Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1917 — HIS BELOVED WIFE [ARTICLE]

HIS BELOVED WIFE

By MARIE A. GOLDEN.

“TJiere isn’t a thing yon or anybody else could possibly say against Mel Satterlee. He’s steady going and thrifty. He’s got that big farm on his hands and money in the bank, and I don’t see what more than that you want, Mary Ellen, or what you expect. Land alive, when I was a girl we’d have thought half that was a catch.” Mary Ellen smiled, a little wistful smile, elose lipped, unsatisfactory, altogether aggravating to anyone* who tried to Influence her one way or the other. Her mother stitched along now, on«her sideboard scarf of tan linen, keeping one eye on Mary Ellen nursing a lame chick by the kitchen fire. There had been four Taylor girls, evruw as nnrl iin.fl “i j "11“ "1 tiivtu ticvv • emu all the other girls were now safely married off; but the youngest had been like the lame chick in her hands, delicate when young and brought up with extra tenderness and forbearance. She was twenty-five now, a ripe old age in Baldwick. She had gone to high school and later to normal school. “How old is Mr. Satterlee, mother, do you suppose?” Mary Ellen’s voice held a low contralto note that always seemed to clear the conversational atmosphere when she spoke. “Not a day over forty,” answered Mrs. Taylor stoutly. “Fine-looking man, too, and you can’t say he isn’t, Mary Ellen.” “It isn’t himself at all,” said Mary Ellen. “It’s his beloved wife, Ann.” Every time I think of him I see her as I remember her when I was a little girl. Wasn’t she dear, mother? I know I loved the columbines that grew in her garden. They were the prettiest anywhere around, and one day he mowed the whole lot down. Then there was one place in the lower meadow where arbutus grew around the gray rocks. He blasted them all out.” “But that's just a man’s way about such things, child,” sighed her mother. “ ‘Hewers of wood and drawers of water’ the Bible says they are, and I don’t see what else the pesky things are for, but a woman must be patient I remember Ann Satterlee, too —Ann Jennings she was before she married him. Used to teach school for awhile over at Hampton Roads. Naturally curly hair and sang in the choir. Beemed as if Mel did—” “Did what, mother?” “Oh, Just took it all out of her. Even as a boy he was set in his ways. ’Course he took his father’s place so young. They say he’s worth $17,000 now, besides the two farms and aH his timber.’’ Mary Ellen knelt down and pulled out from the chair beside the stove. The sick chick was dozing in its box. Out of doors the spring held full sway over the land. She stood on the threshold for an instant, her eyes uplifted to the beauty of the distant hills, then took the short cut through the fields to the little village burial ground behind the church. It stood within its four square rock walls, guarded by pine and hemlock sentinels. Some of the old headstones were of slate and half sunken In the earth, a century and a half old and more. Mary Ellen made her way carefully along the narrow paths until she came to the one spot she sought. It was the last resting place of Ann, beloved wife of Melvin Satterlee. Mary Ellen knelt down pulling out some stray weeds. Somehow she felt a yearning sympathy toward the woman whose life she remembered so well. She felt as If Ann alone could understand now and shield her from Mel Satterlee’s wooing, from money and prestige, his woodlots and two farms, and if she refused him she knew she could not remain at home. And besides there was Elwood —Elwood, only a year older than herself, who had never settled down, never made a success of anything he put his hand to. They had gone to school together, and she had always helped him to pass his examinations. Later, when she had gone ahead, he had. written to her of all his trips away from home, of the long, joyous road jaunts he took by himself, youth’s vagabond, with only hope for comrade. Now he had come into possession of the sawmill in the valley. Half the time when people came there he was away and the big wheel Idle. Yet Mary Ellen loved him. He knew every flower and plant in the hills, the call of every native bird and every favorite spot that she herself loved well. All the arguments of her father ran through her head, all the obligations a child owed to its parents, as he expressed to It wasflying to the face of Providence to throw away the chance of. being Mel Satterlee’s second wife. But Mary Ellen wondered as she knelt in the myrtle and clover whether Ann to her last summing up would not 6a ve placed loVe and tenderness ahead of woodlots and farms. All at once from the old winding up the hill she heard a call, a whistle that imitated the whippoorwill over in the old hemlock near the iron gate. It was Elwood walking leisurely along up from the post office, bareheaded as usual, with his two Gordon setters at his heels. Mary Ellen rose and laid her hand half unconsciously on the granite shaft. “Elwood,” she called clearly, “watt for me!” Just for a moment she paused bending her head until her lips touched a white rose on a little bush at the head of Ann’s grave. “Not for the world,” she whispered. “I choose iove. first.” And she went on to join Elwood down the