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Updated: May 6, 2025
'Taint decent, an' an' it give him th' feelin' that I was sidin' in with such talk." Mrs. Farnshaw had been shrewd enough to save her strongest point till the last. That was the lever by which she could pry Elizabeth loose from her seated conviction that nothing could be done. Those sentiments had been Elizabeth's, not her mother's.
They paid pap th' money last night, an' made 'im promise t' give possession 'fore t'morrow night. Three hundred dollars! Th' old woman took it out of 'er stockin'." "Three hundred dollars!" Lizzie Farnshaw repeated, whirling her horse about suddenly at the mention of a sum of money which ran into hundreds. She looked at the boy enviously.
Elizabeth knew that her attempt at reconciliation would be fruitless, but she resolved to do the best she could to leave all possible comfort to the mother whose portion was sorrow and bread eaten in bitterness and disappointment. She thought it out slowly. After pondering a long time, during which Mrs. Farnshaw studied her but did not speak, Elizabeth delivered her promise.
Farnshaw entered into her daughter's desire to learn to cater to the appetite of the man she was going to marry. She worked with the girl at the home-made kitchen table, and as they worked she talked of many things which to her mind were essential to preparations for marriage, of the dresses to be made, of the new house, which was Mrs. Farnshaw's pride, and of John Hunter himself.
Farnshaw, who had bought the groceries for her little family with the butter and eggs, and whose sugar had sometimes been short because there was a supply of Horse Shoe Plug to provide also, had no answer ready.
Perhaps, after all, she would get away from these wind-blown prairies, where no shade offered its protecting presence against a sun which took life and spirits out of the pluckiest of them. Even more childish than the daughter at her side, Mrs. Farnshaw clapped her hands with joy as she leaned forward expectantly to address her new neighbour.
After a short grace at the opening of the meal, he passed a dish of potatoes, remarking: "We ain't much hands t' wait on th' table, Miss Farnshaw; You'll have t' reach an' help yourself." "Who's this plate for?" Elizabeth asked at last, designating the vacant place at her side. "That's John's," said Mrs. Chamberlain. "John Hunter's, Miss Farnshaw," said Silas.
Fate never permitted Elizabeth Farnshaw more than a short snatch at happiness, and as John Hunter drove away after he had helped her deposit her trunk in a dusty corner, the girl wanted to run after him and implore him not to leave her at the mercy of the morrow. As she gazed about the cheerless kitchen she noticed a muffled lump in the middle of the table.
"They don't count," Elizabeth answered. "I believe you think more of John's house than you do of him." "No, I don't, but I'm glad t' see you doin' so well for yourself." As she finished speaking, Mr. Farnshaw came into the kitchen. "Well, pa, how do you do?" Elizabeth said, turning toward him pleasantly.
"Fool shoes," Sadie Crane called them, and her little black eyes twinkled with a consuming spite when she mentioned them, but the ambitious Farnshaw child, reaching out for improvement and change, coveted them, and preened her own feathers, and mimicked, and dreamed. She accepted the shoes just as she accepted the teacher's other attributes: they were better than her own.
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