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A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties

by Charles Major · English · Gutenberg #29486 · 542,728 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties

Author: Charles Major


        
Release date: July 22, 2009 [eBook #29486]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FOREST HEARTH: A ROMANCE OF INDIANA IN THE THIRTIES ***




Produced by Bryan Ness, Woodie4 and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)










  A FOREST HEARTH

  [Illustration: Publishers symbol]

  [Illustration: "HE PRODUCED A SMALL GOLD WATCH WITH THE WORD 'RITA'
  ENGRAVED UPON THE CASE."]




  A Forest Hearth

  A ROMANCE OF INDIANA IN THE THIRTIES

  BY

  CHARLES MAJOR

  AUTHOR OF "DOROTHY VERNON OF HADDON HALL," "THE BEARS OF BLUE RIVER,"
  "WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER," ETC.


  _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLYDE O. DELAND_

  New York

  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

  LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

  1903

  _All rights reserved_



  COPYRIGHT, 1903,

  BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

  Set up, electrotyped, and published October, 1903.

  Norwood Press

  J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.

  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




CONTENTS




CHAPTER


                                                                  PAGE

     I.    ON THE HEART OF THE HEARTH                               11

    II.   THE BACHELOR HEART                                        27

   III.  THE SYCAMORE DIVAN                                         45

    IV.   THE DEBUTANTE                                             61

     V.    UNDER THE ELM CANOPY                                     87

    VI.   THE FIGHT BY THE RIVER SIDE                              107

   VII.  THE TRIAL                                                 133

  VIII. A CHRISTMAS HEARTH LOG                                     153

    IX.   DIC LENDS MONEY GRATIS                                   179

     X.    THE TOURNAMENT                                          203

    XI.   A KISS AND A DUEL                                        225

   XII.  THE LOVE POWDER                                           259

  XIII. THE DIMPLER                                                281

   XIV.  WISE MISS TOUSY                                           303

    XV.   THE CHRISTMAS GIFT                                       329




ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                  PAGE

  "He produced a small gold watch with the word 'Rita'
     engraved upon the case"                           _Frontispiece_

  "She changed it many times"                                       31

  "She flung at the worthy shepherd the opprobrious words, 'You
     fool'"                                                         81

  "'I've come to get my kiss,' said Doug"                          121

  "Covering her face with her hands, she began to weep"            191

  "'Kill him, Dic; kill him as you would a wolf'"                  255

  "Miss Tousy softly kissed her and said, ... 'There, don't cry,
     sweet one'"                                                   315

  "'Here,' replied the girl"                                       349




ON THE HEART OF THE HEARTH




A Forest Hearth

CHAPTER I

ON THE HEART OF THE HEARTH


A strenuous sense of justice is the most disturbing of all virtues, and
those persons in whom it predominates are usually as disagreeable as
they are good. Any one who assumes the high plane of "justice to all,
and confusion to sinners," may easily gain a reputation for goodness
simply by doing nothing bad. Look wise and heavenward, frown severely
but regretfully upon others' faults, and the world will whisper, "Ah,
how good he is!" And you will be good--as the sinless, prickly pear. If
the virtues of omission constitute saintship, and from a study of the
calendar one might so conclude, seek your corona by the way of justice.
For myself, I would rather be a layman with a few active virtues and a
small sin or two, than a sternly just saint without a fault. Breed
virtue in others by giving them something to forgive. Conceive, if you
can, the unutterable horror of life in this world without a few blessed
human faults. He who sins not at all, cannot easily find reason to
forgive; and to forgive those who trespass against us, is one of the
sweetest benedictions of life. I have known many persons who built their
moral structure upon the single rock of justice; but they all bred
wretchedness among those who loved them, and made life harder because
they did not die young.

One woman of that sort, I knew,--Mrs. Margarita Bays. To her face, or in
the presence of those who might repeat my words, I of course called her
"Mrs. Bays"; but when I felt safe in so doing, I called her the "Chief
Justice"--a title conferred by my friend, Billy Little. Later happenings
in her life caused Little to christen her "my Lady Jeffreys," a
sobriquet bestowed upon her because of the manner in which she treated
her daughter, whose name was also Margarita.

The daughter, because she was as sweet as the wild rose, and as gentle
as the soft spring sun, received from her friends the affectionate
diminutive of Rita. And so I shall name her in this history.

Had not Rita been so gentle, yielding, and submissive, or had her
father, Tom Bays,--husband to the Chief Justice,--been more combative
and less amenable to the corroding influences of henpeck, I doubt if
Madam Bays would ever have attained a dignity beyond that of "Associate
Justice." That strong sense of domineering virtue which belongs to the
truly just must be fed, and it waxes fat on an easy-going husband and a
loving, tender daughter.

In the Bays home, the mother's righteous sense of justice and duty,
which applied itself relentlessly upon husband and daughter, became the
weakest sort of indulgence when dealing with the only son and heir.
Without being vicious, Tom, Jr., was what the negroes called "jes' clean
triflin'," and dominated his mother with an inherited club of inborn
selfishness. Before Tom's selfishness, Justice threw away her scales and
became maudlin sentiment.

I have been intimately acquainted with the Bays family ever since they
came to Blue River settlement from North Carolina, and I am going to
tell you the story of the sweetest, gentlest nature God has ever given
me to know--Rita Bays. I warn you there will be no heroics in this
history, no palaces, no grand people--nothing but human nature, the
forests, and a few very simple country folk indeed.

Rita was a babe in arms when her father, her mother, and her
six-year-old brother Tom moved from North Carolina in two great
"schooner" wagons, and in the year '20 or '21 settled upon Blue River,
near the centre of a wilderness that had just been christened "Indiana."

The father of Tom Bays had been a North Carolina planter of considerable
wealth and culture; but when the old gentleman died there were eight
sons and two daughters among whom his estate was to be divided, and some
of them had to choose between moving west and facing the terrors of
battle with nature in the wilderness, and remaining in North Carolina to
become "poor white trash." Tom Bays, Sr., had married Margarita,
daughter of a pompous North Carolinian, Judge Anselm Fisher. Whether he
was a real judge, or simply a "Kentucky judge," I cannot say; but he was
a man of good standing, and his daughter was not the woman to endure the
loss of caste at home. If compelled to step down from the social
position into which she had been born, the step must be taken among
strangers, that part at least of her humiliation might be avoided.

With a heart full of sorrow and determination, Madam Bays, who even then
had begun to manifest rare genius for leadership, loaded two "schooners"
with her household goods, her husband, her son, and her daughter, and
started northwest with the laudable purpose of losing herself in the
wilderness. They carried with them their inheritance, a small bag of gold,
and with it they purchased from the government a quarter-section--one
hundred and sixty acres--of land, at five shillings per acre. The land
on Blue was as rich and fertile as any the world could furnish; but for
miles upon miles it was covered with black forests, almost impenetrable to
man, and was infested by wild beasts and Indians. Here madam and her
husband began their long battle with the hardest of foes--nature; and
that battle, the terrors of which no one can know who has not fought it,
doubtless did much to harden the small portion of human tenderness with
which God had originally endowed her. They built their log-cabin on the
east bank of Blue River, one mile north of the town of the same name.
The river was spoken of simply as Blue.

Artistic beauty is not usually considered an attribute of log-cabins;
but I can testify to the beauty of many that stood upon the banks of
Blue,--among them the house of Bays. The main building consisted of two
ground-floor rooms, each with a front door and a half-story room above.
A clapboard-covered porch extended across the entire front of the house,
which faced westward toward Blue. Back of the main building was a
one-story kitchen, and adjoining each ground-floor room was a huge
chimney, built of small logs four to six inches in diameter. These
chimneys, thickly plastered on the inside with clay, were built with a
large opening at the top, and widened downward to the fireplace, which
was eight or ten feet square, and nearly as high as the low ceiling of
the room. The purpose of these generous dimensions was to prevent the
wooden chimney from burning. The fire, while the chimney was new, was
built in the centre of the enormous hearth that the flames might not
touch the walls, but after a time the heat burnt the clay to the
hardness of brick, and the fire was then built against the back wall. By
pointing up the cracks, and adding a coat of clay now and then, the
walls soon became entirely fireproof, and a fire might safely be kindled
that would defy Boreas in his bitterest zero mood. An open wood fire is
always cheering; so our humble folk of the wilderness, having little
else to cheer them during the long winter evenings, were mindful to be
prodigal in the matter of fuel, and often burned a cord of wood between
candle-light and bedtime on one of their enormous hearths. A cord of
wood is better than a play for cheerfulness, and a six-foot back-log
will make more mirth than Dan Rice himself ever created. Economy did not
enter into the question, for wood was nature's chief weapon against her
enemies, the settlers; and the question was not how to save, but how to
burn it.

To this place Rita first opened the eyes of her mind. The girl's
earliest memories were of the cozy log-cabin upon the banks of the
limpid, gurgling creek. Green in her memory, in each sense of the word,
was the soft blue-grass lawn, that sloped gently a hundred yards from
the cabin, built upon a little rise in the bottom land, down to the
water's edge. Often when she was a child, and I a man well toward middle
life, did I play with the enchanting little elf upon the blue-grass
lawn, and drink the waters of perennial youth at the fountain of her
sweet babyhood. Vividly I remember the white-skinned sycamores, the
gracefully drooping elms, and the sweet-scented honey-locust that grew
about the cabin and embowered it in leafy glory. Even at this long
distance of time, when June is abroad, if I catch the odor of locust
blossoms, my mind and heart travel back on the wings of a moment, and I
hear the buzzing of the wild bees, the song of the meadow-lark, the
whistle of bob-white, and the gurgling of the creek--all blended into
one sweet refrain like the mingling tones of a perfect orchestra by the
soft-voiced babble of my wee girl-baby friend. I close my eyes, and see
the house amid the hollyhocks and trees, a thin line of blue smoke
curling lazily from the kitchen chimney and floating away over the deep,
black forest to the north and east. I see the maples languidly turning
the white side of their leaves to catch the south wind's balmy breath,
and I see by my side a fate-charged, tiny tot, dabbling in the water,
mocking the songs of the birds, and ever turning her face, with its
great brown wistful eyes, to catch the breath of destiny and to hear the
sad dread hum of the future. But my old chum Billy Little was the
child's especial friend.

In those good times there was another child, a boy, Diccon Bright, who
often came down from his cabin home a mile up river to play with Rita on
the blue-grass lawn in summer, or to sit with her on the hearth log in
winter. In cold weather the hearth log was kept on one side of the
hearth, well within the fireplace itself, ready for use when needed. It
gloried in three names, all of which were redolent of home. It was
called the "hearth log" because it was kept upon the hearth; the
"waiting log" because it was waiting to take the place of the log that
was burning, and the "ciphering log" because the children sat upon it in
the evening firelight to do their "ciphering"--a general term used to
designate any sort of preparation for the morrow's lesson. In those
times arithmetic was the chief study, and from it the acquisition of all
branches of knowledge took the name of ciphering.

Diccon--where on earth his parents got the name, I cannot tell--was four
or five years older than Rita. He was a manly boy, and when my little
friend could hardly lisp his name she would run to him with the unerring
instinct of childhood and nestle in his arms or cling to his helpful
finger. The little fellow was so sturdy, strong, and brave, and his dark
gray eyes were so steadfast and true, that she feared no evil from him,
though ordinarily she was a timid child. She would sit by him on the
ciphering log during the long winter evenings, and the boy, the girl,
and the fire were the best of friends, and had glorious times together
on the heart of the cheery hearth. The north wind might blow, the snow
might snow, and the cold might freeze, Rita, Dic, and the fire cared not
a straw.

"I want no better mirror, my little sweetheart," he would say, "than
your brown eyes; no prettier color than your rosy cheeks and glossy
black hair, and no truer friend than your loving little heart." And the
fire crackled its entire approval.

"Very well, Dic," she would reply, laughing with delight, "if you really
want them, you may have them; they are all yours." And the fire smiled
rosily, beaming its benediction.

"But what will your father and mother say and Tom?" asked Dic.

"We'll not tell them," replied this tiny piece of Eve; and the fire
almost choked itself with spluttering laughter. So, with the fire as a
witness, the compact was made and remade many times, until she thought
she belonged to Dic and gloried in her little heart because of it.

Diccon and Rita's brother, Tom, even during their early childhood, when
they were hardly half so tall as the guns they carried, were companion
knights in the great wars waged by the settlers against the wild beasts
of the forests, and many a bear, wolf, wildcat, and deer fell before the
prowess of small Sir Diccon la Valorous and little Sir Thomas de
Triflin'. Out of their slaughter grew friendship, and for many years Sir
Thomas was a frequent guest upon the ciphering log of Sir Diccon, and
Sir Diccon spent many winter evenings on the hearth at Castle Bays.

As the long years of childhood passed, Dic began to visit the Bays home
more frequently than Tom visited the Brights'. I do not know whether
this change was owing to the increasing age of the boys, or--but Rita
was growing older and prettier every day, and you know that may have had
something to do with Dic's visits.

Dic had another boy friend--an old boy, of thirty-five or more--whose
name was William Little. He was known generally as Billy Little, and it
pleased the little fellow to be so called, "Because," said he, "persons
give the diminutive to fools and those whom they love; and I know I am
not a fool." The sweetest words in the German language are their home
diminutives. It is difficult to love a man whom one _must_ call Thomas.
Tom, Jack, and Billy are the chaps who come near to us.

Billy was an old bachelor and an Englishman. His family had intended him
for the church, and he was educated at Trinity with that end in view.
Although not an irreligious man, he had views on religion that were far
from orthodox.

"I found it impossible," he once remarked, "to induce the church to
change its views, and equally impossible to change my own; so the church
and I, each being unreasonably stubborn, agreed to disagree, and I threw
over the whole affair, quarrelled with my family, was in turn thrown
over by them, and here I am, in the wilderness, very much pleased."

He lived in the little town of Blue River, and was justice of the peace,
postmaster, storekeeper, and occasionally school-teacher. He was small
in stature, with a tendency to become rotund as he grew older. He took
pride in his dress and was as cleanly as an Englishman. He was
reasonably willing to do the duty that confronted him, and loved but
three forms of recreation,--to be with his two most intimate friends,
Rita and Dic, to wander in the trackless forests, and to play upon his
piano. His piano was his sweetheart, and often in the warm summer
evenings, when his neighbors were in bed, would the strains of his music
lull them to sleep, and float out into the surrounding forests,
awakening the whippoorwill to heart-rending cries of anguish that would
give a man the "blues" for a month. I believe many ignorant persons
thought that Billy was not exactly "right in the top," as they put it,
because he would often wander through the forests, night or day, singing
to himself, talking to the trees and birds, and clasping to his soul
fair nature in her virgin strength and sweetness. He often communed
with himself after this fashion: "I am a fortunate man in the things I
love, for I have them to my heart's content. Rita and Dic are children.
I give them knowledge. They give me youth. I touch my piano. It fills my
soul with peace. If it gives me a discordant note, the fault is mine. I
go to the forest, and sweet Nature takes me in her arms and lulls me to
ecstasy."

Billy Little and I had been college chums, and had emigrated on the same
ship. I studied law, entered the practice, married, and have a family.
While my wife and family did not mar the friendship between Little and
myself, it prevented frequency of intercourse, for a wife and family are
great absorbents. However, he and I remained friends, and from him I
have most of the facts constituting this story.

This friend of Dic's was a great help to the boy intellectually, and at
fourteen or fifteen years of age, when other boys considered their
education complete if they could spell phthisis and Constantinople, our
hero was reading Virgil and Shakespeare, and was learning to think for
himself. The knowledge obtained from Billy Little the boy tried to
impart to Rita. Tom held learning and books to be effeminate and
wasteful of time; but Rita drank in Dic's teaching, with now and then a
helpful draught from Billy Little, and the result soon began to show
upon the girl.

Thus it was that Dic often went to see Tom, but talked to Tom's sister.
Many an evening, long after Tom had unceremoniously climbed the rude
stairway to bed, would the brown-eyed maid, with her quaint, wistful
touch of womanhood, sit beside Dic on the ciphering log inside the
fireplace, listening to him read from one of Billy Little's books,
watching him trace continents, rivers, and mountains on a map, or
helping him to cipher a complicated problem in arithmetic. The girl by
no means understood all that Dic read, but she tried, and even though
she failed, she would clasp her hands and say, "Isn't it grand, Dic?"
And it was grand to her because Dic read it.

Lamps were unknown to our simple folk, so the light of the fireplace was
all they had to read by. It was, therefore, no uncommon sight in those
early cabin homes to see the whole family sitting upon the broad hearth,
shading their eyes with their hands, while some one--frequently the
local school-teacher--sat upon the hearth log and read by the fire that
furnished both light and heat. This reading was frequently Dic's task in
the Bays home.

One who has seen a large family thus gathered upon the spacious hearth
will easily understand the love for it that ages ago sprang up in the
hearts of men and crickets. At no place in all the earth, and at no time
in all its history, has the hearth done more in moulding human character
than it did in the wilderness on the north side of the lower Ohio when
the men who felled the forest and conquered nature offered their humble
devotions on its homely altar.

So it came to pass that Dic and Rita grew up together on the heart of
the hearth; and what wonder that their own hearts were welded by the
warmth and light of its cheery god. Thus the boy grew to manhood and the
girl to maidenhood, then to young womanhood, at which time, of course,
her troubles began.

Chief among the earlier troubles of our little maid was a growing
tenderness for Dic. Of that trouble she was not for many months aware.
She was unable to distinguish between the affection she had always given
him and the warming tenderness she was beginning to feel, save in her
disinclination to make it manifest. When with him she was under a
constraint as inexplicable to her as it was annoying. It brought grief
to her tender heart, since it led her into little acts of rudeness or
neglect, which in turn always led to tears. She often blamed Dic for the
altered condition, though it was all owing to the change in herself.
There was no change in him. He sought the girl's society as frankly as
when they were children, though at the time of which I write he had made
no effort to "keep company" with her. She, at fifteen, believing herself
to be a young lady, really wished for the advances she feared. Sukey
Yates, who was only fourteen, had "company" every Sunday evening, and
went to all the social frolics for miles around. Polly Kaster, not
sixteen, was soon to be married to Bantam Rhodes. Many young men had
looked longingly upon Rita, who was the most beautiful girl on Blue; but
the Chief Justice, with her daughter's hearty approval, drove all
suitors away. The girl was wholly satisfied with Dic, who was "less than
kin," but very much "more than kind." He came to see the family, herself
included; but when he went out to social functions, church socials,
corn-huskings, and dances he took Sukey Yates, or some other girl, and
upon such evenings our own little maiden went to bed dissatisfied with
the world at large, and herself in particular. Of course, she would not
have gone to dances, even with Dic. She had regard for the salvation of
her soul, and the Chief Justice, in whom the girl had unquestioning
faith, held dancing to be the devil's chief instrument of damnation.
Even the church socials were not suitable for young girls, as you will
agree if you read farther; and Mrs. Margarita, with a sense of propriety
inherited from better days, tried to hold her daughter aloof from the
country society, which entertained honest but questionable views on many
subjects.

Dic paid his informal visit to the Bays household in the evenings, and
at the time of the girl's growing inclination she would gaze longingly
up the river watching for him; while the sun, regretful to leave the
land, wherein her hero dwelt, sank slowly westward to shine upon those
poor waste places that knew no Diccon. When she would see him coming
she would run away for fear of herself, and seek her room in the loft,
where she would scrub her face and hands in a hopeless effort to remove
the sun-brown. Then she would scan her face in a mirror, for which Dic
had paid two beautiful bearskins, hoping to convince herself that she
was not altogether hideous.

"If I could only be half as pretty as Sukey Yates," she often thought,
little dreaming that Sukey, although a very pretty girl, was plain
compared with her own winsome self.

After the scrubbing she would take from a little box the solitary piece
of grandeur she possessed,--a ribbon of fiery red,--and with this around
her neck or woven through the waving floods of her black hair, she felt
she was bedecked like a veritable queen of hearts. But the ribbon could
not remove all doubts of herself, and with tears ready to start from her
eyes she would stamp her foot and cry out: "I hate myself. I am an ugly
fool." Then she would slowly climb down the rude stairway, and, as we
humble folk would say, "take out her spite" against herself on poor Dic.
She was not rude to him, but, despite her inclination, she failed to
repay his friendliness in kind as of yore.

Tom took great pleasure in teasing her, and chuckled with delight when
his indulgent mother would tell her visiting friends that he was a great
tease.

One evening when Rita had encountered more trouble than usual with the
sun-brown, and was more than ever before convinced that she was a fright
and a fool, she went downstairs, wearing her ribbon, to greet Dic, who
was sitting on the porch with father, mother, and Tom. When she emerged
from the front door, Tom, the teaser, said:--

"Oh, just look at her! She's put on her ribbon for Dic." Then, turning
to Dic, "She run to her room and spruced up when she saw you coming."

Dic laughed because it pleased him to think, at least to hope, that Tom
had spoken the truth. Poor Rita in the midst of her confusion
misunderstood Dic's laughter; and, smarting from the truth of Tom's
words, quickly retorted:--

"You're a fool to say such a thing, and if--if--if--Mr.--Mr. Bright
believes it, he is as great a fool as you."

"Mr. Bright!" cried de Triflin'. "My, but she's getting stylish!"

Rita looked at Dic after she spoke, and the pain he felt was so easily
discernible on his face that she would have given anything, even the
ribbon, to have had her words back, or to have been able to cry out, "I
didn't mean it, Dic; I didn't mean it."

