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Updated: June 12, 2025
You're a poor man's wife, Zeena; but I'll do the best I can for you." For a while she sat motionless, as if reflecting, her arms stretched along the arms of her chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy. "Oh, I guess we'll make out," she said mildly. The change in her tone reassured him. "Of course we will! There's a whole lot more I can do for you, and Mattie "
Zeena continued in the same even tone: "I wanted you should stay and fix up that stove in Mattie's room afore the girl gets here. It ain't been drawing right for nigh on a month now." Ethan's voice rose indignantly. "If it was good enough for Mattie I guess it's good enough for a hired girl."
For I'd 'a' been ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to get back my health, when I lost it nursing your own mother!" "You lost your health nursing mother?" "Yes; and my folks all told me at the time you couldn't do no less than marry me after " "Zeena!" Through the obscurity which hid their faces their thoughts seemed to dart at each other like serpents shooting venom.
A dead cucumber-vine dangled from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena " Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep, her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed... They walked around to the back of the house, between the rigid gooseberry bushes.
"I guess I won't come up yet awhile," he said, turning as if to go back to the kitchen. Zeena stopped short and looked at him. "For the land's sake what you going to do down here?" "I've got the mill accounts to go over." She continued to stare at him, the flame of the unshaded lamp bringing out with microscopic cruelty the fretful lines of her face. "At this time o' night?
"That so?" said Jotham indifferently; and they went on with their work. When they returned to the kitchen the two women were already at breakfast. Zeena had an air of unusual alertness and activity. She drank two cups of coffee and fed the cat with the scraps left in the pie-dish; then she rose from her seat and, walking over to the window, snipped two or three yellow leaves from the geraniums.
Beaming maternally on Ethan, she bent over to add: "I on'y just heard from Mr. Hale 'bout Zeena's going over to Bettsbridge to see that new doctor. I'm real sorry she's feeling so bad again! I hope he thinks he can do something for her. I don't know anybody round here's had more sickness than Zeena. I always tell Mr.
He and Zeena had not exchanged a word after the door of their room had closed on them. She had measured out some drops from a medicine-bottle on a chair by the bed and, after swallowing them, and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow flannel, had lain down with her face turned away. Ethan undressed hurriedly and blew out the light so that he should not see her when he took his place at her side.
It seemed to Ethan that his heart was bound with cords which an unseen hand was tightening with every tick of the clock. Twice he opened his lips to speak to Mattie and found no breath. At length, as she turned to re-enter the house, he laid a detaining hand on her. "I'm going to drive you over, Matt," he whispered. She murmured back: "I think Zeena wants I should go with Jotham."
Zeena herself, from an oppressive reality, had faded into an insubstantial shade. All his life was lived in the sight and sound of Mattie Silver, and he could no longer conceive of its being otherwise. But now, as he stood outside the church, and saw Mattie spinning down the floor with Denis Eady, a throng of disregarded hints and menaces wove their cloud about his brain....
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