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I followed her down into the kitchen and was met by the same refusal to be melodramatic which I had encountered in Ev'leen Ann. I was most anxious to know what version of my extraordinary morning I was to give out to the world, but hung silent, positively abashed by the cool casualness of the other woman as she mixed her brew. Finally, "Shall I tell 'Niram What shall I say to Ev'leen Ann?
Out of the darkness came Ev'leen Ann's young voice. "It seems to me," she said, as though speaking to herself, "that I never heard the Mill Brook sound loud as it has this spring." I woke up that night with the start one has at a sudden call. But there had been no call. A profound silence spread itself through the sleeping house. Outdoors the wind had died down.
Ev'leen Ann explained hastily: "Oh, 'Niram doesn't tell her anything about She doesn't know he would like to he don't want she should be worried and, anyhow, as 'tis, he can't earn enough to keep ahead of all the: doctors cost." "But the right kind of a wife a good, competent girl could help out by earning something, too." Ev'leen Ann looked at me forlornly, with no surprise.
I tried to play up to her interpretation of her role. "The little Harris boy?" I said, sitting up in bed. "What in the world is he bringing me a letter for?" Ev'leen Ann, with her usual clear perception of the superfluous in conversation, vouchsafed no opinion on a matter where she had no information, but went downstairs and brought back the note.
It seemed inhuman to go and leave the stricken young thing to fight her trouble alone in the ugly prison, her work-place, though I thought I could guess why Ev'leen Ann had shut the doors so tightly. I hung near her, searching my head for something to say, but she helped me by no casual remark. Niram is not the only one of our people who possesses so the full the supreme gift of silence.
But I knew that a criticism of 'Niram would always rouse her, and said: "And really, I think 'Niram makes a great mistake to act as he does. A wife would be a help to him. She could take care of Mrs. Purdon and keep the house." Ev'leen Ann rose to the bait, speaking quickly with some heat: "I guess 'Niram knows what's right for him to do!
She added firmly, after a moment's pause, "No, ma'am, I don't guess it's any more than what 'Niram had ought to do." "But it's very hard on a young man to feel that he's not able to marry," I continued. Once in a great while we came so near the matter as this. Ev'leen Ann made no answer. Her face took on a pinched look of sickness. She set her lips as though she would never speak again.
One never knows what Horace is thinking of, but apparently he was not in his usual captious vein, for after a long pause he remarked, "It is a night almost indecorously inviting to the making of love." My answer seemed grotesquely out of key with this, but its sequence was clear in my mind. I got up, saying: "Oh, that reminds me I must go and see Ev'leen Ann.
Horace" is our title for the sardonic cousin whose carping ways are half a joke, and half a menace in our family. Ev'leen Ann could not manage the smile which should have greeted this sally. She looked down soberly at the white-pine top of the kitchen table and said, "I guess there is enough sparrow-grass up in the garden for a mess, too, if you'd like that."
Some time after dawn, however, I did fall into a troubled unconsciousness full of bad dreams, and only awoke when the sun was quite high. I opened my eyes to see Ev'leen Ann about to close the door. "Oh, did I wake you up?" she said. "I didn't mean to. That little Harris boy is here with a letter for you." She spoke with a slightly defiant tone of self-possession.
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