The Squire

THE squire was a bachelor, and lived alone in his house; therefore he was able to use the parlor and dining-room for offices. The parlor contained only a pine desk, a map, hanging ‘at’ the wall, as Millerstown would have said, and a dozen or so plain pine chairs. The law was administered with scant ceremony in Millerstown.

The squire sat now in the twilight in his ‘ back ’ office, which was furnished with another pine table, two chairs, and a large old-fashioned iron safe. He was clearly of a geographical turn of mind, for table, safe, and floor were littered with railroad maps and folders. The squire was about sixty years old; he had all the grave beauty which the Gaumer men acquired. Their hair did not thin as it turned gray, their smoothshaven faces did not wrinkle. They all looked stern, but their faces brightened readily at sight of a little child or an old friend, or with amusement over some untold thought.

The squire’s face glowed. He was going — his age, his inexperience, the certain disapproval of Millerstown notwithstanding— he was going round the world! He would start in a month, and thus far he had told no one but Edwin Seem, an adventurous young Millerstonian who was to leave that night for a ranch in Kansas, and whom the squire was to visit on his own journey. For thirty years he had kept Millerstown straight; there was no possible case for which his substitute would not find a precedent. Fortunately there were no trusts to be investigated and reproved, and no vote-buyers or bribers to be imprisoned or fined. There were disputes of all kinds, dozens of them. There was one waiting for the squire now in the outer office; he shook his head solemnly at thought of it, as he gathered up his maps and thrust them back into the safe, that precious old safe which held the money for his journey. He had been thirty years gathering the money together.

The law might be administered in Millerstown without formality, but it was not administered without the eager attention of the citizens. Every one in the village was on hand when simpleminded Venus Stuber was indicted for stealing, or when the various dramatic scenes of the Miller-Weitzel feud were enacted. This evening’s case, Sula Myers vs. Adam Myers for non-support, might be considered part of the Miller-Weitzel feud, since the two real principals, Sula’s mother and Adam’s mother, had been respectively Sally Miller and Maria Weitzel.

The air was sultry, and rain threatened. The clouds seemed to rest on the tops of the maple trees; it was only because the Millerstonians knew the rough brick pavements as they knew the palms of their hands that there were no serious falls in the darkness. They laughed as they hurried to the hearing; it was seldom that a dispute promised so richly. There was almost no one in the village who could not have been subpœnaed as a witness, so thorough was every one’s knowledge of the case.

Already the real principals faced each other, glaring, under the blinding light of the squire’s hanging lamp. It made no difference that Millerstown listened and chuckled or that the squire had taken his seat behind the pine desk.

‘When it don’t give any religion, it don’t give any decent behaving. But God trieth the hearts of the righteous,’ said Mrs. Myers meaningly.

She was a large, commanding woman, who had been converted in middle life to the fervent sect of the new Mennonites, and young Adam had been brought up in that persuasion. Except for his marriage, young Adam had been thus far his mother’s creature, body and soul.

Sula’s mother, Mrs. Hill, was large also. She took off her sunbonnet, and folded her arms as tightly as possible across her broad bosom.

‘There is sometimes too much religion,’ she said.

‘Not in your family, Sally,’ rejoined Mrs. Myers, her glance including not only Mrs. Hill and Sula, but all their sympathizers, and even Caleb Stemmel, who was supposed to be neutral.

Caleb Stemmel belonged in the same generation with the squire; his interest could be only general. Caleb did not see Mrs. Myers’s scornful glance; he was watching pretty Sula, who sat close by her mother’s side.

Sula looked at nobody, neither at her angry mother beside her, nor at her angry mother-in-law opposite, nor even at Adam her husband, sitting close by his mother. She wore her best clothes, her pretty summer hat, the white dress in which she had been married a year before. Even her wedding handkerchief was tucked into her belt.

Sula had been strangely excited when she dressed in the bedroom of her girlhood for the hearing. There was the prospect of getting even with her mother-in-law, with whom she had lived for a year and whom she hated; there was the prospect of seeing Adam’s embarrassment; there was another reason, soothing to her pride, and as yet almost unacknowledged, even to herself.

