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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/33773-8.txt b/33773-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4f25f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/33773-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8860 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Yankee from the West, by Opie Read + +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: A Yankee from the West + A Novel + +Author: Opie Read + +Release Date: September 20, 2010 [EBook #33773] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE FROM THE WEST *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, David K. Park, Roger Frank and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +A YANKEE FROM THE WEST. + +_FOURTEENTH EDITION._ + +A YANKEE FROM THE WEST + +A Novel + +BY + +OPIE READ, + +AUTHOR OF + +"JUDGE ELBRIDGE," "THE WATERS OF CANEY FORK," "AN ARKANSAS PLANTER." + +[Illustration] + +CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. + +Copyright, 1898, by Rand, McNally & Co. + + + + +A YANKEE FROM THE WEST. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +MILFORD. + + +In his mind the traveler holds of Illinois a tiresome picture, the +kitchen garden of a great people, a flat and unromantic necessity. The +greatest of men have trod the level ground, but it is hard to mark +history upon a plane; there is no rugged place on which to hang a +wreath, and on the prairie the traveling eye is accommodated by no inn +whereat it may halt to rest. Such is the Illinois as remembered by the +hastening tourist. But in the southern part of the State there are +mountains, and in the north, the scene of this story, there is a spread +and a roll of romantic country--the green billows of Wisconsin gently +breaking into Illinois; lakes scattered like a handful of jewels thrown +broadcast, quiet rivers singing low among the rushes. Traveling north, +we have left the slim, man-tended tree of the prairies, and here we find +the great oak. There are hillsides where the forest is heavy. There are +valleys sweet in a riot of flowers. Along the roads the fences are +almost hidden by grape-vines. On a knoll the air is honeyed with wild +crab-apple; along a slope the senses tingle with the scent of the green +walnut. There are lanes so romantic that cool design could have had no +hand in their arrangement--they hold the poetry of accident. The +inhabitants of this scope of country have done nothing to beautify it. +They have built wooden houses and have scarred the earth, but persistent +nature soon hides the scars with vines and grasses. The soil is +wastefully strong. In New England and in parts of the South, the feeble +corn is a constant care, but here it grows with the rankness of a jungle +weed. And yet, moved by our national disease, nervousness, the farmer +sells his pastoral dales to buy a wind-swept space of prairie in the far +West. A strange shiftlessness, almost unaccountable in a climate so +stimulating, has suffered many a farm to lie idle, with fences slowly +moldering under flowering vines--a reproach to husbandry, but a +contribution to sentiment. Amid these scenes many an astonished muser +has asked himself this question: "Where are the poets of this land, +where the bluebell nods in metre to the gentle breeze?" Not a poem, not +a story has he seen reflecting the life of this rude England in America. +In the summer the Sunday newspaper prints the names of persons who, +escaping from Chicago, have "sardined" themselves in cottages or +suffered heat and indigestion at a farm-house; the maker of the bicycle +map has marked the roads and dotted the villages; the pen and ink worker +for the daily press has drawn sketches of a lily pad, a tree and a fish +much larger than the truth; the reporter has caught a bit of color here +and there, but the contemplative writer has been silent and the American +painter has shut his eyes to open them upon a wood-shod family group in +Germany. + +This region was settled by Yankees. They brought with them a tireless +industry and a shrewd humor. But to be wholly himself the Yankee must +live on thin soil. Necessity must extract the full operation of his +energy. Under his stern demand, the conquered ground yields more than +enough. Vanquished poverty stuffs his purse. He sets up schools and +establishes libraries. But on a soil that yields with cheerful +readiness, he becomes careless and loses the shrewd essence of his +energy. His humor, though, remains the same. Nervous and whimsical, he +sees things with a hollow eye, and his laugh is harsh. Unlike his +brother of the South, he does not hook arms with a joke, walk with it +over the hill and loll with it in the shade of the valley; it is not his +companion, but his instrument, and he makes it work for him. + +One afternoon in early summer a man got off a train at Rollins, a milk +station, and stood looking at a number of farmers loading into wagons +the empty milk cans that had been returned from the city. He was tall +and strong-appearing. He wore a dark, short beard, trimmed sharp, and +his face was almost fierce-looking, with a touch of wildness, such as +the art of the stage-man tries in vain to catch. He was not well +dressed; he carried the suggestion that he might have lived where man is +licentiously free. With his sharp eye he must have been quick to draw a +bead with a gun; but his eye, though sharp, was pleasing. A dog sniffed +him and walked off, satisfied with his investigation. The countryman +stands ready to sanction a dog's approval of a stranger--it is wisdom +fortified by superstition, by tales told around the fire at night--so a +look of mistrust was melted with a smile, and the owner of the dog spoke +to the stranger. + +"Don't guess you've got a newspaper about you?" said the farmer, putting +his last can into the wagon. + +"No. The afternoon papers weren't out when I left town." + +"Morning paper would suit me just as well--haven't seen one to-day. I +get a weekly all winter, and I try to get a daily in the summer, but +sometimes I fail. Goin' out to anybody's house?" + +"I don't know." + +The farmer looked at him sharply. A man who did not know--who didn't +even guess that he didn't know--was something of a curiosity to him. +"Did you expect anybody to meet you?" + +"No; I came out to look around a little--thought I might rent a farm if +I could strike the right sort of terms." + +"Well, I guess you've come to the right place." He turned and pointed +far across a meadow to a windmill above tree tops on the brow of a hill. +"Mrs. Stuvic, a widow woman, that lives over yonder, has an adjoinin' +farm to rent. Get in, and I'll drive you over--goin' that way anyhow, +and it shan't cost you a cent. Throw your carpet-bag in there, it won't +fall out. Whoa, boys! They won't run away. Yes, sir, as good a little +place as there is in the county," he added, turning down a lane. "But +the old woman has had all sorts of bad luck with it. That horse would +have a fit if he couldn't clap his tail over that line every five +minutes. But he won't run away." + +"I don't care if he does," said the stranger. + +"Well, you would if you had to pick up milk cans for half a mile. He +scattered them from that house up yonder down to that piece of timber +day before yesterday." + +"Did he run away?" + +"Well, he wasn't walkin'." + +"Then how do you know he won't run away again?" + +"Well, I think I've sorter Christian scienced him." + +The stranger laughed, and the farmer clucked an applause of his own +wisdom. They had reached a corner where a large white house stood +surrounded by blooming cherry trees. Bees hummed, and the air was heavy +with sweetness. The stranger took off his hat, and straightening up +breathed long. "Delicious," he said. The farmer turned to the right, +into another road. "I'm almost glad I'm alive," said the stranger. + +"You must have paid your taxes and got it over with," the farmer +replied. The stranger did not rejoin. His mind and his eye had gone +forth to roam in a piece of woods gently sloping toward the road. He saw +the mandrake's low canopy, shading the sod, the crimson flash of a +woodpecker through the blue of the air beneath the green of the trees, +like a spurt of blood. The farmer's eye, cloyed with the feasts that +nature spreads, followed a horse that galloped through the rank tangle +of a marsh-dip in a meadow. + +"Over on that other hill is where the old lady lives," he said. + +"What did you say her name was?" + +"Well, her name _was_ first one thing then another, but it's Stuvic now. +She's been married several times--a Dutchman the last time, a +good-hearted fellow that used to work for her first husband--a good +talker in his way, smokin' all the time, and coughin' occasionally fit +to kill himself. He liked to read, but he had to keep his books hid in +the barn, for the old lady hates print worse than she does a snake. He'd +wait till she was off the place, and then he'd go out and dig up his +learnin'. But the minute he heard her comin'--and he could hear her a +mile--he'd cover up his knowledge again. One day he told her he was +goin' to die, and she might have believed him, but he had lied to her a +good deal, so she hooted at him; but a few days afterwards he convinced +her, and when she found he had told the truth, she jumped into a black +dress and cried. Strangest creature that ever lived, I guess; and if you +want to come to good terms with her tell her you can't read. She gets on +a rampage once in a while, and then she owns the road. I saw her +horse-whip a hired man. He had let a horse run away with him. She took +the horse, hitched him to a buggy, jumped in, laid on the whip, and +drove him at a gallop till he was only too glad to behave himself. Well, +you can get out here." + +The stranger got down in front of a white "frame" house near the road. +The farmer waved him a good-bye and drove on. From a young orchard +behind the house there came the laughter of children at play. In the +yard sat an aged man beneath an old apple tree. The place was a mingling +of the old and the new, a farm-house with an extension for summer +boarders. + +As the stranger entered the gate, a tall, heavy, but graceful old woman +stepped out upon the veranda. "Wasn't that Steve Hardy that you rode up +with?" she asked, gazing at him. The visitor bowed, and was about to +answer when she snapped: "Oh, don't come any of your bowin' and scrapin' +to me. All I want is the truth." + +"The man didn't tell me his name, madam." + +"Well, you didn't lose anythin'. It was Steve Hardy, and a bigger liar +never trod luther. Come in." + +The visitor stepped upon the veranda, and sat down upon a bench. The old +woman stood looking at him. "Do you want board?" she asked. He took off +his hat and placed it upon the bench beside him. She gazed at his +bronzed face, his white brow, and grunted: + +"I asked if you wanted board." + +"I want something more than board, madam; I want work." + +She snapped her eyes at him. "You look more like you was dodgin' it +than huntin' for it; yes, you bet. I know all about a man lookin' for +work. All he wants is a chance to get drunk and lie down in the corner +of the fence. Yes, you bet. What sort of work do you want?" + +"A man that needs work is not very particular. I've never been lazy +enough to look for an easy job." + +She leaned toward him; she held out her hand. "Shake! You've earned your +supper by sayin' that." He took her hard hand and smiled. She frowned. +"Don't try to look putty at me! No, you bet! It won't work with me." + +There came a hoarse cry from the old apple tree. An enormous Dutch girl +ran by, laughing. An old man came forward, brushing himself. + +"Now what's the matter with you, Lewson?" the old woman asked. + +The aged man was in a rage. "That infernal Dutch cow ran over me again. +Why the devil can't she walk? What does she want to snort around for +like a confounded heifer? If I don't get me a gun and shoot her I'm the +biggest liar on the earth." + +"Now, you keep still, Lewson; you keep right still!" + +"Still! How the deuce am I going to keep still when she's knocking me +down all the time? Every time I walk out she runs over me; if I sit down +she runs over me; if I go to my room to take a nap she runs against the +house and wakes me up. She can't understand a word you say to her--and +confound her, I hit her with a stick, and was three days trying to +explain it. Why don't you drive her away?" + +A bell at the end of a pole at the kitchen door rang furiously. There +came an answering shout from the lake across the meadow. "You've earned +your supper," said the old woman. "Yes, you bet!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LIKED HIM. + + +Summer was just opening, and there were not many boarders at Mrs. +Stuvic's house. But the posting of a railway time-card in the +dining-room showed that everything was in readiness. A cook had come +from the city to set up her temper against the slouching impudence of +the hired man, and an Irish girl stood ready to play favorites at the +table. Mrs. Stuvic gave the stranger a seat at the head of the table, +and three tired women--hens, worn out with clucking to their boisterous +broods--began a whispered comment upon him. One, with a paper novel +lying beside her plate, said that he was fiercely handsome. Mrs. Stuvic +sat down near him. + +"What is your name?" she asked. + +"Milford," he answered, and the woman with the novel seemed pleased with +the sound. + +"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Stuvic, as if she had divined as much, "but +your other name. I can't remember outlandish names." + +"William." + +"Yes, Bill," she said. "Well, Bill, you hinted you wanted work." + +The woman with the novel withdrew her attention. Milford shot a glance +at her. "Yes," he replied. "The man you say is the biggest liar that +ever trod leather told me that you had a farm to rent." + +"Well, land sakes! when did he take to tellin' the truth? But just keep +still now and say nothin'. Don't say a word, but keep still, and after +supper I'll show you somethin'." + +A red-headed boy, the natural incumbrance of the woman with the novel, +snorted over his plate, and the old woman set her teeth on edge and +looked hard at him. "Yes, well, now what's the matter with you? Who told +you to break out?" + +"Eat plenty of supper, Bobbie, or you'll be hungry before bed-time," +said the mother. "He hasn't had much appetite lately," she added, and +the boy tried to look pitiful. Mrs. Stuvic cleared her throat, and under +her breath muttered "Calf." The mother looked at Milford. "I beg your +pardon," she said, "but are you related to the Milfords that live down +in Peoria County?" + +"I think not, madam," Milford answered. + +"They are such nice people," the woman went on; "distant relatives of +mine. Sit up straight, Bobbie. One of the boys has made quite a name as +a lawyer--Alfred, I think. And I hear that the daughter, Julia, is about +to be married to a foreigner of considerable distinction." + +"I've lived down in that part of the country," said a woman with a +lubberly cub in her arms, "and I know a family down there named Wilford. +They have a son named Alfred, and a daughter Julia who is about to be +married to a foreigner." + +"Wilford, now let me see," mused the mother of the red boy. "Well, I +declare, I believe that is the name!" + +"And that," said Milford, "is no doubt the reason, or at least one of +the reasons, why they are not kin to me." + +"Oh, you keep still!" Mrs. Stuvic cried, snapping a smile in two. "You +didn't have to say that--but when you don't know what to say, Bill, say +the next best thing. Yes, you bet! Oh, I know a lot, but I don't tell it +all. People come here and think they can fool me, but they can't. Some +of them come a turnin' up their noses at the table, when I know as well +as I know anythin' that they haven't got half as good at home. We had +one family in particular that was always growlin'. And when they went +home in the fall I said to myself, 'I'll just slip into town one of these +days, and see what you've got to eat.' I did, and I never set down to +such a meal in my life--soup that looked like tea, and birds put on thin +pieces of burnt bread. But if you are through, Bill, come with me; I +want to show you somethin'." + +She put on her bonnet, and as she stepped out told the Irish girl to +take Milford's bag upstairs. It was evident that her favorable +impression of him extended as far as a night's lodging. They crossed the +road, passed through a gate, so heavy on its hinges that it had to be +dragged open, and entered a grove of hickory trees. The sward was thick. +Here and there were patches of white and pink wild flowers. The sun was +going down, and the lake, seen through a gap in the trees, looked like a +prairie fire. They came to a broad lane shaded by wild-cherry trees. +Milford stopped. + +"I've never seen anything more beautiful than this," he said. + +"You just keep still!" she replied. "Yes, and I'll show you somethin' +worth lookin' at." + +They passed through another gate, went up a graceful rise, into a field, +along a broad path hedged with vines and flowers. "Just look at this!" +she said. "There ain't better land in this county, and here it lies all +gone to waste. The men out here ain't worth the powder and lead it would +take to kill 'em. I've rented this farm half a dozen times in the last +three years. And what do they do? Get so drunk Sunday that it takes them +nearly all week to sober up. I've had to drive 'em away. And the last +one! Mercy sakes! The biggest fool that ever made a track; and a +hypercrit with it. I found him in the corner of the fence prayin' for +rain. Well, I just gathered a bridle and slipped up on him, and if his +prayer didn't have a hot end I don't know beans when I see 'em. There +was a streak of barbed wire on the fence, and in tryin' to get over he +got tangled; and if I didn't give it to him! The idea of a fool gettin' +down on his knees tryin' to persuade the Lord to change his mind! All +that belongs to me," she went on, waving her hand--"best farm right now +in Lake County. And there's the house on the hill, as nice a cottage as +you'd want to live in. What do you think of it all?" + +"Charming," said Milford. "There's many an old cow in the West that +would like to stick her nose up to her eyes into this rich grass." + +"You bet, Bill! Are you from the West?" + +"Yes, from all over the West. I used to herd cattle; I tried to raise +sheep--and I could have done something, but I was restless and wanted to +stir about. But I've got over that. Now I want to work." + +"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," she said, lifting the latch +of a gate. "I don't believe you'd pray for rain." + +"The only thing worth prayin' for, madam, is a soul." + +"Good enough! Bill, I like you. They say you have to eat a barrel of +salt with a man before you know him, and I reckon it's true. But I've +eaten so many barrels of salt with men that I know one as far as I can +see him. You don't profess to be so awful honest, do you?" + +There was hollowness in his laugh, and bitterness in his smile. "I +haven't made any pretensions," he said. + +"Well, you just keep still and don't make any," she replied. + +Through an orchard, they passed to a house on a hill. It stood in the +shade of a great walnut tree. She pointed out the barn, the +garden-patch, and the woods that belonged to the place. In the soft +light it appeared a paradise to the man from the West, green with grass, +purple with flowers. She asked him a question, and he answered with a +sigh. Then he told her that he was almost moneyless. He had no capital +but his will--his muscle. Such a place would be a godsend to him. In his +past life there was much to grieve over--time thrown away, +opportunities laughed at, money squandered. He could not help dreaming +over his follies, and his dream choked him; so he wanted to work with +his hands, to fight against a blunt opposition. He stood bareheaded, his +face strong. She looked upon him with admiration. From the first, +something about him had caught her odd fancy. She was an implacable +enemy and a surprising friend. She put her hand on his arm. + +"Now, don't you fret," she said. "You didn't have to tell me you had no +money. That's all right. If you want this farm you can have it. It's no +use to me, lyin' this way. Yes, Bill, you can take it right now. Oh, you +may go around here, and some of 'em will tell you that a meaner woman +never lived--them that's tried to have their own way over me--but the +poor and the needy will tell a different tale. They know where to get +somethin' to eat. Well, it's settled. Come on, now, and we'll go back +and fix up the particulars when we get time." + +He was cheerful as they walked back toward the old woman's home. New +tones came out of his voice. There was baritone music in his laugh. She +assured him that the details could be arranged without a hitch, that for +the present he might rest at ease. He replied that there could be no +ease for him, except as he might dig it out of the ground; he seemed to +crave a strain of the body to relieve a strain of the mind. She was +accustomed to meet all sorts of men, the scum and the leisure of the +city, but this man gave her a new feeling of interest. He looked like a +man that would fight, and this kindled the fire of her admiration. She +loathed a coward. As a girl, she had hunted with her father in the woods +of Ohio. One night his house was attacked by roughs, and she had fought +with him. To her there was no merit that did not show action; thought +that did not lead to action was a waste of the mind. A book was the +record of laziness. She tolerated newspapers--in one she had found the +announcement that a man whom she hated was dead. Once a man slandered +her. She laughed--a sound as cold as the trickling of iced water--and +said that she would live to see his last home marked out upon the +ground. She did. She was seen in the cemetery, digging. "What are you +doing there?" was asked. And she answered: "I'm planting a hog-weed on +Thompson's grave." Old Lewson, the man who sat under the apple tree, +gave his meager property to his children. They turned him out to die. +Mrs. Stuvic took him. "I won't live long," he said. "I'm eighty-three +years old." "Don't you fret," she replied; "a man that's as big a fool +as you be may live to be a hundred and fifty." And the heart of this old +woman was deeply stirred by Milford, not by his misfortunes, his +homelessness, the touch of the adventurous vagabond in his face, but by +her belief that he possessed an unconquerable spirit. + +"Yes, you keep still, and we'll arrange it all in time," she said, as +they entered the hickory grove. "And you needn't tell me anythin' about +yourself, nuther. A man's never so big a liar as when he's tellin' +things about himself or his enemy. It seems that he can't tell the truth +about either one. So you keep still. It's most too late in the season +for you to do very much now in the way of plantin', but you can make a +good beginnin'. There's stuff enough in the cottage back yonder, and you +may take possession to-morrow if you want to. There's a fellow named Bob +Mitchell around here that's out of work, and you can hire him to help +you. He's a good hand to work--the only trouble is, he thinks he's +smart. But he'll follow if there's any one to lead." + +"Madam, I wish I knew how to thank you," said Milford, as he opened the +gate leading into the main road. "I came without an introduction, +without a single letter----" + +"Don't you dare come fetchin' any of your letters to me! There ain't +nothin' much easier than to write a lie." + +"I'm not going in now. I'll walk about a while." + +"Do as you like," she replied. "Your room's at the end up there," she +added, pointing. She went into the house, and he turned back into the +grove. He sat down with his back against a tree, his hat on the ground. +He muttered words to himself; he felt the cool air upon his moist brow; +he breathed the perfume of the fresh night. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +INTERESTED IN HIM. + + +Milford took possession of the farm-cottage. The terms were so +loose-jointed that the neighbors lamented the old woman's lack of +business sense. She told them to keep still. She said that for years she +had been following the advice of a lawyer, and that every string of her +affairs had come untied. Now she was going to act for herself. It was +hinted that her methods would reflect discredit upon the practical sense +of the community. She replied that she paid her own taxes. + +On the old farm there was a sprout of new life. At break of day the +dozing idler heard a song afield; the hired man, going to milk the cows, +the city man, snapping his watch, hastening to catch a train, saw the +Westerner working, wet with dew. And when the evening's lamps were +lighted, the wild notes of his cowboy song rang from the hillside. +Farmers going to the village of a Saturday afternoon stopped at his +fence to engage him in talk, but he answered their questions as he went +on with his work. One day they heard him say to his hired man: "Go to +the house, Mitchell, and rest a while. You are worn out." A man whose +table was light, whose shipments of veal and poultry to town were heavy, +and who had been requested to put a better quality of water into his +milk, declared that he had lived too long and had too much experience +of the world to be fooled by a man from the West. He had committed some +crime--murder, no doubt--and Steve Hardy was censured for hauling him +over from the station. This surmise reached the ears of Mrs. Stuvic. She +waited till she saw the wise man driving past her house, and she stopped +him in the road. + +"I'm glad you know all about my man over there, Hawkins." + +"Why, I don't know anything about him." + +"Oh, yes, you said he'd committed murder." + +"No, I said most likely; but I didn't want it repeated, for, of course, +I don't know." + +"Yes, you bet! And there's a good many things you don't want repeated. +You don't want it repeated that you put old Lewson's brats up to turning +him out of the house." + +"Look here, madam, I didn't do anything of the sort. I simply said I +didn't see how they could live with him; and I didn't, either." + +"Well, it's all right. The old man's got a better home than he ever had; +and you needn't worry yourself about my man over yonder. He couldn't +sell as much milk from five cows as you can do, and I don't believe you +can keep it up unless we have rain pretty soon, but he knows how to +attend to his own business, and that's somethin' you've never been able +to learn." + +"Madam, if you'll step from in front of my horses I'll drive on." + +"Yes, and mighty glad of the opportunity. You stir trouble, and are the +first one to hitch up and drive out of it. Now go on, and don't you let +me hear of any more murder stories." + +Mrs. Blakemore, mother of the red boy, would not presume to say that +there was a stain on Milford's character; but he was undoubtedly +peculiar, with an air which bespoke a constant effort to hide something. +She knew, however, that there was good blood somewhere in his family. +She believed in blood. Her husband had failed in business, and she could +afford to despise trade. One Sunday, with her vacant-eyed husband and +her red tormentor, she halted at Milford's cottage. He was sitting on +the veranda, with the billows of a Sunday newspaper about him on the +floor. She introduced her husband, who nodded. She spoke of the fervor +of the day and the ragged cloud-skirts flaunting in the sky. She thought +it must be going to rain. In the city a rain was wasted, a sloppy +distress; but in the country it was a beautiful and refreshing +necessity. In each great drop there was a stanza of sentiment. + +Milford's eyes twinkled. "You ought to go to a mining-camp," he said. +"Men who couldn't parse would call you a poem." + +She turned to her husband. "George, do you hear that? Isn't that sweet? +So unaffected, too." George grunted; he was thinking of the receiver +that had had charge of his affairs. His wife continued, speaking to +Milford: "In my almost hothouse refinement, I have longed to see the +rude chivalry of the West--where a rhythm of true gallantry beats +beneath a woolen shirt." + +"Yes," said Milford, "and beneath a linen shirt, too. The West is just +as wide but not so woolen as it was." + +"Oh, what quaint conceits! George, do you hear them? George, dear." + +"George, dear" turned a tired eye upon her. Affection seeking to console +a loved one sometimes chooses an unseasonable moment for the exercise of +its tender office. She felt the look of her husband's worry-rusted eye; +a memory of his weary pacing up and down the floor at night came to her, +of his groans upon a comfortless bed, his sighs at breakfast, his dark +brow as he went forth to try again to save his credit. She thought of +this; she felt that at this moment he needed her help. And +affectionately she put her hand upon his arm, and said: "You have met +reverses, George, but you've still got me." And George muttered: "You +bet I have." She glanced at him as if she felt that he said it with a +lack of enthusiasm, as if it were a sad fact acknowledged rather than a +possession declared; and she would have replied with a thin sentiment +strained through the muslin of a summer book, but George turned away. +She followed and he opened a gate and halted, waiting for her to pass +through. The boy crawled under the fence. She scolded the youngster, +brushed at his clothes, and said to George: + +"He is almost a gentleman." + +"Who is so far gone as that?" + +"Why, the man back there on the veranda." + +"I don't know what you mean by almost a gentleman." + +"Oh, George, don't you know that there are distinctions?" + +"But I don't see how a man can be almost a gentleman. You might as well +say that a man almost has money." + +"Bobbie, don't try to climb over that stump. There's a poison vine on +it. Money is not everything, George." + +"Comes devilish near it." + +"No, George. Money is not love." + +"Well, I don't know about that," he said, in a way implying that he did +know. + +"Don't be cynical, dear," she replied. "We are both young; we have +everything before us." + +"Everything we had is behind us." + +She pulled upon his arm, and kissed his dry cheek. "Don't be downcast. +Everything will come right." + +Mitchell, the hired man, came out upon the veranda. "A sappy pea-vine +and a dried pea-stick," said Milford, pointing toward George and his +wife. + +"He looks like he's tired," said the hired man. + +"Yes, a fly in a pot of jam. She's too sweet for him. He ought to break +loose from her and run wild for a while--ought to rough it out West on +fat sow bosom and heifer's delight. Never were married, were you, Bob?" + +"Well, not for any length of time. I did marry a girl over near Antioch +once, but shortly afterwards they took me up for sellin' liquor without +a license, and when I got through with the scrape I found my wife was +gone with a feller to Kansas." + +"Did you ever hear of her?" + +"Oh, yes, she writ to me. She wanted to come back, but I scratched her +word that I'd try to jog along without her. I don't guess women are +exactly what they used to be. I reckon the bicycle has changed 'em a +good bit." + +"They want money, Bob. That's what's the matter with 'em." + +"Well, they've got about all I ever had, them and liquor together, and +still they don't seem to be satisfied. Ever married, Bill?" + +"No. But I was on the edge of falling in love once. She squirted poison +at me out of her eyes, and I shook in the knees. Her smile kept me awake +two nights, and on the third morning I got on my pony, said good-bye to +the settlement, and rode as hard as I could. I don't suppose she really +saw me--but I saw her, and that was enough. Well, I believe I'll go over +and chin the old woman." + +Mrs. Stuvic was walking up and down the yard. A number of new boarders +had arrived, and she was in a great flurry. She was ever on the lookout +for new-comers, but was never prepared for them. She told every one to +keep still; she spoke in bywords that barked the shins of profanity. +Just as Milford came up, some one told her that her hired man was lying +out in the grove, drunk and asleep. Upon her informer she bent a +recognition of virtue. It was not exactly a grin. The boarders called it +her barbed-wire smile. She thanked him with a nod and a courtesy caught +up from a memory of her grandmother. She snatched a buggy whip and +sallied forth into the grove. Milford followed her. She told him to +stand back. She swore she would give it to him if he presumed to +interfere. She knew her business. The Lord never shut her eyes to a duty +that lay in front of her. The hired man went howling through the woods, +and she returned to the house, smiling placidly. She was always better +humored when she had kept faith with duty. + +"Bill," she said to Milford, "tell those women who you are. They are all +crazy to know." + +"Why didn't you tell them?" + +"Well, how was I to tell 'em somethin' I didn't know? You haven't told +me. Who are you, Bill? Come, speak up. I've fooled with you long enough. +Come, who are you?" + +"A Yankee from the West." + +"Shut up. Go on away from here. Who told you to come? Did anybody send +after you?" By this time they had reached the veranda. A kitten came out +to meet her. She called to the Dutch girl to bring some milk in a +saucer. "Poor little wretch," she said. "Well, sir, it do beat all. +About a week ago I found that I'd have to drown a litter of kittens. I +had a barrel of water ready at the corner of the house. I got all the +kittens together except one. I couldn't find him. After a while, I heard +him mewing under the house. I looked under and see him fastened, and he +couldn't get out. He was nearly starved. I said, 'You little wretch, +I'll fix you,' and I crawled under after him. I had a time at gettin' +him, too; and when I did get him he looked so pitiful that I gave him +some milk. Then I gave the others milk, and didn't drown 'em. I have +provided homes for all except this one, and I'm goin' to keep him. Here, +lap your milk." + +Old Lewson sat beneath an apple tree. Milford went out to talk with him. +The old man looked up, his eyes red under white lashes. His hat was on +the ground, and in it were two eggs. + +"My dinner," said he, pointing to the eggs. "If I didn't listen for the +cackling of the hens I'd starve to death. I can't eat anything but eggs; +and they must be fresh. That infernal Dutch girl spoiled my supper last +night. She ran over me, as usual, and broke my eggs. I wish she was +dead." + +"They ought to hobble her like a horse," said Milford. + +"They ought to break her bones, and I would if I was strong enough," the +old man declared. "She kindled a fire with my spiritualist books. Are +you a spiritualist?" + +"No, I'm merely an ordinary crank." + +"Fool, you mean," said the old fellow. "A man that shuts his eyes to the +truth is a fool. See this?" He took from his pocket a pale photograph, +and handed it to Milford. "That's a picture of my wife, taken ten years +after the change. She came to see me not long ago, and I cut off a piece +of her dress. Here it is." From a pocketbook he took a piece of white +silk. + +"They dress pretty well over there," said Milford, examining it. + +"Yes. She wove it herself." + +"Looks as if it might have been done by a fine machine." + +"It was; it was woven in the loom of her mind. Over there, whatever the +mind wills is done. But you can't make fools understand it." + +"I suppose not. What will become of the Dutch girl when she goes over?" + +"They'll make a dray-horse of her. Here comes the old woman. She +pretends she don't believe in it. But she does. She can't help herself." + +The old fellow hid his eggs. She looked at him sharply. "He'd rather +hear the cackle of a hen than a church organ," she said to Milford. + +"Yes, it means more," the old man replied. + +"Well, you won't rob my hens much longer. Your days are numbered." + +"So are yours, ma'am." + +"Now, don't you fret. I'll plant flowers on your grave." + +"See that you don't plant hog-weeds." + +"What difference will it make to you? Your soul will be gone. But what +will you do over there? You'd be out of place makin' silk dresses. If +you do make any send me one. I'll want it when I marry again." + +"Why do you want to dress up to meet a fool?" + +"Shut your rattle-trap. It will be a wise man that marries me. If Bill +here was a little older, I'd set my cap for him. Wouldn't I, Bill?" + +"I don't doubt it. We can all set a trap for a fox, but it takes a +shrewd trapper to catch him." + +The old man chuckled. She looked at him and said that he would have +been hauled off long ago, but that the devil didn't care to hitch up for +one--Yankee-like, wanting a load whenever he drove forth. "But before +you go, Lewson, I want you to promise me one thing,--that you will come +back. You've got me half-way into the notion that you can." + +"I will come back the third night, ma'am," he replied, his voice +earnest. "When my body has been in the grave three days I will come back +to my room and meet you there." + +Milford turned away. The old woman followed him. "Do you believe he can +come back?" she asked. + +His sharp eyes cut round at her, like the swing of a scythe. "An old log +may learn to float up-stream," he said. She stepped in front of him. +"You've done somethin' that you don't want known," she declared. "As +smart a man as you wouldn't come out here and work on a farm for +nothin'." + +"I don't expect to work for nothing." + +"Come into the house, Bill. Those women want to get acquainted with +you." + +"Why don't they get acquainted with their husbands?" + +"I know it," she replied, with a look, and in a younger eye the light +would have been a gleam of mischief, but with her it was a glint almost +of viciousness. "I know it. They are always after a curiosity. They've +got it into their heads that you've done some sort of deviltry, and they +want to talk to you. One of them said her husband was such a dear, dull +business man. And nearly all of them hate children." + +"I hate a woman that hates children," Milford replied, and the old woman +said, "I know it." + +Mrs. Blakemore, the tired George, and the tugging boy came into the +yard. The woman's eyes brightened when she saw Milford. It seemed that +the other women had commissioned her to sound his mysterious depth. His +keen eyes, his sharp-cut beard, a sort of sly unconcern marked him a +legitimate summer exploration. Men from the city came and went, +shop-keepers, tailors, machinists, lawyers, driveling of hard times and +the hope of a business revival, and no particular attention was paid to +them, but here was a man with a hidden history. Perhaps he was a +deserter from the regular army; doubtless he had killed an officer for +insulting him. This was a sweet morsel and they made a bon-bon of it. + +"I hope you are not going just because we came," said Mrs. Blakemore to +Milford. "George, do take that rocker and sit down. You look so tired. +Go away, Bobbie. You are such a pest." + +A straining voice in the sitting-room and the tin-pan tones of a piano +were hushed, and out upon the veranda came several women. Milford was +introduced to them. Some of them advanced with a smile, and some hung +back in a sweet dread of danger. Milford sat down on a corner of the +veranda with his feet on the ground. A wagon load of beer-drinkers, +singing lustily, drove past the house. From the lake came the report of +a gun, some one firing at a loon. There seemed to be no law to enforce +respect for the day which the Puritan called Sabbath, and which the +austerity of his creed had made so cold and cheerless. On Sunday night +there had been a hop on the shore of the lake, and a constable had +danced with a skillet-wiper from town. The children of the New Englander +sell their winter piety for the summer dollar. + +"I can't conceive of anything more delicious than this atmosphere," said +Mrs. Blakemore. "It's heavenly down by the lake. And in the woods there +are such beautiful ferns. Are you fond of ferns, Mr. Milford?" + +"Don't believe I ever ate any," Milford answered, and the women screamed +with laughter. One of them spoke of such charming impudence, and George +looked at her with his cankered eye. Mrs. Stuvic said, "Oh, you keep +still!" The Dutch girl passed at a spraddling gallop, setting a dog at a +chicken condemned to death. Old Lewson shouted and shrank behind a tree. +Mrs. Blakemore's thin hand was seen in the air. It was a command, and +silence fell. + +"Would you mind telling us something of the wild life in the West?" + +"There's no wild life in the West now," Milford answered. "It is there, +as it is nearly everywhere, a round of stale dishonesty." + +"George, dear, do you hear that? Stale dishonesty! Really, there is +thought in that. Western men are so apt in their phrasing. They aren't +afraid of critical judgment. But they are too picturesque to be simple. +They are like an old garden run to blossoming weeds--the impudent new +springing from the venerable old. Did you hear me, George?" + +"How's that?" George asked, looking up from a dream of trouble. + +"Oh, I shall not repeat it. Mr. Milford, nearly all my thoughts are +wasted on him. His mind is occupied by things sterner but not nearer +true." George grunted something that sounded like "bosh." She smiled and +tapped him on the arm. Her face was thin but pretty. Milford gave her an +admiring look. She caught it in an instant and drooped her eyes at him. +Some of the women saw it and pulled at one another, standing close +together. But the old woman did not see it. Her eye was not set for so +fine a mischief. A Mrs. Dorch began to hum a tune. She left off to tell +Milford that she had a sister in Dakota. She had gone out as a +school-teacher, and had been married by a rancher. His name was Lampton. +It was possible that Mr. Milford might know him. He did not, but it gave +her a chance to talk, and the slim Mrs. Blakemore began to droop her +eyes. The man was nothing to her. She wouldn't stoop to set up a +conquest over him, so much in love was she with her husband, but what +right had this woman to cut in? + +"Oh, I could never think of talking commonplaces with a man from the +wilds," she said. "He may never have read poetry, but he is a lover of +it. Tell me, is it true that certain flowers disappeared with the +buffalo?" + +"I don't know, ma'am, but a good deal of grass disappeared with him." + +It was a cue to laugh, and they laughed. Mrs. Blakemore said that +Milford was becoming intentionally droll. She much preferred unconscious +drollery. + +Attention was now given to three men who came across the meadow from the +lake. One of them proudly held up a string of sun-fish. A fisherman's +ear is keen-set for flattery. The women knew this, and they uttered +"ohs" and "ahs" of applause. The fishermen came up, everybody talking at +once, and Milford slipped away. He passed through the hickory grove and +turned into the broad lane leading to the lake. He saw Mrs. Stuvic's +hired man, sitting under a tree, muttering, a red streak across his +face. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +HE DID NOT COME. + + +The neighbors continued to speculate and to ply Mrs. Stuvic with +questions concerning Milford. Men who had spent many a rainy day in the +hay-mow, gambling, knew that he had played poker. An old man, with a +Rousseau love for botanizing, had been found dead in the woods, with +five red leaves in his hand. And Milford had said: "The poor old fellow +made his flush and died." They knew that he was brave, for, with a stick +of brushwood, he had attacked a dog reported to be mad. But they +believed, also, that he had something heavy on his mind, for they had +seen him walking about in the woods at night, once when a hard rain was +beating him. Steve Hardy, the man who had hauled the stranger from the +station, was caught in a storm one night, and a flash of lightning +revealed Milford standing gaunt in the middle of a marsh. But he had +never attempted to borrow money in the neighborhood, and of all the +virtues held dear by the rural Yankee, restraint in the matter of +borrowing is the brightest. "Yes, sir, old Brady was as mean a man as +ever lived among us, but, sir, he died out of debt." Old Brady could +have illumined his death-bed with no brighter light. + +One evening, while Milford and Mitchell were at supper, the hired man +said: "They keep on askin' me all sorts of questions about you. I never +saw folks so keen. They are like spring sheep after salt. I've got so I +throw up my hands whenever I meet any of 'em in the road." + +Milford reached over and turned down the ragged blaze of the smoking +lamp. "Am I the first stranger that ever happened along here?" + +"It would look that way. But there is a sort of a somethin' about you, +Bill. I heard Henwood's daughter say you was mighty good-lookin', but +she hasn't got much sense." Milford looked up with a smile. "No, she +ain't," Mitchell went on. "And if her daddy was to die she'd have to +have a gardeen appointed. But to-day, while I was gettin' a drink at the +windmill, I heard two or three of Mrs. Stuvic's women standin' over in +the road talkin'. One of 'em said that she had a cousin that's a +detective in Chicago, and she was goin' to bring him out here and let +him investigate you just for fun." + +Milford turned down the light. "I'll throw this thing into the road the +first thing you know. Bring a detective, eh? All right, let her bring +him." + +"What will you do, Bill?" + +"Knock him down if he gets in my road." + +"I guess that's the way to look at it. But have you got any cause to be +afraid of a detective, Bill?" + +"If I had, do you suppose I'd tell you?" + +"Well, I don't know why. We're workin' here together, and I wouldn't say +anythin' about it. What did you do, Bill?" + +"Stole a saw-mill." + +"You don't say so! What did you want with a saw-mill?" + +"To rip out new territory--I wanted to make a state." + +"That's all right. You're guyin' me. But say, where did you get your +education?" + +"I stole that, too. Did you ever hear of a French marquise that ran +stage lines and shot fellows out West? Well, I robbed his ranch, and +carried off a cook-book. That's how I learned to boil salt pork." + +"That's where you learned how to feed a fellow on guff. I'm givin' it to +you straight. I want to know, for they say that a fellow never gets too +old to learn, and I'd like to have education enough to get out of hard +work." + +"You don't see me out of it, do you?" + +"No, but I guess you could do somethin' else if you wanted to. Did you +go to school much when you was a boy?" + +"I saw the worn doorsteps in the old part of Yale, for two days, and +then I turned away and went West. My father died, and I didn't want to +be a tax on mother, so I decided to shift for myself." + +"Was it a good shift?" + +"I can't say it was. Are you going to bed?" Milford asked, as Mitchell +got up from the table. + +"No, not now. I've got an engagement to take the Dutch girl out in a +boat." + +"She'll upset your craft and drown you." + +"I'm goin' to take the scow." + +He went out whistling a light tune, but dragging his feet heavily, for +he had worked hard all day, keeping pace with Milford's bounding +energy. Milford sat musing, and his brow was not clear. From behind the +clock on the mantel-piece, he took a newspaper, and strove to read it by +the smoky light, but his mind wandered off. He went out and sat on the +grass beneath the walnut tree. The night was hot. The slow air fumbled +among the leaves. Far in the sultry west was an occasional play of +lightning, the hot eye of day peeping back into the sweltering night. He +heard some one coming up the hill, talking. It was Mrs. Stuvic's voice. +She arose into the dim light, and he saw that she was alone. He called +to her, and she came forward at a faster gait, still talking. "Wouldn't +believe me--couldn't get him to believe me, but he does now--yes, you +bet!" + +"What's the matter, ma'am?" + +"Old Lewson--told him he was dyin'--wouldn't believe me. He's dead. +Conscience alive! and they were thumpin' on the piana all the time. The +hired man can't be found since I gave him the larrupin'. I hope he's +drowned himself. He's no account on the face of the earth, and I wish +now I'd kept Mitchell when I had him. He seems to work well enough for +you. But what I want you to do is to go to the old man's daughter and +tell her. She lives about two miles down the road, just beyant the +second corners--white house to the right. Come on with me. The buggy'll +be hitched up by the time we get to the house. Yes, set right there, +lookin' right at me, with his chin droppin' down. I says, 'Lewson, you +are dyin'.' And he mumbled that he wan't. But I reckon he knows now +whether he was or not." + +She talked nearly all the way over, sobbing at times, and then hardening +herself with scolding. The buggy was ready in the road. Low tones came +from the veranda. Through the shrubbery along the fence could be seen +the ghost-like outlines of women dressed in white. A dog howled under +the old apple tree. + +"Wait," said the old woman, as Milford gathered up the lines. "I want +you to kill that infernal dog before you go. Never set down under that +tree before in his life, and now that the poor old man's dead he goes +there to howl, as if everythin' wan't dismal enough anyway. Get out and +I'll fetch the gun." + +"Oh, no. Don't kill him. He doesn't know any better. By the way, what's +the name of the woman I am going to see?" + +"Now, just look at that! If I haven't forgot her name I'm the biggest +fool on earth. Did you ever see anythin' like that? If that confounded +John, the hired man, was here, he'd know. I'm almost sorry now that I +licked him. But if I ever ketch him again I'll give it to him for +treatin' me this way when I need him. Well, go on, and stop at the house +I told you. And if that horse don't want to go, lick the life out of +him." + +Milford drove off, and the dog jumped over the fence and came trotting +along behind the buggy. It did not take long to reach the place. A man +came to the door in answer to Milford's knock. There was no attempt to +soften the news. "I came to tell you that old Mr. Lewson is dead," said +Milford. And there was no effort on the man's part to show surprise. +"Well, I'm not an undertaker," he replied. + +"But you married his daughter." + +"But not with his consent or good-will. He was nothing to us. Well," he +added, as Milford continued to stand there, "anything else?" + +"Yes, just a word or two more. I want to tell you that you are a brute +and a coward; and if you'll just step out here I'll mop up the ground +with you." + +The man stepped back and shut the door. Milford came away, the muscles +in his arms hard with a desire to fight. He thought of the tenderness of +a mining camp, of the cowboy's manly tear, of hard men who were soft +toward a dead stranger. "Hearts full of cold ashes," he mused, bitterly. +"And how can it be in a place so beautiful? An infidel from the +sand-hills would here cry out that there is a God, an artist God. And +some of these wretches would teach him that there is a hell. Well, I'm +going to fight it out. I don't see any other way. I guess I'm a fool, +but I've got that thing to do." + +Mrs. Stuvic tiptoed in her rage. "Horton," she said, almost dancing in +the road. "That's the scoundrel's name. And don't you dare to judge us +by him. He's a stranger here, too. I hope the hogs will root him up and +crack his bones. Well, go on to bed, Bill. I guess the old man can take +care of himself till mornin'." + +Early the next day, the old man's daughter came, stricken with grief and +remorse. She said that her husband had forced her to treat her father +cruelly. She knelt beside the poor old relic of weary bones, and prayed +that the Lord might forgive her. Mrs. Stuvic relented. "Come," she said, +leading the daughter away. "We believe you, and won't hold it against +you, but I'll never love you till you poison that man of yours. There, +now, don't whimper. Everythin's all right." + +The sympathy of the community was aroused, and it was a genuine +sympathy. Milford found that this neighborhood was very much like the +rest of the world, lacking heart only in places. He stood at the grave, +listening to the faltering tones of an aged man, and he muttered to +himself, "I've got to do that one thing." + +Old Lewson had convinced Mrs. Stuvic of the truth of spiritualism. She +was attracted by a faith that entailed no prayers and no church-going. +It left her free, not to lie down in the green pastures of the poetic +psalmist, but to tramp rough-shod among the nettles of profanity. The +church advised that no eye should be turned upon wine, rich in deceitful +color, and the old woman was not always sober. Therefore, she took up +old Lewson's faith, first because it was easy, and afterward because it +seemed natural that she should come back and haunt her enemies. More +than once she had been heard to say, gazing after some one driving along +the road, "Oh, but I'll make it lively for him when I come back! He +shan't sleep a wink!" But to the old man she did not make a complete +confession of her conversion to his faith till she saw death staring out +of his eyes, and then she reminded him of his promise to return on the +third night, and make himself known to her. Had there remained in her +heart any fag-end of rebellion gainst the pliable tenets of his +credulous doctrine, the last look that he gave her would have driven it +out. "I believe you, Lewson," she gasped, when his wrinkled chin sank +upon his withered breast. + +The third night came. She did not give her secret to the boarders; she +was not afraid of the heat of an argument or the scorch of a fight, but +the thought of ridicule's cold smile made her shudder. She hated +education, and was afraid of its nimble trickery. There was more of +insult in a word which she did not understand than in a term familiarly +abusive. But she told Milford. He was under obligations, and dared not +scoff. She requested him to sit upon the veranda, to wait for her coming +from the spirit's presence chamber. She drove the Dutch girl to bed, not +in the house, but in an outlying cottage. In the dining-room she +whispered to Milford, ready to turn him out upon the veranda. The +clock's internals growled the five-minute verge of twelve. She turned +Milford out, and hastened into Lewson's room. She sat down in a rocking +chair, her nervous hands fidgeting in her lap. Spirits keep their +promises best in the dark, and she had not lighted a lamp. Moonbeams +fell through the window, a ladder of light, upon which a spirit might +well descend to earth. The clock in the dining-room struck twelve. The +dog howled under the apple tree. + +"Lewson, are you here?" + +Two eggs on a shelf caught the light of the moon. She started. Surely, +they were not there a moment ago. Was the old man robbing hens' nests in +the spiritual world? A breeze stirred, and there was a whisper of +drapery at the window. + +"Lewson, is that you?" + +She glanced again at the eggs. Hadn't they moved? A midnight cock crew, +and she started. Why should he crow just as she glanced at the eggs? She +waited. + +"Lewson, oh, Lewson! Do you hear me? Don't you remember your promise? +Come, now, don't treat me this way. You know how hard it was for me to +believe in your doctrine. You know how I've tried to have some sort of +religion. And now, please don't knock down all the props. Haven't I been +kind to you? Didn't I take you when nobody else would? Then help me, +Lewson. Give me something to cling to. Just say one word--just +one--somethin' to let me know you have told the truth. I want the truth, +that's all I want, Lewson. You haven't come. No, you haven't, and you +needn't say you have. You can't come, and you know it. Well, I'm goin' +now. Are you comin'? No, you ain't. You are an old fraud, that's what +you are." She flounced out upon the veranda, and said to Milford: "Go to +bed. There never was a bigger liar than that old fool." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +NEEDED HIS SPIRITUAL HELP. + + +Early the next morning, before the clanging bell had shattered the +boarder's dream, the old woman hastened to Milford's cottage. When she +surprised him at breakfast, he thought that possibly the old man might +have called at some time during the night, and that she had come to +bring the good news, but this early hope was killed by the darkness of +her brow. "I've come over to tell you that if ever you say a word about +what happened last night, I'll drive you out of the county," she said, +her lips parted and her teeth sharp-set. + +"Why, nothing did happen," he replied with a laugh. + +"No, you bet! But don't you ever dare to say that I expected anythin' to +happen. I won't allow any old man, dead or alive, to make a monkey of +me. Well, I'll eat breakfast with you. What, is this all you've got, +just bread and bacon? Conscience alive! you are livin' hard." + +"I can't afford anything else," he replied, looking down upon his rough +fare. + +"Well, you ought to get rich at this rate. There's not one man in a +thousand that would be willin' to put up with it. What's your aim, +anyway?" + +"To make money." + +"Money! It's some woman, that's what it is. Well, you're a fool. What +thanks do you reckon she'll ever give you? She'll growl because you +didn't make more. I'll get back. I don't like your grub. But recollect, +now," she added, as she turned toward the door, "that if you say a word +about what I expected to happen last night, I'll drive you out of the +county." She went out, but her head soon reappeared at the door. "Bill," +she said, "there's a sucker born every minute." + +"And sometimes twins," he replied. She leaned against the door-facing to +laugh, not in the jollity of good-humor, but in the sharp and racking +titter of soured self-pity. "Sometimes twins--yes, you bet!" + +"If I didn't have a word for it that I couldn't dispute, I'd think that +I was the weakling of a set of triplets," said Milford. + +"Oh, you'll do. There's no flies buzzing around you, I tell you. Well, +I'll leave you, sure enough now." + +For a time, he clattered the rough dishes, clearing them out of the way, +despising the work--a loathing shared by all human beings. Mitchell was +at the barn, among the horses, and there came the occasional and almost +rhythmic tap, tap, tap of his currycomb against the thin wall. In the +damp sags of the corn field, the plow could not be used with advantage, +and Milford assigned to himself the work of covering this territory with +a hoe. The advisory board, men who drove past in milk wagons, condemned +it as a piece of folly. They said that a man might wear himself out +among the clods, and to no great purpose, either; but Milford appeared +to rejoice in his conquest over the combative soil. Steve Hardy said +that he must be doing penance in the hot sun for some crime committed in +the cool shade. But the old woman had given it out that her man was +working for a woman, and the women commended it. How soft is the voice +of woman when she speaks of one who sweats for her sex! They sat upon +the veranda, watching Milford as he delved in the blaze of the sun. It +was a romance. Afar off there must be a sighing woman, waiting for him. +Mrs. Blakemore could see her, and she sighed with her, watching the hero +dealing the hard licks of love. With her scampering son, she crossed the +field, going toward the lake, the morning after the expected visit from +Lewson. She was determined to speak to Milford. Mrs. Stuvic had just +said, "That man is killin' himself for a woman." On she came, her feet +faring ill among the clods. She stumbled and laughed, and the boy, in +budding derision of woman's weakness, shouted contemptuously. + +"Why did you come across this rough place?" Milford asked, planting his +hoe in front of him. To her he was a man behind the flag-staff of his +honor. + +"Because it's so much nearer to the lake," she answered. The boy cried +out that he had found a rattlesnake, and proceeded to attack with clods +a rusty toad. + +"Come away, Bobbie. He'll bite you." She saw that it was a toad, and she +knew that it would not bite him; but motherly instinct demanded that +she must warn him. "Oh, it's such a jaunt, coming across here. Really, I +don't see how you can stand it to work so long in the hot sun. Let me +bring you some cool water." + +She felt that she ought to do something for him. He smiled, and glanced +down at her thin-shod feet. He felt that there was genuineness in this +slim creature, and he was moved to reply: "No, I thank you. Your +sympathy ought to relieve a man of thirst." + +"Really, that is so nice of you. No wonder all the women like you when +you say such kind things. But there is one thing I wish, Mr. Milford--I +wish you'd taken more to my husband. He's awfully low-spirited, and I'm +so distressed about him. He's worried nearly to death in town, and he +comes out here and mopes about. I didn't know but you might say +something to interest him. He'll be out again this evening. Will you +please come over to the house to see him?" + +He thought of his weariness after his day of strain, of his own +melancholy that came with the shades of night. He thought that, in +comparison with himself, the man ought to be boyishly happy; but he told +her that to come would give him great pleasure. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say so. Tell him of fights, of men that +wouldn't give up, but fought their way out of hard luck. Tell him what +you are doing. I know it's preposterous to ask you, but will you do it?" + +Her eyes were as bright as the dew caught by the cobweb, shaded by the +clod, he thought--as he stood there leaning on the handle of his hoe, +looking at her; and he read woman's great chapter of anxious affection. +"I will tell him of a man who failed in everything, and then found that +he had a fortune in his wife," he said. She put out her hand toward him, +and snatched it back to hide her eyes for a moment. She turned toward +the boy, and in a cool voice commanded him not to romp so hard over the +rough ground. Milford saw a soul that loved to be loved, that lived to +be loved, a soul that may not be the most virtuous, but which is surely +the most beautiful. He did not presume to understand women; he estimated +her by a "hunch" as to whether she was good or bad. He remembered that +he had jumped upon his pony and galloped off to the further West, to +keep from falling in love with one. And since that time he had felt +himself safe, so into this woman's eyes he could look without fear. + +"Yes," she said, "tell him that love is the greatest estate. It will +make him think, coming from a man. Poor George was in the hardware +business, and he failed not long ago, and I don't know why, for I'm sure +I saved every cent I could. What you tell him will have a good deal of +weight." + +Milford had to laugh at this. "I don't know why," said he. + +"Because you are a good man." + +Milford sneered. "Madam, I'm a crank." He begged her pardon for his +harshness. Her forgiveness came with a smile. He told her that he was +as morbid as a mad dog, and he said it with such energy that she drew +back from him. "But you won't fail to see George, will you? Come on, +Bobbie. Oh, I forgot to tell you of some new arrivals--a Mrs. Goodwin, +wife of a well-known doctor in town, and her companion, one of the +handsomest young women I ever saw--a Norwegian girl, as graceful as one +of her native pines. You won't fail to come, will you? Good-bye." + +The evening was sultry, with a lingering smear of red in the western +sky. At the supper table Milford nodded in his chair. The hired man +spoke to him, and he looked up, his batting eyes fighting off sleep. + +"Them slashes have about got the best of you, haven't they, Bill? I'd +let that corn go before I'd dig my life out among them tough clods. I'm +givin' it to you straight." + +"I don't doubt it. But it will pay in the end. I've come to the +conclusion that all hard work pays. It pays a man's mind, and he +couldn't get a much better reward. But I'd like to go to bed, just the +same." + +"Why don't you? Not goin' to dig any more to-night, are you?" + +"No, but I've got to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's to see a man." + +"A man?" Mitchell asked, with a wink. + +"I said a man." + +"Yes, I know you said a man." + +"Then why not a man?" + +"Well, I don't know, only it seems to me that if I was as tired as you +look I wouldn't go to see no man's man." + +"How about any woman's woman?" + +"Well, that's different. You can put off seein' a man, and you might put +off seein' a woman, but you don't want to. But maybe you ain't as big a +chump about a woman as I am." + +Milford said that the wisest man among wise men could easily be a fool +among women. Solomon's wisdom, diluted by woman, became a weak quality. +"Except once," he added, taking down his pipe from the clock shelf, "and +that was when he called for a sword to cut a child in two to divide it +between two mothers; but if the question had been between himself and a +woman, I don't know but he'd have got the worst of it." + +It was the hired man's turn to clear away the dishes, and Milford sat +smoking in a muse. Night flies buzzed about the lamp, and the mosquito, +winged sting of the darkness, sang his sharp tune over the rain-water +barrel beneath the window. The hired man put away the dishes, and went +into his shell-like bedroom, a thin addition built against the house. +Milford heard him sit upon the edge of his bed, heard his heavy shoes +drop upon the floor, heard him stretch out upon the creaking slats to +lie a log till the peep of day. The tired laborer's pipe fell to the +floor. He got up with a straining shrug of his stiff shoulders, snatched +off his sticking garments, bathed in a tub, put on clean clothing, and +set out to keep his appointment. He muttered as he walked along the +road. He halted upon a knoll in the oat-field, and stood to breathe the +cool air from the low-lying meadow. As he drew near to the house, he +heard the shouts of children and the imploring tones of nurses and +mothers, begging them to go to bed. A lantern hanging under the eaves of +the veranda shed light upon women eager to hear gossip from the city +apartment house, and men, who, though breathing a fresh escape from +business, had already begun to inquire as to the running of the trains. +In the dooryard, a dull fire smoked in a tin pan,--a "smudge" to drive +off the mosquitoes. Some one flailed the piano. The Dutch girl, singing +a song of the lowlands, was grabbing clothes off a line, with no fear of +running over an old man. Mrs. Blakemore and George were sitting at a +corner of the veranda, apart from the general nest of gossipers. Bobbie +had been bribed to bed. The woman got up and gave Milford her hand. In +his calloused palm it felt like the soft paw of a kitten. George nodded +with an indistinct grunt. + +"Well, how is everything?" Milford asked. + +"Rotten," George answered. His wife sighed, and brushed off a white moth +that had lighted on his coat sleeve. "But it will get better," she said. +"Don't you think so, Mr. Milford?" + +"Bound to," Milford agreed. "I'm a firm believer in everything coming +out all right. I've seen it tested time and again. Hope is the world's +best bank account." George looked at him. "That's all right enough," he +admitted. + +"Hope is the soul's involuntary prayer," his wife observed, and he +looked at her. "That's all well enough, too," said he, "but what's the +use of tying a ribbon around your neck in a snow-storm, when what you +need is an overcoat? A man can wrap all the hope in the world around +himself, and then freeze to death." + +"That's true," said Milford, catching sight of the woman's eyes as she +drew a long breath, "but hope may lead him out of the storm. Pardon me, +but I infer that you've met business reverses." + +"Struck the ceiling," said George. + +"How often?" + +"Isn't once enough?" + +"Yes, but I've struck it a hundred times. I've been kept on the bounce, +like a ball." + +"That's all right, but do you feel thankful for it?" + +"Well, my heart isn't bursting with gratitude, but it might have been +worse--I might have stuck to the ceiling. When you throw a dog into the +water, he always shakes himself when he comes out. It's a determination +to be dry again. And that's the way a man ought to do--shake himself +every time he's thrown." + +"I don't know but you're right. What are you doing here, anyway?" + +"Rooting like a hog for something to eat. And I've not only failed in +nearly everything I undertook, but I've been a fool besides. But I've +got sense enough to know that it has all been my own fault. I believe +that, if a man's in good health, it's always his own fault if he don't +succeed. I could sit down and growl at the world; I could wish I had it +under my heel to grind the life out of it; and the truth is, we all have +a part of it under our heels, and if we keep on grinding we'll make an +impression. I am what you might call a national egotist. I believe that +nearly everything lies within the range of an American. He may do +wrong--he does do wrong. Sometimes he does a great wrong, but nine times +out of ten he tries to make it right. I believe that the Yankee has more +conscience than other men. He may keep it well sheathed, but after a +while the edge eats through the scabbard and cuts him. He works with an +object. They say it is to make money. That's true, but the money is to +serve a purpose, a heart, a conscience." + +George turned about in his chair, and looked with keen interest at the +laboring man. "Look here, you are a man of brains. Why do you stay here +and dig? You are fitted for something better." + +Milford smiled at him. "How often that's said of a man who's not fitted +for anything. As I remarked to your wife, I'm a crank. But I've got an +object--there's something that must be done, and I'm going to do it or +broil out my life in that field." + +"You are a brave man. Not all of us are so nervy. But you may not have +to broil out your life." + +"Hope," said Milford. "And what a muscle it is, hardening with each +stroke. Now, it's not my place to say anything to you, but don't fool +along with affairs that are hopelessly tangled. Strike at something +else. Perhaps that wasn't the business you were fitted for, anyway." + +"Can't tell. But I wasn't stuck on it, that's a fact. What line have you +failed in, mostly?" he asked, laughing; and his wife's thin shoulders +shook as if she were seized with a sudden physical gladness. + +"Oh I've been a sort of bounty jumper of occupations." + +"But we know," said Mrs. Blakemore, "that your work was always honest." + +"Well," he replied, his white teeth showing through the dark of his +beard, "I never squatted on the distress of an old soldier to discount +his pension." + +"That's not bad. Louise," he added, playfully touching his wife's hand, +"how is it you took to me when you have a knack of finding such +interesting fellows?" + +"Why, you were one of the most interesting fellows I ever found. Is that +Bobbie crying? Yes. I must go to him. Good-night, Mr. Milford. I'm ever +so glad you came over this evening." She gave him a grateful look, and +hastened away, crying out, "Mamma's coming," as she ran up the stairs. +And now Mrs. Stuvic's voice arose from the outlying darkness of the +road. "Well," she shouted at some one, "you tell him that if he ever +leaves my gate open again I'll fill his hide so full of shot he'll look +like a woodpecker'd pecked him. A man that's too lazy to shut a gate +ought to be made to wear a yoke like a breachy cow. Yes, you bet!" she +said over and again as she came toward the veranda. "Like a breachy cow. +And here's Bill, bigger than life! Why, the way I saw you pounding them +clods over yonder, I didn't think you could move at night. This is +Mr.--What-his-name? I never could think of it. Are you still mopin' +about? Bah, why don't you get down to somethin'? Suppose the women was +to mope that way? Do you reckon anythin' would be done. No, you bet! +There's no time for them to mope. I saw Eldridge hauling a load of folks +from the station to-day. And I know 'em--the Bostics, out here last +year, and went off without payin' their board. Well, he can have 'em, +for all of me. Stuck up. 'Please do this,' and 'Please do that,' and +'How do you feel this mornin', dear mamma?' 'Bah!' I said, 'why don't +dear mammy get out and stir around?' Bill, I want you to come over here +to dinner to-morrow--settin' about readin' all day Sunday. You come over +here and get somethin' to eat. But don't let Mitchell come. I had a +chance to hire him, and didn't do it, and now I haven't got any too much +use for him. The rascal deceived me. I didn't know he was half as good a +worker as he is. But you be sure to come," and leaning over, she added +in a whisper: "I've got the putties gal here you ever saw in your life." + +"But that's not the question. Will you have anything to eat?" + +"Better than you've had for many a day, sir, I can tell you that." + +"I'll be here," he replied, getting up. + +"Going?" said George. "I'll walk out a piece with you." + +And talking knavishly of the old woman and the wives who pretended to be +so glad to see their husbands, they walked out into the hickory grove. +"The old lady whispered to you about a pretty girl," said George. "Might +just as well have shouted it. But she is a stunner! I hunted deer up in +the mountains once, and I never saw one, but I imagined what one ought +to look like, stepping around in the tangle; and when I saw that girl +out here in the woods to-day, I thought of the deer that I didn't see. +She's with a fussy woman, a doctor's wife, a sort of companion, I +believe. I should think so! Anybody'd like to be her companion. Well, +sir, I'm just getting on to the beauty of this place. I never saw such +grass, and between here and the station there's a thousand colors +growing out of the ground. Huh!" he grunted, "and I'm just beginning to +remember them. Old fellow, I guess the little talk we had to-night has +done me good. Yes; and what's the use in worrying? Things are going to +come out just as they are--they always do--and all the worry in the +world won't help matters. I think you are right about the Yankee." + +"Children of fate, gathered from the four corners of the world, and +planted here," said Milford. + +"I guess you are right. Well, I'm going back to town Monday and do a +little hustling. I've got to. There's no two ways about it. I'll turn +back here. Glad I met you again. So long." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE "PEACH." + + +Milford was at the dinner table, talking to Blakemore, when a young +Norwegian woman entered the room. Blakemore nudged him. He looked up and +quickly looked down. He heard a woman say, "Sit here, Gunhild." He heard +her introduced as Miss Strand. + +"Isn't she a peach?" Blakemore whispered. + +"What did you say, George?" his wife asked, picking at him. + +"I didn't say anything." + +"What was it you whispered?" + +"About a peach," the boy blurted. "I want a peach. Maw, give me a +peach." + +She commanded him to hush; she raked the wayward flax out of his eyes, +and straightened him about in his chair. George shook with the abandoned +laughter of a man's gross mischief. His wife did not see anything to +laugh at; she thought it was impolite to whisper. Mr. Milford was not +laughing. No, Mr. Milford was not. His face wore a look of distress. He +shot sharp glances at the Norwegian girl. He heard her voice, her laugh. +A moment ago he draped Mrs. Blakemore with an overflow of sentimental +sympathy, but now his soul was as selfish as a hungry wolf. He had +talked with pleasant drollery. Now he offered nothing, and cut his +answers down to colorless brevity. Mrs. Stuvic came in and stood near +him. He was silent under her Gatling talk, chill-armored against her +fire. She said she would introduce him to the Norwegian girl, and he +flinched. He excused himself, got up, and went out. He walked as far as +the gate opening into the grove, stood there a moment, turned and came +back to the veranda. + +"He was hit quick and hard," said George to his wife, as Mrs. Stuvic +left them. "She's a stunner, and she stunned him." + +"George, please don't. She may remind him of some one, that's all. Why, +he's engaged, and is working----" + +"That's all right. I said she hit him, and she did. Hit anybody." + +"George!" + +"Well, that's what I said. I can't help it." + +"I despise her." + +"Of course, but she's a stunner all the same. But come, now, don't look +that way. I'm not in love with her." + +"I'm not so sure about it. You called her a 'peach'," she said, helping +the boy out of his chair, and telling him to run along. + +It was too much to ask her not to suspect him, now that he was +determined not to be cast down by business troubles. She had buoyed him +with her sympathy, and it was natural that she should resent his notice +of the young woman, if not his good humor. But after a lowly wallow in +melancholy, a sudden rise of spirits is always viewed with suspicion by +a woman. It is one of the sentimental complexities, of her nature. She +looked at him with eyes that might never have been soft. No doubt there +was in George's breast a strong cast of the rascal. He was not a stepson +of old Adam, but a full blood. He knew, however, the proper recourse, +and he took it. He began to fret over his vanished business, and, +forgetting the "peach," she gave him her sympathy. + +Milford, meanwhile, was slowly striding up and down the veranda. Mrs. +Stuvic came out, followed by the Norwegian. + +"She didn't want to meet you, Bill, but here she is." + +That was the introduction, an embarrassment that fed the old woman's +notion of fun. Milford stammered, and the young woman blushed. + +"I did not say I did not want to meet you," she said, with a slight +accent, her unidiomatic English learned at school. "I would not say such +a thing. Mrs. Stuvic is full of jokes. She makes me laugh." And she did +laugh, strange echo from North Sea cliffs, the glow of the midnight in +her eyes, a thought that shot through the cowboy's mind as he gazed upon +her. Mrs. Stuvic went back, laughing, to the dining-room, having flushed +the young woman and turned the dark man red. + +"She is a very funny woman," said the "peach," looking far across the +meadow toward the lake, her long lashes slowly rising and falling. She +was not beautiful; her features were not regular, but there was a +marvelous light in her countenance, and her bronze-tinted hair was as +rank in growth as the yellowing oats where the soil is rich and damp. +She looked to be just ripe, but was too lithe to be luscious. Mrs. +Blakemore said that her nose was slightly tipped up, a remark more +slanderous than true, and when taken to task by an oldish woman who had +no cause to be jealous, declared that it was not a matter of taste but a +question of observation. At any rate, she had come as a yellow flash, +and must soon fade. + +Milford continued to gaze at her, wanting to say something, but not +knowing what to say. He heard the gruff laughter of the men in the +dining-room, joking with Mrs. Stuvic, and the romping of the children +coming out. + +"I guess that's the best rabbit dog anywhere around here," he said, as a +flea-bitten cur trotted past. He had never seen the dog hunt rabbits. He +knew nothing about him except that he had been ordered to shoot him for +howling, the dreary night when old Lewson died. + +"He does not look that he could run very fast," she replied, turning her +eyes upon the dog. + +"Oh, yes, he runs like a streak. He outran a pack of wolves up in the +Wisconsin woods." + +"Wolves!" she said, looking at him. + +He knew that he was a liar, but he said "wolves." He asked if she had +ever seen any wolves. She had seen packs of coyotes on the prairie. "I +went to my uncle when I came to this country," she said. "He lived away +in the West. I stayed there two years, and then I came with him to +Chicago. I did not like it so far off. The wind was always blowing +lonesome in the night, and I thought of my old home where the grass +fringed the edge of the cliff." + +"Did you speak English before you came to this country?" + +"I could read it, and I did read much--old tales of fierce fights on the +sea." + +"How long do you expect to stay out here?" + +"I am with Mrs. Goodwin, and when she says go, I go. She is very kind to +me." + +Mrs. Goodwin came out, calling "Gunhild." She was tall, with grayish +hair, and on the stage might have played the part of a duchess. Her +husband's affairs were prosperous, and she devoted herself to the +discovery of genius. She had found a young girl with a marvelous voice, +and had educated her into a common-rate singer, put her in opera, and +the critics scorched her. The discoverer swallowed a lump of +disappointment, and turned about to find another genius. In an obscure +corner of a newspaper, she found a gem in verse, the soul-spurt of a +young man. She sought him out, and paid for the printing of a volume of +verses. The critics scoffed him, and she swallowed another lump. One of +her assistant discoverers brought to her a pencil sketch of a buffalo, +and this led to the finding of Gunhild Strand. The girl was modest. She +disclaimed genius, but she was sent to the Art Institute; she would +climb the mountain. But she got no higher than the foot-hills. "I did +not have any confidence in myself," the girl declared. "And now I must +work for you to pay you for what has been spent." This was surely a +proof that she had no genius, but it was an evidence of gratitude, a +rarer quality, and Mrs. Goodwin was pleased. "You shall be my +companion," she said, "Your society will more than repay me. You must +not refuse. I set my heart upon it." + +Milford was introduced, and the stately woman threw her searchlight upon +him. Here might be another genius. + +"They tell me, Mr. Milford, that you are a man of great industry." + +"They might have told you, madam, that I am a great fool." + +Ha! a gleam of true light. She warmed toward him. She thought of Burns +plowing up a mouse. But she was skeptical of poets. They have a contempt +for their patrons if their wares do not sell. + +"You credit them with too shrewd a discovery," she replied. + +"I simply give them credit for ordinary eyesight, madam." + +"You prove the contrary." She smiled upon him. "They tell me that you +came like a mist, out of the mysterious woods." + +"A fog from the marsh," he replied, laughing; and the "peach" laughed, +too--more music from the North Sea. He saw the pink of her arm through +the gauze of her sleeve. Mrs. Goodwin thought that he knew nothing about +women, and she was right, but, as a rule, if rule can be applied, a +woman thinks this of a man when, indeed, he has mastered innocent +hearts to make wantons of them. + +"Where is your field?" the discoverer inquired. + +"Over yonder, where the sun is hottest." + +"And your house?" + +"Over on the hill, yonder, where the wind will blow coldest in winter." + +Surely, he had a volume of verse hidden under the old clothes in his +trunk. She could have wished that he was even an inventor. She shuddered +at the thought of another attempt to set up a shaft to American letters. +The jovial doctor had shaken his fat sides at her. Suddenly she was +inspired with forethought. She asked him if he had ever written any +verse. He said that once he had been tempted to toss a firebrand into an +enemy's wheat-rick, but had never ruined a sheet with measured lines. +She saw that he had caught the spirit of the paragrapher's fling. So +this fear was put aside; still, he must be a genius of some sort--an +inventor, perhaps. She asked if he had ever invented anything, and he +answered, "Yes, a lie." This stimulated her interest in him. He was so +frank, so refreshing. She had heard that a laborer could be quaintly +entertaining. She contrasted him with the numerous men of her +acquaintance, men whose sentences were as dried herbs, the sap and the +fragrance gone. She was weary of the doctor's shop-talk, the +impoverished blood of conversation, the dislocated joint of utterance. +She would have welcomed track talk with a race-horse starter. And the +bluntness of this man from the hillside was invigorating. His words +were not dry herbs, but fresh pennyroyal, sharp with scent. Milford +smiled at her, wishing that she were locked among her husband's jars of +pickled atrocities. He wanted to talk silliness with the girl. + +The other boarders came out, George and his wife among them. George +handed Milford a cigar, telling him to light it,--that the ladies did +not object to smoking. + +"You haven't asked them," said his wife. + +"Well, I know they don't." + +"There, don't you see? Mrs. Dorch is moving off." + +George grinned. "Her husband is a great smoker, and she don't want to be +reminded of home," he said. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she replied. + +"I can't afford it. I'm too much loser." + +Mrs. Goodwin asked Gunhild to walk with her. She looked at Milford, but +he lost his nerve and did not offer to go with them. + +"That was a bid," said George. His wife reprimanded him. "It is a wonder +you didn't offer to go," she declared. "But let us take a walk," she +added. + +"Too soon after eating. Believe I'll go up and take a snooze," he said. + +A mother, worn out with hot nights of worrying over the ills of a +teething child, sat rocking the little one. Bobbie stood looking on with +the critical eye of a boy. "A baby sticks out his tongue when you wipe +his face with a wet rag," he said, and George snorted. "What a boy +don't see ain't worth seeing," he said. The boy's mother reached out, +drew him to her, and attempted to take from his clenched hands a piece +of castiron, a rusty key, and a hog's tooth. "Throw those nasty things +away." + +"Let him keep his tools," said George. "A boy can't work without tools." +He clung to the implements of his trade. She turned him about and set him +adrift. "Mr. Milford," she said, "you don't seem to be quite yourself +this afternoon. You aren't enjoying yourself." + +He appeared surprised that she should think so. If he were not enjoying +himself it was news to him, deserving of a big headline. She saw his eye +searching the woods; she thought of the young woman who sighed out her +breath at a window far away, waiting for him to hoe out a place for her. +The wreath that she had hung upon him began to wither. After all, he was +but a man with a shifting soul, and she did not believe that his talk +had morally helped her husband. George was nodding. She shook him, and +he looked up quickly, as if he expected a railway conductor to tell him +that he was to get off there. + +"What makes you so stupid?" + +"The beastly weather. Well, I'm going up." + +She sat there rocking herself, with a knife in her bosom for the man who +sat near, the deceitful laborer. He was, after all, nothing but a hired +man. What could she have expected of him? She was foolish to believe +that there was anything spiritual about him. She would give him a dig. + +"The young woman whom you were pleased to call a 'peach'----" + +"I didn't call her a 'peach'." + +"No matter. The young woman who has been called a 'peach,' with a +bouquet of man's promises perfuming her heart, thinks, no doubt, that he +is longing to see her again, when, perhaps, he has forgotten her, or +remembers her only as a joke. Those foreign girls are so simple." She +looked at him with her drooping eyes. Her fancy rewarded her with the +belief that there was a sudden mixture of red in the brown of his face. + +"Don't you think she's handsome?" she asked, after waiting for him to +speak. + +"No," he answered, glad to disappoint her. + +"Oh, I do. Don't you, really?" + +"Well, she's not ugly." + +"But don't you think she's handsome?" + +"Yes," he said, and looked as if he wanted to add: "Now what are you +going to do about it?" + +"I knew you did. Men have such queer tastes. Well, I don't think she's a +bit handsome. It's no trick at all to keep the eyes wide open; and any +woman can let her hair go to seed. Of course, I ought not to say +anything, but I should think that you would hold a brighter picture of +some one who is waiting--but what am I saying? How warm it is! We are +surely going to have rain." + +She heard the boy bawling out in the orchard. She ran to him. Milford +stalked off toward home. "She's a little fool," he thought, and +dismissed her. In the road he met the "discoverer" and the "peach," +decked with purple flowers. He waited for them to show a disposition to +halt. They did not, so he bowed and passed them by. On the knoll in the +oat field he turned and looked back. On the veranda he saw a purple +glimmer. Was the girl waving flowers at him? He turned toward home, with +the music of her accent in his heart. The place was deserted. The hired +man was out among the women, poverty once bitten, looking for another +bite. Milford stretched himself out upon the grass under the walnut +tree. Grimly, he compared himself with a man thrown from a horse, not +knowing yet whether or not he was hurt. He had the plainsman's sense of +humor, and he laughed at himself. "No matter which way I turn, I'm +generally up against it," he said, and he could hear his words whispered +up among the leaves of the tree. The earth seemed to throb beneath him. +The heat made the whole world pant. He dozed, and dreamed that he saw +violets rained from a purple cloud. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE PROFESSOR. + + +Milford was aroused from his dozing by some one walking up and down the +veranda. "Don't let me disturb you," a cheery voice cried out, when he +got up. "I dropped over to pay you a visit, and finding you asleep, +thought I would wait till you reached the end of your nap. And I am +sorry if I have disturbed you." He held out his hand as Milford came +within reach, and in the heartiest manner said that his name was +Professor Dolihide. "I suppose you heard that I moved into your +neighborhood. Yes, sir, I have lived near you some ten days or more--a +longtime to live anywhere during these grinding times, sir." + +Milford had heard that Professor Dolihide had moved into an old house +that had long stood deserted. He shook hands on suspicion, and then, on +better acquaintance, he brought out two chairs, planted the Professor in +one, sat down himself, and said he hoped that his visitor found the new +home pleasant. The Professor closed his eyes till he looked through +narrow cracks. "Well, as to that, I must say that I never expect to find +another pleasant home. It is one's occupation abroad that makes the home +pleasant, and when one has been compelled against his liking to change +his trade, the home suffers. But I must explain," he said, opening his +eyes and rubbing his hands together. "For years, I held the chair of +English literature in a Kansas college. My salary was small, but I was +happy, and my family had an exalted respect for me, as a learned man. +But now I keep books at a planing-mill up here at Lake Villa, and am +entitled to no respect whatever, not because I am not respectable, but +for the reason that I have failed." + +He came as a fresh breeze, and Milford enjoyed him. He possessed a sort +of comical dignity. His eyes were lamp-dimmed. His beard was thin and +red. + +"Failed," he repeated, "not on the account of incompetence, mind you, +but traceable, I may say, to a changed condition of the times. I had +been led to believe that my work was giving entire satisfaction. My +scope was not broad, it is true, but the ground was thoroughly tilled. +But a difference arose in the board of supervisors. And it was decided +that I was not idiomatic enough in my treatment of our mother tongue. +They argued that English is progressive. I did not doubt that, but I +said that slang was not true progress. They cited an extract from a +speech delivered by the president of an Eastern grove of learning, in +which he said that the purist was as dead as stagnant water. I was +pleased to be called a purist, sir. I had striven to maintain that +position; but it did not compensate me for the loss of my living. After +that, I taught in a common school, but they said I was wanting in +discipline. Then I drifted about, and now here I am, bookkeeper at a +planing-mill. But I have a hope that it will all come right, and I +could exist fairly, but my wife and my daughter do not share my hope. I +trust I do not shock you when I affirm that a woman has a contempt for +the hope of a man. She is a materialist; she wants immediate results, +and all that keeps her from being a gambler is the fear of losing. I +trust I have not shocked you." + +He stroked his thin beard to a point, and twisted it. He cocked his +head, and looked at Milford as if he expected a weighty decision +concerning an important matter. His clothes were well-kept relics, but +his dignity came out fresh, as if it had been newly dusted. What a +tenderfoot he would have been in a mining camp; what a guy at a variety +show! Milford agreed that his views were no doubt correct. The man was +an unconscious joke, and argument would spoil him. + +"I thank you," said the Professor. "Such ready and cheerful agreement is +rarely found, except between two intelligent men, and the admission of a +third man of equal intelligence would greatly lessen the chances. And +now I may tell you that my wife and daughter objected to my calling, +affirming, as they had a right to do, that it was your place to call on +me, as I was the newer comer. And I said, 'Madam, there are no women in +this case, so, therefore, we have no need to be finical and unnatural.'" +He cleared his throat, and cocked his head. The sharp face of his host +looked serious, but there was a titter in his breast. + +"Of course," said the Professor, "one may have ever so hairy an ear, and +yet the gossip of the neighborhood will force its way in. I have heard +much concerning you. I heard that they did not understand you, and then +I said to myself that you must be a man worth knowing." + +"Then I must be rare," said Milford. + +"Ah, sharp; that is sharp, sir. A dignified contempt for man may not +belong to the text of the virtues, but it is one of the pictures that +brightens the page. I beg pardon for even the appearance of +infringement, but do you expect to reside here permanently?" + +"No, I have stopped to stay over night, and to chop wood for breakfast." + +"A judicious answer, sir; a shrewd statement. They told me that you were +strangely guarded in speech, that you suffered yourself to seem dull +rather than to trip off a waste of words. That is true wisdom, not, +indeed, to have nothing to say, but keeping the something that fain +would fly forth. I take it that you came from the city to these parts." + +"Yes, directly. But I was there only a short time." + +"A stranger, indeed. Have you ever chanced to live in Kansas?" + +"I've broken out there in spots." + +"Ha! an idiomatic answer. I see that you belong to the new school. +Perhaps it is better, but I am too old to learn. Did you ever happen to +break out in a spot called Grayson?" + +"I passed through there on my way to break out somewhere else." + +"You did? That was my town, sir--a seat of learning made famous by a +bank robbery. When our city was ten years old, I read a paper at the +celebration. Were you ever engaged in any educational work?" + +"Yes, one of the greatest. I sold a cook-book." + +"Shrewd; yes, sharp. From what I heard, I thought that you would be +worth knowing. I have met your landlady, a most impressive woman, but +with a vulgar contempt for my profession. She said that it was a good +thing that I had left off fooling and at last got down to work. And I +think that this has precluded any relationship between her and my wife. +She can't stand a reference, not that kind of a reference, to my +decline. In this regard, women haven't so much virtue as a man +possesses. They can not piece a torn quilt with an aphorism. In what +part of the country have your labors been mostly confined?" + +"Mostly between here and sunset." + +"More poetic than sharp," said the Professor, clearing his throat. "May +I trouble you for a drink of water?" + +Milford drew water from the well near the walnut tree, and in the +kitchen dipper conveyed a quart of it to the Professor, who drank with +the thirst of a toper and the suck of a horse. "I am sufficiently +watered," he said, bowing and returning the dipper to Milford, who threw +it out upon the grass where the hired man could find it. "What a +delightful way to live!" said the Professor. "You throw things about as +you please, and there is no one to complain. You may leave your pipe +anywhere, and probably find it again; you let hunger, instead of time, +summon you to eat. I trust I do not shock you when I say that Adam +enjoyed his greatest freedom before the appearance of Eve." + +Milford said that he was not shocked, and the Professor thanked him. It +was pleasant to meet a philosopher, a man who did not foolishly feel +called upon in resentment to declare, that his mother was a woman. A +shrewder man than Milford might have inferred that the Professor had +been nagged by his wife through the tedium of a Sunday forenoon. +Work-day annoyances fester on Sunday. In the country, when a man has, on +a Sunday, killed the chickens for dinner, salted the sheep in the +pasture, and returned to the house, he is in the way; everything he does +is wrong; everything he leaves undone is worse. He is kept on the +ducking verge of a constant dodge. + +"No man has more respect for a woman than I have," said the Professor, +"but I am forced to admit that she is a constant experiment. Nature +herself does not as yet know what to make of her. One moment she is a +joy, and the next she is searching for a man's weak spots, like a +disease. I think that it was some such expression, spoken in a +sententious mood, that helped to oust me from the easy chair of +congenial letters." A clock struck the hour of five. The Professor +seemed surprised at the swift rush of time. "Well, I must take my +leave," said he, getting up and standing with his hands resting on the +back of the chair. "Ah, and would you mind walking over to my home with +me?" + +The lingering dawn of Milford's suspicions was now streaked with gray. +"I'd like to, but the hired man's gone out, and I've got to do the +chores about the place." + +"But perhaps I may return with you and assist you. I am an apt hand." + +"No, thank you, not to-day; some other time." + +A shade of disappointment fell upon him and darkened his dignity. "I am +sorry," he said. "I had hoped to know you better, and we were making +such fair progress. It is not often that I get along so well with a new +acquaintance." He brightened suddenly, as if the reserve forces of his +mind had been brought up. "Ah, would you object to my helping you with +your work, and then taking a bachelor's supper with you?" + +"That's all right--fits me like a glove," said Milford. + +"Good!" cried the Professor. "Idiomatic, and divested of all shrewdness. +Now, what shall we do first?" + +"I'll hatch up a bite to eat, and then we'll feed the stock. You sit +here." + +He protested against a decree that might make a lazy guest of him, but +he yielded, and sat down to hum a tune of contentment, pliant heart +postponing trouble, procrastinator of annoyances. It did not take +Milford long to prepare the meal, crisp strips of bacon, bread, and +coffee boiled in a tin pail. The host said that it was but ranch fare. +The guest rubbed his hands together, and declared that freedom was a +pudding's sweetest sauce. He had read of many great feasts, in the days +of the barons, when bulls were roasted whole, of the wild boar's head +served upon the golden platter of the king, but to him there was one +banquet mellower with sentiment than all the rest--General Marion and +the British officer in the forest, with a pile of roasted sweet potatoes +on a log. He sipped the dreggy coffee as if it were the mulled wine of a +New Year's night. He talked loudly as if he enjoyed the resonant freedom +of his own voice. He laughed in the present, and then was silent as a +cool shadow of the future fell upon him. But he shifted from under the +shadow, and went on with his talk, in florid congratulation of his host, +his ease, his independence. There were no soft cushions, but there was +rough repose, the undisturbed rest of honest weariness. Milford's +judgment of men told him that this man had ever been a laughing-stock, +afflicted as he was with a certain incompetent refinement of mind. But, +in the varied society of life, how important is the office of such a +failure! A shiftless man sometimes makes shiftless men more contented, +softening enmities against life, and quieting clamors against +discriminating nature. Here was a man who really was worth knowing, and +the cowboy gratefully accepted him. He opened up his Noah's Ark of +adventures, and entertained the man-child. He shoved back from the +table, and sang a roaring song of a plainsman who died for love. He +recited a poem by Antrobus, the herdsman's sneer of abandoned +recklessness--"Like a Centaur, he speeds where the wild bull feeds." The +Professor clapped his hands. He swore that no Eastcheap could afford a +more delicious entertainment. Milford brought cider from the cellar, +beading in a brown, earthen ewer, and the Professor snapped his eyes. +"Where the wild bull feeds," he laughed, passing his cup for more. They +shook hands, that they held in common so many old songs, lines familiar +to our grandmothers--"Come, dearest, the daylight hath gone;" "The +tiger's cub I'd bind with a chain." They sang till the daylight was +gone, and then went forth laughingly to feed the stock. But the +Professor left off his part of the singing before the work was +completed. The shadow of the future had again fallen upon him, and he +could not shift from under it. + +"Look here," he said, "you must go home with me. Do you understand?" + +"I think I do, and I'll go anywhere with you." + +"Idiomatic, and accommodating. Put her there!" he cried, striking hands +with Milford. "Ha! how is that for idiom? Stay by me, gentle keeper, my +soul is heavy, and I fain would--would duck." He leaned against the barn +door and shook. Milford clapped him on the shoulder, and shook with him. + +Across a field, through a wood and along a grassy slope, they went, +toward the Professor's home, passing a house which schoolboys said was +haunted. The Professor talked philosophy. He had a religious theory, +newly picked up on the way: If we die suddenly at night, dreaming a +sweet dream, we continue the dream throughout eternity--heaven. If we +die dreaming a troubled dream, we go on dreaming it after death--hell. +Moral, then let us strive to live conducively to pleasant dreams. +Milford agreed that, as a theory, it was good enough. Nearly anything +was good enough for a theory. But wise men had summed up the future, and +had died trusting in their creed. The Professor hung back at the word +future. The future was now too near to be discussed as a speculation. He +saw it shining through the window of his house. He heard it in the +slamming of a door. + +"Well, here we are," he said, unwinding a chain from about a post, and +opening a gate. "Step in. We will sit on the veranda--cooler than in the +house." + +The door opened, and a large woman stepped out upon the veranda. Seeing +who came, she uttered one of anger's unspellable words, a snort. She was +a good woman, no doubt, but she was of the class who, in the old days, +lent virtue to the ducking stool. In short, she was one who deemed +herself the most abused of all earthly creatures, a scold. Pretending +not to see her husband, she asked Milford what he wanted. + +"Mrs. Dolihide," said the Professor, "this is my very dear friend, Mr. +Milford, our neighbor, and a man who has lived over most of the ground +between here and sunset." + +"Oh, is that you? Really, I didn't expect to see you again. It's a +pretty time to come poking home now, when you were to be here to go to +church with us. Oh, you needn't blink your eyes, having us get ready and +set here and wait and wait." + +"Mad and dressed up," muttered the Professor. "What could be more +pitiable? Don't go," he whispered to Milford. "I pray thee, gentle +keeper, stay by me. Idiomatically, I am half shot." + +"Let me go," said Milford. + +"Not on your idiomatic life," muttered the Professor. "Mother, I am very +sorry that I didn't get here in time to accompany you and my daughter to +the humble house of the Lord. But we may not be too late now to catch +the welcome end of a long sermon." + +A voice came from within the house. "Is that pa?" + +"Yes," the Professor's wife replied, "and he's as drunk as a fool." + +"Oh, for pity sake! How dreadful, how humiliating to us! But he never +thinks of us." An inner door slammed. + +Milford strove to pull away. The Professor clung to him. "It is not +fear," he said. "It is a sort of awe that the sex inspires. But there is +a time for boldness. Madam, you have told your daughter that I am drunk. +I am here to refute that statement. I am not drunk. My friend is not +drunk. We drank some cider, sinuous with age, but we are not drunk. He +is a man of high moral character, and I breathe a respect for +letters----" + +"Your breath would scorch a feather right now," she snapped, looking at +him with contempt, her hands on her hips. + +"I deny that statement, also. I am here to refute it. I have been +merrier than is my wont; we have shaken warm hands over a stone jug, +but nobody's character was assailed. And I had thought, in view of the +fact that I present a neighbor, you would treat me with a little more +courtesy." + +"You didn't know me." + +"It appears not, madam. A man may think that he knows his wife to-day, +but to-morrow there appears in her system the symptoms of a strange +disease. But, if you will forgive me," he added, slowly advancing, +"forgive a memory for slipping up in a slippery place, I will promise +that there shall be no recurrence of the fall. Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. +Milford." + +Milford roared with laughter. He broke loose from the Professor, and +fled through the gate, and he did not check his flight till he was far +down the road, and then he halted to laugh again. + +Since early evening, the sky had been overcast, and drops of rain began +to fall. Milford hastened onward. In the woods, far across a willow +flat, the wind blew hard, and the rain lashed the leaves. He turned +aside into the haunted house. All the doors were open. He went to the +back door and stood looking out at the coming of the rain. A noise +quickened his blood, and looking about he saw a vision of white in the +front door. + +"Who is that?" + +A slight cry, a swaying of the vision, a voice replying: "Oh, I did not +know there was any one in here. I have stopped in out of the rain." + +And now his blood jumped. "Is that you, Miss Strand?" + +"Oh, yes, but I do not know you. Oh, is it Mr. Milford? How strange! But +you do not live here?" + +"No, I've simply dodged in out of the wet. It's pouring down." + +"Yes, the clouds were a long time here, but the rain was quick. I went +far over after a laundress. Mrs. Stuvic would have sent me in the buggy, +but I wanted to walk; and now I shall be made sorry." + +"I hope not. Let me see if I can't make it more comfortable for you." + +He struck a match, and looked about. The room was bare. In places the +floor was broken. She said, with a laugh, that she would not mind it so +much but for the dark. + +"I hope you have many matches," she said. + +"I haven't, but I can remedy it. Here is an old smudge pan. I'll build a +fire in it." + +He broke up a piece of board, split fine pieces with his knife, tore up +a letter, and made a fire in the pan. In a shed-room he found a bench, +dusted it, and brought it in for her. She sat down, and he stood looking +at the play of the shadows and the light on her hair. The spirit of the +cider was gone. He wondered why he had run down the road, laughing. He +got down on his knees to feed the fire. It was a trick; it was stealing +an attitude to pay a homage. + +"Mrs. Goodwin will be very much worried," she said. "I wish that I did +not come. It was so much further than they said. I left when the sun was +down. Now it is late, and I walked all the time." + +"I will run over there and bring the buggy for you." + +"Oh, no, no. The rain pours too much. When it is done I will go with +you. The road is hard. There will be not much mud. We found many flowers +in the woods to-day." + +"I saw you with an armful." + +"Did you see me wave at you when you stand on the high place in the +oats?" + +"I did, but I was almost afraid to believe it." + +"Almost afraid? Why, what harm? There is no harm to wave a flower. Now +it rains easier. It will soon quit." + +Never did a promised clearing of the sky so mock a man. He mended the +fire, for, in his enraptured gazing, he had neglected it. He got up and +looked out, to see a glimmer of the threatening moon and a star peeping +from a nest of glinted cloud-wool. He returned and knelt near the +fire-pan. + +"Is it clearing away?" she asked. + +"It's going to pour down." + +"But it is getting lighter." + +"I know, but another cloud is coming." + +"I may get home before the new rain falls." + +"No, I hear it in the woods off yonder." + +"If I run I may get to a house where some one lives." + +"The rain will catch you. A wind is behind it." + +"I don't hear the wind." + +"It is a low wind, but it will soon be high." + +"The smoke hurts my eyes. You have put on too much wood at once." + +"And we must stay till it burns out to keep the house from catching +fire." + +"Oh, the moon is out. I must go now." + +"I will go with you." + +"Take me to the straight road, and then I will go alone." + +He took the pan between two sticks, and threw it far out upon the wet +grass. A flock of sheep pattered by. "Sheep always run past a haunted +house," he said, leading her to the road. + +"Is this place haunted?" she asked, looking back. + +"Yes, by a young man who drowned himself in the lake." + +"Why did he drown himself?" + +"On account of a young woman who lived here." + +She laughed at the cowboy's impromptu lie. "He was foolish to drown +himself. Let us walk fast now. Mrs. Goodwin will be much afraid for me. +Can you not walk faster?" + +When they reached the corners, where a broad road crossed their path, +she turned to him and said: "I know where I am now. This is my road, and +I am not far. I thank you ever so much, and I bid you good-night." She +fled swiftly down the road, and he stood there long after she had faded +from sight. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE GOSSIPERS. + + +The low place where Milford hoed the young corn was not far from Mrs. +Stuvic's, and more than once during the forenoon he went to the top of +the rise and looked toward the house. He saw George out in the road, +teaching his wife to ride a wheel, saw the Dutch girl driving the +turkeys out of the garden, heard the old woman shout for the pony-cart +to take her to the town of Waukegan, but saw nothing of the young woman +who had filled his sleep with dreams. He returned to his work, chopping +the stubborn clods, the heat growing fiercer with the approach of noon, +the wet land steaming. Of a sudden, he cursed his hoe, and threw it from +him. "But I've got to do it," he said, and resumed his labor. George +came across the field. + +"Well, sir," said he, "I didn't go back to town this morning as I laid +out to do, and now I'm like a fish out of water. Just as I got ready to +go, my wife misunderstood something I said, and then it was all off. A +man's a fool to leave his wife with a misunderstanding in her head. +Everything ought to be smoothed over before he goes. One morning, not +long ago, I scolded the boy at the breakfast table, and he was crying +when I left the house. I got on the car and tried to read a newspaper, +but couldn't. And, sir, I hopped off the car, took another one back, +and made it up with him. He had forgotten all about it, but I hadn't. We +were all pretty well stirred up over the 'peach' last night. Got caught +out in the rain, and we thought the doctor's wife would have a fit. And +at the breakfast table this morning, she gave an account of herself. Oh, +she's straightforward. She said you entertained her with a fire." + +"A flash in the pan," said Milford. + +"Well, I don't know as to that, for when there's a flash in the pan +there's no report, but I guess you'll hear report enough when you meet +those women over at the house. They've made a love affair out of +it--they say you're treating a certain young woman shamefully. Oh, +they've got it all fixed up to suit themselves. They told the 'peach' +you were engaged, and that she's wrong to encourage you." + +"The devil they did!" Milford shouted. "What right have they got to +presume----" + +"It's not presuming on the part of a woman, my dear fellow; it's a +natural conclusion. The girl couldn't say a thing. She stammered, and +finally she stormed. She said it was nothing to her if you were engaged +to a thousand women. She threatened to leave, and then the women +apologized. And about that time I decided that I wouldn't go to town +to-day." + +"I'll go over there," said Milford. + +"No, don't do anything of the sort, not while you're mad. It's all right +now." + +"No, it's not all right, but I want to tell you that I'll make it all +right." + +"Now, don't go on getting hot. The thing was a joke, and is all smoothed +over. It arose out of pity for the other young woman." + +"Confound it! there isn't any other woman." + +"That's all right; that's what I told them. No other woman, of course +not. There never is. Well, I'll be off. I go at twelve forty-five." + +George trudged off over the clods, and Milford stood looking after him, +a dark scowl on his face. Those miserable women, not half so innocent as +blanketed squaws drooling about a camp-fire. And that slim Mrs. +Blakemore, lithe as a viper, had inspired it all. How could a refined +woman be so full of the devil's poisonous juice? In his humble way, he +had tried to help her out of a trouble. Tired, and with every bone +aching, he had fought off sleep to make good his word with her. Wasp! +she had stung him. It was nearly noon, and he went to the house to make +fat meat hiss in a hot pan. He sat brooding over the table when Mitchell +came in. "Are you stalled in sight of the stable?" the hired man asked, +seeing that Milford had not begun to eat. + +"I'm down to the hub in a rut." + +"Prize out," said Mitchell, sitting down. + +"That's right, I guess; only thing I can do. Shove that hog down this +way. How are you getting along over there?" + +"Be done by night. Rain put the ground in pretty good fix. You about +done?" + +"Yes. I'll plow this afternoon." + +"Say, Bill, what are divorces worth?" + +"Divorces? I never bought one." + +"Well, it looks to me like I ought to get one pretty cheap under the +circumstances. Wife ran away." + +"Yes, they ought to give you a good discount. Don't you think you'd +better get two while you're at it? You might need another one after a +while." + +"No, I guess one'll be about enough." + +"Generally, when a man is looking for a divorce, he wants to marry +again. Have you got any such notion?" + +"Well, I know a woman that would make a man a mighty good livin'. She +ain't putty; she's as freckled as a turkey egg, but she's a hustler from +'way back. I could bring her here. You could board with us. She's a +rattlin' cook; and she's got land. What do you say?" + +"I say you are a scoundrel?" + +"Oh, that's all right; I'm a man. But I don't see anythin' wrong in it. +She's a woman, and if it ain't right for a woman to keep house, then I +don't know what it is right for her to do. She wants to marry, and I +don't see that anybody is kickin' up much dust around her. What do you +say?" + +"I told you what I said." + +"Yes, you said I was a scoundrel, and there hain't been any argument +raised on that p'int. What do you say about her comin'?" + +"She'll not come while I'm here; I'll tell you that." + +"That's all you need to tell me. I'm a good scuffler, but I know when +I'm flung down. You didn't see the Professor's daughter when you was +over there, did you?" + +"Is she the woman?" + +"That I'm thinkin' of marryin'? Not much! Willie bows to her and passes +on. She reminds me of a blue heron, and the wind whistles when she +passes." + +"How did you happen to mention her?" + +"Oh, she flew into my head--so different from my woman. I know'd the +Professor when he tried to keep boarders over near Antioch. Talked his +house empty. Took up a tramp that had book sense, and kept him till the +old woman drove him off. It took more than a hint to get rid of him. She +throw'd his wallet and stick out into the road. He picked 'em up, and +went back into the house to argy Scripture with the Professor. Then she +flew at him with a fire-shovel, and he hulled out. What makes you so +glum on women, Bill?" + +"What makes a dog so glum on cats?" + +"There must be somethin' wrong, sure enough, when you put it that way. +What's wrong?" + +"Oh, they've raised hell over at the house." + +"The women have? Well, that's their business, Bill; that's their trade." + +"I guess you're right," Milford replied, with a laugh. He got up, took +down his pipe, and went out for a half-hour's smoke on the grass, in the +shade of the walnut tree. The smoke soothed him. Tobacco may be a great +physical enemy, he argued, but a briar-root pipe is the most trustworthy +timber for president of a peace society. Why are women so unforgiving? +Because they do not smoke. Why was James the First a pedantic ass? +Because he wrote a pamphlet against tobacco. Milford lay back in a +forgiving muse. Perhaps, after all, the slim woman had not been so much +at fault. She had too much sympathy to be very strong, and it is manly +to forgive a woman's weakness; it is, at least, manly to acknowledge to +ourselves that we do. It is also manly to hold a slight grudge as a +warning against a recurrence of the offense. Milford would hold a +grudge, and show it by sulking. He would keep himself apart from them +during the week, and on Sunday he would walk high-headed past the house. +This was a sound and respectable resolution, and he smiled upon his own +resources. It took occasion to inspire a plan. And the woman who did not +care whether he were engaged to a thousand women? He would--of course, +he would speak to her, but with distinct reserve. However, some time +must pass before he would give any of them a chance to speak to him. + +A boy came up through the orchard and halted at the garden fence. +Milford asked him what was wanted. "They are going to have some music +over at Mrs. Stuvic's to-night, and they told me to come over and tell +you to be sure and come." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +IN THE OLD WOMAN'S PARLOR. + + +It was clearly an insult to ask him to come. They had slandered him, and +now they wanted him at their entertainment. He told the boy to tell them +that he would not be there. He plowed during the afternoon, with never a +look toward the house when he turned at the end of a row. He hoped that +they expected him; he would smack his lips over the vicious joy of +disappointing them. The invitation had, no doubt, come from Mrs. +Blakemore; Miss Strand could have had no hand in it. She did not care +enough for him to wish for his company. But it made no difference who +did the inviting, he would not go. He went home tired, and was sleepy at +the supper table. He took down his pipe and lighted it. Mitchell talked +about the woman whose freckles were as gold to him. He had found a +valuable rod and reel in the rushes; he would sell them and buy a +divorce. + +"If you take my advice," said Milford, "you'll let the women alone." + +"But a feller that's in love can't take advice." + +"Love!" Milford sneered. "You in love?" + +"That's what. Fell in love about a quarter to two, last Sunday was a +week. What are you doin' with that boiled shirt lyin' out there? Goin' +to put it on?" + +"I don't know. Is there any water in the rain barrel?" + +"Ought to be if it hain't leaked out; poured in there last night. Goin' +to take a bath?" + +"Don't suppose I want to drink out of the rain barrel, do you?" + +"Didn't know; no tellin' much what a feller'll do. But it hits me that +when a man begins to take baths he's sorter in love himself, now that +we're on that subject." + +"Well, I don't have to get a divorce." + +"That don't sound like you, Bill. Don't believe I'd gouge you that way." + +Milford's dark countenance flushed; he made a noise in his throat. He +held out his hand, and in a gentle voice said: "I beg your pardon. +Shake." + +"You've said enough," Mitchell replied, shaking hands with him. "All +that a son of old Illinois needs is that sort of play, and he's done. +Goin' somewhere to-night?" + +"No; thought I'd put on clean clothes and walk about in the woods." + +He dressed himself and walked down by the lake. He heard the merry +splashings of moonlight bathers, the hound-like baying of the bull +frogs, far away in the rushes. He picked his way over a barbed-wire +fence, and went into the thick woods where the close air still held the +heat of the day. He came out into the road a quarter of a mile below +Mrs. Stuvic's house. It was too dark to go back through the woods; there +were numerous stumps, tangled vines, and the keen briar of the wild +gooseberry. The grass field further along was drenched with dew. He +would pass the house and take the road through the hickory grove. As he +drew near, he heard the piano. It reminded him of an old box that had +been hauled over the mountains and set up in a mining camp. The red +lantern swung from the eaves of the veranda. Some one began to sing, and +he halted at the gate. Why make an outcast of himself? he mused. He went +into the yard, and stood there. Who was he, to be sulking? What right +had he, a laborer, to expect anything? They had made him a gift of their +attention. In the city, they would not have noticed him. He would go in, +a nobody, and pick up a crumb of entertainment. The door stood open. +Mrs. Blakemore saw him. She came out with a smile. + +"Oh, I thought you would come if you could," she said. "So kind of you. +Come in." + +The first person whom he saw upon entering the room was the Professor, +in earnest conversation with the "discoverer." He was telling her of the +pleasure it would give him to have her meet his wife. They would strike +up a friendship, both being patronesses of art and intellect. But his +wife was a great home-body. She rarely went out; she was contented to +have him represent her with his praises. And he thought that it was +pardonable in a man to praise his wife. He offered no apology for it. +Romance had not deserted his fireside. A fresh bow of blue ribbon was +ever at the throat of his married life. At this moment he spied Milford, +and blustered up to greet him. It was not enough to say that he was +pleased; he was delighted. He grasped Milford's hand and shook it +warmly. He spoke of Milford's charming visit to his home; it was an +honor that his family keenly appreciated. "Oh, you are acquainted with +Mrs. Goodwin. Yes, I remember now, you paid her a deserved compliment. +He spoke of your great gifts, madam." + +Gunhild was not in the room. Footsteps came down the passage-way, and +Milford's eyes flew to the floor. Some one at the piano loosened a dam, +and let flow a merry rivulet, and into the room danced Mrs. Stuvic, her +head high, and her back as straight as an ironing board. The children +shrieked with laughter, and the men and women clapped their hands. She +was oblivious to applause. She was looking far back upon a hewed log +floor, bright faces about a great fireplace, and a fiddler in the +corner, beneath a string of dried pumpkin, hanging from a rafter. The +rillet of music ran out. + +"Yes, you bet!" she said, with tears in her eyes. "Many and many a time, +Bill; and all night long, with the snow three feet outside, and the +wolves howlin' in the woods. Yes, you bet! Who is this?" + +Mrs. Goodwin introduced the Professor. He hopped to one side, back +again, bowed, and expressed his great pleasure. "Dolihide," said Mrs. +Stuvic. "I'd forget that name even if it was my own. But my, what names +they do fish up these days! Oh, let me see, you've moved over to the +old Pruitt place. Yes, I saw your wife at Lake Villa. Big fat woman. And +I've met you before." + +The Professor bowed. "Not lean, madam; not lean, but not fat. She +couldn't dance as you do, but not fat, madam." + +"No, you bet she couldn't," said Mrs. Stuvic. "And there ain't many that +can. Strike up a tune there, and, Bill, you come out here and dance with +me." + +"Oh, yes, do!" Mrs. Blakemore cried. + +Milford not only declined; he "bucked." He was not to be caught in such +a trap. He might be made to look ridiculous, but not with his willing +assistance. He might have nerve enough to break wild horses, he said, +but not enough to get out on a floor to dance. Why not take the +Professor? Milford expected to see him run, but he stepped forth with a +gracious smile, and took hold of the old woman. And while they were +dancing Gunhild entered the room. Without even the slightest tint of +embarrassment, she went straightway to Milford and shook hands with him. +She had been out bareheaded, under the trees, and dewdrops gleamed in +her hair. + +"Did you find Mrs. Goodwin much scared about you last night?" + +"Not much. She knew I would come home safe. This morning, when I said +how kind it was of you to keep a light burning in a pan for me, they +laughed. And I was angry till they told me it was all a joke." + +"I heard about it. Blakemore told me." + +"Did he? Oh, it was not much important." + +"And they tried to guy you about me, did they?" + +"Guy me? They tried to plague. Then I get mad till I understand, and +then I laugh." + +"Blakemore said they told you that I--that I was engaged." + +"Yes, but that was of no difference. They tried to make me think I do +wrong to walk with you when you engaged. I told them that it made no +difference." + +"But I am not engaged." + +"No? But it makes no difference. You know, I think it almost a shame for +that old woman to dance. It makes me feel--feel--I do not know, but you +know--you understand." + +"Yes; I feel the same way." + +"Yes. Have you been working hard to-day?" + +"Pretty hard. What have you been doing?" + +"Reading a book and trying to draw. I could do neither. Spread +everywhere was a drawing that I could not catch; and hummed in the air +were words more beautiful than in the book. They have quit dancing. I am +glad." + +The Professor resumed his talk with the "discoverer." "One of the truest +pleasures enjoyed by man is to meet a woman with a mind." + +"Indeed! And are they so very rare?" + +"Oh, no, no," the Professor quickly replied, realizing that he had +struck the wrong key. "As an educator, I know the scope and the power of +the female mind--I do not like the expression, female mind, but I must +employ it to make my meaning clear. Yes, I know the scope and the power, +comparing more than favorably with the mind of man. But--" and here he +halted, with a finger in the air, to give the word emphasis--"but, once +in a long while, we meet an exceptional female mind, and it is then that +we experience our truest pleasure. Such a mind, I may say, is possessed +by my wife; and, begging the pardon of your presence, such is the mind +that I have met here to-night." + +She looked at him with a woman's doubt, which means more than half +believing. She glanced at Gunhild, wondering whether the girl had +overheard the remark. She seemed anxious that some one should have +caught it. Compliments are almost worthless when they reach none but the +flattered ear. And to tell that they have been paid is too much like +presenting one with a withered flower. Gunhild had not heard the remark. +She was picking up Milford's slowly dropping words. + +"You are very kind, Professor, but, really, you don't expect me to +believe you when you express such satisfaction at meeting me." + +The Professor appeared grief-smitten. "Madam, as an educator, I have +been accustomed to deal with many phases of the human mind. And I have +lived long enough to verify the adage that honesty is the best policy, +in words as well as in acts; and I have learned that, while truth told +to man is a virtue, it is, told to a woman, a sublimity." He bowed and +twisted the sharp point of his red beard, a gimlet with which he would +bore through the soft sheeting of a woman's incredulity. At this moment, +it flashed upon her that she had made another discovery, not of a +genius, but of a philosopher. But she must be cautious. He might have a +treatise ready for the publisher. She sighed a regret that the doctor +was not present to hear the exalted talk of this gifted man. How dim his +eyes were, with groping in the dusk, looking for the learning of the +ancients! In such wisdom there must be sincerity. But it was not wise to +swallow with too keen a show of relish. She would dally with this +delicious food. + +"Oh," she laughed, "it is so easy for a man to pay a compliment." + +"Madam, I admit that a studied art may become a careless grace, witness +the Frenchman and the Spaniard; but the blunt Anglo-Saxon must still +depend upon truth for his incentive--the others taste dainty viands; he +feeds upon blood-dripping meat." + +She did not know exactly what he meant, but it sounded well, and bowing +thoughtfully, she said: "How true!" + +Some one raised a clamor for a song from Mrs. Stuvic. She was as ready +to sing as to dance. Her accomplishments belonged to her boarders. And +she sang a song popular in her day: + + "Pretty little Miss, don't stand on beauty, + That's a flower that must soon decay, + Reddest rose in yonder's garden, + Half an hour will fade away. + No, no, no, sir, no; all the answer she made was no." + +Milford was called upon for a story. He refused, but the girl's eyes +implored him, and he told a story of heroism in a blizzard. The +Professor was then called out for a speech. The Liberty of the American +was his theme; the glory of every man having a castle, his climax. +Milford smiled to think of the road leading from the Professor's castle, +of the portcullis that had come near falling on him. He saw the mistress +of the castle standing with her hands on her hips. + +"He has so many fine words," said Gunhild. "Why don't they send him to +the Congress?" + +"Because they've got too many fine words there already, I guess," +Milford answered. + +"But is he not a very smart man?" + +"Oh, yes, smart enough, I guess. That's what's the matter with him--too +smart." + +"But how can a man be too smart?" + +"I give it up. But it seems as if it takes a fool to make a success of +life; the hogs of the business world root up money." + +"I do not understand. You are making some fun of me." + +"No, I'm giving it to you straight. The successful business man wears +bristles on his back." + +She laughed at this. She said that she knew he was making fun of her; +but she liked to hear him talk like that. It was so new to her. + +"Ha! her complexion reminds me of a tinted vase with the light seeping +through it," said the Professor, talking to the "discoverer," but with +his eyes fixed upon the Norwegian girl. "A flower come up out of the +wild and long-neglected garden of the Viking. And how truly American +those people soon become! Blood, madam; it is blood." + +"Gunhild is a good girl, and knows nothing so well as she does honor." + +"A girl who knows honor is splendidly equipped, madam. I have a +daughter. And who is it that accompanies her? It is honor, madam. +Throughout the seasons, they are together, arm about waist, like school +girls, studying virtue from the same book." + +She leaned over and touched his arm. "I want to ask you something. Do +you know very much about Mr. Milford?" + +"He warmed his hand with his heart, madam, and extended it to me." + +"But don't you think he's peculiar?" + +"All things are peculiar until we understand them." + +"I know, but isn't there something strange about his being here as he +is, working on a farm?" + +"Not to me, when I meditate upon the fact that I myself keep books and +do general roust-about work for a planing mill. Roust-about--idiomatic, +good, and to the point." + +"But farm work is so hard," she persisted. "And he appears to be so well +equipped for something better. At times, he is almost brilliant." + +"A brightness in the rough," said the Professor. "He has that crude +quality of force which sometimes puts to shame the more nearly even +puissance of a systematic training." + +She looked at him as if her eyes said, "Charming." And the world had +suffered him to go to seed, nodding his ripe and bursting pod in the +empty air. It was a shame. But his treatise on philosophy--she must +find out about that. + +"Professor, have you ever written anything?" + +He smiled. "Madam, the web I have woven, if spun straight, would +encircle the globe. I have written." + +"Philosophy?" + +"Finance, madam." + +She choked a laugh in its infant uprising. That this threadbare man +should write about money! How ridiculous! But true genius has many a +curious kink. + +Mrs. Blakemore, feeling that she was neglected, brought in Bobbie to +annoy the company with him. She bade him shake hands with Mr. Milford; +she commanded him to recite for the Professor. The learned man smiled. +He said that there was nothing so sweet as the infant lip, lisping its +way into the fields of knowledge. Multicharged by his mother, the boy +began to fire off, "I am not mad, no, am not mad." Mrs. Stuvic, who had +been remarkably quiet, got up and remarked as she passed Milford: "This +lets me out; yes, you bet!" + +The Professor applauded the youngster. He would be a great man, some +day. He had the voice and the manner of the true orator. Only seven +years old? Quite remarkable. His mother stroked his hair, and said that, +in fact, he would not be seven till the eighteenth of September. At this +the Professor was much surprised. Really a remarkable boy. + +Mr. Josh Spence, a fat man rounding out a corner of the room with his +retiring flesh, was called upon for a song. He was modest, and he +declined, but yielded upon persuasion, and in strained tenor sang +"Marguerite." + +"Do you like his voice?" Gunhild asked. + +"It's not big enough to fit him," Milford answered. "But let him sing. +It keeps the boy quiet." + +"Oh, are you not ashamed? He is a nice little man, and his mother loves +him so." + +"And only seven years old," said Milford. + +"You must not make fun. The boy is her heart. You must not laugh at a +heart." + +Milford flinched. He had not said the right thing. "Mitchell, the man +who works with me, called me down for saying something that I oughtn't +to have said, and I apologized, and we shook hands. I apologize to you. +Shall we shake hands?" + +She shook her head. "No, it will not be necessary. You do not mean to be +cruel." + +This touched him. He tried to hide himself with a laugh. She looked at +him earnestly, and his face sobered. He thought of the night before, his +kneeling to her on the floor of the haunted house, and felt that it +would be a comfort to drop upon his knees again, not to talk of the wind +rising among the trees, but to tell her that she had clasped her hands +about his heart. + +"Shall we go out on the veranda?" he asked, eating her with his glutton +eyes. + +"No, it is getting late. See, Mrs. Goodwin is telling the Professor +good-night. I must go too." + +"May I see you again soon?" + +"Oh, you may come. Mrs. Goodwin will not care." + +"But do you want me to--do you care if I come?" + +"Yes, I will like for you to come. We will be friends." + +"And shall we go over into the woods where the mandrakes are in bloom?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Goodwin likes the flowers that grow in the woods. She calls +them beautiful barbarians." + +Mrs. Stuvic took the lantern down from under the eaves of the veranda. +She called it a sign to every rat to hunt his hole. She joked at Milford +as he passed her, going out. Even her blunt eye saw that he was +enthralled. "Not so loud," he said. "Those people might hear you." + +"I'd better flag you down," she replied, swinging the red lantern before +his face. + +Milford and the Professor walked off together along the road running +through the grove. "Professor, you seemed to be happy to-night." + +"My dear fellow, I am the most miserable man alive--just at this time." + +"What's the trouble?" + +"Life insurance. It will be due on the ninth of this present month, +three days from now, ninety-seven dollars and forty cents, and how I am +to raise it the Lord only knows. I have been carrying it for seven +years, a galling burden, shifted from shoulder to shoulder, with but a +moment of relief between the shifts. Many a time as the day approached +have I wished that the lightning might strike me. And I pledge you my +word that I would rather die any sort of death than to have it lapse. +It has been a hard fight, a fight that my wife and daughter, as +intelligent as they are, could not fully understand. They argue +sometimes that the money thus invested would make them comfortable, with +better clothes and more furniture in the house. They cannot comprehend +that I am making this great sacrifice for a rainy day, a day when I +shall be out in the rain and they in a better house." + +"Well, I want to tell you that it's noble in you." + +"No, I don't look at it that way. It is a self-defense, an easing of my +conscience for not providing better for them. But I must manage to raise +it somehow, and I have an idea. I have been sounding Mrs. Goodwin. She +has faith in my ability. I am going to write something and upon it +borrow enough money from her to pay my installment. Her husband can send +the paper to a medical review with his name signed to it. Some sanitary +measures that I have long pondered shall be set forth. Result, notoriety +for the doctor and his wife and a moment of ease between the shifts for +me. Would you resort to anything like that?" + +"Would I? Well, I should think so. Do you know what I'd do? If I +had--had some one dependent upon me and had my life insured, I'd go out +on the highway and hold up a chosen servant of the Lord before I'd let +it lapse." + +"My dear boy, I am delighted to know that you understand how I feel. I +don't want to be a rascal; I would like to be honest. But I tell you +that I have resorted to many a piece of trickery--almost treachery--to +pay my premiums. I could tell you something, but you would hate me for +it." + +"No, I wouldn't." + +"Well, I would better not tell it. What a charming young woman!" + +"Yes. Blakemore calls her a 'peach.'" + +"A vulgarism not altogether unbefitting," said the Professor, stumbling +along in the dark. "She has not the dash of the American girl, perhaps, +but I rather admire her for the lack of it. Well, our roads part here. +From now until morning I must work on my medical paper." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +HIS NICKNAME. + + +The hot weather fled before a cool mist that came floating over from +Lake Michigan. A cold rain began to fall. Cows lowed, and dogs, soonest +of all creatures to feel a change in the atmosphere, crouched shivering +in the doorways. Milford worked in the barn till there was nothing more +to do, and then he went to the house and sat down with a newspaper. But +he could not find interest in it. He threw down the paper and from his +bag he took out a worn copy of Whittier. It was a day when we like to +read the old things which long ago we committed to memory. We know the +word before we reach it, but reaching it, we find it full of a new +meaning. But the hours are long when the heart is restless. Out in the +woods the mist hung in the tree-tops as if vapor were the world's +slow-moving time, balking among the dripping leaves. From a longing +Milford's desire to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's became a feverish throb. +But the old woman's grin and the red lantern waved in his face +constantly arose before him. He strove to recall what the girl had said. +He could not find the words that she had spoken, but he remembered that +he had felt an encouragement. He went out in the drizzle, to the knoll +in the oat field, and stood there, gazing toward the house. He cursed +himself for a fool and returned to his cheerless shelter. The hired man +sat at the dining-room table, playing solitaire with a pack of greasy +cards. + +"I worked this thing the other day, but it won't come now," he said. + +"But what have you done when you do it?" + +"Well, not much of anything, but you're on top. Heigho! I'd almost +rather work than to sit around such a day as this. I don't believe we +can do anything in the field to-day. Think so?" + +"No. Thinking about going somewhere?" + +"Not exactly. Didn't know but I might go over to see my girl. Told me +the other day she was lonesome without me. And when you get a woman so +she's lonesome without you, why, you've got her foul. Haven't changed +your mind about not wantin' her here, have you?" + +"No, and I don't expect to change it. I don't know how long I'll be +here." He strode up and down the room. "But I'll stick it out," he +added, talking to himself. "It's got to be done, no matter what comes." + +"Yes, stick it out," said the hired man. "You've got too good a hold to +turn loose now. The fellers around have begun to praise you. They say +you are goin' to make a go of it." + +"A go of what?" + +"I don't know, but that's what they said." + +"Bob, do you remember my telling you not long ago that I once jumped on +a horse and galloped away from a girl." + +"Yes, and I thought of how different your case was from mine. Girl +galloped away from me. But what about it?" + +"That woman is over at Mrs. Stuvic's now." + +"You don't mean the same woman?" + +"Yes, I do; the very same woman--a Norwegian." + +"Did she say she was the same?" + +"She hasn't said anything about it and neither have I. But I know she's +the same. She wasn't quite grown when I saw her in a little town out +West. She was at a hotel--I think her uncle ran the place. I don't +believe she ever noticed me. But I noticed her, and I made up my mind +that I wasn't going to be tangled up with her, so I rode away, whistling +over the prairie. Yes, sir, the same woman. I never could forget that +face, not so beautiful, but a face that takes hold and never turns +loose." + +"Well, that is strange," said the hired man, looking at an ace of clubs +and slowly placing it on the table. "Believe I'm going to fluke on this +thing. Smart woman, Bill?" + +"I don't know; I can't tell." + +"But you've heard her talk, haven't you?" + +"Yes," said Milford, standing at the window, looking out at the mist, +now trailing low over the fields. "I've heard her talk, but when a man +has galloped away from a woman he's not much of a judge of her mind." + +"This ten specker wants to go right here. Now let me see. I guess you're +right, Bill. But what are you goin' to do about it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well, that's perfectly natural. Six goes here. You better not let the +old woman find it out. She'll devil you to death." + +"She already knows there's something up. It didn't take but a moment for +me to satisfy myself that this was the same girl; and I struck out +again, intending to go away; but I stopped at the gate and went back." + +"But what makes you run away from 'em? I run after 'em. Built that way. +Canal cook goes here," he said, referring to a queen. "Is she skittish, +Bill?" + +"No," said Milford, turning from the window and walking up and down the +room. "She's modest, but not skittish." + +"And you don't remember whether she's got good sense or not?" + +"Of course she has. What the devil are you talking about?" + +"All right. But you said you didn't know. I simply want to get at the +merits of the case. I know a good deal about women as women go, and they +go. Been married once and slipped up three times. Can she talk without +smilin' all the time?" + +"Yes. She's very earnest at times." + +Mitchell raked the cards together, shuffled them and threw the pack on +the table. "A woman that smiles all the time wants you to think she's +better than she is. I married a smile." + +"A frown trailing the skirts of a smile," said Milford, and then with a +laugh, he added: "I must have caught that from the Professor." + +"I don't know, Bill. But a man that'll sit up and read poetry is apt to +say most anythin'. I once heard a fellow say that men read poetry +because they like it and women because they think they do." + +"That fellow was a fool and a liar." + +"Well, it's easy enough to be both. That sort of double harness is +always handy. I don't know much about your case, as I haven't seen her, +but if I was in your place I don't believe I'd rush things. A man that +starts in by being badly stuck generally has to win the woman--not often +that they are stuck alike. I'd stay away and make her get lonesome to +see me." + +"But how can I tell whether or not she's lonesome to see me?" + +"By her tryin' not to seem glad when she sees you again." + +"But that leaves the case open for a trip-up. How can I tell that she's +trying not to seem glad?" + +"Well, your horse-sense will have to tell you that. But I thought you +didn't want any woman on the place." + +"I don't. In looking at it I haven't strained my eye as far as +marriage." + +"Then what's the use of lovin' her? It's a waste of raw material." + +"There's something I must do before I could permit myself to think of +marrying, and I'm going to do it if it takes a leg. But I'll tell you +what's a fact, I'd rather have that woman's love than anything on the +earth. Sometimes I think that if I knew she loved me I'd be willing to +die. There's somebody out there on the veranda." + +A boy came with a note from the Professor's wife, inviting Milford to +supper that evening. There was no allusion to the cause that led to his +kicking up the dust in front of her gate. It would give her husband, her +daughter and herself great pleasure to have him come, and it was hoped +that he would not disappoint them. The boy had not waited for an answer. +The courtesy fell as an obligation. There was no easy way to dodge it. +He would go. + +The afternoon was long. Mitchell rigged himself in his best, bought of a +peddler after much haggling, and went forth to woo the freckled woman. +Milford strolled out into the woods. It was a pleasure to stand in the +mist, the trees shadowy about him. It was dreamy to fancy the fog a torn +fragment of night, floating through the day. It was easy to imagine the +lake a boundless sea. Over the rushes a loon flew, a gaunt and feathered +loneliness, looking for a place to light. Milford strolled along a +pathway, over high ground, once the brow of the receding lake; and here +the growth was heavy, with great trees leaning toward the marsh and +hawthorn thickets standing in rounded groups. He came to an open space. +In the midst of it stood a sapling. A grape vine had spread over its +branches, neatly trimming its outer edges, a hoisted umbrella of leaves. +He stopped short. On a boulder beneath this canopy, with her back toward +him, almost hidden, sat a woman. She was wrapped in a cloak. But there +was no mistaking her hair. She heard his footstep and looked round. She +did not appear much surprised. She arose with a smile. + +"I have been sitting here in Norway," she said. "See the cliffs?" she +added, pointing to a mountain range of mist. + +"But you must have got wet." + +"No. But it would make no difference. I do not mind it. I love such a +day. It is an etching. Do you go this way? I have stayed long enough." + +She walked along the path in front of him, bending to avoid the low +boughs, laughing when a wet leaf slapped her cheek. + +"Let me go in front to clear the way," he said. + +"Oh, no, I like this." + +She leaped across a gulley. A briar pulled at her skirts. She turned +about with the merest tint of a blush. He was not enough of an idealist +to etherealize her. He felt her spirit, but acknowledged her a flesh and +blood woman, belonging to the earth, but as the flower does, with a +perfume. Her lips bespoke passion; her eyes control. He was glad that he +saw her so clearly. + +"We shall soon be to the road," she said. + +"And you mean that you will leave me there as you did the other night?" + +"You are quick to guess." + +"Is it because you don't want to be seen with me?" + +"Yes. Those women talk." + +"But haven't they--haven't they any faith in their kind?" + +"Not much," she said frankly. + +"But why should you care what they say?" + +She looked back at him. "I mean that you are so far above them," he +added. "You are worth all of them put together." + +"It is very kind of you to say so. But I am not." + +"I would swear it on a stack of Bibles." + +"Your oath would not be taken. But let us not talk about it. You do not +know what you say when you praise me. I don't place myself above them. I +know myself." She halted, turned about and held forth her hand. "See, I +have worked in the potato field. I have been a laborer." + +"I am a laborer now," he said as they walked on. "There's no disgrace in +work." + +"Not for a man, not for a woman, but in a field with rough men--" she +shrugged her shoulders. + +"But the rough men--they had no effect on you," he said, almost +pleadingly. "What effect could they have?" + +"I was very young. Even at school I had not forgotten their oaths. My +uncle sent me to school. He was a poor man, but he sent me." + +"Didn't he run a hotel at one time?" he asked. + +"Yes, out in Dakota. I worked for him between terms. There were many +Norwegians about, and I learned English slowly. But this is of no +interest to you." + +"Yes, it is--the keenest sort of interest. I mean I like to hear it. +What became of your uncle?" + +"He is a gripman on a cable train in the city. One of these days I am +going to pay him back. And I am going to pay Mrs. Goodwin, too. I will +be her companion as long as it pleases her, and then I must find work. I +think I can teach drawing in the country. I could do nothing at it in +town. Now, you see, I must be careful not to have any talk. I can take +care of myself anywhere, in a potato field or in the woods, but I must +not distress Mrs. Goodwin. This is the road." + +"Wait a moment. I feel more at liberty to talk to you." + +"Now that you find out that I have been a laborer? I do not like that. I +wish you had not said it." + +"Wait. No, not that, but because we are more of a kind in a way--we both +have an object. I am going to pay a man. That's the reason I dig in the +hot sun." + +"Are you so honest?" + +"No, I'm worse than a thief. Don't go--just one moment, please. Sometime +I may tell you. They think I like to work, but I hate it. In my thoughts +I have committed a thousand murders with my hoe. Let me ask you a +question, one laborer of another. Do you like me?" + +"Very much," she answered, looking at him steadily. + +"I thank the Lord for that much. We might help each other to--" + +"No, our battles are apart." + +"Oh, I didn't mean that. I mean we can help each other spiritually. +Don't you think so?" + +"We can all help one another spiritually," she said. "May I go now?" she +asked, smiling. + +"I wish I could keep you from going. Wait. I can't understand that you +have labored in a field. You are the most graceful woman I ever +saw--the most perfect lady couldn't discount you. You've got good +blood. I believe in blood." + +"I am of a good family," she said. "My father was once a man of some +importance. But the world turned against him. Blood is all that saved +me." + +"I've got one more word to say, now that we are better acquainted. I +jumped on a horse once and galloped away from you--out at the little +town on the prairie. You don't remember me, but I do you." + +"Galloped away from me!" she said in surprise. "Why did you do that?" + +"Because I didn't want to get tangled up. Did you ever see a bigger +fool? And when I saw you out here I started off again, but I stopped and +said, 'I'll be damned if I do.' Once is enough. May I tell you more?" + +"No," she said, stepping back. "I have heard enough. And what you tell +me may not be true--about galloping away. I don't mean to offend you. +But I have been taught to believe--" + +"That all men are liars," he suggested. She nodded. "They taught you +about right," he went on. "Yes, they did. But sometimes the biggest liar +may tell the truest truth. They took you out of the field and taught you +politeness. I went from a college out into the wilds and there I forgot +learning and learned deviltry. Do you know what they used to call me? +Hell-in-the-Mud. That was my nickname. Hell-in-the-Mud, think of it! And +what saved me, if I am saved? An old woman living on a hillside in +Connecticut--my mother--prayed for me and died. It's a fact. I don't +know whether there's a God or not, that is, for the average run of us, +but there's one for her. Prayed for Hell-in-the-Mud, and her prayer was +printed in the village paper, and I got hold of it. Then I said I would +pay him--a man. But go on, I'm telling you too much." + +She turned away without saying another word and almost ran along the +road. He stood watching her, hoping that she would look back at him, but +she did not. He went to the house. He snatched the cards from the table +and tore them into bits. "I hate the sight of them," he said. The clock +struck five. He was reminded of his engagement at the Professor's, and +he hastened to fill it. He had dreaded to meet the woman who had scared +him out of her dooryard. His nerve had been lead. Now it was iron. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +A MAN + + +As Milford hastened over the road that led to the Professor's house, a +picture thrust itself into his mind, to shorten his stride, to make him +slow. He saw the girl's hand held out to him, and he wondered why he had +not dared to touch it. Surely, there was no labor mark upon it, pink and +soft-looking, a hand for the pressure of love and not for work in a +field. She had said that she liked him. But any one might have said +that. She had said it with a frankness which showed that she had not +told more than the truth. But why should she have told more than the +truth? Why have had more than truth to tell? He put it all aside and +strode onward toward the Professor's house. A light gleamed feebly +through the mist. + +He unwound the chain from about the gate-post. A dog barked. The door +opened and the Professor stepped out, gowned and slippered. He seized +his visitor warmly by the hand and led him into the sitting-room, dim +with faded furnishings. His fingers were ink-stained, and his red hair +was awry as if he had raked his head for thought. Mrs. Dolihide came +into the room. + +"My dear," said the Professor, "permit me to present to you, and to the +humble hospitality of our home, our neighbor and my friend, Mr. Milford, +the so-called mysterious, but, indeed, the plain and straightforward. +Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. Milford." + +She smiled pleasantly, drew back with a bow, stepped forward and held +out her hand. She said that she was delighted to meet him. She had heard +her husband speak of him so often. Milford breathed a new atmosphere. He +saw that there was to be no allusion to the dust that was kicked up in +front of the house. From the dining-room there came a stimulating sniff +of coffee. A cat came in with a limber walk and stiffened herself to rub +against Milford's chair. + +"A fine cat," he said, stroking her. + +"A marvelous animal," replied the Professor. "We have had her now going +on--how long have we had her, my dear?" + +"Oh, she's only been here about two weeks," his wife answered. + +"Ah, I was thinking of her predecessor, a most wonderful cat, with a +keen sense of propriety, never disturbing the loose ends of thought that +a student suffers to lie upon his table." + +Mrs. Dolihide agreed that the other cat was good enough, but that she +had fits, and in his way Milford acknowledged that fits, while not +necessarily arguing a want of merit, could not avoid giving an erratic +cast even to most pronounced worth. This was all the Professor needed, +and he forthwith launched a ship of disquisition, but when he had fully +rigged it and neatly trimmed its sails, his wife broke in with the +remark that the country was overrun with common people from the city. +One would naturally expect noisy uncouthness, and a lack in many +instances of refined reading, but-- + +"My dear," the Professor interrupted, "you must bear in mind that the +minor summer resort is a kind of Castle Garden, with now and then a +shining exception. Here we have the drudges of trade. Am I right, Mr. +Milford?" + +"Yes, the experiments, the hagglers and the failures." + +The Professor slapped his leg. "A goodly remark, sir; upon my soul, a +worthy illustration." + +"And I have a good deal of fault to find with the home society," said +Mrs. Dolihide. "It is jagged and raw, with a constant scuffle after the +dollar--" + +"The necessary dollar," observed the Professor. + +"The scarce dollar," she replied. + +"And therefore necessary, my dear. But you are right as to society. +There are many good people here, excellent families, but the rank and +file are common scratchers of the soil. But they thrive, a reproach to +men of more intelligence. And now, sir," he added, turning to Milford, +"upon what does success depend? Mind? Oh, no. Industry? No. What then? +Temperament. Temperament is of itself a success. It--" + +"Supper," said a young woman appearing in the door. + +At the table Milford was presented to Miss Katherine Dolihide, slim, +cold and prettyish. She might have had a respect for her father's +learning, but it was evident that she held his failure in contempt. With +her, a mind that gathered the trinkets of knowledge and fell short of +providing luxuries for the body could not be reckoned among the virtues. +Wisdom's reflected light was dimmer than an earring. She looked at +Milford, and he felt that he failed to reach her mark. She gave him, he +thought, the dry and narrow smile of ironic pity. She asked him if he +liked the country. He answered that he did, and she remarked that it was +a crude picture daubed with green. There were no old mills. She loved +old mills; no country was beautiful without them. Had she seen old +mills? No, she had not, but she had read of them and had found them +scattered throughout the pages of art. She acknowledged after a time +that the lakes were charming, the woods replete with sweet dreaming, the +lanes full of a vagabond fancy, tinkers of imagination sleeping under +the leaves; but without a ruined mill there could be no perfect rest for +the mind. Milford knew that this was a pretense, not from any +psychological reasoning, but because she was so unlike the Norwegian +girl. To him there was more of conviction in silent opposites than in +noisy arguments. + +"I heard of you the other night over at the honey sociable," she said. + +"Honey sociable?" + +"Yes, honey and biscuit for the benefit of the church. Quite a unique +affair, and wholly new to me, I assure you. A Mrs. Blakemore was present +and spoke of you; she said it was a pity that you hadn't come to tell +stories of the West. A very intelligent woman, don't you think?" + +"Yes, I guess she is." + +"But the most intelligent woman over there," said the Professor, "is +Mrs. Goodwin." + +"Over where?" his wife asked. + +"Why, over at Mrs. Stuvic's." + +"When did you meet her?" + +"Why--er--let me see. I was passing, stepped in to get a drink of water, +and was presented to the lady by Mrs. Stuvic. I didn't stay long, mind +you, but long enough to discover the lady's intelligence. Mr. Milford, +it may take years to discover a comet, sir, but intelligence, brighter +in quality, shines out at once. Pass your cup." + +"You didn't tell me you'd met her," said Mrs. Dolihide. + +"Didn't I mention it? I thought I did. Speaking of this part of the +country, Mr. Milford, is like discussing a new picture with old spots on +it; but all great pictures were once new. Take the view, for instance, +from our veranda. Nothing could be more charming. The grass land, with +scattered trees, trim and graceful in their individuality, the cattle +beneath them, the woods beyond, and--" + +"No, you didn't mention meeting her," said Mrs. Dolihide. + +"But what difference does it make, mother?" the daughter spoke up. "By +this time you ought to know that he meets many intelligent persons that +we never see. Stuck here all the time," she added under her breath. + +"Ah," said the Professor, "man may be walking pleasantly with prosperity +hooked upon his arm, talking of the deeds they are to perform in +common, when up gallops misfortune on a horse, and that is the end. I +was going to take my family to Europe, but there came a galloping down +the road and overtook me. Since then my hands have been tied." + +"When I look around," said Mrs. Dolihide, "and see ordinary people +living on the best in the land, it makes me mad to think that as smart a +man as the Professor--" + +"My dear, like you I could question fate, but--" + +"Fate nothing; I don't know what it is, but it does seem strange to me. +I don't understand why a man as well educated as you are has to struggle +with the world when the commonest sort of a person can buy property. I +don't understand it." + +"Easy enough," the Professor replied. "The commonest sort of a person +may have money, and having money, buys property. Nut-shell argument, +Milford," he added, slapping his hand flat upon the table. + +"Failure has always been easier to understand than success," said +Milford. "Failure is natural, it seems to me. It comes from the weakness +of man and nothing is more natural than weakness. I am arguing from my +own case, and don't mean to reflect on any one else. I have thrown away +many an opportunity, but that was in keeping with my weakness." + +"But I hear that you are anything but weak," said the Professor's +daughter. "They call you a mystery, and a mystery is a success until it +is solved." + +"But an unsolved conundrum might starve to death," he replied. + +"Not so long as it remained unsolved," the Professor declared. "We feed +the performer till he explains the trick." + +"Then I suppose Mr. Milford will not explain his trick," said the girl. + +"I'd be foolish to shut off my supplies, wouldn't I?" + +"Yes," she admitted, "but if you have a mystery you ought to let your +friends share it." + +"Ha," said the Professor, "that would mean the disposition of all the +shares. But I don't see why they call my friend a mystery. A man comes +into the neighborhood and goes to work. Is there anything so mysterious +about that? It would be more of a mystery if he lived without work." + +"Father sometimes fails to catch the atmosphere of a situation," said +the girl, giving Milford a smile not so narrow and not so dry with +irony. "One's appearance might have something to do with the estimate +formed of him," she continued. + +"The hired man marches from the east to the west and back again," said +Milford. "And I am a hired man--hired by myself to do something, and I +am going to do it," he added with a tightening of his face. + +"But that mysterious something?" queried the girl. "What is it?" + +"To make money," he answered. "Simmer it down and that's all there is to +life." + +In her heart she agreed with him, but she took issue. She said that +there was something better than money. He asked if it were an old mill, +and they laughed themselves into better acquaintance. + +"It would be well to sit here," said the Professor to Milford, "but I +want you to go up to my work shop with me. I wish to show you +something." + +As Milford arose to follow him, he thought that on the woman's face he +saw a sneer at "work shop," and he felt that she and her daughter had +learned to look upon it as an idle corner, full of useless lumber. The +schemes of this ducking failure of a man were not of serious interest to +them. His readiness to talk made him seem light of purpose, and a sigh +that came from his heart might have been an unuttered word breathed upon +the air, a word in excuse of his poverty. + +Milford was conducted to an upper room, furnished with two chairs, a +worn carpet and a table. But the Professor entered it reverently, as if +it were the joss-house of hope. He turned down his light to steady the +flame, placed the lamp upon the table, motioned his visitor to a chair, +sat down, drew a pile of papers toward him, and said: "My dear fellow, I +think I have something here that will tide me over the quarterly rapids. +I believe that among these sheets lie a life insurance premium of +ninety-seven dollars and forty cents. I want you to hear it, and then I +will steal it forth to that woman. Now, in writing for a professional +man, a physician, we will say, you must of all things employ +sky-scraping terms. Medicine has no use for the simple. I wanted to +start off with a cloud-capped sentence, a quotation, and here is one I +found in Hazlett, referring to old Sir Thomas Brown: 'He scooped an +antithesis from fabulous antiquity and raked up an epithet from the +sweepings of chaos.' Isn't that a wild pigeon with the sun on its back?" + +"Yes, I know, but what has it to do with an article on medicine?" + +"Everything. Now let me tell you something. In a paper of this sort you +must take a text, and with sophistry draw your deductions. You must +never be clear. In the opinion of the world involution is depth. It +takes a simple book a hundred years to become a classic. The writer has +starved to death. He sleeps under marble. And who is it that is lost out +there among the briars? The man who wrote the pampered fad. Yes, sir; +let contemporaneous man seek to untangle your skein and you flatter him. +Now, listen." + +He read his paper, making alterations from time to time, marking out +small words and writing in larger ones; and when he was done he looked +at his visitor with a smile. + +"It catches me," said Milford. "I don't know anything about it, but I'm +caught all the same. Have you read it to the ladies?" + +"What!" gasped the Professor. "Read it to them? They would scoff at me, +not because they would catch its pretentious weakness, but because I +wrote it--because I am a failure. And now, sir, do you know I begin to +fall down, as the idiomatics would have it? Yes, sir, I am weakening." + +"How so?" + +"Why, I've hardly got the nerve to take it to that woman. She hasn't +said so, but I know she wants it. When do you expect to see her again?" + +"I don't know." + +"Now let me see. Would you mind taking this thing along and handing it +to her the next time you see her? It would be one of the greatest favors +you could do me. You can explain; I'll trust you for that. It is my only +recourse; my hope has been built on it, and if I fail I swear I--but I +must not fail. You remember I told you that I did something once to help +out the amount, something that would cause you to hate me. I will tell +you what it was. It was a mean trick--dastardly--but I had to do it. A +dog came to my house, a handsome dog with a brass collar. And what did I +do? I sneaked that dog off and sold him for six dollars. Now you'll hate +me." + +"Give me the paper," said Milford, reaching for it. "Don't say another +word. Give it to me. I don't know you very well as knowing men goes, but +you are kind to me, and I want to put my arm around you. I said down +there that money was everything. But it isn't. There's something +better--to find a kinsman in the wilderness. She shall take this thing. +She's got to. If she doesn't, I'll take it to her husband." He put his +arm about the Professor. Tears streamed from the old man's eyes. "There, +it's all right. I'll go over there now. If she won't have it, I'll take +the train for town. I'm going now." + +"Wait a moment," said the Professor, wiping his eyes. "I must not go +down this way. Let me recover myself. You have touched my heart, and, +poor withered thing, it is fluttering. Just a moment. Now we'll go." + +He led the way down the stairs. "I wish you could stay longer," he said +cheerily, "but you know your own affairs. My dear, Mr. Milford is going. +We hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again soon. Our latch-string +is out. Katherine, shake hands with Mr. Milford. I will light him out." + +He stood on the veranda holding the lamp. "It is a dark night, and I +wish we had a lantern. But the road is straight to your house. +Good-night, and God bless you." + +"They have struck up a warm friendship," said the girl. + +"Astonishing," her mother replied. + +The Professor put the lamp on the mantel-piece. "Is he your lost +brother?" his wife asked. + +"He is more than that," the Professor answered, sinking into a chair. +"He is a man." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE OLD SOFA. + + +Early the next morning, the Professor hastened from the dining-room to +answer a rap at his door. And there stood Milford with a roll of bank +notes in his hand. + +"Ha, you've got it; I see you have. Let me shut the door. They must not +hear. Was there ever such luck? Yes, let me take it, the money. Is it +all here? Yes, down to the forty cents." He stuffed the notes into his +pocket. He held up his hand to enjoin caution. "They would rather have a +new settee than an assurance of protection against want in the future. +They live from sun to sun. I live for them, but my mind is fixed on the +time to come. I don't know how to thank you. You are a man of nerve. And +that woman! She is glorious. What did she say?" + +"Oh, nothing much." + +"Didn't she agree that it was the very thing for the Doctor? Didn't she +acknowledge that it would spread the news of his high standing as a +physician and a thinker?" + +"Yes, she said it would do him a great deal of good abroad." + +"A woman in a million. Did the abstruse parts seem to impress her?" + +"Yes, she caught all the kinks." + +"The Socrates of her sex. Did she say that she would send it off at +once?" + +"By the first train. She was particular to ask if you had let any one +else into the secret. She's sensitive--and as I was about to go, she +asked me not to refer to the matter again, and she hoped that you +wouldn't. I don't think she can bear to be thanked. So I promised that +neither of us would speak of the transaction, even to her." + +"Delicate soul! And you did well to promise. My boy, if sincere thanks +are winged things that fly to heaven, there is now a flight of gratitude +to the sky. Won't you come in?" + +"No, I've just had breakfast and must go to work." + +"Well, I hope to see you again before long. And, by the way, I wish to +tell you that my wife and daughter were charmed with your visit. They +are dear to me, but they do not understand. Pardon me, I am detaining +you." + +For more than a week the Professor had drooped under anxiety, but now he +walked high of head. When he entered the dining-room his wife asked who +had called. He answered that it was some one who wanted directions to +Mrs. Stuvic's. Lying might at one time have been a luxury with him, but +now it was a necessity. She rarely expected the truth from him. It took +him longer to tell a lie, and he was fond of talking. And besides, a +failure is under no obligations to tell the truth. + +"It took you quite a while to give him directions." + +"Yes, it is a roundabout way." + +"But you seem to have quite a knack for finding it yourself--to be +presented to remarkable women." + +"My knack for finding remarkable women began in my earlier years." + +"Indeed! And you have been keeping yourself well in practice ever +since." + +"Constant rehearsal with a former discovery keeps me from growing +rusty." + +"Well, I don't care, but there's one thing certain! When you come home +to-night you'll find that I have thrown that old sofa out into the back +yard." + +"It's a dreadful thing, pa," said Miss Katherine. "It's a disgrace." + +"I know it, but we shall have a new one pretty soon." + +"I've heard that for years," said his wife. "Why don't you let that old +life insurance go? Gracious alive, it's nonsense to deny yourself +everything." + +"It's worse than that," the girl spoke up; "it's almost a crime. We +don't want you to fret your life out for us. If we are to have anything +we want you to share it. You haven't seen anything but worry since you +took out the policy. Let it drop. The money you'd have to give for the +next payment would make us happy. We could get so many nice things with +it, and wouldn't feel ashamed every time a visitor comes into the house. +Do, pa." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him appealingly. + +He shook his head. "A crime, you say. Then let us acknowledge it a +crime. But let us also acknowledge that it is not so dark a crime as it +is for a man to die and leave his family in distress. Look at Norwood; +look at Bracken. The neighbors had to contribute." + +"But you aren't going to die yet a while," said his wife. "You are in +good health. Well, there's no two ways about it. I'm going to throw that +old sofa out into the yard. I've stood it as long as I can. It's the +first thing a stranger sees when he comes into the house." + +"And I imagine that people stop just to look in at it," Katherine spoke +up. + +"We might label it as having been the property of some great man," said +the Professor. + +"Oh, I know it's a joke with you, but it's not with us," his wife +retorted. "I don't see any fun in a disgrace." + +"Have you no respect for the aged?" he asked, trying to wink at his +daughter, but she would not accept it. "Let us trail a vine about it and +call it a ruined mill." + +"That's a stab at me, mother," said the girl. "I am not permitted to +have a sentiment." + +"Well, I don't want any; I've had enough," the mother replied. "It's +sentiment, sentiment ever since I can remember, and I'm sick of it." + +"You want poetry, my dear," said the Professor. "Or at least you set +store by it, for didn't you give Tennyson to the preacher?" + +"I don't care if I did, I'm going to throw that old thing out. Wesley, +when is your insurance due?" + +"It is paid, madam, thanks be to the Lord. I sent the money off +yesterday." + +"Why didn't you tell me you were going to send it?" + +"Oh, it was a mere trifle, and I forgot it." + +"For pity sake! And where did you get the money?" + +"I combed it out of the grass." + +"Well, you'd better comb out some for us while you are combing. I've +lived this way till I'm tired of it. Where did you get that money?" + +"The grass was thick, and the grass was long, and the comb pulled heavy +and slow." + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That's all I've got to say." + +"I'm afraid not." + +"I'll talk just as much as I please." + +"I'm afraid so. But let us all be cheerful now. Yesterday it was dark +and misty, and now the sun is bright. Here, mamma, kiss me to my labor. +I haven't drawn at the weak sinews of my feeble salary, and you shall +have enough to buy a new sofa." + +"That's a good dear," she said, kissing him. "Don't let what I said +worry you. I didn't mean it." + +He whistled at the dog as he went out; he sang merrily as he walked +along the road, with the sunrise on his face and the noontime in his +heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +DORSEY. + + +It was Mitchell's day to cook, and when Milford came in to dinner, the +hired man told him that he had something of importance to tell. + +"Out with it," said Milford. + +"No, not till you eat. I never like to choke off a man's appetite. I +wouldn't like to have a man choke off mine. I'd be like old Matt +Lindsey. The court said he must hang for murderin' a peddler. His +lawyers took his case before the supreme bench. And after it had been +argued one of 'em came down to the jail to see old Matt. Just about that +time the jailer brought in his dinner. Old Matt said to the lawyer, +'Don't tell me till I've eat this stuff. Afterwards I mightn't be in the +humor, and I don't want to miss a meal.' And it was a good thing he eat +first." + +"Well, is what you've got to say so bad as all that?" + +"Not a hangin' affair, but it's bad enough. The fact is, you can make it +just as bad as you want it." + +"If it rests with me, I'll not make it very bad. I'll tell you that." + +"But I'll be hanged if it hain't made you turn pale. Why, you're scared, +Bill. Oh, it's not so bad. I'll tell you now, seein' that I've already +choked off your appetite. Why, there's a feller over at Mrs. Stuvic's +that's too fresh. I was out by the windmill and your girl and a woman +came along; and this feller was standin' off, not far away, talkin' to a +chump that was with him, and he made a remark about the girl--won't tell +you what it was, for a feller that's stuck don't like to hear such +things repeated--I know I wouldn't. And I said to myself at the time, +'If Bill knowed that he'd mash your mouth.'" + +"What sort of a looking fellow is he?" Milford quietly asked. + +"Big feller. The hired man over there says his name's Dorsey. Just got +here, I believe." + +"All right. Did you fix the fence where the sheep broke in?" + +"Somebody left the gap down. It's all right now." + +"Did you wrap the collar so it won't hurt the horse's shoulder?" + +"Yes, works all right, now. Haven't got enough to eat, have you?" + +"Not very hungry to-day," said Milford as he walked out. The hired man +called after him, but he did not stop. He took the straight road to Mrs. +Stuvic's. He saw Mrs. Blakemore coming out to the gate. She smiled upon +him as he drew near. She said that she had just received a letter from +George. He was in business again; a real estate firm had taken him as an +experiment. He made a large sale the second day, and was now regularly +employed at a good commission. It had made her very happy. She never +would forget Mr. Milford; there was no doubt about it, he had inspired +her husband with strength. Milford asked if a man named Dorsey were at +the house. She said that she believed there was; he was at dinner. "If +you want to see him, I'll tell Mrs. Stuvic," she said. + +"I wish you would. Tell her I want to see him now. I haven't time to +wait." + +"I will. But isn't that glorious news from George? Oh, you don't know +how low-spirited he was. Sometimes I thought he never would get up +again. Don't you know that just a word, even though lightly spoken, may +sometimes spur one to renewed action? Oh, it's undoubtedly a fact." + +"Yes, words may sometimes be ashes, but often they are coals of fire. +Will you please--" + +"Oh, that's a good sentiment. I must remember it and tell George. He'll +be out again Saturday evening. But I'll go and tell Mrs. Stuvic that you +want to see--that's the man coming out now." + +A strong-looking man came walking out toward the gate. Mrs. Blakemore +stepped aside, and he was about to pass when Milford said: "Your name is +Dorsey, I understand." + +"That's it," the man replied, taking a toothpick out of his mouth. + +"I'd like to see you a moment on business; over in the grove." + +"What's your name?" + +"Come over into the grove. I want to see you a moment. My name's +Milford." + +"Do you want to see me about a horse? I want to hire one. Is that it?" + +"Yes, over in the grove." + +"All right. Got him there? I don't care whether he's gentle or not. I +can manage him all right. The first thing one of you farmers tells a +fellow is that his horse is gentle, when he knows that all he wants is +an opportunity to run away. So you may save yourself that trouble." + +Milford conducted him to a spot out of view from the house. He halted +and threw his hat on the ground. He told him what the hired man had +said. + +"Well," said Dorsey, "this is a fine proceeding." + +"Take off your coat." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"Whip you if I can." + +"But I'm not looking for any trouble." + +"You may not have looked for it, but you've found it." + +"Say, this is all nonsense. You won't tell me what I said, and I don't +remember. But let me tell you something. You can't whip me. I can mop +the earth with you--my way. Is that the way you want to fight?" + +"Yes. _My_ way would mean something. But it won't do in this country. +Take off your coat." + +The fellow was an athlete. Milford was no match for him. He had the +strength, but not the skill in boxing. But once Milford got him down, +ran under and snatched his feet from under him. In a moment, though, he +was up again, meeting strength with skill. Three times he knocked +Milford down. It was useless to continue to fight. Milford held up his +hands. "We'll call it off for the present," he said, panting. + +"Suit yourself. I've got nothing to fight about except to keep from +getting licked, and it's for you to say when to stop." + +"Well, I say stop, for the present. I haven't been used to fighting your +way. I'm from the West, and if I had you there we'd soon settle it. It's +not over with as it is. I'll see you again. Do you expect to come back +out here this summer?" + +"Well, I'm not going to let you keep me away. You don't know what you've +run up against, young fellow. I teach boxing in town. That's my lay." + +"All right. I'll see you again." + +"But my way, understand. Don't come any Western business on me." + +"I'll see you again and your way. I never was beaten long at a time." + +"Good enough. Got through seeing me about the horse?" + +"I'm through. No, wait a moment. If you go back to the house and say +anything about this affair, I'll try you the Western way. Do you +understand?" + +"Oh, it's nothing to me. I won't mention it. Good-day. I'll take care of +your horse." + +Milford went home, covered with blood. He washed himself and lay down +under the walnut tree to steam in his anger. His lip was cut and his +cheek was bruised. He jumped up suddenly, ran into the house and took +two pistols out of a battered leather bag, but he put them back and sat +down in the door to cool. The hired man came around the corner of the +house. + +"I guess you must have found him," he said, halting with a smile and a +nod. + +"Yes, and he was too much for me. But I'll get even with him." + +"That's the way to look at it. May take a long time, but it's to come +round all right. I used to drive a team in Chicago. And one day I had to +cuss the driver of a coal wagon, and he ups with a lump of coal and +smashes my face. I was a long time getting even with him, but I got +there." + +"Did you kill him?" + +"Kill him! Well, I should say not. I didn't have enough money to kill +him and get away with it. I just waited, watchin' him close every time I +saw him. And one day he jumped off his wagon, slipped on the ice and +broke his leg. Satisfied me, and after that I turned him loose." + +"Bob, do you know anything about boxing?" + +"I used to be somethin' of a scrapper. Why?" + +"I want you to teach me." + +"Don't believe I'd be a very good teacher. But, say, I know a feller +that's all right. He used to be a sort of a prize fighter and he's now +got a little saloon up here at Antioch, 'bout ten miles up the road. His +name's Mulligan." + +"All right. You go ahead with your work just as if I was with you. I'm +going up there." + +"Sure enough? All right. When I get through with one thing I'll go at +another." + +Milford trudged off across the fields toward the village of Antioch. At +a well beneath a tree where cows stood in the shade, he stopped to bathe +his face. He saw his dark countenance wrinkling in the disturbed water; +he committed the natural folly of talking to himself. "You are a fool," +he said, looking down into his wavering eye. "You are a fool, and you +want to prove it." He smiled to think how easy it was to produce the +testimony. In such cases nature cheerfully gives her deposition. + +He continued his way across the fields, through a skirt of wooded land +and out into a road. Bicycles crackled past him. A buggy overtook him. +Some one spoke. He looked round and recognized the "discoverer" and the +Norwegian. It was only a two-seated vehicle, but they invited him to +ride. He declined to accept their kindness, trying to hide his face. He +said that he had heard Mrs. Stuvic say that the buggy was not strong. +They were going to the village of Lake Villa. They might stop at the +mill and have a word with the Professor. Milford remarked that the +Professor would no doubt be pleased to see them, but that he was no +doubt very busy. They drove on without having noticed the wounds on his +face. To one not bent upon a vengeful mission, to a thoughtful man with +a mind in tone with the scented air, the soft sky, the spread of green, +the gleam of water, the clouds of blackbirds, such a stroll would have +been rich with an inner music played upon many sweet chords. At a +crossroads stood an old brick house, an ancient rarity upon a landscape +white-spotted with wooden cottages. It was a rest for the eye, a place +for a moment of musing, a page of a family's record, a bit of +dun-colored history. It was built long before the railroad set the +clocks of the country, before man entered into business copartnership +with the minute and employed the second as his agent. It was a relief to +look upon a worn door-sill, a rotting window-blind hanging by one hinge. +In the years long gone the congressman's carriage, laboring through the +mud, had halted there, and the statesman had warmed himself at a fire of +wood, delighting an old Whig with predictions of a glorious victory. At +this place Milford halted to get a drink of water and to sit for a few +moments in the shade. A man came out and asked him if he wanted a team. +He had a team that would not run away. He was not prepared to take +boarders, but when it came to a team he was there. He had driven great +men, pork-packers of Chicago. The man who owned the enormous ice-house +over on the lake had ridden with him. And it was probably one of the +largest ice-houses in the world. It took thousands of dollars the year +before to paint it. Milford told him that he did not want a team, and +the fellow shambled off in disgust. + +There was not much time to be wasted, for the sun was now far over +toward the west. Milford's anger had settled into a cool determination, +and he walked easier, not so hard upon the ground. He began to notice +more things, a cat sitting at a window, looking out upon the narrow +world, a boy with a goat harnessed to a wagon, a farmer who starved his +boarders, hauling veal to the railway, to be shipped to town. He fell in +with a tramp and divided smoking tobacco with him. They strolled along +together. + +"Beautiful country to walk through," said Milford. + +"That's no lie," said the tramp. + +"But all countries are about the same when times are hard, I should +think," Milford remarked. + +"That's no pipe," said the tramp. + +"They tell us, however, that we are to have better times." + +"They are smokin'," said the tramp. + +Their roads separated, and they parted company. The sun was down when +Milford reached the village. It was an easy matter to find Mulligan's +saloon. One of the oldest citizens pointed it out. Mulligan was +half-dozing behind his bar. Several men were at a table, playing cards. +Milford made short work of his introduction. He told his story. There +was but one way to get even. Mulligan laughed. That sort of revenge +appealed to his Irish heart. He would give lessons, and it should not +cost a cent. He put out his whisky bottle. His face beamed. He was glad +to meet a civilized man. The very fact that Milford had come on such a +mission was a proof of an improvement in the country. + +"Dorsey," he said. "Dorsey. He can't box; I never heard of him. Well, +we'll make a jelly out of his face." + +They went out to supper together. "This man has heard of me and has come +miles to get lessons," said Mulligan to the tavern keeper. + +They boxed till late at night and shook hands warmly at parting. +Earnestness is genius, and when Milford set out for home, the moon on +his right shoulder, he felt that he had made surprising progress. It was +nearly daylight when he reached the end of his journey. The hired man +was going out to the barn. + +"You are born to be a great man," said Mitchell. "The cards are shuffled +and cut that way and you can't help it. What are you goin' to do now?" + +"I'm going to sleep for a few hours and then get to work." + +"When are you goin' to take another lesson?" + +"Day after to-morrow." + +"Ain't that feller a bird?" + +"He understands his business." + +"About when do you think you can tackle your job again?" + +"Not till I have learned how. I'm going to get some gloves and have you +box with me between times." + +He went into the house and lay down, and when Mitchell came in he was +asleep with his head on his fist. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +PEEPED IN AT HIM. + + +Blakemore came out on Sunday morning, snapping his watch and complaining +against the pall-bearing march of time. He was full of business. His +pockets were stuffed with papers. He made figures on the backs of +envelopes as he sat at the table. He asked after Milford. His wife said +that the place had somehow lost its charm for Mr. Milford. Mrs. Goodwin +and Miss Strand had seen him in the road. Mrs. Stuvic, standing near, +pressed her lips close together. She shook her head. She did not +understand him, she declared. Lately he had been seen in Antioch. She +did not know what business could have taken him there. + +"You may not be supposed to know," said George, making his figures. + +"Now you keep still," she replied. "I am supposed to know more than you +think for. I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm goin' to live longer than +any of you, I tell you that." + +"It's very natural for us to expect every one else to die," said George. +"It's a pretty hard matter to picture one's self as dead. But the old +fellow is coming along yonder whetting his scythe as he comes." + +"George," said his wife, "don't talk to her that way." + +"Oh, let him talk," the old woman spoke up. "I don't care what he says. +Goes in at one ear and comes out at the other, with me. I'll live to see +him cold, I'll tell you that." + +"Oh, please don't talk that way, Mrs. Stuvic; you give me the shudders. +By the way, Mr. Dorsey has gone back to town, hasn't he?" + +"Yes," Mrs. Stuvic answered. "And he owes me, too." + +"That's what you say about everybody," George declared. "You'll be +saying it about me, next." + +"Well, you did owe me till to-day; and see that you don't do it again. +But that feller Dorsey'll pay. He'll be back again in about two weeks. +He says I've got the finest place in the county." + +"The 'peach,'" George whispered, as Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild came into +the dining-room. His wife pulled at him. The boy wanted to know what he +had said. For a wonder he had not heard. His mind was among the green +apples in the orchard. George bowed to the ladies and began to tell them +about the great improvement in business. The banks had plenty of money +to lend. Real estate, the true pulse of the times, had begun to throb +with a new life. Mrs. Goodwin did not think that there had been any +improvement. The Doctor had written that money was scarce. Every one +complained of slow collections. George asked the Norwegian if there were +any sale for pictures. + +"There is no sale for mine," she answered. "I do not expect to sell +any." + +"Then," said George, "it's a waste of time to paint them." + +"I do not paint," the girl replied. "My ambition was not dressed in +colors." + +Mrs. Goodwin smiled upon her, and Mrs. Blakemore drew her husband's +attention to what she termed the bright aptness of the remark. George +said that it did not make any difference whether art was done with a +brush or pencil, it was a waste of time if it failed to sell; and +hereupon Mrs. Stuvic began to sniff as a preliminary to an important +statement. + +"A man boarded with me a while last winter that could knock 'em all out +when it comes to makin' pictures with a pen," she said. "He drew a bird +without takin' his pen up from the paper, and it looked for all the +world like it was flyin'. But when that was said all was said. He wan't +no manner account. He went away owin' me. Now, what does he want to go +to Antioch for? I'd just like for somebody to tell me that." + +"The man that drew the bird?" George spoke up. + +"Oh, you keep still. I mean Milford." + +"Probably the woman he's been working for so hard has moved into the +neighborhood," said George. Mrs. Stuvic declared that you never could +tell what a man was working for. No man was worth trusting. She knew; +she had tried them. Milford was no better than the rest of them. Why +didn't he explain himself? Why didn't he stand out where every one could +see him? She had defended him. She was getting tired of it. He had not +rewarded her with his confidence. He came a stranger and had been a +stranger ever since. One of these days he might set fire to the house +and run away. + +"You shall not talk about him so," the girl declared. "No one shall +abuse him." + +"Good for you," Mrs. Stuvic cried. "I've been fightin' his battles all +along and I'm glad to get some help. Why, she looks like a cat, don't +she? And it's what I like to see, I tell you. But it's usually the way; +a man works for one woman and is took up for and defended by another." + +"He is not working for any woman, madam," said Gunhild. "No woman has +any claim on him." + +Mrs. Blakemore shook her head. "With that dark, handsome face it would +be difficult long to escape the claim of a woman." + +"Come off," said George. "I don't see anything so killing about him." + +"Men never see killing features in man," his wife replied. "They are +left for softer eyes to discover." + +"Oh," he rejoined, looking worriedly at her. + +"The 'peach,'" she whispered. "Am I to hear that again?" + +He scratched upon an envelope and handed to her the words: "I give in. +Let us call it even and quits." + +Mrs. Goodwin looked at Gunhild as if by a new light. Next in importance +to the discovery of genius itself, is the discovery that genius is +picking its way along the briary path of love, lifting a thorny bough in +bloom to peep blushingly from a hiding place, or boldly to tear through +the brambles out into the open, and in honest resentment defy the +wondering gaze of the common eye. It would be a pretty sight to see this +girl in love, the woman mused. She did not wish to see her married to a +man who labored in a field; but it would be delicious to see her love +him and hating herself for it, fighting a rosy battle with her heart. +There was no romance in loving an "available" man; there was no +suffering in it, and how empty was a love that did not swallow a +midnight sob! She asked Gunhild to walk out into the woods with her. +They crossed a low, marshy place where pickerel split the trashy water +in the spring of the year, and strolled up a slope into the woods. They +gathered flowers, talking of things that interested neither of them; +they found an old log covered with moss and here they sat down to rest. +It was always sad to feel that the summer would soon be gone, the +elderly woman said, gazing at a soldierly mullein stalk, nodding its +yellow head. More summers were coming, and the leaves and the flowers +would be the same, the grass as green, the birds as full of happy life; +but the heart could not be turned back to live over the hours and the +days--only, in dreaming, in reminders of the time forever gone. To the +youthful, two summers are twins; to the older, they are relatives; to +the aged, strangers. + +"You make me sad when you talk that way," said the girl. + +"My dear child, a sadness to-day may be food for sweet reflection in the +future. Indeed, it would even be well for you to suffer now." + +"But I do not want to suffer. I do not see the need of it." + +"My dear, suffering prepares us for the better life. It makes us more +thankful." + +"I do not know that," she said with energy. "Sometimes it may harden us. +We may be kept from food so long that we have no manners when we come to +the table." + +"Gunhild, that is a very good remark--a thoughtful remark, true in the +main, but not illustrative of the point I wish to make. But you are so +full of hope that--" + +"Full of hope, madam?" + +"Yes, the hope that rises from health and strength. You have so much to +look forward to. You might make a brilliant match." + +"Then I must hope that sometime I may sell myself?" + +"Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that. I mean that you have prospects. Shall I +be plain? You have the prospects of loving one man and marrying another. +That is called a brilliant match, I believe. Or, at least, it is a +feature of nearly all brilliant matches. Don't you think so?" + +"I am not supposed to know, madam." + +"Not even to please me?" + +"Oh, if it please you, I am supposed to know everything." + +"Good. Then tell me what you know about Mr. Milford. You understand that +it is my mission to find interest in nearly all--well, I might say, odd +persons. You have met him when I was not with you. And he must have +told you something." + +"He has told me nothing that I can repeat." + +"Oh, is it that bad?" + +"Is what that bad, Mrs. Goodwin? I do not understand what you mean by +that bad. Perhaps what he told me did not make enough impression to be +remembered." + +"But didn't he say things you did not remember, but continued to feel?" + +"Yes, I believe so. You know that I do not understand men very well. I +do not understand any one very well. They make remarks about him and say +that he is mysterious, but he is plainer to me than any one. Somehow I +feel with him. He has had a hard life, I think, and that brings him +closer to me." + +"Ah, my dear, the suffering I spoke of just now." + +"But," the girl added, "I do not know that his hard life has made him +any better." + +"Perhaps not. But it must have made him more thoughtful. After all, I'm +not so much interested in him. He is one of the characters that throw a +side-light on our lives. He can never take an essential part in our +affairs. Do you think so?" + +"I must again say that I do not understand." + +"Why, don't you know that we meet many persons, and become quite well +acquainted with them, and yet never feel that they belong to our +atmosphere? They are not necessary to the story of our lives, so to +speak, and yet that atmosphere of which they are not really a part, +would not be wholly complete without them. They stand ready for our +side talks; sometimes they even flip a sentiment at us. We catch it, +trim it with ribbons and hand it back. They keep it; we forget. The +Blakemores are such persons. We may never see them again--may almost +wholly forget them, and yet something that we have said may influence +their lives. And perhaps to Mr. Milford, we are but side-lights. He may +soon be in his saddle again, forgetting that he ever knew us. But are we +to forget him? Has his light been strong enough to dazzle us?" + +"I shall not forget him, madam." + +"Then he may have made himself essential to the story of your life." + +"He has made himself a part of my recollection." + +"No more than that? Sometimes we recall because it is no trouble, and +sometimes we remember with pain. You know, Gunhild, that I think a great +deal of you." + +"I can never forget that. It is an obligation--" + +"Now, my child, I don't want you to look at it that way. You must not. +What I have done has given me pleasure. And if I deserve any reward, it +is--well, frankness." + +"You deserve more than that--gratitude." + +"Then let frankness be an expression of gratitude. Are you in love with +that man?" + +"Madam, a long time ago I used to slip to the door of the dining-room of +the little hotel in the West and peep in at him. They said he was bad, +that he would kill; but he came like a cavalier, with his spurs +jingling, and fascinated me. I felt that my own spirit if turned loose +would be as wild as his, for had not my forefathers fought on the sea +till the waves were bloody about them, and had they not dashed madly +into wild lands? I peeped in at him; I did not speak to him; but I +watched for his coming. And late at night I have lain awake to hear his +wild song in the bar-room, just below me. One day I met him in the +passage-way, and looked into his eyes, with my heart in my own, I +feared; and I did not see him again till I came out here. I did not know +his name. They called him Hell-in-the-Mud." + +Mrs. Goodwin did not remain quiet to hear the story. With many +exclamations, she walked up and down, sometimes with her back toward the +girl sitting on the log, her hands in her lap, lying dreamily; sometimes +she wheeled about and stood wide of eye and with mouth open. + +"Well, who ever heard of the like? But are you sure he is the same man?" + +"Yes. I did not remind him that I had seen him there. He said that he +had seen me--he said--" + +"But what did he say? You must keep nothing back now. It would spoil +everything. What did he say?" + +"He said that he got on his horse and galloped away--from me. He said +that he did not want to be--be tangled up." + +"Well, well, who ever heard of such a thing? And you have met out here. +Has he asked you to marry him?" + +"No, and I do not think he will. I must not marry him." + +"But you love him." + +"Bitterly, madam." + +"Oh, isn't that sweet--I mean, how peculiar a situation it is! No, you +can't think of marrying him. It wouldn't at all do. I don't believe he +could live tied down to one place. It is a first love and must live only +as a romance. It will help you in your art. It will be an inspiration to +all your after life, a poem to recite to your daughter in the years to +come. I had one, my dear. He was wild, wholly impossible, you might say. +And I was foolish enough to have married him, but my mother--she married +me to the dear Doctor. And how fortunate it was for both of us, I mean +for me and for Arthur! He threw himself away." + +"But he might not have thrown himself away, madam, if you had married +him." + +"Oh, yes, he was really thrown away before I met him. My mother was +right. She knew. She had married the opposite to her romance." + +"But are women never to marry the men they love?" + +"Oh, yes, to be sure. We all love our husbands. But we ought not to +marry our first love. That would be absurd. It would leave our after +life without a sweet regret. My dear, romantic love is one thing and +marriage is another. Love is a distress and marriage is business. That's +what the Doctor says." + +"And pardon me, madam, but he lives it." + +"How? What do you mean?" + +"Why, you are his business partner. You take care of his house. If you +are not there your servants keep the house. He may be pleased to see +you, but there is never any joy in his eyes--or yours. You are +dissatisfied with life. You try to make yourself believe you are not, +but you are. You look about for something, all the time. If you and the +Doctor should fail in business, you would grow tired of each other. You +told me to be frank." + +"Oh, yes, but you must not believe that. I think the world of him. I +don't see how I could live without him. He is absolutely necessary to +me. But he wasn't my romance. And I am glad of it. I couldn't dream over +him if he were. But your story. It almost upsets me. Got on his horse +and rode away! It is evident that he didn't want a romance. What wise +man could have warned him against it? I am glad you told me, my dear. I +can be of a great deal of assistance to you. Suppose we go back to the +house. Well, well, you have given me a surprise." + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +WANTED THE HORSE. + + +The days were linked out into weeks; there had been rag-time music and +break-down dancing at Mrs. Stuvic's, but Milford had not shown himself. +A farmer passing late at night had looked through the window and had +seen him boxing with the hired man. Some one else had seen him sparring +with an Irishman in Antioch. The old woman swore that he was "going +daft." But it was noised around that he had threshed out nearly two +thousand bushels of oats, and this redeemed his standing. He had not +arrived in time to sow the oats, but the luck of the harvest had fallen +to him. The crop had been threatened with rust and the old woman advised +him to plow up the fields, but he had held out against her and was +rewarded, not alone with a surprising yield of grain, but with a +recognized right to exercise freedom of action, such as would not have +been tolerated in a man who had fallen short. A wise old skinflint +halted one day to ask his opinion of a bulky subscription book for which +he had paid one dollar down and signed notes for three more, payable, of +course, at times when money worries would buzz thickly about him. And +news came through the hired man that a young woman, thin of chest and +clumsy of foot, but worth a hundred acres, had set her cap for him. + +"Of course, I wouldn't advise you to take her," said Mitchell, putting +on his necktie before a three-cornered fragment of a looking-glass, "but +I want to tell you that land's land out here. And besides, she might die +in a year or two. You never can tell. I may see her at church to-day. +She and my girl are sorter kin to each other. I'm a marryin' man, +myself. I don't see enough difference in married life or single life to +get scared at either one, so I take the marryin' side. A married man has +a place to keep away from and a single man hasn't any place to go to, so +it's all about the same, that is, without property. Goin' anywhere +to-day?" + +"There's no place for me to go except over to the old woman's, and I +don't care to go there yet awhile. I wonder why she hasn't been over +here?" + +"Who, the girl?" + +"No, the old woman. Do you suppose I expect the girl to come?" + +"Well, I didn't know," said Mitchell, brushing his stiff hair. "You +never can tell what a girl will do. They keep me guessin' and I'm on to +their curves pretty well. I see that Mrs. Goodwin yesterday evenin'. And +she looked like a full-rigged ship. Guess I'd be a little afraid of her +with her big talk. But you could tackle her all right enough. Say, I'm +sore as I can be, boxin' with you. Is that cigar up by the clock, one +that the prize-fighter give you? Let me take it along. I want to perfume +my way with it. Thanks," he added, taking the cigar before Milford had +said a word. "How do these pants set?" + +"They strike me as being a trifle short," said Milford, surveying him. + +"That's what I was afraid of, but they dragged the ground till the +peddler left, and then they began to draw up. A man's sure to get the +worst of it when he buys out of a pack. I'd like to have a suit of +clothes made to order, but I can't afford it now. Did you ever have a +suit put up to your own notion?" + +"Yes, a few." + +"Well, I said all the time that you wan't no common man." + +"And right there you struck the ancient and the modern idea of what a +man is--garments. You can't get away from the effect of clothes. The +city and the backwoods are alike. With the exception that the city +insists that the coat shall fit better and the pantaloons be a little +longer," he added, smiling. + +"Don't laugh at 'em, Bill; they're all I've got. When a man's got two +pair of briches you may laugh at one, but when he's got only one pair, +don't laugh. Are you goin' to set up here and read that book all day? +What's his name? Whitson?" + +"Whittier. I don't know. I'm a Quaker waiting to be moved. I had this +old book with me out West. We used to read it at night in the shack. We +had some pretty smart fellows with us. Some of them pretended to be +ignorant when in fact they had read their names on a sheepskin. They had +been beaten over the head with books till they were sick of them." + +"I don't blame 'em," said the hired man. "I'd rather set up with a +corpse than a book." + +"Sometimes it's about the same thing," Milford replied. "Did you ever +read the Bible?" + +"What do you take me for?" + +"I don't take you for a man who has read very much of it. But it's the +greatest thing ever written." + +"It's out of date, Bill." + +"Yes, to those who don't think. Why, there's more wisdom in it than in +all other books put together. I don't care anything about creed, or what +one man or another may believe; I don't care how or why it was +written--I brush aside the oaths that have been sworn on it, and the +dying lips that have kissed it; I shut my eyes to everything but the +fact that it is the greatest opera, the greatest poem, the greatest +tragedy ever written." + +"If I could talk that way I'd go out and preach about it, Bill." + +"Not with my record behind you, old fellow." + +"But why should a man that believes as you do have a record to hold him +down?" + +"There you've got me. That's what I'd like to know. But when a man has +learned to understand himself, then all things may become clear. We +sometimes say that it was not natural for a man to do a certain thing. +The fact is, it's natural for a man to do almost anything that he can +do." + +"This is good Sunday mornin' talk, all right, Bill. But I've got to go +after my girl. She's got lots of sense, horse sense and flap-doodle +sense all mixed up. She's got more flap-doodle sense than I have; she +reads books, and not long ago she give me a piece of poetry that she'd +cut out of a newspaper. I said, 'Read her off and take her back.' And +she did. Well, I'm off." + +Milford hailed a man who drove up in a buggy, gave ten cents for a +Sunday newspaper, and sat on the veranda to read it. The wind blew a +sheet out into the yard. He started after it, but halted, looking at a +man who was crossing the field where the oats had been reaped, striding +with basket and rod toward the lake. Milford left the paper to the wind. +He hastened to the woods between the oat field and the lake and waited +for the man, leaning musingly against a tree. The man got over the fence +and came along the path. Milford stepped out. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Dorsey." + +"Why, helloa. How's everything?" + +"All right, I hope. Are you done with that horse?" + +"Oh, that horse. Yes, I'm about done with him." + +"Hold on. I want him." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You remember the last time we met I--well, we'll say, I let you have a +horse." + +"You mean we fought over yonder in the grove." + +"That's what I mean." + +"Well, what about it?" + +"We are going to fight over here in this grove." + +"Why, I thought you had enough?" + +"I did have then, but I want more. I said then that I'd never been +beaten for long at a time. I've been waiting for you." + +"A man don't have to wait for me very long. But say, this is all rank +foolishness. I've got nothing against you; and as for what I said about +the woman, why, I'm willing to apologize, although I don't know what it +was." + +"You will apologize, but not till I get through with you. Take off your +coat." + +"You beat any fellow I ever saw. I don't want to fight; I want to fish." + +"I don't want to fish, I want to fight. Take off your coat or I'll knock +you down in it." + +"All right, my son." He threw his coat on a stump. Milford was in his +shirt sleeves. "Wait a moment," said Dorsey. "You have brought this +thing about, and I want to tell you that I won't let you off as easy as +I did the last time." + +They went at it. Dorsey fell sprawling. He scrambled to his feet with +trash in his hair and blood in his mouth. Milford knocked him over a +stump. He got up again and came forward, cutting the capers of a tricky +approach, but Milford caught him with a surprising blow and sent him to +grass again. This time he did not get up. He squirmed about on the +ground. Milford took him under the arms and lifted him to his knees. "Go +away," he muttered, his head drooping. "You've--you've broken my jaw." + +Milford ran to the lake and brought water in his hat. Dorsey was sitting +up when he returned. + +"You've knocked out two of my teeth," he mumbled. + +"Here, let me bathe your face." + +"Biggest fool thing I ever saw," Dorsey blubbered through the water +applied to the mouth. "I told you I'd apologize." + +"Yes, and you may do so now. Do you?" + +"Of course. What else can I do?" + +"I'm almost sorry I hit you so hard." + +"Almost! I don't stop at that. I don't want you to say anything about +it," he added. "It would hurt my business." + +"A horse kicked you," said Milford. "You're all right now. You can go to +the house." + +"I'm going to town by the first train. I'm done up. You've been +practicing. You ought to make a success of yourself if that's the sort +of fellow you are." + +Milford helped him put on his coat. "Now, I wish I could do something +for you," he said. "No matter what I do, I always get the worst of it." + +"You didn't get the worst of this, by a long shot." + +"Yes. Now I've got to grieve over it. I've been trying to do right, but +the cards are against me." + +"You needn't grieve over me. You have licked a good man." + +"I grieve because you were willing to apologize." + +"Don't let that worry you. I wouldn't have apologized any too strong. +Well, I don't believe the fish will bite to-day. I'll go back." + +Milford watched him as he walked slowly across the stubble field, and +strove to harden his heart against the cutting edge of remorse. The +fellow was a bully. To him there was nothing sacred, and he thought evil +of all women. His manliest words waited to be knocked out of him. + +Milford returned to the house and gathered up the scattered sheets of +his newspaper. But he sat a long time without reading. The gathered +vengeance of his arm had been spent. It had shot forth with delight, +like a thought inspired by devoted study, but like a hot inspiration +grown cold, it faded under the strong light of reason. He heard the +shriek of a railway train, rushing toward the city. He saw George +Blakemore coming up the hill. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE GRIZZLY AND THE PANTHER. + + +Blakemore came up briskly, shook hands with a quick grasp, looked at his +watch and sat down on the edge of the veranda. His eye was no longer +fixed and rusty, but bright and restless. He did not drool his words, +hanging one with doubtful hesitation upon another, but blew them out +like a mouthful of smoke. He talked business; he had just engineered +another land deal. He had traveled about among the surrounding towns, +and spoke of a railway ticket as a "piece of transportation." Sunday to +him was a disease spot, the blotch of an inactive liver. Rest! There was +no rest for a man who wanted to work. + +"What's to be the end of this rush?" Milford asked. "What's your +object?" + +"Money, of course. You know what the object of money is, so there you +are." + +"I don't know that I do. Money's object is to increase, but I've never +been able to discover its final aim, except possibly in a few instances. +We struggle to get rich. Then what? We read an advertisement and find +that we have kidney trouble. We take medicines, go to springs, grow +puffy, turn pale--die. That's the average man who makes money for +money's sake. But it's a waste of words to talk about it." + +"It is undoubtedly a waste of time to think about it," said Blakemore. +"Not only that, to give it daily attention would mean stagnation and dry +rot. There'd be no land sales. But, speaking of an object, you have one, +of course." + +"Yes, such as it is. And strain my eyes as I may, I can't look beyond +it. I made up my mind a good while ago that there's not much to live +for. This is an old idea, I know, but at some time it is new to every +man. We fight off trouble that we may fight into more trouble. And our +only pleasure is in looking back upon a past that was full of trouble, +or in looking forward to a time that will never come." + +"You're a queer sort of a duck, anyhow," Blakemore replied, throwing the +stub of a cigar out into the grass. "You must have been burnt sometime. +And yet you're no doubt looking for the fire again." + +"Did you ever catch a bass with his mouth full of rusty hooks? I'm +one--hooks sticking out all around, but I must have something to eat, +and I may snap a phantom minnow." + +"Yes, sir, you're a queer duck. But there's a lot of good stuff in you, +I'll tell you that; and I could take you in tow and make a winner of +you. Drop this farm and come to town." + +Milford smiled and shook his head. "Winning looks easy to the man that +wins. No, when I leave this place I'll have my object in my pocket." + +"Queer duck," Blakemore repeated. "Any insanity in your family?" + +"No, none to speak of. My father took the bankrupt law and paid his +debts ten years afterwards." + +Blakemore lighted a cigar. "Did you disown him?" + +"No. He went to the springs, grew pale--and we buried him." + +Blakemore turned his cigar about between his lips. "And your idea is to +pay your debts, grow pale, and let them bury you. Is that it?" + +"Not exactly," and then he added: "I owe a peculiar sort of debt." + +"A man's foolish to pay a peculiar debt," Blakemore replied. + +"But a peculiar debt might take a strange hold on the conscience." + +"Yes," Blakemore agreed, "but a tender conscience has no more show in +business than a peg leg has in a foot-race. Do you know what I did? I +moped about under a debt of twenty thousand dollars. After a while I +looked up and didn't see anybody else moping. I quit. Am I going to pay +it? Maybe, but not till the last cow has come home, I'll tell you that. +They scalped me, and I'm going to scalp them. By the way, I met a fellow +just now--fellow named Dorsey. You might have seen him out here. Met him +a while ago, and he told me that a horse kicked him over yonder in the +woods. Didn't do a thing but kick his teeth out. He's gone to town to +have his jaw attended to. Your horse?" + +"No, a horse that Dorsey hired when he was out some time ago. He must +have misused him." + +"He got in his work all right. Well, I've come after you. They want you +at the house. Rig yourself up; I'll wait." + +Upon benches and in chairs, and lolling on the thick grass, Milford +found Mrs. Stuvic's summer family. They told jokes and sang vaudeville +songs and slyly tickled one another's necks with spears of timothy, +frolicking in the shade while time melted away in the sun. The ladies +came forward to shake hands. They called Milford a stranger. They +inquired as to the health of the young woman in Antioch. He disclaimed +all knowledge of a woman in Antioch. They knew better, shaking their +fingers at him. Blakemore and Mrs. Stuvic entered upon a harangue. +Milford sat down on a bench with Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild. Although +under the eye of the "discoverer," the girl had shaken hands warmly with +him. Between them there was a quiet understanding, and he was at ease. +Mrs. Blakemore sat in a rocking chair that threatened to tip over on the +uneven ground. She liked the uncertainty, she said. It gave her +something to think about. Mrs. Goodwin had read during all the forenoon, +and was sententious. It would soon be time for her to return to the +city, and she felt that she wore a yellow leaf in her hair. She was +anxious to return, of course, but to go away from a sweet season's +death-bed was always a sad departure. Mr. Milford, she said, would +attend the summer's funeral. + +"I will help dig the grave," he replied. + +She thanked him for following her idea. So few men had the patience to +fondle the whimsical children of a woman's mind. When they crept out to +the Doctor he scouted them back to bed, and there they lay trembling, +not daring to peep out at him. Some men thought it a manly quality to +despise a pretty conceit, but it was pretty conceits that made marble +live, that made a canvas breathe. At one time she had been led to +believe that the realist was the man of the hour. And indeed, he +was--just for one hour. And the veritist--what was he? One whose soul +was kept cool in a moldy cellar. None but the artist had a right to +speak. And what was art? A semblance of truth more beautiful than the +truth. But writers were often afraid to be artists, even at the +promptings of an artistic soul. They were told that women would not read +them, and man must write for woman. What nonsense! Take up a book and +find the beautiful passages marked. A woman has read it. + +"I can make a great noise in shallow water," said Milford, "but if I +follow you, you'll lead me out over my head. I believe you, however; I +believe you speak the truth. I don't know anything about art, but, so +far as I am concerned, it is a waste of time for any scholar to pick +flaws in a thing that makes me feel. He may tell me why it is bad taste +to feel, but he can't convince me that I haven't felt." + +He said this looking at the girl, and their eyes warmed with the +communion. "I have studied art," she said, "until I do not know anything +about it; and I am beginning to believe if the world listens to--to a +talk about it, it is with a sneer. No one wants to know. No one is +willing to listen, except like this, out in the country when there is +nothing else to do." + +"I find plenty to do," said Mrs. Stuvic, overhearing the remark and +turning from Blakemore, who had been "joshing" her about an old man. +"Yes, you bet. There's always a plenty to do in the country if a body's +a mind to do it. The country people ain't such fools. No, you bet. The +most of 'em's got sense enough to keep a horse from kickin' 'em. Yes, +walked right over in the woods and let a horse kick him. Why, old Lewson +would've knowed better than that, and he didn't have sense enough to +know that he couldn't come back. Now, Bill, you keep quiet. Don't you +say a word." + +"If you were afraid the old fellow would come back, why didn't you marry +him?" said Blakemore. + +"Now, you keep still, too. I wan't so anxious about him comin' back. It +wan't nothin' to me. But I do believe he robbed my hens' nests after he +was dead. Now, whose team is that goin' along the road? If a man would +rein up my horses that way I'd break his neck. Bill, why haven't you +been over here?" + +"I've been too busy." + +"You haven't been too busy to trudge off to Antioch. What did you go +for?" + +"Because it was nobody's business but mine." + +"Oh, you don't say so? What made you box with that Irishman? Oh, you +can't fool me. I know more than you think I do. Went up there to +practice. And then a horse kicked Dorsey over in the woods. How about +that? You met him over in the grove some time ago, and he licked you. +How about that? Then you took lessons till you was able to knock his +teeth out. How about that?" + +"Who told you all that rubbish?" Milford demanded, uneasy under the gaze +of the company. + +"Never mind. There's a freckled faced woman not far from here. And she +couldn't keep a secret any more than a sieve could hold water. You've +got a hired man, too, you must remember." + +"Yes, and I'll----" + +"You'll do nothin' of the sort. It was perfectly natural. I knowed it +was comin'. I knowed that he mashed your mouth. And what was it all +about? How about that?" + +Milford arose to go. Mrs. Goodwin begged him to sit down. Mrs. Blakemore +was in a flutter of excitement. Blakemore stood with his mouth open. +Gunhild looked straight at Milford. "Did you hit him, Mr. Milford?" she +asked. + +"Yes," he promptly answered. + +"Then you must have had a good cause, and I shall wait before feeling +sorry for him. But I could not feel very sorry anyway. I do not like +him. He has the eye of a beast. May we ask why you struck him?" + +"He made a remark about you." + +The girl jumped up from her seat, anger flaming in her eyes. Mrs. +Goodwin made some sort of cooing noise. Mrs. Blakemore cried "Oh!" and +fluttered. + +"That's all I've got to say," said Milford. "I oughtn't to have said +that much, and wouldn't if it hadn't come round as it did. And now I +must ask you to let the subject drop." + +Gunhild sat down without a word. But in her quietness of manner was a +turbulent spirit choked into subjection. In all things it seemed that +her modesty was a conscious immodesty held in restraint. The uncouth +girl, with utterance harsh in rough words of men from the far north, had +been remodeled by the English school. But the blood of the Viking was +strong within her, as she sat there, striving to appear submissive; but +Milford fancied that she would like to dash out Dorsey's brains with a +war-club. He sat down beside her, and with a cool smile she said: "Made +a remark about me. It takes me back to the potato-field. I must thank +you. We are fellow workmen." She spoke in a low voice. He looked from +one to another, as if afraid that they might hear her. "It makes no +difference," she said. + +"Yes, it does. It is none of their business. I am going to set claim to +all that part of the past. You may share your pleasure with them, but +your trouble belongs to me. I will mix it with mine." + +"The color might be dark," she replied. + +"But two dark colors may make a white hope." + +She shook her head and looked about as if now she were afraid that some +one might hear. But the other boarders were talking among themselves. +Mrs. Goodwin, at the far end of the bench, was giving to Blakemore her +idea of the future life; Mrs. Blakemore had run off, summoned by an +alarming howl from the boy; Mrs. Stuvic, still a believer in +spiritualism and a devotee of fortune-telling, stood near, sniffing in +contempt. + +"Nothing can keep us apart," said Milford. "I'm not a soft wooer; I +don't know how to play the he dove; I don't know how to sing a lie made +by some one else; I don't pretend to be a gentleman; I am out of the +rut, and they may call me unnatural. But let me tell you that all hell +can't keep us apart." + +"Mr. Milford, you must not talk like that. I too am out of the rut, and +they may call me unnatural, but I do not like to hear you talk that +way." + +"Yes, you do. You can't help yourself. If it's the devil that brought us +together, then blessed be the name of the devil." + +"Hush, Mr. Milford." + +"I won't hush. I must talk. I suppose I ought to call you an angel. But +you are not. You are a woman--once a hired hand. But you jump on me like +a panther; you suck the blood out of my heart. Am I a brute? Yes. So are +you. You are a beautiful brute--the panther and the grizzly. Is that +it?" + +She looked at him, and her eyes were not soft. "I used to peep in at the +grizzly--into the dining-room when he had come to feed. But no more now. +No, nothing can keep us apart. But we must wait. What a courtship!" she +said, with a sigh. + +"It's not a courtship," he replied. "It's a fight, a draw fight. Now +I'll hush. What's the wrangle?" he asked, turning toward Mrs. Goodwin. + +"Nothing," she answered, moving closer to him. "It hasn't the dignity of +a wrangle. Mrs. Stuvic is trying to convert me to fortune-telling." + +"Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Stuvic. "I don't care whether she +believes in it or not. It's nothin' to me; but truth's truth, and you +can't get round it; no, Bill, you bet. I know what I've been told, and I +know what's come to pass. A woman told me that a man was goin' to beat +me out of board, and he did. She never saw him. How about that? And she +told me I was goin' to lose a cow, and I did. She was dead by the time I +got home. How about that? Don't come talkin' to me about what you expect +after you're dead. Truth's truth. Now, there's Bill. He thinks I'm an +old fool. But I know more than he thinks I do. Yes, you bet!" + +"No, I don't think that, Mrs. Stuvic," Milford replied. "I'm under too +many obligations to you to think that." + +"Now, there is honesty," Mrs. Goodwin spoke up. "Gunhild, my dear, do +you catch the drift of it?" + +"It's not honesty, but villainy," Blakemore declared, and turning to his +wife, who had just returned, he asked if the boy were hurt. She said +that he had got hung in the forks of an apple tree. + +"But villainy holds a virtue when it tells the truth," Mrs. Goodwin +replied. + +"Holds fiddlesticks," said Mrs. Stuvic, with a sniff. "Why can't you +folks talk sense? Just as soon as a woman reads a book, she's got to +talk highfurlutin' blabber. Now, what does that man out there want?" + +"He wants beer," said Blakemore. + +"Well, he can't get it. He looks like the man that had me fined last +summer. I hate a detective on the face of the earth. One went down in +my cellar and drank beer, and then had me up. Go on away from here," she +shouted. "There's not a drop of beer on this place. Move on off with +you. I'll let you know that I don't keep beer." + +The man went away, grumbling. Blakemore turned to Milford and said: +"Come join me in a bottle." + +"Now, you keep still," Mrs. Stuvic snapped. "Bill don't drink. And the +first thing I know you'll have me up." + +Milford asked Mrs. Goodwin when she expected to go home. She answered +that she would leave on the following Tuesday. He remarked that he would +come over to go to the station with her, and then, waving a farewell to +the company, he strode off toward home. In his heart there flamed the +exultation of a great conquest after a fierce battle. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +AN AMBITION. + + +In the evening the hired man returned with his trousers drawing shorter +every moment. He swore that he was going to kill the peddler, which of +course meant that he would buy another pair from him. He would take off +the wretched leg-wear and hang weights to the legs, he said. No peddler +could get ahead of him. He called himself an inventive "cuss." He said +that his grandfather had sat upon a granite hillside and with a +jackknife whittled out a churn-dasher that revolutionized the art of +butter-making in that community. He smacked his mouth as he spoke of the +delights of the day just ended. It had been like sitting under a +rose-bush, with sweetened dew dripping upon him. He had seen his girl +trip from one rapture to another, mirroring a smile from the sun and +throwing it at him. Her face was joy's looking-glass. And aside from all +that, she had sense. She was an uncommon woman. He was not afraid to +tell her everything. It was certain to go no further. He could read a +woman the moment he set eyes upon her. They all invited confidence, but +few of them were worthy of it. Milford did not have it in his heart to +smash the fellow's idol. He said that he was pleased to know that so +true a woman had been found. + +"Oh, you can trust her all right, Bill. But to tell you the truth, I +don't believe you could trust the girl that has set her cap for you. Her +tongue's too slippery, and I said to myself that you'd better stick to +the Norwegian. I'm not stuck on foreigners myself. The girl I married +had a smack of the Canadian French about her. But Lord, she was putty. +You ought to have seen her eyes--black as a blackberry, and dancin' a +jig all the time. And they danced me out of the set, I tell you that. I +could have her again if I wanted her. But I don't exactly want her. +Would you, Bill?" + +"I'd cut her throat." + +"Say, you ought to see her throat, speakin' about throats. Puttiest +thing you ever seen in your life--white as snow----" + +"With the pink of the sunset falling on it," said Milford, with his +gluttonous mind's eye upon the Norwegian's neck. + +"If that ain't it, I'm the biggest liar that ever milked a cow. Just +exactly it. And yet you wouldn't advise me to take her again." + +"I'd kick her downstairs," said Milford. + +"Yes, that's all right, Bill; but it would save getting a divorce. +Still, my other girl's the thing. I can put confidence in her, and the +first one was tricky. I couldn't tell her a thing that wan't repeated. +I'll stand for anythin' sooner than bein' repeated all the time. How are +you gettin' along over at the house?" + +Milford put him off with the remark that everything was all right so far +as he knew. A man may gabble of a love that is spreading over the +heart, but when it has gathered the whole world beneath its wings he is +more inclined to silence. + +The hired man continued to talk. Before he met the freckled woman he had +looked forward to sixteen hours a day at eighteen dollars a month. He +had not dared to see the flush of the sunrise light his bedroom window, +except perhaps on some odd Sunday when he might steal the sweet essence +of a forbidden nap, but his "love" for that woman had promised him an +unbroken dream at dawn and a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs at eight. +After all, it was fortunate that the first woman had run away. She was +saucy and had made his heart laugh, at times, but he was a hired man +still, and the cold dew of the morning had cracked his rough boots and +caused his wet trousers to flap about his ankles. + +"Bill," he asked, "do you ever expect to wear a boiled shirt all the +week and sleep till after sun-up?" + +Milford had learned that this was the hired man's notion of elegance and +of ease. He answered that such a time might come. + +"It's got to come with me," said Mitchell. "It's comin', and I'd be a +fool to dodge it. Yes, sir, and I'm goin' to have me about a dozen +shirts made. I don't care so much about the coat and pants; I want the +shirts. And I want 'em made as broad as I can fill 'em out, with a +ruffle or two, and as white as chalk. That's the way I want to be +dressed when fellers come to me and ask if I want to hire a man. Bill, +you look like you've made up your mind to do some thin'. What is it? Git +married?" + +"I came here with my mind already made up," Milford replied, new lines +seeming to come to the surface of his countenance. "And I'm not going to +change it," he declared, louder of tone, as if he had been debating with +himself. "I'm going to follow the line, and then if something else +comes, all the better." + +"What is your line, Bill?" + +"Haven't you learned enough not to ask that?" + +"Oh, well, but I didn't know but you'd found out there wouldn't be any +harm in tellin' me. We've been working together a good while, and I've +got an interest in you. I've told you what my object is." + +"To wear white shirts and to see the sun shine in on you of a morning, I +believe. That's a good enough object." + +"I think so, Bill. At least, it won't do nobody no harm. And I tell you +what's a fact: I'd like, after a while, to live in town, so's I could +come out in the country and clar my throat and ask fellers about the +crops. But you always sorter turn up your nose at my object. I wouldn't +at yours. Tell a feller what it is, Bill." + +"The idea of every man having an object seems to have become rather +popular in this community," said Milford. "Everybody looks on me with a +sort of suspicion, and this object business comes out of that. You may +not know it, but you've been set as a trap to catch me." + +The hired man was genuinely astonished. His mouth flew open, and he +drooled his surprise. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve; he hemmed, +hawed, and grunted. But, after a time, he admitted that his "girl" had +shown the edge of a keen interest in Milford. However, there was nothing +vicious in it. She had never been stirred by a vicious instinct. She was +naturally interested in the man who gave employment to her future +husband. Of course, his object did not amount to much when compared with +Milford's; he was nothing but a hired man, but presidents had been hired +men, and the world could not afford to turn its scornful back upon the +affairs of the farm-hand. The field laborer had a heart, a talkative +heart, perhaps, but a heart that society would one day learn to fear. It +was not heartlessness that would overthrow the political state and +trample upon the rich; it was heart, abused heart, that would give +crushing weight to the vengeful foot. This was the substance of his +talk, the egotism of muscle, a contempt for the luxuries of the refined +brain, but with a longing to imitate the appearance of leisure by +wearing white linen and lying in bed till the sun was high. Milford +recognized the voice of the discontented farmer. + +"You remember the speeches of the last campaign," said he. "You believe +that the laborer is to overturn society. All right. But that has nothing +to do with my object. That makes no difference, however, since +everything leads to the distress of the farmer. But I want to tell you +and all the rest that it is your own fault, as one and as a whole. You +never read anything but murders and robberies, or the grumblings of some +skate that wants an office. You haven't schooled yourselves into +sharpness enough to see that he is trying to use you. You get up before +sunrise, and work till after dark, and think that the whole world is +watching you. The world doesn't care a snap, I'll tell you that." + +"And that's just it, Bill; the world's tryin' to do us." + +"Yes, and it will do you." + +"I know it, and that's the reason I want to marry out of it." + +"That is to say, you want to 'do' a woman to get out of it yourself. +What do you expect to give her?" + +"Why, I'll give her a good husband, a man that'll fight for her, do +anything----" + +"Except to work for her," Milford broke in. The hired man grinned. "He +said that a good husband was about all that a woman ought to expect, +these days; he would not fall short, and a man who did not disappoint a +good woman came very near to the keeping of all commandments. He was not +going to marry for property. But if property made a woman beautiful to +the rich, why should it make her ugly to the poor?" + +"But you say she is homely and freckled." + +"I said freckled, Bill; I didn't say homely. Why, I like freckles. I +think they are the puttiest things in the world. They catch me every +time. A trout wouldn't be half as putty if he wan't speckled. And if +this woman is a trout and has snapped at my fly, all right. The world +ain't got a right to say a word." + +"The world doesn't know that you are born or ever will be." + +"Oh, I know you don't think I amount to much, Bill; I know the world +don't care for me, but I'll make her care one of these days." + +"When the worm turns on the woodpecker." + +"That's all right, Bill. Have all the flings you want. But I'll tell you +one thing: I don't talk about the Bible bein' the greatest book in the +world, and then go in the woods and lay for a feller to mash his mouth. +Oh, I know all about it. My girl's brother see the feller git on the +train with his jaw tied up, and I knowed what had happened." + +"You say the fellow's mouth was mashed?" said Milford. + +"Yes, mashed as flat as a pancake." + +"Then you want to keep your mouth shut." + +"All right, Bill, I understand." + +Milford walked about the room. "We are neglecting everything," he said. +"It's time to feed the cattle." They went out to the barn, neither of +them speaking. Mitchell climbed into the loft and tossed down the hay; +Milford measured out oats to the horses. In silence they returned to the +house. + +"Why don't you say something?" said Milford. + +"When I said the feller's mouth was mashed you said I wanted to keep +mine shut. I help you learn how to box till you could out-box me, and I +guess you can mash my mouth easy enough, Bill." + +"But do you think I would, Bob?" + +"No, I can't hardly think so. Got any smokin' tobacco?" + +"Fresh bag up there on the shelf. Fill up that briar of mine--the +old-timer." + +"But you don't want nobody to smoke it, do you?" + +"You may keep it; I've got another one." + +"But you've had that one so long, Bill." + +"Then it's all the sweeter." + +"I'm a thousand times obliged to you." + +"All right." He was silent for a thoughtful minute, and then he said: +"The summer is about gone. It will leave on the train next Tuesday." + +The hired man nodded as if he understood. "And I've got to be lookin' +out for somethin' to do in the winter," he said. "I don't reckon you can +afford to keep me." + +"Yes, I want you. I expect to be busy all winter, trading around. Your +wages may go on just the same." + +"You don't mean at eighteen dollars?" + +"I said just the same." + +Mitchell's face beamed with satisfaction. "That would scare some of +these farmers around here half to death," said he. "They never think of +payin' more than ten in winter." + +"But I'm not one of these farmers round here." + +"That's what you ain't, and I don't know what you have been, nur what +you're goin' to be, but to me you're about the best feller I ever struck +up with." + +They talked of affairs on the farm, the hay, the ripening corn. In the +renting of the place a number of ragged sheep had been included, a +contingent sale; and a few months of care had wrought almost a miracle +in the appearance of the flock, so much so that the old woman regretted +her terms and would have withdrawn from them, but Milford had insisted +upon a witnessed contract. They talked about the sheep, the increase to +come in the winter, the sale of lambs in the early summer. They laid +plans for work in the fall, for the cutting and the husking of the corn. + +"But I thought you were going to marry," said Milford. + +"Yes, but not for a year, Bill. I've got a good deal to attend to first. +I've got to get a divorce, you know. That won't take long, of course, +but a man's divorce ought to get cool before he marries again. I've +talked to my girl about it, and she thinks so. She's a proper thing." + +"Did it ever occur to you that she can't be a very proper thing to talk +to you about marriage or to receive attentions from you before you get +your divorce?" + +"I don't guess she ever thought of that. But I believe she did say she +wanted I should get a divorce before I said much more about it. It's all +right, anyway. I don't believe in holding a woman to strict rule. If you +force the rule on her before you're married, she'll force it on you +afterwards, and then where'll you be? Well," he added, leaning over to +untie his shoe, "believe I'll go to bed. I'm glad you're pleased with my +work. I want to save up enough to git them shirts, you know. It wouldn't +look right to draw on her at once. Some fellers would, but I'm rather +careful that way." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +ACROSS THE DITCH. + + +Early Tuesday morning a girl from the poor-house went to Mrs. Stuvic's +place. This meant that the season was about closed, that the +"journeyman" cook had been discharged, the "help" told to go, and that +this wretched creature was to do the work. Careful not to appear too +early, Milford came almost too late. The carriage had set out for the +station. He ordered the driver to stop. He reminded Gunhild of her +promise to walk with him across the fields. She declared that she had +not promised, but said that she was willing enough to walk. Mrs. Goodwin +cautioned her not to loiter by the way; it would greatly put her out to +miss the train. Gunhild jumped out, Milford catching at her, and the +carriage drove on. They walked down the road to a place where there was +a gap in the fence, and here they entered the field. Down deep in the +grass a horde of insects shouted their death songs. Their day of +judgment was soon to lie white upon the ground. Artists in their way, +with no false notes, with mission ended, they were to die in art, among +fantastic pictures wrought by the frost. Milford did not try to hide his +sadness. The girl was livelier; the girl nearly always is. + +"The other day I got near you, although others were present, but now +you are far off," he said. "Must I rope you every time I want you?" + +She laughed at this picture of life in the West, thrown in a word. Again +she saw men lassoing the cattle. But the potato field came back to her, +the rough words of the men, the drudgery, and her face grew sad. "I am +as close to you now as I was then." + +"Not with your eyes. Stop. Let me look at you." + +They halted and stood face to face. "Give me your eyes." She gave them +to him without a waver. But she reminded him that they must not miss the +train. Afar off they could see the carriage turn a corner. + +"When am I to see you again?" he asked, as they walked on. + +"I do not know that," she answered. "I shall not stay in the winter time +at Mrs. Goodwin's house. She will have many persons there then, and will +not need me." + +"The kingdom of heaven, though it were full, would need you." + +"Sometimes you are a wild book, with sentences jumping out at me," she +said. "I must rope you," she added, laughing. + +"I wish you would--I wish you'd choke me to death, and----" + +"And what?" + +"And then take my head in your lap." + +"In your other life you must have stood at the bow of a boat, making the +sea red with the blood of your enemy--and in my other life I bound up +your wounds." + +They came to a broad ditch. On each side was a forest of wild +sunflowers. "You could stand in there and blaze with them," he said, +stepping down into the ditch. "Give me your hand, and I'll help you +across." + +"I can jump." + +"Give me your hand--and I hope you'll stumble and fall." + +She stood among the sunflowers, looking down at him. "Did you see the +cowboy preacher that came West?" she asked. "Would he not have had a +wild steer if he had roped your soul?" + +"Give me your hand--both." + +She gave him her hands, and leaped across the ditch. "I wish there were +a thousand," he said, climbing out. "But you haven't answered me. When +am I to see you again?" + +"I am coming again with Mrs. Goodwin next summer." + +"That'll be like a boy's Christmas--ten years in coming. Can't I come to +see you in town?" + +"I shall not be in the town. I am going into the country to teach." + +"Then I can come into the country." + +"No. With your wild ways you would make me feel ashamed." + +"You are right--I've got sense enough to see it. But is there to be no +better understanding between us?" + +"Didn't you say that all--something could not keep us apart? Is not +that understanding enough?" They had halted again, and she had given him +her eyes. + +"It's an acknowledgment, but not a plan. What I want is something to +work up to." + +"There is the carriage coming down the road over yonder. Mrs. Goodwin is +waving her handkerchief at me. The station is just across the fence." + +"I know all that. But won't you let me write to you?" + +"I should like to hear from you. A letter from you in the winter might +bring the summer back--the crickets in the grass and the wild sunflowers +by the ditch. Yes, you may write to me." + +"And you will send me your address?" + +"Yes, I will write first--when I go to the country. Not before." + +"And if you don't go to the country I am not to know where you are?" + +"But I am going to the country. You shall hear." + +Near the road, between them and the station, stood an old cheese +factory, now inhabited by summer vagabonds. The windows were stuffed +with cast-off clothes. It was a wretched place, but now it served a +purpose--it shut off all view from the station. It made no difference as +to who might peep from the windows. + +They walked on slowly a few paces, and halted behind the old house. They +heard the rumble of the train. He looked down at her up-turned face. Her +lips were slightly apart as if on the eve of Utterance. He thought of +the seam in a ripe peach. + +"There, the train is coming," she said. + +"Plenty--plenty of time." + +"No. Mrs. Goodwin is calling me. Good-bye," she said, still suffering +him to hold her hand. "Are you always going to be a wild man?" + +"You remember what they used to call me." + +"Yes, that bad name. But I must go." + +She ran away from him. He strode back across the field. He heard the +train when it stopped and when it started again, but did not look round. +He stood in the ditch where he had helped her across. There was the +print of her foot in the moist earth. He heard the crickets crying in +the deep grass. He lay down for a moment, and felt that the cry of his +heart drowned all sounds of earth. "If it were only different," he said +to himself, over and over again. "When she knows, what will she think? +Must she know? Perhaps not--I hope not. When it is all over, I will kill +it in my own breast." He was conscious of the theatrical. He was on the +stage. Glow-worms were his footlights; his orchestra was deep-hidden in +the grass. "Why can't a man be genuine?" he asked himself. "Why does a +heart put on, talk to itself, and strut?" + +In the road he met Mrs. Blakemore walking with Bobbie. The boy had a +long stick, pushing it on the ground in front of himself. He called it +his plow. His mother cautioned him. He might hurt himself. The stick +struck a lump in the road and punched him. He howled just as Milford +came up. + +"I told you not to shove that stick. And now you've nearly ruined +yourself. Here's Mr. Milford. Perhaps he will carry you." + +Milford took the boy on his back. "You are my horse," said the boy, +whimpering. They turned toward the house, Mrs. Blakemore striving to +keep step with Milford. "Don't go so fast. I can't keep step with you," +she said. + +"Get up," the boy commanded. + +"How long do you expect to stay?" Milford asked. + +"I don't know," she answered. "George is away on a tour, and I am to +wait till I hear from him. I don't think I'll be here but a few days +longer. I ought to put Bobbie in school." + +"We'll have a good deal more of warm weather," Milford said; "and +October out here I should think is the finest time of the year." + +"Oh, yes, but you know we must get back. After all, the summer spent in +the country is a hardship. We give up everything for the sake of being +out of doors. Put him down when he gets heavy." + +"He's all right. Yes, hardship in many ways. But hardships make us +stronger; still, I don't know that we need to be much stronger. We are +strong enough now for our weak purposes." + +"You mean spiritually stronger, don't you? Well, I don't know. But, of +course, we are more meditative when we have been close to nature, and +that always gives us a sort of spiritual help. But the time out here +might be spent to great advantage, in reading and serious converse. As +it is, however, people seem ashamed to talk anything but nonsense. They +hoot at anything that has a particle of sentiment in it. And as for +art--well, so few persons know anything about art. And on this account I +shall miss Mrs. Goodwin so much. She talked beautifully on art. Don't +you think so?" + +"She talks well on almost any subject." + +"And Gunhild is a real artist," she said, looking at him. "Did she show +you any of her drawings?" + +"No. I didn't ask her and she didn't offer to show them." + +"Perhaps you were more interested in the artist than in her art." + +"Yes, that may be about the size of it." + +"Do you know, Mr. Milford, I can't fathom you. Sometimes you speak with +positive sentiment and dignity, and then again you are a repository of +slang. Why is it? Is it because that, at times, I am incapable of--shall +I say inspiring?" + +"Yes, I guess that's about the proper thing to say. No. What am I +talking about? You are always inspiring, of course. The fault lies with +me." + +"Such a strange man!" she said, meditatively. "Mrs. Stuvic declares she +doesn't know you any better now than she did the first day, but I +believe I do, though not much better, I must confess. I wish you would +tell me something." + +"Well, what is it?" + +"Did you know Gunhild before she came out here?" + +"I had never spoken to her." + +"Well, it's very strange. You got acquainted very soon. Oh, I know she +was out here quite a while, still--oh, you know what I mean. Yes, you +met her at the haunted house--once. More than once? Am I too +inquisitive? But I am so interested." + +He acted the part of a politer man; he said that she was not too +inquisitive--glad that she was interested. The boy, pulling at his ears, +the bridle, turned his head toward her, and he caught the drooping of +her eye. Over him she had established a sentimental protectorate, in +accordance with a Monroe Doctrine of the heart, and resented foreign +aggression. + +"So much interested in Gunhild, you know," she said. "Peculiar girl, not +yet Americanized. Perhaps it is her almost blunt honesty that gives her +the appearance of lacking tact. But tact is the protection of honesty. +Don't you think so?" + +"I don't know anything about tact, as you understand it. I know what it +is to get the drop on a man, and I suppose the woman of tact always has +the drop. Is that it?" + +"Yes," she laughed, walking close beside him. "A woman of tact is never +taken unawares." + +"A suspicious woman, I take it." + +"Well, a ready woman. And Gunhild is not dull, but she is not always +ready. Do you think so?" + +"I'll be--I don't know what you're driving at." + +"Get up," the boy cried, clucking. + +"Perhaps I am a little obscure. But I thought you would understand." + +"But I swear I don't." + +"Then it would be cruel to explain." + +"It would? You've got to explain now." He halted and turned to her. The +boy pulled at his ears. Her laughter came like the rippling of cool +water. + +"You know that Gunhild is an experiment," she said. "She was a girl of +talent with uncertain manners. Even her restraint is blunt. And I think +that Mrs. Goodwin has found her a failure." + +Milford began to ease the boy to the ground. "I must bid you good +evening here," he said. + +"Won't you come to the house to supper?" + +"No. I'll go and eat at a table where no restraint is blunt and where no +experiment is a failure." + +"I have offended you," she said, taking the boy by the hand. "And I +didn't mean it, I'm sure. I hope you don't think that I would say a word +against her. We are all fond of her, I'm sure. But we are all interested +in you." + +"In me? Who the--the deuce am I? What cause have you to be interested in +me? You are not interested in me, except as a sort of freak--a +mud-turtle, caught in the lake, viewed by woman with their 'ahs' and +'ohs,' standing back holding their skirts. I know that woman. She is +worth----" + +"I thought you said you didn't know her till she came out here?" + +"I said I'd never spoken to her." + +"Know her but had never spoken to her. The plot curdles. Really, Mr. +Milford, what I said was simply to draw you out. I don't know a thing +against her; I don't think she's a failure. Now tell me what you know. I +am hungry for something of interest; I'm tired to death of this +everlasting market report. If she and you have been mixed up in a +romance, tell me, please. Bobbie, don't pull at me. I'm going in a +moment." + +"The ripening fruit of a romance," said Milford, putting his hand on the +boy's head. "Isn't that enough for you?" + +"The fruit is a tender care; the bud a careless pleasure," she replied. +"Tell me about it--now. I might not see you again." + +"Then you will soon forget." + +"Oh, no, I can't forget you. You have had a strong influence on me--for +good, I am sure. You have some noble purpose, hidden away, and when we +meet one with a noble purpose we feel stronger, though we may not know +what that purpose is. I long to do something in the world, too----" + +"Then love your husband," said the tactless man. + +"What are you saying? I do love him." + +"If you love him, you have a noble purpose." + +"But who are you to talk so morally?" + +"A man who has seen so much vice that he would like to see virtue. +There's my road," he said, pointing to the gate. "I must bid you +good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +A WOMAN'S THREAT. + + +A cow that had been hurt by a falling tree went limping down the road, +and Milford, looking at her, said that she pictured the passing of time. +And when at evening he saw her again, he said that she was the same +hour, passing twice. In the woods he met the girl from the poor-house, +and she told him that Mrs. Blakemore was gone. One afternoon Mrs. Stuvic +sent for him, and when he went she scolded him for not having come +sooner to lighten the dark hour of her loneliness. She was afraid of +solitude. In the bustle of a boarding-house, in fault-finding, in all +annoyances, there was life, with no time to muse upon the soul's fall of +the year; but in the empty rooms, the quiet yard, the hushed piano, +there was a mocking stillness, the companion of death. She hated death. +It had a cold grip, and old Lewson had proved that there was no breaking +away from it. To her it was not generous Nature's humane leveler; it was +vicious Nature giving one's enemies an opportunity to exult. She +declared that if all her enemies were dead, she would not oppose death. +A woman in the neighborhood had sworn that she would drag a dead cat +over her grave; she was a spiteful wretch, and she would do it. Years +ago there had been a fight over a line fence, and Mrs. Stuvic had won +the suit, hence the only proper thing to do was to wait till she was +buried and then to drag a dead cat over her grave. A terrible triumph! +The old woman shuddered as she spoke of it. She had a premonition that +she was to die in the winter, alone, at night, while creaking wagons +passed the gate and stiff-jointed dogs bayed the frozen moon. They would +cut away the snow and bury her--and then at night would come the woman +with the dead cat. She could see it all, the frozen clods, the pine +head-board with her name in pencil upon it, the cat left lying there, +the woman returning home to gloat in the light of a warm room. Upon a +bench on the veranda Milford sat and listened and did not smile, and +accepting his grimness as a sympathy, her hard eye grew moist, a +flint-stone wet with dew. She asked him if he had an idea as to who that +woman was; and when he answered that he did not, she said: + +"Nobody but my own sister. Now, you keep still. And that's the reason I +was so quick to let you have that farm almost at your own terms. I was +afraid some one would rent it for her. Oh, but you may call me unnatural +and all that sort of thing, but you don't know what I've had to contend +with. My first husband died a drunkard. Many a time I've hauled him home +almost frozen. He'd leave me without a bite to eat and spend every cent +of money he had. And many a time I told him I'd pour whiskey on him +after he was dead--and I did--yes, you bet! I said, 'Now go soak in it +throughout eternity.' Ah, Lord, one person don't know how another one +lives. I've had nothin' but trouble, trouble--all the time trouble." + +"We all have our troubles, madam." + +"Hush your mouth. You don't know what troubles are. Think of havin' to +fight with your own blood kin, your own children. Think of your own +daughter slanderin' you, and your own son havin' you arrested!" + +"I expect you've had a pretty hard life, Mrs. Stuvic." + +"Hard life! That don't tell half of it." + +"And yet you want to stay here longer." + +"What! Do you reckon I want to give Nan a chance to drag that cat over +my grave?" + +"Let her drag it. What's the difference? You won't know anything about +it." + +"But how do I know that? And I'd be in a pretty fix, havin' her drag a +cat over me and not bein' able to help myself. No, I want to wait till +she dies, the unnatural thing." + +"Can't you make it up with her?" + +"Make it up with her? Do you reckon I want to make it up with her? Do +you reckon I'd stoop that much?" + +"You call her unnatural. Don't you think you may be just a little +unnatural yourself?" + +"Now, look here, if you're goin' to take her part you march yourself off +this place." + +"I'm not taking her part. I don't know her." + +"Then keep still. Don't you think you'd better come over to the house +and stay durin' the winter?" + +"No, I'd rather stay over there." + +"All by yourself?" + +"Bob'll be there." + +"Land's sakes, are you goin' to keep him all winter? I thought you had +more sense than to put on such lugs. But you've got to come over here +every night or two. I don't want to die here alone." + +A boy on a horse rode up to the gate. The old woman went out to him. She +came running back, with her limp hands flapping in the air. Her sister +had sent for her. She begged Milford to hitch up the pony as fast as he +could. She said that he must drive her over there. + +On the road she did not speak a word, except to give directions. She sat +stiff and grim. Persons whom they passed stared at her, straight, +squaw-like, with a hawk feather standing sharp in her hat. They drew up +at a small white house in the woods. Yellow leaves were falling about +it. A peacock spread the harsh alarm of their arrival. The old woman +commanded Milford to get out and to wait for her. She did not know how +long she might stay. A woman opened the door for them. Mrs. Stuvic +recognized her as the mother of the girl from the poor-house. Milford +sat down in the dreary passage-way. Mrs. Stuvic followed the woman into +a room. The lines about her mouth tightened as she caught sight of her +sister, on a bed in a corner. She drew up a chair, and sat down by the +bedside. + +"What's the matter, Nan?" + +The sister slowly turned upon her pillow and looked at her with gaunt +eyes and open mouth. + +"Dying," she whispered in her hard breathing. + +"Do you think you be?" + +"I know it--taken last night--doctor's gone. Couldn't do anythin'. Worn +out, Mary Ann." + +"No, Nan, you just think you be. Look at me. I've had twice as much +trouble as you." + +The dying woman slowly shook her head. "It's been all trouble--nothin' +but trouble. Mary Ann, you know the threat I made." + +"Don't now--keep still." + +"Well, the Lord has taken that out of my heart. Do you think--think you +could kiss me, Mary Ann?" + +Milford heard the old woman sob, and he walked out beneath the trees +where the leaves were falling. The day grew yellow, and brown, and the +stars came out, and still he waited, with the leaves falling slowly in +the quiet air. The insects sang, and sitting with his back against a +tree, he fell asleep. Something touched him. He looked up with a start, +and there stood Mrs. Stuvic, her feather sharp in the moonlight. "Drive +me home," she said. + +On the way home she did not speak, but when the buggy drew up at the +gate she said: "If there's a God--and there must be one--I thank him for +the tears I've shed this night. Now, you keep still. Turn the pony loose +and go home. Don't come into the house. I don't want to see anybody. +Keep all my affairs to yourself and you'll make no mistake." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE CUP AND THE SLIP. + + +In a pelting rain a funeral passed along the road, and a man who had no +time for such affairs, hastening with his milk-cans to the railway +station, caught sight of Mrs. Stuvic's face, pressed against the +water-streaked glass of a carriage window. He lashed his team to make up +for loss of time in turning aside; he wondered at the mysterious tie +that could have drawn her out, not indeed on such a day, but at all, for +he knew her to be at enmity's edge with neighbors and frosty to every +relative. At the station he met Milford, walking up and down beneath the +shed. Milford remembered him, Steve Hardy, the man who had given him a +"lift" from the station on the day of his coming into the neighborhood. +And to his head-shakings, winks, nods, wise mutterings, the new-comer +owed much of his reputation for mystery. + +"I see your old boss off down the road there goin' to a funeral," said +Hardy. + +"Did you? It's one of the privileges granted by the constitution of the +State." + +"Yes. They don't have to take out license to go to funerals, or I don't +guess the old woman would er went. Guess all her boarders have gone, or +I don't s'pose she'd found the time. Who's dead?" + +"Her sister, I believe." + +"That so? Then I wonder more than ever. Believe I did hear somethin' +about it t'uther evenin', but I was milkin' at the time and I didn't +think that she was the old woman's sister. They must have made it up." + +"Made what up?" + +"Why, the row they had over the line-fence a good while ago. Somebody +told me you wanted to buy some calves." + +"Yes, I'd like to get a few good ones." + +"Well, mine are as good as ever stood on four feet. I guess you mean to +settle here permanently. Well, folks that have stirred around a good bit +tell me that there ain't a purtier place on the earth. I've had my house +full all summer, and there ain't been a word of complaint. Goin' out my +way?" + +"Not till after the mail comes." + +The post office was in a weather-beaten cottage, in the midst of an +apple orchard, just across the railway tracks; and of late Milford had +become well-acquainted with the postmaster, calling on him early and +sitting with him till the last pouch had been thrown off for the day. +But not a word had he received from Gunhild. He strove to console +himself with the thought that it was too soon, that she had not gone to +the country, but a consolation that comes with strife, consoles but +poorly. The train came, the mail-pouch was thrown off, and he followed +the postmaster to the house, stood close in anxiety till the letters +were all put into the pigeon-holes, and then turned sadly away. He took +his course through the wet grass, across the fields. He halted at the +ditch, and in the rain and the gathering dark stood there to think, amid +the wind-tangled stems and the rain-shattered blooms of the wild +sunflowers. He stepped down into the ditch, deep with mire, and the grim +humor of his nickname in the West, "Hell-in-the-Mud," fell upon him like +a cowboy's rope. He drew himself out, threw down a handful of grass that +he had pulled up by the roots, and strode on, through the green slop of +the low land. As he turned in at the gate, to pass through the hickory +grove, he saw the light of a lantern moving about in Mrs. Stuvic's +barnyard. He spoke to a dog that came scampering to meet him; the light +shot upward, came toward him; and he recognized the old woman, +bareheaded, with the rain pattering on her gray hair. + +"Is that you, Bill? Now what are you pokin' round in this rain for? Come +over to the house and get your supper." + +"No, I must go home." + +"Home? Why, you haven't got any home and never will have." + +"That's true," he agreed. + +"Not till you go where we took my old sister to-day," she said, letting +the lantern down till her face was in the dark. "And just to think it +should have come as it did, while I was talkin' about her! I'd been +thinkin' about her all day, and I knowed somethin' was goin' to happen. +But come on in the house, and don't be standin' here in the rain like a +fool. Get away, Jack. I do think he's got less sense than any dog I ever +set eyes on. Now, if you do put your muddy feet on me I'll cut your +throat. You just dare to do it, you triflin' whelp! Are you goin' to the +house with me, Bill?" + +"You're not afraid, are you?" he asked, now that her fear of the dead +cat was gone. + +"Now you keep still. I'm not afraid of the devil himself. But this is +just the sort of a night for me to die. Yes, I'll tell you that." + +"I thought you were to die on a cold night, with the wagons creaking +along the road." + +"That was the plan, but it has been changed. Now I'm goin' to die when +the ground is soaked. You don't know Peterson, do you? Well, no matter. +But he lived just down the road there not long ago, and a meaner +neighbor never breathed. I caught him drivin' his turkeys into my tomato +patch. Yes. And his well went dry, and he come to my house and wanted to +haul off water in barrels. Yes. And I wouldn't let him. And what did he +say? He said he'd see my grave full of water. And now just think of what +I've had to contend with all my life. Think of me lyin' there in the +water, with that feller prancin' around!" + +"But the chances are that you'll outlive him, Mrs. Stuvic." + +"Yes, you bet, that's what I'm goin' to do," she said, her voice strong +with encouragement. "I'll outlive the whole pack of 'em, and then mebbe +they'll let me alone. Well, I'm not goin' to stand here any longer like +a fool." + +When Milford reached home he found the Professor warm in a disquisition +delivered to the hired man. He hopped up from his chair and seized +Milford by the hand. "Ha," said he, "I was just telling our friend here +that exact memory is not the vital part of true culture. It is the +absorption of the idea rather than the catching of the words." + +"Sit down," said Milford. "But what does he know about it? Woman is his +culture, and he's not only caught her idea, but has learned her by +heart." + +"Now you're trottin'," spoke the hired man. "If there's anything in a +woman's nature that I don't know, why, it must have come to her in the +last hour or so." + +The Professor crossed his legs and slowly nodded his head. "You ask," +said he, speaking to Milford, "what does he know about it? A man never +knows unless he learns. Even to the ignorant, wisdom may be music. The +man whose mind has been dried and hardened in the field of harsh toil, +may sip the delicious luxury, the god-flavored juice of knowledge. +Wisdom cannot be concealed. You may lock it in an iron box, but it will +seep through." + +Upon entering the room Milford had seen the hired man put aside an +earthen ewer, and now he knew that cider had been brought from the +cellar. + +"Nearly all utterances upon knowledge, human nature or life, are trite," +the learned man proceeded. "And so are herbs and flowers trite, the +stars in the heavens common, but once in a while there appears from the +ground a shoot so new that botany marvels, a star in the sky so strange +that astronomers gape in the wonder of a discovery. And I, humble as the +lowly earth, may sprout a new thought." + +"I was going to suggest more cider," said Milford, "but I guess you've +had enough." + +"Ha! enough and not too much. To pause at the line, a virtue; to cross +but an inch, a vice. Do you know of a publication that would buy a paper +upon the decadence of the modern drama? I have one in my head, a hot and +withering blast of fierce contempt." + +"The last play I saw was a hummer," said the hired man. "There was a +whole lot of dancin' and cavortin' before they got down to it, fellers +givin' each other gags, and women singin' songs. But when they got down +to her she was there--a sort of a Mormon play; and they had a bed that +reached clear across the platform." + +"Melpomene rioting as a bawd," declared the Professor. "I could +elucidate if permitted one more russet cup, drawn from the oak." He +looked at Milford. "One more, and let it be russet." + +"No more to-night, Professor," said Milford. "I am going to get a bite +to eat pretty soon. Won't you join me?" + +"To eat, to clog the stomach, to stupefy the nimble brain, that fine +machinery of wheels invisible and pulleys more delicate than the +silkworm's dream of a gauzy thread! No, I will not eat, but I will +drink--one more russet cup." + +"Just one," said Milford. + +"I spoke one, one in true sincerity; and if I squeeze the gentle hand of +hospitality till the bones crack, and ask for more--give it to me," he +roared, throwing his head back. + +"Bob, bring him a cup of cider," said Milford. + +"This has been an off day with me," the Professor remarked, following +the hired man with his eyes. "The mill shut down to undergo repairs, and +I am a boy out of school." He listened, as if straining his ears to +catch the babble of the cider. "I sat about the house, with a dry book, +to feel the contrast of the rain; I sniffed the dust of an Elizabethan's +pedantry--and then my wife and my daughter began on me. I beggared +myself and got them a sofa, and now they want a set of chairs. I made +with them a treaty of peace, and, barbarians, they violated it. What a +reproach it is to woman to see a man think! She must stir him up, +scatter his faculties." + +"Not all women," said Milford. + +"Ha! About how many women have you married, sir?" + +Mitchell came in with the cider, and the Professor reached for it. He +placed the cup on the table and gazed at the bursting beads as if +counting them. He drank, smacked his mouth, and no whip-lash could have +popped keener; he gazed down into the cup, regretting the fall of the +yellow tide. He leaned back, with his eyes turned upward, and breathed +long; he whistled softly as if to coax back a thought that had escaped +him; he leaned forward, drained the cup, and sadly put it down, shoving +it far across the table. "Just within arm's reach of a temptation to ask +for more," he said, thrusting forth his hand. "But I will not. My word +has been given. Yes, about how many women have you married?" + +"Well, just about one fewer than yourself if you've married only one," +Milford answered. + +The Professor's eyes snapped. "Was that word fewer contemplated or was +it an accident? Do you study to find such niceties of distinction?" + +"I don't give a snap for niceties of distinction, Professor; I don't +know them, in fact. They might have been hammered into my head once, but +they were jolted out by bucking horses. Sometimes we forced them out. We +didn't want to be hampered. I knew a rancher, an Oxford man, who +wilfully clawed the polish off his tongue. He wanted to live down among +men, he said, and the rougher the better. One day I saw him get down off +his horse to kick a book that some one had dropped in the trail." + +"I don't blame him for kicking a book that he might find out there," +said the Professor. + +"You don't? A scholar lost an Æschylus on the prairie, and some one +might have kicked it." + +"Ha! I draw you on apace. We'll discuss the ancient goat-song next." + +"No, I'd rather talk about sheep and calves. I know more about them. I +never look at a learned man that I don't fancy him weary of his burden. +Think of a professor's moldy pack, dead languages, dried thought----" + +"Hold on, my dear friend. I was a professor, and I had no such pack. +Like the modern peddler, I carried the wants of to-day. But, after all, +I agree with you in the main. I know that the average doctor of learning +is not able to see virtue in the new. To him old platitude is of more +value than new vigor. And with one more cup I could----" + +"No more." + +"Not in the interest of clear elucidation?" + +"Not in any interest that you can fish up. I don't want you to go home +drunk." + +"Drunk! Why, my dear boy, I hadn't thought of such a thing; it hasn't +entered my head. You mistake me, and I am here to refute it. A man needs +something beyond his needs; there are times when we look for something +aside from our own natural forces; there are wants which nature was ages +in supplying. Look at tobacco. The Greeks missed it as they sat deep in +the discussion of their philosophy. They did not know what it was they +were missing, but they knew it was something and I know it was tobacco. +But be that as it may. You have said that I shall have no more, and I +bow." He twisted his beard and seemed to force into himself the spirit +of resignation. They heard a tramping on the veranda. A voice called +Mitchell. He went to the door and opened it, told some one to come in, +and then stepped out. There came a mumbling, and then a profane +exclamation. Mitchell stepped back into the room and slammed the door. +He sat down and leaned over with his arms upon his knees. The Professor +looked at him, still twisting his beard. Milford asked him what had +happened. He looked up with a sour snarl. "It's all off," he said. + +"What's all off?" Milford asked. + +"It's all off with me, that's what. My girl's married." + +"You don't mean it!" the Professor cried. + +"Then what the devil do I want to say it for? She married about two +hours ago, so Miles Brent tells me, and he was there--married a feller +named Hogan. I see him around there once or twice, but don't think +anythin' of it. Well, I'll swear. I thought I knowed her, and I did know +her at one time, but she changed. Blamed if you can tell how soon +they'll change on you. Hogan--an old widower." + +"I know him," said Milford. "He milks fifteen cows. His milk caught +her." + +"I hate to think that," Mitchell drawled, "but I'll have to. Yes, sir, +hauled off in a milk-wagon. And she owns a piece of land worth fifty +dollars an acre." + +"She must have wanted milk to wash off her freckles," said Milford. + +"Don't, Bill--don't make light of a man's trouble. She's a big loss to +me, I tell you." + +"But, Bob, you didn't really love her, now, did you?" + +"Bill, there's different sorts of love. I loved her in my way, as much +as any man ever loved a woman, I reckon, in his way. I put my faith in +her, and that was goin' a good ways. Humph! I can't hardly believe it, +but I know it's so." + +"When the heart is rent," said the Professor, twisting his beard to aid +his thought; "when the heart is rent----" + +"It's the failure of the rent--on the land, that gets Bob," Milford +broke in. "His heart has nothing to do with it." + +"Bill, I thought you had more sympathy than----" + +"Sympathy for a man who has failed to beat a woman out of her property? +Of course, I wish you'd succeeded, but I'm not going to console you +because you haven't. I'm a scoundrel all right enough, but a scoundrel +has his limits." + +"That's all right, Bill, but somebody may give you the slip." + +"That's true enough, but my heart and not my pocket will do the +grieving. I haven't any time to give to a man's pocket grief." + +"Wait till you have a real grief," said the Professor. "Wait till +ignorance comes heavy of hoof down your hallway to tell you that your +years of study are but a waste-land, covered with briars; to cut you +with the blue steel of a chilling smile, and to turn you out of an +institution that you hold dear. That's grief." He leaned forward upon +the table, with his head on his arms. + +"You had no right to go to see her," said Milford. "You had no divorce." + +"But I could've got one, couldn't I? Are they so blamed scarce that a +man can't get 'em? Well, let it go." + +"Yes, I must go," said the Professor, getting up. "Is it raining yet? I +slipped off between showers without an umbrella." + +"Sorry I haven't one," Milford replied. "Yes, it's raining. Take that +coat up there. It may protect you some." + +"Thank you. I shall avail myself of your offer." + +He put on the coat, bade them good-night, and set out for home. The road +was muddy and he walked close to the fence. Once he strode into a patch +of briars. "The waste land of my years of study," he said. He shied when +he saw the light in his window, and he cleared his throat and braced +himself. His wife and Miss Catherine, hearing him upon the veranda, sat +down upon the floor, as if they had no chairs. He stepped in, looked at +them, and sadly shook his head. + +"I would be polite enough to choose a finer insinuation," said he. +"There may be virtue in a hint--there may be all sorts of spice in it, +but there's nothing but insult in squatting around on the floor like +this. I don't know how to choose words for the occasion. I will simply +bid you good-night." + +He heard them talking after he went to bed. He sighed out his distemper +and fell asleep. In the morning he found that he had hung Milford's coat +upside down. A paper had fallen from the pocket. He took it up, opened +it, and with a start he recognized his medical treatise. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +FROM HER. + + +Early the next morning Milford was leading a horse out of the barn when +he met the Professor at the door. For a moment the scholar stood puffing +the short breath of his haste; he had not picked his way, for his +clothes were bespattered with mud, as if in his eagerness he had split +the middle of the road. + +"You're out early," said Milford. + +"But not early enough. One who has been deceived is always too late. Mr. +Milford, I have been grossly imposed upon by--by your generosity, sir. +That paper, the medical treatise. It fell out of your coat. I found it +this morning. Can you explain?" + +"Well, I haven't time just now," said Milford, preparing to mount the +horse. "I've got to ride over to Hardy's to see about some calves. We'll +talk about the treatise some other time." + +"No, sir," the Professor replied, holding up his hand. "We must talk +about it now. You were to take that paper to the Doctor's wife. You +brought me the money for it. You said that she liked it. And this +morning it fell out of the pocket of your coat." + +"It does seem a little strange, I admit." + +"Strange! No, it is not strange. It is a generous outrage. I don't know +what else to call it. I have been tricked, laughed at in the pocket of +your treacherous coat." + +Milford mounted the horse. The Professor took hold of the bridle rein. +"You must not leave me thus. I have been left too long to simper and +smirk in self-cajolery, with an inward swell to think that my pen had +paid my insurance. You must explain." + +"All right, I'll tell you. I thought well of your paper, you understand, +but when I got over to the house and faced the woman, my nerve failed +me, and I couldn't ask her to buy it." + +"But you praised it," said the Professor, with a gulp, still holding the +bridle reins. + +"Yes, and it was all right, but I lost my nerve. I had conjured up a +sort of speech to make to her, but it slipped me, and then my nerve +failed. It wasn't my fault, for I liked the paper all right enough, you +understand." + +"But you brought the money. How about that?" + +"Well, I had a few dollars, and I borrowed the rest from the old woman. +But that needn't worry you, for I paid her back when I sold my oats. +It's all right." + +"Needn't worry me! Why, you fail to catch the spirit of my distress. +Your act leaves me in debt. Why did you do it, Milford? Why?" + +Milford looked down at him, his eyes half closed. "You'd acknowledged +yourself a thief. You said you'd stolen a dog." + +"Yes, I know," the Professor agreed, glancing about. "I know, but what +of that?" + +"Well, it made you my brother. And don't you think a man ought to help +his brother in distress? Don't let it worry you. Don't think about it. +If you can ever pay it back, all right. If you can't, it's still all +right, so there you are. Let me go." + +"Milford, in the idiom of the day, I am not a dead beat. I do not like +the term, and I employ it only out of necessity. Beat is well enough, +but dead is lacking in the significance of natural growth. I hope that +you give me credit for seriousness. I am not a flippant man; I am +innately solemn, knowing that the only progressive force in the human +family is earnestness. But sometimes in the hour of my heaviest +solemnity I may appear light; and why? In the hope that I may deceive my +own heart into a few moments of forgetful levity. And you say that you +are going over to look at some calves. Now that gives me an idea. I can +fatten two calves very nicely--could keep them all winter and get a very +good price for them in the spring. I abhor debt, but do you think you +could make arrangements for me to get two, or three? Do you think you +could?" + +"The man I am to deal with is close and I don't believe he'll give +credit." + +"Very likely he might object. I didn't know, however, but that you might +make some arrangements with him, and let me settle with you afterward. +Such things have been done in trade, you know." + +"Yes, but I'm not prepared to do it now, Professor." + +"Well, you know best. But I want you to understand that the money you +advanced me shall be repaid." + +"I understand that." + +"But you must understand it thoroughly. I am afraid that you do not +grasp the full significance of it." + +"I think I do. Well, I must go." + +"Yes, and so must I. One of these days, Milford, you will think well of +me." + +"I do now, Professor. You are my brother." + +"Ah! I have strengths that you----" + +"Your brother on account of your weaknesses, Professor." + +"I would rather that our kinship rested upon other qualities, but we +will not discuss the question, since we both of us are in a hurry. +Therefore, I bid you good-morning and wish you good luck." + +When Milford returned at noontime the hired man gave him a letter. It +was from Gunhild. In a Michigan community she had found, not a field, +indeed, but a garden-patch for her labors. "The pay is very small, but +it is an encouragement," she said. "It has been hard to find a place, +and I was willing to accept almost anything. The people are not awake to +art; to them life demands something sterner, and I have come to believe +that everything but a necessity is a waste of time, but then what I do +is a necessity, and I find my excuse to myself in that. I had a letter +from Mrs. Goodwin a few days ago, and I also met a woman who had seen +her recently. She has made another discovery, a musical genius on the +piano, a girl whom she found in a mission school. I take this to mean +that she has put me aside, for with her the new blots out the old. And +this makes my success as a teacher all the more----" Here she had erased +several words and substituted "needful." "She will never remind me of my +obligation, I am sure, but I cannot forget it. I feel that she was +disappointed in me, but it is not my fault, for I all the time told her +that I was not to be great. I will make no false modesty to hide that I +have thought of you many times. I dreamed of you in English. This may +not mean much to you, but I nearly always dream in Norwegian, and +persons who speak English to me when I am awake, speak Norwegian in my +dreams. But you did not. I thought I saw you standing in a ditch and the +rain was falling, and it was night. I ran to you, and you spoke the name +they used to call you in the West. It was the ditch you helped me over. +I had been thinking about it in the day, and was sorry because the +sunflowers must be all dead. I had to send some money to my uncle. He +lost his place on the street-car, but they have taken him back. He has +five children and cannot afford to be idle. Oh, that was a beautiful +summer out there. Do you remember the night at the house where they said +the spirits are? I can see you now, kneeling on the floor. I will be +bold and say that I wanted to kneel beside you. Will there ever come +another summer like that? It was my first rest. But I cannot hope for +another soon. Mrs. Goodwin will not want me to come out with her next +year. She will have with her the musical genius then. But we shall see +each other. I feel that you spoke the truth when you said that +all--something could not keep us apart. I board at the house of a man +who had this season a large potato field. I went out when the digging +time was at hand, and behind the plow I saw a woman from Norway and I +wanted to help her, but it would not do for these people to know that I +have ever worked in a field. The teacher of the public school spoke of +me as the graceful young woman, and I thought that it might please you +to know that he had said it." + +"Please me?" said Milford, talking aloud to himself. "Blast his +impudence, what right----" + +"Anything wrong, Bill?" Mitchell inquired. + +"Oh, no, everything's all right." + +"Letter from her, ain't it?" + +"Yes. She's in Michigan." + +"I used to go with a woman from Michigan," said the hired man. "And I +thought I'd like to marry her, but I found out she'd been married twice, +and I didn't feel like bein' no third choice." + +"I didn't suppose you'd object to that," Milford replied, folding his +letter. + +"Well, I may be more particular than most fellers, but it sorter stuck +in my crop. I guess it's a good plan to let all the women alone. For +awhile at least," he added. "The best of 'em don't bring a man nothin' +but trouble. What does your girl say in her letter?" + +"Oh, nothing much. She's teaching." + +"I guess she's a pretty good sort of a woman. Are you goin' to bring her +here?" + +"Not if I know myself." + +"Yes, but a feller that keeps on foolin' with a woman gits so after a +while he don't know himself. What's your object in not wantin' to bring +her here?" + +"I've got something else to do first. She may not want me after I've +told her--the truth." + +"Then don't do it, Bill. Talk to a woman all you're a mind to, but don't +tell her any more truth than you can help. It gives her the upper hand +of you." + +"I don't know, Bob, that I'd be warranted in accepting your theories +about woman." + +"Mebbe not, but I'm the chap that's had the experience." + +Milford replied in effect that experience does not always make us wise. +It sometimes tends to weaken rather than to make us strong. It might +make freshness stale; it is a thief that steals enthusiasm; it enjoins +caution at the wrong time. He took out his letter and read it again, +studying the form of each word. The hired man said that he had received +many a letter, had read them over and over, but that did not alter the +fact that the writer thereof had proved false to him. "I don't want to +pile up trash in no man's path," he said, "but I want to give it out +strong that it's a mighty hard matter for a woman to be true even to +herself. Look how I've been treated." + +Milford did not reply. He studied his letter, and the words, "wanted to +kneel beside you," gathered a melody, and were sweet music to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +REMEMBERED HIS OBLIGATION. + + +Now and then there was a blustery day, but good weather remained till +late in November. But the ground tightened with the cold, and a +snow-whirlwind came from the Northwest. Nowhere had the autumn been +fuller of color, but a hiss and a snarl had buried it all beneath the +crackly white of winter. Windmills creaked in the fierce blast, sucking +smoky water from the ground, to gush, to drip, and then to hang from the +spout a frozen beard. Black-capped milkmen, with flaps drawn down over +ears, sat upon their wagons, appearing in their garb as if the hangman +had rigged them up for a final journey. To look upon the frozen fields +and to stand in the groaning woods it did not seem possible that there +had ever been a day of lazy heat and nodding bloom. At tightening +midnight the flinty lake cracked with a running shriek. The dawn was a +gray shudder, the sunrise a shiver of pale red, and then a black cloud +blot-out and more snow. A day that promised to be good-tempered often +ended in a fury; and sometimes, when it seemed that nature could not be +more harsh, the wind would soften, a thaw come with rain, and then +another freeze with a snow-storm fiercer than before. Sometimes thunder +growled, a lost mood of summer in the upper air; sometimes a lagging +autumn bird was whirled through the freezing wind. And with it all the +Yankee man was full of spirit, almost happy, happy as the Yankee well +can be. His cool nature demanded a fight with the cold. The ears of all +his ancestors had been frozen in bleak New England. His religion had +been nurtured in a snow-drift, and unlike the breath of a freezing +rabbit, did not melt an inch of it. In the howl of a cutting wind he +heard a psalm to his vengeful Deity. And to-day the winter reminds him +that his army was victorious in the summer South. It was a fight of +Winter against Summer. + +Milford had no idle time upon his hands. When not at work in the barn he +was trading among the farmers. They called him sharp, and this was a +compliment. He had beaten Steve Hardy in a trade, and this was praise. +An honest sort of a fellow is an eyesore to the genuine Yankee. He must +have other virtues--thrift. There was but one drawback in the Rollins +community: The land was too productive. It yielded a good living without +the full exercise of the Yankee quality. The Yankee is happiest when +strongly opposed. His religion was sweetest when he had to pray with one +eye open, sighting at the enemy, the dragoon sent by the king to break +up the Conventicle, or the American Indian come to burn the +meeting-house. + +The winter had brought out Milford's strong points. He doubled his money +on a flock of sheep. Fathers spoke of it to their daughters. Mothers +asked their sons if they were acquainted with Mr. Milford. Mrs. Stuvic +was proud of him. + +"Oh, I knowed what I was doin'," she said one night, sitting near the +hot stove in Milford's dining-room. "You can't fool me. I know lots, I +tell you. Do you know the Bunker girl? Well, she was at my house +yesterday, and she talked like she knowed you but wanted to know you +better. Now put down that newspaper and talk to me. Do you know her?" + +"I think I've met her," said Milford. + +"You think you have. Well, a woman has taken mighty little hold of a man +when he thinks he's met her. She'd make you a good wife; yes, you bet!" + +"I don't want a wife, good or bad." + +"Oh, you keep still. What the deuce are you workin' for? You know +there's a woman somewhere waitin' for you." + +"And if there is, why should I want to marry the Bunker girl?" + +"Now listen at him! Why, I didn't know but you'd got tired of foolin' +with the other one. Who is she? That tall critter that was out here? +Well, I don't know about her, with her art. Art the cat's foot! You'd +better marry a woman that knows how to do housework. She may be all +right for summer, but you'd better marry a woman for winter. Don't you +think so, Bob?" + +"For winter and summer, I should think," said the hired man. "But I +married one for winter, and she went away along in July. But I guess I +could get her again." + +"And he's just about fool enough to take her," Milford spoke up. "Why, +she'd run away again." + +"I don't think that, Bill. I guess she's got more sense now." + +"At any rate, she's got more sense than you," said the old woman. "She +had sense enough to run away and you didn't. But I hear that somebody +else run away, Bill. I heard that you left a wife out West." + +"You heard a lie, madam," Milford replied. "But that's not hard to hear. +A man may be ever so deaf, and sometimes might hear a lie." + +"That's gospel, Mrs. Stuvic," said the hired man. "I was out at the deaf +and dumb asylum one time, and they had a boy shut up for lyin' with his +fingers." + +"Well, what do you come tellin' me about it for? Do you s'pose I care? I +wasn't talkin' about lyin'. I was talkin' about some folks not havin' +much sense, and you was right at the top of the pot, I'll tell you that. +You haven't got sense enough to catch a good woman." + +"I might not have from your standpoint, but I have from mine. I don't +believe I'd want the woman you'd call good. She'd think it was her duty +to keep a man stirred up all the time; she'd make him work himself to +death." + +"Well," she snapped, "a woman's better off every time she makes a man +work himself to death, I'll tell you that." + +"Yes, from your standpoint," drawled the hired man, opening the stove +door to get a light for his pipe. "But I wouldn't kill myself for no +woman, would you, Bill?" + +"I don't know that I'm called on to do it," Milford replied. "Give me +that," he added, reaching for the bit of blazing paper which the hired +man was about to put out. He lighted his pipe, threw the burning paper +on the stove, and idly looked at the cinder waving in the draft. "As +unsteadfast as Mitchell's love," he said. + +"What is?" the hired man inquired. "That thing, there? No, that's a +woman's love. See, it's blowed away." + +"Such nonsense!" said the old woman. "How can you keep it up so long? +I'd get sick to death of it. Woman's love, woman's love--I never was as +tired of hearing of a thing. I hear it all summer, and now you're +talkin' it. Conscience alive, how the wind blows! It makes me think of +old Lewson, the cold made him shiver so. I've knowed him to sit up at +night with his fire out and his teeth chatterin', waitin' for the +spirits to come. One night I asked him who he expected, and he said his +wife, and I told him she was a fool to come out such a night, and he +flung his spirit book at me, and the Dutch girl kindled the fire with it +the next mornin'. Poor old feller! I passed his grave the other day, all +heaped up with snow; and it made me shake so to think I'd be lyin' there +sometime, with the snow fallin' an' the cows mooin' down the road. But +I'm not gone yet, Bill. Do you understand that? I say I'm not gone yet, +and many a one of 'em 'll be hauled off before I do go. Yes, you bet! +I'll outlive all of you; the last one of you." + +"I hope so, Mrs. Stuvic," said Milford. + +"You do? Thank you for the compliment." + +"But you've got to go sometime," Mitchell spoke up; and she frowned upon +him. + +"You shut your mouth, now," she snapped. "I wan't talkin' to you. I'll +go when I get ready, and it's none of your business. But ain't it +awful," she added, speaking to Milford, "that we've got to go? And we +don't know where and don't know what'll happen to us afterwards. Lord, +Lord, such a world! If we could only be dead for a while to see what +it's like; but to think forever and ever, all the summers and all the +winters to come! Dead, all the time dead. I wake up in the night, and +think about it and wish I'd never been born. Sometimes I look at my hand +and say, 'Yes, the flesh has got to drop off.' Not long ago a doctor +stopped at my house one night with a skeleton. He was a young fool, and +had bought it somewhere. He jerked the thing around like it was a +jumpin'-jack; and I said to myself, 'You'd do me the same way, you +scoundrel.' And I told him to drive away from there as fast as he could. +And old Lewson's failin' to come back has made it worse. I wonder if he +did lie to me. I wonder if he could come back. And if he could, why +didn't he? I'd always been kind to him; took him when his own flesh and +blood turned him out. Then what made him lie to me? I don't care so much +about his not comin' back; all I want is to know that he could have +come. That would satisfy me. And why couldn't he let me know that much? +Bill, you lump of mud, don't you think about dyin'?" + +"You're coming pretty close to my name, old lady. Yes, I think about +it, but death will have to take care of itself. I haven't the time to +worry with it just at present." + +"Yes, and the first thing you know you can't worry about it." + +"Then I'll be all right; won't need to worry." + +She reached over and gripped his wrist. "Ah, that's it; that's just it. +How do you know that you won't need to worry? What proof have you got? +Tell me, if you've got any." She jerked him. "Tell me. Don't you see how +I'm sufferin'? If you know anythin', tell me. I want the truth. That's +all I want, the truth." + +"I don't know anything, Mrs. Stuvic. I can only hope." + +She turned loose his wrist and shoved herself back further from him. +"You can only hope. You mean that you're only a fool. That's what you +mean. What do you want to hope for? Why don't you find out? What's all +the smart men doin' that they don't find out? Talk to me about the world +gettin' wiser! Oh, they can invent their machines and all that, but why +don't they find out the truth?" + +"Some of the wisest of them think they have found out long ago," Milford +replied. "Don't you see the churches? Somebody must believe that the +truth is known or there wouldn't be so many churches." + +"Churches," she sneered, "yes, churches. But I don't believe in 'em, and +you don't neither. Same old thing all the time; believe, believe, +nothin' but believe. Well, I'm goin' home. I see you don't know any +more than I do. We're all a pack of fools." + +Mitchell said that he was going her way, and she told him to come on. At +the door going out they met the Professor coming in. The old woman fell +back as if she had seen a ghost. She declared that for a moment he was +Old Lewson, just as he looked on the day when last he urged her to +accept his faith. She sat down to recover breath. The Professor assured +her that he meant no harm. Any resemblance that he might bear to the +living or the dead was wholly unintentional on his part. She told him to +shut up, that he was a fool. He acknowledged it with a bow, and said +that this fact also was wholly unintentional. + +"You pretend to be so smart," she said. "Yes, but why don't you know the +truth?" + +"I should know it, madam, were I to hear it." + +"Oh, you get out! You don't know half the time what you're talkin' +about. What's to become of us all? That's what I want to know." + +The Professor sat down. The hired man stood at the door. Milford leaned +back in his chair. The old woman looked at the learned man and repeated +her question. He began to say something about philosophy, and she broke +in with a contemptuous snort and the cat's foot. She did not want +philosophy; she wanted the truth. The Professor attempted to persuade +her that philosophy was the truth, and she fluttered like a hen. It was +nothing of the sort; it was ignorance put in big words. What she wanted +was the truth. + +"But if you won't listen I can't give it to you," said the Professor. +"You cut me off at the beginning. Now, you say that what you want is the +truth. You demand an answer to your question of what is to become of us +all, after this life. You want me to answer it in a word, when the books +that have been written on the subject would sink the biggest ship +afloat." + +"Yes, and you don't know anythin' about it. What I want to know is, can +we come back? Answer me that." + +"Madam, in my opinion----" + +"I don't give a snap for your opinion. Come on, Bob Mitchell, if you're +goin' with me." She bustled out of the room, leaving the Professor with +his finger-tips pressed together and his head erect. "As odd a fish as +was ever hooked," said he. "She must be afraid that she is going to +die." + +"It's on her mind all the time," said Milford. "She wants to believe +something, she doesn't know exactly what." + +"The pitiable case of one beyond the reach of philosophy. But in her +struggling to land herself somewhere she keeps her interest in herself +keenly alive. There is always some sort of hope as long as we are +interested in ourselves. Trite, I admit that it is trite, but it is a +fact that we should always bear in mind, endeavoring constantly to keep +alive an interest in self so that we may not fail in the obligations +which we owe to others. But well may the old woman ask what is to become +of us all. I wash my hands of the spiritual part," he said, going +through the motion of washing; "I can shift the responsibilities here, +or at least feel that I can, but--bodily, bodily, what's to become of us +bodily?" + +"When such riddles are asked of me, I'm always ready to give them up," +said Milford. "I'm not asking myself any questions." + +"Ha! you don't need to," the Professor declared. "You bristle yourself +against the world, and in the fight that ensues you are not always +beaten. I am. Your nerve is sound. Mine has been broken many a time, +tied together again, and is therefore weak. Leaving age out of the +question, there is scarcely any comparison between our equipments for +the fight. You have a habit of silence that enforces respect for your +talk. I am talkative, and a talkative man utters many an unheeded truth. +At times you are almost grim, and this makes your good humor the +brighter. I am always pleasant, and as a consequence fail to hold the +interest of the company. In overalls you can assert a sort of dignity, +or rather what the thoughtless would take for dignity, but which I know +to be a gruffism--permit the expression--a gruffism toned down. But +I--even in a dress-suit I could not keep my dignity from cutting a +prejudicial caper. The trouble is that my acquaintances will not take me +seriously. I once heard a man say, 'Yes, as light as one of Dolihide's +worries.' It angers me to feel that outwardly I am a caricature of my +inner self. Not even my wife knows how serious I am, or what a tragedy +life is to me. But, my dear fellow, my oddities are crystal, and I will +not thread them off in spun glass. I came over for a different purpose. +The money with which you so generously deceived me--I have raised it; it +was a fearful scuffle, but I seized the obstacles that danced about me +and threw them down, one by one. Here is the money." + +He took out a number of bank notes with a scattering of silver, and +slowly spread them on the table, carefully placing one upon the other. +"I said that I would pay you, and here's the money,--down to the forty +cents." + +"I am much abliged to you, Professor. No hurry, though, you understand." + +"There has been no hurry, my dear friend. No one can ever know what a +struggle it was to--to raise it at this time, this needful time." He +leaned back, and with lips tightly sealed together, and with head slowly +nodding, gazed at the pile of dirty paper. "This needful time, thou +filth," he said. + +"Now, if you need it," Milford spoke up quickly, "take it. I'm not +pressed. You can pay it some other time." + +"My life insurance will be due again within three days." + +"Then go ahead and pay it." + +The Professor continued to gaze at the bank notes. "Must I again crease +you into uncleanly folds--I am a thousand times your debtor, my dear +boy. I could spin fine, but I won't. I could pronounce a curse upon +these pieces of motley paper, but I won't. I cannot afford to. In their +mire they lie between me and my family's future misery. I don't know +what your ultimate aim is in this life, but I know that you are a +Christian. I don't know what you have done, but it is what a man does +now that makes him a Christian. Well, solemn under the weight of a +renewed obligation, I will return to my own fireside. Before touching +this money again, let me shake your hand." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +NOT THE OLD SUMMER. + + +At no time during the lagging winter did the Professor mention his +renewed obligation, but one night in April he came over with a tune in +his voice, a laugh in his eye, and paid the debt. The bank notes were +not ragged and soiled as if they had been snatched in the dust of a +fierce scuffle; they were new, and as bright as if they had come as a +gracious legacy. And, indeed, they had. A dead "lot," lying in the +neighborhood of a punctured "boom" in Kansas, fluttered with the +returning life of speculative resurrection. A new railway needed the +site for a station. An agent found the Professor, reluctantly offered +him half as much as the property was worth, and he gladly accepted it. +For a day his household was happy in the possession of a set of new +chairs, a rug and a center table, but soon fell to brooding over the +lonesome absence of dining-room linen and new paper on the walls. The +Professor had hoped that he might be able to buy a bookcase for his room +upstairs, but realizing that it was impossible to fill up the rat hole +of want in the floor below, did not dare to speak of his longing. But he +was sharper than his family had suspected. With a wink he told Milford +that he had, in the stealthy hour of midnight, put by enough to enable +him to do a little speculating. Milford had set him an example of +thrift. There was money to be made in buying and selling and he was +going to buy and sell. All that he had needed was an example. A mind +that could weigh a heavy problem could turn a trifle to account. The +ancient philosophers, counseling contentment of the mind, had money +loaned out at interest. It was no wonder that they could be contented. +And, after all, they held the right idea of life, money first and +philosophy afterward. He would go back to first principles; would deal +in cattle, the origin of money. The bicycle might hurt the horse, but it +could not hurt the steer. There was no invention to take the place of a +beefsteak. Some men might argue that it was difficult if not impossible +for a failure to become a success, but all astonishing success had come +out of previous failure. Without failure the world could never have +realized one of its most precious virtues--perseverance. Society placed +a premium upon rascality. He could be a rascal. At one time he had +thought it wise to lie down with his friend, death; but now he felt it +expedient to stand up with his enemy, life. + +Milford did not take issue with his newly adopted creed. He brought up a +jug of cider and they drank to it. The Professor had an option on four +bullocks, and they drunk to them. And then filling his cup, the reformed +scholar said: + +"To our dear enemies, the ladies." + +"No," Milford replied. He had that day received a letter. "I won't drink +to them as our enemies." + +"Well, then, as our endeared mistakes." + +"No, they are not mistakes." + +"Ha! you put me to for a term. What shall we call them?" + +"The honest helpers of dishonest men," said Milford. + +The Professor frowned. "I cannot subscribe to a sentiment so ruffled and +furbelowed with--shall I say tawdry flounces? Permit me; I have said it. +My dear fellow, in this humid air of American sentimentalism, we are not +permitted to talk rationally about woman. Some man is always ready to +hop up and declare that his mother is a woman. Of course she is. Has any +one ever disputed the fact? His mother is a woman, and so in fact we +hope is the person whom he expects to marry--I say expects to marry, for +it is usually an unmarried man who hops up. I would not abolish +marriage, you understand. I would--well, I would insist upon both +parties having a little more sense. I would enact a law, compelling a +man, before being granted a license, to show a certificate of financial +success. I would inquire into the amount of money he had realized on his +last lot of bullocks." + +"You'd have a fine world." + +"Wouldn't I? There would be no scuffling for life insurance, no +harassment over wall-paper, no daughters to pity a father's failure. If +I could roll up the surface of the sea into a megaphone, I would shout a +caution to the unmarried world." + +"What would you shout, Professor?" + +"Shut your eyes on love. If you have no money, throw your license into +the fire and turn the preacher out at the back door. That is what I +would shout." + +"There are millions of mistakes," said Milford. "But there are many +happy hits. Your marriage----" + +"Thoroughly happy, my dear fellow--as a marriage, you understand. I +wouldn't undo it for the world. My people are everything to me. They are +too much to me, hence my everlasting worry over life insurance. But it +is not possible for the average woman to understand, and nearly every +woman is the average woman. But my worries are over now. I am to start +out anew. Don't think ill of me for not having opened my eyes sooner. An +eye is like a chestnut bur; it doesn't open till it is ripe, and up to +this time mine has been green in ignorance. Don't call me eccentric. I +would rather be called a thief than eccentric. What is eccentricity but +a loose joint, a flaw in the machinery? I am not so much out of the +common. The trouble is that I show effects more plainly perhaps than +other men. But I am serious. I am not light. To the plodder, I have been +chimerical, but I will shame him by becoming a plodder, by out-plodding +him. For the first time in many months, I return to my home as much as +half satisfied with myself." + +A few days later Milford saw him in the road, popping a whip behind four +bullocks. Not long afterward, at a farmyard sale, he was seen haggling +for a small flock of sheep. He bought a cow of Mrs. Stuvic. He urged her +to come to terms. He was a man of business, and had no time for words. + +"Well, now you have woke up," she said. "Who would thought it? They +might as well go out to the graveyard now and tell the rest of 'em it's +time to get up. Gracious alive, take the cow. I don't want to stand in +the way of a man that's just woke up. Have you quit the mill?" + +"No, but since I woke up I do my work in about two-thirds of the time." + +"Good for you! Oh, that feller Milford has stirred up the whole +country." + +"And when he gets through with that farm, madam, I'll take it. I don't +think he'll stay a great while longer." + +"Why, has he said anythin' about goin' away?" + +"No, but with my shrewd eye I can see that he's getting restless. But I +have no time to talk to you." + +The season for breaking land and planting came, slowly through the +stubborn and lingering cold, and Milford bent himself to the putting in +of a large crop. His letters from Gunhild were rambling, but +affectionate. She was now in Indiana. Her work in Michigan had been but +partly successful. "I'm studying so that after awhile I may teach a +regular school," she said. "But there is so much to learn and the +examination is very hard. I met a man the other day who said that he +knew you. He tried to sell you a book. He said that you were very hard +to deal with. I told him that you must know what you wanted. Mr. +Blakemore was here three days ago, to look at some land. He came to the +house where I board, and said that he is making much money. There was a +church sociable and he wanted me to go with him, but I refused. He said +that I never would succeed as long as I was so particular. And I felt +that you would rather I be particular than to succeed. I do not want any +success that you would not like. His little boy has been sick, but is +well now. They are not coming out to Rollins in the summer. They are +going further away to a more fashionable place. Mrs. Goodwin writes to +me yet, so she has not forgotten me. She says that her discovery is +marvelous. She asked about you. She believes that you will be rich one +of these days. I told her in my letter that I did not want to think so, +but I know that she cannot understand. She will not know that I do not +want you to get so far away from me. But you would not. It is a dream +with me to come out there once again. I never have seen a place more +beautiful. The woods here are not so full of the sketches that no one +can draw, and there are no lakes scattered everywhere. I may come for +one week during the vacation." + +June was cool, but July was hot, and with the change in the weather came +Mrs. Goodwin and her discovery, a pale girl with long hands. The +"discoverer" sent for Milford. She was graciously pleased to meet him +again. "I am sorry we can't call back the old summer," she said, giving +him her hand. "But the old summers never come back." She introduced him +to the musical genius, Miss Swartz. Her pale lips parted in a white +smile. Milford asked her to play. Mrs. Goodwin shrugged, glanced at the +piano and said: "I can't let her touch that thing." If Mrs. Stuvic had +heard this remark she would have bundled them off down the road. But she +was out in the orchard at scolding heat with a retired policeman, sent +by the city to board with her during the summer. Miss Swartz languidly +waved herself out of the room, and Mrs. Goodwin, motioning Milford to a +seat beside her on the sofa, commanded him to tell her all about +himself. + +"I haven't anything of interest to tell." + +"Ah, the same close mouth. You hear from her quite often, I suppose. A +strong woman. Don't you think so? I urged her to stay with me, but she +thought it her duty to go away. Do you expect to reside here +permanently? Gunhild likes this place so much. She's perfectly charmed +with it." + +"Which question shall I answer first?" + +"Did I ask more than one? I haven't seen you in so long that I must +rattle on at a fearful rate." + +"I don't expect to live here permanently." + +"Not if she should request it?" + +"She will not request it. Our arrangements are not yet quite clear +enough for such requests." + +"Indeed? I fancied that it was all understood." + +"It is, in a way, but we must have a very serious talk before there can +be--be----" + +"Anything definite," she suggested. "Yes, I understand. But this serious +talk? How can that change your plans or have any bearing upon them?" + +"That is for her to decide. I had a certain object in view before she +entered into any of my calculations." + +"Dear me, we are as far apart as ever. You must know that I dote upon +that girl, and that consequently I am interested in you. But I needn't +tell you this. You know it already." + +"Yes, and I am grateful." + +"But you will give me no hint as to what your object is. Don't you think +I ought to know it?" + +"She doesn't know it yet." + +"But you must have told her something." + +"A little, and she didn't urge me to tell her more." + +"Do I deserve that reproach? I hope not. Really, she and you present a +singular romance." + +"It is not a romance; it's only a sort of understanding." + +"But you say there is no perfect understanding. Oh, a sort of romance. I +see. Well, you will make her a good husband and consequently a good +living." + +A vision of the Professor as he had sat amid his shifting toasts to +woman arose before Milford. "Good husband, I hope; and a good living, I +am determined," he said. + +"You couldn't have made a better reply, Mr. Milford, if you had pondered +a week. You are quite happy at times. It was voted last summer that you +had good blood, and you must have it still," she added with a smile. +"Although you call yourself a Westerner, you are really from the East, I +believe." + +"Yes, but to live in the West soon rubs out the marks of all sections." + +"True enough, I suppose. But do you expect to go back there?" + +"Yes, but I don't know how long I'll stay. I may run out and come +straight back. I can't tell. It all depends." + +"Upon Gunhild's decision?" + +"Not wholly. The fact is I can't explain myself. Oh, I could," he +added, observing her wondering eye, "but I serve my purpose best by----" + +"By showing that you have no confidence in me," she suggested. "No," she +hastened to continue, "you have none. You have shown it all along. But +why should I ask you to have confidence? We met by accident at a +farm-house, during a holiday, at a time when real friendships are rarely +formed. Impressed by the ephemeral season, we recognize that we too are +but fleeting, with changing likes and dislikes, the prejudices and +predilections of an hour. Of course, my affection for Gunhild is +lasting. Her interests and mine walk far down the road together, hand in +hand. I could not expect you to see this; you saw her and all else stood +about her in a dim radius. I was a shadow, dim or dark, as the day was +light or heavy, the same as Mrs. Blakemore. My station entitled me to +respect, and you gave it. But you did not feel that my love for the +young woman entitled me to something closer than respect. You are no +common man, Mr. Milford. Your face is a Vandyke conception of a spirit +of adventure. You are a strength repenting a weakness; there are flaws +in you, and yet I could wish that I were the mother of such a son." + +"Don't," said Milford, touching her hand; "please don't. I honor you; I +could get down on my knees to you. You're not a shadow. There is nothing +in a shadow that makes a man bow his head in reverence. But I can't tell +you." + +"Is it so very bad, Mr. Milford?" + +"Yes, it is worse than very bad." + +He moved further from her, and looked at her as if he expected her to +move also, but she did not. "There is redemption," she said; "moral +redemption." + +"There must be a material redemption," he replied. + +"God demands that it must be spiritual," she said. + +"But man insists that it must be earthly," he persisted. + +"The gospel was tenderest coming from the mouth of one who had been +infamous." + +"Yes," he replied, "but then the blood of the Virgin's Son was still red +upon the earth, and in the heart of the changing world that blood atoned +for everything. It is different now. Man may forgive, but he wants the +dollar." + +"And he's goin' to get it unless you tie his hands behind him," said +Mrs. Stuvic, stepping into the room. "Yes, you bet! Why don't you have +that girl play the pian, Mrs.--I can't recollect your name to save my +life." + +"She didn't bring her music," Mrs. Goodwin replied, and the old woman +"whiffed." "Music the cat's foot! Don't she know a tune? Tell her to +give me a jig and I'll dance it." + +"She won't play, Mrs. Stuvic. It's of no use to ask her." + +"She won't? Well, then, she needn't. Mebbe she don't like my pian. But I +want to tell you that it's as good as anybody's. I give a hundred and +fifty dollars and a colt for it, and the carpenter painted it fresh +this spring. But if she don't want to play, she needn't. What's become +of that woman--out here last year? Can't think of her name, but her +husband moped about and ended up by callin' your young woman a peach. +What's become of her?" + +"She's gone to the seashore, I understand," Mrs. Goodwin answered, +looking slyly at Milford. + +"Oh, she has? Well, let her go, there wan't no string tied to her. Bill, +I want you to drive over to Antioch for me if you've got the time, and +you never appear to be busy when there's women around. They've got the +pony hitched up." + +Mrs. Goodwin drove with him. Near the old brick house they met the +Professor, leading a calf. + +He snatched off his hat, and the calf snatched him off his feet, but he +scrambled up, tied the rope to a fence-post, and was then ready to do +the polite thing, bowing and brushing himself. He had been on the keen +jump, he said, catching drift-wood in the commercial whirlpool, but he +had often thought of Mrs. Goodwin, one of the noblest of her honored +sex. "I have turned from the sylvan paths where wild roses nod," said +he, "turned into the dusty highway of trade, but I have not forgotten +the roses, madam," he declared with a bow. "They come as a sweet +reminiscence of my brighter but less useful days. Permit me to extend to +you----" + +The calf broke loose and went scampering down the road, a twinkling of +white hoofs in the black dust; and with a shout the Professor took to +his heels in pursuit. + +"Something always happens to that man's dignity," said Mrs. Goodwin, +laughing as they drove on. "Is he ever serious?" + +"He may not appear so, but he's serious now," Milford answered, looking +back at him, galloping down the road. + +"Couldn't we have helped him in some way?" she asked, now that it was +too late even to think about it. + +"We might have shouted advice after him, but that was about all we could +have done," said Milford. "He'll catch him down there. Somebody'll head +him off." + +As they drove through the village street, Milford pointed out the place +wherein he had trained himself to meet the man Dorsey. He had worked +during weeks that one minute might be a victory. She told him that it +was the appearance of having a dauntless spirit that at first aroused in +her an interest in him. She detested a quarrel, but she liked a man who +would fight. Her father had been a captain in the navy, and he had +taught her to believe that a courageous knave was more to be admired +than an honest man without nerve. Of course this was an extreme view, +the exaggerated policy of a fighting man, and though she did not accept +it in full, yet it had strongly impressed her. She did not see how a man +could be an American and not be brave. And frankness was a part of +bravery. At least it ought to be. Milford was brave, but not frank +enough, with her. On the way home she returned to the subject. There was +a charm in the confidence of a brave man. It was strange that he had not +told Gunhild more about himself. He surely loved her. She was capable +of inspiring the deepest love. Of course she had seen him in the West, +but had merely seen him, and his life was still a sealed book to her. +Oh, no, she had not complained. That was not her nature. + +"She'll know enough one of these days," said Milford. "Perhaps too +much," he added. + +"Well, I suppose we must wait," she replied. "And I hope you'll not +think my curiosity idle. All interest is curiosity, more or less, but +all interest is not idle. So you don't know how long you'll remain +here?" + +"I haven't staked off the time." + +She sighed. She said that the summer had been a disappointment. She had +not been happy since Gunhild left her. Her going away must have been a +wild notion, caught from Milford. There was no necessity for teaching, +till at least she had studied longer herself. She had not been +disappointed in her development, not wholly. Her outcome as a woman had +more than offset her failure as an artist. And she found that it was the +woman whom she had liked, rather than the artist. With her new care it +was different. She was all musician, a genius with whims and caprices, a +moody companion, not capable of inspiring friendship. She had taken her +as a duty, a duty which she felt that she owed to the musical world. + +"I am going home to-morrow," she said, when Milford helped her down at +Mrs. Stuvic's gate. "I don't like these new people. They are coarse." + +"To-morrow I have business across the country," said Milford. "I may not +see you again." + +"I am sorry. Will you do me a favor? When you write to Gunhild tell her +that she must come back to me. I need her." + +"I will tell her that you have said so." + +"That won't be much of a favor, but tell her. And I want you to promise +one thing--that you will come to see me, when you are married." + +"I'll promise that gladly, and keep it. I am very fond of you." + +"Are you?" + +"Yes. You said you would like to be the mother of such a son. That was +the kindest thing ever said to me. It makes you my mother." + +"Oh," she said, falteringly, as he took her hand. "You will understand +me better in the time to come. Good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +DREAMED OF THE ANGELUS. + + +Gunhild wrote that she could not spare the money to come out, and to +Milford the summer fell flat and lay spiritless on the ground. He begged +her to let him bear the expense, and for this she scolded him. But she +enlivened him with a suggestion. Near the first of October she would +visit her uncle in the city. "It will make me glad to have you come to +see me then," she said. "And I shall feel that you have held the summer +and brought it with you. Mrs. Goodwin wrote to me as soon as she came +home. She said much about you, and I really think she likes you deeply. +I have been astonished at her. I did not think that she would care for +me more when her house I left, but she does. She is a good woman. Oh, +you remember the Miss Swartz who was with her. Well, she wanted to keep +company with a fiddler in a variety show, and Mrs. Goodwin objected, and +that was not the end of it. The girl went out at night late and married +the fiddler, and Mrs. Goodwin has seen her no more." + +There was a lament for the swift flight of the sunny days, by the woman +on the bicycle and the man casting his line into the lake, but to +Milford the time was slow. He remembered having seen a lame cow limping +down the road, with the sluggish hours dragging at her feet, and he told +the hired man that she had come back again to vex him. But time was +never so slow that it did not pass, and one evening the sun went down +beyond the fading edge of September. Milford waited two days longer and +then went to the city; and just out of the fields, how confusing was the +noise and the sight of scattering crowds that were never scattered! But +his sense of the world soon came back to him. He had been moneyless in +many a town, hanging about the gambler's table, feeding upon the chip +tossed by the exultant winner. The woods, the cattle, the green and +purple pictures, musings with his head in the grass, had taken the +gamester's wild leap out of his blood, but he knew that he dared not go +near the vice. He found the Norwegian's cottage, in the western part of +town, and he stood at the door listening before he rang the bell. A +little girl came out with a tin pail, the gripman's dinner. As she +opened the door he saw Gunhild. She dropped a boy's jacket, which she +had evidently been mending, and came bounding to meet him, with her +welcome bursting out in a laugh. Her hands were warm, and her eyes full +of happiness. There was no put-on and no disguises in their meeting. It +was two destinies touching again, destinies that were to become as one. +She led him into the neat little parlor, gave him a rocking-chair, and +talked of her gladness at his coming, standing for a moment in front of +a glass to put back into place a wayward wisp of hair. Their meeting had +not been cool. She drew up a chair beside him and they talked about the +country, of the haunted house, and the tree that had hoisted a vine +like an umbrella. He told her that he had come through the fields to the +station, and had stood in the ditch among the wild sunflowers. He had +plucked some for her, but they were dead and had fallen to pieces. + +They went out into the park, not far away, and sat amid the scenes of a +changing season, the leaves falling about them. It was an odd courtship, +an indefinite engagement. There was no attempt at sentiment, no time +when either one felt that something tender must be said, but between +them there was a wholesome understanding of the heart. They were not +living a love story. She was not clothed in the glamour-raiment of +love's ethereal fancy, not sigh-fanned by the breath of reverential +melancholy. Her hand did not feel like the velvet paw of a kitten; it +was a hand that had toiled; and though easier days may come, the mark of +labor can never be erased from the palm. + +She left him on the rustic seat, and hastened across the sward to pluck +a bloom that had been sheltered from the early frost, and he looked at +her, a gladness tingling in his nerves. How trim she was in her dark +gown! She looked back at him, pointed at a policeman standing off among +the trees, and imitated the walk of a sneak-thief. She returned +laughing, and pinning the flower on his coat, stood to gaze upon him as +if he were in bloom, and said in an accent that always reminded him of a +banjo's lower tones, "See, the frost has not killed you." Simple, +playful, loving, strong, were the words to express an estimate of +her--the healthy refinement of an honest heart, and modest because she +had seen immodesty. She possessed a knowledge that was a better +safeguard than mere innocence, and her passion illumined her virtue. + +They strolled among the trees, society's forest; they listened co the +ducks and the geese, the city's barnyard. + +"Would you rather live in the country?" he asked. + +"I would not rather teach art there," she laughed. + +"It must be very hard." + +"It is very stupid." + +"I don't suppose the farmers take to it any too kindly." + +"No, they often ask me why I do not draw comic as they see in the +newspapers." + +"They must like to see themselves buying gold bricks." + +She did not understand him, and he explained that the honest farmer +believing that a fortune was coming down the road to meet him, was the +prey of sharp swindlers who prowled about through the country. Steve +Hardy, one of the shrewdest men in the community, once had bought an +express package filled with worthless paper. It was a case of "honesty" +trying to beat the three-shell man at his own game. Ignorance always +credits itself with shrewdness. Industry is no sure sign of honesty. +"Worked like a thief" has become a saying. Smiling at his philosophy, +she said that he never could have learned it in a school. + +"No," he replied. "In the school we are taught to believe in the true, +the beautiful, and the good; but in life we find that the true as we +learned it is often false, the beautiful painted, and the good bad." + +"I would not have you think that," she said. "The beautiful is not +always painted." She stooped and picked up a maple leaf, blushed with +the rudeness of the frost. "This is not painted, and it is beautiful. It +was the cold that brought out its color. You must not be a--what would +you call it?" + +"Cynic?" + +"Yes. You must not be that. It is an acknowledgment of failure." + +He took her hand, and they walked on among the trees. "You talk like a +virtue translated from a foreign tongue," he said. He called her a +heathen grace. She protested. She was a Christian, so devout that she +would have hung her head in the potato field had she heard the ringing +of the angelus. They saw a woman on a wheel, and he dropped her hand. +The woman waved at them, jumped off and came to meet them, smiling. It +was Mrs. Blakemore. "Oh, I am so surprised and delighted," she said, +shaking hands. "Why, how unexpected! You must come home with me. I don't +live far from here. Bobbie will be delighted to see you. He refuses to +go to school, and we won't force him, he is so delicate. How well you +look, Gunhild! And you too, Mr. Milford." The man would have yielded +against his will; the woman saw this and declined the invitation. She +said that they had an engagement to dine. Milford looked at her in +surprise. He thought of the frost-tinted leaf. Mrs. Blakemore was +sorry--she said. It would be such a disappointment to Bobbie. George was +out of town. She bade them an effusive good-bye, mounted her wheel, +pulling at her short skirts, and glided away. + +"Engagement to dine?" said Milford, as they turned from watching Mrs. +Blakemore. + +"Yes, at the little bakery over by the edge of the park." + +"Oh, I see. But I thought you wanted to go with her." + +"I knew that you did not," she replied. + +"But did you?" he asked. + +"I would not spoil a beautiful day," she answered. + +They dined at the bakery, flattering themselves that the girl who waited +on them did not know that they were lovers. They did not see her wink at +her fat mother behind the showcase. + +"I haven't asked you how long I may stay," said Milford, as they walked +out. + +"I was afraid to come to that," she replied. "I must leave on the train +to-night. I have only waited for you." + +"When do you think I can see you again?" + +"I do not know. I will write." + +"Remember that nothing can keep us apart--nothing but yourself." + +"Then we shall not be kept apart. But why do you leave it with me?" + +"Because you are to decide when I tell you something." + +"Do you put it off because it is so hard to tell?" + +"No, because I'm not ready yet. I will be when I close out with the old +woman." + +"I would like to know now." + +"It would be plucking green fruit," he replied. + +"You know best," she said, trustfully. + +The air grew chilly when the sun had set, and they returned to the +cottage to sit alone in the parlor. They heard the kindly tones of the +gripman talking to his children. There was a melodeon in the room, and +she played a Norwegian hymn. The barefoot youngsters scampered in the +passage-way. + +"Let them come in," he said. + +"No, they are undressed for bed," she replied. It was the evening romp, +a tired mother's trial-time before the hour of rest when all are asleep. + +He went to the railway station with her; walked that they might be +longer on the road, looked at cottages, gazed up at flats, planning for +the future. In the deep secrecy of a crowd he kissed her good-bye, and +then went forth to stroll about the town. He stood listening to the +weird song of a salvation woman; he dropped a nickel into a rich +beggar's hat; he saw the grief-stricken newsboy weeping in a doorway, +and believing that he was a liar, gave him a penny; he went to sleep in +a hotel and dreamed that he saw a woman with bowed head listening to the +angelus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE BIGGEST LIAR ON EARTH. + + +When Milford reached Rollins he found the Professor at the station +waiting for him. "I will go home with you," he said. "I have something +of grave importance to communicate." Steve Hardy offered them a ride in +his milk wagon, but they set out on foot, at the suggestion of the +Professor, who said that in this way he could better lead up to his +subject. Milford was silent till they had proceeded some distance down +the lane, and then he asked if anything had gone wrong. The Professor +answered that everything had gone wrong, but as he had not yet led up to +his subject, he continued to walk on, brooding, sighing like the wind in +the rushes. They turned the corner, went down a slope, and at the +bottom, the scholar took Milford by the arm apparently to conduct him to +the subject, which presumably was waiting on the top of the hill. + +"We are coming to it, my dear Milford. It is elusive, but we are almost +to it. Now, here we are," he said, with evident relief, as they reached +the top of the hill. + +"All right, go ahead," said Milford. "Shoot it off." + +"Idiomatic," breathed the Professor. "And, sir, to follow it with idiom, +I am up against it." + +"Up against what?" + +"Failure, grinning and teeth-chattering failure. You have seen me turn +defiantly upon my false training, and woo the ways of the world. You +have seen me buy; you have seen me snatched off my feet by a yearling +calf, in the presence of a dignified woman; you have heard me pop my +whip at the crack of day. And what has it all come to? Failure. I know +that this sounds funny to you, but it is my way, and I find it useless +to attempt another. Now, to the point: On all my speculations I have +lost money. My bargains turned out to be disasters. I sold at a +sacrifice, and am still in debt. I don't know why I should not have +succeeded. My object was as worthy as yours. But I failed." + +"That may be, but you're nearly as well off as you were before you made +the attempt. You haven't so much to grieve over after all." + +"Oh, yes, I have. My life insurance. But for that I could snap my +fingers at defeat." + +"When's the money due?" + +"Day after to-morrow." + +"I can let you have it. What are you trying to do?" + +"I am grabbing after your hand." + +"Let it alone." + +"But, my dear fellow, your kindness overwhelms me." + +"Then don't take the money." + +"Oh, yes, I shall; I am more than willing to be overwhelmed. Ha! I had +set my heart on you, and was afraid that you might not be back in time. +Thank the Lord for the man who comes in time. All others are a blotch +upon the face of the earth. Last night was a torture to me. More than +once my wife called out, 'You give me the fidgets with your walking up +and down. I want to sleep.' Sleep! There was no sleep for me. I saw the +sun rise, and I said to myself, 'If that man don't come you won't shine +for me to-day.' But you came, God bless you. Well, I'll turn off here +and go by home, to show them that I am not crushed into the earth, and +will see you at your house this evening." + +Mrs. Stuvic saw Milford, and came out to the barnyard gate. She wanted +to ask him if he had seen any of her boarders, but had forgotten their +names. Some one had told her that Milford expected soon to quit the +place, and she asked him why he had not told her. + +"I've told you as much as I have any one," said he. "I don't expect to +go before next spring." + +"Well, we may all be dead and buried before then," she replied. + +"Yes, all except you." + +"You bet! Why, three men have been here lately wantin' to insure my +life. Did you see that girl? But I know you did. Why don't you buy the +farm and bring her out here? You could soon pay for it." + +"I'd rather live in the West." + +"The cat's foot! You don't know what you want. Was that the Professor +man with you over there on the hill? I couldn't see very well. He's +crazy. Yes, he is, as crazy as a loon, and I don't want him round here. +He might set the house afire. Don't you think he's crazy?" + +"Well, he's one of the peculiar many that go to make up the world." + +"He's one of the peculiar many that go to make up an asylum, I'll tell +you that. Everybody says he's crazy. Come in and set down a while." + +"No, I must go home." + +"You're in a mighty hurry now, ain't you? Crazy as a loon, and you ain't +fur behind him. Go on with you." + +At night the Professor came whistling out of the dark. The sky was +moonless, but brighter, he said, than the sunrise contemplated by him in +the hour of his dejection. Once more had he proved himself a failure, +but consoled himself with the assertion, made over and over again, that +it required a peculiar sharpness to deal in cattle. There ought to be +other ways by which a man might earn money; there were other ways, and +he would find one of them. He believed that he could write a book and +sell it himself, by subscription. He knew a man who had done this, and +now there were stone gate-posts in front of his house. Talk was the +necessary equipment, and he could talk. The agent ought to be the echo +of the wisdom in the book, and to echo had been his fault in the +practical world. But echo was worthy of its hire. + +"Why, let me tell you what I can do," he said, his face beaming. "I can +take a book on Babylon, on Jerusalem, Nineveh, Jericho, the Red Sea, +home, mother, and make a volume that the farmers will snap at. Easy! +Why, slipping on the ice is hard compared with it. What do you think of +it?" + +"Looks all right," said Milford. + +"Well, anything that looks all right is all right in the book business. +I thought of it coming over to-night, and instantly the road was +carpeted. Yes, sir, it is all right. I have the necessary books, and all +I have to do is to begin work at once. No, there is perhaps a +preliminary--a certain amount of correspondence with publishers. Chicago +is the subscription book center of the country. Oh, it is the plainest +sort of sailing." + +Milford gave him the life insurance money, and he smiled as he tucked it +into his pocket. "This is my last worry," said he. "I have had hopes, +mere hopes, you understand, but now I am confident. It is the +speculative uncertainty that brings out a hope. But I am too old now to +find pleasure in the intoxication of hope. I want assurance, and I have +it. Well, I would like to sit longer and talk to you, but I must get to +work." + +Milford walked a part of the way home with him, congratulating him upon +his happy idea. It was an inspiration. They wondered why it had not come +sooner. But inspirations have their own time, and we should be thankful +for their coming rather than to carp at their lateness. + +As Milford was returning to the house, he heard the hired man singing at +his work in the barn. He had been away from home, and had come back +rather late for one who had stock to look after. When he came into the +house Milford asked the cause of his delay. + +"Well, I got tangled up in an affair and had to see it through. I've +been up to Antioch, and I see your prize-fighter there. He threw a drink +into me because I worked for you, he said. He says you can get along +anywhere with your dukes. Find everythin' in town all right?" + +"Had a great time, walking about in the park. Shortest day I ever +spent." + +"Haven't fixed any date or anythin' of the sort, I guess." + +"We haven't said anything, but it's understood. We caught each other +looking at houses and flats, and had to laugh." + +"I guess that's about as good a way as any. But love as a general thing +is full of a good deal of talk. Well, my affairs of that sort are over +now." + +"So the freckled woman has cured you." + +"Oh, no, I forgot her in no time. Fact is I never did love but one woman +and I married her." + +"What's become of her?" + +"She's up at Antioch." + +"Did you see her?" + +"Oh, yes, and we made it up. We're goin' to live together. I understood +from what you said t'other day that you wan't goin' to keep this place +another year, so I told the old woman that I wanted it. Yes, we are +goin' to take a fresh start. You said once that I ought to have cut her +throat, but I can't look at it in that light. After all, she's as good +as I am." + +"A devilish sight better," said Milford. + +"I guess you're right. So you wouldn't cut her throat?" + +"Well, not if I were you." + +"I don't exactly understand the difference, but it's all right. I got to +thinkin' this way about it, Bill. Most any woman will take a man back, +and I said to myself that it oughtn't to be so one-sided as that. I +heard she was at Antioch, at her aunt's house, so I goes up there. She +was a-sweepin' when I stepped up. And she dropped the broom. I says, +'Don't be in a hurry,' and she stopped and looked at me. 'And is this +you, Bob?' she says. I told her it was, so far as I knowed. She come up +close to me and said I'd been workin' too hard. She took hold of my hand +and turned it loose quick, lookin' like she wanted to cry. I says, +'Don't turn me loose. I've been thinkin' about you.' 'About such a thing +as I am?' she says. Then I told her she was a heap better than me, and +she cried. She said she never would have run away, but she drank some +wine with one of her aunt's boarders. I told her all that made no +difference now if she could promise not to run away again. And then she +grabbed me, Bill; she grabbed me round the neck, and that was the way we +made up." + +"Go and bring her here," said Milford, turning his eyes from the light +of the lamp. "It makes no difference what I said last week or the week +before, or at any time. You bring her here, and take the best room. I'll +take your old bunk in there. Hitch up and go after her now. Wait a +minute. Take this and buy some dishes, and curtains for the windows. +That isn't enough. Take this twenty," he added, giving him a bank note. +"Good as you are! Why, she's worth both of us. Any heart that wants to +be forgiven is one of God's hearts. Drive fast, and the stores won't be +shut up. They keep open later Saturday nights. What are you staring at? +I can see the poor thing now, clinging to you." + +"Wait a moment, Bill. I guess she'll be afraid to come. I told her what +you said." + +"You did? Then go and tell her that I'm the biggest liar on earth. Wait! +I'll go with you." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE OLD STORY. + + +A black-eyed little woman was installed in the house. Accepting her +husband's story and her own statement, her life had not been wholly +respectable, but she brought refinement into the animal cage. A new +carpet lay soft and bright upon the floor. The windows, now curtained, +no longer looked like browless eyes staring into cold vacancy. The +dinner table lost the air and the appearance of a feed trough. Not in +words nor in sighs, but in a hundred ways, she proved the sincerity of +her repentance. + +The autumn lasted a long time, and wise men said that it would end in a +snarl, and it did, for winter came in a night, like a pack of howling +wolves. But their cold teeth did not bite through the walls of Milford's +sitting-room. Black eyes had looked after the work of a carpenter and a +paper-hanger. + +The Professor, thin-clad as he was, welcomed the change in the weather. +The cold that made a dog scamper forced a new energy upon the mind. He +had found that his book required the aid of rain and snow and every +trick that the air could turn. One day he could write better because a +tree in front of his window had been stripped of its leaves. One night +the rattle of sleet graced a period that he had bungled under the +energy-lacking influence of a full moon. This was but a prideful +conceit, for the fact was that, like nearly every impractical man, he +wrote with great ease at all times. Milford had faith in the outcome of +his work, and often visited him at night. And the indorsement of so +shrewd a man had encouraged Mrs. Dolihide and Miss Katherine. Sometimes +the young woman would read a chapter. Once she said: "Ma, this is really +good." It was not much for a daughter to say, but the Professor had been +so repeated a failure that even a cool compliment was warm to him. His +wife accepted the daughter's judgment. It is possible that she saw a +vision of new gowns and a better house. + +One evening, after welcoming Milford into his workshop, the scholar +declared himself on the verge of a great success. He was arrayed in an +old dressing-gown, with a rope tied monkishly about his loins. His +fingers were stained with ink, "the waste juice of thought," he said. "I +should now be the happiest of men, and I am, but, my dear boy, it is not +nearly so easy as I expected. I find that I cannot cut, slash, and +piece; I must absorb and write, and what I thought could be done in a +few weeks, will take months to perform. At first I thought it would be +well to enter into correspondence with the publishers, but I put it off +till now I have decided to surprise them with the work itself. Ah, work, +work, true balm to the restless soul! I was never really happy until I +took up this brightening task; I was never so serious; I was never +before able to understand the necessity of my previous training, my +struggles and disappointments. But now all is clear. How is everything +with you?" + +"All right. Everything over my way is as neat as----" + +"A new gold dollar," suggested the Professor. + +"Yes, and my house is as comfortable as a fur-lined nest." + +"And at a time, too, when you are thinking about giving it up." + +"That's so. But I've got to go out West to see a man, and then I may +return to this neighborhood." + +"Are you going to take any one with you on your trip?" + +"No, I'm going alone." + +"On important business, I presume?" + +"Very; so important that all my work here has been toward that end. How +long before you'll have this thing done?" + +"I am working toward an end," the Professor said, smiling, "but I cannot +work toward a date. But, to approximate, I should think about the middle +of March." + +"Don't know but I bother you, coming over so often." + +"My dear boy, you help me. You are a constant encouragement. Ah, you are +a double encouragement, for you encourage them." He pointed downward. +"And that is the greatest good you could do me." + +They talked a long time about the book, the sure winner, and as Milford +was taking his leave, the Professor followed him to the head of the +stairway. "My dear boy," he said, putting his hand on his visitor's +shoulder, "you must at last perceive that I am earnest." + +"I know it." + +"I hope you believe so, for I am. I may be odd--I may be amusing to the +thoughtless, but to the wise I am serious." + +And it was thus, during all the cold months of his work, pleading to his +friends to construe him seriously. Sometimes he would check his +enthusiasm, fearful that his dancing spirits might make him appear +grotesque. But the neighbors, among their rattling milk-cans, laughed at +him, his walk, his gestures, the tones of his voice. One morning near +the end of March, he got on the train, a precious bundle hugged under +his arm. He had spent half the night with Milford, and had come away +strengthened by the strong man. Now he flew toward the journey-end of +hope. A brakeman on the milk train had heard the farmers laugh at him, +and felt at liberty to poke fun at him. + +"Got your crop under your arm?" he asked. + +The Professor bristled. "If it were the straw of wild oats three times +threshed, it would still hold more value than the chaff that blows about +in your empty skull. Keep your place, which means--distance." + +He was serious; he felt it and gloated over it with a solemn pride. But +before the train reached the city he begged the fellow's pardon. "I am +worn out with hard work," he said, "and I hope you will forget my +harshness." + +Cabmen bellowed at him as he passed out of the station, and ragged boys +guyed him as he walked along the street. He had a list of the +subscription book publishers, and decided to submit his favor to the +nearest one. The elevator boy put him off on the wrong floor. A +scrub-woman looked up and leered at him. "Poverty, like anger, hath a +privilege," he mused. He found the publisher's quarters, but waited a +long time before he was admitted to the presence of the manager. The +great man was closeted with a book agent. In the subscription book house +the author is nothing; the agent everything. The manager has been an +agent, or perhaps a "fake" advertising man. He hates an author; he hated +the Professor at sight, and flouted when he learned that the scholar had +brought a book. What an insult! The idea of bringing a book to a +publishing house! The Professor attempted to explain the scope of his +work. The manager drew back. "No need to unwrap it," he said. "We've got +more books now than we can sell. Say," he bawled, to some one outside +his den, "tell Ritson I want to see him before he goes." + +"I thought," began the Professor, bowing;--but the manager shut him off. +"We do our own thinking," he said. + +"Well, sir, I shall bid you good-morning." + +"Yes. Say," he shouted, "tell Bruck I want to see him, too." + +The list was followed, and a night of sorrow fell at the end of a +heart-breaking day. Not in all instances had the publishers been gruff; +some had spoken kindly, one had looked at the manuscript, and then had +shown the Professor a bank of books written on the same line. At last, +worn out with serving as pall-bearer to his own dead spirit, he offered +the book for enough money to pay his life insurance. The publisher shook +his head. Old, old story, gathering mold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +WARMER THAN THE WORLD. + + +A bluster of warm wind brought a thaw, and the ice in the lake was +breaking--a disjointing time, a cracking of winter's old bones, a time +when being alone we feel less lonely than in a noisy company. At night +Milford sat musing in the kitchen. The outer door stood open, and he +heard the cattle tramping about in the mushy barnyard. The hired man and +his wife were singing a lonesome song in the sitting-room. There came +another tramping, not of cattle, but of one more weary, of a man, the +Professor. He trod into the light that fell from the door, and Milford +bounded up to meet him, but fell back in reverence of his grief-stricken +face. For a time the old man did not speak. He dropped his bundle, once +so precious, but now a sapless husk, laid his walking-stick across it, +took hold of a chair, and let himself slowly down with a groan. + +"We are going to have rain," he said, attempting to smile, and +unbuttoning his old coat with a palsied fumble. + +"Yes, I think so. The clouds have been tumbling about all day." + +"A weird song they are singing in there." + +"The love song of the ignorant and the poor," said Milford. + +"The poor and the wise would not have written it," the Professor +replied. + +"Shall I tell them to stop?" Milford asked. + +"Oh, no, poor crickets. Bring some cider, my boy. Let us live for a time +in recollection only. I will not take too much." + +"You may take as much as you like. It is time to drink." + +"Yes, to drink or to rave." + +Milford brought a jug of cider. "The devil's sympathy," said the old +man, drinking. "More, give me more--promises heaven, but slippers the +foot that treads its way to hell. But I will not take too much. Did I +tell you that I had lost my place at the mill?" + +"No, you didn't say anything about it." + +"I was discharged the evening before I went to town, but it made no +impression on me then." + +"Well, don't let it make any now. Everything will come all right." + +"Yes, it will. I have walked with many an experiment, but at last there +is such a thing as facing a certainty." + +"Have you anything in view?" + +"Oh, yes. And everything will be all right." + +"I hope so." + +"I don't hope--I know. But enough of that. It is a philosopher who can +say, 'Ha! old Socrates, pass your cup this way.' They have hushed their +song. Even the poor and the ignorant grow weary of singing; then who can +expect music from the wise? What have you there? Old Whittier? He died, +and they gave him a stingy column in the newspapers, squeezed by the +report of the prize fight at New Orleans. If a poet would look to his +fame, let him die when there is no other news. But some have died in a +spread of newspaper glory--Eugene Field, the sweetest lisper of a boy's +mischief, the tuner of tenderest lyrics, but with a laugh for man that +cut like a scythe. And some of the rich whom he had laughed at, +scrambled for a place at his coffin to bear it to the grave--tuneless +clay, scuffling over tuneful dust! Oh, hypocrisy, stamp thy countenance +with a dollar!" + +"It's raining now," said Milford, seeking to draw his mind from the +darkness of its wandering. + +"Yes, the falling of water, rhythmic, poetry--all poets have been as +water. I will class them for you. Keats, the rivulet; Shelley, the +brook; Byron, the creek; Tennyson, the river; Wordsworth, the lake; +Milton, the bay; and Shakespeare, the waters of all the world, the sea. +But I will not keep you up. You are a working-man, and must rest." + +"Don't go; I'm not tired; I haven't done a thing to-day. Shall I fill +the jug?" + +"No, enough. Let me take up my gilded trash," he said, reaching for his +bundle. + +"I wish you'd stay longer. Let me go home with you." + +"No, I prefer to walk alone. You remember in the old reader, the dog +went out to walk alone." + +"It was the cat that walked alone," said Milford. "The dog sat down to +gnaw his bone. Don't you recollect?" + +The old man touched his forehead, and shook his head. "So it was the cat +that walked alone. But we will reverse it. The dog will walk alone +to-night." + +"I wish you'd let me go with you." + +"Plead not your friendship, or I shall yield. But I want to be alone." + +"Then you shall be." + +"I thank you, and good-night." He strode off, with his bundle and stick; +and out in the darkness he cried: "Don't forget my classification of the +poets. Wordsworth! Wordsworth! And so, good-night." + +The hired man came into the kitchen. "Wan't that the Professor shoutin' +out there?" he asked. + +"Yes, the poor old man has just come home, crushed." + +"Didn't find no market, then, for his book?" + +"No. He brought it back with him. And, by the way, his life insurance +will soon be due, and I must pay it for him." + +"Don't he owe you for one?" + +"That makes no difference. I must help him. The world ought to help him, +but he is laughed at by you clods." + +"Bill, don't call me a clod. I don't own enough dirt to be called a +clod." + +"That's all right, Bob. I don't mean you. What day of the month is +this?" + +"Second, ain't it?" + +"I asked you." + +"Then I guess it's the second." + +"His insurance will be due on the ninth. Bob, early in the morning you +go over to Antioch and tell old Bryson that he may have those calves at +the price he offered." + +"Yes, but I don't think it's enough, Bill." + +"Can't help it. I've got to raise money enough for that poor old +fellow." + +Before breakfast the next morning Milford hastened to the Professor's +house. Mrs. Dolihide heard him unchaining the gate, and came out upon +the veranda. He did not care to go in; he dreaded to look again upon +that blasted countenance. "Good morning, madam. I wish you'd tell the +Professor not to worry over his insurance. Tell him I'll make it all +right." + +"I will when he comes home. I expected him last night, but he didn't get +back." + +"What----" But he checked himself. An alarm had arisen in his breast, +but he would not spread it. He muttered something and turned away, +leaving her to gaze after him in wonderment. A man came running down the +road. Milford stopped him, and he stood panting until he could gather +breath enough for his story. It was brief. The Professor's body had been +taken from the lake. At daylight he had come down to the shore and had +shoved out in a boat. A man warned him against the tumbling ice, for the +wind was fresh. He had a rod, and said that he was going to fish. The +man told him that the fish would not bite. He said that they would bite +for him. Out beyond the dead rushes where the water was deep the boat +tipped over. It looked like an accident--the ice. There were no means +of rescue, and so he drowned. The man was excited, and could not say for +certain, but he thought that the Professor had cried out, "Warmer than +the world!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +CONCLUSION. + + +The neighbors dropped their milk-cans and flocked to the stricken home. +A bundle and a walking-stick had been reverently carried to an upper +room and placed upon a desk. These relics of despair's weary journey had +been picked up from the ground, beneath the old man's window. He had +stood there at night, alone, when the household was asleep. And now, +when all were awake, he lay asleep, beflowered, roses on his breast, a +broken heart perfumed. + +"He looks natural," said a man who had laughed at him. + +"But he doesn't seem to be tickling any one now," Milford was bitter +enough to reply. + +The soft earth beneath the window, the window once of fair prospect, was +many-tracked by the feet of indecisive agony, as if the old man had +shambled there, debating with his despair. But that he had made up his +mind early in the evening was now clear to Milford. Perhaps the sight of +the window through which he had looked out upon the leafless tree, the +hope that he had seen hanging from its branches--perhaps his nearness to +the sleeping household had caused him for a brief time to waver, but not +for long. Milford recalled his classification of the poets, +"Wordsworth, the lake." And his cry out in the dark, "Wordsworth! +Wordsworth!" His fishing-rod argued that he strove to hide the +appearance of self-destruction, but in the iced water he forgot his last +thin pretense of caution, shouting as the excited spectator believed, +"Warmer than the world!" + +The awful agony of the first clod, falling with hollow sound, the +tearing rush of memory, the gasp of the heart, missing a beat! The widow +fell senseless at the grave, and they took her away, the daughter +sobbing over her. Yes, they all took him seriously now. + +"It does seem that he could have done something," said Steve Hardy, +waiting for Milford outside the graveyard. + +"He did," Milford replied. + +"I mean--you know what I mean. I don't see how a man can give up that +way. Seems to me like I'd fight till the last." + +"Yes, but that man was more of a hero than you could ever be. He saw +that he could not keep up his insurance, and he decided that it was +better to die." + +"I understand that the widow'll get ten thousand." + +"Yes, the community is very quick to understand that point." + +"I was talkin' to a lawyer, and he said that they couldn't keep her out +of the money. The courts have decided that the money in such cases has +to be paid." + +"He understood it, too, or he wouldn't have drowned himself." + +"I guess so. Well, you never can tell what a man may do. You form your +idea of him and find out afterwards that it was all wrong. But it would +be a cold day when I'd kill myself for anybody. I hear you're goin' to +have a sale at your house." + +"Yes, I don't care to stay here any longer." + +"Every man to his own taste, but you can't find a puttier country. I +guess this community right here ships more milk that any section along +the road. But they say that when a man once lives away out in the West +he always has a likin' for it. Well, I'll be over there on the day of +the sale." + +Milford sold all of his belongings, with the exception of some tools, a +cow, and a loft full of cattle-feed which he gave to the hired man. He +was not quite ready to go, but would remain a few days and perhaps a +week longer. He was waiting for a letter, and he searched the newspapers +every day. Mrs. Stuvic demanded that he should spend the remaining time +at her house. She was sorry to lose him. She had confessed that she was +half afraid of him, and this feeling had endeared him to her. + +"What makes you grab after the newspaper so?" she asked one morning, in +the dining-room. + +"I want to know the news." + +"No, you don't; there's somethin' else. You've sold all your stuff and +can't be interested in the markets." + +"I am looking for Western news. I want to keep track of a certain man." + +"Who was that letter from you got this mornin'?" + +"From her." + +"Where is she?" + +"In the city." + +"Has she quit her school?" + +"She's given it up as a failure." + +"Then you'll be goin' to town soon." + +"To-morrow morning. I see by the paper that my man is there." + +"Plague take your man and your woman too. Why can't you stay here and +behave yourself? I do hate mightily to see you go. Why don't you say you +hate to go?" + +"Because I don't. I have worked in order to be able to go." + +"What do you want to see the man for? You never have told me anythin' +about yourself, and here you are, goin' away. What do you want with +him?" + +"Want to tell him I'm well, and ask him how's all." + +"Oh, you'll do. Fainted at the grave," she said, after a moment's +silence. "Yes, I know all about such faintin'. They can't fool me, Bill. +It's been tried too often. Fainted at the thought of gettin' that ten +thousand dollars, and I wish to the Lord I had half of it. I'd faint +too; yes, you bet!" + +Early the next morning he bade the old woman good-bye. She scolded him, +with tears in her eyes, wheeled about, and left him standing at the +gate. At the station the milkmen gathered about him to shake hands. They +were sorry to lose him. In trade some of them had been nipped by him, +but that only proved his worth as a citizen. He waved them a farewell, +and Rollins became a memory. + +Upon reaching the city, he went straightway to the Norwegian's cottage. +There was a romping of children within, and it was some time before he +made himself heard. But finally a woman came to the door. He asked for +Gunhild, and was told that she had gone over to see Mrs. Goodwin, but +would not long be absent. He stood for a moment with his hand on the +door. "When she comes back," he said, "tell her that a Yankee from the +West has called. She will understand. Tell her that he will be back +soon." + + * * * * * + +Jim Mills, railway monarch of the West, sat in his room at a hotel. +Strong, an engine of industry, he could do the work of three men. He had +heard the hum of a multitude of enemies; he had climbed in slippery +places, sliding back, falling, getting up, struggling onward to stand on +the top of the mountain. Without a change of countenance he had +swallowed the decree of many a defeat. In playful tones he had announced +to his associate the news of many a victory. He was a reader of old +books and of young men. His word could build or kill a city. Legislators +traveled with his name in their pockets. Men who cursed him in private +were proud to be seen with him in public. He could clap an enemy on the +shoulder and laugh enmity out of him, but failing, would fight him to an +end that was not sweet. A commercial viking, he was ever thrusting +himself into unexplored territory, a great commander with his scouts +snorting on iron across the plains. He was a generous host and a +captivating companion, but it was said that with all his apparent +heartiness, he never forgave an injury. This, however, was spoken by his +enemies, men whose "real estate" had been slaughtered by him. + +Mills was busy in his room at the hotel, for neither at home nor abroad +had he an aimless moment. His dozing on a train involved millions. A +card, bearing a name in pencil, was handed to him. + +"I don't know him," he said, glancing at the name. + +"He says he must see you on most important business." + +"What sort of looking man is he? I can't recall his name." + +"Nice enough looking--hard worker, I should think." + +"Tell him to come in." + +Milford stepped into the room, looked at Mills and then at the secretary +who stood near. "I should like to see you alone," he said. + +Mills glanced at the secretary. The man vanished. + +"Well, sir," said Mills, "what can I do for you? Sit down." + +Milford sat down, a table between them. + +"I wish to tell you of something that happened about five years ago." + +"Well, go ahead. But I'm busy." + +"I saw by the newspapers that you had arrived in town--you'll have to +let me get at it in my own way." + +Mills glanced at him and moved impatiently. Milford cleared his throat. +He leaned back and then leaned forward with his arms on the table. "Have +just a little patience, please. For years I have worked toward this +moment--have pictured it out a thousand times, but now that I'm up +against it I hardly know how to begin. But let me say at the outset that +I have come to repair a wrong done you." + +Mills grunted. "Rather an odd mission," said he. "Men don't read the +newspapers to learn my whereabouts to repay any wrong done me. But does +the wrong concern me?" + +"Yes, you and me. Now I'll get at it. I lived in Dakota. I was sometimes +sober, but more often drunk. I gambled. I fought. At one time I was town +marshal of Green Mound. Once I was station agent for you. An evil report +reached the main office, and I was discharged. I was broke. I was mad. I +was put out of a gambling house." + +"But what have I got to do with all this?" + +"Wait. I met a man, a twin-brother of the devil. He made a suggestion. I +agreed to it. We heard that you and your pay-master were coming across +in a stage. We stopped the stage, and robbed you of twelve hundred and +fifty dollars. That was all you had in currency. We didn't want checks." + +"Go ahead," said Mills, without changing countenance. + +"I was called Hell-in-the-Mud. My partner was Sam Bradley. We got back +to town, and were seen that night in a gambling house. But we didn't +play--broke, presumably. We were not suspected. Sam died three months +afterwards in Deadwood. We had run through with your money. The town +buried him. I won't pretend to give you any flub-dub about reform, any +of the guff of a mother's dying prayers, for that has been worked too +often. But I got a newspaper from Connecticut with a prayer in it--the +last words of an old woman. That's all right. We'll let that go. But I +resolved to pay you--my part and Sam's too. So I drifted about looking +for something to do, and at last I rented a farm not far from here, and +went to work. My luck was good. I skinned every farmer in the +neighborhood. All I wanted was enough money to clear my conscience. +Something--it must have been the devil--gave me a strange insight into +cattle trading. Anyway I prospered, and the other day sold out. And +here's your money, with six per cent interest for five years." + +He placed a roll of paper on the table. Mills looked at him and then at +the card which he had taken up. "My name is Newton," said +Milford--"William Milford Newton. There's your money." + +Mills took up the money, and then looked at his visitor. "I remember the +occasion," said he. "And you have worked all this time. Very +commendable, I assure you. How much more have you?" + +"Less than ten dollars. Doesn't that satisfy you?" + +"Oh, yes, I'm satisfied, but did it occur to you that the law might have +to be satisfied?" + +"The law?" Milford gasped. + +"Yes. You seem to have forgotten that part of it." + +"The law!" said Milford. + +"Yes, sir, the law." + +"And that means the penitentiary," said Milford, looking hard at him. + +"That's what it means. Will you go quietly with me, or shall I send for +an officer?" + +"I came here quietly, didn't I? Yes, I'll go with you. I'm prepared to +take my medicine. When do you leave?" + +"At twelve to-night." + +"Will you let me go out on my word of honor? I'll be back by six +o'clock." + +"Yes, but on your word of honor." + +"Thank you. I will be here by six. I didn't think--but it's all right. +Yes, the law, of course. I'll be here by six." + + * * * * * + +A loud knock startled Gunhild, and she ran to the door and opened it in +nervous haste. Her eyes leaped out, and then she shrank back. "Oh, what +is the matter?" she cried. + +"Nothing," Milford answered, trying to smile. + +"But you look old," she said. "You have scared me." + +She took hold of his hand to lead him into the sitting-room. "No, not in +there," he said. "I will tell you out here. I must not go in. I am +afraid that I might hear that Norwegian hymn--out here--let me tell +you! There was a time when you might have gone with me, but not now--not +where I am going." + +"Don't, dearest; don't. What are you saying? I will go with you +anywhere. Yes, I will go with you. I dream of nothing but going with +you--through the fields, across the ditches." + +"Will you go with me to the penitentiary?" + +She put her arms about his neck. "Anywhere," she said. "To the gallows, +where we may both die. Yes, I will go to the penitentiary. And I will +wait by the wall, and then we will go to the potato field." + + * * * * * + +It was nearly six o'clock. + +"Tell him to come in," said Jim Mills. + +Milford and Gunhild stepped into the room. Mills got up with a bow. "Who +is this?" he asked. + +"My wife," said Milford. + +"You didn't tell me you were married." + +"I wasn't until a few moments ago. She knows all about it, and will go +with me." + +Mills clapped Milford on the shoulder. "My dear sir," said he, "all my +life I have been looking for an honest man, and now I have found him. +Penitentiary! Why, you are worth five thousand dollars a year to me." He +turned to Gunhild with a smile, and handing her a roll of bank notes, +said: "A marriage dower from a hard-working man. Keep it, in the name of +honesty; and, my dear, you and your honorable husband shall eat your +wedding-supper with me." + + +THE END. + + +Standard and Popular Books + +FOR SALE BY BOOKSELLERS OR WILL BE SENT POSTPAID ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. + +RAND, MCNALLY & CO., PUBLISHERS, + +CHICAGO AND NEW YORK. + + + + + A B C OF MINING AND PROSPECTORS' HANDBOOK. By Charles A. Bramble, D. + L. S. Baedecker style. $1.00. + + ACCIDENTS, AND HOW TO SAVE LIFE WHEN THEY OCCUR. 143 pages; profusely + illustrated; leatheroid, 25 cents. + + ALASKA; ITS HISTORY, CLIMATE, AND NATURAL RESOURCES. By Hon. A. P. + Swineford, Ex-Governor of Alaska. Illustrated. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + ALL ABOUT THE BABY. By Robert N. Tooker, M. D., author of "Diseases of + Children," etc. Illustrated. 8vo, cloth. $1.50. + + ALONG THE BOSPHORUS. By Susan E. Wallace (Mrs. Lew Wallace). Profusely + illustrated; 12mo; cloth. $1.50. + + AMBER GLINTS. By "Amber." Uniform with "Rosemary and Rue." 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Barbour. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + UNDER THE BAN. By Teresa Hammond Strickland. 12mo; cloth. $1.00. + + UNDER THREE FLAGS. By B. L. Taylor and A. T. Thoits. Artistic cloth + binding, gilt top. $1.00. + + UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. By Nicolas Notovitch. 12mo; cloth. $1.00. + + VALUABLE LIFE, A. By Adeline Sergeant. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + VALUE. An essay, with a short account of American currency. By John + Borden. Cloth. $1.00. + + VANISHED EMPEROR, THE. By Percy Andreae. 12mo, cloth. $1.25. + + WATERS OF CANEY FORK. By Opie Read. 12mo; cloth. $1.00. + + WHOM TO TRUST. By P. R. Earling. 304 pages. Cloth. $2.00. + + WHOSE SOUL HAVE I NOW? By Mary Clay Knapp. In neat cloth binding. 75 + cents. + + WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE. By William Le Queux. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + WILD FOWL SHOOTING. By William Bruce Leffingwell. Handsomely + illustrated; 8vo; 373 pages. Cloth cover, $2.50; half morocco, $3.50; + full morocco, gilt edges, $5.50. + + WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. By Arabella Kenealy. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + WORLD'S RELIGIONS IN A NUTSHELL. By Rev. L. P. Mercer. Price, bound in + cloth, $1.00; paper, 25 cents. + + YANKEE FROM THE WEST, A. A new novel by Opie Read. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. By Eleanor Talbot Kinkead. 12mo, cloth. $1.25. + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + Punctuation has been standardised. + + Variations in spelling, including dialect, have been retained as in the + original publication. The following changes have been made: + + Page 66 He hung to the implements, changed to clung + Page 95 told them that it made no diference, changed to difference + Page 232 she has not forgoten me, changed to forgotten + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Yankee from the West, by Opie Read + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE FROM THE WEST *** + +***** This file should be named 33773-8.txt or 33773-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/7/33773/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, David K. 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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: A Yankee from the West + A Novel + +Author: Opie Read + +Release Date: September 20, 2010 [EBook #33773] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE FROM THE WEST *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, David K. Park, Roger Frank and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p> +<a href="#A_YANKEE_FROM_THE_WEST"><b>A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII.</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<h1>A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.</h1> + +<h2><i>FOURTEENTH EDITION.</i></h2> + + +<h3>A Novel</h3> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>OPIE READ,</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF</h3> + +<h3>"<span class="smcap">Judge Elbridge</span>," "<span class="smcap">The Waters of Caney Fork</span>," "<span class="smcap">An Arkansas Planter</span>."</h3> + + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Chicago and New York</span>: RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.</h3> + +<h3>Copyright,1898, by Rand, McNally & Co</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_YANKEE_FROM_THE_WEST" id="A_YANKEE_FROM_THE_WEST"></a>A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>MILFORD.</h3> + + +<p>In his mind the traveler holds of Illinois a tiresome picture, the +kitchen garden of a great people, a flat and unromantic necessity. The +greatest of men have trod the level ground, but it is hard to mark +history upon a plane; there is no rugged place on which to hang a +wreath, and on the prairie the traveling eye is accommodated by no inn +whereat it may halt to rest. Such is the Illinois as remembered by the +hastening tourist. But in the southern part of the State there are +mountains, and in the north, the scene of this story, there is a spread +and a roll of romantic country—the green billows of Wisconsin gently +breaking into Illinois; lakes scattered like a handful of jewels thrown +broadcast, quiet rivers singing low among the rushes. Traveling north, +we have left the slim, man-tended tree of the prairies, and here we find +the great oak. There are hillsides where the forest is heavy. There are +valleys sweet in a riot of flowers. Along the roads the fences are +almost hidden by grape-vines. On a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> knoll the air is honeyed with wild +crab-apple; along a slope the senses tingle with the scent of the green +walnut. There are lanes so romantic that cool design could have had no +hand in their arrangement—they hold the poetry of accident. The +inhabitants of this scope of country have done nothing to beautify it. +They have built wooden houses and have scarred the earth, but persistent +nature soon hides the scars with vines and grasses. The soil is +wastefully strong. In New England and in parts of the South, the feeble +corn is a constant care, but here it grows with the rankness of a jungle +weed. And yet, moved by our national disease, nervousness, the farmer +sells his pastoral dales to buy a wind-swept space of prairie in the far +West. A strange shiftlessness, almost unaccountable in a climate so +stimulating, has suffered many a farm to lie idle, with fences slowly +moldering under flowering vines—a reproach to husbandry, but a +contri Line 2620 column 53 - Query missing paragraph break?bution to sentiment. Amid these scenes many an astonished muser +has asked himself this question: "Where are the poets of this land, +where the bluebell nods in metre to the gentle breeze?" Not a poem, not +a story has he se Line 2620 column 53 - Query missing paragraph break?en reflecting the life of this rude England in America. +In the summer the Sunday newspaper prints the names of persons who, +escaping from Chicago, have "sardined" themselves in cottages or +suffered heat and indigestion at a farm-house; the maker of the bicycle +map has marked the roads and dotted the villages; the pen and ink worker +for the daily press has drawn sketches of a lily pad, a tree and a fish +much larger than the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> truth; the reporter has caught a bit of color here +and there, but the contemplative writer has been silent and the American +painter has shut his eyes to open them upon a wood-shod family group in +Germany.</p> + +<p>This region was settled by Yankees. They brought with them a tireless +industry and a shrewd humor. But to be wholly himself the Yankee must +live on thin soil. Necessity must extract the full operation of his +energy. Under his stern demand, the conquered ground yields more than +enough. Vanquished poverty stuffs his purse. He sets up schools and +establishes libraries. But on a soil that yields with cheerful +readiness, he becomes careless and loses the shrewd essence of his +energy. His humor, though, remains the same. Nervous and whimsical, he +sees things with a hollow eye, and his laugh is harsh. Unlike his +brother of the South, he does not hook arms with a joke, walk with it +over the hill and loll with it in the shade of the valley; it is not his +companion, but his instrument, and he makes it work for him.</p> + +<p>One afternoon in early summer a man got off a train at Rollins, a milk +station, and stood looking at a number of farmers loading into wagons +the empty milk cans that had been returned from the city. He was tall +and strong-appearing. He wore a dark, short beard, trimmed sharp, and +his face was almost fierce-looking, with a touch of wildness, such as +the art of the stage-man tries in vain to catch. He was not well +dressed; he carried the suggestion that he might have lived where man is +licentiously free.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> With his sharp eye he must have been quick to draw a +bead with a gun; but his eye, though sharp, was pleasing. A dog sniffed +him and walked off, satisfied with his investigation. The countryman +stands ready to sanction a dog's approval of a stranger—it is wisdom +fortified by superstition, by tales told around the fire at night—so a +look of mistrust was melted with a smile, and the owner of the dog spoke +to the stranger.</p> + +<p>"Don't guess you've got a newspaper about you?" said the farmer, putting +his last can into the wagon.</p> + +<p>"No. The afternoon papers weren't out when I left town."</p> + +<p>"Morning paper would suit me just as well—haven't seen one to-day. I +get a weekly all winter, and I try to get a daily in the summer, but +sometimes I fail. Goin' out to anybody's house?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>The farmer looked at him sharply. A man who did not know—who didn't +even guess that he didn't know—was something of a curiosity to him. +"Did you expect anybody to meet you?"</p> + +<p>"No; I came out to look around a little—thought I might rent a farm if +I could strike the right sort of terms."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess you've come to the right place." He turned and pointed +far across a meadow to a windmill above tree tops on the brow of a hill. +"Mrs. Stuvic, a widow woman, that lives over yonder, has an adjoinin' +farm to rent. Get in, and I'll drive you over—goin' that way anyhow, +and it shan't cost you a cent. Throw your carpet-bag in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> there, it won't +fall out. Whoa, boys! They won't run away. Yes, sir, as good a little +place as there is in the county," he added, turning down a lane. "But +the old woman has had all sorts of bad luck with it. That horse would +have a fit if he couldn't clap his tail over that line every five +minutes. But he won't run away."</p> + +<p>"I don't care if he does," said the stranger.</p> + +<p>"Well, you would if you had to pick up milk cans for half a mile. He +scattered them from that house up yonder down to that piece of timber +day before yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Did he run away?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he wasn't walkin'."</p> + +<p>"Then how do you know he won't run away again?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I think I've sorter Christian scienced him."</p> + +<p>The stranger laughed, and the farmer clucked an applause of his own +wisdom. They had reached a corner where a large white house stood +surrounded by blooming cherry trees. Bees hummed, and the air was heavy +with sweetness. The stranger took off his hat, and straightening up +breathed long. "Delicious," he said. The farmer turned to the right, +into another road. "I'm almost glad I'm alive," said the stranger.</p> + +<p>"You must have paid your taxes and got it over with," the farmer +replied. The stranger did not rejoin. His mind and his eye had gone +forth to roam in a piece of woods gently sloping toward the road. He saw +the mandrake's low canopy, shading<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the sod, the crimson flash of a +woodpecker through the blue of the air beneath the green of the trees, +like a spurt of blood. The farmer's eye, cloyed with the feasts that +nature spreads, followed a horse that galloped through the rank tangle +of a marsh-dip in a meadow.</p> + +<p>"Over on that other hill is where the old lady lives," he said.</p> + +<p>"What did you say her name was?"</p> + +<p>"Well, her name <i>was</i> first one thing then another, but it's Stuvic now. +She's been married several times—a Dutchman the last time, a +good-hearted fellow that used to work for her first husband—a good +talker in his way, smokin' all the time, and coughin' occasionally fit +to kill himself. He liked to read, but he had to keep his books hid in +the barn, for the old lady hates print worse than she does a snake. He'd +wait till she was off the place, and then he'd go out and dig up his +learnin'. But the minute he heard her comin'—and he could hear her a +mile—he'd cover up his knowledge again. One day he told her he was +goin' to die, and she might have believed him, but he had lied to her a +good deal, so she hooted at him; but a few days afterwards he convinced +her, and when she found he had told the truth, she jumped into a black +dress and cried. Strangest creature that ever lived, I guess; and if you +want to come to good terms with her tell her you can't read. She gets on +a rampage once in a while, and then she owns the road. I saw her +horse-whip a hired man. He had let a horse run away with him. She took +the horse, hitched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> him to a buggy, jumped in, laid on the whip, and +drove him at a gallop till he was only too glad to behave himself. Well, +you can get out here."</p> + +<p>The stranger got down in front of a white "frame" house near the road. +The farmer waved him a good-bye and drove on. From a young orchard +behind the house there came the laughter of children at play. In the +yard sat an aged man beneath an old apple tree. The place was a mingling +of the old and the new, a farm-house with an extension for summer +boarders.</p> + +<p>As the stranger entered the gate, a tall, heavy, but graceful old woman +stepped out upon the veranda. "Wasn't that Steve Hardy that you rode up +with?" she asked, gazing at him. The visitor bowed, and was about to +answer when she snapped: "Oh, don't come any of your bowin' and scrapin' +to me. All I want is the truth."</p> + +<p>"The man didn't tell me his name, madam."</p> + +<p>"Well, you didn't lose anythin'. It was Steve Hardy, and a bigger liar +never trod luther. Come in."</p> + +<p>The visitor stepped upon the veranda, and sat down upon a bench. The old +woman stood looking at him. "Do you want board?" she asked. He took off +his hat and placed it upon the bench beside him. She gazed at his +bronzed face, his white brow, and grunted:</p> + +<p>"I asked if you wanted board."</p> + +<p>"I want something more than board, madam; I want work."</p> + +<p>She snapped her eyes at him. "You look more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> like you was dodgin' it +than huntin' for it; yes, you bet. I know all about a man lookin' for +work. All he wants is a chance to get drunk and lie down in the corner +of the fence. Yes, you bet. What sort of work do you want?"</p> + +<p>"A man that needs work is not very particular. I've never been lazy +enough to look for an easy job."</p> + +<p>She leaned toward him; she held out her hand. "Shake! You've earned your +supper by sayin' that." He took her hard hand and smiled. She frowned. +"Don't try to look putty at me! No, you bet! It won't work with me."</p> + +<p>There came a hoarse cry from the old apple tree. An enormous Dutch girl +ran by, laughing. An old man came forward, brushing himself.</p> + +<p>"Now what's the matter with you, Lewson?" the old woman asked.</p> + +<p>The aged man was in a rage. "That infernal Dutch cow ran over me again. +Why the devil can't she walk? What does she want to snort around for +like a confounded heifer? If I don't get me a gun and shoot her I'm the +biggest liar on the earth."</p> + +<p>"Now, you keep still, Lewson; you keep right still!"</p> + +<p>"Still! How the deuce am I going to keep still when she's knocking me +down all the time? Every time I walk out she runs over me; if I sit down +she runs over me; if I go to my room to take a nap she runs against the +house and wakes me up. She can't understand a word you say to her—and +confound her, I hit her with a stick, and was three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> days trying to +explain it. Why don't you drive her away?"</p> + +<p>A bell at the end of a pole at the kitchen door rang furiously. There +came an answering shout from the lake across the meadow. "You've earned +your supper," said the old woman. "Yes, you bet!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>LIKED HIM.</h3> + + +<p>Summer was just opening, and there were not many boarders at Mrs. +Stuvic's house. But the posting of a railway time-card in the +dining-room showed that everything was in readiness. A cook had come +from the city to set up her temper against the slouching impudence of +the hired man, and an Irish girl stood ready to play favorites at the +table. Mrs. Stuvic gave the stranger a seat at the head of the table, +and three tired women—hens, worn out with clucking to their boisterous +broods—began a whispered comment upon him. One, with a paper novel +lying beside her plate, said that he was fiercely handsome. Mrs. Stuvic +sat down near him.</p> + +<p>"What is your name?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Milford," he answered, and the woman with the novel seemed pleased with +the sound.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Stuvic, as if she had divined as much, "but +your other name. I can't remember outlandish names."</p> + +<p>"William."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Bill," she said. "Well, Bill, you hinted you wanted work."</p> + +<p>The woman with the novel withdrew her attention. Milford shot a glance +at her. "Yes," he replied. "The man you say is the biggest liar that +ever trod leather told me that you had a farm to rent."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, land sakes! when did he take to tellin' the truth? But just keep +still now and say nothin'. Don't say a word, but keep still, and after +supper I'll show you somethin'."</p> + +<p>A red-headed boy, the natural incumbrance of the woman with the novel, +snorted over his plate, and the old woman set her teeth on edge and +looked hard at him. "Yes, well, now what's the matter with you? Who told +you to break out?"</p> + +<p>"Eat plenty of supper, Bobbie, or you'll be hungry before bed-time," +said the mother. "He hasn't had much appetite lately," she added, and +the boy tried to look pitiful. Mrs. Stuvic cleared her throat, and under +her breath muttered "Calf." The mother looked at Milford. "I beg your +pardon," she said, "but are you related to the Milfords that live down +in Peoria County?"</p> + +<p>"I think not, madam," Milford answered.</p> + +<p>"They are such nice people," the woman went on; "distant relatives of +mine. Sit up straight, Bobbie. One of the boys has made quite a name as +a lawyer—Alfred, I think. And I hear that the daughter, Julia, is about +to be married to a foreigner of considerable distinction."</p> + +<p>"I've lived down in that part of the country," said a woman with a +lubberly cub in her arms, "and I know a family down there named Wilford. +They have a son named Alfred, and a daughter Julia who is about to be +married to a foreigner."</p> + +<p>"Wilford, now let me see," mused the mother of the red boy. "Well, I +declare, I believe that is the name!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And that," said Milford, "is no doubt the reason, or at least one of +the reasons, why they are not kin to me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you keep still!" Mrs. Stuvic cried, snapping a smile in two. "You +didn't have to say that—but when you don't know what to say, Bill, say +the next best thing. Yes, you bet! Oh, I know a lot, but I don't tell it +all. People come here and think they can fool me, but they can't. Some +of them come a turnin' up their noses at the table, when I know as well +as I know anythin' that they haven't got half as good at home. We had +one family in particular that was always growlin'. And when they went +home in the fall I said to myself, I'll just slip into town one of these +days, and see what you've got to eat.' I did, and I never set down to +such a meal in my life—soup that looked like tea, and birds put on thin +pieces of burnt bread. But if you are through, Bill, come with me; I +want to show you somethin'."</p> + +<p>She put on her bonnet, and as she stepped out told the Irish girl to +take Milford's bag upstairs. It was evident that her favorable +impression of him extended as far as a night's lodging. They crossed the +road, passed through a gate, so heavy on its hinges that it had to be +dragged open, and entered a grove of hickory trees. The sward was thick. +Here and there were patches of white and pink wild flowers. The sun was +going down, and the lake, seen through a gap in the trees, looked like a +prairie fire. They came to a broad lane shaded by wild-cherry trees. +Milford stopped.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I've never seen anything more beautiful than this," he said.</p> + +<p>"You just keep still!" she replied. "Yes, and I'll show you somethin' +worth lookin' at."</p> + +<p>They passed through another gate, went up a graceful rise, into a field, +along a broad path hedged with vines and flowers. "Just look at this!" +she said. "There ain't better land in this county, and here it lies all +gone to waste. The men out here ain't worth the powder and lead it would +take to kill 'em. I've rented this farm half a dozen times in the last +three years. And what do they do? Get so drunk Sunday that it takes them +nearly all week to sober up. I've had to drive 'em away. And the last +one! Mercy sakes! The biggest fool that ever made a track; and a +hypercrit with it. I found him in the corner of the fence prayin' for +rain. Well, I just gathered a bridle and slipped up on him, and if his +prayer didn't have a hot end I don't know beans when I see 'em. There +was a streak of barbed wire on the fence, and in tryin' to get over he +got tangled; and if I didn't give it to him! The idea of a fool gettin' +down on his knees tryin' to persuade the Lord to change his mind! All +that belongs to me," she went on, waving her hand—"best farm right now +in Lake County. And there's the house on the hill, as nice a cottage as +you'd want to live in. What do you think of it all?"</p> + +<p>"Charming," said Milford. "There's many an old cow in the West that +would like to stick her nose up to her eyes into this rich grass."</p> + +<p>"You bet, Bill! Are you from the West?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, from all over the West. I used to herd cattle; I tried to raise +sheep—and I could have done something, but I was restless and wanted to +stir about. But I've got over that. Now I want to work."</p> + +<p>"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," she said, lifting the latch +of a gate. "I don't believe you'd pray for rain."</p> + +<p>"The only thing worth prayin' for, madam, is a soul."</p> + +<p>"Good enough! Bill, I like you. They say you have to eat a barrel of +salt with a man before you know him, and I reckon it's true. But I've +eaten so many barrels of salt with men that I know one as far as I can +see him. You don't profess to be so awful honest, do you?"</p> + +<p>There was hollowness in his laugh, and bitterness in his smile. "I +haven't made any pretensions," he said.</p> + +<p>"Well, you just keep still and don't make any," she replied.</p> + +<p>Through an orchard, they passed to a house on a hill. It stood in the +shade of a great walnut tree. She pointed out the barn, the +garden-patch, and the woods that belonged to the place. In the soft +light it appeared a paradise to the man from the West, green with grass, +purple with flowers. She asked him a question, and he answered with a +sigh. Then he told her that he was almost moneyless. He had no capital +but his will—his muscle. Such a place would be a godsend to him. In his +past life there was much to grieve over—time thrown away,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +opportunities laughed at, money squandered. He could not help dreaming +over his follies, and his dream choked him; so he wanted to work with +his hands, to fight against a blunt opposition. He stood bareheaded, his +face strong. She looked upon him with admiration. From the first, +something about him had caught her odd fancy. She was an implacable +enemy and a surprising friend. She put her hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"Now, don't you fret," she said. "You didn't have to tell me you had no +money. That's all right. If you want this farm you can have it. It's no +use to me, lyin' this way. Yes, Bill, you can take it right now. Oh, you +may go around here, and some of 'em will tell you that a meaner woman +never lived—them that's tried to have their own way over me—but the +poor and the needy will tell a different tale. They know where to get +somethin' to eat. Well, it's settled. Come on, now, and we'll go back +and fix up the particulars when we get time."</p> + +<p>He was cheerful as they walked back toward the old woman's home. New +tones came out of his voice. There was baritone music in his laugh. She +assured him that the details could be arranged without a hitch, that for +the present he might rest at ease. He replied that there could be no +ease for him, except as he might dig it out of the ground; he seemed to +crave a strain of the body to relieve a strain of the mind. She was +accustomed to meet all sorts of men, the scum and the leisure of the +city, but this man gave her a new feeling of interest. He looked like a +man that would fight, and this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> kindled the fire of her admiration. She +loathed a coward. As a girl, she had hunted with her father in the woods +of Ohio. One night his house was attacked by roughs, and she had fought +with him. To her there was no merit that did not show action; thought +that did not lead to action was a waste of the mind. A book was the +record of laziness. She tolerated newspapers—in one she had found the +announcement that a man whom she hated was dead. Once a man slandered +her. She laughed—a sound as cold as the trickling of iced water—and +said that she would live to see his last home marked out upon the +ground. She did. She was seen in the cemetery, digging. "What are you +doing there?" was asked. And she answered: "I'm planting a hog-weed on +Thompson's grave." Old Lewson, the man who sat under the apple tree, +gave his meager property to his children. They turned him out to die. +Mrs. Stuvic took him. "I won't live long," he said. "I'm eighty-three +years old." "Don't you fret," she replied; "a man that's as big a fool +as you be may live to be a hundred and fifty." And the heart of this old +woman was deeply stirred by Milford, not by his misfortunes, his +homelessness, the touch of the adventurous vagabond in his face, but by +her belief that he possessed an unconquerable spirit.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you keep still, and we'll arrange it all in time," she said, as +they entered the hickory grove. "And you needn't tell me anythin' about +yourself, nuther. A man's never so big a liar as when he's tellin' +things about himself or his enemy. It seems that he can't tell the truth +about either one. So you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> keep still. It's most too late in the season +for you to do very much now in the way of plantin', but you can make a +good beginnin'. There's stuff enough in the cottage back yonder, and you +may take possession to-morrow if you want to. There's a fellow named Bob +Mitchell around here that's out of work, and you can hire him to help +you. He's a good hand to work—the only trouble is, he thinks he's +smart. But he'll follow if there's any one to lead."</p> + +<p>"Madam, I wish I knew how to thank you," said Milford, as he opened the +gate leading into the main road. "I came without an introduction, +without a single letter——"</p> + +<p>"Don't you dare come fetchin' any of your letters to me! There ain't +nothin' much easier than to write a lie."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going in now. I'll walk about a while."</p> + +<p>"Do as you like," she replied. "Your room's at the end up there," she +added, pointing. She went into the house, and he turned back into the +grove. He sat down with his back against a tree, his hat on the ground. +He muttered words to himself; he felt the cool air upon his moist brow; +he breathed the perfume of the fresh night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>INTERESTED IN HIM.</h3> + + +<p>Milford took possession of the farm-cottage. The terms were so +loose-jointed that the neighbors lamented the old woman's lack of +business sense. She told them to keep still. She said that for years she +had been following the advice of a lawyer, and that every string of her +affairs had come untied. Now she was going to act for herself. It was +hinted that her methods would reflect discredit upon the practical sense +of the community. She replied that she paid her own taxes.</p> + +<p>On the old farm there was a sprout of new life. At break of day the +dozing idler heard a song afield; the hired man, going to milk the cows, +the city man, snapping his watch, hastening to catch a train, saw the +Westerner working, wet with dew. And when the evening's lamps were +lighted, the wild notes of his cowboy song rang from the hillside. +Farmers going to the village of a Saturday afternoon stopped at his +fence to engage him in talk, but he answered their questions as he went +on with his work. One day they heard him say to his hired man: "Go to +the house, Mitchell, and rest a while. You are worn out." A man whose +table was light, whose shipments of veal and poultry to town were heavy, +and who had been requested to put a better quality of water into his +milk, declared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> that he had lived too long and had too much experience +of the world to be fooled by a man from the West. He had committed some +crime—murder, no doubt—and Steve Hardy was censured for hauling him +over from the station. This surmise reached the ears of Mrs. Stuvic. She +waited till she saw the wise man driving past her house, and she stopped +him in the road.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you know all about my man over there, Hawkins."</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't know anything about him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you said he'd committed murder."</p> + +<p>"No, I said most likely; but I didn't want it repeated, for, of course, +I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you bet! And there's a good many things you don't want repeated. +You don't want it repeated that you put old Lewson's brats up to turning +him out of the house."</p> + +<p>"Look here, madam, I didn't do anything of the sort. I simply said I +didn't see how they could live with him; and I didn't, either."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's all right. The old man's got a better home than he ever had; +and you needn't worry yourself about my man over yonder. He couldn't +sell as much milk from five cows as you can do, and I don't believe you +can keep it up unless we have rain pretty soon, but he knows how to +attend to his own business, and that's somethin' you've never been able +to learn."</p> + +<p>"Madam, if you'll step from in front of my horses I'll drive on."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and mighty glad of the opportunity. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> stir trouble, and are the +first one to hitch up and drive out of it. Now go on, and don't you let +me hear of any more murder stories."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Blakemore, mother of the red boy, would not presume to say that +there was a stain on Milford's character; but he was undoubtedly +peculiar, with an air which bespoke a constant effort to hide something. +She knew, however, that there was good blood somewhere in his family. +She believed in blood. Her husband had failed in business, and she could +afford to despise trade. One Sunday, with her vacant-eyed husband and +her red tormentor, she halted at Milford's cottage. He was sitting on +the veranda, with the billows of a Sunday newspaper about him on the +floor. She introduced her husband, who nodded. She spoke of the fervor +of the day and the ragged cloud-skirts flaunting in the sky. She thought +it must be going to rain. In the city a rain was wasted, a sloppy +distress; but in the country it was a beautiful and refreshing +necessity. In each great drop there was a stanza of sentiment.</p> + +<p>Milford's eyes twinkled. "You ought to go to a mining-camp," he said. +"Men who couldn't parse would call you a poem."</p> + +<p>She turned to her husband. "George, do you hear that? Isn't that sweet? +So unaffected, too." George grunted; he was thinking of the receiver +that had had charge of his affairs. His wife continued, speaking to +Milford: "In my almost hothouse refinement, I have longed to see the +rude chivalry of the West—where a rhythm of true gallantry beats +beneath a woolen shirt."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," said Milford, "and beneath a linen shirt, too. The West is just +as wide but not so woolen as it was."</p> + +<p>"Oh, what quaint conceits! George, do you hear them? George, dear."</p> + +<p>"George, dear" turned a tired eye upon her. Affection seeking to console +a loved one sometimes chooses an unseasonable moment for the exercise of +its tender office. She felt the look of her husband's worry-rusted eye; +a memory of his weary pacing up and down the floor at night came to her, +of his groans upon a comfortless bed, his sighs at breakfast, his dark +brow as he went forth to try again to save his credit. She thought of +this; she felt that at this moment he needed her help. And +affectionately she put her hand upon his arm, and said: "You have met +reverses, George, but you've still got me." And George muttered: "You +bet I have." She glanced at him as if she felt that he said it with a +lack of enthusiasm, as if it were a sad fact acknowledged rather than a +possession declared; and she would have replied with a thin sentiment +strained through the muslin of a summer book, but George turned away. +She followed and he opened a gate and halted, waiting for her to pass +through. The boy crawled under the fence. She scolded the youngster, +brushed at his clothes, and said to George:</p> + +<p>"He is almost a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Who is so far gone as that?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the man back there on the veranda."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean by almost a gentleman."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, George, don't you know that there are distinctions?"</p> + +<p>"But I don't see how a man can be almost a gentleman. You might as well +say that a man almost has money."</p> + +<p>"Bobbie, don't try to climb over that stump. There's a poison vine on +it. Money is not everything, George."</p> + +<p>"Comes devilish near it."</p> + +<p>"No, George. Money is not love."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know about that," he said, in a way implying that he did +know.</p> + +<p>"Don't be cynical, dear," she replied. "We are both young; we have +everything before us."</p> + +<p>"Everything we had is behind us."</p> + +<p>She pulled upon his arm, and kissed his dry cheek. "Don't be downcast. +Everything will come right."</p> + +<p>Mitchell, the hired man, came out upon the veranda. "A sappy pea-vine +and a dried pea-stick," said Milford, pointing toward George and his +wife.</p> + +<p>"He looks like he's tired," said the hired man.</p> + +<p>"Yes, a fly in a pot of jam. She's too sweet for him. He ought to break +loose from her and run wild for a while—ought to rough it out West on +fat sow bosom and heifer's delight. Never were married, were you, Bob?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not for any length of time. I did marry a girl over near Antioch +once, but shortly afterwards they took me up for sellin' liquor without +a license, and when I got through with the scrape I found my wife was +gone with a feller to Kansas."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear of her?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she writ to me. She wanted to come back, but I scratched her +word that I'd try to jog along without her. I don't guess women are +exactly what they used to be. I reckon the bicycle has changed 'em a +good bit."</p> + +<p>"They want money, Bob. That's what's the matter with 'em."</p> + +<p>"Well, they've got about all I ever had, them and liquor together, and +still they don't seem to be satisfied. Ever married, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"No. But I was on the edge of falling in love once. She squirted poison +at me out of her eyes, and I shook in the knees. Her smile kept me awake +two nights, and on the third morning I got on my pony, said good-bye to +the settlement, and rode as hard as I could. I don't suppose she really +saw me—but I saw her, and that was enough. Well, I believe I'll go over +and chin the old woman."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stuvic was walking up and down the yard. A number of new boarders +had arrived, and she was in a great flurry. She was ever on the lookout +for new-comers, but was never prepared for them. She told every one to +keep still; she spoke in bywords that barked the shins of profanity. +Just as Milford came up, some one told her that her hired man was lying +out in the grove, drunk and asleep. Upon her informer she bent a +recognition of virtue. It was not exactly a grin. The boarders called it +her barbed-wire smile. She thanked him with a nod and a courtesy caught +up from a memory of her grandmother. She snatched a buggy whip and +sallied forth into the grove. Milford followed her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> She told him to +stand back. She swore she would give it to him if he presumed to +interfere. She knew her business. The Lord never shut her eyes to a duty +that lay in front of her. The hired man went howling through the woods, +and she returned to the house, smiling placidly. She was always better +humored when she had kept faith with duty.</p> + +<p>"Bill," she said to Milford, "tell those women who you are. They are all +crazy to know."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell them?"</p> + +<p>"Well, how was I to tell 'em somethin' I didn't know? You haven't told +me. Who are you, Bill? Come, speak up. I've fooled with you long enough. +Come, who are you?"</p> + +<p>"A Yankee from the West."</p> + +<p>"Shut up. Go on away from here. Who told you to come? Did anybody send +after you?" By this time they had reached the veranda. A kitten came out +to meet her. She called to the Dutch girl to bring some milk in a +saucer. "Poor little wretch," she said. "Well, sir, it do beat all. +About a week ago I found that I'd have to drown a litter of kittens. I +had a barrel of water ready at the corner of the house. I got all the +kittens together except one. I couldn't find him. After a while, I heard +him mewing under the house. I looked under and see him fastened, and he +couldn't get out. He was nearly starved. I said, 'You little wretch, +I'll fix you,' and I crawled under after him. I had a time at gettin' +him, too; and when I did get him he looked so pitiful that I gave him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +some milk. Then I gave the others milk, and didn't drown 'em. I have +provided homes for all except this one, and I'm goin' to keep him. Here, +lap your milk."</p> + +<p>Old Lewson sat beneath an apple tree. Milford went out to talk with him. +The old man looked up, his eyes red under white lashes. His hat was on +the ground, and in it were two eggs.</p> + +<p>"My dinner," said he, pointing to the eggs. "If I didn't listen for the +cackling of the hens I'd starve to death. I can't eat anything but eggs; +and they must be fresh. That infernal Dutch girl spoiled my supper last +night. She ran over me, as usual, and broke my eggs. I wish she was +dead."</p> + +<p>"They ought to hobble her like a horse," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"They ought to break her bones, and I would if I was strong enough," the +old man declared. "She kindled a fire with my spiritualist books. Are +you a spiritualist?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm merely an ordinary crank."</p> + +<p>"Fool, you mean," said the old fellow. "A man that shuts his eyes to the +truth is a fool. See this?" He took from his pocket a pale photograph, +and handed it to Milford. "That's a picture of my wife, taken ten years +after the change. She came to see me not long ago, and I cut off a piece +of her dress. Here it is." From a pocketbook he took a piece of white +silk.</p> + +<p>"They dress pretty well over there," said Milford, examining it.</p> + +<p>"Yes. She wove it herself."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Looks as if it might have been done by a fine machine."</p> + +<p>"It was; it was woven in the loom of her mind. Over there, whatever the +mind wills is done. But you can't make fools understand it."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not. What will become of the Dutch girl when she goes over?"</p> + +<p>"They'll make a dray-horse of her. Here comes the old woman. She +pretends she don't believe in it. But she does. She can't help herself."</p> + +<p>The old fellow hid his eggs. She looked at him sharply. "He'd rather +hear the cackle of a hen than a church organ," she said to Milford.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it means more," the old man replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, you won't rob my hens much longer. Your days are numbered."</p> + +<p>"So are yours, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Now, don't you fret. I'll plant flowers on your grave."</p> + +<p>"See that you don't plant hog-weeds."</p> + +<p>"What difference will it make to you? Your soul will be gone. But what +will you do over there? You'd be out of place makin' silk dresses. If +you do make any send me one. I'll want it when I marry again."</p> + +<p>"Why do you want to dress up to meet a fool?"</p> + +<p>"Shut your rattle-trap. It will be a wise man that marries me. If Bill +here was a little older, I'd set my cap for him. Wouldn't I, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it. We can all set a trap for a fox, but it takes a +shrewd trapper to catch him."</p> + +<p>The old man chuckled. She looked at him and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> said that he would have +been hauled off long ago, but that the devil didn't care to hitch up for +one—Yankee-like, wanting a load whenever he drove forth. "But before +you go, Lewson, I want you to promise me one thing,—that you will come +back. You've got me half-way into the notion that you can."</p> + +<p>"I will come back the third night, ma'am," he replied, his voice +earnest. "When my body has been in the grave three days I will come back +to my room and meet you there."</p> + +<p>Milford turned away. The old woman followed him. "Do you believe he can +come back?" she asked.</p> + +<p>His sharp eyes cut round at her, like the swing of a scythe. "An old log +may learn to float up-stream," he said. She stepped in front of him. +"You've done somethin' that you don't want known," she declared. "As +smart a man as you wouldn't come out here and work on a farm for +nothin'."</p> + +<p>"I don't expect to work for nothing."</p> + +<p>"Come into the house, Bill. Those women want to get acquainted with +you."</p> + +<p>"Why don't they get acquainted with their husbands?"</p> + +<p>"I know it," she replied, with a look, and in a younger eye the light +would have been a gleam of mischief, but with her it was a glint almost +of viciousness. "I know it. They are always after a curiosity. They've +got it into their heads that you've done some sort of deviltry, and they +want to talk to you. One of them said her husband was such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> a dear, dull +business man. And nearly all of them hate children."</p> + +<p>"I hate a woman that hates children," Milford replied, and the old woman +said, "I know it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Blakemore, the tired George, and the tugging boy came into the +yard. The woman's eyes brightened when she saw Milford. It seemed that +the other women had commissioned her to sound his mysterious depth. His +keen eyes, his sharp-cut beard, a sort of sly unconcern marked him a +legitimate summer exploration. Men from the city came and went, +shop-keepers, tailors, machinists, lawyers, driveling of hard times and +the hope of a business revival, and no particular attention was paid to +them, but here was a man with a hidden history. Perhaps he was a +deserter from the regular army; doubtless he had killed an officer for +insulting him. This was a sweet morsel and they made a bon-bon of it.</p> + +<p>"I hope you are not going just because we came," said Mrs. Blakemore to +Milford. "George, do take that rocker and sit down. You look so tired. +Go away, Bobbie. You are such a pest."</p> + +<p>A straining voice in the sitting-room and the tin-pan tones of a piano +were hushed, and out upon the veranda came several women. Milford was +introduced to them. Some of them advanced with a smile, and some hung +back in a sweet dread of danger. Milford sat down on a corner of the +veranda with his feet on the ground. A wagon load of beer-drinkers, +singing lustily, drove past the house. From the lake came the report of +a gun, some one firing at a loon. There seemed to be no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> law to enforce +respect for the day which the Puritan called Sabbath, and which the +austerity of his creed had made so cold and cheerless. On Sunday night +there had been a hop on the shore of the lake, and a constable had +danced with a skillet-wiper from town. The children of the New Englander +sell their winter piety for the summer dollar.</p> + +<p>"I can't conceive of anything more delicious than this atmosphere," said +Mrs. Blakemore. "It's heavenly down by the lake. And in the woods there +are such beautiful ferns. Are you fond of ferns, Mr. Milford?"</p> + +<p>"Don't believe I ever ate any," Milford answered, and the women screamed +with laughter. One of them spoke of such charming impudence, and George +looked at her with his cankered eye. Mrs. Stuvic said, "Oh, you keep +still!" The Dutch girl passed at a spraddling gallop, setting a dog at a +chicken condemned to death. Old Lewson shouted and shrank behind a tree. +Mrs. Blakemore's thin hand was seen in the air. It was a command, and +silence fell.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind telling us something of the wild life in the West?"</p> + +<p>"There's no wild life in the West now," Milford answered. "It is there, +as it is nearly everywhere, a round of stale dishonesty."</p> + +<p>"George, dear, do you hear that? Stale dishonesty! Really, there is +thought in that. Western men are so apt in their phrasing. They aren't +afraid of critical judgment. But they are too picturesque to be simple. +They are like an old garden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> run to blossoming weeds—the impudent new +springing from the venerable old. Did you hear me, George?"</p> + +<p>"How's that?" George asked, looking up from a dream of trouble.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shall not repeat it. Mr. Milford, nearly all my thoughts are +wasted on him. His mind is occupied by things sterner but not nearer +true." George grunted something that sounded like "bosh." She smiled and +tapped him on the arm. Her face was thin but pretty. Milford gave her an +admiring look. She caught it in an instant and drooped her eyes at him. +Some of the women saw it and pulled at one another, standing close +together. But the old woman did not see it. Her eye was not set for so +fine a mischief. A Mrs. Dorch began to hum a tune. She left off to tell +Milford that she had a sister in Dakota. She had gone out as a +school-teacher, and had been married by a rancher. His name was Lampton. +It was possible that Mr. Milford might know him. He did not, but it gave +her a chance to talk, and the slim Mrs. Blakemore began to droop her +eyes. The man was nothing to her. She wouldn't stoop to set up a +conquest over him, so much in love was she with her husband, but what +right had this woman to cut in?</p> + +<p>"Oh, I could never think of talking commonplaces with a man from the +wilds," she said. "He may never have read poetry, but he is a lover of +it. Tell me, is it true that certain flowers disappeared with the +buffalo?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know, ma'am, but a good deal of grass disappeared with him."</p> + +<p>It was a cue to laugh, and they laughed. Mrs. Blakemore said that +Milford was becoming intentionally droll. She much preferred unconscious +drollery.</p> + +<p>Attention was now given to three men who came across the meadow from the +lake. One of them proudly held up a string of sun-fish. A fisherman's +ear is keen-set for flattery. The women knew this, and they uttered +"ohs" and "ahs" of applause. The fishermen came up, everybody talking at +once, and Milford slipped away. He passed through the hickory grove and +turned into the broad lane leading to the lake. He saw Mrs. Stuvic's +hired man, sitting under a tree, muttering, a red streak across his +face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>HE DID NOT COME.</h3> + + +<p>The neighbors continued to speculate and to ply Mrs. Stuvic with +questions concerning Milford. Men who had spent many a rainy day in the +hay-mow, gambling, knew that he had played poker. An old man, with a +Rousseau love for botanizing, had been found dead in the woods, with +five red leaves in his hand. And Milford had said: "The poor old fellow +made his flush and died." They knew that he was brave, for, with a stick +of brushwood, he had attacked a dog reported to be mad. But they +believed, also, that he had something heavy on his mind, for they had +seen him walking about in the woods at night, once when a hard rain was +beating him. Steve Hardy, the man who had hauled the stranger from the +station, was caught in a storm one night, and a flash of lightning +revealed Milford standing gaunt in the middle of a marsh. But he had +never attempted to borrow money in the neighborhood, and of all the +virtues held dear by the rural Yankee, restraint in the matter of +borrowing is the brightest. "Yes, sir, old Brady was as mean a man as +ever lived among us, but, sir, he died out of debt." Old Brady could +have illumined his death-bed with no brighter light.</p> + +<p>One evening, while Milford and Mitchell were at supper, the hired man +said: "They keep on askin'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> me all sorts of questions about you. I never +saw folks so keen. They are like spring sheep after salt. I've got so I +throw up my hands whenever I meet any of 'em in the road."</p> + +<p>Milford reached over and turned down the ragged blaze of the smoking +lamp. "Am I the first stranger that ever happened along here?"</p> + +<p>"It would look that way. But there is a sort of a somethin' about you, +Bill. I heard Henwood's daughter say you was mighty good-lookin', but +she hasn't got much sense." Milford looked up with a smile. "No, she +ain't," Mitchell went on. "And if her daddy was to die she'd have to +have a gardeen appointed. But to-day, while I was gettin' a drink at the +windmill, I heard two or three of Mrs. Stuvic's women standin' over in +the road talkin'. One of 'em said that she had a cousin that's a +detective in Chicago, and she was goin' to bring him out here and let +him investigate you just for fun."</p> + +<p>Milford turned down the light. "I'll throw this thing into the road the +first thing you know. Bring a detective, eh? All right, let her bring +him."</p> + +<p>"What will you do, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"Knock him down if he gets in my road."</p> + +<p>"I guess that's the way to look at it. But have you got any cause to be +afraid of a detective, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"If I had, do you suppose I'd tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know why. We're workin' here together, and I wouldn't say +anythin' about it. What did you do, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"Stole a saw-mill."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You don't say so! What did you want with a saw-mill?"</p> + +<p>"To rip out new territory—I wanted to make a state."</p> + +<p>"That's all right. You're guyin' me. But say, where did you get your +education?"</p> + +<p>"I stole that, too. Did you ever hear of a French marquise that ran +stage lines and shot fellows out West? Well, I robbed his ranch, and +carried off a cook-book. That's how I learned to boil salt pork."</p> + +<p>"That's where you learned how to feed a fellow on guff. I'm givin' it to +you straight. I want to know, for they say that a fellow never gets too +old to learn, and I'd like to have education enough to get out of hard +work."</p> + +<p>"You don't see me out of it, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I guess you could do somethin' else if you wanted to. Did you +go to school much when you was a boy?"</p> + +<p>"I saw the worn doorsteps in the old part of Yale, for two days, and +then I turned away and went West. My father died, and I didn't want to +be a tax on mother, so I decided to shift for myself."</p> + +<p>"Was it a good shift?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say it was. Are you going to bed?" Milford asked, as Mitchell +got up from the table.</p> + +<p>"No, not now. I've got an engagement to take the Dutch girl out in a +boat."</p> + +<p>"She'll upset your craft and drown you."</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' to take the scow."</p> + +<p>He went out whistling a light tune, but dragging his feet heavily, for +he had worked hard all day,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> keeping pace with Milford's bounding +energy. Milford sat musing, and his brow was not clear. From behind the +clock on the mantel-piece, he took a newspaper, and strove to read it by +the smoky light, but his mind wandered off. He went out and sat on the +grass beneath the walnut tree. The night was hot. The slow air fumbled +among the leaves. Far in the sultry west was an occasional play of +lightning, the hot eye of day peeping back into the sweltering night. He +heard some one coming up the hill, talking. It was Mrs. Stuvic's voice. +She arose into the dim light, and he saw that she was alone. He called +to her, and she came forward at a faster gait, still talking. "Wouldn't +believe me—couldn't get him to believe me, but he does now—yes, you +bet!"</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"Old Lewson—told him he was dyin'—wouldn't believe me. He's dead. +Conscience alive! and they were thumpin' on the piana all the time. The +hired man can't be found since I gave him the larrupin'. I hope he's +drowned himself. He's no account on the face of the earth, and I wish +now I'd kept Mitchell when I had him. He seems to work well enough for +you. But what I want you to do is to go to the old man's daughter and +tell her. She lives about two miles down the road, just beyant the +second corners—white house to the right. Come on with me. The buggy'll +be hitched up by the time we get to the house. Yes, set right there, +lookin' right at me, with his chin droppin' down. I says, 'Lewson, you +are dyin'.' And he mumbled that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> wan't. But I reckon he knows now +whether he was or not."</p> + +<p>She talked nearly all the way over, sobbing at times, and then hardening +herself with scolding. The buggy was ready in the road. Low tones came +from the veranda. Through the shrubbery along the fence could be seen +the ghost-like outlines of women dressed in white. A dog howled under +the old apple tree.</p> + +<p>"Wait," said the old woman, as Milford gathered up the lines. "I want +you to kill that infernal dog before you go. Never set down under that +tree before in his life, and now that the poor old man's dead he goes +there to howl, as if everythin' wan't dismal enough anyway. Get out and +I'll fetch the gun."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. Don't kill him. He doesn't know any better. By the way, what's +the name of the woman I am going to see?"</p> + +<p>"Now, just look at that! If I haven't forgot her name I'm the biggest +fool on earth. Did you ever see anythin' like that? If that confounded +John, the hired man, was here, he'd know. I'm almost sorry now that I +licked him. But if I ever ketch him again I'll give it to him for +treatin' me this way when I need him. Well, go on, and stop at the house +I told you. And if that horse don't want to go, lick the life out of +him."</p> + +<p>Milford drove off, and the dog jumped over the fence and came trotting +along behind the buggy. It did not take long to reach the place. A man +came to the door in answer to Milford's knock. There was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> attempt to +soften the news. "I came to tell you that old Mr. Lewson is dead," said +Milford. And there was no effort on the man's part to show surprise. +"Well, I'm not an undertaker," he replied.</p> + +<p>"But you married his daughter."</p> + +<p>"But not with his consent or good-will. He was nothing to us. Well," he +added, as Milford continued to stand there, "anything else?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, just a word or two more. I want to tell you that you are a brute +and a coward; and if you'll just step out here I'll mop up the ground +with you."</p> + +<p>The man stepped back and shut the door. Milford came away, the muscles +in his arms hard with a desire to fight. He thought of the tenderness of +a mining camp, of the cowboy's manly tear, of hard men who were soft +toward a dead stranger. "Hearts full of cold ashes," he mused, bitterly. +"And how can it be in a place so beautiful? An infidel from the +sand-hills would here cry out that there is a God, an artist God. And +some of these wretches would teach him that there is a hell. Well, I'm +going to fight it out. I don't see any other way. I guess I'm a fool, +but I've got that thing to do."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stuvic tiptoed in her rage. "Horton," she said, almost dancing in +the road. "That's the scoundrel's name. And don't you dare to judge us +by him. He's a stranger here, too. I hope the hogs will root him up and +crack his bones. Well, go on to bed, Bill. I guess the old man can take +care of himself till mornin'."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>Early the next day, the old man's daughter came, stricken with grief and +remorse. She said that her husband had forced her to treat her father +cruelly. She knelt beside the poor old relic of weary bones, and prayed +that the Lord might forgive her. Mrs. Stuvic relented. "Come," she said, +leading the daughter away. "We believe you, and won't hold it against +you, but I'll never love you till you poison that man of yours. There, +now, don't whimper. Everythin's all right."</p> + +<p>The sympathy of the community was aroused, and it was a genuine +sympathy. Milford found that this neighborhood was very much like the +rest of the world, lacking heart only in places. He stood at the grave, +listening to the faltering tones of an aged man, and he muttered to +himself, "I've got to do that one thing."</p> + +<p>Old Lewson had convinced Mrs. Stuvic of the truth of spiritualism. She +was attracted by a faith that entailed no prayers and no church-going. +It left her free, not to lie down in the green pastures of the poetic +psalmist, but to tramp rough-shod among the nettles of profanity. The +church advised that no eye should be turned upon wine, rich in deceitful +color, and the old woman was not always sober. Therefore, she took up +old Lewson's faith, first because it was easy, and afterward because it +seemed natural that she should come back and haunt her enemies. More +than once she had been heard to say, gazing after some one driving along +the road, "Oh, but I'll make it lively for him when I come back! He +shan't sleep a wink!" But to the old man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> she did not make a complete +confession of her conversion to his faith till she saw death staring out +of his eyes, and then she reminded him of his promise to return on the +third night, and make himself known to her. Had there remained in her +heart any fag-end of rebellion gainst the pliable tenets of his +credulous doctrine, the last look that he gave her would have driven it +out. "I believe you, Lewson," she gasped, when his wrinkled chin sank +upon his withered breast.</p> + +<p>The third night came. She did not give her secret to the boarders; she +was not afraid of the heat of an argument or the scorch of a fight, but +the thought of ridicule's cold smile made her shudder. She hated +education, and was afraid of its nimble trickery. There was more of +insult in a word which she did not understand than in a term familiarly +abusive. But she told Milford. He was under obligations, and dared not +scoff. She requested him to sit upon the veranda, to wait for her coming +from the spirit's presence chamber. She drove the Dutch girl to bed, not +in the house, but in an outlying cottage. In the dining-room she +whispered to Milford, ready to turn him out upon the veranda. The +clock's internals growled the five-minute verge of twelve. She turned +Milford out, and hastened into Lewson's room. She sat down in a rocking +chair, her nervous hands fidgeting in her lap. Spirits keep their +promises best in the dark, and she had not lighted a lamp. Moonbeams +fell through the window, a ladder of light, upon which a spirit might +well descend to earth. The clock in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> the dining-room struck twelve. The +dog howled under the apple tree.</p> + +<p>"Lewson, are you here?"