Wayside Courtships
by Hamlin Garland · English · Gutenberg #20247 · 404,507 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Wayside Courtships
Author: Hamlin Garland
Release date: January 2, 2007 [eBook #20247]
Most recently updated: November 29, 2023
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20247
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS ***
Produced by Roger Frank, Robert Homa and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS
BY HAMLIN GARLAND
AUTHOR OF A SPOIL OF OFFICE, A LITTLE NORSK, ETC.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
M DCCC XCVII
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Copyright, 1897, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1895, 1896, 1897, by Hamlin Garland
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WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS
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Hamlin Garland's Books.
Uniform edition. Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.25.
Wayside Courtships.
Jason Edwards.
A Spoil of Office.
A Member of the Third House.
A Little Norsk. 16mo. 50 cents.
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, NEW YORK.
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The meeting of true lovers' eyes
Seems wrought of chance; and yet
Perhaps the same grim law abides
Therein as when the dead one lies
Low in the grave, and memory chides,
And with hot tears love's lids are wet.
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CONTENTS.
PAGE
AT THE BEGINNING 1
A PREACHER'S LOVE STORY 5
A MEETING IN THE FOOTHILLS 55
A STOP-OVER AT TYRE 99
AN ALIEN IN THE PINES 171
THE OWNER OF THE MILL FARM 201
OF THOSE WHO SEEK:
I.--THE PRISONED SOUL 223
II.--A SHELTERED ONE 226
III.--A FAIR EXILE 230
IV.--THE PASSING STRANGER 247
BEFORE THE LOW GREEN DOOR 253
UPON IMPULSE 263
THE END OF LOVE IS LOVE OF LOVE 279
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AT THE BEGINNING.
She was in the box; he was far above in the gallery.
He looked down and across and saw her sitting there fair as a flower and
robed like a royal courtesan in flame and snow.
Like a red torch flamed the ruby in her hair. Her shoulders were framed
in her cloak, white as marble warmed with firelight. Her gloved hands
held an opera glass which also glowed with flashing light.
His face grew dark and stern. He looked down at his poor coat and around
at the motley gallery which reeked with the smell of tobacco and liquor.
Students were there--poor like himself, but with great music-loving,
hungry, ambitious souls. Men and women of refinement and indomitable
will sat side by side with drunken loafers who had chanced to stumble up
the stairway.
His eyes went back to her. So sweet and dainty was every thread on her
fair body. No smell of toil, nor touch of care, nor mark of weariness.
Her flesh was ivory, her eyes were jewels, her heart was as clean and
sweet as her eyes. She was perfectly clothed, protected, at ease.
No, not at ease. She seemed restless. Again and again she swept her
glass around the lower balcony.
The man in the gallery knew she was looking for him, and he took a
bitter delight in the distance between them. He waited, calm as a lion
in his power.
The man at her elbow talks on. She does not hear. She is still
looking--a little swifter, a little more anxiously--her red lips ready
to droop in disappointment.
The noise of feet, of falling seats, continues. Boys call shrilly.
Ushers dart hastily to and fro. The soft laughter and hum of talk come
up from below.
She has reached the second balcony. She sweeps it hurriedly. Her
companion raises his eyes to the same balcony and laughs as he speaks.
She colors a little, but smiles as she lifts her eyes to the third
balcony.
Suddenly the glass stops. The color surges up her neck, splashing her
cheeks with red. Her breath stops also for a moment, then returns quick
and strong.
Her smile settles into a curious contraction that is almost painful to
see. His unsmiling eyes are looking somberly, sternly, accusingly into
hers. They are charged with all the bitterness and hate and disappointed
ambition which social injustice and inequality had wrought into his
soul.
She shivered and dropped her glass. Shivered and drew her fleecy, pink
and pale-blue cloak closer about her bare neck.
Her face grew timid, almost appealing, as she turned it upward toward
him like a flower, to be kissed across the height that divided him from
her.
His heart swelled with exultation. His face softened. From the height of
his intellectual pride he bent his head and sent a winged caress
fluttering down upon that flowerlike face.
And then the stealing harmony of the violins began, gliding like mist
above the shuddering, tumultuous, obscure thunder of the drums, and the
man's soul swept across that sea of song with the heart of a lion and
the wings of an eagle.
A tender, musing smile was on the woman's lips.
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WAYSIDE COURTSHIPS
A PREACHER'S LOVE STORY.
I.
The train drew out of the great Van Buren Street depot at 4.30 of a dark
day in late October. A tall young man, with a timid look in his eyes,
was almost the last one to get on, and his pale face wore a worried look
as he dropped into an empty seat and peered out at the squalid buildings
reeling past in the mist.
The buildings grew smaller, and vacant lots appeared stretching away in
flat spaces, broken here and there by ridges of ugly squat little
tenement blocks. Over this landscape vast banners of smoke streamed,
magnified by the misty rain which was driven in from the lake.
At last there came a swell of land clothed on with trees. It was still
light enough to see they were burr oaks, and the young student's heart
thrilled at sight of them. His forehead smoothed out, and his eyes grew
tender with boyish memories.
He was seated thus, with head leaning against the pane, when another
young man came down the aisle from the smoking car and took a seat
beside him with a pleasant word.
He was a handsome young fellow of twenty-three or four. His face was
large and beardless, and he had beautiful teeth. He had a bold and keen
look, in spite of the bang of yellow hair which hung over his forehead.
Some commonplaces passed between them, and then silence fell on each.
The conductor coming through the car, the smooth-faced young fellow put
up a card to be punched, and the student handed up a ticket, simply
saying, "Kesota."
After a decent pause the younger man said "Going to Kesota, are you?"
"Yes."
"So am I. I live there, in fact."
"Do you? Then perhaps you can tell me the name of your County
Superintendent. I'm looking for a school." He smiled frankly. "I'm just
out of Jackson University, and----"
"That so? I'm an Ann Arbor man myself." They took a moment for mutual
warming up. "Yes, I know the Superintendent. Why not come right up to my
boarding place, and to-morrow I'll introduce you? Looking for a school,
eh? What kind of a school?"
"Oh, a village school, or even a country school. It's too late to get a
good place; but I've been sick, and----"
"Yes, the good positions are all snapped up; still, you might by
accident hit on something. I know Mott; he'll do all he can for you. By
the way, my name's Allen."
The young student understood this hint and spoke. "Mine is Stacey."
The younger man mused a few minutes, as if he had forgotten his new
acquaintance. Suddenly he roused up.
"Say, would you take a country school several miles out?"
"I think I would, if nothing better offered."
"Well, out in my neighborhood they're without a teacher. It's six miles
out, and it isn't a lovely neighborhood. However, they will pay fifty
dollars a month; that's ten dollars extra for the scrimmages. They
wanted me to teach this winter--my sister teaches it in summer--but,
great Peter! I can't waste my time teaching school, when I can run up to
Chicago and take a shy at the pit and make a whole term's wages in
thirty minutes."
"I don't understand," said Stacey.
"Wheat Exchange. I've got a lot of friends in the pit, and I can come in
any time on a little deal. I'm no Jim Keene, but I hope to get cash
enough to handle five thousand. I wanted the old gent to start me up in
it, but he said, 'Nix come arouse.' Fact is, I dropped the money he gave
me to go through college with." He smiled at Stacey's disapproving look.
"Yes, indeedy; there's where the jar came into our tender relations. Oh,
I call on the governor--always when I've got a wad. I have fun with
him." He smiled brightly. "Ask him if he don't need a little cash to pay
for hog-killin', or something like that." He laughed again. "No, I
didn't graduate at Ann Arbor. Funny how things go, ain't it? I was on my
way back the third year, when I stopped in to see the pit--it's one o'
the sights of Chicago, you know--and Billy Krans saw me looking over the
rail. I went in, won, and then took a flyer on December. Come a big
slump, and I failed to materialize at school."
"What did you do then?" asked Stacey, to whom this did not seem
humorous.
"I wrote a contrite letter to the governor, stating case, requesting
forgiveness--and money. No go! Couldn't raise neither. I then wrote
casting him off. 'You are no longer father of mine.'" He smiled again
radiantly. "You should have seen me the next time I went home! Plug hat!
Imported suit! Gold watch! Diamond shirt-stud! Cost me $200 to paralyze
the general, but I did it. My glory absolutely turned him white as a
sheet. I knew what he thought, so I said: 'Perfectly legitimate, dad.
The walls of Joliet are not gaping for me.' That about half fetched
him--calling him _dad_, I mean--but he can't get reconciled to my
business. 'Too many ups and downs,' he says. Fact is, he thinks it's
gambling, and I don't argue the case with him. I'm on my way home now to
stay over Sunday."
The train whistled, and Allen looked out into the darkness. "We're
coming to the crossing. Now, I can't go up to the boarding place when
you do, but I'll give you directions, and you tell the landlady I sent
you, and it'll be all right. Allen, you remember--Herman Allen."
Following directions, Stacey came at length to a two-story frame house
situated on the edge of the bank, with its back to the river. It stood
alone, with vacant lots all about. A pleasant-faced woman answered the
ring.
He explained briefly. "How do you do? I'm a teacher, and I'd like to get
board here a few days while passing my examinations. Mr. Herman Allen
sent me."
The woman's quick eye and ear were satisfied. "All right. Walk in, sir.
I'm pretty full, but I expect I can accommodate you--if you don't mind
Mr. Allen for a roommate."
"Oh, not at all," he said, while taking off his coat.
"Come right in this way. Supper will be ready soon."
He went into a comfortable sitting room, where a huge open fire of soft
coal was blazing magnificently. The walls were papered in florid
patterns, and several enlarged portraits were on the walls. The fire was
the really great adornment; all else was cheap, and some of it was
tawdry.
Stacey spread his thin hands to the blaze, while the landlady sat down a
moment, out of politeness, to chat, scanning him keenly. She was a
handsome woman, strong, well rounded, about forty years of age, with
quick gray eyes and a clean, firm-lipped mouth.
"Did you just get in?"
"Yes. I've been on the road all day," he said, on an impulse of
communication. "Indeed, I'm just out of college."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Mrs. Mills, stopping her rocking in an access of
interest. "What college?"
"Jackson University. I've been sick, and only came West----"
There came a look into her face that transformed and transfigured her.
"_My_ boy was in Ann Arbor. He was killed on the train on his way home
one day." She stopped, for fear of breaking into a quaver, and smiled
brightly. "That's why I always like college boys. They all stop here
with me." She rose hastily. "Well, you'll excuse me, won't you, and I'll
go an' 'tend to supper."
There was a great deal that was feminine in Stacey, and he felt at once
the pathos of the woman's life. He looked a refined, studious, rather
delicate young man, as he sat low in his chair and observed the light
and heat of the fire. His large head looked to be full of learning, and
his dark eyes were deep with religious fervor.
Several young women entered, and the room was filled with clatter of
tongues. Herman came in a few moments later, his face in a girlish glow
of color. Everybody rushed at him with loud outcry. He was evidently a
great favorite. He threw his arms about Mrs. Mills, giving her a hearty
hug. The girls pretended to be shocked when he reached out for them, but
they were not afraid of him. They hung on his arms and besieged him with
questions till he cried out, in jolly perplexity:
"Girls, girls! This will never do."
Mrs. Mills brushed out his damp yellow curls with her hands. "You're all
wet."
"Girls, if you'll let me sit down, I'll take one on each knee," he said,
pleadingly, and they released him.
Stacey grew red with sympathetic embarrassment, and shrank away into a
corner.
"Go get supper ready," commanded Herman. And it was only after they left
that he said to Stacey: "Oh, you found your way all right. I didn't see
you--those confounded girls bother me so." He took a seat by the fire
and surveyed his wet shoes. "I took a run up to Mott's house--only a
half block out o' the way. He said they'd be tickled to have you at
Cyene. By the way, you're a theolog, aren't you?" Wallace nodded, and
Herman went on: "So I told Mott. He said you might work up a society out
there at Cyene."
"Is there a church there?"
"Used to be, but--say, I tell you what you do: you go out with me
to-morrow, and I'll give you the whole history."
The ringing of the bell took them out into the cheerful dining room in
a good-natured scramble. Mrs. Mills put Stacey at one end of the table,
near a young woman who looked like a teacher, and he had full sweep of
the table, which was surrounded by bright and sunny faces. The station
hand was there, and a couple of grocery clerks, and a brakeman sat at
Stacey's right hand. The table was very merry. They called each other by
their Christian names, and there was very obvious courtship on the part
of several young couples.
Stacey escaped from the table as soon as possible, and returned to his
seat beside the fire. He was young enough to enjoy the chatter of the
girls, but his timidity made him glad they paid so little attention to
him. The rain had changed to sleet outside, and hammered at the window
viciously, but the blazing fire and the romping young people set it at
defiance. The landlady came to the door of the dining room, dish and
cloth in hand, to share in each outburst of laughter, and not
infrequently the hired girl peered over her shoulder with a broad smile
on her face. A little later, having finished their work, they both came
in and took active part in the light-hearted fun.
Herman and one of the girls were having a great struggle over some
trifle he had snatched from her hand, and the rest stood about laughing
to see her desperate attempts to recover it. This was a familiar form of
courtship in Kesota, and an evening filled with such romping was
considered a "cracking good time." After the girl, red and disheveled,
had given up, Herman sat down at the organ, and they all sang Moody and
Sankey hymns, negro melodies, and college songs till nine o'clock. Then
Mrs. Mills called, "Come, now, boys and girls," and they all said good
night, like obedient children.
Herman and Wallace went up to their bedroom together.
"Say, Stacey, have you got a policy?" Wallace shook his head. "And don't
want any, I suppose. Well, I just asked you as a matter of form. You
see," he went on, winking at Wallace comically, "nominally I'm an
insurance agent, but practically I'm a 'lamb'--but I get a mouthful o'
fur myself occasionally. What I'm working for is to get on that Wheat
Exchange. That's where you get life! I'd rather be an established broker
in that howling mob than go to Congress."
Suddenly a thought struck him. He rose on his elbow in bed and looked at
Wallace just as he rose from a silent prayer. Catching his eye, Herman
said:
"Say! why didn't you shout? I forgot all about it--I mean your
profession."
Wallace crept into bed beside his communicative bedfellow in silence. He
didn't know how to deal with such spirits.
"Say!" called Herman suddenly, as they were about to go to sleep, "you
ain't got no picnic, old man."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Wait till you see Cyene Church. Oh, it's a daisy snarl."
"I wish you'd tell me about it."
"Oh, it's quiet now. The calmness of death," said Herman. "Well, you
see, it came this way. The church is made up of Baptists and Methodists,
and the Methodists wanted an organ, because, you understand, father was
the head center, and Mattie is the only girl among the Methodists who
can play. The old man has got a head like a mule. He can't be switched
off, once he makes up his mind. Deacon Marsden he don't believe in
anything above tuning forks, and he's tighter'n the bark on a bulldog.
He stood out like a sore thumb, and dad wouldn't give an inch.
"You see, they held meetings every other Sunday. So dad worked up the
organ business and got one, and then locked it up when the Baptists held
their services. Well, it went from bad to worse. They didn't speak as
they passed by--that is, the old folks; we young folks didn't care a
continental whether school kept or not. Well, upshot is, the church died
out. The wind blew the horse sheds down, and there they lie--and the
church is standing there empty as an--old boot--and----" He grew too
sleepy to finish.
Suddenly a comical idea roused him again. "Say, Stacey--by Jinks!--are
you a Baptist?"
"Yes."
"Oh, Peter! ain't that lovely?" He chuckled shamelessly, and went off to
sleep without another word.
II.
Herman was still sleeping when Stacey rose and dressed and went down to
breakfast. Mrs. Mills defended Herman against the charge of laziness:
"He's probably been out late all the week."
Stacey found Mott in the county courthouse, and a perfunctory
examination soon put him in possession of a certificate. There was no
question of his attainments.
Herman met him at dinner-time.
"Well, elder, I'm going down to get a rig to go out home in. It's
colder'n a blue whetstone, so put on all the clothes you've got. Gimme
your check, and I'll get your traps. Have you seen Mott?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, everything's all fixed."
He turned up about three o'clock, seated on the spring seat of a lumber
wagon beside a woman, who drove the powerful team. Whether she was young
or old could not be told through her wraps. She wore a cap and a thick,
faded cloak.
Mrs. Mills hurried to the door. "Why, Mattie Allen! What you doin' out
such a day as this? Come in here instanter!"
"Can't stop," called a clear, boyish voice. "Too late."
"Well, land o' stars!--you'll freeze."
When Wallace reached the wagon side, Herman said, "My sister, Stacey."
The girl slipped her strong brown hand out of her huge glove and gave
him a friendly grip. "Get right in," she said. "Herman, you're going to
stand up behind."
Herman appealed to Mrs. Mills for sympathy. "This is what comes of
having plebeian connections."
"Oh, dry up," laughed the girl, "or I'll make you drive."
Stacey scrambled in awkwardly beside her. She was not at all
embarrassed, apparently.
"Tuck yourself in tight. It's mighty cold on the prairie."
"Why didn't you come down with the baroosh?" grumbled Herman.
"Well, the corn was contracted for, and father wasn't able to come--he
had another attack of neuralgia last night after he got the corn
loaded--so I had to come."
"Sha'n't I drive for you?" asked Wallace.
"No, thank you. You'll have all you can do to keep from freezing." She
looked at his thin coat and worn gloves with keen eyes. He could see
only her pink cheeks, strong nose, and dark, smiling eyes.
It was one of those terrible Illinois days when the temperature drops
suddenly to zero, and the churned mud of the highways hardens into a
sort of scoriac rock, which cripples the horses and sends the heavy
wagons booming and thundering along like mad things. The wind was keen
and terrible as a saw-bladed sword, and smote incessantly. The desolate
sky was one thick, impenetrable mass of swiftly flying clouds. When they
swung out upon the long pike leading due north, Wallace drew his breath
with a gasp, and bent his head to the wind.
"Pretty strong, isn't it?" shouted Mattie.
"Oh, the farmer's life is the life for me, tra-la!" sang Herman, from
his shelter behind the seat.
Mattie turned. "What do you think of _Penelope_ this month?"
"She's a-gitten there," said Herman, pounding his shoe heels.
"She's too smart for young Corey. She ought to marry a man like
Bromfield. My! wouldn't they talk?"
"Did y' get the second bundle of magazines last Saturday?"
"Yes; and dad found something in the _Popular Science_ that made him
mad, and he burned it."
"Did 'e? Tum-la-la! Oh, the farmer's life for me!"
"Are you cold?" she asked Wallace.
He turned a purple face upon her. "No--not much."
"I guess you better slip right down under the blankets," she advised.
The wind blew gray out of the north--a wild blast which stopped the
young student's blood in his veins. He hated to give up, but he could no
longer hold the blankets up over his knees, so he slipped down into the
corner of the box, with his back to the wind, with the blankets drawn
over his head.
The powerful girl slapped the reins down on the backs of the snorting
horses, and encouraged them with shouts like a man: "Get out o' this,
Dan! Hup there, Nellie!"
The wagon boomed and rattled. The floor of the box seemed beaten with a
maul. The glimpses Wallace had of the land appalled him, it was so flat
and gray and bare. The houses seemed poor, and drain-pipe scattered
about told how wet it all was.
Herman sang at the top of his voice, and danced, and pounded his feet
against the wagon box. "This ends it! If I can't come home without
freezing to death, I don't come. I should have hired a rig, irrespective
of you----"
The girl laughed. "Oh, you're getting thin-blooded, Herman. Life in the
city has taken the starch all out of you."
"Better grow limp in a great city than freeze stiff in the country," he
replied.
An hour's ride brought them into a yard before a large gray-white frame
house.
Herman sprang out to meet a tall old man with head muffled up. "Hello,
dad! Take the team. We're just naturally froze solid--at least I am.
This is Mr. Stacey, the new teacher."
"How de do? Run in; I'll take the horses."
Herman and Wallace stumbled toward the house, stiff and bent.
Herman flung his arms about a tall woman in the kitchen door. "Hello,
muz!" he said. "This is Mr. Stacey, the new teacher."
"Draw up to the fire, sir. Herman, take his hat and coat."
Mattie came in soon with a boyish rush. She was gleeful as a happy babe.
She unwound the scarf from her head and neck, and hung up her cap and
cloak like a man, but she gave her hair a little touch of feminine care,
and came forward with both palms pressed to her burning cheeks.
"Did you suffer, child?" asked Mrs. Allen.
"No; I enjoyed it."
Herman looked at Stacey. "I believe on my life she did."
"Oh, it's fun. I don't get a chance to do anything so exciting very
often."
Herman clicked his tongue. "Exciting? Well, well!"
"You must remember things are slower here," Mattie explained.
She came to light much younger than Stacey thought her. She was not
eighteen, but her supple and splendid figure was fully matured. Her
hair hung down her back in a braid, which gave a subtle touch of
childishness to her.
"Sis, you're still a-growin'," Herman said, as he put his arm around her
waist and looked up at her.
She seemed to realize for the first time that Stacey was a young man,
and her eyes fell.
"Well, now, set up the chairs, child," said Mrs. Allen.
When the young teacher returned from his cold spare room off the parlor
the family sat waiting for him. They all drew up noisily, and Allen
said:
"Ask the blessing, sir?"
Wallace said grace.
As Allen passed the potatoes he continued:
"My son tells me you are a minister of the gospel."
"I have studied for it."
"What denomination?"
"Tut, tut!" warned Herman. "Don't start any theological rabbits
to-night, dad. With jaw swelled up you won't be able to hold your own."
"I'm a Baptist," Stacey answered.
