Minnie turned in at the gate, or rather, the gate posts, for there had been no gates for years.
“I got a cold supper ready before I left,” she said. “Everything’s on the table. Don’t wait for me, Frankie; you must be terribly tired and hungry.”
Frances was touched.
“Minnie!” she said, “Really, you’re an angel!”
Minnie smiled indulgently.
“Silly old Frankie!” she said.
Indulgence was all that Frankie could obtain. In vain she talked of the good she could do them, of how she would be able to help them as she got on better, of the value of the experience to be gained in Mr. Petersen’s office. Minnie and her grandmother persisted in regarding this work of hers as a rather selfish frivolity; they humoured her, but they were grieved. Frankie was made to see that Minnie had chosen the better and the harder part, that she at least held inexorably to duty. They passed an evening not at all pleasant. The gulf between them was becoming more and more evident. Things were never quite the same again, after that first day at Mr. Petersen’s.
Unknown to the old lady, who would have been deeply shocked, Frankie and Minnie were in the parlour the next Sunday afternoon sewing, putting the final touches to a dress which Frankie was to wear in the office next day. When, suddenly, as she happened to look up, Minnie saw Mr. Petersen riding up the drive, on his splendid horse, and wearing his breeches and leggins and a quite new coat.
“Frankie!” she cried, in horror. “He’s coming in! Hide the sewing, quick!”
“He wouldn’t care,” Frankie objected, but nevertheless she obeyed, and every trace of their activity had vanished by the time Minnie admitted him.
“Might I see Mrs. Defoe?” he asked.
Minnie explained that she wasn’t able to come downstairs.
“So I’ve heard. But it’s a business matter. Perhaps she’d let me go up.”
She did; they watched him mounting the stairs, which creaked and shook under his heavy tread.
“What can he want?” asked Frances, nervously. “Oh, Minnie, I hope and pray it’s nothing about my not going on!”
“I don’t see what else it can be,” said Minnie, consolingly.
But she was soon enlightened. Mr. Petersen came tramping down again after twenty minutes’ talk and announced that Mrs. Defoe would like to see Miss Minnie.
The old lady was rather agitated.
“Dear! Dear!” she whispered. “The man’s arranged a second mortgage on the east field, so that I can pay off part of that first mortgage Mr. Bascom is so rude about. I don’t understand it very well, but I must say he’s very considerate—very considerate. Dear me! You’ll have to be civil to him, pet. Ask him to sit down and give him a piece of the fruit cake.”
She found him standing in the hall, talking to Frankie, and when she invited him into the parlour, he accepted cheerfully.
“Get Mr. Petersen a piece of cake, Frankie,” said Minnie. She couldn’t bring herself to wait on him.
He was polite, he was clean and well-dressed, he said nothing that could offend her, and yet she was grossly offended, merely by the sight of him, sitting there, in the Defoe parlour, holding his straw hat in his great red hands. Couldn’t he realise?
The fact of his being a Swede was enough. She had a very vague idea where and what Sweden was, knew nothing at all about its people, its history, its music, its literature. She considered all Scandinavians “low.” There was no appeal from that.
Unconscious of his lowness, Mr. Petersen talked on pleasantly, told them what was going on in the town, and all the bits of news he thought they might like to hear. He was actuated by a great good-will toward both of the girls, and a peculiar interest in Minnie. He had thought of her often since that first meeting.
He stopped a long time. When he had gone, Frankie began to laugh.
“Minnie!” she cried. “Did you notice? He really looks awfully like old Michael.”
Minnie refused to smile.
“I think he’s a horrid, presumptuous man,” she said. “I call it a shame that we have to put up with him.”
“Nonsense,” Frankie interrupted her, “it’s he who puts up with us. A darn good thing for us he does! I like him!”
Minnie was destined to see him often. As the old lady had requested, with great dignity, he called regularly every month and was conducted upstairs. She felt pretty sure that he didn’t get his rent, all of it, at any rate, but it didn’t affect him. He was as kind, as cheerful as ever, and always willing to make any repairs that were needed.
It didn’t occur to her for some time that she was the object of “attentions” on his part. She knew that he liked to chat with her, and now and then he brought her fruit from his garden. But she didn’t think, she couldn’t think, that he “meant anything.” With the gulf there was between a Defoe and a Petersen!
It was Frankie who first mentioned it.
“Do you know,” she said, “I think Mr. Petersen’s gone on you, Minnie.”
“Don’t be so vulgar!” Minnie reproved her.
“He’s always asking about you,” Frankie went on. “Oh, he is, Minnie, I know it!”
Quite true; he was. He saw Frankie every day, and was yet proof against her beauty and her happy courage; his heart never beat the quicker for her. He liked her very much, and respected her, and was courteous and kind and friendly toward her, but she had no appeal for him. In Minnie he saw every quality he most admired in a woman. He was happy to sit and look at her, always with an apron on, going about her business in her terribly serious way. He thought her kind, gentle and sympathetic, he thought her thrifty and capable, he admired her fine dark eyes and her matronly figure. He even fancied that she was peculiarly intelligent, because she always listened attentively to him, and was so silent, so mysterious herself. He noticed, too, how her grandmother doted on her, and how Frances looked up to her. He was, in his cautious way, always studying her, until he thought he understood her. While, as a matter of fact, he misunderstood her completely, in every way, like the others.
She was the quietest and the stupidest person in the house, and she ruled both the others; she was the least scrupulous, and they exalted her “goodness”; she did nothing well, and continually they praised her for her wonderful housekeeping. Enigma; extraordinary Minnie, quintessence of womanliness—in Heaven’s name, who is to sit in judgment on you?
In the autumn the old lady was permitted to go downstairs once a day, and on the first of these occasions, Mr. Petersen came with a gift of fruit which he had bought in New York. Frances had told him of the old lady’s improvement and he wanted, so he said, to congratulate her. He came as usual on his horse, and Mrs. Defoe, who was sitting by the parlour window, was the first to see him. She frowned.
“Silly nonsense!” she said, half aloud. “A carpenter, capering round the country like a fine gentleman!”
(A carpenter she had decided to consider him.)
He came in; his face and hands looked redder than ever, and he was frankly wiping his forehead with a huge handkerchief.
“Well!” he said cheerfully, “I’m very glad to see you so much better, Mrs. Defoe.”
“Thank you, Mr. Petersen,” she replied, demurely.
“We’re likely to have a mild winter, I believe,” he went on, “from all indications”
He rose as Minnie came in, grave, like one interrupted in the midst of important work, but mindful of the duties of hospitality.
“I was saying,” he resumed, in his singing drawl, “I think we’ll have a fine, mild winter. I was working in my garden on Sunday”
“On Sunday!” cried the old lady.
“That’s the only day I have time,” he explained.
“But Well, I have my little notions.... Very old-fashioned, I dare say.... You’re not a member of Our church, Mr. Petersen? I don’t remember ever having seen you there.”
He shook his head.
“A Lutheran?”
“No.”
“A—Catholic?”
“I am a Freethinker,” he said gravely.
This was the final straw; Minnie and the old lady stared at him in open disapproval.
“I think maybe on the other side we are not so—religious,” he said.
Mrs. Defoe had long been convinced of that, as she was of their immorality in general, but she was genuinely shocked that, under her roof, in the very room where the minister had sat not a week ago, in the very presence of her Bible and her prayer books, he should openly and without shame proclaim himself a Freethinker! Neither he nor Minnie had any idea what that word implied for her, with what horror and repulsion she had heard her husband speak of Tom Paine. She made some sort of excuse and, supported by Minnie, disappeared into the kitchen.
“I’ll sit here,” she whispered, “until that man’s gone.”
Mr. Petersen remained, happy and undisturbed, talking on and on, while Minnie listened with her usual polite attention, giving no hint of her burning anxiety to get on with her work. She scarcely heard a word; no matter what he was saying, she was thinking, “Oh, dear! Eleven o’clock and Grandma’s bed isn’t made yet!” That was of so much more importance and interest than anything he could say.
He went away, imagining that he had ingratiated himself with them both, by his present of fruit, and by his agreeable conversation; he didn’t suspect that there was now another and still blacker mark against him.
He had only one friend in that household, and that was Frances. Before she had been working a week in his office, she realised something of his quality and as time went on she grew enthusiastic.
“He’s a fine man,” she told her sister. “He’d make a wonderful husband. He has the disposition of an angel, really. He’s so honest, too. Everyone respects him.”
“I wouldn’t marry him if I were starving,” said Minnie, “that common, vulgar carpenter!”
“He’s not common and he’s not vulgar and he’s not a carpenter. I wish you could see his house.”
“I never shall,” said Minnie.
Frances often went there to fetch books for him when he was busy in his office. He lived in the town, in a solid old brick house which he had remodelled and greatly improved, with a respectable Swede and his wife to attend to his wants. Everything very orderly, very simple, very comfortable, a hundred times more civilised than the Defoe home. He had his garden, which gave him a great deal of pleasure, and an excellent little library of Scandinavian and English books, law books, novels, plays, a number of books on Socialism and economics. He read a great deal, in a laborious sort of way, slowly going through page after page and taking the ideas into his own head, to be examined there. His chief interest was Socialism; he could be—and often was—quite eloquent on that topic.
He was rather lonely in Brownsville Landing. He had found no one who was interested in his kind of Socialism, which was something more than discontent and jealousy; he found no one who had read what he had read on the subject; he was not able to interest himself in pool or poker, the popular recreations. Without being unduly vain, he believed himself to be considerably superior to the average inhabitant of the village. Even to the Defoes, as far as intellect and experience were concerned. He actually thought that he might be a good match for Minnie.
Frances thought so too. She read his books with more and more respect and liked to hear him talk. She insisted upon quoting him to Minnie. She liked his plain and fine manner of living, she honoured his virtues.
“Minnie, you’re an idiot,” she said, bluntly. “You couldn’t do better. If you’d come out of the middle ages and really look at him”
“I don’t pretend to be a modern woman,” said Minnie, virtuously.