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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19818-8.txt b/19818-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c50123b --- /dev/null +++ b/19818-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11322 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dixie Hart, by Will N. Harben + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dixie Hart + +Author: Will N. Harben + +Release Date: November 15, 2006 [EBook #19818] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIXIE HART *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, Suzanne Lybarger and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + DIXIE HART + + _By_ WILL N. HARBEN + +Author of "The Redemption of Kenneth Galt," "Gilbert Neal," + "Abner Daniel," "Pole Baker," etc. + + [Illustration] + + WITH FRONTISPIECE + A. L. BURT COMPANY + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers + Copyright, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS + + * * * * * + + TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE + RICHARD WATSON GILDER, WHOSE + KINDLY APPRECIATION OF THE + CHARACTER OF "DIXIE HART" WAS MY + INSPIRATION IN WRITING THIS BOOK + + * * * * * + + + + + DIXIE HART + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +In a blaze of splendor the morning sun broke over the mountain, throwing +its scraggy brown bowlders, spruce-pines, thorn-bushes, and tangled +vines into impenetrable shadow. Massed at the base and along the rocky +sides were mists as dense as clouds, through the filmy upper edges of +which the yellow light shone as through a mighty prism, dancing on the +dew-coated corn-blades, cotton-plants, and already drinking from the +fresh-ploughed, mellow soil of the farm-lands which fell away in gentle +undulations to the confines of the village hard by. + +"A fellow couldn't ask for a prettier day than this, no matter how +greedy he was," Alfred Henley mused as he stood in the doorway of his +barn and heard the gnawing of the horses he had just fed in the stalls +behind him. A hundred yards distant, on the main-travelled road which +ran into the village of Chester, only half a mile away, stood his house, +the eight rooms of which were divided into two equal parts by an open +veranda, in which there was a shelf for water-pails, tin wash-basins, +and a towel on a clumsy roller. A slender woman, with harsh, sharp +features, older-looking than her thirty years would have justified, and +a stiff figure disguised by few attempts at adornment, was sweeping the +veranda floor, and in chairs propped back against the weather-boarding +sat an old man and an old woman in the plainest of mountain attire. + +For a moment Henley's eyes rested on the group, and he sighed deeply. +"Yes, she's my wife," he said. "I owe her every duty, and, before God, +I'll stick to my vows and do what's right by her, come what may! She was +the only woman I thought I wanted, or ever could want. They say every +cloud has a silvery lining, but my cloud was made out of lead--and not +rubbed bright at that. I reckon, if the truth must be told, that the +whole mistake was of my own making. Whatever the Creator does for good +or ill, He don't seem to bother about hitching folks together; He leaves +that job to the fools that are roped in. Well, I'm going to stick to the +helm and guide my boat the best I can. I made my bed, and I'm as good a +sleeper as the average." + +Here the attention of the man, who was tall, strong, good-looking, and +about thirty-five years of age, was attracted by the dull blows of an +axe falling on wood, and, looking over the rail-fence into the yard of +an adjoining farm-house, a diminutive affair of only four rooms and a +box-like porch, he saw an attractive figure. It was that of a graceful +young woman about twenty-two years of age. Her hair, which was a rich +golden brown, and had a tendency to curl, was unbound, and as she raised +and lowered her bare arms it swung to and fro on her shapely shoulders. + +"Poor thing!" the observer exclaimed. "Here I am complaining, and just +look at her! A stout, able-bodied man that will grumble over a mistake +or two with a sight like that before his eyes ain't worth the powder and +lead that it would take to kill him. Look what she's took on her young +shoulders, and goes about with a constant smile and song on her red +lips. Yes, Dixie Hart shall be the medicine I'll take for my disease. +Whenever I feel like kicking over the traces I'll look in her direction. +I'd jump this fence and chop that wood for her now if I could do it +without old Wrinkle making comment." + +Her work finished, the girl turned and saw him. She flushed a shade +deeper than was due to her exercise, and with the axe in hand she came +to him. Her large hazel eyes held a mystic charm behind the long lashes +which seemed actually to melt into the soft pinkness of her skin. + +"Good-morning, Alfred," she greeted him, her lips curling in a smile. "I +know this ain't where you sell goods, but I thought it might save me a +trip to town to ask you if you keep axes at your store. This old plug of +a thing is about as sharp as a sledgehammer." + +"I've got a few poked away behind the counters somewhere," he laughed, +as he always did over her droll and original speech, "but the handles +ain't in them, and that is a job for a blacksmith, if they are ever made +to hold. Let me see that thing." He took the axe from her, and ran his +thumb along the blunt and gapped edge. "Look here, Dixie," he said, "I +thought you was too sensible a farmer to discard good tools. This axe is +an old-timer; you don't find such good-tempered steel in the axes made +to sell these days, with their lying red and blue labels pasted on 'em. +Give this one a good grinding and it will chop all the wood you'll ever +want to cut. Let me have it this morning. I've got a grindstone at the +store, and I'll make Pomp put a barber's edge on it." + +"Of course you'll let me pay--" + +"Pay nothing!" he broke in. "That nigger is taking the dry rot; he's +asleep under the counter half the time. The idea of you delving in the +hot sun with a tool that won't cut mud! You oughtn't to chop wood, +nohow. You ain't built for it. Your place is in the parlor of some rich +man's house, leaning back in a rocking-chair, with a good carpet under +foot." + +"That's the song mother and Aunt Mandy sing from morning to night," the +girl smiled, showing her perfect teeth. "They want me to quit work, and +get some man to tote my load. I reckon if the average young fellow out +looking for a wife could see behind the hedge he'd think twice before he +jumped into the thorns." + +Henley laughed again, his eyes resting admiringly on her animated face. +"I reckon the gals wouldn't primp so much either if they could see the +insides of their prize-packages," he returned. "I reckon neither side is +as wise while courting is going on as they are after the knot is tied. +Folks hereabouts certainly have plenty to say about me and my venture." + +There was a frank admission of the truth of his remark in the girl's +reply. "Well, if I was you, I wouldn't let anything they say bother me," +she said, sympathetically. "Mean people will say mean things; but you've +got friends that stick to you powerful close. I've heard many a one say +that in taking your wife's father-and mother-in-law to live with you, +and treating them as nice as you have, you are doing what not one man in +ten thousand would do." + +"I don't deserve any credit for that--not one bit," the young man +declared. "I'm not going to pass as better than I am, Dixie; I'm just +human, neither better nor worse than the average. I reckon you've heard +about how I happened to get married?" + +"Not from _you_, Alfred," the girl answered, in a kindly tone. "I have +often wondered if the busybodies got it straight. I've heard that you +used to go to see your wife before she married the first time." + +"Yes, me and Dick Wrinkle was both after her in a neck-and-neck race, +taking her to parties, corn-shuckings, and anything that was got up. +Hettie never was, you know, exactly pretty, but she had a sort o' queer, +say-little way about her that caught my eye. I was a gawky boy, as +green as a gourd, and never had been about with women. Dick was just the +opposite: he was a reckless, splurging chap that dressed as fine as a +fiddle, wasn't afraid to talk, joke, and carry on, and he could dance to +a queen's taste; so he naturally had all the gals after him. I was +afraid he was going to cut me out, and I was fool enough to--well, I +used to hope, when I'd see him so popular in company, that he'd make +another choice. And he might--he might have done it--for he was the most +wishy-washy chap that ever cocked his eye at a woman; he might, I say, +if me an' him hadn't had a regular knock-down-and-drag-out row. He was +drinking once, and said more than I could stand about a hoss trade I'd +made with a cousin o' his, and it ended in blows. The crowd parted us, +and he went one way and me another; but after that he hated me like a +rattlesnake, and he told her not to let me come there again. He might +not have made that demand if he had thought it over, for it sorter give +'er a stick to poke 'im with. She used to say nice things about me to +egg him on, and he often went with her for no other reason than to keep +me away. Well, you can see how it was. She wanted to beat the other +gals, and he wanted to outdo me, and, in the wrangle, they got married +one day all of a sudden." + +"And you felt bad, I reckon," Dixie Hart said, sympathetically. + +"I wanted to die," Henley answered, grimly. "I cursed man and God. That +gal was my life. I was as blind as a bat in daytime." + +"Then I've heard," the girl pursued, "that he neglected her and finally +went off West with Hank Bradley, and almost quit writing to her." + +"Yes," Henley nodded, "and she moped about home as pale as a dead +person, and never seemed interested in anything that was going on. All +that didn't do me any good, I'm here to tell you. Her trouble become +mine. I toted it night and day. I wasn't fit for work. I was as nigh +crazy as a man could well be out of an asylum." + +"Then the news come back that he was dead?" The girl leaned on the fence +and looked down. + +"Yes; Hank Bradley come home, and told how Dick was blowed away in the +awful tornado that destroyed that new town in Oklahoma. Hank had helped +hunt for his body; but it never could be identified among the hundreds +that was picked up, and so his remains never was brought home. That one +fact nearly killed Hettie. I'm talking plain, Dixie, but me and you are +good, true friends, and I want you, anyway, to understand my fix. I used +to watch her taking walks all by herself in the woods, always in her +thick, black veil, and bowed over like, as if she was under a heavy +load. I reckon no woman the Lord ever constructed is quite as attractive +to the eye uncovered as she is partly hid, for we are always hunting for +perfection, and so nothing under the sun seemed to me to be so good and +pure and desirable as Hettie did. I even gloried in the attention she +paid his mammy and daddy. I thought it was fine and noble, and that it +gave the lie to the charge that women are changeable. I don't want you +to think that I rate her any lower now, either, Dixie, for I don't. +She's a sight better woman than I am a man, and I certainly dogged the +life out of her till she agreed to marry me. She told me fair and square +at the start that she'd always love him, and I told her that it wouldn't +matter a bit. It hurts my pride a little now, but that ain't her +lookout. Folks say she's odd and peculiar, and that may be so, too, but +she was that way all along, and it's a waste of time to criticise +anybody for what they can't help." + +"I've always liked her," the girl said. "She certainly attends to her +own business, and that is more than I can say for my chief enemy, Carrie +Wade. Alfred, that girl hates the ground I walk on, and yet she keeps +coming to see me. She has me on her visiting list so she can devil me. +She has no work to do at home, and so she comes over to nag me. She +never has a beau or gets a thing to wear without trotting over to tell +me about it or flaunt it in my face. She even makes fun of me for having +to work in the field, and is actually insulting sometimes. I'd shut the +door in her face, but it would only please her to think she'd made me +mad." + +"She's more anxious to get attention from men than any woman I ever laid +eyes on," Henley declared, resentfully. "When drummers come to sell me +goods, she scents 'em a mile down the road, and is in the store +pretending to want to buy some knickknack or other before they open +their samples. I oughtn't to talk agin a lady, Dixie, but she lays +herself open to it, and is so much like a man in some things that I +forget what's due her as a woman. She has such a sneering way, too. That +reminds me. I heard her mention my name when I passed you and her at the +spring the other day. I couldn't hear what she said, but from the way +she snickered I knew she was poking fun. I caught this much: she said +that I was the only man on earth who was fool enough to do something or +other. I couldn't hear what it was, and I didn't care much, but--" +Henley broke off, and for a moment his eyes rested on the averted face +of his companion. + +"I don't carry tales," Dixie finally said, with a touch of +embarrassment, "but I've a good mind to tell you exactly what she said, +Alfred, so that you won't think it is worse than it really was. It +wasn't such an awful thing, and she was laughing more at her own +smartness than at you. She said--she said you was the only man under the +sun who had gone so far as to adopt a step-father-in-law. Now, that +wasn't so terrible, was it?" + +A sickly smile struggled for existence on the face of the storekeeper, +and his color rose. "Well, that was a new way to put it, anyway," he +said. "I think I could laugh hearty at that joke if it was on some other +fellow, and I'm glad you told me what it was. I didn't know but what she +was saying something even nastier than that." + +"She really said some _nice_ things," Dixie went on, diplomatically. +"She said it was good of you to give a home to the Wrinkles, and--" + +"As I said just now, I won't take credit for that," Henley broke in; "in +fact, I'd have refused if I could have done it. It come as a surprise, +and it almost knocked me silly. I'd counted on Hettie doing a good many +odd things, but I never expected that. So when she come home from the +camp-meeting, where there had been such a big religious upheaval, and +said she'd met the old man and woman there, and that they both looked so +lonely and peaked and ill-fed that she felt like she was acting +unfaithful to Dick's memory in living in one county and them in +another--well, that's the way it happened. I confess I never thought the +pair looked so bad when they come over, for they was awful cheerful, and +seemed to 'a' been fed on the fat of the land. Hettie told me afterward +that she'd been sending 'em all her spare change, so that was explained. +You'd never know the old woman was about unless you stumbled over her in +the dark, for she is as quiet as a mouse, and never says a thing nor +listens to anybody but him. He's all right. The old man's all right. I +really think I'd miss 'im if he was to leave. I never like to encourage +him too much, but I often laugh at the jokes he plays on folks. People +poke fun at me for having him around, but he drives off the blues +sometimes. He showed me what to expect from him the first day he got +here. He come down to the store, and walked in and looked around till he +saw the tobacco-boxes behind the counter, and he went to 'em and pulled +a plug off of each one, and smelt of 'em and looked at 'em in the light. +Then he took the best one and sidled over to me. He run his hand down +in his pocket, and I thought he was going to pay me for it, but he was +just hunting for his knife. He grinned as he clipped a corner off the +plug, and stuck it betwixt his short teeth. 'You'll find that I'm a +great chawer and smoker, Alf,' he said. Then he axed me if I had such a +thing as a empty dry-goods box about, and when I pointed to some in the +back-yard that I was saving to put seed-corn in, he said he'd take one +and wanted me to have the horses and wagon sent over for a pig they had +left. 'I wouldn't send for it,' he said, 'but it has got to be a sort of +pet. Its pen used to be right at our window, an' me an' the old lady +miss its squealing, especially in the morning. It is as good as an +alarm-clock.'" + +The girl wiped a smile from her merry mouth. "Excuse me, Alfred," she +said, "but it does seem powerful funny. It must be the way you tell it." + +"I'm glad it's funny to _somebody_, and you are more than excusable," he +said, dryly. "If I could get as good a joke as that on an enemy of mine +I'd never kill 'im in a duel; I'd keep him alive to laugh at." + +"You didn't say whether Mr. Wrinkle paid for the tobacco or not," Dixie +reminded him, expectantly. + +"Well, I'll tell you now that he didn't," was the answer, "nor for a +pocketful of red stick-candy which he took from a jar. He said it was +for his wife's sweet tooth; but if she got any of it she met him on the +road home, for he was chucking it in at a great rate as he walked away." + +They both glanced toward Henley's house. They saw the subject of their +remarks emerge from the kitchen door, and hang his slouch hat on a nail +on the veranda, and reach for the dinner-horn. + +"He's going to blow for me," Henley smiled, as the spluttering blast +from the horn rang out and reverberated from the mountain-side. +"Breakfast is ready. He eats like a horse at all times, and is as hardy +as a mountain-goat. I'm going to call him 'Kind Words.'" + +"Kind Words"? Dixie looked up inquiringly and smiled. "That's as odd as +Carrie's 'stepfather-in-law.' Why are you going to call him that?" + +"Because," and Henley glanced back as he was moving away, "the +Sunday-school hymn says, 'Kind words can never die,' and I know old +Wrinkle won't." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +As Henley, the axe in hand, approached the house, his stepfather-in-law, +with considerable clatter, was hanging the horn on its nail. + +"I noticed you was talkin' to Dixie Hart at the fence," he said, as he +discarded his quid of tobacco and stroked his grizzled chin, on which a +week-old beard grew. "Well, if I wasn't no older'n you are, an' was as +good-lookin', which maybe I ain't, I'd chin 'er over the fence mornin', +noon, and night--married or unmarried. Man laws was made to keep us +straight, I reckon; but when the Lord Himself lived on earth they wasn't +quite as bindin' as folks try to make 'em now. A feller, in that day an' +time, could be introduced to a new wife every mornin' at breakfast, if +he could afford to keep a drove of 'em, and still be looked up to as a +wise man and a prophet." + +"Dixie was talking about buying a new axe," Henley answered, "but I told +her this one was good enough, and that I'd make Pomp grind it." + +"She's as purty as red shoes," old Jason said. "And if she hain't had a +load to bear, no female ever toted one. Talk about justice! Why, Alf, +that gal hain't had a thimbleful sence she was a baby. She has set out +to make a livin' fer a mammy that can't hardly see where she's walkin', +and an aunt that is mighty nigh tied in a knot with rheumatism, and she +is doin' it--bless yore life!--better'n many a man could in the same +plight. Folks say she's already paid old Welborne half on that farm, +and that before long she'll own it, lock, stock, and barrel. As you may +'a' noticed, I sometimes poke jabs of fun at women, but I never do at +her. Somehow I jest can't. I was a-settin' right back of Carrie Wade an' +some more frisky gals at meetin' last Sunday when Dixie come in an' tuck +a seat on the bench ahead of 'em. I don't let women bother me, one way +or another, but I got rippin' mad at that gang. They was makin' sport of +her. One of 'em re'ched over an' felt of the ribbon on the pore gal's +hat, and then they stuffed the'r handkerchiefs in the'r mouths and come +nigh bustin' with giggles. Them sort think they are the whole show, with +their white hands, smellin'-stuff, and the'r eyes on every man that +passes, while a gal like Dixie Hart is overlooked. I've stood thar at +the gate and watched her out in her corn or cotton in the br'ilin' sun +with her hoe goin' up and down as regular as the tick of a clock, while +the other gals was whiskin' by in some drummer's dinky-top buggy or +takin' a snooze flat o' the'r backs in a cool room." + +"Is breakfast ready?" Henley asked, with an appreciative nod in +recognition of remarks he did not wish to prolong, as he leaned the axe +against the front gate and ascended the steps. + +"Sech as it is," the old man answered, taking another tack. "When me an' +Jane decided to come here to reside, Hettie was goin' to do wonders in +the cookin' line. She was particular to ax just what our favorite dishes +was, and you may remember how she spread herse'f the fust three days +after we was installed. It was like a camp-meetin'. You couldn't think +of a single article that she didn't have ready, in some shape or other. +But after 'while hot things quit comin' and cold uns appeared that had a +familiar look, and now me and you and all of us set down to the same old +seven and six. Well, my jaw teeth ain't as good as they used to be, and +I make out by soakin' my bread-crust in my coffee. Hettie says she's +goin' to have me an' Jane both fitted out with store sets. Folks that +have tried 'em say they beat the old sort all holler--that you kin crack +hickory-nuts if you have both upper and lower and git a fair clamp on +'em and use yore muscles." + +Henley turned into the big dining-room, where his "stepmother-in-law," a +diminutive woman, sat at the foot of the oblong table dressed in faded +black, even to the poke sunbonnet which, worn indoors and out, +completely hid her wrinkled face. Mrs. Henley, as he seated himself on +the side of the board opposite Wrinkle, came from the adjoining kitchen +carrying a steaming pot of coffee, which she put by her plate at the +head of the table, and sat down stiffly. The smooth floor of the room +was bare save for a few rugs made of varicolored rags. The walls had a +few cheap pictures on them--brilliant old-fashioned prints in mahogany +frames, and some enlarged photographs in tawdry gilt. The wide hearth of +a deep chimney was whitewashed, as was also the exposed brickwork up to +a crude mantelpiece on which towered a Colonial clock with wooden +wheels, ornamental dial, ponderous weights, and a painted glass door. + +Mrs. Henley had not always been so unattractive; her dark eyes were good +and her face held the glow of fine health. She had added to the severity +of her sharp features by the too-elderly manner in which she parted her +hair exactly in the centre of her high brow and brushed it sharply +backward to a scant knot behind. She wore constantly an expression of +one who was well aware of the fact that vast and vague duties to the +dead as well as to the living rested on her and which should be +performed at any cost. She was not usually talkative, and she had few +observations to make this morning. As she nibbled the hot biscuit, upon +which she had daintily spread a bit of butter, she allowed her glance to +rove perfunctorily over the three plates beyond her own. She asked +Wrinkle if his coffee was strong enough, and the gap in the black bonnet +if the mush was too lumpy. From the bonnet came a mumbling content with +the yellow mass into which cream was being slowly stirred with a +quivering hand. Wrinkle seemed more ready in the use of his tongue. + +"I hain't got no complaint to make," he said. "Especially sence Alf said +t'other day at the store that coffee was on the rise. I was curious to +see how this batch would sample out. I reckon when the market takes a +jump storekeepers has to take a lower grade to keep customers satisfied +with the price. But it won't work ef they are as good a judge of the +stuff as I am. I parched this lot myself and picked out heaps o' rotten +grains." + +"They wasn't rotten," Henley explained, authoritatively. "They was +water-stained by a wet crop-year, that's all. You was throwing away good +coffee." + +"Good or not, the chickens wouldn't eat it," argued the tangled head. "I +know, fer I watched 'em. They was hangin' round the kitchen-door and +would run every time I throwed out a handful, but they didn't swallow +'em any more'n they would so many buckshot. But prices nor nothin' else +will ever git right, if I am any judge, till we git free silver. I tell +you, Alf, that man Bryant is the biggest gun, by all odds, that ever +belched fire in the defence of a helpless nation, and when them dratted +Yankees tricked 'im out of the Presidency they put the ball an' chain o' +slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen +to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a +fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon +was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?--why, Abe +Lincoln--an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and +tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its +uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls. +_That_ man"--Wrinkle swallowed as he pointed the prongs of his fork at +the crayon portrait of Henley's predecessor, which, with shaggy mustache +and partially bald pate, in a new oaken frame, hung near the +clock--"that man was a Bryant supporter from the minute the +sixteen-to-one proposition electrocuted the world to the day of his +death." + +"Electro_fied_," corrected Mrs. Henley. "You oughtn't to use words out +of the common. People don't understand them hereabouts." + +"Well, they ought to grow up to it," Wrinkle grunted in his cup. "I read +more'n they do, I reckon, an' sometimes a word tickles me till I git it +out." + +Henley ate his breakfast in silence. He was known to be a good talker +himself, but he seldom indulged the tendency when Wrinkle was present. +The meal over, he took his hat and went out. The road passing the +farm-house led straight into the main street of the village, and along +it he strode in the soothing, crisp air. His store stood on the square +which encompassed the stone court-house. The store was a plain wooden +building which had never been painted, but had received from time and +the weather a gray, fuzzy coat which answered every purpose. It was +about eighty feet long by thirty in width, and had a porch in front, +which was reached from the sidewalk by a few steps. Ascending to the +door, Henley unlocked it and proceeded from the rather dark interior to +unscrew the faded green window-shutters. These thrown back on the +outside, the light filled the long room, displaying two rows of counters +and shelving. The right-hand side was devoted to dry goods and notions, +the left to groceries, hardware, and crockery. Henley went on to the +rear, where, by lifting a massive wooden bar from iron sockets, he +opened a door in one side of the house. Next he took up a water-pail +from an inverted soap-box, and, emptying the contents, he went to the +well in the adjoining yard, a fenced enclosure which contained a +conglomerate mass of old junk, broken-down wagons, buggies, agricultural +implements, and other odds and ends which the merchant had bought very +low or taken in some sort of exchange for new wares whereby they had +cost him practically nothing. Returning with the water, he had just +seated himself at his desk in the rear when his clerk, James Cahews, +entered at the front, busied himself putting out some samples of +hardware on the porch, and then came back to his employer. He was tall, +well built, had very blue eyes, yellow hair, and a sweeping mustache +which was well curled at the ends. He was without a coat and wore a blue +cravat and a shirt of fancy cotton which matched none too well. + +"You beat me to the tank again, Alf," was his jovial greeting. "I would +have got here sooner, but I stopped to drive Mrs. Hayward's cow in for +her. The blamed huzzy took a notion to prance about over the +school-house lot, and the old lady is too near-sighted to see which way +to turn and was afraid she'd get hooked." + +"No hurry, no hurry," Henley said, as the other took up a battered tin +sprinkling-pot and, filling it from the pail, began to dampen and sweep +the floor, after which he lazily wiped the counters with a soiled towel. + +"Pomp will be here after a while," the clerk said, pausing near where +Henley sat, his glance thoughtfully on the sunlit ground in the yard. "I +come by his cabin. He said he had to run for some medicine for his wife, +and I told him I'd sweep out for him. Them dern niggers had rather take +medicine than eat ice-cream at a festival. I don't know that it's +anybody else's business," he went on, after he had stood the broom in a +corner and was wiping the top of Henley's desk, "but thar is +considerable talk going around that you intend to take a trip to Texas." + +"I'm thinking seriously of it," Henley admitted. "I've heard of a deal +or two in land out there that I want to get a finger in. You know, Jim, +that I don't really make my best trades here in this shack; nothing +worth while seems to come this way. I reckon it's because this country +is old and settled. In a new, undeveloped section like that out there +big things is continually happening. The general impression is that a +trading-man can make more amongst ignorant folks than amongst keen +traffickers, but it is a mistake. Folks that ain't born with the flea of +speculation wigglin' in their brain-pans won't never let loose of +nothing. It is the feller that is eternally on the lookout for +opportunities that will sell the shirt off his back to raise money when +he thinks he sees an opening. Then there ain't no fun nor Christianity +in making money out of a fool. I want to know that a feller is up to +snuff and fairly in the game, and then I'll swat 'im if it is in my +power. It's been the ambition of my life to get the best of old Welborne +across the street there. He's made his pile off of widows and orphans, +and if I ever get him under my thumb I'll crack every bone in his hide." + +"Traders that have the knack of it like you have, Alf, are simply born +that way," Cahews smiled. "I never had any turn of that sort. I can talk +an old woman into buyin' a dress pattern off of a shelf-worn bolt of +linsey, or a pair of shoes too tight for her, but this way you have of +buying a feller's wagon that breaks down in the road and having it +patched up by a blacksmith that owes you money, and selling the wagon +for more than it cost new--well, as I say, I don't know how to do it." + +"I believe myself, as you say, that the trading turn is born in a +feller," Henley laughed, reminiscently. "I know I was swapping knives +'sight unseen' when I was wearing petticoats. I had a stock of old ones +and I kept the jaws of 'em rubbed up bright. My daddy used to whip me +for it. He was one of the best men, Jim, that ever wore shoe-leather, +and he never could stand to see one neighbor get the best of another. He +was dead agin all the deals I made when I was growing up, but I learnt +him the trick and showed him the beauty of it before I was twenty." + +"You say you did?" Cahews sat down and eyed his employer eagerly. + +"Yes, it come about through my fust hoss-trade," Henley smiled. "It was +this way. Pa was on the lookout for a hoss to do field-work, and he let +everybody know he had the money, and a good many came his way. He wasn't +any judge of hoss-flesh, and a gypsy, passing along, stuck him--burned +the old chap clean to the bone. It was a flea-bitten hoss that was as +round and slick as a ball of butter, and as active under the gypsy's +lash and spur as a frisky young colt. The gypsy said he had paid two +hundred for him, but, as he was anxious to get to his sick wife in +Atlanta, he would make it a hundred and fifty and be thankful that he'd +made one man happy. The old man was his meat. He told him he only had a +hundred and twenty-five, and--well, the gypsy was a smooth article. He +wanted to get his eye on the cash. He said a whole lot about havin' had +counterfeit money paid to him, an' that he had to be careful, and with +that Pa went to the house and got the money and spread it out before the +skunk to prove that it was all right. And in that way the chap got his +hands on it. He shed some tears as he put it into his pocket. Pa said he +kissed the hoss square betwixt the eyes and rubbed him on the nose and +went away with his head hanging down." + +"I catch on," the clerk broke in, deeply interested; "it was stolen +property, and your Pa had to give 'im up." + +"No, the titles was all right," Henley answered, dryly. "The time come +when Pa would have greeted any claimant with open arms. The hoss had the +disease traders call 'big shoulders.' I was a mile or two off when the +calamity fell, but somebody told me Pa'd bought a hoss, and I come home +as fast as I could. I found Ma and Pa out in the stable-yard, and he was +fairly chattering over his wonderful bargain, and what a kind heart the +gypsy had. Pa saw me and grinned from ear to ear. + +"'Say, Alf,' he said, 'you are always making your brags about knowing +hoss-flesh; what do you think of this prince of the turf?' + +"I walked round in front of the animal to size him up, and my heart sunk +'way down in my boots. 'Pa,' I said, 'it looks to me like he's got "big +shoulders."' + +"'Big nothing!' Pa said; but when he stood in front and took a squint I +saw him turn pale. 'Big shoulders, a dog's hind-foot!' he grunted, and +he was so mad at me that he could hardly talk. He put the hoss in a +stall and jowered at me all that evening, and at the supper-table he +clean forgot to ask the blessing. The more he feared I was right the +worse he got, till Ma had to call him to order by putting the family +Bible in his lap and making him read and pray. I couldn't help laughing, +as serious as it was; for while we was on our knees the thought struck +me that he ought to ask the Lord to bless that gypsy and restore his +wife to health. Well, I was right. Early the next morning, after a good +night's rest and plenty of water and feed, we found the hoss lying down. +He'd get up and go about a little whenever we'd prod 'im, but he'd lie +down whenever our backs was turned." + +"I've seen hosses like that," Cahews remarked, "and they might as well +be shot." + +"That's exactly what Pa decided to do, after two weeks' nursing and +cajoling," Henley laughed. "He come in to the breakfast-table one +morning with his rifle in his clutch, a sort of resigned look in his +eyes. + +"'What are you going to do, Pa?' I asked him. + +"'Why, I see that danged thing has got on one of his lively spells,' he +said, 'and I'm going to shoot him while he's at his best. If there is +any hoss-heaven, he'd make a better appearance like he is now than at +any other time. I've had my fill. The sight of that hoss peeping out +betwixt the bars every day at meal-time and lying on a bed of ease the +rest of the day is driving me crazy. He'll be on his way in a few +minutes if I can shoot straight.' + +"'No, don't kill 'im,' I said, my trading blood up. 'Let me ride 'im to +town while he's lively and maybe I can git rid of him. I might get a few +dollars for his hide, and that would be better than having to dig a hole +to put 'im in.' + +"'No, don't kill 'im here,' Ma said, for she had a tender heart--God +bless her memory--and so the old man hung his gun up on the rack and +went to eating, almost too mad to swallow. Well, after the meal was over +I saddled the hoss and rid into town at a purty lively gait. It was +really astonishing what a decent trot the thing could take at times. You +see, I'd heard that Tobe Wilks, a big hardware man at Carlton, who had a +plantation in the country, was looking for a hoss, and I thought I'd see +what he'd say to mine. I was jest a boy, but I'd hung around +hoss-swappers enough to know that it never was a good idea to be the +first to propose a trade, and so I hitched at the post in front of +Wilks's store and went in. I bought a pound of tenpenny nails, that I +thought would come in handy in patching fences at home, and while the +clerk was weighing 'em up I saw Tobe leave his chair behind a counter +and go out and walk around the hoss. Finally he come to me and said, +said he: + +"'Alf, does your Pa want to sell that stack of bones out there?' + +"'He don't,' says I, 'fer the hoss is mine; he gave 'im to me.' + +"'Oh, that's it!' said Wilks; 'well, do _you_ want to sell him?' + +"'Well, I ain't itchin' fer a trade,' I says, and I paid no more +attention to Wilks, pretending to be looking at some ploughshares in a +pile on the floor, till he come at me again. + +"'But you _would_ sell him, wouldn't you?' he asked. + +"'Well,' I said, slowlike, as if I had some difficulty in recalling +exactly what we'd been talking about, 'I had sorter thought that a good +mule would do the work I have to do better than a hoss.' + +"'What would you take for him?' Wilks come at me again, and he looked +kinder anxious. 'I want a hoss to send out to my plantation. They are +needing one about like yours.' + +"'It will take a hundred and fifty of any man's money to buy him,' I +says. 'Friend nor foe don't get him for a cent less.' + +"Well, we went out to the hoss, and Wilks got astraddle of him, and, +sir, he took him round the square in the purtiest rack you ever saw +shuffle under a saddle. I saw Wilks thought I was his game, for his eyes +was dancing as he lit and hitched. + +"'How would a hundred and forty strike you, cash down?' he said. + +"'I'm needing the other ten,' I said. 'I'm a one-price man. I know what +I've got in that hoss' (and you bet I did), 'and you can take him or +leave him. I didn't start the talk, nohow.' + +"'Well, we won't fight over the ten,' he said, 'but here is one +trouble, Alf. You are under age, and I don't often trade with minors. I +don't know how your daddy may look at it, and I'm going to make this +deal before witnesses so there won't be any trouble later.' + +"'You'll not have any trouble with Pa,' says I. 'I'll guarantee that.' + +"Well, Wilks called up two of his clerks to see the money handed to me, +and with the wad of bills in my pocket I lit out for home. But the +nearer I got to the house the more I got afraid Pa wouldn't endorse what +I'd done, and so I felt sorter funny when him and Ma met me at the gate, +their eyes wide open in curiosity to know what I'd done. + +"'Well, what did you do with the hoss?' Pa wanted to know. + +"'I sold him,' says I. 'I let him go to Tobe Wilks for cash.' + +"'Cash the devil,' says Pa. 'How much?' + +"I drawed out my roll and fluttered the bills in the wind. 'A hundred +and fifty,' I said. 'If I'd asked less he'd have been suspicious and +backed out.' + +"Well, sir, Pa was plumb flabbergasted. He leaned against the gate-post +and puffed for air, and Ma was the same way. But he wouldn't touch the +money. 'It's plain open-and-shut stealing,' he said, when he riz to the +surface, 'and we are simply going to hitch a hoss to the buggy and take +the money back.' + +"Well, it looked like it was no go. I argued and produced evidence till +I was black in the face, but Pa just kept saying he wouldn't sanction no +such deal, and Ma she agreed with him. So you bet I felt like a whipped +school-boy as me and him set side by side and drove into town. He was +bewailing all the way that he'd fetched into the world an only son that +was no better than a hog-thief in principle, an', if I didn't change, me +'n him would have to part. + +"When we got to the square I saw Tobe Wilks standing in the door of the +store, and I saw that he was mad. At first I thought he'd found out +about the hoss, but I saw it wasn't that as soon as he reached the +buggy. + +"'Now, I'll tell you right now,' he said to Pa, when the old man drawed +the roll out and started to hand it to him over my legs. 'You sha'n't +come here and try to back down in a fair trade like that. I made it +before witnesses, and your boy said he had your consent. I've sent the +hoss out home, and I don't do business that way.' Pa tried to get in a +word, but Tobe 'ud cut him short as soon as he opened his mouth, so the +old man couldn't do anything but wave the money at him. + +"'If you get the hoss you'll do it by law,' Tobe went on, fairly +frothing at the mouth, 'and I'll put your boy in the pen for selling +stolen property. You can't browbeat me, you old hog.' + +"'Old hog!' I heard Pa grunt in his beard, and he stuffed the roll down +in his pants pocket. Now Pa wouldn't take advantage of his worst enemy +in a trade, but he'd fight a bosom friend if he was insulted. And before +I could bat my eyes he had lit out of the buggy, and him and Wilks was +engaged in a scrap that'ud make two wildcats go off and take lessons. +The town marshal run up and parted them by the aid of bystanders, and +some of 'em persuaded me to drive Pa home. He was a good, holy man, but +he cussed all the way, and ended by saying that Wilks never should see +hair nor hide of that money. And he never offered it back again, +neither, and him and Wilks never spoke for two years. Pa bought a fine +Kentucky mare with the money, and used to chuckle every time she'd pass +him. He got so he thought hoss-trading wasn't the worst crime on earth." + +"And what became of the hoss?" the listener asked. + +"I never knew," Henley answered; "men don't advertise such things when +they go against them. But one day, during election, Tobe asked me to +cast a vote for his son, and I promised to do it, and we got kinder +friendly. As he was leaving me he turned back and laid his hand on my +shoulder and said, 'Alf, I've wondered many a time what in the name of +common-sense your Pa wanted with that hoss.' + +"'So have I,' said I, and he went one way and me another." + +Pomp, the negro porter, was entering the door, and with a laugh Cahews +turned to meet him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The gray light of early dawn had taken on a faint tint of yellow, and +the profound stillness of the air, the vast quietude of the mountain +foliage and drooping corn-blades gave warning of the fierce heat that +was to follow. + +Dixie Hart turned her head drowsily on her pillow and opened her eyes +and closed them again. "Oh, I could sleep, sleep, sleep till doomsday," +she said to herself. "I wish I didn't have to get up. I'd like to take +one day off. I could lie here flat on my back till night. But, old girl, +you've got to be up an' doing." + +She heard the clucking and scratching of her hens, the chirping of the +tiny chickens, and the lusty crowing of her roosters in their answering +calls to neighboring fowls, the neighing of her horse in the stable, the +mooing of her cow in the barn-yard. + +"They are all begging me to hurry," she mused. "They don't want to +sleep; they've had their fill through the night, while I had to be up. +Well, repining don't make good dining, and here goes." + +She dressed herself, went out on the little kitchen porch, bathed in +fresh, cool well-water, and, with a coarse towel which hung from a nail +on the door-jamb, she rubbed her face, arms, and neck till they glowed +like the reddening skies. + +"My two women, as sound as they pretend to sleep, are crazy for their +coffee," she smiled, "but they've got to wait, like people at a circus +do, till the animals are fed. The older folks get, the earlier they go +to bed and the earlier they rise. Heaven only knows where it will end. +If mine could get their suppers early enough they would say good-night +at sundown and good-morning when it was so dark you couldn't see 'em in +their night-clothes." + +"Dixie, is that you, darling?" It was Mrs. Hart's voice, and it came +from the open window of a tiny room with a sloping roof which jutted out +from the end of the kitchen. + +"Yes'm. What is it, mother?" + +"Nothing." A thin hand drew a white curtain aside, and a pale, wrinkled +face, surrounded by dishevelled iron-gray hair, appeared above the +window-sill. "I just wanted to know if you was up. I heard you through +the night. Your aunt was suffering, wasn't she?" + +"Yes, she couldn't sleep," Dixie replied, as she spread the damp towel +out on the shelf where the coming sun's rays would dry it. "She says she +sat too long at the spring yesterday. I got up and rubbed her arms and +chest twice with the new liniment. It smells like it's got laudanum in +it; but it didn't deaden her pain." + +"I'd 'a' got up myself," Mrs. Hart said, in her plaintive tone, "but I +can't see good enough to help." + +"It's well you didn't," Dixie said, lightly, "for you'd just have made +double trouble. I'd have laid down my patient and let her grin and bear +her pain while I was trotting you back to bed and making you lie there. +Don't you ever get up and go stumbling about in the dark while I'm +attending to anything like that." + +"I think I'll get up and make the coffee while you are feeding," Mrs. +Hart said. "Mandy nearly dies waiting for it to come after she wakes +up." + +"That's right, lay it on her," Dixie laughed, impulsively. "You are +getting like a ripe old toper who is always begging whiskey for +somebody else. You let that coffee-pot alone. The last time you tried +your hand at it you put in a double quantity of corn-meal and couldn't +understand why it didn't have a familiar smell as it was boiling." + +"I believe a body does become a slave to the habit," the old woman +agreed. "The other day you was over at Carlton, and left enough already +made for dinner, I accidentally spilled it, and me and Mandy went nearly +crazy. It was one of her bad days, and she couldn't get up, and I +couldn't find the coffee." + +"I remember," Dixie answered, "and you both swigged so much at supper to +make up for it that you wanted to talk all night. Oh, you two are a +funny lot! But you've got to wait this time, sure. I'm going to feed +these things and stop their noise." + +She had reference to half a hundred fowls, young and old, that were +squawking loudly and fluttering on the steps and even the porch floor. +She disappeared in the kitchen and returned in a moment with a dish-pan +half filled with corn-meal, and into this she poured a quantity of +water, and with her hand stirred the mass into a thick mush. This she +began to throw here and there over the yard like a sower of grain till +the voices of the fowls had ceased and they had fled from the porch. +Then she took up a pail of swill in the kitchen and bore it down to a +pen containing a couple of fat pigs and emptied it into their wooden +trough. Going into a little corn-crib adjoining the stable and +wagon-shed, she brought out a bucketful of wheat-bran and fed it to the +cow, which stood trying to lick the back of a sleek young calf over the +low fence in another lot. "I'll milk you after breakfast," she said, as +she stroked the cow's back. "The calf will have to wait; I can't attend +to all humanity and the brute creation at the same time. You'll feel +more like suckling the frisky thing, anyway, after you've filled your +insides." + +The sun was above the horizon when she had breakfast on the table in the +little kitchen. She stood in the space between the cooking-stove and the +table and attended to the wants of the half-blind woman and the all but +helpless aunt. The biscuits she had baked were light and brown as +autumnal leaves, the eggs fried with bacon in thin lean-and-fat slices +would have tempted the palate of a confirmed invalid. The aroma of the +coffee floated like a delectable substance through the still air. + +"It's going to be awfully hot to-day," Mrs. Wartrace, the widowed aunt, +remarked. "I hope you are not going to hoe in the sun this morning." + +"Huh!" Dixie sniffed, as she sat down at the end of the table and began +to butter a hot biscuit, "and let the crab-grass and pussley weeds +literally choke out the best stand of cotton I ever laid my eyes on. No, +siree, not me. I'd hire hands, but all the niggers have gone to town +where there are more back-doors to live at; no, there is nothing for me +to do but to look out for number one. See here, you two women don't seem +to be able to look ahead. I've paid for half of this farm in the last +three years, and in two more I'll own it. It is a good thing as it +stands, but when I'm plumb out of debt we'll take it easy and set back +in the shade once in a while. Alf Henley is a keen trader and knows what +values are, and he told me not long ago that he believed a railroad +would head for Chester some day, and, if it comes, my land would sell +for town lots. Let's let well enough alone and be thankful for the +blessings we've got. That's right, Aunt Mandy, drain it to the dregs and +I'll fill it again. I knew I'd hit it exactly right this morning by the +color of it." + +Breakfast was over, and Dixie, aided by the fumbling hands of her +mother, was washing and drying the few dishes and putting them away in +the safe with perforated tin doors, which was the chief piece of +furniture in the room, when the front gate opened and closed with a +metallic click of the latch, and a visitor hurried along the little +gravelled walk to the front porch. + +"It is that meddlesome Carrie Wade," Mrs. Wartrace looked into the +kitchen to say. "She's got on a new muslin, and has come over to show +it, even as early as this." + +"I'm not going to stand at the door and knock like a stranger," the +visitor cried out, as she entered the little front hallway and rustled +back to the kitchen. "Hello, Dix; Martha Sims and me are invited to +spend the day over at Treadwell's. You know the new lumber-camp is +there, and there's some dandy fellows working at it. They are going to +give a dance, an' told us to send Ned Jones over with his fiddle. Oh, we +are going to have a rattling time. We agreed to get up early. It seems +funny, don't it? It's been many a day since I saw the sun rise." + +The speaker was a tall blonde about Dixie's age. She was thin, inclined +to paleness, and had a nervous look. + +Dixie was drying her hands on a dishcloth, and she turned upon the +visitor, surveying her carefully from her rather worn shoes to the newer +dress and gaudily flowered hat with its tinsel ornaments and flowing +pink ribbons. She knew full well that her neighbor had come for the sole +purpose of showing her finery, and was secretly gloating over her +misfortune in having to remain behind, and yet she allowed this +knowledge in no way to affect her demeanor. + +"You'll have a glorious time," Dixie said. "It's going to be a fine day +for a picnic and dance." + +"How do you like my dress?" Miss Wade asked, turning round for the +inspection. + +"It's very pretty, and pink suits you," Dixie answered, touching one of +the folds of the skirt. + +"It's entirely too long in front," Mrs. Hart said, as she bent forward +and squinted sidewise with quite a visible sneer. "You'd look powerful +funny walking along kicking up the skirt behind. With a veil on nobody +could tell whether you was going or coming. Take my word for it--that +stuff'll fade, even in the sun. You won't get more than one or two +wearings out of it." + +"Oh, do you think so?" The blond face fell. "I was a little afraid of +that myself, and maybe you are right about the fit behind, too." + +"Mother doesn't know what she's talking about," Dixie said, with a +reproachful glance at her parent, who frowningly hovered on the verge of +another criticism. "It is the way you've put the flounce on, Carrie, +that makes it look that way in front. Wait, let me pin it up." + +"Pin it up, I say!" Mrs. Hart sniffed. "You'll never get it to look +decent that way. Nothing but making the whole thing plumb over will do +any good. You ought to have got you a new sash to go with the muslin; +weak-eyed as I am, I can see the dirty, faded edges agin the new cloth. +The two don't go together. In war-times it was considered excusable to +botch things that way, but not in this day and time when all +_industrious_ folks can get what's needed." + +Dixie looked up regretfully, and a flush of embarrassment climbed into +her fine face as her mother, accompanied by her silent sister, swept +stiffly from the room. + +When Carrie Wade had left, after her by no means triumphant call, Dixie +went to her mother, who stood in the yard under an apple-tree, still +with a frown on her really gentle face. + +"You oughtn't to have said all that, mother," Dixie said, as she leaned +on the smooth handle of the hoe she was going to take to the field. +"After all, she was in _our_ house." + +"And come in it like a yellow-fanged snake with its forked tongue fairly +dripping with poison," was the ready retort. "She come to gloat over +you as she always has since the day you cut her out of that young man. +She knowed you were going to work at home to-day, and she had the +littleness to traipse over here to try to make you feel like you was +missing something awful grand. If I hadn't left the kitchen I wouldn't +have stopped with what I said about her flimsy dress. I'd have told her +that if she'd stay at home more, and keep the holes in her stockings +darned, and her underclothes cleaner, she'd stand a better chance roping +in some fool man. I'm plain and outspoken, and I resent sneaking hints +and false grins as quick as I do slaps. I'm tired o' you doing the way +you are, anyhow. I want you to be like the rest of the girls. What do we +care about owning this farm. Her daddy can't buy a knitting-needle on +time, and yet they live as well as anybody else, and she thinks she is a +grade higher than the rest of us." + +"Don't you let it bother you, Muttie," Dixie said, tenderly; indeed, she +was always moved by a demonstration of her mother's love, and her eyes +were moist as she put a caressing hand on the gray locks of the little +woman. "We are going to see it through. When the farm is plumb paid for +we'll make Carrie so sick with our fine doings she'll wish she was +dead." + +"It is mighty hard," the old lips quivered, and the gaunt, blue-veined +hand was raised to the dim eyes. "I can't stand to see that girl going +to places you can't go to. I simply can't, that's all." + +"I could have gone, mother," Dixie remarked. "I didn't tell her, for I +knew exactly what she would say, but Hank Bradley met me on the way home +yesterday and offered to drive me over there. He says he knows all the +lumber crowd well." + +"Hank Bradley--did he want to take you?" cried Mrs. Hart, "and you +wouldn't go?" + +"I couldn't, mother. You know every girl that has ever kept company +with him has been talked about. I don't like him. I can't stand him. +He's a bad man, mother--a gambler, a drunkard, and an idler. He doesn't +care for the characters he has ruined. He's fast running through the +money his mother left him; he's no good." + +"I don't know that you did exactly right," Mrs. Hart said, with the +indecision and bad logic into which her ill-fortune sometimes drew her. +"I know what he is well enough, but you are able to take care of +yourself, and you lose so many chances by being so particular. He knows +your true worth, and I've knowed men even as bad as he is to be reformed +by loving a good girl." + +"I ain't in the reforming business," Dixie laughed. "I'd rather fight +crab-grass and pussley weeds, and I'm off now. You go back in the house +and set down and don't talk about the picnic. I sha'n't even think about +it. I never bother about anything when I get warmed up." + +Without a word further the two parted. Mrs. Hart stood on the little +porch, and Dixie crossed the stretch of green meadow-land and climbed +over the rail-fence of her cotton-field. The long rows of succulent +plants, as high as the girl's knees, seemed breathing, conscious things +to which she was giving relief as she smoothly cut away the tenaciously +encroaching weeds and deep-rooted grass, the heaviest bunches of which +she took up and threshed against the hoe-handle and left in the sun to +die lest they be revived by some shower which would beat their roots +into the mellow soil again. The sun rose higher and higher till it was +poised almost directly over her head, and its rays beat more fiercely +down upon her. The almost breathless air was as hot as a gust from the +open door of a furnace. Her hands, in her heavy, knitted yarn gloves, +were moist and red. + +In the distance, and nearer to the village, rose the white, pretentious +house of old Silas Welborne, the money-lender and the uncle of Hank +Bradley, to whom she owed the remaining payment on her land. Almost day +and night it stood before her as a mute reminder of her difficult +undertaking. This morning, in the golden light, against the mountain +background, it seemed an inspiration, as a flag of peace might appear to +a tired soldier. Hank Bradley was the orphaned son of old Welborne's +sister, and he lived in his uncle's home in lieu of any other that was +available. He had made trips to the West and had remained away for +indefinite periods, the last being the time he had come home with the +carelessly announced death of his companion, Dick Wrinkle. The uncle and +nephew were an incongruous pair: old Welborne, with his miserly grasp on +the vitals of half the county, and the devil-may-care Bradley, whose +wild ways made him the constant talk of the community. Old Silas gave no +thought to the fellow's reform. As the administrator of his sister's +estate, he doled out honestly enough the various sums in rents, +dividends, and interest to which the young man was entitled after his +liberal fees as administrator had been deducted, and even smiled when +told of Bradley's reckless and almost criminal escapades. Henley had +once remarked in his keenly observant way that Welborne, being the next +of kin, would be glad to hear that his nephew had died with his boots on +in some one of the lynching affairs to which Bradley was suspected of +being a party. + +Dixie had reached the farthest end of one of her longest cotton-rows, +and was turning to work homeward on another, when the branches of the +bushes of a near-by coppice parted and Bradley, with a fowling-piece on +his arm, appeared. + +"Good gracious, you _are_ a queer girl!" he laughed, as he advanced to +the low fence and climbed to a seat upon it. "Working here like a +corn-field nigger in sun hot enough to bake a potato, when you could +have been gliding through the shade behind my horse--to say nothing of +the picnic and dance when we got there." + +She pushed back the hood of her bonnet and smiled faintly. + +"Driving and dancing ain't paying debts," she said, "and there is no +other time to do this work. You know your uncle well enough to +understand what he expects of folks unlucky enough to be on his books." + +"That's another thing I can't understand," the young man said, bracing +his heels on one of the rails, and, with his gun across his lap, he +began to twist his stiff brown mustache, while his dark eyes rested with +growing warmth on her trim figure. "What in the name of common-sense do +you want to own land for?" + +"What does a body want to _breathe_ for?" Dixie asked him, sharply, "or +own the duds on your back, or the grub you eat? Why, it is simply to be +independent. I wouldn't quake and shiver every time that old man meets +me if I wasn't in his clutch. I ain't afraid of anybody else, but I am +of him, and why? Because he's got me where he can do as he likes with +me. The last time I went to explain why I couldn't meet the payments +exactly to the day, he growled like a bear, and said if I didn't look +sharp he'd sell the roof over my head." + +"Well, we needn't talk about him," the handsome daredevil said. "What I +want to know is why you'd rather hoe cotton in weather like this than go +with me to a jolly picnic. Why, Dixie, you don't begin to know your +power; you could do as you like in this world, if you only would. You +are the best-looking girl in the county, and you grow prettier every +day. The blood of life is in your veins; you haven't got the sickly, +palish look that the girls have who stay indoors half the time. You've +got a clear eye, a good figure, and a complexion that society women +would give big money for." + +"You needn't begin all that again." The girl lowered her head and half +raised her hoe to strike at a weed near a stalk of cotton. "I know what +I am well enough. I was born with a load on me, and I'm going to tote it +till I get to a dumping-place. My good looks won't set the world on +fire." + +"Well, they have set _me_ on fire," Bradley laughed, significantly. He +lowered his feet to the ground on her side of the fence and leaned his +gun against it. "Say, this sun will actually blister us; let's go down +to the spring." + +"No spring for me to-day," she said, grimly. "I see Aunt Mandy on the +back porch now. She'll hang out a towel in a minute. That's the signal +that it is half-past eleven by the clock. I've got to go cook dinner." + +"Well, I'll walk over with you." + +"No, you mustn't." + +"Why?" + +"Because I'd rather you wouldn't--that's all." + +"I declare I believe you mean that, and I won't push myself on you, +Dixie. You know how I feel about you, and you oughtn't to be so +dadblasted rough with a fellow. I think about you night and day. I +didn't come out to shoot anything this morning. I simply couldn't get +over the way you turned me down yesterday. I lay awake last night +thinking about it, and so I waited for you this morning. I stayed in the +bushes over there watching till you hoed up here. I don't believe I'll +ever get over feeling that way, and I am not going to give up. I'm going +to keep hoping." + +"There goes my towel!" Dixie said, as she laid her hoe across her +shoulder. "I must go. Don't follow me, Hank. I don't want her, or +anybody else, to see me out here with you." + +"Then come out to the fence this evening, after supper, won't you, just +a minute?" + +"No, I can't--I never leave the house after dark. They need me at home." + +"Blast them, what have they got to do with you? You are already a slave +to them. Well, good-bye. You'll change your mind some day." + +He held out his hand with a smile, but she refused to take it. + +"You won't even shake hands. Why, what is the matter with you? I can see +that you are mad at me by the twitching of--Do you know, Dixie, you have +the most maddening mouth and lips that a woman ever owned? Say, shake +just once to show that we are friends." + +"I won't. I did it once and you held me and tried to kiss me. I'll tell +you now in dead earnest, Hank, you must never try that sort of a thing +again. I mean it, as God is my judge, I do." + +"I never will while you hold a hoe in your grip," he jested, with a +thwarted smile, as she turned from him. + +He stepped back to his gun and stood watching her as she plodded +homeward. "I can't help it," he said, a dark, desperate look on his +face. "I simply can't quit thinking about her. I've got staying +qualities, and no man ever gained his point that paid the slightest +attention to a woman's moods. Right now she may be wishing she'd gone to +the picnic." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"Jim, how's your courting getting on?" Henley asked his clerk, half +teasingly, one sultry afternoon, as the two were finishing a game of +checkers on a board from which the squares were almost obliterated by +the constant sliding of the black and white pants-buttons which were +used for checkers. + +"Don't ask me, Alf," Cahews answered, with a sickly smile. "I'm afraid +she's too much for me. We ain't a bit nigher the altar than we was a +year ago when I begun. Sometimes I think she is willing, and then ag'in +I don't." + +"I kinder thought you looked worried the last time you took her to +ride," said Henley, sympathetically. "I felt sorry for you. She looked +mighty chipper in her finery as you whisked by, but you was down in the +mouth. Looked like you was on duty, and that was all." + +"Somehow I don't much blame her," Cahews sighed, "but it looks to me +like she is having too good a time running here and there to want to +settle down. Sometimes I git blue and think she is just holding me as a +safe thing to land on while she looks the field over. I have to stay +here and attend to business and see her gallivanting in her ruffles and +flounces with every drummer and lightning-rod agent that comes along." + +"Maybe you ought to sorter lay down the law, at least on that particular +point," Henley submitted, delicately. "I've heard my step-daddy-in-law +say that a woman was born to be commanded, and when they ain't they hop +to t'other extreme and just loll about in their abuse of a feller's +good-nature. I don't know--that's the old man's view. You might give out +a decided order or two, Jim, and see how--" + +"Not to a woman you are tryin' to marry," said the clerk, quite firmly. +"Sech a thing might be done to an army of soldiers or a red-handed mob +at a lynchin'-bee, but not to a gal that makes you feel like you are +sinking down in a mire whenever she looks you in the eyes. No, Alf, not +to a gal as purty and sweet as a bunch of roses, and that knows it, and +is in the habit o' being told of it as regular as eatin' and sleepin'. A +gal like that sort o' feels 'er oats, as the feller said. She knows +she's the stuff, and she loves to be told of it as much as a cat loves +to sleep in the sun." + +"Well, I'll be dadblamed if I'd tag after her without _some_ substantial +hope," Henley opined, wisely. "Life is long and life is earnest, and +beauty is only skin deep, anyways. It seems to me--_now_, at least--that +if I was out on the hunt for a helpmeet I'd look to the _solid_ +qualities in a woman just as I would in a man I wanted to work with. I'd +study her character, her pluck under trying circumstances, her industry, +and her all-round good-nature. The shape and face and furbelows, +eyebrows and color of bangs, would be the last consideration." + +"I never hear that from any but married men," Jim said. "They sing that +song till they bury their wives, and then they turn to boys again and +pick the youngest and prettiest they can lay their hands on." + +"I was just thinking, Jim"--Henley seemed unwilling to combat the last +assertion. His eyes rested thoughtfully on a sunny spot before the open +door--"you see, I've got a little neighbor that--" + +"I know--Dixie Hart! I know who you mean," the clerk broke in. "She's +all wool and a yard wide, but I never run across her till after I'd got +in with old man Hardcastle's daughter. I wouldn't talk to just any stray +person this away, Alf, but me and you was boys together, and you've +always been my friend. She's got me, Alf--I don't exactly know how--but +she could crook her little finger at me and I'd make for her side--yes, +sir, I would, through flame and smoke, if the world was coming to an +end." + +The talk had grown serious; there was a moist gleam in Cahew's blue +eyes, and he snuffed as if he had a cold. Henley was glad of the +interruption brought about by the arrival of a stranger who entered the +front door and came back to them with swift, steady strides. He was fat, +middle-aged, short, had a round, smooth face, and in removing his straw +hat to fan his pink brow he disclosed a very bald head. + +"I don't know whether you gentlemen are in need of anything in my line," +he said, as he drew a big book of illustrations from beneath his arm and +opened it on Henley's desk. "But I was givin' yore town and vicinity the +one and only chance of its life to git the only true and artistic thing +in marble. I'm agent for the Adamantyne Tombstone Company, of Tennessee. +We own the only quarry of snow-white, non-grit, pristyne Parian rock on +this side of the blue ocean, and we have in our employ the best and most +world-renowned chisel-artists that ever breathed the spark of life into +inanimate matter. Now, just set where you are, gentlemen--don't +move--and I'll show you a beauty--a tombstone that will make a man want +to die--if he's able to pay the price." + +He held his book of illustrations open before Henley, whose eyes were +twinkling mischievously as they rested on his clerk. + +"I'm not in the market," he said, without a smile. "I wouldn't buy any +but a second-handed one, and then it would have to be so cheap that a +dead man would kick it off of his grave in disgust. You've got in the +wrong box. If you'll look about amongst the junk I've got in my +back-yard you may find one or two lying about." + +"I see you've got a streak of fun in you," the agent said, +good-naturedly, and at this instant old Jason Wrinkle entered and +sauntered back to the group. He seemed to recognize the stranger, for +the two exchanged nods of greeting. "I'm still at it, you see," the +salesman said. "I'm going to give all a chance. How about you, sir?" and +he turned to Cahews. "I may find you serious, if this man ain't. Death +is beautiful when it is properly looked at and provided for." + +"I don't need anything in that line," Cahews said, with a flush. + +"You _might_, Jim," Henley broke in, with a grin, "if you don't git +cured of that complaint you was telling me about just now," and Henley +winked almost imperceptibly to any one not familiar with the tricks of +his face. He bent his head and smiled behind his broad hand. "I'll tell +you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, +"none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a +rich old codger across the way--Mr. Silas Welborne--who will trade if +you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with no sort o' tags +on 'em. You might have to talk to him all the evening, and even follow +him home, but you'll sell him if you understand your business. He's +powerful soft-hearted, for one thing, and if you'll tell him a tale or +two in the eloquent tongue you was rolling off just now he'll place a +dandy order. I'll give you that as a pointer." + +"Well, I'm much obliged to you, sir, and thank you kindly," the agent +said, as he closed his book. "I'll look him up. I'm doing a big +business here. Your people don't seem to have had a chance to invest in +my line in no telling how long. Good-day." + +"Good-day," Henley echoed, and he endeavored to hide the mischievous +smile that was playing about his mouth. In a chuckling undertone he said +to Wrinkle and Cahews: "I'd give a pretty to see this oily-tongued chap +holding down that crusty old miser. A tombstone is the last thing on +earth that Welborne would want to think about or talk about. I'd love to +be there and see 'em meet." + +Cahews laughed and sauntered toward the front, and old Wrinkle sat down +in the chair just vacated and tilted it back against the door-jamb. + +"That is a sorter good joke," he said, his small eyes on Henley, +"considering the man you mean it for, but as I stood thar hearin' you +concoct it I couldn't help thinking if you knowed what a joke this +self-same peddler had got off on you you'd not be exactly in the mood +for fun--at least not in the grave-rock line." + +"What joke are you talking about?" Henley asked, incredulously, his face +falling into seriousness. "I have never laid eyes on this chap before." + +"I reckon not, but you'll know him the next time you see him; I'll be +bound you do, even if you are a mile down the road an' he's round the +bend with his back turned to you. The truth is, I just followed him down +here to see who he'd strike next. He's been to our house, Alf. He slid +in there just after you come off, and set on the porch and begun his +palaver. He has a different way with women than he has with men. He +seems to know that women are soft on some lines, and chiefly on +preachin' and buryin'. He'd picked up a list of folks round about here +that had lost kin, and he had me and Jane down on it on account of Dick. +Now, it seems that when he gits to a place he goes to the graveyard and +looks for stones to tally with his dead list, and when he don't find any +he makes a note of it; so, you see, havin' Dick's name down, an' not +knowin' the full particulars, he hunted us up, thinkin' we was +unsupplied in his line. So, you see, that's why he made sech a leech of +hisse'f on our porch." + +"Huh, I see," Henley frowned--"I see." + +"I can't begin to describe all the chap done or said," Wrinkle resumed. +"He riz and walked and ranted, an' prayed an' sung an' mighty nigh +called up mourners. I thought them two women would bust out cryin' once +or twice, but they belt in tiptop through the hottest of the wrangle. +Then I thought I'd put a stop to it, and I up and told him, I did, that +he'd made a mistake, an' that we didn't need a thing of the sort--that +Dick's body never was recovered, and so on. Then what do you think? The +skunk was actually flabbergasted, and didn't know what to say. But he +was game, and knowed thar was some way out of his trouble. He said, +'Wait a minute--don't bother me!' an' he shet his eyes tight, an' set +thar with his head hangin' down for fully five minutes. Then he looked +up an' said, 'I was jest tryin' to recall the good lady's name that had +the same trouble, pine blank, as your'n, but it slips me somehow.' An' +with that he said it was the custom all over civilized Christendom, in +such cases as our'n, to erect a suitable monument jest the same, havin' +a plot the right length an' width set aside, with both head and foot +rock, and, if a sermon hadn't been preached already, one ought to be on +the day the stone was put in place an' consecrated. I 'lowed sure them +women would see how plumb silly it was, but they listened like they was +gittin' the only directions to the Golden Shore, and begun to look at +the pictures in his book like they thought the skunk was savin' 'em from +death, destruction, an' disgrace." + +"You don't mean to tell me they actually went and ordered--" Henley +began, but his voice trailed away into indistinctness. He could only +stare at his tormentor hopelessly. + +"Only a little one fur five hundred dollars," Wrinkle said, with evident +enjoyment. "They had a lots o' trouble pickin' out the design amongst +all the doves, broke-off pillars, seraphims, an' angels, but they +finally got what they wanted. Not a tear was shed, if you'd stood off a +few feet, out o' earshot, you couldn't 'a' told but what they was +pickin' out a pattern fer a weddin'-dress or buyin' tickets fer a +side-show. After they got under headway I couldn't say anything--they +had sech a solemn way about it, and then I couldn't help but be fair and +think if I'd been in Dick's place they would have gone through exactly +the same antics, an' been jest as liberal in showing due respect. Hettie +says it is all to come out of her own money that she had when she +married you. She was particular to mention the fact, and I think that +showed a sensible streak, for a fool would know you oughtn't to be +expected to stand sech expense, and so long after you took her, and that +being a thing that would naturally belong to her past career, too. After +the agent had gone off I set thar, an' Hettie told me what she was goin' +to do. She don't intend to spare expense to do the thing plumb right. +She's goin' to send away off for a high-priced reverential orator to +give the discourse, an' intends to have evergreens hung all over the +church. I don't know whether she designs to have all the business houses +in Chester closed that day, but she'd naturally expect you and Jim to +shet up an' take it in." + +"So this is the joke you said that man had got off on me, is it?" Henley +snapped out, irritably. + +"Well, I reckon it mought not appear exactly in the same light to you, +Alf," answered Wrinkle, "as it would to somebody who'd be more inclined +to laugh over a thing of the sort. You was gettin' off what you called +a good one on old Tight-fist just now by puttin' this chap on his track, +and I reckon you'd have no call to git mad if Welborne made it tit for +tat an' fired back at you. You wouldn't be justified in killin' 'im, you +know, if he was to take a notion to send you a big bouquet o' flowers +out o' his gyarden all tied up in black ribbon with a cyard sayin' he's +sorry to hear of the sad loss in yore family, an'--" + +"Ah, you make me sick, with your eternal chatter!" Henley burst out, +angrily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to +witness such tomfoolery. I'm going to Texas, to be away several months." + +"So I've heard," Wrinkle said, a trifle more mildly, "but you'll be +missin' some'n out o' the general run, if I'm any judge. Thar may have +been sech a thing sence the flood as a married woman callin' out all +hands to solemnize her first husband's demise while she's still wearin' +the weddin'-clothes bought by her second, but it's a new _wrinkle_ on +me, an' I hain't makin' what you mought call a pun, nuther." + +Abruptly leaving the old man, Henley joined his clerk at the front. + +"I get so mad at that old chap sometimes I could kick him," he said, in +an angry undertone. "Nothing under the sun is sacred to him." + +"He's gettin' old and childish," Cahews answered. "I sorter love to hear +'im chatter. Some o' the things he says about folks and their +peculiarities sound powerful funny." + +"Well, they don't to me," burst from Henley, "and I'll tell you another +thing, Jim--enough of a thing is a plenty, and while I'm away--" but +Wrinkle had approached, and, passing behind the counter, he was +tiptoeing that he might reach a candy-jar on the top shelf. + +"Looks like I'm about yore only candy customer, Jim," he said to +Cahews. "Thar hain't been a stick took out o' this jar sence I was here +Monday. I laid one crossways on top just to see. I'd order a fresh lot +if I was you. This is gettin' dry and crumbly. I can suck wind through a +stick the same as a pipe-stem." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +One clear, warm morning a week later Henley stood in the little porch in +front of his store and glanced up the street which gave into the road +that led on to his farm. In the store Cahews was nailing the top slats +on a coop of scrambling, squawking chickens, and with a pot of lampblack +and brush was marking it for shipment to Atlanta. In a cloud of dust in +the rear, Pomp, the negro porter and all-round servant on Henley's farm, +was turning the handle of a clattering machine for the separation of +chaff from grain. And while his eyes were resting on the road the +storekeeper saw a horse and wagon come around a bend and slowly advance +toward him. The horse was a poor beast of great age, and the wagon was +none the better for wear. It had lost all its original paint, the +woodwork was cracked by the weather and the sun. Its four wheels ran +unevenly; some of the spokes were missing, and its bolts and rods of +iron rattled in holes worn too large. + +"By Gum, it's Dixie Hart, and she's fetching in a load of produce," +Henley muttered; then he called out to Cahews: "Say, Jim, get through +there and stop that nigger's clatter. We are going to have a visitor. +The fairest of the fair will be here in a minute." + +Henley stepped down to the edge of the sidewalk and bowed and smiled to +her as she drew rein. In her new straw hat and clean, well-ironed +gingham she looked decidedly well. She was radiantly bright, and smiled +merrily as she extended her hand and shook his over the rickety +fore-wheel as she leaned forward from the dilapidated, sagging seat, the +springs of which rested on the sides of the wagon-bed. + +"I told you I'd be in," she laughed, "and, if the market is off to-day, +back I go to my shanty. Nothing but the best prices catch me." + +"About as favorable now as any time," he said. "What does your load +consist of?" he ran on, jovially, as he glanced behind her at the bags, +boxes, coops, pails, and jars. + +"Odds and ends," she laughed. "I've got to make a payment to old +Welborne on my debt. You and Jim had better give me tiptop bids all +through or I'll peddle the truck from door to door and steal your trade +right from under your noses." + +Henley smiled good-humoredly as he walked round the wagon opening boxes +and bags and making notes with a pencil on a scrap of paper. Then he +told her what he would pay for each item. + +"Is that as good as you can do?" It was a question she always asked, and +she did so now more from habit than for any intention of disagreeing +with him. + +"That's the top-notch, Dixie," he said. "We couldn't do that, but we've +got customers that simply won't eat butter and eggs that don't have your +brand on 'em." + +"I believe you," she said, laconically. "I've met 'em myself. They pass +by the house from Carlton sometimes in their fine rigs and ask me why I +don't start a milk-and-butter farm. I may do it if I ever get out of +debt. I've got sense enough to know it would pay, and pay big, +considering that there ain't no such business established. Well, Alfred, +I'll take your offer. I don't like to dicker with first one store and +then another, and I know you've been straight with me in all my +dealings. I'll trade out part of the amount. I've got a few tricks to +buy in your line." + +"Well, alight and come in and set down," he said. "Jim and Pomp will +unload and weigh and measure. I'll make Pomp mind your hoss." + +"Oh, old Bob will stand all right!" she laughed, as she put her gloved +hand on Henley's shoulder and sprang lightly to the ground. "He's moved +all he wants to to-day. It would take a switch-engine to budge him an +inch. See 'im nod? He knows what we are talking about." + +Henley led her through the long room to his desk in the rear, and gave +her a seat near the open door as the clerk and the porter went out to +the wagon. She took off her hat and pushed back her luxuriant hair with +her fingers. + +"You go on with your work," she said; "don't mind me." + +He applied himself to some writing he had to do till Cahews came with a +slip of paper on which he had noted the weights, quantities, and values +of the things she had brought, and with a polite bow he handed it to +her. + +"Look it over, Dixie," Henley jested. "Old man Hardcastle's daughter has +rubbed a rabbit-foot on Jim so that he can hardly add two and two. +Besides, he is always rattled when he's waiting on a pretty girl." + +"Well, he won't rattle any more than a green gourd round me, if that's +the case," Dixie said, as she began to run over the figures, her lips +moving as she counted on her fingers. "I know in reason it's correct," +she said, extending the slip to Cahews. "No, wait a minute," drawing it +back and looking at it again. "If I'm not powerfully mistaken, Jim, you +are swindling yourself out of twenty cents on the string-beans. There +was one peck instead of two." + +"I told you Jim was rattled," Henley continued to jest. "But I won't +discharge 'im. I'd pardon him if he was to set the store afire, under +the circumstances. I've seen him wash his hands in the kerosene tank and +wipe 'em on his clothes just after Julia Hardcastle driv' by in a +hug-me-tight buggy with a drummer." + +"Well, I wouldn't blame him much," Dixie smiled in her sympathy for the +embarrassed clerk. "She is nice and pretty, and one town-girl that isn't +stuck up. I like her. She wants to have a good time; she likes attention +and good clothes, and I'm sure I'd be just like her if I had half the +chance. She called to see me the other day, and Ma and Aunt Mandy fell +in love with her. They think she has lots of common-sense, and they +know. I had another call. Carrie Wade waited till she saw me go to the +field to work, then she come over and asked if I was at the house. Ma +told her where I was, and she come over the clods grumbling like a +spoilt baby about getting dust on her shoes. What do you reckon she +wanted?" + +"I can't imagine," Henley answered, as Cahews, flushing with delight +over the compliment to the maid of his choice, moved away. + +"She come to cut at me," Dixie said, as she took the pile of silver into +her hand which Henley was extending. "As she stood there between the +corn-rows holding up her skirt she said she was going over to the +lumber-camp again with Martha Sims to another big all-day blow-out. She +said she was to start early and had so much fixing to do that she +wondered if I'd spare the time to wash and iron a muslin dress for her. +She said she'd pay well for it, because my things always looked so +nice." + +"Impudent thing!" Henley said; "she ought to have, knowed better than +that." + +"She _did_ know better, and that's exactly why she said it. She intended +to let me know where she was going, thinking it would break my heart. +She admits she is bent on getting married, and says she knows I'll live +and die an old maid. She hates me, Alfred; with all her soul she hates +me. She will never rest satisfied till she sees me plumb down and out. +It all started through no fault of mine, too. You remember that young +preacher, Mr. Wrenn, that boarded about in the families three years ago. +Well, she made a dead set at him. She literally tagged after him +everywhere he went till folks here in Chester was laughing about it and +calling her his little dog Fido. They say he got so he'd run and hide +every time she'd turn a corner. Well, he stayed at our house two weeks, +and, of course, we all tried to make him as comfortable as we could. I +give you my word that I never was alone with the fellow more than five +minutes in all the time he was there, but I'll admit he hung around +considerable--that is, with us all." + +"I remember the fellow," Henley said, deeply interested. "I had a talk +with your Pa about him not a month before he died. Your Pa said he +couldn't see why you was so offish. The fellow made no beans about how +he felt, and when the report went out that you had turned him down folks +wondered powerful, for all the girls was setting their caps for him." + +"I was too young to have good sense, I reckon," the girl said, shrugging +her shoulders. "Pa was alive, and we did not want for anything. I never +dreamt I'd have such a load on me as I've got now. Then I had a foolish +notion about love, anyway. I'd been reading novels, and got an idea in +my silly head that when a girl met the right person she went through +some sort of dazzling regeneration; and as I didn't feel anyways +peculiar when Mr. Wrenn was about I thought I ought to wait, and I told +him so. I'll never forget that young man's face. I've thought of it +thousands of times, and been sorry." + +"And Carrie Wade found out about it?" Henley was leading her along +gently and sympathetically. + +"Why, he told her himself--told her to her face in a crowd of young +folks at Sunday-school the next day, and the worst part of it was +somebody in the bunch that didn't like Carrie joked her about it. The +whole thing has gone out o' folks' minds by this time, I reckon; but +Carrie never laid it aside. It rankled and still rankles. She gloats +over my hardships and makes a point of flaunting her good luck in my +face, and is eternally telling me of her chances to get married. She's +half crazy on the subject, and thinks every one else is like her. I know +one thing, Alfred Henley, when I do slip off the coil of single +blessedness she'll be madder than a wet hen without shelter on a cold +December day. And she won't have long to wait neither--there! I've gone +and let the cat out of the bag, but I don't care. I'd trust a friend +like you with my life. You talk pretty free to me, and I can to you." + +"You don't--you can't mean to--to say that you have got some 'n of the +sort in view, Dixie?" + +"Well, you just lie low and watch," she laughed, significantly. "I let +one chance pass me, and I don't intend to be such a fool again. I can +use a stout, willing, and able-bodied man in my line of business. I've +got two old women to support and a big debt to pay, and I'm about to the +limit of my endurance. I might have put it off, but I'm itching to see +my prime enemy's face when I march him out to meeting. It's all on the +quiet, and is going to be a big surprise. I never let my folks on to it +till just the other day. That reminds me. I want one of your blank +envelopes. I've written to him, and I'm clean out of envelopes and want +to mail the letter before I go home." + +She flushed slightly, and her long lashes rested on her pink cheeks as +she drew a folded paper from her pocket and held it in her lap with the +money he had given her. + +"You don't mean it!" Henley cried in astonishment. "Why, you take my +breath away; but, of course, I'm glad. I certainly can congratulate the +lucky fellow." + +"Ask 'im whether it would be in order before you do." She reached for +his pen and dipped it, and began to address the envelope as it lay on +her knee. + +"And that letter is to him, you say?" Henley said, wonderingly. + +"Well, it ain't to no _girl_," Dixie smiled, with an arch, upward +glance. "Stamps and paper cost too much such times as these to waste 'em +on women." + +"I'm curious to know what sort o' chap you've decided on," said Henley. +"What does he look like?" + +"He's a pig in a poke." She had finished writing and was drawing the +gummed flap of the envelope across her smiling lips. "I never laid eyes +on 'im in my life. What do you think of that? But that part must never +get out. I want Carrie and all the rest to--to think, you see, that I +got acquainted with him in--in the regular way. She never would get +through talking if she knew the full truth, and that is nobody's +business but his and mine. You may think I am a born fool, Alfred, but +for the past six months I've been corresponding with a fellow in +Florida. But he's all right. Don't you worry; he's _safe_, and that is a +lot to say in this day of trickery and strife. It all come about by +accident. I've got a cousin--Tobe Chasteen--working down there in an +orange-grove, and now and then he writes me a letter. Well, in one he +wrote that a nice fellow down there wanted to write to some girl up in +Georgia, and asked me if I'd answer. So, just for fun, and to kill time, +I agreed, and so it started. He writes a good, flowing hand, and has +plenty to say, and I got interested in the whole thing. He sent his +picture, and wanted one of me. So I put on my best outfit and had a +tintype struck off under that tent on the square and sent it to him. It +was a frightful daub, I tell you; but he liked it, or said he did; he +said it was fine, and if the goods come up to the sample that was all he +could ask. I've got his in my pocket. I don't tote it about all the +time, but it happened to be in the pocket of this dress. My two women +want it to stay in the clock, so they can get it out and peep at it when +I'm in the field. They are more crazy about him than I am. They sneak +and read my letters, and ask ten thousand questions about him. There are +some of his long epistles that I wouldn't show 'em for money--they are +so silly. At first we just wrote about what was going on, but he kept +edging closer and closer, and I never, in so many words, told him to let +up. Once he drew a round ring in the middle of a blank page and asked +under it if I couldn't guess what was in the middle of it. I looked +close and could see a greasy splotch when it was held sidewise in the +light. That kinder disgusted me, and I drew a ring in my answer, and +told him there wasn't anything in mine, and never would be. He must have +liked what I said, for he wrote back that it was cute, and that he'd bet +I was one girl that never had been kissed. Well, he can think that, too, +if he wants to. It won't do him any harm. I say all this was going on, +but I never dreamt of closing the deal till I got in this present +money-tight. You see, I wrote him about my financial trouble, and he +said he had saved up some money and that he could wipe out all my +obligations, and that me and him together would make a fine team on the +farm. He wrote so kind, too, about Ma and Aunt Mandy, and said he'd +always want 'em with us. You see, I felt grateful, and, considering +everything, I think I acted wise--don't you?" + +Henley half nodded, and tried to meet her frankness with a smile that +was free from doubt. At this juncture Pomp came back with a telegram. It +was an order from an Atlanta hotel for a quantity of eggs and butter. +Henley read it and handed it back. "Tell Jim to quote the lowest cash +prices," he said, absent-mindedly. + +"But it's a order, suh," said the negro. + +"Oh yes; I see it is. Well, ship it; it's all right." + +"Would you like to see his picture?" Dixie asked. She had taken the +crude tintype from her pocket and held it in her lap. + +"Yes, I would," Henley replied, and he took the picture and looked at +it. He didn't like it. A keen, quick reader of men's faces, he saw what +had escaped her less experienced eye. There was something that bespoke +prodigious vanity and lack of principle in the low brow, over which the +coarse, black hair was plastered down so smoothly; in the heavy, +carefully waxed, curled, and perhaps dyed mustache; in the small, +conscious eyes, set close together; in the grossly sensuous mouth, from +which a weak chin receded. + +"He ain't as purty as he thinks he is by a long shot," Dixie remarked, +rather lamely, for she was slightly chilled by Henley's failure to +comment favorably on the picture, "but he has a good heart. He is a +church member in fair standing, and has a Bible class of young ladies in +Sunday-school, and was once proposed for superintendent, and lost out +because he was unmarried and too young. Oh, I've thought it all over. +I'm not jumping without looking for a spot to light on. I thought I +could carry my load through, but I had to give in. I can't perform +miracles, Alfred; I'm just clay, and the wrong gender of that. If I +could keep temptation out of my way I might keep on, but I can't run +against Carrie Wade's sneers. I'd rather strut by her house with a +husband that was able to take me in out of the wet than anything else I +know of, and I want to rest. I want to sleep one night without dreaming +of old Welborne's flabby jaws, blinking eyes, and harsh voice snarling +at me. Folks may say such an arrangement ain't customary--that it is +out of the common--but it seems to me that everything about me is out of +the common, anyway, and why shouldn't this fall in line? Customs are +just what the most folks want to do. Custom don't look after the under +dog in the pack. But when right is on a body's side there is no need to +fear, and there won't be a shade of wrong in this if I have anything to +do with it. I've made up my mind to do a wife's part in every sense of +the word, and let it go at that--nothing risk, nothing have. I never +used to think I'd ever marry a man I never saw--in fact, when I was +young and silly I used to see myself strutting by whole regiments of +fellers all making signs to me to come be his darling, but that was when +my eyelids was glued down and before they was jerked open by trouble. +Marrying with me in this case is an open-and-shut business proposition. +I read somewhere that it is worked that way among high-up folks in +France--though the dickering takes place between the parents of the +contracting parties; and as I know a sight more about what to do than +Ma, why, it was all right for me to take it in hand. Peter is an orphan, +and I'm the head of a family, and so there was nobody else concerned. My +two women are getting old and plumb helpless--more like children than +grown-ups. They may live a long time. I certainly hope they will, for +they are all I've got; but they are actually getting so that they don't +want to budge out of the house, even as far as the fence. They are +afraid a little sun will kill 'em dead. But, Alfred, I don't somehow +like the way you look about it. You don't take it like I thought you +would. I know in reason that you wish me well, and--" + +"I don't know that I have a right to say a thing agin it," Henley broke +into her now hesitating words. "But I must confess I'm sorter stunned, +Dixie. I've always felt like a big brother to you, and pitied you a good +deal, and now--well, you see, I reckon it is natural for me to be +sorter afraid that you may be making a mistake in what you are doing. I +feel like begging you not to do it, and then ag'in I don't, for I've +always made up my mind that marrying was one thing no outsider could +decide about. I have been dead agin marriages that afterwards turned out +tiptop, and you know I didn't show such far-reaching wisdom in my own +case as to set myself up as a judge." + +"Well, you needn't have any fears on my account," Dixie smiled, +assuringly. "I know what I am about, and I ain't the back-out kind. It's +too late, anyway; the day has been set. For the last two weeks I've been +giving every spare minute to the making of my outfit. It is a good one. +I was determined to give Miss Wade a treat. I do things right, and I've +spent some cash. My trousseau will attract attention, and I reckon Peter +won't be ashamed. But it is to be kept quiet. Don't you say a word to a +soul. A week from to-day I'll drive in and meet the up-train and haul my +bridegroom home in my wagon. We'll eat dinner at our house and then +drive over to Preacher Sanderson's and have him tie the knot. Now I'll +go down in front and buy a few things and mail my letter and hurry +home." + +"Wait a minute, Dixie." She was moving away, and he stopped her, +standing before her, a grave look in his eyes. "Surely it ain't as dead +sure as that?" + +"Yes, it is, Alfred; it's settled--plumb settled." + +"But--but," he pursued, anxiously, "if you didn't like him when you see +him, you wouldn't marry him?" + +"Oh, that's a gray horse of another color," she smiled. "I think I'll +like him; but if I didn't--well, if I didn't, I'd pay his way back to +Florida, and beg off." + +Henley made no further protest. He sat at his desk and bowed his head +in troubled thought as she tripped lightly away. + +"What a pity!" he mused. "She deserves the best in the land, and this +fellow looks like a worthless scamp." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +That evening after supper, while the sultry dusk hung heavily over the +land, shutting out the few lights of the village and obscuring the +near-by mountain, Henley took his chair into the passage, and, without +his coat, he leaned back against the weather-boarding and lighted his +pipe. He had not been there long when his wife, having finished her +duties in the kitchen, came out and stood over him. Accustomed to her +varying moods, he saw by her attitude that she was displeased. + +"Pa told me something I don't like," she began. "I tried not to pay +attention to it, but it was so unexpected, so unheard-of, so plumb +disrespectful, that it hurt me. He said you told him you was going to +Texas to keep from being here during the--the memorial service next +month." + +"I told him no such thing," Henley retorted, with an effort to control +his rising temper. "I can't be responsible for the slap-dash way he puts +things. I don't like his eternal gab, nohow." + +"Well, you must have said _something_," Mrs. Henley pursued, probingly. +"He never makes up things out of whole cloth. He is not that way." + +"Well, I suppose I did say something," Henley reluctantly admitted. "He +was nagging the life out of me at the store about what you intended to +do, and holding me up to ridicule, and I reckon I did say that I +wouldn't be here--that my business would keep me in Texas. As for that +matter, I told you about the trip long before this queer--long before +you decided to do this--this thing." + +"I know just how you said it," the woman threw back, sharply. "I know +what you've thought all along about Pa and Ma being here, and me loving +'em and caring for 'em. You do your best to hide it, but you can't." + +"Well, if I do my best, what more could you expect?" Henley asked, with +more logic than patience. + +"I'd want you to keep your promise to me," Mrs. Henley said, crisply, +and she bent lower over him and fixed her offended eyes on his. "You +told me before we were married that you'd promise never to object--you +even said you admired me for my feelings, and that it proved to you that +I had stability and strength of character--that you wouldn't have a wife +that would ever forget her dead husband." + +"Well, I have kept my promise," Henley said. "I am not sure that I +knowed just precisely what I was doing when I made it, but I've kept it. +As for attending his--his funeral services at such a late day, that is +another thing. I don't see how you could expect it." + +"You don't?" she flared up. "Will you tell me if there would be anything +to be ashamed of in your being there? Would a divine service of that +sort disgrace you? Would it besmirch your character?" + +"No, and nobody said it would," Henley managed to fish from his addled +brain. "But I simply thought, somehow, that it would look better for me +to be out of the way. Funerals and the like are generally attended by +mourners, and, well, where would I come in? I reckon my proper seat +would be with you and the--the rest of the family on the front bench, if +it was anywhere. It would look funny for me just to be a looker-on from +the back part of the house, and I'd feel like a dern fool in front. A +dern fool--you may not know what that is from experience, but you ought +to from observation; you've had one under your eye for some time." + +"Well, you simply don't approve of it," the woman returned, resentfully. +"You can set there, blessed with good health and life, and plenty to eat +and wear, and actually begrudge the little mite of respect that is paid +to the helpless dead. In being overpersuaded and marrying you I was +untrue to him and his memory, and now you make it worse by opposing a +simple little ordinance that is due every person on earth, high or low." + +"It ought to have been done earlier, and before I got--got mixed up in +it, if it was done at all," Henley said, trying to speak mildly and, +even, pacifically. + +"I know that now," Mrs. Henley said, in a tone of such deep +self-reproach that her stare softened and wavered; "but it wasn't +thought of. I never knew it was the style till this man come along and +told me; but that is no reason I shouldn't make amends, late as it is. +It is all the better proof that Dick is remembered. But you can go to +Texas." The stare hardened and became fixed again. "Folks will say you +are jealous and mean, and that I was an unfaithful fool for listening to +you, but I will have to stand it." + +"Well, I'll simply be obliged to be away," Henley said, doggedly. "The +business won't be put off, and--and--" + +"And you are a heartless brute!" the gaunt woman cried, as she whirled +from him and strode into the house. + +A few minutes later there emerged from the near-by door of the kitchen +the real instigator of the present dispute. He trudged across the +passage, drawn down on one side by the weight of a dripping swill-pail +which he was taking to the pigpen, descended the short flight of steps, +and turned back toward Henley. He stood for a moment hesitatingly, the +pail wiping its dripping exterior against his baggy jean trousers. Then +he said: "I've got a thing or two to say to you, Alf, if you will oblige +me by steppin' down to my pen so I can stop that hog's squealin' long +enough to hear myself talk. One at a time, I say, an' let it be me." + +"By all means," Henley answered, ambiguously, and he joined Wrinkle on +the grass and they walked down the path together to the pigpen in a +corner of the rail-fenced cow-lot. + +"No use enterin' a talkin'-match with the whistle of a crazy +steam-engine," the stepfather-in-law strained his lungs to say, and he +grunted as he raised the pail to the top rail of the pen and cautiously +tilted it to let the contents run into the wooden trough. + +"Now, that's more like it," he said, his voice rising above the +suction-pump noise of the hungry animal. He lowered the empty pail to +the ground, and with a paddle began to dig out the mushy sediment from +the bottom and throw it into the trough, as a mason might mortar from a +trowel. "The truth is, Alf, I've got an apology to make to you, and I +didn't want to do it up thar before them women. The other day when I +said that about old Welborne a-sendin' you a bunch o' flowers to +decorate Dick's grave I wasn't actually thinkin' about you as much as I +was about Welborne an' his close-fisted ways. Of course, now I think of +it again, it _would_ be a good way for 'im to git back at you for yore +joke in sendin' the tombstone man to him, and I catch myself lafin' +every time I think of it, and the way you'd look if he did, but--" + +"What the devil do you mean?" Henley broke in, testily. "Here you are +startin' in to apologize for a thing and going over it again word for +word? Have you plumb lost your senses?" + +"Was I doin' that?" Wrinkle asked, blandly, though even in the twilight +Henley could see that his eyes were twinkling. "Well, I'm sorry again, +and I'm just man enough to say so, Alf. I'll apologize as many times as +you like. I'll keep on till you _are_ satisfied. But you must listen. +You are a-gittin' powerful touchy here lately, and it ain't becomin' in +a man of yore dignity. It will git so after a while that I can't express +any sort of opinion to you without a fist-fight. I was goin' on to say +that I was jest thinkin' of old Welborne's quick wit in every emergency +that set me to wonderin' that day how he might act in sech a case. They +say everything is grist to his mill--that he turns every single thing +that drifts his way into profit great or small. And that day after you +railed out at me in the store I went across the Square to see how yore +joke would terminate. The door of his dingy little office was open, an' +I could see the grave-rock man inside bendin' over old Welborne at his +little table, pointin' at the pictures in his book and sweatin' like a +nigger in a cotton-gin. But what struck me most of all was the glazed +look in old Welborne's eye; he looked like he wasn't hearin' a word the +fellow was spoutin', but was thinkin' o' some'n else plumb different. I +walked on and hung about outside till the tombstone man come out. He was +as mad as Hector. I seed he was, an' stopped 'im in a offhand way and +axed him what luck. + +"'Luck hell,' says he--he used the word, I didn't--'I talked to that +dried-up old mummy,' says he, 'fer an hour jest to find that he was +settin' thar all the time figurin' in his head about a speculation I'd +made 'im think of while I was talkin' to him.' + +"The agent was so mad that he wouldn't explain what the speculation was, +but I heard it that evenin'. Hank Bradley was tellin' it to a crowd at +the post-office. You know Hank makes all manner of sport of his uncle +behind the old skunk's back. He told a tale, too, that I'd never heard. +It seems that old Welborne's mother-in-law died, and Welborne went to a +undertaker to buy 'er coffin. He picked out a fifty-dollar one, and +talked and talked till he finally got the pore devil down to forty. Then +he said: + +"'You'd sell two for seventy-five, wouldn't you?' + +"'I reckon I might,' the undertaker said, 'but you only want one.' + +"'I'll need another 'fore many months,' old Welborne said. 'My +father-in-law won't last long. I'll take one now at thirty-seven-fifty +and the other when the time comes.'" + +Henley laughed, despite his displeasure. "That is just like him," he +said, "and I believe every word of it." + +"His present speculation takes the rag off'n the bush," said Wrinkle. +"The talk of the gravestone man started him to thinkin' about what thar +might be in that line for him, and he recalled that he owned ten acres +of ground on a rise in the edge of town which he had bought at a +tax-sale for twenty-five dollars. The very next mornin' he had a feller +diggin' post-holes an' puttin' a fence around it with a main gate that +had a big curvin' sign over it with the words 'Sunnyside Cemetery' on +it, and I'm told that he has been all over town tellin' folks that the +_old_ graveyard is too low and soggy to be half decent, and that his'n +was a great improvement. He intimated, too, that nobody but blue-bloods +could git the'r names enrolled, and thar has been a powerful scramble +for places, even by folks that have no idea of dyin' yet a while. You +see, Alf, I got a good many particulars at fust hand, for he was out +here to see Hettie in regard to accommodations for Dick, and I heard all +that was said. Accordin' to Welborne thar is to be a wholesale movin' +right away and choice quarters will be scarce, right when they are in +the most demand." + +"I suppose she--I suppose my wife--" + +"Yes, she bit, Alf, and took a full mouthful at that. Welborne told her +he was givin' her the pick of the whole thing because she was startin' +the ball rollin', an' her fine marble would set the place off. She +selected twenty foot square under a weepin'-willow, which he said had a +rock bottom and the best view of the town. It only set her back two +hundred round plugs, but she had that much left in the bank, and seems +powerful well, satisfied. I wouldn't 'a' fetched all this up, but I +'lowed you'd like to know what a big thing growed out of yore little +joke that day. I love a good joke myself, but when one's turned on you +in a sort o' wholesale way, it don't feel the best in the world." + +"There is no joke about it; it's outright stealing!" Henley had +reference to Welborne's part of the transaction. "Any man can get money +out of fool women, if he's mean enough to take advantage of their silly +whims." + +"I often wonder about you an' me an' the whole bunch of us here at the +house," Wrinkle said. "Not one of the four is blood kin to the other, +and yet here we are all wedged together as tight as young catbirds in a +nest. Folks say the hardest question on earth is how to live, and yet to +me it's been as easy as fallin' off a log into soft sand. Me 'n Jane +never counted on Dick for any sort of aid, an' yet it was through him +that we are provided for--in fact, he was so wishy-washy and helpless +that we was glad to have him tie up with a woman that had a few dollars. +He went in for a high old time, and he had it. I couldn't object--I was +that way myself. He was as bad after gals as a drummer, and in his +sparkin' days, as maybe you know, he could have had his pick. I couldn't +keep from hearin' you an' Hettie talkin' in the passage jest now, and +when she come into the light mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two I +saw thar had been a row. Her notion to have you on hand at sech a time +as that may seem odd, but women are all odd. They want what other women +can't have, and I reckon Het thinks it would be a sort o' feather in +'er cap to mourn in public over one husband while she's leanin' agin +another that is ready an' willin' in every way." + +"I reckon we've talked long enough about it," Henley said, frigidly, and +he glanced toward the lights in the farm-house. + +"Yes, I reckon so," returned the gadfly. "As for me, I never was able to +see how Het could accuse you of bein' jealous of Dick, when--" + +"Jealous fiddlesticks!" Henley snorted. "I never was jealous of a _live_ +man, much less a dead one." + +"It would _seem_ that way," was all the support Wrinkle would give to +the claim, as he took up his pail and started back to the house. "I +didn't say you _was_, but Het seems to size it up that way." + +Left alone, and with hot fires of resentment raging in his breast, +Henley sauntered along the fence till he was behind his barn. His change +of position brought him within a few yards of Dixie Hart's cottage, and +he suddenly heard her voice. She was speaking to some one. Peering +through the deepening darkness, which was broken only by the gleams of a +few random stars, he saw her inside her yard at the gate, and leaning on +the fence from the outside was the tall, well-clad form of Hank Bradley. + +"You are not going to treat a feller as mean as that," Bradley was heard +to say, in a gruff, pleading tone, "when I've been begging you so many +times." + +"I can't let you come in now, and I can't go to ride with you, either," +Henley heard her answer, as she stood well away from the fence. "I've +got good and sufficient reasons, and I hope you won't ask me any more." + +"I'll keep on asking till the crack of doom," Bradley said, in a voice +that shook. "You know I'm not the weak-kneed kind. The Bradley stock +hold on like bulldogs. When they take a notion to anything they want +it, and they keep on till they get it. So look out, Dixie Hart. I'm not +to blame; your eyes burn holes in me and set me on fire. The more you +turn me down the more I think about you." + +"Well, you mustn't come any more," Dixie said, firmly. "Good-night." + +Henley saw her move across the grass and vanish in the cottage. He heard +Bradley stifle a surly exclamation of disappointment, and saw him turn +and walk off slowly toward his uncle's house. + +"Poor girl!" Henley said to himself. "In all her troubles she has to +ward off a dirty, designing scamp like that; but she's doing it like a +queen, an' no harm can touch 'er. And she's going to get married! She is +going into the treacherous thing absolutely blindfolded, and the Lord +only knows what will come of it. It's a risk for the best, and under the +best conditions--it may prove to be the final stroke that will knock out +her wonderful courage. God have mercy on her!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +On the day set for Dixie's wedding Henley had occasion to go to the +little express office, adjoining the old-fashioned brick car-shed in the +village, to see about a shipment of produce which had been incorrectly +marked. And as he was returning he saw the girl seated in her wagon in +the open space between the station and the hotel. + +Henley knew what it meant. She had come to meet her lover. She happened +to have her glance fixed on some point in the opposite direction from +him and did not know that he was near. He hesitated for an instant, and +then decided that he would not intrude upon her privacy. There was +something in her attitude of bland and helpless expectancy that probed +the deepest fount of his sympathy. + +"Poor, brave little woman!" he mused, as he turned his back upon the +scene and moved on toward his store. "She's having her dream like all +the rest. She may get a fair cut of the cards, and she may not. He ain't +very promising material from the looks of his picture, but it wouldn't +be fair to judge him by that. He may do his part, and the Lord knows she +needs help. I'm too big a failure in the marrying line to object or +offer advice." + +Reaching his desk, he applied himself to the writing of some letters +pertaining to his intended trip to Texas, but the pathetic sight he had +of the girl at the station thrust itself between him and his task. She +was his faithful friend. He loved her almost as if she had been a +sister; she had confided in him; only he and she and her little family +knew of what was to take place to-day. How strange to think that she +would no longer be as she was! The wife of a man she had never seen, of +a man whose full name Henley had not even heard. + +Just then the still air was stirred by the sportive whippoorwill's call +with which the young engineer of that particular train always announced +with the locomotive's whistle his approach to Chester, and later there +was a sound of escaping steam and the slow clanging of a bell as the +train drew up in the shed. Only a moment's pause, and the train was off +again. + +It occurred to Henley that as his store was on the most direct way to +her home Dixie would naturally drive past it on her return, so he went +to the front, taking pains to stand back a few feet from the entrance +that his position might not appear to be by design. He was glad that +Cahews and Pomp were busy in the rear, and he became conscious of the +hope that no stray customer would interrupt him at what seemed such a +grave and important moment. Time passed, and still old Bob and the +ramshackle wagon were not in sight. Henley cautiously ventured to the +door, whence he glanced down the street. He saw the wagon. It was now at +the door of the post-office, but no one was in it. With his hip-joint +loose the animal swayed and sagged against one of the shafts, the reins +hanging from his rump to the ground. + +"They've stopped to get the mail," Henley said in his tight throat; +"they'll be out in a minute. I'll take one peep at 'im, anyway." + +But Dixie emerged from the narrow doorway of the little building alone. +She was reading a letter, and she groped slowly across the sidewalk to +the wagon, where she stood till she had finished it. Even at that +distance Henley could see that she was pale, and he fancied that her +hand and step were unsteady as she mounted to the spring seat and +reached for the reins. Henley receded farther into the store, actuated +by a vague intuition that she might not care to be seen, and he was glad +that he had not intruded upon her, for, as she drove past the store, she +did not glance toward it, but instead looked steadily in the opposite +direction. + +"The fellow didn't come, and she's had bad news besides," Henley mused, +and he now stood in the doorway and looked after the shackly vehicle as +it moved slowly away in the beating sunshine. "She's bad hit by +something or other," he said, anxiously. "I've never seen her look like +that before. Some'n has gone wrong." + +He did not see her for three days. On the evening of the third day he +was standing at the door of his barn. It was growing dark. The coming +night had robed the mountain-peaks in gray, and put them out of sight. +Old Wrinkle was singing "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord!" +as he trudged back to the house, swinging his empty swill-pail. The door +of Dixie Hart's cottage opened, and in a narrow frame of firelight she +stood peering out toward him. Then he saw that she was coming. She moved +swiftly, and with a sure step, till she paused at the fence which +separated her land from his. + +"I've been wanting to see you, Alfred," she said, in a low, changed +voice. "I had no excuse to go to the store, and--well, I didn't think +that was exactly the place, anyway to--to say what I had to say. You +haven't spoke about what I told you to anybody--I know in reason that +you haven't, but--" + +"I'd cut off my right arm first," he declared, earnestly. "What you said +that day was as sacred to me as if it had come from on high and my very +salvation depended on it." + +"I knew that," she said, softly. "I only said that to--to sort o' get +started. I'm all upset, Alfred; I'll get right after a while, but things +are all crooked now. I've had trouble--I reckon a girl might call it +that and still have self-respect. I've had heaps of unexpected trouble." + +"I was afraid some'n had gone wrong," Henley found himself able to say, +"not hearing any more, you see, about--about what you talked of that +day." + +"I'm going to tell you, and then dismiss it," Dixie said, her pretty lip +twitching, the dark curves under her eyes lending sharp contrast to +their fathomless lustre. "I had everything ready, and went to meet him, +but he didn't come. I went to the post-office and got a letter. He +was--was taken sick--so the letter said. He was pretty bad off. In fact, +Alfred, the truth is, he's dead; the--the fellow is dead." + +Her head was down; she had folded her arms on the top rail of the fence, +and she rested her brow on them. He was wondering if she was crying and +what there was for him to say, when she suddenly, and quite dry-eyed, +looked up and said: "But that must be a secret, too. Nobody knows about +it except my home folks, and nobody must. I'd give plumb up if Carrie +Wade was to flaunt that in my face and start it going over hill and +dale." + +"It's too bad," Henley ventured, as nearly upon what he considered +consolation as his knowledge of her rather questionable bereavement +would justify. "What was his complaint?" + +"You mean, what ailded him?" Dixie asked, an incongruous flush battling +with the pallor of her face and becoming observable even in the +starlight. "Why, you see, Alfred, I didn't get full particulars--a body +never can, you know, at a time like that--and in just a letter--but you +can depend upon it that it was sudden." + +"Maybe it was what they say is so common now," Henley pursued, +awkwardly--"heart failure." + +"Or weakness of the backbone." He was sure that she smiled impulsively, +for she quickly covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her head to +the fence again, and for a moment he stood staring at her and wondering +if the calamity had caused her to be hysterical. Suddenly she looked up +again and said: + +"I reckon you think I ought to act different--that I ought to cry and +take on--but I can't. You must make what allowance you can. You see, I +never saw him in my life, and, well, it was just a wild-goose chase that +started in nothing and ended the same way." + +"I see," Henley ventured, "but I'm sorry. Death is bad enough, in any +case, but to be called away without a minute's notice and on the eve +of--" + +"Well, you needn't be sorry for me--you needn't waste pity on me," Dixie +broke in with irrelevant warmth. "You'll find me doing business at the +same old stand, man or no man. If we can just keep this silly caper from +getting out I'll be thankful. So far, I've got along by myself, and, +outside of wanting to flaunt a husband in Carrie Wade's face, I don't +know as I'll be particularly disappointed. I can keep on at the plough +and hoe, rain or shine, and--" Her voice had trailed away into +indistinctness, and he saw her lower lip quivering. She suddenly turned +and hurried away. + +He saw her vanish in the lighted doorway, and he stood overwhelmed with +blended perplexity and sympathy. + +"She's trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but she's hit, and hit +hard--harder'n I thought possible in her case," he mused. "She never saw +the feller, but she may have had a sort of a idea in her head of what he +was like, an' the loss is as keen as if she had knowed him a long time, +maybe keener, for the gloss hain't been rubbed off by actual +acquaintance, as it has been off of me and most other married folks. I +reckon my wife has put the gloss back on Dick Wrinkle, if it was ever +off, and I've got a rival in the spirit-world that nothing earthly +could ever hope to match. They say absence works that way, and when I +get to Texas maybe she will look back on all I've done to keep peace and +harmony betwixt us and appreciate me more than she is doing now. I say +maybe, for, on t'other hand, she may be glad to have me away, and when I +get back I may find that her whole heart is in the empty grave she is +bent on digging and adorning at such a great outlay." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The next afternoon, as Henley was on his way home from the store, and +was passing a corn-field owned by Sam Pitman--a farmer of weak character +and sullen disposition who had been a moonshiner as long as the law had +permitted the business to yield profits--he was surprised to see Dixie +near the centre of the field. She was bending over something or +somebody, and, fearing that an accident had happened, he hastily climbed +the fence and walked rapidly over the ploughed soil toward her. He could +not make out what the object of her attention was till he was quite +near, and then he saw that it was a little boy about ten years of age +who was seated on the ground and, till now, hidden by the corn-stalks +and their succulent blades, which, as he sat, rose higher than his +yellow, ill-kempt head. Dixie heard Henley's step and turned a very +grave face on him. + +"It's the poor little orphan Sam Pitman adopted by law the other day," +she informed him in a gentle aside, as her hand rested tenderly on the +child's head, which was supported by his frail knees in their ragged and +patched covering. "I've had my eye on him all evening. He's hoed out all +this since dinner." She waved an indignant hand over the patch of corn +immediately about them. "I couldn't have done more myself, and I know +what work is. Yes, I was watching him, and awhile ago I saw him stagger +an' fall. He'd fainted from overheat. I come as quick as I could. I got +water in his hat and dashed it on him--look how wet it made him, but it +revived him. He wanted to work on, but I made him stop and set down. +He's timid and shy before you, but me 'n him are great friends, ain't +we, Joe? He helped me hunt eggs the other day"--she was running on now +in a tender, caressing tone--"and I gave him some of my pie. He could +crawl to places I never got at before, and we raked in a peck that would +have been a dead loss, for I've already got too many broods." + +"I heard Pitman had got a boy," Henley said, guardedly, "and I wondered +what the Ordinary meant by turning such a little fellow over to a man +like him. It seems like there was only one or two applications, and the +boy had to be sent somewhere right off. Do you feel better now, Joe?" + +"Yes, sir," the child answered. "It wasn't nothing. It didn't hurt a +bit." + +Henley caught Dixie's quick upward glance. "Ain't it pitiful?" she said, +with a shake of her head and a catch in her full voice. "Huh, 'didn't +hurt,' I say! You dear little boy!" + +With a brave smile the lad stood up to the full height of his spare +frame. He was still pale, and his hair was matted down over his brow by +the douche it had received. His little, cotton, checked shirt was open +at the neck, disclosing a rather low chest. He stooped down and picked +up the hoe, which was of the regulation size and weight used by men. +Dixie was protesting against his working more that day, when, looking +behind her, she saw the foster-father of the boy approaching. + +"What's the matter here?" the farmer growled, eying the group +distrustfully with his small gray eyes under pent-house brows. He was +short of stature, sinewy, and grizzled as to head and bristling beard. + +"Miss Dixie says the boy fainted," Henley answered. "I saw her here, +and come over to see what was wrong. The little fellow don't look overly +stout." + +"Nothing's the matter with 'im," Pitman retorted, visibly angered by +what he regarded as the interference of outsiders in his private +affairs. + +"Well, I know he fainted," Dixie said, calmly, "but we won't argue about +it. I'll tell you one thing, though, Sam Pitman, if this thing goes +on--I say, if Joe is overworked like this any more--a single other +time--and it comes to my knowledge, I'll take you smack-dab to court. I +don't meddle in things that don't concern me, as a general thing, but +I'll take this in hand and I'll clutch it tight." + +"You'll do wonders," Pitman sneered, but with a guarded glance at +Henley, who had, on one occasion, knocked him down in some dispute over +a debt at the store. He turned to the boy and took the hoe from him. +"You go drive up that cow. I'll finish this patch myself, and don't you +dare come back and say you can't find her, nuther. If you know what's +good for you, you fetch 'er home." + +Leaving Pitman at work in the corn, and with the boy trudging homeward, +Henley and Dixie made their way out to the road. At the fence he threw +down several rails and aided her to step over the remaining ones. When +he had put the rails back in their places and joined her he was struck +by the altered expression of her face. + +"I've wanted to see you all day," she began, her grave glance on the +ground, "and it looks like this meeting is providential. I want to get +it all plumb out, Alfred, and have it off my mind. I don't know when a +thing has bothered me so much. It seemed like such a little thing at the +time, but a whopping big one now. You 'n me have been too good friends, +Alfred, to let deception of any sort whatever come between us. Please +don't look at me so straight; I'll never get through it if you do. You +think I'm as good as the general run of girls, I'll be bound, and yet I +ain't." + +"I'll take the risk on that," he laughed, incredulously. "I know what +you are--you are true blue. You've just showed the stripe you're made +of. In a minute you'd have fought that skunk back there like a mad +wildcat. For the time, at least, you was loving that pore boy as if he +was your own." + +"We are not talking about that--that's nothing," she said. "No woman +that is half a one could see the dreamy blue eyes of that lonely boy, +and know what he's going through, and not want to hug 'im up to her +breast and pet 'im and comfort 'im. I saw him the day Pitman fetched him +here. He sat out under the trees all day long. I watched him from my +field, and I could see 'im wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He kept it up +from morning till night. Sometimes, Alfred, I doubt the goodness of God +Almighty. I know it's a sin to say so, but I can't help it. I've talked +a heap to Joe off and on, an' he's had more put on 'im than a grown +person ought to bear. Poor thing! he misses his Ma. From what he says I +judge she was good and tender. I had a queer dream the other night. I +seemed to see a woman in my room; she was crying, and, as plain as I can +hear yore voice this minute, I heard her say: 'Don't let 'em abuse +'im--he's weak and he can't stand it,' and with that she seemed to melt +away. But that is clean off the track. I've got a confession to make to +you, and I am so ashamed I hardly know what to do. Alfred Henley, I've +told you a lie--a cold, deliberate lie. Can you respect anybody that +will tell a lie?" + +"Well, I wouldn't have much respect for myself then," he said, his eyes +large in wonder over what she was driving at. "I've lied as many times +as an average clock can tick in a lifetime. I've told a dozen lies to +sell a pair of shoes, and forty to sell a hoss." + +"Hush joking," she said. "Listen. When I told you that fellow was dead I +was lying. I didn't intend to fool you, but I got in an awful tangle, +and you had to take your chance along with the rest. When I went to the +train that day and that fool didn't heave in sight I smelt a mouse. I +went to the post-office and got a letter from him. It was the most +wishy-washy concoction that was ever put on paper. He never, at any +time, had marry in the back of his head. He was just seeing how far he +could go with me to pass time. Some men are that way. They are powerful +interested till they get a girl to commit herself, and then they begin +to twist and turn or call it all off on the spot. As long as I kept this +'un in doubt he wrote the softest gush that ever flowed from a pen. But +when I wrote that I was ready--actually ready and waiting--well, that +was another proposition. He plumb lost his nerve." + +"The scoundrel!" Henley burst out, grown red in the face. "He is below +contempt. I was afraid he was a sneak the minute I saw his picture. I'd +have stopped you if I'd known how." + +"Well, it was nobody's fault but mine." Dixie was trying to divest her +brave voice of a certain quavering. "Folks say I've got a long head on +me--you amongst 'em--but if any God-forsaken female on this round globe +ever made a bigger fool of herself than I did that whack I'd like to +shake hands with her. I shall see myself setting in that wagon in my new +togs waiting for that train to blow--I'll see that sickening sight till +I draw my last whiff of air. Oh, you don't know! Being a man, you can't +understand what a woman's pride is. Fate has hit me hard licks, but +letting me get my outfit ready, clean up the house, and cook enough +ahead to last a week, and come to town with my own hoss and wagon to +haul a trifling man to the altar who was _jest joking with me_--well, +that's what made me lie." + +"God knows, it was enough," Henley answered in his throat. "The banners +toted by the angels have such mottoes as your lie on 'em." + +"I was forced to it to protect myself," Dixie said. "You see, Alfred, Ma +is kind o' high strung and liable to fly off the handle and talk before +folks. She thinks I'm all right, and she'd have raised the roof off the +house and let all the country know my plight if I hadn't acted, and +acted quick. I drove home slow that day and studied up a plan. Death was +the only thing that would do any good, and so I killed him. I liked that +part of it, anyway. I wouldn't have lied to you, but I'd done it so +often at home, and with such a straight face, that it had got to be a +settled habit. But I jumped from the frying-pan into the fire in one +way, for they both weep and wail over him--think o' that, and me feeling +like I could pull his ears clean out of his head and stomp 'em into the +ground." + +"Oh, they take it that way!" exclaimed Henley. + +"That's what they do," said the girl. "I attend that fellow's funeral +sixteen times a day. They want me to put on black--to put on--huh! when +the fool has already made me spend my last dollar on an outfit +that--shucks! Well, you see what I've got my foot into. I had actually +to clap my hand over Ma's mouth the other day while Carrie Wade was +there making her brags to keep Ma from telling of my great loss. Carrie +would see through it, you know she would, and I'd never hear the end of +it. Ma was dead bent on letting folks know, till I worked a trick on +her. I told her, I did, that men didn't like to marry widows, and if I +ever expected to get a husband I must keep Pete's death quiet. With that +understanding they both agreed to hold their tongues. But it's funny, +ain't it?" she ended with a laugh--"you with your tombstone trouble at +home, and me with a dead bridegroom to look after, and one that treated +me like a hound-pup in the bargain?" + +Henley laughed now, for she was laughing. "I'm not going to let mine +bother me any more," he said, "now that I've heard what you are going +through." + +"And you'll forgive me for the lie I told you?" she asked anxiously, as +she turned to leave him at a point where their ways parted. + +"I would for a million of its sort," he said, fervently. He raised his +hat and smiled, and stood watching her till she was out of sight in the +apple-orchard she had to traverse to reach the cottage. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Henley had been away nearly a year, his absence being protracted by +various business enterprises. Letters to Jim Cahews in regard to the +store, which Cahews was admirably managing, contained humorous accounts +of the various deals which Henley had put through. At one time he had +bought a roller-skating rink, which was sold by auction at a great +sacrifice because the town was too small to support it. Henley had bid +it in, packed it up, and shipped it to a thriving young city, advertised +a big opening, and sold it for a handsome profit while the novelty was +at its height. On another occasion he was the highest bidder on the +scrap-iron in a stove-foundry which had been destroyed by fire, and he +made a handsome "speck" through his ability to guess more nearly than +any of his competitors the weight of the refuse. There was nothing he +would not buy if the price was right, he wrote his clerk, except +_tombstones_, and Cahews understood, and answered to the best of his +ability and tact that the public had long since ceased to talk about +that unfortunate little matter, and when Henley returned he would +perhaps never hear it mentioned. + +The stepfather-in-law had used less diplomacy in the account he had +forwarded to Henley on the day following the great occasion. Wrinkle was +as fond of writing as he was of talking, and he fairly basked in the +sunshine of the letter he sent. He read it aloud to himself as he +walked to Chester to post it, pausing now and then to scratch out a word +or to add one with a pencil as the paper lay on his raised knee. This is +the way it sounded to his pleased ears: + + "DEAR ALF,--I take my pen in hand to address these few lines to you + to let you know that we are all well, and hope you are endowed with + the same and many like blessings. Nothin' unusual is goin' on here + right now. It is as quiet as the day after camp-meetin'. Dick's + funeral was preached yesterday. The weather was tiptop, and nothin' + was lackin' to make it a plumb success. Hettie got us out of bed + before a single streak of day had appeared. We put on our clothes + by pine-knots. The preacher she sent away off for, because she was + bound to git some'n extra, was installed at the hotel. He is a + wheel-hoss; he dressed as fine as a fiddle, with a plug-hat and + dashboard shoes, and had a long jimswinger coat that come to his + knees. The paper said he was the silver-tongued orator of the + entire Cherokee pulpit, and printed his picture, and said he'd been + paid a handsome figure by one of our wealthiest citizens to take + part in the memorable occasion. I cut the artickle out to send to + you, but forgot an' lit my pipe with it. I'll try to git another, + but they are hard to find, as all hands seem to be keepin' 'em for + future generations to look at. I seed ten men all readin' one at + the same time in a gang at the sawmill t'other day. They seemed to + consider it funny, but I didn't. I don't see how a thing as solemn + as that affair was could be funny. + + "We et our breakfast by candle-light, and then set around and had + nothin' to do till startin'-time. We went in the two-seated + spring-wagon. I was the only one in our layout not draped from head + to foot in black. I couldn't see the women's faces, and as they + didn't say a word I couldn't estimate the extend of their grief. I + reckon you can guess, anyway. You know 'em. You never saw sech a + stream o' folks in all yore born days. You'd 'a' thought it was a + public hangin', and every livin' soul had to take a special peep at + us as we driv along. As well as I could make out through her veil, + Hettie seemed to like bein' so conspicuous, for she axed me to + drive slow an' go through the main street, which ain't the nighest + way to the church. When we got thar the house was packed as tight + as dry apples in a cider-press. But the front bench was all our'n. + Nobody dared take it, although more'n half of it was empty, an' + folks was settin' in the windows. I had trouble with Hettie, for + she made me throw my chaw o' tobacco away, and I found I was + settin' right over a wide crack in the floor, too. I wouldn't 'a' + damaged a thing, an' could 'a' done it without bein' seed. + + "Then I made her as mad as Old Nick by a little mistake of mine. + While I was hitchin' up the wagon Old Bay bit a whoppin' big gap + out'n my straw hat, and it was so comical-lookin' that Ma told me + not to wear it. That was easy enough to say, but I didn't want to + go bareheaded, so I begun to look about the house for some'n to put + on, and hid away amongst Het's knickknacks I found a hat that used + to belong to Dick. It was jest my size, and so I put it on an' + thought no more about it till we was all settin' in church. It was + on my lap, and all at once I seed Hettie lift up her veil an' + squint at it; then she heaved a big groan and snatched it and put + it out o' sight. She'd have blessed me out on the spot, I reckon, + if the singers hadn't set in. I was a sight goin' home without a + thing on my head, but she wouldn't listen to reason, an' kept it + stuffed all in a wad under her arm. She said I had no feelin' or I + wouldn't have done sech an outrageous thing. + + "The preacher was all right, but he'd bit off more than he could + chaw. It seems from report that he went around Chester to find out + statements that he could work in about Dick that would sound nice + and suitable; but for some reason or other--maybe because everybody + was so excited, and maybe because they was naturally backward + before sech a shinin' light--but, as I say, he run short on + information. When he come to that part of his talk he looked + actually teased. He floundered about considerable, an' drunk a lot + o' water, but he done the best he could. He said Dick was a devoted + husband and father, and got red when he corrected the last part, + and said a Divine Providence had seed fit to take 'im away purty + early in the game, and that the poor fellow hadn't really had a + chance to show what was in him. Looked like he was determined to + say some'n nice about Dick, so he gave a few backhanded licks at + the Republican party and the nigger-lovers of the North, an' wound + up by sayin' that the late lamented had been a stanch Democrat an' + worked at the poles as hard to overthrow graftin' and Yankee + oppression as any man in the fair Southland. He got through + somehow, but, betwixt me 'n you, Alf, I don't think Hettie thought + she got her full money's worth, for she was countin' on a wonderful + display of poetry and highfalutin' things that would be remembered + an' placed to her credit for a long time afterwards. He got his + foot in it several times. Once I heard Hettie sniff mighty nigh + loud enough for him to hear it. It was when he said life wasn't + what it was cracked up to be, nohow, and he didn't doubt that Dick + was a sight better off where he was at than here in this earthly + wrangle. I thought to myself, I wonder what Alf would say in his + far-off retreat to a statement of that sort. + + "The marble monument looks all right in Welborne's new graveyard, + an' he has a right to be proud of his enterprise. The ground is + bein' mapped off in great shape. He's had grass sowed all over it + and laid out avenues and sidewalks, and thar's some talk of a + fountain. + + "That Dixie Hart's a corker. She's not mealy-mouthed about + anything. The day before the funeral Hettie was talkin' to her at + the cow-lot, and axed Dixie if she was goin' to take it in. Dixie + quit milchin', and stood up straight and said: 'No, I've got better + sense, and you ought to be ashamed of yoreself. You've got a good + husband, and you don't appreciate him nigh enough.' + + "I thought it was funny that Het didn't fly off the handle, but she + stood and tuck it, and seemed to be set back a peg or two. Me 'n + her went to the house together, an' I looked for her to rail out on + me, anyway, but she set on the porch like she had a lot to think + about till bed-time. I made up my mind then that Het jest loves to + do things that other folks don't approve of, an' that Dixie had set + 'er to wonderin' if she hadn't gone a little bit too far. + + "But the old gal is all right. She has tuck a new turn, as I wrote + you in my last. She keeps boarders in the two spare rooms mighty + nigh all the time, and she is figurin' expenses purty close. + Sometimes it is a rovin' peddler at day-rates or a fruit-tree agent + by the week. I can't say I like it overly much--though thar is + somebody to talk to at odd times when they are through work--for + she don't seem to feed quite as well when she's bein' paid as + before money begun to come in. She seems to want to lay up scads + for some reason or other; maybe it is to try to git back the cash + she has spent on her odd notion. I don't know, an' I ain't sure she + does herself, but she's as close as the bark on a tree. Jim says + she's runnin' a separate account at the store, an' makes 'im figure + everything she gets at bare cost in market--freight not included. I + heard her tellin' a lightnin'-rod peddler that that was where she + could cut under the Chester House, which didn't have no store nor + credit to speak of. + + "Who do you think was here last week? Why, Ben Warren, Hettie's + bach' uncle. He stayed all night, an' occupied yore room. He says + he's got two thousand acres in his plantation over the mountain, + and the finest residence in the State--keeps a dozen hosses an' all + the old niggers that his daddy used to own. He's thirty-five, an' + still on the turf, but he told us he was at last engaged to a + Baltimore lady that he had been settin up to for lo these many + years. He's goin' to have us all spend a week over thar before + long. He thinks a lot of Het, an' wants her to fix up his house for + the bride. Het's lookin' forward to it. He couldn't stay over for + the funeral, but he said she was showin' by her act that women was + not forgetful of the past, and that it made him feel more secure in + the venture he was about to make. He'd been inclined to doubt + females to some extent, he said, and he was goin' to let Het's + conduct stand before him always as a proof of how deep a woman's + affections can be when they are tested. + + "Now, take care of yourself, Alf, and come on home. These cool, + green mountains are good enough for any man, an' you know what is + said about a rollin' stone. So long. I sign myself, with my best + respects, + + "Yours truly, + "JASON WRINKLE. + + "_P. S._--The same old crowd of jolly loafers make the store + headquarters, and they are, if anything, worse 'n when you was the + king-bee o' the bunch. They git off a fresh joke on somebody every + day. I got off one on Jim that he didn't like a bit. Jim is still + holdin' on to old man Hardcastle's gal like grim death, an' in + order to cut a special dash he's got to sendin' his things to the + steam laundry at Carlton. T'other day at the post-office the nigger + that delivers for the Express Company, an' can't read, showed me + Jim's package of socks, drawers, shirts, an' the like, that had + just come, an' axed me who it was for. With as straight a face as + if I was lookin' a corpse in the eyes, I p'inted out Hardcastle's + house an' tol' 'im to take it thar. Then I writ with a pencil on + the kiver these words, 'Please restore missin' buttons and stitch + up holes.' Then what did I do but hike back to the store an' set + an' wait. Miss Julia sent the stuff a-whizzin' to Jim by a nigger + woman that works for her folks. The things was all tousled up in a + big basket, an' she fetched along a note that made Jim turn as + white as a cake o' tallow. He left me in charge an' run over an' + explained matters to the best of his ability, but it's the talk of + the town, an' not a soul has suspicioned me. If you don't want to + git knocked flat you'd better not mention a steam laundry in Jim's + presence. + + "J. W." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Alfred Henley was coming home. Jim Cahews announced it one morning to a +cluster of farmers and chronic loungers at the store, and the news +rapidly spread through the village and country-side, and various +comments were made. He was going to do a man's part and try to put up +with the cranky woman he had married, said the men. He was heartily +ashamed of himself, said the women. He had got over his silly pout and +was coming home to make amends for his conduct in living so long away +from a woman who had shown such beautiful constancy to her first and, +perhaps--as it looked now--only love. + +Dixie Hart heard the report on her way to the post-office, and, needing +a spool of cotton, she went into the store. + +"Yes, he's headed this way," was Cahews's confirmation of the news. "The +truth is, Miss Dixie, if I'm any judge of a man's letters, Alf's +actually homesick. He wants the mountains he was fetched up in. He +writes about his lonely days and nights, when his speculations don't +keep him busy, an' says they don't have anything out thar but pesky +north winds an' sand-storms. He might have stayed away longer, as it +was, but one little thing I wrote him turned the scale. You know that +measly ten-cent circus that was to show here last month got stranded. +The performers all quit and footed it home, an' the sheriff levied on +the thing, lock, stock, and barrel, an' is to sell it piece by piece at +public outcry Saturday week. Alf wrote me that a sale of that sort was +exactly in his line, and that he'd try to be on hand. He didn't think +anybody here would have any money to invest in such truck, and he'd have +his own way. He said about the only man hereabouts that he'd have to +contend with would be old Welborne, but he would risk him. He don't +often allude to home matters, Miss Dixie, but I think Alf counts on +havin' things up at the house a little smoother than they was when he +went off." + +"And maybe he will," the girl answered, thoughtfully, as she turned +away. + +The only boarders Mrs. Henley had at this time were a certain young +married pair, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Allen, who had arrived only a week +before with a baby not yet a month old. Allen was a travelling +sewing-machine agent, and boarded his wife and child at some farm-house +while he drove about the country in a buggy with a sample machine to +instruct women in the use of it and take orders. + +When Mrs. Allen heard the report that Henley was coming back, she was +considerably disturbed by the thought that she and hers might not be +wanted any longer. She nursed her fears all the morning, and finally, +with the infant on her arm, she went out to Mrs. Henley, who was in the +back-garden gathering cucumbers for the dinner-table. + +"I reckon I'd as well come to the point an' be done with it," Mrs. Allen +began, timidly. She was thin, had blue eyes and faded blond hair, used +snuff, as was indicated by the brownish deposits in the corners of her +mouth and her stained teeth. "I want to speak to you about yore +husband." + +"Well, what is it?" Mrs. Henley asked, as she drew herself up and peered +at the speaker from the hood of her sunbonnet, and rested her pan of +cucumbers on her hip. + +"Why, they all say he's comin' home," said Mrs. Allen. "I've heard yore +father-in--I mean, I've heard old Mr. Wrinkle say that yore husband, +never havin' had children, can't abide babies, an' I got bothered. My +little darlin' don't cry much--in fact, compared to most babies, it's a +purty good un. It did cry some just a minute ago, but that wasn't its +fault. It was mine. Like a plumb fool, who certainly ought to have had +more sense, I was takin' a dip o' snuff from my box as I come out of the +house, an' a sudden whiff of wind round the corner blowed a speck of it +in the little thing's eyes. You know it stings like ackerfortis. We are +goin' next week, anyway, you see." + +"Well, you needn't let my husband's coming hurry you off," Mrs. Henley +answered, as she reached out to a bean-pole and bore down on it that she +might fasten it more firmly in the soil, and it was impossible to judge +whether there was resentment in the tone. "He's coming back of his own +free will, and if he stays he'll put up with the house just as he finds +it. Nothing will be turned topsy-turvy, you may be sure. His room is +where it always was, and it ain't likely to be changed." + +The conversation was disturbed by the appearance of the baby's father, +who emerged from the house and was on the way to the stable to feed and +water his horse. He wore a ready-made suit of clothes and a scarlet +necktie which clashed sharply with his blond hair and mustache. He was +almost as young as his wife, and he beamed proudly on the red human lump +in her arms as he paused for a moment. He smiled warmly on Mrs. Henley +when his wife playfully informed him that they would not have to move +till their week was up. + +"Well, I certainly am glad to hear it," he declared. "I'd hate to look +for a new place just for a day or so, an' I've got so I feel sorter at +home here. Me an' yore father-in--(excuse me)--I mean, me 'n Mr. Wrinkle +have high old times. Even if I went to board somers else I'd come here +an' set of an evenin' to hear him talk. He drives off every spell of +blues I have. He is the beatenest man to get off jokes I ever knowed, to +be as old as he is. Just now he walked clean over to Pitman's to tell +that crusty old cuss that thar was a cow inside his lot fence, an' when +Pitman come down hoppin' mad with his shot-gun full o' pease yore +father-in--(excuse me)--Mr. Wrinkle p'inted to Pitman's own cow an' +said, 'I wasn't lyin' to you, Sam; thar she is.' He was laughin' just +now an' said he had a joke in store for Mr. Henley when he got here. I +tried to git it out of him, but he wouldn't say what was in the wind." + +That evening, after supper, as the night was warm, the Allens, with the +child asleep on a pillow in a chair between them, were seated out under +the trees in front of the house, when Wrinkle slouched across the grass +to them. He was chewing tobacco, and frequently pressed two fingers over +his lips and between them spat with considerable accuracy at various +shrubs and tufts of grass about him. Even in the twilight they could see +that his small eyes were twinkling with suppressed amusement. + +"I thought once, Allen," he chuckled, "that I wouldn't let you in on +this joke, but I'm afraid I won't sleep if I don't tell somebody. I +don't mind lettin' you two in on the quiet, but I wouldn't tell Hettie +for any amount. You see, this un's a baby joke, an' it may be a tender +point with her, not havin' a baby, an', in fact, never havin' had one up +to date, although she's had two husbands in her day, an' resided with +each one a sufficient time." + +"So it's a baby joke?" Allen said. "Well, that interests _me_." + +"That's what it is," the old man said, dryly. "You'd enjoy it if you +knowed Alf. The gang at the store was eternally laughin' at 'im about +babies. They could shet 'im up tight by jest gettin' a nigger nurse-gal +to tote a lusty one back to his desk while he was at work. Once one of +the gang sent 'im a tin rattler by mail, an' they was all thar to see +'im open it. He took it all in good fun, too; he's one joker that kin +stand one on hisself. You may 'a' noticed that Hettie is a sorter odd +woman in some ways. Well, she's more peculiar on the husband line than +any other. Alf's been off now goin' on ten months, an' she hain't once +put pen to paper for him. So the few lines that has gone from this +shebang has been writ by yours truly. Alf hasn't writ to me much, but +I've kept 'im posted. He didn't write me he was headed this way, but I +got it from Cahews. As soon as I heard he was comin' in a week or so, I +set down to write how glad we was. I was in my room j'inin' your'n at +the time, an' all at once it struck me that it would be a royal welcome +to greet 'im with some sort o' joke, an' while I was tryin' to study up +some'n yore baby rolled out o' the bed an' struck the floor with a +thump. It was as quiet as a stick o' wood fer a minute till it ketched +its wind, an' then it set up a scream like a Comanchy Injun, an' right +thar I got my idea. I determined to write Alf that he'd become the daddy +of a bouncin' baby boy. But I had to go about it right, you see, for I +knowed Alf would smell a mice if I brought it out bluntlike; so, knowin' +that I'd have time to hear from him ag'in before he started, I jest +ended my letter by sayin' that I didn't intend to take no hand in the +little cold spell betwixt him an' his wife, but that I felt bound to say +that after she had laid down her pride to write him _sech important_ an' +_delicate news_, for him to take no notice of it whatever was enough to +hurt and offend any woman. He bit. He took my bait an' hook an' line, +broke my pole, an' run up-stream. He writ by the next mail--said he +hadn't got no letter from Hettie, an' axed me what the news was. He was +so anxious to know that he said he was goin' to stop a day or so in +Atlanta, an' wouldn't I oblige him by sendin' my answer thar? You bet I +did. I'll do a friend a favor whenever I kin. I told 'im Alf Junior was +a buster, had a yell on 'im that would do for a fire-alarm, an' was +already keen enough to know the difference betwixt a bottle with a +rubber neck an' the rail thing. So thar it rests. He hain't got no use +for babies, an' he'll be as mad as Tucker, but when he finds out it's +jest a joke he'll be happy enough to set up the drinks." + +"Gracious, surely you didn't go as far as that," Mrs. Allen cried, +casting a jealous look at her sleeping infant and sweeping it on to her +grinning spouse. + +"Didn't I, though!" Wrinkle spat, gleefully. "Alf has often said I +couldn't fool _him_, an' we'll see--we'll see this pop." + +"It certainly is a corker," Allen declared--"that is, if he swallows +it." + +"He's already done it," sniggered the stepfather-in-law. "I writ a +document a Philadelphia lawyer and a Pinkerton detective combined +couldn't pick a flaw in. I hedged it in with roundabout reasons an' +facts, tellin' 'im he'd 'a' had letter after letter about how the baby +was thrivin' if he'd just answered Hettie's first official proclamation, +and so on, and so on. Folks, I can hardly wait. He'll git here to-morrow +night, an' we'll have the fun of our lives. I hope you two won't say a +word--at fust, anyway. Leave it all to me." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The following afternoon about dusk the mail-hack, which usually brought +a few passengers over from Carlton, put Henley down at the gate. The +Allens, the Wrinkles, and Mrs. Henley were seated on the porch, and all +stared expectantly except the wife of the returning man, who rose +suddenly and retired into the house. Henley was tanned, wore a more +stylish suit of clothes than had been his wont, and a broad-brimmed hat. +As he advanced up the walk, swinging his bag in one hand and a bulky +parcel in the other, the observers noted that he was flushed and smiling +complacently. + +"Durn it all!--dad blast his pictur'!" Wrinkle ejaculated, "I'll bet he +missed my letter. He wouldn't look tickled that way if he'd got it. +Well, the fun is off. If I was to tell 'im now he'd know I was lyin'." + +The new-comer was at the bottom of the steps now, and, depositing his +things on the grass, he came up with his hand extended. + +"Well, here I am," he cried, as he clasped Wrinkle's hand and shook it +cordially. "I never was as glad to strike Georgia grit in my life. I +feel like a old soldier back from war. As I drove over and saw the sun +in its bed of yellow behind the mountains I felt like I was flying +through space. This country is good enough for me, and I'll prove it by +sticking to it in the future. Where's Hettie? But, first of all, I want +to see that baby. Trot him out--bless his soul!--trot him out." + +Profound astonishment showed itself in every face. Only old Jason seemed +capable of rising to the situation. For barely an instant he floundered, +and then his small eyes began to twinkle, his voice held a rippling, +unctuous quality as he laid his hand on Henley's arm. + +"Oh, you mean _little_ Alf," he faltered. "Why, he's--he's in thar +asleep on the bed. We-uns--the last one of us--'lowed you'd raise big +objections. You always seemed to have mighty little use for anything o' +the sort." + +"Huh!" Henley grunted, an honest flush spreading over his face. "That's +another matter altogether. There are babies and babies in this world. +This one's got different blood in 'im--this one's _mine_! If I've made +light o' having little tots, I wasn't talking about _him_, for he hadn't +come. Where is he? Let me see 'im. I won't wake 'im. I'll walk easy, an' +not say a word." + +"Well, step this way." Wrinkle cast a bubbling glance of warning at Mrs. +Allen, who had risen resentfully, and motioned her back into her chair, +and, with a comical strut, he led Henley into the room occupied by the +child's parents. Near the door, in the dim light of a sputtering +tallow-dip, on a tiny bed lay the sleeping infant. Wrinkle, choking down +his amusement, took the candle from the mantelpiece and held it over the +little face. "You can't see the favor so plain while its eyes are shet," +he chuckled, "but when it grins an' winks it's you to a gnat's heel." + +"Gewhilikins, ain't he a corker!" Henley said, worshipfully, under his +breath, as he leaned over the bed. + +"I wouldn't wake 'im now." Mrs. Allen stood in the doorway, quite erect +and cold in her bearing, and there was no one but the deluded man who +failed to detect her frigid tone of offended ownership. "This is his +sleepin'-time; if he wakes now he'll fret all night, an' Mr. Allen has +to git his rest or he can't git up early an' do his work." + +"I see," said Henley, politely. "I heard Hettie had taken some boarders. +I know she'd hate to have the little thing keep anybody awake." + +"Sh! not yit, for the Lord's sake, not yit!" Wrinkle whispered, as he +slid along, to the bewildered mother. "Don't spile it all." + +"Well, let's go back on the porch," Henley said. "I've got some'n to +show you. What you reckon I've got in my bundle? Come take a look." He +led them back into the outer dusk, and descended to the ground for the +parcel, which, after hastily cutting the string, he opened on the steps. +The others stared in astonishment at the pile of toys, little dresses, +flannels, dainty caps of lace, and shoes and stockings. + +"What did you go an' buy all them things for?" Wrinkle asked, rendered +serious for the first time by the realization that his jest had at least +cost more than he had intended. + +"Because I wanted to, that's what for!" Henley laughed, proudly. "Do you +reckon I was going to come away from Atlanta empty-handed when I was +right where so many things could be had? I showed your letter to Mrs. +Moody, who keeps the house I stopped at, and she took me down-town and +helped select what was best. She said every single article would come in +handy, and she ought to know--she's the mother of nine. Lord, I wish I'd +got here earlier, before his bed-time. I tried to git the driver to +hurry up, but first one thing happened, then another. I want to see what +the little chap 'll do with this rattler; these blamed little bells set +up a jinglin' noise every time the hack struck a snag." + +During this monologue the machine-agent was silent, a dark frown of +indecision on his face. As for his wife, she looked as if she had +bartered her child's birthright for something that had disagreed with +her mental digestion. Jason Wrinkle, however, reflections on the cost of +his joke for the moment set aside, seemed to have fallen into his +happiest mood. Unable to disguise his merriment at such close range from +his victim, he had slipped out into the yard, and Allen could see him +writhing in the folds of darkness as he slapped his thighs and raised +his heavy boots in a soundless dance of joy. + +"Well, I'll go find Hettie." Henley took up the parcel, and, with it in +his arms, he clattered thunderously through the hallway back to his +wife's room. There was candle-light in the room, and he saw her hastily +turn toward a window as he entered and threw the things on her bed. + +"Well, here I am," he announced, the ring of elation still in his voice. +"I don't blame you for hiding from me, Hettie. I've acted like an old +hog, and I've come back to say so." + +She turned toward him, an expression of surprise struggling on her thin +face, but it had never been her way to show affection, and she made no +offer even to shake hands. However, he had put his arms round her and +kissed her cold cheek. + +"You've just come?" she said, tentatively, as she drew stiffly from his +embrace. + +"Just a minute ago. I had to see the baby the first thing. I couldn't +wait. The old man showed him to me. Ain't he great? I hain't seen his +eyes yet--he was sound asleep. I reckon that boarder-woman helps you +with him; she seems to thinks lots of him, and be powerful particular. I +didn't get your letter about its coming, Hettie. I'd have written at +once--you know I would. It was lost, I reckon. The mails don't run right +always. The old man wrote me, and it certainly was like a thunderclap. +I'm mighty proud, Hettie. You see, I'd given up hoping that a baby'd +ever come to us, an'--" + +"To _us_?" The woman stared and drew herself more erect. "What do you +mean? Are you crazy? You've seen babies before and never went on at such +a rate. I don't care for it. I haven't once touched it since it come. I +don't like its mother any too well, and she is such a fool about it +that--" + +"Its _mother_?" Henley gasped. "Why, ain't it _ours_--ain't it yours and +mine? The--the old man wrote me that--" Henley's voice faltered and +sank. His lower lip hung loose from his teeth and quivered. With a +furious shrug Mrs. Henley turned from him to the curtainless window +against which the outer night pressed like a palpable substance. She +could hear him behind her panting like a tired beast of burden. For a +moment there was an awful silence in the room, then he broke it. + +"My God, he made a fool of me!" he groaned. + +"And you made one of _me_," the woman threw back from the window, "and +before them all!" She sneered, as her glance fell on the pile of gifts +on the bed. "This is what you come back for? Any other man would have +had too much sense to be so easily fooled." She strode to the table and +picked up the candle, for what purpose he did not know, but it slipped +from her fingers and fell to the floor and went out. He heard her groan, +and the slats of the bed creaked as she sat down. Thankful that the +darkness hid the evidences of shame on his face, and not daring to trust +his voice to further utterance, he went out of the room. As he passed +through the hallway he heard a low cry from the infant on the right, and +its mother crooning over it. No one was on the porch. A vast weight of +misery and chagrin was on him. He sat down on the steps and fumbled in +his pocket for his pipe. But his nerveless fingers broke the only match +he had, as he attempted to strike it on the step, and, holding his pipe +before him, he sat staring into space. He had a hunted sense of wanting +to avoid forever all human contact; an intangible shame burned within +him, drying up the tender emotions which so recently had swayed his +being. + +Suddenly his glance fell on his valise still resting on the step where +he had left it, and, rising, he clutched it as he might the hand of a +friend. The next instant he was striding over the grass to the gate. To +shun the village, the lights of which winked sardonically in the +distance, he crossed the road, climbed the fence and was in the meadow +which lay between his land and Dixie Hart's. Blindly he trudged through +the high weeds and grass, now wet with dew. + +Cruel, cruel--a joke, a mere joke, as such things went with the shallow +and light-minded, and yet it was a tragedy. For several days, in the +highest realm of fancy he had revelled in the first joys of fatherhood, +only to have it end like this. He paused on a slight rise of the ground +and looked back at the outlines of the farm-house, and cursed it and its +inhuman inmates. As he dug his nails into his palms and gnashed his +teeth, he swore that the surrounding mountains, so false in their late +promises, should never see him more; the wide, free world should be his +solace, if solace could be had. + +Suddenly, as he stood, he became conscious that there was a moving blur +before him, as if some portion of the general darkness, by some trick of +vision, had been rendered more compact and animate. Then he saw that it +was a cow, and immediately in the animal's wake appeared another blur. +This was the form of a woman. In a mellow, soothing tone she called out +to the cow, and Henley recognized the voice. It was Dixie Hart. +Instinctively, and shrinking even from her, he started on, but she +suddenly cried out: + +"Don't go, Alfred, you haven't said howdy to me. You aren't going to +treat an old friend that way, I know." + +Putting his valise down at his feet, he stood speechless while she +advanced to him, her hand extended from beneath the shawl which +enveloped her head and shoulders. "How are you?" She seemed to avoid +seeing his valise. "I'm powerful glad to see you back home." + +He made an effort to speak, but there was a dry tightness in his throat +which made him doubt his command of utterance. His only response was the +dumb clasping of her hand, and to it he clung, unconscious of what the +act implied, as a proof of weakness. + +"I knew you had got back," she went on, her face uplifted, her friendly +fingers tightening on his. "That old mischief-maker told me. I didn't +come out here after the cow. That was just a dodge to keep anybody from +talking about me being away from home after dark. I had to see you. I +knew you needed a friend, and I'm one, Alfred--I'd sacrifice anything on +earth to help you. You've been a true friend to me, and I want to be to +you. I know all that happened back there." + +"You say you do?" + +"Yes, Mr. Wrinkle come and told me. He was laughing, but he let up, for +I opened his eyes. He hasn't had such a tongue-lashing since he was +born. The fool, the fool--the silly fool! You mustn't mind, Alfred. You +really mustn't." + +"Mind?" he muttered. "My God!" + +"Oh, I know!" she went on, still soothingly. "It is awful looked at from +_your_ standpoint, but that ain't the thing. We must consider the +intentions of folks before we take offence. Why, Alfred, that old +busybody hasn't yet got it through his head that any living man could +object to a joke like that. Nothing under high heaven was ever sacred to +him; you must have noticed that in the time you have known him. He'd +make a jest out of the death of his closest kin. He told me once that to +think anything was wrong in this world would be to deny God's goodness +to mankind. When I told him just now that he had overstepped the bounds +of reason and good sense in what he done, he simply wouldn't believe it. +He said you knew how to give a joke and take one, and that he liked you +better than any living man. The Allens are going to leave soon. Alfred, +you mustn't go 'way like this--you just mustn't." + +"There's nothing else to do." + +"Oh yes, there is." She laid her hand on his arm, and gazed persuasively +into his eyes. "You've got your duty to perform--your duty to your wife, +Alfred." + +"Huh, to her!" he sniffed. + +"Yes, to _her_," Dixie went on, simply and yet eagerly. "I'm sorry for +her, Alfred. To most folks she seems peculiar, and yet God made her that +way just as He made you and me like we are, and, moreover, she can't +help being like she is. You told me once that you didn't think she had +ever quite got over her love for her first husband, but that you counted +on that when you married her. Well, all the queer things which she done +while you was away, that folks thought was so funny, come from her idea +of her duty in that direction. If I read her right, she thinks, somehow, +that she proved herself untrue to--to the dead by marrying again, and +she's let it prey on her mind. But that is over with. I think she is +afraid now that she went too far." + +"You think so?" Henley breathed hard. + +"Yes, I lost patience with her myself during it all, and give her a +piece of my mind one day. If she had been plumb sure she was right she'd +have got mad, but she didn't. She took it different from what I +expected. She never had paid any attention to me before, but after that +day she made a point o' coming to me. She never would bring up the +subject again, but she'd stand and talk with as much respect as if I'd +been some old person. She looked like she was ashamed, and wanted to let +me know in some other way than telling me in so many words. No, you +mustn't go 'way like this, Alfred. It 'ud never do. She ain't to blame +for that old man's joke, and she ought not to suffer for it. She was +glad you was coming back. A woman can read a woman, and she couldn't +hide it. It looked to me like she is glad to get a chance to act +different and do her part. If you was to go off on top of this thing it +would humiliate her awfully. A great deal would be said, and it would +all heap up on her as the prime cause. You are the noblest man I ever +knew, Alfred, and you won't go and do as big a wrong as this would be, +and in such thoughtless haste. A man never can decide on a correct +course when he is upset like you are now, and you'd live to regret it. +Then think of yourself. You was plumb homesick for these old mountains, +and was glad to get back." + +"How did you know that?" + +"A little bird told me." She quoted the saying with an arch smile. "You +wanted to get here in time to be at the auction sale of that broke-down +circus, and you'll miss a good thing if you go. The horses are in bad +shape, owing to poor feeding and hard use, but there's big come-out in +'em. Nobody else here will have the ready money, and you'd have a clean +walk-over." + +"What else have they got besides hosses?" The trader's eyes twinkled +with an interest that broke through the stupor that was on him. + +"Oh, lots o' odds and ends; you wait and see. Tote that valise back in +the house, Alfred, and don't do what you'll be sorry for all your life. +If you was to leave like this to-night it would be harder than ever to +come back, and you'd have to do it sooner or later. You know I'm giving +you good advice." + +"Yes, I know it--before God I know it," he said, fervently. "You are the +best friend I've got, Dixie. No, I don't want to go back to Texas." His +strong voice shook and he coughed to steady it. "I never want to roam +about that way again. I forced myself to stay out there day by day. That +was one mistake, and I ought not to make another on top of it. You see +it right, Dixie. You see it right." + +"Then there is little Joe," she reminded him. "He is still having a hard +time with Sam Pitman, and the little fellow has almost counted the hours +since he heard you was coming. He dotes on you. He still has the money +hid away that you left for him. He says he is going to keep it till he's +a man. Oh, it was so sad! Alfred, he started to run away one night +awhile back, after Pitman had whipped him for planting the wrong +seed-corn. I happened to meet him down the road. He had a little bundle +under one arm and a pet chicken I had given him under the other. I +stopped him and got him to go back. I couldn't bear the thought of +having him so far away from me and unprotected. I told him that, and it +made him break down and cry. Then he let me kiss him; he never had +before, he's so bashful, and, well"--her eyes were glistening and her +tone was husky--"the next morning I saw him in the field bright and +early. He was doing the hardest work there is on a farm--digging sprouts +with a heavy grubbing-hoe. But he was cheerful." + +"You made him go back, just as you are making me do," Henley said, +swallowing a lump in his throat and forcing a smile. "You were right in +his case, and right in mine. You are my best friend. How goes it with +you? We've talked enough about me." + +"Same old seven and six," she answered, with a shrug. "Still fighting +with the world and Carrie Wade. She's a worm in my flesh that is on a +constant wiggle. She nags me more now because she is more miserable +herself. She don't even get as much attention as she did. She used to go +after it, but the men have headed her off. The fellows at the +lumber-camp got to laughing at her for the way she done. She's got down +to little boy sweethearts. She's been making eyes at Johnny Cartwright, +and the little fool--he ain't more than seventeen, eight years younger'n +her--is clean daft about her. Poor old Mrs. Cartwright is awfully +worried. The little scamp declares he is engaged to Carrie, and, instead +of giving the report the lie, she actually seems proud of it." + +"But how about your marrying?" Henley questioned. + +"Me? Oh, I've got my trousseau ready, every stitch of it, including hat, +gloves, stockings, and what not." + +"You don't tell me--well, that _is_ news!" Henley exclaimed in surprise. + +"Well, it ain't to me," Dixie laughed. "You see, Alfred, it is the same +old outfit that I laid in a year ago and keep in storage. It hain't +exactly the latest wrinkle as to style, but I could cut away and add a +flounce here and a ruffle there, and not have so much cash to lay out as +I did when I missed fire that time. But I don't think I'll get to use it +soon. Field-work in the broiling sun and setting on a divan with a dinky +fan to your face and a young man to peep over it don't hitch, somehow. +And I'm still deep in debt to old Welborne. He's the only man I make +love to, but I don't get a cent off for my smiles; he growls and +grumbles every time I see him about hard times and the like. But I'll +pay out one of these days. As you pass it in the morning I want you to +just take a look at my stand of cotton; if the drought will let it alone +I'll make five bales. Now I must go. I know you'll keep your promise, so +I ain't going to worry. Good-night." + +"Good-night," he echoed, and as she moved away in the darkness he took +up his valise and turned his face toward the farm-house. "She's right," +he muttered. "God bless her, she's plumb right." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The Allens had gone, taking with them the baby things, which Henley had +prevailed upon them to accept. He sank into his accustomed place at home +and at the store as naturally as if he had been away only for a day. The +news of his return drew around him many of the motley ilk who made +trading and swapping both a business and an avocation. They seldom dealt +with him, to be sure, but it was a liberal education to hear his +experiences, and even better to see him actually make a deal. On his +first day at home he had bought a lame horse for the small sum of fifty +dollars, after he had delivered a free lecture about the great "American +Cruelty to Animals Association," as he called it. And, with his eyes on +the owner, he gave it as his opinion that in a more enlightened +community a man who would ride a horse in that condition would be +dragged straight to court, and maybe imprisoned for life. When the +animal was his, and the ex-owner had gone to buy a ticket to go home by +rail, Henley winked at Cahews and said: "I know how to cure that hoss's +leg. I paid two dollars to learn in Fort Worth from an Indian +hoss-doctor. Two hundred dollars wouldn't buy 'im right now." + +It was the loquacious stepfather-in-law who revelled most in Henley's +sayings and doings, and he regaled his wife and Henley's with accurate +and vivid reports of them. One morning he came into the sitting-room, +where the two women sat bent over a quilt on a big, square frame, their +needles going methodically up and down. + +"You mought guess one million years," he panted, as he bent over them, +that he might feast on their facial expressions, "an' not guess what Alf +Henley's gone an' done." + +They raised their faces and stared, and the wizened raconteur smiled as +he stepped to the open fireplace, shifted the paper screen to one side, +carefully spat, and then, replacing it, returned to his coign of +vantage. + +"I don't know, and care less," Mrs. Henley answered, though her poised +needle and steady gaze belied her words. "He's done so many fool things +in his life that I'd not be surprised if he'd gone off in a balloon." + +"That's equal to sayin' you give it up." Wrinkle again applied himself +to the screen and fireplace, and returned shuffling, his tobacco-quid in +his hand. "Well, you've heard about the dime circus that was to show +here a month back, an' couldn't because all the actors hit the grit an' +left the manager to settle with the sheriff for debts that follered it +all the way from Boston?" + +They had heard every detail of the matter innumerable times, and only +stared and gaped as they awaited further revelations. + +"Well, Alf Henley is sole owner an' manager now," was the bomb which +exploded in Wrinkle's hands. "He's the John Robinson and P. T. Barnum of +the whole capoodle." + +"You don't mean that he has actually gone off with--" began Mrs. Henley, +but was checked by the old man's smile of correction. + +"Well, he ain't, to say, actually _started out_ yit," the old man +grinned. "You know he'd have to git performers, tight-rope walkers, +hoop-jumpers, bareback riders, an' the like, an' these mountain +clodhoppers ain't in practice. But I'm here to state to you two women +if he kin git clowns to furnish as much fun fer a dime and a seat +throwed in as he give that crowd this mornin' he'll be rich enough to +throw twenty-dollar gold pieces at cats in no time. I seed the whole +shootin'-match. I was in the store when the nigger boy come by the front +janglin' a bell an' totin' the red flag with a sign on it, an' Alf sent +Pomp out fer one of the circulars that had a list of the items. He +looked it over, an' then re'ched for his hat, an' me 'n him went down to +the court-house yard whar the whole thing was spread out, piled up, an' +haltered. It was like Noah's Ark washed ashore an' lyin' thar to dry. +Thar was six hosses so thin you could read through 'em without yore +specs, three big road-wagons heavy enough to haul steam-engines on, the +little, teensy pony with a bob-tail that the clown driv' in the +procession, an' the little red-an'-green streaky wagon that he rid in. +Then thar was the heavy iron den on another big road-wagon that the lion +stayed in till he starved to death, a whoppin' pile of planks that was +used for seats, an', last of all, the big canvas tent. + +"The entire town an' country was on hand, nosin' about an' crackin' +jokes on the fat manager who had come up from Atlanta to attend the sale +an' was lookin' as seedy as a last year's bird's-nest. But I'm here to +tell you that when Alf Henley come stalkin' down, lookin' sorter +indifferent, like he always does when he has a notion to trade, that +crowd pulled in its horns an' waited." + +"The fool!" Mrs. Henley ejaculated. "Making a public exhibition of +himself." + +"Well, I've often wondered about that very thing," Wrinkle said. "I +sometimes think he tries to make folks think he is a fool to suit his +aims, an' ef he ain't a natural-born one it oughtn't to be belt agin +him. I admit I was puzzled on that point this mornin'. I stuck to his +heels, bound to see 'im through. He'd sniff at one thing an' turn away +from another as if it didn't smell right; he'd kick a pile of stuff with +contempt an' walk on, an' he grinned to beat a heathen idol at the mere +sight of the lion-cage an' pony an' cart, an' then he just squared +hisse'f around same as to say, 'Well, I'm in pore business, but I'll +jest stand here an' see if anybody will be fool enough to bid on such +truck.' + +"You know Sheriff Tobe Webb is a dry-talkin' cuss, anyway, an' I had to +laff when he got up an' begun his harangue, fer all the world like a +feller in front of a side-show tryin' to drum up a crowd to see a passel +o' freaks on the inside. Tobe had the fust item led out fer +inspection--a bony hoss that tried to lie down, an' Alf spoke up an' +wanted to know if he was a stump-sucker. + +"Fred Dill up an' said, 'The man that buys 'im will be the sucker,' an' +everybody laffed, Alf as big as the rest. + +"'I think I know whar I could sell his hide,' he said, an' bid ten +dollars. Then somebody--or it may jest have been the show-man's +bluff--raised it to fourteen, an' then Alf went 'im a dollar more an' +got the hoss." + +"Another one to feed and doctor," sighed Mrs. Henley. + +"I say another," Wrinkle chuckled. "He got all six at about the same +figure. Nobody was biddin' agin 'im except old Welborne, an' he was so +mad he couldn't stand still. They say he had been countin' on havin' it +all his own way, but Alf come home an' turned his cake to dough. Next +come the three road-wagons. Some o' the farmers was interested in 'em, +but they was too heavy fer field-work, an' though Tobe mighty nigh tore +the linin' out o' his throat yellin' agin it as a plumb outrage, Alf +raked 'em in at about the cost of the bare iron in 'em. + +"The next item was the lion's cage, an' a big laff started, for Fred +Dill told Alf that it was entirely too clumsy fer a baby-carriage, an' I +knowed then that my joke was goin' the rounds, an' I backed away a +little, fer I didn't like the way Alf looked. But he was still in the +game, an' he walked up to the cage an' ketched hold of the bars an' +sorter shook 'em. It had one of the same heavy wagons under it in good +condition, an' I believe Alf was tryin' to attract attention from the +wagon, for all the time Tobe was talkin' an' sayin' the cage would be a +good thing fer a man to lock his wife up in to break 'er of the +gad-about habit, Alf was examinin' the iron slats an' the bolts an' +bars. It had a big door an' wooden sides that could be tuck off or left +on, an' Dill advised Alf to buy it an' turn gypsy, an' roam about +tradin' here an' yan. But Alf got the thing at his own bid, an' sorter +sneered as he writ down the price on the scrap of paper in his hand." + +"For Heaven's sake, what fool caper did he cut next?" Mrs. Henley +demanded, in a tone of impatience. + +"Why, he bought the pony an' little wagon fer ten dollars, even money, +an' it was all I could do to keep the baby joke from risin' ag'in. I +could see that Dill was about to spring it, but I shook my head at 'im, +an' he kept quiet. I reckon he thought thar was no use rubbin' it in. +Then everybody got to watchin' the nigger helpers stretch out the big +tent at the sheriff's orders. It was stout, new cloth, an' it glistened +like a patch of snow in the sun, an' driv' the crowd back on all sides +in a big ring. I reckon everybody thar thought Alf surely would balk at +a thing like that, but it looked like the fun folks was pokin' at him +had got his dander up. Jim Cahews had closed the store an' come down, +an' I seed 'im nudge Alf an' heard 'im say, 'I believe I'd let that item +slide, Alf, the cloth has been cut on the bias, an' the seams are so +stout that it never could be sold by the yard.' + +"'Shet up, I know what I'm about,' I heard Alf whisper, an' then he +yelled out to the sheriff, 'Put up the pile o' planks along with it; +nobody wants a' old rag as big as that.' + +"The sheriff agreed, an' both lots went in as one. It was a sharp trick +of Alf's, for he had found out that a photographer was thar from Carlton +to go his limit on the tent, but lumpin' it in with the planks sorter +upset the chap's calculations, an' he didn't have the look of a man that +could figure quick. He shuck all over as he bid ten dollars, an' while +the sheriff was yellin' 'Goin'! goin'!' Alf stooped down an' felt of the +canvas. He found a clean hole that looked like it had been cut, an' run +his finger through it an' laffed an' said, 'It wouldn't do to hang it up +to dry, the wind 'ud blow it to pieces, but I kin use the planks, an' +I'll resk a dollar more.' The photographer got scared, an', while he was +stoopin' down tryin' to feel o' the tent, Alf ketched the sheriff's eye +an' said, 'I'll withdraw my bid if you don't hurry. I'm wastin' time.' +The sheriff yelled out an' told the photographer it was agin 'im, but he +look scared wuss 'n ever an' shuck his head, an' that ended it. Alf +wasn't in as big a hurry to git away as he had let on, neither. He set a +couple o' niggers to work stackin' up the planks in neat piles an' +rollin' up the tent. He sent the hosses to the pasture back o' the +store, an' told Pomp to give 'em a good rubbin' down, an' to put some o' +his famous hoss-tonic in the'r feed." + +"A circus!" Mrs. Henley said, with a sniff. "A circus, and me the +daughter of a Baptist preacher." + +"Well, he ain't raily goin' to put the thing on the road," Wrinkle said, +seriously. "He counts on sellin' it off piece by piece. I went back to +the store when he did. I was afeard, at the start, that he was cracked +in the upper story, but I've sorter switched around. Old Welborne come +in an' had his say about the snag Alf had at last struck in his +overeagerness to have some'n to do now that he was back, an' went out as +mad as the very devil about some'n or other. Jim an' me set down back at +the desk an' watched Alf figure up. He looked tickled, and after a while +he said: + +"'Jim, I'm glad I got back. I know now that Texas ain't no place for my +talent. It's overrun with sharp-witted Jews an' keen Yankees that know +values down to a gnat's heel. But here in these mountains these yokels +git scared clean out o' the'r senses when a dollar has to change hands. +Do you know,' says he, 'that I'm out less'n two hundred this mornin', +an' at a low estimate I have got a thousand dollars' wuth o' truck?' + +"'I don't know, Alf,' Jim said. 'I'm with yore judgment, as a general +thing, but not on this deal. I was lookin' at them hosses t'other day in +the court-house yard, an' the Chester brass-band come along. Now, a +average hoss,' Jim said, 'will either git scared or break an' run at a +sound like that, but three o' them things you got this mornin' struck up +a regular jig an' capered about the lot kickin' up the'r heels as if +they was in a ring jumpin' over red strips o' cloth.' + +"Well, folks," old Wrinkle continued, "you kin always tell a born trader +by his not bein' in a hurry to unload, an' Alf is that way. While we all +was settin' thar Pete Hepworth come in at the front, an' while he was on +his way to us Alf said: 'You fellers hold yore tongues. That feller is +itchin' fer a deal; I had my eye on 'im at the sale.' + +"Pete leaned agin the platform-scales an' talked about the weather an' +crops, an' then he said, kinder offhand, to Alf: 'I had a sort o' idea +o' biddin' on that pile o' old planks, but when the sheriff lumped 'em +in with that fine tent it let me out. I want to build me a cowhouse an' +wagon-shed.' + +"'I didn't care for the _tent_,' Alf said, an' he filled his pipe from a +china bowl on the desk an' made Pomp fetch 'im a match. 'It was them +planks I was after, an' I was bound to have 'em. They are smooth, +ready-dressed, long-leaf, heart-pine boards, one an' a quarter by ten, +with the ends sawed square an' seasoned by folks settin' on 'em under +cover for three or four years--never had a nail driv' in 'em, nuther.' + +"'Well, I never thought they was as good as all that,' Pete said, 'but +what are you holdin' 'em at?' + +"'I hain't thought much about it,' Alf said. 'I hain't much of a hand to +jump at a trade. It railly does my eyes good to look at lumber like that +these days when the best timber you kin git is full o' sap an' +worm-holes. How would twenty-five dollars for the pile look to you?' + +"'Why,' said Pete, with a funny look at me an' Jim, 'you only paid +eleven for the tent an' planks together.' + +"That hain't got a thing to do with yore deal an' mine,' Alf said, an' +he turned an' axed Jim some'n about shippin' some chickens to Augusta +that Jim didn't seem to know how to answer. + +"'I think it is purty steep,' Pete said. 'I've got time to build now, +an' it 'ud take a month to git an order sawed out at the mill, so I'll +have to take it'; an' as he was countin' out the cash he laffed an' +said: 'I've got an apology to make to you, Alf. Back at the sale I +remarked that you was a born idiot, but I don't believe it now. You are +a big fish amongst minnows.' + +"An' when Pete had left Alf winked at us an' said, 'You fellers lie low +an' watch, an' if I don't double my money on every item I bought to-day +I'll buy new hats fer you both.'" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The purchase of the circus furnished amusement for the village for many +a day afterward. During the month that followed the event every citizen +who had any appreciation for the droll things of life looked in at the +store and had some dry remark to make in regard to the deal. Fred Dill, +the clerk of the court and wag of the place, had a new suggestion to +make each day as he went to his work. There were certain village freaks +he declared who would be drawing-cards on the road and who would work +simply for their board and clothes. + +But Henley was wisely keeping his own counsel. His underlying wisdom +began to show itself one day early in June when there was a widely +advertised sale of horses in the square. Farmers came for miles around +to sell, swap, or buy, and buyers for city persons were on hand with +plenty of ready money. The strangers in town saw nothing remarkable in +the fact, but the knowing ones stood open-mouthed when Henley's negro +assistants led six well-groomed horses into the square. The Chester band +played in the balcony of the court-house, and Henley's exhibit kept gay +and sprightly step to the music, as if glad to be once more in their +accustomed element. The mane of each animal was decorated with a blue +ribbon bow, to which was fastened a card holding the price asked. In no +case was it low, and yet when the day was over Henley had completely +sold out, and in the presence of many admiring witnesses whom he could +hardly shake off he had banked a prodigious roll of currency. + +The tide of opinion had turned. From ridicule it had swept with +eager-eyed conviction to vast local pride in Henley as a native product. +From that day on the remaining items of the circus property were +regarded with growing interest. Would Henley actually triumph all +through? became the question the villagers asked one another as if it +were a game they, themselves, were playing. There was much general +discussion over what, after all, really was the "hardest stock" of the +lot, and the general consensus of opinion had decided that it was +perhaps the three wagons, which were too heavy and cumbersome for any +ordinary use. And this view was held till one day when the well-dressed +representative of a gang of men working on a new railway over the +mountain came and took a look at the wagons. They were almost too heavy, +he said, but they might be made to answer his purpose in trucking ties +along the new road. He had offered twice as much as Henley had paid for +them, and yet the latter's laugh of open derision could have been heard +across the street. + +"I see you don't want my wagons," he smiled, as he cordially patted the +stranger on the shoulder. "You want your company to spend their money on +them light, painted things that bust in the sun and break down if you +run 'em on anything but a plank floor." + +The customer thought too well of himself to realize that he was under +Henley's spell. "How much do you hold them at?" he asked. + +Henley mentioned a price which was fully four times what they had cost +him, and he did it in a tone of supreme contempt for the smallness of +the figures. He added that he would never dream of letting them go so +low, but that he had no place to store them and didn't care to ship them +to Atlanta. + +"Well, I'll take them," the man said. "I reckon neither of us will lose +by it." + +"Well, _you_ won't, there's one thing certain about that," was the +agreeable seal Henley put on the deal as he watched the railroad man +draw out his check-book. + +"I really did need one more," the purchaser remarked, "and I'm sorry you +only had three." + +"Hold on, hold on," Henley said, as the other was shaking the ink down +into the tip of his fountain-pen. "Let me study a minute. You see that +lion-cage standing on that vacant lot across the street. Now, I'll tell +you what I'll do. The wagon the cage is on is pine-plank like them +you've bought. The lot it stands on belongs to Seth Woods, the +shoemaker; his shop is right around the corner behind the post-office. I +put the thing there without his consent, intending to move it right +away. I can't get away from here right at this minute, but if you'll +step in and ask him if he will consent to let the cage rest on his land +awhile I'll have a carpenter take the cage part off and you may have the +wagon at the same low figure as the others." + +It was one of Henley's best dodges--this raising of apparent obstacles +between a customer and his own munificent proposals in the customer's +behalf. He had learned early in life that nothing so completely clinched +a trade as making a party to it work to bring it about. The man's eyes +twinkled as he consented. He hastened out and returned in a moment to +say that the shoemaker, with whom he had left an order for a pair of +boots, was perfectly willing for his neighbor to use the lot as long as +he liked, as he had given up all hope of ever being able to build a shop +on it, as had been his plans when he bought the property. + +"Well, then, you can draw your check for the whole amount," said Henley, +in the same uneventful tone that always preceded his reception of money. +"I'll let the cage set on the edge of the sidewalk. Maybe I can induce +the town council to use it as a calaboose. The one they've got ain't +strong enough by half." + +The report of the four-wheeled transfer went over the village before +nightfall, and the next morning, for the first time, Fred Dill looked in +on Henley without a smile or a joke. He eyed the storekeeper, as he +stood behind the show-case smoking a cigar, with a new and wondering +respect. Fred was beginning to see largely manifested in Henley the very +qualities which were wofully missing from his own merry and shiftless +make-up. He counted on his mental digits the remaining items of the +defunct circus--the tent, the clown's pony and cart, and the lion's den +standing open-doored like a wheelless furniture-van across the street. +And even while Dill stood there, telepathically apologetic for his past +bantering in the presence of so much incarnate shrewdness and foresight, +little Sammy Malthorn, the twelve-year-old son of the wealthiest planter +in the village, came in, as he had been doing several times a day for a +week past. His voice quivered with youthful triumph as he looked eagerly +across the show-case at the smoker. + +"Well," he announced, "papa says I may have 'em. You can charge it on +his account. It was twenty-five dollars, you said." + +"Yes, twenty-five to _you_, Sammy boy," Henley laughed easily. "Pomp +will go with you to the stable and hitch 'im up. You'd better let me put +in a ten-cent box of axle-grease for them wheels. If you haven't got the +dime handy I can add it on the bill. I'd hate to see as fine a rig as +that going through town squeaking like a rusty wheelbarrow." + +"All right," responded the proud owner of the pony and cart. "Pomp will +get it for me." + +"Good Lord!" Fred Dill said in his throat, and he went at once to Seth +Woods's shoe-shop, where there was a group of loafers, and told the +last bit of news. "I begin to think, boys," he said, "that Alf Henley is +goin' to make the only money that dang circus ever made. Jest think of +it--think of a big circus, hippodrome, menagery, an' side-shows tourin' +the whole United States an' Canada without a cent of profit, an' a +mountain storekeeper in a measly hole like this gitting rich out of its +remains without turning his hand over or losin' a minute's sleep. It +looks like thar is some'n crooked in the universe." + +"It's beca'se the Lord's bent on smitin' sech cussedness with a broad +hand," said a long-faced deacon, who had come in to half-sole his own +shoes with the shoemaker's tools, and sat soaking his bits of leather in +a tub of dingy water. + +"I mought take yore view of it ef the reward was bestowed in a different +quarter," Fred said, grimly. "But Alf don't go to meetin' any oftener'n +I do. Though he kin send up as good a prayer as the next one when they +force 'im to it. Boys, I'm curious to see what he will do with the tent +an' lion's cage. Nothin' would surprise me now. He's dead sure to git +profit out of 'em." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +That very evening Henley took even another step in his amusing +enterprise. He returned to the store after supper and sat writing +letters till about eight o'clock. Then he got up, brushed his clothes, +and made Pomp polish his boots, and adjusted his black string tie before +a glass over the water-pail and basin. Then he went out and walked +leisurely up the street till he came to the dark stairway of a little +public hall over a feed-store. He ascended the steps with a respectful +tread and entered the hall. It was furnished with crude unpainted +benches and lighted by kerosene lamps in concave-mirrored brackets on +the white walls. At the end stood a table holding a pitcher of water, a +goblet, and a Bible, and behind the table sat an earnest-eyed, +middle-aged evangelistic preacher, who bowed and smiled in agreeable +surprise at the new-comer. The room held fifty or sixty men and women, +all silently awaiting the beginning of the services. Henley seated +himself on the front bench nearest the preacher, and put his hat on the +floor, and dropped his handkerchief into it. + +The meeting was opened with the singing by the congregation of familiar +hymns, in which Henley joined harmoniously with a fair bass. It was +known of him that he never declined an invitation to lead in prayer, and +on being asked this evening he readily complied. His voice was deep and +round and mellow, and the burden of his utterances was suitable to that +or any other religious occasion, being a sort of singsong tribute to +the eternal glory of humility and submission to the divine will. The +prayer was followed by a rousing sermon from the preacher, and, in +closing, he called attention, as Henley evidently had gathered from some +source that he would do, to the future plans of the organization. The +time was ripe for work in the highways and byways--the sowing of seed in +out-of-the-way places, and the preacher was to "take the road" with one +or two good singers, a cornet-player, and a cottage-organ, and give +people in isolated mountain-nooks a chance to hear the Word and profit +thereby for their eternal weal. + +He had just seated himself and was mopping his perspiring brow when +Henley rose and stood hemming and hawing and clearing his throat. + +"I want to say in this same connection," he began, "that I plumb approve +of this new idea of taking the great and living Truth into remote +corners of our spiritually dark land. Here in Chester we are, you might +say, basking in the sunshine of Christian civilization, but away out off +of the main roads in the mountains the Book hain't read and prayer +hain't held except now and then. I heard that you had already entered +into negotiations with an Atlanta tent factory to furnish you with a +tabernacle, an' I must say it ain't a bad notion, because many a fine +bush-arbor meeting has been busted all to flinders by sudden showers +that good, stout canvas would shed as well as a roof of shingles. I want +to contribute five dollars toward the fund myself; but I'm here to +confess to you frankly that I wouldn't like to see the money throwed +away. The great majority of them meeting-tents on the market are simply +made to sell and not for hard use. They look all right in the +sample-room, but they are full of starch to give 'em body, and when they +get wet they are about as porous as a fish-net." + +"That's a fact, Brother Henley," spoke up the preacher, with a slow and +deliberate nod. "We've been looking around and receiving circulars from +all sides, and we have found it purty hard to run across a durable tent +at a price we can afford; but there was a drummer here from Nashville +the other day, and he claimed--" + +"I'd advise you to let drummers alone, too," and Henley brushed away the +preacher's words with a firm and all-wise hand. "You see, in my constant +contact at the store I know 'em all the way down to the ground. They are +the most ungodly pack on earth. Most of 'em drink and play poker, an' +never look inside of a Bible. The fact is, if I may be allowed to speak +of it at such a time, I happened myself, awhile back, to buy a whopping +big tent from a stranded show. I thought at the time that some such a +need as this might arise, and so I bid it in. To get it, I had to pay +for a lot of old planks and such-like, but in doing it I secured a +rattling good thing. It was a bargain; but I could let a good +organization like yours have it for a sight less than a new tent not +halt as big would cost. It would last a lifetime. It is big enough to +hold the multitude that ate the loaves and fishes. It was made for rough +wear and must have cost a pile of money. I don't know but what we all +could agree on a price--that is, if I had any idea of how much your body +would feel disposed to--to invest in a tent." + +"We have fifty dollars in the treasury," spoke up the preacher, with an +eagerness that blended in his face and voice. "Of course, it may not be +near enough to--" He blew his nose and coughed. + +Henley stroked his face thoughtfully, and he had the look of a man who +was making a polite effort to be resigned to disappointment. + +"Well, of course, I _had_ hoped that I might do much better than that," +he said finally, looking around at the anxious group, "but, as I said +at the start, I want to help you along. You know I said I'd contribute +five myself, so--to be accurate--we'd better call the price fifty-five. +Then I'll take what you've got in the treasury and call it even." + +There was a murmur and shuffle of released suspense throughout the hall. +The preacher beamed joyfully as he reached forward and shook Henley +warmly by the hand. + +"There's no use putting it to a vote," he said. "I'll take the +responsibility and accept your magnificent offer right now. Brethren, we +are in luck. A special providence seems to have been at work through the +whole thing. A vain and ungodly enterprise broke down in our midst, and +we are, by our act, directing streams of evil into channels of good. In +putting this tent to our use we will be turning over the tables of the +money-changers, and causing grain of righteousness to grow where tares +of evil flourished." + +As Henley walked homeward along the lonely road he mused: "I could have +run that crowd up to seventy-five as easy as not. They would have raked +up the balance, but I reckon a fellow ought to let well enough alone." + +Of all the denizens of Chester and its environs, no one had keener +enjoyment over the gossip concerning these various deals than Dixie +Hart. She had enough of the speculative tendency in her make-up to +heartily appreciate the situation in all its phases, and she was glad, +too, that her friend had found, so soon after his return home, such good +opportunities to exercise his rare gifts. She went into the store only a +day or two after the sale of the tent, and found Henley alone. + +"So you won out in that venture, after all?" she laughed. "And, if what +folks say is true, you made big money." + +"I'm not out of the woods yet," he smiled. "There is always a drawback, +you know." He pointed through the open doorway to the lion's cage on the +shoemaker's lot across the street. "I've still got that thing, and I'm +afraid it's going to be a white elephant. I'm sorry, too, for I'd like +to make a clean sweep, just because folks bet that I'd lose heavy. I'd +give the cage away if I could do it, but, like a fool, I went and said +that I'd show 'em that I could turn every item in the lot over at a +profit." + +"What are you asking for it?" Dixie inquired. + +"Twenty-five dollars," he replied. "If I can't sell it like it stands +I'll split it up an' use the iron some way or other." + +"It would be a pity to do that," the girl said, thoughtfully. "Let me +take a look at it." + +He stood in the doorway and watched her as she crossed the street in her +easy, graceful way, and then he saw her approach the lion's cage, turn +the bolt of the door, and look in, and heard the sound of her fist as it +rapped against the wooden sides. Then she disappeared. She had entered +the cage and was out of sight for several minutes. Emerging, she came +directly across the street to Henley, her head hanging thoughtfully, a +slight flush on her face. + +"You may think I've plumb lost my senses," she smiled, "but I want to +buy that thing. I've heard so much about your deals that I'm itching to +speculate some myself. You seem to have come to the end of your rope as +far as this cage is concerned, and I want to try my hand. They say two +heads is better 'n one, if one is a cabbage-head." + +"_You?_--good Lord, what could you do with it?" Henley gasped. + +"A heap of things," she retorted, lightly. "You've been offering it for +twenty-five dollars, and I'm going to take you up. I had just started to +the bank to deposit some money, and so I happen to have the ready +cash." + +She put her hand into her pocket and drew out a roll of bills, but +Henley held up his hand protestingly, and flushed red. + +"You don't spend your hard-earned money like that and through my foolish +example," he said. "I've had experience in all sorts of junk-handling, +and what I do is a different matter. Besides, I know there's no money to +be made out of that thing. I got the cream out of the deal, and I won't +let you throw money away." + +Jim Cahews came in at this moment, and, redder in the face than ever, +Henley explained the situation. + +"Alf's right, Miss Dixie," the clerk joined in. "You'd better take his +advice. If there was anything in that old pile of iron he'd have seen it +long ago." + +But her money was lying on the show-case before Henley's eyes, and she +had retreated to the door. + +"I've bought it," she insisted. "It's mine, and I'm going to make some +money out of it, too. I'm tired of working like a corn-field nigger for +puny profits, while you men make jokes here in the shade and get rich at +it." + +Henley refused to touch the money. His flush had given place to a look +of pained concern. + +"I can't--just can't let you do it!" he said. "Like a good many women, I +reckon, Dixie, you look at the dealings of men from the outside, and are +willing to go an' plunge into unknown waters and get ducked and leave +your money at the bottom. Profit ain't ever made by getting in at the +tail-end of another fellow's venture. I've squeezed this thing dry, +and--" + +"I'm a more experienced milker than you are," Dixie laughed, "and the +cage is mine. There's your money. It's mine, and if I make money out of +it I won't have you grumbling, either." + +Henley and Cahews exchanged glances of actual alarm. + +"What do you intend to do with it?" Henley almost snapped in his +impatience. + +"Did anybody ask you what you intended to do with it when _you_ bought +it?" Dixie asked. "You haven't any right to ask. But I'll tell you _one_ +thing. I'm not going to turn it into a corn-crib, though it would make a +dandy, and one that no nigger could steal from. I'm buying it to sell +for at least twice as much as I've paid for it, and I want you to watch +me. I've been tickled mighty nigh to death over your late deals, and I +want to amuse you. I know you'd like to see me make some money, and I'm +going to do it as sure as I'm knee-high to a duck." + +When she had gone Henley and Cahews stood in the doorway disconsolately +staring after her as she walked briskly down the street. + +"You see, Jim, I'm afraid I'm responsible for it," the storekeeper said, +with a frown. "She's got a long head for a woman in most matters, but +she's had it turned by watching this little game of mine. It is the +first time I've ever seen her fly off the handle at all. As a rule she's +very cautious, but, Lord, Lord, the idea of paying twenty-five dollars +for that thing! Why, if it gets out she'll be the laughing-stock of the +town." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The next morning when Henley arrived at the store, Cahews, who with a +face drawn long was standing at the front, pointed mutely at the lion's +cage. Henley looked and groaned. It bore a pasteboard placard, and the +words, in big, irregular capitals: + +FOR SALE. APPLY TO DIXIE HART. + +"She come in here yesterday evening after you'd gone," Cahews explained, +"and borrowed my marking-pot and brush. Then she had me get her the +pasteboard, and after she had painted the sign she took the nail-box and +hammer and went over there and tacked it up. A crowd of school-boys was +watching, and raised a laugh, but she come away without paying any +attention to them. I tried to get her to reason a little, and told her +the money was there in the drawer waiting for her to change her mind, +but she said she knowed exactly what she was about, and if I'd lie low I +might learn a trick or two in business methods." + +"She's off--she's away off!" Henley sighed. "And I'm plumb sorry, for +she is, in many other ways, as quick as a steel trap and bright as a new +dollar." + +One morning, two days later, as the storekeeper was at his desk in the +rear writing letters, his attention was called by a keen whistle from +Cahews, who stood in the front-door wildly signalling him to approach. +And going to the clerk, who was now on the front porch staring toward +the lion's cage, he saw that Seth Woods, the begrimed shoemaker, had +torn down the placard and stood looking into the cage. + +"He's mad about it, I'll bet," was Henley's troubled comment. "I reckon +folks have been guying him. That railroad man said he consented to let +me use the lot. Maybe he lied to close the trade." + +"Maybe he did," agreed Cahews; "but look! What do you make of that?" + +A negro man with the shoemakers bench on his shoulder had turned the +corner and was headed for the cage. "Put it inside an' go back for the +rest," they heard Woods order. + +Wonderingly, Henley strode across the street and reached the cage just +after the negro had put down the bench on the inside and was coming out +of the narrow doorway. + +"What's the meaning of this?" Henley inquired of the shoemaker. + +"Why," and a complacent smile broke through the grime on Woods's face, +"it means, Alf, that I'm at last my own landlord. I've been paying old +Welborne fifty dollars a year rent fer that little hole in a wall, away +back from the square, because I couldn't get enough ahead to build on +this lot or get any other shop. I think I've had a stroke of luck, and, +strange to say, it come through a woman. Yesterday evening Dixie Hart +come in my shop and axed me if I could straighten the heels of her shoes +while she set thar. I told her certainly, an' while I was at work we got +to talking first on one topic and then on another. She likes my wife an' +daughter, an' she said a good deal about 'em. She axed me if I had any +objections to lettin' this cage, which she said she had raked in from +you at a big bargain, to set on my lot till somebody come along and +bought it. I thought buyin' sech a thing was a powerful quar thing for a +young woman to do, but of course I didn't say so to her, for it wa'n't +any o' my business. Well, one thing fetched on another till she got to +lookin' about my shop while I was trimmin' the heel-taps, an' all at +once she wanted to know--if thar was no harm in axin'--what rent I was +payin'. I told 'er fifty dollars, an' she whistled kind o' keenlike an' +said: 'My gracious! an' got a vacant lot, too, right in the heart o' the +square.' I explained to her that I wasn't able to build a shop, an' was +afraid I never would be, gettin' old like I am an' so many to feed. +Then, Alf, what you think that gal said? As cool as a cucumber in a +spring branch, as she set thar wigglin' her toes in 'er stockin' feet, +she said: 'You'd better listen to me, an' I'll fix you so you won't have +_any_ rent to pay. That lion's cage, just at it stands, with the door +openin' on the sidewalk, would make the dandiest shoe-shop in seven +States. It's plenty wide and long; it is well-roofed with painted +sheet-iron, an' would be as tight in cold weather as a jar of preserves. +It faces every street that leads into the square, and you'd get twice as +much custom there as you do away back here next to this little pig-trail +alley.' By gum, what she said struck me like a bolt of lightnin'. I'd +examined the cage, as everybody else in town has, I reckon, an' I knowed +all about it, so I up an' axed 'er what she'd paid you for it, an' she +kind o' dodged my question. + +"'Has that got anything to do with it?' she axed, an' I told 'er, I did, +that I heard you was offerin' it fer twenty-five dollars. That seemed to +set 'er studyin' fer a minute, an' then she said: + +"'To tell you the truth, Mr. Woods, that _is_ all I had to pay, but I +got it, you mought say, at that figure by the very skin o' my teeth. In +a thoughtless moment Alf Henley said he'd take twenty-five, and, +knowing what it was railly worth, I yanked out the money on the spot and +laid it down. He's a gentleman'--she said--'Alf Henley is a plumb +gentleman, but he tried his level best to back down. Jim Cahews will +testify that I was actually obliged to leave the money on the counter +and walk out before he'd give in.' Is that so, Alf?" + +"I am obliged to say it is, Seth," Henley answered, flushing. "Some'n +like that actually _did_ take place." + +"I didn't think she'd fib about it," Woods went on, "and I finally axed +her what she'd take, an' she said nothin' less than fifty dollars cash +down would interest her, as she had a winter cloak to lay in, an' shoes +for three women, an' what not. + +"I told her fifty looked purty steep, but she throwed herself back an' +laughed hearty. She said my rent in the shop fer one year alone would +pay it, and after that I'd be a free man. She said in the summer I could +prop up both these flap sides, to cut off the sun, an' the wind would +blow clean through. She said the very oddity of the thing would draw +trade, that I could have the picture of the lion painted out an' a big +boot an' shoe put in place of it. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all she +said. She'd 'a' been talkin' till now if I hadn't traded: Besides, +betwixt me'n you, she give me a scare; you see I was afraid the thing +would slip through my fingers, fer she set in to talkin' about havin' it +moved to t'other side o' the square and rentin' it fer a barber-shop, +an' she 'lowed, too, that it would be a bang-up thing to sell to a +convict-camp to keep chain-gang prisoners in. + +"As a last resort, I axed her, I did, if she thought I ought to pay her +a clean hundred per cent. profit, an' she said: 'That ain't for you to +consider at all, Mr. Woods. You must jest let your mind rest on what +_you_ are goin' to get out of it. Alf Henley's made money out of it; I +must make my part, and you can do the same. It is the way business is +run all over the world. As soon as it becomes yours, somebody may come +along and pay you a hundred for it, though you'd be a fool to let it go +even at that. You are the one man in all the world that ought to hold on +to it.' She was right, Alf. I'm tickled over the change. I feel like a +new man. You ought to have seen old Welborne's face when I told 'im I +was goin' to vacate. He swore Dixie Hart was a meddlesome hussy, an' +that she had cheated the hindsight off of me. He said she owed him an' +was behind in her pay, an' that he was goin' to fetch 'er to taw." + +Henley went back to his desk. There was a flush on his brow. + +"Beat to a finish, and by a girl," he mused. "Here I've been thinking I +had nothing to learn about trading, and she picks up one of my remnants +and turns it over at a hundred per cent. profit as easy as knitting a +pair of socks. If I'd lived a hundred years I'd never have thought about +that shoe-shop." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Henley did not see Dixie Hart till a week had elapsed. He had started to +drive over to Carlton one morning, when he passed her as she was mending +a rail-fence round one of her fields which extended down to the road. +She had on a sunbonnet and heavy gloves, and stood in a dense patch of +prickly blackberry briers which reached to her shoulders. + +"That work's too hard for you," Henley greeted her cordially. "I've done +all sorts of jobs on a farm, from splitting rails to feeding a steam +thresher, and they are picnics beside what you are now at." + +"I believe you are right," she smiled, as she pushed back her bonnet and +exposed her red face and neck. "But I had to do it; the pigs have rooted +away the rotten rails next to the ground under these briers and got in +to my turnips and potatoes. But I've nearly finished, thank goodness." + +"I'm off for Carlton," he informed her. "I go every day or so now on +business. Is there anything I can do for you over there?" + +"There really is, Alfred." She parted the clinging briers and came quite +close to him in one of the fence corners which was infested with the +wild growth. She had drawn off her gloves, and now thrust a pink hand +into her pocket and got out a handkerchief, in a corner of which were +tied some coins. "I want you to step into the book-store and get me a +Second Reader--the sort they use in the public schools over there. It's +for little Joe. I'm learning him to read, and he's doing it as fast as a +dog can trot." + +"I wish you'd let me pay for the book," Henley ventured, as she put the +money into his hand. "You know I've got twenty-five dollars of your +cash, anyway. That old cage wasn't worth anything." + +"You mean I've got twenty-five dollars of _your_ money," she retorted. +"Why, I've been ashamed to look you in the face. I didn't act right +about it, and I hardly know why I done it. As a friend to you I ought to +have told you about the chance I saw and not set in to gain myself. I +don't feel right about it. I'd rather you'd have it--I can't feel like +it's mine. You'd made money out of all the other things, and you ought +to have made a clean sweep of the whole job." + +"You are forgetting two main things," he said, gravely, his eyes +averted. "You forget that you paid me all I asked for the blame thing, +and that if it hadn't been for you I'd not have been at the sale of the +circus, anyway." + +"You mean--" She flushed knowingly, and avoided his earnest gaze. + +"That you stopped me that night, and kept me from doing the biggest fool +thing a sensible man ever was guilty of. I've thanked you in my heart, +Dixie, thousands and thousands of times. It would have ruined me for +life, but you looked ahead and saw it and saved me." + +"Oh, well, that's past and gone," Dixie said, touched by a certain new +and deep quality in his voice. "I'll keep the money if you want me to. I +really need it. Old Welborne got hopping mad at me for ousting his +tenant, and simply rowed me up Salt River. Some day I may come to you +for legal advice. I want you to look over the document he got me to +sign. I want to know more about it than I do. There are too many +'aforesaids' and 'herebys' in it to suit me. I bought that farm with my +eyes shut. I was so anxious to own land that I was willing to take the +property on any terms. Welborne is getting to be like that old man in +the fairy-book that stuck to the feller's neck and never could be shook +off till he was made drunk. Welborne never touches a drop, you know, and +so he'll stick till death claims him. I'm in an awful mess. I work like +a slave from break of day till away after dark, and never seem to move a +peg toward any sort of landing-place." + +"You really ought to marry," Henley said. "That's exactly what you ought +to do. There's many a good man in the world that is actually suffering +for the need of the right sort of a helpmeet." + +"You hit the nail on the head that whack," she said, quite seriously. "I +know I'm better-looking now--when I'm fixed up, at least--than I will be +ten years later; and I've got sense enough to know that old maids don't +make natural-looking brides. No, I really ought to give the subject more +thought. I ain't acting in a businesslike way about it. I ought to put +myself on the market, but I let first one thing and then another +interfere, and now it seems to be little Joe. I think I've got a sort of +mother-love for him, Alfred. He works over in his field, and me in mine, +and when it's twelve o'clock I get out my dinner-bucket and call to him, +and we both go down to the spring and have a picnic. That's where I +learn him to read. If old Pitman was to get on to it I reckon he'd raise +a row. Joe fetches his pore little scraps of streak-o'-lean, +streak-o'-fat bacon an' hoe-cake along, but I make 'im throw the stuff +away. I don't know, but I believe I'd rather see that child's big, +hungry eyes as I open that bucket than to be admired by the handsomest +young man in the county. I don't know, though--I've never tried the +young-man part." + +"Yes, you ought to marry, Dixie." Henley, with the true feeling of a +gentleman that he ought not to sit while she stood, got out of his buggy +and leaned on the fence. "I'm going to confess that I've thought a lot +about that very thing since I got home, and, if I'm the judge I think I +am, I believe I've run across the very man for you." + +"You don't say!" Dixie cried, eagerly. "Well, well!" + +"You know I drive over to Carlton every now and then," Henley went on, +"and as Jim always has a few pounds of butter, a box or so of eggs, and +the like, to send, I take 'em to a store run by a young feller that I +always did like. Jasper Long is his name. He got his start by the +hardest licks that was ever dealt by a poor boy. He was a half-orphan, +and had to take care of his old mother till she died and left him all +alone. He drove a dray about town till he was twenty, and with money +he'd saved he set up for himself in business. He's the wonder of the +town now, for he made money hand over fist. He's hitched on a brick +warehouse to his shebang, and buys cotton when it reaches its lowest ebb +and holds it till it gets to the top--then he lets loose. Me and him are +pretty thick, and when I go over there either I have to eat with him at +the hotel or he does with me. Sometimes we toss up head-or-tails to see +who pays." + +"I've never seen him," Dixie said, quite interested, "but I've heard +about him. Carrie Wade said he come out to camp-meeting one Sunday, and +was pointed out as a big catch, but she said he was sort of clumsy and +awkward in his movements." + +"Carrie wouldn't think his gait was so bad if he was trotting at her +side," commented Henley. "But Long's all right; he's honest, and +straight as a shingle. I'd trust him to act square in any deal, and +that's a lot to say these times. He ain't had much to do with women. You +see, they've got a sort of stuck-up society crowd over there that don't +think he's quite the thing, and so he's out of what you might call the +_elyte_. His sort are the kind that always count in any struggle, +though. He bunks in a big, wide bed in the back end of his store, and +one night when I had to lie over there because the river was out o' +banks he made me sleep with him. That was the time I advised him to +marry. It pleased him powerful, and he up and told me that he'd been +giving the matter considerable thought and investigation. He said that +every now and then it would occur to him that precious time was passing, +but that he'd been so busy he'd not had time to go at it right. He said +that most of the women on any list of the kind he'd seen was fussy and +looked lazy and thriftless. Then he come right out and asked me if I +happened to know a suitable candidate, and--well, Dixie, I couldn't hold +in. I talked as earnest as a preacher at a ranting revival. I had his +eye and I helt it clean through. I described you to him and--" + +"You did?" Dixie laid an eager hand on his arm and laughed merrily, +"What did you say? Tell me exactly. I won't let you leave till you do. +Tell me, Alfred." + +"Oh, I couldn't do that, Dixie!" Henley flushed to his hat. "I'd make a +botch of it. I could talk to him, but I couldn't to you--at least--at +least not on that line." + +"But you've _got_ to do it!" the girl insisted. "I want to hear it. I've +always wanted to know what a man would say about me behind my back. I +know what women will say, for they will tell you to your teeth exactly +what they will behind your back, only worse, if they can possibly do it. +Try to remember exactly what you said." + +Henley's blood burned fiercely in his tanned face. "I couldn't tell you +like I did him, and I hain't going to try. I ain't made that way--some +men are, but I ain't." + +"You are afraid I'll feel bad about it, I see," the girl said, with +well-assumed severity, and she glanced aside that he might not read the +look of conscious power in her eyes. "You and me have been such stanch +friends that you hate to tell me what a poor opinion you have of me and +my looks. I see. I see. Well, I hain't got no right to think anybody +would think well of me--you least of all." + +"Shucks! If you'd heard me you'd never complain," Henley burst forth. "I +told him you was the prettiest thing that ever wore shoe-leather; that +you had hair of a reddish-brownish mixture that no man could begin to +describe, and eyes so big and deep and drawing-like that a feller +couldn't look in 'em without wondering what they was made of, and cheeks +and lips as red and ripe and laughing as--" + +"That will do," Dixie laughed, pleasurably. "You was determined to trade +me off, and you went at it like I was a horse you was trying to get rid +of for more than he was worth. Well, what else did you say?" + +"Why, I told 'im about your awful struggle against adversity; about the +hold old Welborne had on you; about your mother and aunt being helpless +on your hands, and about how you wanted to add to it all by helping +Pitman's bound boy. But when I told him the other day about the way you +bought and sold that lion's cage I thought he would bust wide open. He +throwed himself back agin the counter and yelled and clapped his hands. +Said he: + +"'Alf, that's the woman for me. Every trading man, needs a partner like +her. Such women as her are the mothers of kings and presidents and great +geniuses. _My_ mother was that way; she made me what I am.' And then he +railed out against conditions that could make you undergo so much +hardship, and said he'd just love to give a girl like you a good home +that you could keep neat and clean and in apple-pie order. He said his +life was lonely, and that he wanted to see a smiling face at the window +when he got home after work. He says he's able to build as good a house +as any man in Carlton, and that he already owns a corner lot on Tilbury +Avenue, the swell street of the town. The truth is, he wants to take a +look at you powerful bad, and I promised him, if it was possible, that I +would--" + +"Well, I don't know about that," Dixie objected suddenly, and her pretty +brow wrinkled. "You know what they say about a burnt child. I've already +as good as offered myself to one chap. I didn't come up to requirements, +and I don't want to do it again. What you'd say to _him_ about me and +what he'd actually _think_ are two different things. If I was to meet +him and I saw from his looks that he didn't think much of your judgment +I'd hate you both and feel like scratching your eyes out. I'd make a +sensible man a good wife, and I'd do my part; but I'll be hanged if I'll +walk up to him wearing a 'For Sale' tag. What you say is mighty +interesting, and I may let it bother me a good deal, for a woman owes it +to herself to look out for number one, but there is a line of +self-respect that a woman can't cross. I'm in an awful mess, and I'd +marry to get out of it. You may say what you please about me to him, but +that's as far as I'll go." + +"You don't think you could send the poor chap some word or other?" +Henley ventured, at the end of his diplomacy, as he got into his buggy +and took up the reins. + +"No, I don't," was the thoughtful answer. "He's a friend of yours, and +you recommend him high enough, but we hain't been introduced, and to +take any step beforehand on _my_ side would be unbecoming of a lady, and +that's what I am." + +"Yes--of course, and you know best," said Henley, as he clucked to his +horse, "but Long will be powerfully disappointed. He's got sort of +keyed up over this thing, and it has gone and unsettled him. I reckon +he's got a pretty picture of you in his mind, and keeps it before him +all the time." + +"That's it," said Dixie. "And I wouldn't like to see it turn to a chromo +on his hands. I know what I look like to myself, but I wouldn't expect +to suit every taste." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +That evening, just after dark, when Henley drove his horse into his +barn-yard, he saw Dixie over in her own lot milking her cow. She was a +brave, erect little figure as she stood in the soft, black loam. "So, +so!" she was saying in her sweet, persuasive voice to the restless +animal. "Can't you stand still and keep that pesky fly-brush out of my +eyes? Them hairs cut like so many knives when they are flirted about +like a wagon-whip. You may as well let me get that milk out of your bag. +It will give you trouble through the night if you don't." + +Henley turned his horse into one of the stalls, and fed him with fodder +and corn in the ear, and came and leaned on the fence behind her. She +was now crouched down beside the cow; he could see her brown, tapering +arms and wrists against the cow's flank, and hear the milk as it ran +into her tin pail with a sharp, intermittent sound. Above the back of +the cow, of which she seemed a part in the thickening darkness, loomed +up her cottage. There was a yellow light in the kitchen from a bank of +blazing logs in the wide-open fireplace. Henley waited till she had +finished and stood up. + +"Hard at it," he jested. "Day or night, it's all the same to you. I +wonder if you work when you are asleep." + +"Huh," she laughed, as she advanced toward him, her pail swinging by her +side. "This is my reception-day, and this is my parlor. Won't you come +in and set awhile? Take that rocking-chair over near the piano--or +maybe you'd rather smoke in the bay-window, where you can get fresh +air." + +"What's the joke now?" he inquired. "I'm not exactly on." + +"Why, you see, you are the second beau I've had right here in the mud, +and with these dirty clothes on, in the last ten minutes." + +"The second?" he said, wondering what she was driving at. + +"Yes," she made answer, as she rested her pail at her feet and stood +smiling blandly at him. "Hank Bradley has just left. He come over to +invite me to go with a party of girls and boys to the Springs day after +to-morrow. I wish I knew exactly what to do in a case like that. I want +to go--my! I want to go so bad I hardly know what to do. Mother and Aunt +Mandy both think I ought to accept such invitations. I know folks talk +about Hank, and say all sorts of things about girls he goes with. But he +says he has quit drinking and gambling and wants to settle down. His +sister, Mrs. Bailey, is going along to give respectability to it, and it +is to be a great blow-out. I've never been on such a trip; they say +there is a lot of fashionable Atlanta folks at the hotel, and a fine +band, a ten-pin alley, and a lawn-tennis court, and I hardly know what +all." + +"Hank Bradley? Good gracious!" Henley said, but he could think of +nothing further that would voice the protestations running wildly +through his brain. + +"Oh, I see you'll oppose it, too," she sighed. "I reckon I've just been +trying to make myself believe I ought to go. Hank begged so hard, +and--and said such nice things about liking me. I reckon almost any girl +would want to believe even a fellow like him, if she'd been a +wall-flower all her life, and somehow didn't think she ought to be." + +"But did you accept--did you? That's the main thing," Henley asked, and +his eyes were fixed on her mobile face where the pink shadows chased one +another beneath her long, drooping lashes. + +"No, not positive," she said. "I simply couldn't get rid of him to do my +work without saying something; so I agreed to talk it over with my folks +and let him know after supper. He is to send a man over for the answer. +I already see my finish--I see it in the way you are staring at me right +now." + +"He ain't for you, Dixie," Henley answered, decidedly. "You said once +that you looked on me like a big brother. Well, if your brother was to +see you driving off that way beside that man--that _sort_ of a man--he'd +be miserable. I can't do much to show my interest and friendship--though +I've tried hard to think of some way. I know you deserve more than has +come to you. You are young and full of life, and bright and pretty--so +pretty that you'd be the main one in any cluster, and it is hard to +think you have to pass your days as you do. But Hank Bradley ain't the +one to extend a hand. He ain't--God knows he ain't." + +"I know it; you needn't say another word." The girl came nearer. The +moon was out now in a clear sky, and its rays fell athwart her face and +gleamed in the gold of her abundant tresses. His hand was resting on the +top rail of the fence, and she laid her own on it reassuringly. "Don't +bother, big brother," she said, in a deep, trembling tone. "I'll write +him that I can't go. I'd not enjoy a minute of it knowing that your +judgment was against it. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about +something else. I've been thinking all day about that Carlton +storekeeper." + +"Your ears must have burned." Henley betrayed his relief by the free +breath he drew. "I saw him over there, and we talked about you for an +hour on a stretch. I wasn't going to see him, but he heard I was in +town and sent his porter after me. He wanted to see me about you." + +"_Me?_ That's funny, if you ain't joking." + +"I ain't joking," Henley declared. "He said he'd been unable to get his +mind on business like he used to. He says, from what I've told him, that +he knows just how you look. He pinned me down again about fetching you +over there; and when I told him that you felt sort of backward about +taking such a step, he seemed more tickled than set back. He said he'd +seen so many women that throwed theirselves at him and interfered with +his movements that the hold-off sort was just what he was looking for. +He went on and told me about the old maids that knitted socks for him, +and the giddy young ones that tittered and looked at him out of the +corners of their eyes whenever he passed, and how many widows and +mothers of gals was trading at his store now that hadn't before, and how +much bother they all was in refusing to let his clerks wait on 'em, and +was always coming back to his desk to make him get what they needed." + +"Shucks, I'll bet he's had his head turned," was Dixie's comment. "Well, +he needn't think he's the whole show; they wouldn't do him that away if +he didn't have money. Well, I needn't criticise them, for, as good as I +think I am, I don't reckon I'd give him a second thought if he was just +a farm-hand at seventy-five a day. Money adds a lot to a person, and I +reckon if a girl went about it right and as a matter of duty she could +love a rich man as quick as a poor one." + +"Well, I simply couldn't head 'im off," Henley resumed. "I couldn't get +around his arguments. He said there was a way you and him could meet +without compromising your pride, and that was this: he said me and you +was good friends, and that if I wanted to make you pass a pleasant day +I could invite you to drive over there next Saturday week and see the +fire tournament that is to be held." + +"Well, he's got cheek enough, I must say," Dixie said. "I reckon he +might let you run your own business and extend your own invites. It +ain't for him to up and dictate to you--huh! I say!" + +"But, you see, I'd already told him that I'd enjoy fetching you over at +any time. You see, he knowed it would be a pleasure to me. I'm going +over, anyway, and your company the ten miles and back would be a sight +better than being alone." + +"Well, that's different," said Dixie, "and I really would enjoy the +trip. But it would have to be fully understood that I went just with +you, and was not going along to exhibit myself, to see if I'd suit him +or not." + +"Good!--now you've hit it!" Henley laughed. "It will be fun all round. +I'm going again to-morrow, and I'll tell him to be--I'll tell him me and +you have decided to take in the tournament." + +"Yes, put it that way," said Dixie, and she took up her pail. "It may be +a flash in the pan, and I'd hate everybody in creation--you included--if +I was accused of--of missing fire the _second time_!" + +They both happened to glance toward the cottage, and standing framed in +the kitchen doorway with a background of light they saw a mute and +motionless figure. + +"It's little Joe!" Henley exclaimed. "Wait, I forgot what you sent me +for." He went to his buggy and returned with a parcel. "I got the Second +Reader, and I had the man put in a Geography-book full of pretty maps +and pictures. I thought maybe Joe would--" + +"He'll be tickled to death," Dixie cried, as she reached for the parcel. +"The poor little fellow is watching us now. I told him you'd bring it +to-night, and he's been down several times to see if you was back. It's +awfully sweet of you, Alfred, to think of the Geography. I need it +myself, and me and Joe'll study it together. If that thing we was +talking about should happen to go through, the first move I'd make would +be to try to get that boy out of Pitman's clutch. I love 'im--he's so +gentle and patient that I can't help it." + +They heard a step behind them, and, turning, they saw old Wrinkle +peering at them through the dark as he stood near the barn. + +"If that's you, Alf," he called out, "you'd better come on to supper. +After a square meal at the Carlton Hotel you may look on our fare as +purty pore stuff. But you may choke it down. It's gettin' cold; the +grease in the beef hash is turnin' to tallow, an' the bread was baked +yesterday an' is as hard as a brick." + +"All right; I'm with you," Henley said, good-naturedly, as he saw Dixie +hurrying away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +On the morning set for the excursion to Carlton, Henley went down to the +stable and harnessed and hitched his horse to his buggy. Old Jason, who +was with him, made no offer to assist with the various buckles and +straps, but stood leaning in the barn-door chewing tobacco. He was +sufficiently courteous, however--as Henley started away with the remark +that he was going to give Dixie Hart a lift over to Carlton and back--to +slouch in front, his hands in his pockets, his tousled head bared to the +slanting rays of the sun, and open the big gate. + +Reaching the front-door of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley had only a +minute to wait. Mrs. Hart, followed by her sister with an arm in a +sling, came down the steps with a mincing step, her weak eyes shaded by +her thin hand, and approached him. + +"It's powerful good of you to take my daughter," she said, in grateful +tones. "She has so little pleasure in her life, and she's been wanting +to go to Carlton for a long time. A place even as much like a city as +that is, kind o' interests a young girl. She's always reading about the +doings over there among the rich folks." + +"I'll see that nothing happens to her, and fetch her back safe," he +promised. Then Dixie emerged from the house wearing her best dress, a +white muslin, immaculately clean and well ironed, and adorned by broad, +pink ribbons which heightened her complexion. Her hat was new and most +becoming, and as she rustled out to the gate he felt a thrill of pride +in having such a presentable companion. She touched her mother playfully +under the chin and kissed her on the cheek. + +"Now, Muttie," she said, "you've got to be on your good behavior while +I'm off or I'll switch you good when I get back. I have put the exact +feed for the horse in his trough, and pumped the tub full of water, and +you only have to let down the stable-door bars at twelve and he'll do +the rest. The chicken-feed is already mixed in the dish-pan, and you +only have to tilt it out of the kitchen-window and they'll divide it +amongst 'em." + +"Oh, I can attend to everything!" Mrs. Hart remarked to Henley. "I +reckon you've found out that she's a regular case." + +"Case or not," Dixie broke in, as Henley was smiling and nodding his +response, "I'm not through yet. If I don't tell you, you'll be begging +for something to eat amongst the neighbors. Your dinner is already +cooked and the coffee made. All you'll have to do is to set it on the +coals and warm it up. The sugar is right at the coffee-pot, and the +cream is in the spring-house to keep it from souring. + +"I didn't dare hint to 'em about--about that Carlton fellow," Dixie +said, in a confidential tone, as they drove away. She was holding her +big hat on to keep it from blowing off in the crisp current of their own +making. + +"You didn't?" he said, interrogatively, charmed as he had never been +before by her propinquity and vivaciousness. + +"Not after being sold as bad as I was by letting them know about that +other scrape," she laughed, as she glanced at him archly. "Why, they +would meet us a mile out on the road to-night--the halt leading the +blind--to know every particular. No, I've been burnt once, and I don't +want a second coat of blisters." + +"You certainly look stunning." Henley allowed his admiring eyes to take +her in from head to foot. "You needn't be one bit afraid of what that +galoot will say. I tell you I've been about over the country and I know +a thing or two." + +"Well, I've got my all on my back," she said--"that is, except my +wedding outfit. I don't know how I'll ever get my money out of it. I've +thought about selling it, but nobody of my size seems to be marrying +round here. Even if _this_ thing is a go--I mean even if me and Mr. Long +_do_ come to terms--I don't believe I'd feel just right in using it. It +would be sort o' like marrying in widow's weeds, wouldn't it?" + +They were now passing Farmer Wade's house, on the edge of the village, +and they saw Carrie on the veranda-steps with Johnny Cartwright at her +side. The couple stood close together, and Henley saw that the boy was +holding Carrie's hands and gazing at her ardently. Seeing the passing +buggy, Carrie suddenly drew herself back and stared at them curiously. +There was no salutation from either side, and Henley drove on, noting +that Dixie kept her eyes on the pair till they were out of sight. + +"I thought I'd give her a good, straight look," she said, "so she'd see +that I wasn't doing anything I am ashamed of. I know that girl through +and through, and you mark my words, Alfred, she'll be low enough to +throw out hints about me driving with a young, married man like you. The +way she's acting with that poor silly boy is disgusting. His poor old +mother is so upset she's talking to everybody about it. She is afraid +Carrie will actually run off with him, and Carrie will, too, if she gets +a good chance--she's just that desperate. It's funny how mean, spiteful +folks can make other people the same way. Right now, I'd rather have +this Long man come out here and take me to meeting where Carrie could +see it than to do a kind deed of any sort." + +After this, to Henley's mystification, she did not talk as freely as at +the outset, and she seemed to be very thoughtful. As they were driving +into the bustling town, she looked at him fixedly and said: + +"The papers say the programme don't begin till eleven o'clock. That's +the hour set for the first race with the reel-wagons. I was just +wondering what we'd better do to kill time till then. I hain't got a +thing to buy that you hain't got in your stock at home, and I hain't a +person to go in and nose about and have clerks pull down a whole raft of +bolts and boxes without paying for the trouble. You see, I reckon it +ain't later 'n nine o'clock now, and--" + +"Oh, I see," said Henley. "Why, Dixie, I sort o' mapped it out this way. +You see, knowing how anxious Long will be to meet you right off, I +thought we'd drive straight to his shebang and 'light and hitch. He's +got a chair or two in the back-end of his shack, and we could kind o' +set about, and when he ain't waiting on customers, why, we--" + +"I thought you had more sense than that," Dixie burst out with +unexpected warmth. "_You_ can go there if you like, but I won't go a +step! Huh, I say--I _would_ cut a purty dash, wouldn't I?--setting +around amongst chicken-coops, lard-cans, and salt pork for a fool, vain +man to look me over and sniff and feel set back because I didn't happen +to--to come quite up--shucks! I don't believe any of you men understand +women. Huh! but we understand _you_ all right." + +"I'm awfully sorry I made you mad," Henley stammered. "You know, Dixie, +I wouldn't say a thing for worlds that would--" + +Dixie laughed. "You couldn't make me mad at you to save your life, +Alfred. I'm mad at myself, that's all, for starting out on such a silly +jaunt. I might have knowed that it would be hard to put this thing +through in any decent shape. I don't care what Long'll say or think. I +come over here to this tournament with you, at your invite, and if he +shows by a single bat of the eye that he thinks I meant anything else +he'll hear something that will ring in his ears till he's put under +ground. I reckon the idea never got within a mile of his brain that he +may not suit _me_ at all. Why, I may hate the very sight of him." + +"You no doubt will if you keep on looking at the thing that way," said +Henley, admiring the very mystery that cloaked her words and manner, and +quite convinced that she was wiser, in some vague way, at least, than +all the rest of mankind put together. "I only thought that would be the +best way to start the ball rolling." + +"Well, it won't start at all if I have to tote it to the top of a hill +and give it the first kick," Dixie said, firmly. "I'm a big fool. I'll +bet you haven't a bit of respect for me. That other racket of mine was +enough to brand me as the champion woman idiot of the earth, and this +goes that one better. What's the use o' being a fool if you don't learn +sense by it?" + +"Oh, don't talk that way, Dixie," Henley protested, at the end of his +resources. "I thought we was going to have such a fine time, and now you +hardly know what you want. If you won't go to his store, then I'll tell +you what we could do. The public wagon-yard is the best place to see the +tournament from. I could unhitch at the edge of the sidewalk in the +shade of the trees, and you'd have a reserved seat through it all." + +"That's _some_ better, anyway," she said, as if relieved. "I come near +showing my temper, didn't I? Well, I've got one hid away inside of me, +and it kicks up sand sometimes when I'm least expecting it." + +Leaving his sprightly charge in the buggy watching the gathering of the +festive crowd and listening to the blatant music of the town band from +the balcony of the Carlton House, Henley, making some excuse about +having to mail a letter, hastened round a corner and down to Long's +store. + +The young man, in his best suit of clothes and with the odor of bay-rum +in his smooth, compact hair, and the barber's powder on his +razor-scraped face, was busy giving instructions to his chief clerk. + +"Don't come to me to ax a single question," Henley overheard him saying. +"This is _one_ day I simply will have off. If there is anything you +don't know about, let it lie over--tell 'em I'm on the committee of +entertainment, tell 'em any darned thing you want to, but don't bother +me. Oh!" He had caught sight of Henley, who stood half hidden by a stack +of soap-boxes, and came forward, his face falling. "My Lord, Alf, don't +tell me you didn't fetch her in!" he panted. "Good Lord, don't say +that!" + +Henley grinned and explained the situation, much to the storekeeper's +relief. + +"It don't railly make any great difference." Long twisted his small +mustache under its coat of pomade till the ends looked like facial +spikes, and pulled at his white waistcoat. "I had a nigger make a bucket +of lemonade with ice in it, and left an order at the hotel for three of +the best meals they know how to put up. I supply the shebang with +produce, and I stand in with 'em. They would spread themselves for me. I +was counting on having us all three eat in my back-room. I wanted to do +exactly the right thing, you see, so she'd know at the outset that I +understand how to make a woman comfortable, and that I ain't a man to +split hairs when it comes to a little outlay." + +"The back-room wouldn't suit at all." Henley was already a wiser man +than when he left home that morning. "I wouldn't think of asking her or +any decent woman to eat in a room where you bunk, or where anybody +bunks, for that matter--male or female." + +"I'll just countermand that order, then," Long said, "and we'll all go +to the hotel. We'll see the fust part of the show from the buggy, and +then repair to the big dining-room and have our banquet." + +"I think she'd really like that," Henley declared, "but I'm going to +give you both the slip and take dinner with Judge Temple's folks. They +made me promise to come the next time I was in; besides, I want to give +you both full swing on this day of days." + +"Right you are," Long rubbed his heavy hands together in delight, "and +you may have the worth of your meal in the finest cigars in my shebang. +Alf, you are my friend. Let's go down where she's at. To tell you the +God's holy truth, man to man, I don't feel half as good as I make out. +It wouldn't take the weight of a hair to make me show the white feather. +I have a sort of forewarning that I ain't agoing to walk straight into +this thing. If she'd 'a' driv' right up to the front, and got out and +gone back to the rear and set down and looked about like she was taking +stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of +having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at +the knees. How do I look, anyway--honest, I don't want any flattery? If +you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I +can whisk 'em on in a jiffy." + +"You are just right." Henley charitably viewed the individual from his +own point rather than that of the over-critical Dixie. "In hot sun like +this to-day your straw hat will look better, and that sack coat fits +like a kid glove." + +"I sorter thought this would be the thing." Long bent down and for the +twentieth time dusted his shoes with his handkerchief. "Now get them +cigars." He led the way to a show-case near the front. "Help +yourself--them's the genuine Havana fillers in the corner. Take good +ones--by George, take the best." + +"I won't take but one," Henley said, as he opened the case and reached +for a cigar. "I don't like to collect pay in advance; and while I don't +want to throw cold water on you, Long, I'm free to confess I don't know +exactly how she'll act. I always knowed women was curious, but they are +more curious about selecting a mate than everything else combined. When +I was talking this meeting up at such a rate, I thought I could count on +'er; but, la me! she's got me so mixed that I don't know whether I'm a +Methodist preacher or an escaped convict. But let's go down. I want to +see what _you'll_ make of her." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +As the two friends approached the buggy, Dixie, who had seen them, +suddenly turned her head in an opposite direction and seemed to be +laughing immoderately at the beginning of a barrel-race. To attract her +attention Henley cleared his throat and coughed. But whether she heard +he never knew. At all events she was heartily amused, as was evidenced +by her free laughter and the sparkle of her merry eyes. As it was, +Henley reached the buggy and clutched the front wheel and shook it, +while, with his left hand, he held Long's arm in a nervous grasp. + +"Oh, it's you!" she said, sweeping him with a careless glance and +allowing her eyes to be drawn back at once to the racers. "Ain't it fun? +You ought to have seen that boy try to climb the greasy pole just now. +He put sand all over his pants to make 'em rough, but he could only go +so high, and there he stopped, unable to budge a hair's-breadth. He hung +to it for a minute, as red as blood in the face, and then begun to slide +down as slow as the hour-hand of a clock till he sat flat on the +ground." + +"I fetched Mr. Long down; you know--you may remember he wanted to meet +you," Henley stammered, under a restraint that was new to him. And, as +the couple stared at each other, he finished with a gulp--"Mr. Jasper +Long, Miss Dixie Hart--Miss Dixie Hart, Mr. Jasper Long." + +Dixie was polite and absolutely unruffled, while Long was one straight +flush from head to foot. "Come--come over to see our brag show?" he +stuttered, with an untoward jerk of the body, for he had tried to put +his foot on the hub of the wheel and missed it. It was a bow so +pronounced that Long's hat was dislodged and hurled to the ground. In +his shocked sympathy for his friend, Henley was bewildered by noting +that Dixie was actually subduing a laugh, her rebellious lips covered +with her white-gloved hand. Long secured his hat, drew himself up, and +repeated his platitude. + +"I thought I would," she said, now gravely studying his face, his hair, +his clothing, and his broad, restless hands, on the backs of which +rather long hairs lay beaded with perspiration. "Alfred was coming +along, and as I have never been to a tournament before, and as he was so +set on bringing me, I decided to make the trip. I've heard him speak of +you. You are in the bank, ain't you?" + +"Why, no, Miss Dixie--" Henley began, but there was a certain warning +quality darting from her eyes, now fixed on him, that broke into his +puzzled correction, and then he caught the drift of her harmless +pretence and obliterated himself with a low grunt of perplexity. + +"Why, no, I'm _J. W._ Long, of the 'Live and Let Live Grocery,'" the +merchant said. "The other feller is _L. A._ I've had circulars scattered +broadcast all over your county. Looks like you'd have seen some of 'em. +I believe in lettin' folks know you are alive and in the push. I'm +surprised that Alf didn't tell you about me and my business, even if you +hain't heard it from others over your way or through the papers." + +"There are some Longs that rented land from me a few years ago," Dixie +said, evasively. "I wonder if they are akin to you. Seems to me, now I +think of it, that you favor 'em some." + +"They may be away-off fourth or fifth cousins, I don't really know." +Long looked as if he thought the conversation had taken quite an +unprofitable turn. "I never was much of a hand to keep track of far-off +kin. Folks is liable to want credit on a score like that, and think they +never have to settle." + +Then the colloquy languished. Henley was plainly not a success as a +manager of delicate situations. What puzzled him beyond any mystery he +had ever stumbled on in the intricate make-up of his charming neighbor +was her evident cool and detached enjoyment of his and Long's +awkwardness. At any rate, he reflected with satisfaction, he could +extricate himself from the tangle, and in that, at least, he felt that +he had the advantage of Long. + +"I see an old fellow over there at that covered wagon that was bantering +me for a hoss-trade the other day," he courageously threw into the gap. +"I believe I'll go see how he talks now. There will be a sight of +hoss-flesh change hands to-day. I understand there's a gypsy camp in the +edge o' town, and they are the dickens on a swap." + +"Hold on a minute!" Long called out, as Henley was moving off, his hat +lifted. "I want to see you." + +Henley pulled up a few yards away, behind Dixie's back, and Long joined +him. + +"Are you going to leave me the bag to hold?" Long asked, in a tone of +blended gratification and nervousness. + +"I don't see that I'm doing you one bit of good," Henley answered, +gravely. "This is your day of grace. If you can't fix things up after +what I've done we'll have to call it off. I've done my part. I fetched +her here, but I can't make women out, and I don't intend to try. Life is +too short. When I get bothered about what a woman's going to do or not +do I want to get blind, staving drunk; it always has that effect on me, +and you know I'm inclined to sobriety." + +"The trouble is, I don't know whether I'm welcome or not," Long +declared, grimly. "I have never felt exactly that way before. Do you +reckon she'd look with favor on the invite to dinner at the hotel?" + +"You bet she will!" Henley was more sure of his ground now. "Cooking and +fixing up the table is a woman's joy, and they'll go just to see what +hotel fare is like, and, as a rule, they will sample every article +that's passed." + +"Well, I'll risk it on your judgment, Alf. You've stood by me so far +like a man and a brother, and I don't believe you'd set a trap for me to +tumble in." + +"Not me," answered Henley. "But I was wondering what you think of her +looks; men differ in tastes, and--" + +"Shucks!" Long sniffed. "You needn't ask me that. That'ud be a fool +question for a blind man to ask. Why, Alf, she is the stunningest trick +that ever wore shoe-leather. She's so dadblamed purty I can't look her +straight in the face. There is some'n in her eyes and the way she sets +and bends her neck an' cocks 'er head that makes me feel like one of the +chaps in olden times that knelt on a strip of carpet at a queen's +throne. But it ain't just her looks and trim shape and nobby little +feet--it's the woman herself, by gosh! She looks clean through a feller; +what she says goes from her as straight as a gun-shot. Well, I'll hurry +back and do the best I can. I'm having a big time, Alf--a big, roaring +time." + +All the rest of the morning, as he strolled here and there through the +merry assemblage, Henley managed to keep the pair in sight. Long kept +the same position, his right foot on the hub of the wheel, his face +upturned to Dixie's. It was the passing of the local military company +and the surging of the spectators forward that gave Long a valuable +opportunity, for he got into the buggy and sat beside the girl. Henley +could see him lashing the air over the dashboard with his whip in a +most reckless manner. + +"The blame fool!" Henley ejaculated. "He's wearing out that whip. I +wonder if he thinks I buy the best whalebone for him to court with. +She'd like 'im better if he'd set still, anyway, and not be cavorting +about like a jumping-jack." + +Noon came, and Henley saw the pair alight from the buggy and walk across +to the hotel. Thereupon he betook himself to the house of his friends, +and had his own dinner. When it was time to start home he went down to +the wagon-yard. He found them seated in the buggy, and, to his surprise, +he saw nothing in the manner of either to indicate that any sort of +understanding had been reached. + +"I reckon it's time we was on the way," Henley announced to her, as he +shaded his eyes and glanced at the declining sun. + +"Yes, it's high time," Dixie answered, crisply. "I was wondering where +on earth you was. I'll have to pay for this jaunt, and the sooner I set +in to my work at home the better it will be for me." + +Long made elaborate excuses to Dixie for absenting himself, and followed +Henley to where his horse was hitched. + +"Well," said Henley, as he was putting the collar on the animal, "how +did you make out?" + +"I hardly know, Alf." Long looked very grave. "There is no use saying +she is exactly the thing I am looking for, but, as much as I've seen of +her to-day, I don't know any more'n a rabbit what my showing is. She +ain't a bit like these town-women; you _can_ sorter get at them, for +they are on the carpet, and they don't make no beans about it. But this +un has a way of making you watch every step you take and every word you +speak. I've been in the habit of having women folks listen to all I +say, and laugh hearty now and then, but this un has her eyes on +everything that is passing, and seems to me to laugh at the wrong time, +when there ain't the slightest call for amusement. I reckon maybe I'd +have made more progress if we'd been where thar wasn't so much to +attract her attention. I don't know--I'm just guessing. But I'm game to +the backbone, Alf, and I'm in the race. You hear me? I'm in to stay." + +"That's the way to talk," Henley agreed. "A woman that ain't hard to win +ain't worth having. These town-gals are after your money; it is my +opinion that this one will have to like you a powerful lot before she +gives up her freedom." + +"She's as independent as a hog on ice." Long smiled, but not at his +simile. "I hardly knowed what to do when we got to the hotel. I thought +she was accepting my invite, you see, when, lo and behold, at settling +time she drawed out her money and insisted on planking down her part to +a fraction of a cent. I argued as strong as I knowed how agin it, but +nothing would do her but to pay her way. I feel mean about that, Alf. +What would _you_ have done?" + +"Why, it's the part of a gentleman to let a lady have her way in _every +single thing_," Henley opined. "If she asks you to get her a drink of +water, she wants it; and if she asks to pay her bill at a hotel, she +wants that; to accuse her of anything else would be prying into her +private matters. If she didn't want to eat at your expense the first day +she was throwed with you--well, that was her business. I think it is +spunky, myself. I reckon you didn't come right out and talk marrying?" +Henley ended with a rather anxious look at his friend. + +"No, Alf, I was afraid to--I don't know why, but, as much as I wanted to +ease my mind on the matter, I just couldn't get it out. It seemed to +lodge in my throat; in fact, I was scared half the time. Every time I'd +say a thing, no matter how little, I'd wonder if it injured my case or +not. Alf, I'm a goner--a clean goner. I'll never have a minute's peace +till she's mine. It's going to be slow work. I asked her if I couldn't +drive out to see her next Sunday, but she wouldn't hear to it. She +finally said I could come on the first Sunday of next month to hear a +brag preacher that is billed to appear for the first time on that date. +It's a dern long time to wait, but she's laid down the law, and I'll +have to obey it." + +During the drive home Dixie seemed wilfully uncommunicative, and she and +Henley were silent most of the way. As they were on the brow of the hill +overlooking Chester, however, she drew a deep breath and said: "Well, +Alfred, I certainly had a bang-up time. Carrie Wade may make her brags +of how she runs things, but I certainly had a rip-roaring time." + +"But," ventured Henley, his eyes on the jostling back of his horse, +"from what Long intimated--at least from what he hinted--it appears that +you and him didn't come to any, that is to say, any _positive_ +agreement." + +The girl laughed heartily, covering her face with both hands, and bent +downward. + +"You men are so silly, Alfred. You want an important thing like that to +be over in a minute, while a woman--a woman naturally would like for it +to last. If that fellow could insure me, in some shape or other, that +he'd keep acting and talking like he did to-day, _after we was married_, +I'd be more interested than I am. But hot-headed ones like him cool down +about as quick as they get het up. As a general thing the marriage altar +seems to rest on a big cake of ice, and overheated couples catch colds +that make 'em sniff the rest of their lives." + +"I've been waiting to hear you say how he--what you thought of Long's +looks," stammered the match-maker; "that always seems the main thing +in--in a deal o' this sort." + +"Well," she chuckled, "I'm better at making rag-dolls than men, but if +men-making was my trade I think I could have turned out a better job +than Long. Folks say that to be wide betwixt the eyes shows sense. That +may be so up to certain limits, but I'm afraid his are entirely too far +apart. Why, when you set close to him you can't see both of 'em at the +same time; you have to look first at one and then at the other. I tried +to get around the trouble by looking at his nose, but that seemed to be +crooked and awful flat. I didn't like them long hairs on his hands; his +forefathers must have lived in a cold climate." + +"The hairs don't mean nothing." Henley was amused, in spite of his +loyalty to his friend. "A heap of men are that way." + +"You ain't." Dixie glanced at the rather slender hands of her companion, +and then lifted her eyes to his face slowly and studiously. "You haven't +got a big chunk of a head, either, and flopping, fuzzy ears, and, above +all, Alfred, you ain't dead stuck on yourself. If I marry that man it +will be after I've taken him down several pegs. His vanity fairly leaks +out of him and stands in a puddle at his feet. Well, that don't matter. +When he comes to take me to meeting it will be the talk of the entire +community. Carrie Wade will laugh on the other side of her face. I would +have let him come earlier, but I want to take plenty of time to make me +a dandy dress and get me a new hat. I'm going to cut a wide swath. +That's to be my one big day of triumph and getting even." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was after nightfall when Henley put Dixie down at the cottage and +drove around to his barn. In the stable doorway lurked a shadow of +uncertain shape and quite motionless. It turned out to be the form of +Jason Wrinkle. The pipe in his mouth glowed like a speeding firefly as +he stepped down to the buggy. + +"Hello! Well," he muttered, with a low, significant laugh, "you've come +back--reports notwithstanding to the contrary, female, legal, or +otherwise." + +"Yes, I'm back," Henley said, rather curtly. "Anything strange about +it?" + +"Well, I was just wonderin'. Huh, in this day and time of new-fangled +ways and doin's a body never knows what will happen. You'll certainly +never know if you listen to talk." Wrinkle peered into the face of his +stepson-in-law quite studiously for a moment, and with no little +irritation Henley unfastened the hamestring with a downward jerk and +began to remove the harness. + +"What's the matter with you, anyway?" he asked. "Are you up to another +one of your infernal jokes?" + +"No, I hain't," Wrinkle puffed. "That one about the baby was my last +one--on you, anyway. You took it like some old, peevish man, and sulked +and looked crooked for a week. I've tried to study out just how that +happened to go agin the grain so mighty awful, but I'm up agin a snag. +No, Alf, you make the bread-and-butter for this shebang, and you work +better when you hain't plagued. This time I come as a friend, and maybe +adviser--I don't know, it is all owin' to how you'll feel about it. For +all I know to the contrary, you may be as innocent as snow that hain't +been walked on, and, if you _are_, you ought to know what is going on +behind your back." + +"Behind my back?" Henley jerked the words from him as he tossed the +harness into the buggy and allowed his horse to find his stall unguided. +"Well, what's going on behind my back?" + +Wrinkle sucked audibly at the stem of his pipe before he delivered +himself into the eager expectancy that was massed between him and his +companion. "Alf," he began, finally, "you've dealt with humanity, in one +shape and another, enough to know that this is a sort of hide-bound +community, and, well, you driv' off this mornin' with a good-lookin' +young woman, didn't you?" + +"Of course I did!" Henley retorted. "What of that?" + +"You went toward Carlton, didn't you?" + +"I went _to_ Carlton," Henley answered, restraining an outburst with +difficulty. "I took Miss Dixie over on--on business. It was transacted, +and--" + +"You didn't tell Hettie whar you was bound for?" + +"I didn't, because I didn't think it made any difference. She's never +interested in what I do or where I go, and there was no reason for +telling her." + +"Maybe not--maybe not," Wrinkle answered, aimlessly, "but it wouldn't +'a' done yore case any harm if you had sorter tetched on it before +startin' out. You see, Carrie Wade sa'ntered over about eleven o'clock. +She hain't been a constant visitor at our house, and as she had a kind +o' fidgety walk on her, an' a curious dazzle in her eyes, I knowed she +hadn't come to see the pattern of the new quilt as she claimed, and so, +bein' a friend of yourn, I set down at the window and listened, +wonderin' when she'd quit her eternal preamble an' git down to business. +Purty soon I knowed land was in sight, for she said, like she was in a +sort of a dream, for she wasn't lookin' at anybody in particular--she +said: 'I seed Dixie Hart an' Alfred drivin' off this mornin'. They was +headed fer Saunder's Spring, at the foot o' the mountain. She had on her +best duds (which ain't sayin' much)'--them was Carrie's words, not +mine--'an' a whoppin' big picnic basket full o' good things. That girl +will do to watch, Mrs. Henley. As they passed our house the reins was +lyin' loose in the buggy, an' Dixie was leanin' agin Alfred like a sick +kitten to a hot brick.' It was the fust Hettie had heard of the +scrape--the trip, I mean--and I thought she'd flare up, or wilt, or +some'n or other, but she was on the job as quick as a flash. On my soul, +I don't believe old Het so much as batted her eye, though the revelation +must have been as sudden as a mule-kick in the ribs. She give the quilt +she was showin' a pull agin the frame like she wanted to straighten out +the stitches, an' said, 'Yes, Alf give 'er a lift over to Carlton. I'm +awfully glad he had company.' And on that she axed Carrie how her Ma's +sore foot was, an' recommended Dr. Stone's hoss liniment, an' cited a +good many cases where cures to both man an' beast had been made at a +small outlay. + +"But Carrie Wade wasn't thar to l'arn how to doctor sore feet. She +leaned back in her chair and laffed; you could 'a' heard her this far if +you'd 'a' been here an' the pig was asleep. She riz and went and slapped +Hettie on the back and said: + +'You watch my words, Mrs. Henley, thar's goin' to be talk, an' lots of +it. Dixie Hart has got tired o' bein' out o' the ring of young folks, +an' is bent on gittin' attention by fair means or foul. Alf's +good-lookin', plenty young, an' she's deliberately cuttin' her eyes at +'im. I've heard she goes to the store when she don't need a thing, an' +that they sa'nter home together through the woods.'" + +"The trifling hussy!" Henley muttered, angrily. "I thought she was a +meddlesome busybody, and now I know it." + +"Well, you know Hettie don't smile more 'n once a year," Wrinkle +tittered, "but this was her anniversary. She was actually one broad grin +from ear to ear." + +"'I wish somebody _would_ stir Alf up a little bit,' she said. 'He's +entirely too poky. Carrie, that man is the slowest stick that ever +lived. I wish some pretty, dashin' gal like Dixie Hart _would_ flirt +with him good and hard. If you wasn't so old I'd git _you_ to do it. My +first husband was different; he was a great ladies' man. That is the +only thing that will make married life bearable. A dead certainty in +love-matters is killin.'" + +"Good!" Henley chuckled. "Hettie saw through her, and headed her off in +fine style." + +"Well, 'out of the heart the mouth speaketh,'" quoted Jason. "And the +truth is, Alf, I railly don't think Hettie would care a hill o' beans if +you _did_ sort o' prove that you was up to snuff. You ort to profit by +what's gone before in matrimony as you have in tradin' amongst men. +Dick, when all is said an' done, was her maiden choice, an' if thar ever +was a woman roustabout, a feller that had a bow and a scrape for every +pair o' bright eyes that come his way, that feller was Dick Wrinkle. He +kept Hettie in hot water, and I don't know but what the cold bath you've +giv' 'er has sort o' gone agin her constitution. She's a critter that +likes what she can't git better 'n what lies right at hand wigglin' to +attract attention. No, you needn't be afeard of any family row. The +truth is, I think Hettie is some better pleased than she has been for a +long time. I reckon she's beginnin' to feel a sort o' pride in you. It +ain't from her that you'll have trouble, but from Carrie Wade." + +"Trouble, how?" Henley asked, impatiently, as he was turning toward the +lights in the farm-house. + +"Why, from her clatterin' tongue. If she'll talk like that to us, you +know she will about town, and it takes a powerful small spark to set a +haystack of scandal afire. Folks think Hettie has driv' you pretty far, +anyway, with her odd, graveyard notions, and it wouldn't take much +to--to start a ugly report." + +Henley furiously tore himself from the old gossip and went into the +house. As he paused at the water-shelf and filled a basin to wash the +dust of his drive from his face and hands, he saw his wife moving about +in the dimly lighted kitchen, and was struck by her easy and obviously +gratified bearing. He was drying his hands on a towel which hung from a +roller on the wall when Mrs. Wrinkle came out and suddenly faced him. +She caught her breath, stared in surprise for a moment, then turned into +the kitchen. Henley saw her clutch his wife's sleeve and give it a +warning pull. She meant to speak in an undertone, but her piping voice +slipped a cog and Henley heard her say: + +"They didn't run off; he's back! He's out thar wash--" + +"Sh!" came from Mrs. Henley's lips. "Be quiet; you don't know what you +are talking about." + +"Why, Carrie Wade said him an' Dixie Hart had 'loped away, an'--" + +"Didn't I tell you to hush?" Mrs. Henley commanded, in a guarded tone. +"You go set down and be quiet for once in your life. You've said enough +about this thing." + +Henley saw the old woman stand staring blankly for a moment, and then +she came back to him in the half-darkness and stood mutely eying him +from beneath the black poke-bonnet. Leaving her, he went into the +dining-room, where a lamp was shedding yellow rays over the meal his +wife had ready for him. He sat down in his accustomed place, and Mrs. +Henley promptly brought his coffee. + +"It must have been powerful hot on the Carlton road," she said. "We +mighty nigh melted here in the shade with every window and door wide +open." + +"It wasn't so much hotter than common." He put sugar into his coffee, +and slowly stirred it. "I reckon moving at a brisk pace through the air +keeps you from feeling heat as much as you would if you was setting +still. We didn't start back till toward sundown." + +"They had some sort of a celebration over there, didn't they?" Mrs. +Henley reached over and pushed the biscuits nearer to his plate. + +"Yes, but it didn't amount to much." + +"I reckon Dixie liked it. The poor girl hain't been away often." + +"I think she did," Henley said. "Anyways, she acted that way all +through. She had a tiptop seat in my buggy, where she could catch first +sight of everything that happened, and she took it all in, every speck +of it, even a good dinner at the hotel." + +"Oh, I see." Mrs. Henley's brow was furrowed in perplexity. She left the +room and returned in a moment with a bowl in her thin hands. "Here is +some fresh apple-butter; it's right from the spring. You can put rich +milk on it; there's plenty just from the cow." + +The wrinkle remained on her brow while he helped himself liberally. She +stood and studied his profile from the lighted side. The best reader of +her facial expression in the family, had he been a witness, and he +doubtless was, as the windows were open, would have found much to rivet +his attention in the unwonted solidity of her features. Henley ate +silently for several minutes before she spoke again. Then she cleared +her voice, drew herself up more erectly, and said: + +"You say Dixie set in the buggy all the time? Why, I had an idea from +something Pa dropped that she went over there to attend to some +er--business or other." + +"Well, a body _might_ attend to business setting in a buggy," he said, +ambiguously and he put a spoonful of apple-butter into a broad smile and +swallowed both as he looked at her with twinkling eyes. + +The furrows deepened on the austere brow of the woman, and she drew her +under lip inward and pressed it between her teeth. + +"I don't know exactly what you mean," she said, presently. "I supposed +she had things to buy for her farm, or--" + +Henley laughed. "I may as well tell you the secret, Hettie. You ain't +any hand to gad about and talk, and I know it will be safe with you. The +truth, is I'm a match-maker. You've heard me speak of Jasper Long? Well, +he's dying to get married, and I've been a sort o' go-between with him +and Dixie. He wanted to meet her, and I took her over, and--" + +"Oh!" The furrows were gone, the colorless face lighted up from within. +"I understand now." She walked round the table and leaned over the +dishes toward him and laughed. "Alfred," she tittered, "you certainly +are the most goody-goody old poke of a stick that ever wore man's +clothes, and you are blind, blind as a day-old kitten. You know men, all +grades and styles of 'em, but you are a born fool when it comes to +women. When that girl marries Jasper Long--I say, when Dixie Hart takes +him, let me know, will you?" and she turned from the room, leaving him +more than convinced that he didn't understand women, and certain that he +never should try to do so again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +One morning, in the early part of the following week, as Henley sat +working at his desk in the store, and Pomp and Cahews were busy +attending three or four elderly women in front, he became conscious that +some one was speaking in loud, angry tones near the door. And, rising, +that he might look over a stack of soap-boxes which obstructed his view, +he saw that a dispute of some sort was taking place between Cahews and +Hank Bradley over some cigars that the latter had failed to pay for on a +former occasion. Bradley was evidently under the influence of liquor, +and he began to swear loudly and threateningly. The women dropped the +purchases they were making and shrank back farther into the store. + +With a flush of anger over the insult to his house and customers, Henley +strode hotly forward and thrust himself between the disputants. + +"We'll talk about the account some other time," he said, glaring into +Bradley's face. "But right now you get out of this house. You sha'n't +stand here spouting vile oaths before these ladies." + +"What have _you_ got to do with it?" Bradley flared up in his turn, and +he whipped his hand back toward his pistol-pocket, only to discover that +he was not armed, as he evidently thought he was. However, he kept his +hand behind him in a threatening attitude. + +"I'll show you what I've got to do with it if you open your dirty jaws +like that again!" Henley said, fearlessly. "You dare to draw a gun on me +and I'll make you swallow your own teeth. Now, you get out of here!" +And, taking him by the arm in a grip of steel, Henley drew him hurriedly +to the door and shoved him down the steps. + +"This ain't the end of it," Bradley threw back furiously. "You bet it +ain't." + +"It'll be the end o' _you_ if you fool with me!" Henley retorted, and he +turned back into the store and resumed his seat at his desk. He had not +been there long when one of the women finished her purchases and, with +some parcels under her arm, came back and stood timidly by his desk. It +was Mrs. Cartwright, the old widow whose son Johnny was so devoted to +Carrie Wade. She was short in stature, had iron-gray hair, was slight +and stooped, and wore a plain gingham dress and a sunbonnet of the same +material. + +"It was powerful good of you, Alfred, to do what you did jest now," she +said, timidly, as he looked up. "It was like the old-time way men had +when I was a girl of takin' up for women. I always heard you was good +and kind, and now I know it. A man kin do a lot o' things that women +will appreciate, but I'll risk my all that every woman in that bunch +down thar will go home wishin' that her husband or brother had done what +you did an' in the same sperit. Women love, above all things, to be +protected by manly men." + +"Well," said Henley, his flush of anger giving way to one of genuine +embarrassment, "he was upsetting business, Mrs. Cartwright. I hated +to--to git mad that way, but he was running my trade away, and that's a +thing I won't let no man do right under my eyes. Set down an' rest, Mrs. +Cartwright; you don't look overly stout." + +The woman took the chair near his desk, and he heard her sigh as she +massed her parcels in her lap with her thin, quivering hands. + +"I reckon I don't look well," she said, seeing that his kindly eyes were +still on her. "They say worry will kill a body quicker 'n anything else, +and, Alfred, I'm worried mighty nigh to death. I don't know which way to +turn or what to do. It is all about my youngest child, Johnny. He's took +a quar notion to marry Carrie Wade." + +"I see, I see," Henley said, sympathetically; "and that's bad. Why, he's +hardly out o' the spelling-book class, and hain't a sign of fuzz on his +lip. The last time he was in here I know the crowd was teasing him +because his voice was in the gosling stage. It had sech a funny way of +wobbling about from bass to treble." + +"But he thinks he's full grown," the woman sighed, "and won't listen to +reason. He keeps declarin' he's older than the way it's recorded in the +Bible. This last trouble begun at the Sunday-school Christmas-tree, when +Carrie put on an embroidered handkerchief for him. That turned his head, +and he hain't hardly let her out of his sight sence. He growed from +child to man betwixt two suns." + +"They'll do that sometimes," Henley said. "It is surely an odd sort of +attachment. She is plenty old to have nursed him. I wouldn't be afraid +to say that she was cutting her eyes at men when he was cutting his +teeth. Thinking of that ud make some fellers ashamed to act that way, +but as apt as not Johnny don't let himself study about it. Somehow I can +excuse it better in the boy than in her, because she's old enough to +know better." + +The old woman nodded and sighed again. "Alfred, sometimes I think I've +had more put on me than my share in this world. I've had three sons +besides this un, and every last one of 'em give me trouble along at +Johnny's age." + +"And about women older 'n they was, too, I've heard," Henley said. + +"Yes, it looks like it runs in the blood--not in mine, thank the Lord! +for I wish nary woman had ever been made; yes, all of my boys no sooner +got out o' frocks than they made a dead-run for the first old maid in +sight, and marry they would in spite of all possessed." + +"And not one got hitched up exactly right," said Henley. + +"Not one, Alfred. The two oldest stuck to their hot-headed agreement +long enough to feel sort o' tied down, and they went clean off an' left +their wives high and dry. Jim is still living with his'n, but I cry my +eyes out every time I see the pore fellow. Looks like he hain't got a +thing to live for. When a man leaves his own fireside and comes and sets +around his mammy's house like Jim does, he hain't got no paradise under +his own roof. Ef he'd 'a' had children it mought 'a' been different. I +did think I could show Johnny the mistakes of his brothers and make him +act different. I've talked it to him sence he was old enough to know +right from wrong, but you see how little weight it had." + +"Why don't you go to headquarters and call a halt?" Henley's indignation +was rising. + +"You mean to Carrie? Well, I did, but somehow she manages to git around +the question. She jest looks kind o' 'shamed and keeps wanting to talk +about other things. I ought to be sorry for her, desperate as she is for +attention, but I hain't. She's a tattle-tale and scandalmonger. She +never got over losin' that young preacher that Dixie Hart cut her out +of, and she spends all her time hammerin' at that pore girl, who is good +and decent and noble, if thar ever was sech a thing. Just here lately, +because you seed fit to take Dixie with you over to Carlton--" + +"Oh, I know--I know." Henley's face grew darker, and he clinched his +hand. "I can't think of her bell-clapper tongue without gettin' mad, and +I don't like to be that way with a woman. What does Johnny say?" + +"Oh, he talks as big as a railroad president; he talks jest the same +foolishness as his brothers did; _he's_ doin' the marryin'--nobody else +has a'thing to do with it. That's what hurts. If I could jest git the +pore, simple boy out of her clutches for a month I believe I could open +his eyes, but I am afraid at the slightest move they will run off and +git married. Sometimes I try to be resigned and argue to myself that +maybe him and her could git along together, but when I see my pore +baby-boy with that powdered and painted thing out in public I mighty +nigh die with mortification." + +"We must simply bust it up, Mrs. Cartwright," Henley said, firmly. +"That's all there is about it. We must checkmate 'em. Let me study over +it. I'll help if I can." + +"I wish you would," the woman said, anxiously. "There he is now in the +front-door. I'll slip out the side way; he mought suspicion I was +talkin' about him." + +A moment after her departure Johnny Cartwright came back to the desk. +"Jim said Ma was here," he said, glancing around the room. + +"She was, Johnny, boy," Henley said, patronizingly, "but she went home. +Ah, ha! I saw you with Carrie Wade the other day--at least it had her +look." + +"Yes, it was her." A flush of pride rose and spread itself over the +boyish face. "I was taking her home from Mrs. Spriggs's quilting." + +"I'd bet a hat I know what you wanted to see her about," Henley said, +his hand over his facile mouth. "Some of these old bachelors, or +widowers with a gang of children to take care of, sent you with some +invite or other. When I was a little chap like you I used to pick up a +lot o' odd dimes in taking notes to the gals. About ten years from now +you'll be spending _your_ money that way. You must hear a lot o' funny +things if you see much o' Carrie. I'd give a pretty to be near her when +she got word from some man or other. She's waited a long time, Johnny. I +reckon a proposal at this late day would tickle her to death." + +"I don't tote notes for nobody." The boy was white about the lips, and +looking as if he hardly knew whether to be angry or not. + +"Well, I reckon you wouldn't to Carrie," Henley said. "I hardly reckon +anybody has her in mind, now. You know she's been a drug on the market a +long time. I wonder if she ever told you about that tin-peddler? It was +away back, I reckon, when you was playing with your rattler. Carrie and +the peddler had up an awful case--they was going to get married, and +open up a tin-shop at Carlton, but a man come along and said the peddler +already had a wife or two to his credit, and the skunk changed his +route. Lawsy me! how Carrie did take on! We heard her yelling like a +knife was sticking in her clean to the sorgum-mill." + +"It's a lie! I don't believe a word of it," the boy cried, his face +aflame with fury. "She told me she never had a sweetheart in her +life--that she hated men." + +"She's had good cause," answered Henley. "A woman that don't get a speck +of attention will hate anything. I reckon she's passed the line, and +nobody will marry her." + +"She's going to marry _me_," the boy blurted out, leaning over and +striking the desk with his fist, as if to emphasize his words, "and when +she's my wife I'll call and make you settle for what you've said. +Remember that, sir." And he turned and strode angrily from the store. + +"I hated to say it," Henley mused, "but I was doing it for the lasting +good of all concerned. It won't do--it simply won't do. That meddlesome +old maid simply shall not ruin that boy's life and break his old mammy's +heart. I wonder--" He sat staring at the floor for several minutes, and +then a smile disturbed the stern lines of his face. "It might work--by +gum, I'll try it, anyway!" + +Glancing down to the front, he saw that Cahews was disengaged and seated +on the end of a counter swinging his long legs to and fro. Henley went +to him. + +"Say, Jim, Johnny Cartwright and Carrie Wade is driving his mammy mighty +nigh distracted with their doings. I don't know when I've ever been so +sorry for an old person. I wonder if me and you couldn't put our heads +together and--and sort o' bust it up." + +"Well, I don't know, Alf--you are a better schemer than I am. I'm +willin' to help, but I can't git up nothing. If the boy was mine I'd +give 'im a good spankin' in public, and maybe that ud shame Carrie into +behavin' herself." + +"If I could get you to help I think I could work a change in the thing, +anyway," Henley said, persuasively. + +"Me, Alf?" + +"Yes, it's just this way, Jim, with a woman of that brand and vintage," +Henley pursued. "You see, she's gone without the right sort of attention +so long that she's kind o' lost respect for herself. Jim, you are the +leading young man in Chester, not yet married, and considered a fine +catch. I don't know how it will strike you, but you could really do a +good turn all round if you'd just pay Carrie a little attention. Take +her in your new top buggy to camp-meeting next Sunday." + +"Me? Oh, Lord!" + +"I don't mean for you to _marry_ her," Henley went on, smoothly. "But if +I'm any judge of women, I think when a man of your stripe drives out in +public with her she'll simply look up again, and, by gum, I believe +she'll look clean over that boy's head. I'm asking you to take part in a +good deed, Jim." + +"I see--I understand pine-blank what you mean, but, Alf, I'm not the man +for the job. You'll understand my fix if you'll just study a minute. +You know how it is between me and Julia Hardcastle. I'll never marry no +other woman as long as the sun shines. She hain't never said the word, +nor she hain't plumb pitched me out, either, but she makes me walk a +chalk-line. Why, if she was to see me out with Carrie Wade I'd never +hear the end of it." + +"Julia's going to the camp-meeting, ain't she?" Henley asked, cutting a +significant glance at his clerk. + +"Yes, she's going with Sam Willis, that Atlanta shoe-drummer. She don't +care for him, mind you, Alf, but she likes to have fellows of that sort +hanging on. She don't seem half as particular about who she goes with as +the company I keep. She's got me where the wool is short, Alf. I +wouldn't rub her the wrong way for the world. I hope to get her some +day, but I'll have to wait till she gits tired of dashing around." + +Henley was looking straight into his clerk's face, a smile twinkling in +his kindly eyes. "You are not working that girl right, Jim," he said, +decidedly. "She'd have been yours long ago if you'd had more +independence. If you keep up that sort of a lick she'll waltz off with +some bold and daring chap one of these days and give you the merry +ha-ha. The truth is, she wants you, but she wants you to be more of a +man. You've tried your sort of way long enough, now switch off and try +mine just for one single day, anyway, and see if I ain't right. Solomon +himself--and he was the greatest masher in the Bible--even he couldn't +win a woman by letting her have her own way. A woman thinks a man is a +sissy that gives in to her every whim. You just take Carrie Wade to +meeting like any other free-born American citizen has a right to do, and +Julia Hardcastle will set up and take notice, and she'll think a sight +more of you--that is, if you don't knuckle under and beg her pardon the +minute she mentions it to you." + +Cahews's jaw was really a massive member, and it looked as solid as +stone when he finally answered, which he did when he had stood down on +the floor and walked to and fro for a moment in deep and turbulent +thought. + +"She nor no other woman could make me knuckle if I didn't want to," he +said, pausing and resting a steady hand on the shoulder of his employer. +"I've been giving in all along, but I'm tired, dang tired. Here she's +going with that town-dude Sunday and expects me to drive out there by +myself and enjoy the sight from afar. Derned if I don't believe, as you +say, that I've been giving that girl too much rein and floundering about +too much in the dust at her feet. Alf, I'll write a note to Carrie this +minute, and I'll give the old girl a good time if I know how." + +"Well, you go back to the desk and write the note," said Henley. "Mark +my words, I'll bet, if you hold a stiff lip all through, you'll +accomplish in a day what you haven't in all these years." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The next day, as Henley was walking home in the dusk and was passing +Mrs. Cartwright's cottage, she saw him and hastened out to the fence. +She was in a flutter of excitement, rubbing her thin hands together in +vast satisfaction. + +"Alfred," she began, "I want to tell you what's happened. I'm so excited +I'm as limber as a dish-rag. Jim Cahews sent a note over by your nigger +yesterday to Carrie Wade invitin' her to drive to the campground with +him Sunday." + +"Oh, Jim's going to take _her_?" said Henley, his eyes twinkling. "He's +a sly dog about his doings, and don't tell me all he does." + +"That hain't the main thing, Alfred." The old woman raised her hands to +her face and laughed immoderately. "Pomp had no sooner gone off with the +answer and a big bunch of roses Carrie gathered and sent with it, when +she run over to tell me about it and to borrow my cape. She 'lowed it +mought be cool drivin' back behind sech a fast hoss as Jim's new one, +an' she didn't have a thing heavy enough to throw over her shoulders. +Johnny was a-settin' in the corner of the kitchen unbeknownst to her, +and heard all she said. An', la me, what you reckon he done? He up an' +laid down law an' gospel right on the spot, bless you! Jim Cahews wasn't +goin' a step with 'er. Johnny could afford to hire a livery-stable team +if he had to borrow the money, an' _he_ was goin' to take 'er." + +"That was a corker, wasn't it?" Henley exclaimed, with a pleased laugh. +"What did Carrie say to that?" + +"Looked like she hardly knowed what _to_ say," was the old woman's +reply. "Him an' her stood starin' smack dab at each other fer a minute, +and then--just think of it!--she begun to beg the boy not to interfere +with her doin's, and pleaded an' wheedled an' went on at a powerful +rate. But Johnny stood as firm as the rock o' Gibralty, an' told 'er, he +did, that his plighted wife jest shouldn't run about an' disgrace 'em +right on the eve of marriage, and said a lot about folks walkin' over +dead bodies an' swimmin' rivers o' blood, an' the like. Well, all that +finally made Carrie mad, an' she told 'im he was jest a boy, an' that +she had never meant to marry 'im, nohow. An' while he stood gaspin' fer +breath she lit in to beggin' him not to tell nobody about the'r little +flirtation. She said folks would think it was silly of her, an' if Jim +Cahews meant business, which it looked like he did, a tale like that +might sp'ile her chances." + +"Huh," grunted Henley, "she was getting down to bedrock, wasn't she?" + +"Well, I don't blame 'er," said the widow, charitably. "Many a good, +married woman wouldn't want all her girlish pranks to reach the ear of +the man she finally settled down with, an' I reckon Jim Cahews wants +'er. They say he's tired chasin' after Julia Hardcastle, an' Carrie may +suit. Johnny tuck it awful hard. After she went home he come an' laid +his head in my lap an' sobbed out good an' strong. I was never tickled +by grief of a child o' mine before; but even while my eyes an' throat +was full, a laugh would rise in me that I couldn't hold in. But he +didn't catch on--he 'lowed I was cryin', too. After a while he set up +an' wiped his eyes. 'I reckon,' said he, 'that I've been the fool +everybody said I was, but I'm goin' to let women alone till I'm old +enough to understand 'em.'" + +"He'll let 'em alone a long time, then," said Henley, with a dry smile, +as he turned away. + +The following Monday morning Henley found Cahews busy in the front part +of the store cleaning up and putting things straight on the shelves. As +soon as he saw his employer, Jim walked from behind the counter and +extended his hand: "Put it right there, Alf, an' give it a good, tight +shake," he grinned. "Richard is hisself at last. It's been an awful +up-hill fight, but I'm there--gee whiz! I'm there, an' don't you forget +it." + +"So you really like Carrie? Well, I thought maybe you and her--" + +"Carrie, hell! It's the other--damn it! Huh! you may think you know +some'n about women, but don't I? I was a long time learning how to turn +the trick, but I'm an expert now. I had the time of my life. It was a +clean walk-over from start to finish. I had the bit in my teeth, an' I +went ahead like the woods afire. I driv' around to Carrie's house, +dressed to kill. I had on my plug-hat, silk vest, light-gray pants, +dark-blue coat, and my new patent-leather shoes. I put the old gal in by +me an' away we shot. I saw that drummer and Julia ahead on a straight +piece of road plodding along like they was hauling a load of wood to +town, and I chirped to my Kentucky blue-blood, and, with Carrie's +ribbons flying in the wind like the flags of a war-ship, we passed like +a cannon-ball, leaving 'em in a cloud of dust as thick as a Texas +sand-storm. And the funniest part was that I didn't, somehow, care a +dern. I was on a new basis, an' believed in it." + +"Well, you know I advised--" Henley began, but the eager clerk broke in: + +"Yes, that was it; you started me on my new line, and it was the act of +a friend. It was that advice that saved me. But I reckon it was the +sight of that sap-headed idiot with my girl that did most of it. Well, +to come to the end, as soon as Julia and her dude got to the campground +she lit out of his buggy and made a bee-line to whar me and Carrie was +setting under the trees waiting for the first hymn. She stopped right +square in front of me as mad as a wet hen. + +"'What did you mean by throwing dust on us?' she asked, as red as a +beet, her eyes flashing sparks. Right then I felt just a little +inclination to take back water, but I remembered, our talk t'other day, +and told myself it was now or never, and that the worm had turned over a +new leaf. Carrie had dropped her handkerchief, an' I sprung up and put +it back in her lap with a bow, taking a grip on myself while in the act. +Then I looked Julia in the eyes and said: + +"'I couldn't hold my hoss in, Miss Julia; he's a high-stepper, and it +makes 'im hopping mad to see common stock ahead of 'im. The only thing +to do was to let 'im pass everything in sight.' + +"She stared at me like she thought I'd lost my senses, and then she +said, 'Well, you ought to apologize; any gentleman would after covering +a lady with dust from a dirty road.' + +"'But it wasn't my fault,' I told her, with a grin. 'It is my hoss's +fault. If anybody apologizes it ought to be him, and he can't talk half +as good as he can trot.' Gee whiz, but wasn't she mad? She was splotched +with red and white all over, and the purtiest thing, Alf, that you ever +laid eyes on. She whirled away and went back to her drummer. He had put +the buggy-seat under a tree in sight of where me an' Carrie sat, and, +knowing she was looking, I laid myself out to be pleasant to my partner. +I had to pass by Julia and her dude to get to the spring, and I fetched +water for Carrie every hour in the day, and always went whistling a jig. +At twelve o'clock some of the folks along with Julia come over and +invited me and Carrie to dump our basket in with theirs and all eat +together, but me and Carrie refused, and had ourn on a grassy slant in +plain sight of the rest. It was the first frolic I'd ever had with +Julia, and I shore did like it. I dunno, but I reckon it was the way she +acted that made me keep it up. Then, after dinner, when Carrie went to +Mrs. Wilson's tent to rest up a little, Julia saw me smoking at the +spring, and come straight to me. She had a sort o' give-in look, and yet +was proud and cold. + +"'I want to know,' said she, 'what you mean by fetching that old maid +out here.' + +"'I don't know as she's so almighty old,' said I, as independent as a +wood-sawyer, and yet scared half out o' my mind. 'I don't know but what +it is a sort of comfort to go with women old enough to be sensible once +in a while.' + +"That made her madder'n ever, but, you see, I was making her come to me +with complaints, and that had never happened before. She stood punching +at the ground with her blue parasol and looking every now and then +toward Mrs. Wilson's tent like she was afraid Carrie would come. Then +all at once I saw that her pretty lips was quivering. I was dying to +grab her, Alf, and confess the whole dang trick, but I remembered your +talk and helt out. + +"'I see,' said she, with a sigh, 'you don't mean what you've been saying +to me all this time.' + +"I looked her straight in the eyes, Alf, and let 'er have it right from +the shoulder good and fast. 'I tell you, Julia,' said I, 'I'm a marrying +man. I'm tired of living alone in the back end of a store with just a +house-cat for company, while men no better are toasting their shins at a +cheerful family fire. I'm tired of fooling. Carrie may not have as many +dudes at her beck and call as some I know, but she knows what she wants +in the man-line and won't take all eternity to decide.' + +"'Oh, you are cruel! You are heartless!' Julia said, and then she +busted out crying. Then, before we knowed it, me and her was walking in +the woods, 'long a narrow, shady road. She said, Alf, that she'd loved +me good and true all along and wanted to quit everything that was +foolish and settle down. We are going to be married Christmas, and, Alf, +I'm so happy I could holler at the top of my voice. If I don't sell +goods to-day there won't be a customer in forty miles of the store." + +Henley nodded slowly. "The thing worked," he said, "and I'm glad. The +only thing I hate about it is that we had to fool that poor woman to do +it. But Carrie was acting wrong with that boy. I had to do it to save +him and his old mammy. We must make it up to Carrie some way. We'll find +her a husband if we have to advertise in the papers and put up cash +inducements. She's got a mischievous tongue and lots of malice, but hard +luck fetched 'em on her." + +"Alf, you are a good chap," Cahews said, with emotion. "I know well +enough you ain't any too happy at home--a blind man could see that--and +yet you are always trying to help others." + +Henley's kindly eyes wavered as they rested on those of his friend. "My +wife is doing the best she can, too, Jim. I don't blame her. In fact, I +blame myself. When that fellow went off and died I ought to have left +her alone with her grief, but I was blinded by the desire to have what +I'd tried so long to win. I reckon I took an unfair advantage of her at +a time when she wasn't in a mood to fight off anything. Now, let's get +to work. I've got lots to do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +As was his custom on Sunday mornings, Henley accompanied his wife and +the Wrinkles to church service in Chester on the day Long was expected +to pay his visit to Dixie. Henley and the old man fell in leisurely +behind the two women. The day was fine, being one of those rare June +days which had the moderate temperature of spring. + +As they came within sight of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley noticed a +sleek pair of horses and a stylish trap held by a negro boy at the gate, +and knew that the girl's suitor had arrived. He fancied that the couple +might pass him on his way to church, and in his mind's eye he saw +himself waving a cordial salutation to them. It was not, however, until +the church was reached and he had conducted his party to their usual +seats that Dixie and her escort arrived. Accustomed as the congregation +was to direct its attention to the door as much as the pulpit, at least +before the services began, all eyes were turned thither when a sudden +commotion at the front showed that something of an unusual nature had +occurred. The fact was that Long's driver, being unfamiliar with the +ways of a place much smaller than his own town, had driven the prancing, +snorting pair close to the door in the effort to land his passengers on +the steps, and his loud, "Woah dar, blast yo' skins!" rang clearly +through the resonant building. As it was, the coming of a bridal pair +themselves could not have attracted more attention. Every pivotal head +turned on its axis; even the visiting parson, with the huge Bible on his +thin knees, half rose that he might peer over the pulpit behind which he +sat. + +Dixie, in her new gown and new hat, was the very embodiment of easy +self-possession as she piloted her escort to a seat in the middle of the +room. Long, red and perspiring, and rigged out in all the splendor of +the haberdasher's art, even to boots that screamed in pain, had the air +of a social laborer who was worthy of his hire. As soon as he was seated +he reached for Dixie's fan and began waving it to and fro with the +conscientious regularity of a pendulum, thereby increasing his warmth +and not lessening Dixie's. + +Sheer astonishment clutched all observers. The women bent their necks +and stared, and the men winked at one another comically. + +Suddenly Henley noticed that Carrie Wade was immediately behind him, and +he felt a sharp twinge of conscience over the wan and desperate +expression of her face. She had seen, and was staring down into her lap +and slowly twirling her bloodless fingers. She had heard of Jim Cahews's +engagement and knew that her transient hopes in that direction were +groundless; and now this--this of all things--to see her hated rival in +such a coveted position in the view of all before whom she had been so +systematically maligned. + +But Henley's mind refused to be riveted to Carrie's discomfiture. For +the first time he was seeing his friend Long through new glasses. He +was, indeed, as Dixie had hinted, a rather uncouth individual, and this +fault was not lessened by his flashy attire and juxtaposition to so much +innate refinement in the person of his companion. + +After the service, as they were leaving the church, Henley saw that +three-fourths of the congregation, at least, had deliberately paused +outside, and were watching the Carlton man assist his partner into the +shining trap. They stood as if transfixed, and regarded the pair till +they had disappeared down the road in the direction of Dixie's home. + +That morning before sunrise old Wrinkle had gone to his watermelon-patch +and plucked a ripe melon. He had put it in the spring-house to keep it +cool, and during the afternoon he served it to the family on the +back-porch. Henley had enjoyed it with the others, and was idly +sauntering about the front-yard when he saw Long leave the Hart cottage +and start back to Carlton. Seeing Henley, he told the driver to stop, +and sprang down to the ground and came to the fence. + +"Well, what progress?" Henley asked. "I saw you at meeting this +morning." + +"Well, I hardly know yet, Alf." Long clutched one of the palings of the +fence with his gloved hand and swung back from it and took a deep +breath. "I hardly know what to say. I'm tickled to some extent, and then +again I hain't, for I hain't as sure of my ground as I'd like to be. +Alf, she's by all odds the finest bolt of calico I ever tried to +unroll--I say _unroll_, because if she hain't a tight mystery I never +saw one." + +"You mean you can't quite make her out?" suggested Henley, with an +eagerness for which he could hardly account. + +"That's it; you've hit it the first throw out of the box. It looks to +me, Alf, like she's always going to do something that she never gets to, +and not do what she's sure to do when you ain't expecting it. Now, one +thing I counted on as a sure fact before I come out was that after +dinner at her house me 'n her would walk down to the woods where it was +shady and sort o' stroll about and take in the scenery, but not a peg +would she move, although I hinted at it several times. I like old +women--that is, you know, I respect 'em in their places--but that pair +was too much of a good thing. They set about where me and Miss Dixie was +every spare minute. I've seen gals love their kin, but this un fairly +dotes on hers. Why, one of 'em couldn't git up to get a drink without +Dixie jumpin' and telling her to set still, that she'd get it for her. +I'm as good as the average in knowing how to handle a woman, Alf, but I +don't profess to know how to court one in a crowd. One of these two is +half blind and t'other is lame, but that didn't help me out, for they +didn't let their tongues rest a second. They kept alluding to some chap +or other that was dead. They said they hadn't ever seen him, but kept +talking about his picture and wondering if he looked like me, and how +he'd like it to see me there, and so on. Seemed like the girl wanted to +shut that talk off, for she told 'em several times to be quiet and to +remember what they had promised her." + +"Women are all hard to understand." There was a knowing twinkle in +Henley's eyes, which he averted from Long's anxious gaze. "I reckon +Dixie thought you ought to get acquainted with the family if you and her +are to come to any permanent understanding." + +"Maybe so," Long agreed, wearily. "But I have enough dealings with old +rag-chawers in my business through the week not to want a Sunday off +when I get with my own sort. But this un is a prize, Alf, and worth any +man's trouble to get her. I'll never forget that dinner if I live to be +a hundred. I had to rise early to get a start from town, and the ride +kind o' whetted my appetite to a sharp edge, so that I was really ready +for anything she wanted to pass; but, geewhilikins! when we all slid our +chairs out into that dining-room, where everything was as white as snow +and shiny as a new dollar, and where green things was stuck about all +around, I begun to know what high living was. And she told me she'd +cooked every dab of it herself. Just think of that, and on top of it +rigged up like she did and went to meeting as fresh and cool as a rose +under dewy leaves! I made up my mind, as I set there and ate all that +good stuff, and saw her at the head of the table fingering things in +such a dainty way, that I'd have her at the head of my table in a fine, +new house, or bust a trace. I'm to come out again next Sunday. In the +mean time I'm going to try to think up some way to choke that old pair +of hens off my roost." + +"Oh, they'll let you alone after a while," Henley said. "You see, you +are a novelty right now. You keep on. You wouldn't want a girl that +would throw her arms round your neck on the first visit." + +"No, I reckon not," Long agreed, slowly, "and still I don't like the +uncertainty, either. Looks like she's studying me all the time, and +ain't any too well pleased, at that. I don't know; I reckon she's got me +rattled to some extent. I know what I want; I want _her_, and the sooner +I'm easy in my mind the sooner I'll be fit for business." Long glanced +at the sinking sun. "I must be on the move; take care of yourself, Alf, +and pray for me. You've put me on the track of a good thing, and if I +win I'll be yours for life." + +The next morning, as Henley was on his way to the village, he saw Dixie +in her peanut-patch on the side of the road. She seemed to be carefully +inspecting the vine-covered mounds in the mellow soil, for he saw her +stoop now and then and lift the vines and peer beneath them. Vaulting +over the fence, he was soon by her side. + +"Always at work, rain or shine," he said, lightly, as she glanced up and +smiled a cheery greeting. + +"I've hit it right on these goobers, Alfred," she said. "I pulled up a +vine the other day and washed it in the branch. I'm keeping it for the +fair at Carlton. It is a dandy; the goobers on it are as thick as beads +on a strand, and already as big as your thumb. Folks laughed at me for +putting in five acres in this ground, but I knew what I was about. If +they go high this fall, I'll make up for the loss on my wheat and hay." + +"From the looks of things yesterday," he said, "it don't seem like +you'll have to bother much more about raising anything." + +"I saw you looking at us," she returned, gravely. "In fact, I saw +everybody in the house. It was an awful day, Alfred, and I wouldn't go +through another like it for no sap-headed man that ever walked the +earth. I was up before the break of day, scrubbing, sweeping, baking by +candle-light, and what was it all for--good gracious, what was it for? +For weeks I'd counted on it as a great event, just to feel, down in my +heart when it was all over, like a big fool." + +"Why, I thought--I supposed--" Henley began in perplexity, but she +interrupted him. + +"I hate sham, Alfred, and that whole thing was sham--sham, sham, from +first to last. Because I've been beat down and sneered at all this time +by a silly woman, and because my burden of life looked hard, I let +myself be tempted. Do you know, I believe Providence is trying to pound +some sense into me. I felt kind o' bad a year ago when that feller +didn't come to time, but, Alfred, I know myself better than I did then. +I thought I'd have stood up at the altar with a man I never saw, but +I'll bet now that I'd have backed out at the sight of him. I was blinded +the same way about this last one. When you told me about him, in your +kind way, I thought he was just what I was looking for, but when you +fetched him to me that day at Carlton it was an awful comedown. I can't +explain it to you, but, somehow, I felt like he was butting in with his +big head and loud voice between me and another one I was expecting." + +"I see, I see. Long don't quite fill the bill," Henley said. "I was +afraid there might be a hitch somewhere, and he has all the essentials, +too--that is, I mean--" But Henley hardly knew what he meant. + +"There is just one main essential, to use your big word," she said, her +fine, eyes resting on his in a wise gaze, "and that is love--the genuine +article. At one time I thought it was a fine house, and things to wear, +and comfort for them I love and protect that I needed, but it was +downright, unselfish love for somebody. Alfred, to my dying day I shall +shudder over all that parade yesterday. The man or woman who attempts to +get pleasure out of sitting in a finer seat, or living in a finer house, +or wearing finer duds than his neighbor, or even his enemy, will miss +it, unless he is of a low order and taste. When I saw all them good +folks gaping and staring at me like I was a comet with a tail, right +there in the house of God, while a good man was teaching humility, and +prayers, and songs was going up to the throne--I say, while all that was +taking place I felt like a cheat and a swindler hiding under plumes, +clap-trap flowers, and flounces that ud fade. I looked across and saw +Carrie--poor Carrie!--with that blank stare of death in her eyes. She +seemed to say, 'You've whipped me clean to the earth, Dix; I'm done; I'm +all in; but have mercy, don't you see how awful it is?' She may have +thought I was crowing over her, but I wasn't--God knows I wasn't. During +the first prayer I knelt down and prayed for her and begged forgiveness +for my silly caper. The poor thing has lost even her boy-lover. She's +yearning for something she may never lay her hands on. As God is my +judge, if I could give her this man that was here yesterday I'd do it at +the drop of a hat. Alfred, I don't want him, nohow. I thought I might +come round to it, but every word he says, every move he makes, goes +against me. If I tied myself to a man like that it would be one +continual fight to approve of him. Oh, he was so puffed up yesterday +that I wanted to pull his ears and make him see straight--talking all +the time about the dash we'd cut and the attention we attracted. I was +guilty of the crime and wanted to forget it, but it was all he could +talk about--well, that is, except one _other_ thing." + +"One other thing?" Henley echoed. + +"Yes, it was marry, marry, marry; wife, wife, wife--even before the +home-folks. He couldn't put a bite of my cooking in his big, red mouth +without saying what a blessing it would be to come to a table loaded +that way three times a day. I say! I had to laugh. There I was figuring +on using him to the end that I could set back in a rocking-chair and fan +myself and tell a nigger cook to rake any old scraps together and not +bother me with the details, while he saw me with my sleeves rolled up +humped over a hot stove, or in a cloud of steam at a wash-tub. He said +he could pay me the compliment of being the only girl who loved hard +work as much as his mother had till it killed her--_loved_ it, mind you! +Think of drudging all your life for a man that thought you loved dirty +work and was granting you a favor by keeping it piled up around you +while he was lying around a store telling a bunch of clerks what to do, +and wondering how long it would be before time to eat. Yes, I felt mean +all through the service and after he left. Little Joe sneaked over after +dark to get me to teach him his geography, and while I was doing it I +put my arm around his poor, little, wasted neck and hugged him. He +looked up and begun to cry and kissed me. Alfred, there ain't no +mistaking the article when you run across it. It is real love I have for +that boy--the love of a mother for her child that is suffering. I went +as far with him as the fence, and as me and him stood together in the +starlight I felt, somehow, that there was just one thing standing +between me and God, and that was the unworthy thing I had been doing +that day. I am thankful for my burdens, for under them I am free and +exalted. Love like I have for Joe shows what the other love ought to be +like, and until I yearn to help a man out of his troubles and cling to +him and want him by me every minute--until then I'll not sell myself. +You can't marry for pay and be honest, for you know you can't give value +for value. You'd have to act a part, and that would be a living lie that +would pall on you, and sicken your very soul." + +"So you're not going to see Long any more?" Henley said, carried out of +himself by her winsome logic. + +"Yes, he's coming Sunday. I'll get through the day in some fashion or +other, but I'm not going to tole 'im along like a pig following an ear +of corn. Some girls would, whether they intended to take him or not, but +I've been through the rubs and can't afford to be so silly. My natural +pride won't let me chop him off after the first visit, for folks would +say he turned me down, and, with all my good intentions, I can't stand +that. I don't know why, but I can't. I reckon we want what is ours, if +it is as empty as a bottle full of wind, and, in the fellow's way, he +_does_ want me. A girl can be an old maid with much more content if +she's had what the world would call a solid chance." + +When he had left her and was walking down the road Henley paused and +looked back and saw her making her way homeward through her +cotton-field. "I might have known she'd kick him," he said, tenderly. +"No man alive is worthy of her--no man ever could be. She's a jewel +dropped from the skies. She is as sweet and innocent as a baby, and as +strong and brave as a lion. I wonder why God didn't let _me_--I wonder +why it was that _I_ happened not to--" + +A flush of shame mounted to his face. His heart seemed to stand still. +He trudged onward, his gaze on the ground. "She is doing her duty," he +muttered, "and she is not complaining. I must do mine." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +On the afternoon of the following day Dixie came to the store. At the +moment Cahews was busy with some customers on the side of the house +devoted to dry-goods, and Henley was at his desk in the rear drawing a +cheque to pay for some cotton he had bought from a farmer. Dixie walked +straight toward him, but Henley did not see her till she was quite +close, then he was struck by the unusual pallor and tense gravity of her +face. He sprang up at once and proffered a chair. + +"I want to talk to you," she said, her lips quivering, and she motioned +toward the waiting farmer. "Finish with him; I'm in no hurry." + +Henley complied, a startled concern for her rendering him all but +incapable of resuming the business with the customer. He had to go out +to the farmer's wagon to read the marks on the cotton-bale for record, +and even as he made the notes in his book and directed the unloading of +the wagon he was saying to himself: "She's in trouble--something has +gone wrong. She never was knocked out like that before." + +On his return he entered at the side-door, and as he was crossing the +yard to reach it he caught sight of her when she thought she was +unobserved. She was pressing her hands to her face, and her whole form +seemed to have wilted. She heard his step and essayed to assume a light +mood of greeting, but it was a poor pretence, at best. She smiled as +she looked up, but it was a cold, bloodless effort. + +"I may as well tell you, Alfred, that I'm in trouble," she began, +tremulously, as he sat down near her. "You've always said I had a long +head on me for a girl, but I reckon I can manage just so far, and not a +bit farther. I can plant and sow and gather and reap, and even market +small dribs of things, but I'm a fool in big business matters, and I've +gone and got my foot in it. I'm up to my neck in the mire, and I'm +sinking inch by inch." + +"What's wrong, Dixie?" he said, consolingly. "You mustn't let yourself +give up this way. It ain't like you." + +"Well, it's about my farm," she said, and she paused to steady her +voice, which seemed to fail her. + +"I see," Henley said. "Old Welborne is charging you too high interest. +You ought to shift the mortgage to somebody more human--somebody with at +least a thimbleful of soul. That man is the hardest taskmaster on earth. +He'd skin a flea for its hide and tallow." + +"Mortgage? I'm afraid you wouldn't exactly call it a mortgage, Alfred. +Listen; I've just got to tell you about it. You are my friend. I know +you'll tell me the best thing to do, and I'll abide by your advice. When +I bought the farm from Uncle Tom, who, you remember, wanted to sell out +to move to Alabama when the trade was made, I only had a thousand +dollars ready money, and the price was two thousand. Uncle Tom was +anxious to close out and get away, and so he looked about for somebody +that would lend me the balance. Times was awfully hard then, and nobody +had any money on hand but Welborne, and he said he'd let me have it at a +reasonable rate of interest. Somehow Welborne never would get ready to +make out the papers and turn over the money, and Uncle Tom was nearly +out of his head with worry over the delay." + +"One of the old dog's tricks!" Henley said, angrily. "I know him through +and through. But go on; go on." + +"Well, it was the last day before Uncle Tom was to go that Welborne +finally said he was ready and had us come to his office. I haven't got +head enough to tell you all he said, for it was so mixed up. He went on +at a frightful rate about how hard it had been for him to call in money +enough to accommodate us, and finally made a proposition. He said in +order to make himself plumb secure the farm must be bought in his name +and mine as partners, with the understanding that whenever I got the +money I could buy him out. Somehow I felt uneasy then, but Uncle Tom +declared it was plumb fair. Sam Deacon, the young man who was studying +law here then, was in the office, and he told me it was all right and +perfectly safe, and so under all that pressure I consented. I have never +told a soul about it. Somehow the longer it went on the more foolish it +seemed for a girl like me to be in partnership with that old +money-shark, and I was ashamed." + +"Well, even then," said Henley, still perplexed, "your interest must be +safe. I reckon you've had your scare for nothing." + +"I haven't told you all yet," Dixie sighed. "The big rent I've had to +pay him on his half has kept my nose to the grindstone, so that I'm even +deeper in debt to him now than I was at the start." + +"Rent?" exclaimed the storekeeper, staring blandly. + +"Yes, nothing would suit Mr. Welborne but that his part was worth two +hundred a year, and he refused right out to trade any other way." + +A light broke on Henley. He whistled softly, and his brawny hand +clutched his knee like a vise as he leaned forward. + +"I see, I see," he panted, his eyes large in pitying surprise. "He was +dodging the law against usury. He has it fixed so that he's making no +violation of law, and yet he is getting at least two and a half times as +much as he'd be entitled to. Instead of eighty dollars a year--eight per +cent.--he's getting two hundred. You've already paid him for the value +of his part over and over. My Lord, my Lord, and you--you who have had +such a hard time! But have you never made any payment at all besides the +rent?" + +"It was all I could do to rake up the two hundred a year," Dixie +answered, huskily. "Once, though, when cotton went high and I had made +six bales, I offered him a hundred dollars to lessen my debt, but he +wouldn't take it. He said it was too little to count, and that new +papers would have to be drawed up to make a proper credit, and for me to +keep it and spend it on some implements I needed. But I haven't told you +the worst yet, Alfred. He now says land has gone down in value, and that +he needs the money he's put in, and that I must buy him out, or him me, +he don't care which, but a transfer has to be made. He says if I hain't +got the money, and refuse his liberal cash offer, the property will have +to be put up at public outcry and settled that way." + +"Look here, Dixie, little friend," Henley said, his tense face furrowed +with sympathy, "you've been in powerful bad hands. Your Uncle Tom never +gave the matter a minute's consideration--all he was after was getting +away to his new home, and that young lawyer that advised you didn't have +the sense of a gnat, or was in old Welborne's pay. The paper is a legal +one, I know, for that old hog has never done a thing he could be handled +for. You've committed yourself into the hands of the slyest, most +unprincipled old thief that ever blinked under the eye of justice. He is +telling you the truth. He can sell you out, according to law, whenever +either he or you are dissatisfied with the contract. He knows you've +improved that place till it is worth double what you paid for it, and +he thinks you are in such a tight place that you'll give up in despair +and let him have what you've made by such hard licks. I know that trick, +and it is the lowest and meanest one among traders. He's got you in a +worse fix than you may imagine." + +"But how can the farm be worth as much as you say it is when he says he +is willing to take eight hundred for _his_ half, which cost originally a +thousand?" Dixie wanted to know. + +"That's the old 'give-or-take' dodge," Henley explained. "He's kept his +eye on you, and he's satisfied that you can't possibly raise eight +hundred dollars, and that you will take his eight and be glad to get it. +I could help you out of this in a minute--clean out, for I've got the +idle money and it would tickle me to death to advance it to you, but he +wouldn't sell. He's telling you he'll give or take, but he wouldn't +_take_; that ain't his dirty game." + +"So he really can sell me out at auction?" Dixie groaned. + +"Yes, but that would be his last resort," Henley said. "He thinks he's +got you under his thumb, and that he'll scare you into accepting his +cash. Wait, keep your seat; let me study over it; there must be some +way. The Lord Almighty wouldn't let a grasping old skunk like that rob a +helpless girl like you. Welborne didn't make you the give-or-take offer +in writing--I'm sure he didn't; he's too slick for that?" + +"No, he drove by home yesterday and called me out to the gate. He says +land has gone down on account of the new railroad passing on the other +side of the mountain, and that we both made a big mistake in paying as +much as we did." + +"The old liar!" Henley cried. "The road's coming to Chester, and he +knows it. He thinks Chester will grow, and your farm will be cut up into +town building sites. He's determined to get your property by hook or +crook. Some'n must be done, and that right off. Let me study a minute." + +Henley went to the side-door and looked out. Dixie saw him step down +into the junk-filled yard, and move aimlessly about from one spot to +another, his hands locked behind him. His head was bowed, and his fine, +strong face darkened by a steady frown. Jim Cahews came looking for him +to ask some question, but he waved him away. Dixie heard him cry out +impatiently: "Don't bother me!--let me alone! For the Lord's sake, go +back, go back!" + +Cahews returned to his customer, and Dixie remained seated, her eyes +fixed on Henley. He seemed to have forgotten that she was near; he +seemed scarcely to know where he was himself, for once he drew himself +to a seat on a big dry-goods box and sat swinging his legs to and fro, +his gaze on the cloud-flecked sky. Then the pendulum-like movement, the +pounding of his heels would cease; with a hand clutching the box on +either side of him he would lean forward, lock his feet together beneath +him, and bite his lip. Suddenly he got down and came back to her, a +certain light of decision in his eyes. + +"I've tackled a heap of jobs," he said, as he sat down beside her, "and +I've beat old Welborne more than once, but I generally steer clear of +him. I've been trying to think up some way to thwart him, but it is +powerful hard to devise any means to get at him. Now, if we just could +manage to get him to make his give-or-take offer before a witness we'd +have him good and tight, but he'd be too slick to do it. If he did make +it, you see, you could plank down the money I'll lend you and settle the +thing on the spot. Now listen, Dixie, there is only one possible way +open, and that is to trick the old scamp into writing down his offer and +signing it. I know something I'd like to try on if you'd forgive me for +the--the false light I'd have to put you in for a few minutes." + +"False light? Why, what do you mean, Alfred?" + +"Why, it's like this, amongst business men"--Henley flushed to the +eyes--"now and then two scamps (like me 'n him, for instance) kind o' +join forces against a weaker person and work together in harness like. +Now, if you just wouldn't think too hard of me, I could sort o' let on +to old Welborne, you see, that you was up to your eyes in debt to me, +and that--that the thing had been running on till I was--well, was plumb +tired out, and ready to come down on you." + +"Oh, I see." A faint smile broke over the girl's shrewd face. "Why, I +wouldn't care what you did or said, Alfred," she cried. "He's trying to +rob me, and I'd have a right to protect myself." + +"Well, then, enough said." Henley fell into an attitude of relief. "You +set here, and I'll run over and chat with him. I may fetch him here, and +if I openly abuse you and dun you to your teeth, you must take it all in +good spirit. You can hang your head and pretend to be sort o' shamed, if +you like; it will help to carry the thing out. Any girl that could sell +that old lion's cage for as much as you did--and in the way you did +it--ought to know how to pull the wool over Welborne's eyes. You see, +when the old devil is made to believe that I'm down on you and +determined to have a settlement, he'll think you are in more desperate +straits than ever. Wait!" + +Henley went to the big iron safe in a corner of the room and counted out +a roll of currency. He folded it tightly and gave it to her. "Stick that +down in your pocket," he said, "and have it ready, and, remember, you +are to let on all the way through that you are willing to sell out, but +before you do so you want his proposition put down in black and white. +He may think it is just some cranky woman's notion, and do it--he may, +and he may not; our chances hang on that one thing. You are a dead +goner if you don't get that paper." + +"I understand fully," Dixie said, her lips drawn firmly. "The only thing +I don't like is borrowing your money." + +"Don't be silly," Henley snorted. "You are good for it, and I'd rather +lend money to you than anybody else on earth. Don't let that bother +you." + +"Well, I won't, then," the girl said. "I know you want to help me, and +I'm very thankful for such a friend." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Crossing the street diagonally, Henley came to a little two-story frame +building near the post-office. Pausing before the door, he looked in and +saw old Welborne seated at his desk near an open window. The +money-lender was thin, had parchment-like skin, massive eyebrows, and +long, gray hair, which never seemed to have been trimmed, and was massed +on the greasy collar of his faded black alpaca coat. He was past seventy +years of age, and the hand which held his pen shook visibly. Henley went +in, and as he did so old Welborne laid down his pen and turned round in +his revolving-chair. He nodded and grunted, and motioned to a +three-legged stool near the desk. + +Henley sat down on it, and as he did so he drew out a couple of cigars, +and, holding them in the shape of a letter V, he extended them toward +the old man. "I'm advertising a new brand," he said, cordially. "Take +one, and whenever you want a good smoke drop in. You'll find 'em as free +from cabbage-leaves as any in this town. One thing certain, you don't +have to bore a hole through 'em to start circulation." + +"Drumming up trade, eh?" The money-lender smiled as he took the cigar, +and, pinching off the tip with his long thumb-nail, he thrust it between +his gashed and stained teeth. "Well, I don't blame any man for trying to +turn a penny during hard times like these. But, Lord, Alf, you'd make a +living if you was on a bare rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I +take off my hat to any man that could handle a busted circus like you +did. I wouldn't have touched that pile of junk at your figure if it had +been given to me, and yet--well, every man to his line." + +Henley scratched a match on the sole of his shoe and lighted his cigar. +"I've been just a little afraid that your nephew--that Hank Bradley may +have told you about the little spat me and him had at the store the +other day--" + +"I heard it," Welborne broke in, with an indifferent smile. "I was +standing in the door; he was full; he ought to have been kicked out; you +done right; he's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, but don't talk to me +about him. I pay him what is coming to him, board him for next to +nothing, and there my responsibility ends. I'm not fighting his +battles--huh, I guess not! How's trade over your way?" + +"N. G." Henley puffed, squinting his right eye to avoid the smoke which +curled up from the end of his cigar, as he looked absently at the dingy +window-panes and the cobwebs hanging from the cracked and bulging +plastering overhead. "We can sell plenty on tick, but getting paid is +the devil. Jim Cahews is a good man, but he can't say no--to a +petticoat, anyway. While I was away he went it rather reckless. Why, he +let one little woman that has heretofore been the brag of the county get +in clean up to her neck." + +Old Welborne ceased smoking; his dim, blue eyes twinkled. "I'll bet a +dollar to a ginger-cake I know who you mean," he said, eagerly. + +"Well, maybe you do and maybe you don't," Henley said. "But I've had +enough of her foolishness and promising and never coming to time. I'm +not in business for my health. She's a neighbor of mine, and I always +admired her plucky fight, but charity begins at home. I'm not running +an orphan asylum, nor an old woman's home. Jim misunderstood me, anyway. +I told 'im her account was all right, and for him not to bear down too +hard on her, and I went to Texas and forgot all about it. But, holy +smoke! when I got home and looked at the books I was fairly staggered at +the figures. She's over there at the store now, and I had to talk to her +straight, and she won't get a bit deeper in my debt. I've got to call a +halt." + +"I think I might set your mind at rest on what she owes you," Welborne +said, with an unctuous smile. "There is no use beating about the bush, +Henley, you know she's in debt to me, and you've come over to see if I +can help you out. Well, I can. I am in the shape to do it. Me 'n you +have clashed several times in our deals and had hard feelings, but there +is no use keeping up strife. We can work together now. Me and her own +that farm in partnership, and I've had enough of it. I've made a fair +give-or-take offer, and nothing is to prevent her from closing out and +paying you what she owes you. I've got eight hundred dollars in cash +ready to hand her at any minute." + +"You don't say!" Henley's look of gratified surprise was perfect. "Well, +she's in a better fix than I thought. She ain't much of a hand to tell +her business, and I thought she had--well, about run through her pile." + +"She can get the money if she will have common-sense," said Welborne; +"but women never know how to 'tend to business, and she may act stubborn +to the end and force me to put up the land for sale. It wouldn't fetch +much, and you and me'd both lose by it. The best thing to do is to make +her have sense, and if you will--if you will talk straight to her about +your debt, maybe she'll sell out and be done with it." + +"Well, I can talk straight enough, if you'll leave it to me," Henley +said, with what looked like a frown of chronic resentment. "It makes me +mad to think she'll keep me out of my money while you are offering her +enough to square off." + +"Well, go over to the store and see what you can do to bring her to her +senses," the money-lender proposed, with a smirk which twisted his +sallow visage into a grimace. "If you can bring her to reason, we'll +both get--get what's due us." + +"All right," Henley said, in a tone of gratitude. "You come on over in a +minute. I'll tell her I've heard of your offer, and that I won't stand +anymore foolishness." + +Henley sauntered back to the store. His face was set and colorless as he +approached Dixie. She glanced up, and he was shocked by the look of +despair in her great, sorrowful eyes. + +"He's coming over," Henley said. "Everything is cocked and primed. He +thinks you may take his money--he thinks I'm going to _make_ you do it. +You needn't talk much, but stick to it that you want his offer writ down +in black and white and will have it before you'll move a peg. I'll write +it and have it ready for him to sign. If he does, we are solid; if not, +we are lost. I don't know that I ever tackled anything quite as ticklish +as this, for he is as wary and sly as a fox. We mustn't give 'im time to +think, if we can help it. Sh! there he is now. Don't mind anything I +say, no matter how harsh it sounds--remember, I'm working for your good, +and using fire to stop fire." + +She nodded and smiled knowingly, but said nothing, for the money-lender +was approaching. When Welborne was quite near, Henley suddenly said +aloud: "You are a woman, but I ain't going to stand any more +foolishness. You've been saying all this time that you can't get the +money, and yet here is a cash offer of eight hundred dollars staring you +smack-dab in the face." + +"I never had the offer until this morning," Dixie said, with what he +recognized as astonishing diplomacy. Her face was out of sight under the +hood of her sunbonnet, her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"She's willing to do what's right," Henley said to Welborne. "The only +thing she holds out for is to have the proposition down in writing. Of +course, there is no need of it, but women know nothing about business, +and will have every detail carried out, and so I scratched it down here. +It is a plain give-or-take offer of eight hundred dollars either way, +and she ain't in no fix to refuse." + +Henley dipped a pen in the ink and held the paper toward the old man. +There was an incipient wave of innate distrust in Welborne's manner as +he glanced from the bowed form of the girl to that of the waiting +storekeeper. + +"Let her have her way about it," Henley advised. "Women will have +everything complete or you can't do a blessed thing with 'em. It don't +mean anything to you; you've made her a fair give-or-take offer." + +"Yes, of course I have," Welborne said, conquering his qualms, and with +a quivering hand he signed the paper. He had no sooner done it than +Henley laid it face downward on a blotting-pad and, with a steady hand, +stroked its back. The eyes he fixed on Dixie, who was covertly watching +him, fairly danced as he raised the paper and folded it carefully. + +"Now, you two have got the proposition down in fair legal shape, and +nothing stands between you and a deal. Miss Dixie, you are just a woman, +and may not know the ways of the business world, so I want to tell you +on my honor that this is what all fair-minded men call an absolutely +straight proposition, and when you've acted on it, it would be wrong for +you to ever say anybody coerced you or took advantage of you. You +understand that you've got a right either to pay eight hundred and own +the farm, or take eight hundred and sell your half. Is that plain to +you?" + +"Yes, I understand it perfectly," Dixie answered, glancing first at him +and then at the expectant and suave money-lender. + +"And you understand it, too, don't you, Mr. Welborne?" + +"Yes, I understand it," the eager old man replied, craftily. "And you +know, Alf Henley, that I wouldn't have made as liberal an offer to +anybody but this girl. She's in a tight fix and needs the money, and the +farm has gone down to less 'n half of what it was worth when me and her +bought it." + +"Well, then, Miss Dixie," Henley said, significantly, and he held the +paper tightly in his strong hand, "you'll have to decide which thing you +intend to do." + +"I've already decided," the girl said, looking at Welborne with a placid +stare, "and I'm going to be satisfied. I know the farm isn't any good +now, and will perhaps be lower when the railroad is built the other side +of the mountain, but it is the only home we have, and I've decided to +buy it." + +"_Buy_ it?" Welborne gasped, and stared as if unable to grasp her +meaning. "You don't mean that you--" + +"Well, well!" Henley cried, "this _is_ a surprise. Here I've been rowing +you up Salt River for your puny little debt to me, and you now say you +are able to own a big chunk of real estate unencumbered. Why, you must +have struck oil somewhere. My, my, my!" + +"I don't tell my business to everybody." Dixie, now standing, had thrust +her hand into the pocket of her skirt and was drawing out the bills. +"Here's the money, Mr. Welborne." + +A snort that could have been heard to the front door issued from +Welborne's fluttering nostrils. He pushed the money from him, writhed +and tottered, and as he glared furiously at Henley he screamed: + +"It's a trick put up between you. I see it, but I won't be buncoed in no +such way. Do you hear me?--no such way!" + +He was turning off when Henley, now a different man, stepped before him. +"You are going to act fair for once, you old thief," he said, a gray +look of determination about his mouth and in his fixed eyes. "You've +been swindling this orphan girl all these years, and you are going to +abide by your own signed contract. You are going to do it, or, by all +that's holy, I'll head a gang of mountain-men that will drag you out of +your bed and lay a hundred lashes on your bare back." + +"I'll see you in hell first!" Welborne shrieked, and, darting past +Henley, he hurried from the store as fast as his tottering gait would +take him. + +"We lost, after all!" Dixie cried, and, sinking back in her chair, the +money clutched in her hand, she burst into tears. + +"Not yet, not _plumb_ yet, little girl!" Henley was unconscious of the +vast tenderness of his tone. "Don't cry; be the brave little trick +you've always been." + +"I'm not thinking of myself, really I'm not," she sobbed. "But my mother +and aunt have heard about it, and they are awfully upset. They love the +place, and the thought of leaving and being destitute is running them +crazy." + +"Look here. Let me have the money," Henley said, his eyes flashing +dangerously. "You go home and be easy. Leave him to me. He sha'n't rob +you like that; I'll drag his bones from his dirty hide and rattle 'em +through the streets before I'll let 'im. This is a Christian community, +and God rules." + +"You mustn't bother any more," Dixie said, and as she put the money into +his hands she clung to them tenderly and appealingly. "Blood has been +spilt over matters like this, Alfred, and the whole thing ain't worth +it. His nephew--I intended to warn you before--Hank Bradley is your +enemy, and now Welborne is, and between them"--she broke off with a +convulsive sob, but still clung pleadingly to his hands. + +"I don't care if his whole layout is up in arms agin me; he sha'n't rob +you. You are the sweetest, dearest, most suffering little girl the sun +ever shone on, and I'll fight for you as long as there is a speck of +life in me. You go home. I'll come to you the very minute it is +settled." + +"And you won't--oh, Alfred, please don't--please don't--for my sake, +don't have trouble with him. You're hot-tempered, and I've let you get +wrought up. Don't you see that it don't make any odds to me?" + +"All right, then," he said, smiling, and yet she saw that his smile was +only on the surface. "I promise we won't fight about it. I'll try to +bring him to his senses in some other way. Now, go home. I'll come out +as soon as I possibly can." + +It was after nightfall before he saw her again. As he was nearing her +cottage in the vague starlight he saw a figure of some one in the +fence-corner of her pasture which touched the road near his own land. He +surmised that it was she, and that she was there waiting for him, though +her head was bowed to the top rail of the fence and he couldn't see her +face. There was a strip of grass on the roadside, and he walked upon it +that it might deaden his tread till he was close upon her. As it was, he +reached her side without attracting her attention. Then something +clutched all his senses and held him like a dead thing in his tracks, +for he heard her praying in a sweet, suffering voice that lifted him +with it to the very throne of thrones. + +"Oh, God, my Maker, my Saviour, my Redeemer," he heard her saying, "give +me the strength to bear it and let no harm come to my dear, dear friend. +I can bear the loss of my home, but not to have harm come to him. Oh, +Lord, help--" She raised her head, and their eyes met and clung +together. He had a folded paper in his hand, and he extended it to her. +His voice rose and broke in a wave of huskiness: "Here is the deed, +Dixie, little girl," he said. "The farm is yours. The transaction is +recorded at the court-house. Nothing can take it from you now." + +"Mine, Alfred, mine, did you say?" + +"Yes, I had trouble; he died hard; he saw it was all up with him after +he'd signed that agreement, but it was like pulling eye-teeth to get the +deed made out. He'd write a line, and then throw down the pen and cry +and whine like a baby. I'm ashamed to say it, but once I got mad and +caught him by that slim neck of his and pushed him down under his desk +and held him there. My thumb was in his throat. I clutched too tight. I +thought I'd killed him. The Lord must have restrained me. He was black +in the face and as limber as a rag. It was then that he give in. He'd +have held out to the end, but I was holding something over him. Women +all over the county are lending him money at a low rate, and I showed +him that if this trick of his agin you was published they'd lose faith +in him and make him pay up. He saw his danger and give in. But, my! how +it rankles. It's the first time he was ever whipped to a dead finish." + +With the deed in her hand Dixie stood staring at him, her beautiful +mouth twitching with emotion, her great eyes aglow with joy. She started +to speak, but a sob rose within her and she lowered her head to the +rail. The beams of the rising moon fell on her exquisite neck; her +wonderful tresses lay massed on her shoulders. + +"Don't--don't cry, Dixie," he said. "I can't bear it." He laid his hand +on her head and let it rest there gently. + +Presently she looked up, caught his hand in both of hers and pressed her +lips to it. "You are the sweetest, best, noblest man in the world, +Alfred. I can't thank you. I'll--I'll choke. I'm so--so happy. +Good-night." + +He stood at the fence and watched her till she had disappeared in the +cottage, and then, like a man in a delightful, bewildering dream, he +turned his face toward the lights in his own house. + +Old Wrinkle was waiting for him at the gate, and he held it open for +him. "Your supper--sech as it is--is on the table waitin' for you," he +said, picking his teeth with a splinter from the fence. "Ma got it ready +for you; I've had mine; I made me some mush out of the yaller corn-meal +Pomp fetched from the mill. Mush-an'-milk, with a dab o' cream an' a +pinch o' salt, is all right to sleep on. We've had a day of it; Hettie +has gone all to flinders, and went to bed at sundown with a crackin' +headache, an' eyes swelled as big as squashes. Her uncle Ben is in +trouble. He sent her a letter fifty pages in duration by one of his +niggers. As well as I can make out betwixt Hettie's spasms her uncle +Ben's fine Baltimore lady has turned him down. Thar seems to be a Yankee +feller in the way. She advanced a hundred reasons fer deciding not to +retire to lonely mountain-life. She's riled up, for one thing, on the +nigger question--says she understands a lady has to go armed to the +teeth just to walk from the well to the back porch, an' that she never +had learned to shoot, nohow. The Yankee feller has more scads than Ben, +an' has bought an estate in New York City which he lays at her feet as +an inducement. Het an' Ben must be slices off the same block, for his +letter was soaked in salt water, an' she had to run a hot flatiron over +hern before it would do to send. He writ her that she was the only +faithful woman on earth--he was hintin' at Dick's burial arrangements, I +reckon--an' that if she was thar he'd put his head in her lap an' have a +good cry. They would have had to swap laps if they had been together +to-day, for Het needed a foot-tub to take care of her overflow. Well, +I'm keepin' you from your royal banquet. You'll find it on the +dinner-table, with the cloth all drawed up over it like a bundle ready +for the wash. Ma tied it up that way to keep the cat out of it. I don't +think the cat 'u'd care for any of it, but I reckon Jane 'lowed the +thing mought paw it over in the hope o' strikin' some'n worth while." + +Conscious of little that the old man was saying, Henley passed on into +the dimly lighted farm-house, experiencing a vague sense of relief that +he was not just then to face his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +One evening shortly after this Henley was returning from the store about +an hour later than was his custom. He was nearing Dixie Hart's cottage, +when, in the clear moonlight, he saw the girl emerge from the little +apple-orchard behind her barn and come rapidly toward him. Her glance +was on the ground, and she had evidently not seen him. As she drew near +where he stood waiting, he noted that her head was bare, and that she +had a medicine-bottle in her hand. He noted, too, from her gait and +hurried manner, that she was greatly disturbed. She was about to pass +him when he called out, cheerily, "Where away, in such a hurry?" + +"Oh!" She looked up and stopped. "You scared me, Alfred. I couldn't +imagine who it was. I'm going over to Sam Pitman's. Joe is +sick--powerful sick. If I am any judge, it is pneumonia, and a bad case +at that." + +"Pneumonia!" he echoed, aghast. "I didn't know anything was wrong with +him." + +"It's been coming on some time," she said. "He caught an awful cold. You +know the day it rained so hard and the creek got out of banks? I was +trying to cross the ford below Pitman's in my wagon. I thought I could +make it all right, but the current washed the wagon in a hole, and old +Bob couldn't touch bottom. The wagon was floating like a boat, and he +finally got stuck in the mud with just his head and neck out and +couldn't budge. Joe was digging sprouts in the field on the right-hand +side, and ran down to me. I yelled at him not to come in, but he struck +out toward me with his clothes on, swimming like a dog. He got to me and +helped me out in the water on a high place, and made me stand there +while he worked and tugged at the trace-chains for twenty minutes till +he finally unhitched Bob and pulled him out of the mire. Then he helped +me out and dragged the wagon ashore." + +"Plucky little chap!" cried Henley. + +"But he's getting paid for it," Dixie said, bitterly. "He got overheated +in the cold mountain-water, and he is in a bad fix, Alfred. I know when +a sick person is dangerous, and he is." + +She was moving on toward Pitman's now, and Henley was keeping step by +her side. "You mustn't take it so hard," he said, in an effort to calm +her. "It will come out all right." + +"It is a ticklish thing, pneumonia is," she said; "and he hasn't got a +doctor. Sam Pitman says it isn't anything but a cold, and he won't send +for one. I was over there twice to-day, but he don't even want me to +nurse him. I've got my things all done up at home and the folks in bed, +and I'm going to stay with him all night if I have to have a +knock-down-and-drag-out row to do it. I told Sam Pitman that I'd pay for +the doctor out of my own pocket, but that just made him madder. He says +I'm trying to come under his roof and run his affairs, and that I +sha'n't do it. He may not let me in now. I don't know, but he is one of +the devil's imps, if there ever was one. Mrs. Pitman is a little better, +but he's got her under his thumb. She won't raise her voice when he is +around." + +"We must have a doctor, that's certain," declared Henley. "You walk on +and I'll run to town and bring Doctor Stone. He knows his business, and +he'll take charge of the case if I back him. If Pitman tries to hinder +us I'll jail him as sure as he's a foot high." + +"Oh, Alfred, I wish you would get the doctor. I'm so glad I met you. I +was worried to death. I know how to nurse in ordinary cases, but +pneumonia is so treacherous. Hurry, please; I'll never forget you for +this." + +Twenty minutes later Henley entered the gate of Sam Pitman's diminutive +farm-house. Three watch-dogs came from beneath the little front porch, +but, recognizing the visitor, they stood wagging their tails cordially +and uttering low whines of welcome. There was a broken harrow, with +rusty iron teeth, leaning against the house near the log steps; a +top-heavy ash-hopper and a lye-stained trough stood under the spreading +branches of a beechnut-tree beside a rotting cider-press and a huge pot +for heating water during hog-killing or for boiling lye and grease for +the making of soap. + +As Henley approached the steps Pitman and his wife, hearing the click of +the gate-latch, came out on the porch, which was shaded by overhanging +vines, and stood staring blankly at him. Henley was a gallant man, for +his station in life, and he drew off his broad-brimmed hat and remained +uncovered while he spoke. + +"I've run over to inquire how little Joe is," he said, conscious of the +grim opposition to his visit in the very air that hung around the +farmer. "I happened to meet Miss Dixie Hart just now on her way here, +and she was considerably upset." + +"Nothin' wrong with the boy," Pitman muttered, surlily. "That gal, like +most of her meddlin' sort, is havin' a regular conniption-fit over +nothin'. I reckon she is afeard thar'll be one less on the marryin' list +a few years from now. He was a pesky fool, anyway, plungin' in cold +water to attend to her business. He's had croupy coughs before this, an' +wheezin'-spells, an' been hot like all childern will when they eat too +much, but we never went stark crazy over it." + +"Miss Dixie is a purty good judge, Sam," Henley answered, incisively. +"She'd be hard to fool if danger was lurkin' around. When she described +Joe's condition to me just now I saw she had plenty cause to worry, and +so I went straight back to town and left word for Doctor Stone to hurry +here as soon as he got home. They was looking for him every minute." + +"You say you did!" Pitman came to the edge of the porch, and, with his +arm around one of the posts which upheld the roof, he leaned over till +his face was close to Henley's. "Huh! you are some pumpkins, ain't you? +You can keep me from runnin' an account at your dirty shebang, Alf +Henley, but you can't walk dry-shod over me in my own house. A man's +domicyle is his castle in law, and I'm goin' to manage mine an' defend +it, ef I have to." + +"Don't get excited, Sam; keep your shirt on," Henley said, calmly. There +was an oblong spot of light thrown on the grass between him and the +gate. It was from the attic window above the porch, and across it now +and then moved a shadow. He knew that the little room under the roof was +occupied by the sick child, and that the shadow was Dixie's. The shadow +was now still and bowed at the window in an attitude of attention to +what was going on below. + +"I ain't excited any to hurt," Pitman went on, his voice rising higher. +"You say you've ordered Stone to come, an' I say if he does he won't put +his foot across my threshold." + +"You've got it in for me, Sam, I see," Henley said, still unruffled, +"but this is no time for you and me to settle old scores. The boy is no +blood kin to either of us." + +"The law gives me full an' complete charge of 'im till he's of age," +Pitman snarled, "an' I hain't invited you to put in, an' until I do +you'll be a sight safer on t'other side of that fence. I mean the one +right thar behind you." + +The window-sash was raised above, and Dixie looked out. + +"He's just dropped to sleep," she announced in a guarded tone. "Please, +Alfred, don't let them talk so loud, and send the doctor up the minute +he comes." + +"Very well," Henley answered, softly and reassuringly. Then going close +to the farmer he said in a low voice, "I want to talk to you a minute; +let's walk round the house." + +Pitman hesitated, staring doggedly at the speaker, and then shifted his +sullen gaze to the face of his wife. + +"Go on with 'im," she said, and turned stiffly into the lark doorway +behind her. + +Silently Henley led Pitman round the house to the little barn-yard in +the rear. There was a red-painted road-wagon near the wagon-shed and +Henley sat down easily on the strong pole and began to search through +his pockets for a cigar and matches. He grunted in disappointment when +he found his pockets empty, and then deliberately applied himself to the +matter in hand. + +"Looky here, Sam Pitman," he began, "for a long-headed, sensible +mountain-man you are plunging into more serious trouble than any chap of +your size ever got into. I'm going to let you on to a thing that a +fellow usually keeps quiet--I'm going to do it because I feel that it is +my Christian duty not to be a party to the great disaster you are on the +brink of." + +"I don't know what you mean, an' I don't care a damn," growled Pitman. +"I know what my rights are, an' that's all I'm talkin' about." + +"I started to tell you, when you busted in," said Henley, swinging his +feet beneath him, "that I'm a member of the grand jury, and you may or +may not know that when a fellow is impaneled in that body he's got a +sworn job on his hands that is powerful exacting. He is on his oath to +report to the authorities any criminal irregularity that comes under his +notice. Now! I have had the word and the judgment of a respectable and +truthful lady that the boy bound to you by law is dangerously and +critically sick, and, calling here in my lawful capacity to look into +the matter, I hear you say with my own ears that no doctor shall put +foot across your threshold. Now, look at it straight, Sam. Even if Joe +was to get well a big, serious case may come up against you--I don't +promise that you'll come off free even as it is, but if the child was to +_die_--I say if he was to happen to pass away, and I've seen little ones +die when half a dozen skilled doctors was standing by--Sam Pitman, in +that case, no lawyer on earth could keep you out of limbo. I tell you, +you don't know it, but right this minute you are in the tightest hole +you ever slid into. A jury in your case wouldn't leave their seats. Men +pity helpless children in this life more'n they do big hulking men of +your stripe, and they'd sock it to you to the full extent of the law. +Even if it wasn't tried at court, take it as a hint from me, the men of +these mountains would get together in a body and lynch you. Reports have +already been going round to your eternal discredit about this child, and +one more act of yours will simply settle your hash. This is me talking, +Sam." + +"You--you dare to come here--" But Pitman's rage was tinctured with +actual fear of the man before him, and his intended threat was not +uttered. He was white and quivering, but he was helpless. A sound broke +the stillness that now fell between the two men. It was the steady +trotting of a horse on the road. + +"There's Doc now," Henley announced, and his eyes met Pitman's, which +were kindling again. + +"Well, I've said he sha'n't--an', by God--" Pitman started toward the +house, but Henley sprang up and faced him. Laying his hand heavily on +the farmer's shoulder he cried almost with a hiss of fury: "Let that +doctor alone, you dirty whelp! He's going to crawl up that ladder to +that hole under the roof to see that boy. You and me are nigh the same +size, and we can settle right here. You tried me once before, maybe you +want another dose. Stir a peg to prevent this thing and I'll drive your +head into your shoulders same as I would a wedge in a split log." + +Pitman glared helplessly, and then he showed defeat. With his eyes on +the ground, and writhing from beneath Henley's hand, he said: + +"The boy hain't bad off, nohow!" + +"Well, we'll see what Doc Stone has to say about it," Henley retorted. +"He's authority, an' you hain't." + +Pitman had no reply ready. They heard the gate open and close, and then +on the still air came the gentle voice of Dixie speaking from the attic +window. "Come right in, Doctor, and up the ladder. Be careful and don't +stumble. I'll hold the candle for you." + +Pitman sullenly turned away. Henley watched him as he went into the +stall of a stable and struck a match to light his pipe. Leaving him, +Henley went back to the farm-house and sat down on the steps of the +porch. The light from the attic window lay on the lush green grass +before him, and he kept his eyes upon it. There was a tread on the floor +behind him as soft as that of a cat. It was Mrs. Pitman in her bare +feet. She held her tattered shoes in her hand. She touched him on the +shoulder. + +"I hope you an' Sam didn't--come to licks," she whispered. + +"No, he's all right," was the gentle reply. "I had to talk sharp, Mrs. +Pitman, an' I'm sorry it was here at his own house." + +"Well, I'm glad the doctor come," she conceded, slowly. "I was afeard to +put in while Sam was talkin'. He gits madder at me 'n he does to all the +rest combined. I'm sort o' feard the boy is bad off, myself." + +"Yes, he's bad off," Henley nodded, grimly. "If it was a light case Doc +Stone would have been down before this. You may depend on it, it's +serious." + +Muttering inarticulately, the woman crept away. Henley remained bent +forward, his eyes on the shifting shadows before him. He looked at his +watch; two hours had passed. The closing of a rear door and the +resounding tread of a pair of hobnailed boots on the lower floor told +him that Pitman had entered the house and was going to bed. He saw +Dixie's shadow in its frame on the grass, and went out to the fence and +looked up. She was there, and she leaned over the little sill and +nodded. "I only wanted to know if you was still there," she said, in a +low tone. "Joe--" But the doctor evidently had called her, for she +looked back into the room and vanished. Henley saw two shadows bending +forward, and he strode back and forth along the fence, a fierce suspense +clutching his heart. Presently the doctor, a middle-aged, full-bearded +man, with a gentle manner, crept down the ladder and walked softly +across the porch. Henley joined him at his buggy in the road. + +"How is he, Doc?" he inquired, his fears deepened by the physician's +silence, as he stood between the wheels of the buggy and fumbled with +the reins wrapped around the whip-holder. + +"Awful, awful!" Stone said, grimly. "Not one chance in five hundred. +Malignant pneumonia. Neglected case. I've left medicine and +instructions. I can't stay--would if I could--case of child-labor down +the road--nobody else to attend to it. I'll be back before morning. +That will be the crisis. He's in splendid hands; a trained nurse +couldn't be better." + +"Anything I can do, Doc?" Henley swallowed a lump of emotion that had +risen in his throat. + +"Not a thing; but you might stay right here. Miss Dixie might--if +anything happened--she might need you. She's a plucky little woman, and +it might be best for her to have some sort of company. She is wrought +up. She loves the boy as a mother would her own child, and yet she is +calm and steady." + +Henley leaned on the fence and watched the vehicle disappear in the +misty moonlight which seemed to fall like a mantle from the mountain. He +was resting his head on the fence when he felt a light touch on his arm. +It was Dixie. + +"He is sleeping," she whispered. "The doctor said it would be good for +him. Oh, Alfred, it's pitiful, pitiful! I'm glad to see that you feel +like you do. He loves you; he has spoken of you scores of times, and, +when I told him just now that you was down here watching, he was glad. I +wonder why God tears a human soul to pieces like this. If Joe is taken +to-night I don't think I could ever get over it. Oh, Alfred, my heart +yearns over him. At this minute I could ask for nothing better than to +be allowed to work for that child all the rest of my life." Tears stood +in her wonderful eyes, and her breast, under its thin covering, rose and +fell tumultuously. + +"You are a sweet, good girl, Dixie." Henley's voice sounded new to +himself. "You are the noblest woman that ever drew the breath of life. +As the Lord is my Redeemer, I'd give all I possess on earth to help you +to-night." + +Their eyes met in a strange gaze of wonderment. "I believe it," she +said, simply, while a sad smile touched her pulsing lips. "Yes, I +believe it. But I must go back." + +He sat under the beechnut-tree watching the attic window till the +eastern sky above the mountains began to take on a grayish cast. Now and +then through the long vigil Dixie would come to the window and look down +on him, only to nod knowingly and retire, as if content with his mute +companionship. + +It was almost dawn when the doctor came. + +"I was delayed," he explained as he sprang out of his buggy; "bad case +of labor--had to use instruments, but successful." He hurried to the +gate without hitching his horse. "How is he?" + +"I can't say, Doc--you'd better see for yourself." + +The yellow light was filling all the sky with resplendent glory when +Dixie, her face wan and wearied, came down the ladder. Henley's heart +sank at the first sight of her, but it bounded when she had seen him, +for the rarest of smiles broke about her mouth and eyes. + +"He's going to get well, Alfred!" she cried, and she extended her hand +with the warm confidence of a child toward a trusted friend. He let it +rest in his as he walked with her to the gate, wondering over the good +news, wondering over the delight with which her touch was firing his +being. + +"Yes, the worst is over," she went on. "The doctor says with good +nursing and watching he'll pull through. He is going to stay with him +while I run home and do up the things, then I'll come back and relieve +him. He is going to give Pitman a tongue-lashing, and says he'll appear +against him in court if he doesn't act different. As soon as Joe can be +moved we are going to bring him to my house. Oh, Alfred, won't that be +glorious? There I can give him everything he needs, and a clean, cool, +airy room to get well in. Weak as he was, he cried with actual joy when +he heard the doctor say he could come. Alfred, do you know we all ought +to be ashamed of ourselves for complaining in this life, and wanting +more and more of the trashy baubles. Right now I'm so happy I feel like +flying. Look at that sunrise! We couldn't have seen it like that if we'd +been in our beds with our eyes shut; we couldn't feel this way if we +hadn't dragged through all that pain and anxiety last night. I've got to +write a letter and mail it before I come back. Jasper Long was to come +over Sunday, you know, but I can't give the time to him. I'll ask him to +come Sunday after next." + +"It will disappoint him mightily," Henley said, a sudden feeling of +aversion to the subject on him. "It will break the fellow all up. He's +been counting the days and hours." + +"I can't help it." Dixie shrugged her shoulders indifferently, her head +down. They were now in the little wood that lay between Pitman's farm +and her cottage. To the leaves and branches of the chestnut and +sassafras bushes that bordered the little-used road the night mists and +silvery cobwebs clung, magnified by their coating of dew and the yellow +light. + +"I don't know as I ever saw a fellow quite so much concerned and +anxious," Henley's strangely tentative voice produced. "I saw him over +there the other day, and he had lots to say. He means to--to get you if +he possibly can. He's planning a fine house, and said he was going to +tell you about it when he come over. He says women know better about +such things than men, and is going to offer you full sway. To do him +credit, there ain't nothing little about Long. He'll do right, I reckon, +by any woman he pledges his word to. I'd hate to--to think I'd fetched +you together if--if he wasn't all right--that is, honest and upright." + +"I know that," Dixie said. "But let's not talk about him, or his fine +house, or his money, or his good intentions. He don't seem, somehow, to +fit one bit into my feelings this morning. He's a cold-blooded business +proposition, and last night's terror and this morning's joy has filled +me to here"--she held her tapering hand under her plump chin and +laughed--"well, with some'n different from him. The truth is, I don't +care if I never see him again. That's a fact, Alfred. I feel like I'm on +the up-hill road in single harness, anyway, since I am out of debt to +Welborne, and owe you, instead. When are you going to send that note +over for me to sign?" + +"Never, if I can help it," he said. "I've let men owe me without note or +security, why should I make you sign up for a trifle like that?" + +"Well, to tell the truth, I like it as it is," she answered, with a fine +smile and a rippling laugh that woke the echoes in the quiet spot. "It +is such a sweet proof of your friendship. Ain't it funny how me 'n you +have been mixed up in things? You know me as well as I know myself, +Alfred. You've helped me, and I hope I have you--some. I don't know; I +hope I have." + +"More than anybody else in the world," he said, fervently. + +They had come to where their ways separated, and, with his hat in his +hand, and his heart full of an inexplicable, transcendental something, +he stood under the trees and watched her move away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +On the day following Long's second visit to Dixie, Henley's affairs took +him to Carlton. He was at the cotton-compress making arrangements to +have a quantity of cotton prepared for shipment, when he met one of +Long's clerks. + +"Have you seen Mr. Long?" the young man asked. + +"No, I've just got in," Henley answered. He could not have explained the +fact, not being given to self-analysis, but he had vaguely determined +that he would make every possible effort to avoid the storekeeper. In +spite of his good intentions to aid Dixie in the contemplated alliance, +he had come to regard it as altogether too incongruous an affair to be +viewed favorably. What right had any man to her? What manner of man +could possibly be worthy of her, much less the stupid blockhead who was +thrusting himself upon her as Long was? + +"Well, he's looking for you, Mr. Henley," the clerk said. "It must be +important, for he's been to the bank and post-office three times since +he heard you'd got in. It really looks like he's in trouble of some +sort." + +"Business gone crooked?" Henley inquired, as he watched the clerk's face +with almost anxious eyes. "Maybe he's been buying futures?" + +"Oh no, it ain't that!" the young man hastened to say. "He don't +speculate in anything. He's dead sure of everything he touches. No, it +ain't that, and business never was brisker, but we boys are doing it +all. He ain't much help; don't do anything but write letters and tear +'em up, and talk about marryin' to every man, woman, an' child that +happens in. He was all right and sound, and regular as a clock, till you +fetched that girl in from over your way and introduced him. Come down +right away, Mr. Henley. I'll tell 'im I saw you." + +As Henley turned away to attend to his consignment of cotton in the +office of the compress he bit his lip and frowned darkly. + +"If the dang fool thinks I'm going down there to be buttonholed for +hours to hear his tale of woe, he's certainly off his nut," he muttered, +angrily. "I've got other matters to attend to. I don't believe she is at +all struck with him, nohow. It don't look like she'd put 'im off like +she does and keep him floundering in so much hot water if she thought +much of him. He was there yesterday. I wonder what ails him now? She +didn't take 'im out to church. Little Joe is at her house, but he is +doing well enough for her to spare the time; I wonder if she was ashamed +to be seen out with him after that first splurge. I don't know; she +certainly is a plumb mystery to me." + +His business over, he skirted around Long's establishment and made his +way through an isolated alley to the wagon-yard where he had left his +horse and buggy. He was just congratulating himself on his escape from +the storekeeper, when Long suddenly broke upon his vision as he plunged +incontinently through the big gateway. With an uneasy look in his eyes, +and with a face drawn and serious, the storekeeper came striding toward +him. + +"Hello!" he panted. "I've been everywhere looking for you. You are as +slippery as an eel, and as hard to catch as a flea. I want to see you +bad, Alf. It's a particular matter. I can't let it rest." + +"I was busy, and I hain't any too much time left on my hands now." +Henley looked at the sun and then at his watch. "You'll have to talk +fast, Long. Seems to toe there's a lot o' hitches in my affairs here +lately. This 'un to see, and that 'un to talk to, and--" + +"I'm in trouble, Alf, old man." Long laid a red, perspiring hand on his +friend's shoulder and bore down heavily. "I was out yore way yesterday. +I tried to see you as I started home, but didn't know where to find you. +Alf, I can't jest somehow make out that little trick. Looks like she's +sorter shifty. In the first place, havin' to postpone the trip on +account of that sick young brat that ain't no blood kin to anybody +concerned sort o' knocked me off my props, and then, when the day _did_ +come round, very little was done--that is, in the _right_ direction." + +"You--you'll have to have patience," Henley remarked, insincerely. "If +you can't hold in and take things as they come you'd better call the +deal off. I started you; I can't lay down everything and keep--keep +telling you what to do and say. Life's too short and makes too many +claims on a fellow." + +"I want you to say a good word for me, Alf." Long wiped his anxious +mouth with his bare hand and tugged at his mustache. "She believes the +sun rises and sets in you. Looks to me like it's Alfred did this, an' +Alfred said that, an' Alfred thinks so and so and does so and so, with +every breath she draws. For a while I 'lowed it was because she was +grateful to you for helpin' her out in the marryin' line, but she don't +seem to want to marry much, nohow. She'd listen to you, though, if she +would to any man alive, and something has to be done." + +"Well, I reckon the little woman _is_ friendly to me." Henley avoided +the fiercely anxious stare of his flurried companion. "She's done me +good turns, and I've tried to respond." + +"She'd fight for you tooth and toe-nail," Long declared. "I know from +experience. Why, I just happened to say one little, tiny thing about +you, and la! she flew at me like a hen fightin' for her brood. I meant +no harm. I'd have said the same thing to your face, as I am saying it +now. Me 'n her was talking about the way men dress these days, and I +said, without meanin' any harm, that it was naturally expected that +chaps here in a town like Carlton would be more up to date than at the +foot of the mountains where you live, and remarked that you made no +great pretence in the clothes you wore, in fact, that I thought you went +just a little bit too careless for a man as young and well-off as you +are." + +"Huh, you told her that, did you?" Henley's cheeks reddened against his +will. "Well, I don't go much on style, in hot weather, anyway. I never +did want to be called a dude." + +"Of course not, but what you reckon she done? She leaned back in her +chair while I was a-talking an' laughed like she'd bust herself wide +open. She pointed down at my new tan shoes and green socks and wanted to +know if things like them was style, and asked me why I kept my gloves on +in the house. She wanted to know if I let my yaller-bordered +handkerchief stick out of my upper pocket because I was afraid folks +wouldn't see it, an' if I kept a cheaper one to blow my nose on. You may +know, Alf, that all the good-dressers here at Carlton--and I pride +myself I'm amongst 'em--have their suits pressed once a week to make 'em +set right, but she said my pant-legs looked like they was lined with +pasteboard, and that my high collar looked like a cuff upside down. Of +course, I couldn't get mad, for she was joking all through, and laughin' +pleasant-like. But, Alf, I must say she's fallin' off in her meal +record. You know she made such a fine spread the first time that I +naturally expected some'n out of the common again. I saved myself up for +it. I didn't take on a big breakfast before I left home because I told +myself, I did, that I'd appreciate her fine fixings all the more. So you +can imagine how I felt when she marched me out, with them old women, and +set me down to--well, a body oughtn't to criticise what's set before 'em +in a friend's house, but, Alf, that really was the limit. I can tell you +just exactly what we had. I'll never forget it. It was plain pork and +beans, and boiled cabbage, and sliced tomatoes, and hard cornbread. She +hadn't put a sign of an egg in it, and cornbread without eggs ain't fit +to eat. It looks like Mrs. Hart had had some dispute with Dixie about +it, too, for the old lady kept whining and telling me it wasn't her +fault, that she thought Dixie was going to set in and fix up proper, but +that Dixie wouldn't listen to reason, and why, the old lady said, she +was unable to understand, for the like had never happened before. Dixie +didn't make any excuses, but set at the head of the table and dished out +that stuff as if it was the best afloat. 'Won't you pass yore plate for +more beans?' she wanted to know, and 'Won't you try some of the butter +with the cornbread?' I reckon I made a mistake by speaking of what a +fine spread she got up the last time, for she kind o' tilted her nose in +the air, an' said she 'lowed the weather was too hot to stand over a hot +cook-stove unless it was some _extra occasion_." + +"She's got lots to do," Henley said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. +"She's undertaken to nurse that little boy back to health, and he takes +up a lot of her time." + +"I reckon he does," Long said. "Looks like me an' her'd hardly get +settled in our chairs on the porch before her mammy would call out that +Joe wanted water, or Joe wanted to set up, or what not. It was more like +hard work than any day of courtin' I ever put in. But now, Alf, I'm +coming to my chief trouble. I want her, and I want her bad. I hardly +sleep at night for thinking about her sweet, pretty face, and +industrious habits, and what a bang-up wife she'd make, but I don't get +nowhere. The minute I come down to hard-pan she wiggles away like a +scared tadpole in shallow water. I done a thing, and I don't know +whether it was a big mistake or not, and that is the main thing I want +to see you about. It was just before I left, an' we was standin' at the +gate, nigh my hoss and buggy. It had got sorter dark, and--well, I'll +tell you all about it. Alf, I've heard fellows say (and they was men +that had had experience with women, too)--I've heard 'em say that the +chap that dilly-dallies with a woman, and always acts as sweet as pie, +never makes no headway. Them fellows say you've just got to be sorter +firm with a girl that won't make up her mind--that women like to have a +man show that he ain't scared out of his senses when he's with 'em. And +so I had all that in mind, you understand, when I made my last set at +her there in the dark. I saw nobody wasn't looking, and I catched hold +of her hand, I did, and held on to it though she pulled and twisted with +all her might. I told her I was bound to have a kiss, and I pulled her +up agin me and tried to take it. I couldn't manage it, though, and, by +gad! she got loose and slid through the gate, and went in the house and +slammed the door in my face." + +"She ought to have knocked your head off, you low-lived fool!" cried +Henley. He was white in the face, and his eyes had a dangerous glare in +them. His breath came rapidly and with an audible sound. "For a minute +I'd pull you down here and stomp the life out of you!" + +"Why, Alf! Alf! have you plumb lost your senses?" Long gasped. "Why, +why, good Lord, man! Why, Alf--" + +"Don't Alf me!" Henley cried. "Get out of my sight or me 'n you'll mix +right here! I didn't introduce you to that gentle girl to have you pull +her around like a housemaid and force your foul lips to hers. I +introduced you as a _man_, not a bar-room roustabout. No wonder she +hain't took to you--no wonder she don't want to tie herself down for +life to you!" + +Henley had sprung into his buggy and taken up the whip and reins. "Stand +out of the way!" he cried. "You've imposed on my friendship, and I don't +want you ever to mention this matter to me again. I'm heartily ashamed +of my part in it, and I don't want to be reminded of it." + +Long tried to stop him, but, still white and furious, Henley lashed his +horse, and the animal bore him out of the yard and into the street. "I +ought to have given him one in the jaw!" Henley fumed. "I'll be sorry I +didn't the longer I think about it--the low-lived, dirty brute!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +All the next day as Henley performed his duties at the store the hot +sense of Long's stupid conduct brooded over him. One moment he was fired +with fury over the man's sheer vanity, the next he was bitterly accusing +himself for having been the primary cause of putting Dixie in a +disagreeable position. What would she think of him, he asked himself +over and over, for introducing such a despicable creature to her +hospitality and good graces? + +It was near sunset when he saw her pass the store, going toward the +square. He went to the porch in front, unnoticed by the busy Cahews and +the drowsy Pomp, and saw her, much to his surprise, enter the +court-house yard, a place seldom visited by ladies. She was going up the +walk to the arching stone entrance when she met the ordinary of the +county, and Henley saw her pause and speak to him. The elderly, +gray-haired gentleman stood for several minutes in a listening attitude, +his hand cupped behind his ear, for he was slightly deaf. Presently +Henley saw the two turn toward the building and enter it side by side. + +"I wonder what on earth the little trick's going there for at this time +of year," Henley mused. "It ain't tax-paying time." + +The sun was down when she came out. He saw her coming and got his hat, +timing himself so that he would meet her, as if by accident, and walk +home with her. His calculations could not have been more accurate, for +she was in front of the store when he came out. + +"Oh," he said, "it's you! I thought I saw you pass just now. I'm going +your way. I wanted to inquire how your little patient is." + +"Oh, he's tiptop!" she cried, a delicate flush of tender enthusiasm on +her face, a sparkle in her eyes. "Dr. Stone says he's mending twice as +fast at our house because the little fellow is so happy there. When I'm +off at work he's petted half to death by them two old women who haven't +had anything better than a cat to pamper up since I got out of their +clutch." + +"And old Pitman let you move him?" Henley half questioned, as he suited +his step to hers. "How did you manage it?" + +"Me and the doctor put up a job on him," she laughed. "Dr. Stone wanted +to help me gain my point, and he had the sharpest talk with old Sam you +ever heard. The law was going to take him in hand for violating his +contract in regard to the boy, and Dr. Stone would have to appear +against him. But he told Sam that if he'd turn the boy over to me till +he got well, he thought the whole thing might drop." + +"Good job!" Henley chuckled. "Sam's a hard nut to crack." + +Dixie raised her long lashes in a steady stare at him. "Guess what I've +been doing at the court-house," she said. "I've been engaged in an odd +thing for this modern day of enlightenment. Maybe you think slavery is +over--maybe you think the Yankees wiped it clean out forty years ago, +but they didn't. I've turned the wheels of Time back. I laid down the +cash and bought a real live slave to-day. I didn't have to dig up as +much as two thousand, which, I understand, was the old price for stout, +able-bodied, hard workers, for the one I bought was a little sick one. +Alfred, I actually bought little Joe to-day. I paid Sam Pitman +twenty-five dollars to get him to release all his claims without any +rumpus. I've adopted him. Judge Barton has fixed up the papers good and +stout, and says nothing can take him from me as long as I do my part by +him. Alfred, I'm so happy that I want to shout at the top of my lungs." + +"You have adopted him!" Henley exclaimed, in wondering surprise. "Well, +well, what won't you do next? Of all the things on earth this knocks me +off my feet, and you already loaded down with responsibilities!" + +"I don't care," Dixie laughed. "I'd welcome more like that, and never +complain. You ought to have seen Joe when I told him Sam had agreed to +let him go, and that I was to be his mother. If you could have seen the +angelic look on that thin, white face you would have known that life is +eternal, and that the spirit is all there is to anything. He stared +straight at me with his pale brow wrinkled as if it was too good to be +so, and then when I convinced him, he put his arms around my neck and +hugged me tight, and sobbed and sobbed in pure joy." + +Dixie was shedding tears herself now, and, with a heaving breast and +lowered head, she walked along beside her awed and silent companion. +They had entered a wood through which the road passed, and there seemed +to be a hallowed stillness in the cool, grayish touch of the coming +night that pervaded the boughs and foliage of the trees. Beyond the wood +a mountain-peak rose in a blaze of molten gold from the oblique rays of +the setting sun, but here the night-dews were beginning to fall and the +chirping insects of the dark were waking. In the marshy spots frogs were +croaking and snarling, and fireflies were cutting, to their kind perhaps +readable, hieroglyphics on the leafy background. Presently she wiped her +eyes, and smiled up at him. + +"What a goose I am!" she said. "As old as I am, I'll cry if you crook +your finger at me. You went to Carlton yesterday, didn't you?" + +"Yes," he replied, glad to see her emotion over, uplifting and rare as +its nature was. + +"Did you happen to see my young man?" A smile he failed to see in the +shadows was playing sly tricks with her lineaments. + +"_Your_ young man? You mean--" + +"You know who I mean. I mean my beau--Mr. Jasper Long, Esquire, +merchant, cotton-handler, and rich capitalist." + +"Yes, I saw him," Henley said, reluctantly. "I didn't make a point of +looking him up. He ran about searching for me. I've washed my hands of +that--that matter, Dixie. I ain't no hand at match-making, nohow. It +ain't my turn. I get all mixed up, and blunder at it. I'll never set +myself up to pick out a--a suitable mate for any woman again. There +ain't none in existence--there ain't none half good enough for you, +nohow. It makes me sick to--to think about a fellow like--well, no +better in many ways than this here Long is--having the gall to think +he--that you'd be willing to live with him the rest of your days as if +there was a single thing in common betwixt you. He told me about what he +done--what he _tried_ to do out at the fence when he started off the +other night, and, _well_--" + +"Well what?" she cried, eagerly, the corners of her mouth curving upward +as she eyed him covertly. + +"Why, you know well enough what the fool done, Dixie!" Henley said, +unaware of the meshes into which her curiosity was leading him. "When he +told me about it, in his offhand way, as if he had just done an +ordinary, every-day act, I come as nigh as peas mashing his big, +flathering mouth. I've been boiling mad ever since. I rolled and tumbled +in bed last night, and it's stuck to me all day. Somehow I just can't +shake it off." + +"You mean, Alfred"--and she paused at the roadside, and put out her +hands to his arms, and studied his face with the eagerness of a child +searching for the confirmation of something hoped for and yet not +absolutely attainable--"do you mean that it actually made you mad when +he told you. Tell me how; tell me why. You wouldn't have--felt that way +if--if it had been some other girl, would you?" + +"How do I know?" Henley cried, hot from the memory of the thing spoken +of. "I don't know whether I'd feel mad or not. I never tried it. It is +the first time I was ever up against a thing as aggravating as that was. +The idea of him actually trying to kiss you, and--and put his arms +around you, and holding to you, and--and--" + +"He's a bad, mean thing, ain't he, Alfred?" And her merry laugh rang +through the quiet wood, plunging him into deeper mystification than +ever. "But of course he couldn't know that I'd not be willing to be +hugged and kissed right there at the fence, with a crippled woman +peeping out at the window, and a half-blind one standing by, begging for +a report of what's taking place. Before you married, Alfred, I'll bet +you selected a better place than that when you wanted to kiss a girl. +That fellow lives in a big town and I live here in the backwoods, but I +can learn him a thing or two." + +"You can't fool me." Henley was sure of his ground now. "You wouldn't +let that chump kiss you at any time or at any place. I was a fool to +ever mention him to you; he ain't worthy to tie the shoes of a woman as +noble and sweet and pretty as you are." + +"Go it, go it, Alfred!" A delicate flush of delight had overspread her +face, which was wreathed in smiles. There was a twinkling light in her +eyes, and her laugh rang out sweeter and more merrily than ever. "If +Jasper Long only knowed how to say nice things in your roundabout way +I'd marry him if he was as poor as Job's turkey. You never have told me +in so many words that--that you like my looks or--or like _me_, as for +that matter; but when you get worked up, the sweetest things in heaven +or earth slip out when you don't know it." + +But grimly unpleasant thoughts had fastened themselves on Henley's +bewildered brain, and he could only stare at her in sheer agony of +suspense. + +"Then you may--you _may_ marry him, after all!" he said, under his +breath. "You haven't fully decided yet. You may conclude that you and +him--" His voice broke, and, like a dumb animal brought to bay, he stood +staring at her, his mouth open, his lower lip quivering. + +A great change came over her. She seemed to hesitate an instant, and +then she took his inert hand in both of hers, drew it up and held it +fondly against her throbbing breast. "Love--the right sort, Alfred--is +the sweetest, holiest thing in all the world. It is the first breath of +real heaven that men and women feel here on earth. When two people love +each other--like we--like they ought to love one another, they both know +it as plain as we know that sky full of stars is over us right now. They +feel it in the way their pulse beats when their hands meet; they hear it +in their voices when they speak; they see it in each other's eyes; they +love to be together, and feel like something has gone wrong when they +ain't. That's real love, Alfred, and if the man is tied up in a way God +never meant him to be, and if the woman is loaded down with burdens till +her fresh young shoulders are bent and ache night and day, still the +thought of their love may be always in their hearts and make life seem +one continual day of sunshine and music." + +"Oh, Dixie, you mean--" His voice broke, and he could only stare at her +as if waking from a deep dream of perplexity into complete +understanding. + +She nodded, kissed his hand reverently and released it. They walked on +without a word between them till they reached the point where their +ways parted. He would have detained her, but she said: + +"No, not now, Alfred. I see somebody on your porch. I think it is your +wife. We must be careful to do no wrong in the sight of the world. You +owe that poor woman all the happiness you can give her. To think of what +we might want would be downright selfishness. We know what we know, and +that is sweet enough. Don't think of me marrying anybody. I've got Joe +and my duties, and--and you know what else. I shall never complain +again--never! Good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Across the table at the evening meal Henley saw his wife regarding him +stealthily as she served the food to him and the others. Her look had a +queer, shifting, probing quality, which at any other time would have +inspired investigation, but she failed to rivet his attention to-night. +There were other things to think of--things as new and startling as the +dawn of day must have appeared to the opening eyes of the first man. And +all this had come to him. All these years he had groped in darkness, +seeking and never finding till the dreams of youth were dead. But now +all was lightness, full comprehension, and joy--joy which all but +stifled in its clinging embrace of restitution. + +After supper, with a cigar which he forgot to light, he evaded the +tentative chatter of old Wrinkle and sought a rustic seat under a tree +in the yard. Over the meadow, and piercing the shadows which enveloped +him, shone a light from Dixie Hart's kitchen. He fancied that he saw her +at work, her strong, lithe form and glorious face emitting cheer, +courage, and hope to her helpless charges. He wondered if she was +recalling, as he would to the day of his death, the heavenly words she +had spoken at parting. The touch of her velvet lips still lay on his +hand, sending through his every vein streams of sheer ecstasy. Overhead +the sky arched, star-sprinkled, calm, and as full of its untold story as +at the dawn of time. + +Inside the kitchen near by Mrs. Henley and Mrs. Wrinkle were washing +dishes. Wrinkle came from a rear door, a swill-pail in hand, and, +bending under its weight, he trudged down to his pigpen at the barn. The +clattering in the kitchen ceased; the light went out, to appear again in +Mrs. Henley's room. Her transported husband saw her through an +uncurtained window. At another time he might have wondered over her +present occupation, for, standing before a mirror, she was giving +unwonted attention to her toilet. She was fastening a flowing scarf +about her neck, pulling at the bow to make it hang to her fancy. She +applied white powder to her cheeks and the faintest hint of pink, +carefully brushing her hair and pulling down her scant bangs as he could +not remember having seen her do since their marriage. Next she threw a +light shawl over her shoulders, experimentally drawing it up under her +sharp chin, as she viewed the effect in the glass, and then settling it, +with final approval, and in easier fashion, farther back upon her +shoulders. He saw her raise her candle and turn her head in various +ways, her eyes fixed on her twisting image. Then, with a smile of +content, she blew out the candle. He saw the tiny red spark which +remained on the wick standing guard where she had left it. She must be +going to spend the evening somewhere and would demand his company, +Henley reflected, in dismay at the thought of his present fancies being +disturbed in such a prosaic way. Or perhaps she had taken a sudden whim +to go to prayer-meeting--this thought prompted by the dismal clanging of +a cast-iron church-bell at Chester. In that case there was a chance of +escape, for she would ask Mrs. Wrinkle to accompany her. + +Suddenly she appeared on the porch, and came down the steps and tripped +lightly across the grass to him. He was conscious of the strange, almost +weird, alteration in her manner, and was therefore partially prepared +for the change in her voice and intonation. + +"Is that you, Alfred?" she inquired, playfully. "I thought you might be +here, it is so close inside. You can always catch a breeze on this spot +if one is stirring at all." + +"Yes, it's me," he answered, pulling his glance from the light across +the meadow and letting it rest on her face. "Are you going out +somewhere?" + +She gave a little mechanical laugh. "Just because I put on this white +shawl?" she jested, her thin right hand toying with her bangs. "No, +there's no place to go that I know of, and if there _was_ I don't feel +in the humor for it to-night. Somehow I felt like I wanted to talk to +you. I hope Ma and Pa will go to bed; they are getting to be lots of +bother in one way and another. They mean well, the dear things, but they +are old and childish." + +She sat down on the seat beside him and rested her elbow on its back, +her face toward him. "I saw you walking home with Dixie Hart this +evening," she remarked. "Did she say how that boy is getting on?" + +"Why"--there was just the faintest pause on Henley's part; he was +conscious that he caught his breath, and that a warm, objectionable +flush was stealing over him--"why, I think he is mending purty fast. +I--I reckon there is no secret about it--Miss Dixie says she's adopted +him by process of law." + +"Good gracious! You don't say! Why, that makes _three_ on her hands. +Well, she's a remarkable girl, Alfred, _and she's pretty_. Don't you +think so?" She was toying with the fringe of her shawl, and yet she +seemed to hang upon his answer as she gazed straight at him. + +"Y-e-s," Henley said. "She really has undertaken a lot, but I reckon +she'll pull through, someway or other." + +"Pa says she's managed to get out of old Welborne's debt," Mrs. Henley +went on, taking her knee in her hands and lifting her foot from the +ground and swinging it to and fro. "Lots of folks thought he'd finally +sell her out of house and home. I didn't think, myself, that she'd ever +pay out, but she seems to have succeeded. I give her full credit for all +she is, Alfred. I'm not the sort of woman that underrates another just +to be doing it. She's a stanch friend of yours. It is a good deal for me +to admit, but she gave me a straight talk once that set me to thinking. +I've never let on, but what she said made a deep impression on me." + +The speaker paused, as if waiting for her words to take root and sprout +in his comprehension, but he said nothing--only sat staring at her, as +if trying to divine her subtle drift. + +"It was while you was away, Alfred," she continued, "and--and there was +so much talk about what I was doing at that time, you remember, to--to +show respect for Dick's memory. For a girl as young as she is, she said +some powerful strong things. She thought I wasn't acting right toward +you, and told me so to my face. I went on with my plans, but I've often +thought of her advice. You may have noticed that I hain't talked as much +about the--the monument as I did, and I haven't been to see it as often +as I used to. Dixie Hart made me look at it from the outside to some +extent, and with that I began to be more considerate of you. I saw you +wasn't the same as you was at first--I might say, as you was all along +when you and Dick was both taking me out, and as you was--for that +matter--just before and after me and you got married. In fact, Alfred, +you are getting to be a sort o' puzzle to me. Even to-night at supper +you seemed to be in some sort of far-off dream or other. You'd lift up a +fork or a spoon and hold it a long time before you'd put it in your +mouth, and once I caught you gazing straight at me with the blankest +look I ever saw on a human face. You don't seem the same. I don't mean +that you haven't got a _healthy_ look, for that would bother me a lot, +but you are--well, you are just different." + +"Don't you worry," Henley heard himself saying, aghast at the cliffs and +chasms ahead of him. "Don't worry about me if I seem to have my mind off +at times. I've made some trades lately, and got the best end of 'em. I'm +a natural trader--a born trader, Hettie. They say it is like a mild form +of gambling. Just yesterday I made a deal with an old chap--" + +"I don't want to talk about trading and swapping, and the like," the +woman broke in, firmly. "Besides, no sort of ordinary business ever made +a man look like you've looked lately. You used to be sorter active and +nervous, but now you set and brood with an odd, reddish look on your +face. It ain't natural. It looks like you've resigned yourself to--to +something that you didn't exactly like before, and it don't please me to +see you that way. Pa's noticed it and mentioned it two or three times." + +"There's nothing in the world the matter with me," Henley declared, +actually alarmed at the incongruity of his position. + +"Alfred," the woman said, contritely, and she bent forward and peered up +into his face, "you are a sight better man than I am a woman, and--" + +"Shucks!" + +"You may say shucks if you want to, but wait till I get through. I +reckon, as women go, in the general run, I'm a queer sort of female. I +never was just like other girls. For one thing, I always wanted what was +out of my reach; not getting a thing, or even having doubts about it, +always made me want it more than anything else. I reckon that is why +Dick kind o' fascinated me: the girls was all after him, and he seemed a +sort of prize to be had at any cost. Even after we was married, as maybe +you know, he kept me worried with his attentions to some of the old +crowd of girls. But enough of that. When he died and you come back, +begging, as you did, to have me consider you, I finally give in and took +you. But that wasn't all. I had stood up before a preacher in the house +of God and agreed to be your wife and helpmeet, but, as I now see it, I +didn't do my duty by you. I made the mistake, I reckon, of thinking too +much about what I owed to the dead and gone, and I went so far as to do +things in public that actually driv' you away from home and caused folks +to laugh at you and make remarks. Dixie Hart was right; I wasn't toting +fair with you, and I want to tell you to-night, Alfred, that I see my +error, and--and I am plumb sorry." + +He turned upon her resolutely. She was looking down, and he fancied she +was about to shed such tears as she had often shed early in their +married life when Dick Wrinkle's name was mentioned. He had none of the +old chivalrous sympathy which such a demonstration had once evoked, nor +any of the old indulgence for a love which he had hoped to see die, and +yet, just from his passionate contact with Dixie Hart, he was full of +comprehension and pity for his wife's plight--at least, as he now saw +it. + +"Listen to me, Hettie," he began, and his voice shook with deep feeling. +"You've been right all along. Don't you bother about that. It was _me_ +that was crooked. In this life folks don't love in the highest and best +way but once--not but once in a lifetime. Dick Wrinkle was your first +and only abiding fancy. The feeling that made you turn me down and take +him when you was a girl and I was a big blockhead of a boy was born of +God in heaven. I was the one that was making a mistake when I come and +begged you to marry me while that pure thing was still alive in your +heart. A love like that never dies; it is too sweet and glorious to die. +I see now, too, that you was plumb right about wanting to take care of +his mammy and daddy, and about wanting that sermon preached, and about +erecting a lasting monument to commemorate his name. You had to do all +them things because they was part and parcel of you yourself, and the +constancy God planted in you. I can say honestly that I'm glad you still +love him. You wouldn't be a high sort of a woman if you did change. +Death can't separate folks that love; they go on and on--side by side, +hand in hand, heart to heart--through all eternity." + +She actually gasped. She rose, and stood staring toward the door, a deep +frown on her face; she shrugged her shoulders; she clinched her fists; +she rapped the ground sharply with her foot; then she slowly bent down +over him, resting her thin left hand on his broad shoulder while she +peered with a stare of would-be incredulity into his enraptured face. + +"Look at me, Alfred!" she cried, in a rasping tone. "_You know you don't +mean one single word of all you've just said!_" + +"Why, I do," he insisted, blandly. "As God is my judge, I do. There +ain't no such thing as _two_ loves--a first and a second. When the real +thing comes to a body he knows it. A feller could be blinded for a time, +I reckon, in hot-blooded youth, while he was in close pursuit of a thing +that kept slipping away from him, as was my case when Dick and me was +going nip and tuck to see which could get ahead; but the genuine, real +thing is as different as--as day from night." + +She drew herself up straight, and heaved a deep, lingering sigh. "I +don't believe you mean a word of what you say," she repeated. "It ain't +natural for a man who is as jealous as--as you always have been +even--even of the dead--to set up and talk that way." + +"Jealous?" he said, half musingly. "I don't think I'm a jealous man. +Anyways, I don't think a feller would have the right to be jealous of a +man that was dead and under ground. As I look at it now, I don't think a +man has a right, in the best sense, to marry a widow; and in the same +way a widower has no right to lay aside his past memories if they are +the right sort. They ought to be his best company in his loneliness. Of +course, now that you and me are linked together by law and religion, we +owe it to the community we live in to do our duty and make the best--I +mean, to live along as friendly and harmoniously as we can." + +She sank down to the seat again, and sat staring at him fixedly. +Presently, seeing that he was not going to resume speaking, she said: "I +believe, on my soul, Alfred, you have plumb lost your senses. I may or +may not be responsible for it; you may have let all this talk about Dick +and my--my thinking about him prey on your mind till it is unhinged. +Why, what I done about his grave and memory wasn't anything but respect +that was due to him, and has nothing to do with our agreement. You've +hurt my feelings, Alfred--you actually have." + +She rose suddenly, and, with her handkerchief to her eyes, she started +toward the door. She moved slowly, as if she expected him to call her +back, as he had frequently done in the past; but he seemed to be +oblivious of her presence and not to have heard her last plaintive +appeal, for he sat gazing at the light in Dixie Hart's cottage like an +unwakable man. She came slowly back, now with stiff, indignant +strides--strides which dug deeply into the unoffending turf. + +"You certainly are either crazy or a plumb fool!" she fired at him. "You +said once that folks hinted that I was cracked in the upper story from +the way I acted, but the shoe is on the other foot now. If folks don't +say you are out of your head it is because they ain't here to listen to +your meandering. A man that will set up and hint to a wife who he loves, +and always has loved, that he's willing for her to still care for and +cherish another person--I say a man like that is in need of a doctor's +advice." + +"Well, I was just trying to justify you and your acts," Henley answered +in pained retaliation, "and to show you that I had no ill-will in any +shape or form. You loved Dick in the right sort of way, and I'm just man +enough to lay no obstacle whatever in your track. In the next life you +and Dick will be reunited, and all things will be made straight. I don't +want to fuss with you over it, Hettie. This life is too beautiful, if it +is looked at right, to waste time in jowering. You and me can live in +harmony from now on if you'll just be reasonable and not fly off the +handle when a feller is doing his level best to arrive at some sort of +common meeting-ground. All these years I've been fretting and trying to +run a race with a dead man when I could have been in more active +business. I've give in at last, and I'm going to stay give in. The truth +is, I'm just beginning to live. For the first time in my life I'm in +sympathy with true, natural-born, well-mated lovers. If they are tied +together, all well and good; but if they are parted by some hook or +crook, then they are to be pitied, but still they've got the +satisfaction of knowing--well, of knowing what they know--that's all." + +"Well, I know _one_ thing," Mrs. Henley said, and she turned away, +angrily. "I know you are simply daft--you've lost every grain of sense +you ever had." + +"I might have known she'd twist the thing all upside-down and never see +it right," Henley mused, as he watched her ascend the steps, cross the +porch, and disappear in the house. "I thought that view would hit her +just right, but, contrary as she always was, she sees fit to disagree. I +reckon if she knew everything there _would_ be a row. Huh, I wouldn't +risk that with her. She can hold her funeral conclaves, and build +monuments to another fellow as high as a church-steeple, and expects me +to swallow the dose, but just let me kind o' look about a little, and +I'm a fit subject for a madhouse." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +The next morning at breakfast Mrs. Henley seemed to have lost all memory +of the angry scene on the grass the evening before. Her countenance was +overcast with an expression that her husband would have designated as +one of pleasure had he been given to the analysis of her facial +phenomena, a pursuit he had long since given up as futile and +unprofitable. Her dress, too, showed unusual care, and a crisp, +fresh-ironed jauntiness that jerked him back to the past with rather +disagreeable suddenness. Amid the white ruffles at her neck she had +pinned a large, full-blown rose, and her manner toward the others was a +fragile sort of graciousness which would have been a delight if one +could have felt that it was permanent. As a rule she passed Henley's +coffee to him through the hands of the two Wrinkles, but this morning +she rose and brought it round to him, remarking that she had fixed it +just to his liking. Old Wrinkle, as his intimates--and many +others--knew, was not backward in the use of his tongue, and yet there +was something in the unwonted ceremony of the present meal that silenced +him. The old fellow, however, was making a record-breaking use of his +eyes. Henley saw him taking in every detail of his former +daughter-in-law's appearance and mood, and smiling all too knowingly for +anybody's comfort as he munched and gulped. + +After breakfast Henley was at the gate ready to walk to the store when +Wrinkle came to him and clutched his arm familiarly. + +"Wait, I'll go 'long with you," he said. "I want to talk to you some, +anyway. Alf, did you ever since the world was made--" + +But his words were lost on the morning air, for Mrs. Henley was calling +to her husband from the porch, where she stood smiling at him from the +honeysuckle vines. + +"Don't go yet!" she called out, and she tripped down the steps toward +him. She paused at a rose-bush on the way and plucked a bright-red bud, +and, bringing it to him, she began to fasten it on the lapel of his +coat. "You are getting entirely too slouchy," she mumbled, a pin in her +mouth. "You never used to wear such dowdy clothes. You've got to spruce +up--ain't he, Pa?" + +"Well, it ain't Sunday, nor camp-meetin'," Wrinkle made answer. "He +looks well enough for every day; he'd look odd with a long, jimswinger +coat on in that dusty store with all them one-gallus mossbacks he makes +his livin' out of. Them fellers 'u'd laugh at 'im an' say he was gittin' +rich too fast at the'r expense." + +As red as the flower with which she was trying to adorn him, Henley +pushed the bud away. "I don't want it," he said. "I never was any hand +to put on such things. I'd be a purty sight, now, wouldn't I--walkin' in +town with a flower-garden pinned to me?" + +She submitted to his refusal, deftly twining the stem of the flower into +the cheap lace about her neck. + +"I've got a favor to ask of you, Alfred," she said, sweetly, "and I +don't want you to refuse it, either. This time I know what I want, and I +must have it." + +"Well, what is it?" he asked, his attention diverted from her by the +hungry stare with which old Wrinkle was awaiting the climax of the +little scene. + +"Why, I want you to take me to drive." + +"To drive!" Henley repeated, as much surprised as if she had asked him +for a trip to Europe, and he heard old Wrinkle laugh out impulsively and +saw him dig his heel into the earth, as, with lowered head, he sought +to hide a broad and too-knowing smile which had captured his facile +mouth. "To drive?" + +"Yes, Alfred, it has been a long time since I've seen anything of the +country hereabouts. Why, I've almost forgot how it looks, and this is +the best time of the year. It would do us both good to take a little +jaunt every day in the cool of the evening. We used to go out that way +just before we was married, and for a while afterward, and I want to do +it again. We've got wrong, somehow. We are not living like we ought to. +I say it here before Pa because I mean it, and know he will see it as I +do. Don't you think he ought to take me, Pa?" + +"Well, I don't know as I'd sanction your ridin' 'round _late in the +evenin_'." Wrinkle now showed no hint of even hidden merriment. "You +mought git delayed beyond the usual time and supper would hang fire. +Havin' fun an' startin' in to do courtin' over agin is all right an' +proper if a body _feels_ thataway, but doin' it on a starvation basis +ain't good for the health, if it is for the senti_ments_." + +"Oh, I'll see that you don't suffer, you old, greedy thing," Mrs. Henley +said, playfully, and caught her husband's arm. "I want you to hitch up, +and get a new lap-robe, and take me to-day--this very evening." + +"To-day? Good gracious, what's got into you, Hettie?" Henley stammered, +glancing here and there in sheer helplessness. "I couldn't get off from +business. I've got my hands full of deals of one kind and another. +Driving around is all right for--for young couples that are sparking, +and even for fresh-married ones, but there comes a time when all +sensible folks ought to settle down to the--the enjoyment of home life." + +"I see--you have changed." Mrs. Henley now drew herself up austerely and +glared at him coldly. "You think I'm well enough as a drudge about a +dirty old farm-house, but not fit company for riding and driving like +any woman as young as I am is entitled to. You never thought that sort +of a thing was too frivolous before we married, but now you sneer at it. +Well, you just wait till I give you a chance to take me anywhere again. +I lowered my pride to ask it this time, but I won't remind you again. +No, sir." + +With a cloud of fury on her face she whirled, and whisked into the +house. + +"Come on, Alf," old Wrinkle advised, with a look of amusement in his +eyes. "Let 'er sweat it out alone. She's jest tryin' to work on you, +anyway. She'll be as smooth as goose-grease by night. Looky here, Alf, +I'm an old man, an' you are jest a boy by comparison," he went on, as +they walked down the road together, "but what I don't know about women +you don't know about hosses, and you know a lot. I've learned women inch +by inch all through life. I reckon I got on to it by lyin' around the +fire on cold or wet days and listenin' to 'em. They say some men make a +study of rocks, ores, plants, an' bugs, but my hobby always was females. +Why, I almost know what turn a baby gal will take when it grows up. It +was a sort of funny game with me. I set out to see if I'd ever see a +woman do or say a sensible thing, an' I hain't won yet. Now, you may not +know it, my boy, but you are in hot water, an' it is deep enough to +float yore whiskers. You had married life down about right till just a +few days ago. You could go and come whenever you liked an' nobody axed +any questions. You was about the freest married man I ever knowed, white +or black, yaller or red, but yore day of reckoning has come. I knowed +some'n was wrong last night when you an' Het had that powwow in the +yard, an' I knowed the sun was shinin' too bright this mornin' to do +yore crop any good except to burn it up. I know Het. I've watched her +bury one man an' start in with another, an' if you had been a worryin' +feller she'd have had you mouldin' in the ground long go. As long as +Hettie could worry you she was happy. Part of that grave-rock +celebration was because she 'lowed it bothered you. I couldn't help +hearin' the talk last night. You both spoke louder than you thought, an' +the wind was blowin' my way. Why, man, when you set thar last night an' +told that woman that her undyin' love for Dick was holy an' godly an' a +thing to be kept in a glass case an' looked at every hour in the day--I +say when you throwed all that guff at her you sealed yore doom. Them +words kicked every prop from under her, an' down she come with a flop +that knocked the breath out of all her calculations. She looks fresh and +rosy this morning, but she rolled and tumbled the most of the night. I +don't sleep sound, an' I heard her. I wondered what step she'd take, an' +the breakfast-table grins an' rose-bud and buggy-ride proposition showed +her hand. This mad spell is part of the game. She has set in to make you +do your courtin' over ag'in, an' you'll find that about as unnatural as +wearin' yore vest under yore shirt. No man can court the same woman +twice an' put his heart in the job, but a woman is just so constituted +that she could _have_ it done over an' over by one or a dozen men. I +reckon, as Scriptur' says, it is more blessed to give than to receive, +but a man 'u'd rather not be blessed in the time to come than to have to +make eyes an' say sweet things when he ain't feelin' jest right. Now, +I'll turn back; I jest walked out with you to give you what advice I +could. Git the bit in yore jaw an' pull yore way steady, an' after a +while she'll git tired an' quit naggin' you." + +That morning, near noon, as Henley was busy at his work in the rear of +the store, Cahews came back to him with a mild look of surprise on his +face. + +"Your wife is out in front in her uncle Ben's carriage," he announced. +"She's dressed for travel--got three or four valises in with her. +Warren, must have sent over after her; the team looks like it's been on +the go for several hours." + +Henley found her in the luxurious seat behind the higher one on which +the colored driver, in a battered silk top-hat, sat holding the reins +over a handsome pair of blacks. She looked at him coldly as, hatless and +coatless, he hurried out to her. + +"What's this?" he asked, half playfully. "You ain't going to vamoose the +ranch, are you?" + +"Uncle Ben's sick," she answered, stiffly. "He sent a note by Ned. He +didn't say for me to come, but he hinted at it several times. I'd show +you what he wrote, but we haven't time to spare. I packed up as quick as +I could. We'll stop at the half-way house for dinner." + +"Ben hain't dangerous, is he?" Henley asked, his foot on the +brass-tipped hub of the fore-wheel, his hand on the arm of the seat she +occupied. + +"I don't know whether he is or not," the speaker pulled down the veil +under her hat-brim and avoided her husband's eyes, "but he's lonely and +heartbroken over the way that unprincipled woman has treated him, and he +needs petting and nursing and some company in that big, gloomy house to +take his mind off his trouble and humiliation." + +"He ought never to have got mixed up with her." Henley was recalling +Wrinkle's sage remarks. "Dealing with a woman you've known all her life +is risky enough, without going as far as Ben did for an opportunity to +get slapped in the face. But he ought to be thankful he found her out in +time." + +"Finding her out ain't going to lighten the blow." Mrs. Henley shrugged +her shoulders. "When a man--or a _woman_, for that matter--has full +faith in a person, and finds out that the person ain't anything like he +used to be, why, a body hardly knows what _to_ think. I'm glad I'm +going away, Alfred. You showed me this morning when I give you that +chance to take me about a little here and there that you are changed. +When I'm away you'll realize what you've missed, and I'll be glad of it. +Absence, on my side, is the medicine you need to restore your senses." + +"Well, we'll all certainly miss you." Henley was too honest--at least in +domestic matters--to know that his assertion was insincere, and +accustomed as he was in his dealings among men to assume exactly the +shade of tone or set of face that went best with a statement, he now had +as complete an air of regret and discomfort as the most exacting of +wives could have wished. + +"Well, I'm getting the drive I asked for," was her parting shot, and she +leaned over and gave him a cold, stiff hand. "I'm taking it all by +myself, as most married women have to do if they don't seek the +attention of other men. But I'm going to do my duty to a human sufferer, +and in that I'll get my reward." + +He walked back to the store thoughtfully. "She's gone!" he said to +himself. "She's ripping mad and got it in for me, that's certain. She's +begun on a new line, and I'll bet she makes me smoke before she's +through with me. I know what she wants well enough, but somehow I just +can't do it. I might at one time, but I couldn't now to save my neck +from the loop. The old man is plumb right. When a feller's love gets +cold on the inside he can't warm it up by external applications. He's a +matrimonial misfit, and the sooner he realizes it and is resigned the +better he'll feel." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +"Well, the old gal's gone," Wrinkle remarked that day at sundown when +Henley came in at the gate and found him seated on a dismantled beehive +in the yard. "I reckon you seed 'er spin through town. For a woman goin' +out as a sick-nuss or spiritual comforter to a chap kicked by a +high-steppin' filly she certainly had a supply of frills and ruffles. +Them valises was packed as tight as a compressed cotton-bale. She left +behind her one solid wail of woe. Jane is afraid she'll never gratify +yore taste for grub as well as Het did, an' she's in thar now humpin' +herself to contrive new concoctions. Het kept boarders long enough to +git stingy, an' I told my wife to turn over a new leaf for a change. I +driv' a fat chicken in a fence-corner just now, and held its legs while +she chopped its spout off. She knows how to fry 'em, an' if she kin see +well enough to pick the pin-feathers off it will be all right. I'd put +her biscuits agin any ever baked." + +After a really enjoyable supper Henley went out under the trees to get +the fresh air which, in invigorating gusts, swept up the valley along +the mountain-range. He told himself that his reason for wandering down +toward his barn was to avoid meeting Wrinkle, who he knew would soon +appear from the kitchen, where he was helping his wife wash the dishes. +He was aware, of course, that Dixie Hart's cow-lot adjoined his +stable-yard, and he knew that it was the hour at which she went to +milk, and yet he would not have admitted that he strolled thither in +the hope of meeting her, but, nevertheless, he went. + +He saw her entering the lot-gate, a bright tin pail in her hand, and he +shielded himself with a jutting corner of his wagon-shed and watched her +graceful approach through the dusk. He saw her get the tub of cow's food +from the crib and give it to the animal, and then he heard her scream +out, and, following her startled eyes, he saw that, having failed to +close the gate behind her, the cow's calf had entered and was rushing to +its mother. With an ejaculation of impatience Dixie threw her arms about +the calf's neck and tried to pull it from the cow's bag, but it was of +no avail. The strong young beast would wriggle from her clutch and dart +back to its supper. + +"Oh, you brat, you are stealing all the milk!" Dixie cried. She picked +up a dried corn-stalk, and with it belabored the sleek, brown back of +the calf, but she might as well have used an ostrich-plume for all the +effect it had on the hungry animal. + +It was then that Henley, laughing heartily, sprang over the fence and +came to her assistance. + +"Let me have the little scamp," he said. And he bent down and took the +squirming beast into his strong arms and lifted it bodily from the +ground. "Now, where do you want him put?" he asked, as he stood swaying +back and forth in his effort to control the wriggling prisoner. + +"Over the fence!" she cried, and stood panting in admiration of his cool +skill and strength as he walked to the fence and dropped the calf on the +other side. He then fastened the gate and came back to her. + +"You are doing a man's work, anyway," he said, looking into her flushed +face, "and you ought to call a halt. Life is too short to spend it as +you are doing." + +"It's all very well for you men to talk that way," Dixie retorted, as +she pushed her milking-stool to the side of the cow and sat down with +the pail between her knees, "but women, as well as men, want to live, +and if there's any way to live without work, and plenty of it, I'd like +to find out about it." + +"It seems to me that a feller by the name of Long was offering to point +out a way to you," he said, with a forced smile. + +The back part of her uncovered head was turned toward him. Her shapely +hands and bare, tapering arms gleamed like yellow marble through the +dusk. He smelled the delightful odor of the warm milk as her deft +fingers sent it ringing into the pail. + +"Yes, he was offering me a job," he heard her say with a sarcastic +little chuckle. "He wanted me to quit working at my old place and set in +for him, and nothing particular was said about raising my wages." + +"And what are you going to answer him, I wonder?" Henley inquired, as he +bent down over her that the noise of the squirting milk might not drown +her reply. + +She flashed a glance at him; there was an ineffable shimmer in her +long-lashed eyes; she made a comical little grimace. "I've said the last +word between me and him," she answered. "I got a humble letter from him +yesterday begging my pardon for what he'd tried to do, and saying he'd +behave like a gentleman from now on, if I'd only let him come out +again." + +"Well, it was time he was apologizing," Henley cried. "For a little I'd +have--well!" + +Dixie smiled and looked at him eagerly. "Did that make you mad, +Alfred--really mad?" + +"I don't think I ever was madder in all my life." He walked +unsuspectingly into her trap. "I driv' away soon after or I don't know +what would have happened. The more I thought about it the madder I got. +Once I started to turn round and go back. I would, if I hadn't thought +he was such a weak fool. It ain't done with; I can't think about it +without wanting to mash something. I reckon me 'n him had better stay +apart." + +"We ain't going to have any row about that, Alfred," Dixie said, quite +seriously. "You know you would bear a lot rather than have folks say +a--a married man was taking up for me in that way. If you ever meet him, +and the thing comes up, you must remember that one thing. My character's +all I've got, Alfred; if you are what I think you are, you'd think twice +before compromising me like that. Carrie Wade _would_ talk then, sure +enough. Married men don't go about having fisticuffs over girls that +live next door to 'em without folks wondering, and I tell you I'm like +that fellow Cæsar's wife--I'm too good to be wondered about in any shape +or form." + +"I know it--God knows I know it," Henley responded, under his trembling +breath. "You needn't be afraid, Dixie. I'll take care. But you didn't +tell me what answer you made to--to Long's apology, or whether you was +going to let him come again or not." + +"I wrote him a pretty nice sort of a letter." She was laughing as she +bent over her pail, but he didn't know it. "You see, Alfred, I was +afraid you had hurt the poor fellow's feelings that day, and I thought +_somebody_ ought to be mild-tempered. I told 'im that wasn't no place or +time, anyway, to kiss a girl--right in front of the door of her +house--that a girl naturally liked to be wheedled awhile before she set +in on such familiar terms, and that if it had been a _third_ visit, +instead of jest the _second_, that I'd have taken him for a stroll down +by the creek. There's a foot-log there plumb hid by willows, Alfred, and +I always thought it would be fine to set on it with your feet dangling +over the stream and see two sweethearts reflected in the clear water, +his arm round her waist and her head on his shoulder. Now, that's the +sort of thing this chicken has always had a yearning for, and--" Dixie +tittered inaudibly in the pail and said nothing more. + +He had drawn himself erect and stood as full of despair as the night was +full of darkness. She heard him utter a low groan, but that was all. She +peered up at him stealthily, and then, with a face warm with content, +she resumed her work. He stood silent till she rose. + +"Now that dratted calf can come to the second table," she said, in the +most uneventful tone imaginable. "Alfred, will you please let him in? +He's about to butt the gate down." + +He walked stiffly across the lot and opened the gate. The calf shot past +him like an animated cannon-ball. He met her as, with the pail on her +arm, she had turned toward the cottage. + +"I'm too big a fool to ever understand you, Dixie," he gulped, as they +paused face to face. "Since me and you parted the--the other day I--I've +been plumb crazy. I got to thinking things that are too far off--too +nigh the gates of heaven to be possible--things that made all my +troubles fly away, but now I see it was just in my imagination. I'm +going to be sensible from now on if it kills me. You can't keep on in +the miserable way you are living. You've always thought you'd escape the +worst by marrying, and I have no right because this here hell is raging +in me to tell you who, or who not, to take. I'd rather see you--you dead +in your coffin than the--the wife of that silly fool. But that's your +business--that's--that's--" His voice broke and he stood quivering, his +strong face torn into shreds by despair. + +"You dear, dear boy!" Dixie said, laying her disengaged hand gently on +his arm, her own face suffused with a faint glow of uncontrollable +tenderness. "I'm only a girl--a natural one, Alfred--and I'm so hungry +for love that I try to make you say those things, wrong as they may be. +Don't you know when I'm joking? Listen and I'll tell you the truth. I +wrote Jasper Long that it was all right about what he'd tried to do. I'd +not hold any grudge against him, but that I knew I never could care for +him, and I hoped he'd never come to see me again." + +"You--you wrote 'im that?" Henley gasped. + +"Oh, Alfred," she cried, as she released his arm, "don't you know that I +could not marry a man I don't love? Don't you know what has been growing +up in me all this time in which you with your unhappiness and me with my +misfortune have been drawed so close together? Every night, as I say my +prayers and call on God to help you, I wonder what He meant by the bonds +with which He's tied me to you hand and foot, heart and soul. When you +was trying to find me a husband, and fighting for my legal rights, you +thought it was just friendship, and so did I. The world we live in +counts it one of the blackest of sins for a married man and an unmarried +girl to love each other, but you know we didn't do wrong intentionally. +We was as innocent and unsuspecting as lambs in the fold. Right when we +thought we was doing our duty the ground was slipping from under us, and +we was clutching each other to keep from falling. Now, that's all I'm +going to say. I shall never marry any man while this feeling is in my +breast. That would be wrong for a dead certainty, let folks say what +they please about the other. Your wife went off to-day, didn't she? I +saw Warren's carriage drive up and knew something was going to happen; +then the old man come over and told us about it." + +She had passed through the gate on her way home, and he remained at her +side. "I want to stop in after supper, and--and see how little Joe is," +he said, hesitatingly. + +"No, not to-night, Alfred," she returned, firmly. "He'd like to see you, +but don't come the first night after--after she went away. We really +must be sensible. Folks don't understand--they never could +understand--and we've got to think of them. I may have done wrong in +letting you know how I feel, but it will end there." + +"I see, I understand," he said, reverently. "They shall never talk about +you while I'm alive. Good-night." + +He walked slowly toward the lights in the farm-house. He heard the two +Wrinkles, with cracked voices, singing a hymn as they sat in their +rocking-chairs on the porch. The very stars seemed to hang lower from +the darkling mystery overhead; he felt light enough, in his boundless +content, to rise to them and drink at their twinkling founts. His soul +seemed to swell to the point of bursting. "Oh, God, I thank Thee!" he +said, deep within himself. "I thank Thee!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +With Henley the next day passed like some fascinating dream. He was busy +in various ways as usual, and yet scarcely for a moment were his +thoughts away from his new-found delight. He had no hope, bound as he +was to another to whom he owed his honor, of ever being closer to Dixie +than he was now, and yet there was something in the very purity of his +possession of her heart and in her willing sacrifice of so much for the +principle which guided her that lifted him into new and untrodden fields +of spiritual ecstasy. + +It was near sunset, and he stood in the front doorway of the store, +looking out into the quiet square, when, to his surprise and with a +tumultuous throbbing of his heart, he saw Dixie pass with a letter in +her hand on the way to the post-office. She was on the opposite side of +the street and did not glance in his direction, and he made no effort to +attract her attention. As she passed along by old Welborne's diminutive +office Henley noticed that Hank Bradley, who had been drinking about +town through the day, came from the doorway and bowed to her +conspicuously, his slouch-hat almost sweeping the pavement as he bent +downward. She passed on with a bare nod and quickened her step till she +entered the post-office, a few doors farther on. + +There was something in this, remembering as he did that Bradley had +persistently pursued the girl with attentions, which not only angered +Henley, but filled him with concern for her safety. The half-drunken +brute might take it into his head to follow her down the lonely road +which she had to traverse to reach her house. So, with these things in +mind, Henley told Cahews that he was going home, and he walked out to +the first densely shaded part of the road and, retiring into the bushes, +sat on the grass, determined that he would at least follow in her wake +till she was out of danger of being accosted. + +The sunlight had quite disappeared now, and the fringe of dusk was +settling over the silent wood. He was growing impatient, and wondering +if anything could have happened to detain Dixie in town, when he beard +voices down the road. He stood up and peered through the curtain of wild +vines which hung between him and the open. He could see no one, and the +voices were so indistinct that he failed to recognize them. But the +conversing individuals were evidently rapidly approaching, for their +voices were growing louder. Both seemed to be talking at the same time, +and Henley was pretty sure that it was a man and a woman. Then the +coarser voice drowned the finer and fainter, and Henley recognized it as +belonging to Bradley. + +"I've been put off and fooled and deviled by you as long as I'm going to +be!" the brute cried out. "You are a beautiful young devil, that's what +you are. I've offered you every inducement a man could offer. If I'm +drunk, you are the cause of it. I can't think of nothing but you--you, +with your maddening eyes of fire and cheeks full of hot blood. I want +you. I want you every minute I draw breath. You must listen to reason. +I've got plenty of money. We could live like a king and queen on the fat +of the land, as God means men and women to live, full of joy and life. +Stop, you've got to kiss me! We are alone; nobody is about." + +"Let me pass, I tell you, let me pass!" Dixie's terrified voice rose to +a shriek, and then it ended in a smothered sound as if a hand had been +placed over her mouth. Henley was sure they were struggling and he +sprang into the road. Swaying back and forth against the dark background +of the wood, he saw Bradley with the girl in his arms. Dixie had ducked +her head to avoid his repulsive lips, and the assailant's back was +turned to Henley. With the bound of a panther he reached them just as +Dixie was eluding Bradley's embrace and trying to release her hand, to +which he clung with a grip of steel. Neither of the two saw Henley, and +it was a crushing blow from the storekeeper's fist against the side of +Bradley's head that showed him what he had to contend with. He had +scarcely taken another breath before Henley struck him again with the +force of a sledgehammer squarely between the eyes. Bradley staggered, +swayed, grew limp, and went down. His eyes rolled back in his head till +the whites were exposed. He quivered through his whole form, drew his +shoulders up once, and then lay still. Henley, his hands clinched, the +eyes of an infuriated animal in his head, his great mouth hanging open, +stood over the fallen man. + +"Thank God, oh, thank God!" It was Dixie's voice behind him, and he +turned to see her at the edge of the road, her face as white as death +could have made it, her hands convulsively clasped in front of her. "Oh, +Alfred, Alfred, if you hadn't come--" She came to him, but, primitive +man that he now was, there seemed to be no place in him for tenderness. +His great breast heaved, his lips quivered, his eyes bulged from their +sockets. She was about to put out her hands in an effort toward soothing +him when, glancing toward Bradley, she uttered a scream of alarm. He was +rising, a drawn revolver in his hand. Quick as his approach had been, +Henley's next movement was quicker; before the weapon was fairly poised +he had knocked it from Bradley's grasp. Contemptuously kicking it out of +his reach, Henley gave the man a sharp blow with his fist; and while +Bradley was impotently shielding his face with his arms, Henley picked +up the revolver, cocked it, and directed it toward him. + +"Apologize to this lady," he said, huskily, "and do it quick, for I'm +going to blow your brains out. Down on your knees, you dirty +whelp--down, I say!" + +"I'll be damned if I do." + +"Then take your medicine, and may God have mercy on your dirty soul!" +And, as Bradley screamed out and held up his hands in sudden, +overpowering fear, Dixie sprang forward and wrested the weapon from +Henley's hand. + +"No," she said--"no, you sha'n't kill him. Hank Bradley, go! Go, I tell +you! I won't have blood spilt over me. I've got a right to demand that, +and I _do_ demand it. Go, I tell you! I'm going to keep this gun to +protect myself with. I live in a country of outlaws, and I'm going to +defend myself from now on. Go! What are you waiting for?" + +Muttering and growling in sullen defiance, Bradley got to his feet, his +battered face and eyes swollen. + +"You've got the best of the game so far," he snarled at Henley, "but +it's not ended. You'll hear from me." + +"I'll tell you one thing, Hank," Henley said, as he glared at the man, +"you are leaving here now, but if I ever meet you face to face in town, +or anywhere else, I'll kill you as sure as there's a God. I've said it, +and I mean it--I'll kill you as I would a snake." + +Henley and Dixie stood in silence and watched him as he entered the wood +and strode farther into its depths. They heard the cracking of dry twigs +under his feet as he steadily receded, the sound of his untoward +progress growing fainter and fainter in the distance. + +"I'll be sorry to the day of my death that I didn't kill him," Henley +panted, the wild fury unabated in his voice, face, and eyes. "Why, he +was treating you like a dog; he actually proposed, actually dared to +hint that his dirty money--my God! and I let him walk off on his two +feet." + +"I know, I know," Dixie muttered, soothingly, and she forced a smile as +she looked at the revolver in her hand, "and oh, Alfred, I'm just girl +enough to be glad you come as you did, and even to see it work you up +like it has; but at a time like this a woman must act and think for a +man when he is all wrought up and half out of his head. I couldn't +prevent what he done. He was waiting for me at the end of the street and +insisted on walking with me. I begged him to go back, but he was talking +so loud and rough that I was afraid folks would make remarks. I hated to +call for help; I'm neither sugar nor salt, and am able to care for +myself. But I'd never seen him as drunk as that before, and, well, if +you hadn't come--" + +She shuddered convulsively. He looked at her wrist, which she kept +touching with her handkerchief; the skin was broken and the flesh +bruised where Bradley had clutched it. + +"My God!" Henley took it gently in his throbbing hands and looked at it +with glaring eyes, "and I let him walk away! He's free now, but, as +there is a God overhead, I'll--" + +"No, stop, listen--hear me, Alfred!" Dixie entreated, allowing her hand +to rest passively in his. "There are some things you men make more of +than us women. I reckon it's your natures to be that way. Now, me 'n you +have got to settle this thing for good and all right here and now, for +if I have to go home to-night with the fear that there is to be +bloodshed on my account I'd be more miserable than I ever was. Last +night, Alfred, after I left you at the lot-gate, I went home and done my +work with an odd feeling on me, I waited on Joe; I fixed the beds and +made my mother and aunt lie down, and then I was all alone and had time +to reflect over--over me and you. I reckon my thoughts had taken a new +turn by just one little remark of yours. Alfred, it was you asking to +come over on the--the first--the very first night after your wife left. +A girl will do a lot of headstrong things when her pity and admiration +are worked up for a man she loves, but now and then, if she's sensible, +some powerful small thing will make her think. Alfred, I saw the brink +we was standing on, as plain as if we was on a high cliff and there was +nothing between us and the bottom, and all sorts of forces was blinding +us and pulling and shoving us over. I'm a good, pure girl--no purer, in +thought or act, ever lived, and yet I've been in an inch of having a bad +character saddled on me for the rest of my life. As I looked at little +Joe asleep in his bed and remembered that I had given my word and bond +to the law to make a worthy mother to him, as I looked at them two old +women who think I'm already robed in the garb of paradise, and realized +that one mischievous word started about me and you would ruin me and all +the others--I say, when that thought come to me I wondered how I could, +in my right senses, have talked to you as I have and let you know my +feelings. I can't believe that it is wrong to--to feel as I do toward +you, because I was drawed into it by things that I couldn't avoid. You +was always trying to help me, and was so sweet and good and manly and +respectful that, knowing about your own troubles, I couldn't help +myself. Then I saw you loved--liked me, and the--the pure, hungry joy of +it--the dazzling glory of it, bound me hand and foot, and I plunged in +without thought or caution. But we are cooler now, Alfred, and we've got +to keep our heads. To begin with, you have got to let this matter with +that scamp drop. I demand it; my good name demands it; I haven't given +you the right to fight battles over me, and I don't intend to. I'd +rather let that man, repulsive as he is, kiss me a dozen times than +have to hang my head before them I love. They would take Joe from me; it +would hurry my mother to her grave; it would be a living death. See, +here's the revolver." She, forced a white smile as she slid it into the +pocket of his coat. "Dispose of it; I don't want to be reminded of +what's happened. I'm giving it to you because I can trust you. I know +you'll do as I ask." + +"Do as you ask me--good God!" Henley bit his lip till the blood ran +against his fine teeth, and he fell to quivering. "I see what you mean, +and I know you are right, and yet, and yet, I couldn't have let him walk +off like that if I hadn't thought--" + +"I know--I saw that in your eye," Dixie went on, firmly--"and that's why +I'm making you promise now. No matter what happens, Alfred, you are +going to avoid that man--you are going to protect me in a higher and +braver way than spilling human blood. You'll avoid him, won't you?" + +She saw the muscles of his face settle into a rigid grimace, his eyes +flared, his great breast heaved, and he nodded. "Yes," he said, "I'll +avoid him; that is, I think--yes, I know I'll do it for your sake." + +"There, I knew you wouldn't refuse me," Dixie cried, almost merrily. +"Now let's walk on. You mustn't go all the way. I'm afraid our dream is +over, Alfred. This scare has opened my eyes to our earthly duties. I'm +going to think of you just as--as often as I wish, and lo--love you, but +we mustn't meet often. I want you to love me, too--that's God's truth, +but don't tell me so, Alfred, any more--not a single time." + +"How can I help it?" He turned on her, his face full of fire, his voice +shaking with passion. He threw his arms about her and was drawing her +into a close embrace when she stiffened her body and, with firm hands, +disengaged herself, and, as she pushed him back, she said: "No, no! that +will not do, Alfred. You must never do that again. It isn't because I +don't want you to. If we had the right, I could rest forever in your +dear arms; I could--oh, Alfred, what does God mean by treating us like +this?" + +"He means that we were made for one another," Henley gulped, as his eyes +probed her own. "I know it--I know it." + +"Yes, maybe," she said, as she moved onward, "but perhaps not for this +life, Alfred. Our love is as eternal as that space above is endless. It +is spiritual and pure; let's keep it that way. Now I'll leave you. Don't +forget." + +"I'll obey your commands," Henley answered, fervidly. "I know my duty +and I'll try to do it." + +She hung back a moment longer, her pretty, arching brows drawn together +in thought. "I'm more worried about you and Hank Bradley than you may +guess," she said. "Even if you don't meet him, he may do you some other +injury. In fact, he once said--" She paused, her eyes on the ground. + +"He said what, Dixie?" Henley prompted. + +"He said something one day that worried me a lot," she went on, slowly. +"It was the day, you remember, when he was drinking and you ordered him +from the store. I met him, and he was in an awful state of fury. I +didn't tell you about it because I was afraid it would make trouble." + +"Oh, I reckon he was mad that day," Henley said, lightly. "He looked it +when he left." + +"It wasn't that exactly," Dixie said. "He seemed to be under the same +impression that lots of folks are, that--that you are very much in love +with your wife, and always have been, for he sneered a great deal about +it, and finally said he knew something which, if he was not bound by +promise to keep, would tear you all to pieces." + +"Humph!" Henley sniffed, "I reckon it was some lie or other that Dick +Wrinkle told him when they was out West together. You know Dick hated me +like a snake. That ain't nothing, don't let it bother you." + +"I couldn't help it," Dixie said, as she turned away. "It looked to me +like he really meant something important. He seemed so sure that he had +you in his power. Now, good-bye. Keep your promise." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +Hank Bradley, his face stinging from the bruises he had received, his +blood boiling with fury and humiliation, slunk deeper and deeper into +the wood. Now he would utter a despondent groan, again a long and +resonant string of threatening oaths. As he slowly spat the blood from +his gashed lips, he solemnly vowed that he would have the man's life who +had dared to interfere with him. To the end of his existence he would +see himself sprawling at the feet of the woman whom he had so long and +persistently sought--as long as he lived he would see the righteous +glare in his antagonist's eyes, the look of grateful relief which +lighted the face of the rescued. Plunging onward, he came to a +mountain-brook which, as clear as crystal, leaped and rippled, gurgled +and muttered down the rugged declivity. Here he paused, whining and +bemoaning his luck, and sat down and bathed his face. He was sober now, +all too sober, in fact, for his peace of mind. Above the tree-tops he +saw the roof and gables of his uncle's house, and, as he mopped his face +with his blood-clotted handkerchief, he trudged toward it. + +Old Welborne himself was on the lawn inspecting his beehives, near the +front gate, when his nephew entered, and he turned toward him, staring +curiously. + +"Why, what's the matter?" the old man asked. "You look like you've been +run over by a wagon, or kicked by an army mule. Great heavens, man!" +Welborne put out his hand as if to touch the purple and swollen spot +above Bradley's eye, but with a surly oath the young man drew back. + +"Same mule, I reckon, that had hold of your windpipe in your office the +other day when you squealed like a stuck pig under the table." + +"Huh!" Welborne grunted. "You was in the other room and didn't show +yourself when a man less 'n half my age and as strong as an ox +was--was--" + +"T'wasn't my row, and this ain't _yours_," Hank growled. "I'll tell you +that now, and be done with it. I won't take up any fight of yours over +your close-fisted, hold-up deals, but I'll see mine through, and don't +you forget it." + +"You'd better go in the house and put some medicine on your face," the +old man advised, "and sleep off that drunk! I smelt you before you +opened the gate. I knew when you was kicked out of Alf Henley's store +that day that you'd never let it rest till you had another row. You are +like your daddy was, always looking for trouble, and, somehow, always +finding plenty of it, and doing no particular harm to anybody else. He +was always going to kill somebody, but never got to it." + +"Listen to me," Bradley snarled; "if I don't kill that dirty whelp in +twenty-four hours from now, I leave home for good and all." + +"Say, look here," Welborne said, with a change of tone. "I'm not saying +this for Alf Henley's sake, for I hate him; he is the only man in this +county that ever tricked me out of my rights, and I'll get even with +'im, sooner or later, but I'm thinking now about you. You may be +foolhardy enough to try some slip-up game on him. I'm not afraid you'll +meet him like a man, for, if it had been in you, you'd have done it +before this, but you may think you can do your job in the dark, so +listen to me, Hank. You may think you can shoot him from behind, but I +tell you if you do you'll swing for it. I've got a longer head than you +have, because I've kept it clear, and hate of a man never will get my +neck in the loop. Don't you know--can't you see that if anything harmed +that fellow now, after this whipping he's given you, that suspicion +would be directed to you. He's popular--men on all sides like him--and a +jury would not leave their seats to convict you. You'd hang, I tell you, +hang till you are dead, dead, dead!" + +"I'd rather hang, by God," Bradley growled, "than go through with what +I'm going through now. Don't talk to me. Go on with your flea-skinning, +and let me alone. I know what I'm about!" + +"You don't, for you are too befuddled with liquor to know," retorted the +calm old man. "I can remind you of a thing that maybe you ought to +recall. There was a white man lynched for a certain offence two months +ago. It was done by a mob of eight or ten young devils on a drunken +rampage. The authorities was disposed to drop it, because it was +believed the man was guilty, but now it is leaking out that he was the +wrong party. His friends are working as quiet as moles under ground. +They are getting names and stacks of evidence. A man I've done a favor +for come and told me to warn you. I didn't think it was worth while, but +I do now, because if you fire on Alf Henley from the dark you'll be +arrested, and both charges will be saddled on you." + +"I don't care a damn about that, either," Bradley spouted, and he turned +toward the house. "I'll do one thing at a time, and take the biggest +first." + +"That's your determination, then?" + +"You bet it is. I know my business, and I don't want you to put your +fingers in it." + +"Well, go ahead with your rat-killing," the money-lender said. "I've +given you a piece of sound advice, and, if you don't take it, that isn't +my lookout." + +Bradley strode heavily and with dragging feet along the gravelled walk +to the house. He lunged awkwardly across the veranda floor and went into +the wide hallway and ascended the walnut stairs to his room. + +An hour later he came down. He had been drinking again from a supply of +liquor kept in his chamber. One of his hip-pockets bulged with a flask, +the other with a long revolver. No one was on the front veranda or on +the lawn. A dim light from a window at the right of the hall told him +that his uncle was in his room, perhaps absorbed over his accounts and +papers. Passing out at the gate, he took the narrow, private road +through his uncle's fields to Chester, the lights of which danced before +his unsteady vision. It was Saturday, and, as Henley often went to the +store on that night, Bradley concluded that he might be there now. When +he reached the square he found few persons on any of the divergent +streets. A few strangers and drummers sat smoking and chatting on the +low veranda of the little hotel, and in the darkness he passed them +without attracting attention. Reaching Henley's store, he glanced in at +the front. Cahews and Pomp were putting the tumbled dry-goods department +to rights, and sweeping, sprinkling, and dusting. A queer thrill of +triumph passed through the watcher as he descried the lamp on Henley's +desk and the unruffled face of the storekeeper in its circle of rays. + +Fearing that some passer-by might notice him in front, Bradley climbed +over the fence at the side of the house and crouched down in the yard, +hidden by the shadow of the wall. The village was very still. The +clanging of a near-by church-bell calling the choir to practise for the +Sunday service jarred harshly on Bradley's tense nerves. Pomp was +singing, keeping time with strokes of his broom, and Cahews was +whistling an accompaniment. Bradley waited till the bell had ceased its +clangor, and then, with a step that was almost steady, he glided along +the weather-boarding through the junk-filled yard till he had reached +the open window close to Henley's desk. Henley was still there. He +seemed to be counting money, for he had a bag of coin near him and the +iron safe near by was open. Bradley could see the pigeon-holes and +little drawers with their brass mountings gleaming in the light. He drew +his revolver and cocked it noiselessly and aimed it experimentally at +his intended victim. No better mark could be desired, but the right +moment must be chosen. Bradley looked about him, his befuddled brain +noting this or that obstacle to immediate flight. He must think; he must +make no mistake, for, as his uncle had said, the risk was grave. The +sudden report of a revolver would cause that cottage door to fly open; +Seth Woods at work in his cage-like shop across the street would run +directly over to see what had happened. The loungers at the hotel would +appear, Cahews and Pomp, and, and--Bradley recalled Welborne's reference +to the lynched man, and shuddered. Yes, drunk as he was, he could see +that, easy as the deed was of execution, escape would be most difficult. +He told himself, as he thrust the weapon back into his pocket, that the +centre of the town was no place for work like this, and that later +Henley would have to pass along a lonely road in darkness to get home. +Yes, that was the best plan, he decided, and, creeping back through the +yard, he regained the fence, and, watching his opportunity, he climbed +over into the street and made his way unobserved out into the country +road. + +Soon he had reached the point he had in mind. It was, by odd fatality, +the spot where he had received his castigation only a few hours before. +The moon was behind a cloud, and yet the visible stars furnished +sufficient light for him to see his way, dulled as his vision was by the +spirits he had consumed. Now his plan was complete. He would lie in wait +right where the unshaded roadway entered the wood. Henley's form would +be clearly limned against the unobstructed horizon. Bradley would fire +once, twice, as many times as would be necessary to do the work +absolutely. He believed that he would be calm enough, practicable as it +would be at that distance from any residence, to step forward and +examine the body to be sure that no mistake had been made. Bradley +chuckled as he sat down on the heather, and felt a satisfied, even +triumphant, glow steal over him. Taking out his flask, he drained its +contents, and then threw it into the wood. It whistled ominously as it +cut its way through the air and fell with a crash against a bowlder. He +drew out his watch and struck a match to see the dial. It was ten +o'clock. His victim could not be long now, for Henley never remained +late at the store. + +"Ah, what was that? Surely it was a man's whistle, and Henley's whistle +was a well-known and merry characteristic of himself. To-night it +rippled forth more joyously than usual, and this in itself added to the +flames in the crouching man's breast. Henley could whistle that way +because he had triumphed so conspicuously in the recent encounter. But +stopping a man's whistle was a small matter when it was done with a +six-shooter by a good marksman, Bradley chuckled, and that wouldn't +bother him many seconds. Now he could distinctly hear the storekeeper's +step; he would soon be in view there where the fireflies were flashing, +and then--but what was that? Something seemed to be lowered from the +branches of a tree directly across the road as by a rope, and to hang +against the dark background, turning in a gruesome fashion, as if +wind-blown, first one way and then another. It was a human body. The +feet were tied by a bridle-rein, the hands bound behind by the +suspenders the corpse had worn. Bradley had seen the thing in fancy many +times before, but never in such grim actuality as now. He strained his +sight to make sure. There was no doubt. The thing was actually +there--there, there, great God!--there! + +"Gentlemen, friends, neighbors"--he remembered the very words that had +escaped the lips now grinning at him--"you are hangin' the wrong man. +I'm innocent. In the name of God, spare me. I'm the father of six +children that depend on me for a living. Give me a chance to prove what +I say--oh, God!--oh, God, oh, God, have mercy!" + +The hand holding the revolver relaxed. With a subdued cry of terror, +Bradley was on his feet, glaring at the accusing sight. He saw Henley +enter the wood and move on unsuspectingly toward the horrible spectre +which swung across his path. Indeed, Henley passed through it as through +a vapor, still whistling. With a cry still in his throat, Bradley dashed +into the wood and fled the spot. + +Henley heard the sound of pattering feet and paused for a moment, +looking about him wonderingly. It wasn't an animal suddenly frightened +from its lair, for the weird, guttural cry was human. At the side of the +road stood a huge oak, on the trunk of which there was a grayish, +barkless strip about the width and length of a medium-sized man, and +hanging from a bough above was an uprooted grape-vine. These natural +objects would have attracted Henley's attention had he known how they +had been masquerading in his behalf. As it was, however, he resumed his +whistling, and, barely reminded by the spot of the recent encounter, he +cheerfully pursued his way. He was very tired, and looked forward with +eagerness to the moment when he could get into bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Henley's wife had been gone two weeks and had not written a line either +to him or the Wrinkles, when, one morning just after breakfast, as old +Jason stood on the front porch, he espied, far down the road, the Warren +carriage, with Ned in the driver's seat. The back part of the vehicle +was not in sight, but Wrinkle had seen enough to convince him that his +ex-daughter-in-law was returning, and he promptly and gleefully +announced the fact to his wife and Henley in the dining-room. They all +went to the porch and waited for the now-hidden carriage to round the +bend. For a short distance Ned's battered silk top-hat and the tip of +his whip flitting along above the tasselled corn-stalks which intervened +between the house and the road were the only evidence of the vehicle's +approach, and then it turned sharply in at the wagon-gate. + +"My Lord, the dang thing's empty!" Wrinkle cried. "I wonder if she fell +out comin' down the mountain, an' Ned never noticed it?" + +A full and rather startling explanation was furnished by the negro, when +he had reined in at the steps. Ben Warren was dead and was to be buried +the next day. Mrs. Henley had been too much overcome by careful watching +at his bedside and grief to write, but she had sent the carriage over +for the Wrinkles, whom she wished to attend the funeral. She wanted them +to bring a good many things to wear, as they might have to stay some +time to keep her company in her loneliness. + +When Ned had driven his horses around the house to be fed and watered +and rubbed down, and Mrs. Wrinkle, uttering a fusillade of meaningless +ejaculations and puffs of gratified horror, had disappeared in the house +to pack, old Jason made a wry face and squinted comically at Henley. "I +reckon Het wasn't too much overcome to keep 'er from shufflin' 'er cards +in her little poker game with you. You notice she didn't include you in +the invite. I reckon she still feels sore over that buggy-ride that went +crooked, an' has decided that you sha'n't take part in any festivities +that she has anything to do with. I like to stay with you, Alf, as well +as I would with any feller, but the change to that fine place won't be +bad. I'll have a good time, takin' it all in all. Ben has--or had, +rather--a fine mansion that is well stocked with grub, an' some nigger +women that can prepare stuff to a queen's taste. If Het don't take +charge of the pantry, there'll be enough to go around an' plenty over. +But we'll see, we'll see." + +That afternoon, as Henley and Cahews sat in the front part of the store, +the carriage passed on its way over the mountain. Wrinkle and his demure +spouse, in their very best clothing, sat on the luxurious leather +cushions in the rear, and Wrinkle was smiling broadly and waving parting +signals at them. The carriage had passed on, and was about to turn into +the first street leading mountainward, when Wrinkle was seen to reach +forward and clutch the driver's arm. He gave some command, and the +horses were reined in and Wrinkle got out, and as he busied himself +rubbing something from the lapel of his broadcloth coat he walked with +rather uncertain gait to the store. + +"Say, Alf," he began, as he ascended the steps to the porch, "if it's +agreeable to you, I'd like to have a dollar for pocket-change. Het's +pretty liberal, as a general thing, but Ned says she's powerful upset +over her loss, an' I'd sorter hate to tackle 'er the fust day we are +over thar, an' I know, in reason, I'll need a few nickels to drop here +an' thar." + +"Get it for him, Jim," Henley ordered, and, while Cahews was at the +cash-drawer, Wrinkle went round the counter and took a plug of tobacco +from a box. + +"I'd take along a few sticks o' peppermint, too," he said, as he +wistfully surveyed the candy-jars, "but I've got so I can't suck a stick +without toothache. Ain't a bit o' fun treatin' yore stomach if you have +to abuse yore gums while you are at it. Well, so long, boys," he said, +after he had carefully counted the coins Cahews had put into his hand +and was descending the steps. "Folks says that partin' is always harder +on the ones that are left behind, an' I reckon it's so in this case, for +it's dull enough here, an' I intend to have a good time. The funeral, +and paying due respect to the dead, will occupy me to-day and to-morrow, +an' after that I want to take a fish in Ben's brag pond. They say he's +got--or did have when he was alive--government trout two foot long, an' +oodlin's of 'em, hungry enough to bite anything you stick on yore hook." + +If the news of the wealthy planter's death and the departure of the +Wrinkles under the high honor which had been conferred upon the +unpretentious pair furnished food for gossip at Chester, what may be +said of the later report which at first crawled from the bereaved +mansion, and then, taking on speed, ran hurtling like wildfire over the +country? + +Ben Warren, sick unto death, and yet in full possession of his senses, +for valid reasons of his own had cut off many anxious more distant +relatives and bequeathed all his real estate and personal property to +his loving and faithful niece, "Hester Wrinkle Henley." + +Henley himself was disposed to regard the report as a false one, a +canard set afloat by the irrepressible Wrinkle, who would joke as +readily about the dead as the living. But even the shrewd business man +himself was convinced one morning by the appearance of Wrinkle, who had +dismounted from a fine horse at the hitching-post and came in lashing +the legs of his baggy trousers with a riding-whip. + +"I reckon you've heard what's happened, Alf," he began, in a tone in +which there was no guile. "It never rains but it pours cats and +pitchforks. I'm out o' breath. Forty-six men, women, an' babies met me +as I rid in all as eager to know the facts as if they had the'r names in +the pot, an' I had to go over the tale so many times that my hoss got so +he would nod or shake his head exactly right whenever a question was +axed. Them that hate Het would turn white at the gills an' groan, an' +the rest would say, 'Oh, my!' an' set in to do it on the spot." + +"Yes, we heard the report," Henley made answer, "but we didn't know +whether to believe it or not. I reckon you got it plumb straight?" + +"Straight as a shingle," Wrinkle said, sincerely. "Het not only told me, +but so did the lawyer, a big-bellied chap from Atlanta, in broadcloth +and headlight buttons in his shirt. Huh! I reckon you think you know Het +purty well, Alf; but you don't. I don't, an' my wife don't. I reckon her +Maker sometimes wonders what she'll do in a pinch. I 'lowed she was one +woman that 'u'd like to fall heir to a pile o' cash, but they say when +Ben sent for her to come to his bed whar the lawyer was ready with pen +and ink and paper, an' Ben told her he was goin' to put her in entire +charge of his effects, lock, stock, an' barrel--they say when she heard +that she begun to wail an' take on at such a rate that they couldn't git +her to talk business at all. They had to rub 'er down an' bathe 'er feet +in hot mustard-water, an' it was all they could do to keep 'er from +crossin' over, hand in hand, with Ben, an' leavin' the boodle to anybody +that 'u'd pick it up. The Lord only knows who would have got the swag in +that case, but comin' into a fortune don't kill often, an' Het will +manage somehow. She et a square meal this mornin' 'fore I started, +pokin' it up under her veil-like, in purty good chunks, an' give orders +to the niggers like a captain on a ship ridin' high waves. Thar always +was only one thing in this life that pestered that woman, an' that was +responsibility to the dead. I reckon she thinks the livin' can tote +the'r own loads. Be that as it may, she's goin' to see that Ben's +shebang an' all pertainin' to it is run jest to a gnat's heel like he +would run it if he was alive. But comin' down to brass tacks, she owes +her good luck to exactly what most folks thought was a weak p'int in +'er. They say Ben was so all-fired mad at the gal that kicked 'im to +death that he said all women was unfaithful, an' he picked Het out for +reward because she had showed she was one amongst a million. Then, too, +Het kept tellin' 'im he was good for another forty years, while the rest +of his kin was sayin' to his teeth that they was sorry he had to go an +hopin' that he had his papers in order. If I could get head or tail of +the mystery of life, I might be able to tell whether Het was actin' a +part or not. I think she simply done it so well that she believed it; +anyways, Ben liked it, an' spent his last hours an' every cent he had +tryin' to pacify her." + +"And he was rich?" Cahews thrust in, tentatively. + +"Well, you'd think so," smiled Wrinkle. "He not only had the finest +plantation an' house in this county, but he held bank stocks, railroad +bonds, warehouses, cotton-factory interests, an' what not." + +"And does--does Hettie intend to--to come back _here_?" Henley asked, a +flush of odd embarrassment on his face. + +"Well, that's another matter," Wrinkle began, and then he broke off +abruptly: "Say, Alf, I've got something private to talk to you about. +Jim, I wish you'd give that hoss a bucket of water. I think he's dry." + +With a knowing laugh the clerk turned away, and Wrinkle caught Henley's +suspender and gave it a familiar tug. "I didn't want to discuss family +affairs before a third party," he explained. "The truth is, Alf, I've +always been interested in yore little ups an' downs with Het, an' right +now I'm curious to see how prosperity will affect her. Up to now, you +see, she was dependent on you for funds, an' sorter had to go slow on +some o' her fancies, but now the shoe is on t'other foot, an'--" + +"That is not answering the question I asked," Henley broke in, quite out +of patience. "I asked you if she intended to--" + +"I knowed what you axed me, an' I intend to answer at the proper time +an' place," Wrinkle went on, quite unruffled by the reproof. "I never +begin to unravel a sock at the top or the middle. The toe is whar the +work begun, and therefore the toe is the only natural an' sensible place +to--" + +"You make me tired!" Henley retorted, impatiently. "You take all day to +tell a thing." + +"Well, if it won't hurt yore pride I'll tell you what I think is her +little game." Wrinkle smiled unctuously and rubbed his hands together. +"She left here when that little tiff was on with you about a buggy-ride +or two that was hangin' fire because you couldn't spare the time, an' I +think her present object is to make you do some knucklin' down. You see, +Alf, she's a fine lady now, an' a big heiress, an' naturally is now a +woman to be treated with respect by you or me or anybody else. She's the +head o' that whole thing over there, an' you'll have to fall in line +with the rest of us. She's in deep mournin', an' considerably overcome, +but she hain't forgot them buggy-rides. She's brought 'em up a dozen +times, an' always with a sniff an' a sneer. She sent me over to git all +our leavin's in shape for shipment, an' she's goin' to send a wagon over +after 'em." + +"So she intends to make that her future home?" ventured Henley, a frown +of perplexity on his face. + +"Yes, she says it would be out of all reason for the head of sech a big +thing to live away over here, an' that you kin sell out yore little +shack an' move thar. She's installed me an' Jane in a big room +overlookin' the river, an' has one set aside for you that is every bit +as good. I reckon you'll be made to feel like a common chap that has +married into a royal family, but I wouldn't let that bother me if I was +you. You are in luck, Alf. When you took her she didn't have a red cent, +an' now just look at her. If Dick had knowed this thing was in the wind, +he'd have stayed at home an' put up with a lot that he used to kick +agin. She sent you one positive message, an' that was to be sure to come +over next Saturday an' spend Sunday. She said you mustn't make it later +'n that, because folks would be sure to talk, an' that she don't want to +be talked about, especially while she is in black." + +"Well, I'll go over, then," Henley said, with sarcasm that was lost on +Wrinkle. "You may tell her that I have accepted her kind invitation." +And he turned to his desk and sat down and began to work. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +That night at his uncle's house Hank Bradley, still wearing traces of +his encounter with Henley, sat reading a newspaper and smoking in his +chamber at the head of the stairs. A half-empty whiskey-flask and a +glass of water were on a table at his elbow, and torn and soiled +playing-cards were scattered about the floor. + +Presently his attention was drawn to the outside by a sharp whistle +which was evidently familiar, for he dropped the paper and went to a +window which looked out on the front lawn. At first he could see only +old Welborne at a potato-bed on the right, but as his sight became used +to the outer gloom he descried a man leaning on the fence near the gate. +The fellow wore the broad-brimmed felt hat of the mountaineers; his +pants were tucked into his high-top boots and he wore no coat, but a +gray flannel shirt with a leather belt and a flowing necktie. + +"It's Rayburn Hill," Bradley ejaculated. "What the devil can he want? He +must have come thirty miles." + +Descending the stairs, and looking furtively at his uncle, whose back +was turned to him, Bradley tiptoed across the veranda and gained the +grass sward, across which he walked noiselessly. + +"Hello!" he said, in a gruff tone; "what are you doing over here?" + +"Come to see you, Hank." The man, who was under thirty and tall and +strong of limb, thrust out his hand and shook that of his friend. "I +left my horse down at the square." + +"What do you want to see me about, Ray?" Bradley's voice almost shook +with growing perturbation. "You told me last week that you never would +come this way again--that the more we all was scattered the safer it +would be." + +"I'm on my way to the nighest railroad, Hank." + +"You say you are?" Bradley leaned against the fence, and his face turned +white. "You don't think it's as--as bad as that?" + +"Don't I? Huh, I only hope I'll catch that twelve-o'clock flyer! I +wouldn't be here now but I told you I'd never act without reporting to +you, and that's what I'm doing, Hank." + +"But what's--what's happened to--to scare you up so?" Bradley stammered. + +"Hank, that fellow's kin are on our track like a pack of thirsty +bloodhounds. I got onto it by accident. They have smelt blood, and they +are going to drink some. We got the wrong man; I know it damned well +now, and you and me was the ringleaders. You know the West, Hank. I want +you to show me the way. Git a move on you. You haven't a minute to +lose." + +"I'll have to raise some money." Bradley looked toward the dim form of +old Welborne through the darkness. "Go back to town, Ray. I'll see my +uncle and pack and meet you at the train. I'm sure you are right. I've +seen bad signs myself. I'd have lit out before this, but there was a +skunk here that I wanted to settle a score with." + +"I know, but you'll have to cut that out, Hank. This is no time for +revenge. Hurry up. I'm off. I've got to get a man to take my horse +home." + +When his accomplice had gone away, Bradley crossed over to old +Welborne. + +"You remember," he began, "that you advised me to leave here the other +day?" + +Old Welborne stared at him steadily for a minute, and then shrugged his +decrepit shoulders. "I have been expecting to hear you say you'd settled +with the jackass that gave you that licking that day. I don't want to +see you get into more trouble, but that fellow ought to be pulled down +from his lordly perch. I never see him without feeling his hands on my +throat. He's the one man that has always stood in my way. And now, just +look at him! He's in big luck again, and can sneer in his high and +mighty way at all of us. That fool woman he was so crazy about as to +marry when she loved another man has come into a great big fortune, and +he walks about with a strut as it he was a king and we all was common +trash 'way beneath his notice. I saw him talking to Dixie Hart this +morning in the post-office. His face was shining, and his eyes twinkling +over the news of his wife's big haul. Me an' him have had it nip and +tuck here ever since he set up in business, and he has always thwarted +me. I've pinched and delved to save a few dollars, and his comes to him +in rolls and wads. Folks say he's going to sell out and live over there +in ease the rest of his life. I don't care how soon he leaves, but I'd +like to wipe that grin off his gloating face." + +"I've got to go, uncle," Bradley said. "It's too hot for me here. But I +need some money, and I must have it to-night." + +"Money? Good Lord! How much do you want?" + +"Five hundred. I'm going back West. I know the country, and I'll settle +there. As for Alf Henley, I've got something up my sleeve for him. He's +chuckling now over his wife's big luck, but I'll knock that higher than +a kite; he'll never live on that plantation or spend any of that cash. +You listen close and you'll hear something drop with a big clatter +before many days." + +"What are you talking about?" the money-lender asked, bending forward +and peering eagerly into the bloated face of his nephew. + +"I know what I'm talking about," Bradley replied, still evasively, "and +that will be the first thing I attend to when I get where I can breathe +fresh air. Say, uncle, I've had a secret in my hold for several years. +It is about Dick Wrinkle. If I thought you could hold your old tongue--" + +"Hold my tongue?" Welborne broke in. "Did you ever hear of me telling +anything?" + +"Nothing that concerned you, and this does, to some extent, I'll admit," +Bradley said. "Listen, uncle. How would you like to hear that Alf Henley +ain't that woman's lawful husband? Dick Wrinkle is alive." + +"Good Lord!" The old man's eyes gleamed even in the starlight. "You +don't mean it? Surely, surely, you don't." + +"Yes, he's alive. He was in Oklahoma when I last saw him. He was done +with everything back here--bored to death by his wife and her odd ways, +and wanted to shake it all off. He had done me a good many favors. He +was hurt in that big storm and reported dead, and got me to confirm it +back here. I did the job right. You are the first one I've told the +facts to. I get a letter from him now and then, and know where he is. +He's made enough money to own a bar in a little place near the Texas +line." + +"Well, well, but what has that got to do with Henley?" Welborne wanted +to know. + +"It's just got this to do with him," answered Bradley. "Dick Wrinkle can +simply wrap the woman round his finger. She would fall on his neck at +the drop of a hat. If Dick came back she'd have a fit of joy and kick +Henley clean out of the house. I know women, and Dick has told me lots +about his hold on this one." + +"But would he come back?" + +"Would he? Humph! He's so homesick he thins his ink with brine when he +writes to me. He's known all along that she'd take 'im back, but there +wasn't any special inducement till now. I have an idea that when he is +told--and told in the right way--of this big haul of hers he'll come +back to life with some tale or other to square it, and hurry home and +claim his rights." + +"And you want to start to-night?" + +"If you'll get me the money. I've overdrawn my account like thunder, +uncle, but I'll not bother you for a while. Get it for me. I've got to +go." + +The old man looked at the ground hesitatingly, then he shrugged his thin +shoulders. "Well, go ahead and pack. I've got that much in the safe at +the office. I'll meet you down there. But I'm going to count on you +to--to put this thing through." + +"I will if I possibly can," Bradley said. "I think he'll do as I tell +him. He's always listened to me. I know how to work him up. Don't keep +me waiting. I'll pack in twenty minutes." + +"Good Lord," the old man chuckled, as he stood alone in the dark. "If +Dick Wrinkle comes back and claims his wife, Alf Henley will take a +tumble from the highest peak he ever stood on. Won't I laugh at him +then? Say, won't I?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The following Saturday afternoon Henley set out in his buggy to +accomplish, in some fashion or other, the disagreeable task of paying +his first visit to his wife in her new home. His chagrin could not be +imagined by any one less closely concerned in the affair than himself. +He had been taught to regard divorce laws as a veritable abomination, +and had never for an instant allowed himself to think of freedom from +shackles which goaded and chafed his body and soul. And now the +situation was even more irritating. His proud spirit rebelled against +the unlooked-for circumstances that had made him the husband of a +wealthy woman. Heretofore he had been able to realize that if he had +made a serious mistake in his marriage, he was, at least, helpful to the +woman he had chosen. + +From a hill half a mile to the west of the Warren plantation he drew +rein and all but bitterly surveyed the vast possessions of his +incongruous spouse. In a grove of primitive oaks, near the +main-travelled road, against the misty blue background of the distant +mountain-range, stood the stately white residence, with its long veranda +supported by dignified Corinthian columns, its steep roof, quaint +dormer-windows, and central cupola. + +"What a joke!" Henley said, with a wry smile, as he started his horse +slowly down the incline. "And she's the mistress of it all. I wonder if +she'll expect me to get down on my all-fours and crawl in at the +back-door." + +Old Wrinkle must have been on the lookout for him, for, in his best +clothes, he was standing at the carriage-gate in the nearest corner of +the grounds. His beard had been trimmed, or awkwardly chopped off, by +the unsteady fingers of his wife, and his grizzled hair was plastered +down over his dingy brow flatter than it had ever been before. + +"Hello!" he called out, merrily. "I 'lowed I'd warn you to enter at this +gate an' not drive on to the little one in front of the mansion. That's +for foot-passengers," he explained, as he swung the gate open. "Het's +mighty--I mean Hester; she says I mustn't call 'er Het any more; she +says it will make the nigger help disrespectful. It ain't Pa and Ma any +more, either, bless yore life! but father and mother. The other day at +the table, before we had lifted our plates, she started in to father me, +solemnlike, an' I ducked my head, for I thought she'd set in to ax the +blessin'. I started to say that she was mighty particular about the way +things are run. Ben had rules an' regulations, you see, an' she is +carryin' 'em out an' addin' on more. I seed 'er git as red as a +turkey-cock t'other day beca'se a nigger-wench rung the front-door bell. +She made the woman hump 'erself round to the kitchen double quick. She's +got a new toy to piddle with, an' it's a whoppin' big un. She says +things has to move accordin' to the clock on this gigantic place, an' so +far it's doin' it. Wait, I'll shet the gate an' ride to the barn with +you. + +"You've got a lot to learn, Alf," Wrinkle resumed, as he climbed into +the buggy and the horse started, "and you might as well set in to do it. +I told my wife I was goin' to git you off on one side an' give you a few +hints so you won't make the mistakes we did at the outset. About +eatin'-time, for instance--no matter what meal is on--we are instructed +to listen for bells. It's that big un that presides at the kitchen-door. +Thar's always a fust un an' a last un--a number one an' a number two. +The fust is to wash an' comb by; the next is to come in the dinin'-room, +but, mark you, not in a hurry. I'd lafe a heap o' times if she wasn't so +all-fired serious over it. Goin' to school ain't in it. In her thick +black she looks as important and stern as a judge in his robes." + +They had now reached the barn, a great, rambling structure that was +well-painted and well-kept. + +"Thar's the stables," Wrinkle said. "It might as well be called a +hoss-hotel. It really is a finer shebang in many ways than the house we +all lived in till this happened. I ain't criticism' yore place, Alf. It +was the best you had to offer, an' nobody could be expected to do more +'n that. But Ben went in for show, an' he added to an' tuck away till +the day of his death. This barn has been painted so many times that dry +sheets of paint would fall off if you kicked the weather-boardin', and +inside--well, jest wait till you see it." + +They had descended from the buggy, and Henley was about to unhitch the +traces when Wrinkle laid a firm, even agitated, hand on his arm. + +"That's another thing," he said; "don't tetch it. You'll break a rule. +No member of the family--an' that means me an' you, for we can claim kin +by adoption, if not by blood--no member is allowed to do dirty work o' +any sort. Ben never allowed it, an' Het says the same rule must hold. +She says it would spile the help an' git 'em out o' the right sort o' +habits. She told me to whistle whenever I wanted a thing done, and +Rastus, or Lindy, or Cipo, or Ned would come on a run. That's sort o' +makin' bird-dogs out o' two-legged creatures, but I kind o' like it. +But, mind you, Alf, don't whistle for 'em inside the house. You will +find a fancy rope with a tassel on the end of it in every room. Give it +a light tug an' let it loose. Thar, I see Cipo now. Watch me!". Wrinkle +spat on the ground, wiped his mouth with his hand, and puckered up his +lips and whistled keenly. "He's comin'; watch 'im hop; he knows better +than to dally when I give that sound. He's slow, though; walks like he +had lumbago or locomotive attachment. Say, Cipo!" as the tall, elderly +negro arrived, holding his tattered hat in his hand, "this is Mr. Alfred +Henley, an' this is his hoss. Orders is out from headquarters to give +both of 'em every needed attention. It ain't any o' my business, Cipo. +I'd give all o' you coons a rest if I had my way. Life is too short to +bother about puttin' on style an' tyin' a bow of ribbon to every act." + +With the broadest of grins the negro, whose splaying feet were in +remnants of shoes that were tied with white cotton strings, detached the +horse from the shafts and led him away. + +"Now, come on," Wrinkle said. "I see Ma in the back veranda waitin' for +us." + +As they reached the house the old woman, with timid, halting steps, and +better dressed than Henley had ever seen her before, came forward and +extended a limp hand. "Howdy do? How did you leave Chester?" she +inquired. + +"All right," he answered. "Where is Hettie?" + +The question was addressed to her, but she stared mutely, and with some +agitation looked at her husband. + +"I forgot to tell you." Wrinkle glanced up at the sun. "This is her +nap-time. That used to be the order in Ben's day, an' she's holdin' to +it. Just after dinner all hands are expected to unstrip an' lie down +till the cool of the evenin'; then you are free to walk about, but you +ought to be ready for supper so you won't have to wash at the last +minute, an' come in in a scramble. We don't see Het at breakfast. Ben +had a habit of stayin' in his room an' havin' a nigger fetch his up on a +waiter, an' Het feels like it is her duty to do likewise. She sets up +thar, they tell me, in easy, roustabout clothes, an' attends to the +business of the day--sech as readin' the mail, answerin' letters, an' +listenin' to complaints from overseers an' land-renters. Ben advanced +cash, in dribs or wads, accordin' to needs, an' kept a set o' books. +Het's got all that an' more on her conscience, an' she's gittin' as thin +as a splinter over it. Folks say she's a regular hair-splitter when it +comes to settlements. She would divide a copper cent into several parts +if the Government would let 'em pass that way. Come in the parlor, Alf. +I want you to take a peep at it. You've travelled about some an' seen +sights, but for a place jest to live in, I'll bet you'll admit this caps +the stack. If a royal emperor was to kick at a home like this it would +start a revolution amongst his subjects." + +Henley and the demure little woman followed at the talker's heels. He +led them into the main entrance-hall, a spacious, oblong room with +colored-glass windows on both sides and above the heavy Colonial +doorway. A massive stairway with a carved newel and balustrade of black +walnut wound gracefully up to a companion hall above. Piloting the +others around this, Wrinkle pushed open a big, white door and led them +into the parlor. It was really a spacious room of good design, the walls +and woodwork of which were ivory-white. It was, however, furnished with +execrable taste. There was an old-fashioned rosewood piano, a row of +modern bookcases of oak, rocking-chairs of ancient mahogany, cheap oil +landscapes in cheaper gilt frames, a worn carpet of shrieking colors and +a design which maddened the vision. There was one spot which would have +soothed the trained eye--it was the wide mantelpiece, on which stood a +quaint, glass-doored clock and a pair of tall, brass candlesticks of +simple form. The fireplace was deep and wide and held a pair of fine, +old brass dogs with an appropriate open-work fender. + +"I jest want you to take a glance at that big lookin'-glass." Wrinkle +pointed at a fine gilt-edged pier-glass which reached from the floor to +the ceiling and filled all the space between the two windows at the end +of the room. "I'm callin' yore attention to it so you won't be fooled +like I was when I fust saw it. They had the funeral in here, an' me an' +Ma was axed to set over thar agin the wall. Well, you may believe me or +not, but I thought the lookin'-glass was a wide door into another room +the same size as this; an' all the time the folks was gatherin' I was +watchin' it, for it was fillin' up an' I couldn't make out whar the +folks come from. Then all at once I was scared mighty nigh out o' my +socks, for the crowd sorter shuffled, to make room, an' I seed another +coffin. If I'd been a drinkin' man I'd 'a' been sure I had the jimmies. +I wanted to p'int it out to Ma, but I was afeard it might go hard with +'er, for she's a believer in hobgoblins, an' might 'a' raised a noise. +So I jest set thar wonderin' who else could be dead, an' why I hadn't +heard about it, an' thinkin' maybe that it was the style to bury a rich +man in two boxes, though they looked to me like they was the same size +an' had the same trimmin's, an' was piled up the same way with flowers. +Then I said my prayers in dead earnest, for I seed Het come in on the +preacher's arm facin' me in t'other room, while they was walkin' with +the'r backs to me in this un. I reckon I'd a been fooled till now if the +preacher hadn't begun to hold forth. I could see two parsons as plain as +life, but only heard one voice, an' so I discovered my mistake just in +time to keep from goin' stark crazy." + +At this juncture, Lucy, a young mulatto, came and touched Mrs. Wrinkle +on the arm, with the regretful air of one not wishing to disturb her +superiors. + +"Miss wants to know who's got here," she said. + +The little old woman started, looked nervously into the faces of the +others, and then ejaculated, "It's Alf; tell 'er it's Alf." + +"'Miss'?" Henley repeated, as the girl was withdrawing, muttering the +monosyllabic name to herself to fix it on her memory--"who's 'Miss'?" + +"Why, it's Het herself," Wrinkle explained, readily enough. "You see, +the niggers all used to call Ben's mother 'Old Miss' till she died. I'm +told they started in to call Het 'Young Miss,' but when she put on crape +an' begun to fling orders about they cut off the 'Young' part. I reckon +they'll call you some'n or other to fit the dignity of yore position +when they git it into the'r noggin's jest how close you stand to the +prime head of it all. They know who me 'n Jane are, you bet yore life, +an' when we call 'em they come in a tilt with the'r hats in the'r hands. +I never lived before, it seems to me, an' I care less than I ever did +about the future state. This is good enough for me. If it will just go +at the present pace all the time, I won't care to git cold feet an' +retire to a soggy hole in the ground." + +Wrinkle suddenly took on a look of attention to external sounds, and he +went to the door and peered cautiously up the stairs. + +"I think I heard 'er walkin' about," he called back, and he waved his +hand downward as if commanding silence. "Yes, she's comin'. Ma, you 'n +me had better make ourselves scarce. You see, Alf," he went on, in a +rasping whisper and with a very grave face, "we don't exactly know when +we are wanted an' when we ain't. It wouldn't be so awkward if she'd lay +down some positive rule. She's different under every change, an' the +Lord knows she changes often enough." + +With a frightened mien Mrs. Wrinkle lowered her head and glided quietly +from the room through a door in the rear. + +"Take a cheer," was the old man's parting injunction to Henley. "Throw +yoreself back, an' cross yore legs, an' let 'er know at the outset that +you ain't beholden to 'er, an' that her rise in life don't make no odds +to you. That's the way Dick would act if he was alive. He'd 'a' been +cussin' these niggers about an' tellin' Het to git out o' that bed an' +fix some'n to eat. That's the way he worked 'er, an' she was jest so +constructed that she liked it. Take my advice an' turn over a new leaf; +you'll have trouble if you don't." + +Henley made no reply, and he found himself alone in the big room. The +lace curtains of the windows which opened like doors on the front +veranda were gently blown in by the cooling breeze, and into the white +surroundings came the grim, black-draped figure of his wife. She +advanced toward him, her hand stiffly extended. He took her cold fingers +into his and awkwardly pressed them. Her eyes rested only a moment on +him, for she was looking critically at the carpet. + +"Oh, I'll never get things right!" she cried. "Look at the stable-mud on +the carpet. I've told 'em an' _told_ 'em not to come in here without +wiping their feet, but it goes in at one ear and out at another. They've +tracked it all over, and this ingrain carpet can't be cleaned. I'd shut +the room up and keep the key, but Uncle Ben always had this room open +for visitors, and I want to carry out his plans in every detail. Oh, +Alfred, I'm afraid this awful responsibility will kill me! You have no +idea of what it all is. I used to think you had enough to do, but your +affairs are simply child's play to this." + +"I suppose so," he said, "but you never took hold of mine. That's why +you think this is so awful. It is on your shoulders like my business is +on mine." + +She shook her head and sighed as if his remark were not worthy of +serious notice, and sat for half an hour going into all the details of +Ben Warren's last illness and his wonderful faith in her. "He simply +_would_ leave me in charge." She applied her handkerchief to her moist +eyes and choked down a sob. "I tried to get him to see that I wasn't at +all worthy, but it only made him more determined. The lawyer told me to +stop arguing, and the doctor said I was hastening his end, and so I let +him have his way. He died like a trusting child, Alfred. I held his hand +to the last." + +"It was sad," Henley managed to fish out of his confused brain. "He was +a young man to go so suddenlike." + +"That woman killed him, Alfred." The handkerchief was applied again, +though the voice of the speaker rang with rising indignation. "He had me +read all her letters over to him, and I followed the outrage from the +beginning to the final blow she dealt. She led him on and on, just +holding him as a certainty till another man proposed and she got what +she wanted--a home in New York. He couldn't stand up under it; she was +poor uncle's very life, and when she went out of it he wilted like a +delicate flower. I've ordered his monument; it will be the most +beautiful thing in the State. He had plans for a church to give to the +people in the neighborhood, and I'm going to see to the building of it. +I'll have to cut household expenses in a good many ways to do it, but +the edifice must be built. I get out the plans every day, but I shed +tears so that I can't hardly see the lines. This brings up what I wanted +to ask you, Alfred." + +"To ask me?" Henley echoed, and he moved his feet and hands uneasily. + +"Yes. I'll need the aid of a man over here, and, well, really, it would +look better for you to be here than over there. Jim Cahews managed for +you while you was away in Texas, and--" + +"I know what you mean," Henley stammered. "I understand precisely, but +the truth is, right now, at least, I've got so many deals of one sort +and another on hand that--" + +"I see. I might have known it." The woman sighed, avoided his helpless +stare, and tossed her head resentfully. "You never loved him as I do, +and you put your own selfish and worldly aims first." She rose stiffly +and stalked across the room to the silken bell-pull and gently drew it +downward. "You'll want to go to your room before supper. Lucy will show +you where it is. I hope everything will be in order up there. I have had +so much to worry me that I couldn't see about it myself. I'll meet you +at supper. I'm going down to the barn to see if they are taking care of +Jack--uncle's favorite horse. I haven't let anybody ride him since he +died. I don't know who would be worthy of it. Never mind, Alfred, this +is the second request I've made of you lately. I doubt if I'll ever make +another." + +An impatient retort was rising in the man's breast, and it might have +found an outlet if she had not left him at that instant to give an order +to the girl who had come in response to her ring. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +It was the second night after Henley's return to Chester. He was alone +at the farm-house. It was a desolate place now, despite his constant +self-assurance that he was accustomed, in his travels, to depend upon +his own resources for company and entertainment, and would now find +nothing lacking. He was in the kitchen cooking his supper in the same +crude way he had cooked his meals in the Western mining-camps where he +had once prospected. + +He took down a rasher of bacon from a hook on a rafter, and with his big +pocket-knife deftly cut some thin slices into a frying-pan on the smoky +stove, and into the hot grease he broke some fresh eggs which he had +purloined from a hen's nest in the stable-loft. He had a loaf of baker's +bread, and he made some coffee of exactly the strength he liked. These +things ready, he took them to the big, empty dining-room, resting the +smoking frying-pan on an inverted plate on the clothless table. He sat +down and ate and drank, but somehow not with his usual relish, for there +was upon him a heavy sense of isolation from his kind. In spite of his +effort to regard his condition in a philosophical light, he found +himself unaccountably depressed. After all his youthful dreams of the +domestic happiness which was to round out his life, it had ended in +this. He could, he knew, go to live on the big plantation his wife had +inherited, but it would be at the cost of the pride of manhood which had +been his mainstay so far. She was acting out the part which had fallen +to her, and what was there to justify him in altering his plans--in +giving up the mode of life which had become a part of himself? Marriage, +such as his had become, through no fault of his own, was an acknowledged +failure. + +Lighting his pipe, he blew out the lamp and sought the cooler air of the +front porch. There was something depressing, rather than helpful, in the +profound stillness of the night, the expanse of the star-filled heavens, +the shadowy outlines of the foot-hills of the invisible mountains +beyond. He heard his horses pawing in their stalls, old Wrinkle's pig +grunting in its pen; the chickens roosting in a cherry-tree hard by +chirped and flapped their wings as they jostled one another on the +boughs; all nature seemed normal and at peace save himself. What was +wrong? How could it go on? Where was it to end? + +Presently his attention was drawn to a figure advancing along the front +fence to the gate. The latch was lifted; it was opened, and the figure, +with a light, confident tread, began to cross the grass toward him. It +was Dixie Hart, and he rose from his chair and went to the steps, a +throbbing sense of relief upon him. + +She laughed softly, with a slight ring of affectation in her voice, as +she paused with her foot on the lowest step. "You must excuse me, +Alfred," she said. "I ought not to have come. I ought to have waited +till to-morrow, but I'm getting to be a regular slave to Joe. He was +worrying over you, and I was afraid he wouldn't go to sleep at all +unless--unless I set his mind at rest. Children are so funny." + +"What's wrong with the little chap?" Henley came down the steps and +stood beside her. There was an inverted flour-barrel on the ground near +her, and Dixie sat upon it, and swung her feet back and forth for a +little while without seeming to have heard his question. He repeated +it, bending toward her the better to see her face in the starlight. + +"Oh, I hardly know how--how to say it." She was studying his face with a +strange, hungry eagerness, which he failed to fathom. "Children are so +odd, Alfred, and have so many fancies that they conjure up themselves. I +reckon he's heard Ma and Aunt Mandy talking about--well, about the big +piece of luck that has come to you all. You know women that have never +had a windfall in any shape through their whole lives naturally make a +lot of the good-fortune that comes to a neighbor, and little Joe has +just set and listened to it all till--well, I reckon even you've changed +from--from his plain friend to--well, something like a king in royal +robes." + +"The little goose! Besides--" But Henley's resources furnished no +further comment. + +"He actually cried over _one_ thing," Dixie went on, avoiding Henley's +helpless stare. "It was when Aunt Mandy said that, while maybe you and +your wife had not been _quite_ as thick as--as some couples are, that +now, in all her wealth and splendor, you'd be like every other _natural_ +man, and be more attentive and--and--even loving." + +"How ridiculous!" Henley exclaimed. "Why, Dixie, that money and place +ain't anything to me. It comes to _her_, not to me, and, while I'm glad, +of course, for her sake, still--" + +"Joe cried," Dixie broke in, with a cold, resentful shrug. "You see, +Alfred, he felt bad because Aunt Mandy hinted that you'd have to live +over there now, and move away from this farm. You see, as she told +Joe--I wasn't there--I don't listen to their silly gabble, anyway--but, +you see, Alfred, when the little fellow gets an idea like this in his +head and keeps hammering and hammering on it, there ain't nothing to do +but try to pacify him--as Aunt Mandy told Joe, your interests are so +whopping big over there that you will naturally have to be on hand to +look after 'em. Your wife--Mrs. Henley hain't got your head for +business, and it will be your bounden duty to help her run things. Of +course, you _do_ love money. A man would be unnatural that didn't, in +this day and time, when it is the main thing all humanity is out after. +And--and--" Her voice broke. She coughed and glanced aside. + +"I'm not going over there, Dixie," he said, firmly. "I'm going to stick +right here, and do the best I can. Folks may talk some about me and +Hettie not living together, but I can't put up with all that rigmarole +over there. It would kill me." + +"Aunt Mandy said you might say that at _first_." Dixie steadied her +voice. "She told Joe so in my hearing. She said it kinder nettled _some_ +proud men to have it said they was beholden to their wives, but she +said--_she told Joe_--that the proudest man would give in to a situation +like that sooner or later. That's why the boy felt so bad, I reckon. +He's sure you are going to leave this measly little hole, and that he'll +never lay eyes on you again. I've tried to pacify him; but what can I +do? I wouldn't advise you to--to do a thing against your best interests, +either. You've made a good deal of money, and, like most men, you know +its value. As Aunt Mandy told Joe, in case of your wife's death you'd +get it all--that is, if you kept on the right side of her and indulged +her whims. It seems queer, Alfred, to be standing here in my plain dress +before a man as rich and high up in the world as you are." + +"Dixie, listen to me!" Henley tried to take her hand, but she drew it +from his clasp stiffly and stared sharply into his face. "Dixie, you +said, not many days back, that me and you understood one another +perfectly, and that nothing would ever change our feelings. I can't +make out what you are driving at in all this roundabout palaver, but I +know I'm just pine-blank as I was, heart and soul and body. Going over +there made me miserable. I never spent such a day in my life. In all +that red-tape splendor and high doings I wanted my old ways and nothing +else." + +"You'll get used to it," the girl said. "Aunt Mandy told Joe, you +remember, that you wouldn't like it at first, like any proud man, but +that the feeling would wear off. She says your wife ain't a bad-looking +woman, and that, in fine clothes and with fine things about her, she +will be different from what she was here. Money is power, Alfred; it +will have its way in this world. A man might sorter _fancy_ he couldn't +get along with a woman on his own level, but let her rise high above +him, and he won't be exactly in the same boat. He'll naturally think +more about her, and, in thinking more about her, and trying harder to +please her, his old love will be revived--that is, _if it ever died_. +Who could tell? I couldn't." + +"Look here, Dixie, listen to me!" Henley's voice shook with subdued +passion. "I've never felt like it was exactly honorable, fixed like I +am, to tell you--to talk out plain to you about--about how I feel toward +you, but you are nagging me on to it. I can't help it. Right now it is +burning me up inside. I love you more than a man ever loved a woman. You +are in my mind day and night. Standing here before me now you seem as +far-off and precious as an angel of light. I want you. I want you from +the very bottom dregs of my suffering soul. She asked me to move over +there, and when she did it the thought of getting farther away from you +made me actually sick. I'd rather live here on a crust of bread than to +rule a nation away from you. I may as well confess it. I don't love her. +I couldn't in a thousand years. She killed the love I once had. She was +slowly killing it by her strange ways while you was growing into my +heart by your sweet, brave, unselfish life. Now, I've said all I can. I +have no hope of ever having you all for my own, but I can love you--I +can worship you, and no earthly power can prevent me." + +Even in the starlight he could see the color rising in her face and the +shimmer of delight in her eyes. She laid her hand on his tense, +throbbing arm. "I see," she said, a sweet cadence in her voice. "I've +had all my scare for nothing. Oh, Alfred, I've been nigh crazy. I +doubted you. All the talk about your wife's wonderful luck went clean +against my better judgment. I kept telling myself that you was different +from ordinary men, but, somehow, it wouldn't stick. I may as well tell +the truth. That's why I come here to-night. I've been unable to sleep--I +was going crazy. You are mine, Alfred, all mine--ain't you?" + +He felt her throbbing fingers on his wrist and saw her shoulders rise +convulsively. An overpowering force within him urged him to clasp her to +himself. He opened his arms, but she deftly caught his hands and held +them tightly. "No, no," she said, firmly, "not that--not that! Folks say +men and women fixed like we are can't love one another without doing +wrong; but they can. The strong ones can, and we are strong, Alfred. Our +love is sweet enough as it is. It is of heaven; let's keep it right. You +might think you'd respect me if I let you hold me in your arms--here at +your own house, with your wife away, but you wouldn't--down in your +secret soul you'd feel that I was--was tainted." + +"Forgive me, Dixie, darling," he cried. "My blood's in my head; I'm +dazed and dazzled by you, little girl; but you know best. I wouldn't do +a thing you didn't approve of for all the world." + +She released his hands with a little, satisfied laugh, and stepped back +toward the gate. "Well, I got what I wanted," she said, frankly. "I've +been more in the clutch of Old Harry since you went over there than I +ever was in all my born days. All day yesterday and to-day I've brooded +and brooded and had evil thoughts, till--well, I'd have gone plumb out +o' my mind if I hadn't come straight to you. I may as well tell the +truth; I don't want a lie, even a little, tiny one, to smut the +confidence between us. Alfred, Joe wasn't worrying so--so _very_ much. I +was attending to that job. What I said about him was to pump you dry and +make you ease my mind. I feel better. I can sleep now. Oh, +Alfred--Alfred--good-night!" + +He threw out his hands impulsively, but she had evaded them, and, with +lowered head, was scudding across the grass toward the light in the +cottage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +The bar in the Oklahoma village kept by Dick Wrinkle was in the centre +of the place. It was a narrow, one-story shanty built of undressed +boards, the roof of which sloped from the front to the rear. It was +devoid of the conventional door-screen, the rough, unpainted shutter, +with its padlock and chain, swinging back against the inner wall. + +It was early in the morning. The proprietor, a fat, partially bald man +of forty years, without a coat, his shirt-sleeves rolled above his +elbows, was sweeping into the cracks of the floor the tobacco-quids, +stubs of cigars, and remnants of matches left by his carousing customers +the night before. He had just tossed his broom into a corner of the room +and was looking out of the door when a dust-laden, travel-worn +individual with a familiar look slouched around a corner and said: + +"Hello, Dick! Don't you know a fellow?" + +"By gum!" Wrinkle cried. "Where the hell did you blow from?" + +"Georgia--from back home, Dick. Just got here on the night mail-stage. +Gosh, what a ride! My windpipe is lined with dust. Quick! Gimme +something to wash it out. Three men on the stage, and not a drop in the +bunch. I'm burning up." + +"By gum!--by gum!" Wrinkle muttered, as he slid behind the counter and +set out a long bottle and glasses. "Help yourself, but I'll tell you now +it ain't any o' the simon-pure moonshine we used to get in the old red +hills. And you say you are direct from there? My Lord! It seems funny to +see a man in this God-forsaken place fresh from them old mountains. +Since I clean cut myself off--burnt my bridges, as the feller said, I +kind o' realize what I lost. Say, Hank, you didn't give me away, did +you?" + +Bradley drank a half-tumbler of the whiskey, and took a sip of water and +cleared his throat. "No, I kept mum, Dick. I said I would, and I did. It +wasn't anything to me, nohow. I ain't no gossiper. That was your game, +and I saw no reason to spoil it. Shucks! you needn't worry; you are +deader back there than a door-nail. Where is that old pal of yours?" + +"Dead." Wrinkle raised his hand warningly. "Don't talk about him. He was +a good chap, and stuck to me like a friend and a brother." + +"Gee! then you must be lonely, away out here--" + +"Don't talk about it. Cut that out, Hank. I'm blue enough as it is." +Wrinkle moved the bottle and glasses to a crude table near the door and +took a chair. Bradley drew up another and sat down. The rising sun +blazed in at the open door, and flared like flame in the gilt-framed +mirror back of the bar. + +"All right. Out she goes. I didn't mean to touch on a sore spot, but I +didn't know. You didn't write often." + +"I was afraid my letters might be opened by somebody else. I wanted all +that to stay wiped out, Hank. I didn't care so much for Het as I did for +the old man and woman." + +"I wrote you about your wife marrying again?" Bradley said. "I reckon +that ain't news?" + +"Oh no." Wrinkle had inherited his nonchalant smile and care-free tone +from his father. "The damn fool was welcome to 'er. In fact, I owed him +that dose. He's the only man I ever had a grudge against, and I was +glad he got her. He thought she was exactly the thing he was looking +for; I reckon he knows what he got by this time. Marrying her was the +foolishest thing I ever was guilty of, and I think I done it to spite +him. I ought to have let 'im marry 'er an' then 'a' took 'er away from +him. I could 'a' done it as easy as falling off a log. She was plumb +daft. I reckon she cut up considerable when the news was spread that I +was done for." + +"It was the talk of the county, Dick. Folks thought she'd have to be +sent to the asylum. Her uncle, Ben Warren, who was so rich, you know, +took pity on her and made her come visit him so she could get her mind +off her trouble. When she got back, Henley made a dead set for her. But +while he got her, Dick, she never cared for him. I reckon you never +heard about what she done last summer." + +"I haven't had a line from home in two years, Hank. She didn't quit 'im, +did she?--she didn't throw 'im clean over, after all, did she?" And +Wrinkle laughed expectantly as he pushed the bottle toward his +companion. + +Bradley's eyes shone; the neck of the bottle in his unsteady hand +tinkled against the edge of the tumbler as he poured out another drink. + +"No, but she come nigh to it. She drove him off to Texas, where he +pretended to have some business or other. Dick, she erected a monument +to you that cost a stack o' money. You can see it from the Chester +square, looming up like a ghost." + +"The hell you say!" + +"Not only that, but she sent off for a silver-tongued preacher and had +your funeral preached in bang-up style." + +"Good Lord! What did she do that for?" Wrinkle groaned, and his mouth +set rigidly. + +"Because the notion struck her," Bradley smiled. "She made a mark for +herself. She's the pride of all the women in that section. Whenever a +woman is accused of being changeable, your wife is pointed at to give it +the lie. You knew she was looking after your father and mother, didn't +you?" + +"Yes, yes, you wrote about that," the barkeeper answered, his eyes +sullenly averted. "I thought she'd do something of the sort." + +"And she has done it right, Dick; they are as rosy as two babies. Henley +makes plenty of money in one way and another, and he foots all her +bills, or did till--till--well, I haven't told you all the news yet. +Dick, neither one of us likes Henley. He's crossed me several times in +his high and mighty way, but he's got us both down now and he can sneer +at us all he wants to. No wind ever blowed that didn't blow profit to +him. You thought you was handing him a gold-brick when you left him your +wife, but, la me, Dick, you done him the biggest favor that one man ever +done another." + +"What the hell you giving me?" Wrinkle raised a pair of wondering eyes +to Bradley's design-filled face, and fixed them there anxiously. + +"Dick," Bradley toyed with the tumbler, turning it upside-down and +stamping rings of liquor on the table--"Dick, Ben Warren died and left +her every dollar of his estate. She's as rich as cream, and Henley--huh! +he's so stuck-up he can't walk. His lordly strut fairly shakes the +ground when he goes about. That fellow's as deep as the sky is high. +Folks think now that he knew she would come into that money away back +when he first set out to catch her. They don't know how he got onto it, +but it looks like he had a tip from some source or other." + +With the lips and throat of a corpse, Dick Wrinkle swore; the pupils of +his eyes dilated; his yellow fingers, like prongs of dried rawhide, +clutched the edge of the table, and the tremor of his body shook it +visibly. + +"I see it all now," he gasped. "He must have known it; he was crazy to +get her, and--and he took her as soon after--after I left as he could +possibly manage it. The Lord only knows what means he used, for, as you +say, she still loves me." + +"Folks say Henley turns up his nose at common folks now," Bradley went +on. "He's planning a great stock-farm, and going to keep fine-blooded +race-horses, and him and his wife is going to travel about and see the +world. Things certainly run crooked in this life." Bradley laughed +significantly, his studious eyes on his victim's tortured visage. "Here +you are, all alone away out here in a measly little joint like this when +your old enemy is living like a king in the bosom of your family. Why, +he's even robbed you of your daddy and mammy. You are dead, buried, and +laughed at, Dick. I reckon you are not making much out of this thing?" +Bradley swept the meagre stock and cheap fixtures with a contemptuous +glance. + +"Don't make my salt!" Wrinkle groaned. "Nothing is coming in, and no +prospect of a change. New town, Citico, drawing all the trade. I've +thought of selling out. There's a fellow here that has made me a cash +offer for the whole shooting-match--a thousand dollars down. He's a +gambler that is at the end of his rope; his wife says she'll quit 'im +and marry another man if he don't get into something more steady. She's +willing to put up the money if he'll buy me out. He's crazy for a deal. +He's got friends and can make it go. His wife's kin live here and she +won't move. He's in every hour of the day, shaking his wad in my face. I +saw him just now as I come down to open up. I'd let him have the dang +thing, but I don't know where to go. I'm sick o' the game, Hank. I've +had enough of the wild and woolly West. I've laid awake many and many a +night, by gosh! mighty nigh crying for the old life in the mountains. +Lord, Lord, I set here sometimes when there ain't anybody about except a +drunk Injun or cowboy and git so blue and lonely that it leaks out of me +like sweat and drops on the floor. I reckon it is kinder natural for a +feller to want what he's been brought up on, especially if he has, by +his own act, cut it out and signed his death-warrant. Oh, that was a +fool thing, Hank--a blasted fool thing! It seems to me that I dream o' +them damn mountains and blue skies every night hand-running--and the +good, old-fashioned grub we used to have! And, Hank, I hain't just a +dead man--another feller has took my place and, as you say, is gloating +over me." + +"Oh, well, as for that matter," and Bradley looked idly out through the +doorway, "you ought to settle his hash--pull 'im down from his perch." + +"Yes," ironically, "now that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?" + +"The easiest thing on earth, Dick. Alf Henley ain't legally married to +your wife. He's living with her, but they hain't been tied by law." + +The barkeeper stared blankly; his features worked as if he were trying +to solve a mathematical problem. He started to speak, but his mouth fell +open and remained so; his lower lip hung wet with saliva. + +"Why, no," Bradley went on. "No woman can legally marry another man +while her husband is alive. She didn't get no divorce. She's your wife +yet, and Alf Henley has simply slid in and taken possession of all you +got on earth. I know what I'd do; I'd hike back there and walk in as if +nothing had happened, and I'd kick that skunk out, too, or shoot the top +of his head off. Dick, she never loved anybody but you; she'd be so glad +to have you back she'd throw her arms round your neck and hold you +tight. It is the talk of the whole county about how true she is to your +memory. It has driven Henley mighty nigh crazy." + +Wrinkle stood up. He was shaking like a man with palsy. He leaned over +the table and gazed almost tearfully into the designing eyes before him. + +"Yes, old Het's a good girl," he muttered. "She was always the right +stuff. I know in reason that she'd be the--the same as she was. I know +her through and through and exactly how to manage her, but, Hank, they +all think I'm--- dead!" + +"Folks have made mistakes before," Bradley argued, in a tense and yet +plausible tone. "You was hit in the head by a falling beam in that +storm. You told me so. You was laid up with a lot of others in the +hospital, and for a solid month didn't know your hat from a hole in the +ground. That's how the report went out that you was done for. Why, Dick, +there have been no end of cases where men have not known where they +belonged for half a lifetime, and then got it all back in a flash. +Nobody would doubt that you was in that fix. I'll help you work it. I'm +your friend, and I want to see you get what is due you. That man's +robbing you, choking the life-blood out of you. You've simply got to go +back and claim your rights." + +"I couldn't do it, Hank." The barkeeper sank back into his chair, and, +with his elbows on the table, he ran his blunt fingers through the +fringe of hair around his glistening pate. "I'm in a hole. I'm clean +done for. I wouldn't be good at such a racket as that. I wouldn't know +how to fix it. I'd forget my tale; I ain't got much memory. Hush, I saw +that gambler turn the corner. He's headed here." + +"Dick, you'd better take my advice and sell out," Bradley advised. +"You'll be a damn fool if you don't. It's the chance of a lifetime." + +"Sh!" Wrinkle hissed, warningly, as a shadow fell athwart the floor and +a tall, middle-aged man, with dyed mustache and whiskers, sauntered in +at the door. He was jocularly called "the Parson," owing to his +dignified and clerical appearance. His trousers were neatly folded into +the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none +too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two +buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, +glistening foil-back studs, and rings of the same quality. + +"I'm up early," he laughed, nodding to Bradley as a stranger might. "My +wife pulled me out o' bed. She has got Shanks to agree to sell me his +grocery, part cash and part on tick, and she wants me to watch and see +what sort o' early-morning trade he's got. She knows I don't know as +much about that line as this, but she thinks I kin learn, and maybe keep +better company. I reckon it will be a deal betwixt now and ten +o'clock--that is, unless you make up your mind to sell out." + +Dick Wrinkle was looking into the speaking eyes of his old friend across +the table. He knew well enough that the gambler's remark was merely a +poker bluff, and yet it stirred certain natural fears within him. + +"You can't root me out of a good thing with a little wad like that, +Parson," he said, rising and going behind the counter and briskly wiping +off its surface more from habit than necessity. "I've just met an old +friend of mine from back in God's Country, and we was just talking over +old times. What'll you have?" + +"The one next the jug," the gambler said, and Wrinkle set the bottle +before him, watching him fill the glass with unsteady eyes. + +"I don't think Dick is in a trading humor," Bradley informed him with a +cordial smile. "We've been talking over old times, and he's hot under +the collar. He's got an enemy back home that has been throwing dirt on +him. If I was in Dick's place I'd go back and call him down." + +"I don't know anything about that," the gambler said, and he drank, +wiped his lips on his hand, and stepped to the centre of the bar and +peered out. "I see Shanks in front of his shebang now. If I make him an +offer and he accepts it, it is all off between us, Wrinkle--you +understand that. I've got to settle down at something, and I'll do it +without delay. What do you say?" + +"Oh, I've said all I'm going to." Wrinkle tossed his head and applied +himself to restoring the bottle and washing the glasses beneath the +counter. + +"All right. Good-day." He stepped out of the doors + +Wiping his hands on a towel, Wrinkle came round to the table and leaned +on it. + +"You damn fool!" Bradley cried, in disgust. "That's all I've got to +say." + +"It's gone too far, Hank," Wrinkle groaned. "It was my own doings; I've +got to take my medicine. He's gone, anyway." + +Bradley stared at the floor and pointed grimly at the gambler's +tell-tale shadow. Then he whispered: "Don't be a fool; close with him. +Secure his money, and I'll help you get your rights--don't lose this +chance. A thousand dollars is a lot of money back home. Call him in." + +A change crept over Wrinkle's visage; he glided back behind the counter, +picked up his towel and began wiping the counter's top till he was in a +position to see the gambler. He caught the man's eye and laughed +tauntingly: + +"Hey, Parson, you are always making your brags," he called out. "I'll +bet you haven't seen a thousand dollars in a month of Sundays." + +"You think not, eh?" And the tall man stalked back into the room, +whipped out a roll of bills, and tossed them on the table in front of +Bradley. "Say, stranger, umpire this game--count it. I'm ready, but I +won't be ten minutes from now." + +Bradley smiled easily and counted the twenty fifty-dollar bills. + +"It's all right, Dick," he said. "You don't know what to do. I'm going +to close it for you. He'll take it, stranger." Bradley's eyes were on +the startled gambler. "I'll act for him." + +There was a pause. Wrinkle's face was set under an expression of blended +fear, doubt, and half-willingness, but he said nothing, simply staring +at Bradley as a subject might under the spell of a hypnotist. + +"Yes, he'll take it," Bradley repeated. "Get your hat, Dick, and leave +the gentleman in possession--the agreement sweeps everything, doesn't +it?" + +"Yes, lock, stock, and barrel." The gambler was trying to conquer the +look of elation which had captured his features. + +"All right," Wrinkle gave in, doggedly, and he reached for the money and +counted it. When he had finished he took his hat down from a nail on the +wall and extended his hand. "Luck to you, Parson," he said. "I reckon +I'll shake the dust of this place off my feet. I've got work to do at +home." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +Dick Wrinkle, travel-stained and covered with dust, a small valise in +his hand, trudged down the declivitous footpath of the mountain amid the +splendor of late summer leafage and occasional dashes of rhododendron +and other wild flowers, the color and scent of which greeted his senses, +dulled as they were to the finer things of life, as a subtle something +belonging to the past which had been lost and was regained. Now and then +he would stop, rest his bag on the ground, and breathe in the crisp air +as if it were a palpable substance that was pleasing to his palate. At +such moments, when the open spaces between hanging boughs, tangled +vines, and trunks of trees would permit, his glance, half doubtful, half +confident, would rest on the palatial residence in the valley below, +which, at every step, had been growing nearer and nearer. + +"Yes, that's the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation. +"It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there +couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in +her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we please +with." + +When he had reached the level ground he found himself in a broad, +well-graded road that led straight to the gates of the mansion, and when +he was quite near to it he observed on the right-hand side an extensive +peach-orchard. It was the gathering season, and in a shed open at the +sides, and containing long, canvas-covered tables, several negro men and +women were busy packing the ripe peaches into new crates which were +being nailed up by a white man in overalls and a conical straw-hat. The +pedestrian leaned against the whitewashed board-fence and scanned the +group, seeking a familiar face. But those before him had a strange look. +He was wondering if he could be mistaken in the place, after all, when, +his glance roving to the nearest row of trees, he saw an aged man emerge +with his arms full of peaches, which he took to the nearest negro +packer. Dick Wrinkle didn't recognize him under his broad hat and in his +fine clothes, but a thrill went through him when he heard him address +the servant. + +"Put these jim-dandies on top with the yaller side up," he commanded. +"They are a lettle mite soft, but they've only got to go over the +mountain. They are for the head boss, an' you'd better pack 'em right. +He's powerful fond o' good ripe peaches. I've seed 'im eat 'em with the +skin on, an', as much as I like 'em, I can't do that. I'd as soon chaw +sandpaper." + +"It's Pa," the man at the fence said, in a tone of relief. "I'd know his +voice amongst a million. He looks younger by ten years than he did. I +reckon high living did it. Well, it's my turn at it, an' it won't be +long 'fore I set in. I may have trouble at the start, but I'll weather +the storm. I know who I'm dealing with. I didn't live with 'er as long +as I did without learning a few things." + +Dropping his bag over the fence, he climbed over after it. He stood for +a moment, hesitatingly, and then, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he +flicked the dust off his coat and trousers and new shoes. He was well +and rather tastily attired. He was shaved, and his scant hair showed +that it had been brushed. He wore a heavy gold chain, which had a +prosperous look stretching across his black waistcoat. The old man had +turned back toward the trees, and, without being noticed by the active +packers, his son followed him, bag in hand. Old Jason, his eyes raised +in searching for the choicest fruit among the low branches of the trees, +did not see his son till he was close behind him. + +"Now, Pa," Dick Wrinkle began, calmly enough, "don't jump out o' your +hide. Reports to the contrary, I'm alive and kicking." + +Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, the old man started, an +exclamation, half of fear, half of gratified wonder, escaping his lips. +He stared fixedly, and his mouth fell open, exposing his quid of +tobacco. The peaches in his hands rolled to the ground, and, utterly +bewildered, he stooped as if to pick them up, but paused and stared +again. "Lord, have mercy!" he cried. "Lord, have mercy, who'd have +dreamt it--you back--you--you here! Why, we all heard--we all 'lowed--we +all was plumb sure you was--" + +"I know. Never mind about that," the younger said, with a shrug meant to +shake off the topic. "Where's Ma, and--and Hettie?" + +"Your Ma?--your Ma? Why, she's down at the spring-house watchin' 'em try +a new-fangled churn, or--or was a few minutes ago. Why, Dick, we all +thought you was--was--" + +"Oh, I know, but where is Hettie?" + +"Hettie? Oh, my Lord! Why, Dick, boy, hain't you heard a thing?" + +"I've heard a sight more 'n I want to hear or will again," Dick Wrinkle +said, with lowering brows and a voice which seemed to bury itself in a +mass of inner threats as to dire approaching events. "I've come to +propose a--a settlement, without blood if it can be arranged; if not, we +kin spill plenty of it in the up-to-date Western style. I've been away, +and was detained longer 'n I expected by circumstances over which I had +no control, and in my absence, I'm told, my household--an', by gosh, my +honor!--has been stained. I'm not out looking for trouble, but trouble +may throw itself in my way. I'm prepared to do an outraged man's part. +I've got a medium-sized gun in my hip-pocket and a young cannon in this +valise." + +"Oh, Dick, Dick, we mustn't have blood spilt, for all we do!" Old +Jason's display of actual concern was the first ever wrung from him. +"Besides, the law--the law must be considered." + +"Oh, I'm willing to consider the law," Dick said. "I'll do a lot o' +things if I'm not made any madder 'n I am right now. I'm glad to git +back, an' I don't want to be mad. I'll do as much toward keepin' peace +as any other man. There ain't anything so awfully unheard of in what +happened to me. Fellers has been off from home before, an' the whole +world wasn't plumb upset by it." + +"But they didn't rise from the dead," old Jason submitted, +argumentatively. "How on earth did you manage to do it? I mean--" + +The son's glance for the first time wavered. He looked toward the +towering mountain as if for moral sustenance. His lips mutely moved as +if he were conning a lesson he was learning by rote, and then, seeing +the question still in his father's blearing eyes, he began: + +"I met with trouble, Pa--I reckon some would style it an accident. When +that big tornado struck the country out there and so many was blowed to +smithereens and never had even the pieces of 'em put together again--I +say, Pa, when all that happened I was struck in the back of the head by +a rock or a beam or a plank--I never knew exactly which--and never got +my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't +even know my own name or even recall you and Ma, or my old home back +here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till--till--" + +"I know, till you heard about Hettie and--and--but go on. I'm a +listenin'." + +"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He +took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient +hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered. +Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal +that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run +across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed +that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a +bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I +could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The +whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but +when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I +refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the +date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me." + +"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in +paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was +all-powerful curious, but--but I've read of sech things, and maybe +Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that--I mean--but I +reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma +up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your +weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck, +but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then +I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie." + +"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon +you'd better give her a full account o' how it all happened. I don't +want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself." + +"You mean about--yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly. + +"Yes, about all that. I've told you--I've done give you full +particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right +senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow." + +"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would +be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the +tornado. Het will have to be worked fine, Dick. She sorter feels 'er +oats now. She always did hold 'er head in the air, but it's higher now +since she got rich. She mought take a fool notion that the bronco +throwed you powerful soon after her change o' luck." + +"I don't want 'er dern money!" Dick Wrinkle snarled, his glance shifting +unsteadily. "I don't need _anybody's_ cash. I've got a thousand dollars +in my pocket now." + +"You say you have?" The eyes under the bushy gray brows fluttered +thoughtfully. "Well, if I was you, I believe, Dick, that I'd not haul it +out an' make a show of it. You see--well, you see, it's like this: Het's +a thinkin' woman, an' sorter keen-eyed at times, when she wants to be, +an' lookin' at a wad like that mought--I don't say, it _would_--but it +mought, bein' a sort o' money-maker herself, it mought set her to +wonderin' how a feller clean out o' his senses could accumulate so much +cash in times as hard as these. If crazy fellers kin load up like that +out thar, men of brains could walk clean off with the State." + +Dick Wrinkle started slightly and let his glance trail along the ground, +in several directions before lifting it again to the would-be helpful +countenance before him. + +"I made it _after I got my senses back_," he said, finally, and rather +doggedly. + +"Well, I don't believe I'd let that out, _nuther_," said old Wrinkle, in +a tone that was meant to be kindness itself. "You see, Dick, the bronco +throwed you just t'other day, an' a thing like that is liable to git you +all balled up. A woman like Het mought ax a heap o' fool questions, an' +you hain't had yore right mind back long enough to go into a game like +that yet awhile." + +"Oh, I don't give a damn, one way or another!" the younger snorted. "It +ain't any o' her business, nohow where I was nor how long I was gone. +She's my wife, I ain't the fust man that ever went away for a spell and +then come home." + +"I was jest wonderin'," the old man said, soothingly, "if yore old +high-an'-mighty way wouldn't be best, Dick. All the tornado an' +buckin'-bronco business may be a waste of talk. Het tuck to you in the +fust place beca'se you sorter held a tight rein over 'er, an', if I'm +any judge, Alf Henley, with all his easy ways an' indulgence, hain't +driv' her over any smooth road. I've heard it said that a woman will +kitten to a man that beats 'er quicker 'n she'll kitten to one that +kittens to her; an', if you set in on this fine place with a bowed head, +you'll be duckin' at every turn." + +"Well, you go on an' tell her I've got home," was the request of the +son. "Tell 'er I want to see 'er, too, an' that right off. You may tell +'er I'm loaded for bear--that I've heard about the way she's been going +on with Alf Henley behind my back, an' that a day of reckoning has +arrived. It's been delayed, but it's here." + +"All right," old Wrinkle said, gravely, "that's the best way. You are +comin' to yore senses, Dick. It wouldn't be natural for you to let a +fine place an' a little money scare the life out of you. It's lucky Alf +ain't here. I don't think he'll give you any trouble, though. Some +thought Het's good luck would spoil 'im, but, if I'm any judge, he seems +sorter 'shamed about it. He hain't been here but once, an' then acted +like a fish out o' water. He's a money-maker, an' too live a chap to +want to put on a dead man's shoes. You've come in good time, an' if Het +will let you stay you'll be in clover the rest o' yore days. Between you +an' Alf I naturally favor _you_, of course. Me 'n yore Ma felt all right +here, but we _did_ have a shaky sort o' claim, you'll admit, bein' akin +to the fountain-head in sech a roundabout way, an' with Alf Henley's +name in the pot, too. Well, I'll be goin'. Watch the back porch, an' if +you see me wave my hat up and down, this way, you come right on. If I +was to wave it to one side, like this--but never mind; we'll do the best +we kin." + +"All right," agreed Dick. "I'll go pick me some ripe peaches. The very +sight of 'em makes my mouth water." + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +One clear, warm evening three days later, on his return to his lonely +house, Henley went into the kitchen and prepared his simple meal, and, +after eating it, he went to his room to get his pipe and tobacco for a +smoke. He had no sooner entered the room than he noticed that it had +undergone a change. Some one had taken the white lace curtains from his +wife's room and put them up over his windows. Pictures in frames which +had been ill-placed in the parlor now hung by his bed and over the +mantelpiece. A neat-colored rug from Mrs. Henley's room ornamented the +floor, and on it stood a table from the hall, holding the family Bible, +an album of photographs, some other books from the parlor, and a vase +containing fresh roses. The open fireplace was filled with evergreens, +and the rough, brick hearth had been whitewashed, the lime giving out a +cool, pungent odor. + +"She done it!" he exclaimed. "Nobody else would have thought of it." And +he sat down in a rocking-chair, in which some cushions had been placed, +and, not wishing to contaminate his surroundings by smoke, he leaned +back and enjoyed it as he had enjoyed few things in his life. "Yes, she +done it," he kept saying. "She slipped over here, busy as she is at +home, and done it just to please me. She is a sweet, good, noble girl." + +As the dusk came on he went outdoors, lighted his pipe, and strolled +down to the gate. Leaning on it, he looked toward the mountains, which +were rapidly receding into the night. How majestic and glorious it all +seemed! How soothing to his sore spirit was the gift which had been so +delicately bestowed and which nothing should ever take from him! He +wouldn't have admitted to himself that he was there at the gate because +it was the hour at which Dixie drove her cow up from the pasture across +the way, but he was there with his glance on the pasture-gate. He saw +her coming presently, and went to meet her. Her color rose as she +recognized him above the back of the waddling cow, and she assayed a +mien of casual indifference as she returned his smile. + +"I have to tell you," he began, as he turned and suited his step to +hers, "how tickled I am over the way you fixed up my room. I'm certainly +much obliged to you. It's a different place altogether." + +"I'm glad you didn't scold me for the liberty I took," she said. "I saw +your front-door wide open, and--and, well, I just couldn't help it. I +never saw such a mess in all my life. It made me sick to look at it. I +simply had to clean it up. Oh, Alfred, you are just a big baby, and it's +a pity to see you left this way." + +"And to think that you done it!" Henley said. "With them little hands, +and--and for a big, hulking chap like me." + +"Oh, it was fun," she answered. "Joe was with me; he whitewashed the +hearth and cut the pine-tops for the chimney. He'd have moved every +stick of furniture out of the parlor if I'd 'a' let him." + +"I kept bachelor's hall for years," Henley said, "but I never once +thought of fixing up the room I occupied. I can see now how much +difference it makes. La me, Dixie, I could set there by the hour and +just--just enjoy it, knowing that you--" + +"Don't talk about it any more," she interrupted, with a wistful, upward +glance. "It makes me feel sad to think that after all you've done for +other folks you should make so much over what you ought to have by +rights. I actually cried the other night. I was driving the cow 'long +here and saw you through the window in the kitchen cooking your supper. +A woman's heart is tender toward children and to a man that she--to a +man that is plumb helpless and bungling about over things he has no +business to fool with. Alfred, your frying-pan had a sediment of eggs, +meat, grease, and pure dirt on the bottom as hard as the iron itself. I +had to chop it out with a hatchet. Your coffee-kettle was full to the +spout with old grounds, and you left a ham of meat lying flat on the +floor, and the flour-barrel was open for the hens to nest in." + +"So you was there, too," said Henley. "I thought Pomp done it." + +"Pomp? He's a man, if he is black," the girl sniffed. "He wouldn't have +thought anything was wrong if he'd found the house-cat sleeping in the +bread-tray. No, you've got to be attended to some way or other. I don't +know how, but it's got to be done." + +"I'll make it all right," Henley declared. "I'm used to knocking about." + +Dixie shook her head. They had reached his gate, and she paused, +allowing the cow to trudge on homeward. "You may not know it, Alfred," +she said, "but you are changed. You look restless and unsettled. You +made one of your best trades the other day in buying them mules, but you +haven't been to see 'em once since you turned 'em in the pasture. It +ain't like you. You used to be so full of fun. This money your wife has +come into has upset you. You don't feel exactly right about it." + +"I'll admit it," he said, softly. "I want her to get all she can out of +the good things of this world; but, somehow, that knocked me out--clean +out. I've made my own way in this life, and I want to keep doing it. +Men come to me every day and wish me joy in another man's death. I get +mad enough to slap 'em in the mouth. One fool said it was silly of me to +keep working when I had such a soft bed to lie on." + +"I knew you'd feel that way," Dixie said, her eyes full of sympathetic +tenderness. "I was just thinking to-day of how many trials we've been +through together. I've helped you a little, maybe, and you've been my +mainstay. There is only one thing I'm plumb ashamed of, Alfred, and when +I think of it I get hot enough to singe my hair." + +"What was that?" he asked in surprise. + +"You remember--the time I engaged myself to a man I had never laid my +eyes on." And Henley saw that she was blushing. "I'd give my right arm, +and do my work with my left, to wipe that off my slate forever." + +"Don't bother about that." He tried to comfort her. "You only come nigh +making the mistake I actually tumbled into. You ought to be thankful you +escaped the consequences that I had to shoulder. I didn't know Hettie, +and the only true love is the sort that comes from a deep knowledge of a +person's character. You see, I know you, little girl, through and +through. I've seen you in trouble and in joy, and found you all +there--true blue, the sweetest woman God ever made. If I'm out o' sorts +here lately it is because I can't keep from seeing what an awful, +life-long mistake I made. It is seeing the thing you'd die to have, but +which is out of your reach, that makes you see how empty the whole world +is." + +"Don't say any more." Dixie impulsively touched his arm and then drew +her hand away. "I could listen to you talk that way all night, but I +must do my duty to you and me both. Talking of what we've lost won't +bring us any nearer to it. As for me, well--I'm a sight happier than I +was before she went off. I don't exactly know why, but I am. Every night +before I go to bed I tuck away my two old folks, and then hear little +Joe say his lessons and his prayers, and then I go out in the yard and +look at your light gleaming and twinkling through the vines about your +window. Then my heart gets full of a feeling so sweet and soothing that +when I look above the whole starry sky seems to shower down comfort and +blessings. Then I thank God, Alfred--not for giving you to me like other +women get their partners for life, but for giving me a love that can't +die as long as the universe stands." + +He saw her breast heave with emotion. He tried to find his voice, but it +seemed to have sunken too deep within his throat for utterance. The +vague form of a horse and rider appeared outlined against the horizon +down the road. She was moving away, but he touched her arm and detained +her. + +"Wait till he passes," he said. "Don't go yet--not just yet!" + +"I ought not to be here talking to you after dark," she mildly +protested. There was a pause, during which the eyes of both were on the +horseman. "Why," she cried, "it is Mr. Wrinkle!" + +And so it was. The old man reined in his sweating mount, and, throwing a +stiff leg over the animal's rump, he stood down beside them. + +"Howdy do?" he greeted them. "I've just started to yore house, Alf. I'm +totin' a big piece o' news. I'm late. I had to stop an' tell it to a +hundred, at least, on the way. You mought guess all day and all night +an' never once hit it. Alf, we've had an increase in the family--but +hold on, hold on! it hain't that--it hain't another one o' my baby +jokes. I know better 'n to try a second dose on you out o' the same +bottle. Alf, Dick Wrinkle hain't dead." + +"Not dead?" Henley and Dixie repeated the words in the same breath as +they tensely leaned forward. + +"No, an' that ain't the only thing to be reckoned with. He's over at +home now, stouter and in better trim than he ever was in his life. He +appeared to me in the orchard whar we was packin' peaches, an' I was +plumb flabbergasted. It seems that he would have reported sooner if he +had been fully at hisself. He wasn't actually killed in that tornado, +but blowed off somers an' got a hit in the skull and was fixed so that +his remembrance played tricks on him. At one time he imagined he was a +cook for some cowboys, and a lot more fool antics. He would have been +that way yet--I mean in his crazy fix--but he says a pony throwed 'im +an' it all come back. You'll have to get him to tell you about it. I've +got it all mixed up." + +Henley's wide-staring eyes sought Dixie's face. She was pale, still, and +mute. + +"Well, I've got to be going," she said, in a quavering voice to old +Jason. "I haven't had a chance, Mr. Wrinkle, to ask you how Mrs. Henley +likes it over there. I hope your wife is well. They say the water is +freestone on that side of the mountain, and that is better for the +health than our hard limestone. You must tell them both that we all miss +them every day." + +"Hold on! hold on!" Wrinkle said. "You'd better hear the straight o' +this thing. You'll wish you did, for folks will have it all lopsided by +to-morrow, an' I'll give you dead cold facts." + +"But I've got my cow to milk," Dixie faltered, her color coming back, +"and it's growing late." + +"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was +nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the +big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent +his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, and went up to +Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough +as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she +was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her +privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb +floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big thing to down Het, +but that did. She set up on the edge o' the bed, makin' wild stabs with +'er feet at 'er slippers, and lookin' wall-eyed an' scared. + +"'Pa,' says she, 'this is one o' yore jokes.' + +"'Joke a dog's hind-foot!' says I. 'If you think it's a joke you jest +step to that thar window an' look down at the peach-packin' shed.' + +"Well, sir, you don't have to tell a woman twice how to verify an +important report. She riz like she was on springs, an' thumped across +the room in her stockin'-feet, an' looked out o' the window, with me +right in her wake. An' thar, as plain as a sheep in the middle of a +stream, stood Dick a-pealin' an' eatin' the peaches his mammy was +fetchin' him. An' now comes the part that may not suit you, Alf, one +bit; but I've come to fetch the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth. +In consideration of what Het has fell heir to, an' one thing an' +another, it may not be good news to you to hear that, instead o' lookin' +sorry, Het actually chuckled an' reddened up like a gal in her teens. + +"'It's him!' she said. 'Thank God, it's Dick--it's Dick!' + +"I couldn't pull 'er away from the window. She jest leaned agin the sash +an' stared, an' rubbed 'er hands together, an' went on like she was +gettin' religion. Then I set in, as well as I knowed how, to tell 'er +about Dick's mishap, but she waved her hand backward-like, an' stopped +me. 'Leave all that out,' she said, sorter impatient, as if she couldn't +think of but one thing at a time. 'You needn't tell about that--he's +alive, that's enough--Dick's alive!' And, would you believe it, folks? +She flopped herself down in a chair an' cried and tuck on at a great +rate. It upset me so that I give up the whole dang business. I went down +an' told Dick he'd better go attend to 'er. He axed me how the crazy +spell went down, an' I told 'im I didn't think she'd even heard it, or +ever would, for that matter. Women seem to scent a thing from far off +that they don't want to believe, an' close every pore of their bodies +an' eyes an' ears so it can't get in." + +"Well, what was the final upshot of it all?" Henley was quite calm, +though a great new light was flaring in his eyes as they rested on +Dixie, who was looking off in the direction of the mountain, her little +hands grasping the palings of the fence, her tense body thrown slightly +backward. + +"Dick's my own son," Wrinkle made answer, "but I got out o' all patience +with him. He ought to 'a' let well enough alone, bein' as Het was +willin' to let bygones be bygones. But not him. As me 'n him walked up +to the house, an' he looked over them broad acres on all sides, an' as +we went in at that fine door, he seemed to get back to his old self--an' +that is one thing that sorter makes me believe a little in the crazy +spell, for he looked like a man that had just waked up from a long nap, +shore enough. He was the maddest chap I ever laid eyes on as he went up +them steps to her private quarters. I followed. I wasn't wanted, I +reckon, but I had to see the thing through. She come up to him, Het did, +all wet from head to foot with tears, and tried to throw 'er arms around +his neck, but he shoved 'er off, he did, an' begun the awfulest +rip-rantin' jowerin' you ever heard, about the scan'lous way she'd +carried on with you while he was off. He didn't say nothin' about his +spell--he had no apologies to make. Accordin' to his way o' lookin' at +it, she'd blackened the white purity of his home while his back was +turned, an' nothing but blood, an' whole gurglin' streams of it, would +suit him. Well, they had it nip and tuck for fully an hour, an' then +they come to an agreement. They was to drive over to Carlton the next +day and ax Judge Fisk if Het had disgraced 'erself past recall; and so +we hit the road bright an' early. The judge was mighty nice. He said a +big mistake had evidently been made, but it was one that the law could +rectify if Het 'u'd just grease its wheels properly. He said he'd quit +settin' on the bench hisse'f--bein' beat by the Prohibitionists in the +last election--an' had gone back to practise at the bar, an' would +gladly take the case in hand. He saw plainly, he said, that it was Het's +duty, havin' come into sech a big estate as that, to clear her record +all she could, even if it _did_ cost her considerable outlay, first an' +last. He summed the whole thing up as calm, an' bent over with his +pencil in his hand, an' peepin' above his specs, just like he was +deliverin' a charge to a jury in a murder case. It was for Het to weigh +the evidence pro and con, an' consider, an' deliberate, an' make her +final choice betwixt the two claimants she had got tangled up with. He +didn't know, he went on to say--an', of course, he must have suspicioned +that she'd already made up her mind, bein' as she had fetched Dick along +an' left you out in the wet--he didn't know, he said, but what jestice +sorter leaned to the prior claimant, possession bein' nine parts of the +law, an' Dick bein' incapacitated an' rendered null an' void fer the +time involved. As to the crazy spell Dick had, he gave it as his opinion +that such things had been heard of often. He'd 'a' made a good doctor, +that judge would; he said the brain was the finest constructed part of +the human an--an--anatomy--that's it,--anatomy. He said it was made up +of a bunch of fibres an' strings as thin as spider-webs, an' that an +expert with the saw an' knife could open a man's skull an' tickle the +ends of 'em an' make the patient cut a different caper for every nerve +he touched. He said that's why human nature was so varied. He said, with +all fees paid, that Het could suit her own tastes an' inclination. He +said that she could claim that Dick's quar condition an' his +disinclination to furnish a support equal to her reasonable demands +justified her in callin' the fust deal off; or, on t'other hand, that +she could regyard it as the only obligation to which she was bound by +law or religion, an' that he would set about--after the fee was paid in +cash, or by check on any good, reliable bank, or even by a solid, +negotiable note--he would set about to have the second weddin' set +aside, and an-an--" + +"Annulled," Henley threw into the gap. + +"Yes, that's it--annulled," Wrinkle echoed. "An' he advised her to have +it docketed for next week's special term o' court, and that he'd promise +to rush it through without hitch or bobble. Dick seemed better satisfied +after they left the judge, an' they driv' back home without any more +wranglin'. Dick has bought him some new fishin'-tackle, an' is off to +the river to-day. He has a natural pride in the big plantation, and rid +all over it this mornin'. He says he has some new ideas that he picked +up in the West--before he had his spell, I reckon--which he intends to +apply there." + +"Well, I really must hurry on," Dixie said, turning away. "Give my love +to your wife and to Mrs.--to your daughter-in-law. Good-night." + +The two men saw her hastening away in the thickening shadows. There was +a vast throbbing within Henley's breast. The whole firmament above +seemed to be shimmering with a subtle, spiritual light. He laid his hand +almost affectionately on the old man's shoulder and beamed down into his +eyes. + +"It is all for the best," he said. "I had no right to Dick's place. I +found that out long ago." + +"Thar's one thing I don't like about it." Wrinkle was thoughtful, and a +rare mood it was for him. "I was thinkin' about it ridin' over here. +Alf, I don't like to give you up. As God is my holy judge, I like you--I +like you plumb down to the ground. You are a man an' a gentleman." + +"Thank you." Henley's voice rang with a triumph he strove hard to +suppress. "Come in and put up your hoss and stay all night. I'll cook +you some supper and you can sleep in your bed, like old times." + +"Much obliged all the same, Alf, but I reckon I can't. Het an' Dick both +laid down the law on that particular point. He's throwed that at 'er +several times already--I mean about lettin' you support me an' his Ma. +Seems like that sorter hurts his pride. He's threatened several times to +come over here an' instigate a civil war, but he won't do it right away. +He knows what a temper you got, an' I reckon he don't like the idea o' +that big tombstone already marked in Welborne's new graveyard. No, I +can't put up with you to-night. Het give me a five-dollar William to +defray expenses at the hotel, an' I sorter like the idea o' makin' a +splurge for a change. I'll make 'em give me the best drummer's quarters, +an' I'll order just what I want to eat." + +Henley watched him remount and ride away, his legs swinging back and +forth against the flanks of the animal. He heard little Joe calling to +Dixie from the kitchen-door, and from the cow-lot her clear answering +"Whooee!" which came again in a softer echo from the nearest hill. + +"I wonder what she is thinking?" he mused, the hot blood from his +surcharged heart tingling through his entire body. "I'd go to her now, +but she'd not like it. She wouldn't look at me while the old man was +talking. The sweet little thing is scared--she don't know what at, but +she's scared." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +Although Henley, now grown oddly timid himself, made several efforts +within the next week to catch sight of Dixie, he failed signally. He +began by haunting the cow-lot at milking-time, but she did not come as +usual. From the front porch one evening he observed something that +explained this to him. It was the sight of little Joe driving the cow up +to the house instead of into the lot. + +"She's milking up there to keep from meeting me," Henley said, his heart +growing heavy. "Maybe, after all, I've been hoping too much. Maybe she +sorter thought she'd like me well enough when I was bound to another, +like I was, but now she sees it different. Folks is likely to think +twice in a matter like this, for I mean business, an' she knows it. My +God, I may lose 'er--actually lose 'er, after all!" + +For the next week Henley really suffered; the gravest doubts had beset +him; as close as Dixie had been to him, she now seemed farther away than +ever. He was constantly wavering between the hungry impulse to go +directly to her and the abiding fear that such an intrusion might offend +her beyond pardon. + +One day, however, he felt that he could stand his suspense no longer. It +was the day his lawyer at Carlton had written him that he was a free +man. Surely, he argued, he would have the right to inform her of such an +important fact, after all that had passed between them, simply as a +friend, if nothing more. He left the store early in the afternoon, and +on his way home, and with a chill of doubt on him, he stopped at Dixie's +cottage. + +Mrs. Hart was seated behind the vines on the little box-like porch, and +she rose at the click of the gate-latch and stood peering at him under +her thin hand. + +"Oh, it's you, Alfred!" she cried, in pleased surprise. "I was just +wondering what had become of you. Did you want to see Dixie?" + +"Yes, I thought I'd ask if she was about the house," Henley made reply, +in a jerky sort of fashion. "There is a little matter I wanted to speak +to her about." + +"So the poor child is right, after all," the old woman sighed. "Well, I +reckon you must protect your own interests, Alfred, let the burden fall +where it may. She's done 'er best to pay out, an' if she can't do it, +why, she'll have to give in, that's all. She's undertaken too much, +anyway." + +"I don't understand, Mrs. Hart." Henley was unable to follow her drift, +and, with his hat in hand and a puzzled expression on his face, he stood +silent. + +"Why, for the last week, Alfred, Dixie hain't done a thing but fret and +worry about the money she owes you," Mrs. Hart explained, plaintively. +"Why, when you advanced the money to get her out of old Welborne's +clutch she was so happy she sung day and night, and me and her Aunt +Mandy thought the worst was over, because--well, because you seemed so +kind and friendly that we felt like you would not push her, that you'd +give her plenty o' time to make the payments. But now that her cotton +fell short of her expectations and the overflow killed half her +potato-crop she's all upset. She didn't say, in so many words, that you +was going to sue for your rights, but we couldn't, to save us, see what +she was so upset for, if you hadn't, at least, hinted about it. My +sister thought that maybe--that maybe, now that your wife's big fortune +had gone off in an unexpected direction, that you was obliged to raise +money to make good some investments that you made while you was counting +on things remaining the same. We couldn't talk it over with Dixie, +because she'd get out of patience every time we'd bring it up." + +"You are quite mistaken, Mrs. Hart," Henley said, his face aglow from a +new light on the situation. "I don't want to collect any money from +Dixie. She can keep it as long as she wants it. If she thinks I want +that money, she is away off from the facts. Is she about the house?" + +"No, she ain't," Mrs. Hart fairly gasped in relief. "Her and Joe went +down to the creek to fish. They are at the first bend; you can see the +spot from the gate. So that was a mistake! Well, I certainly am glad. I +reckon she just imagined it. She's acted funny for the last week, +anyway--sometimes just as happy and jolly as you please, and then +bringing up this money question--sayin' that she couldn't bear to be in +debt, and the like. She said if she could just sell the farm for +anything near its worth she'd do it and pay all she owes." + +"She could easily sell it," Henley said, "but she won't have to do it to +pay me. I'll go down there, I believe, and see if they are having any +luck." + +He walked away slowly, for the burden of doubt as to his chances was +still on him. From the bend of the road he looked across the level +pasture and hay-land to the green line of willows and canebrake that +marked the course of the stream. At first he saw nothing but his grazing +horses and mules, some of Dixie's sheep and lambs, and then he descried +a purplish blur against the living green, and recognized it as the +girl's sunbonnet, the back part of which was turned toward him. Across +the uneven ground, his feet retarded by creeping earth-vines and furrows +where grain had grown and ripened, he strode, his doubt and awkwardness +increasing with every step. + +She saw him as he was nearing the grass-covered bank upon which she sat, +an open book in her lap. It was quite clear to him that she, too, was +embarrassed, for a violent color rose in her cheeks, and her glance +deliberately avoided his. She called out quite distinctly and +irrelevantly to Joe, who sat on a log which jutted out into the stream, +telling him to be careful and not fall in. Henley saw the boy shrug his +shoulders and heard him laugh contemptuously, as he whipped his rod and +line into the stream and reseated himself, his bare feet sinking into +the cooling water. "Why, it ain't up to my waist," he said. "I could +wade across." + +"No, he's safe enough," Henley heard his coarse voice saying, as he +stood over her and looked down on her expressionless bonnet. + +She looked up and pushed her bonnet back farther so that a wisp of her +beautiful hair was exposed to the sunlight against the shell-like +pinkness of her neck. "He hasn't caught a thing," she said; "but he's +had some bites that was just as much fun." + +"I'm sorter tired," he ventured. "I've been on my feet all day, running +first one place and another. This is your picnic, and you are the boss. +I wonder if you'd care if I set down a minute." + +"It may be my picnic, but it happens to be your ground," she laughed. +"There's a sign up at the fence that no trespassing is allowed, but me +and Joe neither one can read, and so we came right in and helped +ourselves." + +He lowered himself to the grass at her feet, glad that he had it, and +yet almost afraid of the full view he now had of her face when he dared +to look directly at her. He leaned forward and began to pluck blades of +grass and twist them nervously in his fingers. + +"You are powerful good to that boy," he said, after a silence through +which several kinds of thoughts percolated. "His own mammy couldn't +treat him better." + +"I don't know whether I'm spoiling him or not." He detected a slight +quavering in her voice which was not exactly that of her usual +composure. "Some folks say I am. I know I can't bear to have him work +hard, although he is plumb well now. He had such a hard time under Sam +Pitman that, somehow, I want him to have a good, long vacation. +Alfred--" She raised her hand to her lips impulsively, colored +vexatiously, and then with a shrug, as if the familiar use of his name +were a matter that could not be remedied, she continued; "I started to +say that it makes me awful sad to think of the slavery that child went +through, short as it was. It might have made a scoundrel of him, in the +long-run, for he was getting hardened." + +"And now he's just the reverse." Henley meant it as a tribute to her, +and it was as bold a compliment as he would have dared to pay her in the +dense anxiety through which he was groping. "He's a manly little chap, +and is sure to come out on top. I've been studying over it"--Henley was +growing a trifle bolder--his eyes met hers--"and I've wondered if you'd +get jealous if I said that I want to do something substantial for him. +He'll need good schooling, you know, and a lot o' things to start 'im +out fairly." + +"You? Why, Al--why, surely you don't mean it--you don't mean _that_." + +"Why, why not, Dixie--Miss Dixie?" he corrected, as his warm, anxious +gaze rested on her lowered lids, for she was turning the pages of the +arithmetic in her lap. "You see, I'm not exactly a poor man; the Lord +has been powerful good to me, and--and you see, now I'm all alone in the +world. I--I got news to-day about--about, well, I'm a free man now, +with no responsibilities on me, and--well, you see how it is." + +"I don't know what to say about it--about Joe." She lowered her head +over the book. "It would be wrong for me to stand in his way, and I +won't. He was helpless on the world when I took him, and he is yet, for +I'm over head and ears in debt. I thought I could do wonders by buying +land on a credit, but I'm as near a bankrupt as could be possible. I'd +be down and out now if others got what was coming to them. As proud as I +am, and as hard as I've worked, I'm right now living on charity." + +"Shucks! Don't be silly, Dixie!" burst from Henley's lips with +considerable warmth. "You sha'n't set here and talk such foolishness; +you've done more than thousands o' men could have done. You are a plumb +wonder." + +"All you say don't alter facts," Dixie sighed. "I know that I've got a +big debt to pay, and it's got to be paid by fair means or foul. Let's +talk about something else. I've been setting here an hour trying to work +this example for Joe. It looks as easy as two and two make four, but it +ain't; it's simply terrible. Listen: 'Sixty is two-thirds of what +number?'" + +"Let me see." And Henley crawled to her aide till he could see, as he +rested on his elbow, the page and the lines at which her finger pointed. +"That's easy enough, I reckon. 'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' +Why, it's--" His eyes became fixed in vacancy, as he gazed at the blue +sky above the tree-tops, and then at the ground. "Why, it's a fool +thing--it must be a misprint. You often find mistakes like that in +school-books. I know my teacher used to write the correct thing on the +edge of the page." + +"No, I reckon it's all right," Dixie argued. "It's a funny thing, for +every minute I seem to be on the point of catching it, and then it slips +away. You see, it has been so long since I went to school that I can't +remember how such sums are done." + +"Well, I can work any sort o' example that I have use for in my +business," Henley defended himself as well as he could, "but the Lord +knows I never had any use for a--a thing as silly as that is on the very +face of it. Huh, I say--'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' Why, the +fool don't even give the number he asks you to divide. How can you +divide a thing that hain't been seen, measured, or weighed? It is as +silly as asking how many inches long is two-thirds of a piece of string, +or how many bushels of wheat in two-thirds of a barn that's twice as big +as four-fifths of one that never was built." + +Dixie laughed heartily. "It does seem that way, don't it? But, after +all, you do know that sixty must be two-thirds of _some_ number, for +every number is two-thirds of something, ain't it?" + +"By gum, yes!" he exclaimed, with a start. "You are sure right. Ah, I +see now. By gosh, I've got it! No, it's gone already." He had reached +for her pencil and paper, but his hand fell idly on his knee. "Good +gracious! Some'n is dead wrong with me." + +"I think it can be done," Dixie declared, her brow furrowed. "You see, +since sixty must be two-thirds of some number, I'm picking different +numbers and dividing by three and multiplying by two. The last trial I +made was one hundred, and I got sixty-six and two-thirds for the answer. +You see, that ain't so powerful far off." + +"I see, I see," Henley cried, eagerly. "Now, what you want to do is to +keep getting lower and lower till you hit the nail on the head. I reckon +it's one o' them sums just got up to make the sprouting intellect hop +and skip about for practice. Suppose you try ninety-nine next? It's +better to go slow, and be sure, than to have to go back. Le'me see: +three into nine, three times and nothing to carry; three into nine +again--there, you've got thirty-three, and twice thirty-three are +sixty-six. See, we are still closer to the mark, for we have already +wiped off the two-thirds." + +"We are warm!" Dixie cried, with the laugh of a child playing a game. +"Now let's try ninety-six." + +Henley made a rapid calculation. "Sixty-four!" he cried out, gleefully. +"We are closer. Now let's take a stab at ninety-three." And he began to +figure, but she stopped him. + +"My judgment is ninety," she said. "One-third of ninety is thirty and +twice thirty is--glory, Alfred, we've nailed it! We've got it--we've got +it! And we thought it couldn't possibly be done." + +"That's so," he admitted. "But I'd hate to make a hoss-trade by such +figuring as that. The feller would back out or the hoss would git too +old." + +The conversation languished. He had a feeling that she might object to +his closeness to her, and yet he hardly knew how to draw away without +attracting undue attention to the act, so he took the book into his +hands and began to look through it. And then he remembered what Mrs. +Hart had said about Dixie's desire to sell her farm, and a slow twinkle +of a set purpose began to burn in his eyes. "It might work," he said to +himself. "Anyways, that debt notion has got to be got out of the way or +I'll never make any progress. + +"I was just wondering whether I oughtn't to give you a piece of advice, +in a business sort of a way," he said to her, his fingers rapidly +twirling the pages of the book. "You see, a feller that trades as much +as I do in all sorts of things is calculated to know the drift of the +market better, maybe, than a girl like you. You was speaking about how +you hated the idea of being in debt just now, and your mother says you +want to sell your farm--the fact is, I don't see why you don't sell it +and quit working like an ox in a yoke. It's plumb wrong; you oughtn't +to do it, that's all." + +"Sell it? Why, Alfred," and she looked at him eagerly, "I'd only be too +glad to do it if I knew any one who would pay anything near its worth. +You see, it's cost me first and last something over two thousand +dollars, and if I could get that much--" + +"That much!" he sniffed contemptuously. "Why, you'd be crazy to sell at +a figure like that. You see, I know the field pretty well. I rub against +moneyed men every day who are simply itching for something to invest in. +The most of 'em believe the new railroad will eventually strike Chester +on its way to hook on to the trunk-line through Tennessee and North +Carolina, and they are willing to bet on it. You know old Welborne +wanted your farm, and it nearly killed him to lose his hold on it. +But--while I ain't exactly free to use names--I know a man right now who +wants your property. He'd pay you three thousand dollars in cash right +down." + +"Oh, Alfred, you don't mean it--surely you don't!" + +"You say you'll take it," Henley laughed, though the edges of his mouth +were drawn tensely from some inner cause, "and I'll close the deal +before you can say Jack Robinson." + +"Take it?" Dixie cried, and in her eagerness and gratitude she actually +laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Alfred, if you'd only do that for me I'd +be the happiest girl in the world!" + +"Well, it will be done to-morrow morning early," Henley said, a certain +purpose rendering his face rigid, his eyes fixed as if a great crisis +had arrived in his life. "The only thing is, that I'd naturally feel +like I'd be entitled to some commission--" He tried to smile into her +staring eyes, but failed. He caught hold of her hand and she seemed +wholly unconscious of the fact. + +"Why, of course," she groped, "I'd be willing to pay all costs and +anything else you'd ask." + +"There is only one thing I could want, or would ever care to have," he +swallowed, "and that is you, Dixie. You must be my wife. I'm free now. +Nothing stands between us. I want you, sweetheart--I want you!" + +Their eyes met, volumes of tenderness sweeping to and fro between them. +A great light had taken possession of her face. He felt her lean against +him confidingly, and he put his arm around her and drew her head to his +shoulder, and then, with a boldness he would till now have ascribed only +to a god, he put his hand under her warm face, turned it upward and +kissed her on the lips. She nestled closer to him and shut her eyes, +remaining still and silent. He felt her warmth striking into his body. + +For several minutes they sat thus, and then she opened her eyes and +smiled. + +"Oh, Alfred, I'm so happy!" she said, softly. + +"Well, maybe _I_ ain't," he said, huskily, and then he kissed her again. + +"I'm so glad about the farm," she said. "I can come to you now freer. I +couldn't bear the idea of being in debt to the man _I_ was going to +marry. I've been independent so long that--that it actually hurt me. Are +you plumb sure you can sell it, Alfred--absolutely sure?" + +"Absolutely," he answered. "The only thing that's bothering me is that +it's worth more." + +"Never mind about that," she cried. "But tell me who is to take it, +Alfred?" + +Their eyes met again steadily, a warm, confident, fearless smile lighted +up his face. He put his arm about her again, drew her close to him, and +held her cheek in his hand. + +"There ain't but one man under God's eye that's got a right to own the +land you toiled on like you did," he said, "and that is the man that +worships every hair on your head and every drop of blood in your veins. +I'm the feller, Dixie." + +"Oh, Alfred!" she cried out, but, seeing his eyes burning into hers, she +smiled, nestled closer into his arms, and said: "Well, what's the use? +My fight's over. I've got you, and nothing on earth can take you from +me." + + +THE END + + +Popular Copyright Books + +AT MODERATE PRICES + +Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at the +price you paid for this volume. + + +=Alternative, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon. +=Angel of Forgiveness, The.= By Rosa N. Carey. +=Angel of Pain, The.= By E. F. 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Harben. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: 2%; + } + p.noind {text-indent: 0%;} + p.sign {margin-left: 30%; text-indent: -10%;} + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + background:#ffffff; + color:black; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + font-size: large; + } + img {border: none;} + a:link {background-color: #ffffff; color: blue; text-decoration: none; } + link {background-color: #ffffff; color: blue; text-decoration: none; } + a:visited {background-color: #ffffff; color: blue; text-decoration: none; } + a:hover {background-color: #ffffff; color: red; text-decoration:underline; } + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .init {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 0em; margin-top: + 0em; margin-right: 0.25em; padding: 0; border: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dixie Hart, by Will N. Harben + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dixie Hart + +Author: Will N. Harben + +Release Date: November 15, 2006 [EBook #19818] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIXIE HART *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, Suzanne Lybarger and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<p> <br /></p> +<div class="center"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover" /> +</div> +<p> <br /></p> +<div class="center"><img src="images/002.jpg" alt="Frontispiece" /> +</div> +<p> <br /></p> +<table summary="title" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border: solid 3px;"> +<tr><td> +<table summary="title" class="title" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="10"> +<tr><td valign="middle" align="center" style="border: solid 3px; font-size: 200%;"><b>DIXIE HART</b></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" +style="border: solid 3px;"><b><i>By</i> WILL N. HARBEN</b><br /></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" style="border: solid 3px;"><b>Author of "The Redemption of Kenneth Galt," "Gilbert Neal," +<br />"Abner +Daniel," "Pole Baker," etc.</b><br /><br /><br /><br /> +<br /> +<img src="images/001.png" alt="image" /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +<span class="smcap"><b>With Frontispiece</b></span><br /><br /><br /> +</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" style="border: solid 3px;"> +<b>A. L. BURT COMPANY<br /> +<span class="smcap">Publishers New York</span><br /> +Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers</b><br /> +</td></tr> +</table> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 5%;" /> +<p class="center">Copyright, 1910, by <span class="smcap">Harper</span> & <span class="smcap">Brothers</span></p> +<hr style="width: 5%;" /> + + +<table summary=""> +<tr><td>TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE<br /> +RICHARD WATSON GILDER, WHOSE<br /> +KINDLY APPRECIATION OF THE<br /> +CHARACTER OF "DIXIE HART" WAS MY<br /> +INSPIRATION IN WRITING THIS BOOK<br /> +</td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<table summary="toc" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="25" style=" +border: solid 1px black; +text-indent: -3%;"> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">II,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">III,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">V,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">X,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">XXXVI,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">XXXVII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">XXXVIII,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">XXXIX,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XL">XL,</a> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">XLI</a> +</td></tr> +</table> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>DIXIE HART</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p class="noind"> +<span class="init"><img src="images/044.png" alt="I" /></span> + +N a blaze of splendor the morning sun broke over the mountain, throwing +its scraggy brown bowlders, spruce-pines, thorn-bushes, and tangled +vines into impenetrable shadow. Massed at the base and along the rocky +sides were mists as dense as clouds, through the filmy upper edges of +which the yellow light shone as through a mighty prism, dancing on the +dew-coated corn-blades, cotton-plants, and already drinking from the +fresh-ploughed, mellow soil of the farm-lands which fell away in gentle +undulations to the confines of the village hard by.</p> + +<p>"A fellow couldn't ask for a prettier day than this, no matter how +greedy he was," Alfred Henley mused as he stood in the doorway of his +barn and heard the gnawing of the horses he had just fed in the stalls +behind him. A hundred yards distant, on the main-travelled road which +ran into the village of Chester, only half a mile away, stood his house, +the eight rooms of which were divided into two equal parts by an open +veranda, in which there was a shelf for water-pails, tin wash-basins, +and a towel on a clumsy roller. A slender woman, with harsh, sharp +features, older-looking than her thirty years would have justified, and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>a stiff figure disguised by few attempts at adornment, was sweeping the +veranda floor, and in chairs propped back against the weather-boarding +sat an old man and an old woman in the plainest of mountain attire.</p> + +<p>For a moment Henley's eyes rested on the group, and he sighed deeply. +"Yes, she's my wife," he said. "I owe her every duty, and, before God, +I'll stick to my vows and do what's right by her, come what may! She was +the only woman I thought I wanted, or ever could want. They say every +cloud has a silvery lining, but my cloud was made out of lead—and not +rubbed bright at that. I reckon, if the truth must be told, that the +whole mistake was of my own making. Whatever the Creator does for good +or ill, He don't seem to bother about hitching folks together; He leaves +that job to the fools that are roped in. Well, I'm going to stick to the +helm and guide my boat the best I can. I made my bed, and I'm as good a +sleeper as the average."</p> + +<p>Here the attention of the man, who was tall, strong, good-looking, and +about thirty-five years of age, was attracted by the dull blows of an +axe falling on wood, and, looking over the rail-fence into the yard of +an adjoining farm-house, a diminutive affair of only four rooms and a +box-like porch, he saw an attractive figure. It was that of a graceful +young woman about twenty-two years of age. Her hair, which was a rich +golden brown, and had a tendency to curl, was unbound, and as she raised +and lowered her bare arms it swung to and fro on her shapely shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Poor thing!" the observer exclaimed. "Here I am complaining, and just +look at her! A stout, able-bodied man that will grumble over a mistake +or two with a sight like that before his eyes ain't worth the powder and +lead that it would take to kill him. Look what she's took on her young +shoulders, and goes about with a constant smile and song on her red +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>lips. Yes, Dixie Hart shall be the medicine I'll take for my disease. +Whenever I feel like kicking over the traces I'll look in her direction. +I'd jump this fence and chop that wood for her now if I could do it +without old Wrinkle making comment."</p> + +<p>Her work finished, the girl turned and saw him. She flushed a shade +deeper than was due to her exercise, and with the axe in hand she came +to him. Her large hazel eyes held a mystic charm behind the long lashes +which seemed actually to melt into the soft pinkness of her skin.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Alfred," she greeted him, her lips curling in a smile. "I +know this ain't where you sell goods, but I thought it might save me a +trip to town to ask you if you keep axes at your store. This old plug of +a thing is about as sharp as a sledgehammer."</p> + +<p>"I've got a few poked away behind the counters somewhere," he laughed, +as he always did over her droll and original speech, "but the handles +ain't in them, and that is a job for a blacksmith, if they are ever made +to hold. Let me see that thing." He took the axe from her, and ran his +thumb along the blunt and gapped edge. "Look here, Dixie," he said, "I +thought you was too sensible a farmer to discard good tools. This axe is +an old-timer; you don't find such good-tempered steel in the axes made +to sell these days, with their lying red and blue labels pasted on 'em. +Give this one a good grinding and it will chop all the wood you'll ever +want to cut. Let me have it this morning. I've got a grindstone at the +store, and I'll make Pomp put a barber's edge on it."</p> + +<p>"Of course you'll let me pay—"</p> + +<p>"Pay nothing!" he broke in. "That nigger is taking the dry rot; he's +asleep under the counter half the time. The idea of you delving in the +hot sun with a tool that won't cut mud! You oughtn't to chop wood, +nohow. You ain't built for it. Your place is in the parlor of some rich +man's house, leaning back in a rocking-chair, with a good carpet under +foot."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's the song mother and Aunt Mandy sing from morning to night," the +girl smiled, showing her perfect teeth. "They want me to quit work, and +get some man to tote my load. I reckon if the average young fellow out +looking for a wife could see behind the hedge he'd think twice before he +jumped into the thorns."</p> + +<p>Henley laughed again, his eyes resting admiringly on her animated face. +"I reckon the gals wouldn't primp so much either if they could see the +insides of their prize-packages," he returned. "I reckon neither side is +as wise while courting is going on as they are after the knot is tied. +Folks hereabouts certainly have plenty to say about me and my venture."</p> + +<p>There was a frank admission of the truth of his remark in the girl's +reply. "Well, if I was you, I wouldn't let anything they say bother me," +she said, sympathetically. "Mean people will say mean things; but you've +got friends that stick to you powerful close. I've heard many a one say +that in taking your wife's father-and mother-in-law to live with you, +and treating them as nice as you have, you are doing what not one man in +ten thousand would do."</p> + +<p>"I don't deserve any credit for that—not one bit," the young man +declared. "I'm not going to pass as better than I am, Dixie; I'm just +human, neither better nor worse than the average. I reckon you've heard +about how I happened to get married?"</p> + +<p>"Not from <i>you</i>, Alfred," the girl answered, in a kindly tone. "I have +often wondered if the busybodies got it straight. I've heard that you +used to go to see your wife before she married the first time."</p> + +<p>"Yes, me and Dick Wrinkle was both after her in a neck-and-neck race, +taking her to parties, corn-shuckings, and anything that was got up. +Hettie never was, you know, exactly pretty, but she had a sort o' queer, +say-little way about her that caught my eye. I was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> gawky boy, as +green as a gourd, and never had been about with women. Dick was just the +opposite: he was a reckless, splurging chap that dressed as fine as a +fiddle, wasn't afraid to talk, joke, and carry on, and he could dance to +a queen's taste; so he naturally had all the gals after him. I was +afraid he was going to cut me out, and I was fool enough to—well, I +used to hope, when I'd see him so popular in company, that he'd make +another choice. And he might—he might have done it—for he was the most +wishy-washy chap that ever cocked his eye at a woman; he might, I say, +if me an' him hadn't had a regular knock-down-and-drag-out row. He was +drinking once, and said more than I could stand about a hoss trade I'd +made with a cousin o' his, and it ended in blows. The crowd parted us, +and he went one way and me another; but after that he hated me like a +rattlesnake, and he told her not to let me come there again. He might +not have made that demand if he had thought it over, for it sorter give +'er a stick to poke 'im with. She used to say nice things about me to +egg him on, and he often went with her for no other reason than to keep +me away. Well, you can see how it was. She wanted to beat the other +gals, and he wanted to outdo me, and, in the wrangle, they got married +one day all of a sudden."</p> + +<p>"And you felt bad, I reckon," Dixie Hart said, sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to die," Henley answered, grimly. "I cursed man and God. That +gal was my life. I was as blind as a bat in daytime."</p> + +<p>"Then I've heard," the girl pursued, "that he neglected her and finally +went off West with Hank Bradley, and almost quit writing to her."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Henley nodded, "and she moped about home as pale as a dead +person, and never seemed interested in anything that was going on. All +that didn't do me any good, I'm here to tell you. Her trouble become +mine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> I toted it night and day. I wasn't fit for work. I was as nigh +crazy as a man could well be out of an asylum."</p> + +<p>"Then the news come back that he was dead?" The girl leaned on the fence +and looked down.</p> + +<p>"Yes; Hank Bradley come home, and told how Dick was blowed away in the +awful tornado that destroyed that new town in Oklahoma. Hank had helped +hunt for his body; but it never could be identified among the hundreds +that was picked up, and so his remains never was brought home. That one +fact nearly killed Hettie. I'm talking plain, Dixie, but me and you are +good, true friends, and I want you, anyway, to understand my fix. I used +to watch her taking walks all by herself in the woods, always in her +thick, black veil, and bowed over like, as if she was under a heavy +load. I reckon no woman the Lord ever constructed is quite as attractive +to the eye uncovered as she is partly hid, for we are always hunting for +perfection, and so nothing under the sun seemed to me to be so good and +pure and desirable as Hettie did. I even gloried in the attention she +paid his mammy and daddy. I thought it was fine and noble, and that it +gave the lie to the charge that women are changeable. I don't want you +to think that I rate her any lower now, either, Dixie, for I don't. +She's a sight better woman than I am a man, and I certainly dogged the +life out of her till she agreed to marry me. She told me fair and square +at the start that she'd always love him, and I told her that it wouldn't +matter a bit. It hurts my pride a little now, but that ain't her +lookout. Folks say she's odd and peculiar, and that may be so, too, but +she was that way all along, and it's a waste of time to criticise +anybody for what they can't help."</p> + +<p>"I've always liked her," the girl said. "She certainly attends to her +own business, and that is more than I can say for my chief enemy, Carrie +Wade. Alfred, that girl hates the ground I walk on, and yet she keeps +coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> to see me. She has me on her visiting list so she can devil me. +She has no work to do at home, and so she comes over to nag me. She +never has a beau or gets a thing to wear without trotting over to tell +me about it or flaunt it in my face. She even makes fun of me for having +to work in the field, and is actually insulting sometimes. I'd shut the +door in her face, but it would only please her to think she'd made me +mad."</p> + +<p>"She's more anxious to get attention from men than any woman I ever laid +eyes on," Henley declared, resentfully. "When drummers come to sell me +goods, she scents 'em a mile down the road, and is in the store +pretending to want to buy some knickknack or other before they open +their samples. I oughtn't to talk agin a lady, Dixie, but she lays +herself open to it, and is so much like a man in some things that I +forget what's due her as a woman. She has such a sneering way, too. That +reminds me. I heard her mention my name when I passed you and her at the +spring the other day. I couldn't hear what she said, but from the way +she snickered I knew she was poking fun. I caught this much: she said +that I was the only man on earth who was fool enough to do something or +other. I couldn't hear what it was, and I didn't care much, but—" +Henley broke off, and for a moment his eyes rested on the averted face +of his companion.</p> + +<p>"I don't carry tales," Dixie finally said, with a touch of +embarrassment, "but I've a good mind to tell you exactly what she said, +Alfred, so that you won't think it is worse than it really was. It +wasn't such an awful thing, and she was laughing more at her own +smartness than at you. She said—she said you was the only man under the +sun who had gone so far as to adopt a step-father-in-law. Now, that +wasn't so terrible, was it?"</p> + +<p>A sickly smile struggled for existence on the face of the storekeeper, +and his color rose. "Well, that was a new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> way to put it, anyway," he +said. "I think I could laugh hearty at that joke if it was on some other +fellow, and I'm glad you told me what it was. I didn't know but what she +was saying something even nastier than that."</p> + +<p>"She really said some <i>nice</i> things," Dixie went on, diplomatically. +"She said it was good of you to give a home to the Wrinkles, and—"</p> + +<p>"As I said just now, I won't take credit for that," Henley broke in; "in +fact, I'd have refused if I could have done it. It come as a surprise, +and it almost knocked me silly. I'd counted on Hettie doing a good many +odd things, but I never expected that. So when she come home from the +camp-meeting, where there had been such a big religious upheaval, and +said she'd met the old man and woman there, and that they both looked so +lonely and peaked and ill-fed that she felt like she was acting +unfaithful to Dick's memory in living in one county and them in +another—well, that's the way it happened. I confess I never thought the +pair looked so bad when they come over, for they was awful cheerful, and +seemed to 'a' been fed on the fat of the land. Hettie told me afterward +that she'd been sending 'em all her spare change, so that was explained. +You'd never know the old woman was about unless you stumbled over her in +the dark, for she is as quiet as a mouse, and never says a thing nor +listens to anybody but him. He's all right. The old man's all right. I +really think I'd miss 'im if he was to leave. I never like to encourage +him too much, but I often laugh at the jokes he plays on folks. People +poke fun at me for having him around, but he drives off the blues +sometimes. He showed me what to expect from him the first day he got +here. He come down to the store, and walked in and looked around till he +saw the tobacco-boxes behind the counter, and he went to 'em and pulled +a plug off of each one, and smelt of 'em and looked at 'em in the light. +Then he took the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> best one and sidled over to me. He run his hand down +in his pocket, and I thought he was going to pay me for it, but he was +just hunting for his knife. He grinned as he clipped a corner off the +plug, and stuck it betwixt his short teeth. 'You'll find that I'm a +great chawer and smoker, Alf,' he said. Then he axed me if I had such a +thing as a empty dry-goods box about, and when I pointed to some in the +back-yard that I was saving to put seed-corn in, he said he'd take one +and wanted me to have the horses and wagon sent over for a pig they had +left. 'I wouldn't send for it,' he said, 'but it has got to be a sort of +pet. Its pen used to be right at our window, an' me an' the old lady +miss its squealing, especially in the morning. It is as good as an +alarm-clock.'"</p> + +<p>The girl wiped a smile from her merry mouth. "Excuse me, Alfred," she +said, "but it does seem powerful funny. It must be the way you tell it."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad it's funny to <i>somebody</i>, and you are more than excusable," he +said, dryly. "If I could get as good a joke as that on an enemy of mine +I'd never kill 'im in a duel; I'd keep him alive to laugh at."</p> + +<p>"You didn't say whether Mr. Wrinkle paid for the tobacco or not," Dixie +reminded him, expectantly.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll tell you now that he didn't," was the answer, "nor for a +pocketful of red stick-candy which he took from a jar. He said it was +for his wife's sweet tooth; but if she got any of it she met him on the +road home, for he was chucking it in at a great rate as he walked away."</p> + +<p>They both glanced toward Henley's house. They saw the subject of their +remarks emerge from the kitchen door, and hang his slouch hat on a nail +on the veranda, and reach for the dinner-horn.</p> + +<p>"He's going to blow for me," Henley smiled, as the spluttering blast +from the horn rang out and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> reverberated from the mountain-side. +"Breakfast is ready. He eats like a horse at all times, and is as hardy +as a mountain-goat. I'm going to call him 'Kind Words.'"</p> + +<p>"Kind Words"? Dixie looked up inquiringly and smiled. "That's as odd as +Carrie's 'stepfather-in-law.' Why are you going to call him that?"</p> + +<p>"Because," and Henley glanced back as he was moving away, "the +Sunday-school hymn says, 'Kind words can never die,' and I know old +Wrinkle won't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p class="noind"> +<span class="init"><img src="images/009.png" alt="A" /></span> + +S Henley, the axe in hand, approached the house, his stepfather-in-law, +with considerable clatter, was hanging the horn on its nail.</p> + +<p>"I noticed you was talkin' to Dixie Hart at the fence," he said, as he +discarded his quid of tobacco and stroked his grizzled chin, on which a +week-old beard grew. "Well, if I wasn't no older'n you are, an' was as +good-lookin', which maybe I ain't, I'd chin 'er over the fence mornin', +noon, and night—married or unmarried. Man laws was made to keep us +straight, I reckon; but when the Lord Himself lived on earth they wasn't +quite as bindin' as folks try to make 'em now. A feller, in that day an' +time, could be introduced to a new wife every mornin' at breakfast, if +he could afford to keep a drove of 'em, and still be looked up to as a +wise man and a prophet."</p> + +<p>"Dixie was talking about buying a new axe," Henley answered, "but I told +her this one was good enough, and that I'd make Pomp grind it."</p> + +<p>"She's as purty as red shoes," old Jason said. "And if she hain't had a +load to bear, no female ever toted one. Talk about justice! Why, Alf, +that gal hain't had a thimbleful sence she was a baby. She has set out +to make a livin' fer a mammy that can't hardly see where she's walkin', +and an aunt that is mighty nigh tied in a knot with rheumatism, and she +is doin' it—bless yore life!—better'n many a man could in the same +plight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> Folks say she's already paid old Welborne half on that farm, +and that before long she'll own it, lock, stock, and barrel. As you may +'a' noticed, I sometimes poke jabs of fun at women, but I never do at +her. Somehow I jest can't. I was a-settin' right back of Carrie Wade an' +some more frisky gals at meetin' last Sunday when Dixie come in an' tuck +a seat on the bench ahead of 'em. I don't let women bother me, one way +or another, but I got rippin' mad at that gang. They was makin' sport of +her. One of 'em re'ched over an' felt of the ribbon on the pore gal's +hat, and then they stuffed the'r handkerchiefs in the'r mouths and come +nigh bustin' with giggles. Them sort think they are the whole show, with +their white hands, smellin'-stuff, and the'r eyes on every man that +passes, while a gal like Dixie Hart is overlooked. I've stood thar at +the gate and watched her out in her corn or cotton in the br'ilin' sun +with her hoe goin' up and down as regular as the tick of a clock, while +the other gals was whiskin' by in some drummer's dinky-top buggy or +takin' a snooze flat o' the'r backs in a cool room."</p> + +<p>"Is breakfast ready?" Henley asked, with an appreciative nod in +recognition of remarks he did not wish to prolong, as he leaned the axe +against the front gate and ascended the steps.</p> + +<p>"Sech as it is," the old man answered, taking another tack. "When me an' +Jane decided to come here to reside, Hettie was goin' to do wonders in +the cookin' line. She was particular to ax just what our favorite dishes +was, and you may remember how she spread herse'f the fust three days +after we was installed. It was like a camp-meetin'. You couldn't think +of a single article that she didn't have ready, in some shape or other. +But after 'while hot things quit comin' and cold uns appeared that had a +familiar look, and now me and you and all of us set down to the same old +seven and six. Well, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> jaw teeth ain't as good as they used to be, and +I make out by soakin' my bread-crust in my coffee. Hettie says she's +goin' to have me an' Jane both fitted out with store sets. Folks that +have tried 'em say they beat the old sort all holler—that you kin crack +hickory-nuts if you have both upper and lower and git a fair clamp on +'em and use yore muscles."</p> + +<p>Henley turned into the big dining-room, where his "stepmother-in-law," a +diminutive woman, sat at the foot of the oblong table dressed in faded +black, even to the poke sunbonnet which, worn indoors and out, +completely hid her wrinkled face. Mrs. Henley, as he seated himself on +the side of the board opposite Wrinkle, came from the adjoining kitchen +carrying a steaming pot of coffee, which she put by her plate at the +head of the table, and sat down stiffly. The smooth floor of the room +was bare save for a few rugs made of varicolored rags. The walls had a +few cheap pictures on them—brilliant old-fashioned prints in mahogany +frames, and some enlarged photographs in tawdry gilt. The wide hearth of +a deep chimney was whitewashed, as was also the exposed brickwork up to +a crude mantelpiece on which towered a Colonial clock with wooden +wheels, ornamental dial, ponderous weights, and a painted glass door.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henley had not always been so unattractive; her dark eyes were good +and her face held the glow of fine health. She had added to the severity +of her sharp features by the too-elderly manner in which she parted her +hair exactly in the centre of her high brow and brushed it sharply +backward to a scant knot behind. She wore constantly an expression of +one who was well aware of the fact that vast and vague duties to the +dead as well as to the living rested on her and which should be +performed at any cost. She was not usually talkative, and she had few +observations to make this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>morning. As she nibbled the hot biscuit, upon +which she had daintily spread a bit of butter, she allowed her glance to +rove perfunctorily over the three plates beyond her own. She asked +Wrinkle if his coffee was strong enough, and the gap in the black bonnet +if the mush was too lumpy. From the bonnet came a mumbling content with +the yellow mass into which cream was being slowly stirred with a +quivering hand. Wrinkle seemed more ready in the use of his tongue.</p> + +<p>"I hain't got no complaint to make," he said. "Especially sence Alf said +t'other day at the store that coffee was on the rise. I was curious to +see how this batch would sample out. I reckon when the market takes a +jump storekeepers has to take a lower grade to keep customers satisfied +with the price. But it won't work ef they are as good a judge of the +stuff as I am. I parched this lot myself and picked out heaps o' rotten +grains."</p> + +<p>"They wasn't rotten," Henley explained, authoritatively. "They was +water-stained by a wet crop-year, that's all. You was throwing away good +coffee."</p> + +<p>"Good or not, the chickens wouldn't eat it," argued the tangled head. "I +know, fer I watched 'em. They was hangin' round the kitchen-door and +would run every time I throwed out a handful, but they didn't swallow +'em any more'n they would so many buckshot. But prices nor nothin' else +will ever git right, if I am any judge, till we git free silver. I tell +you, Alf, that man Bryant is the biggest gun, by all odds, that ever +belched fire in the defence of a helpless nation, and when them dratted +Yankees tricked 'im out of the Presidency they put the ball an' chain o' +slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen +to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a +fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon +was a idiot. Who was the'r<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> brag man up in Yankeedom?—why, Abe +Lincoln—an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and +tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its +uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls. +<i>That</i> man"—Wrinkle swallowed as he pointed the prongs of his fork at +the crayon portrait of Henley's predecessor, which, with shaggy mustache +and partially bald pate, in a new oaken frame, hung near the +clock—"that man was a Bryant supporter from the minute the +sixteen-to-one proposition electrocuted the world to the day of his +death."</p> + +<p>"Electro<i>fied</i>," corrected Mrs. Henley. "You oughtn't to use words out +of the common. People don't understand them hereabouts."</p> + +<p>"Well, they ought to grow up to it," Wrinkle grunted in his cup. "I read +more'n they do, I reckon, an' sometimes a word tickles me till I git it +out."</p> + +<p>Henley ate his breakfast in silence. He was known to be a good talker +himself, but he seldom indulged the tendency when Wrinkle was present. +The meal over, he took his hat and went out. The road passing the +farm-house led straight into the main street of the village, and along +it he strode in the soothing, crisp air. His store stood on the square +which encompassed the stone court-house. The store was a plain wooden +building which had never been painted, but had received from time and +the weather a gray, fuzzy coat which answered every purpose. It was +about eighty feet long by thirty in width, and had a porch in front, +which was reached from the sidewalk by a few steps. Ascending to the +door, Henley unlocked it and proceeded from the rather dark interior to +unscrew the faded green window-shutters. These thrown back on the +outside, the light filled the long room, displaying two rows of counters +and shelving. The right-hand side was devoted to dry goods and notions, +the left to groceries, hardware, and crockery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> Henley went on to the +rear, where, by lifting a massive wooden bar from iron sockets, he +opened a door in one side of the house. Next he took up a water-pail +from an inverted soap-box, and, emptying the contents, he went to the +well in the adjoining yard, a fenced enclosure which contained a +conglomerate mass of old junk, broken-down wagons, buggies, agricultural +implements, and other odds and ends which the merchant had bought very +low or taken in some sort of exchange for new wares whereby they had +cost him practically nothing. Returning with the water, he had just +seated himself at his desk in the rear when his clerk, James Cahews, +entered at the front, busied himself putting out some samples of +hardware on the porch, and then came back to his employer. He was tall, +well built, had very blue eyes, yellow hair, and a sweeping mustache +which was well curled at the ends. He was without a coat and wore a blue +cravat and a shirt of fancy cotton which matched none too well.</p> + +<p>"You beat me to the tank again, Alf," was his jovial greeting. "I would +have got here sooner, but I stopped to drive Mrs. Hayward's cow in for +her. The blamed huzzy took a notion to prance about over the +school-house lot, and the old lady is too near-sighted to see which way +to turn and was afraid she'd get hooked."</p> + +<p>"No hurry, no hurry," Henley said, as the other took up a battered tin +sprinkling-pot and, filling it from the pail, began to dampen and sweep +the floor, after which he lazily wiped the counters with a soiled towel.</p> + +<p>"Pomp will be here after a while," the clerk said, pausing near where +Henley sat, his glance thoughtfully on the sunlit ground in the yard. "I +come by his cabin. He said he had to run for some medicine for his wife, +and I told him I'd sweep out for him. Them dern niggers had rather take +medicine than eat ice-cream at a festival. I don't know that it's +anybody else's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>business," he went on, after he had stood the broom in a +corner and was wiping the top of Henley's desk, "but thar is +considerable talk going around that you intend to take a trip to Texas."</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking seriously of it," Henley admitted. "I've heard of a deal +or two in land out there that I want to get a finger in. You know, Jim, +that I don't really make my best trades here in this shack; nothing +worth while seems to come this way. I reckon it's because this country +is old and settled. In a new, undeveloped section like that out there +big things is continually happening. The general impression is that a +trading-man can make more amongst ignorant folks than amongst keen +traffickers, but it is a mistake. Folks that ain't born with the flea of +speculation wigglin' in their brain-pans won't never let loose of +nothing. It is the feller that is eternally on the lookout for +opportunities that will sell the shirt off his back to raise money when +he thinks he sees an opening. Then there ain't no fun nor Christianity +in making money out of a fool. I want to know that a feller is up to +snuff and fairly in the game, and then I'll swat 'im if it is in my +power. It's been the ambition of my life to get the best of old Welborne +across the street there. He's made his pile off of widows and orphans, +and if I ever get him under my thumb I'll crack every bone in his hide."</p> + +<p>"Traders that have the knack of it like you have, Alf, are simply born +that way," Cahews smiled. "I never had any turn of that sort. I can talk +an old woman into buyin' a dress pattern off of a shelf-worn bolt of +linsey, or a pair of shoes too tight for her, but this way you have of +buying a feller's wagon that breaks down in the road and having it +patched up by a blacksmith that owes you money, and selling the wagon +for more than it cost new—well, as I say, I don't know how to do it."</p> + +<p>"I believe myself, as you say, that the trading turn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> is born in a +feller," Henley laughed, reminiscently. "I know I was swapping knives +'sight unseen' when I was wearing petticoats. I had a stock of old ones +and I kept the jaws of 'em rubbed up bright. My daddy used to whip me +for it. He was one of the best men, Jim, that ever wore shoe-leather, +and he never could stand to see one neighbor get the best of another. He +was dead agin all the deals I made when I was growing up, but I learnt +him the trick and showed him the beauty of it before I was twenty."</p> + +<p>"You say you did?" Cahews sat down and eyed his employer eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it come about through my fust hoss-trade," Henley smiled. "It was +this way. Pa was on the lookout for a hoss to do field-work, and he let +everybody know he had the money, and a good many came his way. He wasn't +any judge of hoss-flesh, and a gypsy, passing along, stuck him—burned +the old chap clean to the bone. It was a flea-bitten hoss that was as +round and slick as a ball of butter, and as active under the gypsy's +lash and spur as a frisky young colt. The gypsy said he had paid two +hundred for him, but, as he was anxious to get to his sick wife in +Atlanta, he would make it a hundred and fifty and be thankful that he'd +made one man happy. The old man was his meat. He told him he only had a +hundred and twenty-five, and—well, the gypsy was a smooth article. He +wanted to get his eye on the cash. He said a whole lot about havin' had +counterfeit money paid to him, an' that he had to be careful, and with +that Pa went to the house and got the money and spread it out before the +skunk to prove that it was all right. And in that way the chap got his +hands on it. He shed some tears as he put it into his pocket. Pa said he +kissed the hoss square betwixt the eyes and rubbed him on the nose and +went away with his head hanging down."</p> + +<p>"I catch on," the clerk broke in, deeply interested;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> "it was stolen +property, and your Pa had to give 'im up."</p> + +<p>"No, the titles was all right," Henley answered, dryly. "The time come +when Pa would have greeted any claimant with open arms. The hoss had the +disease traders call 'big shoulders.' I was a mile or two off when the +calamity fell, but somebody told me Pa'd bought a hoss, and I come home +as fast as I could. I found Ma and Pa out in the stable-yard, and he was +fairly chattering over his wonderful bargain, and what a kind heart the +gypsy had. Pa saw me and grinned from ear to ear.</p> + +<p>"'Say, Alf,' he said, 'you are always making your brags about knowing +hoss-flesh; what do you think of this prince of the turf?'</p> + +<p>"I walked round in front of the animal to size him up, and my heart sunk +'way down in my boots. 'Pa,' I said, 'it looks to me like he's got "big +shoulders."'</p> + +<p>"'Big nothing!' Pa said; but when he stood in front and took a squint I +saw him turn pale. 'Big shoulders, a dog's hind-foot!' he grunted, and +he was so mad at me that he could hardly talk. He put the hoss in a +stall and jowered at me all that evening, and at the supper-table he +clean forgot to ask the blessing. The more he feared I was right the +worse he got, till Ma had to call him to order by putting the family +Bible in his lap and making him read and pray. I couldn't help laughing, +as serious as it was; for while we was on our knees the thought struck +me that he ought to ask the Lord to bless that gypsy and restore his +wife to health. Well, I was right. Early the next morning, after a good +night's rest and plenty of water and feed, we found the hoss lying down. +He'd get up and go about a little whenever we'd prod 'im, but he'd lie +down whenever our backs was turned."</p> + +<p>"I've seen hosses like that," Cahews remarked, "and they might as well +be shot."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's exactly what Pa decided to do, after two weeks' nursing and +cajoling," Henley laughed. "He come in to the breakfast-table one +morning with his rifle in his clutch, a sort of resigned look in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"'What are you going to do, Pa?' I asked him.</p> + +<p>"'Why, I see that danged thing has got on one of his lively spells,' he +said, 'and I'm going to shoot him while he's at his best. If there is +any hoss-heaven, he'd make a better appearance like he is now than at +any other time. I've had my fill. The sight of that hoss peeping out +betwixt the bars every day at meal-time and lying on a bed of ease the +rest of the day is driving me crazy. He'll be on his way in a few +minutes if I can shoot straight.'</p> + +<p>"'No, don't kill 'im,' I said, my trading blood up. 'Let me ride 'im to +town while he's lively and maybe I can git rid of him. I might get a few +dollars for his hide, and that would be better than having to dig a hole +to put 'im in.'</p> + +<p>"'No, don't kill 'im here,' Ma said, for she had a tender heart—God +bless her memory—and so the old man hung his gun up on the rack and +went to eating, almost too mad to swallow. Well, after the meal was over +I saddled the hoss and rid into town at a purty lively gait. It was +really astonishing what a decent trot the thing could take at times. You +see, I'd heard that Tobe Wilks, a big hardware man at Carlton, who had a +plantation in the country, was looking for a hoss, and I thought I'd see +what he'd say to mine. I was jest a boy, but I'd hung around +hoss-swappers enough to know that it never was a good idea to be the +first to propose a trade, and so I hitched at the post in front of +Wilks's store and went in. I bought a pound of tenpenny nails, that I +thought would come in handy in patching fences at home, and while the +clerk was weighing 'em up I saw Tobe leave his chair behind a counter +and go out and walk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> around the hoss. Finally he come to me and said, +said he:</p> + +<p>"'Alf, does your Pa want to sell that stack of bones out there?'</p> + +<p>"'He don't,' says I, 'fer the hoss is mine; he gave 'im to me.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, that's it!' said Wilks; 'well, do <i>you</i> want to sell him?'</p> + +<p>"'Well, I ain't itchin' fer a trade,' I says, and I paid no more +attention to Wilks, pretending to be looking at some ploughshares in a +pile on the floor, till he come at me again.</p> + +<p>"'But you <i>would</i> sell him, wouldn't you?' he asked.</p> + +<p>"'Well,' I said, slowlike, as if I had some difficulty in recalling +exactly what we'd been talking about, 'I had sorter thought that a good +mule would do the work I have to do better than a hoss.'</p> + +<p>"'What would you take for him?' Wilks come at me again, and he looked +kinder anxious. 'I want a hoss to send out to my plantation. They are +needing one about like yours.'</p> + +<p>"'It will take a hundred and fifty of any man's money to buy him,' I +says. 'Friend nor foe don't get him for a cent less.'</p> + +<p>"Well, we went out to the hoss, and Wilks got astraddle of him, and, +sir, he took him round the square in the purtiest rack you ever saw +shuffle under a saddle. I saw Wilks thought I was his game, for his eyes +was dancing as he lit and hitched.</p> + +<p>"'How would a hundred and forty strike you, cash down?' he said.</p> + +<p>"'I'm needing the other ten,' I said. 'I'm a one-price man. I know what +I've got in that hoss' (and you bet I did), 'and you can take him or +leave him. I didn't start the talk, nohow.'</p> + +<p>"'Well, we won't fight over the ten,' he said, 'but here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> is one +trouble, Alf. You are under age, and I don't often trade with minors. I +don't know how your daddy may look at it, and I'm going to make this +deal before witnesses so there won't be any trouble later.'</p> + +<p>"'You'll not have any trouble with Pa,' says I. 'I'll guarantee that.'</p> + +<p>"Well, Wilks called up two of his clerks to see the money handed to me, +and with the wad of bills in my pocket I lit out for home. But the +nearer I got to the house the more I got afraid Pa wouldn't endorse what +I'd done, and so I felt sorter funny when him and Ma met me at the gate, +their eyes wide open in curiosity to know what I'd done.</p> + +<p>"'Well, what did you do with the hoss?' Pa wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"'I sold him,' says I. 'I let him go to Tobe Wilks for cash.'</p> + +<p>"'Cash the devil,' says Pa. 'How much?'</p> + +<p>"I drawed out my roll and fluttered the bills in the wind. 'A hundred +and fifty,' I said. 'If I'd asked less he'd have been suspicious and +backed out.'</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, Pa was plumb flabbergasted. He leaned against the gate-post +and puffed for air, and Ma was the same way. But he wouldn't touch the +money. 'It's plain open-and-shut stealing,' he said, when he riz to the +surface, 'and we are simply going to hitch a hoss to the buggy and take +the money back.'</p> + +<p>"Well, it looked like it was no go. I argued and produced evidence till +I was black in the face, but Pa just kept saying he wouldn't sanction no +such deal, and Ma she agreed with him. So you bet I felt like a whipped +school-boy as me and him set side by side and drove into town. He was +bewailing all the way that he'd fetched into the world an only son that +was no better than a hog-thief in principle, an', if I didn't change, me +'n him would have to part.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> +<p>"When we got to the square I saw Tobe Wilks standing in the door of the +store, and I saw that he was mad. At first I thought he'd found out +about the hoss, but I saw it wasn't that as soon as he reached the +buggy.</p> + +<p>"'Now, I'll tell you right now,' he said to Pa, when the old man drawed +the roll out and started to hand it to him over my legs. 'You sha'n't +come here and try to back down in a fair trade like that. I made it +before witnesses, and your boy said he had your consent. I've sent the +hoss out home, and I don't do business that way.' Pa tried to get in a +word, but Tobe 'ud cut him short as soon as he opened his mouth, so the +old man couldn't do anything but wave the money at him.</p> + +<p>"'If you get the hoss you'll do it by law,' Tobe went on, fairly +frothing at the mouth, 'and I'll put your boy in the pen for selling +stolen property. You can't browbeat me, you old hog.'</p> + +<p>"'Old hog!' I heard Pa grunt in his beard, and he stuffed the roll down +in his pants pocket. Now Pa wouldn't take advantage of his worst enemy +in a trade, but he'd fight a bosom friend if he was insulted. And before +I could bat my eyes he had lit out of the buggy, and him and Wilks was +engaged in a scrap that'ud make two wildcats go off and take lessons. +The town marshal run up and parted them by the aid of bystanders, and +some of 'em persuaded me to drive Pa home. He was a good, holy man, but +he cussed all the way, and ended by saying that Wilks never should see +hair nor hide of that money. And he never offered it back again, +neither, and him and Wilks never spoke for two years. Pa bought a fine +Kentucky mare with the money, and used to chuckle every time she'd pass +him. He got so he thought hoss-trading wasn't the worst crime on earth."</p> + +<p>"And what became of the hoss?" the listener asked.</p> + +<p>"I never knew," Henley answered; "men don't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>advertise such things when +they go against them. But one day, during election, Tobe asked me to +cast a vote for his son, and I promised to do it, and we got kinder +friendly. As he was leaving me he turned back and laid his hand on my +shoulder and said, 'Alf, I've wondered many a time what in the name of +common-sense your Pa wanted with that hoss.'</p> + +<p>"'So have I,' said I, and he went one way and me another."</p> + +<p>Pomp, the negro porter, was entering the door, and with a laugh Cahews +turned to meet him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + + +<p class="noind"> +<span class="init"><img src="images/010.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE gray light of early dawn had taken on a faint tint of yellow, and +the profound stillness of the air, the vast quietude of the mountain +foliage and drooping corn-blades gave warning of the fierce heat that +was to follow.</p> + +<p>Dixie Hart turned her head drowsily on her pillow and opened her eyes +and closed them again. "Oh, I could sleep, sleep, sleep till doomsday," +she said to herself. "I wish I didn't have to get up. I'd like to take +one day off. I could lie here flat on my back till night. But, old girl, +you've got to be up an' doing."</p> + +<p>She heard the clucking and scratching of her hens, the chirping of the +tiny chickens, and the lusty crowing of her roosters in their answering +calls to neighboring fowls, the neighing of her horse in the stable, the +mooing of her cow in the barn-yard.</p> + +<p>"They are all begging me to hurry," she mused. "They don't want to +sleep; they've had their fill through the night, while I had to be up. +Well, repining don't make good dining, and here goes."</p> + +<p>She dressed herself, went out on the little kitchen porch, bathed in +fresh, cool well-water, and, with a coarse towel which hung from a nail +on the door-jamb, she rubbed her face, arms, and neck till they glowed +like the reddening skies.</p> + +<p>"My two women, as sound as they pretend to sleep, are crazy for their +coffee," she smiled, "but they've got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> to wait, like people at a circus +do, till the animals are fed. The older folks get, the earlier they go +to bed and the earlier they rise. Heaven only knows where it will end. +If mine could get their suppers early enough they would say good-night +at sundown and good-morning when it was so dark you couldn't see 'em in +their night-clothes."</p> + +<p>"Dixie, is that you, darling?" It was Mrs. Hart's voice, and it came +from the open window of a tiny room with a sloping roof which jutted out +from the end of the kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Yes'm. What is it, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing." A thin hand drew a white curtain aside, and a pale, wrinkled +face, surrounded by dishevelled iron-gray hair, appeared above the +window-sill. "I just wanted to know if you was up. I heard you through +the night. Your aunt was suffering, wasn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she couldn't sleep," Dixie replied, as she spread the damp towel +out on the shelf where the coming sun's rays would dry it. "She says she +sat too long at the spring yesterday. I got up and rubbed her arms and +chest twice with the new liniment. It smells like it's got laudanum in +it; but it didn't deaden her pain."</p> + +<p>"I'd 'a' got up myself," Mrs. Hart said, in her plaintive tone, "but I +can't see good enough to help."</p> + +<p>"It's well you didn't," Dixie said, lightly, "for you'd just have made +double trouble. I'd have laid down my patient and let her grin and bear +her pain while I was trotting you back to bed and making you lie there. +Don't you ever get up and go stumbling about in the dark while I'm +attending to anything like that."</p> + +<p>"I think I'll get up and make the coffee while you are feeding," Mrs. +Hart said. "Mandy nearly dies waiting for it to come after she wakes +up."</p> + +<p>"That's right, lay it on her," Dixie laughed, impulsively. "You are +getting like a ripe old toper who is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> always begging whiskey for +somebody else. You let that coffee-pot alone. The last time you tried +your hand at it you put in a double quantity of corn-meal and couldn't +understand why it didn't have a familiar smell as it was boiling."</p> + +<p>"I believe a body does become a slave to the habit," the old woman +agreed. "The other day you was over at Carlton, and left enough already +made for dinner, I accidentally spilled it, and me and Mandy went nearly +crazy. It was one of her bad days, and she couldn't get up, and I +couldn't find the coffee."</p> + +<p>"I remember," Dixie answered, "and you both swigged so much at supper to +make up for it that you wanted to talk all night. Oh, you two are a +funny lot! But you've got to wait this time, sure. I'm going to feed +these things and stop their noise."</p> + +<p>She had reference to half a hundred fowls, young and old, that were +squawking loudly and fluttering on the steps and even the porch floor. +She disappeared in the kitchen and returned in a moment with a dish-pan +half filled with corn-meal, and into this she poured a quantity of +water, and with her hand stirred the mass into a thick mush. This she +began to throw here and there over the yard like a sower of grain till +the voices of the fowls had ceased and they had fled from the porch. +Then she took up a pail of swill in the kitchen and bore it down to a +pen containing a couple of fat pigs and emptied it into their wooden +trough. Going into a little corn-crib adjoining the stable and +wagon-shed, she brought out a bucketful of wheat-bran and fed it to the +cow, which stood trying to lick the back of a sleek young calf over the +low fence in another lot. "I'll milk you after breakfast," she said, as +she stroked the cow's back. "The calf will have to wait; I can't attend +to all humanity and the brute creation at the same time. You'll feel +more like suckling the frisky thing, anyway, after you've filled your +insides."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>The sun was above the horizon when she had breakfast on the table in the +little kitchen. She stood in the space between the cooking-stove and the +table and attended to the wants of the half-blind woman and the all but +helpless aunt. The biscuits she had baked were light and brown as +autumnal leaves, the eggs fried with bacon in thin lean-and-fat slices +would have tempted the palate of a confirmed invalid. The aroma of the +coffee floated like a delectable substance through the still air.</p> + +<p>"It's going to be awfully hot to-day," Mrs. Wartrace, the widowed aunt, +remarked. "I hope you are not going to hoe in the sun this morning."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" Dixie sniffed, as she sat down at the end of the table and began +to butter a hot biscuit, "and let the crab-grass and pussley weeds +literally choke out the best stand of cotton I ever laid my eyes on. No, +siree, not me. I'd hire hands, but all the niggers have gone to town +where there are more back-doors to live at; no, there is nothing for me +to do but to look out for number one. See here, you two women don't seem +to be able to look ahead. I've paid for half of this farm in the last +three years, and in two more I'll own it. It is a good thing as it +stands, but when I'm plumb out of debt we'll take it easy and set back +in the shade once in a while. Alf Henley is a keen trader and knows what +values are, and he told me not long ago that he believed a railroad +would head for Chester some day, and, if it comes, my land would sell +for town lots. Let's let well enough alone and be thankful for the +blessings we've got. That's right, Aunt Mandy, drain it to the dregs and +I'll fill it again. I knew I'd hit it exactly right this morning by the +color of it."</p> + +<p>Breakfast was over, and Dixie, aided by the fumbling hands of her +mother, was washing and drying the few dishes and putting them away in +the safe with perforated tin doors, which was the chief piece of +furniture in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> room, when the front gate opened and closed with a +metallic click of the latch, and a visitor hurried along the little +gravelled walk to the front porch.</p> + +<p>"It is that meddlesome Carrie Wade," Mrs. Wartrace looked into the +kitchen to say. "She's got on a new muslin, and has come over to show +it, even as early as this."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to stand at the door and knock like a stranger," the +visitor cried out, as she entered the little front hallway and rustled +back to the kitchen. "Hello, Dix; Martha Sims and me are invited to +spend the day over at Treadwell's. You know the new lumber-camp is +there, and there's some dandy fellows working at it. They are going to +give a dance, an' told us to send Ned Jones over with his fiddle. Oh, we +are going to have a rattling time. We agreed to get up early. It seems +funny, don't it? It's been many a day since I saw the sun rise."</p> + +<p>The speaker was a tall blonde about Dixie's age. She was thin, inclined +to paleness, and had a nervous look.</p> + +<p>Dixie was drying her hands on a dishcloth, and she turned upon the +visitor, surveying her carefully from her rather worn shoes to the newer +dress and gaudily flowered hat with its tinsel ornaments and flowing +pink ribbons. She knew full well that her neighbor had come for the sole +purpose of showing her finery, and was secretly gloating over her +misfortune in having to remain behind, and yet she allowed this +knowledge in no way to affect her demeanor.</p> + +<p>"You'll have a glorious time," Dixie said. "It's going to be a fine day +for a picnic and dance."</p> + +<p>"How do you like my dress?" Miss Wade asked, turning round for the +inspection.</p> + +<p>"It's very pretty, and pink suits you," Dixie answered, touching one of +the folds of the skirt.</p> + +<p>"It's entirely too long in front," Mrs. Hart said, as she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> bent forward +and squinted sidewise with quite a visible sneer. "You'd look powerful +funny walking along kicking up the skirt behind. With a veil on nobody +could tell whether you was going or coming. Take my word for it—that +stuff'll fade, even in the sun. You won't get more than one or two +wearings out of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you think so?" The blond face fell. "I was a little afraid of +that myself, and maybe you are right about the fit behind, too."</p> + +<p>"Mother doesn't know what she's talking about," Dixie said, with a +reproachful glance at her parent, who frowningly hovered on the verge of +another criticism. "It is the way you've put the flounce on, Carrie, +that makes it look that way in front. Wait, let me pin it up."</p> + +<p>"Pin it up, I say!" Mrs. Hart sniffed. "You'll never get it to look +decent that way. Nothing but making the whole thing plumb over will do +any good. You ought to have got you a new sash to go with the muslin; +weak-eyed as I am, I can see the dirty, faded edges agin the new cloth. +The two don't go together. In war-times it was considered excusable to +botch things that way, but not in this day and time when all +<i>industrious</i> folks can get what's needed."</p> + +<p>Dixie looked up regretfully, and a flush of embarrassment climbed into +her fine face as her mother, accompanied by her silent sister, swept +stiffly from the room.</p> + +<p>When Carrie Wade had left, after her by no means triumphant call, Dixie +went to her mother, who stood in the yard under an apple-tree, still +with a frown on her really gentle face.</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to have said all that, mother," Dixie said, as she leaned +on the smooth handle of the hoe she was going to take to the field. +"After all, she was in <i>our</i> house."</p> + +<p>"And come in it like a yellow-fanged snake with its forked tongue fairly +dripping with poison," was the ready<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> retort. "She come to gloat over +you as she always has since the day you cut her out of that young man. +She knowed you were going to work at home to-day, and she had the +littleness to traipse over here to try to make you feel like you was +missing something awful grand. If I hadn't left the kitchen I wouldn't +have stopped with what I said about her flimsy dress. I'd have told her +that if she'd stay at home more, and keep the holes in her stockings +darned, and her underclothes cleaner, she'd stand a better chance roping +in some fool man. I'm plain and outspoken, and I resent sneaking hints +and false grins as quick as I do slaps. I'm tired o' you doing the way +you are, anyhow. I want you to be like the rest of the girls. What do we +care about owning this farm. Her daddy can't buy a knitting-needle on +time, and yet they live as well as anybody else, and she thinks she is a +grade higher than the rest of us."</p> + +<p>"Don't you let it bother you, Muttie," Dixie said, tenderly; indeed, she +was always moved by a demonstration of her mother's love, and her eyes +were moist as she put a caressing hand on the gray locks of the little +woman. "We are going to see it through. When the farm is plumb paid for +we'll make Carrie so sick with our fine doings she'll wish she was +dead."</p> + +<p>"It is mighty hard," the old lips quivered, and the gaunt, blue-veined +hand was raised to the dim eyes. "I can't stand to see that girl going +to places you can't go to. I simply can't, that's all."</p> + +<p>"I could have gone, mother," Dixie remarked. "I didn't tell her, for I +knew exactly what she would say, but Hank Bradley met me on the way home +yesterday and offered to drive me over there. He says he knows all the +lumber crowd well."</p> + +<p>"Hank Bradley—did he want to take you?" cried Mrs. Hart, "and you +wouldn't go?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't, mother. You know every girl that has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> ever kept company +with him has been talked about. I don't like him. I can't stand him. +He's a bad man, mother—a gambler, a drunkard, and an idler. He doesn't +care for the characters he has ruined. He's fast running through the +money his mother left him; he's no good."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that you did exactly right," Mrs. Hart said, with the +indecision and bad logic into which her ill-fortune sometimes drew her. +"I know what he is well enough, but you are able to take care of +yourself, and you lose so many chances by being so particular. He knows +your true worth, and I've knowed men even as bad as he is to be reformed +by loving a good girl."</p> + +<p>"I ain't in the reforming business," Dixie laughed. "I'd rather fight +crab-grass and pussley weeds, and I'm off now. You go back in the house +and set down and don't talk about the picnic. I sha'n't even think about +it. I never bother about anything when I get warmed up."</p> + +<p>Without a word further the two parted. Mrs. Hart stood on the little +porch, and Dixie crossed the stretch of green meadow-land and climbed +over the rail-fence of her cotton-field. The long rows of succulent +plants, as high as the girl's knees, seemed breathing, conscious things +to which she was giving relief as she smoothly cut away the tenaciously +encroaching weeds and deep-rooted grass, the heaviest bunches of which +she took up and threshed against the hoe-handle and left in the sun to +die lest they be revived by some shower which would beat their roots +into the mellow soil again. The sun rose higher and higher till it was +poised almost directly over her head, and its rays beat more fiercely +down upon her. The almost breathless air was as hot as a gust from the +open door of a furnace. Her hands, in her heavy, knitted yarn gloves, +were moist and red.</p> + +<p>In the distance, and nearer to the village, rose the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> white, pretentious +house of old Silas Welborne, the money-lender and the uncle of Hank +Bradley, to whom she owed the remaining payment on her land. Almost day +and night it stood before her as a mute reminder of her difficult +undertaking. This morning, in the golden light, against the mountain +background, it seemed an inspiration, as a flag of peace might appear to +a tired soldier. Hank Bradley was the orphaned son of old Welborne's +sister, and he lived in his uncle's home in lieu of any other that was +available. He had made trips to the West and had remained away for +indefinite periods, the last being the time he had come home with the +carelessly announced death of his companion, Dick Wrinkle. The uncle and +nephew were an incongruous pair: old Welborne, with his miserly grasp on +the vitals of half the county, and the devil-may-care Bradley, whose +wild ways made him the constant talk of the community. Old Silas gave no +thought to the fellow's reform. As the administrator of his sister's +estate, he doled out honestly enough the various sums in rents, +dividends, and interest to which the young man was entitled after his +liberal fees as administrator had been deducted, and even smiled when +told of Bradley's reckless and almost criminal escapades. Henley had +once remarked in his keenly observant way that Welborne, being the next +of kin, would be glad to hear that his nephew had died with his boots on +in some one of the lynching affairs to which Bradley was suspected of +being a party.</p> + +<p>Dixie had reached the farthest end of one of her longest cotton-rows, +and was turning to work homeward on another, when the branches of the +bushes of a near-by coppice parted and Bradley, with a fowling-piece on +his arm, appeared.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, you <i>are</i> a queer girl!" he laughed, as he advanced to +the low fence and climbed to a seat upon it. "Working here like a +corn-field nigger in sun hot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> enough to bake a potato, when you could +have been gliding through the shade behind my horse—to say nothing of +the picnic and dance when we got there."</p> + +<p>She pushed back the hood of her bonnet and smiled faintly.</p> + +<p>"Driving and dancing ain't paying debts," she said, "and there is no +other time to do this work. You know your uncle well enough to +understand what he expects of folks unlucky enough to be on his books."</p> + +<p>"That's another thing I can't understand," the young man said, bracing +his heels on one of the rails, and, with his gun across his lap, he +began to twist his stiff brown mustache, while his dark eyes rested with +growing warmth on her trim figure. "What in the name of common-sense do +you want to own land for?"</p> + +<p>"What does a body want to <i>breathe</i> for?" Dixie asked him, sharply, "or +own the duds on your back, or the grub you eat? Why, it is simply to be +independent. I wouldn't quake and shiver every time that old man meets +me if I wasn't in his clutch. I ain't afraid of anybody else, but I am +of him, and why? Because he's got me where he can do as he likes with +me. The last time I went to explain why I couldn't meet the payments +exactly to the day, he growled like a bear, and said if I didn't look +sharp he'd sell the roof over my head."</p> + +<p>"Well, we needn't talk about him," the handsome daredevil said. "What I +want to know is why you'd rather hoe cotton in weather like this than go +with me to a jolly picnic. Why, Dixie, you don't begin to know your +power; you could do as you like in this world, if you only would. You +are the best-looking girl in the county, and you grow prettier every +day. The blood of life is in your veins; you haven't got the sickly, +palish look that the girls have who stay indoors half the time. You've +got a clear eye, a good figure, and a complexion that society women +would give big money for."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You needn't begin all that again." The girl lowered her head and half +raised her hoe to strike at a weed near a stalk of cotton. "I know what +I am well enough. I was born with a load on me, and I'm going to tote it +till I get to a dumping-place. My good looks won't set the world on +fire."</p> + +<p>"Well, they have set <i>me</i> on fire," Bradley laughed, significantly. He +lowered his feet to the ground on her side of the fence and leaned his +gun against it. "Say, this sun will actually blister us; let's go down +to the spring."</p> + +<p>"No spring for me to-day," she said, grimly. "I see Aunt Mandy on the +back porch now. She'll hang out a towel in a minute. That's the signal +that it is half-past eleven by the clock. I've got to go cook dinner."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll walk over with you."</p> + +<p>"No, you mustn't."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I'd rather you wouldn't—that's all."</p> + +<p>"I declare I believe you mean that, and I won't push myself on you, +Dixie. You know how I feel about you, and you oughtn't to be so +dadblasted rough with a fellow. I think about you night and day. I +didn't come out to shoot anything this morning. I simply couldn't get +over the way you turned me down yesterday. I lay awake last night +thinking about it, and so I waited for you this morning. I stayed in the +bushes over there watching till you hoed up here. I don't believe I'll +ever get over feeling that way, and I am not going to give up. I'm going +to keep hoping."</p> + +<p>"There goes my towel!" Dixie said, as she laid her hoe across her +shoulder. "I must go. Don't follow me, Hank. I don't want her, or +anybody else, to see me out here with you."</p> + +<p>"Then come out to the fence this evening, after supper, won't you, just +a minute?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, I can't—I never leave the house after dark. They need me at home."</p> + +<p>"Blast them, what have they got to do with you? You are already a slave +to them. Well, good-bye. You'll change your mind some day."</p> + +<p>He held out his hand with a smile, but she refused to take it.</p> + +<p>"You won't even shake hands. Why, what is the matter with you? I can see +that you are mad at me by the twitching of—Do you know, Dixie, you have +the most maddening mouth and lips that a woman ever owned? Say, shake +just once to show that we are friends."</p> + +<p>"I won't. I did it once and you held me and tried to kiss me. I'll tell +you now in dead earnest, Hank, you must never try that sort of a thing +again. I mean it, as God is my judge, I do."</p> + +<p>"I never will while you hold a hoe in your grip," he jested, with a +thwarted smile, as she turned from him.</p> + +<p>He stepped back to his gun and stood watching her as she plodded +homeward. "I can't help it," he said, a dark, desperate look on his +face. "I simply can't quit thinking about her. I've got staying +qualities, and no man ever gained his point that paid the slightest +attention to a woman's moods. Right now she may be wishing she'd gone to +the picnic."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="noind"> +<span class="init"><img src="images/011.png" alt=""J" /></span> +IM, how's your courting getting on?" Henley asked his clerk, half +teasingly, one sultry afternoon, as the two were finishing a game of +checkers on a board from which the squares were almost obliterated by +the constant sliding of the black and white pants-buttons which were +used for checkers.</p> + +<p>"Don't ask me, Alf," Cahews answered, with a sickly smile. "I'm afraid +she's too much for me. We ain't a bit nigher the altar than we was a +year ago when I begun. Sometimes I think she is willing, and then ag'in +I don't."</p> + +<p>"I kinder thought you looked worried the last time you took her to +ride," said Henley, sympathetically. "I felt sorry for you. She looked +mighty chipper in her finery as you whisked by, but you was down in the +mouth. Looked like you was on duty, and that was all."</p> + +<p>"Somehow I don't much blame her," Cahews sighed, "but it looks to me +like she is having too good a time running here and there to want to +settle down. Sometimes I git blue and think she is just holding me as a +safe thing to land on while she looks the field over. I have to stay +here and attend to business and see her gallivanting in her ruffles and +flounces with every drummer and lightning-rod agent that comes along."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you ought to sorter lay down the law, at least on that particular +point," Henley submitted, delicately. "I've heard my step-daddy-in-law +say that a woman was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> born to be commanded, and when they ain't they hop +to t'other extreme and just loll about in their abuse of a feller's +good-nature. I don't know—that's the old man's view. You might give out +a decided order or two, Jim, and see how—"</p> + +<p>"Not to a woman you are tryin' to marry," said the clerk, quite firmly. +"Sech a thing might be done to an army of soldiers or a red-handed mob +at a lynchin'-bee, but not to a gal that makes you feel like you are +sinking down in a mire whenever she looks you in the eyes. No, Alf, not +to a gal as purty and sweet as a bunch of roses, and that knows it, and +is in the habit o' being told of it as regular as eatin' and sleepin'. A +gal like that sort o' feels 'er oats, as the feller said. She knows +she's the stuff, and she loves to be told of it as much as a cat loves +to sleep in the sun."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be dadblamed if I'd tag after her without <i>some</i> substantial +hope," Henley opined, wisely. "Life is long and life is earnest, and +beauty is only skin deep, anyways. It seems to me—<i>now</i>, at least—that +if I was out on the hunt for a helpmeet I'd look to the <i>solid</i> +qualities in a woman just as I would in a man I wanted to work with. I'd +study her character, her pluck under trying circumstances, her industry, +and her all-round good-nature. The shape and face and furbelows, +eyebrows and color of bangs, would be the last consideration."</p> + +<p>"I never hear that from any but married men," Jim said. "They sing that +song till they bury their wives, and then they turn to boys again and +pick the youngest and prettiest they can lay their hands on."</p> + +<p>"I was just thinking, Jim"—Henley seemed unwilling to combat the last +assertion. His eyes rested thoughtfully on a sunny spot before the open +door—"you see, I've got a little neighbor that—"</p> + +<p>"I know—Dixie Hart! I know who you mean," the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> clerk broke in. "She's +all wool and a yard wide, but I never run across her till after I'd got +in with old man Hardcastle's daughter. I wouldn't talk to just any stray +person this away, Alf, but me and you was boys together, and you've +always been my friend. She's got me, Alf—I don't exactly know how—but +she could crook her little finger at me and I'd make for her side—yes, +sir, I would, through flame and smoke, if the world was coming to an +end."</p> + +<p>The talk had grown serious; there was a moist gleam in Cahew's blue +eyes, and he snuffed as if he had a cold. Henley was glad of the +interruption brought about by the arrival of a stranger who entered the +front door and came back to them with swift, steady strides. He was fat, +middle-aged, short, had a round, smooth face, and in removing his straw +hat to fan his pink brow he disclosed a very bald head.</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether you gentlemen are in need of anything in my line," +he said, as he drew a big book of illustrations from beneath his arm and +opened it on Henley's desk. "But I was givin' yore town and vicinity the +one and only chance of its life to git the only true and artistic thing +in marble. I'm agent for the Adamantyne Tombstone Company, of Tennessee. +We own the only quarry of snow-white, non-grit, pristyne Parian rock on +this side of the blue ocean, and we have in our employ the best and most +world-renowned chisel-artists that ever breathed the spark of life into +inanimate matter. Now, just set where you are, gentlemen—don't +move—and I'll show you a beauty—a tombstone that will make a man want +to die—if he's able to pay the price."</p> + +<p>He held his book of illustrations open before Henley, whose eyes were +twinkling mischievously as they rested on his clerk.</p> + +<p>"I'm not in the market," he said, without a smile.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> "I wouldn't buy any +but a second-handed one, and then it would have to be so cheap that a +dead man would kick it off of his grave in disgust. You've got in the +wrong box. If you'll look about amongst the junk I've got in my +back-yard you may find one or two lying about."</p> + +<p>"I see you've got a streak of fun in you," the agent said, +good-naturedly, and at this instant old Jason Wrinkle entered and +sauntered back to the group. He seemed to recognize the stranger, for +the two exchanged nods of greeting. "I'm still at it, you see," the +salesman said. "I'm going to give all a chance. How about you, sir?" and +he turned to Cahews. "I may find you serious, if this man ain't. Death +is beautiful when it is properly looked at and provided for."</p> + +<p>"I don't need anything in that line," Cahews said, with a flush.</p> + +<p>"You <i>might</i>, Jim," Henley broke in, with a grin, "if you don't git +cured of that complaint you was telling me about just now," and Henley +winked almost imperceptibly to any one not familiar with the tricks of +his face. He bent his head and smiled behind his broad hand. "I'll tell +you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, +"none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a +rich old codger across the way—Mr. Silas Welborne—who will trade if +you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with no sort o' tags +on 'em. You might have to talk to him all the evening, and even follow +him home, but you'll sell him if you understand your business. He's +powerful soft-hearted, for one thing, and if you'll tell him a tale or +two in the eloquent tongue you was rolling off just now he'll place a +dandy order. I'll give you that as a pointer."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm much obliged to you, sir, and thank you kindly," the agent +said, as he closed his book. "I'll look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> him up. I'm doing a big +business here. Your people don't seem to have had a chance to invest in +my line in no telling how long. Good-day."</p> + +<p>"Good-day," Henley echoed, and he endeavored to hide the mischievous +smile that was playing about his mouth. In a chuckling undertone he said +to Wrinkle and Cahews: "I'd give a pretty to see this oily-tongued chap +holding down that crusty old miser. A tombstone is the last thing on +earth that Welborne would want to think about or talk about. I'd love to +be there and see 'em meet."</p> + +<p>Cahews laughed and sauntered toward the front, and old Wrinkle sat down +in the chair just vacated and tilted it back against the door-jamb.</p> + +<p>"That is a sorter good joke," he said, his small eyes on Henley, +"considering the man you mean it for, but as I stood thar hearin' you +concoct it I couldn't help thinking if you knowed what a joke this +self-same peddler had got off on you you'd not be exactly in the mood +for fun—at least not in the grave-rock line."</p> + +<p>"What joke are you talking about?" Henley asked, incredulously, his face +falling into seriousness. "I have never laid eyes on this chap before."</p> + +<p>"I reckon not, but you'll know him the next time you see him; I'll be +bound you do, even if you are a mile down the road an' he's round the +bend with his back turned to you. The truth is, I just followed him down +here to see who he'd strike next. He's been to our house, Alf. He slid +in there just after you come off, and set on the porch and begun his +palaver. He has a different way with women than he has with men. He +seems to know that women are soft on some lines, and chiefly on +preachin' and buryin'. He'd picked up a list of folks round about here +that had lost kin, and he had me and Jane down on it on account of Dick. +Now, it seems that when he gits to a place he goes to the graveyard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> and +looks for stones to tally with his dead list, and when he don't find any +he makes a note of it; so, you see, havin' Dick's name down, an' not +knowin' the full particulars, he hunted us up, thinkin' we was +unsupplied in his line. So, you see, that's why he made sech a leech of +hisse'f on our porch."</p> + +<p>"Huh, I see," Henley frowned—"I see."</p> + +<p>"I can't begin to describe all the chap done or said," Wrinkle resumed. +"He riz and walked and ranted, an' prayed an' sung an' mighty nigh +called up mourners. I thought them two women would bust out cryin' once +or twice, but they belt in tiptop through the hottest of the wrangle. +Then I thought I'd put a stop to it, and I up and told him, I did, that +he'd made a mistake, an' that we didn't need a thing of the sort—that +Dick's body never was recovered, and so on. Then what do you think? The +skunk was actually flabbergasted, and didn't know what to say. But he +was game, and knowed thar was some way out of his trouble. He said, +'Wait a minute—don't bother me!' an' he shet his eyes tight, an' set +thar with his head hangin' down for fully five minutes. Then he looked +up an' said, 'I was jest tryin' to recall the good lady's name that had +the same trouble, pine blank, as your'n, but it slips me somehow.' An' +with that he said it was the custom all over civilized Christendom, in +such cases as our'n, to erect a suitable monument jest the same, havin' +a plot the right length an' width set aside, with both head and foot +rock, and, if a sermon hadn't been preached already, one ought to be on +the day the stone was put in place an' consecrated. I 'lowed sure them +women would see how plumb silly it was, but they listened like they was +gittin' the only directions to the Golden Shore, and begun to look at +the pictures in his book like they thought the skunk was savin' 'em from +death, destruction, an' disgrace."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to tell me they actually went and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> ordered—" Henley +began, but his voice trailed away into indistinctness. He could only +stare at his tormentor hopelessly.</p> + +<p>"Only a little one fur five hundred dollars," Wrinkle said, with evident +enjoyment. "They had a lots o' trouble pickin' out the design amongst +all the doves, broke-off pillars, seraphims, an' angels, but they +finally got what they wanted. Not a tear was shed, if you'd stood off a +few feet, out o' earshot, you couldn't 'a' told but what they was +pickin' out a pattern fer a weddin'-dress or buyin' tickets fer a +side-show. After they got under headway I couldn't say anything—they +had sech a solemn way about it, and then I couldn't help but be fair and +think if I'd been in Dick's place they would have gone through exactly +the same antics, an' been jest as liberal in showing due respect. Hettie +says it is all to come out of her own money that she had when she +married you. She was particular to mention the fact, and I think that +showed a sensible streak, for a fool would know you oughtn't to be +expected to stand sech expense, and so long after you took her, and that +being a thing that would naturally belong to her past career, too. After +the agent had gone off I set thar, an' Hettie told me what she was goin' +to do. She don't intend to spare expense to do the thing plumb right. +She's goin' to send away off for a high-priced reverential orator to +give the discourse, an' intends to have evergreens hung all over the +church. I don't know whether she designs to have all the business houses +in Chester closed that day, but she'd naturally expect you and Jim to +shet up an' take it in."</p> + +<p>"So this is the joke you said that man had got off on me, is it?" Henley +snapped out, irritably.</p> + +<p>"Well, I reckon it mought not appear exactly in the same light to you, +Alf," answered Wrinkle, "as it would to somebody who'd be more inclined +to laugh over a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> thing of the sort. You was gettin' off what you called +a good one on old Tight-fist just now by puttin' this chap on his track, +and I reckon you'd have no call to git mad if Welborne made it tit for +tat an' fired back at you. You wouldn't be justified in killin' 'im, you +know, if he was to take a notion to send you a big bouquet o' flowers +out o' his gyarden all tied up in black ribbon with a cyard sayin' he's +sorry to hear of the sad loss in yore family, an'—"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you make me sick, with your eternal chatter!" Henley burst out, +angrily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to +witness such tomfoolery. I'm going to Texas, to be away several months."</p> + +<p>"So I've heard," Wrinkle said, a trifle more mildly, "but you'll be +missin' some'n out o' the general run, if I'm any judge. Thar may have +been sech a thing sence the flood as a married woman callin' out all +hands to solemnize her first husband's demise while she's still wearin' +the weddin'-clothes bought by her second, but it's a new <i>wrinkle</i> on +me, an' I hain't makin' what you mought call a pun, nuther."</p> + +<p>Abruptly leaving the old man, Henley joined his clerk at the front.</p> + +<p>"I get so mad at that old chap sometimes I could kick him," he said, in +an angry undertone. "Nothing under the sun is sacred to him."</p> + +<p>"He's gettin' old and childish," Cahews answered. "I sorter love to hear +'im chatter. Some o' the things he says about folks and their +peculiarities sound powerful funny."</p> + +<p>"Well, they don't to me," burst from Henley, "and I'll tell you another +thing, Jim—enough of a thing is a plenty, and while I'm away—" but +Wrinkle had approached, and, passing behind the counter, he was +tiptoeing that he might reach a candy-jar on the top shelf.</p> + +<p>"Looks like I'm about yore only candy customer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Jim," he said to +Cahews. "Thar hain't been a stick took out o' this jar sence I was here +Monday. I laid one crossways on top just to see. I'd order a fresh lot +if I was you. This is gettin' dry and crumbly. I can suck wind through a +stick the same as a pipe-stem.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p class="noind"> +<span class="init"><img src="images/012.png" alt="O" /></span> + + +NE clear, warm morning a week later Henley stood in the little porch in +front of his store and glanced up the street which gave into the road +that led on to his farm. In the store Cahews was nailing the top slats +on a coop of scrambling, squawking chickens, and with a pot of lampblack +and brush was marking it for shipment to Atlanta. In a cloud of dust in +the rear, Pomp, the negro porter and all-round servant on Henley's farm, +was turning the handle of a clattering machine for the separation of +chaff from grain. And while his eyes were resting on the road the +storekeeper saw a horse and wagon come around a bend and slowly advance +toward him. The horse was a poor beast of great age, and the wagon was +none the better for wear. It had lost all its original paint, the +woodwork was cracked by the weather and the sun. Its four wheels ran +unevenly; some of the spokes were missing, and its bolts and rods of +iron rattled in holes worn too large.</p> + +<p>"By Gum, it's Dixie Hart, and she's fetching in a load of produce," +Henley muttered; then he called out to Cahews: "Say, Jim, get through +there and stop that nigger's clatter. We are going to have a visitor. +The fairest of the fair will be here in a minute."</p> + +<p>Henley stepped down to the edge of the sidewalk and bowed and smiled to +her as she drew rein. In her new straw hat and clean, well-ironed +gingham she looked decidedly well. She was radiantly bright, and smiled +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>merrily as she extended her hand and shook his over the rickety +fore-wheel as she leaned forward from the dilapidated, sagging seat, the +springs of which rested on the sides of the wagon-bed.</p> + +<p>"I told you I'd be in," she laughed, "and, if the market is off to-day, +back I go to my shanty. Nothing but the best prices catch me."</p> + +<p>"About as favorable now as any time," he said. "What does your load +consist of?" he ran on, jovially, as he glanced behind her at the bags, +boxes, coops, pails, and jars.</p> + +<p>"Odds and ends," she laughed. "I've got to make a payment to old +Welborne on my debt. You and Jim had better give me tiptop bids all +through or I'll peddle the truck from door to door and steal your trade +right from under your noses."</p> + +<p>Henley smiled good-humoredly as he walked round the wagon opening boxes +and bags and making notes with a pencil on a scrap of paper. Then he +told her what he would pay for each item.</p> + +<p>"Is that as good as you can do?" It was a question she always asked, and +she did so now more from habit than for any intention of disagreeing +with him.</p> + +<p>"That's the top-notch, Dixie," he said. "We couldn't do that, but we've +got customers that simply won't eat butter and eggs that don't have your +brand on 'em."</p> + +<p>"I believe you," she said, laconically. "I've met 'em myself. They pass +by the house from Carlton sometimes in their fine rigs and ask me why I +don't start a milk-and-butter farm. I may do it if I ever get out of +debt. I've got sense enough to know it would pay, and pay big, +considering that there ain't no such business established. Well, Alfred, +I'll take your offer. I don't like to dicker with first one store and +then another, and I know you've been straight with me in all my +dealings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> I'll trade out part of the amount. I've got a few tricks to +buy in your line."</p> + +<p>"Well, alight and come in and set down," he said. "Jim and Pomp will +unload and weigh and measure. I'll make Pomp mind your hoss."</p> + +<p>"Oh, old Bob will stand all right!" she laughed, as she put her gloved +hand on Henley's shoulder and sprang lightly to the ground. "He's moved +all he wants to to-day. It would take a switch-engine to budge him an +inch. See 'im nod? He knows what we are talking about."</p> + +<p>Henley led her through the long room to his desk in the rear, and gave +her a seat near the open door as the clerk and the porter went out to +the wagon. She took off her hat and pushed back her luxuriant hair with +her fingers.</p> + +<p>"You go on with your work," she said; "don't mind me."</p> + +<p>He applied himself to some writing he had to do till Cahews came with a +slip of paper on which he had noted the weights, quantities, and values +of the things she had brought, and with a polite bow he handed it to +her.</p> + +<p>"Look it over, Dixie," Henley jested. "Old man Hardcastle's daughter has +rubbed a rabbit-foot on Jim so that he can hardly add two and two. +Besides, he is always rattled when he's waiting on a pretty girl."</p> + +<p>"Well, he won't rattle any more than a green gourd round me, if that's +the case," Dixie said, as she began to run over the figures, her lips +moving as she counted on her fingers. "I know in reason it's correct," +she said, extending the slip to Cahews. "No, wait a minute," drawing it +back and looking at it again. "If I'm not powerfully mistaken, Jim, you +are swindling yourself out of twenty cents on the string-beans. There +was one peck instead of two."</p> + +<p>"I told you Jim was rattled," Henley continued to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> jest. "But I won't +discharge 'im. I'd pardon him if he was to set the store afire, under +the circumstances. I've seen him wash his hands in the kerosene tank and +wipe 'em on his clothes just after Julia Hardcastle driv' by in a +hug-me-tight buggy with a drummer."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wouldn't blame him much," Dixie smiled in her sympathy for the +embarrassed clerk. "She is nice and pretty, and one town-girl that isn't +stuck up. I like her. She wants to have a good time; she likes attention +and good clothes, and I'm sure I'd be just like her if I had half the +chance. She called to see me the other day, and Ma and Aunt Mandy fell +in love with her. They think she has lots of common-sense, and they +know. I had another call. Carrie Wade waited till she saw me go to the +field to work, then she come over and asked if I was at the house. Ma +told her where I was, and she come over the clods grumbling like a +spoilt baby about getting dust on her shoes. What do you reckon she +wanted?"</p> + +<p>"I can't imagine," Henley answered, as Cahews, flushing with delight +over the compliment to the maid of his choice, moved away.</p> + +<p>"She come to cut at me," Dixie said, as she took the pile of silver into +her hand which Henley was extending. "As she stood there between the +corn-rows holding up her skirt she said she was going over to the +lumber-camp again with Martha Sims to another big all-day blow-out. She +said she was to start early and had so much fixing to do that she +wondered if I'd spare the time to wash and iron a muslin dress for her. +She said she'd pay well for it, because my things always looked so +nice."</p> + +<p>"Impudent thing!" Henley said; "she ought to have, knowed better than +that."</p> + +<p>"She <i>did</i> know better, and that's exactly why she said it. She intended +to let me know where she was going, thinking it would break my heart. +She admits she is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> bent on getting married, and says she knows I'll live +and die an old maid. She hates me, Alfred; with all her soul she hates +me. She will never rest satisfied till she sees me plumb down and out. +It all started through no fault of mine, too. You remember that young +preacher, Mr. Wrenn, that boarded about in the families three years ago. +Well, she made a dead set at him. She literally tagged after him +everywhere he went till folks here in Chester was laughing about it and +calling her his little dog Fido. They say he got so he'd run and hide +every time she'd turn a corner. Well, he stayed at our house two weeks, +and, of course, we all tried to make him as comfortable as we could. I +give you my word that I never was alone with the fellow more than five +minutes in all the time he was there, but I'll admit he hung around +considerable—that is, with us all."</p> + +<p>"I remember the fellow," Henley said, deeply interested. "I had a talk +with your Pa about him not a month before he died. Your Pa said he +couldn't see why you was so offish. The fellow made no beans about how +he felt, and when the report went out that you had turned him down folks +wondered powerful, for all the girls was setting their caps for him."</p> + +<p>"I was too young to have good sense, I reckon," the girl said, shrugging +her shoulders. "Pa was alive, and we did not want for anything. I never +dreamt I'd have such a load on me as I've got now. Then I had a foolish +notion about love, anyway. I'd been reading novels, and got an idea in +my silly head that when a girl met the right person she went through +some sort of dazzling regeneration; and as I didn't feel anyways +peculiar when Mr. Wrenn was about I thought I ought to wait, and I told +him so. I'll never forget that young man's face. I've thought of it +thousands of times, and been sorry."</p> + +<p>"And Carrie Wade found out about it?" Henley was leading her along +gently and sympathetically.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, he told her himself—told her to her face in a crowd of young +folks at Sunday-school the next day, and the worst part of it was +somebody in the bunch that didn't like Carrie joked her about it. The +whole thing has gone out o' folks' minds by this time, I reckon; but +Carrie never laid it aside. It rankled and still rankles. She gloats +over my hardships and makes a point of flaunting her good luck in my +face, and is eternally telling me of her chances to get married. She's +half crazy on the subject, and thinks every one else is like her. I know +one thing, Alfred Henley, when I do slip off the coil of single +blessedness she'll be madder than a wet hen without shelter on a cold +December day. And she won't have long to wait neither—there! I've gone +and let the cat out of the bag, but I don't care. I'd trust a friend +like you with my life. You talk pretty free to me, and I can to you."</p> + +<p>"You don't—you can't mean to—to say that you have got some 'n of the +sort in view, Dixie?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you just lie low and watch," she laughed, significantly. "I let +one chance pass me, and I don't intend to be such a fool again. I can +use a stout, willing, and able-bodied man in my line of business. I've +got two old women to support and a big debt to pay, and I'm about to the +limit of my endurance. I might have put it off, but I'm itching to see +my prime enemy's face when I march him out to meeting. It's all on the +quiet, and is going to be a big surprise. I never let my folks on to it +till just the other day. That reminds me. I want one of your blank +envelopes. I've written to him, and I'm clean out of envelopes and want +to mail the letter before I go home."</p> + +<p>She flushed slightly, and her long lashes rested on her pink cheeks as +she drew a folded paper from her pocket and held it in her lap with the +money he had given her.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean it!" Henley cried in astonishment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> "Why, you take my +breath away; but, of course, I'm glad. I certainly can congratulate the +lucky fellow."</p> + +<p>"Ask 'im whether it would be in order before you do." She reached for +his pen and dipped it, and began to address the envelope as it lay on +her knee.</p> + +<p>"And that letter is to him, you say?" Henley said, wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Well, it ain't to no <i>girl</i>," Dixie smiled, with an arch, upward +glance. "Stamps and paper cost too much such times as these to waste 'em +on women."</p> + +<p>"I'm curious to know what sort o' chap you've decided on," said Henley. +"What does he look like?"</p> + +<p>"He's a pig in a poke." She had finished writing and was drawing the +gummed flap of the envelope across her smiling lips. "I never laid eyes +on 'im in my life. What do you think of that? But that part must never +get out. I want Carrie and all the rest to—to think, you see, that I +got acquainted with him in—in the regular way. She never would get +through talking if she knew the full truth, and that is nobody's +business but his and mine. You may think I am a born fool, Alfred, but +for the past six months I've been corresponding with a fellow in +Florida. But he's all right. Don't you worry; he's <i>safe</i>, and that is a +lot to say in this day of trickery and strife. It all come about by +accident. I've got a cousin—Tobe Chasteen—working down there in an +orange-grove, and now and then he writes me a letter. Well, in one he +wrote that a nice fellow down there wanted to write to some girl up in +Georgia, and asked me if I'd answer. So, just for fun, and to kill time, +I agreed, and so it started. He writes a good, flowing hand, and has +plenty to say, and I got interested in the whole thing. He sent his +picture, and wanted one of me. So I put on my best outfit and had a +tintype struck off under that tent on the square and sent it to him. It +was a frightful daub, I tell you; but he liked it, or said he did;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> he +said it was fine, and if the goods come up to the sample that was all he +could ask. I've got his in my pocket. I don't tote it about all the +time, but it happened to be in the pocket of this dress. My two women +want it to stay in the clock, so they can get it out and peep at it when +I'm in the field. They are more crazy about him than I am. They sneak +and read my letters, and ask ten thousand questions about him. There are +some of his long epistles that I wouldn't show 'em for money—they are +so silly. At first we just wrote about what was going on, but he kept +edging closer and closer, and I never, in so many words, told him to let +up. Once he drew a round ring in the middle of a blank page and asked +under it if I couldn't guess what was in the middle of it. I looked +close and could see a greasy splotch when it was held sidewise in the +light. That kinder disgusted me, and I drew a ring in my answer, and +told him there wasn't anything in mine, and never would be. He must have +liked what I said, for he wrote back that it was cute, and that he'd bet +I was one girl that never had been kissed. Well, he can think that, too, +if he wants to. It won't do him any harm. I say all this was going on, +but I never dreamt of closing the deal till I got in this present +money-tight. You see, I wrote him about my financial trouble, and he +said he had saved up some money and that he could wipe out all my +obligations, and that me and him together would make a fine team on the +farm. He wrote so kind, too, about Ma and Aunt Mandy, and said he'd +always want 'em with us. You see, I felt grateful, and, considering +everything, I think I acted wise—don't you?"</p> + +<p>Henley half nodded, and tried to meet her frankness with a smile that +was free from doubt. At this juncture Pomp came back with a telegram. It +was an order from an Atlanta hotel for a quantity of eggs and butter. +Henley read it and handed it back. "Tell Jim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> to quote the lowest cash +prices," he said, absent-mindedly.</p> + +<p>"But it's a order, suh," said the negro.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; I see it is. Well, ship it; it's all right."</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see his picture?" Dixie asked. She had taken the +crude tintype from her pocket and held it in her lap.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would," Henley replied, and he took the picture and looked at +it. He didn't like it. A keen, quick reader of men's faces, he saw what +had escaped her less experienced eye. There was something that bespoke +prodigious vanity and lack of principle in the low brow, over which the +coarse, black hair was plastered down so smoothly; in the heavy, +carefully waxed, curled, and perhaps dyed mustache; in the small, +conscious eyes, set close together; in the grossly sensuous mouth, from +which a weak chin receded.</p> + +<p>"He ain't as purty as he thinks he is by a long shot," Dixie remarked, +rather lamely, for she was slightly chilled by Henley's failure to +comment favorably on the picture, "but he has a good heart. He is a +church member in fair standing, and has a Bible class of young ladies in +Sunday-school, and was once proposed for superintendent, and lost out +because he was unmarried and too young. Oh, I've thought it all over. +I'm not jumping without looking for a spot to light on. I thought I +could carry my load through, but I had to give in. I can't perform +miracles, Alfred; I'm just clay, and the wrong gender of that. If I +could keep temptation out of my way I might keep on, but I can't run +against Carrie Wade's sneers. I'd rather strut by her house with a +husband that was able to take me in out of the wet than anything else I +know of, and I want to rest. I want to sleep one night without dreaming +of old Welborne's flabby jaws, blinking eyes, and harsh voice snarling +at me. Folks may say such an arrangement ain't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>customary—that it is +out of the common—but it seems to me that everything about me is out of +the common, anyway, and why shouldn't this fall in line? Customs are +just what the most folks want to do. Custom don't look after the under +dog in the pack. But when right is on a body's side there is no need to +fear, and there won't be a shade of wrong in this if I have anything to +do with it. I've made up my mind to do a wife's part in every sense of +the word, and let it go at that—nothing risk, nothing have. I never +used to think I'd ever marry a man I never saw—in fact, when I was +young and silly I used to see myself strutting by whole regiments of +fellers all making signs to me to come be his darling, but that was when +my eyelids was glued down and before they was jerked open by trouble. +Marrying with me in this case is an open-and-shut business proposition. +I read somewhere that it is worked that way among high-up folks in +France—though the dickering takes place between the parents of the +contracting parties; and as I know a sight more about what to do than +Ma, why, it was all right for me to take it in hand. Peter is an orphan, +and I'm the head of a family, and so there was nobody else concerned. My +two women are getting old and plumb helpless—more like children than +grown-ups. They may live a long time. I certainly hope they will, for +they are all I've got; but they are actually getting so that they don't +want to budge out of the house, even as far as the fence. They are +afraid a little sun will kill 'em dead. But, Alfred, I don't somehow +like the way you look about it. You don't take it like I thought you +would. I know in reason that you wish me well, and—"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I have a right to say a thing agin it," Henley broke +into her now hesitating words. "But I must confess I'm sorter stunned, +Dixie. I've always felt like a big brother to you, and pitied you a good +deal,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> and now—well, you see, I reckon it is natural for me to be +sorter afraid that you may be making a mistake in what you are doing. I +feel like begging you not to do it, and then ag'in I don't, for I've +always made up my mind that marrying was one thing no outsider could +decide about. I have been dead agin marriages that afterwards turned out +tiptop, and you know I didn't show such far-reaching wisdom in my own +case as to set myself up as a judge."</p> + +<p>"Well, you needn't have any fears on my account," Dixie smiled, +assuringly. "I know what I am about, and I ain't the back-out kind. It's +too late, anyway; the day has been set. For the last two weeks I've been +giving every spare minute to the making of my outfit. It is a good one. +I was determined to give Miss Wade a treat. I do things right, and I've +spent some cash. My trousseau will attract attention, and I reckon Peter +won't be ashamed. But it is to be kept quiet. Don't you say a word to a +soul. A week from to-day I'll drive in and meet the up-train and haul my +bridegroom home in my wagon. We'll eat dinner at our house and then +drive over to Preacher Sanderson's and have him tie the knot. Now I'll +go down in front and buy a few things and mail my letter and hurry +home."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, Dixie." She was moving away, and he stopped her, +standing before her, a grave look in his eyes. "Surely it ain't as dead +sure as that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is, Alfred; it's settled—plumb settled."</p> + +<p>"But—but," he pursued, anxiously, "if you didn't like him when you see +him, you wouldn't marry him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's a gray horse of another color," she smiled. "I think I'll +like him; but if I didn't—well, if I didn't, I'd pay his way back to +Florida, and beg off."</p> + +<p>Henley made no further protest. He sat at his desk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> and bowed his head +in troubled thought as she tripped lightly away.</p> + +<p>"What a pity!" he mused. "She deserves the best in the land, and this +fellow looks like a worthless scamp."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"> +<span class="init"><img src="images/013.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HAT evening after supper, while the sultry dusk hung heavily over the +land, shutting out the few lights of the village and obscuring the +near-by mountain, Henley took his chair into the passage, and, without +his coat, he leaned back against the weather-boarding and lighted his +pipe. He had not been there long when his wife, having finished her +duties in the kitchen, came out and stood over him. Accustomed to her +varying moods, he saw by her attitude that she was displeased.</p> + +<p>"Pa told me something I don't like," she began. "I tried not to pay +attention to it, but it was so unexpected, so unheard-of, so plumb +disrespectful, that it hurt me. He said you told him you was going to +Texas to keep from being here during the—the memorial service next +month."</p> + +<p>"I told him no such thing," Henley retorted, with an effort to control +his rising temper. "I can't be responsible for the slap-dash way he puts +things. I don't like his eternal gab, nohow."</p> + +<p>"Well, you must have said <i>something</i>," Mrs. Henley pursued, probingly. +"He never makes up things out of whole cloth. He is not that way."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I did say something," Henley reluctantly admitted. "He +was nagging the life out of me at the store about what you intended to +do, and holding me up to ridicule, and I reckon I did say that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +wouldn't be here—that my business would keep me in Texas. As for that +matter, I told you about the trip long before this queer—long before +you decided to do this—this thing."</p> + +<p>"I know just how you said it," the woman threw back, sharply. "I know +what you've thought all along about Pa and Ma being here, and me loving +'em and caring for 'em. You do your best to hide it, but you can't."</p> + +<p>"Well, if I do my best, what more could you expect?" Henley asked, with +more logic than patience.</p> + +<p>"I'd want you to keep your promise to me," Mrs. Henley said, crisply, +and she bent lower over him and fixed her offended eyes on his. "You +told me before we were married that you'd promise never to object—you +even said you admired me for my feelings, and that it proved to you that +I had stability and strength of character—that you wouldn't have a wife +that would ever forget her dead husband."</p> + +<p>"Well, I have kept my promise," Henley said. "I am not sure that I +knowed just precisely what I was doing when I made it, but I've kept it. +As for attending his—his funeral services at such a late day, that is +another thing. I don't see how you could expect it."</p> + +<p>"You don't?" she flared up. "Will you tell me if there would be anything +to be ashamed of in your being there? Would a divine service of that +sort disgrace you? Would it besmirch your character?"</p> + +<p>"No, and nobody said it would," Henley managed to fish from his addled +brain. "But I simply thought, somehow, that it would look better for me +to be out of the way. Funerals and the like are generally attended by +mourners, and, well, where would I come in? I reckon my proper seat +would be with you and the—the rest of the family on the front bench, if +it was anywhere. It would look funny for me just to be a looker-on from +the back part of the house, and I'd feel like a dern fool<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> in front. A +dern fool—you may not know what that is from experience, but you ought +to from observation; you've had one under your eye for some time."</p> + +<p>"Well, you simply don't approve of it," the woman returned, resentfully. +"You can set there, blessed with good health and life, and plenty to eat +and wear, and actually begrudge the little mite of respect that is paid +to the helpless dead. In being overpersuaded and marrying you I was +untrue to him and his memory, and now you make it worse by opposing a +simple little ordinance that is due every person on earth, high or low."</p> + +<p>"It ought to have been done earlier, and before I got—got mixed up in +it, if it was done at all," Henley said, trying to speak mildly and, +even, pacifically.</p> + +<p>"I know that now," Mrs. Henley said, in a tone of such deep +self-reproach that her stare softened and wavered; "but it wasn't +thought of. I never knew it was the style till this man come along and +told me; but that is no reason I shouldn't make amends, late as it is. +It is all the better proof that Dick is remembered. But you can go to +Texas." The stare hardened and became fixed again. "Folks will say you +are jealous and mean, and that I was an unfaithful fool for listening to +you, but I will have to stand it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll simply be obliged to be away," Henley said, doggedly. "The +business won't be put off, and—and—"</p> + +<p>"And you are a heartless brute!" the gaunt woman cried, as she whirled +from him and strode into the house.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later there emerged from the near-by door of the kitchen +the real instigator of the present dispute. He trudged across the +passage, drawn down on one side by the weight of a dripping swill-pail +which he was taking to the pigpen, descended the short flight of steps, +and turned back toward Henley. He stood for a moment hesitatingly, the +pail wiping its dripping exterior<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> against his baggy jean trousers. Then +he said: "I've got a thing or two to say to you, Alf, if you will oblige +me by steppin' down to my pen so I can stop that hog's squealin' long +enough to hear myself talk. One at a time, I say, an' let it be me."</p> + +<p>"By all means," Henley answered, ambiguously, and he joined Wrinkle on +the grass and they walked down the path together to the pigpen in a +corner of the rail-fenced cow-lot.</p> + +<p>"No use enterin' a talkin'-match with the whistle of a crazy +steam-engine," the stepfather-in-law strained his lungs to say, and he +grunted as he raised the pail to the top rail of the pen and cautiously +tilted it to let the contents run into the wooden trough.</p> + +<p>"Now, that's more like it," he said, his voice rising above the +suction-pump noise of the hungry animal. He lowered the empty pail to +the ground, and with a paddle began to dig out the mushy sediment from +the bottom and throw it into the trough, as a mason might mortar from a +trowel. "The truth is, Alf, I've got an apology to make to you, and I +didn't want to do it up thar before them women. The other day when I +said that about old Welborne a-sendin' you a bunch o' flowers to +decorate Dick's grave I wasn't actually thinkin' about you as much as I +was about Welborne an' his close-fisted ways. Of course, now I think of +it again, it <i>would</i> be a good way for 'im to git back at you for yore +joke in sendin' the tombstone man to him, and I catch myself lafin' +every time I think of it, and the way you'd look if he did, but—"</p> + +<p>"What the devil do you mean?" Henley broke in, testily. "Here you are +startin' in to apologize for a thing and going over it again word for +word? Have you plumb lost your senses?"</p> + +<p>"Was I doin' that?" Wrinkle asked, blandly, though even in the twilight +Henley could see that his eyes were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> twinkling. "Well, I'm sorry again, +and I'm just man enough to say so, Alf. I'll apologize as many times as +you like. I'll keep on till you <i>are</i> satisfied. But you must listen. +You are a-gittin' powerful touchy here lately, and it ain't becomin' in +a man of yore dignity. It will git so after a while that I can't express +any sort of opinion to you without a fist-fight. I was goin' on to say +that I was jest thinkin' of old Welborne's quick wit in every emergency +that set me to wonderin' that day how he might act in sech a case. They +say everything is grist to his mill—that he turns every single thing +that drifts his way into profit great or small. And that day after you +railed out at me in the store I went across the Square to see how yore +joke would terminate. The door of his dingy little office was open, an' +I could see the grave-rock man inside bendin' over old Welborne at his +little table, pointin' at the pictures in his book and sweatin' like a +nigger in a cotton-gin. But what struck me most of all was the glazed +look in old Welborne's eye; he looked like he wasn't hearin' a word the +fellow was spoutin', but was thinkin' o' some'n else plumb different. I +walked on and hung about outside till the tombstone man come out. He was +as mad as Hector. I seed he was, an' stopped 'im in a offhand way and +axed him what luck.</p> + +<p>"'Luck hell,' says he—he used the word, I didn't—'I talked to that +dried-up old mummy,' says he, 'fer an hour jest to find that he was +settin' thar all the time figurin' in his head about a speculation I'd +made 'im think of while I was talkin' to him.'</p> + +<p>"The agent was so mad that he wouldn't explain what the speculation was, +but I heard it that evenin'. Hank Bradley was tellin' it to a crowd at +the post-office. You know Hank makes all manner of sport of his uncle +behind the old skunk's back. He told a tale, too, that I'd never heard. +It seems that old Welborne's mother-in-law<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> died, and Welborne went to a +undertaker to buy 'er coffin. He picked out a fifty-dollar one, and +talked and talked till he finally got the pore devil down to forty. Then +he said:</p> + +<p>"'You'd sell two for seventy-five, wouldn't you?'</p> + +<p>"'I reckon I might,' the undertaker said, 'but you only want one.'</p> + +<p>"'I'll need another 'fore many months,' old Welborne said. 'My +father-in-law won't last long. I'll take one now at thirty-seven-fifty +and the other when the time comes.'"</p> + +<p>Henley laughed, despite his displeasure. "That is just like him," he +said, "and I believe every word of it."</p> + +<p>"His present speculation takes the rag off'n the bush," said Wrinkle. +"The talk of the gravestone man started him to thinkin' about what thar +might be in that line for him, and he recalled that he owned ten acres +of ground on a rise in the edge of town which he had bought at a +tax-sale for twenty-five dollars. The very next mornin' he had a feller +diggin' post-holes an' puttin' a fence around it with a main gate that +had a big curvin' sign over it with the words 'Sunnyside Cemetery' on +it, and I'm told that he has been all over town tellin' folks that the +<i>old</i> graveyard is too low and soggy to be half decent, and that his'n +was a great improvement. He intimated, too, that nobody but blue-bloods +could git the'r names enrolled, and thar has been a powerful scramble +for places, even by folks that have no idea of dyin' yet a while. You +see, Alf, I got a good many particulars at fust hand, for he was out +here to see Hettie in regard to accommodations for Dick, and I heard all +that was said. Accordin' to Welborne thar is to be a wholesale movin' +right away and choice quarters will be scarce, right when they are in +the most demand."</p> + +<p>"I suppose she—I suppose my wife—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she bit, Alf, and took a full mouthful at that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> Welborne told her +he was givin' her the pick of the whole thing because she was startin' +the ball rollin', an' her fine marble would set the place off. She +selected twenty foot square under a weepin'-willow, which he said had a +rock bottom and the best view of the town. It only set her back two +hundred round plugs, but she had that much left in the bank, and seems +powerful well, satisfied. I wouldn't 'a' fetched all this up, but I +'lowed you'd like to know what a big thing growed out of yore little +joke that day. I love a good joke myself, but when one's turned on you +in a sort o' wholesale way, it don't feel the best in the world."</p> + +<p>"There is no joke about it; it's outright stealing!" Henley had +reference to Welborne's part of the transaction. "Any man can get money +out of fool women, if he's mean enough to take advantage of their silly +whims."</p> + +<p>"I often wonder about you an' me an' the whole bunch of us here at the +house," Wrinkle said. "Not one of the four is blood kin to the other, +and yet here we are all wedged together as tight as young catbirds in a +nest. Folks say the hardest question on earth is how to live, and yet to +me it's been as easy as fallin' off a log into soft sand. Me 'n Jane +never counted on Dick for any sort of aid, an' yet it was through him +that we are provided for—in fact, he was so wishy-washy and helpless +that we was glad to have him tie up with a woman that had a few dollars. +He went in for a high old time, and he had it. I couldn't object—I was +that way myself. He was as bad after gals as a drummer, and in his +sparkin' days, as maybe you know, he could have had his pick. I couldn't +keep from hearin' you an' Hettie talkin' in the passage jest now, and +when she come into the light mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two I +saw thar had been a row. Her notion to have you on hand at sech a time +as that may seem odd, but women are all odd. They want what other women +can't have, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> I reckon Het thinks it would be a sort o' feather in +'er cap to mourn in public over one husband while she's leanin' agin +another that is ready an' willin' in every way."</p> + +<p>"I reckon we've talked long enough about it," Henley said, frigidly, and +he glanced toward the lights in the farm-house.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I reckon so," returned the gadfly. "As for me, I never was able to +see how Het could accuse you of bein' jealous of Dick, when—"</p> + +<p>"Jealous fiddlesticks!" Henley snorted. "I never was jealous of a <i>live</i> +man, much less a dead one."</p> + +<p>"It would <i>seem</i> that way," was all the support Wrinkle would give to +the claim, as he took up his pail and started back to the house. "I +didn't say you <i>was</i>, but Het seems to size it up that way."</p> + +<p>Left alone, and with hot fires of resentment raging in his breast, +Henley sauntered along the fence till he was behind his barn. His change +of position brought him within a few yards of Dixie Hart's cottage, and +he suddenly heard her voice. She was speaking to some one. Peering +through the deepening darkness, which was broken only by the gleams of a +few random stars, he saw her inside her yard at the gate, and leaning on +the fence from the outside was the tall, well-clad form of Hank Bradley.</p> + +<p>"You are not going to treat a feller as mean as that," Bradley was heard +to say, in a gruff, pleading tone, "when I've been begging you so many +times."</p> + +<p>"I can't let you come in now, and I can't go to ride with you, either," +Henley heard her answer, as she stood well away from the fence. "I've +got good and sufficient reasons, and I hope you won't ask me any more."</p> + +<p>"I'll keep on asking till the crack of doom," Bradley said, in a voice +that shook. "You know I'm not the weak-kneed kind. The Bradley stock +hold on like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>bulldogs. When they take a notion to anything they want +it, and they keep on till they get it. So look out, Dixie Hart. I'm not +to blame; your eyes burn holes in me and set me on fire. The more you +turn me down the more I think about you."</p> + +<p>"Well, you mustn't come any more," Dixie said, firmly. "Good-night."</p> + +<p>Henley saw her move across the grass and vanish in the cottage. He heard +Bradley stifle a surly exclamation of disappointment, and saw him turn +and walk off slowly toward his uncle's house.</p> + +<p>"Poor girl!" Henley said to himself. "In all her troubles she has to +ward off a dirty, designing scamp like that; but she's doing it like a +queen, an' no harm can touch 'er. And she's going to get married! She is +going into the treacherous thing absolutely blindfolded, and the Lord +only knows what will come of it. It's a risk for the best, and under the +best conditions—it may prove to be the final stroke that will knock out +her wonderful courage. God have mercy on her!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/014.png" alt="O" /></span> + +N the day set for Dixie's wedding Henley had occasion to go to the +little express office, adjoining the old-fashioned brick car-shed in the +village, to see about a shipment of produce which had been incorrectly +marked. And as he was returning he saw the girl seated in her wagon in +the open space between the station and the hotel.</p> + +<p>Henley knew what it meant. She had come to meet her lover. She happened +to have her glance fixed on some point in the opposite direction from +him and did not know that he was near. He hesitated for an instant, and +then decided that he would not intrude upon her privacy. There was +something in her attitude of bland and helpless expectancy that probed +the deepest fount of his sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Poor, brave little woman!" he mused, as he turned his back upon the +scene and moved on toward his store. "She's having her dream like all +the rest. She may get a fair cut of the cards, and she may not. He ain't +very promising material from the looks of his picture, but it wouldn't +be fair to judge him by that. He may do his part, and the Lord knows she +needs help. I'm too big a failure in the marrying line to object or +offer advice."</p> + +<p>Reaching his desk, he applied himself to the writing of some letters +pertaining to his intended trip to Texas, but the pathetic sight he had +of the girl at the station thrust itself between him and his task. She +was his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> faithful friend. He loved her almost as if she had been a +sister; she had confided in him; only he and she and her little family +knew of what was to take place to-day. How strange to think that she +would no longer be as she was! The wife of a man she had never seen, of +a man whose full name Henley had not even heard.</p> + +<p>Just then the still air was stirred by the sportive whippoorwill's call +with which the young engineer of that particular train always announced +with the locomotive's whistle his approach to Chester, and later there +was a sound of escaping steam and the slow clanging of a bell as the +train drew up in the shed. Only a moment's pause, and the train was off +again.</p> + +<p>It occurred to Henley that as his store was on the most direct way to +her home Dixie would naturally drive past it on her return, so he went +to the front, taking pains to stand back a few feet from the entrance +that his position might not appear to be by design. He was glad that +Cahews and Pomp were busy in the rear, and he became conscious of the +hope that no stray customer would interrupt him at what seemed such a +grave and important moment. Time passed, and still old Bob and the +ramshackle wagon were not in sight. Henley cautiously ventured to the +door, whence he glanced down the street. He saw the wagon. It was now at +the door of the post-office, but no one was in it. With his hip-joint +loose the animal swayed and sagged against one of the shafts, the reins +hanging from his rump to the ground.</p> + +<p>"They've stopped to get the mail," Henley said in his tight throat; +"they'll be out in a minute. I'll take one peep at 'im, anyway."</p> + +<p>But Dixie emerged from the narrow doorway of the little building alone. +She was reading a letter, and she groped slowly across the sidewalk to +the wagon, where she stood till she had finished it. Even at that +distance Henley could see that she was pale, and he fancied that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> her +hand and step were unsteady as she mounted to the spring seat and +reached for the reins. Henley receded farther into the store, actuated +by a vague intuition that she might not care to be seen, and he was glad +that he had not intruded upon her, for, as she drove past the store, she +did not glance toward it, but instead looked steadily in the opposite +direction.</p> + +<p>"The fellow didn't come, and she's had bad news besides," Henley mused, +and he now stood in the doorway and looked after the shackly vehicle as +it moved slowly away in the beating sunshine. "She's bad hit by +something or other," he said, anxiously. "I've never seen her look like +that before. Some'n has gone wrong."</p> + +<p>He did not see her for three days. On the evening of the third day he +was standing at the door of his barn. It was growing dark. The coming +night had robed the mountain-peaks in gray, and put them out of sight. +Old Wrinkle was singing "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord!" +as he trudged back to the house, swinging his empty swill-pail. The door +of Dixie Hart's cottage opened, and in a narrow frame of firelight she +stood peering out toward him. Then he saw that she was coming. She moved +swiftly, and with a sure step, till she paused at the fence which +separated her land from his.</p> + +<p>"I've been wanting to see you, Alfred," she said, in a low, changed +voice. "I had no excuse to go to the store, and—well, I didn't think +that was exactly the place, anyway to—to say what I had to say. You +haven't spoke about what I told you to anybody—I know in reason that +you haven't, but—"</p> + +<p>"I'd cut off my right arm first," he declared, earnestly. "What you said +that day was as sacred to me as if it had come from on high and my very +salvation depended on it."</p> + +<p>"I knew that," she said, softly. "I only said that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> to—to sort o' get +started. I'm all upset, Alfred; I'll get right after a while, but things +are all crooked now. I've had trouble—I reckon a girl might call it +that and still have self-respect. I've had heaps of unexpected trouble."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid some'n had gone wrong," Henley found himself able to say, +"not hearing any more, you see, about—about what you talked of that +day."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to tell you, and then dismiss it," Dixie said, her pretty lip +twitching, the dark curves under her eyes lending sharp contrast to +their fathomless lustre. "I had everything ready, and went to meet him, +but he didn't come. I went to the post-office and got a letter. He +was—was taken sick—so the letter said. He was pretty bad off. In fact, +Alfred, the truth is, he's dead; the—the fellow is dead."</p> + +<p>Her head was down; she had folded her arms on the top rail of the fence, +and she rested her brow on them. He was wondering if she was crying and +what there was for him to say, when she suddenly, and quite dry-eyed, +looked up and said: "But that must be a secret, too. Nobody knows about +it except my home folks, and nobody must. I'd give plumb up if Carrie +Wade was to flaunt that in my face and start it going over hill and +dale."</p> + +<p>"It's too bad," Henley ventured, as nearly upon what he considered +consolation as his knowledge of her rather questionable bereavement +would justify. "What was his complaint?"</p> + +<p>"You mean, what ailded him?" Dixie asked, an incongruous flush battling +with the pallor of her face and becoming observable even in the +starlight. "Why, you see, Alfred, I didn't get full particulars—a body +never can, you know, at a time like that—and in just a letter—but you +can depend upon it that it was sudden."</p> + +<p>"Maybe it was what they say is so common now," Henley pursued, +awkwardly—"heart failure."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Or weakness of the backbone." He was sure that she smiled impulsively, +for she quickly covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her head to +the fence again, and for a moment he stood staring at her and wondering +if the calamity had caused her to be hysterical. Suddenly she looked up +again and said:</p> + +<p>"I reckon you think I ought to act different—that I ought to cry and +take on—but I can't. You must make what allowance you can. You see, I +never saw him in my life, and, well, it was just a wild-goose chase that +started in nothing and ended the same way."</p> + +<p>"I see," Henley ventured, "but I'm sorry. Death is bad enough, in any +case, but to be called away without a minute's notice and on the eve +of—"</p> + +<p>"Well, you needn't be sorry for me—you needn't waste pity on me," Dixie +broke in with irrelevant warmth. "You'll find me doing business at the +same old stand, man or no man. If we can just keep this silly caper from +getting out I'll be thankful. So far, I've got along by myself, and, +outside of wanting to flaunt a husband in Carrie Wade's face, I don't +know as I'll be particularly disappointed. I can keep on at the plough +and hoe, rain or shine, and—" Her voice had trailed away into +indistinctness, and he saw her lower lip quivering. She suddenly turned +and hurried away.</p> + +<p>He saw her vanish in the lighted doorway, and he stood overwhelmed with +blended perplexity and sympathy.</p> + +<p>"She's trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but she's hit, and hit +hard—harder'n I thought possible in her case," he mused. "She never saw +the feller, but she may have had a sort of a idea in her head of what he +was like, an' the loss is as keen as if she had knowed him a long time, +maybe keener, for the gloss hain't been rubbed off by actual +acquaintance, as it has been off of me and most other married folks. I +reckon my wife has put the gloss back on Dick Wrinkle, if it was ever +off, and I've got a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> rival in the spirit-world that nothing earthly +could ever hope to match. They say absence works that way, and when I +get to Texas maybe she will look back on all I've done to keep peace and +harmony betwixt us and appreciate me more than she is doing now. I say +maybe, for, on t'other hand, she may be glad to have me away, and when I +get back I may find that her whole heart is in the empty grave she is +bent on digging and adorning at such a great outlay.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/015.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE next afternoon, as Henley was on his way home from the store, and +was passing a corn-field owned by Sam Pitman—a farmer of weak character +and sullen disposition who had been a moonshiner as long as the law had +permitted the business to yield profits—he was surprised to see Dixie +near the centre of the field. She was bending over something or +somebody, and, fearing that an accident had happened, he hastily climbed +the fence and walked rapidly over the ploughed soil toward her. He could +not make out what the object of her attention was till he was quite +near, and then he saw that it was a little boy about ten years of age +who was seated on the ground and, till now, hidden by the corn-stalks +and their succulent blades, which, as he sat, rose higher than his +yellow, ill-kempt head. Dixie heard Henley's step and turned a very +grave face on him.</p> + +<p>"It's the poor little orphan Sam Pitman adopted by law the other day," +she informed him in a gentle aside, as her hand rested tenderly on the +child's head, which was supported by his frail knees in their ragged and +patched covering. "I've had my eye on him all evening. He's hoed out all +this since dinner." She waved an indignant hand over the patch of corn +immediately about them. "I couldn't have done more myself, and I know +what work is. Yes, I was watching him, and awhile ago I saw him stagger +an' fall. He'd fainted from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>overheat. I come as quick as I could. I got +water in his hat and dashed it on him—look how wet it made him, but it +revived him. He wanted to work on, but I made him stop and set down. +He's timid and shy before you, but me 'n him are great friends, ain't +we, Joe? He helped me hunt eggs the other day"—she was running on now +in a tender, caressing tone—"and I gave him some of my pie. He could +crawl to places I never got at before, and we raked in a peck that would +have been a dead loss, for I've already got too many broods."</p> + +<p>"I heard Pitman had got a boy," Henley said, guardedly, "and I wondered +what the Ordinary meant by turning such a little fellow over to a man +like him. It seems like there was only one or two applications, and the +boy had to be sent somewhere right off. Do you feel better now, Joe?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," the child answered. "It wasn't nothing. It didn't hurt a +bit."</p> + +<p>Henley caught Dixie's quick upward glance. "Ain't it pitiful?" she said, +with a shake of her head and a catch in her full voice. "Huh, 'didn't +hurt,' I say! You dear little boy!"</p> + +<p>With a brave smile the lad stood up to the full height of his spare +frame. He was still pale, and his hair was matted down over his brow by +the douche it had received. His little, cotton, checked shirt was open +at the neck, disclosing a rather low chest. He stooped down and picked +up the hoe, which was of the regulation size and weight used by men. +Dixie was protesting against his working more that day, when, looking +behind her, she saw the foster-father of the boy approaching.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter here?" the farmer growled, eying the group +distrustfully with his small gray eyes under pent-house brows. He was +short of stature, sinewy, and grizzled as to head and bristling beard.</p> + +<p>"Miss Dixie says the boy fainted," Henley answered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> "I saw her here, +and come over to see what was wrong. The little fellow don't look overly +stout."</p> + +<p>"Nothing's the matter with 'im," Pitman retorted, visibly angered by +what he regarded as the interference of outsiders in his private +affairs.</p> + +<p>"Well, I know he fainted," Dixie said, calmly, "but we won't argue about +it. I'll tell you one thing, though, Sam Pitman, if this thing goes +on—I say, if Joe is overworked like this any more—a single other +time—and it comes to my knowledge, I'll take you smack-dab to court. I +don't meddle in things that don't concern me, as a general thing, but +I'll take this in hand and I'll clutch it tight."</p> + +<p>"You'll do wonders," Pitman sneered, but with a guarded glance at +Henley, who had, on one occasion, knocked him down in some dispute over +a debt at the store. He turned to the boy and took the hoe from him. +"You go drive up that cow. I'll finish this patch myself, and don't you +dare come back and say you can't find her, nuther. If you know what's +good for you, you fetch 'er home."</p> + +<p>Leaving Pitman at work in the corn, and with the boy trudging homeward, +Henley and Dixie made their way out to the road. At the fence he threw +down several rails and aided her to step over the remaining ones. When +he had put the rails back in their places and joined her he was struck +by the altered expression of her face.</p> + +<p>"I've wanted to see you all day," she began, her grave glance on the +ground, "and it looks like this meeting is providential. I want to get +it all plumb out, Alfred, and have it off my mind. I don't know when a +thing has bothered me so much. It seemed like such a little thing at the +time, but a whopping big one now. You 'n me have been too good friends, +Alfred, to let deception of any sort whatever come between us. Please +don't look at me so straight; I'll never get through it if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> do. You +think I'm as good as the general run of girls, I'll be bound, and yet I +ain't."</p> + +<p>"I'll take the risk on that," he laughed, incredulously. "I know what +you are—you are true blue. You've just showed the stripe you're made +of. In a minute you'd have fought that skunk back there like a mad +wildcat. For the time, at least, you was loving that pore boy as if he +was your own."</p> + +<p>"We are not talking about that—that's nothing," she said. "No woman +that is half a one could see the dreamy blue eyes of that lonely boy, +and know what he's going through, and not want to hug 'im up to her +breast and pet 'im and comfort 'im. I saw him the day Pitman fetched him +here. He sat out under the trees all day long. I watched him from my +field, and I could see 'im wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He kept it up +from morning till night. Sometimes, Alfred, I doubt the goodness of God +Almighty. I know it's a sin to say so, but I can't help it. I've talked +a heap to Joe off and on, an' he's had more put on 'im than a grown +person ought to bear. Poor thing! he misses his Ma. From what he says I +judge she was good and tender. I had a queer dream the other night. I +seemed to see a woman in my room; she was crying, and, as plain as I can +hear yore voice this minute, I heard her say: 'Don't let 'em abuse +'im—he's weak and he can't stand it,' and with that she seemed to melt +away. But that is clean off the track. I've got a confession to make to +you, and I am so ashamed I hardly know what to do. Alfred Henley, I've +told you a lie—a cold, deliberate lie. Can you respect anybody that +will tell a lie?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I wouldn't have much respect for myself then," he said, his eyes +large in wonder over what she was driving at. "I've lied as many times +as an average clock can tick in a lifetime. I've told a dozen lies to +sell a pair of shoes, and forty to sell a hoss."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hush joking," she said. "Listen. When I told you that fellow was dead I +was lying. I didn't intend to fool you, but I got in an awful tangle, +and you had to take your chance along with the rest. When I went to the +train that day and that fool didn't heave in sight I smelt a mouse. I +went to the post-office and got a letter from him. It was the most +wishy-washy concoction that was ever put on paper. He never, at any +time, had marry in the back of his head. He was just seeing how far he +could go with me to pass time. Some men are that way. They are powerful +interested till they get a girl to commit herself, and then they begin +to twist and turn or call it all off on the spot. As long as I kept this +'un in doubt he wrote the softest gush that ever flowed from a pen. But +when I wrote that I was ready—actually ready and waiting—well, that +was another proposition. He plumb lost his nerve."</p> + +<p>"The scoundrel!" Henley burst out, grown red in the face. "He is below +contempt. I was afraid he was a sneak the minute I saw his picture. I'd +have stopped you if I'd known how."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was nobody's fault but mine." Dixie was trying to divest her +brave voice of a certain quavering. "Folks say I've got a long head on +me—you amongst 'em—but if any God-forsaken female on this round globe +ever made a bigger fool of herself than I did that whack I'd like to +shake hands with her. I shall see myself setting in that wagon in my new +togs waiting for that train to blow—I'll see that sickening sight till +I draw my last whiff of air. Oh, you don't know! Being a man, you can't +understand what a woman's pride is. Fate has hit me hard licks, but +letting me get my outfit ready, clean up the house, and cook enough +ahead to last a week, and come to town with my own hoss and wagon to +haul a trifling man to the altar who was <i>jest joking with me</i>—well, +that's what made me lie."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"God knows, it was enough," Henley answered in his throat. "The banners +toted by the angels have such mottoes as your lie on 'em."</p> + +<p>"I was forced to it to protect myself," Dixie said. "You see, Alfred, Ma +is kind o' high strung and liable to fly off the handle and talk before +folks. She thinks I'm all right, and she'd have raised the roof off the +house and let all the country know my plight if I hadn't acted, and +acted quick. I drove home slow that day and studied up a plan. Death was +the only thing that would do any good, and so I killed him. I liked that +part of it, anyway. I wouldn't have lied to you, but I'd done it so +often at home, and with such a straight face, that it had got to be a +settled habit. But I jumped from the frying-pan into the fire in one +way, for they both weep and wail over him—think o' that, and me feeling +like I could pull his ears clean out of his head and stomp 'em into the +ground."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they take it that way!" exclaimed Henley.</p> + +<p>"That's what they do," said the girl. "I attend that fellow's funeral +sixteen times a day. They want me to put on black—to put on—huh! when +the fool has already made me spend my last dollar on an outfit +that—shucks! Well, you see what I've got my foot into. I had actually +to clap my hand over Ma's mouth the other day while Carrie Wade was +there making her brags to keep Ma from telling of my great loss. Carrie +would see through it, you know she would, and I'd never hear the end of +it. Ma was dead bent on letting folks know, till I worked a trick on +her. I told her, I did, that men didn't like to marry widows, and if I +ever expected to get a husband I must keep Pete's death quiet. With that +understanding they both agreed to hold their tongues. But it's funny, +ain't it?" she ended with a laugh—"you with your tombstone trouble at +home, and me with a dead bridegroom to look after, and one that treated +me like a hound-pup in the bargain?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>Henley laughed now, for she was laughing. "I'm not going to let mine +bother me any more," he said, "now that I've heard what you are going +through."</p> + +<p>"And you'll forgive me for the lie I told you?" she asked anxiously, as +she turned to leave him at a point where their ways parted.</p> + +<p>"I would for a million of its sort," he said, fervently. He raised his +hat and smiled, and stood watching her till she was out of sight in the +apple-orchard she had to traverse to reach the cottage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/016.png" alt="H" /></span> + +ENLEY had been away nearly a year, his absence being protracted by +various business enterprises. Letters to Jim Cahews in regard to the +store, which Cahews was admirably managing, contained humorous accounts +of the various deals which Henley had put through. At one time he had +bought a roller-skating rink, which was sold by auction at a great +sacrifice because the town was too small to support it. Henley had bid +it in, packed it up, and shipped it to a thriving young city, advertised +a big opening, and sold it for a handsome profit while the novelty was +at its height. On another occasion he was the highest bidder on the +scrap-iron in a stove-foundry which had been destroyed by fire, and he +made a handsome "speck" through his ability to guess more nearly than +any of his competitors the weight of the refuse. There was nothing he +would not buy if the price was right, he wrote his clerk, except +<i>tombstones</i>, and Cahews understood, and answered to the best of his +ability and tact that the public had long since ceased to talk about +that unfortunate little matter, and when Henley returned he would +perhaps never hear it mentioned.</p> + +<p>The stepfather-in-law had used less diplomacy in the account he had +forwarded to Henley on the day following the great occasion. Wrinkle was +as fond of writing as he was of talking, and he fairly basked in the +sunshine of the letter he sent. He read it aloud to himself as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +walked to Chester to post it, pausing now and then to scratch out a word +or to add one with a pencil as the paper lay on his raised knee. This is +the way it sounded to his pleased ears:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Alf</span>,—I take my pen in hand to address these few lines to you +to let you know that we are all well, and hope you are endowed with +the same and many like blessings. Nothin' unusual is goin' on here +right now. It is as quiet as the day after camp-meetin'. Dick's +funeral was preached yesterday. The weather was tiptop, and nothin' +was lackin' to make it a plumb success. Hettie got us out of bed +before a single streak of day had appeared. We put on our clothes +by pine-knots. The preacher she sent away off for, because she was +bound to git some'n extra, was installed at the hotel. He is a +wheel-hoss; he dressed as fine as a fiddle, with a plug-hat and +dashboard shoes, and had a long jimswinger coat that come to his +knees. The paper said he was the silver-tongued orator of the +entire Cherokee pulpit, and printed his picture, and said he'd been +paid a handsome figure by one of our wealthiest citizens to take +part in the memorable occasion. I cut the artickle out to send to +you, but forgot an' lit my pipe with it. I'll try to git another, +but they are hard to find, as all hands seem to be keepin' 'em for +future generations to look at. I seed ten men all readin' one at +the same time in a gang at the sawmill t'other day. They seemed to +consider it funny, but I didn't. I don't see how a thing as solemn +as that affair was could be funny.</p> + +<p>"We et our breakfast by candle-light, and then set around and had +nothin' to do till startin'-time. We went in the two-seated +spring-wagon. I was the only one in our layout not draped from head +to foot in black. I couldn't see the women's faces, and as they +didn't say a word I couldn't estimate the extend of their grief. I +reckon you can guess, anyway. You know 'em. You never saw sech a +stream o' folks in all yore born days. You'd 'a' thought it was a +public hangin', and every livin' soul had to take a special peep at +us as we driv along. As well as I could make out through her veil, +Hettie seemed to like bein' so conspicuous, for she axed me to +drive slow an' go through the main street, which ain't the nighest +way to the church. When we got thar the house was packed as tight +as dry apples in a cider-press. But the front bench was all our'n. +Nobody dared take it, although more'n half of it was empty, an' +folks was settin' in the windows. I had trouble with Hettie,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> for +she made me throw my chaw o' tobacco away, and I found I was +settin' right over a wide crack in the floor, too. I wouldn't 'a' +damaged a thing, an' could 'a' done it without bein' seed.</p> + +<p>"Then I made her as mad as Old Nick by a little mistake of mine. +While I was hitchin' up the wagon Old Bay bit a whoppin' big gap +out'n my straw hat, and it was so comical-lookin' that Ma told me +not to wear it. That was easy enough to say, but I didn't want to +go bareheaded, so I begun to look about the house for some'n to put +on, and hid away amongst Het's knickknacks I found a hat that used +to belong to Dick. It was jest my size, and so I put it on an' +thought no more about it till we was all settin' in church. It was +on my lap, and all at once I seed Hettie lift up her veil an' +squint at it; then she heaved a big groan and snatched it and put +it out o' sight. She'd have blessed me out on the spot, I reckon, +if the singers hadn't set in. I was a sight goin' home without a +thing on my head, but she wouldn't listen to reason, an' kept it +stuffed all in a wad under her arm. She said I had no feelin' or I +wouldn't have done sech an outrageous thing.</p> + +<p>"The preacher was all right, but he'd bit off more than he could +chaw. It seems from report that he went around Chester to find out +statements that he could work in about Dick that would sound nice +and suitable; but for some reason or other—maybe because everybody +was so excited, and maybe because they was naturally backward +before sech a shinin' light—but, as I say, he run short on +information. When he come to that part of his talk he looked +actually teased. He floundered about considerable, an' drunk a lot +o' water, but he done the best he could. He said Dick was a devoted +husband and father, and got red when he corrected the last part, +and said a Divine Providence had seed fit to take 'im away purty +early in the game, and that the poor fellow hadn't really had a +chance to show what was in him. Looked like he was determined to +say some'n nice about Dick, so he gave a few backhanded licks at +the Republican party and the nigger-lovers of the North, an' wound +up by sayin' that the late lamented had been a stanch Democrat an' +worked at the poles as hard to overthrow graftin' and Yankee +oppression as any man in the fair Southland. He got through +somehow, but, betwixt me 'n you, Alf, I don't think Hettie thought +she got her full money's worth, for she was countin' on a wonderful +display of poetry and highfalutin' things that would be remembered +an' placed to her credit for a long time afterwards. He got his +foot in it several times. Once I heard Hettie sniff mighty nigh +loud enough for him to hear it. It was when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> said life wasn't +what it was cracked up to be, nohow, and he didn't doubt that Dick +was a sight better off where he was at than here in this earthly +wrangle. I thought to myself, I wonder what Alf would say in his +far-off retreat to a statement of that sort.</p> + +<p>"The marble monument looks all right in Welborne's new graveyard, +an' he has a right to be proud of his enterprise. The ground is +bein' mapped off in great shape. He's had grass sowed all over it +and laid out avenues and sidewalks, and thar's some talk of a +fountain.</p> + +<p>"That Dixie Hart's a corker. She's not mealy-mouthed about +anything. The day before the funeral Hettie was talkin' to her at +the cow-lot, and axed Dixie if she was goin' to take it in. Dixie +quit milchin', and stood up straight and said: 'No, I've got better +sense, and you ought to be ashamed of yoreself. You've got a good +husband, and you don't appreciate him nigh enough.'</p> + +<p>"I thought it was funny that Het didn't fly off the handle, but she +stood and tuck it, and seemed to be set back a peg or two. Me 'n +her went to the house together, an' I looked for her to rail out on +me, anyway, but she set on the porch like she had a lot to think +about till bed-time. I made up my mind then that Het jest loves to +do things that other folks don't approve of, an' that Dixie had set +'er to wonderin' if she hadn't gone a little bit too far.</p> + +<p>"But the old gal is all right. She has tuck a new turn, as I wrote +you in my last. She keeps boarders in the two spare rooms mighty +nigh all the time, and she is figurin' expenses purty close. +Sometimes it is a rovin' peddler at day-rates or a fruit-tree agent +by the week. I can't say I like it overly much—though thar is +somebody to talk to at odd times when they are through work—for +she don't seem to feed quite as well when she's bein' paid as +before money begun to come in. She seems to want to lay up scads +for some reason or other; maybe it is to try to git back the cash +she has spent on her odd notion. I don't know, an' I ain't sure she +does herself, but she's as close as the bark on a tree. Jim says +she's runnin' a separate account at the store, an' makes 'im figure +everything she gets at bare cost in market—freight not included. I +heard her tellin' a lightnin'-rod peddler that that was where she +could cut under the Chester House, which didn't have no store nor +credit to speak of.</p> + +<p>"Who do you think was here last week? Why, Ben Warren, Hettie's +bach' uncle. He stayed all night, an' occupied yore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> room. He says +he's got two thousand acres in his plantation over the mountain, +and the finest residence in the State—keeps a dozen hosses an' all +the old niggers that his daddy used to own. He's thirty-five, an' +still on the turf, but he told us he was at last engaged to a +Baltimore lady that he had been settin up to for lo these many +years. He's goin' to have us all spend a week over thar before +long. He thinks a lot of Het, an' wants her to fix up his house for +the bride. Het's lookin' forward to it. He couldn't stay over for +the funeral, but he said she was showin' by her act that women was +not forgetful of the past, and that it made him feel more secure in +the venture he was about to make. He'd been inclined to doubt +females to some extent, he said, and he was goin' to let Het's +conduct stand before him always as a proof of how deep a woman's +affections can be when they are tested.</p> + +<p>"Now, take care of yourself, Alf, and come on home. These cool, +green mountains are good enough for any man, an' you know what is +said about a rollin' stone. So long. I sign myself, with my best +respects,</p> + +<p class="sign"> +"Yours truly,<br /> +"<span class="smcap">Jason Wrinkle</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<p>"<i>P. S.</i>—The same old crowd of jolly loafers make the store +headquarters, and they are, if anything, worse 'n when you was the +king-bee o' the bunch. They git off a fresh joke on somebody every +day. I got off one on Jim that he didn't like a bit. Jim is still +holdin' on to old man Hardcastle's gal like grim death, an' in +order to cut a special dash he's got to sendin' his things to the +steam laundry at Carlton. T'other day at the post-office the nigger +that delivers for the Express Company, an' can't read, showed me +Jim's package of socks, drawers, shirts, an' the like, that had +just come, an' axed me who it was for. With as straight a face as +if I was lookin' a corpse in the eyes, I p'inted out Hardcastle's +house an' tol' 'im to take it thar. Then I writ with a pencil on +the kiver these words, 'Please restore missin' buttons and stitch +up holes.' Then what did I do but hike back to the store an' set +an' wait. Miss Julia sent the stuff a-whizzin' to Jim by a nigger +woman that works for her folks. The things was all tousled up in a +big basket, an' she fetched along a note that made Jim turn as +white as a cake o' tallow. He left me in charge an' run over an' +explained matters to the best of his ability, but it's the talk of +the town, an' not a soul has suspicioned me. If you don't want to +git knocked flat you'd better not mention a steam laundry in Jim's +presence.</p> + +<p style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: 90%;"> +"J. W."<br /> +</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/017.png" alt="A" /></span> + +LFRED HENLEY was coming home. Jim Cahews announced it one morning to a +cluster of farmers and chronic loungers at the store, and the news +rapidly spread through the village and country-side, and various +comments were made. He was going to do a man's part and try to put up +with the cranky woman he had married, said the men. He was heartily +ashamed of himself, said the women. He had got over his silly pout and +was coming home to make amends for his conduct in living so long away +from a woman who had shown such beautiful constancy to her first and, +perhaps—as it looked now—only love.</p> + +<p>Dixie Hart heard the report on her way to the post-office, and, needing +a spool of cotton, she went into the store.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's headed this way," was Cahews's confirmation of the news. "The +truth is, Miss Dixie, if I'm any judge of a man's letters, Alf's +actually homesick. He wants the mountains he was fetched up in. He +writes about his lonely days and nights, when his speculations don't +keep him busy, an' says they don't have anything out thar but pesky +north winds an' sand-storms. He might have stayed away longer, as it +was, but one little thing I wrote him turned the scale. You know that +measly ten-cent circus that was to show here last month got stranded. +The performers all quit and footed it home, an' the sheriff levied on +the thing, lock, stock, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> barrel, an' is to sell it piece by piece at +public outcry Saturday week. Alf wrote me that a sale of that sort was +exactly in his line, and that he'd try to be on hand. He didn't think +anybody here would have any money to invest in such truck, and he'd have +his own way. He said about the only man hereabouts that he'd have to +contend with would be old Welborne, but he would risk him. He don't +often allude to home matters, Miss Dixie, but I think Alf counts on +havin' things up at the house a little smoother than they was when he +went off."</p> + +<p>"And maybe he will," the girl answered, thoughtfully, as she turned +away.</p> + +<p>The only boarders Mrs. Henley had at this time were a certain young +married pair, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Allen, who had arrived only a week +before with a baby not yet a month old. Allen was a travelling +sewing-machine agent, and boarded his wife and child at some farm-house +while he drove about the country in a buggy with a sample machine to +instruct women in the use of it and take orders.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Allen heard the report that Henley was coming back, she was +considerably disturbed by the thought that she and hers might not be +wanted any longer. She nursed her fears all the morning, and finally, +with the infant on her arm, she went out to Mrs. Henley, who was in the +back-garden gathering cucumbers for the dinner-table.</p> + +<p>"I reckon I'd as well come to the point an' be done with it," Mrs. Allen +began, timidly. She was thin, had blue eyes and faded blond hair, used +snuff, as was indicated by the brownish deposits in the corners of her +mouth and her stained teeth. "I want to speak to you about yore +husband."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it?" Mrs. Henley asked, as she drew herself up and peered +at the speaker from the hood of her sunbonnet, and rested her pan of +cucumbers on her hip.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, they all say he's comin' home," said Mrs. Allen. "I've heard yore +father-in—I mean, I've heard old Mr. Wrinkle say that yore husband, +never havin' had children, can't abide babies, an' I got bothered. My +little darlin' don't cry much—in fact, compared to most babies, it's a +purty good un. It did cry some just a minute ago, but that wasn't its +fault. It was mine. Like a plumb fool, who certainly ought to have had +more sense, I was takin' a dip o' snuff from my box as I come out of the +house, an' a sudden whiff of wind round the corner blowed a speck of it +in the little thing's eyes. You know it stings like ackerfortis. We are +goin' next week, anyway, you see."</p> + +<p>"Well, you needn't let my husband's coming hurry you off," Mrs. Henley +answered, as she reached out to a bean-pole and bore down on it that she +might fasten it more firmly in the soil, and it was impossible to judge +whether there was resentment in the tone. "He's coming back of his own +free will, and if he stays he'll put up with the house just as he finds +it. Nothing will be turned topsy-turvy, you may be sure. His room is +where it always was, and it ain't likely to be changed."</p> + +<p>The conversation was disturbed by the appearance of the baby's father, +who emerged from the house and was on the way to the stable to feed and +water his horse. He wore a ready-made suit of clothes and a scarlet +necktie which clashed sharply with his blond hair and mustache. He was +almost as young as his wife, and he beamed proudly on the red human lump +in her arms as he paused for a moment. He smiled warmly on Mrs. Henley +when his wife playfully informed him that they would not have to move +till their week was up.</p> + +<p>"Well, I certainly am glad to hear it," he declared. "I'd hate to look +for a new place just for a day or so, an' I've got so I feel sorter at +home here. Me an' yore father-in—(excuse me)—I mean, me 'n Mr. Wrinkle +have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> high old times. Even if I went to board somers else I'd come here +an' set of an evenin' to hear him talk. He drives off every spell of +blues I have. He is the beatenest man to get off jokes I ever knowed, to +be as old as he is. Just now he walked clean over to Pitman's to tell +that crusty old cuss that thar was a cow inside his lot fence, an' when +Pitman come down hoppin' mad with his shot-gun full o' pease yore +father-in—(excuse me)—Mr. Wrinkle p'inted to Pitman's own cow an' +said, 'I wasn't lyin' to you, Sam; thar she is.' He was laughin' just +now an' said he had a joke in store for Mr. Henley when he got here. I +tried to git it out of him, but he wouldn't say what was in the wind."</p> + +<p>That evening, after supper, as the night was warm, the Allens, with the +child asleep on a pillow in a chair between them, were seated out under +the trees in front of the house, when Wrinkle slouched across the grass +to them. He was chewing tobacco, and frequently pressed two fingers over +his lips and between them spat with considerable accuracy at various +shrubs and tufts of grass about him. Even in the twilight they could see +that his small eyes were twinkling with suppressed amusement.</p> + +<p>"I thought once, Allen," he chuckled, "that I wouldn't let you in on +this joke, but I'm afraid I won't sleep if I don't tell somebody. I +don't mind lettin' you two in on the quiet, but I wouldn't tell Hettie +for any amount. You see, this un's a baby joke, an' it may be a tender +point with her, not havin' a baby, an', in fact, never havin' had one up +to date, although she's had two husbands in her day, an' resided with +each one a sufficient time."</p> + +<p>"So it's a baby joke?" Allen said. "Well, that interests <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"That's what it is," the old man said, dryly. "You'd enjoy it if you +knowed Alf. The gang at the store was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> eternally laughin' at 'im about +babies. They could shet 'im up tight by jest gettin' a nigger nurse-gal +to tote a lusty one back to his desk while he was at work. Once one of +the gang sent 'im a tin rattler by mail, an' they was all thar to see +'im open it. He took it all in good fun, too; he's one joker that kin +stand one on hisself. You may 'a' noticed that Hettie is a sorter odd +woman in some ways. Well, she's more peculiar on the husband line than +any other. Alf's been off now goin' on ten months, an' she hain't once +put pen to paper for him. So the few lines that has gone from this +shebang has been writ by yours truly. Alf hasn't writ to me much, but +I've kept 'im posted. He didn't write me he was headed this way, but I +got it from Cahews. As soon as I heard he was comin' in a week or so, I +set down to write how glad we was. I was in my room j'inin' your'n at +the time, an' all at once it struck me that it would be a royal welcome +to greet 'im with some sort o' joke, an' while I was tryin' to study up +some'n yore baby rolled out o' the bed an' struck the floor with a +thump. It was as quiet as a stick o' wood fer a minute till it ketched +its wind, an' then it set up a scream like a Comanchy Injun, an' right +thar I got my idea. I determined to write Alf that he'd become the daddy +of a bouncin' baby boy. But I had to go about it right, you see, for I +knowed Alf would smell a mice if I brought it out bluntlike; so, knowin' +that I'd have time to hear from him ag'in before he started, I jest +ended my letter by sayin' that I didn't intend to take no hand in the +little cold spell betwixt him an' his wife, but that I felt bound to say +that after she had laid down her pride to write him <i>sech important</i> an' +<i>delicate news</i>, for him to take no notice of it whatever was enough to +hurt and offend any woman. He bit. He took my bait an' hook an' line, +broke my pole, an' run up-stream. He writ by the next mail—said he +hadn't got no letter from Hettie, an' axed me what the news was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> He was +so anxious to know that he said he was goin' to stop a day or so in +Atlanta, an' wouldn't I oblige him by sendin' my answer thar? You bet I +did. I'll do a friend a favor whenever I kin. I told 'im Alf Junior was +a buster, had a yell on 'im that would do for a fire-alarm, an' was +already keen enough to know the difference betwixt a bottle with a +rubber neck an' the rail thing. So thar it rests. He hain't got no use +for babies, an' he'll be as mad as Tucker, but when he finds out it's +jest a joke he'll be happy enough to set up the drinks."</p> + +<p>"Gracious, surely you didn't go as far as that," Mrs. Allen cried, +casting a jealous look at her sleeping infant and sweeping it on to her +grinning spouse.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I, though!" Wrinkle spat, gleefully. "Alf has often said I +couldn't fool <i>him</i>, an' we'll see—we'll see this pop."</p> + +<p>"It certainly is a corker," Allen declared—"that is, if he swallows +it."</p> + +<p>"He's already done it," sniggered the stepfather-in-law. "I writ a +document a Philadelphia lawyer and a Pinkerton detective combined +couldn't pick a flaw in. I hedged it in with roundabout reasons an' +facts, tellin' 'im he'd 'a' had letter after letter about how the baby +was thrivin' if he'd just answered Hettie's first official proclamation, +and so on, and so on. Folks, I can hardly wait. He'll git here to-morrow +night, an' we'll have the fun of our lives. I hope you two won't say a +word—at fust, anyway. Leave it all to me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/018.png" alt="T" /></span> + +He following afternoon about dusk the mail-hack, which usually brought +a few passengers over from Carlton, put Henley down at the gate. The +Allens, the Wrinkles, and Mrs. Henley were seated on the porch, and all +stared expectantly except the wife of the returning man, who rose +suddenly and retired into the house. Henley was tanned, wore a more +stylish suit of clothes than had been his wont, and a broad-brimmed hat. +As he advanced up the walk, swinging his bag in one hand and a bulky +parcel in the other, the observers noted that he was flushed and smiling +complacently.</p> + +<p>"Durn it all!—dad blast his pictur'!" Wrinkle ejaculated, "I'll bet he +missed my letter. He wouldn't look tickled that way if he'd got it. +Well, the fun is off. If I was to tell 'im now he'd know I was lyin'."</p> + +<p>The new-comer was at the bottom of the steps now, and, depositing his +things on the grass, he came up with his hand extended.</p> + +<p>"Well, here I am," he cried, as he clasped Wrinkle's hand and shook it +cordially. "I never was as glad to strike Georgia grit in my life. I +feel like a old soldier back from war. As I drove over and saw the sun +in its bed of yellow behind the mountains I felt like I was flying +through space. This country is good enough for me, and I'll prove it by +sticking to it in the future. Where's Hettie? But, first of all, I want +to see that baby. Trot him out—bless his soul!—trot him out."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>Profound astonishment showed itself in every face. Only old Jason seemed +capable of rising to the situation. For barely an instant he floundered, +and then his small eyes began to twinkle, his voice held a rippling, +unctuous quality as he laid his hand on Henley's arm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you mean <i>little</i> Alf," he faltered. "Why, he's—he's in thar +asleep on the bed. We-uns—the last one of us—'lowed you'd raise big +objections. You always seemed to have mighty little use for anything o' +the sort."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" Henley grunted, an honest flush spreading over his face. "That's +another matter altogether. There are babies and babies in this world. +This one's got different blood in 'im—this one's <i>mine</i>! If I've made +light o' having little tots, I wasn't talking about <i>him</i>, for he hadn't +come. Where is he? Let me see 'im. I won't wake 'im. I'll walk easy, an' +not say a word."</p> + +<p>"Well, step this way." Wrinkle cast a bubbling glance of warning at Mrs. +Allen, who had risen resentfully, and motioned her back into her chair, +and, with a comical strut, he led Henley into the room occupied by the +child's parents. Near the door, in the dim light of a sputtering +tallow-dip, on a tiny bed lay the sleeping infant. Wrinkle, choking down +his amusement, took the candle from the mantelpiece and held it over the +little face. "You can't see the favor so plain while its eyes are shet," +he chuckled, "but when it grins an' winks it's you to a gnat's heel."</p> + +<p>"Gewhilikins, ain't he a corker!" Henley said, worshipfully, under his +breath, as he leaned over the bed.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't wake 'im now." Mrs. Allen stood in the doorway, quite erect +and cold in her bearing, and there was no one but the deluded man who +failed to detect her frigid tone of offended ownership. "This is his +sleepin'-time; if he wakes now he'll fret all night, an' Mr. Allen has +to git his rest or he can't git up early an' do his work."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I see," said Henley, politely. "I heard Hettie had taken some boarders. +I know she'd hate to have the little thing keep anybody awake."</p> + +<p>"Sh! not yit, for the Lord's sake, not yit!" Wrinkle whispered, as he +slid along, to the bewildered mother. "Don't spile it all."</p> + +<p>"Well, let's go back on the porch," Henley said. "I've got some'n to +show you. What you reckon I've got in my bundle? Come take a look." He +led them back into the outer dusk, and descended to the ground for the +parcel, which, after hastily cutting the string, he opened on the steps. +The others stared in astonishment at the pile of toys, little dresses, +flannels, dainty caps of lace, and shoes and stockings.</p> + +<p>"What did you go an' buy all them things for?" Wrinkle asked, rendered +serious for the first time by the realization that his jest had at least +cost more than he had intended.</p> + +<p>"Because I wanted to, that's what for!" Henley laughed, proudly. "Do you +reckon I was going to come away from Atlanta empty-handed when I was +right where so many things could be had? I showed your letter to Mrs. +Moody, who keeps the house I stopped at, and she took me down-town and +helped select what was best. She said every single article would come in +handy, and she ought to know—she's the mother of nine. Lord, I wish I'd +got here earlier, before his bed-time. I tried to git the driver to +hurry up, but first one thing happened, then another. I want to see what +the little chap 'll do with this rattler; these blamed little bells set +up a jinglin' noise every time the hack struck a snag."</p> + +<p>During this monologue the machine-agent was silent, a dark frown of +indecision on his face. As for his wife, she looked as if she had +bartered her child's birthright for something that had disagreed with +her mental digestion. Jason Wrinkle, however, reflections on the cost of +his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> joke for the moment set aside, seemed to have fallen into his +happiest mood. Unable to disguise his merriment at such close range from +his victim, he had slipped out into the yard, and Allen could see him +writhing in the folds of darkness as he slapped his thighs and raised +his heavy boots in a soundless dance of joy.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll go find Hettie." Henley took up the parcel, and, with it in +his arms, he clattered thunderously through the hallway back to his +wife's room. There was candle-light in the room, and he saw her hastily +turn toward a window as he entered and threw the things on her bed.</p> + +<p>"Well, here I am," he announced, the ring of elation still in his voice. +"I don't blame you for hiding from me, Hettie. I've acted like an old +hog, and I've come back to say so."</p> + +<p>She turned toward him, an expression of surprise struggling on her thin +face, but it had never been her way to show affection, and she made no +offer even to shake hands. However, he had put his arms round her and +kissed her cold cheek.</p> + +<p>"You've just come?" she said, tentatively, as she drew stiffly from his +embrace.</p> + +<p>"Just a minute ago. I had to see the baby the first thing. I couldn't +wait. The old man showed him to me. Ain't he great? I hain't seen his +eyes yet—he was sound asleep. I reckon that boarder-woman helps you +with him; she seems to thinks lots of him, and be powerful particular. I +didn't get your letter about its coming, Hettie. I'd have written at +once—you know I would. It was lost, I reckon. The mails don't run right +always. The old man wrote me, and it certainly was like a thunderclap. +I'm mighty proud, Hettie. You see, I'd given up hoping that a baby'd +ever come to us, an'—"</p> + +<p>"To <i>us</i>?" The woman stared and drew herself more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> erect. "What do you +mean? Are you crazy? You've seen babies before and never went on at such +a rate. I don't care for it. I haven't once touched it since it come. I +don't like its mother any too well, and she is such a fool about it +that—"</p> + +<p>"Its <i>mother</i>?" Henley gasped. "Why, ain't it <i>ours</i>—ain't it yours and +mine? The—the old man wrote me that—" Henley's voice faltered and +sank. His lower lip hung loose from his teeth and quivered. With a +furious shrug Mrs. Henley turned from him to the curtainless window +against which the outer night pressed like a palpable substance. She +could hear him behind her panting like a tired beast of burden. For a +moment there was an awful silence in the room, then he broke it.</p> + +<p>"My God, he made a fool of me!" he groaned.</p> + +<p>"And you made one of <i>me</i>," the woman threw back from the window, "and +before them all!" She sneered, as her glance fell on the pile of gifts +on the bed. "This is what you come back for? Any other man would have +had too much sense to be so easily fooled." She strode to the table and +picked up the candle, for what purpose he did not know, but it slipped +from her fingers and fell to the floor and went out. He heard her groan, +and the slats of the bed creaked as she sat down. Thankful that the +darkness hid the evidences of shame on his face, and not daring to trust +his voice to further utterance, he went out of the room. As he passed +through the hallway he heard a low cry from the infant on the right, and +its mother crooning over it. No one was on the porch. A vast weight of +misery and chagrin was on him. He sat down on the steps and fumbled in +his pocket for his pipe. But his nerveless fingers broke the only match +he had, as he attempted to strike it on the step, and, holding his pipe +before him, he sat staring into space. He had a hunted sense of wanting +to avoid forever all human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> contact; an intangible shame burned within +him, drying up the tender emotions which so recently had swayed his +being.</p> + +<p>Suddenly his glance fell on his valise still resting on the step where +he had left it, and, rising, he clutched it as he might the hand of a +friend. The next instant he was striding over the grass to the gate. To +shun the village, the lights of which winked sardonically in the +distance, he crossed the road, climbed the fence and was in the meadow +which lay between his land and Dixie Hart's. Blindly he trudged through +the high weeds and grass, now wet with dew.</p> + +<p>Cruel, cruel—a joke, a mere joke, as such things went with the shallow +and light-minded, and yet it was a tragedy. For several days, in the +highest realm of fancy he had revelled in the first joys of fatherhood, +only to have it end like this. He paused on a slight rise of the ground +and looked back at the outlines of the farm-house, and cursed it and its +inhuman inmates. As he dug his nails into his palms and gnashed his +teeth, he swore that the surrounding mountains, so false in their late +promises, should never see him more; the wide, free world should be his +solace, if solace could be had.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as he stood, he became conscious that there was a moving blur +before him, as if some portion of the general darkness, by some trick of +vision, had been rendered more compact and animate. Then he saw that it +was a cow, and immediately in the animal's wake appeared another blur. +This was the form of a woman. In a mellow, soothing tone she called out +to the cow, and Henley recognized the voice. It was Dixie Hart. +Instinctively, and shrinking even from her, he started on, but she +suddenly cried out:</p> + +<p>"Don't go, Alfred, you haven't said howdy to me. You aren't going to +treat an old friend that way, I know."</p> + +<p>Putting his valise down at his feet, he stood speechless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> while she +advanced to him, her hand extended from beneath the shawl which +enveloped her head and shoulders. "How are you?" She seemed to avoid +seeing his valise. "I'm powerful glad to see you back home."</p> + +<p>He made an effort to speak, but there was a dry tightness in his throat +which made him doubt his command of utterance. His only response was the +dumb clasping of her hand, and to it he clung, unconscious of what the +act implied, as a proof of weakness.</p> + +<p>"I knew you had got back," she went on, her face uplifted, her friendly +fingers tightening on his. "That old mischief-maker told me. I didn't +come out here after the cow. That was just a dodge to keep anybody from +talking about me being away from home after dark. I had to see you. I +knew you needed a friend, and I'm one, Alfred—I'd sacrifice anything on +earth to help you. You've been a true friend to me, and I want to be to +you. I know all that happened back there."</p> + +<p>"You say you do?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Wrinkle come and told me. He was laughing, but he let up, for +I opened his eyes. He hasn't had such a tongue-lashing since he was +born. The fool, the fool—the silly fool! You mustn't mind, Alfred. You +really mustn't."</p> + +<p>"Mind?" he muttered. "My God!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know!" she went on, still soothingly. "It is awful looked at from +<i>your</i> standpoint, but that ain't the thing. We must consider the +intentions of folks before we take offence. Why, Alfred, that old +busybody hasn't yet got it through his head that any living man could +object to a joke like that. Nothing under high heaven was ever sacred to +him; you must have noticed that in the time you have known him. He'd +make a jest out of the death of his closest kin. He told me once that to +think anything was wrong in this world would be to deny God's goodness +to mankind. When I told him just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> now that he had overstepped the bounds +of reason and good sense in what he done, he simply wouldn't believe it. +He said you knew how to give a joke and take one, and that he liked you +better than any living man. The Allens are going to leave soon. Alfred, +you mustn't go 'way like this—you just mustn't."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing else to do."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, there is." She laid her hand on his arm, and gazed persuasively +into his eyes. "You've got your duty to perform—your duty to your wife, +Alfred."</p> + +<p>"Huh, to her!" he sniffed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, to <i>her</i>," Dixie went on, simply and yet eagerly. "I'm sorry for +her, Alfred. To most folks she seems peculiar, and yet God made her that +way just as He made you and me like we are, and, moreover, she can't +help being like she is. You told me once that you didn't think she had +ever quite got over her love for her first husband, but that you counted +on that when you married her. Well, all the queer things which she done +while you was away, that folks thought was so funny, come from her idea +of her duty in that direction. If I read her right, she thinks, somehow, +that she proved herself untrue to—to the dead by marrying again, and +she's let it prey on her mind. But that is over with. I think she is +afraid now that she went too far."</p> + +<p>"You think so?" Henley breathed hard.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I lost patience with her myself during it all, and give her a +piece of my mind one day. If she had been plumb sure she was right she'd +have got mad, but she didn't. She took it different from what I +expected. She never had paid any attention to me before, but after that +day she made a point o' coming to me. She never would bring up the +subject again, but she'd stand and talk with as much respect as if I'd +been some old person. She looked like she was ashamed, and wanted to let +me know in some other way than telling me in so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> words. No, you +mustn't go 'way like this, Alfred. It 'ud never do. She ain't to blame +for that old man's joke, and she ought not to suffer for it. She was +glad you was coming back. A woman can read a woman, and she couldn't +hide it. It looked to me like she is glad to get a chance to act +different and do her part. If you was to go off on top of this thing it +would humiliate her awfully. A great deal would be said, and it would +all heap up on her as the prime cause. You are the noblest man I ever +knew, Alfred, and you won't go and do as big a wrong as this would be, +and in such thoughtless haste. A man never can decide on a correct +course when he is upset like you are now, and you'd live to regret it. +Then think of yourself. You was plumb homesick for these old mountains, +and was glad to get back."</p> + +<p>"How did you know that?"</p> + +<p>"A little bird told me." She quoted the saying with an arch smile. "You +wanted to get here in time to be at the auction sale of that broke-down +circus, and you'll miss a good thing if you go. The horses are in bad +shape, owing to poor feeding and hard use, but there's big come-out in +'em. Nobody else here will have the ready money, and you'd have a clean +walk-over."</p> + +<p>"What else have they got besides hosses?" The trader's eyes twinkled +with an interest that broke through the stupor that was on him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, lots o' odds and ends; you wait and see. Tote that valise back in +the house, Alfred, and don't do what you'll be sorry for all your life. +If you was to leave like this to-night it would be harder than ever to +come back, and you'd have to do it sooner or later. You know I'm giving +you good advice."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know it—before God I know it," he said, fervently. "You are the +best friend I've got, Dixie. No, I don't want to go back to Texas." His +strong voice shook and he coughed to steady it. "I never want to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> roam +about that way again. I forced myself to stay out there day by day. That +was one mistake, and I ought not to make another on top of it. You see +it right, Dixie. You see it right."</p> + +<p>"Then there is little Joe," she reminded him. "He is still having a hard +time with Sam Pitman, and the little fellow has almost counted the hours +since he heard you was coming. He dotes on you. He still has the money +hid away that you left for him. He says he is going to keep it till he's +a man. Oh, it was so sad! Alfred, he started to run away one night +awhile back, after Pitman had whipped him for planting the wrong +seed-corn. I happened to meet him down the road. He had a little bundle +under one arm and a pet chicken I had given him under the other. I +stopped him and got him to go back. I couldn't bear the thought of +having him so far away from me and unprotected. I told him that, and it +made him break down and cry. Then he let me kiss him; he never had +before, he's so bashful, and, well"—her eyes were glistening and her +tone was husky—"the next morning I saw him in the field bright and +early. He was doing the hardest work there is on a farm—digging sprouts +with a heavy grubbing-hoe. But he was cheerful."</p> + +<p>"You made him go back, just as you are making me do," Henley said, +swallowing a lump in his throat and forcing a smile. "You were right in +his case, and right in mine. You are my best friend. How goes it with +you? We've talked enough about me."</p> + +<p>"Same old seven and six," she answered, with a shrug. "Still fighting +with the world and Carrie Wade. She's a worm in my flesh that is on a +constant wiggle. She nags me more now because she is more miserable +herself. She don't even get as much attention as she did. She used to go +after it, but the men have headed her off. The fellows at the +lumber-camp got to laughing at her for the way she done. She's got down +to little boy sweet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>hearts. She's been making eyes at Johnny Cartwright, +and the little fool—he ain't more than seventeen, eight years younger'n +her—is clean daft about her. Poor old Mrs. Cartwright is awfully +worried. The little scamp declares he is engaged to Carrie, and, instead +of giving the report the lie, she actually seems proud of it."</p> + +<p>"But how about your marrying?" Henley questioned.</p> + +<p>"Me? Oh, I've got my trousseau ready, every stitch of it, including hat, +gloves, stockings, and what not."</p> + +<p>"You don't tell me—well, that <i>is</i> news!" Henley exclaimed in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Well, it ain't to me," Dixie laughed. "You see, Alfred, it is the same +old outfit that I laid in a year ago and keep in storage. It hain't +exactly the latest wrinkle as to style, but I could cut away and add a +flounce here and a ruffle there, and not have so much cash to lay out as +I did when I missed fire that time. But I don't think I'll get to use it +soon. Field-work in the broiling sun and setting on a divan with a dinky +fan to your face and a young man to peep over it don't hitch, somehow. +And I'm still deep in debt to old Welborne. He's the only man I make +love to, but I don't get a cent off for my smiles; he growls and +grumbles every time I see him about hard times and the like. But I'll +pay out one of these days. As you pass it in the morning I want you to +just take a look at my stand of cotton; if the drought will let it alone +I'll make five bales. Now I must go. I know you'll keep your promise, so +I ain't going to worry. Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Good-night," he echoed, and as she moved away in the darkness he took +up his valise and turned his face toward the farm-house. "She's right," +he muttered. "God bless her, she's plumb right."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/019.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE Allens had gone, taking with them the baby things, which Henley had +prevailed upon them to accept. He sank into his accustomed place at home +and at the store as naturally as if he had been away only for a day. The +news of his return drew around him many of the motley ilk who made +trading and swapping both a business and an avocation. They seldom dealt +with him, to be sure, but it was a liberal education to hear his +experiences, and even better to see him actually make a deal. On his +first day at home he had bought a lame horse for the small sum of fifty +dollars, after he had delivered a free lecture about the great "American +Cruelty to Animals Association," as he called it. And, with his eyes on +the owner, he gave it as his opinion that in a more enlightened +community a man who would ride a horse in that condition would be +dragged straight to court, and maybe imprisoned for life. When the +animal was his, and the ex-owner had gone to buy a ticket to go home by +rail, Henley winked at Cahews and said: "I know how to cure that hoss's +leg. I paid two dollars to learn in Fort Worth from an Indian +hoss-doctor. Two hundred dollars wouldn't buy 'im right now."</p> + +<p>It was the loquacious stepfather-in-law who revelled most in Henley's +sayings and doings, and he regaled his wife and Henley's with accurate +and vivid reports of them. One morning he came into the sitting-room,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +where the two women sat bent over a quilt on a big, square frame, their +needles going methodically up and down.</p> + +<p>"You mought guess one million years," he panted, as he bent over them, +that he might feast on their facial expressions, "an' not guess what Alf +Henley's gone an' done."</p> + +<p>They raised their faces and stared, and the wizened raconteur smiled as +he stepped to the open fireplace, shifted the paper screen to one side, +carefully spat, and then, replacing it, returned to his coign of +vantage.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, and care less," Mrs. Henley answered, though her poised +needle and steady gaze belied her words. "He's done so many fool things +in his life that I'd not be surprised if he'd gone off in a balloon."</p> + +<p>"That's equal to sayin' you give it up." Wrinkle again applied himself +to the screen and fireplace, and returned shuffling, his tobacco-quid in +his hand. "Well, you've heard about the dime circus that was to show +here a month back, an' couldn't because all the actors hit the grit an' +left the manager to settle with the sheriff for debts that follered it +all the way from Boston?"</p> + +<p>They had heard every detail of the matter innumerable times, and only +stared and gaped as they awaited further revelations.</p> + +<p>"Well, Alf Henley is sole owner an' manager now," was the bomb which +exploded in Wrinkle's hands. "He's the John Robinson and P. T. Barnum of +the whole capoodle."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that he has actually gone off with—" began Mrs. Henley, +but was checked by the old man's smile of correction.</p> + +<p>"Well, he ain't, to say, actually <i>started out</i> yit," the old man +grinned. "You know he'd have to git performers, tight-rope walkers, +hoop-jumpers, bareback riders, an' the like, an' these mountain +clodhoppers ain't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> in practice. But I'm here to state to you two women +if he kin git clowns to furnish as much fun fer a dime and a seat +throwed in as he give that crowd this mornin' he'll be rich enough to +throw twenty-dollar gold pieces at cats in no time. I seed the whole +shootin'-match. I was in the store when the nigger boy come by the front +janglin' a bell an' totin' the red flag with a sign on it, an' Alf sent +Pomp out fer one of the circulars that had a list of the items. He +looked it over, an' then re'ched for his hat, an' me 'n him went down to +the court-house yard whar the whole thing was spread out, piled up, an' +haltered. It was like Noah's Ark washed ashore an' lyin' thar to dry. +Thar was six hosses so thin you could read through 'em without yore +specs, three big road-wagons heavy enough to haul steam-engines on, the +little, teensy pony with a bob-tail that the clown driv' in the +procession, an' the little red-an'-green streaky wagon that he rid in. +Then thar was the heavy iron den on another big road-wagon that the lion +stayed in till he starved to death, a whoppin' pile of planks that was +used for seats, an', last of all, the big canvas tent.</p> + +<p>"The entire town an' country was on hand, nosin' about an' crackin' +jokes on the fat manager who had come up from Atlanta to attend the sale +an' was lookin' as seedy as a last year's bird's-nest. But I'm here to +tell you that when Alf Henley come stalkin' down, lookin' sorter +indifferent, like he always does when he has a notion to trade, that +crowd pulled in its horns an' waited."</p> + +<p>"The fool!" Mrs. Henley ejaculated. "Making a public exhibition of +himself."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've often wondered about that very thing," Wrinkle said. "I +sometimes think he tries to make folks think he is a fool to suit his +aims, an' ef he ain't a natural-born one it oughtn't to be belt agin +him. I admit I was puzzled on that point this mornin'. I stuck to his +heels, bound to see 'im through. He'd sniff at one thing an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> turn away +from another as if it didn't smell right; he'd kick a pile of stuff with +contempt an' walk on, an' he grinned to beat a heathen idol at the mere +sight of the lion-cage an' pony an' cart, an' then he just squared +hisse'f around same as to say, 'Well, I'm in pore business, but I'll +jest stand here an' see if anybody will be fool enough to bid on such +truck.'</p> + +<p>"You know Sheriff Tobe Webb is a dry-talkin' cuss, anyway, an' I had to +laff when he got up an' begun his harangue, fer all the world like a +feller in front of a side-show tryin' to drum up a crowd to see a passel +o' freaks on the inside. Tobe had the fust item led out fer +inspection—a bony hoss that tried to lie down, an' Alf spoke up an' +wanted to know if he was a stump-sucker.</p> + +<p>"Fred Dill up an' said, 'The man that buys 'im will be the sucker,' an' +everybody laffed, Alf as big as the rest.</p> + +<p>"'I think I know whar I could sell his hide,' he said, an' bid ten +dollars. Then somebody—or it may jest have been the show-man's +bluff—raised it to fourteen, an' then Alf went 'im a dollar more an' +got the hoss."</p> + +<p>"Another one to feed and doctor," sighed Mrs. Henley.</p> + +<p>"I say another," Wrinkle chuckled. "He got all six at about the same +figure. Nobody was biddin' agin 'im except old Welborne, an' he was so +mad he couldn't stand still. They say he had been countin' on havin' it +all his own way, but Alf come home an' turned his cake to dough. Next +come the three road-wagons. Some o' the farmers was interested in 'em, +but they was too heavy fer field-work, an' though Tobe mighty nigh tore +the linin' out o' his throat yellin' agin it as a plumb outrage, Alf +raked 'em in at about the cost of the bare iron in 'em.</p> + +<p>"The next item was the lion's cage, an' a big laff started, for Fred +Dill told Alf that it was entirely too clumsy fer a baby-carriage, an' I +knowed then that my joke was goin' the rounds, an' I backed away a +little, fer I didn't like the way Alf looked. But he was still in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> the +game, an' he walked up to the cage an' ketched hold of the bars an' +sorter shook 'em. It had one of the same heavy wagons under it in good +condition, an' I believe Alf was tryin' to attract attention from the +wagon, for all the time Tobe was talkin' an' sayin' the cage would be a +good thing fer a man to lock his wife up in to break 'er of the +gad-about habit, Alf was examinin' the iron slats an' the bolts an' +bars. It had a big door an' wooden sides that could be tuck off or left +on, an' Dill advised Alf to buy it an' turn gypsy, an' roam about +tradin' here an' yan. But Alf got the thing at his own bid, an' sorter +sneered as he writ down the price on the scrap of paper in his hand."</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake, what fool caper did he cut next?" Mrs. Henley +demanded, in a tone of impatience.</p> + +<p>"Why, he bought the pony an' little wagon fer ten dollars, even money, +an' it was all I could do to keep the baby joke from risin' ag'in. I +could see that Dill was about to spring it, but I shook my head at 'im, +an' he kept quiet. I reckon he thought thar was no use rubbin' it in. +Then everybody got to watchin' the nigger helpers stretch out the big +tent at the sheriff's orders. It was stout, new cloth, an' it glistened +like a patch of snow in the sun, an' driv' the crowd back on all sides +in a big ring. I reckon everybody thar thought Alf surely would balk at +a thing like that, but it looked like the fun folks was pokin' at him +had got his dander up. Jim Cahews had closed the store an' come down, +an' I seed 'im nudge Alf an' heard 'im say, 'I believe I'd let that item +slide, Alf, the cloth has been cut on the bias, an' the seams are so +stout that it never could be sold by the yard.'</p> + +<p>"'Shet up, I know what I'm about,' I heard Alf whisper, an' then he +yelled out to the sheriff, 'Put up the pile o' planks along with it; +nobody wants a' old rag as big as that.'</p> + +<p>"The sheriff agreed, an' both lots went in as one. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> was a sharp trick +of Alf's, for he had found out that a photographer was thar from Carlton +to go his limit on the tent, but lumpin' it in with the planks sorter +upset the chap's calculations, an' he didn't have the look of a man that +could figure quick. He shuck all over as he bid ten dollars, an' while +the sheriff was yellin' 'Goin'! goin'!' Alf stooped down an' felt of the +canvas. He found a clean hole that looked like it had been cut, an' run +his finger through it an' laffed an' said, 'It wouldn't do to hang it up +to dry, the wind 'ud blow it to pieces, but I kin use the planks, an' +I'll resk a dollar more.' The photographer got scared, an', while he was +stoopin' down tryin' to feel o' the tent, Alf ketched the sheriff's eye +an' said, 'I'll withdraw my bid if you don't hurry. I'm wastin' time.' +The sheriff yelled out an' told the photographer it was agin 'im, but he +look scared wuss 'n ever an' shuck his head, an' that ended it. Alf +wasn't in as big a hurry to git away as he had let on, neither. He set a +couple o' niggers to work stackin' up the planks in neat piles an' +rollin' up the tent. He sent the hosses to the pasture back o' the +store, an' told Pomp to give 'em a good rubbin' down, an' to put some o' +his famous hoss-tonic in the'r feed."</p> + +<p>"A circus!" Mrs. Henley said, with a sniff. "A circus, and me the +daughter of a Baptist preacher."</p> + +<p>"Well, he ain't raily goin' to put the thing on the road," Wrinkle said, +seriously. "He counts on sellin' it off piece by piece. I went back to +the store when he did. I was afeard, at the start, that he was cracked +in the upper story, but I've sorter switched around. Old Welborne come +in an' had his say about the snag Alf had at last struck in his +overeagerness to have some'n to do now that he was back, an' went out as +mad as the very devil about some'n or other. Jim an' me set down back at +the desk an' watched Alf figure up. He looked tickled, and after a while +he said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Jim, I'm glad I got back. I know now that Texas ain't no place for my +talent. It's overrun with sharp-witted Jews an' keen Yankees that know +values down to a gnat's heel. But here in these mountains these yokels +git scared clean out o' the'r senses when a dollar has to change hands. +Do you know,' says he, 'that I'm out less'n two hundred this mornin', +an' at a low estimate I have got a thousand dollars' wuth o' truck?'</p> + +<p>"'I don't know, Alf,' Jim said. 'I'm with yore judgment, as a general +thing, but not on this deal. I was lookin' at them hosses t'other day in +the court-house yard, an' the Chester brass-band come along. Now, a +average hoss,' Jim said, 'will either git scared or break an' run at a +sound like that, but three o' them things you got this mornin' struck up +a regular jig an' capered about the lot kickin' up the'r heels as if +they was in a ring jumpin' over red strips o' cloth.'</p> + +<p>"Well, folks," old Wrinkle continued, "you kin always tell a born trader +by his not bein' in a hurry to unload, an' Alf is that way. While we all +was settin' thar Pete Hepworth come in at the front, an' while he was on +his way to us Alf said: 'You fellers hold yore tongues. That feller is +itchin' fer a deal; I had my eye on 'im at the sale.'</p> + +<p>"Pete leaned agin the platform-scales an' talked about the weather an' +crops, an' then he said, kinder offhand, to Alf: 'I had a sort o' idea +o' biddin' on that pile o' old planks, but when the sheriff lumped 'em +in with that fine tent it let me out. I want to build me a cowhouse an' +wagon-shed.'</p> + +<p>"'I didn't care for the <i>tent</i>,' Alf said, an' he filled his pipe from a +china bowl on the desk an' made Pomp fetch 'im a match. 'It was them +planks I was after, an' I was bound to have 'em. They are smooth, +ready-dressed, long-leaf, heart-pine boards, one an' a quarter by ten, +with the ends sawed square an' seasoned by folks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> settin' on 'em under +cover for three or four years—never had a nail driv' in 'em, nuther.'</p> + +<p>"'Well, I never thought they was as good as all that,' Pete said, 'but +what are you holdin' 'em at?'</p> + +<p>"'I hain't thought much about it,' Alf said. 'I hain't much of a hand to +jump at a trade. It railly does my eyes good to look at lumber like that +these days when the best timber you kin git is full o' sap an' +worm-holes. How would twenty-five dollars for the pile look to you?'</p> + +<p>"'Why,' said Pete, with a funny look at me an' Jim, 'you only paid +eleven for the tent an' planks together.'</p> + +<p>"That hain't got a thing to do with yore deal an' mine,' Alf said, an' +he turned an' axed Jim some'n about shippin' some chickens to Augusta +that Jim didn't seem to know how to answer.</p> + +<p>"'I think it is purty steep,' Pete said. 'I've got time to build now, +an' it 'ud take a month to git an order sawed out at the mill, so I'll +have to take it'; an' as he was countin' out the cash he laffed an' +said: 'I've got an apology to make to you, Alf. Back at the sale I +remarked that you was a born idiot, but I don't believe it now. You are +a big fish amongst minnows.'</p> + +<p>"An' when Pete had left Alf winked at us an' said, 'You fellers lie low +an' watch, an' if I don't double my money on every item I bought to-day +I'll buy new hats fer you both.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/020.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE purchase of the circus furnished amusement for the village for many +a day afterward. During the month that followed the event every citizen +who had any appreciation for the droll things of life looked in at the +store and had some dry remark to make in regard to the deal. Fred Dill, +the clerk of the court and wag of the place, had a new suggestion to +make each day as he went to his work. There were certain village freaks +he declared who would be drawing-cards on the road and who would work +simply for their board and clothes.</p> + +<p>But Henley was wisely keeping his own counsel. His underlying wisdom +began to show itself one day early in June when there was a widely +advertised sale of horses in the square. Farmers came for miles around +to sell, swap, or buy, and buyers for city persons were on hand with +plenty of ready money. The strangers in town saw nothing remarkable in +the fact, but the knowing ones stood open-mouthed when Henley's negro +assistants led six well-groomed horses into the square. The Chester band +played in the balcony of the court-house, and Henley's exhibit kept gay +and sprightly step to the music, as if glad to be once more in their +accustomed element. The mane of each animal was decorated with a blue +ribbon bow, to which was fastened a card holding the price asked. In no +case was it low, and yet when the day was over Henley had completely +sold out, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> the presence of many admiring witnesses whom he could +hardly shake off he had banked a prodigious roll of currency.</p> + +<p>The tide of opinion had turned. From ridicule it had swept with +eager-eyed conviction to vast local pride in Henley as a native product. +From that day on the remaining items of the circus property were +regarded with growing interest. Would Henley actually triumph all +through? became the question the villagers asked one another as if it +were a game they, themselves, were playing. There was much general +discussion over what, after all, really was the "hardest stock" of the +lot, and the general consensus of opinion had decided that it was +perhaps the three wagons, which were too heavy and cumbersome for any +ordinary use. And this view was held till one day when the well-dressed +representative of a gang of men working on a new railway over the +mountain came and took a look at the wagons. They were almost too heavy, +he said, but they might be made to answer his purpose in trucking ties +along the new road. He had offered twice as much as Henley had paid for +them, and yet the latter's laugh of open derision could have been heard +across the street.</p> + +<p>"I see you don't want my wagons," he smiled, as he cordially patted the +stranger on the shoulder. "You want your company to spend their money on +them light, painted things that bust in the sun and break down if you +run 'em on anything but a plank floor."</p> + +<p>The customer thought too well of himself to realize that he was under +Henley's spell. "How much do you hold them at?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Henley mentioned a price which was fully four times what they had cost +him, and he did it in a tone of supreme contempt for the smallness of +the figures. He added that he would never dream of letting them go so +low, but that he had no place to store them and didn't care to ship them +to Atlanta.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I'll take them," the man said. "I reckon neither of us will lose +by it."</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>you</i> won't, there's one thing certain about that," was the +agreeable seal Henley put on the deal as he watched the railroad man +draw out his check-book.</p> + +<p>"I really did need one more," the purchaser remarked, "and I'm sorry you +only had three."</p> + +<p>"Hold on, hold on," Henley said, as the other was shaking the ink down +into the tip of his fountain-pen. "Let me study a minute. You see that +lion-cage standing on that vacant lot across the street. Now, I'll tell +you what I'll do. The wagon the cage is on is pine-plank like them +you've bought. The lot it stands on belongs to Seth Woods, the +shoemaker; his shop is right around the corner behind the post-office. I +put the thing there without his consent, intending to move it right +away. I can't get away from here right at this minute, but if you'll +step in and ask him if he will consent to let the cage rest on his land +awhile I'll have a carpenter take the cage part off and you may have the +wagon at the same low figure as the others."</p> + +<p>It was one of Henley's best dodges—this raising of apparent obstacles +between a customer and his own munificent proposals in the customer's +behalf. He had learned early in life that nothing so completely clinched +a trade as making a party to it work to bring it about. The man's eyes +twinkled as he consented. He hastened out and returned in a moment to +say that the shoemaker, with whom he had left an order for a pair of +boots, was perfectly willing for his neighbor to use the lot as long as +he liked, as he had given up all hope of ever being able to build a shop +on it, as had been his plans when he bought the property.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, you can draw your check for the whole amount," said Henley, +in the same uneventful tone that always preceded his reception of money. +"I'll let the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> cage set on the edge of the sidewalk. Maybe I can induce +the town council to use it as a calaboose. The one they've got ain't +strong enough by half."</p> + +<p>The report of the four-wheeled transfer went over the village before +nightfall, and the next morning, for the first time, Fred Dill looked in +on Henley without a smile or a joke. He eyed the storekeeper, as he +stood behind the show-case smoking a cigar, with a new and wondering +respect. Fred was beginning to see largely manifested in Henley the very +qualities which were wofully missing from his own merry and shiftless +make-up. He counted on his mental digits the remaining items of the +defunct circus—the tent, the clown's pony and cart, and the lion's den +standing open-doored like a wheelless furniture-van across the street. +And even while Dill stood there, telepathically apologetic for his past +bantering in the presence of so much incarnate shrewdness and foresight, +little Sammy Malthorn, the twelve-year-old son of the wealthiest planter +in the village, came in, as he had been doing several times a day for a +week past. His voice quivered with youthful triumph as he looked eagerly +across the show-case at the smoker.</p> + +<p>"Well," he announced, "papa says I may have 'em. You can charge it on +his account. It was twenty-five dollars, you said."</p> + +<p>"Yes, twenty-five to <i>you</i>, Sammy boy," Henley laughed easily. "Pomp +will go with you to the stable and hitch 'im up. You'd better let me put +in a ten-cent box of axle-grease for them wheels. If you haven't got the +dime handy I can add it on the bill. I'd hate to see as fine a rig as +that going through town squeaking like a rusty wheelbarrow."</p> + +<p>"All right," responded the proud owner of the pony and cart. "Pomp will +get it for me."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" Fred Dill said in his throat, and he went at once to Seth +Woods's shoe-shop, where there was a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> group of loafers, and told the +last bit of news. "I begin to think, boys," he said, "that Alf Henley is +goin' to make the only money that dang circus ever made. Jest think of +it—think of a big circus, hippodrome, menagery, an' side-shows tourin' +the whole United States an' Canada without a cent of profit, an' a +mountain storekeeper in a measly hole like this gitting rich out of its +remains without turning his hand over or losin' a minute's sleep. It +looks like thar is some'n crooked in the universe."</p> + +<p>"It's beca'se the Lord's bent on smitin' sech cussedness with a broad +hand," said a long-faced deacon, who had come in to half-sole his own +shoes with the shoemaker's tools, and sat soaking his bits of leather in +a tub of dingy water.</p> + +<p>"I mought take yore view of it ef the reward was bestowed in a different +quarter," Fred said, grimly. "But Alf don't go to meetin' any oftener'n +I do. Though he kin send up as good a prayer as the next one when they +force 'im to it. Boys, I'm curious to see what he will do with the tent +an' lion's cage. Nothin' would surprise me now. He's dead sure to git +profit out of 'em."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/021.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HAT very evening Henley took even another step in his amusing +enterprise. He returned to the store after supper and sat writing +letters till about eight o'clock. Then he got up, brushed his clothes, +and made Pomp polish his boots, and adjusted his black string tie before +a glass over the water-pail and basin. Then he went out and walked +leisurely up the street till he came to the dark stairway of a little +public hall over a feed-store. He ascended the steps with a respectful +tread and entered the hall. It was furnished with crude unpainted +benches and lighted by kerosene lamps in concave-mirrored brackets on +the white walls. At the end stood a table holding a pitcher of water, a +goblet, and a Bible, and behind the table sat an earnest-eyed, +middle-aged evangelistic preacher, who bowed and smiled in agreeable +surprise at the new-comer. The room held fifty or sixty men and women, +all silently awaiting the beginning of the services. Henley seated +himself on the front bench nearest the preacher, and put his hat on the +floor, and dropped his handkerchief into it.</p> + +<p>The meeting was opened with the singing by the congregation of familiar +hymns, in which Henley joined harmoniously with a fair bass. It was +known of him that he never declined an invitation to lead in prayer, and +on being asked this evening he readily complied. His voice was deep and +round and mellow, and the burden of his utterances was suitable to that +or any other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>religious occasion, being a sort of singsong tribute to +the eternal glory of humility and submission to the divine will. The +prayer was followed by a rousing sermon from the preacher, and, in +closing, he called attention, as Henley evidently had gathered from some +source that he would do, to the future plans of the organization. The +time was ripe for work in the highways and byways—the sowing of seed in +out-of-the-way places, and the preacher was to "take the road" with one +or two good singers, a cornet-player, and a cottage-organ, and give +people in isolated mountain-nooks a chance to hear the Word and profit +thereby for their eternal weal.</p> + +<p>He had just seated himself and was mopping his perspiring brow when +Henley rose and stood hemming and hawing and clearing his throat.</p> + +<p>"I want to say in this same connection," he began, "that I plumb approve +of this new idea of taking the great and living Truth into remote +corners of our spiritually dark land. Here in Chester we are, you might +say, basking in the sunshine of Christian civilization, but away out off +of the main roads in the mountains the Book hain't read and prayer +hain't held except now and then. I heard that you had already entered +into negotiations with an Atlanta tent factory to furnish you with a +tabernacle, an' I must say it ain't a bad notion, because many a fine +bush-arbor meeting has been busted all to flinders by sudden showers +that good, stout canvas would shed as well as a roof of shingles. I want +to contribute five dollars toward the fund myself; but I'm here to +confess to you frankly that I wouldn't like to see the money throwed +away. The great majority of them meeting-tents on the market are simply +made to sell and not for hard use. They look all right in the +sample-room, but they are full of starch to give 'em body, and when they +get wet they are about as porous as a fish-net."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's a fact, Brother Henley," spoke up the preacher, with a slow and +deliberate nod. "We've been looking around and receiving circulars from +all sides, and we have found it purty hard to run across a durable tent +at a price we can afford; but there was a drummer here from Nashville +the other day, and he claimed—"</p> + +<p>"I'd advise you to let drummers alone, too," and Henley brushed away the +preacher's words with a firm and all-wise hand. "You see, in my constant +contact at the store I know 'em all the way down to the ground. They are +the most ungodly pack on earth. Most of 'em drink and play poker, an' +never look inside of a Bible. The fact is, if I may be allowed to speak +of it at such a time, I happened myself, awhile back, to buy a whopping +big tent from a stranded show. I thought at the time that some such a +need as this might arise, and so I bid it in. To get it, I had to pay +for a lot of old planks and such-like, but in doing it I secured a +rattling good thing. It was a bargain; but I could let a good +organization like yours have it for a sight less than a new tent not +halt as big would cost. It would last a lifetime. It is big enough to +hold the multitude that ate the loaves and fishes. It was made for rough +wear and must have cost a pile of money. I don't know but what we all +could agree on a price—that is, if I had any idea of how much your body +would feel disposed to—to invest in a tent."</p> + +<p>"We have fifty dollars in the treasury," spoke up the preacher, with an +eagerness that blended in his face and voice. "Of course, it may not be +near enough to—" He blew his nose and coughed.</p> + +<p>Henley stroked his face thoughtfully, and he had the look of a man who +was making a polite effort to be resigned to disappointment.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, I <i>had</i> hoped that I might do much better than that," +he said finally, looking around at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> anxious group, "but, as I said +at the start, I want to help you along. You know I said I'd contribute +five myself, so—to be accurate—we'd better call the price fifty-five. +Then I'll take what you've got in the treasury and call it even."</p> + +<p>There was a murmur and shuffle of released suspense throughout the hall. +The preacher beamed joyfully as he reached forward and shook Henley +warmly by the hand.</p> + +<p>"There's no use putting it to a vote," he said. "I'll take the +responsibility and accept your magnificent offer right now. Brethren, we +are in luck. A special providence seems to have been at work through the +whole thing. A vain and ungodly enterprise broke down in our midst, and +we are, by our act, directing streams of evil into channels of good. In +putting this tent to our use we will be turning over the tables of the +money-changers, and causing grain of righteousness to grow where tares +of evil flourished."</p> + +<p>As Henley walked homeward along the lonely road he mused: "I could have +run that crowd up to seventy-five as easy as not. They would have raked +up the balance, but I reckon a fellow ought to let well enough alone."</p> + +<p>Of all the denizens of Chester and its environs, no one had keener +enjoyment over the gossip concerning these various deals than Dixie +Hart. She had enough of the speculative tendency in her make-up to +heartily appreciate the situation in all its phases, and she was glad, +too, that her friend had found, so soon after his return home, such good +opportunities to exercise his rare gifts. She went into the store only a +day or two after the sale of the tent, and found Henley alone.</p> + +<p>"So you won out in that venture, after all?" she laughed. "And, if what +folks say is true, you made big money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>"</p> + +<p>"I'm not out of the woods yet," he smiled. "There is always a drawback, +you know." He pointed through the open doorway to the lion's cage on the +shoemaker's lot across the street. "I've still got that thing, and I'm +afraid it's going to be a white elephant. I'm sorry, too, for I'd like +to make a clean sweep, just because folks bet that I'd lose heavy. I'd +give the cage away if I could do it, but, like a fool, I went and said +that I'd show 'em that I could turn every item in the lot over at a +profit."</p> + +<p>"What are you asking for it?" Dixie inquired.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-five dollars," he replied. "If I can't sell it like it stands +I'll split it up an' use the iron some way or other."</p> + +<p>"It would be a pity to do that," the girl said, thoughtfully. "Let me +take a look at it."</p> + +<p>He stood in the doorway and watched her as she crossed the street in her +easy, graceful way, and then he saw her approach the lion's cage, turn +the bolt of the door, and look in, and heard the sound of her fist as it +rapped against the wooden sides. Then she disappeared. She had entered +the cage and was out of sight for several minutes. Emerging, she came +directly across the street to Henley, her head hanging thoughtfully, a +slight flush on her face.</p> + +<p>"You may think I've plumb lost my senses," she smiled, "but I want to +buy that thing. I've heard so much about your deals that I'm itching to +speculate some myself. You seem to have come to the end of your rope as +far as this cage is concerned, and I want to try my hand. They say two +heads is better 'n one, if one is a cabbage-head."</p> + +<p>"<i>You?</i>—good Lord, what could you do with it?" Henley gasped.</p> + +<p>"A heap of things," she retorted, lightly. "You've been offering it for +twenty-five dollars, and I'm going to take you up. I had just started to +the bank to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>deposit some money, and so I happen to have the ready +cash."</p> + +<p>She put her hand into her pocket and drew out a roll of bills, but +Henley held up his hand protestingly, and flushed red.</p> + +<p>"You don't spend your hard-earned money like that and through my foolish +example," he said. "I've had experience in all sorts of junk-handling, +and what I do is a different matter. Besides, I know there's no money to +be made out of that thing. I got the cream out of the deal, and I won't +let you throw money away."</p> + +<p>Jim Cahews came in at this moment, and, redder in the face than ever, +Henley explained the situation.</p> + +<p>"Alf's right, Miss Dixie," the clerk joined in. "You'd better take his +advice. If there was anything in that old pile of iron he'd have seen it +long ago."</p> + +<p>But her money was lying on the show-case before Henley's eyes, and she +had retreated to the door.</p> + +<p>"I've bought it," she insisted. "It's mine, and I'm going to make some +money out of it, too. I'm tired of working like a corn-field nigger for +puny profits, while you men make jokes here in the shade and get rich at +it."</p> + +<p>Henley refused to touch the money. His flush had given place to a look +of pained concern.</p> + +<p>"I can't—just can't let you do it!" he said. "Like a good many women, I +reckon, Dixie, you look at the dealings of men from the outside, and are +willing to go an' plunge into unknown waters and get ducked and leave +your money at the bottom. Profit ain't ever made by getting in at the +tail-end of another fellow's venture. I've squeezed this thing dry, +and—"</p> + +<p>"I'm a more experienced milker than you are," Dixie laughed, "and the +cage is mine. There's your money. It's mine, and if I make money out of +it I won't have you grumbling, either."</p> + +<p>Henley and Cahews exchanged glances of actual alarm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What do you intend to do with it?" Henley almost snapped in his +impatience.</p> + +<p>"Did anybody ask you what you intended to do with it when <i>you</i> bought +it?" Dixie asked. "You haven't any right to ask. But I'll tell you <i>one</i> +thing. I'm not going to turn it into a corn-crib, though it would make a +dandy, and one that no nigger could steal from. I'm buying it to sell +for at least twice as much as I've paid for it, and I want you to watch +me. I've been tickled mighty nigh to death over your late deals, and I +want to amuse you. I know you'd like to see me make some money, and I'm +going to do it as sure as I'm knee-high to a duck."</p> + +<p>When she had gone Henley and Cahews stood in the doorway disconsolately +staring after her as she walked briskly down the street.</p> + +<p>"You see, Jim, I'm afraid I'm responsible for it," the storekeeper said, +with a frown. "She's got a long head for a woman in most matters, but +she's had it turned by watching this little game of mine. It is the +first time I've ever seen her fly off the handle at all. As a rule she's +very cautious, but, Lord, Lord, the idea of paying twenty-five dollars +for that thing! Why, if it gets out she'll be the laughing-stock of the +town."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/022.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE next morning when Henley arrived at the store, Cahews, who with a +face drawn long was standing at the front, pointed mutely at the lion's +cage. Henley looked and groaned. It bore a pasteboard placard, and the +words, in big, irregular capitals:</p> + +<p>FOR SALE. APPLY TO DIXIE HART.</p> + +<p>"She come in here yesterday evening after you'd gone," Cahews explained, +"and borrowed my marking-pot and brush. Then she had me get her the +pasteboard, and after she had painted the sign she took the nail-box and +hammer and went over there and tacked it up. A crowd of school-boys was +watching, and raised a laugh, but she come away without paying any +attention to them. I tried to get her to reason a little, and told her +the money was there in the drawer waiting for her to change her mind, +but she said she knowed exactly what she was about, and if I'd lie low I +might learn a trick or two in business methods."</p> + +<p>"She's off—she's away off!" Henley sighed. "And I'm plumb sorry, for +she is, in many other ways, as quick as a steel trap and bright as a new +dollar."</p> + +<p>One morning, two days later, as the storekeeper was at his desk in the +rear writing letters, his attention was called by a keen whistle from +Cahews, who stood in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> the front-door wildly signalling him to approach. +And going to the clerk, who was now on the front porch staring toward +the lion's cage, he saw that Seth Woods, the begrimed shoemaker, had +torn down the placard and stood looking into the cage.</p> + +<p>"He's mad about it, I'll bet," was Henley's troubled comment. "I reckon +folks have been guying him. That railroad man said he consented to let +me use the lot. Maybe he lied to close the trade."</p> + +<p>"Maybe he did," agreed Cahews; "but look! What do you make of that?"</p> + +<p>A negro man with the shoemakers bench on his shoulder had turned the +corner and was headed for the cage. "Put it inside an' go back for the +rest," they heard Woods order.</p> + +<p>Wonderingly, Henley strode across the street and reached the cage just +after the negro had put down the bench on the inside and was coming out +of the narrow doorway.</p> + +<p>"What's the meaning of this?" Henley inquired of the shoemaker.</p> + +<p>"Why," and a complacent smile broke through the grime on Woods's face, +"it means, Alf, that I'm at last my own landlord. I've been paying old +Welborne fifty dollars a year rent fer that little hole in a wall, away +back from the square, because I couldn't get enough ahead to build on +this lot or get any other shop. I think I've had a stroke of luck, and, +strange to say, it come through a woman. Yesterday evening Dixie Hart +come in my shop and axed me if I could straighten the heels of her shoes +while she set thar. I told her certainly, an' while I was at work we got +to talking first on one topic and then on another. She likes my wife an' +daughter, an' she said a good deal about 'em. She axed me if I had any +objections to lettin' this cage, which she said she had raked in from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +you at a big bargain, to set on my lot till somebody come along and +bought it. I thought buyin' sech a thing was a powerful quar thing for a +young woman to do, but of course I didn't say so to her, for it wa'n't +any o' my business. Well, one thing fetched on another till she got to +lookin' about my shop while I was trimmin' the heel-taps, an' all at +once she wanted to know—if thar was no harm in axin'—what rent I was +payin'. I told 'er fifty dollars, an' she whistled kind o' keenlike an' +said: 'My gracious! an' got a vacant lot, too, right in the heart o' the +square.' I explained to her that I wasn't able to build a shop, an' was +afraid I never would be, gettin' old like I am an' so many to feed. +Then, Alf, what you think that gal said? As cool as a cucumber in a +spring branch, as she set thar wigglin' her toes in 'er stockin' feet, +she said: 'You'd better listen to me, an' I'll fix you so you won't have +<i>any</i> rent to pay. That lion's cage, just at it stands, with the door +openin' on the sidewalk, would make the dandiest shoe-shop in seven +States. It's plenty wide and long; it is well-roofed with painted +sheet-iron, an' would be as tight in cold weather as a jar of preserves. +It faces every street that leads into the square, and you'd get twice as +much custom there as you do away back here next to this little pig-trail +alley.' By gum, what she said struck me like a bolt of lightnin'. I'd +examined the cage, as everybody else in town has, I reckon, an' I knowed +all about it, so I up an' axed 'er what she'd paid you for it, an' she +kind o' dodged my question.</p> + +<p>"'Has that got anything to do with it?' she axed, an' I told 'er, I did, +that I heard you was offerin' it fer twenty-five dollars. That seemed to +set 'er studyin' fer a minute, an' then she said:</p> + +<p>"'To tell you the truth, Mr. Woods, that <i>is</i> all I had to pay, but I +got it, you mought say, at that figure by the very skin o' my teeth. In +a thoughtless moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> Alf Henley said he'd take twenty-five, and, +knowing what it was railly worth, I yanked out the money on the spot and +laid it down. He's a gentleman'—she said—'Alf Henley is a plumb +gentleman, but he tried his level best to back down. Jim Cahews will +testify that I was actually obliged to leave the money on the counter +and walk out before he'd give in.' Is that so, Alf?"</p> + +<p>"I am obliged to say it is, Seth," Henley answered, flushing. "Some'n +like that actually <i>did</i> take place."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think she'd fib about it," Woods went on, "and I finally axed +her what she'd take, an' she said nothin' less than fifty dollars cash +down would interest her, as she had a winter cloak to lay in, an' shoes +for three women, an' what not.</p> + +<p>"I told her fifty looked purty steep, but she throwed herself back an' +laughed hearty. She said my rent in the shop fer one year alone would +pay it, and after that I'd be a free man. She said in the summer I could +prop up both these flap sides, to cut off the sun, an' the wind would +blow clean through. She said the very oddity of the thing would draw +trade, that I could have the picture of the lion painted out an' a big +boot an' shoe put in place of it. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all she +said. She'd 'a' been talkin' till now if I hadn't traded: Besides, +betwixt me'n you, she give me a scare; you see I was afraid the thing +would slip through my fingers, fer she set in to talkin' about havin' it +moved to t'other side o' the square and rentin' it fer a barber-shop, +an' she 'lowed, too, that it would be a bang-up thing to sell to a +convict-camp to keep chain-gang prisoners in.</p> + +<p>"As a last resort, I axed her, I did, if she thought I ought to pay her +a clean hundred per cent. profit, an' she said: 'That ain't for you to +consider at all, Mr. Woods. You must jest let your mind rest on what +<i>you</i> are goin' to get out of it. Alf Henley's made money out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> of it; I +must make my part, and you can do the same. It is the way business is +run all over the world. As soon as it becomes yours, somebody may come +along and pay you a hundred for it, though you'd be a fool to let it go +even at that. You are the one man in all the world that ought to hold on +to it.' She was right, Alf. I'm tickled over the change. I feel like a +new man. You ought to have seen old Welborne's face when I told 'im I +was goin' to vacate. He swore Dixie Hart was a meddlesome hussy, an' +that she had cheated the hindsight off of me. He said she owed him an' +was behind in her pay, an' that he was goin' to fetch 'er to taw."</p> + +<p>Henley went back to his desk. There was a flush on his brow.</p> + +<p>"Beat to a finish, and by a girl," he mused. "Here I've been thinking I +had nothing to learn about trading, and she picks up one of my remnants +and turns it over at a hundred per cent. profit as easy as knitting a +pair of socks. If I'd lived a hundred years I'd never have thought about +that shoe-shop."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/023.png" alt="H" /></span> + +ENLEY did not see Dixie Hart till a week had elapsed. He had started to +drive over to Carlton one morning, when he passed her as she was mending +a rail-fence round one of her fields which extended down to the road. +She had on a sunbonnet and heavy gloves, and stood in a dense patch of +prickly blackberry briers which reached to her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"That work's too hard for you," Henley greeted her cordially. "I've done +all sorts of jobs on a farm, from splitting rails to feeding a steam +thresher, and they are picnics beside what you are now at."</p> + +<p>"I believe you are right," she smiled, as she pushed back her bonnet and +exposed her red face and neck. "But I had to do it; the pigs have rooted +away the rotten rails next to the ground under these briers and got in +to my turnips and potatoes. But I've nearly finished, thank goodness."</p> + +<p>"I'm off for Carlton," he informed her. "I go every day or so now on +business. Is there anything I can do for you over there?"</p> + +<p>"There really is, Alfred." She parted the clinging briers and came quite +close to him in one of the fence corners which was infested with the +wild growth. She had drawn off her gloves, and now thrust a pink hand +into her pocket and got out a handkerchief, in a corner of which were +tied some coins. "I want you to step into the book-store and get me a +Second Reader—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> sort they use in the public schools over there. It's +for little Joe. I'm learning him to read, and he's doing it as fast as a +dog can trot."</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd let me pay for the book," Henley ventured, as she put the +money into his hand. "You know I've got twenty-five dollars of your +cash, anyway. That old cage wasn't worth anything."</p> + +<p>"You mean I've got twenty-five dollars of <i>your</i> money," she retorted. +"Why, I've been ashamed to look you in the face. I didn't act right +about it, and I hardly know why I done it. As a friend to you I ought to +have told you about the chance I saw and not set in to gain myself. I +don't feel right about it. I'd rather you'd have it—I can't feel like +it's mine. You'd made money out of all the other things, and you ought +to have made a clean sweep of the whole job."</p> + +<p>"You are forgetting two main things," he said, gravely, his eyes +averted. "You forget that you paid me all I asked for the blame thing, +and that if it hadn't been for you I'd not have been at the sale of the +circus, anyway."</p> + +<p>"You mean—" She flushed knowingly, and avoided his earnest gaze.</p> + +<p>"That you stopped me that night, and kept me from doing the biggest fool +thing a sensible man ever was guilty of. I've thanked you in my heart, +Dixie, thousands and thousands of times. It would have ruined me for +life, but you looked ahead and saw it and saved me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, that's past and gone," Dixie said, touched by a certain new +and deep quality in his voice. "I'll keep the money if you want me to. I +really need it. Old Welborne got hopping mad at me for ousting his +tenant, and simply rowed me up Salt River. Some day I may come to you +for legal advice. I want you to look over the document he got me to +sign. I want to know more about it than I do. There are too many +'aforesaids'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> and 'herebys' in it to suit me. I bought that farm with my +eyes shut. I was so anxious to own land that I was willing to take the +property on any terms. Welborne is getting to be like that old man in +the fairy-book that stuck to the feller's neck and never could be shook +off till he was made drunk. Welborne never touches a drop, you know, and +so he'll stick till death claims him. I'm in an awful mess. I work like +a slave from break of day till away after dark, and never seem to move a +peg toward any sort of landing-place."</p> + +<p>"You really ought to marry," Henley said. "That's exactly what you ought +to do. There's many a good man in the world that is actually suffering +for the need of the right sort of a helpmeet."</p> + +<p>"You hit the nail on the head that whack," she said, quite seriously. "I +know I'm better-looking now—when I'm fixed up, at least—than I will be +ten years later; and I've got sense enough to know that old maids don't +make natural-looking brides. No, I really ought to give the subject more +thought. I ain't acting in a businesslike way about it. I ought to put +myself on the market, but I let first one thing and then another +interfere, and now it seems to be little Joe. I think I've got a sort of +mother-love for him, Alfred. He works over in his field, and me in mine, +and when it's twelve o'clock I get out my dinner-bucket and call to him, +and we both go down to the spring and have a picnic. That's where I +learn him to read. If old Pitman was to get on to it I reckon he'd raise +a row. Joe fetches his pore little scraps of streak-o'-lean, +streak-o'-fat bacon an' hoe-cake along, but I make 'im throw the stuff +away. I don't know, but I believe I'd rather see that child's big, +hungry eyes as I open that bucket than to be admired by the handsomest +young man in the county. I don't know, though—I've never tried the +young-man part."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you ought to marry, Dixie." Henley, with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> true feeling of a +gentleman that he ought not to sit while she stood, got out of his buggy +and leaned on the fence. "I'm going to confess that I've thought a lot +about that very thing since I got home, and, if I'm the judge I think I +am, I believe I've run across the very man for you."</p> + +<p>"You don't say!" Dixie cried, eagerly. "Well, well!"</p> + +<p>"You know I drive over to Carlton every now and then," Henley went on, +"and as Jim always has a few pounds of butter, a box or so of eggs, and +the like, to send, I take 'em to a store run by a young feller that I +always did like. Jasper Long is his name. He got his start by the +hardest licks that was ever dealt by a poor boy. He was a half-orphan, +and had to take care of his old mother till she died and left him all +alone. He drove a dray about town till he was twenty, and with money +he'd saved he set up for himself in business. He's the wonder of the +town now, for he made money hand over fist. He's hitched on a brick +warehouse to his shebang, and buys cotton when it reaches its lowest ebb +and holds it till it gets to the top—then he lets loose. Me and him are +pretty thick, and when I go over there either I have to eat with him at +the hotel or he does with me. Sometimes we toss up head-or-tails to see +who pays."</p> + +<p>"I've never seen him," Dixie said, quite interested, "but I've heard +about him. Carrie Wade said he come out to camp-meeting one Sunday, and +was pointed out as a big catch, but she said he was sort of clumsy and +awkward in his movements."</p> + +<p>"Carrie wouldn't think his gait was so bad if he was trotting at her +side," commented Henley. "But Long's all right; he's honest, and +straight as a shingle. I'd trust him to act square in any deal, and +that's a lot to say these times. He ain't had much to do with women. You +see, they've got a sort of stuck-up society crowd over there that don't +think he's quite the thing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> and so he's out of what you might call the +<i>elyte</i>. His sort are the kind that always count in any struggle, +though. He bunks in a big, wide bed in the back end of his store, and +one night when I had to lie over there because the river was out o' +banks he made me sleep with him. That was the time I advised him to +marry. It pleased him powerful, and he up and told me that he'd been +giving the matter considerable thought and investigation. He said that +every now and then it would occur to him that precious time was passing, +but that he'd been so busy he'd not had time to go at it right. He said +that most of the women on any list of the kind he'd seen was fussy and +looked lazy and thriftless. Then he come right out and asked me if I +happened to know a suitable candidate, and—well, Dixie, I couldn't hold +in. I talked as earnest as a preacher at a ranting revival. I had his +eye and I helt it clean through. I described you to him and—"</p> + +<p>"You did?" Dixie laid an eager hand on his arm and laughed merrily, +"What did you say? Tell me exactly. I won't let you leave till you do. +Tell me, Alfred."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I couldn't do that, Dixie!" Henley flushed to his hat. "I'd make a +botch of it. I could talk to him, but I couldn't to you—at least—at +least not on that line."</p> + +<p>"But you've <i>got</i> to do it!" the girl insisted. "I want to hear it. I've +always wanted to know what a man would say about me behind my back. I +know what women will say, for they will tell you to your teeth exactly +what they will behind your back, only worse, if they can possibly do it. +Try to remember exactly what you said."</p> + +<p>Henley's blood burned fiercely in his tanned face. "I couldn't tell you +like I did him, and I hain't going to try. I ain't made that way—some +men are, but I ain't."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are afraid I'll feel bad about it, I see," the girl said, with +well-assumed severity, and she glanced aside that he might not read the +look of conscious power in her eyes. "You and me have been such stanch +friends that you hate to tell me what a poor opinion you have of me and +my looks. I see. I see. Well, I hain't got no right to think anybody +would think well of me—you least of all."</p> + +<p>"Shucks! If you'd heard me you'd never complain," Henley burst forth. "I +told him you was the prettiest thing that ever wore shoe-leather; that +you had hair of a reddish-brownish mixture that no man could begin to +describe, and eyes so big and deep and drawing-like that a feller +couldn't look in 'em without wondering what they was made of, and cheeks +and lips as red and ripe and laughing as—"</p> + +<p>"That will do," Dixie laughed, pleasurably. "You was determined to trade +me off, and you went at it like I was a horse you was trying to get rid +of for more than he was worth. Well, what else did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I told 'im about your awful struggle against adversity; about the +hold old Welborne had on you; about your mother and aunt being helpless +on your hands, and about how you wanted to add to it all by helping +Pitman's bound boy. But when I told him the other day about the way you +bought and sold that lion's cage I thought he would bust wide open. He +throwed himself back agin the counter and yelled and clapped his hands. +Said he:</p> + +<p>"'Alf, that's the woman for me. Every trading man, needs a partner like +her. Such women as her are the mothers of kings and presidents and great +geniuses. <i>My</i> mother was that way; she made me what I am.' And then he +railed out against conditions that could make you undergo so much +hardship, and said he'd just love to give a girl like you a good home +that you could keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> neat and clean and in apple-pie order. He said his +life was lonely, and that he wanted to see a smiling face at the window +when he got home after work. He says he's able to build as good a house +as any man in Carlton, and that he already owns a corner lot on Tilbury +Avenue, the swell street of the town. The truth is, he wants to take a +look at you powerful bad, and I promised him, if it was possible, that I +would—"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know about that," Dixie objected suddenly, and her pretty +brow wrinkled. "You know what they say about a burnt child. I've already +as good as offered myself to one chap. I didn't come up to requirements, +and I don't want to do it again. What you'd say to <i>him</i> about me and +what he'd actually <i>think</i> are two different things. If I was to meet +him and I saw from his looks that he didn't think much of your judgment +I'd hate you both and feel like scratching your eyes out. I'd make a +sensible man a good wife, and I'd do my part; but I'll be hanged if I'll +walk up to him wearing a 'For Sale' tag. What you say is mighty +interesting, and I may let it bother me a good deal, for a woman owes it +to herself to look out for number one, but there is a line of +self-respect that a woman can't cross. I'm in an awful mess, and I'd +marry to get out of it. You may say what you please about me to him, but +that's as far as I'll go."</p> + +<p>"You don't think you could send the poor chap some word or other?" +Henley ventured, at the end of his diplomacy, as he got into his buggy +and took up the reins.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't," was the thoughtful answer. "He's a friend of yours, and +you recommend him high enough, but we hain't been introduced, and to +take any step beforehand on <i>my</i> side would be unbecoming of a lady, and +that's what I am."</p> + +<p>"Yes—of course, and you know best," said Henley, as he clucked to his +horse, "but Long will be powerfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> disappointed. He's got sort of +keyed up over this thing, and it has gone and unsettled him. I reckon +he's got a pretty picture of you in his mind, and keeps it before him +all the time."</p> + +<p>"That's it," said Dixie. "And I wouldn't like to see it turn to a chromo +on his hands. I know what I look like to myself, but I wouldn't expect +to suit every taste."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/024.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HAT evening, just after dark, when Henley drove his horse into his +barn-yard, he saw Dixie over in her own lot milking her cow. She was a +brave, erect little figure as she stood in the soft, black loam. "So, +so!" she was saying in her sweet, persuasive voice to the restless +animal. "Can't you stand still and keep that pesky fly-brush out of my +eyes? Them hairs cut like so many knives when they are flirted about +like a wagon-whip. You may as well let me get that milk out of your bag. +It will give you trouble through the night if you don't."</p> + +<p>Henley turned his horse into one of the stalls, and fed him with fodder +and corn in the ear, and came and leaned on the fence behind her. She +was now crouched down beside the cow; he could see her brown, tapering +arms and wrists against the cow's flank, and hear the milk as it ran +into her tin pail with a sharp, intermittent sound. Above the back of +the cow, of which she seemed a part in the thickening darkness, loomed +up her cottage. There was a yellow light in the kitchen from a bank of +blazing logs in the wide-open fireplace. Henley waited till she had +finished and stood up.</p> + +<p>"Hard at it," he jested. "Day or night, it's all the same to you. I +wonder if you work when you are asleep."</p> + +<p>"Huh," she laughed, as she advanced toward him, her pail swinging by her +side. "This is my reception-day, and this is my parlor. Won't you come +in and set<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> awhile? Take that rocking-chair over near the piano—or +maybe you'd rather smoke in the bay-window, where you can get fresh +air."</p> + +<p>"What's the joke now?" he inquired. "I'm not exactly on."</p> + +<p>"Why, you see, you are the second beau I've had right here in the mud, +and with these dirty clothes on, in the last ten minutes."</p> + +<p>"The second?" he said, wondering what she was driving at.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she made answer, as she rested her pail at her feet and stood +smiling blandly at him. "Hank Bradley has just left. He come over to +invite me to go with a party of girls and boys to the Springs day after +to-morrow. I wish I knew exactly what to do in a case like that. I want +to go—my! I want to go so bad I hardly know what to do. Mother and Aunt +Mandy both think I ought to accept such invitations. I know folks talk +about Hank, and say all sorts of things about girls he goes with. But he +says he has quit drinking and gambling and wants to settle down. His +sister, Mrs. Bailey, is going along to give respectability to it, and it +is to be a great blow-out. I've never been on such a trip; they say +there is a lot of fashionable Atlanta folks at the hotel, and a fine +band, a ten-pin alley, and a lawn-tennis court, and I hardly know what +all."</p> + +<p>"Hank Bradley? Good gracious!" Henley said, but he could think of +nothing further that would voice the protestations running wildly +through his brain.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see you'll oppose it, too," she sighed. "I reckon I've just been +trying to make myself believe I ought to go. Hank begged so hard, +and—and said such nice things about liking me. I reckon almost any girl +would want to believe even a fellow like him, if she'd been a +wall-flower all her life, and somehow didn't think she ought to be."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But did you accept—did you? That's the main thing," Henley asked, and +his eyes were fixed on her mobile face where the pink shadows chased one +another beneath her long, drooping lashes.</p> + +<p>"No, not positive," she said. "I simply couldn't get rid of him to do my +work without saying something; so I agreed to talk it over with my folks +and let him know after supper. He is to send a man over for the answer. +I already see my finish—I see it in the way you are staring at me right +now."</p> + +<p>"He ain't for you, Dixie," Henley answered, decidedly. "You said once +that you looked on me like a big brother. Well, if your brother was to +see you driving off that way beside that man—that <i>sort</i> of a man—he'd +be miserable. I can't do much to show my interest and friendship—though +I've tried hard to think of some way. I know you deserve more than has +come to you. You are young and full of life, and bright and pretty—so +pretty that you'd be the main one in any cluster, and it is hard to +think you have to pass your days as you do. But Hank Bradley ain't the +one to extend a hand. He ain't—God knows he ain't."</p> + +<p>"I know it; you needn't say another word." The girl came nearer. The +moon was out now in a clear sky, and its rays fell athwart her face and +gleamed in the gold of her abundant tresses. His hand was resting on the +top rail of the fence, and she laid her own on it reassuringly. "Don't +bother, big brother," she said, in a deep, trembling tone. "I'll write +him that I can't go. I'd not enjoy a minute of it knowing that your +judgment was against it. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about +something else. I've been thinking all day about that Carlton +storekeeper."</p> + +<p>"Your ears must have burned." Henley betrayed his relief by the free +breath he drew. "I saw him over there, and we talked about you for an +hour on a stretch. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> wasn't going to see him, but he heard I was in +town and sent his porter after me. He wanted to see me about you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Me?</i> That's funny, if you ain't joking."</p> + +<p>"I ain't joking," Henley declared. "He said he'd been unable to get his +mind on business like he used to. He says, from what I've told him, that +he knows just how you look. He pinned me down again about fetching you +over there; and when I told him that you felt sort of backward about +taking such a step, he seemed more tickled than set back. He said he'd +seen so many women that throwed theirselves at him and interfered with +his movements that the hold-off sort was just what he was looking for. +He went on and told me about the old maids that knitted socks for him, +and the giddy young ones that tittered and looked at him out of the +corners of their eyes whenever he passed, and how many widows and +mothers of gals was trading at his store now that hadn't before, and how +much bother they all was in refusing to let his clerks wait on 'em, and +was always coming back to his desk to make him get what they needed."</p> + +<p>"Shucks, I'll bet he's had his head turned," was Dixie's comment. "Well, +he needn't think he's the whole show; they wouldn't do him that away if +he didn't have money. Well, I needn't criticise them, for, as good as I +think I am, I don't reckon I'd give him a second thought if he was just +a farm-hand at seventy-five a day. Money adds a lot to a person, and I +reckon if a girl went about it right and as a matter of duty she could +love a rich man as quick as a poor one."</p> + +<p>"Well, I simply couldn't head 'im off," Henley resumed. "I couldn't get +around his arguments. He said there was a way you and him could meet +without compromising your pride, and that was this: he said me and you +was good friends, and that if I wanted to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> make you pass a pleasant day +I could invite you to drive over there next Saturday week and see the +fire tournament that is to be held."</p> + +<p>"Well, he's got cheek enough, I must say," Dixie said. "I reckon he +might let you run your own business and extend your own invites. It +ain't for him to up and dictate to you—huh! I say!"</p> + +<p>"But, you see, I'd already told him that I'd enjoy fetching you over at +any time. You see, he knowed it would be a pleasure to me. I'm going +over, anyway, and your company the ten miles and back would be a sight +better than being alone."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's different," said Dixie, "and I really would enjoy the +trip. But it would have to be fully understood that I went just with +you, and was not going along to exhibit myself, to see if I'd suit him +or not."</p> + +<p>"Good!—now you've hit it!" Henley laughed. "It will be fun all round. +I'm going again to-morrow, and I'll tell him to be—I'll tell him me and +you have decided to take in the tournament."</p> + +<p>"Yes, put it that way," said Dixie, and she took up her pail. "It may be +a flash in the pan, and I'd hate everybody in creation—you included—if +I was accused of—of missing fire the <i>second time</i>!"</p> + +<p>They both happened to glance toward the cottage, and standing framed in +the kitchen doorway with a background of light they saw a mute and +motionless figure.</p> + +<p>"It's little Joe!" Henley exclaimed. "Wait, I forgot what you sent me +for." He went to his buggy and returned with a parcel. "I got the Second +Reader, and I had the man put in a Geography-book full of pretty maps +and pictures. I thought maybe Joe would—"</p> + +<p>"He'll be tickled to death," Dixie cried, as she reached for the parcel. +"The poor little fellow is watching us now. I told him you'd bring it +to-night, and he's been down several times to see if you was back. It's +awfully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> sweet of you, Alfred, to think of the Geography. I need it +myself, and me and Joe'll study it together. If that thing we was +talking about should happen to go through, the first move I'd make would +be to try to get that boy out of Pitman's clutch. I love 'im—he's so +gentle and patient that I can't help it."</p> + +<p>They heard a step behind them, and, turning, they saw old Wrinkle +peering at them through the dark as he stood near the barn.</p> + +<p>"If that's you, Alf," he called out, "you'd better come on to supper. +After a square meal at the Carlton Hotel you may look on our fare as +purty pore stuff. But you may choke it down. It's gettin' cold; the +grease in the beef hash is turnin' to tallow, an' the bread was baked +yesterday an' is as hard as a brick."</p> + +<p>"All right; I'm with you," Henley said, good-naturedly, as he saw Dixie +hurrying away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/025.png" alt="O" /></span> + +N the morning set for the excursion to Carlton, Henley went down to the +stable and harnessed and hitched his horse to his buggy. Old Jason, who +was with him, made no offer to assist with the various buckles and +straps, but stood leaning in the barn-door chewing tobacco. He was +sufficiently courteous, however—as Henley started away with the remark +that he was going to give Dixie Hart a lift over to Carlton and back—to +slouch in front, his hands in his pockets, his tousled head bared to the +slanting rays of the sun, and open the big gate.</p> + +<p>Reaching the front-door of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley had only a +minute to wait. Mrs. Hart, followed by her sister with an arm in a +sling, came down the steps with a mincing step, her weak eyes shaded by +her thin hand, and approached him.</p> + +<p>"It's powerful good of you to take my daughter," she said, in grateful +tones. "She has so little pleasure in her life, and she's been wanting +to go to Carlton for a long time. A place even as much like a city as +that is, kind o' interests a young girl. She's always reading about the +doings over there among the rich folks."</p> + +<p>"I'll see that nothing happens to her, and fetch her back safe," he +promised. Then Dixie emerged from the house wearing her best dress, a +white muslin, immaculately clean and well ironed, and adorned by broad, +pink ribbons which heightened her complexion. Her hat was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> new and most +becoming, and as she rustled out to the gate he felt a thrill of pride +in having such a presentable companion. She touched her mother playfully +under the chin and kissed her on the cheek.</p> + +<p>"Now, Muttie," she said, "you've got to be on your good behavior while +I'm off or I'll switch you good when I get back. I have put the exact +feed for the horse in his trough, and pumped the tub full of water, and +you only have to let down the stable-door bars at twelve and he'll do +the rest. The chicken-feed is already mixed in the dish-pan, and you +only have to tilt it out of the kitchen-window and they'll divide it +amongst 'em."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can attend to everything!" Mrs. Hart remarked to Henley. "I +reckon you've found out that she's a regular case."</p> + +<p>"Case or not," Dixie broke in, as Henley was smiling and nodding his +response, "I'm not through yet. If I don't tell you, you'll be begging +for something to eat amongst the neighbors. Your dinner is already +cooked and the coffee made. All you'll have to do is to set it on the +coals and warm it up. The sugar is right at the coffee-pot, and the +cream is in the spring-house to keep it from souring.</p> + +<p>"I didn't dare hint to 'em about—about that Carlton fellow," Dixie +said, in a confidential tone, as they drove away. She was holding her +big hat on to keep it from blowing off in the crisp current of their own +making.</p> + +<p>"You didn't?" he said, interrogatively, charmed as he had never been +before by her propinquity and vivaciousness.</p> + +<p>"Not after being sold as bad as I was by letting them know about that +other scrape," she laughed, as she glanced at him archly. "Why, they +would meet us a mile out on the road to-night—the halt leading the +blind—to know every particular. No, I've been burnt once, and I don't +want a second coat of blisters."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You certainly look stunning." Henley allowed his admiring eyes to take +her in from head to foot. "You needn't be one bit afraid of what that +galoot will say. I tell you I've been about over the country and I know +a thing or two."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've got my all on my back," she said—"that is, except my +wedding outfit. I don't know how I'll ever get my money out of it. I've +thought about selling it, but nobody of my size seems to be marrying +round here. Even if <i>this</i> thing is a go—I mean even if me and Mr. Long +<i>do</i> come to terms—I don't believe I'd feel just right in using it. It +would be sort o' like marrying in widow's weeds, wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>They were now passing Farmer Wade's house, on the edge of the village, +and they saw Carrie on the veranda-steps with Johnny Cartwright at her +side. The couple stood close together, and Henley saw that the boy was +holding Carrie's hands and gazing at her ardently. Seeing the passing +buggy, Carrie suddenly drew herself back and stared at them curiously. +There was no salutation from either side, and Henley drove on, noting +that Dixie kept her eyes on the pair till they were out of sight.</p> + +<p>"I thought I'd give her a good, straight look," she said, "so she'd see +that I wasn't doing anything I am ashamed of. I know that girl through +and through, and you mark my words, Alfred, she'll be low enough to +throw out hints about me driving with a young, married man like you. The +way she's acting with that poor silly boy is disgusting. His poor old +mother is so upset she's talking to everybody about it. She is afraid +Carrie will actually run off with him, and Carrie will, too, if she gets +a good chance—she's just that desperate. It's funny how mean, spiteful +folks can make other people the same way. Right now, I'd rather have +this Long man come out here and take me to meeting where Carrie could +see it than to do a kind deed of any sort."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>After this, to Henley's mystification, she did not talk as freely as at +the outset, and she seemed to be very thoughtful. As they were driving +into the bustling town, she looked at him fixedly and said:</p> + +<p>"The papers say the programme don't begin till eleven o'clock. That's +the hour set for the first race with the reel-wagons. I was just +wondering what we'd better do to kill time till then. I hain't got a +thing to buy that you hain't got in your stock at home, and I hain't a +person to go in and nose about and have clerks pull down a whole raft of +bolts and boxes without paying for the trouble. You see, I reckon it +ain't later 'n nine o'clock now, and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," said Henley. "Why, Dixie, I sort o' mapped it out this way. +You see, knowing how anxious Long will be to meet you right off, I +thought we'd drive straight to his shebang and 'light and hitch. He's +got a chair or two in the back-end of his shack, and we could kind o' +set about, and when he ain't waiting on customers, why, we—"</p> + +<p>"I thought you had more sense than that," Dixie burst out with +unexpected warmth. "<i>You</i> can go there if you like, but I won't go a +step! Huh, I say—I <i>would</i> cut a purty dash, wouldn't I?—setting +around amongst chicken-coops, lard-cans, and salt pork for a fool, vain +man to look me over and sniff and feel set back because I didn't happen +to—to come quite up—shucks! I don't believe any of you men understand +women. Huh! but we understand <i>you</i> all right."</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully sorry I made you mad," Henley stammered. "You know, Dixie, +I wouldn't say a thing for worlds that would—"</p> + +<p>Dixie laughed. "You couldn't make me mad at you to save your life, +Alfred. I'm mad at myself, that's all, for starting out on such a silly +jaunt. I might have knowed that it would be hard to put this thing +through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> in any decent shape. I don't care what Long'll say or think. I +come over here to this tournament with you, at your invite, and if he +shows by a single bat of the eye that he thinks I meant anything else +he'll hear something that will ring in his ears till he's put under +ground. I reckon the idea never got within a mile of his brain that he +may not suit <i>me</i> at all. Why, I may hate the very sight of him."</p> + +<p>"You no doubt will if you keep on looking at the thing that way," said +Henley, admiring the very mystery that cloaked her words and manner, and +quite convinced that she was wiser, in some vague way, at least, than +all the rest of mankind put together. "I only thought that would be the +best way to start the ball rolling."</p> + +<p>"Well, it won't start at all if I have to tote it to the top of a hill +and give it the first kick," Dixie said, firmly. "I'm a big fool. I'll +bet you haven't a bit of respect for me. That other racket of mine was +enough to brand me as the champion woman idiot of the earth, and this +goes that one better. What's the use o' being a fool if you don't learn +sense by it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't talk that way, Dixie," Henley protested, at the end of his +resources. "I thought we was going to have such a fine time, and now you +hardly know what you want. If you won't go to his store, then I'll tell +you what we could do. The public wagon-yard is the best place to see the +tournament from. I could unhitch at the edge of the sidewalk in the +shade of the trees, and you'd have a reserved seat through it all."</p> + +<p>"That's <i>some</i> better, anyway," she said, as if relieved. "I come near +showing my temper, didn't I? Well, I've got one hid away inside of me, +and it kicks up sand sometimes when I'm least expecting it."</p> + +<p>Leaving his sprightly charge in the buggy watching the gathering of the +festive crowd and listening to the blatant music of the town band from +the balcony of the Carlton<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> House, Henley, making some excuse about +having to mail a letter, hastened round a corner and down to Long's +store.</p> + +<p>The young man, in his best suit of clothes and with the odor of bay-rum +in his smooth, compact hair, and the barber's powder on his +razor-scraped face, was busy giving instructions to his chief clerk.</p> + +<p>"Don't come to me to ax a single question," Henley overheard him saying. +"This is <i>one</i> day I simply will have off. If there is anything you +don't know about, let it lie over—tell 'em I'm on the committee of +entertainment, tell 'em any darned thing you want to, but don't bother +me. Oh!" He had caught sight of Henley, who stood half hidden by a stack +of soap-boxes, and came forward, his face falling. "My Lord, Alf, don't +tell me you didn't fetch her in!" he panted. "Good Lord, don't say +that!"</p> + +<p>Henley grinned and explained the situation, much to the storekeeper's +relief.</p> + +<p>"It don't railly make any great difference." Long twisted his small +mustache under its coat of pomade till the ends looked like facial +spikes, and pulled at his white waistcoat. "I had a nigger make a bucket +of lemonade with ice in it, and left an order at the hotel for three of +the best meals they know how to put up. I supply the shebang with +produce, and I stand in with 'em. They would spread themselves for me. I +was counting on having us all three eat in my back-room. I wanted to do +exactly the right thing, you see, so she'd know at the outset that I +understand how to make a woman comfortable, and that I ain't a man to +split hairs when it comes to a little outlay."</p> + +<p>"The back-room wouldn't suit at all." Henley was already a wiser man +than when he left home that morning. "I wouldn't think of asking her or +any decent woman to eat in a room where you bunk, or where anybody +bunks, for that matter—male or female."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll just countermand that order, then," Long said, "and we'll all go +to the hotel. We'll see the fust part of the show from the buggy, and +then repair to the big dining-room and have our banquet."</p> + +<p>"I think she'd really like that," Henley declared, "but I'm going to +give you both the slip and take dinner with Judge Temple's folks. They +made me promise to come the next time I was in; besides, I want to give +you both full swing on this day of days."</p> + +<p>"Right you are," Long rubbed his heavy hands together in delight, "and +you may have the worth of your meal in the finest cigars in my shebang. +Alf, you are my friend. Let's go down where she's at. To tell you the +God's holy truth, man to man, I don't feel half as good as I make out. +It wouldn't take the weight of a hair to make me show the white feather. +I have a sort of forewarning that I ain't agoing to walk straight into +this thing. If she'd 'a' driv' right up to the front, and got out and +gone back to the rear and set down and looked about like she was taking +stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of +having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at +the knees. How do I look, anyway—honest, I don't want any flattery? If +you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I +can whisk 'em on in a jiffy."</p> + +<p>"You are just right." Henley charitably viewed the individual from his +own point rather than that of the over-critical Dixie. "In hot sun like +this to-day your straw hat will look better, and that sack coat fits +like a kid glove."</p> + +<p>"I sorter thought this would be the thing." Long bent down and for the +twentieth time dusted his shoes with his handkerchief. "Now get them +cigars." He led the way to a show-case near the front. "Help +yourself—them's the genuine Havana fillers in the corner. Take good +ones—by George, take the best."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I won't take but one," Henley said, as he opened the case and reached +for a cigar. "I don't like to collect pay in advance; and while I don't +want to throw cold water on you, Long, I'm free to confess I don't know +exactly how she'll act. I always knowed women was curious, but they are +more curious about selecting a mate than everything else combined. When +I was talking this meeting up at such a rate, I thought I could count on +'er; but, la me! she's got me so mixed that I don't know whether I'm a +Methodist preacher or an escaped convict. But let's go down. I want to +see what <i>you'll</i> make of her."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/026.png" alt="A" /></span> + +S the two friends approached the buggy, Dixie, who had seen them, +suddenly turned her head in an opposite direction and seemed to be +laughing immoderately at the beginning of a barrel-race. To attract her +attention Henley cleared his throat and coughed. But whether she heard +he never knew. At all events she was heartily amused, as was evidenced +by her free laughter and the sparkle of her merry eyes. As it was, +Henley reached the buggy and clutched the front wheel and shook it, +while, with his left hand, he held Long's arm in a nervous grasp.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you!" she said, sweeping him with a careless glance and +allowing her eyes to be drawn back at once to the racers. "Ain't it fun? +You ought to have seen that boy try to climb the greasy pole just now. +He put sand all over his pants to make 'em rough, but he could only go +so high, and there he stopped, unable to budge a hair's-breadth. He hung +to it for a minute, as red as blood in the face, and then begun to slide +down as slow as the hour-hand of a clock till he sat flat on the +ground."</p> + +<p>"I fetched Mr. Long down; you know—you may remember he wanted to meet +you," Henley stammered, under a restraint that was new to him. And, as +the couple stared at each other, he finished with a gulp—"Mr. Jasper +Long, Miss Dixie Hart—Miss Dixie Hart, Mr. Jasper Long."</p> + +<p>Dixie was polite and absolutely unruffled, while Long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> was one straight +flush from head to foot. "Come—come over to see our brag show?" he +stuttered, with an untoward jerk of the body, for he had tried to put +his foot on the hub of the wheel and missed it. It was a bow so +pronounced that Long's hat was dislodged and hurled to the ground. In +his shocked sympathy for his friend, Henley was bewildered by noting +that Dixie was actually subduing a laugh, her rebellious lips covered +with her white-gloved hand. Long secured his hat, drew himself up, and +repeated his platitude.</p> + +<p>"I thought I would," she said, now gravely studying his face, his hair, +his clothing, and his broad, restless hands, on the backs of which +rather long hairs lay beaded with perspiration. "Alfred was coming +along, and as I have never been to a tournament before, and as he was so +set on bringing me, I decided to make the trip. I've heard him speak of +you. You are in the bank, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no, Miss Dixie—" Henley began, but there was a certain warning +quality darting from her eyes, now fixed on him, that broke into his +puzzled correction, and then he caught the drift of her harmless +pretence and obliterated himself with a low grunt of perplexity.</p> + +<p>"Why, no, I'm <i>J. W.</i> Long, of the 'Live and Let Live Grocery,'" the +merchant said. "The other feller is <i>L. A.</i> I've had circulars scattered +broadcast all over your county. Looks like you'd have seen some of 'em. +I believe in lettin' folks know you are alive and in the push. I'm +surprised that Alf didn't tell you about me and my business, even if you +hain't heard it from others over your way or through the papers."</p> + +<p>"There are some Longs that rented land from me a few years ago," Dixie +said, evasively. "I wonder if they are akin to you. Seems to me, now I +think of it, that you favor 'em some."</p> + +<p>"They may be away-off fourth or fifth cousins, I don't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> really know." +Long looked as if he thought the conversation had taken quite an +unprofitable turn. "I never was much of a hand to keep track of far-off +kin. Folks is liable to want credit on a score like that, and think they +never have to settle."</p> + +<p>Then the colloquy languished. Henley was plainly not a success as a +manager of delicate situations. What puzzled him beyond any mystery he +had ever stumbled on in the intricate make-up of his charming neighbor +was her evident cool and detached enjoyment of his and Long's +awkwardness. At any rate, he reflected with satisfaction, he could +extricate himself from the tangle, and in that, at least, he felt that +he had the advantage of Long.</p> + +<p>"I see an old fellow over there at that covered wagon that was bantering +me for a hoss-trade the other day," he courageously threw into the gap. +"I believe I'll go see how he talks now. There will be a sight of +hoss-flesh change hands to-day. I understand there's a gypsy camp in the +edge o' town, and they are the dickens on a swap."</p> + +<p>"Hold on a minute!" Long called out, as Henley was moving off, his hat +lifted. "I want to see you."</p> + +<p>Henley pulled up a few yards away, behind Dixie's back, and Long joined +him.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to leave me the bag to hold?" Long asked, in a tone of +blended gratification and nervousness.</p> + +<p>"I don't see that I'm doing you one bit of good," Henley answered, +gravely. "This is your day of grace. If you can't fix things up after +what I've done we'll have to call it off. I've done my part. I fetched +her here, but I can't make women out, and I don't intend to try. Life is +too short. When I get bothered about what a woman's going to do or not +do I want to get blind, staving drunk; it always has that effect on me, +and you know I'm inclined to sobriety."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The trouble is, I don't know whether I'm welcome or not," Long +declared, grimly. "I have never felt exactly that way before. Do you +reckon she'd look with favor on the invite to dinner at the hotel?"</p> + +<p>"You bet she will!" Henley was more sure of his ground now. "Cooking and +fixing up the table is a woman's joy, and they'll go just to see what +hotel fare is like, and, as a rule, they will sample every article +that's passed."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll risk it on your judgment, Alf. You've stood by me so far +like a man and a brother, and I don't believe you'd set a trap for me to +tumble in."</p> + +<p>"Not me," answered Henley. "But I was wondering what you think of her +looks; men differ in tastes, and—"</p> + +<p>"Shucks!" Long sniffed. "You needn't ask me that. That'ud be a fool +question for a blind man to ask. Why, Alf, she is the stunningest trick +that ever wore shoe-leather. She's so dadblamed purty I can't look her +straight in the face. There is some'n in her eyes and the way she sets +and bends her neck an' cocks 'er head that makes me feel like one of the +chaps in olden times that knelt on a strip of carpet at a queen's +throne. But it ain't just her looks and trim shape and nobby little +feet—it's the woman herself, by gosh! She looks clean through a feller; +what she says goes from her as straight as a gun-shot. Well, I'll hurry +back and do the best I can. I'm having a big time, Alf—a big, roaring +time."</p> + +<p>All the rest of the morning, as he strolled here and there through the +merry assemblage, Henley managed to keep the pair in sight. Long kept +the same position, his right foot on the hub of the wheel, his face +upturned to Dixie's. It was the passing of the local military company +and the surging of the spectators forward that gave Long a valuable +opportunity, for he got into the buggy and sat beside the girl. Henley +could see him lashing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> the air over the dashboard with his whip in a +most reckless manner.</p> + +<p>"The blame fool!" Henley ejaculated. "He's wearing out that whip. I +wonder if he thinks I buy the best whalebone for him to court with. +She'd like 'im better if he'd set still, anyway, and not be cavorting +about like a jumping-jack."</p> + +<p>Noon came, and Henley saw the pair alight from the buggy and walk across +to the hotel. Thereupon he betook himself to the house of his friends, +and had his own dinner. When it was time to start home he went down to +the wagon-yard. He found them seated in the buggy, and, to his surprise, +he saw nothing in the manner of either to indicate that any sort of +understanding had been reached.</p> + +<p>"I reckon it's time we was on the way," Henley announced to her, as he +shaded his eyes and glanced at the declining sun.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's high time," Dixie answered, crisply. "I was wondering where +on earth you was. I'll have to pay for this jaunt, and the sooner I set +in to my work at home the better it will be for me."</p> + +<p>Long made elaborate excuses to Dixie for absenting himself, and followed +Henley to where his horse was hitched.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Henley, as he was putting the collar on the animal, "how +did you make out?"</p> + +<p>"I hardly know, Alf." Long looked very grave. "There is no use saying +she is exactly the thing I am looking for, but, as much as I've seen of +her to-day, I don't know any more'n a rabbit what my showing is. She +ain't a bit like these town-women; you <i>can</i> sorter get at them, for +they are on the carpet, and they don't make no beans about it. But this +un has a way of making you watch every step you take and every word you +speak. I've been in the habit of having women folks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> listen to all I +say, and laugh hearty now and then, but this un has her eyes on +everything that is passing, and seems to me to laugh at the wrong time, +when there ain't the slightest call for amusement. I reckon maybe I'd +have made more progress if we'd been where thar wasn't so much to +attract her attention. I don't know—I'm just guessing. But I'm game to +the backbone, Alf, and I'm in the race. You hear me? I'm in to stay."</p> + +<p>"That's the way to talk," Henley agreed. "A woman that ain't hard to win +ain't worth having. These town-gals are after your money; it is my +opinion that this one will have to like you a powerful lot before she +gives up her freedom."</p> + +<p>"She's as independent as a hog on ice." Long smiled, but not at his +simile. "I hardly knowed what to do when we got to the hotel. I thought +she was accepting my invite, you see, when, lo and behold, at settling +time she drawed out her money and insisted on planking down her part to +a fraction of a cent. I argued as strong as I knowed how agin it, but +nothing would do her but to pay her way. I feel mean about that, Alf. +What would <i>you</i> have done?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's the part of a gentleman to let a lady have her way in <i>every +single thing</i>," Henley opined. "If she asks you to get her a drink of +water, she wants it; and if she asks to pay her bill at a hotel, she +wants that; to accuse her of anything else would be prying into her +private matters. If she didn't want to eat at your expense the first day +she was throwed with you—well, that was her business. I think it is +spunky, myself. I reckon you didn't come right out and talk marrying?" +Henley ended with a rather anxious look at his friend.</p> + +<p>"No, Alf, I was afraid to—I don't know why, but, as much as I wanted to +ease my mind on the matter, I just couldn't get it out. It seemed to +lodge in my throat; in fact, I was scared half the time. Every time I'd +say a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> thing, no matter how little, I'd wonder if it injured my case or +not. Alf, I'm a goner—a clean goner. I'll never have a minute's peace +till she's mine. It's going to be slow work. I asked her if I couldn't +drive out to see her next Sunday, but she wouldn't hear to it. She +finally said I could come on the first Sunday of next month to hear a +brag preacher that is billed to appear for the first time on that date. +It's a dern long time to wait, but she's laid down the law, and I'll +have to obey it."</p> + +<p>During the drive home Dixie seemed wilfully uncommunicative, and she and +Henley were silent most of the way. As they were on the brow of the hill +overlooking Chester, however, she drew a deep breath and said: "Well, +Alfred, I certainly had a bang-up time. Carrie Wade may make her brags +of how she runs things, but I certainly had a rip-roaring time."</p> + +<p>"But," ventured Henley, his eyes on the jostling back of his horse, +"from what Long intimated—at least from what he hinted—it appears that +you and him didn't come to any, that is to say, any <i>positive</i> +agreement."</p> + +<p>The girl laughed heartily, covering her face with both hands, and bent +downward.</p> + +<p>"You men are so silly, Alfred. You want an important thing like that to +be over in a minute, while a woman—a woman naturally would like for it +to last. If that fellow could insure me, in some shape or other, that +he'd keep acting and talking like he did to-day, <i>after we was married</i>, +I'd be more interested than I am. But hot-headed ones like him cool down +about as quick as they get het up. As a general thing the marriage altar +seems to rest on a big cake of ice, and overheated couples catch colds +that make 'em sniff the rest of their lives."</p> + +<p>"I've been waiting to hear you say how he—what you thought of Long's +looks," stammered the match-maker; "that always seems the main thing +in—in a deal o' this sort."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well," she chuckled, "I'm better at making rag-dolls than men, but if +men-making was my trade I think I could have turned out a better job +than Long. Folks say that to be wide betwixt the eyes shows sense. That +may be so up to certain limits, but I'm afraid his are entirely too far +apart. Why, when you set close to him you can't see both of 'em at the +same time; you have to look first at one and then at the other. I tried +to get around the trouble by looking at his nose, but that seemed to be +crooked and awful flat. I didn't like them long hairs on his hands; his +forefathers must have lived in a cold climate."</p> + +<p>"The hairs don't mean nothing." Henley was amused, in spite of his +loyalty to his friend. "A heap of men are that way."</p> + +<p>"You ain't." Dixie glanced at the rather slender hands of her companion, +and then lifted her eyes to his face slowly and studiously. "You haven't +got a big chunk of a head, either, and flopping, fuzzy ears, and, above +all, Alfred, you ain't dead stuck on yourself. If I marry that man it +will be after I've taken him down several pegs. His vanity fairly leaks +out of him and stands in a puddle at his feet. Well, that don't matter. +When he comes to take me to meeting it will be the talk of the entire +community. Carrie Wade will laugh on the other side of her face. I would +have let him come earlier, but I want to take plenty of time to make me +a dandy dress and get me a new hat. I'm going to cut a wide swath. +That's to be my one big day of triumph and getting even."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/027.png" alt="I" /></span> + +T was after nightfall when Henley put Dixie down at the cottage and +drove around to his barn. In the stable doorway lurked a shadow of +uncertain shape and quite motionless. It turned out to be the form of +Jason Wrinkle. The pipe in his mouth glowed like a speeding firefly as +he stepped down to the buggy.</p> + +<p>"Hello! Well," he muttered, with a low, significant laugh, "you've come +back—reports notwithstanding to the contrary, female, legal, or +otherwise."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm back," Henley said, rather curtly. "Anything strange about +it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was just wonderin'. Huh, in this day and time of new-fangled +ways and doin's a body never knows what will happen. You'll certainly +never know if you listen to talk." Wrinkle peered into the face of his +stepson-in-law quite studiously for a moment, and with no little +irritation Henley unfastened the hamestring with a downward jerk and +began to remove the harness.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you, anyway?" he asked. "Are you up to another +one of your infernal jokes?"</p> + +<p>"No, I hain't," Wrinkle puffed. "That one about the baby was my last +one—on you, anyway. You took it like some old, peevish man, and sulked +and looked crooked for a week. I've tried to study out just how that +happened to go agin the grain so mighty awful, but I'm up agin a snag. +No, Alf, you make the bread-and-butter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> for this shebang, and you work +better when you hain't plagued. This time I come as a friend, and maybe +adviser—I don't know, it is all owin' to how you'll feel about it. For +all I know to the contrary, you may be as innocent as snow that hain't +been walked on, and, if you <i>are</i>, you ought to know what is going on +behind your back."</p> + +<p>"Behind my back?" Henley jerked the words from him as he tossed the +harness into the buggy and allowed his horse to find his stall unguided. +"Well, what's going on behind my back?"</p> + +<p>Wrinkle sucked audibly at the stem of his pipe before he delivered +himself into the eager expectancy that was massed between him and his +companion. "Alf," he began, finally, "you've dealt with humanity, in one +shape and another, enough to know that this is a sort of hide-bound +community, and, well, you driv' off this mornin' with a good-lookin' +young woman, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I did!" Henley retorted. "What of that?"</p> + +<p>"You went toward Carlton, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I went <i>to</i> Carlton," Henley answered, restraining an outburst with +difficulty. "I took Miss Dixie over on—on business. It was transacted, +and—"</p> + +<p>"You didn't tell Hettie whar you was bound for?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't, because I didn't think it made any difference. She's never +interested in what I do or where I go, and there was no reason for +telling her."</p> + +<p>"Maybe not—maybe not," Wrinkle answered, aimlessly, "but it wouldn't +'a' done yore case any harm if you had sorter tetched on it before +startin' out. You see, Carrie Wade sa'ntered over about eleven o'clock. +She hain't been a constant visitor at our house, and as she had a kind +o' fidgety walk on her, an' a curious dazzle in her eyes, I knowed she +hadn't come to see the pattern of the new quilt as she claimed, and so, +bein' a friend of yourn, I set down at the window and listened,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +wonderin' when she'd quit her eternal preamble an' git down to business. +Purty soon I knowed land was in sight, for she said, like she was in a +sort of a dream, for she wasn't lookin' at anybody in particular—she +said: 'I seed Dixie Hart an' Alfred drivin' off this mornin'. They was +headed fer Saunder's Spring, at the foot o' the mountain. She had on her +best duds (which ain't sayin' much)'—them was Carrie's words, not +mine—'an' a whoppin' big picnic basket full o' good things. That girl +will do to watch, Mrs. Henley. As they passed our house the reins was +lyin' loose in the buggy, an' Dixie was leanin' agin Alfred like a sick +kitten to a hot brick.' It was the fust Hettie had heard of the +scrape—the trip, I mean—and I thought she'd flare up, or wilt, or +some'n or other, but she was on the job as quick as a flash. On my soul, +I don't believe old Het so much as batted her eye, though the revelation +must have been as sudden as a mule-kick in the ribs. She give the quilt +she was showin' a pull agin the frame like she wanted to straighten out +the stitches, an' said, 'Yes, Alf give 'er a lift over to Carlton. I'm +awfully glad he had company.' And on that she axed Carrie how her Ma's +sore foot was, an' recommended Dr. Stone's hoss liniment, an' cited a +good many cases where cures to both man an' beast had been made at a +small outlay.</p> + +<p>"But Carrie Wade wasn't thar to l'arn how to doctor sore feet. She +leaned back in her chair and laffed; you could 'a' heard her this far if +you'd 'a' been here an' the pig was asleep. She riz and went and slapped +Hettie on the back and said:</p> + +<p>'You watch my words, Mrs. Henley, thar's goin' to be talk, an' lots of +it. Dixie Hart has got tired o' bein' out o' the ring of young folks, +an' is bent on gittin' attention by fair means or foul. Alf's +good-lookin', plenty young, an' she's deliberately cuttin' her eyes at +'im. I've heard she goes to the store when she don't need a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> thing, an' +that they sa'nter home together through the woods.'"</p> + +<p>"The trifling hussy!" Henley muttered, angrily. "I thought she was a +meddlesome busybody, and now I know it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know Hettie don't smile more 'n once a year," Wrinkle +tittered, "but this was her anniversary. She was actually one broad grin +from ear to ear."</p> + +<p>"'I wish somebody <i>would</i> stir Alf up a little bit,' she said. 'He's +entirely too poky. Carrie, that man is the slowest stick that ever +lived. I wish some pretty, dashin' gal like Dixie Hart <i>would</i> flirt +with him good and hard. If you wasn't so old I'd git <i>you</i> to do it. My +first husband was different; he was a great ladies' man. That is the +only thing that will make married life bearable. A dead certainty in +love-matters is killin.'"</p> + +<p>"Good!" Henley chuckled. "Hettie saw through her, and headed her off in +fine style."</p> + +<p>"Well, 'out of the heart the mouth speaketh,'" quoted Jason. "And the +truth is, Alf, I railly don't think Hettie would care a hill o' beans if +you <i>did</i> sort o' prove that you was up to snuff. You ort to profit by +what's gone before in matrimony as you have in tradin' amongst men. +Dick, when all is said an' done, was her maiden choice, an' if thar ever +was a woman roustabout, a feller that had a bow and a scrape for every +pair o' bright eyes that come his way, that feller was Dick Wrinkle. He +kept Hettie in hot water, and I don't know but what the cold bath you've +giv' 'er has sort o' gone agin her constitution. She's a critter that +likes what she can't git better 'n what lies right at hand wigglin' to +attract attention. No, you needn't be afeard of any family row. The +truth is, I think Hettie is some better pleased than she has been for a +long time. I reckon she's beginnin' to feel a sort o' pride in you. It +ain't from her that you'll have trouble, but from Carrie Wade."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Trouble, how?" Henley asked, impatiently, as he was turning toward the +lights in the farm-house.</p> + +<p>"Why, from her clatterin' tongue. If she'll talk like that to us, you +know she will about town, and it takes a powerful small spark to set a +haystack of scandal afire. Folks think Hettie has driv' you pretty far, +anyway, with her odd, graveyard notions, and it wouldn't take much +to—to start a ugly report."</p> + +<p>Henley furiously tore himself from the old gossip and went into the +house. As he paused at the water-shelf and filled a basin to wash the +dust of his drive from his face and hands, he saw his wife moving about +in the dimly lighted kitchen, and was struck by her easy and obviously +gratified bearing. He was drying his hands on a towel which hung from a +roller on the wall when Mrs. Wrinkle came out and suddenly faced him. +She caught her breath, stared in surprise for a moment, then turned into +the kitchen. Henley saw her clutch his wife's sleeve and give it a +warning pull. She meant to speak in an undertone, but her piping voice +slipped a cog and Henley heard her say:</p> + +<p>"They didn't run off; he's back! He's out thar wash—"</p> + +<p>"Sh!" came from Mrs. Henley's lips. "Be quiet; you don't know what you +are talking about."</p> + +<p>"Why, Carrie Wade said him an' Dixie Hart had 'loped away, an'—"</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell you to hush?" Mrs. Henley commanded, in a guarded tone. +"You go set down and be quiet for once in your life. You've said enough +about this thing."</p> + +<p>Henley saw the old woman stand staring blankly for a moment, and then +she came back to him in the half-darkness and stood mutely eying him +from beneath the black poke-bonnet. Leaving her, he went into the +dining-room, where a lamp was shedding yellow rays over the meal his +wife had ready for him. He sat down in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> accustomed place, and Mrs. +Henley promptly brought his coffee.</p> + +<p>"It must have been powerful hot on the Carlton road," she said. "We +mighty nigh melted here in the shade with every window and door wide +open."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't so much hotter than common." He put sugar into his coffee, +and slowly stirred it. "I reckon moving at a brisk pace through the air +keeps you from feeling heat as much as you would if you was setting +still. We didn't start back till toward sundown."</p> + +<p>"They had some sort of a celebration over there, didn't they?" Mrs. +Henley reached over and pushed the biscuits nearer to his plate.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but it didn't amount to much."</p> + +<p>"I reckon Dixie liked it. The poor girl hain't been away often."</p> + +<p>"I think she did," Henley said. "Anyways, she acted that way all +through. She had a tiptop seat in my buggy, where she could catch first +sight of everything that happened, and she took it all in, every speck +of it, even a good dinner at the hotel."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see." Mrs. Henley's brow was furrowed in perplexity. She left the +room and returned in a moment with a bowl in her thin hands. "Here is +some fresh apple-butter; it's right from the spring. You can put rich +milk on it; there's plenty just from the cow."</p> + +<p>The wrinkle remained on her brow while he helped himself liberally. She +stood and studied his profile from the lighted side. The best reader of +her facial expression in the family, had he been a witness, and he +doubtless was, as the windows were open, would have found much to rivet +his attention in the unwonted solidity of her features. Henley ate +silently for several minutes before she spoke again. Then she cleared +her voice, drew herself up more erectly, and said:</p> + +<p>"You say Dixie set in the buggy all the time? Why,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> I had an idea from +something Pa dropped that she went over there to attend to some +er—business or other."</p> + +<p>"Well, a body <i>might</i> attend to business setting in a buggy," he said, +ambiguously and he put a spoonful of apple-butter into a broad smile and +swallowed both as he looked at her with twinkling eyes.</p> + +<p>The furrows deepened on the austere brow of the woman, and she drew her +under lip inward and pressed it between her teeth.</p> + +<p>"I don't know exactly what you mean," she said, presently. "I supposed +she had things to buy for her farm, or—"</p> + +<p>Henley laughed. "I may as well tell you the secret, Hettie. You ain't +any hand to gad about and talk, and I know it will be safe with you. The +truth, is I'm a match-maker. You've heard me speak of Jasper Long? Well, +he's dying to get married, and I've been a sort o' go-between with him +and Dixie. He wanted to meet her, and I took her over, and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The furrows were gone, the colorless face lighted up from within. +"I understand now." She walked round the table and leaned over the +dishes toward him and laughed. "Alfred," she tittered, "you certainly +are the most goody-goody old poke of a stick that ever wore man's +clothes, and you are blind, blind as a day-old kitten. You know men, all +grades and styles of 'em, but you are a born fool when it comes to +women. When that girl marries Jasper Long—I say, when Dixie Hart takes +him, let me know, will you?" and she turned from the room, leaving him +more than convinced that he didn't understand women, and certain that he +never should try to do so again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/028.png" alt="O" /></span> + +NE morning, in the early part of the following week, as Henley sat +working at his desk in the store, and Pomp and Cahews were busy +attending three or four elderly women in front, he became conscious that +some one was speaking in loud, angry tones near the door. And, rising, +that he might look over a stack of soap-boxes which obstructed his view, +he saw that a dispute of some sort was taking place between Cahews and +Hank Bradley over some cigars that the latter had failed to pay for on a +former occasion. Bradley was evidently under the influence of liquor, +and he began to swear loudly and threateningly. The women dropped the +purchases they were making and shrank back farther into the store.</p> + +<p>With a flush of anger over the insult to his house and customers, Henley +strode hotly forward and thrust himself between the disputants.</p> + +<p>"We'll talk about the account some other time," he said, glaring into +Bradley's face. "But right now you get out of this house. You sha'n't +stand here spouting vile oaths before these ladies."</p> + +<p>"What have <i>you</i> got to do with it?" Bradley flared up in his turn, and +he whipped his hand back toward his pistol-pocket, only to discover that +he was not armed, as he evidently thought he was. However, he kept his +hand behind him in a threatening attitude.</p> + +<p>"I'll show you what I've got to do with it if you open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> your dirty jaws +like that again!" Henley said, fearlessly. "You dare to draw a gun on me +and I'll make you swallow your own teeth. Now, you get out of here!" +And, taking him by the arm in a grip of steel, Henley drew him hurriedly +to the door and shoved him down the steps.</p> + +<p>"This ain't the end of it," Bradley threw back furiously. "You bet it +ain't."</p> + +<p>"It'll be the end o' <i>you</i> if you fool with me!" Henley retorted, and he +turned back into the store and resumed his seat at his desk. He had not +been there long when one of the women finished her purchases and, with +some parcels under her arm, came back and stood timidly by his desk. It +was Mrs. Cartwright, the old widow whose son Johnny was so devoted to +Carrie Wade. She was short in stature, had iron-gray hair, was slight +and stooped, and wore a plain gingham dress and a sunbonnet of the same +material.</p> + +<p>"It was powerful good of you, Alfred, to do what you did jest now," she +said, timidly, as he looked up. "It was like the old-time way men had +when I was a girl of takin' up for women. I always heard you was good +and kind, and now I know it. A man kin do a lot o' things that women +will appreciate, but I'll risk my all that every woman in that bunch +down thar will go home wishin' that her husband or brother had done what +you did an' in the same sperit. Women love, above all things, to be +protected by manly men."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Henley, his flush of anger giving way to one of genuine +embarrassment, "he was upsetting business, Mrs. Cartwright. I hated +to—to git mad that way, but he was running my trade away, and that's a +thing I won't let no man do right under my eyes. Set down an' rest, Mrs. +Cartwright; you don't look overly stout."</p> + +<p>The woman took the chair near his desk, and he heard her sigh as she +massed her parcels in her lap with her thin, quivering hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I reckon I don't look well," she said, seeing that his kindly eyes were +still on her. "They say worry will kill a body quicker 'n anything else, +and, Alfred, I'm worried mighty nigh to death. I don't know which way to +turn or what to do. It is all about my youngest child, Johnny. He's took +a quar notion to marry Carrie Wade."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," Henley said, sympathetically; "and that's bad. Why, he's +hardly out o' the spelling-book class, and hain't a sign of fuzz on his +lip. The last time he was in here I know the crowd was teasing him +because his voice was in the gosling stage. It had sech a funny way of +wobbling about from bass to treble."</p> + +<p>"But he thinks he's full grown," the woman sighed, "and won't listen to +reason. He keeps declarin' he's older than the way it's recorded in the +Bible. This last trouble begun at the Sunday-school Christmas-tree, when +Carrie put on an embroidered handkerchief for him. That turned his head, +and he hain't hardly let her out of his sight sence. He growed from +child to man betwixt two suns."</p> + +<p>"They'll do that sometimes," Henley said. "It is surely an odd sort of +attachment. She is plenty old to have nursed him. I wouldn't be afraid +to say that she was cutting her eyes at men when he was cutting his +teeth. Thinking of that ud make some fellers ashamed to act that way, +but as apt as not Johnny don't let himself study about it. Somehow I can +excuse it better in the boy than in her, because she's old enough to +know better."</p> + +<p>The old woman nodded and sighed again. "Alfred, sometimes I think I've +had more put on me than my share in this world. I've had three sons +besides this un, and every last one of 'em give me trouble along at +Johnny's age."</p> + +<p>"And about women older 'n they was, too, I've heard," Henley said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, it looks like it runs in the blood—not in mine, thank the Lord! +for I wish nary woman had ever been made; yes, all of my boys no sooner +got out o' frocks than they made a dead-run for the first old maid in +sight, and marry they would in spite of all possessed."</p> + +<p>"And not one got hitched up exactly right," said Henley.</p> + +<p>"Not one, Alfred. The two oldest stuck to their hot-headed agreement +long enough to feel sort o' tied down, and they went clean off an' left +their wives high and dry. Jim is still living with his'n, but I cry my +eyes out every time I see the pore fellow. Looks like he hain't got a +thing to live for. When a man leaves his own fireside and comes and sets +around his mammy's house like Jim does, he hain't got no paradise under +his own roof. Ef he'd 'a' had children it mought 'a' been different. I +did think I could show Johnny the mistakes of his brothers and make him +act different. I've talked it to him sence he was old enough to know +right from wrong, but you see how little weight it had."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go to headquarters and call a halt?" Henley's indignation +was rising.</p> + +<p>"You mean to Carrie? Well, I did, but somehow she manages to git around +the question. She jest looks kind o' 'shamed and keeps wanting to talk +about other things. I ought to be sorry for her, desperate as she is for +attention, but I hain't. She's a tattle-tale and scandalmonger. She +never got over losin' that young preacher that Dixie Hart cut her out +of, and she spends all her time hammerin' at that pore girl, who is good +and decent and noble, if thar ever was sech a thing. Just here lately, +because you seed fit to take Dixie with you over to Carlton—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know—I know." Henley's face grew darker, and he clinched his +hand. "I can't think of her bell-clapper tongue without gettin' mad, and +I don't like to be that way with a woman. What does Johnny say?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, he talks as big as a railroad president; he talks jest the same +foolishness as his brothers did; <i>he's</i> doin' the marryin'—nobody else +has a'thing to do with it. That's what hurts. If I could jest git the +pore, simple boy out of her clutches for a month I believe I could open +his eyes, but I am afraid at the slightest move they will run off and +git married. Sometimes I try to be resigned and argue to myself that +maybe him and her could git along together, but when I see my pore +baby-boy with that powdered and painted thing out in public I mighty +nigh die with mortification."</p> + +<p>"We must simply bust it up, Mrs. Cartwright," Henley said, firmly. +"That's all there is about it. We must checkmate 'em. Let me study over +it. I'll help if I can."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would," the woman said, anxiously. "There he is now in the +front-door. I'll slip out the side way; he mought suspicion I was +talkin' about him."</p> + +<p>A moment after her departure Johnny Cartwright came back to the desk. +"Jim said Ma was here," he said, glancing around the room.</p> + +<p>"She was, Johnny, boy," Henley said, patronizingly, "but she went home. +Ah, ha! I saw you with Carrie Wade the other day—at least it had her +look."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was her." A flush of pride rose and spread itself over the +boyish face. "I was taking her home from Mrs. Spriggs's quilting."</p> + +<p>"I'd bet a hat I know what you wanted to see her about," Henley said, +his hand over his facile mouth. "Some of these old bachelors, or +widowers with a gang of children to take care of, sent you with some +invite or other. When I was a little chap like you I used to pick up a +lot o' odd dimes in taking notes to the gals. About ten years from now +you'll be spending <i>your</i> money that way. You must hear a lot o' funny +things if you see much o' Carrie. I'd give a pretty to be near her when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +she got word from some man or other. She's waited a long time, Johnny. I +reckon a proposal at this late day would tickle her to death."</p> + +<p>"I don't tote notes for nobody." The boy was white about the lips, and +looking as if he hardly knew whether to be angry or not.</p> + +<p>"Well, I reckon you wouldn't to Carrie," Henley said. "I hardly reckon +anybody has her in mind, now. You know she's been a drug on the market a +long time. I wonder if she ever told you about that tin-peddler? It was +away back, I reckon, when you was playing with your rattler. Carrie and +the peddler had up an awful case—they was going to get married, and +open up a tin-shop at Carlton, but a man come along and said the peddler +already had a wife or two to his credit, and the skunk changed his +route. Lawsy me! how Carrie did take on! We heard her yelling like a +knife was sticking in her clean to the sorgum-mill."</p> + +<p>"It's a lie! I don't believe a word of it," the boy cried, his face +aflame with fury. "She told me she never had a sweetheart in her +life—that she hated men."</p> + +<p>"She's had good cause," answered Henley. "A woman that don't get a speck +of attention will hate anything. I reckon she's passed the line, and +nobody will marry her."</p> + +<p>"She's going to marry <i>me</i>," the boy blurted out, leaning over and +striking the desk with his fist, as if to emphasize his words, "and when +she's my wife I'll call and make you settle for what you've said. +Remember that, sir." And he turned and strode angrily from the store.</p> + +<p>"I hated to say it," Henley mused, "but I was doing it for the lasting +good of all concerned. It won't do—it simply won't do. That meddlesome +old maid simply shall not ruin that boy's life and break his old mammy's +heart. I wonder—" He sat staring at the floor for several minutes, and +then a smile disturbed the stern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> lines of his face. "It might work—by +gum, I'll try it, anyway!"</p> + +<p>Glancing down to the front, he saw that Cahews was disengaged and seated +on the end of a counter swinging his long legs to and fro. Henley went +to him.</p> + +<p>"Say, Jim, Johnny Cartwright and Carrie Wade is driving his mammy mighty +nigh distracted with their doings. I don't know when I've ever been so +sorry for an old person. I wonder if me and you couldn't put our heads +together and—and sort o' bust it up."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know, Alf—you are a better schemer than I am. I'm +willin' to help, but I can't git up nothing. If the boy was mine I'd +give 'im a good spankin' in public, and maybe that ud shame Carrie into +behavin' herself."</p> + +<p>"If I could get you to help I think I could work a change in the thing, +anyway," Henley said, persuasively.</p> + +<p>"Me, Alf?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's just this way, Jim, with a woman of that brand and vintage," +Henley pursued. "You see, she's gone without the right sort of attention +so long that she's kind o' lost respect for herself. Jim, you are the +leading young man in Chester, not yet married, and considered a fine +catch. I don't know how it will strike you, but you could really do a +good turn all round if you'd just pay Carrie a little attention. Take +her in your new top buggy to camp-meeting next Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Me? Oh, Lord!"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean for you to <i>marry</i> her," Henley went on, smoothly. "But if +I'm any judge of women, I think when a man of your stripe drives out in +public with her she'll simply look up again, and, by gum, I believe +she'll look clean over that boy's head. I'm asking you to take part in a +good deed, Jim."</p> + +<p>"I see—I understand pine-blank what you mean, but, Alf, I'm not the man +for the job. You'll understand my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> fix if you'll just study a minute. +You know how it is between me and Julia Hardcastle. I'll never marry no +other woman as long as the sun shines. She hain't never said the word, +nor she hain't plumb pitched me out, either, but she makes me walk a +chalk-line. Why, if she was to see me out with Carrie Wade I'd never +hear the end of it."</p> + +<p>"Julia's going to the camp-meeting, ain't she?" Henley asked, cutting a +significant glance at his clerk.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's going with Sam Willis, that Atlanta shoe-drummer. She don't +care for him, mind you, Alf, but she likes to have fellows of that sort +hanging on. She don't seem half as particular about who she goes with as +the company I keep. She's got me where the wool is short, Alf. I +wouldn't rub her the wrong way for the world. I hope to get her some +day, but I'll have to wait till she gits tired of dashing around."</p> + +<p>Henley was looking straight into his clerk's face, a smile twinkling in +his kindly eyes. "You are not working that girl right, Jim," he said, +decidedly. "She'd have been yours long ago if you'd had more +independence. If you keep up that sort of a lick she'll waltz off with +some bold and daring chap one of these days and give you the merry +ha-ha. The truth is, she wants you, but she wants you to be more of a +man. You've tried your sort of way long enough, now switch off and try +mine just for one single day, anyway, and see if I ain't right. Solomon +himself—and he was the greatest masher in the Bible—even he couldn't +win a woman by letting her have her own way. A woman thinks a man is a +sissy that gives in to her every whim. You just take Carrie Wade to +meeting like any other free-born American citizen has a right to do, and +Julia Hardcastle will set up and take notice, and she'll think a sight +more of you—that is, if you don't knuckle under and beg her pardon the +minute she mentions it to you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>Cahews's jaw was really a massive member, and it looked as solid as +stone when he finally answered, which he did when he had stood down on +the floor and walked to and fro for a moment in deep and turbulent +thought.</p> + +<p>"She nor no other woman could make me knuckle if I didn't want to," he +said, pausing and resting a steady hand on the shoulder of his employer. +"I've been giving in all along, but I'm tired, dang tired. Here she's +going with that town-dude Sunday and expects me to drive out there by +myself and enjoy the sight from afar. Derned if I don't believe, as you +say, that I've been giving that girl too much rein and floundering about +too much in the dust at her feet. Alf, I'll write a note to Carrie this +minute, and I'll give the old girl a good time if I know how."</p> + +<p>"Well, you go back to the desk and write the note," said Henley. "Mark +my words, I'll bet, if you hold a stiff lip all through, you'll +accomplish in a day what you haven't in all these years."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/029.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE next day, as Henley was walking home in the dusk and was passing +Mrs. Cartwright's cottage, she saw him and hastened out to the fence. +She was in a flutter of excitement, rubbing her thin hands together in +vast satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Alfred," she began, "I want to tell you what's happened. I'm so excited +I'm as limber as a dish-rag. Jim Cahews sent a note over by your nigger +yesterday to Carrie Wade invitin' her to drive to the campground with +him Sunday."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jim's going to take <i>her</i>?" said Henley, his eyes twinkling. "He's +a sly dog about his doings, and don't tell me all he does."</p> + +<p>"That hain't the main thing, Alfred." The old woman raised her hands to +her face and laughed immoderately. "Pomp had no sooner gone off with the +answer and a big bunch of roses Carrie gathered and sent with it, when +she run over to tell me about it and to borrow my cape. She 'lowed it +mought be cool drivin' back behind sech a fast hoss as Jim's new one, +an' she didn't have a thing heavy enough to throw over her shoulders. +Johnny was a-settin' in the corner of the kitchen unbeknownst to her, +and heard all she said. An', la me, what you reckon he done? He up an' +laid down law an' gospel right on the spot, bless you! Jim Cahews wasn't +goin' a step with 'er. Johnny could afford to hire a livery-stable team +if he had to borrow the money, an' <i>he</i> was goin' to take 'er."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That was a corker, wasn't it?" Henley exclaimed, with a pleased laugh. +"What did Carrie say to that?"</p> + +<p>"Looked like she hardly knowed what <i>to</i> say," was the old woman's +reply. "Him an' her stood starin' smack dab at each other fer a minute, +and then—just think of it!—she begun to beg the boy not to interfere +with her doin's, and pleaded an' wheedled an' went on at a powerful +rate. But Johnny stood as firm as the rock o' Gibralty, an' told 'er, he +did, that his plighted wife jest shouldn't run about an' disgrace 'em +right on the eve of marriage, and said a lot about folks walkin' over +dead bodies an' swimmin' rivers o' blood, an' the like. Well, all that +finally made Carrie mad, an' she told 'im he was jest a boy, an' that +she had never meant to marry 'im, nohow. An' while he stood gaspin' fer +breath she lit in to beggin' him not to tell nobody about the'r little +flirtation. She said folks would think it was silly of her, an' if Jim +Cahews meant business, which it looked like he did, a tale like that +might sp'ile her chances."</p> + +<p>"Huh," grunted Henley, "she was getting down to bedrock, wasn't she?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't blame 'er," said the widow, charitably. "Many a good, +married woman wouldn't want all her girlish pranks to reach the ear of +the man she finally settled down with, an' I reckon Jim Cahews wants +'er. They say he's tired chasin' after Julia Hardcastle, an' Carrie may +suit. Johnny tuck it awful hard. After she went home he come an' laid +his head in my lap an' sobbed out good an' strong. I was never tickled +by grief of a child o' mine before; but even while my eyes an' throat +was full, a laugh would rise in me that I couldn't hold in. But he +didn't catch on—he 'lowed I was cryin', too. After a while he set up +an' wiped his eyes. 'I reckon,' said he, 'that I've been the fool +everybody said I was, but I'm goin' to let women alone till I'm old +enough to understand 'em.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He'll let 'em alone a long time, then," said Henley, with a dry smile, +as he turned away.</p> + +<p>The following Monday morning Henley found Cahews busy in the front part +of the store cleaning up and putting things straight on the shelves. As +soon as he saw his employer, Jim walked from behind the counter and +extended his hand: "Put it right there, Alf, an' give it a good, tight +shake," he grinned. "Richard is hisself at last. It's been an awful +up-hill fight, but I'm there—gee whiz! I'm there, an' don't you forget +it."</p> + +<p>"So you really like Carrie? Well, I thought maybe you and her—"</p> + +<p>"Carrie, hell! It's the other—damn it! Huh! you may think you know +some'n about women, but don't I? I was a long time learning how to turn +the trick, but I'm an expert now. I had the time of my life. It was a +clean walk-over from start to finish. I had the bit in my teeth, an' I +went ahead like the woods afire. I driv' around to Carrie's house, +dressed to kill. I had on my plug-hat, silk vest, light-gray pants, +dark-blue coat, and my new patent-leather shoes. I put the old gal in by +me an' away we shot. I saw that drummer and Julia ahead on a straight +piece of road plodding along like they was hauling a load of wood to +town, and I chirped to my Kentucky blue-blood, and, with Carrie's +ribbons flying in the wind like the flags of a war-ship, we passed like +a cannon-ball, leaving 'em in a cloud of dust as thick as a Texas +sand-storm. And the funniest part was that I didn't, somehow, care a +dern. I was on a new basis, an' believed in it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know I advised—" Henley began, but the eager clerk broke in:</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was it; you started me on my new line, and it was the act of +a friend. It was that advice that saved me. But I reckon it was the +sight of that sap-headed idiot with my girl that did most of it. Well, +to come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> to the end, as soon as Julia and her dude got to the campground +she lit out of his buggy and made a bee-line to whar me and Carrie was +setting under the trees waiting for the first hymn. She stopped right +square in front of me as mad as a wet hen.</p> + +<p>"'What did you mean by throwing dust on us?' she asked, as red as a +beet, her eyes flashing sparks. Right then I felt just a little +inclination to take back water, but I remembered, our talk t'other day, +and told myself it was now or never, and that the worm had turned over a +new leaf. Carrie had dropped her handkerchief, an' I sprung up and put +it back in her lap with a bow, taking a grip on myself while in the act. +Then I looked Julia in the eyes and said:</p> + +<p>"'I couldn't hold my hoss in, Miss Julia; he's a high-stepper, and it +makes 'im hopping mad to see common stock ahead of 'im. The only thing +to do was to let 'im pass everything in sight.'</p> + +<p>"She stared at me like she thought I'd lost my senses, and then she +said, 'Well, you ought to apologize; any gentleman would after covering +a lady with dust from a dirty road.'</p> + +<p>"'But it wasn't my fault,' I told her, with a grin. 'It is my hoss's +fault. If anybody apologizes it ought to be him, and he can't talk half +as good as he can trot.' Gee whiz, but wasn't she mad? She was splotched +with red and white all over, and the purtiest thing, Alf, that you ever +laid eyes on. She whirled away and went back to her drummer. He had put +the buggy-seat under a tree in sight of where me an' Carrie sat, and, +knowing she was looking, I laid myself out to be pleasant to my partner. +I had to pass by Julia and her dude to get to the spring, and I fetched +water for Carrie every hour in the day, and always went whistling a jig. +At twelve o'clock some of the folks along with Julia come over and +invited me and Carrie to dump our basket in with theirs and all eat +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>together, but me and Carrie refused, and had ourn on a grassy slant in +plain sight of the rest. It was the first frolic I'd ever had with +Julia, and I shore did like it. I dunno, but I reckon it was the way she +acted that made me keep it up. Then, after dinner, when Carrie went to +Mrs. Wilson's tent to rest up a little, Julia saw me smoking at the +spring, and come straight to me. She had a sort o' give-in look, and yet +was proud and cold.</p> + +<p>"'I want to know,' said she, 'what you mean by fetching that old maid +out here.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't know as she's so almighty old,' said I, as independent as a +wood-sawyer, and yet scared half out o' my mind. 'I don't know but what +it is a sort of comfort to go with women old enough to be sensible once +in a while.'</p> + +<p>"That made her madder'n ever, but, you see, I was making her come to me +with complaints, and that had never happened before. She stood punching +at the ground with her blue parasol and looking every now and then +toward Mrs. Wilson's tent like she was afraid Carrie would come. Then +all at once I saw that her pretty lips was quivering. I was dying to +grab her, Alf, and confess the whole dang trick, but I remembered your +talk and helt out.</p> + +<p>"'I see,' said she, with a sigh, 'you don't mean what you've been saying +to me all this time.'</p> + +<p>"I looked her straight in the eyes, Alf, and let 'er have it right from +the shoulder good and fast. 'I tell you, Julia,' said I, 'I'm a marrying +man. I'm tired of living alone in the back end of a store with just a +house-cat for company, while men no better are toasting their shins at a +cheerful family fire. I'm tired of fooling. Carrie may not have as many +dudes at her beck and call as some I know, but she knows what she wants +in the man-line and won't take all eternity to decide.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, you are cruel! You are heartless!' Julia said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> and then she +busted out crying. Then, before we knowed it, me and her was walking in +the woods, 'long a narrow, shady road. She said, Alf, that she'd loved +me good and true all along and wanted to quit everything that was +foolish and settle down. We are going to be married Christmas, and, Alf, +I'm so happy I could holler at the top of my voice. If I don't sell +goods to-day there won't be a customer in forty miles of the store."</p> + +<p>Henley nodded slowly. "The thing worked," he said, "and I'm glad. The +only thing I hate about it is that we had to fool that poor woman to do +it. But Carrie was acting wrong with that boy. I had to do it to save +him and his old mammy. We must make it up to Carrie some way. We'll find +her a husband if we have to advertise in the papers and put up cash +inducements. She's got a mischievous tongue and lots of malice, but hard +luck fetched 'em on her."</p> + +<p>"Alf, you are a good chap," Cahews said, with emotion. "I know well +enough you ain't any too happy at home—a blind man could see that—and +yet you are always trying to help others."</p> + +<p>Henley's kindly eyes wavered as they rested on those of his friend. "My +wife is doing the best she can, too, Jim. I don't blame her. In fact, I +blame myself. When that fellow went off and died I ought to have left +her alone with her grief, but I was blinded by the desire to have what +I'd tried so long to win. I reckon I took an unfair advantage of her at +a time when she wasn't in a mood to fight off anything. Now, let's get +to work. I've got lots to do."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/030.png" alt="A" /></span> + +S was his custom on Sunday mornings, Henley accompanied his wife and +the Wrinkles to church service in Chester on the day Long was expected +to pay his visit to Dixie. Henley and the old man fell in leisurely +behind the two women. The day was fine, being one of those rare June +days which had the moderate temperature of spring.</p> + +<p>As they came within sight of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley noticed a +sleek pair of horses and a stylish trap held by a negro boy at the gate, +and knew that the girl's suitor had arrived. He fancied that the couple +might pass him on his way to church, and in his mind's eye he saw +himself waving a cordial salutation to them. It was not, however, until +the church was reached and he had conducted his party to their usual +seats that Dixie and her escort arrived. Accustomed as the congregation +was to direct its attention to the door as much as the pulpit, at least +before the services began, all eyes were turned thither when a sudden +commotion at the front showed that something of an unusual nature had +occurred. The fact was that Long's driver, being unfamiliar with the +ways of a place much smaller than his own town, had driven the prancing, +snorting pair close to the door in the effort to land his passengers on +the steps, and his loud, "Woah dar, blast yo' skins!" rang clearly +through the resonant building. As it was, the coming of a bridal pair +themselves could not have attracted more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>attention. Every pivotal head +turned on its axis; even the visiting parson, with the huge Bible on his +thin knees, half rose that he might peer over the pulpit behind which he +sat.</p> + +<p>Dixie, in her new gown and new hat, was the very embodiment of easy +self-possession as she piloted her escort to a seat in the middle of the +room. Long, red and perspiring, and rigged out in all the splendor of +the haberdasher's art, even to boots that screamed in pain, had the air +of a social laborer who was worthy of his hire. As soon as he was seated +he reached for Dixie's fan and began waving it to and fro with the +conscientious regularity of a pendulum, thereby increasing his warmth +and not lessening Dixie's.</p> + +<p>Sheer astonishment clutched all observers. The women bent their necks +and stared, and the men winked at one another comically.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Henley noticed that Carrie Wade was immediately behind him, and +he felt a sharp twinge of conscience over the wan and desperate +expression of her face. She had seen, and was staring down into her lap +and slowly twirling her bloodless fingers. She had heard of Jim Cahews's +engagement and knew that her transient hopes in that direction were +groundless; and now this—this of all things—to see her hated rival in +such a coveted position in the view of all before whom she had been so +systematically maligned.</p> + +<p>But Henley's mind refused to be riveted to Carrie's discomfiture. For +the first time he was seeing his friend Long through new glasses. He +was, indeed, as Dixie had hinted, a rather uncouth individual, and this +fault was not lessened by his flashy attire and juxtaposition to so much +innate refinement in the person of his companion.</p> + +<p>After the service, as they were leaving the church, Henley saw that +three-fourths of the congregation, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> least, had deliberately paused +outside, and were watching the Carlton man assist his partner into the +shining trap. They stood as if transfixed, and regarded the pair till +they had disappeared down the road in the direction of Dixie's home.</p> + +<p>That morning before sunrise old Wrinkle had gone to his watermelon-patch +and plucked a ripe melon. He had put it in the spring-house to keep it +cool, and during the afternoon he served it to the family on the +back-porch. Henley had enjoyed it with the others, and was idly +sauntering about the front-yard when he saw Long leave the Hart cottage +and start back to Carlton. Seeing Henley, he told the driver to stop, +and sprang down to the ground and came to the fence.</p> + +<p>"Well, what progress?" Henley asked. "I saw you at meeting this +morning."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hardly know yet, Alf." Long clutched one of the palings of the +fence with his gloved hand and swung back from it and took a deep +breath. "I hardly know what to say. I'm tickled to some extent, and then +again I hain't, for I hain't as sure of my ground as I'd like to be. +Alf, she's by all odds the finest bolt of calico I ever tried to +unroll—I say <i>unroll</i>, because if she hain't a tight mystery I never +saw one."</p> + +<p>"You mean you can't quite make her out?" suggested Henley, with an +eagerness for which he could hardly account.</p> + +<p>"That's it; you've hit it the first throw out of the box. It looks to +me, Alf, like she's always going to do something that she never gets to, +and not do what she's sure to do when you ain't expecting it. Now, one +thing I counted on as a sure fact before I come out was that after +dinner at her house me 'n her would walk down to the woods where it was +shady and sort o' stroll about and take in the scenery, but not a peg +would she move, although I hinted at it several times. I like old +women—that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> is, you know, I respect 'em in their places—but that pair +was too much of a good thing. They set about where me and Miss Dixie was +every spare minute. I've seen gals love their kin, but this un fairly +dotes on hers. Why, one of 'em couldn't git up to get a drink without +Dixie jumpin' and telling her to set still, that she'd get it for her. +I'm as good as the average in knowing how to handle a woman, Alf, but I +don't profess to know how to court one in a crowd. One of these two is +half blind and t'other is lame, but that didn't help me out, for they +didn't let their tongues rest a second. They kept alluding to some chap +or other that was dead. They said they hadn't ever seen him, but kept +talking about his picture and wondering if he looked like me, and how +he'd like it to see me there, and so on. Seemed like the girl wanted to +shut that talk off, for she told 'em several times to be quiet and to +remember what they had promised her."</p> + +<p>"Women are all hard to understand." There was a knowing twinkle in +Henley's eyes, which he averted from Long's anxious gaze. "I reckon +Dixie thought you ought to get acquainted with the family if you and her +are to come to any permanent understanding."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so," Long agreed, wearily. "But I have enough dealings with old +rag-chawers in my business through the week not to want a Sunday off +when I get with my own sort. But this un is a prize, Alf, and worth any +man's trouble to get her. I'll never forget that dinner if I live to be +a hundred. I had to rise early to get a start from town, and the ride +kind o' whetted my appetite to a sharp edge, so that I was really ready +for anything she wanted to pass; but, geewhilikins! when we all slid our +chairs out into that dining-room, where everything was as white as snow +and shiny as a new dollar, and where green things was stuck about all +around, I begun to know what high living was. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> she told me she'd +cooked every dab of it herself. Just think of that, and on top of it +rigged up like she did and went to meeting as fresh and cool as a rose +under dewy leaves! I made up my mind, as I set there and ate all that +good stuff, and saw her at the head of the table fingering things in +such a dainty way, that I'd have her at the head of my table in a fine, +new house, or bust a trace. I'm to come out again next Sunday. In the +mean time I'm going to try to think up some way to choke that old pair +of hens off my roost."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they'll let you alone after a while," Henley said. "You see, you +are a novelty right now. You keep on. You wouldn't want a girl that +would throw her arms round your neck on the first visit."</p> + +<p>"No, I reckon not," Long agreed, slowly, "and still I don't like the +uncertainty, either. Looks like she's studying me all the time, and +ain't any too well pleased, at that. I don't know; I reckon she's got me +rattled to some extent. I know what I want; I want <i>her</i>, and the sooner +I'm easy in my mind the sooner I'll be fit for business." Long glanced +at the sinking sun. "I must be on the move; take care of yourself, Alf, +and pray for me. You've put me on the track of a good thing, and if I +win I'll be yours for life."</p> + +<p>The next morning, as Henley was on his way to the village, he saw Dixie +in her peanut-patch on the side of the road. She seemed to be carefully +inspecting the vine-covered mounds in the mellow soil, for he saw her +stoop now and then and lift the vines and peer beneath them. Vaulting +over the fence, he was soon by her side.</p> + +<p>"Always at work, rain or shine," he said, lightly, as she glanced up and +smiled a cheery greeting.</p> + +<p>"I've hit it right on these goobers, Alfred," she said. "I pulled up a +vine the other day and washed it in the branch. I'm keeping it for the +fair at Carlton. It is a dandy; the goobers on it are as thick as beads +on a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> strand, and already as big as your thumb. Folks laughed at me for +putting in five acres in this ground, but I knew what I was about. If +they go high this fall, I'll make up for the loss on my wheat and hay."</p> + +<p>"From the looks of things yesterday," he said, "it don't seem like +you'll have to bother much more about raising anything."</p> + +<p>"I saw you looking at us," she returned, gravely. "In fact, I saw +everybody in the house. It was an awful day, Alfred, and I wouldn't go +through another like it for no sap-headed man that ever walked the +earth. I was up before the break of day, scrubbing, sweeping, baking by +candle-light, and what was it all for—good gracious, what was it for? +For weeks I'd counted on it as a great event, just to feel, down in my +heart when it was all over, like a big fool."</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought—I supposed—" Henley began in perplexity, but she +interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"I hate sham, Alfred, and that whole thing was sham—sham, sham, from +first to last. Because I've been beat down and sneered at all this time +by a silly woman, and because my burden of life looked hard, I let +myself be tempted. Do you know, I believe Providence is trying to pound +some sense into me. I felt kind o' bad a year ago when that feller +didn't come to time, but, Alfred, I know myself better than I did then. +I thought I'd have stood up at the altar with a man I never saw, but +I'll bet now that I'd have backed out at the sight of him. I was blinded +the same way about this last one. When you told me about him, in your +kind way, I thought he was just what I was looking for, but when you +fetched him to me that day at Carlton it was an awful comedown. I can't +explain it to you, but, somehow, I felt like he was butting in with his +big head and loud voice between me and another one I was expecting."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see. Long don't quite fill the bill," Henley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> said. "I was +afraid there might be a hitch somewhere, and he has all the essentials, +too—that is, I mean—" But Henley hardly knew what he meant.</p> + +<p>"There is just one main essential, to use your big word," she said, her +fine, eyes resting on his in a wise gaze, "and that is love—the genuine +article. At one time I thought it was a fine house, and things to wear, +and comfort for them I love and protect that I needed, but it was +downright, unselfish love for somebody. Alfred, to my dying day I shall +shudder over all that parade yesterday. The man or woman who attempts to +get pleasure out of sitting in a finer seat, or living in a finer house, +or wearing finer duds than his neighbor, or even his enemy, will miss +it, unless he is of a low order and taste. When I saw all them good +folks gaping and staring at me like I was a comet with a tail, right +there in the house of God, while a good man was teaching humility, and +prayers, and songs was going up to the throne—I say, while all that was +taking place I felt like a cheat and a swindler hiding under plumes, +clap-trap flowers, and flounces that ud fade. I looked across and saw +Carrie—poor Carrie!—with that blank stare of death in her eyes. She +seemed to say, 'You've whipped me clean to the earth, Dix; I'm done; I'm +all in; but have mercy, don't you see how awful it is?' She may have +thought I was crowing over her, but I wasn't—God knows I wasn't. During +the first prayer I knelt down and prayed for her and begged forgiveness +for my silly caper. The poor thing has lost even her boy-lover. She's +yearning for something she may never lay her hands on. As God is my +judge, if I could give her this man that was here yesterday I'd do it at +the drop of a hat. Alfred, I don't want him, nohow. I thought I might +come round to it, but every word he says, every move he makes, goes +against me. If I tied myself to a man like that it would be one +continual fight to approve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> of him. Oh, he was so puffed up yesterday +that I wanted to pull his ears and make him see straight—talking all +the time about the dash we'd cut and the attention we attracted. I was +guilty of the crime and wanted to forget it, but it was all he could +talk about—well, that is, except one <i>other</i> thing."</p> + +<p>"One other thing?" Henley echoed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was marry, marry, marry; wife, wife, wife—even before the +home-folks. He couldn't put a bite of my cooking in his big, red mouth +without saying what a blessing it would be to come to a table loaded +that way three times a day. I say! I had to laugh. There I was figuring +on using him to the end that I could set back in a rocking-chair and fan +myself and tell a nigger cook to rake any old scraps together and not +bother me with the details, while he saw me with my sleeves rolled up +humped over a hot stove, or in a cloud of steam at a wash-tub. He said +he could pay me the compliment of being the only girl who loved hard +work as much as his mother had till it killed her—<i>loved</i> it, mind you! +Think of drudging all your life for a man that thought you loved dirty +work and was granting you a favor by keeping it piled up around you +while he was lying around a store telling a bunch of clerks what to do, +and wondering how long it would be before time to eat. Yes, I felt mean +all through the service and after he left. Little Joe sneaked over after +dark to get me to teach him his geography, and while I was doing it I +put my arm around his poor, little, wasted neck and hugged him. He +looked up and begun to cry and kissed me. Alfred, there ain't no +mistaking the article when you run across it. It is real love I have for +that boy—the love of a mother for her child that is suffering. I went +as far with him as the fence, and as me and him stood together in the +starlight I felt, somehow, that there was just one thing standing +between me and God, and that was the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>unworthy thing I had been doing +that day. I am thankful for my burdens, for under them I am free and +exalted. Love like I have for Joe shows what the other love ought to be +like, and until I yearn to help a man out of his troubles and cling to +him and want him by me every minute—until then I'll not sell myself. +You can't marry for pay and be honest, for you know you can't give value +for value. You'd have to act a part, and that would be a living lie that +would pall on you, and sicken your very soul."</p> + +<p>"So you're not going to see Long any more?" Henley said, carried out of +himself by her winsome logic.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's coming Sunday. I'll get through the day in some fashion or +other, but I'm not going to tole 'im along like a pig following an ear +of corn. Some girls would, whether they intended to take him or not, but +I've been through the rubs and can't afford to be so silly. My natural +pride won't let me chop him off after the first visit, for folks would +say he turned me down, and, with all my good intentions, I can't stand +that. I don't know why, but I can't. I reckon we want what is ours, if +it is as empty as a bottle full of wind, and, in the fellow's way, he +<i>does</i> want me. A girl can be an old maid with much more content if +she's had what the world would call a solid chance."</p> + +<p>When he had left her and was walking down the road Henley paused and +looked back and saw her making her way homeward through her +cotton-field. "I might have known she'd kick him," he said, tenderly. +"No man alive is worthy of her—no man ever could be. She's a jewel +dropped from the skies. She is as sweet and innocent as a baby, and as +strong and brave as a lion. I wonder why God didn't let <i>me</i>—I wonder +why it was that <i>I</i> happened not to—"</p> + +<p>A flush of shame mounted to his face. His heart seemed to stand still. +He trudged onward, his gaze on the ground. "She is doing her duty," he +muttered, "and she is not complaining. I must do mine."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/031.png" alt="O" /></span> + +N the afternoon of the following day Dixie came to the store. At the +moment Cahews was busy with some customers on the side of the house +devoted to dry-goods, and Henley was at his desk in the rear drawing a +cheque to pay for some cotton he had bought from a farmer. Dixie walked +straight toward him, but Henley did not see her till she was quite +close, then he was struck by the unusual pallor and tense gravity of her +face. He sprang up at once and proffered a chair.</p> + +<p>"I want to talk to you," she said, her lips quivering, and she motioned +toward the waiting farmer. "Finish with him; I'm in no hurry."</p> + +<p>Henley complied, a startled concern for her rendering him all but +incapable of resuming the business with the customer. He had to go out +to the farmer's wagon to read the marks on the cotton-bale for record, +and even as he made the notes in his book and directed the unloading of +the wagon he was saying to himself: "She's in trouble—something has +gone wrong. She never was knocked out like that before."</p> + +<p>On his return he entered at the side-door, and as he was crossing the +yard to reach it he caught sight of her when she thought she was +unobserved. She was pressing her hands to her face, and her whole form +seemed to have wilted. She heard his step and essayed to assume a light +mood of greeting, but it was a poor pretence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> at best. She smiled as +she looked up, but it was a cold, bloodless effort.</p> + +<p>"I may as well tell you, Alfred, that I'm in trouble," she began, +tremulously, as he sat down near her. "You've always said I had a long +head on me for a girl, but I reckon I can manage just so far, and not a +bit farther. I can plant and sow and gather and reap, and even market +small dribs of things, but I'm a fool in big business matters, and I've +gone and got my foot in it. I'm up to my neck in the mire, and I'm +sinking inch by inch."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong, Dixie?" he said, consolingly. "You mustn't let yourself +give up this way. It ain't like you."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's about my farm," she said, and she paused to steady her +voice, which seemed to fail her.</p> + +<p>"I see," Henley said. "Old Welborne is charging you too high interest. +You ought to shift the mortgage to somebody more human—somebody with at +least a thimbleful of soul. That man is the hardest taskmaster on earth. +He'd skin a flea for its hide and tallow."</p> + +<p>"Mortgage? I'm afraid you wouldn't exactly call it a mortgage, Alfred. +Listen; I've just got to tell you about it. You are my friend. I know +you'll tell me the best thing to do, and I'll abide by your advice. When +I bought the farm from Uncle Tom, who, you remember, wanted to sell out +to move to Alabama when the trade was made, I only had a thousand +dollars ready money, and the price was two thousand. Uncle Tom was +anxious to close out and get away, and so he looked about for somebody +that would lend me the balance. Times was awfully hard then, and nobody +had any money on hand but Welborne, and he said he'd let me have it at a +reasonable rate of interest. Somehow Welborne never would get ready to +make out the papers and turn over the money, and Uncle Tom was nearly +out of his head with worry over the delay."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> + +<p>"One of the old dog's tricks!" Henley said, angrily. "I know him through +and through. But go on; go on."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was the last day before Uncle Tom was to go that Welborne +finally said he was ready and had us come to his office. I haven't got +head enough to tell you all he said, for it was so mixed up. He went on +at a frightful rate about how hard it had been for him to call in money +enough to accommodate us, and finally made a proposition. He said in +order to make himself plumb secure the farm must be bought in his name +and mine as partners, with the understanding that whenever I got the +money I could buy him out. Somehow I felt uneasy then, but Uncle Tom +declared it was plumb fair. Sam Deacon, the young man who was studying +law here then, was in the office, and he told me it was all right and +perfectly safe, and so under all that pressure I consented. I have never +told a soul about it. Somehow the longer it went on the more foolish it +seemed for a girl like me to be in partnership with that old +money-shark, and I was ashamed."</p> + +<p>"Well, even then," said Henley, still perplexed, "your interest must be +safe. I reckon you've had your scare for nothing."</p> + +<p>"I haven't told you all yet," Dixie sighed. "The big rent I've had to +pay him on his half has kept my nose to the grindstone, so that I'm even +deeper in debt to him now than I was at the start."</p> + +<p>"Rent?" exclaimed the storekeeper, staring blandly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, nothing would suit Mr. Welborne but that his part was worth two +hundred a year, and he refused right out to trade any other way."</p> + +<p>A light broke on Henley. He whistled softly, and his brawny hand +clutched his knee like a vise as he leaned forward.</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," he panted, his eyes large in pitying surprise. "He was +dodging the law against usury. He has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> it fixed so that he's making no +violation of law, and yet he is getting at least two and a half times as +much as he'd be entitled to. Instead of eighty dollars a year—eight per +cent.—he's getting two hundred. You've already paid him for the value +of his part over and over. My Lord, my Lord, and you—you who have had +such a hard time! But have you never made any payment at all besides the +rent?"</p> + +<p>"It was all I could do to rake up the two hundred a year," Dixie +answered, huskily. "Once, though, when cotton went high and I had made +six bales, I offered him a hundred dollars to lessen my debt, but he +wouldn't take it. He said it was too little to count, and that new +papers would have to be drawed up to make a proper credit, and for me to +keep it and spend it on some implements I needed. But I haven't told you +the worst yet, Alfred. He now says land has gone down in value, and that +he needs the money he's put in, and that I must buy him out, or him me, +he don't care which, but a transfer has to be made. He says if I hain't +got the money, and refuse his liberal cash offer, the property will have +to be put up at public outcry and settled that way."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Dixie, little friend," Henley said, his tense face furrowed +with sympathy, "you've been in powerful bad hands. Your Uncle Tom never +gave the matter a minute's consideration—all he was after was getting +away to his new home, and that young lawyer that advised you didn't have +the sense of a gnat, or was in old Welborne's pay. The paper is a legal +one, I know, for that old hog has never done a thing he could be handled +for. You've committed yourself into the hands of the slyest, most +unprincipled old thief that ever blinked under the eye of justice. He is +telling you the truth. He can sell you out, according to law, whenever +either he or you are dissatisfied with the contract. He knows you've +improved that place till it is worth double what you paid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> for it, and +he thinks you are in such a tight place that you'll give up in despair +and let him have what you've made by such hard licks. I know that trick, +and it is the lowest and meanest one among traders. He's got you in a +worse fix than you may imagine."</p> + +<p>"But how can the farm be worth as much as you say it is when he says he +is willing to take eight hundred for <i>his</i> half, which cost originally a +thousand?" Dixie wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"That's the old 'give-or-take' dodge," Henley explained. "He's kept his +eye on you, and he's satisfied that you can't possibly raise eight +hundred dollars, and that you will take his eight and be glad to get it. +I could help you out of this in a minute—clean out, for I've got the +idle money and it would tickle me to death to advance it to you, but he +wouldn't sell. He's telling you he'll give or take, but he wouldn't +<i>take</i>; that ain't his dirty game."</p> + +<p>"So he really can sell me out at auction?" Dixie groaned.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but that would be his last resort," Henley said. "He thinks he's +got you under his thumb, and that he'll scare you into accepting his +cash. Wait, keep your seat; let me study over it; there must be some +way. The Lord Almighty wouldn't let a grasping old skunk like that rob a +helpless girl like you. Welborne didn't make you the give-or-take offer +in writing—I'm sure he didn't; he's too slick for that?"</p> + +<p>"No, he drove by home yesterday and called me out to the gate. He says +land has gone down on account of the new railroad passing on the other +side of the mountain, and that we both made a big mistake in paying as +much as we did."</p> + +<p>"The old liar!" Henley cried. "The road's coming to Chester, and he +knows it. He thinks Chester will grow, and your farm will be cut up into +town building sites.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> He's determined to get your property by hook or +crook. Some'n must be done, and that right off. Let me study a minute."</p> + +<p>Henley went to the side-door and looked out. Dixie saw him step down +into the junk-filled yard, and move aimlessly about from one spot to +another, his hands locked behind him. His head was bowed, and his fine, +strong face darkened by a steady frown. Jim Cahews came looking for him +to ask some question, but he waved him away. Dixie heard him cry out +impatiently: "Don't bother me!—let me alone! For the Lord's sake, go +back, go back!"</p> + +<p>Cahews returned to his customer, and Dixie remained seated, her eyes +fixed on Henley. He seemed to have forgotten that she was near; he +seemed scarcely to know where he was himself, for once he drew himself +to a seat on a big dry-goods box and sat swinging his legs to and fro, +his gaze on the cloud-flecked sky. Then the pendulum-like movement, the +pounding of his heels would cease; with a hand clutching the box on +either side of him he would lean forward, lock his feet together beneath +him, and bite his lip. Suddenly he got down and came back to her, a +certain light of decision in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I've tackled a heap of jobs," he said, as he sat down beside her, "and +I've beat old Welborne more than once, but I generally steer clear of +him. I've been trying to think up some way to thwart him, but it is +powerful hard to devise any means to get at him. Now, if we just could +manage to get him to make his give-or-take offer before a witness we'd +have him good and tight, but he'd be too slick to do it. If he did make +it, you see, you could plank down the money I'll lend you and settle the +thing on the spot. Now listen, Dixie, there is only one possible way +open, and that is to trick the old scamp into writing down his offer and +signing it. I know something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> I'd like to try on if you'd forgive me for +the—the false light I'd have to put you in for a few minutes."</p> + +<p>"False light? Why, what do you mean, Alfred?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's like this, amongst business men"—Henley flushed to the +eyes—"now and then two scamps (like me 'n him, for instance) kind o' +join forces against a weaker person and work together in harness like. +Now, if you just wouldn't think too hard of me, I could sort o' let on +to old Welborne, you see, that you was up to your eyes in debt to me, +and that—that the thing had been running on till I was—well, was plumb +tired out, and ready to come down on you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see." A faint smile broke over the girl's shrewd face. "Why, I +wouldn't care what you did or said, Alfred," she cried. "He's trying to +rob me, and I'd have a right to protect myself."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, enough said." Henley fell into an attitude of relief. "You +set here, and I'll run over and chat with him. I may fetch him here, and +if I openly abuse you and dun you to your teeth, you must take it all in +good spirit. You can hang your head and pretend to be sort o' shamed, if +you like; it will help to carry the thing out. Any girl that could sell +that old lion's cage for as much as you did—and in the way you did +it—ought to know how to pull the wool over Welborne's eyes. You see, +when the old devil is made to believe that I'm down on you and +determined to have a settlement, he'll think you are in more desperate +straits than ever. Wait!"</p> + +<p>Henley went to the big iron safe in a corner of the room and counted out +a roll of currency. He folded it tightly and gave it to her. "Stick that +down in your pocket," he said, "and have it ready, and, remember, you +are to let on all the way through that you are willing to sell out, but +before you do so you want his proposition put down in black and white. +He may think it is just some cranky woman's notion, and do it—he may, +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> he may not; our chances hang on that one thing. You are a dead +goner if you don't get that paper."</p> + +<p>"I understand fully," Dixie said, her lips drawn firmly. "The only thing +I don't like is borrowing your money."</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly," Henley snorted. "You are good for it, and I'd rather +lend money to you than anybody else on earth. Don't let that bother +you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't, then," the girl said. "I know you want to help me, and +I'm very thankful for such a friend."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/032.png" alt="C" /></span> + +ROSSING the street diagonally, Henley came to a little two-story frame +building near the post-office. Pausing before the door, he looked in and +saw old Welborne seated at his desk near an open window. The +money-lender was thin, had parchment-like skin, massive eyebrows, and +long, gray hair, which never seemed to have been trimmed, and was massed +on the greasy collar of his faded black alpaca coat. He was past seventy +years of age, and the hand which held his pen shook visibly. Henley went +in, and as he did so old Welborne laid down his pen and turned round in +his revolving-chair. He nodded and grunted, and motioned to a +three-legged stool near the desk.</p> + +<p>Henley sat down on it, and as he did so he drew out a couple of cigars, +and, holding them in the shape of a letter V, he extended them toward +the old man. "I'm advertising a new brand," he said, cordially. "Take +one, and whenever you want a good smoke drop in. You'll find 'em as free +from cabbage-leaves as any in this town. One thing certain, you don't +have to bore a hole through 'em to start circulation."</p> + +<p>"Drumming up trade, eh?" The money-lender smiled as he took the cigar, +and, pinching off the tip with his long thumb-nail, he thrust it between +his gashed and stained teeth. "Well, I don't blame any man for trying to +turn a penny during hard times like these. But, Lord, Alf, you'd make a +living if you was on a bare rock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I +take off my hat to any man that could handle a busted circus like you +did. I wouldn't have touched that pile of junk at your figure if it had +been given to me, and yet—well, every man to his line."</p> + +<p>Henley scratched a match on the sole of his shoe and lighted his cigar. +"I've been just a little afraid that your nephew—that Hank Bradley may +have told you about the little spat me and him had at the store the +other day—"</p> + +<p>"I heard it," Welborne broke in, with an indifferent smile. "I was +standing in the door; he was full; he ought to have been kicked out; you +done right; he's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, but don't talk to me +about him. I pay him what is coming to him, board him for next to +nothing, and there my responsibility ends. I'm not fighting his +battles—huh, I guess not! How's trade over your way?"</p> + +<p>"N. G." Henley puffed, squinting his right eye to avoid the smoke which +curled up from the end of his cigar, as he looked absently at the dingy +window-panes and the cobwebs hanging from the cracked and bulging +plastering overhead. "We can sell plenty on tick, but getting paid is +the devil. Jim Cahews is a good man, but he can't say no—to a +petticoat, anyway. While I was away he went it rather reckless. Why, he +let one little woman that has heretofore been the brag of the county get +in clean up to her neck."</p> + +<p>Old Welborne ceased smoking; his dim, blue eyes twinkled. "I'll bet a +dollar to a ginger-cake I know who you mean," he said, eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe you do and maybe you don't," Henley said. "But I've had +enough of her foolishness and promising and never coming to time. I'm +not in business for my health. She's a neighbor of mine, and I always +admired her plucky fight, but charity begins at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> home. I'm not running +an orphan asylum, nor an old woman's home. Jim misunderstood me, anyway. +I told 'im her account was all right, and for him not to bear down too +hard on her, and I went to Texas and forgot all about it. But, holy +smoke! when I got home and looked at the books I was fairly staggered at +the figures. She's over there at the store now, and I had to talk to her +straight, and she won't get a bit deeper in my debt. I've got to call a +halt."</p> + +<p>"I think I might set your mind at rest on what she owes you," Welborne +said, with an unctuous smile. "There is no use beating about the bush, +Henley, you know she's in debt to me, and you've come over to see if I +can help you out. Well, I can. I am in the shape to do it. Me 'n you +have clashed several times in our deals and had hard feelings, but there +is no use keeping up strife. We can work together now. Me and her own +that farm in partnership, and I've had enough of it. I've made a fair +give-or-take offer, and nothing is to prevent her from closing out and +paying you what she owes you. I've got eight hundred dollars in cash +ready to hand her at any minute."</p> + +<p>"You don't say!" Henley's look of gratified surprise was perfect. "Well, +she's in a better fix than I thought. She ain't much of a hand to tell +her business, and I thought she had—well, about run through her pile."</p> + +<p>"She can get the money if she will have common-sense," said Welborne; +"but women never know how to 'tend to business, and she may act stubborn +to the end and force me to put up the land for sale. It wouldn't fetch +much, and you and me'd both lose by it. The best thing to do is to make +her have sense, and if you will—if you will talk straight to her about +your debt, maybe she'll sell out and be done with it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I can talk straight enough, if you'll leave it to me," Henley +said, with what looked like a frown of chronic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> resentment. "It makes me +mad to think she'll keep me out of my money while you are offering her +enough to square off."</p> + +<p>"Well, go over to the store and see what you can do to bring her to her +senses," the money-lender proposed, with a smirk which twisted his +sallow visage into a grimace. "If you can bring her to reason, we'll +both get—get what's due us."</p> + +<p>"All right," Henley said, in a tone of gratitude. "You come on over in a +minute. I'll tell her I've heard of your offer, and that I won't stand +anymore foolishness."</p> + +<p>Henley sauntered back to the store. His face was set and colorless as he +approached Dixie. She glanced up, and he was shocked by the look of +despair in her great, sorrowful eyes.</p> + +<p>"He's coming over," Henley said. "Everything is cocked and primed. He +thinks you may take his money—he thinks I'm going to <i>make</i> you do it. +You needn't talk much, but stick to it that you want his offer writ down +in black and white and will have it before you'll move a peg. I'll write +it and have it ready for him to sign. If he does, we are solid; if not, +we are lost. I don't know that I ever tackled anything quite as ticklish +as this, for he is as wary and sly as a fox. We mustn't give 'im time to +think, if we can help it. Sh! there he is now. Don't mind anything I +say, no matter how harsh it sounds—remember, I'm working for your good, +and using fire to stop fire."</p> + +<p>She nodded and smiled knowingly, but said nothing, for the money-lender +was approaching. When Welborne was quite near, Henley suddenly said +aloud: "You are a woman, but I ain't going to stand any more +foolishness. You've been saying all this time that you can't get the +money, and yet here is a cash offer of eight hundred dollars staring you +smack-dab in the face."</p> + +<p>"I never had the offer until this morning," Dixie said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> with what he +recognized as astonishing diplomacy. Her face was out of sight under the +hood of her sunbonnet, her handkerchief to her eyes.</p> + +<p>"She's willing to do what's right," Henley said to Welborne. "The only +thing she holds out for is to have the proposition down in writing. Of +course, there is no need of it, but women know nothing about business, +and will have every detail carried out, and so I scratched it down here. +It is a plain give-or-take offer of eight hundred dollars either way, +and she ain't in no fix to refuse."</p> + +<p>Henley dipped a pen in the ink and held the paper toward the old man. +There was an incipient wave of innate distrust in Welborne's manner as +he glanced from the bowed form of the girl to that of the waiting +storekeeper.</p> + +<p>"Let her have her way about it," Henley advised. "Women will have +everything complete or you can't do a blessed thing with 'em. It don't +mean anything to you; you've made her a fair give-or-take offer."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course I have," Welborne said, conquering his qualms, and with +a quivering hand he signed the paper. He had no sooner done it than +Henley laid it face downward on a blotting-pad and, with a steady hand, +stroked its back. The eyes he fixed on Dixie, who was covertly watching +him, fairly danced as he raised the paper and folded it carefully.</p> + +<p>"Now, you two have got the proposition down in fair legal shape, and +nothing stands between you and a deal. Miss Dixie, you are just a woman, +and may not know the ways of the business world, so I want to tell you +on my honor that this is what all fair-minded men call an absolutely +straight proposition, and when you've acted on it, it would be wrong for +you to ever say anybody coerced you or took advantage of you. You +understand that you've got a right either to pay eight hundred and own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +the farm, or take eight hundred and sell your half. Is that plain to +you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand it perfectly," Dixie answered, glancing first at him +and then at the expectant and suave money-lender.</p> + +<p>"And you understand it, too, don't you, Mr. Welborne?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand it," the eager old man replied, craftily. "And you +know, Alf Henley, that I wouldn't have made as liberal an offer to +anybody but this girl. She's in a tight fix and needs the money, and the +farm has gone down to less 'n half of what it was worth when me and her +bought it."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Miss Dixie," Henley said, significantly, and he held the +paper tightly in his strong hand, "you'll have to decide which thing you +intend to do."</p> + +<p>"I've already decided," the girl said, looking at Welborne with a placid +stare, "and I'm going to be satisfied. I know the farm isn't any good +now, and will perhaps be lower when the railroad is built the other side +of the mountain, but it is the only home we have, and I've decided to +buy it."</p> + +<p>"<i>Buy</i> it?" Welborne gasped, and stared as if unable to grasp her +meaning. "You don't mean that you—"</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" Henley cried, "this <i>is</i> a surprise. Here I've been rowing +you up Salt River for your puny little debt to me, and you now say you +are able to own a big chunk of real estate unencumbered. Why, you must +have struck oil somewhere. My, my, my!"</p> + +<p>"I don't tell my business to everybody." Dixie, now standing, had thrust +her hand into the pocket of her skirt and was drawing out the bills. +"Here's the money, Mr. Welborne."</p> + +<p>A snort that could have been heard to the front door issued from +Welborne's fluttering nostrils. He pushed the money from him, writhed +and tottered, and as he glared furiously at Henley he screamed:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's a trick put up between you. I see it, but I won't be buncoed in no +such way. Do you hear me?—no such way!"</p> + +<p>He was turning off when Henley, now a different man, stepped before him. +"You are going to act fair for once, you old thief," he said, a gray +look of determination about his mouth and in his fixed eyes. "You've +been swindling this orphan girl all these years, and you are going to +abide by your own signed contract. You are going to do it, or, by all +that's holy, I'll head a gang of mountain-men that will drag you out of +your bed and lay a hundred lashes on your bare back."</p> + +<p>"I'll see you in hell first!" Welborne shrieked, and, darting past +Henley, he hurried from the store as fast as his tottering gait would +take him.</p> + +<p>"We lost, after all!" Dixie cried, and, sinking back in her chair, the +money clutched in her hand, she burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"Not yet, not <i>plumb</i> yet, little girl!" Henley was unconscious of the +vast tenderness of his tone. "Don't cry; be the brave little trick +you've always been."</p> + +<p>"I'm not thinking of myself, really I'm not," she sobbed. "But my mother +and aunt have heard about it, and they are awfully upset. They love the +place, and the thought of leaving and being destitute is running them +crazy."</p> + +<p>"Look here. Let me have the money," Henley said, his eyes flashing +dangerously. "You go home and be easy. Leave him to me. He sha'n't rob +you like that; I'll drag his bones from his dirty hide and rattle 'em +through the streets before I'll let 'im. This is a Christian community, +and God rules."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't bother any more," Dixie said, and as she put the money into +his hands she clung to them tenderly and appealingly. "Blood has been +spilt over matters like this, Alfred, and the whole thing ain't worth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +it. His nephew—I intended to warn you before—Hank Bradley is your +enemy, and now Welborne is, and between them"—she broke off with a +convulsive sob, but still clung pleadingly to his hands.</p> + +<p>"I don't care if his whole layout is up in arms agin me; he sha'n't rob +you. You are the sweetest, dearest, most suffering little girl the sun +ever shone on, and I'll fight for you as long as there is a speck of +life in me. You go home. I'll come to you the very minute it is +settled."</p> + +<p>"And you won't—oh, Alfred, please don't—please don't—for my sake, +don't have trouble with him. You're hot-tempered, and I've let you get +wrought up. Don't you see that it don't make any odds to me?"</p> + +<p>"All right, then," he said, smiling, and yet she saw that his smile was +only on the surface. "I promise we won't fight about it. I'll try to +bring him to his senses in some other way. Now, go home. I'll come out +as soon as I possibly can."</p> + +<p>It was after nightfall before he saw her again. As he was nearing her +cottage in the vague starlight he saw a figure of some one in the +fence-corner of her pasture which touched the road near his own land. He +surmised that it was she, and that she was there waiting for him, though +her head was bowed to the top rail of the fence and he couldn't see her +face. There was a strip of grass on the roadside, and he walked upon it +that it might deaden his tread till he was close upon her. As it was, he +reached her side without attracting her attention. Then something +clutched all his senses and held him like a dead thing in his tracks, +for he heard her praying in a sweet, suffering voice that lifted him +with it to the very throne of thrones.</p> + +<p>"Oh, God, my Maker, my Saviour, my Redeemer," he heard her saying, "give +me the strength to bear it and let no harm come to my dear, dear friend. +I can<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> bear the loss of my home, but not to have harm come to him. Oh, +Lord, help—" She raised her head, and their eyes met and clung +together. He had a folded paper in his hand, and he extended it to her. +His voice rose and broke in a wave of huskiness: "Here is the deed, +Dixie, little girl," he said. "The farm is yours. The transaction is +recorded at the court-house. Nothing can take it from you now."</p> + +<p>"Mine, Alfred, mine, did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I had trouble; he died hard; he saw it was all up with him after +he'd signed that agreement, but it was like pulling eye-teeth to get the +deed made out. He'd write a line, and then throw down the pen and cry +and whine like a baby. I'm ashamed to say it, but once I got mad and +caught him by that slim neck of his and pushed him down under his desk +and held him there. My thumb was in his throat. I clutched too tight. I +thought I'd killed him. The Lord must have restrained me. He was black +in the face and as limber as a rag. It was then that he give in. He'd +have held out to the end, but I was holding something over him. Women +all over the county are lending him money at a low rate, and I showed +him that if this trick of his agin you was published they'd lose faith +in him and make him pay up. He saw his danger and give in. But, my! how +it rankles. It's the first time he was ever whipped to a dead finish."</p> + +<p>With the deed in her hand Dixie stood staring at him, her beautiful +mouth twitching with emotion, her great eyes aglow with joy. She started +to speak, but a sob rose within her and she lowered her head to the +rail. The beams of the rising moon fell on her exquisite neck; her +wonderful tresses lay massed on her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Don't—don't cry, Dixie," he said. "I can't bear it." He laid his hand +on her head and let it rest there gently.</p> + +<p>Presently she looked up, caught his hand in both of hers and pressed her +lips to it. "You are the sweetest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> best, noblest man in the world, +Alfred. I can't thank you. I'll—I'll choke. I'm so—so happy. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>He stood at the fence and watched her till she had disappeared in the +cottage, and then, like a man in a delightful, bewildering dream, he +turned his face toward the lights in his own house.</p> + +<p>Old Wrinkle was waiting for him at the gate, and he held it open for +him. "Your supper—sech as it is—is on the table waitin' for you," he +said, picking his teeth with a splinter from the fence. "Ma got it ready +for you; I've had mine; I made me some mush out of the yaller corn-meal +Pomp fetched from the mill. Mush-an'-milk, with a dab o' cream an' a +pinch o' salt, is all right to sleep on. We've had a day of it; Hettie +has gone all to flinders, and went to bed at sundown with a crackin' +headache, an' eyes swelled as big as squashes. Her uncle Ben is in +trouble. He sent her a letter fifty pages in duration by one of his +niggers. As well as I can make out betwixt Hettie's spasms her uncle +Ben's fine Baltimore lady has turned him down. Thar seems to be a Yankee +feller in the way. She advanced a hundred reasons fer deciding not to +retire to lonely mountain-life. She's riled up, for one thing, on the +nigger question—says she understands a lady has to go armed to the +teeth just to walk from the well to the back porch, an' that she never +had learned to shoot, nohow. The Yankee feller has more scads than Ben, +an' has bought an estate in New York City which he lays at her feet as +an inducement. Het an' Ben must be slices off the same block, for his +letter was soaked in salt water, an' she had to run a hot flatiron over +hern before it would do to send. He writ her that she was the only +faithful woman on earth—he was hintin' at Dick's burial arrangements, I +reckon—an' that if she was thar he'd put his head in her lap an' have a +good cry. They would have had to swap laps if they had been together +to-day, for Het<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> needed a foot-tub to take care of her overflow. Well, +I'm keepin' you from your royal banquet. You'll find it on the +dinner-table, with the cloth all drawed up over it like a bundle ready +for the wash. Ma tied it up that way to keep the cat out of it. I don't +think the cat 'u'd care for any of it, but I reckon Jane 'lowed the +thing mought paw it over in the hope o' strikin' some'n worth while."</p> + +<p>Conscious of little that the old man was saying, Henley passed on into +the dimly lighted farm-house, experiencing a vague sense of relief that +he was not just then to face his wife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/033.png" alt="O" /></span> + +NE evening shortly after this Henley was returning from the store about +an hour later than was his custom. He was nearing Dixie Hart's cottage, +when, in the clear moonlight, he saw the girl emerge from the little +apple-orchard behind her barn and come rapidly toward him. Her glance +was on the ground, and she had evidently not seen him. As she drew near +where he stood waiting, he noted that her head was bare, and that she +had a medicine-bottle in her hand. He noted, too, from her gait and +hurried manner, that she was greatly disturbed. She was about to pass +him when he called out, cheerily, "Where away, in such a hurry?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" She looked up and stopped. "You scared me, Alfred. I couldn't +imagine who it was. I'm going over to Sam Pitman's. Joe is +sick—powerful sick. If I am any judge, it is pneumonia, and a bad case +at that."</p> + +<p>"Pneumonia!" he echoed, aghast. "I didn't know anything was wrong with +him."</p> + +<p>"It's been coming on some time," she said. "He caught an awful cold. You +know the day it rained so hard and the creek got out of banks? I was +trying to cross the ford below Pitman's in my wagon. I thought I could +make it all right, but the current washed the wagon in a hole, and old +Bob couldn't touch bottom. The wagon was floating like a boat, and he +finally got stuck in the mud with just his head and neck out and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +couldn't budge. Joe was digging sprouts in the field on the right-hand +side, and ran down to me. I yelled at him not to come in, but he struck +out toward me with his clothes on, swimming like a dog. He got to me and +helped me out in the water on a high place, and made me stand there +while he worked and tugged at the trace-chains for twenty minutes till +he finally unhitched Bob and pulled him out of the mire. Then he helped +me out and dragged the wagon ashore."</p> + +<p>"Plucky little chap!" cried Henley.</p> + +<p>"But he's getting paid for it," Dixie said, bitterly. "He got overheated +in the cold mountain-water, and he is in a bad fix, Alfred. I know when +a sick person is dangerous, and he is."</p> + +<p>She was moving on toward Pitman's now, and Henley was keeping step by +her side. "You mustn't take it so hard," he said, in an effort to calm +her. "It will come out all right."</p> + +<p>"It is a ticklish thing, pneumonia is," she said; "and he hasn't got a +doctor. Sam Pitman says it isn't anything but a cold, and he won't send +for one. I was over there twice to-day, but he don't even want me to +nurse him. I've got my things all done up at home and the folks in bed, +and I'm going to stay with him all night if I have to have a +knock-down-and-drag-out row to do it. I told Sam Pitman that I'd pay for +the doctor out of my own pocket, but that just made him madder. He says +I'm trying to come under his roof and run his affairs, and that I +sha'n't do it. He may not let me in now. I don't know, but he is one of +the devil's imps, if there ever was one. Mrs. Pitman is a little better, +but he's got her under his thumb. She won't raise her voice when he is +around."</p> + +<p>"We must have a doctor, that's certain," declared Henley. "You walk on +and I'll run to town and bring Doctor Stone. He knows his business, and +he'll take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> charge of the case if I back him. If Pitman tries to hinder +us I'll jail him as sure as he's a foot high."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Alfred, I wish you would get the doctor. I'm so glad I met you. I +was worried to death. I know how to nurse in ordinary cases, but +pneumonia is so treacherous. Hurry, please; I'll never forget you for +this."</p> + +<p>Twenty minutes later Henley entered the gate of Sam Pitman's diminutive +farm-house. Three watch-dogs came from beneath the little front porch, +but, recognizing the visitor, they stood wagging their tails cordially +and uttering low whines of welcome. There was a broken harrow, with +rusty iron teeth, leaning against the house near the log steps; a +top-heavy ash-hopper and a lye-stained trough stood under the spreading +branches of a beechnut-tree beside a rotting cider-press and a huge pot +for heating water during hog-killing or for boiling lye and grease for +the making of soap.</p> + +<p>As Henley approached the steps Pitman and his wife, hearing the click of +the gate-latch, came out on the porch, which was shaded by overhanging +vines, and stood staring blankly at him. Henley was a gallant man, for +his station in life, and he drew off his broad-brimmed hat and remained +uncovered while he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I've run over to inquire how little Joe is," he said, conscious of the +grim opposition to his visit in the very air that hung around the +farmer. "I happened to meet Miss Dixie Hart just now on her way here, +and she was considerably upset."</p> + +<p>"Nothin' wrong with the boy," Pitman muttered, surlily. "That gal, like +most of her meddlin' sort, is havin' a regular conniption-fit over +nothin'. I reckon she is afeard thar'll be one less on the marryin' list +a few years from now. He was a pesky fool, anyway, plungin' in cold +water to attend to her business. He's had croupy coughs before this, an' +wheezin'-spells, an' been hot like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> all childern will when they eat too +much, but we never went stark crazy over it."</p> + +<p>"Miss Dixie is a purty good judge, Sam," Henley answered, incisively. +"She'd be hard to fool if danger was lurkin' around. When she described +Joe's condition to me just now I saw she had plenty cause to worry, and +so I went straight back to town and left word for Doctor Stone to hurry +here as soon as he got home. They was looking for him every minute."</p> + +<p>"You say you did!" Pitman came to the edge of the porch, and, with his +arm around one of the posts which upheld the roof, he leaned over till +his face was close to Henley's. "Huh! you are some pumpkins, ain't you? +You can keep me from runnin' an account at your dirty shebang, Alf +Henley, but you can't walk dry-shod over me in my own house. A man's +domicyle is his castle in law, and I'm goin' to manage mine an' defend +it, ef I have to."</p> + +<p>"Don't get excited, Sam; keep your shirt on," Henley said, calmly. There +was an oblong spot of light thrown on the grass between him and the +gate. It was from the attic window above the porch, and across it now +and then moved a shadow. He knew that the little room under the roof was +occupied by the sick child, and that the shadow was Dixie's. The shadow +was now still and bowed at the window in an attitude of attention to +what was going on below.</p> + +<p>"I ain't excited any to hurt," Pitman went on, his voice rising higher. +"You say you've ordered Stone to come, an' I say if he does he won't put +his foot across my threshold."</p> + +<p>"You've got it in for me, Sam, I see," Henley said, still unruffled, +"but this is no time for you and me to settle old scores. The boy is no +blood kin to either of us."</p> + +<p>"The law gives me full an' complete charge of 'im till<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> he's of age," +Pitman snarled, "an' I hain't invited you to put in, an' until I do +you'll be a sight safer on t'other side of that fence. I mean the one +right thar behind you."</p> + +<p>The window-sash was raised above, and Dixie looked out.</p> + +<p>"He's just dropped to sleep," she announced in a guarded tone. "Please, +Alfred, don't let them talk so loud, and send the doctor up the minute +he comes."</p> + +<p>"Very well," Henley answered, softly and reassuringly. Then going close +to the farmer he said in a low voice, "I want to talk to you a minute; +let's walk round the house."</p> + +<p>Pitman hesitated, staring doggedly at the speaker, and then shifted his +sullen gaze to the face of his wife.</p> + +<p>"Go on with 'im," she said, and turned stiffly into the lark doorway +behind her.</p> + +<p>Silently Henley led Pitman round the house to the little barn-yard in +the rear. There was a red-painted road-wagon near the wagon-shed and +Henley sat down easily on the strong pole and began to search through +his pockets for a cigar and matches. He grunted in disappointment when +he found his pockets empty, and then deliberately applied himself to the +matter in hand.</p> + +<p>"Looky here, Sam Pitman," he began, "for a long-headed, sensible +mountain-man you are plunging into more serious trouble than any chap of +your size ever got into. I'm going to let you on to a thing that a +fellow usually keeps quiet—I'm going to do it because I feel that it is +my Christian duty not to be a party to the great disaster you are on the +brink of."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean, an' I don't care a damn," growled Pitman. +"I know what my rights are, an' that's all I'm talkin' about."</p> + +<p>"I started to tell you, when you busted in," said Henley, swinging his +feet beneath him, "that I'm a member<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> of the grand jury, and you may or +may not know that when a fellow is impaneled in that body he's got a +sworn job on his hands that is powerful exacting. He is on his oath to +report to the authorities any criminal irregularity that comes under his +notice. Now! I have had the word and the judgment of a respectable and +truthful lady that the boy bound to you by law is dangerously and +critically sick, and, calling here in my lawful capacity to look into +the matter, I hear you say with my own ears that no doctor shall put +foot across your threshold. Now, look at it straight, Sam. Even if Joe +was to get well a big, serious case may come up against you—I don't +promise that you'll come off free even as it is, but if the child was to +<i>die</i>—I say if he was to happen to pass away, and I've seen little ones +die when half a dozen skilled doctors was standing by—Sam Pitman, in +that case, no lawyer on earth could keep you out of limbo. I tell you, +you don't know it, but right this minute you are in the tightest hole +you ever slid into. A jury in your case wouldn't leave their seats. Men +pity helpless children in this life more'n they do big hulking men of +your stripe, and they'd sock it to you to the full extent of the law. +Even if it wasn't tried at court, take it as a hint from me, the men of +these mountains would get together in a body and lynch you. Reports have +already been going round to your eternal discredit about this child, and +one more act of yours will simply settle your hash. This is me talking, +Sam."</p> + +<p>"You—you dare to come here—" But Pitman's rage was tinctured with +actual fear of the man before him, and his intended threat was not +uttered. He was white and quivering, but he was helpless. A sound broke +the stillness that now fell between the two men. It was the steady +trotting of a horse on the road.</p> + +<p>"There's Doc now," Henley announced, and his eyes met Pitman's, which +were kindling again.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I've said he sha'n't—an', by God—" Pitman started toward the +house, but Henley sprang up and faced him. Laying his hand heavily on +the farmer's shoulder he cried almost with a hiss of fury: "Let that +doctor alone, you dirty whelp! He's going to crawl up that ladder to +that hole under the roof to see that boy. You and me are nigh the same +size, and we can settle right here. You tried me once before, maybe you +want another dose. Stir a peg to prevent this thing and I'll drive your +head into your shoulders same as I would a wedge in a split log."</p> + +<p>Pitman glared helplessly, and then he showed defeat. With his eyes on +the ground, and writhing from beneath Henley's hand, he said:</p> + +<p>"The boy hain't bad off, nohow!"</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll see what Doc Stone has to say about it," Henley retorted. +"He's authority, an' you hain't."</p> + +<p>Pitman had no reply ready. They heard the gate open and close, and then +on the still air came the gentle voice of Dixie speaking from the attic +window. "Come right in, Doctor, and up the ladder. Be careful and don't +stumble. I'll hold the candle for you."</p> + +<p>Pitman sullenly turned away. Henley watched him as he went into the +stall of a stable and struck a match to light his pipe. Leaving him, +Henley went back to the farm-house and sat down on the steps of the +porch. The light from the attic window lay on the lush green grass +before him, and he kept his eyes upon it. There was a tread on the floor +behind him as soft as that of a cat. It was Mrs. Pitman in her bare +feet. She held her tattered shoes in her hand. She touched him on the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I hope you an' Sam didn't—come to licks," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"No, he's all right," was the gentle reply. "I had to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> talk sharp, Mrs. +Pitman, an' I'm sorry it was here at his own house."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm glad the doctor come," she conceded, slowly. "I was afeard to +put in while Sam was talkin'. He gits madder at me 'n he does to all the +rest combined. I'm sort o' feard the boy is bad off, myself."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's bad off," Henley nodded, grimly. "If it was a light case Doc +Stone would have been down before this. You may depend on it, it's +serious."</p> + +<p>Muttering inarticulately, the woman crept away. Henley remained bent +forward, his eyes on the shifting shadows before him. He looked at his +watch; two hours had passed. The closing of a rear door and the +resounding tread of a pair of hobnailed boots on the lower floor told +him that Pitman had entered the house and was going to bed. He saw +Dixie's shadow in its frame on the grass, and went out to the fence and +looked up. She was there, and she leaned over the little sill and +nodded. "I only wanted to know if you was still there," she said, in a +low tone. "Joe—" But the doctor evidently had called her, for she +looked back into the room and vanished. Henley saw two shadows bending +forward, and he strode back and forth along the fence, a fierce suspense +clutching his heart. Presently the doctor, a middle-aged, full-bearded +man, with a gentle manner, crept down the ladder and walked softly +across the porch. Henley joined him at his buggy in the road.</p> + +<p>"How is he, Doc?" he inquired, his fears deepened by the physician's +silence, as he stood between the wheels of the buggy and fumbled with +the reins wrapped around the whip-holder.</p> + +<p>"Awful, awful!" Stone said, grimly. "Not one chance in five hundred. +Malignant pneumonia. Neglected case. I've left medicine and +instructions. I can't stay—would if I could—case of child-labor down +the road—nobody else to attend to it. I'll be back before morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +That will be the crisis. He's in splendid hands; a trained nurse +couldn't be better."</p> + +<p>"Anything I can do, Doc?" Henley swallowed a lump of emotion that had +risen in his throat.</p> + +<p>"Not a thing; but you might stay right here. Miss Dixie might—if +anything happened—she might need you. She's a plucky little woman, and +it might be best for her to have some sort of company. She is wrought +up. She loves the boy as a mother would her own child, and yet she is +calm and steady."</p> + +<p>Henley leaned on the fence and watched the vehicle disappear in the +misty moonlight which seemed to fall like a mantle from the mountain. He +was resting his head on the fence when he felt a light touch on his arm. +It was Dixie.</p> + +<p>"He is sleeping," she whispered. "The doctor said it would be good for +him. Oh, Alfred, it's pitiful, pitiful! I'm glad to see that you feel +like you do. He loves you; he has spoken of you scores of times, and, +when I told him just now that you was down here watching, he was glad. I +wonder why God tears a human soul to pieces like this. If Joe is taken +to-night I don't think I could ever get over it. Oh, Alfred, my heart +yearns over him. At this minute I could ask for nothing better than to +be allowed to work for that child all the rest of my life." Tears stood +in her wonderful eyes, and her breast, under its thin covering, rose and +fell tumultuously.</p> + +<p>"You are a sweet, good girl, Dixie." Henley's voice sounded new to +himself. "You are the noblest woman that ever drew the breath of life. +As the Lord is my Redeemer, I'd give all I possess on earth to help you +to-night."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met in a strange gaze of wonderment. "I believe it," she +said, simply, while a sad smile touched her pulsing lips. "Yes, I +believe it. But I must go back."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<p>He sat under the beechnut-tree watching the attic window till the +eastern sky above the mountains began to take on a grayish cast. Now and +then through the long vigil Dixie would come to the window and look down +on him, only to nod knowingly and retire, as if content with his mute +companionship.</p> + +<p>It was almost dawn when the doctor came.</p> + +<p>"I was delayed," he explained as he sprang out of his buggy; "bad case +of labor—had to use instruments, but successful." He hurried to the +gate without hitching his horse. "How is he?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say, Doc—you'd better see for yourself."</p> + +<p>The yellow light was filling all the sky with resplendent glory when +Dixie, her face wan and wearied, came down the ladder. Henley's heart +sank at the first sight of her, but it bounded when she had seen him, +for the rarest of smiles broke about her mouth and eyes.</p> + +<p>"He's going to get well, Alfred!" she cried, and she extended her hand +with the warm confidence of a child toward a trusted friend. He let it +rest in his as he walked with her to the gate, wondering over the good +news, wondering over the delight with which her touch was firing his +being.</p> + +<p>"Yes, the worst is over," she went on. "The doctor says with good +nursing and watching he'll pull through. He is going to stay with him +while I run home and do up the things, then I'll come back and relieve +him. He is going to give Pitman a tongue-lashing, and says he'll appear +against him in court if he doesn't act different. As soon as Joe can be +moved we are going to bring him to my house. Oh, Alfred, won't that be +glorious? There I can give him everything he needs, and a clean, cool, +airy room to get well in. Weak as he was, he cried with actual joy when +he heard the doctor say he could come. Alfred, do you know we all ought +to be ashamed of ourselves for complaining in this life, and wanting +more and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> more of the trashy baubles. Right now I'm so happy I feel like +flying. Look at that sunrise! We couldn't have seen it like that if we'd +been in our beds with our eyes shut; we couldn't feel this way if we +hadn't dragged through all that pain and anxiety last night. I've got to +write a letter and mail it before I come back. Jasper Long was to come +over Sunday, you know, but I can't give the time to him. I'll ask him to +come Sunday after next."</p> + +<p>"It will disappoint him mightily," Henley said, a sudden feeling of +aversion to the subject on him. "It will break the fellow all up. He's +been counting the days and hours."</p> + +<p>"I can't help it." Dixie shrugged her shoulders indifferently, her head +down. They were now in the little wood that lay between Pitman's farm +and her cottage. To the leaves and branches of the chestnut and +sassafras bushes that bordered the little-used road the night mists and +silvery cobwebs clung, magnified by their coating of dew and the yellow +light.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I ever saw a fellow quite so much concerned and +anxious," Henley's strangely tentative voice produced. "I saw him over +there the other day, and he had lots to say. He means to—to get you if +he possibly can. He's planning a fine house, and said he was going to +tell you about it when he come over. He says women know better about +such things than men, and is going to offer you full sway. To do him +credit, there ain't nothing little about Long. He'll do right, I reckon, +by any woman he pledges his word to. I'd hate to—to think I'd fetched +you together if—if he wasn't all right—that is, honest and upright."</p> + +<p>"I know that," Dixie said. "But let's not talk about him, or his fine +house, or his money, or his good intentions. He don't seem, somehow, to +fit one bit into my feelings this morning. He's a cold-blooded business<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +proposition, and last night's terror and this morning's joy has filled +me to here"—she held her tapering hand under her plump chin and +laughed—"well, with some'n different from him. The truth is, I don't +care if I never see him again. That's a fact, Alfred. I feel like I'm on +the up-hill road in single harness, anyway, since I am out of debt to +Welborne, and owe you, instead. When are you going to send that note +over for me to sign?"</p> + +<p>"Never, if I can help it," he said. "I've let men owe me without note or +security, why should I make you sign up for a trifle like that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, to tell the truth, I like it as it is," she answered, with a fine +smile and a rippling laugh that woke the echoes in the quiet spot. "It +is such a sweet proof of your friendship. Ain't it funny how me 'n you +have been mixed up in things? You know me as well as I know myself, +Alfred. You've helped me, and I hope I have you—some. I don't know; I +hope I have."</p> + +<p>"More than anybody else in the world," he said, fervently.</p> + +<p>They had come to where their ways separated, and, with his hat in his +hand, and his heart full of an inexplicable, transcendental something, +he stood under the trees and watched her move away.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/034.png" alt="O" /></span> + +N the day following Long's second visit to Dixie, Henley's affairs took +him to Carlton. He was at the cotton-compress making arrangements to +have a quantity of cotton prepared for shipment, when he met one of +Long's clerks.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen Mr. Long?" the young man asked.</p> + +<p>"No, I've just got in," Henley answered. He could not have explained the +fact, not being given to self-analysis, but he had vaguely determined +that he would make every possible effort to avoid the storekeeper. In +spite of his good intentions to aid Dixie in the contemplated alliance, +he had come to regard it as altogether too incongruous an affair to be +viewed favorably. What right had any man to her? What manner of man +could possibly be worthy of her, much less the stupid blockhead who was +thrusting himself upon her as Long was?</p> + +<p>"Well, he's looking for you, Mr. Henley," the clerk said. "It must be +important, for he's been to the bank and post-office three times since +he heard you'd got in. It really looks like he's in trouble of some +sort."</p> + +<p>"Business gone crooked?" Henley inquired, as he watched the clerk's face +with almost anxious eyes. "Maybe he's been buying futures?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, it ain't that!" the young man hastened to say. "He don't +speculate in anything. He's dead sure of everything he touches. No, it +ain't that, and business never was brisker, but we boys are doing it +all. He ain't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> much help; don't do anything but write letters and tear +'em up, and talk about marryin' to every man, woman, an' child that +happens in. He was all right and sound, and regular as a clock, till you +fetched that girl in from over your way and introduced him. Come down +right away, Mr. Henley. I'll tell 'im I saw you."</p> + +<p>As Henley turned away to attend to his consignment of cotton in the +office of the compress he bit his lip and frowned darkly.</p> + +<p>"If the dang fool thinks I'm going down there to be buttonholed for +hours to hear his tale of woe, he's certainly off his nut," he muttered, +angrily. "I've got other matters to attend to. I don't believe she is at +all struck with him, nohow. It don't look like she'd put 'im off like +she does and keep him floundering in so much hot water if she thought +much of him. He was there yesterday. I wonder what ails him now? She +didn't take 'im out to church. Little Joe is at her house, but he is +doing well enough for her to spare the time; I wonder if she was ashamed +to be seen out with him after that first splurge. I don't know; she +certainly is a plumb mystery to me."</p> + +<p>His business over, he skirted around Long's establishment and made his +way through an isolated alley to the wagon-yard where he had left his +horse and buggy. He was just congratulating himself on his escape from +the storekeeper, when Long suddenly broke upon his vision as he plunged +incontinently through the big gateway. With an uneasy look in his eyes, +and with a face drawn and serious, the storekeeper came striding toward +him.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he panted. "I've been everywhere looking for you. You are as +slippery as an eel, and as hard to catch as a flea. I want to see you +bad, Alf. It's a particular matter. I can't let it rest."</p> + +<p>"I was busy, and I hain't any too much time left on my hands now." +Henley looked at the sun and then <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>at his watch. "You'll have to talk +fast, Long. Seems to toe there's a lot o' hitches in my affairs here +lately. This 'un to see, and that 'un to talk to, and—"</p> + +<p>"I'm in trouble, Alf, old man." Long laid a red, perspiring hand on his +friend's shoulder and bore down heavily. "I was out yore way yesterday. +I tried to see you as I started home, but didn't know where to find you. +Alf, I can't jest somehow make out that little trick. Looks like she's +sorter shifty. In the first place, havin' to postpone the trip on +account of that sick young brat that ain't no blood kin to anybody +concerned sort o' knocked me off my props, and then, when the day <i>did</i> +come round, very little was done—that is, in the <i>right</i> direction."</p> + +<p>"You—you'll have to have patience," Henley remarked, insincerely. "If +you can't hold in and take things as they come you'd better call the +deal off. I started you; I can't lay down everything and keep—keep +telling you what to do and say. Life's too short and makes too many +claims on a fellow."</p> + +<p>"I want you to say a good word for me, Alf." Long wiped his anxious +mouth with his bare hand and tugged at his mustache. "She believes the +sun rises and sets in you. Looks to me like it's Alfred did this, an' +Alfred said that, an' Alfred thinks so and so and does so and so, with +every breath she draws. For a while I 'lowed it was because she was +grateful to you for helpin' her out in the marryin' line, but she don't +seem to want to marry much, nohow. She'd listen to you, though, if she +would to any man alive, and something has to be done."</p> + +<p>"Well, I reckon the little woman <i>is</i> friendly to me." Henley avoided +the fiercely anxious stare of his flurried companion. "She's done me +good turns, and I've tried to respond."</p> + +<p>"She'd fight for you tooth and toe-nail," Long declared. "I know from +experience. Why, I just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>happened to say one little, tiny thing about +you, and la! she flew at me like a hen fightin' for her brood. I meant +no harm. I'd have said the same thing to your face, as I am saying it +now. Me 'n her was talking about the way men dress these days, and I +said, without meanin' any harm, that it was naturally expected that +chaps here in a town like Carlton would be more up to date than at the +foot of the mountains where you live, and remarked that you made no +great pretence in the clothes you wore, in fact, that I thought you went +just a little bit too careless for a man as young and well-off as you +are."</p> + +<p>"Huh, you told her that, did you?" Henley's cheeks reddened against his +will. "Well, I don't go much on style, in hot weather, anyway. I never +did want to be called a dude."</p> + +<p>"Of course not, but what you reckon she done? She leaned back in her +chair while I was a-talking an' laughed like she'd bust herself wide +open. She pointed down at my new tan shoes and green socks and wanted to +know if things like them was style, and asked me why I kept my gloves on +in the house. She wanted to know if I let my yaller-bordered +handkerchief stick out of my upper pocket because I was afraid folks +wouldn't see it, an' if I kept a cheaper one to blow my nose on. You may +know, Alf, that all the good-dressers here at Carlton—and I pride +myself I'm amongst 'em—have their suits pressed once a week to make 'em +set right, but she said my pant-legs looked like they was lined with +pasteboard, and that my high collar looked like a cuff upside down. Of +course, I couldn't get mad, for she was joking all through, and laughin' +pleasant-like. But, Alf, I must say she's fallin' off in her meal +record. You know she made such a fine spread the first time that I +naturally expected some'n out of the common again. I saved myself up for +it. I didn't take on a big breakfast before I left home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> because I told +myself, I did, that I'd appreciate her fine fixings all the more. So you +can imagine how I felt when she marched me out, with them old women, and +set me down to—well, a body oughtn't to criticise what's set before 'em +in a friend's house, but, Alf, that really was the limit. I can tell you +just exactly what we had. I'll never forget it. It was plain pork and +beans, and boiled cabbage, and sliced tomatoes, and hard cornbread. She +hadn't put a sign of an egg in it, and cornbread without eggs ain't fit +to eat. It looks like Mrs. Hart had had some dispute with Dixie about +it, too, for the old lady kept whining and telling me it wasn't her +fault, that she thought Dixie was going to set in and fix up proper, but +that Dixie wouldn't listen to reason, and why, the old lady said, she +was unable to understand, for the like had never happened before. Dixie +didn't make any excuses, but set at the head of the table and dished out +that stuff as if it was the best afloat. 'Won't you pass yore plate for +more beans?' she wanted to know, and 'Won't you try some of the butter +with the cornbread?' I reckon I made a mistake by speaking of what a +fine spread she got up the last time, for she kind o' tilted her nose in +the air, an' said she 'lowed the weather was too hot to stand over a hot +cook-stove unless it was some <i>extra occasion</i>."</p> + +<p>"She's got lots to do," Henley said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. +"She's undertaken to nurse that little boy back to health, and he takes +up a lot of her time."</p> + +<p>"I reckon he does," Long said. "Looks like me an' her'd hardly get +settled in our chairs on the porch before her mammy would call out that +Joe wanted water, or Joe wanted to set up, or what not. It was more like +hard work than any day of courtin' I ever put in. But now, Alf, I'm +coming to my chief trouble. I want her, and I want her bad. I hardly +sleep at night for thinking about her sweet, pretty face, and +industrious habits, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> what a bang-up wife she'd make, but I don't get +nowhere. The minute I come down to hard-pan she wiggles away like a +scared tadpole in shallow water. I done a thing, and I don't know +whether it was a big mistake or not, and that is the main thing I want +to see you about. It was just before I left, an' we was standin' at the +gate, nigh my hoss and buggy. It had got sorter dark, and—well, I'll +tell you all about it. Alf, I've heard fellows say (and they was men +that had had experience with women, too)—I've heard 'em say that the +chap that dilly-dallies with a woman, and always acts as sweet as pie, +never makes no headway. Them fellows say you've just got to be sorter +firm with a girl that won't make up her mind—that women like to have a +man show that he ain't scared out of his senses when he's with 'em. And +so I had all that in mind, you understand, when I made my last set at +her there in the dark. I saw nobody wasn't looking, and I catched hold +of her hand, I did, and held on to it though she pulled and twisted with +all her might. I told her I was bound to have a kiss, and I pulled her +up agin me and tried to take it. I couldn't manage it, though, and, by +gad! she got loose and slid through the gate, and went in the house and +slammed the door in my face."</p> + +<p>"She ought to have knocked your head off, you low-lived fool!" cried +Henley. He was white in the face, and his eyes had a dangerous glare in +them. His breath came rapidly and with an audible sound. "For a minute +I'd pull you down here and stomp the life out of you!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Alf! Alf! have you plumb lost your senses?" Long gasped. "Why, +why, good Lord, man! Why, Alf—"</p> + +<p>"Don't Alf me!" Henley cried. "Get out of my sight or me 'n you'll mix +right here! I didn't introduce you to that gentle girl to have you pull +her around like a housemaid and force your foul lips to hers. I +introduced you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> as a <i>man</i>, not a bar-room roustabout. No wonder she +hain't took to you—no wonder she don't want to tie herself down for +life to you!"</p> + +<p>Henley had sprung into his buggy and taken up the whip and reins. "Stand +out of the way!" he cried. "You've imposed on my friendship, and I don't +want you ever to mention this matter to me again. I'm heartily ashamed +of my part in it, and I don't want to be reminded of it."</p> + +<p>Long tried to stop him, but, still white and furious, Henley lashed his +horse, and the animal bore him out of the yard and into the street. "I +ought to have given him one in the jaw!" Henley fumed. "I'll be sorry I +didn't the longer I think about it—the low-lived, dirty brute!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/035.png" alt="A" /></span> + +LL the next day as Henley performed his duties at the store the hot +sense of Long's stupid conduct brooded over him. One moment he was fired +with fury over the man's sheer vanity, the next he was bitterly accusing +himself for having been the primary cause of putting Dixie in a +disagreeable position. What would she think of him, he asked himself +over and over, for introducing such a despicable creature to her +hospitality and good graces?</p> + +<p>It was near sunset when he saw her pass the store, going toward the +square. He went to the porch in front, unnoticed by the busy Cahews and +the drowsy Pomp, and saw her, much to his surprise, enter the +court-house yard, a place seldom visited by ladies. She was going up the +walk to the arching stone entrance when she met the ordinary of the +county, and Henley saw her pause and speak to him. The elderly, +gray-haired gentleman stood for several minutes in a listening attitude, +his hand cupped behind his ear, for he was slightly deaf. Presently +Henley saw the two turn toward the building and enter it side by side.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what on earth the little trick's going there for at this time +of year," Henley mused. "It ain't tax-paying time."</p> + +<p>The sun was down when she came out. He saw her coming and got his hat, +timing himself so that he would meet her, as if by accident, and walk +home with her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> His calculations could not have been more accurate, for +she was in front of the store when he came out.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said, "it's you! I thought I saw you pass just now. I'm going +your way. I wanted to inquire how your little patient is."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's tiptop!" she cried, a delicate flush of tender enthusiasm on +her face, a sparkle in her eyes. "Dr. Stone says he's mending twice as +fast at our house because the little fellow is so happy there. When I'm +off at work he's petted half to death by them two old women who haven't +had anything better than a cat to pamper up since I got out of their +clutch."</p> + +<p>"And old Pitman let you move him?" Henley half questioned, as he suited +his step to hers. "How did you manage it?"</p> + +<p>"Me and the doctor put up a job on him," she laughed. "Dr. Stone wanted +to help me gain my point, and he had the sharpest talk with old Sam you +ever heard. The law was going to take him in hand for violating his +contract in regard to the boy, and Dr. Stone would have to appear +against him. But he told Sam that if he'd turn the boy over to me till +he got well, he thought the whole thing might drop."</p> + +<p>"Good job!" Henley chuckled. "Sam's a hard nut to crack."</p> + +<p>Dixie raised her long lashes in a steady stare at him. "Guess what I've +been doing at the court-house," she said. "I've been engaged in an odd +thing for this modern day of enlightenment. Maybe you think slavery is +over—maybe you think the Yankees wiped it clean out forty years ago, +but they didn't. I've turned the wheels of Time back. I laid down the +cash and bought a real live slave to-day. I didn't have to dig up as +much as two thousand, which, I understand, was the old price for stout, +able-bodied, hard workers, for the one I bought was a little sick one. +Alfred, I actually bought little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> Joe to-day. I paid Sam Pitman +twenty-five dollars to get him to release all his claims without any +rumpus. I've adopted him. Judge Barton has fixed up the papers good and +stout, and says nothing can take him from me as long as I do my part by +him. Alfred, I'm so happy that I want to shout at the top of my lungs."</p> + +<p>"You have adopted him!" Henley exclaimed, in wondering surprise. "Well, +well, what won't you do next? Of all the things on earth this knocks me +off my feet, and you already loaded down with responsibilities!"</p> + +<p>"I don't care," Dixie laughed. "I'd welcome more like that, and never +complain. You ought to have seen Joe when I told him Sam had agreed to +let him go, and that I was to be his mother. If you could have seen the +angelic look on that thin, white face you would have known that life is +eternal, and that the spirit is all there is to anything. He stared +straight at me with his pale brow wrinkled as if it was too good to be +so, and then when I convinced him, he put his arms around my neck and +hugged me tight, and sobbed and sobbed in pure joy."</p> + +<p>Dixie was shedding tears herself now, and, with a heaving breast and +lowered head, she walked along beside her awed and silent companion. +They had entered a wood through which the road passed, and there seemed +to be a hallowed stillness in the cool, grayish touch of the coming +night that pervaded the boughs and foliage of the trees. Beyond the wood +a mountain-peak rose in a blaze of molten gold from the oblique rays of +the setting sun, but here the night-dews were beginning to fall and the +chirping insects of the dark were waking. In the marshy spots frogs were +croaking and snarling, and fireflies were cutting, to their kind perhaps +readable, hieroglyphics on the leafy background. Presently she wiped her +eyes, and smiled up at him.</p> + +<p>"What a goose I am!" she said. "As old as I am, I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> cry if you crook +your finger at me. You went to Carlton yesterday, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, glad to see her emotion over, uplifting and rare as +its nature was.</p> + +<p>"Did you happen to see my young man?" A smile he failed to see in the +shadows was playing sly tricks with her lineaments.</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> young man? You mean—"</p> + +<p>"You know who I mean. I mean my beau—Mr. Jasper Long, Esquire, +merchant, cotton-handler, and rich capitalist."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw him," Henley said, reluctantly. "I didn't make a point of +looking him up. He ran about searching for me. I've washed my hands of +that—that matter, Dixie. I ain't no hand at match-making, nohow. It +ain't my turn. I get all mixed up, and blunder at it. I'll never set +myself up to pick out a—a suitable mate for any woman again. There +ain't none in existence—there ain't none half good enough for you, +nohow. It makes me sick to—to think about a fellow like—well, no +better in many ways than this here Long is—having the gall to think +he—that you'd be willing to live with him the rest of your days as if +there was a single thing in common betwixt you. He told me about what he +done—what he <i>tried</i> to do out at the fence when he started off the +other night, and, <i>well</i>—"</p> + +<p>"Well what?" she cried, eagerly, the corners of her mouth curving upward +as she eyed him covertly.</p> + +<p>"Why, you know well enough what the fool done, Dixie!" Henley said, +unaware of the meshes into which her curiosity was leading him. "When he +told me about it, in his offhand way, as if he had just done an +ordinary, every-day act, I come as nigh as peas mashing his big, +flathering mouth. I've been boiling mad ever since. I rolled and tumbled +in bed last night, and it's stuck to me all day. Somehow I just can't +shake it off."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You mean, Alfred"—and she paused at the roadside, and put out her +hands to his arms, and studied his face with the eagerness of a child +searching for the confirmation of something hoped for and yet not +absolutely attainable—"do you mean that it actually made you mad when +he told you. Tell me how; tell me why. You wouldn't have—felt that way +if—if it had been some other girl, would you?"</p> + +<p>"How do I know?" Henley cried, hot from the memory of the thing spoken +of. "I don't know whether I'd feel mad or not. I never tried it. It is +the first time I was ever up against a thing as aggravating as that was. +The idea of him actually trying to kiss you, and—and put his arms +around you, and holding to you, and—and—"</p> + +<p>"He's a bad, mean thing, ain't he, Alfred?" And her merry laugh rang +through the quiet wood, plunging him into deeper mystification than +ever. "But of course he couldn't know that I'd not be willing to be +hugged and kissed right there at the fence, with a crippled woman +peeping out at the window, and a half-blind one standing by, begging for +a report of what's taking place. Before you married, Alfred, I'll bet +you selected a better place than that when you wanted to kiss a girl. +That fellow lives in a big town and I live here in the backwoods, but I +can learn him a thing or two."</p> + +<p>"You can't fool me." Henley was sure of his ground now. "You wouldn't +let that chump kiss you at any time or at any place. I was a fool to +ever mention him to you; he ain't worthy to tie the shoes of a woman as +noble and sweet and pretty as you are."</p> + +<p>"Go it, go it, Alfred!" A delicate flush of delight had overspread her +face, which was wreathed in smiles. There was a twinkling light in her +eyes, and her laugh rang out sweeter and more merrily than ever. "If +Jasper Long only knowed how to say nice things in your roundabout way +I'd marry him if he was as poor as Job's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> turkey. You never have told me +in so many words that—that you like my looks or—or like <i>me</i>, as for +that matter; but when you get worked up, the sweetest things in heaven +or earth slip out when you don't know it."</p> + +<p>But grimly unpleasant thoughts had fastened themselves on Henley's +bewildered brain, and he could only stare at her in sheer agony of +suspense.</p> + +<p>"Then you may—you <i>may</i> marry him, after all!" he said, under his +breath. "You haven't fully decided yet. You may conclude that you and +him—" His voice broke, and, like a dumb animal brought to bay, he stood +staring at her, his mouth open, his lower lip quivering.</p> + +<p>A great change came over her. She seemed to hesitate an instant, and +then she took his inert hand in both of hers, drew it up and held it +fondly against her throbbing breast. "Love—the right sort, Alfred—is +the sweetest, holiest thing in all the world. It is the first breath of +real heaven that men and women feel here on earth. When two people love +each other—like we—like they ought to love one another, they both know +it as plain as we know that sky full of stars is over us right now. They +feel it in the way their pulse beats when their hands meet; they hear it +in their voices when they speak; they see it in each other's eyes; they +love to be together, and feel like something has gone wrong when they +ain't. That's real love, Alfred, and if the man is tied up in a way God +never meant him to be, and if the woman is loaded down with burdens till +her fresh young shoulders are bent and ache night and day, still the +thought of their love may be always in their hearts and make life seem +one continual day of sunshine and music."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dixie, you mean—" His voice broke, and he could only stare at her +as if waking from a deep dream of perplexity into complete +understanding.</p> + +<p>She nodded, kissed his hand reverently and released it. They walked on +without a word between them till they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> reached the point where their +ways parted. He would have detained her, but she said:</p> + +<p>"No, not now, Alfred. I see somebody on your porch. I think it is your +wife. We must be careful to do no wrong in the sight of the world. You +owe that poor woman all the happiness you can give her. To think of what +we might want would be downright selfishness. We know what we know, and +that is sweet enough. Don't think of me marrying anybody. I've got Joe +and my duties, and—and you know what else. I shall never complain +again—never! Good-bye."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/036.png" alt="A" /></span> + +CROSS the table at the evening meal Henley saw his wife regarding him +stealthily as she served the food to him and the others. Her look had a +queer, shifting, probing quality, which at any other time would have +inspired investigation, but she failed to rivet his attention to-night. +There were other things to think of—things as new and startling as the +dawn of day must have appeared to the opening eyes of the first man. And +all this had come to him. All these years he had groped in darkness, +seeking and never finding till the dreams of youth were dead. But now +all was lightness, full comprehension, and joy—joy which all but +stifled in its clinging embrace of restitution.</p> + +<p>After supper, with a cigar which he forgot to light, he evaded the +tentative chatter of old Wrinkle and sought a rustic seat under a tree +in the yard. Over the meadow, and piercing the shadows which enveloped +him, shone a light from Dixie Hart's kitchen. He fancied that he saw her +at work, her strong, lithe form and glorious face emitting cheer, +courage, and hope to her helpless charges. He wondered if she was +recalling, as he would to the day of his death, the heavenly words she +had spoken at parting. The touch of her velvet lips still lay on his +hand, sending through his every vein streams of sheer ecstasy. Overhead +the sky arched, star-sprinkled, calm, and as full of its untold story as +at the dawn of time.</p> + +<p>Inside the kitchen near by Mrs. Henley and Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> Wrinkle were washing +dishes. Wrinkle came from a rear door, a swill-pail in hand, and, +bending under its weight, he trudged down to his pigpen at the barn. The +clattering in the kitchen ceased; the light went out, to appear again in +Mrs. Henley's room. Her transported husband saw her through an +uncurtained window. At another time he might have wondered over her +present occupation, for, standing before a mirror, she was giving +unwonted attention to her toilet. She was fastening a flowing scarf +about her neck, pulling at the bow to make it hang to her fancy. She +applied white powder to her cheeks and the faintest hint of pink, +carefully brushing her hair and pulling down her scant bangs as he could +not remember having seen her do since their marriage. Next she threw a +light shawl over her shoulders, experimentally drawing it up under her +sharp chin, as she viewed the effect in the glass, and then settling it, +with final approval, and in easier fashion, farther back upon her +shoulders. He saw her raise her candle and turn her head in various +ways, her eyes fixed on her twisting image. Then, with a smile of +content, she blew out the candle. He saw the tiny red spark which +remained on the wick standing guard where she had left it. She must be +going to spend the evening somewhere and would demand his company, +Henley reflected, in dismay at the thought of his present fancies being +disturbed in such a prosaic way. Or perhaps she had taken a sudden whim +to go to prayer-meeting—this thought prompted by the dismal clanging of +a cast-iron church-bell at Chester. In that case there was a chance of +escape, for she would ask Mrs. Wrinkle to accompany her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she appeared on the porch, and came down the steps and tripped +lightly across the grass to him. He was conscious of the strange, almost +weird, alteration in her manner, and was therefore partially prepared +for the change in her voice and intonation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is that you, Alfred?" she inquired, playfully. "I thought you might be +here, it is so close inside. You can always catch a breeze on this spot +if one is stirring at all."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's me," he answered, pulling his glance from the light across +the meadow and letting it rest on her face. "Are you going out +somewhere?"</p> + +<p>She gave a little mechanical laugh. "Just because I put on this white +shawl?" she jested, her thin right hand toying with her bangs. "No, +there's no place to go that I know of, and if there <i>was</i> I don't feel +in the humor for it to-night. Somehow I felt like I wanted to talk to +you. I hope Ma and Pa will go to bed; they are getting to be lots of +bother in one way and another. They mean well, the dear things, but they +are old and childish."</p> + +<p>She sat down on the seat beside him and rested her elbow on its back, +her face toward him. "I saw you walking home with Dixie Hart this +evening," she remarked. "Did she say how that boy is getting on?"</p> + +<p>"Why"—there was just the faintest pause on Henley's part; he was +conscious that he caught his breath, and that a warm, objectionable +flush was stealing over him—"why, I think he is mending purty fast. +I—I reckon there is no secret about it—Miss Dixie says she's adopted +him by process of law."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! You don't say! Why, that makes <i>three</i> on her hands. +Well, she's a remarkable girl, Alfred, <i>and she's pretty</i>. Don't you +think so?" She was toying with the fringe of her shawl, and yet she +seemed to hang upon his answer as she gazed straight at him.</p> + +<p>"Y-e-s," Henley said. "She really has undertaken a lot, but I reckon +she'll pull through, someway or other."</p> + +<p>"Pa says she's managed to get out of old Welborne's debt," Mrs. Henley +went on, taking her knee in her hands and lifting her foot from the +ground and swinging it to and fro. "Lots of folks thought he'd finally +sell her out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> of house and home. I didn't think, myself, that she'd ever +pay out, but she seems to have succeeded. I give her full credit for all +she is, Alfred. I'm not the sort of woman that underrates another just +to be doing it. She's a stanch friend of yours. It is a good deal for me +to admit, but she gave me a straight talk once that set me to thinking. +I've never let on, but what she said made a deep impression on me."</p> + +<p>The speaker paused, as if waiting for her words to take root and sprout +in his comprehension, but he said nothing—only sat staring at her, as +if trying to divine her subtle drift.</p> + +<p>"It was while you was away, Alfred," she continued, "and—and there was +so much talk about what I was doing at that time, you remember, to—to +show respect for Dick's memory. For a girl as young as she is, she said +some powerful strong things. She thought I wasn't acting right toward +you, and told me so to my face. I went on with my plans, but I've often +thought of her advice. You may have noticed that I hain't talked as much +about the—the monument as I did, and I haven't been to see it as often +as I used to. Dixie Hart made me look at it from the outside to some +extent, and with that I began to be more considerate of you. I saw you +wasn't the same as you was at first—I might say, as you was all along +when you and Dick was both taking me out, and as you was—for that +matter—just before and after me and you got married. In fact, Alfred, +you are getting to be a sort o' puzzle to me. Even to-night at supper +you seemed to be in some sort of far-off dream or other. You'd lift up a +fork or a spoon and hold it a long time before you'd put it in your +mouth, and once I caught you gazing straight at me with the blankest +look I ever saw on a human face. You don't seem the same. I don't mean +that you haven't got a <i>healthy</i> look, for that would bother me a lot, +but you are—well, you are just different."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't you worry," Henley heard himself saying, aghast at the cliffs and +chasms ahead of him. "Don't worry about me if I seem to have my mind off +at times. I've made some trades lately, and got the best end of 'em. I'm +a natural trader—a born trader, Hettie. They say it is like a mild form +of gambling. Just yesterday I made a deal with an old chap—"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to talk about trading and swapping, and the like," the +woman broke in, firmly. "Besides, no sort of ordinary business ever made +a man look like you've looked lately. You used to be sorter active and +nervous, but now you set and brood with an odd, reddish look on your +face. It ain't natural. It looks like you've resigned yourself to—to +something that you didn't exactly like before, and it don't please me to +see you that way. Pa's noticed it and mentioned it two or three times."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing in the world the matter with me," Henley declared, +actually alarmed at the incongruity of his position.</p> + +<p>"Alfred," the woman said, contritely, and she bent forward and peered up +into his face, "you are a sight better man than I am a woman, and—"</p> + +<p>"Shucks!"</p> + +<p>"You may say shucks if you want to, but wait till I get through. I +reckon, as women go, in the general run, I'm a queer sort of female. I +never was just like other girls. For one thing, I always wanted what was +out of my reach; not getting a thing, or even having doubts about it, +always made me want it more than anything else. I reckon that is why +Dick kind o' fascinated me: the girls was all after him, and he seemed a +sort of prize to be had at any cost. Even after we was married, as maybe +you know, he kept me worried with his attentions to some of the old +crowd of girls. But enough of that. When he died and you come back, +begging, as you did, to have me consider you, I finally give in and took +you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> But that wasn't all. I had stood up before a preacher in the house +of God and agreed to be your wife and helpmeet, but, as I now see it, I +didn't do my duty by you. I made the mistake, I reckon, of thinking too +much about what I owed to the dead and gone, and I went so far as to do +things in public that actually driv' you away from home and caused folks +to laugh at you and make remarks. Dixie Hart was right; I wasn't toting +fair with you, and I want to tell you to-night, Alfred, that I see my +error, and—and I am plumb sorry."</p> + +<p>He turned upon her resolutely. She was looking down, and he fancied she +was about to shed such tears as she had often shed early in their +married life when Dick Wrinkle's name was mentioned. He had none of the +old chivalrous sympathy which such a demonstration had once evoked, nor +any of the old indulgence for a love which he had hoped to see die, and +yet, just from his passionate contact with Dixie Hart, he was full of +comprehension and pity for his wife's plight—at least, as he now saw +it.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Hettie," he began, and his voice shook with deep feeling. +"You've been right all along. Don't you bother about that. It was <i>me</i> +that was crooked. In this life folks don't love in the highest and best +way but once—not but once in a lifetime. Dick Wrinkle was your first +and only abiding fancy. The feeling that made you turn me down and take +him when you was a girl and I was a big blockhead of a boy was born of +God in heaven. I was the one that was making a mistake when I come and +begged you to marry me while that pure thing was still alive in your +heart. A love like that never dies; it is too sweet and glorious to die. +I see now, too, that you was plumb right about wanting to take care of +his mammy and daddy, and about wanting that sermon preached, and about +erecting a lasting monument to commemorate his name. You had to do all +them things because they was part and parcel of you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> yourself, and the +constancy God planted in you. I can say honestly that I'm glad you still +love him. You wouldn't be a high sort of a woman if you did change. +Death can't separate folks that love; they go on and on—side by side, +hand in hand, heart to heart—through all eternity."</p> + +<p>She actually gasped. She rose, and stood staring toward the door, a deep +frown on her face; she shrugged her shoulders; she clinched her fists; +she rapped the ground sharply with her foot; then she slowly bent down +over him, resting her thin left hand on his broad shoulder while she +peered with a stare of would-be incredulity into his enraptured face.</p> + +<p>"Look at me, Alfred!" she cried, in a rasping tone. "<i>You know you don't +mean one single word of all you've just said!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Why, I do," he insisted, blandly. "As God is my judge, I do. There +ain't no such thing as <i>two</i> loves—a first and a second. When the real +thing comes to a body he knows it. A feller could be blinded for a time, +I reckon, in hot-blooded youth, while he was in close pursuit of a thing +that kept slipping away from him, as was my case when Dick and me was +going nip and tuck to see which could get ahead; but the genuine, real +thing is as different as—as day from night."</p> + +<p>She drew herself up straight, and heaved a deep, lingering sigh. "I +don't believe you mean a word of what you say," she repeated. "It ain't +natural for a man who is as jealous as—as you always have been +even—even of the dead—to set up and talk that way."</p> + +<p>"Jealous?" he said, half musingly. "I don't think I'm a jealous man. +Anyways, I don't think a feller would have the right to be jealous of a +man that was dead and under ground. As I look at it now, I don't think a +man has a right, in the best sense, to marry a widow; and in the same +way a widower has no right to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> lay aside his past memories if they are +the right sort. They ought to be his best company in his loneliness. Of +course, now that you and me are linked together by law and religion, we +owe it to the community we live in to do our duty and make the best—I +mean, to live along as friendly and harmoniously as we can."</p> + +<p>She sank down to the seat again, and sat staring at him fixedly. +Presently, seeing that he was not going to resume speaking, she said: "I +believe, on my soul, Alfred, you have plumb lost your senses. I may or +may not be responsible for it; you may have let all this talk about Dick +and my—my thinking about him prey on your mind till it is unhinged. +Why, what I done about his grave and memory wasn't anything but respect +that was due to him, and has nothing to do with our agreement. You've +hurt my feelings, Alfred—you actually have."</p> + +<p>She rose suddenly, and, with her handkerchief to her eyes, she started +toward the door. She moved slowly, as if she expected him to call her +back, as he had frequently done in the past; but he seemed to be +oblivious of her presence and not to have heard her last plaintive +appeal, for he sat gazing at the light in Dixie Hart's cottage like an +unwakable man. She came slowly back, now with stiff, indignant +strides—strides which dug deeply into the unoffending turf.</p> + +<p>"You certainly are either crazy or a plumb fool!" she fired at him. "You +said once that folks hinted that I was cracked in the upper story from +the way I acted, but the shoe is on the other foot now. If folks don't +say you are out of your head it is because they ain't here to listen to +your meandering. A man that will set up and hint to a wife who he loves, +and always has loved, that he's willing for her to still care for and +cherish another person—I say a man like that is in need of a doctor's +advice."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I was just trying to justify you and your acts," Henley answered +in pained retaliation, "and to show you that I had no ill-will in any +shape or form. You loved Dick in the right sort of way, and I'm just man +enough to lay no obstacle whatever in your track. In the next life you +and Dick will be reunited, and all things will be made straight. I don't +want to fuss with you over it, Hettie. This life is too beautiful, if it +is looked at right, to waste time in jowering. You and me can live in +harmony from now on if you'll just be reasonable and not fly off the +handle when a feller is doing his level best to arrive at some sort of +common meeting-ground. All these years I've been fretting and trying to +run a race with a dead man when I could have been in more active +business. I've give in at last, and I'm going to stay give in. The truth +is, I'm just beginning to live. For the first time in my life I'm in +sympathy with true, natural-born, well-mated lovers. If they are tied +together, all well and good; but if they are parted by some hook or +crook, then they are to be pitied, but still they've got the +satisfaction of knowing—well, of knowing what they know—that's all."</p> + +<p>"Well, I know <i>one</i> thing," Mrs. Henley said, and she turned away, +angrily. "I know you are simply daft—you've lost every grain of sense +you ever had."</p> + +<p>"I might have known she'd twist the thing all upside-down and never see +it right," Henley mused, as he watched her ascend the steps, cross the +porch, and disappear in the house. "I thought that view would hit her +just right, but, contrary as she always was, she sees fit to disagree. I +reckon if she knew everything there <i>would</i> be a row. Huh, I wouldn't +risk that with her. She can hold her funeral conclaves, and build +monuments to another fellow as high as a church-steeple, and expects me +to swallow the dose, but just let me kind o' look about a little, and +I'm a fit subject for a madhouse."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/037.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE next morning at breakfast Mrs. Henley seemed to have lost all memory +of the angry scene on the grass the evening before. Her countenance was +overcast with an expression that her husband would have designated as +one of pleasure had he been given to the analysis of her facial +phenomena, a pursuit he had long since given up as futile and +unprofitable. Her dress, too, showed unusual care, and a crisp, +fresh-ironed jauntiness that jerked him back to the past with rather +disagreeable suddenness. Amid the white ruffles at her neck she had +pinned a large, full-blown rose, and her manner toward the others was a +fragile sort of graciousness which would have been a delight if one +could have felt that it was permanent. As a rule she passed Henley's +coffee to him through the hands of the two Wrinkles, but this morning +she rose and brought it round to him, remarking that she had fixed it +just to his liking. Old Wrinkle, as his intimates—and many +others—knew, was not backward in the use of his tongue, and yet there +was something in the unwonted ceremony of the present meal that silenced +him. The old fellow, however, was making a record-breaking use of his +eyes. Henley saw him taking in every detail of his former +daughter-in-law's appearance and mood, and smiling all too knowingly for +anybody's comfort as he munched and gulped.</p> + +<p>After breakfast Henley was at the gate ready to walk to the store when +Wrinkle came to him and clutched his arm familiarly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wait, I'll go 'long with you," he said. "I want to talk to you some, +anyway. Alf, did you ever since the world was made—"</p> + +<p>But his words were lost on the morning air, for Mrs. Henley was calling +to her husband from the porch, where she stood smiling at him from the +honeysuckle vines.</p> + +<p>"Don't go yet!" she called out, and she tripped down the steps toward +him. She paused at a rose-bush on the way and plucked a bright-red bud, +and, bringing it to him, she began to fasten it on the lapel of his +coat. "You are getting entirely too slouchy," she mumbled, a pin in her +mouth. "You never used to wear such dowdy clothes. You've got to spruce +up—ain't he, Pa?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it ain't Sunday, nor camp-meetin'," Wrinkle made answer. "He +looks well enough for every day; he'd look odd with a long, jimswinger +coat on in that dusty store with all them one-gallus mossbacks he makes +his livin' out of. Them fellers 'u'd laugh at 'im an' say he was gittin' +rich too fast at the'r expense."</p> + +<p>As red as the flower with which she was trying to adorn him, Henley +pushed the bud away. "I don't want it," he said. "I never was any hand +to put on such things. I'd be a purty sight, now, wouldn't I—walkin' in +town with a flower-garden pinned to me?"</p> + +<p>She submitted to his refusal, deftly twining the stem of the flower into +the cheap lace about her neck.</p> + +<p>"I've got a favor to ask of you, Alfred," she said, sweetly, "and I +don't want you to refuse it, either. This time I know what I want, and I +must have it."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it?" he asked, his attention diverted from her by the +hungry stare with which old Wrinkle was awaiting the climax of the +little scene.</p> + +<p>"Why, I want you to take me to drive."</p> + +<p>"To drive!" Henley repeated, as much surprised as if she had asked him +for a trip to Europe, and he heard old Wrinkle laugh out impulsively and +saw him dig his heel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> into the earth, as, with lowered head, he sought +to hide a broad and too-knowing smile which had captured his facile +mouth. "To drive?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Alfred, it has been a long time since I've seen anything of the +country hereabouts. Why, I've almost forgot how it looks, and this is +the best time of the year. It would do us both good to take a little +jaunt every day in the cool of the evening. We used to go out that way +just before we was married, and for a while afterward, and I want to do +it again. We've got wrong, somehow. We are not living like we ought to. +I say it here before Pa because I mean it, and know he will see it as I +do. Don't you think he ought to take me, Pa?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know as I'd sanction your ridin' 'round <i>late in the +evenin</i>'." Wrinkle now showed no hint of even hidden merriment. "You +mought git delayed beyond the usual time and supper would hang fire. +Havin' fun an' startin' in to do courtin' over agin is all right an' +proper if a body <i>feels</i> thataway, but doin' it on a starvation basis +ain't good for the health, if it is for the senti<i>ments</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll see that you don't suffer, you old, greedy thing," Mrs. Henley +said, playfully, and caught her husband's arm. "I want you to hitch up, +and get a new lap-robe, and take me to-day—this very evening."</p> + +<p>"To-day? Good gracious, what's got into you, Hettie?" Henley stammered, +glancing here and there in sheer helplessness. "I couldn't get off from +business. I've got my hands full of deals of one kind and another. +Driving around is all right for—for young couples that are sparking, +and even for fresh-married ones, but there comes a time when all +sensible folks ought to settle down to the—the enjoyment of home life."</p> + +<p>"I see—you have changed." Mrs. Henley now drew herself up austerely and +glared at him coldly. "You think I'm well enough as a drudge about a +dirty old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> farm-house, but not fit company for riding and driving like +any woman as young as I am is entitled to. You never thought that sort +of a thing was too frivolous before we married, but now you sneer at it. +Well, you just wait till I give you a chance to take me anywhere again. +I lowered my pride to ask it this time, but I won't remind you again. +No, sir."</p> + +<p>With a cloud of fury on her face she whirled, and whisked into the +house.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Alf," old Wrinkle advised, with a look of amusement in his +eyes. "Let 'er sweat it out alone. She's jest tryin' to work on you, +anyway. She'll be as smooth as goose-grease by night. Looky here, Alf, +I'm an old man, an' you are jest a boy by comparison," he went on, as +they walked down the road together, "but what I don't know about women +you don't know about hosses, and you know a lot. I've learned women inch +by inch all through life. I reckon I got on to it by lyin' around the +fire on cold or wet days and listenin' to 'em. They say some men make a +study of rocks, ores, plants, an' bugs, but my hobby always was females. +Why, I almost know what turn a baby gal will take when it grows up. It +was a sort of funny game with me. I set out to see if I'd ever see a +woman do or say a sensible thing, an' I hain't won yet. Now, you may not +know it, my boy, but you are in hot water, an' it is deep enough to +float yore whiskers. You had married life down about right till just a +few days ago. You could go and come whenever you liked an' nobody axed +any questions. You was about the freest married man I ever knowed, white +or black, yaller or red, but yore day of reckoning has come. I knowed +some'n was wrong last night when you an' Het had that powwow in the +yard, an' I knowed the sun was shinin' too bright this mornin' to do +yore crop any good except to burn it up. I know Het. I've watched her +bury one man an' start in with another, an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> if you had been a worryin' +feller she'd have had you mouldin' in the ground long go. As long as +Hettie could worry you she was happy. Part of that grave-rock +celebration was because she 'lowed it bothered you. I couldn't help +hearin' the talk last night. You both spoke louder than you thought, an' +the wind was blowin' my way. Why, man, when you set thar last night an' +told that woman that her undyin' love for Dick was holy an' godly an' a +thing to be kept in a glass case an' looked at every hour in the day—I +say when you throwed all that guff at her you sealed yore doom. Them +words kicked every prop from under her, an' down she come with a flop +that knocked the breath out of all her calculations. She looks fresh and +rosy this morning, but she rolled and tumbled the most of the night. I +don't sleep sound, an' I heard her. I wondered what step she'd take, an' +the breakfast-table grins an' rose-bud and buggy-ride proposition showed +her hand. This mad spell is part of the game. She has set in to make you +do your courtin' over ag'in, an' you'll find that about as unnatural as +wearin' yore vest under yore shirt. No man can court the same woman +twice an' put his heart in the job, but a woman is just so constituted +that she could <i>have</i> it done over an' over by one or a dozen men. I +reckon, as Scriptur' says, it is more blessed to give than to receive, +but a man 'u'd rather not be blessed in the time to come than to have to +make eyes an' say sweet things when he ain't feelin' jest right. Now, +I'll turn back; I jest walked out with you to give you what advice I +could. Git the bit in yore jaw an' pull yore way steady, an' after a +while she'll git tired an' quit naggin' you."</p> + +<p>That morning, near noon, as Henley was busy at his work in the rear of +the store, Cahews came back to him with a mild look of surprise on his +face.</p> + +<p>"Your wife is out in front in her uncle Ben's carriage," he announced. +"She's dressed for travel—got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> three or four valises in with her. +Warren, must have sent over after her; the team looks like it's been on +the go for several hours."</p> + +<p>Henley found her in the luxurious seat behind the higher one on which +the colored driver, in a battered silk top-hat, sat holding the reins +over a handsome pair of blacks. She looked at him coldly as, hatless and +coatless, he hurried out to her.</p> + +<p>"What's this?" he asked, half playfully. "You ain't going to vamoose the +ranch, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Ben's sick," she answered, stiffly. "He sent a note by Ned. He +didn't say for me to come, but he hinted at it several times. I'd show +you what he wrote, but we haven't time to spare. I packed up as quick as +I could. We'll stop at the half-way house for dinner."</p> + +<p>"Ben hain't dangerous, is he?" Henley asked, his foot on the +brass-tipped hub of the fore-wheel, his hand on the arm of the seat she +occupied.</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether he is or not," the speaker pulled down the veil +under her hat-brim and avoided her husband's eyes, "but he's lonely and +heartbroken over the way that unprincipled woman has treated him, and he +needs petting and nursing and some company in that big, gloomy house to +take his mind off his trouble and humiliation."</p> + +<p>"He ought never to have got mixed up with her." Henley was recalling +Wrinkle's sage remarks. "Dealing with a woman you've known all her life +is risky enough, without going as far as Ben did for an opportunity to +get slapped in the face. But he ought to be thankful he found her out in +time."</p> + +<p>"Finding her out ain't going to lighten the blow." Mrs. Henley shrugged +her shoulders. "When a man—or a <i>woman</i>, for that matter—has full +faith in a person, and finds out that the person ain't anything like he +used to be, why, a body hardly knows what <i>to</i> think. I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> glad I'm +going away, Alfred. You showed me this morning when I give you that +chance to take me about a little here and there that you are changed. +When I'm away you'll realize what you've missed, and I'll be glad of it. +Absence, on my side, is the medicine you need to restore your senses."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll all certainly miss you." Henley was too honest—at least in +domestic matters—to know that his assertion was insincere, and +accustomed as he was in his dealings among men to assume exactly the +shade of tone or set of face that went best with a statement, he now had +as complete an air of regret and discomfort as the most exacting of +wives could have wished.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm getting the drive I asked for," was her parting shot, and she +leaned over and gave him a cold, stiff hand. "I'm taking it all by +myself, as most married women have to do if they don't seek the +attention of other men. But I'm going to do my duty to a human sufferer, +and in that I'll get my reward."</p> + +<p>He walked back to the store thoughtfully. "She's gone!" he said to +himself. "She's ripping mad and got it in for me, that's certain. She's +begun on a new line, and I'll bet she makes me smoke before she's +through with me. I know what she wants well enough, but somehow I just +can't do it. I might at one time, but I couldn't now to save my neck +from the loop. The old man is plumb right. When a feller's love gets +cold on the inside he can't warm it up by external applications. He's a +matrimonial misfit, and the sooner he realizes it and is resigned the +better he'll feel."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/038.png" alt=""W" /></span> + +ELL, the old gal's gone," Wrinkle remarked that day at sundown when +Henley came in at the gate and found him seated on a dismantled beehive +in the yard. "I reckon you seed 'er spin through town. For a woman goin' +out as a sick-nuss or spiritual comforter to a chap kicked by a +high-steppin' filly she certainly had a supply of frills and ruffles. +Them valises was packed as tight as a compressed cotton-bale. She left +behind her one solid wail of woe. Jane is afraid she'll never gratify +yore taste for grub as well as Het did, an' she's in thar now humpin' +herself to contrive new concoctions. Het kept boarders long enough to +git stingy, an' I told my wife to turn over a new leaf for a change. I +driv' a fat chicken in a fence-corner just now, and held its legs while +she chopped its spout off. She knows how to fry 'em, an' if she kin see +well enough to pick the pin-feathers off it will be all right. I'd put +her biscuits agin any ever baked."</p> + +<p>After a really enjoyable supper Henley went out under the trees to get +the fresh air which, in invigorating gusts, swept up the valley along +the mountain-range. He told himself that his reason for wandering down +toward his barn was to avoid meeting Wrinkle, who he knew would soon +appear from the kitchen, where he was helping his wife wash the dishes. +He was aware, of course, that Dixie Hart's cow-lot adjoined his +stable-yard, and he knew that it was the hour at which she went to +milk,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> and yet he would not have admitted that he strolled thither in +the hope of meeting her, but, nevertheless, he went.</p> + +<p>He saw her entering the lot-gate, a bright tin pail in her hand, and he +shielded himself with a jutting corner of his wagon-shed and watched her +graceful approach through the dusk. He saw her get the tub of cow's food +from the crib and give it to the animal, and then he heard her scream +out, and, following her startled eyes, he saw that, having failed to +close the gate behind her, the cow's calf had entered and was rushing to +its mother. With an ejaculation of impatience Dixie threw her arms about +the calf's neck and tried to pull it from the cow's bag, but it was of +no avail. The strong young beast would wriggle from her clutch and dart +back to its supper.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you brat, you are stealing all the milk!" Dixie cried. She picked +up a dried corn-stalk, and with it belabored the sleek, brown back of +the calf, but she might as well have used an ostrich-plume for all the +effect it had on the hungry animal.</p> + +<p>It was then that Henley, laughing heartily, sprang over the fence and +came to her assistance.</p> + +<p>"Let me have the little scamp," he said. And he bent down and took the +squirming beast into his strong arms and lifted it bodily from the +ground. "Now, where do you want him put?" he asked, as he stood swaying +back and forth in his effort to control the wriggling prisoner.</p> + +<p>"Over the fence!" she cried, and stood panting in admiration of his cool +skill and strength as he walked to the fence and dropped the calf on the +other side. He then fastened the gate and came back to her.</p> + +<p>"You are doing a man's work, anyway," he said, looking into her flushed +face, "and you ought to call a halt. Life is too short to spend it as +you are doing."</p> + +<p>"It's all very well for you men to talk that way,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> Dixie retorted, as +she pushed her milking-stool to the side of the cow and sat down with +the pail between her knees, "but women, as well as men, want to live, +and if there's any way to live without work, and plenty of it, I'd like +to find out about it."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me that a feller by the name of Long was offering to point +out a way to you," he said, with a forced smile.</p> + +<p>The back part of her uncovered head was turned toward him. Her shapely +hands and bare, tapering arms gleamed like yellow marble through the +dusk. He smelled the delightful odor of the warm milk as her deft +fingers sent it ringing into the pail.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was offering me a job," he heard her say with a sarcastic +little chuckle. "He wanted me to quit working at my old place and set in +for him, and nothing particular was said about raising my wages."</p> + +<p>"And what are you going to answer him, I wonder?" Henley inquired, as he +bent down over her that the noise of the squirting milk might not drown +her reply.</p> + +<p>She flashed a glance at him; there was an ineffable shimmer in her +long-lashed eyes; she made a comical little grimace. "I've said the last +word between me and him," she answered. "I got a humble letter from him +yesterday begging my pardon for what he'd tried to do, and saying he'd +behave like a gentleman from now on, if I'd only let him come out +again."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was time he was apologizing," Henley cried. "For a little I'd +have—well!"</p> + +<p>Dixie smiled and looked at him eagerly. "Did that make you mad, +Alfred—really mad?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I ever was madder in all my life." He walked +unsuspectingly into her trap. "I driv' away soon after or I don't know +what would have happened. The more I thought about it the madder I got. +Once I started to turn round and go back. I would, if I hadn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> thought +he was such a weak fool. It ain't done with; I can't think about it +without wanting to mash something. I reckon me 'n him had better stay +apart."</p> + +<p>"We ain't going to have any row about that, Alfred," Dixie said, quite +seriously. "You know you would bear a lot rather than have folks say +a—a married man was taking up for me in that way. If you ever meet him, +and the thing comes up, you must remember that one thing. My character's +all I've got, Alfred; if you are what I think you are, you'd think twice +before compromising me like that. Carrie Wade <i>would</i> talk then, sure +enough. Married men don't go about having fisticuffs over girls that +live next door to 'em without folks wondering, and I tell you I'm like +that fellow Cæsar's wife—I'm too good to be wondered about in any shape +or form."</p> + +<p>"I know it—God knows I know it," Henley responded, under his trembling +breath. "You needn't be afraid, Dixie. I'll take care. But you didn't +tell me what answer you made to—to Long's apology, or whether you was +going to let him come again or not."</p> + +<p>"I wrote him a pretty nice sort of a letter." She was laughing as she +bent over her pail, but he didn't know it. "You see, Alfred, I was +afraid you had hurt the poor fellow's feelings that day, and I thought +<i>somebody</i> ought to be mild-tempered. I told 'im that wasn't no place or +time, anyway, to kiss a girl—right in front of the door of her +house—that a girl naturally liked to be wheedled awhile before she set +in on such familiar terms, and that if it had been a <i>third</i> visit, +instead of jest the <i>second</i>, that I'd have taken him for a stroll down +by the creek. There's a foot-log there plumb hid by willows, Alfred, and +I always thought it would be fine to set on it with your feet dangling +over the stream and see two sweethearts reflected in the clear water, +his arm round her waist and her head on his shoulder. Now, that's the +sort of thing this chicken has always had a yearning for, and—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> Dixie +tittered inaudibly in the pail and said nothing more.</p> + +<p>He had drawn himself erect and stood as full of despair as the night was +full of darkness. She heard him utter a low groan, but that was all. She +peered up at him stealthily, and then, with a face warm with content, +she resumed her work. He stood silent till she rose.</p> + +<p>"Now that dratted calf can come to the second table," she said, in the +most uneventful tone imaginable. "Alfred, will you please let him in? +He's about to butt the gate down."</p> + +<p>He walked stiffly across the lot and opened the gate. The calf shot past +him like an animated cannon-ball. He met her as, with the pail on her +arm, she had turned toward the cottage.</p> + +<p>"I'm too big a fool to ever understand you, Dixie," he gulped, as they +paused face to face. "Since me and you parted the—the other day I—I've +been plumb crazy. I got to thinking things that are too far off—too +nigh the gates of heaven to be possible—things that made all my +troubles fly away, but now I see it was just in my imagination. I'm +going to be sensible from now on if it kills me. You can't keep on in +the miserable way you are living. You've always thought you'd escape the +worst by marrying, and I have no right because this here hell is raging +in me to tell you who, or who not, to take. I'd rather see you—you dead +in your coffin than the—the wife of that silly fool. But that's your +business—that's—that's—" His voice broke and he stood quivering, his +strong face torn into shreds by despair.</p> + +<p>"You dear, dear boy!" Dixie said, laying her disengaged hand gently on +his arm, her own face suffused with a faint glow of uncontrollable +tenderness. "I'm only a girl—a natural one, Alfred—and I'm so hungry +for love that I try to make you say those things, wrong as they may be. +Don't you know when I'm joking? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>Listen and I'll tell you the truth. I +wrote Jasper Long that it was all right about what he'd tried to do. I'd +not hold any grudge against him, but that I knew I never could care for +him, and I hoped he'd never come to see me again."</p> + +<p>"You—you wrote 'im that?" Henley gasped.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Alfred," she cried, as she released his arm, "don't you know that I +could not marry a man I don't love? Don't you know what has been growing +up in me all this time in which you with your unhappiness and me with my +misfortune have been drawed so close together? Every night, as I say my +prayers and call on God to help you, I wonder what He meant by the bonds +with which He's tied me to you hand and foot, heart and soul. When you +was trying to find me a husband, and fighting for my legal rights, you +thought it was just friendship, and so did I. The world we live in +counts it one of the blackest of sins for a married man and an unmarried +girl to love each other, but you know we didn't do wrong intentionally. +We was as innocent and unsuspecting as lambs in the fold. Right when we +thought we was doing our duty the ground was slipping from under us, and +we was clutching each other to keep from falling. Now, that's all I'm +going to say. I shall never marry any man while this feeling is in my +breast. That would be wrong for a dead certainty, let folks say what +they please about the other. Your wife went off to-day, didn't she? I +saw Warren's carriage drive up and knew something was going to happen; +then the old man come over and told us about it."</p> + +<p>She had passed through the gate on her way home, and he remained at her +side. "I want to stop in after supper, and—and see how little Joe is," +he said, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>"No, not to-night, Alfred," she returned, firmly. "He'd like to see you, +but don't come the first night after—after she went away. We really +must be sensible.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> Folks don't understand—they never could +understand—and we've got to think of them. I may have done wrong in +letting you know how I feel, but it will end there."</p> + +<p>"I see, I understand," he said, reverently. "They shall never talk about +you while I'm alive. Good-night."</p> + +<p>He walked slowly toward the lights in the farm-house. He heard the two +Wrinkles, with cracked voices, singing a hymn as they sat in their +rocking-chairs on the porch. The very stars seemed to hang lower from +the darkling mystery overhead; he felt light enough, in his boundless +content, to rise to them and drink at their twinkling founts. His soul +seemed to swell to the point of bursting. "Oh, God, I thank Thee!" he +said, deep within himself. "I thank Thee!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/039.png" alt="W" /></span> + +ITH Henley the next day passed like some fascinating dream. He was busy +in various ways as usual, and yet scarcely for a moment were his +thoughts away from his new-found delight. He had no hope, bound as he +was to another to whom he owed his honor, of ever being closer to Dixie +than he was now, and yet there was something in the very purity of his +possession of her heart and in her willing sacrifice of so much for the +principle which guided her that lifted him into new and untrodden fields +of spiritual ecstasy.</p> + +<p>It was near sunset, and he stood in the front doorway of the store, +looking out into the quiet square, when, to his surprise and with a +tumultuous throbbing of his heart, he saw Dixie pass with a letter in +her hand on the way to the post-office. She was on the opposite side of +the street and did not glance in his direction, and he made no effort to +attract her attention. As she passed along by old Welborne's diminutive +office Henley noticed that Hank Bradley, who had been drinking about +town through the day, came from the doorway and bowed to her +conspicuously, his slouch-hat almost sweeping the pavement as he bent +downward. She passed on with a bare nod and quickened her step till she +entered the post-office, a few doors farther on.</p> + +<p>There was something in this, remembering as he did that Bradley had +persistently pursued the girl with attentions, which not only angered +Henley, but filled him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> with concern for her safety. The half-drunken +brute might take it into his head to follow her down the lonely road +which she had to traverse to reach her house. So, with these things in +mind, Henley told Cahews that he was going home, and he walked out to +the first densely shaded part of the road and, retiring into the bushes, +sat on the grass, determined that he would at least follow in her wake +till she was out of danger of being accosted.</p> + +<p>The sunlight had quite disappeared now, and the fringe of dusk was +settling over the silent wood. He was growing impatient, and wondering +if anything could have happened to detain Dixie in town, when he beard +voices down the road. He stood up and peered through the curtain of wild +vines which hung between him and the open. He could see no one, and the +voices were so indistinct that he failed to recognize them. But the +conversing individuals were evidently rapidly approaching, for their +voices were growing louder. Both seemed to be talking at the same time, +and Henley was pretty sure that it was a man and a woman. Then the +coarser voice drowned the finer and fainter, and Henley recognized it as +belonging to Bradley.</p> + +<p>"I've been put off and fooled and deviled by you as long as I'm going to +be!" the brute cried out. "You are a beautiful young devil, that's what +you are. I've offered you every inducement a man could offer. If I'm +drunk, you are the cause of it. I can't think of nothing but you—you, +with your maddening eyes of fire and cheeks full of hot blood. I want +you. I want you every minute I draw breath. You must listen to reason. +I've got plenty of money. We could live like a king and queen on the fat +of the land, as God means men and women to live, full of joy and life. +Stop, you've got to kiss me! We are alone; nobody is about."</p> + +<p>"Let me pass, I tell you, let me pass!" Dixie's terrified voice rose to +a shriek, and then it ended in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>smothered sound as if a hand had been +placed over her mouth. Henley was sure they were struggling and he +sprang into the road. Swaying back and forth against the dark background +of the wood, he saw Bradley with the girl in his arms. Dixie had ducked +her head to avoid his repulsive lips, and the assailant's back was +turned to Henley. With the bound of a panther he reached them just as +Dixie was eluding Bradley's embrace and trying to release her hand, to +which he clung with a grip of steel. Neither of the two saw Henley, and +it was a crushing blow from the storekeeper's fist against the side of +Bradley's head that showed him what he had to contend with. He had +scarcely taken another breath before Henley struck him again with the +force of a sledgehammer squarely between the eyes. Bradley staggered, +swayed, grew limp, and went down. His eyes rolled back in his head till +the whites were exposed. He quivered through his whole form, drew his +shoulders up once, and then lay still. Henley, his hands clinched, the +eyes of an infuriated animal in his head, his great mouth hanging open, +stood over the fallen man.</p> + +<p>"Thank God, oh, thank God!" It was Dixie's voice behind him, and he +turned to see her at the edge of the road, her face as white as death +could have made it, her hands convulsively clasped in front of her. "Oh, +Alfred, Alfred, if you hadn't come—" She came to him, but, primitive +man that he now was, there seemed to be no place in him for tenderness. +His great breast heaved, his lips quivered, his eyes bulged from their +sockets. She was about to put out her hands in an effort toward soothing +him when, glancing toward Bradley, she uttered a scream of alarm. He was +rising, a drawn revolver in his hand. Quick as his approach had been, +Henley's next movement was quicker; before the weapon was fairly poised +he had knocked it from Bradley's grasp. Contemptuously kicking it out of +his reach, Henley gave the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> man a sharp blow with his fist; and while +Bradley was impotently shielding his face with his arms, Henley picked +up the revolver, cocked it, and directed it toward him.</p> + +<p>"Apologize to this lady," he said, huskily, "and do it quick, for I'm +going to blow your brains out. Down on your knees, you dirty +whelp—down, I say!"</p> + +<p>"I'll be damned if I do."</p> + +<p>"Then take your medicine, and may God have mercy on your dirty soul!" +And, as Bradley screamed out and held up his hands in sudden, +overpowering fear, Dixie sprang forward and wrested the weapon from +Henley's hand.</p> + +<p>"No," she said—"no, you sha'n't kill him. Hank Bradley, go! Go, I tell +you! I won't have blood spilt over me. I've got a right to demand that, +and I <i>do</i> demand it. Go, I tell you! I'm going to keep this gun to +protect myself with. I live in a country of outlaws, and I'm going to +defend myself from now on. Go! What are you waiting for?"</p> + +<p>Muttering and growling in sullen defiance, Bradley got to his feet, his +battered face and eyes swollen.</p> + +<p>"You've got the best of the game so far," he snarled at Henley, "but +it's not ended. You'll hear from me."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you one thing, Hank," Henley said, as he glared at the man, +"you are leaving here now, but if I ever meet you face to face in town, +or anywhere else, I'll kill you as sure as there's a God. I've said it, +and I mean it—I'll kill you as I would a snake."</p> + +<p>Henley and Dixie stood in silence and watched him as he entered the wood +and strode farther into its depths. They heard the cracking of dry twigs +under his feet as he steadily receded, the sound of his untoward +progress growing fainter and fainter in the distance.</p> + +<p>"I'll be sorry to the day of my death that I didn't kill him," Henley +panted, the wild fury unabated in his voice, face, and eyes. "Why, he +was treating you like a dog;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> he actually proposed, actually dared to +hint that his dirty money—my God! and I let him walk off on his two +feet."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," Dixie muttered, soothingly, and she forced a smile as +she looked at the revolver in her hand, "and oh, Alfred, I'm just girl +enough to be glad you come as you did, and even to see it work you up +like it has; but at a time like this a woman must act and think for a +man when he is all wrought up and half out of his head. I couldn't +prevent what he done. He was waiting for me at the end of the street and +insisted on walking with me. I begged him to go back, but he was talking +so loud and rough that I was afraid folks would make remarks. I hated to +call for help; I'm neither sugar nor salt, and am able to care for +myself. But I'd never seen him as drunk as that before, and, well, if +you hadn't come—"</p> + +<p>She shuddered convulsively. He looked at her wrist, which she kept +touching with her handkerchief; the skin was broken and the flesh +bruised where Bradley had clutched it.</p> + +<p>"My God!" Henley took it gently in his throbbing hands and looked at it +with glaring eyes, "and I let him walk away! He's free now, but, as +there is a God overhead, I'll—"</p> + +<p>"No, stop, listen—hear me, Alfred!" Dixie entreated, allowing her hand +to rest passively in his. "There are some things you men make more of +than us women. I reckon it's your natures to be that way. Now, me 'n you +have got to settle this thing for good and all right here and now, for +if I have to go home to-night with the fear that there is to be +bloodshed on my account I'd be more miserable than I ever was. Last +night, Alfred, after I left you at the lot-gate, I went home and done my +work with an odd feeling on me, I waited on Joe; I fixed the beds and +made my mother and aunt lie down, and then I was all alone and had time +to reflect over—over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> me and you. I reckon my thoughts had taken a new +turn by just one little remark of yours. Alfred, it was you asking to +come over on the—the first—the very first night after your wife left. +A girl will do a lot of headstrong things when her pity and admiration +are worked up for a man she loves, but now and then, if she's sensible, +some powerful small thing will make her think. Alfred, I saw the brink +we was standing on, as plain as if we was on a high cliff and there was +nothing between us and the bottom, and all sorts of forces was blinding +us and pulling and shoving us over. I'm a good, pure girl—no purer, in +thought or act, ever lived, and yet I've been in an inch of having a bad +character saddled on me for the rest of my life. As I looked at little +Joe asleep in his bed and remembered that I had given my word and bond +to the law to make a worthy mother to him, as I looked at them two old +women who think I'm already robed in the garb of paradise, and realized +that one mischievous word started about me and you would ruin me and all +the others—I say, when that thought come to me I wondered how I could, +in my right senses, have talked to you as I have and let you know my +feelings. I can't believe that it is wrong to—to feel as I do toward +you, because I was drawed into it by things that I couldn't avoid. You +was always trying to help me, and was so sweet and good and manly and +respectful that, knowing about your own troubles, I couldn't help +myself. Then I saw you loved—liked me, and the—the pure, hungry joy of +it—the dazzling glory of it, bound me hand and foot, and I plunged in +without thought or caution. But we are cooler now, Alfred, and we've got +to keep our heads. To begin with, you have got to let this matter with +that scamp drop. I demand it; my good name demands it; I haven't given +you the right to fight battles over me, and I don't intend to. I'd +rather let that man, repulsive as he is, kiss me a dozen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> times than +have to hang my head before them I love. They would take Joe from me; it +would hurry my mother to her grave; it would be a living death. See, +here's the revolver." She, forced a white smile as she slid it into the +pocket of his coat. "Dispose of it; I don't want to be reminded of +what's happened. I'm giving it to you because I can trust you. I know +you'll do as I ask."</p> + +<p>"Do as you ask me—good God!" Henley bit his lip till the blood ran +against his fine teeth, and he fell to quivering. "I see what you mean, +and I know you are right, and yet, and yet, I couldn't have let him walk +off like that if I hadn't thought—"</p> + +<p>"I know—I saw that in your eye," Dixie went on, firmly—"and that's why +I'm making you promise now. No matter what happens, Alfred, you are +going to avoid that man—you are going to protect me in a higher and +braver way than spilling human blood. You'll avoid him, won't you?"</p> + +<p>She saw the muscles of his face settle into a rigid grimace, his eyes +flared, his great breast heaved, and he nodded. "Yes," he said, "I'll +avoid him; that is, I think—yes, I know I'll do it for your sake."</p> + +<p>"There, I knew you wouldn't refuse me," Dixie cried, almost merrily. +"Now let's walk on. You mustn't go all the way. I'm afraid our dream is +over, Alfred. This scare has opened my eyes to our earthly duties. I'm +going to think of you just as—as often as I wish, and lo—love you, but +we mustn't meet often. I want you to love me, too—that's God's truth, +but don't tell me so, Alfred, any more—not a single time."</p> + +<p>"How can I help it?" He turned on her, his face full of fire, his voice +shaking with passion. He threw his arms about her and was drawing her +into a close embrace when she stiffened her body and, with firm hands, +disengaged herself, and, as she pushed him back, she said: "No, no! that +will not do, Alfred. You must never do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> that again. It isn't because I +don't want you to. If we had the right, I could rest forever in your +dear arms; I could—oh, Alfred, what does God mean by treating us like +this?"</p> + +<p>"He means that we were made for one another," Henley gulped, as his eyes +probed her own. "I know it—I know it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, maybe," she said, as she moved onward, "but perhaps not for this +life, Alfred. Our love is as eternal as that space above is endless. It +is spiritual and pure; let's keep it that way. Now I'll leave you. Don't +forget."</p> + +<p>"I'll obey your commands," Henley answered, fervidly. "I know my duty +and I'll try to do it."</p> + +<p>She hung back a moment longer, her pretty, arching brows drawn together +in thought. "I'm more worried about you and Hank Bradley than you may +guess," she said. "Even if you don't meet him, he may do you some other +injury. In fact, he once said—" She paused, her eyes on the ground.</p> + +<p>"He said what, Dixie?" Henley prompted.</p> + +<p>"He said something one day that worried me a lot," she went on, slowly. +"It was the day, you remember, when he was drinking and you ordered him +from the store. I met him, and he was in an awful state of fury. I +didn't tell you about it because I was afraid it would make trouble."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I reckon he was mad that day," Henley said, lightly. "He looked it +when he left."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't that exactly," Dixie said. "He seemed to be under the same +impression that lots of folks are, that—that you are very much in love +with your wife, and always have been, for he sneered a great deal about +it, and finally said he knew something which, if he was not bound by +promise to keep, would tear you all to pieces."</p> + +<p>"Humph!" Henley sniffed, "I reckon it was some lie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> or other that Dick +Wrinkle told him when they was out West together. You know Dick hated me +like a snake. That ain't nothing, don't let it bother you."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it," Dixie said, as she turned away. "It looked to me +like he really meant something important. He seemed so sure that he had +you in his power. Now, good-bye. Keep your promise."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/040.png" alt="H" /></span> + +ANK BRADLEY, his face stinging from the bruises he had received, his +blood boiling with fury and humiliation, slunk deeper and deeper into +the wood. Now he would utter a despondent groan, again a long and +resonant string of threatening oaths. As he slowly spat the blood from +his gashed lips, he solemnly vowed that he would have the man's life who +had dared to interfere with him. To the end of his existence he would +see himself sprawling at the feet of the woman whom he had so long and +persistently sought—as long as he lived he would see the righteous +glare in his antagonist's eyes, the look of grateful relief which +lighted the face of the rescued. Plunging onward, he came to a +mountain-brook which, as clear as crystal, leaped and rippled, gurgled +and muttered down the rugged declivity. Here he paused, whining and +bemoaning his luck, and sat down and bathed his face. He was sober now, +all too sober, in fact, for his peace of mind. Above the tree-tops he +saw the roof and gables of his uncle's house, and, as he mopped his face +with his blood-clotted handkerchief, he trudged toward it.</p> + +<p>Old Welborne himself was on the lawn inspecting his beehives, near the +front gate, when his nephew entered, and he turned toward him, staring +curiously.</p> + +<p>"Why, what's the matter?" the old man asked. "You look like you've been +run over by a wagon, or kicked by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>an army mule. Great heavens, man!" +Welborne put out his hand as if to touch the purple and swollen spot +above Bradley's eye, but with a surly oath the young man drew back.</p> + +<p>"Same mule, I reckon, that had hold of your windpipe in your office the +other day when you squealed like a stuck pig under the table."</p> + +<p>"Huh!" Welborne grunted. "You was in the other room and didn't show +yourself when a man less 'n half my age and as strong as an ox +was—was—"</p> + +<p>"T'wasn't my row, and this ain't <i>yours</i>," Hank growled. "I'll tell you +that now, and be done with it. I won't take up any fight of yours over +your close-fisted, hold-up deals, but I'll see mine through, and don't +you forget it."</p> + +<p>"You'd better go in the house and put some medicine on your face," the +old man advised, "and sleep off that drunk! I smelt you before you +opened the gate. I knew when you was kicked out of Alf Henley's store +that day that you'd never let it rest till you had another row. You are +like your daddy was, always looking for trouble, and, somehow, always +finding plenty of it, and doing no particular harm to anybody else. He +was always going to kill somebody, but never got to it."</p> + +<p>"Listen to me," Bradley snarled; "if I don't kill that dirty whelp in +twenty-four hours from now, I leave home for good and all."</p> + +<p>"Say, look here," Welborne said, with a change of tone. "I'm not saying +this for Alf Henley's sake, for I hate him; he is the only man in this +county that ever tricked me out of my rights, and I'll get even with +'im, sooner or later, but I'm thinking now about you. You may be +foolhardy enough to try some slip-up game on him. I'm not afraid you'll +meet him like a man, for, if it had been in you, you'd have done it +before this, but you may think you can do your job in the dark, so +listen to me, Hank. You may think you can shoot him from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> behind, but I +tell you if you do you'll swing for it. I've got a longer head than you +have, because I've kept it clear, and hate of a man never will get my +neck in the loop. Don't you know—can't you see that if anything harmed +that fellow now, after this whipping he's given you, that suspicion +would be directed to you. He's popular—men on all sides like him—and a +jury would not leave their seats to convict you. You'd hang, I tell you, +hang till you are dead, dead, dead!"</p> + +<p>"I'd rather hang, by God," Bradley growled, "than go through with what +I'm going through now. Don't talk to me. Go on with your flea-skinning, +and let me alone. I know what I'm about!"</p> + +<p>"You don't, for you are too befuddled with liquor to know," retorted the +calm old man. "I can remind you of a thing that maybe you ought to +recall. There was a white man lynched for a certain offence two months +ago. It was done by a mob of eight or ten young devils on a drunken +rampage. The authorities was disposed to drop it, because it was +believed the man was guilty, but now it is leaking out that he was the +wrong party. His friends are working as quiet as moles under ground. +They are getting names and stacks of evidence. A man I've done a favor +for come and told me to warn you. I didn't think it was worth while, but +I do now, because if you fire on Alf Henley from the dark you'll be +arrested, and both charges will be saddled on you."</p> + +<p>"I don't care a damn about that, either," Bradley spouted, and he turned +toward the house. "I'll do one thing at a time, and take the biggest +first."</p> + +<p>"That's your determination, then?"</p> + +<p>"You bet it is. I know my business, and I don't want you to put your +fingers in it."</p> + +<p>"Well, go ahead with your rat-killing," the money-lender said. "I've +given you a piece of sound advice, and, if you don't take it, that isn't +my lookout."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bradley strode heavily and with dragging feet along the gravelled walk +to the house. He lunged awkwardly across the veranda floor and went into +the wide hallway and ascended the walnut stairs to his room.</p> + +<p>An hour later he came down. He had been drinking again from a supply of +liquor kept in his chamber. One of his hip-pockets bulged with a flask, +the other with a long revolver. No one was on the front veranda or on +the lawn. A dim light from a window at the right of the hall told him +that his uncle was in his room, perhaps absorbed over his accounts and +papers. Passing out at the gate, he took the narrow, private road +through his uncle's fields to Chester, the lights of which danced before +his unsteady vision. It was Saturday, and, as Henley often went to the +store on that night, Bradley concluded that he might be there now. When +he reached the square he found few persons on any of the divergent +streets. A few strangers and drummers sat smoking and chatting on the +low veranda of the little hotel, and in the darkness he passed them +without attracting attention. Reaching Henley's store, he glanced in at +the front. Cahews and Pomp were putting the tumbled dry-goods department +to rights, and sweeping, sprinkling, and dusting. A queer thrill of +triumph passed through the watcher as he descried the lamp on Henley's +desk and the unruffled face of the storekeeper in its circle of rays.</p> + +<p>Fearing that some passer-by might notice him in front, Bradley climbed +over the fence at the side of the house and crouched down in the yard, +hidden by the shadow of the wall. The village was very still. The +clanging of a near-by church-bell calling the choir to practise for the +Sunday service jarred harshly on Bradley's tense nerves. Pomp was +singing, keeping time with strokes of his broom, and Cahews was +whistling an accompaniment. Bradley waited till the bell had ceased its +clangor, and then, with a step that was almost steady, he glided<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> along +the weather-boarding through the junk-filled yard till he had reached +the open window close to Henley's desk. Henley was still there. He +seemed to be counting money, for he had a bag of coin near him and the +iron safe near by was open. Bradley could see the pigeon-holes and +little drawers with their brass mountings gleaming in the light. He drew +his revolver and cocked it noiselessly and aimed it experimentally at +his intended victim. No better mark could be desired, but the right +moment must be chosen. Bradley looked about him, his befuddled brain +noting this or that obstacle to immediate flight. He must think; he must +make no mistake, for, as his uncle had said, the risk was grave. The +sudden report of a revolver would cause that cottage door to fly open; +Seth Woods at work in his cage-like shop across the street would run +directly over to see what had happened. The loungers at the hotel would +appear, Cahews and Pomp, and, and—Bradley recalled Welborne's reference +to the lynched man, and shuddered. Yes, drunk as he was, he could see +that, easy as the deed was of execution, escape would be most difficult. +He told himself, as he thrust the weapon back into his pocket, that the +centre of the town was no place for work like this, and that later +Henley would have to pass along a lonely road in darkness to get home. +Yes, that was the best plan, he decided, and, creeping back through the +yard, he regained the fence, and, watching his opportunity, he climbed +over into the street and made his way unobserved out into the country +road.</p> + +<p>Soon he had reached the point he had in mind. It was, by odd fatality, +the spot where he had received his castigation only a few hours before. +The moon was behind a cloud, and yet the visible stars furnished +sufficient light for him to see his way, dulled as his vision was by the +spirits he had consumed. Now his plan was complete. He would lie in wait +right where the unshaded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> roadway entered the wood. Henley's form would +be clearly limned against the unobstructed horizon. Bradley would fire +once, twice, as many times as would be necessary to do the work +absolutely. He believed that he would be calm enough, practicable as it +would be at that distance from any residence, to step forward and +examine the body to be sure that no mistake had been made. Bradley +chuckled as he sat down on the heather, and felt a satisfied, even +triumphant, glow steal over him. Taking out his flask, he drained its +contents, and then threw it into the wood. It whistled ominously as it +cut its way through the air and fell with a crash against a bowlder. He +drew out his watch and struck a match to see the dial. It was ten +o'clock. His victim could not be long now, for Henley never remained +late at the store.</p> + +<p>"Ah, what was that? Surely it was a man's whistle, and Henley's whistle +was a well-known and merry characteristic of himself. To-night it +rippled forth more joyously than usual, and this in itself added to the +flames in the crouching man's breast. Henley could whistle that way +because he had triumphed so conspicuously in the recent encounter. But +stopping a man's whistle was a small matter when it was done with a +six-shooter by a good marksman, Bradley chuckled, and that wouldn't +bother him many seconds. Now he could distinctly hear the storekeeper's +step; he would soon be in view there where the fireflies were flashing, +and then—but what was that? Something seemed to be lowered from the +branches of a tree directly across the road as by a rope, and to hang +against the dark background, turning in a gruesome fashion, as if +wind-blown, first one way and then another. It was a human body. The +feet were tied by a bridle-rein, the hands bound behind by the +suspenders the corpse had worn. Bradley had seen the thing in fancy many +times before, but never in such grim actuality as now. He strained his +sight to make sure. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> was no doubt. The thing was actually +there—there, there, great God!—there!</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, friends, neighbors"—he remembered the very words that had +escaped the lips now grinning at him—"you are hangin' the wrong man. +I'm innocent. In the name of God, spare me. I'm the father of six +children that depend on me for a living. Give me a chance to prove what +I say—oh, God!—oh, God, oh, God, have mercy!"</p> + +<p>The hand holding the revolver relaxed. With a subdued cry of terror, +Bradley was on his feet, glaring at the accusing sight. He saw Henley +enter the wood and move on unsuspectingly toward the horrible spectre +which swung across his path. Indeed, Henley passed through it as through +a vapor, still whistling. With a cry still in his throat, Bradley dashed +into the wood and fled the spot.</p> + +<p>Henley heard the sound of pattering feet and paused for a moment, +looking about him wonderingly. It wasn't an animal suddenly frightened +from its lair, for the weird, guttural cry was human. At the side of the +road stood a huge oak, on the trunk of which there was a grayish, +barkless strip about the width and length of a medium-sized man, and +hanging from a bough above was an uprooted grape-vine. These natural +objects would have attracted Henley's attention had he known how they +had been masquerading in his behalf. As it was, however, he resumed his +whistling, and, barely reminded by the spot of the recent encounter, he +cheerfully pursued his way. He was very tired, and looked forward with +eagerness to the moment when he could get into bed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/041.png" alt="H" /></span> + +ENLEY'S wife had been gone two weeks and had not written a line either +to him or the Wrinkles, when, one morning just after breakfast, as old +Jason stood on the front porch, he espied, far down the road, the Warren +carriage, with Ned in the driver's seat. The back part of the vehicle +was not in sight, but Wrinkle had seen enough to convince him that his +ex-daughter-in-law was returning, and he promptly and gleefully +announced the fact to his wife and Henley in the dining-room. They all +went to the porch and waited for the now-hidden carriage to round the +bend. For a short distance Ned's battered silk top-hat and the tip of +his whip flitting along above the tasselled corn-stalks which intervened +between the house and the road were the only evidence of the vehicle's +approach, and then it turned sharply in at the wagon-gate.</p> + +<p>"My Lord, the dang thing's empty!" Wrinkle cried. "I wonder if she fell +out comin' down the mountain, an' Ned never noticed it?"</p> + +<p>A full and rather startling explanation was furnished by the negro, when +he had reined in at the steps. Ben Warren was dead and was to be buried +the next day. Mrs. Henley had been too much overcome by careful watching +at his bedside and grief to write, but she had sent the carriage over +for the Wrinkles, whom she wished to attend the funeral. She wanted them +to bring a good many things to wear, as they might have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> to stay some +time to keep her company in her loneliness.</p> + +<p>When Ned had driven his horses around the house to be fed and watered +and rubbed down, and Mrs. Wrinkle, uttering a fusillade of meaningless +ejaculations and puffs of gratified horror, had disappeared in the house +to pack, old Jason made a wry face and squinted comically at Henley. "I +reckon Het wasn't too much overcome to keep 'er from shufflin' 'er cards +in her little poker game with you. You notice she didn't include you in +the invite. I reckon she still feels sore over that buggy-ride that went +crooked, an' has decided that you sha'n't take part in any festivities +that she has anything to do with. I like to stay with you, Alf, as well +as I would with any feller, but the change to that fine place won't be +bad. I'll have a good time, takin' it all in all. Ben has—or had, +rather—a fine mansion that is well stocked with grub, an' some nigger +women that can prepare stuff to a queen's taste. If Het don't take +charge of the pantry, there'll be enough to go around an' plenty over. +But we'll see, we'll see."</p> + +<p>That afternoon, as Henley and Cahews sat in the front part of the store, +the carriage passed on its way over the mountain. Wrinkle and his demure +spouse, in their very best clothing, sat on the luxurious leather +cushions in the rear, and Wrinkle was smiling broadly and waving parting +signals at them. The carriage had passed on, and was about to turn into +the first street leading mountainward, when Wrinkle was seen to reach +forward and clutch the driver's arm. He gave some command, and the +horses were reined in and Wrinkle got out, and as he busied himself +rubbing something from the lapel of his broadcloth coat he walked with +rather uncertain gait to the store.</p> + +<p>"Say, Alf," he began, as he ascended the steps to the porch, "if it's +agreeable to you, I'd like to have a dollar for pocket-change. Het's +pretty liberal, as a general<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> thing, but Ned says she's powerful upset +over her loss, an' I'd sorter hate to tackle 'er the fust day we are +over thar, an' I know, in reason, I'll need a few nickels to drop here +an' thar."</p> + +<p>"Get it for him, Jim," Henley ordered, and, while Cahews was at the +cash-drawer, Wrinkle went round the counter and took a plug of tobacco +from a box.</p> + +<p>"I'd take along a few sticks o' peppermint, too," he said, as he +wistfully surveyed the candy-jars, "but I've got so I can't suck a stick +without toothache. Ain't a bit o' fun treatin' yore stomach if you have +to abuse yore gums while you are at it. Well, so long, boys," he said, +after he had carefully counted the coins Cahews had put into his hand +and was descending the steps. "Folks says that partin' is always harder +on the ones that are left behind, an' I reckon it's so in this case, for +it's dull enough here, an' I intend to have a good time. The funeral, +and paying due respect to the dead, will occupy me to-day and to-morrow, +an' after that I want to take a fish in Ben's brag pond. They say he's +got—or did have when he was alive—government trout two foot long, an' +oodlin's of 'em, hungry enough to bite anything you stick on yore hook."</p> + +<p>If the news of the wealthy planter's death and the departure of the +Wrinkles under the high honor which had been conferred upon the +unpretentious pair furnished food for gossip at Chester, what may be +said of the later report which at first crawled from the bereaved +mansion, and then, taking on speed, ran hurtling like wildfire over the +country?</p> + +<p>Ben Warren, sick unto death, and yet in full possession of his senses, +for valid reasons of his own had cut off many anxious more distant +relatives and bequeathed all his real estate and personal property to +his loving and faithful niece, "Hester Wrinkle Henley."</p> + +<p>Henley himself was disposed to regard the report as a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> false one, a +canard set afloat by the irrepressible Wrinkle, who would joke as +readily about the dead as the living. But even the shrewd business man +himself was convinced one morning by the appearance of Wrinkle, who had +dismounted from a fine horse at the hitching-post and came in lashing +the legs of his baggy trousers with a riding-whip.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've heard what's happened, Alf," he began, in a tone in +which there was no guile. "It never rains but it pours cats and +pitchforks. I'm out o' breath. Forty-six men, women, an' babies met me +as I rid in all as eager to know the facts as if they had the'r names in +the pot, an' I had to go over the tale so many times that my hoss got so +he would nod or shake his head exactly right whenever a question was +axed. Them that hate Het would turn white at the gills an' groan, an' +the rest would say, 'Oh, my!' an' set in to do it on the spot."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we heard the report," Henley made answer, "but we didn't know +whether to believe it or not. I reckon you got it plumb straight?"</p> + +<p>"Straight as a shingle," Wrinkle said, sincerely. "Het not only told me, +but so did the lawyer, a big-bellied chap from Atlanta, in broadcloth +and headlight buttons in his shirt. Huh! I reckon you think you know Het +purty well, Alf; but you don't. I don't, an' my wife don't. I reckon her +Maker sometimes wonders what she'll do in a pinch. I 'lowed she was one +woman that 'u'd like to fall heir to a pile o' cash, but they say when +Ben sent for her to come to his bed whar the lawyer was ready with pen +and ink and paper, an' Ben told her he was goin' to put her in entire +charge of his effects, lock, stock, an' barrel—they say when she heard +that she begun to wail an' take on at such a rate that they couldn't git +her to talk business at all. They had to rub 'er down an' bathe 'er feet +in hot mustard-water, an' it was all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> they could do to keep 'er from +crossin' over, hand in hand, with Ben, an' leavin' the boodle to anybody +that 'u'd pick it up. The Lord only knows who would have got the swag in +that case, but comin' into a fortune don't kill often, an' Het will +manage somehow. She et a square meal this mornin' 'fore I started, +pokin' it up under her veil-like, in purty good chunks, an' give orders +to the niggers like a captain on a ship ridin' high waves. Thar always +was only one thing in this life that pestered that woman, an' that was +responsibility to the dead. I reckon she thinks the livin' can tote +the'r own loads. Be that as it may, she's goin' to see that Ben's +shebang an' all pertainin' to it is run jest to a gnat's heel like he +would run it if he was alive. But comin' down to brass tacks, she owes +her good luck to exactly what most folks thought was a weak p'int in +'er. They say Ben was so all-fired mad at the gal that kicked 'im to +death that he said all women was unfaithful, an' he picked Het out for +reward because she had showed she was one amongst a million. Then, too, +Het kept tellin' 'im he was good for another forty years, while the rest +of his kin was sayin' to his teeth that they was sorry he had to go an +hopin' that he had his papers in order. If I could get head or tail of +the mystery of life, I might be able to tell whether Het was actin' a +part or not. I think she simply done it so well that she believed it; +anyways, Ben liked it, an' spent his last hours an' every cent he had +tryin' to pacify her."</p> + +<p>"And he was rich?" Cahews thrust in, tentatively.</p> + +<p>"Well, you'd think so," smiled Wrinkle. "He not only had the finest +plantation an' house in this county, but he held bank stocks, railroad +bonds, warehouses, cotton-factory interests, an' what not."</p> + +<p>"And does—does Hettie intend to—to come back <i>here</i>?" Henley asked, a +flush of odd embarrassment on his face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, that's another matter," Wrinkle began, and then he broke off +abruptly: "Say, Alf, I've got something private to talk to you about. +Jim, I wish you'd give that hoss a bucket of water. I think he's dry."</p> + +<p>With a knowing laugh the clerk turned away, and Wrinkle caught Henley's +suspender and gave it a familiar tug. "I didn't want to discuss family +affairs before a third party," he explained. "The truth is, Alf, I've +always been interested in yore little ups an' downs with Het, an' right +now I'm curious to see how prosperity will affect her. Up to now, you +see, she was dependent on you for funds, an' sorter had to go slow on +some o' her fancies, but now the shoe is on t'other foot, an'—"</p> + +<p>"That is not answering the question I asked," Henley broke in, quite out +of patience. "I asked you if she intended to—"</p> + +<p>"I knowed what you axed me, an' I intend to answer at the proper time +an' place," Wrinkle went on, quite unruffled by the reproof. "I never +begin to unravel a sock at the top or the middle. The toe is whar the +work begun, and therefore the toe is the only natural an' sensible place +to—"</p> + +<p>"You make me tired!" Henley retorted, impatiently. "You take all day to +tell a thing."</p> + +<p>"Well, if it won't hurt yore pride I'll tell you what I think is her +little game." Wrinkle smiled unctuously and rubbed his hands together. +"She left here when that little tiff was on with you about a buggy-ride +or two that was hangin' fire because you couldn't spare the time, an' I +think her present object is to make you do some knucklin' down. You see, +Alf, she's a fine lady now, an' a big heiress, an' naturally is now a +woman to be treated with respect by you or me or anybody else. She's the +head o' that whole thing over there, an' you'll have to fall in line +with the rest of us. She's in deep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> mournin', an' considerably overcome, +but she hain't forgot them buggy-rides. She's brought 'em up a dozen +times, an' always with a sniff an' a sneer. She sent me over to git all +our leavin's in shape for shipment, an' she's goin' to send a wagon over +after 'em."</p> + +<p>"So she intends to make that her future home?" ventured Henley, a frown +of perplexity on his face.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she says it would be out of all reason for the head of sech a big +thing to live away over here, an' that you kin sell out yore little +shack an' move thar. She's installed me an' Jane in a big room +overlookin' the river, an' has one set aside for you that is every bit +as good. I reckon you'll be made to feel like a common chap that has +married into a royal family, but I wouldn't let that bother me if I was +you. You are in luck, Alf. When you took her she didn't have a red cent, +an' now just look at her. If Dick had knowed this thing was in the wind, +he'd have stayed at home an' put up with a lot that he used to kick +agin. She sent you one positive message, an' that was to be sure to come +over next Saturday an' spend Sunday. She said you mustn't make it later +'n that, because folks would be sure to talk, an' that she don't want to +be talked about, especially while she is in black."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll go over, then," Henley said, with sarcasm that was lost on +Wrinkle. "You may tell her that I have accepted her kind invitation." +And he turned to his desk and sat down and began to work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/042.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HAT night at his uncle's house Hank Bradley, still wearing traces of +his encounter with Henley, sat reading a newspaper and smoking in his +chamber at the head of the stairs. A half-empty whiskey-flask and a +glass of water were on a table at his elbow, and torn and soiled +playing-cards were scattered about the floor.</p> + +<p>Presently his attention was drawn to the outside by a sharp whistle +which was evidently familiar, for he dropped the paper and went to a +window which looked out on the front lawn. At first he could see only +old Welborne at a potato-bed on the right, but as his sight became used +to the outer gloom he descried a man leaning on the fence near the gate. +The fellow wore the broad-brimmed felt hat of the mountaineers; his +pants were tucked into his high-top boots and he wore no coat, but a +gray flannel shirt with a leather belt and a flowing necktie.</p> + +<p>"It's Rayburn Hill," Bradley ejaculated. "What the devil can he want? He +must have come thirty miles."</p> + +<p>Descending the stairs, and looking furtively at his uncle, whose back +was turned to him, Bradley tiptoed across the veranda and gained the +grass sward, across which he walked noiselessly.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he said, in a gruff tone; "what are you doing over here?"</p> + +<p>"Come to see you, Hank." The man, who was under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> thirty and tall and +strong of limb, thrust out his hand and shook that of his friend. "I +left my horse down at the square."</p> + +<p>"What do you want to see me about, Ray?" Bradley's voice almost shook +with growing perturbation. "You told me last week that you never would +come this way again—that the more we all was scattered the safer it +would be."</p> + +<p>"I'm on my way to the nighest railroad, Hank."</p> + +<p>"You say you are?" Bradley leaned against the fence, and his face turned +white. "You don't think it's as—as bad as that?"</p> + +<p>"Don't I? Huh, I only hope I'll catch that twelve-o'clock flyer! I +wouldn't be here now but I told you I'd never act without reporting to +you, and that's what I'm doing, Hank."</p> + +<p>"But what's—what's happened to—to scare you up so?" Bradley stammered.</p> + +<p>"Hank, that fellow's kin are on our track like a pack of thirsty +bloodhounds. I got onto it by accident. They have smelt blood, and they +are going to drink some. We got the wrong man; I know it damned well +now, and you and me was the ringleaders. You know the West, Hank. I want +you to show me the way. Git a move on you. You haven't a minute to +lose."</p> + +<p>"I'll have to raise some money." Bradley looked toward the dim form of +old Welborne through the darkness. "Go back to town, Ray. I'll see my +uncle and pack and meet you at the train. I'm sure you are right. I've +seen bad signs myself. I'd have lit out before this, but there was a +skunk here that I wanted to settle a score with."</p> + +<p>"I know, but you'll have to cut that out, Hank. This is no time for +revenge. Hurry up. I'm off. I've got to get a man to take my horse +home."</p> + +<p>When his accomplice had gone away, Bradley crossed over to old +Welborne.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You remember," he began, "that you advised me to leave here the other +day?"</p> + +<p>Old Welborne stared at him steadily for a minute, and then shrugged his +decrepit shoulders. "I have been expecting to hear you say you'd settled +with the jackass that gave you that licking that day. I don't want to +see you get into more trouble, but that fellow ought to be pulled down +from his lordly perch. I never see him without feeling his hands on my +throat. He's the one man that has always stood in my way. And now, just +look at him! He's in big luck again, and can sneer in his high and +mighty way at all of us. That fool woman he was so crazy about as to +marry when she loved another man has come into a great big fortune, and +he walks about with a strut as it he was a king and we all was common +trash 'way beneath his notice. I saw him talking to Dixie Hart this +morning in the post-office. His face was shining, and his eyes twinkling +over the news of his wife's big haul. Me an' him have had it nip and +tuck here ever since he set up in business, and he has always thwarted +me. I've pinched and delved to save a few dollars, and his comes to him +in rolls and wads. Folks say he's going to sell out and live over there +in ease the rest of his life. I don't care how soon he leaves, but I'd +like to wipe that grin off his gloating face."</p> + +<p>"I've got to go, uncle," Bradley said. "It's too hot for me here. But I +need some money, and I must have it to-night."</p> + +<p>"Money? Good Lord! How much do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Five hundred. I'm going back West. I know the country, and I'll settle +there. As for Alf Henley, I've got something up my sleeve for him. He's +chuckling now over his wife's big luck, but I'll knock that higher than +a kite; he'll never live on that plantation or spend any of that cash. +You listen close and you'll hear something drop with a big clatter +before many days."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?" the money-lender asked, bending forward +and peering eagerly into the bloated face of his nephew.</p> + +<p>"I know what I'm talking about," Bradley replied, still evasively, "and +that will be the first thing I attend to when I get where I can breathe +fresh air. Say, uncle, I've had a secret in my hold for several years. +It is about Dick Wrinkle. If I thought you could hold your old tongue—"</p> + +<p>"Hold my tongue?" Welborne broke in. "Did you ever hear of me telling +anything?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing that concerned you, and this does, to some extent, I'll admit," +Bradley said. "Listen, uncle. How would you like to hear that Alf Henley +ain't that woman's lawful husband? Dick Wrinkle is alive."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" The old man's eyes gleamed even in the starlight. "You +don't mean it? Surely, surely, you don't."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's alive. He was in Oklahoma when I last saw him. He was done +with everything back here—bored to death by his wife and her odd ways, +and wanted to shake it all off. He had done me a good many favors. He +was hurt in that big storm and reported dead, and got me to confirm it +back here. I did the job right. You are the first one I've told the +facts to. I get a letter from him now and then, and know where he is. +He's made enough money to own a bar in a little place near the Texas +line."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, but what has that got to do with Henley?" Welborne wanted +to know.</p> + +<p>"It's just got this to do with him," answered Bradley. "Dick Wrinkle can +simply wrap the woman round his finger. She would fall on his neck at +the drop of a hat. If Dick came back she'd have a fit of joy and kick +Henley clean out of the house. I know women, and Dick has told me lots +about his hold on this one."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But would he come back?"</p> + +<p>"Would he? Humph! He's so homesick he thins his ink with brine when he +writes to me. He's known all along that she'd take 'im back, but there +wasn't any special inducement till now. I have an idea that when he is +told—and told in the right way—of this big haul of hers he'll come +back to life with some tale or other to square it, and hurry home and +claim his rights."</p> + +<p>"And you want to start to-night?"</p> + +<p>"If you'll get me the money. I've overdrawn my account like thunder, +uncle, but I'll not bother you for a while. Get it for me. I've got to +go."</p> + +<p>The old man looked at the ground hesitatingly, then he shrugged his thin +shoulders. "Well, go ahead and pack. I've got that much in the safe at +the office. I'll meet you down there. But I'm going to count on you +to—to put this thing through."</p> + +<p>"I will if I possibly can," Bradley said. "I think he'll do as I tell +him. He's always listened to me. I know how to work him up. Don't keep +me waiting. I'll pack in twenty minutes."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord," the old man chuckled, as he stood alone in the dark. "If +Dick Wrinkle comes back and claims his wife, Alf Henley will take a +tumble from the highest peak he ever stood on. Won't I laugh at him +then? Say, won't I?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/043.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE following Saturday afternoon Henley set out in his buggy to +accomplish, in some fashion or other, the disagreeable task of paying +his first visit to his wife in her new home. His chagrin could not be +imagined by any one less closely concerned in the affair than himself. +He had been taught to regard divorce laws as a veritable abomination, +and had never for an instant allowed himself to think of freedom from +shackles which goaded and chafed his body and soul. And now the +situation was even more irritating. His proud spirit rebelled against +the unlooked-for circumstances that had made him the husband of a +wealthy woman. Heretofore he had been able to realize that if he had +made a serious mistake in his marriage, he was, at least, helpful to the +woman he had chosen.</p> + +<p>From a hill half a mile to the west of the Warren plantation he drew +rein and all but bitterly surveyed the vast possessions of his +incongruous spouse. In a grove of primitive oaks, near the +main-travelled road, against the misty blue background of the distant +mountain-range, stood the stately white residence, with its long veranda +supported by dignified Corinthian columns, its steep roof, quaint +dormer-windows, and central cupola.</p> + +<p>"What a joke!" Henley said, with a wry smile, as he started his horse +slowly down the incline. "And she's the mistress of it all. I wonder if +she'll expect me to get down on my all-fours and crawl in at the +back-door."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> + +<p>Old Wrinkle must have been on the lookout for him, for, in his best +clothes, he was standing at the carriage-gate in the nearest corner of +the grounds. His beard had been trimmed, or awkwardly chopped off, by +the unsteady fingers of his wife, and his grizzled hair was plastered +down over his dingy brow flatter than it had ever been before.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" he called out, merrily. "I 'lowed I'd warn you to enter at this +gate an' not drive on to the little one in front of the mansion. That's +for foot-passengers," he explained, as he swung the gate open. "Het's +mighty—I mean Hester; she says I mustn't call 'er Het any more; she +says it will make the nigger help disrespectful. It ain't Pa and Ma any +more, either, bless yore life! but father and mother. The other day at +the table, before we had lifted our plates, she started in to father me, +solemnlike, an' I ducked my head, for I thought she'd set in to ax the +blessin'. I started to say that she was mighty particular about the way +things are run. Ben had rules an' regulations, you see, an' she is +carryin' 'em out an' addin' on more. I seed 'er git as red as a +turkey-cock t'other day beca'se a nigger-wench rung the front-door bell. +She made the woman hump 'erself round to the kitchen double quick. She's +got a new toy to piddle with, an' it's a whoppin' big un. She says +things has to move accordin' to the clock on this gigantic place, an' so +far it's doin' it. Wait, I'll shet the gate an' ride to the barn with +you.</p> + +<p>"You've got a lot to learn, Alf," Wrinkle resumed, as he climbed into +the buggy and the horse started, "and you might as well set in to do it. +I told my wife I was goin' to git you off on one side an' give you a few +hints so you won't make the mistakes we did at the outset. About +eatin'-time, for instance—no matter what meal is on—we are instructed +to listen for bells. It's that big un that presides at the kitchen-door. +Thar's always a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> fust un an' a last un—a number one an' a number two. +The fust is to wash an' comb by; the next is to come in the dinin'-room, +but, mark you, not in a hurry. I'd lafe a heap o' times if she wasn't so +all-fired serious over it. Goin' to school ain't in it. In her thick +black she looks as important and stern as a judge in his robes."</p> + +<p>They had now reached the barn, a great, rambling structure that was +well-painted and well-kept.</p> + +<p>"Thar's the stables," Wrinkle said. "It might as well be called a +hoss-hotel. It really is a finer shebang in many ways than the house we +all lived in till this happened. I ain't criticism' yore place, Alf. It +was the best you had to offer, an' nobody could be expected to do more +'n that. But Ben went in for show, an' he added to an' tuck away till +the day of his death. This barn has been painted so many times that dry +sheets of paint would fall off if you kicked the weather-boardin', and +inside—well, jest wait till you see it."</p> + +<p>They had descended from the buggy, and Henley was about to unhitch the +traces when Wrinkle laid a firm, even agitated, hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"That's another thing," he said; "don't tetch it. You'll break a rule. +No member of the family—an' that means me an' you, for we can claim kin +by adoption, if not by blood—no member is allowed to do dirty work o' +any sort. Ben never allowed it, an' Het says the same rule must hold. +She says it would spile the help an' git 'em out o' the right sort o' +habits. She told me to whistle whenever I wanted a thing done, and +Rastus, or Lindy, or Cipo, or Ned would come on a run. That's sort o' +makin' bird-dogs out o' two-legged creatures, but I kind o' like it. +But, mind you, Alf, don't whistle for 'em inside the house. You will +find a fancy rope with a tassel on the end of it in every room. Give it +a light tug an' let it loose. Thar, I see Cipo now. Watch me!". Wrinkle +spat on the ground, wiped his mouth with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> hand, and puckered up his +lips and whistled keenly. "He's comin'; watch 'im hop; he knows better +than to dally when I give that sound. He's slow, though; walks like he +had lumbago or locomotive attachment. Say, Cipo!" as the tall, elderly +negro arrived, holding his tattered hat in his hand, "this is Mr. Alfred +Henley, an' this is his hoss. Orders is out from headquarters to give +both of 'em every needed attention. It ain't any o' my business, Cipo. +I'd give all o' you coons a rest if I had my way. Life is too short to +bother about puttin' on style an' tyin' a bow of ribbon to every act."</p> + +<p>With the broadest of grins the negro, whose splaying feet were in +remnants of shoes that were tied with white cotton strings, detached the +horse from the shafts and led him away.</p> + +<p>"Now, come on," Wrinkle said. "I see Ma in the back veranda waitin' for +us."</p> + +<p>As they reached the house the old woman, with timid, halting steps, and +better dressed than Henley had ever seen her before, came forward and +extended a limp hand. "Howdy do? How did you leave Chester?" she +inquired.</p> + +<p>"All right," he answered. "Where is Hettie?"</p> + +<p>The question was addressed to her, but she stared mutely, and with some +agitation looked at her husband.</p> + +<p>"I forgot to tell you." Wrinkle glanced up at the sun. "This is her +nap-time. That used to be the order in Ben's day, an' she's holdin' to +it. Just after dinner all hands are expected to unstrip an' lie down +till the cool of the evenin'; then you are free to walk about, but you +ought to be ready for supper so you won't have to wash at the last +minute, an' come in in a scramble. We don't see Het at breakfast. Ben +had a habit of stayin' in his room an' havin' a nigger fetch his up on a +waiter, an' Het feels like it is her duty to do likewise. She sets up +thar, they tell me, in easy, roustabout clothes, an' attends to the +business of the day—sech as readin' the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> mail, answerin' letters, an' +listenin' to complaints from overseers an' land-renters. Ben advanced +cash, in dribs or wads, accordin' to needs, an' kept a set o' books. +Het's got all that an' more on her conscience, an' she's gittin' as thin +as a splinter over it. Folks say she's a regular hair-splitter when it +comes to settlements. She would divide a copper cent into several parts +if the Government would let 'em pass that way. Come in the parlor, Alf. +I want you to take a peep at it. You've travelled about some an' seen +sights, but for a place jest to live in, I'll bet you'll admit this caps +the stack. If a royal emperor was to kick at a home like this it would +start a revolution amongst his subjects."</p> + +<p>Henley and the demure little woman followed at the talker's heels. He +led them into the main entrance-hall, a spacious, oblong room with +colored-glass windows on both sides and above the heavy Colonial +doorway. A massive stairway with a carved newel and balustrade of black +walnut wound gracefully up to a companion hall above. Piloting the +others around this, Wrinkle pushed open a big, white door and led them +into the parlor. It was really a spacious room of good design, the walls +and woodwork of which were ivory-white. It was, however, furnished with +execrable taste. There was an old-fashioned rosewood piano, a row of +modern bookcases of oak, rocking-chairs of ancient mahogany, cheap oil +landscapes in cheaper gilt frames, a worn carpet of shrieking colors and +a design which maddened the vision. There was one spot which would have +soothed the trained eye—it was the wide mantelpiece, on which stood a +quaint, glass-doored clock and a pair of tall, brass candlesticks of +simple form. The fireplace was deep and wide and held a pair of fine, +old brass dogs with an appropriate open-work fender.</p> + +<p>"I jest want you to take a glance at that big lookin'-glass." Wrinkle +pointed at a fine gilt-edged pier-glass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> which reached from the floor to +the ceiling and filled all the space between the two windows at the end +of the room. "I'm callin' yore attention to it so you won't be fooled +like I was when I fust saw it. They had the funeral in here, an' me an' +Ma was axed to set over thar agin the wall. Well, you may believe me or +not, but I thought the lookin'-glass was a wide door into another room +the same size as this; an' all the time the folks was gatherin' I was +watchin' it, for it was fillin' up an' I couldn't make out whar the +folks come from. Then all at once I was scared mighty nigh out o' my +socks, for the crowd sorter shuffled, to make room, an' I seed another +coffin. If I'd been a drinkin' man I'd 'a' been sure I had the jimmies. +I wanted to p'int it out to Ma, but I was afeard it might go hard with +'er, for she's a believer in hobgoblins, an' might 'a' raised a noise. +So I jest set thar wonderin' who else could be dead, an' why I hadn't +heard about it, an' thinkin' maybe that it was the style to bury a rich +man in two boxes, though they looked to me like they was the same size +an' had the same trimmin's, an' was piled up the same way with flowers. +Then I said my prayers in dead earnest, for I seed Het come in on the +preacher's arm facin' me in t'other room, while they was walkin' with +the'r backs to me in this un. I reckon I'd a been fooled till now if the +preacher hadn't begun to hold forth. I could see two parsons as plain as +life, but only heard one voice, an' so I discovered my mistake just in +time to keep from goin' stark crazy."</p> + +<p>At this juncture, Lucy, a young mulatto, came and touched Mrs. Wrinkle +on the arm, with the regretful air of one not wishing to disturb her +superiors.</p> + +<p>"Miss wants to know who's got here," she said.</p> + +<p>The little old woman started, looked nervously into the faces of the +others, and then ejaculated, "It's Alf; tell 'er it's Alf."</p> + +<p>"'Miss'?" Henley repeated, as the girl was withdrawing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> muttering the +monosyllabic name to herself to fix it on her memory—"who's 'Miss'?"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's Het herself," Wrinkle explained, readily enough. "You see, +the niggers all used to call Ben's mother 'Old Miss' till she died. I'm +told they started in to call Het 'Young Miss,' but when she put on crape +an' begun to fling orders about they cut off the 'Young' part. I reckon +they'll call you some'n or other to fit the dignity of yore position +when they git it into the'r noggin's jest how close you stand to the +prime head of it all. They know who me 'n Jane are, you bet yore life, +an' when we call 'em they come in a tilt with the'r hats in the'r hands. +I never lived before, it seems to me, an' I care less than I ever did +about the future state. This is good enough for me. If it will just go +at the present pace all the time, I won't care to git cold feet an' +retire to a soggy hole in the ground."</p> + +<p>Wrinkle suddenly took on a look of attention to external sounds, and he +went to the door and peered cautiously up the stairs.</p> + +<p>"I think I heard 'er walkin' about," he called back, and he waved his +hand downward as if commanding silence. "Yes, she's comin'. Ma, you 'n +me had better make ourselves scarce. You see, Alf," he went on, in a +rasping whisper and with a very grave face, "we don't exactly know when +we are wanted an' when we ain't. It wouldn't be so awkward if she'd lay +down some positive rule. She's different under every change, an' the +Lord knows she changes often enough."</p> + +<p>With a frightened mien Mrs. Wrinkle lowered her head and glided quietly +from the room through a door in the rear.</p> + +<p>"Take a cheer," was the old man's parting injunction to Henley. "Throw +yoreself back, an' cross yore legs, an' let 'er know at the outset that +you ain't beholden to 'er, an' that her rise in life don't make no odds +to you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> That's the way Dick would act if he was alive. He'd 'a' been +cussin' these niggers about an' tellin' Het to git out o' that bed an' +fix some'n to eat. That's the way he worked 'er, an' she was jest so +constructed that she liked it. Take my advice an' turn over a new leaf; +you'll have trouble if you don't."</p> + +<p>Henley made no reply, and he found himself alone in the big room. The +lace curtains of the windows which opened like doors on the front +veranda were gently blown in by the cooling breeze, and into the white +surroundings came the grim, black-draped figure of his wife. She +advanced toward him, her hand stiffly extended. He took her cold fingers +into his and awkwardly pressed them. Her eyes rested only a moment on +him, for she was looking critically at the carpet.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll never get things right!" she cried. "Look at the stable-mud on +the carpet. I've told 'em an' <i>told</i> 'em not to come in here without +wiping their feet, but it goes in at one ear and out at another. They've +tracked it all over, and this ingrain carpet can't be cleaned. I'd shut +the room up and keep the key, but Uncle Ben always had this room open +for visitors, and I want to carry out his plans in every detail. Oh, +Alfred, I'm afraid this awful responsibility will kill me! You have no +idea of what it all is. I used to think you had enough to do, but your +affairs are simply child's play to this."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," he said, "but you never took hold of mine. That's why +you think this is so awful. It is on your shoulders like my business is +on mine."</p> + +<p>She shook her head and sighed as if his remark were not worthy of +serious notice, and sat for half an hour going into all the details of +Ben Warren's last illness and his wonderful faith in her. "He simply +<i>would</i> leave me in charge." She applied her handkerchief to her moist +eyes and choked down a sob. "I tried to get him to see that I wasn't at +all worthy, but it only made him more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> determined. The lawyer told me to +stop arguing, and the doctor said I was hastening his end, and so I let +him have his way. He died like a trusting child, Alfred. I held his hand +to the last."</p> + +<p>"It was sad," Henley managed to fish out of his confused brain. "He was +a young man to go so suddenlike."</p> + +<p>"That woman killed him, Alfred." The handkerchief was applied again, +though the voice of the speaker rang with rising indignation. "He had me +read all her letters over to him, and I followed the outrage from the +beginning to the final blow she dealt. She led him on and on, just +holding him as a certainty till another man proposed and she got what +she wanted—a home in New York. He couldn't stand up under it; she was +poor uncle's very life, and when she went out of it he wilted like a +delicate flower. I've ordered his monument; it will be the most +beautiful thing in the State. He had plans for a church to give to the +people in the neighborhood, and I'm going to see to the building of it. +I'll have to cut household expenses in a good many ways to do it, but +the edifice must be built. I get out the plans every day, but I shed +tears so that I can't hardly see the lines. This brings up what I wanted +to ask you, Alfred."</p> + +<p>"To ask me?" Henley echoed, and he moved his feet and hands uneasily.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll need the aid of a man over here, and, well, really, it would +look better for you to be here than over there. Jim Cahews managed for +you while you was away in Texas, and—"</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean," Henley stammered. "I understand precisely, but +the truth is, right now, at least, I've got so many deals of one sort +and another on hand that—"</p> + +<p>"I see. I might have known it." The woman sighed, avoided his helpless +stare, and tossed her head <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>resentfully. "You never loved him as I do, +and you put your own selfish and worldly aims first." She rose stiffly +and stalked across the room to the silken bell-pull and gently drew it +downward. "You'll want to go to your room before supper. Lucy will show +you where it is. I hope everything will be in order up there. I have had +so much to worry me that I couldn't see about it myself. I'll meet you +at supper. I'm going down to the barn to see if they are taking care of +Jack—uncle's favorite horse. I haven't let anybody ride him since he +died. I don't know who would be worthy of it. Never mind, Alfred, this +is the second request I've made of you lately. I doubt if I'll ever make +another."</p> + +<p>An impatient retort was rising in the man's breast, and it might have +found an outlet if she had not left him at that instant to give an order +to the girl who had come in response to her ring.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/044.png" alt="I" /></span> + +T was the second night after Henley's return to Chester. He was alon +at the farm-house. It was a desolate place now, despite his constant +self-assurance that he was accustomed, in his travels, to depend upon +his own resources for company and entertainment, and would now find +nothing lacking. He was in the kitchen cooking his supper in the same +crude way he had cooked his meals in the Western mining-camps where he +had once prospected.</p> + +<p>He took down a rasher of bacon from a hook on a rafter, and with his big +pocket-knife deftly cut some thin slices into a frying-pan on the smoky +stove, and into the hot grease he broke some fresh eggs which he had +purloined from a hen's nest in the stable-loft. He had a loaf of baker's +bread, and he made some coffee of exactly the strength he liked. These +things ready, he took them to the big, empty dining-room, resting the +smoking frying-pan on an inverted plate on the clothless table. He sat +down and ate and drank, but somehow not with his usual relish, for there +was upon him a heavy sense of isolation from his kind. In spite of his +effort to regard his condition in a philosophical light, he found +himself unaccountably depressed. After all his youthful dreams of the +domestic happiness which was to round out his life, it had ended in +this. He could, he knew, go to live on the big plantation his wife had +inherited, but it would be at the cost of the pride of manhood which had +been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> his mainstay so far. She was acting out the part which had fallen +to her, and what was there to justify him in altering his plans—in +giving up the mode of life which had become a part of himself? Marriage, +such as his had become, through no fault of his own, was an acknowledged +failure.</p> + +<p>Lighting his pipe, he blew out the lamp and sought the cooler air of the +front porch. There was something depressing, rather than helpful, in the +profound stillness of the night, the expanse of the star-filled heavens, +the shadowy outlines of the foot-hills of the invisible mountains +beyond. He heard his horses pawing in their stalls, old Wrinkle's pig +grunting in its pen; the chickens roosting in a cherry-tree hard by +chirped and flapped their wings as they jostled one another on the +boughs; all nature seemed normal and at peace save himself. What was +wrong? How could it go on? Where was it to end?</p> + +<p>Presently his attention was drawn to a figure advancing along the front +fence to the gate. The latch was lifted; it was opened, and the figure, +with a light, confident tread, began to cross the grass toward him. It +was Dixie Hart, and he rose from his chair and went to the steps, a +throbbing sense of relief upon him.</p> + +<p>She laughed softly, with a slight ring of affectation in her voice, as +she paused with her foot on the lowest step. "You must excuse me, +Alfred," she said. "I ought not to have come. I ought to have waited +till to-morrow, but I'm getting to be a regular slave to Joe. He was +worrying over you, and I was afraid he wouldn't go to sleep at all +unless—unless I set his mind at rest. Children are so funny."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with the little chap?" Henley came down the steps and +stood beside her. There was an inverted flour-barrel on the ground near +her, and Dixie sat upon it, and swung her feet back and forth for a +little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> while without seeming to have heard his question. He repeated +it, bending toward her the better to see her face in the starlight.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hardly know how—how to say it." She was studying his face with a +strange, hungry eagerness, which he failed to fathom. "Children are so +odd, Alfred, and have so many fancies that they conjure up themselves. I +reckon he's heard Ma and Aunt Mandy talking about—well, about the big +piece of luck that has come to you all. You know women that have never +had a windfall in any shape through their whole lives naturally make a +lot of the good-fortune that comes to a neighbor, and little Joe has +just set and listened to it all till—well, I reckon even you've changed +from—from his plain friend to—well, something like a king in royal +robes."</p> + +<p>"The little goose! Besides—" But Henley's resources furnished no +further comment.</p> + +<p>"He actually cried over <i>one</i> thing," Dixie went on, avoiding Henley's +helpless stare. "It was when Aunt Mandy said that, while maybe you and +your wife had not been <i>quite</i> as thick as—as some couples are, that +now, in all her wealth and splendor, you'd be like every other <i>natural</i> +man, and be more attentive and—and—even loving."</p> + +<p>"How ridiculous!" Henley exclaimed. "Why, Dixie, that money and place +ain't anything to me. It comes to <i>her</i>, not to me, and, while I'm glad, +of course, for her sake, still—"</p> + +<p>"Joe cried," Dixie broke in, with a cold, resentful shrug. "You see, +Alfred, he felt bad because Aunt Mandy hinted that you'd have to live +over there now, and move away from this farm. You see, as she told +Joe—I wasn't there—I don't listen to their silly gabble, anyway—but, +you see, Alfred, when the little fellow gets an idea like this in his +head and keeps hammering and hammering on it, there ain't nothing to do +but try to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> pacify him—as Aunt Mandy told Joe, your interests are so +whopping big over there that you will naturally have to be on hand to +look after 'em. Your wife—Mrs. Henley hain't got your head for +business, and it will be your bounden duty to help her run things. Of +course, you <i>do</i> love money. A man would be unnatural that didn't, in +this day and time, when it is the main thing all humanity is out after. +And—and—" Her voice broke. She coughed and glanced aside.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going over there, Dixie," he said, firmly. "I'm going to stick +right here, and do the best I can. Folks may talk some about me and +Hettie not living together, but I can't put up with all that rigmarole +over there. It would kill me."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Mandy said you might say that at <i>first</i>." Dixie steadied her +voice. "She told Joe so in my hearing. She said it kinder nettled <i>some</i> +proud men to have it said they was beholden to their wives, but she +said—<i>she told Joe</i>—that the proudest man would give in to a situation +like that sooner or later. That's why the boy felt so bad, I reckon. +He's sure you are going to leave this measly little hole, and that he'll +never lay eyes on you again. I've tried to pacify him; but what can I +do? I wouldn't advise you to—to do a thing against your best interests, +either. You've made a good deal of money, and, like most men, you know +its value. As Aunt Mandy told Joe, in case of your wife's death you'd +get it all—that is, if you kept on the right side of her and indulged +her whims. It seems queer, Alfred, to be standing here in my plain dress +before a man as rich and high up in the world as you are."</p> + +<p>"Dixie, listen to me!" Henley tried to take her hand, but she drew it +from his clasp stiffly and stared sharply into his face. "Dixie, you +said, not many days back, that me and you understood one another +perfectly, and that nothing would ever change our feelings. I can't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> +make out what you are driving at in all this roundabout palaver, but I +know I'm just pine-blank as I was, heart and soul and body. Going over +there made me miserable. I never spent such a day in my life. In all +that red-tape splendor and high doings I wanted my old ways and nothing +else."</p> + +<p>"You'll get used to it," the girl said. "Aunt Mandy told Joe, you +remember, that you wouldn't like it at first, like any proud man, but +that the feeling would wear off. She says your wife ain't a bad-looking +woman, and that, in fine clothes and with fine things about her, she +will be different from what she was here. Money is power, Alfred; it +will have its way in this world. A man might sorter <i>fancy</i> he couldn't +get along with a woman on his own level, but let her rise high above +him, and he won't be exactly in the same boat. He'll naturally think +more about her, and, in thinking more about her, and trying harder to +please her, his old love will be revived—that is, <i>if it ever died</i>. +Who could tell? I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Dixie, listen to me!" Henley's voice shook with subdued +passion. "I've never felt like it was exactly honorable, fixed like I +am, to tell you—to talk out plain to you about—about how I feel toward +you, but you are nagging me on to it. I can't help it. Right now it is +burning me up inside. I love you more than a man ever loved a woman. You +are in my mind day and night. Standing here before me now you seem as +far-off and precious as an angel of light. I want you. I want you from +the very bottom dregs of my suffering soul. She asked me to move over +there, and when she did it the thought of getting farther away from you +made me actually sick. I'd rather live here on a crust of bread than to +rule a nation away from you. I may as well confess it. I don't love her. +I couldn't in a thousand years. She killed the love I once had. She was +slowly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> killing it by her strange ways while you was growing into my +heart by your sweet, brave, unselfish life. Now, I've said all I can. I +have no hope of ever having you all for my own, but I can love you—I +can worship you, and no earthly power can prevent me."</p> + +<p>Even in the starlight he could see the color rising in her face and the +shimmer of delight in her eyes. She laid her hand on his tense, +throbbing arm. "I see," she said, a sweet cadence in her voice. "I've +had all my scare for nothing. Oh, Alfred, I've been nigh crazy. I +doubted you. All the talk about your wife's wonderful luck went clean +against my better judgment. I kept telling myself that you was different +from ordinary men, but, somehow, it wouldn't stick. I may as well tell +the truth. That's why I come here to-night. I've been unable to sleep—I +was going crazy. You are mine, Alfred, all mine—ain't you?"</p> + +<p>He felt her throbbing fingers on his wrist and saw her shoulders rise +convulsively. An overpowering force within him urged him to clasp her to +himself. He opened his arms, but she deftly caught his hands and held +them tightly. "No, no," she said, firmly, "not that—not that! Folks say +men and women fixed like we are can't love one another without doing +wrong; but they can. The strong ones can, and we are strong, Alfred. Our +love is sweet enough as it is. It is of heaven; let's keep it right. You +might think you'd respect me if I let you hold me in your arms—here at +your own house, with your wife away, but you wouldn't—down in your +secret soul you'd feel that I was—was tainted."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, Dixie, darling," he cried. "My blood's in my head; I'm +dazed and dazzled by you, little girl; but you know best. I wouldn't do +a thing you didn't approve of for all the world."</p> + +<p>She released his hands with a little, satisfied laugh, and stepped back +toward the gate. "Well, I got what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> I wanted," she said, frankly. "I've +been more in the clutch of Old Harry since you went over there than I +ever was in all my born days. All day yesterday and to-day I've brooded +and brooded and had evil thoughts, till—well, I'd have gone plumb out +o' my mind if I hadn't come straight to you. I may as well tell the +truth; I don't want a lie, even a little, tiny one, to smut the +confidence between us. Alfred, Joe wasn't worrying so—so <i>very</i> much. I +was attending to that job. What I said about him was to pump you dry and +make you ease my mind. I feel better. I can sleep now. Oh, +Alfred—Alfred—good-night!"</p> + +<p>He threw out his hands impulsively, but she had evaded them, and, with +lowered head, was scudding across the grass toward the light in the +cottage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/045.png" alt="T" /></span> + +HE bar in the Oklahoma village kept by Dick Wrinkle was in the centre +of the place. It was a narrow, one-story shanty built of undressed +boards, the roof of which sloped from the front to the rear. It was +devoid of the conventional door-screen, the rough, unpainted shutter, +with its padlock and chain, swinging back against the inner wall.</p> + +<p>It was early in the morning. The proprietor, a fat, partially bald man +of forty years, without a coat, his shirt-sleeves rolled above his +elbows, was sweeping into the cracks of the floor the tobacco-quids, +stubs of cigars, and remnants of matches left by his carousing customers +the night before. He had just tossed his broom into a corner of the room +and was looking out of the door when a dust-laden, travel-worn +individual with a familiar look slouched around a corner and said:</p> + +<p>"Hello, Dick! Don't you know a fellow?"</p> + +<p>"By gum!" Wrinkle cried. "Where the hell did you blow from?"</p> + +<p>"Georgia—from back home, Dick. Just got here on the night mail-stage. +Gosh, what a ride! My windpipe is lined with dust. Quick! Gimme +something to wash it out. Three men on the stage, and not a drop in the +bunch. I'm burning up."</p> + +<p>"By gum!—by gum!" Wrinkle muttered, as he slid behind the counter and +set out a long bottle and glasses. "Help yourself, but I'll tell you now +it ain't any o' the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> simon-pure moonshine we used to get in the old red +hills. And you say you are direct from there? My Lord! It seems funny to +see a man in this God-forsaken place fresh from them old mountains. +Since I clean cut myself off—burnt my bridges, as the feller said, I +kind o' realize what I lost. Say, Hank, you didn't give me away, did +you?"</p> + +<p>Bradley drank a half-tumbler of the whiskey, and took a sip of water and +cleared his throat. "No, I kept mum, Dick. I said I would, and I did. It +wasn't anything to me, nohow. I ain't no gossiper. That was your game, +and I saw no reason to spoil it. Shucks! you needn't worry; you are +deader back there than a door-nail. Where is that old pal of yours?"</p> + +<p>"Dead." Wrinkle raised his hand warningly. "Don't talk about him. He was +a good chap, and stuck to me like a friend and a brother."</p> + +<p>"Gee! then you must be lonely, away out here—"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about it. Cut that out, Hank. I'm blue enough as it is." +Wrinkle moved the bottle and glasses to a crude table near the door and +took a chair. Bradley drew up another and sat down. The rising sun +blazed in at the open door, and flared like flame in the gilt-framed +mirror back of the bar.</p> + +<p>"All right. Out she goes. I didn't mean to touch on a sore spot, but I +didn't know. You didn't write often."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid my letters might be opened by somebody else. I wanted all +that to stay wiped out, Hank. I didn't care so much for Het as I did for +the old man and woman."</p> + +<p>"I wrote you about your wife marrying again?" Bradley said. "I reckon +that ain't news?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no." Wrinkle had inherited his nonchalant smile and care-free tone +from his father. "The damn fool was welcome to 'er. In fact, I owed him +that dose. He's the only man I ever had a grudge against, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> was +glad he got her. He thought she was exactly the thing he was looking +for; I reckon he knows what he got by this time. Marrying her was the +foolishest thing I ever was guilty of, and I think I done it to spite +him. I ought to have let 'im marry 'er an' then 'a' took 'er away from +him. I could 'a' done it as easy as falling off a log. She was plumb +daft. I reckon she cut up considerable when the news was spread that I +was done for."</p> + +<p>"It was the talk of the county, Dick. Folks thought she'd have to be +sent to the asylum. Her uncle, Ben Warren, who was so rich, you know, +took pity on her and made her come visit him so she could get her mind +off her trouble. When she got back, Henley made a dead set for her. But +while he got her, Dick, she never cared for him. I reckon you never +heard about what she done last summer."</p> + +<p>"I haven't had a line from home in two years, Hank. She didn't quit 'im, +did she?—she didn't throw 'im clean over, after all, did she?" And +Wrinkle laughed expectantly as he pushed the bottle toward his +companion.</p> + +<p>Bradley's eyes shone; the neck of the bottle in his unsteady hand +tinkled against the edge of the tumbler as he poured out another drink.</p> + +<p>"No, but she come nigh to it. She drove him off to Texas, where he +pretended to have some business or other. Dick, she erected a monument +to you that cost a stack o' money. You can see it from the Chester +square, looming up like a ghost."</p> + +<p>"The hell you say!"</p> + +<p>"Not only that, but she sent off for a silver-tongued preacher and had +your funeral preached in bang-up style."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord! What did she do that for?" Wrinkle groaned, and his mouth +set rigidly.</p> + +<p>"Because the notion struck her," Bradley smiled. "She made a mark for +herself. She's the pride of all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> women in that section. Whenever a +woman is accused of being changeable, your wife is pointed at to give it +the lie. You knew she was looking after your father and mother, didn't +you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, you wrote about that," the barkeeper answered, his eyes +sullenly averted. "I thought she'd do something of the sort."</p> + +<p>"And she has done it right, Dick; they are as rosy as two babies. Henley +makes plenty of money in one way and another, and he foots all her +bills, or did till—till—well, I haven't told you all the news yet. +Dick, neither one of us likes Henley. He's crossed me several times in +his high and mighty way, but he's got us both down now and he can sneer +at us all he wants to. No wind ever blowed that didn't blow profit to +him. You thought you was handing him a gold-brick when you left him your +wife, but, la me, Dick, you done him the biggest favor that one man ever +done another."</p> + +<p>"What the hell you giving me?" Wrinkle raised a pair of wondering eyes +to Bradley's design-filled face, and fixed them there anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Dick," Bradley toyed with the tumbler, turning it upside-down and +stamping rings of liquor on the table—"Dick, Ben Warren died and left +her every dollar of his estate. She's as rich as cream, and Henley—huh! +he's so stuck-up he can't walk. His lordly strut fairly shakes the +ground when he goes about. That fellow's as deep as the sky is high. +Folks think now that he knew she would come into that money away back +when he first set out to catch her. They don't know how he got onto it, +but it looks like he had a tip from some source or other."</p> + +<p>With the lips and throat of a corpse, Dick Wrinkle swore; the pupils of +his eyes dilated; his yellow fingers, like prongs of dried rawhide, +clutched the edge of the table, and the tremor of his body shook it +visibly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I see it all now," he gasped. "He must have known it; he was crazy to +get her, and—and he took her as soon after—after I left as he could +possibly manage it. The Lord only knows what means he used, for, as you +say, she still loves me."</p> + +<p>"Folks say Henley turns up his nose at common folks now," Bradley went +on. "He's planning a great stock-farm, and going to keep fine-blooded +race-horses, and him and his wife is going to travel about and see the +world. Things certainly run crooked in this life." Bradley laughed +significantly, his studious eyes on his victim's tortured visage. "Here +you are, all alone away out here in a measly little joint like this when +your old enemy is living like a king in the bosom of your family. Why, +he's even robbed you of your daddy and mammy. You are dead, buried, and +laughed at, Dick. I reckon you are not making much out of this thing?" +Bradley swept the meagre stock and cheap fixtures with a contemptuous +glance.</p> + +<p>"Don't make my salt!" Wrinkle groaned. "Nothing is coming in, and no +prospect of a change. New town, Citico, drawing all the trade. I've +thought of selling out. There's a fellow here that has made me a cash +offer for the whole shooting-match—a thousand dollars down. He's a +gambler that is at the end of his rope; his wife says she'll quit 'im +and marry another man if he don't get into something more steady. She's +willing to put up the money if he'll buy me out. He's crazy for a deal. +He's got friends and can make it go. His wife's kin live here and she +won't move. He's in every hour of the day, shaking his wad in my face. I +saw him just now as I come down to open up. I'd let him have the dang +thing, but I don't know where to go. I'm sick o' the game, Hank. I've +had enough of the wild and woolly West. I've laid awake many and many a +night, by gosh! mighty nigh crying for the old life in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>mountains. +Lord, Lord, I set here sometimes when there ain't anybody about except a +drunk Injun or cowboy and git so blue and lonely that it leaks out of me +like sweat and drops on the floor. I reckon it is kinder natural for a +feller to want what he's been brought up on, especially if he has, by +his own act, cut it out and signed his death-warrant. Oh, that was a +fool thing, Hank—a blasted fool thing! It seems to me that I dream o' +them damn mountains and blue skies every night hand-running—and the +good, old-fashioned grub we used to have! And, Hank, I hain't just a +dead man—another feller has took my place and, as you say, is gloating +over me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, as for that matter," and Bradley looked idly out through the +doorway, "you ought to settle his hash—pull 'im down from his perch."</p> + +<p>"Yes," ironically, "now that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"The easiest thing on earth, Dick. Alf Henley ain't legally married to +your wife. He's living with her, but they hain't been tied by law."</p> + +<p>The barkeeper stared blankly; his features worked as if he were trying +to solve a mathematical problem. He started to speak, but his mouth fell +open and remained so; his lower lip hung wet with saliva.</p> + +<p>"Why, no," Bradley went on. "No woman can legally marry another man +while her husband is alive. She didn't get no divorce. She's your wife +yet, and Alf Henley has simply slid in and taken possession of all you +got on earth. I know what I'd do; I'd hike back there and walk in as if +nothing had happened, and I'd kick that skunk out, too, or shoot the top +of his head off. Dick, she never loved anybody but you; she'd be so glad +to have you back she'd throw her arms round your neck and hold you +tight. It is the talk of the whole county about how true she is to your +memory. It has driven Henley mighty nigh crazy."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> + +<p>Wrinkle stood up. He was shaking like a man with palsy. He leaned over +the table and gazed almost tearfully into the designing eyes before him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, old Het's a good girl," he muttered. "She was always the right +stuff. I know in reason that she'd be the—the same as she was. I know +her through and through and exactly how to manage her, but, Hank, they +all think I'm—- dead!"</p> + +<p>"Folks have made mistakes before," Bradley argued, in a tense and yet +plausible tone. "You was hit in the head by a falling beam in that +storm. You told me so. You was laid up with a lot of others in the +hospital, and for a solid month didn't know your hat from a hole in the +ground. That's how the report went out that you was done for. Why, Dick, +there have been no end of cases where men have not known where they +belonged for half a lifetime, and then got it all back in a flash. +Nobody would doubt that you was in that fix. I'll help you work it. I'm +your friend, and I want to see you get what is due you. That man's +robbing you, choking the life-blood out of you. You've simply got to go +back and claim your rights."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't do it, Hank." The barkeeper sank back into his chair, and, +with his elbows on the table, he ran his blunt fingers through the +fringe of hair around his glistening pate. "I'm in a hole. I'm clean +done for. I wouldn't be good at such a racket as that. I wouldn't know +how to fix it. I'd forget my tale; I ain't got much memory. Hush, I saw +that gambler turn the corner. He's headed here."</p> + +<p>"Dick, you'd better take my advice and sell out," Bradley advised. +"You'll be a damn fool if you don't. It's the chance of a lifetime."</p> + +<p>"Sh!" Wrinkle hissed, warningly, as a shadow fell athwart the floor and +a tall, middle-aged man, with dyed mustache and whiskers, sauntered in +at the door. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> was jocularly called "the Parson," owing to his +dignified and clerical appearance. His trousers were neatly folded into +the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none +too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two +buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, +glistening foil-back studs, and rings of the same quality.</p> + +<p>"I'm up early," he laughed, nodding to Bradley as a stranger might. "My +wife pulled me out o' bed. She has got Shanks to agree to sell me his +grocery, part cash and part on tick, and she wants me to watch and see +what sort o' early-morning trade he's got. She knows I don't know as +much about that line as this, but she thinks I kin learn, and maybe keep +better company. I reckon it will be a deal betwixt now and ten +o'clock—that is, unless you make up your mind to sell out."</p> + +<p>Dick Wrinkle was looking into the speaking eyes of his old friend across +the table. He knew well enough that the gambler's remark was merely a +poker bluff, and yet it stirred certain natural fears within him.</p> + +<p>"You can't root me out of a good thing with a little wad like that, +Parson," he said, rising and going behind the counter and briskly wiping +off its surface more from habit than necessity. "I've just met an old +friend of mine from back in God's Country, and we was just talking over +old times. What'll you have?"</p> + +<p>"The one next the jug," the gambler said, and Wrinkle set the bottle +before him, watching him fill the glass with unsteady eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't think Dick is in a trading humor," Bradley informed him with a +cordial smile. "We've been talking over old times, and he's hot under +the collar. He's got an enemy back home that has been throwing dirt on +him. If I was in Dick's place I'd go back and call him down."</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about that," the gambler said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> and he drank, +wiped his lips on his hand, and stepped to the centre of the bar and +peered out. "I see Shanks in front of his shebang now. If I make him an +offer and he accepts it, it is all off between us, Wrinkle—you +understand that. I've got to settle down at something, and I'll do it +without delay. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've said all I'm going to." Wrinkle tossed his head and applied +himself to restoring the bottle and washing the glasses beneath the +counter.</p> + +<p>"All right. Good-day." He stepped out of the doors</p> + +<p>Wiping his hands on a towel, Wrinkle came round to the table and leaned +on it.</p> + +<p>"You damn fool!" Bradley cried, in disgust. "That's all I've got to +say."</p> + +<p>"It's gone too far, Hank," Wrinkle groaned. "It was my own doings; I've +got to take my medicine. He's gone, anyway."</p> + +<p>Bradley stared at the floor and pointed grimly at the gambler's +tell-tale shadow. Then he whispered: "Don't be a fool; close with him. +Secure his money, and I'll help you get your rights—don't lose this +chance. A thousand dollars is a lot of money back home. Call him in."</p> + +<p>A change crept over Wrinkle's visage; he glided back behind the counter, +picked up his towel and began wiping the counter's top till he was in a +position to see the gambler. He caught the man's eye and laughed +tauntingly:</p> + +<p>"Hey, Parson, you are always making your brags," he called out. "I'll +bet you haven't seen a thousand dollars in a month of Sundays."</p> + +<p>"You think not, eh?" And the tall man stalked back into the room, +whipped out a roll of bills, and tossed them on the table in front of +Bradley. "Say, stranger, umpire this game—count it. I'm ready, but I +won't be ten minutes from now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bradley smiled easily and counted the twenty fifty-dollar bills.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Dick," he said. "You don't know what to do. I'm going +to close it for you. He'll take it, stranger." Bradley's eyes were on +the startled gambler. "I'll act for him."</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Wrinkle's face was set under an expression of blended +fear, doubt, and half-willingness, but he said nothing, simply staring +at Bradley as a subject might under the spell of a hypnotist.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he'll take it," Bradley repeated. "Get your hat, Dick, and leave +the gentleman in possession—the agreement sweeps everything, doesn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, lock, stock, and barrel." The gambler was trying to conquer the +look of elation which had captured his features.</p> + +<p>"All right," Wrinkle gave in, doggedly, and he reached for the money and +counted it. When he had finished he took his hat down from a nail on the +wall and extended his hand. "Luck to you, Parson," he said. "I reckon +I'll shake the dust of this place off my feet. I've got work to do at +home."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/046.png" alt="D" /></span> + +ICK WRINKLE, travel-stained and covered with dust, a small valise in +his hand, trudged down the declivitous footpath of the mountain amid the +splendor of late summer leafage and occasional dashes of rhododendron +and other wild flowers, the color and scent of which greeted his senses, +dulled as they were to the finer things of life, as a subtle something +belonging to the past which had been lost and was regained. Now and then +he would stop, rest his bag on the ground, and breathe in the crisp air +as if it were a palpable substance that was pleasing to his palate. At +such moments, when the open spaces between hanging boughs, tangled +vines, and trunks of trees would permit, his glance, half doubtful, half +confident, would rest on the palatial residence in the valley below, +which, at every step, had been growing nearer and nearer.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation. +"It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there +couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in +her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we please +with."</p> + +<p>When he had reached the level ground he found himself in a broad, +well-graded road that led straight to the gates of the mansion, and when +he was quite near to it he observed on the right-hand side an extensive +peach-orchard. It was the gathering season, and in a shed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> open at the +sides, and containing long, canvas-covered tables, several negro men and +women were busy packing the ripe peaches into new crates which were +being nailed up by a white man in overalls and a conical straw-hat. The +pedestrian leaned against the whitewashed board-fence and scanned the +group, seeking a familiar face. But those before him had a strange look. +He was wondering if he could be mistaken in the place, after all, when, +his glance roving to the nearest row of trees, he saw an aged man emerge +with his arms full of peaches, which he took to the nearest negro +packer. Dick Wrinkle didn't recognize him under his broad hat and in his +fine clothes, but a thrill went through him when he heard him address +the servant.</p> + +<p>"Put these jim-dandies on top with the yaller side up," he commanded. +"They are a lettle mite soft, but they've only got to go over the +mountain. They are for the head boss, an' you'd better pack 'em right. +He's powerful fond o' good ripe peaches. I've seed 'im eat 'em with the +skin on, an', as much as I like 'em, I can't do that. I'd as soon chaw +sandpaper."</p> + +<p>"It's Pa," the man at the fence said, in a tone of relief. "I'd know his +voice amongst a million. He looks younger by ten years than he did. I +reckon high living did it. Well, it's my turn at it, an' it won't be +long 'fore I set in. I may have trouble at the start, but I'll weather +the storm. I know who I'm dealing with. I didn't live with 'er as long +as I did without learning a few things."</p> + +<p>Dropping his bag over the fence, he climbed over after it. He stood for +a moment, hesitatingly, and then, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he +flicked the dust off his coat and trousers and new shoes. He was well +and rather tastily attired. He was shaved, and his scant hair showed +that it had been brushed. He wore a heavy gold chain, which had a +prosperous look stretching across<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> his black waistcoat. The old man had +turned back toward the trees, and, without being noticed by the active +packers, his son followed him, bag in hand. Old Jason, his eyes raised +in searching for the choicest fruit among the low branches of the trees, +did not see his son till he was close behind him.</p> + +<p>"Now, Pa," Dick Wrinkle began, calmly enough, "don't jump out o' your +hide. Reports to the contrary, I'm alive and kicking."</p> + +<p>Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, the old man started, an +exclamation, half of fear, half of gratified wonder, escaping his lips. +He stared fixedly, and his mouth fell open, exposing his quid of +tobacco. The peaches in his hands rolled to the ground, and, utterly +bewildered, he stooped as if to pick them up, but paused and stared +again. "Lord, have mercy!" he cried. "Lord, have mercy, who'd have +dreamt it—you back—you—you here! Why, we all heard—we all 'lowed—we +all was plumb sure you was—"</p> + +<p>"I know. Never mind about that," the younger said, with a shrug meant to +shake off the topic. "Where's Ma, and—and Hettie?"</p> + +<p>"Your Ma?—your Ma? Why, she's down at the spring-house watchin' 'em try +a new-fangled churn, or—or was a few minutes ago. Why, Dick, we all +thought you was—was—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know, but where is Hettie?"</p> + +<p>"Hettie? Oh, my Lord! Why, Dick, boy, hain't you heard a thing?"</p> + +<p>"I've heard a sight more 'n I want to hear or will again," Dick Wrinkle +said, with lowering brows and a voice which seemed to bury itself in a +mass of inner threats as to dire approaching events. "I've come to +propose a—a settlement, without blood if it can be arranged; if not, we +kin spill plenty of it in the up-to-date Western style. I've been away, +and was detained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> longer 'n I expected by circumstances over which I had +no control, and in my absence, I'm told, my household—an', by gosh, my +honor!—has been stained. I'm not out looking for trouble, but trouble +may throw itself in my way. I'm prepared to do an outraged man's part. +I've got a medium-sized gun in my hip-pocket and a young cannon in this +valise."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dick, Dick, we mustn't have blood spilt, for all we do!" Old +Jason's display of actual concern was the first ever wrung from him. +"Besides, the law—the law must be considered."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm willing to consider the law," Dick said. "I'll do a lot o' +things if I'm not made any madder 'n I am right now. I'm glad to git +back, an' I don't want to be mad. I'll do as much toward keepin' peace +as any other man. There ain't anything so awfully unheard of in what +happened to me. Fellers has been off from home before, an' the whole +world wasn't plumb upset by it."</p> + +<p>"But they didn't rise from the dead," old Jason submitted, +argumentatively. "How on earth did you manage to do it? I mean—"</p> + +<p>The son's glance for the first time wavered. He looked toward the +towering mountain as if for moral sustenance. His lips mutely moved as +if he were conning a lesson he was learning by rote, and then, seeing +the question still in his father's blearing eyes, he began:</p> + +<p>"I met with trouble, Pa—I reckon some would style it an accident. When +that big tornado struck the country out there and so many was blowed to +smithereens and never had even the pieces of 'em put together again—I +say, Pa, when all that happened I was struck in the back of the head by +a rock or a beam or a plank—I never knew exactly which—and never got +my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't +even know my own name or even recall you and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> Ma, or my old home back +here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till—till—"</p> + +<p>"I know, till you heard about Hettie and—and—but go on. I'm a +listenin'."</p> + +<p>"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He +took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient +hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered. +Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal +that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run +across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed +that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a +bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I +could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The +whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but +when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I +refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the +date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me."</p> + +<p>"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in +paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was +all-powerful curious, but—but I've read of sech things, and maybe +Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that—I mean—but I +reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma +up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your +weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck, +but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then +I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie."</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon +you'd better give her a full account<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> o' how it all happened. I don't +want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself."</p> + +<p>"You mean about—yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, about all that. I've told you—I've done give you full +particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right +senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would +be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the +tornado. Het will have to be worked fine, Dick. She sorter feels 'er +oats now. She always did hold 'er head in the air, but it's higher now +since she got rich. She mought take a fool notion that the bronco +throwed you powerful soon after her change o' luck."</p> + +<p>"I don't want 'er dern money!" Dick Wrinkle snarled, his glance shifting +unsteadily. "I don't need <i>anybody's</i> cash. I've got a thousand dollars +in my pocket now."</p> + +<p>"You say you have?" The eyes under the bushy gray brows fluttered +thoughtfully. "Well, if I was you, I believe, Dick, that I'd not haul it +out an' make a show of it. You see—well, you see, it's like this: Het's +a thinkin' woman, an' sorter keen-eyed at times, when she wants to be, +an' lookin' at a wad like that mought—I don't say, it <i>would</i>—but it +mought, bein' a sort o' money-maker herself, it mought set her to +wonderin' how a feller clean out o' his senses could accumulate so much +cash in times as hard as these. If crazy fellers kin load up like that +out thar, men of brains could walk clean off with the State."</p> + +<p>Dick Wrinkle started slightly and let his glance trail along the ground, +in several directions before lifting it again to the would-be helpful +countenance before him.</p> + +<p>"I made it <i>after I got my senses back</i>," he said, finally, and rather +doggedly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I don't believe I'd let that out, <i>nuther</i>," said old Wrinkle, in +a tone that was meant to be kindness itself. "You see, Dick, the bronco +throwed you just t'other day, an' a thing like that is liable to git you +all balled up. A woman like Het mought ax a heap o' fool questions, an' +you hain't had yore right mind back long enough to go into a game like +that yet awhile."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't give a damn, one way or another!" the younger snorted. "It +ain't any o' her business, nohow where I was nor how long I was gone. +She's my wife, I ain't the fust man that ever went away for a spell and +then come home."</p> + +<p>"I was jest wonderin'," the old man said, soothingly, "if yore old +high-an'-mighty way wouldn't be best, Dick. All the tornado an' +buckin'-bronco business may be a waste of talk. Het tuck to you in the +fust place beca'se you sorter held a tight rein over 'er, an', if I'm +any judge, Alf Henley, with all his easy ways an' indulgence, hain't +driv' her over any smooth road. I've heard it said that a woman will +kitten to a man that beats 'er quicker 'n she'll kitten to one that +kittens to her; an', if you set in on this fine place with a bowed head, +you'll be duckin' at every turn."</p> + +<p>"Well, you go on an' tell her I've got home," was the request of the +son. "Tell 'er I want to see 'er, too, an' that right off. You may tell +'er I'm loaded for bear—that I've heard about the way she's been going +on with Alf Henley behind my back, an' that a day of reckoning has +arrived. It's been delayed, but it's here."</p> + +<p>"All right," old Wrinkle said, gravely, "that's the best way. You are +comin' to yore senses, Dick. It wouldn't be natural for you to let a +fine place an' a little money scare the life out of you. It's lucky Alf +ain't here. I don't think he'll give you any trouble, though. Some +thought Het's good luck would spoil 'im, but, if I'm any judge, he seems +sorter 'shamed about it. He hain't been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> here but once, an' then acted +like a fish out o' water. He's a money-maker, an' too live a chap to +want to put on a dead man's shoes. You've come in good time, an' if Het +will let you stay you'll be in clover the rest o' yore days. Between you +an' Alf I naturally favor <i>you</i>, of course. Me 'n yore Ma felt all right +here, but we <i>did</i> have a shaky sort o' claim, you'll admit, bein' akin +to the fountain-head in sech a roundabout way, an' with Alf Henley's +name in the pot, too. Well, I'll be goin'. Watch the back porch, an' if +you see me wave my hat up and down, this way, you come right on. If I +was to wave it to one side, like this—but never mind; we'll do the best +we kin."</p> + +<p>"All right," agreed Dick. "I'll go pick me some ripe peaches. The very +sight of 'em makes my mouth water."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/047.png" alt="O" /></span> + +NE clear, warm evening three days later, on his return to his lonely +house, Henley went into the kitchen and prepared his simple meal, and, +after eating it, he went to his room to get his pipe and tobacco for a +smoke. He had no sooner entered the room than he noticed that it had +undergone a change. Some one had taken the white lace curtains from his +wife's room and put them up over his windows. Pictures in frames which +had been ill-placed in the parlor now hung by his bed and over the +mantelpiece. A neat-colored rug from Mrs. Henley's room ornamented the +floor, and on it stood a table from the hall, holding the family Bible, +an album of photographs, some other books from the parlor, and a vase +containing fresh roses. The open fireplace was filled with evergreens, +and the rough, brick hearth had been whitewashed, the lime giving out a +cool, pungent odor.</p> + +<p>"She done it!" he exclaimed. "Nobody else would have thought of it." And +he sat down in a rocking-chair, in which some cushions had been placed, +and, not wishing to contaminate his surroundings by smoke, he leaned +back and enjoyed it as he had enjoyed few things in his life. "Yes, she +done it," he kept saying. "She slipped over here, busy as she is at +home, and done it just to please me. She is a sweet, good, noble girl."</p> + +<p>As the dusk came on he went outdoors, lighted his pipe, and strolled +down to the gate. Leaning on it, he looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> toward the mountains, which +were rapidly receding into the night. How majestic and glorious it all +seemed! How soothing to his sore spirit was the gift which had been so +delicately bestowed and which nothing should ever take from him! He +wouldn't have admitted to himself that he was there at the gate because +it was the hour at which Dixie drove her cow up from the pasture across +the way, but he was there with his glance on the pasture-gate. He saw +her coming presently, and went to meet her. Her color rose as she +recognized him above the back of the waddling cow, and she assayed a +mien of casual indifference as she returned his smile.</p> + +<p>"I have to tell you," he began, as he turned and suited his step to +hers, "how tickled I am over the way you fixed up my room. I'm certainly +much obliged to you. It's a different place altogether."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you didn't scold me for the liberty I took," she said. "I saw +your front-door wide open, and—and, well, I just couldn't help it. I +never saw such a mess in all my life. It made me sick to look at it. I +simply had to clean it up. Oh, Alfred, you are just a big baby, and it's +a pity to see you left this way."</p> + +<p>"And to think that you done it!" Henley said. "With them little hands, +and—and for a big, hulking chap like me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was fun," she answered. "Joe was with me; he whitewashed the +hearth and cut the pine-tops for the chimney. He'd have moved every +stick of furniture out of the parlor if I'd 'a' let him."</p> + +<p>"I kept bachelor's hall for years," Henley said, "but I never once +thought of fixing up the room I occupied. I can see now how much +difference it makes. La me, Dixie, I could set there by the hour and +just—just enjoy it, knowing that you—"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about it any more," she interrupted, with a wistful, upward +glance. "It makes me feel sad to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> think that after all you've done for +other folks you should make so much over what you ought to have by +rights. I actually cried the other night. I was driving the cow 'long +here and saw you through the window in the kitchen cooking your supper. +A woman's heart is tender toward children and to a man that she—to a +man that is plumb helpless and bungling about over things he has no +business to fool with. Alfred, your frying-pan had a sediment of eggs, +meat, grease, and pure dirt on the bottom as hard as the iron itself. I +had to chop it out with a hatchet. Your coffee-kettle was full to the +spout with old grounds, and you left a ham of meat lying flat on the +floor, and the flour-barrel was open for the hens to nest in."</p> + +<p>"So you was there, too," said Henley. "I thought Pomp done it."</p> + +<p>"Pomp? He's a man, if he is black," the girl sniffed. "He wouldn't have +thought anything was wrong if he'd found the house-cat sleeping in the +bread-tray. No, you've got to be attended to some way or other. I don't +know how, but it's got to be done."</p> + +<p>"I'll make it all right," Henley declared. "I'm used to knocking about."</p> + +<p>Dixie shook her head. They had reached his gate, and she paused, +allowing the cow to trudge on homeward. "You may not know it, Alfred," +she said, "but you are changed. You look restless and unsettled. You +made one of your best trades the other day in buying them mules, but you +haven't been to see 'em once since you turned 'em in the pasture. It +ain't like you. You used to be so full of fun. This money your wife has +come into has upset you. You don't feel exactly right about it."</p> + +<p>"I'll admit it," he said, softly. "I want her to get all she can out of +the good things of this world; but, somehow, that knocked me out—clean +out. I've made my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> own way in this life, and I want to keep doing it. +Men come to me every day and wish me joy in another man's death. I get +mad enough to slap 'em in the mouth. One fool said it was silly of me to +keep working when I had such a soft bed to lie on."</p> + +<p>"I knew you'd feel that way," Dixie said, her eyes full of sympathetic +tenderness. "I was just thinking to-day of how many trials we've been +through together. I've helped you a little, maybe, and you've been my +mainstay. There is only one thing I'm plumb ashamed of, Alfred, and when +I think of it I get hot enough to singe my hair."</p> + +<p>"What was that?" he asked in surprise.</p> + +<p>"You remember—the time I engaged myself to a man I had never laid my +eyes on." And Henley saw that she was blushing. "I'd give my right arm, +and do my work with my left, to wipe that off my slate forever."</p> + +<p>"Don't bother about that." He tried to comfort her. "You only come nigh +making the mistake I actually tumbled into. You ought to be thankful you +escaped the consequences that I had to shoulder. I didn't know Hettie, +and the only true love is the sort that comes from a deep knowledge of a +person's character. You see, I know you, little girl, through and +through. I've seen you in trouble and in joy, and found you all +there—true blue, the sweetest woman God ever made. If I'm out o' sorts +here lately it is because I can't keep from seeing what an awful, +life-long mistake I made. It is seeing the thing you'd die to have, but +which is out of your reach, that makes you see how empty the whole world +is."</p> + +<p>"Don't say any more." Dixie impulsively touched his arm and then drew +her hand away. "I could listen to you talk that way all night, but I +must do my duty to you and me both. Talking of what we've lost won't +bring us any nearer to it. As for me, well—I'm a sight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> happier than I +was before she went off. I don't exactly know why, but I am. Every night +before I go to bed I tuck away my two old folks, and then hear little +Joe say his lessons and his prayers, and then I go out in the yard and +look at your light gleaming and twinkling through the vines about your +window. Then my heart gets full of a feeling so sweet and soothing that +when I look above the whole starry sky seems to shower down comfort and +blessings. Then I thank God, Alfred—not for giving you to me like other +women get their partners for life, but for giving me a love that can't +die as long as the universe stands."</p> + +<p>He saw her breast heave with emotion. He tried to find his voice, but it +seemed to have sunken too deep within his throat for utterance. The +vague form of a horse and rider appeared outlined against the horizon +down the road. She was moving away, but he touched her arm and detained +her.</p> + +<p>"Wait till he passes," he said. "Don't go yet—not just yet!"</p> + +<p>"I ought not to be here talking to you after dark," she mildly +protested. There was a pause, during which the eyes of both were on the +horseman. "Why," she cried, "it is Mr. Wrinkle!"</p> + +<p>And so it was. The old man reined in his sweating mount, and, throwing a +stiff leg over the animal's rump, he stood down beside them.</p> + +<p>"Howdy do?" he greeted them. "I've just started to yore house, Alf. I'm +totin' a big piece o' news. I'm late. I had to stop an' tell it to a +hundred, at least, on the way. You mought guess all day and all night +an' never once hit it. Alf, we've had an increase in the family—but +hold on, hold on! it hain't that—it hain't another one o' my baby +jokes. I know better 'n to try a second dose on you out o' the same +bottle. Alf, Dick Wrinkle hain't dead."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not dead?" Henley and Dixie repeated the words in the same breath as +they tensely leaned forward.</p> + +<p>"No, an' that ain't the only thing to be reckoned with. He's over at +home now, stouter and in better trim than he ever was in his life. He +appeared to me in the orchard whar we was packin' peaches, an' I was +plumb flabbergasted. It seems that he would have reported sooner if he +had been fully at hisself. He wasn't actually killed in that tornado, +but blowed off somers an' got a hit in the skull and was fixed so that +his remembrance played tricks on him. At one time he imagined he was a +cook for some cowboys, and a lot more fool antics. He would have been +that way yet—I mean in his crazy fix—but he says a pony throwed 'im +an' it all come back. You'll have to get him to tell you about it. I've +got it all mixed up."</p> + +<p>Henley's wide-staring eyes sought Dixie's face. She was pale, still, and +mute.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've got to be going," she said, in a quavering voice to old +Jason. "I haven't had a chance, Mr. Wrinkle, to ask you how Mrs. Henley +likes it over there. I hope your wife is well. They say the water is +freestone on that side of the mountain, and that is better for the +health than our hard limestone. You must tell them both that we all miss +them every day."</p> + +<p>"Hold on! hold on!" Wrinkle said. "You'd better hear the straight o' +this thing. You'll wish you did, for folks will have it all lopsided by +to-morrow, an' I'll give you dead cold facts."</p> + +<p>"But I've got my cow to milk," Dixie faltered, her color coming back, +"and it's growing late."</p> + +<p>"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was +nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the +big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent +his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> went up to +Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough +as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she +was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her +privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb +floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big thing to down Het, +but that did. She set up on the edge o' the bed, makin' wild stabs with +'er feet at 'er slippers, and lookin' wall-eyed an' scared.</p> + +<p>"'Pa,' says she, 'this is one o' yore jokes.'</p> + +<p>"'Joke a dog's hind-foot!' says I. 'If you think it's a joke you jest +step to that thar window an' look down at the peach-packin' shed.'</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, you don't have to tell a woman twice how to verify an +important report. She riz like she was on springs, an' thumped across +the room in her stockin'-feet, an' looked out o' the window, with me +right in her wake. An' thar, as plain as a sheep in the middle of a +stream, stood Dick a-pealin' an' eatin' the peaches his mammy was +fetchin' him. An' now comes the part that may not suit you, Alf, one +bit; but I've come to fetch the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth. +In consideration of what Het has fell heir to, an' one thing an' +another, it may not be good news to you to hear that, instead o' lookin' +sorry, Het actually chuckled an' reddened up like a gal in her teens.</p> + +<p>"'It's him!' she said. 'Thank God, it's Dick—it's Dick!'</p> + +<p>"I couldn't pull 'er away from the window. She jest leaned agin the sash +an' stared, an' rubbed 'er hands together, an' went on like she was +gettin' religion. Then I set in, as well as I knowed how, to tell 'er +about Dick's mishap, but she waved her hand backward-like, an' stopped +me. 'Leave all that out,' she said, sorter impatient, as if she couldn't +think of but one thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> at a time. 'You needn't tell about that—he's +alive, that's enough—Dick's alive!' And, would you believe it, folks? +She flopped herself down in a chair an' cried and tuck on at a great +rate. It upset me so that I give up the whole dang business. I went down +an' told Dick he'd better go attend to 'er. He axed me how the crazy +spell went down, an' I told 'im I didn't think she'd even heard it, or +ever would, for that matter. Women seem to scent a thing from far off +that they don't want to believe, an' close every pore of their bodies +an' eyes an' ears so it can't get in."</p> + +<p>"Well, what was the final upshot of it all?" Henley was quite calm, +though a great new light was flaring in his eyes as they rested on +Dixie, who was looking off in the direction of the mountain, her little +hands grasping the palings of the fence, her tense body thrown slightly +backward.</p> + +<p>"Dick's my own son," Wrinkle made answer, "but I got out o' all patience +with him. He ought to 'a' let well enough alone, bein' as Het was +willin' to let bygones be bygones. But not him. As me 'n him walked up +to the house, an' he looked over them broad acres on all sides, an' as +we went in at that fine door, he seemed to get back to his old self—an' +that is one thing that sorter makes me believe a little in the crazy +spell, for he looked like a man that had just waked up from a long nap, +shore enough. He was the maddest chap I ever laid eyes on as he went up +them steps to her private quarters. I followed. I wasn't wanted, I +reckon, but I had to see the thing through. She come up to him, Het did, +all wet from head to foot with tears, and tried to throw 'er arms around +his neck, but he shoved 'er off, he did, an' begun the awfulest +rip-rantin' jowerin' you ever heard, about the scan'lous way she'd +carried on with you while he was off. He didn't say nothin' about his +spell—he had no apologies to make. Accordin' to his way o' lookin' at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> +it, she'd blackened the white purity of his home while his back was +turned, an' nothing but blood, an' whole gurglin' streams of it, would +suit him. Well, they had it nip and tuck for fully an hour, an' then +they come to an agreement. They was to drive over to Carlton the next +day and ax Judge Fisk if Het had disgraced 'erself past recall; and so +we hit the road bright an' early. The judge was mighty nice. He said a +big mistake had evidently been made, but it was one that the law could +rectify if Het 'u'd just grease its wheels properly. He said he'd quit +settin' on the bench hisse'f—bein' beat by the Prohibitionists in the +last election—an' had gone back to practise at the bar, an' would +gladly take the case in hand. He saw plainly, he said, that it was Het's +duty, havin' come into sech a big estate as that, to clear her record +all she could, even if it <i>did</i> cost her considerable outlay, first an' +last. He summed the whole thing up as calm, an' bent over with his +pencil in his hand, an' peepin' above his specs, just like he was +deliverin' a charge to a jury in a murder case. It was for Het to weigh +the evidence pro and con, an' consider, an' deliberate, an' make her +final choice betwixt the two claimants she had got tangled up with. He +didn't know, he went on to say—an', of course, he must have suspicioned +that she'd already made up her mind, bein' as she had fetched Dick along +an' left you out in the wet—he didn't know, he said, but what jestice +sorter leaned to the prior claimant, possession bein' nine parts of the +law, an' Dick bein' incapacitated an' rendered null an' void fer the +time involved. As to the crazy spell Dick had, he gave it as his opinion +that such things had been heard of often. He'd 'a' made a good doctor, +that judge would; he said the brain was the finest constructed part of +the human an—an—anatomy—that's it,—anatomy. He said it was made up +of a bunch of fibres an' strings as thin as spider-webs, an' that an +expert<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> with the saw an' knife could open a man's skull an' tickle the +ends of 'em an' make the patient cut a different caper for every nerve +he touched. He said that's why human nature was so varied. He said, with +all fees paid, that Het could suit her own tastes an' inclination. He +said that she could claim that Dick's quar condition an' his +disinclination to furnish a support equal to her reasonable demands +justified her in callin' the fust deal off; or, on t'other hand, that +she could regyard it as the only obligation to which she was bound by +law or religion, an' that he would set about—after the fee was paid in +cash, or by check on any good, reliable bank, or even by a solid, +negotiable note—he would set about to have the second weddin' set +aside, and an-an—"</p> + +<p>"Annulled," Henley threw into the gap.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's it—annulled," Wrinkle echoed. "An' he advised her to have +it docketed for next week's special term o' court, and that he'd promise +to rush it through without hitch or bobble. Dick seemed better satisfied +after they left the judge, an' they driv' back home without any more +wranglin'. Dick has bought him some new fishin'-tackle, an' is off to +the river to-day. He has a natural pride in the big plantation, and rid +all over it this mornin'. He says he has some new ideas that he picked +up in the West—before he had his spell, I reckon—which he intends to +apply there."</p> + +<p>"Well, I really must hurry on," Dixie said, turning away. "Give my love +to your wife and to Mrs.—to your daughter-in-law. Good-night."</p> + +<p>The two men saw her hastening away in the thickening shadows. There was +a vast throbbing within Henley's breast. The whole firmament above +seemed to be shimmering with a subtle, spiritual light. He laid his hand +almost affectionately on the old man's shoulder and beamed down into his +eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is all for the best," he said. "I had no right to Dick's place. I +found that out long ago."</p> + +<p>"Thar's one thing I don't like about it." Wrinkle was thoughtful, and a +rare mood it was for him. "I was thinkin' about it ridin' over here. +Alf, I don't like to give you up. As God is my holy judge, I like you—I +like you plumb down to the ground. You are a man an' a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Thank you." Henley's voice rang with a triumph he strove hard to +suppress. "Come in and put up your hoss and stay all night. I'll cook +you some supper and you can sleep in your bed, like old times."</p> + +<p>"Much obliged all the same, Alf, but I reckon I can't. Het an' Dick both +laid down the law on that particular point. He's throwed that at 'er +several times already—I mean about lettin' you support me an' his Ma. +Seems like that sorter hurts his pride. He's threatened several times to +come over here an' instigate a civil war, but he won't do it right away. +He knows what a temper you got, an' I reckon he don't like the idea o' +that big tombstone already marked in Welborne's new graveyard. No, I +can't put up with you to-night. Het give me a five-dollar William to +defray expenses at the hotel, an' I sorter like the idea o' makin' a +splurge for a change. I'll make 'em give me the best drummer's quarters, +an' I'll order just what I want to eat."</p> + +<p>Henley watched him remount and ride away, his legs swinging back and +forth against the flanks of the animal. He heard little Joe calling to +Dixie from the kitchen-door, and from the cow-lot her clear answering +"Whooee!" which came again in a softer echo from the nearest hill.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what she is thinking?" he mused, the hot blood from his +surcharged heart tingling through his entire body. "I'd go to her now, +but she'd not like it. She wouldn't look at me while the old man was +talking. The sweet little thing is scared—she don't know what at, but +she's scared."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="init"><img src="images/048.png" alt="A" /></span> + +LTHOUGH Henley, now grown oddly timid himself, made several efforts +within the next week to catch sight of Dixie, he failed signally. He +began by haunting the cow-lot at milking-time, but she did not come as +usual. From the front porch one evening he observed something that +explained this to him. It was the sight of little Joe driving the cow up +to the house instead of into the lot.</p> + +<p>"She's milking up there to keep from meeting me," Henley said, his heart +growing heavy. "Maybe, after all, I've been hoping too much. Maybe she +sorter thought she'd like me well enough when I was bound to another, +like I was, but now she sees it different. Folks is likely to think +twice in a matter like this, for I mean business, an' she knows it. My +God, I may lose 'er—actually lose 'er, after all!"</p> + +<p>For the next week Henley really suffered; the gravest doubts had beset +him; as close as Dixie had been to him, she now seemed farther away than +ever. He was constantly wavering between the hungry impulse to go +directly to her and the abiding fear that such an intrusion might offend +her beyond pardon.</p> + +<p>One day, however, he felt that he could stand his suspense no longer. It +was the day his lawyer at Carlton had written him that he was a free +man. Surely, he argued, he would have the right to inform her of such an +important fact, after all that had passed between them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> simply as a +friend, if nothing more. He left the store early in the afternoon, and +on his way home, and with a chill of doubt on him, he stopped at Dixie's +cottage.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hart was seated behind the vines on the little box-like porch, and +she rose at the click of the gate-latch and stood peering at him under +her thin hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you, Alfred!" she cried, in pleased surprise. "I was just +wondering what had become of you. Did you want to see Dixie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I thought I'd ask if she was about the house," Henley made reply, +in a jerky sort of fashion. "There is a little matter I wanted to speak +to her about."</p> + +<p>"So the poor child is right, after all," the old woman sighed. "Well, I +reckon you must protect your own interests, Alfred, let the burden fall +where it may. She's done 'er best to pay out, an' if she can't do it, +why, she'll have to give in, that's all. She's undertaken too much, +anyway."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand, Mrs. Hart." Henley was unable to follow her drift, +and, with his hat in hand and a puzzled expression on his face, he stood +silent.</p> + +<p>"Why, for the last week, Alfred, Dixie hain't done a thing but fret and +worry about the money she owes you," Mrs. Hart explained, plaintively. +"Why, when you advanced the money to get her out of old Welborne's +clutch she was so happy she sung day and night, and me and her Aunt +Mandy thought the worst was over, because—well, because you seemed so +kind and friendly that we felt like you would not push her, that you'd +give her plenty o' time to make the payments. But now that her cotton +fell short of her expectations and the overflow killed half her +potato-crop she's all upset. She didn't say, in so many words, that you +was going to sue for your rights, but we couldn't, to save us, see what +she was so upset for, if you hadn't, at least, hinted about it. My +sister thought that maybe—that maybe, now that your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> wife's big fortune +had gone off in an unexpected direction, that you was obliged to raise +money to make good some investments that you made while you was counting +on things remaining the same. We couldn't talk it over with Dixie, +because she'd get out of patience every time we'd bring it up."</p> + +<p>"You are quite mistaken, Mrs. Hart," Henley said, his face aglow from a +new light on the situation. "I don't want to collect any money from +Dixie. She can keep it as long as she wants it. If she thinks I want +that money, she is away off from the facts. Is she about the house?"</p> + +<p>"No, she ain't," Mrs. Hart fairly gasped in relief. "Her and Joe went +down to the creek to fish. They are at the first bend; you can see the +spot from the gate. So that was a mistake! Well, I certainly am glad. I +reckon she just imagined it. She's acted funny for the last week, +anyway—sometimes just as happy and jolly as you please, and then +bringing up this money question—sayin' that she couldn't bear to be in +debt, and the like. She said if she could just sell the farm for +anything near its worth she'd do it and pay all she owes."</p> + +<p>"She could easily sell it," Henley said, "but she won't have to do it to +pay me. I'll go down there, I believe, and see if they are having any +luck."</p> + +<p>He walked away slowly, for the burden of doubt as to his chances was +still on him. From the bend of the road he looked across the level +pasture and hay-land to the green line of willows and canebrake that +marked the course of the stream. At first he saw nothing but his grazing +horses and mules, some of Dixie's sheep and lambs, and then he descried +a purplish blur against the living green, and recognized it as the +girl's sunbonnet, the back part of which was turned toward him. Across +the uneven ground, his feet retarded by creeping earth-vines and furrows +where grain had grown and ripened,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> he strode, his doubt and awkwardness +increasing with every step.</p> + +<p>She saw him as he was nearing the grass-covered bank upon which she sat, +an open book in her lap. It was quite clear to him that she, too, was +embarrassed, for a violent color rose in her cheeks, and her glance +deliberately avoided his. She called out quite distinctly and +irrelevantly to Joe, who sat on a log which jutted out into the stream, +telling him to be careful and not fall in. Henley saw the boy shrug his +shoulders and heard him laugh contemptuously, as he whipped his rod and +line into the stream and reseated himself, his bare feet sinking into +the cooling water. "Why, it ain't up to my waist," he said. "I could +wade across."</p> + +<p>"No, he's safe enough," Henley heard his coarse voice saying, as he +stood over her and looked down on her expressionless bonnet.</p> + +<p>She looked up and pushed her bonnet back farther so that a wisp of her +beautiful hair was exposed to the sunlight against the shell-like +pinkness of her neck. "He hasn't caught a thing," she said; "but he's +had some bites that was just as much fun."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorter tired," he ventured. "I've been on my feet all day, running +first one place and another. This is your picnic, and you are the boss. +I wonder if you'd care if I set down a minute."</p> + +<p>"It may be my picnic, but it happens to be your ground," she laughed. +"There's a sign up at the fence that no trespassing is allowed, but me +and Joe neither one can read, and so we came right in and helped +ourselves."</p> + +<p>He lowered himself to the grass at her feet, glad that he had it, and +yet almost afraid of the full view he now had of her face when he dared +to look directly at her. He leaned forward and began to pluck blades of +grass and twist them nervously in his fingers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are powerful good to that boy," he said, after a silence through +which several kinds of thoughts percolated. "His own mammy couldn't +treat him better."</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether I'm spoiling him or not." He detected a slight +quavering in her voice which was not exactly that of her usual +composure. "Some folks say I am. I know I can't bear to have him work +hard, although he is plumb well now. He had such a hard time under Sam +Pitman that, somehow, I want him to have a good, long vacation. +Alfred—" She raised her hand to her lips impulsively, colored +vexatiously, and then with a shrug, as if the familiar use of his name +were a matter that could not be remedied, she continued; "I started to +say that it makes me awful sad to think of the slavery that child went +through, short as it was. It might have made a scoundrel of him, in the +long-run, for he was getting hardened."</p> + +<p>"And now he's just the reverse." Henley meant it as a tribute to her, +and it was as bold a compliment as he would have dared to pay her in the +dense anxiety through which he was groping. "He's a manly little chap, +and is sure to come out on top. I've been studying over it"—Henley was +growing a trifle bolder—his eyes met hers—"and I've wondered if you'd +get jealous if I said that I want to do something substantial for him. +He'll need good schooling, you know, and a lot o' things to start 'im +out fairly."</p> + +<p>"You? Why, Al—why, surely you don't mean it—you don't mean <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"Why, why not, Dixie—Miss Dixie?" he corrected, as his warm, anxious +gaze rested on her lowered lids, for she was turning the pages of the +arithmetic in her lap. "You see, I'm not exactly a poor man; the Lord +has been powerful good to me, and—and you see, now I'm all alone in the +world. I—I got news to-day about—about, well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> I'm a free man now, +with no responsibilities on me, and—well, you see how it is."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to say about it—about Joe." She lowered her head +over the book. "It would be wrong for me to stand in his way, and I +won't. He was helpless on the world when I took him, and he is yet, for +I'm over head and ears in debt. I thought I could do wonders by buying +land on a credit, but I'm as near a bankrupt as could be possible. I'd +be down and out now if others got what was coming to them. As proud as I +am, and as hard as I've worked, I'm right now living on charity."</p> + +<p>"Shucks! Don't be silly, Dixie!" burst from Henley's lips with +considerable warmth. "You sha'n't set here and talk such foolishness; +you've done more than thousands o' men could have done. You are a plumb +wonder."</p> + +<p>"All you say don't alter facts," Dixie sighed. "I know that I've got a +big debt to pay, and it's got to be paid by fair means or foul. Let's +talk about something else. I've been setting here an hour trying to work +this example for Joe. It looks as easy as two and two make four, but it +ain't; it's simply terrible. Listen: 'Sixty is two-thirds of what +number?'"</p> + +<p>"Let me see." And Henley crawled to her aide till he could see, as he +rested on his elbow, the page and the lines at which her finger pointed. +"That's easy enough, I reckon. 'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' +Why, it's—" His eyes became fixed in vacancy, as he gazed at the blue +sky above the tree-tops, and then at the ground. "Why, it's a fool +thing—it must be a misprint. You often find mistakes like that in +school-books. I know my teacher used to write the correct thing on the +edge of the page."</p> + +<p>"No, I reckon it's all right," Dixie argued. "It's a funny thing, for +every minute I seem to be on the point of catching it, and then it slips +away. You see, it has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> been so long since I went to school that I can't +remember how such sums are done."</p> + +<p>"Well, I can work any sort o' example that I have use for in my +business," Henley defended himself as well as he could, "but the Lord +knows I never had any use for a—a thing as silly as that is on the very +face of it. Huh, I say—'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' Why, the +fool don't even give the number he asks you to divide. How can you +divide a thing that hain't been seen, measured, or weighed? It is as +silly as asking how many inches long is two-thirds of a piece of string, +or how many bushels of wheat in two-thirds of a barn that's twice as big +as four-fifths of one that never was built."</p> + +<p>Dixie laughed heartily. "It does seem that way, don't it? But, after +all, you do know that sixty must be two-thirds of <i>some</i> number, for +every number is two-thirds of something, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"By gum, yes!" he exclaimed, with a start. "You are sure right. Ah, I +see now. By gosh, I've got it! No, it's gone already." He had reached +for her pencil and paper, but his hand fell idly on his knee. "Good +gracious! Some'n is dead wrong with me."</p> + +<p>"I think it can be done," Dixie declared, her brow furrowed. "You see, +since sixty must be two-thirds of some number, I'm picking different +numbers and dividing by three and multiplying by two. The last trial I +made was one hundred, and I got sixty-six and two-thirds for the answer. +You see, that ain't so powerful far off."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," Henley cried, eagerly. "Now, what you want to do is to +keep getting lower and lower till you hit the nail on the head. I reckon +it's one o' them sums just got up to make the sprouting intellect hop +and skip about for practice. Suppose you try ninety-nine next? It's +better to go slow, and be sure, than to have to go back. Le'me see: +three into nine, three times and nothing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> carry; three into nine +again—there, you've got thirty-three, and twice thirty-three are +sixty-six. See, we are still closer to the mark, for we have already +wiped off the two-thirds."</p> + +<p>"We are warm!" Dixie cried, with the laugh of a child playing a game. +"Now let's try ninety-six."</p> + +<p>Henley made a rapid calculation. "Sixty-four!" he cried out, gleefully. +"We are closer. Now let's take a stab at ninety-three." And he began to +figure, but she stopped him.</p> + +<p>"My judgment is ninety," she said. "One-third of ninety is thirty and +twice thirty is—glory, Alfred, we've nailed it! We've got it—we've got +it! And we thought it couldn't possibly be done."</p> + +<p>"That's so," he admitted. "But I'd hate to make a hoss-trade by such +figuring as that. The feller would back out or the hoss would git too +old."</p> + +<p>The conversation languished. He had a feeling that she might object to +his closeness to her, and yet he hardly knew how to draw away without +attracting undue attention to the act, so he took the book into his +hands and began to look through it. And then he remembered what Mrs. +Hart had said about Dixie's desire to sell her farm, and a slow twinkle +of a set purpose began to burn in his eyes. "It might work," he said to +himself. "Anyways, that debt notion has got to be got out of the way or +I'll never make any progress.</p> + +<p>"I was just wondering whether I oughtn't to give you a piece of advice, +in a business sort of a way," he said to her, his fingers rapidly +twirling the pages of the book. "You see, a feller that trades as much +as I do in all sorts of things is calculated to know the drift of the +market better, maybe, than a girl like you. You was speaking about how +you hated the idea of being in debt just now, and your mother says you +want to sell your farm—the fact is, I don't see why you don't sell it +and quit working<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> like an ox in a yoke. It's plumb wrong; you oughtn't +to do it, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Sell it? Why, Alfred," and she looked at him eagerly, "I'd only be too +glad to do it if I knew any one who would pay anything near its worth. +You see, it's cost me first and last something over two thousand +dollars, and if I could get that much—"</p> + +<p>"That much!" he sniffed contemptuously. "Why, you'd be crazy to sell at +a figure like that. You see, I know the field pretty well. I rub against +moneyed men every day who are simply itching for something to invest in. +The most of 'em believe the new railroad will eventually strike Chester +on its way to hook on to the trunk-line through Tennessee and North +Carolina, and they are willing to bet on it. You know old Welborne +wanted your farm, and it nearly killed him to lose his hold on it. +But—while I ain't exactly free to use names—I know a man right now who +wants your property. He'd pay you three thousand dollars in cash right +down."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Alfred, you don't mean it—surely you don't!"</p> + +<p>"You say you'll take it," Henley laughed, though the edges of his mouth +were drawn tensely from some inner cause, "and I'll close the deal +before you can say Jack Robinson."</p> + +<p>"Take it?" Dixie cried, and in her eagerness and gratitude she actually +laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Alfred, if you'd only do that for me I'd +be the happiest girl in the world!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it will be done to-morrow morning early," Henley said, a certain +purpose rendering his face rigid, his eyes fixed as if a great crisis +had arrived in his life. "The only thing is, that I'd naturally feel +like I'd be entitled to some commission—" He tried to smile into her +staring eyes, but failed. He caught hold of her hand and she seemed +wholly unconscious of the fact.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, of course," she groped, "I'd be willing to pay all costs and +anything else you'd ask."</p> + +<p>"There is only one thing I could want, or would ever care to have," he +swallowed, "and that is you, Dixie. You must be my wife. I'm free now. +Nothing stands between us. I want you, sweetheart—I want you!"</p> + +<p>Their eyes met, volumes of tenderness sweeping to and fro between them. +A great light had taken possession of her face. He felt her lean against +him confidingly, and he put his arm around her and drew her head to his +shoulder, and then, with a boldness he would till now have ascribed only +to a god, he put his hand under her warm face, turned it upward and +kissed her on the lips. She nestled closer to him and shut her eyes, +remaining still and silent. He felt her warmth striking into his body.</p> + +<p>For several minutes they sat thus, and then she opened her eyes and +smiled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Alfred, I'm so happy!" she said, softly.</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe <i>I</i> ain't," he said, huskily, and then he kissed her again.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad about the farm," she said. "I can come to you now freer. I +couldn't bear the idea of being in debt to the man <i>I</i> was going to +marry. I've been independent so long that—that it actually hurt me. Are +you plumb sure you can sell it, Alfred—absolutely sure?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely," he answered. "The only thing that's bothering me is that +it's worth more."</p> + +<p>"Never mind about that," she cried. "But tell me who is to take it, +Alfred?"</p> + +<p>Their eyes met again steadily, a warm, confident, fearless smile lighted +up his face. He put his arm about her again, drew her close to him, and +held her cheek in his hand.</p> + +<p>"There ain't but one man under God's eye that's got a right to own the +land you toiled on like you did," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> said, "and that is the man that +worships every hair on your head and every drop of blood in your veins. +I'm the feller, Dixie."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Alfred!" she cried out, but, seeing his eyes burning into hers, she +smiled, nestled closer into his arms, and said: "Well, what's the use? +My fight's over. I've got you, and nothing on earth can take you from +me."</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + +<hr style="width: 80%;" /> + +<h3>Popular Copyright Books</h3> + +<h3>AT MODERATE PRICES</h3> + +<p>Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at the +price you paid for this volume.</p> + + +<p class="noind"> +<b>Alternative, The.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Angel of Forgiveness, The.</b> By Rosa N. Carey.<br /> +<b>Angel of Pain, The.</b> By E. F. Benson.<br /> +<b>Annals of Ann, The.</b> By Kate Trimble Sharber.<br /> +<b>Battle Ground, The.</b> By Ellen Glasgow.<br /> +<b>Beau Brocade.</b> By Baroness Orczy.<br /> +<b>Beechy.</b> By Bettina Von Hutten.<br /> +<b>Bella Donna.</b> By Robert Hichens.<br /> +<b>Betrayal, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Bill Toppers, The.</b> By Andre Castaigne.<br /> +<b>Butterfly Man, The.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Cab No. 44.</b> By R. F. 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Harben + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dixie Hart + +Author: Will N. Harben + +Release Date: November 15, 2006 [EBook #19818] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIXIE HART *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, Suzanne Lybarger and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + DIXIE HART + + _By_ WILL N. HARBEN + +Author of "The Redemption of Kenneth Galt," "Gilbert Neal," + "Abner Daniel," "Pole Baker," etc. + + [Illustration] + + WITH FRONTISPIECE + A. L. BURT COMPANY + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + Published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers + Copyright, 1910, by HARPER & BROTHERS + + * * * * * + + TO THE MEMORY OF THE LATE + RICHARD WATSON GILDER, WHOSE + KINDLY APPRECIATION OF THE + CHARACTER OF "DIXIE HART" WAS MY + INSPIRATION IN WRITING THIS BOOK + + * * * * * + + + + + DIXIE HART + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +In a blaze of splendor the morning sun broke over the mountain, throwing +its scraggy brown bowlders, spruce-pines, thorn-bushes, and tangled +vines into impenetrable shadow. Massed at the base and along the rocky +sides were mists as dense as clouds, through the filmy upper edges of +which the yellow light shone as through a mighty prism, dancing on the +dew-coated corn-blades, cotton-plants, and already drinking from the +fresh-ploughed, mellow soil of the farm-lands which fell away in gentle +undulations to the confines of the village hard by. + +"A fellow couldn't ask for a prettier day than this, no matter how +greedy he was," Alfred Henley mused as he stood in the doorway of his +barn and heard the gnawing of the horses he had just fed in the stalls +behind him. A hundred yards distant, on the main-travelled road which +ran into the village of Chester, only half a mile away, stood his house, +the eight rooms of which were divided into two equal parts by an open +veranda, in which there was a shelf for water-pails, tin wash-basins, +and a towel on a clumsy roller. A slender woman, with harsh, sharp +features, older-looking than her thirty years would have justified, and +a stiff figure disguised by few attempts at adornment, was sweeping the +veranda floor, and in chairs propped back against the weather-boarding +sat an old man and an old woman in the plainest of mountain attire. + +For a moment Henley's eyes rested on the group, and he sighed deeply. +"Yes, she's my wife," he said. "I owe her every duty, and, before God, +I'll stick to my vows and do what's right by her, come what may! She was +the only woman I thought I wanted, or ever could want. They say every +cloud has a silvery lining, but my cloud was made out of lead--and not +rubbed bright at that. I reckon, if the truth must be told, that the +whole mistake was of my own making. Whatever the Creator does for good +or ill, He don't seem to bother about hitching folks together; He leaves +that job to the fools that are roped in. Well, I'm going to stick to the +helm and guide my boat the best I can. I made my bed, and I'm as good a +sleeper as the average." + +Here the attention of the man, who was tall, strong, good-looking, and +about thirty-five years of age, was attracted by the dull blows of an +axe falling on wood, and, looking over the rail-fence into the yard of +an adjoining farm-house, a diminutive affair of only four rooms and a +box-like porch, he saw an attractive figure. It was that of a graceful +young woman about twenty-two years of age. Her hair, which was a rich +golden brown, and had a tendency to curl, was unbound, and as she raised +and lowered her bare arms it swung to and fro on her shapely shoulders. + +"Poor thing!" the observer exclaimed. "Here I am complaining, and just +look at her! A stout, able-bodied man that will grumble over a mistake +or two with a sight like that before his eyes ain't worth the powder and +lead that it would take to kill him. Look what she's took on her young +shoulders, and goes about with a constant smile and song on her red +lips. Yes, Dixie Hart shall be the medicine I'll take for my disease. +Whenever I feel like kicking over the traces I'll look in her direction. +I'd jump this fence and chop that wood for her now if I could do it +without old Wrinkle making comment." + +Her work finished, the girl turned and saw him. She flushed a shade +deeper than was due to her exercise, and with the axe in hand she came +to him. Her large hazel eyes held a mystic charm behind the long lashes +which seemed actually to melt into the soft pinkness of her skin. + +"Good-morning, Alfred," she greeted him, her lips curling in a smile. "I +know this ain't where you sell goods, but I thought it might save me a +trip to town to ask you if you keep axes at your store. This old plug of +a thing is about as sharp as a sledgehammer." + +"I've got a few poked away behind the counters somewhere," he laughed, +as he always did over her droll and original speech, "but the handles +ain't in them, and that is a job for a blacksmith, if they are ever made +to hold. Let me see that thing." He took the axe from her, and ran his +thumb along the blunt and gapped edge. "Look here, Dixie," he said, "I +thought you was too sensible a farmer to discard good tools. This axe is +an old-timer; you don't find such good-tempered steel in the axes made +to sell these days, with their lying red and blue labels pasted on 'em. +Give this one a good grinding and it will chop all the wood you'll ever +want to cut. Let me have it this morning. I've got a grindstone at the +store, and I'll make Pomp put a barber's edge on it." + +"Of course you'll let me pay--" + +"Pay nothing!" he broke in. "That nigger is taking the dry rot; he's +asleep under the counter half the time. The idea of you delving in the +hot sun with a tool that won't cut mud! You oughtn't to chop wood, +nohow. You ain't built for it. Your place is in the parlor of some rich +man's house, leaning back in a rocking-chair, with a good carpet under +foot." + +"That's the song mother and Aunt Mandy sing from morning to night," the +girl smiled, showing her perfect teeth. "They want me to quit work, and +get some man to tote my load. I reckon if the average young fellow out +looking for a wife could see behind the hedge he'd think twice before he +jumped into the thorns." + +Henley laughed again, his eyes resting admiringly on her animated face. +"I reckon the gals wouldn't primp so much either if they could see the +insides of their prize-packages," he returned. "I reckon neither side is +as wise while courting is going on as they are after the knot is tied. +Folks hereabouts certainly have plenty to say about me and my venture." + +There was a frank admission of the truth of his remark in the girl's +reply. "Well, if I was you, I wouldn't let anything they say bother me," +she said, sympathetically. "Mean people will say mean things; but you've +got friends that stick to you powerful close. I've heard many a one say +that in taking your wife's father-and mother-in-law to live with you, +and treating them as nice as you have, you are doing what not one man in +ten thousand would do." + +"I don't deserve any credit for that--not one bit," the young man +declared. "I'm not going to pass as better than I am, Dixie; I'm just +human, neither better nor worse than the average. I reckon you've heard +about how I happened to get married?" + +"Not from _you_, Alfred," the girl answered, in a kindly tone. "I have +often wondered if the busybodies got it straight. I've heard that you +used to go to see your wife before she married the first time." + +"Yes, me and Dick Wrinkle was both after her in a neck-and-neck race, +taking her to parties, corn-shuckings, and anything that was got up. +Hettie never was, you know, exactly pretty, but she had a sort o' queer, +say-little way about her that caught my eye. I was a gawky boy, as +green as a gourd, and never had been about with women. Dick was just the +opposite: he was a reckless, splurging chap that dressed as fine as a +fiddle, wasn't afraid to talk, joke, and carry on, and he could dance to +a queen's taste; so he naturally had all the gals after him. I was +afraid he was going to cut me out, and I was fool enough to--well, I +used to hope, when I'd see him so popular in company, that he'd make +another choice. And he might--he might have done it--for he was the most +wishy-washy chap that ever cocked his eye at a woman; he might, I say, +if me an' him hadn't had a regular knock-down-and-drag-out row. He was +drinking once, and said more than I could stand about a hoss trade I'd +made with a cousin o' his, and it ended in blows. The crowd parted us, +and he went one way and me another; but after that he hated me like a +rattlesnake, and he told her not to let me come there again. He might +not have made that demand if he had thought it over, for it sorter give +'er a stick to poke 'im with. She used to say nice things about me to +egg him on, and he often went with her for no other reason than to keep +me away. Well, you can see how it was. She wanted to beat the other +gals, and he wanted to outdo me, and, in the wrangle, they got married +one day all of a sudden." + +"And you felt bad, I reckon," Dixie Hart said, sympathetically. + +"I wanted to die," Henley answered, grimly. "I cursed man and God. That +gal was my life. I was as blind as a bat in daytime." + +"Then I've heard," the girl pursued, "that he neglected her and finally +went off West with Hank Bradley, and almost quit writing to her." + +"Yes," Henley nodded, "and she moped about home as pale as a dead +person, and never seemed interested in anything that was going on. All +that didn't do me any good, I'm here to tell you. Her trouble become +mine. I toted it night and day. I wasn't fit for work. I was as nigh +crazy as a man could well be out of an asylum." + +"Then the news come back that he was dead?" The girl leaned on the fence +and looked down. + +"Yes; Hank Bradley come home, and told how Dick was blowed away in the +awful tornado that destroyed that new town in Oklahoma. Hank had helped +hunt for his body; but it never could be identified among the hundreds +that was picked up, and so his remains never was brought home. That one +fact nearly killed Hettie. I'm talking plain, Dixie, but me and you are +good, true friends, and I want you, anyway, to understand my fix. I used +to watch her taking walks all by herself in the woods, always in her +thick, black veil, and bowed over like, as if she was under a heavy +load. I reckon no woman the Lord ever constructed is quite as attractive +to the eye uncovered as she is partly hid, for we are always hunting for +perfection, and so nothing under the sun seemed to me to be so good and +pure and desirable as Hettie did. I even gloried in the attention she +paid his mammy and daddy. I thought it was fine and noble, and that it +gave the lie to the charge that women are changeable. I don't want you +to think that I rate her any lower now, either, Dixie, for I don't. +She's a sight better woman than I am a man, and I certainly dogged the +life out of her till she agreed to marry me. She told me fair and square +at the start that she'd always love him, and I told her that it wouldn't +matter a bit. It hurts my pride a little now, but that ain't her +lookout. Folks say she's odd and peculiar, and that may be so, too, but +she was that way all along, and it's a waste of time to criticise +anybody for what they can't help." + +"I've always liked her," the girl said. "She certainly attends to her +own business, and that is more than I can say for my chief enemy, Carrie +Wade. Alfred, that girl hates the ground I walk on, and yet she keeps +coming to see me. She has me on her visiting list so she can devil me. +She has no work to do at home, and so she comes over to nag me. She +never has a beau or gets a thing to wear without trotting over to tell +me about it or flaunt it in my face. She even makes fun of me for having +to work in the field, and is actually insulting sometimes. I'd shut the +door in her face, but it would only please her to think she'd made me +mad." + +"She's more anxious to get attention from men than any woman I ever laid +eyes on," Henley declared, resentfully. "When drummers come to sell me +goods, she scents 'em a mile down the road, and is in the store +pretending to want to buy some knickknack or other before they open +their samples. I oughtn't to talk agin a lady, Dixie, but she lays +herself open to it, and is so much like a man in some things that I +forget what's due her as a woman. She has such a sneering way, too. That +reminds me. I heard her mention my name when I passed you and her at the +spring the other day. I couldn't hear what she said, but from the way +she snickered I knew she was poking fun. I caught this much: she said +that I was the only man on earth who was fool enough to do something or +other. I couldn't hear what it was, and I didn't care much, but--" +Henley broke off, and for a moment his eyes rested on the averted face +of his companion. + +"I don't carry tales," Dixie finally said, with a touch of +embarrassment, "but I've a good mind to tell you exactly what she said, +Alfred, so that you won't think it is worse than it really was. It +wasn't such an awful thing, and she was laughing more at her own +smartness than at you. She said--she said you was the only man under the +sun who had gone so far as to adopt a step-father-in-law. Now, that +wasn't so terrible, was it?" + +A sickly smile struggled for existence on the face of the storekeeper, +and his color rose. "Well, that was a new way to put it, anyway," he +said. "I think I could laugh hearty at that joke if it was on some other +fellow, and I'm glad you told me what it was. I didn't know but what she +was saying something even nastier than that." + +"She really said some _nice_ things," Dixie went on, diplomatically. +"She said it was good of you to give a home to the Wrinkles, and--" + +"As I said just now, I won't take credit for that," Henley broke in; "in +fact, I'd have refused if I could have done it. It come as a surprise, +and it almost knocked me silly. I'd counted on Hettie doing a good many +odd things, but I never expected that. So when she come home from the +camp-meeting, where there had been such a big religious upheaval, and +said she'd met the old man and woman there, and that they both looked so +lonely and peaked and ill-fed that she felt like she was acting +unfaithful to Dick's memory in living in one county and them in +another--well, that's the way it happened. I confess I never thought the +pair looked so bad when they come over, for they was awful cheerful, and +seemed to 'a' been fed on the fat of the land. Hettie told me afterward +that she'd been sending 'em all her spare change, so that was explained. +You'd never know the old woman was about unless you stumbled over her in +the dark, for she is as quiet as a mouse, and never says a thing nor +listens to anybody but him. He's all right. The old man's all right. I +really think I'd miss 'im if he was to leave. I never like to encourage +him too much, but I often laugh at the jokes he plays on folks. People +poke fun at me for having him around, but he drives off the blues +sometimes. He showed me what to expect from him the first day he got +here. He come down to the store, and walked in and looked around till he +saw the tobacco-boxes behind the counter, and he went to 'em and pulled +a plug off of each one, and smelt of 'em and looked at 'em in the light. +Then he took the best one and sidled over to me. He run his hand down +in his pocket, and I thought he was going to pay me for it, but he was +just hunting for his knife. He grinned as he clipped a corner off the +plug, and stuck it betwixt his short teeth. 'You'll find that I'm a +great chawer and smoker, Alf,' he said. Then he axed me if I had such a +thing as a empty dry-goods box about, and when I pointed to some in the +back-yard that I was saving to put seed-corn in, he said he'd take one +and wanted me to have the horses and wagon sent over for a pig they had +left. 'I wouldn't send for it,' he said, 'but it has got to be a sort of +pet. Its pen used to be right at our window, an' me an' the old lady +miss its squealing, especially in the morning. It is as good as an +alarm-clock.'" + +The girl wiped a smile from her merry mouth. "Excuse me, Alfred," she +said, "but it does seem powerful funny. It must be the way you tell it." + +"I'm glad it's funny to _somebody_, and you are more than excusable," he +said, dryly. "If I could get as good a joke as that on an enemy of mine +I'd never kill 'im in a duel; I'd keep him alive to laugh at." + +"You didn't say whether Mr. Wrinkle paid for the tobacco or not," Dixie +reminded him, expectantly. + +"Well, I'll tell you now that he didn't," was the answer, "nor for a +pocketful of red stick-candy which he took from a jar. He said it was +for his wife's sweet tooth; but if she got any of it she met him on the +road home, for he was chucking it in at a great rate as he walked away." + +They both glanced toward Henley's house. They saw the subject of their +remarks emerge from the kitchen door, and hang his slouch hat on a nail +on the veranda, and reach for the dinner-horn. + +"He's going to blow for me," Henley smiled, as the spluttering blast +from the horn rang out and reverberated from the mountain-side. +"Breakfast is ready. He eats like a horse at all times, and is as hardy +as a mountain-goat. I'm going to call him 'Kind Words.'" + +"Kind Words"? Dixie looked up inquiringly and smiled. "That's as odd as +Carrie's 'stepfather-in-law.' Why are you going to call him that?" + +"Because," and Henley glanced back as he was moving away, "the +Sunday-school hymn says, 'Kind words can never die,' and I know old +Wrinkle won't." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +As Henley, the axe in hand, approached the house, his stepfather-in-law, +with considerable clatter, was hanging the horn on its nail. + +"I noticed you was talkin' to Dixie Hart at the fence," he said, as he +discarded his quid of tobacco and stroked his grizzled chin, on which a +week-old beard grew. "Well, if I wasn't no older'n you are, an' was as +good-lookin', which maybe I ain't, I'd chin 'er over the fence mornin', +noon, and night--married or unmarried. Man laws was made to keep us +straight, I reckon; but when the Lord Himself lived on earth they wasn't +quite as bindin' as folks try to make 'em now. A feller, in that day an' +time, could be introduced to a new wife every mornin' at breakfast, if +he could afford to keep a drove of 'em, and still be looked up to as a +wise man and a prophet." + +"Dixie was talking about buying a new axe," Henley answered, "but I told +her this one was good enough, and that I'd make Pomp grind it." + +"She's as purty as red shoes," old Jason said. "And if she hain't had a +load to bear, no female ever toted one. Talk about justice! Why, Alf, +that gal hain't had a thimbleful sence she was a baby. She has set out +to make a livin' fer a mammy that can't hardly see where she's walkin', +and an aunt that is mighty nigh tied in a knot with rheumatism, and she +is doin' it--bless yore life!--better'n many a man could in the same +plight. Folks say she's already paid old Welborne half on that farm, +and that before long she'll own it, lock, stock, and barrel. As you may +'a' noticed, I sometimes poke jabs of fun at women, but I never do at +her. Somehow I jest can't. I was a-settin' right back of Carrie Wade an' +some more frisky gals at meetin' last Sunday when Dixie come in an' tuck +a seat on the bench ahead of 'em. I don't let women bother me, one way +or another, but I got rippin' mad at that gang. They was makin' sport of +her. One of 'em re'ched over an' felt of the ribbon on the pore gal's +hat, and then they stuffed the'r handkerchiefs in the'r mouths and come +nigh bustin' with giggles. Them sort think they are the whole show, with +their white hands, smellin'-stuff, and the'r eyes on every man that +passes, while a gal like Dixie Hart is overlooked. I've stood thar at +the gate and watched her out in her corn or cotton in the br'ilin' sun +with her hoe goin' up and down as regular as the tick of a clock, while +the other gals was whiskin' by in some drummer's dinky-top buggy or +takin' a snooze flat o' the'r backs in a cool room." + +"Is breakfast ready?" Henley asked, with an appreciative nod in +recognition of remarks he did not wish to prolong, as he leaned the axe +against the front gate and ascended the steps. + +"Sech as it is," the old man answered, taking another tack. "When me an' +Jane decided to come here to reside, Hettie was goin' to do wonders in +the cookin' line. She was particular to ax just what our favorite dishes +was, and you may remember how she spread herse'f the fust three days +after we was installed. It was like a camp-meetin'. You couldn't think +of a single article that she didn't have ready, in some shape or other. +But after 'while hot things quit comin' and cold uns appeared that had a +familiar look, and now me and you and all of us set down to the same old +seven and six. Well, my jaw teeth ain't as good as they used to be, and +I make out by soakin' my bread-crust in my coffee. Hettie says she's +goin' to have me an' Jane both fitted out with store sets. Folks that +have tried 'em say they beat the old sort all holler--that you kin crack +hickory-nuts if you have both upper and lower and git a fair clamp on +'em and use yore muscles." + +Henley turned into the big dining-room, where his "stepmother-in-law," a +diminutive woman, sat at the foot of the oblong table dressed in faded +black, even to the poke sunbonnet which, worn indoors and out, +completely hid her wrinkled face. Mrs. Henley, as he seated himself on +the side of the board opposite Wrinkle, came from the adjoining kitchen +carrying a steaming pot of coffee, which she put by her plate at the +head of the table, and sat down stiffly. The smooth floor of the room +was bare save for a few rugs made of varicolored rags. The walls had a +few cheap pictures on them--brilliant old-fashioned prints in mahogany +frames, and some enlarged photographs in tawdry gilt. The wide hearth of +a deep chimney was whitewashed, as was also the exposed brickwork up to +a crude mantelpiece on which towered a Colonial clock with wooden +wheels, ornamental dial, ponderous weights, and a painted glass door. + +Mrs. Henley had not always been so unattractive; her dark eyes were good +and her face held the glow of fine health. She had added to the severity +of her sharp features by the too-elderly manner in which she parted her +hair exactly in the centre of her high brow and brushed it sharply +backward to a scant knot behind. She wore constantly an expression of +one who was well aware of the fact that vast and vague duties to the +dead as well as to the living rested on her and which should be +performed at any cost. She was not usually talkative, and she had few +observations to make this morning. As she nibbled the hot biscuit, upon +which she had daintily spread a bit of butter, she allowed her glance to +rove perfunctorily over the three plates beyond her own. She asked +Wrinkle if his coffee was strong enough, and the gap in the black bonnet +if the mush was too lumpy. From the bonnet came a mumbling content with +the yellow mass into which cream was being slowly stirred with a +quivering hand. Wrinkle seemed more ready in the use of his tongue. + +"I hain't got no complaint to make," he said. "Especially sence Alf said +t'other day at the store that coffee was on the rise. I was curious to +see how this batch would sample out. I reckon when the market takes a +jump storekeepers has to take a lower grade to keep customers satisfied +with the price. But it won't work ef they are as good a judge of the +stuff as I am. I parched this lot myself and picked out heaps o' rotten +grains." + +"They wasn't rotten," Henley explained, authoritatively. "They was +water-stained by a wet crop-year, that's all. You was throwing away good +coffee." + +"Good or not, the chickens wouldn't eat it," argued the tangled head. "I +know, fer I watched 'em. They was hangin' round the kitchen-door and +would run every time I throwed out a handful, but they didn't swallow +'em any more'n they would so many buckshot. But prices nor nothin' else +will ever git right, if I am any judge, till we git free silver. I tell +you, Alf, that man Bryant is the biggest gun, by all odds, that ever +belched fire in the defence of a helpless nation, and when them dratted +Yankees tricked 'im out of the Presidency they put the ball an' chain o' +slavery on every citizen of this fair land. Bryant told 'em that sixteen +to one would do the work, and what did they say? Huh, they said he was a +fool and didn't know how to figure. I tell you if he was a fool, Solomon +was a idiot. Who was the'r brag man up in Yankeedom?--why, Abe +Lincoln--an' what did he ever do but set back in the White House and +tell smutty jokes, while the rest o' the country was walkin' on its +uppers, eatin' hardtack, sweatin' blood, an' spittin' out minnie-balls. +_That_ man"--Wrinkle swallowed as he pointed the prongs of his fork at +the crayon portrait of Henley's predecessor, which, with shaggy mustache +and partially bald pate, in a new oaken frame, hung near the +clock--"that man was a Bryant supporter from the minute the +sixteen-to-one proposition electrocuted the world to the day of his +death." + +"Electro_fied_," corrected Mrs. Henley. "You oughtn't to use words out +of the common. People don't understand them hereabouts." + +"Well, they ought to grow up to it," Wrinkle grunted in his cup. "I read +more'n they do, I reckon, an' sometimes a word tickles me till I git it +out." + +Henley ate his breakfast in silence. He was known to be a good talker +himself, but he seldom indulged the tendency when Wrinkle was present. +The meal over, he took his hat and went out. The road passing the +farm-house led straight into the main street of the village, and along +it he strode in the soothing, crisp air. His store stood on the square +which encompassed the stone court-house. The store was a plain wooden +building which had never been painted, but had received from time and +the weather a gray, fuzzy coat which answered every purpose. It was +about eighty feet long by thirty in width, and had a porch in front, +which was reached from the sidewalk by a few steps. Ascending to the +door, Henley unlocked it and proceeded from the rather dark interior to +unscrew the faded green window-shutters. These thrown back on the +outside, the light filled the long room, displaying two rows of counters +and shelving. The right-hand side was devoted to dry goods and notions, +the left to groceries, hardware, and crockery. Henley went on to the +rear, where, by lifting a massive wooden bar from iron sockets, he +opened a door in one side of the house. Next he took up a water-pail +from an inverted soap-box, and, emptying the contents, he went to the +well in the adjoining yard, a fenced enclosure which contained a +conglomerate mass of old junk, broken-down wagons, buggies, agricultural +implements, and other odds and ends which the merchant had bought very +low or taken in some sort of exchange for new wares whereby they had +cost him practically nothing. Returning with the water, he had just +seated himself at his desk in the rear when his clerk, James Cahews, +entered at the front, busied himself putting out some samples of +hardware on the porch, and then came back to his employer. He was tall, +well built, had very blue eyes, yellow hair, and a sweeping mustache +which was well curled at the ends. He was without a coat and wore a blue +cravat and a shirt of fancy cotton which matched none too well. + +"You beat me to the tank again, Alf," was his jovial greeting. "I would +have got here sooner, but I stopped to drive Mrs. Hayward's cow in for +her. The blamed huzzy took a notion to prance about over the +school-house lot, and the old lady is too near-sighted to see which way +to turn and was afraid she'd get hooked." + +"No hurry, no hurry," Henley said, as the other took up a battered tin +sprinkling-pot and, filling it from the pail, began to dampen and sweep +the floor, after which he lazily wiped the counters with a soiled towel. + +"Pomp will be here after a while," the clerk said, pausing near where +Henley sat, his glance thoughtfully on the sunlit ground in the yard. "I +come by his cabin. He said he had to run for some medicine for his wife, +and I told him I'd sweep out for him. Them dern niggers had rather take +medicine than eat ice-cream at a festival. I don't know that it's +anybody else's business," he went on, after he had stood the broom in a +corner and was wiping the top of Henley's desk, "but thar is +considerable talk going around that you intend to take a trip to Texas." + +"I'm thinking seriously of it," Henley admitted. "I've heard of a deal +or two in land out there that I want to get a finger in. You know, Jim, +that I don't really make my best trades here in this shack; nothing +worth while seems to come this way. I reckon it's because this country +is old and settled. In a new, undeveloped section like that out there +big things is continually happening. The general impression is that a +trading-man can make more amongst ignorant folks than amongst keen +traffickers, but it is a mistake. Folks that ain't born with the flea of +speculation wigglin' in their brain-pans won't never let loose of +nothing. It is the feller that is eternally on the lookout for +opportunities that will sell the shirt off his back to raise money when +he thinks he sees an opening. Then there ain't no fun nor Christianity +in making money out of a fool. I want to know that a feller is up to +snuff and fairly in the game, and then I'll swat 'im if it is in my +power. It's been the ambition of my life to get the best of old Welborne +across the street there. He's made his pile off of widows and orphans, +and if I ever get him under my thumb I'll crack every bone in his hide." + +"Traders that have the knack of it like you have, Alf, are simply born +that way," Cahews smiled. "I never had any turn of that sort. I can talk +an old woman into buyin' a dress pattern off of a shelf-worn bolt of +linsey, or a pair of shoes too tight for her, but this way you have of +buying a feller's wagon that breaks down in the road and having it +patched up by a blacksmith that owes you money, and selling the wagon +for more than it cost new--well, as I say, I don't know how to do it." + +"I believe myself, as you say, that the trading turn is born in a +feller," Henley laughed, reminiscently. "I know I was swapping knives +'sight unseen' when I was wearing petticoats. I had a stock of old ones +and I kept the jaws of 'em rubbed up bright. My daddy used to whip me +for it. He was one of the best men, Jim, that ever wore shoe-leather, +and he never could stand to see one neighbor get the best of another. He +was dead agin all the deals I made when I was growing up, but I learnt +him the trick and showed him the beauty of it before I was twenty." + +"You say you did?" Cahews sat down and eyed his employer eagerly. + +"Yes, it come about through my fust hoss-trade," Henley smiled. "It was +this way. Pa was on the lookout for a hoss to do field-work, and he let +everybody know he had the money, and a good many came his way. He wasn't +any judge of hoss-flesh, and a gypsy, passing along, stuck him--burned +the old chap clean to the bone. It was a flea-bitten hoss that was as +round and slick as a ball of butter, and as active under the gypsy's +lash and spur as a frisky young colt. The gypsy said he had paid two +hundred for him, but, as he was anxious to get to his sick wife in +Atlanta, he would make it a hundred and fifty and be thankful that he'd +made one man happy. The old man was his meat. He told him he only had a +hundred and twenty-five, and--well, the gypsy was a smooth article. He +wanted to get his eye on the cash. He said a whole lot about havin' had +counterfeit money paid to him, an' that he had to be careful, and with +that Pa went to the house and got the money and spread it out before the +skunk to prove that it was all right. And in that way the chap got his +hands on it. He shed some tears as he put it into his pocket. Pa said he +kissed the hoss square betwixt the eyes and rubbed him on the nose and +went away with his head hanging down." + +"I catch on," the clerk broke in, deeply interested; "it was stolen +property, and your Pa had to give 'im up." + +"No, the titles was all right," Henley answered, dryly. "The time come +when Pa would have greeted any claimant with open arms. The hoss had the +disease traders call 'big shoulders.' I was a mile or two off when the +calamity fell, but somebody told me Pa'd bought a hoss, and I come home +as fast as I could. I found Ma and Pa out in the stable-yard, and he was +fairly chattering over his wonderful bargain, and what a kind heart the +gypsy had. Pa saw me and grinned from ear to ear. + +"'Say, Alf,' he said, 'you are always making your brags about knowing +hoss-flesh; what do you think of this prince of the turf?' + +"I walked round in front of the animal to size him up, and my heart sunk +'way down in my boots. 'Pa,' I said, 'it looks to me like he's got "big +shoulders."' + +"'Big nothing!' Pa said; but when he stood in front and took a squint I +saw him turn pale. 'Big shoulders, a dog's hind-foot!' he grunted, and +he was so mad at me that he could hardly talk. He put the hoss in a +stall and jowered at me all that evening, and at the supper-table he +clean forgot to ask the blessing. The more he feared I was right the +worse he got, till Ma had to call him to order by putting the family +Bible in his lap and making him read and pray. I couldn't help laughing, +as serious as it was; for while we was on our knees the thought struck +me that he ought to ask the Lord to bless that gypsy and restore his +wife to health. Well, I was right. Early the next morning, after a good +night's rest and plenty of water and feed, we found the hoss lying down. +He'd get up and go about a little whenever we'd prod 'im, but he'd lie +down whenever our backs was turned." + +"I've seen hosses like that," Cahews remarked, "and they might as well +be shot." + +"That's exactly what Pa decided to do, after two weeks' nursing and +cajoling," Henley laughed. "He come in to the breakfast-table one +morning with his rifle in his clutch, a sort of resigned look in his +eyes. + +"'What are you going to do, Pa?' I asked him. + +"'Why, I see that danged thing has got on one of his lively spells,' he +said, 'and I'm going to shoot him while he's at his best. If there is +any hoss-heaven, he'd make a better appearance like he is now than at +any other time. I've had my fill. The sight of that hoss peeping out +betwixt the bars every day at meal-time and lying on a bed of ease the +rest of the day is driving me crazy. He'll be on his way in a few +minutes if I can shoot straight.' + +"'No, don't kill 'im,' I said, my trading blood up. 'Let me ride 'im to +town while he's lively and maybe I can git rid of him. I might get a few +dollars for his hide, and that would be better than having to dig a hole +to put 'im in.' + +"'No, don't kill 'im here,' Ma said, for she had a tender heart--God +bless her memory--and so the old man hung his gun up on the rack and +went to eating, almost too mad to swallow. Well, after the meal was over +I saddled the hoss and rid into town at a purty lively gait. It was +really astonishing what a decent trot the thing could take at times. You +see, I'd heard that Tobe Wilks, a big hardware man at Carlton, who had a +plantation in the country, was looking for a hoss, and I thought I'd see +what he'd say to mine. I was jest a boy, but I'd hung around +hoss-swappers enough to know that it never was a good idea to be the +first to propose a trade, and so I hitched at the post in front of +Wilks's store and went in. I bought a pound of tenpenny nails, that I +thought would come in handy in patching fences at home, and while the +clerk was weighing 'em up I saw Tobe leave his chair behind a counter +and go out and walk around the hoss. Finally he come to me and said, +said he: + +"'Alf, does your Pa want to sell that stack of bones out there?' + +"'He don't,' says I, 'fer the hoss is mine; he gave 'im to me.' + +"'Oh, that's it!' said Wilks; 'well, do _you_ want to sell him?' + +"'Well, I ain't itchin' fer a trade,' I says, and I paid no more +attention to Wilks, pretending to be looking at some ploughshares in a +pile on the floor, till he come at me again. + +"'But you _would_ sell him, wouldn't you?' he asked. + +"'Well,' I said, slowlike, as if I had some difficulty in recalling +exactly what we'd been talking about, 'I had sorter thought that a good +mule would do the work I have to do better than a hoss.' + +"'What would you take for him?' Wilks come at me again, and he looked +kinder anxious. 'I want a hoss to send out to my plantation. They are +needing one about like yours.' + +"'It will take a hundred and fifty of any man's money to buy him,' I +says. 'Friend nor foe don't get him for a cent less.' + +"Well, we went out to the hoss, and Wilks got astraddle of him, and, +sir, he took him round the square in the purtiest rack you ever saw +shuffle under a saddle. I saw Wilks thought I was his game, for his eyes +was dancing as he lit and hitched. + +"'How would a hundred and forty strike you, cash down?' he said. + +"'I'm needing the other ten,' I said. 'I'm a one-price man. I know what +I've got in that hoss' (and you bet I did), 'and you can take him or +leave him. I didn't start the talk, nohow.' + +"'Well, we won't fight over the ten,' he said, 'but here is one +trouble, Alf. You are under age, and I don't often trade with minors. I +don't know how your daddy may look at it, and I'm going to make this +deal before witnesses so there won't be any trouble later.' + +"'You'll not have any trouble with Pa,' says I. 'I'll guarantee that.' + +"Well, Wilks called up two of his clerks to see the money handed to me, +and with the wad of bills in my pocket I lit out for home. But the +nearer I got to the house the more I got afraid Pa wouldn't endorse what +I'd done, and so I felt sorter funny when him and Ma met me at the gate, +their eyes wide open in curiosity to know what I'd done. + +"'Well, what did you do with the hoss?' Pa wanted to know. + +"'I sold him,' says I. 'I let him go to Tobe Wilks for cash.' + +"'Cash the devil,' says Pa. 'How much?' + +"I drawed out my roll and fluttered the bills in the wind. 'A hundred +and fifty,' I said. 'If I'd asked less he'd have been suspicious and +backed out.' + +"Well, sir, Pa was plumb flabbergasted. He leaned against the gate-post +and puffed for air, and Ma was the same way. But he wouldn't touch the +money. 'It's plain open-and-shut stealing,' he said, when he riz to the +surface, 'and we are simply going to hitch a hoss to the buggy and take +the money back.' + +"Well, it looked like it was no go. I argued and produced evidence till +I was black in the face, but Pa just kept saying he wouldn't sanction no +such deal, and Ma she agreed with him. So you bet I felt like a whipped +school-boy as me and him set side by side and drove into town. He was +bewailing all the way that he'd fetched into the world an only son that +was no better than a hog-thief in principle, an', if I didn't change, me +'n him would have to part. + +"When we got to the square I saw Tobe Wilks standing in the door of the +store, and I saw that he was mad. At first I thought he'd found out +about the hoss, but I saw it wasn't that as soon as he reached the +buggy. + +"'Now, I'll tell you right now,' he said to Pa, when the old man drawed +the roll out and started to hand it to him over my legs. 'You sha'n't +come here and try to back down in a fair trade like that. I made it +before witnesses, and your boy said he had your consent. I've sent the +hoss out home, and I don't do business that way.' Pa tried to get in a +word, but Tobe 'ud cut him short as soon as he opened his mouth, so the +old man couldn't do anything but wave the money at him. + +"'If you get the hoss you'll do it by law,' Tobe went on, fairly +frothing at the mouth, 'and I'll put your boy in the pen for selling +stolen property. You can't browbeat me, you old hog.' + +"'Old hog!' I heard Pa grunt in his beard, and he stuffed the roll down +in his pants pocket. Now Pa wouldn't take advantage of his worst enemy +in a trade, but he'd fight a bosom friend if he was insulted. And before +I could bat my eyes he had lit out of the buggy, and him and Wilks was +engaged in a scrap that'ud make two wildcats go off and take lessons. +The town marshal run up and parted them by the aid of bystanders, and +some of 'em persuaded me to drive Pa home. He was a good, holy man, but +he cussed all the way, and ended by saying that Wilks never should see +hair nor hide of that money. And he never offered it back again, +neither, and him and Wilks never spoke for two years. Pa bought a fine +Kentucky mare with the money, and used to chuckle every time she'd pass +him. He got so he thought hoss-trading wasn't the worst crime on earth." + +"And what became of the hoss?" the listener asked. + +"I never knew," Henley answered; "men don't advertise such things when +they go against them. But one day, during election, Tobe asked me to +cast a vote for his son, and I promised to do it, and we got kinder +friendly. As he was leaving me he turned back and laid his hand on my +shoulder and said, 'Alf, I've wondered many a time what in the name of +common-sense your Pa wanted with that hoss.' + +"'So have I,' said I, and he went one way and me another." + +Pomp, the negro porter, was entering the door, and with a laugh Cahews +turned to meet him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The gray light of early dawn had taken on a faint tint of yellow, and +the profound stillness of the air, the vast quietude of the mountain +foliage and drooping corn-blades gave warning of the fierce heat that +was to follow. + +Dixie Hart turned her head drowsily on her pillow and opened her eyes +and closed them again. "Oh, I could sleep, sleep, sleep till doomsday," +she said to herself. "I wish I didn't have to get up. I'd like to take +one day off. I could lie here flat on my back till night. But, old girl, +you've got to be up an' doing." + +She heard the clucking and scratching of her hens, the chirping of the +tiny chickens, and the lusty crowing of her roosters in their answering +calls to neighboring fowls, the neighing of her horse in the stable, the +mooing of her cow in the barn-yard. + +"They are all begging me to hurry," she mused. "They don't want to +sleep; they've had their fill through the night, while I had to be up. +Well, repining don't make good dining, and here goes." + +She dressed herself, went out on the little kitchen porch, bathed in +fresh, cool well-water, and, with a coarse towel which hung from a nail +on the door-jamb, she rubbed her face, arms, and neck till they glowed +like the reddening skies. + +"My two women, as sound as they pretend to sleep, are crazy for their +coffee," she smiled, "but they've got to wait, like people at a circus +do, till the animals are fed. The older folks get, the earlier they go +to bed and the earlier they rise. Heaven only knows where it will end. +If mine could get their suppers early enough they would say good-night +at sundown and good-morning when it was so dark you couldn't see 'em in +their night-clothes." + +"Dixie, is that you, darling?" It was Mrs. Hart's voice, and it came +from the open window of a tiny room with a sloping roof which jutted out +from the end of the kitchen. + +"Yes'm. What is it, mother?" + +"Nothing." A thin hand drew a white curtain aside, and a pale, wrinkled +face, surrounded by dishevelled iron-gray hair, appeared above the +window-sill. "I just wanted to know if you was up. I heard you through +the night. Your aunt was suffering, wasn't she?" + +"Yes, she couldn't sleep," Dixie replied, as she spread the damp towel +out on the shelf where the coming sun's rays would dry it. "She says she +sat too long at the spring yesterday. I got up and rubbed her arms and +chest twice with the new liniment. It smells like it's got laudanum in +it; but it didn't deaden her pain." + +"I'd 'a' got up myself," Mrs. Hart said, in her plaintive tone, "but I +can't see good enough to help." + +"It's well you didn't," Dixie said, lightly, "for you'd just have made +double trouble. I'd have laid down my patient and let her grin and bear +her pain while I was trotting you back to bed and making you lie there. +Don't you ever get up and go stumbling about in the dark while I'm +attending to anything like that." + +"I think I'll get up and make the coffee while you are feeding," Mrs. +Hart said. "Mandy nearly dies waiting for it to come after she wakes +up." + +"That's right, lay it on her," Dixie laughed, impulsively. "You are +getting like a ripe old toper who is always begging whiskey for +somebody else. You let that coffee-pot alone. The last time you tried +your hand at it you put in a double quantity of corn-meal and couldn't +understand why it didn't have a familiar smell as it was boiling." + +"I believe a body does become a slave to the habit," the old woman +agreed. "The other day you was over at Carlton, and left enough already +made for dinner, I accidentally spilled it, and me and Mandy went nearly +crazy. It was one of her bad days, and she couldn't get up, and I +couldn't find the coffee." + +"I remember," Dixie answered, "and you both swigged so much at supper to +make up for it that you wanted to talk all night. Oh, you two are a +funny lot! But you've got to wait this time, sure. I'm going to feed +these things and stop their noise." + +She had reference to half a hundred fowls, young and old, that were +squawking loudly and fluttering on the steps and even the porch floor. +She disappeared in the kitchen and returned in a moment with a dish-pan +half filled with corn-meal, and into this she poured a quantity of +water, and with her hand stirred the mass into a thick mush. This she +began to throw here and there over the yard like a sower of grain till +the voices of the fowls had ceased and they had fled from the porch. +Then she took up a pail of swill in the kitchen and bore it down to a +pen containing a couple of fat pigs and emptied it into their wooden +trough. Going into a little corn-crib adjoining the stable and +wagon-shed, she brought out a bucketful of wheat-bran and fed it to the +cow, which stood trying to lick the back of a sleek young calf over the +low fence in another lot. "I'll milk you after breakfast," she said, as +she stroked the cow's back. "The calf will have to wait; I can't attend +to all humanity and the brute creation at the same time. You'll feel +more like suckling the frisky thing, anyway, after you've filled your +insides." + +The sun was above the horizon when she had breakfast on the table in the +little kitchen. She stood in the space between the cooking-stove and the +table and attended to the wants of the half-blind woman and the all but +helpless aunt. The biscuits she had baked were light and brown as +autumnal leaves, the eggs fried with bacon in thin lean-and-fat slices +would have tempted the palate of a confirmed invalid. The aroma of the +coffee floated like a delectable substance through the still air. + +"It's going to be awfully hot to-day," Mrs. Wartrace, the widowed aunt, +remarked. "I hope you are not going to hoe in the sun this morning." + +"Huh!" Dixie sniffed, as she sat down at the end of the table and began +to butter a hot biscuit, "and let the crab-grass and pussley weeds +literally choke out the best stand of cotton I ever laid my eyes on. No, +siree, not me. I'd hire hands, but all the niggers have gone to town +where there are more back-doors to live at; no, there is nothing for me +to do but to look out for number one. See here, you two women don't seem +to be able to look ahead. I've paid for half of this farm in the last +three years, and in two more I'll own it. It is a good thing as it +stands, but when I'm plumb out of debt we'll take it easy and set back +in the shade once in a while. Alf Henley is a keen trader and knows what +values are, and he told me not long ago that he believed a railroad +would head for Chester some day, and, if it comes, my land would sell +for town lots. Let's let well enough alone and be thankful for the +blessings we've got. That's right, Aunt Mandy, drain it to the dregs and +I'll fill it again. I knew I'd hit it exactly right this morning by the +color of it." + +Breakfast was over, and Dixie, aided by the fumbling hands of her +mother, was washing and drying the few dishes and putting them away in +the safe with perforated tin doors, which was the chief piece of +furniture in the room, when the front gate opened and closed with a +metallic click of the latch, and a visitor hurried along the little +gravelled walk to the front porch. + +"It is that meddlesome Carrie Wade," Mrs. Wartrace looked into the +kitchen to say. "She's got on a new muslin, and has come over to show +it, even as early as this." + +"I'm not going to stand at the door and knock like a stranger," the +visitor cried out, as she entered the little front hallway and rustled +back to the kitchen. "Hello, Dix; Martha Sims and me are invited to +spend the day over at Treadwell's. You know the new lumber-camp is +there, and there's some dandy fellows working at it. They are going to +give a dance, an' told us to send Ned Jones over with his fiddle. Oh, we +are going to have a rattling time. We agreed to get up early. It seems +funny, don't it? It's been many a day since I saw the sun rise." + +The speaker was a tall blonde about Dixie's age. She was thin, inclined +to paleness, and had a nervous look. + +Dixie was drying her hands on a dishcloth, and she turned upon the +visitor, surveying her carefully from her rather worn shoes to the newer +dress and gaudily flowered hat with its tinsel ornaments and flowing +pink ribbons. She knew full well that her neighbor had come for the sole +purpose of showing her finery, and was secretly gloating over her +misfortune in having to remain behind, and yet she allowed this +knowledge in no way to affect her demeanor. + +"You'll have a glorious time," Dixie said. "It's going to be a fine day +for a picnic and dance." + +"How do you like my dress?" Miss Wade asked, turning round for the +inspection. + +"It's very pretty, and pink suits you," Dixie answered, touching one of +the folds of the skirt. + +"It's entirely too long in front," Mrs. Hart said, as she bent forward +and squinted sidewise with quite a visible sneer. "You'd look powerful +funny walking along kicking up the skirt behind. With a veil on nobody +could tell whether you was going or coming. Take my word for it--that +stuff'll fade, even in the sun. You won't get more than one or two +wearings out of it." + +"Oh, do you think so?" The blond face fell. "I was a little afraid of +that myself, and maybe you are right about the fit behind, too." + +"Mother doesn't know what she's talking about," Dixie said, with a +reproachful glance at her parent, who frowningly hovered on the verge of +another criticism. "It is the way you've put the flounce on, Carrie, +that makes it look that way in front. Wait, let me pin it up." + +"Pin it up, I say!" Mrs. Hart sniffed. "You'll never get it to look +decent that way. Nothing but making the whole thing plumb over will do +any good. You ought to have got you a new sash to go with the muslin; +weak-eyed as I am, I can see the dirty, faded edges agin the new cloth. +The two don't go together. In war-times it was considered excusable to +botch things that way, but not in this day and time when all +_industrious_ folks can get what's needed." + +Dixie looked up regretfully, and a flush of embarrassment climbed into +her fine face as her mother, accompanied by her silent sister, swept +stiffly from the room. + +When Carrie Wade had left, after her by no means triumphant call, Dixie +went to her mother, who stood in the yard under an apple-tree, still +with a frown on her really gentle face. + +"You oughtn't to have said all that, mother," Dixie said, as she leaned +on the smooth handle of the hoe she was going to take to the field. +"After all, she was in _our_ house." + +"And come in it like a yellow-fanged snake with its forked tongue fairly +dripping with poison," was the ready retort. "She come to gloat over +you as she always has since the day you cut her out of that young man. +She knowed you were going to work at home to-day, and she had the +littleness to traipse over here to try to make you feel like you was +missing something awful grand. If I hadn't left the kitchen I wouldn't +have stopped with what I said about her flimsy dress. I'd have told her +that if she'd stay at home more, and keep the holes in her stockings +darned, and her underclothes cleaner, she'd stand a better chance roping +in some fool man. I'm plain and outspoken, and I resent sneaking hints +and false grins as quick as I do slaps. I'm tired o' you doing the way +you are, anyhow. I want you to be like the rest of the girls. What do we +care about owning this farm. Her daddy can't buy a knitting-needle on +time, and yet they live as well as anybody else, and she thinks she is a +grade higher than the rest of us." + +"Don't you let it bother you, Muttie," Dixie said, tenderly; indeed, she +was always moved by a demonstration of her mother's love, and her eyes +were moist as she put a caressing hand on the gray locks of the little +woman. "We are going to see it through. When the farm is plumb paid for +we'll make Carrie so sick with our fine doings she'll wish she was +dead." + +"It is mighty hard," the old lips quivered, and the gaunt, blue-veined +hand was raised to the dim eyes. "I can't stand to see that girl going +to places you can't go to. I simply can't, that's all." + +"I could have gone, mother," Dixie remarked. "I didn't tell her, for I +knew exactly what she would say, but Hank Bradley met me on the way home +yesterday and offered to drive me over there. He says he knows all the +lumber crowd well." + +"Hank Bradley--did he want to take you?" cried Mrs. Hart, "and you +wouldn't go?" + +"I couldn't, mother. You know every girl that has ever kept company +with him has been talked about. I don't like him. I can't stand him. +He's a bad man, mother--a gambler, a drunkard, and an idler. He doesn't +care for the characters he has ruined. He's fast running through the +money his mother left him; he's no good." + +"I don't know that you did exactly right," Mrs. Hart said, with the +indecision and bad logic into which her ill-fortune sometimes drew her. +"I know what he is well enough, but you are able to take care of +yourself, and you lose so many chances by being so particular. He knows +your true worth, and I've knowed men even as bad as he is to be reformed +by loving a good girl." + +"I ain't in the reforming business," Dixie laughed. "I'd rather fight +crab-grass and pussley weeds, and I'm off now. You go back in the house +and set down and don't talk about the picnic. I sha'n't even think about +it. I never bother about anything when I get warmed up." + +Without a word further the two parted. Mrs. Hart stood on the little +porch, and Dixie crossed the stretch of green meadow-land and climbed +over the rail-fence of her cotton-field. The long rows of succulent +plants, as high as the girl's knees, seemed breathing, conscious things +to which she was giving relief as she smoothly cut away the tenaciously +encroaching weeds and deep-rooted grass, the heaviest bunches of which +she took up and threshed against the hoe-handle and left in the sun to +die lest they be revived by some shower which would beat their roots +into the mellow soil again. The sun rose higher and higher till it was +poised almost directly over her head, and its rays beat more fiercely +down upon her. The almost breathless air was as hot as a gust from the +open door of a furnace. Her hands, in her heavy, knitted yarn gloves, +were moist and red. + +In the distance, and nearer to the village, rose the white, pretentious +house of old Silas Welborne, the money-lender and the uncle of Hank +Bradley, to whom she owed the remaining payment on her land. Almost day +and night it stood before her as a mute reminder of her difficult +undertaking. This morning, in the golden light, against the mountain +background, it seemed an inspiration, as a flag of peace might appear to +a tired soldier. Hank Bradley was the orphaned son of old Welborne's +sister, and he lived in his uncle's home in lieu of any other that was +available. He had made trips to the West and had remained away for +indefinite periods, the last being the time he had come home with the +carelessly announced death of his companion, Dick Wrinkle. The uncle and +nephew were an incongruous pair: old Welborne, with his miserly grasp on +the vitals of half the county, and the devil-may-care Bradley, whose +wild ways made him the constant talk of the community. Old Silas gave no +thought to the fellow's reform. As the administrator of his sister's +estate, he doled out honestly enough the various sums in rents, +dividends, and interest to which the young man was entitled after his +liberal fees as administrator had been deducted, and even smiled when +told of Bradley's reckless and almost criminal escapades. Henley had +once remarked in his keenly observant way that Welborne, being the next +of kin, would be glad to hear that his nephew had died with his boots on +in some one of the lynching affairs to which Bradley was suspected of +being a party. + +Dixie had reached the farthest end of one of her longest cotton-rows, +and was turning to work homeward on another, when the branches of the +bushes of a near-by coppice parted and Bradley, with a fowling-piece on +his arm, appeared. + +"Good gracious, you _are_ a queer girl!" he laughed, as he advanced to +the low fence and climbed to a seat upon it. "Working here like a +corn-field nigger in sun hot enough to bake a potato, when you could +have been gliding through the shade behind my horse--to say nothing of +the picnic and dance when we got there." + +She pushed back the hood of her bonnet and smiled faintly. + +"Driving and dancing ain't paying debts," she said, "and there is no +other time to do this work. You know your uncle well enough to +understand what he expects of folks unlucky enough to be on his books." + +"That's another thing I can't understand," the young man said, bracing +his heels on one of the rails, and, with his gun across his lap, he +began to twist his stiff brown mustache, while his dark eyes rested with +growing warmth on her trim figure. "What in the name of common-sense do +you want to own land for?" + +"What does a body want to _breathe_ for?" Dixie asked him, sharply, "or +own the duds on your back, or the grub you eat? Why, it is simply to be +independent. I wouldn't quake and shiver every time that old man meets +me if I wasn't in his clutch. I ain't afraid of anybody else, but I am +of him, and why? Because he's got me where he can do as he likes with +me. The last time I went to explain why I couldn't meet the payments +exactly to the day, he growled like a bear, and said if I didn't look +sharp he'd sell the roof over my head." + +"Well, we needn't talk about him," the handsome daredevil said. "What I +want to know is why you'd rather hoe cotton in weather like this than go +with me to a jolly picnic. Why, Dixie, you don't begin to know your +power; you could do as you like in this world, if you only would. You +are the best-looking girl in the county, and you grow prettier every +day. The blood of life is in your veins; you haven't got the sickly, +palish look that the girls have who stay indoors half the time. You've +got a clear eye, a good figure, and a complexion that society women +would give big money for." + +"You needn't begin all that again." The girl lowered her head and half +raised her hoe to strike at a weed near a stalk of cotton. "I know what +I am well enough. I was born with a load on me, and I'm going to tote it +till I get to a dumping-place. My good looks won't set the world on +fire." + +"Well, they have set _me_ on fire," Bradley laughed, significantly. He +lowered his feet to the ground on her side of the fence and leaned his +gun against it. "Say, this sun will actually blister us; let's go down +to the spring." + +"No spring for me to-day," she said, grimly. "I see Aunt Mandy on the +back porch now. She'll hang out a towel in a minute. That's the signal +that it is half-past eleven by the clock. I've got to go cook dinner." + +"Well, I'll walk over with you." + +"No, you mustn't." + +"Why?" + +"Because I'd rather you wouldn't--that's all." + +"I declare I believe you mean that, and I won't push myself on you, +Dixie. You know how I feel about you, and you oughtn't to be so +dadblasted rough with a fellow. I think about you night and day. I +didn't come out to shoot anything this morning. I simply couldn't get +over the way you turned me down yesterday. I lay awake last night +thinking about it, and so I waited for you this morning. I stayed in the +bushes over there watching till you hoed up here. I don't believe I'll +ever get over feeling that way, and I am not going to give up. I'm going +to keep hoping." + +"There goes my towel!" Dixie said, as she laid her hoe across her +shoulder. "I must go. Don't follow me, Hank. I don't want her, or +anybody else, to see me out here with you." + +"Then come out to the fence this evening, after supper, won't you, just +a minute?" + +"No, I can't--I never leave the house after dark. They need me at home." + +"Blast them, what have they got to do with you? You are already a slave +to them. Well, good-bye. You'll change your mind some day." + +He held out his hand with a smile, but she refused to take it. + +"You won't even shake hands. Why, what is the matter with you? I can see +that you are mad at me by the twitching of--Do you know, Dixie, you have +the most maddening mouth and lips that a woman ever owned? Say, shake +just once to show that we are friends." + +"I won't. I did it once and you held me and tried to kiss me. I'll tell +you now in dead earnest, Hank, you must never try that sort of a thing +again. I mean it, as God is my judge, I do." + +"I never will while you hold a hoe in your grip," he jested, with a +thwarted smile, as she turned from him. + +He stepped back to his gun and stood watching her as she plodded +homeward. "I can't help it," he said, a dark, desperate look on his +face. "I simply can't quit thinking about her. I've got staying +qualities, and no man ever gained his point that paid the slightest +attention to a woman's moods. Right now she may be wishing she'd gone to +the picnic." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"Jim, how's your courting getting on?" Henley asked his clerk, half +teasingly, one sultry afternoon, as the two were finishing a game of +checkers on a board from which the squares were almost obliterated by +the constant sliding of the black and white pants-buttons which were +used for checkers. + +"Don't ask me, Alf," Cahews answered, with a sickly smile. "I'm afraid +she's too much for me. We ain't a bit nigher the altar than we was a +year ago when I begun. Sometimes I think she is willing, and then ag'in +I don't." + +"I kinder thought you looked worried the last time you took her to +ride," said Henley, sympathetically. "I felt sorry for you. She looked +mighty chipper in her finery as you whisked by, but you was down in the +mouth. Looked like you was on duty, and that was all." + +"Somehow I don't much blame her," Cahews sighed, "but it looks to me +like she is having too good a time running here and there to want to +settle down. Sometimes I git blue and think she is just holding me as a +safe thing to land on while she looks the field over. I have to stay +here and attend to business and see her gallivanting in her ruffles and +flounces with every drummer and lightning-rod agent that comes along." + +"Maybe you ought to sorter lay down the law, at least on that particular +point," Henley submitted, delicately. "I've heard my step-daddy-in-law +say that a woman was born to be commanded, and when they ain't they hop +to t'other extreme and just loll about in their abuse of a feller's +good-nature. I don't know--that's the old man's view. You might give out +a decided order or two, Jim, and see how--" + +"Not to a woman you are tryin' to marry," said the clerk, quite firmly. +"Sech a thing might be done to an army of soldiers or a red-handed mob +at a lynchin'-bee, but not to a gal that makes you feel like you are +sinking down in a mire whenever she looks you in the eyes. No, Alf, not +to a gal as purty and sweet as a bunch of roses, and that knows it, and +is in the habit o' being told of it as regular as eatin' and sleepin'. A +gal like that sort o' feels 'er oats, as the feller said. She knows +she's the stuff, and she loves to be told of it as much as a cat loves +to sleep in the sun." + +"Well, I'll be dadblamed if I'd tag after her without _some_ substantial +hope," Henley opined, wisely. "Life is long and life is earnest, and +beauty is only skin deep, anyways. It seems to me--_now_, at least--that +if I was out on the hunt for a helpmeet I'd look to the _solid_ +qualities in a woman just as I would in a man I wanted to work with. I'd +study her character, her pluck under trying circumstances, her industry, +and her all-round good-nature. The shape and face and furbelows, +eyebrows and color of bangs, would be the last consideration." + +"I never hear that from any but married men," Jim said. "They sing that +song till they bury their wives, and then they turn to boys again and +pick the youngest and prettiest they can lay their hands on." + +"I was just thinking, Jim"--Henley seemed unwilling to combat the last +assertion. His eyes rested thoughtfully on a sunny spot before the open +door--"you see, I've got a little neighbor that--" + +"I know--Dixie Hart! I know who you mean," the clerk broke in. "She's +all wool and a yard wide, but I never run across her till after I'd got +in with old man Hardcastle's daughter. I wouldn't talk to just any stray +person this away, Alf, but me and you was boys together, and you've +always been my friend. She's got me, Alf--I don't exactly know how--but +she could crook her little finger at me and I'd make for her side--yes, +sir, I would, through flame and smoke, if the world was coming to an +end." + +The talk had grown serious; there was a moist gleam in Cahew's blue +eyes, and he snuffed as if he had a cold. Henley was glad of the +interruption brought about by the arrival of a stranger who entered the +front door and came back to them with swift, steady strides. He was fat, +middle-aged, short, had a round, smooth face, and in removing his straw +hat to fan his pink brow he disclosed a very bald head. + +"I don't know whether you gentlemen are in need of anything in my line," +he said, as he drew a big book of illustrations from beneath his arm and +opened it on Henley's desk. "But I was givin' yore town and vicinity the +one and only chance of its life to git the only true and artistic thing +in marble. I'm agent for the Adamantyne Tombstone Company, of Tennessee. +We own the only quarry of snow-white, non-grit, pristyne Parian rock on +this side of the blue ocean, and we have in our employ the best and most +world-renowned chisel-artists that ever breathed the spark of life into +inanimate matter. Now, just set where you are, gentlemen--don't +move--and I'll show you a beauty--a tombstone that will make a man want +to die--if he's able to pay the price." + +He held his book of illustrations open before Henley, whose eyes were +twinkling mischievously as they rested on his clerk. + +"I'm not in the market," he said, without a smile. "I wouldn't buy any +but a second-handed one, and then it would have to be so cheap that a +dead man would kick it off of his grave in disgust. You've got in the +wrong box. If you'll look about amongst the junk I've got in my +back-yard you may find one or two lying about." + +"I see you've got a streak of fun in you," the agent said, +good-naturedly, and at this instant old Jason Wrinkle entered and +sauntered back to the group. He seemed to recognize the stranger, for +the two exchanged nods of greeting. "I'm still at it, you see," the +salesman said. "I'm going to give all a chance. How about you, sir?" and +he turned to Cahews. "I may find you serious, if this man ain't. Death +is beautiful when it is properly looked at and provided for." + +"I don't need anything in that line," Cahews said, with a flush. + +"You _might_, Jim," Henley broke in, with a grin, "if you don't git +cured of that complaint you was telling me about just now," and Henley +winked almost imperceptibly to any one not familiar with the tricks of +his face. He bent his head and smiled behind his broad hand. "I'll tell +you, sir," he went on to the salesman, after another sly wink at Cahews, +"none of us here happen to want anything in your line, but there is a +rich old codger across the way--Mr. Silas Welborne--who will trade if +you'll stick to him long enough. He's got dead kin with no sort o' tags +on 'em. You might have to talk to him all the evening, and even follow +him home, but you'll sell him if you understand your business. He's +powerful soft-hearted, for one thing, and if you'll tell him a tale or +two in the eloquent tongue you was rolling off just now he'll place a +dandy order. I'll give you that as a pointer." + +"Well, I'm much obliged to you, sir, and thank you kindly," the agent +said, as he closed his book. "I'll look him up. I'm doing a big +business here. Your people don't seem to have had a chance to invest in +my line in no telling how long. Good-day." + +"Good-day," Henley echoed, and he endeavored to hide the mischievous +smile that was playing about his mouth. In a chuckling undertone he said +to Wrinkle and Cahews: "I'd give a pretty to see this oily-tongued chap +holding down that crusty old miser. A tombstone is the last thing on +earth that Welborne would want to think about or talk about. I'd love to +be there and see 'em meet." + +Cahews laughed and sauntered toward the front, and old Wrinkle sat down +in the chair just vacated and tilted it back against the door-jamb. + +"That is a sorter good joke," he said, his small eyes on Henley, +"considering the man you mean it for, but as I stood thar hearin' you +concoct it I couldn't help thinking if you knowed what a joke this +self-same peddler had got off on you you'd not be exactly in the mood +for fun--at least not in the grave-rock line." + +"What joke are you talking about?" Henley asked, incredulously, his face +falling into seriousness. "I have never laid eyes on this chap before." + +"I reckon not, but you'll know him the next time you see him; I'll be +bound you do, even if you are a mile down the road an' he's round the +bend with his back turned to you. The truth is, I just followed him down +here to see who he'd strike next. He's been to our house, Alf. He slid +in there just after you come off, and set on the porch and begun his +palaver. He has a different way with women than he has with men. He +seems to know that women are soft on some lines, and chiefly on +preachin' and buryin'. He'd picked up a list of folks round about here +that had lost kin, and he had me and Jane down on it on account of Dick. +Now, it seems that when he gits to a place he goes to the graveyard and +looks for stones to tally with his dead list, and when he don't find any +he makes a note of it; so, you see, havin' Dick's name down, an' not +knowin' the full particulars, he hunted us up, thinkin' we was +unsupplied in his line. So, you see, that's why he made sech a leech of +hisse'f on our porch." + +"Huh, I see," Henley frowned--"I see." + +"I can't begin to describe all the chap done or said," Wrinkle resumed. +"He riz and walked and ranted, an' prayed an' sung an' mighty nigh +called up mourners. I thought them two women would bust out cryin' once +or twice, but they belt in tiptop through the hottest of the wrangle. +Then I thought I'd put a stop to it, and I up and told him, I did, that +he'd made a mistake, an' that we didn't need a thing of the sort--that +Dick's body never was recovered, and so on. Then what do you think? The +skunk was actually flabbergasted, and didn't know what to say. But he +was game, and knowed thar was some way out of his trouble. He said, +'Wait a minute--don't bother me!' an' he shet his eyes tight, an' set +thar with his head hangin' down for fully five minutes. Then he looked +up an' said, 'I was jest tryin' to recall the good lady's name that had +the same trouble, pine blank, as your'n, but it slips me somehow.' An' +with that he said it was the custom all over civilized Christendom, in +such cases as our'n, to erect a suitable monument jest the same, havin' +a plot the right length an' width set aside, with both head and foot +rock, and, if a sermon hadn't been preached already, one ought to be on +the day the stone was put in place an' consecrated. I 'lowed sure them +women would see how plumb silly it was, but they listened like they was +gittin' the only directions to the Golden Shore, and begun to look at +the pictures in his book like they thought the skunk was savin' 'em from +death, destruction, an' disgrace." + +"You don't mean to tell me they actually went and ordered--" Henley +began, but his voice trailed away into indistinctness. He could only +stare at his tormentor hopelessly. + +"Only a little one fur five hundred dollars," Wrinkle said, with evident +enjoyment. "They had a lots o' trouble pickin' out the design amongst +all the doves, broke-off pillars, seraphims, an' angels, but they +finally got what they wanted. Not a tear was shed, if you'd stood off a +few feet, out o' earshot, you couldn't 'a' told but what they was +pickin' out a pattern fer a weddin'-dress or buyin' tickets fer a +side-show. After they got under headway I couldn't say anything--they +had sech a solemn way about it, and then I couldn't help but be fair and +think if I'd been in Dick's place they would have gone through exactly +the same antics, an' been jest as liberal in showing due respect. Hettie +says it is all to come out of her own money that she had when she +married you. She was particular to mention the fact, and I think that +showed a sensible streak, for a fool would know you oughtn't to be +expected to stand sech expense, and so long after you took her, and that +being a thing that would naturally belong to her past career, too. After +the agent had gone off I set thar, an' Hettie told me what she was goin' +to do. She don't intend to spare expense to do the thing plumb right. +She's goin' to send away off for a high-priced reverential orator to +give the discourse, an' intends to have evergreens hung all over the +church. I don't know whether she designs to have all the business houses +in Chester closed that day, but she'd naturally expect you and Jim to +shet up an' take it in." + +"So this is the joke you said that man had got off on me, is it?" Henley +snapped out, irritably. + +"Well, I reckon it mought not appear exactly in the same light to you, +Alf," answered Wrinkle, "as it would to somebody who'd be more inclined +to laugh over a thing of the sort. You was gettin' off what you called +a good one on old Tight-fist just now by puttin' this chap on his track, +and I reckon you'd have no call to git mad if Welborne made it tit for +tat an' fired back at you. You wouldn't be justified in killin' 'im, you +know, if he was to take a notion to send you a big bouquet o' flowers +out o' his gyarden all tied up in black ribbon with a cyard sayin' he's +sorry to hear of the sad loss in yore family, an'--" + +"Ah, you make me sick, with your eternal chatter!" Henley burst out, +angrily. "I don't care what them two silly women do. I'll not be here to +witness such tomfoolery. I'm going to Texas, to be away several months." + +"So I've heard," Wrinkle said, a trifle more mildly, "but you'll be +missin' some'n out o' the general run, if I'm any judge. Thar may have +been sech a thing sence the flood as a married woman callin' out all +hands to solemnize her first husband's demise while she's still wearin' +the weddin'-clothes bought by her second, but it's a new _wrinkle_ on +me, an' I hain't makin' what you mought call a pun, nuther." + +Abruptly leaving the old man, Henley joined his clerk at the front. + +"I get so mad at that old chap sometimes I could kick him," he said, in +an angry undertone. "Nothing under the sun is sacred to him." + +"He's gettin' old and childish," Cahews answered. "I sorter love to hear +'im chatter. Some o' the things he says about folks and their +peculiarities sound powerful funny." + +"Well, they don't to me," burst from Henley, "and I'll tell you another +thing, Jim--enough of a thing is a plenty, and while I'm away--" but +Wrinkle had approached, and, passing behind the counter, he was +tiptoeing that he might reach a candy-jar on the top shelf. + +"Looks like I'm about yore only candy customer, Jim," he said to +Cahews. "Thar hain't been a stick took out o' this jar sence I was here +Monday. I laid one crossways on top just to see. I'd order a fresh lot +if I was you. This is gettin' dry and crumbly. I can suck wind through a +stick the same as a pipe-stem." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +One clear, warm morning a week later Henley stood in the little porch in +front of his store and glanced up the street which gave into the road +that led on to his farm. In the store Cahews was nailing the top slats +on a coop of scrambling, squawking chickens, and with a pot of lampblack +and brush was marking it for shipment to Atlanta. In a cloud of dust in +the rear, Pomp, the negro porter and all-round servant on Henley's farm, +was turning the handle of a clattering machine for the separation of +chaff from grain. And while his eyes were resting on the road the +storekeeper saw a horse and wagon come around a bend and slowly advance +toward him. The horse was a poor beast of great age, and the wagon was +none the better for wear. It had lost all its original paint, the +woodwork was cracked by the weather and the sun. Its four wheels ran +unevenly; some of the spokes were missing, and its bolts and rods of +iron rattled in holes worn too large. + +"By Gum, it's Dixie Hart, and she's fetching in a load of produce," +Henley muttered; then he called out to Cahews: "Say, Jim, get through +there and stop that nigger's clatter. We are going to have a visitor. +The fairest of the fair will be here in a minute." + +Henley stepped down to the edge of the sidewalk and bowed and smiled to +her as she drew rein. In her new straw hat and clean, well-ironed +gingham she looked decidedly well. She was radiantly bright, and smiled +merrily as she extended her hand and shook his over the rickety +fore-wheel as she leaned forward from the dilapidated, sagging seat, the +springs of which rested on the sides of the wagon-bed. + +"I told you I'd be in," she laughed, "and, if the market is off to-day, +back I go to my shanty. Nothing but the best prices catch me." + +"About as favorable now as any time," he said. "What does your load +consist of?" he ran on, jovially, as he glanced behind her at the bags, +boxes, coops, pails, and jars. + +"Odds and ends," she laughed. "I've got to make a payment to old +Welborne on my debt. You and Jim had better give me tiptop bids all +through or I'll peddle the truck from door to door and steal your trade +right from under your noses." + +Henley smiled good-humoredly as he walked round the wagon opening boxes +and bags and making notes with a pencil on a scrap of paper. Then he +told her what he would pay for each item. + +"Is that as good as you can do?" It was a question she always asked, and +she did so now more from habit than for any intention of disagreeing +with him. + +"That's the top-notch, Dixie," he said. "We couldn't do that, but we've +got customers that simply won't eat butter and eggs that don't have your +brand on 'em." + +"I believe you," she said, laconically. "I've met 'em myself. They pass +by the house from Carlton sometimes in their fine rigs and ask me why I +don't start a milk-and-butter farm. I may do it if I ever get out of +debt. I've got sense enough to know it would pay, and pay big, +considering that there ain't no such business established. Well, Alfred, +I'll take your offer. I don't like to dicker with first one store and +then another, and I know you've been straight with me in all my +dealings. I'll trade out part of the amount. I've got a few tricks to +buy in your line." + +"Well, alight and come in and set down," he said. "Jim and Pomp will +unload and weigh and measure. I'll make Pomp mind your hoss." + +"Oh, old Bob will stand all right!" she laughed, as she put her gloved +hand on Henley's shoulder and sprang lightly to the ground. "He's moved +all he wants to to-day. It would take a switch-engine to budge him an +inch. See 'im nod? He knows what we are talking about." + +Henley led her through the long room to his desk in the rear, and gave +her a seat near the open door as the clerk and the porter went out to +the wagon. She took off her hat and pushed back her luxuriant hair with +her fingers. + +"You go on with your work," she said; "don't mind me." + +He applied himself to some writing he had to do till Cahews came with a +slip of paper on which he had noted the weights, quantities, and values +of the things she had brought, and with a polite bow he handed it to +her. + +"Look it over, Dixie," Henley jested. "Old man Hardcastle's daughter has +rubbed a rabbit-foot on Jim so that he can hardly add two and two. +Besides, he is always rattled when he's waiting on a pretty girl." + +"Well, he won't rattle any more than a green gourd round me, if that's +the case," Dixie said, as she began to run over the figures, her lips +moving as she counted on her fingers. "I know in reason it's correct," +she said, extending the slip to Cahews. "No, wait a minute," drawing it +back and looking at it again. "If I'm not powerfully mistaken, Jim, you +are swindling yourself out of twenty cents on the string-beans. There +was one peck instead of two." + +"I told you Jim was rattled," Henley continued to jest. "But I won't +discharge 'im. I'd pardon him if he was to set the store afire, under +the circumstances. I've seen him wash his hands in the kerosene tank and +wipe 'em on his clothes just after Julia Hardcastle driv' by in a +hug-me-tight buggy with a drummer." + +"Well, I wouldn't blame him much," Dixie smiled in her sympathy for the +embarrassed clerk. "She is nice and pretty, and one town-girl that isn't +stuck up. I like her. She wants to have a good time; she likes attention +and good clothes, and I'm sure I'd be just like her if I had half the +chance. She called to see me the other day, and Ma and Aunt Mandy fell +in love with her. They think she has lots of common-sense, and they +know. I had another call. Carrie Wade waited till she saw me go to the +field to work, then she come over and asked if I was at the house. Ma +told her where I was, and she come over the clods grumbling like a +spoilt baby about getting dust on her shoes. What do you reckon she +wanted?" + +"I can't imagine," Henley answered, as Cahews, flushing with delight +over the compliment to the maid of his choice, moved away. + +"She come to cut at me," Dixie said, as she took the pile of silver into +her hand which Henley was extending. "As she stood there between the +corn-rows holding up her skirt she said she was going over to the +lumber-camp again with Martha Sims to another big all-day blow-out. She +said she was to start early and had so much fixing to do that she +wondered if I'd spare the time to wash and iron a muslin dress for her. +She said she'd pay well for it, because my things always looked so +nice." + +"Impudent thing!" Henley said; "she ought to have, knowed better than +that." + +"She _did_ know better, and that's exactly why she said it. She intended +to let me know where she was going, thinking it would break my heart. +She admits she is bent on getting married, and says she knows I'll live +and die an old maid. She hates me, Alfred; with all her soul she hates +me. She will never rest satisfied till she sees me plumb down and out. +It all started through no fault of mine, too. You remember that young +preacher, Mr. Wrenn, that boarded about in the families three years ago. +Well, she made a dead set at him. She literally tagged after him +everywhere he went till folks here in Chester was laughing about it and +calling her his little dog Fido. They say he got so he'd run and hide +every time she'd turn a corner. Well, he stayed at our house two weeks, +and, of course, we all tried to make him as comfortable as we could. I +give you my word that I never was alone with the fellow more than five +minutes in all the time he was there, but I'll admit he hung around +considerable--that is, with us all." + +"I remember the fellow," Henley said, deeply interested. "I had a talk +with your Pa about him not a month before he died. Your Pa said he +couldn't see why you was so offish. The fellow made no beans about how +he felt, and when the report went out that you had turned him down folks +wondered powerful, for all the girls was setting their caps for him." + +"I was too young to have good sense, I reckon," the girl said, shrugging +her shoulders. "Pa was alive, and we did not want for anything. I never +dreamt I'd have such a load on me as I've got now. Then I had a foolish +notion about love, anyway. I'd been reading novels, and got an idea in +my silly head that when a girl met the right person she went through +some sort of dazzling regeneration; and as I didn't feel anyways +peculiar when Mr. Wrenn was about I thought I ought to wait, and I told +him so. I'll never forget that young man's face. I've thought of it +thousands of times, and been sorry." + +"And Carrie Wade found out about it?" Henley was leading her along +gently and sympathetically. + +"Why, he told her himself--told her to her face in a crowd of young +folks at Sunday-school the next day, and the worst part of it was +somebody in the bunch that didn't like Carrie joked her about it. The +whole thing has gone out o' folks' minds by this time, I reckon; but +Carrie never laid it aside. It rankled and still rankles. She gloats +over my hardships and makes a point of flaunting her good luck in my +face, and is eternally telling me of her chances to get married. She's +half crazy on the subject, and thinks every one else is like her. I know +one thing, Alfred Henley, when I do slip off the coil of single +blessedness she'll be madder than a wet hen without shelter on a cold +December day. And she won't have long to wait neither--there! I've gone +and let the cat out of the bag, but I don't care. I'd trust a friend +like you with my life. You talk pretty free to me, and I can to you." + +"You don't--you can't mean to--to say that you have got some 'n of the +sort in view, Dixie?" + +"Well, you just lie low and watch," she laughed, significantly. "I let +one chance pass me, and I don't intend to be such a fool again. I can +use a stout, willing, and able-bodied man in my line of business. I've +got two old women to support and a big debt to pay, and I'm about to the +limit of my endurance. I might have put it off, but I'm itching to see +my prime enemy's face when I march him out to meeting. It's all on the +quiet, and is going to be a big surprise. I never let my folks on to it +till just the other day. That reminds me. I want one of your blank +envelopes. I've written to him, and I'm clean out of envelopes and want +to mail the letter before I go home." + +She flushed slightly, and her long lashes rested on her pink cheeks as +she drew a folded paper from her pocket and held it in her lap with the +money he had given her. + +"You don't mean it!" Henley cried in astonishment. "Why, you take my +breath away; but, of course, I'm glad. I certainly can congratulate the +lucky fellow." + +"Ask 'im whether it would be in order before you do." She reached for +his pen and dipped it, and began to address the envelope as it lay on +her knee. + +"And that letter is to him, you say?" Henley said, wonderingly. + +"Well, it ain't to no _girl_," Dixie smiled, with an arch, upward +glance. "Stamps and paper cost too much such times as these to waste 'em +on women." + +"I'm curious to know what sort o' chap you've decided on," said Henley. +"What does he look like?" + +"He's a pig in a poke." She had finished writing and was drawing the +gummed flap of the envelope across her smiling lips. "I never laid eyes +on 'im in my life. What do you think of that? But that part must never +get out. I want Carrie and all the rest to--to think, you see, that I +got acquainted with him in--in the regular way. She never would get +through talking if she knew the full truth, and that is nobody's +business but his and mine. You may think I am a born fool, Alfred, but +for the past six months I've been corresponding with a fellow in +Florida. But he's all right. Don't you worry; he's _safe_, and that is a +lot to say in this day of trickery and strife. It all come about by +accident. I've got a cousin--Tobe Chasteen--working down there in an +orange-grove, and now and then he writes me a letter. Well, in one he +wrote that a nice fellow down there wanted to write to some girl up in +Georgia, and asked me if I'd answer. So, just for fun, and to kill time, +I agreed, and so it started. He writes a good, flowing hand, and has +plenty to say, and I got interested in the whole thing. He sent his +picture, and wanted one of me. So I put on my best outfit and had a +tintype struck off under that tent on the square and sent it to him. It +was a frightful daub, I tell you; but he liked it, or said he did; he +said it was fine, and if the goods come up to the sample that was all he +could ask. I've got his in my pocket. I don't tote it about all the +time, but it happened to be in the pocket of this dress. My two women +want it to stay in the clock, so they can get it out and peep at it when +I'm in the field. They are more crazy about him than I am. They sneak +and read my letters, and ask ten thousand questions about him. There are +some of his long epistles that I wouldn't show 'em for money--they are +so silly. At first we just wrote about what was going on, but he kept +edging closer and closer, and I never, in so many words, told him to let +up. Once he drew a round ring in the middle of a blank page and asked +under it if I couldn't guess what was in the middle of it. I looked +close and could see a greasy splotch when it was held sidewise in the +light. That kinder disgusted me, and I drew a ring in my answer, and +told him there wasn't anything in mine, and never would be. He must have +liked what I said, for he wrote back that it was cute, and that he'd bet +I was one girl that never had been kissed. Well, he can think that, too, +if he wants to. It won't do him any harm. I say all this was going on, +but I never dreamt of closing the deal till I got in this present +money-tight. You see, I wrote him about my financial trouble, and he +said he had saved up some money and that he could wipe out all my +obligations, and that me and him together would make a fine team on the +farm. He wrote so kind, too, about Ma and Aunt Mandy, and said he'd +always want 'em with us. You see, I felt grateful, and, considering +everything, I think I acted wise--don't you?" + +Henley half nodded, and tried to meet her frankness with a smile that +was free from doubt. At this juncture Pomp came back with a telegram. It +was an order from an Atlanta hotel for a quantity of eggs and butter. +Henley read it and handed it back. "Tell Jim to quote the lowest cash +prices," he said, absent-mindedly. + +"But it's a order, suh," said the negro. + +"Oh yes; I see it is. Well, ship it; it's all right." + +"Would you like to see his picture?" Dixie asked. She had taken the +crude tintype from her pocket and held it in her lap. + +"Yes, I would," Henley replied, and he took the picture and looked at +it. He didn't like it. A keen, quick reader of men's faces, he saw what +had escaped her less experienced eye. There was something that bespoke +prodigious vanity and lack of principle in the low brow, over which the +coarse, black hair was plastered down so smoothly; in the heavy, +carefully waxed, curled, and perhaps dyed mustache; in the small, +conscious eyes, set close together; in the grossly sensuous mouth, from +which a weak chin receded. + +"He ain't as purty as he thinks he is by a long shot," Dixie remarked, +rather lamely, for she was slightly chilled by Henley's failure to +comment favorably on the picture, "but he has a good heart. He is a +church member in fair standing, and has a Bible class of young ladies in +Sunday-school, and was once proposed for superintendent, and lost out +because he was unmarried and too young. Oh, I've thought it all over. +I'm not jumping without looking for a spot to light on. I thought I +could carry my load through, but I had to give in. I can't perform +miracles, Alfred; I'm just clay, and the wrong gender of that. If I +could keep temptation out of my way I might keep on, but I can't run +against Carrie Wade's sneers. I'd rather strut by her house with a +husband that was able to take me in out of the wet than anything else I +know of, and I want to rest. I want to sleep one night without dreaming +of old Welborne's flabby jaws, blinking eyes, and harsh voice snarling +at me. Folks may say such an arrangement ain't customary--that it is +out of the common--but it seems to me that everything about me is out of +the common, anyway, and why shouldn't this fall in line? Customs are +just what the most folks want to do. Custom don't look after the under +dog in the pack. But when right is on a body's side there is no need to +fear, and there won't be a shade of wrong in this if I have anything to +do with it. I've made up my mind to do a wife's part in every sense of +the word, and let it go at that--nothing risk, nothing have. I never +used to think I'd ever marry a man I never saw--in fact, when I was +young and silly I used to see myself strutting by whole regiments of +fellers all making signs to me to come be his darling, but that was when +my eyelids was glued down and before they was jerked open by trouble. +Marrying with me in this case is an open-and-shut business proposition. +I read somewhere that it is worked that way among high-up folks in +France--though the dickering takes place between the parents of the +contracting parties; and as I know a sight more about what to do than +Ma, why, it was all right for me to take it in hand. Peter is an orphan, +and I'm the head of a family, and so there was nobody else concerned. My +two women are getting old and plumb helpless--more like children than +grown-ups. They may live a long time. I certainly hope they will, for +they are all I've got; but they are actually getting so that they don't +want to budge out of the house, even as far as the fence. They are +afraid a little sun will kill 'em dead. But, Alfred, I don't somehow +like the way you look about it. You don't take it like I thought you +would. I know in reason that you wish me well, and--" + +"I don't know that I have a right to say a thing agin it," Henley broke +into her now hesitating words. "But I must confess I'm sorter stunned, +Dixie. I've always felt like a big brother to you, and pitied you a good +deal, and now--well, you see, I reckon it is natural for me to be +sorter afraid that you may be making a mistake in what you are doing. I +feel like begging you not to do it, and then ag'in I don't, for I've +always made up my mind that marrying was one thing no outsider could +decide about. I have been dead agin marriages that afterwards turned out +tiptop, and you know I didn't show such far-reaching wisdom in my own +case as to set myself up as a judge." + +"Well, you needn't have any fears on my account," Dixie smiled, +assuringly. "I know what I am about, and I ain't the back-out kind. It's +too late, anyway; the day has been set. For the last two weeks I've been +giving every spare minute to the making of my outfit. It is a good one. +I was determined to give Miss Wade a treat. I do things right, and I've +spent some cash. My trousseau will attract attention, and I reckon Peter +won't be ashamed. But it is to be kept quiet. Don't you say a word to a +soul. A week from to-day I'll drive in and meet the up-train and haul my +bridegroom home in my wagon. We'll eat dinner at our house and then +drive over to Preacher Sanderson's and have him tie the knot. Now I'll +go down in front and buy a few things and mail my letter and hurry +home." + +"Wait a minute, Dixie." She was moving away, and he stopped her, +standing before her, a grave look in his eyes. "Surely it ain't as dead +sure as that?" + +"Yes, it is, Alfred; it's settled--plumb settled." + +"But--but," he pursued, anxiously, "if you didn't like him when you see +him, you wouldn't marry him?" + +"Oh, that's a gray horse of another color," she smiled. "I think I'll +like him; but if I didn't--well, if I didn't, I'd pay his way back to +Florida, and beg off." + +Henley made no further protest. He sat at his desk and bowed his head +in troubled thought as she tripped lightly away. + +"What a pity!" he mused. "She deserves the best in the land, and this +fellow looks like a worthless scamp." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +That evening after supper, while the sultry dusk hung heavily over the +land, shutting out the few lights of the village and obscuring the +near-by mountain, Henley took his chair into the passage, and, without +his coat, he leaned back against the weather-boarding and lighted his +pipe. He had not been there long when his wife, having finished her +duties in the kitchen, came out and stood over him. Accustomed to her +varying moods, he saw by her attitude that she was displeased. + +"Pa told me something I don't like," she began. "I tried not to pay +attention to it, but it was so unexpected, so unheard-of, so plumb +disrespectful, that it hurt me. He said you told him you was going to +Texas to keep from being here during the--the memorial service next +month." + +"I told him no such thing," Henley retorted, with an effort to control +his rising temper. "I can't be responsible for the slap-dash way he puts +things. I don't like his eternal gab, nohow." + +"Well, you must have said _something_," Mrs. Henley pursued, probingly. +"He never makes up things out of whole cloth. He is not that way." + +"Well, I suppose I did say something," Henley reluctantly admitted. "He +was nagging the life out of me at the store about what you intended to +do, and holding me up to ridicule, and I reckon I did say that I +wouldn't be here--that my business would keep me in Texas. As for that +matter, I told you about the trip long before this queer--long before +you decided to do this--this thing." + +"I know just how you said it," the woman threw back, sharply. "I know +what you've thought all along about Pa and Ma being here, and me loving +'em and caring for 'em. You do your best to hide it, but you can't." + +"Well, if I do my best, what more could you expect?" Henley asked, with +more logic than patience. + +"I'd want you to keep your promise to me," Mrs. Henley said, crisply, +and she bent lower over him and fixed her offended eyes on his. "You +told me before we were married that you'd promise never to object--you +even said you admired me for my feelings, and that it proved to you that +I had stability and strength of character--that you wouldn't have a wife +that would ever forget her dead husband." + +"Well, I have kept my promise," Henley said. "I am not sure that I +knowed just precisely what I was doing when I made it, but I've kept it. +As for attending his--his funeral services at such a late day, that is +another thing. I don't see how you could expect it." + +"You don't?" she flared up. "Will you tell me if there would be anything +to be ashamed of in your being there? Would a divine service of that +sort disgrace you? Would it besmirch your character?" + +"No, and nobody said it would," Henley managed to fish from his addled +brain. "But I simply thought, somehow, that it would look better for me +to be out of the way. Funerals and the like are generally attended by +mourners, and, well, where would I come in? I reckon my proper seat +would be with you and the--the rest of the family on the front bench, if +it was anywhere. It would look funny for me just to be a looker-on from +the back part of the house, and I'd feel like a dern fool in front. A +dern fool--you may not know what that is from experience, but you ought +to from observation; you've had one under your eye for some time." + +"Well, you simply don't approve of it," the woman returned, resentfully. +"You can set there, blessed with good health and life, and plenty to eat +and wear, and actually begrudge the little mite of respect that is paid +to the helpless dead. In being overpersuaded and marrying you I was +untrue to him and his memory, and now you make it worse by opposing a +simple little ordinance that is due every person on earth, high or low." + +"It ought to have been done earlier, and before I got--got mixed up in +it, if it was done at all," Henley said, trying to speak mildly and, +even, pacifically. + +"I know that now," Mrs. Henley said, in a tone of such deep +self-reproach that her stare softened and wavered; "but it wasn't +thought of. I never knew it was the style till this man come along and +told me; but that is no reason I shouldn't make amends, late as it is. +It is all the better proof that Dick is remembered. But you can go to +Texas." The stare hardened and became fixed again. "Folks will say you +are jealous and mean, and that I was an unfaithful fool for listening to +you, but I will have to stand it." + +"Well, I'll simply be obliged to be away," Henley said, doggedly. "The +business won't be put off, and--and--" + +"And you are a heartless brute!" the gaunt woman cried, as she whirled +from him and strode into the house. + +A few minutes later there emerged from the near-by door of the kitchen +the real instigator of the present dispute. He trudged across the +passage, drawn down on one side by the weight of a dripping swill-pail +which he was taking to the pigpen, descended the short flight of steps, +and turned back toward Henley. He stood for a moment hesitatingly, the +pail wiping its dripping exterior against his baggy jean trousers. Then +he said: "I've got a thing or two to say to you, Alf, if you will oblige +me by steppin' down to my pen so I can stop that hog's squealin' long +enough to hear myself talk. One at a time, I say, an' let it be me." + +"By all means," Henley answered, ambiguously, and he joined Wrinkle on +the grass and they walked down the path together to the pigpen in a +corner of the rail-fenced cow-lot. + +"No use enterin' a talkin'-match with the whistle of a crazy +steam-engine," the stepfather-in-law strained his lungs to say, and he +grunted as he raised the pail to the top rail of the pen and cautiously +tilted it to let the contents run into the wooden trough. + +"Now, that's more like it," he said, his voice rising above the +suction-pump noise of the hungry animal. He lowered the empty pail to +the ground, and with a paddle began to dig out the mushy sediment from +the bottom and throw it into the trough, as a mason might mortar from a +trowel. "The truth is, Alf, I've got an apology to make to you, and I +didn't want to do it up thar before them women. The other day when I +said that about old Welborne a-sendin' you a bunch o' flowers to +decorate Dick's grave I wasn't actually thinkin' about you as much as I +was about Welborne an' his close-fisted ways. Of course, now I think of +it again, it _would_ be a good way for 'im to git back at you for yore +joke in sendin' the tombstone man to him, and I catch myself lafin' +every time I think of it, and the way you'd look if he did, but--" + +"What the devil do you mean?" Henley broke in, testily. "Here you are +startin' in to apologize for a thing and going over it again word for +word? Have you plumb lost your senses?" + +"Was I doin' that?" Wrinkle asked, blandly, though even in the twilight +Henley could see that his eyes were twinkling. "Well, I'm sorry again, +and I'm just man enough to say so, Alf. I'll apologize as many times as +you like. I'll keep on till you _are_ satisfied. But you must listen. +You are a-gittin' powerful touchy here lately, and it ain't becomin' in +a man of yore dignity. It will git so after a while that I can't express +any sort of opinion to you without a fist-fight. I was goin' on to say +that I was jest thinkin' of old Welborne's quick wit in every emergency +that set me to wonderin' that day how he might act in sech a case. They +say everything is grist to his mill--that he turns every single thing +that drifts his way into profit great or small. And that day after you +railed out at me in the store I went across the Square to see how yore +joke would terminate. The door of his dingy little office was open, an' +I could see the grave-rock man inside bendin' over old Welborne at his +little table, pointin' at the pictures in his book and sweatin' like a +nigger in a cotton-gin. But what struck me most of all was the glazed +look in old Welborne's eye; he looked like he wasn't hearin' a word the +fellow was spoutin', but was thinkin' o' some'n else plumb different. I +walked on and hung about outside till the tombstone man come out. He was +as mad as Hector. I seed he was, an' stopped 'im in a offhand way and +axed him what luck. + +"'Luck hell,' says he--he used the word, I didn't--'I talked to that +dried-up old mummy,' says he, 'fer an hour jest to find that he was +settin' thar all the time figurin' in his head about a speculation I'd +made 'im think of while I was talkin' to him.' + +"The agent was so mad that he wouldn't explain what the speculation was, +but I heard it that evenin'. Hank Bradley was tellin' it to a crowd at +the post-office. You know Hank makes all manner of sport of his uncle +behind the old skunk's back. He told a tale, too, that I'd never heard. +It seems that old Welborne's mother-in-law died, and Welborne went to a +undertaker to buy 'er coffin. He picked out a fifty-dollar one, and +talked and talked till he finally got the pore devil down to forty. Then +he said: + +"'You'd sell two for seventy-five, wouldn't you?' + +"'I reckon I might,' the undertaker said, 'but you only want one.' + +"'I'll need another 'fore many months,' old Welborne said. 'My +father-in-law won't last long. I'll take one now at thirty-seven-fifty +and the other when the time comes.'" + +Henley laughed, despite his displeasure. "That is just like him," he +said, "and I believe every word of it." + +"His present speculation takes the rag off'n the bush," said Wrinkle. +"The talk of the gravestone man started him to thinkin' about what thar +might be in that line for him, and he recalled that he owned ten acres +of ground on a rise in the edge of town which he had bought at a +tax-sale for twenty-five dollars. The very next mornin' he had a feller +diggin' post-holes an' puttin' a fence around it with a main gate that +had a big curvin' sign over it with the words 'Sunnyside Cemetery' on +it, and I'm told that he has been all over town tellin' folks that the +_old_ graveyard is too low and soggy to be half decent, and that his'n +was a great improvement. He intimated, too, that nobody but blue-bloods +could git the'r names enrolled, and thar has been a powerful scramble +for places, even by folks that have no idea of dyin' yet a while. You +see, Alf, I got a good many particulars at fust hand, for he was out +here to see Hettie in regard to accommodations for Dick, and I heard all +that was said. Accordin' to Welborne thar is to be a wholesale movin' +right away and choice quarters will be scarce, right when they are in +the most demand." + +"I suppose she--I suppose my wife--" + +"Yes, she bit, Alf, and took a full mouthful at that. Welborne told her +he was givin' her the pick of the whole thing because she was startin' +the ball rollin', an' her fine marble would set the place off. She +selected twenty foot square under a weepin'-willow, which he said had a +rock bottom and the best view of the town. It only set her back two +hundred round plugs, but she had that much left in the bank, and seems +powerful well, satisfied. I wouldn't 'a' fetched all this up, but I +'lowed you'd like to know what a big thing growed out of yore little +joke that day. I love a good joke myself, but when one's turned on you +in a sort o' wholesale way, it don't feel the best in the world." + +"There is no joke about it; it's outright stealing!" Henley had +reference to Welborne's part of the transaction. "Any man can get money +out of fool women, if he's mean enough to take advantage of their silly +whims." + +"I often wonder about you an' me an' the whole bunch of us here at the +house," Wrinkle said. "Not one of the four is blood kin to the other, +and yet here we are all wedged together as tight as young catbirds in a +nest. Folks say the hardest question on earth is how to live, and yet to +me it's been as easy as fallin' off a log into soft sand. Me 'n Jane +never counted on Dick for any sort of aid, an' yet it was through him +that we are provided for--in fact, he was so wishy-washy and helpless +that we was glad to have him tie up with a woman that had a few dollars. +He went in for a high old time, and he had it. I couldn't object--I was +that way myself. He was as bad after gals as a drummer, and in his +sparkin' days, as maybe you know, he could have had his pick. I couldn't +keep from hearin' you an' Hettie talkin' in the passage jest now, and +when she come into the light mad enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two I +saw thar had been a row. Her notion to have you on hand at sech a time +as that may seem odd, but women are all odd. They want what other women +can't have, and I reckon Het thinks it would be a sort o' feather in +'er cap to mourn in public over one husband while she's leanin' agin +another that is ready an' willin' in every way." + +"I reckon we've talked long enough about it," Henley said, frigidly, and +he glanced toward the lights in the farm-house. + +"Yes, I reckon so," returned the gadfly. "As for me, I never was able to +see how Het could accuse you of bein' jealous of Dick, when--" + +"Jealous fiddlesticks!" Henley snorted. "I never was jealous of a _live_ +man, much less a dead one." + +"It would _seem_ that way," was all the support Wrinkle would give to +the claim, as he took up his pail and started back to the house. "I +didn't say you _was_, but Het seems to size it up that way." + +Left alone, and with hot fires of resentment raging in his breast, +Henley sauntered along the fence till he was behind his barn. His change +of position brought him within a few yards of Dixie Hart's cottage, and +he suddenly heard her voice. She was speaking to some one. Peering +through the deepening darkness, which was broken only by the gleams of a +few random stars, he saw her inside her yard at the gate, and leaning on +the fence from the outside was the tall, well-clad form of Hank Bradley. + +"You are not going to treat a feller as mean as that," Bradley was heard +to say, in a gruff, pleading tone, "when I've been begging you so many +times." + +"I can't let you come in now, and I can't go to ride with you, either," +Henley heard her answer, as she stood well away from the fence. "I've +got good and sufficient reasons, and I hope you won't ask me any more." + +"I'll keep on asking till the crack of doom," Bradley said, in a voice +that shook. "You know I'm not the weak-kneed kind. The Bradley stock +hold on like bulldogs. When they take a notion to anything they want +it, and they keep on till they get it. So look out, Dixie Hart. I'm not +to blame; your eyes burn holes in me and set me on fire. The more you +turn me down the more I think about you." + +"Well, you mustn't come any more," Dixie said, firmly. "Good-night." + +Henley saw her move across the grass and vanish in the cottage. He heard +Bradley stifle a surly exclamation of disappointment, and saw him turn +and walk off slowly toward his uncle's house. + +"Poor girl!" Henley said to himself. "In all her troubles she has to +ward off a dirty, designing scamp like that; but she's doing it like a +queen, an' no harm can touch 'er. And she's going to get married! She is +going into the treacherous thing absolutely blindfolded, and the Lord +only knows what will come of it. It's a risk for the best, and under the +best conditions--it may prove to be the final stroke that will knock out +her wonderful courage. God have mercy on her!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +On the day set for Dixie's wedding Henley had occasion to go to the +little express office, adjoining the old-fashioned brick car-shed in the +village, to see about a shipment of produce which had been incorrectly +marked. And as he was returning he saw the girl seated in her wagon in +the open space between the station and the hotel. + +Henley knew what it meant. She had come to meet her lover. She happened +to have her glance fixed on some point in the opposite direction from +him and did not know that he was near. He hesitated for an instant, and +then decided that he would not intrude upon her privacy. There was +something in her attitude of bland and helpless expectancy that probed +the deepest fount of his sympathy. + +"Poor, brave little woman!" he mused, as he turned his back upon the +scene and moved on toward his store. "She's having her dream like all +the rest. She may get a fair cut of the cards, and she may not. He ain't +very promising material from the looks of his picture, but it wouldn't +be fair to judge him by that. He may do his part, and the Lord knows she +needs help. I'm too big a failure in the marrying line to object or +offer advice." + +Reaching his desk, he applied himself to the writing of some letters +pertaining to his intended trip to Texas, but the pathetic sight he had +of the girl at the station thrust itself between him and his task. She +was his faithful friend. He loved her almost as if she had been a +sister; she had confided in him; only he and she and her little family +knew of what was to take place to-day. How strange to think that she +would no longer be as she was! The wife of a man she had never seen, of +a man whose full name Henley had not even heard. + +Just then the still air was stirred by the sportive whippoorwill's call +with which the young engineer of that particular train always announced +with the locomotive's whistle his approach to Chester, and later there +was a sound of escaping steam and the slow clanging of a bell as the +train drew up in the shed. Only a moment's pause, and the train was off +again. + +It occurred to Henley that as his store was on the most direct way to +her home Dixie would naturally drive past it on her return, so he went +to the front, taking pains to stand back a few feet from the entrance +that his position might not appear to be by design. He was glad that +Cahews and Pomp were busy in the rear, and he became conscious of the +hope that no stray customer would interrupt him at what seemed such a +grave and important moment. Time passed, and still old Bob and the +ramshackle wagon were not in sight. Henley cautiously ventured to the +door, whence he glanced down the street. He saw the wagon. It was now at +the door of the post-office, but no one was in it. With his hip-joint +loose the animal swayed and sagged against one of the shafts, the reins +hanging from his rump to the ground. + +"They've stopped to get the mail," Henley said in his tight throat; +"they'll be out in a minute. I'll take one peep at 'im, anyway." + +But Dixie emerged from the narrow doorway of the little building alone. +She was reading a letter, and she groped slowly across the sidewalk to +the wagon, where she stood till she had finished it. Even at that +distance Henley could see that she was pale, and he fancied that her +hand and step were unsteady as she mounted to the spring seat and +reached for the reins. Henley receded farther into the store, actuated +by a vague intuition that she might not care to be seen, and he was glad +that he had not intruded upon her, for, as she drove past the store, she +did not glance toward it, but instead looked steadily in the opposite +direction. + +"The fellow didn't come, and she's had bad news besides," Henley mused, +and he now stood in the doorway and looked after the shackly vehicle as +it moved slowly away in the beating sunshine. "She's bad hit by +something or other," he said, anxiously. "I've never seen her look like +that before. Some'n has gone wrong." + +He did not see her for three days. On the evening of the third day he +was standing at the door of his barn. It was growing dark. The coming +night had robed the mountain-peaks in gray, and put them out of sight. +Old Wrinkle was singing "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord!" +as he trudged back to the house, swinging his empty swill-pail. The door +of Dixie Hart's cottage opened, and in a narrow frame of firelight she +stood peering out toward him. Then he saw that she was coming. She moved +swiftly, and with a sure step, till she paused at the fence which +separated her land from his. + +"I've been wanting to see you, Alfred," she said, in a low, changed +voice. "I had no excuse to go to the store, and--well, I didn't think +that was exactly the place, anyway to--to say what I had to say. You +haven't spoke about what I told you to anybody--I know in reason that +you haven't, but--" + +"I'd cut off my right arm first," he declared, earnestly. "What you said +that day was as sacred to me as if it had come from on high and my very +salvation depended on it." + +"I knew that," she said, softly. "I only said that to--to sort o' get +started. I'm all upset, Alfred; I'll get right after a while, but things +are all crooked now. I've had trouble--I reckon a girl might call it +that and still have self-respect. I've had heaps of unexpected trouble." + +"I was afraid some'n had gone wrong," Henley found himself able to say, +"not hearing any more, you see, about--about what you talked of that +day." + +"I'm going to tell you, and then dismiss it," Dixie said, her pretty lip +twitching, the dark curves under her eyes lending sharp contrast to +their fathomless lustre. "I had everything ready, and went to meet him, +but he didn't come. I went to the post-office and got a letter. He +was--was taken sick--so the letter said. He was pretty bad off. In fact, +Alfred, the truth is, he's dead; the--the fellow is dead." + +Her head was down; she had folded her arms on the top rail of the fence, +and she rested her brow on them. He was wondering if she was crying and +what there was for him to say, when she suddenly, and quite dry-eyed, +looked up and said: "But that must be a secret, too. Nobody knows about +it except my home folks, and nobody must. I'd give plumb up if Carrie +Wade was to flaunt that in my face and start it going over hill and +dale." + +"It's too bad," Henley ventured, as nearly upon what he considered +consolation as his knowledge of her rather questionable bereavement +would justify. "What was his complaint?" + +"You mean, what ailded him?" Dixie asked, an incongruous flush battling +with the pallor of her face and becoming observable even in the +starlight. "Why, you see, Alfred, I didn't get full particulars--a body +never can, you know, at a time like that--and in just a letter--but you +can depend upon it that it was sudden." + +"Maybe it was what they say is so common now," Henley pursued, +awkwardly--"heart failure." + +"Or weakness of the backbone." He was sure that she smiled impulsively, +for she quickly covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her head to +the fence again, and for a moment he stood staring at her and wondering +if the calamity had caused her to be hysterical. Suddenly she looked up +again and said: + +"I reckon you think I ought to act different--that I ought to cry and +take on--but I can't. You must make what allowance you can. You see, I +never saw him in my life, and, well, it was just a wild-goose chase that +started in nothing and ended the same way." + +"I see," Henley ventured, "but I'm sorry. Death is bad enough, in any +case, but to be called away without a minute's notice and on the eve +of--" + +"Well, you needn't be sorry for me--you needn't waste pity on me," Dixie +broke in with irrelevant warmth. "You'll find me doing business at the +same old stand, man or no man. If we can just keep this silly caper from +getting out I'll be thankful. So far, I've got along by myself, and, +outside of wanting to flaunt a husband in Carrie Wade's face, I don't +know as I'll be particularly disappointed. I can keep on at the plough +and hoe, rain or shine, and--" Her voice had trailed away into +indistinctness, and he saw her lower lip quivering. She suddenly turned +and hurried away. + +He saw her vanish in the lighted doorway, and he stood overwhelmed with +blended perplexity and sympathy. + +"She's trying to keep a stiff upper lip, but she's hit, and hit +hard--harder'n I thought possible in her case," he mused. "She never saw +the feller, but she may have had a sort of a idea in her head of what he +was like, an' the loss is as keen as if she had knowed him a long time, +maybe keener, for the gloss hain't been rubbed off by actual +acquaintance, as it has been off of me and most other married folks. I +reckon my wife has put the gloss back on Dick Wrinkle, if it was ever +off, and I've got a rival in the spirit-world that nothing earthly +could ever hope to match. They say absence works that way, and when I +get to Texas maybe she will look back on all I've done to keep peace and +harmony betwixt us and appreciate me more than she is doing now. I say +maybe, for, on t'other hand, she may be glad to have me away, and when I +get back I may find that her whole heart is in the empty grave she is +bent on digging and adorning at such a great outlay." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The next afternoon, as Henley was on his way home from the store, and +was passing a corn-field owned by Sam Pitman--a farmer of weak character +and sullen disposition who had been a moonshiner as long as the law had +permitted the business to yield profits--he was surprised to see Dixie +near the centre of the field. She was bending over something or +somebody, and, fearing that an accident had happened, he hastily climbed +the fence and walked rapidly over the ploughed soil toward her. He could +not make out what the object of her attention was till he was quite +near, and then he saw that it was a little boy about ten years of age +who was seated on the ground and, till now, hidden by the corn-stalks +and their succulent blades, which, as he sat, rose higher than his +yellow, ill-kempt head. Dixie heard Henley's step and turned a very +grave face on him. + +"It's the poor little orphan Sam Pitman adopted by law the other day," +she informed him in a gentle aside, as her hand rested tenderly on the +child's head, which was supported by his frail knees in their ragged and +patched covering. "I've had my eye on him all evening. He's hoed out all +this since dinner." She waved an indignant hand over the patch of corn +immediately about them. "I couldn't have done more myself, and I know +what work is. Yes, I was watching him, and awhile ago I saw him stagger +an' fall. He'd fainted from overheat. I come as quick as I could. I got +water in his hat and dashed it on him--look how wet it made him, but it +revived him. He wanted to work on, but I made him stop and set down. +He's timid and shy before you, but me 'n him are great friends, ain't +we, Joe? He helped me hunt eggs the other day"--she was running on now +in a tender, caressing tone--"and I gave him some of my pie. He could +crawl to places I never got at before, and we raked in a peck that would +have been a dead loss, for I've already got too many broods." + +"I heard Pitman had got a boy," Henley said, guardedly, "and I wondered +what the Ordinary meant by turning such a little fellow over to a man +like him. It seems like there was only one or two applications, and the +boy had to be sent somewhere right off. Do you feel better now, Joe?" + +"Yes, sir," the child answered. "It wasn't nothing. It didn't hurt a +bit." + +Henley caught Dixie's quick upward glance. "Ain't it pitiful?" she said, +with a shake of her head and a catch in her full voice. "Huh, 'didn't +hurt,' I say! You dear little boy!" + +With a brave smile the lad stood up to the full height of his spare +frame. He was still pale, and his hair was matted down over his brow by +the douche it had received. His little, cotton, checked shirt was open +at the neck, disclosing a rather low chest. He stooped down and picked +up the hoe, which was of the regulation size and weight used by men. +Dixie was protesting against his working more that day, when, looking +behind her, she saw the foster-father of the boy approaching. + +"What's the matter here?" the farmer growled, eying the group +distrustfully with his small gray eyes under pent-house brows. He was +short of stature, sinewy, and grizzled as to head and bristling beard. + +"Miss Dixie says the boy fainted," Henley answered. "I saw her here, +and come over to see what was wrong. The little fellow don't look overly +stout." + +"Nothing's the matter with 'im," Pitman retorted, visibly angered by +what he regarded as the interference of outsiders in his private +affairs. + +"Well, I know he fainted," Dixie said, calmly, "but we won't argue about +it. I'll tell you one thing, though, Sam Pitman, if this thing goes +on--I say, if Joe is overworked like this any more--a single other +time--and it comes to my knowledge, I'll take you smack-dab to court. I +don't meddle in things that don't concern me, as a general thing, but +I'll take this in hand and I'll clutch it tight." + +"You'll do wonders," Pitman sneered, but with a guarded glance at +Henley, who had, on one occasion, knocked him down in some dispute over +a debt at the store. He turned to the boy and took the hoe from him. +"You go drive up that cow. I'll finish this patch myself, and don't you +dare come back and say you can't find her, nuther. If you know what's +good for you, you fetch 'er home." + +Leaving Pitman at work in the corn, and with the boy trudging homeward, +Henley and Dixie made their way out to the road. At the fence he threw +down several rails and aided her to step over the remaining ones. When +he had put the rails back in their places and joined her he was struck +by the altered expression of her face. + +"I've wanted to see you all day," she began, her grave glance on the +ground, "and it looks like this meeting is providential. I want to get +it all plumb out, Alfred, and have it off my mind. I don't know when a +thing has bothered me so much. It seemed like such a little thing at the +time, but a whopping big one now. You 'n me have been too good friends, +Alfred, to let deception of any sort whatever come between us. Please +don't look at me so straight; I'll never get through it if you do. You +think I'm as good as the general run of girls, I'll be bound, and yet I +ain't." + +"I'll take the risk on that," he laughed, incredulously. "I know what +you are--you are true blue. You've just showed the stripe you're made +of. In a minute you'd have fought that skunk back there like a mad +wildcat. For the time, at least, you was loving that pore boy as if he +was your own." + +"We are not talking about that--that's nothing," she said. "No woman +that is half a one could see the dreamy blue eyes of that lonely boy, +and know what he's going through, and not want to hug 'im up to her +breast and pet 'im and comfort 'im. I saw him the day Pitman fetched him +here. He sat out under the trees all day long. I watched him from my +field, and I could see 'im wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He kept it up +from morning till night. Sometimes, Alfred, I doubt the goodness of God +Almighty. I know it's a sin to say so, but I can't help it. I've talked +a heap to Joe off and on, an' he's had more put on 'im than a grown +person ought to bear. Poor thing! he misses his Ma. From what he says I +judge she was good and tender. I had a queer dream the other night. I +seemed to see a woman in my room; she was crying, and, as plain as I can +hear yore voice this minute, I heard her say: 'Don't let 'em abuse +'im--he's weak and he can't stand it,' and with that she seemed to melt +away. But that is clean off the track. I've got a confession to make to +you, and I am so ashamed I hardly know what to do. Alfred Henley, I've +told you a lie--a cold, deliberate lie. Can you respect anybody that +will tell a lie?" + +"Well, I wouldn't have much respect for myself then," he said, his eyes +large in wonder over what she was driving at. "I've lied as many times +as an average clock can tick in a lifetime. I've told a dozen lies to +sell a pair of shoes, and forty to sell a hoss." + +"Hush joking," she said. "Listen. When I told you that fellow was dead I +was lying. I didn't intend to fool you, but I got in an awful tangle, +and you had to take your chance along with the rest. When I went to the +train that day and that fool didn't heave in sight I smelt a mouse. I +went to the post-office and got a letter from him. It was the most +wishy-washy concoction that was ever put on paper. He never, at any +time, had marry in the back of his head. He was just seeing how far he +could go with me to pass time. Some men are that way. They are powerful +interested till they get a girl to commit herself, and then they begin +to twist and turn or call it all off on the spot. As long as I kept this +'un in doubt he wrote the softest gush that ever flowed from a pen. But +when I wrote that I was ready--actually ready and waiting--well, that +was another proposition. He plumb lost his nerve." + +"The scoundrel!" Henley burst out, grown red in the face. "He is below +contempt. I was afraid he was a sneak the minute I saw his picture. I'd +have stopped you if I'd known how." + +"Well, it was nobody's fault but mine." Dixie was trying to divest her +brave voice of a certain quavering. "Folks say I've got a long head on +me--you amongst 'em--but if any God-forsaken female on this round globe +ever made a bigger fool of herself than I did that whack I'd like to +shake hands with her. I shall see myself setting in that wagon in my new +togs waiting for that train to blow--I'll see that sickening sight till +I draw my last whiff of air. Oh, you don't know! Being a man, you can't +understand what a woman's pride is. Fate has hit me hard licks, but +letting me get my outfit ready, clean up the house, and cook enough +ahead to last a week, and come to town with my own hoss and wagon to +haul a trifling man to the altar who was _jest joking with me_--well, +that's what made me lie." + +"God knows, it was enough," Henley answered in his throat. "The banners +toted by the angels have such mottoes as your lie on 'em." + +"I was forced to it to protect myself," Dixie said. "You see, Alfred, Ma +is kind o' high strung and liable to fly off the handle and talk before +folks. She thinks I'm all right, and she'd have raised the roof off the +house and let all the country know my plight if I hadn't acted, and +acted quick. I drove home slow that day and studied up a plan. Death was +the only thing that would do any good, and so I killed him. I liked that +part of it, anyway. I wouldn't have lied to you, but I'd done it so +often at home, and with such a straight face, that it had got to be a +settled habit. But I jumped from the frying-pan into the fire in one +way, for they both weep and wail over him--think o' that, and me feeling +like I could pull his ears clean out of his head and stomp 'em into the +ground." + +"Oh, they take it that way!" exclaimed Henley. + +"That's what they do," said the girl. "I attend that fellow's funeral +sixteen times a day. They want me to put on black--to put on--huh! when +the fool has already made me spend my last dollar on an outfit +that--shucks! Well, you see what I've got my foot into. I had actually +to clap my hand over Ma's mouth the other day while Carrie Wade was +there making her brags to keep Ma from telling of my great loss. Carrie +would see through it, you know she would, and I'd never hear the end of +it. Ma was dead bent on letting folks know, till I worked a trick on +her. I told her, I did, that men didn't like to marry widows, and if I +ever expected to get a husband I must keep Pete's death quiet. With that +understanding they both agreed to hold their tongues. But it's funny, +ain't it?" she ended with a laugh--"you with your tombstone trouble at +home, and me with a dead bridegroom to look after, and one that treated +me like a hound-pup in the bargain?" + +Henley laughed now, for she was laughing. "I'm not going to let mine +bother me any more," he said, "now that I've heard what you are going +through." + +"And you'll forgive me for the lie I told you?" she asked anxiously, as +she turned to leave him at a point where their ways parted. + +"I would for a million of its sort," he said, fervently. He raised his +hat and smiled, and stood watching her till she was out of sight in the +apple-orchard she had to traverse to reach the cottage. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Henley had been away nearly a year, his absence being protracted by +various business enterprises. Letters to Jim Cahews in regard to the +store, which Cahews was admirably managing, contained humorous accounts +of the various deals which Henley had put through. At one time he had +bought a roller-skating rink, which was sold by auction at a great +sacrifice because the town was too small to support it. Henley had bid +it in, packed it up, and shipped it to a thriving young city, advertised +a big opening, and sold it for a handsome profit while the novelty was +at its height. On another occasion he was the highest bidder on the +scrap-iron in a stove-foundry which had been destroyed by fire, and he +made a handsome "speck" through his ability to guess more nearly than +any of his competitors the weight of the refuse. There was nothing he +would not buy if the price was right, he wrote his clerk, except +_tombstones_, and Cahews understood, and answered to the best of his +ability and tact that the public had long since ceased to talk about +that unfortunate little matter, and when Henley returned he would +perhaps never hear it mentioned. + +The stepfather-in-law had used less diplomacy in the account he had +forwarded to Henley on the day following the great occasion. Wrinkle was +as fond of writing as he was of talking, and he fairly basked in the +sunshine of the letter he sent. He read it aloud to himself as he +walked to Chester to post it, pausing now and then to scratch out a word +or to add one with a pencil as the paper lay on his raised knee. This is +the way it sounded to his pleased ears: + + "DEAR ALF,--I take my pen in hand to address these few lines to you + to let you know that we are all well, and hope you are endowed with + the same and many like blessings. Nothin' unusual is goin' on here + right now. It is as quiet as the day after camp-meetin'. Dick's + funeral was preached yesterday. The weather was tiptop, and nothin' + was lackin' to make it a plumb success. Hettie got us out of bed + before a single streak of day had appeared. We put on our clothes + by pine-knots. The preacher she sent away off for, because she was + bound to git some'n extra, was installed at the hotel. He is a + wheel-hoss; he dressed as fine as a fiddle, with a plug-hat and + dashboard shoes, and had a long jimswinger coat that come to his + knees. The paper said he was the silver-tongued orator of the + entire Cherokee pulpit, and printed his picture, and said he'd been + paid a handsome figure by one of our wealthiest citizens to take + part in the memorable occasion. I cut the artickle out to send to + you, but forgot an' lit my pipe with it. I'll try to git another, + but they are hard to find, as all hands seem to be keepin' 'em for + future generations to look at. I seed ten men all readin' one at + the same time in a gang at the sawmill t'other day. They seemed to + consider it funny, but I didn't. I don't see how a thing as solemn + as that affair was could be funny. + + "We et our breakfast by candle-light, and then set around and had + nothin' to do till startin'-time. We went in the two-seated + spring-wagon. I was the only one in our layout not draped from head + to foot in black. I couldn't see the women's faces, and as they + didn't say a word I couldn't estimate the extend of their grief. I + reckon you can guess, anyway. You know 'em. You never saw sech a + stream o' folks in all yore born days. You'd 'a' thought it was a + public hangin', and every livin' soul had to take a special peep at + us as we driv along. As well as I could make out through her veil, + Hettie seemed to like bein' so conspicuous, for she axed me to + drive slow an' go through the main street, which ain't the nighest + way to the church. When we got thar the house was packed as tight + as dry apples in a cider-press. But the front bench was all our'n. + Nobody dared take it, although more'n half of it was empty, an' + folks was settin' in the windows. I had trouble with Hettie, for + she made me throw my chaw o' tobacco away, and I found I was + settin' right over a wide crack in the floor, too. I wouldn't 'a' + damaged a thing, an' could 'a' done it without bein' seed. + + "Then I made her as mad as Old Nick by a little mistake of mine. + While I was hitchin' up the wagon Old Bay bit a whoppin' big gap + out'n my straw hat, and it was so comical-lookin' that Ma told me + not to wear it. That was easy enough to say, but I didn't want to + go bareheaded, so I begun to look about the house for some'n to put + on, and hid away amongst Het's knickknacks I found a hat that used + to belong to Dick. It was jest my size, and so I put it on an' + thought no more about it till we was all settin' in church. It was + on my lap, and all at once I seed Hettie lift up her veil an' + squint at it; then she heaved a big groan and snatched it and put + it out o' sight. She'd have blessed me out on the spot, I reckon, + if the singers hadn't set in. I was a sight goin' home without a + thing on my head, but she wouldn't listen to reason, an' kept it + stuffed all in a wad under her arm. She said I had no feelin' or I + wouldn't have done sech an outrageous thing. + + "The preacher was all right, but he'd bit off more than he could + chaw. It seems from report that he went around Chester to find out + statements that he could work in about Dick that would sound nice + and suitable; but for some reason or other--maybe because everybody + was so excited, and maybe because they was naturally backward + before sech a shinin' light--but, as I say, he run short on + information. When he come to that part of his talk he looked + actually teased. He floundered about considerable, an' drunk a lot + o' water, but he done the best he could. He said Dick was a devoted + husband and father, and got red when he corrected the last part, + and said a Divine Providence had seed fit to take 'im away purty + early in the game, and that the poor fellow hadn't really had a + chance to show what was in him. Looked like he was determined to + say some'n nice about Dick, so he gave a few backhanded licks at + the Republican party and the nigger-lovers of the North, an' wound + up by sayin' that the late lamented had been a stanch Democrat an' + worked at the poles as hard to overthrow graftin' and Yankee + oppression as any man in the fair Southland. He got through + somehow, but, betwixt me 'n you, Alf, I don't think Hettie thought + she got her full money's worth, for she was countin' on a wonderful + display of poetry and highfalutin' things that would be remembered + an' placed to her credit for a long time afterwards. He got his + foot in it several times. Once I heard Hettie sniff mighty nigh + loud enough for him to hear it. It was when he said life wasn't + what it was cracked up to be, nohow, and he didn't doubt that Dick + was a sight better off where he was at than here in this earthly + wrangle. I thought to myself, I wonder what Alf would say in his + far-off retreat to a statement of that sort. + + "The marble monument looks all right in Welborne's new graveyard, + an' he has a right to be proud of his enterprise. The ground is + bein' mapped off in great shape. He's had grass sowed all over it + and laid out avenues and sidewalks, and thar's some talk of a + fountain. + + "That Dixie Hart's a corker. She's not mealy-mouthed about + anything. The day before the funeral Hettie was talkin' to her at + the cow-lot, and axed Dixie if she was goin' to take it in. Dixie + quit milchin', and stood up straight and said: 'No, I've got better + sense, and you ought to be ashamed of yoreself. You've got a good + husband, and you don't appreciate him nigh enough.' + + "I thought it was funny that Het didn't fly off the handle, but she + stood and tuck it, and seemed to be set back a peg or two. Me 'n + her went to the house together, an' I looked for her to rail out on + me, anyway, but she set on the porch like she had a lot to think + about till bed-time. I made up my mind then that Het jest loves to + do things that other folks don't approve of, an' that Dixie had set + 'er to wonderin' if she hadn't gone a little bit too far. + + "But the old gal is all right. She has tuck a new turn, as I wrote + you in my last. She keeps boarders in the two spare rooms mighty + nigh all the time, and she is figurin' expenses purty close. + Sometimes it is a rovin' peddler at day-rates or a fruit-tree agent + by the week. I can't say I like it overly much--though thar is + somebody to talk to at odd times when they are through work--for + she don't seem to feed quite as well when she's bein' paid as + before money begun to come in. She seems to want to lay up scads + for some reason or other; maybe it is to try to git back the cash + she has spent on her odd notion. I don't know, an' I ain't sure she + does herself, but she's as close as the bark on a tree. Jim says + she's runnin' a separate account at the store, an' makes 'im figure + everything she gets at bare cost in market--freight not included. I + heard her tellin' a lightnin'-rod peddler that that was where she + could cut under the Chester House, which didn't have no store nor + credit to speak of. + + "Who do you think was here last week? Why, Ben Warren, Hettie's + bach' uncle. He stayed all night, an' occupied yore room. He says + he's got two thousand acres in his plantation over the mountain, + and the finest residence in the State--keeps a dozen hosses an' all + the old niggers that his daddy used to own. He's thirty-five, an' + still on the turf, but he told us he was at last engaged to a + Baltimore lady that he had been settin up to for lo these many + years. He's goin' to have us all spend a week over thar before + long. He thinks a lot of Het, an' wants her to fix up his house for + the bride. Het's lookin' forward to it. He couldn't stay over for + the funeral, but he said she was showin' by her act that women was + not forgetful of the past, and that it made him feel more secure in + the venture he was about to make. He'd been inclined to doubt + females to some extent, he said, and he was goin' to let Het's + conduct stand before him always as a proof of how deep a woman's + affections can be when they are tested. + + "Now, take care of yourself, Alf, and come on home. These cool, + green mountains are good enough for any man, an' you know what is + said about a rollin' stone. So long. I sign myself, with my best + respects, + + "Yours truly, + "JASON WRINKLE. + + "_P. S._--The same old crowd of jolly loafers make the store + headquarters, and they are, if anything, worse 'n when you was the + king-bee o' the bunch. They git off a fresh joke on somebody every + day. I got off one on Jim that he didn't like a bit. Jim is still + holdin' on to old man Hardcastle's gal like grim death, an' in + order to cut a special dash he's got to sendin' his things to the + steam laundry at Carlton. T'other day at the post-office the nigger + that delivers for the Express Company, an' can't read, showed me + Jim's package of socks, drawers, shirts, an' the like, that had + just come, an' axed me who it was for. With as straight a face as + if I was lookin' a corpse in the eyes, I p'inted out Hardcastle's + house an' tol' 'im to take it thar. Then I writ with a pencil on + the kiver these words, 'Please restore missin' buttons and stitch + up holes.' Then what did I do but hike back to the store an' set + an' wait. Miss Julia sent the stuff a-whizzin' to Jim by a nigger + woman that works for her folks. The things was all tousled up in a + big basket, an' she fetched along a note that made Jim turn as + white as a cake o' tallow. He left me in charge an' run over an' + explained matters to the best of his ability, but it's the talk of + the town, an' not a soul has suspicioned me. If you don't want to + git knocked flat you'd better not mention a steam laundry in Jim's + presence. + + "J. W." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Alfred Henley was coming home. Jim Cahews announced it one morning to a +cluster of farmers and chronic loungers at the store, and the news +rapidly spread through the village and country-side, and various +comments were made. He was going to do a man's part and try to put up +with the cranky woman he had married, said the men. He was heartily +ashamed of himself, said the women. He had got over his silly pout and +was coming home to make amends for his conduct in living so long away +from a woman who had shown such beautiful constancy to her first and, +perhaps--as it looked now--only love. + +Dixie Hart heard the report on her way to the post-office, and, needing +a spool of cotton, she went into the store. + +"Yes, he's headed this way," was Cahews's confirmation of the news. "The +truth is, Miss Dixie, if I'm any judge of a man's letters, Alf's +actually homesick. He wants the mountains he was fetched up in. He +writes about his lonely days and nights, when his speculations don't +keep him busy, an' says they don't have anything out thar but pesky +north winds an' sand-storms. He might have stayed away longer, as it +was, but one little thing I wrote him turned the scale. You know that +measly ten-cent circus that was to show here last month got stranded. +The performers all quit and footed it home, an' the sheriff levied on +the thing, lock, stock, and barrel, an' is to sell it piece by piece at +public outcry Saturday week. Alf wrote me that a sale of that sort was +exactly in his line, and that he'd try to be on hand. He didn't think +anybody here would have any money to invest in such truck, and he'd have +his own way. He said about the only man hereabouts that he'd have to +contend with would be old Welborne, but he would risk him. He don't +often allude to home matters, Miss Dixie, but I think Alf counts on +havin' things up at the house a little smoother than they was when he +went off." + +"And maybe he will," the girl answered, thoughtfully, as she turned +away. + +The only boarders Mrs. Henley had at this time were a certain young +married pair, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Allen, who had arrived only a week +before with a baby not yet a month old. Allen was a travelling +sewing-machine agent, and boarded his wife and child at some farm-house +while he drove about the country in a buggy with a sample machine to +instruct women in the use of it and take orders. + +When Mrs. Allen heard the report that Henley was coming back, she was +considerably disturbed by the thought that she and hers might not be +wanted any longer. She nursed her fears all the morning, and finally, +with the infant on her arm, she went out to Mrs. Henley, who was in the +back-garden gathering cucumbers for the dinner-table. + +"I reckon I'd as well come to the point an' be done with it," Mrs. Allen +began, timidly. She was thin, had blue eyes and faded blond hair, used +snuff, as was indicated by the brownish deposits in the corners of her +mouth and her stained teeth. "I want to speak to you about yore +husband." + +"Well, what is it?" Mrs. Henley asked, as she drew herself up and peered +at the speaker from the hood of her sunbonnet, and rested her pan of +cucumbers on her hip. + +"Why, they all say he's comin' home," said Mrs. Allen. "I've heard yore +father-in--I mean, I've heard old Mr. Wrinkle say that yore husband, +never havin' had children, can't abide babies, an' I got bothered. My +little darlin' don't cry much--in fact, compared to most babies, it's a +purty good un. It did cry some just a minute ago, but that wasn't its +fault. It was mine. Like a plumb fool, who certainly ought to have had +more sense, I was takin' a dip o' snuff from my box as I come out of the +house, an' a sudden whiff of wind round the corner blowed a speck of it +in the little thing's eyes. You know it stings like ackerfortis. We are +goin' next week, anyway, you see." + +"Well, you needn't let my husband's coming hurry you off," Mrs. Henley +answered, as she reached out to a bean-pole and bore down on it that she +might fasten it more firmly in the soil, and it was impossible to judge +whether there was resentment in the tone. "He's coming back of his own +free will, and if he stays he'll put up with the house just as he finds +it. Nothing will be turned topsy-turvy, you may be sure. His room is +where it always was, and it ain't likely to be changed." + +The conversation was disturbed by the appearance of the baby's father, +who emerged from the house and was on the way to the stable to feed and +water his horse. He wore a ready-made suit of clothes and a scarlet +necktie which clashed sharply with his blond hair and mustache. He was +almost as young as his wife, and he beamed proudly on the red human lump +in her arms as he paused for a moment. He smiled warmly on Mrs. Henley +when his wife playfully informed him that they would not have to move +till their week was up. + +"Well, I certainly am glad to hear it," he declared. "I'd hate to look +for a new place just for a day or so, an' I've got so I feel sorter at +home here. Me an' yore father-in--(excuse me)--I mean, me 'n Mr. Wrinkle +have high old times. Even if I went to board somers else I'd come here +an' set of an evenin' to hear him talk. He drives off every spell of +blues I have. He is the beatenest man to get off jokes I ever knowed, to +be as old as he is. Just now he walked clean over to Pitman's to tell +that crusty old cuss that thar was a cow inside his lot fence, an' when +Pitman come down hoppin' mad with his shot-gun full o' pease yore +father-in--(excuse me)--Mr. Wrinkle p'inted to Pitman's own cow an' +said, 'I wasn't lyin' to you, Sam; thar she is.' He was laughin' just +now an' said he had a joke in store for Mr. Henley when he got here. I +tried to git it out of him, but he wouldn't say what was in the wind." + +That evening, after supper, as the night was warm, the Allens, with the +child asleep on a pillow in a chair between them, were seated out under +the trees in front of the house, when Wrinkle slouched across the grass +to them. He was chewing tobacco, and frequently pressed two fingers over +his lips and between them spat with considerable accuracy at various +shrubs and tufts of grass about him. Even in the twilight they could see +that his small eyes were twinkling with suppressed amusement. + +"I thought once, Allen," he chuckled, "that I wouldn't let you in on +this joke, but I'm afraid I won't sleep if I don't tell somebody. I +don't mind lettin' you two in on the quiet, but I wouldn't tell Hettie +for any amount. You see, this un's a baby joke, an' it may be a tender +point with her, not havin' a baby, an', in fact, never havin' had one up +to date, although she's had two husbands in her day, an' resided with +each one a sufficient time." + +"So it's a baby joke?" Allen said. "Well, that interests _me_." + +"That's what it is," the old man said, dryly. "You'd enjoy it if you +knowed Alf. The gang at the store was eternally laughin' at 'im about +babies. They could shet 'im up tight by jest gettin' a nigger nurse-gal +to tote a lusty one back to his desk while he was at work. Once one of +the gang sent 'im a tin rattler by mail, an' they was all thar to see +'im open it. He took it all in good fun, too; he's one joker that kin +stand one on hisself. You may 'a' noticed that Hettie is a sorter odd +woman in some ways. Well, she's more peculiar on the husband line than +any other. Alf's been off now goin' on ten months, an' she hain't once +put pen to paper for him. So the few lines that has gone from this +shebang has been writ by yours truly. Alf hasn't writ to me much, but +I've kept 'im posted. He didn't write me he was headed this way, but I +got it from Cahews. As soon as I heard he was comin' in a week or so, I +set down to write how glad we was. I was in my room j'inin' your'n at +the time, an' all at once it struck me that it would be a royal welcome +to greet 'im with some sort o' joke, an' while I was tryin' to study up +some'n yore baby rolled out o' the bed an' struck the floor with a +thump. It was as quiet as a stick o' wood fer a minute till it ketched +its wind, an' then it set up a scream like a Comanchy Injun, an' right +thar I got my idea. I determined to write Alf that he'd become the daddy +of a bouncin' baby boy. But I had to go about it right, you see, for I +knowed Alf would smell a mice if I brought it out bluntlike; so, knowin' +that I'd have time to hear from him ag'in before he started, I jest +ended my letter by sayin' that I didn't intend to take no hand in the +little cold spell betwixt him an' his wife, but that I felt bound to say +that after she had laid down her pride to write him _sech important_ an' +_delicate news_, for him to take no notice of it whatever was enough to +hurt and offend any woman. He bit. He took my bait an' hook an' line, +broke my pole, an' run up-stream. He writ by the next mail--said he +hadn't got no letter from Hettie, an' axed me what the news was. He was +so anxious to know that he said he was goin' to stop a day or so in +Atlanta, an' wouldn't I oblige him by sendin' my answer thar? You bet I +did. I'll do a friend a favor whenever I kin. I told 'im Alf Junior was +a buster, had a yell on 'im that would do for a fire-alarm, an' was +already keen enough to know the difference betwixt a bottle with a +rubber neck an' the rail thing. So thar it rests. He hain't got no use +for babies, an' he'll be as mad as Tucker, but when he finds out it's +jest a joke he'll be happy enough to set up the drinks." + +"Gracious, surely you didn't go as far as that," Mrs. Allen cried, +casting a jealous look at her sleeping infant and sweeping it on to her +grinning spouse. + +"Didn't I, though!" Wrinkle spat, gleefully. "Alf has often said I +couldn't fool _him_, an' we'll see--we'll see this pop." + +"It certainly is a corker," Allen declared--"that is, if he swallows +it." + +"He's already done it," sniggered the stepfather-in-law. "I writ a +document a Philadelphia lawyer and a Pinkerton detective combined +couldn't pick a flaw in. I hedged it in with roundabout reasons an' +facts, tellin' 'im he'd 'a' had letter after letter about how the baby +was thrivin' if he'd just answered Hettie's first official proclamation, +and so on, and so on. Folks, I can hardly wait. He'll git here to-morrow +night, an' we'll have the fun of our lives. I hope you two won't say a +word--at fust, anyway. Leave it all to me." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The following afternoon about dusk the mail-hack, which usually brought +a few passengers over from Carlton, put Henley down at the gate. The +Allens, the Wrinkles, and Mrs. Henley were seated on the porch, and all +stared expectantly except the wife of the returning man, who rose +suddenly and retired into the house. Henley was tanned, wore a more +stylish suit of clothes than had been his wont, and a broad-brimmed hat. +As he advanced up the walk, swinging his bag in one hand and a bulky +parcel in the other, the observers noted that he was flushed and smiling +complacently. + +"Durn it all!--dad blast his pictur'!" Wrinkle ejaculated, "I'll bet he +missed my letter. He wouldn't look tickled that way if he'd got it. +Well, the fun is off. If I was to tell 'im now he'd know I was lyin'." + +The new-comer was at the bottom of the steps now, and, depositing his +things on the grass, he came up with his hand extended. + +"Well, here I am," he cried, as he clasped Wrinkle's hand and shook it +cordially. "I never was as glad to strike Georgia grit in my life. I +feel like a old soldier back from war. As I drove over and saw the sun +in its bed of yellow behind the mountains I felt like I was flying +through space. This country is good enough for me, and I'll prove it by +sticking to it in the future. Where's Hettie? But, first of all, I want +to see that baby. Trot him out--bless his soul!--trot him out." + +Profound astonishment showed itself in every face. Only old Jason seemed +capable of rising to the situation. For barely an instant he floundered, +and then his small eyes began to twinkle, his voice held a rippling, +unctuous quality as he laid his hand on Henley's arm. + +"Oh, you mean _little_ Alf," he faltered. "Why, he's--he's in thar +asleep on the bed. We-uns--the last one of us--'lowed you'd raise big +objections. You always seemed to have mighty little use for anything o' +the sort." + +"Huh!" Henley grunted, an honest flush spreading over his face. "That's +another matter altogether. There are babies and babies in this world. +This one's got different blood in 'im--this one's _mine_! If I've made +light o' having little tots, I wasn't talking about _him_, for he hadn't +come. Where is he? Let me see 'im. I won't wake 'im. I'll walk easy, an' +not say a word." + +"Well, step this way." Wrinkle cast a bubbling glance of warning at Mrs. +Allen, who had risen resentfully, and motioned her back into her chair, +and, with a comical strut, he led Henley into the room occupied by the +child's parents. Near the door, in the dim light of a sputtering +tallow-dip, on a tiny bed lay the sleeping infant. Wrinkle, choking down +his amusement, took the candle from the mantelpiece and held it over the +little face. "You can't see the favor so plain while its eyes are shet," +he chuckled, "but when it grins an' winks it's you to a gnat's heel." + +"Gewhilikins, ain't he a corker!" Henley said, worshipfully, under his +breath, as he leaned over the bed. + +"I wouldn't wake 'im now." Mrs. Allen stood in the doorway, quite erect +and cold in her bearing, and there was no one but the deluded man who +failed to detect her frigid tone of offended ownership. "This is his +sleepin'-time; if he wakes now he'll fret all night, an' Mr. Allen has +to git his rest or he can't git up early an' do his work." + +"I see," said Henley, politely. "I heard Hettie had taken some boarders. +I know she'd hate to have the little thing keep anybody awake." + +"Sh! not yit, for the Lord's sake, not yit!" Wrinkle whispered, as he +slid along, to the bewildered mother. "Don't spile it all." + +"Well, let's go back on the porch," Henley said. "I've got some'n to +show you. What you reckon I've got in my bundle? Come take a look." He +led them back into the outer dusk, and descended to the ground for the +parcel, which, after hastily cutting the string, he opened on the steps. +The others stared in astonishment at the pile of toys, little dresses, +flannels, dainty caps of lace, and shoes and stockings. + +"What did you go an' buy all them things for?" Wrinkle asked, rendered +serious for the first time by the realization that his jest had at least +cost more than he had intended. + +"Because I wanted to, that's what for!" Henley laughed, proudly. "Do you +reckon I was going to come away from Atlanta empty-handed when I was +right where so many things could be had? I showed your letter to Mrs. +Moody, who keeps the house I stopped at, and she took me down-town and +helped select what was best. She said every single article would come in +handy, and she ought to know--she's the mother of nine. Lord, I wish I'd +got here earlier, before his bed-time. I tried to git the driver to +hurry up, but first one thing happened, then another. I want to see what +the little chap 'll do with this rattler; these blamed little bells set +up a jinglin' noise every time the hack struck a snag." + +During this monologue the machine-agent was silent, a dark frown of +indecision on his face. As for his wife, she looked as if she had +bartered her child's birthright for something that had disagreed with +her mental digestion. Jason Wrinkle, however, reflections on the cost of +his joke for the moment set aside, seemed to have fallen into his +happiest mood. Unable to disguise his merriment at such close range from +his victim, he had slipped out into the yard, and Allen could see him +writhing in the folds of darkness as he slapped his thighs and raised +his heavy boots in a soundless dance of joy. + +"Well, I'll go find Hettie." Henley took up the parcel, and, with it in +his arms, he clattered thunderously through the hallway back to his +wife's room. There was candle-light in the room, and he saw her hastily +turn toward a window as he entered and threw the things on her bed. + +"Well, here I am," he announced, the ring of elation still in his voice. +"I don't blame you for hiding from me, Hettie. I've acted like an old +hog, and I've come back to say so." + +She turned toward him, an expression of surprise struggling on her thin +face, but it had never been her way to show affection, and she made no +offer even to shake hands. However, he had put his arms round her and +kissed her cold cheek. + +"You've just come?" she said, tentatively, as she drew stiffly from his +embrace. + +"Just a minute ago. I had to see the baby the first thing. I couldn't +wait. The old man showed him to me. Ain't he great? I hain't seen his +eyes yet--he was sound asleep. I reckon that boarder-woman helps you +with him; she seems to thinks lots of him, and be powerful particular. I +didn't get your letter about its coming, Hettie. I'd have written at +once--you know I would. It was lost, I reckon. The mails don't run right +always. The old man wrote me, and it certainly was like a thunderclap. +I'm mighty proud, Hettie. You see, I'd given up hoping that a baby'd +ever come to us, an'--" + +"To _us_?" The woman stared and drew herself more erect. "What do you +mean? Are you crazy? You've seen babies before and never went on at such +a rate. I don't care for it. I haven't once touched it since it come. I +don't like its mother any too well, and she is such a fool about it +that--" + +"Its _mother_?" Henley gasped. "Why, ain't it _ours_--ain't it yours and +mine? The--the old man wrote me that--" Henley's voice faltered and +sank. His lower lip hung loose from his teeth and quivered. With a +furious shrug Mrs. Henley turned from him to the curtainless window +against which the outer night pressed like a palpable substance. She +could hear him behind her panting like a tired beast of burden. For a +moment there was an awful silence in the room, then he broke it. + +"My God, he made a fool of me!" he groaned. + +"And you made one of _me_," the woman threw back from the window, "and +before them all!" She sneered, as her glance fell on the pile of gifts +on the bed. "This is what you come back for? Any other man would have +had too much sense to be so easily fooled." She strode to the table and +picked up the candle, for what purpose he did not know, but it slipped +from her fingers and fell to the floor and went out. He heard her groan, +and the slats of the bed creaked as she sat down. Thankful that the +darkness hid the evidences of shame on his face, and not daring to trust +his voice to further utterance, he went out of the room. As he passed +through the hallway he heard a low cry from the infant on the right, and +its mother crooning over it. No one was on the porch. A vast weight of +misery and chagrin was on him. He sat down on the steps and fumbled in +his pocket for his pipe. But his nerveless fingers broke the only match +he had, as he attempted to strike it on the step, and, holding his pipe +before him, he sat staring into space. He had a hunted sense of wanting +to avoid forever all human contact; an intangible shame burned within +him, drying up the tender emotions which so recently had swayed his +being. + +Suddenly his glance fell on his valise still resting on the step where +he had left it, and, rising, he clutched it as he might the hand of a +friend. The next instant he was striding over the grass to the gate. To +shun the village, the lights of which winked sardonically in the +distance, he crossed the road, climbed the fence and was in the meadow +which lay between his land and Dixie Hart's. Blindly he trudged through +the high weeds and grass, now wet with dew. + +Cruel, cruel--a joke, a mere joke, as such things went with the shallow +and light-minded, and yet it was a tragedy. For several days, in the +highest realm of fancy he had revelled in the first joys of fatherhood, +only to have it end like this. He paused on a slight rise of the ground +and looked back at the outlines of the farm-house, and cursed it and its +inhuman inmates. As he dug his nails into his palms and gnashed his +teeth, he swore that the surrounding mountains, so false in their late +promises, should never see him more; the wide, free world should be his +solace, if solace could be had. + +Suddenly, as he stood, he became conscious that there was a moving blur +before him, as if some portion of the general darkness, by some trick of +vision, had been rendered more compact and animate. Then he saw that it +was a cow, and immediately in the animal's wake appeared another blur. +This was the form of a woman. In a mellow, soothing tone she called out +to the cow, and Henley recognized the voice. It was Dixie Hart. +Instinctively, and shrinking even from her, he started on, but she +suddenly cried out: + +"Don't go, Alfred, you haven't said howdy to me. You aren't going to +treat an old friend that way, I know." + +Putting his valise down at his feet, he stood speechless while she +advanced to him, her hand extended from beneath the shawl which +enveloped her head and shoulders. "How are you?" She seemed to avoid +seeing his valise. "I'm powerful glad to see you back home." + +He made an effort to speak, but there was a dry tightness in his throat +which made him doubt his command of utterance. His only response was the +dumb clasping of her hand, and to it he clung, unconscious of what the +act implied, as a proof of weakness. + +"I knew you had got back," she went on, her face uplifted, her friendly +fingers tightening on his. "That old mischief-maker told me. I didn't +come out here after the cow. That was just a dodge to keep anybody from +talking about me being away from home after dark. I had to see you. I +knew you needed a friend, and I'm one, Alfred--I'd sacrifice anything on +earth to help you. You've been a true friend to me, and I want to be to +you. I know all that happened back there." + +"You say you do?" + +"Yes, Mr. Wrinkle come and told me. He was laughing, but he let up, for +I opened his eyes. He hasn't had such a tongue-lashing since he was +born. The fool, the fool--the silly fool! You mustn't mind, Alfred. You +really mustn't." + +"Mind?" he muttered. "My God!" + +"Oh, I know!" she went on, still soothingly. "It is awful looked at from +_your_ standpoint, but that ain't the thing. We must consider the +intentions of folks before we take offence. Why, Alfred, that old +busybody hasn't yet got it through his head that any living man could +object to a joke like that. Nothing under high heaven was ever sacred to +him; you must have noticed that in the time you have known him. He'd +make a jest out of the death of his closest kin. He told me once that to +think anything was wrong in this world would be to deny God's goodness +to mankind. When I told him just now that he had overstepped the bounds +of reason and good sense in what he done, he simply wouldn't believe it. +He said you knew how to give a joke and take one, and that he liked you +better than any living man. The Allens are going to leave soon. Alfred, +you mustn't go 'way like this--you just mustn't." + +"There's nothing else to do." + +"Oh yes, there is." She laid her hand on his arm, and gazed persuasively +into his eyes. "You've got your duty to perform--your duty to your wife, +Alfred." + +"Huh, to her!" he sniffed. + +"Yes, to _her_," Dixie went on, simply and yet eagerly. "I'm sorry for +her, Alfred. To most folks she seems peculiar, and yet God made her that +way just as He made you and me like we are, and, moreover, she can't +help being like she is. You told me once that you didn't think she had +ever quite got over her love for her first husband, but that you counted +on that when you married her. Well, all the queer things which she done +while you was away, that folks thought was so funny, come from her idea +of her duty in that direction. If I read her right, she thinks, somehow, +that she proved herself untrue to--to the dead by marrying again, and +she's let it prey on her mind. But that is over with. I think she is +afraid now that she went too far." + +"You think so?" Henley breathed hard. + +"Yes, I lost patience with her myself during it all, and give her a +piece of my mind one day. If she had been plumb sure she was right she'd +have got mad, but she didn't. She took it different from what I +expected. She never had paid any attention to me before, but after that +day she made a point o' coming to me. She never would bring up the +subject again, but she'd stand and talk with as much respect as if I'd +been some old person. She looked like she was ashamed, and wanted to let +me know in some other way than telling me in so many words. No, you +mustn't go 'way like this, Alfred. It 'ud never do. She ain't to blame +for that old man's joke, and she ought not to suffer for it. She was +glad you was coming back. A woman can read a woman, and she couldn't +hide it. It looked to me like she is glad to get a chance to act +different and do her part. If you was to go off on top of this thing it +would humiliate her awfully. A great deal would be said, and it would +all heap up on her as the prime cause. You are the noblest man I ever +knew, Alfred, and you won't go and do as big a wrong as this would be, +and in such thoughtless haste. A man never can decide on a correct +course when he is upset like you are now, and you'd live to regret it. +Then think of yourself. You was plumb homesick for these old mountains, +and was glad to get back." + +"How did you know that?" + +"A little bird told me." She quoted the saying with an arch smile. "You +wanted to get here in time to be at the auction sale of that broke-down +circus, and you'll miss a good thing if you go. The horses are in bad +shape, owing to poor feeding and hard use, but there's big come-out in +'em. Nobody else here will have the ready money, and you'd have a clean +walk-over." + +"What else have they got besides hosses?" The trader's eyes twinkled +with an interest that broke through the stupor that was on him. + +"Oh, lots o' odds and ends; you wait and see. Tote that valise back in +the house, Alfred, and don't do what you'll be sorry for all your life. +If you was to leave like this to-night it would be harder than ever to +come back, and you'd have to do it sooner or later. You know I'm giving +you good advice." + +"Yes, I know it--before God I know it," he said, fervently. "You are the +best friend I've got, Dixie. No, I don't want to go back to Texas." His +strong voice shook and he coughed to steady it. "I never want to roam +about that way again. I forced myself to stay out there day by day. That +was one mistake, and I ought not to make another on top of it. You see +it right, Dixie. You see it right." + +"Then there is little Joe," she reminded him. "He is still having a hard +time with Sam Pitman, and the little fellow has almost counted the hours +since he heard you was coming. He dotes on you. He still has the money +hid away that you left for him. He says he is going to keep it till he's +a man. Oh, it was so sad! Alfred, he started to run away one night +awhile back, after Pitman had whipped him for planting the wrong +seed-corn. I happened to meet him down the road. He had a little bundle +under one arm and a pet chicken I had given him under the other. I +stopped him and got him to go back. I couldn't bear the thought of +having him so far away from me and unprotected. I told him that, and it +made him break down and cry. Then he let me kiss him; he never had +before, he's so bashful, and, well"--her eyes were glistening and her +tone was husky--"the next morning I saw him in the field bright and +early. He was doing the hardest work there is on a farm--digging sprouts +with a heavy grubbing-hoe. But he was cheerful." + +"You made him go back, just as you are making me do," Henley said, +swallowing a lump in his throat and forcing a smile. "You were right in +his case, and right in mine. You are my best friend. How goes it with +you? We've talked enough about me." + +"Same old seven and six," she answered, with a shrug. "Still fighting +with the world and Carrie Wade. She's a worm in my flesh that is on a +constant wiggle. She nags me more now because she is more miserable +herself. She don't even get as much attention as she did. She used to go +after it, but the men have headed her off. The fellows at the +lumber-camp got to laughing at her for the way she done. She's got down +to little boy sweethearts. She's been making eyes at Johnny Cartwright, +and the little fool--he ain't more than seventeen, eight years younger'n +her--is clean daft about her. Poor old Mrs. Cartwright is awfully +worried. The little scamp declares he is engaged to Carrie, and, instead +of giving the report the lie, she actually seems proud of it." + +"But how about your marrying?" Henley questioned. + +"Me? Oh, I've got my trousseau ready, every stitch of it, including hat, +gloves, stockings, and what not." + +"You don't tell me--well, that _is_ news!" Henley exclaimed in surprise. + +"Well, it ain't to me," Dixie laughed. "You see, Alfred, it is the same +old outfit that I laid in a year ago and keep in storage. It hain't +exactly the latest wrinkle as to style, but I could cut away and add a +flounce here and a ruffle there, and not have so much cash to lay out as +I did when I missed fire that time. But I don't think I'll get to use it +soon. Field-work in the broiling sun and setting on a divan with a dinky +fan to your face and a young man to peep over it don't hitch, somehow. +And I'm still deep in debt to old Welborne. He's the only man I make +love to, but I don't get a cent off for my smiles; he growls and +grumbles every time I see him about hard times and the like. But I'll +pay out one of these days. As you pass it in the morning I want you to +just take a look at my stand of cotton; if the drought will let it alone +I'll make five bales. Now I must go. I know you'll keep your promise, so +I ain't going to worry. Good-night." + +"Good-night," he echoed, and as she moved away in the darkness he took +up his valise and turned his face toward the farm-house. "She's right," +he muttered. "God bless her, she's plumb right." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +The Allens had gone, taking with them the baby things, which Henley had +prevailed upon them to accept. He sank into his accustomed place at home +and at the store as naturally as if he had been away only for a day. The +news of his return drew around him many of the motley ilk who made +trading and swapping both a business and an avocation. They seldom dealt +with him, to be sure, but it was a liberal education to hear his +experiences, and even better to see him actually make a deal. On his +first day at home he had bought a lame horse for the small sum of fifty +dollars, after he had delivered a free lecture about the great "American +Cruelty to Animals Association," as he called it. And, with his eyes on +the owner, he gave it as his opinion that in a more enlightened +community a man who would ride a horse in that condition would be +dragged straight to court, and maybe imprisoned for life. When the +animal was his, and the ex-owner had gone to buy a ticket to go home by +rail, Henley winked at Cahews and said: "I know how to cure that hoss's +leg. I paid two dollars to learn in Fort Worth from an Indian +hoss-doctor. Two hundred dollars wouldn't buy 'im right now." + +It was the loquacious stepfather-in-law who revelled most in Henley's +sayings and doings, and he regaled his wife and Henley's with accurate +and vivid reports of them. One morning he came into the sitting-room, +where the two women sat bent over a quilt on a big, square frame, their +needles going methodically up and down. + +"You mought guess one million years," he panted, as he bent over them, +that he might feast on their facial expressions, "an' not guess what Alf +Henley's gone an' done." + +They raised their faces and stared, and the wizened raconteur smiled as +he stepped to the open fireplace, shifted the paper screen to one side, +carefully spat, and then, replacing it, returned to his coign of +vantage. + +"I don't know, and care less," Mrs. Henley answered, though her poised +needle and steady gaze belied her words. "He's done so many fool things +in his life that I'd not be surprised if he'd gone off in a balloon." + +"That's equal to sayin' you give it up." Wrinkle again applied himself +to the screen and fireplace, and returned shuffling, his tobacco-quid in +his hand. "Well, you've heard about the dime circus that was to show +here a month back, an' couldn't because all the actors hit the grit an' +left the manager to settle with the sheriff for debts that follered it +all the way from Boston?" + +They had heard every detail of the matter innumerable times, and only +stared and gaped as they awaited further revelations. + +"Well, Alf Henley is sole owner an' manager now," was the bomb which +exploded in Wrinkle's hands. "He's the John Robinson and P. T. Barnum of +the whole capoodle." + +"You don't mean that he has actually gone off with--" began Mrs. Henley, +but was checked by the old man's smile of correction. + +"Well, he ain't, to say, actually _started out_ yit," the old man +grinned. "You know he'd have to git performers, tight-rope walkers, +hoop-jumpers, bareback riders, an' the like, an' these mountain +clodhoppers ain't in practice. But I'm here to state to you two women +if he kin git clowns to furnish as much fun fer a dime and a seat +throwed in as he give that crowd this mornin' he'll be rich enough to +throw twenty-dollar gold pieces at cats in no time. I seed the whole +shootin'-match. I was in the store when the nigger boy come by the front +janglin' a bell an' totin' the red flag with a sign on it, an' Alf sent +Pomp out fer one of the circulars that had a list of the items. He +looked it over, an' then re'ched for his hat, an' me 'n him went down to +the court-house yard whar the whole thing was spread out, piled up, an' +haltered. It was like Noah's Ark washed ashore an' lyin' thar to dry. +Thar was six hosses so thin you could read through 'em without yore +specs, three big road-wagons heavy enough to haul steam-engines on, the +little, teensy pony with a bob-tail that the clown driv' in the +procession, an' the little red-an'-green streaky wagon that he rid in. +Then thar was the heavy iron den on another big road-wagon that the lion +stayed in till he starved to death, a whoppin' pile of planks that was +used for seats, an', last of all, the big canvas tent. + +"The entire town an' country was on hand, nosin' about an' crackin' +jokes on the fat manager who had come up from Atlanta to attend the sale +an' was lookin' as seedy as a last year's bird's-nest. But I'm here to +tell you that when Alf Henley come stalkin' down, lookin' sorter +indifferent, like he always does when he has a notion to trade, that +crowd pulled in its horns an' waited." + +"The fool!" Mrs. Henley ejaculated. "Making a public exhibition of +himself." + +"Well, I've often wondered about that very thing," Wrinkle said. "I +sometimes think he tries to make folks think he is a fool to suit his +aims, an' ef he ain't a natural-born one it oughtn't to be belt agin +him. I admit I was puzzled on that point this mornin'. I stuck to his +heels, bound to see 'im through. He'd sniff at one thing an' turn away +from another as if it didn't smell right; he'd kick a pile of stuff with +contempt an' walk on, an' he grinned to beat a heathen idol at the mere +sight of the lion-cage an' pony an' cart, an' then he just squared +hisse'f around same as to say, 'Well, I'm in pore business, but I'll +jest stand here an' see if anybody will be fool enough to bid on such +truck.' + +"You know Sheriff Tobe Webb is a dry-talkin' cuss, anyway, an' I had to +laff when he got up an' begun his harangue, fer all the world like a +feller in front of a side-show tryin' to drum up a crowd to see a passel +o' freaks on the inside. Tobe had the fust item led out fer +inspection--a bony hoss that tried to lie down, an' Alf spoke up an' +wanted to know if he was a stump-sucker. + +"Fred Dill up an' said, 'The man that buys 'im will be the sucker,' an' +everybody laffed, Alf as big as the rest. + +"'I think I know whar I could sell his hide,' he said, an' bid ten +dollars. Then somebody--or it may jest have been the show-man's +bluff--raised it to fourteen, an' then Alf went 'im a dollar more an' +got the hoss." + +"Another one to feed and doctor," sighed Mrs. Henley. + +"I say another," Wrinkle chuckled. "He got all six at about the same +figure. Nobody was biddin' agin 'im except old Welborne, an' he was so +mad he couldn't stand still. They say he had been countin' on havin' it +all his own way, but Alf come home an' turned his cake to dough. Next +come the three road-wagons. Some o' the farmers was interested in 'em, +but they was too heavy fer field-work, an' though Tobe mighty nigh tore +the linin' out o' his throat yellin' agin it as a plumb outrage, Alf +raked 'em in at about the cost of the bare iron in 'em. + +"The next item was the lion's cage, an' a big laff started, for Fred +Dill told Alf that it was entirely too clumsy fer a baby-carriage, an' I +knowed then that my joke was goin' the rounds, an' I backed away a +little, fer I didn't like the way Alf looked. But he was still in the +game, an' he walked up to the cage an' ketched hold of the bars an' +sorter shook 'em. It had one of the same heavy wagons under it in good +condition, an' I believe Alf was tryin' to attract attention from the +wagon, for all the time Tobe was talkin' an' sayin' the cage would be a +good thing fer a man to lock his wife up in to break 'er of the +gad-about habit, Alf was examinin' the iron slats an' the bolts an' +bars. It had a big door an' wooden sides that could be tuck off or left +on, an' Dill advised Alf to buy it an' turn gypsy, an' roam about +tradin' here an' yan. But Alf got the thing at his own bid, an' sorter +sneered as he writ down the price on the scrap of paper in his hand." + +"For Heaven's sake, what fool caper did he cut next?" Mrs. Henley +demanded, in a tone of impatience. + +"Why, he bought the pony an' little wagon fer ten dollars, even money, +an' it was all I could do to keep the baby joke from risin' ag'in. I +could see that Dill was about to spring it, but I shook my head at 'im, +an' he kept quiet. I reckon he thought thar was no use rubbin' it in. +Then everybody got to watchin' the nigger helpers stretch out the big +tent at the sheriff's orders. It was stout, new cloth, an' it glistened +like a patch of snow in the sun, an' driv' the crowd back on all sides +in a big ring. I reckon everybody thar thought Alf surely would balk at +a thing like that, but it looked like the fun folks was pokin' at him +had got his dander up. Jim Cahews had closed the store an' come down, +an' I seed 'im nudge Alf an' heard 'im say, 'I believe I'd let that item +slide, Alf, the cloth has been cut on the bias, an' the seams are so +stout that it never could be sold by the yard.' + +"'Shet up, I know what I'm about,' I heard Alf whisper, an' then he +yelled out to the sheriff, 'Put up the pile o' planks along with it; +nobody wants a' old rag as big as that.' + +"The sheriff agreed, an' both lots went in as one. It was a sharp trick +of Alf's, for he had found out that a photographer was thar from Carlton +to go his limit on the tent, but lumpin' it in with the planks sorter +upset the chap's calculations, an' he didn't have the look of a man that +could figure quick. He shuck all over as he bid ten dollars, an' while +the sheriff was yellin' 'Goin'! goin'!' Alf stooped down an' felt of the +canvas. He found a clean hole that looked like it had been cut, an' run +his finger through it an' laffed an' said, 'It wouldn't do to hang it up +to dry, the wind 'ud blow it to pieces, but I kin use the planks, an' +I'll resk a dollar more.' The photographer got scared, an', while he was +stoopin' down tryin' to feel o' the tent, Alf ketched the sheriff's eye +an' said, 'I'll withdraw my bid if you don't hurry. I'm wastin' time.' +The sheriff yelled out an' told the photographer it was agin 'im, but he +look scared wuss 'n ever an' shuck his head, an' that ended it. Alf +wasn't in as big a hurry to git away as he had let on, neither. He set a +couple o' niggers to work stackin' up the planks in neat piles an' +rollin' up the tent. He sent the hosses to the pasture back o' the +store, an' told Pomp to give 'em a good rubbin' down, an' to put some o' +his famous hoss-tonic in the'r feed." + +"A circus!" Mrs. Henley said, with a sniff. "A circus, and me the +daughter of a Baptist preacher." + +"Well, he ain't raily goin' to put the thing on the road," Wrinkle said, +seriously. "He counts on sellin' it off piece by piece. I went back to +the store when he did. I was afeard, at the start, that he was cracked +in the upper story, but I've sorter switched around. Old Welborne come +in an' had his say about the snag Alf had at last struck in his +overeagerness to have some'n to do now that he was back, an' went out as +mad as the very devil about some'n or other. Jim an' me set down back at +the desk an' watched Alf figure up. He looked tickled, and after a while +he said: + +"'Jim, I'm glad I got back. I know now that Texas ain't no place for my +talent. It's overrun with sharp-witted Jews an' keen Yankees that know +values down to a gnat's heel. But here in these mountains these yokels +git scared clean out o' the'r senses when a dollar has to change hands. +Do you know,' says he, 'that I'm out less'n two hundred this mornin', +an' at a low estimate I have got a thousand dollars' wuth o' truck?' + +"'I don't know, Alf,' Jim said. 'I'm with yore judgment, as a general +thing, but not on this deal. I was lookin' at them hosses t'other day in +the court-house yard, an' the Chester brass-band come along. Now, a +average hoss,' Jim said, 'will either git scared or break an' run at a +sound like that, but three o' them things you got this mornin' struck up +a regular jig an' capered about the lot kickin' up the'r heels as if +they was in a ring jumpin' over red strips o' cloth.' + +"Well, folks," old Wrinkle continued, "you kin always tell a born trader +by his not bein' in a hurry to unload, an' Alf is that way. While we all +was settin' thar Pete Hepworth come in at the front, an' while he was on +his way to us Alf said: 'You fellers hold yore tongues. That feller is +itchin' fer a deal; I had my eye on 'im at the sale.' + +"Pete leaned agin the platform-scales an' talked about the weather an' +crops, an' then he said, kinder offhand, to Alf: 'I had a sort o' idea +o' biddin' on that pile o' old planks, but when the sheriff lumped 'em +in with that fine tent it let me out. I want to build me a cowhouse an' +wagon-shed.' + +"'I didn't care for the _tent_,' Alf said, an' he filled his pipe from a +china bowl on the desk an' made Pomp fetch 'im a match. 'It was them +planks I was after, an' I was bound to have 'em. They are smooth, +ready-dressed, long-leaf, heart-pine boards, one an' a quarter by ten, +with the ends sawed square an' seasoned by folks settin' on 'em under +cover for three or four years--never had a nail driv' in 'em, nuther.' + +"'Well, I never thought they was as good as all that,' Pete said, 'but +what are you holdin' 'em at?' + +"'I hain't thought much about it,' Alf said. 'I hain't much of a hand to +jump at a trade. It railly does my eyes good to look at lumber like that +these days when the best timber you kin git is full o' sap an' +worm-holes. How would twenty-five dollars for the pile look to you?' + +"'Why,' said Pete, with a funny look at me an' Jim, 'you only paid +eleven for the tent an' planks together.' + +"That hain't got a thing to do with yore deal an' mine,' Alf said, an' +he turned an' axed Jim some'n about shippin' some chickens to Augusta +that Jim didn't seem to know how to answer. + +"'I think it is purty steep,' Pete said. 'I've got time to build now, +an' it 'ud take a month to git an order sawed out at the mill, so I'll +have to take it'; an' as he was countin' out the cash he laffed an' +said: 'I've got an apology to make to you, Alf. Back at the sale I +remarked that you was a born idiot, but I don't believe it now. You are +a big fish amongst minnows.' + +"An' when Pete had left Alf winked at us an' said, 'You fellers lie low +an' watch, an' if I don't double my money on every item I bought to-day +I'll buy new hats fer you both.'" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The purchase of the circus furnished amusement for the village for many +a day afterward. During the month that followed the event every citizen +who had any appreciation for the droll things of life looked in at the +store and had some dry remark to make in regard to the deal. Fred Dill, +the clerk of the court and wag of the place, had a new suggestion to +make each day as he went to his work. There were certain village freaks +he declared who would be drawing-cards on the road and who would work +simply for their board and clothes. + +But Henley was wisely keeping his own counsel. His underlying wisdom +began to show itself one day early in June when there was a widely +advertised sale of horses in the square. Farmers came for miles around +to sell, swap, or buy, and buyers for city persons were on hand with +plenty of ready money. The strangers in town saw nothing remarkable in +the fact, but the knowing ones stood open-mouthed when Henley's negro +assistants led six well-groomed horses into the square. The Chester band +played in the balcony of the court-house, and Henley's exhibit kept gay +and sprightly step to the music, as if glad to be once more in their +accustomed element. The mane of each animal was decorated with a blue +ribbon bow, to which was fastened a card holding the price asked. In no +case was it low, and yet when the day was over Henley had completely +sold out, and in the presence of many admiring witnesses whom he could +hardly shake off he had banked a prodigious roll of currency. + +The tide of opinion had turned. From ridicule it had swept with +eager-eyed conviction to vast local pride in Henley as a native product. +From that day on the remaining items of the circus property were +regarded with growing interest. Would Henley actually triumph all +through? became the question the villagers asked one another as if it +were a game they, themselves, were playing. There was much general +discussion over what, after all, really was the "hardest stock" of the +lot, and the general consensus of opinion had decided that it was +perhaps the three wagons, which were too heavy and cumbersome for any +ordinary use. And this view was held till one day when the well-dressed +representative of a gang of men working on a new railway over the +mountain came and took a look at the wagons. They were almost too heavy, +he said, but they might be made to answer his purpose in trucking ties +along the new road. He had offered twice as much as Henley had paid for +them, and yet the latter's laugh of open derision could have been heard +across the street. + +"I see you don't want my wagons," he smiled, as he cordially patted the +stranger on the shoulder. "You want your company to spend their money on +them light, painted things that bust in the sun and break down if you +run 'em on anything but a plank floor." + +The customer thought too well of himself to realize that he was under +Henley's spell. "How much do you hold them at?" he asked. + +Henley mentioned a price which was fully four times what they had cost +him, and he did it in a tone of supreme contempt for the smallness of +the figures. He added that he would never dream of letting them go so +low, but that he had no place to store them and didn't care to ship them +to Atlanta. + +"Well, I'll take them," the man said. "I reckon neither of us will lose +by it." + +"Well, _you_ won't, there's one thing certain about that," was the +agreeable seal Henley put on the deal as he watched the railroad man +draw out his check-book. + +"I really did need one more," the purchaser remarked, "and I'm sorry you +only had three." + +"Hold on, hold on," Henley said, as the other was shaking the ink down +into the tip of his fountain-pen. "Let me study a minute. You see that +lion-cage standing on that vacant lot across the street. Now, I'll tell +you what I'll do. The wagon the cage is on is pine-plank like them +you've bought. The lot it stands on belongs to Seth Woods, the +shoemaker; his shop is right around the corner behind the post-office. I +put the thing there without his consent, intending to move it right +away. I can't get away from here right at this minute, but if you'll +step in and ask him if he will consent to let the cage rest on his land +awhile I'll have a carpenter take the cage part off and you may have the +wagon at the same low figure as the others." + +It was one of Henley's best dodges--this raising of apparent obstacles +between a customer and his own munificent proposals in the customer's +behalf. He had learned early in life that nothing so completely clinched +a trade as making a party to it work to bring it about. The man's eyes +twinkled as he consented. He hastened out and returned in a moment to +say that the shoemaker, with whom he had left an order for a pair of +boots, was perfectly willing for his neighbor to use the lot as long as +he liked, as he had given up all hope of ever being able to build a shop +on it, as had been his plans when he bought the property. + +"Well, then, you can draw your check for the whole amount," said Henley, +in the same uneventful tone that always preceded his reception of money. +"I'll let the cage set on the edge of the sidewalk. Maybe I can induce +the town council to use it as a calaboose. The one they've got ain't +strong enough by half." + +The report of the four-wheeled transfer went over the village before +nightfall, and the next morning, for the first time, Fred Dill looked in +on Henley without a smile or a joke. He eyed the storekeeper, as he +stood behind the show-case smoking a cigar, with a new and wondering +respect. Fred was beginning to see largely manifested in Henley the very +qualities which were wofully missing from his own merry and shiftless +make-up. He counted on his mental digits the remaining items of the +defunct circus--the tent, the clown's pony and cart, and the lion's den +standing open-doored like a wheelless furniture-van across the street. +And even while Dill stood there, telepathically apologetic for his past +bantering in the presence of so much incarnate shrewdness and foresight, +little Sammy Malthorn, the twelve-year-old son of the wealthiest planter +in the village, came in, as he had been doing several times a day for a +week past. His voice quivered with youthful triumph as he looked eagerly +across the show-case at the smoker. + +"Well," he announced, "papa says I may have 'em. You can charge it on +his account. It was twenty-five dollars, you said." + +"Yes, twenty-five to _you_, Sammy boy," Henley laughed easily. "Pomp +will go with you to the stable and hitch 'im up. You'd better let me put +in a ten-cent box of axle-grease for them wheels. If you haven't got the +dime handy I can add it on the bill. I'd hate to see as fine a rig as +that going through town squeaking like a rusty wheelbarrow." + +"All right," responded the proud owner of the pony and cart. "Pomp will +get it for me." + +"Good Lord!" Fred Dill said in his throat, and he went at once to Seth +Woods's shoe-shop, where there was a group of loafers, and told the +last bit of news. "I begin to think, boys," he said, "that Alf Henley is +goin' to make the only money that dang circus ever made. Jest think of +it--think of a big circus, hippodrome, menagery, an' side-shows tourin' +the whole United States an' Canada without a cent of profit, an' a +mountain storekeeper in a measly hole like this gitting rich out of its +remains without turning his hand over or losin' a minute's sleep. It +looks like thar is some'n crooked in the universe." + +"It's beca'se the Lord's bent on smitin' sech cussedness with a broad +hand," said a long-faced deacon, who had come in to half-sole his own +shoes with the shoemaker's tools, and sat soaking his bits of leather in +a tub of dingy water. + +"I mought take yore view of it ef the reward was bestowed in a different +quarter," Fred said, grimly. "But Alf don't go to meetin' any oftener'n +I do. Though he kin send up as good a prayer as the next one when they +force 'im to it. Boys, I'm curious to see what he will do with the tent +an' lion's cage. Nothin' would surprise me now. He's dead sure to git +profit out of 'em." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +That very evening Henley took even another step in his amusing +enterprise. He returned to the store after supper and sat writing +letters till about eight o'clock. Then he got up, brushed his clothes, +and made Pomp polish his boots, and adjusted his black string tie before +a glass over the water-pail and basin. Then he went out and walked +leisurely up the street till he came to the dark stairway of a little +public hall over a feed-store. He ascended the steps with a respectful +tread and entered the hall. It was furnished with crude unpainted +benches and lighted by kerosene lamps in concave-mirrored brackets on +the white walls. At the end stood a table holding a pitcher of water, a +goblet, and a Bible, and behind the table sat an earnest-eyed, +middle-aged evangelistic preacher, who bowed and smiled in agreeable +surprise at the new-comer. The room held fifty or sixty men and women, +all silently awaiting the beginning of the services. Henley seated +himself on the front bench nearest the preacher, and put his hat on the +floor, and dropped his handkerchief into it. + +The meeting was opened with the singing by the congregation of familiar +hymns, in which Henley joined harmoniously with a fair bass. It was +known of him that he never declined an invitation to lead in prayer, and +on being asked this evening he readily complied. His voice was deep and +round and mellow, and the burden of his utterances was suitable to that +or any other religious occasion, being a sort of singsong tribute to +the eternal glory of humility and submission to the divine will. The +prayer was followed by a rousing sermon from the preacher, and, in +closing, he called attention, as Henley evidently had gathered from some +source that he would do, to the future plans of the organization. The +time was ripe for work in the highways and byways--the sowing of seed in +out-of-the-way places, and the preacher was to "take the road" with one +or two good singers, a cornet-player, and a cottage-organ, and give +people in isolated mountain-nooks a chance to hear the Word and profit +thereby for their eternal weal. + +He had just seated himself and was mopping his perspiring brow when +Henley rose and stood hemming and hawing and clearing his throat. + +"I want to say in this same connection," he began, "that I plumb approve +of this new idea of taking the great and living Truth into remote +corners of our spiritually dark land. Here in Chester we are, you might +say, basking in the sunshine of Christian civilization, but away out off +of the main roads in the mountains the Book hain't read and prayer +hain't held except now and then. I heard that you had already entered +into negotiations with an Atlanta tent factory to furnish you with a +tabernacle, an' I must say it ain't a bad notion, because many a fine +bush-arbor meeting has been busted all to flinders by sudden showers +that good, stout canvas would shed as well as a roof of shingles. I want +to contribute five dollars toward the fund myself; but I'm here to +confess to you frankly that I wouldn't like to see the money throwed +away. The great majority of them meeting-tents on the market are simply +made to sell and not for hard use. They look all right in the +sample-room, but they are full of starch to give 'em body, and when they +get wet they are about as porous as a fish-net." + +"That's a fact, Brother Henley," spoke up the preacher, with a slow and +deliberate nod. "We've been looking around and receiving circulars from +all sides, and we have found it purty hard to run across a durable tent +at a price we can afford; but there was a drummer here from Nashville +the other day, and he claimed--" + +"I'd advise you to let drummers alone, too," and Henley brushed away the +preacher's words with a firm and all-wise hand. "You see, in my constant +contact at the store I know 'em all the way down to the ground. They are +the most ungodly pack on earth. Most of 'em drink and play poker, an' +never look inside of a Bible. The fact is, if I may be allowed to speak +of it at such a time, I happened myself, awhile back, to buy a whopping +big tent from a stranded show. I thought at the time that some such a +need as this might arise, and so I bid it in. To get it, I had to pay +for a lot of old planks and such-like, but in doing it I secured a +rattling good thing. It was a bargain; but I could let a good +organization like yours have it for a sight less than a new tent not +halt as big would cost. It would last a lifetime. It is big enough to +hold the multitude that ate the loaves and fishes. It was made for rough +wear and must have cost a pile of money. I don't know but what we all +could agree on a price--that is, if I had any idea of how much your body +would feel disposed to--to invest in a tent." + +"We have fifty dollars in the treasury," spoke up the preacher, with an +eagerness that blended in his face and voice. "Of course, it may not be +near enough to--" He blew his nose and coughed. + +Henley stroked his face thoughtfully, and he had the look of a man who +was making a polite effort to be resigned to disappointment. + +"Well, of course, I _had_ hoped that I might do much better than that," +he said finally, looking around at the anxious group, "but, as I said +at the start, I want to help you along. You know I said I'd contribute +five myself, so--to be accurate--we'd better call the price fifty-five. +Then I'll take what you've got in the treasury and call it even." + +There was a murmur and shuffle of released suspense throughout the hall. +The preacher beamed joyfully as he reached forward and shook Henley +warmly by the hand. + +"There's no use putting it to a vote," he said. "I'll take the +responsibility and accept your magnificent offer right now. Brethren, we +are in luck. A special providence seems to have been at work through the +whole thing. A vain and ungodly enterprise broke down in our midst, and +we are, by our act, directing streams of evil into channels of good. In +putting this tent to our use we will be turning over the tables of the +money-changers, and causing grain of righteousness to grow where tares +of evil flourished." + +As Henley walked homeward along the lonely road he mused: "I could have +run that crowd up to seventy-five as easy as not. They would have raked +up the balance, but I reckon a fellow ought to let well enough alone." + +Of all the denizens of Chester and its environs, no one had keener +enjoyment over the gossip concerning these various deals than Dixie +Hart. She had enough of the speculative tendency in her make-up to +heartily appreciate the situation in all its phases, and she was glad, +too, that her friend had found, so soon after his return home, such good +opportunities to exercise his rare gifts. She went into the store only a +day or two after the sale of the tent, and found Henley alone. + +"So you won out in that venture, after all?" she laughed. "And, if what +folks say is true, you made big money." + +"I'm not out of the woods yet," he smiled. "There is always a drawback, +you know." He pointed through the open doorway to the lion's cage on the +shoemaker's lot across the street. "I've still got that thing, and I'm +afraid it's going to be a white elephant. I'm sorry, too, for I'd like +to make a clean sweep, just because folks bet that I'd lose heavy. I'd +give the cage away if I could do it, but, like a fool, I went and said +that I'd show 'em that I could turn every item in the lot over at a +profit." + +"What are you asking for it?" Dixie inquired. + +"Twenty-five dollars," he replied. "If I can't sell it like it stands +I'll split it up an' use the iron some way or other." + +"It would be a pity to do that," the girl said, thoughtfully. "Let me +take a look at it." + +He stood in the doorway and watched her as she crossed the street in her +easy, graceful way, and then he saw her approach the lion's cage, turn +the bolt of the door, and look in, and heard the sound of her fist as it +rapped against the wooden sides. Then she disappeared. She had entered +the cage and was out of sight for several minutes. Emerging, she came +directly across the street to Henley, her head hanging thoughtfully, a +slight flush on her face. + +"You may think I've plumb lost my senses," she smiled, "but I want to +buy that thing. I've heard so much about your deals that I'm itching to +speculate some myself. You seem to have come to the end of your rope as +far as this cage is concerned, and I want to try my hand. They say two +heads is better 'n one, if one is a cabbage-head." + +"_You?_--good Lord, what could you do with it?" Henley gasped. + +"A heap of things," she retorted, lightly. "You've been offering it for +twenty-five dollars, and I'm going to take you up. I had just started to +the bank to deposit some money, and so I happen to have the ready +cash." + +She put her hand into her pocket and drew out a roll of bills, but +Henley held up his hand protestingly, and flushed red. + +"You don't spend your hard-earned money like that and through my foolish +example," he said. "I've had experience in all sorts of junk-handling, +and what I do is a different matter. Besides, I know there's no money to +be made out of that thing. I got the cream out of the deal, and I won't +let you throw money away." + +Jim Cahews came in at this moment, and, redder in the face than ever, +Henley explained the situation. + +"Alf's right, Miss Dixie," the clerk joined in. "You'd better take his +advice. If there was anything in that old pile of iron he'd have seen it +long ago." + +But her money was lying on the show-case before Henley's eyes, and she +had retreated to the door. + +"I've bought it," she insisted. "It's mine, and I'm going to make some +money out of it, too. I'm tired of working like a corn-field nigger for +puny profits, while you men make jokes here in the shade and get rich at +it." + +Henley refused to touch the money. His flush had given place to a look +of pained concern. + +"I can't--just can't let you do it!" he said. "Like a good many women, I +reckon, Dixie, you look at the dealings of men from the outside, and are +willing to go an' plunge into unknown waters and get ducked and leave +your money at the bottom. Profit ain't ever made by getting in at the +tail-end of another fellow's venture. I've squeezed this thing dry, +and--" + +"I'm a more experienced milker than you are," Dixie laughed, "and the +cage is mine. There's your money. It's mine, and if I make money out of +it I won't have you grumbling, either." + +Henley and Cahews exchanged glances of actual alarm. + +"What do you intend to do with it?" Henley almost snapped in his +impatience. + +"Did anybody ask you what you intended to do with it when _you_ bought +it?" Dixie asked. "You haven't any right to ask. But I'll tell you _one_ +thing. I'm not going to turn it into a corn-crib, though it would make a +dandy, and one that no nigger could steal from. I'm buying it to sell +for at least twice as much as I've paid for it, and I want you to watch +me. I've been tickled mighty nigh to death over your late deals, and I +want to amuse you. I know you'd like to see me make some money, and I'm +going to do it as sure as I'm knee-high to a duck." + +When she had gone Henley and Cahews stood in the doorway disconsolately +staring after her as she walked briskly down the street. + +"You see, Jim, I'm afraid I'm responsible for it," the storekeeper said, +with a frown. "She's got a long head for a woman in most matters, but +she's had it turned by watching this little game of mine. It is the +first time I've ever seen her fly off the handle at all. As a rule she's +very cautious, but, Lord, Lord, the idea of paying twenty-five dollars +for that thing! Why, if it gets out she'll be the laughing-stock of the +town." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The next morning when Henley arrived at the store, Cahews, who with a +face drawn long was standing at the front, pointed mutely at the lion's +cage. Henley looked and groaned. It bore a pasteboard placard, and the +words, in big, irregular capitals: + +FOR SALE. APPLY TO DIXIE HART. + +"She come in here yesterday evening after you'd gone," Cahews explained, +"and borrowed my marking-pot and brush. Then she had me get her the +pasteboard, and after she had painted the sign she took the nail-box and +hammer and went over there and tacked it up. A crowd of school-boys was +watching, and raised a laugh, but she come away without paying any +attention to them. I tried to get her to reason a little, and told her +the money was there in the drawer waiting for her to change her mind, +but she said she knowed exactly what she was about, and if I'd lie low I +might learn a trick or two in business methods." + +"She's off--she's away off!" Henley sighed. "And I'm plumb sorry, for +she is, in many other ways, as quick as a steel trap and bright as a new +dollar." + +One morning, two days later, as the storekeeper was at his desk in the +rear writing letters, his attention was called by a keen whistle from +Cahews, who stood in the front-door wildly signalling him to approach. +And going to the clerk, who was now on the front porch staring toward +the lion's cage, he saw that Seth Woods, the begrimed shoemaker, had +torn down the placard and stood looking into the cage. + +"He's mad about it, I'll bet," was Henley's troubled comment. "I reckon +folks have been guying him. That railroad man said he consented to let +me use the lot. Maybe he lied to close the trade." + +"Maybe he did," agreed Cahews; "but look! What do you make of that?" + +A negro man with the shoemakers bench on his shoulder had turned the +corner and was headed for the cage. "Put it inside an' go back for the +rest," they heard Woods order. + +Wonderingly, Henley strode across the street and reached the cage just +after the negro had put down the bench on the inside and was coming out +of the narrow doorway. + +"What's the meaning of this?" Henley inquired of the shoemaker. + +"Why," and a complacent smile broke through the grime on Woods's face, +"it means, Alf, that I'm at last my own landlord. I've been paying old +Welborne fifty dollars a year rent fer that little hole in a wall, away +back from the square, because I couldn't get enough ahead to build on +this lot or get any other shop. I think I've had a stroke of luck, and, +strange to say, it come through a woman. Yesterday evening Dixie Hart +come in my shop and axed me if I could straighten the heels of her shoes +while she set thar. I told her certainly, an' while I was at work we got +to talking first on one topic and then on another. She likes my wife an' +daughter, an' she said a good deal about 'em. She axed me if I had any +objections to lettin' this cage, which she said she had raked in from +you at a big bargain, to set on my lot till somebody come along and +bought it. I thought buyin' sech a thing was a powerful quar thing for a +young woman to do, but of course I didn't say so to her, for it wa'n't +any o' my business. Well, one thing fetched on another till she got to +lookin' about my shop while I was trimmin' the heel-taps, an' all at +once she wanted to know--if thar was no harm in axin'--what rent I was +payin'. I told 'er fifty dollars, an' she whistled kind o' keenlike an' +said: 'My gracious! an' got a vacant lot, too, right in the heart o' the +square.' I explained to her that I wasn't able to build a shop, an' was +afraid I never would be, gettin' old like I am an' so many to feed. +Then, Alf, what you think that gal said? As cool as a cucumber in a +spring branch, as she set thar wigglin' her toes in 'er stockin' feet, +she said: 'You'd better listen to me, an' I'll fix you so you won't have +_any_ rent to pay. That lion's cage, just at it stands, with the door +openin' on the sidewalk, would make the dandiest shoe-shop in seven +States. It's plenty wide and long; it is well-roofed with painted +sheet-iron, an' would be as tight in cold weather as a jar of preserves. +It faces every street that leads into the square, and you'd get twice as +much custom there as you do away back here next to this little pig-trail +alley.' By gum, what she said struck me like a bolt of lightnin'. I'd +examined the cage, as everybody else in town has, I reckon, an' I knowed +all about it, so I up an' axed 'er what she'd paid you for it, an' she +kind o' dodged my question. + +"'Has that got anything to do with it?' she axed, an' I told 'er, I did, +that I heard you was offerin' it fer twenty-five dollars. That seemed to +set 'er studyin' fer a minute, an' then she said: + +"'To tell you the truth, Mr. Woods, that _is_ all I had to pay, but I +got it, you mought say, at that figure by the very skin o' my teeth. In +a thoughtless moment Alf Henley said he'd take twenty-five, and, +knowing what it was railly worth, I yanked out the money on the spot and +laid it down. He's a gentleman'--she said--'Alf Henley is a plumb +gentleman, but he tried his level best to back down. Jim Cahews will +testify that I was actually obliged to leave the money on the counter +and walk out before he'd give in.' Is that so, Alf?" + +"I am obliged to say it is, Seth," Henley answered, flushing. "Some'n +like that actually _did_ take place." + +"I didn't think she'd fib about it," Woods went on, "and I finally axed +her what she'd take, an' she said nothin' less than fifty dollars cash +down would interest her, as she had a winter cloak to lay in, an' shoes +for three women, an' what not. + +"I told her fifty looked purty steep, but she throwed herself back an' +laughed hearty. She said my rent in the shop fer one year alone would +pay it, and after that I'd be a free man. She said in the summer I could +prop up both these flap sides, to cut off the sun, an' the wind would +blow clean through. She said the very oddity of the thing would draw +trade, that I could have the picture of the lion painted out an' a big +boot an' shoe put in place of it. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all she +said. She'd 'a' been talkin' till now if I hadn't traded: Besides, +betwixt me'n you, she give me a scare; you see I was afraid the thing +would slip through my fingers, fer she set in to talkin' about havin' it +moved to t'other side o' the square and rentin' it fer a barber-shop, +an' she 'lowed, too, that it would be a bang-up thing to sell to a +convict-camp to keep chain-gang prisoners in. + +"As a last resort, I axed her, I did, if she thought I ought to pay her +a clean hundred per cent. profit, an' she said: 'That ain't for you to +consider at all, Mr. Woods. You must jest let your mind rest on what +_you_ are goin' to get out of it. Alf Henley's made money out of it; I +must make my part, and you can do the same. It is the way business is +run all over the world. As soon as it becomes yours, somebody may come +along and pay you a hundred for it, though you'd be a fool to let it go +even at that. You are the one man in all the world that ought to hold on +to it.' She was right, Alf. I'm tickled over the change. I feel like a +new man. You ought to have seen old Welborne's face when I told 'im I +was goin' to vacate. He swore Dixie Hart was a meddlesome hussy, an' +that she had cheated the hindsight off of me. He said she owed him an' +was behind in her pay, an' that he was goin' to fetch 'er to taw." + +Henley went back to his desk. There was a flush on his brow. + +"Beat to a finish, and by a girl," he mused. "Here I've been thinking I +had nothing to learn about trading, and she picks up one of my remnants +and turns it over at a hundred per cent. profit as easy as knitting a +pair of socks. If I'd lived a hundred years I'd never have thought about +that shoe-shop." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Henley did not see Dixie Hart till a week had elapsed. He had started to +drive over to Carlton one morning, when he passed her as she was mending +a rail-fence round one of her fields which extended down to the road. +She had on a sunbonnet and heavy gloves, and stood in a dense patch of +prickly blackberry briers which reached to her shoulders. + +"That work's too hard for you," Henley greeted her cordially. "I've done +all sorts of jobs on a farm, from splitting rails to feeding a steam +thresher, and they are picnics beside what you are now at." + +"I believe you are right," she smiled, as she pushed back her bonnet and +exposed her red face and neck. "But I had to do it; the pigs have rooted +away the rotten rails next to the ground under these briers and got in +to my turnips and potatoes. But I've nearly finished, thank goodness." + +"I'm off for Carlton," he informed her. "I go every day or so now on +business. Is there anything I can do for you over there?" + +"There really is, Alfred." She parted the clinging briers and came quite +close to him in one of the fence corners which was infested with the +wild growth. She had drawn off her gloves, and now thrust a pink hand +into her pocket and got out a handkerchief, in a corner of which were +tied some coins. "I want you to step into the book-store and get me a +Second Reader--the sort they use in the public schools over there. It's +for little Joe. I'm learning him to read, and he's doing it as fast as a +dog can trot." + +"I wish you'd let me pay for the book," Henley ventured, as she put the +money into his hand. "You know I've got twenty-five dollars of your +cash, anyway. That old cage wasn't worth anything." + +"You mean I've got twenty-five dollars of _your_ money," she retorted. +"Why, I've been ashamed to look you in the face. I didn't act right +about it, and I hardly know why I done it. As a friend to you I ought to +have told you about the chance I saw and not set in to gain myself. I +don't feel right about it. I'd rather you'd have it--I can't feel like +it's mine. You'd made money out of all the other things, and you ought +to have made a clean sweep of the whole job." + +"You are forgetting two main things," he said, gravely, his eyes +averted. "You forget that you paid me all I asked for the blame thing, +and that if it hadn't been for you I'd not have been at the sale of the +circus, anyway." + +"You mean--" She flushed knowingly, and avoided his earnest gaze. + +"That you stopped me that night, and kept me from doing the biggest fool +thing a sensible man ever was guilty of. I've thanked you in my heart, +Dixie, thousands and thousands of times. It would have ruined me for +life, but you looked ahead and saw it and saved me." + +"Oh, well, that's past and gone," Dixie said, touched by a certain new +and deep quality in his voice. "I'll keep the money if you want me to. I +really need it. Old Welborne got hopping mad at me for ousting his +tenant, and simply rowed me up Salt River. Some day I may come to you +for legal advice. I want you to look over the document he got me to +sign. I want to know more about it than I do. There are too many +'aforesaids' and 'herebys' in it to suit me. I bought that farm with my +eyes shut. I was so anxious to own land that I was willing to take the +property on any terms. Welborne is getting to be like that old man in +the fairy-book that stuck to the feller's neck and never could be shook +off till he was made drunk. Welborne never touches a drop, you know, and +so he'll stick till death claims him. I'm in an awful mess. I work like +a slave from break of day till away after dark, and never seem to move a +peg toward any sort of landing-place." + +"You really ought to marry," Henley said. "That's exactly what you ought +to do. There's many a good man in the world that is actually suffering +for the need of the right sort of a helpmeet." + +"You hit the nail on the head that whack," she said, quite seriously. "I +know I'm better-looking now--when I'm fixed up, at least--than I will be +ten years later; and I've got sense enough to know that old maids don't +make natural-looking brides. No, I really ought to give the subject more +thought. I ain't acting in a businesslike way about it. I ought to put +myself on the market, but I let first one thing and then another +interfere, and now it seems to be little Joe. I think I've got a sort of +mother-love for him, Alfred. He works over in his field, and me in mine, +and when it's twelve o'clock I get out my dinner-bucket and call to him, +and we both go down to the spring and have a picnic. That's where I +learn him to read. If old Pitman was to get on to it I reckon he'd raise +a row. Joe fetches his pore little scraps of streak-o'-lean, +streak-o'-fat bacon an' hoe-cake along, but I make 'im throw the stuff +away. I don't know, but I believe I'd rather see that child's big, +hungry eyes as I open that bucket than to be admired by the handsomest +young man in the county. I don't know, though--I've never tried the +young-man part." + +"Yes, you ought to marry, Dixie." Henley, with the true feeling of a +gentleman that he ought not to sit while she stood, got out of his buggy +and leaned on the fence. "I'm going to confess that I've thought a lot +about that very thing since I got home, and, if I'm the judge I think I +am, I believe I've run across the very man for you." + +"You don't say!" Dixie cried, eagerly. "Well, well!" + +"You know I drive over to Carlton every now and then," Henley went on, +"and as Jim always has a few pounds of butter, a box or so of eggs, and +the like, to send, I take 'em to a store run by a young feller that I +always did like. Jasper Long is his name. He got his start by the +hardest licks that was ever dealt by a poor boy. He was a half-orphan, +and had to take care of his old mother till she died and left him all +alone. He drove a dray about town till he was twenty, and with money +he'd saved he set up for himself in business. He's the wonder of the +town now, for he made money hand over fist. He's hitched on a brick +warehouse to his shebang, and buys cotton when it reaches its lowest ebb +and holds it till it gets to the top--then he lets loose. Me and him are +pretty thick, and when I go over there either I have to eat with him at +the hotel or he does with me. Sometimes we toss up head-or-tails to see +who pays." + +"I've never seen him," Dixie said, quite interested, "but I've heard +about him. Carrie Wade said he come out to camp-meeting one Sunday, and +was pointed out as a big catch, but she said he was sort of clumsy and +awkward in his movements." + +"Carrie wouldn't think his gait was so bad if he was trotting at her +side," commented Henley. "But Long's all right; he's honest, and +straight as a shingle. I'd trust him to act square in any deal, and +that's a lot to say these times. He ain't had much to do with women. You +see, they've got a sort of stuck-up society crowd over there that don't +think he's quite the thing, and so he's out of what you might call the +_elyte_. His sort are the kind that always count in any struggle, +though. He bunks in a big, wide bed in the back end of his store, and +one night when I had to lie over there because the river was out o' +banks he made me sleep with him. That was the time I advised him to +marry. It pleased him powerful, and he up and told me that he'd been +giving the matter considerable thought and investigation. He said that +every now and then it would occur to him that precious time was passing, +but that he'd been so busy he'd not had time to go at it right. He said +that most of the women on any list of the kind he'd seen was fussy and +looked lazy and thriftless. Then he come right out and asked me if I +happened to know a suitable candidate, and--well, Dixie, I couldn't hold +in. I talked as earnest as a preacher at a ranting revival. I had his +eye and I helt it clean through. I described you to him and--" + +"You did?" Dixie laid an eager hand on his arm and laughed merrily, +"What did you say? Tell me exactly. I won't let you leave till you do. +Tell me, Alfred." + +"Oh, I couldn't do that, Dixie!" Henley flushed to his hat. "I'd make a +botch of it. I could talk to him, but I couldn't to you--at least--at +least not on that line." + +"But you've _got_ to do it!" the girl insisted. "I want to hear it. I've +always wanted to know what a man would say about me behind my back. I +know what women will say, for they will tell you to your teeth exactly +what they will behind your back, only worse, if they can possibly do it. +Try to remember exactly what you said." + +Henley's blood burned fiercely in his tanned face. "I couldn't tell you +like I did him, and I hain't going to try. I ain't made that way--some +men are, but I ain't." + +"You are afraid I'll feel bad about it, I see," the girl said, with +well-assumed severity, and she glanced aside that he might not read the +look of conscious power in her eyes. "You and me have been such stanch +friends that you hate to tell me what a poor opinion you have of me and +my looks. I see. I see. Well, I hain't got no right to think anybody +would think well of me--you least of all." + +"Shucks! If you'd heard me you'd never complain," Henley burst forth. "I +told him you was the prettiest thing that ever wore shoe-leather; that +you had hair of a reddish-brownish mixture that no man could begin to +describe, and eyes so big and deep and drawing-like that a feller +couldn't look in 'em without wondering what they was made of, and cheeks +and lips as red and ripe and laughing as--" + +"That will do," Dixie laughed, pleasurably. "You was determined to trade +me off, and you went at it like I was a horse you was trying to get rid +of for more than he was worth. Well, what else did you say?" + +"Why, I told 'im about your awful struggle against adversity; about the +hold old Welborne had on you; about your mother and aunt being helpless +on your hands, and about how you wanted to add to it all by helping +Pitman's bound boy. But when I told him the other day about the way you +bought and sold that lion's cage I thought he would bust wide open. He +throwed himself back agin the counter and yelled and clapped his hands. +Said he: + +"'Alf, that's the woman for me. Every trading man, needs a partner like +her. Such women as her are the mothers of kings and presidents and great +geniuses. _My_ mother was that way; she made me what I am.' And then he +railed out against conditions that could make you undergo so much +hardship, and said he'd just love to give a girl like you a good home +that you could keep neat and clean and in apple-pie order. He said his +life was lonely, and that he wanted to see a smiling face at the window +when he got home after work. He says he's able to build as good a house +as any man in Carlton, and that he already owns a corner lot on Tilbury +Avenue, the swell street of the town. The truth is, he wants to take a +look at you powerful bad, and I promised him, if it was possible, that I +would--" + +"Well, I don't know about that," Dixie objected suddenly, and her pretty +brow wrinkled. "You know what they say about a burnt child. I've already +as good as offered myself to one chap. I didn't come up to requirements, +and I don't want to do it again. What you'd say to _him_ about me and +what he'd actually _think_ are two different things. If I was to meet +him and I saw from his looks that he didn't think much of your judgment +I'd hate you both and feel like scratching your eyes out. I'd make a +sensible man a good wife, and I'd do my part; but I'll be hanged if I'll +walk up to him wearing a 'For Sale' tag. What you say is mighty +interesting, and I may let it bother me a good deal, for a woman owes it +to herself to look out for number one, but there is a line of +self-respect that a woman can't cross. I'm in an awful mess, and I'd +marry to get out of it. You may say what you please about me to him, but +that's as far as I'll go." + +"You don't think you could send the poor chap some word or other?" +Henley ventured, at the end of his diplomacy, as he got into his buggy +and took up the reins. + +"No, I don't," was the thoughtful answer. "He's a friend of yours, and +you recommend him high enough, but we hain't been introduced, and to +take any step beforehand on _my_ side would be unbecoming of a lady, and +that's what I am." + +"Yes--of course, and you know best," said Henley, as he clucked to his +horse, "but Long will be powerfully disappointed. He's got sort of +keyed up over this thing, and it has gone and unsettled him. I reckon +he's got a pretty picture of you in his mind, and keeps it before him +all the time." + +"That's it," said Dixie. "And I wouldn't like to see it turn to a chromo +on his hands. I know what I look like to myself, but I wouldn't expect +to suit every taste." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +That evening, just after dark, when Henley drove his horse into his +barn-yard, he saw Dixie over in her own lot milking her cow. She was a +brave, erect little figure as she stood in the soft, black loam. "So, +so!" she was saying in her sweet, persuasive voice to the restless +animal. "Can't you stand still and keep that pesky fly-brush out of my +eyes? Them hairs cut like so many knives when they are flirted about +like a wagon-whip. You may as well let me get that milk out of your bag. +It will give you trouble through the night if you don't." + +Henley turned his horse into one of the stalls, and fed him with fodder +and corn in the ear, and came and leaned on the fence behind her. She +was now crouched down beside the cow; he could see her brown, tapering +arms and wrists against the cow's flank, and hear the milk as it ran +into her tin pail with a sharp, intermittent sound. Above the back of +the cow, of which she seemed a part in the thickening darkness, loomed +up her cottage. There was a yellow light in the kitchen from a bank of +blazing logs in the wide-open fireplace. Henley waited till she had +finished and stood up. + +"Hard at it," he jested. "Day or night, it's all the same to you. I +wonder if you work when you are asleep." + +"Huh," she laughed, as she advanced toward him, her pail swinging by her +side. "This is my reception-day, and this is my parlor. Won't you come +in and set awhile? Take that rocking-chair over near the piano--or +maybe you'd rather smoke in the bay-window, where you can get fresh +air." + +"What's the joke now?" he inquired. "I'm not exactly on." + +"Why, you see, you are the second beau I've had right here in the mud, +and with these dirty clothes on, in the last ten minutes." + +"The second?" he said, wondering what she was driving at. + +"Yes," she made answer, as she rested her pail at her feet and stood +smiling blandly at him. "Hank Bradley has just left. He come over to +invite me to go with a party of girls and boys to the Springs day after +to-morrow. I wish I knew exactly what to do in a case like that. I want +to go--my! I want to go so bad I hardly know what to do. Mother and Aunt +Mandy both think I ought to accept such invitations. I know folks talk +about Hank, and say all sorts of things about girls he goes with. But he +says he has quit drinking and gambling and wants to settle down. His +sister, Mrs. Bailey, is going along to give respectability to it, and it +is to be a great blow-out. I've never been on such a trip; they say +there is a lot of fashionable Atlanta folks at the hotel, and a fine +band, a ten-pin alley, and a lawn-tennis court, and I hardly know what +all." + +"Hank Bradley? Good gracious!" Henley said, but he could think of +nothing further that would voice the protestations running wildly +through his brain. + +"Oh, I see you'll oppose it, too," she sighed. "I reckon I've just been +trying to make myself believe I ought to go. Hank begged so hard, +and--and said such nice things about liking me. I reckon almost any girl +would want to believe even a fellow like him, if she'd been a +wall-flower all her life, and somehow didn't think she ought to be." + +"But did you accept--did you? That's the main thing," Henley asked, and +his eyes were fixed on her mobile face where the pink shadows chased one +another beneath her long, drooping lashes. + +"No, not positive," she said. "I simply couldn't get rid of him to do my +work without saying something; so I agreed to talk it over with my folks +and let him know after supper. He is to send a man over for the answer. +I already see my finish--I see it in the way you are staring at me right +now." + +"He ain't for you, Dixie," Henley answered, decidedly. "You said once +that you looked on me like a big brother. Well, if your brother was to +see you driving off that way beside that man--that _sort_ of a man--he'd +be miserable. I can't do much to show my interest and friendship--though +I've tried hard to think of some way. I know you deserve more than has +come to you. You are young and full of life, and bright and pretty--so +pretty that you'd be the main one in any cluster, and it is hard to +think you have to pass your days as you do. But Hank Bradley ain't the +one to extend a hand. He ain't--God knows he ain't." + +"I know it; you needn't say another word." The girl came nearer. The +moon was out now in a clear sky, and its rays fell athwart her face and +gleamed in the gold of her abundant tresses. His hand was resting on the +top rail of the fence, and she laid her own on it reassuringly. "Don't +bother, big brother," she said, in a deep, trembling tone. "I'll write +him that I can't go. I'd not enjoy a minute of it knowing that your +judgment was against it. Let's not talk about it. Let's talk about +something else. I've been thinking all day about that Carlton +storekeeper." + +"Your ears must have burned." Henley betrayed his relief by the free +breath he drew. "I saw him over there, and we talked about you for an +hour on a stretch. I wasn't going to see him, but he heard I was in +town and sent his porter after me. He wanted to see me about you." + +"_Me?_ That's funny, if you ain't joking." + +"I ain't joking," Henley declared. "He said he'd been unable to get his +mind on business like he used to. He says, from what I've told him, that +he knows just how you look. He pinned me down again about fetching you +over there; and when I told him that you felt sort of backward about +taking such a step, he seemed more tickled than set back. He said he'd +seen so many women that throwed theirselves at him and interfered with +his movements that the hold-off sort was just what he was looking for. +He went on and told me about the old maids that knitted socks for him, +and the giddy young ones that tittered and looked at him out of the +corners of their eyes whenever he passed, and how many widows and +mothers of gals was trading at his store now that hadn't before, and how +much bother they all was in refusing to let his clerks wait on 'em, and +was always coming back to his desk to make him get what they needed." + +"Shucks, I'll bet he's had his head turned," was Dixie's comment. "Well, +he needn't think he's the whole show; they wouldn't do him that away if +he didn't have money. Well, I needn't criticise them, for, as good as I +think I am, I don't reckon I'd give him a second thought if he was just +a farm-hand at seventy-five a day. Money adds a lot to a person, and I +reckon if a girl went about it right and as a matter of duty she could +love a rich man as quick as a poor one." + +"Well, I simply couldn't head 'im off," Henley resumed. "I couldn't get +around his arguments. He said there was a way you and him could meet +without compromising your pride, and that was this: he said me and you +was good friends, and that if I wanted to make you pass a pleasant day +I could invite you to drive over there next Saturday week and see the +fire tournament that is to be held." + +"Well, he's got cheek enough, I must say," Dixie said. "I reckon he +might let you run your own business and extend your own invites. It +ain't for him to up and dictate to you--huh! I say!" + +"But, you see, I'd already told him that I'd enjoy fetching you over at +any time. You see, he knowed it would be a pleasure to me. I'm going +over, anyway, and your company the ten miles and back would be a sight +better than being alone." + +"Well, that's different," said Dixie, "and I really would enjoy the +trip. But it would have to be fully understood that I went just with +you, and was not going along to exhibit myself, to see if I'd suit him +or not." + +"Good!--now you've hit it!" Henley laughed. "It will be fun all round. +I'm going again to-morrow, and I'll tell him to be--I'll tell him me and +you have decided to take in the tournament." + +"Yes, put it that way," said Dixie, and she took up her pail. "It may be +a flash in the pan, and I'd hate everybody in creation--you included--if +I was accused of--of missing fire the _second time_!" + +They both happened to glance toward the cottage, and standing framed in +the kitchen doorway with a background of light they saw a mute and +motionless figure. + +"It's little Joe!" Henley exclaimed. "Wait, I forgot what you sent me +for." He went to his buggy and returned with a parcel. "I got the Second +Reader, and I had the man put in a Geography-book full of pretty maps +and pictures. I thought maybe Joe would--" + +"He'll be tickled to death," Dixie cried, as she reached for the parcel. +"The poor little fellow is watching us now. I told him you'd bring it +to-night, and he's been down several times to see if you was back. It's +awfully sweet of you, Alfred, to think of the Geography. I need it +myself, and me and Joe'll study it together. If that thing we was +talking about should happen to go through, the first move I'd make would +be to try to get that boy out of Pitman's clutch. I love 'im--he's so +gentle and patient that I can't help it." + +They heard a step behind them, and, turning, they saw old Wrinkle +peering at them through the dark as he stood near the barn. + +"If that's you, Alf," he called out, "you'd better come on to supper. +After a square meal at the Carlton Hotel you may look on our fare as +purty pore stuff. But you may choke it down. It's gettin' cold; the +grease in the beef hash is turnin' to tallow, an' the bread was baked +yesterday an' is as hard as a brick." + +"All right; I'm with you," Henley said, good-naturedly, as he saw Dixie +hurrying away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +On the morning set for the excursion to Carlton, Henley went down to the +stable and harnessed and hitched his horse to his buggy. Old Jason, who +was with him, made no offer to assist with the various buckles and +straps, but stood leaning in the barn-door chewing tobacco. He was +sufficiently courteous, however--as Henley started away with the remark +that he was going to give Dixie Hart a lift over to Carlton and back--to +slouch in front, his hands in his pockets, his tousled head bared to the +slanting rays of the sun, and open the big gate. + +Reaching the front-door of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley had only a +minute to wait. Mrs. Hart, followed by her sister with an arm in a +sling, came down the steps with a mincing step, her weak eyes shaded by +her thin hand, and approached him. + +"It's powerful good of you to take my daughter," she said, in grateful +tones. "She has so little pleasure in her life, and she's been wanting +to go to Carlton for a long time. A place even as much like a city as +that is, kind o' interests a young girl. She's always reading about the +doings over there among the rich folks." + +"I'll see that nothing happens to her, and fetch her back safe," he +promised. Then Dixie emerged from the house wearing her best dress, a +white muslin, immaculately clean and well ironed, and adorned by broad, +pink ribbons which heightened her complexion. Her hat was new and most +becoming, and as she rustled out to the gate he felt a thrill of pride +in having such a presentable companion. She touched her mother playfully +under the chin and kissed her on the cheek. + +"Now, Muttie," she said, "you've got to be on your good behavior while +I'm off or I'll switch you good when I get back. I have put the exact +feed for the horse in his trough, and pumped the tub full of water, and +you only have to let down the stable-door bars at twelve and he'll do +the rest. The chicken-feed is already mixed in the dish-pan, and you +only have to tilt it out of the kitchen-window and they'll divide it +amongst 'em." + +"Oh, I can attend to everything!" Mrs. Hart remarked to Henley. "I +reckon you've found out that she's a regular case." + +"Case or not," Dixie broke in, as Henley was smiling and nodding his +response, "I'm not through yet. If I don't tell you, you'll be begging +for something to eat amongst the neighbors. Your dinner is already +cooked and the coffee made. All you'll have to do is to set it on the +coals and warm it up. The sugar is right at the coffee-pot, and the +cream is in the spring-house to keep it from souring. + +"I didn't dare hint to 'em about--about that Carlton fellow," Dixie +said, in a confidential tone, as they drove away. She was holding her +big hat on to keep it from blowing off in the crisp current of their own +making. + +"You didn't?" he said, interrogatively, charmed as he had never been +before by her propinquity and vivaciousness. + +"Not after being sold as bad as I was by letting them know about that +other scrape," she laughed, as she glanced at him archly. "Why, they +would meet us a mile out on the road to-night--the halt leading the +blind--to know every particular. No, I've been burnt once, and I don't +want a second coat of blisters." + +"You certainly look stunning." Henley allowed his admiring eyes to take +her in from head to foot. "You needn't be one bit afraid of what that +galoot will say. I tell you I've been about over the country and I know +a thing or two." + +"Well, I've got my all on my back," she said--"that is, except my +wedding outfit. I don't know how I'll ever get my money out of it. I've +thought about selling it, but nobody of my size seems to be marrying +round here. Even if _this_ thing is a go--I mean even if me and Mr. Long +_do_ come to terms--I don't believe I'd feel just right in using it. It +would be sort o' like marrying in widow's weeds, wouldn't it?" + +They were now passing Farmer Wade's house, on the edge of the village, +and they saw Carrie on the veranda-steps with Johnny Cartwright at her +side. The couple stood close together, and Henley saw that the boy was +holding Carrie's hands and gazing at her ardently. Seeing the passing +buggy, Carrie suddenly drew herself back and stared at them curiously. +There was no salutation from either side, and Henley drove on, noting +that Dixie kept her eyes on the pair till they were out of sight. + +"I thought I'd give her a good, straight look," she said, "so she'd see +that I wasn't doing anything I am ashamed of. I know that girl through +and through, and you mark my words, Alfred, she'll be low enough to +throw out hints about me driving with a young, married man like you. The +way she's acting with that poor silly boy is disgusting. His poor old +mother is so upset she's talking to everybody about it. She is afraid +Carrie will actually run off with him, and Carrie will, too, if she gets +a good chance--she's just that desperate. It's funny how mean, spiteful +folks can make other people the same way. Right now, I'd rather have +this Long man come out here and take me to meeting where Carrie could +see it than to do a kind deed of any sort." + +After this, to Henley's mystification, she did not talk as freely as at +the outset, and she seemed to be very thoughtful. As they were driving +into the bustling town, she looked at him fixedly and said: + +"The papers say the programme don't begin till eleven o'clock. That's +the hour set for the first race with the reel-wagons. I was just +wondering what we'd better do to kill time till then. I hain't got a +thing to buy that you hain't got in your stock at home, and I hain't a +person to go in and nose about and have clerks pull down a whole raft of +bolts and boxes without paying for the trouble. You see, I reckon it +ain't later 'n nine o'clock now, and--" + +"Oh, I see," said Henley. "Why, Dixie, I sort o' mapped it out this way. +You see, knowing how anxious Long will be to meet you right off, I +thought we'd drive straight to his shebang and 'light and hitch. He's +got a chair or two in the back-end of his shack, and we could kind o' +set about, and when he ain't waiting on customers, why, we--" + +"I thought you had more sense than that," Dixie burst out with +unexpected warmth. "_You_ can go there if you like, but I won't go a +step! Huh, I say--I _would_ cut a purty dash, wouldn't I?--setting +around amongst chicken-coops, lard-cans, and salt pork for a fool, vain +man to look me over and sniff and feel set back because I didn't happen +to--to come quite up--shucks! I don't believe any of you men understand +women. Huh! but we understand _you_ all right." + +"I'm awfully sorry I made you mad," Henley stammered. "You know, Dixie, +I wouldn't say a thing for worlds that would--" + +Dixie laughed. "You couldn't make me mad at you to save your life, +Alfred. I'm mad at myself, that's all, for starting out on such a silly +jaunt. I might have knowed that it would be hard to put this thing +through in any decent shape. I don't care what Long'll say or think. I +come over here to this tournament with you, at your invite, and if he +shows by a single bat of the eye that he thinks I meant anything else +he'll hear something that will ring in his ears till he's put under +ground. I reckon the idea never got within a mile of his brain that he +may not suit _me_ at all. Why, I may hate the very sight of him." + +"You no doubt will if you keep on looking at the thing that way," said +Henley, admiring the very mystery that cloaked her words and manner, and +quite convinced that she was wiser, in some vague way, at least, than +all the rest of mankind put together. "I only thought that would be the +best way to start the ball rolling." + +"Well, it won't start at all if I have to tote it to the top of a hill +and give it the first kick," Dixie said, firmly. "I'm a big fool. I'll +bet you haven't a bit of respect for me. That other racket of mine was +enough to brand me as the champion woman idiot of the earth, and this +goes that one better. What's the use o' being a fool if you don't learn +sense by it?" + +"Oh, don't talk that way, Dixie," Henley protested, at the end of his +resources. "I thought we was going to have such a fine time, and now you +hardly know what you want. If you won't go to his store, then I'll tell +you what we could do. The public wagon-yard is the best place to see the +tournament from. I could unhitch at the edge of the sidewalk in the +shade of the trees, and you'd have a reserved seat through it all." + +"That's _some_ better, anyway," she said, as if relieved. "I come near +showing my temper, didn't I? Well, I've got one hid away inside of me, +and it kicks up sand sometimes when I'm least expecting it." + +Leaving his sprightly charge in the buggy watching the gathering of the +festive crowd and listening to the blatant music of the town band from +the balcony of the Carlton House, Henley, making some excuse about +having to mail a letter, hastened round a corner and down to Long's +store. + +The young man, in his best suit of clothes and with the odor of bay-rum +in his smooth, compact hair, and the barber's powder on his +razor-scraped face, was busy giving instructions to his chief clerk. + +"Don't come to me to ax a single question," Henley overheard him saying. +"This is _one_ day I simply will have off. If there is anything you +don't know about, let it lie over--tell 'em I'm on the committee of +entertainment, tell 'em any darned thing you want to, but don't bother +me. Oh!" He had caught sight of Henley, who stood half hidden by a stack +of soap-boxes, and came forward, his face falling. "My Lord, Alf, don't +tell me you didn't fetch her in!" he panted. "Good Lord, don't say +that!" + +Henley grinned and explained the situation, much to the storekeeper's +relief. + +"It don't railly make any great difference." Long twisted his small +mustache under its coat of pomade till the ends looked like facial +spikes, and pulled at his white waistcoat. "I had a nigger make a bucket +of lemonade with ice in it, and left an order at the hotel for three of +the best meals they know how to put up. I supply the shebang with +produce, and I stand in with 'em. They would spread themselves for me. I +was counting on having us all three eat in my back-room. I wanted to do +exactly the right thing, you see, so she'd know at the outset that I +understand how to make a woman comfortable, and that I ain't a man to +split hairs when it comes to a little outlay." + +"The back-room wouldn't suit at all." Henley was already a wiser man +than when he left home that morning. "I wouldn't think of asking her or +any decent woman to eat in a room where you bunk, or where anybody +bunks, for that matter--male or female." + +"I'll just countermand that order, then," Long said, "and we'll all go +to the hotel. We'll see the fust part of the show from the buggy, and +then repair to the big dining-room and have our banquet." + +"I think she'd really like that," Henley declared, "but I'm going to +give you both the slip and take dinner with Judge Temple's folks. They +made me promise to come the next time I was in; besides, I want to give +you both full swing on this day of days." + +"Right you are," Long rubbed his heavy hands together in delight, "and +you may have the worth of your meal in the finest cigars in my shebang. +Alf, you are my friend. Let's go down where she's at. To tell you the +God's holy truth, man to man, I don't feel half as good as I make out. +It wouldn't take the weight of a hair to make me show the white feather. +I have a sort of forewarning that I ain't agoing to walk straight into +this thing. If she'd 'a' driv' right up to the front, and got out and +gone back to the rear and set down and looked about like she was taking +stock of my belongings, I'd have knowed how to proceed, but this way of +having to walk a plank that she's propped up has made me sorter weak at +the knees. How do I look, anyway--honest, I don't want any flattery? If +you think I'd look better in my silk plug-hat and long Prince Albert I +can whisk 'em on in a jiffy." + +"You are just right." Henley charitably viewed the individual from his +own point rather than that of the over-critical Dixie. "In hot sun like +this to-day your straw hat will look better, and that sack coat fits +like a kid glove." + +"I sorter thought this would be the thing." Long bent down and for the +twentieth time dusted his shoes with his handkerchief. "Now get them +cigars." He led the way to a show-case near the front. "Help +yourself--them's the genuine Havana fillers in the corner. Take good +ones--by George, take the best." + +"I won't take but one," Henley said, as he opened the case and reached +for a cigar. "I don't like to collect pay in advance; and while I don't +want to throw cold water on you, Long, I'm free to confess I don't know +exactly how she'll act. I always knowed women was curious, but they are +more curious about selecting a mate than everything else combined. When +I was talking this meeting up at such a rate, I thought I could count on +'er; but, la me! she's got me so mixed that I don't know whether I'm a +Methodist preacher or an escaped convict. But let's go down. I want to +see what _you'll_ make of her." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +As the two friends approached the buggy, Dixie, who had seen them, +suddenly turned her head in an opposite direction and seemed to be +laughing immoderately at the beginning of a barrel-race. To attract her +attention Henley cleared his throat and coughed. But whether she heard +he never knew. At all events she was heartily amused, as was evidenced +by her free laughter and the sparkle of her merry eyes. As it was, +Henley reached the buggy and clutched the front wheel and shook it, +while, with his left hand, he held Long's arm in a nervous grasp. + +"Oh, it's you!" she said, sweeping him with a careless glance and +allowing her eyes to be drawn back at once to the racers. "Ain't it fun? +You ought to have seen that boy try to climb the greasy pole just now. +He put sand all over his pants to make 'em rough, but he could only go +so high, and there he stopped, unable to budge a hair's-breadth. He hung +to it for a minute, as red as blood in the face, and then begun to slide +down as slow as the hour-hand of a clock till he sat flat on the +ground." + +"I fetched Mr. Long down; you know--you may remember he wanted to meet +you," Henley stammered, under a restraint that was new to him. And, as +the couple stared at each other, he finished with a gulp--"Mr. Jasper +Long, Miss Dixie Hart--Miss Dixie Hart, Mr. Jasper Long." + +Dixie was polite and absolutely unruffled, while Long was one straight +flush from head to foot. "Come--come over to see our brag show?" he +stuttered, with an untoward jerk of the body, for he had tried to put +his foot on the hub of the wheel and missed it. It was a bow so +pronounced that Long's hat was dislodged and hurled to the ground. In +his shocked sympathy for his friend, Henley was bewildered by noting +that Dixie was actually subduing a laugh, her rebellious lips covered +with her white-gloved hand. Long secured his hat, drew himself up, and +repeated his platitude. + +"I thought I would," she said, now gravely studying his face, his hair, +his clothing, and his broad, restless hands, on the backs of which +rather long hairs lay beaded with perspiration. "Alfred was coming +along, and as I have never been to a tournament before, and as he was so +set on bringing me, I decided to make the trip. I've heard him speak of +you. You are in the bank, ain't you?" + +"Why, no, Miss Dixie--" Henley began, but there was a certain warning +quality darting from her eyes, now fixed on him, that broke into his +puzzled correction, and then he caught the drift of her harmless +pretence and obliterated himself with a low grunt of perplexity. + +"Why, no, I'm _J. W._ Long, of the 'Live and Let Live Grocery,'" the +merchant said. "The other feller is _L. A._ I've had circulars scattered +broadcast all over your county. Looks like you'd have seen some of 'em. +I believe in lettin' folks know you are alive and in the push. I'm +surprised that Alf didn't tell you about me and my business, even if you +hain't heard it from others over your way or through the papers." + +"There are some Longs that rented land from me a few years ago," Dixie +said, evasively. "I wonder if they are akin to you. Seems to me, now I +think of it, that you favor 'em some." + +"They may be away-off fourth or fifth cousins, I don't really know." +Long looked as if he thought the conversation had taken quite an +unprofitable turn. "I never was much of a hand to keep track of far-off +kin. Folks is liable to want credit on a score like that, and think they +never have to settle." + +Then the colloquy languished. Henley was plainly not a success as a +manager of delicate situations. What puzzled him beyond any mystery he +had ever stumbled on in the intricate make-up of his charming neighbor +was her evident cool and detached enjoyment of his and Long's +awkwardness. At any rate, he reflected with satisfaction, he could +extricate himself from the tangle, and in that, at least, he felt that +he had the advantage of Long. + +"I see an old fellow over there at that covered wagon that was bantering +me for a hoss-trade the other day," he courageously threw into the gap. +"I believe I'll go see how he talks now. There will be a sight of +hoss-flesh change hands to-day. I understand there's a gypsy camp in the +edge o' town, and they are the dickens on a swap." + +"Hold on a minute!" Long called out, as Henley was moving off, his hat +lifted. "I want to see you." + +Henley pulled up a few yards away, behind Dixie's back, and Long joined +him. + +"Are you going to leave me the bag to hold?" Long asked, in a tone of +blended gratification and nervousness. + +"I don't see that I'm doing you one bit of good," Henley answered, +gravely. "This is your day of grace. If you can't fix things up after +what I've done we'll have to call it off. I've done my part. I fetched +her here, but I can't make women out, and I don't intend to try. Life is +too short. When I get bothered about what a woman's going to do or not +do I want to get blind, staving drunk; it always has that effect on me, +and you know I'm inclined to sobriety." + +"The trouble is, I don't know whether I'm welcome or not," Long +declared, grimly. "I have never felt exactly that way before. Do you +reckon she'd look with favor on the invite to dinner at the hotel?" + +"You bet she will!" Henley was more sure of his ground now. "Cooking and +fixing up the table is a woman's joy, and they'll go just to see what +hotel fare is like, and, as a rule, they will sample every article +that's passed." + +"Well, I'll risk it on your judgment, Alf. You've stood by me so far +like a man and a brother, and I don't believe you'd set a trap for me to +tumble in." + +"Not me," answered Henley. "But I was wondering what you think of her +looks; men differ in tastes, and--" + +"Shucks!" Long sniffed. "You needn't ask me that. That'ud be a fool +question for a blind man to ask. Why, Alf, she is the stunningest trick +that ever wore shoe-leather. She's so dadblamed purty I can't look her +straight in the face. There is some'n in her eyes and the way she sets +and bends her neck an' cocks 'er head that makes me feel like one of the +chaps in olden times that knelt on a strip of carpet at a queen's +throne. But it ain't just her looks and trim shape and nobby little +feet--it's the woman herself, by gosh! She looks clean through a feller; +what she says goes from her as straight as a gun-shot. Well, I'll hurry +back and do the best I can. I'm having a big time, Alf--a big, roaring +time." + +All the rest of the morning, as he strolled here and there through the +merry assemblage, Henley managed to keep the pair in sight. Long kept +the same position, his right foot on the hub of the wheel, his face +upturned to Dixie's. It was the passing of the local military company +and the surging of the spectators forward that gave Long a valuable +opportunity, for he got into the buggy and sat beside the girl. Henley +could see him lashing the air over the dashboard with his whip in a +most reckless manner. + +"The blame fool!" Henley ejaculated. "He's wearing out that whip. I +wonder if he thinks I buy the best whalebone for him to court with. +She'd like 'im better if he'd set still, anyway, and not be cavorting +about like a jumping-jack." + +Noon came, and Henley saw the pair alight from the buggy and walk across +to the hotel. Thereupon he betook himself to the house of his friends, +and had his own dinner. When it was time to start home he went down to +the wagon-yard. He found them seated in the buggy, and, to his surprise, +he saw nothing in the manner of either to indicate that any sort of +understanding had been reached. + +"I reckon it's time we was on the way," Henley announced to her, as he +shaded his eyes and glanced at the declining sun. + +"Yes, it's high time," Dixie answered, crisply. "I was wondering where +on earth you was. I'll have to pay for this jaunt, and the sooner I set +in to my work at home the better it will be for me." + +Long made elaborate excuses to Dixie for absenting himself, and followed +Henley to where his horse was hitched. + +"Well," said Henley, as he was putting the collar on the animal, "how +did you make out?" + +"I hardly know, Alf." Long looked very grave. "There is no use saying +she is exactly the thing I am looking for, but, as much as I've seen of +her to-day, I don't know any more'n a rabbit what my showing is. She +ain't a bit like these town-women; you _can_ sorter get at them, for +they are on the carpet, and they don't make no beans about it. But this +un has a way of making you watch every step you take and every word you +speak. I've been in the habit of having women folks listen to all I +say, and laugh hearty now and then, but this un has her eyes on +everything that is passing, and seems to me to laugh at the wrong time, +when there ain't the slightest call for amusement. I reckon maybe I'd +have made more progress if we'd been where thar wasn't so much to +attract her attention. I don't know--I'm just guessing. But I'm game to +the backbone, Alf, and I'm in the race. You hear me? I'm in to stay." + +"That's the way to talk," Henley agreed. "A woman that ain't hard to win +ain't worth having. These town-gals are after your money; it is my +opinion that this one will have to like you a powerful lot before she +gives up her freedom." + +"She's as independent as a hog on ice." Long smiled, but not at his +simile. "I hardly knowed what to do when we got to the hotel. I thought +she was accepting my invite, you see, when, lo and behold, at settling +time she drawed out her money and insisted on planking down her part to +a fraction of a cent. I argued as strong as I knowed how agin it, but +nothing would do her but to pay her way. I feel mean about that, Alf. +What would _you_ have done?" + +"Why, it's the part of a gentleman to let a lady have her way in _every +single thing_," Henley opined. "If she asks you to get her a drink of +water, she wants it; and if she asks to pay her bill at a hotel, she +wants that; to accuse her of anything else would be prying into her +private matters. If she didn't want to eat at your expense the first day +she was throwed with you--well, that was her business. I think it is +spunky, myself. I reckon you didn't come right out and talk marrying?" +Henley ended with a rather anxious look at his friend. + +"No, Alf, I was afraid to--I don't know why, but, as much as I wanted to +ease my mind on the matter, I just couldn't get it out. It seemed to +lodge in my throat; in fact, I was scared half the time. Every time I'd +say a thing, no matter how little, I'd wonder if it injured my case or +not. Alf, I'm a goner--a clean goner. I'll never have a minute's peace +till she's mine. It's going to be slow work. I asked her if I couldn't +drive out to see her next Sunday, but she wouldn't hear to it. She +finally said I could come on the first Sunday of next month to hear a +brag preacher that is billed to appear for the first time on that date. +It's a dern long time to wait, but she's laid down the law, and I'll +have to obey it." + +During the drive home Dixie seemed wilfully uncommunicative, and she and +Henley were silent most of the way. As they were on the brow of the hill +overlooking Chester, however, she drew a deep breath and said: "Well, +Alfred, I certainly had a bang-up time. Carrie Wade may make her brags +of how she runs things, but I certainly had a rip-roaring time." + +"But," ventured Henley, his eyes on the jostling back of his horse, +"from what Long intimated--at least from what he hinted--it appears that +you and him didn't come to any, that is to say, any _positive_ +agreement." + +The girl laughed heartily, covering her face with both hands, and bent +downward. + +"You men are so silly, Alfred. You want an important thing like that to +be over in a minute, while a woman--a woman naturally would like for it +to last. If that fellow could insure me, in some shape or other, that +he'd keep acting and talking like he did to-day, _after we was married_, +I'd be more interested than I am. But hot-headed ones like him cool down +about as quick as they get het up. As a general thing the marriage altar +seems to rest on a big cake of ice, and overheated couples catch colds +that make 'em sniff the rest of their lives." + +"I've been waiting to hear you say how he--what you thought of Long's +looks," stammered the match-maker; "that always seems the main thing +in--in a deal o' this sort." + +"Well," she chuckled, "I'm better at making rag-dolls than men, but if +men-making was my trade I think I could have turned out a better job +than Long. Folks say that to be wide betwixt the eyes shows sense. That +may be so up to certain limits, but I'm afraid his are entirely too far +apart. Why, when you set close to him you can't see both of 'em at the +same time; you have to look first at one and then at the other. I tried +to get around the trouble by looking at his nose, but that seemed to be +crooked and awful flat. I didn't like them long hairs on his hands; his +forefathers must have lived in a cold climate." + +"The hairs don't mean nothing." Henley was amused, in spite of his +loyalty to his friend. "A heap of men are that way." + +"You ain't." Dixie glanced at the rather slender hands of her companion, +and then lifted her eyes to his face slowly and studiously. "You haven't +got a big chunk of a head, either, and flopping, fuzzy ears, and, above +all, Alfred, you ain't dead stuck on yourself. If I marry that man it +will be after I've taken him down several pegs. His vanity fairly leaks +out of him and stands in a puddle at his feet. Well, that don't matter. +When he comes to take me to meeting it will be the talk of the entire +community. Carrie Wade will laugh on the other side of her face. I would +have let him come earlier, but I want to take plenty of time to make me +a dandy dress and get me a new hat. I'm going to cut a wide swath. +That's to be my one big day of triumph and getting even." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It was after nightfall when Henley put Dixie down at the cottage and +drove around to his barn. In the stable doorway lurked a shadow of +uncertain shape and quite motionless. It turned out to be the form of +Jason Wrinkle. The pipe in his mouth glowed like a speeding firefly as +he stepped down to the buggy. + +"Hello! Well," he muttered, with a low, significant laugh, "you've come +back--reports notwithstanding to the contrary, female, legal, or +otherwise." + +"Yes, I'm back," Henley said, rather curtly. "Anything strange about +it?" + +"Well, I was just wonderin'. Huh, in this day and time of new-fangled +ways and doin's a body never knows what will happen. You'll certainly +never know if you listen to talk." Wrinkle peered into the face of his +stepson-in-law quite studiously for a moment, and with no little +irritation Henley unfastened the hamestring with a downward jerk and +began to remove the harness. + +"What's the matter with you, anyway?" he asked. "Are you up to another +one of your infernal jokes?" + +"No, I hain't," Wrinkle puffed. "That one about the baby was my last +one--on you, anyway. You took it like some old, peevish man, and sulked +and looked crooked for a week. I've tried to study out just how that +happened to go agin the grain so mighty awful, but I'm up agin a snag. +No, Alf, you make the bread-and-butter for this shebang, and you work +better when you hain't plagued. This time I come as a friend, and maybe +adviser--I don't know, it is all owin' to how you'll feel about it. For +all I know to the contrary, you may be as innocent as snow that hain't +been walked on, and, if you _are_, you ought to know what is going on +behind your back." + +"Behind my back?" Henley jerked the words from him as he tossed the +harness into the buggy and allowed his horse to find his stall unguided. +"Well, what's going on behind my back?" + +Wrinkle sucked audibly at the stem of his pipe before he delivered +himself into the eager expectancy that was massed between him and his +companion. "Alf," he began, finally, "you've dealt with humanity, in one +shape and another, enough to know that this is a sort of hide-bound +community, and, well, you driv' off this mornin' with a good-lookin' +young woman, didn't you?" + +"Of course I did!" Henley retorted. "What of that?" + +"You went toward Carlton, didn't you?" + +"I went _to_ Carlton," Henley answered, restraining an outburst with +difficulty. "I took Miss Dixie over on--on business. It was transacted, +and--" + +"You didn't tell Hettie whar you was bound for?" + +"I didn't, because I didn't think it made any difference. She's never +interested in what I do or where I go, and there was no reason for +telling her." + +"Maybe not--maybe not," Wrinkle answered, aimlessly, "but it wouldn't +'a' done yore case any harm if you had sorter tetched on it before +startin' out. You see, Carrie Wade sa'ntered over about eleven o'clock. +She hain't been a constant visitor at our house, and as she had a kind +o' fidgety walk on her, an' a curious dazzle in her eyes, I knowed she +hadn't come to see the pattern of the new quilt as she claimed, and so, +bein' a friend of yourn, I set down at the window and listened, +wonderin' when she'd quit her eternal preamble an' git down to business. +Purty soon I knowed land was in sight, for she said, like she was in a +sort of a dream, for she wasn't lookin' at anybody in particular--she +said: 'I seed Dixie Hart an' Alfred drivin' off this mornin'. They was +headed fer Saunder's Spring, at the foot o' the mountain. She had on her +best duds (which ain't sayin' much)'--them was Carrie's words, not +mine--'an' a whoppin' big picnic basket full o' good things. That girl +will do to watch, Mrs. Henley. As they passed our house the reins was +lyin' loose in the buggy, an' Dixie was leanin' agin Alfred like a sick +kitten to a hot brick.' It was the fust Hettie had heard of the +scrape--the trip, I mean--and I thought she'd flare up, or wilt, or +some'n or other, but she was on the job as quick as a flash. On my soul, +I don't believe old Het so much as batted her eye, though the revelation +must have been as sudden as a mule-kick in the ribs. She give the quilt +she was showin' a pull agin the frame like she wanted to straighten out +the stitches, an' said, 'Yes, Alf give 'er a lift over to Carlton. I'm +awfully glad he had company.' And on that she axed Carrie how her Ma's +sore foot was, an' recommended Dr. Stone's hoss liniment, an' cited a +good many cases where cures to both man an' beast had been made at a +small outlay. + +"But Carrie Wade wasn't thar to l'arn how to doctor sore feet. She +leaned back in her chair and laffed; you could 'a' heard her this far if +you'd 'a' been here an' the pig was asleep. She riz and went and slapped +Hettie on the back and said: + +'You watch my words, Mrs. Henley, thar's goin' to be talk, an' lots of +it. Dixie Hart has got tired o' bein' out o' the ring of young folks, +an' is bent on gittin' attention by fair means or foul. Alf's +good-lookin', plenty young, an' she's deliberately cuttin' her eyes at +'im. I've heard she goes to the store when she don't need a thing, an' +that they sa'nter home together through the woods.'" + +"The trifling hussy!" Henley muttered, angrily. "I thought she was a +meddlesome busybody, and now I know it." + +"Well, you know Hettie don't smile more 'n once a year," Wrinkle +tittered, "but this was her anniversary. She was actually one broad grin +from ear to ear." + +"'I wish somebody _would_ stir Alf up a little bit,' she said. 'He's +entirely too poky. Carrie, that man is the slowest stick that ever +lived. I wish some pretty, dashin' gal like Dixie Hart _would_ flirt +with him good and hard. If you wasn't so old I'd git _you_ to do it. My +first husband was different; he was a great ladies' man. That is the +only thing that will make married life bearable. A dead certainty in +love-matters is killin.'" + +"Good!" Henley chuckled. "Hettie saw through her, and headed her off in +fine style." + +"Well, 'out of the heart the mouth speaketh,'" quoted Jason. "And the +truth is, Alf, I railly don't think Hettie would care a hill o' beans if +you _did_ sort o' prove that you was up to snuff. You ort to profit by +what's gone before in matrimony as you have in tradin' amongst men. +Dick, when all is said an' done, was her maiden choice, an' if thar ever +was a woman roustabout, a feller that had a bow and a scrape for every +pair o' bright eyes that come his way, that feller was Dick Wrinkle. He +kept Hettie in hot water, and I don't know but what the cold bath you've +giv' 'er has sort o' gone agin her constitution. She's a critter that +likes what she can't git better 'n what lies right at hand wigglin' to +attract attention. No, you needn't be afeard of any family row. The +truth is, I think Hettie is some better pleased than she has been for a +long time. I reckon she's beginnin' to feel a sort o' pride in you. It +ain't from her that you'll have trouble, but from Carrie Wade." + +"Trouble, how?" Henley asked, impatiently, as he was turning toward the +lights in the farm-house. + +"Why, from her clatterin' tongue. If she'll talk like that to us, you +know she will about town, and it takes a powerful small spark to set a +haystack of scandal afire. Folks think Hettie has driv' you pretty far, +anyway, with her odd, graveyard notions, and it wouldn't take much +to--to start a ugly report." + +Henley furiously tore himself from the old gossip and went into the +house. As he paused at the water-shelf and filled a basin to wash the +dust of his drive from his face and hands, he saw his wife moving about +in the dimly lighted kitchen, and was struck by her easy and obviously +gratified bearing. He was drying his hands on a towel which hung from a +roller on the wall when Mrs. Wrinkle came out and suddenly faced him. +She caught her breath, stared in surprise for a moment, then turned into +the kitchen. Henley saw her clutch his wife's sleeve and give it a +warning pull. She meant to speak in an undertone, but her piping voice +slipped a cog and Henley heard her say: + +"They didn't run off; he's back! He's out thar wash--" + +"Sh!" came from Mrs. Henley's lips. "Be quiet; you don't know what you +are talking about." + +"Why, Carrie Wade said him an' Dixie Hart had 'loped away, an'--" + +"Didn't I tell you to hush?" Mrs. Henley commanded, in a guarded tone. +"You go set down and be quiet for once in your life. You've said enough +about this thing." + +Henley saw the old woman stand staring blankly for a moment, and then +she came back to him in the half-darkness and stood mutely eying him +from beneath the black poke-bonnet. Leaving her, he went into the +dining-room, where a lamp was shedding yellow rays over the meal his +wife had ready for him. He sat down in his accustomed place, and Mrs. +Henley promptly brought his coffee. + +"It must have been powerful hot on the Carlton road," she said. "We +mighty nigh melted here in the shade with every window and door wide +open." + +"It wasn't so much hotter than common." He put sugar into his coffee, +and slowly stirred it. "I reckon moving at a brisk pace through the air +keeps you from feeling heat as much as you would if you was setting +still. We didn't start back till toward sundown." + +"They had some sort of a celebration over there, didn't they?" Mrs. +Henley reached over and pushed the biscuits nearer to his plate. + +"Yes, but it didn't amount to much." + +"I reckon Dixie liked it. The poor girl hain't been away often." + +"I think she did," Henley said. "Anyways, she acted that way all +through. She had a tiptop seat in my buggy, where she could catch first +sight of everything that happened, and she took it all in, every speck +of it, even a good dinner at the hotel." + +"Oh, I see." Mrs. Henley's brow was furrowed in perplexity. She left the +room and returned in a moment with a bowl in her thin hands. "Here is +some fresh apple-butter; it's right from the spring. You can put rich +milk on it; there's plenty just from the cow." + +The wrinkle remained on her brow while he helped himself liberally. She +stood and studied his profile from the lighted side. The best reader of +her facial expression in the family, had he been a witness, and he +doubtless was, as the windows were open, would have found much to rivet +his attention in the unwonted solidity of her features. Henley ate +silently for several minutes before she spoke again. Then she cleared +her voice, drew herself up more erectly, and said: + +"You say Dixie set in the buggy all the time? Why, I had an idea from +something Pa dropped that she went over there to attend to some +er--business or other." + +"Well, a body _might_ attend to business setting in a buggy," he said, +ambiguously and he put a spoonful of apple-butter into a broad smile and +swallowed both as he looked at her with twinkling eyes. + +The furrows deepened on the austere brow of the woman, and she drew her +under lip inward and pressed it between her teeth. + +"I don't know exactly what you mean," she said, presently. "I supposed +she had things to buy for her farm, or--" + +Henley laughed. "I may as well tell you the secret, Hettie. You ain't +any hand to gad about and talk, and I know it will be safe with you. The +truth, is I'm a match-maker. You've heard me speak of Jasper Long? Well, +he's dying to get married, and I've been a sort o' go-between with him +and Dixie. He wanted to meet her, and I took her over, and--" + +"Oh!" The furrows were gone, the colorless face lighted up from within. +"I understand now." She walked round the table and leaned over the +dishes toward him and laughed. "Alfred," she tittered, "you certainly +are the most goody-goody old poke of a stick that ever wore man's +clothes, and you are blind, blind as a day-old kitten. You know men, all +grades and styles of 'em, but you are a born fool when it comes to +women. When that girl marries Jasper Long--I say, when Dixie Hart takes +him, let me know, will you?" and she turned from the room, leaving him +more than convinced that he didn't understand women, and certain that he +never should try to do so again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +One morning, in the early part of the following week, as Henley sat +working at his desk in the store, and Pomp and Cahews were busy +attending three or four elderly women in front, he became conscious that +some one was speaking in loud, angry tones near the door. And, rising, +that he might look over a stack of soap-boxes which obstructed his view, +he saw that a dispute of some sort was taking place between Cahews and +Hank Bradley over some cigars that the latter had failed to pay for on a +former occasion. Bradley was evidently under the influence of liquor, +and he began to swear loudly and threateningly. The women dropped the +purchases they were making and shrank back farther into the store. + +With a flush of anger over the insult to his house and customers, Henley +strode hotly forward and thrust himself between the disputants. + +"We'll talk about the account some other time," he said, glaring into +Bradley's face. "But right now you get out of this house. You sha'n't +stand here spouting vile oaths before these ladies." + +"What have _you_ got to do with it?" Bradley flared up in his turn, and +he whipped his hand back toward his pistol-pocket, only to discover that +he was not armed, as he evidently thought he was. However, he kept his +hand behind him in a threatening attitude. + +"I'll show you what I've got to do with it if you open your dirty jaws +like that again!" Henley said, fearlessly. "You dare to draw a gun on me +and I'll make you swallow your own teeth. Now, you get out of here!" +And, taking him by the arm in a grip of steel, Henley drew him hurriedly +to the door and shoved him down the steps. + +"This ain't the end of it," Bradley threw back furiously. "You bet it +ain't." + +"It'll be the end o' _you_ if you fool with me!" Henley retorted, and he +turned back into the store and resumed his seat at his desk. He had not +been there long when one of the women finished her purchases and, with +some parcels under her arm, came back and stood timidly by his desk. It +was Mrs. Cartwright, the old widow whose son Johnny was so devoted to +Carrie Wade. She was short in stature, had iron-gray hair, was slight +and stooped, and wore a plain gingham dress and a sunbonnet of the same +material. + +"It was powerful good of you, Alfred, to do what you did jest now," she +said, timidly, as he looked up. "It was like the old-time way men had +when I was a girl of takin' up for women. I always heard you was good +and kind, and now I know it. A man kin do a lot o' things that women +will appreciate, but I'll risk my all that every woman in that bunch +down thar will go home wishin' that her husband or brother had done what +you did an' in the same sperit. Women love, above all things, to be +protected by manly men." + +"Well," said Henley, his flush of anger giving way to one of genuine +embarrassment, "he was upsetting business, Mrs. Cartwright. I hated +to--to git mad that way, but he was running my trade away, and that's a +thing I won't let no man do right under my eyes. Set down an' rest, Mrs. +Cartwright; you don't look overly stout." + +The woman took the chair near his desk, and he heard her sigh as she +massed her parcels in her lap with her thin, quivering hands. + +"I reckon I don't look well," she said, seeing that his kindly eyes were +still on her. "They say worry will kill a body quicker 'n anything else, +and, Alfred, I'm worried mighty nigh to death. I don't know which way to +turn or what to do. It is all about my youngest child, Johnny. He's took +a quar notion to marry Carrie Wade." + +"I see, I see," Henley said, sympathetically; "and that's bad. Why, he's +hardly out o' the spelling-book class, and hain't a sign of fuzz on his +lip. The last time he was in here I know the crowd was teasing him +because his voice was in the gosling stage. It had sech a funny way of +wobbling about from bass to treble." + +"But he thinks he's full grown," the woman sighed, "and won't listen to +reason. He keeps declarin' he's older than the way it's recorded in the +Bible. This last trouble begun at the Sunday-school Christmas-tree, when +Carrie put on an embroidered handkerchief for him. That turned his head, +and he hain't hardly let her out of his sight sence. He growed from +child to man betwixt two suns." + +"They'll do that sometimes," Henley said. "It is surely an odd sort of +attachment. She is plenty old to have nursed him. I wouldn't be afraid +to say that she was cutting her eyes at men when he was cutting his +teeth. Thinking of that ud make some fellers ashamed to act that way, +but as apt as not Johnny don't let himself study about it. Somehow I can +excuse it better in the boy than in her, because she's old enough to +know better." + +The old woman nodded and sighed again. "Alfred, sometimes I think I've +had more put on me than my share in this world. I've had three sons +besides this un, and every last one of 'em give me trouble along at +Johnny's age." + +"And about women older 'n they was, too, I've heard," Henley said. + +"Yes, it looks like it runs in the blood--not in mine, thank the Lord! +for I wish nary woman had ever been made; yes, all of my boys no sooner +got out o' frocks than they made a dead-run for the first old maid in +sight, and marry they would in spite of all possessed." + +"And not one got hitched up exactly right," said Henley. + +"Not one, Alfred. The two oldest stuck to their hot-headed agreement +long enough to feel sort o' tied down, and they went clean off an' left +their wives high and dry. Jim is still living with his'n, but I cry my +eyes out every time I see the pore fellow. Looks like he hain't got a +thing to live for. When a man leaves his own fireside and comes and sets +around his mammy's house like Jim does, he hain't got no paradise under +his own roof. Ef he'd 'a' had children it mought 'a' been different. I +did think I could show Johnny the mistakes of his brothers and make him +act different. I've talked it to him sence he was old enough to know +right from wrong, but you see how little weight it had." + +"Why don't you go to headquarters and call a halt?" Henley's indignation +was rising. + +"You mean to Carrie? Well, I did, but somehow she manages to git around +the question. She jest looks kind o' 'shamed and keeps wanting to talk +about other things. I ought to be sorry for her, desperate as she is for +attention, but I hain't. She's a tattle-tale and scandalmonger. She +never got over losin' that young preacher that Dixie Hart cut her out +of, and she spends all her time hammerin' at that pore girl, who is good +and decent and noble, if thar ever was sech a thing. Just here lately, +because you seed fit to take Dixie with you over to Carlton--" + +"Oh, I know--I know." Henley's face grew darker, and he clinched his +hand. "I can't think of her bell-clapper tongue without gettin' mad, and +I don't like to be that way with a woman. What does Johnny say?" + +"Oh, he talks as big as a railroad president; he talks jest the same +foolishness as his brothers did; _he's_ doin' the marryin'--nobody else +has a'thing to do with it. That's what hurts. If I could jest git the +pore, simple boy out of her clutches for a month I believe I could open +his eyes, but I am afraid at the slightest move they will run off and +git married. Sometimes I try to be resigned and argue to myself that +maybe him and her could git along together, but when I see my pore +baby-boy with that powdered and painted thing out in public I mighty +nigh die with mortification." + +"We must simply bust it up, Mrs. Cartwright," Henley said, firmly. +"That's all there is about it. We must checkmate 'em. Let me study over +it. I'll help if I can." + +"I wish you would," the woman said, anxiously. "There he is now in the +front-door. I'll slip out the side way; he mought suspicion I was +talkin' about him." + +A moment after her departure Johnny Cartwright came back to the desk. +"Jim said Ma was here," he said, glancing around the room. + +"She was, Johnny, boy," Henley said, patronizingly, "but she went home. +Ah, ha! I saw you with Carrie Wade the other day--at least it had her +look." + +"Yes, it was her." A flush of pride rose and spread itself over the +boyish face. "I was taking her home from Mrs. Spriggs's quilting." + +"I'd bet a hat I know what you wanted to see her about," Henley said, +his hand over his facile mouth. "Some of these old bachelors, or +widowers with a gang of children to take care of, sent you with some +invite or other. When I was a little chap like you I used to pick up a +lot o' odd dimes in taking notes to the gals. About ten years from now +you'll be spending _your_ money that way. You must hear a lot o' funny +things if you see much o' Carrie. I'd give a pretty to be near her when +she got word from some man or other. She's waited a long time, Johnny. I +reckon a proposal at this late day would tickle her to death." + +"I don't tote notes for nobody." The boy was white about the lips, and +looking as if he hardly knew whether to be angry or not. + +"Well, I reckon you wouldn't to Carrie," Henley said. "I hardly reckon +anybody has her in mind, now. You know she's been a drug on the market a +long time. I wonder if she ever told you about that tin-peddler? It was +away back, I reckon, when you was playing with your rattler. Carrie and +the peddler had up an awful case--they was going to get married, and +open up a tin-shop at Carlton, but a man come along and said the peddler +already had a wife or two to his credit, and the skunk changed his +route. Lawsy me! how Carrie did take on! We heard her yelling like a +knife was sticking in her clean to the sorgum-mill." + +"It's a lie! I don't believe a word of it," the boy cried, his face +aflame with fury. "She told me she never had a sweetheart in her +life--that she hated men." + +"She's had good cause," answered Henley. "A woman that don't get a speck +of attention will hate anything. I reckon she's passed the line, and +nobody will marry her." + +"She's going to marry _me_," the boy blurted out, leaning over and +striking the desk with his fist, as if to emphasize his words, "and when +she's my wife I'll call and make you settle for what you've said. +Remember that, sir." And he turned and strode angrily from the store. + +"I hated to say it," Henley mused, "but I was doing it for the lasting +good of all concerned. It won't do--it simply won't do. That meddlesome +old maid simply shall not ruin that boy's life and break his old mammy's +heart. I wonder--" He sat staring at the floor for several minutes, and +then a smile disturbed the stern lines of his face. "It might work--by +gum, I'll try it, anyway!" + +Glancing down to the front, he saw that Cahews was disengaged and seated +on the end of a counter swinging his long legs to and fro. Henley went +to him. + +"Say, Jim, Johnny Cartwright and Carrie Wade is driving his mammy mighty +nigh distracted with their doings. I don't know when I've ever been so +sorry for an old person. I wonder if me and you couldn't put our heads +together and--and sort o' bust it up." + +"Well, I don't know, Alf--you are a better schemer than I am. I'm +willin' to help, but I can't git up nothing. If the boy was mine I'd +give 'im a good spankin' in public, and maybe that ud shame Carrie into +behavin' herself." + +"If I could get you to help I think I could work a change in the thing, +anyway," Henley said, persuasively. + +"Me, Alf?" + +"Yes, it's just this way, Jim, with a woman of that brand and vintage," +Henley pursued. "You see, she's gone without the right sort of attention +so long that she's kind o' lost respect for herself. Jim, you are the +leading young man in Chester, not yet married, and considered a fine +catch. I don't know how it will strike you, but you could really do a +good turn all round if you'd just pay Carrie a little attention. Take +her in your new top buggy to camp-meeting next Sunday." + +"Me? Oh, Lord!" + +"I don't mean for you to _marry_ her," Henley went on, smoothly. "But if +I'm any judge of women, I think when a man of your stripe drives out in +public with her she'll simply look up again, and, by gum, I believe +she'll look clean over that boy's head. I'm asking you to take part in a +good deed, Jim." + +"I see--I understand pine-blank what you mean, but, Alf, I'm not the man +for the job. You'll understand my fix if you'll just study a minute. +You know how it is between me and Julia Hardcastle. I'll never marry no +other woman as long as the sun shines. She hain't never said the word, +nor she hain't plumb pitched me out, either, but she makes me walk a +chalk-line. Why, if she was to see me out with Carrie Wade I'd never +hear the end of it." + +"Julia's going to the camp-meeting, ain't she?" Henley asked, cutting a +significant glance at his clerk. + +"Yes, she's going with Sam Willis, that Atlanta shoe-drummer. She don't +care for him, mind you, Alf, but she likes to have fellows of that sort +hanging on. She don't seem half as particular about who she goes with as +the company I keep. She's got me where the wool is short, Alf. I +wouldn't rub her the wrong way for the world. I hope to get her some +day, but I'll have to wait till she gits tired of dashing around." + +Henley was looking straight into his clerk's face, a smile twinkling in +his kindly eyes. "You are not working that girl right, Jim," he said, +decidedly. "She'd have been yours long ago if you'd had more +independence. If you keep up that sort of a lick she'll waltz off with +some bold and daring chap one of these days and give you the merry +ha-ha. The truth is, she wants you, but she wants you to be more of a +man. You've tried your sort of way long enough, now switch off and try +mine just for one single day, anyway, and see if I ain't right. Solomon +himself--and he was the greatest masher in the Bible--even he couldn't +win a woman by letting her have her own way. A woman thinks a man is a +sissy that gives in to her every whim. You just take Carrie Wade to +meeting like any other free-born American citizen has a right to do, and +Julia Hardcastle will set up and take notice, and she'll think a sight +more of you--that is, if you don't knuckle under and beg her pardon the +minute she mentions it to you." + +Cahews's jaw was really a massive member, and it looked as solid as +stone when he finally answered, which he did when he had stood down on +the floor and walked to and fro for a moment in deep and turbulent +thought. + +"She nor no other woman could make me knuckle if I didn't want to," he +said, pausing and resting a steady hand on the shoulder of his employer. +"I've been giving in all along, but I'm tired, dang tired. Here she's +going with that town-dude Sunday and expects me to drive out there by +myself and enjoy the sight from afar. Derned if I don't believe, as you +say, that I've been giving that girl too much rein and floundering about +too much in the dust at her feet. Alf, I'll write a note to Carrie this +minute, and I'll give the old girl a good time if I know how." + +"Well, you go back to the desk and write the note," said Henley. "Mark +my words, I'll bet, if you hold a stiff lip all through, you'll +accomplish in a day what you haven't in all these years." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The next day, as Henley was walking home in the dusk and was passing +Mrs. Cartwright's cottage, she saw him and hastened out to the fence. +She was in a flutter of excitement, rubbing her thin hands together in +vast satisfaction. + +"Alfred," she began, "I want to tell you what's happened. I'm so excited +I'm as limber as a dish-rag. Jim Cahews sent a note over by your nigger +yesterday to Carrie Wade invitin' her to drive to the campground with +him Sunday." + +"Oh, Jim's going to take _her_?" said Henley, his eyes twinkling. "He's +a sly dog about his doings, and don't tell me all he does." + +"That hain't the main thing, Alfred." The old woman raised her hands to +her face and laughed immoderately. "Pomp had no sooner gone off with the +answer and a big bunch of roses Carrie gathered and sent with it, when +she run over to tell me about it and to borrow my cape. She 'lowed it +mought be cool drivin' back behind sech a fast hoss as Jim's new one, +an' she didn't have a thing heavy enough to throw over her shoulders. +Johnny was a-settin' in the corner of the kitchen unbeknownst to her, +and heard all she said. An', la me, what you reckon he done? He up an' +laid down law an' gospel right on the spot, bless you! Jim Cahews wasn't +goin' a step with 'er. Johnny could afford to hire a livery-stable team +if he had to borrow the money, an' _he_ was goin' to take 'er." + +"That was a corker, wasn't it?" Henley exclaimed, with a pleased laugh. +"What did Carrie say to that?" + +"Looked like she hardly knowed what _to_ say," was the old woman's +reply. "Him an' her stood starin' smack dab at each other fer a minute, +and then--just think of it!--she begun to beg the boy not to interfere +with her doin's, and pleaded an' wheedled an' went on at a powerful +rate. But Johnny stood as firm as the rock o' Gibralty, an' told 'er, he +did, that his plighted wife jest shouldn't run about an' disgrace 'em +right on the eve of marriage, and said a lot about folks walkin' over +dead bodies an' swimmin' rivers o' blood, an' the like. Well, all that +finally made Carrie mad, an' she told 'im he was jest a boy, an' that +she had never meant to marry 'im, nohow. An' while he stood gaspin' fer +breath she lit in to beggin' him not to tell nobody about the'r little +flirtation. She said folks would think it was silly of her, an' if Jim +Cahews meant business, which it looked like he did, a tale like that +might sp'ile her chances." + +"Huh," grunted Henley, "she was getting down to bedrock, wasn't she?" + +"Well, I don't blame 'er," said the widow, charitably. "Many a good, +married woman wouldn't want all her girlish pranks to reach the ear of +the man she finally settled down with, an' I reckon Jim Cahews wants +'er. They say he's tired chasin' after Julia Hardcastle, an' Carrie may +suit. Johnny tuck it awful hard. After she went home he come an' laid +his head in my lap an' sobbed out good an' strong. I was never tickled +by grief of a child o' mine before; but even while my eyes an' throat +was full, a laugh would rise in me that I couldn't hold in. But he +didn't catch on--he 'lowed I was cryin', too. After a while he set up +an' wiped his eyes. 'I reckon,' said he, 'that I've been the fool +everybody said I was, but I'm goin' to let women alone till I'm old +enough to understand 'em.'" + +"He'll let 'em alone a long time, then," said Henley, with a dry smile, +as he turned away. + +The following Monday morning Henley found Cahews busy in the front part +of the store cleaning up and putting things straight on the shelves. As +soon as he saw his employer, Jim walked from behind the counter and +extended his hand: "Put it right there, Alf, an' give it a good, tight +shake," he grinned. "Richard is hisself at last. It's been an awful +up-hill fight, but I'm there--gee whiz! I'm there, an' don't you forget +it." + +"So you really like Carrie? Well, I thought maybe you and her--" + +"Carrie, hell! It's the other--damn it! Huh! you may think you know +some'n about women, but don't I? I was a long time learning how to turn +the trick, but I'm an expert now. I had the time of my life. It was a +clean walk-over from start to finish. I had the bit in my teeth, an' I +went ahead like the woods afire. I driv' around to Carrie's house, +dressed to kill. I had on my plug-hat, silk vest, light-gray pants, +dark-blue coat, and my new patent-leather shoes. I put the old gal in by +me an' away we shot. I saw that drummer and Julia ahead on a straight +piece of road plodding along like they was hauling a load of wood to +town, and I chirped to my Kentucky blue-blood, and, with Carrie's +ribbons flying in the wind like the flags of a war-ship, we passed like +a cannon-ball, leaving 'em in a cloud of dust as thick as a Texas +sand-storm. And the funniest part was that I didn't, somehow, care a +dern. I was on a new basis, an' believed in it." + +"Well, you know I advised--" Henley began, but the eager clerk broke in: + +"Yes, that was it; you started me on my new line, and it was the act of +a friend. It was that advice that saved me. But I reckon it was the +sight of that sap-headed idiot with my girl that did most of it. Well, +to come to the end, as soon as Julia and her dude got to the campground +she lit out of his buggy and made a bee-line to whar me and Carrie was +setting under the trees waiting for the first hymn. She stopped right +square in front of me as mad as a wet hen. + +"'What did you mean by throwing dust on us?' she asked, as red as a +beet, her eyes flashing sparks. Right then I felt just a little +inclination to take back water, but I remembered, our talk t'other day, +and told myself it was now or never, and that the worm had turned over a +new leaf. Carrie had dropped her handkerchief, an' I sprung up and put +it back in her lap with a bow, taking a grip on myself while in the act. +Then I looked Julia in the eyes and said: + +"'I couldn't hold my hoss in, Miss Julia; he's a high-stepper, and it +makes 'im hopping mad to see common stock ahead of 'im. The only thing +to do was to let 'im pass everything in sight.' + +"She stared at me like she thought I'd lost my senses, and then she +said, 'Well, you ought to apologize; any gentleman would after covering +a lady with dust from a dirty road.' + +"'But it wasn't my fault,' I told her, with a grin. 'It is my hoss's +fault. If anybody apologizes it ought to be him, and he can't talk half +as good as he can trot.' Gee whiz, but wasn't she mad? She was splotched +with red and white all over, and the purtiest thing, Alf, that you ever +laid eyes on. She whirled away and went back to her drummer. He had put +the buggy-seat under a tree in sight of where me an' Carrie sat, and, +knowing she was looking, I laid myself out to be pleasant to my partner. +I had to pass by Julia and her dude to get to the spring, and I fetched +water for Carrie every hour in the day, and always went whistling a jig. +At twelve o'clock some of the folks along with Julia come over and +invited me and Carrie to dump our basket in with theirs and all eat +together, but me and Carrie refused, and had ourn on a grassy slant in +plain sight of the rest. It was the first frolic I'd ever had with +Julia, and I shore did like it. I dunno, but I reckon it was the way she +acted that made me keep it up. Then, after dinner, when Carrie went to +Mrs. Wilson's tent to rest up a little, Julia saw me smoking at the +spring, and come straight to me. She had a sort o' give-in look, and yet +was proud and cold. + +"'I want to know,' said she, 'what you mean by fetching that old maid +out here.' + +"'I don't know as she's so almighty old,' said I, as independent as a +wood-sawyer, and yet scared half out o' my mind. 'I don't know but what +it is a sort of comfort to go with women old enough to be sensible once +in a while.' + +"That made her madder'n ever, but, you see, I was making her come to me +with complaints, and that had never happened before. She stood punching +at the ground with her blue parasol and looking every now and then +toward Mrs. Wilson's tent like she was afraid Carrie would come. Then +all at once I saw that her pretty lips was quivering. I was dying to +grab her, Alf, and confess the whole dang trick, but I remembered your +talk and helt out. + +"'I see,' said she, with a sigh, 'you don't mean what you've been saying +to me all this time.' + +"I looked her straight in the eyes, Alf, and let 'er have it right from +the shoulder good and fast. 'I tell you, Julia,' said I, 'I'm a marrying +man. I'm tired of living alone in the back end of a store with just a +house-cat for company, while men no better are toasting their shins at a +cheerful family fire. I'm tired of fooling. Carrie may not have as many +dudes at her beck and call as some I know, but she knows what she wants +in the man-line and won't take all eternity to decide.' + +"'Oh, you are cruel! You are heartless!' Julia said, and then she +busted out crying. Then, before we knowed it, me and her was walking in +the woods, 'long a narrow, shady road. She said, Alf, that she'd loved +me good and true all along and wanted to quit everything that was +foolish and settle down. We are going to be married Christmas, and, Alf, +I'm so happy I could holler at the top of my voice. If I don't sell +goods to-day there won't be a customer in forty miles of the store." + +Henley nodded slowly. "The thing worked," he said, "and I'm glad. The +only thing I hate about it is that we had to fool that poor woman to do +it. But Carrie was acting wrong with that boy. I had to do it to save +him and his old mammy. We must make it up to Carrie some way. We'll find +her a husband if we have to advertise in the papers and put up cash +inducements. She's got a mischievous tongue and lots of malice, but hard +luck fetched 'em on her." + +"Alf, you are a good chap," Cahews said, with emotion. "I know well +enough you ain't any too happy at home--a blind man could see that--and +yet you are always trying to help others." + +Henley's kindly eyes wavered as they rested on those of his friend. "My +wife is doing the best she can, too, Jim. I don't blame her. In fact, I +blame myself. When that fellow went off and died I ought to have left +her alone with her grief, but I was blinded by the desire to have what +I'd tried so long to win. I reckon I took an unfair advantage of her at +a time when she wasn't in a mood to fight off anything. Now, let's get +to work. I've got lots to do." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +As was his custom on Sunday mornings, Henley accompanied his wife and +the Wrinkles to church service in Chester on the day Long was expected +to pay his visit to Dixie. Henley and the old man fell in leisurely +behind the two women. The day was fine, being one of those rare June +days which had the moderate temperature of spring. + +As they came within sight of Dixie Hart's cottage, Henley noticed a +sleek pair of horses and a stylish trap held by a negro boy at the gate, +and knew that the girl's suitor had arrived. He fancied that the couple +might pass him on his way to church, and in his mind's eye he saw +himself waving a cordial salutation to them. It was not, however, until +the church was reached and he had conducted his party to their usual +seats that Dixie and her escort arrived. Accustomed as the congregation +was to direct its attention to the door as much as the pulpit, at least +before the services began, all eyes were turned thither when a sudden +commotion at the front showed that something of an unusual nature had +occurred. The fact was that Long's driver, being unfamiliar with the +ways of a place much smaller than his own town, had driven the prancing, +snorting pair close to the door in the effort to land his passengers on +the steps, and his loud, "Woah dar, blast yo' skins!" rang clearly +through the resonant building. As it was, the coming of a bridal pair +themselves could not have attracted more attention. Every pivotal head +turned on its axis; even the visiting parson, with the huge Bible on his +thin knees, half rose that he might peer over the pulpit behind which he +sat. + +Dixie, in her new gown and new hat, was the very embodiment of easy +self-possession as she piloted her escort to a seat in the middle of the +room. Long, red and perspiring, and rigged out in all the splendor of +the haberdasher's art, even to boots that screamed in pain, had the air +of a social laborer who was worthy of his hire. As soon as he was seated +he reached for Dixie's fan and began waving it to and fro with the +conscientious regularity of a pendulum, thereby increasing his warmth +and not lessening Dixie's. + +Sheer astonishment clutched all observers. The women bent their necks +and stared, and the men winked at one another comically. + +Suddenly Henley noticed that Carrie Wade was immediately behind him, and +he felt a sharp twinge of conscience over the wan and desperate +expression of her face. She had seen, and was staring down into her lap +and slowly twirling her bloodless fingers. She had heard of Jim Cahews's +engagement and knew that her transient hopes in that direction were +groundless; and now this--this of all things--to see her hated rival in +such a coveted position in the view of all before whom she had been so +systematically maligned. + +But Henley's mind refused to be riveted to Carrie's discomfiture. For +the first time he was seeing his friend Long through new glasses. He +was, indeed, as Dixie had hinted, a rather uncouth individual, and this +fault was not lessened by his flashy attire and juxtaposition to so much +innate refinement in the person of his companion. + +After the service, as they were leaving the church, Henley saw that +three-fourths of the congregation, at least, had deliberately paused +outside, and were watching the Carlton man assist his partner into the +shining trap. They stood as if transfixed, and regarded the pair till +they had disappeared down the road in the direction of Dixie's home. + +That morning before sunrise old Wrinkle had gone to his watermelon-patch +and plucked a ripe melon. He had put it in the spring-house to keep it +cool, and during the afternoon he served it to the family on the +back-porch. Henley had enjoyed it with the others, and was idly +sauntering about the front-yard when he saw Long leave the Hart cottage +and start back to Carlton. Seeing Henley, he told the driver to stop, +and sprang down to the ground and came to the fence. + +"Well, what progress?" Henley asked. "I saw you at meeting this +morning." + +"Well, I hardly know yet, Alf." Long clutched one of the palings of the +fence with his gloved hand and swung back from it and took a deep +breath. "I hardly know what to say. I'm tickled to some extent, and then +again I hain't, for I hain't as sure of my ground as I'd like to be. +Alf, she's by all odds the finest bolt of calico I ever tried to +unroll--I say _unroll_, because if she hain't a tight mystery I never +saw one." + +"You mean you can't quite make her out?" suggested Henley, with an +eagerness for which he could hardly account. + +"That's it; you've hit it the first throw out of the box. It looks to +me, Alf, like she's always going to do something that she never gets to, +and not do what she's sure to do when you ain't expecting it. Now, one +thing I counted on as a sure fact before I come out was that after +dinner at her house me 'n her would walk down to the woods where it was +shady and sort o' stroll about and take in the scenery, but not a peg +would she move, although I hinted at it several times. I like old +women--that is, you know, I respect 'em in their places--but that pair +was too much of a good thing. They set about where me and Miss Dixie was +every spare minute. I've seen gals love their kin, but this un fairly +dotes on hers. Why, one of 'em couldn't git up to get a drink without +Dixie jumpin' and telling her to set still, that she'd get it for her. +I'm as good as the average in knowing how to handle a woman, Alf, but I +don't profess to know how to court one in a crowd. One of these two is +half blind and t'other is lame, but that didn't help me out, for they +didn't let their tongues rest a second. They kept alluding to some chap +or other that was dead. They said they hadn't ever seen him, but kept +talking about his picture and wondering if he looked like me, and how +he'd like it to see me there, and so on. Seemed like the girl wanted to +shut that talk off, for she told 'em several times to be quiet and to +remember what they had promised her." + +"Women are all hard to understand." There was a knowing twinkle in +Henley's eyes, which he averted from Long's anxious gaze. "I reckon +Dixie thought you ought to get acquainted with the family if you and her +are to come to any permanent understanding." + +"Maybe so," Long agreed, wearily. "But I have enough dealings with old +rag-chawers in my business through the week not to want a Sunday off +when I get with my own sort. But this un is a prize, Alf, and worth any +man's trouble to get her. I'll never forget that dinner if I live to be +a hundred. I had to rise early to get a start from town, and the ride +kind o' whetted my appetite to a sharp edge, so that I was really ready +for anything she wanted to pass; but, geewhilikins! when we all slid our +chairs out into that dining-room, where everything was as white as snow +and shiny as a new dollar, and where green things was stuck about all +around, I begun to know what high living was. And she told me she'd +cooked every dab of it herself. Just think of that, and on top of it +rigged up like she did and went to meeting as fresh and cool as a rose +under dewy leaves! I made up my mind, as I set there and ate all that +good stuff, and saw her at the head of the table fingering things in +such a dainty way, that I'd have her at the head of my table in a fine, +new house, or bust a trace. I'm to come out again next Sunday. In the +mean time I'm going to try to think up some way to choke that old pair +of hens off my roost." + +"Oh, they'll let you alone after a while," Henley said. "You see, you +are a novelty right now. You keep on. You wouldn't want a girl that +would throw her arms round your neck on the first visit." + +"No, I reckon not," Long agreed, slowly, "and still I don't like the +uncertainty, either. Looks like she's studying me all the time, and +ain't any too well pleased, at that. I don't know; I reckon she's got me +rattled to some extent. I know what I want; I want _her_, and the sooner +I'm easy in my mind the sooner I'll be fit for business." Long glanced +at the sinking sun. "I must be on the move; take care of yourself, Alf, +and pray for me. You've put me on the track of a good thing, and if I +win I'll be yours for life." + +The next morning, as Henley was on his way to the village, he saw Dixie +in her peanut-patch on the side of the road. She seemed to be carefully +inspecting the vine-covered mounds in the mellow soil, for he saw her +stoop now and then and lift the vines and peer beneath them. Vaulting +over the fence, he was soon by her side. + +"Always at work, rain or shine," he said, lightly, as she glanced up and +smiled a cheery greeting. + +"I've hit it right on these goobers, Alfred," she said. "I pulled up a +vine the other day and washed it in the branch. I'm keeping it for the +fair at Carlton. It is a dandy; the goobers on it are as thick as beads +on a strand, and already as big as your thumb. Folks laughed at me for +putting in five acres in this ground, but I knew what I was about. If +they go high this fall, I'll make up for the loss on my wheat and hay." + +"From the looks of things yesterday," he said, "it don't seem like +you'll have to bother much more about raising anything." + +"I saw you looking at us," she returned, gravely. "In fact, I saw +everybody in the house. It was an awful day, Alfred, and I wouldn't go +through another like it for no sap-headed man that ever walked the +earth. I was up before the break of day, scrubbing, sweeping, baking by +candle-light, and what was it all for--good gracious, what was it for? +For weeks I'd counted on it as a great event, just to feel, down in my +heart when it was all over, like a big fool." + +"Why, I thought--I supposed--" Henley began in perplexity, but she +interrupted him. + +"I hate sham, Alfred, and that whole thing was sham--sham, sham, from +first to last. Because I've been beat down and sneered at all this time +by a silly woman, and because my burden of life looked hard, I let +myself be tempted. Do you know, I believe Providence is trying to pound +some sense into me. I felt kind o' bad a year ago when that feller +didn't come to time, but, Alfred, I know myself better than I did then. +I thought I'd have stood up at the altar with a man I never saw, but +I'll bet now that I'd have backed out at the sight of him. I was blinded +the same way about this last one. When you told me about him, in your +kind way, I thought he was just what I was looking for, but when you +fetched him to me that day at Carlton it was an awful comedown. I can't +explain it to you, but, somehow, I felt like he was butting in with his +big head and loud voice between me and another one I was expecting." + +"I see, I see. Long don't quite fill the bill," Henley said. "I was +afraid there might be a hitch somewhere, and he has all the essentials, +too--that is, I mean--" But Henley hardly knew what he meant. + +"There is just one main essential, to use your big word," she said, her +fine, eyes resting on his in a wise gaze, "and that is love--the genuine +article. At one time I thought it was a fine house, and things to wear, +and comfort for them I love and protect that I needed, but it was +downright, unselfish love for somebody. Alfred, to my dying day I shall +shudder over all that parade yesterday. The man or woman who attempts to +get pleasure out of sitting in a finer seat, or living in a finer house, +or wearing finer duds than his neighbor, or even his enemy, will miss +it, unless he is of a low order and taste. When I saw all them good +folks gaping and staring at me like I was a comet with a tail, right +there in the house of God, while a good man was teaching humility, and +prayers, and songs was going up to the throne--I say, while all that was +taking place I felt like a cheat and a swindler hiding under plumes, +clap-trap flowers, and flounces that ud fade. I looked across and saw +Carrie--poor Carrie!--with that blank stare of death in her eyes. She +seemed to say, 'You've whipped me clean to the earth, Dix; I'm done; I'm +all in; but have mercy, don't you see how awful it is?' She may have +thought I was crowing over her, but I wasn't--God knows I wasn't. During +the first prayer I knelt down and prayed for her and begged forgiveness +for my silly caper. The poor thing has lost even her boy-lover. She's +yearning for something she may never lay her hands on. As God is my +judge, if I could give her this man that was here yesterday I'd do it at +the drop of a hat. Alfred, I don't want him, nohow. I thought I might +come round to it, but every word he says, every move he makes, goes +against me. If I tied myself to a man like that it would be one +continual fight to approve of him. Oh, he was so puffed up yesterday +that I wanted to pull his ears and make him see straight--talking all +the time about the dash we'd cut and the attention we attracted. I was +guilty of the crime and wanted to forget it, but it was all he could +talk about--well, that is, except one _other_ thing." + +"One other thing?" Henley echoed. + +"Yes, it was marry, marry, marry; wife, wife, wife--even before the +home-folks. He couldn't put a bite of my cooking in his big, red mouth +without saying what a blessing it would be to come to a table loaded +that way three times a day. I say! I had to laugh. There I was figuring +on using him to the end that I could set back in a rocking-chair and fan +myself and tell a nigger cook to rake any old scraps together and not +bother me with the details, while he saw me with my sleeves rolled up +humped over a hot stove, or in a cloud of steam at a wash-tub. He said +he could pay me the compliment of being the only girl who loved hard +work as much as his mother had till it killed her--_loved_ it, mind you! +Think of drudging all your life for a man that thought you loved dirty +work and was granting you a favor by keeping it piled up around you +while he was lying around a store telling a bunch of clerks what to do, +and wondering how long it would be before time to eat. Yes, I felt mean +all through the service and after he left. Little Joe sneaked over after +dark to get me to teach him his geography, and while I was doing it I +put my arm around his poor, little, wasted neck and hugged him. He +looked up and begun to cry and kissed me. Alfred, there ain't no +mistaking the article when you run across it. It is real love I have for +that boy--the love of a mother for her child that is suffering. I went +as far with him as the fence, and as me and him stood together in the +starlight I felt, somehow, that there was just one thing standing +between me and God, and that was the unworthy thing I had been doing +that day. I am thankful for my burdens, for under them I am free and +exalted. Love like I have for Joe shows what the other love ought to be +like, and until I yearn to help a man out of his troubles and cling to +him and want him by me every minute--until then I'll not sell myself. +You can't marry for pay and be honest, for you know you can't give value +for value. You'd have to act a part, and that would be a living lie that +would pall on you, and sicken your very soul." + +"So you're not going to see Long any more?" Henley said, carried out of +himself by her winsome logic. + +"Yes, he's coming Sunday. I'll get through the day in some fashion or +other, but I'm not going to tole 'im along like a pig following an ear +of corn. Some girls would, whether they intended to take him or not, but +I've been through the rubs and can't afford to be so silly. My natural +pride won't let me chop him off after the first visit, for folks would +say he turned me down, and, with all my good intentions, I can't stand +that. I don't know why, but I can't. I reckon we want what is ours, if +it is as empty as a bottle full of wind, and, in the fellow's way, he +_does_ want me. A girl can be an old maid with much more content if +she's had what the world would call a solid chance." + +When he had left her and was walking down the road Henley paused and +looked back and saw her making her way homeward through her +cotton-field. "I might have known she'd kick him," he said, tenderly. +"No man alive is worthy of her--no man ever could be. She's a jewel +dropped from the skies. She is as sweet and innocent as a baby, and as +strong and brave as a lion. I wonder why God didn't let _me_--I wonder +why it was that _I_ happened not to--" + +A flush of shame mounted to his face. His heart seemed to stand still. +He trudged onward, his gaze on the ground. "She is doing her duty," he +muttered, "and she is not complaining. I must do mine." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +On the afternoon of the following day Dixie came to the store. At the +moment Cahews was busy with some customers on the side of the house +devoted to dry-goods, and Henley was at his desk in the rear drawing a +cheque to pay for some cotton he had bought from a farmer. Dixie walked +straight toward him, but Henley did not see her till she was quite +close, then he was struck by the unusual pallor and tense gravity of her +face. He sprang up at once and proffered a chair. + +"I want to talk to you," she said, her lips quivering, and she motioned +toward the waiting farmer. "Finish with him; I'm in no hurry." + +Henley complied, a startled concern for her rendering him all but +incapable of resuming the business with the customer. He had to go out +to the farmer's wagon to read the marks on the cotton-bale for record, +and even as he made the notes in his book and directed the unloading of +the wagon he was saying to himself: "She's in trouble--something has +gone wrong. She never was knocked out like that before." + +On his return he entered at the side-door, and as he was crossing the +yard to reach it he caught sight of her when she thought she was +unobserved. She was pressing her hands to her face, and her whole form +seemed to have wilted. She heard his step and essayed to assume a light +mood of greeting, but it was a poor pretence, at best. She smiled as +she looked up, but it was a cold, bloodless effort. + +"I may as well tell you, Alfred, that I'm in trouble," she began, +tremulously, as he sat down near her. "You've always said I had a long +head on me for a girl, but I reckon I can manage just so far, and not a +bit farther. I can plant and sow and gather and reap, and even market +small dribs of things, but I'm a fool in big business matters, and I've +gone and got my foot in it. I'm up to my neck in the mire, and I'm +sinking inch by inch." + +"What's wrong, Dixie?" he said, consolingly. "You mustn't let yourself +give up this way. It ain't like you." + +"Well, it's about my farm," she said, and she paused to steady her +voice, which seemed to fail her. + +"I see," Henley said. "Old Welborne is charging you too high interest. +You ought to shift the mortgage to somebody more human--somebody with at +least a thimbleful of soul. That man is the hardest taskmaster on earth. +He'd skin a flea for its hide and tallow." + +"Mortgage? I'm afraid you wouldn't exactly call it a mortgage, Alfred. +Listen; I've just got to tell you about it. You are my friend. I know +you'll tell me the best thing to do, and I'll abide by your advice. When +I bought the farm from Uncle Tom, who, you remember, wanted to sell out +to move to Alabama when the trade was made, I only had a thousand +dollars ready money, and the price was two thousand. Uncle Tom was +anxious to close out and get away, and so he looked about for somebody +that would lend me the balance. Times was awfully hard then, and nobody +had any money on hand but Welborne, and he said he'd let me have it at a +reasonable rate of interest. Somehow Welborne never would get ready to +make out the papers and turn over the money, and Uncle Tom was nearly +out of his head with worry over the delay." + +"One of the old dog's tricks!" Henley said, angrily. "I know him through +and through. But go on; go on." + +"Well, it was the last day before Uncle Tom was to go that Welborne +finally said he was ready and had us come to his office. I haven't got +head enough to tell you all he said, for it was so mixed up. He went on +at a frightful rate about how hard it had been for him to call in money +enough to accommodate us, and finally made a proposition. He said in +order to make himself plumb secure the farm must be bought in his name +and mine as partners, with the understanding that whenever I got the +money I could buy him out. Somehow I felt uneasy then, but Uncle Tom +declared it was plumb fair. Sam Deacon, the young man who was studying +law here then, was in the office, and he told me it was all right and +perfectly safe, and so under all that pressure I consented. I have never +told a soul about it. Somehow the longer it went on the more foolish it +seemed for a girl like me to be in partnership with that old +money-shark, and I was ashamed." + +"Well, even then," said Henley, still perplexed, "your interest must be +safe. I reckon you've had your scare for nothing." + +"I haven't told you all yet," Dixie sighed. "The big rent I've had to +pay him on his half has kept my nose to the grindstone, so that I'm even +deeper in debt to him now than I was at the start." + +"Rent?" exclaimed the storekeeper, staring blandly. + +"Yes, nothing would suit Mr. Welborne but that his part was worth two +hundred a year, and he refused right out to trade any other way." + +A light broke on Henley. He whistled softly, and his brawny hand +clutched his knee like a vise as he leaned forward. + +"I see, I see," he panted, his eyes large in pitying surprise. "He was +dodging the law against usury. He has it fixed so that he's making no +violation of law, and yet he is getting at least two and a half times as +much as he'd be entitled to. Instead of eighty dollars a year--eight per +cent.--he's getting two hundred. You've already paid him for the value +of his part over and over. My Lord, my Lord, and you--you who have had +such a hard time! But have you never made any payment at all besides the +rent?" + +"It was all I could do to rake up the two hundred a year," Dixie +answered, huskily. "Once, though, when cotton went high and I had made +six bales, I offered him a hundred dollars to lessen my debt, but he +wouldn't take it. He said it was too little to count, and that new +papers would have to be drawed up to make a proper credit, and for me to +keep it and spend it on some implements I needed. But I haven't told you +the worst yet, Alfred. He now says land has gone down in value, and that +he needs the money he's put in, and that I must buy him out, or him me, +he don't care which, but a transfer has to be made. He says if I hain't +got the money, and refuse his liberal cash offer, the property will have +to be put up at public outcry and settled that way." + +"Look here, Dixie, little friend," Henley said, his tense face furrowed +with sympathy, "you've been in powerful bad hands. Your Uncle Tom never +gave the matter a minute's consideration--all he was after was getting +away to his new home, and that young lawyer that advised you didn't have +the sense of a gnat, or was in old Welborne's pay. The paper is a legal +one, I know, for that old hog has never done a thing he could be handled +for. You've committed yourself into the hands of the slyest, most +unprincipled old thief that ever blinked under the eye of justice. He is +telling you the truth. He can sell you out, according to law, whenever +either he or you are dissatisfied with the contract. He knows you've +improved that place till it is worth double what you paid for it, and +he thinks you are in such a tight place that you'll give up in despair +and let him have what you've made by such hard licks. I know that trick, +and it is the lowest and meanest one among traders. He's got you in a +worse fix than you may imagine." + +"But how can the farm be worth as much as you say it is when he says he +is willing to take eight hundred for _his_ half, which cost originally a +thousand?" Dixie wanted to know. + +"That's the old 'give-or-take' dodge," Henley explained. "He's kept his +eye on you, and he's satisfied that you can't possibly raise eight +hundred dollars, and that you will take his eight and be glad to get it. +I could help you out of this in a minute--clean out, for I've got the +idle money and it would tickle me to death to advance it to you, but he +wouldn't sell. He's telling you he'll give or take, but he wouldn't +_take_; that ain't his dirty game." + +"So he really can sell me out at auction?" Dixie groaned. + +"Yes, but that would be his last resort," Henley said. "He thinks he's +got you under his thumb, and that he'll scare you into accepting his +cash. Wait, keep your seat; let me study over it; there must be some +way. The Lord Almighty wouldn't let a grasping old skunk like that rob a +helpless girl like you. Welborne didn't make you the give-or-take offer +in writing--I'm sure he didn't; he's too slick for that?" + +"No, he drove by home yesterday and called me out to the gate. He says +land has gone down on account of the new railroad passing on the other +side of the mountain, and that we both made a big mistake in paying as +much as we did." + +"The old liar!" Henley cried. "The road's coming to Chester, and he +knows it. He thinks Chester will grow, and your farm will be cut up into +town building sites. He's determined to get your property by hook or +crook. Some'n must be done, and that right off. Let me study a minute." + +Henley went to the side-door and looked out. Dixie saw him step down +into the junk-filled yard, and move aimlessly about from one spot to +another, his hands locked behind him. His head was bowed, and his fine, +strong face darkened by a steady frown. Jim Cahews came looking for him +to ask some question, but he waved him away. Dixie heard him cry out +impatiently: "Don't bother me!--let me alone! For the Lord's sake, go +back, go back!" + +Cahews returned to his customer, and Dixie remained seated, her eyes +fixed on Henley. He seemed to have forgotten that she was near; he +seemed scarcely to know where he was himself, for once he drew himself +to a seat on a big dry-goods box and sat swinging his legs to and fro, +his gaze on the cloud-flecked sky. Then the pendulum-like movement, the +pounding of his heels would cease; with a hand clutching the box on +either side of him he would lean forward, lock his feet together beneath +him, and bite his lip. Suddenly he got down and came back to her, a +certain light of decision in his eyes. + +"I've tackled a heap of jobs," he said, as he sat down beside her, "and +I've beat old Welborne more than once, but I generally steer clear of +him. I've been trying to think up some way to thwart him, but it is +powerful hard to devise any means to get at him. Now, if we just could +manage to get him to make his give-or-take offer before a witness we'd +have him good and tight, but he'd be too slick to do it. If he did make +it, you see, you could plank down the money I'll lend you and settle the +thing on the spot. Now listen, Dixie, there is only one possible way +open, and that is to trick the old scamp into writing down his offer and +signing it. I know something I'd like to try on if you'd forgive me for +the--the false light I'd have to put you in for a few minutes." + +"False light? Why, what do you mean, Alfred?" + +"Why, it's like this, amongst business men"--Henley flushed to the +eyes--"now and then two scamps (like me 'n him, for instance) kind o' +join forces against a weaker person and work together in harness like. +Now, if you just wouldn't think too hard of me, I could sort o' let on +to old Welborne, you see, that you was up to your eyes in debt to me, +and that--that the thing had been running on till I was--well, was plumb +tired out, and ready to come down on you." + +"Oh, I see." A faint smile broke over the girl's shrewd face. "Why, I +wouldn't care what you did or said, Alfred," she cried. "He's trying to +rob me, and I'd have a right to protect myself." + +"Well, then, enough said." Henley fell into an attitude of relief. "You +set here, and I'll run over and chat with him. I may fetch him here, and +if I openly abuse you and dun you to your teeth, you must take it all in +good spirit. You can hang your head and pretend to be sort o' shamed, if +you like; it will help to carry the thing out. Any girl that could sell +that old lion's cage for as much as you did--and in the way you did +it--ought to know how to pull the wool over Welborne's eyes. You see, +when the old devil is made to believe that I'm down on you and +determined to have a settlement, he'll think you are in more desperate +straits than ever. Wait!" + +Henley went to the big iron safe in a corner of the room and counted out +a roll of currency. He folded it tightly and gave it to her. "Stick that +down in your pocket," he said, "and have it ready, and, remember, you +are to let on all the way through that you are willing to sell out, but +before you do so you want his proposition put down in black and white. +He may think it is just some cranky woman's notion, and do it--he may, +and he may not; our chances hang on that one thing. You are a dead +goner if you don't get that paper." + +"I understand fully," Dixie said, her lips drawn firmly. "The only thing +I don't like is borrowing your money." + +"Don't be silly," Henley snorted. "You are good for it, and I'd rather +lend money to you than anybody else on earth. Don't let that bother +you." + +"Well, I won't, then," the girl said. "I know you want to help me, and +I'm very thankful for such a friend." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Crossing the street diagonally, Henley came to a little two-story frame +building near the post-office. Pausing before the door, he looked in and +saw old Welborne seated at his desk near an open window. The +money-lender was thin, had parchment-like skin, massive eyebrows, and +long, gray hair, which never seemed to have been trimmed, and was massed +on the greasy collar of his faded black alpaca coat. He was past seventy +years of age, and the hand which held his pen shook visibly. Henley went +in, and as he did so old Welborne laid down his pen and turned round in +his revolving-chair. He nodded and grunted, and motioned to a +three-legged stool near the desk. + +Henley sat down on it, and as he did so he drew out a couple of cigars, +and, holding them in the shape of a letter V, he extended them toward +the old man. "I'm advertising a new brand," he said, cordially. "Take +one, and whenever you want a good smoke drop in. You'll find 'em as free +from cabbage-leaves as any in this town. One thing certain, you don't +have to bore a hole through 'em to start circulation." + +"Drumming up trade, eh?" The money-lender smiled as he took the cigar, +and, pinching off the tip with his long thumb-nail, he thrust it between +his gashed and stained teeth. "Well, I don't blame any man for trying to +turn a penny during hard times like these. But, Lord, Alf, you'd make a +living if you was on a bare rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. I +take off my hat to any man that could handle a busted circus like you +did. I wouldn't have touched that pile of junk at your figure if it had +been given to me, and yet--well, every man to his line." + +Henley scratched a match on the sole of his shoe and lighted his cigar. +"I've been just a little afraid that your nephew--that Hank Bradley may +have told you about the little spat me and him had at the store the +other day--" + +"I heard it," Welborne broke in, with an indifferent smile. "I was +standing in the door; he was full; he ought to have been kicked out; you +done right; he's a lazy, good-for-nothing scamp, but don't talk to me +about him. I pay him what is coming to him, board him for next to +nothing, and there my responsibility ends. I'm not fighting his +battles--huh, I guess not! How's trade over your way?" + +"N. G." Henley puffed, squinting his right eye to avoid the smoke which +curled up from the end of his cigar, as he looked absently at the dingy +window-panes and the cobwebs hanging from the cracked and bulging +plastering overhead. "We can sell plenty on tick, but getting paid is +the devil. Jim Cahews is a good man, but he can't say no--to a +petticoat, anyway. While I was away he went it rather reckless. Why, he +let one little woman that has heretofore been the brag of the county get +in clean up to her neck." + +Old Welborne ceased smoking; his dim, blue eyes twinkled. "I'll bet a +dollar to a ginger-cake I know who you mean," he said, eagerly. + +"Well, maybe you do and maybe you don't," Henley said. "But I've had +enough of her foolishness and promising and never coming to time. I'm +not in business for my health. She's a neighbor of mine, and I always +admired her plucky fight, but charity begins at home. I'm not running +an orphan asylum, nor an old woman's home. Jim misunderstood me, anyway. +I told 'im her account was all right, and for him not to bear down too +hard on her, and I went to Texas and forgot all about it. But, holy +smoke! when I got home and looked at the books I was fairly staggered at +the figures. She's over there at the store now, and I had to talk to her +straight, and she won't get a bit deeper in my debt. I've got to call a +halt." + +"I think I might set your mind at rest on what she owes you," Welborne +said, with an unctuous smile. "There is no use beating about the bush, +Henley, you know she's in debt to me, and you've come over to see if I +can help you out. Well, I can. I am in the shape to do it. Me 'n you +have clashed several times in our deals and had hard feelings, but there +is no use keeping up strife. We can work together now. Me and her own +that farm in partnership, and I've had enough of it. I've made a fair +give-or-take offer, and nothing is to prevent her from closing out and +paying you what she owes you. I've got eight hundred dollars in cash +ready to hand her at any minute." + +"You don't say!" Henley's look of gratified surprise was perfect. "Well, +she's in a better fix than I thought. She ain't much of a hand to tell +her business, and I thought she had--well, about run through her pile." + +"She can get the money if she will have common-sense," said Welborne; +"but women never know how to 'tend to business, and she may act stubborn +to the end and force me to put up the land for sale. It wouldn't fetch +much, and you and me'd both lose by it. The best thing to do is to make +her have sense, and if you will--if you will talk straight to her about +your debt, maybe she'll sell out and be done with it." + +"Well, I can talk straight enough, if you'll leave it to me," Henley +said, with what looked like a frown of chronic resentment. "It makes me +mad to think she'll keep me out of my money while you are offering her +enough to square off." + +"Well, go over to the store and see what you can do to bring her to her +senses," the money-lender proposed, with a smirk which twisted his +sallow visage into a grimace. "If you can bring her to reason, we'll +both get--get what's due us." + +"All right," Henley said, in a tone of gratitude. "You come on over in a +minute. I'll tell her I've heard of your offer, and that I won't stand +anymore foolishness." + +Henley sauntered back to the store. His face was set and colorless as he +approached Dixie. She glanced up, and he was shocked by the look of +despair in her great, sorrowful eyes. + +"He's coming over," Henley said. "Everything is cocked and primed. He +thinks you may take his money--he thinks I'm going to _make_ you do it. +You needn't talk much, but stick to it that you want his offer writ down +in black and white and will have it before you'll move a peg. I'll write +it and have it ready for him to sign. If he does, we are solid; if not, +we are lost. I don't know that I ever tackled anything quite as ticklish +as this, for he is as wary and sly as a fox. We mustn't give 'im time to +think, if we can help it. Sh! there he is now. Don't mind anything I +say, no matter how harsh it sounds--remember, I'm working for your good, +and using fire to stop fire." + +She nodded and smiled knowingly, but said nothing, for the money-lender +was approaching. When Welborne was quite near, Henley suddenly said +aloud: "You are a woman, but I ain't going to stand any more +foolishness. You've been saying all this time that you can't get the +money, and yet here is a cash offer of eight hundred dollars staring you +smack-dab in the face." + +"I never had the offer until this morning," Dixie said, with what he +recognized as astonishing diplomacy. Her face was out of sight under the +hood of her sunbonnet, her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"She's willing to do what's right," Henley said to Welborne. "The only +thing she holds out for is to have the proposition down in writing. Of +course, there is no need of it, but women know nothing about business, +and will have every detail carried out, and so I scratched it down here. +It is a plain give-or-take offer of eight hundred dollars either way, +and she ain't in no fix to refuse." + +Henley dipped a pen in the ink and held the paper toward the old man. +There was an incipient wave of innate distrust in Welborne's manner as +he glanced from the bowed form of the girl to that of the waiting +storekeeper. + +"Let her have her way about it," Henley advised. "Women will have +everything complete or you can't do a blessed thing with 'em. It don't +mean anything to you; you've made her a fair give-or-take offer." + +"Yes, of course I have," Welborne said, conquering his qualms, and with +a quivering hand he signed the paper. He had no sooner done it than +Henley laid it face downward on a blotting-pad and, with a steady hand, +stroked its back. The eyes he fixed on Dixie, who was covertly watching +him, fairly danced as he raised the paper and folded it carefully. + +"Now, you two have got the proposition down in fair legal shape, and +nothing stands between you and a deal. Miss Dixie, you are just a woman, +and may not know the ways of the business world, so I want to tell you +on my honor that this is what all fair-minded men call an absolutely +straight proposition, and when you've acted on it, it would be wrong for +you to ever say anybody coerced you or took advantage of you. You +understand that you've got a right either to pay eight hundred and own +the farm, or take eight hundred and sell your half. Is that plain to +you?" + +"Yes, I understand it perfectly," Dixie answered, glancing first at him +and then at the expectant and suave money-lender. + +"And you understand it, too, don't you, Mr. Welborne?" + +"Yes, I understand it," the eager old man replied, craftily. "And you +know, Alf Henley, that I wouldn't have made as liberal an offer to +anybody but this girl. She's in a tight fix and needs the money, and the +farm has gone down to less 'n half of what it was worth when me and her +bought it." + +"Well, then, Miss Dixie," Henley said, significantly, and he held the +paper tightly in his strong hand, "you'll have to decide which thing you +intend to do." + +"I've already decided," the girl said, looking at Welborne with a placid +stare, "and I'm going to be satisfied. I know the farm isn't any good +now, and will perhaps be lower when the railroad is built the other side +of the mountain, but it is the only home we have, and I've decided to +buy it." + +"_Buy_ it?" Welborne gasped, and stared as if unable to grasp her +meaning. "You don't mean that you--" + +"Well, well!" Henley cried, "this _is_ a surprise. Here I've been rowing +you up Salt River for your puny little debt to me, and you now say you +are able to own a big chunk of real estate unencumbered. Why, you must +have struck oil somewhere. My, my, my!" + +"I don't tell my business to everybody." Dixie, now standing, had thrust +her hand into the pocket of her skirt and was drawing out the bills. +"Here's the money, Mr. Welborne." + +A snort that could have been heard to the front door issued from +Welborne's fluttering nostrils. He pushed the money from him, writhed +and tottered, and as he glared furiously at Henley he screamed: + +"It's a trick put up between you. I see it, but I won't be buncoed in no +such way. Do you hear me?--no such way!" + +He was turning off when Henley, now a different man, stepped before him. +"You are going to act fair for once, you old thief," he said, a gray +look of determination about his mouth and in his fixed eyes. "You've +been swindling this orphan girl all these years, and you are going to +abide by your own signed contract. You are going to do it, or, by all +that's holy, I'll head a gang of mountain-men that will drag you out of +your bed and lay a hundred lashes on your bare back." + +"I'll see you in hell first!" Welborne shrieked, and, darting past +Henley, he hurried from the store as fast as his tottering gait would +take him. + +"We lost, after all!" Dixie cried, and, sinking back in her chair, the +money clutched in her hand, she burst into tears. + +"Not yet, not _plumb_ yet, little girl!" Henley was unconscious of the +vast tenderness of his tone. "Don't cry; be the brave little trick +you've always been." + +"I'm not thinking of myself, really I'm not," she sobbed. "But my mother +and aunt have heard about it, and they are awfully upset. They love the +place, and the thought of leaving and being destitute is running them +crazy." + +"Look here. Let me have the money," Henley said, his eyes flashing +dangerously. "You go home and be easy. Leave him to me. He sha'n't rob +you like that; I'll drag his bones from his dirty hide and rattle 'em +through the streets before I'll let 'im. This is a Christian community, +and God rules." + +"You mustn't bother any more," Dixie said, and as she put the money into +his hands she clung to them tenderly and appealingly. "Blood has been +spilt over matters like this, Alfred, and the whole thing ain't worth +it. His nephew--I intended to warn you before--Hank Bradley is your +enemy, and now Welborne is, and between them"--she broke off with a +convulsive sob, but still clung pleadingly to his hands. + +"I don't care if his whole layout is up in arms agin me; he sha'n't rob +you. You are the sweetest, dearest, most suffering little girl the sun +ever shone on, and I'll fight for you as long as there is a speck of +life in me. You go home. I'll come to you the very minute it is +settled." + +"And you won't--oh, Alfred, please don't--please don't--for my sake, +don't have trouble with him. You're hot-tempered, and I've let you get +wrought up. Don't you see that it don't make any odds to me?" + +"All right, then," he said, smiling, and yet she saw that his smile was +only on the surface. "I promise we won't fight about it. I'll try to +bring him to his senses in some other way. Now, go home. I'll come out +as soon as I possibly can." + +It was after nightfall before he saw her again. As he was nearing her +cottage in the vague starlight he saw a figure of some one in the +fence-corner of her pasture which touched the road near his own land. He +surmised that it was she, and that she was there waiting for him, though +her head was bowed to the top rail of the fence and he couldn't see her +face. There was a strip of grass on the roadside, and he walked upon it +that it might deaden his tread till he was close upon her. As it was, he +reached her side without attracting her attention. Then something +clutched all his senses and held him like a dead thing in his tracks, +for he heard her praying in a sweet, suffering voice that lifted him +with it to the very throne of thrones. + +"Oh, God, my Maker, my Saviour, my Redeemer," he heard her saying, "give +me the strength to bear it and let no harm come to my dear, dear friend. +I can bear the loss of my home, but not to have harm come to him. Oh, +Lord, help--" She raised her head, and their eyes met and clung +together. He had a folded paper in his hand, and he extended it to her. +His voice rose and broke in a wave of huskiness: "Here is the deed, +Dixie, little girl," he said. "The farm is yours. The transaction is +recorded at the court-house. Nothing can take it from you now." + +"Mine, Alfred, mine, did you say?" + +"Yes, I had trouble; he died hard; he saw it was all up with him after +he'd signed that agreement, but it was like pulling eye-teeth to get the +deed made out. He'd write a line, and then throw down the pen and cry +and whine like a baby. I'm ashamed to say it, but once I got mad and +caught him by that slim neck of his and pushed him down under his desk +and held him there. My thumb was in his throat. I clutched too tight. I +thought I'd killed him. The Lord must have restrained me. He was black +in the face and as limber as a rag. It was then that he give in. He'd +have held out to the end, but I was holding something over him. Women +all over the county are lending him money at a low rate, and I showed +him that if this trick of his agin you was published they'd lose faith +in him and make him pay up. He saw his danger and give in. But, my! how +it rankles. It's the first time he was ever whipped to a dead finish." + +With the deed in her hand Dixie stood staring at him, her beautiful +mouth twitching with emotion, her great eyes aglow with joy. She started +to speak, but a sob rose within her and she lowered her head to the +rail. The beams of the rising moon fell on her exquisite neck; her +wonderful tresses lay massed on her shoulders. + +"Don't--don't cry, Dixie," he said. "I can't bear it." He laid his hand +on her head and let it rest there gently. + +Presently she looked up, caught his hand in both of hers and pressed her +lips to it. "You are the sweetest, best, noblest man in the world, +Alfred. I can't thank you. I'll--I'll choke. I'm so--so happy. +Good-night." + +He stood at the fence and watched her till she had disappeared in the +cottage, and then, like a man in a delightful, bewildering dream, he +turned his face toward the lights in his own house. + +Old Wrinkle was waiting for him at the gate, and he held it open for +him. "Your supper--sech as it is--is on the table waitin' for you," he +said, picking his teeth with a splinter from the fence. "Ma got it ready +for you; I've had mine; I made me some mush out of the yaller corn-meal +Pomp fetched from the mill. Mush-an'-milk, with a dab o' cream an' a +pinch o' salt, is all right to sleep on. We've had a day of it; Hettie +has gone all to flinders, and went to bed at sundown with a crackin' +headache, an' eyes swelled as big as squashes. Her uncle Ben is in +trouble. He sent her a letter fifty pages in duration by one of his +niggers. As well as I can make out betwixt Hettie's spasms her uncle +Ben's fine Baltimore lady has turned him down. Thar seems to be a Yankee +feller in the way. She advanced a hundred reasons fer deciding not to +retire to lonely mountain-life. She's riled up, for one thing, on the +nigger question--says she understands a lady has to go armed to the +teeth just to walk from the well to the back porch, an' that she never +had learned to shoot, nohow. The Yankee feller has more scads than Ben, +an' has bought an estate in New York City which he lays at her feet as +an inducement. Het an' Ben must be slices off the same block, for his +letter was soaked in salt water, an' she had to run a hot flatiron over +hern before it would do to send. He writ her that she was the only +faithful woman on earth--he was hintin' at Dick's burial arrangements, I +reckon--an' that if she was thar he'd put his head in her lap an' have a +good cry. They would have had to swap laps if they had been together +to-day, for Het needed a foot-tub to take care of her overflow. Well, +I'm keepin' you from your royal banquet. You'll find it on the +dinner-table, with the cloth all drawed up over it like a bundle ready +for the wash. Ma tied it up that way to keep the cat out of it. I don't +think the cat 'u'd care for any of it, but I reckon Jane 'lowed the +thing mought paw it over in the hope o' strikin' some'n worth while." + +Conscious of little that the old man was saying, Henley passed on into +the dimly lighted farm-house, experiencing a vague sense of relief that +he was not just then to face his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +One evening shortly after this Henley was returning from the store about +an hour later than was his custom. He was nearing Dixie Hart's cottage, +when, in the clear moonlight, he saw the girl emerge from the little +apple-orchard behind her barn and come rapidly toward him. Her glance +was on the ground, and she had evidently not seen him. As she drew near +where he stood waiting, he noted that her head was bare, and that she +had a medicine-bottle in her hand. He noted, too, from her gait and +hurried manner, that she was greatly disturbed. She was about to pass +him when he called out, cheerily, "Where away, in such a hurry?" + +"Oh!" She looked up and stopped. "You scared me, Alfred. I couldn't +imagine who it was. I'm going over to Sam Pitman's. Joe is +sick--powerful sick. If I am any judge, it is pneumonia, and a bad case +at that." + +"Pneumonia!" he echoed, aghast. "I didn't know anything was wrong with +him." + +"It's been coming on some time," she said. "He caught an awful cold. You +know the day it rained so hard and the creek got out of banks? I was +trying to cross the ford below Pitman's in my wagon. I thought I could +make it all right, but the current washed the wagon in a hole, and old +Bob couldn't touch bottom. The wagon was floating like a boat, and he +finally got stuck in the mud with just his head and neck out and +couldn't budge. Joe was digging sprouts in the field on the right-hand +side, and ran down to me. I yelled at him not to come in, but he struck +out toward me with his clothes on, swimming like a dog. He got to me and +helped me out in the water on a high place, and made me stand there +while he worked and tugged at the trace-chains for twenty minutes till +he finally unhitched Bob and pulled him out of the mire. Then he helped +me out and dragged the wagon ashore." + +"Plucky little chap!" cried Henley. + +"But he's getting paid for it," Dixie said, bitterly. "He got overheated +in the cold mountain-water, and he is in a bad fix, Alfred. I know when +a sick person is dangerous, and he is." + +She was moving on toward Pitman's now, and Henley was keeping step by +her side. "You mustn't take it so hard," he said, in an effort to calm +her. "It will come out all right." + +"It is a ticklish thing, pneumonia is," she said; "and he hasn't got a +doctor. Sam Pitman says it isn't anything but a cold, and he won't send +for one. I was over there twice to-day, but he don't even want me to +nurse him. I've got my things all done up at home and the folks in bed, +and I'm going to stay with him all night if I have to have a +knock-down-and-drag-out row to do it. I told Sam Pitman that I'd pay for +the doctor out of my own pocket, but that just made him madder. He says +I'm trying to come under his roof and run his affairs, and that I +sha'n't do it. He may not let me in now. I don't know, but he is one of +the devil's imps, if there ever was one. Mrs. Pitman is a little better, +but he's got her under his thumb. She won't raise her voice when he is +around." + +"We must have a doctor, that's certain," declared Henley. "You walk on +and I'll run to town and bring Doctor Stone. He knows his business, and +he'll take charge of the case if I back him. If Pitman tries to hinder +us I'll jail him as sure as he's a foot high." + +"Oh, Alfred, I wish you would get the doctor. I'm so glad I met you. I +was worried to death. I know how to nurse in ordinary cases, but +pneumonia is so treacherous. Hurry, please; I'll never forget you for +this." + +Twenty minutes later Henley entered the gate of Sam Pitman's diminutive +farm-house. Three watch-dogs came from beneath the little front porch, +but, recognizing the visitor, they stood wagging their tails cordially +and uttering low whines of welcome. There was a broken harrow, with +rusty iron teeth, leaning against the house near the log steps; a +top-heavy ash-hopper and a lye-stained trough stood under the spreading +branches of a beechnut-tree beside a rotting cider-press and a huge pot +for heating water during hog-killing or for boiling lye and grease for +the making of soap. + +As Henley approached the steps Pitman and his wife, hearing the click of +the gate-latch, came out on the porch, which was shaded by overhanging +vines, and stood staring blankly at him. Henley was a gallant man, for +his station in life, and he drew off his broad-brimmed hat and remained +uncovered while he spoke. + +"I've run over to inquire how little Joe is," he said, conscious of the +grim opposition to his visit in the very air that hung around the +farmer. "I happened to meet Miss Dixie Hart just now on her way here, +and she was considerably upset." + +"Nothin' wrong with the boy," Pitman muttered, surlily. "That gal, like +most of her meddlin' sort, is havin' a regular conniption-fit over +nothin'. I reckon she is afeard thar'll be one less on the marryin' list +a few years from now. He was a pesky fool, anyway, plungin' in cold +water to attend to her business. He's had croupy coughs before this, an' +wheezin'-spells, an' been hot like all childern will when they eat too +much, but we never went stark crazy over it." + +"Miss Dixie is a purty good judge, Sam," Henley answered, incisively. +"She'd be hard to fool if danger was lurkin' around. When she described +Joe's condition to me just now I saw she had plenty cause to worry, and +so I went straight back to town and left word for Doctor Stone to hurry +here as soon as he got home. They was looking for him every minute." + +"You say you did!" Pitman came to the edge of the porch, and, with his +arm around one of the posts which upheld the roof, he leaned over till +his face was close to Henley's. "Huh! you are some pumpkins, ain't you? +You can keep me from runnin' an account at your dirty shebang, Alf +Henley, but you can't walk dry-shod over me in my own house. A man's +domicyle is his castle in law, and I'm goin' to manage mine an' defend +it, ef I have to." + +"Don't get excited, Sam; keep your shirt on," Henley said, calmly. There +was an oblong spot of light thrown on the grass between him and the +gate. It was from the attic window above the porch, and across it now +and then moved a shadow. He knew that the little room under the roof was +occupied by the sick child, and that the shadow was Dixie's. The shadow +was now still and bowed at the window in an attitude of attention to +what was going on below. + +"I ain't excited any to hurt," Pitman went on, his voice rising higher. +"You say you've ordered Stone to come, an' I say if he does he won't put +his foot across my threshold." + +"You've got it in for me, Sam, I see," Henley said, still unruffled, +"but this is no time for you and me to settle old scores. The boy is no +blood kin to either of us." + +"The law gives me full an' complete charge of 'im till he's of age," +Pitman snarled, "an' I hain't invited you to put in, an' until I do +you'll be a sight safer on t'other side of that fence. I mean the one +right thar behind you." + +The window-sash was raised above, and Dixie looked out. + +"He's just dropped to sleep," she announced in a guarded tone. "Please, +Alfred, don't let them talk so loud, and send the doctor up the minute +he comes." + +"Very well," Henley answered, softly and reassuringly. Then going close +to the farmer he said in a low voice, "I want to talk to you a minute; +let's walk round the house." + +Pitman hesitated, staring doggedly at the speaker, and then shifted his +sullen gaze to the face of his wife. + +"Go on with 'im," she said, and turned stiffly into the lark doorway +behind her. + +Silently Henley led Pitman round the house to the little barn-yard in +the rear. There was a red-painted road-wagon near the wagon-shed and +Henley sat down easily on the strong pole and began to search through +his pockets for a cigar and matches. He grunted in disappointment when +he found his pockets empty, and then deliberately applied himself to the +matter in hand. + +"Looky here, Sam Pitman," he began, "for a long-headed, sensible +mountain-man you are plunging into more serious trouble than any chap of +your size ever got into. I'm going to let you on to a thing that a +fellow usually keeps quiet--I'm going to do it because I feel that it is +my Christian duty not to be a party to the great disaster you are on the +brink of." + +"I don't know what you mean, an' I don't care a damn," growled Pitman. +"I know what my rights are, an' that's all I'm talkin' about." + +"I started to tell you, when you busted in," said Henley, swinging his +feet beneath him, "that I'm a member of the grand jury, and you may or +may not know that when a fellow is impaneled in that body he's got a +sworn job on his hands that is powerful exacting. He is on his oath to +report to the authorities any criminal irregularity that comes under his +notice. Now! I have had the word and the judgment of a respectable and +truthful lady that the boy bound to you by law is dangerously and +critically sick, and, calling here in my lawful capacity to look into +the matter, I hear you say with my own ears that no doctor shall put +foot across your threshold. Now, look at it straight, Sam. Even if Joe +was to get well a big, serious case may come up against you--I don't +promise that you'll come off free even as it is, but if the child was to +_die_--I say if he was to happen to pass away, and I've seen little ones +die when half a dozen skilled doctors was standing by--Sam Pitman, in +that case, no lawyer on earth could keep you out of limbo. I tell you, +you don't know it, but right this minute you are in the tightest hole +you ever slid into. A jury in your case wouldn't leave their seats. Men +pity helpless children in this life more'n they do big hulking men of +your stripe, and they'd sock it to you to the full extent of the law. +Even if it wasn't tried at court, take it as a hint from me, the men of +these mountains would get together in a body and lynch you. Reports have +already been going round to your eternal discredit about this child, and +one more act of yours will simply settle your hash. This is me talking, +Sam." + +"You--you dare to come here--" But Pitman's rage was tinctured with +actual fear of the man before him, and his intended threat was not +uttered. He was white and quivering, but he was helpless. A sound broke +the stillness that now fell between the two men. It was the steady +trotting of a horse on the road. + +"There's Doc now," Henley announced, and his eyes met Pitman's, which +were kindling again. + +"Well, I've said he sha'n't--an', by God--" Pitman started toward the +house, but Henley sprang up and faced him. Laying his hand heavily on +the farmer's shoulder he cried almost with a hiss of fury: "Let that +doctor alone, you dirty whelp! He's going to crawl up that ladder to +that hole under the roof to see that boy. You and me are nigh the same +size, and we can settle right here. You tried me once before, maybe you +want another dose. Stir a peg to prevent this thing and I'll drive your +head into your shoulders same as I would a wedge in a split log." + +Pitman glared helplessly, and then he showed defeat. With his eyes on +the ground, and writhing from beneath Henley's hand, he said: + +"The boy hain't bad off, nohow!" + +"Well, we'll see what Doc Stone has to say about it," Henley retorted. +"He's authority, an' you hain't." + +Pitman had no reply ready. They heard the gate open and close, and then +on the still air came the gentle voice of Dixie speaking from the attic +window. "Come right in, Doctor, and up the ladder. Be careful and don't +stumble. I'll hold the candle for you." + +Pitman sullenly turned away. Henley watched him as he went into the +stall of a stable and struck a match to light his pipe. Leaving him, +Henley went back to the farm-house and sat down on the steps of the +porch. The light from the attic window lay on the lush green grass +before him, and he kept his eyes upon it. There was a tread on the floor +behind him as soft as that of a cat. It was Mrs. Pitman in her bare +feet. She held her tattered shoes in her hand. She touched him on the +shoulder. + +"I hope you an' Sam didn't--come to licks," she whispered. + +"No, he's all right," was the gentle reply. "I had to talk sharp, Mrs. +Pitman, an' I'm sorry it was here at his own house." + +"Well, I'm glad the doctor come," she conceded, slowly. "I was afeard to +put in while Sam was talkin'. He gits madder at me 'n he does to all the +rest combined. I'm sort o' feard the boy is bad off, myself." + +"Yes, he's bad off," Henley nodded, grimly. "If it was a light case Doc +Stone would have been down before this. You may depend on it, it's +serious." + +Muttering inarticulately, the woman crept away. Henley remained bent +forward, his eyes on the shifting shadows before him. He looked at his +watch; two hours had passed. The closing of a rear door and the +resounding tread of a pair of hobnailed boots on the lower floor told +him that Pitman had entered the house and was going to bed. He saw +Dixie's shadow in its frame on the grass, and went out to the fence and +looked up. She was there, and she leaned over the little sill and +nodded. "I only wanted to know if you was still there," she said, in a +low tone. "Joe--" But the doctor evidently had called her, for she +looked back into the room and vanished. Henley saw two shadows bending +forward, and he strode back and forth along the fence, a fierce suspense +clutching his heart. Presently the doctor, a middle-aged, full-bearded +man, with a gentle manner, crept down the ladder and walked softly +across the porch. Henley joined him at his buggy in the road. + +"How is he, Doc?" he inquired, his fears deepened by the physician's +silence, as he stood between the wheels of the buggy and fumbled with +the reins wrapped around the whip-holder. + +"Awful, awful!" Stone said, grimly. "Not one chance in five hundred. +Malignant pneumonia. Neglected case. I've left medicine and +instructions. I can't stay--would if I could--case of child-labor down +the road--nobody else to attend to it. I'll be back before morning. +That will be the crisis. He's in splendid hands; a trained nurse +couldn't be better." + +"Anything I can do, Doc?" Henley swallowed a lump of emotion that had +risen in his throat. + +"Not a thing; but you might stay right here. Miss Dixie might--if +anything happened--she might need you. She's a plucky little woman, and +it might be best for her to have some sort of company. She is wrought +up. She loves the boy as a mother would her own child, and yet she is +calm and steady." + +Henley leaned on the fence and watched the vehicle disappear in the +misty moonlight which seemed to fall like a mantle from the mountain. He +was resting his head on the fence when he felt a light touch on his arm. +It was Dixie. + +"He is sleeping," she whispered. "The doctor said it would be good for +him. Oh, Alfred, it's pitiful, pitiful! I'm glad to see that you feel +like you do. He loves you; he has spoken of you scores of times, and, +when I told him just now that you was down here watching, he was glad. I +wonder why God tears a human soul to pieces like this. If Joe is taken +to-night I don't think I could ever get over it. Oh, Alfred, my heart +yearns over him. At this minute I could ask for nothing better than to +be allowed to work for that child all the rest of my life." Tears stood +in her wonderful eyes, and her breast, under its thin covering, rose and +fell tumultuously. + +"You are a sweet, good girl, Dixie." Henley's voice sounded new to +himself. "You are the noblest woman that ever drew the breath of life. +As the Lord is my Redeemer, I'd give all I possess on earth to help you +to-night." + +Their eyes met in a strange gaze of wonderment. "I believe it," she +said, simply, while a sad smile touched her pulsing lips. "Yes, I +believe it. But I must go back." + +He sat under the beechnut-tree watching the attic window till the +eastern sky above the mountains began to take on a grayish cast. Now and +then through the long vigil Dixie would come to the window and look down +on him, only to nod knowingly and retire, as if content with his mute +companionship. + +It was almost dawn when the doctor came. + +"I was delayed," he explained as he sprang out of his buggy; "bad case +of labor--had to use instruments, but successful." He hurried to the +gate without hitching his horse. "How is he?" + +"I can't say, Doc--you'd better see for yourself." + +The yellow light was filling all the sky with resplendent glory when +Dixie, her face wan and wearied, came down the ladder. Henley's heart +sank at the first sight of her, but it bounded when she had seen him, +for the rarest of smiles broke about her mouth and eyes. + +"He's going to get well, Alfred!" she cried, and she extended her hand +with the warm confidence of a child toward a trusted friend. He let it +rest in his as he walked with her to the gate, wondering over the good +news, wondering over the delight with which her touch was firing his +being. + +"Yes, the worst is over," she went on. "The doctor says with good +nursing and watching he'll pull through. He is going to stay with him +while I run home and do up the things, then I'll come back and relieve +him. He is going to give Pitman a tongue-lashing, and says he'll appear +against him in court if he doesn't act different. As soon as Joe can be +moved we are going to bring him to my house. Oh, Alfred, won't that be +glorious? There I can give him everything he needs, and a clean, cool, +airy room to get well in. Weak as he was, he cried with actual joy when +he heard the doctor say he could come. Alfred, do you know we all ought +to be ashamed of ourselves for complaining in this life, and wanting +more and more of the trashy baubles. Right now I'm so happy I feel like +flying. Look at that sunrise! We couldn't have seen it like that if we'd +been in our beds with our eyes shut; we couldn't feel this way if we +hadn't dragged through all that pain and anxiety last night. I've got to +write a letter and mail it before I come back. Jasper Long was to come +over Sunday, you know, but I can't give the time to him. I'll ask him to +come Sunday after next." + +"It will disappoint him mightily," Henley said, a sudden feeling of +aversion to the subject on him. "It will break the fellow all up. He's +been counting the days and hours." + +"I can't help it." Dixie shrugged her shoulders indifferently, her head +down. They were now in the little wood that lay between Pitman's farm +and her cottage. To the leaves and branches of the chestnut and +sassafras bushes that bordered the little-used road the night mists and +silvery cobwebs clung, magnified by their coating of dew and the yellow +light. + +"I don't know as I ever saw a fellow quite so much concerned and +anxious," Henley's strangely tentative voice produced. "I saw him over +there the other day, and he had lots to say. He means to--to get you if +he possibly can. He's planning a fine house, and said he was going to +tell you about it when he come over. He says women know better about +such things than men, and is going to offer you full sway. To do him +credit, there ain't nothing little about Long. He'll do right, I reckon, +by any woman he pledges his word to. I'd hate to--to think I'd fetched +you together if--if he wasn't all right--that is, honest and upright." + +"I know that," Dixie said. "But let's not talk about him, or his fine +house, or his money, or his good intentions. He don't seem, somehow, to +fit one bit into my feelings this morning. He's a cold-blooded business +proposition, and last night's terror and this morning's joy has filled +me to here"--she held her tapering hand under her plump chin and +laughed--"well, with some'n different from him. The truth is, I don't +care if I never see him again. That's a fact, Alfred. I feel like I'm on +the up-hill road in single harness, anyway, since I am out of debt to +Welborne, and owe you, instead. When are you going to send that note +over for me to sign?" + +"Never, if I can help it," he said. "I've let men owe me without note or +security, why should I make you sign up for a trifle like that?" + +"Well, to tell the truth, I like it as it is," she answered, with a fine +smile and a rippling laugh that woke the echoes in the quiet spot. "It +is such a sweet proof of your friendship. Ain't it funny how me 'n you +have been mixed up in things? You know me as well as I know myself, +Alfred. You've helped me, and I hope I have you--some. I don't know; I +hope I have." + +"More than anybody else in the world," he said, fervently. + +They had come to where their ways separated, and, with his hat in his +hand, and his heart full of an inexplicable, transcendental something, +he stood under the trees and watched her move away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +On the day following Long's second visit to Dixie, Henley's affairs took +him to Carlton. He was at the cotton-compress making arrangements to +have a quantity of cotton prepared for shipment, when he met one of +Long's clerks. + +"Have you seen Mr. Long?" the young man asked. + +"No, I've just got in," Henley answered. He could not have explained the +fact, not being given to self-analysis, but he had vaguely determined +that he would make every possible effort to avoid the storekeeper. In +spite of his good intentions to aid Dixie in the contemplated alliance, +he had come to regard it as altogether too incongruous an affair to be +viewed favorably. What right had any man to her? What manner of man +could possibly be worthy of her, much less the stupid blockhead who was +thrusting himself upon her as Long was? + +"Well, he's looking for you, Mr. Henley," the clerk said. "It must be +important, for he's been to the bank and post-office three times since +he heard you'd got in. It really looks like he's in trouble of some +sort." + +"Business gone crooked?" Henley inquired, as he watched the clerk's face +with almost anxious eyes. "Maybe he's been buying futures?" + +"Oh no, it ain't that!" the young man hastened to say. "He don't +speculate in anything. He's dead sure of everything he touches. No, it +ain't that, and business never was brisker, but we boys are doing it +all. He ain't much help; don't do anything but write letters and tear +'em up, and talk about marryin' to every man, woman, an' child that +happens in. He was all right and sound, and regular as a clock, till you +fetched that girl in from over your way and introduced him. Come down +right away, Mr. Henley. I'll tell 'im I saw you." + +As Henley turned away to attend to his consignment of cotton in the +office of the compress he bit his lip and frowned darkly. + +"If the dang fool thinks I'm going down there to be buttonholed for +hours to hear his tale of woe, he's certainly off his nut," he muttered, +angrily. "I've got other matters to attend to. I don't believe she is at +all struck with him, nohow. It don't look like she'd put 'im off like +she does and keep him floundering in so much hot water if she thought +much of him. He was there yesterday. I wonder what ails him now? She +didn't take 'im out to church. Little Joe is at her house, but he is +doing well enough for her to spare the time; I wonder if she was ashamed +to be seen out with him after that first splurge. I don't know; she +certainly is a plumb mystery to me." + +His business over, he skirted around Long's establishment and made his +way through an isolated alley to the wagon-yard where he had left his +horse and buggy. He was just congratulating himself on his escape from +the storekeeper, when Long suddenly broke upon his vision as he plunged +incontinently through the big gateway. With an uneasy look in his eyes, +and with a face drawn and serious, the storekeeper came striding toward +him. + +"Hello!" he panted. "I've been everywhere looking for you. You are as +slippery as an eel, and as hard to catch as a flea. I want to see you +bad, Alf. It's a particular matter. I can't let it rest." + +"I was busy, and I hain't any too much time left on my hands now." +Henley looked at the sun and then at his watch. "You'll have to talk +fast, Long. Seems to toe there's a lot o' hitches in my affairs here +lately. This 'un to see, and that 'un to talk to, and--" + +"I'm in trouble, Alf, old man." Long laid a red, perspiring hand on his +friend's shoulder and bore down heavily. "I was out yore way yesterday. +I tried to see you as I started home, but didn't know where to find you. +Alf, I can't jest somehow make out that little trick. Looks like she's +sorter shifty. In the first place, havin' to postpone the trip on +account of that sick young brat that ain't no blood kin to anybody +concerned sort o' knocked me off my props, and then, when the day _did_ +come round, very little was done--that is, in the _right_ direction." + +"You--you'll have to have patience," Henley remarked, insincerely. "If +you can't hold in and take things as they come you'd better call the +deal off. I started you; I can't lay down everything and keep--keep +telling you what to do and say. Life's too short and makes too many +claims on a fellow." + +"I want you to say a good word for me, Alf." Long wiped his anxious +mouth with his bare hand and tugged at his mustache. "She believes the +sun rises and sets in you. Looks to me like it's Alfred did this, an' +Alfred said that, an' Alfred thinks so and so and does so and so, with +every breath she draws. For a while I 'lowed it was because she was +grateful to you for helpin' her out in the marryin' line, but she don't +seem to want to marry much, nohow. She'd listen to you, though, if she +would to any man alive, and something has to be done." + +"Well, I reckon the little woman _is_ friendly to me." Henley avoided +the fiercely anxious stare of his flurried companion. "She's done me +good turns, and I've tried to respond." + +"She'd fight for you tooth and toe-nail," Long declared. "I know from +experience. Why, I just happened to say one little, tiny thing about +you, and la! she flew at me like a hen fightin' for her brood. I meant +no harm. I'd have said the same thing to your face, as I am saying it +now. Me 'n her was talking about the way men dress these days, and I +said, without meanin' any harm, that it was naturally expected that +chaps here in a town like Carlton would be more up to date than at the +foot of the mountains where you live, and remarked that you made no +great pretence in the clothes you wore, in fact, that I thought you went +just a little bit too careless for a man as young and well-off as you +are." + +"Huh, you told her that, did you?" Henley's cheeks reddened against his +will. "Well, I don't go much on style, in hot weather, anyway. I never +did want to be called a dude." + +"Of course not, but what you reckon she done? She leaned back in her +chair while I was a-talking an' laughed like she'd bust herself wide +open. She pointed down at my new tan shoes and green socks and wanted to +know if things like them was style, and asked me why I kept my gloves on +in the house. She wanted to know if I let my yaller-bordered +handkerchief stick out of my upper pocket because I was afraid folks +wouldn't see it, an' if I kept a cheaper one to blow my nose on. You may +know, Alf, that all the good-dressers here at Carlton--and I pride +myself I'm amongst 'em--have their suits pressed once a week to make 'em +set right, but she said my pant-legs looked like they was lined with +pasteboard, and that my high collar looked like a cuff upside down. Of +course, I couldn't get mad, for she was joking all through, and laughin' +pleasant-like. But, Alf, I must say she's fallin' off in her meal +record. You know she made such a fine spread the first time that I +naturally expected some'n out of the common again. I saved myself up for +it. I didn't take on a big breakfast before I left home because I told +myself, I did, that I'd appreciate her fine fixings all the more. So you +can imagine how I felt when she marched me out, with them old women, and +set me down to--well, a body oughtn't to criticise what's set before 'em +in a friend's house, but, Alf, that really was the limit. I can tell you +just exactly what we had. I'll never forget it. It was plain pork and +beans, and boiled cabbage, and sliced tomatoes, and hard cornbread. She +hadn't put a sign of an egg in it, and cornbread without eggs ain't fit +to eat. It looks like Mrs. Hart had had some dispute with Dixie about +it, too, for the old lady kept whining and telling me it wasn't her +fault, that she thought Dixie was going to set in and fix up proper, but +that Dixie wouldn't listen to reason, and why, the old lady said, she +was unable to understand, for the like had never happened before. Dixie +didn't make any excuses, but set at the head of the table and dished out +that stuff as if it was the best afloat. 'Won't you pass yore plate for +more beans?' she wanted to know, and 'Won't you try some of the butter +with the cornbread?' I reckon I made a mistake by speaking of what a +fine spread she got up the last time, for she kind o' tilted her nose in +the air, an' said she 'lowed the weather was too hot to stand over a hot +cook-stove unless it was some _extra occasion_." + +"She's got lots to do," Henley said, his eyes twinkling with amusement. +"She's undertaken to nurse that little boy back to health, and he takes +up a lot of her time." + +"I reckon he does," Long said. "Looks like me an' her'd hardly get +settled in our chairs on the porch before her mammy would call out that +Joe wanted water, or Joe wanted to set up, or what not. It was more like +hard work than any day of courtin' I ever put in. But now, Alf, I'm +coming to my chief trouble. I want her, and I want her bad. I hardly +sleep at night for thinking about her sweet, pretty face, and +industrious habits, and what a bang-up wife she'd make, but I don't get +nowhere. The minute I come down to hard-pan she wiggles away like a +scared tadpole in shallow water. I done a thing, and I don't know +whether it was a big mistake or not, and that is the main thing I want +to see you about. It was just before I left, an' we was standin' at the +gate, nigh my hoss and buggy. It had got sorter dark, and--well, I'll +tell you all about it. Alf, I've heard fellows say (and they was men +that had had experience with women, too)--I've heard 'em say that the +chap that dilly-dallies with a woman, and always acts as sweet as pie, +never makes no headway. Them fellows say you've just got to be sorter +firm with a girl that won't make up her mind--that women like to have a +man show that he ain't scared out of his senses when he's with 'em. And +so I had all that in mind, you understand, when I made my last set at +her there in the dark. I saw nobody wasn't looking, and I catched hold +of her hand, I did, and held on to it though she pulled and twisted with +all her might. I told her I was bound to have a kiss, and I pulled her +up agin me and tried to take it. I couldn't manage it, though, and, by +gad! she got loose and slid through the gate, and went in the house and +slammed the door in my face." + +"She ought to have knocked your head off, you low-lived fool!" cried +Henley. He was white in the face, and his eyes had a dangerous glare in +them. His breath came rapidly and with an audible sound. "For a minute +I'd pull you down here and stomp the life out of you!" + +"Why, Alf! Alf! have you plumb lost your senses?" Long gasped. "Why, +why, good Lord, man! Why, Alf--" + +"Don't Alf me!" Henley cried. "Get out of my sight or me 'n you'll mix +right here! I didn't introduce you to that gentle girl to have you pull +her around like a housemaid and force your foul lips to hers. I +introduced you as a _man_, not a bar-room roustabout. No wonder she +hain't took to you--no wonder she don't want to tie herself down for +life to you!" + +Henley had sprung into his buggy and taken up the whip and reins. "Stand +out of the way!" he cried. "You've imposed on my friendship, and I don't +want you ever to mention this matter to me again. I'm heartily ashamed +of my part in it, and I don't want to be reminded of it." + +Long tried to stop him, but, still white and furious, Henley lashed his +horse, and the animal bore him out of the yard and into the street. "I +ought to have given him one in the jaw!" Henley fumed. "I'll be sorry I +didn't the longer I think about it--the low-lived, dirty brute!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +All the next day as Henley performed his duties at the store the hot +sense of Long's stupid conduct brooded over him. One moment he was fired +with fury over the man's sheer vanity, the next he was bitterly accusing +himself for having been the primary cause of putting Dixie in a +disagreeable position. What would she think of him, he asked himself +over and over, for introducing such a despicable creature to her +hospitality and good graces? + +It was near sunset when he saw her pass the store, going toward the +square. He went to the porch in front, unnoticed by the busy Cahews and +the drowsy Pomp, and saw her, much to his surprise, enter the +court-house yard, a place seldom visited by ladies. She was going up the +walk to the arching stone entrance when she met the ordinary of the +county, and Henley saw her pause and speak to him. The elderly, +gray-haired gentleman stood for several minutes in a listening attitude, +his hand cupped behind his ear, for he was slightly deaf. Presently +Henley saw the two turn toward the building and enter it side by side. + +"I wonder what on earth the little trick's going there for at this time +of year," Henley mused. "It ain't tax-paying time." + +The sun was down when she came out. He saw her coming and got his hat, +timing himself so that he would meet her, as if by accident, and walk +home with her. His calculations could not have been more accurate, for +she was in front of the store when he came out. + +"Oh," he said, "it's you! I thought I saw you pass just now. I'm going +your way. I wanted to inquire how your little patient is." + +"Oh, he's tiptop!" she cried, a delicate flush of tender enthusiasm on +her face, a sparkle in her eyes. "Dr. Stone says he's mending twice as +fast at our house because the little fellow is so happy there. When I'm +off at work he's petted half to death by them two old women who haven't +had anything better than a cat to pamper up since I got out of their +clutch." + +"And old Pitman let you move him?" Henley half questioned, as he suited +his step to hers. "How did you manage it?" + +"Me and the doctor put up a job on him," she laughed. "Dr. Stone wanted +to help me gain my point, and he had the sharpest talk with old Sam you +ever heard. The law was going to take him in hand for violating his +contract in regard to the boy, and Dr. Stone would have to appear +against him. But he told Sam that if he'd turn the boy over to me till +he got well, he thought the whole thing might drop." + +"Good job!" Henley chuckled. "Sam's a hard nut to crack." + +Dixie raised her long lashes in a steady stare at him. "Guess what I've +been doing at the court-house," she said. "I've been engaged in an odd +thing for this modern day of enlightenment. Maybe you think slavery is +over--maybe you think the Yankees wiped it clean out forty years ago, +but they didn't. I've turned the wheels of Time back. I laid down the +cash and bought a real live slave to-day. I didn't have to dig up as +much as two thousand, which, I understand, was the old price for stout, +able-bodied, hard workers, for the one I bought was a little sick one. +Alfred, I actually bought little Joe to-day. I paid Sam Pitman +twenty-five dollars to get him to release all his claims without any +rumpus. I've adopted him. Judge Barton has fixed up the papers good and +stout, and says nothing can take him from me as long as I do my part by +him. Alfred, I'm so happy that I want to shout at the top of my lungs." + +"You have adopted him!" Henley exclaimed, in wondering surprise. "Well, +well, what won't you do next? Of all the things on earth this knocks me +off my feet, and you already loaded down with responsibilities!" + +"I don't care," Dixie laughed. "I'd welcome more like that, and never +complain. You ought to have seen Joe when I told him Sam had agreed to +let him go, and that I was to be his mother. If you could have seen the +angelic look on that thin, white face you would have known that life is +eternal, and that the spirit is all there is to anything. He stared +straight at me with his pale brow wrinkled as if it was too good to be +so, and then when I convinced him, he put his arms around my neck and +hugged me tight, and sobbed and sobbed in pure joy." + +Dixie was shedding tears herself now, and, with a heaving breast and +lowered head, she walked along beside her awed and silent companion. +They had entered a wood through which the road passed, and there seemed +to be a hallowed stillness in the cool, grayish touch of the coming +night that pervaded the boughs and foliage of the trees. Beyond the wood +a mountain-peak rose in a blaze of molten gold from the oblique rays of +the setting sun, but here the night-dews were beginning to fall and the +chirping insects of the dark were waking. In the marshy spots frogs were +croaking and snarling, and fireflies were cutting, to their kind perhaps +readable, hieroglyphics on the leafy background. Presently she wiped her +eyes, and smiled up at him. + +"What a goose I am!" she said. "As old as I am, I'll cry if you crook +your finger at me. You went to Carlton yesterday, didn't you?" + +"Yes," he replied, glad to see her emotion over, uplifting and rare as +its nature was. + +"Did you happen to see my young man?" A smile he failed to see in the +shadows was playing sly tricks with her lineaments. + +"_Your_ young man? You mean--" + +"You know who I mean. I mean my beau--Mr. Jasper Long, Esquire, +merchant, cotton-handler, and rich capitalist." + +"Yes, I saw him," Henley said, reluctantly. "I didn't make a point of +looking him up. He ran about searching for me. I've washed my hands of +that--that matter, Dixie. I ain't no hand at match-making, nohow. It +ain't my turn. I get all mixed up, and blunder at it. I'll never set +myself up to pick out a--a suitable mate for any woman again. There +ain't none in existence--there ain't none half good enough for you, +nohow. It makes me sick to--to think about a fellow like--well, no +better in many ways than this here Long is--having the gall to think +he--that you'd be willing to live with him the rest of your days as if +there was a single thing in common betwixt you. He told me about what he +done--what he _tried_ to do out at the fence when he started off the +other night, and, _well_--" + +"Well what?" she cried, eagerly, the corners of her mouth curving upward +as she eyed him covertly. + +"Why, you know well enough what the fool done, Dixie!" Henley said, +unaware of the meshes into which her curiosity was leading him. "When he +told me about it, in his offhand way, as if he had just done an +ordinary, every-day act, I come as nigh as peas mashing his big, +flathering mouth. I've been boiling mad ever since. I rolled and tumbled +in bed last night, and it's stuck to me all day. Somehow I just can't +shake it off." + +"You mean, Alfred"--and she paused at the roadside, and put out her +hands to his arms, and studied his face with the eagerness of a child +searching for the confirmation of something hoped for and yet not +absolutely attainable--"do you mean that it actually made you mad when +he told you. Tell me how; tell me why. You wouldn't have--felt that way +if--if it had been some other girl, would you?" + +"How do I know?" Henley cried, hot from the memory of the thing spoken +of. "I don't know whether I'd feel mad or not. I never tried it. It is +the first time I was ever up against a thing as aggravating as that was. +The idea of him actually trying to kiss you, and--and put his arms +around you, and holding to you, and--and--" + +"He's a bad, mean thing, ain't he, Alfred?" And her merry laugh rang +through the quiet wood, plunging him into deeper mystification than +ever. "But of course he couldn't know that I'd not be willing to be +hugged and kissed right there at the fence, with a crippled woman +peeping out at the window, and a half-blind one standing by, begging for +a report of what's taking place. Before you married, Alfred, I'll bet +you selected a better place than that when you wanted to kiss a girl. +That fellow lives in a big town and I live here in the backwoods, but I +can learn him a thing or two." + +"You can't fool me." Henley was sure of his ground now. "You wouldn't +let that chump kiss you at any time or at any place. I was a fool to +ever mention him to you; he ain't worthy to tie the shoes of a woman as +noble and sweet and pretty as you are." + +"Go it, go it, Alfred!" A delicate flush of delight had overspread her +face, which was wreathed in smiles. There was a twinkling light in her +eyes, and her laugh rang out sweeter and more merrily than ever. "If +Jasper Long only knowed how to say nice things in your roundabout way +I'd marry him if he was as poor as Job's turkey. You never have told me +in so many words that--that you like my looks or--or like _me_, as for +that matter; but when you get worked up, the sweetest things in heaven +or earth slip out when you don't know it." + +But grimly unpleasant thoughts had fastened themselves on Henley's +bewildered brain, and he could only stare at her in sheer agony of +suspense. + +"Then you may--you _may_ marry him, after all!" he said, under his +breath. "You haven't fully decided yet. You may conclude that you and +him--" His voice broke, and, like a dumb animal brought to bay, he stood +staring at her, his mouth open, his lower lip quivering. + +A great change came over her. She seemed to hesitate an instant, and +then she took his inert hand in both of hers, drew it up and held it +fondly against her throbbing breast. "Love--the right sort, Alfred--is +the sweetest, holiest thing in all the world. It is the first breath of +real heaven that men and women feel here on earth. When two people love +each other--like we--like they ought to love one another, they both know +it as plain as we know that sky full of stars is over us right now. They +feel it in the way their pulse beats when their hands meet; they hear it +in their voices when they speak; they see it in each other's eyes; they +love to be together, and feel like something has gone wrong when they +ain't. That's real love, Alfred, and if the man is tied up in a way God +never meant him to be, and if the woman is loaded down with burdens till +her fresh young shoulders are bent and ache night and day, still the +thought of their love may be always in their hearts and make life seem +one continual day of sunshine and music." + +"Oh, Dixie, you mean--" His voice broke, and he could only stare at her +as if waking from a deep dream of perplexity into complete +understanding. + +She nodded, kissed his hand reverently and released it. They walked on +without a word between them till they reached the point where their +ways parted. He would have detained her, but she said: + +"No, not now, Alfred. I see somebody on your porch. I think it is your +wife. We must be careful to do no wrong in the sight of the world. You +owe that poor woman all the happiness you can give her. To think of what +we might want would be downright selfishness. We know what we know, and +that is sweet enough. Don't think of me marrying anybody. I've got Joe +and my duties, and--and you know what else. I shall never complain +again--never! Good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Across the table at the evening meal Henley saw his wife regarding him +stealthily as she served the food to him and the others. Her look had a +queer, shifting, probing quality, which at any other time would have +inspired investigation, but she failed to rivet his attention to-night. +There were other things to think of--things as new and startling as the +dawn of day must have appeared to the opening eyes of the first man. And +all this had come to him. All these years he had groped in darkness, +seeking and never finding till the dreams of youth were dead. But now +all was lightness, full comprehension, and joy--joy which all but +stifled in its clinging embrace of restitution. + +After supper, with a cigar which he forgot to light, he evaded the +tentative chatter of old Wrinkle and sought a rustic seat under a tree +in the yard. Over the meadow, and piercing the shadows which enveloped +him, shone a light from Dixie Hart's kitchen. He fancied that he saw her +at work, her strong, lithe form and glorious face emitting cheer, +courage, and hope to her helpless charges. He wondered if she was +recalling, as he would to the day of his death, the heavenly words she +had spoken at parting. The touch of her velvet lips still lay on his +hand, sending through his every vein streams of sheer ecstasy. Overhead +the sky arched, star-sprinkled, calm, and as full of its untold story as +at the dawn of time. + +Inside the kitchen near by Mrs. Henley and Mrs. Wrinkle were washing +dishes. Wrinkle came from a rear door, a swill-pail in hand, and, +bending under its weight, he trudged down to his pigpen at the barn. The +clattering in the kitchen ceased; the light went out, to appear again in +Mrs. Henley's room. Her transported husband saw her through an +uncurtained window. At another time he might have wondered over her +present occupation, for, standing before a mirror, she was giving +unwonted attention to her toilet. She was fastening a flowing scarf +about her neck, pulling at the bow to make it hang to her fancy. She +applied white powder to her cheeks and the faintest hint of pink, +carefully brushing her hair and pulling down her scant bangs as he could +not remember having seen her do since their marriage. Next she threw a +light shawl over her shoulders, experimentally drawing it up under her +sharp chin, as she viewed the effect in the glass, and then settling it, +with final approval, and in easier fashion, farther back upon her +shoulders. He saw her raise her candle and turn her head in various +ways, her eyes fixed on her twisting image. Then, with a smile of +content, she blew out the candle. He saw the tiny red spark which +remained on the wick standing guard where she had left it. She must be +going to spend the evening somewhere and would demand his company, +Henley reflected, in dismay at the thought of his present fancies being +disturbed in such a prosaic way. Or perhaps she had taken a sudden whim +to go to prayer-meeting--this thought prompted by the dismal clanging of +a cast-iron church-bell at Chester. In that case there was a chance of +escape, for she would ask Mrs. Wrinkle to accompany her. + +Suddenly she appeared on the porch, and came down the steps and tripped +lightly across the grass to him. He was conscious of the strange, almost +weird, alteration in her manner, and was therefore partially prepared +for the change in her voice and intonation. + +"Is that you, Alfred?" she inquired, playfully. "I thought you might be +here, it is so close inside. You can always catch a breeze on this spot +if one is stirring at all." + +"Yes, it's me," he answered, pulling his glance from the light across +the meadow and letting it rest on her face. "Are you going out +somewhere?" + +She gave a little mechanical laugh. "Just because I put on this white +shawl?" she jested, her thin right hand toying with her bangs. "No, +there's no place to go that I know of, and if there _was_ I don't feel +in the humor for it to-night. Somehow I felt like I wanted to talk to +you. I hope Ma and Pa will go to bed; they are getting to be lots of +bother in one way and another. They mean well, the dear things, but they +are old and childish." + +She sat down on the seat beside him and rested her elbow on its back, +her face toward him. "I saw you walking home with Dixie Hart this +evening," she remarked. "Did she say how that boy is getting on?" + +"Why"--there was just the faintest pause on Henley's part; he was +conscious that he caught his breath, and that a warm, objectionable +flush was stealing over him--"why, I think he is mending purty fast. +I--I reckon there is no secret about it--Miss Dixie says she's adopted +him by process of law." + +"Good gracious! You don't say! Why, that makes _three_ on her hands. +Well, she's a remarkable girl, Alfred, _and she's pretty_. Don't you +think so?" She was toying with the fringe of her shawl, and yet she +seemed to hang upon his answer as she gazed straight at him. + +"Y-e-s," Henley said. "She really has undertaken a lot, but I reckon +she'll pull through, someway or other." + +"Pa says she's managed to get out of old Welborne's debt," Mrs. Henley +went on, taking her knee in her hands and lifting her foot from the +ground and swinging it to and fro. "Lots of folks thought he'd finally +sell her out of house and home. I didn't think, myself, that she'd ever +pay out, but she seems to have succeeded. I give her full credit for all +she is, Alfred. I'm not the sort of woman that underrates another just +to be doing it. She's a stanch friend of yours. It is a good deal for me +to admit, but she gave me a straight talk once that set me to thinking. +I've never let on, but what she said made a deep impression on me." + +The speaker paused, as if waiting for her words to take root and sprout +in his comprehension, but he said nothing--only sat staring at her, as +if trying to divine her subtle drift. + +"It was while you was away, Alfred," she continued, "and--and there was +so much talk about what I was doing at that time, you remember, to--to +show respect for Dick's memory. For a girl as young as she is, she said +some powerful strong things. She thought I wasn't acting right toward +you, and told me so to my face. I went on with my plans, but I've often +thought of her advice. You may have noticed that I hain't talked as much +about the--the monument as I did, and I haven't been to see it as often +as I used to. Dixie Hart made me look at it from the outside to some +extent, and with that I began to be more considerate of you. I saw you +wasn't the same as you was at first--I might say, as you was all along +when you and Dick was both taking me out, and as you was--for that +matter--just before and after me and you got married. In fact, Alfred, +you are getting to be a sort o' puzzle to me. Even to-night at supper +you seemed to be in some sort of far-off dream or other. You'd lift up a +fork or a spoon and hold it a long time before you'd put it in your +mouth, and once I caught you gazing straight at me with the blankest +look I ever saw on a human face. You don't seem the same. I don't mean +that you haven't got a _healthy_ look, for that would bother me a lot, +but you are--well, you are just different." + +"Don't you worry," Henley heard himself saying, aghast at the cliffs and +chasms ahead of him. "Don't worry about me if I seem to have my mind off +at times. I've made some trades lately, and got the best end of 'em. I'm +a natural trader--a born trader, Hettie. They say it is like a mild form +of gambling. Just yesterday I made a deal with an old chap--" + +"I don't want to talk about trading and swapping, and the like," the +woman broke in, firmly. "Besides, no sort of ordinary business ever made +a man look like you've looked lately. You used to be sorter active and +nervous, but now you set and brood with an odd, reddish look on your +face. It ain't natural. It looks like you've resigned yourself to--to +something that you didn't exactly like before, and it don't please me to +see you that way. Pa's noticed it and mentioned it two or three times." + +"There's nothing in the world the matter with me," Henley declared, +actually alarmed at the incongruity of his position. + +"Alfred," the woman said, contritely, and she bent forward and peered up +into his face, "you are a sight better man than I am a woman, and--" + +"Shucks!" + +"You may say shucks if you want to, but wait till I get through. I +reckon, as women go, in the general run, I'm a queer sort of female. I +never was just like other girls. For one thing, I always wanted what was +out of my reach; not getting a thing, or even having doubts about it, +always made me want it more than anything else. I reckon that is why +Dick kind o' fascinated me: the girls was all after him, and he seemed a +sort of prize to be had at any cost. Even after we was married, as maybe +you know, he kept me worried with his attentions to some of the old +crowd of girls. But enough of that. When he died and you come back, +begging, as you did, to have me consider you, I finally give in and took +you. But that wasn't all. I had stood up before a preacher in the house +of God and agreed to be your wife and helpmeet, but, as I now see it, I +didn't do my duty by you. I made the mistake, I reckon, of thinking too +much about what I owed to the dead and gone, and I went so far as to do +things in public that actually driv' you away from home and caused folks +to laugh at you and make remarks. Dixie Hart was right; I wasn't toting +fair with you, and I want to tell you to-night, Alfred, that I see my +error, and--and I am plumb sorry." + +He turned upon her resolutely. She was looking down, and he fancied she +was about to shed such tears as she had often shed early in their +married life when Dick Wrinkle's name was mentioned. He had none of the +old chivalrous sympathy which such a demonstration had once evoked, nor +any of the old indulgence for a love which he had hoped to see die, and +yet, just from his passionate contact with Dixie Hart, he was full of +comprehension and pity for his wife's plight--at least, as he now saw +it. + +"Listen to me, Hettie," he began, and his voice shook with deep feeling. +"You've been right all along. Don't you bother about that. It was _me_ +that was crooked. In this life folks don't love in the highest and best +way but once--not but once in a lifetime. Dick Wrinkle was your first +and only abiding fancy. The feeling that made you turn me down and take +him when you was a girl and I was a big blockhead of a boy was born of +God in heaven. I was the one that was making a mistake when I come and +begged you to marry me while that pure thing was still alive in your +heart. A love like that never dies; it is too sweet and glorious to die. +I see now, too, that you was plumb right about wanting to take care of +his mammy and daddy, and about wanting that sermon preached, and about +erecting a lasting monument to commemorate his name. You had to do all +them things because they was part and parcel of you yourself, and the +constancy God planted in you. I can say honestly that I'm glad you still +love him. You wouldn't be a high sort of a woman if you did change. +Death can't separate folks that love; they go on and on--side by side, +hand in hand, heart to heart--through all eternity." + +She actually gasped. She rose, and stood staring toward the door, a deep +frown on her face; she shrugged her shoulders; she clinched her fists; +she rapped the ground sharply with her foot; then she slowly bent down +over him, resting her thin left hand on his broad shoulder while she +peered with a stare of would-be incredulity into his enraptured face. + +"Look at me, Alfred!" she cried, in a rasping tone. "_You know you don't +mean one single word of all you've just said!_" + +"Why, I do," he insisted, blandly. "As God is my judge, I do. There +ain't no such thing as _two_ loves--a first and a second. When the real +thing comes to a body he knows it. A feller could be blinded for a time, +I reckon, in hot-blooded youth, while he was in close pursuit of a thing +that kept slipping away from him, as was my case when Dick and me was +going nip and tuck to see which could get ahead; but the genuine, real +thing is as different as--as day from night." + +She drew herself up straight, and heaved a deep, lingering sigh. "I +don't believe you mean a word of what you say," she repeated. "It ain't +natural for a man who is as jealous as--as you always have been +even--even of the dead--to set up and talk that way." + +"Jealous?" he said, half musingly. "I don't think I'm a jealous man. +Anyways, I don't think a feller would have the right to be jealous of a +man that was dead and under ground. As I look at it now, I don't think a +man has a right, in the best sense, to marry a widow; and in the same +way a widower has no right to lay aside his past memories if they are +the right sort. They ought to be his best company in his loneliness. Of +course, now that you and me are linked together by law and religion, we +owe it to the community we live in to do our duty and make the best--I +mean, to live along as friendly and harmoniously as we can." + +She sank down to the seat again, and sat staring at him fixedly. +Presently, seeing that he was not going to resume speaking, she said: "I +believe, on my soul, Alfred, you have plumb lost your senses. I may or +may not be responsible for it; you may have let all this talk about Dick +and my--my thinking about him prey on your mind till it is unhinged. +Why, what I done about his grave and memory wasn't anything but respect +that was due to him, and has nothing to do with our agreement. You've +hurt my feelings, Alfred--you actually have." + +She rose suddenly, and, with her handkerchief to her eyes, she started +toward the door. She moved slowly, as if she expected him to call her +back, as he had frequently done in the past; but he seemed to be +oblivious of her presence and not to have heard her last plaintive +appeal, for he sat gazing at the light in Dixie Hart's cottage like an +unwakable man. She came slowly back, now with stiff, indignant +strides--strides which dug deeply into the unoffending turf. + +"You certainly are either crazy or a plumb fool!" she fired at him. "You +said once that folks hinted that I was cracked in the upper story from +the way I acted, but the shoe is on the other foot now. If folks don't +say you are out of your head it is because they ain't here to listen to +your meandering. A man that will set up and hint to a wife who he loves, +and always has loved, that he's willing for her to still care for and +cherish another person--I say a man like that is in need of a doctor's +advice." + +"Well, I was just trying to justify you and your acts," Henley answered +in pained retaliation, "and to show you that I had no ill-will in any +shape or form. You loved Dick in the right sort of way, and I'm just man +enough to lay no obstacle whatever in your track. In the next life you +and Dick will be reunited, and all things will be made straight. I don't +want to fuss with you over it, Hettie. This life is too beautiful, if it +is looked at right, to waste time in jowering. You and me can live in +harmony from now on if you'll just be reasonable and not fly off the +handle when a feller is doing his level best to arrive at some sort of +common meeting-ground. All these years I've been fretting and trying to +run a race with a dead man when I could have been in more active +business. I've give in at last, and I'm going to stay give in. The truth +is, I'm just beginning to live. For the first time in my life I'm in +sympathy with true, natural-born, well-mated lovers. If they are tied +together, all well and good; but if they are parted by some hook or +crook, then they are to be pitied, but still they've got the +satisfaction of knowing--well, of knowing what they know--that's all." + +"Well, I know _one_ thing," Mrs. Henley said, and she turned away, +angrily. "I know you are simply daft--you've lost every grain of sense +you ever had." + +"I might have known she'd twist the thing all upside-down and never see +it right," Henley mused, as he watched her ascend the steps, cross the +porch, and disappear in the house. "I thought that view would hit her +just right, but, contrary as she always was, she sees fit to disagree. I +reckon if she knew everything there _would_ be a row. Huh, I wouldn't +risk that with her. She can hold her funeral conclaves, and build +monuments to another fellow as high as a church-steeple, and expects me +to swallow the dose, but just let me kind o' look about a little, and +I'm a fit subject for a madhouse." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +The next morning at breakfast Mrs. Henley seemed to have lost all memory +of the angry scene on the grass the evening before. Her countenance was +overcast with an expression that her husband would have designated as +one of pleasure had he been given to the analysis of her facial +phenomena, a pursuit he had long since given up as futile and +unprofitable. Her dress, too, showed unusual care, and a crisp, +fresh-ironed jauntiness that jerked him back to the past with rather +disagreeable suddenness. Amid the white ruffles at her neck she had +pinned a large, full-blown rose, and her manner toward the others was a +fragile sort of graciousness which would have been a delight if one +could have felt that it was permanent. As a rule she passed Henley's +coffee to him through the hands of the two Wrinkles, but this morning +she rose and brought it round to him, remarking that she had fixed it +just to his liking. Old Wrinkle, as his intimates--and many +others--knew, was not backward in the use of his tongue, and yet there +was something in the unwonted ceremony of the present meal that silenced +him. The old fellow, however, was making a record-breaking use of his +eyes. Henley saw him taking in every detail of his former +daughter-in-law's appearance and mood, and smiling all too knowingly for +anybody's comfort as he munched and gulped. + +After breakfast Henley was at the gate ready to walk to the store when +Wrinkle came to him and clutched his arm familiarly. + +"Wait, I'll go 'long with you," he said. "I want to talk to you some, +anyway. Alf, did you ever since the world was made--" + +But his words were lost on the morning air, for Mrs. Henley was calling +to her husband from the porch, where she stood smiling at him from the +honeysuckle vines. + +"Don't go yet!" she called out, and she tripped down the steps toward +him. She paused at a rose-bush on the way and plucked a bright-red bud, +and, bringing it to him, she began to fasten it on the lapel of his +coat. "You are getting entirely too slouchy," she mumbled, a pin in her +mouth. "You never used to wear such dowdy clothes. You've got to spruce +up--ain't he, Pa?" + +"Well, it ain't Sunday, nor camp-meetin'," Wrinkle made answer. "He +looks well enough for every day; he'd look odd with a long, jimswinger +coat on in that dusty store with all them one-gallus mossbacks he makes +his livin' out of. Them fellers 'u'd laugh at 'im an' say he was gittin' +rich too fast at the'r expense." + +As red as the flower with which she was trying to adorn him, Henley +pushed the bud away. "I don't want it," he said. "I never was any hand +to put on such things. I'd be a purty sight, now, wouldn't I--walkin' in +town with a flower-garden pinned to me?" + +She submitted to his refusal, deftly twining the stem of the flower into +the cheap lace about her neck. + +"I've got a favor to ask of you, Alfred," she said, sweetly, "and I +don't want you to refuse it, either. This time I know what I want, and I +must have it." + +"Well, what is it?" he asked, his attention diverted from her by the +hungry stare with which old Wrinkle was awaiting the climax of the +little scene. + +"Why, I want you to take me to drive." + +"To drive!" Henley repeated, as much surprised as if she had asked him +for a trip to Europe, and he heard old Wrinkle laugh out impulsively and +saw him dig his heel into the earth, as, with lowered head, he sought +to hide a broad and too-knowing smile which had captured his facile +mouth. "To drive?" + +"Yes, Alfred, it has been a long time since I've seen anything of the +country hereabouts. Why, I've almost forgot how it looks, and this is +the best time of the year. It would do us both good to take a little +jaunt every day in the cool of the evening. We used to go out that way +just before we was married, and for a while afterward, and I want to do +it again. We've got wrong, somehow. We are not living like we ought to. +I say it here before Pa because I mean it, and know he will see it as I +do. Don't you think he ought to take me, Pa?" + +"Well, I don't know as I'd sanction your ridin' 'round _late in the +evenin_'." Wrinkle now showed no hint of even hidden merriment. "You +mought git delayed beyond the usual time and supper would hang fire. +Havin' fun an' startin' in to do courtin' over agin is all right an' +proper if a body _feels_ thataway, but doin' it on a starvation basis +ain't good for the health, if it is for the senti_ments_." + +"Oh, I'll see that you don't suffer, you old, greedy thing," Mrs. Henley +said, playfully, and caught her husband's arm. "I want you to hitch up, +and get a new lap-robe, and take me to-day--this very evening." + +"To-day? Good gracious, what's got into you, Hettie?" Henley stammered, +glancing here and there in sheer helplessness. "I couldn't get off from +business. I've got my hands full of deals of one kind and another. +Driving around is all right for--for young couples that are sparking, +and even for fresh-married ones, but there comes a time when all +sensible folks ought to settle down to the--the enjoyment of home life." + +"I see--you have changed." Mrs. Henley now drew herself up austerely and +glared at him coldly. "You think I'm well enough as a drudge about a +dirty old farm-house, but not fit company for riding and driving like +any woman as young as I am is entitled to. You never thought that sort +of a thing was too frivolous before we married, but now you sneer at it. +Well, you just wait till I give you a chance to take me anywhere again. +I lowered my pride to ask it this time, but I won't remind you again. +No, sir." + +With a cloud of fury on her face she whirled, and whisked into the +house. + +"Come on, Alf," old Wrinkle advised, with a look of amusement in his +eyes. "Let 'er sweat it out alone. She's jest tryin' to work on you, +anyway. She'll be as smooth as goose-grease by night. Looky here, Alf, +I'm an old man, an' you are jest a boy by comparison," he went on, as +they walked down the road together, "but what I don't know about women +you don't know about hosses, and you know a lot. I've learned women inch +by inch all through life. I reckon I got on to it by lyin' around the +fire on cold or wet days and listenin' to 'em. They say some men make a +study of rocks, ores, plants, an' bugs, but my hobby always was females. +Why, I almost know what turn a baby gal will take when it grows up. It +was a sort of funny game with me. I set out to see if I'd ever see a +woman do or say a sensible thing, an' I hain't won yet. Now, you may not +know it, my boy, but you are in hot water, an' it is deep enough to +float yore whiskers. You had married life down about right till just a +few days ago. You could go and come whenever you liked an' nobody axed +any questions. You was about the freest married man I ever knowed, white +or black, yaller or red, but yore day of reckoning has come. I knowed +some'n was wrong last night when you an' Het had that powwow in the +yard, an' I knowed the sun was shinin' too bright this mornin' to do +yore crop any good except to burn it up. I know Het. I've watched her +bury one man an' start in with another, an' if you had been a worryin' +feller she'd have had you mouldin' in the ground long go. As long as +Hettie could worry you she was happy. Part of that grave-rock +celebration was because she 'lowed it bothered you. I couldn't help +hearin' the talk last night. You both spoke louder than you thought, an' +the wind was blowin' my way. Why, man, when you set thar last night an' +told that woman that her undyin' love for Dick was holy an' godly an' a +thing to be kept in a glass case an' looked at every hour in the day--I +say when you throwed all that guff at her you sealed yore doom. Them +words kicked every prop from under her, an' down she come with a flop +that knocked the breath out of all her calculations. She looks fresh and +rosy this morning, but she rolled and tumbled the most of the night. I +don't sleep sound, an' I heard her. I wondered what step she'd take, an' +the breakfast-table grins an' rose-bud and buggy-ride proposition showed +her hand. This mad spell is part of the game. She has set in to make you +do your courtin' over ag'in, an' you'll find that about as unnatural as +wearin' yore vest under yore shirt. No man can court the same woman +twice an' put his heart in the job, but a woman is just so constituted +that she could _have_ it done over an' over by one or a dozen men. I +reckon, as Scriptur' says, it is more blessed to give than to receive, +but a man 'u'd rather not be blessed in the time to come than to have to +make eyes an' say sweet things when he ain't feelin' jest right. Now, +I'll turn back; I jest walked out with you to give you what advice I +could. Git the bit in yore jaw an' pull yore way steady, an' after a +while she'll git tired an' quit naggin' you." + +That morning, near noon, as Henley was busy at his work in the rear of +the store, Cahews came back to him with a mild look of surprise on his +face. + +"Your wife is out in front in her uncle Ben's carriage," he announced. +"She's dressed for travel--got three or four valises in with her. +Warren, must have sent over after her; the team looks like it's been on +the go for several hours." + +Henley found her in the luxurious seat behind the higher one on which +the colored driver, in a battered silk top-hat, sat holding the reins +over a handsome pair of blacks. She looked at him coldly as, hatless and +coatless, he hurried out to her. + +"What's this?" he asked, half playfully. "You ain't going to vamoose the +ranch, are you?" + +"Uncle Ben's sick," she answered, stiffly. "He sent a note by Ned. He +didn't say for me to come, but he hinted at it several times. I'd show +you what he wrote, but we haven't time to spare. I packed up as quick as +I could. We'll stop at the half-way house for dinner." + +"Ben hain't dangerous, is he?" Henley asked, his foot on the +brass-tipped hub of the fore-wheel, his hand on the arm of the seat she +occupied. + +"I don't know whether he is or not," the speaker pulled down the veil +under her hat-brim and avoided her husband's eyes, "but he's lonely and +heartbroken over the way that unprincipled woman has treated him, and he +needs petting and nursing and some company in that big, gloomy house to +take his mind off his trouble and humiliation." + +"He ought never to have got mixed up with her." Henley was recalling +Wrinkle's sage remarks. "Dealing with a woman you've known all her life +is risky enough, without going as far as Ben did for an opportunity to +get slapped in the face. But he ought to be thankful he found her out in +time." + +"Finding her out ain't going to lighten the blow." Mrs. Henley shrugged +her shoulders. "When a man--or a _woman_, for that matter--has full +faith in a person, and finds out that the person ain't anything like he +used to be, why, a body hardly knows what _to_ think. I'm glad I'm +going away, Alfred. You showed me this morning when I give you that +chance to take me about a little here and there that you are changed. +When I'm away you'll realize what you've missed, and I'll be glad of it. +Absence, on my side, is the medicine you need to restore your senses." + +"Well, we'll all certainly miss you." Henley was too honest--at least in +domestic matters--to know that his assertion was insincere, and +accustomed as he was in his dealings among men to assume exactly the +shade of tone or set of face that went best with a statement, he now had +as complete an air of regret and discomfort as the most exacting of +wives could have wished. + +"Well, I'm getting the drive I asked for," was her parting shot, and she +leaned over and gave him a cold, stiff hand. "I'm taking it all by +myself, as most married women have to do if they don't seek the +attention of other men. But I'm going to do my duty to a human sufferer, +and in that I'll get my reward." + +He walked back to the store thoughtfully. "She's gone!" he said to +himself. "She's ripping mad and got it in for me, that's certain. She's +begun on a new line, and I'll bet she makes me smoke before she's +through with me. I know what she wants well enough, but somehow I just +can't do it. I might at one time, but I couldn't now to save my neck +from the loop. The old man is plumb right. When a feller's love gets +cold on the inside he can't warm it up by external applications. He's a +matrimonial misfit, and the sooner he realizes it and is resigned the +better he'll feel." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +"Well, the old gal's gone," Wrinkle remarked that day at sundown when +Henley came in at the gate and found him seated on a dismantled beehive +in the yard. "I reckon you seed 'er spin through town. For a woman goin' +out as a sick-nuss or spiritual comforter to a chap kicked by a +high-steppin' filly she certainly had a supply of frills and ruffles. +Them valises was packed as tight as a compressed cotton-bale. She left +behind her one solid wail of woe. Jane is afraid she'll never gratify +yore taste for grub as well as Het did, an' she's in thar now humpin' +herself to contrive new concoctions. Het kept boarders long enough to +git stingy, an' I told my wife to turn over a new leaf for a change. I +driv' a fat chicken in a fence-corner just now, and held its legs while +she chopped its spout off. She knows how to fry 'em, an' if she kin see +well enough to pick the pin-feathers off it will be all right. I'd put +her biscuits agin any ever baked." + +After a really enjoyable supper Henley went out under the trees to get +the fresh air which, in invigorating gusts, swept up the valley along +the mountain-range. He told himself that his reason for wandering down +toward his barn was to avoid meeting Wrinkle, who he knew would soon +appear from the kitchen, where he was helping his wife wash the dishes. +He was aware, of course, that Dixie Hart's cow-lot adjoined his +stable-yard, and he knew that it was the hour at which she went to +milk, and yet he would not have admitted that he strolled thither in +the hope of meeting her, but, nevertheless, he went. + +He saw her entering the lot-gate, a bright tin pail in her hand, and he +shielded himself with a jutting corner of his wagon-shed and watched her +graceful approach through the dusk. He saw her get the tub of cow's food +from the crib and give it to the animal, and then he heard her scream +out, and, following her startled eyes, he saw that, having failed to +close the gate behind her, the cow's calf had entered and was rushing to +its mother. With an ejaculation of impatience Dixie threw her arms about +the calf's neck and tried to pull it from the cow's bag, but it was of +no avail. The strong young beast would wriggle from her clutch and dart +back to its supper. + +"Oh, you brat, you are stealing all the milk!" Dixie cried. She picked +up a dried corn-stalk, and with it belabored the sleek, brown back of +the calf, but she might as well have used an ostrich-plume for all the +effect it had on the hungry animal. + +It was then that Henley, laughing heartily, sprang over the fence and +came to her assistance. + +"Let me have the little scamp," he said. And he bent down and took the +squirming beast into his strong arms and lifted it bodily from the +ground. "Now, where do you want him put?" he asked, as he stood swaying +back and forth in his effort to control the wriggling prisoner. + +"Over the fence!" she cried, and stood panting in admiration of his cool +skill and strength as he walked to the fence and dropped the calf on the +other side. He then fastened the gate and came back to her. + +"You are doing a man's work, anyway," he said, looking into her flushed +face, "and you ought to call a halt. Life is too short to spend it as +you are doing." + +"It's all very well for you men to talk that way," Dixie retorted, as +she pushed her milking-stool to the side of the cow and sat down with +the pail between her knees, "but women, as well as men, want to live, +and if there's any way to live without work, and plenty of it, I'd like +to find out about it." + +"It seems to me that a feller by the name of Long was offering to point +out a way to you," he said, with a forced smile. + +The back part of her uncovered head was turned toward him. Her shapely +hands and bare, tapering arms gleamed like yellow marble through the +dusk. He smelled the delightful odor of the warm milk as her deft +fingers sent it ringing into the pail. + +"Yes, he was offering me a job," he heard her say with a sarcastic +little chuckle. "He wanted me to quit working at my old place and set in +for him, and nothing particular was said about raising my wages." + +"And what are you going to answer him, I wonder?" Henley inquired, as he +bent down over her that the noise of the squirting milk might not drown +her reply. + +She flashed a glance at him; there was an ineffable shimmer in her +long-lashed eyes; she made a comical little grimace. "I've said the last +word between me and him," she answered. "I got a humble letter from him +yesterday begging my pardon for what he'd tried to do, and saying he'd +behave like a gentleman from now on, if I'd only let him come out +again." + +"Well, it was time he was apologizing," Henley cried. "For a little I'd +have--well!" + +Dixie smiled and looked at him eagerly. "Did that make you mad, +Alfred--really mad?" + +"I don't think I ever was madder in all my life." He walked +unsuspectingly into her trap. "I driv' away soon after or I don't know +what would have happened. The more I thought about it the madder I got. +Once I started to turn round and go back. I would, if I hadn't thought +he was such a weak fool. It ain't done with; I can't think about it +without wanting to mash something. I reckon me 'n him had better stay +apart." + +"We ain't going to have any row about that, Alfred," Dixie said, quite +seriously. "You know you would bear a lot rather than have folks say +a--a married man was taking up for me in that way. If you ever meet him, +and the thing comes up, you must remember that one thing. My character's +all I've got, Alfred; if you are what I think you are, you'd think twice +before compromising me like that. Carrie Wade _would_ talk then, sure +enough. Married men don't go about having fisticuffs over girls that +live next door to 'em without folks wondering, and I tell you I'm like +that fellow Caesar's wife--I'm too good to be wondered about in any shape +or form." + +"I know it--God knows I know it," Henley responded, under his trembling +breath. "You needn't be afraid, Dixie. I'll take care. But you didn't +tell me what answer you made to--to Long's apology, or whether you was +going to let him come again or not." + +"I wrote him a pretty nice sort of a letter." She was laughing as she +bent over her pail, but he didn't know it. "You see, Alfred, I was +afraid you had hurt the poor fellow's feelings that day, and I thought +_somebody_ ought to be mild-tempered. I told 'im that wasn't no place or +time, anyway, to kiss a girl--right in front of the door of her +house--that a girl naturally liked to be wheedled awhile before she set +in on such familiar terms, and that if it had been a _third_ visit, +instead of jest the _second_, that I'd have taken him for a stroll down +by the creek. There's a foot-log there plumb hid by willows, Alfred, and +I always thought it would be fine to set on it with your feet dangling +over the stream and see two sweethearts reflected in the clear water, +his arm round her waist and her head on his shoulder. Now, that's the +sort of thing this chicken has always had a yearning for, and--" Dixie +tittered inaudibly in the pail and said nothing more. + +He had drawn himself erect and stood as full of despair as the night was +full of darkness. She heard him utter a low groan, but that was all. She +peered up at him stealthily, and then, with a face warm with content, +she resumed her work. He stood silent till she rose. + +"Now that dratted calf can come to the second table," she said, in the +most uneventful tone imaginable. "Alfred, will you please let him in? +He's about to butt the gate down." + +He walked stiffly across the lot and opened the gate. The calf shot past +him like an animated cannon-ball. He met her as, with the pail on her +arm, she had turned toward the cottage. + +"I'm too big a fool to ever understand you, Dixie," he gulped, as they +paused face to face. "Since me and you parted the--the other day I--I've +been plumb crazy. I got to thinking things that are too far off--too +nigh the gates of heaven to be possible--things that made all my +troubles fly away, but now I see it was just in my imagination. I'm +going to be sensible from now on if it kills me. You can't keep on in +the miserable way you are living. You've always thought you'd escape the +worst by marrying, and I have no right because this here hell is raging +in me to tell you who, or who not, to take. I'd rather see you--you dead +in your coffin than the--the wife of that silly fool. But that's your +business--that's--that's--" His voice broke and he stood quivering, his +strong face torn into shreds by despair. + +"You dear, dear boy!" Dixie said, laying her disengaged hand gently on +his arm, her own face suffused with a faint glow of uncontrollable +tenderness. "I'm only a girl--a natural one, Alfred--and I'm so hungry +for love that I try to make you say those things, wrong as they may be. +Don't you know when I'm joking? Listen and I'll tell you the truth. I +wrote Jasper Long that it was all right about what he'd tried to do. I'd +not hold any grudge against him, but that I knew I never could care for +him, and I hoped he'd never come to see me again." + +"You--you wrote 'im that?" Henley gasped. + +"Oh, Alfred," she cried, as she released his arm, "don't you know that I +could not marry a man I don't love? Don't you know what has been growing +up in me all this time in which you with your unhappiness and me with my +misfortune have been drawed so close together? Every night, as I say my +prayers and call on God to help you, I wonder what He meant by the bonds +with which He's tied me to you hand and foot, heart and soul. When you +was trying to find me a husband, and fighting for my legal rights, you +thought it was just friendship, and so did I. The world we live in +counts it one of the blackest of sins for a married man and an unmarried +girl to love each other, but you know we didn't do wrong intentionally. +We was as innocent and unsuspecting as lambs in the fold. Right when we +thought we was doing our duty the ground was slipping from under us, and +we was clutching each other to keep from falling. Now, that's all I'm +going to say. I shall never marry any man while this feeling is in my +breast. That would be wrong for a dead certainty, let folks say what +they please about the other. Your wife went off to-day, didn't she? I +saw Warren's carriage drive up and knew something was going to happen; +then the old man come over and told us about it." + +She had passed through the gate on her way home, and he remained at her +side. "I want to stop in after supper, and--and see how little Joe is," +he said, hesitatingly. + +"No, not to-night, Alfred," she returned, firmly. "He'd like to see you, +but don't come the first night after--after she went away. We really +must be sensible. Folks don't understand--they never could +understand--and we've got to think of them. I may have done wrong in +letting you know how I feel, but it will end there." + +"I see, I understand," he said, reverently. "They shall never talk about +you while I'm alive. Good-night." + +He walked slowly toward the lights in the farm-house. He heard the two +Wrinkles, with cracked voices, singing a hymn as they sat in their +rocking-chairs on the porch. The very stars seemed to hang lower from +the darkling mystery overhead; he felt light enough, in his boundless +content, to rise to them and drink at their twinkling founts. His soul +seemed to swell to the point of bursting. "Oh, God, I thank Thee!" he +said, deep within himself. "I thank Thee!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +With Henley the next day passed like some fascinating dream. He was busy +in various ways as usual, and yet scarcely for a moment were his +thoughts away from his new-found delight. He had no hope, bound as he +was to another to whom he owed his honor, of ever being closer to Dixie +than he was now, and yet there was something in the very purity of his +possession of her heart and in her willing sacrifice of so much for the +principle which guided her that lifted him into new and untrodden fields +of spiritual ecstasy. + +It was near sunset, and he stood in the front doorway of the store, +looking out into the quiet square, when, to his surprise and with a +tumultuous throbbing of his heart, he saw Dixie pass with a letter in +her hand on the way to the post-office. She was on the opposite side of +the street and did not glance in his direction, and he made no effort to +attract her attention. As she passed along by old Welborne's diminutive +office Henley noticed that Hank Bradley, who had been drinking about +town through the day, came from the doorway and bowed to her +conspicuously, his slouch-hat almost sweeping the pavement as he bent +downward. She passed on with a bare nod and quickened her step till she +entered the post-office, a few doors farther on. + +There was something in this, remembering as he did that Bradley had +persistently pursued the girl with attentions, which not only angered +Henley, but filled him with concern for her safety. The half-drunken +brute might take it into his head to follow her down the lonely road +which she had to traverse to reach her house. So, with these things in +mind, Henley told Cahews that he was going home, and he walked out to +the first densely shaded part of the road and, retiring into the bushes, +sat on the grass, determined that he would at least follow in her wake +till she was out of danger of being accosted. + +The sunlight had quite disappeared now, and the fringe of dusk was +settling over the silent wood. He was growing impatient, and wondering +if anything could have happened to detain Dixie in town, when he beard +voices down the road. He stood up and peered through the curtain of wild +vines which hung between him and the open. He could see no one, and the +voices were so indistinct that he failed to recognize them. But the +conversing individuals were evidently rapidly approaching, for their +voices were growing louder. Both seemed to be talking at the same time, +and Henley was pretty sure that it was a man and a woman. Then the +coarser voice drowned the finer and fainter, and Henley recognized it as +belonging to Bradley. + +"I've been put off and fooled and deviled by you as long as I'm going to +be!" the brute cried out. "You are a beautiful young devil, that's what +you are. I've offered you every inducement a man could offer. If I'm +drunk, you are the cause of it. I can't think of nothing but you--you, +with your maddening eyes of fire and cheeks full of hot blood. I want +you. I want you every minute I draw breath. You must listen to reason. +I've got plenty of money. We could live like a king and queen on the fat +of the land, as God means men and women to live, full of joy and life. +Stop, you've got to kiss me! We are alone; nobody is about." + +"Let me pass, I tell you, let me pass!" Dixie's terrified voice rose to +a shriek, and then it ended in a smothered sound as if a hand had been +placed over her mouth. Henley was sure they were struggling and he +sprang into the road. Swaying back and forth against the dark background +of the wood, he saw Bradley with the girl in his arms. Dixie had ducked +her head to avoid his repulsive lips, and the assailant's back was +turned to Henley. With the bound of a panther he reached them just as +Dixie was eluding Bradley's embrace and trying to release her hand, to +which he clung with a grip of steel. Neither of the two saw Henley, and +it was a crushing blow from the storekeeper's fist against the side of +Bradley's head that showed him what he had to contend with. He had +scarcely taken another breath before Henley struck him again with the +force of a sledgehammer squarely between the eyes. Bradley staggered, +swayed, grew limp, and went down. His eyes rolled back in his head till +the whites were exposed. He quivered through his whole form, drew his +shoulders up once, and then lay still. Henley, his hands clinched, the +eyes of an infuriated animal in his head, his great mouth hanging open, +stood over the fallen man. + +"Thank God, oh, thank God!" It was Dixie's voice behind him, and he +turned to see her at the edge of the road, her face as white as death +could have made it, her hands convulsively clasped in front of her. "Oh, +Alfred, Alfred, if you hadn't come--" She came to him, but, primitive +man that he now was, there seemed to be no place in him for tenderness. +His great breast heaved, his lips quivered, his eyes bulged from their +sockets. She was about to put out her hands in an effort toward soothing +him when, glancing toward Bradley, she uttered a scream of alarm. He was +rising, a drawn revolver in his hand. Quick as his approach had been, +Henley's next movement was quicker; before the weapon was fairly poised +he had knocked it from Bradley's grasp. Contemptuously kicking it out of +his reach, Henley gave the man a sharp blow with his fist; and while +Bradley was impotently shielding his face with his arms, Henley picked +up the revolver, cocked it, and directed it toward him. + +"Apologize to this lady," he said, huskily, "and do it quick, for I'm +going to blow your brains out. Down on your knees, you dirty +whelp--down, I say!" + +"I'll be damned if I do." + +"Then take your medicine, and may God have mercy on your dirty soul!" +And, as Bradley screamed out and held up his hands in sudden, +overpowering fear, Dixie sprang forward and wrested the weapon from +Henley's hand. + +"No," she said--"no, you sha'n't kill him. Hank Bradley, go! Go, I tell +you! I won't have blood spilt over me. I've got a right to demand that, +and I _do_ demand it. Go, I tell you! I'm going to keep this gun to +protect myself with. I live in a country of outlaws, and I'm going to +defend myself from now on. Go! What are you waiting for?" + +Muttering and growling in sullen defiance, Bradley got to his feet, his +battered face and eyes swollen. + +"You've got the best of the game so far," he snarled at Henley, "but +it's not ended. You'll hear from me." + +"I'll tell you one thing, Hank," Henley said, as he glared at the man, +"you are leaving here now, but if I ever meet you face to face in town, +or anywhere else, I'll kill you as sure as there's a God. I've said it, +and I mean it--I'll kill you as I would a snake." + +Henley and Dixie stood in silence and watched him as he entered the wood +and strode farther into its depths. They heard the cracking of dry twigs +under his feet as he steadily receded, the sound of his untoward +progress growing fainter and fainter in the distance. + +"I'll be sorry to the day of my death that I didn't kill him," Henley +panted, the wild fury unabated in his voice, face, and eyes. "Why, he +was treating you like a dog; he actually proposed, actually dared to +hint that his dirty money--my God! and I let him walk off on his two +feet." + +"I know, I know," Dixie muttered, soothingly, and she forced a smile as +she looked at the revolver in her hand, "and oh, Alfred, I'm just girl +enough to be glad you come as you did, and even to see it work you up +like it has; but at a time like this a woman must act and think for a +man when he is all wrought up and half out of his head. I couldn't +prevent what he done. He was waiting for me at the end of the street and +insisted on walking with me. I begged him to go back, but he was talking +so loud and rough that I was afraid folks would make remarks. I hated to +call for help; I'm neither sugar nor salt, and am able to care for +myself. But I'd never seen him as drunk as that before, and, well, if +you hadn't come--" + +She shuddered convulsively. He looked at her wrist, which she kept +touching with her handkerchief; the skin was broken and the flesh +bruised where Bradley had clutched it. + +"My God!" Henley took it gently in his throbbing hands and looked at it +with glaring eyes, "and I let him walk away! He's free now, but, as +there is a God overhead, I'll--" + +"No, stop, listen--hear me, Alfred!" Dixie entreated, allowing her hand +to rest passively in his. "There are some things you men make more of +than us women. I reckon it's your natures to be that way. Now, me 'n you +have got to settle this thing for good and all right here and now, for +if I have to go home to-night with the fear that there is to be +bloodshed on my account I'd be more miserable than I ever was. Last +night, Alfred, after I left you at the lot-gate, I went home and done my +work with an odd feeling on me, I waited on Joe; I fixed the beds and +made my mother and aunt lie down, and then I was all alone and had time +to reflect over--over me and you. I reckon my thoughts had taken a new +turn by just one little remark of yours. Alfred, it was you asking to +come over on the--the first--the very first night after your wife left. +A girl will do a lot of headstrong things when her pity and admiration +are worked up for a man she loves, but now and then, if she's sensible, +some powerful small thing will make her think. Alfred, I saw the brink +we was standing on, as plain as if we was on a high cliff and there was +nothing between us and the bottom, and all sorts of forces was blinding +us and pulling and shoving us over. I'm a good, pure girl--no purer, in +thought or act, ever lived, and yet I've been in an inch of having a bad +character saddled on me for the rest of my life. As I looked at little +Joe asleep in his bed and remembered that I had given my word and bond +to the law to make a worthy mother to him, as I looked at them two old +women who think I'm already robed in the garb of paradise, and realized +that one mischievous word started about me and you would ruin me and all +the others--I say, when that thought come to me I wondered how I could, +in my right senses, have talked to you as I have and let you know my +feelings. I can't believe that it is wrong to--to feel as I do toward +you, because I was drawed into it by things that I couldn't avoid. You +was always trying to help me, and was so sweet and good and manly and +respectful that, knowing about your own troubles, I couldn't help +myself. Then I saw you loved--liked me, and the--the pure, hungry joy of +it--the dazzling glory of it, bound me hand and foot, and I plunged in +without thought or caution. But we are cooler now, Alfred, and we've got +to keep our heads. To begin with, you have got to let this matter with +that scamp drop. I demand it; my good name demands it; I haven't given +you the right to fight battles over me, and I don't intend to. I'd +rather let that man, repulsive as he is, kiss me a dozen times than +have to hang my head before them I love. They would take Joe from me; it +would hurry my mother to her grave; it would be a living death. See, +here's the revolver." She, forced a white smile as she slid it into the +pocket of his coat. "Dispose of it; I don't want to be reminded of +what's happened. I'm giving it to you because I can trust you. I know +you'll do as I ask." + +"Do as you ask me--good God!" Henley bit his lip till the blood ran +against his fine teeth, and he fell to quivering. "I see what you mean, +and I know you are right, and yet, and yet, I couldn't have let him walk +off like that if I hadn't thought--" + +"I know--I saw that in your eye," Dixie went on, firmly--"and that's why +I'm making you promise now. No matter what happens, Alfred, you are +going to avoid that man--you are going to protect me in a higher and +braver way than spilling human blood. You'll avoid him, won't you?" + +She saw the muscles of his face settle into a rigid grimace, his eyes +flared, his great breast heaved, and he nodded. "Yes," he said, "I'll +avoid him; that is, I think--yes, I know I'll do it for your sake." + +"There, I knew you wouldn't refuse me," Dixie cried, almost merrily. +"Now let's walk on. You mustn't go all the way. I'm afraid our dream is +over, Alfred. This scare has opened my eyes to our earthly duties. I'm +going to think of you just as--as often as I wish, and lo--love you, but +we mustn't meet often. I want you to love me, too--that's God's truth, +but don't tell me so, Alfred, any more--not a single time." + +"How can I help it?" He turned on her, his face full of fire, his voice +shaking with passion. He threw his arms about her and was drawing her +into a close embrace when she stiffened her body and, with firm hands, +disengaged herself, and, as she pushed him back, she said: "No, no! that +will not do, Alfred. You must never do that again. It isn't because I +don't want you to. If we had the right, I could rest forever in your +dear arms; I could--oh, Alfred, what does God mean by treating us like +this?" + +"He means that we were made for one another," Henley gulped, as his eyes +probed her own. "I know it--I know it." + +"Yes, maybe," she said, as she moved onward, "but perhaps not for this +life, Alfred. Our love is as eternal as that space above is endless. It +is spiritual and pure; let's keep it that way. Now I'll leave you. Don't +forget." + +"I'll obey your commands," Henley answered, fervidly. "I know my duty +and I'll try to do it." + +She hung back a moment longer, her pretty, arching brows drawn together +in thought. "I'm more worried about you and Hank Bradley than you may +guess," she said. "Even if you don't meet him, he may do you some other +injury. In fact, he once said--" She paused, her eyes on the ground. + +"He said what, Dixie?" Henley prompted. + +"He said something one day that worried me a lot," she went on, slowly. +"It was the day, you remember, when he was drinking and you ordered him +from the store. I met him, and he was in an awful state of fury. I +didn't tell you about it because I was afraid it would make trouble." + +"Oh, I reckon he was mad that day," Henley said, lightly. "He looked it +when he left." + +"It wasn't that exactly," Dixie said. "He seemed to be under the same +impression that lots of folks are, that--that you are very much in love +with your wife, and always have been, for he sneered a great deal about +it, and finally said he knew something which, if he was not bound by +promise to keep, would tear you all to pieces." + +"Humph!" Henley sniffed, "I reckon it was some lie or other that Dick +Wrinkle told him when they was out West together. You know Dick hated me +like a snake. That ain't nothing, don't let it bother you." + +"I couldn't help it," Dixie said, as she turned away. "It looked to me +like he really meant something important. He seemed so sure that he had +you in his power. Now, good-bye. Keep your promise." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +Hank Bradley, his face stinging from the bruises he had received, his +blood boiling with fury and humiliation, slunk deeper and deeper into +the wood. Now he would utter a despondent groan, again a long and +resonant string of threatening oaths. As he slowly spat the blood from +his gashed lips, he solemnly vowed that he would have the man's life who +had dared to interfere with him. To the end of his existence he would +see himself sprawling at the feet of the woman whom he had so long and +persistently sought--as long as he lived he would see the righteous +glare in his antagonist's eyes, the look of grateful relief which +lighted the face of the rescued. Plunging onward, he came to a +mountain-brook which, as clear as crystal, leaped and rippled, gurgled +and muttered down the rugged declivity. Here he paused, whining and +bemoaning his luck, and sat down and bathed his face. He was sober now, +all too sober, in fact, for his peace of mind. Above the tree-tops he +saw the roof and gables of his uncle's house, and, as he mopped his face +with his blood-clotted handkerchief, he trudged toward it. + +Old Welborne himself was on the lawn inspecting his beehives, near the +front gate, when his nephew entered, and he turned toward him, staring +curiously. + +"Why, what's the matter?" the old man asked. "You look like you've been +run over by a wagon, or kicked by an army mule. Great heavens, man!" +Welborne put out his hand as if to touch the purple and swollen spot +above Bradley's eye, but with a surly oath the young man drew back. + +"Same mule, I reckon, that had hold of your windpipe in your office the +other day when you squealed like a stuck pig under the table." + +"Huh!" Welborne grunted. "You was in the other room and didn't show +yourself when a man less 'n half my age and as strong as an ox +was--was--" + +"T'wasn't my row, and this ain't _yours_," Hank growled. "I'll tell you +that now, and be done with it. I won't take up any fight of yours over +your close-fisted, hold-up deals, but I'll see mine through, and don't +you forget it." + +"You'd better go in the house and put some medicine on your face," the +old man advised, "and sleep off that drunk! I smelt you before you +opened the gate. I knew when you was kicked out of Alf Henley's store +that day that you'd never let it rest till you had another row. You are +like your daddy was, always looking for trouble, and, somehow, always +finding plenty of it, and doing no particular harm to anybody else. He +was always going to kill somebody, but never got to it." + +"Listen to me," Bradley snarled; "if I don't kill that dirty whelp in +twenty-four hours from now, I leave home for good and all." + +"Say, look here," Welborne said, with a change of tone. "I'm not saying +this for Alf Henley's sake, for I hate him; he is the only man in this +county that ever tricked me out of my rights, and I'll get even with +'im, sooner or later, but I'm thinking now about you. You may be +foolhardy enough to try some slip-up game on him. I'm not afraid you'll +meet him like a man, for, if it had been in you, you'd have done it +before this, but you may think you can do your job in the dark, so +listen to me, Hank. You may think you can shoot him from behind, but I +tell you if you do you'll swing for it. I've got a longer head than you +have, because I've kept it clear, and hate of a man never will get my +neck in the loop. Don't you know--can't you see that if anything harmed +that fellow now, after this whipping he's given you, that suspicion +would be directed to you. He's popular--men on all sides like him--and a +jury would not leave their seats to convict you. You'd hang, I tell you, +hang till you are dead, dead, dead!" + +"I'd rather hang, by God," Bradley growled, "than go through with what +I'm going through now. Don't talk to me. Go on with your flea-skinning, +and let me alone. I know what I'm about!" + +"You don't, for you are too befuddled with liquor to know," retorted the +calm old man. "I can remind you of a thing that maybe you ought to +recall. There was a white man lynched for a certain offence two months +ago. It was done by a mob of eight or ten young devils on a drunken +rampage. The authorities was disposed to drop it, because it was +believed the man was guilty, but now it is leaking out that he was the +wrong party. His friends are working as quiet as moles under ground. +They are getting names and stacks of evidence. A man I've done a favor +for come and told me to warn you. I didn't think it was worth while, but +I do now, because if you fire on Alf Henley from the dark you'll be +arrested, and both charges will be saddled on you." + +"I don't care a damn about that, either," Bradley spouted, and he turned +toward the house. "I'll do one thing at a time, and take the biggest +first." + +"That's your determination, then?" + +"You bet it is. I know my business, and I don't want you to put your +fingers in it." + +"Well, go ahead with your rat-killing," the money-lender said. "I've +given you a piece of sound advice, and, if you don't take it, that isn't +my lookout." + +Bradley strode heavily and with dragging feet along the gravelled walk +to the house. He lunged awkwardly across the veranda floor and went into +the wide hallway and ascended the walnut stairs to his room. + +An hour later he came down. He had been drinking again from a supply of +liquor kept in his chamber. One of his hip-pockets bulged with a flask, +the other with a long revolver. No one was on the front veranda or on +the lawn. A dim light from a window at the right of the hall told him +that his uncle was in his room, perhaps absorbed over his accounts and +papers. Passing out at the gate, he took the narrow, private road +through his uncle's fields to Chester, the lights of which danced before +his unsteady vision. It was Saturday, and, as Henley often went to the +store on that night, Bradley concluded that he might be there now. When +he reached the square he found few persons on any of the divergent +streets. A few strangers and drummers sat smoking and chatting on the +low veranda of the little hotel, and in the darkness he passed them +without attracting attention. Reaching Henley's store, he glanced in at +the front. Cahews and Pomp were putting the tumbled dry-goods department +to rights, and sweeping, sprinkling, and dusting. A queer thrill of +triumph passed through the watcher as he descried the lamp on Henley's +desk and the unruffled face of the storekeeper in its circle of rays. + +Fearing that some passer-by might notice him in front, Bradley climbed +over the fence at the side of the house and crouched down in the yard, +hidden by the shadow of the wall. The village was very still. The +clanging of a near-by church-bell calling the choir to practise for the +Sunday service jarred harshly on Bradley's tense nerves. Pomp was +singing, keeping time with strokes of his broom, and Cahews was +whistling an accompaniment. Bradley waited till the bell had ceased its +clangor, and then, with a step that was almost steady, he glided along +the weather-boarding through the junk-filled yard till he had reached +the open window close to Henley's desk. Henley was still there. He +seemed to be counting money, for he had a bag of coin near him and the +iron safe near by was open. Bradley could see the pigeon-holes and +little drawers with their brass mountings gleaming in the light. He drew +his revolver and cocked it noiselessly and aimed it experimentally at +his intended victim. No better mark could be desired, but the right +moment must be chosen. Bradley looked about him, his befuddled brain +noting this or that obstacle to immediate flight. He must think; he must +make no mistake, for, as his uncle had said, the risk was grave. The +sudden report of a revolver would cause that cottage door to fly open; +Seth Woods at work in his cage-like shop across the street would run +directly over to see what had happened. The loungers at the hotel would +appear, Cahews and Pomp, and, and--Bradley recalled Welborne's reference +to the lynched man, and shuddered. Yes, drunk as he was, he could see +that, easy as the deed was of execution, escape would be most difficult. +He told himself, as he thrust the weapon back into his pocket, that the +centre of the town was no place for work like this, and that later +Henley would have to pass along a lonely road in darkness to get home. +Yes, that was the best plan, he decided, and, creeping back through the +yard, he regained the fence, and, watching his opportunity, he climbed +over into the street and made his way unobserved out into the country +road. + +Soon he had reached the point he had in mind. It was, by odd fatality, +the spot where he had received his castigation only a few hours before. +The moon was behind a cloud, and yet the visible stars furnished +sufficient light for him to see his way, dulled as his vision was by the +spirits he had consumed. Now his plan was complete. He would lie in wait +right where the unshaded roadway entered the wood. Henley's form would +be clearly limned against the unobstructed horizon. Bradley would fire +once, twice, as many times as would be necessary to do the work +absolutely. He believed that he would be calm enough, practicable as it +would be at that distance from any residence, to step forward and +examine the body to be sure that no mistake had been made. Bradley +chuckled as he sat down on the heather, and felt a satisfied, even +triumphant, glow steal over him. Taking out his flask, he drained its +contents, and then threw it into the wood. It whistled ominously as it +cut its way through the air and fell with a crash against a bowlder. He +drew out his watch and struck a match to see the dial. It was ten +o'clock. His victim could not be long now, for Henley never remained +late at the store. + +"Ah, what was that? Surely it was a man's whistle, and Henley's whistle +was a well-known and merry characteristic of himself. To-night it +rippled forth more joyously than usual, and this in itself added to the +flames in the crouching man's breast. Henley could whistle that way +because he had triumphed so conspicuously in the recent encounter. But +stopping a man's whistle was a small matter when it was done with a +six-shooter by a good marksman, Bradley chuckled, and that wouldn't +bother him many seconds. Now he could distinctly hear the storekeeper's +step; he would soon be in view there where the fireflies were flashing, +and then--but what was that? Something seemed to be lowered from the +branches of a tree directly across the road as by a rope, and to hang +against the dark background, turning in a gruesome fashion, as if +wind-blown, first one way and then another. It was a human body. The +feet were tied by a bridle-rein, the hands bound behind by the +suspenders the corpse had worn. Bradley had seen the thing in fancy many +times before, but never in such grim actuality as now. He strained his +sight to make sure. There was no doubt. The thing was actually +there--there, there, great God!--there! + +"Gentlemen, friends, neighbors"--he remembered the very words that had +escaped the lips now grinning at him--"you are hangin' the wrong man. +I'm innocent. In the name of God, spare me. I'm the father of six +children that depend on me for a living. Give me a chance to prove what +I say--oh, God!--oh, God, oh, God, have mercy!" + +The hand holding the revolver relaxed. With a subdued cry of terror, +Bradley was on his feet, glaring at the accusing sight. He saw Henley +enter the wood and move on unsuspectingly toward the horrible spectre +which swung across his path. Indeed, Henley passed through it as through +a vapor, still whistling. With a cry still in his throat, Bradley dashed +into the wood and fled the spot. + +Henley heard the sound of pattering feet and paused for a moment, +looking about him wonderingly. It wasn't an animal suddenly frightened +from its lair, for the weird, guttural cry was human. At the side of the +road stood a huge oak, on the trunk of which there was a grayish, +barkless strip about the width and length of a medium-sized man, and +hanging from a bough above was an uprooted grape-vine. These natural +objects would have attracted Henley's attention had he known how they +had been masquerading in his behalf. As it was, however, he resumed his +whistling, and, barely reminded by the spot of the recent encounter, he +cheerfully pursued his way. He was very tired, and looked forward with +eagerness to the moment when he could get into bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Henley's wife had been gone two weeks and had not written a line either +to him or the Wrinkles, when, one morning just after breakfast, as old +Jason stood on the front porch, he espied, far down the road, the Warren +carriage, with Ned in the driver's seat. The back part of the vehicle +was not in sight, but Wrinkle had seen enough to convince him that his +ex-daughter-in-law was returning, and he promptly and gleefully +announced the fact to his wife and Henley in the dining-room. They all +went to the porch and waited for the now-hidden carriage to round the +bend. For a short distance Ned's battered silk top-hat and the tip of +his whip flitting along above the tasselled corn-stalks which intervened +between the house and the road were the only evidence of the vehicle's +approach, and then it turned sharply in at the wagon-gate. + +"My Lord, the dang thing's empty!" Wrinkle cried. "I wonder if she fell +out comin' down the mountain, an' Ned never noticed it?" + +A full and rather startling explanation was furnished by the negro, when +he had reined in at the steps. Ben Warren was dead and was to be buried +the next day. Mrs. Henley had been too much overcome by careful watching +at his bedside and grief to write, but she had sent the carriage over +for the Wrinkles, whom she wished to attend the funeral. She wanted them +to bring a good many things to wear, as they might have to stay some +time to keep her company in her loneliness. + +When Ned had driven his horses around the house to be fed and watered +and rubbed down, and Mrs. Wrinkle, uttering a fusillade of meaningless +ejaculations and puffs of gratified horror, had disappeared in the house +to pack, old Jason made a wry face and squinted comically at Henley. "I +reckon Het wasn't too much overcome to keep 'er from shufflin' 'er cards +in her little poker game with you. You notice she didn't include you in +the invite. I reckon she still feels sore over that buggy-ride that went +crooked, an' has decided that you sha'n't take part in any festivities +that she has anything to do with. I like to stay with you, Alf, as well +as I would with any feller, but the change to that fine place won't be +bad. I'll have a good time, takin' it all in all. Ben has--or had, +rather--a fine mansion that is well stocked with grub, an' some nigger +women that can prepare stuff to a queen's taste. If Het don't take +charge of the pantry, there'll be enough to go around an' plenty over. +But we'll see, we'll see." + +That afternoon, as Henley and Cahews sat in the front part of the store, +the carriage passed on its way over the mountain. Wrinkle and his demure +spouse, in their very best clothing, sat on the luxurious leather +cushions in the rear, and Wrinkle was smiling broadly and waving parting +signals at them. The carriage had passed on, and was about to turn into +the first street leading mountainward, when Wrinkle was seen to reach +forward and clutch the driver's arm. He gave some command, and the +horses were reined in and Wrinkle got out, and as he busied himself +rubbing something from the lapel of his broadcloth coat he walked with +rather uncertain gait to the store. + +"Say, Alf," he began, as he ascended the steps to the porch, "if it's +agreeable to you, I'd like to have a dollar for pocket-change. Het's +pretty liberal, as a general thing, but Ned says she's powerful upset +over her loss, an' I'd sorter hate to tackle 'er the fust day we are +over thar, an' I know, in reason, I'll need a few nickels to drop here +an' thar." + +"Get it for him, Jim," Henley ordered, and, while Cahews was at the +cash-drawer, Wrinkle went round the counter and took a plug of tobacco +from a box. + +"I'd take along a few sticks o' peppermint, too," he said, as he +wistfully surveyed the candy-jars, "but I've got so I can't suck a stick +without toothache. Ain't a bit o' fun treatin' yore stomach if you have +to abuse yore gums while you are at it. Well, so long, boys," he said, +after he had carefully counted the coins Cahews had put into his hand +and was descending the steps. "Folks says that partin' is always harder +on the ones that are left behind, an' I reckon it's so in this case, for +it's dull enough here, an' I intend to have a good time. The funeral, +and paying due respect to the dead, will occupy me to-day and to-morrow, +an' after that I want to take a fish in Ben's brag pond. They say he's +got--or did have when he was alive--government trout two foot long, an' +oodlin's of 'em, hungry enough to bite anything you stick on yore hook." + +If the news of the wealthy planter's death and the departure of the +Wrinkles under the high honor which had been conferred upon the +unpretentious pair furnished food for gossip at Chester, what may be +said of the later report which at first crawled from the bereaved +mansion, and then, taking on speed, ran hurtling like wildfire over the +country? + +Ben Warren, sick unto death, and yet in full possession of his senses, +for valid reasons of his own had cut off many anxious more distant +relatives and bequeathed all his real estate and personal property to +his loving and faithful niece, "Hester Wrinkle Henley." + +Henley himself was disposed to regard the report as a false one, a +canard set afloat by the irrepressible Wrinkle, who would joke as +readily about the dead as the living. But even the shrewd business man +himself was convinced one morning by the appearance of Wrinkle, who had +dismounted from a fine horse at the hitching-post and came in lashing +the legs of his baggy trousers with a riding-whip. + +"I reckon you've heard what's happened, Alf," he began, in a tone in +which there was no guile. "It never rains but it pours cats and +pitchforks. I'm out o' breath. Forty-six men, women, an' babies met me +as I rid in all as eager to know the facts as if they had the'r names in +the pot, an' I had to go over the tale so many times that my hoss got so +he would nod or shake his head exactly right whenever a question was +axed. Them that hate Het would turn white at the gills an' groan, an' +the rest would say, 'Oh, my!' an' set in to do it on the spot." + +"Yes, we heard the report," Henley made answer, "but we didn't know +whether to believe it or not. I reckon you got it plumb straight?" + +"Straight as a shingle," Wrinkle said, sincerely. "Het not only told me, +but so did the lawyer, a big-bellied chap from Atlanta, in broadcloth +and headlight buttons in his shirt. Huh! I reckon you think you know Het +purty well, Alf; but you don't. I don't, an' my wife don't. I reckon her +Maker sometimes wonders what she'll do in a pinch. I 'lowed she was one +woman that 'u'd like to fall heir to a pile o' cash, but they say when +Ben sent for her to come to his bed whar the lawyer was ready with pen +and ink and paper, an' Ben told her he was goin' to put her in entire +charge of his effects, lock, stock, an' barrel--they say when she heard +that she begun to wail an' take on at such a rate that they couldn't git +her to talk business at all. They had to rub 'er down an' bathe 'er feet +in hot mustard-water, an' it was all they could do to keep 'er from +crossin' over, hand in hand, with Ben, an' leavin' the boodle to anybody +that 'u'd pick it up. The Lord only knows who would have got the swag in +that case, but comin' into a fortune don't kill often, an' Het will +manage somehow. She et a square meal this mornin' 'fore I started, +pokin' it up under her veil-like, in purty good chunks, an' give orders +to the niggers like a captain on a ship ridin' high waves. Thar always +was only one thing in this life that pestered that woman, an' that was +responsibility to the dead. I reckon she thinks the livin' can tote +the'r own loads. Be that as it may, she's goin' to see that Ben's +shebang an' all pertainin' to it is run jest to a gnat's heel like he +would run it if he was alive. But comin' down to brass tacks, she owes +her good luck to exactly what most folks thought was a weak p'int in +'er. They say Ben was so all-fired mad at the gal that kicked 'im to +death that he said all women was unfaithful, an' he picked Het out for +reward because she had showed she was one amongst a million. Then, too, +Het kept tellin' 'im he was good for another forty years, while the rest +of his kin was sayin' to his teeth that they was sorry he had to go an +hopin' that he had his papers in order. If I could get head or tail of +the mystery of life, I might be able to tell whether Het was actin' a +part or not. I think she simply done it so well that she believed it; +anyways, Ben liked it, an' spent his last hours an' every cent he had +tryin' to pacify her." + +"And he was rich?" Cahews thrust in, tentatively. + +"Well, you'd think so," smiled Wrinkle. "He not only had the finest +plantation an' house in this county, but he held bank stocks, railroad +bonds, warehouses, cotton-factory interests, an' what not." + +"And does--does Hettie intend to--to come back _here_?" Henley asked, a +flush of odd embarrassment on his face. + +"Well, that's another matter," Wrinkle began, and then he broke off +abruptly: "Say, Alf, I've got something private to talk to you about. +Jim, I wish you'd give that hoss a bucket of water. I think he's dry." + +With a knowing laugh the clerk turned away, and Wrinkle caught Henley's +suspender and gave it a familiar tug. "I didn't want to discuss family +affairs before a third party," he explained. "The truth is, Alf, I've +always been interested in yore little ups an' downs with Het, an' right +now I'm curious to see how prosperity will affect her. Up to now, you +see, she was dependent on you for funds, an' sorter had to go slow on +some o' her fancies, but now the shoe is on t'other foot, an'--" + +"That is not answering the question I asked," Henley broke in, quite out +of patience. "I asked you if she intended to--" + +"I knowed what you axed me, an' I intend to answer at the proper time +an' place," Wrinkle went on, quite unruffled by the reproof. "I never +begin to unravel a sock at the top or the middle. The toe is whar the +work begun, and therefore the toe is the only natural an' sensible place +to--" + +"You make me tired!" Henley retorted, impatiently. "You take all day to +tell a thing." + +"Well, if it won't hurt yore pride I'll tell you what I think is her +little game." Wrinkle smiled unctuously and rubbed his hands together. +"She left here when that little tiff was on with you about a buggy-ride +or two that was hangin' fire because you couldn't spare the time, an' I +think her present object is to make you do some knucklin' down. You see, +Alf, she's a fine lady now, an' a big heiress, an' naturally is now a +woman to be treated with respect by you or me or anybody else. She's the +head o' that whole thing over there, an' you'll have to fall in line +with the rest of us. She's in deep mournin', an' considerably overcome, +but she hain't forgot them buggy-rides. She's brought 'em up a dozen +times, an' always with a sniff an' a sneer. She sent me over to git all +our leavin's in shape for shipment, an' she's goin' to send a wagon over +after 'em." + +"So she intends to make that her future home?" ventured Henley, a frown +of perplexity on his face. + +"Yes, she says it would be out of all reason for the head of sech a big +thing to live away over here, an' that you kin sell out yore little +shack an' move thar. She's installed me an' Jane in a big room +overlookin' the river, an' has one set aside for you that is every bit +as good. I reckon you'll be made to feel like a common chap that has +married into a royal family, but I wouldn't let that bother me if I was +you. You are in luck, Alf. When you took her she didn't have a red cent, +an' now just look at her. If Dick had knowed this thing was in the wind, +he'd have stayed at home an' put up with a lot that he used to kick +agin. She sent you one positive message, an' that was to be sure to come +over next Saturday an' spend Sunday. She said you mustn't make it later +'n that, because folks would be sure to talk, an' that she don't want to +be talked about, especially while she is in black." + +"Well, I'll go over, then," Henley said, with sarcasm that was lost on +Wrinkle. "You may tell her that I have accepted her kind invitation." +And he turned to his desk and sat down and began to work. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +That night at his uncle's house Hank Bradley, still wearing traces of +his encounter with Henley, sat reading a newspaper and smoking in his +chamber at the head of the stairs. A half-empty whiskey-flask and a +glass of water were on a table at his elbow, and torn and soiled +playing-cards were scattered about the floor. + +Presently his attention was drawn to the outside by a sharp whistle +which was evidently familiar, for he dropped the paper and went to a +window which looked out on the front lawn. At first he could see only +old Welborne at a potato-bed on the right, but as his sight became used +to the outer gloom he descried a man leaning on the fence near the gate. +The fellow wore the broad-brimmed felt hat of the mountaineers; his +pants were tucked into his high-top boots and he wore no coat, but a +gray flannel shirt with a leather belt and a flowing necktie. + +"It's Rayburn Hill," Bradley ejaculated. "What the devil can he want? He +must have come thirty miles." + +Descending the stairs, and looking furtively at his uncle, whose back +was turned to him, Bradley tiptoed across the veranda and gained the +grass sward, across which he walked noiselessly. + +"Hello!" he said, in a gruff tone; "what are you doing over here?" + +"Come to see you, Hank." The man, who was under thirty and tall and +strong of limb, thrust out his hand and shook that of his friend. "I +left my horse down at the square." + +"What do you want to see me about, Ray?" Bradley's voice almost shook +with growing perturbation. "You told me last week that you never would +come this way again--that the more we all was scattered the safer it +would be." + +"I'm on my way to the nighest railroad, Hank." + +"You say you are?" Bradley leaned against the fence, and his face turned +white. "You don't think it's as--as bad as that?" + +"Don't I? Huh, I only hope I'll catch that twelve-o'clock flyer! I +wouldn't be here now but I told you I'd never act without reporting to +you, and that's what I'm doing, Hank." + +"But what's--what's happened to--to scare you up so?" Bradley stammered. + +"Hank, that fellow's kin are on our track like a pack of thirsty +bloodhounds. I got onto it by accident. They have smelt blood, and they +are going to drink some. We got the wrong man; I know it damned well +now, and you and me was the ringleaders. You know the West, Hank. I want +you to show me the way. Git a move on you. You haven't a minute to +lose." + +"I'll have to raise some money." Bradley looked toward the dim form of +old Welborne through the darkness. "Go back to town, Ray. I'll see my +uncle and pack and meet you at the train. I'm sure you are right. I've +seen bad signs myself. I'd have lit out before this, but there was a +skunk here that I wanted to settle a score with." + +"I know, but you'll have to cut that out, Hank. This is no time for +revenge. Hurry up. I'm off. I've got to get a man to take my horse +home." + +When his accomplice had gone away, Bradley crossed over to old +Welborne. + +"You remember," he began, "that you advised me to leave here the other +day?" + +Old Welborne stared at him steadily for a minute, and then shrugged his +decrepit shoulders. "I have been expecting to hear you say you'd settled +with the jackass that gave you that licking that day. I don't want to +see you get into more trouble, but that fellow ought to be pulled down +from his lordly perch. I never see him without feeling his hands on my +throat. He's the one man that has always stood in my way. And now, just +look at him! He's in big luck again, and can sneer in his high and +mighty way at all of us. That fool woman he was so crazy about as to +marry when she loved another man has come into a great big fortune, and +he walks about with a strut as it he was a king and we all was common +trash 'way beneath his notice. I saw him talking to Dixie Hart this +morning in the post-office. His face was shining, and his eyes twinkling +over the news of his wife's big haul. Me an' him have had it nip and +tuck here ever since he set up in business, and he has always thwarted +me. I've pinched and delved to save a few dollars, and his comes to him +in rolls and wads. Folks say he's going to sell out and live over there +in ease the rest of his life. I don't care how soon he leaves, but I'd +like to wipe that grin off his gloating face." + +"I've got to go, uncle," Bradley said. "It's too hot for me here. But I +need some money, and I must have it to-night." + +"Money? Good Lord! How much do you want?" + +"Five hundred. I'm going back West. I know the country, and I'll settle +there. As for Alf Henley, I've got something up my sleeve for him. He's +chuckling now over his wife's big luck, but I'll knock that higher than +a kite; he'll never live on that plantation or spend any of that cash. +You listen close and you'll hear something drop with a big clatter +before many days." + +"What are you talking about?" the money-lender asked, bending forward +and peering eagerly into the bloated face of his nephew. + +"I know what I'm talking about," Bradley replied, still evasively, "and +that will be the first thing I attend to when I get where I can breathe +fresh air. Say, uncle, I've had a secret in my hold for several years. +It is about Dick Wrinkle. If I thought you could hold your old tongue--" + +"Hold my tongue?" Welborne broke in. "Did you ever hear of me telling +anything?" + +"Nothing that concerned you, and this does, to some extent, I'll admit," +Bradley said. "Listen, uncle. How would you like to hear that Alf Henley +ain't that woman's lawful husband? Dick Wrinkle is alive." + +"Good Lord!" The old man's eyes gleamed even in the starlight. "You +don't mean it? Surely, surely, you don't." + +"Yes, he's alive. He was in Oklahoma when I last saw him. He was done +with everything back here--bored to death by his wife and her odd ways, +and wanted to shake it all off. He had done me a good many favors. He +was hurt in that big storm and reported dead, and got me to confirm it +back here. I did the job right. You are the first one I've told the +facts to. I get a letter from him now and then, and know where he is. +He's made enough money to own a bar in a little place near the Texas +line." + +"Well, well, but what has that got to do with Henley?" Welborne wanted +to know. + +"It's just got this to do with him," answered Bradley. "Dick Wrinkle can +simply wrap the woman round his finger. She would fall on his neck at +the drop of a hat. If Dick came back she'd have a fit of joy and kick +Henley clean out of the house. I know women, and Dick has told me lots +about his hold on this one." + +"But would he come back?" + +"Would he? Humph! He's so homesick he thins his ink with brine when he +writes to me. He's known all along that she'd take 'im back, but there +wasn't any special inducement till now. I have an idea that when he is +told--and told in the right way--of this big haul of hers he'll come +back to life with some tale or other to square it, and hurry home and +claim his rights." + +"And you want to start to-night?" + +"If you'll get me the money. I've overdrawn my account like thunder, +uncle, but I'll not bother you for a while. Get it for me. I've got to +go." + +The old man looked at the ground hesitatingly, then he shrugged his thin +shoulders. "Well, go ahead and pack. I've got that much in the safe at +the office. I'll meet you down there. But I'm going to count on you +to--to put this thing through." + +"I will if I possibly can," Bradley said. "I think he'll do as I tell +him. He's always listened to me. I know how to work him up. Don't keep +me waiting. I'll pack in twenty minutes." + +"Good Lord," the old man chuckled, as he stood alone in the dark. "If +Dick Wrinkle comes back and claims his wife, Alf Henley will take a +tumble from the highest peak he ever stood on. Won't I laugh at him +then? Say, won't I?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +The following Saturday afternoon Henley set out in his buggy to +accomplish, in some fashion or other, the disagreeable task of paying +his first visit to his wife in her new home. His chagrin could not be +imagined by any one less closely concerned in the affair than himself. +He had been taught to regard divorce laws as a veritable abomination, +and had never for an instant allowed himself to think of freedom from +shackles which goaded and chafed his body and soul. And now the +situation was even more irritating. His proud spirit rebelled against +the unlooked-for circumstances that had made him the husband of a +wealthy woman. Heretofore he had been able to realize that if he had +made a serious mistake in his marriage, he was, at least, helpful to the +woman he had chosen. + +From a hill half a mile to the west of the Warren plantation he drew +rein and all but bitterly surveyed the vast possessions of his +incongruous spouse. In a grove of primitive oaks, near the +main-travelled road, against the misty blue background of the distant +mountain-range, stood the stately white residence, with its long veranda +supported by dignified Corinthian columns, its steep roof, quaint +dormer-windows, and central cupola. + +"What a joke!" Henley said, with a wry smile, as he started his horse +slowly down the incline. "And she's the mistress of it all. I wonder if +she'll expect me to get down on my all-fours and crawl in at the +back-door." + +Old Wrinkle must have been on the lookout for him, for, in his best +clothes, he was standing at the carriage-gate in the nearest corner of +the grounds. His beard had been trimmed, or awkwardly chopped off, by +the unsteady fingers of his wife, and his grizzled hair was plastered +down over his dingy brow flatter than it had ever been before. + +"Hello!" he called out, merrily. "I 'lowed I'd warn you to enter at this +gate an' not drive on to the little one in front of the mansion. That's +for foot-passengers," he explained, as he swung the gate open. "Het's +mighty--I mean Hester; she says I mustn't call 'er Het any more; she +says it will make the nigger help disrespectful. It ain't Pa and Ma any +more, either, bless yore life! but father and mother. The other day at +the table, before we had lifted our plates, she started in to father me, +solemnlike, an' I ducked my head, for I thought she'd set in to ax the +blessin'. I started to say that she was mighty particular about the way +things are run. Ben had rules an' regulations, you see, an' she is +carryin' 'em out an' addin' on more. I seed 'er git as red as a +turkey-cock t'other day beca'se a nigger-wench rung the front-door bell. +She made the woman hump 'erself round to the kitchen double quick. She's +got a new toy to piddle with, an' it's a whoppin' big un. She says +things has to move accordin' to the clock on this gigantic place, an' so +far it's doin' it. Wait, I'll shet the gate an' ride to the barn with +you. + +"You've got a lot to learn, Alf," Wrinkle resumed, as he climbed into +the buggy and the horse started, "and you might as well set in to do it. +I told my wife I was goin' to git you off on one side an' give you a few +hints so you won't make the mistakes we did at the outset. About +eatin'-time, for instance--no matter what meal is on--we are instructed +to listen for bells. It's that big un that presides at the kitchen-door. +Thar's always a fust un an' a last un--a number one an' a number two. +The fust is to wash an' comb by; the next is to come in the dinin'-room, +but, mark you, not in a hurry. I'd lafe a heap o' times if she wasn't so +all-fired serious over it. Goin' to school ain't in it. In her thick +black she looks as important and stern as a judge in his robes." + +They had now reached the barn, a great, rambling structure that was +well-painted and well-kept. + +"Thar's the stables," Wrinkle said. "It might as well be called a +hoss-hotel. It really is a finer shebang in many ways than the house we +all lived in till this happened. I ain't criticism' yore place, Alf. It +was the best you had to offer, an' nobody could be expected to do more +'n that. But Ben went in for show, an' he added to an' tuck away till +the day of his death. This barn has been painted so many times that dry +sheets of paint would fall off if you kicked the weather-boardin', and +inside--well, jest wait till you see it." + +They had descended from the buggy, and Henley was about to unhitch the +traces when Wrinkle laid a firm, even agitated, hand on his arm. + +"That's another thing," he said; "don't tetch it. You'll break a rule. +No member of the family--an' that means me an' you, for we can claim kin +by adoption, if not by blood--no member is allowed to do dirty work o' +any sort. Ben never allowed it, an' Het says the same rule must hold. +She says it would spile the help an' git 'em out o' the right sort o' +habits. She told me to whistle whenever I wanted a thing done, and +Rastus, or Lindy, or Cipo, or Ned would come on a run. That's sort o' +makin' bird-dogs out o' two-legged creatures, but I kind o' like it. +But, mind you, Alf, don't whistle for 'em inside the house. You will +find a fancy rope with a tassel on the end of it in every room. Give it +a light tug an' let it loose. Thar, I see Cipo now. Watch me!". Wrinkle +spat on the ground, wiped his mouth with his hand, and puckered up his +lips and whistled keenly. "He's comin'; watch 'im hop; he knows better +than to dally when I give that sound. He's slow, though; walks like he +had lumbago or locomotive attachment. Say, Cipo!" as the tall, elderly +negro arrived, holding his tattered hat in his hand, "this is Mr. Alfred +Henley, an' this is his hoss. Orders is out from headquarters to give +both of 'em every needed attention. It ain't any o' my business, Cipo. +I'd give all o' you coons a rest if I had my way. Life is too short to +bother about puttin' on style an' tyin' a bow of ribbon to every act." + +With the broadest of grins the negro, whose splaying feet were in +remnants of shoes that were tied with white cotton strings, detached the +horse from the shafts and led him away. + +"Now, come on," Wrinkle said. "I see Ma in the back veranda waitin' for +us." + +As they reached the house the old woman, with timid, halting steps, and +better dressed than Henley had ever seen her before, came forward and +extended a limp hand. "Howdy do? How did you leave Chester?" she +inquired. + +"All right," he answered. "Where is Hettie?" + +The question was addressed to her, but she stared mutely, and with some +agitation looked at her husband. + +"I forgot to tell you." Wrinkle glanced up at the sun. "This is her +nap-time. That used to be the order in Ben's day, an' she's holdin' to +it. Just after dinner all hands are expected to unstrip an' lie down +till the cool of the evenin'; then you are free to walk about, but you +ought to be ready for supper so you won't have to wash at the last +minute, an' come in in a scramble. We don't see Het at breakfast. Ben +had a habit of stayin' in his room an' havin' a nigger fetch his up on a +waiter, an' Het feels like it is her duty to do likewise. She sets up +thar, they tell me, in easy, roustabout clothes, an' attends to the +business of the day--sech as readin' the mail, answerin' letters, an' +listenin' to complaints from overseers an' land-renters. Ben advanced +cash, in dribs or wads, accordin' to needs, an' kept a set o' books. +Het's got all that an' more on her conscience, an' she's gittin' as thin +as a splinter over it. Folks say she's a regular hair-splitter when it +comes to settlements. She would divide a copper cent into several parts +if the Government would let 'em pass that way. Come in the parlor, Alf. +I want you to take a peep at it. You've travelled about some an' seen +sights, but for a place jest to live in, I'll bet you'll admit this caps +the stack. If a royal emperor was to kick at a home like this it would +start a revolution amongst his subjects." + +Henley and the demure little woman followed at the talker's heels. He +led them into the main entrance-hall, a spacious, oblong room with +colored-glass windows on both sides and above the heavy Colonial +doorway. A massive stairway with a carved newel and balustrade of black +walnut wound gracefully up to a companion hall above. Piloting the +others around this, Wrinkle pushed open a big, white door and led them +into the parlor. It was really a spacious room of good design, the walls +and woodwork of which were ivory-white. It was, however, furnished with +execrable taste. There was an old-fashioned rosewood piano, a row of +modern bookcases of oak, rocking-chairs of ancient mahogany, cheap oil +landscapes in cheaper gilt frames, a worn carpet of shrieking colors and +a design which maddened the vision. There was one spot which would have +soothed the trained eye--it was the wide mantelpiece, on which stood a +quaint, glass-doored clock and a pair of tall, brass candlesticks of +simple form. The fireplace was deep and wide and held a pair of fine, +old brass dogs with an appropriate open-work fender. + +"I jest want you to take a glance at that big lookin'-glass." Wrinkle +pointed at a fine gilt-edged pier-glass which reached from the floor to +the ceiling and filled all the space between the two windows at the end +of the room. "I'm callin' yore attention to it so you won't be fooled +like I was when I fust saw it. They had the funeral in here, an' me an' +Ma was axed to set over thar agin the wall. Well, you may believe me or +not, but I thought the lookin'-glass was a wide door into another room +the same size as this; an' all the time the folks was gatherin' I was +watchin' it, for it was fillin' up an' I couldn't make out whar the +folks come from. Then all at once I was scared mighty nigh out o' my +socks, for the crowd sorter shuffled, to make room, an' I seed another +coffin. If I'd been a drinkin' man I'd 'a' been sure I had the jimmies. +I wanted to p'int it out to Ma, but I was afeard it might go hard with +'er, for she's a believer in hobgoblins, an' might 'a' raised a noise. +So I jest set thar wonderin' who else could be dead, an' why I hadn't +heard about it, an' thinkin' maybe that it was the style to bury a rich +man in two boxes, though they looked to me like they was the same size +an' had the same trimmin's, an' was piled up the same way with flowers. +Then I said my prayers in dead earnest, for I seed Het come in on the +preacher's arm facin' me in t'other room, while they was walkin' with +the'r backs to me in this un. I reckon I'd a been fooled till now if the +preacher hadn't begun to hold forth. I could see two parsons as plain as +life, but only heard one voice, an' so I discovered my mistake just in +time to keep from goin' stark crazy." + +At this juncture, Lucy, a young mulatto, came and touched Mrs. Wrinkle +on the arm, with the regretful air of one not wishing to disturb her +superiors. + +"Miss wants to know who's got here," she said. + +The little old woman started, looked nervously into the faces of the +others, and then ejaculated, "It's Alf; tell 'er it's Alf." + +"'Miss'?" Henley repeated, as the girl was withdrawing, muttering the +monosyllabic name to herself to fix it on her memory--"who's 'Miss'?" + +"Why, it's Het herself," Wrinkle explained, readily enough. "You see, +the niggers all used to call Ben's mother 'Old Miss' till she died. I'm +told they started in to call Het 'Young Miss,' but when she put on crape +an' begun to fling orders about they cut off the 'Young' part. I reckon +they'll call you some'n or other to fit the dignity of yore position +when they git it into the'r noggin's jest how close you stand to the +prime head of it all. They know who me 'n Jane are, you bet yore life, +an' when we call 'em they come in a tilt with the'r hats in the'r hands. +I never lived before, it seems to me, an' I care less than I ever did +about the future state. This is good enough for me. If it will just go +at the present pace all the time, I won't care to git cold feet an' +retire to a soggy hole in the ground." + +Wrinkle suddenly took on a look of attention to external sounds, and he +went to the door and peered cautiously up the stairs. + +"I think I heard 'er walkin' about," he called back, and he waved his +hand downward as if commanding silence. "Yes, she's comin'. Ma, you 'n +me had better make ourselves scarce. You see, Alf," he went on, in a +rasping whisper and with a very grave face, "we don't exactly know when +we are wanted an' when we ain't. It wouldn't be so awkward if she'd lay +down some positive rule. She's different under every change, an' the +Lord knows she changes often enough." + +With a frightened mien Mrs. Wrinkle lowered her head and glided quietly +from the room through a door in the rear. + +"Take a cheer," was the old man's parting injunction to Henley. "Throw +yoreself back, an' cross yore legs, an' let 'er know at the outset that +you ain't beholden to 'er, an' that her rise in life don't make no odds +to you. That's the way Dick would act if he was alive. He'd 'a' been +cussin' these niggers about an' tellin' Het to git out o' that bed an' +fix some'n to eat. That's the way he worked 'er, an' she was jest so +constructed that she liked it. Take my advice an' turn over a new leaf; +you'll have trouble if you don't." + +Henley made no reply, and he found himself alone in the big room. The +lace curtains of the windows which opened like doors on the front +veranda were gently blown in by the cooling breeze, and into the white +surroundings came the grim, black-draped figure of his wife. She +advanced toward him, her hand stiffly extended. He took her cold fingers +into his and awkwardly pressed them. Her eyes rested only a moment on +him, for she was looking critically at the carpet. + +"Oh, I'll never get things right!" she cried. "Look at the stable-mud on +the carpet. I've told 'em an' _told_ 'em not to come in here without +wiping their feet, but it goes in at one ear and out at another. They've +tracked it all over, and this ingrain carpet can't be cleaned. I'd shut +the room up and keep the key, but Uncle Ben always had this room open +for visitors, and I want to carry out his plans in every detail. Oh, +Alfred, I'm afraid this awful responsibility will kill me! You have no +idea of what it all is. I used to think you had enough to do, but your +affairs are simply child's play to this." + +"I suppose so," he said, "but you never took hold of mine. That's why +you think this is so awful. It is on your shoulders like my business is +on mine." + +She shook her head and sighed as if his remark were not worthy of +serious notice, and sat for half an hour going into all the details of +Ben Warren's last illness and his wonderful faith in her. "He simply +_would_ leave me in charge." She applied her handkerchief to her moist +eyes and choked down a sob. "I tried to get him to see that I wasn't at +all worthy, but it only made him more determined. The lawyer told me to +stop arguing, and the doctor said I was hastening his end, and so I let +him have his way. He died like a trusting child, Alfred. I held his hand +to the last." + +"It was sad," Henley managed to fish out of his confused brain. "He was +a young man to go so suddenlike." + +"That woman killed him, Alfred." The handkerchief was applied again, +though the voice of the speaker rang with rising indignation. "He had me +read all her letters over to him, and I followed the outrage from the +beginning to the final blow she dealt. She led him on and on, just +holding him as a certainty till another man proposed and she got what +she wanted--a home in New York. He couldn't stand up under it; she was +poor uncle's very life, and when she went out of it he wilted like a +delicate flower. I've ordered his monument; it will be the most +beautiful thing in the State. He had plans for a church to give to the +people in the neighborhood, and I'm going to see to the building of it. +I'll have to cut household expenses in a good many ways to do it, but +the edifice must be built. I get out the plans every day, but I shed +tears so that I can't hardly see the lines. This brings up what I wanted +to ask you, Alfred." + +"To ask me?" Henley echoed, and he moved his feet and hands uneasily. + +"Yes. I'll need the aid of a man over here, and, well, really, it would +look better for you to be here than over there. Jim Cahews managed for +you while you was away in Texas, and--" + +"I know what you mean," Henley stammered. "I understand precisely, but +the truth is, right now, at least, I've got so many deals of one sort +and another on hand that--" + +"I see. I might have known it." The woman sighed, avoided his helpless +stare, and tossed her head resentfully. "You never loved him as I do, +and you put your own selfish and worldly aims first." She rose stiffly +and stalked across the room to the silken bell-pull and gently drew it +downward. "You'll want to go to your room before supper. Lucy will show +you where it is. I hope everything will be in order up there. I have had +so much to worry me that I couldn't see about it myself. I'll meet you +at supper. I'm going down to the barn to see if they are taking care of +Jack--uncle's favorite horse. I haven't let anybody ride him since he +died. I don't know who would be worthy of it. Never mind, Alfred, this +is the second request I've made of you lately. I doubt if I'll ever make +another." + +An impatient retort was rising in the man's breast, and it might have +found an outlet if she had not left him at that instant to give an order +to the girl who had come in response to her ring. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +It was the second night after Henley's return to Chester. He was alone +at the farm-house. It was a desolate place now, despite his constant +self-assurance that he was accustomed, in his travels, to depend upon +his own resources for company and entertainment, and would now find +nothing lacking. He was in the kitchen cooking his supper in the same +crude way he had cooked his meals in the Western mining-camps where he +had once prospected. + +He took down a rasher of bacon from a hook on a rafter, and with his big +pocket-knife deftly cut some thin slices into a frying-pan on the smoky +stove, and into the hot grease he broke some fresh eggs which he had +purloined from a hen's nest in the stable-loft. He had a loaf of baker's +bread, and he made some coffee of exactly the strength he liked. These +things ready, he took them to the big, empty dining-room, resting the +smoking frying-pan on an inverted plate on the clothless table. He sat +down and ate and drank, but somehow not with his usual relish, for there +was upon him a heavy sense of isolation from his kind. In spite of his +effort to regard his condition in a philosophical light, he found +himself unaccountably depressed. After all his youthful dreams of the +domestic happiness which was to round out his life, it had ended in +this. He could, he knew, go to live on the big plantation his wife had +inherited, but it would be at the cost of the pride of manhood which had +been his mainstay so far. She was acting out the part which had fallen +to her, and what was there to justify him in altering his plans--in +giving up the mode of life which had become a part of himself? Marriage, +such as his had become, through no fault of his own, was an acknowledged +failure. + +Lighting his pipe, he blew out the lamp and sought the cooler air of the +front porch. There was something depressing, rather than helpful, in the +profound stillness of the night, the expanse of the star-filled heavens, +the shadowy outlines of the foot-hills of the invisible mountains +beyond. He heard his horses pawing in their stalls, old Wrinkle's pig +grunting in its pen; the chickens roosting in a cherry-tree hard by +chirped and flapped their wings as they jostled one another on the +boughs; all nature seemed normal and at peace save himself. What was +wrong? How could it go on? Where was it to end? + +Presently his attention was drawn to a figure advancing along the front +fence to the gate. The latch was lifted; it was opened, and the figure, +with a light, confident tread, began to cross the grass toward him. It +was Dixie Hart, and he rose from his chair and went to the steps, a +throbbing sense of relief upon him. + +She laughed softly, with a slight ring of affectation in her voice, as +she paused with her foot on the lowest step. "You must excuse me, +Alfred," she said. "I ought not to have come. I ought to have waited +till to-morrow, but I'm getting to be a regular slave to Joe. He was +worrying over you, and I was afraid he wouldn't go to sleep at all +unless--unless I set his mind at rest. Children are so funny." + +"What's wrong with the little chap?" Henley came down the steps and +stood beside her. There was an inverted flour-barrel on the ground near +her, and Dixie sat upon it, and swung her feet back and forth for a +little while without seeming to have heard his question. He repeated +it, bending toward her the better to see her face in the starlight. + +"Oh, I hardly know how--how to say it." She was studying his face with a +strange, hungry eagerness, which he failed to fathom. "Children are so +odd, Alfred, and have so many fancies that they conjure up themselves. I +reckon he's heard Ma and Aunt Mandy talking about--well, about the big +piece of luck that has come to you all. You know women that have never +had a windfall in any shape through their whole lives naturally make a +lot of the good-fortune that comes to a neighbor, and little Joe has +just set and listened to it all till--well, I reckon even you've changed +from--from his plain friend to--well, something like a king in royal +robes." + +"The little goose! Besides--" But Henley's resources furnished no +further comment. + +"He actually cried over _one_ thing," Dixie went on, avoiding Henley's +helpless stare. "It was when Aunt Mandy said that, while maybe you and +your wife had not been _quite_ as thick as--as some couples are, that +now, in all her wealth and splendor, you'd be like every other _natural_ +man, and be more attentive and--and--even loving." + +"How ridiculous!" Henley exclaimed. "Why, Dixie, that money and place +ain't anything to me. It comes to _her_, not to me, and, while I'm glad, +of course, for her sake, still--" + +"Joe cried," Dixie broke in, with a cold, resentful shrug. "You see, +Alfred, he felt bad because Aunt Mandy hinted that you'd have to live +over there now, and move away from this farm. You see, as she told +Joe--I wasn't there--I don't listen to their silly gabble, anyway--but, +you see, Alfred, when the little fellow gets an idea like this in his +head and keeps hammering and hammering on it, there ain't nothing to do +but try to pacify him--as Aunt Mandy told Joe, your interests are so +whopping big over there that you will naturally have to be on hand to +look after 'em. Your wife--Mrs. Henley hain't got your head for +business, and it will be your bounden duty to help her run things. Of +course, you _do_ love money. A man would be unnatural that didn't, in +this day and time, when it is the main thing all humanity is out after. +And--and--" Her voice broke. She coughed and glanced aside. + +"I'm not going over there, Dixie," he said, firmly. "I'm going to stick +right here, and do the best I can. Folks may talk some about me and +Hettie not living together, but I can't put up with all that rigmarole +over there. It would kill me." + +"Aunt Mandy said you might say that at _first_." Dixie steadied her +voice. "She told Joe so in my hearing. She said it kinder nettled _some_ +proud men to have it said they was beholden to their wives, but she +said--_she told Joe_--that the proudest man would give in to a situation +like that sooner or later. That's why the boy felt so bad, I reckon. +He's sure you are going to leave this measly little hole, and that he'll +never lay eyes on you again. I've tried to pacify him; but what can I +do? I wouldn't advise you to--to do a thing against your best interests, +either. You've made a good deal of money, and, like most men, you know +its value. As Aunt Mandy told Joe, in case of your wife's death you'd +get it all--that is, if you kept on the right side of her and indulged +her whims. It seems queer, Alfred, to be standing here in my plain dress +before a man as rich and high up in the world as you are." + +"Dixie, listen to me!" Henley tried to take her hand, but she drew it +from his clasp stiffly and stared sharply into his face. "Dixie, you +said, not many days back, that me and you understood one another +perfectly, and that nothing would ever change our feelings. I can't +make out what you are driving at in all this roundabout palaver, but I +know I'm just pine-blank as I was, heart and soul and body. Going over +there made me miserable. I never spent such a day in my life. In all +that red-tape splendor and high doings I wanted my old ways and nothing +else." + +"You'll get used to it," the girl said. "Aunt Mandy told Joe, you +remember, that you wouldn't like it at first, like any proud man, but +that the feeling would wear off. She says your wife ain't a bad-looking +woman, and that, in fine clothes and with fine things about her, she +will be different from what she was here. Money is power, Alfred; it +will have its way in this world. A man might sorter _fancy_ he couldn't +get along with a woman on his own level, but let her rise high above +him, and he won't be exactly in the same boat. He'll naturally think +more about her, and, in thinking more about her, and trying harder to +please her, his old love will be revived--that is, _if it ever died_. +Who could tell? I couldn't." + +"Look here, Dixie, listen to me!" Henley's voice shook with subdued +passion. "I've never felt like it was exactly honorable, fixed like I +am, to tell you--to talk out plain to you about--about how I feel toward +you, but you are nagging me on to it. I can't help it. Right now it is +burning me up inside. I love you more than a man ever loved a woman. You +are in my mind day and night. Standing here before me now you seem as +far-off and precious as an angel of light. I want you. I want you from +the very bottom dregs of my suffering soul. She asked me to move over +there, and when she did it the thought of getting farther away from you +made me actually sick. I'd rather live here on a crust of bread than to +rule a nation away from you. I may as well confess it. I don't love her. +I couldn't in a thousand years. She killed the love I once had. She was +slowly killing it by her strange ways while you was growing into my +heart by your sweet, brave, unselfish life. Now, I've said all I can. I +have no hope of ever having you all for my own, but I can love you--I +can worship you, and no earthly power can prevent me." + +Even in the starlight he could see the color rising in her face and the +shimmer of delight in her eyes. She laid her hand on his tense, +throbbing arm. "I see," she said, a sweet cadence in her voice. "I've +had all my scare for nothing. Oh, Alfred, I've been nigh crazy. I +doubted you. All the talk about your wife's wonderful luck went clean +against my better judgment. I kept telling myself that you was different +from ordinary men, but, somehow, it wouldn't stick. I may as well tell +the truth. That's why I come here to-night. I've been unable to sleep--I +was going crazy. You are mine, Alfred, all mine--ain't you?" + +He felt her throbbing fingers on his wrist and saw her shoulders rise +convulsively. An overpowering force within him urged him to clasp her to +himself. He opened his arms, but she deftly caught his hands and held +them tightly. "No, no," she said, firmly, "not that--not that! Folks say +men and women fixed like we are can't love one another without doing +wrong; but they can. The strong ones can, and we are strong, Alfred. Our +love is sweet enough as it is. It is of heaven; let's keep it right. You +might think you'd respect me if I let you hold me in your arms--here at +your own house, with your wife away, but you wouldn't--down in your +secret soul you'd feel that I was--was tainted." + +"Forgive me, Dixie, darling," he cried. "My blood's in my head; I'm +dazed and dazzled by you, little girl; but you know best. I wouldn't do +a thing you didn't approve of for all the world." + +She released his hands with a little, satisfied laugh, and stepped back +toward the gate. "Well, I got what I wanted," she said, frankly. "I've +been more in the clutch of Old Harry since you went over there than I +ever was in all my born days. All day yesterday and to-day I've brooded +and brooded and had evil thoughts, till--well, I'd have gone plumb out +o' my mind if I hadn't come straight to you. I may as well tell the +truth; I don't want a lie, even a little, tiny one, to smut the +confidence between us. Alfred, Joe wasn't worrying so--so _very_ much. I +was attending to that job. What I said about him was to pump you dry and +make you ease my mind. I feel better. I can sleep now. Oh, +Alfred--Alfred--good-night!" + +He threw out his hands impulsively, but she had evaded them, and, with +lowered head, was scudding across the grass toward the light in the +cottage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +The bar in the Oklahoma village kept by Dick Wrinkle was in the centre +of the place. It was a narrow, one-story shanty built of undressed +boards, the roof of which sloped from the front to the rear. It was +devoid of the conventional door-screen, the rough, unpainted shutter, +with its padlock and chain, swinging back against the inner wall. + +It was early in the morning. The proprietor, a fat, partially bald man +of forty years, without a coat, his shirt-sleeves rolled above his +elbows, was sweeping into the cracks of the floor the tobacco-quids, +stubs of cigars, and remnants of matches left by his carousing customers +the night before. He had just tossed his broom into a corner of the room +and was looking out of the door when a dust-laden, travel-worn +individual with a familiar look slouched around a corner and said: + +"Hello, Dick! Don't you know a fellow?" + +"By gum!" Wrinkle cried. "Where the hell did you blow from?" + +"Georgia--from back home, Dick. Just got here on the night mail-stage. +Gosh, what a ride! My windpipe is lined with dust. Quick! Gimme +something to wash it out. Three men on the stage, and not a drop in the +bunch. I'm burning up." + +"By gum!--by gum!" Wrinkle muttered, as he slid behind the counter and +set out a long bottle and glasses. "Help yourself, but I'll tell you now +it ain't any o' the simon-pure moonshine we used to get in the old red +hills. And you say you are direct from there? My Lord! It seems funny to +see a man in this God-forsaken place fresh from them old mountains. +Since I clean cut myself off--burnt my bridges, as the feller said, I +kind o' realize what I lost. Say, Hank, you didn't give me away, did +you?" + +Bradley drank a half-tumbler of the whiskey, and took a sip of water and +cleared his throat. "No, I kept mum, Dick. I said I would, and I did. It +wasn't anything to me, nohow. I ain't no gossiper. That was your game, +and I saw no reason to spoil it. Shucks! you needn't worry; you are +deader back there than a door-nail. Where is that old pal of yours?" + +"Dead." Wrinkle raised his hand warningly. "Don't talk about him. He was +a good chap, and stuck to me like a friend and a brother." + +"Gee! then you must be lonely, away out here--" + +"Don't talk about it. Cut that out, Hank. I'm blue enough as it is." +Wrinkle moved the bottle and glasses to a crude table near the door and +took a chair. Bradley drew up another and sat down. The rising sun +blazed in at the open door, and flared like flame in the gilt-framed +mirror back of the bar. + +"All right. Out she goes. I didn't mean to touch on a sore spot, but I +didn't know. You didn't write often." + +"I was afraid my letters might be opened by somebody else. I wanted all +that to stay wiped out, Hank. I didn't care so much for Het as I did for +the old man and woman." + +"I wrote you about your wife marrying again?" Bradley said. "I reckon +that ain't news?" + +"Oh no." Wrinkle had inherited his nonchalant smile and care-free tone +from his father. "The damn fool was welcome to 'er. In fact, I owed him +that dose. He's the only man I ever had a grudge against, and I was +glad he got her. He thought she was exactly the thing he was looking +for; I reckon he knows what he got by this time. Marrying her was the +foolishest thing I ever was guilty of, and I think I done it to spite +him. I ought to have let 'im marry 'er an' then 'a' took 'er away from +him. I could 'a' done it as easy as falling off a log. She was plumb +daft. I reckon she cut up considerable when the news was spread that I +was done for." + +"It was the talk of the county, Dick. Folks thought she'd have to be +sent to the asylum. Her uncle, Ben Warren, who was so rich, you know, +took pity on her and made her come visit him so she could get her mind +off her trouble. When she got back, Henley made a dead set for her. But +while he got her, Dick, she never cared for him. I reckon you never +heard about what she done last summer." + +"I haven't had a line from home in two years, Hank. She didn't quit 'im, +did she?--she didn't throw 'im clean over, after all, did she?" And +Wrinkle laughed expectantly as he pushed the bottle toward his +companion. + +Bradley's eyes shone; the neck of the bottle in his unsteady hand +tinkled against the edge of the tumbler as he poured out another drink. + +"No, but she come nigh to it. She drove him off to Texas, where he +pretended to have some business or other. Dick, she erected a monument +to you that cost a stack o' money. You can see it from the Chester +square, looming up like a ghost." + +"The hell you say!" + +"Not only that, but she sent off for a silver-tongued preacher and had +your funeral preached in bang-up style." + +"Good Lord! What did she do that for?" Wrinkle groaned, and his mouth +set rigidly. + +"Because the notion struck her," Bradley smiled. "She made a mark for +herself. She's the pride of all the women in that section. Whenever a +woman is accused of being changeable, your wife is pointed at to give it +the lie. You knew she was looking after your father and mother, didn't +you?" + +"Yes, yes, you wrote about that," the barkeeper answered, his eyes +sullenly averted. "I thought she'd do something of the sort." + +"And she has done it right, Dick; they are as rosy as two babies. Henley +makes plenty of money in one way and another, and he foots all her +bills, or did till--till--well, I haven't told you all the news yet. +Dick, neither one of us likes Henley. He's crossed me several times in +his high and mighty way, but he's got us both down now and he can sneer +at us all he wants to. No wind ever blowed that didn't blow profit to +him. You thought you was handing him a gold-brick when you left him your +wife, but, la me, Dick, you done him the biggest favor that one man ever +done another." + +"What the hell you giving me?" Wrinkle raised a pair of wondering eyes +to Bradley's design-filled face, and fixed them there anxiously. + +"Dick," Bradley toyed with the tumbler, turning it upside-down and +stamping rings of liquor on the table--"Dick, Ben Warren died and left +her every dollar of his estate. She's as rich as cream, and Henley--huh! +he's so stuck-up he can't walk. His lordly strut fairly shakes the +ground when he goes about. That fellow's as deep as the sky is high. +Folks think now that he knew she would come into that money away back +when he first set out to catch her. They don't know how he got onto it, +but it looks like he had a tip from some source or other." + +With the lips and throat of a corpse, Dick Wrinkle swore; the pupils of +his eyes dilated; his yellow fingers, like prongs of dried rawhide, +clutched the edge of the table, and the tremor of his body shook it +visibly. + +"I see it all now," he gasped. "He must have known it; he was crazy to +get her, and--and he took her as soon after--after I left as he could +possibly manage it. The Lord only knows what means he used, for, as you +say, she still loves me." + +"Folks say Henley turns up his nose at common folks now," Bradley went +on. "He's planning a great stock-farm, and going to keep fine-blooded +race-horses, and him and his wife is going to travel about and see the +world. Things certainly run crooked in this life." Bradley laughed +significantly, his studious eyes on his victim's tortured visage. "Here +you are, all alone away out here in a measly little joint like this when +your old enemy is living like a king in the bosom of your family. Why, +he's even robbed you of your daddy and mammy. You are dead, buried, and +laughed at, Dick. I reckon you are not making much out of this thing?" +Bradley swept the meagre stock and cheap fixtures with a contemptuous +glance. + +"Don't make my salt!" Wrinkle groaned. "Nothing is coming in, and no +prospect of a change. New town, Citico, drawing all the trade. I've +thought of selling out. There's a fellow here that has made me a cash +offer for the whole shooting-match--a thousand dollars down. He's a +gambler that is at the end of his rope; his wife says she'll quit 'im +and marry another man if he don't get into something more steady. She's +willing to put up the money if he'll buy me out. He's crazy for a deal. +He's got friends and can make it go. His wife's kin live here and she +won't move. He's in every hour of the day, shaking his wad in my face. I +saw him just now as I come down to open up. I'd let him have the dang +thing, but I don't know where to go. I'm sick o' the game, Hank. I've +had enough of the wild and woolly West. I've laid awake many and many a +night, by gosh! mighty nigh crying for the old life in the mountains. +Lord, Lord, I set here sometimes when there ain't anybody about except a +drunk Injun or cowboy and git so blue and lonely that it leaks out of me +like sweat and drops on the floor. I reckon it is kinder natural for a +feller to want what he's been brought up on, especially if he has, by +his own act, cut it out and signed his death-warrant. Oh, that was a +fool thing, Hank--a blasted fool thing! It seems to me that I dream o' +them damn mountains and blue skies every night hand-running--and the +good, old-fashioned grub we used to have! And, Hank, I hain't just a +dead man--another feller has took my place and, as you say, is gloating +over me." + +"Oh, well, as for that matter," and Bradley looked idly out through the +doorway, "you ought to settle his hash--pull 'im down from his perch." + +"Yes," ironically, "now that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?" + +"The easiest thing on earth, Dick. Alf Henley ain't legally married to +your wife. He's living with her, but they hain't been tied by law." + +The barkeeper stared blankly; his features worked as if he were trying +to solve a mathematical problem. He started to speak, but his mouth fell +open and remained so; his lower lip hung wet with saliva. + +"Why, no," Bradley went on. "No woman can legally marry another man +while her husband is alive. She didn't get no divorce. She's your wife +yet, and Alf Henley has simply slid in and taken possession of all you +got on earth. I know what I'd do; I'd hike back there and walk in as if +nothing had happened, and I'd kick that skunk out, too, or shoot the top +of his head off. Dick, she never loved anybody but you; she'd be so glad +to have you back she'd throw her arms round your neck and hold you +tight. It is the talk of the whole county about how true she is to your +memory. It has driven Henley mighty nigh crazy." + +Wrinkle stood up. He was shaking like a man with palsy. He leaned over +the table and gazed almost tearfully into the designing eyes before him. + +"Yes, old Het's a good girl," he muttered. "She was always the right +stuff. I know in reason that she'd be the--the same as she was. I know +her through and through and exactly how to manage her, but, Hank, they +all think I'm--- dead!" + +"Folks have made mistakes before," Bradley argued, in a tense and yet +plausible tone. "You was hit in the head by a falling beam in that +storm. You told me so. You was laid up with a lot of others in the +hospital, and for a solid month didn't know your hat from a hole in the +ground. That's how the report went out that you was done for. Why, Dick, +there have been no end of cases where men have not known where they +belonged for half a lifetime, and then got it all back in a flash. +Nobody would doubt that you was in that fix. I'll help you work it. I'm +your friend, and I want to see you get what is due you. That man's +robbing you, choking the life-blood out of you. You've simply got to go +back and claim your rights." + +"I couldn't do it, Hank." The barkeeper sank back into his chair, and, +with his elbows on the table, he ran his blunt fingers through the +fringe of hair around his glistening pate. "I'm in a hole. I'm clean +done for. I wouldn't be good at such a racket as that. I wouldn't know +how to fix it. I'd forget my tale; I ain't got much memory. Hush, I saw +that gambler turn the corner. He's headed here." + +"Dick, you'd better take my advice and sell out," Bradley advised. +"You'll be a damn fool if you don't. It's the chance of a lifetime." + +"Sh!" Wrinkle hissed, warningly, as a shadow fell athwart the floor and +a tall, middle-aged man, with dyed mustache and whiskers, sauntered in +at the door. He was jocularly called "the Parson," owing to his +dignified and clerical appearance. His trousers were neatly folded into +the tops of his very high boots, and his shirt-bosom was broad and none +too clean, and his flowered silk waistcoat was cut so low that two +buttons sufficed to keep it in place. He wore a flowing, black necktie, +glistening foil-back studs, and rings of the same quality. + +"I'm up early," he laughed, nodding to Bradley as a stranger might. "My +wife pulled me out o' bed. She has got Shanks to agree to sell me his +grocery, part cash and part on tick, and she wants me to watch and see +what sort o' early-morning trade he's got. She knows I don't know as +much about that line as this, but she thinks I kin learn, and maybe keep +better company. I reckon it will be a deal betwixt now and ten +o'clock--that is, unless you make up your mind to sell out." + +Dick Wrinkle was looking into the speaking eyes of his old friend across +the table. He knew well enough that the gambler's remark was merely a +poker bluff, and yet it stirred certain natural fears within him. + +"You can't root me out of a good thing with a little wad like that, +Parson," he said, rising and going behind the counter and briskly wiping +off its surface more from habit than necessity. "I've just met an old +friend of mine from back in God's Country, and we was just talking over +old times. What'll you have?" + +"The one next the jug," the gambler said, and Wrinkle set the bottle +before him, watching him fill the glass with unsteady eyes. + +"I don't think Dick is in a trading humor," Bradley informed him with a +cordial smile. "We've been talking over old times, and he's hot under +the collar. He's got an enemy back home that has been throwing dirt on +him. If I was in Dick's place I'd go back and call him down." + +"I don't know anything about that," the gambler said, and he drank, +wiped his lips on his hand, and stepped to the centre of the bar and +peered out. "I see Shanks in front of his shebang now. If I make him an +offer and he accepts it, it is all off between us, Wrinkle--you +understand that. I've got to settle down at something, and I'll do it +without delay. What do you say?" + +"Oh, I've said all I'm going to." Wrinkle tossed his head and applied +himself to restoring the bottle and washing the glasses beneath the +counter. + +"All right. Good-day." He stepped out of the doors + +Wiping his hands on a towel, Wrinkle came round to the table and leaned +on it. + +"You damn fool!" Bradley cried, in disgust. "That's all I've got to +say." + +"It's gone too far, Hank," Wrinkle groaned. "It was my own doings; I've +got to take my medicine. He's gone, anyway." + +Bradley stared at the floor and pointed grimly at the gambler's +tell-tale shadow. Then he whispered: "Don't be a fool; close with him. +Secure his money, and I'll help you get your rights--don't lose this +chance. A thousand dollars is a lot of money back home. Call him in." + +A change crept over Wrinkle's visage; he glided back behind the counter, +picked up his towel and began wiping the counter's top till he was in a +position to see the gambler. He caught the man's eye and laughed +tauntingly: + +"Hey, Parson, you are always making your brags," he called out. "I'll +bet you haven't seen a thousand dollars in a month of Sundays." + +"You think not, eh?" And the tall man stalked back into the room, +whipped out a roll of bills, and tossed them on the table in front of +Bradley. "Say, stranger, umpire this game--count it. I'm ready, but I +won't be ten minutes from now." + +Bradley smiled easily and counted the twenty fifty-dollar bills. + +"It's all right, Dick," he said. "You don't know what to do. I'm going +to close it for you. He'll take it, stranger." Bradley's eyes were on +the startled gambler. "I'll act for him." + +There was a pause. Wrinkle's face was set under an expression of blended +fear, doubt, and half-willingness, but he said nothing, simply staring +at Bradley as a subject might under the spell of a hypnotist. + +"Yes, he'll take it," Bradley repeated. "Get your hat, Dick, and leave +the gentleman in possession--the agreement sweeps everything, doesn't +it?" + +"Yes, lock, stock, and barrel." The gambler was trying to conquer the +look of elation which had captured his features. + +"All right," Wrinkle gave in, doggedly, and he reached for the money and +counted it. When he had finished he took his hat down from a nail on the +wall and extended his hand. "Luck to you, Parson," he said. "I reckon +I'll shake the dust of this place off my feet. I've got work to do at +home." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +Dick Wrinkle, travel-stained and covered with dust, a small valise in +his hand, trudged down the declivitous footpath of the mountain amid the +splendor of late summer leafage and occasional dashes of rhododendron +and other wild flowers, the color and scent of which greeted his senses, +dulled as they were to the finer things of life, as a subtle something +belonging to the past which had been lost and was regained. Now and then +he would stop, rest his bag on the ground, and breathe in the crisp air +as if it were a palpable substance that was pleasing to his palate. At +such moments, when the open spaces between hanging boughs, tangled +vines, and trunks of trees would permit, his glance, half doubtful, half +confident, would rest on the palatial residence in the valley below, +which, at every step, had been growing nearer and nearer. + +"Yes, that's the place," he said once, in a certain tone of exultation. +"It must be; I've followed the directions to the letter, and there +couldn't be two such dandy houses as that round here. And it is hers, in +her own right, to boss over and to keep or to sell or to do as we please +with." + +When he had reached the level ground he found himself in a broad, +well-graded road that led straight to the gates of the mansion, and when +he was quite near to it he observed on the right-hand side an extensive +peach-orchard. It was the gathering season, and in a shed open at the +sides, and containing long, canvas-covered tables, several negro men and +women were busy packing the ripe peaches into new crates which were +being nailed up by a white man in overalls and a conical straw-hat. The +pedestrian leaned against the whitewashed board-fence and scanned the +group, seeking a familiar face. But those before him had a strange look. +He was wondering if he could be mistaken in the place, after all, when, +his glance roving to the nearest row of trees, he saw an aged man emerge +with his arms full of peaches, which he took to the nearest negro +packer. Dick Wrinkle didn't recognize him under his broad hat and in his +fine clothes, but a thrill went through him when he heard him address +the servant. + +"Put these jim-dandies on top with the yaller side up," he commanded. +"They are a lettle mite soft, but they've only got to go over the +mountain. They are for the head boss, an' you'd better pack 'em right. +He's powerful fond o' good ripe peaches. I've seed 'im eat 'em with the +skin on, an', as much as I like 'em, I can't do that. I'd as soon chaw +sandpaper." + +"It's Pa," the man at the fence said, in a tone of relief. "I'd know his +voice amongst a million. He looks younger by ten years than he did. I +reckon high living did it. Well, it's my turn at it, an' it won't be +long 'fore I set in. I may have trouble at the start, but I'll weather +the storm. I know who I'm dealing with. I didn't live with 'er as long +as I did without learning a few things." + +Dropping his bag over the fence, he climbed over after it. He stood for +a moment, hesitatingly, and then, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, he +flicked the dust off his coat and trousers and new shoes. He was well +and rather tastily attired. He was shaved, and his scant hair showed +that it had been brushed. He wore a heavy gold chain, which had a +prosperous look stretching across his black waistcoat. The old man had +turned back toward the trees, and, without being noticed by the active +packers, his son followed him, bag in hand. Old Jason, his eyes raised +in searching for the choicest fruit among the low branches of the trees, +did not see his son till he was close behind him. + +"Now, Pa," Dick Wrinkle began, calmly enough, "don't jump out o' your +hide. Reports to the contrary, I'm alive and kicking." + +Turning at the sound of the familiar voice, the old man started, an +exclamation, half of fear, half of gratified wonder, escaping his lips. +He stared fixedly, and his mouth fell open, exposing his quid of +tobacco. The peaches in his hands rolled to the ground, and, utterly +bewildered, he stooped as if to pick them up, but paused and stared +again. "Lord, have mercy!" he cried. "Lord, have mercy, who'd have +dreamt it--you back--you--you here! Why, we all heard--we all 'lowed--we +all was plumb sure you was--" + +"I know. Never mind about that," the younger said, with a shrug meant to +shake off the topic. "Where's Ma, and--and Hettie?" + +"Your Ma?--your Ma? Why, she's down at the spring-house watchin' 'em try +a new-fangled churn, or--or was a few minutes ago. Why, Dick, we all +thought you was--was--" + +"Oh, I know, but where is Hettie?" + +"Hettie? Oh, my Lord! Why, Dick, boy, hain't you heard a thing?" + +"I've heard a sight more 'n I want to hear or will again," Dick Wrinkle +said, with lowering brows and a voice which seemed to bury itself in a +mass of inner threats as to dire approaching events. "I've come to +propose a--a settlement, without blood if it can be arranged; if not, we +kin spill plenty of it in the up-to-date Western style. I've been away, +and was detained longer 'n I expected by circumstances over which I had +no control, and in my absence, I'm told, my household--an', by gosh, my +honor!--has been stained. I'm not out looking for trouble, but trouble +may throw itself in my way. I'm prepared to do an outraged man's part. +I've got a medium-sized gun in my hip-pocket and a young cannon in this +valise." + +"Oh, Dick, Dick, we mustn't have blood spilt, for all we do!" Old +Jason's display of actual concern was the first ever wrung from him. +"Besides, the law--the law must be considered." + +"Oh, I'm willing to consider the law," Dick said. "I'll do a lot o' +things if I'm not made any madder 'n I am right now. I'm glad to git +back, an' I don't want to be mad. I'll do as much toward keepin' peace +as any other man. There ain't anything so awfully unheard of in what +happened to me. Fellers has been off from home before, an' the whole +world wasn't plumb upset by it." + +"But they didn't rise from the dead," old Jason submitted, +argumentatively. "How on earth did you manage to do it? I mean--" + +The son's glance for the first time wavered. He looked toward the +towering mountain as if for moral sustenance. His lips mutely moved as +if he were conning a lesson he was learning by rote, and then, seeing +the question still in his father's blearing eyes, he began: + +"I met with trouble, Pa--I reckon some would style it an accident. When +that big tornado struck the country out there and so many was blowed to +smithereens and never had even the pieces of 'em put together again--I +say, Pa, when all that happened I was struck in the back of the head by +a rock or a beam or a plank--I never knew exactly which--and never got +my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't +even know my own name or even recall you and Ma, or my old home back +here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till--till--" + +"I know, till you heard about Hettie and--and--but go on. I'm a +listenin'." + +"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He +took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient +hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered. +Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal +that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run +across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed +that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a +bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I +could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The +whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but +when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I +refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the +date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me." + +"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in +paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was +all-powerful curious, but--but I've read of sech things, and maybe +Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that--I mean--but I +reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma +up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your +weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck, +but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then +I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie." + +"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon +you'd better give her a full account o' how it all happened. I don't +want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself." + +"You mean about--yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly. + +"Yes, about all that. I've told you--I've done give you full +particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right +senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow." + +"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would +be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the +tornado. Het will have to be worked fine, Dick. She sorter feels 'er +oats now. She always did hold 'er head in the air, but it's higher now +since she got rich. She mought take a fool notion that the bronco +throwed you powerful soon after her change o' luck." + +"I don't want 'er dern money!" Dick Wrinkle snarled, his glance shifting +unsteadily. "I don't need _anybody's_ cash. I've got a thousand dollars +in my pocket now." + +"You say you have?" The eyes under the bushy gray brows fluttered +thoughtfully. "Well, if I was you, I believe, Dick, that I'd not haul it +out an' make a show of it. You see--well, you see, it's like this: Het's +a thinkin' woman, an' sorter keen-eyed at times, when she wants to be, +an' lookin' at a wad like that mought--I don't say, it _would_--but it +mought, bein' a sort o' money-maker herself, it mought set her to +wonderin' how a feller clean out o' his senses could accumulate so much +cash in times as hard as these. If crazy fellers kin load up like that +out thar, men of brains could walk clean off with the State." + +Dick Wrinkle started slightly and let his glance trail along the ground, +in several directions before lifting it again to the would-be helpful +countenance before him. + +"I made it _after I got my senses back_," he said, finally, and rather +doggedly. + +"Well, I don't believe I'd let that out, _nuther_," said old Wrinkle, in +a tone that was meant to be kindness itself. "You see, Dick, the bronco +throwed you just t'other day, an' a thing like that is liable to git you +all balled up. A woman like Het mought ax a heap o' fool questions, an' +you hain't had yore right mind back long enough to go into a game like +that yet awhile." + +"Oh, I don't give a damn, one way or another!" the younger snorted. "It +ain't any o' her business, nohow where I was nor how long I was gone. +She's my wife, I ain't the fust man that ever went away for a spell and +then come home." + +"I was jest wonderin'," the old man said, soothingly, "if yore old +high-an'-mighty way wouldn't be best, Dick. All the tornado an' +buckin'-bronco business may be a waste of talk. Het tuck to you in the +fust place beca'se you sorter held a tight rein over 'er, an', if I'm +any judge, Alf Henley, with all his easy ways an' indulgence, hain't +driv' her over any smooth road. I've heard it said that a woman will +kitten to a man that beats 'er quicker 'n she'll kitten to one that +kittens to her; an', if you set in on this fine place with a bowed head, +you'll be duckin' at every turn." + +"Well, you go on an' tell her I've got home," was the request of the +son. "Tell 'er I want to see 'er, too, an' that right off. You may tell +'er I'm loaded for bear--that I've heard about the way she's been going +on with Alf Henley behind my back, an' that a day of reckoning has +arrived. It's been delayed, but it's here." + +"All right," old Wrinkle said, gravely, "that's the best way. You are +comin' to yore senses, Dick. It wouldn't be natural for you to let a +fine place an' a little money scare the life out of you. It's lucky Alf +ain't here. I don't think he'll give you any trouble, though. Some +thought Het's good luck would spoil 'im, but, if I'm any judge, he seems +sorter 'shamed about it. He hain't been here but once, an' then acted +like a fish out o' water. He's a money-maker, an' too live a chap to +want to put on a dead man's shoes. You've come in good time, an' if Het +will let you stay you'll be in clover the rest o' yore days. Between you +an' Alf I naturally favor _you_, of course. Me 'n yore Ma felt all right +here, but we _did_ have a shaky sort o' claim, you'll admit, bein' akin +to the fountain-head in sech a roundabout way, an' with Alf Henley's +name in the pot, too. Well, I'll be goin'. Watch the back porch, an' if +you see me wave my hat up and down, this way, you come right on. If I +was to wave it to one side, like this--but never mind; we'll do the best +we kin." + +"All right," agreed Dick. "I'll go pick me some ripe peaches. The very +sight of 'em makes my mouth water." + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +One clear, warm evening three days later, on his return to his lonely +house, Henley went into the kitchen and prepared his simple meal, and, +after eating it, he went to his room to get his pipe and tobacco for a +smoke. He had no sooner entered the room than he noticed that it had +undergone a change. Some one had taken the white lace curtains from his +wife's room and put them up over his windows. Pictures in frames which +had been ill-placed in the parlor now hung by his bed and over the +mantelpiece. A neat-colored rug from Mrs. Henley's room ornamented the +floor, and on it stood a table from the hall, holding the family Bible, +an album of photographs, some other books from the parlor, and a vase +containing fresh roses. The open fireplace was filled with evergreens, +and the rough, brick hearth had been whitewashed, the lime giving out a +cool, pungent odor. + +"She done it!" he exclaimed. "Nobody else would have thought of it." And +he sat down in a rocking-chair, in which some cushions had been placed, +and, not wishing to contaminate his surroundings by smoke, he leaned +back and enjoyed it as he had enjoyed few things in his life. "Yes, she +done it," he kept saying. "She slipped over here, busy as she is at +home, and done it just to please me. She is a sweet, good, noble girl." + +As the dusk came on he went outdoors, lighted his pipe, and strolled +down to the gate. Leaning on it, he looked toward the mountains, which +were rapidly receding into the night. How majestic and glorious it all +seemed! How soothing to his sore spirit was the gift which had been so +delicately bestowed and which nothing should ever take from him! He +wouldn't have admitted to himself that he was there at the gate because +it was the hour at which Dixie drove her cow up from the pasture across +the way, but he was there with his glance on the pasture-gate. He saw +her coming presently, and went to meet her. Her color rose as she +recognized him above the back of the waddling cow, and she assayed a +mien of casual indifference as she returned his smile. + +"I have to tell you," he began, as he turned and suited his step to +hers, "how tickled I am over the way you fixed up my room. I'm certainly +much obliged to you. It's a different place altogether." + +"I'm glad you didn't scold me for the liberty I took," she said. "I saw +your front-door wide open, and--and, well, I just couldn't help it. I +never saw such a mess in all my life. It made me sick to look at it. I +simply had to clean it up. Oh, Alfred, you are just a big baby, and it's +a pity to see you left this way." + +"And to think that you done it!" Henley said. "With them little hands, +and--and for a big, hulking chap like me." + +"Oh, it was fun," she answered. "Joe was with me; he whitewashed the +hearth and cut the pine-tops for the chimney. He'd have moved every +stick of furniture out of the parlor if I'd 'a' let him." + +"I kept bachelor's hall for years," Henley said, "but I never once +thought of fixing up the room I occupied. I can see now how much +difference it makes. La me, Dixie, I could set there by the hour and +just--just enjoy it, knowing that you--" + +"Don't talk about it any more," she interrupted, with a wistful, upward +glance. "It makes me feel sad to think that after all you've done for +other folks you should make so much over what you ought to have by +rights. I actually cried the other night. I was driving the cow 'long +here and saw you through the window in the kitchen cooking your supper. +A woman's heart is tender toward children and to a man that she--to a +man that is plumb helpless and bungling about over things he has no +business to fool with. Alfred, your frying-pan had a sediment of eggs, +meat, grease, and pure dirt on the bottom as hard as the iron itself. I +had to chop it out with a hatchet. Your coffee-kettle was full to the +spout with old grounds, and you left a ham of meat lying flat on the +floor, and the flour-barrel was open for the hens to nest in." + +"So you was there, too," said Henley. "I thought Pomp done it." + +"Pomp? He's a man, if he is black," the girl sniffed. "He wouldn't have +thought anything was wrong if he'd found the house-cat sleeping in the +bread-tray. No, you've got to be attended to some way or other. I don't +know how, but it's got to be done." + +"I'll make it all right," Henley declared. "I'm used to knocking about." + +Dixie shook her head. They had reached his gate, and she paused, +allowing the cow to trudge on homeward. "You may not know it, Alfred," +she said, "but you are changed. You look restless and unsettled. You +made one of your best trades the other day in buying them mules, but you +haven't been to see 'em once since you turned 'em in the pasture. It +ain't like you. You used to be so full of fun. This money your wife has +come into has upset you. You don't feel exactly right about it." + +"I'll admit it," he said, softly. "I want her to get all she can out of +the good things of this world; but, somehow, that knocked me out--clean +out. I've made my own way in this life, and I want to keep doing it. +Men come to me every day and wish me joy in another man's death. I get +mad enough to slap 'em in the mouth. One fool said it was silly of me to +keep working when I had such a soft bed to lie on." + +"I knew you'd feel that way," Dixie said, her eyes full of sympathetic +tenderness. "I was just thinking to-day of how many trials we've been +through together. I've helped you a little, maybe, and you've been my +mainstay. There is only one thing I'm plumb ashamed of, Alfred, and when +I think of it I get hot enough to singe my hair." + +"What was that?" he asked in surprise. + +"You remember--the time I engaged myself to a man I had never laid my +eyes on." And Henley saw that she was blushing. "I'd give my right arm, +and do my work with my left, to wipe that off my slate forever." + +"Don't bother about that." He tried to comfort her. "You only come nigh +making the mistake I actually tumbled into. You ought to be thankful you +escaped the consequences that I had to shoulder. I didn't know Hettie, +and the only true love is the sort that comes from a deep knowledge of a +person's character. You see, I know you, little girl, through and +through. I've seen you in trouble and in joy, and found you all +there--true blue, the sweetest woman God ever made. If I'm out o' sorts +here lately it is because I can't keep from seeing what an awful, +life-long mistake I made. It is seeing the thing you'd die to have, but +which is out of your reach, that makes you see how empty the whole world +is." + +"Don't say any more." Dixie impulsively touched his arm and then drew +her hand away. "I could listen to you talk that way all night, but I +must do my duty to you and me both. Talking of what we've lost won't +bring us any nearer to it. As for me, well--I'm a sight happier than I +was before she went off. I don't exactly know why, but I am. Every night +before I go to bed I tuck away my two old folks, and then hear little +Joe say his lessons and his prayers, and then I go out in the yard and +look at your light gleaming and twinkling through the vines about your +window. Then my heart gets full of a feeling so sweet and soothing that +when I look above the whole starry sky seems to shower down comfort and +blessings. Then I thank God, Alfred--not for giving you to me like other +women get their partners for life, but for giving me a love that can't +die as long as the universe stands." + +He saw her breast heave with emotion. He tried to find his voice, but it +seemed to have sunken too deep within his throat for utterance. The +vague form of a horse and rider appeared outlined against the horizon +down the road. She was moving away, but he touched her arm and detained +her. + +"Wait till he passes," he said. "Don't go yet--not just yet!" + +"I ought not to be here talking to you after dark," she mildly +protested. There was a pause, during which the eyes of both were on the +horseman. "Why," she cried, "it is Mr. Wrinkle!" + +And so it was. The old man reined in his sweating mount, and, throwing a +stiff leg over the animal's rump, he stood down beside them. + +"Howdy do?" he greeted them. "I've just started to yore house, Alf. I'm +totin' a big piece o' news. I'm late. I had to stop an' tell it to a +hundred, at least, on the way. You mought guess all day and all night +an' never once hit it. Alf, we've had an increase in the family--but +hold on, hold on! it hain't that--it hain't another one o' my baby +jokes. I know better 'n to try a second dose on you out o' the same +bottle. Alf, Dick Wrinkle hain't dead." + +"Not dead?" Henley and Dixie repeated the words in the same breath as +they tensely leaned forward. + +"No, an' that ain't the only thing to be reckoned with. He's over at +home now, stouter and in better trim than he ever was in his life. He +appeared to me in the orchard whar we was packin' peaches, an' I was +plumb flabbergasted. It seems that he would have reported sooner if he +had been fully at hisself. He wasn't actually killed in that tornado, +but blowed off somers an' got a hit in the skull and was fixed so that +his remembrance played tricks on him. At one time he imagined he was a +cook for some cowboys, and a lot more fool antics. He would have been +that way yet--I mean in his crazy fix--but he says a pony throwed 'im +an' it all come back. You'll have to get him to tell you about it. I've +got it all mixed up." + +Henley's wide-staring eyes sought Dixie's face. She was pale, still, and +mute. + +"Well, I've got to be going," she said, in a quavering voice to old +Jason. "I haven't had a chance, Mr. Wrinkle, to ask you how Mrs. Henley +likes it over there. I hope your wife is well. They say the water is +freestone on that side of the mountain, and that is better for the +health than our hard limestone. You must tell them both that we all miss +them every day." + +"Hold on! hold on!" Wrinkle said. "You'd better hear the straight o' +this thing. You'll wish you did, for folks will have it all lopsided by +to-morrow, an' I'll give you dead cold facts." + +"But I've got my cow to milk," Dixie faltered, her color coming back, +"and it's growing late." + +"I was going to tell you how Het tuck it," Wrinkle ran on, and there was +nothing for the girl to do but remain. "Dick told me to go on up to the +big house an' hand in his report in as fair shape as I could, an' I sent +his mammy, who was havin' ten fits a minute, to him, and went up to +Het's room, whar she lies down at that time o' the day. She's as tough +as rawhide, you know, an' I wasn't afraid she'd keel over, so while she +was frownin' at me like she thought I ought not to have butted in on her +privacy that way, I up an' told her the news. Well, sir, it plumb +floored her. You kin well imagine it would take a big thing to down Het, +but that did. She set up on the edge o' the bed, makin' wild stabs with +'er feet at 'er slippers, and lookin' wall-eyed an' scared. + +"'Pa,' says she, 'this is one o' yore jokes.' + +"'Joke a dog's hind-foot!' says I. 'If you think it's a joke you jest +step to that thar window an' look down at the peach-packin' shed.' + +"Well, sir, you don't have to tell a woman twice how to verify an +important report. She riz like she was on springs, an' thumped across +the room in her stockin'-feet, an' looked out o' the window, with me +right in her wake. An' thar, as plain as a sheep in the middle of a +stream, stood Dick a-pealin' an' eatin' the peaches his mammy was +fetchin' him. An' now comes the part that may not suit you, Alf, one +bit; but I've come to fetch the whole truth an' nothin' but the truth. +In consideration of what Het has fell heir to, an' one thing an' +another, it may not be good news to you to hear that, instead o' lookin' +sorry, Het actually chuckled an' reddened up like a gal in her teens. + +"'It's him!' she said. 'Thank God, it's Dick--it's Dick!' + +"I couldn't pull 'er away from the window. She jest leaned agin the sash +an' stared, an' rubbed 'er hands together, an' went on like she was +gettin' religion. Then I set in, as well as I knowed how, to tell 'er +about Dick's mishap, but she waved her hand backward-like, an' stopped +me. 'Leave all that out,' she said, sorter impatient, as if she couldn't +think of but one thing at a time. 'You needn't tell about that--he's +alive, that's enough--Dick's alive!' And, would you believe it, folks? +She flopped herself down in a chair an' cried and tuck on at a great +rate. It upset me so that I give up the whole dang business. I went down +an' told Dick he'd better go attend to 'er. He axed me how the crazy +spell went down, an' I told 'im I didn't think she'd even heard it, or +ever would, for that matter. Women seem to scent a thing from far off +that they don't want to believe, an' close every pore of their bodies +an' eyes an' ears so it can't get in." + +"Well, what was the final upshot of it all?" Henley was quite calm, +though a great new light was flaring in his eyes as they rested on +Dixie, who was looking off in the direction of the mountain, her little +hands grasping the palings of the fence, her tense body thrown slightly +backward. + +"Dick's my own son," Wrinkle made answer, "but I got out o' all patience +with him. He ought to 'a' let well enough alone, bein' as Het was +willin' to let bygones be bygones. But not him. As me 'n him walked up +to the house, an' he looked over them broad acres on all sides, an' as +we went in at that fine door, he seemed to get back to his old self--an' +that is one thing that sorter makes me believe a little in the crazy +spell, for he looked like a man that had just waked up from a long nap, +shore enough. He was the maddest chap I ever laid eyes on as he went up +them steps to her private quarters. I followed. I wasn't wanted, I +reckon, but I had to see the thing through. She come up to him, Het did, +all wet from head to foot with tears, and tried to throw 'er arms around +his neck, but he shoved 'er off, he did, an' begun the awfulest +rip-rantin' jowerin' you ever heard, about the scan'lous way she'd +carried on with you while he was off. He didn't say nothin' about his +spell--he had no apologies to make. Accordin' to his way o' lookin' at +it, she'd blackened the white purity of his home while his back was +turned, an' nothing but blood, an' whole gurglin' streams of it, would +suit him. Well, they had it nip and tuck for fully an hour, an' then +they come to an agreement. They was to drive over to Carlton the next +day and ax Judge Fisk if Het had disgraced 'erself past recall; and so +we hit the road bright an' early. The judge was mighty nice. He said a +big mistake had evidently been made, but it was one that the law could +rectify if Het 'u'd just grease its wheels properly. He said he'd quit +settin' on the bench hisse'f--bein' beat by the Prohibitionists in the +last election--an' had gone back to practise at the bar, an' would +gladly take the case in hand. He saw plainly, he said, that it was Het's +duty, havin' come into sech a big estate as that, to clear her record +all she could, even if it _did_ cost her considerable outlay, first an' +last. He summed the whole thing up as calm, an' bent over with his +pencil in his hand, an' peepin' above his specs, just like he was +deliverin' a charge to a jury in a murder case. It was for Het to weigh +the evidence pro and con, an' consider, an' deliberate, an' make her +final choice betwixt the two claimants she had got tangled up with. He +didn't know, he went on to say--an', of course, he must have suspicioned +that she'd already made up her mind, bein' as she had fetched Dick along +an' left you out in the wet--he didn't know, he said, but what jestice +sorter leaned to the prior claimant, possession bein' nine parts of the +law, an' Dick bein' incapacitated an' rendered null an' void fer the +time involved. As to the crazy spell Dick had, he gave it as his opinion +that such things had been heard of often. He'd 'a' made a good doctor, +that judge would; he said the brain was the finest constructed part of +the human an--an--anatomy--that's it,--anatomy. He said it was made up +of a bunch of fibres an' strings as thin as spider-webs, an' that an +expert with the saw an' knife could open a man's skull an' tickle the +ends of 'em an' make the patient cut a different caper for every nerve +he touched. He said that's why human nature was so varied. He said, with +all fees paid, that Het could suit her own tastes an' inclination. He +said that she could claim that Dick's quar condition an' his +disinclination to furnish a support equal to her reasonable demands +justified her in callin' the fust deal off; or, on t'other hand, that +she could regyard it as the only obligation to which she was bound by +law or religion, an' that he would set about--after the fee was paid in +cash, or by check on any good, reliable bank, or even by a solid, +negotiable note--he would set about to have the second weddin' set +aside, and an-an--" + +"Annulled," Henley threw into the gap. + +"Yes, that's it--annulled," Wrinkle echoed. "An' he advised her to have +it docketed for next week's special term o' court, and that he'd promise +to rush it through without hitch or bobble. Dick seemed better satisfied +after they left the judge, an' they driv' back home without any more +wranglin'. Dick has bought him some new fishin'-tackle, an' is off to +the river to-day. He has a natural pride in the big plantation, and rid +all over it this mornin'. He says he has some new ideas that he picked +up in the West--before he had his spell, I reckon--which he intends to +apply there." + +"Well, I really must hurry on," Dixie said, turning away. "Give my love +to your wife and to Mrs.--to your daughter-in-law. Good-night." + +The two men saw her hastening away in the thickening shadows. There was +a vast throbbing within Henley's breast. The whole firmament above +seemed to be shimmering with a subtle, spiritual light. He laid his hand +almost affectionately on the old man's shoulder and beamed down into his +eyes. + +"It is all for the best," he said. "I had no right to Dick's place. I +found that out long ago." + +"Thar's one thing I don't like about it." Wrinkle was thoughtful, and a +rare mood it was for him. "I was thinkin' about it ridin' over here. +Alf, I don't like to give you up. As God is my holy judge, I like you--I +like you plumb down to the ground. You are a man an' a gentleman." + +"Thank you." Henley's voice rang with a triumph he strove hard to +suppress. "Come in and put up your hoss and stay all night. I'll cook +you some supper and you can sleep in your bed, like old times." + +"Much obliged all the same, Alf, but I reckon I can't. Het an' Dick both +laid down the law on that particular point. He's throwed that at 'er +several times already--I mean about lettin' you support me an' his Ma. +Seems like that sorter hurts his pride. He's threatened several times to +come over here an' instigate a civil war, but he won't do it right away. +He knows what a temper you got, an' I reckon he don't like the idea o' +that big tombstone already marked in Welborne's new graveyard. No, I +can't put up with you to-night. Het give me a five-dollar William to +defray expenses at the hotel, an' I sorter like the idea o' makin' a +splurge for a change. I'll make 'em give me the best drummer's quarters, +an' I'll order just what I want to eat." + +Henley watched him remount and ride away, his legs swinging back and +forth against the flanks of the animal. He heard little Joe calling to +Dixie from the kitchen-door, and from the cow-lot her clear answering +"Whooee!" which came again in a softer echo from the nearest hill. + +"I wonder what she is thinking?" he mused, the hot blood from his +surcharged heart tingling through his entire body. "I'd go to her now, +but she'd not like it. She wouldn't look at me while the old man was +talking. The sweet little thing is scared--she don't know what at, but +she's scared." + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +Although Henley, now grown oddly timid himself, made several efforts +within the next week to catch sight of Dixie, he failed signally. He +began by haunting the cow-lot at milking-time, but she did not come as +usual. From the front porch one evening he observed something that +explained this to him. It was the sight of little Joe driving the cow up +to the house instead of into the lot. + +"She's milking up there to keep from meeting me," Henley said, his heart +growing heavy. "Maybe, after all, I've been hoping too much. Maybe she +sorter thought she'd like me well enough when I was bound to another, +like I was, but now she sees it different. Folks is likely to think +twice in a matter like this, for I mean business, an' she knows it. My +God, I may lose 'er--actually lose 'er, after all!" + +For the next week Henley really suffered; the gravest doubts had beset +him; as close as Dixie had been to him, she now seemed farther away than +ever. He was constantly wavering between the hungry impulse to go +directly to her and the abiding fear that such an intrusion might offend +her beyond pardon. + +One day, however, he felt that he could stand his suspense no longer. It +was the day his lawyer at Carlton had written him that he was a free +man. Surely, he argued, he would have the right to inform her of such an +important fact, after all that had passed between them, simply as a +friend, if nothing more. He left the store early in the afternoon, and +on his way home, and with a chill of doubt on him, he stopped at Dixie's +cottage. + +Mrs. Hart was seated behind the vines on the little box-like porch, and +she rose at the click of the gate-latch and stood peering at him under +her thin hand. + +"Oh, it's you, Alfred!" she cried, in pleased surprise. "I was just +wondering what had become of you. Did you want to see Dixie?" + +"Yes, I thought I'd ask if she was about the house," Henley made reply, +in a jerky sort of fashion. "There is a little matter I wanted to speak +to her about." + +"So the poor child is right, after all," the old woman sighed. "Well, I +reckon you must protect your own interests, Alfred, let the burden fall +where it may. She's done 'er best to pay out, an' if she can't do it, +why, she'll have to give in, that's all. She's undertaken too much, +anyway." + +"I don't understand, Mrs. Hart." Henley was unable to follow her drift, +and, with his hat in hand and a puzzled expression on his face, he stood +silent. + +"Why, for the last week, Alfred, Dixie hain't done a thing but fret and +worry about the money she owes you," Mrs. Hart explained, plaintively. +"Why, when you advanced the money to get her out of old Welborne's +clutch she was so happy she sung day and night, and me and her Aunt +Mandy thought the worst was over, because--well, because you seemed so +kind and friendly that we felt like you would not push her, that you'd +give her plenty o' time to make the payments. But now that her cotton +fell short of her expectations and the overflow killed half her +potato-crop she's all upset. She didn't say, in so many words, that you +was going to sue for your rights, but we couldn't, to save us, see what +she was so upset for, if you hadn't, at least, hinted about it. My +sister thought that maybe--that maybe, now that your wife's big fortune +had gone off in an unexpected direction, that you was obliged to raise +money to make good some investments that you made while you was counting +on things remaining the same. We couldn't talk it over with Dixie, +because she'd get out of patience every time we'd bring it up." + +"You are quite mistaken, Mrs. Hart," Henley said, his face aglow from a +new light on the situation. "I don't want to collect any money from +Dixie. She can keep it as long as she wants it. If she thinks I want +that money, she is away off from the facts. Is she about the house?" + +"No, she ain't," Mrs. Hart fairly gasped in relief. "Her and Joe went +down to the creek to fish. They are at the first bend; you can see the +spot from the gate. So that was a mistake! Well, I certainly am glad. I +reckon she just imagined it. She's acted funny for the last week, +anyway--sometimes just as happy and jolly as you please, and then +bringing up this money question--sayin' that she couldn't bear to be in +debt, and the like. She said if she could just sell the farm for +anything near its worth she'd do it and pay all she owes." + +"She could easily sell it," Henley said, "but she won't have to do it to +pay me. I'll go down there, I believe, and see if they are having any +luck." + +He walked away slowly, for the burden of doubt as to his chances was +still on him. From the bend of the road he looked across the level +pasture and hay-land to the green line of willows and canebrake that +marked the course of the stream. At first he saw nothing but his grazing +horses and mules, some of Dixie's sheep and lambs, and then he descried +a purplish blur against the living green, and recognized it as the +girl's sunbonnet, the back part of which was turned toward him. Across +the uneven ground, his feet retarded by creeping earth-vines and furrows +where grain had grown and ripened, he strode, his doubt and awkwardness +increasing with every step. + +She saw him as he was nearing the grass-covered bank upon which she sat, +an open book in her lap. It was quite clear to him that she, too, was +embarrassed, for a violent color rose in her cheeks, and her glance +deliberately avoided his. She called out quite distinctly and +irrelevantly to Joe, who sat on a log which jutted out into the stream, +telling him to be careful and not fall in. Henley saw the boy shrug his +shoulders and heard him laugh contemptuously, as he whipped his rod and +line into the stream and reseated himself, his bare feet sinking into +the cooling water. "Why, it ain't up to my waist," he said. "I could +wade across." + +"No, he's safe enough," Henley heard his coarse voice saying, as he +stood over her and looked down on her expressionless bonnet. + +She looked up and pushed her bonnet back farther so that a wisp of her +beautiful hair was exposed to the sunlight against the shell-like +pinkness of her neck. "He hasn't caught a thing," she said; "but he's +had some bites that was just as much fun." + +"I'm sorter tired," he ventured. "I've been on my feet all day, running +first one place and another. This is your picnic, and you are the boss. +I wonder if you'd care if I set down a minute." + +"It may be my picnic, but it happens to be your ground," she laughed. +"There's a sign up at the fence that no trespassing is allowed, but me +and Joe neither one can read, and so we came right in and helped +ourselves." + +He lowered himself to the grass at her feet, glad that he had it, and +yet almost afraid of the full view he now had of her face when he dared +to look directly at her. He leaned forward and began to pluck blades of +grass and twist them nervously in his fingers. + +"You are powerful good to that boy," he said, after a silence through +which several kinds of thoughts percolated. "His own mammy couldn't +treat him better." + +"I don't know whether I'm spoiling him or not." He detected a slight +quavering in her voice which was not exactly that of her usual +composure. "Some folks say I am. I know I can't bear to have him work +hard, although he is plumb well now. He had such a hard time under Sam +Pitman that, somehow, I want him to have a good, long vacation. +Alfred--" She raised her hand to her lips impulsively, colored +vexatiously, and then with a shrug, as if the familiar use of his name +were a matter that could not be remedied, she continued; "I started to +say that it makes me awful sad to think of the slavery that child went +through, short as it was. It might have made a scoundrel of him, in the +long-run, for he was getting hardened." + +"And now he's just the reverse." Henley meant it as a tribute to her, +and it was as bold a compliment as he would have dared to pay her in the +dense anxiety through which he was groping. "He's a manly little chap, +and is sure to come out on top. I've been studying over it"--Henley was +growing a trifle bolder--his eyes met hers--"and I've wondered if you'd +get jealous if I said that I want to do something substantial for him. +He'll need good schooling, you know, and a lot o' things to start 'im +out fairly." + +"You? Why, Al--why, surely you don't mean it--you don't mean _that_." + +"Why, why not, Dixie--Miss Dixie?" he corrected, as his warm, anxious +gaze rested on her lowered lids, for she was turning the pages of the +arithmetic in her lap. "You see, I'm not exactly a poor man; the Lord +has been powerful good to me, and--and you see, now I'm all alone in the +world. I--I got news to-day about--about, well, I'm a free man now, +with no responsibilities on me, and--well, you see how it is." + +"I don't know what to say about it--about Joe." She lowered her head +over the book. "It would be wrong for me to stand in his way, and I +won't. He was helpless on the world when I took him, and he is yet, for +I'm over head and ears in debt. I thought I could do wonders by buying +land on a credit, but I'm as near a bankrupt as could be possible. I'd +be down and out now if others got what was coming to them. As proud as I +am, and as hard as I've worked, I'm right now living on charity." + +"Shucks! Don't be silly, Dixie!" burst from Henley's lips with +considerable warmth. "You sha'n't set here and talk such foolishness; +you've done more than thousands o' men could have done. You are a plumb +wonder." + +"All you say don't alter facts," Dixie sighed. "I know that I've got a +big debt to pay, and it's got to be paid by fair means or foul. Let's +talk about something else. I've been setting here an hour trying to work +this example for Joe. It looks as easy as two and two make four, but it +ain't; it's simply terrible. Listen: 'Sixty is two-thirds of what +number?'" + +"Let me see." And Henley crawled to her aide till he could see, as he +rested on his elbow, the page and the lines at which her finger pointed. +"That's easy enough, I reckon. 'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' +Why, it's--" His eyes became fixed in vacancy, as he gazed at the blue +sky above the tree-tops, and then at the ground. "Why, it's a fool +thing--it must be a misprint. You often find mistakes like that in +school-books. I know my teacher used to write the correct thing on the +edge of the page." + +"No, I reckon it's all right," Dixie argued. "It's a funny thing, for +every minute I seem to be on the point of catching it, and then it slips +away. You see, it has been so long since I went to school that I can't +remember how such sums are done." + +"Well, I can work any sort o' example that I have use for in my +business," Henley defended himself as well as he could, "but the Lord +knows I never had any use for a--a thing as silly as that is on the very +face of it. Huh, I say--'Sixty is two-thirds of what number?' Why, the +fool don't even give the number he asks you to divide. How can you +divide a thing that hain't been seen, measured, or weighed? It is as +silly as asking how many inches long is two-thirds of a piece of string, +or how many bushels of wheat in two-thirds of a barn that's twice as big +as four-fifths of one that never was built." + +Dixie laughed heartily. "It does seem that way, don't it? But, after +all, you do know that sixty must be two-thirds of _some_ number, for +every number is two-thirds of something, ain't it?" + +"By gum, yes!" he exclaimed, with a start. "You are sure right. Ah, I +see now. By gosh, I've got it! No, it's gone already." He had reached +for her pencil and paper, but his hand fell idly on his knee. "Good +gracious! Some'n is dead wrong with me." + +"I think it can be done," Dixie declared, her brow furrowed. "You see, +since sixty must be two-thirds of some number, I'm picking different +numbers and dividing by three and multiplying by two. The last trial I +made was one hundred, and I got sixty-six and two-thirds for the answer. +You see, that ain't so powerful far off." + +"I see, I see," Henley cried, eagerly. "Now, what you want to do is to +keep getting lower and lower till you hit the nail on the head. I reckon +it's one o' them sums just got up to make the sprouting intellect hop +and skip about for practice. Suppose you try ninety-nine next? It's +better to go slow, and be sure, than to have to go back. Le'me see: +three into nine, three times and nothing to carry; three into nine +again--there, you've got thirty-three, and twice thirty-three are +sixty-six. See, we are still closer to the mark, for we have already +wiped off the two-thirds." + +"We are warm!" Dixie cried, with the laugh of a child playing a game. +"Now let's try ninety-six." + +Henley made a rapid calculation. "Sixty-four!" he cried out, gleefully. +"We are closer. Now let's take a stab at ninety-three." And he began to +figure, but she stopped him. + +"My judgment is ninety," she said. "One-third of ninety is thirty and +twice thirty is--glory, Alfred, we've nailed it! We've got it--we've got +it! And we thought it couldn't possibly be done." + +"That's so," he admitted. "But I'd hate to make a hoss-trade by such +figuring as that. The feller would back out or the hoss would git too +old." + +The conversation languished. He had a feeling that she might object to +his closeness to her, and yet he hardly knew how to draw away without +attracting undue attention to the act, so he took the book into his +hands and began to look through it. And then he remembered what Mrs. +Hart had said about Dixie's desire to sell her farm, and a slow twinkle +of a set purpose began to burn in his eyes. "It might work," he said to +himself. "Anyways, that debt notion has got to be got out of the way or +I'll never make any progress. + +"I was just wondering whether I oughtn't to give you a piece of advice, +in a business sort of a way," he said to her, his fingers rapidly +twirling the pages of the book. "You see, a feller that trades as much +as I do in all sorts of things is calculated to know the drift of the +market better, maybe, than a girl like you. You was speaking about how +you hated the idea of being in debt just now, and your mother says you +want to sell your farm--the fact is, I don't see why you don't sell it +and quit working like an ox in a yoke. It's plumb wrong; you oughtn't +to do it, that's all." + +"Sell it? Why, Alfred," and she looked at him eagerly, "I'd only be too +glad to do it if I knew any one who would pay anything near its worth. +You see, it's cost me first and last something over two thousand +dollars, and if I could get that much--" + +"That much!" he sniffed contemptuously. "Why, you'd be crazy to sell at +a figure like that. You see, I know the field pretty well. I rub against +moneyed men every day who are simply itching for something to invest in. +The most of 'em believe the new railroad will eventually strike Chester +on its way to hook on to the trunk-line through Tennessee and North +Carolina, and they are willing to bet on it. You know old Welborne +wanted your farm, and it nearly killed him to lose his hold on it. +But--while I ain't exactly free to use names--I know a man right now who +wants your property. He'd pay you three thousand dollars in cash right +down." + +"Oh, Alfred, you don't mean it--surely you don't!" + +"You say you'll take it," Henley laughed, though the edges of his mouth +were drawn tensely from some inner cause, "and I'll close the deal +before you can say Jack Robinson." + +"Take it?" Dixie cried, and in her eagerness and gratitude she actually +laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, Alfred, if you'd only do that for me I'd +be the happiest girl in the world!" + +"Well, it will be done to-morrow morning early," Henley said, a certain +purpose rendering his face rigid, his eyes fixed as if a great crisis +had arrived in his life. "The only thing is, that I'd naturally feel +like I'd be entitled to some commission--" He tried to smile into her +staring eyes, but failed. He caught hold of her hand and she seemed +wholly unconscious of the fact. + +"Why, of course," she groped, "I'd be willing to pay all costs and +anything else you'd ask." + +"There is only one thing I could want, or would ever care to have," he +swallowed, "and that is you, Dixie. You must be my wife. I'm free now. +Nothing stands between us. I want you, sweetheart--I want you!" + +Their eyes met, volumes of tenderness sweeping to and fro between them. +A great light had taken possession of her face. He felt her lean against +him confidingly, and he put his arm around her and drew her head to his +shoulder, and then, with a boldness he would till now have ascribed only +to a god, he put his hand under her warm face, turned it upward and +kissed her on the lips. She nestled closer to him and shut her eyes, +remaining still and silent. He felt her warmth striking into his body. + +For several minutes they sat thus, and then she opened her eyes and +smiled. + +"Oh, Alfred, I'm so happy!" she said, softly. + +"Well, maybe _I_ ain't," he said, huskily, and then he kissed her again. + +"I'm so glad about the farm," she said. "I can come to you now freer. I +couldn't bear the idea of being in debt to the man _I_ was going to +marry. I've been independent so long that--that it actually hurt me. Are +you plumb sure you can sell it, Alfred--absolutely sure?" + +"Absolutely," he answered. "The only thing that's bothering me is that +it's worth more." + +"Never mind about that," she cried. "But tell me who is to take it, +Alfred?" + +Their eyes met again steadily, a warm, confident, fearless smile lighted +up his face. He put his arm about her again, drew her close to him, and +held her cheek in his hand. + +"There ain't but one man under God's eye that's got a right to own the +land you toiled on like you did," he said, "and that is the man that +worships every hair on your head and every drop of blood in your veins. +I'm the feller, Dixie." + +"Oh, Alfred!" she cried out, but, seeing his eyes burning into hers, she +smiled, nestled closer into his arms, and said: "Well, what's the use? +My fight's over. I've got you, and nothing on earth can take you from +me." + + +THE END + + +Popular Copyright Books + +AT MODERATE PRICES + +Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at the +price you paid for this volume. + + +=Alternative, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon. +=Angel of Forgiveness, The.= By Rosa N. Carey. +=Angel of Pain, The.= By E. F. 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