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The Brimming Cup

CHAPTER XVII
THE SOUL OF NELLY POWERS

July 20.

The big pine was good for one thing, anyhow, if it did keep the house as dark as a cellar with the black shade it made. The side-porch was nice and cool even on a hot summer day, just right for making butter. If it wasn't for the horrid pitch-piny smell the tree wouldn't be so bad. The churning was getting along fine too. The dasher was beginning to go the blob-blob way that showed in a minute or two the butter would be there. It had been a real good idea to get up early and get the work out of the way so that the churning could be done before it got so hot. A thunder-storm was coming, too, probably. You could feel it in the air. There, perhaps the butter had come, now. Nelly pushed the dasher down slowly and drew it back with care, turning her ear to listen expertly to the sound it made. No, not yet, there wasn't that watery splash yet that came after it had separated.

She went on with the regular rhythmic motion, her eyes fixed dreamily on the round hole in the cover of the churn, through which the dasher-handle went up and down and which was now rimmed with thick yellow cream. She loved to churn, Nelly thought. She loved to have milk to look out for, anyhow, from the time it came in from the barn, warm and foamy and sweet-smelling, till the time when she had taken off the thick, sour cream, like shammy-skin, and then poured the loppered milk spatteringly into the pigs' trough. She liked seeing how the pigs loved it, sucking it up, their eyes half shut because it tasted so good. There wasn't anything that was better than giving people or animals what they liked to eat. It made her feel good all over to throw corn to the hens and see how they scrabbled for it. She just loved to get a bag of stick candy at the store, when she went to town, and see how Addie and Ralph and little 'Gene jumped up and down when they saw it.

And then it was so nice to be fore-handed and get the churning out of the way before noon. She would have time this afternoon after the dishes were done, to sit right down with that sprigged calico dress for little Addie. She could get the seams all run up on the machine before supper-time, and have the hand-work, buttonholes and finishing, for pick-up work for odd minutes. She just loved to sit and sew, in a room all nice and picked up, and know the house-work was done.

That would be a real pretty dress, she thought, with the pink sprigs and the pink feather-stitching in mercerized cotton she was going to put on it. Addie would look sweet in it. And if it was washed careful and dried in the shade it wouldn't fade so much. It was a good bright pink to start with. Only Addie ought to have a new hat to wear with it. A white straw with pink flowers on it. But that would cost a couple of dollars, anyhow, everything was so dear now. Oh well, 'Gene would let her buy it. 'Gene would let her do most anything.

She thought with pity of her sisters, mill-hands in West Adams still, or married to mill-hands, men who got drunk on the sly and didn't work regular, and wanted a full half of all they made for themselves. 'Gene and his mother were always scolding about the money they could have had if they'd kept that wood-land on the mountain. They'd ought to ha' been really poor the way she had been, so's you didn't know where the next meal was coming from, or how the rent was going to be paid. She had been awfully lucky to get 'Gene, who let her decide how much money ought to be spent on the children's clothes and hers, and never said a thing, or scolded or bothered. He was kind of funny, 'Gene was, always so sober and solemn, and it was a sort of bother to have him so crazy about her still. That had been all right when they were engaged, and first married. She had liked it all right then, although it always seemed sort of foolish to her. But men were that way! Only now, when there were three children and another one coming, and the house to be kept nice, and the work done up right, and the farmwork and everything going so good, and so much on her mind, why, it seemed as though they'd ought to have other things to think about beside kissings and huggings. Not that 'Gene didn't do his share of the work. He was a fine farmer, as good as anybody in the valley. But he never could settle down, and be comfortable and quiet with her, like it was natural for old married folks to do. If she went by him, close, so her arm touched him, why then, if nobody was there he'd grab at her and kiss her and rumple her hair, and set her all back in her work. With all she had to do and think of, and she did her work as good as anybody if she did say it who shouldn't, she had her day planned before she turned her feet out of bed in the morning. And she liked to have things go the way she planned them. She liked 'Gene all right, only she had her work to get done.

She churned meditatively, looking off towards the mountain where the Eagle Rocks heaved themselves up stiff and straight and high. 'Gene's mother came to the door, asked if the butter was coming all right, looked at her, and said, "My! Nelly, you get better looking every day you live," and went back to her bread-baking.

Nelly went on with her reflections about 'Gene. It was more than just that he bothered her and put her back with her work. She really didn't think it was just exactly nice and refined to be so crazy about anybody as that. Well, there was a streak in the Powerses that wasn't refined. 'Gene's mother! gracious! When she got going, laughing and carrying-on, what wouldn't she say, right out before anybody! And dancing still like a young girl! And that hateful old Mrs. Hewitt, just after they'd moved back to Ashley, didn't she have to go and tell her about 'Gene's being born too soon after his father and mother were married? 'Gene took it from his mother she supposed; he wa'an't to blame, really. But she hoped Addie and Ralph would be like her folks. Not but what the Powerses were good-hearted enough. 'Gene was a good man, if he was queer, and an awful good papa to Addie and Ralph and little 'Gene. None of her sisters had got a man half so good. That sprigged dress would look good with feather-stitching around the hem, too. Why hadn't she thought of that before? She hadn't got enough mercerized thread in the house, she didn't believe, to do it all; and it was such a nuisance to run out of the thread you had to have, and nobody going to the village for goodness knows when, with the farmwork behind the way it was, on account of the rains.