But the words she had spoken would not come back, and those she wanted
to speak would not come forward, so tears came instead, and she ran to
her loft, to do penance in sobs greatly disproportionate to her sin.

Soon Dic left, and as he started up the forest path she tried by gazing
at him from her window to make him know the remorse she felt. She wanted
to call to him, but she dared not; then she thought to escape unseen
from the house and run after him. But darkness was rapidly falling, and
she feared the black, terrible forest.

We talk a great deal about the real things of after life; but the real
things of life, the keen joys and the keenest pains, come to a man
before his first vote, and to a woman before the days of her mature
womanhood.




THE BACHELOR HEART

CHAPTER II

THE BACHELOR HEART


Rita's first great pain kept her sleepless through many hours. She
resolved that when Dic should come again she would throw off the
restraint that so hurt and provoked her, and would show him, at whatever
cost, that she had not intended her hard words for him.

The next day seemed an age. She sought all kinds of work to make the
time pass quickly. Churning, usually irksome, was a luxury. She swept
every nook and corner of the house, and longed to sweep the whole farm.

That evening she did not wait till Dic was in sight to put on her
ribbon. She changed it many times from her throat to her hair and back
again, long before the sun had even thought of going down.

Her new attitude toward Dic had at least one good effect: it took from
her the irritation she had so often felt against herself. Losing part of
her self-consciousness in the whirl of a new, strong motive, wrought a
great change, not only in her appearance, but also in her way of looking
at things--herself included. She was almost satisfied with the image her
mirror reflected. She might well have been entirely satisfied. There was
neither guile nor vanity in the girl's heart, nor a trace of deceit in
her face; only gentleness, truth, and beauty. She had not hitherto given
much thought to her face; but with the change in her way of seeing Dic,
her eyes were opened to the value of personal beauty. Then she began to
wonder. Regret for her hard words to Dic deepened her longing for
beauty, in the hope that she might be admired by him and more easily
forgiven. Billy Little, who had seen much of the world, once said that
there was a gentleness and beauty about Rita at this time which he
believed no other woman ever possessed. She was child and woman then,
and that combination is hard to beat, even in a plain girl. Poor old
Billy Little! He was more than thirty years her senior, but I believe
there is no period in the life of a bachelor, however case-hardened he
may be, when his heart is entirely safe from the enemy. That evening
Rita sat on the porch watching for Dic. But the sun and her heart went
down, and Dic did not come.

The plaintive rain cry of a whippoorwill from the branches of a dead
tree across the river, and the whispering "peep, peep, peep," of the
sleepy robins in the foliage near the house, helped to deepen her
feeling of disappointment, and she was thoroughly miserable. She tried
to peer through the gloaming, and feared her father and mother would
mark her troubled eagerness and guess its cause. But her dread of their
comments was neutralized by the fear that Dic would not come.

Opportunity is the touchstone of fate, save with women. With them it is
fate itself. Had Dic appeared late that evening, there would have been a
demonstration on Rita's part, regardless of who might have seen, and the
young man would have discovered an interesting truth. Rita, deeply
troubled, discovered it for herself, and thought surely it was plain
enough for every one else to see.

When darkness had fallen, she became reckless of concealment, and walked
a short way up the river in the hope of meeting Dic. The hooting of an
owl frightened her, but she did not retreat till she heard the howling
of a wolf. Then she ran home at full speed and went to bed full of the
most healthful suffering a heart can know--that which it feels because
of the pain it has given another.

[Illustration: "SHE CHANGED IT MANY TIMES."]

Thus Dic missed both opportunity and demonstration. The next evening he
missed another opportunity, and by the morning of the third day our
little girl, blushing at the thought, determined to write to him and ask
his forgiveness. There was one serious obstacle to writing: she had
neither paper nor ink, nor money with which to buy them. Hitherto she
had found little use for money, but now the need was urgent. Tom always
had money, and she thought of begging a few pennies from him. No! Tom
would laugh, and refuse. If she should ask her mother, a string of
questions would ensue, with "No" for a snapper. Her father would
probably give her money, if she asked for it; but her mother would ask
questions later. She would ride to town, one mile south on Blue, and ask
credit of her old friend, Billy Little, to the extent of a sheet of
paper and a small pot of ink. For a pen she would catch a goose, pluck a
quill, and ask Billy to cut it. Billy could cut the best pen of any one
on Blue.

Dinner over, she caught the goose after an exciting chase, plucked the
quill, saddled her horse, and was slipping away from the back yard when
her mother's voice halted her.

"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. Margarita.

"I'm--I'm--going--going to see Sukey Yates," answered the girl.

She had not intended going to Sukey's, but after her mother's peremptory
demand for information, she formed the _ex post facto_ resolution to do
so, that her answer might not be a lie.

"Now, what on earth do you want there?" asked the Chief Justice.

"I--I only want to sit awhile with her," answered Rita. "May I go? The
work is all done."

"No, you shan't go," responded the kind old lady. You see, one of the
maxims of this class of good persons is to avoid as many small
pleasures as possible--in others. That they apply the rule to
themselves, doesn't help to make it endurable.

Rita--with whom to hear was to obey--sprang from her horse; but just
then her father came upon the scene. His soft words and soothing
suggestions mollified Justice, and Rita started forth upon her visit to
Sukey. She had told her mother she was going to see Sukey Yates; and
when she thought upon the situation, she became convinced that her _ex
post facto_ resolution, even though honestly acted upon, would not avail
her in avoiding a lie, unless it were carried out to the letter and in
the spirit. There was not a lie in this honest girl--not a fractional
part of a lie--from her toes to her head. She went straight to see
Sukey, and did not go to town, though she might easily have done so. She
did not fear discovery. She feared the act of secret disobedience, and
above all she dreaded the lie. A strong motive might induce her to
disobey, but the disobedience in that case would be open. She would go
to Sukey's to-day. To-morrow she would go to town in open rebellion, if
need be. The thought of rebellion caused her to tremble; but let the
powers at home also tremble. Like many of us, she was brave for
to-morrow's battle, since to-morrow never comes.

Rita was not in the humor to listen to Sukey's good-natured prattle, so
her visit was brief, and she soon rode home, her heart full of trouble
and rebellion. But the reward for virtue, which frequently fails to make
its appearance, waited upon our heroine. When she was about to dismount
at the home gate, her father called to her:--

"While you're on your horse, Rita, you might ride to town and ask Billy
Little if there's a letter. The mail came in three days ago."

The monster, Rebellion, at once disappeared, and the girl,
conscience-smitten, resolved never, never to entertain him again. She
rode down the river path through the forest, happy after many days of
wretchedness.

Billy Little's store building consisted of two log-built rooms. The long
front room was occupied by the store and post-office. The back room, as
Billy said, was occupied by his piano and himself. When he saw Rita,
clothed in dainty calico and smiles, gallop up to the hitching-post, his
heart was filled with joy, his face beamed with pleasure, and his scalp
was suffused by a rosy hue. Billy's smooth-shaven face was pale, the
blood never mounting to his cheeks, so he made amends as best he could
and blushed with the top of his head.

"Good evening to you, Rita," he said, as he lifted her to the ground and
hitched her horse. "I am delighted to see you. You come like the rosy
sun after a rainy day."

"The sun doesn't come after the day, Billy Little," retorted the
laughing girl. "You probably mean the pale moon, or a poor dim little
star."

"I know what I mean," answered the little old fellow in tones of mock
indignation, "and I'll not allow a chit of a girl to correct my
astronomy. I'm your schoolmaster, and if I say the sun comes after the
day, why after the day it comes. Now, there!" he continued, as they
entered the store. "Turn your face to the wall and do penance. Such
insolence!"

The girl faced the wall, and after a moment she looked laughingly over
her shoulder at him. "If you'll let me turn around, I'll admit that the
sun comes at midnight, if you say it does, Billy Little."

"Midnight it is," said Billy, sternly. "Take your seat."

She ran laughing to Billy, and clasping his arm affectionately, said
with a touch of seriousness:--

"It comes whenever you say it does, Billy Little. I'd believe you before
I'd believe myself."

Poor old bachelor heart! Look to your breastworks; the enemy is at hand.

"Now I've noticed," said cynical Billy, "that whenever the feminine
heart wants something, it grows tender. What do you want?"

"I want a letter, Billy Little. Father sent me down to fetch it, if
there is one."

"Yes, there's one here," he answered, going back of the glass-covered
pigeon-holes. "There's one here from Indianapolis. It's from your Uncle
Jim Fisher. I suppose he's after your father again to sell his farm and
invest the proceeds in the Indianapolis store. Precious fool he'll be if
he does."

"Indeed, he would not be a fool," retorted the girl. "I'm just wild for
father to move to Indianapolis. I don't want to grow up in the country
like a ragweed or mullein stalk, and I--" ("Like a sweetbrier or a
golden-rod," interrupted Billy) "and I don't want you to advise him not
to go," she continued, unmindful of Billy's flowers of poesy.

"Well, here's the letter. Do you want anything else?"

"N-o-o-no."

"Then, for once, I've found a disinterested female in a coaxing mood,"
replied this modern Diogenes. He came from behind the counter,
pretending to believe her, and started toward the door.

"How's Dic?" he asked. "I haven't seen him for a fortnight. I've been
wondering what has become of him." The girl's face turned red--painfully
so to Billy--as she replied:--

"I--I haven't seen him either for--for a very long time--three days."
She stopped talking and Billy remained silent. After a long pause she
spoke up briskly, as if she had just remembered something.

"Oh, I almost forgot--there _is_ something I want, and--and after all,
you're right. I want--I want--won't you--will you--I say, Billy Little,
won't you let me have a sheet of writing paper and a pot of ink, and
won't you cut this pen for me?"

Billy took the quill and turned to go behind the counter. The girl was
dancing nervously on her toes. "But say, Billy Little, I can't pay you
for them now. Will--will--you trust me?"

Billy did not reply, but went to the letter-paper box.

"You had better take more than one sheet, Rita," he said softly. "If
you're going to write a love-letter to Dic, you will be sure to spoil
the first sheet, perhaps the second and third."

Billy's head blushed vividly after he had spoken, for his remark was a
prying one. The girl had no thought of writing a love-letter, and she
resented the insinuation. She was annoyed because she had betrayed her
purpose in buying the paper. But she loved Billy Little too dearly to
show her resentment, and remained silent. The girl, Billy, and Dic
differing as much as it is possible for three persons to differ, save in
their common love for books and truth, had been friends ever since her
babyhood, and Billy was the only person to whom she could easily lay
bare her heart. Upon second thought she concluded to tell him her
trouble.

"It was this way, Billy Little," she began, and after stumbling over
many words, she made a good start, and the little story of her troubles
fell from her lips like crystal water from a babbling spring.

After her story was finished--and she found great relief in the
telling--Billy said:--

"Of course I'll trust you. I'd trust you for the whole store if you
wanted to buy it. I'd trust you with my soul," he added after a pause.
"There's not a false drop of blood in your veins."

"Ah, Billy Little," she answered, as she took his hand caressingly for
an instant, and her eyes, with their wonderful capacity for expression,
said the rest.

"So, you see, I _do_ want to write a letter to Dic," she said, dropping
his hand; "but it is not to be a love-letter. I could not write one if I
wished. I was very wicked. Oh, Billy Little, I honestly think, at times,
I'm the worst girl that ever lived. Something terrible will happen to me
for my wickedness, I'm sure. Mother says it will."

"Yes, something terrible--terrible, I'm sure," returned Billy, musingly.

"And I want to apologize to him," she continued, "and tell him I didn't
mean it. Isn't it right that I should?"

"Oh, yes--yes," answered Billy, starting out of his revery. "Of course,
yes--Maxwelton's braes are bonny--um--um--um--um--um--yes, oh yes."

When vexed, pleased, or puzzled, Billy was apt to hum the opening line
of "Annie Laurie," though the first four words were all that received
the honor of distinct articulation. The remainder of the stanza he
allowed to die away under his breath. Rita was of course familiar with
the habit, but this time she could not tell which motive had prompted
the musical outburst. Billy himself couldn't have told, but perhaps the
bachelor heart was at the bottom of it.

"Thank you, Billy Little, for the paper," said Rita. "I'll pay you with
the first money I get." Billy silently helped her to mount her horse.
She smiled, "Good-by," and he walked slowly back to the store muttering
to himself: "Billy Little, Billy Little, your breastworks are weak, and
you are a--Maxwelton's braes--um--um--um--um.--Ah, good evening, Mrs.
Carson. Something I can do for you this evening? Sugar? Ah, yes, plenty.
Best in town. Best shipment I ever had," and Billy was once more a
merchant.

When Rita reached home supper was ready, and after the supper work was
finished it was too dark to write; so the letter was postponed a day,
and she took her place on the porch, hoping that Dic would come and that
the letter might be postponed indefinitely. But he did not come. Next
morning churning had again become loathsome, sweeping was hard work, and
dinner was a barbarous institution. Rita had no appetite, and to
sympathize with those who are hungry one must be hungry.

Innumerable very long minutes had woven themselves into mammoth hours
when Rita, having no table in her room, found herself lying on the floor
writing her momentous letter. It was not to be a love-letter; simply an
appeal for forgiveness to a friend whom she had wantonly injured.

"Dear old Billy Little," she said to herself, when she opened the
package. "What pretty paper--and he has given me six sheets in place of
one--and a little pot of ink--and a sand-box! I wonder if the quill is a
good one! Ah, two--three quills! Dear old Billy Little! Here is enough
paper to last me for years." In that respect she was mistaken. She
experienced difficulty with effort number one, but finished the letter
and read it aloud; found it wholly unsatisfactory, and destroyed it. She
used greater care with the next, but upon reading it over she found she
had said too much of what she wished to leave unsaid, and too little of
what she wanted to say. She destroyed number two with great haste and
some irritation, for it was almost a love-letter. The same fate befell
numbers three, four, and five. After all, Billy's liberal supply of
paper would not last for years. If it proved sufficient for one day, she
would be satisfied. Number six, right or wrong, must go to Dic, so she
wrote simply and briefly what was in her heart.

     "DEAR FRIEND DIC: My words were not intended for you. I was angry
     with Tom, as I had good reason to be, though he spoke the truth. I
     did put on my ribbon because I saw you coming, and I have cried
     every night since then because of what I said to you, and because
     you do not come to let me tell you how sorry I am. You should have
     given me a chance. I would have given you one. RITA."

It was a sweet, straightforward letter, half-womanly, half-childish, and
she had no cause to be ashamed of it; but she feared it was bold, and
tears came to her eyes when she read it, because there were no more
sheets of paper, and modest or bold it must go to Dic.

Having written the letter, she had no means of sending it; but she had
entered upon the venture, and was determined to carry it through. Mrs.
Bays and her husband had driven to town, and there was no need for _ex
post facto_ resolutions. When the letter had been properly directed and
duly sealed, the girl saddled her horse and started away on another
journey to Sukey Yates. This time, however, she went somewhat out of her
way, riding up the river path through the forest to Dic Bright's home.
When she reached the barnyard gate Dic was hitching the horses to the
"big wagon." He came at Rita's call, overjoyed at the sight of her. He
knew she had come to ask forgiveness. For many months past he had tried
not to see that she was unkind to him, but her words on the porch had
convinced him, and he saw that her coldness had been intentional. Of
course he did not know the cause of her altered demeanor, and had
regretfully put it down to an altered sentiment on her part. But when he
saw her at the barnyard gate, he was again in the dark as to her motive.

When Dic came up to her she handed him the letter over the gate,
saying: "Read it alone. Let no one see it."

Dic had only time to say, "Thank you," when the girl struck her horse
and galloped down the forest path, bound for Sukey. When she had passed
out of sight among the trees, Dic went down the river to a secluded
spot, known as "The Stepoff," where he could read the letter without
fear of detection. He had long suspected that his love for the girl was
not altogether brotherly, and his recent trouble with her had
crystallized that suspicion into certainty. But he saw nothing back of
the letter but friendship and contrition. The girl's love was so great a
treasure that he dared not even hope for it, and was more than satisfied
with the Platonic affection so plainly set forth in her epistle. We who
have looked into Rita's heart know of a thing or two that does not
resemble Platonism; but the girl herself did not fully know what she
felt, and Dic was sure she could not, under any circumstances, feel as
he did. His mistake grew partly out of his lack of knowledge that
woman's flesh and blood is of exactly the same quality that covers the
bones and flows in the veins of man, and--well, Rita was Rita, and, in
Dic's opinion, no other human being was ever of the quality of her
flesh, or cast in the mould of her nature. The letter told him that he
still held her warm, tender love as a friend. He was thankful for that,
and would neither ask nor expect anything more.

If upon Rita's former visit to Sukey she had been too sad to enjoy the
vivacious little maiden, upon this occasion she was too happy. She sat
listening patiently to her chat, without hearing much of it, until Sukey
said:--

"Dic was over to see me last night. I think he's so handsome, don't
you?"

Rita was so startled that she did not think anything at the moment, and
Sukey presently asked:--

"Don't you think he has a fine head? and his eyes are glorious. The gray
is so dark, and they look right at you."

Rita, compelled to answer, said, "I think he is--is all right--strong."

"Indeed, he is strong," responded Sukey. "When he takes hold of you, you
just feel like he could crush you. Oh, it's delicious--it's
thrilling--when you feel that a man could just tear you to pieces if he
wanted to."

"Why?" asked Rita; "I don't understand."

"Oh, just because," replied Sukey, shrugging her shoulders and laughing
softly, her red lips parted, her little teeth glistening like wet ivory,
and the dimples twinkling mischievously.

"Just because" explained nothing to Rita, but something in Sukey's
laughter and manner aroused undefined and disagreeable suspicions, so
she said:--

"Well, Sukey, I must be going home."

"Why, you just came," returned Sukey, still laughing softly. She had
shot her arrow intentionally and had seen it strike the target's centre.
Sukey was younger than Rita, but she knew many times a thing or two;
while poor Rita's knowledge of those mystic numbers was represented by
the figure O.

Why should Dic "take hold" of any one, thought Rita, while riding home,
and above all, why should he take hold of Sukey? Sukey was pretty, and
Sukey's prettiness and Dic's "taking hold" seemed to be related in some
mysterious manner. She who saw others through the clear lens of her own
conscience did not doubt Dic and Sukey, but notwithstanding her
trustfulness, a dim suspicion passed through her mind that something
might be wrong if Dic had really "taken hold" of Sukey. Where the evil
was, she could not determine; and to connect the straightforward, manly
fellow with anything dishonorable or wicked was impossible to her. So
she dismissed the subject, and it left no trace upon her mind save a
slight irritation against Sukey.

Rita felt sure that Dic would come to see Tom that evening, and the red
ribbon was in evidence soon after supper. Dic did come, and there was at
least one happy girl on Blue.




THE SYCAMORE DIVAN

CHAPTER III

THE SYCAMORE DIVAN


A virgin love in the heart of a young girl is like an effervescent
chemical: it may withstand a great shock, but a single drop of an
apparently harmless liquid may cause it to evaporate. This risk Dic took
when he went that evening to see Tom; and the fact that Rita had written
her letter, of which she had such grave misgivings, together with the
words of Sukey Yates, made his risk doubly great. Poor Dic needed a
thorough knowledge of chemistry. He did not know that he possessed it,
but he was a pure-minded, manly man, and the knowledge was innate with
him.

"Good evening, Rita," said Dic, when, after many efforts, she came out
upon the porch where he was sitting with her father, her mother, and
Tom.

"Good morning," answered Rita, confusedly, and her mistake as to the
time of day added to her confusion.

"Good morning!" cried Tom. "It's evening. My! but she's confused because
you're here, Dic."

Tom was possessed of a simian acuteness that had led him to discover
poor Rita's secret before she herself was fully aware of its existence.
She, however, was rapidly making the interesting discovery, and feared
that between the ribbon, the letter, and Tom's amiable jokes, Dic would
discover it and presume upon the fact. From the mingling of these doubts
and fears grew a feeling of resentment against Dic--a conviction before
the fact. She wished him to know her regard for him, but she did not
want him to learn it from any act of hers. She desired him to wrest it
from her by main force, and as little awkwardness as a man may use. Had
Dic by the smallest word or act shown a disposition to profit by what
Rita feared had been excessive frankness in her letter, or had he, in
any degree, assumed the attitude of a confident lover, such word or act
would have furnished the needful chemical drop, and Dic's interests
would have suffered. His safety at this time lay in ignorance. He did
not suspect that Rita loved him, and there was no change in his open
friendly demeanor. He was so easy, frank, and happy that evening that
the girl soon began to feel that nothing unusual had happened, and that,
after all, the letter was not bold, but perfectly right, and quite
proper in all respects. Unconsciously to her Dic received the credit for
her eased conscience, and she was grateful to him. She was more
comfortable, and the evening seemed more like old times than for many
months before.

Soon after Dic's arrival, Tom rode over to see Sukey Yates. As the
hollyhock to the bees, so was Sukey to the country beaux--a conspicuous,
inviting, easily reached little reservoir of very sweet honey. Later,
Mr. and Mrs. Bays drove to town, leaving Dic and Rita to themselves,
much to the girl's alarm, though she and Dic had been alone together
many times before. Thus Dic had further opportunity to make a mistake;
but he did not mention the letter, and the girl's confidence came slowly
back to her.

