Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 123, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1911 — THE SILENCE [ARTICLE]

THE SILENCE

It Deadened Two Lives For Many Dreary Years.

By JOHN BARTON OXFORD.

It hung conspicuously on the south wall—the only picture in the little bedroom. In the foreground, between two walls of water which reared themselves on either side in defiance of all natural laws, fat, bearded, complacent, stalked a herculean Moses. Behind him trailed the Children of Israel, looking very like a mob of German peasants, while on the horizon the Egyptian hosts—sadly out of perspective—were threatened on every side by curling waves of gigantic proportions. It had hung there in the same place for years, but it was only since the day he had been brought in from the barn, his right side useless from a stroke of paralysis, that Daniel Crosby bad given the ancient, smoke streaked woodcut more than a passing thought. He had been aware of its existence in a vaguely familiar way. If it had been taken down he would have missed it. He from the title underneath it wAs supposed to represent the passage of the Red sea by the children of Israel, but heretofore he had never taken the trouble to notice further detail, save that it was yellowed by age and badly smirched In places by smoke from the adjacent kitchen.

But now it was different. As he lay there on the bed practically helpless and the June days went by in monotonous succession he found himself examining the picture minutely during the long, wakeful daylight hours when the breeze fluttered the chintz curtains at the windows and the bees droned among the blossoms of the syringa bushes just outside. It came in time to have an unwholesome fascination for him. He began to wonder just how many children of Israel were represented in that cut, and to satisfy himself ‘on this point he tried time and again to count them, beginning with the two patriarchal gentlemen just behind Moses, but always at the thirty-fourth the heads resolved themselves into a blurred mass that defied further enumeration. Day after day, hour after hour, he counted patiently, and steadily his anger at his own helplessness in the matter and his resentment of the blurred heads grew stronger. Try as he-would to divert his mind to other things, it always returned pertinaciously to the picture and the all absorbing question of how many children of Israel there would be if he could once succeed in counting them all. He grew by slow degrees to hate that picture, yet with this hate the fascination was no whit lessened. Indeed, the stronger grew his hate the more frequent became his countings until at last he realized he could know no peace of mind until the picture was taken from the room.

It seemed the simplest of matters to have a picture reinoted from the walls of a bedroom, but in Daniel Crosby’s case there were complications, and these complications lay in the fact that the only person to whom he could suggest that the picture be taken down was his wife, and between Crosby and tris wife there had existed fourteen years of stubborn, unyielding silence.

It had come as the climax of numerous petty differences. They had wrangled long and fiercely. At the end of It Abby Crosby had burst into a flood of bitter, rebellious tears. “You can rest assured of one thing. Dan’l Crosby,” she had sobbed wretchedly. “I won’t never, never open my mouth to you again ’s long *s I live.” He had. smiled In superior fashion. “So be it," he had acquiesced. “It’ll suit me perfec’ly. An’ I’ll see to it you ain’t troubled with any remarks from me.”

And from that bitter day, fourteen years before, they had lived together in silence with never so much as a word passing between them. Not even this paralysis which had stricken him in his advancing years could shake the stubborn pride of either of them. He had wondered vaguely that day the neighbors had borne him Into the house and laid him on the bed If perchance In the excitement of the moment she would forget herself and speak to him, and he was rather proud of her self restraint when she had not

Silently she prepared his meals and brought them in to him; silently she massaged him ana used the battery as the doctor'had directed. He watched her narrowly day by day. all his longing for companionship in these hours of his helplessness carefully concealed beneath a cold exterior. “If any one speaks first It’ll be her, 1 * he told himself over and over. So day after day as his wife came silently Into the room and went silently out Daniel lay feebly fingering the sheets with his left hand, striving to conjure up some scheme which might rid him of the troublesome Israelites who refused to be counted above the thirty-fourth. At last in desperation—he bad been counting, all day long—be decided to take the matter Into his own hands. In the early dusk when he beard Abby go out the back door to shut up the barn and henhouses for the night he managed, by the use of bls sound left arm. to slide himself out of the bed on to the floor.

Slowly, painfully, be contrived to reach the corner where an old cane with a crook handle leaned in the angle of the walls. Then with Indomitable paMance ho wormed his way along the

floor until he was beneath the picture. After several unsuccessful attempts he managed to hook the handle of the cane securely on to the frame, and; throwing his whole weight upon it, he dragged the picture crashing to the floor. He listened for a moment, half expecting to hear his wife’s footsteps on the back steps, hut no one came. He dragged himself into the kitchen, pushing the picture before him. The cellar door was ajar. Thither he made his painful way and pulled it wide open. The mingled smell of damp earth and last season's vegetables greeted his nostrils. Without a pause he thrust the picture through the doorway and listened with many delightful chuckles as the children of Israel went bumping downward. Halfway down the frame stuck fast. That would never do. He pulled himself back to the bedroom to get the cane. With the aid of the cane he was sure he could reach down and complete the descent. He had scarcely regained the bedroom when he heard his wife come in. He lay on the floor, spent and breathing hard. Perhaps she was going out agqin. He would lay low and wait. He heard her moving briskly about the kitchen for a time: then a door squeak.* ed raucously on its hinges. There was only one door in the house that creaked in that fashion. It was the cellar door.

He heard her descending the cellar stairs cautiously, step fay step, as if she were going down in the dark. Good Lord! She was going down, and that picture was lying there on the stairs. In the darkness she would never see it. It would send her headlong down more than half the flight. Well, whatever happened he wouldn't speak before she spoke to him. He thumped the floor lustily with his fist. Undoubtedly she would come back, thinking he wanted something. He listened breathlessly. Creak, creak! She was still going down. She must be close upon that cursed picture. His fist was clinched; he bit his lips. But he wouldn’t speak first, not if she went down a thousand flights of stairs. In an agony of suspense he thumped the floor again, and in his excitement he did not notice that this time he used his tight hand. “Abby, Abby! Come here, quick!” The words broke from his lips almost involuntarily. He heard her coming, floundering up the stairs in her haste, and he sank into a huddled heap, relief and shame struggling for the mastery of him.

Abby came running into the little bedroom. Her eyes fell first on the emjity bed, then on the huddled figure on the floor.

“Father, father,” she cried, sinking to her knees beside him, ‘‘what has happened?” “Abby,” he said severely, “do you know you’re a-talkin’ to me?” “I don’t care. I’m glad of it,” she confessed recklessly. “You spoke to me, father. You called me.” She sat down and lifted his head to her lap. stroking it tenderly as if he had been a child. “How came you to be out here?” she asked.

He smiled up at her sheepishly. “I took a notion to git that picture of the children of lsra’l out of the room,” he explained. “It’s bothered me a good deal of late, so I yanked it dowp with the cane an’ slid It down the cellar stairs. Then you come in an’ started to go down them stairs, an’ I hollered to you. I was afraid you’d break your neck oyer it.” “Ten minutes ago I shouldn’t ’a’ cared much If I had broke my neck,” she said, “but now”— She drew him to her hungrily. Something warm and wet splashed on his forehead. Daniel coughed huskily. “I guess you’d better git the children of Isra’l off the cellar stairs an’ hang ’em on the south wall again,” be said. “Somehow I feel’s if I could stan’ ’em new.”