Ten Bushels. ——
Mrs. Lyman was in the kitchen superintending dinner. She was but a young housekeeper, so there was a certain amount of anxiety connected with making even a kettle of soup. She stirred and tasted and put in another shake of pepper and another pinch of salt, and said to her maid of all work, who stood by watching the process:
“I do wish I had an onion to put in it; soup is not very good without an onion flavor.”
The remark was made more to herself than to Barbara, whose knowledge of English was somewhat limited. If it had not been, and if she had known the way and it had not been too late, she might have gone down town and bought some onions. As those obstacles were all in the way, the soup must needs go without.
When the six o’clock dinner was spread in the very prettiest dining room that can be imagined, the table glittering in its new silver, and the soup smoking in the tureen, the master of the house—a young man who had only enjoyed the privilege of sitting at the head of his own table for a couple of months—took it all in, as his own tastes were capable of doing. The savory odors, the cheery room, the careful attention to every detail of comfort and beauty, and then the slight figure opposite him, an embodiment of dignity and grace—he found nothing lacking in it all.
“This soup is not quite perfect,” the young wife said, as she began to serve it, “I had no onions to put in it. I wish you would order some when you go down town to-morrow, Philip; they are nice just now for boiling, too.”
This young couple had compared views on Browning and Ruskin, but not on onions. They had long ago discussed poetry, philosophies, and art, as well as architecture and house furnishings, and they had found hitherto that their tastes were in most delightful accord. Mrs. Lyman was not prepared, therefore, for the frown that contracted her husband’s handsome brows as he ejaculated:
“Onions! Don’t mention them. Excuse me from that purchase, please. They are abominable; not fit for human beings to eat. They ought to be banished from every respectable table.”
“I beg your pardon,” Mrs. Lyman answered, with rising color, “but all do not agree in such a sweeping denunciation. Many of the best physicians consider them most nutritious and healthful.”
“Well, at all events, I shall not have my house polluted with the vile things. If there is anything that reminds one of a third-rate boarding-house, it is to get a whiff of onions the moment you enter the front door. It is vulgar and low. I can’t see how any one of refined tastes can touch them. I hope you are not an onion eater, Nettie, because if you are, I fear you will have to abstain; I cannot abide them.”
Now Mrs. Annette Heyward Lyman was exceedingly fond of onions. She was not of the sort to declare that she was “passionately fond of them,” but she did think a nice dish of boiled onions, pretty white ones, swimming in hot milk and butter, was just the thing to go with—stewed chicken, say. Then, she enjoyed thin slices of raw onions cut into vinegar; and crisp, green-topped young ones, dipped in salt and eaten with bread and butter, were just delicious. And yet, if Philip had mildly hinted that he had a special aversion for that vegetable, she would have declared, “I will eat no onions while the world standeth.” But to attack them in this sharp way, to declare them vulgar, and, above all, to dictate to her what she should or should not eat, as if he were her master, and to say “my house!” it was too much, and she answered in an icy tone that “she must beg leave to differ; to her mind the onion was a most delicious vegetable, and she must reserve for herself the right of choice in this and in other matters.”
Their first quarrel! And all about an onion! What cares Satan whether it be an apple or an onion, so that he spoil the Edens?
There were many more words quite as pungent as onions, and then there fell a silence between them that was not broken after Barbara had lighted the gas in the parlor, and drawn the table under the drop-light, and they were seated with books and newspapers. There was no reading done, but much ugly thinking. One line of it ran after this fashion:
“Strange that so delicate, refined a nature should have a taste for that vile, flagrant, odious onion!” A wretched discovery, that his wife should be fond of that for which he had always felt disgust! And evidently she did not mean to give them up, not even for his sake. Was she selfish and proud and obstinate and—and high-tempered? Had he been mistaken in her character and her regard for him?
The wife meantime was recalling an opinion long ago expressed by a friend, who said that Philip Lyman possessed a domineering spirit and was bound to rule all connected with him. She, herself, had never believed it, but this looked like it—wishing her to give up whatever he did not fancy, and hinting that she would be obliged to. Indeed! He would find that she did not drive well; no, indeed. If her husband had observed the glowing cheeks and flashing eyes just then he would have been justified in concluding that she was “high-tempered.”
And now came a break in this uncomfortable state of things in the shape of Mr. John Lyman, on a business trip; “could only spend the night with his brother. He was sorry to spoil their evening together.” He would have been sorrier had he known they had not spoken for just two hours.
Annette soon retired, leaving the brothers to talk over home affairs while she went to her room to indulge in the luxury of grief. How dark it all looked. Philip was changing. Perhaps he was sorry they were married. He had the same as said she was vulgar and coarse. He was fastidious; she could never please him; they would have dreadful quarrels, for she could not submit to be ordered. And now the tears that had been stored up all these bright years fell in most surprising showers, until sleep had got the better of them.
The morning was a hurrying time; the brother must get down town for the early train. A hasty good-by with averted eyes, and Philip was gone. As he lunched near his office, two miles away, he would not be at home again until night.
A long, unhappy day before Annette! She felt ten years older than yesterday morning, when Philip had come all the way back from the gate to put a rose in her hair. She wished she could see her mother; she wished she could go off where Philip wouldn’t find her in years; that is, she thought she did. Oh! What a wretched world it was. Poor foolish child! But she had only lived twenty little years.
Mr. Philip Lyman alone in his office, tried to settle himself to his usual duties, but he felt ill at ease and uninterested. Finally he threw down his pen, tipped back in his chair, and locked his fingers together at the back of his head, a favorite thinking attitude. His eyes wandered out the window, resting on white clouds sailing through the sky. Perhaps the deep blue reminded him of Nettie’s eyes, or the wrapper she had worn that morning. However it was, he soon fell to confessing to those soft clouds.
“What a consummate idiot! She thinks me a tyrant, and rude and selfish. She ought to be vexed at me. As if I should make over her tastes, and try to control her. I was rude and hateful and unkind. Contemptible!”
And with that he seized his hat and dashed down-stairs into the street. He went straight to a market, bought a peck of onions and ordered them sent home. An unpoetical peace offering, he reflected, but the most appropriate for him under the circumstances. But stop, those were red onions. This fact was brought to his consciousness by observing on the sidewalk a basket of unusually fine white ones; and she had especially wished white onions. Immediately he stepped in and bought a peck of those.
As he walked along, filled with the peaceful consciousness of having made some atonement, he spied a wagon filled to the top with clean shiny-skinned, white onions. “They really look attractive,” he said to himself. Then there darted into his mind a new idea. What if he should prove to Annette what a magnanimous, self-denying being he really was, and take to eating the obnoxious things himself just to please her; be a philosopher, a stoic, and will to like what he detested?
There must be no half-way work about this act of self-abnegation; he would provide a generous supply. Now that he thought of it, autumn was just the time to lay in a supply of vegetables. What had he been thinking of, buying only a peck? Nov, how many was a good quantity—enough to last all winter? That was a conundrum. He had dim memories of ten bushels of this and that stored in his father’s cellar. True his father had a large family. But then, they should have a great many visitors. The proprietor of the wagon stared when he heard the order, but his business was to sell onions. If Philip Lyman was complacent before, he was jubilant now in contemplation of his virtues. He bounded up the stairs, resolving to go home at noon, surprise Nettie, and “make up.” He was a monster to have left her in such a cold way. He was obliged to abandon that plan, though, having already lost so much time.
Annette meantime had been aroused from her despondent mood by the first installment of onions. Onions have healing properties, everybody knows. They began to prove efficacious in this case. Philip wanted to show her that he was sorry, she reasoned, and had taken this way to do it. It was just as delicate and kind as if the onions had been flowers,—she ignored the fact that they were red. While her spirits were being thus soothed and comforted, the second peck of onions arrived. This was perplexing. Why had he done that? Ah! These were white, and he had recollected that she liked white ones. How thoughtful and good! How unselfish and candid and noble to own himself wrong, and she—had been foolish and wicked to get angry at nothing.
She was just beginning to feel that life was worth living, when another man presented himself announcing that he had brought some onions. Annette assured him there was some mistake, as they had sufficient for a long time. But he affirmed most strenuously this was the spot, producing the directions in her husband’s handwriting. Then Annette told him that she must countermand the order; that she positively wished for no more onions.
“But ye see I got my pay for ’em,” he answered, with a horrible grin, whereupon the discomfited young woman retired into the house and the triumphant onions went into the cellar.
Tramp, tramp, and roll, roll. Would he never have done? He seemed like an arch fiend, sent to torment her. If she could but have known the soliloquy he of the onions carried on as he went back and forth, and that he took a malicious delight in getting the better of her, it might have turned the tide of her rising wrath into a laugh. When a laugh comes in, wrath goes out.
“That’s jest the way with wimmin folks—headstrong! They think they know a leetle the most about everything. The young feller likes onions, I s’pose, and she don’t, and she’s ’tarmined he sha’n’t have ’em. I’m glad she’s got a boss. She needs it.”
By the time the tenth bushel was deposited all Annette’s late estimates and decisions had been reversed. Of all despicable acts this was the climax—to send a whole load of those horrible things, as if to say, “Grovelling creature, can’t live without onions! Take them!” It was just a simple exhibition of spite and sarcasm. She would never have believed he could do so cruel a thing. Since she was a child she had not been so angry. It was a lofty, scornful anger that did not vent itself in tears. Besides, the tears were all used up.
Snatching her hat and mantle, she went out into the air to try to calm herself. On and on she went out into the country, dreading to return. Finding herself within half a mile of her cousin’s house, she decided to call in order to get away from her thoughts. It proved the right place for that purpose. Little Harry had become suddenly ill, and the distracted mother welcomed her gladly. The two worked over him all the afternoon. As night came on Annette felt that it would be cruel to leave until there was some ray of hope. So she wrote a note to her husband, briefly and coldly explaining her absence. A passing boy agreed to deliver it, but it never got beyond his own pocket.