The evening was balmy, and after a time Dic and Rita walked to the crest
of the little slope that fell gently ten or fifteen feet to the water's
edge. A sycamore log answered the purpose of a divan, and a great
drooping elm furnished a royal canopy. A half-moon hung in the sky,
whitening a few small clouds that seemed to be painted on the blue-black
dome. The air, though not oppressive, was warm enough to make all
nature languorous, and the soft breath of the south wind was almost
narcotic in its power to soothe. A great forest is never still; even its
silence has a note of its own. The trees seem to whisper to each other
in the rustling of their leaves. The birds, awakened by the wind or by
the breaking of a twig, speak to their neighbors. The peevish catbird
and the blue jay grumble, while the thrush, the dove, and the redbird
peep caressingly to their mates, and again fall asleep with gurgles of
contentment in their throats.

Rita and Dic sat by the river's edge for many minutes in silence. The
ever wakeful whippoorwill piped his doleful cry from a tree across the
water, an owl hooted from the blackness of the forest beyond the house,
and the turtle-doves cooed plaintively to each other in their
far-reaching, mournful tones, giving a minor note to the nocturnal
concert. Now and then a fish sprang from the water and fell back with a
splash, and the water itself kept up a soft babble like the notes of a
living flute.

Certainly the time was ripe for a mistake, but Dic did not make one. A
woman's favor comes in waves like the flowing of the sea; and a wise
man, if he fails to catch one flood, will wait for another. Dic was
unconsciously wise, for Rita's favor was at its ebb when she walked down
to the river bank. Ebb tide was indicated by the fact that she sat as
far as possible from him on the log. The first evidence of a returning
flood-tide would be an unconscious movement on her part toward him.
Should the movement come from him there might be no flood-tide.

During the first half-hour Dic did most of the talking, but he spoke
only of a book he had borrowed from Billy Little. With man's usual
tendency to talk a subject threadbare, he clung to the one topic. A few
months prior to that time his observations on the book would have
interested the girl; but recently two or three unusual events had
touched her life, and her dread that Dic would speak of them, was
rapidly growing into a fear that he would not. By the end of that first
half-hour, her feminine vivacity monopolized the conversation with an
ostentatious display of trivial details on small subjects, and she began
to move toward his end of the log. Still Dic kept his place, all
unconscious of his wisdom.

Geese seemed to be Rita's favorite topic. Most women are clever at
periphrasis, and will go a long way around to reach a desired topic, if
for any reason they do not wish to approach it directly. The topics Rita
wished to reach, as she edged toward Dic on the log and talked about
geese, were her unkind words and her very kind letter. She wished to
explain that her words were not meant to be unkind, and that the letter
was not meant to be kind, and thought to reach the desired topics by the
way of geese.

"Do you remember, Dic," she asked, "a long time ago, when Tom and I and
the Yates children spent the afternoon at your house? We were sitting
near the river, as we are sitting now, and a gray wolf ran down from the
opposite bank and caught a gander?"

"Yes, I remember it as if it were yesterday," replied Dic.

"Geese are such fools when they are frightened," continued Rita,
clinging to her subject.

"So are people," answered Dic. "We are all foolish when frightened. The
other day the barn door slammed to with a crash, and I was so frightened
I tried to put the collar in the horse's mouth." Rita laughed, and Dic
continued, "Once I was in the woods hunting, and a bear rose up--"

"But geese are worse than anybody when disturbed," interrupted Rita,
"worse even than you when the barn door slams. The other day I wanted to
catch a goose to get a--"

"They are not worse than a lot of girls at gabbling," interrupted Dic,
ungallantly retaliating for Rita's humorous thrust.

"They are not half so dull as a lot of men," she replied, tossing her
head. "When men get together they hum and hum about politics and crops,
till it makes one almost wish there were no government or crops. But
geese are--the other day I wanted to catch one to get a--"

"All men don't hum and hum, as you say," returned Dic. "There's Billy
Little--you don't think he hums, do you?"

"No," answered the girl; "Billy Little always says something when he
talks, but he's always talking. I will put him against any man in the
world for a talking match. But the other day I wanted to catch a goose
to get a quill, and--"

"Oh, that reminds me," broke in Dic, "my Uncle Joe Bright is coming to
visit us soon. Talk about talkers! He is a Seventh Day Adventist
preacher, and his conversation--no, I'll say his talk, for that's all it
is--reminds me of time."

"How is that?" queried Rita.

"It's made up of small particles, goes on forever, and is all seconds.
He says nothing first hand. His talk is all borrowed."

Rita laughed and tried again. "Well, I wanted to catch--"

"You just spoke of a talking match," said Dic. "I have an idea. Let us
bring Billy Little and my uncle together for a talking match."

"Very well," replied Rita, laughing heartily. "I'll stake my money on
Billy Little. But I was saying, the other day I--"

"I'll put mine on Uncle Joe," cried Dic. "Billy Little is a 'still Bill'
compared with him."

Rita was provoked, and I think with good reason; but after a pause she
concluded to try once more.

"The other day I wanted a quill for a pen, and when I tried to catch a
goose I thought their noise would alarm the whole settlement."

"Geese awakened Rome," said Dic. "If they should awaken Blue River, it,
also, might become famous. The geese episode is the best known fact
concerning the Eternal City--unless perhaps it is her howling."

"Rome had a right to howl," said Rita, anxious to show that she
remembered his teaching. "She was founded by the children of a wolf."

Dic was pleased and laughingly replied: "That ponderous historical
epigram is good enough to have come from Billy Little himself. When you
learn a fact, it immediately grows luminous."

The girl looked quickly up to satisfy herself that he was in earnest.
Being satisfied, she moved an inch or two nearer him on the log, and
began again:--

"I wanted to catch the goose--" but she stopped and concluded to try the
Billy Little road. "Dear old Billy Little," she said, "isn't he good?
The other day he said he'd trust me for the whole store, if I wanted to
buy it. I had no money and I wanted to buy--"

"Why should he not trust you for all you would buy?" asked Dic. "He
knows he would get his money."

The Billy Little route also seemed hilly. She concluded to try another,
and again made a slight movement toward Dic on the log.

"I went from your house this afternoon over to Sukey's." She looked
stealthily at Dic, but he did not flinch. After a pause she continued,
with a great show of carelessness and indifference, though this time she
moved away from him as she spoke. "She said you had been over to see her
last night." And to show that she was not at all interested in his
reply, she hummed the air of a song and carefully scrutinized a star
that was coming dangerously close to the moon.

"Yes, I went over to borrow their adze. Ours is broken," returned Dic.

The song ceased. Star and moon might collide for all the singer cared.
She was once again interested in things terrestrial.

"Now, Dic," she cried, again moving toward him and unduly emphasizing
the fact that she was merely teasing (she talked to tease, but listened
to learn), "now, Dic, you know the adze was only an excuse. You went to
see Sukey. You know you did. Why didn't you borrow Kaster's adze? They
live much nearer your house." She thought she had him in a trap, and
laughed as if she were delighted.

"I went to Kaster's first. They had none."

The girl concluded she was on the wrong road. But the side road had
suddenly become interesting, and she determined to travel it a short
way. Silence ensued on Dic's part, and travel on the side road became
slow. Rita was beginning to want to gallop. If she continued on the side
road, she feared her motive might grow to look more like a desire to
learn than a desire to tease; but she summoned her boldness, and with a
laugh that was intended to be merry, said:--

"Dic, you know you went to see Sukey, and that you spent the evening
with her."

"Did she say I did?" he asked, turning sharply upon her.

"Well--" replied Rita, but she did not continue. The Sukey Yates road
_was_ interesting, unusually so.

Dic paused for an answer, but receiving none, continued with emphasis:--

"I did not go into the house. I wasn't there five minutes, and I didn't
say ten words to Sukey."

"You need not get mad about it," replied the girl. "I don't care how
often you go to see Sukey or any other girl."

"I know you don't," he returned. "Of course you don't care. I never
hoped--never even dreamed--that you would," and his breath came quickly
with his bold, bold words.

"You might as well begin to dream," thought the girl, but she laughed,
this time nervously, and said, "She told me you were there and
took--took hold of--that is, she said you were so strong that when you
took hold of her she felt that you could crush her." Then forgetting
herself for a moment, she moved quite close to Dic and asked, "_Did_ you
take--take--" but she stopped.

"Tell me, Rita," returned Dic, with a sharpness that attracted her
attention at once, "did she say I took hold of her, or are you trying to
tease me? If you are teasing, I think it is in bad taste. If she said--"

"Well," interrupted the girl, slightly frightened, "she said that when
you take hold of one--"

"Oh, she did not say herself?" asked Dic.

"I don't see that she could have meant any one else," replied Rita.
"But, dear me, I don't care how often you take hold of her; you need not
get angry at me because you took hold of her. There can be no harm in
taking hold of any one, I'm sure, if you choose to do so; but why one
should do it, I don't know, and I'm sure I don't care."

No _ex post facto_ resolution could cure that lie, though of course it
is a privileged one to a girl.

Dic made no reply, save to remark: "I'll see Miss Sukey to-morrow. If I
wanted to 'take hold' of her, as she calls it, I would do so, but--but
I'll see her to-morrow."

The answer startled Rita. She did not want to be known as a tale-bearer.
Especially did she object in this particular case; therefore she
said:--

"You may see her if you wish, but you shall not speak to her of what I
have told you. She would think--"

"Let her think what she chooses," he replied. "I have never 'taken hold'
of her in my life. Lord knows, I might if I wanted to. All the other
boys boast that they take turn about, but--. She would be a fool to tell
if it were true, and a story-teller if not. So I'll settle the question
to-morrow, and for all time."

A deal of trouble might have been saved had Rita permitted him to make
the settlement with Sukey, but she did not. The infinite potency of
little things is one of the paradoxes of life.

"No, you shall not speak of this matter to her," she said, moving close
to him upon the log and putting her hand upon his arm coaxingly.
"Promise me you will not."

He would have promised to stop breathing had she asked it in that mood.
It was the first he had ever seen of it, and he was pleased, although,
owing to an opaqueness of mind due to his condition, it told him nothing
save that his old-time friend was back again.

"If you tell her," continued the girl, "she will be angry with me, and I
have had so much trouble of late I can't bear any more."

At last she was on the straight road bowling along like a mail coach.
"After I spoke to you as I did the other night--you know, when Tom--I
could not eat or sleep. Oh, I was in so much trouble! You and I had
always been such real friends, and you have always been so good to me--"
a rare little lump was rapidly and alarmingly growing in her throat--"I
have never had even an unkind look from you, and to speak to you as I
did,--oh, Dic,--" the lump grew too large for easy utterance, and she
stopped speaking. Dic was wise in not pursuing the ebb, but he was
foolish in not catching the flood. But perhaps if he would wait, it
might ingulf him of its own accord, and then, ah, then, the sweetness of
it!

"Never think of it again," he said soothingly. "Your words hurt me at
the time, but your kind, frank letter cured the pain, and I intended
never to speak of it. But since you have spoken, I--I--"

The girl was frightened, although eager to hear what he would say, so
she remained silent during Dic's long pause, and at length he said, "I
thank you for the letter."

A sigh of mingled relief and disappointment came from her breast.

"It gave me great pleasure, for it made me know that you were still my
friend," said Dic, "and that your words were meant for Tom, and not for
me."

"Indeed, not for you," said Rita, still struggling with the lump in her
throat.

"Let us never speak of it again," said Dic. "I'm glad it happened. It
puts our friendship on a firmer basis than ever before."

"That would be rather hard, to do, wouldn't it?" asked the girl,
laughing contentedly. "We have been such good friends ever since I was a
baby--since before I can remember."

The direct road was becoming too smooth for Rita, and she began to fear
she would not be able to stop.

"Let us make this bargain," said Dic. "When you want to say anything
unkind, say it to me. I'll not misunderstand."

"Very well," she replied laughingly, "the privilege may be a great
comfort to me at times. I, of course, dare not scold mother. If I look
cross at Tom, mother scolds me for a week, and I could not speak
unkindly to poor father. You see, I have no one to scold, and I'm sure
every one should have somebody to explode upon with impunity now and
then. So I'll accept your offer, and you may expect--" There was a brief
pause, after which she continued: "No, I'll not. Never again so long as
I live. You, of all others, shall be safe from my ill temper," and she
gave him her hand in confirmation of her words.

In all the world there was no breast freer from ill temper than hers; no
heart more gentle, tender, and trustful. Her nature was like a burning
spring. It was pure, cool, and limpid to its greatest depths, though
there was fire in it.

Dic did not consider himself obliged to release Rita's hand at once, and
as she evidently thought it would be impolite to withdraw it, there is
no telling what mistakes might have happened had not Tom appeared upon
the scene.

Tom seated himself beside Dic just as that young man dropped Rita's
hand, and just as the young lady moved a little way toward her end of
the log.

"You are home early," remarked Rita.

"Yes," responded Tom, "Doug Hill was there--the lubberly pumpkin-head."

No man of honor would remain in a young lady's parlor if at the time of
his arrival she had another gentleman visitor unless upon the request of
the young lady, and no insult so deep and deadly could be offered to the
man in possession as the proffer of such a request by the young lady to
the intruder.

After a few minutes of silence Tom remarked: "This night reminds me of
the night I come from Cincinnati to Brookville on the canal-boat.
Everything's so warm and clear like. I set out on top of the boat and
seed the hills go by."

"Did the hills go by?" asked Rita, who had heard the story of Tom's
Cincinnati trip many times.

"Well, they seemed to go by," answered Tom. "Of course, they didn't
move. It was the boat. But I jest seed them move as plain as I see that
cloud up yonder."

That Tom had not profited by Billy Little's training and his mother's
mild corrections now and then (for the Chief Justice had never entirely
lost the habits of better days), was easily discernible in his speech.
Rita's English, like Dic's and Billy Little's, was corrupted in spots by
evil communication; but Tom's--well, Tom was no small part of the evil
communication itself.

Dic had heard the Cincinnati story many times, and when he saw symptoms
of its recurrence, he rose and said:--

"Well, Tom, if you _seed_ the hills go by, you'll _seed_ me go by if you
watch, for I'm going home," and with a good night he started up the
river path, leaving Rita and her brother Tom seated on the log.

"So Doug Hill was there?" asked Rita.

"Yes," responded Tom; "and how any girl can let him kiss her, I don't
know. His big yaller face reminds me of the under side of a mud-turtle."

"I hope Sukey doesn't allow him nor any one else to kiss her," cried
Rita, with a touch of indignant remonstrance. Tom laughed as if to say
that he could name at least one who enjoyed that pleasant privilege.

Rita was at that time only sixteen years old, and had many things to
learn about the doings of her neighbors, which one would wish she might
never know. The Chief Justice had at least one virtue: she knew how to
protect her daughter. No young man had ever been permitted to "keep
company" with Rita, and she and her mother wanted none. Dic, of course,
had for years been a constant visitor; but he, as you know, was like one
of the family. Aside from the habit of Dic's visits, and growing out of
them, Madam Bays had dim outlines of a future purpose. Dic's father, who
was dead, had been considered well-to-do among his neighbors. He had
died seized of four "eighties," all paid for, and two-thirds cleared for
cultivation. Eighty acres of cleared bottom land was looked upon as a
fair farm. One might own a thousand acres of rich soil covered with as
fine oak, walnut, and poplar as the world could produce and might still
be a poor man, though the timber in these latter days would bring a
fortune. Cleared land was wealth at the time of which I write, and in
building their houses the settlers used woods from which nowadays
furniture is made for royal palaces. Every man on Blue might have said
with Louis XIV, "I am housed like a king." Cleared land was wealth, and
Dic, upon his mother's death, would at least be well able to support a
wife. The Chief Justice knew but one cause for tenderness--Tom. When
Rita was passing into womanhood, and developing a beauty that could not
be matched on all the River Blue, she began to assume a commercial value
in her mother's eyes that might, Madam B. thought in a dimly conscious
fashion, be turned to Tom's account. Should Rita marry a rich man, there
would be no injustice--justice, you know, was the watchword--in leaving
all the Bays estate to the issue male. Therefore, although Mrs. Bays was
not at all ready for her young daughter to receive attention from any
man, when the proper time should come, Dic might be available if no one
better offered, and Tom, dear, sweet, Sir Thomas de Triflin', should
then have all that his father and mother possessed, as soon as they
could with decent self-respect die and get out of his way.

As time passed, and Rita's beauty grew apace, Mrs. Bays began to feel
that Dic with his four "eighties" was not a price commensurate with the
winsome girl. But having no one else in mind, she permitted his visits
with a full knowledge of their purpose, and hoped that chance or her
confidential friend, Providence, might bring a nobler prize within
range of the truly great attractiveness of Tom's sister.

Mrs. Bays knew that the life she and her neighbors were leading was poor
and crude. She also knew that men of wealth and position were eagerly
seeking rare girls of Rita's type. By brooding over better things than
Dic could offer, her hope grew into a strong desire, and with Rita's
increasing beauty this motherly desire took the form of faith. Still,
Dic's visits were permitted to continue, and doubtless would be
permitted so long as they should be made ostensibly to the family.

Tom's remarks upon Sukey and Sukey's observations concerning Dic had
opened Rita's eyes to certain methods prevalent among laddies and
lasses, and as a result Sukey, for the time, became _persona non grata_
to her old-time friend. Rita was not at the time capable of active
jealousy. She knew Sukey was pretty enough, and, she feared, bold enough
to be dangerous in the matter of Dic, but she trusted him. Sukey
certainly was prettily bedecked with the pinkest and whitest of cheeks,
twinkling dimples, and sparkling eyes; but for real beauty she was not
in Rita's class, and few men would think of her fleshly charms twice
when they might be thinking of our little heroine.

Thus Tom and Sukey became fountain-heads of unhallowed knowledge upon
subjects concerning which every young girl, however pure, has a
consuming curiosity.

Rita had heard of the "kissing games" played by the youngsters, and a
few of the oldsters, too, at country frolics, corn-huskings, and church
socials; but as I have told you, the level-headed old Chief Justice had
wisely kept her daughter away from such gatherings, and Rita knew little
of the kissing, and never telling what was going on about her. Tom and
Sukey had thrown light upon the subject for her, and she soon
understood, feared, and abhorred. Would she ever pity and embrace?




THE DEBUTANTE

CHAPTER IV

THE DEBUTANTE


A year after the small happenings I have just related, great events
began to cluster about Dic. They were truly great for him and of course
were great for Rita.

Through Billy Little's aid Dic received an offer from an eastern horse
buyer to lead a drove of horses to New York. The task was difficult, and
required a man of health, strength, judgment, and nerve. The trip going
would require two months, and the horses must be kept together, fed,
cared for, and, above all, protected night and day from horse thieves,
until after the Alleghanies were crossed. The horses were driven loose
in herds of one hundred or more. Three men constituted a crew. In this
instance Dic was to be in charge, and two rough horse-boys would be his
assistants. It would have been impossible to _drive_ the horses over the
fenceless roads and through the leagues of trackless forest; therefore,
they were led. The men would take turns about riding in advance, and the
man leading would continually whistle a single shrill note which the
horses soon learned to follow. Should the whistling cease for a moment,
the horses would stop and perhaps stampede. This might mean forty-eight
hours of constant work in gathering the drove, with perhaps the loss of
one or more. If you will, for one hour, whistle a shrill note loud
enough to reach the ears of a herd of trampling, neighing horses, you
will discover that even that task, which is the smallest part of horse
"leading," is an exhausting operation.

The work was hard, but the pay was good, and Dic was delighted with the
opportunity. One of its greatest attractions to him was the fact that he
would see something of the world. Billy Little urged him to accept the
offer.

"A man," said he, "estimates his own stature by comparing it with those
about him, and the most fatal mistake he can make is to underestimate
his size. Self-conceit is ugly, but it never injured any one. Modesty
would have ruined Napoleon himself. The measure of a man, like the
length of a cloth-yard, depends upon the standard. Go away from here,
Dic. Find your true standard. Measure yourself and return, if you wish.
This place is as good as another, if a man knows himself; if he doesn't,
he is apt to be deceived by the littleness of things about him. Yet
there are great things here, too--greater, in some respects, than any to
be found in New York; but the great things here are possibilities. Of
course, possibilities are but the raw material. They must be
manufactured--achieved. But achievement, my boy, achievement! that's the
whole thing, after all. What would Cæsar Germanicus and Napoleon have
been without possibilities? A ready-made opportunity is a good thing in
its way, but it is the creation of opportunity out of crude
possibilities that really marks and makes the man and stamps the deed.
Any hungry fool would seize the opportunity to eat who might starve if
he had to make his bread. Go out into the world. You have good eyes. It
will not take long to open them. When they are opened, come back and you
will see opportunities here that will make you glad you are alive."

"But, Billy Little," replied Dic, who was sitting with Rita on the
sycamore divan, while their small elderly friend sat upon the grass
facing them, "you certainly have seen the world. Your eyes were opened
before you came here, and it seems to me your learning and culture are
buried here among the possibilities you speak of."

"No, Dic," answered Billy, "you see, I--well, I ran away from--from many
things. You see, you and I are cast in different moulds. You are six
feet tall, physically and temperamentally." Rita thought Billy was the
most acute observer in Christendom, but she did not speak, save with her
eyes. Those eyes nowadays were always talking.

