supported them."
lizzie stared incredulously. "danny supported them?" she repeated hoarsely. "och, my souls! you thought that! as if he would!"
lizzie looked so contemptuous of margaret's intelligence that the latter realized their opinion of each other's brilliancy was mutual.
"but," margaret argued, "daniel would have to support them if they were penniless. they are too old to support themselves."
"they have their own good incomes this long time already," stated lizzie. "do you mean to say," she asked wonderingly, "that you thought they hadn't anything and yet you didn't mind daniel's keeping them at his house with you there?"
"why should that make any difference to me—their 'having' anything?"
"say!" said lizzie, her dull eyes wide open. "i always heard how in the south it gives easy-going people, but i never thought they would be that easy-going!"
"suppose your husband wanted his sisters to live here," margaret asked curiously, "you would not consent to it? you'd oppose hiram, would you? i can't seem to see you doing that, lizzie."
"but hiram wouldn't want jennie and sadie to live here! he'd know better. he'd know that, peaceable as i am, i couldn't hold out with them; and to be sure, hiram and i would both feel awful bad to have them get down on us. why, they've got, anyhow, a hundred thousand dollars apiece!"
"and wear near-seal coats," said margaret thoughtfully, "and rhinestone rings! how queer!"
"yes, ain't their coats grand? they paid fifty dollars apiece for them! maybe danny will get you one like them some time."
"god forbid! i'd get a divorce if he did! come, lizzie, don't you be a coward—let some air into this room. i'll stand by you and take your part!" she said, holding up her muff as if it were a revolver and aiming toward the next room, in which they could hear the voices of jennie and sadie. "advance at your peril!" she dramatically addressed the closed door between the two rooms.
lizzie stared in dumb wonder and slowly shook her head. "no, i darsent get jennie mad at me. wait till you have a baby once and you will see how they'll want to tell you the way to raise it. you'll have to mind them if you want your children to inherit from them."
"oh, lizzie, it doesn't pay to sell one's soul for a mess of pottage!"
scarcely had she spoken when she looked for lizzie to respond, "you married danny!" but this bright retort did not apparently occur to lizzie, for she only stared at margaret dumbly.
"well," thought margaret, "of course a woman who considered hiram a prize wouldn't think daniel needed to be apologized for."
"lizzie," she changed the subject abruptly, "have you ever seen your husband's step-mother?"
"once or twice or so, yes."
"i've been in new munich two months and have not yet met her, though, you know, she lives only fifteen miles away."
"yes, well, but we don't associate with her much. she's very plain and common that way, and jennie and sadie are so proud and high-minded, you know. they're ashamed of their step-mother."
"and you, lizzie, are you ashamed of her?"
"oh, well, me, i'm not so proud that way. but hiram he would not like for me to take up with her, he feels it so much that they have to leave her live rent free in their old home when she ain't their own mother; but daniel and the girls won't put her to the poorhouse for fear it would make talk, and that wouldn't do, you see, daniel being such a consistent church member and hiram a minister. she used to come here to see us once in a while and hiram used to be ashamed to walk with her to the depot when she would go away, because she is a mennonite and dresses in the plain garb, and it looks so for a united brethren minister to walk through the town with a mennonite. people would have asked him, next time they saw him, who she was. so he used to make naomi walk with her to the depot. naomi didn't like it either, she was afraid her girl friends might laugh at her grandmother. but her father always made her go. and then after a while grandmom she stopped coming in to see us any more. you see," lizzie lowered her voice, "the leitzels don't want folks to know about their step-mother."
"because she is 'plain and common?'"
"yes, and because it could make trouble. i don't rightly understand, but i think they're afraid some one might put her up to bringing a law-suit about the property. but i tell hiram he needn't be afraid of that; no one could make her do anything against any of them, she's too proud of them and she's such a good-hearted old soul, she wouldn't hurt a cat."
margaret was silently thoughtful as she drew on her gloves.
"about six months back," lizzie continued, "she surprised us all by coming in again to see us; it was so long since she'd been to see us, we never looked for her. and to be sure, we never encouraged her to come, either, hiram feeling the way he does. well, she come in to tell us she didn't feel able to do for herself any more out there alone on the old place—she supported herself raising vegetables in the backyard—and now, she said, she's too old any more to do it, and wouldn't we give her a home, or either hiram, or either danny and the girls. well, the girls and danny wouldn't hear to it. me, i said if she was strong enough to help me with the work a little, i could send off my hired girl and take her. but hiram said she wouldn't be able to do the washing like our hired girl did, and we couldn't keep her and the hired girl; and anyhow he couldn't have her living with us, her being a mennonite. 'it stands to reason!' hiram said. so she went back home again and i haven't seen her since. i pity her, too, livin' alone out there, as old as what she is. i can't think how she makes out, either! what makes it seem so hard is that she was such a good, kind step-mother to them all while they were poor, and it was only her hard work that kept a roof over them for many years while their father drank and didn't do anything for them."
margaret still made no comment, though she was looking very grave and thoughtful.
