CHAPTER IV

I

April 12, 1900.

Dearest, dearest Judy-pudy: “Begin at the beginning,” like many other rules, seems very simple. It is not. How is one to know where the beginning is?

I have decided that, probably, the beginning of this very long letter, which I am planning to write to you this afternoon and evening, should be that Irene does not like Q 2 Ranch. She does not wish to live here, or to have Christopher live here.

When they came last month, they came only for a visit. But when Chris found that we had been sending him all the ready money we could get, and had been forced to practise rigid economy, he refused to take Irene back to New York. Father agrees with Chris that he and Irene should stay here for the present.

Chris says certainly, that nothing else is to be considered. He says if he had had the least notion of how things were with us here at home, he would have come home two years ago when he returned from the Continent. He said that, of course, by staying in New York and attempting to get his play produced, he felt that he was doing his share. Because, if _Gold_ had been successful, we never would have had another money worry again. He says effort must weigh, as well as accomplishment.

Irene said that Booful had worked very hard and lived most frugally in New York. Chris said that he had not lived half as frugally as he would have had he known that his living was literally coming out of our pantry and off our backs.

Irene and Father both said “Nonsense” to that, but they said it differently. Just the same, Judy, in spite of Father’s “Nonsense,” can you ever remember a time when about all the ready money we had did not have to be sent off to Cousin Christopher?

Chris said that he had had his chance, and that you had not had yours (he meant about your not going to a university), but that now we must all pull together to see that Neal and I had ours.

Father agreed with him. He rather overagreed with him. He said that Chris had had a bit more than his chance, he thought. That he had two degrees, and two years of European travel. He said that Chris was a sophomore at Princeton when he was Neal’s age.

Neal began to say, as he always says, that he did not care for a classical education; that all he needed was a few years at a good agricultural college. Father spoke almost abruptly to him. Neal walked right away out of the room.

When Neal was gone, that left Grandfather, Father, Chris, Irene, and me in the sitting room. I was reading in the window nook. I think that the others did not know I was there. I was not eavesdropping because, if any of them had turned around and looked at me, I was plainly there to be seen.

Irene said that if an agricultural college was all Neal cared about, why couldn’t he be sent to the Oregon one, which she had heard was fairly possible.

Darling Father has been having that stomach trouble again. You know how quiet and patient it makes him. He just sat there, white, and did not answer Irene at all.

Grandfather told her that, just now, even the state agricultural college was a bit more than we could manage.

Irene said, “Couldn’t you mortgage some more of Chris’s land?”

Grandfather explained to her that the ranch was over-mortgaged now. He went on and told her about how bad ranching conditions had been, and how in 1895 cows were selling for from five to seven dollars, and calves for two, and horses about the same. He told how it had been necessary to disperse most of the herds because we could not afford to keep them. And then he told how timber and teams had kept us going. And how, after that, the mortgages had been necessary to buy new herds, and to pay debts contracted when we couldn’t even mortgage. He finished by telling her how, if we could devote the coming two or three years to keeping up our interest, and our herds, and so on, we were bound to win through with flying colours.

I don’t know why that should have made Irene angry. It did. It made her so angry that her voice trembled as she asked Grandfather whether he actually meant that the place was so deeply in debt that no more money could be raised on it.

Grandfather told her that he doubted whether another hundred dollars could be borrowed on the place. He said that now it need not be borrowed. He said she had spoken of raising money. We were now, he told her, engaged in raising money—cattle and horses.

She has a queer way, I think I may have mentioned it before, of seeming to hear only a part, the first part of whatever one says to her. She has another odd mannerism. She interrupts. She interrupted Grandfather then, and said that, in other words, the place was worthless.

Grandfather said to Christopher, “Sir, can you explain to me how your wife happens to be labouring under such a misconception?”

Usually, when anybody asks Christopher a question, Irene answers it. “I know,” she said, “that when a farm of this size is mortgaged up to the hilt, so that not even a hundred dollars can be raised on it, that it is a failure. I don’t believe in throwing good money after bad. It seems to me that the only thing to do is to sell the place, if possible, and invest the money more wisely.”

Judy, did you ever consider how much worse things words can say than people can ever do? I think that must be because actions can be met with actions, but some words have no words for answers.

For quite a long time no one said anything. I felt my heart drop into my stomach, and then—I actually could feel this—my stomach closed around it somewhat as a sea anemone closes—and stuck to it. It was painful.

“Uncle Thaddeus, Dick,” Christopher managed to say, “Irene doesn’t understand.”

Grandfather stood up. He looked majestic. “That, Christopher,” he said, “is, I think, your fault and not your wife’s. You should have explained to her that men do not sell their inheritance. That it is not theirs to sell.”

Grandfather and Father went out of the room together.

Christopher said to Irene, “Uncle Thaddeus is right, sweetheart. It is my fault. I should have explained——”

“Explain!” she burst out. “If there is anything in the world that you haven’t explained to me concerning Quilter precedents and traditions, I hope I may never have to hear it. You go about, every one of you, buttered with precedent, greased with traditions. Like the pig at the circus. One tries to get hold of you, and traditions slip you through one’s hands. What I need to have explained now is why a farm, admittedly worthless, should be kept as a home for the aged and infirm. We could better afford to put them all into institutions for indigent old age. As for the younger generation, your cousins are strong and capable—let them earn their livings elsewhere. Why should we keep them with our lives? Them, and their children, and——”

I made a dreadful sound. It was like the first part of an enormous hiccup. It was drawing my breath in after smothering for so long.

