Archive for the ‘marriage’ Category
Celebrating 10 Years:The Story Of Us
Friday, August 5th, 2011
I celebrated 10 years of marriage yesterday to my husband, best friend and soul mate.
Today, I want to share some of my wedding album and our story. How God brought us together.
It all started at Borders Book Store.
Well, no quite. Our story began long before Borders Book Store came into play. Our story started when a college aged guy and girl began earnestly praying for God to send them their soul mates since it felt like they’d be terminally single forever. At the tender ages of 21 and 24, Mike and I were single and thought we’d never find someone! I had never had a boyfriend and Mike had had one girlfriend at the end of high school and beginning of college.
So…where were we?
Borders.
I was single and hating it. Mike was single and hating it. My sister was working at the coffee cafe in Borders Bookstore. Mike and our friend Adam used to hang out a lot at Borders and in the process met my sister. My sister became friends with Adam and in turn introduced him to me. Through Adam, I met Mike at a young adult Bible study we all ended up at. This was in October of 1999.
My first thought when I met Mike? “WOW. He’s tall.” ( My dear hubby is 6 ‘7) My second thought was ” I’m impressed! He’s so nice, and single AND a Chemical Engineer. Mr. Smarty Pants.” My third thought?
“ I could never date someone so much taller than me! (I’m 5′1) But, I have this friend who he’d be perfect for….”
Mike and I became really good friends. I found him to be super funny, nice, charming, very generous and serious about serving the Lord. He also had a great job, was very smart and had a sweet ride. We’d have these great, long conversations in his truck after he’d drop me off at my parent’s house. One night, he made his feelings known to me. I was so upset because I didn’t feel the same way about him. The next day he wrote me this BEAUTIFUL email telling me exactly how he felt. It made me cry. While writing my response I bemoaned the situation and why it was that I didn’t have feelings for such a wonderful guy. In my response I gave him the usual “let’s be friends” spiel, and how wonderful he was and that God would bring him the perfect woman for him. Oh, and, LOL, I had intended on hooking him up with my friend! How funny was that??…
His response was very nice and he made sure I knew I didn’t have to feel awkward around him because he would never bring up the subject again and we could just remain friends.
Well, after a while I started really noticing all of his wonderful qualities. Then I started getting a little flutter every time he smiled at me. And THEN I noticed I would get jealous any time he offered that cute smile to some other girl. Mike’s wonderful sense of humor, gentle giant soul, quick wit, kind heart and meaningful friendship had stolen my heart!
After a while, I knew I was starting to have feelings for him and started trying to make it REALLY obvious I wanted him to ask me out again. He acted oblivious. I think I went as far as having my sister tell him while we were all at the movies that I REALLY wanted him to hold my hand. He made it obvious that since I turned him down I was going to have to be the one to approach HIM this time. As far as he knew, I didn’t like him “that way” so he was to go on like we were just friends.
I had never, ever, ever been very forward with boys. In high school I was so afraid of rejection that I would DIE if I thought the boy I liked knew I had feelings for him. Boys I liked never liked me back. It was deny deny deny any time anyone joked around that I “liked” certain boys. Coupled with the fact that I’d never had a boyfriend, I was in very unfamiliar waters at this point in my relationship with Mike.
I knew that if I didn’t do something that Mike would continue to just be my friend and this relationship I wanted to have wasn’t going to go anywhere. Mike and I had been emailing each other every day, several times a day for several weeks. Even if we hung out during the week we’d still email every day and not run out of things to say. I always looked forward to coming home from work to one of his sweet/cute/funny/flirty emails. So, one day I sat down to respond and wrote exactly how I felt about him just to see what it felt like,with the intention of deleting it. With my hand over the “delete” button I thought ” What if I just send this? What if I take the plunge and finally put myself out there?” So, I closed my eyes and hit “send”! Then I started freaking out, unable to believe what I had just done. This was sooooo not me!!
I was so freaked out that I ended up making myself sick over it. By that night I had a fever! But, somehow I knew that after sending that e-mail, I’d be seeing Mike that night. Even though he didn’t respond, I knew he’d be coming over to my house. I put make up on, fixed my hair and got “dressed up”. Then I sat on the couch in a feverish daze, waiting. And just like I thought, the door bell rang later that night and there was Mike! He had a big grin on his face and told me he got my email and would I like to go out to dinner? Since I was already prepared for it, off we went. Our first official date was at Chili’s. That’ s where we discussed in depth our feelings for each other. Mike still had feelings for me (thank God!) and wanted to know if I was his “girlfriend” now. We held hands. It felt so weird that this moment I had been waiting for since I started liking boys was finally here. It was all very sweet. He told me how thrilled he had been to get that e-mail from me and when he read it, he leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He then looked at his co worker and said ” She likes me for me!!”. (Does anyone remember that song by Third Eye Blind? That song has been our inside joke since this very day). This all happened January 10th, 2000.
On April 16th, 2000 he proposed to me in my parent’s living room. And on August 4th, 2001 we got married!
Now 10 years, one condo,one house, three adorable kids, one miscarriage, several life changes and many pounds later we’re still madly in love. I can’t thank the Lord enough for bringing this wonderful, godly man into my life.
(This was taken on 4th Of July of this year)
(Also taken this July)
God had a perfect plan for us. What were we worried about???
Thank you for reading our story!
Facebook and Marriage. Thoughts?
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
I came across this interesting discussion via a link my sister messaged me.
This discussion comes from Courtney at Women Living Well. I admire Courtney and her sweet spirit and heart for the Lord. While I may not agree 100% with everything she writes I agree with 85% at least. I plan on becoming a regular reader.
She wrote this blog post a couple of days ago titled ” Facebook and Inappropriate Relationships”. She wrote about Facebook and how it’s starting to ruin marriages and what her and her husband are doing about it. Check it out and check out the comments. (It’s a hot topic so the comments range from over the top, to spot on to interesting, in my opinion). When you’re done you can read below my feelings on the subject. You know, if you’re so inclined. I know you’re dying to read what I think!
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
So, maybe I’m naive but I have never considered that Facebook would break up marriages! I guess since I don’t know anyone personally who’s had that problem I have just never thought about it. After reading this blog post and the comments I can definitely see how that might happen.
I don’t feel led to delete my male friends but kudos to those who do. Call me weak but I could NEVER close my Facebook completely! I do feel like Facebook can be used for good. It all depends on what YOU do with it.
Here are some thoughts I have on this subject:
~I use Facebook to keep in touch with my family who live in Texas and other parts of the United States. My mom really enjoys seeing pictures of my girls that I post on Facebook. My grandparents are on Facebook, which I think is cool.
~My male friends include family members, church members, friends from highschool, coworkers of Mike’s and regular friends I’ve met along the way. I have never had one inappropriate comment from them nor have I seen an inappropriate status written by them. Since Mike was my first boyfriend I have no exes to be friends with. That might definitely be a little awkward. I might not friend an ex if I had one.
Do you friend your exes on Facebook? What are your thoughts on that subject?
~ Usually, I’m friends with the wife/ girlfriend/fiance of the male friend (if he’s married etc) as well.
~ I’ve made some wonderful connections through Facebook that I might never have had the chance to do because of busy schedules or distance. It’s actually been a really funny experience. I’ve gotten to know people better because of Facebook!