Now, however, the glow had begun to fade, and she felt uncomfortable and distressed. She heard only dimly Mrs. Myers’s attack and her mother’s response. Immediately Mrs. Myers told Mrs. Hill to be quiet, and Mrs. Hill replied with equal elegance.

‘You will both be quiet,’ said the squire sternly. ‘The court will come to order. Now, Sula, you are the one that complains; you will tell us what you want.’

Sula did not answer; she was tugging at her handkerchief. The handkerchief had been pinned fast, its loosening took time.

‘It was this way,’ began Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill, together.

The squire lifted his hand. ‘We will wait for Sula.’ He looked sternly at Mrs. Hill. ‘No whispering, Sally!'

Sula’s complaint came out with a burst of tears.

‘He won’t support me. For three months already I did n’t have a cent.’

‘All this time I supported her,’ said her mother.

‘She had a good home and would n’t stay in it,’ said Mrs. Myers.

The squire commanded silence again.

‘Sula, you were willing to live with Adam’s mother when you were married. Why are n’t you now? ’

‘She — she would n’t give me no peace. She would n’t let him take me for a wedding-trip, not even to the Fair.’ She repeated it as though it were the worst of all her grievances: ‘Not even a wedding-trip to the Fair would he dare to take.’

Mrs. Hill burst forth again. She would have spoken if decapitation had followed.

‘He gave all his money to his mom.’

‘He is yet under age,’ said Mrs. Myers.

Again Mrs. Hill burst forth: —

‘She wanted that Sula should convert herself to the Mennonites.’

‘I wanted to save her soul,’ declared Mrs. Myers.

‘You need n’t to worry yourself about her soul,’answered Mrs. Hill. ‘When you behave as well as Sula when you ’re young, you need n’t to worry yourself about other people’s souls when you get old.’

Mrs. Myers’s youth had not been as strait-laced as her middle age; there was a depth of reminiscent innuendo in Mrs. Hill’s remark. Millerstown laughed. It was one of the delights of these hearings that no allusion failed to be appreciated.

‘ Besides, I did give her money,’ Mrs. Myers hastened to say.

‘Yes; five cents once in a while, and I had to ask it for every time,’ said Sula. ‘I might as well stayed at home with my mom as get married like that.’ Sula’s eyes wandered about the room, and suddenly her face brightened. Her voice hardened as though some one had waved her an encouraging sign. ‘I want him to support me right. I must have four dollars a week. I can’t live off my mom.’

The squire turned for the first time to the defendant.

‘ Well, Adam, what have you to say ?’

Adam had not glanced toward his wife. He sat with bent head, staring at the floor, his face crimson. He was a slender fellow, he looked even younger than his nineteen years.

‘I did my best,’ he said miserably.

‘Can’t you make a home for her alone, Adam?’

‘No.’

‘How much do you earn?’

‘About seven dollars a week. Sometimes ten.’

‘Other people in Millerstown live on that.’

‘But I have nothing to start, no furniture or anything.’

‘ Your mother will surely give you something, and Sula’s mother.’ The squire looked commandingly at Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill. ‘It is better for young ones to begin alone.’

‘I have nothing to spare,’ said Mrs. Myers stiffly.

‘ I would n’t take any of your things,’ blazed Sula. ‘I would n’t use any of your things, or have any of your things.’

‘You knew how much he had when you married him,’ said Mrs. Myers calmly. ‘You need n’t have run after him.’

‘Run after him!’ cried Sula. It was the climax of sordid insult. They had been two irresponsible children mating as birds mate, with no thought for the future. It was not true that she had run after him. She burst into loud crying. ‘If you and your son begged me on your knees to come back, I would n’t.’

‘Run after him!’ echoed Sula’s mother. ‘I had almost to take the broom to him at ten o’clock to get him to go home! ’

Adam looked up quickly. For the moment he was a man. He spoke as hotly as his mother; his warmth startled even his pretty wife.

