“Mother,” said Peter Kronborg to his wife one morning about two weeks after Wunsch’s departure, “how would you like to drive out to Copper1 Hole with me to-day?”
Mrs. Kronborg said she thought she would enjoy the drive. She put on her gray cashmere dress and gold watch and chain, as befitted a minister’s wife, and while her husband was dressing2 she packed a black oilcloth satchel3 with such clothing as she and Thor would need overnight.
Copper Hole was a settlement fifteen miles northwest of Moonstone where Mr. Kronborg preached every Friday evening. There was a big spring there and a creek4 and a few irrigating5 ditches. It was a community of discouraged agriculturists who had disastrously6 experimented with dry farming. Mr. Kronborg always drove out one day and back the next, spending the night with one of his parishioners. Often, when the weather was fine, his wife accompanied him. To-day they set out from home after the midday meal, leaving Tillie in charge of the house. Mrs. Kronborg’s maternal7 feeling was always garnered8 up in the baby, whoever the baby happened to be. If she had the baby with her, the others could look out for themselves. Thor, of course, was not, accurately9 speaking, a baby any longer. In the matter of nourishment10 he was quite independent of his mother, though this independence had not been won without a struggle. Thor was conservative in all things, and the whole family had anguished11 with him when he was being weaned. Being the youngest, he was still the baby for Mrs. Kronborg, though he was nearly four years old and sat up boldly on her lap this afternoon, holding on to the ends of the lines and shouting “’mup, ’mup, horsey.” His father watched him affectionately and hummed hymn12 tunes14 in the jovial15 way that was sometimes such a trial to Thea.
Mrs. Kronborg was enjoying the sunshine and the brilliant sky and all the faintly marked features of the dazzling, monotonous16 landscape. She had a rather unusual capacity for getting the flavor of places and of people. Although she was so enmeshed in family cares most of the time, she could emerge serene17 when she was away from them. For a mother of seven, she had a singularly unprejudiced point of view. She was, moreover, a fatalist, and as she did not attempt to direct things beyond her control, she found a good deal of time to enjoy the ways of man and nature.
When they were well upon their road, out where the first lean pasture lands began and the sand grass made a faint showing between the sagebrushes, Mr. Kronborg dropped his tune13 and turned to his wife. “Mother, I’ve been thinking about something.”
“I guessed you had. What is it?” She shifted Thor to her left knee, where he would be more out of the way.
“Well, it’s about Thea. Mr. Follansbee came to my study at the church the other day and said they would like to have their two girls take lessons of Thea. Then I sounded Miss Meyers” (Miss Meyers was the organist in Mr. Kronborg’s church) “and she said there was a good deal of talk about whether Thea wouldn’t take over Wunsch’s pupils. She said if Thea stopped school she wouldn’t wonder if she could get pretty much all Wunsch’s class. People think Thea knows about all Wunsch could teach.”
Mrs. Kronborg looked thoughtful. “Do you think we ought to take her out of school so young?”
“She is young, but next year would be her last year anyway. She’s far along for her age. And she can’t learn much under the principal we’ve got now, can she?”
“No, I’m afraid she can’t,” his wife admitted. “She frets18 a good deal and says that man always has to look in the back of the book for the answers. She hates all that diagramming they have to do, and I think myself it’s a waste of time.”
Mr. Kronborg settled himself back into the seat and slowed the mare20 to a walk. “You see, it occurs to me that we might raise Thea’s prices, so it would be worth her while. Seventy-five cents for hour lessons, fifty cents for half-hour lessons. If she got, say two thirds of Wunsch’s class, that would bring her in upwards21 of ten dollars a week. Better pay than teaching a country school, and there would be more work in vacation than in winter. Steady work twelve months in the year; that’s an advantage. And she’d be living at home, with no expenses.”
“There’d be talk if you raised her prices,” said Mrs. Kronborg dubiously22.
“At first there would. But Thea is so much the best musician in town that they’d all come into line after a while. A good many people in Moonstone have been making money lately, and have bought new pianos. There were ten new pianos shipped in here from Denver in the last year. People ain’t going to let them stand idle; too much money invested. I believe Thea can have as many scholars as she can handle, if we set her up a little.”
“How set her up, do you mean?” Mrs. Kronborg felt a certain reluctance23 about accepting this plan, though she had not yet had time to think out her reasons.
“Well, I’ve been thinking for some time we could make good use of another room. We couldn’t give up the parlor24 to her all the time. If we built another room on the ell and put the piano in there, she could give lessons all day long and it wouldn’t bother us. We could build a clothes-press in it, and put in a bed-lounge and a dresser and let Anna have it for her sleeping-room. She needs a place of her own, now that she’s beginning to be dressy.”
“Seems like Thea ought to have the choice of the room, herself,” said Mrs. Kronborg.
“But, my dear, she don’t want it. Won’t have it. I sounded her coming home from church on Sunday; asked her if she would like to sleep in a new room, if we built on. She fired up............