~ I agree with one of the comments that some of those women acted like their husbands and men in general are like wild animals who can’t control their lust and being tempted! Again, I’m not trying to down play real issues with that, because there certainly are. But I think those types of men are far less common than some of the women commenting made it out to be.
~ There have been way more instances of my women Facebook friends being inappropriate or obnoxious on Facebook than the male friends I have. I’ve never actually un-friended anyone, but I have hidden them from my news feed because I got tired of their crap.
~ Facebook is a tool that will turn out to be however you use it!
Those are my thoughts on that!
What are you thoughts on this subject? I found it so interesting!
10 Areas To Pray Over Your Husband
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
I started reading “The Power Of A Praying Wife” by Stormie Omartian for the second time this summer. I love this book. I know I need to read it at least once a year to keep reminding me of what I need to pray over my husband about. Stormie points out that a mother’s prayers for her son are important but his wife’s prayers are even more important! She reminds us in her book that praying for our husbands isn’t about what we want to see changed in them but about what God wants to do and see in their lives. And if there are things that really do need to be changed in our husband’s lives that God is the only one who can do it and not us. It’s not until I read this book last year that I realized I was not praying enough for Mike. There are so many areas of his life that I could be praying over and I wasn’t! Part of learning to pray for our husbands is also learning to pray for ourselves and how to be better partners.
Stormie details 30 areas (yes, thirty!!! Who knew?? ) of our husbands lives that we should be praying about. And they are all important. Depending on your marriage some areas may need more prayer than others. I have picked the top ten that I find the most important for Top Ten Tuesday.
1. His work.
My husband works hard and long hours. He’s Engineering Manager for a biotech company. It’s a stressful job. He’s responsible for a lot of deadlines and budgets. His work drains him mentally and physically sometimes. He is one of those guys who takes his work seriously and gives %110. Many times I feel like his employers take advantage of him because he is such a hard, honest employee and willing to go above and beyond his job description most of the time. I pray that God will give him wisdom, peace and energy throughout the day. And that his employers will appreciate his work and compensate him accordingly.
2. His Purpose.
Similar to praying for his work, if my husband does not feel fulfilled in his life’s work he will not be happy. So I pray that God will show Mike his purpose in life. Mike has a huge heart for ministry and is talented in teaching and descipleship as well so if he is not involved in church ministry in some way he doesn’t feel like he’s truly doing all he should be doing for the Lord. Stormie writes:
” You can always tell when a man is not living in the purpose for which God has created him. You sense his unrest. You get a feeling something is not quite right, even if you can’t put your finger on it.”
“…a wife can’t put pressure on her husband to be something but she can pray for him to become it.”
” Whatever God has called your husband to be or do, He has also called you o support it and be a part of it, if in no other way that to pray, encourage, and help in whatever way possible.”
I don’t want to be a hindrance to God’s purpose for Mike. I want to be an encourager and a blessing.
3. His Health.
Because Mike is in a high stress, long hours job he doesn’t have a lot of time to take good care of himself. I have worried about how stress and poor eating can affect his health negatively. He doesn’t exercise consistently ( pot calling the kettle black on my part???) and wasn’t eating healthfully most days. He’s a BIG guy. 6′7 and 370 pounds. BIG. He (we) have struggled with our weight since we’ve been married. He’s a uber picky eater by nature and vegetables and fruit I(or any healthy food for that matter) have not really been on his menu for most of his adult life. I can attest to the power of prayer by the fact that in the past year Mike’s tastes for healthy food have changed considerably! I started making Mike’s lunches so that has forced him to eat healthier. He has started taking salad’s to work ( something his family NEVER thought would happen!) and he started eating an apple at breakfast every morning.
Stormie writes:
“Your husband’s health is not something to take for granted, no matter what his age or condition. Pray for him to learn to take proper care of himself, and if he becomes ill, pray for him to be healed.”
“It seems to me that God is interested in healing, and he didn’t put a time limit on it; only a faith limit. ( Matthew 9:22)”
My prayer for Mike is that he would learn to take better care of himself and also to listen to the signals his body is giving him to take it easy or to go to the doctor when needed. (You know how “tough” men can be!!)
4. His Protection.
As I mentioned above, Mike’s job keeps him working long hours. He works an hour away. He has to commute to and from work in horrible weather during the winter. He also has to commute when tired and sleepy. Many a times he has nodded off while driving and that scares me to death! I’ve prayed often for Mike’s safety while driving to and from work. Your husband may be in a line of work (construction, military, police officer, firefighter etc) that puts him in harms way. Praying for the Lord to put his hedge of protection around him is something you need to do daily.
Stormie writes:
” Our husbands are on the battlefield every day. There are dangers everywhere. Only God knows what traps the enemy has laid to bring accidents, disease, evil, violence and destruction into our lives….. That’s why prayer for your husband’s protection needs to be frequent and ongoing. You never know when it might be needed in the battlefield. And if something happens, you’ll have the comfort of knowing you’ve invited God’s presence and power into the middle of it.”
Not only do we need to pray for physical protection but also for mental and spiritual as well.
5. His Trials.
Stormie says it best:
“Everyone goes through hard times. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes our prayers help us avoid them. Sometimes not……A wife’s prayers for her husband during these times may not change some of the things he must go through. After all, if we never suffered anything, what kind of shallow, compassionless, impatient people would we be? But prayer can help him maintain a positive outlook of gratitude, hope, patience, and peace in the midst of it, and keep him from reaping the penalty of a wrong response.” (italics mine)
6. His Integrity.
I’m not bragging when I say that Mike is a man of Integrity. It’s just a fact! He is one of the most noble, honest people I know. When I pray for his integrity I don’t pray for him to have it, I pray for him to keep it.
Stormie writes:
“Integrity is not what you appear {italics hers} to be when all eyes are on you. It’s who you are when no one is looking. It’s a level of morality below which you never fall, no matter what’s happening around you. It’s a high standard of honesty, truthfulness, decency and honor that is never breached. {italics mine}It’s doing for others the way you would want them to do for you.”
” A man of integrity says something and means it.”
” A man of integrity “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15.4) He will keep his word even if it costs him something to do so.”
” Your prayers can help shield him from anything that causes him doubt and waver, and gie him strength to do what’s right- even when no one’s looking”.
In a world where it’s so easy to take the easy way out, let’s pray for our husbands to be men of noble character.
7. His Relationships.
Does your husband have a wonderful, steadfast, godly friend? Mike has had some that have come and gone in his seasons of life. Good friends are truly hard to find unless the Lord is in the search. My prayer right now is that he will find a wonderful, loyal and godly friend for this season of his life. We all know how much our husband’s friends can influence them. We need to pray for godly couples to come into our lives and be a wonderful source of encouragement and friendship to both of us.
Stormie writes:
“Being good friends with godly people who love the Lord, doesn’t just happen by chance. We must pray that such people will come into our lives. And then when we find them, we should continue to cover the relationship in prayer.”
” Pray also for your husband to have godly male friends. And when he finds them, give time to be with them without criticism. Those friends will refine him. “ As iron sharpens iron,s o a man sharpens the countenance of his friend” (Proverbs 27:17)”
I also pray that Mike will continue to have a good relationship with my family and his.
8. His Fatherhood.
Mike is a great father and great provider. One of my duties as a wife is to pray continually that God will give us both wisdom to parent our daughters. But we all know that fathers play a huge role in our children’s lives. A role that sometimes is underrated and underestimated. A father’s relationship to his children is unique and special. I pray that Mike will continue to have a close relationship with our children throughout his life.
Stormie writes:
Men don’t always realize how important they are to their children. They sometimes fell they are only there to provide materially for them. But the importance of a father’s influence can never be underestimated. How he relates to his children will shape their lives for bad or for good. It will change his life forever ,too. For if he fails as a father, he will always carry that sense of failure with him. If he succeeds, there will be no greater measure of his success in life.”
9. His Marriage.
We must pray for our husband’s marriage… to us! I think our marriage is something that many women automatically pray for since it’s something so close to our hearts. Or maybe your marriage is so great you don’t feel the need to. Cover your marriage in prayer. It’s the best thing you can for both of you!
Stormie writes:
“Praying about all aspects of marriage keeps the concept of divorce from gaining any hold. So we mustn’t neglect the major issues, even if we think they don’t apply to us.” {italics mine}
” Pray that your marriage is a place where two agree so God will be in the midst of it (Matthew 18:19,20)”
” Don’t take your marriage for granted, no matter how great it is……Pray for your marriage to be protected from any person or situation that could destroy it……Pray that God will make your marriage a source of joy, and life to both of you, and not a drudgery, a thorn, a dread, an irritation, or a temporary condition.”
10. His Obedience.
The Lord speaks to us as a couple and also individually as a husband and as a wife.We each have our struggles and issues we are working on, with the Lord’s help. We do our best to keep each other accountable. Sometimes the Lord gives extra insight about a path the other is headed down.
Stormie writes:
If you clearly observe your husband walking down a wrong path, should you say something? If so, how much should you say and when is the right time to say it? The best way I’ve found to proceed is to take it to God first and weigh it on His scales……You can encourage him to do what’s right and pray for him to do what’s right, but ultimately it’s God’s voice that will have the greater impact.”
” A man who does what God asks, builds his house on a rock. When the rain, floods, and wind come and beat on the house, it won’t fall (Matthew 7:24-27). You don’t want to witness the downfall of your house because of your husband’s disobedience in any area. While it’s not your place to be either his mother or the gestapo, it is your job to pray, and speak after you’ve gotten your orders from God.”
I highly recommend reading this book if you haven’t. Not only have I learned to pray for my husband but I’ve learned more about myself and how important MY prayers are. It touches so many different areas of prayer there’s no way your husband could NOT be covered in God’s protection and blessings when you pray over these things.
For a not- as- dragged- out Top Ten Tuesday head over to Oh Amanda!
Horse And Carriage?
Monday, June 14th, 2010
I came across this post last Friday night that was apparently causing quite a stir in the blogosphere. After you read the first highlighted post you can also read about the Completing Him challenge straight from Courtney’s blog here. Before I tell you what I think of Scary Mommy’s post as well as Courtney’s I’ll give you guys a minute to read it.
…………………………..
Ok. Done? Ready?
What are your thoughts on Scary Mommy’s post? What are your thoughts on Courtney’s Completing Him challenge and her views on marriage?
I understand that Scary Mommy’s whole “thing” is snark and sarcasm so I’m not too surprised by what she wrote and how she wrote it in regards to her thoughts on the challenge. She totally thinks Courtney’s challenge is a bunch of crap and used her blog and sarcastic way of writing to make fun of it. I get that. What I was taken aback by was the comments by her readers! Whoa! Way over the top nastiness!! Comments on her looks? Comments that her husband is probably cheating on her? I was taken aback by the rock bottom level some of these women sunk to. (And I shouldn’t be because I’ve seen these kinds of comments on other blogs). The whole thing just felt mean and uncalled for.
Wow!!
Apparently, marriage and the roles in marriage are a HOT and touchy topic in bloggyland. I just don’t “get” nasty and downright mean comments. I just don’t. Call me crazy. Call me naive. I know you put yourself “out there” when your blog is public and you open yourself up to criticism. I have read so many blog posts and comments that I couldn’t agree less with. If I feel so strongly about what the blogger wrote that I feel I must reply I leave a respectful comment about it. I would never resort to negative comments on their appearance, thoughts on what their husband are probably doing on the side or on how I think their IQ is limited. Usually I don’t reply at all and move on. Unfortunately, too many women lead, nice, proper and even, dare I say, Christian lives during the day but then get on their computer and unleash their inner “mean girl” onto other bloggers because they can hide behind their computer thousands of miles way.
As to what I think about Courtney’s marriage challenge…I’m not sure. I have to admit that a little what-about-me attitude sprung up a bit. I know she’s totally doing this challenge with the right heart and for the right reasons. I totally respect and admire her for that. I think her ministry to women is wonderful! But…not sure this challenge is for me.
I know what the Bible says about marriage. I know how it talks about wives submitting to their husbands and husbands being the head of the household. I agree and believe all of that. However, there are so many different ideas on what “biblical submission” in marriage is.
Here, take a gander at Ephesians 5:21-33 yourself…
21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
I believe God created marriage for a purpose. I believe He does have a plan and a blueprint for how marriage should be. His design is the absolute best.
But what does “wives submit to your husbands” mean to you? My take is this:
We’re a team. A partnership in this marriage. But in this partnership Mike is the president and I’m the vice president. Mike has the final say so. He will also answer to God one day for how he lead our family. That’s a lot of responsibility! These verses don’t only talk about wives submitting to husbands. It talks about husbands loving their wives like Christ loved the church. Christ died for his church! That’s a lot of love!! I think too many people blow this chapter way out of proportion and get their panties in a twist over it. When I’m doing my part in showing love and respect to Mike and honoring him as the head of my home and he in turn is loving and treating me as if it were himself then that’s a lot of love , honor and respect flowing from both sides.That’s a great marriage right there! It’s all in the attitude and the spirit by which you view and live out your marriage. If you’re coming at it from a stand point of nitpickiness ( well, who’s job is it to do the dishes?I do them way more than he does…waahhh) and keeping a score card then your marriage will suffer. It doesn’t matter who does the dishes or the cooking. Each couple works out those details however it works for their marriage. It’s the attitude and the spirit that counts. If you’re doing all the dishes, cooking the meals, cleaning the house and rubbing your husband’s feet every night when he comes from work, but doing it with resentment and a terrible attitude than….you’re missing the point! That’ s not what this passage is talking about. Talk with your husband and work something out that works for both of you.
So…. lots of food for thought.
What do you think? Do you like to unleash your inner “mean girl”? Are you at peace with her and don’t think it’s a problem to lambaste other bloggers in their comment section? What do you think of the Completing Him challenge? What are your thoughts on marriage?
Oh boy, I really want to hear from you guys on this!
p.s In case you were wondering, Courtney does respond (in a Christ like and class way) to ScaryMommy and all other naysayers of her challenge here. You can also read a great article that ShePosts wrote about ScaryMommy and Courtney here.
When Queens Ride By
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
My friend Laurie e-mailed me this story yesterday and mentioned how it touched her. She had found it on another blog that she reads.(Which, of course, she doesn’t like nearly as much as mine. Right Laurie?? *wink*) She wasn’t kidding when she said it was long but worth the read. I too thought it was a touching story so I wanted to share it on my blog. You can read my commentary below after the story.
