Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let all the worries of the day drift away.
This is your time and your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Akin to Love David Hartley had dropped in to pay a neighbourly call on Josephine Elliott.
It was well along in the afternoon and outside,
In the clear crispness of a Canadian winter,
The long blue shadows from the tall firs behind the house were falling over the snow.
It was a frosty day and all the windows of every room,
Where there was no fire,
Were covered with silver palms.
But the big bright kitchen was warm and cosy and somehow seemed to David more tempting than ever before and that is saying a good deal.
He had an uneasy feeling he had stayed long enough and ought to go.
Josephine was knitting at a long grey sock with doubly aggressive energy and that was a sign she was all talked out.
As long as Josephine had plenty to say,
Her plump white fingers,
Where her mother's wedding ring was lost in dimples,
Moved slowly among her needles.
When conversation flagged,
She fell to her work as furiously,
As if a husband and half a dozen sons were waiting for its completion.
David often wondered,
In his secret soul,
What Josephine did with all the interminable grey socks she knitted.
Sometimes,
He concluded,
She put them in the home missionary barrels,
Again that she sold them to her hired man.
At any rate,
They were very warm and comfortable looking and David sighed as he thought of the deplorable state his own socks were generally in.
When David sighed,
Josephine took alarm.
She was afraid he was going to have one of his attacks of foolishness.
She must head him off some way,
So she rolled up the grey sock,
Stabbed the big pudgy ball with her needles and said,
She guessed she'd get the tea.
David got up.
Now you're not going before tea,
Said Josephine hospitably.
I'll have it already in no time.
I ought to go home,
I suppose,
Said David with the air and tone of a man dallying with a great temptation.
Zilla'll be waiting tea for me and there's the stock to tend to.
I guess Zilla won't wait long,
Said Josephine.
She did not intend it at all,
But there was a certain scornful ring in her voice.
You must stay,
I have a fancy for company to tea.
David sat down again.
He looked so pleased that Josephine went down on her knees behind the stove,
Ostensibly to get a stick of firewood,
But really to hide her smile.
I suppose he's tickled to death to think of getting a good square meal after the starvation Russian Zilla puts him on,
She thought.
But Josephine had misjudged David just as much as he had misjudged David.
She had really asked him to stay to tea out of pity,
But David thought it was because she was lonesome and he hailed that as an encouraging sign.
And he was not thinking about getting a good meal either,
Although his dinner had been such a one as only Zilla hardly could get up.
As he leaned back in his cushioned chair and watched Josephine bustling about the kitchen,
He was glorying in the fact he could spend another hour with her.
And sit opposite to her at the table while she poured his tea for him and passed him the biscuits.
Just as if,
Just as if.
Here Josephine looked straight at him with such intent and stern brown eye.
David felt she must have read his thoughts and he coloured guiltily.
But Josephine did not even notice he was blushing.
She had only paused to wonder whether she would bring out cherry or strawberry preserve.
And having decided on the cherry,
Took her piercing glaze from David without having seen him at all.
Josephine set the table with her mother's wedding china.
She used it because it was the anniversary of her mother's wedding day,
But David thought it was out of compliment to him.
And as he knew quite well that Josephine prized that china beyond all her other earthly possessions,
He stroked his smooth shave and dimpled chin with the air of a man to whom is offered a very subtly sweet homage.
Josephine whisked in and out of the pantry and up and down the cellar.
With every whisk a new dainty was added to the table.
And as everyone in Meadowby admitted,
She was past mistress in the noble art of cookery.
Once upon a time,
Rash matrons and ambitious young wives had aspired to rival her,
But they had long ago realised the vanity of such efforts and dropped comfortably back to second place.
Josephine felt an artist's pride in her table when she set the teapot on its stand and invited David to sit in.
There were pink slices of cold tongue,
Crisp green pickles,
And spiced gooseberry,
The recipe for which Josephine had invented herself and which had taken first prize at the provincial exhibition for six successive years.
There was a lemon pie which was a symphony in gold and silver,
Biscuits and light and white as snow,
And moist plummy cubes of fruitcake.
There was the ruby-tinted cherry preserve,
A mound of amber jelly,
And to crown all steeping cups of tea in flavour and fragrance unequalled.
Josephine,
Said David huskily after some time,
I suppose you couldn't,
Could you now make up your mind to have me?
I wish you would,
Josephine,
I wish you would,
Don't you think you could?
Josephine folded up her towel,
Crossed her hands on it,
And looked her wooer squarely in the eyes.
David Hartley,
She said deliberately,
What makes you go on asking me to marry you every once in a while when I've told you time out of mind I can't and I won't?
Because I can't help hoping you'll change your mind.
