Stonepastures

“A man will say more to himself in excuse than he will to his God or his friend.”

Emma’s eyes roved from object to object as though she sought escape; they always returned to the door, whence she expected Quarry. It was a duty, she reasoned, to turn this man’s stealing to swift shame. Words flocked to her tongue that she could not remember having used before, and her mind’s eye saw the Englishman wince under them. A demon of invective filled her brain with fierce thoughts as she tore the shake-downs apart in a final hunt for the wallet. And then a fit of sobs and shaking beset her as she waited again in the kitchen for what she hoped would be in some sort vengeance.

She remembered every mean and, in her characterizing adjective, every “useless” thing Quarry had done; how he had lied, and when. She remembered his drunkenness—that terrible drunkenness in which his self-assurance seemed boundless; the remembered vanity of his face startled her, and it seemed marvellous that his faults had not kept him from their household as they had kept him from their hearts.

When some person has been the provoking cause of emotions so strong that the mind can not shake off their grasp, it is quick to misconceive that person. Quarry’s voice was a shock to Emma when at last she heard it in the yard, although a short time ago she had seen and had speech with him.

Her heart sank when she found he was talking with himself and in a laudatory strain. His effort was to walk straight, but his accomplishment was slight. He lurched to and from either marigold border, so that the walk seemed serpentine to Emma’s shocked gaze. “No,” he said, “the ruins is covered with ivory; I shall pluck away the vine, and the presspit is discovered.” He spoke as he walked, doing as much as possible at each lucid interval between lapses. “No friend shall fall away into the presspit, like I nearly did.”

His fall was upon nothing more precipitous than the chair by the door. Seeing anger on Emma’s face, he attempted to soothe her with vague smiles of fearful extent; they travelled swiftly across his flushed face and divided it into north and south intemperate zones.

“Stop that,” called Emma; “you’ve done enough!”

“Not yet!” shouted Quarry, impelled by an erratic enthusiasm; “I’ll do more for my Emma. I’ve laid out the money real well. We’ll buy the deepo and live in it! It’s the finest house in Soot City, and if you want Jarlsen too, you can keep him for hired help. I don’t want there should be any stinting where love is king.”

“Give me my wallet,” said Emma.

“I have given it where it’ll do the most good. The town rejoices that a good deed was done. Mine the deed though not the money.” He used this phrase as a sort of chant.

“Quarry,” said Emma sternly, “sober up, and think true for a minute!”

But he interrupted to say: “Sober up? Emma, you’re enough to turn a saint. I am so sober that the boys laugh at me the way they done at Jarlsen, and I’ve done the wonderfullest thing! Money’ll be so loose you can pick it up off anything in such a little while! I invested yours in a great concern; it’s safe. I’m at the head of it!” He finished, with some tardy regard for truth, and, waving his arms comprehensively, lapsed again into vagueness.

“Where did you put it?” Emma uttered her queries with pains, as if she put them to a foreigner.

Then came lavish excuse. “I put it in an investment,” said he. He was a little sobered now, and wore a scared look. “Mr. Jarlsen, ’fore he was took with the blast, got me to promise to invest his money. He had a pulmonition of the blast, so he did.”

Emma looked at him again; her face was white and hopeless, and its young modelling seemed aged and heavy.

“You ain’t gone and sunk that altogether, Quarry, hev you? If you hev, there’s only the Stonepastures left. It’ll be a hard thing to pass the Bridge once for all and see your work-fellers comin’ through on the cars, and you only comin’ es fur es the Pastures from the factory. Can’t you think what you done with it?”

“I’ve spent it. It’s invested—but still—it’s spent.”

She saw that the men would have to take the matter up for her. At first anger had nerved her, but now she felt weakly despairing. It seemed to her that there was no use in effort to set right circumstances so awry, until, as she said, “things had stopped happening.”

“Well, you’re a thief, anyway,” she said, “and I’d fight you if I had any pith in me!”

Quarry raised himself. “That’s you all over,” he remarked sadly. “I’ve seen you leap on Jarlsen quick as a wicked cat; and a lady as lifts a hand to a half-dead man is no lady. You have made my life very profane, Emma. I don’t find in you the flavour of a godly woman, Emma Butte,” he added with a final effort at dignity. “You’re a—a—mean girl!”

Emma rose, and, standing, looked him over thoroughly. No idea of law came to aid her ignorant helplessness. She understood now the saying that women were “put upon.” Some girls would have cried, but Emma had one sweet drop in the bitter draught. She would have to move to the Stonepastures, but by so doing she could pay the doctor, even though she had to shave again.