"Six feet don't amount to much," responded Dic. "There is Doug Hill, who
is six feet three, with no more brains than a catfish. It is what's at
the top of the six feet that counts. You have more at the top of your
five feet four than the tallest man on Blue, and as I said, you seem to
be buried here. Where are the possibilities for you, Billy Little? And
if you can't achieve something great--poor me!"

"There are different possibilities for different men. I think, for
example, I have achieved something in you. What say you, Rita?"

The girl was taken unawares. "Indeed you have, glorious--splendid--that
is, I mean you have achieved something great in all of us whom you have
tried to influence. I see your possibilities, Billy Little. I see them
stamped upon the entire Blue River settlement. La Salle and Marquette,
of whom Dic read to me from your book, had the same sort of
opportunities. Their field was broader, but I doubt if their influence
will be more lasting than yours."

"Rather more conspicuous," laughed Billy.

"Yes," answered Rita, "your achievements will not be recorded. Their
effect will probably be felt by all of us, and the achievement must be
your only reward."

"It is all I ask," returned Billy. Then, after a pause, he spoke in
mock reproof to Dic, "Now, hang your head in shame."

"I suppose it's my turn," Dic replied.

"The achievements of picturesque men only should be placarded to the
world," said Billy. "The less said about a little old knot like me the
better for--better for the knot."

"You are not a knot," cried Rita indignantly.

"Rita," said Dic, "you know the walnut knot, while it shows the roughest
bark, has the finest grain in the tree."

"I am going home if you don't stop that sort of talking," said Billy,
pleased to his toes, but pretending to be annoyed.

A fortnight before Dic's intended departure for New York an opportunity
presented itself of which the young man, after due consideration,
determined to take advantage. He walked over one evening to see Tom,
but, as usual, found Rita. After a few minutes in which to work his
courage up, he said:--

"There is to be a church social at Scott's to-morrow night--the
Baptists. I wonder if you would like--that is, would want to--would be
willing to go with me?"

"I would be glad to go," answered the girl; "but mother won't let me."

"We'll go in and ask her, if you wish," he replied.

"There's no use, but we can try. Perhaps if she thinks I don't want to
go, she will consent."

Into the house they went, and Dic made his wants known to the head of
the family.

"No," snapped the good lady, "she can't go. Girls of sixteen and
seventeen nowadays think they are young ladies."

"They are dull, anyway," said Rita, referring to church socials. "I have
heard they are particularly dull at Scott's--the Baptists are so
religious. Sukey Yates said they did nothing but preach and pray and
sing psalms and take up a collection at the last social Scott gave.
It's just like church, and I don't want to go anyway." She had never
been to a church social, but from what she had heard she believed them
to be bacchanalian scenes of riotous enjoyment, and her remarks were
intended to deceive.

"You should not speak so disrespectfully of the church," said the Chief
Justice, sternly. "The Lord will punish you for it, see if He doesn't.
Since I think about it, the socials held at Scott's are true, religious,
God-fearing gatherings, and you shall go as a punishment for your
sacrilegious sneers. Perhaps if you listen to the Word, it may come back
after many days." Margarita, Sr., often got her Biblical metaphors
mixed, but that troubled her little. There was, she thought, virtue in
scriptural quotations, even though entirely inapplicable to the case in
point.

"Come for her to-morrow evening, Dic," said Mrs. B. "She shall be
ready." Then turning to Rita: "To speak of the Holy Word in that manner!
You shall be punished."

Dic and Rita went out to the porch. Dic laughed, but the girl saw
nothing funny.

"It seems to me just as if I had told a story," she said. "One may act a
story as easily as tell it."

"Well, you are to be punished," laughed Dic.

"But you know I want to go. I have never been to a social, and it will
not punish me to go."

"Then you are to be punished by going with me," returned the stalwart
young fisherman. She looked up to him with a flash of her eyes--those
eyes were worse than a loose tongue for tattling--and said:--

"That is true."

Dic, who was fairly boiling with pleasant anticipations, went to town
next day and boiled over on Billy Little.

"I'm going to take Rita to Scott's social this evening," he said.

"Ah, indeed," responded Billy; "it's her first time out, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I envy her, by George, I do, and I envy you," said Billy. He did not
envy Dic; but you may remember my remarks concerning bachelor hearts and
their unprotected condition in this cruel world. There may be pain of
the sort Billy felt without either envy or jealousy.

"Dic, I have a mind to send Rita a nice ribbon or two for to-night. What
do you think about it?" asked Billy.

"She would be delighted," answered Dic. "She would accept them from you,
but not from me."

"There is no flattery in that remark," answered Billy, with a touch of
sharpness.

"Why, Billy Little, what do you suppose I meant?" asked Dic.

"I know you spoke the truth. She would accept a present from the little
old knot, but would refuse it from the straight young tree."

"Why, Billy Little, I meant nothing of the sort."

"Now, not another word," interrupted Billy. "Give these ribbons to her
when you ride home, and tell her the knot sends them to the sweetbrier."
Then turning his face to the shelves on the wall, and arranging a few
pieces of goods, he hummed under his breath his favorite stanza,
"Maxwelton's braes," and paid no further attention to his guest.

Rita came out as Dic rode up to the gate. He did not dismount, but
handed her the ribbons across the fence, saying: "Billy Little sends you
these for to-night. He said they were from the knot to the sweetbrier."

The girl's suppressed delight had been troubling her all day. Her first
party, her first escort, and that escort Dic! What more could a girl
desire? The ribbons were too much. And somebody was almost ready to weep
for joy. She opened the little package and her eyes sparkled. When she
felt that speech was entirely safe, she said:--

"The little package is as prim and neat as Billy Little himself. Dear,
sweet, old Billy Little."

Dic, whose heart was painfully inflamed, was almost jealous of Billy,
and said:--

"I suppose you would not have accepted them from me?"

"Why not?" she responded. "Of course I would." Her eyes grew wide when
she looked up to him and continued, "Did you get them for me and tell me
that Billy Little sent them?"

"No," answered Dic, regretfully, as he began to see possibilities, even
on Blue. One possibility, at least, he saw clearly--one that he had
lost.

"It was more than a possibility," he said to himself, as he rode
homeward. "It was a ready-made opportunity, and I did not see it. The
sooner I go to New York or some place else and get my eyes opened, the
better it will be for me."

       *       *       *       *       *

The church social opened with a long, sonorous prayer by the Baptist
preacher, Mr. Wetmore. Then followed a psalm, which in turn was followed
by a "few words." After the few words, Rev. Wetmore said in soft,
conciliatory tones, "Now, brethren, if Deacon Moore will be so kind as
to pass the hat, we will receive the offering."

Wetmore was not an ordained minister, nor was he recognized by the
church to which he claimed to belong. He was one of the many itinerant
vagabonds who foisted themselves upon isolated communities solely for
the sake of the "offering."

Deacon Moore passed his hat, and when he handed it to Wetmore that
worthy soul counted out two large copper pennies. There were also in the
hat two brass buttons which Tom, much to Sukey's amusement, had torn
from his clothing for the purpose of an offering. Sukey laughed so
inordinately at Tom's extravagant philanthropy that she convinced De
Triflin' he was a very funny fellow indeed; but she brought upon her
pretty flaxen head a reprimand from Wetmore.

"Undue levity," said he, "ill becomes even frivolous youth at this
moment. Later you will have ample opportunity to indulge your mirth; but
for the present, the Lord's business--" at the word "business" he
received the hat from Deacon Moore, and looked eagerly into it for the
offering. Disappointment, quite naturally, spread itself over his sallow
face, and he continued: "Buttons do not constitute an acceptable
offering to the Lord. He can have no use for them. I think that during
the course of my life work in the vineyard I have received a million
buttons of which I--I mean the Lord--can have no possible use. If these
buttons had been dollars or shillings, or even pennies, think of the
blessings they would have brought from above."

The reverend man spoke several times with excusable asperity of
"buttons," and after another psalm and a sounding benediction the
religious exercises were finished, and the real business of the evening,
the spelling-bee and the kissing games, began.

At these socials many of the old folks took part in the spelling-bee,
after which they usually went home--an event eagerly awaited by the
young people.

There was but one incident in the spelling-bee that touched our friends,
and I shall pass briefly over that part of the entertainment preceding
it. The class, ranging in years from those who lisped in youth to those
who lisped in age, stood in line against the wall, and Wetmore,
spelling-book in hand, stood in front of them to "give out" the words.
It was not considered fair to give out a word not in the spelling-book
until the spelling and "syllabling" of sentences was commenced. All
words were syllabled, but to spell and syllable a sentence was not an
easy task, and by the time sentences were reached the class usually had
dwindled down to three or four of the best spellers. Of course, one who
missed a word left the class. Our friends--Billy Little, Dic, Rita, and
Sukey Yates--were in the contest.

The first word given out was metropolitan, and it fell to Douglas of the
Hill. He began: "M-e-t--there's your met; r-o--there's your ro; there's
your metro; p-o-l--there's your pol; there's your ro-pol; there's your
met-ro-pol; i--there's your i; there's your pol-i; there's your
ro-pol-i; there's your met-ro-pol-i; t-e-n--there's your--" "t-a-n,"
cried the girl next to him, who happened to be Sukey Yates, and Douglas
stepped down and out.

A score or more of words were then spelled without an error, until
Constantinople fell to the lot of an elderly man who stood by Rita. He
began: "C-o-n--there's your Con; s-t-a-n--there's your stan; there's
your Con-stan; t-i--there's your ti; there's your stan-ti; there's your
Con-stan-ti; n-o--there's your no; there's your ti-no; there's your
stan-ti-no; there's your Con-stan-ti-no; p-e-l--there's your pell;
there's your no--"--"p-l-e--there's your pell" (so pronounced); "there's
your Con-stan-ti-no-ple," chimed Rita, and her elderly neighbor took a
chair. Others of the class dropped out, leaving only our four
acquaintances,--Dic, Billy, Sukey, and Rita. Dic went out on "a" in
place of "i" in collectible, Sukey turning him down. Rita had hoped he
would win the contest and had determined, should it narrow down to
herself and him, to miss intentionally, if need be. After Dic had taken
a chair, judgment fell to and upon Sukey. She began "j-u-d-g-e--there's
your judge;" whereupon Billy Little said, "Sink the e," and Sukey sank,
leaving Billy Little and Rita standing against the wall, as if they were
about to be married. Billy, of course, was only awaiting a good
opportunity to fail in order that the laurels of victory might rest upon
Rita's brow.

"We will now spell and syllable a few sentences," said Wetmore. "Mr.
Little, I give you the sentence, 'An abominable bumblebee with his tail
cut off.'"

It must be remembered that in spelling these words and sentences each
syllable was pronounced separately and roundly. B-o-m was a full grown,
sonorous bom. B-u-m was a rolling bum, and b-l-e was pronounced bell
with a strong, full, ringing, liquid sound. The following italics show
the emphasis. Billy slowly repeated the sentence and began:--

"A-n--there's your an; a--there's your a; there's your an-a;
b-o-m--there's your _bom_; there's your _a_-bom; there's your
_an_-a-_bom_; i--there's your i; there's your _bom_-i; there's your
_a_-bom-i; there's your _an_-a-bom-i; n-a--there's your na; there's your
_i_-na; there's your _bom_-i-na; there's your _a_-bom-i-_na_; there's
your _an_-a-_bom_-i-_na_; b-l-e--there's your bell; there's your
_na_-bell; there's your _i_-na-bell; there's your _bom_-i-_na_-bell;
there's your _a_-bom-i-_na_-bell; there's your _an_-a-_bom_-i-_na_-bell;
b-u-m--there's your bum; there's your _bell_-bum; there's your
_na_-bell-bum; there's your _i_-na-_bell_-bum; there's your
_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_; there's your _a_-bom-i-_na_-_bell_-_bum_;
there's your _an_-a-_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_; b-l-e--there's your bell;
there's your _bum_-bell; there's your _bell_-bum-_bell_; there's your
_na_-bell-_bum_-bell; there's your _i_-na-bell-_bum_-bell; there's your
_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell; there's your
_a_-bom-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell; there's your
_an_-a-_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell; b-e-e--there's your bee; there's
your _bell_-bee; there's your _bum_-bell-bee; there's your
_bell_-bum-_bell_-bee; there's your _na_-bell-_bum_-_bell_-bee; there's
your _i_-na-bell-_bum_-bell-bee; there's your
_bom_-i-na-_bell_-_bum_-bell-bee; there's your
_a_-bom-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee; there's your_an_-a-bom-i-_na_
bell-_bum_-_bell_-bee; w-i-t-h--h-i-s--there's your with-his; there's
your _bee_-with-his; there's your _bell_-bee-with-his; there's your
_bum_-bell-bee-with-his; there's your _bell_-bum-_bell_-bee-with-his;
there's your _na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his; there's your
_i_-na-_bell_-_bum_-bell-_bee_-with-his; there's your
_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his; there's your
_a_-_bom_-i-na-_bell_-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his; there's your
_an_-a-_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his; t-a-l-e--there's
your--" But Rita chimed in at once: "T-a-i-l--there's your tail; there's
your _with_-his-tail; there's your _bee_-with-his-tail; there's your
_bell_-bee-with-his-_tail_; there's your _bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail;
there's your _bell_-bum-bell-bee-with-his-tail; there's your
_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail; there's your
_i_-na-_bell_-bum-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail; there's your
_bom_-i-na-_bell_-bum-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail; there's your
_a_-bom-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail; there's your
_an_-a-_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail; c-u-t--there's
your cut; there's your _tail_-cut; there's your _with_-his-tail-cut;
there's your _bee_-with-his-tail-cut; there's your
_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut; there's your
_bum_-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut; there's your
_bell_-bum-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut; there's your
_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail-cut; there's your
_i_-na-_bell_-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-_tail_-cut; there's your
_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-_bee_-with-his -_tail_-cut; there's your
_a_-bom-i-_na_-_bell_-bum -_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-_cut_; there's your
_an_-a-_bom_ -i-_na_-bell-_bum_-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut;
o-f-f--there's your off; there's your _cut_-off; there's your
_tail_-cut-off; there's your _with_-_his_-tail-cut-off; there's your
_bee_-with -his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_bum_-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_bell_-bum-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_i_-na-_bell_-bum-_bell_-bee-with-his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_a_-bom-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with-his-tail-cut-off; there's your
_an_-a-_bom_-i-_na_-bell-_bum_-bell-bee-with his-tail-cut-_off_," and
Rita took her seat, filled with triumph, save for the one regret that
Dic had not won.

Many of the old folks, including Billy Little, departed when the bee
closed, and a general clamor went up for the kissing games to begin.

Rita declined to take part in the kissing games, and sat against the
wall with several other young ladies who had no partners. To Dic she
gave the candid reason that she did not want to play, and he was glad.

Doug Hill, who, in common with every other young man on the premises,
ardently desired Rita's presence in the game, said:--

"Oh, come in, Rita. Don't be so stuck up. It won't hurt you to be
kissed." Doug was a bold, devil-may-care youth, who spoke his mind
freely upon all occasions. He was of enormous size, and gloried in the
fact that he was the neighborhood bully and very, very "tough." Doug
would have you know that Doug would drink; Doug would gamble; Doug would
fight. He tried to create the impression that he was very bad indeed,
and succeeded. He would go to town Saturdays, "fill up," as he called
getting drunk, and would ride furiously miles out of his way going home
that he might pass the houses of his many lady-loves, and show them by
yells and oaths what a rollicking blade he was. The reputation thus
acquired won him many a smile; for, deplore the fact as we may, there's
a drop of savage blood still alive in the feminine heart that does not
despise depravity in man as it really should.

"Come into the game," cried Doug, taking Rita by the arm, and dragging
her toward the centre of the room.

"I don't want to play," cried the girl. "Please let loose of my arms;
you hurt me," but Doug continued to drag her toward the ring of players
that was forming, and she continued to resist. Doug persisted, and after
a moment of struggling she called out, "Dic, Dic!" She had been
accustomed since childhood to call upon that name in time of trouble,
and had always found help. Dic would not have interfered had not Rita
called, but when she did he responded at once.

"Let her alone, Hill," said Dic, as pleasantly as possible under the
circumstances. "If she doesn't want to play, she doesn't have to."

"You go to--" cried Doug. "Maybe you think you can run over me, you
stuck-up Mr. Proper."

"I don't want to do anything of the sort," answered Dic; "but if you
don't let loose of Rita's arm, I'll--"

"What will you do?" asked Doug, laughing uproariously.

For a moment Dic allowed himself to grow angry, and said, "I'll knock
that pumpkin off your shoulders," but at once regretted his words.

Doug thought Dic's remark very funny, and intimated as much. Then he
bowed his head in front of our hero and said, "Here is the pumpkin; hit
it if you dare."

Dic restrained an ardent desire, and Doug still with bowed head
continued, "I'll give you a shillin' if you'll hit it, and if you don't,
I'll break your stuck-up face."

Dic did not accept the shilling, which was not actually tendered in
lawful coin, but stepped back from Doug that he might be prepared for
the attack he expected. After waiting what he considered to be a
reasonable time for Dic to accept his offer, Doug started toward our
hero, looking very ugly and savage. Dic was strong and brave, but he
seemed small beside his bulky antagonist, and Rita, frightened out of
all sense of propriety, ran to her champion, and placing her back
against his breast, faced Doug with fear and trembling. The girl was not
tall enough by many inches to protect Dic's face from the breaking Doug
had threatened; but what she lacked in height she made up in terror,
and she looked so "skeert," as Doug afterwards said, that he turned upon
his heel with the remark:--

"That's all right. I was only joking. We don't want no fight at a church
social, do we, Dic?"

"I don't particularly want to fight any place," replied Dic, glad that
the ugly situation had taken a pleasant turn.

"Reckon you don't," returned Doug, uproariously, and the game proceeded.

Partly from disinclination, and partly because he wanted to talk to
Rita, Dic did not at first enter the game, but during an intermission
Sukey whispered to him:--

"We are going to play Drop the Handkerchief, and if you'll come in I'll
drop it behind you every time, and--" here the whispers became very low
and soft, "I'll let you catch me, too. We'll make pumpkin-head sick."

The game of skill known as "Drop the Handkerchief" was played in this
fashion: a circle of boys and girls was formed in the centre of the
room, each person facing the centre. One of the number was chosen "It."
"It's" function was to walk or run around the circle and drop the
handkerchief behind the chosen one. If "It" happened to be a young man,
the chosen one, of course, was a young woman who immediately started in
pursuit. If she caught the young man before he could run around the
circle to the place she had vacated, he must deposit a forfeit, to be
redeemed later in the evening. In any case she became the next "It." A
young lady "It" of course dropped the handkerchief behind a young man,
and equally, of course, started with a scream of frightened modesty
around the circle of players, endeavoring to reach, if possible, the
place of sanctuary left vacant by the young man. He started in pursuit,
and if he caught her--there we draw the veil. If the young lady were
anxious to escape, it was often possible for her to do so. But thanks to
Providence, all hearts were not so obdurate as Rita's. I would say,
however, in palliation of the infrequency of escapes, that it was looked
upon as a serious affront for a young lady to run too rapidly. In case
she were caught and refused to pay the forfeit, her act was one of
deadly insult gratuitously offered in full view of friends and
acquaintances.

Dic hesitated to accept Sukey's invitation, though, in truth, it would
have been inviting to any man of spirit. Please do not understand me to
say that Dic was a second Joseph, nor that he was one who would run away
from a game of any sort because a pretty Miss Potiphar or two happened
to be of the charmed and charming circle.

He had often been in the games, and no one had ever impugned his spirit
of gallantry by accusing him of unseemly neglect of the beautiful Misses
P. His absence from this particular game was largely due to the fact
that the right Miss Potiphar was sitting against the wall.

A flush came to Rita's cheek, and she moved uneasily when she saw Sukey
whispering to Dic; but he did not suspect that Rita cared a straw what
Sukey said. Neither did it occur to him that Rita would wish him to
remain out of the game. He could, if he entered the game, make Doug Hill
"sick," as Sukey had suggested, and that was a consummation devoutly to
be wished. He did not wish to subject himself to the charge of
ungallantry; and Sukey was, as you already know, fair to look upon, and
her offer was as generous as she could make under the circumstances. So
he chose a young lady, left Rita by the wall, and entered the game.

Doug Hill happened to be "It" and dropped the handkerchief behind Sukey,
whereupon that young lady walked leisurely around the circle, making no
effort to capture the Redoubtable. Such apathy was not only an
infringement of the etiquette of the game, but might, if the injured
party were one of high spirits, be looked upon as an insult.

Sukey then became "It," and, dropping the handkerchief behind Dic,
deliberately waited for him to catch her; when, of course, a catastrophe
ensued. Meantime, the wall was growing uncomfortable to Rita. She had
known in a dimly conscious way that certain things always happened at
country frolics, but to _see_ them startled her, and she began to feel
very miserable. Her tender heart fluttered piteously with a hundred
longings, chief among which was the desire to prevent further
catastrophes between Dic and Sukey.

Compared to Sukey, there was no girl in the circle at all entitled to be
ranked in the Potiphar class of beauty. So, when Dic succeeded Sukey as
"It," he dropped the handkerchief behind her. Then she again chose Dic,
and in turn became the central figure in a catastrophe that was painful
to the girl by the wall. If Rita had been in ignorance of her real
sentiments for Dic, that ignorance had, within the last few minutes,
given place to a knowledge so luminous that it was almost blinding. The
room seemed to become intensely warm. Meantime the play went on, and the
process of making Doug "sick" continued with marked success. Sukey
always favored Dic, and he returned in kind. This alternation, which was
beyond all precedent, soon aroused a storm of protests.