She shifted her position and happened to bring one of her feet into view. Without disturbing a single beat of the regular rhythm of the dasher, she tilted her head to look at it with approbation. If there was one thing she was particular about it was her shoes. She took such comfort in having them nice. They could say what they pleased, folks could, but high heels suited her feet. Maybe some folks, that had great broad feet like that old Indian Touclé, felt better in those awful, sloppy old gunboats they called "Common-sense shoes," but she didn't! It would make her sick to wear them! How they did look! Was there anything so pretty, anyhow, as a fine-leather shoe with a nice pointed toe, and a pretty, curved-in heel? It made you feel refined, and as good as anybody, even if you had on a calico dress with it. That was another nice thing about 'Gene, how he'd stand up for her about wearing the kind of shoes she wanted. Let anybody start to pick on her about it, if 'twas his own mother, he'd shut 'em up short, and say Nelly could wear what she liked he guessed. Even when the doctor had said so strict that she hadn't ought to wear them in the time before the babies came, 'Gene never said a word, when he saw her doing it.

There, the butter was just almost there. She could hear the buttermilk begin to swash! She turned her head to call to her mother-in-law to bring a pitcher for the buttermilk, when a sound of galloping hoofs echoed from the road. Nelly frowned, released her hold on the dasher, listened an instant, and ran into the house. She went right upstairs to her room as provoked as she could be. Well, she would make the bed and do the room-work anyhow, so's not to waste all that time. She'd be that much ahead, anyhow. And as soon as Frank had finished chinning with Mother Powers, and had gone, she'd go back and finish her churning. She felt mad all through at the thought of that cream left at just the wrong minute, just as it was separating. Suppose Frank hung round and hung around, the way he did often, and the sun got higher and the cream got too warm, and she'd have to put in ice, and go down cellar with it, and fuss over it all the rest of the day? She was furious and thumped the pillows hard, with her doubled-up fist. But if she went down, Frank'd hang around worse, and talk so foolish she'd want to slap him. He wa'n't more'n half-witted, sometimes, she thought. What was the matter with men, anyhow? They didn't seem to have as much sense as so many calves! You'd think Frank would think up something better to do than to bother the life out of busy folks, sprawling around all over creation the way he did. But she never had any luck! Before Frank it had been that old Mrs. Hewitt, nosing around to see what she could pick fault with in a person's housekeeping, looking under the sink if you left her alone in the kitchen for a minute, and opening your dresser drawers right before your face and eyes. Well, Frank was getting to be most as much of a nuisance. He didn't peek and snoop the way Mrs. Hewitt did, but he bothered; and he was getting so impudent, too! He had the big-head because he was the best dancer in the valley, that was what was the matter with him, and he knew she liked to dance with him. Well, she did. But she would like to dance with anybody who danced good. If 'Gene didn't clump so with his feet, she'd love to dance with him. And Frank needn't think he was so much either. That city man who was staying with the old man next to the Crittendens was just as good a dancer as Frank, just exactly as light on his feet. She didn't like him a bit. She thought he was just plain fresh, the way he told Frank to go on dancing with her. What was it to him! But she'd dance with him just the same, if she got the chance. How she just loved to dance! Something seemed to get into her, when the music struck up. She hardly knew what she was doing, felt as though she was floating around on that thick, soft moss you walked on when you went blue-berrying on the Burning above the Eagle Rocks . . . all springly. . . . If you could only dance by yourself, without having to bother with partners, that was what would be nice.

She stepped to the door to listen, and heard 'Gene's mother cackling away like an old hen. How she would carry on, with anybody that came along! She hadn't never settled down, not a bit really, for all she had been married and was a widow and was old. It wa'n't nice to be so lively as that, at her age. But she wasn't nice, Mother Powers wasn't, for all she was good to Addie and Ralph and little 'Gene. Nelly liked nice people, she thought, as she went back to shake the rag rugs out of the window; refined ladies like Mrs. Bayweather, the minister's wife. That was the way she wanted to be, and have little Addie grow up. She lingered at the window a moment looking up at the thick dark branches of the big pine. How horrid it was to have that great tree so close to the house! It shaded the bedroom so that there was a musty smell no matter how much it was aired. And the needles dropped down so messy too, and spoiled the grass.

Frank's voice came up the stairs, bold, laughing, "Nelly, Nelly, come down here a minute. I want to ask you something!"

"I can't," she called back. Didn't he have the nerve!

"Why can't you?" the skeptical question came from halfway up the stairs. "I saw you on the side-porch, just as I came up."

