The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-01-16
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hindered about his crops and disap
pointed, spoke sharply, and for the
first time openly took his mothers
side, when his ignorance of the mat
ters in question made him unjust.
Hannah's pretty girlish freshness
seemed to be fading. Ann Parish
herself grew thinner and quicker and
more convicting in manner; there
was little laughter or cheerfulness in
the comfortable farmhouse, and so
the rainy September weather came
| on.
Dams mother felt herself increas-
ingly to be pitied. Dams wife lost
heart and gained hopelessness. If
she only knew what to do! But she
was sure that her mother-in-law dis
liked her thoroughly, and that it was
no use to try any longer to change
settled feeling. She was still affec-
tionately disposed, and was able to
look at her house-mate's sullen dis
position as malady and misfortune,
rather than fault, especially in the
rare days when Ann Parish was more
tolerant and kindly. Somehow she
did not feel we'll and strong, as she
did when she first came to the farm.
She was full of shivering weakness;
and while she tried to throw it off by
extra exertion, she grew the more in
capable of steady hard work.
Dan said one day that she must
not work SO hard. He was very good
to her and tender, and yet she felt
new dislike to him, or rather to his
heavy boots and loud voice. Her
head was heavy and she could not
bear noises; and she was half afraid
of Dams mother, and startled when
the quick, severe little woman
stepped forward suddenly from a
doorway or closet. For many days
this grew worse and worse; she be-
lieved that she had caught a heavy
cold; she was flushed and hot, and
longed to creep away somewhere in
to the dark. One morning after
breakfast she tried to make her bed
and could not, and lay down for a
minute to gather strength. One verse
of an old hymn drifted through her
mind, poor child: she had often heard
it sung at evening meetings:
Jesus, the sinners Friend, to Thee,
Lost and undone for aid flee:
Weary of earth, myself, and sin,
Open Thine arms and take me in. -
Hannah! Hannah" called the
sharp voice from the kitchen, "your
breads all scorched I never burnt a
baking of bread in all the years |
kept house." But Hannah did not
hurry down to the scene of disaster.
1t seemed no matter about the bread;
she could not lift her head from the
pillow. And when she tried to an
swer, she found her voice failed her;
she could not make Dams mother
hear.
In a few minutes the disturbed
woman came up to the bedroom.
She did not suspect Hannah of in
dulging in fit of bad temper; it was
rather from her habit of curiosity
and suspicion, that she looked in and
saw relaxed figure lying among the
rumpled bedclothes. Hannah faint
ly said that her head ached badly,
and she must have taken more cold.
She had not been feeling we'll all the
morning.
give worked through good many
mornings when was ready to drop"
said Ann Parish, but with less I'M
graciousness than usual. She hesit-
ated a minute, and then pulled
blanket over her daughters should
ers, and drew the window curtain so
that the sun would not flare in; then
she went away. Dan had taken his
dinner to a distant field where he was
at work.
Later in the afternoon he came to
the house, but found nobody in the
kitchen or sitting His mother
was not in the bedroom, and he
thought that Hannah might have
gone to visit some of her friends,
which was relief to his mind, since
he had been worrying about her all
day. He heard footsteps in the room
overhead, which had been his sisters,
and presently found his mother there,
looking over poor Eliza's bureau,
signing over the schoolbooks and
needlework and other relics, as was
her won't on Sundays and in special
times of depression.
Dan looked very tall and large in
the bedroom, with its sloping ceiling.
His mother sighed, but did not
speak to him.
"Where's Hannahi" asked the