"If you want to play by yourselves," cried Tom, "why don't you go off by
yourselves?"

"Yes," cried the others; "if you can't play fair, get out of the game."

The order of events was immediately changed, but occasionally Sukey
broke away from time-honored precedent and repeated her favors to Dic.
Doug was rapidly growing as "sick" as his most inveterate enemy could
have desired. There was another person in the room who was also very
wretched--one whom Dic would not have pained for all the Sukey
Potiphars in Egypt. The other person was not only pained, she was
grieved, confused, frightened, desperate. She feared that she would cry
out and ask Dic not to favor Sukey. She did not know what to do, nor
what she might be led to do, if matters continued on their present
course.

Soon after Tom's reprimand, Sukey found the duty of dropping the
handkerchief again devolving upon her pretty self. She longed with all
her heart to drop it behind Dic; but, fearing the wrath of her friends,
she concluded to choose the man least apt to arouse antagonism in Dic's
breast. She would choose one whom he knew she despised, and would trust
to luck and her swift little feet to take her around the circle before
the dropee could catch her.

Wetmore had been an active member, though a passive participant, in the
game, since its beginning. When a young lady "It" walked back of him, he
would eagerly watch her approach, and when she passed him, as all did,
he would turn his face after her and hope for better things from the
next. Repeated disappointments had lulled his vigil, and when Sukey, the
girl of all others for whom he had not hoped, dropped the sacred linen
behind his reverend form, he was so startled that he did not seize the
precious moment. He was standing beside Doug Hill, and the handkerchief
fell almost between the two. It was clearly intended for his reverence;
but when he failed instantly to meet the requirements of the situation,
the Douglas, most alert of men, resolved to appropriate the opportunity
to himself. At the same moment Brother W. also determined to embrace it,
and, if possible, "It." Each stooped at the same instant, and their
heads collided.

"Let it alone, parson, it's for me," cried the Douglas.

Parson did not answer, but reached out his hand for the coveted prize.
Thereupon Douglas pushed him backward, causing him to be seated with
great violence upon the floor. At that unfortunate moment Sukey, who had
taken speed from eagerness, completed her trip around the circle, and
being unable to stop, fell headlong over the figure of the self-made
parson. She had not seen Doug's part in the transaction, and being much
disturbed in mind and dress, turned upon poor Wetmore and flung at the
worthy shepherd the opprobrious words, "You fool."

When we consider the buttons in the offering, together with Sukey's
unjust and biting words, we cannot help believing that Wetmore had been
born under an unlucky star.

One's partner in this game was supposed to favor one now and then, when
opportunity presented; but Wetmore's partner, Miss Tompkinson, having
waited in vain for favors from that gentleman, quitted the game when
Sukey called him, "You fool." Wetmore thought, of course, he also would
be compelled to drop out; but, wonder of wonders, Rita, the most
beautiful girl in the room, rose to her feet and said:--

"I'll take your place, Miss Tompkinson." She knew that if she were in
the game, Sukey's reign would end, and she had reached the point of
perturbation where she was willing to do anything to prevent the
recurrence of certain painful happenings. She knew that she should not
take part in the game,--it was not for such as her,--but she was
confused, desperate, and "didn't care." She modestly knew her own
attractions. Every young man in the circle was a friend of Tom's, and
had at some time manifested a desire to be a friend to Tom's sister. Tom
was fairly popular for his own sake, but his exceeding radiance was
borrowed. The game could not be very wicked, thought Rita, since it was
encouraged by the church; but even if it were wicked, she determined to
take possession of her own in the person of Dic. Out of these several
impulses and against her will came the words, "I'll take your place,
Miss Tompkinson," and almost before she was aware of what she had done
she was standing with fiercely throbbing pulse, a member of the
forbidden circle.

[Illustration: "SHE FLUNG AT THE WORTHY SHEPHERD THE OPPROBRIOUS WORDS,
'YOU FOOL.'"]

As Rita had expected, the handkerchief soon fell behind her, and without
the least trouble she caught the young fellow who had dropped it, for
the man did not live who could run from her. The pledge, a pocket-knife,
was deposited, and Rita became a trembling, terrified "It." What to do
with the handkerchief she did not know, but she started desperately
around the circle. After the fourth or fifth trip the players began to
laugh. Dic's heart was doing a tremendous business, and he felt that
life would be worthless if the handkerchief should fall from Rita's hand
behind any one but him. Meanwhile the frightened girl walked round and
round the circle, growing more confused with every trip.

"Drop it, Rita," cried Doug Hill, "or you'll drop."

"She's getting tired," said another.

"See how warm she is," remarked gentle Tom.

"Somebody fan her," whispered Sukey.

"I don't believe I want to play," said Rita, whose cheeks were burning.
A chorus of protests came from all save Dic; so she took up her burden
again and of course must drop it. After another long weary walk an
inspiration came to her; she would drop the handkerchief behind Tom. She
did so. Tom laughed, and all agreed with one accord that it was against
the rules of the game to drop the handkerchief behind a brother or
sister. Then Rita again took up her burden, which by that time was a
heavy one indeed. She had always taken her burdens to Dic, so she took
this one to him and dropped it.

"I knew she would," screamed every one, and Rita started in dreadful
earnest on her last fatal trip around the circle. A moment before the
circle had been too small, but now it seemed interminable, and poor
Rita found herself in Dic's strong arms before she was halfway home. She
almost hated him for catching her. She did not take into consideration
the facts that she had invited him and that it would have been ungallant
had he permitted her to escape, but above all, she did not know the
desire in his heart. She had surprised and disappointed him by entering
the game; but since it was permitted, he would profit by the surprise
and snatch a joyful moment from his disappointment. But another surprise
awaited him. When a young lady was caught a certain degree of
resistance, purely for form's sake, was expected, but usually the young
lady would feel aggrieved, or would laugh at the young man were the
resistance taken seriously. When Dic caught Rita there was one case, at
least, where the resistance was frantically real. She covered her face
with her hands and supposed he would make no effort to remove them. She
was mistaken, he acted upon the accepted theories of the game. She was a
baby in strength compared with Dic, and he easily held her hands while
he bent her head backward till her upturned face was within easy reach.

"Don't kiss me," she cried.

There was no sham in her words, and Dic, recognizing the fact, released
her at once and she walked sullenly to a chair. According to the rude
etiquette of the time, she had insulted him.

There had been so many upheavals in the game that the trouble between
Dic and Rita brought it to a close.

Dic was wounded, and poor Rita felt that now she had driven him from her
forever. Her eyes followed him about the room with wistful longing, and
although they were eloquent enough to have told their piteous little
story to one who knew anything about the language of great tender eyes,
they spoke nothing but reproachfulness to Dic. He did not go near her,
but after a time she went to him and said:--

"I believe I will go home; but I am not afraid to go alone, and you need
not go with me--that is, if you don't want to."

"I do want to go with you," he responded. "I would not let you ride by
yourself. Even should nothing harm you, the howling of a wolf would
frighten you almost to death."

She had no intention of riding home alone. She knew she would die from
fright before she had ridden a hundred yards into the black forest, so
she said demurely:--

"Of course, if you will go with me after--"

"I would go with you after anything," he answered, but she thought he
spoke with a touch of anger.

Had Dic ever hoped to gain more than a warm friendship from the girl
that hope had been shattered for all time, and never, never, never would
he obtrude his love upon her again. As a matter of fact, he had not
obtruded it upon her even once, but he had thought of doing it so many
times that he felt as if he had long been an importunate suitor.




UNDER THE ELM CANOPY

CHAPTER V

UNDER THE ELM CANOPY


Dic and Rita rode home through the forest in silence. His anger soon
evaporated, and he was glad she had refused to pay the forfeit. He would
be content with the friendship that had been his since childhood, and
would never again risk losing it. What right had he, a great, uncouth
"clodhopper," to expect even friendship from so beautiful and perfect a
creature as the girl who rode beside him; and, taking it all in all, the
fault, thought he, lay entirely at his door. In this sombre mood he
resolved that he would remain unmarried all his life, and would be
content with the incompleted sweet of loving. He would put a guard upon
himself, his acts, his words, his passion. The latter was truly as noble
and pure as man ever felt for woman, but it should not be allowed to
estrange his friend. She should never know it; no, never, never, never.

Rita's cogitations were also along the wrong track. During her silent
ride homeward the girl was thinking with an earnestness and a rapidity
that had never before been developed in her brain. She was, at times,
almost unconscious that Dic was riding beside her, but she was vividly
conscious of the fact that she would soon be home and that he also would
be there. She determined to do something before parting from him to make
amends for her conduct at the social. But what should she do? Hence the
earnest and rapid intellection within the drooping head. She did not
regret having refused to kiss Dic. She would, under like circumstances,
again act in the same manner. She regretted the circumstances. To her, a
kiss should be a holy, sacred thing, and in her heart she longed for the
time when it would be her duty and her privilege to give her lips to the
one man. But kissing games seemed to her little less than open and
public shame.

She could not, for obvious reasons, tell Dic she was sorry she had
refused him, and she certainly would not mend matters by telling him she
was glad. Still less could she permit him to leave her in his present
state of mind. All together it was a terrible dilemma. If she could for
only one moment have a man's privilege to speak, she thought, it would
all be very simple. But she could not speak. She could do little more
than look, and although she could do that well, she knew from experience
that the language of her eyes was a foreign tongue to Dic.

When they reached home, Dic lifted Rita from her saddle and stabled her
horse. When he came from the barn she was holding his horse and waiting
for him. He took the rein from her hands, saying:--

"It seems almost a pity to waste such a night as this in the house. I
believe one might read by the light of the moon."

"Yes," murmured the girl, hanging her head, while she meditatively
smoothed the grass with her foot.

"It's neither warm nor cold--just pleasant," continued Dic.

"No," she responded very softly.

"But we must sleep," he ventured to assert.

She would not contradict the statement. She was silent.

"If the days could be like this night, work would be a pleasure,"
observed Dic, desperately.

"No," came the reply, hardly louder than a breath. She was not thinking
of the weather, but Dic stuck faithfully to the blessed topic.

"It may rain soon," he remarked confusedly. There was not a cloud in
sight.

"Yes," breathed the pretty figure, smoothing the grass with her foot.

"But--but, I rather think it will not," he said.

The girl was silent. She didn't care if it snowed. She longed for him to
drop the subject of the weather and to say something that would give her
an opportunity to speak. Her manner, however, was most unassuring, and
convinced Dic that he had offended beyond forgiveness, while his
distant, respectful formality and persistency in the matter of the
weather almost convinced the girl that he was lost to her forever. Thus
they stood before each other, as many others have done, a pair of
helpless fools within easy reach of paradise. Dic's straightforward
habits of thought and action came to his aid, however, and he determined
to make at least one more effort to regain the girl's friendly regard.
He abandoned the weather and said somewhat abruptly:--

"Rita, if I offended you to-night, I am sorry. I cannot tell you all the
pain I feel. When you dropped the handkerchief behind me, I thought--I
know I was wrong and should have known better at the time--but I
thought--"

"Oh, Dic," she softly interrupted, still smoothing the grass with her
foot, "I am not offended; it is you."

Had the serene yellow moon burst into a thousand blazing suns, Dic could
not have been more surprised.

"Rita, do you mean it? Do you really mean it?" he asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

"And were you afraid I was offended?"

"Yes," again very softly.

"And did you care?"

"Yes," with an emphatic nod of the head.

"And do you--" he paused, and she hesitatingly whispered:--

"Yes." She did not know what his question would have been; but whatever
he wished to ask, "Yes" would be her answer, so she gave it, and Dic
continued:--

"Do you wish me to remain for a few minutes?"

This time the "Yes" was given by a pronounced drooping of the head, but
she took his hand for an instant that she might not possibly be
misunderstood.

Dic hitched his horse to the fence, and, turning to Rita, said:--

"Shall we go over to the log by the river?"

"Yes." Ah, how many yeses she had for him that night, and yes is a sweet
word.

When they were seated on the log the girl waited a reasonable time for
Dic to begin the conversation. He remained silent, and soon she
concluded to take the matter temporarily in her own hands. He had begun
a moment before, but had stopped; perhaps with a little help he would
begin again.

"I was sure you were angry," she said, "and I thought you would not
forgive me this time. I have so often given you cause to dislike me."

"Oh, Rita, I don't believe you know that you could not make me dislike
you. When I thought that--that you did not care for me, I was so grieved
that life seemed almost worthless, but I love you so dearly, Rita--" but
that was just what he had determined never, never to tell her. He
stopped midway in his unintentional confession, surprised that the girl
did not indignantly leave him. Her heart beat wofully. Breathing
suddenly became harder work than churning. She sat demurely by his side
on the log, only too willing to listen, with a dictionary full of
"Yeses" on the end of her tongue, and he sat beside her, unable for the
moment to think. After a long pause she determined to give him a fresh
start.

"I was in the wrong, Dic, and if you wish I'll apologize to you before
all who saw me. But I was frightened. I should not have gone into the
game. It may be right for other girls--I would not say that it is not
right--but for me, I know it would be a sin--a real sin. I am not wise,
but, Dic, something tells me that certain things cannot occupy a middle
ground. They must be holy and sacred, or they are sinful, and I--I did
not want it to--to happen then, because--because--" there she stopped
speaking. She had unintentionally used the word "then," with slight
emphasis; but slight as it was, it sent Dic's soul soaring heavenward,
buoyant with ecstasy.

"Why, Rita, why did you not want it to happen--" he feared to say
"then," and it would seem from the new position of his arm, he also
feared she might fall backward off the log.

"Because--because," came in soft whispers. The beautiful head was
drooped, and the face was hidden from even the birds and the moon, while
Dic's disengaged hand, out of an abundance of caution lest she might
fall, clasped hers.

"Because--why, Rita?" he pleaded.

Softly came the response, "Because I wanted to be alone with--with--you
when it--it happened." It happened before she had finished her sentence,
but when it was finished the head lay upon his shoulder, and the birds,
should they awaken, or the moon, or any one else, might see for aught
she cared. It was holy and sacred now, and she felt no shame: she was
proud. The transfer of herself had been made. She belonged to him, and
he, of course, must do with his own property as he saw fit. It was no
longer any affair of hers.

The victory of complete surrender is sometimes all-conquering; at any
rate, Dic was subjugated for life. His situation was one that would be
hard to improve upon in the way of mere earthly bliss. Heaven may
furnish something better, and if it does, the wicked certainly have no
conception of what they are going to miss. Tom, for example, would never
have put buttons in the offering. Doug would not gamble and drink. Poor,
painted Nanon would starve rather than sin. Old man Jones, in the amen
corner, would not swindle his neighbor; nor would Wetmore, the Baptist,
practise the holy calling of shepherd, having in his breast the heart of
a wolf. We all, saving a woman here and there, have our sins, little and
great, and many times in the day we put in jeopardy that future bliss.
But I console myself with the hope that there is as much forgiveness in
heaven as there is sin on earth, save for the hypocrite. There may be
forgiveness even for him, but I trust not.

I have done this bit of philosophizing that I might give Dic and Rita a
moment to themselves on the sycamore divan. You may have known the time
in your life when you were thankful for the sight of a dear friend's
back.

There was little said between our happy couple for many minutes after
the explosion; but like a certain lady, who long ago resided for a time
in a beautiful garden, the girl soon began to tempt the man: not to eat
apples, for Rita was one of the "women here and there" spoken of above.
She was pure and sinless as the light of a star. Her tempting was of
another sort. Had Rita been Eve, there would have been no fall.

After several efforts to speak, she said, "Now you will not go to New
York, will you?"

"Why, Rita," he responded confidently, "of course I'll go. There is more
reason now for my going than ever before."

"Why more now than ever before?" asked the girl.

"Because I want money that I may support you," he responded. "I'll tell
you a great secret, Rita, but you must promise you will never tell it to
any one."

"I promise--cross my heart," she answered, and Dic knew that wild horses
could not tear the secret from her girlish breast.

"I'm studying law," continued Dic. "Billy Little has been buying law
books for me. They are too expensive for me to buy. He bought me
'Blackstone's Commentaries'--four large volumes." The big words tasted
good in his mouth, and were laden with sweetness and wisdom for her
ears.

"I have read them twice," continued Dic. "He is going to buy 'Kent,' and
after that I'll take up works on pleading and special subjects. He has
consulted Mr. Switzer, and if I can save enough money to keep you and me
for two or three years in idleness, I am to go into Mr. Switzer's office
to learn the practice. It is a great and beautiful study."

"Oh, it must be, Dic," cried the girl, delightedly. "To think that you
will be a lawyer. I have always known that you would some day be a great
man. Maybe you will be a judge, or a governor, or go to Congress."

"That is hardly possible," responded Dic, laughing.

"Indeed it is possible," she responded very seriously. "Anything is
possible for you--even the presidency, and I'll help you. I will not be
a millstone, Dic. I'll help you. We'll work together--and you'll see
I'll help you."

Accordingly, she began to help him at once by putting her arm coaxingly
over his shoulder, and saying:--

"But if you are going to do all this you should not waste your time
leading horses to New York."

"But you see, Rita," he responded, "I can make a lot of money by going,
and I shall see something of the world, as you heard Billy Little say."

"Oh, you would rather see the world than me?" queried the girl, drawing
away from him with an injured air, whereupon Dic, of course, vowed that
he would rather see her face than a thousand worlds.

"Then why don't you stay where you can see it?" she asked poutingly.

"Because, as I told you, I want to make money so that when I go into Mr.
Switzer's office I can support you--and the others--" He stopped,
surprised by his words.

"The others? What others?" asked the girl. That was a hard question to
answer, and he undertook it very lamely.

"You see, Rita," he stammered, "there will be--there might--there may
be--don't you know, Rita?"

"No, I don't know, Dic. Why are you so mysterious? What
others--who--oh!" And she hid her face upon his breast, while her arms
stole gently about his neck.

"You see," remarked Dic, speaking softly to the black waves of lustrous
hair, "I must take Iago's advice and put money in my purse. I have
always hoped to be something more than I am. Billy Little, who has been
almost a father to me, has burned the ambition into me. But with all my
yearning, life has never held a real purpose compared with that I now
have in you. The desire for fame, Rita, the throbbing of ambition, the
lust for gold and dominion, are considered by the world to be the great
motives of human action. But, Rita, they are all simply means to one
end. There is but one great purpose in life, and that is furnished to a
man by the woman he loves. Billy Little gave me the thought. It is not
mine. How he knew it, being an old bachelor, I cannot tell."

"Perhaps Billy Little has had the--the purpose and lost it," said Rita,
being quite naturally in a sentimental mood.

"I wonder?" mused Dic.

"Poor, dear old Billy Little," mused Rita. "But you will not go to New
York?" continued Miss Persistency.

Dic had resolved, upon hearing Rita's first petition concerning the New
York trip, that he would be adamant. His resolution to go was built upon
the rock of expediency. It was best for him, best for Rita, that he
should go, and he had no respect for a poor, weak man who would permit a
woman to coax him from a clearly proper course. She should never coax
him out of doing that which was best for them both.

"We'll discuss it at another time," he answered evasively, as he tried
to turn her face up toward him. But her face would not be turned, and
while she hid it on his breast she pushed his away, and said:--

"No, we'll discuss it now. You must promise me that you will not go. If
you do not, I shall not like you, and you shall not--" She did not
finish the sentence, and Dic asked gently:--

"I shall not--what, Rita?"

"Anything," came the enlightening response from the face hidden on his
breast. "Besides, you will break my heart, and if you go, I'll know you
don't care for me. I'll know you have been deceiving me." Then the face
came up, and the great brown eyes looked pleadingly into his. "Dic, I've
leaned on you so long--ever since I was a child--that I have no strength
of my own; but now that I have given myself up to you, I--I cannot stand
alone, even for a day. If you go away from me now, it will break my
heart. I tell you it will."

Dic felt her tears upon his hand, and soon he heard soft sobs and felt
their gentle convulsions within her breast. Of course the result was
inevitable; the combatants were so unevenly matched. Woman's tears are
the most potent resolvent know to chemistry. They will dissolve rocks of
resolution, and Dic's resolutions, while big with intent, were small in
flintiness, though he had thought well of them at the time they were
formed. He could not endure the pain inflicted by Rita's tears. He had
not learned how easy and useful tears are to women. They burned him.

"Please, Rita, please don't cry," he pleaded.

The tears, while they came readily and without pain, were honest; at any
rate, the girl being so young, they were not deliberately intended to be
useful. They were a part of her instinct of self-preservation.

"Don't cry, please, Rita. Your tears hurt me."

"Then promise me you won't go to New York." I fear there is no getting
away entirely from the theory of utility. With evident intent to crowd
the battle upon a wavering foe, the tears came fast and furious.

"Promise me," sobbed Rita; and I know you will love Dic better when I
tell you that he promised. Then the girl's face came up, and, I grieve
to say, the tears, having served their purpose, ceased at once.

Next morning Dic went to see Billy Little and told him he had come to
have a talk. Billy locked the store door and the friends repaired to the
river. There they found a shady resting-place, and Billy, lighting his
pipe, said:--

"Blaze away."

"I know you will despise me," the young man began.

