WHEN Eris decided to go home she gave her lover a few hours’ notice and went without further preliminaries or fuss.
Annan met her in the station,—a very sober-faced young man, solemn and sad.
It was she who offered the serious kiss of parting; she who retained his hand, tender, reluctant, candidly concerned as to his health and welfare if left for a while entirely self-responsible.
Neither saw any humour in the situation.
“Please write me every evening, Barry,” she urged. “And if you don’t sleep well, take a glass of hot milk when you go to bed.”
“All right, but how about you?”
“Oh, I’ll let you hear from me,” she nodded absently; “—but I shall be rather anxious if you fail to write me every evening. You won’t neglect to do it, will you?”
Finally he began to think her solicitude was mildly funny.
“If I had a mother,” he said, “that’s about what she’d say to me. Who do you think is running this outfit, anyway, Eris?”
“You, darling.”
His masculine smile made this obvious. And the solemn directions he gave her about danger of catching cold in a country house, about changing shoes and stockings when she came indoors, and his warning concerning fried foods and sudden change of drinking water were specimens of psychological self-assertion which settled his real status.
They kissed again as soberly as two children. She followed her Red Cap through the gates, not looking back.
He turned again to a city desolate.
The journey proved tedious and hot. Her Pullman porter brought her a paper-bag for her new straw hat. He brought her a pillow, also; and luncheon later.
She had plenty of reading matter provided by Annan, but it lay unopened on her lap; and Annan’s fruit, bon-bons, and flowers lay on the floor at her feet.
All that sunny morning and early afternoon she lay listlessly in her chair, watching the celebrated and deadly monotonous river, content to rest, unstirring, unthinking, her grey eyes partly closed, the water a running glimmer between her fringing lashes.
At East Summit she changed to the local. She recognised the conductor who took her ticket, but it was evident he did not know her, and she was content to let it go that way.
Familiar farms sped into view, fled past, succeeded by remembered hills and brooks and woods.
Reaping already was in progress on some farms. She noted, mechanically, the cattle as she passed through a dairy country. Mostly Holsteins. She saw a few Ayrshires with their Noah’s Ark horns; a herd or two of Guernseys—not to be compared to the Whitewater cattle as she remembered them.
Summit Centre held the train until people finished getting on and off, and the last crate of raspberries was aboard.
Summit and the great Sanitarium came next. It was here she had seen her first picture-folk in action. A little tightening of lip and heart—lest any atom of courage escape—then the train moved on.
West Summit—a cross-roads, no more. And after a little while, Whitewater.
She got out with her suitcase, her books, illustrated papers, bon-bons, fruit, and flowers. A number of people looked twice at her to be certain before speaking. Men looked oftener, shy of speaking.
She returned greetings smilingly, exchanged commonplaces when necessary, aware but indifferent to the curiosity visible in every face.
There was a new bus driver. She gave him the baggage-check, got into the vehicle with hand luggage, flowers, books, periodicals, bon-bons, and fruit.
Two commercial men bound for Whitewater Inn were inclined to assiduous politeness. She remained scarcely aware of them. She exchanged salutations with Gumbert, the butcher, who got off at his shop. Otherwise, her fellow travellers were unknown to her and unnoticed.
It was a mile to Whitewater Farms.
The country looked very lovely. It had rained that morning; grass and foliage were fresh; gullies still ran water; brooks gurgled bank high.
The sun, low in a cloudless sky, flung rosy rays across green uplands and here and there a few acres of early stubble. Trees cast long bluish shadows. Cattle were beginning to wander toward the home-lane. It would be near milking time at Whitewater Farms.
And now, leaning wide of her window in the clumsy bus, she could see the gilded weather-cock a-glitter on the main barn and swallows circling above brick chimneys.
At the front gate her trunk was dumped. She paid the driver fifty cents; watched him drive away; then turned and looked at the white house with green shutters, where she had been born. It had been newly painted.
The world seemed very still there. She set her suitcase beside her trunk, laid flowers, books, periodicals, fruit, bon-bons on top of it, and walked slowly around the house to the dairy.
One of her half-brothers, Cyrus, came out in his white, sterilised milking jacket and trousers, chewing gum.
“Well, f’r Gawd’s sake,” he said when the slow recognition had been accomplished.
She offered her gloved hand and he took it with a plowman’s clasp and wrung it, shifting from one leg to the other—rural expression of cordiality—legs alone eloquent.
Commonplaces said, she made inquiries and learned that everybody was well.
