By M.E. Francis
It was eight o’clock on a summer’s morning, and Farmer Ellery’s haymakers had duly assembled in his yard preparatory to setting forth for the field.
The long spell of fine weather appeared likely to break up at last, and if the hay in the forty-acre was to be carried that day, every hand was needed.
The farmer, mounted on his stout black horse, kept a sharp look-out as the folk came up, and those who were disposed to lag and to gossip quickened their pace as they took note of his expression. Several things had happened to put the master out of temper. One of the horses had suddenly gone lame, a wheel had come off the biggest waggon, and what was most provoking of all, though every pair of hands was wanted, as has been said, every pair of hands was not forthcoming.
Old John Robbins was down with his rheumatism again—and where was George Crumpler?
“Where’s George Crumpler?” Farmer Ellery enquired aloud, taking a rapid and frowning survey of the groups who had surrounded horses and waggons.
“Be Jarge Crumpler here?” echoed an officious voice.
And then the answer came, first from one side and then the other, “I han’t seen nothin’ o’ Jarge this marnin’;” and “He bain’t here, sir—I d’ ’low he bain’t.”
The farmer tightened his reins with an ominous look.
“He’s been at his tricks again, I suppose?”
While he was yet speaking a figure turned in at the gate and made its way quickly up to the “maister”; the figure of a short, thick-set woman in a print dress and sunbonnet. Drawing near, she uplifted a round, sunburnt face, and laid her hand tremulously upon the farmer’s rein.
“Please ye, sir, I’m sorry to say my ’usband bain’t so very well this marnin’.”
“Oh, isn’t he?” retorted Ellery, with a short, angry laugh. “He’s been taking something that hasn’t agreed with him, I suppose; it’s happened once or twice before.”
“He’ve had a fall,” the little woman nervously stammered.
“A fall, yes—it’s not the first time either. Cut his head open as usual, I suppose?”
The bystanders looked at each other, and a smothered “Haw, haw!” sounded here and there.
“He fell into a ditch once,” resumed Mr Ellery, with stern sarcasm. “Was it a ditch this time, or did he chance to knock himself against a wall?”
“He tripped over a log of wood,” returned Mrs Crumpler, diffidently; and the laughter of the bystanders began afresh.
“Here, you folks,” shouted the farmer, raising himself in his stirrups, “what are you all idling about for? Because one man’s an idle, good-for-nothing chap, are you all to lose your time? I’m going to make an example of George Crumpler, and I’ll make an example of everyone what thinks he can play the fool and treat me this way. Stand out of my way, Mrs Crumpler—you know very well, and George knows very well, what he has to expect. I told him plain the last time he went drinking that if ever I lost another day’s work through him I’d send him packing. So he needn’t trouble himself to come here again. Let go of my rein.”
But Mrs Crumpler clutched it fast.
“Please ye, sir,” she said firmly, “there’s no occasion for ye to be at the loss of a day’s work along o’ Crumpler bein’ laid-up—I be come to take his place.”
“What,” cried Ellery, “you!”
“E-es, sir,” rejoined Mrs Crumpler with a kind of modest assurance. “I can work just so well as he. There’s nothin’ what he do do as I can’t do if ye’ll let me try.”
“Can ye drive a hayrake, then?” cried the farmer, with a laugh that was half-fierce and half-amused.
“Not a hayrake, no, sir,” rejoined the little woman after a moment’s reflection; “I shouldn’t like for to undertake a hayrake—but a cart or a waggon—I d’ ’low I could drive either o’ them just so well as anybody. And I could use a hand-rake, or I could toss up hay wi’ a pitchfork.”
“Yes, you’ve got such fine long arms, haven’t you?” rejoined Ellery, eyeing her diminutive proportions.
But Mrs Crumpler was not discouraged: “They mid be shart, sir, but they be terr’ble strong,” she returned; “feel o’ them.”
The farmer laughed again, but this time more good-naturedly.
“If you was to give me a trial, sir, I think you’d be satisfied,” pleaded Mrs Crumpler.
“Oh, you can try as much as you like,” returned the master, twitching the rein from her hand, and eyeing her with a smile that was not unkindly. “I don’t suppose you’ll make much hand of it, but you’re welcome to try.”
“Thank ’ee, sir,” she responded, fervently. “What be I to do then, please, sir?”
