Ethelyn's Mistake

Richard had no idea that Melinda was managing him, or that anyone was

managing him. He thought himself that Camden might be a pleasant place

to live; as an ex-Judge and M.C. he could get business anywhere; and

though he preferred Olney, inasmuch as it was home, he would, if Ethelyn

liked, try Camden for a while. It is true the price of the rooms, which

Melinda casually named, was enormous, but, then, Ethelyn's health and

happiness were above any moneyed consideration; and so, while Mrs.

Markham below made and molded the soda biscuit, and talked about

dreading the hot weather if "Ethelyn was going to be weakly," Aunt

Barbara, and Melinda, and Richard settled a matter which made her eyes

open wide with astonishment when, after the exit of the Joneses and the

doing up of her work, it was revealed to her. Of course, she charged it

all to Aunt Barbara, wishing that good woman as many miles away as

intervened between Olney and Chicopee. Had the young people been going

to keep house, she would have been more reconciled, for in that case

much of what they consumed would have been the product of the farm; but

to board, to take rooms at the Stafford House where Ethelyn would have

nothing in the world to do but to dress and gossip, was abominable. Then

when she heard of the price she opposed the plan with so much energy

that, but for Aunt Barbara and Melinda Jones, Richard might have

succumbed; but the majority ruled, and Ethelyn's eyes grew brighter, and

her thin cheeks rounder, with the sure hope of leaving a place where she

had been so unhappy. She should miss Melinda Jones; and though she would

be near Mrs. Miller, and Marcia Fenton, and Ella Backus, they could not

be to her all Melinda had been, while Andy--Ethelyn felt the lumps

rising in her throat whenever she thought of him and the burst of tears

with which he had heard that she was going away.

"I can't help thinkin' it's for the wuss," he said, wiping his smooth

face with the cuff of his coat-sleeve. "Something will happen as the

result of your goin' there. I feel it in my bones."

Were Andy's words prophetic? Would something happen, if they went to

Camden, which would not have happened had they remained in Olney?

Ethelyn did not ask herself the question. She was too supremely happy,

and if she thought at all, it was of how she could best accelerate her

departure from the lonely farmhouse.

When Mrs. Markham found that they were really going, that nothing she

could say would be of any avail, she gave up the contest, and,

mother-like, set herself at work planning for their comfort, or rather

for Richard's comfort. It was for him that the best and newest

featherbed, weighing thirty pounds and a half to a feather, was aired

and sunned three days upon the kitchen roof, the good woman little

dreaming that if the thirty-pounder was used at all, it would do duty

under the hair mattress Ethelyn meant to have. They were to furnish

their own rooms, and whatever expense Mrs. Markham could save her boy

she meant to do. There was the carpet in their chamber--they could have

that; for after they were gone it was not likely the room would be used,

and the old rag one would answer. They could have the curtains, too, if

they liked, with the table and the chairs. Left to himself and his

mother's guidance, Richard would undoubtedly have taken to Camden such a

promiscuous outfit as would have made even a truckman smile; but there

were three women leagued against him, and so draft after draft was drawn

from his funds in the Camden bank until the rooms were furnished; and

one bright morning in early June, a week after Aunt Barbara started for

Chicopee, Ethie bid her husband's family good-by, and turning her back

upon Olney, turned also the first leaf of her life's history in

the West.