"No, I won't," interrupted Billy. "You are human. I don't look for
unmixed good. If I did, I should not find it except once in a while in a
woman. What have you been doing? Go on." Billy leaned forward on his
elbows, placed the points of his fingers together, and, while waiting
for Dic to begin, hummed his favorite stanza concerning the braes of
Maxwelton.

"Well," responded Dic, "I've concluded not to go to New York."

Billy's face turned a shade paler as he took his pipe from his lips and
looked sadly at Dic. After a moment of scrutiny he said:--

"I had hoped to get you off before it happened. It's _all_ off now. You
might as well throw Blackstone into Blue."

"What do you mean?" queried Dic. "Before what happened?"

"Before Rita happened," responded Billy.

"Rita?" cried Dic in astonishment. "How did you know?"

"How do I know that spring follows winter?" asked Billy. "I had hoped
that winter would hold a little longer, and that I might get you off to
New York before spring's arrival."

"Billy Little, you are talking in riddles," said Dic, pretending not to
understand. "Drop your metaphor and tell me what you mean."

"You know well enough what I mean, but I'll tell you. I hoped that you
would go to New York before Rita came to you. There would have been
oceans of time after your return. She is very young, not much over
sixteen."

"But you see, Billy Little, it was this way."

"Oh, I know all about how it was. She cried and said you didn't care for
her, that you were breaking her heart, and wouldn't let you kiss her
till you gave her your promise. Oh, bless your soul, I know exactly how
it came about. Maxwelton's braes are um, um, um, um, yes, yes."

"Have you seen Rita?" asked Dic, who could not believe that she would
tell even Billy of the scene on the log.

"Of course I have not seen her. How could I? It all happened last night
after the social, and it is now only seven A.M."

"Billy Little, I believe you are a mind reader," said Dic, musingly.

"No, I'm not," replied Billy, with asperity. "Let's go back to the
store. You've told me all I want to know; but I don't blame you much
after all. You couldn't help it. No man could. But you'll die plowing
corn. Perhaps you'll be happier in a corn field than in a broader one.
Doubtless the best thing one can do is to drift. With all due reverence,
I am almost ready to believe that Providence made a mistake when it
permitted our race to progress beyond the pastoral age. Stick to your
ploughing, Dic. It's good, wholesome exercise, and Rita will furnish
everything else needful to your happiness."

They walked silently back to the store. Dic, uninvited, entered and sat
down on a box. Billy distributed the morning mail and hummed Maxwelton
Braes. Then he arranged goods on the counter. Dic followed the little
old fellow with his eyes, but neither spoke. The younger man was waiting
for his friend to speak, and the friend was silent because he did not
feel like talking. He loved Dic and Rita with passionate tenderness. He
had almost brought them up from infancy, and all that was best in them
bore the stamp of his personality. Between him and Dic there was a
feeling near akin to that of father and son, but unfortunately Rita was
not a boy. Still more unfortunately the last year had added to her
already great beauty a magnetism that was almost mesmeric in its effect.
There had also been a ripening in the sweet tenderness of her gentle
manner, and if you will remember the bachelor heart of which I have
spoken, you will understand that poor Billy Little couldn't help it at
all, at all. God knows he would have helped it. The fault lay in the
girl's winsomeness; and if Billy's desire to send Dic off to New York
was not an unmixed motive, you must not blame Billy too severely.
Neither must you laugh at him; for he had the heart of a boy, and the
most boyish act in the world is to fall in love. Billy had never
misunderstood Rita's tenderness and love for him. There was no designing
coquetry in the girl. She had always since babyhood loved him, perhaps
better even than she loved her parents, and she delighted to show him
her affection. Billy had never been deceived by her preference, and of
course was careful that she should not observe the real quality of his
own regard for her. But the girl's love, such as she gave, was sweet to
him--oh, so sweet, this love of this perfect girl--and he, even he, old
and gray though he was, could not help longing for that which he knew
was as far beyond his reach as the bending rainbow is beyond the hand of
a longing child. He was more than fifty in years, but his heart was
young, and we, of course, all agree that he was very foolish
indeed--which truth he knew quite as well as we.

So this disclosure of Dic's was a shock to Billy, although it was the
thing of all others he most desired should come to pass.

"Are you angry, Billy Little?" asked Dic, feeling somewhat inclined to
laugh, though standing slightly in fear of his little friend.

"Certainly not," returned Billy. "Why should I be angry? It's no affair
of mine."

"No affair of yours, Billy Little?" asked Dic, with a touch of distress
in his voice, though he knew that it was an affair very dear to Billy's
heart. "Do you really mean it?"

"No, of course I don't mean it," returned Billy; "but I wish you
wouldn't bother me. Don't you see I'm at work?"

Billy's conduct puzzled Dic, as well it might, and the young man turned
his face toward the door, determined to wait till an explanation should
come unsought.

Billy's bachelor apartment--or apartments, as he called his single
room--was back of the store. There were his bed,--a huge, mahogany
four-poster,--his library, his bath-tub, a half-dozen good pictures in
oil and copper-plate, a pair of old fencing foils,--relics of his
university days,--a piano, and a score of pipes. Under the bed was a
flat leather trunk, and on the floor a rich, though worn, velvet carpet.
Three or four miniatures on ivory rested on the rude mantel-shelf, and
in the middle of the room stood a mahogany table covered with
_Blackwood's Magazines_, pamphlets, letters, and books. In the midst of
this confusion on the table stood a pair of magnificent gold
candlesticks, each holding a half-burned candle, and over all was a
mantle of dust that would have driven a woman mad. Certainly the
contents of Billy's "apartments" was an incongruous collection to find
in a log-cabin of the wilderness.

At the end of half an hour Billy called to Dic, saying:--

"I wish you would watch the store for me. I'm going to my apartments for
a bit. If Mrs. Hawkins comes in, give her this bottle of calomel and
this bundle of goods. The calomel is a fippenny bit; the goods is four
shillin', but I don't suppose she'll want to pay for them. Don't take
coonskins. I won't have coonskins. If I can't sell my goods for cash,
I'll keep 'em. Butter and eggs will answer once in a while, if the
customer is poor and has no money, but I draw the line on coonskins. The
Hawkinses always have coonskins. I believe they breed coons, but they
can't trade their odoriferous pelts to me. If she has them, tell her to
take them to Hackett's. He'll trade for fishing worms, if she has any,
and then perhaps get more than his shoddy goods are worth. Well, here's
the calomel and the goods. Get the cash or charge them. There's a letter
in the C box for Seal Coble. Give it to Mrs. Hawkins, and tell her to
hand it to Seal as she drives past his house. Tell her to read it to the
old man. He doesn't know _a_ from _x_. I doubt if Mrs. Hawkins does. But
you can tell her to read it--it will flatter her. I'll return when I'm
ready. Meantime, I don't want to be disturbed by any one. Understand?"

"Yes," answered Dic, and the worthy merchant disappeared, locking the
door behind him.

Billy sat down in the arm-chair, leaned his head backward, and looked at
the ceiling for a few minutes; then, resting his elbows on his knees, he
buried his face in his hands. There he sat without moving for an hour.
At the end of that time he arose, drew the trunk from under the bed,
unlocked it, and raised the lid. A woman's scarf, several bundles of
letters, two teakwood boxes, ten or twelve inches square and three or
four inches deep, beautifully mounted in gold, and a dozen books neatly
wrapped in tissue paper, made up the contents. These articles seemed to
tell of a woman back somewhere in Billy's life; and if they spoke the
truth, there must have been grief along with her for Billy. For although
he was created capable of great joy, by the same token he could also
suffer the deepest grief.

Out of the trunk came one of the gold-mounted boxes, and out of the box
came a package of letters neatly tied with a faded ribbon. Billy lifted
the package to his face and inhaled the faint odor of lavender given
forth; then he--yes, even he, Billy Little, quaint old cynic, pressed
the dainty bundle to his lips and breathed a sigh of mingled sorrow and
relief.

"Ah, I knew they would help me," he said. "They always do. Whatever my
troubles, they always help me."

He opened the package, and, after carefully reading the letters, bound
them again with the ribbon, and took from the box a small ivory jewel
case, an inch cube in size. From the ivory box he took a heavy plain
gold ring and went over to the chair, where he sat in bachelor
meditation, though far from fancy free.

Suddenly he sprang from the chair, exclaiming: "I'll do it. I'll do it.
She would wish me to--I will, I will."

He then went back to the storeroom, loitered behind the letter-boxes a
few minutes, called Dic back to him, and said:--

"You are going to have one of the sweetest, best girls in all the world
for your wife," said he. "You are lucky, Dic, but she is luckier. When
you first told me of--of what happened last night, I was disappointed
because I saw your career simply knocked end over end. No man, having as
sweet a wife as Rita, ever amounted to anything, unless she happened to
be ambitious, and Rita has no more ambition than a spring violet. Such a
woman, unless she is ambitious, takes all the ambition out of a man. She
becomes sufficient for him. She absorbs his aspirations, and gives him
in exchange nothing but contentment. Of course, if she is ambitious and
sighs for a crown for him, she is apt to lead him to it. But Rita knows
how to do but one thing well--first conjugation, present infinitive,
_amare_. She knows all about that, and she will bring you mere
happiness--nothing else. By Jove, I'm sorry for you. You'll only be
happy."

"But, Billy Little," cried Dic, "you have it wrong. Don't you see that
she will be an inspiration? She will fire me. I will work and achieve
greater things for her sake than I could possibly accomplish without
her."

"That's why you're going to New York, is it?" asked Dic's cynical
friend.

"Well, you know, that was her first request, and--and, you must
understand--"

"Yes, I understand. I know she will coax you out of leaving her side
long enough to plow a corn row if you are not careful. There'll be happy
times for the weeds. Women of Rita's sort are like fire and water, Dic;
they are useful and delightful, but dangerous. No man, however wise,
knows their power. Egad! One of them would coax the face off of ye if
she wanted it, before you knew you had a face. It's their God-given
privilege to coax; but bless your soul, Dic, what a poor world this
would be without their coaxing. God pity the man who lacks it! Eh, Dic?"
Billy was thinking of his own loneliness.

"Rita certainly knows how to coax," replied Dic. "And--and it is very
pleasant."

"Have you an engagement ring for her?" asked Billy.

"No," responded Dic, "I can't afford one now, and Rita doesn't expect
it. After I'm established in the law, I'll buy her a beautiful ring."

"After you're established in the law! If the poor girl waits for
that--but she shan't wait. I have one here," said Billy, drawing forth
the ivory box. "I value it above all my possessions." His voice broke
piteously. "It is more precious to me ... than words can ... tell or ...
money can buy. It brought me ... my first great joy ... my first great
grief. I give it to you, Dic, that you may give it to Rita. Egad! I
believe I've taken a cold from the way my eyes water. There, there,
don't thank me, or I'll take it back. Now, I want to be alone. Damme, I
say, don't thank me. Get out of here, you young scoundrel; to come in
here and take my ring away from me! Jove! I'll have the law on you, the
law! Good-by."

"I fear I should not have given them the ring," mused Billy when Dic had
gone.... "It might prove unlucky.... It came back to me because she was
forced to marry another.... I wonder if it will come back to Dic?
Nonsense! It is impossible.... Nothing can come between them.... But it
was a fatal ring for me.... I am almost sorry ... but it can bring no
trouble to Dic and Rita ... impossible. But I am almost sorry ... go
off, Billy Little; you are growing soft and superstitious ... but it
would break her heart. I wonder ... ah! nonsense. Maxwelton's braes are
bonny, um, um, um, um, um, um." And Billy first tried to sing his grief
away, then sought relief from his beloved piano.




THE FIGHT BY THE RIVER SIDE

CHAPTER VI

THE FIGHT BY THE RIVER SIDE


Deep in the forest on the home path, Dic looked at the ring, and quite
forgot Billy Little, while he anticipated the pleasure he would take in
giving the golden token to Rita. He did not intend to be selfish, but
selfishness was a part of his condition. A great love is, and should be,
narrowing.

That evening Dic walked down the river path to Bays's and, as usual, sat
on the porch with the family. Twenty-four hours earlier sitting on the
porch with the family would have seemed a delightful privilege, and the
moments would have been pleasure-winged. But now Mrs. Bays's profound
and frequently religious philosophizing was dull compared to what might
be said on the log down by the river bank.

Tom, of course, talked a good deal. Among other things he remarked to
Dic:--

"I 'lowed you'd never come back here again after the way Rita treated
you last night." Of course he did not know how exceedingly well Rita had
treated Dic last night.

"Oh, that was nothing," returned Dic. "Rita was right. I hope she will
always--always--" The sentence was hard to finish.

"You hope she'll always treat you that-a-way?" asked Tom, derisively. "I
bet if you had her alone she wouldn't be so hard to manage--would you,
Rita?" Tom thought himself a rare wit, and a mistake of that sort makes
one very disagreeable. Rita's face burned scarlet at Tom's witticism,
and Mrs. Bays promptly demanded of her daughter:--

"What on earth are you talking about?" Poor Rita had not been talking at
all, and therefore made no answer. The demand was then made of Tom, but
in a much softer tone of voice:--

"Tell me, Tom," his mother asked.

"I'll not tell you. Rita and Dic may, but I'll not. I'm no tell-tale."
No, not he!

The Chief Justice turned upon Rita, looked sternly over her glasses, and
again insisted:--

"What have you been doing, girl? Tell me at once. I command you by the
duty you owe your mother."

"I can't tell you, mother. Please don't ask," replied Rita, hanging her
head.

"You can tell me, and you shall," cried the fond mother.

"I can't tell you, mother, and I won't. Please don't ask."

"Do my ears deceive me? You refuse to obey your parents? 'Obey thy
father and thy mother that thy days may be long'--"

Tom interrupted her: "Oh, mother, for goodness' sake, quit firing that
quotation at Rita. I'm sick of it. If it's true, I ought to have died
long ago. I don't mind you. Never did. Never will."

"Yes, you do, Tom," answered his mother, meekly. "And this disobedient
girl shall mind me, too." Rita had never in all her life disobeyed a
command from either father or mother. She was obedient from habit and
inclination, and in her guileless, affectionate heart believed that a
terrific natural cataclysm of some sort would surely occur should she
even think of disobeying.

With ostentatious deliberation Mrs. Bays folded her knitting and placed
it on the floor beside her; took off her spectacles, put them in the
case, and put the case in her pocket. Rita knew her mother was clearing
the decks for action and that Justice was coldly arranging to have its
own. So great was the girl's love and fear for this hard woman that she
trembled as if in peril.

"Now, Margarita Fisher Bays," the Chief Justice began, glaring at the
trembling girl. When on the bench she addressed her daughter by her full
name in long-drawn syllables, and Rita's full name upon her mother's
lips meant trouble. But at the moment Mrs. Bays began her address from
the bench Billy Little came around the corner of the house and stopped
in front of the porch.

Tom said, "Hello, Billy Little," Mr. Bays said, "Howdy," and Mrs. Bays
said majestically: "Good evening, Mr. Little. You have come just in time
to see the ungratefullest creature the world can produce--a disobedient
daughter."

"I can't believe that you have one," smiled Billy.

Rita's eyes flashed a look of gratitude upon her friend. Dic might not
be able to understand the language of those eyes, but Billy knew their
vocabulary from the smallest to the greatest word.

"I wouldn't believe it either," said Mrs. Bays, "if I had not just heard
her say it with my own ears."

"Did she say it with your own ears?" interrupted Tom.

"Now, Tom, please don't interrupt, my son," said Mrs. Bays. "She said to
her own mother, Mr. Little, 'I won't;' said it to her own mother who has
toiled and suffered and endured for her sake all her life long; to her
own mother who has nursed her and watched over her and tried to do her
duty according to the poor light that God has vouchsafed--and--and I've
been troubled with my heart all day."

Rita, poor girl, had been troubled with her heart many days.

"Yes, with my heart," continued the dutiful mother. "Dr. Kennedy says I
may drop any moment." (Billy secretly wished that Kennedy had fixed the
moment.) "And when I asked her to tell me what she did last night at the
social, she answered, 'I can't and won't.' I should have known better
than to let her go. She hasn't sense enough to be let out of my sight.
She lied to me about the social, too. She pretended that she did not
want to go, and she did want to go." That was the real cause of Mrs.
Margarita's anger. She suspected she had been duped into consenting, and
the thought had rankled in her heart all day.

"You did want to go, didn't you?" snapped out the old woman.

"Yes, mother, I did want to go," replied Rita.

"There, you hear for yourself, Mr. Little. She lied to me, and now is
brazen enough to own up to it."

Tom thought the scene very funny and laughed boisterously. Had Tom been
scolded, Rita would have wept.

"Go it, mother," said Tom. "This is better than a jury trial."

"Oh, Tom, be still, son!" said Mrs. Bays, and then turning to Rita: "Now
you've got to tell me what happened at Scott's social. Out with it!"

Rita and Dic were sitting near each other on the edge of the porch. Mr.
Bays and Tom occupied rocking-chairs, and Billy Little was standing on
the ground, hat in hand.

"Tell me this instant," cried Mrs. Bays, rising from her chair and going
over to the girl, who shrank from her in fear. "Tell me, or
I'll--I'll--"

"I can't, mother," the girl answered tremblingly. "I can't tell you
before all these--these folks. I'll tell you in the house."

"You went into the kissing game. That's what you did," cried Mrs. Bays,
"and your punishment shall be to confess it before Mr. Little." Rita
began to weep, and answered gently:--

"Yes, mother, I did, but I did not--did not--" A just and injured wrath
gathered on the face of Justice.

"Didn't I command you not?"

"I'll tell you all about it, Mrs. Bays," interrupted Dic. "I coaxed her
to go in." (Rita's heart thanked him for the lie.) "The others all
insisted. One of the boys dragged her to the centre of the room and she
just had to go into the game. She only remained a short time, and what
Tom referred to is this: she would not allow any one to--to kiss her,
and she quit the game when she--she refused me."

"She quit the game when it quit, I 'low. Isn't that right?" asked the
inquisitor.

"The game stopped when she went out--"

"I thought as much," replied Mrs. Bays, straightening up for the purpose
of delivering judgment. "Now go to bed at once, you disobedient,
indecent girl! I'm ashamed of you, and blush that Mr. Little should know
your wickedness."

"Oh, please let me stay," sobbed Rita, but Mrs. Bays pointed to the door
and Rita rose, gave one glance to Dic, and went weeping to her room. Mr.
Bays said mildly:--

"Margarita, you should not have been so hard on the girl."

"Now, Tom Bays," responded the strenuous spouse, "I'll thank you not to
meddle with my children. I know my duty, and I'll do it. Lord knows I
wish I could shirk it as some people do, but I can't. I must do my duty
when the Lord is good enough to point it out, or my conscience will
smite me. There's many a person with my heart would sit by and let her
child just grow up in the wilderness like underbrush; but I _must_ do
my duty, Mr. Little, in the humble sphere in which Providence has placed
me. Give every man his just dues, and do my duty. That's all I know, Mr.
Little. 'Justice to all and punishment for sinners;' that's my motto and
my husband will tell you I live up to it." She looked for confirmation
to her spouse, who said regretfully:--

"Yes, I must say that's true."

"There," cried triumphant Justice. "You see, I don't boast. I despise
boasting." She took up her knitting, put on her glasses, closed her
lips, and thus announced that court was also closed.

Poor Rita, meantime, was sobbing, upstairs at her window.

After a long, awkward silence, Billy Little addressed Dic. "I came up to
spend the night with you, and if you are going home, I'll walk and lead
my horse. I suppose you walked down?"

"Yes," answered Dic; "I'll go with you."

"I'm sorry to carry off your company, Mrs. Bays," said Billy, "but I
want to--"

"Oh, Dic's no company; he's always here. I don't know where he finds
time to work. I'd think he'd go to see the girls sometimes."

"Rita's a girl, isn't she?" asked Billy, glancing toward Dic.

"Rita's only a child, and a disobedient one at that," replied Mrs. Bays,
but Billy's words put a new thought into her head that was almost sure
to cause trouble for Rita.

When Billy and Dic went around the house to fetch Billy's horse, Rita
was sitting at the window upstairs. She smiled through her tears and
tossed a note to Dic, which he deciphered by the light of the moon. It
was brief, "Please meet me to-morrow at the step-off--three o'clock."

The step-off was a deep hole in the river halfway between Bays's and
Bright's.

Dic and Billy walked up the river path a little time in silence. Billy
was first to speak.

"I consider," said he, "that profane swearing is vulgar, but I must say
damn that woman. What an inquisitor she would make. I hope Kennedy is
right about her heart. Think of her as your mother-in-law!"

"When Rita is my wife," replied Dic, "I'll protect her, if I have
to--to--"

"What will you do, Dic?" asked Billy. "Such a woman is utterly
unmanageable. You see, the trouble is, that she believes in herself and
is honest by a species of artificial sincerity. Show me a stern, hard
woman who is bent on doing her duty, her whole duty, and nothing but her
duty, and I'll show you a misery breeder. Did you give Rita the ring?"

"I haven't had the chance," answered Dic. "I'll do it to-morrow. Billy
Little, I want to thank you--you must let me tell you what I think, or
I'll burst."

"Burst, then," returned Billy. "I'd rather be kicked than thanked. I
knew how Rita and you would feel, or I should not have given you the
ring. Do you suppose I would have parted with it because of a small
motive? Have you told the Chief Justice?"

"No; she will learn when she sees the ring on Rita's finger."

