The Widow Agnes

WHEN I first saw her, she was behind the counter of the small countrystore, busily engaged with a dry-goods salesman, who was showing his samples. Her black hair was smoothly parted in the middle. Her slender, active figure, her neat attire, and her voice, low and even, all gave the impression of sureness and grace. Her foreign accent was slight; her wording and grammar correct.

She crossed the room and served me the cold drink I asked for, returning then to the drummer.

The little store was a neat affair, with a citified air; its floor well swept, its rows of cans and packages on one side, and its bolts of dry-goods on the other, all in neat array.

I had come over that morning to sell machinery to the sawmill, but finding the manager away had wandered about the small Bohemian settlement for a while. It consisted of a short block of painted frame-stores, placed side by side, with the highway to Alexandria running by in front, and the railway station and the tracks opposite the stores. The mill office was across the tracks, while the mill itself was farther down, and not in sight. The country around had the appearance of a rolling prairie; but the stumps in view everywhere, except in the wellcleared fields, revealed the true nature of the land to be that of a cut-over pine forest.

When the salesman had at last gathered up his samples and carried them off to the waiting jitney, which had brought him from Stephens, she came over to where I sat, and stood behind the counter.

I was hungry, there was no restaurant, and my train would not come until six o’clock. In response to my question, she pointed to her cans and glasses and cartons. I made a sandwich of dried beef and crackers, with evaporated milk and water to wash it down — an excellent meal. Customers came in from time to time. After waiting on them, she would return to the counter where I sat.

‘I was here a year ago,’ I said. ‘A little old man kept this store.’

‘I married him ten months ago,’ she said, simply.

‘Oh,’ I said; ‘he runs the farm, maybe, and you the store.’

‘No, he died six months ago,’ she declared in a matter-of-fact way.

‘I got some fine juicy plums at an orchard up the road,’ I said.

‘Yes, at my mother’s,’ she replied.

We became very talkative as the afternoon wore away — this woman hardly more than half my age and I. She told me the few facts of her life, always in the directest manner. She had left Bohemia with her parents when sixteen, had stayed in Chicago a few weeks, and then had come out here nine years ago, living with her mother until her ‘first’ marriage, as she called it, ten months before. All the people about were Bohemians, except at the mill. They were all fairly prosperous, working hard for all they got. They had a school, but no church, preacher, or priest.

‘We don’t believe in a church. We treat each other right.’ She smiled as she spoke.

‘Do you like it here?’ I asked.

‘Oh, well,’ she answered, turning out her palms.

She evidently accepted conditions, with no thought either of dissatisfaction or of happiness. She liked to talk and to listen. Her statements were short and sure. She meant all she said, nothing more nor less.

I returned to Alexandria; but in two days I was at the Bohemian settlement again. The mill manager was still away. She greeted me with a quiet smile when I walked into the store. My stool was missing, but she brought it from the rear of the house, where she evidently lived. As before, when not waiting on customers, she stood behind the counter where I sat, talking and listening with equal readiness.

I came out the third time. She accepted my presence at the store without surprise.

In the afternoon of this third visit, a young girl rushed into the store, crying excitedly, ‘Agnes! Agnes!’

And then followed a volley of words, which meant nothing to me except that I could see that something of importance had happened. I could not have drawn this conclusion from Agnes’s behavior, for she showed no excitement, but said to me, ‘My mother is very ill. She has sent for me. I do not know what to do. I cannot close the store. It is never done.'

‘I will keep the store,’ I said, longing to help this pretty, unemotional woman.

‘Very well,’ she said at once.

She went into the back room, and soon reappeared with a sunbonnet on. She said, unhurriedly, ’A woman will call for that big package. It is charged. The basket of groceries will be paid for — one dollar and fourteen cents.'

She and the girl went off together.

Some old experiences of mine enabled me to get along very well with the groceries; and fortunately there were no customers on the dry-goods side. In two hours she returned.

‘My mother has recovered,’she said simply. ‘She has spells. Soon she gets over one entirely. Some day she will die.’ There was no emotion about this woman. ‘The mill manager,’she continued, ‘will be here to-morrow, I heard. You will be out to-morrow?’

’Yes,’I replied. It was time for the train.

‘I thank you for keeping my store,’ she said, holding out her hand. For a moment it lay in mine, warm, soft, and slender, and I think I pressed it.

‘You like — the store?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘It is a good store,’ she went on; ‘it has many customers and the profits are good. With twice the stock, it could do twice the business. There should be two here. I am very tired of being alone. A man and his wife could get. rich here soon. You will be back to-morrow?’

Her questions were like commands. I walked over to the station, feeling that a proposition had been made to me, and that I had been given a day to consider it. It was a business proposition, other relations being incidental, but necessary. The coolness of it impressed me, as well as its straightforwardness. I could easily imagine her saying to a husband, in her simple way, ’I find we do not suit each other. I will pay half the court expenses.’

On the following day my business with the mill manager was soon transacted. When I entered the store, the dry-goods salesman was there, a pleasant-looking fellow of thirty-five.

When I entered, I heard her say, — ‘You are going to the other store now.’

And he obediently went out. He had no samples with him, but his Stephens jitney was on the street.

‘Well,’ said I, trying to speak carelessly, and refraining from looking at her attractive person, ‘I got my order. I am through here now. I don’t know when I shall come back.’

‘Very well,’ she said quietly; and we began a random conversation, with not a trace of resentment, or other feeling, on her part. When I saw the drummer coming I went out. When I returned for dinner the drummer was still there.

‘Oh, sir,’ she said, coming up to me. ‘I will ask a favor. I wish to go to Alexandria at once for three hours. This gentleman will take me in his automobile. I wish you to keep my store. I wish to get something there,’ she added, smiling.

‘Why, certainly,’ I said, heartily.

She disappeared in the rear, and soon came out, with her appearance, always neat, little changed, except that she wore a hat. She and the drummer went out to the jitney, which was soon chugging away. In three hours they returned. She came in with her hat in her hand, looking as calm as usual, while the drummer was following.

‘Thank you very much,’ she said to me.

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ I asked, now a bit suspicious.

‘Yes,’ spoke up the drummer, laughing, ‘she did. She got just what she wanted. I’m him.’

‘You see,’ she said, ‘there was no church here.'

Business went on as usual.