Deep Summer by Gwen Bristow

“It’s all right, honey. We’ll keep it covered till you’re pretty again.”
    “No we won’t. I’m just behaving like a little girl. I don’t know how you put up with me at all.” Judith pulled the cloth down. “I think you’re a dear to bring me such pretty things.”
    “You do like them, don’t you?”
    “Why Philip, I love them. We must put that beautiful silk in the bottom of the chest where it won’t get wet if it rains tonight. I think you’d better have Josh start filling up the worst cracks now. Those clouds look awfully threatening.”
    Philip’s arms dropped from around her. “Judith, I forgot about the plaster.”
    “Oh Philip! Again?”
    He nodded. “I reminded myself all the way in to bring it, then when I got to the wharfs I was having such fun buying things for you that it pushed everything else out of my head.”
    Judith took a long breath. She walked away from him. Then she wheeled around.
    “Oh, you’re such a fool!” she cried. “I can’t go to town because shaking over the trails would kill me and I haven’t anybody to depend on but you, and all you get me is clothes I can’t wear and French books I can’t read and a mirror to show me how ugly I am! All I ever asked you for was something to keep the rain off and I can’t trust you even for that. I’m tired of living in a chicken-coop!”
    Philip turned around on his heel and walked out. Judith ran to the door and saw him getting back into the wagon.
    “Where are you going?” she cried.
    “To town to get that plaster,” he called without turning.
    “Not now, Philip! It’ll be night before you can get back!”
    “Josh will take care of you. It’s easier driving at night than staying in the house with your temper.”
    He struck the mules. The wagon started with a jerk. Philip was standing up, and Judith guessed by the way he was slashing the mules that he wished it was herself instead of them he was punishing. Josh, standing by the cabin step, looked up.
    “I reckon I better hang around, young miss?”
    Judith said yes. She went back inside. Angelique came toward her timidly.
    “Dis glass?” she said, the covering cloth in her hand.
    “Oh, leave it alone will you?” said Judith curtly. She went and sat by the window. The clouds were too thick to leave a vestige of sun, and Judith was too unhappy to care.
    Presently Angelique came and touched her arm, and Judith saw that she had set out some cornbread and cold meat on the table. Judith shook her head. She sat watching the trees bow to the rising wind, not thinking about anything in particular but dully miserable. Angelique sat down on a chest in a corner to eat her own supper.
    All of a sudden Judith felt a thunderclap of pain in the middle of her. She jerked, catching her breath, and Angelique sprang up.
    “Qu’est-ce que c’est, madame?”
    “I—I don’t know,” said Judith shakily, for the pain had gone as abruptly as it had come. Angelique went back to her supper and Judith sat down again, but before she had time to relax the pain struck at her again. She grabbed the back of the chair behind her and cried “Angelique!”
    Angelique came to her. Judith was white, less with pain than with bewilderment, for now that the pain had passed she felt almost well. Angelique spoke to her soothingly; Judith did not catch the words, but she smiled to show she understood the tone. Angelique stood with an arm around her, and when the next pain came Judith caught her hands and held them till it was gone. “I feel all right now,” she said.
    Angelique began to be very busy about the cabin, getting things out of chests and hanging a kettle of water on the crane in the fireplace. She called Josh to bring in some wood. Judith stayed where she was. The pains came curiously, like two hands tearing her apart in the middle, but there were long spaces between when nothing hurt her at all. She wished Philip would get back. She could tell him she really believed their baby was