Part 4

Their next meeting occurred when Mr. Bixby made his way to Julie’s little shop, sent by his wife to match some pink yarn for a sweater she was knitting. It was just like her, Julie thought, to be knitting a sweater for herself when all the rest of the women were at work on khaki wool for the soldiers. And like her, too, to send her husband, because she was ashamed to ask for it herself. Julie had time to think of these things because she was busy at the hat counter with a customer, and so had to let Maida Watkins, who sometimes helped her out in the shop, wait on Mr. Bixby.

“_Pink_ wool?” Maida demanded sharply, her cold young eyes piercing him, and her teeth snapping together on her chewing-gum. Maida had been expressing superiority, leisure, and indifference, as she stood behind the counter, ruminating slowly upon her gum, the while she patted her blond hair from time to time, or examined her polished nails; but when Mr. Bixby entered, and holding out the sample made his timid request, she shot “_Pink_ wool” at him, and clenched her teeth so tight on her gum that the muscles stood out on either side of her jaws. The color swept up uncomfortably to his eyes, making his face look blurred and helpless.

“Yes, marm, if you please, marm: to match this sample if you got it,” he stammered.

“No, we ain’t got it,” Maida returned, not even deigning to glance at the wisp of yarn he proffered. “It’s only pro-Germans would keep pink wool these days,” she informed him. After which she returned to her haughty mastication, staring away out of the window over his head.

It was here that Julie abruptly laid down the hat she had been displaying and swept forward. She was animated by the same rage that had assailed her before. As she passed Maida she glared at her. “Show Miss Jenkins that sport hat,” she commanded; and Maida with a startled and indignant toss of her blond puffs melted away to the obscurity of the hat counter.

Julie reached the open door just as Mr. Bixby was starting out of it.

“I’m mighty sorry I haven’t got what you want, Mr. Bixby,” she said. “I hope you’ll call again.”

At her words he turned, and there was a sudden leap of surprise, of recognition, and of release in his eyes. For an instant they stood and looked at one another, the storm-tossed personalities of each finding a harbor and refuge in the being of the other. He spoke first. “I--I didn’t know,” he stumbled. “Is this your shop?”

She nodded. “Yes, I live here.”

But now she knew that Maida was turning to ask her something about the hat she held, and she hastily snatched up the momentarily dropped mantle of conventionality.

“I’m mighty sorry we haven’t any pink wool, Mr. Bixby,” she repeated, although she was aware that Maida was regarding her with outraged contempt.

He replied with a sudden surprising twist of whimsicality, an unexpected twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Oh, well,” he appealed, “ain’t it just like me to ask for pink wool a war year? Ain’t it just the ornary kind of thing I would do?”

He spoke as though she knew him quite well, and would understand perfectly all the small disasters to which he was prone.

“Oh, well,” she said, still offering consolation, “Of course, a man couldn’t be expected to know how hard it is to get any kind of wool these days. Why, the Red Cross Committee has even sent over to Winter’s Gap to see if they can’t get some homespun. Winter’s Gap is in the back part of the county away from the railroad, where some of the old folks still spin,” she explained.

“Is that so?” he said with interest. People were not usually interested in Julie’s small remarks. “Well, I reckon I must be going,” he added, conscious now of Maida’s severe eyes upon them. He made an uncertain gesture toward his hat and turned away. As he raised his arm, Julie caught sight of a rip in his sleeve.

“I don’t see why in the name of goodness that woman can’t keep him mended up!” her thoughts ejaculated angrily.

VI

The following Sunday after service, Julie was formally presented to Mr. and Mrs. Bixby.

She had gone to church in an agony of apprehension. Would Brother Seabrook call on her again to pray? Or did he know now that she was afraid? And did everybody else know? The thought made her feel like an outcast, yet she was so terrified that she would have liked to go to Brother Seabrook before church and beg him not to call upon her. She pictured herself doing it; she even made up in her mind the words with which to clothe her request; but in the end she could not bring herself to do it. Instead, she went late and slipped into a back pew. He did not call upon her, but all through the service she suffered an agony of dread, and when it was over, and she rose with the rest to leave, she felt as though every eye was fixed on her in contempt.