Silence then ensued, which was broken after a few minutes by Billy
Little humming under his breath, "Maxwelton's braes are bonny." Dic soon
joined in the sweet refrain, and, each encouraging the other, they
swelled their voices and allowed the tender melody to pour forth. I can
almost see them as they walked up the river path, now in the black
shadow of the forest, and again near the gurgling water's edge, in the
yellow light of the moon. The warm, delicious air was laden with the
odor of trees and sweetbrier, and to the song the breath of the south
wind played an accompaniment of exquisite cadence upon the leaves. I
seem to hear them singing,--Billy's piping treble, plaintive, quaint,
and almost sweet, carrying the tenor to Dic's bass. There was no
soprano. The concert was all tenor and bass, south wind, and rustling
leaves. The song helped Dic to express his happiness, and enabled Billy
to throw off the remnants of his heartache. Music is a surer antidote to
disappointment, past, present, and future, than the philosophy of all
the Stoics that ever lived; and if all who know the truth of that
statement were to read these pages, Billy Little would have many
millions of sympathizers.

Dic did not neglect Rita's note, but read it many times after he had
lighted the candle in the loft where he and Billy were to sleep. Long
after Billy had gone to bed Dic sat up, thinking of Rita, and anon
replenishing his store of ecstasy from the full fountain of her note.
After an unreasonable period of waiting Billy said:--

"If you intend to sit there all night, I wish you would smother the
candle. It's filling the room with bugs. Here is a straddle-bug of some
sort that's been trying to saw my foot off."

"In a moment, Billy Little," answered Dic. The moment stretched into
many minutes, until Billy, growing restive, threw his shoe at the candle
and felled it in darkness to the floor. Dic laughed and went to bed, and
Billy fell into so great a fit of laughter that he could hardly check
it. Neither slept much, and by sun-up Billy was riding homeward.

That he might be sure to be on time, Dic was at the step-off by
half-past two, and five minutes later Rita appeared. The step-off was at
a deep bend in the river where the low-hanging water-elm, the redbud,
and the dogwood, springing in vast luxuriance from the rich bottom
soil, were covered by a thick foliage of wild grape-vines.

"The river path," used only as a "horse road" and by pedestrians, left
the river at the upper bend, crossing the narrow peninsula formed by the
winding stream, and did not intrude upon the shady nook of raised ground
at the point of the peninsula next the water's edge. There was, however,
a horse path--wagon roads were few and far apart--on the opposite side
of the river. This path was little used, save by hunters, the west side
of the river being government land, and at that time a vast stretch of
unbroken forest. Rita had chosen the step-off for her trysting-place
because of its seclusion, and partly, perhaps, for the sake of its
beauty. She and Dic could be seen only from the opposite side of the
river, and she thought no one would be hunting at that time of the year.
The pelts of fur-giving animals taken then were unfit for market.
Venison was soft, and pheasants and turkeys were sitting. There would be
nothing she would wish to conceal in meeting Dic; but the instinct of
all animate nature is to do its love-making in secret.

"Oh, Dic," said the girl, after they were seated on a low, rocky bench
under a vine-covered redbud, "oh, Dic, I did so long to speak to you
last night. After what happened night before last--it seems ages ago--I
have lived in a dream, and I wanted to talk to you and assure myself
that it is all true and real."

"It is as real as you and I, Rita, and I have brought you something that
will always make you know it is real."

"Isn't it wonderful, Dic?" said the girl, looking up to him with a
childish wistfulness of expression that would always remain in her eyes.
"Isn't it wonderful that this good fortune has come to me? I can hardly
realize that it is true."

"Oh, but I am the one to whom the good fortune has really come,"
replied Dic. "You are so generous that you give me yourself, and that is
the richest present on earth."

"Ah, but you are so generous that you take me. I cannot understand it
all yet; I suppose I shall in time. But what have you brought that will
make me know it is all real?"

Dic then brought forth the ivory box and held it behind him.

"Oh, what is it?" cried the girl, eagerly.

"Give me your hand," commanded Dic. The hand was promptly surrendered.

"Now close your eyes," he continued. The eyes were closed, very, very
honestly. Rita knew no other way of doing anything, and never so much as
thought of peeping. Then Dic lifted the soft little hand to his lips,
and slipped the gold band on the third finger.

"Oh, I know what it is now," she cried delightedly, but she would not
look till Dic should say "open." "Open" was said, and the girl
exclaimed:--

"Oh, Dic, where did you get it?"

Bear this fact in mind: If you live among the trees, the wild flowers,
and the birds, you will always remain a child. Rita was little more than
a child in years, and I know you will love Dic better because within his
man's heart was still the heart of his childhood. The great oak of the
forest year by year takes on its encircling layer of wood, but the
layers of a century still enclose the heart of a sprig that burst forth
upon a spring morning from its mother acorn.

For a moment after Rita asked Dic where he got the ring he regretted he
had not bought it, but he said:--

"Billy Little gave it to me that I might give it to you; so it really is
his present."

A shade of disappointment spread over her face, but it lasted only a
moment.

"But you give it to me," she said. "It was really yours, and you give it
to me. I am almost glad it comes from Billy Little. He has been so much
to me. You are by nature different from other men, but the best
difference we owe to Billy Little." The pronoun "we" was significant. It
meant that she also was Billy Little's debtor for the good he had
brought to Dic, since now that wonderful young man belonged to her.

"I wonder where he got it?" asked the girl.

"I don't know," replied Dic. "He said he valued it above all else he
possessed, and told me it had brought him his sweetest joy and his
bitterest grief. I think he gave it to a sweetheart long years ago, and
she was compelled to return it and to marry another man. I am only
guessing. I don't know."

"Perhaps we had better not keep it," returned the girl, with a touch of
her forest-life superstition. "It might bring the same fate to us. I
could not bear it, Dic, now. I should die. Before you spoke to
me--before that night of Scott's social--it would have been hard enough
for me to--to--but now, Dic, I couldn't bear to lose you, nor to marry
another. I could not; indeed, I could not. Let us not keep the ring."

Dic's ardor concerning the ring was dampened, but he said:--

"Nonsense, Rita, you surprise me. Nothing can come between us."

"I fear others have thought the same way. Perhaps Billy Little and his
sweetheart"--she was almost ready for tears.

"Yes, but what can come between us? Your parents, I hope, won't object.
Mine won't, and we don't--do we?" said Dic, argumentatively.

"Ah," answered Rita with her lips, but her eyes, whose language Dic was
beginning to comprehend, said a great deal more than can be expressed in
mere words.

"Then what save death can separate us?" asked Dic. "We would offend
Billy Little by returning the ring, and it looks pretty on your finger.
Don't you like it, Rita?"

"Y-e-s," she responded, her head bent doubtingly to one side, as she
glanced down at the ring.

"You don't feel superstitious about it, do you?" he asked.

"N-o-o."

"Then we'll keep it, won't we?"

"Y-e-s."

He drew the girl toward him and she turned her face upward.

He would have kissed her had he not been startled by a call from the
opposite side of the river.

"Here, here, stop that. That'll never do. Too fine-haired and modest for
a kissing game, but mighty willin' when all alone. We'll come over and
get into the game ourselves."

Dic and Rita looked up quickly and saw the huge figure of Doug Hill
standing on the opposite bank with a gun over his shoulder and a bottle
of whiskey in his uplifted hand. By his side was his henchman, Patsy
Clark. The situation was a trying one for Dic. He could not fight the
ruffian in Rita's presence, and he had no right to tell him to move on.
So he paid no attention to Doug's hail, and in a moment that worthy
Nimrod passed up the river. Dic and Rita were greatly frightened, and
when Doug passed out of sight into the forest they started home. They
soon reached the path and were walking slowly down toward Bays's, when
they were again startled by the disagreeable voice of the Douglas. This
time the voice came from immediately back of them, and Dic placed
himself behind Rita.

"I've come to get my kiss," said Doug, laughing boisterously. He was
what he called "full"; not drunk, but "comfortable," which meant
uncomfortable for those who happened to be near him. "I've come for my
kiss," he cried again.

[Illustration: "'I'VE COME TO GET MY KISS,' SAID DOUG."]

"You'll not get it," answered Rita, who was brave when Dic was between
her and her foe. Dic, wishing to avoid trouble, simply said, "I guess
not."

"Oh, you guess not?" said Doug, apparently much amused. "You guess not?
Well, we'll see, Mr. Fine-hair; we'll see." Thereupon, he rested his gun
against a tree, stepped quickly past Dic, and seized Rita around the
waist. He was drawing her head backward to help himself when Dic knocked
him down. Patsy Clark then sprang upon Dic, and, in imitation of his
chief, fell to the ground. Doug and Patsy at once rose to their feet and
rushed toward Dic. Rita screamed, as of course any right-minded woman
would have done, and, clasping her hands in terror, looked on fascinated
and almost paralyzed. Patsy came first and again took a fall. This time,
from necessity or inclination,--probably the latter,--he did not rise,
but left the drunken Douglas to face Dic single-handed and alone. Though
tall and strong, Dic was by no means the equal of Doug in the matter of
bulk, and in a grappling match Doug could soon have killed him. Dic
fully understood this, and, being more active than his huge foe,
endeavored to keep him at arm's length. In this he was successful for a
time; but at last the grapple came, and both men fell to the
ground--Doug Hill on top. Poor Rita was in a frenzy of terror. She could
not even scream. She could only press her hands to her heart and look.
When Dic and Doug fell to the ground, Patsy Clark, believing himself
safe, rose to a sitting posture, and Doug cried out to him:--

"Give me your knife, Patsy, give me your knife." Patsy at once responded
by placing his hunting-knife in Doug's left hand. Dic saw his imminent
danger and with his right hand clasped Doug's left wrist in a grasp
that could not be loosened. After several futile attempts to free his
wrist, Doug tossed the knife over to his right side. It fell a few
inches beyond his reach, and he tried to grasp it. Rita saw that very
soon he would reach the knife, and Dic's peril brought back her presence
of mind. Doug put forth terrific efforts to reach the knife, and,
despite Dic's resistance, soon had it in his grasp. In getting the
knife, however, Doug gave Dic an opportunity to throw him off, and he
did so, quickly springing to his feet. Doug was on his feet in a
twinkling, and rushed upon Dic with uplifted knife. Dic knew that he
could not withstand the rush, and thought his hour had come; but the
sharp crack of a rifle broke the forest silence, and the knife fell from
Doug's nerveless hand, his knees shook under him, his form quivered
spasmodically for a moment, and he plunged forward on his face. Dic
turned and saw Rita standing back of him, holding Doug's rifle to her
shoulder, a tiny curl of blue smoke issuing from the barrel. The girl's
face turned pale, the gun fell from her hands, her eyes closed, and she
would have fallen had not Dic caught her in his arms. He did not so much
as glance at Doug, but at once carried the unconscious Rita home with
all the speed he could make.

"Now for goodness' sake, what has she been doing?" cried Mrs. Bays, as
Dic entered the front door with his almost lifeless burden. "That girl
will be the death of me yet."

"She has fainted," replied Dic, "and I fear she's dead."

With a wild scream Mrs. Bays snatched Rita from Dic's arms in a frenzy
of grief that bore a touch of jealousy. In health and happiness Rita for
her own good must bow beneath the rod; but in sickness or in death Rita
was her child, and no strange hand should minister to her. A blessed
philosopher's stone had for once transmuted her hard, barren sense of
justice to glowing love. She carried the girl into the house and applied
restoratives. After a little time Rita breathed a sigh and opened her
eyes. Her first word was "Dic!"

"Here I am, Rita," he softly answered, stepping to her bedside and
taking her hand. Mrs. Bays, after her first inquiry, had asked no
questions, and Dic had given no information. After Rita's return to
consciousness tears began to trickle down her mother's furrowed cheek,
and, ashamed of her weakness, she left the room. Dic knelt by Rita's bed
and kissed her hands, her eyes, her lips. His caresses were the best of
all restoratives, and when Mrs. Bays returned, Rita was sitting on the
edge of the bed, Dic's arm supporting her and her head resting on his
shoulder. Mrs. Bays came slowly toward them. The girl's habitual fear of
her mother returned, and lifting her head she tried to move away from
Dic, but he held her. Mrs. Bays reached the bedside and stood facing
them in silence. The court of love had adjourned. The court of justice
was again in session. She snatched up Rita's hand and pointed to the
ring.

"What is that?" she asked sternly.

"That is our engagement ring," answered Dic. "Rita has promised to be my
wife."

"Never!" cried the old woman, out of the spirit of pure antagonism.
"Never!" she repeated, closing her lips in a spasm of supposed duty.
Rita's heart sank, and Dic's seemed heavier by many pounds than a few
moments before, though he did not fear the apostle of justice and duty
as did Rita. He hoped to marry Rita at once with her mother's consent;
but if he could not have that, he would wait until the girl was
eighteen, when she could legally choose for herself. Out of his
confidence came calmness, and he asked,

"Why shall not Rita be my wife? She shall want for nothing, and I will
try to make her happy. Why do you object?"

"Because--because I do," returned Mrs. Bays.

"In so important a matter as this, Mrs. Bays, 'because' is not a
sufficient reason."

"I don't have to give you a reason," she answered sharply.

"You are a good woman, Mrs. Bays," continued Dic, with a deliberate and
base intent to flatter. "No man or woman has ever had injustice at your
hands, and I, who am almost your son, ask that justice which you would
not refuse to the meanest person on Blue."

The attack was unfair. Is it ever fair to gain our point by flattering
another's weakness? Dic's statement of the case was hard to evade, so
Mrs. Margarita answered:--

"The girl's too young to marry. I'll never consent. I'll have nothing of
the sort going on, for a while at any rate; give him back the ring."

Rita slipped the ring from her finger and placed it in Dic's hand.

"Now tell me," Mrs. Bays demanded, "how this came about? How came Rita
to faint?"

Rita hung her head and began to weep convulsively.

"Rita and I," answered Dic, "were walking home down the river path. We
had been sitting near the step-off. Doug Hill and Patsy Clark came up
behind us, and Doug tried to kiss Rita. I interfered, and we fought. He
was about to kill me with Patsy's hunting-knife when--when--when I shot
him. Then Rita fainted, and I feared she was dead, so I brought her home
and left Doug lying on his face, with Patsy Clark standing over him."

Rita so far recovered herself as to be able to say:--

"No, mother, I killed him."

"You," shrieked Mrs. Bays, "you?"

"Yes," the girl replied.

"Yes," replied Dic to Mrs. Bays's incredulous look, "that was the way of
it, but I was the cause, and I shall take the blame. You had better not
speak of this matter to any one till we have consulted Billy Little. I
can bear the blame much better than Rita can. When the trial comes, you
and Rita say nothing. I will plead guilty to having killed Doug Hill,
and no questions will be asked."

"If you will do it, Dic, if you will do it," wailed Mrs. Bays.

"I certainly will," returned Dic.

"No, you shall not," said Rita.

"You must be guided by your mother and me," replied Dic. "I know what is
best, and if you will do as we direct, all may turn out better than we
now hope. He was about to kill me, and I had a right to kill him. I do
not know the law certainly, but I fear you had no right to kill him in
my defence. I have read in the law books that a man may take another's
life in the defence of one whom he is bound to protect. I fear you had
no right to kill Doug Hill for my sake."

"I had, oh, I had!" sobbed Rita.

"But you will be guided by your mother and me, will you not, Rita?"
Despite fears of her mother, the girl buried her face on Dic's breast,
and entwining her arms about his neck whispered:--

"I will be guided by you."

Dic then arose and said: "It may be that Doug is not dead. I will take
one of your horses, Mrs. Bays, and ride to town for Dr. Kennedy."

Within ten minutes Dic was with Billy Little, telling him the story.
"I'm going for Kennedy," said Dic. "Saddle your horse quickly and ride
up with us."

Five minutes later, Dic, Kennedy, and Billy Little were galloping
furiously up the river to the scene of battle. When they reached it,
Doug, much to Dic's joy, was seated leaning against a tree. His shirt
had been torn away, and Patsy was washing the bullet wound in the breast
and back, for the bullet had passed entirely through Doug's body.

"Well, he's not dead yet," cried Kennedy. "So far, so good. Now we'll
see if I can keep from killing him."

While the doctor was at work Dic took Billy to one side. "I told Mrs.
Bays and Rita not to speak about this affair," he said. "I will say upon
the trial that I fired the shot."

"Why, Dic, that will never do."

"Yes, it will; it must. You see, I had a good right to kill him, but
Rita had not. At any rate, don't you know that they might as well kill
Rita at once as to try her? She couldn't live through a trial for
murder. It would kill her or drive her insane. I'll plead guilty. That
will stop all questioning."

"Yes," replied Billy, deep in revery, and stroking his chin; "perhaps
you are right. But how about Hill and Clark? They will testify that Rita
did the shooting."

"No one will have the chance to testify if I plead guilty," said Dic.

"And if Doug should die, you may hang or go to prison for life on a mere
unexplained plea of guilty. That shall never happen with my consent."

"Billy Little, you can't prevent it. I'll make a plea of guilty,"
responded Dic, sharply; "and if you try to interfere, I'll never speak
your name again, as God is my help."

Billy winced. "No wonder she loves you," he said. "I'll not interfere.
But take this advice: say nothing till we have consulted Switzer. Don't
enter a plea of guilty. You must be tried. I believe I have a plan that
may help us."

"What is it, Billy Little?" asked Dic, eagerly.

"I'll not tell you now. Trust me for a time without questions, Dic. I am
good for something, I hope."

"You are good for everything concerning me, Billy Little," said Dic. "I
will trust you and ask no questions."

"Little," said Kennedy, "if you will make a stretcher of boughs we will
carry Hill up to Bright's house and take him home in a wagon. I think he
may live." Accordingly, a rude litter was constructed, and the four men
carried the wounded Douglas to Dic's house, where he was placed upon a
couch of hay in a wagon, and taken to his home, two or three miles
eastward.

On the road over, Billy Little asked Dr. Kennedy to lead his horse while
he talked to Patsy Clark, who was driving in the wagon.

"How did Dic happen to shoot him?" asked Billy when he was seated beside
Patsy.

"D-Dic d-di-didn't shoot him. Ri-ta did," stuttered Doug's henchman.

"No, Patsy, it was Dic," said Billy Little.

"I-I re-reckon I or-orter know," stammered Patsy. "I-I was there and
s-saw it. You wasn't."

"You're wrong, Patsy," insisted Billy.

"B-by Ned, I re-reckon I know," he returned.

"Now listen to me, Patsy," said Billy, impressively. "I say you are
wrong, and--by the way, Patsy, I want you to do a few little odd jobs
about the store for the next month or so. I'll not need you frequently,
but I should like to have you available at any time. If you will come
down to the store, I will pay you twenty dollars wages in advance, and
later on I will give you another twenty. You are a good fellow, and I
want to help you; but I am sure you are wrong in this case. I know it
was Dic who fired the shot. Now, think for a moment. Wasn't it Dic?"

"We-well, c-come to think a-a-about it, I believe you're right. Damned
if I don't. He t-tuk the gun and jes' b-b-blazed away."

"I knew that was the way of it," said Billy, quietly.

"B-betch yur life it was jes' that-a-way. H-how the h----did you know?"

"Dic told me," answered Billy.

"Well, that-a-a-a-way was the way it was, sure as you're alive."

"You're sure of it now, Patsy, are you?"

"D-dead sure. Wa-wa-wasn't I there and d-d-didn't I see it all? Yes,
sir, d-d-dead sure. And the tw-twenty dollars? I'll g-get it to-morrow,
you say?"

"Yes."

"A-and the other t-t-twenty? I'll get it later, eh?"

"You can trust me, can't you, Patsy?" queried Billy.

"B-betch yur life I can. E-e-e-everybody does. B-but how much later?"

"When it is all over," answered Billy.

"A-all right," responded his stuttering friend.

"But," asked Billy, "if Doug recovers, and should think as you did at
first, that Rita fired the shot?"

"Sa-sa-say, B-Billy Little, you couldn't make it another t-t-twenty
later on for that ere job about the st-store, could ye?"

"I think I can," returned Billy.

"Well, then, Doug'll g-get it straight--never you f-f-fear. He was crazy
drunk and ha-ha-half blind with blood where Dic knocked him, and he
didn't know who f-f-fired the shot."

"But suppose he should know?"

"B-but he won't know, I-I tell ye. I-I t-trust you; c-can't you trust
Patsy? I-I'm not as big a f-fool as I look. I-I let p-people think I'm a
fool because when p-people think you're a f-fool, it's lots easier
t-t-to work 'em. See?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Billy left Doug hovering between life and death, and hurried back to
Dic. "Patsy says you took the gun from where it was leaning against the
tree and shot Hill. I suppose he doesn't know exactly how it did
happen. I told him you said that was the way of it, and he assents. He
says Doug doesn't know who fired the shot. We shall be able to leave
Rita entirely out of the case, and you may, with perfect safety, enter a
plea of self-defence."

Dic breathed a sigh of relief and longed to thank Billy, but dared not,
and the old friend rode homeward unthanked but highly satisfied.

On the way home Billy fell into deep thought, and the thoughts grew into
mutterings: "Billy Little, you are coming to great things. A briber, a
suborner of perjury, a liar. I expect soon to hear of you stealing.
Burglary is a profitable and honorable occupation. Go it, Billy
Little.--And for this you came like a wise man out of the East to leaven
the loaf of the West--all for the sake of a girl, a mere child, whom you
are foolish enough to--nonsense--and for the sake of the man she is to
marry." Then the grief of his life seemed to come back to him in a
flood, and he continued almost bitterly: "I don't believe I have led an
evil life. I don't want to feel like a Pharisee; but I don't recollect
having injured any man or woman in the whole course of my miserable
existence, yet I have missed all that is best in life. Even when I have
not suffered, my life has been a pale, tasteless blank with nothing but
a little poor music and worse philosophy to break the monotony. The
little pleasure I have had from any source has been enjoyed alone, and
no joy is complete unless one may give at least a part of it to another.
If one has a pleasure all to himself, he is apt to hate it at times, and
this is one of the times. Billy Little, you must be suffering for the
sins of an ancestor. I wonder what he did, damn him."

This mood was unusual for Billy. In his youth he had been baptized with
the chrism of sorrow and was safe from the devil of discontent. He was
by nature an apostle of sunshine; but when we consider all the facts, I
know you will agree with me that he had upon this occasion good right
to be a little cloudy.

That evening Dic was arrested and held in jail pending Doug Hill's
recovery or death. Should Douglas die, Dic would be held for murder and
would not be entitled to bail. In case of conviction for premeditated
murder, death or imprisonment for life would be his doom. If Doug should
recover, the charge against Dic would be assault and battery, with
intent to commit murder, conviction for which would mean imprisonment
for a term of years. If self-defence could be established--and owing to
the fact that neither Dic nor Rita was to testify, that would be
difficult to accomplish--Dic would go free. These enormous "ifs"
complicated the case, and Dic was detained in jail till Doug's fate
should be known.




THE TRIAL

CHAPTER VII

THE TRIAL


I shall not try to tell you of Rita's suffering. She wept till she could
weep no more, and the nightmare of suspense settled on her heart in the
form of dry-eyed suffering. She could not, even for a moment, free her
mind from the fact that Dic was in jail and that his life was in peril
on account of her act. Billy went every day to encourage her and to keep
her silent by telling her that Dic would be cleared. Mrs. Bays
prohibited her from visiting the jail; but, despite Rita's fear of her
mother, the girl would have gone had not Dic emphatically forbidden.

Doug recovered, and, court being then in session, Dic's trial for
assault and battery, with intent to commit murder, came up at once. I
shall not take you through the tedious details of the trial, but will
hasten over such portions as closely touch the fate of our friends.

Upon the morning of Dic's arraignment he was brought into court and the
jury was empanelled. Rita had begged piteously to go to the trial, but
for many reasons that privilege was denied. The bar was filled with
lawyers, and the courtroom was crowded with spectators. Mr. Switzer
defended Dic, who sat near him on the right hand of the judge, the
State's attorney, with Doug Hill and Patsy Clark, the prosecuting
witnesses, sitting opposite on the judge's left. The jury sat opposite
the judge, and between the State's attorney and Mr. Switzer and the
judge and the jury was an open space fifteen feet square. On a raised
platform in this vacant space was the witness chair, facing the jury.

Doug Hill and Patsy Clark were the only witnesses for the State. The
defendant had summoned no witnesses, and Dic's fate rested in the hands
of his enemy and his enemy's henchman.

Patsy and Doug had each done a great deal of talking, and time and again
had asserted that Dic had deliberately shot Doug Hill after the fight
was over. Mr. Switzer's only hope seemed to be to clear Dic on
cross-examination of Doug and Patsy.

"Not one lie in a hundred can survive a hot cross-examination," he said.
"If a woman is testifying for the man she loves, or for her child, she
will carry the lie through to the end without faltering. Every instinct
of her nature comes to her help; but a man sooner or later bungles a lie
if you make him angry and keep at him."

Doug was the first witness called. He testified that after the fight was
over Dic snatched up the gun and said, "I'm going to kill you;" that he
then fired the shot, and that afterward Doug remembered nothing. The
story, being simple, was easily maintained, and Mr. Switzer's
cross-examination failed to weaken the evidence. Should Patsy Clark
cling to the same story as successfully, the future looked dark for Dic.

When Doug left the stand at noon recess, Billy rode up to see Rita, and
in the course of their conversation the girl discovered his fears.
Billy's dark forebodings did not affect her as he supposed they would.
He had expected tears and grief, but instead he found a strange,
unconcerned calmness that surprised and puzzled him. Soon after Billy's
departure Rita saddled her horse and rode after him. Mrs. Bays forbade
her going, but for the first time in her life the girl sullenly refused
to answer her mother, and rode away in dire rebellion.

Court convened at one o'clock, and Patsy Clark was called to the stand.
The State's attorney began his examination-in-chief:--

_Question._--"State your name."

_Answer by Patsy._--"Sh-shucks, ye know my name."

"State your name," ordered the Court.

_Answer._--"Pa-Pa-Patsy C-Clark."

_Question by State's Attorney._--"Where do you live?"

_Answer._--"North of t-t-town, with D-Doug Hill's father."

_Question._--"Where were you, Mr. Clark, on fifth day of last month at
or near the hour of three o'clock P.M.?"

_Answer._--"Don't know the day, b-but if you mean the d-day Doug and
D-Dic had their fight, I-I was up on B-Blue about halfway b-between Dic
Bright's house and T-Tom Bays', at the step-off."

_Question._--"What, if anything, occurred at that time and place?"

_Answer._--"A f-fight--damned bad one."

_Question._--"Who fought?"

_Answer._--"D-Doug Hill and D-Dic Bright."

_Question._--"Now, Mr. Clark, tell the jury all you heard and saw take
place, in the presence of the defendant Dic Bright, during that fight."

The solemnity of the Court had made a deep impression on Patsy, and he
trembled while he spoke. He was angry because the State's attorney, as
he supposed, had pretended not to know his name, whereas that self-same
State's attorney had been familiar with him prior to the election.

"We'll get the truth out of this fellow on cross-examination," whispered
Mr. Switzer to his client.

"Be careful not to get too much truth out of him," returned Dic.

Patsy began his story.

"Well, me and D-Doug was a-g-a-goin' up the west b-bank of B-Blue when
we seed--"

_State's Attorney._--"Never mind what you saw at that time. Answer my
question. I asked you to tell all you saw and heard during the fight."

_Answer._--"I-I w-will if you'll l-let me. J-jest you keep still a
minute and l-l-let me t-talk. I-I c-can't t-t-talk very well anyway.
C-can't talk near as well as you. B-but I can say a he-heap more.
Whe-whe-when you talk so much, ye-ye-you g-get me to st-st-st-stuttering.
S-see? Now listen to that."

_State's Attorney._--"Well, go on."

_Answer._--"Well, we seed Dic and Rita Bays, p-prettiest girl in the
h-h-whole world, on the op-opposite side of the river, and he wa-wa-was
a-kissin' her."

_State's Attorney._--"Never mind that, but go ahead. Tell it your own
way."

"I object," interposed Mr. Switzer. "The witness must confine himself to
the State's question."

"Confine your answer to the question, Mr. Clark," commanded the Court.
Patsy was growing angry, confused, and frightened.

_State's Attorney._--"Go on. Tell your story, can't you?"

_Answer._--"Well, Doug, he hollered across the river and said he-he
wa-wa-wanted one hisself and would g-g-go over after it."

_State's Attorney._--"Did you not understand my question? What did you
see and hear? What occurred during the fight?"

_Answer._--"Well, g-good L-L-Lord! a-ain't I tryin' to t-tell ye? When
we crossed the river and g-got to the step-off, Rita and D-Dic had went
away and D-Doug and me st-started after 'em down the path toward
B-Bays's. When we g-got up t-to 'em D-Doug he says, says 'ee, 'I-I've
come for my k-kiss,' says 'ee, jes' that-a-way. 'Ye wo-won't get none,'
says Rita, says she, jes' that-a-way, and D-Dic he p-puts in and says,
says 'ee, 'I-I g-guess not,' says 'ee, jes' that-a-way. Then Doug he-he
puts his gun agin' a gum tree and g-grabs Rita about the wa-waist,
hugging her up to him ti-tight-like. Then he-he push her head back-like,
so's 'ee c-could get at her mouth, and then Dic he-he ups and knocks him
d-down. Then D-Doug he-he gets up quick-like and they clinches and
falls, and D-Doug on top. Then Doug he-he says, says 'ee to me, 'G-Give
me your n-knife, Patsy,' jes' that-a-way, and I ups and gives him my
knife, but he d-drops it and some way D-Dic he throws Doug o-off and
gets up, and Doug he picks up the knife and st-starts for Dic, lookin'
wilder 'en hell. Jes' then Rita she ups with D-Doug's gun and shoots him
right through. He-he trembled-like for a minute and his knees shuk and
he shivered all over and turned white about the mouth like he was awful
sick, and then he d-dropped on his face, shot through and through."

The confusion in the courtroom had been growing since the beginning of
Patsy's story, and by the time he had finished it broke into an uproar.
The judge called "Order," and the sheriff rose to quiet the audience.

_State's Attorney._--"Do you mean to say, Mr. Clark, that Rita Bays
fired the shot that wounded Douglas Hill?"

Douglas, you remember, had just sworn that Dic fired the shot.

_Answer._--"Yes, sir, you betch yur life that's jes' the way w-w-what I
mean to say."

_State's Attorney._--"Now, Mr. Clark, I'll ask you if you did not tell
me and many other citizens of this community that the defendant, Dic
Bright, fired the shot?"

"I object," cried Mr. Switzer. "The gentleman cannot impeach his own
witness."

"You are right, Mr. Switzer," answered the Court, "unless on the ground
of surprise; but I overrule your objection. Proceed, Mr. State's
Attorney."

"Answer my question," said that official to Patsy.

_Answer._--"Yes, sir, I-I d-did tell you, and lots of other folks, too,
that D-Dic shot Doug Hill."

Question.--"Then, sir, how do you reconcile those statements with the
one you have just made?"

Answer.--"Don't try to re-re-re-reconcile 'em. Can't. I-I wa-wa-was
talkin' then. I'm sw-sw-swearin' now."

Dic sprang to his feet, exclaiming:--

"If the Court please, I wish to enter a plea of guilty to the charge
against me."

"Your plea will not be accepted," answered the Court. "I am beginning to
see the cause for the defendant's peculiar behavior in this case. Mr.
Sheriff, please subpoena Miss Rita Bays."

Dic broke down, and buried his face in his folded arms on the table.

The sheriff started to fetch Rita, but met her near the courthouse and
returned with her to the courtroom. She was directed to take the witness
stand, which she did as calmly as if she were taking a seat at her
father's dinner table; and her story, told in soft, clear tones,
confirmed Patsy in all essential details.

Mr. Switzer objected to the questions put to her by the Court on the
ground that she could not be compelled to give evidence that would
incriminate herself. The judge admitted the validity of Mr. Switzer's
objection; but after a moment spent in private consultation with the
State's attorney, he said:--

"The State and the Court pledge themselves that no prosecution will be
instituted against Miss Bays in case her answers disclose the fact that
she shot Doug Hill."

After Rita had told her story the judge said: "Miss Bays, you did right.
You are a strong, noble girl, and the man who gets you for a wife will
be blessed of God."

Rita blushed and looked toward Dic, as if to say, "You hear what the
judge says?" But Dic had heard, and thought the judge wise and excellent
to a degree seldom, if ever, equalled among men.

The judge then instructed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty,
and within five minutes Dic was a free and happy man. Billy Little did
not seem to be happy; for he, beyond a doubt, was crying, though he said
he had a bad cold and that colds always made his eyes water. He started
to sing Maxwelton's braes in open court, but remembered himself in time,
and sang mentally.

Mrs. Bays had followed Rita; and when the girl and Dic emerged from the
courthouse door, the high court of the Chief Justice seized its daughter
and whisked her off without so much as giving her an opportunity to say
a word of farewell. Rita looked back to Dic, but she was in the hands of
the high court, which was a tribunal differing widely from the _nisi
prius_ organization she had just left, and by no means to be trifled
with.

Dic stopped for dinner at the inn with Billy Little, and told him that
Mrs. Bays refused her consent.

"Did you expect anything else?" asked Billy.

"Yes, I did," answered Dic.

"Even Rita will be valued more highly if you encounter difficulties in
getting her," replied his friend.

"I certainly value her highly enough as it is," said Dic, "and Mrs.
Bays's opposition surprises me a little. I know quite as well as
she--better, perhaps--that I am not worthy of Rita. No man is. But I am
not lazy. I would be willing to die working for her. I am not very good;
neither am I very bad. She will make me good, and I don't see that any
one else around here has anything better to offer her. The truth is,
Rita deserves a rich man from the city, who can give her a fine house,
servants, and carriages. It is a shame, Billy Little, to hide such
beauty as Rita's under a log-cabin's roof in the woods."

"I quite agree with you," was Billy's unexpected reply. "But I don't see
any chance for her catching that sort of a man unless her father goes in
business with Fisher at Indianapolis. Even there the field is not broad.
She might, if she lived at Indianapolis, meet a stranger from
Cincinnati, St. Louis, or the East, and might marry the house,
carriages, and servants. I understand Bays--perhaps I should say Mrs.
Bays--contemplates making the move, and probably you had better withdraw
your claim and give the girl a chance."

Dic looked doubtingly at his little friend and said, "I think I shall
not withdraw."

"I have not been expecting you would," answered Billy. "But what are you
going to do about the Chief Justice?"

"I don't know. What would you do?"

Billy Little paused before answering. "If you knew what mistakes I have
made in such matters, you would not ask advice of me."

Dic waited, hoping that Billy would amplify upon the subject of his
mistakes, but he waited in vain. "Nevertheless," he said, "I want your
advice."

"I have none to give," responded Billy, "unless it is to suggest in a
general way that in dealing with women boldness has always been
considered the proper article. Humility is sweet in a beautiful woman,
but it makes a man appear sheepish. The first step toward success with
all classes of persons is to gain their respect. Humility in a man won't
gain the respect of a hound pup. Face the world bravely. Egad! St.
George's little affair with the fiery dragon grows pale when one thinks
of the icy dragoness of duty and justice you must overthrow before you
can rescue Rita. But go at the old woman as if you had fought dragons
all your life. Tell her bluntly that you want Rita; that you must and
will have her, and that it is not in the power of duty and justice to
keep her from you. Be bold, and you will probably get the girl, together
with her admiration and gratitude. I guess there is no doubt they like
it--boldness. But Lord bless your soul, Dic, I don't know what they
like. I think the best thing you can do is to go to New York with
Sampson, the horse-dealer. He sails out of here in a few days, and if
you will go with him he will pay you five hundred dollars and will allow
you to take a few horses on your own account. You will double your money
if you take good horses."

"Do you really think he would pay me five hundred dollars?" asked Dic.

"Yes, I believe he will. I'll see him about it."

"I believe I'll go," said Dic. "That is, I'll go if--"

"If Rita will let you, I suppose you are going to say," remarked Billy.
"We'll name the new firm of horse-buyers Sampson and Sampson; for if you
are not mindful this gentle young Delilah will shear you."

"I promised her I would not go. I cannot break my word. If she will
release me, I will go, and will thank you with all my heart. Billy
Little, you have done so much for me that I must--I must--"

"There you go. 'Deed if I don't leave you if you keep it up. You have
four or five good horses, and I'll loan you five hundred dollars with
which you may buy a dozen or fifteen more. You may take twenty head of
horses on your own account, and should make by the trip fifteen hundred
or two thousand dollars, including your wages. Why, Dic, you will be
rich. Unless I am mistaken, wealth is greater even than boldness with
icy dragonesses."

"Not with Rita."

"You don't need help of any sort with her," said Billy. "Poor girl, she
is winged for all time. You may be bold or humble, rich or poor; it
will be all one to her. But you want to get her without a fight. You
don't know what a fight with a woman like the Chief Justice means.
Carnage and destruction to beat Napoleon. I believe if you had two
thousand dollars in gold, there would be no fight. Good sinews of war
are great peace-makers."

"I know Rita will release me if I insist," said Dic.

"I'm sure she will," responded his friend.

"I will go," cried Dic, heroically determined to break the tender
shackles of Rita's welding.

"Now you are a man again," said Billy. "You may cause her to cry a bit,
but she'll like you none the less for that. If tears caused women to
hate men, there would be a sudden stoppage in population." Billy sat
contemplative for a moment with his finger tips together. "Men are
brutes"--another pause--"but they salt the earth while women sweeten it.
Personally, I would rather sweeten the earth than salt it; but a sweet
man is like a pokeberry--sugarish, nauseating and unhealthful. My love
for sweetness has made me a failure."

"You are not a failure, Billy Little. You are certainly of the salt of
the earth," insisted Dic.

"A man fails when he does not utilize his capabilities to their limit,"
said Billy, philosophically. "He is a success when he accomplishes all
he can. The measure of the individual is the measure of what should
constitute his success. His capabilities may be small or great; if he
but use them all, he is a success. A fishing worm may be a great success
as a fishing worm, but a total failure as a mule. Bless me, what a
sermon I have preached about nothing. I fear I am growing garrulous,"
and Billy looked into the fire and hummed Maxwelton's braes.

That evening Dic went to call on Rita and made no pretence of wishing to
see Tom. That worthy young man had served his purpose, and could never
again be a factor in Dic's life or courtship. Mrs. Bays received Dic
coldly; but Mr. Bays, in a half-timid manner, was very cordial. Dic paid
no heed to the coldness, and, after talking on the porch with the family
for a few minutes, boldly asked Rita to walk across the yard to the log
by the river. Rita gave her mother a frightened glance and hurried away
with Dic before Justice could assert itself, and the happy pair sought
the beloved sycamore divan by the river bank.

"In the midst of all my happiness," began Rita, "I'm very unhappy
because I, in place of Patsy Clark, did not liberate you. I always
intended to tell the truth. You must have known that I would."

"I never even hoped that you would not. I knew that when the time should
come you would not obey me," returned Dic.

"In all else, Dic, in all else." There was the sweet, all-conquering
humility of which Billy had spoken.

"In all else, Rita? Do you mean what you say?"

"Yes."

"I will put you to the test at once. For your sake and my own I should
go with Sampson to New York, and I want you to release me from my
promise. I would not ask you did I not feel that it is an opportunity
such as I may never have again. It is now July; I shall be back by the
middle of November, and then, Rita, you will go home with me, won't
you?" For answer the girl gently put her hand in his. "And you will
release me from my promise?"

She nodded her head, and after a short silence added: "I fear I have no
will of my own. I borrow all from you. I cannot say 'no' when you wish
'yes'; I cannot say 'yes' when you wish 'no.' I fear you will despise
me, I am so cheap; but I am as I am, and it is your fault that I have so
many faults. You have made me what I am. Will it not be wonderful, Dic,
if I, who clung to your finger in my babyhood, should be led by your
hand from my cradle to--to my grave? I have never in all my life, Dic,
known any real help but yours--and some from Billy Little. So you see my
dependence upon you is excusable, and you cannot think less of me
because I am so weak." She looked up to him with a tearful smile in
which the past and the future contributed each its touch of sadness.

"Rita, come to the house this instant!" called Mrs. Bays (to Dic her
voice sounded like a broken string in Billy Little's piano).

Dic and Rita went to the house, and Mrs. Bays, pointing majestically to
a chair, said to her daughter:--

"Now, you sit there, and if you move, off to bed you go." The threat was
all-sufficient.

Dic sat upon the edge of the porch thinking of St. George and the
dragon, and tried to work his courage up to the point of attack. He
talked ramblingly for a while to Mr. Bays; then, believing his courage
in proper form, he turned to that gentleman's better nine-tenths and
boldly began:--

"I want Rita, Mrs. Bays. I know I am not worthy of her" (here the girl
under discussion flashed a luminous glance of flat contradiction at the
speaker), "and I know I am asking a great deal, but--but--" But the
boldness had evaporated along with the remainder of what he had to say,
for with Dic's first words Justice dropped her knitting to her lap, took
off her glasses, and gazed at the unfortunate malefactor with an
injured, fixed, and icy stare. Dic retired in disorder; but he soon
rallied his forces and again took up the battle.

"I'm going to New York in a few days," he said. "I will not be home till
November. I have Rita's promise. I can, if I must, be satisfied with
that; but I should like your consent before I go." Brave words, those,
to the dragoness of Justice. But she did not even look at the
presumptuous St. George. She was, as Justice should be, blind. Likewise
she appeared to be deaf.

"May I have your consent, Mr. Bays?" asked Dic, after a long pause,
turning to Rita's father.

"Yes," he replied, "yes, Dic, I will be glad--" Justice at the moment
recovered sight and hearing, and gazed stonily at its mate. The mate,
after a brief pause, continued in a different tone:--

"That is, I don't care. You and mother fix it between you. I don't know
anything about such matters." Mr. Bays leaned forward with his elbows on
his knees and examined his feet as if he had just discovered them. After
a close scrutiny he continued:--

"Rita's the best girl that ever lived. I don't care where you look,
there's not another like her in all the world. She has never caused me a
moment of pain--" Rita moved her chair to her father's side and took his
hand--"she has brought me nothing but happiness, and I would--" He
ceased speaking, and no one has ever known what Mr. Bays "would," for at
that interesting point in his remarks his worthy spouse interrupted
him--

"Nothing brings you pain. You shirk it and throw it all on me. Lord
knows the girl has brought trouble enough to me. I have toiled and
worked and suffered for her. I bear the burdens of this house, and if my
daughter is better than other girls,--I don't say she is, and I don't
say she isn't,--but if she is bette

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