The Bondboy. George W. Ogden
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the fields, Joe had it foremost in his mind to speak to him of his unjust treatment of his wife. Yet he hung back out of the Oriental conception which he held, due to his Scriptural reading, of that relationship between woman and man. A man’s wife was his property in a certain, broad sense. It would seem unwarranted by any measure of excess short of murder for another to interfere between them. Joe held his peace, therefore, but with internal ferment and unrest.
It was in those days of Joe’s disquietude that Ollie first spoke to him of Isom’s oppressions. The opportunity fell a short time after their early morning meeting in the path. Isom had gone to town with a load of produce, and Joe and Ollie had the dinner alone for the first time since he had been under that roof.
Ollie’s eyes were red and swollen from recent weeping, her face was mottled from her tears. Much trouble had made her careless of late of her prettiness, and now she was disheveled, her apron awry around her waist, her hair mussed, her whole aspect one of slovenly disregard. Her depression was so great that Joe was moved to comfort her.
“You’ve got a hard time of it,” said he. “If there’s anything I can do to help you I wish you’d let me know.”
Ollie slung a dish carelessly upon the table, and followed 60 it with Joe’s coffee, which she slopped half out into the saucer.
“Oh, I feel just like I don’t care any more!” said she, her lips trembling, tears starting again in her irritated eyes. “I get treatment here that no decent man would give a dog!”
Joe felt small and young in Ollie’s presence, due to the fact that she was older by a year at least than himself.
That feeling of littleness had been one of his peculiarities as long as he could remember when there were others about older than himself, and supposed from that reason to be graver and wiser. It probably had its beginning in Joe’s starting out rather spindling and undersized, and not growing much until he was ten or thereabout, when he took a sudden shoot ahead, like a water-sprout on an apple-tree.
And then he always had regarded matrimony as a state of gravity and maturity, into which the young and unsophisticated did not venture. This feeling seemed to place between them in Joe’s mind a boundless gulf, across which he could offer her only the sympathy and assistance of a boy. There was nothing in his mind of sympathy from an equality of years and understanding, only the chivalric urging of succor to the oppressed.
“It’s a low-down way for a man to treat a woman, especially his wife,” said Joe, his indignation mounting at sight of her tears.
“Yes, and he’d whip you, too, if he dared to do it,” said she, sitting in Isom’s place at the end of the table, where she could look across into Joe’s face. “I can see that in him when he watches you eat.”
“I hope he’ll never try it,” said Joe.
“You’re not afraid of him?”
“Maybe not,” admitted Joe.
“Then why do you say you hope he’ll never try it?” she pressed. 61
“Oh, because I do,” said Joe, bending over his plate.
“I’d think you’d be glad if he did try it, so you could pay him off for his meanness,” she said.
Joe looked across at her seriously.
“Did he slap you this morning?” he asked.
Ollie turned her head, making no reply.
“I thought I heard you two scuffling around in the kitchen as I came to the porch with the milk,” said he.
“Don’t tell it around!” she appealed, her eyes big and terrified at the recollection of what had passed. “No, he didn’t hit me, Joe; but he choked me. He grabbed me by the throat and shook me–his old hand’s as hard as iron!”
Joe had noticed that she wore a handkerchief pinned around her neck. As she spoke she put her hand to her throat, and her tears gushed again.
“That’s no way for a man to treat his wife,” said Joe indignantly.
“If you knew everything–if you knew everything!” said she.
Joe, being young, and feeling younger, could not see how she was straining to come to a common footing of understanding with him, to reach a plane where his sympathy would be a balm. He could not realize that her orbit of thought was similar to his own, that she was nearer a mate for him, indeed, than for hairy-limbed, big-jointed Isom Chase, with his grizzled hair and beard.
“It was all over a little piece of ribbon I bought yesterday when I took the eggs up to the store,” she explained. “I got two cents a dozen more than I expected for them, and I put the extra money into a ribbon–only half a yard. Here it is,” said she, taking it from the cupboard; “I wanted it to wear on my neck.”
She held it against her swathed throat with a little unconscious play of coquetry, a sad smile on her lips. 62
“It’s nice, and becoming to you, too,” said Joe, speaking after the manner of the countryside etiquette on such things.
“Isom said I ought to have put the money into a package of soda, and when I wouldn’t fuss with him about it, that made him madder and madder. And then he–he–did that!”
“You wouldn’t think Isom would mind ten cents,” said Joe.
“He’d mind one cent,” said she in bitter disdain. “One cent–huh! he’d mind one egg! Some people might not believe it, but I tell you, Joe, that man counts the eggs every day, and he weighs every pound of butter I churn. If I wanted to, even, I couldn’t hide away a pound of butter or a dozen of eggs any more than I could hide away that stove.”
“But I don’t suppose Isom means to be hard on you or anybody,” said Joe. “It’s his way to be close and stingy, and he may do better by you one of these days.”
“No, he’ll never do any better,” she sighed. “If anything, he’ll do worse–if he can do any worse. I look for him to strike me next!”
“He’d better not try that when I’m around!” said Joe hotly.
“What would you do to him, Joe?” she asked, her voice lowered almost to a whisper. She leaned eagerly toward him as she spoke, a flush on her face.
“Well, I’d stop him, I guess,” said Joe deliberately, as if he had considered his words. As he spoke he reached down for his hat, which he always placed on the floor beside his chair when he took his meals.
“If there was a soul in this world that cared for me–if I had anywhere to go, I’d leave him this hour!” declared Ollie, her face burning with the hate of her oppressor.
Joe got up from his chair and left the table; she rose with him and came around the side. He stopped on his way to 63 the door, looking at her with awkward bashfulness as she stood there flushed and brilliant in her tossed state, scarcely a yard between them.
“But there’s nobody in the world that cares for me,” she complained sorrowfully.
Joe was lifting his hat to his head. Midway he stayed his hand, his face blank with surprise.
“Why, you’ve got your mother, haven’t you?” he asked.
“Mother!” she repeated scornfully. “She’d drive me back to him; she was crazy for me to marry him, for she thinks I’ll get all his property and money when he dies.”
“Well, he may die before long,” consoled Joe.
“Die!” said she; and again, “Die! He’ll never die!”
She leaned toward him suddenly, bringing her face within a few inches of his. Her hot breath struck him on the cheek; it moved the clustered hair at his temple and played warm in the doorway of his ear.
“He’ll