The old man's face grew grim. It had been ludicrous before with its
swollen jaw. "Baptist?" The old man turned to his son, whose smile
angered him. "Didn't you know no more'n to bring a Baptist preacher into
this house?"
"There, there, father!" began the wife.
"Be quiet. I'm boss of this shanty."
Herman struck in: "Don't make a show of yourself, old man. Don't mind
the old gent, Stacey; he's mumpy to-day, anyhow."
Stacey rose. "I guess I--I'd better not stay--I----"
"Oh, no, no! Sit down, Stacey. It's all right. The old man's a little
acid at me. He doesn't mean it."
Stacey got his coat and hat. His heart was swollen with indignation. He
felt as if something fine were lost to him, and the cold outside was so
desolate now.
Mrs. Allen was in tears; but the old man, having taken his stand, was
going to keep it.
Herman lost his temper a little. "Well, dad, you're a little the
cussedest Christian I ever knew. Stacey, sit down. Don't you be a fool
just because he is----"
Stacey was buttoning his coat with trembling hands, when Martha went up
to him.
"Don't go," she said. "Father's sick and cross. He'll be sorry for this
to-morrow."
Wallace looked into her frank, kindly eyes and hesitated.
Herman said: "Dad, you are a lovely follower of Christ. You'll apologize
for this, or I'll never set foot on your threshold again."
Stacey still hesitated. He was hurt and angry, but being naturally a
sweet and gentle nature, he grew sad, and, yielding to the pressure of
the girl's hand on his arm, he began to unbutton his overcoat.
She helped him off with it, and hung it back on the nail. She did not
show tears, but her face was unwontedly grave.
They sat at the table again, and Herman and Mattie tried to restore
something of the brightness which had been lost. Allen sat grimly
eating, his chin pushed down like a hog's snout.
After supper, as his father was about retiring to his bedroom, Herman
fixed his bright eyes on him, and something very hard and masterful came
into his boyish face.
"Old man--you and I haven't had a settlement on this thing yet. I'll see
you later."
Allen shrank before his son's look, but shuffled sullenly off without
uttering a word.
Herman turned to Wallace. "Stacey, I want to beg your pardon for getting
you into this scrape. I didn't suppose the old gentleman would act like
that. The older he gets, the more his New Hampshire granite shows. I
hope you won't lay it up against me."
Wallace was too conscientious to say he didn't mind it, but he took
Herman's hand in a quick clasp.
"Let's have a song," proposed Herman. "Music hath charms to soothe the
savage breast, to charm a rock, and split a cabbage."
They went into the best room, where a fire was blazing, and Mattie and
Herman sang hymns and old-fashioned love songs and college glees
wonderfully intermingled. They ended by singing "Lorena," a wailing,
supersentimental love song current in war times, and when they looked
around there was a lofty look on the face of the young preacher--a look
of exaltation, of consecration and resolve.
III.
The next morning, at breakfast, Herman said, as he seized a hot biscuit,
"We'll dispense with grace this morning, and till after the war is
over." But Wallace blessed his bread in a silent prayer, and Mattie
thought it very brave of him to do so.
Herman was full of mockery. "The sun rises just the same, whether it's
'sprinkling' or 'immersion.' It's lucky Nature don't take a hand in
these theological contests--she doesn't even referee the scrap. She
never seems to care whether you are sparring for points or fighting to a
finish. What you theologic middle-weights are really fighting for I
can't see--and I don't care, till you fall over the ropes on to my
corns."
Stacey listened in a daze to Herman's tirade. He knew it was addressed
to Allen, and that it deprecated war, and that it was mocking. The fresh
face and smiling lips of the young girl seemed to put Herman's voice
very far away. It was such a beautiful thing to sit at table with a
lovely girl.
After breakfast he put on his cap and coat and went out into the clear,
cold November air. All about him the prairie extended, marked with
farmhouses and lined with leafless hedges. Artificial groves surrounded
each homestead, relieving the desolateness of the fields.
Down the road he saw the spire of a small white church, and he walked
briskly toward it, Herman's description in his mind.
As he came near he saw the ruined sheds, the rotting porch, and the
windows boarded up, and his face grew sad. He tried one of the doors,
and found it open. Some tramp had broken the lock. The inside was even
more desolate than the outside. It was littered with rotting straw and
plum stones and melon seeds. Obscene words were scrawled on the walls,
and even on the pulpit itself.
Taken altogether it was an appalling picture to the young servant of the
Man of Galilee, a blunt reminder of the ferocity and depravity of man.
As he pondered the fire burned, and there rose again the flame of his
resolution. He lifted his face and prayed that he might be the one to
bring these people into the living union of the Church of Christ.
His blood set toward his heart with tremulous action. His eyes glowed
with zeal like that of the Middle Ages. He saw the people united once
more in this desecrated hall. He heard the bells ringing, the sound of
song, the smile of peaceful old faces, and voices of love and fellowship
filling the anterooms where hate now scrawled hideous blasphemy against
woman and against God.
As he sat there Herman came in, his keen eyes seeking out every stain
and evidence of vandalism.
"Cheerful prospect--isn't it?"
Wallace looked up with the blaze of his resolution still in his eyes.
His pale face was sweet and solemn.
"Oh, how these people need Christ!"
Herman turned away. "They need killing--about two dozen of 'em. I'd like
to have the job of indicating which ones; I wouldn't miss the old man,
you bet!" he said, with blasphemous audacity.
Wallace was helpless in the face of such reckless thought, and so sat
looking at the handsome young fellow as he walked about.
"Well, now, Stacey, I guess you'll need to move. I had another session
with the old man, but he won't give in, so I'm off for Chicago. Mother's
brother, George Chapman, who lives about as near the schoolhouse on the
other side, will take you in. I guess we'd better go right down now and
see about it. I've said good-by to the old man--for good this time; we
didn't shake hands either," he said, as they walked down the road
together. He was very stern and hard. Something of the father was hidden
under his laughing exterior.
Stacey regretted deeply the necessity which drove him out of Allen's
house. Mrs. Allen and Mattie had appealed to him very strongly. For
years he had lived far from young women, and there was a magical power
in the intimate home actions of this young girl. Her bare head, with
simple arrangement of hair, someway seemed the most beautiful thing he
had ever seen.
He thought of her as he sat at the table with George and his aged
mother. They lived alone, and their lives were curiously silent. Once in
a while a low-voiced question, and that was all.
George read the _Popular Science_, _Harper's Monthly Magazine_, and the
_Open Court_, and brooded over them with slow intellectual movement. It
was wonderful the amount of information he secreted from these
periodicals. He was better informed than many college graduates.
He had little curiosity about the young stranger. He understood he was
to teach the school, and he did not go further in inquiry.
He tried Wallace once or twice on the latest discoveries of John Fiske
and Edison, and then gave him up and retired to his seat beside the
sitting-room stove.
On the following Monday morning school began, and as Wallace took his
way down the lane the wrecked church came again to his eyes. He walked
past it with slow feet. His was a deeply religious nature, one that
sorrowed easily over sin. Suffering of the poor did not trouble him;
hunger seemed a little thing beside losing one's everlasting soul.
Therefore to come from his studies upon such a monument of human
depravity as this rotting church was to receive a shock and to hear a
call to action.
Approaching the schoolhouse, his thought took a turn toward the scholars
and toward Mattie. He had forgotten to ask her if she intended to be one
of his pupils.
There were several children already gathered at the schoolhouse door as
he came up. It was all very American--the boxlike house of white, the
slender teacher approaching, the roughly clad urchins waiting.
He said, "Good morning, scholars."
They chorused a queer croak in reply--hesitating, inarticulate, shy. He
unlocked the door and entered the cold, bare room--familiar, unlovely,
with a certain power of primitive associations. In such a room he had
studied his primer and his Ray's Arithmetic. In such a room he had made
gradual recession from the smallest front seat to the back wall seat;
and from one side of such a room to the other he had furtively worshiped
a graceful girlish head.
He allowed himself but a moment of such dreaming, and then he assumed
command, and with his ready helpers a fire was soon started. Other
children came in, timorous as rabbits, slipping by with one eye fixed on
him like scared chickens. They pre-empted their seats by putting down
books and slates, and there arose sly wars for possession, which he felt
in curious amusement--it was so like his own life at that age.
He assumed command as nearly in the manner of the old-time teachers as
he could recall, and the work of his teaching was begun. The day passed
quickly, and as he walked homeward again there stood that rotting
church, and in his mind there rose a surging emotion larger than he
could himself comprehend--a desire to rebuild it by uniting the warring
factions, of whose lack of Christianity it was fatal witness.
IV.
Now this mystical thing happened. As this son of a line of preachers
brooded on this unlovely strife among men, he lost the equipoise of the
scholar and student of modern history. He grew narrower and more
intense. The burden of his responsibility as a preacher of Christ grew
daily more insupportable.
Toward the end of the week he announced preaching in the schoolhouse on
Sunday afternoon, and at the hour set he found the room crowded with
people of all ages and sorts.
His heart grew heavy as he looked out over the room on women nursing
querulous children, on the grizzled faces of grim-looking men, who
studied him with keen, unsympathetic eyes. He had hard, unfriendly
material to work with. There were but few of the opposite camp present,
while the Baptist leaders were all there, with more curiosity than
sympathy in their faces.
They exulted to think the next preacher to come among them as an
evangelist should be a Baptist.
After the singing, which would have dribbled away into failure but for
Mattie, Wallace rose, looking very white and weak, and began his prayer.
Some of the boys laughed when his voice stuck in his throat, but he went
on to the end of an earnest supplication, feeling he had not touched
them at all.
While they sang again, he sat looking down at them with dry throat and
staring eyes. They seemed so hard, so unchristianlike. What could he say
to them? He saw Mattie looking at him, and on the front seat sat three
beautiful little girls huddled together with hands clasped; they were
inexpressibly dainty by contrast. As he looked at them the thought came
to him, What is the goodness of a girl--of a child? It is not
partisan--it is not of creeds, of articles--it is goodness of thought,
of deeds. His face lighted up with the inward feeling of this idea, and
he rose resolutely.
"Friends, with the help of Christ I am come among you to do you good. I
shall hold meetings each night here in the schoolhouse until we can
unite and rebuild the church again. Let me say now, friends, that I was
educated a Baptist. My father was a faithful worker in the Baptist
Church, and so was his father before him. I was educated in a Baptist
college, and I came here hoping to build up a Baptist Church." He
paused.
"But I see my mistake. I am here to build up a Church of Christ, of good
deeds and charity and peace, and so I here say I am no longer a Baptist
or Methodist. I am only a preacher, and I will not rest until I rebuild
the church which stands rotting away there." His voice rang with
intellectual determination as he uttered those words.
The people listened. There was no movement now. Even the babies seemed
to feel the need of being silent. When he began again it was to describe
that hideous wreck. He delineated the falling plaster, the litter around
the pulpit, the profanation of the walls. "It is a symbol of your sinful
hearts," he cried.
Much more he said, carried out of himself by his passion. It was as if
the repentant spirit of his denominational fathers were speaking through
him; and yet he was not so impassioned that he did not see, or at least
feel, the eyes of the strong young girl fixed upon him; his resolution
he spoke looking at her, and a swift response seemed to leap from her
eyes.
When it was over, some of the Methodists and one of the Baptists came up
to shake hands with him, awkwardly wordless, and the pressure of their
hands helped him. Many of the Baptist brethren slipped outside to
discuss the matter. Some were indignant, others much more moved.
Allen went by him with an audible grunt of derision, and there was a
dark scowl on his face, but Mattie smiled at him, with tears still in
her eyes. She had been touched by his vibrant voice; she had no sins to
repent of.
The skeptics of the neighborhood were quite generally sympathetic.
"You've struck the right trail now, parson," said Chapman, as they
walked homeward together. "The days of the old-time denominationalism
are about played out."
But the young preacher was not so sure of it--now that his inspiration
was gone. He remembered his debt to his college, to his father, to the
denomination, and it was not easy to set aside the grip of such
memories.
He sat late revolving the whole situation in his mind. When he went to
bed it was still with him, and involved itself with his dreams; but
always the young girl smiled upon him with sympathetic eyes and told him
to go on--or so it seemed to him.
He was silent at breakfast. He went to school with a feeling that a
return to teaching little tow-heads to count and spell was now
impossible. He sat in his scarred and dingy desk, while they took their
places, and his eyes had a passionate intensity of prayer in them which
awed the pupils. He had assumed new grandeur and terror in their eyes.
When they were seated he bowed his head and uttered a short plea for
grace, and then he looked at them again.
On the low front seat, with dangling legs and red round faces, sat the
little ones. Someway he could not call them to his knees and teach them
to spell; he felt as if he ought to call them to him, as Christ did, to
teach them love and reverence. It was impossible that they should not be
touched by this hideous neighborhood of hate and strife.
Behind them sat the older children, some of them with rough, hard, sly
faces. Some grinned rudely and nudged each other. The older girls sat
with bated breath; they perceived something strange in the air. Most of
them had heard his sermon the night before.
At last he broke silence. "Children, there is something I must say to
you this morning. I'm going to have meeting here to-night, and it may be
I shall not be your teacher any more--I mean in school. I wish you'd go
home to-day and tell your people to come to church here to-night. I wish
you'd all come yourselves. I want you to be good. I want you to love God
and be good. I want you to go home and tell your people the teacher
can't teach you here till he has taught the older people to be kind and
generous. You may put your books away, and school will be dismissed."
The wondering children obeyed--some with glad promptness, others with
sadness, for they had already come to like their teacher very much.
As he sat by the door and watched them file out, it was as if he were a
king abdicating a throne, and these his faithful subjects. It was the
most momentous hour of his life. He had set his face toward dark waters.
Mrs. Allen came over with Mattie to see him that day. She was a good
woman, gentle and prayerful, and she said, with much emotion:
"O Mr. Stacey, I do hope you can patch things up here. If you could only
touch his heart! He don't mean to do wrong, but he's so set in his
ways--if he says a thing he sticks to it."
Stacey turned to Mattie for a word of encouragement, but she only looked
away. It was impossible for her to put into words her feeling in the
matter, which was more of admiration for his courage than for any part
of his religious zeal. He was so different from other men. It seemed he
had a touch of divinity in him now.
It did him good to have them come, and he repeated his vow:
"By the grace of our Lord, I am going to rebuild the Cyene Church," and
his face paled and his eyes grew luminous.
The girl shivered with a sort of awe. He seemed to recede from her as he
spoke, and to grow larger, too. Such nobility of purpose was new and
splendid to her.
* * * * *
The revival was wondrously dramatic. The little schoolhouse was crowded
to the doors night by night. The reek of stable-stained coats and
boots, the smell of strong tobacco, the effluvia of many breaths, the
heat, the closeness, were forgotten in the fervor of the young
evangelist's utterances. His voice took on wild emotional cadences
without his conscious effort, and these cadences sounded deep places in
the heart. To these people, long unused to religious oratory, it was
like the return of John and Isaiah. It was poetry and the drama, and
processions and apocalyptic visions. He had the histrionic spell, too,
and his slender body lifted and dilated, and his head took on majesty
and power, and the fling of his white hand was a challenge and an
appeal.
A series of stirring events took place on the third night.
On Wednesday Jacob Turner rose and asked the prayers of his neighbors,
and was followed by two Baptist spearmen of the front rank. On Thursday
the women all were weeping on each other's bosoms; only one or two of
the men held out--old Deacon Allen and his antagonist, Stewart Marsden.
Grim-visaged old figures they were, placed among repentant men and
weeping women. They sat like rocks in the rush of the two factions
moving toward each other for peaceful union. Granitic, narrow, keen of
thrust, they seemed unmoved, while all around them one by one skeptics
acknowledged the pathos and dignity of the preacher's views of life and
death.
Meanwhile the young evangelist lived at high pressure. He grew thinner
and whiter each night. He toiled in the daytime to formulate his
thoughts for the evening. He could not sleep till far toward morning.
The food he ate did him little good, while his heart went out constantly
to his people in strenuous supplication. It was testimony of his human
quality that he never for one moment lost that shining girl face out of
his thought. He looked for it there night after night. It was his
inspiration in speaking, as at the first.
On the nights when Mattie was not there his speech was labored (as the
elders noticed), but on the blessed nights when she came and sang, her
voice, amid all the rest, came to him, and uttered poetry and peace like
a rill of cool sweet water. And afterward, when he walked home under the
stars, his mind went with her, she was so strong and lithe and good to
see. He did not realize the worshiping attitude the girl took before
divine duties.
At last the great day came--the great night.
In some way, perhaps by the growing mass of rushing emotion set in
action by some deep-going phrase, or perhaps by some interior slow
weakening of stubborn will, Deacon Allen gave way; and when the preacher
called for penitents, the old man struggled to his feet, his seamed,
weather-beaten face full of grotesque movement. He broke out:
"Brethren, pray for me; I'm a miserable sinner. I want to confess my
sins--here--before ye all." He broke into sobbing terrible to hear. "My
heart is made--flesh again--by the blessed power of Christ ..."
He struggled to get his voice. One or two cried, "Praise God!" but most
of them sat silent, awed into immobility.
The old man walked up the aisle. "I've been rebellious--and now I want
to shake hands with you all--and I ask your prayers." He bent down and
thrust his hand to Marsden, his enemy, while the tears streamed down his
face.
Marsden turned white with a sort of fear, but he rose awkwardly and
grasped the outstretched hand, and at the touch of palms every soul rose
as if by electric shock. "Amens!" burst forth. The preacher began a
fervent prayer, and came down toward the grizzled, weeping old men, and
they all embraced, while some old lady with sweet quavering voice raised
a triumphal hymn, in which all joined, and found grateful relief from
their emotional tension.
Allen turned to Mattie and his wife. "My boy--send for him--Herman."
It seemed as if the people could not go away. The dingy little
schoolhouse was like unto the shining temple of God's grace, and the
regenerated seemed to fear that to go home might become a return to hate
and strife. So they clung around the young preacher and would not let
him go.
At last he came out with Allen holding to his arm. "You must come home
with us to-night," he pleaded, and the young minister with glad heart
consented, for he hoped he might walk beside Mattie; but this was not
possible. There were several others in the group, and they moved off two
and two up the deep hollows which formed the road in the snow.
The young minister walked with head uplifted to the stars, hearing
nothing of the low murmur of talk, conscious only of his great plans,
his happy heart, and the strong young girl who walked before him.
In the warm kitchen into which they came he lost something of his
spiritual tension, and became more humanly aware of the significance of
sitting again with these people. He gave the girl his coat and hat, and
then watched her slip off her knitted hood and her cloak. Her eyes shone
with returning laughter, and her cheeks were flushed with blood.
Looking upon her, the young evangelist lost his look of exaltation, his
eyes grew soft and his limbs relaxed. His silence was no longer rapt--it
was the silence of delicious, drowsy reverie.
V.
The next morning he did not rise at all. The collapse had come. The bad
air, the nervous strain, the lack of sleep, had worn down his slender
store of strength, and when the great victory came he fell like a tree
whose trunk has been slowly gnawed across by teeth of silent saw. His
drowse deepened into torpor.
In the bright winter morning, seated in a gay cutter behind a bay colt
strung with slashing bells, Mattie drove to Kesota for the doctor. She
felt the discord between the joyous jangle of the bells, the stream of
sunlight, and the sparkle of snow crystals, but it only added to the
poignancy of her anxiety.
She had not yet reached self-consciousness in her regard for the young
preacher--she thought of him as a noble human being liable to death, and
she chirped again and again to the flying colt, whose broad hoofs flung
the snow in stinging showers against her face.
A call at the doctor's house set him jogging out along the lanes, while
she sent a telegram to Herman. As she whirled bay Tom into the road to
go home, her heart rose in relief that was almost exaltation. She loved
horses. She always sang under her breath, chiming to the beat of their
bells, when alone, and now she loosened the rein and hummed an old love
song, while the powerful young horse squared away in a trot which was
twelve miles an hour--_click_, click-_click_, click-_clangle_,
lang-_lingle_, ling.
In such air, in such sun, who could die? Her good animal strength rose
dominant over fear of death.
She came upon the doctor swinging along in his old blue cutter, dozing
in country-doctor style, making up for lost sleep.
"Out o' the way, doctor!" she gleefully called.
The doctor roused up and looked around with a smile. He was not beyond
admiring such a girl as that. He snapped his whip-lash lightly on old
Sofia's back, who looked up surprised, and, seeming to comprehend
matters, began to reach out broad, flat, thin legs in a pace which the
proud colt respected. She came of illustrious line, did Sofia,
scant-haired and ungracious as she now was.
"Don't run over me," called the doctor, ironically, and with Sofia still
leading they swung into the yard.
Mattie went in with the doctor, while Allen looked after both horses.
They found Chapman attending Wallace--who lay in a dazed
quiet--conscious, but not definitely aware of material things.
The doctor looked his patient over carefully. Then he asked, "Who is the
yoong mon?"
"He's been teaching here, or rather preaching."
"When did this coom on?"
"Last night. Wound up a big revival last night, I believe. Kind o' caved
in, I reckon."
"That's all. Needs rest. He'll be wearin' a wood jacket if he doosna
leave off preachin'."
"Regular jamboree. I couldn't stop him. One of these periodical
neighborhood 'awakenings,' they call it."
"They have need of it here, na doot."
"Well, they need something--love for God--or man."
"M--well! It's lettle I can do. The wumman can do more, if the mon'll be
eatin' what they cuke for 'im," said the candid old Scotchman. "Mak' 'im
eat. Mak' 'im eat."
Once more Tom pounded along the shining road to Kesota to meet the
six-o'clock train from Chicago.