</p> + +<p>Two eggs on a shelf caught the light of the moon. She started. Surely, +they were not there a moment ago. Was the old man robbing hens' nests in +the spiritual world? A breeze stirred, and there was a whisper of +drapery at the window.</p> + +<p>"Lewson, is that you?"</p> + +<p>She glanced again at the eggs. Hadn't they moved? A midnight cock crew, +and she started. Why should he crow just as she glanced at the eggs? She +waited.</p> + +<p>"Lewson, oh, Lewson! Do you hear me? Don't you remember your promise? +Come, now, don't treat me this way. You know how hard it was for me to +believe in your doctrine. You know how I've tried to have some sort of +religion. And now, please don't knock down all the props. Haven't I been +kind to you? Didn't I take you when nobody else would? Then help me, +Lewson. Give me something to cling to. Just say one word—just +one—somethin' to let me know you have told the truth. I want the truth, +that's all I want, Lewson. You haven't come. No, you haven't, and you +needn't say you have. You can't come, and you know it. Well, I'm goin' +now. Are you comin'? No, you ain't. You are an old fraud, that's what +you are." She flounced out upon the veranda, and said to Milford: "Go to +bed. There never was a bigger liar than that old fool."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>NEEDED HIS SPIRITUAL HELP.</h3> + + +<p>Early the next morning, before the clanging bell had shattered the +boarder's dream, the old woman hastened to Milford's cottage. When she +surprised him at breakfast, he thought that possibly the old man might +have called at some time during the night, and that she had come to +bring the good news, but this early hope was killed by the darkness of +her brow. "I've come over to tell you that if ever you say a word about +what happened last night, I'll drive you out of the county," she said, +her lips parted and her teeth sharp-set.</p> + +<p>"Why, nothing did happen," he replied with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"No, you bet! But don't you ever dare to say that I expected anythin' to +happen. I won't allow any old man, dead or alive, to make a monkey of +me. Well, I'll eat breakfast with you. What, is this all you've got, +just bread and bacon? Conscience alive! you are livin' hard."</p> + +<p>"I can't afford anything else," he replied, looking down upon his rough +fare.</p> + +<p>"Well, you ought to get rich at this rate. There's not one man in a +thousand that would be willin' to put up with it. What's your aim, +anyway?"</p> + +<p>"To make money."</p> + +<p>"Money! It's some woman, that's what it is.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> Well, you're a fool. What +thanks do you reckon she'll ever give you? She'll growl because you +didn't make more. I'll get back. I don't like your grub. But recollect, +now," she added, as she turned toward the door, "that if you say a word +about what I expected to happen last night, I'll drive you out of the +county." She went out, but her head soon reappeared at the door. "Bill," +she said, "there's a sucker born every minute."</p> + +<p>"And sometimes twins," he replied. She leaned against the door-facing to +laugh, not in the jollity of good-humor, but in the sharp and racking +titter of soured self-pity. "Sometimes twins—yes, you bet!"</p> + +<p>"If I didn't have a word for it that I couldn't dispute, I'd think that +I was the weakling of a set of triplets," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you'll do. There's no flies buzzing around you, I tell you. Well, +I'll leave you, sure enough now."</p> + +<p>For a time, he clattered the rough dishes, clearing them out of the way, +despising the work—a loathing shared by all human beings. Mitchell was +at the barn, among the horses, and there came the occasional and almost +rhythmic tap, tap, tap of his currycomb against the thin wall. In the +damp sags of the corn field, the plow could not be used with advantage, +and Milford assigned to himself the work of covering this territory with +a hoe. The advisory board, men who drove past in milk wagons, condemned +it as a piece of folly. They said that a man might wear himself out +among the clods, and to no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> great purpose, either; but Milford appeared +to rejoice in his conquest over the combative soil. Steve Hardy said +that he must be doing penance in the hot sun for some crime committed in +the cool shade. But the old woman had given it out that her man was +working for a woman, and the women commended it. How soft is the voice +of woman when she speaks of one who sweats for her sex! They sat upon +the veranda, watching Milford as he delved in the blaze of the sun. It +was a romance. Afar off there must be a sighing woman, waiting for him. +Mrs. Blakemore could see her, and she sighed with her, watching the hero +dealing the hard licks of love. With her scampering son, she crossed the +field, going toward the lake, the morning after the expected visit from +Lewson. She was determined to speak to Milford. Mrs. Stuvic had just +said, "That man is killin' himself for a woman." On she came, her feet +faring ill among the clods. She stumbled and laughed, and the boy, in +budding derision of woman's weakness, shouted contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"Why did you come across this rough place?" Milford asked, planting his +hoe in front of him. To her he was a man behind the flag-staff of his +honor.</p> + +<p>"Because it's so much nearer to the lake," she answered. The boy cried +out that he had found a rattlesnake, and proceeded to attack with clods +a rusty toad.</p> + +<p>"Come away, Bobbie. He'll bite you." She saw that it was a toad, and she +knew that it would not bite him; but motherly instinct demanded that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +she must warn him. "Oh, it's such a jaunt, coming across here. Really, I +don't see how you can stand it to work so long in the hot sun. Let me +bring you some cool water."</p> + +<p>She felt that she ought to do something for him. He smiled, and glanced +down at her thin-shod feet. He felt that there was genuineness in this +slim creature, and he was moved to reply: "No, I thank you. Your +sympathy ought to relieve a man of thirst."</p> + +<p>"Really, that is so nice of you. No wonder all the women like you when +you say such kind things. But there is one thing I wish, Mr. Milford—I +wish you'd taken more to my husband. He's awfully low-spirited, and I'm +so distressed about him. He's worried nearly to death in town, and he +comes out here and mopes about. I didn't know but you might say +something to interest him. He'll be out again this evening. Will you +please come over to the house to see him?"</p> + +<p>He thought of his weariness after his day of strain, of his own +melancholy that came with the shades of night. He thought that, in +comparison with himself, the man ought to be boyishly happy; but he told +her that to come would give him great pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say so. Tell him of fights, of men that +wouldn't give up, but fought their way out of hard luck. Tell him what +you are doing. I know it's preposterous to ask you, but will you do it?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes were as bright as the dew caught by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> cobweb, shaded by the +clod, he thought—as he stood there leaning on the handle of his hoe, +looking at her; and he read woman's great chapter of anxious affection. +"I will tell him of a man who failed in everything, and then found that +he had a fortune in his wife," he said. She put out her hand toward him, +and snatched it back to hide her eyes for a moment. She turned toward +the boy, and in a cool voice commanded him not to romp so hard over the +rough ground. Milford saw a soul that loved to be loved, that lived to +be loved, a soul that may not be the most virtuous, but which is surely +the most beautiful. He did not presume to understand women; he estimated +her by a "hunch" as to whether she was good or bad. He remembered that +he had jumped upon his pony and galloped off to the further West, to +keep from falling in love with one. And since that time he had felt +himself safe, so into this woman's eyes he could look without fear.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "tell him that love is the greatest estate. It will +make him think, coming from a man. Poor George was in the hardware +business, and he failed not long ago, and I don't know why, for I'm sure +I saved every cent I could. What you tell him will have a good deal of +weight."</p> + +<p>Milford had to laugh at this. "I don't know why," said he.</p> + +<p>"Because you are a good man."</p> + +<p>Milford sneered. "Madam, I'm a crank." He begged her pardon for his +harshness. Her forgiveness came with a smile. He told her that he was +as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> morbid as a mad dog, and he said it with such energy that she drew +back from him. "But you won't fail to see George, will you? Come on, +Bobbie. Oh, I forgot to tell you of some new arrivals—a Mrs. Goodwin, +wife of a well-known doctor in town, and her companion, one of the +handsomest young women I ever saw—a Norwegian girl, as graceful as one +of her native pines. You won't fail to come, will you? Good-bye."</p> + +<p>The evening was sultry, with a lingering smear of red in the western +sky. At the supper table Milford nodded in his chair. The hired man +spoke to him, and he looked up, his batting eyes fighting off sleep.</p> + +<p>"Them slashes have about got the best of you, haven't they, Bill? I'd +let that corn go before I'd dig my life out among them tough clods. I'm +givin' it to you straight."</p> + +<p>"I don't doubt it. But it will pay in the end. I've come to the +conclusion that all hard work pays. It pays a man's mind, and he +couldn't get a much better reward. But I'd like to go to bed, just the +same."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you? Not goin' to dig any more to-night, are you?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I've got to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's to see a man."</p> + +<p>"A man?" Mitchell asked, with a wink.</p> + +<p>"I said a man."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know you said a man."</p> + +<p>"Then why not a man?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know, only it seems to me that if I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> was as tired as you +look I wouldn't go to see no man's man."</p> + +<p>"How about any woman's woman?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that's different. You can put off seein' a man, and you might put +off seein' a woman, but you don't want to. But maybe you ain't as big a +chump about a woman as I am."</p> + +<p>Milford said that the wisest man among wise men could easily be a fool +among women. Solomon's wisdom, diluted by woman, became a weak quality. +"Except once," he added, taking down his pipe from the clock shelf, "and +that was when he called for a sword to cut a child in two to divide it +between two mothers; but if the question had been between himself and a +woman, I don't know but he'd have got the worst of it."</p> + +<p>It was the hired man's turn to clear away the dishes, and Milford sat +smoking in a muse. Night flies buzzed about the lamp, and the mosquito, +winged sting of the darkness, sang his sharp tune over the rain-water +barrel beneath the window. The hired man put away the dishes, and went +into his shell-like bedroom, a thin addition built against the house. +Milford heard him sit upon the edge of his bed, heard his heavy shoes +drop upon the floor, heard him stretch out upon the creaking slats to +lie a log till the peep of day. The tired laborer's pipe fell to the +floor. He got up with a straining shrug of his stiff shoulders, snatched +off his sticking garments, bathed in a tub, put on clean clothing, and +set out to keep his appointment. He muttered as he walked along the +road. He halted upon a knoll in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the oat-field, and stood to breathe the +cool air from the low-lying meadow. As he drew near to the house, he +heard the shouts of children and the imploring tones of nurses and +mothers, begging them to go to bed. A lantern hanging under the eaves of +the veranda shed light upon women eager to hear gossip from the city +apartment house, and men, who, though breathing a fresh escape from +business, had already begun to inquire as to the running of the trains. +In the dooryard, a dull fire smoked in a tin pan,—a "smudge" to drive +off the mosquitoes. Some one flailed the piano. The Dutch girl, singing +a song of the lowlands, was grabbing clothes off a line, with no fear of +running over an old man. Mrs. Blakemore and George were sitting at a +corner of the veranda, apart from the general nest of gossipers. Bobbie +had been bribed to bed. The woman got up and gave Milford her hand. In +his calloused palm it felt like the soft paw of a kitten. George nodded +with an indistinct grunt.</p> + +<p>"Well, how is everything?" Milford asked.</p> + +<p>"Rotten," George answered. His wife sighed, and brushed off a white moth +that had lighted on his coat sleeve. "But it will get better," she said. +"Don't you think so, Mr. Milford?"</p> + +<p>"Bound to," Milford agreed. "I'm a firm believer in everything coming +out all right. I've seen it tested time and again. Hope is the world's +best bank account." George looked at him. "That's all right enough," he +admitted.</p> + +<p>"Hope is the soul's involuntary prayer," his wife<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> observed, and he +looked at her. "That's all well enough, too," said he, "but what's the +use of tying a ribbon around your neck in a snow-storm, when what you +need is an overcoat? A man can wrap all the hope in the world around +himself, and then freeze to death."</p> + +<p>"That's true," said Milford, catching sight of the woman's eyes as she +drew a long breath, "but hope may lead him out of the storm. Pardon me, +but I infer that you've met business reverses."</p> + +<p>"Struck the ceiling," said George.</p> + +<p>"How often?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't once enough?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I've struck it a hundred times. I've been kept on the bounce, +like a ball."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, but do you feel thankful for it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, my heart isn't bursting with gratitude, but it might have been +worse—I might have stuck to the ceiling. When you throw a dog into the +water, he always shakes himself when he comes out. It's a determination +to be dry again. And that's the way a man ought to do—shake himself +every time he's thrown."</p> + +<p>"I don't know but you're right. What are you doing here, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"Rooting like a hog for something to eat. And I've not only failed in +nearly everything I undertook, but I've been a fool besides. But I've +got sense enough to know that it has all been my own fault. I believe +that, if a man's in good health, it's always his own fault if he don't +succeed. I could sit down and growl at the world; I could wish I had it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +under my heel to grind the life out of it; and the truth is, we all have +a part of it under our heels, and if we keep on grinding we'll make an +impression. I am what you might call a national egotist. I believe that +nearly everything lies within the range of an American. He may do +wrong—he does do wrong. Sometimes he does a great wrong, but nine times +out of ten he tries to make it right. I believe that the Yankee has more +conscience than other men. He may keep it well sheathed, but after a +while the edge eats through the scabbard and cuts him. He works with an +object. They say it is to make money. That's true, but the money is to +serve a purpose, a heart, a conscience."</p> + +<p>George turned about in his chair, and looked with keen interest at the +laboring man. "Look here, you are a man of brains. Why do you stay here +and dig? You are fitted for something better."</p> + +<p>Milford smiled at him. "How often that's said of a man who's not fitted +for anything. As I remarked to your wife, I'm a crank. But I've got an +object—there's something that must be done, and I'm going to do it or +broil out my life in that field."</p> + +<p>"You are a brave man. Not all of us are so nervy. But you may not have +to broil out your life."</p> + +<p>"Hope," said Milford. "And what a muscle it is, hardening with each +stroke. Now, it's not my place to say anything to you, but don't fool +along with affairs that are hopelessly tangled. Strike at something +else. Perhaps that wasn't the business you were fitted for, anyway."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Can't tell. But I wasn't stuck on it, that's a fact. What line have you +failed in, mostly?" he asked, laughing; and his wife's thin shoulders +shook as if she were seized with a sudden physical gladness.</p> + +<p>"Oh I've been a sort of bounty jumper of occupations."</p> + +<p>"But we know," said Mrs. Blakemore, "that your work was always honest."</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied, his white teeth showing through the dark of his +beard, "I never squatted on the distress of an old soldier to discount +his pension."</p> + +<p>"That's not bad. Louise," he added, playfully touching his wife's hand, +"how is it you took to me when you have a knack of finding such +interesting fellows?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you were one of the most interesting fellows I ever found. Is that +Bobbie crying? Yes. I must go to him. Good-night, Mr. Milford. I'm ever +so glad you came over this evening." She gave him a grateful look, and +hastened away, crying out, "Mamma's coming," as she ran up the stairs. +And now Mrs. Stuvic's voice arose from the outlying darkness of the +road. "Well," she shouted at some one, "you tell him that if he ever +leaves my gate open again I'll fill his hide so full of shot he'll look +like a woodpecker'd pecked him. A man that's too lazy to shut a gate +ought to be made to wear a yoke like a breachy cow. Yes, you bet!" she +said over and again as she came toward the veranda. "Like a breachy cow. +And here's Bill, bigger than life! Why, the way I saw you pounding them +clods<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> over yonder, I didn't think you could move at night. This is +Mr.—What-his-name? I never could think of it. Are you still mopin' +about? Bah, why don't you get down to somethin'? Suppose the women was +to mope that way? Do you reckon anythin' would be done. No, you bet! +There's no time for them to mope. I saw Eldridge hauling a load of folks +from the station to-day. And I know 'em—the Bostics, out here last +year, and went off without payin' their board. Well, he can have 'em, +for all of me. Stuck up. 'Please do this,' and 'Please do that,' and +'How do you feel this mornin', dear mamma?' 'Bah!' I said, 'why don't +dear mammy get out and stir around?' Bill, I want you to come over here +to dinner to-morrow—settin' about readin' all day Sunday. You come over +here and get somethin' to eat. But don't let Mitchell come. I had a +chance to hire him, and didn't do it, and now I haven't got any too much +use for him. The rascal deceived me. I didn't know he was half as good a +worker as he is. But you be sure to come," and leaning over, she added +in a whisper: "I've got the putties gal here you ever saw in your life."</p> + +<p>"But that's not the question. Will you have anything to eat?"</p> + +<p>"Better than you've had for many a day, sir, I can tell you that."</p> + +<p>"I'll be here," he replied, getting up.</p> + +<p>"Going?" said George. "I'll walk out a piece with you."</p> + +<p>And talking knavishly of the old woman and the wives who pretended to be +so glad to see their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> husbands, they walked out into the hickory grove. +"The old lady whispered to you about a pretty girl," said George. "Might +just as well have shouted it. But she is a stunner! I hunted deer up in +the mountains once, and I never saw one, but I imagined what one ought +to look like, stepping around in the tangle; and when I saw that girl +out here in the woods to-day, I thought of the deer that I didn't see. +She's with a fussy woman, a doctor's wife, a sort of companion, I +believe. I should think so! Anybody'd like to be her companion. Well, +sir, I'm just getting on to the beauty of this place. I never saw such +grass, and between here and the station there's a thousand colors +growing out of the ground. Huh!" he grunted, "and I'm just beginning to +remember them. Old fellow, I guess the little talk we had to-night has +done me good. Yes; and what's the use in worrying? Things are going to +come out just as they are—they always do—and all the worry in the +world won't help matters. I think you are right about the Yankee."</p> + +<p>"Children of fate, gathered from the four corners of the world, and +planted here," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"I guess you are right. Well, I'm going back to town Monday and do a +little hustling. I've got to. There's no two ways about it. I'll turn +back here. Glad I met you again. So long."<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> + +<h3>THE "PEACH."</h3> + + +<p>Milford was at the dinner table, talking to Blakemore, when a young +Norwegian woman entered the room. Blakemore nudged him. He looked up and +quickly looked down. He heard a woman say, "Sit here, Gunhild." He heard +her introduced as Miss Strand.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she a peach?" Blakemore whispered.</p> + +<p>"What did you say, George?" his wife asked, picking at him.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say anything."</p> + +<p>"What was it you whispered?"</p> + +<p>"About a peach," the boy blurted. "I want a peach. Maw, give me a +peach."</p> + +<p>She commanded him to hush; she raked the wayward flax out of his eyes, +and straightened him about in his chair. George shook with the abandoned +laughter of a man's gross mischief. His wife did not see anything to +laugh at; she thought it was impolite to whisper. Mr. Milford was not +laughing. No, Mr. Milford was not. His face wore a look of distress. He +shot sharp glances at the Norwegian girl. He heard her voice, her laugh. +A moment ago he draped Mrs. Blakemore with an overflow of sentimental +sympathy, but now his soul was as selfish as a hungry wolf. He had +talked with pleasant drollery. Now he offered nothing, and cut his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +answers down to colorless brevity. Mrs. Stuvic came in and stood near +him. He was silent under her Gatling talk, chill-armored against her +fire. She said she would introduce him to the Norwegian girl, and he +flinched. He excused himself, got up, and went out. He walked as far as +the gate opening into the grove, stood there a moment, turned and came +back to the veranda.</p> + +<p>"He was hit quick and hard," said George to his wife, as Mrs. Stuvic +left them. "She's a stunner, and she stunned him."</p> + +<p>"George, please don't. She may remind him of some one, that's all. Why, +he's engaged, and is working——"</p> + +<p>"That's all right. I said she hit him, and she did. Hit anybody."</p> + +<p>"George!"</p> + +<p>"Well, that's what I said. I can't help it."</p> + +<p>"I despise her."</p> + +<p>"Of course, but she's a stunner all the same. But come, now, don't look +that way. I'm not in love with her."</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure about it. You called her a 'peach'," she said, helping +the boy out of his chair, and telling him to run along.</p> + +<p>It was too much to ask her not to suspect him, now that he was +determined not to be cast down by business troubles. She had buoyed him +with her sympathy, and it was natural that she should resent his notice +of the young woman, if not his good humor. But after a lowly wallow in +melancholy, a sudden rise of spirits is always viewed with suspi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>cion by +a woman. It is one of the sentimental complexities, of her nature. She +looked at him with eyes that might never have been soft. No doubt there +was in George's breast a strong cast of the rascal. He was not a stepson +of old Adam, but a full blood. He knew, however, the proper recourse, +and he took it. He began to fret over his vanished business, and, +forgetting the "peach," she gave him her sympathy.</p> + +<p>Milford, meanwhile, was slowly striding up and down the veranda. Mrs. +Stuvic came out, followed by the Norwegian.</p> + +<p>"She didn't want to meet you, Bill, but here she is."</p> + +<p>That was the introduction, an embarrassment that fed the old woman's +notion of fun. Milford stammered, and the young woman blushed.</p> + +<p>"I did not say I did not want to meet you," she said, with a slight +accent, her unidiomatic English learned at school. "I would not say such +a thing. Mrs. Stuvic is full of jokes. She makes me laugh." And she did +laugh, strange echo from North Sea cliffs, the glow of the midnight in +her eyes, a thought that shot through the cowboy's mind as he gazed upon +her. Mrs. Stuvic went back, laughing, to the dining-room, having flushed +the young woman and turned the dark man red.</p> + +<p>"She is a very funny woman," said the "peach," looking far across the +meadow toward the lake, her long lashes slowly rising and falling. She +was not beautiful; her features were not regular, but there was a +marvelous light in her countenance, and her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> bronze-tinted hair was as +rank in growth as the yellowing oats where the soil is rich and damp. +She looked to be just ripe, but was too lithe to be luscious. Mrs. +Blakemore said that her nose was slightly tipped up, a remark more +slanderous than true, and when taken to task by an oldish woman who had +no cause to be jealous, declared that it was not a matter of taste but a +question of observation. At any rate, she had come as a yellow flash, +and must soon fade.</p> + +<p>Milford continued to gaze at her, wanting to say something, but not +knowing what to say. He heard the gruff laughter of the men in the +dining-room, joking with Mrs. Stuvic, and the romping of the children +coming out.</p> + +<p>"I guess that's the best rabbit dog anywhere around here," he said, as a +flea-bitten cur trotted past. He had never seen the dog hunt rabbits. He +knew nothing about him except that he had been ordered to shoot him for +howling, the dreary night when old Lewson died.</p> + +<p>"He does not look that he could run very fast," she replied, turning her +eyes upon the dog.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, he runs like a streak. He outran a pack of wolves up in the +Wisconsin woods."</p> + +<p>"Wolves!" she said, looking at him.</p> + +<p>He knew that he was a liar, but he said "wolves." He asked if she had +ever seen any wolves. She had seen packs of coyotes on the prairie. "I +went to my uncle when I came to this country," she said. "He lived away +in the West. I stayed there two years, and then I came with him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> to +Chicago. I did not like it so far off. The wind was always blowing +lonesome in the night, and I thought of my old home where the grass +fringed the edge of the cliff."</p> + +<p>"Did you speak English before you came to this country?"</p> + +<p>"I could read it, and I did read much—old tales of fierce fights on the +sea."</p> + +<p>"How long do you expect to stay out here?"</p> + +<p>"I am with Mrs. Goodwin, and when she says go, I go. She is very kind to +me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodwin came out, calling "Gunhild." She was tall, with grayish +hair, and on the stage might have played the part of a duchess. Her +husband's affairs were prosperous, and she devoted herself to the +discovery of genius. She had found a young girl with a marvelous voice, +and had educated her into a common-rate singer, put her in opera, and +the critics scorched her. The discoverer swallowed a lump of +disappointment, and turned about to find another genius. In an obscure +corner of a newspaper, she found a gem in verse, the soul-spurt of a +young man. She sought him out, and paid for the printing of a volume of +verses. The critics scoffed him, and she swallowed another lump. One of +her assistant discoverers brought to her a pencil sketch of a buffalo, +and this led to the finding of Gunhild Strand. The girl was modest. She +disclaimed genius, but she was sent to the Art Institute; she would +climb the mountain. But she got no higher than the foot-hills. "I did +not have any confidence in myself," the girl declared. "And now I must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +work for you to pay you for what has been spent." This was surely a +proof that she had no genius, but it was an evidence of gratitude, a +rarer quality, and Mrs. Goodwin was pleased. "You shall be my +companion," she said, "Your society will more than repay me. You must +not refuse. I set my heart upon it."</p> + +<p>Milford was introduced, and the stately woman threw her searchlight upon +him. Here might be another genius.</p> + +<p>"They tell me, Mr. Milford, that you are a man of great industry."</p> + +<p>"They might have told you, madam, that I am a great fool."</p> + +<p>Ha! a gleam of true light. She warmed toward him. She thought of Burns +plowing up a mouse. But she was skeptical of poets. They have a contempt +for their patrons if their wares do not sell.</p> + +<p>"You credit them with too shrewd a discovery," she replied.</p> + +<p>"I simply give them credit for ordinary eyesight, madam."</p> + +<p>"You prove the contrary." She smiled upon him. "They tell me that you +came like a mist, out of the mysterious woods."</p> + +<p>"A fog from the marsh," he replied, laughing; and the "peach" laughed, +too—more music from the North Sea. He saw the pink of her arm through +the gauze of her sleeve. Mrs. Goodwin thought that he knew nothing about +women, and she was right, but, as a rule, if rule can be applied, a +woman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> thinks this of a man when, indeed, he has mastered innocent +hearts to make wantons of them.</p> + +<p>"Where is your field?" the discoverer inquired.</p> + +<p>"Over yonder, where the sun is hottest."</p> + +<p>"And your house?"</p> + +<p>"Over on the hill, yonder, where the wind will blow coldest in winter."</p> + +<p>Surely, he had a volume of verse hidden under the old clothes in his +trunk. She could have wished that he was even an inventor. She shuddered +at the thought of another attempt to set up a shaft to American letters. +The jovial doctor had shaken his fat sides at her. Suddenly she was +inspired with forethought. She asked him if he had ever written any +verse. He said that once he had been tempted to toss a firebrand into an +enemy's wheat-rick, but had never ruined a sheet with measured lines. +She saw that he had caught the spirit of the paragrapher's fling. So +this fear was put aside; still, he must be a genius of some sort—an +inventor, perhaps. She asked if he had ever invented anything, and he +answered, "Yes, a lie." This stimulated her interest in him. He was so +frank, so refreshing. She had heard that a laborer could be quaintly +entertaining. She contrasted him with the numerous men of her +acquaintance, men whose sentences were as dried herbs, the sap and the +fragrance gone. She was weary of the doctor's shop-talk, the +impoverished blood of conversation, the dislocated joint of utterance. +She would have welcomed track talk with a race-horse starter. And the +bluntness of this man from the hillside was invigorating. His words +were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> not dry herbs, but fresh pennyroyal, sharp with scent. Milford +smiled at her, wishing that she were locked among her husband's jars of +pickled atrocities. He wanted to talk silliness with the girl.</p> + +<p>The other boarders came out, George and his wife among them. George +handed Milford a cigar, telling him to light it,—that the ladies did +not object to smoking.</p> + +<p>"You haven't asked them," said his wife.</p> + +<p>"Well, I know they don't."</p> + +<p>"There, don't you see? Mrs. Dorch is moving off."</p> + +<p>George grinned. "Her husband is a great smoker, and she don't want to be +reminded of home," he said.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she replied.</p> + +<p>"I can't afford it. I'm too much loser."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodwin asked Gunhild to walk with her. She looked at Milford, but +he lost his nerve and did not offer to go with them.</p> + +<p>"That was a bid," said George. His wife reprimanded him. "It is a wonder +you didn't offer to go," she declared. "But let us take a walk," she +added.</p> + +<p>"Too soon after eating. Believe I'll go up and take a snooze," he said.</p> + +<p>A mother, worn out with hot nights of worrying over the ills of a +teething child, sat rocking the little one. Bobbie stood looking on with +the critical eye of a boy. "A baby sticks out his tongue when you wipe +his face with a wet rag," he said, and George<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> snorted. "What a boy +don't see ain't worth seeing," he said. The boy's mother reached out, +drew him to her, and attempted to take from his clenched hands a piece +of castiron, a rusty key, and a hog's tooth. "Throw those nasty things +away."</p> + +<p>"Let him keep his tools," said George. "A boy can't work without tools." +He hung to the implements of his trade. She turned him about and set him +adrift. "Mr. Milford," she said, "you don't seem to be quite yourself +this afternoon. You aren't enjoying yourself."</p> + +<p>He appeared surprised that she should think so. If he were not enjoying +himself it was news to him, deserving of a big headline. She saw his eye +searching the woods; she thought of the young woman who sighed out her +breath at a window far away, waiting for him to hoe out a place for her. +The wreath that she had hung upon him began to wither. After all, he was +but a man with a shifting soul, and she did not believe that his talk +had morally helped her husband. George was nodding. She shook him, and +he looked up quickly, as if he expected a railway conductor to tell him +that he was to get off there.</p> + +<p>"What makes you so stupid?"</p> + +<p>"The beastly weather. Well, I'm going up."</p> + +<p>She sat there rocking herself, with a knife in her bosom for the man who +sat near, the deceitful laborer. He was, after all, nothing but a hired +man. What could she have expected of him? She was foolish to believe +that there was anything spiritual about him. She would give him a dig.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The young woman whom you were pleased to call a 'peach'——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't call her a 'peach'."</p> + +<p>"No matter. The young woman who has been called a 'peach,' with a +bouquet of man's promises perfuming her heart, thinks, no doubt, that he +is longing to see her again, when, perhaps, he has forgotten her, or +remembers her only as a joke. Those foreign girls are so simple." She +looked at him with her drooping eyes. Her fancy rewarded her with the +belief that there was a sudden mixture of red in the brown of his face.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think she's handsome?" she asked, after waiting for him to +speak.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered, glad to disappoint her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do. Don't you, really?"</p> + +<p>"Well, she's not ugly."</p> + +<p>"But don't you think she's handsome?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, and looked as if he wanted to add: "Now what are you +going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"I knew you did. Men have such queer tastes. Well, I don't think she's a +bit handsome. It's no trick at all to keep the eyes wide open; and any +woman can let her hair go to seed. Of course, I ought not to say +anything, but I should think that you would hold a brighter picture of +some one who is waiting—but what am I saying? How warm it is! We are +surely going to have rain."</p> + +<p>She heard the boy bawling out in the orchard. She ran to him. Milford +stalked off toward home. "She's a little fool," he thought, and +dismissed her. In the road he met the "discoverer" and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> "peach," +decked with purple flowers. He waited for them to show a disposition to +halt. They did not, so he bowed and passed them by. On the knoll in the +oat field he turned and looked back. On the veranda he saw a purple +glimmer. Was the girl waving flowers at him? He turned toward home, with +the music of her accent in his heart. The place was deserted. The hired +man was out among the women, poverty once bitten, looking for another +bite. Milford stretched himself out upon the grass under the walnut +tree. Grimly, he compared himself with a man thrown from a horse, not +knowing yet whether or not he was hurt. He had the plainsman's sense of +humor, and he laughed at himself. "No matter which way I turn, I'm +generally up against it," he said, and he could hear his words whispered +up among the leaves of the tree. The earth seemed to throb beneath him. +The heat made the whole world pant. He dozed, and dreamed that he saw +violets rained from a purple cloud.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>THE PROFESSOR.</h3> + + +<p>Milford was aroused from his dozing by some one walking up and down the +veranda. "Don't let me disturb you," a cheery voice cried out, when he +got up. "I dropped over to pay you a visit, and finding you asleep, +thought I would wait till you reached the end of your nap. And I am +sorry if I have disturbed you." He held out his hand as Milford came +within reach, and in the heartiest manner said that his name was +Professor Dolihide. "I suppose you heard that I moved into your +neighborhood. Yes, sir, I have lived near you some ten days or more—a +longtime to live anywhere during these grinding times, sir."</p> + +<p>Milford had heard that Professor Dolihide had moved into an old house +that had long stood deserted. He shook hands on suspicion, and then, on +better acquaintance, he brought out two chairs, planted the Professor in +one, sat down himself, and said he hoped that his visitor found the new +home pleasant. The Professor closed his eyes till he looked through +narrow cracks. "Well, as to that, I must say that I never expect to find +another pleasant home. It is one's occupation abroad that makes the home +pleasant, and when one has been compelled against his liking to change +his trade, the home suffers. But I must explain," he said, open<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>ing his +eyes and rubbing his hands together. "For years, I held the chair of +English literature in a Kansas college. My salary was small, but I was +happy, and my family had an exalted respect for me, as a learned man. +But now I keep books at a planing-mill up here at Lake Villa, and am +entitled to no respect whatever, not because I am not respectable, but +for the reason that I have failed."</p> + +<p>He came as a fresh breeze, and Milford enjoyed him. He possessed a sort +of comical dignity. His eyes were lamp-dimmed. His beard was thin and +red.</p> + +<p>"Failed," he repeated, "not on the account of incompetence, mind you, +but traceable, I may say, to a changed condition of the times. I had +been led to believe that my work was giving entire satisfaction. My +scope was not broad, it is true, but the ground was thoroughly tilled. +But a difference arose in the board of supervisors. And it was decided +that I was not idiomatic enough in my treatment of our mother tongue. +They argued that English is progressive. I did not doubt that, but I +said that slang was not true progress. They cited an extract from a +speech delivered by the president of an Eastern grove of learning, in +which he said that the purist was as dead as stagnant water. I was +pleased to be called a purist, sir. I had striven to maintain that +position; but it did not compensate me for the loss of my living. After +that, I taught in a common school, but they said I was wanting in +discipline. Then I drifted about, and now here I am, bookkeeper at a +planing-mill. But I have a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> hope that it will all come right, and I +could exist fairly, but my wife and my daughter do not share my hope. I +trust I do not shock you when I affirm that a woman has a contempt for +the hope of a man. She is a materialist; she wants immediate results, +and all that keeps her from being a gambler is the fear of losing. I +trust I have not shocked you."</p> + +<p>He stroked his thin beard to a point, and twisted it. He cocked his +head, and looked at Milford as if he expected a weighty decision +concerning an important matter. His clothes were well-kept relics, but +his dignity came out fresh, as if it had been newly dusted. What a +tenderfoot he would have been in a mining camp; what a guy at a variety +show! Milford agreed that his views were no doubt correct. The man was +an unconscious joke, and argument would spoil him.</p> + +<p>"I thank you," said the Professor. "Such ready and cheerful agreement is +rarely found, except between two intelligent men, and the admission of a +third man of equal intelligence would greatly lessen the chances. And +now I may tell you that my wife and daughter objected to my calling, +affirming, as they had a right to do, that it was your place to call on +me, as I was the newer comer. And I said, 'Madam, there are no women in +this case, so, therefore, we have no need to be finical and unnatural.'" +He cleared his throat, and cocked his head. The sharp face of his host +looked serious, but there was a titter in his breast.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said the Professor, "one may have ever so hairy an ear, and +yet the gossip of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> neighborhood will force its way in. I have heard +much concerning you. I heard that they did not understand you, and then +I said to myself that you must be a man worth knowing."</p> + +<p>"Then I must be rare," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Ah, sharp; that is sharp, sir. A dignified contempt for man may not +belong to the text of the virtues, but it is one of the pictures that +brightens the page. I beg pardon for even the appearance of +infringement, but do you expect to reside here permanently?"</p> + +<p>"No, I have stopped to stay over night, and to chop wood for breakfast."</p> + +<p>"A judicious answer, sir; a shrewd statement. They told me that you were +strangely guarded in speech, that you suffered yourself to seem dull +rather than to trip off a waste of words. That is true wisdom, not, +indeed, to have nothing to say, but keeping the something that fain +would fly forth. I take it that you came from the city to these parts."</p> + +<p>"Yes, directly. But I was there only a short time."</p> + +<p>"A stranger, indeed. Have you ever chanced to live in Kansas?"</p> + +<p>"I've broken out there in spots."</p> + +<p>"Ha! an idiomatic answer. I see that you belong to the new school. +Perhaps it is better, but I am too old to learn. Did you ever happen to +break out in a spot called Grayson?"</p> + +<p>"I passed through there on my way to break out somewhere else."</p> + +<p>"You did? That was my town, sir—a seat of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> learning made famous by a +bank robbery. When our city was ten years old, I read a paper at the +celebration. Were you ever engaged in any educational work?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, one of the greatest. I sold a cook-book."</p> + +<p>"Shrewd; yes, sharp. From what I heard, I thought that you would be +worth knowing. I have met your landlady, a most impressive woman, but +with a vulgar contempt for my profession. She said that it was a good +thing that I had left off fooling and at last got down to work. And I +think that this has precluded any relationship between her and my wife. +She can't stand a reference, not that kind of a reference, to my +decline. In this regard, women haven't so much virtue as a man +possesses. They can not piece a torn quilt with an aphorism. In what +part of the country have your labors been mostly confined?"</p> + +<p>"Mostly between here and sunset."</p> + +<p>"More poetic than sharp," said the Professor, clearing his throat. "May +I trouble you for a drink of water?"</p> + +<p>Milford drew water from the well near the walnut tree, and in the +kitchen dipper conveyed a quart of it to the Professor, who drank with +the thirst of a toper and the suck of a horse. "I am sufficiently +watered," he said, bowing and returning the dipper to Milford, who threw +it out upon the grass where the hired man could find it. "What a +delightful way to live!" said the Professor. "You throw things about as +you please, and there is no one to complain. You may leave your pipe +anywhere, and probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> find it again; you let hunger, instead of time, +summon you to eat. I trust I do not shock you when I say that Adam +enjoyed his greatest freedom before the appearance of Eve."</p> + +<p>Milford said that he was not shocked, and the Professor thanked him. It +was pleasant to meet a philosopher, a man who did not foolishly feel +called upon in resentment to declare, that his mother was a woman. A +shrewder man than Milford might have inferred that the Professor had +been nagged by his wife through the tedium of a Sunday forenoon. +Work-day annoyances fester on Sunday. In the country, when a man has, on +a Sunday, killed the chickens for dinner, salted the sheep in the +pasture, and returned to the house, he is in the way; everything he does +is wrong; everything he leaves undone is worse. He is kept on the +ducking verge of a constant dodge.</p> + +<p>"No man has more respect for a woman than I have," said the Professor, +"but I am forced to admit that she is a constant experiment. Nature +herself does not as yet know what to make of her. One moment she is a +joy, and the next she is searching for a man's weak spots, like a +disease. I think that it was some such expression, spoken in a +sententious mood, that helped to oust me from the easy chair of +congenial letters." A clock struck the hour of five. The Professor +seemed surprised at the swift rush of time. "Well, I must take my +leave," said he, getting up and standing with his hands resting on the +back of the chair. "Ah, and would you mind walking over to my home with +me?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>The lingering dawn of Milford's suspicions was now streaked with gray. +"I'd like to, but the hired man's gone out, and I've got to do the +chores about the place."</p> + +<p>"But perhaps I may return with you and assist you. I am an apt hand."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, not to-day; some other time."</p> + +<p>A shade of disappointment fell upon him and darkened his dignity. "I am +sorry," he said. "I had hoped to know you better, and we were making +such fair progress. It is not often that I get along so well with a new +acquaintance." He brightened suddenly, as if the reserve forces of his +mind had been brought up. "Ah, would you object to my helping you with +your work, and then taking a bachelor's supper with you?"</p> + +<p>"That's all right—fits me like a glove," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Good!" cried the Professor. "Idiomatic, and divested of all shrewdness. +Now, what shall we do first?"</p> + +<p>"I'll hatch up a bite to eat, and then we'll feed the stock. You sit +here."</p> + +<p>He protested against a decree that might make a lazy guest of him, but +he yielded, and sat down to hum a tune of contentment, pliant heart +postponing trouble, procrastinator of annoyances. It did not take +Milford long to prepare the meal, crisp strips of bacon, bread, and +coffee boiled in a tin pail. The host said that it was but ranch fare. +The guest rubbed his hands together, and declared that freedom was a +pudding's sweetest sauce. He had read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> of many great feasts, in the days +of the barons, when bulls were roasted whole, of the wild boar's head +served upon the golden platter of the king, but to him there was one +banquet mellower with sentiment than all the rest—General Marion and +the British officer in the forest, with a pile of roasted sweet potatoes +on a log. He sipped the dreggy coffee as if it were the mulled wine of a +New Year's night. He talked loudly as if he enjoyed the resonant freedom +of his own voice. He laughed in the present, and then was silent as a +cool shadow of the future fell upon him. But he shifted from under the +shadow, and went on with his talk, in florid congratulation of his host, +his ease, his independence. There were no soft cushions, but there was +rough repose, the undisturbed rest of honest weariness. Milford's +judgment of men told him that this man had ever been a laughing-stock, +afflicted as he was with a certain incompetent refinement of mind. But, +in the varied society of life, how important is the office of such a +failure! A shiftless man sometimes makes shiftless men more contented, +softening enmities against life, and quieting clamors against +discriminating nature. Here was a man who really was worth knowing, and +the cowboy gratefully accepted him. He opened up his Noah's Ark of +adventures, and entertained the man-child. He shoved back from the +table, and sang a roaring song of a plainsman who died for love. He +recited a poem by Antrobus, the herdsman's sneer of abandoned +recklessness—"Like a Centaur, he speeds where the wild bull feeds." The +Professor clapped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> his hands. He swore that no Eastcheap could afford a +more delicious entertainment. Milford brought cider from the cellar, +beading in a brown, earthen ewer, and the Professor snapped his eyes. +"Where the wild bull feeds," he laughed, passing his cup for more. They +shook hands, that they held in common so many old songs, lines familiar +to our grandmothers—"Come, dearest, the daylight hath gone;" "The +tiger's cub I'd bind with a chain." They sang till the daylight was +gone, and then went forth laughingly to feed the stock. But the +Professor left off his part of the singing before the work was +completed. The shadow of the future had again fallen upon him, and he +could not shift from under it.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said, "you must go home with me. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"I think I do, and I'll go anywhere with you."</p> + +<p>"Idiomatic, and accommodating. Put her there!" he cried, striking hands +with Milford. "Ha! how is that for idiom? Stay by me, gentle keeper, my +soul is heavy, and I fain would—would duck." He leaned against the barn +door and shook. Milford clapped him on the shoulder, and shook with him.</p> + +<p>Across a field, through a wood and along a grassy slope, they went, +toward the Professor's home, passing a house which schoolboys said was +haunted. The Professor talked philosophy. He had a religious theory, +newly picked up on the way: If we die suddenly at night, dreaming a +sweet dream, we continue the dream throughout eternity—heaven. If we +die dreaming a troubled dream, we go on dream<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>ing it after death—hell. +Moral, then let us strive to live conducively to pleasant dreams. +Milford agreed that, as a theory, it was good enough. Nearly anything +was good enough for a theory. But wise men had summed up the future, and +had died trusting in their creed. The Professor hung back at the word +future. The future was now too near to be discussed as a speculation. He +saw it shining through the window of his house. He heard it in the +slamming of a door.</p> + +<p>"Well, here we are," he said, unwinding a chain from about a post, and +opening a gate. "Step in. We will sit on the veranda—cooler than in the +house."</p> + +<p>The door opened, and a large woman stepped out upon the veranda. Seeing +who came, she uttered one of anger's unspellable words, a snort. She was +a good woman, no doubt, but she was of the class who, in the old days, +lent virtue to the ducking stool. In short, she was one who deemed +herself the most abused of all earthly creatures, a scold. Pretending +not to see her husband, she asked Milford what he wanted.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Dolihide," said the Professor, "this is my very dear friend, Mr. +Milford, our neighbor, and a man who has lived over most of the ground +between here and sunset."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that you? Really, I didn't expect to see you again. It's a +pretty time to come poking home now, when you were to be here to go to +church with us. Oh, you needn't blink your eyes, having us get ready and +set here and wait and wait."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mad and dressed up," muttered the Professor. "What could be more +pitiable? Don't go," he whispered to Milford. "I pray thee, gentle +keeper, stay by me. Idiomatically, I am half shot."</p> + +<p>"Let me go," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Not on your idiomatic life," muttered the Professor. "Mother, I am very +sorry that I didn't get here in time to accompany you and my daughter to +the humble house of the Lord. But we may not be too late now to catch +the welcome end of a long sermon."</p> + +<p>A voice came from within the house. "Is that pa?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," the Professor's wife replied, "and he's as drunk as a fool."</p> + +<p>"Oh, for pity sake! How dreadful, how humiliating to us! But he never +thinks of us." An inner door slammed.</p> + +<p>Milford strove to pull away. The Professor clung to him. "It is not +fear," he said. "It is a sort of awe that the sex inspires. But there is +a time for boldness. Madam, you have told your daughter that I am drunk. +I am here to refute that statement. I am not drunk. My friend is not +drunk. We drank some cider, sinuous with age, but we are not drunk. He +is a man of high moral character, and I breathe a respect for +letters——"</p> + +<p>"Your breath would scorch a feather right now," she snapped, looking at +him with contempt, her hands on her hips.</p> + +<p>"I deny that statement, also. I am here to refute it. I have been +merrier than is my wont; we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> shaken warm hands over a stone jug, +but nobody's character was assailed. And I had thought, in view of the +fact that I present a neighbor, you would treat me with a little more +courtesy."</p> + +<p>"You didn't know me."</p> + +<p>"It appears not, madam. A man may think that he knows his wife to-day, +but to-morrow there appears in her system the symptoms of a strange +disease. But, if you will forgive me," he added, slowly advancing, +"forgive a memory for slipping up in a slippery place, I will promise +that there shall be no recurrence of the fall. Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. +Milford."</p> + +<p>Milford roared with laughter. He broke loose from the Professor, and +fled through the gate, and he did not check his flight till he was far +down the road, and then he halted to laugh again.</p> + +<p>Since early evening, the sky had been overcast, and drops of rain began +to fall. Milford hastened onward. In the woods, far across a willow +flat, the wind blew hard, and the rain lashed the leaves. He turned +aside into the haunted house. All the doors were open. He went to the +back door and stood looking out at the coming of the rain. A noise +quickened his blood, and looking about he saw a vision of white in the +front door.</p> + +<p>"Who is that?"</p> + +<p>A slight cry, a swaying of the vision, a voice replying: "Oh, I did not +know there was any one in here. I have stopped in out of the rain."</p> + +<p>And now his blood jumped. "Is that you, Miss Strand?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, but I do not know you. Oh, is it Mr. Milford? How strange! But +you do not live here?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've simply dodged in out of the wet. It's pouring down."</p> + +<p>"Yes, the clouds were a long time here, but the rain was quick. I went +far over after a laundress. Mrs. Stuvic would have sent me in the buggy, +but I wanted to walk; and now I shall be made sorry."</p> + +<p>"I hope not. Let me see if I can't make it more comfortable for you."</p> + +<p>He struck a match, and looked about. The room was bare. In places the +floor was broken. She said, with a laugh, that she would not mind it so +much but for the dark.</p> + +<p>"I hope you have many matches," she said.</p> + +<p>"I haven't, but I can remedy it. Here is an old smudge pan. I'll build a +fire in it."</p> + +<p>He broke up a piece of board, split fine pieces with his knife, tore up +a letter, and made a fire in the pan. In a shed-room he found a bench, +dusted it, and brought it in for her. She sat down, and he stood looking +at the play of the shadows and the light on her hair. The spirit of the +cider was gone. He wondered why he had run down the road, laughing. He +got down on his knees to feed the fire. It was a trick; it was stealing +an attitude to pay a homage.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Goodwin will be very much worried," she said. "I wish that I did +not come. It was so much further than they said. I left when the sun was +down. Now it is late, and I walked all the time."</p> + +<p>"I will run over there and bring the buggy for you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no. The rain pours too much. When it is done I will go with +you. The road is hard. There will be not much mud. We found many flowers +in the woods to-day."</p> + +<p>"I saw you with an armful."</p> + +<p>"Did you see me wave at you when you stand on the high place in the +oats?"</p> + +<p>"I did, but I was almost afraid to believe it."</p> + +<p>"Almost afraid? Why, what harm? There is no harm to wave a flower. Now +it rains easier. It will soon quit."</p> + +<p>Never did a promised clearing of the sky so mock a man. He mended the +fire, for, in his enraptured gazing, he had neglected it. He got up and +looked out, to see a glimmer of the threatening moon and a star peeping +from a nest of glinted cloud-wool. He returned and knelt near the +fire-pan.</p> + +<p>"Is it clearing away?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"It's going to pour down."</p> + +<p>"But it is getting lighter."</p> + +<p>"I know, but another cloud is coming."</p> + +<p>"I may get home before the new rain falls."</p> + +<p>"No, I hear it in the woods off yonder."</p> + +<p>"If I run I may get to a house where some one lives."</p> + +<p>"The rain will catch you. A wind is behind it."</p> + +<p>"I don't hear the wind."</p> + +<p>"It is a low wind, but it will soon be high."</p> + +<p>"The smoke hurts my eyes. You have put on too much wood at once."</p> + +<p>"And we must stay till it burns out to keep the house from catching +fire."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, the moon is out. I must go now."</p> + +<p>"I will go with you."</p> + +<p>"Take me to the straight road, and then I will go alone."</p> + +<p>He took the pan between two sticks, and threw it far out upon the wet +grass. A flock of sheep pattered by. "Sheep always run past a haunted +house," he said, leading her to the road.</p> + +<p>"Is this place haunted?" she asked, looking back.</p> + +<p>"Yes, by a young man who drowned himself in the lake."</p> + +<p>"Why did he drown himself?"</p> + +<p>"On account of a young woman who lived here."</p> + +<p>She laughed at the cowboy's impromptu lie. "He was foolish to drown +himself. Let us walk fast now. Mrs. Goodwin will be much afraid for me. +Can you not walk faster?"</p> + +<p>When they reached the corners, where a broad road crossed their path, +she turned to him and said: "I know where I am now. This is my road, and +I am not far. I thank you ever so much, and I bid you good-night." She +fled swiftly down the road, and he stood there long after she had faded +from sight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<h3>THE GOSSIPERS.</h3> + + +<p>The low place where Milford hoed the young corn was not far from Mrs. +Stuvic's, and more than once during the forenoon he went to the top of +the rise and looked toward the house. He saw George out in the road, +teaching his wife to ride a wheel, saw the Dutch girl driving the +turkeys out of the garden, heard the old woman shout for the pony-cart +to take her to the town of Waukegan, but saw nothing of the young woman +who had filled his sleep with dreams. He returned to his work, chopping +the stubborn clods, the heat growing fiercer with the approach of noon, +the wet land steaming. Of a sudden, he cursed his hoe, and threw it from +him. "But I've got to do it," he said, and resumed his labor. George +came across the field.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," said he, "I didn't go back to town this morning as I laid +out to do, and now I'm like a fish out of water. Just as I got ready to +go, my wife misunderstood something I said, and then it was all off. A +man's a fool to leave his wife with a misunderstanding in her head. +Everything ought to be smoothed over before he goes. One morning, not +long ago, I scolded the boy at the breakfast table, and he was crying +when I left the house. I got on the car and tried to read a newspaper, +but couldn't. And, sir, I hopped off the car, took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> another one back, +and made it up with him. He had forgotten all about it, but I hadn't. We +were all pretty well stirred up over the 'peach' last night. Got caught +out in the rain, and we thought the doctor's wife would have a fit. And +at the breakfast table this morning, she gave an account of herself. Oh, +she's straightforward. She said you entertained her with a fire."</p> + +<p>"A flash in the pan," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know as to that, for when there's a flash in the pan +there's no report, but I guess you'll hear report enough when you meet +those women over at the house. They've made a love affair out of +it—they say you're treating a certain young woman shamefully. Oh, +they've got it all fixed up to suit themselves. They told the 'peach' +you were engaged, and that she's wrong to encourage you."</p> + +<p>"The devil they did!" Milford shouted. "What right have they got to +presume——"</p> + +<p>"It's not presuming on the part of a woman, my dear fellow; it's a +natural conclusion. The girl couldn't say a thing. She stammered, and +finally she stormed. She said it was nothing to her if you were engaged +to a thousand women. She threatened to leave, and then the women +apologized. And about that time I decided that I wouldn't go to town +to-day."</p> + +<p>"I'll go over there," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"No, don't do anything of the sort, not while you're mad. It's all right +now."</p> + +<p>"No, it's not all right, but I want to tell you that I'll make it all +right".<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, don't go on getting hot. The thing was a joke, and is all smoothed +over. It arose out of pity for the other young woman."</p> + +<p>"Confound it! there isn't any other woman."</p> + +<p>"That's all right; that's what I told them. No other woman, of course +not. There never is. Well, I'll be off. I go at twelve forty-five."</p> + +<p>George trudged off over the clods, and Milford stood looking after him, +a dark scowl on his face. Those miserable women, not half so innocent as +blanketed squaws drooling about a camp-fire. And that slim Mrs. +Blakemore, lithe as a viper, had inspired it all. How could a refined +woman be so full of the devil's poisonous juice? In his humble way, he +had tried to help her out of a trouble. Tired, and with every bone +aching, he had fought off sleep to make good his word with her. Wasp! +she had stung him. It was nearly noon, and he went to the house to make +fat meat hiss in a hot pan. He sat brooding over the table when Mitchell +came in. "Are you stalled in sight of the stable?" the hired man asked, +seeing that Milford had not begun to eat.</p> + +<p>"I'm down to the hub in a rut."</p> + +<p>"Prize out," said Mitchell, sitting down.</p> + +<p>"That's right, I guess; only thing I can do. Shove that hog down this +way. How are you getting along over there?"</p> + +<p>"Be done by night. Rain put the ground in pretty good fix. You about +done?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll plow this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Say, Bill, what are divorces worth?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Divorces? I never bought one."</p> + +<p>"Well, it looks to me like I ought to get one pretty cheap under the +circumstances. Wife ran away."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they ought to give you a good discount. Don't you think you'd +better get two while you're at it? You might need another one after a +while."</p> + +<p>"No, I guess one'll be about enough."</p> + +<p>"Generally, when a man is looking for a divorce, he wants to marry +again. Have you got any such notion?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I know a woman that would make a man a mighty good livin'. She +ain't putty; she's as freckled as a turkey egg, but she's a hustler from +'way back. I could bring her here. You could board with us. She's a +rattlin' cook; and she's got land. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>"I say you are a scoundrel?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right; I'm a man. But I don't see anythin' wrong in it. +She's a woman, and if it ain't right for a woman to keep house, then I +don't know what it is right for her to do. She wants to marry, and I +don't see that anybody is kickin' up much dust around her. What do you +say?"</p> + +<p>"I told you what I said."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you said I was a scoundrel, and there hain't been any argument +raised on that p'int. What do you say about her comin'?"</p> + +<p>"She'll not come while I'm here; I'll tell you that."</p> + +<p>"That's all you need to tell me. I'm a good scuffler, but I know when +I'm flung down. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> didn't see the Professor's daughter when you was +over there, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Is she the woman?"</p> + +<p>"That I'm thinkin' of marryin'? Not much! Willie bows to her and passes +on. She reminds me of a blue heron, and the wind whistles when she +passes."</p> + +<p>"How did you happen to mention her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she flew into my head—so different from my woman. I know'd the +Professor when he tried to keep boarders over near Antioch. Talked his +house empty. Took up a tramp that had book sense, and kept him till the +old woman drove him off. It took more than a hint to get rid of him. She +throw'd his wallet and stick out into the road. He picked 'em up, and +went back into the house to argy Scripture with the Professor. Then she +flew at him with a fire-shovel, and he hulled out. What makes you so +glum on women, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"What makes a dog so glum on cats?"</p> + +<p>"There must be somethin' wrong, sure enough, when you put it that way. +What's wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they've raised hell over at the house."</p> + +<p>"The women have? Well, that's their business, Bill; that's their trade."</p> + +<p>"I guess you're right," Milford replied, with a laugh. He got up, took +down his pipe, and went out for a half-hour's smoke on the grass, in the +shade of the walnut tree. The smoke soothed him. Tobacco may be a great +physical enemy, he argued, but a briar-root pipe is the most trustworthy +timber for president of a peace society. Why are women so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> unforgiving? +Because they do not smoke. Why was James the First a pedantic ass? +Because he wrote a pamphlet against tobacco. Milford lay back in a +forgiving muse. Perhaps, after all, the slim woman had not been so much +at fault. She had too much sympathy to be very strong, and it is manly +to forgive a woman's weakness; it is, at least, manly to acknowledge to +ourselves that we do. It is also manly to hold a slight grudge as a +warning against a recurrence of the offense. Milford would hold a +grudge, and show it by sulking. He would keep himself apart from them +during the week, and on Sunday he would walk high-headed past the house. +This was a sound and respectable resolution, and he smiled upon his own +resources. It took occasion to inspire a plan. And the woman who did not +care whether he were engaged to a thousand women? He would—of course, +he would speak to her, but with distinct reserve. However, some time +must pass before he would give any of them a chance to speak to him.</p> + +<p>A boy came up through the orchard and halted at the garden fence. +Milford asked him what was wanted. "They are going to have some music +over at Mrs. Stuvic's to-night, and they told me to come over and tell +you to be sure and come."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<h3>IN THE OLD WOMAN'S PARLOR.</h3> + + +<p>It was clearly an insult to ask him to come. They had slandered him, and +now they wanted him at their entertainment. He told the boy to tell them +that he would not be there. He plowed during the afternoon, with never a +look toward the house when he turned at the end of a row. He hoped that +they expected him; he would smack his lips over the vicious joy of +disappointing them. The invitation had, no doubt, come from Mrs. +Blakemore; Miss Strand could have had no hand in it. She did not care +enough for him to wish for his company. But it made no difference who +did the inviting, he would not go. He went home tired, and was sleepy at +the supper table. He took down his pipe and lighted it. Mitchell talked +about the woman whose freckles were as gold to him. He had found a +valuable rod and reel in the rushes; he would sell them and buy a +divorce.</p> + +<p>"If you take my advice," said Milford, "you'll let the women alone."</p> + +<p>"But a feller that's in love can't take advice."</p> + +<p>"Love!" Milford sneered. "You in love?"</p> + +<p>"That's what. Fell in love about a quarter to two, last Sunday was a +week. What are you doin' with that boiled shirt lyin' out there? Goin' +to put it on?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know. Is there any water in the rain barrel?"</p> + +<p>"Ought to be if it hain't leaked out; poured in there last night. Goin' +to take a bath?"</p> + +<p>"Don't suppose I want to drink out of the rain barrel, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't know; no tellin' much what a feller'll do. But it hits me that +when a man begins to take baths he's sorter in love himself, now that +we're on that subject."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't have to get a divorce."</p> + +<p>"That don't sound like you, Bill. Don't believe I'd gouge you that way."</p> + +<p>Milford's dark countenance flushed; he made a noise in his throat. He +held out his hand, and in a gentle voice said: "I beg your pardon. +Shake."</p> + +<p>"You've said enough," Mitchell replied, shaking hands with him. "All +that a son of old Illinois needs is that sort of play, and he's done. +Goin' somewhere to-night?"</p> + +<p>"No; thought I'd put on clean clothes and walk about in the woods."</p> + +<p>He dressed himself and walked down by the lake. He heard the merry +splashings of moonlight bathers, the hound-like baying of the bull +frogs, far away in the rushes. He picked his way over a barbed-wire +fence, and went into the thick woods where the close air still held the +heat of the day. He came out into the road a quarter of a mile below +Mrs. Stuvic's house. It was too dark to go back through the woods; there +were numerous stumps, tangled vines, and the keen briar of the wild +goose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>berry. The grass field further along was drenched with dew. He +would pass the house and take the road through the hickory grove. As he +drew near, he heard the piano. It reminded him of an old box that had +been hauled over the mountains and set up in a mining camp. The red +lantern swung from the eaves of the veranda. Some one began to sing, and +he halted at the gate. Why make an outcast of himself? he mused. He went +into the yard, and stood there. Who was he, to be sulking? What right +had he, a laborer, to expect anything? They had made him a gift of their +attention. In the city, they would not have noticed him. He would go in, +a nobody, and pick up a crumb of entertainment. The door stood open. +Mrs. Blakemore saw him. She came out with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I thought you would come if you could," she said. "So kind of you. +Come in."</p> + +<p>The first person whom he saw upon entering the room was the Professor, +in earnest conversation with the "discoverer." He was telling her of the +pleasure it would give him to have her meet his wife. They would strike +up a friendship, both being patronesses of art and intellect. But his +wife was a great home-body. She rarely went out; she was contented to +have him represent her with his praises. And he thought that it was +pardonable in a man to praise his wife. He offered no apology for it. +Romance had not deserted his fireside. A fresh bow of blue ribbon was +ever at the throat of his married life. At this moment he spied Milford, +and blustered up to greet him. It was not enough to say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> that he was +pleased; he was delighted. He grasped Milford's hand and shook it +warmly. He spoke of Milford's charming visit to his home; it was an +honor that his family keenly appreciated. "Oh, you are acquainted with +Mrs. Goodwin. Yes, I remember now, you paid her a deserved compliment. +He spoke of your great gifts, madam."</p> + +<p>Gunhild was not in the room. Footsteps came down the passage-way, and +Milford's eyes flew to the floor. Some one at the piano loosened a dam, +and let flow a merry rivulet, and into the room danced Mrs. Stuvic, her +head high, and her back as straight as an ironing board. The children +shrieked with laughter, and the men and women clapped their hands. She +was oblivious to applause. She was looking far back upon a hewed log +floor, bright faces about a great fireplace, and a fiddler in the +corner, beneath a string of dried pumpkin, hanging from a rafter. The +rillet of music ran out.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you bet!" she said, with tears in her eyes. "Many and many a time, +Bill; and all night long, with the snow three feet outside, and the +wolves howlin' in the woods. Yes, you bet! Who is this?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodwin introduced the Professor. He hopped to one side, back +again, bowed, and expressed his great pleasure. "Dolihide," said Mrs. +Stuvic. "I'd forget that name even if it was my own. But my, what names +they do fish up these days! Oh, let me see, you've moved over to the +old Pruitt place. Yes, I saw your wife at Lake Villa. Big fat woman. And +I've met you before."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Professor bowed. "Not lean, madam; not lean, but not fat. She +couldn't dance as you do, but not fat, madam."</p> + +<p>"No, you bet she couldn't," said Mrs. Stuvic. "And there ain't many that +can. Strike up a tune there, and, Bill, you come out here and dance with +me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, do!" Mrs. Blakemore cried.</p> + +<p>Milford not only declined; he "bucked." He was not to be caught in such +a trap. He might be made to look ridiculous, but not with his willing +assistance. He might have nerve enough to break wild horses, he said, +but not enough to get out on a floor to dance. Why not take the +Professor? Milford expected to see him run, but he stepped forth with a +gracious smile, and took hold of the old woman. And while they were +dancing Gunhild entered the room. Without even the slightest tint of +embarrassment, she went straightway to Milford and shook hands with him. +She had been out bareheaded, under the trees, and dewdrops gleamed in +her hair.</p> + +<p>"Did you find Mrs. Goodwin much scared about you last night?"</p> + +<p>"Not much. She knew I would come home safe. This morning, when I said +how kind it was of you to keep a light burning in a pan for me, they +laughed. And I was angry till they told me it was all a joke."</p> + +<p>"I heard about it. Blakemore told me."</p> + +<p>"Did he? Oh, it was not much important."</p> + +<p>"And they tried to guy you about me, did they?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Guy me? They tried to plague. Then I get mad till I understand, and +then I laugh."</p> + +<p>"Blakemore said they told you that I—that I was engaged."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but that was of no difference. They tried to make me think I do +wrong to walk with you when you engaged. I told them that it made no +difference."</p> + +<p>"But I am not engaged."</p> + +<p>"No? But it makes no difference. You know, I think it almost a shame for +that old woman to dance. It makes me feel—feel—I do not know, but you +know—you understand."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I feel the same way."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Have you been working hard to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty hard. What have you been doing?"</p> + +<p>"Reading a book and trying to draw. I could do neither. Spread +everywhere was a drawing that I could not catch; and hummed in the air +were words more beautiful than in the book. They have quit dancing. I am +glad."</p> + +<p>The Professor resumed his talk with the "discoverer." "One of the truest +pleasures enjoyed by man is to meet a woman with a mind."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! And are they so very rare?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no," the Professor quickly replied, realizing that he had +struck the wrong key. "As an educator, I know the scope and the power of +the female mind—I do not like the expression, female mind, but I must +employ it to make my meaning clear. Yes, I know the scope and the power, +comparing more than favorably with the mind of man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> But—" and here he +halted, with a finger in the air, to give the word emphasis—"but, once +in a long while, we meet an exceptional female mind, and it is then that +we experience our truest pleasure. Such a mind, I may say, is possessed +by my wife; and, begging the pardon of your presence, such is the mind +that I have met here to-night."</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a woman's doubt, which means more than half +believing. She glanced at Gunhild, wondering whether the girl had +overheard the remark. She seemed anxious that some one should have +caught it. Compliments are almost worthless when they reach none but the +flattered ear. And to tell that they have been paid is too much like +presenting one with a withered flower. Gunhild had not heard the remark. +She was picking up Milford's slowly dropping words.</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, Professor, but, really, you don't expect me to +believe you when you express such satisfaction at meeting me."</p> + +<p>The Professor appeared grief-smitten. "Madam, as an educator, I have +been accustomed to deal with many phases of the human mind. And I have +lived long enough to verify the adage that honesty is the best policy, +in words as well as in acts; and I have learned that, while truth told +to man is a virtue, it is, told to a woman, a sublimity." He bowed and +twisted the sharp point of his red beard, a gimlet with which he would +bore through the soft sheeting of a woman's incredulity. At this moment, +it flashed upon her that she had made another discovery, not of a +genius, but of a philosopher. But she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> must be cautious. He might have a +treatise ready for the publisher. She sighed a regret that the doctor +was not present to hear the exalted talk of this gifted man. How dim his +eyes were, with groping in the dusk, looking for the learning of the +ancients! In such wisdom there must be sincerity. But it was not wise to +swallow with too keen a show of relish. She would dally with this +delicious food.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she laughed, "it is so easy for a man to pay a compliment."</p> + +<p>"Madam, I admit that a studied art may become a careless grace, witness +the Frenchman and the Spaniard; but the blunt Anglo-Saxon must still +depend upon truth for his incentive—the others taste dainty viands; he +feeds upon blood-dripping meat."</p> + +<p>She did not know exactly what he meant, but it sounded well, and bowing +thoughtfully, she said: "How true!"</p> + +<p>Some one raised a clamor for a song from Mrs. Stuvic. She was as ready +to sing as to dance. Her accomplishments belonged to her boarders. And +she sang a song popular in her day:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Pretty little Miss, don't stand on beauty,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"That's a flower that must soon decay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reddest rose in yonder's garden,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Half an hour will fade away.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No, no, no, sir, no; all the answer she made was no."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Milford was called upon for a story. He refused, but the girl's eyes +implored him, and he told a story of heroism in a blizzard. The +Professor was then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> called out for a speech. The Liberty of the American +was his theme; the glory of every man having a castle, his climax. +Milford smiled to think of the road leading from the Professor's castle, +of the portcullis that had come near falling on him. He saw the mistress +of the castle standing with her hands on her hips.</p> + +<p>"He has so many fine words," said Gunhild. "Why don't they send him to +the Congress?"</p> + +<p>"Because they've got too many fine words there already, I guess," +Milford answered.</p> + +<p>"But is he not a very smart man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, smart enough, I guess. That's what's the matter with him—too +smart."</p> + +<p>"But how can a man be too smart?"</p> + +<p>"I give it up. But it seems as if it takes a fool to make a success of +life; the hogs of the business world root up money."</p> + +<p>"I do not understand. You are making some fun of me."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm giving it to you straight. The successful business man wears +bristles on his back."</p> + +<p>She laughed at this. She said that she knew he was making fun of her; +but she liked to hear him talk like that. It was so new to her.</p> + +<p>"Ha! her complexion reminds me of a tinted vase with the light seeping +through it," said the Professor, talking to the "discoverer," but with +his eyes fixed upon the Norwegian girl. "A flower come up out of the +wild and long-neglected garden of the Viking. And how truly American +those people soon become! Blood, madam; it is blood."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Gunhild is a good girl, and knows nothing so well as she does honor."</p> + +<p>"A girl who knows honor is splendidly equipped, madam. I have a +daughter. And who is it that accompanies her? It is honor, madam. +Throughout the seasons, they are together, arm about waist, like school +girls, studying virtue from the same book."</p> + +<p>She leaned over and touched his arm. "I want to ask you something. Do +you know very much about Mr. Milford?"</p> + +<p>"He warmed his hand with his heart, madam, and extended it to me."</p> + +<p>"But don't you think he's peculiar?"</p> + +<p>"All things are peculiar until we understand them."</p> + +<p>"I know, but isn't there something strange about his being here as he +is, working on a farm?"</p> + +<p>"Not to me, when I meditate upon the fact that I myself keep books and +do general roust-about work for a planing mill. Roust-about—idiomatic, +good, and to the point."</p> + +<p>"But farm work is so hard," she persisted. "And he appears to be so well +equipped for something better. At times, he is almost brilliant."</p> + +<p>"A brightness in the rough," said the Professor. "He has that crude +quality of force which sometimes puts to shame the more nearly even +puissance of a systematic training."</p> + +<p>She looked at him as if her eyes said, "Charming." And the world had +suffered him to go to seed, nodding his ripe and bursting pod in the +empty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> air. It was a shame. But his treatise on philosophy—she must +find out about that.</p> + +<p>"Professor, have you ever written anything?"</p> + +<p>He smiled. "Madam, the web I have woven, if spun straight, would +encircle the globe. I have written."</p> + +<p>"Philosophy?"</p> + +<p>"Finance, madam."</p> + +<p>She choked a laugh in its infant uprising. That this threadbare man +should write about money! How ridiculous! But true genius has many a +curious kink.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Blakemore, feeling that she was neglected, brought in Bobbie to +annoy the company with him. She bade him shake hands with Mr. Milford; +she commanded him to recite for the Professor. The learned man smiled. +He said that there was nothing so sweet as the infant lip, lisping its +way into the fields of knowledge. Multicharged by his mother, the boy +began to fire off, "I am not mad, no, am not mad." Mrs. Stuvic, who had +been remarkably quiet, got up and remarked as she passed Milford: "This +lets me out; yes, you bet!"</p> + +<p>The Professor applauded the youngster. He would be a great man, some +day. He had the voice and the manner of the true orator. Only seven +years old? Quite remarkable. His mother stroked his hair, and said that, +in fact, he would not be seven till the eighteenth of September. At this +the Professor was much surprised. Really a remarkable boy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Josh Spence, a fat man rounding out a corner of the room with his +retiring flesh, was called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> upon for a song. He was modest, and he +declined, but yielded upon persuasion, and in strained tenor sang +"Marguerite."</p> + +<p>"Do you like his voice?" Gunhild asked.</p> + +<p>"It's not big enough to fit him," Milford answered. "But let him sing. +It keeps the boy quiet."</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you not ashamed? He is a nice little man, and his mother loves +him so."</p> + +<p>"And only seven years old," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"You must not make fun. The boy is her heart. You must not laugh at a +heart."</p> + +<p>Milford flinched. He had not said the right thing. "Mitchell, the man +who works with me, called me down for saying something that I oughtn't +to have said, and I apologized, and we shook hands. I apologize to you. +Shall we shake hands?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No, it will not be necessary. You do not mean to be +cruel."</p> + +<p>This touched him. He tried to hide himself with a laugh. She looked at +him earnestly, and his face sobered. He thought of the night before, his +kneeling to her on the floor of the haunted house, and felt that it +would be a comfort to drop upon his knees again, not to talk of the wind +rising among the trees, but to tell her that she had clasped her hands +about his heart.</p> + +<p>"Shall we go out on the veranda?" he asked, eating her with his glutton +eyes.</p> + +<p>"No, it is getting late. See, Mrs. Goodwin is telling the Professor +good-night. I must go too."</p> + +<p>"May I see you again soon?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, you may come. Mrs. Goodwin will not care."</p> + +<p>"But do you want me to—do you care if I come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will like for you to come. We will be friends."</p> + +<p>"And shall we go over into the woods where the mandrakes are in bloom?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Goodwin likes the flowers that grow in the woods. She calls +them beautiful barbarians."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stuvic took the lantern down from under the eaves of the veranda. +She called it a sign to every rat to hunt his hole. She joked at Milford +as he passed her, going out. Even her blunt eye saw that he was +enthralled. "Not so loud," he said. "Those people might hear you."</p> + +<p>"I'd better flag you down," she replied, swinging the red lantern before +his face.</p> + +<p>Milford and the Professor walked off together along the road running +through the grove. "Professor, you seemed to be happy to-night."</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, I am the most miserable man alive—just at this time."</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Life insurance. It will be due on the ninth of this present month, +three days from now, ninety-seven dollars and forty cents, and how I am +to raise it the Lord only knows. I have been carrying it for seven +years, a galling burden, shifted from shoulder to shoulder, with but a +moment of relief between the shifts. Many a time as the day approached +have I wished that the lightning might strike me. And I pledge you my +word that I would rather die any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> sort of death than to have it lapse. +It has been a hard fight, a fight that my wife and daughter, as +intelligent as they are, could not fully understand. They argue +sometimes that the money thus invested would make them comfortable, with +better clothes and more furniture in the house. They cannot comprehend +that I am making this great sacrifice for a rainy day, a day when I +shall be out in the rain and they in a better house."</p> + +<p>"Well, I want to tell you that it's noble in you."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't look at it that way. It is a self-defense, an easing of my +conscience for not providing better for them. But I must manage to raise +it somehow, and I have an idea. I have been sounding Mrs. Goodwin. She +has faith in my ability. I am going to write something and upon it +borrow enough money from her to pay my installment. Her husband can send +the paper to a medical review with his name signed to it. Some sanitary +measures that I have long pondered shall be set forth. Result, notoriety +for the doctor and his wife and a moment of ease between the shifts for +me. Would you resort to anything like that?"</p> + +<p>"Would I? Well, I should think so. Do you know what I'd do? If I +had—had some one dependent upon me and had my life insured, I'd go out +on the highway and hold up a chosen servant of the Lord before I'd let +it lapse."</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, I am delighted to know that you understand how I feel. I +don't want to be a rascal; I would like to be honest. But I tell you +that I have resorted to many a piece of trickery—almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> treachery—to +pay my premiums. I could tell you something, but you would hate me for +it."</p> + +<p>"No, I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, I would better not tell it. What a charming young woman!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Blakemore calls her a 'peach.'"</p> + +<p>"A vulgarism not altogether unbefitting," said the Professor, stumbling +along in the dark. "She has not the dash of the American girl, perhaps, +but I rather admire her for the lack of it. Well, our roads part here. +From now until morning I must work on my medical paper."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<h3>HIS NICKNAME.</h3> + + +<p>The hot weather fled before a cool mist that came floating over from +Lake Michigan. A cold rain began to fall. Cows lowed, and dogs, soonest +of all creatures to feel a change in the atmosphere, crouched shivering +in the doorways. Milford worked in the barn till there was nothing more +to do, and then he went to the house and sat down with a newspaper. But +he could not find interest in it. He threw down the paper and from his +bag he took out a worn copy of Whittier. It was a day when we like to +read the old things which long ago we committed to memory. We know the +word before we reach it, but reaching it, we find it full of a new +meaning. But the hours are long when the heart is restless. Out in the +woods the mist hung in the tree-tops as if vapor were the world's +slow-moving time, balking among the dripping leaves. From a longing +Milford's desire to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's became a feverish throb. +But the old woman's grin and the red lantern waved in his face +constantly arose before him. He strove to recall what the girl had said. +He could not find the words that she had spoken, but he remembered that +he had felt an encouragement. He went out in the drizzle, to the knoll +in the oat field, and stood there, gazing toward the house. He cursed +himself for a fool and returned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> to his cheerless shelter. The hired man +sat at the dining-room table, playing solitaire with a pack of greasy +cards.</p> + +<p>"I worked this thing the other day, but it won't come now," he said.</p> + +<p>"But what have you done when you do it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not much of anything, but you're on top. Heigho! I'd almost +rather work than to sit around such a day as this. I don't believe we +can do anything in the field to-day. Think so?"</p> + +<p>"No. Thinking about going somewhere?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly. Didn't know but I might go over to see my girl. Told me +the other day she was lonesome without me. And when you get a woman so +she's lonesome without you, why, you've got her foul. Haven't changed +your mind about not wantin' her here, have you?"</p> + +<p>"No, and I don't expect to change it. I don't know how long I'll be +here." He strode up and down the room. "But I'll stick it out," he +added, talking to himself. "It's got to be done, no matter what comes."</p> + +<p>"Yes, stick it out," said the hired man. "You've got too good a hold to +turn loose now. The fellers around have begun to praise you. They say +you are goin' to make a go of it."</p> + +<p>"A go of what?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but that's what they said."</p> + +<p>"Bob, do you remember my telling you not long ago that I once jumped on +a horse and galloped away from a girl.''</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I thought of how different your case<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> was from mine. Girl +galloped away from me. But what about it?"</p> + +<p>"That woman is over at Mrs. Stuvic's now."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean the same woman?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do; the very same woman—a Norwegian."</p> + +<p>"Did she say she was the same?"</p> + +<p>"She hasn't said anything about it and neither have I. But I know she's +the same. She wasn't quite grown when I saw her in a little town out +West. She was at a hotel—I think her uncle ran the place. I don't +believe she ever noticed me. But I noticed her, and I made up my mind +that I wasn't going to be tangled up with her, so I rode away, whistling +over the prairie. Yes, sir, the same woman. I never could forget that +face, not so beautiful, but a face that takes hold and never turns +loose."</p> + +<p>"Well, that is strange," said the hired man, looking at an ace of clubs +and slowly placing it on the table. Believe I'm going to fluke on this +thing. Smart woman, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know; I can't tell."</p> + +<p>"But you've heard her talk, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Milford, standing at the window, looking out at the mist, +now trailing low over the fields. "I've heard her talk, but when a man +has galloped away from a woman he's not much of a judge of her mind."</p> + +<p>"This ten specker wants to go right here. Now let me see. I guess you're +right, Bill. But what are you goin' to do about it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, that's perfectly natural. Six goes here. You better not let the +old woman find it out. She'll devil you to death."</p> + +<p>"She already knows there's something up. It didn't take but a moment for +me to satisfy myself that this was the same girl; and I struck out +again, intending to go away; but I stopped at the gate and went back."</p> + +<p>"But what makes you run away from 'em? I run after 'em. Built that way. +Canal cook goes here," he said, referring to a queen. "Is she skittish, +Bill?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Milford, turning from the window and walking up and down the +room. "She's modest, but not skittish.''</p> + +<p>"And you don't remember whether she's got good sense or not?"</p> + +<p>"Of course she has. What the devil are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"All right. But you said you didn't know. I simply want to get at the +merits of the case. I know a good deal about women as women go, and they +go. Been married once and slipped up three times. Can she talk without +smilin' all the time?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. She's very earnest at times."</p> + +<p>Mitchell raked the cards together, shuffled them and threw the pack on +the table. "A woman that smiles all the time wants you to think she's +better than she is. I married a smile."</p> + +<p>"A frown trailing the skirts of a smile," said Milford, and then with a +laugh, he added: "I must have caught that from the Professor."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Bill. But a man that'll sit up and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> read poetry is apt to +say most anythin'. I once heard a fellow say that men read poetry +because they like it and women because they think they do."</p> + +<p>"That fellow was a fool and a liar."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's easy enough to be both. That sort of double harness is +always handy. I don't know much about your case, as I haven't seen her, +but if I was in your place I don't believe I'd rush things. A man that +starts in by being badly stuck generally has to win the woman—not often +that they are stuck alike. I'd stay away and make her get lonesome to +see me."</p> + +<p>"But how can I tell whether or not she's lonesome to see me?"</p> + +<p>"By her tryin' not to seem glad when she sees you again.''</p> + +<p>"But that leaves the case open for a trip-up. How can I tell that she's +trying not to seem glad?"</p> + +<p>"Well, your horse-sense will have to tell you that. But I thought you +didn't want any woman on the place."</p> + +<p>"I don't. In looking at it I haven't strained my eye as far as +marriage."</p> + +<p>"Then what's the use of lovin' her? It's a waste of raw material."</p> + +<p>"There's something I must do before I could permit myself to think of +marrying, and I'm going to do it if it takes a leg. But I'll tell you +what's a fact, I'd rather have that woman's love than anything on the +earth. Sometimes I think that if I knew she loved me I'd be willing to +die. There's somebody out there on the veranda."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>A boy came with a note from the Professor's wife, inviting Milford to +supper that evening. There was no allusion to the cause that led to his +kicking up the dust in front of her gate. It would give her husband, her +daughter and herself great pleasure to have him come, and it was hoped +that he would not disappoint them. The boy had not waited for an answer. +The courtesy fell as an obligation. There was no easy way to dodge it. +He would go.</p> + +<p>The afternoon was long. Mitchell rigged himself in his best, bought of a +peddler after much haggling, and went forth to woo the freckled woman. +Milford strolled out into the woods. It was a pleasure to stand in the +mist, the trees shadowy about him. It was dreamy to fancy the fog a torn +fragment of night, floating through the day. It was easy to imagine the +lake a boundless sea. Over the rushes a loon flew, a gaunt and feathered +loneliness, looking for a place to light. Milford strolled along a +pathway, over high ground, once the brow of the receding lake; and here +the growth was heavy, with great trees leaning toward the marsh and +hawthorn thickets standing in rounded groups. He came to an open space. +In the midst of it stood a sapling. A grape vine had spread over its +branches, neatly trimming its outer edges, a hoisted umbrella of leaves. +He stopped short. On a boulder beneath this canopy, with her back toward +him, almost hidden, sat a woman. She was wrapped in a cloak. But there +was no mistaking her hair. She heard his footstep and looked round. She +did not appear much surprised. She arose with a smile.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have been sitting here in Norway," she said. "See the cliffs?" she +added, pointing to a mountain range of mist.</p> + +<p>"But you must have got wet."</p> + +<p>"No. But it would make no difference. I do not mind it. I love such a +day. It is an etching. Do you go this way? I have stayed long enough."</p> + +<p>She walked along the path in front of him, bending to avoid the low +boughs, laughing when a wet leaf slapped her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Let me go in front to clear the way," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I like this."</p> + +<p>She leaped across a gulley. A briar pulled at her skirts. She turned +about with the merest tint of a blush. He was not enough of an idealist +to etherealize her. He felt her spirit, but acknowledged her a flesh and +blood woman, belonging to the earth, but as the flower does, with a +perfume. Her lips bespoke passion; her eyes control. He was glad that he +saw her so clearly.</p> + +<p>"We shall soon be to the road," she said.</p> + +<p>"And you mean that you will leave me there as you did the other night?"</p> + +<p>"You are quick to guess."</p> + +<p>"Is it because you don't want to be seen with me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Those women talk."</p> + +<p>"But haven't they—haven't they any faith in their kind?"</p> + +<p>"Not much," she said frankly.</p> + +<p>"But why should you care what they say?"</p> + +<p>She looked back at him. "I mean that you are so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> far above them," he +added. "You are worth all of them put together."</p> + +<p>"It is very kind of you to say so. But I am not."</p> + +<p>"I would swear it on a stack of Bibles."</p> + +<p>"Your oath would not be taken. But let us not talk about it. You do not +know what you say when you praise me. I don't place myself above them. I +know myself." She halted, turned about and held forth her hand. "See, I +have worked in the potato field. I have been a laborer."</p> + +<p>"I am a laborer now," he said as they walked on. "There's no disgrace in +work."</p> + +<p>"Not for a man, not for a woman, but in a field with rough men—" she +shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"But the rough men—they had no effect on you," he said, almost +pleadingly. "What effect could they have?"</p> + +<p>"I was very young. Even at school I had not forgotten their oaths. My +uncle sent me to school. He was a poor man, but he sent me."</p> + +<p>"Didn't he run a hotel at one time?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, out in Dakota. I worked for him between terms. There were many +Norwegians about, and I learned English slowly. But this is of no +interest to you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is—the keenest sort of interest. I mean I like to hear it. +What became of your uncle?"</p> + +<p>"He is a gripman on a cable train in the city. One of these days I am +going to pay him back. And I am going to pay Mrs. Goodwin, too. I will +be her companion as long as it pleases her, and then I must find work. I +think I can teach drawing in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> the country. I could do nothing at it in +town. Now, you see, I must be careful not to have any talk. I can take +care of myself anywhere, in a potato field or in the woods, but I must +not distress Mrs. Goodwin. This is the road."</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment. I feel more at liberty to talk to you."</p> + +<p>"Now that you find out that I have been a laborer? I do not like that. I +wish you had not said it."</p> + +<p>"Wait. No, not that, but because we are more of a kind in a way—we both +have an object. I am going to pay a man. That's the reason I dig in the +hot sun."</p> + +<p>"Are you so honest?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm worse than a thief. Don't go—just one moment, please. Sometime +I may tell you. They think I like to work, but I hate it. In my thoughts +I have committed a thousand murders with my hoe. Let me ask you a +question, one laborer of another. Do you like me?"</p> + +<p>"Very much," she answered, looking at him steadily.</p> + +<p>"I thank the Lord for that much. We might help each other to—"</p> + +<p>"No, our battles are apart."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I didn't mean that. I mean we can help each other spiritually. +Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"We can all help one another spiritually," she said. "May I go now?" she +asked, smiling.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could keep you from going. Wait. I can't understand that you +have labored in a field. You are the most graceful woman I ever +saw—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> most perfect lady couldn't discount you. You've got good +blood. I believe in blood."</p> + +<p>"I am of a good family," she said. "My father was once a man of some +importance. But the world turned against him. Blood is all that saved +me."</p> + +<p>"I've got one more word to say, now that we are better acquainted. I +jumped on a horse once and galloped away from you—out at the little +town on the prairie. You don't remember me, but I do you."</p> + +<p>"Galloped away from me!" she said in surprise. "Why did you do that?"</p> + +<p>"Because I didn't want to get tangled up. Did you ever see a bigger +fool? And when I saw you out here I started off again, but I stopped and +said, 'I'll be damned if I do.' Once is enough. May I tell you more?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said, stepping back. "I have heard enough. And what you tell +me may not be true—about galloping away. I don't mean to offend you. +But I have been taught to believe—"</p> + +<p>"That all men are liars," he suggested. She nodded. "They taught you +about right," he went on. "Yes, they did. But sometimes the biggest liar +may tell the truest truth. They took you out of the field and taught you +politeness. I went from a college out into the wilds and there I forgot +learning and learned deviltry. Do you know what they used to call me? +Hell-in-the-Mud. That was my nickname. Hell-in-the-Mud, think of it! And +what saved me, if I am saved? An old woman living on a hillside in +Connecticut—my mother—prayed for me and died. It's a fact. I don't +know whether<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> there's a God or not, that is, for the average run of us, +but there's one for her. Prayed for Hell-in-the-Mud, and her prayer was +printed in the village paper, and I got hold of it. Then I said I would +pay him—a man. But go on, I'm telling you too much."</p> + +<p>She turned away without saying another word and almost ran along the +road. He stood watching her, hoping that she would look back at him, but +she did not. He went to the house. He snatched the cards from the table +and tore them into bits. "I hate the sight of them," he said. The clock +struck five. He was reminded of his engagement at the Professor's, and +he hastened to fill it. He had dreaded to meet the woman who had scared +him out of her dooryard. His nerve had been lead. Now it was iron.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<h3>A MAN</h3> + + +<p>As Milford hastened over the road that led to the Professor's house, a +picture thrust itself into his mind, to shorten his stride, to make him +slow. He saw the girl's hand held out to him, and he wondered why he had +not dared to touch it. Surely, there was no labor mark upon it, pink and +soft-looking, a hand for the pressure of love and not for work in a +field. She had said that she liked him. But any one might have said +that. She had said it with a frankness which showed that she had not +told more than the truth. But why should she have told more than the +truth? Why have had more than truth to tell? He put it all aside and +strode onward toward the Professor's house. A light gleamed feebly +through the mist.</p> + +<p>He unwound the chain from about the gate-post. A dog barked. The door +opened and the Professor stepped out, gowned and slippered. He seized +his visitor warmly by the hand and led him into the sitting-room, dim +with faded furnishings. His fingers were ink-stained, and his red hair +was awry as if he had raked his head for thought. Mrs. Dolihide came +into the room.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said the Professor, "permit me to present to you, and to the +humble hospitality of our home, our neighbor and my friend, Mr. Milford, +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> so-called mysterious, but, indeed, the plain and straightforward. +Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. Milford."</p> + +<p>She smiled pleasantly, drew back with a bow, stepped forward and held +out her hand. She said that she was delighted to meet him. She had heard +her husband speak of him so often. Milford breathed a new atmosphere. He +saw that there was to be no allusion to the dust that was kicked up in +front of the house. From the dining-room there came a stimulating sniff +of coffee. A cat came in with a limber walk and stiffened herself to rub +against Milford's chair.</p> + +<p>"A fine cat," he said, stroking her.</p> + +<p>"A marvelous animal," replied the Professor. "We have had her now going +on—how long have we had her, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's only been here about two weeks," his wife answered.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I was thinking of her predecessor, a most wonderful cat, with a +keen sense of propriety, never disturbing the loose ends of thought that +a student suffers to lie upon his table."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dolihide agreed that the other cat was good enough, but that she +had fits, and in his way Milford acknowledged that fits, while not +necessarily arguing a want of merit, could not avoid giving an erratic +cast even to most pronounced worth. This was all the Professor needed, +and he forthwith launched a ship of disquisition, but when he had fully +rigged it and neatly trimmed its sails, his wife broke in with the +remark that the country was overrun with common people from the city. +One would naturally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> expect noisy uncouthness, and a lack in many +instances of refined reading, but—</p> + +<p>"My dear," the Professor interrupted, "you must bear in mind that the +minor summer resort is a kind of Castle Garden, with now and then a +shining exception. Here we have the drudges of trade. Am I right, Mr. +Milford?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the experiments, the hagglers and the failures."</p> + +<p>The Professor slapped his leg. "A goodly remark, sir; upon my soul, a +worthy illustration."</p> + +<p>"And I have a good deal of fault to find with the home society," said +Mrs. Dolihide. "It is jagged and raw, with a constant scuffle after the +dollar—"</p> + +<p>"The necessary dollar," observed the Professor.</p> + +<p>"The scarce dollar," she replied.</p> + +<p>"And therefore necessary, my dear. But you are right as to society. +There are many good people here, excellent families, but the rank and +file are common scratchers of the soil. But they thrive, a reproach to +men of more intelligence. And now, sir," he added, turning to Milford, +"upon what does success depend? Mind? Oh, no. Industry? No. What then? +Temperament. Temperament is of itself a success. It—"</p> + +<p>"Supper," said a young woman appearing in the door.</p> + +<p>At the table Milford was presented to Miss Katherine Dolihide, slim, +cold and prettyish. She might have had a respect for her father's +learning, but it was evident that she held his failure in contempt. With +her, a mind that gathered the trinkets of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> knowledge and fell short of +providing luxuries for the body could not be reckoned among the virtues. +Wisdom's reflected light was dimmer than an earring. She looked at +Milford, and he felt that he failed to reach her mark. She gave him, he +thought, the dry and narrow smile of ironic pity. She asked him if he +liked the country. He answered that he did, and she remarked that it was +a crude picture daubed with green. There were no old mills. She loved +old mills; no country was beautiful without them. Had she seen old +mills? No, she had not, but she had read of them and had found them +scattered throughout the pages of art. She acknowledged after a time +that the lakes were charming, the woods replete with sweet dreaming, the +lanes full of a vagabond fancy, tinkers of imagination sleeping under +the leaves; but without a ruined mill there could be no perfect rest for +the mind. Milford knew that this was a pretense, not from any +psychological reasoning, but because she was so unlike the Norwegian +girl. To him there was more of conviction in silent opposites than in +noisy arguments.</p> + +<p>"I heard of you the other night over at the honey sociable," she said.</p> + +<p>"Honey sociable?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, honey and biscuit for the benefit of the church. Quite a unique +affair, and wholly new to me, I assure you. A Mrs. Blakemore was present +and spoke of you; she said it was a pity that you hadn't come to tell +stories of the West. A very intelligent woman, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I guess she is."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But the most intelligent woman over there," said the Professor, "is +Mrs. Goodwin."</p> + +<p>"Over where?" his wife asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, over at Mrs. Stuvic's."</p> + +<p>"When did you meet her?"</p> + +<p>"Why—er—let me see. I was passing, stepped in to get a drink of water, +and was presented to the lady by Mrs. Stuvic. I didn't stay long, mind +you, but long enough to discover the lady's intelligence. Mr. Milford, +it may take years to discover a comet, sir, but intelligence, brighter +in quality, shines out at once. Pass your cup."</p> + +<p>"You didn't tell me you'd met her," said Mrs. Dolihide.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I mention it? I thought I did. Speaking of this part of the +country, Mr. Milford, is like discussing a new picture with old spots on +it; but all great pictures were once new. Take the view, for instance, +from our veranda. Nothing could be more charming. The grass land, with +scattered trees, trim and graceful in their individuality, the cattle +beneath them, the woods beyond, and—"</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't mention meeting her," said Mrs. Dolihide.</p> + +<p>"But what difference does it make, mother?" the daughter spoke up. "By +this time you ought to know that he meets many intelligent persons that +we never see. Stuck here all the time," she added under her breath.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said the Professor, "man may be walking pleasantly with prosperity +hooked upon his arm, talking of the deeds they are to perform in +common,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> when up gallops misfortune on a horse, and that is the end. I +was going to take my family to Europe, but there came a galloping down +the road and overtook me. Since then my hands have been tied."</p> + +<p>"When I look around," said Mrs. Dolihide, "and see ordinary people +living on the best in the land, it makes me mad to think that as smart a +man as the Professor—"</p> + +<p>"My dear, like you I could question fate, but—"</p> + +<p>"Fate nothing; I don't know what it is, but it does seem strange to me. +I don't understand why a man as well educated as you are has to struggle +with the world when the commonest sort of a person can buy property. I +don't understand it."</p> + +<p>"Easy enough," the Professor replied. "The commonest sort of a person +may have money, and having money, buys property. Nut-shell argument, +Milford," he added, slapping his hand flat upon the table.</p> + +<p>"Failure has always been easier to understand than success," said +Milford. "Failure is natural, it seems to me. It comes from the weakness +of man and nothing is more natural than weakness. I am arguing from my +own case, and don't mean to reflect on any one else. I have thrown away +many an opportunity, but that was in keeping with my weakness."</p> + +<p>"But I hear that you are anything but weak," said the Professor's +daughter. "They call you a mystery, and a mystery is a success until it +is solved."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But an unsolved conundrum might starve to death," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Not so long as it remained unsolved," the Professor declared. "We feed +the performer till he explains the trick."</p> + +<p>"Then I suppose Mr. Milford will not explain his trick," said the girl.</p> + +<p>"I'd be foolish to shut off my supplies, wouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she admitted, "but if you have a mystery you ought to let your +friends share it."</p> + +<p>"Ha," said the Professor, "that would mean the disposition of all the +shares. But I don't see why they call my friend a mystery. A man comes +into the neighborhood and goes to work. Is there anything so mysterious +about that? It would be more of a mystery if he lived without work."</p> + +<p>"Father sometimes fails to catch the atmosphere of a situation," said +the girl, giving Milford a smile not so narrow and not so dry with +irony. "One's appearance might have something to do with the estimate +formed of him," she continued.</p> + +<p>"The hired man marches from the east to the west and back again," said +Milford. "And I am a hired man—hired by myself to do something, and I +am going to do it," he added with a tightening of his face.</p> + +<p>"But that mysterious something?" queried the girl. "What is it?"</p> + +<p>"To make money," he answered. "Simmer it down and that's all there is to +life."</p> + +<p>In her heart she agreed with him, but she took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> issue. She said that +there was something better than money. He asked if it were an old mill, +and they laughed themselves into better acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"It would be well to sit here," said the Professor to Milford, "but I +want you to go up to my work shop with me. I wish to show you +something."</p> + +<p>As Milford arose to follow him, he thought that on the woman's face he +saw a sneer at "work shop," and he felt that she and her daughter had +learned to look upon it as an idle corner, full of useless lumber. The +schemes of this ducking failure of a man were not of serious interest to +them. His readiness to talk made him seem light of purpose, and a sigh +that came from his heart might have been an unuttered word breathed upon +the air, a word in excuse of his poverty.</p> + +<p>Milford was conducted to an upper room, furnished with two chairs, a +worn carpet and a table. But the Professor entered it reverently, as if +it were the joss-house of hope. He turned down his light to steady the +flame, placed the lamp upon the table, motioned his visitor to a chair, +sat down, drew a pile of papers toward him, and said: "My dear fellow, I +think I have something here that will tide me over the quarterly rapids. +I believe that among these sheets lie a life insurance premium of +ninety-seven dollars and forty cents. I want you to hear it, and then I +will steal it forth to that woman. Now, in writing for a professional +man, a physician, we will say, you must of all things employ +sky-scraping terms. Medicine has no use for the simple. I wanted to +start off with a cloud-capped sentence, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> quotation, and here is one I +found in Hazlett, referring to old Sir Thomas Brown: 'He scooped an +antithesis from fabulous antiquity and raked up an epithet from the +sweepings of chaos.' Isn't that a wild pigeon with the sun on its back?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, but what has it to do with an article on medicine?"</p> + +<p>"Everything. Now let me tell you something. In a paper of this sort you +must take a text, and with sophistry draw your deductions. You must +never be clear. In the opinion of the world involution is depth. It +takes a simple book a hundred years to become a classic. The writer has +starved to death. He sleeps under marble. And who is it that is lost out +there among the briars? The man who wrote the pampered fad. Yes, sir; +let contemporaneous man seek to untangle your skein and you flatter him. +Now, listen."</p> + +<p>He read his paper, making alterations from time to time, marking out +small words and writing in larger ones; and when he was done he looked +at his visitor with a smile.</p> + +<p>"It catches me," said Milford. "I don't know anything about it, but I'm +caught all the same. Have you read it to the ladies?"</p> + +<p>"What!" gasped the Professor. "Read it to them? They would scoff at me, +not because they would catch its pretentious weakness, but because I +wrote it—because I am a failure. And now, sir, do you know I begin to +fall down, as the idiomatics would have it? Yes, sir, I am weakening."</p> + +<p>"How so?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why, I've hardly got the nerve to take it to that woman. She hasn't +said so, but I know she wants it. When do you expect to see her again?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Now let me see. Would you mind taking this thing along and handing it +to her the next time you see her? It would be one of the greatest favors +you could do me. You can explain; I'll trust you for that. It is my only +recourse; my hope has been built on it, and if I fail I swear I—but I +must not fail. You remember I told you that I did something once to help +out the amount, something that would cause you to hate me. I will tell +you what it was. It was a mean trick—dastardly—but I had to do it. A +dog came to my house, a handsome dog with a brass collar. And what did I +do? I sneaked that dog off and sold him for six dollars. Now you'll hate +me."</p> + +<p>"Give me the paper," said Milford, reaching for it. "Don't say another +word. Give it to me. I don't know you very well as knowing men goes, but +you are kind to me, and I want to put my arm around you. I said down +there that money was everything. But it isn't. There's something +better—to find a kinsman in the wilderness. She shall take this thing. +She's got to. If she doesn't, I'll take it to her husband." He put his +arm about the Professor. Tears streamed from the old man's eyes. "There, +it's all right. I'll go over there now. If she won't have it, I'll take +the train for town. I'm going now."</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment," said the Professor, wiping his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> eyes. "I must not go +down this way. Let me recover myself. You have touched my heart, and, +poor withered thing, it is fluttering. Just a moment. Now we'll go."</p> + +<p>He led the way down the stairs. "I wish you could stay longer," he said +cheerily, "but you know your own affairs. My dear, Mr. Milford is going. +We hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again soon. Our latch-string +is out. Katherine, shake hands with Mr. Milford. I will light him out."</p> + +<p>He stood on the veranda holding the lamp. "It is a dark night, and I +wish we had a lantern. But the road is straight to your house. +Good-night, and God bless you."</p> + +<p>"They have struck up a warm friendship," said the girl.</p> + +<p>"Astonishing," her mother replied.</p> + +<p>The Professor put the lamp on the mantel-piece. "Is he your lost +brother?" his wife asked.</p> + +<p>"He is more than that," the Professor answered, sinking into a chair. +"He is a man."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<h3>THE OLD SOFA.</h3> + + +<p>Early the next morning, the Professor hastened from the dining-room to +answer a rap at his door. And there stood Milford with a roll of bank +notes in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Ha, you've got it; I see you have. Let me shut the door. They must not +hear. Was there ever such luck? Yes, let me take it, the money. Is it +all here? Yes, down to the forty cents." He stuffed the notes into his +pocket. He held up his hand to enjoin caution. "They would rather have a +new settee than an assurance of protection against want in the future. +They live from sun to sun. I live for them, but my mind is fixed on the +time to come. I don't know how to thank you. You are a man of nerve. And +that woman! She is glorious. What did she say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much."</p> + +<p>"Didn't she agree that it was the very thing for the Doctor? Didn't she +acknowledge that it would spread the news of his high standing as a +physician and a thinker?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she said it would do him a great deal of good abroad."</p> + +<p>"A woman in a million. Did the abstruse parts seem to impress her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she caught all the kinks."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The Socrates of her sex. Did she say that she would send it off at +once?"</p> + +<p>"By the first train. She was particular to ask if you had let any one +else into the secret. She's sensitive—and as I was about to go, she +asked me not to refer to the matter again, and she hoped that you +wouldn't. I don't think she can bear to be thanked. So I promised that +neither of us would speak of the transaction, even to her."</p> + +<p>"Delicate soul! And you did well to promise. My boy, if sincere thanks +are winged things that fly to heaven, there is now a flight of gratitude +to the sky. Won't you come in?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've just had breakfast and must go to work."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope to see you again before long. And, by the way, I wish to +tell you that my wife and daughter were charmed with your visit. They +are dear to me, but they do not understand. Pardon me, I am detaining +you."</p> + +<p>For more than a week the Professor had drooped under anxiety, but now he +walked high of head. When he entered the dining-room his wife asked who +had called. He answered that it was some one who wanted directions to +Mrs. Stuvic's. Lying might at one time have been a luxury with him, but +now it was a necessity. She rarely expected the truth from him. It took +him longer to tell a lie, and he was fond of talking. And besides, a +failure is under no obligations to tell the truth.</p> + +<p>"It took you quite a while to give him directions."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is a roundabout way."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But you seem to have quite a knack for finding it yourself—to be +presented to remarkable women."</p> + +<p>"My knack for finding remarkable women began in my earlier years."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! And you have been keeping yourself well in practice ever +since."</p> + +<p>"Constant rehearsal with a former discovery keeps me from growing +rusty."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care, but there's one thing certain! When you come home +to-night you'll find that I have thrown that old sofa out into the back +yard."</p> + +<p>"It's a dreadful thing, pa," said Miss Katherine. "It's a disgrace."</p> + +<p>"I know it, but we shall have a new one pretty soon."</p> + +<p>"I've heard that for years," said his wife. "Why don't you let that old +life insurance go? Gracious alive, it's nonsense to deny yourself +everything."</p> + +<p>"It's worse than that," the girl spoke up; "it's almost a crime. We +don't want you to fret your life out for us. If we are to have anything +we want you to share it. You haven't seen anything but worry since you +took out the policy. Let it drop. The money you'd have to give for the +next payment would make us happy. We could get so many nice things with +it, and wouldn't feel ashamed every time a visitor comes into the house. +Do, pa." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him appealingly.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "A crime, you say. Then let us acknowledge it a +crime. But let us also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> acknowledge that it is not so dark a crime as it +is for a man to die and leave his family in distress. Look at Norwood; +look at Bracken. The neighbors had to contribute."</p> + +<p>"But you aren't going to die yet a while," said his wife. "You are in +good health. Well, there's no two ways about it. I'm going to throw that +old sofa out into the yard. I've stood it as long as I can. It's the +first thing a stranger sees when he comes into the house."</p> + +<p>"And I imagine that people stop just to look in at it," Katherine spoke +up.</p> + +<p>"We might label it as having been the property of some great man," said +the Professor.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know it's a joke with you, but it's not with us," his wife +retorted. "I don't see any fun in a disgrace."</p> + +<p>"Have you no respect for the aged?" he asked, trying to wink at his +daughter, but she would not accept it. "Let us trail a vine about it and +call it a ruined mill."</p> + +<p>"That's a stab at me, mother," said the girl. "I am not permitted to +have a sentiment."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't want any; I've had enough," the mother replied. "It's +sentiment, sentiment ever since I can remember, and I'm sick of it."</p> + +<p>"You want poetry, my dear," said the Professor. "Or at least you set +store by it, for didn't you give Tennyson to the preacher?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care if I did, I'm going to throw that old thing out. Wesley, +when is your insurance due?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It is paid, madam, thanks be to the Lord. I sent the money off +yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me you were going to send it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was a mere trifle, and I forgot it."</p> + +<p>"For pity sake! And where did you get the money?"</p> + +<p>"I combed it out of the grass."</p> + +<p>"Well, you'd better comb out some for us while you are combing. I've +lived this way till I'm tired of it. Where did you get that money?"</p> + +<p>"The grass was thick, and the grass was long, and the comb pulled heavy +and slow."</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That's all I've got to say."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid not."</p> + +<p>"I'll talk just as much as I please."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid so. But let us all be cheerful now. Yesterday it was dark +and misty, and now the sun is bright. Here, mamma, kiss me to my labor. +I haven't drawn at the weak sinews of my feeble salary, and you shall +have enough to buy a new sofa."</p> + +<p>"That's a good dear," she said, kissing him. "Don't let what I said +worry you. I didn't mean it."</p> + +<p>He whistled at the dog as he went out; he sang merrily as he walked +along the road, with the sunrise on his face and the noontime in his +heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<h3>DORSEY.</h3> + + +<p>It was Mitchell's day to cook, and when Milford came in to dinner, the +hired man told him that he had something of importance to tell.</p> + +<p>"Out with it," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"No, not till you eat. I never like to choke off a man's appetite. I +wouldn't like to have a man choke off mine. I'd be like old Matt +Lindsey. The court said he must hang for murderin' a peddler. His +lawyers took his case before the supreme bench. And after it had been +argued one of 'em came down to the jail to see old Matt. Just about that +time the jailer brought in his dinner. Old Matt said to the lawyer, +'Don't tell me till I've eat this stuff. Afterwards I mightn't be in the +humor, and I don't want to miss a meal.' And it was a good thing he eat +first."</p> + +<p>"Well, is what you've got to say so bad as all that?"</p> + +<p>"Not a hangin' affair, but it's bad enough. The fact is, you can make it +just as bad as you want it.''</p> + +<p>"If it rests with me, I'll not make it very bad. I'll tell you that."</p> + +<p>"But I'll be hanged if it hain't made you turn pale. Why, you're scared, +Bill. Oh, it's not so bad. I'll tell you now, seein' that I've already +choked off your appetite. Why, there's a feller over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> at Mrs. Stuvic's +that's too fresh. I was out by the windmill and your girl and a woman +came along; and this feller was standin' off, not far away, talkin' to a +chump that was with him, and he made a remark about the girl—won't tell +you what it was, for a feller that's stuck don't like to hear such +things repeated—I know I wouldn't. And I said to myself at the time, +'If Bill knowed that he'd mash your mouth.'"</p> + +<p>"What sort of a looking fellow is he?" Milford quietly asked.</p> + +<p>"Big feller. The hired man over there says his name's Dorsey. Just got +here, I believe."</p> + +<p>"All right. Did you fix the fence where the sheep broke in?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody left the gap down. It's all right now."</p> + +<p>"Did you wrap the collar so it won't hurt the horse's shoulder?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, works all right, now. Haven't got enough to eat, have you?"</p> + +<p>"Not very hungry to-day," said Milford as he walked out. The hired man +called after him, but he did not stop. He took the straight road to Mrs. +Stuvic's. He saw Mrs. Blakemore coming out to the gate. She smiled upon +him as he drew near. She said that she had just received a letter from +George. He was in business again; a real estate firm had taken him as an +experiment. He made a large sale the second day, and was now regularly +employed at a good commission. It had made her very happy. She never +would forget Mr. Milford; there was no doubt about it, he had inspired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +her husband with strength. Milford asked if a man named Dorsey were at +the house. She said that she believed there was; he was at dinner. "If +you want to see him, I'll tell Mrs. Stuvic," she said.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would. Tell her I want to see him now. I haven't time to +wait."</p> + +<p>"I will. But isn't that glorious news from George? Oh, you don't know +how low-spirited he was. Sometimes I thought he never would get up +again. Don't you know that just a word, even though lightly spoken, may +sometimes spur one to renewed action? Oh, it's undoubtedly a fact."</p> + +<p>"Yes, words may sometimes be ashes, but often they are coals of fire. +Will you please—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's a good sentiment. I must remember it and tell George. He'll +be out again Saturday evening. But I'll go and tell Mrs. Stuvic that you +want to see—that's the man coming out now."</p> + +<p>A strong-looking man came walking out toward the gate. Mrs. Blakemore +stepped aside, and he was about to pass when Milford said: "Your name is +Dorsey, I understand."</p> + +<p>"That's it," the man replied, taking a toothpick out of his mouth.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see you a moment on business; over in the grove."</p> + +<p>"What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Come over into the grove. I want to see you a moment. My name's +Milford."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to see me about a horse? I want to hire one. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, over in the grove."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All right. Got him there? I don't care whether he's gentle or not. I +can manage him all right. The first thing one of you farmers tells a +fellow is that his horse is gentle, when he knows that all he wants is +an opportunity to run away. So you may save yourself that trouble."</p> + +<p>Milford conducted him to a spot out of view from the house. He halted +and threw his hat on the ground. He told him what the hired man had +said.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dorsey, "this is a fine proceeding."</p> + +<p>"Take off your coat."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Whip you if I can."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not looking for any trouble."</p> + +<p>"You may not have looked for it, but you've found it."</p> + +<p>"Say, this is all nonsense. You won't tell me what I said, and I don't +remember. But let me tell you something. You can't whip me. I can mop +the earth with you—my way. Is that the way you want to fight?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. <i>My</i> way would mean something. But it won't do in this country. +Take off your coat."</p> + +<p>The fellow was an athlete. Milford was no match for him. He had the +strength, but not the skill in boxing. But once Milford got him down, +ran under and snatched his feet from under him. In a moment, though, he +was up again, meeting strength with skill. Three times he knocked +Milford down. It was useless to continue to fight. Milford held up his +hands. "We'll call it off for the present," he said, panting.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Suit yourself. I've got nothing to fight about except to keep from +getting licked, and it's for you to say when to stop."</p> + +<p>"Well, I say stop, for the present. I haven't been used to fighting your +way. I'm from the West, and if I had you there we'd soon settle it. It's +not over with as it is. I'll see you again. Do you expect to come back +out here this summer?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not going to let you keep me away. You don't know what you've +run up against, young fellow. I teach boxing in town. That's my lay."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll see you again."</p> + +<p>"But my way, understand. Don't come any Western business on me."</p> + +<p>"I'll see you again and your way. I never was beaten long at a time."</p> + +<p>"Good enough. Got through seeing me about the horse?"</p> + +<p>"I'm through. No, wait a moment. If you go back to the house and say +anything about this affair, I'll try you the Western way. Do you +understand?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's nothing to me. I won't mention it. Good-day. I'll take care of +your horse."</p> + +<p>Milford went home, covered with blood. He washed himself and lay down +under the walnut tree to steam in his anger. His lip was cut and his +cheek was bruised. He jumped up suddenly, ran into the house and took +two pistols out of a battered leather bag, but he put them back and sat +down in the door to cool. The hired man came around the corner of the +house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess you must have found him," he said, halting with a smile and a +nod.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he was too much for me. But I'll get even with him."</p> + +<p>"That's the way to look at it. May take a long time, but it's to come +round all right. I used to drive a team in Chicago. And one day I had to +cuss the driver of a coal wagon, and he ups with a lump of coal and +smashes my face. I was a long time getting even with him, but I got +there."</p> + +<p>"Did you kill him?"</p> + +<p>"Kill him! Well, I should say not. I didn't have enough money to kill +him and get away with it. I just waited, watchin' him close every time I +saw him. And one day he jumped off his wagon, slipped on the ice and +broke his leg. Satisfied me, and after that I turned him loose."</p> + +<p>"Bob, do you know anything about boxing?"</p> + +<p>"I used to be somethin' of a scrapper. Why?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to teach me."</p> + +<p>"Don't believe I'd be a very good teacher. But, say, I know a feller +that's all right. He used to be a sort of a prize fighter and he's now +got a little saloon up here at Antioch, 'bout ten miles up the road. His +name's Mulligan."</p> + +<p>"All right. You go ahead with your work just as if I was with you. I'm +going up there."</p> + +<p>"Sure enough? All right. When I get through with one thing I'll go at +another."</p> + +<p>Milford trudged off across the fields toward the village of Antioch. At +a well beneath a tree where cows stood in the shade, he stopped to bathe +his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> face. He saw his dark countenance wrinkling in the disturbed water; +he committed the natural folly of talking to himself. "You are a fool," +he said, looking down into his wavering eye. "You are a fool, and you +want to prove it." He smiled to think how easy it was to produce the +testimony. In such cases nature cheerfully gives her deposition.</p> + +<p>He continued his way across the fields, through a skirt of wooded land +and out into a road. Bicycles crackled past him. A buggy overtook him. +Some one spoke. He looked round and recognized the "discoverer" and the +Norwegian. It was only a two-seated vehicle, but they invited him to +ride. He declined to accept their kindness, trying to hide his face. He +said that he had heard Mrs. Stuvic say that the buggy was not strong. +They were going to the village of Lake Villa. They might stop at the +mill and have a word with the Professor. Milford remarked that the +Professor would no doubt be pleased to see them, but that he was no +doubt very busy. They drove on without having noticed the wounds on his +face. To one not bent upon a vengeful mission, to a thoughtful man with +a mind in tone with the scented air, the soft sky, the spread of green, +the gleam of water, the clouds of blackbirds, such a stroll would have +been rich with an inner music played upon many sweet chords. At a +crossroads stood an old brick house, an ancient rarity upon a landscape +white-spotted with wooden cottages. It was a rest for the eye, a place +for a moment of musing, a page of a family's record, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> bit of +dun-colored history. It was built long before the railroad set the +clocks of the country, before man entered into business copartnership +with the minute and employed the second as his agent. It was a relief to +look upon a worn door-sill, a rotting window-blind hanging by one hinge. +In the years long gone the congressman's carriage, laboring through the +mud, had halted there, and the statesman had warmed himself at a fire of +wood, delighting an old Whig with predictions of a glorious victory. At +this place Milford halted to get a drink of water and to sit for a few +moments in the shade. A man came out and asked him if he wanted a team. +He had a team that would not run away. He was not prepared to take +boarders, but when it came to a team he was there. He had driven great +men, pork-packers of Chicago. The man who owned the enormous ice-house +over on the lake had ridden with him. And it was probably one of the +largest ice-houses in the world. It took thousands of dollars the year +before to paint it. Milford told him that he did not want a team, and +the fellow shambled off in disgust.