Toward evening Barbara began to wonder what kept her mistress, and decided to take matters into her own hands and get up a dinner. Seeing the large bin of onions in the cellar, she said within herself, “This is what she all time want; I will cook some!” During the process of cooking she made many trips to the front door to watch for her lost mistress. Each time she left all the doors open behind her, and so thoroughly perfumed the whole house with the odor of the dinner.
In the city Paul had picked up an old college friend and persuaded him to stay over a train and dine with him. As he ushered his friend into the pretty house, with a pardonable pride, it was somewhat taken down by the unmistakable odor that greeted him.
“Onions! As I live,” he said to himself, “and Merwin is such a fastidious fellow! However, wait till he sees Annette.” So he went in haste to bring her.
Upstairs and down and in the garden he searched. She was not to be found. This was a new departure—to be away on his return. He told his friend she had probably been detained—would be in presently.
Chagrined and mortified almost beyond his power to conceal, after waiting an hour, he was obliged to invite his friend to a table without a hostess. The first cover he removed disclosed a dozen huge specimens of that obnoxious, ill-odored vegetable that had caused their unhappiness. He forgot his heroic resolve and shut it with emphasis—not to-night would he eat onions. It was unlike the delicate tact of his wife to have ordered them cooked that night, while she was still ignorant of what had passed in his mind.
Barbara was not yet perfect. The dinner both in cooking and serving missed the supervision of the mistress. The host was ill at ease and absent, and was not sorry that his guest soon bade him good-by.
And now Philip grew positively uneasy, and proved himself not a whit behind a woman in the power to conjure up dire probabilities. Perhaps she had slipped from that high bank where they sometimes walked along the river! And he rushed out through the garden and over the fields till he stood on the bank amidst the gathering shadows and peered remorsefully into the dark waters. What if somebody had abducted her; had brought word that he was ill and had carried her off! That thought was maddening. Then he remembered her one relative in that vicinity—her cousin.
No public conveyance went that way, and in hot haste, he started on foot. His speed astonished himself. Breathless and panting, he arrived and was about to ring, when, obeying an impulse, he stepped to the side porch and looked through the vine-covered window. Yes; surely, there was Annette! A little group near the open fire; she kneeling by a low chair, her bright head bending over little Harry, who lay in his mother’s lap.
The first feeling was of relief and gratitude. She was safe. And then, it was his turn. There came surging over him, like a hot breath from a furnace, a wave of anger, and he strode away. His hasty glance had not shown him the death-like pallor on the baby face, nor the anxious expressions of the others. His conclusion was that the baby was being made ready for bed, and the two were admiring his pretty pink toes.
On he went in the darkness, his resentment gathering force at every step. Here she had deliberately planned to put him to torture. How little she must care for him when she would allow him to spend a whole night in anxiety. He had supposed her nature to be gentle and forgiving, and here she had treasured up a few hasty words and was intent on revenge. He had made concessions, and she had scorned them. Alas! He had not the dimmest suspicion that those ten bushels of concessions were just what widened the breach. He walked the floor for hours, then flinging himself on a lounge, toward morning chopped into a heavy sleep.
The result of the night’s meditation was a decision that the next advance toward reconciliation must come from Annette herself. Just as he was about starting for the office in the morning, Annette was driven up to the door. They looked at each other in silence. He lingered a moment to see if she had any explanations to offer, and she waited in the hall hoping that possibly he had repented of the odious conduct of yesterday and was willing to confess it. Silence is not always “golden;” the proverb is misleading. If he had but asked, “Why did you go away?” Or she had said some pleasant word! But, no; they passed each other in grim silence.
Another day of gloom and despair for both. This unwonted strain, added to the night’s watching, brought upon Annette a nervous headache, so that by the time of Philip’s return she could not raise her head. It was fortunate. But for this they might have gone on till happiness was wrecked. Annette, with spirited little head erect, sailing through the house, was to be considered somewhat differently from this one, her head on a pillow, racked with pain. No mother could have cared for her more tenderly and skillfully than Philip. Throwing his resentment to the winds, he administered to her for hours until she fell into a quiet sleep.
In the morning, with the pain all gone, explanations were in order. It was hard to tell which was the more astonished as the misunderstandings of each began to come out.
“And you did not go away to have revenge on me?” “And you did not send home all those onions just to tease me?” were some of the questions asked. Then the ludicrous side began to appear, and they laughed long and merrily.
“Whatever shall we do with all those onions?” queried Annette when she found her breath.
“We will make sweet fragrance to our names by means of them,” said Philip. “We will send gifts to the poor—always of onions. We will become famous as philanthropists, and our eccentric charities will be the theme of succeeding generations. But, Nettie, I wish you would make a picture of some of those silvery-skinned onions. We will hang it up in the dining room, and it shall teach us wholesome lessons that nobody else can read but just us two. Shall teach me not to forget the ‘small sweet courtesies of life.’”
“And shall teach me,” said Annette humbly, “‘that anger dwells in the bosom of fools.’”
“And that ‘greater is he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city,’” added Philip.
“My darling,” he said, as their lips met in the kiss of reconciliation, “let us never again misinterpret, misjudge, or lose faith in each other, whatever comes.”