“Why, we’ll try what your arms are made of, since you’re so proud of ’em. You’ll find a pitchfork in that shed yonder. Be sprack and get it, and follow the rest o’ the folks up along.”
He chuckled as he watched her cross the yard and dive into the shed, reappearing in a twinkling with a pitchfork as tall as herself. Having seen her shoulder this and hasten away with it, he put his horse to a trot, and presently forgot all about Mrs Crumpler in attending to more weighty matters.
The little woman’s appearance in the field was greeted with a shout of laughter; but, nothing daunted, she made her way to the nearest waggon.
“I be come to lend a hand,” she declared; “I be come to take Jarge’s place.”
The announcement was treated as a good joke; old Joe Weatherby grinned down at her from the waggon, while Bill Frost paused with an immense bundle of hay poised on his fork.
“It bain’t much of a hand what you’ll be lendin’, Sally; I d’ ’low your arms won’t reach much further nor a child’s.”
“You’ll soon see that,” returned Sally valiantly; then, smiling up at Joe, she continued, “I d’ ’low a woman bain’t fit for much if she can’t take her husband’s place now an’ again when he be laid by the heels. How’s that to start wi’?”
She drove the prongs of her fork into the nearest haycock, and adroitly tossed a goodly truss to Joe, who proceeded to spread and trample it after the recognised fashion. “Now then, here’s another.”
Sally’s fork went backwards and forwards with so much speed and energy that Joe presently pleaded for mercy, announcing that she was ready for him before he could get ready for she.
But Bill laughed sardonically. “It be all very well now the wain be near empty. Bide a bit till the load do begin to grow.”
As the hay mounted higher and higher, indeed, in response to the combined efforts of himself and Mrs Crumpler, the poor little creature found the work more difficult to accomplish. She made strenuous efforts, holding her pitchfork at its extreme end, tossing the hay with all her strength, even jumping occasionally; but over and over again the truss tumbled down from her fork before she could cast it into its allotted place.
“I d’ ’low ye’ll have to give in,” said Joe, gazing down at her from his eminence.
“I ’on’t then!” said Sally; and then she burst into tears. “I can’t!” she explained between her sobs. “If I can’t do Jarge’s work the maister ’ull turn en off. He said so. Here, I’ll try again.”
“Nay now, nay now,” said Joe, “ye mid have the best ’eart in the world yet yer arms midden’t be no longer. Tell ’ee what—ye can be rakin’ the stuff together, while me and Bill do finish this lot, an’ when we do bring the waggon back ye can take my place on it.”
Sally dropped the apron with which she had been wiping her eyes, and thanked him gratefully; then, exchanging her fork for a wooden rake, she turned energetically to her new task.
By-and-by the waggon went creaking out of the field, and presently returned empty, whereupon Mrs Crumpler proudly clambered up on it. Her goodwill and energy were certainly unfailing; nevertheless, she presently discovered that something more was required for the successful loading of a waggon. It was very difficult to spread the hay evenly, and, trample as she might, she could not get it to lie as firmly as when Joe was in possession.
When Farmer Ellery rode round, he paused for quite a long while watching her operations, and though Sally worked feverishly hard, and feigned to take no notice of him, her heart beat so fast that she could scarcely breathe, and when he presently called her by name, she gave such a start that she dropped her pitchfork.
“I don’t think this job is altogether in your line, Mrs Crumpler,” said the farmer.
Sally timidly raised her eyes to his face, but could make nothing of it, half-hidden as it was by his great brown beard.
“I bain’t gettin’ on so very bad, thank ’ee, sir,” she answered, curtseying as well as she could on top of her load. “I’ll—I’ll be able to manage better with a little more practice.”
“Yes, and while you’re practising my hay will be sliding about all over the field,” he rejoined gruffly. “You’d best get down again and give up your place to Joe.”
Mrs Crumpler meekly slid to the ground, and came up to the farmer, remarking with an ingratiating smile which belied her anxious eyes, “I d’ ’low I’m best at rakin’.”
“I d’ ’low you are. But you undertook to fill George’s place. I don’t pay George for doing boy’s work.”
Mrs Crumpler cogitated with a troubled face for a moment, and then her brow cleared.
“I could come two days for Jarge’s one,” she cried triumphantly. “’Tis to be hoped he’ll be all right to-morrow and able to do his work, but I’ll come up this way, sir, if ye’ll let me.”
“Well, you’re a plucky little soul, I’ll say that for you,” remarked the farmer, more good-naturedly than he had yet spoken. “There, get your rake then.”
Mr Ellery’s words of eulogy were repeated by many voices when the men assembled at the dinner hour in the shady corner near the pool. Mrs Crumpler elected to go home for that meal, remarking cheerfully that she thought Jarge would be pretty well hisself by that time, and would be lookin’ out for a bite o’ summat.
“Maister hissel’ did tell her she was a good plucked ’un,” said Bill, “and so she be. I d’ ’low there bain’t many ’oomen as ’ud gie theirselves all that trouble for a chap like Jarge.”
“I could wish my missus ’ud take a leaf out of her book. There, the way the ’ooman do go on if I do take so much as the leastest drap.”
“My wold ’ooman wouldn’t put herself out for I, neither,” said another.
As they sat and watched the retreating figure of Mrs Crumpler hastening across the field, they felt themselves more and more injured, and were disposed to vent their grievances on their own women-kind, who presently appeared to minister to them.
“A few spuds,” remarked Bill, discontentedly prodding at the little basin from which his wife had just removed the cloth. “A few spuds and hardly so much grease to ’em as ’ll m’isten ’em. We’ve a-had a little ’ooman among us to-day as could show ’ee summat, my dear.”
“A ’ooman!” cried Mrs Frost, instantly on the alert.
“Oh, e-es,” responded Bill, shaking his head. “A ’ooman as knowed summat of the duties of a wife, didn’t she, Ed’ard?”
“Jist about,” said “Ed’ard” with his mouth full.
“A ’ooman what come down to take her husband’s place along o’ his bein’ a bit drinky to-day an’ not able to work. She did come to the maister so bold as a lion, an’ she did say, ‘Here be I, so well able to do a day’s work as he’—didn’t she?”
“Ah!” put in Joe, raising his head from a mug of cider which had just found its way into his hands, “an’ when she did find she couldn’t get on so fast as us menfolks, she says to maister, ‘I can do two days’ work then,’ says she, ‘to make up for it.’ That’s a ’ooman!” With a further shake of the head as a tribute to the absent Mrs Crumpler, Joe applied himself to the cider-mug again, but this last remark was taken up by several of his neighbours.
“That’s a ’ooman, indeed,” they said, and every man whose better-half chanced to be in attendance looked reproachfully at her as he spoke.
“Well, I’m sure,” exclaimed one irate matron, catching up her empty basket, “she must be a wonderful faymale whoever she mid be, but I’d like to know who looks after the house while she be traipsin’ about i’ the fields. Some folks has one notion o’ dooty an’ some has another. To my mind it’s more a ’ooman’s duty to see to things at home—to get her husband’s dinner an’ that—”
“There, ’tis just the very thing what she’ve gone home-along to do,” shouted Bill.
“An’ so tired as the creature was, too, wasn’t she?” said somebody.
“Ah! that was she,” rejoined somebody else. “There she was fair wore out. The perspiration was a-pourin’ down her face. ‘Sit down an’ rest, do, my dear,’ says I. ‘No,’ says she, ‘I must run home so quick as I can to get my Jarge’s dinner.”
“Jarge!” said Mrs Frost, with withering scorn, “Jarge! It’ll be that poor little down-trod Mrs Crumpler they be all keepin’ up such a charm about,” she explained contemptuously to her neighbour with the basket. “Mrs Crumpler—that poor little plain-faytured—”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” interrupted Bill; “I d’ ’low Jarge do think Sally hasn’t her match i’ th’ world.”
“‘You be a plucky little ’ooman,’” chanted old Joe, gazing maliciously at the crestfallen assemblage of matrons; “them was Farmer Ellery’s words: a plucky little ’ooman. Be there any cider left—?”
“Just a little,” said Bill.
“Hand it here, then,” cried Joe with a virtuous air; “we’ll drink Mrs Crumpler’s health.”
“Well,” said Mrs Frost, turning away with an indignant air, “I wouldn’t like to have Mrs Crumpler’s conscience, however plucky she mid be. A body would have thought ’twas bad enough to have a drunken husband wi’out teachin’ other folks to get into bad ways. Drink her health, indeed! Somebody did ought to speak to her.”