‘ It is n’t true, she never ran after me.'

He looked down again; he could not quarrel, he had heard nothing but quarreling for months. It made no difference to him what happened. A plan was slowly forming in his mind. Edwin Seem was going West; he would go too, away from mother and wife alike.

‘She can come and live in the home I can give her or she can stay away,’ he said sullenly, knowing that Sula would never enter his mother’s house.

The squire turned to Sula once more. He had been staring at the back of the room, where Caleb Stemmel’s keen, selfish face moved now into the light, now back into the shadow. On it was a strange expression, a hungry gleam of the eyes, a tightening of the lips, an eager watching of the girlish figure in the white dress. The squire knew all the gossip of Millerstown, and he knew many things which Millerstown did not know. He had known Caleb Stemmel for fifty years. But it was incredible that Caleb Stemmel with all his wickedness should have any hand in this.

The squire bent forward.

‘Sula, look at me. You are Adam’s wife. You must live with him. Won’t you go back?’

Sula looked about the room once more. Sula would do nothing wrong — yet. It was with Caleb Stemmel that her mother advised, it was Caleb Stemmel who came evening after evening to sit on the porch. Caleb Stemmel was a rich man even if he was old enough to be her father, and it was many months since any one else had told Sula that her hat was pretty or her dress becoming.

Now, with Caleb’s eyes upon her, she said the little speech which had been taught her, the speech which set Millerstown gasping, and sent the squire leaping to his feet, furious anger on his face. Neither Millerstown nor the squire, English as they had become, was yet entirely of the world.

‘I will not go back,’ said pretty Sula lightly. ‘If he wants to apply for a divorce, he can.’

‘Sula!’ cried the squire.

He looked about once more. On the faces of Sula’s mother and Caleb Stemmel was complacency, on the face of Mrs. Myers astonished approval, on the faces of the citizens of Millerstown — except the very oldest - there was amazement, but no dismay. There had never been a divorce in Millerstown; persons quarreled, sometimes they separated, sometimes they lived in the same house without speaking to each other for months and years, but they were not divorced. Was this the beginning of a new order?

If there were to be a new order, it would not come during the two months before the squire started on his long journey! He shook his fist, his eyes blazing.

‘There is to be no such threatening in this court,’ he cried; ‘and no talking about divorce while I am here. Sula! Maria! Sally! Are you out of your heads?’

‘There are higher courts,’ said Mrs. Hill.

Millerstown gasped visibly at her defiance. To its further amazement, the squire made no direct reply. Instead he went toward the door of the back office.

‘Adam,’ he commanded, ‘come here.’

Adam rose without a word, to obey. He had some respect for the majesty of the law.

‘Sula, you come, too.’

For an instant Sula held back.

‘Don’t you do it, Sula,’ said her mother.

‘Sula! ’ said the squire; and Sula, too, rose.

‘Don’t you give up,’ commanded her mother. Then she got to her feet. ‘I’m going in there, too.’

Again the squire did not answer. He presented instead the effectual response of a closed and locked door.

The back office was as dark as a pocket. The squire took a match from the safe, and lit the lamp. Behind them the voices of Mrs. Myers and Mrs. Hill answered each other with antiphonal regularity. Adam stood by the window; Sula advanced no farther than the door. The squire spoke sharply.

‘ Adam!'

Adam turned from the window.

‘Sula! ’

Sula looked up. She had always held the squire in awe; now, without the support of her mother’s elbow and Caleb Stemmel’s eyes, she was badly frightened. Moreover, it seemed to her suddenly that the thing she had said was monstrous. The squire frightened her no further. He was now gentleness itself.

‘Sula,’ he said, ‘you did n’t mean what you said in there, did you?’

Sula burst into tears, not of anger but of wretchedness.

‘You’d say anything, too, if you had to stand the things I did.’

‘Sit down, both of you,’ commanded the squire. ‘Now, Adam, what are you going to do?’