Well,
You just listen to me,
I will not marry you,
That is in the first place,
And in the second,
This is to be final,
It has to be.
You are never to ask me this again under any circumstances.
If you do,
I will not answer you,
I will let on I do not hear you at all,
That I will never speak to you again,
Ever.
We are good friends now,
I like you real well,
And like you to have you drop in for a neighbourly chat as often as you wish,
But there'll be an end to it,
Short and sudden to that,
If you don't mind what I say.
Oh,
Josephine,
Ain't that rather hard,
Protested David feebly.
I mean every word of it,
Returned Josephine calmly,
Now you better go home,
I always feel as if I'd like to be alone for a while after a disagreeable experience.
What do you think,
Ida?
She said with a hearty laugh at the recollection,
The next day when Mrs Tom Sedna came down to help her pick her geese.
David Hartley was here to tea last night and asked me to marry him again,
There's a persistent man for you,
I can't brag of having many though,
But I've certainly had my fair share of proposals.
Mrs Tom did not laugh,
Her thin little face with its faded prettiness looked as if she'd never laughed.
Why won't you marry him,
She said fretfully.
Why should I?
Tell me that,
Ida Sedna.
Because it's high time you were married,
I don't believe in women living single,
And I don't see what better you can do than take David Hartley.
Josephine looked at her sister with the interested expression of a person who's trying to understand some mental attitude in another,
Which is a standing puzzle to her.
Ida's long-standing wish to see her married always amused Josephine,
She had married very young and for 15 years her life had been one of drudgery and ill health,
And Ida Sedna was not given to bearing her trials in silence.
Had it not been for Josephine's assistance,
Tom Senter's family would have stood an excellent chance of starvation.
Josephine practically kept them and her generosity never failed or stinted.
She fed and clothed her nephews and nieces and all the grey socks whose destination puzzled David so much went to them.
As for Josephine herself,
She had a good farm,
A comfortable house,
A plump bank account and was an independent,
Unworried woman.
And yet in the face of all this,
Her sister could bewail the fact she had no husband to look out for her.
Josephine shrugged her shoulders and gave up the conundrum,
Merely saying ironically,
And go and live with Zilla Hartley.
No thanks.
You know very well you wouldn't have to do that.
Ever since John Hartley's wife at the creek died,
He's been wanting Zilla to go and keep house for him.
If David got married,
Zilla'd go quick.
Catch her staying there if you were mistress.
And David has such a beautiful house,
It's ten times finer than yours,
Though I don't deny yours is comfortable,
And his farm's the best it'll ever be.
Think what a beautiful property yours and his would make together.
I should have thought you'd had enough worries of your own to keep you awake at night without taking over any of mine,
Said Josephine dryly.
The cold snap which had set in on the day of David's call lasted and deepened for a week.
On Saturday evening,
When Mrs.
Tom came down for a jug of cream,
The mercury of the little thermometer thumping against Josephine's porch was below zero.
The gulf was no longer blue,
But white with ice.
Everything outdoors was crackling and snapping.
Inside,
Josephine had kept roaring fires all through the house,
But the only really warm place was the kitchen.
Wrap your head up well,
Ida,
She said anxiously when her sister rose to go.
You've got a bad cold.
There's a cold going,
Her sister said.
Everyone has it.
David Hartley was up at our place today,
Barking terrible.
A real churchyard cough,
As I told him.
He never takes any care of himself.
He said Zilla has a bad cold too.
Won't she be cranky while it lasts?
Josephine sat up late that night to keep the fires on.
She finally went to bed in the little room opposite the big hall stove and slept at once,
Dreaming that the thumps of the thermometer flapping in the wind against the wall outside grew louder and more insistent.
Until they woke her up.
Someone was pounding on the porch door.
It was David Hartley,
Panting for breath.
The clear moonlight showed he had no overcoat on and he was coughing hard.
For pity's sake,
David Hartley,
What's the matter?
Zilla's awful sick,
He gasped.
I came here because it was nearest.
Oh,
Won't you come over,
Josephine?
I've got to go for the doctor and I can't leave her alone.
She's suffering dreadful.
I know you and she ain't on good terms,
But you'll come,
Won't you?
Of course I will,
Said Josephine sharply.
I'm not a barbarian.
In a few minutes,
She was ready with a basket full of homely remedies.
For like as not,
There'll be no putting one's hand on anything there,
She muttered to herself.
They passed together under the bare glistening boughs of the poplars on David's lawn.
And for the first time,
Josephine crossed the threshold of David Hartley's house.
Years ago in her girlhood,
When the Hartleys lived in the old house and there were half a dozen girls at home,
Josephine had frequently visited there.
All the Hartley girls liked her except Zilla.
She and Zilla never got on together.
When the other girls got married and went,
Josephine gave up visiting.