Outside the church she encountered a little group of people who were being introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Bixby. Mrs. Sam Wicket had taken upon herself the responsibility of presenting the strangers to the congregation.

“Miss Rose, make you acquainted with Mis’ Bixby,” she said, catching Julie by the arm as she came down the steps, and holding her firmly before the other, as though she might otherwise escape.

“Miss Rose, pleased to meet you,” the newcomer said; and Julie found herself looking up into the face of Elizabeth Bixby, while their hands touched for a moment.

Dressed for her first public appearance in Hart’s Run, Mrs. Bixby was at once more amiable and more overpowering than the cross and disheveled woman whom Julie had seen on the train. An exotic perfume new to the village hung about her. Her green silk dress shimmered in the sun, her feet were squeezed into high-heeled pumps with flashing buckles, while from her ears big green hoops depended, accentuating the breadth and bold commonness of her face, and shaking and gleaming as she turned her head from side to side. She was much taller than Julie, so that she had to look down at her.

“I recollect seeing you on the train, the day we got here,” she announced.

“And that’s Mr. Bixby,” Mrs. Wicket added--rather as an afterthought.

Julie turned and looked into Timothy Bixby’s face as their hands came together for the first time. His was cold from shyness, and Julie knew that hers must feel the same way. Neither of them spoke.

“You must excuse my husband,” Mrs. Bixby said with elaborate jocularity. “The cat got his tongue when he was real little, an’ he’s been dumb ever since.”

The unhappy color suffused Mr. Bixby’s face, and letting go of Julie’s hand, his glance sought the ground in confusion. Then suddenly he raised his eyes and gazed straight at her. She saw his spirit, desperate and impotent, like a caged wild animal, looking out at her. The sight shook her once more with that familiar suffocating anger.

“Oh, well,” she retorted boldly, “what people say isn’t really anything. It’s what they are that matters. I’m not much of a hand for talking myself. Maybe the same cat got my tongue.--Excuse me; I’ve got to go back and speak to Brother Seabrook a minute,” she added suddenly.

Julie reëntered the church and went hastily along the red-carpeted aisle, and with every determined spring of her foot she said to herself, “It’s got to stop--it’s just got to stop right now. Folks have _got_ to let us alone.”

Quickly and decisively she came straight up to Brother Seabrook and paused in front of him. He was busy putting some papers together, and everybody else had left the church. “Brother Seabrook,” she said clearly, “I just came back to ask you--to _tell_ you--you mustn’t call on me to pray.”

Brother Seabrook looked down at her in surprise, his brows over his shoe-button eyes going up protestingly. “Why, my sister, what is this?” he cried. “Not call on you to pray?”

“No, I can’t do it. I never could. My mother always explained to every new minister that I couldn’t. But she’s dead now, so I’ve got to tell you myself.”

Her big gray eyes fringed by dark lashes looked straight up at him. Her cheeks were slightly flushed. Her breath came quickly, making the ruffles about her neck stir up and down. She was all of thirty-two, but Brother Seabrook was nearing fifty, and was a widower. They were alone in the church.

He took her hand and held it in both of his large palms.

“My sister, my little sister,” he said, “you must pray--all of my flock must pray. Couldn’t you say one little prayer for me?”

Julie jerked her hand free.

“If I can’t do it for the Lord, I’m not likely to be able to do it for you,” she retorted, and went lightly away down the church aisle and out into the street, leaving him to turn a dusky red and swallow convulsively.

“There! That’s settled,” Julie said to herself, drawing a deep breath and aware of an enormous content and elation. Her feet moved over the ground with the flying swiftness that had borne her up the church aisle. She was conscious of a beautiful elasticity and freedom, as though a binding cord that had been twisted tighter and tighter to constriction had suddenly snapped, giving her relief and air and release into a beneficent world. It seemed to her she had never seen a day so exquisite. The sun bent over her in floods of golden calm. The mountains that encircled Hart’s Run, the blue sky and white drifting June clouds were in themselves climaxes of ecstasy, and yet they were more also, veilings of something hidden, enormous, and completely satisfying. She stood still in the street a minute and gazed up to the amazing blue of the sky, with the big puffs of silver clouds riding it. “Oh, my Lord, how beautiful that sky is!” she whispered. “And it’s always there,” she thought in astonishment; for it was as though she were seeing it for the first time. “Why,” she thought suddenly, “Why, it doesn’t make any difference whether I pray or don’t pray in public. I don’t know why I ever worried about it or about what folks would think. Oh, ain’t the sky beautiful!” she reiterated.