Adam hid his face in his hands. The other room had been a torture-chamber. ‘I don’t know.’ Then, at the squire’s next question, he lifted his head suddenly. It seemed as if the squire had read his soul.

‘When is Edwin Seem going West?’

‘To-night.’

‘How would you like to go with him?’

‘He wanted me to. He could get me a place with good wages. But I could n’t save even the fare in half a year.’

‘Suppose’—the squire hesitated, then stopped, then went on again — ‘suppose I should give you the money ? ’

‘Give me the money!'

‘Yes, lend it to you?’

A red glow came into Adam’s face. ‘ I would go to-night.'

‘And Sula?’ said the squire.

’I would—’ The boy was young, too young to have learned despair from only one bitter experience. Besides, he had not seen Caleb Stemmel’s eyes. ‘I would send for her when I could.’

The squire made a rapid reckoning. He did not dare to send the boy away with less than a hundred dollars, and it would take a long while to replace it. He could not, could not send Sula, too, no matter how much he hated divorce, no matter how much he feared Caleb Stemmel’s influence over her, no matter how much he loved Millerstown and every man, woman, and child in it. If he sent Sula, it would mean that he might never start on his own journey. He looked down at her, as she sat drooping in her chair.

‘What do you say, Sula?’

Sula looked up at him. It might have been the thought of parting which terrified her, or the recollection of Caleb Stemmel.

‘Oh, I would try,’ she said faintly; ‘I would try to do what is right. But they are after me all the time — and — and — ’ Her voice failed, and she began to cry.

The squire swung open the door of the old safe.

‘You have ten minutes to catch the train,’ he said gruffly. ‘You must hurry.’

Adam laid a shaking hand on the girl’s shoulder. It was the first time he had been near her for weeks.

‘Sula,’ he began wretchedly.

The squire straightened up. He had pulled out from the safe a roll of bills. With it came a mass of brightly colored pamphlets which drifted about on the floor.

‘Here,’ he said, ’I mean both of you, of course.’

‘I am to go, too?’ cried Sula.

‘Of course,’ said the squire. ‘Edwin will look after you.’

’In this dress?’ said Sula.

‘Yes, now run.’

For at least ten minutes more the eager company in the next room heard the squire’s voice go on angrily. Each mother was complacently certain that he was having no effect on her child.

‘He is telling her she ought to be ashamed of herself,’ said Mrs. Myers.

‘He is telling him he is such a mother-baby,’responded Mrs. Hill. ‘She will not go back to him while the world stands.’

‘The righteous shall be justified, and the wicked shall be condemned,’ said Mrs. Myers.

Suddenly the squire’s monologue ended with a louder burst of oratory. The silence which followed frightened Mrs. Hill.

‘Let me in!’ she demanded, rapping on the door.

‘This court shall be public, not private,’ cried Mrs. Myers.

She thrust Mrs. Hill aside and knocked more loudly, at which imperative summons the squire appeared. He stood for an instant with his back to the door, the bright light shining on his handsome face. Seeing him appear alone, the two women stood still and stared.

‘Where is he?’ asked Mrs. Myers.

‘Where is she?’ demanded Mrs. Hill.

The squire’s voice shook.

‘There is to be no divorcing in Millerstown yet awhile,’ he announced.

‘Where is he?’ cried Mrs. Myers.

‘Where is she?’ shrieked Mrs. Hill.

The squire smiled. The parting blast of the train whistle, screaming as if in triumph, echoed across the little town. They had had abundance of time to get aboard.

‘He is with her, where he should be,’ he answered Mrs. Myers, ‘and she is with him, where she should be,’ he said to Mrs. Hill, ‘and both are together.’ This time it seemed that he was addressing all of Millerstown. In reality he was looking straight at Caleb Stemmel.

‘You m-m-mean that—’stammered Mrs. Myers.

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Mrs. Hill.

‘I mean,’ —and now the squire was grinning broadly, — ‘I mean they are taking a wedding-trip.’