The suggestion was warmly taken up, and a select deputation of three immediately turned their steps in the direction of Mrs Crumpler’s cottage.
The matron with the basket, one Mrs Dewey by name, had volunteered to be spokeswoman; but she stopped short in the open doorway conscious of a certain diffidence, for Mr Crumpler, very pale in complexion and watery about the eyes, was up and seated in his elbow-chair by the fire.
Sally, who with a flushed and tired face was making hasty preparations for dinner, turned as Mrs Dewey paused on the threshold, and smiled cheerfully.
“Come in, do, Mrs Dewey, I haven’t a minute to shake hands—I be terr’ble busy. There, my poor husband did have a accident last night, an’ I be takin’ his place in the hay-field.”
“So we heared,” rejoined Mrs Dewey sedately.
She stepped in, followed by Mrs Frost and Jenny Weatherby, the remaining member of the deputation, a spinster with a father just as troublesome as anybody else’s husband. All took their seats in response to a hurried wave of Mrs Crumpler’s hand.
“Oh, ye’ve heared!” said Sally, looking from one to the other with a somewhat awkward laugh.
“E-es,” said Mrs Dewey, “we’ve heared. An’ we did hear the cause o’ your doin’ it, too.”
“Oh, an’ did you?” said Sally.
Mr Crumpler cleared his throat in an absent-minded kind of way, and looked abstractedly at the fire.
Mrs Frost, after waiting a second or two to see if Mrs Dewey would take the initiative, shot a severe glance in his direction, and then addressed herself to his wife, who, with symptoms of gathering irritation, not unmixed with perturbation, was now laying the table.
“E-es, Mrs Crumpler,” she said, in a loud, clear voice, “me and Mrs Dewey an’ Jenny Weatherby there, us felt it our dooty to step up an’ say a word or two to ye about it. ’Tis terr’ble bad example what you’ve a-been a-givin’ to-day, Mrs Crumpler.”
“Bad example!” gasped Sally, clapping down the tumbler which she had been ostensibly polishing, and whisking round sharply.
“Well, I don’t know what else you can call it,” put in Mrs Dewey indignantly. “I’m sure the men is hard enough to manage at the best o’ times, an’ when a ’ooman like you goes encouragin’ of ’em in their bad ways and wickedness, ’tis a shame and a disgrace, Mrs Crumpler.”
“A public shame, so ’tis,” exclaimed Jenny. Sally turned quite pale.
“Why, what have I done?” she cried.
“Done!” echoed the deputation in chorus.
“What have I done?” repeated Sally, with a stamp of the foot, and raising her voice so as to drown the outcry. “When my husband found hisself onfit to do his work this marnin’ I went out an’ did it for en, so as maister shouldn’t turn en away.”
“Ho, yes,” said Mrs Dewey, folding her arms, “that was what ye done; we all knows that well enough. Ye was a-boastin’ an a-braggin’ of it loud enough, I’m sure, settin’ yourself up an tryin’ to make every man o’ the place discontented and upset.”
“Me!” exclaimed Mrs Crumpler indignantly. “I’m sure I never opened my mouth to get a-boastin’ or anything o’ the kind.”
“Oh, didn’t ye!” retorted Jenny. “I heared my father say as you went an offered maister to do two days’ work to make up for one your husband had a-lost through bein’ drinky.”
“Well,” rejoined Sally, whose blood was now up, “that wasn’t boastin’.”
“’Twas a-settin’ yourself up above the rest of us and a-puttin’ notions into the men’s heads what be bad enough as ’tis,” cried Mrs Dewey.
“Why, they’ll all be expectin’ of us to do the same,” exclaimed Mrs Frost, “to be sure they will. The very next time Frost gets drunk he’ll up and ax me, as like as not, why I don’t do his work for en, same as Sally Crumpler.”
At this point, Mr Crumpler, whose shoulders might have been observed to heave during the last few moments, suddenly pushed back his chair and burst into a roar of laughter.
“Well done!” he cried. “Well done, Sally! I d’ ’low there b’ain’t a man in the place but what envies me.”
Thereupon the deputation turned upon him as one woman.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” asked Mrs Dewey.