Don’t let the length keep you from reading this! I promise you’ll enjoy it!
Thank you, Laurie, for sending this to me.
When Queens Ride By
by Agnes Slight Turnbull, 1926
Jennie Musgrave woke at the shrill rasp of the alarm clock as she always woke—with the shuddering start and a heavy realization that the brief respite of the night’s oblivion was over. She had only time to glance through the dull light at the cluttered, dusty room, before John’s voice was saying sleepily as he said every morning, “All right, let’s go. It doesn’t seem as if we’d been in bed at all!”
Jennie dressed quickly in the clothes, none too clean, that, exhausted, she had flung from her the night before. She hurried down the back stairs, her coarse shoes clattering thickly upon the bare boards. She kindled the fire in the range and then made a hasty pretense at washing in the basin in the sink.
John strode through the kitchen and on out to the barn. There were six cows to be milked and the great cans of milk to be taken to the station for the morning train.
Jennie put coffee and bacon on the stove, and then, catching up a pail from the porch, went after John. A golden red disk broke the misty blue of the morning above the cow pasture. A sweet, fragrant breath blew from the orchard. But Jennie neither saw nor felt the beauty about her.
She glanced at the sun and thought, It’s going to be a hot day. She glanced at the orchard, and her brows knit. There it hung. All that fruit. Bushels of it going to waste. Maybe she could get time that day to make some more apple butter. But the tomatoes wouldn’t wait. She must pick them and get them to town today, or that would be a dead loss. After all her work, well, it would only be in a piece with everything else if it did happen so. She and John had bad luck, and they might as well make up their minds to it.
She finished her part of the milking and hurried back again to the overcooked bacon and strong coffee. The children were down, clamorous, dirty, always underfoot. Jim, the eldest, was in his first term of school. She glanced at his spotted waist. He should have a clean one. But she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t get the washing done last week, and when she was to get a day for it this week she didn’t know, with all the picking and the trips to town to make!
Breakfast was hurried and unpalatable, a sort of grudging concession to the demands of the body. Then John left in the milk wagon for the station, and Jennie packed little Jim’s lunch basket with bread and apple butter and pie, left the two little children to their own devices in the backyard, and started toward the barn. There was no time to do anything in the house. The chickens and turkeys had to be attended to, and then she must get to the tomato patch before the sun got too hot. Behind her was the orchard with its rows and rows of laden apple tree. Maybe this afternoon—maybe tomorrow morning. There were the potatoes, too, to be lifted. Too hard work for a woman. But what were you going to do? Starve? John worked till dark in the fields.
She pushed her hair back with a quick, boyish sweep of her arm and went on scattering the grain to the fowls. She remembered their eager plans when they were married, when they took over the old farm—laden with its heavy mortgage—that had been John’s father’s. John had been so straight of back then and so jolly. Only seven years, yet now he was stooped a little, and his brows were always drawn, as though to hide a look of ashamed failure. They had planned to have a model farm someday: blooded stock, a tractor, a new barn. And then such a home they were to make of the old stone house! Jennie’s hopes had flared higher even than John’s. A rug for the parlor, an overstuffed set like the one in the mail—order catalogue, linoleum for the kitchen, electric lights!
They were young and, oh, so strong! There was nothing they could not do if they only worked hard enough.
But that great faith had dwindled as the first year passed. John worked later and later in the evenings. Jennie took more and more of the heavy tasks upon her own shoulders. She often thought with some pride that no woman in the countryside ever helped her husband as she did. Even with the haying and riding the reaper. Hard, coarsening work, but she was glad to do it for John’s sake.
The sad riddle of it all was that at the end of each year they were no further on. The only difference from the year before was another window shutter hanging from one hinge and another crippled wagon in the barnyard which John never had time to mend. They puzzled over it in a vague distress. And meanwhile life degenerated into a straining, hopeless struggle. Sometimes lately John had seemed a little listless, as though nothing mattered. A little bitter when he spoke of Henry Davis.
Henry held the mortgage and had expected a payment on the principle this year. He had come once and looked about with something very like a sneer on his face. If he should decide someday to foreclose—that would be the final blow. They never would get up after that. If John couldn’t hold the old farm, he could never try to buy a new one. It would mean being renters all their lives. Poor renters at that!
She went to the tomato field. It had been her own idea to do some tracking along with the regular farm crops. But, like everything else, it had failed of her expectations. As she put the scarlet tomatoes, just a little overripe, into the basket, she glanced with a hard tightening of her lips toward a break in the trees a half mile away where a dark, listening bit of road caught the sun. Across its polished surface twinkled an endless procession of shining, swift—moving objects. The State Highway.
Jennie hated it. In the first place, it was so tauntingly near and yet so hopelessly far from them. If it only ran by their door, as it did
past Henry Davis’s for instance, it would solve the whole problem of marketing the fruits and vegetables. Then they could set the baskets on the lawn, and people could stop for them. But as it was, nobody all summer long had paid the least attention to the sign John had put up at the end of the lane. And no wonder. Why should travelers drive their cars over the stony country byway, when a little farther along they would find the same fruit spread temptingly for them at the very roadside?
But there was another reason she hated that bit of sleek road showing between the trees. She hated it because it hurt her with its suggestions of all that passed her by in that endless procession twinkling in the sunshine. There they kept going, day after day, those happy, carefree women, riding in handsome limousines or in gay little roadsters. Some in plainer cars, too, but even those were, like the others, women who could have rest, pleasure, comfort for the asking. They were whirled along hour by hour to new pleasures, while she was weighted to the drudgery of the farm like one of the great rocks in the pasture field.
And—most bitter thought of all—they had pretty homes to go back to when the happy journey was over. That seemed to be the strange and cruel law about homes. The finer they were, the easier it was to leave them. Now with her—if she had the rug for the parlor and the stuffed furniture and linoleum for the kitchen, she shouldn’t mind anything so much then; she had nothing, nothing but hard slaving and bad luck. And the highway taunted her with it. Flung its impossible pleasures mockingly in her face as she bent over the vines or dragged the heavy baskets along the rows.
The sun grew hotter. Jennie put more strength into her task. She knew, at last, by the scorching heat overhead that is was nearing noon. She must have a bit of lunch ready for John when he came in. There wasn’t time to prepare much. Just reheat the coffee and set down some bread and pie.
She started towards the house, giving a long yodeling call for the children as she went. They appeared from the orchard, tumbled and torn from experiments with the wire fence. Her heart smothered her at the sight of them. Among the other dreams that the years had crushed out were those of little rosy boys and girls in clean suits and fresh ruffled dresses. As it was, the children had just grown like farm weeds.
This was the part of all the drudgery that hurt most. That she had not time to care for her children, sew for them, teach them things that other children knew. Sometimes it seemed as if she had no real love for them at all. She was too terribly tired as a rule to have any feeling. The only times she used energy to talk to them was when she had to reprove them for some dangerous misdeed. That was all wrong. It seemed wicked; but how could she help it? With the work draining the very life out of her, strong as she was.
