The Dream Room

by Kate Douglas Wiggin

　　Long ago, when Stephen was a boy of fourteen or fifteen, he hadgone with his father to a distant town to spend the night. Afteran early breakfast next morning his father had driven off for abusiness interview, and left the boy to walk about during hisabsence. He wandered aimlessly along a quiet side street, andthrew himself down on the grass outside a pretty garden to amusehimself as best he could.

　　After a few minutes he heard voices, and, turning, peeped throughthe bars of the gate in idle, boyish curiosity. It was a smallbrown house; the kitchen door was open, and a table spread with awhite cloth was set in the middle of the room. There was acradle in a far corner, and a man was seated at the table asthough he might be waiting for his breakfast.

　　There is a kind of sentiment about the kitchen in New England, akind of sentiment not provoked by other rooms. Here the farmerdrops in to spend a few minutes when he comes back from the barnor field on an errand. Here, in the great, clean, sweet,comfortable place, the busy housewife lives, sometimes rockingthe cradle, sometimes opening and shutting the oven door,sometimes stirring the pot, darning stockings, paring vegetables,or mixing goodies in a yellow bowl. The children sit on thesteps, stringing beans, shelling peas, or hulling berries; thecat sleeps on the floor near the wood-box; and the visitor feelsexiled if he stays in sitting-room or parlor, for here, where themother is always busy, is the heart of the farm-house.

　　There was an open back door to this kitchen, a door framed inmorning-glories, and the woman (or was she only girl?) standingat the stove was pretty,--oh, so pretty in Stephen's eyes! Hisboyish heart went out to her on the instant. She poured a cup ofcoffee and walked with it to the table; then an unexpected,interesting thing happened--something the boy ought not 'tohave seen, and never forgot. The man, putting out his hand totake the cup, looked up at the pretty woman with a smile, and shestooped and kissed him.

　　Stephen was fifteen. As he looked, on the instant he became aman, with a man's hopes, desires, ambitions. He looked eagerly,hungrily, and the scene burned itself on the sensitive plate ofhis young heart, so that, as he grew older, he could take thepicture out in the dark, from time to time, and look at it again.When he first met Rose, he did not know precisely what she was tomean to him; but before long, when he closed his eyes and the oldfamiliar picture swam into his field of vision, behold, by somespiritual chemistry, the pretty woman's face had given place tothat of Rose!

　　All such teasing visions had been sternly banished during thissorrowful summer, and it was a thoughtful, sober Stephen whodrove along the road on this mellow August morning. The dust wasdeep; the goldenrod waved its imperial plumes, making the humblewaysides gorgeous; the river chattered and sparkled till it metthe logs at the Brier Neighorhood, and then, lapsing intosilence, flowed steadily under them till it found a vent for itsspirits in the dashing and splashing of the falls.

　　Haying was over; logging was to begin that day; then harvesting;then wood-cutting; then eternal successions of plowing, sowing,reaping, haying, logging, harvesting, and so on, to the endlessend of his days. Here and there a red or a yellow branch,painted only yesterday, caught his eye and made him shiver. Hewas not ready for winter; his heart still craved the summer ithad missed.

　　Hello! What was that? Corn-stalks prone on the earth? Signtorn down and lying flat in the grass? Blinds open, fire in thechimney?

　　He leaped from the wagon, and, hinging the reins to AlcestisCrambry, said, "Stay right here out of sight, and don't you movetill I call you!" and striding up the green pathway, hung openthe kitchen door.

　　A forest of corn waving in the doorway at the back,morning-glories clambering round and round the window-frames,table with shining white cloth, kettle humming and steaming,something bubbling in a pan on the stove, fire throwing out sweetlittle gleams of welcome through the open damper. All this wastaken in with one incredulous, rapturous twinkle of an eye; butsomething else, too: Rose of all roses, Rose of the river, Roseof the world, standing behind a chair, her hand pressed againsther heart, her lips parted, her breath coming and going! She wasglowing like a jewel, glowing with the extraordinary brilliancythat emotion gives to some women. She used to be happy in a gay,sparkling way, like the shallow part of the stream as it chottersover white pebbles and bright sands. Now it was a broad, steady,full happiness like the deeps of the river under the sun.

