Husband and wife -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
"But, it's just like," she said, when half way through it. "I had no
idea what you were thinking of."
"I know you didn't," said Jimmie with a grin. "I didn't myself. Now
read your own."
She glanced eagerly over it, and for a moment Jimmie was sorry, sorry
that the will to write had come to her. For Augusta would be a terrible
critic upon herself. Immediately he saw the frown of the artist's
discontent with her work clouding her face. Augusta was too clever not
to see the raw and badly tooled places in her own work just as she
saw them in his work. And Jimmie thought of several men whom he knew,
fairly successful as writers, too, who never knew this discontent, who
could sit down and gloat over everything they wrote, fatuously thinking
it all good merely because it was theirs. Augusta had gone farther in
this afternoon than those men had progressed in years. He counted the
cost for her and knew what she would suffer from her own sensitive and
merciless judgment. Nevertheless, he knew, with a sort of helpless
fatalism, that he would not now try to stop her.
"Now," he said, handing her the finished product which he had made from
her work and his, "here is the impudence. It's for you to tear it up or
let it stand."
She took it without a question and began to read carefully, while
Jimmie stood by waiting for the verdict. He felt that Augusta had every
right to be hurt by his ruthlessly grabbing and mutilating to his own
purposes her first little heart-wrung work. But he soon saw from her
hurrying breath and shining eyes that he had not done wrong.
At the end, she jumped up and hugged him, crying:
"It's fine, Jimmie! And it's yours and mine! _Ours!_"
After a little Jimmie said:
"Yes, the spiteful relatives may say that it has its great uncle's red
hair and that they can't imagine where it gets its good looks from
anyway, but it's _ours_."
Augusta hid her face in the general region of Jimmie's vest pocket, and
when she finally looked up the change of subject was complete.
"I'll have to sell Donahue," she said quietly. And her face was set and
steady, as though she had been thinking of nothing but this decision.
Now here Jimmie failed. He should have been ready with argument,
balderdash, or discussion of some sort. He knew that Augusta would
rather sell her last pair of shoes than sell Donahue. But he was
curiously and fatally tongue-tied. He had never, since they had started
out upon the road, been able to speak of money with Augusta. He had not
at any time formed the slightest idea as to how much, or how little,
she might have on which to go through with this venture on which she
had staked everything. And he knew, a little guiltily, that it was
not altogether delicacy that kept him from asking out and facing the
details with her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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