She was a little behind the rest of the congregation, and as she made her way homeward, small knots of people were all in front of her, going slowly along. Julie was conscious of a very warm and friendly outpouring toward them, but she was in no hurry to overtake any one. For the moment she wanted to be alone, isolated in that enormous sense of freedom, which only the sky was big enough to encompass.

As she approached her own house, she saw that Mr. and Mrs. Bixby were standing there in conversation with Mrs. Wicket. She quickened her pace, feeling her ankles supple and swift at each step, and came up to them in a little gust of eagerness.

“Look at the sky,” she cried, waving her hand toward it.

They all stopped talking and turned their faces up, tipping back on their heels, and shading their eyes.

“What is it? What do you see, Julie?” Mrs. Wicket demanded.

“It’s so beautiful!” Julie cried. “So blue--and those big white clouds!”

“Well, for mercy sake, is _that_ all!” the other ejaculated. “Why, I thought it must be a flying machine.”

“But it’s so beautiful!” Julie persisted, trying to draw them into her elation.

“I don’t care for that kind of a sky,” Mrs. Bixby said languidly. “It’s mighty apt to bring a storm, and thunder always makes me s’ nervous.”

Julie felt crushed, as though the sky were a hat which she had offered for sale, but which both ladies had repudiated.

Mr. Bixby essayed a timid assent. “It is beautiful,” he said, cocking his head on one side to spy upward. “I don’t believe I ever saw it so blue.”

“I never saw how beautiful it is,” Julie said turning to him involuntarily. “I’ve--I’ve--why it’s like I’d just seen it for the first time.”

He looked at her curiously, and started to speak, but Mrs. Wicket interrupted.

“Aw, Julie,” she said, “you’re so funny! But what I want to know is, what you went back to speak to Brother Seabrook about.”

“I went back to tell him he mustn’t call on me to pray,” Julie replied simply.

“You _did_? Well, I never!” Mrs. Wicket cried. “For mercy sake, Julie! What’d he say?”

“He didn’t say much. But he won’t ever call on me again.”

“Can’t you pray, Miss Rose?” Elizabeth Bixby demanded.

“No. That is, sometimes I can. I did once. But just to think of it now makes me feel scared.”

“Well, I never did hear of a person telling a preacher a thing like that,” Elizabeth commented heavily. “That certainly is new to me. Hart’s Run’s a funny little place, all right!”

“That ain’t Hart’s Run,” Mrs. Wicket cried ruffling up in defense of her native town, “that’s just Julie’s scariness. I don’t reckon there’s another person in town would have had to tell Brother Seabrook such a thing.”

“Oh, do look at the sky,” Julie pleaded, still obsessed with the idea that if they could only realize the enormous serene beauty overhead, they would understand how little it mattered whether she was afraid to pray or not.

“Oh, for goodness sake, leave the sky alone!” Mrs. Wicket cried. “We ain’t got anything to do with the sky. What I want to know is how in the world you expect to be happy in heaven if you can’t pray. Why, I just know heaven’s made up of prayer and praise.”

Here Mr. Bixby cut in unexpectedly with the snatch of an old negro spiritual:--

He’ben! He’ben! E’vy’body talk about He’ben ain’t goin’ there!

he sang.

“Tim!” his wife flared up. “Now you’ll apologize right this minute to Mrs. Wicket for that piece of impertinence,” she commanded.

The color drove into his face up to his eyes; he hesitated. But Mrs. Wicket, who had completely missed the significance of the words, said politely, “Aw, that’s all right. Mis’ Bixby. I don’t object to singin’ on Sunday s’long as it’s hymn tunes.”

At this point Aunt Sadie Johnson came out on the little stoop in front of her door and created a diversion.

“Julie,” she said, “did you know Mr. and Mrs. Bixby was looking at my upstairs rooms?”

Julie did not know it, and was surprised.

“Well, now, this is a real nice part of town for you all to locate in, it’s so central,” Mrs. Wicket said.

“I’m only considering them,” Elizabeth answered condescendingly. “They ain’t really just what I want, but they seem to be about as good as anything I can find in this place, so I reckon they’ll just have to do.”

Julie saw Aunt Sadie flush. The words were an insult to both of them, for though the rooms were Mrs. Johnson’s to rent if she pleased, they were in Julie’s house. Mr. Bixby looked unhappy and apologetic, but incapable of finding any way of relieving the situation. Julie’s exaltation had all evaporated. She was back again in the dreadful constriction of her small self. She had forced a door open for a moment, and looked forth into a wider world roofed by an amazing sky, but only Mr. Bixby would look at it.

Now the door was banged shut again.

“Well, I must go in and lay off my things,” she said, turning away abruptly.

Mrs. Bixby resented Julie’s not having expressed any interest over the possibility of having her for a tenant, and shot a taunt at her as she left.

“Oh, how can you bear to leave that beautiful sky, Miss Rose?” she cried.

Julie’s momentary flare of spirit was gone. She could find no power to retort, and turned away in silence. As she entered her door, she heard Mrs. Bixby comment to Mrs. Wicket, “Well, she certainly does seem to be a funny little thing.”

“If that woman takes those rooms, if she’s right up there over my head all the time, I’ll--I’ll _choke_ to death!” Julie cried to herself. “She just stifles me so I can’t breathe! She stifles him, too.”

VII

All that Sunday Julie was haunted by the thought of Mr. and Mrs. Bixby’s taking Aunt Sadie’s furnished rooms upstairs. They would all be at very close quarters if they did. Julie kept the store and her three neat little rooms at the back. The other half of the house she rented to Aunt Sadie, who in turn rented out the upstairs floor as a small furnished apartment. Two doors, one upstairs and one down, connected the establishments. The one downstairs opened from Julie’s small hall straight into Aunt Sadie’s sitting-room. The other was at the top of Julie’s flight of stairs and gave on the rooms above. Neither of these doors had ever been locked. Julie and Aunt Sadie were in the habit of running unceremoniously in and out of one another’s quarters by way of the downstairs door, and even the upstairs one Julie had always left unfastened, in case the tenants above desired to come down through her hall and so out to the side street.

Julie was seized that afternoon with a panic over that door.

She was in her sitting-room, seated by the window with her church paper in her lap. The wind blew fitfully in, bringing her the scent of roses from her little plot. She wanted to go out and work around the bushes, but she did not think that was right on Sunday; so after drifting discreetly about the garden, inspecting each plant and little clump of blossoms, she had retired indoors, and settled herself with the _Sunday Record_, which she subscribed to dutifully, and which she usually held in her lap on Sabbath afternoons, but which she rarely read.

She was half asleep over it now, when suddenly the thought of that unlocked door at the head of her stairs leaped in her mind, startling her broad awake.

“Oh, my soul! That door’s unlocked,” she thought. She felt all at once exposed, as though some one--Elizabeth Bixby, for instance--might run unexpectedly in on her when she was undressed.

“I got to lock it,” she breathed. “I got to lock it ’fore that woman moves in. She’ll be runnin’ down on me every minute if I don’t.”

She ran up the stairs and slammed the door shut; but when her hand felt for the key, there was none in the lock. She jerked the door open and looked on the other side; it was not there either. “My soul! The key’s lost,” she cried in despair. “I got to find a key. I _got_ to lock that door ’fore she gets here.” She hurried downstairs, and found a box of odd keys; returning with them she began trying one after another, haste and anxiety growing upon her, and her hand so unsteady that the keys made a small chattering against the lock. At any moment she felt the stillness of the rooms might dissolve and Elizabeth Bixby’s crushing personality be upon her. Indeed, now she heard some one coming up the outside stairway. Breathlessly she peeped forth through the vista of rooms, and waited. But it was only Aunt Sadie’s familiar gray head that came into view. She pushed upon the door, and caught sight of Julie.

“My lands! Is that you, Julie? Well, I thought I heard somebody up here,” she cried.

“Has that woman taken the rooms?” Julie demanded.