</p> + +<p>There was not much time to be wasted, for the sun was now far over +toward the west. Milford's anger had settled into a cool determination, +and he walked easier, not so hard upon the ground. He began to notice +more things, a cat sitting at a window, looking out upon the narrow +world, a boy with a goat harnessed to a wagon, a farmer who starved his +boarders, hauling veal to the railway, to be shipped to town. He fell in +with a tramp and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> divided smoking tobacco with him. They strolled along +together.</p> + +<p>"Beautiful country to walk through," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"That's no lie," said the tramp.</p> + +<p>"But all countries are about the same when times are hard, I should +think," Milford remarked.</p> + +<p>"That's no pipe," said the tramp.</p> + +<p>"They tell us, however, that we are to have better times."</p> + +<p>"They are smokin'," said the tramp.</p> + +<p>Their roads separated, and they parted company. The sun was down when +Milford reached the village. It was an easy matter to find Mulligan's +saloon. One of the oldest citizens pointed it out. Mulligan was +half-dozing behind his bar. Several men were at a table, playing cards. +Milford made short work of his introduction. He told his story. There +was but one way to get even. Mulligan laughed. That sort of revenge +appealed to his Irish heart. He would give lessons, and it should not +cost a cent. He put out his whisky bottle. His face beamed. He was glad +to meet a civilized man. The very fact that Milford had come on such a +mission was a proof of an improvement in the country.</p> + +<p>"Dorsey," he said. "Dorsey. He can't box; I never heard of him. Well, +we'll make a jelly out of his face."</p> + +<p>They went out to supper together. "This man has heard of me and has come +miles to get lessons," said Mulligan to the tavern keeper.</p> + +<p>They boxed till late at night and shook hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> warmly at parting. +Earnestness is genius, and when Milford set out for home, the moon on +his right shoulder, he felt that he had made surprising progress. It was +nearly daylight when he reached the end of his journey. The hired man +was going out to the barn.</p> + +<p>"You are born to be a great man," said Mitchell. "The cards are shuffled +and cut that way and you can't help it. What are you goin' to do now?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to sleep for a few hours and then get to work."</p> + +<p>"When are you goin' to take another lesson?"</p> + +<p>"Day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Ain't that feller a bird?"</p> + +<p>"He understands his business."</p> + +<p>"About when do you think you can tackle your job again?"</p> + +<p>"Not till I have learned how. I'm going to get some gloves and have you +box with me between times."</p> + +<p>He went into the house and lay down, and when Mitchell came in he was +asleep with his head on his fist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<h3>PEEPED IN AT HIM.</h3> + + +<p>Blakemore came out on Sunday morning, snapping his watch and complaining +against the pall-bearing march of time. He was full of business. His +pockets were stuffed with papers. He made figures on the backs of +envelopes as he sat at the table. He asked after Milford. His wife said +that the place had somehow lost its charm for Mr. Milford. Mrs. Goodwin +and Miss Strand had seen him in the road. Mrs. Stuvic, standing near, +pressed her lips close together. She shook her head. She did not +understand him, she declared. Lately he had been seen in Antioch. She +did not know what business could have taken him there.</p> + +<p>"You may not be supposed to know," said George, making his figures.</p> + +<p>"Now you keep still," she replied. "I am supposed to know more than you +think for. I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm goin' to live longer than +any of you, I tell you that."</p> + +<p>"It's very natural for us to expect every one else to die," said George. +"It's a pretty hard matter to picture one's self as dead. But the old +fellow is coming along yonder whetting his scythe as he comes."</p> + +<p>"George," said his wife, "don't talk to her that way."</p> + +<p>"Oh, let him talk," the old woman spoke up. "I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> don't care what he says. +Goes in at one ear and comes out at the other, with me. I'll live to see +him cold, I'll tell you that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, please don't talk that way, Mrs. Stuvic; you give me the shudders. +By the way, Mr. Dorsey has gone back to town, hasn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Mrs. Stuvic answered. "And he owes me, too."</p> + +<p>"That's what you say about everybody," George declared. "You'll be +saying it about me, next."</p> + +<p>"Well, you did owe me till to-day; and see that you don't do it again. +But that feller Dorsey'll pay. He'll be back again in about two weeks. +He says I've got the finest place in the county."</p> + +<p>"The 'peach,'" George whispered, as Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild came into +the dining-room. His wife pulled at him. The boy wanted to know what he +had said. For a wonder he had not heard. His mind was among the green +apples in the orchard. George bowed to the ladies and began to tell them +about the great improvement in business. The banks had plenty of money +to lend. Real estate, the true pulse of the times, had begun to throb +with a new life. Mrs. Goodwin did not think that there had been any +improvement. The Doctor had written that money was scarce. Every one +complained of slow collections. George asked the Norwegian if there were +any sale for pictures.</p> + +<p>"There is no sale for mine," she answered. "I do not expect to sell +any."</p> + +<p>"Then," said George, "it's a waste of time to paint them."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I do not paint," the girl replied. "My ambition was not dressed in +colors."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodwin smiled upon her, and Mrs. Blakemore drew her husband's +attention to what she termed the bright aptness of the remark. George +said that it did not make any difference whether art was done with a +brush or pencil, it was a waste of time if it failed to sell; and +hereupon Mrs. Stuvic began to sniff as a preliminary to an important +statement.</p> + +<p>"A man boarded with me a while last winter that could knock 'em all out +when it comes to makin' pictures with a pen," she said. "He drew a bird +without takin' his pen up from the paper, and it looked for all the +world like it was flyin'. But when that was said all was said. He wan't +no manner account. He went away owin' me. Now, what does he want to go +to Antioch for? I'd just like for somebody to tell me that."</p> + +<p>"The man that drew the bird?" George spoke up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you keep still. I mean Milford."</p> + +<p>"Probably the woman he's been working for so hard has moved into the +neighborhood," said George. Mrs. Stuvic declared that you never could +tell what a man was working for. No man was worth trusting. She knew; +she had tried them. Milford was no better than the rest of them. Why +didn't he explain himself? Why didn't he stand out where every one could +see him? She had defended him. She was getting tired of it. He had not +rewarded her with his confidence. He came a stranger and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> had been a +stranger ever since. One of these days he might set fire to the house +and run away.</p> + +<p>"You shall not talk about him so," the girl declared. "No one shall +abuse him."</p> + +<p>"Good for you," Mrs. Stuvic cried. "I've been fightin' his battles all +along and I'm glad to get some help. Why, she looks like a cat, don't +she? And it's what I like to see, I tell you. But it's usually the way; +a man works for one woman and is took up for and defended by another."</p> + +<p>"He is not working for any woman, madam," said Gunhild. "No woman has +any claim on him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Blakemore shook her head. "With that dark, handsome face it would +be difficult long to escape the claim of a woman."</p> + +<p>"Come off," said George. "I don't see anything so killing about him.''</p> + +<p>"Men never see killing features in man," his wife replied. "They are +left for softer eyes to discover."</p> + +<p>"Oh," he rejoined, looking worriedly at her.</p> + +<p>"The 'peach,'" she whispered. "Am I to hear that again?"</p> + +<p>He scratched upon an envelope and handed to her the words: "I give in. +Let us call it even and quits."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodwin looked at Gunhild as if by a new light. Next in importance +to the discovery of genius itself, is the discovery that genius is +picking its way along the briary path of love, lifting a thorny bough in +bloom to peep blushingly from a hiding place, or boldly to tear through +the brambles out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> into the open, and in honest resentment defy the +wondering gaze of the common eye. It would be a pretty sight to see this +girl in love, the woman mused. She did not wish to see her married to a +man who labored in a field; but it would be delicious to see her love +him and hating herself for it, fighting a rosy battle with her heart. +There was no romance in loving an "available" man; there was no +suffering in it, and how empty was a love that did not swallow a +midnight sob! She asked Gunhild to walk out into the woods with her. +They crossed a low, marshy place where pickerel split the trashy water +in the spring of the year, and strolled up a slope into the woods. They +gathered flowers, talking of things that interested neither of them; +they found an old log covered with moss and here they sat down to rest. +It was always sad to feel that the summer would soon be gone, the +elderly woman said, gazing at a soldierly mullein stalk, nodding its +yellow head. More summers were coming, and the leaves and the flowers +would be the same, the grass as green, the birds as full of happy life; +but the heart could not be turned back to live over the hours and the +days—only, in dreaming, in reminders of the time forever gone. To the +youthful, two summers are twins; to the older, they are relatives; to +the aged, strangers.</p> + +<p>"You make me sad when you talk that way," said the girl.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, a sadness to-day may be food for sweet reflection in the +future. Indeed, it would even be well for you to suffer now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But I do not want to suffer. I do not see the need of it."</p> + +<p>"My dear, suffering prepares us for the better life. It makes us more +thankful."</p> + +<p>"I do not know that," she said with energy. "Sometimes it may harden us. +We may be kept from food so long that we have no manners when we come to +the table."</p> + +<p>"Gunhild, that is a very good remark—a thoughtful remark, true in the +main, but not illustrative of the point I wish to make. But you are so +full of hope that—"</p> + +<p>"Full of hope, madam?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the hope that rises from health and strength. You have so much to +look forward to. You might make a brilliant match."</p> + +<p>"Then I must hope that sometime I may sell myself?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that. I mean that you have prospects. Shall I +be plain? You have the prospects of loving one man and marrying another. +That is called a brilliant match, I believe. Or, at least, it is a +feature of nearly all brilliant matches. Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I am not supposed to know, madam."</p> + +<p>"Not even to please me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if it please you, I am supposed to know everything."</p> + +<p>"Good. Then tell me what you know about Mr. Milford. You understand that +it is my mission to find interest in nearly all—well, I might say, odd +persons. You have met him when I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> not with you. And he must have +told you something."</p> + +<p>"He has told me nothing that I can repeat."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it that bad?"</p> + +<p>"Is what that bad, Mrs. Goodwin? I do not understand what you mean by +that bad. Perhaps what he told me did not make enough impression to be +remembered."</p> + +<p>"But didn't he say things you did not remember, but continued to feel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I believe so. You know that I do not understand men very well. I +do not understand any one very well. They make remarks about him and say +that he is mysterious, but he is plainer to me than any one. Somehow I +feel with him. He has had a hard life, I think, and that brings him +closer to me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear, the suffering I spoke of just now."</p> + +<p>"But," the girl added, "I do not know that his hard life has made him +any better."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not. But it must have made him more thoughtful. After all, I'm +not so much interested in him. He is one of the characters that throw a +side-light on our lives. He can never take an essential part in our +affairs. Do you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I must again say that I do not understand."</p> + +<p>"Why, don't you know that we meet many persons, and become quite well +acquainted with them, and yet never feel that they belong to our +atmosphere? They are not necessary to the story of our lives, so to +speak, and yet that atmosphere of which they are not really a part, +would not be wholly complete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> without them. They stand ready for our +side talks; sometimes they even flip a sentiment at us. We catch it, +trim it with ribbons and hand it back. They keep it; we forget. The +Blakemores are such persons. We may never see them again—may almost +wholly forget them, and yet something that we have said may influence +their lives. And perhaps to Mr. Milford, we are but side-lights. He may +soon be in his saddle again, forgetting that he ever knew us. But are we +to forget him? Has his light been strong enough to dazzle us?"</p> + +<p>"I shall not forget him, madam."</p> + +<p>"Then he may have made himself essential to the story of your life."</p> + +<p>"He has made himself a part of my recollection."</p> + +<p>"No more than that? Sometimes we recall because it is no trouble, and +sometimes we remember with pain. You know, Gunhild, that I think a great +deal of you."</p> + +<p>"I can never forget that. It is an obligation—"</p> + +<p>"Now, my child, I don't want you to look at it that way. You must not. +What I have done has given me pleasure. And if I deserve any reward, it +is—well, frankness."</p> + +<p>"You deserve more than that—gratitude."</p> + +<p>"Then let frankness be an expression of gratitude. Are you in love with +that man?"</p> + +<p>"Madam, a long time ago I used to slip to the door of the dining-room of +the little hotel in the West and peep in at him. They said he was bad, +that he would kill; but he came like a cavalier, with his spurs +jingling, and fascinated me. I felt that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> my own spirit if turned loose +would be as wild as his, for had not my forefathers fought on the sea +till the waves were bloody about them, and had they not dashed madly +into wild lands? I peeped in at him; I did not speak to him; but I +watched for his coming. And late at night I have lain awake to hear his +wild song in the bar-room, just below me. One day I met him in the +passage-way, and looked into his eyes, with my heart in my own, I +feared; and I did not see him again till I came out here. I did not know +his name. They called him Hell-in-the-Mud."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodwin did not remain quiet to hear the story. With many +exclamations, she walked up and down, sometimes with her back toward the +girl sitting on the log, her hands in her lap, lying dreamily; sometimes +she wheeled about and stood wide of eye and with mouth open.</p> + +<p>"Well, who ever heard of the like? But are you sure he is the same man?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I did not remind him that I had seen him there. He said that he +had seen me—he said—"</p> + +<p>"But what did he say? You must keep nothing back now. It would spoil +everything. What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"He said that he got on his horse and galloped away—from me. He said +that he did not want to be—be tangled up."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, who ever heard of such a thing? And you have met out here. +Has he asked you to marry him?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, and I do not think he will. I must not marry him."</p> + +<p>"But you love him."</p> + +<p>"Bitterly, madam."</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't that sweet—I mean, how peculiar a situation it is! No, you +can't think of marrying him. It wouldn't at all do. I don't believe he +could live tied down to one place. It is a first love and must live only +as a romance. It will help you in your art. It will be an inspiration to +all your after life, a poem to recite to your daughter in the years to +come. I had one, my dear. He was wild, wholly impossible, you might say. +And I was foolish enough to have married him, but my mother—she married +me to the dear Doctor. And how fortunate it was for both of us, I mean +for me and for Arthur! He threw himself away."</p> + +<p>"But he might not have thrown himself away, madam, if you had married +him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, he was really thrown away before I met him. My mother was +right. She knew. She had married the opposite to her romance."</p> + +<p>"But are women never to marry the men they love?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, to be sure. We all love our husbands. But we ought not to +marry our first love. That would be absurd. It would leave our after +life without a sweet regret. My dear, romantic love is one thing and +marriage is another. Love is a distress and marriage is business. That's +what the Doctor says."</p> + +<p>"And pardon me, madam, but he lives it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How? What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you are his business partner. You take care of his house. If you +are not there your servants keep the house. He may be pleased to see +you, but there is never any joy in his eyes—or yours. You are +dissatisfied with life. You try to make yourself believe you are not, +but you are. You look about for something, all the time. If you and the +Doctor should fail in business, you would grow tired of each other. You +told me to be frank."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, but you must not believe that. I think the world of him. I +don't see how I could live without him. He is absolutely necessary to +me. But he wasn't my romance. And I am glad of it. I couldn't dream over +him if he were. But your story. It almost upsets me. Got on his horse +and rode away! It is evident that he didn't want a romance. What wise +man could have warned him against it? I am glad you told me, my dear. I +can be of a great deal of assistance to you. Suppose we go back to the +house. Well, well, you have given me a surprise."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<h3>WANTED THE HORSE.</h3> + + +<p>The days were linked out into weeks; there had been rag-time music and +break-down dancing at Mrs. Stuvic's, but Milford had not shown himself. +A farmer passing late at night had looked through the window and had +seen him boxing with the hired man. Some one else had seen him sparring +with an Irishman in Antioch. The old woman swore that he was "going +daft." But it was noised around that he had threshed out nearly two +thousand bushels of oats, and this redeemed his standing. He had not +arrived in time to sow the oats, but the luck of the harvest had fallen +to him. The crop had been threatened with rust and the old woman advised +him to plow up the fields, but he had held out against her and was +rewarded, not alone with a surprising yield of grain, but with a +recognized right to exercise freedom of action, such as would not have +been tolerated in a man who had fallen short. A wise old skinflint +halted one day to ask his opinion of a bulky subscription book for which +he had paid one dollar down and signed notes for three more, payable, of +course, at times when money worries would buzz thickly about him. And +news came through the hired man that a young woman, thin of chest and +clumsy of foot, but worth a hundred acres, had set her cap for him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Of course, I wouldn't advise you to take her," said Mitchell, putting +on his necktie before a three-cornered fragment of a looking-glass, "but +I want to tell you that land's land out here. And besides, she might die +in a year or two. You never can tell. I may see her at church to-day. +She and my girl are sorter kin to each other. I'm a marryin' man, +myself. I don't see enough difference in married life or single life to +get scared at either one, so I take the marryin' side. A married man has +a place to keep away from and a single man hasn't any place to go to, so +it's all about the same, that is, without property. Goin' anywhere +to-day?"</p> + +<p>"There's no place for me to go except over to the old woman's, and I +don't care to go there yet awhile. I wonder why she hasn't been over +here?"</p> + +<p>"Who, the girl?"</p> + +<p>"No, the old woman. Do you suppose I expect the girl to come?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I didn't know," said Mitchell, brushing his stiff hair. "You +never can tell what a girl will do. They keep me guessin' and I'm on to +their curves pretty well. I see that Mrs. Goodwin yesterday evenin'. And +she looked like a full-rigged ship. Guess I'd be a little afraid of her +with her big talk. But you could tackle her all right enough. Say, I'm +sore as I can be, boxin' with you. Is that cigar up by the clock, one +that the prize-fighter give you? Let me take it along. I want to perfume +my way with it. Thanks," he added, taking the cigar before Milford had +said a word. "How do these pants set?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They strike me as being a trifle short," said Milford, surveying him.</p> + +<p>"That's what I was afraid of, but they dragged the ground till the +peddler left, and then they began to draw up. A man's sure to get the +worst of it when he buys out of a pack. I'd like to have a suit of +clothes made to order, but I can't afford it now. Did you ever have a +suit put up to your own notion?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a few."</p> + +<p>"Well, I said all the time that you wan't no common man."</p> + +<p>"And right there you struck the ancient and the modern idea of what a +man is—garments. You can't get away from the effect of clothes. The +city and the backwoods are alike. With the exception that the city +insists that the coat shall fit better and the pantaloons be a little +longer," he added, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Don't laugh at 'em, Bill; they're all I've got. When a man's got two +pair of briches you may laugh at one, but when he's got only one pair, +don't laugh. Are you goin' to set up here and read that book all day? +What's his name? Whitson?"</p> + +<p>"Whittier. I don't know. I'm a Quaker waiting to be moved. I had this +old book with me out West. We used to read it at night in the shack. We +had some pretty smart fellows with us. Some of them pretended to be +ignorant when in fact they had read their names on a sheepskin. They had +been beaten over the head with books till they were sick of them."</p> + +<p>"I don't blame 'em," said the hired man. "I'd rather set up with a +corpse than a book."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sometimes it's about the same thing," Milford replied. "Did you ever +read the Bible?"</p> + +<p>"What do you take me for?"</p> + +<p>"I don't take you for a man who has read very much of it. But it's the +greatest thing ever written."</p> + +<p>"It's out of date, Bill."</p> + +<p>"Yes, to those who don't think. Why, there's more wisdom in it than in +all other books put together. I don't care anything about creed, or what +one man or another may believe; I don't care how or why it was +written—I brush aside the oaths that have been sworn on it, and the +dying lips that have kissed it; I shut my eyes to everything but the +fact that it is the greatest opera, the greatest poem, the greatest +tragedy ever written."</p> + +<p>"If I could talk that way I'd go out and preach about it, Bill."</p> + +<p>"Not with my record behind you, old fellow."</p> + +<p>"But why should a man that believes as you do have a record to hold him +down?"</p> + +<p>"There you've got me. That's what I'd like to know. But when a man has +learned to understand himself, then all things may become clear. We +sometimes say that it was not natural for a man to do a certain thing. +The fact is, it's natural for a man to do almost anything that he can +do."</p> + +<p>"This is good Sunday mornin' talk, all right, Bill. But I've got to go +after my girl. She's got lots of sense, horse sense and flap-doodle +sense all mixed up. She's got more flap-doodle sense than I have; she +reads books, and not long ago she give me a piece of poetry that she'd +cut out of a newspaper. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> said, 'Read her off and take her back.' And +she did. Well, I'm off."</p> + +<p>Milford hailed a man who drove up in a buggy, gave ten cents for a +Sunday newspaper, and sat on the veranda to read it. The wind blew a +sheet out into the yard. He started after it, but halted, looking at a +man who was crossing the field where the oats had been reaped, striding +with basket and rod toward the lake. Milford left the paper to the wind. +He hastened to the woods between the oat field and the lake and waited +for the man, leaning musingly against a tree. The man got over the fence +and came along the path. Milford stepped out.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Dorsey."</p> + +<p>"Why, helloa. How's everything?"</p> + +<p>"All right, I hope. Are you done with that horse?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that horse. Yes, I'm about done with him."</p> + +<p>"Hold on. I want him."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You remember the last time we met I—well, we'll say, I let you have a +horse."</p> + +<p>"You mean we fought over yonder in the grove."</p> + +<p>"That's what I mean."</p> + +<p>"Well, what about it?"</p> + +<p>"We are going to fight over here in this grove."</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought you had enough?"</p> + +<p>"I did have then, but I want more. I said then that I'd never been +beaten for long at a time. I've been waiting for you."</p> + +<p>"A man don't have to wait for me very long.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> But say, this is all rank +foolishness. I've got nothing against you; and as for what I said about +the woman, why, I'm willing to apologize, although I don't know what it +was."</p> + +<p>"You will apologize, but not till I get through with you. Take off your +coat."</p> + +<p>"You beat any fellow I ever saw. I don't want to fight; I want to fish."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to fish, I want to fight. Take off your coat or I'll knock +you down in it."</p> + +<p>"All right, my son." He threw his coat on a stump. Milford was in his +shirt sleeves. "Wait a moment," said Dorsey. "You have brought this +thing about, and I want to tell you that I won't let you off as easy as +I did the last time."</p> + +<p>They went at it. Dorsey fell sprawling. He scrambled to his feet with +trash in his hair and blood in his mouth. Milford knocked him over a +stump. He got up again and came forward, cutting the capers of a tricky +approach, but Milford caught him with a surprising blow and sent him to +grass again. This time he did not get up. He squirmed about on the +ground. Milford took him under the arms and lifted him to his knees. "Go +away," he muttered, his head drooping. "You've—you've broken my jaw."</p> + +<p>Milford ran to the lake and brought water in his hat. Dorsey was sitting +up when he returned.</p> + +<p>"You've knocked out two of my teeth," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>"Here, let me bathe your face."</p> + +<p>"Biggest fool thing I ever saw," Dorsey blub<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>bered through the water +applied to the mouth. "I told you I'd apologize."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and you may do so now. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. What else can I do?"</p> + +<p>"I'm almost sorry I hit you so hard."</p> + +<p>"Almost! I don't stop at that. I don't want you to say anything about +it," he added. "It would hurt my business."</p> + +<p>"A horse kicked you," said Milford. "You're all right now. You can go to +the house."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to town by the first train. I'm done up. You've been +practicing. You ought to make a success of yourself if that's the sort +of fellow you are."</p> + +<p>Milford helped him put on his coat. "Now, I wish I could do something +for you," he said. "No matter what I do, I always get the worst of it."</p> + +<p>"You didn't get the worst of this, by a long shot."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Now I've got to grieve over it. I've been trying to do right, but +the cards are against me."</p> + +<p>"You needn't grieve over me. You have licked a good man."</p> + +<p>"I grieve because you were willing to apologize."</p> + +<p>"Don't let that worry you. I wouldn't have apologized any too strong. +Well, I don't believe the fish will bite to-day. I'll go back."</p> + +<p>Milford watched him as he walked slowly across the stubble field, and +strove to harden his heart against the cutting edge of remorse. The +fellow was a bully. To him there was nothing sacred, and he thought evil +of all women. His manliest words waited to be knocked out of him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>Milford returned to the house and gathered up the scattered sheets of +his newspaper. But he sat a long time without reading. The gathered +vengeance of his arm had been spent. It had shot forth with delight, +like a thought inspired by devoted study, but like a hot inspiration +grown cold, it faded under the strong light of reason. He heard the +shriek of a railway train, rushing toward the city. He saw George +Blakemore coming up the hill.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<h3>THE GRIZZLY AND THE PANTHER.</h3> + + +<p>Blakemore came up briskly, shook hands with a quick grasp, looked at his +watch and sat down on the edge of the veranda. His eye was no longer +fixed and rusty, but bright and restless. He did not drool his words, +hanging one with doubtful hesitation upon another, but blew them out +like a mouthful of smoke. He talked business; he had just engineered +another land deal. He had traveled about among the surrounding towns, +and spoke of a railway ticket as a "piece of transportation." Sunday to +him was a disease spot, the blotch of an inactive liver. Rest! There was +no rest for a man who wanted to work.</p> + +<p>"What's to be the end of this rush?" Milford asked. "What's your +object?"</p> + +<p>"Money, of course. You know what the object of money is, so there you +are."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I do. Money's object is to increase, but I've never +been able to discover its final aim, except possibly in a few instances. +We struggle to get rich. Then what? We read an advertisement and find +that we have kidney trouble. We take medicines, go to springs, grow +puffy, turn pale—die. That's the average man who makes money for +money's sake. But it's a waste of words to talk about it."</p> + +<p>"It is undoubtedly a waste of time to think about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> it," said Blakemore. +"Not only that, to give it daily attention would mean stagnation and dry +rot. There'd be no land sales. But, speaking of an object, you have one, +of course."</p> + +<p>"Yes, such as it is. And strain my eyes as I may, I can't look beyond +it. I made up my mind a good while ago that there's not much to live +for. This is an old idea, I know, but at some time it is new to every +man. We fight off trouble that we may fight into more trouble. And our +only pleasure is in looking back upon a past that was full of trouble, +or in looking forward to a time that will never come."</p> + +<p>"You're a queer sort of a duck, anyhow," Blakemore replied, throwing the +stub of a cigar out into the grass. "You must have been burnt sometime. +And yet you're no doubt looking for the fire again."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever catch a bass with his mouth full of rusty hooks? I'm +one—hooks sticking out all around, but I must have something to eat, +and I may snap a phantom minnow."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, you're a queer duck. But there's a lot of good stuff in you, +I'll tell you that; and I could take you in tow and make a winner of +you. Drop this farm and come to town."</p> + +<p>Milford smiled and shook his head. "Winning looks easy to the man that +wins. No, when I leave this place I'll have my object in my pocket."</p> + +<p>"Queer duck," Blakemore repeated. "Any insanity in your family?"</p> + +<p>"No, none to speak of. My father took the bankrupt law and paid his +debts ten years afterwards."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>Blakemore lighted a cigar. "Did you disown him?"</p> + +<p>"No. He went to the springs, grew pale—and we buried him."</p> + +<p>Blakemore turned his cigar about between his lips. "And your idea is to +pay your debts, grow pale, and let them bury you. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," and then he added: "I owe a peculiar sort of debt."</p> + +<p>"A man's foolish to pay a peculiar debt," Blakemore replied.</p> + +<p>"But a peculiar debt might take a strange hold on the conscience."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Blakemore agreed, "but a tender conscience has no more show in +business than a peg leg has in a foot-race. Do you know what I did? I +moped about under a debt of twenty thousand dollars. After a while I +looked up and didn't see anybody else moping. I quit. Am I going to pay +it? Maybe, but not till the last cow has come home, I'll tell you that. +They scalped me, and I'm going to scalp them. By the way, I met a fellow +just now—fellow named Dorsey. You might have seen him out here. Met him +a while ago, and he told me that a horse kicked him over yonder in the +woods. Didn't do a thing but kick his teeth out. He's gone to town to +have his jaw attended to. Your horse?"</p> + +<p>"No, a horse that Dorsey hired when he was out some time ago. He must +have misused him."</p> + +<p>"He got in his work all right. Well, I've come after you. They want you +at the house. Rig yourself up; I'll wait."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>Upon benches and in chairs, and lolling on the thick grass, Milford +found Mrs. Stuvic's summer family. They told jokes and sang vaudeville +songs and slyly tickled one another's necks with spears of timothy, +frolicking in the shade while time melted away in the sun. The ladies +came forward to shake hands. They called Milford a stranger. They +inquired as to the health of the young woman in Antioch. He disclaimed +all knowledge of a woman in Antioch. They knew better, shaking their +fingers at him. Blakemore and Mrs. Stuvic entered upon a harangue. +Milford sat down on a bench with Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild. Although +under the eye of the "discoverer," the girl had shaken hands warmly with +him. Between them there was a quiet understanding, and he was at ease. +Mrs. Blakemore sat in a rocking chair that threatened to tip over on the +uneven ground. She liked the uncertainty, she said. It gave her +something to think about. Mrs. Goodwin had read during all the forenoon, +and was sententious. It would soon be time for her to return to the +city, and she felt that she wore a yellow leaf in her hair. She was +anxious to return, of course, but to go away from a sweet season's +death-bed was always a sad departure. Mr. Milford, she said, would +attend the summer's funeral.</p> + +<p>"I will help dig the grave," he replied.</p> + +<p>She thanked him for following her idea. So few men had the patience to +fondle the whimsical children of a woman's mind. When they crept out to +the Doctor he scouted them back to bed, and there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> they lay trembling, +not daring to peep out at him. Some men thought it a manly quality to +despise a pretty conceit, but it was pretty conceits that made marble +live, that made a canvas breathe. At one time she had been led to +believe that the realist was the man of the hour. And indeed, he +was—just for one hour. And the veritist—what was he? One whose soul +was kept cool in a moldy cellar. None but the artist had a right to +speak. And what was art? A semblance of truth more beautiful than the +truth. But writers were often afraid to be artists, even at the +promptings of an artistic soul. They were told that women would not read +them, and man must write for woman. What nonsense! Take up a book and +find the beautiful passages marked. A woman has read it.</p> + +<p>"I can make a great noise in shallow water," said Milford, "but if I +follow you, you'll lead me out over my head. I believe you, however; I +believe you speak the truth. I don't know anything about art, but, so +far as I am concerned, it is a waste of time for any scholar to pick +flaws in a thing that makes me feel. He may tell me why it is bad taste +to feel, but he can't convince me that I haven't felt."</p> + +<p>He said this looking at the girl, and their eyes warmed with the +communion. "I have studied art," she said, "until I do not know anything +about it; and I am beginning to believe if the world listens to—to a +talk about it, it is with a sneer. No one wants to know. No one is +willing to listen, except like this, out in the country when there is +nothing else to do."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I find plenty to do," said Mrs. Stuvic, overhearing the remark and +turning from Blakemore, who had been "joshing" her about an old man. +"Yes, you bet. There's always a plenty to do in the country if a body's +a mind to do it. The country people ain't such fools. No, you bet. The +most of 'em's got sense enough to keep a horse from kickin' 'em. Yes, +walked right over in the woods and let a horse kick him. Why, old Lewson +would've knowed better than that, and he didn't have sense enough to +know that he couldn't come back. Now, Bill, you keep quiet. Don't you +say a word."</p> + +<p>"If you were afraid the old fellow would come back, why didn't you marry +him?" said Blakemore.</p> + +<p>"Now, you keep still, too. I wan't so anxious about him comin' back. It +wan't nothin' to me. But I do believe he robbed my hens' nests after he +was dead. Now, whose team is that goin' along the road? If a man would +rein up my horses that way I'd break his neck. Bill, why haven't you +been over here?"</p> + +<p>"I've been too busy."</p> + +<p>"You haven't been too busy to trudge off to Antioch. What did you go +for?"</p> + +<p>"Because it was nobody's business but mine."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't say so? What made you box with that Irishman? Oh, you +can't fool me. I know more than you think I do. Went up there to +practice. And then a horse kicked Dorsey over in the woods. How about +that? You met him over in the grove some time ago, and he licked you. +How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> about that? Then you took lessons till you was able to knock his +teeth out. How about that?"</p> + +<p>"Who told you all that rubbish?" Milford demanded, uneasy under the gaze +of the company.</p> + +<p>"Never mind. There's a freckled faced woman not far from here. And she +couldn't keep a secret any more than a sieve could hold water. You've +got a hired man, too, you must remember."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I'll——"</p> + +<p>"You'll do nothin' of the sort. It was perfectly natural. I knowed it +was comin'. I knowed that he mashed your mouth. And what was it all +about? How about that?"</p> + +<p>Milford arose to go. Mrs. Goodwin begged him to sit down. Mrs. Blakemore +was in a flutter of excitement. Blakemore stood with his mouth open. +Gunhild looked straight at Milford. "Did you hit him, Mr. Milford?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he promptly answered.</p> + +<p>"Then you must have had a good cause, and I shall wait before feeling +sorry for him. But I could not feel very sorry anyway. I do not like +him. He has the eye of a beast. May we ask why you struck him?"</p> + +<p>"He made a remark about you."</p> + +<p>The girl jumped up from her seat, anger flaming in her eyes. Mrs. +Goodwin made some sort of cooing noise. Mrs. Blakemore cried "Oh!" and +fluttered.</p> + +<p>"That's all I've got to say," said Milford. "I oughtn't to have said +that much, and wouldn't if it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> hadn't come round as it did. And now I +must ask you to let the subject drop."</p> + +<p>Gunhild sat down without a word. But in her quietness of manner was a +turbulent spirit choked into subjection. In all things it seemed that +her modesty was a conscious immodesty held in restraint. The uncouth +girl, with utterance harsh in rough words of men from the far north, had +been remodeled by the English school. But the blood of the Viking was +strong within her, as she sat there, striving to appear submissive; but +Milford fancied that she would like to dash out Dorsey's brains with a +war-club. He sat down beside her, and with a cool smile she said: "Made +a remark about me. It takes me back to the potato-field. I must thank +you. We are fellow workmen." She spoke in a low voice. He looked from +one to another, as if afraid that they might hear her. "It makes no +difference," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it does. It is none of their business. I am going to set claim to +all that part of the past. You may share your pleasure with them, but +your trouble belongs to me. I will mix it with mine."</p> + +<p>"The color might be dark," she replied.</p> + +<p>"But two dark colors may make a white hope."</p> + +<p>She shook her head and looked about as if now she were afraid that some +one might hear. But the other boarders were talking among themselves. +Mrs. Goodwin, at the far end of the bench, was giving to Blakemore her +idea of the future life; Mrs. Blakemore had run off, summoned by an +alarming howl from the boy; Mrs. Stuvic, still a believer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> in +spiritualism and a devotee of fortune-telling, stood near, sniffing in +contempt.</p> + +<p>"Nothing can keep us apart," said Milford. "I'm not a soft wooer; I +don't know how to play the he dove; I don't know how to sing a lie made +by some one else; I don't pretend to be a gentleman; I am out of the +rut, and they may call me unnatural. But let me tell you that all hell +can't keep us apart."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Milford, you must not talk like that. I too am out of the rut, and +they may call me unnatural, but I do not like to hear you talk that +way."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. You can't help yourself. If it's the devil that brought us +together, then blessed be the name of the devil."</p> + +<p>"Hush, Mr. Milford."</p> + +<p>"I won't hush. I must talk. I suppose I ought to call you an angel. But +you are not. You are a woman—once a hired hand. But you jump on me like +a panther; you suck the blood out of my heart. Am I a brute? Yes. So are +you. You are a beautiful brute—the panther and the grizzly. Is that +it?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, and her eyes were not soft. "I used to peep in at the +grizzly—into the dining-room when he had come to feed. But no more now. +No, nothing can keep us apart. But we must wait. What a courtship!" she +said, with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"It's not a courtship," he replied. "It's a fight, a draw fight. Now +I'll hush. What's the wrangle?" he asked, turning toward Mrs. Goodwin.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," she answered, moving closer to him. "It hasn't the dignity of +a wrangle. Mrs. Stuvic is trying to convert me to fortune-telling."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Stuvic. "I don't care whether she +believes in it or not. It's nothin' to me; but truth's truth, and you +can't get round it; no, Bill, you bet. I know what I've been told, and I +know what's come to pass. A woman told me that a man was goin' to beat +me out of board, and he did. She never saw him. How about that? And she +told me I was goin' to lose a cow, and I did. She was dead by the time I +got home. How about that? Don't come talkin' to me about what you expect +after you're dead. Truth's truth. Now, there's Bill. He thinks I'm an +old fool. But I know more than he thinks I do. Yes, you bet!''</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think that, Mrs. Stuvic," Milford replied. "I'm under too +many obligations to you to think that."</p> + +<p>"Now, there is honesty," Mrs. Goodwin spoke up. "Gunhild, my dear, do +you catch the drift of it?"</p> + +<p>"It's not honesty, but villainy," Blakemore declared, and turning to his +wife, who had just returned, he asked if the boy were hurt. She said +that he had got hung in the forks of an apple tree.</p> + +<p>"But villainy holds a virtue when it tells the truth," Mrs. Goodwin +replied.</p> + +<p>"Holds fiddlesticks," said Mrs. Stuvic, with a sniff. "Why can't you +folks talk sense? Just as soon as a woman reads a book, she's got to +talk highfurlutin' blabber. Now, what does that man out there want?"</p> + +<p>"He wants beer," said Blakemore.</p> + +<p>"Well, he can't get it. He looks like the man that had me fined last +summer. I hate a detective<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> on the face of the earth. One went down in +my cellar and drank beer, and then had me up. Go on away from here," she +shouted. "There's not a drop of beer on this place. Move on off with +you. I'll let you know that I don't keep beer."</p> + +<p>The man went away, grumbling. Blakemore turned to Milford and said: +"Come join me in a bottle."</p> + +<p>"Now, you keep still," Mrs. Stuvic snapped. "Bill don't drink. And the +first thing I know you'll have me up."</p> + +<p>Milford asked Mrs. Goodwin when she expected to go home. She answered +that she would leave on the following Tuesday. He remarked that he would +come over to go to the station with her, and then, waving a farewell to +the company, he strode off toward home. In his heart there flamed the +exultation of a great conquest after a fierce battle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<h3>AN AMBITION.</h3> + + +<p>In the evening the hired man returned with his trousers drawing shorter +every moment. He swore that he was going to kill the peddler, which of +course meant that he would buy another pair from him. He would take off +the wretched leg-wear and hang weights to the legs, he said. No peddler +could get ahead of him. He called himself an inventive "cuss." He said +that his grandfather had sat upon a granite hillside and with a +jackknife whittled out a churn-dasher that revolutionized the art of +butter-making in that community. He smacked his mouth as he spoke of the +delights of the day just ended. It had been like sitting under a +rose-bush, with sweetened dew dripping upon him. He had seen his girl +trip from one rapture to another, mirroring a smile from the sun and +throwing it at him. Her face was joy's looking-glass. And aside from all +that, she had sense. She was an uncommon woman. He was not afraid to +tell her everything. It was certain to go no further. He could read a +woman the moment he set eyes upon her. They all invited confidence, but +few of them were worthy of it. Milford did not have it in his heart to +smash the fellow's idol. He said that he was pleased to know that so +true a woman had been found.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you can trust her all right, Bill. But to tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> you the truth, I +don't believe you could trust the girl that has set her cap for you. Her +tongue's too slippery, and I said to myself that you'd better stick to +the Norwegian. I'm not stuck on foreigners myself. The girl I married +had a smack of the Canadian French about her. But Lord, she was putty. +You ought to have seen her eyes—black as a blackberry, and dancin' a +jig all the time. And they danced me out of the set, I tell you that. I +could have her again if I wanted her. But I don't exactly want her. +Would you, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"I'd cut her throat."</p> + +<p>"Say, you ought to see her throat, speakin' about throats. Puttiest +thing you ever seen in your life—white as snow——"</p> + +<p>"With the pink of the sunset falling on it," said Milford, with his +gluttonous mind's eye upon the Norwegian's neck.</p> + +<p>"If that ain't it, I'm the biggest liar that ever milked a cow. Just +exactly it. And yet you wouldn't advise me to take her again."</p> + +<p>"I'd kick her downstairs," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's all right, Bill; but it would save getting a divorce. +Still, my other girl's the thing. I can put confidence in her, and the +first one was tricky. I couldn't tell her a thing that wan't repeated. +I'll stand for anythin' sooner than bein' repeated all the time. How are +you gettin' along over at the house?"</p> + +<p>Milford put him off with the remark that everything was all right so far +as he knew. A man may gabble of a love that is spreading over the +heart,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> but when it has gathered the whole world beneath its wings he is +more inclined to silence.</p> + +<p>The hired man continued to talk. Before he met the freckled woman he had +looked forward to sixteen hours a day at eighteen dollars a month. He +had not dared to see the flush of the sunrise light his bedroom window, +except perhaps on some odd Sunday when he might steal the sweet essence +of a forbidden nap, but his "love" for that woman had promised him an +unbroken dream at dawn and a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs at eight. +After all, it was fortunate that the first woman had run away. She was +saucy and had made his heart laugh, at times, but he was a hired man +still, and the cold dew of the morning had cracked his rough boots and +caused his wet trousers to flap about his ankles.</p> + +<p>"Bill," he asked, "do you ever expect to wear a boiled shirt all the +week and sleep till after sun-up?"</p> + +<p>Milford had learned that this was the hired man's notion of elegance and +of ease. He answered that such a time might come.</p> + +<p>"It's got to come with me," said Mitchell. "It's comin', and I'd be a +fool to dodge it. Yes, sir, and I'm goin' to have me about a dozen +shirts made. I don't care so much about the coat and pants; I want the +shirts. And I want 'em made as broad as I can fill 'em out, with a +ruffle or two, and as white as chalk. That's the way I want to be +dressed when fellers come to me and ask if I want to hire a man. Bill, +you look like you've made up your mind to do some thin'. What is it? Git +married?"</p> + +<p>"I came here with my mind already made up,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> Milford replied, new lines +seeming to come to the surface of his countenance. "And I'm not going to +change it," he declared, louder of tone, as if he had been debating with +himself. "I'm going to follow the line, and then if something else +comes, all the better."</p> + +<p>"What is your line, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't you learned enough not to ask that?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, but I didn't know but you'd found out there wouldn't be any +harm in tellin' me. We've been working together a good while, and I've +got an interest in you. I've told you what my object is."</p> + +<p>"To wear white shirts and to see the sun shine in on you of a morning, I +believe. That's a good enough object."</p> + +<p>"I think so, Bill. At least, it won't do nobody no harm. And I tell you +what's a fact: I'd like, after a while, to live in town, so's I could +come out in the country and clar my throat and ask fellers about the +crops. But you always sorter turn up your nose at my object. I wouldn't +at yours. Tell a feller what it is, Bill."</p> + +<p>"The idea of every man having an object seems to have become rather +popular in this community," said Milford. "Everybody looks on me with a +sort of suspicion, and this object business comes out of that. You may +not know it, but you've been set as a trap to catch me."</p> + +<p>The hired man was genuinely astonished. His mouth flew open, and he +drooled his surprise. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve; he hemmed, +hawed, and grunted. But, after a time, he admitted that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> his "girl" had +shown the edge of a keen interest in Milford. However, there was nothing +vicious in it. She had never been stirred by a vicious instinct. She was +naturally interested in the man who gave employment to her future +husband. Of course, his object did not amount to much when compared with +Milford's; he was nothing but a hired man, but presidents had been hired +men, and the world could not afford to turn its scornful back upon the +affairs of the farm-hand. The field laborer had a heart, a talkative +heart, perhaps, but a heart that society would one day learn to fear. It +was not heartlessness that would overthrow the political state and +trample upon the rich; it was heart, abused heart, that would give +crushing weight to the vengeful foot. This was the substance of his +talk, the egotism of muscle, a contempt for the luxuries of the refined +brain, but with a longing to imitate the appearance of leisure by +wearing white linen and lying in bed till the sun was high. Milford +recognized the voice of the discontented farmer.</p> + +<p>"You remember the speeches of the last campaign," said he. "You believe +that the laborer is to overturn society. All right. But that has nothing +to do with my object. That makes no difference, however, since +everything leads to the distress of the farmer. But I want to tell you +and all the rest that it is your own fault, as one and as a whole. You +never read anything but murders and robberies, or the grumblings of some +skate that wants an office. You haven't schooled yourselves into +sharpness enough to see that he is trying to use you. You get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> up before +sunrise, and work till after dark, and think that the whole world is +watching you. The world doesn't care a snap, I'll tell you that."</p> + +<p>"And that's just it, Bill; the world's tryin' to do us."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and it will do you."</p> + +<p>"I know it, and that's the reason I want to marry out of it."</p> + +<p>"That is to say, you want to 'do' a woman to get out of it yourself. +What do you expect to give her?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I'll give her a good husband, a man that'll fight for her, do +anything——"</p> + +<p>"Except to work for her," Milford broke in. The hired man grinned. He +said that a good husband was about all that a woman ought to expect, +these days; he would not fall short, and a man who did not disappoint a +good woman came very near to the keeping of all commandments. He was not +going to marry for property. But if property made a woman beautiful to +the rich, why should it make her ugly to the poor?"</p> + +<p>"But you say she is homely and freckled."</p> + +<p>"I said freckled, Bill; I didn't say homely. Why, I like freckles. I +think they are the puttiest things in the world. They catch me every +time. A trout wouldn't be half as putty if he wan't speckled. And if +this woman is a trout and has snapped at my fly, all right. The world +ain't got a right to say a word."</p> + +<p>"The world doesn't know that you are born or ever will be."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know you don't think I amount to much,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> Bill; I know the world +don't care for me, but I'll make her care one of these days."</p> + +<p>"When the worm turns on the woodpecker."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Bill. Have all the flings you want. But I'll tell you +one thing: I don't talk about the Bible bein' the greatest book in the +world, and then go in the woods and lay for a feller to mash his mouth. +Oh, I know all about it. My girl's brother see the feller git on the +train with his jaw tied up, and I knowed what had happened."</p> + +<p>"You say the fellow's mouth was mashed?" said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mashed as flat as a pancake."</p> + +<p>"Then you want to keep your mouth shut."</p> + +<p>"All right, Bill, I understand."</p> + +<p>Milford walked about the room. "We are neglecting everything," he said. +"It's time to feed the cattle." They went out to the barn, neither of +them speaking. Mitchell climbed into the loft and tossed down the hay; +Milford measured out oats to the horses. In silence they returned to the +house.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you say something?" said Milford.</p> + +<p>"When I said the feller's mouth was mashed you said I wanted to keep +mine shut. I help you learn how to box till you could out-box me, and I +guess you can mash my mouth easy enough, Bill."</p> + +<p>"But do you think I would, Bob?"</p> + +<p>"No, I can't hardly think so. Got any smokin' tobacco?"</p> + +<p>"Fresh bag up there on the shelf. Fill up that briar of mine—the +old-timer."</p> + +<p>"But you don't want nobody to smoke it, do you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You may keep it; I've got another one."</p> + +<p>"But you've had that one so long, Bill."</p> + +<p>"Then it's all the sweeter."</p> + +<p>"I'm a thousand times obliged to you."</p> + +<p>"All right." He was silent for a thoughtful minute, and then he said: +"The summer is about gone. It will leave on the train next Tuesday."</p> + +<p>The hired man nodded as if he understood. "And I've got to be lookin' +out for somethin' to do in the winter," he said. "I don't reckon you can +afford to keep me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I want you. I expect to be busy all winter, trading around. Your +wages may go on just the same."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean at eighteen dollars?"</p> + +<p>"I said just the same."</p> + +<p>Mitchell's face beamed with satisfaction. "That would scare some of +these farmers around here half to death," said he. "They never think of +payin' more than ten in winter."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not one of these farmers round here."</p> + +<p>"That's what you ain't, and I don't know what you have been, nur what +you're goin' to be, but to me you're about the best feller I ever struck +up with."</p> + +<p>They talked of affairs on the farm, the hay, the ripening corn. In the +renting of the place a number of ragged sheep had been included, a +contingent sale; and a few months of care had wrought almost a miracle +in the appearance of the flock, so much so that the old woman regretted +her terms and would have withdrawn from them, but Milford had in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>sisted +upon a witnessed contract. They talked about the sheep, the increase to +come in the winter, the sale of lambs in the early summer. They laid +plans for work in the fall, for the cutting and the husking of the corn.</p> + +<p>"But I thought you were going to marry," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not for a year, Bill. I've got a good deal to attend to first. +I've got to get a divorce, you know. That won't take long, of course, +but a man's divorce ought to get cool before he marries again. I've +talked to my girl about it, and she thinks so. She's a proper thing."</p> + +<p>"Did it ever occur to you that she can't be a very proper thing to talk +to you about marriage or to receive attentions from you before you get +your divorce?"</p> + +<p>"I don't guess she ever thought of that. But I believe she did say she +wanted I should get a divorce before I said much more about it. It's all +right, anyway. I don't believe in holding a woman to strict rule. If you +force the rule on her before you're married, she'll force it on you +afterwards, and then where'll you be? Well," he added, leaning over to +untie his shoe, "believe I'll go to bed. I'm glad you're pleased with my +work. I want to save up enough to git them shirts, you know. It wouldn't +look right to draw on her at once. Some fellers would, but I'm rather +careful that way."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<h3>ACROSS THE DITCH.</h3> + + +<p>Early Tuesday morning a girl from the poor-house went to Mrs. Stuvic's +place. This meant that the season was about closed, that the +"journeyman" cook had been discharged, the "help" told to go, and that +this wretched creature was to do the work. Careful not to appear too +early, Milford came almost too late. The carriage had set out for the +station. He ordered the driver to stop. He reminded Gunhild of her +promise to walk with him across the fields. She declared that she had +not promised, but said that she was willing enough to walk. Mrs. Goodwin +cautioned her not to loiter by the way; it would greatly put her out to +miss the train. Gunhild jumped out, Milford catching at her, and the +carriage drove on. They walked down the road to a place where there was +a gap in the fence, and here they entered the field. Down deep in the +grass a horde of insects shouted their death songs. Their day of +judgment was soon to lie white upon the ground. Artists in their way, +with no false notes, with mission ended, they were to die in art, among +fantastic pictures wrought by the frost. Milford did not try to hide his +sadness. The girl was livelier; the girl nearly always is.</p> + +<p>"The other day I got near you, although others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> were present, but now +you are far off," he said. "Must I rope you every time I want you?"</p> + +<p>She laughed at this picture of life in the West, thrown in a word. Again +she saw men lassoing the cattle. But the potato field came back to her, +the rough words of the men, the drudgery, and her face grew sad. "I am +as close to you now as I was then."</p> + +<p>"Not with your eyes. Stop. Let me look at you."</p> + +<p>They halted and stood face to face. "Give me your eyes." She gave them +to him without a waver. But she reminded him that they must not miss the +train. Afar off they could see the carriage turn a corner.</p> + +<p>"When am I to see you again?" he asked, as they walked on.</p> + +<p>"I do not know that," she answered. "I shall not stay in the winter time +at Mrs. Goodwin's house. She will have many persons there then, and will +not need me."</p> + +<p>"The kingdom of heaven, though it were full, would need you."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes you are a wild book, with sentences jumping out at me," she +said. "I must rope you," she added, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would—I wish you'd choke me to death, and——"</p> + +<p>"And what?"</p> + +<p>"And then take my head in your lap."</p> + +<p>"In your other life you must have stood at the bow of a boat, making the +sea red with the blood of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> your enemy—and in my other life I bound up +your wounds."</p> + +<p>They came to a broad ditch. On each side was a forest of wild +sunflowers. "You could stand in there and blaze with them," he said, +stepping down into the ditch. "Give me your hand, and I'll help you +across."</p> + +<p>"I can jump."</p> + +<p>"Give me your hand—and I hope you'll stumble and fall."</p> + +<p>She stood among the sunflowers, looking down at him. "Did you see the +cowboy preacher that came West?" she asked. "Would he not have had a +wild steer if he had roped your soul?"</p> + +<p>"Give me your hand—both."</p> + +<p>She gave him her hands, and leaped across the ditch. "I wish there were +a thousand," he said, climbing out. "But you haven't answered me. When +am I to see you again?"</p> + +<p>"I am coming again with Mrs. Goodwin next summer."</p> + +<p>"That'll be like a boy's Christmas—ten years in coming. Can't I come to +see you in town?"</p> + +<p>"I shall not be in the town. I am going into the country to teach."</p> + +<p>"Then I can come into the country."</p> + +<p>"No. With your wild ways you would make me feel ashamed."</p> + +<p>"You are right—I've got sense enough to see it. But is there to be no +better understanding between us?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you say that all—something could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> keep us apart? Is not +that understanding enough?" They had halted again, and she had given him +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's an acknowledgment, but not a plan. What I want is something to +work up to."</p> + +<p>"There is the carriage coming down the road over yonder. Mrs. Goodwin is +waving her handkerchief at me. The station is just across the fence."</p> + +<p>"I know all that. But won't you let me write to you?"</p> + +<p>"I should like to hear from you. A letter from you in the winter might +bring the summer back—the crickets in the grass and the wild sunflowers +by the ditch. Yes, you may write to me."</p> + +<p>"And you will send me your address?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will write first—when I go to the country. Not before."</p> + +<p>"And if you don't go to the country I am not to know where you are?"</p> + +<p>"But I am going to the country. You shall hear."</p> + +<p>Near the road, between them and the station, stood an old cheese +factory, now inhabited by summer vagabonds. The windows were stuffed +with cast-off clothes. It was a wretched place, but now it served a +purpose—it shut off all view from the station. It made no difference as +to who might peep from the windows.</p> + +<p>They walked on slowly a few paces, and halted behind the old house. They +heard the rumble of the train. He looked down at her up-turned face. Her +lips were slightly apart as if on the eve of Utterance. He thought of +the seam in a ripe peach.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There, the train is coming," she said.</p> + +<p>"Plenty—plenty of time."</p> + +<p>"No. Mrs. Goodwin is calling me. Good-bye," she said, still suffering +him to hold her hand. "Are you always going to be a wild man?"</p> + +<p>"You remember what they used to call me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that bad name. But I must go."</p> + +<p>She ran away from him. He strode back across the field. He heard the +train when it stopped and when it started again, but did not look round. +He stood in the ditch where he had helped her across. There was the +print of her foot in the moist earth. He heard the crickets crying in +the deep grass. He lay down for a moment, and felt that the cry of his +heart drowned all sounds of earth. "If it were only different," he said +to himself, over and over again. "When she knows, what will she think? +Must she know? Perhaps not—I hope not. When it is all over, I will kill +it in my own breast." He was conscious of the theatrical. He was on the +stage. Glow-worms were his footlights; his orchestra was deep-hidden in +the grass. "Why can't a man be genuine?" he asked himself. "Why does a +heart put on, talk to itself, and strut?"</p> + +<p>In the road he met Mrs. Blakemore walking with Bobbie. The boy had a +long stick, pushing it on the ground in front of himself. He called it +his plow. His mother cautioned him. He might hurt himself. The stick +struck a lump in the road and punched him. He howled just as Milford +came up.</p> + +<p>"I told you not to shove that stick. And now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> you've nearly ruined +yourself. Here's Mr. Milford. Perhaps he will carry you."</p> + +<p>Milford took the boy on his back. "You are my horse," said the boy, +whimpering. They turned toward the house, Mrs. Blakemore striving to +keep step with Milford. "Don't go so fast. I can't keep step with you," +she said.</p> + +<p>"Get up," the boy commanded.</p> + +<p>"How long do you expect to stay?" Milford asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she answered. "George is away on a tour, and I am to +wait till I hear from him. I don't think I'll be here but a few days +longer. I ought to put Bobbie in school."</p> + +<p>"We'll have a good deal more of warm weather," Milford said; "and +October out here I should think is the finest time of the year."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, but you know we must get back. After all, the summer spent in +the country is a hardship. We give up everything for the sake of being +out of doors. Put him down when he gets heavy."</p> + +<p>"He's all right. Yes, hardship in many ways. But hardships make us +stronger; still, I don't know that we need to be much stronger. We are +strong enough now for our weak purposes."</p> + +<p>"You mean spiritually stronger, don't you? Well, I don't know. But, of +course, we are more meditative when we have been close to nature, and +that always gives us a sort of spiritual help. But the time out here +might be spent to great advantage, in reading and serious converse. As +it is, however, people seem ashamed to talk anything but nonsense. They +hoot at anything that has a particle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> of sentiment in it. And as for +art—well, so few persons know anything about art. And on this account I +shall miss Mrs. Goodwin so much. She talked beautifully on art. Don't +you think so?"</p> + +<p>"She talks well on almost any subject."</p> + +<p>"And Gunhild is a real artist," she said, looking at him. "Did she show +you any of her drawings?"</p> + +<p>"No. I didn't ask her and she didn't offer to show them."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you were more interested in the artist than in her art."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that may be about the size of it."</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Mr. Milford, I can't fathom you. Sometimes you speak with +positive sentiment and dignity, and then again you are a repository of +slang. Why is it? Is it because that, at times, I am incapable of—shall +I say inspiring?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I guess that's about the proper thing to say. No. What am I +talking about? You are always inspiring, of course. The fault lies with +me."</p> + +<p>"Such a strange man!" she said, meditatively. "Mrs. Stuvic declares she +doesn't know you any better now than she did the first day, but I +believe I do, though not much better, I must confess. I wish you would +tell me something."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it?"</p> + +<p>"Did you know Gunhild before she came out here?"</p> + +<p>"I had never spoken to her."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's very strange. You got acquainted very soon. Oh, I know she +was out here quite a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> while, still—oh, you know what I mean. Yes, you +met her at the haunted house—once. More than once? Am I too +inquisitive? But I am so interested."</p> + +<p>He acted the part of a politer man; he said that she was not too +inquisitive—glad that she was interested. The boy, pulling at his ears, +the bridle, turned his head toward her, and he caught the drooping of +her eye. Over him she had established a sentimental protectorate, in +accordance with a Monroe Doctrine of the heart, and resented foreign +aggression.</p> + +<p>"So much interested in Gunhild, you know," she said. "Peculiar girl, not +yet Americanized. Perhaps it is her almost blunt honesty that gives her +the appearance of lacking tact. But tact is the protection of honesty. +Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about tact, as you understand it. I know what it +is to get the drop on a man, and I suppose the woman of tact always has +the drop. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she laughed, walking close beside him. "A woman of tact is never +taken unawares."</p> + +<p>"A suspicious woman, I take it."</p> + +<p>"Well, a ready woman. And Gunhild is not dull, but she is not always +ready. Do you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I'll be—I don't know what you're driving at."</p> + +<p>"Get up," the boy cried, clucking.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I am a little obscure. But I thought you would understand."</p> + +<p>"But I swear I don't."</p> + +<p>"Then it would be cruel to explain."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It would? You've got to explain now." He halted and turned to her. The +boy pulled at his ears. Her laughter came like the rippling of cool +water.</p> + +<p>"You know that Gunhild is an experiment," she said. "She was a girl of +talent with uncertain manners. Even her restraint is blunt. And I think +that Mrs. Goodwin has found her a failure."</p> + +<p>Milford began to ease the boy to the ground. "I must bid you good +evening here," he said.</p> + +<p>"Won't you come to the house to supper?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'll go and eat at a table where no restraint is blunt and where no +experiment is a failure."</p> + +<p>"I have offended you," she said, taking the boy by the hand. "And I +didn't mean it, I'm sure. I hope you don't think that I would say a word +against her. We are all fond of her, I'm sure. But we are all interested +in you."</p> + +<p>"In me? Who the—the deuce am I? What cause have you to be interested in +me? You are not interested in me, except as a sort of freak—a +mud-turtle, caught in the lake, viewed by woman with their 'ahs' and +'ohs,' standing back holding their skirts. I know that woman. She is +worth——"</p> + +<p>"I thought you said you didn't know her till she came out here?"</p> + +<p>"I said I'd never spoken to her."</p> + +<p>"Know her but had never spoken to her. The plot curdles. Really, Mr. +Milford, what I said was simply to draw you out. I don't know a thing +against her; I don't think she's a failure. Now tell me what you know. I +am hungry for something of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> interest; I'm tired to death of this +everlasting market report. If she and you have been mixed up in a +romance, tell me, please. Bobbie, don't pull at me. I'm going in a +moment."</p> + +<p>"The ripening fruit of a romance," said Milford, putting his hand on the +boy's head. "Isn't that enough for you?"</p> + +<p>"The fruit is a tender care; the bud a careless pleasure," she replied. +"Tell me about it—now. I might not see you again."</p> + +<p>"Then you will soon forget."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I can't forget you. You have had a strong influence on me—for +good, I am sure. You have some noble purpose, hidden away, and when we +meet one with a noble purpose we feel stronger, though we may not know +what that purpose is. I long to do something in the world, too——"</p> + +<p>"Then love your husband," said the tactless man.</p> + +<p>"What are you saying? I do love him."</p> + +<p>"If you love him, you have a noble purpose."</p> + +<p>"But who are you to talk so morally?"</p> + +<p>"A man who has seen so much vice that he would like to see virtue. +There's my road," he said, pointing to the gate. "I must bid you +good-bye."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + +<h3>A WOMAN'S THREAT.</h3> + + +<p>A cow that had been hurt by a falling tree went limping down the road, +and Milford, looking at her, said that she pictured the passing of time. +And when at evening he saw her again, he said that she was the same +hour, passing twice. In the woods he met the girl from the poor-house, +and she told him that Mrs. Blakemore was gone. One afternoon Mrs. Stuvic +sent for him, and when he went she scolded him for not having come +sooner to lighten the dark hour of her loneliness. She was afraid of +solitude. In the bustle of a boarding-house, in fault-finding, in all +annoyances, there was life, with no time to muse upon the soul's fall of +the year; but in the empty rooms, the quiet yard, the hushed piano, +there was a mocking stillness, the companion of death. She hated death. +It had a cold grip, and old Lewson had proved that there was no breaking +away from it. To her it was not generous Nature's humane leveler; it was +vicious Nature giving one's enemies an opportunity to exult. She +declared that if all her enemies were dead, she would not oppose death. +A woman in the neighborhood had sworn that she would drag a dead cat +over her grave; she was a spiteful wretch, and she would do it. Years +ago there had been a fight over a line<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> fence, and Mrs. Stuvic had won +the suit, hence the only proper thing to do was to wait till she was +buried and then to drag a dead cat over her grave. A terrible triumph! +The old woman shuddered as she spoke of it. She had a premonition that +she was to die in the winter, alone, at night, while creaking wagons +passed the gate and stiff-jointed dogs bayed the frozen moon. They would +cut away the snow and bury her—and then at night would come the woman +with the dead cat. She could see it all, the frozen clods, the pine +head-board with her name in pencil upon it, the cat left lying there, +the woman returning home to gloat in the light of a warm room. Upon a +bench on the veranda Milford sat and listened and did not smile, and +accepting his grimness as a sympathy, her hard eye grew moist, a +flint-stone wet with dew. She asked him if he had an idea as to who that +woman was; and when he answered that he did not, she said:</p> + +<p>"Nobody but my own sister. Now, you keep still. And that's the reason I +was so quick to let you have that farm almost at your own terms. I was +afraid some one would rent it for her. Oh, but you may call me unnatural +and all that sort of thing, but you don't know what I've had to contend +with. My first husband died a drunkard. Many a time I've hauled him home +almost frozen. He'd leave me without a bite to eat and spend every cent +of money he had. And many a time I told him I'd pour whiskey on him +after he was dead—and I did—yes, you bet! I said, 'Now go soak in it +throughout eternity.' Ah, Lord, one person don't know how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> another one +lives. I've had nothin' but trouble, trouble—all the time trouble."</p> + +<p>"We all have our troubles, madam."</p> + +<p>"Hush your mouth. You don't know what troubles are. Think of havin' to +fight with your own blood kin, your own children. Think of your own +daughter slanderin' you, and your own son havin' you arrested!"</p> + +<p>"I expect you've had a pretty hard life, Mrs. Stuvic."</p> + +<p>"Hard life! That don't tell half of it."</p> + +<p>"And yet you want to stay here longer."</p> + +<p>"What! Do you reckon I want to give Nan a chance to drag that cat over +my grave?"</p> + +<p>"Let her drag it. What's the difference? You won't know anything about +it."</p> + +<p>"But how do I know that? And I'd be in a pretty fix, havin' her drag a +cat over me and not bein' able to help myself. No, I want to wait till +she dies, the unnatural thing."</p> + +<p>"Can't you make it up with her?"</p> + +<p>"Make it up with her? Do you reckon I want to make it up with her? Do +you reckon I'd stoop that much?"</p> + +<p>"You call her unnatural. Don't you think you may be just a little +unnatural yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Now, look here, if you're goin' to take her part you march yourself off +this place."</p> + +<p>"I'm not taking her part. I don't know her."</p> + +<p>"Then keep still. Don't you think you'd better come over to the house +and stay durin' the winter?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, I'd rather stay over there."</p> + +<p>"All by yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Bob'll be there."</p> + +<p>"Land's sakes, are you goin' to keep him all winter? I thought you had +more sense than to put on such lugs. But you've got to come over here +every night or two. I don't want to die here alone."</p> + +<p>A boy on a horse rode up to the gate. The old woman went out to him. She +came running back, with her limp hands flapping in the air. Her sister +had sent for her. She begged Milford to hitch up the pony as fast as he +could. She said that he must drive her over there.</p> + +<p>On the road she did not speak a word, except to give directions. She sat +stiff and grim. Persons whom they passed stared at her, straight, +squaw-like, with a hawk feather standing sharp in her hat. They drew up +at a small white house in the woods. Yellow leaves were falling about +it. A peacock spread the harsh alarm of their arrival. The old woman +commanded Milford to get out and to wait for her. She did not know how +long she might stay. A woman opened the door for them. Mrs. Stuvic +recognized her as the mother of the girl from the poor-house. Milford +sat down in the dreary passage-way. Mrs. Stuvic followed the woman into +a room. The lines about her mouth tightened as she caught sight of her +sister, on a bed in a corner. She drew up a chair, and sat down by the +bedside.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Nan?"</p> + +<p>The sister slowly turned upon her pillow and looked at her with gaunt +eyes and open mouth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dying," she whispered in her hard breathing.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you be?"</p> + +<p>"I know it—taken last night—doctor's gone. Couldn't do anythin'. Worn +out, Mary Ann."</p> + +<p>"No, Nan, you just think you be. Look at me. I've had twice as much +trouble as you."</p> + +<p>The dying woman slowly shook her head. "It's been all trouble—nothin' +but trouble. Mary Ann, you know the threat I made."</p> + +<p>"Don't now—keep still."</p> + +<p>"Well, the Lord has taken that out of my heart. Do you think—think you +could kiss me, Mary Ann?"</p> + +<p>Milford heard the old woman sob, and he walked out beneath the trees +where the leaves were falling. The day grew yellow, and brown, and the +stars came out, and still he waited, with the leaves falling slowly in +the quiet air. The insects sang, and sitting with his back against a +tree, he fell asleep. Something touched him. He looked up with a start, +and there stood Mrs. Stuvic, her feather sharp in the moonlight. "Drive +me home," she said.</p> + +<p>On the way home she did not speak, but when the buggy drew up at the +gate she said: "If there's a God—and there must be one—I thank him for +the tears I've shed this night. Now, you keep still. Turn the pony loose +and go home. Don't come into the house. I don't want to see anybody. +Keep all my affairs to yourself and you'll make no mistake."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + +<h3>THE CUP AND THE SLIP.</h3> + + +<p>In a pelting rain a funeral passed along the road, and a man who had no +time for such affairs, hastening with his milk-cans to the railway +station, caught sight of Mrs. Stuvic's face, pressed against the +water-streaked glass of a carriage window. He lashed his team to make up +for loss of time in turning aside; he wondered at the mysterious tie +that could have drawn her out, not indeed on such a day, but at all, for +he knew her to be at enmity's edge with neighbors and frosty to every +relative. At the station he met Milford, walking up and down beneath the +shed. Milford remembered him, Steve Hardy, the man who had given him a +"lift" from the station on the day of his coming into the neighborhood. +And to his head-shakings, winks, nods, wise mutterings, the new-comer +owed much of his reputation for mystery.</p> + +<p>"I see your old boss off down the road there goin' to a funeral," said +Hardy.</p> + +<p>"Did you? It's one of the privileges granted by the constitution of the +State."</p> + +<p>"Yes. They don't have to take out license to go to funerals, or I don't +guess the old woman would er went. Guess all her boarders have gone, or +I don't s'pose she'd found the time. Who's dead?"</p> + +<p>"Her sister, I believe."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That so? Then I wonder more than ever. Believe I did hear somethin' +about it t'uther evenin', but I was milkin' at the time and I didn't +think that she was the old woman's sister. They must have made it up."</p> + +<p>"Made what up?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the row they had over the line-fence a good while ago. Somebody +told me you wanted to buy some calves."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'd like to get a few good ones."</p> + +<p>"Well, mine are as good as ever stood on four feet. I guess you mean to +settle here permanently. Well, folks that have stirred around a good bit +tell me that there ain't a purtier place on the earth. I've had my house +full all summer, and there ain't been a word of complaint. Goin' out my +way?"</p> + +<p>"Not till after the mail comes."</p> + +<p>The post office was in a weather-beaten cottage, in the midst of an +apple orchard, just across the railway tracks; and of late Milford had +become well-acquainted with the postmaster, calling on him early and +sitting with him till the last pouch had been thrown off for the day. +But not a word had he received from Gunhild. He strove to console +himself with the thought that it was too soon, that she had not gone to +the country, but a consolation that comes with strife, consoles but +poorly. The train came, the mail-pouch was thrown off, and he followed +the postmaster to the house, stood close in anxiety till the letters +were all put into the pigeon-holes, and then turned sadly away. He took +his course through the wet grass, across the fields. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> halted at the +ditch, and in the rain and the gathering dark stood there to think, amid +the wind-tangled stems and the rain-shattered blooms of the wild +sunflowers. He stepped down into the ditch, deep with mire, and the grim +humor of his nickname in the West, "Hell-in-the-Mud," fell upon him like +a cowboy's rope. He drew himself out, threw down a handful of grass that +he had pulled up by the roots, and strode on, through the green slop of +the low land. As he turned in at the gate, to pass through the hickory +grove, he saw the light of a lantern moving about in Mrs. Stuvic's +barnyard. He spoke to a dog that came scampering to meet him; the light +shot upward, came toward him; and he recognized the old woman, +bareheaded, with the rain pattering on her gray hair.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Bill? Now what are you pokin' round in this rain for? Come +over to the house and get your supper."</p> + +<p>"No, I must go home."</p> + +<p>"Home? Why, you haven't got any home and never will have."</p> + +<p>"That's true," he agreed.</p> + +<p>"Not till you go where we took my old sister to-day," she said, letting +the lantern down till her face was in the dark. "And just to think it +should have come as it did, while I was talkin' about her! I'd been +thinkin' about her all day, and I knowed somethin' was goin' to happen. +But come on in the house, and don't be standin' here in the rain like a +fool. Get away, Jack. I do think he's got less sense than any dog I ever +set eyes on. Now, if you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> do put your muddy feet on me I'll cut your +throat. You just dare to do it, you triflin' whelp! Are you goin' to the +house with me, Bill?"</p> + +<p>"You're not afraid, are you?" he asked, now that her fear of the dead +cat was gone.</p> + +<p>"Now you keep still. I'm not afraid of the devil himself. But this is +just the sort of a night for me to die. Yes, I'll tell you that."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were to die on a cold night, with the wagons creaking +along the road."</p> + +<p>"That was the plan, but it has been changed. Now I'm goin' to die when +the ground is soaked. You don't know Peterson, do you? Well, no matter. +But he lived just down the road there not long ago, and a meaner +neighbor never breathed. I caught him drivin' his turkeys into my tomato +patch. Yes. And his well went dry, and he come to my house and wanted to +haul off water in barrels. Yes. And I wouldn't let him. And what did he +say? He said he'd see my grave full of water. And now just think of what +I've had to contend with all my life. Think of me lyin' there in the +water, with that feller prancin' around!"</p> + +<p>"But the chances are that you'll outlive him, Mrs. Stuvic."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you bet, that's what I'm goin' to do," she said, her voice strong +with encouragement. "I'll outlive the whole pack of 'em, and then mebbe +they'll let me alone. Well, I'm not goin' to stand here any longer like +a fool."</p> + +<p>When Milford reached home he found the Professor warm in a disquisition +delivered to the hired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> man. He hopped up from his chair and seized +Milford by the hand. "Ha," said he, "I was just telling our friend here +that exact memory is not the vital part of true culture. It is the +absorption of the idea rather than the catching of the words."</p> + +<p>"Sit down," said Milford. "But what does he know about it? Woman is his +culture, and he's not only caught her idea, but has learned her by +heart."</p> + +<p>"Now you're trottin'," spoke the hired man. "If there's anything in a +woman's nature that I don't know, why, it must have come to her in the +last hour or so."</p> + +<p>The Professor crossed his legs and slowly nodded his head. "You ask," +said he, speaking to Milford, "what does he know about it? A man never +knows unless he learns. Even to the ignorant, wisdom may be music. The +man whose mind has been dried and hardened in the field of harsh toil, +may sip the delicious luxury, the god-flavored juice of knowledge. +Wisdom cannot be concealed. You may lock it in an iron box, but it will +seep through."</p> + +<p>Upon entering the room Milford had seen the hired man put aside an +earthen ewer, and now he knew that cider had been brought from the +cellar.</p> + +<p>"Nearly all utterances upon knowledge, human nature or life, are trite," +the learned man proceeded. "And so are herbs and flowers trite, the +stars in the heavens common, but once in a while there appears from the +ground a shoot so new that botany marvels, a star in the sky so strange +that astronomers gape in the wonder of a discovery. And I, humble as the +lowly earth, may sprout a new thought."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I was going to suggest more cider," said Milford, "but I guess you've +had enough."</p> + +<p>"Ha! enough and not too much. To pause at the line, a virtue; to cross +but an inch, a vice. Do you know of a publication that would buy a paper +upon the decadence of the modern drama? I have one in my head, a hot and +withering blast of fierce contempt."</p> + +<p>"The last play I saw was a hummer," said the hired man. "There was a +whole lot of dancin' and cavortin' before they got down to it, fellers +givin' each other gags, and women singin' songs. But when they got down +to her she was there—a sort of a Mormon play; and they had a bed that +reached clear across the platform."</p> + +<p>"Melpomene rioting as a bawd," declared the Professor. "I could +elucidate if permitted one more russet cup, drawn from the oak." He +looked at Milford. "One more, and let it be russet."</p> + +<p>"No more to-night, Professor," said Milford. "I am going to get a bite +to eat pretty soon. Won't you join me?"</p> + +<p>"To eat, to clog the stomach, to stupefy the nimble brain, that fine +machinery of wheels invisible and pulleys more delicate than the +silkworm's dream of a gauzy thread! No, I will not eat, but I will +drink—one more russet cup."</p> + +<p>"Just one," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"I spoke one, one in true sincerity; and if I squeeze the gentle hand of +hospitality till the bones crack, and ask for more—give it to me," he +roared, throwing his head back.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Bob, bring him a cup of cider," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"This has been an off day with me," the Professor remarked, following +the hired man with his eyes. "The mill shut down to undergo repairs, and +I am a boy out of school." He listened, as if straining his ears to +catch the babble of the cider. "I sat about the house, with a dry book, +to feel the contrast of the rain; I sniffed the dust of an Elizabethan's +pedantry—and then my wife and my daughter began on me. I beggared +myself and got them a sofa, and now they want a set of chairs. I made +with them a treaty of peace, and, barbarians, they violated it. What a +reproach it is to woman to see a man think! She must stir him up, +scatter his faculties."</p> + +<p>"Not all women," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Ha! About how many women have you married, sir?"</p> + +<p>Mitchell came in with the cider, and the Professor reached for it. He +placed the cup on the table and gazed at the bursting beads as if +counting them. He drank, smacked his mouth, and no whip-lash could have +popped keener; he gazed down into the cup, regretting the fall of the +yellow tide. He leaned back, with his eyes turned upward, and breathed +long; he whistled softly as if to coax back a thought that had escaped +him; he leaned forward, drained the cup, and sadly put it down, shoving +it far across the table. "Just within arm's reach of a temptation to ask +for more," he said, thrusting forth his hand. "But I will not. My word +has been given. Yes, about how many women have you married?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, just about one fewer than yourself if you've married only one," +Milford answered.</p> + +<p>The Professor's eyes snapped. "Was that word fewer contemplated or was +it an accident? Do you study to find such niceties of distinction?"</p> + +<p>"I don't give a snap for niceties of distinction, Professor; I don't +know them, in fact. They might have been hammered into my head once, but +they were jolted out by bucking horses. Sometimes we forced them out. We +didn't want to be hampered. I knew a rancher, an Oxford man, who +wilfully clawed the polish off his tongue. He wanted to live down among +men, he said, and the rougher the better. One day I saw him get down off +his horse to kick a book that some one had dropped in the trail."</p> + +<p>"I don't blame him for kicking a book that he might find out there," +said the Professor.</p> + +<p>"You don't? A scholar lost an Æschylus on the prairie, and some one +might have kicked it."</p> + +<p>"Ha! I draw you on apace. We'll discuss the ancient goat-song next."</p> + +<p>"No, I'd rather talk about sheep and calves. I know more about them. I +never look at a learned man that I don't fancy him weary of his burden. +Think of a professor's moldy pack, dead languages, dried thought——"</p> + +<p>"Hold on, my dear friend. I was a professor, and I had no such pack. +Like the modern peddler, I carried the wants of to-day. But, after all, +I agree with you in the main. I know that the average doctor of learning +is not able to see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> virtue in the new. To him old platitude is of more +value than new vigor. And with one more cup I could——"</p> + +<p>"No more."</p> + +<p>"Not in the interest of clear elucidation?"</p> + +<p>"Not in any interest that you can fish up. I don't want you to go home +drunk."</p> + +<p>"Drunk! Why, my dear boy, I hadn't thought of such a thing; it hasn't +entered my head. You mistake me, and I am here to refute it. A man needs +something beyond his needs; there are times when we look for something +aside from our own natural forces; there are wants which nature was ages +in supplying. Look at tobacco. The Greeks missed it as they sat deep in +the discussion of their philosophy. They did not know what it was they +were missing, but they knew it was something and I know it was tobacco. +But be that as it may. You have said that I shall have no more, and I +bow." He twisted his beard and seemed to force into himself the spirit +of resignation. They heard a tramping on the veranda. A voice called +Mitchell. He went to the door and opened it, told some one to come in, +and then stepped out. There came a mumbling, and then a profane +exclamation. Mitchell stepped back into the room and slammed the door. +He sat down and leaned over with his arms upon his knees. The Professor +looked at him, still twisting his beard. Milford asked him what had +happened. He looked up with a sour snarl. "It's all off," he said.</p> + +<p>"What's all off?" Milford asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's all off with me, that's what. My girl's married."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean it!" the Professor cried.</p> + +<p>"Then what the devil do I want to say it for? She married about two +hours ago, so Miles Brent tells me, and he was there—married a feller +named Hogan. I see him around there once or twice, but don't think +anythin' of it. Well, I'll swear. I thought I knowed her, and I did know +her at one time, but she changed. Blamed if you can tell how soon +they'll change on you. Hogan—an old widower."</p> + +<p>"I know him," said Milford. "He milks fifteen cows. His milk caught +her."</p> + +<p>"I hate to think that," Mitchell drawled, "but I'll have to. Yes, sir, +hauled off in a milk-wagon. And she owns a piece of land worth fifty +dollars an acre."</p> + +<p>"She must have wanted milk to wash off her freckles," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Bill—don't make light of a man's trouble. She's a big loss to +me, I tell you."</p> + +<p>"But, Bob, you didn't really love her, now, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Bill, there's different sorts of love. I loved her in my way, as much +as any man ever loved a woman, I reckon, in his way. I put my faith in +her, and that was goin' a good ways. Humph! I can't hardly believe it, +but I know it's so."</p> + +<p>"When the heart is rent," said the Professor, twisting his beard to aid +his thought; "when the heart is rent——"</p> + +<p>"It's the failure of the rent—on the land, that gets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> Bob," Milford +broke in. "His heart has nothing to do with it."</p> + +<p>"Bill, I thought you had more sympathy than——"</p> + +<p>"Sympathy for a man who has failed to beat a woman out of her property? +Of course, I wish you'd succeeded, but I'm not going to console you +because you haven't. I'm a scoundrel all right enough, but a scoundrel +has his limits."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Bill, but somebody may give you the slip."</p> + +<p>"That's true enough, but my heart and not my pocket will do the +grieving. I haven't any time to give to a man's pocket grief."</p> + +<p>"Wait till you have a real grief," said the Professor. "Wait till +ignorance comes heavy of hoof down your hallway to tell you that your +years of study are but a waste-land, covered with briars; to cut you +with the blue steel of a chilling smile, and to turn you out of an +institution that you hold dear. That's grief." He leaned forward upon +the table, with his head on his arms.</p> + +<p>"You had no right to go to see her," said Milford. "You had no divorce."</p> + +<p>"But I could've got one, couldn't I? Are they so blamed scarce that a +man can't get 'em? Well, let it go."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I must go," said the Professor, getting up. "Is it raining yet? I +slipped off between showers without an umbrella."</p> + +<p>"Sorry I haven't one," Milford replied. "Yes, it's raining. Take that +coat up there. It may protect you some."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Thank you. I shall avail myself of your offer."</p> + +<p>He put on the coat, bade them good-night, and set out for home. The road +was muddy and he walked close to the fence. Once he strode into a patch +of briars. "The waste land of my years of study," he said. He shied when +he saw the light in his window, and he cleared his throat and braced +himself. His wife and Miss Catherine, hearing him upon the veranda, sat +down upon the floor, as if they had no chairs. He stepped in, looked at +them, and sadly shook his head.</p> + +<p>"I would be polite enough to choose a finer insinuation," said he. +"There may be virtue in a hint—there may be all sorts of spice in it, +but there's nothing but insult in squatting around on the floor like +this. I don't know how to choose words for the occasion. I will simply +bid you good-night."</p> + +<p>He heard them talking after he went to bed. He sighed out his distemper +and fell asleep. In the morning he found that he had hung Milford's coat +upside down. A paper had fallen from the pocket. He took it up, opened +it, and with a start he recognized his medical treatise.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + +<h3>FROM HER.</h3> + + +<p>Early the next morning Milford was leading a horse out of the barn when +he met the Professor at the door. For a moment the scholar stood puffing +the short breath of his haste; he had not picked his way, for his +clothes were bespattered with mud, as if in his eagerness he had split +the middle of the road.</p> + +<p>"You're out early," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"But not early enough. One who has been deceived is always too late. Mr. +Milford, I have been grossly imposed upon by—by your generosity, sir. +That paper, the medical treatise. It fell out of your coat. I found it +this morning. Can you explain?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I haven't time just now," said Milford, preparing to mount the +horse. "I've got to ride over to Hardy's to see about some calves. We'll +talk about the treatise some other time."</p> + +<p>"No, sir," the Professor replied, holding up his hand. "We must talk +about it now. You were to take that paper to the Doctor's wife. You +brought me the money for it. You said that she liked it. And this +morning it fell out of the pocket of your coat."</p> + +<p>"It does seem a little strange, I admit."</p> + +<p>"Strange! No, it is not strange. It is a generous outrage. I don't know +what else to call it. I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> been tricked, laughed at in the pocket of +your treacherous coat."</p> + +<p>Milford mounted the horse. The Professor took hold of the bridle rein. +"You must not leave me thus. I have been left too long to simper and +smirk in self-cajolery, with an inward swell to think that my pen had +paid my insurance. You must explain."</p> + +<p>"All right, I'll tell you. I thought well of your paper, you understand, +but when I got over to the house and faced the woman, my nerve failed +me, and I couldn't ask her to buy it."</p> + +<p>"But you praised it," said the Professor, with a gulp, still holding the +bridle reins.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and it was all right, but I lost my nerve. I had conjured up a +sort of speech to make to her, but it slipped me, and then my nerve +failed. It wasn't my fault, for I liked the paper all right enough, you +understand."</p> + +<p>"But you brought the money. How about that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I had a few dollars, and I borrowed the rest from the old woman. +But that needn't worry you, for I paid her back when I sold my oats. +It's all right."</p> + +<p>"Needn't worry me! Why, you fail to catch the spirit of my distress. +Your act leaves me in debt. Why did you do it, Milford? Why?"</p> + +<p>Milford looked down at him, his eyes half closed. "You'd acknowledged +yourself a thief. You said you'd stolen a dog."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," the Professor agreed, glancing about. "I know, but what +of that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, it made you my brother. And don't you think a man ought to help +his brother in distress? Don't let it worry you. Don't think about it. +If you can ever pay it back, all right. If you can't, it's still all +right, so there you are. Let me go."</p> + +<p>"Milford, in the idiom of the day, I am not a dead beat. I do not like +the term, and I employ it only out of necessity. Beat is well enough, +but dead is lacking in the significance of natural growth. I hope that +you give me credit for seriousness. I am not a flippant man; I am +innately solemn, knowing that the only progressive force in the human +family is earnestness. But sometimes in the hour of my heaviest +solemnity I may appear light; and why? In the hope that I may deceive my +own heart into a few moments of forgetful levity. And you say that you +are going over to look at some calves. Now that gives me an idea. I can +fatten two calves very nicely—could keep them all winter and get a very +good price for them in the spring. I abhor debt, but do you think you +could make arrangements for me to get two, or three? Do you think you +could?"</p> + +<p>"The man I am to deal with is close and I don't believe he'll give +credit."</p> + +<p>"Very likely he might object. I didn't know, however, but that you might +make some arrangements with him, and let me settle with you afterward. +Such things have been done in trade, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I'm not prepared to do it now, Professor."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, you know best. But I want you to understand that the money you +advanced me shall be repaid."</p> + +<p>"I understand that."</p> + +<p>"But you must understand it thoroughly. I am afraid that you do not +grasp the full significance of it."</p> + +<p>"I think I do. Well, I must go."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and so must I. One of these days, Milford, you will think well of +me."</p> + +<p>"I do now, Professor. You are my brother."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I have strengths that you——"</p> + +<p>"Your brother on account of your weaknesses, Professor."</p> + +<p>"I would rather that our kinship rested upon other qualities, but we +will not discuss the question, since we both of us are in a hurry. +Therefore, I bid you good-morning and wish you good luck."</p> + +<p>When Milford returned at noontime the hired man gave him a letter. It +was from Gunhild. In a Michigan community she had found, not a field, +indeed, but a garden-patch for her labors. "The pay is very small, but +it is an encouragement," she said. "It has been hard to find a place, +and I was willing to accept almost anything. The people are not awake to +art; to them life demands something sterner, and I have come to believe +that everything but a necessity is a waste of time, but then what I do +is a necessity, and I find my excuse to myself in that. I had a letter +from Mrs. Goodwin a few days ago, and I also met a woman who had seen +her recently. She has made another discovery, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> musical genius on the +piano, a girl whom she found in a mission school. I take this to mean +that she has put me aside, for with her the new blots out the old. And +this makes my success as a teacher all the more——" Here she had erased +several words and substituted "needful." "She will never remind me of my +obligation, I am sure, but I cannot forget it. I feel that she was +disappointed in me, but it is not my fault, for I all the time told her +that I was not to be great. I will make no false modesty to hide that I +have thought of you many times. I dreamed of you in English. This may +not mean much to you, but I nearly always dream in Norwegian, and +persons who speak English to me when I am awake, speak Norwegian in my +dreams. But you did not. I thought I saw you standing in a ditch and the +rain was falling, and it was night. I ran to you, and you spoke the name +they used to call you in the West. It was the ditch you helped me over. +I had been thinking about it in the day, and was sorry because the +sunflowers must be all dead. I had to send some money to my uncle. He +lost his place on the street-car, but they have taken him back. He has +five children and cannot afford to be idle. Oh, that was a beautiful +summer out there. Do you remember the night at the house where they said +the spirits are? I can see you now, kneeling on the floor. I will be +bold and say that I wanted to kneel beside you. Will there ever come +another summer like that? It was my first rest. But I cannot hope for +another soon. Mrs. Goodwin will not want me to come out with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> her next +year. She will have with her the musical genius then. But we shall see +each other. I feel that you spoke the truth when you said that +all—something could not keep us apart. I board at the house of a man +who had this season a large potato field. I went out when the digging +time was at hand, and behind the plow I saw a woman from Norway and I +wanted to help her, but it would not do for these people to know that I +have ever worked in a field. The teacher of the public school spoke of +me as the graceful young woman, and I thought that it might please you +to know that he had said it."</p> + +<p>"Please me?" said Milford, talking aloud to himself. "Blast his +impudence, what right——"</p> + +<p>"Anything wrong, Bill?" Mitchell inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, everything's all right."</p> + +<p>"Letter from her, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. She's in Michigan."</p> + +<p>"I used to go with a woman from Michigan," said the hired man. "And I +thought I'd like to marry her, but I found out she'd been married twice, +and I didn't feel like bein' no third choice."</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose you'd object to that," Milford replied, folding his +letter.</p> + +<p>"Well, I may be more particular than most fellers, but it sorter stuck +in my crop. I guess it's a good plan to let all the women alone. For +awhile at least," he added. "The best of 'em don't bring a man nothin' +but trouble. What does your girl say in her letter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing much. She's teaching."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess she's a pretty good sort of a woman. Are you goin' to bring her +here?"</p> + +<p>"Not if I know myself."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but a feller that keeps on foolin' with a woman gits so after a +while he don't know himself. What's your object in not wantin' to bring +her here?"</p> + +<p>"I've got something else to do first. She may not want me after I've +told her—the truth."</p> + +<p>"Then don't do it, Bill. Talk to a woman all you're a mind to, but don't +tell her any more truth than you can help. It gives her the upper hand +of you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Bob, that I'd be warranted in accepting your theories +about woman."</p> + +<p>"Mebbe not, but I'm the chap that's had the experience."</p> + +<p>Milford replied in effect that experience does not always make us wise. +It sometimes tends to weaken rather than to make us strong. It might +make freshness stale; it is a thief that steals enthusiasm; it enjoins +caution at the wrong time. He took out his letter and read it again, +studying the form of each word. The hired man said that he had received +many a letter, had read them over and over, but that did not alter the +fact that the writer thereof had proved false to him. "I don't want to +pile up trash in no man's path," he said, "but I want to give it out +strong that it's a mighty hard matter for a woman to be true even to +herself. Look how I've been treated."</p> + +<p>Milford did not reply. He studied his letter, and the words, "wanted to +kneel beside you," gathered a melody, and were sweet music to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + +<h3>REMEMBERED HIS OBLIGATION.</h3> + + +<p>Now and then there was a blustery day, but good weather remained till +late in November. But the ground tightened with the cold, and a +snow-whirlwind came from the Northwest. Nowhere had the autumn been +fuller of color, but a hiss and a snarl had buried it all beneath the +crackly white of winter. Windmills creaked in the fierce blast, sucking +smoky water from the ground, to gush, to drip, and then to hang from the +spout a frozen beard. Black-capped milkmen, with flaps drawn down over +ears, sat upon their wagons, appearing in their garb as if the hangman +had rigged them up for a final journey. To look upon the frozen fields +and to stand in the groaning woods it did not seem possible that there +had ever been a day of lazy heat and nodding bloom. At tightening +midnight the flinty lake cracked with a running shriek. The dawn was a +gray shudder, the sunrise a shiver of pale red, and then a black cloud +blot-out and more snow. A day that promised to be good-tempered often +ended in a fury; and sometimes, when it seemed that nature could not be +more harsh, the wind would soften, a thaw come with rain, and then +another freeze with a snow-storm fiercer than before. Sometimes thunder +growled, a lost mood of summer in the upper air; sometimes a lagging +autumn bird was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> whirled through the freezing wind. And with it all the +Yankee man was full of spirit, almost happy, happy as the Yankee well +can be. His cool nature demanded a fight with the cold. The ears of all +his ancestors had been frozen in bleak New England. His religion had +been nurtured in a snow-drift, and unlike the breath of a freezing +rabbit, did not melt an inch of it. In the howl of a cutting wind he +heard a psalm to his vengeful Deity. And to-day the winter reminds him +that his army was victorious in the summer South. It was a fight of +Winter against Summer.</p> + +<p>Milford had no idle time upon his hands. When not at work in the barn he +was trading among the farmers. They called him sharp, and this was a +compliment. He had beaten Steve Hardy in a trade, and this was praise. +An honest sort of a fellow is an eyesore to the genuine Yankee. He must +have other virtues—thrift. There was but one drawback in the Rollins +community: The land was too productive. It yielded a good living without +the full exercise of the Yankee quality. The Yankee is happiest when +strongly opposed. His religion was sweetest when he had to pray with one +eye open, sighting at the enemy, the dragoon sent by the king to break +up the Conventicle, or the American Indian come to burn the +meeting-house.</p> + +<p>The winter had brought out Milford's strong points. He doubled his money +on a flock of sheep. Fathers spoke of it to their daughters. Mothers +asked their sons if they were acquainted with Mr. Milford. Mrs. Stuvic +was proud of him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I knowed what I was doin'," she said one night, sitting near the +hot stove in Milford's dining-room. "You can't fool me. I know lots, I +tell you. Do you know the Bunker girl? Well, she was at my house +yesterday, and she talked like she knowed you but wanted to know you +better. Now put down that newspaper and talk to me. Do you know her?"</p> + +<p>"I think I've met her," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"You think you have. Well, a woman has taken mighty little hold of a man +when he thinks he's met her. She'd make you a good wife; yes, you bet!"</p> + +<p>"I don't want a wife, good or bad."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you keep still. What the deuce are you workin' for? You know +there's a woman somewhere waitin' for you."</p> + +<p>"And if there is, why should I want to marry the Bunker girl?"</p> + +<p>"Now listen at him! Why, I didn't know but you'd got tired of foolin' +with the other one. Who is she? That tall critter that was out here? +Well, I don't know about her, with her art. Art the cat's foot! You'd +better marry a woman that knows how to do housework. She may be all +right for summer, but you'd better marry a woman for winter. Don't you +think so, Bob?"</p> + +<p>"For winter and summer, I should think," said the hired man. "But I +married one for winter, and she went away along in July. But I guess I +could get her again."</p> + +<p>"And he's just about fool enough to take her," Milford spoke up. "Why, +she'd run away again."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't think that, Bill. I guess she's got more sense now."</p> + +<p>"At any rate, she's got more sense than you," said the old woman. "She +had sense enough to run away and you didn't. But I hear that somebody +else run away, Bill. I heard that you left a wife out West."</p> + +<p>"You heard a lie, madam," Milford replied. "But that's not hard to hear. +A man may be ever so deaf, and sometimes might hear a lie."</p> + +<p>"That's gospel, Mrs. Stuvic," said the hired man. "I was out at the deaf +and dumb asylum one time, and they had a boy shut up for lyin' with his +fingers."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you come tellin' me about it for? Do you s'pose I care? I +wasn't talkin' about lyin'. I was talkin' about some folks not havin' +much sense, and you was right at the top of the pot, I'll tell you that. +You haven't got sense enough to catch a good woman."</p> + +<p>"I might not have from your standpoint, but I have from mine. I don't +believe I'd want the woman you'd call good. She'd think it was her duty +to keep a man stirred up all the time; she'd make him work himself to +death."</p> + +<p>"Well," she snapped, "a woman's better off every time she makes a man +work himself to death, I'll tell you that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, from your standpoint," drawled the hired man, opening the stove +door to get a light for his pipe. "But I wouldn't kill myself for no +woman, would you, Bill?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know that I'm called on to do it," Milford replied. "Give me +that," he added, reaching for the bit of blazing paper which the hired +man was about to put out. He lighted his pipe, threw the burning paper +on the stove, and idly looked at the cinder waving in the draft. "As +unsteadfast as Mitchell's love," he said.</p> + +<p>"What is?" the hired man inquired. "That thing, there? No, that's a +woman's love. See, it's blowed away."</p> + +<p>"Such nonsense!" said the old woman. "How can you keep it up so long? +I'd get sick to death of it. Woman's love, woman's love—I never was as +tired of hearing of a thing. I hear it all summer, and now you're +talkin' it. Conscience alive, how the wind blows! It makes me think of +old Lewson, the cold made him shiver so. I've knowed him to sit up at +night with his fire out and his teeth chatterin', waitin' for the +spirits to come. One night I asked him who he expected, and he said his +wife, and I told him she was a fool to come out such a night, and he +flung his spirit book at me, and the Dutch girl kindled the fire with it +the next mornin'. Poor old feller! I passed his grave the other day, all +heaped up with snow; and it made me shake so to think I'd be lyin' there +sometime, with the snow fallin' an' the cows mooin' down the road. But +I'm not gone yet, Bill. Do you understand that? I say I'm not gone yet, +and many a one of 'em 'll be hauled off before I do go. Yes, you bet! +I'll outlive all of you; the last one of you."</p> + +<p>"I hope so, Mrs. Stuvic," said Milford.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You do? Thank you for the compliment."</p> + +<p>"But you've got to go sometime," Mitchell spoke up; and she frowned upon +him.</p> + +<p>"You shut your mouth, now," she snapped. "I wan't talkin' to you. I'll +go when I get ready, and it's none of your business. But ain't it +awful," she added, speaking to Milford, "that we've got to go? And we +don't know where and don't know what'll happen to us afterwards. Lord, +Lord, such a world! If we could only be dead for a while to see what +it's like; but to think forever and ever, all the summers and all the +winters to come! Dead, all the time dead. I wake up in the night, and +think about it and wish I'd never been born. Sometimes I look at my hand +and say, 'Yes, the flesh has got to drop off.' Not long ago a doctor +stopped at my house one night with a skeleton. He was a young fool, and +had bought it somewhere. He jerked the thing around like it was a +jumpin'-jack; and I said to myself, 'You'd do me the same way, you +scoundrel.' And I told him to drive away from there as fast as he could. +And old Lewson's failin' to come back has made it worse. I wonder if he +did lie to me. I wonder if he could come back. And if he could, why +didn't he? I'd always been kind to him; took him when his own flesh and +blood turned him out. Then what made him lie to me? I don't care so much +about his not comin' back; all I want is to know that he could have +come. That would satisfy me. And why couldn't he let me know that much? +Bill, you lump of mud, don't you think about dyin'?"</p> + +<p>"You're coming pretty close to my name, old lady.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> Yes, I think about +it, but death will have to take care of itself. I haven't the time to +worry with it just at present."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the first thing you know you can't worry about it."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll be all right; won't need to worry."</p> + +<p>She reached over and gripped his wrist. "Ah, that's it; that's just it. +How do you know that you won't need to worry? What proof have you got? +Tell me, if you've got any." She jerked him. "Tell me. Don't you see how +I'm sufferin'? If you know anythin', tell me. I want the truth. That's +all I want, the truth."</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything, Mrs. Stuvic. I can only hope."</p> + +<p>She turned loose his wrist and shoved herself back further from him. +"You can only hope. You mean that you're only a fool. That's what you +mean. What do you want to hope for? Why don't you find out? What's all +the smart men doin' that they don't find out? Talk to me about the world +gettin' wiser! Oh, they can invent their machines and all that, but why +don't they find out the truth?"</p> + +<p>"Some of the wisest of them think they have found out long ago," Milford +replied. "Don't you see the churches? Somebody must believe that the +truth is known or there wouldn't be so many churches."</p> + +<p>"Churches," she sneered, "yes, churches. But I don't believe in 'em, and +you don't neither. Same old thing all the time; believe, believe, +nothin' but believe. Well, I'm goin' home. I see you don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> know any +more than I do. We're all a pack of fools."</p> + +<p>Mitchell said that he was going her way, and she told him to come on. At +the door going out they met the Professor coming in. The old woman fell +back as if she had seen a ghost. She declared that for a moment he was +Old Lewson, just as he looked on the day when last he urged her to +accept his faith. She sat down to recover breath. The Professor assured +her that he meant no harm. Any resemblance that he might bear to the +living or the dead was wholly unintentional on his part. She told him to +shut up, that he was a fool. He acknowledged it with a bow, and said +that this fact also was wholly unintentional.</p> + +<p>"You pretend to be so smart," she said. "Yes, but why don't you know the +truth?"</p> + +<p>"I should know it, madam, were I to hear it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you get out! You don't know half the time what you're talkin' +about. What's to become of us all? That's what I want to know."</p> + +<p>The Professor sat down. The hired man stood at the door. Milford leaned +back in his chair. The old woman looked at the learned man and repeated +her question. He began to say something about philosophy, and she broke +in with a contemptuous snort and the cat's foot. She did not want +philosophy; she wanted the truth. The Professor attempted to persuade +her that philosophy was the truth, and she fluttered like a hen. It was +nothing of the sort; it was ignorance put in big words. What she wanted +was the truth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But if you won't listen I can't give it to you," said the Professor. +"You cut me off at the beginning. Now, you say that what you want is the +truth. You demand an answer to your question of what is to become of us +all, after this life. You want me to answer it in a word, when the books +that have been written on the subject would sink the biggest ship +afloat."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and you don't know anythin' about it. What I want to know is, can +we come back? Answer me that."</p> + +<p>"Madam, in my opinion——"</p> + +<p>"I don't give a snap for your opinion. Come on, Bob Mitchell, if you're +goin' with me." She bustled out of the room, leaving the Professor with +his finger-tips pressed together and his head erect. "As odd a fish as +was ever hooked," said he. "She must be afraid that she is going to +die."</p> + +<p>"It's on her mind all the time," said Milford. "She wants to believe +something, she doesn't know exactly what."</p> + +<p>"The pitiable case of one beyond the reach of philosophy. But in her +struggling to land herself somewhere she keeps her interest in herself +keenly alive. There is always some sort of hope as long as we are +interested in ourselves. Trite, I admit that it is trite, but it is a +fact that we should always bear in mind, endeavoring constantly to keep +alive an interest in self so that we may not fail in the obligations +which we owe to others. But well may the old woman ask what is to become +of us all. I wash my hands of the spiritual part," he said, going +through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> the motion of washing; "I can shift the responsibilities here, +or at least feel that I can, but—bodily, bodily, what's to become of us +bodily?"</p> + +<p>"When such riddles are asked of me, I'm always ready to give them up," +said Milford. "I'm not asking myself any questions."</p> + +<p>"Ha! you don't need to," the Professor declared. "You bristle yourself +against the world, and in the fight that ensues you are not always +beaten. I am. Your nerve is sound. Mine has been broken many a time, +tied together again, and is therefore weak. Leaving age out of the +question, there is scarcely any comparison between our equipments for +the fight. You have a habit of silence that enforces respect for your +talk. I am talkative, and a talkative man utters many an unheeded truth. +At times you are almost grim, and this makes your good humor the +brighter. I am always pleasant, and as a consequence fail to hold the +interest of the company. In overalls you can assert a sort of dignity, +or rather what the thoughtless would take for dignity, but which I know +to be a gruffism—permit the expression—a gruffism toned down. But +I—even in a dress-suit I could not keep my dignity from cutting a +prejudicial caper. The trouble is that my acquaintances will not take me +seriously. I once heard a man say, 'Yes, as light as one of Dolihide's +worries.' It angers me to feel that outwardly I am a caricature of my +inner self. Not even my wife knows how serious I am, or what a tragedy +life is to me. But, my dear fellow, my oddities are crystal, and I will +not thread them off in spun glass.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> I came over for a different purpose. +The money with which you so generously deceived me—I have raised it; it +was a fearful scuffle, but I seized the obstacles that danced about me +and threw them down, one by one. Here is the money."</p> + +<p>He took out a number of bank notes with a scattering of silver, and +slowly spread them on the table, carefully placing one upon the other. +"I said that I would pay you, and here's the money,—down to the forty +cents."</p> + +<p>"I am much abliged to you, Professor. No hurry, though, you understand."</p> + +<p>"There has been no hurry, my dear friend. No one can ever know what a +struggle it was to—to raise it at this time, this needful time." He +leaned back, and with lips tightly sealed together, and with head slowly +nodding, gazed at the pile of dirty paper. "This needful time, thou +filth," he said.</p> + +<p>"Now, if you need it," Milford spoke up quickly, "take it. I'm not +pressed. You can pay it some other time."</p> + +<p>"My life insurance will be due again within three days."</p> + +<p>"Then go ahead and pay it."</p> + +<p>The Professor continued to gaze at the bank notes. "Must I again crease +you into uncleanly folds—I am a thousand times your debtor, my dear +boy. I could spin fine, but I won't. I could pronounce a curse upon +these pieces of motley paper, but I won't. I cannot afford to. In their +mire they lie between me and my family's future misery. I don't know +what your ultimate aim is in this life, but I know that you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> are a +Christian. I don't know what you have done, but it is what a man does +now that makes him a Christian. Well, solemn under the weight of a +renewed obligation, I will return to my own fireside. Before touching +this money again, let me shake your hand."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + +<h3>NOT THE OLD SUMMER.</h3> + + +<p>At no time during the lagging winter did the Professor mention his +renewed obligation, but one night in April he came over with a tune in +his voice, a laugh in his eye, and paid the debt. The bank notes were +not ragged and soiled as if they had been snatched in the dust of a +fierce scuffle; they were new, and as bright as if they had come as a +gracious legacy. And, indeed, they had. A dead "lot," lying in the +neighborhood of a punctured "boom" in Kansas, fluttered with the +returning life of speculative resurrection. A new railway needed the +site for a station. An agent found the Professor, reluctantly offered +him half as much as the property was worth, and he gladly accepted it. +For a day his household was happy in the possession of a set of new +chairs, a rug and a center table, but soon fell to brooding over the +lonesome absence of dining-room linen and new paper on the walls. The +Professor had hoped that he might be able to buy a bookcase for his room +upstairs, but realizing that it was impossible to fill up the rat hole +of want in the floor below, did not dare to speak of his longing. But he +was sharper than his family had suspected. With a wink he told Milford +that he had, in the stealthy hour of midnight, put by enough to enable +him to do a little speculating. Milford had set him an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> example of +thrift. There was money to be made in buying and selling and he was +going to buy and sell. All that he had needed was an example. A mind +that could weigh a heavy problem could turn a trifle to account. The +ancient philosophers, counseling contentment of the mind, had money +loaned out at interest. It was no wonder that they could be contented. +And, after all, they held the right idea of life, money first and +philosophy afterward. He would go back to first principles; would deal +in cattle, the origin of money. The bicycle might hurt the horse, but it +could not hurt the steer. There was no invention to take the place of a +beefsteak. Some men might argue that it was difficult if not impossible +for a failure to become a success, but all astonishing success had come +out of previous failure. Without failure the world could never have +realized one of its most precious virtues—perseverance. Society placed +a premium upon rascality. He could be a rascal. At one time he had +thought it wise to lie down with his friend, death; but now he felt it +expedient to stand up with his enemy, life.</p> + +<p>Milford did not take issue with his newly adopted creed. He brought up a +jug of cider and they drank to it. The Professor had an option on four +bullocks, and they drunk to them. And then filling his cup, the reformed +scholar said:</p> + +<p>"To our dear enemies, the ladies."</p> + +<p>"No," Milford replied. He had that day received a letter. "I won't drink +to them as our enemies."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, as our endeared mistakes."</p> + +<p>"No, they are not mistakes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ha! you put me to for a term. What shall we call them?"</p> + +<p>"The honest helpers of dishonest men," said Milford.</p> + +<p>The Professor frowned. "I cannot subscribe to a sentiment so ruffled and +furbelowed with—shall I say tawdry flounces? Permit me; I have said it. +My dear fellow, in this humid air of American sentimentalism, we are not +permitted to talk rationally about woman. Some man is always ready to +hop up and declare that his mother is a woman. Of course she is. Has any +one ever disputed the fact? His mother is a woman, and so in fact we +hope is the person whom he expects to marry—I say expects to marry, for +it is usually an unmarried man who hops up. I would not abolish +marriage, you understand. I would—well, I would insist upon both +parties having a little more sense. I would enact a law, compelling a +man, before being granted a license, to show a certificate of financial +success. I would inquire into the amount of money he had realized on his +last lot of bullocks."</p> + +<p>"You'd have a fine world."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't I? There would be no scuffling for life insurance, no +harassment over wall-paper, no daughters to pity a father's failure. If +I could roll up the surface of the sea into a megaphone, I would shout a +caution to the unmarried world."</p> + +<p>"What would you shout, Professor?"</p> + +<p>"Shut your eyes on love. If you have no money, throw your license into +the fire and turn the preacher out at the back door. That is what I +would shout."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There are millions of mistakes," said Milford. "But there are many +happy hits. Your marriage——"</p> + +<p>"Thoroughly happy, my dear fellow—as a marriage, you understand. I +wouldn't undo it for the world. My people are everything to me. They are +too much to me, hence my everlasting worry over life insurance. But it +is not possible for the average woman to understand, and nearly every +woman is the average woman. But my worries are over now. I am to start +out anew. Don't think ill of me for not having opened my eyes sooner. An +eye is like a chestnut bur; it doesn't open till it is ripe, and up to +this time mine has been green in ignorance. Don't call me eccentric. I +would rather be called a thief than eccentric. What is eccentricity but +a loose joint, a flaw in the machinery? I am not so much out of the +common. The trouble is that I show effects more plainly perhaps than +other men. But I am serious. I am not light. To the plodder, I have been +chimerical, but I will shame him by becoming a plodder, by out-plodding +him. For the first time in many months, I return to my home as much as +half satisfied with myself."</p> + +<p>A few days later Milford saw him in the road, popping a whip behind four +bullocks. Not long afterward, at a farmyard sale, he was seen haggling +for a small flock of sheep. He bought a cow of Mrs. Stuvic. He urged her +to come to terms. He was a man of business, and had no time for words.</p> + +<p>"Well, now you have woke up," she said. "Who would thought it? They +might as well go out to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> graveyard now and tell the rest of 'em it's +time to get up. Gracious alive, take the cow. I don't want to stand in +the way of a man that's just woke up. Have you quit the mill?"</p> + +<p>"No, but since I woke up I do my work in about two-thirds of the time."</p> + +<p>"Good for you! Oh, that feller Milford has stirred up the whole +country."</p> + +<p>"And when he gets through with that farm, madam, I'll take it. I don't +think he'll stay a great while longer."</p> + +<p>"Why, has he said anythin' about goin' away?"</p> + +<p>"No, but with my shrewd eye I can see that he's getting restless. But I +have no time to talk to you."</p> + +<p>The season for breaking land and planting came, slowly through the +stubborn and lingering cold, and Milford bent himself to the putting in +of a large crop. His letters from Gunhild were rambling, but +affectionate. She was now in Indiana. Her work in Michigan had been but +partly successful. "I'm studying so that after awhile I may teach a +regular school," she said. "But there is so much to learn and the +examination is very hard. I met a man the other day who said that he +knew you. He tried to sell you a book. He said that you were very hard +to deal with. I told him that you must know what you wanted. Mr. +Blakemore was here three days ago, to look at some land. He came to the +house where I board, and said that he is making much money. There was a +church sociable and he wanted me to go with him, but I refused. He said +that I never would succeed as long as I was so particular.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> And I felt +that you would rather I be particular than to succeed. I do not want any +success that you would not like. His little boy has been sick, but is +well now. They are not coming out to Rollins in the summer. They are +going further away to a more fashionable place. Mrs. Goodwin writes to +me yet, so she has not forgotten me. She says that her discovery is +marvelous. She asked about you. She believes that you will be rich one +of these days. I told her in my letter that I did not want to think so, +but I know that she cannot understand. She will not know that I do not +want you to get so far away from me. But you would not. It is a dream +with me to come out there once again. I never have seen a place more +beautiful. The woods here are not so full of the sketches that no one +can draw, and there are no lakes scattered everywhere. I may come for +one week during the vacation."</p> + +<p>June was cool, but July was hot, and with the change in the weather came +Mrs. Goodwin and her discovery, a pale girl with long hands. The +"discoverer" sent for Milford. She was graciously pleased to meet him +again. "I am sorry we can't call back the old summer," she said, giving +him her hand. "But the old summers never come back." She introduced him +to the musical genius, Miss Swartz. Her pale lips parted in a white +smile. Milford asked her to play. Mrs. Goodwin shrugged, glanced at the +piano and said: "I can't let her touch that thing." If Mrs. Stuvic had +heard this remark she would have bundled them off down the road. But she +was out in the orchard at scolding heat with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> a retired policeman, sent +by the city to board with her during the summer. Miss Swartz languidly +waved herself out of the room, and Mrs. Goodwin, motioning Milford to a +seat beside her on the sofa, commanded him to tell her all about +himself.</p> + +<p>"I haven't anything of interest to tell."</p> + +<p>"Ah, the same close mouth. You hear from her quite often, I suppose. A +strong woman. Don't you think so? I urged her to stay with me, but she +thought it her duty to go away. Do you expect to reside here +permanently? Gunhild likes this place so much. She's perfectly charmed +with it."</p> + +<p>"Which question shall I answer first?"</p> + +<p>"Did I ask more than one? I haven't seen you in so long that I must +rattle on at a fearful rate."</p> + +<p>"I don't expect to live here permanently."</p> + +<p>"Not if she should request it?"</p> + +<p>"She will not request it. Our arrangements are not yet quite clear +enough for such requests."</p> + +<p>"Indeed? I fancied that it was all understood."</p> + +<p>"It is, in a way, but we must have a very serious talk before there can +be—be——"</p> + +<p>"Anything definite," she suggested. "Yes, I understand. But this serious +talk? How can that change your plans or have any bearing upon them?"</p> + +<p>"That is for her to decide. I had a certain object in view before she +entered into any of my calculations."</p> + +<p>"Dear me, we are as far apart as ever. You must know that I dote upon +that girl, and that consequently I am interested in you. But I needn't +tell you this. You know it already."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I am grateful."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But you will give me no hint as to what your object is. Don't you think +I ought to know it?"</p> + +<p>"She doesn't know it yet."</p> + +<p>"But you must have told her something."</p> + +<p>"A little, and she didn't urge me to tell her more."</p> + +<p>"Do I deserve that reproach? I hope not. Really, she and you present a +singular romance."</p> + +<p>"It is not a romance; it's only a sort of understanding."</p> + +<p>"But you say there is no perfect understanding. Oh, a sort of romance. I +see. Well, you will make her a good husband and consequently a good +living."</p> + +<p>A vision of the Professor as he had sat amid his shifting toasts to +woman arose before Milford. "Good husband, I hope; and a good living, I +am determined," he said.</p> + +<p>"You couldn't have made a better reply, Mr. Milford, if you had pondered +a week. You are quite happy at times. It was voted last summer that you +had good blood, and you must have it still," she added with a smile. +"Although you call yourself a Westerner, you are really from the East, I +believe."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but to live in the West soon rubs out the marks of all sections."</p> + +<p>"True enough, I suppose. But do you expect to go back there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I don't know how long I'll stay. I may run out and come +straight back. I can't tell. It all depends."</p> + +<p>"Upon Gunhild's decision?"</p> + +<p>"Not wholly. The fact is I can't explain myself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Oh, I could," he +added, observing her wondering eye, "but I serve my purpose best by——"</p> + +<p>"By showing that you have no confidence in me," she suggested. "No," she +hastened to continue, "you have none. You have shown it all along. But +why should I ask you to have confidence? We met by accident at a +farm-house, during a holiday, at a time when real friendships are rarely +formed. Impressed by the ephemeral season, we recognize that we too are +but fleeting, with changing likes and dislikes, the prejudices and +predilections of an hour. Of course, my affection for Gunhild is +lasting. Her interests and mine walk far down the road together, hand in +hand. I could not expect you to see this; you saw her and all else stood +about her in a dim radius. I was a shadow, dim or dark, as the day was +light or heavy, the same as Mrs. Blakemore. My station entitled me to +respect, and you gave it. But you did not feel that my love for the +young woman entitled me to something closer than respect. You are no +common man, Mr. Milford. Your face is a Vandyke conception of a spirit +of adventure. You are a strength repenting a weakness; there are flaws +in you, and yet I could wish that I were the mother of such a son."</p> + +<p>"Don't," said Milford, touching her hand; "please don't. I honor you; I +could get down on my knees to you. You're not a shadow. There is nothing +in a shadow that makes a man bow his head in reverence. But I can't tell +you."</p> + +<p>"Is it so very bad, Mr. Milford?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is worse than very bad."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> + +<p>He moved further from her, and looked at her as if he expected her to +move also, but she did not. "There is redemption," she said; "moral +redemption."</p> + +<p>"There must be a material redemption," he replied.</p> + +<p>"God demands that it must be spiritual," she said.</p> + +<p>"But man insists that it must be earthly," he persisted.