John came in heavily, and they ate in silence except for the children’s chatter. John hardly looked up form his plate. He gulped down great drafts of the warmed-over coffee and then pushed his chair back hurriedly.
“I’m goin’ to try to finish the harrowin’ in the south field,” he said.
“I’m at the tomatoes,” Jennie answered. “I’ve got them’ most all picked and ready for takin’.”
That was all. Work was again upon them.
It was two o’clock by the sun, and Jennie had loaded the last heavy basket of tomatoes on the milk wagon in which she must drive to town, when she heard shrill voices sounding along the path. The children were flying in excitement toward her.
“Mum! Mum! Mum!” they called as they came panting up to her with big, surprised eyes.
“Mum, there’s a lady up there. At the kitchen door. All dressed up. A pretty lady. She wants to see you.”
Jennie gazed down at them disbelievingly. A lady, a pretty lady at her kitchen door? All dressed up! What that could mean! Was it possible someone had at last braved the stony lane to buy fruit? Maybe bushels of it!
“Did she come in a car?” Jennie asked quickly.
“No, she just walked in. She’s awful pretty. She smiled at us.”
Jennie’s hopes dropped. Of course. She might have known. Some agent likely, selling books. She followed the children wearily back along the path and in at the rear door of the kitchen. Across from it another door opened into the side yard. Here stood the stranger.
The two women looked at each other across the kitchen, across the table with the remains of two meals upon it, the strewn chairs, the littered stove—across the whole scene of unlovely disorder. They looked at each other in startled surprise, as inhabitants of Earth and Mars might look if they were suddenly brought face-to-face.
Jennie saw a woman in a gray tweed coat that seemed to be part of her straight, slim body. A small gray hat with a rose quill was drawn low over the brownish hair. Her blue eyes were clear and smiling. She was beautiful! And yet she was not young. She was in her forties, surely. But an aura of eager youth clung to her, a clean and exquisite freshness.
The stranger in her turn looked across at a young woman, haggard and weary. Her yellowish hair hung in straggling wisps. Her eyes looked hard and hunted. Her cheeks were thin and sallow. Her calico dress was shapeless and begrimed from her work.
So they looked at each other for one long, appraising second. Then the woman in gray smiled.
“How do you do? ” she began. “We ran our car into the shade of your lane to have our lunch and rest for a while. And I walked on up to buy a few apples, if you have them.”
Jennie stood staring at the stranger. There was an unconscious hostility in her eyes. This was one of the women from the highway. One of those envied ones who passed twinkling through the summer sunshine from pleasure to pleasure while Jennie slaved on.
But the pretty lady’s smile was disarming. Jennie started toward a chair and pulled off the old coat and apron that lay on it.
“Won’t you sit down?” she said politely. “I’ll go and get the apples. I’ll have to pick them off the tree. Would you prefer rambos?”
“I don’t know what they are, but they sound delicious. You must choose them for me. But mayn’t I come with you? I should love to help pick them.”
Jennie considered. She felt baffled by the friendliness of the other woman’s face and utterly unable to meet it. But she did not know how to refuse.
“Why I s’pose so. If you can get through the dirt.”
She led the way over the back porch with its crowded baskets and pails and coal buckets, along the unkept path toward the orchard. She had never been so acutely conscious of the disorder about her. Now a hot shame brought a lump to her throat. In her preoccupied haste before, she had actually not noticed that tub of overturned milk cans and rubbish heap! She saw it all now swiftly through the other woman’s eyes. And then that new perspective was checked by a bitter defiance. Why should she care how things looked to this woman? She would be gone, speeding down the highway in a few minutes as though she had never been there.
She reached the orchard and began to drag a long ladder from the fence to the rambo tree.
The other woman cried out in distress. “Oh, but you can’t do that! You mustn’t. It’s too heavy for you, or even for both of us. Please just let me pick a few from the ground.”
Jennie looked in amazement at the stranger’s concern. It was so long since she had seen anything like it.
“Heavy?” she repeated. “This ladder? I wish I didn’t ever lift anything heavier than this. After hoistin’ bushel baskets of tomatoes onto a wagon, this feels light to me.”
The stranger caught her arm. “But—but do you think it’s right? Why, that’s a man’s work.”
Jennie’s eyes blazed. Something furious and long-pent broke out from within her. “Right! Who are you to be askin’ me whether I’m right or
not?” What would have become of us if I didn’t do a man’s work? It takes us both, slaving away, an’ then we get nowhere. A person like you don’t know what work is! You don’t know—”
Jennie’s voice was the high shrill of hysteria; but the stranger’s low tones somehow broke through. “Listen,” she said soothingly. “Please listen to me. I’m sorry I annoyed you by saying that, but now, since we are talking, why can’t we sit down here and rest a minute? It’s so cool and lovely here under the trees, and if you were to tell me all about it—because I’m only a stranger—perhaps it would help. It does sometimes, you know. A little rest would—”
“Rest! Me sit down to rest, an’ the wagon loaded to go to town? It’ll hurry me now to get back before dark.”
And then something strange happened. The other women put her cool, soft hand on Jennie’s grimy arm. There was a compelling tenderness in her eyes. “Just take the time you would have spent picking apples. I would so much rather. And perhaps somehow I could help you. I wish I could. Won’t you tell me why you have to work so hard?”
Jennie sank down on the smooth green grass. Her hunted, unwilling eyes had yielded to some power in the clear, serene eyes of the stranger. A sort of exhaustion came over her. A trembling reaction from the straining effort of weeks.
“There ain’t much to tell,” she said half sullenly, “only that we ain’t gettin’ ahead. We’re clean discouraged, both off us. Henry Davis is talking about foreclosin’ on us if we don’t pay some principle. The time of the mortgage is out this year, an’ mebbe he won’t renew it. He’s got plenty himself, but them’s the hardest kind.” She paused; then her eyes flared. “An’ it ain’t that I haven’t done my part. Look at me. I’m barely thirty, an’ I might be fifty. I’m so weather-beaten. That’s the way I’ve worked!”
“And you think that has helped your husband?”
“Helped him?” Jennie’s voice was sharp. “Why shouldn’t it help him?”
The stranger was looking away through the green stretches of orchard. She laced her slim hands together about her knees. She spoke slowly. “Men are such queer things, husbands especially. Sometimes we blunder when we are trying hardest to serve them. For instance, they want us to be economical, and yet they want us in pretty clothes. They need our work, and yet they want us to keep our youth and our beauty. And sometimes they don’t know themselves which they really want most. So we have to choose. That’s what makes it so hard”.
She paused. Jennie was watching her with dull curiosity as though she were speaking a foreign tongue.
Then the stranger went on:
I had to choose once, long ago; just after we were married, my husband decided to have his own business, so he started a very tiny one. He couldn’t afford a helper, and he wanted me to stay in the office while he did the outside selling. And I refused, even though it hurt him. Oh, it was hard! But I knew how it would be if I did as he wished. We would both have come back each night. Tired out, to a dark, cheerless house and a picked-up dinner. And a year if that might have taken something away from us—something precious. I couldn’t risk it, so I refused and stuck to it.