“You did ought to want to go and hide your head,” exclaimed Jenny.
“Sich a man as that didn’t ought to look honest folk i’ th’ face,” remarked Mrs Frost witheringly.
But Jarge laughed on, eyeing the three the while with so quizzical an air that they were positively discomfited. Finally he rose and made his way to the door—walking quite straight by the way—and politely requested the ladies to step out.
This they did, overturning a chair or two in their hasty passage.
Jarge closed the door, but, apparently struck by a sudden thought, opened it again and thrust his head through the aperture.
“I b’ain’t ashamed o’ myself, good souls,” shouted Mr Crumpler after the retreating figures, “but I tell ye what—I be jist about proud o’ my little ’ooman.”
Mrs Crumpler remained, however, somewhat discomposed by the recent event, and when she took her way fieldwards again, it was with a downcast countenance. Jarge would have accompanied her, but for the fact that, though he had regained control of his legs and could speak with comparative clearness, he continued to see double.
“An’ that mid be a bit awk’ard wi’ so many harses about,” he confided to Sally.
Moreover the wound in his head was sufficiently painful to make a further rest advisable. Sally set forth therefore alone, feeling tired and miserable enough. She was the most modest little creature in the world, and was filled with dismay at the notoriety she had so suddenly acquired. As the afternoon advanced she shrank more and more into her shell, for if the ill-will of the women had vexed and perturbed her, the boisterous admiration of the men annoyed her almost beyond endurance. The rough jests, the officious offers of aid, the loudly expressed praise were equally obnoxious to her. It was with unbounded relief that she saw the last waggon loaded, and prepared to depart from the field. She had shaken out her skirts, and was in the act of straightening her sunbonnet when she found herself suddenly seized from behind, and almost before she realised what was happening, was hauled by a dozen strong grimy hands on to the apex of the piled-up hay and there enthroned.
“Three cheers for the Queen o’ the Day!” shouted someone, and the cry was taken up by a score of lusty voices.
“Three cheers for the best wife in Riverton!”
“Let me down,” gasped Mrs Crumpler faintly; but an extra pair of horses had been harnessed to the waggon, and it was now rumbling forward at what seemed to her a dangerously rapid rate.
There sat the poor little woman on her sweet-smelling throne, the reluctant centre of all eyes, while the waggon went out of the field and down the village street surrounded by a shouting band of haymakers. Outraged matrons stood in the doorways raising indignant eyes to Heaven, delighted children ran after the convoy, adding their shrill voices to the chorus; last of all Jarge Crumpler himself, startled by the outcry, made his way to his own gate just as the triumphal procession drew up before it.
“Three cheers for the best wife in Riverton!” shouted Bill Frost; and “Hooray, hooray!” cried the bystanders.
Jarge himself, infected by the enthusiasm, shouted “Hooray” too, just as little Sally, very red in the face, came sliding down from the waggon.
As she heard him she stopped for a second, threw a reproachful glance at him, and then, bursting into smothered sobs, hurried into the house.
After a pause of bewilderment he hastened after her, while the haymakers, with a farewell cheer, continued their progress at a more leisurely pace, with a dozen children clinging to the tail-board of the waggon, and one or two of the more adventurous perched on the load itself.
Sally was crouching behind the door with her apron over her head, sobbing as if her heart would break.
“Missus!” said Jarge, becoming quite sober all at once, and seeing only the very distinct outline of one little sorrowful figure. “Missus!—little ’ooman!”
Sally jerked down her apron and gazed at him with eyes that were fierce through their tears.
“You did ought to be ashamed o’ yourself,” she cried brokenly.
Jarge looked down at her ruefully and drew a long breath.
“Well,” he said, “I d’ ’low I be!”
* * *
He repeated this statement on the following morning when he presented himself to Farmer Ellery, humbly petitioning that his fault might be overlooked, and promising to work an hour or two “extry” every day to make up for the time which had been lost.
“For I shouldn’t like my missus to come out a-workin’ any more,” he explained.
The farmer looked at him sharply, grunted, and finally agreed.
“I’ll give you another chance,” he said, “but I don’t know how long you’ll keep straight.”
“I be a-goin’ for to turn over a new leaf,” said Jarge firmly, and to everyone’s surprise he actually did.