Herman, magnificently clothed in fur-lined ulster and cap, alighted with
unusually grave face and hurried toward Mattie.
"Well, what is it, sis? Mother sick?"
"No; it's the teacher. He is unconscious. I've been for the doctor. Oh,
we were scared!"
He looked relieved, but a little chagrined. "Oh, well, I don't see why I
should be yanked out of my boots by a telegram because the teacher is
sick! He isn't kin--yet."
For the first time a feeling of shame and confusion swept over Mattie,
and her face flushed.
Herman's keen eyes half closed as he looked into her face.
"Mat--what--what! Now look here--how's this? Where's Ben Holly's claim?"
"He never had any." She shifted ground quickly. "O Herman, we had a
wonderful time last night! Father and Uncle Marsden shook hands----"
"What?" shouted Herman, as he fell in a limp mass against the cutter.
"Bring a physician--I'm stricken."
"Don't act so! Everybody's looking."
"They'd better look. I'm drowning while they wait."
She untied the horse and came back.
"Climb in there and stop your fooling, and I'll tell you all about it."
He crawled in with tearing groans of mock agony, and then leaned his
head against her shoulder. "Well, go on, sis; I can bear it now."
She nudged him to make him sit up.
"Well, you know we've had a revival."
"So you wrote. Must have been a screamer to fetch dad and old Marsden. A
regular Pentecost of Shinar."
"It was--I mean it was beautiful. I saw father was getting stirred up.
He prayed almost all day yesterday, and at night--Well, I can't tell
you, but Wallace talked, oh, so beautiful and tender."
"She calls him Wallace?" mused Herman, like a comedian.
"Hush! And then came the hand-shaking, and then the minister came home
with us, because father asked him to."
"Well, well! I supposed _you_ must have asked him."
The girl was hurt, and she showed it. "If you make fun, I won't tell you
another word," she said.
"Away Chicago! enter Cyene! Well, come, I won't fool any more."
"Then after Wallace--I mean----"
"Let it stand. Come to the murder."
"Then father came and asked me to send for you, and mother cried, and so
did he. And, oh, Hermie, he's so sweet and kind! Don't make fun of him,
will you? It's splendid to have him give in, and everybody feels glad
that the district will be all friendly again."
Herman did not gibe again. His voice was gentle. The pathos in the scene
appealed to him. "So the old man sent for me himself, did he?"
"Yes; he could hardly wait till morning. But this morning, when we came
to call the teacher, he didn't answer, and father went in and found him
unconscious. Then I went for the doctor."
Bay Tom whirled along in the splendid dusk, his nostrils flaring ghostly
banners of steam on the cold crisp air. The stars overhead were points
of green and blue and crimson light, low-hung, changing each moment.
Their influence entered the soul of the mocking young fellow. He felt
very solemn, almost melancholy, for a moment.
"Well, sis, I've got something to tell you all. I'm going to tell it to
you by degrees. I'm going to be married."
"Oh!" she gasped, with quick, indrawn breath. "Who?"
"Don't be ungrammatical, whatever you do. She's a cashier in a
restaurant, and she's a fine girl," he added steadily, as if combating a
prejudice. He forgot for the moment that such prejudices did not exist
in Cyene.
Sis was instantly tender, and very, very serious.
"Of course she is, or you wouldn't care for her. Oh, I'd like to see
her!"
"I'll take you up some day and show her to you."
"Oh, will you? Oh, when can I go?" She was smit into gravity again. "Not
till the teacher is well."
Herman pretended to be angry. "Dog take the teacher, the old
spindle-legs! If I'd known he was going to raise such a ruction in our
quiet and peaceful neighborhood, I never would have brought him here."
Mattie did not laugh; she pondered. She never quite understood her
brother when he went off on those queer tirades, which might be a joke
or an insult. He had grown away from her in his city life.
They rode on in silence the rest of the way, except now and then an
additional question from Mattie concerning his sweetheart.
As they neared the farmhouse she lost interest in all else but the
condition of the young minister. They could see the light burning dimly
in his room, and in the parlor and kitchen as well, and this unusual
lighting stirred the careless young man deeply. It was associated in
his mind with death and birth, and also with great joy.
The house was lighted so the night his elder brother died, and it looked
so to him when he whirled into the yard with the doctor when Mattie was
born.
"Oh, I hope he isn't worse!" said the girl, with deep feeling.
Herman put his arm about her, and she knew he knew.
"So do I, sis."
Allen came to the door as they drove in, and the careless boy realized
suddenly the emotional tension his father was in. As the old man came to
the sleigh-side he could not speak. His fingers trembled as he took the
outstretched hand of his boy.
Herman's voice shook a little:
"Well, dad, Mattie says the war is over."
The old man tried to speak, but only coughed and then he blew his nose.
At last he said, brokenly:
"Go right in; your mother's waitin'."
It was singularly dramatic to the youth. To come from the careless,
superficial life of his city companions into contact with such primeval
passions as these, made him feel like a spectator at some new and
powerful and tragic play.
His mother fell upon his neck and cried, while Mattie stood by pale and
anxious. Inside the parlor could be heard the mumble of men's voices.
In such wise do death and the fear of death fall upon country homes. All
day the house had swarmed with people. All day this mother had looked
forward to the reconciliation of her husband with her son. All day had
the pale and silent minister of God kept his corpselike calm, while all
about the white snow gleamed, and radiant shadows filled every hollow,
and the cattle bawled and frisked in the barn-yard, and the fowls
cackled joyously, while the mild soft wind breathed warmly over the
land.
Mattie cried out to her mother in quick, low voice, "O mother, how is
he?"
"He ain't no worse. The doctor says there ain't no immediate danger."
The girl brought her hands together girlishly, and said: "Oh, I'm so
glad. Is he awake?"
"No; he's asleep."
"Is the doctor still here?"
"Yes."
"I guess I'll step in," said Herman.
The doctor and George Chapman sat beside the hard-coal heater, talking
in low voices. The old doctor was permitting himself the luxury of a
story of pioneer life. He rose with automatic courtesy, and shook hands
with Herman.
"How's the sick man getting on?"
"Vera well--vera well--consederin' the mon is a complete
worn-out--that's all--naethin' more. Thes floom-a-didale bezniss of
rantin' away on the fear o' the Laird for sax weeks wull have worn out
the frame of a bool-dawg."
Herman and Chapman smiled. "I hope you'll tell him that."
"Na fear, yoong mon," said the grim old warrior. "Weel, now ai'll juist
be takin' anither look at him."
Herman went in with the doctor, and stood looking on while the old man
peered and felt about. He came out soon, and leaving a few directions
with Herman and Chapman, took his departure. Everything seemed
favorable, he said.
There was no longer poignancy of anxiety in Mattie's mind, she was too
much of a child to imagine the horror of loss, but she was grave and gay
by turns. Her healthy and wholesome nature continually reasserted itself
over the power of her newly attained woman's interest in the young
preacher. She went to bed and slept dreamlessly, while Herman yawned and
inwardly raged at the fix in which circumstances had placed him.
Like many another lover, days away from his sweetheart were lost days.
He wondered how she would take all the life down here. It would be good
fun to bring her down, anyway, and hear her talk. He planned such a
trip, and grew so interested in the thought he forgot his patient.
In the early dawn Wallace rallied and woke. Herman heard the rustle of
the pillow, and turned to find the sick man's eyes looking at him
fixedly, calm but puzzled. Herman's lips slowly changed into a beautiful
boyish smile, and Wallace replied by a faint parting of the lips, when
Herman said:
"Hello, old man! How do you find yourself?" His hearty humorous greeting
seemed to do the sick man good. Herman approached the bed. "Know where
you are?" Wallace slowly put out a hand, and Herman took it. "You're
coming on all right. Want some breakfast? Make it bucks?" he said, in
Chicago restaurant slang. "White wings--sunny--one up coff."
All this was good tonic for Wallace, and an hour later he sipped broth,
while Mrs. Allen and the Deacon and Herman stood watching the process
with apparently consuming interest. Mattie was still soundly sleeping.
There began delicious days of convalescence, during which he looked
peacefully out at the coming and going of the two women, each possessing
powerful appeal to him--one the motherly presence which had been denied
him for many years, the other something he had never permitted
himself--a sweetheart's daily companionship.
He lay there planning his church, and also his home. Into the thought of
a new church came shyly but persistently the thought of a fireside of
his own, with this young girl sitting in the glow of it waiting for him.
His life had held little romance in its whole length. He had earned his
own way through school and to college. His slender physical energies had
been taxed to their utmost at every stage of his climb, but now it
seemed as though some blessed rest and peace were at hand.
Meanwhile, the bitter partisans met each other coming and going out of
the gate of the Allen estate, and the goodness of God shone in their
softened faces. Herman was skeptical of its lasting quality, but was
forced to acknowledge that it was a lovely light. He it was who made the
electrical suggestion to rebuild the church as an evidence of good
faith. "You say you're regenerated--go ahead and regenerate the church,"
he said.
The enthusiasm of the neighborhood took flame. It should be done. A
meeting was called. Everybody subscribed money or work. It was a
generous outpouring of love and faith.
It was Herman also who counseled secrecy. "It would be a nice thing to
surprise him," he said. "We'll agree to keep the scheme from him at
home, if you don't give it away."
They set to work like bees. The women came down one day and took
possession with brooms and mops and soap, and while the carpenters
repaired the windows they fell savagely upon the grime of the seats and
floors. The walls of the church echoed with woman's gossip and girlish
laughter. Everything was scoured, from the door-hinges to the altar
rails. New doors were hung and a new stove secured, and then came the
painters to put a new coat of paint on the inside. The cold weather
forbade repainting the outside.
The sheds were rebuilt by men whose hearts glowed with old-time fire. It
was like pioneer days, when "barn-raising" and "bees" made life worth
while in a wild, stern land. It was a beautiful time. The old men were
moved to tears, and the younger rough men shouted cheery, boisterous
cries to hide their own deep emotion. Hand met hand in heartiness never
shown before. Neighbors frequented each other's homes, and the old times
of visiting and brotherly love came back upon them. Nothing marred the
perfect beauty of their revival--save the fear of its evanescence. It
seemed too good to last.
Meanwhile love of another and merrier sort went on. The young men and
maidens turned prayer meeting into trysts, and scrubbing bees into
festivals. They rode from house to house under glittering stars, over
sparkling snows, singing:
"Hallelujah! 'tis done:
I believe on the Son;
I am saved by the blood
Of the Crucified One."
And their rejoicing chorus was timed to the clash of bells on swift
young horses. Who shall say they did not right? Did the Galilean forbid
love and joy?
No matter. God's stars, the mysterious night, the bells, the watchful
bay of dogs, the sting of snow, the croon of loving voices, the clasp
of tender arms, the touch of parting lips--these things, these things
outweigh death and hell, and all that makes the criminal tremble. Being
saved, they must of surety rejoice.
And through it all Wallace crawled slowly back to life and strength. He
ate of Mother Allen's chicken-broth and of toast from Mattie's
care-taking hand, and gradually assumed color and heart. His solemn eyes
looked at the powerful young girl with an intensity which seemed to take
her strength from her. She would gladly have given her blood for him, if
it had occurred to her, or if it had been suggested as a good thing;
instead she gave him potatoes baked to a nicety, and buttered toast that
would melt on the tongue, and, on the whole, they served the purpose
better.
One day a smartly dressed man called to see Wallace. Mattie recognized
him as the Baptist clergyman from Kesota. He came in, and introducing
himself, said he had heard of the excellent work of Mr. Stacey, and that
he would like to speak with him.
Wallace was sitting in a rocking chair in the parlor. Herman was in
Chicago, and there was no one but Mrs. Allen and Mattie in the house.
The Kesota minister introduced himself to Wallace, and then entered upon
a long eulogium upon his work in Cyene. He asked after his credentials,
his plans, his connections, and then he said:
"You've done a _fine_ work in softening the hearts of these people. We
had almost _despaired_ of doing anything with them. Yes, you have done a
_won-der-ful work_, and now we must reorganize a regular society here. I
will be out again when you get stronger, and we'll see about it."
Wallace was too weak to take any stand in the talk, and so allowed him
to get up and go away without protest or explanation of his own plans.
When Herman came down on Saturday, he told him of the Baptist minister's
visit and the proposition. Herman stretched his legs out toward the fire
and put his hands in his pockets. Then he rose and took a strange
attitude, such as Wallace had seen in comic pictures--it was, in fact,
the attitude of a Bowery tough.
"Say--look here! If you want 'o set dis community by de ears agin, you
do dat ting--see? You play dat confidence game and dey'll rat ye--see?
You invite us to come into a non-partisan deal--see?--and den you
springs your own platform on us in de joint corkus--and we won't stand
it! Dis goes troo de way it began, or we don't play--see?"
Out of all this Wallace deduced his own feeling--that continued peace
and good-will lay in keeping clear of all doctrinal debates and
disputes--the love of Christ, the desire to do good and to be clean.
These emotions had been roused far more deeply than he realized, and he
lifted his face to God in the hope that no lesser thing should come in
to mar the beauty of his Church.
There came a day when he walked out in the sunshine, and heard the hens
caw-cawing about the yard, and saw the young colts playing about the
barn. And the splendor of the winter day dazzled him as if he were
looking upon the broad-flung robe of the Most High. Everywhere the snow
lay ridged with purple and brown hedges. Smoke rose peacefully from
chimneys, and the sound of boys skating on a near-by pond added the
human element.
The trouble of concealing the work of the community upon the church
increased daily, and Mattie feared that some hint of it had come to him.
She had her plan. She wanted to drive him down herself, and let him see
the reburnished temple alone. But this was impossible. On the day when
he seemed able to go, her father drove them all down. Marsden was there
also, and several of his women-folks, putting down a new carpet on the
platform. As they drew near the church, Wallace said:
"Why, they've fixed up the sheds!"
Mattie nodded. She was trembling with the delicious excitement of
it--she wanted him hurried into the church at once. He had hardly time
to think before he was whirled up to the new porch, and Marsden came
out, followed by several women. He was bewildered by it all. Marsden
helped him out with hearty voice sounding:
"Careful now. Don't hurry!"
Mattie took one arm, and so he entered the church. Everything repainted!
Everything warm and bright and cozy!
The significance of it came to him like a wave of light, and he took his
seat in the pulpit chair and stared at them all with a look on his pale
face which moved them more than words. He was like a man transfigured by
an inward glow. His eyes for an instant flamed with this marvelous fire,
then darkened, softened with tears, and his voice came back in a sob of
joy, and he could only say:
"Friends--brethren!"
Marsden, after much coughing, said:
"We all united on this. We wanted to have you come to the church
and--Well, we couldn't bear to have you see it again the way it was."
He understood it now. It was the sign of a united community. It set the
seal of Christ's victory over evil passions, and the young preacher's
head bowed in prayer, and they all knelt, while his weak voice returned
thanks to the Lord for his gifts.
Then they all rose and shook off the oppressive solemnity, and he had
time to look around at all the changes. At last he turned to Mattie and
reached out his hand--he had the boldness of a man in the shadow of some
mighty event which makes false modesty and conventions shadowy things
of little importance. His sharpened interior sense read her clear soul,
and he knew she was his, therefore he reached her his hand, and she came
to him with a flush on her face, which died out as she stood proudly by
his side, while he said:
"And Martha shall help me."
Therefore this good thing happened--that in the midst of his fervor and
his consecration to God's work, the love of woman found a place.
A MEETING IN THE FOOTHILLS.
I.
The train which brought young Ramsey into Red Rock gave him no view of
the mountains, because it arrived about eight o'clock of a dark day. He
went to bed at once in order to be up early and prostrate himself before
the peaks, for he was of the level middle-West.
He was awakened by the sound of loud, hearty voices, and looking out of
the window saw a four-horse team standing before the little hotel. On
the wagon's side was a sign which made the heart of the youth leap.
CRINKLE CREEK STAGE.
DAVE WILLIS, Pro.
He was in the land of gold! It was like a chapter from a story by Bret
Harte. He dressed himself hurriedly, and went down and out into the
cool, keen dawn, eager to catch a glimpse of the great peak whose name
had been in his ear since a child, as the symbol of the Rocky
Mountains.
There it soared, dull purple, splotched with dark green, and rising to
white at its shoulders, and radiant with light on its crown. In such
impassible grandeur, it must have loomed upon the eyes of the first
little caravan trailing its way across the plains to the mysterious
West.
He spent the day doing little else but gaze at the mountains and study
the town.
It was also much more stupendous than he had imagined, and doubts of his
ability to fit with all this splendor came to him with great force. He
remembered the smooth, green swells and fertile fields he had left
behind, and the memory brought a touch of homesickness.
After supper that evening he confided to the landlord his plans for
finding a foreman's position on a stock farm.
"Well, I dunno. There are such places, but they're always snapped up
'fore you can say Jack Robinson."
"Well, I'm going to give it a good try," the young fellow said bravely.
"That's right. If I was you, I'd go out and see some of these
real-estate fellers; they most always know what's going on."
"That's a good idea; much obliged. I'll tackle 'em to-morrow," said
Arthur, and he went off to bed, feeling victory almost a tame bird in
his hands.
The next forenoon he made his first attempt. He had determined on his
speech, and he went into the first office with his song on his lips.
"I'm looking for a place on a dairy farm; I've had five years' practical
experience, and am a graduate of the----Agricultural College. I'm
after the position of bookkeeper and foreman."
The man looked at him gravely.
"You're aiming pretty high, young feller, for this country. There are
plenty of chances to work, punching cattle, but I don't think chances
are good for a foreman's place." He was a kindly man, and repented when
he saw how the young man's face fell. "However, I'll give you some names
of people to see."
On the whole, this was not so depressing, Arthur thought.
The next man made a mistake and took him for an investor. He rose with
great cordiality.
"Ah, good morning, sir--good morning! Have a chair. Just in? Do you feel
the draft there? Oh, all right!" Then he settled himself in his swivel
chair and beamed his warmest. "Well, what do you think of our charming
town?"
Arthur had not the heart to undeceive him, and so, saturated in agony
sweat, crawled out at last, and went timidly on to the third man, who
was kindly and interested in a way, and gave him the names of some
ranchers likely to hire a hand. Some days passed in this sort of search
and resulted in nothing materially valuable, but a strong quality came
out in his nature. Defeat seemed to put a grim sort of resolution into
his soul.
Following faint clews, Ramsey made long walks into the country, toiling
from ranch to ranch over the dun-colored, lonely hills, dogged,
persistent, with lips set grimly.
He was returning late one afternoon from one of these fruitless
journeys. It was one of those strange days that come in all seasons at
that altitude. The air was full of suspended mist--it did not rain, the
road was almost dry under foot, and yet this all-pervasive moisture
seemed soaking everything. It was, in fact, a cloud, for this whole land
was a mountain top.
The road wound among shapeless buttes of red soil, the plain was clothed
on its levels with a short, dry grass, and on the side of the buttes
were scattering, scraggy cedars, looking at a distance like droves of
cattle.
He sat down upon a little hummock to rest, for his feet ached with the
long stretches of hilly road. The larks cried to him out of the mist,
with their piercing sweet notes, cheerful and undaunted ever. There was
a sudden lighting up of the day, as if the lark's song had shot the mist
with silver light.
As he rose and started on with painful slowness, he heard the sound of
horses' hoofs behind him, and a man in a yellow cart came swiftly out of
the gray obscurity.
Arthur stepped aside to let him pass, but he could not help limping a
little more markedly as the man looked at him. The man seemed to
understand.
"Will you ride?" he asked.
Arthur glanced up at him and nodded without speaking. The stranger was a
fine-looking man, with a military cut of beard, getting gray. His face
was ruddy and smiling.
"Thank you. I am rather tired," Arthur said, as he settled into the
seat. "I guess I'll have to own up, I'm about played out."
"I thought you looked foot-sore. I'm enough of a Western man to feel
mean when I pass a man on the road. A footman can get very tired on
these stretches of ours."
"I've tramped about forty miles to-day, I guess. I'm trying to find some
work to do," he added, in desperate confidence.
"Is that so? What kind of work?"
"Well, I wanted to get a place as foreman on a ranch."
"I'm afraid that's too much to expect."
Arthur sighed.
"Yes, I suppose it is. If I'd known as much two weeks ago as I do now, I
wouldn't be here."
"Oh, don't get discouraged; there's plenty of work to do. I can give you
something to do on my place."
"Well, I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing here for me but
the place of a common hand, so if you can give me anything----"
"Oh, yes, I can give you something to do in my garden. Perhaps something
better will open up later. Where are you staying?" he asked, as they
neared town.
Arthur told him, and the man drove him down to his hotel.
"I'd like to have you call at my office to-morrow morning; my partner
does most of the hiring. I've been living in Denver. Here's my card."
After he had driven away, the listening landlord broke forth:
"You're in luck, Cap. If you get a place with Major Thayer you're
fixed."
"Who is he, anyhow?"
"Who is he? Why, he owns all the land up the creek, and banks all over
Colorado."
"Is that so?"
Arthur was delighted. Of course, it was only a common hand's place, but
here was the vista he had looked for--here was the chance.
He stretched his legs under the table in huge content as he ate his
supper. His youthful imagination had seized upon this slender wire of
promise and was swiftly making it a hoop of diamonds.
II.
When he entered the office next day, however, the Major merely nodded to
him over the railing and said:
"Good morning. Take a seat, please."
He seemed deeply engaged with a tall young man of about thirty-five
years of age, with a rugged, smooth-shaven face. The young man spoke
with a marked English accent, and there was a quality in his manner of
speech which appealed very strongly to Arthur.
