FullReads

Each week she had told the children that he was coming, and she had watched the road so long that it had become unconscious, and as she stood at the well, or by the kitchen door, her eyes were fixed unthinkingly on the road that wound down the coolly [coulee].

Nothing wears on the human soul like waiting. If the stranded mariner, searching the sun-bright seas, could once give up hope of a ship, that horrible grinding on his brain would cease. It was this waiting, hoping, on the edge of despair, that gave Emma Smith no rest.

Neighbors said, with kind intentions, “He’s sick, maybe, an’ can’t start North just yet. He’ll come along one o’ these days.”

“Why don’t he write?” was her question, which silenced them all. This Sunday morning it seemed to her as if she couldn’t stand it any longer. The house seemed intolerably lonely. So she dressed the little ones in their best calico dresses and homemade jackets, and, closing up the house, set off down the coolly [coulee] to old Mother Gray’s.

“Old Widder Gray” lived at the “mouth of the coolly [coulee].” She was a widow woman with a large family of stalwart boys and laughing girls. She was the visible incarnation of hospitality and optimistic poverty. With Western open-heartedness she fed every mouth that asked food of her, and worked herself to death as cheerfully as her girls danced in the neighborhood harvest dances.

She waddled down the path to meet Mrs. Smith with a broad smile on her face.

“Oh, you little dears! Come right to yer granny. Gimme a kiss! Come right in, Mis’ Smith. How are yeh, anyway? Nice mornin’, ain’t it? Come in an’ set down. Every-thing’s in a clutter, but that won’t scare you any.”

She led the way into the best room, a sunny, square room, carpeted with a faded and patched rag carpet, and papered with white-and-green wall-paper, where a few faded effigies of dead members of the family hung in variously sized oval walnut frames. The house resounded with singing, laughter, whistling, tramping of heavy boots, and riotous scufflings. Half-grown boys came to the door and crooked their fingers at the children, who ran out, and were soon heard in the midst of the fun.

“Don’t s’pose you’ve heard from Ed?” Mrs. Smith shook her head.”He’ll turn up some day, when you ain’t lookin’ for ‘m.” The good old soul had said that so many times that poor Mrs. Smith derived no comfort from it any longer.

“Liz heard from Al the other day. He’s comin’ some day this week. Anyhow, they expect him.”

“Did he say anything of—”

“No, he didn’t,” Mrs. Gray admitted.”But then it was only a short letter, anyhow. Al ain’t much for writin’, anyhow. —But come out and see my new cheese. I tell yeh, I don’t believe I ever had better luck in my life. If Ed should come, I want you should take him up a piece of this cheese.”

It was beyond human nature to resist the influence of that noisy, hearty, loving household, and in the midst of the singing and laughing the wife forgot her anxiety, for the time at least, and laughed and sang with the rest.

About eleven o’clock a wagon-load more drove up to the door, and Bill Gray, the widow’s oldest son, and his whole family from Sand Lake Coolly [Coulee], piled out amid a good-natured uproar. Everyone talked at once, except Bill, who sat in the wagon with his wrists on his knees, a straw in his mouth, and an amused twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Ain’t heard nothin’ o’ Ed, I s’pose?” he asked in a kind of bellow. Mrs. Smith shook her head. Bill, with a delicacy very striking in such a great giant, rolled his quid in his mouth and said: