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Dely’s Cow
by
About a month after this eventful day, Dely went into Hanerford on the errand, she said; so did George Adams. They stepped into the minister’s together and were married; so Dely’s errand was done, and she rode out on the front seat of George’s empty wagon, stopping at the bakery to tell her mother and get her trunk: having wisely chosen a day for her errand when her step-father had gone away after a load of flour down on Hanerford wharves. Mrs. Kenyon went at once into wild hysterics, and called Dely a jade hopper, and an ungrateful child; but not understanding the opprobrium of the one term, and not deserving the other, the poor girl only cried a little, and helped George with her trunk, which held all she could call her own in the world,——her clothes, two or three cheap trinkets, and a few books. She kissed the cats all round, hugged the dog, was glad her robin had died, and then said good-by to her mother, who refused to kiss her, and said George Adams was a snake in the grass. This was too much for Dely; she wiped her eyes, and clambered over the wagon-wheel, and took her place beside George with a smile so much like crying that he began to whistle, and never stopped for two miles. By that time they were in a piece of thick pine woods, when, looking both before and behind to be certain no one was coming, he put his arm round his wife and kissed her, which seemed to have a consoling effect; and by the time they reached his mother’s little house, Dely was as bright as ever.
A little bit of a house it was to bring a wife to, but it suited Dely. It stood on the edge of a pine wood, where the fragrance of the resinous boughs kept the air sweet and pure, and their leaves thrilled responsive to every breeze. The house was very small and very red, it had two rooms below and one above, but it was neater than many a five-story mansion, and far more cheerful; and when Dely went in at the door, she thought there could be no prettier sight than the exquisitely neat old woman sitting in her arm-chair on one side of the fireplace, and her beautiful cat on the other purring and winking, while the tea-kettle sang and sputtered over the bright fire of pine-cones, and the tea-table at the other side of the room was spread with such clean linen and such shinning crockery that it made one hungry even to look at the brown bread and butter and pink radishes that were Dely’s wedding-supper.
It is very odd how happy people can be, when they are as poor as poverty, and don’t know where to look for their living but to the work of their own hands. Genteel poverty is horrible; it is impossible for one to be poor, and elegant, and comfortable; but downright simple, unblushing poverty may be the most blessed of states; and though it was somewhat of a descent in the social scale for Dely to marry a farm-hand, foreman though he might be, she loved her George so devoutly and healthily that she was as happy as a woman could be. George’s mother, the sweetest and tenderest mother to him, took his wife to a place beside his in her heart, and the two women loved each other the more for this man’s sake; he was a bond between them, not a division; hard work left them no thought of rankling jealousy to make their lives bitter, and Dely was happier than ever she had thought she should be away from her mother. Nor did the hard work hurt her; for she took to her own share all of it that was out of doors and troublesome to the infirmities of the old lady. She tended the calf in its little log hut, shook down the coarse hay for its bed, made its gruel till it grew beyond gruel, then drove it daily to the pasture where it fed, gave it extra rations of bread and apple-parings and carrot-tops, till the creature knew her voice and ran to her call like a pet kitten, rubbing its soft, wet nose against her red cheek, and showing in a dozen blundering, calfish ways that it both knew and loved her.