“And then how I worked in my house—a flat it was then. I had so little outside of our wedding gifts; but at least I could make it a clean, shining, happy place. I tried to give our little dinners the grace of a feast. And as the months went on, I knew I had done right. My husband would come home dead-tired and discouraged, ready to give up the whole thing. But after he had eaten and sat down in our bright little living room, and I had read to him or told him all the funny things I could invent about my day, I could see him change. By bedtime he had his courage back, and by morning he was at last ready to go out and fight again. And at last he won, and he won his success alone, as a man loves to do.
Still Jennie did not speak. She only regarded her guest with a half-resentful understanding.
The woman in gray looked off again between the trees. Her voice was very sweet. A humorous little smile played about her lips.
“There was a queen once,” she went on, “who reigned in troublous days. And every time the country was on the brink of war and the people ready to fly into a panic, she would put on her showiest dress and take her court with her and go hunting. And when the people would see her riding by, apparently so gay and happy, they were sure all was well with the Government. So she tided over many a danger. And I’ve tried to be like her.
“Whenever a big crisis comes in my husband’s business—and we’ve had several—or when he’s discouraged, I put on my prettiest dress and get the best dinner I know how or give a party! And somehow it seems to work. That’s the woman’s part, you know. To play the queen—”
A faint honk-honk came from the lane. The stranger started to her feet. “That’s my husband. I must go. Please don’t bother about the apples. I’ll just take these from under the tree. We only wanted two or three, really. And give these to the children.” She slipped two coins into Jennie’s hand.
Jennie had risen, too, and was trying from a confusion of startled thoughts to select one for speech. Instead she only answered the other woman’s bright good-bye with a stammering repetition and a broken apology about the apples.
She watched the stranger’s erect, lithe figure hurrying away across the path that led directly to the lane. Then she turned her back to the house, wondering dazedly if she had only dreamed that the other woman had been there. But no, there were emotions rising hotly within her that were new. They had had no place an hour before. They had risen at the words of the stranger and at the sight of her smooth, soft hair, the fresh color in her cheeks, the happy shine of her eyes.
A great wave of longing swept over Jennie, a desire that was lost in choking despair. It was as thought she had heard a strain of music for which she had waited all her life and then felt it swept away into silence before she had grasped its beauty. For a few brief minutes she, Jennie Musgrave, had sat beside one of the women of the highway and caught a breath of her life—that life which forever twinkled in the past in bright procession, like the happenings of a fairy tale. Then she was gone, and Jennie was left as she had been, bound to the soil like one of the rocks of the field.
The bitterness that stormed her heart now was different from the old dull disheartenment. For it was coupled with new knowledge. The words of the stranger seemed more vivid to her than when she had sat listening in the orchard. But they came back to her with the pain of agony.
“All very well for her to talk so smooth to me about man’s work and woman’s work! An’ what she did for her husband’s big success. Easy enough for her to sit talking about queens! What would she do if she was here on this farm like me? What would a woman like her do?”
Jennie had reached the kitchen door and stood there looking at the hopeless melee about her. Her words sounded strange and hollow in the silence of the house. “Easy for her!” she burst out. She never had the work pilin’ up over her like I have. She never felt it at her throat like a wolf, the same as John an’ me does. Talk about choosin’! I haven’t got no choice. I just got to keep goin’—just keep goin’, like I always have—”
She stopped suddenly. There in the middle of the kitchen floor, where the other woman had passed over, lay a tiny square of white. Jennie crossed to it quickly and picked it up. A faint delicious fragrance like the dream of a flower came from it. Jennie inhaled it eagerly. It was not like any odor she had ever known. It made her think of sweet, strange things. Things she had never thought about before. Of gardens in the early summer dusk, of wide fair rooms with the moonlight shining in them. It made her somehow think with vague wistfu
lness of all that.
She looked carefully at the tiny square. The handkerchief was of fine, fairy like smoothness. In the corner a dainty blue butterfly spread his wings. Jennie drew in another long breath. The fragrance filled her senses again. Her first greedy draft had not exhausted it. It would stay for a while, at least.
She laid the bit of white down cautiously on the edge of the table and went to the sink, where she washed her hands carefully. The she returned and picked up the handkerchief again with something like reverence. She sat down, still holding it, staring at it. This bit of linen was to her an articulated voice. She understood its language. It spoke to her of white, freshly washed clothes blowing in the sunshine, of an iron moving smoothly, leisurely, to the accompaniment of a song over snowy folds; it spoke to her of quiet, orderly rooms and ticking clocks and a mending basket under the evening lamp; it spoke to her of all the peaceful routine of a well managed household, the kind she had once dreamed of having.
But more than this, the exquisite daintiness of it, the sweet, alluring perfume spoke to her of something else which her heart understood, even though her speech could have found no words for it. She could feel gropingly the delicacy, the grace, the beauty that made up the other woman’s life in all its relations.
She, Jennie, had none of that. Everything about their lives, hers and John’s, was coarsened, soiled somehow by the dragging, endless labor or the days.
Jennie leaned forward, her arms stretched tautly before her upon her knees, her hands clasped tightly over the fragrant bit of white. Suppose she were to try doing as the stranger had said. Suppose that she spent her time on the house and let the outside work go. What then? What would John say? Would they be much farther behind than they were now? Could they be? And suppose, by some strange chance, the other woman had been right! That a man could be helped more by doing of these other things she had neglected?
She sat very still, distressed, uncertain. Out in the barnyard waited the wagon of tomatoes, overripe now for market. No, she could do nothing today, at least, but go on as usual.
Then her hands opened a little; the perfume within them came up to her, bringing again that thrill of sweet, indescribable things.
She started up, half-terrified at her own resolve. “I’m goin’ to try it now. Mebbe I’m crazy, but I’m goin’ to do it anyhow!”
It was a long time since Jennie had performed such a meticulous toilet. It was years since she had brushed her hair. A hasty combing had been its best treatment. She put on her one clean dress, the dark voile reserved for trips to town. She even changed from her shapeless, heavy shoes to her best ones. Then, as she looked at herself in the dusty mirror, she saw that she was changed. Something, at least, of the hard haggardness was gone from her face, and her hair framed it with smooth softness. Tomorrow she would wash it. It used to be almost yellow.
She went to the kitchen. With something of the burning zeal of a fanatic, she attacked the confusion before her. By half past four the room was clean: the floor swept, the stove shining, dishes and pans washed and put in their places. From the tumbled depths of a drawer Jennie had extracted a white tablecloth that had been bought in the early days, for company only. With a spirit of daring recklessness she spread it on the table. She polished the chimney of the big oil lamp and then set the fixture, clean and shining, in the center of the white cloth.
Now the supper! And she must hurry. She planned to have it at six o’ clock and ring the big bell for John fifteen minutes before, as she used to just after they were married.
She decided upon fried ham and browned potatoes and applesauce with hot biscuits. She hadn’t made them for so long, but her fingers fell into their old deftness. Why, cooking was just play if you had time to do it right! Then she thought of the tomatoes and gave a little shudder. She thought of the long hours of backbreaking work she had put into them and called herself a little fool to have been swayed by the words of a strange and the scent of a handkerchief, to neglect her rightful work and bring more loss upon John and herself. But she went on, making the biscuits, turning the ham, setting the table.
It was half past five; the first pan of flaky brown mounds had been withdrawn from the oven, the children’s faces and hands had been washed and their excited questions satisfied, when the sound of a car came from the bend. Jennie knew that car. It belonged to Henry Davis. He could be coming for only one thing.