"Confeound the fellow," the young Englishman was saying, "I've
discharged him. I cawn't re-engage him, ye kneow! We cawn't have a man
abeout who gets drunk, y' kneow--it's too bloody proveoking, Majah."
"But the poor fellow's family, Saulisbury."
"Oh, hang the fellow's family," laughed Saulisbury. "We are not a
poorhouse, y' kneow--or a house for inebriates. I confess I deon't mind
these things as you do, old man. I'm a Britisher, y' kneow, and I
haven't got intristed in your bloody radicalism, y' kneow. I'm in for
Sam Saulisbury 'from the word go,' as you fellows say."
"And you don't get along any better--I mean in a money way."
"I kneow, and that's too deuced queeah. Your blawsted sentimentality
seems note to do you any harm. Still I put it in this way, y' kneow--if
he weren't so deadly sentimental, what couldn't the fellow do, y'
kneow?"
The Major laughed.
"Well, I can't turn Jackson off, even for you."
"Well, deon't do it then--only if he gets drunk agine and drops a match
into the milk can, fancy! and blows us all up, deon't come back on me,
that's all."
They both laughed at this, and the Major said:
"This is the young man I told you about, Mr.--a----"
"Ramsey is my name," said Arthur, rising.
"Mr. Ramsey, this is my partner, Mr. Saulisbury."
"Haow de do," said Saulisbury, with a nod and a glance, which made
Arthur hot with wrath, coming as it did after the talk he had heard.
Saulisbury did not take the trouble to rise. He merely swung round on
his swivel chair and eyed the young stranger.
Arthur was not thick-skinned, and he had been struck for the first time
by the lash of caste, and it raised a welt.
He choked with his rage and stood silent, while Saulisbury looked him
over, and passed upon his good points, as if he were a horse. There was
something in the lazy lift of his eyebrows which maddened Arthur.
"He looks a decent young fellow enough; I suppeose he'll do to try,"
Saulisbury said at last, with cool indifference. "I'll use him, Majah."
"By Heaven, you won't!" Arthur burst out. "I wouldn't work for you at
any price."
He turned on his heel and rushed out.
He heard the Major calling to him as he went down the stairs, but
refused to turn back. The tears of impotent rage filled his eyes, his
fists strained together, and the curses pushed slowly from his lips. He
wished he had leaped upon his insulter where he sat--the smooth, smiling
hound!
He was dizzy with rage. For the first time in his life he had been
trampled upon, and could not, at least he had not, struck his assailant.
As he stood on the street-corner thinking of these things and waiting
for the mist of rage to pass from his eyes, he felt a hand on his arm,
and turned to Major Thayer, standing by his side.
"Look here, Ramsey, you mustn't mind Sam. He's an infernal Englishman,
and can't understand our way of meeting men. He didn't mean to hurt your
feelings."
Arthur looked down at him silently, and there was a look in his eyes
which went straight to the Major's heart.
"Come, Ramsey, I want to give you a place. Never mind this. You will
really be working for me, anyhow."
Saulisbury himself came down the stairs and approached them, putting on
his gloves, and Arthur perceived for the first time that his eyes were
blue and very good-natured. Saulisbury cared nothing for the youth, but
felt something was due his partner.
"I hope I haven't done anything unpardonable," he began, with his
absurd, rising inflection.
Arthur flared up again.
"I wouldn't work for a man like you if I starved. I'm not a dog. You'll
find an American citizen won't knuckle down to you the way your English
peasants do. If you think you can come out here in the West and treat
men like dogs, you'll find yourself mighty mistaken, that's all!"
The men exchanged glances. This volcanic outburst amazed Saulisbury, but
the Major enjoyed it. It was excellent schooling for his English friend.
"Well, work for me, Mr. Ramsey. Sam knuckles down to me on most
questions. I hope I know how to treat my men. I'm trying to live up to
traditions, anyway."
"You'll admit it is a tradition," said Saulisbury, glad of a chance to
sidle away.
The Major dismissed Saulisbury with a move of the hand.
"Now get into my cart, Mr. Ramsey, and we'll go out to the farm and look
things over," he said; and Arthur clambered in.
"I can't blame you very much," the Major continued, after they were well
settled. "I've been trying lately to get into harmonious relations with
my employees, and I think I'm succeeding. I have a father and
grandfather in shirt sleeves to start from and to refer back to, but
Saulisbury hasn't. He means well, but he can't always hold himself in.
He means to be democratic, but his blood betrays him."
Arthur soon lost the keen edge of his grievance under the kindly chat of
the Major.
The farm lay on either side of a small stream which ran among the buttes
and green mesas of the foothills. Out to the left, the kingly peak
looked benignantly across the lesser heights that thrust their ambitious
heads in the light. Cattle were feeding among the smooth, straw-colored
or sage-green hills. A cluster of farm buildings stood against an
abrupt, cedar-splotched bluff, out of which a stream flowed and shortly
fell into a large basin.
The irrigation ditch pleased and interested Arthur, for it was the
finest piece of work he had yet seen. It ran around the edge of the
valley, discharging at its gates streams of water like veins, which
meshed the land, whereon men were working among young plants.
"I'll put you in charge of a team, I think," the Major said, after
talking with the foreman, a big, red-haired man, who looked at Arthur
with his head thrown back and one eye shut.
"Well, now you're safe," said the Major, as he got into his buggy, "so
I'll leave you. Richards will see you have a bed."
Arthur knew and liked the foreman's family at once. They were familiar
types. At supper he told them of his plans, and how he came to be out
there; and they came to feel a certain proprietorship in him at once.
"Well, I'm glad you've come," said Mrs. Richards, after their
acquaintanceship had mellowed a day or two. "You're like our own folks
back in Illinois, and I can't make these foreigners seem neighbors
nohow. Not but what they're good enough, but, land sakes! they don't
jibe in someway."
Arthur winced a little at being classed in with her folks, and changed
the subject.
One Sunday, a couple of weeks later, just as he was putting on his old
clothes to go out to do his evening's chores, the Major and a merry
party of visitors came driving into the yard. Arthur came out to the
carriage, a little annoyed that these city people should not have come
when he had on his Sunday clothes. The Major greeted him pleasantly.
"Good evening, Ramsey. Just hitch the horses, will you? I want to show
the ladies about a little."
Arthur tied the horses to a post and came back toward the Major,
expecting him to introduce the ladies; but the Major did not, and Mrs.
Thayer did not wait for an introduction, but said, with a peculiar,
well-worn inflection:
"Ramsey, I wish you'd stand between me and the horses. I'm as afraid as
death of horses and cows."
The rest laughed in musical uproar, but Arthur flushed hotly. It was the
manner in which English people, in plays and stories, addressed their
butler or coachman.
He helped her down, however, in sullen silence, for his rebellious
heart seemed to fill his throat.
The party moved ahead in a cloud of laughter. The ladies were dainty as
spring flowers in their light, outdoor dresses, and they seemed to light
up the whole barnyard.
One of them made the most powerful impression upon Arthur. She was so
dainty and so birdlike. Her dress was quaint, with puffed sleeves, and
bands and edges of light green, like an April flower. Her narrow face
was as swift as light in its volatile changes, and her little chin
dipped occasionally into the fluff of her ruffled bodice like a swallow
into the water. Every movement she made was strange and sweet to see.
She cried out in admiration of everything, and clapped her slender hands
like a wondering child. Her elders laughed every time they looked at
her, she was so entirely carried away by the wonders of the farm.
She admired the cows and the colts very much, but shivered prettily when
the bull thrust his yellow and black muzzle through the little window of
his cell.
"The horrid thing! Isn't he savage?"
"Not at all. He wants some meal, that's all," said the Major, as they
moved on.
The young girl skipped and danced and shook her perfumed dress as a
swallow her wings, without appearing vain--it was natural in her to do
graceful things.
Arthur looked at her with deep admiration and delight, even while Mrs.
Saulisbury was talking to him.
He liked Mrs. Saulisbury at once, though naturally prejudiced against
her. She had evidently been a very handsome woman, but some concealed
pain had made her face thin and drawn, and one corner of her mouth was
set in a slight fold as if by a touch of paralysis. Her profile was
still very beautiful, and her voice was that of a highly cultivated
American.
She seemed to be interested in Arthur, and asked him a great many
questions, and all her questions were intelligent.
Saulisbury amused himself by joking the dainty girl, whom he called
Edith.
"This is the cow that gives the cream, ye know; and this one is the
buttermilk cow," he said, as they stood looking in at the barn door.
Edith tipped her eager little face up at him:
"Really?"
The rest laughed again.
"Which is the ice-cream cow?" the young girl asked, to let them know
that she was not to be fooled with.
Saulisbury appealed to the Major.
"Majah, what have you done with our ice-cream cow?"
"She went dry during the winter," said the Major; "no demand on her.
'Supply regulated by the demand,' you know."
They drifted on into the horse barn.
"We're in Ramsey's domain now," said the Major, looking at Arthur, who
stood with his hand on the hip of one of the big gray horses.
Edith turned and perceived Arthur for the first time. A slight shock
went through her sensitive nature, as if some faint prophecy of great
storms came to her in the widening gaze of his dark eyes.
"Oh, do you drive the horses?" she asked quickly.
"Yes, for the present; I am the plowman," he said, in the wish to let
her know he was not a common hand. "I hope to be promoted."
Her eyes rested a moment longer on his sturdy figure and his beautifully
bronzed skin, then she turned to her companions.
After they had driven away, Arthur finished his work in silence; he
could hardly bring himself to speak to the people at the supper table,
his mind was in such tumult.
He went up into his little room, drew a chair to the window facing the
glorious mountains, and sat there until the ingulfing gloom of rising
night climbed to the glittering crown of white soaring a mile above the
lights of the city; but he did not really see the mountains; his eyes
only turned toward them as a cat faces the light of a hearth. It helped
him to think, somehow.
He was naturally keen, sensitive, and impressionable; his mind worked
quickly, for he had read a great deal and held his reading at command.
His thought concerned itself first of all with the attitude these people
assumed toward him. It was perfectly evident that they regarded him as a
creature of inferior sort. He was their servant.
It made him turn hot to think how terribly this contrasted with the
flamboyant phraseology of his graduating oration. If the boys knew that
he was a common hand on a ranch, and treated like a butler!
He came back for relief to the face of the girl, the girl who looked at
him differently somehow.
The impression she made on him was one of daintiness and light; her
eager face and her sweet voice, almost childish in its thin quality,
appealed to him with singular force.
She was strange to him, in accent and life; she was good and sweet, he
felt sure of that, but she seemed so far away in her manner of thought.
He wished he had been dressed a little better; his old hat troubled him
especially.
The girls he had known, even the daintiest of them, could drive horses
and were not afraid of cows. Their way of talking was generally direct
and candid, or had those familiar inflections which were comprehensible
to him. She was alien.
Was she a girl? Sometimes she seemed a woman--when her face sobered a
moment--then again she seemed a child. It was this change of expression
that bewildered and fascinated him.
Then her lips were so scarlet and her level brown eyebrows wavered about
so beautifully! Sometimes one had arched while the other remained quiet;
this gave a winsome look of brightness and roguishness to her face.
He came at last to the strangest thing of all: she had looked at him,
every time he spoke, as if she were surprised at finding herself able to
understand his way of speech.
He worked it all out at last. They all looked upon him as belonging to
the American peasantry; he belonged to a lower world--a world of
service. He was brick, they were china.
Saulisbury and Mrs. Thayer were perfectly frank about it; they spoke
from the English standpoint. The Major and Mrs. Saulisbury had been
touched by the Western spirit and were trying to be just to him, with
more or less unconscious patronization.
As his thoughts ran on, his fury came back, and he hammered and groaned
and cursed as he tossed to and fro on his bed, determined to go back
where the American ideas still held--back to the democracy of Lodi and
Cresco.
III.
These spring days were days of growth to the young man. He grew older
and more thoughtful, and seldom joked with the other men.
There came to the surface moods which he had not known before. There
came times when his teeth set together like the clutch of a wolf, as
some elemental passion rose from the depths of his inherited self.
His father had been a rather morose man, jealous of his rights, quick to
anger, but just in his impulses. Arthur had inherited these stronger
traits, but they had been covered and concealed thus far by the smiling
exterior of youth.
Edith came up nearly every day with the Major in order to enjoy the air
and beauty of the sunshine, and when she did not come near enough to nod
to Arthur, life was a weary treadmill for the rest of the day, and the
mountains became mere gloomy stacks of _débris_.
Sometimes she sat on the porch with the children, while Mrs. Richards,
the foreman's wife, a hearty, talkative woman, plied her with milk and
cookies.
"It must be heaven to live here and feed the chickens and cows," the
young girl said one day when Arthur was passing by--quite accidentally.
Mrs. Richards took a seat, wiping her face on her apron.
"Wal, I don't know about that, when it comes to waiting and tendin' on a
mess of 'em; it don't edgicate a feller much. Does it, Art?"
"We don't do it for play, exactly," he replied, taking a seat on the
porch steps and smiling up at Edith. "I can't stand cows; I like horses,
though. Of course, if I were foreman of the dairy, that would be another
thing."
The flowerlike girl looked down at him with a strange glance. Something
rose in her heart which sobered her. She studied the clear brown of his
face and the white of his forehead, where his hat shielded it from the
sun and the wind. The spread of his strong neck, where it rose from his
shoulders, and the clutch of his brown hands attracted her.
"How strong you look!" she said musingly.
He laughed up at her in frank delight.
"Well, I'm not out here for my health exactly, although when I came here
I was pretty tender. I was just out of college, in fact," he said, glad
of the chance to let her know that he was not an ignorant workingman.
She looked surprised and pleased.
"Oh, you're a college man! I have two brothers at Yale. One of them
plays half-back or short-stop, or something. Of course you played?"
"Baseball? Yes, I was pitcher for '88." He heaved a sigh. He could not
think of those blessed days without sorrow.
"Oh, I didn't mean baseball. I meant football."
"We don't play that much in the West. We go in more for baseball. More
science."
"Oh, I like football best, it's so lively. I like to see them when they
get all bunched up, they look so funny, and then when some fellow gets
the ball under his arms and goes shooting around, with the rest all
jumping at him. Oh, oh, it's exciting!"
She smiled, and her teeth shone from her scarlet lips with a more
familiar expression than he had seen on her face before. Some wall of
reserve had melted away, and they chatted on with growing freedom.
"Well, Edith, are you ready?" asked the Major, coming up.
Arthur sprang up as if he suddenly remembered that he was a workingman.
Edith rose also.
"Yes, all ready, uncle."
"Well, we'll be going in a minute.--Mr. Ramsey, do you think that millet
has got water enough?"
"For the present, yes. The ground is not so dry as it looks."
As they talked on about the farm, Mrs. Richards brought out a glass of
milk for the Major.
Arthur, with nice calculation, unhitched the horse and brought it around
while the Major was detained.
"May I help you in, Miss Newell?"
She gave him her hand with a frank gesture, and the Major reached the
cart just as she was taking the lines from Arthur.
"Are you coming?" she gayly cried. "If not, I'll drive home by myself."
"You mean you'll hold the lines."
"No, sir. I can drive if I have a chance."
"That's what the American girl is saying these days. She wants to hold
the lines."
"Well, I'm going to begin right now and drive all the way home."
As they drove off she flashed a roguish glance back at Arthur--a smile
which shadowed swiftly into a look which had a certain appeal in it. He
was very handsome in his working dress.
All the rest of the day that look was with him. He could not understand
it, though her mood while seated upon the porch was perfectly
comprehensible to him.
The following Sunday morning he saddled up one of the horses and went
down to church. He reasoned Edith would attend the Episcopal service,
and he had the pleasure of seeing her pass up the aisle most exquisitely
dressed.
This feeling of pleasure was turned to sadness by sober second thought.
Added to the prostration before his ideal was the feeling that she
belonged to another world--a world of pleasure and wealth, a world
without work or worry. This feeling was strengthened by the atmosphere
of the beautiful little church, fragrant with flowers, delicately
shadowed, tremulous with music.
He rode home in deep meditation. It was curious how subjective he was
becoming. She had not seen him there, and his trip lacked so much of
being a success. Life seemed hardly worth living as he took off his best
suit and went out to feed the horses.
The men soon observed the regularity of these Sunday excursions, and the
word was passed around that Arthur went down to see his girl, and they
set themselves to find out who she was. They did not suspect that he
sought the Major's niece.
It was a keen delight to see her, even at that distance. To get one look
from her, or to see her eyelashes fall over her brown eyes, paid him for
all his trouble, and yet it left him hungrier at heart than before.
Sometimes he got seated in such wise that he could see the fine line of
her cheek and chin. He noticed also her growing color. The free life she
lived in the face of the mountain winds was doing her good.
Sometimes he went at night to the song service, and his rides home alone
on the plain, with the shadowy mountains over there massed in the
starlit sky, were most wonderful experiences.
As he rose and fell on his broncho's steady gallop, he took off his hat
to let the wind stir his hair. Riding thus, exalted thus, one night he
shaped a desperate resolution. He determined to call on her just as he
used to visit the girls at Viroqua with whom he was on the same intimacy
of footing.
He was as good as any class. He was not as good as she was, for he
lacked her sweetness and purity of heart, but merely the fact that she
lived in a great house and wore beautiful garments, did not exclude him
from calling upon her.
IV.
But week after week went by without his daring to make his resolution
good. He determined many times to ask permission to call, but somehow he
never did.
He seemed to see her rather less than at first; and, on her part, there
was a change. She seemed to have lost her first eager and frank
curiosity about him, and did not always smile now when she met him.
Then, again, he could not in working dress ask to call; it would seem so
incongruous to stand before her to make such a request covered with
perspiration and dust. It was hard to be dignified under such
circumstances; he must be washed and dressed properly.
In the meantime, the men had discovered how matters stood, and some of
them made very free with the whole situation. Two of them especially
hated him.
These two men had drifted to the farm from the mines somewhere, and were
rough, hard characters. They would have come to blows with him, only
they knew something of the power lying coiled in his long arms.
One day he overheard one of the men speaking of Edith, and his tone
stopped the blood in Arthur's heart. When he walked among the group of
men his face was white and set.
"You take that back!" he said in a low voice. "You take that back, or
I'll kill you right where you stand!"
"Do him up, Tim!" shouted the other ruffian; but Tim hesitated. "I'll do
him, then," said the other man. "I owe him one myself."
He caught up a strip of board which was lying on the ground near, but
one of the Norwegian workmen put his foot on it, and before he could
command his weapon, Arthur brought a pail which he held in his right
hand down upon his opponent's head.
The man fell as if dead, and the pail shattered into its original
staves. Arthur turned then to face Tim, his hands doubled into mauls;
but the other men interfered, and the encounter was over.
Arthur waited to see if the fallen man could rise, and then turned away
reeling and breathless. For an hour afterward his hands shook so badly
that he could not go on with his work.
At first he determined to go to Richards, the foreman, and demand the
discharge of the two tramps, but as he thought of the explanation
necessary, he gave it up as impossible.
He almost wept with shame and despair at the thought of her name having
been mixed in the tumult. He had meant to kill when he struck, and the
nervous prostration which followed showed him how far he had gone. He
had not had a fight since he was thirteen years of age, and now
everything seemed lost in the light of his murderous rage. It would all
come out sooner or later, and she would despise him.
He went to see the man just before going to supper, and found him in his
barracks, sitting near a pail of cold water from which he was splashing
his head at intervals.
He looked up as Arthur entered, but went on with his ministrations;
after a pause he said:
"That was a terrible lick you give me, young feller--brought the blood
out of my ears."
"I meant to kill you," was Arthur's grim reply.
"I know you did. If that darned Norse hadn't put his foot on that board
_you'd_ be doing this." He lifted a handful of water to his swollen and
aching head.
"What did you go to that board for? Why didn't you stand up like a man?"
"Because you were swinging that bucket."
"Oh, bosh! You were a coward as well as a blackguard."
The man looked up with a gleam in his eye.
"See here, young feller--if this head----"
Arthur's face darkened, and the man stopped short.
"Now listen, Dan Williams, I want to tell you something. I'm not going
to report this. I'm going to let you stay here till you're well, and
then I want this thing settled with Richards looking on; when I get
through with you, then, you'll want a cot in some hospital."
The man's eyes sullenly fell, and Arthur turned toward the door. At the
doorway he turned and a terrible look came into his face.
"And, more than that, if you say another word about--her, I'll brain
you, sick or well!"
As he talked, the old, wild fury returned, and he came back and faced
the wounded man.
"Now, what do you propose to do?" he demanded, his hands clinching.
The other man looked at him, with a curious frown upon his face.
"Think I'm a damned fool!" he curtly answered, and sopped his
handkerchief in the water again.
The rage went out of Arthur's eyes, and he almost smiled, so much did
that familiar phrase convey, with its subtle inflections. It was cunning
and candid and chivalrous all at once. It acknowledged defeat and guilt
and embodied a certain pride in the victor.
"Well, that settles that," said Arthur. "One thing more--I don't want
you to say what made the row between us."
"All right, pard; only, you'd better see Tim."
In spite of his care, the matter came to the ears of Richards, who
laughed over it and told his wife, who stared blankly.
"Good land! When did it happen?"
"A couple of days ago."
"Wal, there! I thought there was a nigger in the fence. Dan had a head
on him like a bushel basket. What was it about?"
"Something Tim said about Edith."
"I want to know! Wal, wal! An' here they've been going around as
peaceful as two kittens ever since."
"Of course. They pitched in and settled it man fashion; they ain't a
couple of women who go around sniffin' and spittin' at each other," said
Richards, with brutal sarcasm. "As near as I can learn, Tim and Dan come
at him to once."
