Ethelyn's Mistake
Page 25"You," and here the apron and hand with the knife in it came down from
her eyes--"you'll excuse me, Richard, for speaking so plain, but you
seem like my own boy, and I can't help it. Your mother is the best and
cleverest woman in the world, but she has some peculiarities which a
Boston girl may not put up with, not being used to them as Melin--I
mean, as poor Abigail was."
It was the first time it had ever occurred to Richard that his mother
had peculiarities, and even now he did not know what they were. Taking
her all in all, she was as nearly perfect, he thought, as a woman well
could be, and on his way home from his interview with Mrs. Jones he
pondered in his mind what she could mean, and then wondered if for the
asking he could have taken Melinda Jones to the fireside where he was
going to install Ethelyn Grant. There was a comical smile about his
now; and then, by way of making amends for what seemed disrespect to the
dead, he went round to the sunken grave where Abigail had slept for so
many years, and stood again just where he had stood that day when he
fancied the light from his heart had gone out forever. But he could not
bring back the olden feeling, or wish that Abigail had lived.
"She is happy now--happier than I could have made her. It is better as
it is," he said, as he walked away to Daisy's grave, where his tears
dropped just as they always did when he stood by the sod which covered
the fairest, brightest, purest being he had ever known, except
his Ethie.
She was just as pure and gentle and good as blue-eyed Daisy had been,
and on the manly face turned so wistfully to the eastward there was a
then, and to whom a few weeks later he gave his mother's kindly message.
Then, remembering what Mrs. Jones had said, he felt in duty bound
to add: "Mother has some peculiarities, I believe most old people have; but I
trust to your good sense to humor them as much as possible. She has had
her own way a long time, and though you will virtually be mistress of
the house, inasmuch as it belongs to me, it will be better for mother to
take the lead, as heretofore."
There was a curl on Ethelyn's lip as she received her first lesson with
regard to her behavior as daughter-in-law; but she made no reply, not
even to ask what the peculiarities were which she was to humor. She
really did not care what they were, as she fully intended having an
establishment of her own in the thriving prairie village, just half a
Mrs. Markham, senior, whom she fancied a tall, stately woman, wearing
heavy black silk dresses and thread lace caps on great occasions, and
having always on hand some fine lamb's-wool knitting work when she sat
in the parlor where Daisy's picture hung. Ethelyn could not tell why it
was that she always saw Richard's mother thus, unless it were what Mrs.
Captain Markham once said with regard to her Western sister-in-law,
sending to Boston for a black silk which cost three dollars per yard--a
great price for those days--and for two yards of handsome thread lace,
which she, the Mrs. Captain, had run all over the city to get, "John's
wife was so particular to have it just the pattern and width she
described in her letter."