The blow they had dreaded, fending off by blind disbelief in the ultimate disaster, was about to fall. Henry was coming to tell them he was going to foreclose. It would almost kill John. This was his father’s old farm. John had taken it over, mortgage and all, so hopefully, so sure he could succeed where his father had failed. If he had to leave now there would be a double disgrace to bear. And where could they go? Farms weren’t so plentiful.
Henry had driven up to the side gate. He fumbled with some papers in his inner pocket as he started up the walk. A wild terror filled Jennie’s heart. She wanted desperately to avoid meeting Henry Davis’s keen, hard face, to flee somewhere, anywhere before she heard the words that doomed them.
Then as she stood shaken, wondering how she could live through what the next hours would bring, she saw in a flash the beautiful stranger as she had sat in the orchard, looking off between the trees and smiling to herself. “There was once a queen.”
Jennie heard the words again distinctly just as Henry Davis’s steps sounded sharply nearer on the walk outside. There was only a confused picture of a queen wearing the stranger’s lovely, highbred face, riding gaily to the hunt through forests and towns while her kingdom was tottering. Riding gallantly on, in spite of her fears.
Jennie’s heart was pounding and her hands were suddenly cold. But something unreal and yet irresistible was sweeping her with it. “There was once a queen.”
She opened the screen door before Henry Davis had time to knock. She extended her hand cordially. She was smiling. “Well, how d’ you do, Mr. Davis. Come right in. I’m real glad to see you. Been quite a while since you was over.”
Henry looked surprised and very much embarrassed. “Why, no, now, I won’t go in. I just stopped to see John on a little matter of business. I’ll just—”
“You’ll just come right in. John will be in from milkin’ in a few minutes an’ you can talk while you eat, both of you. I’ve supper just ready. Now step right in, Mr. Davis!”
As Jennie moved aside, a warm, fragrant breath of fried ham and biscuits seemed to waft itself to Henry Davis’s nostrils. There was a visible softening of his features. “Why, no, I didn’t reckon on anything like this. I ‘lowed I’d just speak to John and then be gettin’ on.”
“They’ll see you at home when you get there,” Jennie put in quickly. “You never tasted my hot biscuits with butter an’ quince honey, or you wouldn’t take so much coachin’!”
Henry Davis came in and sat in the big, clean, warm kitchen. His eyes took in every detail of the orderly room: the clean cloth, the shining lamp, the neat sink, the glowing stove. Jennie saw him relax comfortably in his chair. Then above the aromas of the food about her, she detected the strange sweetness of the bit of white linen she had tucked away in the bosom of her dress. It rose to her as a haunting sense of her power as a woman.
She smiled at Henry Davis. Smiled as she would never have thought of doing a day ago. Then she would have spoken to him with a drawn face full of subservient fear. Now, though the fear clutched her heart, her lips smiled sweetly, moved by that unreality that seemed to possess her. “There was once a queen.”
“An’ how
are things goin’ with you, Mr. Davis?” she asked with a blithe upward reflection.
Henry Davis was very human. He had never noticed before that Jennie’s hair was so thick and pretty and that she had such pleasant ways. Neither had he dreamed that she was such a good cook as the sight and smell of the supper things would indicate. He was very comfortable there in the big sweet-smelling kitchen.
He smiled back. It was an interesting experiment on Henry’s part, for his smiles were rare. “Oh, so-so. How are they with you?”
Jennie had been taught to speak the truth; but at this moment there dawned in her mind a vague understanding that the high loyalties of life are, after all, relative and not absolute.
She smiled again as she skillfully flipped a great slice of golden brown ham over in the frying pan. “Why, just fine, Mr. Davis. We’re gettin’ on just fine, John an’ me. It’s been hard sleddin’ but I sort of think the worst is over. I think we’re goin’ to come out way ahead now. We’ll just be proud to pay off that mortgage so fast, come another year, that you’ll be surprised!”
It was said. Jennie marveled that the words had not choked her, had not somehow smitten her dead as she spoke them. But their effect on Henry Davis was amazingly good.
“That so?” he asked in surprise. “Well now, that’s fine. I always wanted to see John make a success of the old place, but somehow—well, you know it didn’t look as if—that is, there’s been some talk around that maybe John wasn’t just gettin’ along any too—you know. A man has to sort of watch his investments. Well, now, I’m glad things are pickin’ up a little.”
Jennie felt as though a tight hand at her throat had relaxed. She spoke brightly of the fall weather and the crops as she finished setting the dishes on the table and rang the big bell for John. There was delicate work yet to be done when he came in.
Little Jim had to be sent to hasten him before he finally appeared. He was a big man, John Musgrave, big and slow moving and serious. He had known nothing all his life but hard physical toil. Heaviess had pitted his great body against all the adverse forces of nature. There was a time when he had felt that strength such as his was all any man needed to bring him fortune. Now he was not so sure. The brightness of that faith was dimmed by experience.
John came to the kitchen door with his eyebrows drawn. Little Jim had told Jim that Henry Davis was there. He came into the room as an accused man faces the jury of his peers, faces the men who, though the same flesh and blood as he, are yet somehow curiously in a position to save or to destroy him.
John came in, and then he stopped, staring blankly at the scene before him. At Jennie moving about the bright table, chatting happily with Henry Davis! At Henry himself, his sharp features softened by an air of great satisfaction. At the sixth plate on the white cloth. Henry staying for supper!
But the silent deeps of John’s nature served him well. He made no comment. Merely shook hands with Henry Davis and then washed his face at the sink.
Jennie arranged the savory dishes, and they sat down to supper. It was an entirely new experience to John to sit at the head of his own table and serve a generously heaped plate to Henry Davis. It sent through him a sharp thrill of sufficiency, of equality. He realized that before he had been cringing in his soul at the very sight of this man.
Henry consumed eight biscuits richly covered with quince honey, along with the heavier part of his dinner. Jennie counted them. She recalled hearing that the Davises did not set a very bountiful table; it was common talk that Mrs. Davis was even more “miserly” than her husband. But, however that was, Henry now seemed to grow more and more genial and expansive as he ate. So did John. By the time the pie was set before them, they were laughing over a joke Henry had heard at Grange meeting.
Jennie was bright, watchful, careful. If the talk lagged, she made a quick remark. She moved softly between table and stove, refilling the dishes. She saw to it that a hot biscuit was at Henry Davis’s elbow just when he was ready for it. All the while there was rising within her a strong zest for life that she would have deemed impossible only that morning. This meal, at least, was a perfect success, and achievements of any sort whatever had been few.
Henry Davis left soon after supper. He brought the conversation around awkwardly to his errand as they rose from the table. Jennie was ready.
“I told him, John, that the worst was over now, an’ we’re getting’ on fine!” She laughed.” I told him we’d be swampin’ him pretty soon with our payments. Ain’t that right John?”
John’s mind was not analytical. At that moment he was comfortable. He has been host at a delicious supper with his ancient adversary, whose sharp face marvelously softened. Jennie’s eyes were shining with a new and amazing confidence. It was a natural moment for unreasoning optimism.
“Why that’s right, Mr. Davis. I believe we can start clearin’ this off now pretty soon. If you could just see your way clear to renew the note mebbe. . . .”
