Free Time Is Noon by Pearl S. Buck Page A

ago filled with herself and with her wonder at what was about to happen to her, and her strong cheerful mother went home and cried because the house was empty without her! She was immeasurably touched and comforted. It was lovely to be loved. Wherever she went there would be this love to which to return. She put out her hand and patted her mother’s gray hair under the small brown homemade velvet toque. Her mother smiled back to her and the moment was warm and close until in mutual shyness they looked away from each other’s eyes.
    “I hope,” said her father gently out of his own silence, “that Rose will not lose her faith, even as you did not, Joan. But I never saw a young soul with clearer conviction than hers.”
    A guiltiness fell upon Joan. She ought to tell her father she didn’t really know what she believed. But she shrank from hurting him.
    “I hope Rose has a good time,” her mother said with energy and then went swiftly on. “Joan, I’ve been thinking that old gold-brown cashmere of mine could make Rose a pretty jumper dress, and the color would be becoming to her. The skirt’s old-fashioned and it has a lot of cloth in the gathers. I believe I’ll set to work on it. It helps to get to work on something.”
    Incredibly soon they were home and soon the house was still except for the sounds of the morning. Hannah polishing the stairs, the whir of the sewing machine from the attic where her mother sewed, her father’s slippered footfall in his study. So it might have been if Rose were there. Rose who in her quietness seemed to add nothing to the noise of the house, and yet now the house seemed empty. But it was not that Rose was gone, not that Francis was in school again. It was that she, Joan, was still there, idle, when the others were busy. She must think what to do next. She must of course earn her bread. Her mother had said many times, “Stay at home a year, darling. Take your time.” But she was restless now that the summer was over. It was time to work, to do something else. She wanted the next thing. The house was suddenly too small, the furniture worn and old and tiresome to her sight.
    She went to her own room and closed the door and sat down by the window. Where was the mood of the summer gone? Why was she discontented? But the village was absurdly small, a crisscross of half-a-dozen streets, a little nest of poor houses, a few dull folk. She brought to her memory one after another of the houses whose interiors she knew completely, where not a chair or table had been moved since she could remember. She was weary of them. They stood dingy in the sunshine of this day. It was not enough.
    I want something more, she thought resolutely. I must find the thing I can do really well. … Maybe music …
    But she knew in her secret heart what she wanted to do, and what she could do well. She could love a man well and keep his house clean and make it beautiful and bear his children. It was all she secretly asked of life, that she might follow this old beaten path. But how could love find her, hidden away in a little country manse?
    There was a knock at the door and Hannah thrust in her rough red head. “Miss Joan, your pa says there’s a couple downstairs to be married and will you come and be a witness with your ma?”
    She rose mechanically, used to the summons. But today there was acuteness in the moment. Downstairs she waited while her father drew off his study gown and put on his old frock coat. The groom was a young country fellow, a hired man, doubtless, upon some farm. His hands hung huge and misshapen and his great stooped shoulders were bursting his coat. The girl was his mate, a strong squat figure, her arms red and thick, her face broad and low-browed and burned red by the sun. They were foreign, sprung from some peasant soil in an older world. They stood awkwardly, closely together, their dull greenish eyes fixed faithfully upon the minister’s face. She could hear their heavy