Nelly cast about for an excuse. Of course you had to have some reason for saying you couldn't see a neighbor who came in. She had an inspiration. "I'm washing my hair," she called back, taking out the hair-pins hastily, as she spoke. The great coils came tumbling down on her shoulders. She soused them in the water pitcher, and went to the door, opening it a crack, tipping her head forward so that the water streamed on the floor. "Can't you ask Mother Powers for whatever it is?" she said impatiently. She wished as she spoke that she could ever speak right out sharp and scratchy the way other people did. She was too easy, that was the trouble.

"Well," said Frank, astonished, "you be, for a fact."

He went back down the stairs, and Nelly shut the door. She was hot all over with impatience about that butter. When it wasn't one thing to keep her from her work, it was another. Her hair all wet now. And such a job to dry it!

She heard voices in the kitchen, and the screen-door open. Thank goodness, Frank was going away! Oh my! Maybe he was going to the village! He could bring some of the pink mercerized cotton on his way back. He might as well be of some use in the world. She thrust her head out of the window. "Frank, Frank, wait a minute!" she called. She ran back to her work-basket, cut a length from a spool of thread, wound it around a bit of paper, and went again to the window. "Say, Frank, get me two spools of cotton to match that, will you, at Warner and Hardy's."

He rode his horse past the big pine, under her window, and stood up in the stirrups, looking up boldly at her, her hair in thick wet curls about her face. "I'd do anything for you!" he said jokingly, catching at the paper she threw down to him.

She slammed the window down hard. How provoking he was! But anyhow she would have enough thread to feather-stitch that hem. She'd got that much out of him. The thought made up to her for some of the annoyance of the morning. She put a towel around her shoulders under her wet hair, and waited till he was actually out of sight around the bend of the road. It seemed to her that she saw something stir in the long grass in the meadow there. Could the woodchucks be getting so close to the house as that? She'd have to tie Towser up by her lettuce, nights, if they were.

Gracious, there it was thundering, off behind the Rocks! She'd have to hustle, if she got the butter done before the storm came. When Frank had really disappeared, she ran downstairs, and rushed out to her churn. She felt of it anxiously, her face clearing to note that it seemed no warmer than when she had left it. Maybe it was all right still. She began to plunge the dasher up and down. Well, it had gone back some, she could tell by the feel, but not so much, she guessed, but what she could make it come all right.

As she churned, she thought again of Frank Warner. This was the limit! He got so on her nerves, she declared to herself she didn't care if he never danced with her again. She wished she had more spunk, like some girls, and could just send him packing. But she never could think of any sharp things to say to folks, in time. She was too easy, she knew that, always had been. Look how long she had put up with Mrs. Hewitt's snooping around. And then in the end she had got cold feet and had had to sick 'Gene on to her, to tell her they didn't want her sitting around all the time and sponging off them at meal-times.

But somehow she didn't want to ask 'Gene to speak to Frank that way. She was afraid somehow it would get 'Gene excited. Mostly he was so still, and then all of a sudden he'd flare up and she never could see a thing to make him then more than any time. The best thing to do with Gene was to keep him quiet, just as much as she could, not do anything to get him started. That was why she never went close up to him or put her arms around his neck of her own accord. She'd like to pet him and make over him, the way she did over the children, but it always seemed to get him so stirred up and everything. Men were funny, anyhow! She often had thought how nice it would be if 'Gene could only be another woman. They could have such good times together.

Why, here was 'Gene himself come in from cultivating corn right in the middle of the morning. Maybe he wanted a drink. He came up on the porch, without looking at her and went into the house. How heavy he walked. But then he always did. That was the trouble with his dancing. You had to step light, to be a good dancer.

There was a crack of thunder again, nearer than the first one. She heard him ask his mother, "Frank Warner been here?"

And Mother Powers say, "Yes, he come in to ask if we could loan him our compass. He's going to go up tomorrow in the Eagle Rock woods to run out the line between the Warner and the Benson woodlots. The Warners have sold the popple on theirs to the Crittenden mill, and Frank says the blazes are all barked over, they're so old."

Oh goody! thought Nelly, there the butter was, come all at once. The buttermilk was splashing like water. Yes, even there around the hole you could see the little yellow specks. Well, she needn't have got so provoked, after all. That was fine. Now she could get at that sprigged dress for Addie, after all, this afternoon.

'Gene came out on the porch again. She looked at him and smiled. She felt very happy and relieved that the butter had come so that she could finish working it over before noon.

'Gene glowered at her smiling face and at her hair curling and shining all down her back. How cross he looked! Oh bother! Excited too. Well, what could the matter be, now? She should think any man would be satisfied to come in, right in the middle of the morning like that, without any warning, and find his house as spick and span as a pin, and the butter churned and half the day's work out of the way. She'd like to know what more he wanted? Who else could do any better? Oh bother! How queer men were!

Yes, it would really be lots nicer if there were only women and children in the world. Gracious! how that lightning made her jump! The storm had got there quicker'n she'd thought. But the butter had come, so it was all right.

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