</p> + +<p>"The gospel was tenderest coming from the mouth of one who had been +infamous."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "but then the blood of the Virgin's Son was still red +upon the earth, and in the heart of the changing world that blood atoned +for everything. It is different now. Man may forgive, but he wants the +dollar."</p> + +<p>"And he's goin' to get it unless you tie his hands behind him," said +Mrs. Stuvic, stepping into the room. "Yes, you bet! Why don't you have +that girl play the pian, Mrs.—I can't recollect your name to save my +life."</p> + +<p>"She didn't bring her music," Mrs. Goodwin replied, and the old woman +"whiffed." "Music the cat's foot! Don't she know a tune? Tell her to +give me a jig and I'll dance it."</p> + +<p>"She won't play, Mrs. Stuvic. It's of no use to ask her."</p> + +<p>"She won't? Well, then, she needn't. Mebbe she don't like my pian. But I +want to tell you that it's as good as anybody's. I give a hundred and +fifty dollars and a colt for it, and the carpenter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> painted it fresh +this spring. But if she don't want to play, she needn't. What's become +of that woman—out here last year? Can't think of her name, but her +husband moped about and ended up by callin' your young woman a peach. +What's become of her?"</p> + +<p>"She's gone to the seashore, I understand," Mrs. Goodwin answered, +looking slyly at Milford.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she has? Well, let her go, there wan't no string tied to her. Bill, +I want you to drive over to Antioch for me if you've got the time, and +you never appear to be busy when there's women around. They've got the +pony hitched up."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Goodwin drove with him. Near the old brick house they met the +Professor, leading a calf.</p> + +<p>He snatched off his hat, and the calf snatched him off his feet, but he +scrambled up, tied the rope to a fence-post, and was then ready to do +the polite thing, bowing and brushing himself. He had been on the keen +jump, he said, catching drift-wood in the commercial whirlpool, but he +had often thought of Mrs. Goodwin, one of the noblest of her honored +sex. "I have turned from the sylvan paths where wild roses nod," said +he, "turned into the dusty highway of trade, but I have not forgotten +the roses, madam," he declared with a bow. "They come as a sweet +reminiscence of my brighter but less useful days. Permit me to extend to +you——"</p> + +<p>The calf broke loose and went scampering down the road, a twinkling of +white hoofs in the black dust; and with a shout the Professor took to +his heels in pursuit.</p> + +<p>"Something always happens to that man's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> dignity," said Mrs. Goodwin, +laughing as they drove on. "Is he ever serious?"</p> + +<p>"He may not appear so, but he's serious now," Milford answered, looking +back at him, galloping down the road.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't we have helped him in some way?" she asked, now that it was +too late even to think about it.</p> + +<p>"We might have shouted advice after him, but that was about all we could +have done," said Milford. "He'll catch him down there. Somebody'll head +him off."</p> + +<p>As they drove through the village street, Milford pointed out the place +wherein he had trained himself to meet the man Dorsey. He had worked +during weeks that one minute might be a victory. She told him that it +was the appearance of having a dauntless spirit that at first aroused in +her an interest in him. She detested a quarrel, but she liked a man who +would fight. Her father had been a captain in the navy, and he had +taught her to believe that a courageous knave was more to be admired +than an honest man without nerve. Of course this was an extreme view, +the exaggerated policy of a fighting man, and though she did not accept +it in full, yet it had strongly impressed her. She did not see how a man +could be an American and not be brave. And frankness was a part of +bravery. At least it ought to be. Milford was brave, but not frank +enough, with her. On the way home she returned to the subject. There was +a charm in the confidence of a brave man. It was strange that he had not +told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> Gunhild more about himself. He surely loved her. She was capable +of inspiring the deepest love. Of course she had seen him in the West, +but had merely seen him, and his life was still a sealed book to her. +Oh, no, she had not complained. That was not her nature.</p> + +<p>"She'll know enough one of these days," said Milford. "Perhaps too +much," he added.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose we must wait," she replied. "And I hope you'll not +think my curiosity idle. All interest is curiosity, more or less, but +all interest is not idle. So you don't know how long you'll remain +here?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't staked off the time."</p> + +<p>She sighed. She said that the summer had been a disappointment. She had +not been happy since Gunhild left her. Her going away must have been a +wild notion, caught from Milford. There was no necessity for teaching, +till at least she had studied longer herself. She had not been +disappointed in her development, not wholly. Her outcome as a woman had +more than offset her failure as an artist. And she found that it was the +woman whom she had liked, rather than the artist. With her new care it +was different. She was all musician, a genius with whims and caprices, a +moody companion, not capable of inspiring friendship. She had taken her +as a duty, a duty which she felt that she owed to the musical world.</p> + +<p>"I am going home to-morrow," she said, when Milford helped her down at +Mrs. Stuvic's gate. "I don't like these new people. They are coarse."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<p>"To-morrow I have business across the country," said Milford. "I may not +see you again."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry. Will you do me a favor? When you write to Gunhild tell her +that she must come back to me. I need her."</p> + +<p>"I will tell her that you have said so."</p> + +<p>"That won't be much of a favor, but tell her. And I want you to promise +one thing—that you will come to see me, when you are married."</p> + +<p>"I'll promise that gladly, and keep it. I am very fond of you."</p> + +<p>"Are you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You said you would like to be the mother of such a son. That was +the kindest thing ever said to me. It makes you my mother."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, falteringly, as he took her hand. "You will understand +me better in the time to come. Good-bye."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + +<h3>DREAMED OF THE ANGELUS.</h3> + + +<p>Gunhild wrote that she could not spare the money to come out, and to +Milford the summer fell flat and lay spiritless on the ground. He begged +her to let him bear the expense, and for this she scolded him. But she +enlivened him with a suggestion. Near the first of October she would +visit her uncle in the city. "It will make me glad to have you come to +see me then," she said. "And I shall feel that you have held the summer +and brought it with you. Mrs. Goodwin wrote to me as soon as she came +home. She said much about you, and I really think she likes you deeply. +I have been astonished at her. I did not think that she would care for +me more when her house I left, but she does. She is a good woman. Oh, +you remember the Miss Swartz who was with her. Well, she wanted to keep +company with a fiddler in a variety show, and Mrs. Goodwin objected, and +that was not the end of it. The girl went out at night late and married +the fiddler, and Mrs. Goodwin has seen her no more."</p> + +<p>There was a lament for the swift flight of the sunny days, by the woman +on the bicycle and the man casting his line into the lake, but to +Milford the time was slow. He remembered having seen a lame cow limping +down the road, with the sluggish hours dragging at her feet, and he told +the hired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> man that she had come back again to vex him. But time was +never so slow that it did not pass, and one evening the sun went down +beyond the fading edge of September. Milford waited two days longer and +then went to the city; and just out of the fields, how confusing was the +noise and the sight of scattering crowds that were never scattered! But +his sense of the world soon came back to him. He had been moneyless in +many a town, hanging about the gambler's table, feeding upon the chip +tossed by the exultant winner. The woods, the cattle, the green and +purple pictures, musings with his head in the grass, had taken the +gamester's wild leap out of his blood, but he knew that he dared not go +near the vice. He found the Norwegian's cottage, in the western part of +town, and he stood at the door listening before he rang the bell. A +little girl came out with a tin pail, the gripman's dinner. As she +opened the door he saw Gunhild. She dropped a boy's jacket, which she +had evidently been mending, and came bounding to meet him, with her +welcome bursting out in a laugh. Her hands were warm, and her eyes full +of happiness. There was no put-on and no disguises in their meeting. It +was two destinies touching again, destinies that were to become as one. +She led him into the neat little parlor, gave him a rocking-chair, and +talked of her gladness at his coming, standing for a moment in front of +a glass to put back into place a wayward wisp of hair. Their meeting had +not been cool. She drew up a chair beside him and they talked about the +country, of the haunted house, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> tree that had hoisted a vine +like an umbrella. He told her that he had come through the fields to the +station, and had stood in the ditch among the wild sunflowers. He had +plucked some for her, but they were dead and had fallen to pieces.</p> + +<p>They went out into the park, not far away, and sat amid the scenes of a +changing season, the leaves falling about them. It was an odd courtship, +an indefinite engagement. There was no attempt at sentiment, no time +when either one felt that something tender must be said, but between +them there was a wholesome understanding of the heart. They were not +living a love story. She was not clothed in the glamour-raiment of +love's ethereal fancy, not sigh-fanned by the breath of reverential +melancholy. Her hand did not feel like the velvet paw of a kitten; it +was a hand that had toiled; and though easier days may come, the mark of +labor can never be erased from the palm.</p> + +<p>She left him on the rustic seat, and hastened across the sward to pluck +a bloom that had been sheltered from the early frost, and he looked at +her, a gladness tingling in his nerves. How trim she was in her dark +gown! She looked back at him, pointed at a policeman standing off among +the trees, and imitated the walk of a sneak-thief. She returned +laughing, and pinning the flower on his coat, stood to gaze upon him as +if he were in bloom, and said in an accent that always reminded him of a +banjo's lower tones, "See, the frost has not killed you." Simple, +playful, loving, strong, were the words to express an estimate of +her—the healthy refinement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> of an honest heart, and modest because she +had seen immodesty. She possessed a knowledge that was a better +safeguard than mere innocence, and her passion illumined her virtue.</p> + +<p>They strolled among the trees, society's forest; they listened co the +ducks and the geese, the city's barnyard.</p> + +<p>"Would you rather live in the country?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I would not rather teach art there," she laughed.</p> + +<p>"It must be very hard."</p> + +<p>"It is very stupid."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose the farmers take to it any too kindly."</p> + +<p>"No, they often ask me why I do not draw comic as they see in the +newspapers."</p> + +<p>"They must like to see themselves buying gold bricks."</p> + +<p>She did not understand him, and he explained that the honest farmer +believing that a fortune was coming down the road to meet him, was the +prey of sharp swindlers who prowled about through the country. Steve +Hardy, one of the shrewdest men in the community, once had bought an +express package filled with worthless paper. It was a case of "honesty" +trying to beat the three-shell man at his own game. Ignorance always +credits itself with shrewdness. Industry is no sure sign of honesty. +"Worked like a thief" has become a saying. Smiling at his philosophy, +she said that he never could have learned it in a school.</p> + +<p>"No," he replied. "In the school we are taught to believe in the true, +the beautiful, and the good;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> but in life we find that the true as we +learned it is often false, the beautiful painted, and the good bad."</p> + +<p>"I would not have you think that," she said. "The beautiful is not +always painted." She stooped and picked up a maple leaf, blushed with +the rudeness of the frost. "This is not painted, and it is beautiful. It +was the cold that brought out its color. You must not be a—what would +you call it?"</p> + +<p>"Cynic?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You must not be that. It is an acknowledgment of failure."</p> + +<p>He took her hand, and they walked on among the trees. "You talk like a +virtue translated from a foreign tongue," he said. He called her a +heathen grace. She protested. She was a Christian, so devout that she +would have hung her head in the potato field had she heard the ringing +of the angelus. They saw a woman on a wheel, and he dropped her hand. +The woman waved at them, jumped off and came to meet them, smiling. It +was Mrs. Blakemore. "Oh, I am so surprised and delighted," she said, +shaking hands. "Why, how unexpected! You must come home with me. I don't +live far from here. Bobbie will be delighted to see you. He refuses to +go to school, and we won't force him, he is so delicate. How well you +look, Gunhild! And you too, Mr. Milford." The man would have yielded +against his will; the woman saw this and declined the invitation. She +said that they had an engagement to dine. Milford looked at her in +surprise. He thought of the frost-tinted leaf. Mrs. Blakemore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> was +sorry—she said. It would be such a disappointment to Bobbie. George was +out of town. She bade them an effusive good-bye, mounted her wheel, +pulling at her short skirts, and glided away.</p> + +<p>"Engagement to dine?" said Milford, as they turned from watching Mrs. +Blakemore.</p> + +<p>"Yes, at the little bakery over by the edge of the park."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see. But I thought you wanted to go with her."</p> + +<p>"I knew that you did not," she replied.</p> + +<p>"But did you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I would not spoil a beautiful day," she answered.</p> + +<p>They dined at the bakery, flattering themselves that the girl who waited +on them did not know that they were lovers. They did not see her wink at +her fat mother behind the showcase.</p> + +<p>"I haven't asked you how long I may stay," said Milford, as they walked +out.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid to come to that," she replied. "I must leave on the train +to-night. I have only waited for you."</p> + +<p>"When do you think I can see you again?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know. I will write."</p> + +<p>"Remember that nothing can keep us apart—nothing but yourself."</p> + +<p>"Then we shall not be kept apart. But why do you leave it with me?"</p> + +<p>"Because you are to decide when I tell you something."</p> + +<p>"Do you put it off because it is so hard to tell?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, because I'm not ready yet. I will be when I close out with the old +woman."</p> + +<p>"I would like to know now."</p> + +<p>"It would be plucking green fruit," he replied.</p> + +<p>"You know best," she said, trustfully.</p> + +<p>The air grew chilly when the sun had set, and they returned to the +cottage to sit alone in the parlor. They heard the kindly tones of the +gripman talking to his children. There was a melodeon in the room, and +she played a Norwegian hymn. The barefoot youngsters scampered in the +passage-way.</p> + +<p>"Let them come in," he said.</p> + +<p>"No, they are undressed for bed," she replied. It was the evening romp, +a tired mother's trial-time before the hour of rest when all are asleep.</p> + +<p>He went to the railway station with her; walked that they might be +longer on the road, looked at cottages, gazed up at flats, planning for +the future. In the deep secrecy of a crowd he kissed her good-bye, and +then went forth to stroll about the town. He stood listening to the +weird song of a salvation woman; he dropped a nickel into a rich +beggar's hat; he saw the grief-stricken newsboy weeping in a doorway, +and believing that he was a liar, gave him a penny; he went to sleep in +a hotel and dreamed that he saw a woman with bowed head listening to the +angelus.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + +<h3>THE BIGGEST LIAR ON EARTH.</h3> + + +<p>When Milford reached Rollins he found the Professor at the station +waiting for him. "I will go home with you," he said. "I have something +of grave importance to communicate." Steve Hardy offered them a ride in +his milk wagon, but they set out on foot, at the suggestion of the +Professor, who said that in this way he could better lead up to his +subject. Milford was silent till they had proceeded some distance down +the lane, and then he asked if anything had gone wrong. The Professor +answered that everything had gone wrong, but as he had not yet led up to +his subject, he continued to walk on, brooding, sighing like the wind in +the rushes. They turned the corner, went down a slope, and at the +bottom, the scholar took Milford by the arm apparently to conduct him to +the subject, which presumably was waiting on the top of the hill.</p> + +<p>"We are coming to it, my dear Milford. It is elusive, but we are almost +to it. Now, here we are," he said, with evident relief, as they reached +the top of the hill.</p> + +<p>"All right, go ahead," said Milford. "Shoot it off."</p> + +<p>"Idiomatic," breathed the Professor. "And, sir, to follow it with idiom, +I am up against it."</p> + +<p>"Up against what?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Failure, grinning and teeth-chattering failure. You have seen me turn +defiantly upon my false training, and woo the ways of the world. You +have seen me buy; you have seen me snatched off my feet by a yearling +calf, in the presence of a dignified woman; you have heard me pop my +whip at the crack of day. And what has it all come to? Failure. I know +that this sounds funny to you, but it is my way, and I find it useless +to attempt another. Now, to the point: On all my speculations I have +lost money. My bargains turned out to be disasters. I sold at a +sacrifice, and am still in debt. I don't know why I should not have +succeeded. My object was as worthy as yours. But I failed."</p> + +<p>"That may be, but you're nearly as well off as you were before you made +the attempt. You haven't so much to grieve over after all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I have. My life insurance. But for that I could snap my +fingers at defeat."</p> + +<p>"When's the money due?"</p> + +<p>"Day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I can let you have it. What are you trying to do?"</p> + +<p>"I am grabbing after your hand."</p> + +<p>"Let it alone."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear fellow, your kindness overwhelms me."</p> + +<p>"Then don't take the money."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I shall; I am more than willing to be overwhelmed. Ha! I had +set my heart on you, and was afraid that you might not be back in time. +Thank the Lord for the man who comes in time. All others are a blotch +upon the face of the earth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> Last night was a torture to me. More than +once my wife called out, 'You give me the fidgets with your walking up +and down. I want to sleep.' Sleep! There was no sleep for me. I saw the +sun rise, and I said to myself, 'If that man don't come you won't shine +for me to-day.' But you came, God bless you. Well, I'll turn off here +and go by home, to show them that I am not crushed into the earth, and +will see you at your house this evening."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Stuvic saw Milford, and came out to the barnyard gate. She wanted +to ask him if he had seen any of her boarders, but had forgotten their +names. Some one had told her that Milford expected soon to quit the +place, and she asked him why he had not told her.</p> + +<p>"I've told you as much as I have any one," said he. "I don't expect to +go before next spring."</p> + +<p>"Well, we may all be dead and buried before then," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Yes, all except you."</p> + +<p>"You bet! Why, three men have been here lately wantin' to insure my +life. Did you see that girl? But I know you did. Why don't you buy the +farm and bring her out here? You could soon pay for it."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather live in the West."</p> + +<p>"The cat's foot! You don't know what you want. Was that the Professor +man with you over there on the hill? I couldn't see very well. He's +crazy. Yes, he is, as crazy as a loon, and I don't want him round here. +He might set the house afire. Don't you think he's crazy?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, he's one of the peculiar many that go to make up the world."</p> + +<p>"He's one of the peculiar many that go to make up an asylum, I'll tell +you that. Everybody says he's crazy. Come in and set down a while."</p> + +<p>"No, I must go home."</p> + +<p>"You're in a mighty hurry now, ain't you? Crazy as a loon, and you ain't +fur behind him. Go on with you."</p> + +<p>At night the Professor came whistling out of the dark. The sky was +moonless, but brighter, he said, than the sunrise contemplated by him in +the hour of his dejection. Once more had he proved himself a failure, +but consoled himself with the assertion, made over and over again, that +it required a peculiar sharpness to deal in cattle. There ought to be +other ways by which a man might earn money; there were other ways, and +he would find one of them. He believed that he could write a book and +sell it himself, by subscription. He knew a man who had done this, and +now there were stone gate-posts in front of his house. Talk was the +necessary equipment, and he could talk. The agent ought to be the echo +of the wisdom in the book, and to echo had been his fault in the +practical world. But echo was worthy of its hire.</p> + +<p>"Why, let me tell you what I can do," he said, his face beaming. "I can +take a book on Babylon, on Jerusalem, Nineveh, Jericho, the Red Sea, +home, mother, and make a volume that the farmers will snap at. Easy! +Why, slipping on the ice is hard compared with it. What do you think of +it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Looks all right," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Well, anything that looks all right is all right in the book business. +I thought of it coming over to-night, and instantly the road was +carpeted. Yes, sir, it is all right. I have the necessary books, and all +I have to do is to begin work at once. No, there is perhaps a +preliminary—a certain amount of correspondence with publishers. Chicago +is the subscription book center of the country. Oh, it is the plainest +sort of sailing."</p> + +<p>Milford gave him the life insurance money, and he smiled as he tucked it +into his pocket. "This is my last worry," said he. "I have had hopes, +mere hopes, you understand, but now I am confident. It is the +speculative uncertainty that brings out a hope. But I am too old now to +find pleasure in the intoxication of hope. I want assurance, and I have +it. Well, I would like to sit longer and talk to you, but I must get to +work."</p> + +<p>Milford walked a part of the way home with him, congratulating him upon +his happy idea. It was an inspiration. They wondered why it had not come +sooner. But inspirations have their own time, and we should be thankful +for their coming rather than to carp at their lateness.</p> + +<p>As Milford was returning to the house, he heard the hired man singing at +his work in the barn. He had been away from home, and had come back +rather late for one who had stock to look after. When he came into the +house Milford asked the cause of his delay.</p> + +<p>"Well, I got tangled up in an affair and had to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> see it through. I've +been up to Antioch, and I see your prize-fighter there. He threw a drink +into me because I worked for you, he said. He says you can get along +anywhere with your dukes. Find everythin' in town all right?"</p> + +<p>"Had a great time, walking about in the park. Shortest day I ever +spent."</p> + +<p>"Haven't fixed any date or anythin' of the sort, I guess."</p> + +<p>"We haven't said anything, but it's understood. We caught each other +looking at houses and flats, and had to laugh."</p> + +<p>"I guess that's about as good a way as any. But love as a general thing +is full of a good deal of talk. Well, my affairs of that sort are over +now."</p> + +<p>"So the freckled woman has cured you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I forgot her in no time. Fact is I never did love but one woman +and I married her."</p> + +<p>"What's become of her?"</p> + +<p>"She's up at Antioch."</p> + +<p>"Did you see her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, and we made it up. We're goin' to live together. I understood +from what you said t'other day that you wan't goin' to keep this place +another year, so I told the old woman that I wanted it. Yes, we are +goin' to take a fresh start. You said once that I ought to have cut her +throat, but I can't look at it in that light. After all, she's as good +as I am."</p> + +<p>"A devilish sight better," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"I guess you're right. So you wouldn't cut her throat?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not if I were you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't exactly understand the difference, but it's all right. I got to +thinkin' this way about it, Bill. Most any woman will take a man back, +and I said to myself that it oughtn't to be so one-sided as that. I +heard she was at Antioch, at her aunt's house, so I goes up there. She +was a-sweepin' when I stepped up. And she dropped the broom. I says, +'Don't be in a hurry,' and she stopped and looked at me. 'And is this +you, Bob?' she says. I told her it was, so far as I knowed. She come up +close to me and said I'd been workin' too hard. She took hold of my hand +and turned it loose quick, lookin' like she wanted to cry. I says, +'Don't turn me loose. I've been thinkin' about you.' 'About such a thing +as I am?' she says. Then I told her she was a heap better than me, and +she cried. She said she never would have run away, but she drank some +wine with one of her aunt's boarders. I told her all that made no +difference now if she could promise not to run away again. And then she +grabbed me, Bill; she grabbed me round the neck, and that was the way we +made up."</p> + +<p>"Go and bring her here," said Milford, turning his eyes from the light +of the lamp. "It makes no difference what I said last week or the week +before, or at any time. You bring her here, and take the best room. I'll +take your old bunk in there. Hitch up and go after her now. Wait a +minute. Take this and buy some dishes, and curtains for the windows. +That isn't enough. Take this twenty," he added, giving him a bank note. +"Good as you are! Why, she's worth both of us. Any heart that wants<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> to +be forgiven is one of God's hearts. Drive fast, and the stores won't be +shut up. They keep open later Saturday nights. What are you staring at? +I can see the poor thing now, clinging to you."</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment, Bill. I guess she'll be afraid to come. I told her what +you said."</p> + +<p>"You did? Then go and tell her that I'm the biggest liar on earth. Wait! +I'll go with you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + +<h3>THE OLD STORY.</h3> + + +<p>A black-eyed little woman was installed in the house. Accepting her +husband's story and her own statement, her life had not been wholly +respectable, but she brought refinement into the animal cage. A new +carpet lay soft and bright upon the floor. The windows, now curtained, +no longer looked like browless eyes staring into cold vacancy. The +dinner table lost the air and the appearance of a feed trough. Not in +words nor in sighs, but in a hundred ways, she proved the sincerity of +her repentance.</p> + +<p>The autumn lasted a long time, and wise men said that it would end in a +snarl, and it did, for winter came in a night, like a pack of howling +wolves. But their cold teeth did not bite through the walls of Milford's +sitting-room. Black eyes had looked after the work of a carpenter and a +paper-hanger.</p> + +<p>The Professor, thin-clad as he was, welcomed the change in the weather. +The cold that made a dog scamper forced a new energy upon the mind. He +had found that his book required the aid of rain and snow and every +trick that the air could turn. One day he could write better because a +tree in front of his window had been stripped of its leaves. One night +the rattle of sleet graced a period that he had bungled under the +energy-lacking influence of a full moon. This was but a prideful +conceit, for the fact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> was that, like nearly every impractical man, he +wrote with great ease at all times. Milford had faith in the outcome of +his work, and often visited him at night. And the indorsement of so +shrewd a man had encouraged Mrs. Dolihide and Miss Katherine. Sometimes +the young woman would read a chapter. Once she said: "Ma, this is really +good." It was not much for a daughter to say, but the Professor had been +so repeated a failure that even a cool compliment was warm to him. His +wife accepted the daughter's judgment. It is possible that she saw a +vision of new gowns and a better house.</p> + +<p>One evening, after welcoming Milford into his workshop, the scholar +declared himself on the verge of a great success. He was arrayed in an +old dressing-gown, with a rope tied monkishly about his loins. His +fingers were stained with ink, "the waste juice of thought," he said. "I +should now be the happiest of men, and I am, but, my dear boy, it is not +nearly so easy as I expected. I find that I cannot cut, slash, and +piece; I must absorb and write, and what I thought could be done in a +few weeks, will take months to perform. At first I thought it would be +well to enter into correspondence with the publishers, but I put it off +till now I have decided to surprise them with the work itself. Ah, work, +work, true balm to the restless soul! I was never really happy until I +took up this brightening task; I was never so serious; I was never +before able to understand the necessity of my previous training, my +struggles and disappointments. But now all is clear. How is everything +with you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All right. Everything over my way is as neat as——"</p> + +<p>"A new gold dollar," suggested the Professor.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and my house is as comfortable as a fur-lined nest."</p> + +<p>"And at a time, too, when you are thinking about giving it up."</p> + +<p>"That's so. But I've got to go out West to see a man, and then I may +return to this neighborhood."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to take any one with you on your trip?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm going alone."</p> + +<p>"On important business, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"Very; so important that all my work here has been toward that end. How +long before you'll have this thing done?"</p> + +<p>"I am working toward an end," the Professor said, smiling, "but I cannot +work toward a date. But, to approximate, I should think about the middle +of March."</p> + +<p>"Don't know but I bother you, coming over so often."</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, you help me. You are a constant encouragement. Ah, you are +a double encouragement, for you encourage them." He pointed downward. +"And that is the greatest good you could do me."</p> + +<p>They talked a long time about the book, the sure winner, and as Milford +was taking his leave, the Professor followed him to the head of the +stairway. "My dear boy," he said, putting his hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> on his visitor's +shoulder, "you must at last perceive that I am earnest."</p> + +<p>"I know it."</p> + +<p>"I hope you believe so, for I am. I may be odd—I may be amusing to the +thoughtless, but to the wise I am serious."</p> + +<p>And it was thus, during all the cold months of his work, pleading to his +friends to construe him seriously. Sometimes he would check his +enthusiasm, fearful that his dancing spirits might make him appear +grotesque. But the neighbors, among their rattling milk-cans, laughed at +him, his walk, his gestures, the tones of his voice. One morning near +the end of March, he got on the train, a precious bundle hugged under +his arm. He had spent half the night with Milford, and had come away +strengthened by the strong man. Now he flew toward the journey-end of +hope. A brakeman on the milk train had heard the farmers laugh at him, +and felt at liberty to poke fun at him.</p> + +<p>"Got your crop under your arm?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The Professor bristled. "If it were the straw of wild oats three times +threshed, it would still hold more value than the chaff that blows about +in your empty skull. Keep your place, which means—distance."</p> + +<p>He was serious; he felt it and gloated over it with a solemn pride. But +before the train reached the city he begged the fellow's pardon. "I am +worn out with hard work," he said, "and I hope you will forget my +harshness."</p> + +<p>Cabmen bellowed at him as he passed out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> the station, and ragged boys +guyed him as he walked along the street. He had a list of the +subscription book publishers, and decided to submit his favor to the +nearest one. The elevator boy put him off on the wrong floor. A +scrub-woman looked up and leered at him. "Poverty, like anger, hath a +privilege," he mused. He found the publisher's quarters, but waited a +long time before he was admitted to the presence of the manager. The +great man was closeted with a book agent. In the subscription book house +the author is nothing; the agent everything. The manager has been an +agent, or perhaps a "fake" advertising man. He hates an author; he hated +the Professor at sight, and flouted when he learned that the scholar had +brought a book. What an insult! The idea of bringing a book to a +publishing house! The Professor attempted to explain the scope of his +work. The manager drew back. "No need to unwrap it," he said. "We've got +more books now than we can sell. Say," he bawled, to some one outside +his den, "tell Ritson I want to see him before he goes."</p> + +<p>"I thought," began the Professor, bowing;—but the manager shut him off. +"We do our own thinking," he said.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, I shall bid you good-morning."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Say," he shouted, "tell Bruck I want to see him, too."</p> + +<p>The list was followed, and a night of sorrow fell at the end of a +heart-breaking day. Not in all instances had the publishers been gruff; +some had spoken kindly, one had looked at the manuscript,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> and then had +shown the Professor a bank of books written on the same line. At last, +worn out with serving as pall-bearer to his own dead spirit, he offered +the book for enough money to pay his life insurance. The publisher shook +his head. Old, old story, gathering mold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + +<h3>WARMER THAN THE WORLD.</h3> + + +<p>A bluster of warm wind brought a thaw, and the ice in the lake was +breaking—a disjointing time, a cracking of winter's old bones, a time +when being alone we feel less lonely than in a noisy company. At night +Milford sat musing in the kitchen. The outer door stood open, and he +heard the cattle tramping about in the mushy barnyard. The hired man and +his wife were singing a lonesome song in the sitting-room. There came +another tramping, not of cattle, but of one more weary, of a man, the +Professor. He trod into the light that fell from the door, and Milford +bounded up to meet him, but fell back in reverence of his grief-stricken +face. For a time the old man did not speak. He dropped his bundle, once +so precious, but now a sapless husk, laid his walking-stick across it, +took hold of a chair, and let himself slowly down with a groan.</p> + +<p>"We are going to have rain," he said, attempting to smile, and +unbuttoning his old coat with a palsied fumble.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so. The clouds have been tumbling about all day."</p> + +<p>"A weird song they are singing in there."</p> + +<p>"The love song of the ignorant and the poor," said Milford.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The poor and the wise would not have written it," the Professor +replied.</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell them to stop?" Milford asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, poor crickets. Bring some cider, my boy. Let us live for a time +in recollection only. I will not take too much."</p> + +<p>"You may take as much as you like. It is time to drink."</p> + +<p>"Yes, to drink or to rave."</p> + +<p>Milford brought a jug of cider. "The devil's sympathy," said the old +man, drinking. "More, give me more—promises heaven, but slippers the +foot that treads its way to hell. But I will not take too much. Did I +tell you that I had lost my place at the mill?"</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't say anything about it."</p> + +<p>"I was discharged the evening before I went to town, but it made no +impression on me then."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't let it make any now. Everything will come all right."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it will. I have walked with many an experiment, but at last there +is such a thing as facing a certainty."</p> + +<p>"Have you anything in view?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. And everything will be all right."</p> + +<p>"I hope so."</p> + +<p>"I don't hope—I know. But enough of that. It is a philosopher who can +say, 'Ha! old Socrates, pass your cup this way.' They have hushed their +song. Even the poor and the ignorant grow weary of singing; then who can +expect music from the wise? What have you there? Old Whittier? He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> died, +and they gave him a stingy column in the newspapers, squeezed by the +report of the prize fight at New Orleans. If a poet would look to his +fame, let him die when there is no other news. But some have died in a +spread of newspaper glory—Eugene Field, the sweetest lisper of a boy's +mischief, the tuner of tenderest lyrics, but with a laugh for man that +cut like a scythe. And some of the rich whom he had laughed at, +scrambled for a place at his coffin to bear it to the grave—tuneless +clay, scuffling over tuneful dust! Oh, hypocrisy, stamp thy countenance +with a dollar!"</p> + +<p>"It's raining now," said Milford, seeking to draw his mind from the +darkness of its wandering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, the falling of water, rhythmic, poetry—all poets have been as +water. I will class them for you. Keats, the rivulet; Shelley, the +brook; Byron, the creek; Tennyson, the river; Wordsworth, the lake; +Milton, the bay; and Shakespeare, the waters of all the world, the sea. +But I will not keep you up. You are a working-man, and must rest."</p> + +<p>"Don't go; I'm not tired; I haven't done a thing to-day. Shall I fill +the jug?"</p> + +<p>"No, enough. Let me take up my gilded trash," he said, reaching for his +bundle.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd stay longer. Let me go home with you."</p> + +<p>"No, I prefer to walk alone. You remember in the old reader, the dog +went out to walk alone."</p> + +<p>"It was the cat that walked alone," said Milford. "The dog sat down to +gnaw his bone. Don't you recollect?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>The old man touched his forehead, and shook his head. "So it was the cat +that walked alone. But we will reverse it. The dog will walk alone +to-night."</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd let me go with you."</p> + +<p>"Plead not your friendship, or I shall yield. But I want to be alone."</p> + +<p>"Then you shall be."</p> + +<p>"I thank you, and good-night." He strode off, with his bundle and stick; +and out in the darkness he cried: "Don't forget my classification of the +poets. Wordsworth! Wordsworth! And so, good-night."</p> + +<p>The hired man came into the kitchen. "Wan't that the Professor shoutin' +out there?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, the poor old man has just come home, crushed."</p> + +<p>"Didn't find no market, then, for his book?"</p> + +<p>"No. He brought it back with him. And, by the way, his life insurance +will soon be due, and I must pay it for him."</p> + +<p>"Don't he owe you for one?"</p> + +<p>"That makes no difference. I must help him. The world ought to help him, +but he is laughed at by you clods."</p> + +<p>"Bill, don't call me a clod. I don't own enough dirt to be called a +clod."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Bob. I don't mean you. What day of the month is +this?"</p> + +<p>"Second, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"I asked you."</p> + +<p>"Then I guess it's the second."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> + +<p>"His insurance will be due on the ninth. Bob, early in the morning you +go over to Antioch and tell old Bryson that he may have those calves at +the price he offered."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I don't think it's enough, Bill."</p> + +<p>"Can't help it. I've got to raise money enough for that poor old +fellow."</p> + +<p>Before breakfast the next morning Milford hastened to the Professor's +house. Mrs. Dolihide heard him unchaining the gate, and came out upon +the veranda. He did not care to go in; he dreaded to look again upon +that blasted countenance. "Good morning, madam. I wish you'd tell the +Professor not to worry over his insurance. Tell him I'll make it all +right."</p> + +<p>"I will when he comes home. I expected him last night, but he didn't get +back."</p> + +<p>"What——" But he checked himself. An alarm had arisen in his breast, +but he would not spread it. He muttered something and turned away, +leaving her to gaze after him in wonderment. A man came running down the +road. Milford stopped him, and he stood panting until he could gather +breath enough for his story. It was brief. The Professor's body had been +taken from the lake. At daylight he had come down to the shore and had +shoved out in a boat. A man warned him against the tumbling ice, for the +wind was fresh. He had a rod, and said that he was going to fish. The +man told him that the fish would not bite. He said that they would bite +for him. Out beyond the dead rushes where the water was deep the boat +tipped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> over. It looked like an accident—the ice. There were no means +of rescue, and so he drowned. The man was excited, and could not say for +certain, but he thought that the Professor had cried out, "Warmer than +the world!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + +<h3>CONCLUSION.</h3> + + +<p>The neighbors dropped their milk-cans and flocked to the stricken home. +A bundle and a walking-stick had been reverently carried to an upper +room and placed upon a desk. These relics of despair's weary journey had +been picked up from the ground, beneath the old man's window. He had +stood there at night, alone, when the household was asleep. And now, +when all were awake, he lay asleep, beflowered, roses on his breast, a +broken heart perfumed.</p> + +<p>"He looks natural," said a man who had laughed at him.</p> + +<p>"But he doesn't seem to be tickling any one now," Milford was bitter +enough to reply.</p> + +<p>The soft earth beneath the window, the window once of fair prospect, was +many-tracked by the feet of indecisive agony, as if the old man had +shambled there, debating with his despair. But that he had made up his +mind early in the evening was now clear to Milford. Perhaps the sight of +the window through which he had looked out upon the leafless tree, the +hope that he had seen hanging from its branches—perhaps his nearness to +the sleeping household had caused him for a brief time to waver, but not +for long. Milford recalled his classification<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> of the poets, +"Wordsworth, the lake." And his cry out in the dark, "Wordsworth! +Wordsworth!" His fishing-rod argued that he strove to hide the +appearance of self-destruction, but in the iced water he forgot his last +thin pretense of caution, shouting as the excited spectator believed, +"Warmer than the world!"</p> + +<p>The awful agony of the first clod, falling with hollow sound, the +tearing rush of memory, the gasp of the heart, missing a beat! The widow +fell senseless at the grave, and they took her away, the daughter +sobbing over her. Yes, they all took him seriously now.</p> + +<p>"It does seem that he could have done something," said Steve Hardy, +waiting for Milford outside the graveyard.</p> + +<p>"He did," Milford replied.</p> + +<p>"I mean—you know what I mean. I don't see how a man can give up that +way. Seems to me like I'd fight till the last."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but that man was more of a hero than you could ever be. He saw +that he could not keep up his insurance, and he decided that it was +better to die."</p> + +<p>"I understand that the widow'll get ten thousand."</p> + +<p>"Yes, the community is very quick to understand that point."</p> + +<p>"I was talkin' to a lawyer, and he said that they couldn't keep her out +of the money. The courts have decided that the money in such cases has +to be paid."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He understood it, too, or he wouldn't have drowned himself."</p> + +<p>"I guess so. Well, you never can tell what a man may do. You form your +idea of him and find out afterwards that it was all wrong. But it would +be a cold day when I'd kill myself for anybody. I hear you're goin' to +have a sale at your house."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I don't care to stay here any longer."</p> + +<p>"Every man to his own taste, but you can't find a puttier country. I +guess this community right here ships more milk that any section along +the road. But they say that when a man once lives away out in the West +he always has a likin' for it. Well, I'll be over there on the day of +the sale."</p> + +<p>Milford sold all of his belongings, with the exception of some tools, a +cow, and a loft full of cattle-feed which he gave to the hired man. He +was not quite ready to go, but would remain a few days and perhaps a +week longer. He was waiting for a letter, and he searched the newspapers +every day. Mrs. Stuvic demanded that he should spend the remaining time +at her house. She was sorry to lose him. She had confessed that she was +half afraid of him, and this feeling had endeared him to her.</p> + +<p>"What makes you grab after the newspaper so?" she asked one morning, in +the dining-room.</p> + +<p>"I want to know the news."</p> + +<p>"No, you don't; there's somethin' else. You've sold all your stuff and +can't be interested in the markets."</p> + +<p>"I am looking for Western news. I want to keep track of a certain man."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who was that letter from you got this mornin'?"</p> + +<p>"From her."</p> + +<p>"Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"In the city."</p> + +<p>"Has she quit her school?"</p> + +<p>"She's given it up as a failure."</p> + +<p>"Then you'll be goin' to town soon."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow morning. I see by the paper that my man is there."</p> + +<p>"Plague take your man and your woman too. Why can't you stay here and +behave yourself? I do hate mightily to see you go. Why don't you say you +hate to go?"</p> + +<p>"Because I don't. I have worked in order to be able to go."</p> + +<p>"What do you want to see the man for? You never have told me anythin' +about yourself, and here you are, goin' away. What do you want with +him?"</p> + +<p>"Want to tell him I'm well, and ask him how's all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you'll do. Fainted at the grave," she said, after a moment's +silence. "Yes, I know all about such faintin'. They can't fool me, Bill. +It's been tried too often. Fainted at the thought of gettin' that ten +thousand dollars, and I wish to the Lord I had half of it. I'd faint +too; yes, you bet!"</p> + +<p>Early the next morning he bade the old woman good-bye. She scolded him, +with tears in her eyes, wheeled about, and left him standing at the +gate. At the station the milkmen gathered about him to shake hands. They +were sorry to lose him. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> trade some of them had been nipped by him, +but that only proved his worth as a citizen. He waved them a farewell, +and Rollins became a memory.</p> + +<p>Upon reaching the city, he went straightway to the Norwegian's cottage. +There was a romping of children within, and it was some time before he +made himself heard. But finally a woman came to the door. He asked for +Gunhild, and was told that she had gone over to see Mrs. Goodwin, but +would not long be absent. He stood for a moment with his hand on the +door. "When she comes back," he said, "tell her that a Yankee from the +West has called. She will understand. Tell her that he will be back +soon."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Jim Mills, railway monarch of the West, sat in his room at a hotel. +Strong, an engine of industry, he could do the work of three men. He had +heard the hum of a multitude of enemies; he had climbed in slippery +places, sliding back, falling, getting up, struggling onward to stand on +the top of the mountain. Without a change of countenance he had +swallowed the decree of many a defeat. In playful tones he had announced +to his associate the news of many a victory. He was a reader of old +books and of young men. His word could build or kill a city. Legislators +traveled with his name in their pockets. Men who cursed him in private +were proud to be seen with him in public. He could clap an enemy on the +shoulder and laugh enmity out of him, but failing, would fight him to an +end that was not sweet. A commercial viking, he was ever thrusting +himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> into unexplored territory, a great commander with his scouts +snorting on iron across the plains. He was a generous host and a +captivating companion, but it was said that with all his apparent +heartiness, he never forgave an injury. This, however, was spoken by his +enemies, men whose "real estate" had been slaughtered by him.</p> + +<p>Mills was busy in his room at the hotel, for neither at home nor abroad +had he an aimless moment. His dozing on a train involved millions. A +card, bearing a name in pencil, was handed to him.</p> + +<p>"I don't know him," he said, glancing at the name.</p> + +<p>"He says he must see you on most important business."</p> + +<p>"What sort of looking man is he? I can't recall his name."</p> + +<p>"Nice enough looking—hard worker, I should think."</p> + +<p>"Tell him to come in."</p> + +<p>Milford stepped into the room, looked at Mills and then at the secretary +who stood near. "I should like to see you alone," he said.</p> + +<p>Mills glanced at the secretary. The man vanished.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," said Mills, "what can I do for you? Sit down."</p> + +<p>Milford sat down, a table between them.</p> + +<p>"I wish to tell you of something that happened about five years ago."</p> + +<p>"Well, go ahead. But I'm busy."</p> + +<p>"I saw by the newspapers that you had arrived in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> town—you'll have to +let me get at it in my own way."</p> + +<p>Mills glanced at him and moved impatiently. Milford cleared his throat. +He leaned back and then leaned forward with his arms on the table. "Have +just a little patience, please. For years I have worked toward this +moment—have pictured it out a thousand times, but now that I'm up +against it I hardly know how to begin. But let me say at the outset that +I have come to repair a wrong done you."</p> + +<p>Mills grunted. "Rather an odd mission," said he. "Men don't read the +newspapers to learn my whereabouts to repay any wrong done me. But does +the wrong concern me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you and me. Now I'll get at it. I lived in Dakota. I was sometimes +sober, but more often drunk. I gambled. I fought. At one time I was town +marshal of Green Mound. Once I was station agent for you. An evil report +reached the main office, and I was discharged. I was broke. I was mad. I +was put out of a gambling house."</p> + +<p>"But what have I got to do with all this?"</p> + +<p>"Wait. I met a man, a twin-brother of the devil. He made a suggestion. I +agreed to it. We heard that you and your pay-master were coming across +in a stage. We stopped the stage, and robbed you of twelve hundred and +fifty dollars. That was all you had in currency. We didn't want checks."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead," said Mills, without changing countenance.</p> + +<p>"I was called Hell-in-the-Mud. My partner was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> Sam Bradley. We got back +to town, and were seen that night in a gambling house. But we didn't +play—broke, presumably. We were not suspected. Sam died three months +afterwards in Deadwood. We had run through with your money. The town +buried him. I won't pretend to give you any flub-dub about reform, any +of the guff of a mother's dying prayers, for that has been worked too +often. But I got a newspaper from Connecticut with a prayer in it—the +last words of an old woman. That's all right. We'll let that go. But I +resolved to pay you—my part and Sam's too. So I drifted about looking +for something to do, and at last I rented a farm not far from here, and +went to work. My luck was good. I skinned every farmer in the +neighborhood. All I wanted was enough money to clear my conscience. +Something—it must have been the devil—gave me a strange insight into +cattle trading. Anyway I prospered, and the other day sold out. And +here's your money, with six per cent interest for five years."</p> + +<p>He placed a roll of paper on the table. Mills looked at him and then at +the card which he had taken up. "My name is Newton," said +Milford—"William Milford Newton. There's your money."</p> + +<p>Mills took up the money, and then looked at his visitor. "I remember the +occasion," said he. "And you have worked all this time. Very +commendable, I assure you. How much more have you?"</p> + +<p>"Less than ten dollars. Doesn't that satisfy you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I'm satisfied, but did it occur to you that the law might have +to be satisfied?"</p> + +<p>"The law?" Milford gasped.</p> + +<p>"Yes. You seem to have forgotten that part of it."</p> + +<p>"The law!" said Milford.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, the law."</p> + +<p>"And that means the penitentiary," said Milford, looking hard at him.</p> + +<p>"That's what it means. Will you go quietly with me, or shall I send for +an officer?"</p> + +<p>"I came here quietly, didn't I? Yes, I'll go with you. I'm prepared to +take my medicine. When do you leave?"</p> + +<p>"At twelve to-night."</p> + +<p>"Will you let me go out on my word of honor? I'll be back by six +o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but on your word of honor."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I will be here by six. I didn't think—but it's all right. +Yes, the law, of course. I'll be here by six."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A loud knock startled Gunhild, and she ran to the door and opened it in +nervous haste. Her eyes leaped out, and then she shrank back. "Oh, what +is the matter?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Milford answered, trying to smile.</p> + +<p>"But you look old," she said. "You have scared me."</p> + +<p>She took hold of his hand to lead him into the sitting-room. "No, not in +there," he said. "I will tell you out here. I must not go in. I am +afraid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> that I might hear that Norwegian hymn—out here—let me tell +you! There was a time when you might have gone with me, but not now—not +where I am going."</p> + +<p>"Don't, dearest; don't. What are you saying? I will go with you +anywhere. Yes, I will go with you. I dream of nothing but going with +you—through the fields, across the ditches."</p> + +<p>"Will you go with me to the penitentiary?"</p> + +<p>She put her arms about his neck. "Anywhere," she said. "To the gallows, +where we may both die. Yes, I will go to the penitentiary. And I will +wait by the wall, and then we will go to the potato field."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was nearly six o'clock.</p> + +<p>"Tell him to come in," said Jim Mills.</p> + +<p>Milford and Gunhild stepped into the room. Mills got up with a bow. "Who +is this?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"My wife," said Milford.</p> + +<p>"You didn't tell me you were married."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't until a few moments ago. She knows all about it, and will go +with me."</p> + +<p>Mills clapped Milford on the shoulder. "My dear sir," said he, "all my +life I have been looking for an honest man, and now I have found him. +Penitentiary! Why, you are worth five thousand dollars a year to me." He +turned to Gunhild with a smile, and handing her a roll of bank notes, +said: "A marriage dower from a hard-working man. Keep it, in the name of +honesty; and, my dear, you and your honorable husband shall eat your +wedding-supper with me."</p> + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> Standard and Popular Books</p> + +<p>FOR SALE BY BOOKSELLERS OR WILL BE SENT POSTPAID ON RECEIPT OF PRICE.</p> + +<p>RAND, MCNALLY & CO., PUBLISHERS,</p> + +<p>CHICAGO AND NEW YORK.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>Standard and Popular Books.</h3> + + +<p>A B C OF MINING AND PROSPECTORS' HANDBOOK. By Charles A. Bramble, D. L.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">S. 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By William Bruce Leffingwell. Handsomely<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">illustrated; 8vo; 373 pages. Cloth cover, $2.50; half morocco, $3.50;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">full morocco, gilt edges, $5.50.</span><br /> + +WOMAN AND THE SHADOW. By Arabella Kenealy. 12mo, cloth. $1.00.<br /> + +WORLD'S RELIGIONS IN A NUTSHELL. By Rev. L. P. Mercer. Price, bound in<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">cloth, $1.00; paper, 25 cents.</span><br /> + +YANKEE FROM THE WEST, A. A new novel by Opie Read. 12mo, cloth. $1.00.<br /> + +YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. By Eleanor Talbot Kinkead. 12mo, cloth. $1.25.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Transcriber's Note:</p> + +<p>Punctuation has been standardised.</p> + +<p>Variations in spelling, including dialect, have been retained as in +the original publication. The following changes have been made:</p> + +<p>Page 66 He hung to the implements, changed to clung<br /> +Page 95 told them that it made no diference, changed to difference<br /> +Page 232 she has not forgoten me, changed to forgotten</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Yankee from the West, by Opie Read + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE FROM THE WEST *** + +***** This file should be named 33773-h.htm or 33773-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/7/33773/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, David K. 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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: A Yankee from the West + A Novel + +Author: Opie Read + +Release Date: September 20, 2010 [EBook #33773] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE FROM THE WEST *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, David K. Park, Roger Frank and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +A YANKEE FROM THE WEST. + +_FOURTEENTH EDITION._ + +A YANKEE FROM THE WEST + +A Novel + +BY + +OPIE READ, + +AUTHOR OF + +"JUDGE ELBRIDGE," "THE WATERS OF CANEY FORK," "AN ARKANSAS PLANTER." + +[Illustration] + +CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. + +Copyright, 1898, by Rand, McNally & Co. + + + + +A YANKEE FROM THE WEST. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +MILFORD. + + +In his mind the traveler holds of Illinois a tiresome picture, the +kitchen garden of a great people, a flat and unromantic necessity. The +greatest of men have trod the level ground, but it is hard to mark +history upon a plane; there is no rugged place on which to hang a +wreath, and on the prairie the traveling eye is accommodated by no inn +whereat it may halt to rest. Such is the Illinois as remembered by the +hastening tourist. But in the southern part of the State there are +mountains, and in the north, the scene of this story, there is a spread +and a roll of romantic country--the green billows of Wisconsin gently +breaking into Illinois; lakes scattered like a handful of jewels thrown +broadcast, quiet rivers singing low among the rushes. Traveling north, +we have left the slim, man-tended tree of the prairies, and here we find +the great oak. There are hillsides where the forest is heavy. There are +valleys sweet in a riot of flowers. Along the roads the fences are +almost hidden by grape-vines. On a knoll the air is honeyed with wild +crab-apple; along a slope the senses tingle with the scent of the green +walnut. There are lanes so romantic that cool design could have had no +hand in their arrangement--they hold the poetry of accident. The +inhabitants of this scope of country have done nothing to beautify it. +They have built wooden houses and have scarred the earth, but persistent +nature soon hides the scars with vines and grasses. The soil is +wastefully strong. In New England and in parts of the South, the feeble +corn is a constant care, but here it grows with the rankness of a jungle +weed. And yet, moved by our national disease, nervousness, the farmer +sells his pastoral dales to buy a wind-swept space of prairie in the far +West. A strange shiftlessness, almost unaccountable in a climate so +stimulating, has suffered many a farm to lie idle, with fences slowly +moldering under flowering vines--a reproach to husbandry, but a +contribution to sentiment. Amid these scenes many an astonished muser +has asked himself this question: "Where are the poets of this land, +where the bluebell nods in metre to the gentle breeze?" Not a poem, not +a story has he seen reflecting the life of this rude England in America. +In the summer the Sunday newspaper prints the names of persons who, +escaping from Chicago, have "sardined" themselves in cottages or +suffered heat and indigestion at a farm-house; the maker of the bicycle +map has marked the roads and dotted the villages; the pen and ink worker +for the daily press has drawn sketches of a lily pad, a tree and a fish +much larger than the truth; the reporter has caught a bit of color here +and there, but the contemplative writer has been silent and the American +painter has shut his eyes to open them upon a wood-shod family group in +Germany. + +This region was settled by Yankees. They brought with them a tireless +industry and a shrewd humor. But to be wholly himself the Yankee must +live on thin soil. Necessity must extract the full operation of his +energy. Under his stern demand, the conquered ground yields more than +enough. Vanquished poverty stuffs his purse. He sets up schools and +establishes libraries. But on a soil that yields with cheerful +readiness, he becomes careless and loses the shrewd essence of his +energy. His humor, though, remains the same. Nervous and whimsical, he +sees things with a hollow eye, and his laugh is harsh. Unlike his +brother of the South, he does not hook arms with a joke, walk with it +over the hill and loll with it in the shade of the valley; it is not his +companion, but his instrument, and he makes it work for him. + +One afternoon in early summer a man got off a train at Rollins, a milk +station, and stood looking at a number of farmers loading into wagons +the empty milk cans that had been returned from the city. He was tall +and strong-appearing. He wore a dark, short beard, trimmed sharp, and +his face was almost fierce-looking, with a touch of wildness, such as +the art of the stage-man tries in vain to catch. He was not well +dressed; he carried the suggestion that he might have lived where man is +licentiously free. With his sharp eye he must have been quick to draw a +bead with a gun; but his eye, though sharp, was pleasing. A dog sniffed +him and walked off, satisfied with his investigation. The countryman +stands ready to sanction a dog's approval of a stranger--it is wisdom +fortified by superstition, by tales told around the fire at night--so a +look of mistrust was melted with a smile, and the owner of the dog spoke +to the stranger. + +"Don't guess you've got a newspaper about you?" said the farmer, putting +his last can into the wagon. + +"No. The afternoon papers weren't out when I left town." + +"Morning paper would suit me just as well--haven't seen one to-day. I +get a weekly all winter, and I try to get a daily in the summer, but +sometimes I fail. Goin' out to anybody's house?" + +"I don't know." + +The farmer looked at him sharply. A man who did not know--who didn't +even guess that he didn't know--was something of a curiosity to him. +"Did you expect anybody to meet you?" + +"No; I came out to look around a little--thought I might rent a farm if +I could strike the right sort of terms." + +"Well, I guess you've come to the right place." He turned and pointed +far across a meadow to a windmill above tree tops on the brow of a hill. +"Mrs. Stuvic, a widow woman, that lives over yonder, has an adjoinin' +farm to rent. Get in, and I'll drive you over--goin' that way anyhow, +and it shan't cost you a cent. Throw your carpet-bag in there, it won't +fall out. Whoa, boys! They won't run away. Yes, sir, as good a little +place as there is in the county," he added, turning down a lane. "But +the old woman has had all sorts of bad luck with it. That horse would +have a fit if he couldn't clap his tail over that line every five +minutes. But he won't run away." + +"I don't care if he does," said the stranger. + +"Well, you would if you had to pick up milk cans for half a mile. He +scattered them from that house up yonder down to that piece of timber +day before yesterday." + +"Did he run away?" + +"Well, he wasn't walkin'." + +"Then how do you know he won't run away again?" + +"Well, I think I've sorter Christian scienced him." + +The stranger laughed, and the farmer clucked an applause of his own +wisdom. They had reached a corner where a large white house stood +surrounded by blooming cherry trees. Bees hummed, and the air was heavy +with sweetness. The stranger took off his hat, and straightening up +breathed long. "Delicious," he said. The farmer turned to the right, +into another road. "I'm almost glad I'm alive," said the stranger. + +"You must have paid your taxes and got it over with," the farmer +replied. The stranger did not rejoin. His mind and his eye had gone +forth to roam in a piece of woods gently sloping toward the road. He saw +the mandrake's low canopy, shading the sod, the crimson flash of a +woodpecker through the blue of the air beneath the green of the trees, +like a spurt of blood. The farmer's eye, cloyed with the feasts that +nature spreads, followed a horse that galloped through the rank tangle +of a marsh-dip in a meadow. + +"Over on that other hill is where the old lady lives," he said. + +"What did you say her name was?" + +"Well, her name _was_ first one thing then another, but it's Stuvic now. +She's been married several times--a Dutchman the last time, a +good-hearted fellow that used to work for her first husband--a good +talker in his way, smokin' all the time, and coughin' occasionally fit +to kill himself. He liked to read, but he had to keep his books hid in +the barn, for the old lady hates print worse than she does a snake. He'd +wait till she was off the place, and then he'd go out and dig up his +learnin'. But the minute he heard her comin'--and he could hear her a +mile--he'd cover up his knowledge again. One day he told her he was +goin' to die, and she might have believed him, but he had lied to her a +good deal, so she hooted at him; but a few days afterwards he convinced +her, and when she found he had told the truth, she jumped into a black +dress and cried. Strangest creature that ever lived, I guess; and if you +want to come to good terms with her tell her you can't read. She gets on +a rampage once in a while, and then she owns the road. I saw her +horse-whip a hired man. He had let a horse run away with him. She took +the horse, hitched him to a buggy, jumped in, laid on the whip, and +drove him at a gallop till he was only too glad to behave himself. Well, +you can get out here." + +The stranger got down in front of a white "frame" house near the road. +The farmer waved him a good-bye and drove on. From a young orchard +behind the house there came the laughter of children at play. In the +yard sat an aged man beneath an old apple tree. The place was a mingling +of the old and the new, a farm-house with an extension for summer +boarders. + +As the stranger entered the gate, a tall, heavy, but graceful old woman +stepped out upon the veranda. "Wasn't that Steve Hardy that you rode up +with?" she asked, gazing at him. The visitor bowed, and was about to +answer when she snapped: "Oh, don't come any of your bowin' and scrapin' +to me. All I want is the truth." + +"The man didn't tell me his name, madam." + +"Well, you didn't lose anythin'. It was Steve Hardy, and a bigger liar +never trod luther. Come in." + +The visitor stepped upon the veranda, and sat down upon a bench. The old +woman stood looking at him. "Do you want board?" she asked. He took off +his hat and placed it upon the bench beside him. She gazed at his +bronzed face, his white brow, and grunted: + +"I asked if you wanted board." + +"I want something more than board, madam; I want work." + +She snapped her eyes at him. "You look more like you was dodgin' it +than huntin' for it; yes, you bet. I know all about a man lookin' for +work. All he wants is a chance to get drunk and lie down in the corner +of the fence. Yes, you bet. What sort of work do you want?" + +"A man that needs work is not very particular. I've never been lazy +enough to look for an easy job." + +She leaned toward him; she held out her hand. "Shake! You've earned your +supper by sayin' that." He took her hard hand and smiled. She frowned. +"Don't try to look putty at me! No, you bet! It won't work with me." + +There came a hoarse cry from the old apple tree. An enormous Dutch girl +ran by, laughing. An old man came forward, brushing himself. + +"Now what's the matter with you, Lewson?" the old woman asked. + +The aged man was in a rage. "That infernal Dutch cow ran over me again. +Why the devil can't she walk? What does she want to snort around for +like a confounded heifer? If I don't get me a gun and shoot her I'm the +biggest liar on the earth." + +"Now, you keep still, Lewson; you keep right still!" + +"Still! How the deuce am I going to keep still when she's knocking me +down all the time? Every time I walk out she runs over me; if I sit down +she runs over me; if I go to my room to take a nap she runs against the +house and wakes me up. She can't understand a word you say to her--and +confound her, I hit her with a stick, and was three days trying to +explain it. Why don't you drive her away?" + +A bell at the end of a pole at the kitchen door rang furiously. There +came an answering shout from the lake across the meadow. "You've earned +your supper," said the old woman. "Yes, you bet!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +LIKED HIM. + + +Summer was just opening, and there were not many boarders at Mrs. +Stuvic's house. But the posting of a railway time-card in the +dining-room showed that everything was in readiness. A cook had come +from the city to set up her temper against the slouching impudence of +the hired man, and an Irish girl stood ready to play favorites at the +table. Mrs. Stuvic gave the stranger a seat at the head of the table, +and three tired women--hens, worn out with clucking to their boisterous +broods--began a whispered comment upon him. One, with a paper novel +lying beside her plate, said that he was fiercely handsome. Mrs. Stuvic +sat down near him. + +"What is your name?" she asked. + +"Milford," he answered, and the woman with the novel seemed pleased with +the sound. + +"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Stuvic, as if she had divined as much, "but +your other name. I can't remember outlandish names." + +"William." + +"Yes, Bill," she said. "Well, Bill, you hinted you wanted work." + +The woman with the novel withdrew her attention. Milford shot a glance +at her. "Yes," he replied. "The man you say is the biggest liar that +ever trod leather told me that you had a farm to rent." + +"Well, land sakes! when did he take to tellin' the truth? But just keep +still now and say nothin'. Don't say a word, but keep still, and after +supper I'll show you somethin'." + +A red-headed boy, the natural incumbrance of the woman with the novel, +snorted over his plate, and the old woman set her teeth on edge and +looked hard at him. "Yes, well, now what's the matter with you? Who told +you to break out?" + +"Eat plenty of supper, Bobbie, or you'll be hungry before bed-time," +said the mother. "He hasn't had much appetite lately," she added, and +the boy tried to look pitiful. Mrs. Stuvic cleared her throat, and under +her breath muttered "Calf." The mother looked at Milford. "I beg your +pardon," she said, "but are you related to the Milfords that live down +in Peoria County?" + +"I think not, madam," Milford answered. + +"They are such nice people," the woman went on; "distant relatives of +mine. Sit up straight, Bobbie. One of the boys has made quite a name as +a lawyer--Alfred, I think. And I hear that the daughter, Julia, is about +to be married to a foreigner of considerable distinction." + +"I've lived down in that part of the country," said a woman with a +lubberly cub in her arms, "and I know a family down there named Wilford. +They have a son named Alfred, and a daughter Julia who is about to be +married to a foreigner." + +"Wilford, now let me see," mused the mother of the red boy. "Well, I +declare, I believe that is the name!" + +"And that," said Milford, "is no doubt the reason, or at least one of +the reasons, why they are not kin to me." + +"Oh, you keep still!" Mrs. Stuvic cried, snapping a smile in two. "You +didn't have to say that--but when you don't know what to say, Bill, say +the next best thing. Yes, you bet! Oh, I know a lot, but I don't tell it +all. People come here and think they can fool me, but they can't. Some +of them come a turnin' up their noses at the table, when I know as well +as I know anythin' that they haven't got half as good at home. We had +one family in particular that was always growlin'. And when they went +home in the fall I said to myself, 'I'll just slip into town one of these +days, and see what you've got to eat.' I did, and I never set down to +such a meal in my life--soup that looked like tea, and birds put on thin +pieces of burnt bread. But if you are through, Bill, come with me; I +want to show you somethin'." + +She put on her bonnet, and as she stepped out told the Irish girl to +take Milford's bag upstairs. It was evident that her favorable +impression of him extended as far as a night's lodging. They crossed the +road, passed through a gate, so heavy on its hinges that it had to be +dragged open, and entered a grove of hickory trees. The sward was thick. +Here and there were patches of white and pink wild flowers. The sun was +going down, and the lake, seen through a gap in the trees, looked like a +prairie fire. They came to a broad lane shaded by wild-cherry trees. +Milford stopped. + +"I've never seen anything more beautiful than this," he said. + +"You just keep still!" she replied. "Yes, and I'll show you somethin' +worth lookin' at." + +They passed through another gate, went up a graceful rise, into a field, +along a broad path hedged with vines and flowers. "Just look at this!" +she said. "There ain't better land in this county, and here it lies all +gone to waste. The men out here ain't worth the powder and lead it would +take to kill 'em. I've rented this farm half a dozen times in the last +three years. And what do they do? Get so drunk Sunday that it takes them +nearly all week to sober up. I've had to drive 'em away. And the last +one! Mercy sakes! The biggest fool that ever made a track; and a +hypercrit with it. I found him in the corner of the fence prayin' for +rain. Well, I just gathered a bridle and slipped up on him, and if his +prayer didn't have a hot end I don't know beans when I see 'em. There +was a streak of barbed wire on the fence, and in tryin' to get over he +got tangled; and if I didn't give it to him! The idea of a fool gettin' +down on his knees tryin' to persuade the Lord to change his mind! All +that belongs to me," she went on, waving her hand--"best farm right now +in Lake County. And there's the house on the hill, as nice a cottage as +you'd want to live in. What do you think of it all?" + +"Charming," said Milford. "There's many an old cow in the West that +would like to stick her nose up to her eyes into this rich grass." + +"You bet, Bill! Are you from the West?" + +"Yes, from all over the West. I used to herd cattle; I tried to raise +sheep--and I could have done something, but I was restless and wanted to +stir about. But I've got over that. Now I want to work." + +"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," she said, lifting the latch +of a gate. "I don't believe you'd pray for rain." + +"The only thing worth prayin' for, madam, is a soul." + +"Good enough! Bill, I like you. They say you have to eat a barrel of +salt with a man before you know him, and I reckon it's true. But I've +eaten so many barrels of salt with men that I know one as far as I can +see him. You don't profess to be so awful honest, do you?" + +There was hollowness in his laugh, and bitterness in his smile. "I +haven't made any pretensions," he said. + +"Well, you just keep still and don't make any," she replied. + +Through an orchard, they passed to a house on a hill. It stood in the +shade of a great walnut tree. She pointed out the barn, the +garden-patch, and the woods that belonged to the place. In the soft +light it appeared a paradise to the man from the West, green with grass, +purple with flowers. She asked him a question, and he answered with a +sigh. Then he told her that he was almost moneyless. He had no capital +but his will--his muscle. Such a place would be a godsend to him. In his +past life there was much to grieve over--time thrown away, +opportunities laughed at, money squandered. He could not help dreaming +over his follies, and his dream choked him; so he wanted to work with +his hands, to fight against a blunt opposition. He stood bareheaded, his +face strong. She looked upon him with admiration. From the first, +something about him had caught her odd fancy. She was an implacable +enemy and a surprising friend. She put her hand on his arm. + +"Now, don't you fret," she said. "You didn't have to tell me you had no +money. That's all right. If you want this farm you can have it. It's no +use to me, lyin' this way. Yes, Bill, you can take it right now. Oh, you +may go around here, and some of 'em will tell you that a meaner woman +never lived--them that's tried to have their own way over me--but the +poor and the needy will tell a different tale. They know where to get +somethin' to eat. Well, it's settled. Come on, now, and we'll go back +and fix up the particulars when we get time." + +He was cheerful as they walked back toward the old woman's home. New +tones came out of his voice. There was baritone music in his laugh. She +assured him that the details could be arranged without a hitch, that for +the present he might rest at ease. He replied that there could be no +ease for him, except as he might dig it out of the ground; he seemed to +crave a strain of the body to relieve a strain of the mind. She was +accustomed to meet all sorts of men, the scum and the leisure of the +city, but this man gave her a new feeling of interest. He looked like a +man that would fight, and this kindled the fire of her admiration. She +loathed a coward. As a girl, she had hunted with her father in the woods +of Ohio. One night his house was attacked by roughs, and she had fought +with him. To her there was no merit that did not show action; thought +that did not lead to action was a waste of the mind. A book was the +record of laziness. She tolerated newspapers--in one she had found the +announcement that a man whom she hated was dead. Once a man slandered +her. She laughed--a sound as cold as the trickling of iced water--and +said that she would live to see his last home marked out upon the +ground. She did. She was seen in the cemetery, digging. "What are you +doing there?" was asked. And she answered: "I'm planting a hog-weed on +Thompson's grave." Old Lewson, the man who sat under the apple tree, +gave his meager property to his children. They turned him out to die. +Mrs. Stuvic took him. "I won't live long," he said. "I'm eighty-three +years old." "Don't you fret," she replied; "a man that's as big a fool +as you be may live to be a hundred and fifty." And the heart of this old +woman was deeply stirred by Milford, not by his misfortunes, his +homelessness, the touch of the adventurous vagabond in his face, but by +her belief that he possessed an unconquerable spirit. + +"Yes, you keep still, and we'll arrange it all in time," she said, as +they entered the hickory grove. "And you needn't tell me anythin' about +yourself, nuther. A man's never so big a liar as when he's tellin' +things about himself or his enemy. It seems that he can't tell the truth +about either one. So you keep still. It's most too late in the season +for you to do very much now in the way of plantin', but you can make a +good beginnin'. There's stuff enough in the cottage back yonder, and you +may take possession to-morrow if you want to. There's a fellow named Bob +Mitchell around here that's out of work, and you can hire him to help +you. He's a good hand to work--the only trouble is, he thinks he's +smart. But he'll follow if there's any one to lead." + +"Madam, I wish I knew how to thank you," said Milford, as he opened the +gate leading into the main road. "I came without an introduction, +without a single letter----" + +"Don't you dare come fetchin' any of your letters to me! There ain't +nothin' much easier than to write a lie." + +"I'm not going in now. I'll walk about a while." + +"Do as you like," she replied. "Your room's at the end up there," she +added, pointing. She went into the house, and he turned back into the +grove. He sat down with his back against a tree, his hat on the ground. +He muttered words to himself; he felt the cool air upon his moist brow; +he breathed the perfume of the fresh night. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +INTERESTED IN HIM. + + +Milford took possession of the farm-cottage. The terms were so +loose-jointed that the neighbors lamented the old woman's lack of +business sense. She told them to keep still. She said that for years she +had been following the advice of a lawyer, and that every string of her +affairs had come untied. Now she was going to act for herself. It was +hinted that her methods would reflect discredit upon the practical sense +of the community. She replied that she paid her own taxes. + +On the old farm there was a sprout of new life. At break of day the +dozing idler heard a song afield; the hired man, going to milk the cows, +the city man, snapping his watch, hastening to catch a train, saw the +Westerner working, wet with dew. And when the evening's lamps were +lighted, the wild notes of his cowboy song rang from the hillside. +Farmers going to the village of a Saturday afternoon stopped at his +fence to engage him in talk, but he answered their questions as he went +on with his work. One day they heard him say to his hired man: "Go to +the house, Mitchell, and rest a while. You are worn out." A man whose +table was light, whose shipments of veal and poultry to town were heavy, +and who had been requested to put a better quality of water into his +milk, declared that he had lived too long and had too much experience +of the world to be fooled by a man from the West. He had committed some +crime--murder, no doubt--and Steve Hardy was censured for hauling him +over from the station. This surmise reached the ears of Mrs. Stuvic. She +waited till she saw the wise man driving past her house, and she stopped +him in the road. + +"I'm glad you know all about my man over there, Hawkins." + +"Why, I don't know anything about him." + +"Oh, yes, you said he'd committed murder." + +"No, I said most likely; but I didn't want it repeated, for, of course, +I don't know." + +"Yes, you bet! And there's a good many things you don't want repeated. +You don't want it repeated that you put old Lewson's brats up to turning +him out of the house." + +"Look here, madam, I didn't do anything of the sort. I simply said I +didn't see how they could live with him; and I didn't, either." + +"Well, it's all right. The old man's got a better home than he ever had; +and you needn't worry yourself about my man over yonder. He couldn't +sell as much milk from five cows as you can do, and I don't believe you +can keep it up unless we have rain pretty soon, but he knows how to +attend to his own business, and that's somethin' you've never been able +to learn." + +"Madam, if you'll step from in front of my horses I'll drive on." + +"Yes, and mighty glad of the opportunity. You stir trouble, and are the +first one to hitch up and drive out of it. Now go on, and don't you let +me hear of any more murder stories." + +Mrs. Blakemore, mother of the red boy, would not presume to say that +there was a stain on Milford's character; but he was undoubtedly +peculiar, with an air which bespoke a constant effort to hide something. +She knew, however, that there was good blood somewhere in his family. +She believed in blood. Her husband had failed in business, and she could +afford to despise trade. One Sunday, with her vacant-eyed husband and +her red tormentor, she halted at Milford's cottage. He was sitting on +the veranda, with the billows of a Sunday newspaper about him on the +floor. She introduced her husband, who nodded. She spoke of the fervor +of the day and the ragged cloud-skirts flaunting in the sky. She thought +it must be going to rain. In the city a rain was wasted, a sloppy +distress; but in the country it was a beautiful and refreshing +necessity. In each great drop there was a stanza of sentiment. + +Milford's eyes twinkled. "You ought to go to a mining-camp," he said. +"Men who couldn't parse would call you a poem." + +She turned to her husband. "George, do you hear that? Isn't that sweet? +So unaffected, too." George grunted; he was thinking of the receiver +that had had charge of his affairs. His wife continued, speaking to +Milford: "In my almost hothouse refinement, I have longed to see the +rude chivalry of the West--where a rhythm of true gallantry beats +beneath a woolen shirt." + +"Yes," said Milford, "and beneath a linen shirt, too. The West is just +as wide but not so woolen as it was." + +"Oh, what quaint conceits! George, do you hear them? George, dear." + +"George, dear" turned a tired eye upon her. Affection seeking to console +a loved one sometimes chooses an unseasonable moment for the exercise of +its tender office. She felt the look of her husband's worry-rusted eye; +a memory of his weary pacing up and down the floor at night came to her, +of his groans upon a comfortless bed, his sighs at breakfast, his dark +brow as he went forth to try again to save his credit. She thought of +this; she felt that at this moment he needed her help. And +affectionately she put her hand upon his arm, and said: "You have met +reverses, George, but you've still got me." And George muttered: "You +bet I have." She glanced at him as if she felt that he said it with a +lack of enthusiasm, as if it were a sad fact acknowledged rather than a +possession declared; and she would have replied with a thin sentiment +strained through the muslin of a summer book, but George turned away. +She followed and he opened a gate and halted, waiting for her to pass +through. The boy crawled under the fence. She scolded the youngster, +brushed at his clothes, and said to George: + +"He is almost a gentleman." + +"Who is so far gone as that?" + +"Why, the man back there on the veranda." + +"I don't know what you mean by almost a gentleman." + +"Oh, George, don't you know that there are distinctions?" + +"But I don't see how a man can be almost a gentleman. You might as well +say that a man almost has money." + +"Bobbie, don't try to climb over that stump. There's a poison vine on +it. Money is not everything, George." + +"Comes devilish near it." + +"No, George. Money is not love." + +"Well, I don't know about that," he said, in a way implying that he did +know. + +"Don't be cynical, dear," she replied. "We are both young; we have +everything before us." + +"Everything we had is behind us." + +She pulled upon his arm, and kissed his dry cheek. "Don't be downcast. +Everything will come right." + +Mitchell, the hired man, came out upon the veranda. "A sappy pea-vine +and a dried pea-stick," said Milford, pointing toward George and his +wife. + +"He looks like he's tired," said the hired man. + +"Yes, a fly in a pot of jam. She's too sweet for him. He ought to break +loose from her and run wild for a while--ought to rough it out West on +fat sow bosom and heifer's delight. Never were married, were you, Bob?" + +"Well, not for any length of time. I did marry a girl over near Antioch +once, but shortly afterwards they took me up for sellin' liquor without +a license, and when I got through with the scrape I found my wife was +gone with a feller to Kansas." + +"Did you ever hear of her?" + +"Oh, yes, she writ to me. She wanted to come back, but I scratched her +word that I'd try to jog along without her. I don't guess women are +exactly what they used to be. I reckon the bicycle has changed 'em a +good bit." + +"They want money, Bob. That's what's the matter with 'em." + +"Well, they've got about all I ever had, them and liquor together, and +still they don't seem to be satisfied. Ever married, Bill?" + +"No. But I was on the edge of falling in love once. She squirted poison +at me out of her eyes, and I shook in the knees. Her smile kept me awake +two nights, and on the third morning I got on my pony, said good-bye to +the settlement, and rode as hard as I could. I don't suppose she really +saw me--but I saw her, and that was enough. Well, I believe I'll go over +and chin the old woman." + +Mrs. Stuvic was walking up and down the yard. A number of new boarders +had arrived, and she was in a great flurry. She was ever on the lookout +for new-comers, but was never prepared for them. She told every one to +keep still; she spoke in bywords that barked the shins of profanity. +Just as Milford came up, some one told her that her hired man was lying +out in the grove, drunk and asleep. Upon her informer she bent a +recognition of virtue. It was not exactly a grin. The boarders called it +her barbed-wire smile. She thanked him with a nod and a courtesy caught +up from a memory of her grandmother. She snatched a buggy whip and +sallied forth into the grove. Milford followed her. She told him to +stand back. She swore she would give it to him if he presumed to +interfere. She knew her business. The Lord never shut her eyes to a duty +that lay in front of her. The hired man went howling through the woods, +and she returned to the house, smiling placidly. She was always better +humored when she had kept faith with duty. + +"Bill," she said to Milford, "tell those women who you are. They are all +crazy to know." + +"Why didn't you tell them?" + +"Well, how was I to tell 'em somethin' I didn't know? You haven't told +me. Who are you, Bill? Come, speak up. I've fooled with you long enough. +Come, who are you?" + +"A Yankee from the West." + +"Shut up. Go on away from here. Who told you to come? Did anybody send +after you?" By this time they had reached the veranda. A kitten came out +to meet her. She called to the Dutch girl to bring some milk in a +saucer. "Poor little wretch," she said. "Well, sir, it do beat all. +About a week ago I found that I'd have to drown a litter of kittens. I +had a barrel of water ready at the corner of the house. I got all the +kittens together except one. I couldn't find him. After a while, I heard +him mewing under the house. I looked under and see him fastened, and he +couldn't get out. He was nearly starved. I said, 'You little wretch, +I'll fix you,' and I crawled under after him. I had a time at gettin' +him, too; and when I did get him he looked so pitiful that I gave him +some milk. Then I gave the others milk, and didn't drown 'em. I have +provided homes for all except this one, and I'm goin' to keep him. Here, +lap your milk." + +Old Lewson sat beneath an apple tree. Milford went out to talk with him. +The old man looked up, his eyes red under white lashes. His hat was on +the ground, and in it were two eggs. + +"My dinner," said he, pointing to the eggs. "If I didn't listen for the +cackling of the hens I'd starve to death. I can't eat anything but eggs; +and they must be fresh. That infernal Dutch girl spoiled my supper last +night. She ran over me, as usual, and broke my eggs. I wish she was +dead." + +"They ought to hobble her like a horse," said Milford. + +"They ought to break her bones, and I would if I was strong enough," the +old man declared. "She kindled a fire with my spiritualist books. Are +you a spiritualist?" + +"No, I'm merely an ordinary crank." + +"Fool, you mean," said the old fellow. "A man that shuts his eyes to the +truth is a fool. See this?" He took from his pocket a pale photograph, +and handed it to Milford. "That's a picture of my wife, taken ten years +after the change. She came to see me not long ago, and I cut off a piece +of her dress. Here it is." From a pocketbook he took a piece of white +silk. + +"They dress pretty well over there," said Milford, examining it. + +"Yes. She wove it herself." + +"Looks as if it might have been done by a fine machine." + +"It was; it was woven in the loom of her mind. Over there, whatever the +mind wills is done. But you can't make fools understand it." + +"I suppose not. What will become of the Dutch girl when she goes over?" + +"They'll make a dray-horse of her. Here comes the old woman. She +pretends she don't believe in it. But she does. She can't help herself." + +The old fellow hid his eggs. She looked at him sharply. "He'd rather +hear the cackle of a hen than a church organ," she said to Milford. + +"Yes, it means more," the old man replied. + +"Well, you won't rob my hens much longer. Your days are numbered." + +"So are yours, ma'am." + +"Now, don't you fret. I'll plant flowers on your grave." + +"See that you don't plant hog-weeds." + +"What difference will it make to you? Your soul will be gone. But what +will you do over there? You'd be out of place makin' silk dresses. If +you do make any send me one. I'll want it when I marry again." + +"Why do you want to dress up to meet a fool?" + +"Shut your rattle-trap. It will be a wise man that marries me. If Bill +here was a little older, I'd set my cap for him. Wouldn't I, Bill?" + +"I don't doubt it. We can all set a trap for a fox, but it takes a +shrewd trapper to catch him." + +The old man chuckled. She looked at him and said that he would have +been hauled off long ago, but that the devil didn't care to hitch up for +one--Yankee-like, wanting a load whenever he drove forth. "But before +you go, Lewson, I want you to promise me one thing,--that you will come +back. You've got me half-way into the notion that you can." + +"I will come back the third night, ma'am," he replied, his voice +earnest. "When my body has been in the grave three days I will come back +to my room and meet you there." + +Milford turned away. The old woman followed him. "Do you believe he can +come back?" she asked. + +His sharp eyes cut round at her, like the swing of a scythe. "An old log +may learn to float up-stream," he said. She stepped in front of him. +"You've done somethin' that you don't want known," she declared. "As +smart a man as you wouldn't come out here and work on a farm for +nothin'." + +"I don't expect to work for nothing." + +"Come into the house, Bill. Those women want to get acquainted with +you." + +"Why don't they get acquainted with their husbands?" + +"I know it," she replied, with a look, and in a younger eye the light +would have been a gleam of mischief, but with her it was a glint almost +of viciousness. "I know it. They are always after a curiosity. They've +got it into their heads that you've done some sort of deviltry, and they +want to talk to you. One of them said her husband was such a dear, dull +business man. And nearly all of them hate children." + +"I hate a woman that hates children," Milford replied, and the old woman +said, "I know it." + +Mrs. Blakemore, the tired George, and the tugging boy came into the +yard. The woman's eyes brightened when she saw Milford. It seemed that +the other women had commissioned her to sound his mysterious depth. His +keen eyes, his sharp-cut beard, a sort of sly unconcern marked him a +legitimate summer exploration. Men from the city came and went, +shop-keepers, tailors, machinists, lawyers, driveling of hard times and +the hope of a business revival, and no particular attention was paid to +them, but here was a man with a hidden history. Perhaps he was a +deserter from the regular army; doubtless he had killed an officer for +insulting him. This was a sweet morsel and they made a bon-bon of it. + +"I hope you are not going just because we came," said Mrs. Blakemore to +Milford. "George, do take that rocker and sit down. You look so tired. +Go away, Bobbie. You are such a pest." + +A straining voice in the sitting-room and the tin-pan tones of a piano +were hushed, and out upon the veranda came several women. Milford was +introduced to them. Some of them advanced with a smile, and some hung +back in a sweet dread of danger. Milford sat down on a corner of the +veranda with his feet on the ground. A wagon load of beer-drinkers, +singing lustily, drove past the house. From the lake came the report of +a gun, some one firing at a loon. There seemed to be no law to enforce +respect for the day which the Puritan called Sabbath, and which the +austerity of his creed had made so cold and cheerless. On Sunday night +there had been a hop on the shore of the lake, and a constable had +danced with a skillet-wiper from town. The children of the New Englander +sell their winter piety for the summer dollar. + +"I can't conceive of anything more delicious than this atmosphere," said +Mrs. Blakemore. "It's heavenly down by the lake. And in the woods there +are such beautiful ferns. Are you fond of ferns, Mr. Milford?" + +"Don't believe I ever ate any," Milford answered, and the women screamed +with laughter. One of them spoke of such charming impudence, and George +looked at her with his cankered eye. Mrs. Stuvic said, "Oh, you keep +still!" The Dutch girl passed at a spraddling gallop, setting a dog at a +chicken condemned to death. Old Lewson shouted and shrank behind a tree. +Mrs. Blakemore's thin hand was seen in the air. It was a command, and +silence fell. + +"Would you mind telling us something of the wild life in the West?" + +"There's no wild life in the West now," Milford answered. "It is there, +as it is nearly everywhere, a round of stale dishonesty." + +"George, dear, do you hear that? Stale dishonesty! Really, there is +thought in that. Western men are so apt in their phrasing. They aren't +afraid of critical judgment. But they are too picturesque to be simple. +They are like an old garden run to blossoming weeds--the impudent new +springing from the venerable old. Did you hear me, George?" + +"How's that?" George asked, looking up from a dream of trouble. + +"Oh, I shall not repeat it. Mr. Milford, nearly all my thoughts are +wasted on him. His mind is occupied by things sterner but not nearer +true." George grunted something that sounded like "bosh." She smiled and +tapped him on the arm. Her face was thin but pretty. Milford gave her an +admiring look. She caught it in an instant and drooped her eyes at him. +Some of the women saw it and pulled at one another, standing close +together. But the old woman did not see it. Her eye was not set for so +fine a mischief. A Mrs. Dorch began to hum a tune. She left off to tell +Milford that she had a sister in Dakota. She had gone out as a +school-teacher, and had been married by a rancher. His name was Lampton. +It was possible that Mr. Milford might know him. He did not, but it gave +her a chance to talk, and the slim Mrs. Blakemore began to droop her +eyes. The man was nothing to her. She wouldn't stoop to set up a +conquest over him, so much in love was she with her husband, but what +right had this woman to cut in? + +"Oh, I could never think of talking commonplaces with a man from the +wilds," she said. "He may never have read poetry, but he is a lover of +it. Tell me, is it true that certain flowers disappeared with the +buffalo?" + +"I don't know, ma'am, but a good deal of grass disappeared with him." + +It was a cue to laugh, and they laughed. Mrs. Blakemore said that +Milford was becoming intentionally droll. She much preferred unconscious +drollery. + +Attention was now given to three men who came across the meadow from the +lake. One of them proudly held up a string of sun-fish. A fisherman's +ear is keen-set for flattery. The women knew this, and they uttered +"ohs" and "ahs" of applause. The fishermen came up, everybody talking at +once, and Milford slipped away. He passed through the hickory grove and +turned into the broad lane leading to the lake. He saw Mrs. Stuvic's +hired man, sitting under a tree, muttering, a red streak across his +face. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +HE DID NOT COME. + + +The neighbors continued to speculate and to ply Mrs. Stuvic with +questions concerning Milford. Men who had spent many a rainy day in the +hay-mow, gambling, knew that he had played poker. An old man, with a +Rousseau love for botanizing, had been found dead in the woods, with +five red leaves in his hand. And Milford had said: "The poor old fellow +made his flush and died." They knew that he was brave, for, with a stick +of brushwood, he had attacked a dog reported to be mad. But they +believed, also, that he had something heavy on his mind, for they had +seen him walking about in the woods at night, once when a hard rain was +beating him. Steve Hardy, the man who had hauled the stranger from the +station, was caught in a storm one night, and a flash of lightning +revealed Milford standing gaunt in the middle of a marsh. But he had +never attempted to borrow money in the neighborhood, and of all the +virtues held dear by the rural Yankee, restraint in the matter of +borrowing is the brightest. "Yes, sir, old Brady was as mean a man as +ever lived among us, but, sir, he died out of debt." Old Brady could +have illumined his death-bed with no brighter light. + +One evening, while Milford and Mitchell were at supper, the hired man +said: "They keep on askin' me all sorts of questions about you. I never +saw folks so keen. They are like spring sheep after salt. I've got so I +throw up my hands whenever I meet any of 'em in the road." + +Milford reached over and turned down the ragged blaze of the smoking +lamp. "Am I the first stranger that ever happened along here?" + +"It would look that way. But there is a sort of a somethin' about you, +Bill. I heard Henwood's daughter say you was mighty good-lookin', but +she hasn't got much sense." Milford looked up with a smile. "No, she +ain't," Mitchell went on. "And if her daddy was to die she'd have to +have a gardeen appointed. But to-day, while I was gettin' a drink at the +windmill, I heard two or three of Mrs. Stuvic's women standin' over in +the road talkin'. One of 'em said that she had a cousin that's a +detective in Chicago, and she was goin' to bring him out here and let +him investigate you just for fun." + +Milford turned down the light. "I'll throw this thing into the road the +first thing you know. Bring a detective, eh? All right, let her bring +him." + +"What will you do, Bill?" + +"Knock him down if he gets in my road." + +"I guess that's the way to look at it. But have you got any cause to be +afraid of a detective, Bill?" + +"If I had, do you suppose I'd tell you?" + +"Well, I don't know why. We're workin' here together, and I wouldn't say +anythin' about it. What did you do, Bill?" + +"Stole a saw-mill." + +"You don't say so! What did you want with a saw-mill?" + +"To rip out new territory--I wanted to make a state." + +"That's all right. You're guyin' me. But say, where did you get your +education?" + +"I stole that, too. Did you ever hear of a French marquise that ran +stage lines and shot fellows out West? Well, I robbed his ranch, and +carried off a cook-book. That's how I learned to boil salt pork." + +"That's where you learned how to feed a fellow on guff. I'm givin' it to +you straight. I want to know, for they say that a fellow never gets too +old to learn, and I'd like to have education enough to get out of hard +work." + +"You don't see me out of it, do you?" + +"No, but I guess you could do somethin' else if you wanted to. Did you +go to school much when you was a boy?" + +"I saw the worn doorsteps in the old part of Yale, for two days, and +then I turned away and went West. My father died, and I didn't want to +be a tax on mother, so I decided to shift for myself." + +"Was it a good shift?" + +"I can't say it was. Are you going to bed?" Milford asked, as Mitchell +got up from the table. + +"No, not now. I've got an engagement to take the Dutch girl out in a +boat." + +"She'll upset your craft and drown you." + +"I'm goin' to take the scow." + +He went out whistling a light tune, but dragging his feet heavily, for +he had worked hard all day, keeping pace with Milford's bounding +energy. Milford sat musing, and his brow was not clear. From behind the +clock on the mantel-piece, he took a newspaper, and strove to read it by +the smoky light, but his mind wandered off. He went out and sat on the +grass beneath the walnut tree. The night was hot. The slow air fumbled +among the leaves. Far in the sultry west was an occasional play of +lightning, the hot eye of day peeping back into the sweltering night. He +heard some one coming up the hill, talking. It was Mrs. Stuvic's voice. +She arose into the dim light, and he saw that she was alone. He called +to her, and she came forward at a faster gait, still talking. "Wouldn't +believe me--couldn't get him to believe me, but he does now--yes, you +bet!" + +"What's the matter, ma'am?" + +"Old Lewson--told him he was dyin'--wouldn't believe me. He's dead. +Conscience alive! and they were thumpin' on the piana all the time. The +hired man can't be found since I gave him the larrupin'. I hope he's +drowned himself. He's no account on the face of the earth, and I wish +now I'd kept Mitchell when I had him. He seems to work well enough for +you. But what I want you to do is to go to the old man's daughter and +tell her. She lives about two miles down the road, just beyant the +second corners--white house to the right. Come on with me. The buggy'll +be hitched up by the time we get to the house. Yes, set right there, +lookin' right at me, with his chin droppin' down. I says, 'Lewson, you +are dyin'.' And he mumbled that he wan't. But I reckon he knows now +whether he was or not." + +She talked nearly all the way over, sobbing at times, and then hardening +herself with scolding. The buggy was ready in the road. Low tones came +from the veranda. Through the shrubbery along the fence could be seen +the ghost-like outlines of women dressed in white. A dog howled under +the old apple tree. + +"Wait," said the old woman, as Milford gathered up the lines. "I want +you to kill that infernal dog before you go. Never set down under that +tree before in his life, and now that the poor old man's dead he goes +there to howl, as if everythin' wan't dismal enough anyway. Get out and +I'll fetch the gun." + +"Oh, no. Don't kill him. He doesn't know any better. By the way, what's +the name of the woman I am going to see?" + +"Now, just look at that! If I haven't forgot her name I'm the biggest +fool on earth. Did you ever see anythin' like that? If that confounded +John, the hired man, was here, he'd know. I'm almost sorry now that I +licked him. But if I ever ketch him again I'll give it to him for +treatin' me this way when I need him. Well, go on, and stop at the house +I told you. And if that horse don't want to go, lick the life out of +him." + +Milford drove off, and the dog jumped over the fence and came trotting +along behind the buggy. It did not take long to reach the place. A man +came to the door in answer to Milford's knock. There was no attempt to +soften the news. "I came to tell you that old Mr. Lewson is dead," said +Milford. And there was no effort on the man's part to show surprise. +"Well, I'm not an undertaker," he replied. + +"But you married his daughter." + +"But not with his consent or good-will. He was nothing to us. Well," he +added, as Milford continued to stand there, "anything else?" + +"Yes, just a word or two more. I want to tell you that you are a brute +and a coward; and if you'll just step out here I'll mop up the ground +with you." + +The man stepped back and shut the door. Milford came away, the muscles +in his arms hard with a desire to fight. He thought of the tenderness of +a mining camp, of the cowboy's manly tear, of hard men who were soft +toward a dead stranger. "Hearts full of cold ashes," he mused, bitterly. +"And how can it be in a place so beautiful? An infidel from the +sand-hills would here cry out that there is a God, an artist God. And +some of these wretches would teach him that there is a hell. Well, I'm +going to fight it out. I don't see any other way. I guess I'm a fool, +but I've got that thing to do." + +Mrs. Stuvic tiptoed in her rage. "Horton," she said, almost dancing in +the road. "That's the scoundrel's name. And don't you dare to judge us +by him. He's a stranger here, too. I hope the hogs will root him up and +crack his bones. Well, go on to bed, Bill. I guess the old man can take +care of himself till mornin'." + +Early the next day, the old man's daughter came, stricken with grief and +remorse. She said that her husband had forced her to treat her father +cruelly. She knelt beside the poor old relic of weary bones, and prayed +that the Lord might forgive her. Mrs. Stuvic relented. "Come," she said, +leading the daughter away. "We believe you, and won't hold it against +you, but I'll never love you till you poison that man of yours. There, +now, don't whimper. Everythin's all right." + +The sympathy of the community was aroused, and it was a genuine +sympathy. Milford found that this neighborhood was very much like the +rest of the world, lacking heart only in places. He stood at the grave, +listening to the faltering tones of an aged man, and he muttered to +himself, "I've got to do that one thing." + +Old Lewson had convinced Mrs. Stuvic of the truth of spiritualism. She +was attracted by a faith that entailed no prayers and no church-going. +It left her free, not to lie down in the green pastures of the poetic +psalmist, but to tramp rough-shod among the nettles of profanity. The +church advised that no eye should be turned upon wine, rich in deceitful +color, and the old woman was not always sober. Therefore, she took up +old Lewson's faith, first because it was easy, and afterward because it +seemed natural that she should come back and haunt her enemies. More +than once she had been heard to say, gazing after some one driving along +the road, "Oh, but I'll make it lively for him when I come back! He +shan't sleep a wink!" But to the old man she did not make a complete +confession of her conversion to his faith till she saw death staring out +of his eyes, and then she reminded him of his promise to return on the +third night, and make himself known to her. Had there remained in her +heart any fag-end of rebellion gainst the pliable tenets of his +credulous doctrine, the last look that he gave her would have driven it +out. "I believe you, Lewson," she gasped, when his wrinkled chin sank +upon his withered breast. + +The third night came. She did not give her secret to the boarders; she +was not afraid of the heat of an argument or the scorch of a fight, but +the thought of ridicule's cold smile made her shudder. She hated +education, and was afraid of its nimble trickery. There was more of +insult in a word which she did not understand than in a term familiarly +abusive. But she told Milford. He was under obligations, and dared not +scoff. She requested him to sit upon the veranda, to wait for her coming +from the spirit's presence chamber. She drove the Dutch girl to bed, not +in the house, but in an outlying cottage. In the dining-room she +whispered to Milford, ready to turn him out upon the veranda. The +clock's internals growled the five-minute verge of twelve. She turned +Milford out, and hastened into Lewson's room. She sat down in a rocking +chair, her nervous hands fidgeting in her lap. Spirits keep their +promises best in the dark, and she had not lighted a lamp. Moonbeams +fell through the window, a ladder of light, upon which a spirit might +well descend to earth. The clock in the dining-room struck twelve. The +dog howled under the apple tree. + +"Lewson, are you here?" + +Two eggs on a shelf caught the light of the moon. She started. Surely, +they were not there a moment ago. Was the old man robbing hens' nests in +the spiritual world? A breeze stirred, and there was a whisper of +drapery at the window. + +"Lewson, is that you?" + +She glanced again at the eggs. Hadn't they moved? A midnight cock crew, +and she started. Why should he crow just as she glanced at the eggs? She +waited. + +"Lewson, oh, Lewson! Do you hear me? Don't you remember your promise? +Come, now, don't treat me this way. You know how hard it was for me to +believe in your doctrine. You know how I've tried to have some sort of +religion. And now, please don't knock down all the props. Haven't I been +kind to you? Didn't I take you when nobody else would? Then help me, +Lewson. Give me something to cling to. Just say one word--just +one--somethin' to let me know you have told the truth. I want the truth, +that's all I want, Lewson. You haven't come. No, you haven't, and you +needn't say you have. You can't come, and you know it. Well, I'm goin' +now. Are you comin'? No, you ain't. You are an old fraud, that's what +you are." She flounced out upon the veranda, and said to Milford: "Go to +bed. There never was a bigger liar than that old fool." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +NEEDED HIS SPIRITUAL HELP. + + +Early the next morning, before the clanging bell had shattered the +boarder's dream, the old woman hastened to Milford's cottage. When she +surprised him at breakfast, he thought that possibly the old man might +have called at some time during the night, and that she had come to +bring the good news, but this early hope was killed by the darkness of +her brow. "I've come over to tell you that if ever you say a word about +what happened last night, I'll drive you out of the county," she said, +her lips parted and her teeth sharp-set. + +"Why, nothing did happen," he replied with a laugh. + +"No, you bet! But don't you ever dare to say that I expected anythin' to +happen. I won't allow any old man, dead or alive, to make a monkey of +me. Well, I'll eat breakfast with you. What, is this all you've got, +just bread and bacon? Conscience alive! you are livin' hard." + +"I can't afford anything else," he replied, looking down upon his rough +fare. + +"Well, you ought to get rich at this rate. There's not one man in a +thousand that would be willin' to put up with it. What's your aim, +anyway?" + +"To make money." + +"Money! It's some woman, that's what it is. Well, you're a fool. What +thanks do you reckon she'll ever give you? She'll growl because you +didn't make more. I'll get back. I don't like your grub. But recollect, +now," she added, as she turned toward the door, "that if you say a word +about what I expected to happen last night, I'll drive you out of the +county." She went out, but her head soon reappeared at the door. "Bill," +she said, "there's a sucker born every minute." + +"And sometimes twins," he replied. She leaned against the door-facing to +laugh, not in the jollity of good-humor, but in the sharp and racking +titter of soured self-pity. "Sometimes twins--yes, you bet!" + +"If I didn't have a word for it that I couldn't dispute, I'd think that +I was the weakling of a set of triplets," said Milford. + +"Oh, you'll do. There's no flies buzzing around you, I tell you. Well, +I'll leave you, sure enough now." + +For a time, he clattered the rough dishes, clearing them out of the way, +despising the work--a loathing shared by all human beings. Mitchell was +at the barn, among the horses, and there came the occasional and almost +rhythmic tap, tap, tap of his currycomb against the thin wall. In the +damp sags of the corn field, the plow could not be used with advantage, +and Milford assigned to himself the work of covering this territory with +a hoe. The advisory board, men who drove past in milk wagons, condemned +it as a piece of folly. They said that a man might wear himself out +among the clods, and to no great purpose, either; but Milford appeared +to rejoice in his conquest over the combative soil. Steve Hardy said +that he must be doing penance in the hot sun for some crime committed in +the cool shade. But the old woman had given it out that her man was +working for a woman, and the women commended it. How soft is the voice +of woman when she speaks of one who sweats for her sex! They sat upon +the veranda, watching Milford as he delved in the blaze of the sun. It +was a romance. Afar off there must be a sighing woman, waiting for him. +Mrs. Blakemore could see her, and she sighed with her, watching the hero +dealing the hard licks of love. With her scampering son, she crossed the +field, going toward the lake, the morning after the expected visit from +Lewson. She was determined to speak to Milford. Mrs. Stuvic had just +said, "That man is killin' himself for a woman." On she came, her feet +faring ill among the clods. She stumbled and laughed, and the boy, in +budding derision of woman's weakness, shouted contemptuously. + +"Why did you come across this rough place?" Milford asked, planting his +hoe in front of him. To her he was a man behind the flag-staff of his +honor. + +"Because it's so much nearer to the lake," she answered. The boy cried +out that he had found a rattlesnake, and proceeded to attack with clods +a rusty toad. + +"Come away, Bobbie. He'll bite you." She saw that it was a toad, and she +knew that it would not bite him; but motherly instinct demanded that +she must warn him. "Oh, it's such a jaunt, coming across here. Really, I +don't see how you can stand it to work so long in the hot sun. Let me +bring you some cool water." + +She felt that she ought to do something for him. He smiled, and glanced +down at her thin-shod feet. He felt that there was genuineness in this +slim creature, and he was moved to reply: "No, I thank you. Your +sympathy ought to relieve a man of thirst." + +"Really, that is so nice of you. No wonder all the women like you when +you say such kind things. But there is one thing I wish, Mr. Milford--I +wish you'd taken more to my husband. He's awfully low-spirited, and I'm +so distressed about him. He's worried nearly to death in town, and he +comes out here and mopes about. I didn't know but you might say +something to interest him. He'll be out again this evening. Will you +please come over to the house to see him?" + +He thought of his weariness after his day of strain, of his own +melancholy that came with the shades of night. He thought that, in +comparison with himself, the man ought to be boyishly happy; but he told +her that to come would give him great pleasure. + +"Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say so. Tell him of fights, of men that +wouldn't give up, but fought their way out of hard luck. Tell him what +you are doing. I know it's preposterous to ask you, but will you do it?" + +Her eyes were as bright as the dew caught by the cobweb, shaded by the +clod, he thought--as he stood there leaning on the handle of his hoe, +looking at her; and he read woman's great chapter of anxious affection. +"I will tell him of a man who failed in everything, and then found that +he had a fortune in his wife," he said. She put out her hand toward him, +and snatched it back to hide her eyes for a moment. She turned toward +the boy, and in a cool voice commanded him not to romp so hard over the +rough ground. Milford saw a soul that loved to be loved, that lived to +be loved, a soul that may not be the most virtuous, but which is surely +the most beautiful. He did not presume to understand women; he estimated +her by a "hunch" as to whether she was good or bad. He remembered that +he had jumped upon his pony and galloped off to the further West, to +keep from falling in love with one. And since that time he had felt +himself safe, so into this woman's eyes he could look without fear. + +"Yes," she said, "tell him that love is the greatest estate. It will +make him think, coming from a man. Poor George was in the hardware +business, and he failed not long ago, and I don't know why, for I'm sure +I saved every cent I could. What you tell him will have a good deal of +weight." + +Milford had to laugh at this. "I don't know why," said he. + +"Because you are a good man." + +Milford sneered. "Madam, I'm a crank." He begged her pardon for his +harshness. Her forgiveness came with a smile. He told her that he was +as morbid as a mad dog, and he said it with such energy that she drew +back from him. "But you won't fail to see George, will you? Come on, +Bobbie. Oh, I forgot to tell you of some new arrivals--a Mrs. Goodwin, +wife of a well-known doctor in town, and her companion, one of the +handsomest young women I ever saw--a Norwegian girl, as graceful as one +of her native pines. You won't fail to come, will you? Good-bye." + +The evening was sultry, with a lingering smear of red in the western +sky. At the supper table Milford nodded in his chair. The hired man +spoke to him, and he looked up, his batting eyes fighting off sleep. + +"Them slashes have about got the best of you, haven't they, Bill? I'd +let that corn go before I'd dig my life out among them tough clods. I'm +givin' it to you straight." + +"I don't doubt it. But it will pay in the end. I've come to the +conclusion that all hard work pays. It pays a man's mind, and he +couldn't get a much better reward. But I'd like to go to bed, just the +same." + +"Why don't you? Not goin' to dig any more to-night, are you?" + +"No, but I've got to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's to see a man." + +"A man?" Mitchell asked, with a wink. + +"I said a man." + +"Yes, I know you said a man." + +"Then why not a man?" + +"Well, I don't know, only it seems to me that if I was as tired as you +look I wouldn't go to see no man's man." + +"How about any woman's woman?" + +"Well, that's different. You can put off seein' a man, and you might put +off seein' a woman, but you don't want to. But maybe you ain't as big a +chump about a woman as I am." + +Milford said that the wisest man among wise men could easily be a fool +among women. Solomon's wisdom, diluted by woman, became a weak quality. +"Except once," he added, taking down his pipe from the clock shelf, "and +that was when he called for a sword to cut a child in two to divide it +between two mothers; but if the question had been between himself and a +woman, I don't know but he'd have got the worst of it." + +It was the hired man's turn to clear away the dishes, and Milford sat +smoking in a muse. Night flies buzzed about the lamp, and the mosquito, +winged sting of the darkness, sang his sharp tune over the rain-water +barrel beneath the window. The hired man put away the dishes, and went +into his shell-like bedroom, a thin addition built against the house. +Milford heard him sit upon the edge of his bed, heard his heavy shoes +drop upon the floor, heard him stretch out upon the creaking slats to +lie a log till the peep of day. The tired laborer's pipe fell to the +floor. He got up with a straining shrug of his stiff shoulders, snatched +off his sticking garments, bathed in a tub, put on clean clothing, and +set out to keep his appointment. He muttered as he walked along the +road. He halted upon a knoll in the oat-field, and stood to breathe the +cool air from the low-lying meadow. As he drew near to the house, he +heard the shouts of children and the imploring tones of nurses and +mothers, begging them to go to bed. A lantern hanging under the eaves of +the veranda shed light upon women eager to hear gossip from the city +apartment house, and men, who, though breathing a fresh escape from +business, had already begun to inquire as to the running of the trains. +In the dooryard, a dull fire smoked in a tin pan,--a "smudge" to drive +off the mosquitoes. Some one flailed the piano. The Dutch girl, singing +a song of the lowlands, was grabbing clothes off a line, with no fear of +running over an old man. Mrs. Blakemore and George were sitting at a +corner of the veranda, apart from the general nest of gossipers. Bobbie +had been bribed to bed. The woman got up and gave Milford her hand. In +his calloused palm it felt like the soft paw of a kitten. George nodded +with an indistinct grunt. + +"Well, how is everything?" Milford asked. + +"Rotten," George answered. His wife sighed, and brushed off a white moth +that had lighted on his coat sleeve. "But it will get better," she said. +"Don't you think so, Mr. Milford?" + +"Bound to," Milford agreed. "I'm a firm believer in everything coming +out all right. I've seen it tested time and again. Hope is the world's +best bank account." George looked at him. "That's all right enough," he +admitted. + +"Hope is the soul's involuntary prayer," his wife observed, and he +looked at her. "That's all well enough, too," said he, "but what's the +use of tying a ribbon around your neck in a snow-storm, when what you +need is an overcoat? A man can wrap all the hope in the world around +himself, and then freeze to death." + +"That's true," said Milford, catching sight of the woman's eyes as she +drew a long breath, "but hope may lead him out of the storm. Pardon me, +but I infer that you've met business reverses." + +"Struck the ceiling," said George. + +"How often?" + +"Isn't once enough?" + +"Yes, but I've struck it a hundred times. I've been kept on the bounce, +like a ball." + +"That's all right, but do you feel thankful for it?" + +"Well, my heart isn't bursting with gratitude, but it might have been +worse--I might have stuck to the ceiling. When you throw a dog into the +water, he always shakes himself when he comes out. It's a determination +to be dry again. And that's the way a man ought to do--shake himself +every time he's thrown." + +"I don't know but you're right. What are you doing here, anyway?" + +"Rooting like a hog for something to eat. And I've not only failed in +nearly everything I undertook, but I've been a fool besides. But I've +got sense enough to know that it has all been my own fault. I believe +that, if a man's in good health, it's always his own fault if he don't +succeed. I could sit down and growl at the world; I could wish I had it +under my heel to grind the life out of it; and the truth is, we all have +a part of it under our heels, and if we keep on grinding we'll make an +impression. I am what you might call a national egotist. I believe that +nearly everything lies within the range of an American. He may do +wrong--he does do wrong. Sometimes he does a great wrong, but nine times +out of ten he tries to make it right. I believe that the Yankee has more +conscience than other men. He may keep it well sheathed, but after a +while the edge eats through the scabbard and cuts him. He works with an +object. They say it is to make money. That's true, but the money is to +serve a purpose, a heart, a conscience." + +George turned about in his chair, and looked with keen interest at the +laboring man. "Look here, you are a man of brains. Why do you stay here +and dig? You are fitted for something better." + +Milford smiled at him. "How often that's said of a man who's not fitted +for anything. As I remarked to your wife, I'm a crank. But I've got an +object--there's something that must be done, and I'm going to do it or +broil out my life in that field." + +"You are a brave man. Not all of us are so nervy. But you may not have +to broil out your life." + +"Hope," said Milford. "And what a muscle it is, hardening with each +stroke. Now, it's not my place to say anything to you, but don't fool +along with affairs that are hopelessly tangled. Strike at something +else. Perhaps that wasn't the business you were fitted for, anyway." + +"Can't tell. But I wasn't stuck on it, that's a fact. What line have you +failed in, mostly?" he asked, laughing; and his wife's thin shoulders +shook as if she were seized with a sudden physical gladness. + +"Oh I've been a sort of bounty jumper of occupations." + +"But we know," said Mrs. Blakemore, "that your work was always honest." + +"Well," he replied, his white teeth showing through the dark of his +beard, "I never squatted on the distress of an old soldier to discount +his pension." + +"That's not bad. Louise," he added, playfully touching his wife's hand, +"how is it you took to me when you have a knack of finding such +interesting fellows?" + +"Why, you were one of the most interesting fellows I ever found. Is that +Bobbie crying? Yes. I must go to him. Good-night, Mr. Milford. I'm ever +so glad you came over this evening." She gave him a grateful look, and +hastened away, crying out, "Mamma's coming," as she ran up the stairs. +And now Mrs. Stuvic's voice arose from the outlying darkness of the +road. "Well," she shouted at some one, "you tell him that if he ever +leaves my gate open again I'll fill his hide so full of shot he'll look +like a woodpecker'd pecked him. A man that's too lazy to shut a gate +ought to be made to wear a yoke like a breachy cow. Yes, you bet!" she +said over and again as she came toward the veranda. "Like a breachy cow. +And here's Bill, bigger than life! Why, the way I saw you pounding them +clods over yonder, I didn't think you could move at night. This is +Mr.--What-his-name? I never could think of it. Are you still mopin' +about? Bah, why don't you get down to somethin'? Suppose the women was +to mope that way? Do you reckon anythin' would be done. No, you bet! +There's no time for them to mope. I saw Eldridge hauling a load of folks +from the station to-day. And I know 'em--the Bostics, out here last +year, and went off without payin' their board. Well, he can have 'em, +for all of me. Stuck up. 'Please do this,' and 'Please do that,' and +'How do you feel this mornin', dear mamma?' 'Bah!' I said, 'why don't +dear mammy get out and stir around?' Bill, I want you to come over here +to dinner to-morrow--settin' about readin' all day Sunday. You come over +here and get somethin' to eat. But don't let Mitchell come. I had a +chance to hire him, and didn't do it, and now I haven't got any too much +use for him. The rascal deceived me. I didn't know he was half as good a +worker as he is. But you be sure to come," and leaning over, she added +in a whisper: "I've got the putties gal here you ever saw in your life." + +"But that's not the question. Will you have anything to eat?" + +"Better than you've had for many a day, sir, I can tell you that." + +"I'll be here," he replied, getting up. + +"Going?" said George. "I'll walk out a piece with you." + +And talking knavishly of the old woman and the wives who pretended to be +so glad to see their husbands, they walked out into the hickory grove. +"The old lady whispered to you about a pretty girl," said George. "Might +just as well have shouted it. But she is a stunner! I hunted deer up in +the mountains once, and I never saw one, but I imagined what one ought +to look like, stepping around in the tangle; and when I saw that girl +out here in the woods to-day, I thought of the deer that I didn't see. +She's with a fussy woman, a doctor's wife, a sort of companion, I +believe. I should think so! Anybody'd like to be her companion. Well, +sir, I'm just getting on to the beauty of this place. I never saw such +grass, and between here and the station there's a thousand colors +growing out of the ground. Huh!" he grunted, "and I'm just beginning to +remember them. Old fellow, I guess the little talk we had to-night has +done me good. Yes; and what's the use in worrying? Things are going to +come out just as they are--they always do--and all the worry in the +world won't help matters. I think you are right about the Yankee." + +"Children of fate, gathered from the four corners of the world, and +planted here," said Milford. + +"I guess you are right. Well, I'm going back to town Monday and do a +little hustling. I've got to. There's no two ways about it. I'll turn +back here. Glad I met you again. So long." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE "PEACH." + + +Milford was at the dinner table, talking to Blakemore, when a young +Norwegian woman entered the room. Blakemore nudged him. He looked up and +quickly looked down. He heard a woman say, "Sit here, Gunhild." He heard +her introduced as Miss Strand. + +"Isn't she a peach?" Blakemore whispered. + +"What did you say, George?" his wife asked, picking at him. + +"I didn't say anything." + +"What was it you whispered?" + +"About a peach," the boy blurted. "I want a peach. Maw, give me a +peach." + +She commanded him to hush; she raked the wayward flax out of his eyes, +and straightened him about in his chair. George shook with the abandoned +laughter of a man's gross mischief. His wife did not see anything to +laugh at; she thought it was impolite to whisper. Mr. Milford was not +laughing. No, Mr. Milford was not. His face wore a look of distress. He +shot sharp glances at the Norwegian girl. He heard her voice, her laugh. +A moment ago he draped Mrs. Blakemore with an overflow of sentimental +sympathy, but now his soul was as selfish as a hungry wolf. He had +talked with pleasant drollery. Now he offered nothing, and cut his +answers down to colorless brevity. Mrs. Stuvic came in and stood near +him. He was silent under her Gatling talk, chill-armored against her +fire. She said she would introduce him to the Norwegian girl, and he +flinched. He excused himself, got up, and went out. He walked as far as +the gate opening into the grove, stood there a moment, turned and came +back to the veranda. + +"He was hit quick and hard," said George to his wife, as Mrs. Stuvic +left them. "She's a stunner, and she stunned him." + +"George, please don't. She may remind him of some one, that's all. Why, +he's engaged, and is working----" + +"That's all right. I said she hit him, and she did. Hit anybody." + +"George!" + +"Well, that's what I said. I can't help it." + +"I despise her." + +"Of course, but she's a stunner all the same. But come, now, don't look +that way. I'm not in love with her." + +"I'm not so sure about it. You called her a 'peach'," she said, helping +the boy out of his chair, and telling him to run along. + +It was too much to ask her not to suspect him, now that he was +determined not to be cast down by business troubles. She had buoyed him +with her sympathy, and it was natural that she should resent his notice +of the young woman, if not his good humor. But after a lowly wallow in +melancholy, a sudden rise of spirits is always viewed with suspicion by +a woman. It is one of the sentimental complexities, of her nature. She +looked at him with eyes that might never have been soft. No doubt there +was in George's breast a strong cast of the rascal. He was not a stepson +of old Adam, but a full blood. He knew, however, the proper recourse, +and he took it. He began to fret over his vanished business, and, +forgetting the "peach," she gave him her sympathy. + +Milford, meanwhile, was slowly striding up and down the veranda. Mrs. +Stuvic came out, followed by the Norwegian. + +"She didn't want to meet you, Bill, but here she is." + +That was the introduction, an embarrassment that fed the old woman's +notion of fun. Milford stammered, and the young woman blushed. + +"I did not say I did not want to meet you," she said, with a slight +accent, her unidiomatic English learned at school. "I would not say such +a thing. Mrs. Stuvic is full of jokes. She makes me laugh." And she did +laugh, strange echo from North Sea cliffs, the glow of the midnight in +her eyes, a thought that shot through the cowboy's mind as he gazed upon +her. Mrs. Stuvic went back, laughing, to the dining-room, having flushed +the young woman and turned the dark man red. + +"She is a very funny woman," said the "peach," looking far across the +meadow toward the lake, her long lashes slowly rising and falling. She +was not beautiful; her features were not regular, but there was a +marvelous light in her countenance, and her bronze-tinted hair was as +rank in growth as the yellowing oats where the soil is rich and damp. +She looked to be just ripe, but was too lithe to be luscious. Mrs. +Blakemore said that her nose was slightly tipped up, a remark more +slanderous than true, and when taken to task by an oldish woman who had +no cause to be jealous, declared that it was not a matter of taste but a +question of observation. At any rate, she had come as a yellow flash, +and must soon fade. + +Milford continued to gaze at her, wanting to say something, but not +knowing what to say. He heard the gruff laughter of the men in the +dining-room, joking with Mrs. Stuvic, and the romping of the children +coming out. + +"I guess that's the best rabbit dog anywhere around here," he said, as a +flea-bitten cur trotted past. He had never seen the dog hunt rabbits. He +knew nothing about him except that he had been ordered to shoot him for +howling, the dreary night when old Lewson died. + +"He does not look that he could run very fast," she replied, turning her +eyes upon the dog. + +"Oh, yes, he runs like a streak. He outran a pack of wolves up in the +Wisconsin woods." + +"Wolves!" she said, looking at him. + +He knew that he was a liar, but he said "wolves." He asked if she had +ever seen any wolves. She had seen packs of coyotes on the prairie. "I +went to my uncle when I came to this country," she said. "He lived away +in the West. I stayed there two years, and then I came with him to +Chicago. I did not like it so far off. The wind was always blowing +lonesome in the night, and I thought of my old home where the grass +fringed the edge of the cliff." + +"Did you speak English before you came to this country?" + +"I could read it, and I did read much--old tales of fierce fights on the +sea." + +"How long do you expect to stay out here?" + +"I am with Mrs. Goodwin, and when she says go, I go. She is very kind to +me." + +Mrs. Goodwin came out, calling "Gunhild." She was tall, with grayish +hair, and on the stage might have played the part of a duchess. Her +husband's affairs were prosperous, and she devoted herself to the +discovery of genius. She had found a young girl with a marvelous voice, +and had educated her into a common-rate singer, put her in opera, and +the critics scorched her. The discoverer swallowed a lump of +disappointment, and turned about to find another genius. In an obscure +corner of a newspaper, she found a gem in verse, the soul-spurt of a +young man. She sought him out, and paid for the printing of a volume of +verses. The critics scoffed him, and she swallowed another lump. One of +her assistant discoverers brought to her a pencil sketch of a buffalo, +and this led to the finding of Gunhild Strand. The girl was modest. She +disclaimed genius, but she was sent to the Art Institute; she would +climb the mountain. But she got no higher than the foot-hills. "I did +not have any confidence in myself," the girl declared. "And now I must +work for you to pay you for what has been spent." This was surely a +proof that she had no genius, but it was an evidence of gratitude, a +rarer quality, and Mrs. Goodwin was pleased. "You shall be my +companion," she said, "Your society will more than repay me. You must +not refuse. I set my heart upon it." + +Milford was introduced, and the stately woman threw her searchlight upon +him. Here might be another genius. + +"They tell me, Mr. Milford, that you are a man of great industry." + +"They might have told you, madam, that I am a great fool." + +Ha! a gleam of true light. She warmed toward him. She thought of Burns +plowing up a mouse. But she was skeptical of poets. They have a contempt +for their patrons if their wares do not sell. + +"You credit them with too shrewd a discovery," she replied. + +"I simply give them credit for ordinary eyesight, madam." + +"You prove the contrary." She smiled upon him. "They tell me that you +came like a mist, out of the mysterious woods." + +"A fog from the marsh," he replied, laughing; and the "peach" laughed, +too--more music from the North Sea. He saw the pink of her arm through +the gauze of her sleeve. Mrs. Goodwin thought that he knew nothing about +women, and she was right, but, as a rule, if rule can be applied, a +woman thinks this of a man when, indeed, he has mastered innocent +hearts to make wantons of them. + +"Where is your field?" the discoverer inquired. + +"Over yonder, where the sun is hottest." + +"And your house?" + +"Over on the hill, yonder, where the wind will blow coldest in winter." + +Surely, he had a volume of verse hidden under the old clothes in his +trunk. She could have wished that he was even an inventor. She shuddered +at the thought of another attempt to set up a shaft to American letters. +The jovial doctor had shaken his fat sides at her. Suddenly she was +inspired with forethought. She asked him if he had ever written any +verse. He said that once he had been tempted to toss a firebrand into an +enemy's wheat-rick, but had never ruined a sheet with measured lines. +She saw that he had caught the spirit of the paragrapher's fling. So +this fear was put aside; still, he must be a genius of some sort--an +inventor, perhaps. She asked if he had ever invented anything, and he +answered, "Yes, a lie." This stimulated her interest in him. He was so +frank, so refreshing. She had heard that a laborer could be quaintly +entertaining. She contrasted him with the numerous men of her +acquaintance, men whose sentences were as dried herbs, the sap and the +fragrance gone. She was weary of the doctor's shop-talk, the +impoverished blood of conversation, the dislocated joint of utterance. +She would have welcomed track talk with a race-horse starter. And the +bluntness of this man from the hillside was invigorating. His words +were not dry herbs, but fresh pennyroyal, sharp with scent. Milford +smiled at her, wishing that she were locked among her husband's jars of +pickled atrocities. He wanted to talk silliness with the girl. + +The other boarders came out, George and his wife among them. George +handed Milford a cigar, telling him to light it,--that the ladies did +not object to smoking. + +"You haven't asked them," said his wife. + +"Well, I know they don't." + +"There, don't you see? Mrs. Dorch is moving off." + +George grinned. "Her husband is a great smoker, and she don't want to be +reminded of home," he said. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she replied. + +"I can't afford it. I'm too much loser." + +Mrs. Goodwin asked Gunhild to walk with her. She looked at Milford, but +he lost his nerve and did not offer to go with them. + +"That was a bid," said George. His wife reprimanded him. "It is a wonder +you didn't offer to go," she declared. "But let us take a walk," she +added. + +"Too soon after eating. Believe I'll go up and take a snooze," he said. + +A mother, worn out with hot nights of worrying over the ills of a +teething child, sat rocking the little one. Bobbie stood looking on with +the critical eye of a boy. "A baby sticks out his tongue when you wipe +his face with a wet rag," he said, and George snorted. "What a boy +don't see ain't worth seeing," he said. The boy's mother reached out, +drew him to her, and attempted to take from his clenched hands a piece +of castiron, a rusty key, and a hog's tooth. "Throw those nasty things +away." + +"Let him keep his tools," said George. "A boy can't work without tools." +He clung to the implements of his trade. She turned him about and set him +adrift. "Mr. Milford," she said, "you don't seem to be quite yourself +this afternoon. You aren't enjoying yourself." + +He appeared surprised that she should think so. If he were not enjoying +himself it was news to him, deserving of a big headline. She saw his eye +searching the woods; she thought of the young woman who sighed out her +breath at a window far away, waiting for him to hoe out a place for her. +The wreath that she had hung upon him began to wither. After all, he was +but a man with a shifting soul, and she did not believe that his talk +had morally helped her husband. George was nodding. She shook him, and +he looked up quickly, as if he expected a railway conductor to tell him +that he was to get off there. + +"What makes you so stupid?" + +"The beastly weather. Well, I'm going up." + +She sat there rocking herself, with a knife in her bosom for the man who +sat near, the deceitful laborer. He was, after all, nothing but a hired +man. What could she have expected of him? She was foolish to believe +that there was anything spiritual about him. She would give him a dig. + +"The young woman whom you were pleased to call a 'peach'----" + +"I didn't call her a 'peach'." + +"No matter. The young woman who has been called a 'peach,' with a +bouquet of man's promises perfuming her heart, thinks, no doubt, that he +is longing to see her again, when, perhaps, he has forgotten her, or +remembers her only as a joke. Those foreign girls are so simple." She +looked at him with her drooping eyes. Her fancy rewarded her with the +belief that there was a sudden mixture of red in the brown of his face. + +"Don't you think she's handsome?" she asked, after waiting for him to +speak. + +"No," he answered, glad to disappoint her. + +"Oh, I do. Don't you, really?" + +"Well, she's not ugly." + +"But don't you think she's handsome?" + +"Yes," he said, and looked as if he wanted to add: "Now what are you +going to do about it?" + +"I knew you did. Men have such queer tastes. Well, I don't think she's a +bit handsome. It's no trick at all to keep the eyes wide open; and any +woman can let her hair go to seed. Of course, I ought not to say +anything, but I should think that you would hold a brighter picture of +some one who is waiting--but what am I saying? How warm it is! We are +surely going to have rain." + +She heard the boy bawling out in the orchard. She ran to him. Milford +stalked off toward home. "She's a little fool," he thought, and +dismissed her. In the road he met the "discoverer" and the "peach," +decked with purple flowers. He waited for them to show a disposition to +halt. They did not, so he bowed and passed them by. On the knoll in the +oat field he turned and looked back. On the veranda he saw a purple +glimmer. Was the girl waving flowers at him? He turned toward home, with +the music of her accent in his heart. The place was deserted. The hired +man was out among the women, poverty once bitten, looking for another +bite. Milford stretched himself out upon the grass under the walnut +tree. Grimly, he compared himself with a man thrown from a horse, not +knowing yet whether or not he was hurt. He had the plainsman's sense of +humor, and he laughed at himself. "No matter which way I turn, I'm +generally up against it," he said, and he could hear his words whispered +up among the leaves of the tree. The earth seemed to throb beneath him. +The heat made the whole world pant. He dozed, and dreamed that he saw +violets rained from a purple cloud. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE PROFESSOR. + + +Milford was aroused from his dozing by some one walking up and down the +veranda. "Don't let me disturb you," a cheery voice cried out, when he +got up. "I dropped over to pay you a visit, and finding you asleep, +thought I would wait till you reached the end of your nap. And I am +sorry if I have disturbed you." He held out his hand as Milford came +within reach, and in the heartiest manner said that his name was +Professor Dolihide. "I suppose you heard that I moved into your +neighborhood. Yes, sir, I have lived near you some ten days or more--a +longtime to live anywhere during these grinding times, sir." + +Milford had heard that Professor Dolihide had moved into an old house +that had long stood deserted. He shook hands on suspicion, and then, on +better acquaintance, he brought out two chairs, planted the Professor in +one, sat down himself, and said he hoped that his visitor found the new +home pleasant. The Professor closed his eyes till he looked through +narrow cracks. "Well, as to that, I must say that I never expect to find +another pleasant home. It is one's occupation abroad that makes the home +pleasant, and when one has been compelled against his liking to change +his trade, the home suffers. But I must explain," he said, opening his +eyes and rubbing his hands together. "For years, I held the chair of +English literature in a Kansas college. My salary was small, but I was +happy, and my family had an exalted respect for me, as a learned man. +But now I keep books at a planing-mill up here at Lake Villa, and am +entitled to no respect whatever, not because I am not respectable, but +for the reason that I have failed." + +He came as a fresh breeze, and Milford enjoyed him. He possessed a sort +of comical dignity. His eyes were lamp-dimmed. His beard was thin and +red. + +"Failed," he repeated, "not on the account of incompetence, mind you, +but traceable, I may say, to a changed condition of the times. I had +been led to believe that my work was giving entire satisfaction. My +scope was not broad, it is true, but the ground was thoroughly tilled. +But a difference arose in the board of supervisors. And it was decided +that I was not idiomatic enough in my treatment of our mother tongue. +They argued that English is progressive. I did not doubt that, but I +said that slang was not true progress. They cited an extract from a +speech delivered by the president of an Eastern grove of learning, in +which he said that the purist was as dead as stagnant water. I was +pleased to be called a purist, sir. I had striven to maintain that +position; but it did not compensate me for the loss of my living. After +that, I taught in a common school, but they said I was wanting in +discipline. Then I drifted about, and now here I am, bookkeeper at a +planing-mill. But I have a hope that it will all come right, and I +could exist fairly, but my wife and my daughter do not share my hope. I +trust I do not shock you when I affirm that a woman has a contempt for +the hope of a man. She is a materialist; she wants immediate results, +and all that keeps her from being a gambler is the fear of losing. I +trust I have not shocked you." + +He stroked his thin beard to a point, and twisted it. He cocked his +head, and looked at Milford as if he expected a weighty decision +concerning an important matter. His clothes were well-kept relics, but +his dignity came out fresh, as if it had been newly dusted. What a +tenderfoot he would have been in a mining camp; what a guy at a variety +show! Milford agreed that his views were no doubt correct. The man was +an unconscious joke, and argument would spoil him. + +"I thank you," said the Professor. "Such ready and cheerful agreement is +rarely found, except between two intelligent men, and the admission of a +third man of equal intelligence would greatly lessen the chances. And +now I may tell you that my wife and daughter objected to my calling, +affirming, as they had a right to do, that it was your place to call on +me, as I was the newer comer. And I said, 'Madam, there are no women in +this case, so, therefore, we have no need to be finical and unnatural.'" +He cleared his throat, and cocked his head. The sharp face of his host +looked serious, but there was a titter in his breast. + +"Of course," said the Professor, "one may have ever so hairy an ear, and +yet the gossip of the neighborhood will force its way in. I have heard +much concerning you. I heard that they did not understand you, and then +I said to myself that you must be a man worth knowing." + +"Then I must be rare," said Milford. + +"Ah, sharp; that is sharp, sir. A dignified contempt for man may not +belong to the text of the virtues, but it is one of the pictures that +brightens the page. I beg pardon for even the appearance of +infringement, but do you expect to reside here permanently?" + +"No, I have stopped to stay over night, and to chop wood for breakfast." + +"A judicious answer, sir; a shrewd statement. They told me that you were +strangely guarded in speech, that you suffered yourself to seem dull +rather than to trip off a waste of words. That is true wisdom, not, +indeed, to have nothing to say, but keeping the something that fain +would fly forth. I take it that you came from the city to these parts." + +"Yes, directly. But I was there only a short time." + +"A stranger, indeed. Have you ever chanced to live in Kansas?" + +"I've broken out there in spots." + +"Ha! an idiomatic answer. I see that you belong to the new school. +Perhaps it is better, but I am too old to learn. Did you ever happen to +break out in a spot called Grayson?" + +"I passed through there on my way to break out somewhere else." + +"You did? That was my town, sir--a seat of learning made famous by a +bank robbery. When our city was ten years old, I read a paper at the +celebration. Were you ever engaged in any educational work?" + +"Yes, one of the greatest. I sold a cook-book." + +"Shrewd; yes, sharp. From what I heard, I thought that you would be +worth knowing. I have met your landlady, a most impressive woman, but +with a vulgar contempt for my profession. She said that it was a good +thing that I had left off fooling and at last got down to work. And I +think that this has precluded any relationship between her and my wife. +She can't stand a reference, not that kind of a reference, to my +decline. In this regard, women haven't so much virtue as a man +possesses. They can not piece a torn quilt with an aphorism. In what +part of the country have your labors been mostly confined?" + +"Mostly between here and sunset." + +"More poetic than sharp," said the Professor, clearing his throat. "May +I trouble you for a drink of water?" + +Milford drew water from the well near the walnut tree, and in the +kitchen dipper conveyed a quart of it to the Professor, who drank with +the thirst of a toper and the suck of a horse. "I am sufficiently +watered," he said, bowing and returning the dipper to Milford, who threw +it out upon the grass where the hired man could find it. "What a +delightful way to live!" said the Professor. "You throw things about as +you please, and there is no one to complain. You may leave your pipe +anywhere, and probably find it again; you let hunger, instead of time, +summon you to eat. I trust I do not shock you when I say that Adam +enjoyed his greatest freedom before the appearance of Eve." + +Milford said that he was not shocked, and the Professor thanked him. It +was pleasant to meet a philosopher, a man who did not foolishly feel +called upon in resentment to declare, that his mother was a woman. A +shrewder man than Milford might have inferred that the Professor had +been nagged by his wife through the tedium of a Sunday forenoon. +Work-day annoyances fester on Sunday. In the country, when a man has, on +a Sunday, killed the chickens for dinner, salted the sheep in the +pasture, and returned to the house, he is in the way; everything he does +is wrong; everything he leaves undone is worse. He is kept on the +ducking verge of a constant dodge. + +"No man has more respect for a woman than I have," said the Professor, +"but I am forced to admit that she is a constant experiment. Nature +herself does not as yet know what to make of her. One moment she is a +joy, and the next she is searching for a man's weak spots, like a +disease. I think that it was some such expression, spoken in a +sententious mood, that helped to oust me from the easy chair of +congenial letters." A clock struck the hour of five. The Professor +seemed surprised at the swift rush of time. "Well, I must take my +leave," said he, getting up and standing with his hands resting on the +back of the chair. "Ah, and would you mind walking over to my home with +me?" + +The lingering dawn of Milford's suspicions was now streaked with gray. +"I'd like to, but the hired man's gone out, and I've got to do the +chores about the place." + +"But perhaps I may return with you and assist you. I am an apt hand." + +"No, thank you, not to-day; some other time." + +A shade of disappointment fell upon him and darkened his dignity. "I am +sorry," he said. "I had hoped to know you better, and we were making +such fair progress. It is not often that I get along so well with a new +acquaintance." He brightened suddenly, as if the reserve forces of his +mind had been brought up. "Ah, would you object to my helping you with +your work, and then taking a bachelor's supper with you?" + +"That's all right--fits me like a glove," said Milford. + +"Good!" cried the Professor. "Idiomatic, and divested of all shrewdness. +Now, what shall we do first?" + +"I'll hatch up a bite to eat, and then we'll feed the stock. You sit +here." + +He protested against a decree that might make a lazy guest of him, but +he yielded, and sat down to hum a tune of contentment, pliant heart +postponing trouble, procrastinator of annoyances. It did not take +Milford long to prepare the meal, crisp strips of bacon, bread, and +coffee boiled in a tin pail. The host said that it was but ranch fare. +The guest rubbed his hands together, and declared that freedom was a +pudding's sweetest sauce. He had read of many great feasts, in the days +of the barons, when bulls were roasted whole, of the wild boar's head +served upon the golden platter of the king, but to him there was one +banquet mellower with sentiment than all the rest--General Marion and +the British officer in the forest, with a pile of roasted sweet potatoes +on a log. He sipped the dreggy coffee as if it were the mulled wine of a +New Year's night. He talked loudly as if he enjoyed the resonant freedom +of his own voice. He laughed in the present, and then was silent as a +cool shadow of the future fell upon him. But he shifted from under the +shadow, and went on with his talk, in florid congratulation of his host, +his ease, his independence. There were no soft cushions, but there was +rough repose, the undisturbed rest of honest weariness. Milford's +judgment of men told him that this man had ever been a laughing-stock, +afflicted as he was with a certain incompetent refinement of mind. But, +in the varied society of life, how important is the office of such a +failure! A shiftless man sometimes makes shiftless men more contented, +softening enmities against life, and quieting clamors against +discriminating nature. Here was a man who really was worth knowing, and +the cowboy gratefully accepted him. He opened up his Noah's Ark of +adventures, and entertained the man-child. He shoved back from the +table, and sang a roaring song of a plainsman who died for love. He +recited a poem by Antrobus, the herdsman's sneer of abandoned +recklessness--"Like a Centaur, he speeds where the wild bull feeds." The +Professor clapped his hands. He swore that no Eastcheap could afford a +more delicious entertainment. Milford brought cider from the cellar, +beading in a brown, earthen ewer, and the Professor snapped his eyes. +"Where the wild bull feeds," he laughed, passing his cup for more. They +shook hands, that they held in common so many old songs, lines familiar +to our grandmothers--"Come, dearest, the daylight hath gone;" "The +tiger's cub I'd bind with a chain." They sang till the daylight was +gone, and then went forth laughingly to feed the stock. But the +Professor left off his part of the singing before the work was +completed. The shadow of the future had again fallen upon him, and he +could not shift from under it. + +"Look here," he said, "you must go home with me. Do you understand?" + +"I think I do, and I'll go anywhere with you." + +"Idiomatic, and accommodating. Put her there!" he cried, striking hands +with Milford. "Ha! how is that for idiom? Stay by me, gentle keeper, my +soul is heavy, and I fain would--would duck." He leaned against the barn +door and shook. Milford clapped him on the shoulder, and shook with him. + +Across a field, through a wood and along a grassy slope, they went, +toward the Professor's home, passing a house which schoolboys said was +haunted. The Professor talked philosophy. He had a religious theory, +newly picked up on the way: If we die suddenly at night, dreaming a +sweet dream, we continue the dream throughout eternity--heaven. If we +die dreaming a troubled dream, we go on dreaming it after death--hell. +Moral, then let us strive to live conducively to pleasant dreams. +Milford agreed that, as a theory, it was good enough. Nearly anything +was good enough for a theory. But wise men had summed up the future, and +had died trusting in their creed. The Professor hung back at the word +future. The future was now too near to be discussed as a speculation. He +saw it shining through the window of his house. He heard it in the +slamming of a door. + +"Well, here we are," he said, unwinding a chain from about a post, and +opening a gate. "Step in. We will sit on the veranda--cooler than in the +house." + +The door opened, and a large woman stepped out upon the veranda. Seeing +who came, she uttered one of anger's unspellable words, a snort. She was +a good woman, no doubt, but she was of the class who, in the old days, +lent virtue to the ducking stool. In short, she was one who deemed +herself the most abused of all earthly creatures, a scold. Pretending +not to see her husband, she asked Milford what he wanted. + +"Mrs. Dolihide," said the Professor, "this is my very dear friend, Mr. +Milford, our neighbor, and a man who has lived over most of the ground +between here and sunset." + +"Oh, is that you? Really, I didn't expect to see you again. It's a +pretty time to come poking home now, when you were to be here to go to +church with us. Oh, you needn't blink your eyes, having us get ready and +set here and wait and wait." + +"Mad and dressed up," muttered the Professor. "What could be more +pitiable? Don't go," he whispered to Milford. "I pray thee, gentle +keeper, stay by me. Idiomatically, I am half shot." + +"Let me go," said Milford. + +"Not on your idiomatic life," muttered the Professor. "Mother, I am very +sorry that I didn't get here in time to accompany you and my daughter to +the humble house of the Lord. But we may not be too late now to catch +the welcome end of a long sermon." + +A voice came from within the house. "Is that pa?" + +"Yes," the Professor's wife replied, "and he's as drunk as a fool." + +"Oh, for pity sake! How dreadful, how humiliating to us! But he never +thinks of us." An inner door slammed. + +Milford strove to pull away. The Professor clung to him. "It is not +fear," he said. "It is a sort of awe that the sex inspires. But there is +a time for boldness. Madam, you have told your daughter that I am drunk. +I am here to refute that statement. I am not drunk. My friend is not +drunk. We drank some cider, sinuous with age, but we are not drunk. He +is a man of high moral character, and I breathe a respect for +letters----" + +"Your breath would scorch a feather right now," she snapped, looking at +him with contempt, her hands on her hips. + +"I deny that statement, also. I am here to refute it. I have been +merrier than is my wont; we have shaken warm hands over a stone jug, +but nobody's character was assailed. And I had thought, in view of the +fact that I present a neighbor, you would treat me with a little more +courtesy." + +"You didn't know me." + +"It appears not, madam. A man may think that he knows his wife to-day, +but to-morrow there appears in her system the symptoms of a strange +disease. But, if you will forgive me," he added, slowly advancing, +"forgive a memory for slipping up in a slippery place, I will promise +that there shall be no recurrence of the fall. Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. +Milford." + +Milford roared with laughter. He broke loose from the Professor, and +fled through the gate, and he did not check his flight till he was far +down the road, and then he halted to laugh again. + +Since early evening, the sky had been overcast, and drops of rain began +to fall. Milford hastened onward. In the woods, far across a willow +flat, the wind blew hard, and the rain lashed the leaves. He turned +aside into the haunted house. All the doors were open. He went to the +back door and stood looking out at the coming of the rain. A noise +quickened his blood, and looking about he saw a vision of white in the +front door. + +"Who is that?" + +A slight cry, a swaying of the vision, a voice replying: "Oh, I did not +know there was any one in here. I have stopped in out of the rain." + +And now his blood jumped. "Is that you, Miss Strand?" + +"Oh, yes, but I do not know you. Oh, is it Mr. Milford? How strange! But +you do not live here?" + +"No, I've simply dodged in out of the wet. It's pouring down." + +"Yes, the clouds were a long time here, but the rain was quick. I went +far over after a laundress. Mrs. Stuvic would have sent me in the buggy, +but I wanted to walk; and now I shall be made sorry." + +"I hope not. Let me see if I can't make it more comfortable for you." + +He struck a match, and looked about. The room was bare. In places the +floor was broken. She said, with a laugh, that she would not mind it so +much but for the dark. + +"I hope you have many matches," she said. + +"I haven't, but I can remedy it. Here is an old smudge pan. I'll build a +fire in it." + +He broke up a piece of board, split fine pieces with his knife, tore up +a letter, and made a fire in the pan. In a shed-room he found a bench, +dusted it, and brought it in for her. She sat down, and he stood looking +at the play of the shadows and the light on her hair. The spirit of the +cider was gone. He wondered why he had run down the road, laughing. He +got down on his knees to feed the fire. It was a trick; it was stealing +an attitude to pay a homage. + +"Mrs. Goodwin will be very much worried," she said. "I wish that I did +not come. It was so much further than they said. I left when the sun was +down. Now it is late, and I walked all the time." + +"I will run over there and bring the buggy for you." + +"Oh, no, no. The rain pours too much. When it is done I will go with +you. The road is hard. There will be not much mud. We found many flowers +in the woods to-day." + +"I saw you with an armful." + +"Did you see me wave at you when you stand on the high place in the +oats?" + +"I did, but I was almost afraid to believe it." + +"Almost afraid? Why, what harm? There is no harm to wave a flower. Now +it rains easier. It will soon quit." + +Never did a promised clearing of the sky so mock a man. He mended the +fire, for, in his enraptured gazing, he had neglected it. He got up and +looked out, to see a glimmer of the threatening moon and a star peeping +from a nest of glinted cloud-wool. He returned and knelt near the +fire-pan. + +"Is it clearing away?" she asked. + +"It's going to pour down." + +"But it is getting lighter." + +"I know, but another cloud is coming." + +"I may get home before the new rain falls." + +"No, I hear it in the woods off yonder." + +"If I run I may get to a house where some one lives." + +"The rain will catch you. A wind is behind it." + +"I don't hear the wind." + +"It is a low wind, but it will soon be high." + +"The smoke hurts my eyes. You have put on too much wood at once." + +"And we must stay till it burns out to keep the house from catching +fire." + +"Oh, the moon is out. I must go now." + +"I will go with you." + +"Take me to the straight road, and then I will go alone." + +He took the pan between two sticks, and threw it far out upon the wet +grass. A flock of sheep pattered by. "Sheep always run past a haunted +house," he said, leading her to the road. + +"Is this place haunted?" she asked, looking back. + +"Yes, by a young man who drowned himself in the lake." + +"Why did he drown himself?" + +"On account of a young woman who lived here." + +She laughed at the cowboy's impromptu lie. "He was foolish to drown +himself. Let us walk fast now. Mrs. Goodwin will be much afraid for me. +Can you not walk faster?" + +When they reached the corners, where a broad road crossed their path, +she turned to him and said: "I know where I am now. This is my road, and +I am not far. I thank you ever so much, and I bid you good-night." She +fled swiftly down the road, and he stood there long after she had faded +from sight. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE GOSSIPERS. + + +The low place where Milford hoed the young corn was not far from Mrs. +Stuvic's, and more than once during the forenoon he went to the top of +the rise and looked toward the house. He saw George out in the road, +teaching his wife to ride a wheel, saw the Dutch girl driving the +turkeys out of the garden, heard the old woman shout for the pony-cart +to take her to the town of Waukegan, but saw nothing of the young woman +who had filled his sleep with dreams. He returned to his work, chopping +the stubborn clods, the heat growing fiercer with the approach of noon, +the wet land steaming. Of a sudden, he cursed his hoe, and threw it from +him. "But I've got to do it," he said, and resumed his labor. George +came across the field. + +"Well, sir," said he, "I didn't go back to town this morning as I laid +out to do, and now I'm like a fish out of water. Just as I got ready to +go, my wife misunderstood something I said, and then it was all off. A +man's a fool to leave his wife with a misunderstanding in her head. +Everything ought to be smoothed over before he goes. One morning, not +long ago, I scolded the boy at the breakfast table, and he was crying +when I left the house. I got on the car and tried to read a newspaper, +but couldn't. And, sir, I hopped off the car, took another one back, +and made it up with him. He had forgotten all about it, but I hadn't. We +were all pretty well stirred up over the 'peach' last night. Got caught +out in the rain, and we thought the doctor's wife would have a fit. And +at the breakfast table this morning, she gave an account of herself. Oh, +she's straightforward. She said you entertained her with a fire." + +"A flash in the pan," said Milford. + +"Well, I don't know as to that, for when there's a flash in the pan +there's no report, but I guess you'll hear report enough when you meet +those women over at the house. They've made a love affair out of +it--they say you're treating a certain young woman shamefully. Oh, +they've got it all fixed up to suit themselves. They told the 'peach' +you were engaged, and that she's wrong to encourage you." + +"The devil they did!" Milford shouted. "What right have they got to +presume----" + +"It's not presuming on the part of a woman, my dear fellow; it's a +natural conclusion. The girl couldn't say a thing. She stammered, and +finally she stormed. She said it was nothing to her if you were engaged +to a thousand women. She threatened to leave, and then the women +apologized. And about that time I decided that I wouldn't go to town +to-day." + +"I'll go over there," said Milford. + +"No, don't do anything of the sort, not while you're mad. It's all right +now." + +"No, it's not all right, but I want to tell you that I'll make it all +right." + +"Now, don't go on getting hot. The thing was a joke, and is all smoothed +over. It arose out of pity for the other young woman." + +"Confound it! there isn't any other woman." + +"That's all right; that's what I told them. No other woman, of course +not. There never is. Well, I'll be off. I go at twelve forty-five." + +George trudged off over the clods, and Milford stood looking after him, +a dark scowl on his face. Those miserable women, not half so innocent as +blanketed squaws drooling about a camp-fire. And that slim Mrs. +Blakemore, lithe as a viper, had inspired it all. How could a refined +woman be so full of the devil's poisonous juice? In his humble way, he +had tried to help her out of a trouble. Tired, and with every bone +aching, he had fought off sleep to make good his word with her. Wasp! +she had stung him. It was nearly noon, and he went to the house to make +fat meat hiss in a hot pan. He sat brooding over the table when Mitchell +came in. "Are you stalled in sight of the stable?" the hired man asked, +seeing that Milford had not begun to eat. + +"I'm down to the hub in a rut." + +"Prize out," said Mitchell, sitting down. + +"That's right, I guess; only thing I can do. Shove that hog down this +way. How are you getting along over there?" + +"Be done by night. Rain put the ground in pretty good fix. You about +done?" + +"Yes. I'll plow this afternoon." + +"Say, Bill, what are divorces worth?" + +"Divorces? I never bought one." + +"Well, it looks to me like I ought to get one pretty cheap under the +circumstances. Wife ran away." + +"Yes, they ought to give you a good discount. Don't you think you'd +better get two while you're at it? You might need another one after a +while." + +"No, I guess one'll be about enough." + +"Generally, when a man is looking for a divorce, he wants to marry +again. Have you got any such notion?" + +"Well, I know a woman that would make a man a mighty good livin'. She +ain't putty; she's as freckled as a turkey egg, but she's a hustler from +'way back. I could bring her here. You could board with us. She's a +rattlin' cook; and she's got land. What do you say?" + +"I say you are a scoundrel?" + +"Oh, that's all right; I'm a man. But I don't see anythin' wrong in it. +She's a woman, and if it ain't right for a woman to keep house, then I +don't know what it is right for her to do. She wants to marry, and I +don't see that anybody is kickin' up much dust around her. What do you +say?" + +"I told you what I said." + +"Yes, you said I was a scoundrel, and there hain't been any argument +raised on that p'int. What do you say about her comin'?" + +"She'll not come while I'm here; I'll tell you that." + +"That's all you need to tell me. I'm a good scuffler, but I know when +I'm flung down. You didn't see the Professor's daughter when you was +over there, did you?" + +"Is she the woman?" + +"That I'm thinkin' of marryin'? Not much! Willie bows to her and passes +on. She reminds me of a blue heron, and the wind whistles when she +passes." + +"How did you happen to mention her?" + +"Oh, she flew into my head--so different from my woman. I know'd the +Professor when he tried to keep boarders over near Antioch. Talked his +house empty. Took up a tramp that had book sense, and kept him till the +old woman drove him off. It took more than a hint to get rid of him. She +throw'd his wallet and stick out into the road. He picked 'em up, and +went back into the house to argy Scripture with the Professor. Then she +flew at him with a fire-shovel, and he hulled out. What makes you so +glum on women, Bill?" + +"What makes a dog so glum on cats?" + +"There must be somethin' wrong, sure enough, when you put it that way. +What's wrong?" + +"Oh, they've raised hell over at the house." + +"The women have? Well, that's their business, Bill; that's their trade." + +"I guess you're right," Milford replied, with a laugh. He got up, took +down his pipe, and went out for a half-hour's smoke on the grass, in the +shade of the walnut tree. The smoke soothed him. Tobacco may be a great +physical enemy, he argued, but a briar-root pipe is the most trustworthy +timber for president of a peace society. Why are women so unforgiving? +Because they do not smoke. Why was James the First a pedantic ass? +Because he wrote a pamphlet against tobacco. Milford lay back in a +forgiving muse. Perhaps, after all, the slim woman had not been so much +at fault. She had too much sympathy to be very strong, and it is manly +to forgive a woman's weakness; it is, at least, manly to acknowledge to +ourselves that we do. It is also manly to hold a slight grudge as a +warning against a recurrence of the offense. Milford would hold a +grudge, and show it by sulking. He would keep himself apart from them +during the week, and on Sunday he would walk high-headed past the house. +This was a sound and respectable resolution, and he smiled upon his own +resources. It took occasion to inspire a plan. And the woman who did not +care whether he were engaged to a thousand women? He would--of course, +he would speak to her, but with distinct reserve. However, some time +must pass before he would give any of them a chance to speak to him. + +A boy came up through the orchard and halted at the garden fence. +Milford asked him what was wanted. "They are going to have some music +over at Mrs. Stuvic's to-night, and they told me to come over and tell +you to be sure and come." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +IN THE OLD WOMAN'S PARLOR. + + +It was clearly an insult to ask him to come. They had slandered him, and +now they wanted him at their entertainment. He told the boy to tell them +that he would not be there. He plowed during the afternoon, with never a +look toward the house when he turned at the end of a row. He hoped that +they expected him; he would smack his lips over the vicious joy of +disappointing them. The invitation had, no doubt, come from Mrs. +Blakemore; Miss Strand could have had no hand in it. She did not care +enough for him to wish for his company. But it made no difference who +did the inviting, he would not go. He went home tired, and was sleepy at +the supper table. He took down his pipe and lighted it. Mitchell talked +about the woman whose freckles were as gold to him. He had found a +valuable rod and reel in the rushes; he would sell them and buy a +divorce. + +"If you take my advice," said Milford, "you'll let the women alone." + +"But a feller that's in love can't take advice." + +"Love!" Milford sneered. "You in love?" + +"That's what. Fell in love about a quarter to two, last Sunday was a +week. What are you doin' with that boiled shirt lyin' out there? Goin' +to put it on?" + +"I don't know. Is there any water in the rain barrel?" + +"Ought to be if it hain't leaked out; poured in there last night. Goin' +to take a bath?" + +"Don't suppose I want to drink out of the rain barrel, do you?" + +"Didn't know; no tellin' much what a feller'll do. But it hits me that +when a man begins to take baths he's sorter in love himself, now that +we're on that subject." + +"Well, I don't have to get a divorce." + +"That don't sound like you, Bill. Don't believe I'd gouge you that way." + +Milford's dark countenance flushed; he made a noise in his throat. He +held out his hand, and in a gentle voice said: "I beg your pardon. +Shake." + +"You've said enough," Mitchell replied, shaking hands with him. "All +that a son of old Illinois needs is that sort of play, and he's done. +Goin' somewhere to-night?" + +"No; thought I'd put on clean clothes and walk about in the woods." + +He dressed himself and walked down by the lake. He heard the merry +splashings of moonlight bathers, the hound-like baying of the bull +frogs, far away in the rushes. He picked his way over a barbed-wire +fence, and went into the thick woods where the close air still held the +heat of the day. He came out into the road a quarter of a mile below +Mrs. Stuvic's house. It was too dark to go back through the woods; there +were numerous stumps, tangled vines, and the keen briar of the wild +gooseberry. The grass field further along was drenched with dew. He +would pass the house and take the road through the hickory grove. As he +drew near, he heard the piano. It reminded him of an old box that had +been hauled over the mountains and set up in a mining camp. The red +lantern swung from the eaves of the veranda. Some one began to sing, and +he halted at the gate. Why make an outcast of himself? he mused. He went +into the yard, and stood there. Who was he, to be sulking? What right +had he, a laborer, to expect anything? They had made him a gift of their +attention. In the city, they would not have noticed him. He would go in, +a nobody, and pick up a crumb of entertainment. The door stood open. +Mrs. Blakemore saw him. She came out with a smile. + +"Oh, I thought you would come if you could," she said. "So kind of you. +Come in." + +The first person whom he saw upon entering the room was the Professor, +in earnest conversation with the "discoverer." He was telling her of the +pleasure it would give him to have her meet his wife. They would strike +up a friendship, both being patronesses of art and intellect. But his +wife was a great home-body. She rarely went out; she was contented to +have him represent her with his praises. And he thought that it was +pardonable in a man to praise his wife. He offered no apology for it. +Romance had not deserted his fireside. A fresh bow of blue ribbon was +ever at the throat of his married life. At this moment he spied Milford, +and blustered up to greet him. It was not enough to say that he was +pleased; he was delighted. He grasped Milford's hand and shook it +warmly. He spoke of Milford's charming visit to his home; it was an +honor that his family keenly appreciated. "Oh, you are acquainted with +Mrs. Goodwin. Yes, I remember now, you paid her a deserved compliment. +He spoke of your great gifts, madam." + +Gunhild was not in the room. Footsteps came down the passage-way, and +Milford's eyes flew to the floor. Some one at the piano loosened a dam, +and let flow a merry rivulet, and into the room danced Mrs. Stuvic, her +head high, and her back as straight as an ironing board. The children +shrieked with laughter, and the men and women clapped their hands. She +was oblivious to applause. She was looking far back upon a hewed log +floor, bright faces about a great fireplace, and a fiddler in the +corner, beneath a string of dried pumpkin, hanging from a rafter. The +rillet of music ran out. + +"Yes, you bet!" she said, with tears in her eyes. "Many and many a time, +Bill; and all night long, with the snow three feet outside, and the +wolves howlin' in the woods. Yes, you bet! Who is this?" + +Mrs. Goodwin introduced the Professor. He hopped to one side, back +again, bowed, and expressed his great pleasure. "Dolihide," said Mrs. +Stuvic. "I'd forget that name even if it was my own. But my, what names +they do fish up these days! Oh, let me see, you've moved over to the +old Pruitt place. Yes, I saw your wife at Lake Villa. Big fat woman. And +I've met you before." + +The Professor bowed. "Not lean, madam; not lean, but not fat. She +couldn't dance as you do, but not fat, madam." + +"No, you bet she couldn't," said Mrs. Stuvic. "And there ain't many that +can. Strike up a tune there, and, Bill, you come out here and dance with +me." + +"Oh, yes, do!" Mrs. Blakemore cried. + +Milford not only declined; he "bucked." He was not to be caught in such +a trap. He might be made to look ridiculous, but not with his willing +assistance. He might have nerve enough to break wild horses, he said, +but not enough to get out on a floor to dance. Why not take the +Professor? Milford expected to see him run, but he stepped forth with a +gracious smile, and took hold of the old woman. And while they were +dancing Gunhild entered the room. Without even the slightest tint of +embarrassment, she went straightway to Milford and shook hands with him. +She had been out bareheaded, under the trees, and dewdrops gleamed in +her hair. + +"Did you find Mrs. Goodwin much scared about you last night?" + +"Not much. She knew I would come home safe. This morning, when I said +how kind it was of you to keep a light burning in a pan for me, they +laughed. And I was angry till they told me it was all a joke." + +"I heard about it. Blakemore told me." + +"Did he? Oh, it was not much important." + +"And they tried to guy you about me, did they?" + +"Guy me? They tried to plague. Then I get mad till I understand, and +then I laugh." + +"Blakemore said they told you that I--that I was engaged." + +"Yes, but that was of no difference. They tried to make me think I do +wrong to walk with you when you engaged. I told them that it made no +difference." + +"But I am not engaged." + +"No? But it makes no difference. You know, I think it almost a shame for +that old woman to dance. It makes me feel--feel--I do not know, but you +know--you understand." + +"Yes; I feel the same way." + +"Yes. Have you been working hard to-day?" + +"Pretty hard. What have you been doing?" + +"Reading a book and trying to draw. I could do neither. Spread +everywhere was a drawing that I could not catch; and hummed in the air +were words more beautiful than in the book. They have quit dancing. I am +glad." + +The Professor resumed his talk with the "discoverer." "One of the truest +pleasures enjoyed by man is to meet a woman with a mind." + +"Indeed! And are they so very rare?" + +"Oh, no, no," the Professor quickly replied, realizing that he had +struck the wrong key. "As an educator, I know the scope and the power of +the female mind--I do not like the expression, female mind, but I must +employ it to make my meaning clear. Yes, I know the scope and the power, +comparing more than favorably with the mind of man. But--" and here he +halted, with a finger in the air, to give the word emphasis--"but, once +in a long while, we meet an exceptional female mind, and it is then that +we experience our truest pleasure. Such a mind, I may say, is possessed +by my wife; and, begging the pardon of your presence, such is the mind +that I have met here to-night." + +She looked at him with a woman's doubt, which means more than half +believing. She glanced at Gunhild, wondering whether the girl had +overheard the remark. She seemed anxious that some one should have +caught it. Compliments are almost worthless when they reach none but the +flattered ear. And to tell that they have been paid is too much like +presenting one with a withered flower. Gunhild had not heard the remark. +She was picking up Milford's slowly dropping words. + +"You are very kind, Professor, but, really, you don't expect me to +believe you when you express such satisfaction at meeting me." + +The Professor appeared grief-smitten. "Madam, as an educator, I have +been accustomed to deal with many phases of the human mind. And I have +lived long enough to verify the adage that honesty is the best policy, +in words as well as in acts; and I have learned that, while truth told +to man is a virtue, it is, told to a woman, a sublimity." He bowed and +twisted the sharp point of his red beard, a gimlet with which he would +bore through the soft sheeting of a woman's incredulity. At this moment, +it flashed upon her that she had made another discovery, not of a +genius, but of a philosopher. But she must be cautious. He might have a +treatise ready for the publisher. She sighed a regret that the doctor +was not present to hear the exalted talk of this gifted man. How dim his +eyes were, with groping in the dusk, looking for the learning of the +ancients! In such wisdom there must be sincerity. But it was not wise to +swallow with too keen a show of relish. She would dally with this +delicious food. + +"Oh," she laughed, "it is so easy for a man to pay a compliment." + +"Madam, I admit that a studied art may become a careless grace, witness +the Frenchman and the Spaniard; but the blunt Anglo-Saxon must still +depend upon truth for his incentive--the others taste dainty viands; he +feeds upon blood-dripping meat." + +She did not know exactly what he meant, but it sounded well, and bowing +thoughtfully, she said: "How true!" + +Some one raised a clamor for a song from Mrs. Stuvic. She was as ready +to sing as to dance. Her accomplishments belonged to her boarders. And +she sang a song popular in her day: + + "Pretty little Miss, don't stand on beauty, + That's a flower that must soon decay, + Reddest rose in yonder's garden, + Half an hour will fade away. + No, no, no, sir, no; all the answer she made was no." + +Milford was called upon for a story. He refused, but the girl's eyes +implored him, and he told a story of heroism in a blizzard. The +Professor was then called out for a speech. The Liberty of the American +was his theme; the glory of every man having a castle, his climax. +Milford smiled to think of the road leading from the Professor's castle, +of the portcullis that had come near falling on him. He saw the mistress +of the castle standing with her hands on her hips. + +"He has so many fine words," said Gunhild. "Why don't they send him to +the Congress?" + +"Because they've got too many fine words there already, I guess," +Milford answered. + +"But is he not a very smart man?" + +"Oh, yes, smart enough, I guess. That's what's the matter with him--too +smart." + +"But how can a man be too smart?" + +"I give it up. But it seems as if it takes a fool to make a success of +life; the hogs of the business world root up money." + +"I do not understand. You are making some fun of me." + +"No, I'm giving it to you straight. The successful business man wears +bristles on his back." + +She laughed at this. She said that she knew he was making fun of her; +but she liked to hear him talk like that. It was so new to her. + +"Ha! her complexion reminds me of a tinted vase with the light seeping +through it," said the Professor, talking to the "discoverer," but with +his eyes fixed upon the Norwegian girl. "A flower come up out of the +wild and long-neglected garden of the Viking. And how truly American +those people soon become! Blood, madam; it is blood." + +"Gunhild is a good girl, and knows nothing so well as she does honor." + +"A girl who knows honor is splendidly equipped, madam. I have a +daughter. And who is it that accompanies her? It is honor, madam. +Throughout the seasons, they are together, arm about waist, like school +girls, studying virtue from the same book." + +She leaned over and touched his arm. "I want to ask you something. Do +you know very much about Mr. Milford?" + +"He warmed his hand with his heart, madam, and extended it to me." + +"But don't you think he's peculiar?" + +"All things are peculiar until we understand them." + +"I know, but isn't there something strange about his being here as he +is, working on a farm?" + +"Not to me, when I meditate upon the fact that I myself keep books and +do general roust-about work for a planing mill. Roust-about--idiomatic, +good, and to the point." + +"But farm work is so hard," she persisted. "And he appears to be so well +equipped for something better. At times, he is almost brilliant." + +"A brightness in the rough," said the Professor. "He has that crude +quality of force which sometimes puts to shame the more nearly even +puissance of a systematic training." + +She looked at him as if her eyes said, "Charming." And the world had +suffered him to go to seed, nodding his ripe and bursting pod in the +empty air. It was a shame. But his treatise on philosophy--she must +find out about that. + +"Professor, have you ever written anything?" + +He smiled. "Madam, the web I have woven, if spun straight, would +encircle the globe. I have written." + +"Philosophy?" + +"Finance, madam." + +She choked a laugh in its infant uprising. That this threadbare man +should write about money! How ridiculous! But true genius has many a +curious kink. + +Mrs. Blakemore, feeling that she was neglected, brought in Bobbie to +annoy the company with him. She bade him shake hands with Mr. Milford; +she commanded him to recite for the Professor. The learned man smiled. +He said that there was nothing so sweet as the infant lip, lisping its +way into the fields of knowledge. Multicharged by his mother, the boy +began to fire off, "I am not mad, no, am not mad." Mrs. Stuvic, who had +been remarkably quiet, got up and remarked as she passed Milford: "This +lets me out; yes, you bet!" + +The Professor applauded the youngster. He would be a great man, some +day. He had the voice and the manner of the true orator. Only seven +years old? Quite remarkable. His mother stroked his hair, and said that, +in fact, he would not be seven till the eighteenth of September. At this +the Professor was much surprised. Really a remarkable boy. + +Mr. Josh Spence, a fat man rounding out a corner of the room with his +retiring flesh, was called upon for a song. He was modest, and he +declined, but yielded upon persuasion, and in strained tenor sang +"Marguerite." + +"Do you like his voice?" Gunhild asked. + +"It's not big enough to fit him," Milford answered. "But let him sing. +It keeps the boy quiet." + +"Oh, are you not ashamed? He is a nice little man, and his mother loves +him so." + +"And only seven years old," said Milford. + +"You must not make fun. The boy is her heart. You must not laugh at a +heart." + +Milford flinched. He had not said the right thing. "Mitchell, the man +who works with me, called me down for saying something that I oughtn't +to have said, and I apologized, and we shook hands. I apologize to you. +Shall we shake hands?" + +She shook her head. "No, it will not be necessary. You do not mean to be +cruel." + +This touched him. He tried to hide himself with a laugh. She looked at +him earnestly, and his face sobered. He thought of the night before, his +kneeling to her on the floor of the haunted house, and felt that it +would be a comfort to drop upon his knees again, not to talk of the wind +rising among the trees, but to tell her that she had clasped her hands +about his heart. + +"Shall we go out on the veranda?" he asked, eating her with his glutton +eyes. + +"No, it is getting late. See, Mrs. Goodwin is telling the Professor +good-night. I must go too." + +"May I see you again soon?" + +"Oh, you may come. Mrs. Goodwin will not care." + +"But do you want me to--do you care if I come?" + +"Yes, I will like for you to come. We will be friends." + +"And shall we go over into the woods where the mandrakes are in bloom?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Goodwin likes the flowers that grow in the woods. She calls +them beautiful barbarians." + +Mrs. Stuvic took the lantern down from under the eaves of the veranda. +She called it a sign to every rat to hunt his hole. She joked at Milford +as he passed her, going out. Even her blunt eye saw that he was +enthralled. "Not so loud," he said. "Those people might hear you." + +"I'd better flag you down," she replied, swinging the red lantern before +his face. + +Milford and the Professor walked off together along the road running +through the grove. "Professor, you seemed to be happy to-night." + +"My dear fellow, I am the most miserable man alive--just at this time." + +"What's the trouble?" + +"Life insurance. It will be due on the ninth of this present month, +three days from now, ninety-seven dollars and forty cents, and how I am +to raise it the Lord only knows. I have been carrying it for seven +years, a galling burden, shifted from shoulder to shoulder, with but a +moment of relief between the shifts. Many a time as the day approached +have I wished that the lightning might strike me. And I pledge you my +word that I would rather die any sort of death than to have it lapse. +It has been a hard fight, a fight that my wife and daughter, as +intelligent as they are, could not fully understand. They argue +sometimes that the money thus invested would make them comfortable, with +better clothes and more furniture in the house. They cannot comprehend +that I am making this great sacrifice for a rainy day, a day when I +shall be out in the rain and they in a better house." + +"Well, I want to tell you that it's noble in you." + +"No, I don't look at it that way. It is a self-defense, an easing of my +conscience for not providing better for them. But I must manage to raise +it somehow, and I have an idea. I have been sounding Mrs. Goodwin. She +has faith in my ability. I am going to write something and upon it +borrow enough money from her to pay my installment. Her husband can send +the paper to a medical review with his name signed to it. Some sanitary +measures that I have long pondered shall be set forth. Result, notoriety +for the doctor and his wife and a moment of ease between the shifts for +me. Would you resort to anything like that?" + +"Would I? Well, I should think so. Do you know what I'd do? If I +had--had some one dependent upon me and had my life insured, I'd go out +on the highway and hold up a chosen servant of the Lord before I'd let +it lapse." + +"My dear boy, I am delighted to know that you understand how I feel. I +don't want to be a rascal; I would like to be honest. But I tell you +that I have resorted to many a piece of trickery--almost treachery--to +pay my premiums. I could tell you something, but you would hate me for +it." + +"No, I wouldn't." + +"Well, I would better not tell it. What a charming young woman!" + +"Yes. Blakemore calls her a 'peach.'" + +"A vulgarism not altogether unbefitting," said the Professor, stumbling +along in the dark. "She has not the dash of the American girl, perhaps, +but I rather admire her for the lack of it. Well, our roads part here. +From now until morning I must work on my medical paper." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +HIS NICKNAME. + + +The hot weather fled before a cool mist that came floating over from +Lake Michigan. A cold rain began to fall. Cows lowed, and dogs, soonest +of all creatures to feel a change in the atmosphere, crouched shivering +in the doorways. Milford worked in the barn till there was nothing more +to do, and then he went to the house and sat down with a newspaper. But +he could not find interest in it. He threw down the paper and from his +bag he took out a worn copy of Whittier. It was a day when we like to +read the old things which long ago we committed to memory. We know the +word before we reach it, but reaching it, we find it full of a new +meaning. But the hours are long when the heart is restless. Out in the +woods the mist hung in the tree-tops as if vapor were the world's +slow-moving time, balking among the dripping leaves. From a longing +Milford's desire to go over to Mrs. Stuvic's became a feverish throb. +But the old woman's grin and the red lantern waved in his face +constantly arose before him. He strove to recall what the girl had said. +He could not find the words that she had spoken, but he remembered that +he had felt an encouragement. He went out in the drizzle, to the knoll +in the oat field, and stood there, gazing toward the house. He cursed +himself for a fool and returned to his cheerless shelter. The hired man +sat at the dining-room table, playing solitaire with a pack of greasy +cards. + +"I worked this thing the other day, but it won't come now," he said. + +"But what have you done when you do it?" + +"Well, not much of anything, but you're on top. Heigho! I'd almost +rather work than to sit around such a day as this. I don't believe we +can do anything in the field to-day. Think so?" + +"No. Thinking about going somewhere?" + +"Not exactly. Didn't know but I might go over to see my girl. Told me +the other day she was lonesome without me. And when you get a woman so +she's lonesome without you, why, you've got her foul. Haven't changed +your mind about not wantin' her here, have you?" + +"No, and I don't expect to change it. I don't know how long I'll be +here." He strode up and down the room. "But I'll stick it out," he +added, talking to himself. "It's got to be done, no matter what comes." + +"Yes, stick it out," said the hired man. "You've got too good a hold to +turn loose now. The fellers around have begun to praise you. They say +you are goin' to make a go of it." + +"A go of what?" + +"I don't know, but that's what they said." + +"Bob, do you remember my telling you not long ago that I once jumped on +a horse and galloped away from a girl." + +"Yes, and I thought of how different your case was from mine. Girl +galloped away from me. But what about it?" + +"That woman is over at Mrs. Stuvic's now." + +"You don't mean the same woman?" + +"Yes, I do; the very same woman--a Norwegian." + +"Did she say she was the same?" + +"She hasn't said anything about it and neither have I. But I know she's +the same. She wasn't quite grown when I saw her in a little town out +West. She was at a hotel--I think her uncle ran the place. I don't +believe she ever noticed me. But I noticed her, and I made up my mind +that I wasn't going to be tangled up with her, so I rode away, whistling +over the prairie. Yes, sir, the same woman. I never could forget that +face, not so beautiful, but a face that takes hold and never turns +loose." + +"Well, that is strange," said the hired man, looking at an ace of clubs +and slowly placing it on the table. "Believe I'm going to fluke on this +thing. Smart woman, Bill?" + +"I don't know; I can't tell." + +"But you've heard her talk, haven't you?" + +"Yes," said Milford, standing at the window, looking out at the mist, +now trailing low over the fields. "I've heard her talk, but when a man +has galloped away from a woman he's not much of a judge of her mind." + +"This ten specker wants to go right here. Now let me see. I guess you're +right, Bill. But what are you goin' to do about it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well, that's perfectly natural. Six goes here. You better not let the +old woman find it out. She'll devil you to death." + +"She already knows there's something up. It didn't take but a moment for +me to satisfy myself that this was the same girl; and I struck out +again, intending to go away; but I stopped at the gate and went back." + +"But what makes you run away from 'em? I run after 'em. Built that way. +Canal cook goes here," he said, referring to a queen. "Is she skittish, +Bill?" + +"No," said Milford, turning from the window and walking up and down the +room. "She's modest, but not skittish." + +"And you don't remember whether she's got good sense or not?" + +"Of course she has. What the devil are you talking about?" + +"All right. But you said you didn't know. I simply want to get at the +merits of the case. I know a good deal about women as women go, and they +go. Been married once and slipped up three times. Can she talk without +smilin' all the time?" + +"Yes. She's very earnest at times." + +Mitchell raked the cards together, shuffled them and threw the pack on +the table. "A woman that smiles all the time wants you to think she's +better than she is. I married a smile." + +"A frown trailing the skirts of a smile," said Milford, and then with a +laugh, he added: "I must have caught that from the Professor." + +"I don't know, Bill. But a man that'll sit up and read poetry is apt to +say most anythin'. I once heard a fellow say that men read poetry +because they like it and women because they think they do." + +"That fellow was a fool and a liar." + +"Well, it's easy enough to be both. That sort of double harness is +always handy. I don't know much about your case, as I haven't seen her, +but if I was in your place I don't believe I'd rush things. A man that +starts in by being badly stuck generally has to win the woman--not often +that they are stuck alike. I'd stay away and make her get lonesome to +see me." + +"But how can I tell whether or not she's lonesome to see me?" + +"By her tryin' not to seem glad when she sees you again." + +"But that leaves the case open for a trip-up. How can I tell that she's +trying not to seem glad?" + +"Well, your horse-sense will have to tell you that. But I thought you +didn't want any woman on the place." + +"I don't. In looking at it I haven't strained my eye as far as +marriage." + +"Then what's the use of lovin' her? It's a waste of raw material." + +"There's something I must do before I could permit myself to think of +marrying, and I'm going to do it if it takes a leg. But I'll tell you +what's a fact, I'd rather have that woman's love than anything on the +earth. Sometimes I think that if I knew she loved me I'd be willing to +die. There's somebody out there on the veranda." + +A boy came with a note from the Professor's wife, inviting Milford to +supper that evening. There was no allusion to the cause that led to his +kicking up the dust in front of her gate. It would give her husband, her +daughter and herself great pleasure to have him come, and it was hoped +that he would not disappoint them. The boy had not waited for an answer. +The courtesy fell as an obligation. There was no easy way to dodge it. +He would go. + +The afternoon was long. Mitchell rigged himself in his best, bought of a +peddler after much haggling, and went forth to woo the freckled woman. +Milford strolled out into the woods. It was a pleasure to stand in the +mist, the trees shadowy about him. It was dreamy to fancy the fog a torn +fragment of night, floating through the day. It was easy to imagine the +lake a boundless sea. Over the rushes a loon flew, a gaunt and feathered +loneliness, looking for a place to light. Milford strolled along a +pathway, over high ground, once the brow of the receding lake; and here +the growth was heavy, with great trees leaning toward the marsh and +hawthorn thickets standing in rounded groups. He came to an open space. +In the midst of it stood a sapling. A grape vine had spread over its +branches, neatly trimming its outer edges, a hoisted umbrella of leaves. +He stopped short. On a boulder beneath this canopy, with her back toward +him, almost hidden, sat a woman. She was wrapped in a cloak. But there +was no mistaking her hair. She heard his footstep and looked round. She +did not appear much surprised. She arose with a smile. + +"I have been sitting here in Norway," she said. "See the cliffs?" she +added, pointing to a mountain range of mist. + +"But you must have got wet." + +"No. But it would make no difference. I do not mind it. I love such a +day. It is an etching. Do you go this way? I have stayed long enough." + +She walked along the path in front of him, bending to avoid the low +boughs, laughing when a wet leaf slapped her cheek. + +"Let me go in front to clear the way," he said. + +"Oh, no, I like this." + +She leaped across a gulley. A briar pulled at her skirts. She turned +about with the merest tint of a blush. He was not enough of an idealist +to etherealize her. He felt her spirit, but acknowledged her a flesh and +blood woman, belonging to the earth, but as the flower does, with a +perfume. Her lips bespoke passion; her eyes control. He was glad that he +saw her so clearly. + +"We shall soon be to the road," she said. + +"And you mean that you will leave me there as you did the other night?" + +"You are quick to guess." + +"Is it because you don't want to be seen with me?" + +"Yes. Those women talk." + +"But haven't they--haven't they any faith in their kind?" + +"Not much," she said frankly. + +"But why should you care what they say?" + +She looked back at him. "I mean that you are so far above them," he +added. "You are worth all of them put together." + +"It is very kind of you to say so. But I am not." + +"I would swear it on a stack of Bibles." + +"Your oath would not be taken. But let us not talk about it. You do not +know what you say when you praise me. I don't place myself above them. I +know myself." She halted, turned about and held forth her hand. "See, I +have worked in the potato field. I have been a laborer." + +"I am a laborer now," he said as they walked on. "There's no disgrace in +work." + +"Not for a man, not for a woman, but in a field with rough men--" she +shrugged her shoulders. + +"But the rough men--they had no effect on you," he said, almost +pleadingly. "What effect could they have?" + +"I was very young. Even at school I had not forgotten their oaths. My +uncle sent me to school. He was a poor man, but he sent me." + +"Didn't he run a hotel at one time?" he asked. + +"Yes, out in Dakota. I worked for him between terms. There were many +Norwegians about, and I learned English slowly. But this is of no +interest to you." + +"Yes, it is--the keenest sort of interest. I mean I like to hear it. +What became of your uncle?" + +"He is a gripman on a cable train in the city. One of these days I am +going to pay him back. And I am going to pay Mrs. Goodwin, too. I will +be her companion as long as it pleases her, and then I must find work. I +think I can teach drawing in the country. I could do nothing at it in +town. Now, you see, I must be careful not to have any talk. I can take +care of myself anywhere, in a potato field or in the woods, but I must +not distress Mrs. Goodwin. This is the road." + +"Wait a moment. I feel more at liberty to talk to you." + +"Now that you find out that I have been a laborer? I do not like that. I +wish you had not said it." + +"Wait. No, not that, but because we are more of a kind in a way--we both +have an object. I am going to pay a man. That's the reason I dig in the +hot sun." + +"Are you so honest?" + +"No, I'm worse than a thief. Don't go--just one moment, please. Sometime +I may tell you. They think I like to work, but I hate it. In my thoughts +I have committed a thousand murders with my hoe. Let me ask you a +question, one laborer of another. Do you like me?" + +"Very much," she answered, looking at him steadily. + +"I thank the Lord for that much. We might help each other to--" + +"No, our battles are apart." + +"Oh, I didn't mean that. I mean we can help each other spiritually. +Don't you think so?" + +"We can all help one another spiritually," she said. "May I go now?" she +asked, smiling. + +"I wish I could keep you from going. Wait. I can't understand that you +have labored in a field. You are the most graceful woman I ever +saw--the most perfect lady couldn't discount you. You've got good +blood. I believe in blood." + +"I am of a good family," she said. "My father was once a man of some +importance. But the world turned against him. Blood is all that saved +me." + +"I've got one more word to say, now that we are better acquainted. I +jumped on a horse once and galloped away from you--out at the little +town on the prairie. You don't remember me, but I do you." + +"Galloped away from me!" she said in surprise. "Why did you do that?" + +"Because I didn't want to get tangled up. Did you ever see a bigger +fool? And when I saw you out here I started off again, but I stopped and +said, 'I'll be damned if I do.' Once is enough. May I tell you more?" + +"No," she said, stepping back. "I have heard enough. And what you tell +me may not be true--about galloping away. I don't mean to offend you. +But I have been taught to believe--" + +"That all men are liars," he suggested. She nodded. "They taught you +about right," he went on. "Yes, they did. But sometimes the biggest liar +may tell the truest truth. They took you out of the field and taught you +politeness. I went from a college out into the wilds and there I forgot +learning and learned deviltry. Do you know what they used to call me? +Hell-in-the-Mud. That was my nickname. Hell-in-the-Mud, think of it! And +what saved me, if I am saved? An old woman living on a hillside in +Connecticut--my mother--prayed for me and died. It's a fact. I don't +know whether there's a God or not, that is, for the average run of us, +but there's one for her. Prayed for Hell-in-the-Mud, and her prayer was +printed in the village paper, and I got hold of it. Then I said I would +pay him--a man. But go on, I'm telling you too much." + +She turned away without saying another word and almost ran along the +road. He stood watching her, hoping that she would look back at him, but +she did not. He went to the house. He snatched the cards from the table +and tore them into bits. "I hate the sight of them," he said. The clock +struck five. He was reminded of his engagement at the Professor's, and +he hastened to fill it. He had dreaded to meet the woman who had scared +him out of her dooryard. His nerve had been lead. Now it was iron. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +A MAN + + +As Milford hastened over the road that led to the Professor's house, a +picture thrust itself into his mind, to shorten his stride, to make him +slow. He saw the girl's hand held out to him, and he wondered why he had +not dared to touch it. Surely, there was no labor mark upon it, pink and +soft-looking, a hand for the pressure of love and not for work in a +field. She had said that she liked him. But any one might have said +that. She had said it with a frankness which showed that she had not +told more than the truth. But why should she have told more than the +truth? Why have had more than truth to tell? He put it all aside and +strode onward toward the Professor's house. A light gleamed feebly +through the mist. + +He unwound the chain from about the gate-post. A dog barked. The door +opened and the Professor stepped out, gowned and slippered. He seized +his visitor warmly by the hand and led him into the sitting-room, dim +with faded furnishings. His fingers were ink-stained, and his red hair +was awry as if he had raked his head for thought. Mrs. Dolihide came +into the room. + +"My dear," said the Professor, "permit me to present to you, and to the +humble hospitality of our home, our neighbor and my friend, Mr. Milford, +the so-called mysterious, but, indeed, the plain and straightforward. +Mrs. Dolihide, Mr. Milford." + +She smiled pleasantly, drew back with a bow, stepped forward and held +out her hand. She said that she was delighted to meet him. She had heard +her husband speak of him so often. Milford breathed a new atmosphere. He +saw that there was to be no allusion to the dust that was kicked up in +front of the house. From the dining-room there came a stimulating sniff +of coffee. A cat came in with a limber walk and stiffened herself to rub +against Milford's chair. + +"A fine cat," he said, stroking her. + +"A marvelous animal," replied the Professor. "We have had her now going +on--how long have we had her, my dear?" + +"Oh, she's only been here about two weeks," his wife answered. + +"Ah, I was thinking of her predecessor, a most wonderful cat, with a +keen sense of propriety, never disturbing the loose ends of thought that +a student suffers to lie upon his table." + +Mrs. Dolihide agreed that the other cat was good enough, but that she +had fits, and in his way Milford acknowledged that fits, while not +necessarily arguing a want of merit, could not avoid giving an erratic +cast even to most pronounced worth. This was all the Professor needed, +and he forthwith launched a ship of disquisition, but when he had fully +rigged it and neatly trimmed its sails, his wife broke in with the +remark that the country was overrun with common people from the city. +One would naturally expect noisy uncouthness, and a lack in many +instances of refined reading, but-- + +"My dear," the Professor interrupted, "you must bear in mind that the +minor summer resort is a kind of Castle Garden, with now and then a +shining exception. Here we have the drudges of trade. Am I right, Mr. +Milford?" + +"Yes, the experiments, the hagglers and the failures." + +The Professor slapped his leg. "A goodly remark, sir; upon my soul, a +worthy illustration." + +"And I have a good deal of fault to find with the home society," said +Mrs. Dolihide. "It is jagged and raw, with a constant scuffle after the +dollar--" + +"The necessary dollar," observed the Professor. + +"The scarce dollar," she replied. + +"And therefore necessary, my dear. But you are right as to society. +There are many good people here, excellent families, but the rank and +file are common scratchers of the soil. But they thrive, a reproach to +men of more intelligence. And now, sir," he added, turning to Milford, +"upon what does success depend? Mind? Oh, no. Industry? No. What then? +Temperament. Temperament is of itself a success. It--" + +"Supper," said a young woman appearing in the door. + +At the table Milford was presented to Miss Katherine Dolihide, slim, +cold and prettyish. She might have had a respect for her father's +learning, but it was evident that she held his failure in contempt. With +her, a mind that gathered the trinkets of knowledge and fell short of +providing luxuries for the body could not be reckoned among the virtues. +Wisdom's reflected light was dimmer than an earring. She looked at +Milford, and he felt that he failed to reach her mark. She gave him, he +thought, the dry and narrow smile of ironic pity. She asked him if he +liked the country. He answered that he did, and she remarked that it was +a crude picture daubed with green. There were no old mills. She loved +old mills; no country was beautiful without them. Had she seen old +mills? No, she had not, but she had read of them and had found them +scattered throughout the pages of art. She acknowledged after a time +that the lakes were charming, the woods replete with sweet dreaming, the +lanes full of a vagabond fancy, tinkers of imagination sleeping under +the leaves; but without a ruined mill there could be no perfect rest for +the mind. Milford knew that this was a pretense, not from any +psychological reasoning, but because she was so unlike the Norwegian +girl. To him there was more of conviction in silent opposites than in +noisy arguments. + +"I heard of you the other night over at the honey sociable," she said. + +"Honey sociable?" + +"Yes, honey and biscuit for the benefit of the church. Quite a unique +affair, and wholly new to me, I assure you. A Mrs. Blakemore was present +and spoke of you; she said it was a pity that you hadn't come to tell +stories of the West. A very intelligent woman, don't you think?" + +"Yes, I guess she is." + +"But the most intelligent woman over there," said the Professor, "is +Mrs. Goodwin." + +"Over where?" his wife asked. + +"Why, over at Mrs. Stuvic's." + +"When did you meet her?" + +"Why--er--let me see. I was passing, stepped in to get a drink of water, +and was presented to the lady by Mrs. Stuvic. I didn't stay long, mind +you, but long enough to discover the lady's intelligence. Mr. Milford, +it may take years to discover a comet, sir, but intelligence, brighter +in quality, shines out at once. Pass your cup." + +"You didn't tell me you'd met her," said Mrs. Dolihide. + +"Didn't I mention it? I thought I did. Speaking of this part of the +country, Mr. Milford, is like discussing a new picture with old spots on +it; but all great pictures were once new. Take the view, for instance, +from our veranda. Nothing could be more charming. The grass land, with +scattered trees, trim and graceful in their individuality, the cattle +beneath them, the woods beyond, and--" + +"No, you didn't mention meeting her," said Mrs. Dolihide. + +"But what difference does it make, mother?" the daughter spoke up. "By +this time you ought to know that he meets many intelligent persons that +we never see. Stuck here all the time," she added under her breath. + +"Ah," said the Professor, "man may be walking pleasantly with prosperity +hooked upon his arm, talking of the deeds they are to perform in +common, when up gallops misfortune on a horse, and that is the end. I +was going to take my family to Europe, but there came a galloping down +the road and overtook me. Since then my hands have been tied." + +"When I look around," said Mrs. Dolihide, "and see ordinary people +living on the best in the land, it makes me mad to think that as smart a +man as the Professor--" + +"My dear, like you I could question fate, but--" + +"Fate nothing; I don't know what it is, but it does seem strange to me. +I don't understand why a man as well educated as you are has to struggle +with the world when the commonest sort of a person can buy property. I +don't understand it." + +"Easy enough," the Professor replied. "The commonest sort of a person +may have money, and having money, buys property. Nut-shell argument, +Milford," he added, slapping his hand flat upon the table. + +"Failure has always been easier to understand than success," said +Milford. "Failure is natural, it seems to me. It comes from the weakness +of man and nothing is more natural than weakness. I am arguing from my +own case, and don't mean to reflect on any one else. I have thrown away +many an opportunity, but that was in keeping with my weakness." + +"But I hear that you are anything but weak," said the Professor's +daughter. "They call you a mystery, and a mystery is a success until it +is solved." + +"But an unsolved conundrum might starve to death," he replied. + +"Not so long as it remained unsolved," the Professor declared. "We feed +the performer till he explains the trick." + +"Then I suppose Mr. Milford will not explain his trick," said the girl. + +"I'd be foolish to shut off my supplies, wouldn't I?" + +"Yes," she admitted, "but if you have a mystery you ought to let your +friends share it." + +"Ha," said the Professor, "that would mean the disposition of all the +shares. But I don't see why they call my friend a mystery. A man comes +into the neighborhood and goes to work. Is there anything so mysterious +about that? It would be more of a mystery if he lived without work." + +"Father sometimes fails to catch the atmosphere of a situation," said +the girl, giving Milford a smile not so narrow and not so dry with +irony. "One's appearance might have something to do with the estimate +formed of him," she continued. + +"The hired man marches from the east to the west and back again," said +Milford. "And I am a hired man--hired by myself to do something, and I +am going to do it," he added with a tightening of his face. + +"But that mysterious something?" queried the girl. "What is it?" + +"To make money," he answered. "Simmer it down and that's all there is to +life." + +In her heart she agreed with him, but she took issue. She said that +there was something better than money. He asked if it were an old mill, +and they laughed themselves into better acquaintance. + +"It would be well to sit here," said the Professor to Milford, "but I +want you to go up to my work shop with me. I wish to show you +something." + +As Milford arose to follow him, he thought that on the woman's face he +saw a sneer at "work shop," and he felt that she and her daughter had +learned to look upon it as an idle corner, full of useless lumber. The +schemes of this ducking failure of a man were not of serious interest to +them. His readiness to talk made him seem light of purpose, and a sigh +that came from his heart might have been an unuttered word breathed upon +the air, a word in excuse of his poverty. + +Milford was conducted to an upper room, furnished with two chairs, a +worn carpet and a table. But the Professor entered it reverently, as if +it were the joss-house of hope. He turned down his light to steady the +flame, placed the lamp upon the table, motioned his visitor to a chair, +sat down, drew a pile of papers toward him, and said: "My dear fellow, I +think I have something here that will tide me over the quarterly rapids. +I believe that among these sheets lie a life insurance premium of +ninety-seven dollars and forty cents. I want you to hear it, and then I +will steal it forth to that woman. Now, in writing for a professional +man, a physician, we will say, you must of all things employ +sky-scraping terms. Medicine has no use for the simple. I wanted to +start off with a cloud-capped sentence, a quotation, and here is one I +found in Hazlett, referring to old Sir Thomas Brown: 'He scooped an +antithesis from fabulous antiquity and raked up an epithet from the +sweepings of chaos.' Isn't that a wild pigeon with the sun on its back?" + +"Yes, I know, but what has it to do with an article on medicine?" + +"Everything. Now let me tell you something. In a paper of this sort you +must take a text, and with sophistry draw your deductions. You must +never be clear. In the opinion of the world involution is depth. It +takes a simple book a hundred years to become a classic. The writer has +starved to death. He sleeps under marble. And who is it that is lost out +there among the briars? The man who wrote the pampered fad. Yes, sir; +let contemporaneous man seek to untangle your skein and you flatter him. +Now, listen." + +He read his paper, making alterations from time to time, marking out +small words and writing in larger ones; and when he was done he looked +at his visitor with a smile. + +"It catches me," said Milford. "I don't know anything about it, but I'm +caught all the same. Have you read it to the ladies?" + +"What!" gasped the Professor. "Read it to them? They would scoff at me, +not because they would catch its pretentious weakness, but because I +wrote it--because I am a failure. And now, sir, do you know I begin to +fall down, as the idiomatics would have it? Yes, sir, I am weakening." + +"How so?" + +"Why, I've hardly got the nerve to take it to that woman. She hasn't +said so, but I know she wants it. When do you expect to see her again?" + +"I don't know." + +"Now let me see. Would you mind taking this thing along and handing it +to her the next time you see her? It would be one of the greatest favors +you could do me. You can explain; I'll trust you for that. It is my only +recourse; my hope has been built on it, and if I fail I swear I--but I +must not fail. You remember I told you that I did something once to help +out the amount, something that would cause you to hate me. I will tell +you what it was. It was a mean trick--dastardly--but I had to do it. A +dog came to my house, a handsome dog with a brass collar. And what did I +do? I sneaked that dog off and sold him for six dollars. Now you'll hate +me." + +"Give me the paper," said Milford, reaching for it. "Don't say another +word. Give it to me. I don't know you very well as knowing men goes, but +you are kind to me, and I want to put my arm around you. I said down +there that money was everything. But it isn't. There's something +better--to find a kinsman in the wilderness. She shall take this thing. +She's got to. If she doesn't, I'll take it to her husband." He put his +arm about the Professor. Tears streamed from the old man's eyes. "There, +it's all right. I'll go over there now. If she won't have it, I'll take +the train for town. I'm going now." + +"Wait a moment," said the Professor, wiping his eyes. "I must not go +down this way. Let me recover myself. You have touched my heart, and, +poor withered thing, it is fluttering. Just a moment. Now we'll go." + +He led the way down the stairs. "I wish you could stay longer," he said +cheerily, "but you know your own affairs. My dear, Mr. Milford is going. +We hope to have the pleasure of seeing you again soon. Our latch-string +is out. Katherine, shake hands with Mr. Milford. I will light him out." + +He stood on the veranda holding the lamp. "It is a dark night, and I +wish we had a lantern. But the road is straight to your house. +Good-night, and God bless you." + +"They have struck up a warm friendship," said the girl. + +"Astonishing," her mother replied. + +The Professor put the lamp on the mantel-piece. "Is he your lost +brother?" his wife asked. + +"He is more than that," the Professor answered, sinking into a chair. +"He is a man." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE OLD SOFA. + + +Early the next morning, the Professor hastened from the dining-room to +answer a rap at his door. And there stood Milford with a roll of bank +notes in his hand. + +"Ha, you've got it; I see you have. Let me shut the door. They must not +hear. Was there ever such luck? Yes, let me take it, the money. Is it +all here? Yes, down to the forty cents." He stuffed the notes into his +pocket. He held up his hand to enjoin caution. "They would rather have a +new settee than an assurance of protection against want in the future. +They live from sun to sun. I live for them, but my mind is fixed on the +time to come. I don't know how to thank you. You are a man of nerve. And +that woman! She is glorious. What did she say?" + +"Oh, nothing much." + +"Didn't she agree that it was the very thing for the Doctor? Didn't she +acknowledge that it would spread the news of his high standing as a +physician and a thinker?" + +"Yes, she said it would do him a great deal of good abroad." + +"A woman in a million. Did the abstruse parts seem to impress her?" + +"Yes, she caught all the kinks." + +"The Socrates of her sex. Did she say that she would send it off at +once?" + +"By the first train. She was particular to ask if you had let any one +else into the secret. She's sensitive--and as I was about to go, she +asked me not to refer to the matter again, and she hoped that you +wouldn't. I don't think she can bear to be thanked. So I promised that +neither of us would speak of the transaction, even to her." + +"Delicate soul! And you did well to promise. My boy, if sincere thanks +are winged things that fly to heaven, there is now a flight of gratitude +to the sky. Won't you come in?" + +"No, I've just had breakfast and must go to work." + +"Well, I hope to see you again before long. And, by the way, I wish to +tell you that my wife and daughter were charmed with your visit. They +are dear to me, but they do not understand. Pardon me, I am detaining +you." + +For more than a week the Professor had drooped under anxiety, but now he +walked high of head. When he entered the dining-room his wife asked who +had called. He answered that it was some one who wanted directions to +Mrs. Stuvic's. Lying might at one time have been a luxury with him, but +now it was a necessity. She rarely expected the truth from him. It took +him longer to tell a lie, and he was fond of talking. And besides, a +failure is under no obligations to tell the truth. + +"It took you quite a while to give him directions." + +"Yes, it is a roundabout way." + +"But you seem to have quite a knack for finding it yourself--to be +presented to remarkable women." + +"My knack for finding remarkable women began in my earlier years." + +"Indeed! And you have been keeping yourself well in practice ever +since." + +"Constant rehearsal with a former discovery keeps me from growing +rusty." + +"Well, I don't care, but there's one thing certain! When you come home +to-night you'll find that I have thrown that old sofa out into the back +yard." + +"It's a dreadful thing, pa," said Miss Katherine. "It's a disgrace." + +"I know it, but we shall have a new one pretty soon." + +"I've heard that for years," said his wife. "Why don't you let that old +life insurance go? Gracious alive, it's nonsense to deny yourself +everything." + +"It's worse than that," the girl spoke up; "it's almost a crime. We +don't want you to fret your life out for us. If we are to have anything +we want you to share it. You haven't seen anything but worry since you +took out the policy. Let it drop. The money you'd have to give for the +next payment would make us happy. We could get so many nice things with +it, and wouldn't feel ashamed every time a visitor comes into the house. +Do, pa." She put her hand on his arm and looked at him appealingly. + +He shook his head. "A crime, you say. Then let us acknowledge it a +crime. But let us also acknowledge that it is not so dark a crime as it +is for a man to die and leave his family in distress. Look at Norwood; +look at Bracken. The neighbors had to contribute." + +"But you aren't going to die yet a while," said his wife. "You are in +good health. Well, there's no two ways about it. I'm going to throw that +old sofa out into the yard. I've stood it as long as I can. It's the +first thing a stranger sees when he comes into the house." + +"And I imagine that people stop just to look in at it," Katherine spoke +up. + +"We might label it as having been the property of some great man," said +the Professor. + +"Oh, I know it's a joke with you, but it's not with us," his wife +retorted. "I don't see any fun in a disgrace." + +"Have you no respect for the aged?" he asked, trying to wink at his +daughter, but she would not accept it. "Let us trail a vine about it and +call it a ruined mill." + +"That's a stab at me, mother," said the girl. "I am not permitted to +have a sentiment." + +"Well, I don't want any; I've had enough," the mother replied. "It's +sentiment, sentiment ever since I can remember, and I'm sick of it." + +"You want poetry, my dear," said the Professor. "Or at least you set +store by it, for didn't you give Tennyson to the preacher?" + +"I don't care if I did, I'm going to throw that old thing out. Wesley, +when is your insurance due?" + +"It is paid, madam, thanks be to the Lord. I sent the money off +yesterday." + +"Why didn't you tell me you were going to send it?" + +"Oh, it was a mere trifle, and I forgot it." + +"For pity sake! And where did you get the money?" + +"I combed it out of the grass." + +"Well, you'd better comb out some for us while you are combing. I've +lived this way till I'm tired of it. Where did you get that money?" + +"The grass was thick, and the grass was long, and the comb pulled heavy +and slow." + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. That's all I've got to say." + +"I'm afraid not." + +"I'll talk just as much as I please." + +"I'm afraid so. But let us all be cheerful now. Yesterday it was dark +and misty, and now the sun is bright. Here, mamma, kiss me to my labor. +I haven't drawn at the weak sinews of my feeble salary, and you shall +have enough to buy a new sofa." + +"That's a good dear," she said, kissing him. "Don't let what I said +worry you. I didn't mean it." + +He whistled at the dog as he went out; he sang merrily as he walked +along the road, with the sunrise on his face and the noontime in his +heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +DORSEY. + + +It was Mitchell's day to cook, and when Milford came in to dinner, the +hired man told him that he had something of importance to tell. + +"Out with it," said Milford. + +"No, not till you eat. I never like to choke off a man's appetite. I +wouldn't like to have a man choke off mine. I'd be like old Matt +Lindsey. The court said he must hang for murderin' a peddler. His +lawyers took his case before the supreme bench. And after it had been +argued one of 'em came down to the jail to see old Matt. Just about that +time the jailer brought in his dinner. Old Matt said to the lawyer, +'Don't tell me till I've eat this stuff. Afterwards I mightn't be in the +humor, and I don't want to miss a meal.' And it was a good thing he eat +first." + +"Well, is what you've got to say so bad as all that?" + +"Not a hangin' affair, but it's bad enough. The fact is, you can make it +just as bad as you want it." + +"If it rests with me, I'll not make it very bad. I'll tell you that." + +"But I'll be hanged if it hain't made you turn pale. Why, you're scared, +Bill. Oh, it's not so bad. I'll tell you now, seein' that I've already +choked off your appetite. Why, there's a feller over at Mrs. Stuvic's +that's too fresh. I was out by the windmill and your girl and a woman +came along; and this feller was standin' off, not far away, talkin' to a +chump that was with him, and he made a remark about the girl--won't tell +you what it was, for a feller that's stuck don't like to hear such +things repeated--I know I wouldn't. And I said to myself at the time, +'If Bill knowed that he'd mash your mouth.'" + +"What sort of a looking fellow is he?" Milford quietly asked. + +"Big feller. The hired man over there says his name's Dorsey. Just got +here, I believe." + +"All right. Did you fix the fence where the sheep broke in?" + +"Somebody left the gap down. It's all right now." + +"Did you wrap the collar so it won't hurt the horse's shoulder?" + +"Yes, works all right, now. Haven't got enough to eat, have you?" + +"Not very hungry to-day," said Milford as he walked out. The hired man +called after him, but he did not stop. He took the straight road to Mrs. +Stuvic's. He saw Mrs. Blakemore coming out to the gate. She smiled upon +him as he drew near. She said that she had just received a letter from +George. He was in business again; a real estate firm had taken him as an +experiment. He made a large sale the second day, and was now regularly +employed at a good commission. It had made her very happy. She never +would forget Mr. Milford; there was no doubt about it, he had inspired +her husband with strength. Milford asked if a man named Dorsey were at +the house. She said that she believed there was; he was at dinner. "If +you want to see him, I'll tell Mrs. Stuvic," she said. + +"I wish you would. Tell her I want to see him now. I haven't time to +wait." + +"I will. But isn't that glorious news from George? Oh, you don't know +how low-spirited he was. Sometimes I thought he never would get up +again. Don't you know that just a word, even though lightly spoken, may +sometimes spur one to renewed action? Oh, it's undoubtedly a fact." + +"Yes, words may sometimes be ashes, but often they are coals of fire. +Will you please--" + +"Oh, that's a good sentiment. I must remember it and tell George. He'll +be out again Saturday evening. But I'll go and tell Mrs. Stuvic that you +want to see--that's the man coming out now." + +A strong-looking man came walking out toward the gate. Mrs. Blakemore +stepped aside, and he was about to pass when Milford said: "Your name is +Dorsey, I understand." + +"That's it," the man replied, taking a toothpick out of his mouth. + +"I'd like to see you a moment on business; over in the grove." + +"What's your name?" + +"Come over into the grove. I want to see you a moment. My name's +Milford." + +"Do you want to see me about a horse? I want to hire one. Is that it?" + +"Yes, over in the grove." + +"All right. Got him there? I don't care whether he's gentle or not. I +can manage him all right. The first thing one of you farmers tells a +fellow is that his horse is gentle, when he knows that all he wants is +an opportunity to run away. So you may save yourself that trouble." + +Milford conducted him to a spot out of view from the house. He halted +and threw his hat on the ground. He told him what the hired man had +said. + +"Well," said Dorsey, "this is a fine proceeding." + +"Take off your coat." + +"What are you going to do?" + +"Whip you if I can." + +"But I'm not looking for any trouble." + +"You may not have looked for it, but you've found it." + +"Say, this is all nonsense. You won't tell me what I said, and I don't +remember. But let me tell you something. You can't whip me. I can mop +the earth with you--my way. Is that the way you want to fight?" + +"Yes. _My_ way would mean something. But it won't do in this country. +Take off your coat." + +The fellow was an athlete. Milford was no match for him. He had the +strength, but not the skill in boxing. But once Milford got him down, +ran under and snatched his feet from under him. In a moment, though, he +was up again, meeting strength with skill. Three times he knocked +Milford down. It was useless to continue to fight. Milford held up his +hands. "We'll call it off for the present," he said, panting. + +"Suit yourself. I've got nothing to fight about except to keep from +getting licked, and it's for you to say when to stop." + +"Well, I say stop, for the present. I haven't been used to fighting your +way. I'm from the West, and if I had you there we'd soon settle it. It's +not over with as it is. I'll see you again. Do you expect to come back +out here this summer?" + +"Well, I'm not going to let you keep me away. You don't know what you've +run up against, young fellow. I teach boxing in town. That's my lay." + +"All right. I'll see you again." + +"But my way, understand. Don't come any Western business on me." + +"I'll see you again and your way. I never was beaten long at a time." + +"Good enough. Got through seeing me about the horse?" + +"I'm through. No, wait a moment. If you go back to the house and say +anything about this affair, I'll try you the Western way. Do you +understand?" + +"Oh, it's nothing to me. I won't mention it. Good-day. I'll take care of +your horse." + +Milford went home, covered with blood. He washed himself and lay down +under the walnut tree to steam in his anger. His lip was cut and his +cheek was bruised. He jumped up suddenly, ran into the house and took +two pistols out of a battered leather bag, but he put them back and sat +down in the door to cool. The hired man came around the corner of the +house. + +"I guess you must have found him," he said, halting with a smile and a +nod. + +"Yes, and he was too much for me. But I'll get even with him." + +"That's the way to look at it. May take a long time, but it's to come +round all right. I used to drive a team in Chicago. And one day I had to +cuss the driver of a coal wagon, and he ups with a lump of coal and +smashes my face. I was a long time getting even with him, but I got +there." + +"Did you kill him?" + +"Kill him! Well, I should say not. I didn't have enough money to kill +him and get away with it. I just waited, watchin' him close every time I +saw him. And one day he jumped off his wagon, slipped on the ice and +broke his leg. Satisfied me, and after that I turned him loose." + +"Bob, do you know anything about boxing?" + +"I used to be somethin' of a scrapper. Why?" + +"I want you to teach me." + +"Don't believe I'd be a very good teacher. But, say, I know a feller +that's all right. He used to be a sort of a prize fighter and he's now +got a little saloon up here at Antioch, 'bout ten miles up the road. His +name's Mulligan." + +"All right. You go ahead with your work just as if I was with you. I'm +going up there." + +"Sure enough? All right. When I get through with one thing I'll go at +another." + +Milford trudged off across the fields toward the village of Antioch. At +a well beneath a tree where cows stood in the shade, he stopped to bathe +his face. He saw his dark countenance wrinkling in the disturbed water; +he committed the natural folly of talking to himself. "You are a fool," +he said, looking down into his wavering eye. "You are a fool, and you +want to prove it." He smiled to think how easy it was to produce the +testimony. In such cases nature cheerfully gives her deposition. + +He continued his way across the fields, through a skirt of wooded land +and out into a road. Bicycles crackled past him. A buggy overtook him. +Some one spoke. He looked round and recognized the "discoverer" and the +Norwegian. It was only a two-seated vehicle, but they invited him to +ride. He declined to accept their kindness, trying to hide his face. He +said that he had heard Mrs. Stuvic say that the buggy was not strong. +They were going to the village of Lake Villa. They might stop at the +mill and have a word with the Professor. Milford remarked that the +Professor would no doubt be pleased to see them, but that he was no +doubt very busy. They drove on without having noticed the wounds on his +face. To one not bent upon a vengeful mission, to a thoughtful man with +a mind in tone with the scented air, the soft sky, the spread of green, +the gleam of water, the clouds of blackbirds, such a stroll would have +been rich with an inner music played upon many sweet chords. At a +crossroads stood an old brick house, an ancient rarity upon a landscape +white-spotted with wooden cottages. It was a rest for the eye, a place +for a moment of musing, a page of a family's record, a bit of +dun-colored history. It was built long before the railroad set the +clocks of the country, before man entered into business copartnership +with the minute and employed the second as his agent. It was a relief to +look upon a worn door-sill, a rotting window-blind hanging by one hinge. +In the years long gone the congressman's carriage, laboring through the +mud, had halted there, and the statesman had warmed himself at a fire of +wood, delighting an old Whig with predictions of a glorious victory. At +this place Milford halted to get a drink of water and to sit for a few +moments in the shade. A man came out and asked him if he wanted a team. +He had a team that would not run away. He was not prepared to take +boarders, but when it came to a team he was there. He had driven great +men, pork-packers of Chicago. The man who owned the enormous ice-house +over on the lake had ridden with him. And it was probably one of the +largest ice-houses in the world. It took thousands of dollars the year +before to paint it. Milford told him that he did not want a team, and +the fellow shambled off in disgust. + +There was not much time to be wasted, for the sun was now far over +toward the west. Milford's anger had settled into a cool determination, +and he walked easier, not so hard upon the ground. He began to notice +more things, a cat sitting at a window, looking out upon the narrow +world, a boy with a goat harnessed to a wagon, a farmer who starved his +boarders, hauling veal to the railway, to be shipped to town. He fell in +with a tramp and divided smoking tobacco with him. They strolled along +together. + +"Beautiful country to walk through," said Milford. + +"That's no lie," said the tramp. + +"But all countries are about the same when times are hard, I should +think," Milford remarked. + +"That's no pipe," said the tramp. + +"They tell us, however, that we are to have better times." + +"They are smokin'," said the tramp. + +Their roads separated, and they parted company. The sun was down when +Milford reached the village. It was an easy matter to find Mulligan's +saloon. One of the oldest citizens pointed it out. Mulligan was +half-dozing behind his bar. Several men were at a table, playing cards. +Milford made short work of his introduction. He told his story. There +was but one way to get even. Mulligan laughed. That sort of revenge +appealed to his Irish heart. He would give lessons, and it should not +cost a cent. He put out his whisky bottle. His face beamed. He was glad +to meet a civilized man. The very fact that Milford had come on such a +mission was a proof of an improvement in the country. + +"Dorsey," he said. "Dorsey. He can't box; I never heard of him. Well, +we'll make a jelly out of his face." + +They went out to supper together. "This man has heard of me and has come +miles to get lessons," said Mulligan to the tavern keeper. + +They boxed till late at night and shook hands warmly at parting. +Earnestness is genius, and when Milford set out for home, the moon on +his right shoulder, he felt that he had made surprising progress. It was +nearly daylight when he reached the end of his journey. The hired man +was going out to the barn. + +"You are born to be a great man," said Mitchell. "The cards are shuffled +and cut that way and you can't help it. What are you goin' to do now?" + +"I'm going to sleep for a few hours and then get to work." + +"When are you goin' to take another lesson?" + +"Day after to-morrow." + +"Ain't that feller a bird?" + +"He understands his business." + +"About when do you think you can tackle your job again?" + +"Not till I have learned how. I'm going to get some gloves and have you +box with me between times." + +He went into the house and lay down, and when Mitchell came in he was +asleep with his head on his fist. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +PEEPED IN AT HIM. + + +Blakemore came out on Sunday morning, snapping his watch and complaining +against the pall-bearing march of time. He was full of business. His +pockets were stuffed with papers. He made figures on the backs of +envelopes as he sat at the table. He asked after Milford. His wife said +that the place had somehow lost its charm for Mr. Milford. Mrs. Goodwin +and Miss Strand had seen him in the road. Mrs. Stuvic, standing near, +pressed her lips close together. She shook her head. She did not +understand him, she declared. Lately he had been seen in Antioch. She +did not know what business could have taken him there. + +"You may not be supposed to know," said George, making his figures. + +"Now you keep still," she replied. "I am supposed to know more than you +think for. I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm goin' to live longer than +any of you, I tell you that." + +"It's very natural for us to expect every one else to die," said George. +"It's a pretty hard matter to picture one's self as dead. But the old +fellow is coming along yonder whetting his scythe as he comes." + +"George," said his wife, "don't talk to her that way." + +"Oh, let him talk," the old woman spoke up. "I don't care what he says. +Goes in at one ear and comes out at the other, with me. I'll live to see +him cold, I'll tell you that." + +"Oh, please don't talk that way, Mrs. Stuvic; you give me the shudders. +By the way, Mr. Dorsey has gone back to town, hasn't he?" + +"Yes," Mrs. Stuvic answered. "And he owes me, too." + +"That's what you say about everybody," George declared. "You'll be +saying it about me, next." + +"Well, you did owe me till to-day; and see that you don't do it again. +But that feller Dorsey'll pay. He'll be back again in about two weeks. +He says I've got the finest place in the county." + +"The 'peach,'" George whispered, as Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild came into +the dining-room. His wife pulled at him. The boy wanted to know what he +had said. For a wonder he had not heard. His mind was among the green +apples in the orchard. George bowed to the ladies and began to tell them +about the great improvement in business. The banks had plenty of money +to lend. Real estate, the true pulse of the times, had begun to throb +with a new life. Mrs. Goodwin did not think that there had been any +improvement. The Doctor had written that money was scarce. Every one +complained of slow collections. George asked the Norwegian if there were +any sale for pictures. + +"There is no sale for mine," she answered. "I do not expect to sell +any." + +"Then," said George, "it's a waste of time to paint them." + +"I do not paint," the girl replied. "My ambition was not dressed in +colors." + +Mrs. Goodwin smiled upon her, and Mrs. Blakemore drew her husband's +attention to what she termed the bright aptness of the remark. George +said that it did not make any difference whether art was done with a +brush or pencil, it was a waste of time if it failed to sell; and +hereupon Mrs. Stuvic began to sniff as a preliminary to an important +statement. + +"A man boarded with me a while last winter that could knock 'em all out +when it comes to makin' pictures with a pen," she said. "He drew a bird +without takin' his pen up from the paper, and it looked for all the +world like it was flyin'. But when that was said all was said. He wan't +no manner account. He went away owin' me. Now, what does he want to go +to Antioch for? I'd just like for somebody to tell me that." + +"The man that drew the bird?" George spoke up. + +"Oh, you keep still. I mean Milford." + +"Probably the woman he's been working for so hard has moved into the +neighborhood," said George. Mrs. Stuvic declared that you never could +tell what a man was working for. No man was worth trusting. She knew; +she had tried them. Milford was no better than the rest of them. Why +didn't he explain himself? Why didn't he stand out where every one could +see him? She had defended him. She was getting tired of it. He had not +rewarded her with his confidence. He came a stranger and had been a +stranger ever since. One of these days he might set fire to the house +and run away. + +"You shall not talk about him so," the girl declared. "No one shall +abuse him." + +"Good for you," Mrs. Stuvic cried. "I've been fightin' his battles all +along and I'm glad to get some help. Why, she looks like a cat, don't +she? And it's what I like to see, I tell you. But it's usually the way; +a man works for one woman and is took up for and defended by another." + +"He is not working for any woman, madam," said Gunhild. "No woman has +any claim on him." + +Mrs. Blakemore shook her head. "With that dark, handsome face it would +be difficult long to escape the claim of a woman." + +"Come off," said George. "I don't see anything so killing about him." + +"Men never see killing features in man," his wife replied. "They are +left for softer eyes to discover." + +"Oh," he rejoined, looking worriedly at her. + +"The 'peach,'" she whispered. "Am I to hear that again?" + +He scratched upon an envelope and handed to her the words: "I give in. +Let us call it even and quits." + +Mrs. Goodwin looked at Gunhild as if by a new light. Next in importance +to the discovery of genius itself, is the discovery that genius is +picking its way along the briary path of love, lifting a thorny bough in +bloom to peep blushingly from a hiding place, or boldly to tear through +the brambles out into the open, and in honest resentment defy the +wondering gaze of the common eye. It would be a pretty sight to see this +girl in love, the woman mused. She did not wish to see her married to a +man who labored in a field; but it would be delicious to see her love +him and hating herself for it, fighting a rosy battle with her heart. +There was no romance in loving an "available" man; there was no +suffering in it, and how empty was a love that did not swallow a +midnight sob! She asked Gunhild to walk out into the woods with her. +They crossed a low, marshy place where pickerel split the trashy water +in the spring of the year, and strolled up a slope into the woods. They +gathered flowers, talking of things that interested neither of them; +they found an old log covered with moss and here they sat down to rest. +It was always sad to feel that the summer would soon be gone, the +elderly woman said, gazing at a soldierly mullein stalk, nodding its +yellow head. More summers were coming, and the leaves and the flowers +would be the same, the grass as green, the birds as full of happy life; +but the heart could not be turned back to live over the hours and the +days--only, in dreaming, in reminders of the time forever gone. To the +youthful, two summers are twins; to the older, they are relatives; to +the aged, strangers. + +"You make me sad when you talk that way," said the girl. + +"My dear child, a sadness to-day may be food for sweet reflection in the +future. Indeed, it would even be well for you to suffer now." + +"But I do not want to suffer. I do not see the need of it." + +"My dear, suffering prepares us for the better life. It makes us more +thankful." + +"I do not know that," she said with energy. "Sometimes it may harden us. +We may be kept from food so long that we have no manners when we come to +the table." + +"Gunhild, that is a very good remark--a thoughtful remark, true in the +main, but not illustrative of the point I wish to make. But you are so +full of hope that--" + +"Full of hope, madam?" + +"Yes, the hope that rises from health and strength. You have so much to +look forward to. You might make a brilliant match." + +"Then I must hope that sometime I may sell myself?" + +"Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that. I mean that you have prospects. Shall I +be plain? You have the prospects of loving one man and marrying another. +That is called a brilliant match, I believe. Or, at least, it is a +feature of nearly all brilliant matches. Don't you think so?" + +"I am not supposed to know, madam." + +"Not even to please me?" + +"Oh, if it please you, I am supposed to know everything." + +"Good. Then tell me what you know about Mr. Milford. You understand that +it is my mission to find interest in nearly all--well, I might say, odd +persons. You have met him when I was not with you. And he must have +told you something." + +"He has told me nothing that I can repeat." + +"Oh, is it that bad?" + +"Is what that bad, Mrs. Goodwin? I do not understand what you mean by +that bad. Perhaps what he told me did not make enough impression to be +remembered." + +"But didn't he say things you did not remember, but continued to feel?" + +"Yes, I believe so. You know that I do not understand men very well. I +do not understand any one very well. They make remarks about him and say +that he is mysterious, but he is plainer to me than any one. Somehow I +feel with him. He has had a hard life, I think, and that brings him +closer to me." + +"Ah, my dear, the suffering I spoke of just now." + +"But," the girl added, "I do not know that his hard life has made him +any better." + +"Perhaps not. But it must have made him more thoughtful. After all, I'm +not so much interested in him. He is one of the characters that throw a +side-light on our lives. He can never take an essential part in our +affairs. Do you think so?" + +"I must again say that I do not understand." + +"Why, don't you know that we meet many persons, and become quite well +acquainted with them, and yet never feel that they belong to our +atmosphere? They are not necessary to the story of our lives, so to +speak, and yet that atmosphere of which they are not really a part, +would not be wholly complete without them. They stand ready for our +side talks; sometimes they even flip a sentiment at us. We catch it, +trim it with ribbons and hand it back. They keep it; we forget. The +Blakemores are such persons. We may never see them again--may almost +wholly forget them, and yet something that we have said may influence +their lives. And perhaps to Mr. Milford, we are but side-lights. He may +soon be in his saddle again, forgetting that he ever knew us. But are we +to forget him? Has his light been strong enough to dazzle us?" + +"I shall not forget him, madam." + +"Then he may have made himself essential to the story of your life." + +"He has made himself a part of my recollection." + +"No more than that? Sometimes we recall because it is no trouble, and +sometimes we remember with pain. You know, Gunhild, that I think a great +deal of you." + +"I can never forget that. It is an obligation--" + +"Now, my child, I don't want you to look at it that way. You must not. +What I have done has given me pleasure. And if I deserve any reward, it +is--well, frankness." + +"You deserve more than that--gratitude." + +"Then let frankness be an expression of gratitude. Are you in love with +that man?" + +"Madam, a long time ago I used to slip to the door of the dining-room of +the little hotel in the West and peep in at him. They said he was bad, +that he would kill; but he came like a cavalier, with his spurs +jingling, and fascinated me. I felt that my own spirit if turned loose +would be as wild as his, for had not my forefathers fought on the sea +till the waves were bloody about them, and had they not dashed madly +into wild lands? I peeped in at him; I did not speak to him; but I +watched for his coming. And late at night I have lain awake to hear his +wild song in the bar-room, just below me. One day I met him in the +passage-way, and looked into his eyes, with my heart in my own, I +feared; and I did not see him again till I came out here. I did not know +his name. They called him Hell-in-the-Mud." + +Mrs. Goodwin did not remain quiet to hear the story. With many +exclamations, she walked up and down, sometimes with her back toward the +girl sitting on the log, her hands in her lap, lying dreamily; sometimes +she wheeled about and stood wide of eye and with mouth open. + +"Well, who ever heard of the like? But are you sure he is the same man?" + +"Yes. I did not remind him that I had seen him there. He said that he +had seen me--he said--" + +"But what did he say? You must keep nothing back now. It would spoil +everything. What did he say?" + +"He said that he got on his horse and galloped away--from me. He said +that he did not want to be--be tangled up." + +"Well, well, who ever heard of such a thing? And you have met out here. +Has he asked you to marry him?" + +"No, and I do not think he will. I must not marry him." + +"But you love him." + +"Bitterly, madam." + +"Oh, isn't that sweet--I mean, how peculiar a situation it is! No, you +can't think of marrying him. It wouldn't at all do. I don't believe he +could live tied down to one place. It is a first love and must live only +as a romance. It will help you in your art. It will be an inspiration to +all your after life, a poem to recite to your daughter in the years to +come. I had one, my dear. He was wild, wholly impossible, you might say. +And I was foolish enough to have married him, but my mother--she married +me to the dear Doctor. And how fortunate it was for both of us, I mean +for me and for Arthur! He threw himself away." + +"But he might not have thrown himself away, madam, if you had married +him." + +"Oh, yes, he was really thrown away before I met him. My mother was +right. She knew. She had married the opposite to her romance." + +"But are women never to marry the men they love?" + +"Oh, yes, to be sure. We all love our husbands. But we ought not to +marry our first love. That would be absurd. It would leave our after +life without a sweet regret. My dear, romantic love is one thing and +marriage is another. Love is a distress and marriage is business. That's +what the Doctor says." + +"And pardon me, madam, but he lives it." + +"How? What do you mean?" + +"Why, you are his business partner. You take care of his house. If you +are not there your servants keep the house. He may be pleased to see +you, but there is never any joy in his eyes--or yours. You are +dissatisfied with life. You try to make yourself believe you are not, +but you are. You look about for something, all the time. If you and the +Doctor should fail in business, you would grow tired of each other. You +told me to be frank." + +"Oh, yes, but you must not believe that. I think the world of him. I +don't see how I could live without him. He is absolutely necessary to +me. But he wasn't my romance. And I am glad of it. I couldn't dream over +him if he were. But your story. It almost upsets me. Got on his horse +and rode away! It is evident that he didn't want a romance. What wise +man could have warned him against it? I am glad you told me, my dear. I +can be of a great deal of assistance to you. Suppose we go back to the +house. Well, well, you have given me a surprise." + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +WANTED THE HORSE. + + +The days were linked out into weeks; there had been rag-time music and +break-down dancing at Mrs. Stuvic's, but Milford had not shown himself. +A farmer passing late at night had looked through the window and had +seen him boxing with the hired man. Some one else had seen him sparring +with an Irishman in Antioch. The old woman swore that he was "going +daft." But it was noised around that he had threshed out nearly two +thousand bushels of oats, and this redeemed his standing. He had not +arrived in time to sow the oats, but the luck of the harvest had fallen +to him. The crop had been threatened with rust and the old woman advised +him to plow up the fields, but he had held out against her and was +rewarded, not alone with a surprising yield of grain, but with a +recognized right to exercise freedom of action, such as would not have +been tolerated in a man who had fallen short. A wise old skinflint +halted one day to ask his opinion of a bulky subscription book for which +he had paid one dollar down and signed notes for three more, payable, of +course, at times when money worries would buzz thickly about him. And +news came through the hired man that a young woman, thin of chest and +clumsy of foot, but worth a hundred acres, had set her cap for him. + +"Of course, I wouldn't advise you to take her," said Mitchell, putting +on his necktie before a three-cornered fragment of a looking-glass, "but +I want to tell you that land's land out here. And besides, she might die +in a year or two. You never can tell. I may see her at church to-day. +She and my girl are sorter kin to each other. I'm a marryin' man, +myself. I don't see enough difference in married life or single life to +get scared at either one, so I take the marryin' side. A married man has +a place to keep away from and a single man hasn't any place to go to, so +it's all about the same, that is, without property. Goin' anywhere +to-day?" + +"There's no place for me to go except over to the old woman's, and I +don't care to go there yet awhile. I wonder why she hasn't been over +here?" + +"Who, the girl?" + +"No, the old woman. Do you suppose I expect the girl to come?" + +"Well, I didn't know," said Mitchell, brushing his stiff hair. "You +never can tell what a girl will do. They keep me guessin' and I'm on to +their curves pretty well. I see that Mrs. Goodwin yesterday evenin'. And +she looked like a full-rigged ship. Guess I'd be a little afraid of her +with her big talk. But you could tackle her all right enough. Say, I'm +sore as I can be, boxin' with you. Is that cigar up by the clock, one +that the prize-fighter give you? Let me take it along. I want to perfume +my way with it. Thanks," he added, taking the cigar before Milford had +said a word. "How do these pants set?" + +"They strike me as being a trifle short," said Milford, surveying him. + +"That's what I was afraid of, but they dragged the ground till the +peddler left, and then they began to draw up. A man's sure to get the +worst of it when he buys out of a pack. I'd like to have a suit of +clothes made to order, but I can't afford it now. Did you ever have a +suit put up to your own notion?" + +"Yes, a few." + +"Well, I said all the time that you wan't no common man." + +"And right there you struck the ancient and the modern idea of what a +man is--garments. You can't get away from the effect of clothes. The +city and the backwoods are alike. With the exception that the city +insists that the coat shall fit better and the pantaloons be a little +longer," he added, smiling. + +"Don't laugh at 'em, Bill; they're all I've got. When a man's got two +pair of briches you may laugh at one, but when he's got only one pair, +don't laugh. Are you goin' to set up here and read that book all day? +What's his name? Whitson?" + +"Whittier. I don't know. I'm a Quaker waiting to be moved. I had this +old book with me out West. We used to read it at night in the shack. We +had some pretty smart fellows with us. Some of them pretended to be +ignorant when in fact they had read their names on a sheepskin. They had +been beaten over the head with books till they were sick of them." + +"I don't blame 'em," said the hired man. "I'd rather set up with a +corpse than a book." + +"Sometimes it's about the same thing," Milford replied. "Did you ever +read the Bible?" + +"What do you take me for?" + +"I don't take you for a man who has read very much of it. But it's the +greatest thing ever written." + +"It's out of date, Bill." + +"Yes, to those who don't think. Why, there's more wisdom in it than in +all other books put together. I don't care anything about creed, or what +one man or another may believe; I don't care how or why it was +written--I brush aside the oaths that have been sworn on it, and the +dying lips that have kissed it; I shut my eyes to everything but the +fact that it is the greatest opera, the greatest poem, the greatest +tragedy ever written." + +"If I could talk that way I'd go out and preach about it, Bill." + +"Not with my record behind you, old fellow." + +"But why should a man that believes as you do have a record to hold him +down?" + +"There you've got me. That's what I'd like to know. But when a man has +learned to understand himself, then all things may become clear. We +sometimes say that it was not natural for a man to do a certain thing. +The fact is, it's natural for a man to do almost anything that he can +do." + +"This is good Sunday mornin' talk, all right, Bill. But I've got to go +after my girl. She's got lots of sense, horse sense and flap-doodle +sense all mixed up. She's got more flap-doodle sense than I have; she +reads books, and not long ago she give me a piece of poetry that she'd +cut out of a newspaper. I said, 'Read her off and take her back.' And +she did. Well, I'm off." + +Milford hailed a man who drove up in a buggy, gave ten cents for a +Sunday newspaper, and sat on the veranda to read it. The wind blew a +sheet out into the yard. He started after it, but halted, looking at a +man who was crossing the field where the oats had been reaped, striding +with basket and rod toward the lake. Milford left the paper to the wind. +He hastened to the woods between the oat field and the lake and waited +for the man, leaning musingly against a tree. The man got over the fence +and came along the path. Milford stepped out. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Dorsey." + +"Why, helloa. How's everything?" + +"All right, I hope. Are you done with that horse?" + +"Oh, that horse. Yes, I'm about done with him." + +"Hold on. I want him." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You remember the last time we met I--well, we'll say, I let you have a +horse." + +"You mean we fought over yonder in the grove." + +"That's what I mean." + +"Well, what about it?" + +"We are going to fight over here in this grove." + +"Why, I thought you had enough?" + +"I did have then, but I want more. I said then that I'd never been +beaten for long at a time. I've been waiting for you." + +"A man don't have to wait for me very long. But say, this is all rank +foolishness. I've got nothing against you; and as for what I said about +the woman, why, I'm willing to apologize, although I don't know what it +was." + +"You will apologize, but not till I get through with you. Take off your +coat." + +"You beat any fellow I ever saw. I don't want to fight; I want to fish." + +"I don't want to fish, I want to fight. Take off your coat or I'll knock +you down in it." + +"All right, my son." He threw his coat on a stump. Milford was in his +shirt sleeves. "Wait a moment," said Dorsey. "You have brought this +thing about, and I want to tell you that I won't let you off as easy as +I did the last time." + +They went at it. Dorsey fell sprawling. He scrambled to his feet with +trash in his hair and blood in his mouth. Milford knocked him over a +stump. He got up again and came forward, cutting the capers of a tricky +approach, but Milford caught him with a surprising blow and sent him to +grass again. This time he did not get up. He squirmed about on the +ground. Milford took him under the arms and lifted him to his knees. "Go +away," he muttered, his head drooping. "You've--you've broken my jaw." + +Milford ran to the lake and brought water in his hat. Dorsey was sitting +up when he returned. + +"You've knocked out two of my teeth," he mumbled. + +"Here, let me bathe your face." + +"Biggest fool thing I ever saw," Dorsey blubbered through the water +applied to the mouth. "I told you I'd apologize." + +"Yes, and you may do so now. Do you?" + +"Of course. What else can I do?" + +"I'm almost sorry I hit you so hard." + +"Almost! I don't stop at that. I don't want you to say anything about +it," he added. "It would hurt my business." + +"A horse kicked you," said Milford. "You're all right now. You can go to +the house." + +"I'm going to town by the first train. I'm done up. You've been +practicing. You ought to make a success of yourself if that's the sort +of fellow you are." + +Milford helped him put on his coat. "Now, I wish I could do something +for you," he said. "No matter what I do, I always get the worst of it." + +"You didn't get the worst of this, by a long shot." + +"Yes. Now I've got to grieve over it. I've been trying to do right, but +the cards are against me." + +"You needn't grieve over me. You have licked a good man." + +"I grieve because you were willing to apologize." + +"Don't let that worry you. I wouldn't have apologized any too strong. +Well, I don't believe the fish will bite to-day. I'll go back." + +Milford watched him as he walked slowly across the stubble field, and +strove to harden his heart against the cutting edge of remorse. The +fellow was a bully. To him there was nothing sacred, and he thought evil +of all women. His manliest words waited to be knocked out of him. + +Milford returned to the house and gathered up the scattered sheets of +his newspaper. But he sat a long time without reading. The gathered +vengeance of his arm had been spent. It had shot forth with delight, +like a thought inspired by devoted study, but like a hot inspiration +grown cold, it faded under the strong light of reason. He heard the +shriek of a railway train, rushing toward the city. He saw George +Blakemore coming up the hill. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE GRIZZLY AND THE PANTHER. + + +Blakemore came up briskly, shook hands with a quick grasp, looked at his +watch and sat down on the edge of the veranda. His eye was no longer +fixed and rusty, but bright and restless. He did not drool his words, +hanging one with doubtful hesitation upon another, but blew them out +like a mouthful of smoke. He talked business; he had just engineered +another land deal. He had traveled about among the surrounding towns, +and spoke of a railway ticket as a "piece of transportation." Sunday to +him was a disease spot, the blotch of an inactive liver. Rest! There was +no rest for a man who wanted to work. + +"What's to be the end of this rush?" Milford asked. "What's your +object?" + +"Money, of course. You know what the object of money is, so there you +are." + +"I don't know that I do. Money's object is to increase, but I've never +been able to discover its final aim, except possibly in a few instances. +We struggle to get rich. Then what? We read an advertisement and find +that we have kidney trouble. We take medicines, go to springs, grow +puffy, turn pale--die. That's the average man who makes money for +money's sake. But it's a waste of words to talk about it." + +"It is undoubtedly a waste of time to think about it," said Blakemore. +"Not only that, to give it daily attention would mean stagnation and dry +rot. There'd be no land sales. But, speaking of an object, you have one, +of course." + +"Yes, such as it is. And strain my eyes as I may, I can't look beyond +it. I made up my mind a good while ago that there's not much to live +for. This is an old idea, I know, but at some time it is new to every +man. We fight off trouble that we may fight into more trouble. And our +only pleasure is in looking back upon a past that was full of trouble, +or in looking forward to a time that will never come." + +"You're a queer sort of a duck, anyhow," Blakemore replied, throwing the +stub of a cigar out into the grass. "You must have been burnt sometime. +And yet you're no doubt looking for the fire again." + +"Did you ever catch a bass with his mouth full of rusty hooks? I'm +one--hooks sticking out all around, but I must have something to eat, +and I may snap a phantom minnow." + +"Yes, sir, you're a queer duck. But there's a lot of good stuff in you, +I'll tell you that; and I could take you in tow and make a winner of +you. Drop this farm and come to town." + +Milford smiled and shook his head. "Winning looks easy to the man that +wins. No, when I leave this place I'll have my object in my pocket." + +"Queer duck," Blakemore repeated. "Any insanity in your family?" + +"No, none to speak of. My father took the bankrupt law and paid his +debts ten years afterwards." + +Blakemore lighted a cigar. "Did you disown him?" + +"No. He went to the springs, grew pale--and we buried him." + +Blakemore turned his cigar about between his lips. "And your idea is to +pay your debts, grow pale, and let them bury you. Is that it?" + +"Not exactly," and then he added: "I owe a peculiar sort of debt." + +"A man's foolish to pay a peculiar debt," Blakemore replied. + +"But a peculiar debt might take a strange hold on the conscience." + +"Yes," Blakemore agreed, "but a tender conscience has no more show in +business than a peg leg has in a foot-race. Do you know what I did? I +moped about under a debt of twenty thousand dollars. After a while I +looked up and didn't see anybody else moping. I quit. Am I going to pay +it? Maybe, but not till the last cow has come home, I'll tell you that. +They scalped me, and I'm going to scalp them. By the way, I met a fellow +just now--fellow named Dorsey. You might have seen him out here. Met him +a while ago, and he told me that a horse kicked him over yonder in the +woods. Didn't do a thing but kick his teeth out. He's gone to town to +have his jaw attended to. Your horse?" + +"No, a horse that Dorsey hired when he was out some time ago. He must +have misused him." + +"He got in his work all right. Well, I've come after you. They want you +at the house. Rig yourself up; I'll wait." + +Upon benches and in chairs, and lolling on the thick grass, Milford +found Mrs. Stuvic's summer family. They told jokes and sang vaudeville +songs and slyly tickled one another's necks with spears of timothy, +frolicking in the shade while time melted away in the sun. The ladies +came forward to shake hands. They called Milford a stranger. They +inquired as to the health of the young woman in Antioch. He disclaimed +all knowledge of a woman in Antioch. They knew better, shaking their +fingers at him. Blakemore and Mrs. Stuvic entered upon a harangue. +Milford sat down on a bench with Mrs. Goodwin and Gunhild. Although +under the eye of the "discoverer," the girl had shaken hands warmly with +him. Between them there was a quiet understanding, and he was at ease. +Mrs. Blakemore sat in a rocking chair that threatened to tip over on the +uneven ground. She liked the uncertainty, she said. It gave her +something to think about. Mrs. Goodwin had read during all the forenoon, +and was sententious. It would soon be time for her to return to the +city, and she felt that she wore a yellow leaf in her hair. She was +anxious to return, of course, but to go away from a sweet season's +death-bed was always a sad departure. Mr. Milford, she said, would +attend the summer's funeral. + +"I will help dig the grave," he replied. + +She thanked him for following her idea. So few men had the patience to +fondle the whimsical children of a woman's mind. When they crept out to +the Doctor he scouted them back to bed, and there they lay trembling, +not daring to peep out at him. Some men thought it a manly quality to +despise a pretty conceit, but it was pretty conceits that made marble +live, that made a canvas breathe. At one time she had been led to +believe that the realist was the man of the hour. And indeed, he +was--just for one hour. And the veritist--what was he? One whose soul +was kept cool in a moldy cellar. None but the artist had a right to +speak. And what was art? A semblance of truth more beautiful than the +truth. But writers were often afraid to be artists, even at the +promptings of an artistic soul. They were told that women would not read +them, and man must write for woman. What nonsense! Take up a book and +find the beautiful passages marked. A woman has read it. + +"I can make a great noise in shallow water," said Milford, "but if I +follow you, you'll lead me out over my head. I believe you, however; I +believe you speak the truth. I don't know anything about art, but, so +far as I am concerned, it is a waste of time for any scholar to pick +flaws in a thing that makes me feel. He may tell me why it is bad taste +to feel, but he can't convince me that I haven't felt." + +He said this looking at the girl, and their eyes warmed with the +communion. "I have studied art," she said, "until I do not know anything +about it; and I am beginning to believe if the world listens to--to a +talk about it, it is with a sneer. No one wants to know. No one is +willing to listen, except like this, out in the country when there is +nothing else to do." + +"I find plenty to do," said Mrs. Stuvic, overhearing the remark and +turning from Blakemore, who had been "joshing" her about an old man. +"Yes, you bet. There's always a plenty to do in the country if a body's +a mind to do it. The country people ain't such fools. No, you bet. The +most of 'em's got sense enough to keep a horse from kickin' 'em. Yes, +walked right over in the woods and let a horse kick him. Why, old Lewson +would've knowed better than that, and he didn't have sense enough to +know that he couldn't come back. Now, Bill, you keep quiet. Don't you +say a word." + +"If you were afraid the old fellow would come back, why didn't you marry +him?" said Blakemore. + +"Now, you keep still, too. I wan't so anxious about him comin' back. It +wan't nothin' to me. But I do believe he robbed my hens' nests after he +was dead. Now, whose team is that goin' along the road? If a man would +rein up my horses that way I'd break his neck. Bill, why haven't you +been over here?" + +"I've been too busy." + +"You haven't been too busy to trudge off to Antioch. What did you go +for?" + +"Because it was nobody's business but mine." + +"Oh, you don't say so? What made you box with that Irishman? Oh, you +can't fool me. I know more than you think I do. Went up there to +practice. And then a horse kicked Dorsey over in the woods. How about +that? You met him over in the grove some time ago, and he licked you. +How about that? Then you took lessons till you was able to knock his +teeth out. How about that?" + +"Who told you all that rubbish?" Milford demanded, uneasy under the gaze +of the company. + +"Never mind. There's a freckled faced woman not far from here. And she +couldn't keep a secret any more than a sieve could hold water. You've +got a hired man, too, you must remember." + +"Yes, and I'll----" + +"You'll do nothin' of the sort. It was perfectly natural. I knowed it +was comin'. I knowed that he mashed your mouth. And what was it all +about? How about that?" + +Milford arose to go. Mrs. Goodwin begged him to sit down. Mrs. Blakemore +was in a flutter of excitement. Blakemore stood with his mouth open. +Gunhild looked straight at Milford. "Did you hit him, Mr. Milford?" she +asked. + +"Yes," he promptly answered. + +"Then you must have had a good cause, and I shall wait before feeling +sorry for him. But I could not feel very sorry anyway. I do not like +him. He has the eye of a beast. May we ask why you struck him?" + +"He made a remark about you." + +The girl jumped up from her seat, anger flaming in her eyes. Mrs. +Goodwin made some sort of cooing noise. Mrs. Blakemore cried "Oh!" and +fluttered. + +"That's all I've got to say," said Milford. "I oughtn't to have said +that much, and wouldn't if it hadn't come round as it did. And now I +must ask you to let the subject drop." + +Gunhild sat down without a word. But in her quietness of manner was a +turbulent spirit choked into subjection. In all things it seemed that +her modesty was a conscious immodesty held in restraint. The uncouth +girl, with utterance harsh in rough words of men from the far north, had +been remodeled by the English school. But the blood of the Viking was +strong within her, as she sat there, striving to appear submissive; but +Milford fancied that she would like to dash out Dorsey's brains with a +war-club. He sat down beside her, and with a cool smile she said: "Made +a remark about me. It takes me back to the potato-field. I must thank +you. We are fellow workmen." She spoke in a low voice. He looked from +one to another, as if afraid that they might hear her. "It makes no +difference," she said. + +"Yes, it does. It is none of their business. I am going to set claim to +all that part of the past. You may share your pleasure with them, but +your trouble belongs to me. I will mix it with mine." + +"The color might be dark," she replied. + +"But two dark colors may make a white hope." + +She shook her head and looked about as if now she were afraid that some +one might hear. But the other boarders were talking among themselves. +Mrs. Goodwin, at the far end of the bench, was giving to Blakemore her +idea of the future life; Mrs. Blakemore had run off, summoned by an +alarming howl from the boy; Mrs. Stuvic, still a believer in +spiritualism and a devotee of fortune-telling, stood near, sniffing in +contempt. + +"Nothing can keep us apart," said Milford. "I'm not a soft wooer; I +don't know how to play the he dove; I don't know how to sing a lie made +by some one else; I don't pretend to be a gentleman; I am out of the +rut, and they may call me unnatural. But let me tell you that all hell +can't keep us apart." + +"Mr. Milford, you must not talk like that. I too am out of the rut, and +they may call me unnatural, but I do not like to hear you talk that +way." + +"Yes, you do. You can't help yourself. If it's the devil that brought us +together, then blessed be the name of the devil." + +"Hush, Mr. Milford." + +"I won't hush. I must talk. I suppose I ought to call you an angel. But +you are not. You are a woman--once a hired hand. But you jump on me like +a panther; you suck the blood out of my heart. Am I a brute? Yes. So are +you. You are a beautiful brute--the panther and the grizzly. Is that +it?" + +She looked at him, and her eyes were not soft. "I used to peep in at the +grizzly--into the dining-room when he had come to feed. But no more now. +No, nothing can keep us apart. But we must wait. What a courtship!" she +said, with a sigh. + +"It's not a courtship," he replied. "It's a fight, a draw fight. Now +I'll hush. What's the wrangle?" he asked, turning toward Mrs. Goodwin. + +"Nothing," she answered, moving closer to him. "It hasn't the dignity of +a wrangle. Mrs. Stuvic is trying to convert me to fortune-telling." + +"Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Stuvic. "I don't care whether she +believes in it or not. It's nothin' to me; but truth's truth, and you +can't get round it; no, Bill, you bet. I know what I've been told, and I +know what's come to pass. A woman told me that a man was goin' to beat +me out of board, and he did. She never saw him. How about that? And she +told me I was goin' to lose a cow, and I did. She was dead by the time I +got home. How about that? Don't come talkin' to me about what you expect +after you're dead. Truth's truth. Now, there's Bill. He thinks I'm an +old fool. But I know more than he thinks I do. Yes, you bet!" + +"No, I don't think that, Mrs. Stuvic," Milford replied. "I'm under too +many obligations to you to think that." + +"Now, there is honesty," Mrs. Goodwin spoke up. "Gunhild, my dear, do +you catch the drift of it?" + +"It's not honesty, but villainy," Blakemore declared, and turning to his +wife, who had just returned, he asked if the boy were hurt. She said +that he had got hung in the forks of an apple tree. + +"But villainy holds a virtue when it tells the truth," Mrs. Goodwin +replied. + +"Holds fiddlesticks," said Mrs. Stuvic, with a sniff. "Why can't you +folks talk sense? Just as soon as a woman reads a book, she's got to +talk highfurlutin' blabber. Now, what does that man out there want?" + +"He wants beer," said Blakemore. + +"Well, he can't get it. He looks like the man that had me fined last +summer. I hate a detective on the face of the earth. One went down in +my cellar and drank beer, and then had me up. Go on away from here," she +shouted. "There's not a drop of beer on this place. Move on off with +you. I'll let you know that I don't keep beer." + +The man went away, grumbling. Blakemore turned to Milford and said: +"Come join me in a bottle." + +"Now, you keep still," Mrs. Stuvic snapped. "Bill don't drink. And the +first thing I know you'll have me up." + +Milford asked Mrs. Goodwin when she expected to go home. She answered +that she would leave on the following Tuesday. He remarked that he would +come over to go to the station with her, and then, waving a farewell to +the company, he strode off toward home. In his heart there flamed the +exultation of a great conquest after a fierce battle. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +AN AMBITION. + + +In the evening the hired man returned with his trousers drawing shorter +every moment. He swore that he was going to kill the peddler, which of +course meant that he would buy another pair from him. He would take off +the wretched leg-wear and hang weights to the legs, he said. No peddler +could get ahead of him. He called himself an inventive "cuss." He said +that his grandfather had sat upon a granite hillside and with a +jackknife whittled out a churn-dasher that revolutionized the art of +butter-making in that community. He smacked his mouth as he spoke of the +delights of the day just ended. It had been like sitting under a +rose-bush, with sweetened dew dripping upon him. He had seen his girl +trip from one rapture to another, mirroring a smile from the sun and +throwing it at him. Her face was joy's looking-glass. And aside from all +that, she had sense. She was an uncommon woman. He was not afraid to +tell her everything. It was certain to go no further. He could read a +woman the moment he set eyes upon her. They all invited confidence, but +few of them were worthy of it. Milford did not have it in his heart to +smash the fellow's idol. He said that he was pleased to know that so +true a woman had been found. + +"Oh, you can trust her all right, Bill. But to tell you the truth, I +don't believe you could trust the girl that has set her cap for you. Her +tongue's too slippery, and I said to myself that you'd better stick to +the Norwegian. I'm not stuck on foreigners myself. The girl I married +had a smack of the Canadian French about her. But Lord, she was putty. +You ought to have seen her eyes--black as a blackberry, and dancin' a +jig all the time. And they danced me out of the set, I tell you that. I +could have her again if I wanted her. But I don't exactly want her. +Would you, Bill?" + +"I'd cut her throat." + +"Say, you ought to see her throat, speakin' about throats. Puttiest +thing you ever seen in your life--white as snow----" + +"With the pink of the sunset falling on it," said Milford, with his +gluttonous mind's eye upon the Norwegian's neck. + +"If that ain't it, I'm the biggest liar that ever milked a cow. Just +exactly it. And yet you wouldn't advise me to take her again." + +"I'd kick her downstairs," said Milford. + +"Yes, that's all right, Bill; but it would save getting a divorce. +Still, my other girl's the thing. I can put confidence in her, and the +first one was tricky. I couldn't tell her a thing that wan't repeated. +I'll stand for anythin' sooner than bein' repeated all the time. How are +you gettin' along over at the house?" + +Milford put him off with the remark that everything was all right so far +as he knew. A man may gabble of a love that is spreading over the +heart, but when it has gathered the whole world beneath its wings he is +more inclined to silence. + +The hired man continued to talk. Before he met the freckled woman he had +looked forward to sixteen hours a day at eighteen dollars a month. He +had not dared to see the flush of the sunrise light his bedroom window, +except perhaps on some odd Sunday when he might steal the sweet essence +of a forbidden nap, but his "love" for that woman had promised him an +unbroken dream at dawn and a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs at eight. +After all, it was fortunate that the first woman had run away. She was +saucy and had made his heart laugh, at times, but he was a hired man +still, and the cold dew of the morning had cracked his rough boots and +caused his wet trousers to flap about his ankles. + +"Bill," he asked, "do you ever expect to wear a boiled shirt all the +week and sleep till after sun-up?" + +Milford had learned that this was the hired man's notion of elegance and +of ease. He answered that such a time might come. + +"It's got to come with me," said Mitchell. "It's comin', and I'd be a +fool to dodge it. Yes, sir, and I'm goin' to have me about a dozen +shirts made. I don't care so much about the coat and pants; I want the +shirts. And I want 'em made as broad as I can fill 'em out, with a +ruffle or two, and as white as chalk. That's the way I want to be +dressed when fellers come to me and ask if I want to hire a man. Bill, +you look like you've made up your mind to do some thin'. What is it? Git +married?" + +"I came here with my mind already made up," Milford replied, new lines +seeming to come to the surface of his countenance. "And I'm not going to +change it," he declared, louder of tone, as if he had been debating with +himself. "I'm going to follow the line, and then if something else +comes, all the better." + +"What is your line, Bill?" + +"Haven't you learned enough not to ask that?" + +"Oh, well, but I didn't know but you'd found out there wouldn't be any +harm in tellin' me. We've been working together a good while, and I've +got an interest in you. I've told you what my object is." + +"To wear white shirts and to see the sun shine in on you of a morning, I +believe. That's a good enough object." + +"I think so, Bill. At least, it won't do nobody no harm. And I tell you +what's a fact: I'd like, after a while, to live in town, so's I could +come out in the country and clar my throat and ask fellers about the +crops. But you always sorter turn up your nose at my object. I wouldn't +at yours. Tell a feller what it is, Bill." + +"The idea of every man having an object seems to have become rather +popular in this community," said Milford. "Everybody looks on me with a +sort of suspicion, and this object business comes out of that. You may +not know it, but you've been set as a trap to catch me." + +The hired man was genuinely astonished. His mouth flew open, and he +drooled his surprise. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve; he hemmed, +hawed, and grunted. But, after a time, he admitted that his "girl" had +shown the edge of a keen interest in Milford. However, there was nothing +vicious in it. She had never been stirred by a vicious instinct. She was +naturally interested in the man who gave employment to her future +husband. Of course, his object did not amount to much when compared with +Milford's; he was nothing but a hired man, but presidents had been hired +men, and the world could not afford to turn its scornful back upon the +affairs of the farm-hand. The field laborer had a heart, a talkative +heart, perhaps, but a heart that society would one day learn to fear. It +was not heartlessness that would overthrow the political state and +trample upon the rich; it was heart, abused heart, that would give +crushing weight to the vengeful foot. This was the substance of his +talk, the egotism of muscle, a contempt for the luxuries of the refined +brain, but with a longing to imitate the appearance of leisure by +wearing white linen and lying in bed till the sun was high. Milford +recognized the voice of the discontented farmer. + +"You remember the speeches of the last campaign," said he. "You believe +that the laborer is to overturn society. All right. But that has nothing +to do with my object. That makes no difference, however, since +everything leads to the distress of the farmer. But I want to tell you +and all the rest that it is your own fault, as one and as a whole. You +never read anything but murders and robberies, or the grumblings of some +skate that wants an office. You haven't schooled yourselves into +sharpness enough to see that he is trying to use you. You get up before +sunrise, and work till after dark, and think that the whole world is +watching you. The world doesn't care a snap, I'll tell you that." + +"And that's just it, Bill; the world's tryin' to do us." + +"Yes, and it will do you." + +"I know it, and that's the reason I want to marry out of it." + +"That is to say, you want to 'do' a woman to get out of it yourself. +What do you expect to give her?" + +"Why, I'll give her a good husband, a man that'll fight for her, do +anything----" + +"Except to work for her," Milford broke in. The hired man grinned. "He +said that a good husband was about all that a woman ought to expect, +these days; he would not fall short, and a man who did not disappoint a +good woman came very near to the keeping of all commandments. He was not +going to marry for property. But if property made a woman beautiful to +the rich, why should it make her ugly to the poor?" + +"But you say she is homely and freckled." + +"I said freckled, Bill; I didn't say homely. Why, I like freckles. I +think they are the puttiest things in the world. They catch me every +time. A trout wouldn't be half as putty if he wan't speckled. And if +this woman is a trout and has snapped at my fly, all right. The world +ain't got a right to say a word." + +"The world doesn't know that you are born or ever will be." + +"Oh, I know you don't think I amount to much, Bill; I know the world +don't care for me, but I'll make her care one of these days." + +"When the worm turns on the woodpecker." + +"That's all right, Bill. Have all the flings you want. But I'll tell you +one thing: I don't talk about the Bible bein' the greatest book in the +world, and then go in the woods and lay for a feller to mash his mouth. +Oh, I know all about it. My girl's brother see the feller git on the +train with his jaw tied up, and I knowed what had happened." + +"You say the fellow's mouth was mashed?" said Milford. + +"Yes, mashed as flat as a pancake." + +"Then you want to keep your mouth shut." + +"All right, Bill, I understand." + +Milford walked about the room. "We are neglecting everything," he said. +"It's time to feed the cattle." They went out to the barn, neither of +them speaking. Mitchell climbed into the loft and tossed down the hay; +Milford measured out oats to the horses. In silence they returned to the +house. + +"Why don't you say something?" said Milford. + +"When I said the feller's mouth was mashed you said I wanted to keep +mine shut. I help you learn how to box till you could out-box me, and I +guess you can mash my mouth easy enough, Bill." + +"But do you think I would, Bob?" + +"No, I can't hardly think so. Got any smokin' tobacco?" + +"Fresh bag up there on the shelf. Fill up that briar of mine--the +old-timer." + +"But you don't want nobody to smoke it, do you?" + +"You may keep it; I've got another one." + +"But you've had that one so long, Bill." + +"Then it's all the sweeter." + +"I'm a thousand times obliged to you." + +"All right." He was silent for a thoughtful minute, and then he said: +"The summer is about gone. It will leave on the train next Tuesday." + +The hired man nodded as if he understood. "And I've got to be lookin' +out for somethin' to do in the winter," he said. "I don't reckon you can +afford to keep me." + +"Yes, I want you. I expect to be busy all winter, trading around. Your +wages may go on just the same." + +"You don't mean at eighteen dollars?" + +"I said just the same." + +Mitchell's face beamed with satisfaction. "That would scare some of +these farmers around here half to death," said he. "They never think of +payin' more than ten in winter." + +"But I'm not one of these farmers round here." + +"That's what you ain't, and I don't know what you have been, nur what +you're goin' to be, but to me you're about the best feller I ever struck +up with." + +They talked of affairs on the farm, the hay, the ripening corn. In the +renting of the place a number of ragged sheep had been included, a +contingent sale; and a few months of care had wrought almost a miracle +in the appearance of the flock, so much so that the old woman regretted +her terms and would have withdrawn from them, but Milford had insisted +upon a witnessed contract. They talked about the sheep, the increase to +come in the winter, the sale of lambs in the early summer. They laid +plans for work in the fall, for the cutting and the husking of the corn. + +"But I thought you were going to marry," said Milford. + +"Yes, but not for a year, Bill. I've got a good deal to attend to first. +I've got to get a divorce, you know. That won't take long, of course, +but a man's divorce ought to get cool before he marries again. I've +talked to my girl about it, and she thinks so. She's a proper thing." + +"Did it ever occur to you that she can't be a very proper thing to talk +to you about marriage or to receive attentions from you before you get +your divorce?" + +"I don't guess she ever thought of that. But I believe she did say she +wanted I should get a divorce before I said much more about it. It's all +right, anyway. I don't believe in holding a woman to strict rule. If you +force the rule on her before you're married, she'll force it on you +afterwards, and then where'll you be? Well," he added, leaning over to +untie his shoe, "believe I'll go to bed. I'm glad you're pleased with my +work. I want to save up enough to git them shirts, you know. It wouldn't +look right to draw on her at once. Some fellers would, but I'm rather +careful that way." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +ACROSS THE DITCH. + + +Early Tuesday morning a girl from the poor-house went to Mrs. Stuvic's +place. This meant that the season was about closed, that the +"journeyman" cook had been discharged, the "help" told to go, and that +this wretched creature was to do the work. Careful not to appear too +early, Milford came almost too late. The carriage had set out for the +station. He ordered the driver to stop. He reminded Gunhild of her +promise to walk with him across the fields. She declared that she had +not promised, but said that she was willing enough to walk. Mrs. Goodwin +cautioned her not to loiter by the way; it would greatly put her out to +miss the train. Gunhild jumped out, Milford catching at her, and the +carriage drove on. They walked down the road to a place where there was +a gap in the fence, and here they entered the field. Down deep in the +grass a horde of insects shouted their death songs. Their day of +judgment was soon to lie white upon the ground. Artists in their way, +with no false notes, with mission ended, they were to die in art, among +fantastic pictures wrought by the frost. Milford did not try to hide his +sadness. The girl was livelier; the girl nearly always is. + +"The other day I got near you, although others were present, but now +you are far off," he said. "Must I rope you every time I want you?" + +She laughed at this picture of life in the West, thrown in a word. Again +she saw men lassoing the cattle. But the potato field came back to her, +the rough words of the men, the drudgery, and her face grew sad. "I am +as close to you now as I was then." + +"Not with your eyes. Stop. Let me look at you." + +They halted and stood face to face. "Give me your eyes." She gave them +to him without a waver. But she reminded him that they must not miss the +train. Afar off they could see the carriage turn a corner. + +"When am I to see you again?" he asked, as they walked on. + +"I do not know that," she answered. "I shall not stay in the winter time +at Mrs. Goodwin's house. She will have many persons there then, and will +not need me." + +"The kingdom of heaven, though it were full, would need you." + +"Sometimes you are a wild book, with sentences jumping out at me," she +said. "I must rope you," she added, laughing. + +"I wish you would--I wish you'd choke me to death, and----" + +"And what?" + +"And then take my head in your lap." + +"In your other life you must have stood at the bow of a boat, making the +sea red with the blood of your enemy--and in my other life I bound up +your wounds." + +They came to a broad ditch. On each side was a forest of wild +sunflowers. "You could stand in there and blaze with them," he said, +stepping down into the ditch. "Give me your hand, and I'll help you +across." + +"I can jump." + +"Give me your hand--and I hope you'll stumble and fall." + +She stood among the sunflowers, looking down at him. "Did you see the +cowboy preacher that came West?" she asked. "Would he not have had a +wild steer if he had roped your soul?" + +"Give me your hand--both." + +She gave him her hands, and leaped across the ditch. "I wish there were +a thousand," he said, climbing out. "But you haven't answered me. When +am I to see you again?" + +"I am coming again with Mrs. Goodwin next summer." + +"That'll be like a boy's Christmas--ten years in coming. Can't I come to +see you in town?" + +"I shall not be in the town. I am going into the country to teach." + +"Then I can come into the country." + +"No. With your wild ways you would make me feel ashamed." + +"You are right--I've got sense enough to see it. But is there to be no +better understanding between us?" + +"Didn't you say that all--something could not keep us apart? Is not +that understanding enough?" They had halted again, and she had given him +her eyes. + +"It's an acknowledgment, but not a plan. What I want is something to +work up to." + +"There is the carriage coming down the road over yonder. Mrs. Goodwin is +waving her handkerchief at me. The station is just across the fence." + +"I know all that. But won't you let me write to you?" + +"I should like to hear from you. A letter from you in the winter might +bring the summer back--the crickets in the grass and the wild sunflowers +by the ditch. Yes, you may write to me." + +"And you will send me your address?" + +"Yes, I will write first--when I go to the country. Not before." + +"And if you don't go to the country I am not to know where you are?" + +"But I am going to the country. You shall hear." + +Near the road, between them and the station, stood an old cheese +factory, now inhabited by summer vagabonds. The windows were stuffed +with cast-off clothes. It was a wretched place, but now it served a +purpose--it shut off all view from the station. It made no difference as +to who might peep from the windows. + +They walked on slowly a few paces, and halted behind the old house. They +heard the rumble of the train. He looked down at her up-turned face. Her +lips were slightly apart as if on the eve of Utterance. He thought of +the seam in a ripe peach. + +"There, the train is coming," she said. + +"Plenty--plenty of time." + +"No. Mrs. Goodwin is calling me. Good-bye," she said, still suffering +him to hold her hand. "Are you always going to be a wild man?" + +"You remember what they used to call me." + +"Yes, that bad name. But I must go." + +She ran away from him. He strode back across the field. He heard the +train when it stopped and when it started again, but did not look round. +He stood in the ditch where he had helped her across. There was the +print of her foot in the moist earth. He heard the crickets crying in +the deep grass. He lay down for a moment, and felt that the cry of his +heart drowned all sounds of earth. "If it were only different," he said +to himself, over and over again. "When she knows, what will she think? +Must she know? Perhaps not--I hope not. When it is all over, I will kill +it in my own breast." He was conscious of the theatrical. He was on the +stage. Glow-worms were his footlights; his orchestra was deep-hidden in +the grass. "Why can't a man be genuine?" he asked himself. "Why does a +heart put on, talk to itself, and strut?" + +In the road he met Mrs. Blakemore walking with Bobbie. The boy had a +long stick, pushing it on the ground in front of himself. He called it +his plow. His mother cautioned him. He might hurt himself. The stick +struck a lump in the road and punched him. He howled just as Milford +came up. + +"I told you not to shove that stick. And now you've nearly ruined +yourself. Here's Mr. Milford. Perhaps he will carry you." + +Milford took the boy on his back. "You are my horse," said the boy, +whimpering. They turned toward the house, Mrs. Blakemore striving to +keep step with Milford. "Don't go so fast. I can't keep step with you," +she said. + +"Get up," the boy commanded. + +"How long do you expect to stay?" Milford asked. + +"I don't know," she answered. "George is away on a tour, and I am to +wait till I hear from him. I don't think I'll be here but a few days +longer. I ought to put Bobbie in school." + +"We'll have a good deal more of warm weather," Milford said; "and +October out here I should think is the finest time of the year." + +"Oh, yes, but you know we must get back. After all, the summer spent in +the country is a hardship. We give up everything for the sake of being +out of doors. Put him down when he gets heavy." + +"He's all right. Yes, hardship in many ways. But hardships make us +stronger; still, I don't know that we need to be much stronger. We are +strong enough now for our weak purposes." + +"You mean spiritually stronger, don't you? Well, I don't know. But, of +course, we are more meditative when we have been close to nature, and +that always gives us a sort of spiritual help. But the time out here +might be spent to great advantage, in reading and serious converse. As +it is, however, people seem ashamed to talk anything but nonsense. They +hoot at anything that has a particle of sentiment in it. And as for +art--well, so few persons know anything about art. And on this account I +shall miss Mrs. Goodwin so much. She talked beautifully on art. Don't +you think so?" + +"She talks well on almost any subject." + +"And Gunhild is a real artist," she said, looking at him. "Did she show +you any of her drawings?" + +"No. I didn't ask her and she didn't offer to show them." + +"Perhaps you were more interested in the artist than in her art." + +"Yes, that may be about the size of it." + +"Do you know, Mr. Milford, I can't fathom you. Sometimes you speak with +positive sentiment and dignity, and then again you are a repository of +slang. Why is it? Is it because that, at times, I am incapable of--shall +I say inspiring?" + +"Yes, I guess that's about the proper thing to say. No. What am I +talking about? You are always inspiring, of course. The fault lies with +me." + +"Such a strange man!" she said, meditatively. "Mrs. Stuvic declares she +doesn't know you any better now than she did the first day, but I +believe I do, though not much better, I must confess. I wish you would +tell me something." + +"Well, what is it?" + +"Did you know Gunhild before she came out here?" + +"I had never spoken to her." + +"Well, it's very strange. You got acquainted very soon. Oh, I know she +was out here quite a while, still--oh, you know what I mean. Yes, you +met her at the haunted house--once. More than once? Am I too +inquisitive? But I am so interested." + +He acted the part of a politer man; he said that she was not too +inquisitive--glad that she was interested. The boy, pulling at his ears, +the bridle, turned his head toward her, and he caught the drooping of +her eye. Over him she had established a sentimental protectorate, in +accordance with a Monroe Doctrine of the heart, and resented foreign +aggression. + +"So much interested in Gunhild, you know," she said. "Peculiar girl, not +yet Americanized. Perhaps it is her almost blunt honesty that gives her +the appearance of lacking tact. But tact is the protection of honesty. +Don't you think so?" + +"I don't know anything about tact, as you understand it. I know what it +is to get the drop on a man, and I suppose the woman of tact always has +the drop. Is that it?" + +"Yes," she laughed, walking close beside him. "A woman of tact is never +taken unawares." + +"A suspicious woman, I take it." + +"Well, a ready woman. And Gunhild is not dull, but she is not always +ready. Do you think so?" + +"I'll be--I don't know what you're driving at." + +"Get up," the boy cried, clucking. + +"Perhaps I am a little obscure. But I thought you would understand." + +"But I swear I don't." + +"Then it would be cruel to explain." + +"It would? You've got to explain now." He halted and turned to her. The +boy pulled at his ears. Her laughter came like the rippling of cool +water. + +"You know that Gunhild is an experiment," she said. "She was a girl of +talent with uncertain manners. Even her restraint is blunt. And I think +that Mrs. Goodwin has found her a failure." + +Milford began to ease the boy to the ground. "I must bid you good +evening here," he said. + +"Won't you come to the house to supper?" + +"No. I'll go and eat at a table where no restraint is blunt and where no +experiment is a failure." + +"I have offended you," she said, taking the boy by the hand. "And I +didn't mean it, I'm sure. I hope you don't think that I would say a word +against her. We are all fond of her, I'm sure. But we are all interested +in you." + +"In me? Who the--the deuce am I? What cause have you to be interested in +me? You are not interested in me, except as a sort of freak--a +mud-turtle, caught in the lake, viewed by woman with their 'ahs' and +'ohs,' standing back holding their skirts. I know that woman. She is +worth----" + +"I thought you said you didn't know her till she came out here?" + +"I said I'd never spoken to her." + +"Know her but had never spoken to her. The plot curdles. Really, Mr. +Milford, what I said was simply to draw you out. I don't know a thing +against her; I don't think she's a failure. Now tell me what you know. I +am hungry for something of interest; I'm tired to death of this +everlasting market report. If she and you have been mixed up in a +romance, tell me, please. Bobbie, don't pull at me. I'm going in a +moment." + +"The ripening fruit of a romance," said Milford, putting his hand on the +boy's head. "Isn't that enough for you?" + +"The fruit is a tender care; the bud a careless pleasure," she replied. +"Tell me about it--now. I might not see you again." + +"Then you will soon forget." + +"Oh, no, I can't forget you. You have had a strong influence on me--for +good, I am sure. You have some noble purpose, hidden away, and when we +meet one with a noble purpose we feel stronger, though we may not know +what that purpose is. I long to do something in the world, too----" + +"Then love your husband," said the tactless man. + +"What are you saying? I do love him." + +"If you love him, you have a noble purpose." + +"But who are you to talk so morally?" + +"A man who has seen so much vice that he would like to see virtue. +There's my road," he said, pointing to the gate. "I must bid you +good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +A WOMAN'S THREAT. + + +A cow that had been hurt by a falling tree went limping down the road, +and Milford, looking at her, said that she pictured the passing of time. +And when at evening he saw her again, he said that she was the same +hour, passing twice. In the woods he met the girl from the poor-house, +and she told him that Mrs. Blakemore was gone. One afternoon Mrs. Stuvic +sent for him, and when he went she scolded him for not having come +sooner to lighten the dark hour of her loneliness. She was afraid of +solitude. In the bustle of a boarding-house, in fault-finding, in all +annoyances, there was life, with no time to muse upon the soul's fall of +the year; but in the empty rooms, the quiet yard, the hushed piano, +there was a mocking stillness, the companion of death. She hated death. +It had a cold grip, and old Lewson had proved that there was no breaking +away from it. To her it was not generous Nature's humane leveler; it was +vicious Nature giving one's enemies an opportunity to exult. She +declared that if all her enemies were dead, she would not oppose death. +A woman in the neighborhood had sworn that she would drag a dead cat +over her grave; she was a spiteful wretch, and she would do it. Years +ago there had been a fight over a line fence, and Mrs. Stuvic had won +the suit, hence the only proper thing to do was to wait till she was +buried and then to drag a dead cat over her grave. A terrible triumph! +The old woman shuddered as she spoke of it. She had a premonition that +she was to die in the winter, alone, at night, while creaking wagons +passed the gate and stiff-jointed dogs bayed the frozen moon. They would +cut away the snow and bury her--and then at night would come the woman +with the dead cat. She could see it all, the frozen clods, the pine +head-board with her name in pencil upon it, the cat left lying there, +the woman returning home to gloat in the light of a warm room. Upon a +bench on the veranda Milford sat and listened and did not smile, and +accepting his grimness as a sympathy, her hard eye grew moist, a +flint-stone wet with dew. She asked him if he had an idea as to who that +woman was; and when he answered that he did not, she said: + +"Nobody but my own sister. Now, you keep still. And that's the reason I +was so quick to let you have that farm almost at your own terms. I was +afraid some one would rent it for her. Oh, but you may call me unnatural +and all that sort of thing, but you don't know what I've had to contend +with. My first husband died a drunkard. Many a time I've hauled him home +almost frozen. He'd leave me without a bite to eat and spend every cent +of money he had. And many a time I told him I'd pour whiskey on him +after he was dead--and I did--yes, you bet! I said, 'Now go soak in it +throughout eternity.' Ah, Lord, one person don't know how another one +lives. I've had nothin' but trouble, trouble--all the time trouble." + +"We all have our troubles, madam." + +"Hush your mouth. You don't know what troubles are. Think of havin' to +fight with your own blood kin, your own children. Think of your own +daughter slanderin' you, and your own son havin' you arrested!" + +"I expect you've had a pretty hard life, Mrs. Stuvic." + +"Hard life! That don't tell half of it." + +"And yet you want to stay here longer." + +"What! Do you reckon I want to give Nan a chance to drag that cat over +my grave?" + +"Let her drag it. What's the difference? You won't know anything about +it." + +"But how do I know that? And I'd be in a pretty fix, havin' her drag a +cat over me and not bein' able to help myself. No, I want to wait till +she dies, the unnatural thing." + +"Can't you make it up with her?" + +"Make it up with her? Do you reckon I want to make it up with her? Do +you reckon I'd stoop that much?" + +"You call her unnatural. Don't you think you may be just a little +unnatural yourself?" + +"Now, look here, if you're goin' to take her part you march yourself off +this place." + +"I'm not taking her part. I don't know her." + +"Then keep still. Don't you think you'd better come over to the house +and stay durin' the winter?" + +"No, I'd rather stay over there." + +"All by yourself?" + +"Bob'll be there." + +"Land's sakes, are you goin' to keep him all winter? I thought you had +more sense than to put on such lugs. But you've got to come over here +every night or two. I don't want to die here alone." + +A boy on a horse rode up to the gate. The old woman went out to him. She +came running back, with her limp hands flapping in the air. Her sister +had sent for her. She begged Milford to hitch up the pony as fast as he +could. She said that he must drive her over there. + +On the road she did not speak a word, except to give directions. She sat +stiff and grim. Persons whom they passed stared at her, straight, +squaw-like, with a hawk feather standing sharp in her hat. They drew up +at a small white house in the woods. Yellow leaves were falling about +it. A peacock spread the harsh alarm of their arrival. The old woman +commanded Milford to get out and to wait for her. She did not know how +long she might stay. A woman opened the door for them. Mrs. Stuvic +recognized her as the mother of the girl from the poor-house. Milford +sat down in the dreary passage-way. Mrs. Stuvic followed the woman into +a room. The lines about her mouth tightened as she caught sight of her +sister, on a bed in a corner. She drew up a chair, and sat down by the +bedside. + +"What's the matter, Nan?" + +The sister slowly turned upon her pillow and looked at her with gaunt +eyes and open mouth. + +"Dying," she whispered in her hard breathing. + +"Do you think you be?" + +"I know it--taken last night--doctor's gone. Couldn't do anythin'. Worn +out, Mary Ann." + +"No, Nan, you just think you be. Look at me. I've had twice as much +trouble as you." + +The dying woman slowly shook her head. "It's been all trouble--nothin' +but trouble. Mary Ann, you know the threat I made." + +"Don't now--keep still." + +"Well, the Lord has taken that out of my heart. Do you think--think you +could kiss me, Mary Ann?" + +Milford heard the old woman sob, and he walked out beneath the trees +where the leaves were falling. The day grew yellow, and brown, and the +stars came out, and still he waited, with the leaves falling slowly in +the quiet air. The insects sang, and sitting with his back against a +tree, he fell asleep. Something touched him. He looked up with a start, +and there stood Mrs. Stuvic, her feather sharp in the moonlight. "Drive +me home," she said. + +On the way home she did not speak, but when the buggy drew up at the +gate she said: "If there's a God--and there must be one--I thank him for +the tears I've shed this night. Now, you keep still. Turn the pony loose +and go home. Don't come into the house. I don't want to see anybody. +Keep all my affairs to yourself and you'll make no mistake." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE CUP AND THE SLIP. + + +In a pelting rain a funeral passed along the road, and a man who had no +time for such affairs, hastening with his milk-cans to the railway +station, caught sight of Mrs. Stuvic's face, pressed against the +water-streaked glass of a carriage window. He lashed his team to make up +for loss of time in turning aside; he wondered at the mysterious tie +that could have drawn her out, not indeed on such a day, but at all, for +he knew her to be at enmity's edge with neighbors and frosty to every +relative. At the station he met Milford, walking up and down beneath the +shed. Milford remembered him, Steve Hardy, the man who had given him a +"lift" from the station on the day of his coming into the neighborhood. +And to his head-shakings, winks, nods, wise mutterings, the new-comer +owed much of his reputation for mystery. + +"I see your old boss off down the road there goin' to a funeral," said +Hardy. + +"Did you? It's one of the privileges granted by the constitution of the +State." + +"Yes. They don't have to take out license to go to funerals, or I don't +guess the old woman would er went. Guess all her boarders have gone, or +I don't s'pose she'd found the time. Who's dead?" + +"Her sister, I believe." + +"That so? Then I wonder more than ever. Believe I did hear somethin' +about it t'uther evenin', but I was milkin' at the time and I didn't +think that she was the old woman's sister. They must have made it up." + +"Made what up?" + +"Why, the row they had over the line-fence a good while ago. Somebody +told me you wanted to buy some calves." + +"Yes, I'd like to get a few good ones." + +"Well, mine are as good as ever stood on four feet. I guess you mean to +settle here permanently. Well, folks that have stirred around a good bit +tell me that there ain't a purtier place on the earth. I've had my house +full all summer, and there ain't been a word of complaint. Goin' out my +way?" + +"Not till after the mail comes." + +The post office was in a weather-beaten cottage, in the midst of an +apple orchard, just across the railway tracks; and of late Milford had +become well-acquainted with the postmaster, calling on him early and +sitting with him till the last pouch had been thrown off for the day. +But not a word had he received from Gunhild. He strove to console +himself with the thought that it was too soon, that she had not gone to +the country, but a consolation that comes with strife, consoles but +poorly. The train came, the mail-pouch was thrown off, and he followed +the postmaster to the house, stood close in anxiety till the letters +were all put into the pigeon-holes, and then turned sadly away. He took +his course through the wet grass, across the fields. He halted at the +ditch, and in the rain and the gathering dark stood there to think, amid +the wind-tangled stems and the rain-shattered blooms of the wild +sunflowers. He stepped down into the ditch, deep with mire, and the grim +humor of his nickname in the West, "Hell-in-the-Mud," fell upon him like +a cowboy's rope. He drew himself out, threw down a handful of grass that +he had pulled up by the roots, and strode on, through the green slop of +the low land. As he turned in at the gate, to pass through the hickory +grove, he saw the light of a lantern moving about in Mrs. Stuvic's +barnyard. He spoke to a dog that came scampering to meet him; the light +shot upward, came toward him; and he recognized the old woman, +bareheaded, with the rain pattering on her gray hair. + +"Is that you, Bill? Now what are you pokin' round in this rain for? Come +over to the house and get your supper." + +"No, I must go home." + +"Home? Why, you haven't got any home and never will have." + +"That's true," he agreed. + +"Not till you go where we took my old sister to-day," she said, letting +the lantern down till her face was in the dark. "And just to think it +should have come as it did, while I was talkin' about her! I'd been +thinkin' about her all day, and I knowed somethin' was goin' to happen. +But come on in the house, and don't be standin' here in the rain like a +fool. Get away, Jack. I do think he's got less sense than any dog I ever +set eyes on. Now, if you do put your muddy feet on me I'll cut your +throat. You just dare to do it, you triflin' whelp! Are you goin' to the +house with me, Bill?" + +"You're not afraid, are you?" he asked, now that her fear of the dead +cat was gone. + +"Now you keep still. I'm not afraid of the devil himself. But this is +just the sort of a night for me to die. Yes, I'll tell you that." + +"I thought you were to die on a cold night, with the wagons creaking +along the road." + +"That was the plan, but it has been changed. Now I'm goin' to die when +the ground is soaked. You don't know Peterson, do you? Well, no matter. +But he lived just down the road there not long ago, and a meaner +neighbor never breathed. I caught him drivin' his turkeys into my tomato +patch. Yes. And his well went dry, and he come to my house and wanted to +haul off water in barrels. Yes. And I wouldn't let him. And what did he +say? He said he'd see my grave full of water. And now just think of what +I've had to contend with all my life. Think of me lyin' there in the +water, with that feller prancin' around!" + +"But the chances are that you'll outlive him, Mrs. Stuvic." + +"Yes, you bet, that's what I'm goin' to do," she said, her voice strong +with encouragement. "I'll outlive the whole pack of 'em, and then mebbe +they'll let me alone. Well, I'm not goin' to stand here any longer like +a fool." + +When Milford reached home he found the Professor warm in a disquisition +delivered to the hired man. He hopped up from his chair and seized +Milford by the hand. "Ha," said he, "I was just telling our friend here +that exact memory is not the vital part of true culture. It is the +absorption of the idea rather than the catching of the words." + +"Sit down," said Milford. "But what does he know about it? Woman is his +culture, and he's not only caught her idea, but has learned her by +heart." + +"Now you're trottin'," spoke the hired man. "If there's anything in a +woman's nature that I don't know, why, it must have come to her in the +last hour or so." + +The Professor crossed his legs and slowly nodded his head. "You ask," +said he, speaking to Milford, "what does he know about it? A man never +knows unless he learns. Even to the ignorant, wisdom may be music. The +man whose mind has been dried and hardened in the field of harsh toil, +may sip the delicious luxury, the god-flavored juice of knowledge. +Wisdom cannot be concealed. You may lock it in an iron box, but it will +seep through." + +Upon entering the room Milford had seen the hired man put aside an +earthen ewer, and now he knew that cider had been brought from the +cellar. + +"Nearly all utterances upon knowledge, human nature or life, are trite," +the learned man proceeded. "And so are herbs and flowers trite, the +stars in the heavens common, but once in a while there appears from the +ground a shoot so new that botany marvels, a star in the sky so strange +that astronomers gape in the wonder of a discovery. And I, humble as the +lowly earth, may sprout a new thought." + +"I was going to suggest more cider," said Milford, "but I guess you've +had enough." + +"Ha! enough and not too much. To pause at the line, a virtue; to cross +but an inch, a vice. Do you know of a publication that would buy a paper +upon the decadence of the modern drama? I have one in my head, a hot and +withering blast of fierce contempt." + +"The last play I saw was a hummer," said the hired man. "There was a +whole lot of dancin' and cavortin' before they got down to it, fellers +givin' each other gags, and women singin' songs. But when they got down +to her she was there--a sort of a Mormon play; and they had a bed that +reached clear across the platform." + +"Melpomene rioting as a bawd," declared the Professor. "I could +elucidate if permitted one more russet cup, drawn from the oak." He +looked at Milford. "One more, and let it be russet." + +"No more to-night, Professor," said Milford. "I am going to get a bite +to eat pretty soon. Won't you join me?" + +"To eat, to clog the stomach, to stupefy the nimble brain, that fine +machinery of wheels invisible and pulleys more delicate than the +silkworm's dream of a gauzy thread! No, I will not eat, but I will +drink--one more russet cup." + +"Just one," said Milford. + +"I spoke one, one in true sincerity; and if I squeeze the gentle hand of +hospitality till the bones crack, and ask for more--give it to me," he +roared, throwing his head back. + +"Bob, bring him a cup of cider," said Milford. + +"This has been an off day with me," the Professor remarked, following +the hired man with his eyes. "The mill shut down to undergo repairs, and +I am a boy out of school." He listened, as if straining his ears to +catch the babble of the cider. "I sat about the house, with a dry book, +to feel the contrast of the rain; I sniffed the dust of an Elizabethan's +pedantry--and then my wife and my daughter began on me. I beggared +myself and got them a sofa, and now they want a set of chairs. I made +with them a treaty of peace, and, barbarians, they violated it. What a +reproach it is to woman to see a man think! She must stir him up, +scatter his faculties." + +"Not all women," said Milford. + +"Ha! About how many women have you married, sir?" + +Mitchell came in with the cider, and the Professor reached for it. He +placed the cup on the table and gazed at the bursting beads as if +counting them. He drank, smacked his mouth, and no whip-lash could have +popped keener; he gazed down into the cup, regretting the fall of the +yellow tide. He leaned back, with his eyes turned upward, and breathed +long; he whistled softly as if to coax back a thought that had escaped +him; he leaned forward, drained the cup, and sadly put it down, shoving +it far across the table. "Just within arm's reach of a temptation to ask +for more," he said, thrusting forth his hand. "But I will not. My word +has been given. Yes, about how many women have you married?" + +"Well, just about one fewer than yourself if you've married only one," +Milford answered. + +The Professor's eyes snapped. "Was that word fewer contemplated or was +it an accident? Do you study to find such niceties of distinction?" + +"I don't give a snap for niceties of distinction, Professor; I don't +know them, in fact. They might have been hammered into my head once, but +they were jolted out by bucking horses. Sometimes we forced them out. We +didn't want to be hampered. I knew a rancher, an Oxford man, who +wilfully clawed the polish off his tongue. He wanted to live down among +men, he said, and the rougher the better. One day I saw him get down off +his horse to kick a book that some one had dropped in the trail." + +"I don't blame him for kicking a book that he might find out there," +said the Professor. + +"You don't? A scholar lost an AEschylus on the prairie, and some one +might have kicked it." + +"Ha! I draw you on apace. We'll discuss the ancient goat-song next." + +"No, I'd rather talk about sheep and calves. I know more about them. I +never look at a learned man that I don't fancy him weary of his burden. +Think of a professor's moldy pack, dead languages, dried thought----" + +"Hold on, my dear friend. I was a professor, and I had no such pack. +Like the modern peddler, I carried the wants of to-day. But, after all, +I agree with you in the main. I know that the average doctor of learning +is not able to see virtue in the new. To him old platitude is of more +value than new vigor. And with one more cup I could----" + +"No more." + +"Not in the interest of clear elucidation?" + +"Not in any interest that you can fish up. I don't want you to go home +drunk." + +"Drunk! Why, my dear boy, I hadn't thought of such a thing; it hasn't +entered my head. You mistake me, and I am here to refute it. A man needs +something beyond his needs; there are times when we look for something +aside from our own natural forces; there are wants which nature was ages +in supplying. Look at tobacco. The Greeks missed it as they sat deep in +the discussion of their philosophy. They did not know what it was they +were missing, but they knew it was something and I know it was tobacco. +But be that as it may. You have said that I shall have no more, and I +bow." He twisted his beard and seemed to force into himself the spirit +of resignation. They heard a tramping on the veranda. A voice called +Mitchell. He went to the door and opened it, told some one to come in, +and then stepped out. There came a mumbling, and then a profane +exclamation. Mitchell stepped back into the room and slammed the door. +He sat down and leaned over with his arms upon his knees. The Professor +looked at him, still twisting his beard. Milford asked him what had +happened. He looked up with a sour snarl. "It's all off," he said. + +"What's all off?" Milford asked. + +"It's all off with me, that's what. My girl's married." + +"You don't mean it!" the Professor cried. + +"Then what the devil do I want to say it for? She married about two +hours ago, so Miles Brent tells me, and he was there--married a feller +named Hogan. I see him around there once or twice, but don't think +anythin' of it. Well, I'll swear. I thought I knowed her, and I did know +her at one time, but she changed. Blamed if you can tell how soon +they'll change on you. Hogan--an old widower." + +"I know him," said Milford. "He milks fifteen cows. His milk caught +her." + +"I hate to think that," Mitchell drawled, "but I'll have to. Yes, sir, +hauled off in a milk-wagon. And she owns a piece of land worth fifty +dollars an acre." + +"She must have wanted milk to wash off her freckles," said Milford. + +"Don't, Bill--don't make light of a man's trouble. She's a big loss to +me, I tell you." + +"But, Bob, you didn't really love her, now, did you?" + +"Bill, there's different sorts of love. I loved her in my way, as much +as any man ever loved a woman, I reckon, in his way. I put my faith in +her, and that was goin' a good ways. Humph! I can't hardly believe it, +but I know it's so." + +"When the heart is rent," said the Professor, twisting his beard to aid +his thought; "when the heart is rent----" + +"It's the failure of the rent--on the land, that gets Bob," Milford +broke in. "His heart has nothing to do with it." + +"Bill, I thought you had more sympathy than----" + +"Sympathy for a man who has failed to beat a woman out of her property? +Of course, I wish you'd succeeded, but I'm not going to console you +because you haven't. I'm a scoundrel all right enough, but a scoundrel +has his limits." + +"That's all right, Bill, but somebody may give you the slip." + +"That's true enough, but my heart and not my pocket will do the +grieving. I haven't any time to give to a man's pocket grief." + +"Wait till you have a real grief," said the Professor. "Wait till +ignorance comes heavy of hoof down your hallway to tell you that your +years of study are but a waste-land, covered with briars; to cut you +with the blue steel of a chilling smile, and to turn you out of an +institution that you hold dear. That's grief." He leaned forward upon +the table, with his head on his arms. + +"You had no right to go to see her," said Milford. "You had no divorce." + +"But I could've got one, couldn't I? Are they so blamed scarce that a +man can't get 'em? Well, let it go." + +"Yes, I must go," said the Professor, getting up. "Is it raining yet? I +slipped off between showers without an umbrella." + +"Sorry I haven't one," Milford replied. "Yes, it's raining. Take that +coat up there. It may protect you some." + +"Thank you. I shall avail myself of your offer." + +He put on the coat, bade them good-night, and set out for home. The road +was muddy and he walked close to the fence. Once he strode into a patch +of briars. "The waste land of my years of study," he said. He shied when +he saw the light in his window, and he cleared his throat and braced +himself. His wife and Miss Catherine, hearing him upon the veranda, sat +down upon the floor, as if they had no chairs. He stepped in, looked at +them, and sadly shook his head. + +"I would be polite enough to choose a finer insinuation," said he. +"There may be virtue in a hint--there may be all sorts of spice in it, +but there's nothing but insult in squatting around on the floor like +this. I don't know how to choose words for the occasion. I will simply +bid you good-night." + +He heard them talking after he went to bed. He sighed out his distemper +and fell asleep. In the morning he found that he had hung Milford's coat +upside down. A paper had fallen from the pocket. He took it up, opened +it, and with a start he recognized his medical treatise. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +FROM HER. + + +Early the next morning Milford was leading a horse out of the barn when +he met the Professor at the door. For a moment the scholar stood puffing +the short breath of his haste; he had not picked his way, for his +clothes were bespattered with mud, as if in his eagerness he had split +the middle of the road. + +"You're out early," said Milford. + +"But not early enough. One who has been deceived is always too late. Mr. +Milford, I have been grossly imposed upon by--by your generosity, sir. +That paper, the medical treatise. It fell out of your coat. I found it +this morning. Can you explain?" + +"Well, I haven't time just now," said Milford, preparing to mount the +horse. "I've got to ride over to Hardy's to see about some calves. We'll +talk about the treatise some other time." + +"No, sir," the Professor replied, holding up his hand. "We must talk +about it now. You were to take that paper to the Doctor's wife. You +brought me the money for it. You said that she liked it. And this +morning it fell out of the pocket of your coat." + +"It does seem a little strange, I admit." + +"Strange! No, it is not strange. It is a generous outrage. I don't know +what else to call it. I have been tricked, laughed at in the pocket of +your treacherous coat." + +Milford mounted the horse. The Professor took hold of the bridle rein. +"You must not leave me thus. I have been left too long to simper and +smirk in self-cajolery, with an inward swell to think that my pen had +paid my insurance. You must explain." + +"All right, I'll tell you. I thought well of your paper, you understand, +but when I got over to the house and faced the woman, my nerve failed +me, and I couldn't ask her to buy it." + +"But you praised it," said the Professor, with a gulp, still holding the +bridle reins. + +"Yes, and it was all right, but I lost my nerve. I had conjured up a +sort of speech to make to her, but it slipped me, and then my nerve +failed. It wasn't my fault, for I liked the paper all right enough, you +understand." + +"But you brought the money. How about that?" + +"Well, I had a few dollars, and I borrowed the rest from the old woman. +But that needn't worry you, for I paid her back when I sold my oats. +It's all right." + +"Needn't worry me! Why, you fail to catch the spirit of my distress. +Your act leaves me in debt. Why did you do it, Milford? Why?" + +Milford looked down at him, his eyes half closed. "You'd acknowledged +yourself a thief. You said you'd stolen a dog." + +"Yes, I know," the Professor agreed, glancing about. "I know, but what +of that?" + +"Well, it made you my brother. And don't you think a man ought to help +his brother in distress? Don't let it worry you. Don't think about it. +If you can ever pay it back, all right. If you can't, it's still all +right, so there you are. Let me go." + +"Milford, in the idiom of the day, I am not a dead beat. I do not like +the term, and I employ it only out of necessity. Beat is well enough, +but dead is lacking in the significance of natural growth. I hope that +you give me credit for seriousness. I am not a flippant man; I am +innately solemn, knowing that the only progressive force in the human +family is earnestness. But sometimes in the hour of my heaviest +solemnity I may appear light; and why? In the hope that I may deceive my +own heart into a few moments of forgetful levity. And you say that you +are going over to look at some calves. Now that gives me an idea. I can +fatten two calves very nicely--could keep them all winter and get a very +good price for them in the spring. I abhor debt, but do you think you +could make arrangements for me to get two, or three? Do you think you +could?" + +"The man I am to deal with is close and I don't believe he'll give +credit." + +"Very likely he might object. I didn't know, however, but that you might +make some arrangements with him, and let me settle with you afterward. +Such things have been done in trade, you know." + +"Yes, but I'm not prepared to do it now, Professor." + +"Well, you know best. But I want you to understand that the money you +advanced me shall be repaid." + +"I understand that." + +"But you must understand it thoroughly. I am afraid that you do not +grasp the full significance of it." + +"I think I do. Well, I must go." + +"Yes, and so must I. One of these days, Milford, you will think well of +me." + +"I do now, Professor. You are my brother." + +"Ah! I have strengths that you----" + +"Your brother on account of your weaknesses, Professor." + +"I would rather that our kinship rested upon other qualities, but we +will not discuss the question, since we both of us are in a hurry. +Therefore, I bid you good-morning and wish you good luck." + +When Milford returned at noontime the hired man gave him a letter. It +was from Gunhild. In a Michigan community she had found, not a field, +indeed, but a garden-patch for her labors. "The pay is very small, but +it is an encouragement," she said. "It has been hard to find a place, +and I was willing to accept almost anything. The people are not awake to +art; to them life demands something sterner, and I have come to believe +that everything but a necessity is a waste of time, but then what I do +is a necessity, and I find my excuse to myself in that. I had a letter +from Mrs. Goodwin a few days ago, and I also met a woman who had seen +her recently. She has made another discovery, a musical genius on the +piano, a girl whom she found in a mission school. I take this to mean +that she has put me aside, for with her the new blots out the old. And +this makes my success as a teacher all the more----" Here she had erased +several words and substituted "needful." "She will never remind me of my +obligation, I am sure, but I cannot forget it. I feel that she was +disappointed in me, but it is not my fault, for I all the time told her +that I was not to be great. I will make no false modesty to hide that I +have thought of you many times. I dreamed of you in English. This may +not mean much to you, but I nearly always dream in Norwegian, and +persons who speak English to me when I am awake, speak Norwegian in my +dreams. But you did not. I thought I saw you standing in a ditch and the +rain was falling, and it was night. I ran to you, and you spoke the name +they used to call you in the West. It was the ditch you helped me over. +I had been thinking about it in the day, and was sorry because the +sunflowers must be all dead. I had to send some money to my uncle. He +lost his place on the street-car, but they have taken him back. He has +five children and cannot afford to be idle. Oh, that was a beautiful +summer out there. Do you remember the night at the house where they said +the spirits are? I can see you now, kneeling on the floor. I will be +bold and say that I wanted to kneel beside you. Will there ever come +another summer like that? It was my first rest. But I cannot hope for +another soon. Mrs. Goodwin will not want me to come out with her next +year. She will have with her the musical genius then. But we shall see +each other. I feel that you spoke the truth when you said that +all--something could not keep us apart. I board at the house of a man +who had this season a large potato field. I went out when the digging +time was at hand, and behind the plow I saw a woman from Norway and I +wanted to help her, but it would not do for these people to know that I +have ever worked in a field. The teacher of the public school spoke of +me as the graceful young woman, and I thought that it might please you +to know that he had said it." + +"Please me?" said Milford, talking aloud to himself. "Blast his +impudence, what right----" + +"Anything wrong, Bill?" Mitchell inquired. + +"Oh, no, everything's all right." + +"Letter from her, ain't it?" + +"Yes. She's in Michigan." + +"I used to go with a woman from Michigan," said the hired man. "And I +thought I'd like to marry her, but I found out she'd been married twice, +and I didn't feel like bein' no third choice." + +"I didn't suppose you'd object to that," Milford replied, folding his +letter. + +"Well, I may be more particular than most fellers, but it sorter stuck +in my crop. I guess it's a good plan to let all the women alone. For +awhile at least," he added. "The best of 'em don't bring a man nothin' +but trouble. What does your girl say in her letter?" + +"Oh, nothing much. She's teaching." + +"I guess she's a pretty good sort of a woman. Are you goin' to bring her +here?" + +"Not if I know myself." + +"Yes, but a feller that keeps on foolin' with a woman gits so after a +while he don't know himself. What's your object in not wantin' to bring +her here?" + +"I've got something else to do first. She may not want me after I've +told her--the truth." + +"Then don't do it, Bill. Talk to a woman all you're a mind to, but don't +tell her any more truth than you can help. It gives her the upper hand +of you." + +"I don't know, Bob, that I'd be warranted in accepting your theories +about woman." + +"Mebbe not, but I'm the chap that's had the experience." + +Milford replied in effect that experience does not always make us wise. +It sometimes tends to weaken rather than to make us strong. It might +make freshness stale; it is a thief that steals enthusiasm; it enjoins +caution at the wrong time. He took out his letter and read it again, +studying the form of each word. The hired man said that he had received +many a letter, had read them over and over, but that did not alter the +fact that the writer thereof had proved false to him. "I don't want to +pile up trash in no man's path," he said, "but I want to give it out +strong that it's a mighty hard matter for a woman to be true even to +herself. Look how I've been treated." + +Milford did not reply. He studied his letter, and the words, "wanted to +kneel beside you," gathered a melody, and were sweet music to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +REMEMBERED HIS OBLIGATION. + + +Now and then there was a blustery day, but good weather remained till +late in November. But the ground tightened with the cold, and a +snow-whirlwind came from the Northwest. Nowhere had the autumn been +fuller of color, but a hiss and a snarl had buried it all beneath the +crackly white of winter. Windmills creaked in the fierce blast, sucking +smoky water from the ground, to gush, to drip, and then to hang from the +spout a frozen beard. Black-capped milkmen, with flaps drawn down over +ears, sat upon their wagons, appearing in their garb as if the hangman +had rigged them up for a final journey. To look upon the frozen fields +and to stand in the groaning woods it did not seem possible that there +had ever been a day of lazy heat and nodding bloom. At tightening +midnight the flinty lake cracked with a running shriek. The dawn was a +gray shudder, the sunrise a shiver of pale red, and then a black cloud +blot-out and more snow. A day that promised to be good-tempered often +ended in a fury; and sometimes, when it seemed that nature could not be +more harsh, the wind would soften, a thaw come with rain, and then +another freeze with a snow-storm fiercer than before. Sometimes thunder +growled, a lost mood of summer in the upper air; sometimes a lagging +autumn bird was whirled through the freezing wind. And with it all the +Yankee man was full of spirit, almost happy, happy as the Yankee well +can be. His cool nature demanded a fight with the cold. The ears of all +his ancestors had been frozen in bleak New England. His religion had +been nurtured in a snow-drift, and unlike the breath of a freezing +rabbit, did not melt an inch of it. In the howl of a cutting wind he +heard a psalm to his vengeful Deity. And to-day the winter reminds him +that his army was victorious in the summer South. It was a fight of +Winter against Summer. + +Milford had no idle time upon his hands. When not at work in the barn he +was trading among the farmers. They called him sharp, and this was a +compliment. He had beaten Steve Hardy in a trade, and this was praise. +An honest sort of a fellow is an eyesore to the genuine Yankee. He must +have other virtues--thrift. There was but one drawback in the Rollins +community: The land was too productive. It yielded a good living without +the full exercise of the Yankee quality. The Yankee is happiest when +strongly opposed. His religion was sweetest when he had to pray with one +eye open, sighting at the enemy, the dragoon sent by the king to break +up the Conventicle, or the American Indian come to burn the +meeting-house. + +The winter had brought out Milford's strong points. He doubled his money +on a flock of sheep. Fathers spoke of it to their daughters. Mothers +asked their sons if they were acquainted with Mr. Milford. Mrs. Stuvic +was proud of him. + +"Oh, I knowed what I was doin'," she said one night, sitting near the +hot stove in Milford's dining-room. "You can't fool me. I know lots, I +tell you. Do you know the Bunker girl? Well, she was at my house +yesterday, and she talked like she knowed you but wanted to know you +better. Now put down that newspaper and talk to me. Do you know her?" + +"I think I've met her," said Milford. + +"You think you have. Well, a woman has taken mighty little hold of a man +when he thinks he's met her. She'd make you a good wife; yes, you bet!" + +"I don't want a wife, good or bad." + +"Oh, you keep still. What the deuce are you workin' for? You know +there's a woman somewhere waitin' for you." + +"And if there is, why should I want to marry the Bunker girl?" + +"Now listen at him! Why, I didn't know but you'd got tired of foolin' +with the other one. Who is she? That tall critter that was out here? +Well, I don't know about her, with her art. Art the cat's foot! You'd +better marry a woman that knows how to do housework. She may be all +right for summer, but you'd better marry a woman for winter. Don't you +think so, Bob?" + +"For winter and summer, I should think," said the hired man. "But I +married one for winter, and she went away along in July. But I guess I +could get her again." + +"And he's just about fool enough to take her," Milford spoke up. "Why, +she'd run away again." + +"I don't think that, Bill. I guess she's got more sense now." + +"At any rate, she's got more sense than you," said the old woman. "She +had sense enough to run away and you didn't. But I hear that somebody +else run away, Bill. I heard that you left a wife out West." + +"You heard a lie, madam," Milford replied. "But that's not hard to hear. +A man may be ever so deaf, and sometimes might hear a lie." + +"That's gospel, Mrs. Stuvic," said the hired man. "I was out at the deaf +and dumb asylum one time, and they had a boy shut up for lyin' with his +fingers." + +"Well, what do you come tellin' me about it for? Do you s'pose I care? I +wasn't talkin' about lyin'. I was talkin' about some folks not havin' +much sense, and you was right at the top of the pot, I'll tell you that. +You haven't got sense enough to catch a good woman." + +"I might not have from your standpoint, but I have from mine. I don't +believe I'd want the woman you'd call good. She'd think it was her duty +to keep a man stirred up all the time; she'd make him work himself to +death." + +"Well," she snapped, "a woman's better off every time she makes a man +work himself to death, I'll tell you that." + +"Yes, from your standpoint," drawled the hired man, opening the stove +door to get a light for his pipe. "But I wouldn't kill myself for no +woman, would you, Bill?" + +"I don't know that I'm called on to do it," Milford replied. "Give me +that," he added, reaching for the bit of blazing paper which the hired +man was about to put out. He lighted his pipe, threw the burning paper +on the stove, and idly looked at the cinder waving in the draft. "As +unsteadfast as Mitchell's love," he said. + +"What is?" the hired man inquired. "That thing, there? No, that's a +woman's love. See, it's blowed away." + +"Such nonsense!" said the old woman. "How can you keep it up so long? +I'd get sick to death of it. Woman's love, woman's love--I never was as +tired of hearing of a thing. I hear it all summer, and now you're +talkin' it. Conscience alive, how the wind blows! It makes me think of +old Lewson, the cold made him shiver so. I've knowed him to sit up at +night with his fire out and his teeth chatterin', waitin' for the +spirits to come. One night I asked him who he expected, and he said his +wife, and I told him she was a fool to come out such a night, and he +flung his spirit book at me, and the Dutch girl kindled the fire with it +the next mornin'. Poor old feller! I passed his grave the other day, all +heaped up with snow; and it made me shake so to think I'd be lyin' there +sometime, with the snow fallin' an' the cows mooin' down the road. But +I'm not gone yet, Bill. Do you understand that? I say I'm not gone yet, +and many a one of 'em 'll be hauled off before I do go. Yes, you bet! +I'll outlive all of you; the last one of you." + +"I hope so, Mrs. Stuvic," said Milford. + +"You do? Thank you for the compliment." + +"But you've got to go sometime," Mitchell spoke up; and she frowned upon +him. + +"You shut your mouth, now," she snapped. "I wan't talkin' to you. I'll +go when I get ready, and it's none of your business. But ain't it +awful," she added, speaking to Milford, "that we've got to go? And we +don't know where and don't know what'll happen to us afterwards. Lord, +Lord, such a world! If we could only be dead for a while to see what +it's like; but to think forever and ever, all the summers and all the +winters to come! Dead, all the time dead. I wake up in the night, and +think about it and wish I'd never been born. Sometimes I look at my hand +and say, 'Yes, the flesh has got to drop off.' Not long ago a doctor +stopped at my house one night with a skeleton. He was a young fool, and +had bought it somewhere. He jerked the thing around like it was a +jumpin'-jack; and I said to myself, 'You'd do me the same way, you +scoundrel.' And I told him to drive away from there as fast as he could. +And old Lewson's failin' to come back has made it worse. I wonder if he +did lie to me. I wonder if he could come back. And if he could, why +didn't he? I'd always been kind to him; took him when his own flesh and +blood turned him out. Then what made him lie to me? I don't care so much +about his not comin' back; all I want is to know that he could have +come. That would satisfy me. And why couldn't he let me know that much? +Bill, you lump of mud, don't you think about dyin'?" + +"You're coming pretty close to my name, old lady. Yes, I think about +it, but death will have to take care of itself. I haven't the time to +worry with it just at present." + +"Yes, and the first thing you know you can't worry about it." + +"Then I'll be all right; won't need to worry." + +She reached over and gripped his wrist. "Ah, that's it; that's just it. +How do you know that you won't need to worry? What proof have you got? +Tell me, if you've got any." She jerked him. "Tell me. Don't you see how +I'm sufferin'? If you know anythin', tell me. I want the truth. That's +all I want, the truth." + +"I don't know anything, Mrs. Stuvic. I can only hope." + +She turned loose his wrist and shoved herself back further from him. +"You can only hope. You mean that you're only a fool. That's what you +mean. What do you want to hope for? Why don't you find out? What's all +the smart men doin' that they don't find out? Talk to me about the world +gettin' wiser! Oh, they can invent their machines and all that, but why +don't they find out the truth?" + +"Some of the wisest of them think they have found out long ago," Milford +replied. "Don't you see the churches? Somebody must believe that the +truth is known or there wouldn't be so many churches." + +"Churches," she sneered, "yes, churches. But I don't believe in 'em, and +you don't neither. Same old thing all the time; believe, believe, +nothin' but believe. Well, I'm goin' home. I see you don't know any +more than I do. We're all a pack of fools." + +Mitchell said that he was going her way, and she told him to come on. At +the door going out they met the Professor coming in. The old woman fell +back as if she had seen a ghost. She declared that for a moment he was +Old Lewson, just as he looked on the day when last he urged her to +accept his faith. She sat down to recover breath. The Professor assured +her that he meant no harm. Any resemblance that he might bear to the +living or the dead was wholly unintentional on his part. She told him to +shut up, that he was a fool. He acknowledged it with a bow, and said +that this fact also was wholly unintentional. + +"You pretend to be so smart," she said. "Yes, but why don't you know the +truth?" + +"I should know it, madam, were I to hear it." + +"Oh, you get out! You don't know half the time what you're talkin' +about. What's to become of us all? That's what I want to know." + +The Professor sat down. The hired man stood at the door. Milford leaned +back in his chair. The old woman looked at the learned man and repeated +her question. He began to say something about philosophy, and she broke +in with a contemptuous snort and the cat's foot. She did not want +philosophy; she wanted the truth. The Professor attempted to persuade +her that philosophy was the truth, and she fluttered like a hen. It was +nothing of the sort; it was ignorance put in big words. What she wanted +was the truth. + +"But if you won't listen I can't give it to you," said the Professor. +"You cut me off at the beginning. Now, you say that what you want is the +truth. You demand an answer to your question of what is to become of us +all, after this life. You want me to answer it in a word, when the books +that have been written on the subject would sink the biggest ship +afloat." + +"Yes, and you don't know anythin' about it. What I want to know is, can +we come back? Answer me that." + +"Madam, in my opinion----" + +"I don't give a snap for your opinion. Come on, Bob Mitchell, if you're +goin' with me." She bustled out of the room, leaving the Professor with +his finger-tips pressed together and his head erect. "As odd a fish as +was ever hooked," said he. "She must be afraid that she is going to +die." + +"It's on her mind all the time," said Milford. "She wants to believe +something, she doesn't know exactly what." + +"The pitiable case of one beyond the reach of philosophy. But in her +struggling to land herself somewhere she keeps her interest in herself +keenly alive. There is always some sort of hope as long as we are +interested in ourselves. Trite, I admit that it is trite, but it is a +fact that we should always bear in mind, endeavoring constantly to keep +alive an interest in self so that we may not fail in the obligations +which we owe to others. But well may the old woman ask what is to become +of us all. I wash my hands of the spiritual part," he said, going +through the motion of washing; "I can shift the responsibilities here, +or at least feel that I can, but--bodily, bodily, what's to become of us +bodily?" + +"When such riddles are asked of me, I'm always ready to give them up," +said Milford. "I'm not asking myself any questions." + +"Ha! you don't need to," the Professor declared. "You bristle yourself +against the world, and in the fight that ensues you are not always +beaten. I am. Your nerve is sound. Mine has been broken many a time, +tied together again, and is therefore weak. Leaving age out of the +question, there is scarcely any comparison between our equipments for +the fight. You have a habit of silence that enforces respect for your +talk. I am talkative, and a talkative man utters many an unheeded truth. +At times you are almost grim, and this makes your good humor the +brighter. I am always pleasant, and as a consequence fail to hold the +interest of the company. In overalls you can assert a sort of dignity, +or rather what the thoughtless would take for dignity, but which I know +to be a gruffism--permit the expression--a gruffism toned down. But +I--even in a dress-suit I could not keep my dignity from cutting a +prejudicial caper. The trouble is that my acquaintances will not take me +seriously. I once heard a man say, 'Yes, as light as one of Dolihide's +worries.' It angers me to feel that outwardly I am a caricature of my +inner self. Not even my wife knows how serious I am, or what a tragedy +life is to me. But, my dear fellow, my oddities are crystal, and I will +not thread them off in spun glass. I came over for a different purpose. +The money with which you so generously deceived me--I have raised it; it +was a fearful scuffle, but I seized the obstacles that danced about me +and threw them down, one by one. Here is the money." + +He took out a number of bank notes with a scattering of silver, and +slowly spread them on the table, carefully placing one upon the other. +"I said that I would pay you, and here's the money,--down to the forty +cents." + +"I am much abliged to you, Professor. No hurry, though, you understand." + +"There has been no hurry, my dear friend. No one can ever know what a +struggle it was to--to raise it at this time, this needful time." He +leaned back, and with lips tightly sealed together, and with head slowly +nodding, gazed at the pile of dirty paper. "This needful time, thou +filth," he said. + +"Now, if you need it," Milford spoke up quickly, "take it. I'm not +pressed. You can pay it some other time." + +"My life insurance will be due again within three days." + +"Then go ahead and pay it." + +The Professor continued to gaze at the bank notes. "Must I again crease +you into uncleanly folds--I am a thousand times your debtor, my dear +boy. I could spin fine, but I won't. I could pronounce a curse upon +these pieces of motley paper, but I won't. I cannot afford to. In their +mire they lie between me and my family's future misery. I don't know +what your ultimate aim is in this life, but I know that you are a +Christian. I don't know what you have done, but it is what a man does +now that makes him a Christian. Well, solemn under the weight of a +renewed obligation, I will return to my own fireside. Before touching +this money again, let me shake your hand." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +NOT THE OLD SUMMER. + + +At no time during the lagging winter did the Professor mention his +renewed obligation, but one night in April he came over with a tune in +his voice, a laugh in his eye, and paid the debt. The bank notes were +not ragged and soiled as if they had been snatched in the dust of a +fierce scuffle; they were new, and as bright as if they had come as a +gracious legacy. And, indeed, they had. A dead "lot," lying in the +neighborhood of a punctured "boom" in Kansas, fluttered with the +returning life of speculative resurrection. A new railway needed the +site for a station. An agent found the Professor, reluctantly offered +him half as much as the property was worth, and he gladly accepted it. +For a day his household was happy in the possession of a set of new +chairs, a rug and a center table, but soon fell to brooding over the +lonesome absence of dining-room linen and new paper on the walls. The +Professor had hoped that he might be able to buy a bookcase for his room +upstairs, but realizing that it was impossible to fill up the rat hole +of want in the floor below, did not dare to speak of his longing. But he +was sharper than his family had suspected. With a wink he told Milford +that he had, in the stealthy hour of midnight, put by enough to enable +him to do a little speculating. Milford had set him an example of +thrift. There was money to be made in buying and selling and he was +going to buy and sell. All that he had needed was an example. A mind +that could weigh a heavy problem could turn a trifle to account. The +ancient philosophers, counseling contentment of the mind, had money +loaned out at interest. It was no wonder that they could be contented. +And, after all, they held the right idea of life, money first and +philosophy afterward. He would go back to first principles; would deal +in cattle, the origin of money. The bicycle might hurt the horse, but it +could not hurt the steer. There was no invention to take the place of a +beefsteak. Some men might argue that it was difficult if not impossible +for a failure to become a success, but all astonishing success had come +out of previous failure. Without failure the world could never have +realized one of its most precious virtues--perseverance. Society placed +a premium upon rascality. He could be a rascal. At one time he had +thought it wise to lie down with his friend, death; but now he felt it +expedient to stand up with his enemy, life. + +Milford did not take issue with his newly adopted creed. He brought up a +jug of cider and they drank to it. The Professor had an option on four +bullocks, and they drunk to them. And then filling his cup, the reformed +scholar said: + +"To our dear enemies, the ladies." + +"No," Milford replied. He had that day received a letter. "I won't drink +to them as our enemies." + +"Well, then, as our endeared mistakes." + +"No, they are not mistakes." + +"Ha! you put me to for a term. What shall we call them?" + +"The honest helpers of dishonest men," said Milford. + +The Professor frowned. "I cannot subscribe to a sentiment so ruffled and +furbelowed with--shall I say tawdry flounces? Permit me; I have said it. +My dear fellow, in this humid air of American sentimentalism, we are not +permitted to talk rationally about woman. Some man is always ready to +hop up and declare that his mother is a woman. Of course she is. Has any +one ever disputed the fact? His mother is a woman, and so in fact we +hope is the person whom he expects to marry--I say expects to marry, for +it is usually an unmarried man who hops up. I would not abolish +marriage, you understand. I would--well, I would insist upon both +parties having a little more sense. I would enact a law, compelling a +man, before being granted a license, to show a certificate of financial +success. I would inquire into the amount of money he had realized on his +last lot of bullocks." + +"You'd have a fine world." + +"Wouldn't I? There would be no scuffling for life insurance, no +harassment over wall-paper, no daughters to pity a father's failure. If +I could roll up the surface of the sea into a megaphone, I would shout a +caution to the unmarried world." + +"What would you shout, Professor?" + +"Shut your eyes on love. If you have no money, throw your license into +the fire and turn the preacher out at the back door. That is what I +would shout." + +"There are millions of mistakes," said Milford. "But there are many +happy hits. Your marriage----" + +"Thoroughly happy, my dear fellow--as a marriage, you understand. I +wouldn't undo it for the world. My people are everything to me. They are +too much to me, hence my everlasting worry over life insurance. But it +is not possible for the average woman to understand, and nearly every +woman is the average woman. But my worries are over now. I am to start +out anew. Don't think ill of me for not having opened my eyes sooner. An +eye is like a chestnut bur; it doesn't open till it is ripe, and up to +this time mine has been green in ignorance. Don't call me eccentric. I +would rather be called a thief than eccentric. What is eccentricity but +a loose joint, a flaw in the machinery? I am not so much out of the +common. The trouble is that I show effects more plainly perhaps than +other men. But I am serious. I am not light. To the plodder, I have been +chimerical, but I will shame him by becoming a plodder, by out-plodding +him. For the first time in many months, I return to my home as much as +half satisfied with myself." + +A few days later Milford saw him in the road, popping a whip behind four +bullocks. Not long afterward, at a farmyard sale, he was seen haggling +for a small flock of sheep. He bought a cow of Mrs. Stuvic. He urged her +to come to terms. He was a man of business, and had no time for words. + +"Well, now you have woke up," she said. "Who would thought it? They +might as well go out to the graveyard now and tell the rest of 'em it's +time to get up. Gracious alive, take the cow. I don't want to stand in +the way of a man that's just woke up. Have you quit the mill?" + +"No, but since I woke up I do my work in about two-thirds of the time." + +"Good for you! Oh, that feller Milford has stirred up the whole +country." + +"And when he gets through with that farm, madam, I'll take it. I don't +think he'll stay a great while longer." + +"Why, has he said anythin' about goin' away?" + +"No, but with my shrewd eye I can see that he's getting restless. But I +have no time to talk to you." + +The season for breaking land and planting came, slowly through the +stubborn and lingering cold, and Milford bent himself to the putting in +of a large crop. His letters from Gunhild were rambling, but +affectionate. She was now in Indiana. Her work in Michigan had been but +partly successful. "I'm studying so that after awhile I may teach a +regular school," she said. "But there is so much to learn and the +examination is very hard. I met a man the other day who said that he +knew you. He tried to sell you a book. He said that you were very hard +to deal with. I told him that you must know what you wanted. Mr. +Blakemore was here three days ago, to look at some land. He came to the +house where I board, and said that he is making much money. There was a +church sociable and he wanted me to go with him, but I refused. He said +that I never would succeed as long as I was so particular. And I felt +that you would rather I be particular than to succeed. I do not want any +success that you would not like. His little boy has been sick, but is +well now. They are not coming out to Rollins in the summer. They are +going further away to a more fashionable place. Mrs. Goodwin writes to +me yet, so she has not forgotten me. She says that her discovery is +marvelous. She asked about you. She believes that you will be rich one +of these days. I told her in my letter that I did not want to think so, +but I know that she cannot understand. She will not know that I do not +want you to get so far away from me. But you would not. It is a dream +with me to come out there once again. I never have seen a place more +beautiful. The woods here are not so full of the sketches that no one +can draw, and there are no lakes scattered everywhere. I may come for +one week during the vacation." + +June was cool, but July was hot, and with the change in the weather came +Mrs. Goodwin and her discovery, a pale girl with long hands. The +"discoverer" sent for Milford. She was graciously pleased to meet him +again. "I am sorry we can't call back the old summer," she said, giving +him her hand. "But the old summers never come back." She introduced him +to the musical genius, Miss Swartz. Her pale lips parted in a white +smile. Milford asked her to play. Mrs. Goodwin shrugged, glanced at the +piano and said: "I can't let her touch that thing." If Mrs. Stuvic had +heard this remark she would have bundled them off down the road. But she +was out in the orchard at scolding heat with a retired policeman, sent +by the city to board with her during the summer. Miss Swartz languidly +waved herself out of the room, and Mrs. Goodwin, motioning Milford to a +seat beside her on the sofa, commanded him to tell her all about +himself. + +"I haven't anything of interest to tell." + +"Ah, the same close mouth. You hear from her quite often, I suppose. A +strong woman. Don't you think so? I urged her to stay with me, but she +thought it her duty to go away. Do you expect to reside here +permanently? Gunhild likes this place so much. She's perfectly charmed +with it." + +"Which question shall I answer first?" + +"Did I ask more than one? I haven't seen you in so long that I must +rattle on at a fearful rate." + +"I don't expect to live here permanently." + +"Not if she should request it?" + +"She will not request it. Our arrangements are not yet quite clear +enough for such requests." + +"Indeed? I fancied that it was all understood." + +"It is, in a way, but we must have a very serious talk before there can +be--be----" + +"Anything definite," she suggested. "Yes, I understand. But this serious +talk? How can that change your plans or have any bearing upon them?" + +"That is for her to decide. I had a certain object in view before she +entered into any of my calculations." + +"Dear me, we are as far apart as ever. You must know that I dote upon +that girl, and that consequently I am interested in you. But I needn't +tell you this. You know it already." + +"Yes, and I am grateful." + +"But you will give me no hint as to what your object is. Don't you think +I ought to know it?" + +"She doesn't know it yet." + +"But you must have told her something." + +"A little, and she didn't urge me to tell her more." + +"Do I deserve that reproach? I hope not. Really, she and you present a +singular romance." + +"It is not a romance; it's only a sort of understanding." + +"But you say there is no perfect understanding. Oh, a sort of romance. I +see. Well, you will make her a good husband and consequently a good +living." + +A vision of the Professor as he had sat amid his shifting toasts to +woman arose before Milford. "Good husband, I hope; and a good living, I +am determined," he said. + +"You couldn't have made a better reply, Mr. Milford, if you had pondered +a week. You are quite happy at times. It was voted last summer that you +had good blood, and you must have it still," she added with a smile. +"Although you call yourself a Westerner, you are really from the East, I +believe." + +"Yes, but to live in the West soon rubs out the marks of all sections." + +"True enough, I suppose. But do you expect to go back there?" + +"Yes, but I don't know how long I'll stay. I may run out and come +straight back. I can't tell. It all depends." + +"Upon Gunhild's decision?" + +"Not wholly. The fact is I can't explain myself. Oh, I could," he +added, observing her wondering eye, "but I serve my purpose best by----" + +"By showing that you have no confidence in me," she suggested. "No," she +hastened to continue, "you have none. You have shown it all along. But +why should I ask you to have confidence? We met by accident at a +farm-house, during a holiday, at a time when real friendships are rarely +formed. Impressed by the ephemeral season, we recognize that we too are +but fleeting, with changing likes and dislikes, the prejudices and +predilections of an hour. Of course, my affection for Gunhild is +lasting. Her interests and mine walk far down the road together, hand in +hand. I could not expect you to see this; you saw her and all else stood +about her in a dim radius. I was a shadow, dim or dark, as the day was +light or heavy, the same as Mrs. Blakemore. My station entitled me to +respect, and you gave it. But you did not feel that my love for the +young woman entitled me to something closer than respect. You are no +common man, Mr. Milford. Your face is a Vandyke conception of a spirit +of adventure. You are a strength repenting a weakness; there are flaws +in you, and yet I could wish that I were the mother of such a son." + +"Don't," said Milford, touching her hand; "please don't. I honor you; I +could get down on my knees to you. You're not a shadow. There is nothing +in a shadow that makes a man bow his head in reverence. But I can't tell +you." + +"Is it so very bad, Mr. Milford?" + +"Yes, it is worse than very bad." + +He moved further from her, and looked at her as if he expected her to +move also, but she did not. "There is redemption," she said; "moral +redemption." + +"There must be a material redemption," he replied. + +"God demands that it must be spiritual," she said. + +"But man insists that it must be earthly," he persisted. + +"The gospel was tenderest coming from the mouth of one who had been +infamous." + +"Yes," he replied, "but then the blood of the Virgin's Son was still red +upon the earth, and in the heart of the changing world that blood atoned +for everything. It is different now. Man may forgive, but he wants the +dollar." + +"And he's goin' to get it unless you tie his hands behind him," said +Mrs. Stuvic, stepping into the room. "Yes, you bet! Why don't you have +that girl play the pian, Mrs.--I can't recollect your name to save my +life." + +"She didn't bring her music," Mrs. Goodwin replied, and the old woman +"whiffed." "Music the cat's foot! Don't she know a tune? Tell her to +give me a jig and I'll dance it." + +"She won't play, Mrs. Stuvic. It's of no use to ask her." + +"She won't? Well, then, she needn't. Mebbe she don't like my pian. But I +want to tell you that it's as good as anybody's. I give a hundred and +fifty dollars and a colt for it, and the carpenter painted it fresh +this spring. But if she don't want to play, she needn't. What's become +of that woman--out here last year? Can't think of her name, but her +husband moped about and ended up by callin' your young woman a peach. +What's become of her?" + +"She's gone to the seashore, I understand," Mrs. Goodwin answered, +looking slyly at Milford. + +"Oh, she has? Well, let her go, there wan't no string tied to her. Bill, +I want you to drive over to Antioch for me if you've got the time, and +you never appear to be busy when there's women around. They've got the +pony hitched up." + +Mrs. Goodwin drove with him. Near the old brick house they met the +Professor, leading a calf. + +He snatched off his hat, and the calf snatched him off his feet, but he +scrambled up, tied the rope to a fence-post, and was then ready to do +the polite thing, bowing and brushing himself. He had been on the keen +jump, he said, catching drift-wood in the commercial whirlpool, but he +had often thought of Mrs. Goodwin, one of the noblest of her honored +sex. "I have turned from the sylvan paths where wild roses nod," said +he, "turned into the dusty highway of trade, but I have not forgotten +the roses, madam," he declared with a bow. "They come as a sweet +reminiscence of my brighter but less useful days. Permit me to extend to +you----" + +The calf broke loose and went scampering down the road, a twinkling of +white hoofs in the black dust; and with a shout the Professor took to +his heels in pursuit. + +"Something always happens to that man's dignity," said Mrs. Goodwin, +laughing as they drove on. "Is he ever serious?" + +"He may not appear so, but he's serious now," Milford answered, looking +back at him, galloping down the road. + +"Couldn't we have helped him in some way?" she asked, now that it was +too late even to think about it. + +"We might have shouted advice after him, but that was about all we could +have done," said Milford. "He'll catch him down there. Somebody'll head +him off." + +As they drove through the village street, Milford pointed out the place +wherein he had trained himself to meet the man Dorsey. He had worked +during weeks that one minute might be a victory. She told him that it +was the appearance of having a dauntless spirit that at first aroused in +her an interest in him. She detested a quarrel, but she liked a man who +would fight. Her father had been a captain in the navy, and he had +taught her to believe that a courageous knave was more to be admired +than an honest man without nerve. Of course this was an extreme view, +the exaggerated policy of a fighting man, and though she did not accept +it in full, yet it had strongly impressed her. She did not see how a man +could be an American and not be brave. And frankness was a part of +bravery. At least it ought to be. Milford was brave, but not frank +enough, with her. On the way home she returned to the subject. There was +a charm in the confidence of a brave man. It was strange that he had not +told Gunhild more about himself. He surely loved her. She was capable +of inspiring the deepest love. Of course she had seen him in the West, +but had merely seen him, and his life was still a sealed book to her. +Oh, no, she had not complained. That was not her nature. + +"She'll know enough one of these days," said Milford. "Perhaps too +much," he added. + +"Well, I suppose we must wait," she replied. "And I hope you'll not +think my curiosity idle. All interest is curiosity, more or less, but +all interest is not idle. So you don't know how long you'll remain +here?" + +"I haven't staked off the time." + +She sighed. She said that the summer had been a disappointment. She had +not been happy since Gunhild left her. Her going away must have been a +wild notion, caught from Milford. There was no necessity for teaching, +till at least she had studied longer herself. She had not been +disappointed in her development, not wholly. Her outcome as a woman had +more than offset her failure as an artist. And she found that it was the +woman whom she had liked, rather than the artist. With her new care it +was different. She was all musician, a genius with whims and caprices, a +moody companion, not capable of inspiring friendship. She had taken her +as a duty, a duty which she felt that she owed to the musical world. + +"I am going home to-morrow," she said, when Milford helped her down at +Mrs. Stuvic's gate. "I don't like these new people. They are coarse." + +"To-morrow I have business across the country," said Milford. "I may not +see you again." + +"I am sorry. Will you do me a favor? When you write to Gunhild tell her +that she must come back to me. I need her." + +"I will tell her that you have said so." + +"That won't be much of a favor, but tell her. And I want you to promise +one thing--that you will come to see me, when you are married." + +"I'll promise that gladly, and keep it. I am very fond of you." + +"Are you?" + +"Yes. You said you would like to be the mother of such a son. That was +the kindest thing ever said to me. It makes you my mother." + +"Oh," she said, falteringly, as he took her hand. "You will understand +me better in the time to come. Good-bye." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +DREAMED OF THE ANGELUS. + + +Gunhild wrote that she could not spare the money to come out, and to +Milford the summer fell flat and lay spiritless on the ground. He begged +her to let him bear the expense, and for this she scolded him. But she +enlivened him with a suggestion. Near the first of October she would +visit her uncle in the city. "It will make me glad to have you come to +see me then," she said. "And I shall feel that you have held the summer +and brought it with you. Mrs. Goodwin wrote to me as soon as she came +home. She said much about you, and I really think she likes you deeply. +I have been astonished at her. I did not think that she would care for +me more when her house I left, but she does. She is a good woman. Oh, +you remember the Miss Swartz who was with her. Well, she wanted to keep +company with a fiddler in a variety show, and Mrs. Goodwin objected, and +that was not the end of it. The girl went out at night late and married +the fiddler, and Mrs. Goodwin has seen her no more." + +There was a lament for the swift flight of the sunny days, by the woman +on the bicycle and the man casting his line into the lake, but to +Milford the time was slow. He remembered having seen a lame cow limping +down the road, with the sluggish hours dragging at her feet, and he told +the hired man that she had come back again to vex him. But time was +never so slow that it did not pass, and one evening the sun went down +beyond the fading edge of September. Milford waited two days longer and +then went to the city; and just out of the fields, how confusing was the +noise and the sight of scattering crowds that were never scattered! But +his sense of the world soon came back to him. He had been moneyless in +many a town, hanging about the gambler's table, feeding upon the chip +tossed by the exultant winner. The woods, the cattle, the green and +purple pictures, musings with his head in the grass, had taken the +gamester's wild leap out of his blood, but he knew that he dared not go +near the vice. He found the Norwegian's cottage, in the western part of +town, and he stood at the door listening before he rang the bell. A +little girl came out with a tin pail, the gripman's dinner. As she +opened the door he saw Gunhild. She dropped a boy's jacket, which she +had evidently been mending, and came bounding to meet him, with her +welcome bursting out in a laugh. Her hands were warm, and her eyes full +of happiness. There was no put-on and no disguises in their meeting. It +was two destinies touching again, destinies that were to become as one. +She led him into the neat little parlor, gave him a rocking-chair, and +talked of her gladness at his coming, standing for a moment in front of +a glass to put back into place a wayward wisp of hair. Their meeting had +not been cool. She drew up a chair beside him and they talked about the +country, of the haunted house, and the tree that had hoisted a vine +like an umbrella. He told her that he had come through the fields to the +station, and had stood in the ditch among the wild sunflowers. He had +plucked some for her, but they were dead and had fallen to pieces. + +They went out into the park, not far away, and sat amid the scenes of a +changing season, the leaves falling about them. It was an odd courtship, +an indefinite engagement. There was no attempt at sentiment, no time +when either one felt that something tender must be said, but between +them there was a wholesome understanding of the heart. They were not +living a love story. She was not clothed in the glamour-raiment of +love's ethereal fancy, not sigh-fanned by the breath of reverential +melancholy. Her hand did not feel like the velvet paw of a kitten; it +was a hand that had toiled; and though easier days may come, the mark of +labor can never be erased from the palm. + +She left him on the rustic seat, and hastened across the sward to pluck +a bloom that had been sheltered from the early frost, and he looked at +her, a gladness tingling in his nerves. How trim she was in her dark +gown! She looked back at him, pointed at a policeman standing off among +the trees, and imitated the walk of a sneak-thief. She returned +laughing, and pinning the flower on his coat, stood to gaze upon him as +if he were in bloom, and said in an accent that always reminded him of a +banjo's lower tones, "See, the frost has not killed you." Simple, +playful, loving, strong, were the words to express an estimate of +her--the healthy refinement of an honest heart, and modest because she +had seen immodesty. She possessed a knowledge that was a better +safeguard than mere innocence, and her passion illumined her virtue. + +They strolled among the trees, society's forest; they listened co the +ducks and the geese, the city's barnyard. + +"Would you rather live in the country?" he asked. + +"I would not rather teach art there," she laughed. + +"It must be very hard." + +"It is very stupid." + +"I don't suppose the farmers take to it any too kindly." + +"No, they often ask me why I do not draw comic as they see in the +newspapers." + +"They must like to see themselves buying gold bricks." + +She did not understand him, and he explained that the honest farmer +believing that a fortune was coming down the road to meet him, was the +prey of sharp swindlers who prowled about through the country. Steve +Hardy, one of the shrewdest men in the community, once had bought an +express package filled with worthless paper. It was a case of "honesty" +trying to beat the three-shell man at his own game. Ignorance always +credits itself with shrewdness. Industry is no sure sign of honesty. +"Worked like a thief" has become a saying. Smiling at his philosophy, +she said that he never could have learned it in a school. + +"No," he replied. "In the school we are taught to believe in the true, +the beautiful, and the good; but in life we find that the true as we +learned it is often false, the beautiful painted, and the good bad." + +"I would not have you think that," she said. "The beautiful is not +always painted." She stooped and picked up a maple leaf, blushed with +the rudeness of the frost. "This is not painted, and it is beautiful. It +was the cold that brought out its color. You must not be a--what would +you call it?" + +"Cynic?" + +"Yes. You must not be that. It is an acknowledgment of failure." + +He took her hand, and they walked on among the trees. "You talk like a +virtue translated from a foreign tongue," he said. He called her a +heathen grace. She protested. She was a Christian, so devout that she +would have hung her head in the potato field had she heard the ringing +of the angelus. They saw a woman on a wheel, and he dropped her hand. +The woman waved at them, jumped off and came to meet them, smiling. It +was Mrs. Blakemore. "Oh, I am so surprised and delighted," she said, +shaking hands. "Why, how unexpected! You must come home with me. I don't +live far from here. Bobbie will be delighted to see you. He refuses to +go to school, and we won't force him, he is so delicate. How well you +look, Gunhild! And you too, Mr. Milford." The man would have yielded +against his will; the woman saw this and declined the invitation. She +said that they had an engagement to dine. Milford looked at her in +surprise. He thought of the frost-tinted leaf. Mrs. Blakemore was +sorry--she said. It would be such a disappointment to Bobbie. George was +out of town. She bade them an effusive good-bye, mounted her wheel, +pulling at her short skirts, and glided away. + +"Engagement to dine?" said Milford, as they turned from watching Mrs. +Blakemore. + +"Yes, at the little bakery over by the edge of the park." + +"Oh, I see. But I thought you wanted to go with her." + +"I knew that you did not," she replied. + +"But did you?" he asked. + +"I would not spoil a beautiful day," she answered. + +They dined at the bakery, flattering themselves that the girl who waited +on them did not know that they were lovers. They did not see her wink at +her fat mother behind the showcase. + +"I haven't asked you how long I may stay," said Milford, as they walked +out. + +"I was afraid to come to that," she replied. "I must leave on the train +to-night. I have only waited for you." + +"When do you think I can see you again?" + +"I do not know. I will write." + +"Remember that nothing can keep us apart--nothing but yourself." + +"Then we shall not be kept apart. But why do you leave it with me?" + +"Because you are to decide when I tell you something." + +"Do you put it off because it is so hard to tell?" + +"No, because I'm not ready yet. I will be when I close out with the old +woman." + +"I would like to know now." + +"It would be plucking green fruit," he replied. + +"You know best," she said, trustfully. + +The air grew chilly when the sun had set, and they returned to the +cottage to sit alone in the parlor. They heard the kindly tones of the +gripman talking to his children. There was a melodeon in the room, and +she played a Norwegian hymn. The barefoot youngsters scampered in the +passage-way. + +"Let them come in," he said. + +"No, they are undressed for bed," she replied. It was the evening romp, +a tired mother's trial-time before the hour of rest when all are asleep. + +He went to the railway station with her; walked that they might be +longer on the road, looked at cottages, gazed up at flats, planning for +the future. In the deep secrecy of a crowd he kissed her good-bye, and +then went forth to stroll about the town. He stood listening to the +weird song of a salvation woman; he dropped a nickel into a rich +beggar's hat; he saw the grief-stricken newsboy weeping in a doorway, +and believing that he was a liar, gave him a penny; he went to sleep in +a hotel and dreamed that he saw a woman with bowed head listening to the +angelus. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE BIGGEST LIAR ON EARTH. + + +When Milford reached Rollins he found the Professor at the station +waiting for him. "I will go home with you," he said. "I have something +of grave importance to communicate." Steve Hardy offered them a ride in +his milk wagon, but they set out on foot, at the suggestion of the +Professor, who said that in this way he could better lead up to his +subject. Milford was silent till they had proceeded some distance down +the lane, and then he asked if anything had gone wrong. The Professor +answered that everything had gone wrong, but as he had not yet led up to +his subject, he continued to walk on, brooding, sighing like the wind in +the rushes. They turned the corner, went down a slope, and at the +bottom, the scholar took Milford by the arm apparently to conduct him to +the subject, which presumably was waiting on the top of the hill. + +"We are coming to it, my dear Milford. It is elusive, but we are almost +to it. Now, here we are," he said, with evident relief, as they reached +the top of the hill. + +"All right, go ahead," said Milford. "Shoot it off." + +"Idiomatic," breathed the Professor. "And, sir, to follow it with idiom, +I am up against it." + +"Up against what?" + +"Failure, grinning and teeth-chattering failure. You have seen me turn +defiantly upon my false training, and woo the ways of the world. You +have seen me buy; you have seen me snatched off my feet by a yearling +calf, in the presence of a dignified woman; you have heard me pop my +whip at the crack of day. And what has it all come to? Failure. I know +that this sounds funny to you, but it is my way, and I find it useless +to attempt another. Now, to the point: On all my speculations I have +lost money. My bargains turned out to be disasters. I sold at a +sacrifice, and am still in debt. I don't know why I should not have +succeeded. My object was as worthy as yours. But I failed." + +"That may be, but you're nearly as well off as you were before you made +the attempt. You haven't so much to grieve over after all." + +"Oh, yes, I have. My life insurance. But for that I could snap my +fingers at defeat." + +"When's the money due?" + +"Day after to-morrow." + +"I can let you have it. What are you trying to do?" + +"I am grabbing after your hand." + +"Let it alone." + +"But, my dear fellow, your kindness overwhelms me." + +"Then don't take the money." + +"Oh, yes, I shall; I am more than willing to be overwhelmed. Ha! I had +set my heart on you, and was afraid that you might not be back in time. +Thank the Lord for the man who comes in time. All others are a blotch +upon the face of the earth. Last night was a torture to me. More than +once my wife called out, 'You give me the fidgets with your walking up +and down. I want to sleep.' Sleep! There was no sleep for me. I saw the +sun rise, and I said to myself, 'If that man don't come you won't shine +for me to-day.' But you came, God bless you. Well, I'll turn off here +and go by home, to show them that I am not crushed into the earth, and +will see you at your house this evening." + +Mrs. Stuvic saw Milford, and came out to the barnyard gate. She wanted +to ask him if he had seen any of her boarders, but had forgotten their +names. Some one had told her that Milford expected soon to quit the +place, and she asked him why he had not told her. + +"I've told you as much as I have any one," said he. "I don't expect to +go before next spring." + +"Well, we may all be dead and buried before then," she replied. + +"Yes, all except you." + +"You bet! Why, three men have been here lately wantin' to insure my +life. Did you see that girl? But I know you did. Why don't you buy the +farm and bring her out here? You could soon pay for it." + +"I'd rather live in the West." + +"The cat's foot! You don't know what you want. Was that the Professor +man with you over there on the hill? I couldn't see very well. He's +crazy. Yes, he is, as crazy as a loon, and I don't want him round here. +He might set the house afire. Don't you think he's crazy?" + +"Well, he's one of the peculiar many that go to make up the world." + +"He's one of the peculiar many that go to make up an asylum, I'll tell +you that. Everybody says he's crazy. Come in and set down a while." + +"No, I must go home." + +"You're in a mighty hurry now, ain't you? Crazy as a loon, and you ain't +fur behind him. Go on with you." + +At night the Professor came whistling out of the dark. The sky was +moonless, but brighter, he said, than the sunrise contemplated by him in +the hour of his dejection. Once more had he proved himself a failure, +but consoled himself with the assertion, made over and over again, that +it required a peculiar sharpness to deal in cattle. There ought to be +other ways by which a man might earn money; there were other ways, and +he would find one of them. He believed that he could write a book and +sell it himself, by subscription. He knew a man who had done this, and +now there were stone gate-posts in front of his house. Talk was the +necessary equipment, and he could talk. The agent ought to be the echo +of the wisdom in the book, and to echo had been his fault in the +practical world. But echo was worthy of its hire. + +"Why, let me tell you what I can do," he said, his face beaming. "I can +take a book on Babylon, on Jerusalem, Nineveh, Jericho, the Red Sea, +home, mother, and make a volume that the farmers will snap at. Easy! +Why, slipping on the ice is hard compared with it. What do you think of +it?" + +"Looks all right," said Milford. + +"Well, anything that looks all right is all right in the book business. +I thought of it coming over to-night, and instantly the road was +carpeted. Yes, sir, it is all right. I have the necessary books, and all +I have to do is to begin work at once. No, there is perhaps a +preliminary--a certain amount of correspondence with publishers. Chicago +is the subscription book center of the country. Oh, it is the plainest +sort of sailing." + +Milford gave him the life insurance money, and he smiled as he tucked it +into his pocket. "This is my last worry," said he. "I have had hopes, +mere hopes, you understand, but now I am confident. It is the +speculative uncertainty that brings out a hope. But I am too old now to +find pleasure in the intoxication of hope. I want assurance, and I have +it. Well, I would like to sit longer and talk to you, but I must get to +work." + +Milford walked a part of the way home with him, congratulating him upon +his happy idea. It was an inspiration. They wondered why it had not come +sooner. But inspirations have their own time, and we should be thankful +for their coming rather than to carp at their lateness. + +As Milford was returning to the house, he heard the hired man singing at +his work in the barn. He had been away from home, and had come back +rather late for one who had stock to look after. When he came into the +house Milford asked the cause of his delay. + +"Well, I got tangled up in an affair and had to see it through. I've +been up to Antioch, and I see your prize-fighter there. He threw a drink +into me because I worked for you, he said. He says you can get along +anywhere with your dukes. Find everythin' in town all right?" + +"Had a great time, walking about in the park. Shortest day I ever +spent." + +"Haven't fixed any date or anythin' of the sort, I guess." + +"We haven't said anything, but it's understood. We caught each other +looking at houses and flats, and had to laugh." + +"I guess that's about as good a way as any. But love as a general thing +is full of a good deal of talk. Well, my affairs of that sort are over +now." + +"So the freckled woman has cured you." + +"Oh, no, I forgot her in no time. Fact is I never did love but one woman +and I married her." + +"What's become of her?" + +"She's up at Antioch." + +"Did you see her?" + +"Oh, yes, and we made it up. We're goin' to live together. I understood +from what you said t'other day that you wan't goin' to keep this place +another year, so I told the old woman that I wanted it. Yes, we are +goin' to take a fresh start. You said once that I ought to have cut her +throat, but I can't look at it in that light. After all, she's as good +as I am." + +"A devilish sight better," said Milford. + +"I guess you're right. So you wouldn't cut her throat?" + +"Well, not if I were you." + +"I don't exactly understand the difference, but it's all right. I got to +thinkin' this way about it, Bill. Most any woman will take a man back, +and I said to myself that it oughtn't to be so one-sided as that. I +heard she was at Antioch, at her aunt's house, so I goes up there. She +was a-sweepin' when I stepped up. And she dropped the broom. I says, +'Don't be in a hurry,' and she stopped and looked at me. 'And is this +you, Bob?' she says. I told her it was, so far as I knowed. She come up +close to me and said I'd been workin' too hard. She took hold of my hand +and turned it loose quick, lookin' like she wanted to cry. I says, +'Don't turn me loose. I've been thinkin' about you.' 'About such a thing +as I am?' she says. Then I told her she was a heap better than me, and +she cried. She said she never would have run away, but she drank some +wine with one of her aunt's boarders. I told her all that made no +difference now if she could promise not to run away again. And then she +grabbed me, Bill; she grabbed me round the neck, and that was the way we +made up." + +"Go and bring her here," said Milford, turning his eyes from the light +of the lamp. "It makes no difference what I said last week or the week +before, or at any time. You bring her here, and take the best room. I'll +take your old bunk in there. Hitch up and go after her now. Wait a +minute. Take this and buy some dishes, and curtains for the windows. +That isn't enough. Take this twenty," he added, giving him a bank note. +"Good as you are! Why, she's worth both of us. Any heart that wants to +be forgiven is one of God's hearts. Drive fast, and the stores won't be +shut up. They keep open later Saturday nights. What are you staring at? +I can see the poor thing now, clinging to you." + +"Wait a moment, Bill. I guess she'll be afraid to come. I told her what +you said." + +"You did? Then go and tell her that I'm the biggest liar on earth. Wait! +I'll go with you." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE OLD STORY. + + +A black-eyed little woman was installed in the house. Accepting her +husband's story and her own statement, her life had not been wholly +respectable, but she brought refinement into the animal cage. A new +carpet lay soft and bright upon the floor. The windows, now curtained, +no longer looked like browless eyes staring into cold vacancy. The +dinner table lost the air and the appearance of a feed trough. Not in +words nor in sighs, but in a hundred ways, she proved the sincerity of +her repentance. + +The autumn lasted a long time, and wise men said that it would end in a +snarl, and it did, for winter came in a night, like a pack of howling +wolves. But their cold teeth did not bite through the walls of Milford's +sitting-room. Black eyes had looked after the work of a carpenter and a +paper-hanger. + +The Professor, thin-clad as he was, welcomed the change in the weather. +The cold that made a dog scamper forced a new energy upon the mind. He +had found that his book required the aid of rain and snow and every +trick that the air could turn. One day he could write better because a +tree in front of his window had been stripped of its leaves. One night +the rattle of sleet graced a period that he had bungled under the +energy-lacking influence of a full moon. This was but a prideful +conceit, for the fact was that, like nearly every impractical man, he +wrote with great ease at all times. Milford had faith in the outcome of +his work, and often visited him at night. And the indorsement of so +shrewd a man had encouraged Mrs. Dolihide and Miss Katherine. Sometimes +the young woman would read a chapter. Once she said: "Ma, this is really +good." It was not much for a daughter to say, but the Professor had been +so repeated a failure that even a cool compliment was warm to him. His +wife accepted the daughter's judgment. It is possible that she saw a +vision of new gowns and a better house. + +One evening, after welcoming Milford into his workshop, the scholar +declared himself on the verge of a great success. He was arrayed in an +old dressing-gown, with a rope tied monkishly about his loins. His +fingers were stained with ink, "the waste juice of thought," he said. "I +should now be the happiest of men, and I am, but, my dear boy, it is not +nearly so easy as I expected. I find that I cannot cut, slash, and +piece; I must absorb and write, and what I thought could be done in a +few weeks, will take months to perform. At first I thought it would be +well to enter into correspondence with the publishers, but I put it off +till now I have decided to surprise them with the work itself. Ah, work, +work, true balm to the restless soul! I was never really happy until I +took up this brightening task; I was never so serious; I was never +before able to understand the necessity of my previous training, my +struggles and disappointments. But now all is clear. How is everything +with you?" + +"All right. Everything over my way is as neat as----" + +"A new gold dollar," suggested the Professor. + +"Yes, and my house is as comfortable as a fur-lined nest." + +"And at a time, too, when you are thinking about giving it up." + +"That's so. But I've got to go out West to see a man, and then I may +return to this neighborhood." + +"Are you going to take any one with you on your trip?" + +"No, I'm going alone." + +"On important business, I presume?" + +"Very; so important that all my work here has been toward that end. How +long before you'll have this thing done?" + +"I am working toward an end," the Professor said, smiling, "but I cannot +work toward a date. But, to approximate, I should think about the middle +of March." + +"Don't know but I bother you, coming over so often." + +"My dear boy, you help me. You are a constant encouragement. Ah, you are +a double encouragement, for you encourage them." He pointed downward. +"And that is the greatest good you could do me." + +They talked a long time about the book, the sure winner, and as Milford +was taking his leave, the Professor followed him to the head of the +stairway. "My dear boy," he said, putting his hand on his visitor's +shoulder, "you must at last perceive that I am earnest." + +"I know it." + +"I hope you believe so, for I am. I may be odd--I may be amusing to the +thoughtless, but to the wise I am serious." + +And it was thus, during all the cold months of his work, pleading to his +friends to construe him seriously. Sometimes he would check his +enthusiasm, fearful that his dancing spirits might make him appear +grotesque. But the neighbors, among their rattling milk-cans, laughed at +him, his walk, his gestures, the tones of his voice. One morning near +the end of March, he got on the train, a precious bundle hugged under +his arm. He had spent half the night with Milford, and had come away +strengthened by the strong man. Now he flew toward the journey-end of +hope. A brakeman on the milk train had heard the farmers laugh at him, +and felt at liberty to poke fun at him. + +"Got your crop under your arm?" he asked. + +The Professor bristled. "If it were the straw of wild oats three times +threshed, it would still hold more value than the chaff that blows about +in your empty skull. Keep your place, which means--distance." + +He was serious; he felt it and gloated over it with a solemn pride. But +before the train reached the city he begged the fellow's pardon. "I am +worn out with hard work," he said, "and I hope you will forget my +harshness." + +Cabmen bellowed at him as he passed out of the station, and ragged boys +guyed him as he walked along the street. He had a list of the +subscription book publishers, and decided to submit his favor to the +nearest one. The elevator boy put him off on the wrong floor. A +scrub-woman looked up and leered at him. "Poverty, like anger, hath a +privilege," he mused. He found the publisher's quarters, but waited a +long time before he was admitted to the presence of the manager. The +great man was closeted with a book agent. In the subscription book house +the author is nothing; the agent everything. The manager has been an +agent, or perhaps a "fake" advertising man. He hates an author; he hated +the Professor at sight, and flouted when he learned that the scholar had +brought a book. What an insult! The idea of bringing a book to a +publishing house! The Professor attempted to explain the scope of his +work. The manager drew back. "No need to unwrap it," he said. "We've got +more books now than we can sell. Say," he bawled, to some one outside +his den, "tell Ritson I want to see him before he goes." + +"I thought," began the Professor, bowing;--but the manager shut him off. +"We do our own thinking," he said. + +"Well, sir, I shall bid you good-morning." + +"Yes. Say," he shouted, "tell Bruck I want to see him, too." + +The list was followed, and a night of sorrow fell at the end of a +heart-breaking day. Not in all instances had the publishers been gruff; +some had spoken kindly, one had looked at the manuscript, and then had +shown the Professor a bank of books written on the same line. At last, +worn out with serving as pall-bearer to his own dead spirit, he offered +the book for enough money to pay his life insurance. The publisher shook +his head. Old, old story, gathering mold. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +WARMER THAN THE WORLD. + + +A bluster of warm wind brought a thaw, and the ice in the lake was +breaking--a disjointing time, a cracking of winter's old bones, a time +when being alone we feel less lonely than in a noisy company. At night +Milford sat musing in the kitchen. The outer door stood open, and he +heard the cattle tramping about in the mushy barnyard. The hired man and +his wife were singing a lonesome song in the sitting-room. There came +another tramping, not of cattle, but of one more weary, of a man, the +Professor. He trod into the light that fell from the door, and Milford +bounded up to meet him, but fell back in reverence of his grief-stricken +face. For a time the old man did not speak. He dropped his bundle, once +so precious, but now a sapless husk, laid his walking-stick across it, +took hold of a chair, and let himself slowly down with a groan. + +"We are going to have rain," he said, attempting to smile, and +unbuttoning his old coat with a palsied fumble. + +"Yes, I think so. The clouds have been tumbling about all day." + +"A weird song they are singing in there." + +"The love song of the ignorant and the poor," said Milford. + +"The poor and the wise would not have written it," the Professor +replied. + +"Shall I tell them to stop?" Milford asked. + +"Oh, no, poor crickets. Bring some cider, my boy. Let us live for a time +in recollection only. I will not take too much." + +"You may take as much as you like. It is time to drink." + +"Yes, to drink or to rave." + +Milford brought a jug of cider. "The devil's sympathy," said the old +man, drinking. "More, give me more--promises heaven, but slippers the +foot that treads its way to hell. But I will not take too much. Did I +tell you that I had lost my place at the mill?" + +"No, you didn't say anything about it." + +"I was discharged the evening before I went to town, but it made no +impression on me then." + +"Well, don't let it make any now. Everything will come all right." + +"Yes, it will. I have walked with many an experiment, but at last there +is such a thing as facing a certainty." + +"Have you anything in view?" + +"Oh, yes. And everything will be all right." + +"I hope so." + +"I don't hope--I know. But enough of that. It is a philosopher who can +say, 'Ha! old Socrates, pass your cup this way.' They have hushed their +song. Even the poor and the ignorant grow weary of singing; then who can +expect music from the wise? What have you there? Old Whittier? He died, +and they gave him a stingy column in the newspapers, squeezed by the +report of the prize fight at New Orleans. If a poet would look to his +fame, let him die when there is no other news. But some have died in a +spread of newspaper glory--Eugene Field, the sweetest lisper of a boy's +mischief, the tuner of tenderest lyrics, but with a laugh for man that +cut like a scythe. And some of the rich whom he had laughed at, +scrambled for a place at his coffin to bear it to the grave--tuneless +clay, scuffling over tuneful dust! Oh, hypocrisy, stamp thy countenance +with a dollar!" + +"It's raining now," said Milford, seeking to draw his mind from the +darkness of its wandering. + +"Yes, the falling of water, rhythmic, poetry--all poets have been as +water. I will class them for you. Keats, the rivulet; Shelley, the +brook; Byron, the creek; Tennyson, the river; Wordsworth, the lake; +Milton, the bay; and Shakespeare, the waters of all the world, the sea. +But I will not keep you up. You are a working-man, and must rest." + +"Don't go; I'm not tired; I haven't done a thing to-day. Shall I fill +the jug?" + +"No, enough. Let me take up my gilded trash," he said, reaching for his +bundle. + +"I wish you'd stay longer. Let me go home with you." + +"No, I prefer to walk alone. You remember in the old reader, the dog +went out to walk alone." + +"It was the cat that walked alone," said Milford. "The dog sat down to +gnaw his bone. Don't you recollect?" + +The old man touched his forehead, and shook his head. "So it was the cat +that walked alone. But we will reverse it. The dog will walk alone +to-night." + +"I wish you'd let me go with you." + +"Plead not your friendship, or I shall yield. But I want to be alone." + +"Then you shall be." + +"I thank you, and good-night." He strode off, with his bundle and stick; +and out in the darkness he cried: "Don't forget my classification of the +poets. Wordsworth! Wordsworth! And so, good-night." + +The hired man came into the kitchen. "Wan't that the Professor shoutin' +out there?" he asked. + +"Yes, the poor old man has just come home, crushed." + +"Didn't find no market, then, for his book?" + +"No. He brought it back with him. And, by the way, his life insurance +will soon be due, and I must pay it for him." + +"Don't he owe you for one?" + +"That makes no difference. I must help him. The world ought to help him, +but he is laughed at by you clods." + +"Bill, don't call me a clod. I don't own enough dirt to be called a +clod." + +"That's all right, Bob. I don't mean you. What day of the month is +this?" + +"Second, ain't it?" + +"I asked you." + +"Then I guess it's the second." + +"His insurance will be due on the ninth. Bob, early in the morning you +go over to Antioch and tell old Bryson that he may have those calves at +the price he offered." + +"Yes, but I don't think it's enough, Bill." + +"Can't help it. I've got to raise money enough for that poor old +fellow." + +Before breakfast the next morning Milford hastened to the Professor's +house. Mrs. Dolihide heard him unchaining the gate, and came out upon +the veranda. He did not care to go in; he dreaded to look again upon +that blasted countenance. "Good morning, madam. I wish you'd tell the +Professor not to worry over his insurance. Tell him I'll make it all +right." + +"I will when he comes home. I expected him last night, but he didn't get +back." + +"What----" But he checked himself. An alarm had arisen in his breast, +but he would not spread it. He muttered something and turned away, +leaving her to gaze after him in wonderment. A man came running down the +road. Milford stopped him, and he stood panting until he could gather +breath enough for his story. It was brief. The Professor's body had been +taken from the lake. At daylight he had come down to the shore and had +shoved out in a boat. A man warned him against the tumbling ice, for the +wind was fresh. He had a rod, and said that he was going to fish. The +man told him that the fish would not bite. He said that they would bite +for him. Out beyond the dead rushes where the water was deep the boat +tipped over. It looked like an accident--the ice. There were no means +of rescue, and so he drowned. The man was excited, and could not say for +certain, but he thought that the Professor had cried out, "Warmer than +the world!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +CONCLUSION. + + +The neighbors dropped their milk-cans and flocked to the stricken home. +A bundle and a walking-stick had been reverently carried to an upper +room and placed upon a desk. These relics of despair's weary journey had +been picked up from the ground, beneath the old man's window. He had +stood there at night, alone, when the household was asleep. And now, +when all were awake, he lay asleep, beflowered, roses on his breast, a +broken heart perfumed. + +"He looks natural," said a man who had laughed at him. + +"But he doesn't seem to be tickling any one now," Milford was bitter +enough to reply. + +The soft earth beneath the window, the window once of fair prospect, was +many-tracked by the feet of indecisive agony, as if the old man had +shambled there, debating with his despair. But that he had made up his +mind early in the evening was now clear to Milford. Perhaps the sight of +the window through which he had looked out upon the leafless tree, the +hope that he had seen hanging from its branches--perhaps his nearness to +the sleeping household had caused him for a brief time to waver, but not +for long. Milford recalled his classification of the poets, +"Wordsworth, the lake." And his cry out in the dark, "Wordsworth! +Wordsworth!" His fishing-rod argued that he strove to hide the +appearance of self-destruction, but in the iced water he forgot his last +thin pretense of caution, shouting as the excited spectator believed, +"Warmer than the world!" + +The awful agony of the first clod, falling with hollow sound, the +tearing rush of memory, the gasp of the heart, missing a beat! The widow +fell senseless at the grave, and they took her away, the daughter +sobbing over her. Yes, they all took him seriously now. + +"It does seem that he could have done something," said Steve Hardy, +waiting for Milford outside the graveyard. + +"He did," Milford replied. + +"I mean--you know what I mean. I don't see how a man can give up that +way. Seems to me like I'd fight till the last." + +"Yes, but that man was more of a hero than you could ever be. He saw +that he could not keep up his insurance, and he decided that it was +better to die." + +"I understand that the widow'll get ten thousand." + +"Yes, the community is very quick to understand that point." + +"I was talkin' to a lawyer, and he said that they couldn't keep her out +of the money. The courts have decided that the money in such cases has +to be paid." + +"He understood it, too, or he wouldn't have drowned himself." + +"I guess so. Well, you never can tell what a man may do. You form your +idea of him and find out afterwards that it was all wrong. But it would +be a cold day when I'd kill myself for anybody. I hear you're goin' to +have a sale at your house." + +"Yes, I don't care to stay here any longer." + +"Every man to his own taste, but you can't find a puttier country. I +guess this community right here ships more milk that any section along +the road. But they say that when a man once lives away out in the West +he always has a likin' for it. Well, I'll be over there on the day of +the sale." + +Milford sold all of his belongings, with the exception of some tools, a +cow, and a loft full of cattle-feed which he gave to the hired man. He +was not quite ready to go, but would remain a few days and perhaps a +week longer. He was waiting for a letter, and he searched the newspapers +every day. Mrs. Stuvic demanded that he should spend the remaining time +at her house. She was sorry to lose him. She had confessed that she was +half afraid of him, and this feeling had endeared him to her. + +"What makes you grab after the newspaper so?" she asked one morning, in +the dining-room. + +"I want to know the news." + +"No, you don't; there's somethin' else. You've sold all your stuff and +can't be interested in the markets." + +"I am looking for Western news. I want to keep track of a certain man." + +"Who was that letter from you got this mornin'?" + +"From her." + +"Where is she?" + +"In the city." + +"Has she quit her school?" + +"She's given it up as a failure." + +"Then you'll be goin' to town soon." + +"To-morrow morning. I see by the paper that my man is there." + +"Plague take your man and your woman too. Why can't you stay here and +behave yourself? I do hate mightily to see you go. Why don't you say you +hate to go?" + +"Because I don't. I have worked in order to be able to go." + +"What do you want to see the man for? You never have told me anythin' +about yourself, and here you are, goin' away. What do you want with +him?" + +"Want to tell him I'm well, and ask him how's all." + +"Oh, you'll do. Fainted at the grave," she said, after a moment's +silence. "Yes, I know all about such faintin'. They can't fool me, Bill. +It's been tried too often. Fainted at the thought of gettin' that ten +thousand dollars, and I wish to the Lord I had half of it. I'd faint +too; yes, you bet!" + +Early the next morning he bade the old woman good-bye. She scolded him, +with tears in her eyes, wheeled about, and left him standing at the +gate. At the station the milkmen gathered about him to shake hands. They +were sorry to lose him. In trade some of them had been nipped by him, +but that only proved his worth as a citizen. He waved them a farewell, +and Rollins became a memory. + +Upon reaching the city, he went straightway to the Norwegian's cottage. +There was a romping of children within, and it was some time before he +made himself heard. But finally a woman came to the door. He asked for +Gunhild, and was told that she had gone over to see Mrs. Goodwin, but +would not long be absent. He stood for a moment with his hand on the +door. "When she comes back," he said, "tell her that a Yankee from the +West has called. She will understand. Tell her that he will be back +soon." + + * * * * * + +Jim Mills, railway monarch of the West, sat in his room at a hotel. +Strong, an engine of industry, he could do the work of three men. He had +heard the hum of a multitude of enemies; he had climbed in slippery +places, sliding back, falling, getting up, struggling onward to stand on +the top of the mountain. Without a change of countenance he had +swallowed the decree of many a defeat. In playful tones he had announced +to his associate the news of many a victory. He was a reader of old +books and of young men. His word could build or kill a city. Legislators +traveled with his name in their pockets. Men who cursed him in private +were proud to be seen with him in public. He could clap an enemy on the +shoulder and laugh enmity out of him, but failing, would fight him to an +end that was not sweet. A commercial viking, he was ever thrusting +himself into unexplored territory, a great commander with his scouts +snorting on iron across the plains. He was a generous host and a +captivating companion, but it was said that with all his apparent +heartiness, he never forgave an injury. This, however, was spoken by his +enemies, men whose "real estate" had been slaughtered by him. + +Mills was busy in his room at the hotel, for neither at home nor abroad +had he an aimless moment. His dozing on a train involved millions. A +card, bearing a name in pencil, was handed to him. + +"I don't know him," he said, glancing at the name. + +"He says he must see you on most important business." + +"What sort of looking man is he? I can't recall his name." + +"Nice enough looking--hard worker, I should think." + +"Tell him to come in." + +Milford stepped into the room, looked at Mills and then at the secretary +who stood near. "I should like to see you alone," he said. + +Mills glanced at the secretary. The man vanished. + +"Well, sir," said Mills, "what can I do for you? Sit down." + +Milford sat down, a table between them. + +"I wish to tell you of something that happened about five years ago." + +"Well, go ahead. But I'm busy." + +"I saw by the newspapers that you had arrived in town--you'll have to +let me get at it in my own way." + +Mills glanced at him and moved impatiently. Milford cleared his throat. +He leaned back and then leaned forward with his arms on the table. "Have +just a little patience, please. For years I have worked toward this +moment--have pictured it out a thousand times, but now that I'm up +against it I hardly know how to begin. But let me say at the outset that +I have come to repair a wrong done you." + +Mills grunted. "Rather an odd mission," said he. "Men don't read the +newspapers to learn my whereabouts to repay any wrong done me. But does +the wrong concern me?" + +"Yes, you and me. Now I'll get at it. I lived in Dakota. I was sometimes +sober, but more often drunk. I gambled. I fought. At one time I was town +marshal of Green Mound. Once I was station agent for you. An evil report +reached the main office, and I was discharged. I was broke. I was mad. I +was put out of a gambling house." + +"But what have I got to do with all this?" + +"Wait. I met a man, a twin-brother of the devil. He made a suggestion. I +agreed to it. We heard that you and your pay-master were coming across +in a stage. We stopped the stage, and robbed you of twelve hundred and +fifty dollars. That was all you had in currency. We didn't want checks." + +"Go ahead," said Mills, without changing countenance. + +"I was called Hell-in-the-Mud. My partner was Sam Bradley. We got back +to town, and were seen that night in a gambling house. But we didn't +play--broke, presumably. We were not suspected. Sam died three months +afterwards in Deadwood. We had run through with your money. The town +buried him. I won't pretend to give you any flub-dub about reform, any +of the guff of a mother's dying prayers, for that has been worked too +often. But I got a newspaper from Connecticut with a prayer in it--the +last words of an old woman. That's all right. We'll let that go. But I +resolved to pay you--my part and Sam's too. So I drifted about looking +for something to do, and at last I rented a farm not far from here, and +went to work. My luck was good. I skinned every farmer in the +neighborhood. All I wanted was enough money to clear my conscience. +Something--it must have been the devil--gave me a strange insight into +cattle trading. Anyway I prospered, and the other day sold out. And +here's your money, with six per cent interest for five years." + +He placed a roll of paper on the table. Mills looked at him and then at +the card which he had taken up. "My name is Newton," said +Milford--"William Milford Newton. There's your money." + +Mills took up the money, and then looked at his visitor. "I remember the +occasion," said he. "And you have worked all this time. Very +commendable, I assure you. How much more have you?" + +"Less than ten dollars. Doesn't that satisfy you?" + +"Oh, yes, I'm satisfied, but did it occur to you that the law might have +to be satisfied?" + +"The law?" Milford gasped. + +"Yes. You seem to have forgotten that part of it." + +"The law!" said Milford. + +"Yes, sir, the law." + +"And that means the penitentiary," said Milford, looking hard at him. + +"That's what it means. Will you go quietly with me, or shall I send for +an officer?" + +"I came here quietly, didn't I? Yes, I'll go with you. I'm prepared to +take my medicine. When do you leave?" + +"At twelve to-night." + +"Will you let me go out on my word of honor? I'll be back by six +o'clock." + +"Yes, but on your word of honor." + +"Thank you. I will be here by six. I didn't think--but it's all right. +Yes, the law, of course. I'll be here by six." + + * * * * * + +A loud knock startled Gunhild, and she ran to the door and opened it in +nervous haste. Her eyes leaped out, and then she shrank back. "Oh, what +is the matter?" she cried. + +"Nothing," Milford answered, trying to smile. + +"But you look old," she said. "You have scared me." + +She took hold of his hand to lead him into the sitting-room. "No, not in +there," he said. "I will tell you out here. I must not go in. I am +afraid that I might hear that Norwegian hymn--out here--let me tell +you! There was a time when you might have gone with me, but not now--not +where I am going." + +"Don't, dearest; don't. What are you saying? I will go with you +anywhere. Yes, I will go with you. I dream of nothing but going with +you--through the fields, across the ditches." + +"Will you go with me to the penitentiary?" + +She put her arms about his neck. "Anywhere," she said. "To the gallows, +where we may both die. Yes, I will go to the penitentiary. And I will +wait by the wall, and then we will go to the potato field." + + * * * * * + +It was nearly six o'clock. + +"Tell him to come in," said Jim Mills. + +Milford and Gunhild stepped into the room. Mills got up with a bow. "Who +is this?" he asked. + +"My wife," said Milford. + +"You didn't tell me you were married." + +"I wasn't until a few moments ago. She knows all about it, and will go +with me." + +Mills clapped Milford on the shoulder. "My dear sir," said he, "all my +life I have been looking for an honest man, and now I have found him. +Penitentiary! Why, you are worth five thousand dollars a year to me." He +turned to Gunhild with a smile, and handing her a roll of bank notes, +said: "A marriage dower from a hard-working man. Keep it, in the name of +honesty; and, my dear, you and your honorable husband shall eat your +wedding-supper with me." + + +THE END. + + +Standard and Popular Books + +FOR SALE BY BOOKSELLERS OR WILL BE SENT POSTPAID ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. + +RAND, MCNALLY & CO., PUBLISHERS, + +CHICAGO AND NEW YORK. + + + + + A B C OF MINING AND PROSPECTORS' HANDBOOK. By Charles A. Bramble, D. + L. S. Baedecker style. $1.00. + + ACCIDENTS, AND HOW TO SAVE LIFE WHEN THEY OCCUR. 143 pages; profusely + illustrated; leatheroid, 25 cents. + + ALASKA; ITS HISTORY, CLIMATE, AND NATURAL RESOURCES. By Hon. A. P. + Swineford, Ex-Governor of Alaska. Illustrated. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + ALL ABOUT THE BABY. By Robert N. Tooker, M. D., author of "Diseases of + Children," etc. Illustrated. 8vo, cloth. $1.50. + + ALONG THE BOSPHORUS. By Susan E. Wallace (Mrs. Lew Wallace). Profusely + illustrated; 12mo; cloth. $1.50. + + AMBER GLINTS. By "Amber." Uniform with "Rosemary and Rue." 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By Arabella Kenealy. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + WORLD'S RELIGIONS IN A NUTSHELL. By Rev. L. P. Mercer. Price, bound in + cloth, $1.00; paper, 25 cents. + + YANKEE FROM THE WEST, A. A new novel by Opie Read. 12mo, cloth. $1.00. + + YOUNG GREER OF KENTUCKY. By Eleanor Talbot Kinkead. 12mo, cloth. $1.25. + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + Punctuation has been standardised. + + Variations in spelling, including dialect, have been retained as in the + original publication. The following changes have been made: + + Page 66 He hung to the implements, changed to clung + Page 95 told them that it made no diference, changed to difference + Page 232 she has not forgoten me, changed to forgotten + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Yankee from the West, by Opie Read + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE FROM THE WEST *** + +***** This file should be named 33773.txt or 33773.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/7/33773/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, David K. 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