"They're a nice pair of tramps!" said Mrs. Richards indignantly. "I told
you when they come they'd make trouble."
"I told you the cow'd eat up the grindstone," Richards replied with a
grin, walking away.
The more Mrs. Richards thought of it, the finer it all appeared to her.
She was deeply engaged now on Arthur's side, and was very eager to do
something to help on in his "sparking," as she called it. She seized the
first opportunity to tell Edith.
"Don't s'pose you heard of the little fracas we had t'other day," she
began, in phrase which she intended to be delicately indirect.
Edith was sitting in the cart, and Mrs. Richards stood at the wheel,
with her apron shading her head.
"Why, no. What was it?"
"Mr. Ramsey come mighty near gettin' killed." The old woman enjoyed
deeply the dramatic pallor and distortion of the girl's face.
"Why--why--what do you mean?"
"Wal, if he hadn't a lammed one feller with a bucket he'd a been laid
out sure. So Richards says; as it is, it's the other feller that has the
head." She laughed to see the girl's face grow rosy again.
"Then--Mr. Ramsey isn't hurt?"
"Not a scratch! The funny part of it is, they've been going around here
for a week, quiet as you please. I wouldn't have known anything about it
only for Richards."
"Oh, isn't it dreadful?" said the girl.
"Yes, 'tis!" the elder woman readily agreed; "but why don't you ask what
it was all about?"
"Oh, I don't want to know anything more about it; it's too terrible."
Mrs. Richards was approaching the climax.
"It was all about you."
The girl could not realize what part she should have with a disgraceful
row in the barnyard of her uncle's farm.
"Yes, these men--they're regular tramps; I told Richards so the first
time I set eyes on 'em--they made a little free with your name, and Art
he overheard them and he went for 'em, and they both come at him, two
to one, and he lammed both out in a minute--so Richards says. Now I call
that splendid; don't you? A young feller that'll stand up for his girl
ag'in two big tramps----"
The Major had been motioning for Edith to drive on down toward the gate,
and she seized the chance for escape. Her lips quivered with shame and
anger. It seemed already as if she had been splashed with mire.
"Oh, the vulgar creatures!" she said, in her throat, her teeth shut
tight.
"There, isn't that a fine field?" asked the Major, as he pointed to the
cabbages. "There is a chance for an American imitator of Monet--those
purple-brown deeps and those gray-blue-pink pearl tints--What's the
matter, my dear?" he broke off to ask. "Are you ill?"
"No, no, only let's go home," she said, the tears coming into her eyes.
He got in hastily.
"My dear, you are really ill. What's the matter? Has your old enemy the
headache--" He put his arm about her tenderly.
"No, no! I'm sick of this place--I wish I'd never seen it! How could
those dreadful men fight about me? It's horrible!"
The Major whistled.
"Oh, ho! that's got around to you, has it? I didn't know it myself until
yesterday; I was hoping it wouldn't reach you at all. I wouldn't mind
it, my dear. It's the shadow every lovely woman throws, no matter where
she walks; it's only your shadow that has passed over the cesspool."
"But I can't even bear that; it seems like a part of me. What do you
suppose they said of me?" she asked, in morbid curiosity.
"Now, now, dearest, to know that would be stepping into the muck after
your shadow; the talk of such men is unimaginable to you."
"You don't mean Mr. Ramsey?"
"No; Mr. Ramsey is a different sort of man, and I don't suppose anything
else would have brought him to blows with those rough men."
They sat looking straight forward.
"Oh, it's horrible, horrible!"
Her uncle tightened his arm about her.
"I suppose the knowledge of such lower deeps must come to you some day,
but don't seek it now; I've told you all you ought to know. Ramsey meant
well," he went on, after a silence, "but such things do little good, not
enough to pay for the outlay of self-respect. He can't control their
talk when he's out of hearing."
"But I supposed that if a woman was--good--I mean--I didn't know that
men talked in that way about girls--like me. How could they?"
The abyss still fascinated her.
"My dear, such men are only half civilized. They have all the passions
of animals, and all the vices of men. Ramsey was too hot-headed; their
words do not count; they weren't worth whipping."
There was a little silence. They were nearing the mountains again, and
both raised their eyes to the peaks deeply shadowed in Tyrian purple.
"I know how you feel, I think," the Major went on, "but the best thing
to do is to forget it. I'm sorry Ramsey fought. To walk into a gang of
rough men like that is foolish and dangerous too, for the ruffian is
generally the best man physically, I'm sorry to say."
"It was brave, though, don't you think so?" she asked.
He looked at her quickly.
"Oh, yes; it was brave and very youthful."
She smiled a little for the first time.
"I guess I like youth."
"In that case I'll have to promote him for it," he said with a smile
that made her look away toward the mountains again.
V.
Saulisbury took a sudden turn to friendliness, and defended the action
when the Major related the story that night at the dinner table, as they
were seated over their coffee and cigars. He was dining with the
Saulisburys.
"It's uncommon plucky, that's what I think, d'ye kneow. By Jeove, I
didn't think the young dog had it in him, really. He did one fellow up
with a bucket, they say, and met the other fellow with his left. Where
did the young beggah get his science?"
"At college, I suppose."
"But I suppeosed these little Western colleges were a milk-and-wahta
sawt of thing, ye kneow--Baptist and Christian Endeavor, and all that,
ye kneow."
"Oh, no," laughed the Major. "They are not so benighted as that. They
give a little attention to the elementary studies, though I believe
athletics do come second on the curriculum."
"Well, the young dog seems to have made some use of his chawnce," said
Saulisbury, who had dramatized the matter in his own way, and saw Ramsey
doing the two men up in accordance with Queensberry rules. "I wouldn't
hawf liked the jobe meself, do ye kneow. They're forty years apiece, and
as hard as nails."
Mrs. Saulisbury looked up from her walnuts.
"Sam is ready to carry the olive club to Mr. Ramsey. 'The poor beggar,'
as he has called him all along, will be a gentleman from this time
forward."
After the Major had gone, Saulisbury said:
"There's one thing the Majah was careful note to mention, my deah. Why
should this young fellow be going abeout defending the good name of his
niece? Do ye kneow, my deah, I fancy the young idiot is in love with
her."
"Well, suppose he is?"
"But, my deah! In England, you kneow, it wouldn't mattah; it would be a
case of hopeless devotion. But as I understand things heah, it may
become awkward. Don't ye think so, love?"
"It depends upon the young man. Edith could do worse than marry a good,
clean, wholesome fellow like that."
"Good gracious! You deon't allow your mind to go that fah?"
"Why, certainly! I'd much rather she'd marry a strong young workingman
than some burnt-out third-generation wreck of her own set in the city."
"But the fellow has no means."
"He has muscle and brains, and besides, she has something of her own."
Saulisbury filled his pipe slowly.
"Luckily, it's all theory on our part; the contingency isn't heah--isn't
likely to arrive, in fact."
"Don't be too sure. If I can read a girl's heart in the lines of her
face, she's got where principalities and powers are of small account."
"Really?"
"Sure as shooting," she smilingly said.
Saulisbury mused and puffed.
"In that case, we will have to turn in and give the fellow what you
Americans call a boost."
"That's _right_," his wife replied slangily.
Edith went to her room that night with a mind whirling in dizzying
circles, whose motion she could not check. It was terrible to have it
all come in this way.
She knew Arthur cared for her--she had known it from the first--but with
the happy indifference of youth, she had not looked forward to the end
of the summer. The sure outcome of passion had kept itself somewhere in
a golden glimmer on the lower sweep of the river.
She wished for some one to go to for advice. Mrs. Thayer, she knew,
would exclaim in horror over the matter. The Major had hinted the course
she would have to take, which was to show Arthur he had no connection
with her life--if she could. But deep in her heart she knew she could
not do that.
Suddenly a thought came to her which made her flush till the dew of
shame stood upon her forehead. He had never been to see her; she had
always been to see him!
She knew that this was true. She did not attempt to conceal it from
herself now. The charm of those rides with her uncle was the chance of
seeing Arthur. The sweet, never-wearying charm that made this summer one
of perfect happiness, that had made her almost forget her city ways and
friends, that had made her brown and strong with the soil and wind, was
daily contact with a robust and wholesome young man, a sturdy figure
with brown throat and bare, strong arms.
She went off at this point into a retrospective journey along the
pathways of her summer outing. At this place he stood at the watering
trough, leaning upon his great gray horse. Here he was walking behind
his plow; he was lifting his hat--the clear sunshine fell over his face.
She saw again the splendid flex of his side and powerful thigh. Here he
was in the hayfield, and she saw the fork-handle bend like a willow twig
under his smiling effort, the muscles on his brown arms rolling like
some perfect machinery. She idealized all he did, and the entire summer
and the wide landscape seemed filled with prismatic colors.
Then her self-accusations came back. She had gone down into the field to
see him; perhaps the very man who was with him then was one of those who
had jested of her and whom he had punished. Her little hands clutched.
"I'll never go out there again! I'll never see him again--never!" she
said, with her teeth shut tight.
Mrs. Thayer did not take any very great interest in the matter until
Mrs. Saulisbury held a session with her. Then she sputtered in deep
indignation.
"Why, how dare he make love to my niece? Why, the presumptuous thing!
Why, the idea! He's a workingman!"
Mrs. Saulisbury remained calm and smiling. She was the only person who
could manage Mrs. Thayer.
"Yes, that's true. But he's a college-bred man, and----"
"College-bred! These nasty little Western colleges--what do they amount
to? Why, he curries our horses."
Mrs. Saulisbury was amused.
"I know that is an enormity, but I heard the Major tell of currying
horses once."
"That was in the army--anyhow, it doesn't matter. Edith can simply
ignore the whole thing."
"I hope she can, but I doubt it very much."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Edith is interested in him."
"I don't believe it! Why, it is impossible! You're crazy, Jeannette!"
"He's very handsome in a way."
"He's red and big-jointed, and he's a common plowboy." Mrs. Thayer
gasped, returning to her original charge.
Mrs. Saulisbury laughed, being malevolent enough to enjoy the whole
situation.
"He appears to me to be a very uncommon plowboy. Well, I wouldn't try to
do anything about it, Charlotte," she added. "You remember the fate of
the Brookses, who tried to force Maud to give up her clerk. If this is a
case of true love, you might as well surrender gracefully."
"But I can't do that. I'm responsible for her to her father. I'll go
right straight and ask her."
"Charlotte," Mrs. Saulisbury's voice rang with a stern note, "don't you
_presume_ to do such a thing! You will precipitate everything. The girl
don't know her own mind, and if you go up there and attack this young
man, you'll tip the whole dish over. Don't you know you can't safely
abuse that young fellow in her hearing? Sit down now and be reasonable.
Leave her alone for a while. Let her think it over alone."
This good counsel prevailed, and the other woman settled into a calmer
state.
"Well, it's a dreadful thing, anyhow."
"Perfectly dreadful! But you mustn't take a conventional view of it. You
must remember, a good, handsome, healthy man should come first as a
husband, and this young man is very attractive, and I must admit he
seems a gentleman, so far as I can see. Besides, you can't do anything
by storming up to that poor girl. Let her alone for a few days."
Following this suggestion, no one alluded to the fight, or appeared to
notice Edith's changed moods, but Mrs. Saulisbury could not forbear
giving her an occasional squeeze of wordless sympathy, as she passed
her.
It was pitiful to see the tumult and fear and responsibility of the
world coming upon this dainty, simple-hearted girl. Life had been so
straightforward before. No toil, no problems, no choosing of things for
one's self. Now suddenly here was the greatest problem of all coming at
the end of a summer-time outing.
Meanwhile Arthur was longing to see Edith once more, and wondering why
she had stopped coming.
The Major came up on Friday and Saturday, but came alone, and that left
only the hope of seeing Edith at church, and the young fellow worked on
with that to nerve his arm.
The family respected his departure on Sunday. They plainly felt his
depression, and sympathized with it.
"Walk home with her. I would," said Mrs. Richards, as he went through
the kitchen.
"So would I. Dang me if I'd stand off," Richards started to say, but
Arthur did not stop to listen.
As he rode down to the city, he recovered, naturally, a little of his
buoyancy. Sleep had rested his body and cleared his mind for action.
He sat in his usual place at the back of the church, and his heart
throbbed painfully as he saw her moving up the aisle, a miracle of lace
and coolness, with fragrant linen enveloping her lovely young form, so
erect and graceful and slender.
Then his heart bowed down before her, not because she was above him in a
social class--he did not admit that--but because he was a lover, and
she was his ideal. He was cast down as suddenly as he had been exalted
by her timid look around, as was her custom, in order to bow to him.
He stood at the door as they came out, though he felt foolish and boyish
in doing so. She approached him with eyes turned away; but as she passed
him she flashed an appealing, mystical look at him, and, flushing a
radiant pink, slipped out of the side door, leaving him stunned and
smarting for a moment.
As he mounted his horse and rode away toward the ranch, his thoughts
were busy with that strange look of hers. He came to understand and to
believe at last that she appealed to him and trusted in him and waited
for him.
Then something strong and masterful rose in him. He lifted his big brown
fist in the air in a resolution which was like that of Napoleon when he
entered Russia. He turned and rode furiously back toward the town.
As he walked up the gravel path to the Thayer house it seemed like a
castle to him. The great granite portico, the curving flight of steps,
the splendor of the glass above the door, all impressed him with the
terrible gulf between his fortune and hers.
He was met at the door by the girl from the table. He greeted her as his
equal, and said:
"Is Miss Newell at home?"
The girl smiled with perfect knowledge and sympathy. She was on his
side; and she knew, besides, how much it meant to have the hired man
come in at the front door.
"Yes, she's at dinner. Won't you come in, Mr. Ramsey?"
He entered without further words, and followed her into the reception
room, which was the most splendid room he had ever seen. He stood with
his feet upon a rug which was worth more than his year's pay, and he
knew it.
"Just take a seat here, and I'll announce you," said the girl, who was
almost trembling with eagerness to explode her torpedo of news.
"Don't disturb them. I'll wait."
But she had whisked out of the room, having plans of her own; perhaps
revenges of her own.
Arthur listened. He could not help it. He heard the girl's clear,
distinct voice; the open doorways conveyed every word to him.
"It's Mr. Ramsey, ma'am, to see Miss Newell."
The young man's strained ears heard the sudden pause in the click of
knives and plates. He divined the gasps of astonishment with which Mrs.
Thayer's utterance began.
"Well, I declare! Now, Major, you see what I told you?"
"The plucky young dog!" said Saulisbury, in sincere admiration.
Mrs. Thayer went on:
"Now, Mr. Thayer, this is the result of treating your servants as
equals."
The Major laughed.
"My dear, you're a little precipitate. It may be a mistake. The young
man may be here to tell me one of the colts is sick."
"You don't believe any such thing! You heard what the girl said--Oh,
look at Edith!"
There was a sudden pushing and scraping of chairs. Arthur rose, tense,
terrified. A little flurry of voices followed.
"Here, give her some wine! The poor thing! No wonder----"
Then a slight pause.
"She's all right," said the Major in a relieved tone. "Just a little
surprised, that's all."
There came a little inarticulate murmur from the girl, and then another
pause.
"By Jove! this is getting dramatic!" said Saulisbury.
"Be quiet, Sam," said his wife. "I won't have any of your scoffing. I'm
glad there is some sincerity of emotion left in our city girls."
Mrs. Thayer broke in:
"Major, you go right out there and send that impudent creature away.
It's disgraceful!"
Arthur turned cold and hard as granite. His heart rose with a murderous,
slow swell. He held his breath, while the calm, amused voice of the
Major replied:
"But, see here, my dear, it's none of my business. Mr. Ramsey is an
American citizen--I like him--he has a perfect right to call----"
"H'yah, h'yah!" called Saulisbury in a chuckle.
"He's a man of parts, and besides, I rather imagine Edith has given him
the right to call."
The anger died out of Arthur's heart, and the warm blood rushed once
more through his tingling body. Tears came to his eyes, and he could
have embraced his defender.
"Nothing like consistency, Majah," said Saulisbury.
"Sam, will you be quiet?"
The Major went on:
"I imagine the whole matter is for Edith to decide. It's really very
simple. Let her send word to him that she does not care to see him, and
he'll go away--no doubt of it."
"Why, of course," said Mrs. Thayer. "Edith, just tell Mary to say to Mr.
What's-his-name----"
Again that creeping thrill came into the young man's hair. His world
seemed balanced on a needle's point.
Then a chair was pushed back slowly. There was another little flurry.
Again the blood poured over him like a splash of warm water, leaving him
cold and wet.
"Edith!" called the astonished, startled voice of Mrs. Thayer. "What are
you going to do?"
"I'm going to see him," said the girl's firm voice.
There was a soft clapping of two pairs of hands.
As she came through the portière, Edith walked like a princess. There
was amazing resolution in her back-flung head, and on her face was the
look of one who sets sail into unknown seas.
Someway--somehow, through a mist of light and a blur of sound, he met
her--and the cling of her arms about his neck moved him to tears.
No word was uttered till the Major called from the doorway:
"Mr. Ramsey, Mrs. Thayer wants to know if you won't come and have some
dinner."
A STOP-OVER AT TYRE.
I.
Albert Lohr was studying the motion of the ropes and lamps, and
listening to the rumble of the wheels and the roar of the ferocious wind
against the pane of glass that his head touched. It was the midnight
train from Marion rushing toward Warsaw like some savage thing
unchained, creaking, shrieking, and clattering through the wild storm
which possessed the whole Mississippi Valley.
Albert lost sight of the lamps at last, and began to wonder what his
future would be. "First I must go through the university at Madison;
then I'll study law, go into politics, and perhaps some time I may go to
Washington."
In imagination he saw that wonderful city. As a Western boy, Boston to
him was historic, New York was the great metropolis, but Washington was
the great American city, and political greatness the only fame.
The car was nearly empty: save here and there the wide-awake Western
drummer, and a woman with four fretful children, the train was as
deserted as it was frightfully cold. The engine shrieked warningly at
intervals, the train rumbled hollowly over short bridges and across
pikes, swung round the hills, and plunged with wild warnings past little
towns hid in the snow, with only here and there a light shining dimly.
One of the drummers now and then rose up from his cramped bed on the
seats, and swore dreadfully at the railway company for not heating the
cars. The woman with the children inquired for the tenth time, "Is the
next station Lodi?"
"Yes, ma'am, it is," snarled the drummer, as he jerked viciously at the
strap on his valise; "and darned glad I am, too, I can tell yeh! I'll be
stiff as a car-pin if I stay in this infernal ice chest another hour. I
wonder what the company think----"
At Lodi several people got on, among them a fat man and his pretty
daughter abnormally wide awake considering the time of night. She saw
Albert for the same reason that he saw her--they were both young and
good-looking.
He began his musings again, modified by this girl's face. He had left
out the feminine element; obviously he must recapitulate. He'd study
law, yes; but that would not prevent going to sociables and church
fairs. And at these fairs the chances were good for a meeting with a
girl. Her father must be influential--country judge or district
attorney; this would open new avenues.
He was roused by the sound of his own name.
"Is Albert Lohr in this car?" shouted the brakeman, coming in, enveloped
in a cloud of fine snow.
"Yes, here!" shouted Albert.
"Here's a telegram for you."
Albert snatched the envelope with a sudden fear of disaster at home; but
it was dated "Tyre":
"Get off at Tyre. I'll be there.
"Hartley."
"Well, now, that's fun!" said Albert, looking at the brakeman. "When do
we reach there?"
"About 2.20."
"Well, by thunder! A pretty time o' night!"
The brakeman grinned sympathetically. "Any answer?" he asked at length.
"No; that is, none that 'u'd do the matter justice," Albert said,
studying the telegram.
"Hartley friend o' yours?"
"Yes; know him?"
"Yes; he boarded where I did in Warsaw."
When he came back again, the brakeman said to Albert, in a hesitating
way:
"Ain't going t' stop off long, I s'pose?"
"May an' may not; depends on Hartley. Why?"
"Well, I've got an aunt there that keeps boarders, and I kind o' like t'
send her one when I can. If you should happen to stay a few days, go an'
see her. She sets up first-class grub, an' it wouldn't kill anybody,
anyhow, if you went up an' called."
"Course not. If I stay long enough to make it pay I'll look her up sure.
I ain't no Vanderbilt to stop at two-dollar-a-day hotels."
The brakeman sat down opposite Albert, encouraged by his smile.
"Y' see, my division ends at Warsaw, and I run back and forth here every
other day, but I don't get much chance to see them, and I ain't worth a
cuss f'r letter-writin'. Y' see, she's only aunt by marriage, but I like
her; an' I guess she's got about all she can stand up under, an' so I
like t' help her a little when I can. The old man died owning nothing
but the house, an' that left the old lady t' rustle f'r her livin'.
Dummed if she ain't sandy as old Sand. They're gitt'n' along purty----"
The whistle blew for brakes, and, seizing his lantern, the brakeman
slammed out on the platform.
"Tough night for twisting brakes," suggested Albert, when he came in
again.
"Yes--on the freight."
"Good heavens! I should say so. They don't run freight such nights as
this?"
"Don't they? Well, I guess they don't stop for a storm like this if
they's any money to be made by sending her through. Many's the night
I've broke all night on top of the old wooden cars, when the wind cut
like a razor. Shear the hair off a cast-iron mule--_woo-o-o_! There's
where you need grit, old man," he ended, dropping into familiar speech.
"Yes; or need a job awful bad."