　　"Don't speak, Stephen, till you hear what I have to say. Ittakes a good deal of courage for a girl to do as I am doing; butI want to show how sorry I am, and it's the only way." She wastrembling, and the words came faster and faster. "I've beenvery wrong and foolish, and made you very unhappy, but I haven'tdone what you would have hated most. I haven't been engaged toClaude Merrill; he hasn't so much as asked me. I am here to begyou to forgive me, to eat breakfast with me, to drive me to theminister's and marry me quickly, quickly, before anything happensto prevent us, and then to bring me home here to live all thedays of my life. Oh, Stephen dear, honestly, honestly, you haven'tlost anything in all this long, miserable summer. I'vesuffered, too, and I'm better worth loving than I was. Will youtake me back?"

　　Rose had a tremendous power of provoking and holding love, andStephen of loving. His was too generous a nature for revilingsand complaints and reproaches.

　　The shores of his heart were strewn with the wreckage of thetroubled summer, but if the tide of love is high enough, itwashes such things out of remembrance. He just opened his armsand took Rose to his heart, faults and all, with joy--andgratitude; and she was as happy as a child who has escaped thescolding it richly deserved, and who determines, for verythankfulness' sake, never to be naughty again.

　　"You don't know what you've done for me, Stephen," she whispered,with her face hidden on his shoulder. "I was just a commonlittle prickly rosebush when you came along like a good gardenerand 'grafted in' something better; the something better was yourlove, Stephen dear, and it's made everything different. Thesilly Rose you were engaged to long ago has disappearedsomewhere; I hope you won't be able to find her under the newleaves."

　　"She was all I wanted," said Stephen.

　　"You thought she was," the girl answered, "because you didn'tsee the prickles, but you'd have felt them sometime. The oldRose was a selfish thing, not good enough for you; the new Roseis going to be your wife, and Rufus's sister, and your mother'sdaughter, all in one."

　　Then such a breakfast was spread as Stephen, in his sorry yearsof bachelor existence, had forgotten could exist; but before hebroke his fast he ran out to the wagon and served the astonishedAlcestis with his wedding refreshments then and there, biddinghim drive back to the River Farm and bring him a package that layin the drawer of his shaving-stand, package placed there when hotyouth and love and longing had inspired him to hurry on themarriage day.

　　"There's an envelope, Alcestis," he cried, "a long envelope way,way back in the corner, and a small box on top of it. Bring themboth, and my wallet too, and if you find them all and get them tome safely you shall be bridesmaid and groomsman and best man andusher and maid of honor at a wedding, in less than an hour! Offwith you! Drive straight and use the whip on Dolly!"

　　When he reentered the kitchen, flushed with joy and excitement,Rose put the various good things on the table and he almosttremblingly took his seat, fearing that contact with the solidwood might wake him from this entrancing vision.

　　"I'd like to put you in your chair like a queen and wait on you,"he said with a soft boyish stammer; "but I am too dazed withhappiness to be of any use."

　　"It's my turn to wait upon you, and I--Oh! how I love to haveyou dazed," Rose answered. "I'll be at the table presentlymyself; but we have been housekeeping only three minutes, and wehave nothing but the tin coffee-pot this morning, so I'll pourthe coffee from the stove."

　　She filled a cup with housewifely care and brought it toStephen's side. As she set it down and was turning, she caughthis look,--a look so full of longing that no loving woman,however busy, could have resisted it; then she stooped and kissedhim fondly, fervently.

　　Stephen put his arm about her, and, drawing her down to his knee,rested his head against her soft shoulder with a sigh of comfort,like that of a tired child. He had waited for it ten years; andat last the dream-room had come true.