V
SALLY O’DOWD
Great excitement prevailed in the rural neighborhood when it became generally known that John Ranger, Junior, had sold the farm and was preparing to dispose of his sawmill and all his personal belongings, with the intention of departing to the new and far-away West in an ox-wagon train with his family,—an undertaking that seemed to his friends as foolhardy as would have been an attempt to reach the North Pole with his wife and children in a balloon.
Of more than ordinary ability, enterprise, and daring, John Ranger had long been a man of note in his bailiwick. Twice he had represented his county in the State Legislative Assembly; but when the Old Line Whigs of his district offered to nominate him for Congress,—“No, gentlemen!” he exclaimed. “I started out early in life to assist my good wife in rearing and educating a big family of young Americans. I frankly admit that we’ve got a bigger job on hand than either of us imagined it would be when we made the bargain; but that doesn’t lessen our mutual responsibility. There is always a regiment, more or less, of unencumbered men in waiting in every locality, ready and willing to wear the toga of office; so, with thanks for the proffered honor, I must beg to be excused.”
But there was one office, that of justice of the peace, which he never refused, and to which he had been so often re-elected that the appellation of “Squire” had grown to belong to him as a matter of course. One room of the great barnlike farmhouse had long been set apart as his office; and many were the litigants who remained after office hours to be entertained at his hospitable board.
“It’s a lot of trouble, having so much extra company on account of your office being in the house,” his wife said at times; “but it’s better than having you away two-thirds of your time down town, so it is all right.”
“There’s a woman going round the corner to the office,” exclaimed Mary, one evening, just as her father had settled himself before the fire to enjoy a frolic with the little ones.
“It’s that grass widow, Sally O’Dowd,” said Mrs. Ranger.
“She’s booked for a solid hour,” snapped Marjorie, “and we’ll have to delay supper till nine o’clock.”
The Squire had barely time to reach his office by an inner passage and seat himself before the fire, when Mrs. O’Dowd—an oversized, plainly dressed, intelligent-looking woman, who was remarkably handsome, notwithstanding the expression of pain upon her face—entered the office and stood silent before the open fire.
“Well,” exclaimed the Squire, impatiently, motioning her to a chair, “what can I do for you now?”
“Oh, Squire!” she cried, ignoring the proffered chair and dropping on her knees at his feet, her wealth of rippling hair falling about her face and over her shapely shoulders like a deluge of gold, “I want you to take me with you to Oregon.”
“What! And leave your children to the care of others? I didn’t think that of you, Mrs. O’Dowd.”
“But what else can I do? You know the court has assigned the custody of all three of my babies to Sam.”
“Yes, Sally; but you can see them once in a while if you stay here.”
“The court gave them to Samuel and his mother absolutely, you know.”
“Yes, yes, child; and while in one way it is hard, if you look at it in a practical light, you will see that it was best for the children. You couldn’t keep them with you and go out as hired help in anybody’s kitchen; and you have no other means of support any more.”
“If I stay here, I cannot have even the poor privilege of caring for them, except when they’re sick. I must get entirely away from their vicinity, or lose my senses altogether.”
“I thought that was what was the matter when you married the fellow, Sally. You certainly had lost your senses then.”
“But love is blind, Squire—till it gets its eyes open; and then it is generally too late to see to any advantage. Little did my dear father think, when he made a will leaving his homestead, his bank account, and all his belongings to me, that he was reducing my dear mother and me to beggary.”
“But that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t married that worthless fellow, Sally.”
“But the if exists, Squire. I married the fellow. It was an awful blunder,—I’ll admit that. But it wasn’t a crime. It should have been no reason for robbing me. And yet this marriage was made the legal pretext for permitting the robbery. Oh, I was so glad when my dear mother died! I couldn’t have shed a tear at her grave if I’d been hung for my seeming heartlessness. Poor mother! I was made an unwilling party to a robbery that beggared her and myself. Then, when I could no longer endure the presence of the robber and his accomplice, and live, I was doubly, yes, trebly robbed, by being deprived of my children.”
The Squire cleared his throat and spoke huskily.
“That will was a sad mistake of your father’s, Sally. He should have left his property to your mother. It was wrong to put her means of livelihood in jeopardy by leaving all to you. He ought to have known you’d marry, and that the property would accrue to your husband.”
“But mother insisted that all should be left to me. She even waived her right of dower, in my interest—as she thought.”
“Well, Sally, you can’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
The woman laughed hysterically. “Much good that warning can do me now!” she cried, rising to her feet and unconsciously assuming a dramatic pose. “We hadn’t been married a week when he ordered my mother out of my house. And then he installed his own mother in my home, and expected me to be silent. Oh, I am so glad my dear mother is dead! I would rejoice if my poor, defrauded children were all dead also.”
The Squire cleared his throat again and leaned forward on his hands. “The law recognizes the husband and wife as one, and the husband as that one, Mrs. O’Dowd.”
“Yes, yes, I know that, to my bitter sorrow,” she said with a meaning smile, her white teeth shining through her parted lips and her eyes flashing. The woman sank upon the hearth, looking strangely white and calm.
John Ranger sighed helplessly. “I worked the underground railroad last night for all it was worth, in the interest of some runaway niggers,” he said under his breath; then audibly, “The laws of the land must be obeyed, my child.”
“The law is a fiend,” cried Jean, who had entered the room unobserved and had stood listening in the shadow of the chimney jamb. “I’ll never rest till this awful one-sided power is broken. You know yourself that it’s a monster, daddie. I know you know it, or you’d never help a run—”
He put his finger on his lips, and the girl changed the subject. The underground railroad was a forbidden topic in the Ranger household.
“Because Sally Danover knew no better than to become the wife of an unworthy man,—who knew what he was about, though she didn’t,—the law declares that all the benefits resulting from the fraudulent transaction must accrue to the villain in the case, and all the penalties must be borne by his victim. What would you do to such a fellow, daddie, if I should marry him?”
John Ranger did not answer, but gazed steadily into the fire, his brow contracted and his thoughts gloomy.
“Sally, cheer up!” cried Jean, shaking the woman by the shoulder. “Daddie’s a whole lot better man than he thinks he is. I’ve seen him tested. You’re as good as a nigger, if you are white, and he’ll help you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, my daughter. It’s a crime to break the law, and crime must be followed by fitting punishment.”
“If you get caught, you get punished,” cried Jean, laughing in her father’s face. “To break such a law would be an act of heroism for which I should be glad to be arrested and sent to jail! It would be an act of heroism beside which the defence of the Stars and Stripes would be cowardice!” she cried in a transport of fury.
“Come, Jean,” said her father, rising, “we must go to supper. Won’t you join us, Mrs. O’Dowd?”
“Food would choke me,” said the visitor, bowing herself out.
“Hang the luck!” said the Squire, as the door slammed behind her.
“What are you going to do to help the poor woman, John?” asked Mrs. Ranger, as the family sat at the belated meal.
“Ask Jean.”
“What do you know about the case, daughter?”
“She thinks she knows a lot,” interrupted her father. “She’d ’a’ made a plaguy good lawyer if she’d only been born a boy.”
“Who knew best what I ought to be,—you or God?” asked Jean, her eyes glowing like stars.
“I give it up,” replied her father, smiling.
“I was reading to-day,” said Mrs. Ranger, “of a man down East who lured his runaway wife back home by stealing the babies and then warning everybody through the papers, and by posters, not to trust or harbor her, under penalty of the law. The woman held out quite a spell, but cold and hunger got the better of her at last; and when the stolen children fell sick, she went back to her lawful protector and stayed till she died, as meek as any lamb.”
“Sally Danover won’t go back to Sam O’Dowd; she’ll die first,” cried Mary; “and I glory in her grit.”
“You haven’t answered my question, John,” said Mrs. Ranger. “What do you propose to do with Sally O’Dowd?”
“I s’pose I’ll have to take her to Oregon and let her take a new start. She says she must get away from here, or go insane.”
“I’d go crazy if I had to leave my children, John.”
“You can boast, Annie; you can afford to. But if you were in Sally’s shoes, you’d sing a different song.”
Mrs. Ranger shrugged her shoulders.
“I can’t see why women with good husbands and happy homes are so ready to censure less fortunate women for breaking bonds that are unbearable,” said her husband. “Women are women’s worst enemies.”
“Sam O’Dowd’s no woman,” exclaimed Jean. “There’s not a woman on top o’ dirt that’d treat any man as he’s treated Sally.”
“I guess it’s about an even stand-off,” rejoined her mother.
“No,” cried Jean. “The conditions are not equal. No woman has the power to turn her husband out of doors. Even if it is her own house, he is its lawful master. Women don’t stand any show at all compared with men.”
“Jean is going to-morrow to see Sam O’Dowd’s mother. She can make matters smooth for Sally if anybody can,” said the Squire.
“The sale of our effects is only two weeks off, John,” said his wife, when they were alone. “I want to reserve a few things that are sacred. There’s Baby Jamie’s cradle, that you made from the hollow section of that old gum-tree that stood in the back pasture. Do you remember how nicely I lined it with the back breadths of my wedding dress?”
“Could I forget it, Annie?”
“Then there’s my mother’s little old spinning-wheel. It was my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s. May I keep it for Mary?”
“It won’t pay to haul such things over the plains, Annie. Better let your mother keep ’em here till there’s a transcontinental railroad.”
“But that won’t come in my time, John.”