The brakeman was struck with this idea. "There's where you're right. A
fellow don't take that kind of a job for the fun of it. Not much! He
takes it because he's got to. That's as sure's you're a foot high. I
tell you, a feller's got t' rustle these days if he gits any kind of a
job----"
"_Toot, too-o-o-o-t, toot!_"
The station passed, the brakeman did not return, perhaps because he
found some other listener, perhaps because he was afraid of boring this
pleasant young fellow. Albert shuddered with a sympathetic pain as he
thought of the men on the tops of the icy cars, with hands straining at
the brake, and the wind cutting their faces like a sand-blast. His mind
went out to the thousands of freight trains shuttling to and fro across
the vast web of gleaming iron spread out on the mighty breast of the
Western plains. Oh, those tireless hands at the wheel and throttle!
He looked at his watch; it was two o'clock; the next station was Tyre.
As he began to get his things together, the brakeman came in.
"Oh, I forgot to say that the old lady's name is Welsh--Mrs. Robert
Welsh. Say I sent yeh, and it'll be all right."
"Sure! I'll try her in the morning--that is, if I find out I'm going to
stay."
"Tyre! _Tyre!_" yelled the brakeman, as with clanging bell and whizz of
steam the train slowed down and the wheels began to cry out in the snow.
Albert got his things together, and pulled his cap firmly down on his
head.
"Here goes!" he muttered.
"Hold y'r breath!" shouted the brakeman. Albert swung himself to the
platform before the station--a platform of planks along which the snow
was streaming like water.
"Good night!" called the brakeman.
"_Good_ night!"
"All-l abo-o-o-ard!" called the conductor somewhere in the storm; the
brakeman swung his lantern, and the train drew off into the blinding
whirl, and the lights were soon lost in the clouds of snow.
No more desolate place could well be imagined. A level plain, apparently
bare of houses, swept by a ferocious wind; a dingy little den called a
station--no other shelter in sight; no sign of life save the dull glare
of two windows to the left, alternately lost and found in the storm.
Albert's heart contracted with a sudden fear; the outlook was appalling.
"Where's the town?" he yelled savagely at a dimly seen figure with a
lantern--a man evidently locking the station door, his only refuge.
"Over there," was the surly reply.
"How far?"
"'Bout a mile."
"A mile!"
"That's what I said--a mile."
"Well, I'll be blanked!"
"Well, y' better be doing something besides standing here, 'r y' 'll
freeze t' death. I'd go over to the Arteeshun House an' go t' bed if I
was in your fix."
"Oh, y' would!"
"I would."
"Well, where _is_ the Artesian House?"
"See them lights?"
"I see them lights."
"Well, they're it."
"Oh, wouldn't your grammar make Old Grammati-cuss curl up, though!"
"What say?" queried the man, bending his head toward Albert, his form
being almost lost in the snow that streamed against them both.
"I said I guessed I'd try it," grinned the youth invisibly.
"Well, I would if I was in your fix. Keep right close after me; they's
some ditches here, and the foot-bridges are none too wide."
"The Artesian is owned by the railway, eh?"
"Yup."
"And you're the clerk?"
"Yup; nice little scheme, ain't it?"
"Well, it'll do," replied Albert.
The man laughed without looking around.
"Keep your longest cuss words till morning; you'll need 'em, take my
word for it."
In the little barroom, lighted by a vilely smelling kerosene lamp, the
clerk, hitherto a shadow and a voice, came to light as a middle-aged man
with a sullen face slightly belied by a sly twinkle in his eyes.
"This beats all the winters I ever _did_ see. It don't do nawthin' but
blow, _blow_. Want to go to bed, I s'pose. Well, come along."
He took up one of the absurd little lamps and tried to get more light
out of it.
"Dummed if a white bean wouldn't be better."
"Spit on it!" suggested Albert.
"I'd throw the whole business out o' the window for a cent," growled the
man.
"Here's y'r cent," said the boy.
"You're mighty frisky f'r a feller gitt'n' off'n a midnight train,"
replied the man, tramping along a narrow hallway, and talking in a voice
loud enough to awaken every sleeper in the house.
"Have t' be, or there'd be a pair of us."
"You'll laugh out o' the other side o' y'r mouth when you saw away on
one o' the bell-collar steaks this house puts up," ended the clerk as
he put the lamp down.
"'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" called Albert after
him, and then plunged into the icy bed.
He was awakened the next morning by the cooks pounding steak down in the
kitchen and wrangling over some division of duty. It was a vile place at
any time, but on a morning like this it was appalling. The water was
frozen, the floor like ice, the seven-by-nine glass frosted so that he
couldn't see to comb his hair.
"All that got me out of bed," said Albert to the clerk, "was the thought
of leaving."
"Got y'r teeth filed?" said the day clerk, with a wink. "Old Collins's
beef will try 'em."
The breakfast was incredibly bad--so much worse than he expected that
Albert was forced to admit he had never seen its like. He fled from the
place without a glance behind, and took passage in an omnibus for the
town, a mile away. It was terribly cold, the thermometer twenty below
zero; but the sun was very brilliant, and the air still.
The driver pulled up before a very ambitious wooden hotel entitled "The
Eldorado," and Albert dashed in at the door and up to the stove, with
both hands covering his ears.
As he stood there, frantic with pain, kicking his toes and rubbing his
ears, he heard a chuckle--a slow, sly, insulting chuckle--turned, and
saw Hartley standing in the doorway, visibly exulting over his misery.
"Hello, Bert! that you?"
"What's left of me. Say, you're a good one, you are? Why didn't you
telegraph me at Marion? A deuce of a night I've had of it!"
"Do ye good," laughed Hartley, a tall, alert, handsome fellow nearly
thirty years of age.
After a short and vigorous "blowing up," Albert said: "Well, now, what's
the meaning of all this, anyhow? Why this change from Racine?"
"Well, you see, I got wind of another fellow going to work this county
for a 'Life of Logan,' and thinks I, 'By jinks! I'd better drop in ahead
of him with Blaine's _Twenty Years._' I telegraphed f'r territory, got
it, and telegraphed to stop you."
"You did it. When did you come down?"
"Last night, six o'clock."
Albert was getting warmer and better-natured.
"Well, I'm here; what ye going t' do with me?"
"I'll use you some way; can't tell. First thing is to find a boarding
place where we can work in a couple o' books on the bill."
"Well, I don't know about that, but I'm going to look up a place a
brakeman gave me a pointer on."
"All right; here goes!"
Scarcely any one was stirring on the streets. The wind was pitilessly
cold, though not strong. The snow under the feet cried out with a note
like glass and steel. The windows of the stores were thick with frost,
and Albert gave a shudder of fear, almost as if he were homeless. He had
never experienced anything like it before.
Entering one of the stores, they found a group of men sitting about the
stove, smoking, chatting, and spitting aimlessly into a huge spittoon
made of boards and filled with sawdust. Each man suspended smoking and
talking as the strangers entered.
"Can any of you gentlemen tell us where Mrs. Welsh lives?"
There was a silence; then the clerk behind the counter said:
"I guess so. Two blocks north and three west, next to last house on
left-hand side."
"Clear as a bell!" laughed Hartley, and they pushed out into the cold
again, drawing their mufflers up to their eyes.
"I don't want much of this," muttered Bert through his scarf.
The house was a large frame house standing on the edge of a bank, and as
the young men waited they could look down on the meadow land, where the
river lay blue and still and as hard as iron.
A pale little girl ten, or twelve years of age, let them in.
"Is this where Mrs. Welsh lives?"
"Yes, sir."
"Will you ask her to come here a moment?"
"Yes, sir," piped the little one. "Won't you sit down by the fire?" she
added, with a quaint air of hospitality.
The room was the usual village sitting room: a cylinder heater full of
wood at one side of it; a rag carpet, much faded, on the floor; a
cabinet organ; a doleful pair of crayon portraits on the wall, one
supposedly a baby--a figure dressed like a child of six months, but with
a face old and cynical enough to be forty-five. The paper on the wall
was of the hideous striped sort, and the chairs were nondescript; but
everything was clean--so clean it looked worn more with brushing than
with use.
A slim woman of fifty, with hollow eyes and a patient smile, came in,
wiping her hands on her apron.
"How d'ye do? Did you want to see me?"
"Yes," said Hartley, smiling. "The fact is, we're book agents, and
looking for a place to board."
"Well--a--I--yes, I keep boarders."
"I was sent here by a brakeman on the midnight express," put in Bert.
"Oh, Tom," said the woman, her face clearing. "Tom's always sending us
people. Why, yes; I've got room for you, I guess--this room here." She
pushed open a folding door leading into what had been her parlor.
"You can have this."
"And the price?"
"Four dollars."
"Eight dollars f'r the two of us. All right; we'll be with you a week or
two if we have luck."
The woman smiled and shut the door. Bert thought how much she looked
like his mother in the back--the same tired droop in the shoulders, the
same colorless dress, once blue or brown, now a peculiar drab,
characterless with much washing.
"Excuse me, won't you? I've got to be at my baking; make y'rselves at
home."
"Now, Jim," said Bert, "I'm going t' stay right here while you go and
order our trunks around--just t' pay you off f'r last night."
"All right," said Hartley, cheerily going out. After getting warm, Bert
sat down at the organ and played a gospel hymn or two from the Moody and
Sankey hymnal. He was in the midst of the chorus of "Let your lower
lights," etc., when a young woman entered the room. She had a
whisk-broom in her hand, and stood a picture of gentle surprise. Bert
wheeled about on his stool.
"I thought it was Stella," she began.
"I'm a book agent," said Bert, rising with his best grace; "I might as
well out with it. I'm here to board."
"Oh!" said the girl, with some relief. She was very fair and very
slight, almost frail. Her eyes were of the sunniest blue, her face pale
and somewhat thin, but her lips showed scarlet, and her teeth were
fine. Bert liked her and smiled.
"A book agent is the next thing to a burglar, I know; but still----"
"Oh, I didn't mean that, but I _was_ surprised. When did you come?"
"Just a few moments ago. Am I in your way?" he inquired, with elaborate
solicitude.
"Oh, no! Please go on; you play very well, I think. It is so seldom
young men play."
"I had to at college; the other fellows all wanted to sing. You play, of
course."
"When I have time." She sighed. There was a weary droop in her voice;
she seemed aware of it, and said more brightly:
"You mean Marion, I suppose?"
"Yes; I'm in my second year."
"I went there two years. Then I had to quit and come home to help
mother."
"Did you? That's why I'm out here on this infernal book business--to get
money."
She looked at him with interest now, noticing his fine eyes and waving
brown hair.
"It's dreadful, isn't it? But you've got a hope to go back. I haven't.
At first I didn't think I could live; but I did." She ended with a sigh,
a far-off expression in her eyes.
There was a pause again. Bert felt that she was no ordinary girl, and
she was quite as strongly drawn to him.
"It almost killed me to give it up. I don't s'pose I'd know any of the
scholars you know. Even the teachers are not the same. Oh, yes--Sarah
Shaw; I think she's back for the normal course."
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Bert, "I know Sarah. We boarded on the same street;
used t' go home together after class. An awful nice girl, too."
"She's a worker. She teaches school. I can't do that, for mother needs
me at home." There was another pause, broken by the little girl, who
called:
"Maud, mamma wants you."
Maud rose and went out, with a tired smile on her face that emphasized
her resemblance to her mother. Bert couldn't forget that smile, and he
was still thinking about the girl, and what her life must be, when
Hartley came in.
"By jinks! It's _snifty_, as dad used to say. You can't draw a long
breath through your nostrils; freeze y'r nose solid as a bottle," he
announced, throwing off his coat with an air which seemed to make him an
old resident of the room.
"By the way, I've just found out why you was so anxious to get into this
house, hey?" he said, slapping Bert's knee. "Another case o' girl."
Bert blushed; he couldn't help it, notwithstanding his innocence in this
case. Hartley went on.
"Oh, I know you! A girl in the house; might 'a' known it," Hartley
continued, in a hoarse whisper.
"I didn't know it myself till about ten minutes ago," protested Bert.
Hartley winked prodigiously.
"Don't tell me! Is she pretty?"
"No--that is, _you_ wouldn't call her so."
"Oh, the deuce I wouldn't! Don't you _wish_ I wouldn't? I'd like to see
the girl I wouldn't call pretty, right to her face, too."
The girl returned at this moment with an armful of wood.
"Let _me_ put it in," cried Hartley, springing up. "Excuse me. My name
is Hartley, book agent: Blaine's 'Twenty Years,' plain cloth, sprinkled
edges, three dollars; half calf, three fifty. This is my friend Mr.
Lohr, of Marion; German extraction, soph at the university."
The girl bowed and smiled, and pushed by him toward the door of the
parlor. Hartley followed her in, and Bert could hear them rattling away
at the stove.
"Won't you sit down and play for us?" asked Hartley, after they returned
to the sitting room, with the persuasive music of the book agent in his
fine voice.
"Oh, no! It's nearly dinner time, and I must help about the table."
"Now make yourselves at home," said Mrs. Welsh, appearing at the door
leading to the kitchen; "if you want anything, just let me know."
"All right. We will; don't worry. We'll be trouble enough.--Nice
people," said Hartley, as he shut the door of their room and sat down.
"But the girl _ain't_ what I call pretty."
By the time the dinner bell rang they were feeling at home in their new
quarters. At the table they met the other boarders: the Brann brothers,
newsdealers; old man Troutt, who kept the livery stable (and smelled of
it); and a small, dark, and wizened woman who kept the millinery store.
The others, who came in late, were clerks.
Maud served the dinner, while Stella and her mother waited upon the
table. Albert was accustomed to this, and made little account of the
service. He did notice the hands of the girl, however, so white and
graceful; no amount of work could quite remove their essential
shapeliness.
Hartley struck up a conversation with the newsdealers and left Bert free
to observe Maud. She was not more than twenty, he decided, but she
looked older, so careworn and sad was her face.
"They's one thing ag'in' yeh," Troutt, the liveryman, was bawling to
Hartley: "they's jest been worked one o' the goldingedest schemes you
_ever_ see! 'Bout six munce ago s'm' fellers come all through here
claimin' t' be after information about the county and the leadin'
citizens; wanted t' write a history, an' wanted all the pitchers of the
leading men, old settlers, an' so on. You paid ten dollars, an' you had
a book an' your pitcher in it."
"I know the scheme," grinned Hartley.
"Wal, sir, I s'pose them fellers roped in every man in this town. I
don't s'pose they got out with a cent less'n one thousand dollars. An'
when the book come--wal!" Here he stopped to roar. "I don't s'pose you
ever see a madder lot o' men in your life. In the first place, they got
the names and the pitchers mixed so that I was Judge Ricker, an' Judge
Ricker was ol' man Daggett. Didn't the judge swear--oh, it was awful!"
"I should say so."
"An' the pitchers that wa'n't mixed was so goldinged _black_ you
couldn't tell 'em from niggers. You know how kind o' lily-livered Lawyer
Ransom is? Wal, he looked like ol' black Joe; he was the maddest man of
the hull b'ilin'. He throwed the book in the fire, and tromped around
like a blind bull."
"It wasn't a success, I take it, then. Why, I should 'a' thought they'd
'a' nabbed the fellows."
"Not much! They was too keen for that. They didn't deliver the books
theirselves; they hired Dick Bascom to do it f'r them. Course Dick
wa'n't t' blame."
"No; I never tried it before," Albert was saying to Maud, at their end
of the table. "Hartley offered me a good thing to come, and as I needed
money, I came. I don't know what he's going to do with me, now I'm
here."
Albert did not go out after dinner with Hartley; it was too cold.
Hartley let nothing stand in the way of business, however. He had been
at school with Albert during his first year, but had gone back to work
in preference to study.
Albert had brought his books with him, planning to keep up with his
class, if possible, and was deep in a study of Cæsar when he heard a
timid knock on the door.
"Come!" he called, student fashion.
Maud entered, her face aglow.
"How natural that sounds!" she said.
Albert sprang up to help her put down the wood in her arms. "I wish
you'd let me bring the wood," he said pleadingly, as she refused his
aid.
"I wasn't sure you were in. Were you reading?"
"Cæsar," he replied, holding up the book. "I am conditioned on Latin.
I'm going over the 'Commentaries' again."
"I thought I knew the book," she laughed.
"You read Latin?"
"Yes, a little--Vergil."
"Maybe you can help me out on these _oratia obliqua_. They bother me
yet. I hate these 'Cæsar saids.' I like Vergil better."
She stood at his shoulder while he pointed out the knotty passage. She
read it easily, and he thanked her. It was amazing how well acquainted
they felt after this; they were as fellow-students.
The wind roared outside in the bare maples, and the fire boomed in its
pent place within. The young people forgot the time and place. The girl
sank into a chair almost unconsciously as they talked of Madison--a
great city to them--of the Capitol building, of the splendid campus, of
the lakes and the gay sailing there in summer and ice-boating in winter,
of the struggles of "rooming."
"Oh, it makes me homesick!" cried the girl, with a deep sigh. "It was
the happiest, sunniest time of all my life. Oh, those walks and talks!
Those recitations in the dear, chalky old rooms! Oh, _how_ I would like
to go back over that hollow doorstone again!"
She broke off, with tears in her eyes. He was obliged to cough two or
three times before he could break the silence.
"I know just how you feel. I know, the first spring when I went back on
the farm, it seemed as if I couldn't stand it. I thought I'd go crazy.
The days seemed forty-eight hours long. It was so lonesome, and so
dreary on rainy days! But of course I expected to go back; that's what
kept me up. I don't think I could have stood it if I hadn't had hope."
"I've given it up now," she said plaintively; "it's no use hoping."
"Why don't you teach?" asked Albert, deeply affected by her voice and
manner.
"I did teach here for a year, but I couldn't endure the noise; I'm not
very strong, and the boys were so rude. If I could teach in a
seminary--teach Latin and English--I should be happy, I think. But I
can't leave mother now."
She began to appear a different girl in the boy's eyes; the cheap dress,
the check apron, could not hide her pure intellectual spirit. Her large
blue eyes were deep with thought, and the pale face, lighted by the glow
of the fire, was as lovely as a rose. Almost before he knew it, he was
telling her of his life.
"I don't see how I endured it as long as I did," he went on. "It was
nothing but work, work, and mud the whole year round; it's just so on
all farms."
"Yes, I guess it is," said she. "Father was a carpenter, and I've always
lived here; but we have people who are farmers, and I know how it is
with them."
"Why, when I think of it now it makes me crawl! To think of getting up
in the morning before daylight, and going out to the barn to do chores,
to get ready to go into the field to work! Working, wasting y'r life on
dirt. Goin' round and round in a circle, and never getting out."
"It's just the same for us women," she corroborated. "Think of us going
around the house day after day, and doing just the same things over an'
over, year after year! That's the whole of most women's lives.
Dish-washing almost drives me crazy."
"I know it," said Albert; "but a fellow has t' do it. If his folks are
workin' hard, why, of course he can't lay around and study. They're not
to blame. I don't know that anybody's to blame."
"No, I don't; but it makes me sad to see mother going around as she
does, day after day. She won't let me do as much as I would." The girl
looked at her slender hands. "You see, I'm not very strong. It makes my
heart ache to see her going around in that quiet, patient way; she's so
good."
"I know, I know! I've felt just like that about my mother and father,
too."
There was a long pause, full of deep feeling, and then the girl
continued in a low, hesitating voice:
"Mother's had an awful hard time since father died. We had to go to
keeping boarders, which was hard--very hard for mother." The boy felt a
sympathetic lump in his throat as the girl went on again: "But she
doesn't complain, and she didn't want me to come home from school; but
of course I couldn't do anything else."
It didn't occur to either of them that any other course was open, nor
that there was any heroism or self-sacrifice in the act; it was simply
_right_.
"Well, I'm not going to drudge all my life," said the boy at last. "I
know it's kind o' selfish, but I can't live on a farm; it 'u'd kill me
in a year. I've made up my mind to study law and enter the bar. Lawyers
manage to get hold of enough to live on decently, and that's more than
you can say of the farmers. And they live in town, where something is
going on once in a while, anyway."
In the pause which followed, footsteps were heard on the walk outside,
and the girl sprang up with a beautiful blush.
"My stars! I didn't think--I forgot--I must go."
Hartley burst into the room shortly after she left it, in his usual
breeze.
"Hul-_lo!_ Still at the Latin, hey?"
"Yes," said Bert, with ease. "How goes it?"
"Oh, I'm whooping 'er up! I'm getting started in great shape. Been up to
the courthouse and roped in three of the county officials. In these
small towns the big man is the politician or the clergyman. I've nailed
the politicians through the ear; now you must go for the ministers to
head the list--that's your lay-out."
"How 'm I t' do it?" said Bert, in an anxious tone. "I can't sell books
if they don't want 'em."
"Yes, yeh can. That's the trade. Offer a big discount. Say full calf,
two fifty; morocco, two ninety. Regular discount to the clergy, ye
know. Oh, they're on to that little racket--no trouble. If you can get a
few of these leaders of the flock, the rest will follow like lambs to
the slaughter. Tra-la-la--who-o-o-_ish_, whish!"
Albert laughed at Hartley as he plunged his face into the ice-cold
water, puffing and wheezing.
"Jeemimy Crickets! but ain't that water cold! I worked Rock River this
way last month, and made a boomin' success. If you take hold here in
the----"
"Oh, I'm all ready to do anything that is needed, short of being kicked
out."
"No danger of that if you're a real book agent. It's the snide that gets
kicked. You've got t' have some savvy in this, just like any other
business." He stopped in his dressing to say, "We've struck a great
boarding place, hey?"
"Looks like it."
"I begin t' cotton to the old lady a'ready. Good 'eal like mother used
t' be 'fore she broke down. Didn't the old lady have a time of it
raisin' me? Phewee! Patient! Job wasn't a patchin'. But the test is
goin' t' come on the biscuit; if her biscuit comes up t' mother's I'm
hern till death."