“Go right in, Eris! Pa’s getting into his milkin’ duds; Ma she’s cookin’ supper. Go right in, Sis! I guess you know the way——” loud laughter and a large red hand under her arm to pilot and encourage.
In the kitchen Mazie turned from the range, then set aside a skillet, wiped both hands on her apron, and took Eris to her ample bosom.
When she had kissed her stepdaughter sufficiently: “Pa!” she called, “oh, Pa! Get your pants on and come down here quick!”
Elmer was already on his way downstairs, clump, clump, clump. He halted at the kitchen door, buttoning his snowy jacket, gaping stolidly at Fanny’s child.
For he knew her instantly—Eris, daughter of Discord.
“Hello, Dad,” she said uncertainly.
“Hello.... Waal, waal, I’ll be jiggered! Waal, dang it all!... So you took a notion to come back, did you?”
“If you’ll let me stay for a little while——”
“Why, Eris, how you talk!” exclaimed Mazie. “This is your home; ain’t it, Pa?”
Elmer buttoned the last button of his milking jacket:
“She can stay if she’s a mind to. She allus does as she’s a mind to,” he replied grimly.
“Now you quit, Pa,” remonstrated Mazie, cheerily. “Eris, you go right up to your own room. Everything’s just like you left it. Where’s your trunk? All right; Si and Buddy will take it up.” And to her husband: “Pa, I’m surprised at you. Ain’t you a-going to shake hands with your own daughter?”
He offered Fanny’s child a horny paw, gave her fingers one pump-like jerk.
“Time you come home,” he observed. “I guess you want your caaf money, don’t you?”
“Not if you need it,” she replied tranquilly. “Is the farm doing well, Dad?”
Mazie said, laughingly: “He’s only foolin’. He’s making more money than he can spend, Eris. You take your heifer-money when you’re good and ready. It’s down to the bank and all safe and snug.”
Eris smiled at them both: “Where’s that blue checked gingham dress of mine?” she inquired. “If it’s clean I want to milk.”
“I guess you’ve kinda forgotten how,” drawled Elmer. “You jest better set and rock and read into them novels you allus liked——”
“I want to milk,” she repeated with a humorous glance at Mazie.
“Come right up to your room then, Eris. I’ll show you where I put that gingham.” And, to Elmer: “You hush your face, Pa. Eris can milk any cow she’s a mind to. Come along, Eris——”
But the girl lingered on the stairs: “What is the herd-bull’s name, Dad?” she asked curiously.
“We got White Cloud now. Lemme see,—was it Whitewater Chieftain when you was here——”
“Yes.... I want to see the herd come in. I’ll hurry, Dad——”
She ran upstairs after Mazie.
Her father passed his huge hand over his face absently; then, very deliberately, he scratched his grizzled head.
Si broke the silence: “She’s a hum-dinger, Pa. I’ll say so.”
“Hey?” grunted Elmer, scowling at his son.
“Ain’t she?” insisted Cyrus.
“Waal, I dunno. She dresses kinda tidy.”
“She looks like she did when we all seen her on the screen,” said Si. “I guess she’s made her pile. They all get big wages in the movies. You gotta go to the city to make big money——”
“G’wan down to the barn,” said his father drily.
The first murmur of discord already: and Fanny’s child scarcely arrived!
Elmer’s frowning face was lifted to the floor overhead—a moment—then, heavily he followed his own and unmistakable offspring down to the milking barn.
In her room the sight of objects long forgotten filled her heart;—and the odour of the house, the particular odour of her own room—melange of dyed curtains, cheap wall-paper, ingrain carpet—a musty, haunting odour with a slight aroma of fresh air filtered by forests.
Two of her half-brothers appeared with her luggage.
Buddy, grown fat and huge, shyly shook hands with her and fled. Mazie kissed her again and retired, taking Si with her, whose fascinated gaze had never stirred from the only real actress he ever had beheld.
Eris seldom cried. But now she sat down on her bed’s edge and buried her face in the pillows.
Tears flowed—tears of relaxation from strain, perhaps. And perhaps the girl wept a little because she really had nothing here to weep for—no deep ties to renew, no intimate memories of tenderness.
Bathed, her bobbed hair hatless, and in gingham and apron, Eris went downstairs and out across the grass.
Below, winding into the barn-yard, tonk-a-tonk, tonk-a-tonk, came the Whitewater herd. Here and there a heifer balked and frisked; now and then a cow lowed; and the great herd-bull, White Cloud, set the barn vibrating with his thunderous welcome to the returning herd.