She had never been inside the new house and she and Zilla had not seen each other.
They had not spoken to each other for years.
Zilla was very sick,
Too sick to be anything but civil to Josephine.
David started at once for the doctor at the creek and Josephine saw he was well wrapped up before she let him go.
Then she mixed up a master plaster for Zilla and sat down by the bedside to wait.
When Ida came down the next day,
She found her sister busy making flaxseed polstices with her lips set in a line that betoken she'd made up her mind to some disagreeable course of duty.
Zilla's got pneumonia bad,
She said.
The doctor's here and Mary Bell from the creek.
She'll wait on Zilla but there'll have to be another woman here to do the work.
I reckon I'll stay.
I suppose it's my duty and I don't see who else could be got.
You can send Mammy and Jack down to stay at my house until I can go back and I'll run over every day and keep an eye on things.
At the end of a week,
Zilla was out of danger.
Saturday afternoon,
Josephine went home to see how Mammy and Jack were getting on.
She found her sister there and the latter promptly dispatched Jack and Mammy to the post office that she might have an opportunity to hear Josephine's news.
I've had an awful week of it,
Ida,
Said Josephine solemnly as she sat down by the stove and put her feet up.
I suppose Zilla's pretty cranky to wait on,
Said her sister sympathetically.
Oh,
It isn't Zilla.
Mary Bell looks after her.
It's the house.
I never lived in such a place of dust and disorder.
I'm sorry for David Hartley than I ever was for anyone before.
I suppose he's used to it.
Said her sister with a shrug.
I don't see how anyone could ever get used to that,
Groaned Josephine.
And David used to be so particular when he was a boy.
The minute I went there the other night,
I took in that kitchen with a look.
I don't believe the paint has even been washed since the house was built.
I honestly don't.
And I wouldn't like to be called upon to swear when the floor was scrubbed either.
Mrs.
Tom Setner knew her sister.
Was feeling sorry for David.
And she thought she'd always heard that pity was akin to love.
We'll see what comes of this,
She said to herself.
Josephine managed to live through that fortnight.
And one morning she remarked to David,
I think Mary Bell will be able to attend to the work after today.
I guess I'll go home tonight.
She watched as David's face clouded over.
Well,
I suppose we oughtn't to keep you any longer,
Josephine.
I'm sure it's been awful good of you to stay this long.
I don't know what we'd have done without you.
You're welcome,
Said Josephine shortly.
David went out to his work gloomily.
For three weeks he'd been living in comfort.
His wants were carefully attended to,
His meals were well cooked and served,
And everything was bright and clean.
And more than all,
Josephine had been there with her cheerful smile and companionable ways.
Ah,
Well,
It was all over now.
That night,
Josephine sang over her work and decided to make David a pudding that he was so fond of.
After all,
It's kind of nice to have someone to plan and think for,
She said to herself.
It always did seem like a waste of energy to fuss over cooking things when there was nobody but herself to eat them.
But when she took it over to his house,
The meal was not a success from a social point of view.
Josephine was nervous and David was glum.
Mary Bell,
Meanwhile,
Gobbled down her food with her usual haste and then went away to carry Zilla hers.
If you want to go home now,
Josephine,
I'll hitch up Red Rob and drive you over,
Said David.
Josephine began to fix the tablecloth.
She wished that she'd not been so emphatic on the occasion of his last proposal.
If she were honest,
She'd kind of like being around him.
So she plucked up the courage and began,
I want to tell you what I think about Zilla.
She's getting better,
But she's had a terrible shaking up.
It's my opinion she won't be good for much all winter.
She won't be able to do any hard work,
That's certain.
If you want my advice,
David,
I'd tell you fair and square.
I think she'd better go off for a visit as soon as she's fit.
And she thinks so herself.
Clementine wants her to go and stay a spell with her in town.
It would be just the thing for her.
She can go if she wants to,
Of course,
Said David Dolly.
I can get along by myself for a spell.
There's no need of you getting along by yourself,
Said Josephine more crossly than ever.
I'll come here and keep house for you if you like.
David looked at her uncomprehendingly.
Wouldn't people kind of gossip,
He asked.
I don't see what they'd have to gossip about,
Broking Josephine,
If we were married.
David sprang to his feet with such haste he almost upset the table.
Do you mean that,
He exclaimed.
Course I mean it,
She said in a perfectly savage tone.
Now,
For pity's sake,
Don't say another word about it just now.
I can't discuss it for a spell.
Go out to your work.
I want to be alone for a while.
For the first and last time,
David disobeyed her.
Instead of going out,
He strode around the table,
Caught Josephine masterfully in his arms and kissed her.
And Josephine,
After a second's hesitation,
Kissed him lovingly in return.