"would it mebby make you ashamed, too," asked lizzie, "before your grand friends in new munich, to have her 'round, she talks so dutch and ignorant?"
"no," margaret shook her head, "i'm not 'proud and high-minded' like jennie and sadie."
"well," admitted lizzie confidentially, "i'm not, either; i told hiram once, 'you have no need to feel ashamed of her. wasn't christ's father nothing but a carpenter?' but hiram answered me, 'och, lizzie, you're dumb! joseph was no blood relation to christ.'. 'well,' i said, 'neither is your step-mother your blood relation.'"
"i suppose," margaret speculated, "if their step-mother had money to leave them, they wouldn't feel so 'high-minded' about her, would they?"
"oh, no," lizzie readily assented; "that would make all the difference! but, you see, she hasn't a thing but what she gets from the vegetables she can raise."
"i do begin to see," nodded margaret.
"danny never told us," lizzie ventured tentatively, curiosity evidently getting the better of delicacy, "what you're worth!"
"what i'm 'worth?' he hasn't tried me long enough to find out. but i hope i'll be worth as much to him as you are to hiram—giving him children and making a home for him."
"but i mean," explained lizzie, colouring a little at her own temerity, but with curiosity oozing from every pore of her, "what did you bring danny? i guess jennie and sadie told you already that i brought hiram thirty thousand. and i'll get more when my father is deceased."
"are both your parents living?" asked margaret with what seemed to lizzie persistent evasion.
"my mother died last summer," she returned in a matter-of-fact, almost cheerful tone of voice. "pop had her to phil-delph-y and she got sick for him, and he had to bring her right home, and in only half a day's time, she was a corpse already!" said lizzie brightly.
"as though she expected me to say, 'hurrah! good for mother!'" thought margaret wonderingly.
"did you inherit, too, from your parents?" persisted her inquisitor.
"all my virtues and all my vices, i believe," answered margaret, turning away and walking to the door. "shall we go down now?"
lizzie took a step after her: "maybe you think i spoke too soon?" she asked anxiously.
"'spoke too soon?'"
"asking you what you're worth. to be sure it ain't any of my business. but i thought i'd ask you once. hiram would be so pleased if after you go i could tell him. he wonders so, did his brother danny do as well as he did. but i guess i spoke too soon."
she paused expectantly.
"never mind," said margaret dully, again turning away.
"say!" said lizzie solicitously, "you look tired and a little pale. would you feel for a cup of tea before you go?"
"no thank you, lizzie."
just here the door opened softly and jennie and sadie came into the room and went to the crib of the slumbering baby.
"yes, he looks good," nodded jennie approvingly. "you have got the room nice and warm, lizzie. just you keep the air off of him and he'll never get sick for you. there's a doctor's wife lives near us and you ought to see, lizzie, the outlandish way she raises that baby! why, any time you pass the house you can see the baby-coach out on the front porch standing, whether it's cold or warm! a doctor's wife, mind you, exposing her young baby like that! till they're anyhow eight months old already, they shouldn't be taken into the air, winter or summer. if you didn't keep little danny in the house all the time, you'd soon see how he'd ketch cold for you!"
lizzie looked at margaret solemnly, with an expression that might have been interpreted as a wink.
"he certainly is a fine boy!" murmured sadie fondly, looking upon the little pink and white baby with a vague yearning in her old face.
"yes," said jennie pensively, "babies are such nice little things. i often think it's such a pity there ain't a more genteel way of getting them."
lizzie nudged margaret behind jennie's back.
"it's a pity they have to grow up to be men," said margaret.
as they all went downstairs, lizzie held margaret back for an instant to whisper to her: "i don't know what loosened up my tongue to-day, to say the things to you i did! hiram would be cross if he knew how free i told you things."
"about his step-mother, you mean?"
"no, i mean about jennie and sadie. you might go and tell them what i said!"
"yes, i might, if i were the villainess of a play and wanted to make them cut your children out of their wills!"
"you won't tell, will you?" lizzie pleaded. "it ain't that i'd care so much (though to be sure, i'd like to think the children would inherit all they could), but it's hiram would be so displeased at me talking to you the way i did."
"don't give yourself any anxiety, lizzie; of course i shall not 'tell.'"
margaret reflected, on the way home, as, quiet and rather white, she leaned back in her seat in the train, pleading fatigue and a headache to escape conversation, that this day, somehow, marked an epoch in her understanding of the leitzel family. she had suddenly, after two months of incredible obtuseness, recognized that they measured everything in life—duty, friendship, religion, love—by just one thing.
"yet daniel married a dowerless wife!" she marvelled.
the wild suspicion crossed her mind that walter might have misled daniel into thinking her an heiress, even as he had let her assume that her lover was well-born.
but she was instantly ashamed of herself for even conceiving of such treachery on walter's part.