Christopher turned and saw me. He was glad, I think, to have me there to vent his wrath upon. He lowered his voice and became aggressively polite—you know the way Quilter men do when they are angry. He begged my pardon for intruding on my privacy, and so on; and, at last, he said that he was bound to ask for my promise that I would not repeat a syllable of what I had, surely inadvertently, overheard.

Irene said bother promising anything. She said I might run and tell every word she’d said, for all she cared. She said she wished I would, and save her the trouble; because, if I didn’t, she meant to.

Christopher, looking exactly like the man in the Gibson picture, “Hearts Are Trumps,” said, “No, I think not, Irene.”

“I have already,” she declared, like a dare. “Long ago, I spoke to your Uncle Phineas about the possibility of selling the farm. I’ve mentioned it, since, to your Aunt Olympe and your Cousin Gracia.”

Perhaps if Irene knew it was like cracking us on our crazy bones every time she said “farm,” she might stop it. Perhaps she might not.

“I am sorry to hear that, Irene,” Christopher said, very much in Grandfather’s manner. “Because such talk succeeds only in making my family dislike and distrust you, and accomplishes no other end whatever. Possibility of my selling Q 2 Ranch ranks, in the range of possibilities, exactly on a par with my selling one of the children, or committing a murder or a robbery—something of the sort.”

“You are robbing,” Irene declared. “You are robbing us of our chance for happiness. Not murder, perhaps. But you are condemning yourself and your wife to a sort of everlasting suicide. You prefer that, I suppose, to——”

“Infinitely,” Christopher interrupted (he got the habit from Irene, I think). “But that must be said for you alone, Irene. I love Q 2: I haven’t been as loyal to it as the others have been; but I love it, and them. If you would give me a chance, I could be very happy here.”

“Pleasant,” Irene said, “and interesting to hear you, after we have been married seven weeks, talking about me alone. Dividing us. Leaving me alone, while you step to the other side with your precious family.”

“If there is a division,” Christopher said—I am sure that they had both forgotten all about me—“you are making it.”

“No,” she said. “Not yet. But understand this, Christopher, I will not plan a life here—not even with you.”

At that moment Olympe came into the room. She has been wearing all her silk petticoats for everyday, since Irene came, so she rustles almost as crisply as Irene does. She was well into the room, she had come down the back stairway, before she noticed us near the fireplace. I was crying. Irene looked as if she were burning, and Christopher looked like her ashes—gray-white.

Irene flamed out at Olympe: “I was telling Christopher that I will not stay here in this hole. That, if he plans to live the remainder of his life here, he will plan to live it without me.”

Think, Judy, what a wonderful opportunity it would have been for Olympe’s “Quilter men” speech, the one she does like gray velvet, or even her “God help the Quilter wives” speech. But she remained stone deaf. She came to me, and put her arm around my shoulders, and said, “Come with Olympe, sweetheart,” and gave me one of her exquisite handkerchiefs and led me out of the room.

We met Uncle Phineas and Aunt Gracia. Uncle Phineas, of course, began to hug and kiss me and quote the Queen: “Consider what o’clock it is! Consider anything, only don’t cry!” Aunt Gracia tried to get me away from Uncle Phineas to find out whether I’d been bumped or burned, and everyone was all excited and concerned as they always are when I cry. I wish they wouldn’t do that way. I wish I might indulge more often in the luxury of tears. It should be, I think, one of the recompenses for the length of time one has to be a child. Neal says they fuss so because I open my mouth so wide and make such a noise. I can’t help it. I believe no one can be heartbroken and fastidious at the same time.

Olympe was very angry. She said a great deal. Among other things she said that Q 2 was no longer a fit place for a child, and that I had been forced to witness a disgusting scene, and that Irene was threatening to leave Christopher.

Uncle Phineas said: “Hoop-la! That’s the best news I’ve heard since McKinley beat Bryan.”

Olympe said, “Pan!”

After supper Irene apologized to Grandfather before all of us. She said that she had not understood about Q 2, but that now Christopher had made things plain to her. Of course, she went on to say, she had never intended that the entire “farm” be sold. Her idea had been to sell small sections of it, here and there; just enough to supply us with what money we needed for the present.

Uncle Phineas told the story about the man who loved his dog so much that, when he had to cut his tail off, he chopped it in small chunks, so as not to hurt the poor creature so much. Aunt Gracia suggested that we go into the back parlour and have some music.

Uncle Phineas played and Irene sang some of the new coon songs she brought from the East. Then Irene and Christopher did a queer new dance that is called a “Cake-walk.” They say it is much more effective when there are several couples. Aunt Gracia sang for the rest of us. While she was singing Irene sat by me and talked.

She told me about the new moving photography. She says every face is recognizable, and that every motion is made. I should love to see it; but, probably, they will never have it in Oregon. She told me, too, that she and Christopher had seen several of the new horseless carriages in New York. She says it is positively eerie to see them gliding along by themselves. No one here, except Grandfather, thinks that they will ever be more than a fad; but Grandfather predicts that, in time, they will at least share equal honours with the horse.

I love you, dear, and I love Greg.—Lucy.