He broke off to comb his hair, a very nice bit of work in his case.
II.
There was no discernible reason why the little town should have been
called Tyre, and yet its name was as characteristically American as its
architecture. It had the usual main street lined with low brick or
wooden stores--a street which developed into a road running back up a
wide, sandy valley away from the river. Being a county town, it had a
courthouse in a yard near the center of the town, and a big summer
hotel. The valley was peculiarly picturesque. Curiously shaped and oddly
distributed hills rose out of the valley sand abruptly, forming a sort
of amphitheater in which the village lay. These square-topped hills rose
to a common level, showing that they were not the result of an upheaval,
but were the remains of the original stratification left standing after
the vast scooping action of the post-glacial floods.
The abrupt cliffs and lone huge pillars and peaks rising out of tamarack
swamps here and there showed the original layers of rock unmoved. They
looked like ruined walls of castles ancient as hills, on whose massive
tops time had sown sturdy oaks and cedars. They lent a distinct air of
romance to the valley at all times; but when in summer vines clambered
over their rugged sides and underbrush softened their broken lines, it
was not at all difficult to imagine them the remains of an unrecorded,
very warlike people.
Even now, in winter, with yellow-brown and green cedars standing starkly
upon their summits, the hickories and small ashes blue-black with their
masses of fine bare limbs meshed against the snow, these towers had a
distinct charm. The weather was glorious winter, and in the early
morning when the trees glistened with frost, or at evening when the
white light of the sun was softened and violet shadows lay along the
snow, the whole valley was a delight to the eye, full of distinct and
lasting charm, part of the beautiful and strange Mississippi River
scenery.
In the campaign which Hartley began Albert did his best, and his best
was done unconsciously, for the charm of his manner (all unknown to
himself) was the most potent factor in securing consideration.
"I'm not a book agent," he said to one of the clergymen to whom he first
appealed; "I'm a student trying to sell a good book and make a little
money to help me to complete my course at the university."
He did not go to the back door, but walked up to the front, asked to see
the minister, and placed his case at once before him with a smiling
candor and a leisurely utterance quite the opposites of the brazen
timidity and rapid, parrot-like tone of the professional. He secured
three clergymen of the place to head his list, much to the delight and
admiration of Hartley.
"Good! Now corral the alumni of the place. Work the fraternal racket to
the bitter end. Oh, say! there's a sociable to-morrow night; I guess
we'd better go, hadn't we?"
"Go alone?"
"Alone? No! Take some girls. I'm going to take neighbor Picket's
daughter; she's homely as a hedge fence, but I'll take her--great
scheme!"
"Hartley, you're an infernal fraud!"
"Nothing of the kind--I'm business," ended Hartley, with a laugh.
After supper the following day, as Albert was still lingering at the
table with the girls and Mrs. Welsh, he thought of the sociable, and
said on the impulse:
"Are you going to the sociable?"
"No; I guess not."
"Would you go if I asked you?"
"Try me and see!" answered the girl, with a laugh, her color rising.
"All right. Miss Welsh, will you attend the festivity of the evening
under my guidance and protection?"
"Yes, thank you."
"I'll be ready before you are."
"No doubt; I've got to wash the dishes."
"I'll wash the dishes; you go get ready," said the self-regardless
mother.
Albert felt that he had one of the loveliest girls in the room as he led
Maud down the floor of the vestry of the church, filled with laughing
young people moving about or seated at the long tables. Maud's cheeks
were full of delicate color and her eyes shone with maidenly delight as
they took seats at the table to sip a little coffee and nibble a bit of
cake.
"I suppose they _must_ have my fifteen cents some way," said Albert, in
a low voice, "and I guess we'd better sit down."
Maud introduced him to a number of young people who had been students at
the university. They received him cordially, and in a very short time he
was enjoying himself very well indeed. He was reminded rather
disagreeably of his office, however, by seeing Hartley surrounded by a
laughing crowd of the more frolicsome young people. He winked at Albert,
as much as to say, "Good stroke of business."
The evening passed away with songs, games, and recitations, and it was
nearly eleven o'clock when the young people began to wander off toward
home in pairs. Albert and Maud were among the first of the young folks
to bid the rest good night.
The night was clear and cold, but perfectly still, and the young people,
arm in arm, walked slowly homeward under the bare maples, in delicious
companionship. Albert held her arm close to his side.
"Are you cold?" he asked in a low voice.
"No, thank you; the night is lovely," she replied; then added with a
sigh, "I don't like sociables so well as I used to--they tire me out."
"We stayed too long."
"It wasn't that; I'm getting so they seem kind o' silly."
"Well, I feel a little that way myself," he confessed.
"But there is so little to see here in Tyre at any time--no music, no
theaters. I like theaters, don't you?"
"I can't go half enough."
"But nothing worth seeing ever comes into these little towns--and then
we're all so poor, anyway."
The lamp, turned low, was emitting a terrible odor as they entered the
sitting room.
"My goodness! it's almost twelve o'clock. Good night." She held out her
hand.
"Good night," he said, taking it, and giving it a cordial pressure which
she remembered long.
"Good night," she repeated softly, going up the stairs.
Hartley came in a few moments later, and found Bert sitting thoughtfully
by the fire, with his coat and shoes off, evidently in deep abstraction.
"Well, I got away at last--much as ever. Great scheme, that sociable,
eh? I saw your little girl introducing you right and left."
"Say, Hartley, I wish you'd leave her out of this thing; I don't like
the way you speak of her when----"
"Phew! You don't? Oh, all right! I'm mum as an oyster--only keep it up!
Get in all the church sociables, and all that; there's nothing like it."
Hartley soon had canvassers out along the country roads, and was working
every house in town. The campaign promised to lengthen into a month,
perhaps longer. Albert especially became a great favorite. Every one
declared there had never been such book agents in the town: such
gentlemanly fellows, they didn't press anybody to buy; they didn't rush
about and "poke their noses where they were not wanted." They were more
like merchants with books to sell. The only person who failed to see the
attraction in them was Ed Brann, who was popularly supposed to be
engaged to Maud. He grew daily more sullen and repellent, toward Albert
noticeably so.
One evening about six, after coming in from a long walk about town,
Albert entered his room without lighting his lamp, lay down on the bed,
and fell asleep. He had been out late the night before with Maud at a
party, and slumber came almost instantly.
Maud came in shortly, hearing no response to her knock, and after
hanging some towels on the rack went out without seeing the sleeper. In
the sitting room she met Ed Brann. He was a stalwart young man with
curling black hair, and a heavy face at its best, but set and sullen
now. His first words held a menace:
"Say, Maud, I want t' talk to you."
"Very well; what is it, Ed?" replied the girl quietly.
"I want to know how often you're going to be out till twelve o'clock
with this book agent?"
Perhaps it was the derisive inflection on "book agent" that woke Albert.
Brann's tone was brutal--more brutal even than his words, and the girl
turned pale and her breath quickened.
"Why, Ed, what's the matter?"
"Matter is just this: you ain't got any business goin' around with that
feller with my ring on your finger, that's all." He ended with an
unmistakable threat in his voice.
"Very well," said the girl, after a pause, curiously quiet; "then I
won't; here's your ring."
The man's bluster disappeared instantly. Bert could tell by the change
in his voice, which was incredibly great, as he pleaded:
"Oh, don't do that, Maud; I didn't mean to say that; I was mad--I'm
sorry."
"I'm _glad_ you did it _now_, so I can know you. Take your ring, Ed; I
never'll wear it again."
Albert had heard all this, but he did not know how the girl looked as
she faced the man. In the silence which followed she looked him in the
face, and scornfully passed him and went out into the kitchen. He did
not return at supper.
Young people of this sort are not self-analysts, and Maud did not
examine closely into causes. She was astonished to find herself more
indignant than grieved. She broke into an angry wail as she went to her
mother's bosom:
"Mother! mother!"
"Why, what's the matter, Maudie? Tell me. There, there! don't cry, pet!
Who's been hurtin' my poor little bird?"
"Ed has; he said--he said----"
"There, there! poor child! Have you been quarreling? Never mind; it'll
come out all right."
"No, it won't--not the way you mean," the girl cried, lifting her head;
"I've given him back his ring, and I'll never wear it again."
The mother could not understand with what wounding brutality the man's
tone had fallen upon the girl's spirit, and Maud felt in some way as if
she could not explain sufficiently to justify herself. Mrs. Welsh
consoled herself with the idea that it was only a lovers' quarrel--one
of the little jars sure to come when two natures are settling
together--and that all would be mended in a day or two.
But there was a peculiar set look on the girl's face that promised
little for Brann. Albert, being no more of a self-analyst than Maud,
simply said, "Served him right," and dwelt no more upon it for the time.
At supper, however, he was extravagantly gay, and to himself
unaccountably so. He joked Troutt till Maud begged him to stop, and
after the rest had gone he remained seated at the table, enjoying the
indignant color in her face and the flash of her infrequent smile, which
it was such a pleasure to provoke. He volunteered to help wash the
dishes.
"Thank you, but I'm afraid you'd be more bother than help," she replied.
"Thank _you_, but you don't know me. I ain't so green as I look, by no
manner o' means. I've been doing my own housekeeping for four terms."
"I know all about that," laughed the girl. "You young men rooming do
precious little cooking and no dish-washing at all."
"That's a base calumny! I made it a point to wash every dish in the
house, except the spider, once a week; had a regular cleaning-up day."
"And about the spider?"
"I wiped that out nicely with a newspaper every time I wanted to use
it."
"Oh, horrors!--Mother, listen to that!"
"Why, what more could you ask? You wouldn't have me wipe it _six_ times
a day, would you?"
"I wonder it didn't poison you," commented Mrs. Welsh.
"Takes more'n that to poison a student," laughed Albert, as he went out.
The next afternoon he came bursting into the kitchen, where Maud stood
with her sleeves rolled up, deep in the dish pan, while Stella stood
wiping the dishes handed to her.
"Don't you want a sleigh ride?" he asked, boyishly eager.
She looked up with shining eyes.
"Oh, wouldn't I!--Can you get along, mother?"
"Certainly, child; the air'll do you good."
"W'y, Maud!" said the little girl, "you said you didn't want to when
Ed----"
Mrs. Welsh silenced her, and said:
"Run right along, dear; it's just the nicest time o' day. Are there many
teams out?"
"They're just beginning t' come out," said Albert. "I'll have a cutter
around here in about two jiffies; be on hand, sure."
Troutt was standing in the sunny doorway of his stable when the young
fellow dashed up to him.
"Hullo, Uncle Troutt! Harness the fastest nag into your swellest outfit
instanter."
"Aha! Goin' t' take y'r girl out, hey?"
"Yes; and I want 'o do it in style."
"I guess ol' Dan's the idee, if you can drive him; he's a ring-tailed
snorter."
"Fast?"
"Nope; but safe. Gentle as a kitten and as knowin' as a fox. Drive him
with one hand--left hand," the old man chuckled.
"Troutt, you're an insinuating old insinuator, and I'll----"
Troutt laughed till his long faded beard flapped up and down and
quivered with the stress of his enjoyment of his joke. He ended by
hitching a vicious-looking sorrel to a gay, duck-bellied cutter, saying
as he gave up the reins:
"Now, be keerful; Dan's foxy; he's all right when he sees you've got the
reins, but don't drop 'em."
"Don't you worry about me; I grew up with horses," said the
over-confident youth, leaping into the sleigh and gathering up the
lines. "Stand aside, my lord, and let the cortège pass. Hoop-la!"
The brute gave a tearing lunge, and was out of the doorway like a shot
before the old man could utter a word. Albert thrilled with pleasure as
he felt the reins stiffen in his hands, while the traces swung slack
beside the thills.
"If he keeps this up he'll do," he thought.
As he turned up at the gate Maud came gayly down the path, muffled to
the eyes.
"Oh, what a nice cutter! But the horse--is he gentle?" she asked, as she
climbed in.
"As a cow," Albert replied.--"Git out o' this, Bones!"
The main street was already full of teams, wood sleighs, bob-sleighs
filled with children, and here and there a man in a light cutter alone,
out for a race. Laughter was on the air, and the jingle-jangle of bells.
The sun was dazzling in its brightness, and the gay wraps and scarfs
lighted up the street with flecks of color. Loafers on the sidewalks
fired a fusillade of words at the teams as they passed:
"Go it, Bones!"
"'Let 'er _go_, Gallagher!'"
"Ain't she a daisy!"
But what cared the drivers? If the shouts were insolent they laid them
to envy, and if they were pleasant they smiled in reply.
Albert and Maud had made two easy turns up and down the street, when a
man driving a span of large black-hawk horses dashed up a side street
and whirled in just before them. The man was a superb driver, and sat
with the reins held carelessly but securely in his left hand, guiding
the team more by his voice than by the bit. He sat leaning forward with
his head held down in a peculiar and sinister fashion.
"_Hel_-lo!" cried Bert; "that looks like Brann."
"It is," said Maud.
"Cracky! that's a fine team--Black Hawks, both of them. I wonder if ol'
sorrel can pass 'em?"
"Oh, please don't try," pleaded the girl.
"Why not?"
"Because--because I'm afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid something'll happen."
"Something _is_ goin' t' happen; I'm goin' t' pass him if old Bones has
got any _git_ to him."
"It'll make him mad."
"Who mad? Brann?"
"Yes."
"Well, s'pose it does, who cares?"
The teams moved along at an easy pace. Some one called to Brann:
"They're on y'r trail, Ed."
There was something peculiar in the tone, and Brann looked behind for
the first time, and saw them. He swore through his teeth, and turned
about. He looked dogged and sullen, with his bent shoulders and his chin
thrust down.
There were a dozen similar rigs moving up or down the street, and
greetings passed from sleigh to sleigh. Everybody except Brann welcomed
Albert with sincere pleasure, and exchanged rustic jokes with him. As
they slowed up at the upper end of the street and began to turn, a man
on the sidewalk said confidentially:
"Say, cap', if you handle that old rack-o'-bones just right, he'll
distance anything on this road. When you want him to do his best let him
have the rein; don't pull a pound. I used to own 'im--I know 'im."
The old sorrel came round "gauming," his ugly head thrown up, his great
red mouth open, his ears back. Brann and the young doctor of the place
were turning together a little farther up the street. The blacks,
superbly obedient to their driver, came down with flying hoofs, their
great glossy breasts flecked with foam from their champing jaws.
"Come on, fellers!" yelled Brann, insultingly, as he came down past the
doctor, and seemed about to pass Albert and Maud. There was hate in the
glare of his eyes.
But he did not pass. The old sorrel seemed to lengthen; to the
spectators his nose appeared to be glued to the glossy side of Brann's
off black.
"See them blacks trot!" shouted Albert, in ungrammatical enthusiasm.
"See that old sorrel shake himself!" yelled the loafers.
The doctor came tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper.
As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck,
he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins;
the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed that she
was far from doing her best. There was a wild light in her eyes.
These were the fast teams of the town. All interest was centered in
them.
"Clear the track!" yelled the loafers.
"The doc's good f'r 'em."
"If she don't break."
Albert was pulling at the sorrel heavily, absorbed in seeing, as well as
he could for the flung snowballs, the doctor's mare draw slowly, foot
by foot, past the blacks. Suddenly Brann gave a shrill yell and stood up
in his sleigh. The gallant little bay broke and fell behind; Brann gave
a loud laugh; the blacks trotted on, their splendid pace unchanged.
"Let the sorrel out!" yelled somebody.
"Let him loose!" yelled Troutt on the corner, quivering with excitement.
"Let him go!"
Albert remembered what the fellow had said; he let the reins loose. The
old sorrel's teeth came together with a snap; his head lowered and his
tail rose; he shot abreast of the blacks. Brann yelled:
"Sam--Saul, _git!_"
"See them trot!" shouted Bert, lost in admiration; but Maud, frightened
into silence, had covered her head with the robe to escape the blinding
cloud of flying snow. The sorrel drew steadily ahead; he was passing
when Brann turned.
"Durn y'r old horse!" he yelled through his shut teeth, and laid the
whip across the sorrel's hips. The blacks broke wildly, but, strange to
say, the old sorrel increased his speed. Again Brann struck at him, but
missed him, and the stroke fell on Bert's outstretched wrists. He turned
to see what Brann meant by it; he did not see that the blacks were
crowding him to the gutter; his hands felt numb.
"Look _out_, there!"
Before he could turn to look, the cutter seemed to be blown up by a
bomb, and he rose in the air like a vaulter; he saw the traces part, he
felt the reins slip through his hands, and that was all; he seemed to
fall an immeasurable depth into a black abyss.... The next that he knew
was a curious soft murmur of voices, out of which a sweet, agonized
girl-voice broke, familiar but unrecognized:
"Oh, where's the doctor! He's dead--oh, he's dead! _Can't_ you hurry?"
Next came a quick, authoritative voice, still far away, and a hush
followed it; then an imperative order:
"Stand out o' the way! What do you think you can do by crowding on top
of him?"
"Stand back! stand back!" other voices called.
Then he felt something cold on his head: they were taking his cap off
and putting snow on his head; then the doctor (he knew him now) said:
"Let me take him!"
"Oh, can't I do something?" said the sweet voice.
"No--nothing."
Then there came a strange fullness in his head. Shadows lighted by dull
red flashes passed before his eyes; he wondered, in a slow, dull way, if
he were dying. Then this changed: a dull, throbbing ache came into his
head, and as this grew the noise of voices grew more distinct and he
could hear sobbing. Then the dull, rhythmic red flashes passed slowly
away from his eyes, and he opened his lids, but the glare of the
sunlight struck them shut again; he saw only Maud's face, agonized,
white, and wet with tears, looking down into his. He felt the doctor's
hands winding bandages about his head, and he felt a crawling stream of
blood behind his ear, getting as cold as ice as it sank under his
collar.
They raised him a little more, and he opened his eyes on the circle of
hushed and excited men thronging about him. He saw Brann, with wild,
scared face, standing in his cutter and peering over the heads of the
crowd.
"How do you feel now?" asked the doctor.
"Can you hear us? Albert, do you know me?" called the girl.
His lips moved stiffly, but he smiled a little, and at length whispered
slowly, "Yes; I guess--I'm all--right."
"Put him into my cutter; Maud, get in here, too," the doctor commanded,
with all the authority of a physician in a small village. The crowd
opened, and silenced its muttered comments as the doctor and Troutt
helped the wounded man into the sleigh. The pain in his head grew worse,
but Albert's perception of things grew in proportion; he closed his eyes
to the sun, but in the shadow of Maud's breast opened them again and
looked up at her. He felt a vague, childlike pleasure in knowing she was
holding him in her arms; he felt the sleigh moving; he thought of his
mother, and how it would frighten her if she knew.
The doctor was driving the horse and walking beside the sleigh, and the
people were accosting him. Albert could catch their words now and then,
and the reply:
"No; he isn't killed, nor anything near it; he's stunned, that's all; he
isn't bleeding now. No; he'll be all right in a day or two."
"Hello!" said a breathless, hearty voice, "what the deuce y' been doing
with my pardner? Bert, old fellow, are you there?" Hartley asked,
clinging to the edge of the moving cutter, and peering into his friend's
face. Albert smiled.
"I'm here--what there is left of me," he replied faintly.
"Glory! how'd it happen?" he asked of the girl.
"I don't know--I couldn't see--we ran into a culvert," replied Maud.
"Weren't you hurt?"
"Not a bit. I stayed in the cutter."
Albert felt a steady return of waves of pain, but did not know that they
were waves of returning life. He groaned, and tried to rise. The girl
gently but firmly restrained him. Hartley was walking beside the doctor,
talking loudly. "It was a devilish thing to do; the scoundrel ought 'o
be jugged!"
Albert groaned, and tried to rise again. "I'm bleeding yet; I'm soaking
you!"
The girl shuddered, but remained firm.
"No; we're 'most home."
She felt no shame, but a certain exaltation, as she looked into the
curious faces she saw in groups on the sidewalk. The boys who ran
alongside wore in their faces a look of awe, for they imagined
themselves in the presence of death.
Maud gazed unrecognizingly upon her nearest girl friends. They seemed
something alien in that moment; and they, gazing upon her white face and
unrecognizing eyes, spoke in awed whispers.
At the gate the crowd gathered and waited with deepest interest, with a
sort of shuddering pleasure. It was all a strange, unusual, inthralling
romance to them. The dazzling sunshine added to the wonder of it all.
"Ed Brann done it."
"How?" asked several.
"With the butt end of his whip."
"That's a lie! His team ran into Lohr's rig."
"Not much; Ed crowded him into the ditch."
"What fer?"
"'Cause Bert cut him out with Maud."
"Come, get out of the way! Don't stand there gabbing," yelled Hartley,
as he took Albert in his arms and, together with the doctor, lifted him
out of the sleigh.
"Goodness sakes alive! Ain't it terrible! How is he?" asked an old
lady, peering at him as he passed.
On the porch stood Mrs. Welsh, supported by Ed Brann.
"She's all right, I tell you. He ain't hurt much, either; just stunned a
little, that's all."
"Maud! child!" cried the mother, as Maud appeared out of the crowd,
followed by a bevy of girls.
"Mother, _I'm_ all right!" she said as gayly as she could, running into
the trembling arms outstretched toward her; "but, oh, poor Albert!"
After they disappeared into the house the crowd dispersed. Brann went
off by way of the alley; he was not prepared to meet their questions;
but he met his brother and several others in his store.
"Now, what in----you been up to?" was the fraternal greeting.
"Nothing."