“Yes, they plan to move in, in the mornin’. _Now_ what’s scared you, Julie?”

“I--I can’t find a key to this door,” Julie said weakly.

“Well, what of that? It ain’t never been locked.”

“I won’t have that Mrs. Bixby running down on me every minute,” Julie cried hysterically. “She’ll be in and out of the store all the time; I know she will. But I won’t _have_ her running down into my home place!”

“Well,” Aunt Sadie said in her large and placid way, “I wouldn’t take it as hard as all that, but I believe you’re about right. I’m not so struck on the woman, myself. She’s a right airy piece. I hated to let her have the rooms after the way she turned up her nose at ’em. But I did want the money for the rent, and there really ain’t any other place I know of in town for them to go to, and I felt sorry for that little man. He’s a kind of pitiful little feller. It looks like he tries so hard, an’ she just snaps him off every time.”

“I can’t get a key to fit,” Julie said, going on desperately with her attempt to lock the door.

“Here, let’s see how this’ll do,” Aunt Sadie offered, taking a key out of the closet door of the room they were in, and trying it in the lock. “There now,” she said triumphantly as the key slipped into place, “Now you go on out your side, and I’ll lock the door, and put the key back in the closet here. When she comes she’ll find the door fastened an’ never think to try to unlock it.”

Julie withdrew reluctantly. Outside she waited until she heard the key scrape in the lock. Then she tried the door, and being assured that it was really secure, she went down the steps to her own demesne, with a feeling of relief and safety.

VIII

The Bixbys moved into Aunt Sadie’s rooms the next day. The little apartment was already furnished, so there was not a great deal of moving to do: merely the carrying in of a couple of trunks, a phonograph, and a suit-case. The windows and doors were all open, and Julie down in her little shop could hear much of what went on overhead. She heard Elizabeth calling out sharp directions to Mr. Bixby as he staggered up the stairway under one of the trunks. Then he was sent off to buy a broom and some extra cooking-utensils. He came back presently, laden with all sorts of angular bundles; but he had evidently forgotten something, for his wife’s voice was raised in complaint. Julie could not often hear the exact words, and she almost never heard his answers. She gathered that often he did not reply at all, for every now and then Elizabeth would burst out, “_Answer_ me!”

But at last they settled down and had dinner, after which Mr. Bixby went off to the office of the _Hart’s Run News_; Elizabeth did some ostentatious sweeping, and then the creaking tread of her footsteps subsided.

“She’s taking a rest now,” Julie told herself. “She’ll get up after a little bit, and then she’ll dress herself and come down here.”

It was curious how the whole morning, during all her accustomed duties in the shop, Julie had been aware of all that took place upstairs. The Bixbys’ activities ran in a disturbing undercurrent through all she did. She was right in supposing that Elizabeth would come down to the shop after she had had her nap. At about four o’clock Julie heard her get up, and after moving about for some time, she started down her outside stairs. Certain boards creaked in the floor above. And over her head the heavy footsteps had gone back and forth, punctuated every now and then by a cringing squeak.

“I _must_ get those boards fixed,” Julie told herself. “I’ll go crazy if that keeps up. I don’t know why I never noticed them when the Edwardses were up there.”

Realizing the impending encounter, Julie had made what defense she could. She had carried out to her back rooms the two extra chairs she usually kept in the shop, so that there was nowhere for a visitor to sit down, and was herself safely tucked in behind her counter, sewing, when Elizabeth entered.

For her first visit the newcomer had made an elaborate toilet, consisting of a pink summer dress, white shoes, pink silk stockings, a string of white beads around her neck, and her face frankly made-up. She was rested and refreshed by her nap, and was handsome in a large self-confident way.

She entered the shop with assurance, preceded by a wave of perfume.

“Well, Miss Rose, here’s your new neighbor,” she announced. “I’ve got my rooms fixed at last, an’ it took some straightening, let me tell you! I suppose Mis’ Johnson thought she had everything clean, but poor old soul, I reckon she can’t see so very good. An’ now I’ve come to visit with you a spell.

“Well,” she went on, sweeping her bold dark eyes condescendingly around the shop, “you got a right nice place here. I wouldn’t have looked for anything so nice in such a rotten little town.”