It was done. The papers were back in Davis’s pocket. They had bid him a cordial good-bye from the door.
“Next time you come, I will have biscuits for you Mr. Davis.” Jennie had called daringly after him.
“Now you don’t forget that Mrs. Musgrave! They certainly ain’t hard to eat.”
He was gone. Jennie cleared the table and set the shining lamp in the center of the oilcloth covering. She began to wash the dishes. John was fumbling through the papers on a hanging shelf. He finally sat down with and old tablet and pencil. He spoke meditatively. “I believe I’ll do a little figurin’ since I’ve got time tonight. It just struck me that mebbe if I used my head a little more I’d get on faster.”
“Well now, you might,” said Jennie. It would not be John’s way to comment just yet on their sudden deliverance. She polished two big Rambo apples and placed them on a saucer beside him.
He looked pleased. “Now that’s what I like.” He grinned. Then making a clumsy clutch at her arm, he added, “Say, you look sort of pretty tonight.”
Jennie made a brisk coquettish business of freeing herself. “Go along with you!” she returned, smiling and started in again upon the dishes. But a hot wave of color had swept up in her shallow cheeks.
John had looked more grateful over her setting those two apples beside him now, than he had the day last fall when she lifted all the potatoes herself! Men were strange, as the woman in gray had said. Maybe even John had been needing something else more than he needed the hard, backbreaking work she had been doing.
She tidied up the kitchen and put the children to bed. It seemed strange to be through now, ready to sit down. All summer they had worked outdoors till bedtime. Last night she had been slaving over apple butter until she stopped, exhausted, and John had been working in the barn with the lantern. Tonight seemed so peaceful, so quiet. John still sat at the table, figuring while he munched his apples. His brows were not drawn now. There was a new, purposeful light upon his face.
Jennie walked to the doorway and stood looking off through the darkness and through the break in the trees at the end of the lane. Bright and golden lights kept glittering across it, breaking dimly through the woods, flashing out strongly for a moment, then disappearing behind the hill. Those were the lights of the happy cars that never stopped in their swift search for far and magic places. Those were the lights of the highway which she had hated. But she did not hate it now. For today it had come to her at last and left with her some of its mysterious pleasure.
Jennie wished, as she stood there, that she could somehow tell the beautiful stranger in the gray coat that her words had been true, that she, Je
nnie, insofar as she was able, was to be like her and fulfill her woman’s part.
For while she was not figuring as John was doing, yet her mind had been planning, sketching in details, strengthening itself against the chains of old habits, resolving on new ones; seeing with sudden clearness where they had been blundered, where they had made mistakes that farsighted, orderly management could have avoided. But how could John have sat down to figure in comfort before, in the kind of kitchen she had been keeping?
Jennie bit her lip. Even if some of the tomatoes spoiled, if all of them spoiled, there would be a snowy washing on her line tomorrow; there would be ironing the next day in her clean kitchen. She could sing as she worked. She used to when she was a girl. Even if the apples rotted on the trees, there were certain things she knew now that she must do, regardless of what John might say. It would pay better in the end, for she had read the real needs of his soul from his eyes that evening. Yes, wives had to choose for their husbands sometimes.
A thin haunting breath of sweetness rose from the bosom of her dress where the scrap of white linen lay. Jennie smiled into the dark. And tomorrow she would take time to wash her hair. It used to be yellow—and she wished she could see the stranger once more, just long enough to tell her she understood.
As matter of fact, at that very moment, many miles along the sleek highway, a woman in a gray coat, with a soft gray hat and a rose quill, leaned suddenly close to her husband as he shot the high-powered car through the night. Suddenly he glanced down at her and slackened the speed.
“Tired?” he asked. “You haven’t spoken for miles. Shall we stop at this next town?”
The woman shook her head. “I’m all right, and I love to drive at night. It’s only—you know—that poor woman at the farm. I can’t get over her wretched face and house and everything. It—it was hopeless!”
The man smiled down at her tenderly. “Well, I’m sorry, too, if it was all as bad as your description; but you mustn’t worry. Good gracious, darling, you’re not weeping over it, I hope!”
“No, truly, just a few little tears. I know it’s silly, but I did so want to help her, and I know now that what I said must have sounded perfectly insane. She wouldn’t know what I was talking about. She just looked up with that blank, tired face. And it all seemed so impossible. No, I’m not going to cry. Of course I’m not—but—lend me your handkerchief, will you dear? I’ve lost mine somehow!”
Blessedly, we don’t have to work like Jennie anymore in this modern day and age. But as moms, wives and homemakers we still have a lot of responsibility! I think sometimes we got bogged down by all our jobs, house work, caring for children, paying bills, grocery shopping, cooking, and other tasks we do in our homes and families. If you’re a mom who works outside of the home you have responsibilities there and at home.
As a stay at home mom I know I struggle sometimes with guilt about being a stay at home mom! I think many SAHM feel pressure to prove that what they do is worthwhile and meaningful. That they don’t sit around all day eating, napping and watching soap operas. I know that sometimes I feel guilty if my house doesn’t look super neat and organized when my husband gets home for fear that he’ll think “What has she been doing all day? Obviously not cleaning!” I’m not going to get into a the SAHM mom vs work -outside -of- the- home mom debate at this time. I think they both deserve respect and admiration.
I think Agnes Turnbulls’ point is a good one. I’m going to take liberties with this story’s message and share with you how I think it applies to our life today.
Don’t let responsibilities and work take over your life, marriage and family. Don’t let those things suck the life out of you. Don’t let mothering, housekeeping, or your outside job steal your joy. Take some time every day to be the “Queen”. I know a lot of SAHM’s struggle with their appearance during they day. They get so busy with caring for their children they don’t take time to shower, brush their hair or put pretty clothes on. I think that subconsciously we feel as if looking bedraggled, worn and unkempt at the end of the day is a sign of how hard we’ve worked that day.It’s our SAHM uniform of sorts. Our badge of good mothering. If we were to look nice and smell good at the end of the day then we haven’t done our jobs correctly. Not to sound 1950ish or anything, but take time for a little daily primp! For yourself! For your husband! Many women might say ” You don’t know how hard it is to care for my children” or “Why should I “dress up” when I’m home all day?” “My husband shouldn’t care what I look like. He loves me however I look. He should understand what my days are like”. I’m not saying to put on a skirt and pearls. But I am saying sometimes those little things we think are frivolous and unimportant do matter. They do make a difference. I’m suggesting that we put a little extra time into our appearance each day and try to make our home a cheery and calming haven for our husbands when they return home. Don’t greet him at the door with a scowl and ” You don’t know how terrible the kids were today!! “. I know I personally struggle with making sure my husband understands how much I do do for our family and all the work I put in each day. I may not bring home the money but by golly I’ve earned it!!!I want to make sure he appreciates me. But that kind of attitude can definitely put a cloud over my marriage when I hang on to it and make a daily habit of flaunting it.
Be the “queen” more often. You might notice a big difference in your marriage and household after awhile.
Or at the least, if you meet your prince at the door with a little perfume, a smile and a smooch he may be too dazzled to notice the naked toddler peeing on the floor in the corner or the fact that he doesn’t have clean underwear for tomorrow. Yet.
Just sayin’.