"Welting a man on the head with a whip-stock ain't anything, hey?"
"I didn't touch him. We was racing, and he run into the culvert."
"Hank says he saw you strike----"
"He lies! I was strikin' the horse to make him break."
"Oh, yeh was!" sneered the older man. "Well, I hope you understand that
this'll ruin us in this town. If you didn't strike him, they'll say you
run him into the culvert, 'n' every man, woman, 'n' child'll be down on
you, and _me_ f'r bein' related to you. They all know how you feel
towards him for cuttin' you out with Maud Welsh."
"Oh, don't bear down on him too hard, Joe. He didn't mean t' do any
harm," said Troutt, who had followed Ed down to the store. "I guess the
young feller'll come out all right. Just go kind o' easy till we see how
he comes out. If he dies, why, it'll haf t' be looked into."
Ed turned pale and swallowed hastily. "If he should die!" He would be a
murderer; he knew that hate was in his heart. He shivered again as he
remembered the man's white face with the bright red stream flowing down
behind his ear and over his cheek. It almost seemed to him that he _had_
struck him, so close had the accident followed upon the fall of his
whip.
III.
Albert sank into a feverish sleep that night, with a vague perception of
four figures in the room--Maud, her mother, Hartley, and the young
doctor. When he awoke fully in the morning his head felt prodigiously
hot and heavy.
It was early dawn, and the lamp was burning brightly. Outside, a man's
feet could be heard on the squealing snow--a sound which told how still
and cold it was. A team passed with a jingle of bells.
Albert raised his head and looked about. Hartley was lying on the sofa,
rolled up in his overcoat and some extra quilts. He had lain down at
last, worn with watching. Albert felt a little weak, and fell back on
his pillow, thinking about the strange night he had passed--a night more
filled with strange happenings than the afternoon.
His sleep had been broken by the most vivid and exciting dreams, and
through these visions had moved the figures of Hartley, the doctor, and
Maud and her mother. He had a confused idea of the night, but a very
clear idea of the afternoon. He could see the sidewalks lined with
faces, the sun shining on the snow, the old sorrel's side-flung head and
open mouth; the sleigh rose under him again, and he felt the reins burn
through his hands.
As the light grew in the room his mind cleared, and he began to feel
quite like himself again. He lifted his muscular arm and opened and shut
his hand, saying aloud in his old boyish manner:
"I guess I'm all here."
"What's that?" called Hartley, rolling out of bed. "Did you ask for
anything?"
"No--yes; gimme some water, Jim; my mouth is dry as a powder mill."
"How yeh feelin', anyway, pardner?" said Hartley, as he brought the
water.
"First rate, Jim; I guess I'll be all right."
"Well, I guess you'd better keep quiet."
Albert rose partly, assisted by his friend, and drank from the glass a
moment; then fell back on his pillow.
"I don't feel s' well when I sit up."
"Well, don't, then; stay right there where you are. Oh-um!" gaped
Hartley, stretching himself; "it's about time f'r breakfast, I guess.
Want y'r hands washed and y'r hair combed?"
"I guess I ain't reduced to _that_ yet."
"Well, I guess y' _be_, old man. Now keep _quiet_, or have I got t' make
yeh?" he asked in a threatening tone which made Albert smile. He
wondered if Hartley hadn't been sitting up most of the night; but if he
had, he showed little effect of it, for he began to sing a comic song as
he pulled on his boots.
He threw on his coat next, and went out into the kitchen, returning soon
with some hot water, with which he began to bathe the wounded boy's face
and hands as tenderly as a woman.
"There; now I guess you're in shape f'r grub--feel any like grub?--Come
in," he called in answer to a knock on the door.
Mrs. Welsh entered.
"How is he?" she whispered anxiously.
"Oh, I'm all right," cried Albert. "Bring me a plate of pancakes,
quick!"
Mrs. Welsh turned to Hartley with a startled expression, but Hartley's
grin assured her.
"I'm glad to find you so much better," she said, going to his bedside.
"I've hardly slep', I was so much worried about you."
It was very sweet to feel her fingers in his hair, as his mother would
have caressed him.
"I guess I hadn't better take off the bandages till the doctor comes, if
you're comfortable.--Your breakfast is ready, Mr. Hartley, and I'll
bring something for Albert."
Another knock a few minutes later, and Maud entered with a platter,
followed closely by her mother, who carried some tea and milk.
Maud came forward timidly, but when he turned his eyes on her and said
in a cheery voice, "Good morning, Miss Welsh!" she flamed out in rosy
color and recoiled. She had expected to see him pale, dull-eyed, and
with a weak voice, but there was little to indicate invalidism in his
firm greeting. She gave place to Mrs. Welsh, who prepared his breakfast.
She was smitten dumb by this turn of affairs; she hardly dared look at
him as he sat propped up in bed. The crimson trimming on his shirt-front
seemed like streams of blood; his head, swathed in bandages, made her
shudder. But aside from these few suggestions of wounding, there was
little of the horror of the previous day left. He did not look so pale
and worn as the girl herself.
However, though he was feeling absurdly well, there was a good deal of
bravado in his tone and manner, for he ate but little, and soon sank
back on the bed.
"I feel better when my head is low," he explained in a faint voice.
"Can't I do something?" asked the girl, her courage reviving as she saw
how ill and faint he really was. His eyes were closed and he looked the
invalid now.
"I guess you better write to his folks."
"No; don't do that," he said, opening his eyes; "it will only do them
harm an' me no good. I'll be all right in a few days. You needn't waste
your time on me; Hartley'll wait on me."
"Mr. Lohr, how can you say such cruel----"
"Don't mind him now," said Mrs. Welsh. "I'm his mother now, and he's
goin' to do just as I tell him to--ain't you, Albert?"
He dropped his eyelids in assent, and went off in a doze. It was all
very pleasant to be thus treated. Hartley was devotion itself, and the
doctor removed his bandages with the care and deliberation of a man with
a moderate practice; besides, he considered Albert a personal friend.
Hartley, after the doctor had gone, said with some hesitation:
"Well, now, pard, I _ought_ to go out and see a couple o' fellows I
promised t' meet this morning."
"All right, Jim; all right. You go right ahead on business; I'm goin'
t' sleep, anyway, and I'll be all right in a day or two."
"Well, I will; but I'll run in every hour 'r two and see if you don't
want something. You're in good hands, anyway, when I'm gone."
"Won't you read to me?" pleaded Albert in the afternoon, when Maud came
in with her mother to brush up the room. "It's getting rather slow
business layin' here like this. Course I can't ask Jim to stay and read
all the time, and he's a bad reader, anyway; won't you?"
"Shall I, mother?"
"Why, of course, Maud!"
So Maud got a book, and sat down over by the stove, quite distant from
the bed, and read to him from "The Lady of the Lake," while the mother,
like a piece of tireless machinery, moved about the house at the
never-ending succession of petty drudgeries which wear the heart and
soul out of so many wives and mothers, making life to them a pilgrimage
from stove to pantry, from pantry to cellar, and from cellar to
garret--a life that deadens and destroys, coarsens and narrows, till the
flesh and bones are warped to the expression of the wronged and cheated
soul.
Albert's selfishness was in a way excusable. He enjoyed beyond measure
the sound of the girl's soft voice and the sight of her graceful head
bent over the page. He lay, looking and listening dreamily, till the
voice and the sunlit head were lost in his deep, sweet sleep.
The girl sat with closed book, looking at his face as he slept. It was a
curious study to her, a young man--_this_ young man, asleep. His brown
lashes lay on his cheek; his facial lines were as placid as a child's.
As she looked she gained courage to go over softly and peer down on him.
How boyish he seemed! How little to be feared! How innocent, after all!
As she studied him she thought of him the day before, with closed eyes,
a ghastly stream of blood flowing down and soaking her dress. She
shuddered. His hands, clean and strong and white, lay out on the
coverlet, loose and open, the fingers fallen into graceful lines.
Abruptly, a boy outside gave a shout, and she leaped away with a sudden
spring that left her pale and breathless. As she paused in the door and
looked back at the undisturbed sleeper, she smiled, and the pink came
back into her thin face.
Albert's superb young blood began to assert itself, and on the afternoon
of the second day he was able to sit in his rocking chair before the
fire and read a little, though he professed that his eyes were not
strong, in order that Maud should read for him. This she did as often as
she could leave her other work, which was "not half often enough," the
invalid grumbled.
"More than you deserve," she found courage to say.
Hartley let nothing interfere with the book business, and the popular
sympathy for Albert he coined into dollars remorselessly.
"You take it easy," he kept saying to his partner; "don't you
worry--your pay goes on just the same. You're doing well right where you
are. By jinks! biggest piece o' luck," he went on, half in earnest.
"Why, I can't turn around without taking an order--fact! Turned in a
book on the livery bill--that's all right. We'll make a clear hundred
dollars out o' that little bump o' yours."
"Little bump! Say, now, that's----"
"Keep it up--put it on! Don't get up in a hurry. I don't need you to
canvass, and I guess you enjoy this 'bout as well." He ended with a sly
wink and cough.
Yes; the convalescence was delicious; afterward it grew to be one of the
sweetest weeks of his life. Maud reading to him, bringing his food, and
singing for him----yes; all that marred it was the stream of people who
came to inquire how he was getting along. The sympathy was largely
genuine, as Hartley could attest, but it bored the invalid. He had
rather be left in quiet with Walter Scott and Maud, the drone of the
long descriptive passages being a sure soporific.
He did not say, as an older person might, that she was not to be held
accountable for what she did under the stress and tumult of that day;
but he unconsciously did so regard her actions, led to do so by the
changed conditions. In the light of common day it was hurrying to be a
dream.
At the end of a week he was quite himself again, though he still had
difficulty in wearing his hat. It was not till the second Sunday after
the accident that he appeared in the dining room for the first time,
with a large traveling cap concealing the suggestive bandages. He looked
pale and thin, but his eyes danced with joy.
Maud's eyes dilated with instant solicitude. The rest sprang up in
surprise, with shouts of delight, as hearty as brethren.
"Ginger! I'm glad t' see yeh!" said Troutt, so sincerely that he looked
almost winning to the boy. The rest crowded around, shaking hands.
"Oh, I'm on deck again."
Ed Brann came in a moment later with his brother, and there was a
significant little pause--a pause which grew painful till Albert turned
and saw Brann, and called out:
"Hello, Ed! How are you? Didn't know you were here."
As he held out his hand, Brann, his face purple with shame and
embarrassment, lumbered heavily across the room and took it, muttering
some poor apology.
"Hope y' don't blame me."
"Of course not--fortunes o' war. Nobody to blame; just my
carelessness.--Yes; I'll take turkey," he said to Maud, as he sank into
the seat of honor at the head of the table.
Then the rest laughed and took seats, but Brann remained standing near
Albert's chair. He had not finished yet.
"I'm mighty glad yeh don't lay it up against me, Lohr; an' I want 'o say
the doctor's bill is all right; you un'erstand, it's _all right_."
Albert looked at him a moment in surprise. He knew this, coming from a
man like Brann, meant more than a thousand prayers from a ready
apologist; it was a terrible victory, and he made it as easy for his
rival as possible.
"Oh, all right, Ed; only I'd calculated to cheat him out o' part of
it--that is, turn in a couple o' Blaine's 'Twenty Years' on the bill."
Hartley roared, and the rest joined in, but not even Albert perceived
all that it meant. It meant that the young savage had surrendered his
claim in favor of the man he had all but killed. The struggle had been
prodigious, but he had snatched victory out of defeat; his better nature
had conquered.
No one ever gave him credit for it; and when he went West in the spring,
people said his love for Maud had been superficial. In truth, he had
loved the girl as sincerely as he had hated his rival. That he could
rise out of the barbaric in his love and hate was heroic.
When Albert went to ride again, it was on melting snow, with the
slowest horse Troutt had. Maud was happier than she had been since she
left school, and fuller of color and singing. She dared not let a golden
moment pass now without hearing it ring full, and she did not dare to
think how short this day of happiness might be.
IV.
At the end of the fifth week there was a suspicion of spring in the wind
as it swept the southern exposure of the valley. February was drawing to
a close, and there was more than a suggestion of spring in the rapidly
melting snow which still lay on the hills and under the cedars and
tamaracks in the swamps. Patches of green grass, appearing on the sunny
side of the road where the snow had melted, led to predictions of spring
from the loafers beginning to sun themselves on the salt-barrels and
shoe-boxes outside the stores.
A group sitting about the blacksmith shop were talking it.
"It's an early seedin'--now mark my words," said Troutt, as he threw his
knife into the soft ground at his feet. "The sun is crossing the line
earlier this spring than it did last."
"Yes; an' I heard a crow to-day makin' that kind of a--a spring noise
that kind o'--I d' know what--kind o' goes all through a feller."
"And there's Uncle Sweeney, an' that settles it; spring's comin' sure!"
said Troutt, pointing at an old man much bent, hobbling down the street
like a symbolic figure of the old year.
"When _he_ gits out the frogs ain't fur behind."
"We'll be gittin' on to the ground by next Monday," said Sam Dingley to
a crowd who were seated on the newly painted harrows and seeders which
"Svend & Johnson" had got out ready for the spring trade. "Svend &
Johnson's Agricultural Implement Depot" was on the north side of the
street, and on a spring day the yard was one of the pleasantest loafing
places that could be imagined, especially if one wished company.
Albert wished to be alone. Something in the touch and tone of this
spring afternoon made him restless and full of strange thoughts. He took
his way out along the road which followed the river bank, and in the
outskirts of the village threw himself down on a bank of grass which the
snows had protected, and which had already a tinge of green because of
its wealth of sun.
The willows had thrown out their tiny light green flags, though their
roots were under the ice, and some of the hard-wood twigs were tinged
with red. There was a faint, peculiar but powerful odor of uncovered
earth in the air, and the touch of the wind was like a caress from a
moist magnetic hand.
The boy absorbed the light and heat of the sun as some wild thing
might, his hat over his face, his hands folded on his breast; he lay as
still as a statue. He did not listen at first, he only felt; but at
length he rose on his elbow and listened. The ice cracked and fell along
the bank with a long, hollow, booming crash; a crow cawed, and a jay
answered it from the willows below. A flight of sparrows passed,
twittering innumerably. The boy shuddered with a strange, wistful
longing and a realization of the flight of time.
He could have wept, he could have sung; he only shuddered and lay silent
under the stress of that strange, sweet passion that quickened his
heart, deepened his eyes, and made his breath come and go with a
quivering sound. Across the dazzling blue arch of the sky the crow
flapped, sending down his prophetic, jubilant note; the wind, as soft
and sweet as April, stirred in his hair; the hills, deep in their dusky
blue, seemed miles away; and the voices of the care-free skaters on the
melting ice of the river below came to the ear subdued to a unity with
the scene.
Suddenly a fear seized upon the boy--a horror! Life, life was passing!
Life that can be lived only once, and lost, is lost forever! Life, that
fatal gift of the Invisible Powers to man--a path, with youth and joy
and hope at its eastern gate, and despair, regret, and death at its low
western portal!
The boy caught a glimpse of his real significance--a gnat, a speck in
the sun: a boy facing the millions of great and wise and wealthy. He
leaped up, clasping his hands.
"Oh, I _must_ work! I mustn't stay here; I must get back to my studies.
Life is slipping by me, and I am doing nothing, being nothing!"
His face, as pale as death, absolutely shone with his passionate
resolution, and his hands were clinched in a silent, inarticulate
desire.
But on his way back he met the jocund party of skaters going home from
the river, and with the easy shift and change of youth joined in their
ringing laughter. The weird power of the wind's voice was gone, and he
was the unthinking boy again; but the problem was only put off, not
solved.
He had a suspicion of it one night when Hartley said: "Well, pardner,
we're getting 'most ready to pull out. Some way I always get restless
when these warm days begin. Want 'o be moving some way."
This was as sentimental as Hartley ever got; or, if he ever felt more
sentiment, he concealed it carefully.
"I s'pose it must 'a' been in spring that those old chaps, on their
steeds and in their steel shirts, started out for the Holy Land or to
rescue some damsel, hey?" he ended, with a grin. "Now, that's the way I
feel--just like striking out for, say, Oshkosh. This has been a big
strike here, sure's you live; that little piece of lofty tumbling was a
big boom, and no mistake. Why, your share o' this campaign will be a
hundred and twenty dollars sure."
"More'n I've earned," replied Bert.
"No, it ain't. You've done your duty like a man. Done as much in your
way as I have. Now, if you want to try another county with me, say so.
I'll make a thousand dollars this year out o' this thing."
"I guess I'll go back to school."
"All right; don't blame you at all."
"I guess, with what I can earn for father, I can pull through the year.
I _must_ get back. I'm awfully obliged to you, Jim."
"That'll do on that," said Hartley shortly; "you don't owe me anything.
We'll finish delivery to-morrow, and be ready to pull out on Friday or
Sat."
There was an acute pain in Albert's breast somewhere; he had not
analyzed his case at all, and did not now, but the idea of going
affected him strongly. It had been so pleasant, that daily return to a
lovely girlish presence.
"Yes, sir," Hartley was going on; "I'm going to just quietly leave a
book on her center table. I don't know as it'll interest her much, but
it'll show we appreciate the grub, and so on. By jinks! You don't seem
to realize what a worker that woman is. Up five o'clock in the
morning--By the way, you've been going around with the girl a good
deal, and she's introduced you to some first-rate sales; now, if you
want 'o leave her a little something, make it a morocco copy, and charge
it to the firm."
Albert knew that he meant well, but he couldn't, somehow, help saying
ironically:
"Thanks; but I guess _one_ copy of Blaine's 'Twenty Years' will be
enough in the house, especially----"
"Well, give her anything you please, and charge it up to the firm. I
don't insist on Blaine; only suggested that because----"
"I guess I can stand the expense of my own."
"I didn't say you couldn't, man! But _I_ want a hand in this thing.
Don't be so turrible keen t' snap a feller up," said Hartley, turning on
him. "What the thunder is the matter of you anyway? I like the girl, and
she's been good to us all round; she tended you like an angel----"
"There, there! That's enough o' that," put in Albert hastily. "F'r God's
sake don't whang away on that string forever, as if I didn't know it!"
Hartley stared at him as he turned away.
"Well, by jinks! What _is_ the matter o' you?"
He was too busy to dwell upon it much, but concluded his partner was
homesick.
Albert was beginning to have a vague under-consciousness of his real
feeling toward the girl, but he fought off the acknowledgment of it as
long as possible. His mind moved in a circle, coming back to the one
point ceaselessly--a dreary prospect, in which the slender girl-figure
had no place--and each time the prospect grew more intolerably blank,
and the pain in his heart more acute and throbbing.
When he faced her that night, after they had returned from a final
skating party down on the river, he was as far from a solution as ever.
He had avoided all reference to their separation, and now he stood as a
man might at the parting of two paths, saying: "I will not choose; I can
not choose. I will wait for some sign, some chance thing, to direct me."
They stood opposite each other, each feeling that there was more to be
said; the girl tender, her eyes cast down, holding her hands to the
fire; he shivering, but not with cold. He had a vague knowledge of the
vast importance of the moment, and he hesitated to speak.
"It's almost spring again, isn't it? And you've been here--" she paused
and looked up with a daring smile--"seems as if you'd been here always."
It was about half past eight. Mrs. Welsh was setting her bread in the
kitchen; they could hear her moving about. Hartley was downtown
finishing up his business.
Albert's throat grew dry and his limbs trembled. His pause was ominous;
the girl's smile died away as he took a seat without looking at her.
"Well, Maud, I suppose--you know--we're going away to-morrow."
"Oh, must you? But you'll come back?"
"I don't expect to--I don't see how."
"Oh, don't say that!" cried the girl, her face as white as silver, her
clasped hands straining.
"I must--I must!" he muttered, not looking at her, not daring to see her
face.
"Oh, what can I do--_we_ do, without you! I can't bear it!"
She stopped and sank back into a chair, her breath coming heavily from
her twitching lips, the unnoticed tears falling from her staring,
pitiful, wild, appealing eyes, her hands nervously twisting her gloves.
There was a long silence. Each was undergoing a self-revelation; each
was trying to face a future without the other.
"I must go!" he repeated aimlessly, mechanically.
The girl's heavy breathing deepened into a wild little moaning sound,
inexpressibly pitiful, her hungry eyes fixed on his face. She gave way
first, and flung herself down upon her knees at his side, her hands
seeking his neck.
"Albert, I can't _live_ without you now! Take me with you! Don't leave
me!"
He stooped suddenly and took her in his arms, raised her, and kissed her
hair.
"I didn't mean it, Maud; I'll never leave you--never! Don't cry!"
She drew his face down to hers and kissed it, then turned her face to
his breast and laughed and cried. There was a silence; then joy and
confidence came back again.
"I know now what you meant," the girl cried gayly, raising herself and
looking into his face; "you were trying to scare me, and make me show
how much I--cared for you--first!" There was a soft smile on her lips
and a tender light in her eyes. "But I don't mind it."
"I guess I didn't know myself what I meant," he said, with a grave
smile.
When Mrs. Welsh came in, they were sitting on the sofa, talking in low
voices of their future. He was grave and subdued, while she was radiant
with love and hope. The future had no terrors for her. All plans were
good and successful now. But the boy unconsciously felt the gravity of
life somehow deepened by his love.
"Why, Maud!" Mrs. Welsh exclaimed, "what is----"
"O mother, I'm so happy--just as happy as a bird!" she cried, rushing
into her mother's arms.
"Why, why!--what is it? You're crying, dear!"
"No, I'm not; I'm laughing--see!"
Mrs. Welsh turn
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