When she thought of the bunk above, and Fred, and his simplicity, her heart was fit to break. The only thing was, she loved him dearly, and she felt that if they could soon snatch an hour alone together, they might kiss a little more, and a ray of light might dispel the darkness of excessive innocence.
Each new day she watched for that hour, but it didnt come. Mary saw to that. Once or twice Rosie suggested a little stroll, but at once the hateful pig grumbled some demand or other that kept her hard at work till it was too late. Fred, on his side, was busy enough with his practicing. He meant it so well, and worked so hard — but what did it lead to? A trailer!
As the days went by, she found herself more and more the slave of this arrogant grunter. Her back ached, her hands got chapped and red, she never had a moment to make herself look nice, and never a moment alone with her beloved. Her dress was spotted and spoiled, her smile was gone, her temper was going. Her pretty hair fell in elf locks and tangles, and she had neither time nor heart to comb it.
She tried to come to an explanation with Fred, but it was nothing but cross purposes and then cross words. He tried in a score of little ways to show that he loved her, but these seemed to her a mere mockery, and she gave him short answers. Then he stopped, and she thought he loved her no longer. Even worse, she felt she no longer loved him.
So the whole summer went by, and things got worse and worse, and you would have taken her for a gipsy indeed.
The blackberries were ripe again; she found a whole brake of them. When she tasted one, all sorts of memories flooded into her heart. She went and found Fred. «Fred,» she said, «the blackberries are ripe again. I've brought you one or two.» She held out some in her grubby hand. Fred took them and tasted them; she watched to see what the result would be.
«Yes,» said he, «they're ripe. They won't gripe her. Take her and pick her some this afternoon.»
Rosie turned away without a word, and in the afternoon she took Mary across the stubbles to where the ripe berries grew. Mary, when she saw them, dispensed for once with dainty service, and began to help herself very liberally. Rosie, finding she had nothing more urgent to attend to, sat down on a bank and sobbed bitterly.
In the middle of it all she heard a voice asking what was the matter. She looked up, and there was a fat, shrewd, jolly-looking farmer. «What is it, my girl?» said he. «Are you hungry?»
«No,» said she, «I'm fed up.»
«What with?» said he.
«A pig!» said she, with a gulp.
«You've got no call to bawl and cry,» said he. «There's nothing like a bit of pork. I'd have the indigestion for that, any day.»
«It's not pork,» she said. «It's a pig. A live pig.»
«Have you lost it?» said he.
«I wish I had,» said she. «I'm that miserable. I don't know what to do.»
«Tell me your troubles,» said he. «There's no harm in a bit of sympathy.»
So Rosie told him about Fred, and about Mary, and what hopes she'd had and what they'd all come to, and how she was the slave of this insolent, spoiled, jealous pig, and in fact she told him everything except one little matter which she could hardly bring herself to repeat, even to the most sympathetic of fat farmers.
The farmer, pushing his hat over his eyes, scratched his head very thoughtfully. «Really,» said he. «I can't hardly believe it.»
«It's true,» said Rosie, «every word.»
«I mean,» said the farmer, «a young man — a young gal — the young gal sleeping down on a sack of straw — a pretty young gal like you. Properly married and all. Not to put too fine a point on it, young missus, aren't the bunks wide enough, or what?»
«He doesn't know,» sobbed Rosie. «He just doesn't know no more'n a baby. And she won't let us ever be alone a minute. So he never gets a chance to find out.»
The farmer scratched his head more furiously than ever. Looking at her tear-stained face, he found it hard to doubt her. On the other hand it seemed impossible that a pig should know so much and a young man should know so little. But at that moment Mary came trotting through the bushes, with an egoistical look on her face, which was well besmeared with the juice of the ripe berries.
«Is this your pig?» said the farmer.
«Well,» said Rosie, «I'm just taking her for a walk.»
The shrewd farmer was quick to notice the look that Rosie got from the haughty grunter when it heard the expression «your pig.» This, and Rosie's hurried, nervous disclaimer, convinced the worthy man that the story he had heard was well founded.
«You're taking her for a walk?» said he musingly. «Well! Well! Well! I'll tell you what. If you'd ha' been here this time tomorrow you'd have met me taking a walk, with a number of very dear young friends of mine, all very much like her. She might have come along. Two young sows, beautiful creatures, though maybe not so beautiful as that one. Three young boars, in the prime of their health and handsomeness. Though I say it as shouldn't, him that's unattached — he's a prince. Oh, what a beautiful young boar that young boar really is!»
«You don't say?» said Rosie.
«For looks and pedigree both,» said the farmer, «he's a prince. The fact is, it's their birthday, and I'm taking 'em over to the village for a little bit of a celebration. I suppose this young lady has some other engagement tomorrow.»
«She has to have her sleep just about this time,» said Rosie, ignoring Mary's angry grunt.
«Pity!» said the farmer. «She'd have just made up the party. Such fun they'll have! Such refreshments! Sweet apples, cakes, biscuits, a whole bucket full of ice-cream. Everything most refined, of course, but plenty. You know what I mean — plenty. And that young boar — you know what I mean. If she should be walking by —»
«I'm afraid not,» said Rosie.
«Pity!» said the farmer. «Ah, well. I must be moving along.»
With that, he bade them good afternoon, raising his hat very politely to Mary, who looked after him for a long time, and then walked sulkily home, gobbling to herself all the way.
The next afternoon Mary seemed eager to stretch out on her bunk, and, for once, instead of requiring the usual number of little attentions from Rosie, she closed her eyes in sleep. Rosie took the opportunity to pick up a pail and go off to buy the evening ration of fresh milk. When she got back Fred was still at his practice by the wayside, and Rosie went round to the back of the caravan, and the door was swinging open, and the bunk was empty.
She called Fred. They sought high and low. They went along the roads, fearing she might have been knocked over by a motor car. They went calling through the woods, hoping she had fallen asleep under a tree. They looked in ponds and ditches, behind haystacks, under bridges, everywhere. Rosie thought of the farmer's joking talk, but she hardly liked to say anything about it to Fred.
They called and called all night, scarcely stopping to rest. They sought all the next day. It grew dark, and Fred gave up hope. They plodded silently back to the caravan.
He sat on a bunk, with his head in his hand.
«I shall never see her again,» he said. «Been pinched, that's what she's been».
«When I think,» he said, «of all the hopes I had for that pig »
«When I think,» he said, «of all you've done for her! And what it's meant to you »
«I know she had some faults in her nature,» he said. «But that was artistic. Temperament, it was. When you got a talent like that »
«And now she's gone!» he said. With that he burst into tears.
«Oh, Fred!» cried Rosie. «Don't!»
Suddenly she found she loved him just as much as ever, more than ever. She sat down beside him and put her arms around his neck. «Darling Fred, don't cry!» she said again.