Red sunshine poured through the lane, bronzing the silky coats of moving cattle. Overhead, martins twittered and dipped and circled. There was the scent of milk in the still air—of clover, and of distant woods.
In the milking barn she encountered old Ed Lister. He seemed to have grown much older, and there was a dim bluish look to his eyes.
Eris shook hands with him.
“How-de-do,” he said, peering at her. And answered, “Yes, marm,” and “No, marm,” as though in his mind there was some slight confusion concerning her identity.
She passed along the stanchions, petting and caressing the beautiful creatures, dropping handfuls of bran, tossing in a little clover-hay.
Everywhere satin-smooth coats were being wiped off, udders bathed in tepid water. The cattle were busy with bran and hay or drinking from the patent buckets.
Eris went to the calf-pen, where fawn-like heifer-calves, pretending shyness and alarm, soon came crowding to lick her hands.
She looked at the bull-calves; at the two young bulls selected to aspire to future leadership.
She went to the bull-pen, where the herd-bull, White Cloud, gazed curiously upon her, sniffed her hand, stretched his massive neck to be rubbed and fondled, rolling contented and sentimental eyes.
Her half-brothers, Gene and Willis, came in wearing spotless white. Greetings were friendly and awkward; and presently they went on into the western wing to attend to the cows on test there.
Her father and Cyrus were already milking. Buddy was in the loft; Ed Lister sat with gnarled fingers clasped and dim gaze fixed on the cattle, quiet, solemn, aged.
Eris walked slowly along, reading the names of the cows affixed to each stall—Mazie of Whitewater Farms, Star-Dust, White Gentian, Guelder-Rose of Whitewater, Snowberry Lass, Moon-Queen, Apple-bloom’s Daughter——
She took milking stool and pail and seated herself by Guelder-Rose, who became a trifle restive.
“So, lass!—soo—lass,” she murmured, stroking the white and golden skin. And in a few moments the pail vibrated with alternate streams of milk.
“Well, Dad,” she said, “have I forgotten?”
Elmer grunted. Then, abruptly:
“Guelder-Rose is by Whitewater Chieftain outa Snow-Rose, with a record of eleven thousan’ six hunder’n’ ten an’ two-tenth pound uv milk, an’ five hunder’n’ twenty-one, forty-seven pound uv butter-fat in class G.”
“That is a fine record, Dad,” said the girl cordially.
“I guesso. Yes. An’ that there Moon-Queen; she’s got a record uv eleven six fifty-four an’ three-tenths and five sixty-two, thirty-four. Herd sire, Chieftain; outa Silver Frost’s daughter, Snow-Crystal of Whitewater——”
“Outa Lass o’ the Mist,” croaked Ed Lister in uncompromising correction.
“You’re right, Ed,” admitted Elmer.
For a time there was no sound save the hissing of milk in the pails.
Eris carried her pail to the steelyards, weighed it, took the pencil dangling by its string and filled in her memoranda opposite the name of Guelder-Rose. Then she transferred her attentions to Apple-bloom’s Daughter.
“Made a lotta money, Eris?” inquired Elmer abruptly.
“Some.”
“Waal, I guess you spent it, too.”
“No.”
“Hey? Got it yet?”
“Most of it, Dad.”
“Waal, I’ll be jiggered.... What you aimin’ to do with it, Eris?”
“Save it.”
“Any investments?”
“Some.”
“Liberty bonds.”
“Gosh!”
Cyrus’ voice from behind a cow: “You gotta go to the city to make money.”
Elmer said: “You poor, dumb thing, they’d skin ya. You ain’t got a gift like Eris. G’wan an’ weigh your milk ’n’ shut your face.”
Cyrus muttered for a while. Eris said: “There seems to be too many people for the jobs in New York.... The poor are everywhere.... I’ve seen them sleeping in the grass in the public parks.”
“Ya hear that, Si?” demanded Elmer.
Unstirring, solemn, dim of eye, Ed Lister spoke: “I was to York in ’85. I seen things in my day.”
Elmer said to Eris: “Ed he worked in West Fourteenth Street. He knows what, too, same’s you.”
“I was a-truckin’ it fur Amos T. Brown & Company,” said the old man shrilly. “I was a hefty fella, I was. I seen doin’s in my time, I did. But they hain’t nothin’ into it. You spend more’n you git down to York. Yes, marm.”
Cyrus sniffed derisively, unconvinced. Buddy, having shaken down sufficient hay, came in with a sack of lime.
“You most done?” he inquired. “Supper’s ready, I guess.”